changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 5–7 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.1.086 editorial editor’s note the current issue of changing societies & personalities covers topics pertaining to undergoing transformations in value systems investigated from such diverse perspectives as scientometric analysis of the concepts of “fourth industrial revolution” and “emotional intelligence”; transborder relations, regional studies and transborder policies; philosophical reflections on the status of the unborn human; attitudes towards the attractiveness of the human body; and age diversity in the workforce. riccardo campa begins his article fourth industrial revolution and emotional intelligence: a conceptual and scientometric analysis with a statement that “science is a collective enterprise”. indeed, scientific discoveries are frequently made independently and simultaneously by multiple investigators. this article analyses the concepts of “fourth industrial revolution” and “emotional intelligence” from the perspective of the sociology of science using research tools offered by scientometrics. campa subjects to scrutiny a large amount of literature sources dealing with the emergence and historical dynamics of these two concepts, arriving at the conclusion that, on the one hand, the recent growth in the number of publications containing both terms confirms that “more and more scholars are now relating the two concepts, even though they were born in two different scientific disciplines”. on the other hand, the nurturing of emotional intelligence is seen as a possible solution to the unwanted side effects of the fourth industrial revolution, in particular, technological unemployment. evidently, campa agrees with the growing number of scholars in the assumption that nurturing and enhancing emotional intelligence in children and adults is a new challenge for education systems in technologically advanced countries. farid abud alkatiri in his article the security dimension and the formation of social exclusion in the border of belu regency, indonesia describes the present situation with refugees in the west timor / east timor border. in analysing recent publications on the role of the military in border areas, alkatiri stresses that these forces may cause social exclusion among the refugees’ community and the local population. unfortunately, the existing literature on the problem rarely considers social exclusion and security border issues as an received 1 march 2020 © 2020 elena a. stepanova published online 10 april 2020 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 6 elena a. stepanova integrated question. the researcher applied a qualitative methodological approach: 20 in-depth interviews and group discussions were conducted in 2016–2017 in two refugee camps and three resettlements. this article is valuable in terms of revealing the interdependence between social security policy and social exclusion in the case of belu regency. scientific progress has made it impossible to predict how far the intervention of biotechnologies in human life may extend. moreover, our past convictions about the moment when life begins and when it ends now seem at least doubtful. for instance, this question is crucial for debates about abortions, since the answer directly affects the opposition “the woman’s right to her own body versus the unborn child’s right to life”. thus, society is now facing a whole range of ethical and legal dilemmas, which results in some serious disagreements on crucial life issues, including reproductive technologies. aireen grace t. andal in her article flesh of the unborn: on the political philosophy of the unborn notes that the very issue of the unborn has become the subject of numerous disciplines from biology to feminist studies, from law to ecology. in her article, andal focuses specifically on the concept of the unborn from the standpoint of political philosophy: “political philosophy treats the unborn in terms of what virtues ought to govern laws and policies on the unborn. political philosophy asks questions about the beliefs upon which political institutions and actors employ as guide to determine unborn’s political status in the society”. such an approach seems to be valuable due to its shift from the discussion of the embryo or fetus’ personhood or consciousness to that of the legitimacy of the embryo’ body or fetus which requires protection. jernej jelenko’s article the role of intergenerational differentiation in perception of employee engagement and job satisfaction among older and younger employees in slovenia is focused on age diversity in the workforce and its impact on values. jelenko basically agrees with researches from various countries in that “diversity across age and work values inevitably produces generational differences in the workplace which enhance the likelihood of encountering greater age-related perspective dissimilarity with one’s coworkers, and can bring forth age discrimination in the workplace and beyond”. in the paper, jelenko analyses the features and routs of age discrimination, highlights the importance of its effects on job satisfaction and employee engagement across older and younger age groups – the ones that play a decisive role in the present and future job market in slovenia, – and provide important insights into effects of age discrimination on job satisfaction and employee engagement, which could be useful for both human resource management and employees. the topic of natalya l. antonova and anatoly v. merenkov’s research article perceived personal attractiveness and self-improvement practices echoes the current sociological interest in the body as a bio-social construct. the authors point out several factors of such interest, namely, the development of biotechnologies, the explosive growth of the beauty and wellness industry, an increase in the perceived value of beauty and vitality and the emergence of a healthy living movement. it is shown that, in contemporary society, the human body becomes an instrument that changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 5–7 7 can be used to achieve a higher social status. the article presents the results of a sociological survey conducted in 2019 in yekaterinburg (russia), which was focused on investigating commonly shared opinions and evaluations concerning attractive body and personality characteristics. the authors demonstrate significant ageand gender-related differences in the perceptions of male and female beauty, explain widespread stereotypes concerning health and beauty, and present common practices used by the respondents for improving their physical, mental and social characteristics. in the book review section, one can find andrey s. menshikov’s review of samuel a. greene and graeme b. robertson’s book putin v. the people. the perilous politics of a divided russia (yale university press, 2019), which challenges the prevalent approach in authoritarianism studies focused predominantly on the ruling elite, and investigates the “relation between the russian people and their authoritarian state”. discussions around the topics raised in the current issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal’s website: https://changing-sp.com/ elena a. stepanova editor-in-chief institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the ras, yekaterinburg, russia https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 133–135 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.2.093 editorial editor’s note the current issue of changing societies & personalities aims to investigate value transformations in various spheres of social life, such as the image of religion in the memorial places and its impact on national identity; the concept of time maintaining full openness to the future and remembering the past, as well as messianism in the works of prominent contemporary french philosophers; the balance between openness to global influences and national identity in education; the role of professional organizations in civil society; and review of the research on ethical and psychological reasons in reproductive donation. tomáš bubík in his article a graveyard as a home to ghosts or a subject of scholarly research? the czech national cemetery at vyšehrad questions the generally accepted claim that the contemporary czech society is one of the least religious nations in europe and stresses the importance of focusing not so much on general claims but rather on specific segments of culture intertwining religious and non-religious elements. bubík’s research is focused on the vyšehrad cemetery in prague as a vivid example of close links between the religious and the secular. he shares the assumption about a close relationship between personal religiosity and its funerary expression, being convinced that the study of vyšehrad gravestones in a historical perspective can contribute to elucidating the transformations concerning the attitude of czech society towards life and death, the country and its religion. bubík observes the history of the vyšehrad national cemetery and its contribution to the formation of national identity in the light of the traditional “mortuary ideology” widespread in the country, concluding that “religion is an important element of the grave architecture of the national cemetery from its founding up until the present, despite the fact that it does not clearly predominate at present”. in the article “messianicity without messianism”: on the place of religion in the philosophy of jacques derrida, roman soloviy explores the interpretation of messianicity by the prominent french philosopher jacques derrida in the light of ideas expressed by key jewish thinkers of the beginning of the 20th century. soloviy stresses that derrida turned to the analysis of religious issues at different stages of his intellectual career, thus calling into question the traditional view on derrida’s deconstruction as generally being not favourable to religion. at the received 25 june 2020 © 2020 elena a. stepanova published online 9 july 2020 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 134 elena a. stepanova same time, soloviy proves that derrida’s understanding of religion goes far beyond the terms of traditional denominational beliefs and practices. in addition, derrida denies the traditional concept of time as a sequence of modalized presents: that is why, soloviy believes, “the future cannot be regarded as a projected continuation of the present. it is not a descriptive empirical future, but a messianic eschatological future, an expectation of the arrival of an unpredictable other, in which our ‘come’ is turned to the point that we cannot determine, predict, or calculate in advance who or what is coming”. derrida’s messianisity, concludes soloviy, remains fully secular and separate from any particular socio-cultural context. fairuza s. ismagilova, aleksey v. maltsev and erkinbai n. sattarov in their article the uzbek national tradition in the pedagogical practices of adult education search “for the right balance between openness to global influences, on the one hand, and the desire to preserve the country’s national identity, on the other”, namely, the centuries-old cultural and historical traditions of uzbek people in the sphere of professional education. following the results of a focus group analysis, the authors formulated four research hypotheses concerning teaching strategies and methods in the uzbek education system: (1) professors tend to choose interactive methods by following one of the four strategies in relation to the national context and national identity; (2) experts will consider such methods as buddying, discussion, role-playing and metaphorical role-play as having limited applicability in the uzbek national context; (3) experts will consider the methods of case study, in-basket technique and shadowing as holding more potential for training the civil service talent pool in uzbekistan; (4) experts will consider mentoring, coaching and workshops as the most effective teaching methods. in the conclusion, the authors present the results of the conducted empirical study, which are partly confirmed and partly refuted. identification of the main objective and subjective reasons that determine nurses’ membership/non-membership in professional associations is the focus of natalia a. akimova and elena n. medvedeva article factors influencing nurses’ decision to join a professional association in russia. following a comprehensive literature review, the authors analyse the role of nurse professional organizations as an important element of civil society, describe their history and present status in various countries, including russia. the authors’ intention is to address the existing research gap in studying professional nurse associations in russia. in-depth interviews with nurses from different russian regions were conducted to clarify their motivation for membership/non-membership; nurses’ awareness of the activities of medical associations; the role of professional associations in nurses’ daily practices, etc. the authors conclude that “factors contributing to the popularity of professional nurse associations can be quite diverse: starting from formal obligations… and ending with personal interest and commitment to the organization’s goals and mission”. elvira e. symaniuk, irina g. polyakova and elena v. kvashnina present the article review of international research on ethical and psychological barriers to reproductive donation, which covers most recent studies on reproductive donation written in english. the analysis includes about 70 publications devoted to the ethical and psychological motivation of donors to participate in reproductive donation. the changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 133–135 135 authors believe that the review can be beneficial for professional artificial reproductive technologies (art) organizations, “in particular those engaged in recruitment of new donors. the results of this review are meant to provide useful information for medical and legal professionals as well as policy makers on reproductive health”. the conclusion is drawn that reproductive donation is underpinned by a variety of motivations and faces multiple obstacles; therefore, research into psychological and ethical aspects of reproductive donation should be continued. the section opening the debate introduces dmitriy a. davydov’s article the crisis of humanism and emerging post-anthropocentric epoch: a personalistic view. in a quite provocative way, the author poses the problem of “increasing unpredictability” […] and “danger of manmade interventions in human nature”, stressing the importance of approaching reality through a personalistic path. the latter is considered to be not a specific philosophical school, but rather “an attitude, a way of thinking that can be present in certain people, regardless of whether they consider themselves to be personalist philosophers or not”. davydov analyses the concept of “humanism” in the modern socio-cultural context: he insists that the “humanistic civilization” has entered its “sunset period” and sets up a variety of arguments to prove this assumption. he believes that humanism as a historical phenomenon of european culture experiences a deep crisis, which “provides the impulse towards mechanisms of technological changes in the biological nature of individuals”. turning to the prospects of changing human nature by technologies, davydov warns about their possible dangers, namely, the “destruction of the universal human ‘lifeworld’”. in particular, davydov’s article may be seen as the invitation to discuss perspectives of transhumanism and its impact over human body and mind. in the book review section, one can find elena trubina’s review of germaine r. halegoua (2019), the digital city: media and the social production of place (newyork university press). trubina stresses that the focus of the book is “first, how citizens daily engage in the digital placemaking practices; second, the diversity of ways in which various populations employ navigation technologies and media platforms”. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal’s website: https://changing-sp.com/ elena a. stepanova editor-in-chief institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the ras, yekaterinburg, russia https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 5–8 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.1.119 editorial plurality of cases – plurality of values elena a. stepanova, editor-in-chief institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia the mission of the changing societies & personalities journal is quite ambitious: the journal “examines how rapid societal-level changes are reshaping individuallevel beliefs, motivations and values – and how these individual-level changes in turn are reshaping societies”. fulfilling such a mission involves examining different cases happening to individuals in various countries, societies and communities. on the one hand, it is unlikely that we will ever face a lack of such cases; on the other, they demonstrate a vast diversity, thus requiring adequate and appropriate research methodologies. we hope that the current issue of cs&p is a good example of such adequacy and diversity through providing a tribune for authors from nine countries. the authors’ team representing three countries – mohmmed salah hassan, ali najem, asbah razali (malaysia), hussam al halbusi, fadi abdel muniem abdel fattah (oman) and kent a. williams (canada) – presents the results of a research study entitled risk perception, self-efficacy, trust in government, and the moderating role of perceived social media content during the covid-19 pandemic. the authors stress that, in the turbulent times of the pandemic, the critical duty of the research is “to explore and understand behavioural responses to the risk of infection…, especially how people assert their risk perception and how these perceptions shape self-efficacy beliefs”. additional important fields of the research include the exploration of the risk perception as an interpretation and subjective judgment about a current risk; the evaluation of the social media’ exposure of the appropriate information; the trust in the government, which is vital to the policy’s success during a crisis; and the study of the construct of self-efficacy. the researchers gathered data from 512 individuals (students and academics) based in malaysia. in investigating the impact of risk perception on trust in government and self-efficacy during the covid 19 pandemic, the authors have made conclusions concerning, in particular, how social media helped shape behavioural patterns and attitudes. received 25 march 2021 © 2021 elena a. stepanova published online 19 april 2021 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 6 elena a. stepanova dušan lužný (czech republic) in the article religious memory in a changing society: the case of india and papua new guinea, starts from the research field of memory studies with special attention to the interconnection of collective memory and collective identity and focuses on a specific aspect of collective memory, namely religious memory. in the article, particular examples of material culture (religious buildings and places) are analysed as elements of cultural memory in order to show their link to collective identity in india papua new guinea – the societies experiencing fundamental socio-cultural changes associated with the process of decolonization and the creation of a new national identity. dušan lužný points out two changes in collective memory: “the first is the emergence of national memory, when as a result of the global spread of the western conception of the state, which is based on the principle of nationalism, and the strengthening of emancipatory efforts in the regions, efforts to create their own new state units arose and intensified” the second is a change in religious memory associated with christianization, which went hand in hand with colonialization. “while in india, for example, christianity remained marginal and is more or less limited to certain localities (e.g., goa on the west coast), in papua new guinea it became dominant (more than 90% of the population professes its various forms)”. the author uses two specific cases – two culturally and socially different regions of papua new guinea and india as an analytical application of the concept of religious memory as part of collective memory. the article digital political participation of western and eastern parts of germany residents (based on change.org online petitions) by nadezhda radina and daria belyashova (nizhny novgorod, russia) is focused on the “comparative analysis of digital political participation of residents of the eastern and western parts of germany in the form of online petitions to discuss the role of historical experience in shaping modern civil action strategies”. a comparative perspective is essential when studying the federal republic of germany in the context of its historical separation and unification. the total empirical base of the research includes 1,036 petitions and covers the period from the creation of the german-language version of the platform change.org in 2012 to march 2018. the authors developed a thematic classifier, which was used to divide the petitions into thematic groups: human rights, animal protection, culture, politics, migration issues, transport system, internet, support for people with disabilities, financial issues, environmental protection, housing, alcohol/tobacco/ drugs, healthcare, elderly people, sports, education, etc. a comparative analysis of petitions from west and east in accordance with the classifier reveals both similarities and differences in motivating the creation of online petitions in the west and east of the country. the authors stress that the analysis of winning petitions is a relevant source of information about efficient relations between the authorities and citizens. giorgia salis and martin flegl (méxico) in their article cross-cultural analysis of gender gap in entrepreneurship, underline a significant gender gap in the likelihood of starting a business venture, which still exists in most countries (notably, gender gap in early-stage entrepreneurship activity is more prominent in developed countries than in the developing ones) despite the statistically changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 5–8 7 established importance of women’s entrepreneurial action for the economy and for the society. the objective of the article was to deepen the existing research work “by attempting to find out what variables and/or mix of variables affect gender gap in entrepreneurship”. for this reason, g. hofstede’s cultural dimensions and the human development index of 55 countries were tested. the authors formulate research hypotheses with respect to seven independent variables in order to explain the notion of gender gap; as a result, some of them were confirmed and some rejected. in addition, the conclusion is made “that rather individualistic, pragmatic and flexible societies in terms of societal change, which at the same time are adverse to risk and uncertainty related to the future, tend to have a lower rate of gender gap in entrepreneurship”. in the article intergenerational cooperation and stereotypes in relation to age in the working environment, danijela brečko (slovenia) points out that rapid changes, especially in the developed world, that occurred after world war ii have significantly increased the share of the elderly population in relation to the younger population. the article is aimed at analysing such a category as the “older employee” – the age group of 50 or 55. because most companies today have a rich mix of generations among their employees in order to use their unique experience and knowledge for the benefit of the company, it is equally important to avoid intergenerational conflicts in the workplace. in the article, danijela brečko presents the results of studying the intergenerational cooperation and age management in a slovenian company in the technological industry with over 2,000 employees from four generations, with a large share of older employees, and the average age of around 44.8 years. the research sample of 150 employees was surveyed using an observation method (focus groups). the research seeks to elucidate stereotypes concerning the characteristics of different generations of employees, and the nature of their beliefs in terms of the company’s expected attitudes toward their work. the article influence of self-perception and importance of body image on the methods implemented to enhance the physical appearance by mithunasri l v and anil jadhav (india) is based on the assumption that, in the 21st century, “we live in a society that considers physical appearance as one of the most important parameters to judge others’ personality and richness. surrounded by the extreme influence of media, we are constantly compelled to see people with perfect looks around us – be it in magazines, on the news, in the movies and all over the internet”. the research is aimed at achieving a deeper understanding of the impact of physical appearance on the self-satisfaction of an individual. the authors propose three research questions: does the level of satisfaction attained through physical appearance impact the importance given to it? does the contentment on the personal body image significantly affect the usage of various methods to enhance the physical appearance? does the importance given to physical appearance of an individual have an effect on the various techniques implemented to improve the body image? the data for the research was collected through a questionnaire-based survey across people living in tamilnadu; 462 responses were obtained. the results have proved some of the hypotheses, while rejecting others. https://changing-sp.com/ 8 elena a. stepanova the book review section contains a review by louie galvez giray (philippines) of the american social psychologist deborah h. gruenfeld’s book (2020) acting with power. the power is interpreted as a social contract dependent on the context. the reviewer finds this book “powerful, compelling but accessible to a wide audience due to lively examples, narratives and historical scenarios, which illustrate the ideas” of the author. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.2.008 editorial “modernity continues to be what structures our historical self-understanding…” andrey menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia. modernity remains an axial category within contemporary social sciences. while often contested (lyotard & bennington, 2010; latour, 2002), modernity continues to be what structures our historical self-understanding. moreover, despite the former sharp division between modern and traditional societies having now been replaced by a continuum of modern and less modernised societies, the classification of societies still refers to the central concept of modernity. the concept of modernity also structures public discussions, figuring prominently in political debates in which the quality of being “modern” per se justifies the rejection of values and beliefs that may accordingly be labeled “outdated” or “fundamentalist”. modernity is popularly understood as equating the “new” with the “good”, but this assumed equivalence is as often deconstructed as it is postulated. moreover, critiques of modernity have not been confined solely to conservative discourses: the downsides of modernity have equally been the focus of progressivist movements. sometimes progressivists have been willing to make a last push or offer a final sacrifice in order to achieve ultimate human happiness; here again, modernity is referred to as a historical movement that promises emancipation across all spheres of life. however, such utopianism, whether one is looking forward or backwards, is typically accompanied by disenchantment with the present. thus, modernity keeps everyone on the move. classical theories of modernity sought to identify a definitive element having the potential to transform traditional communities into new, hitherto unknown societies. here, constitutive elements of modern society were said to include capitalist economics, scientific rationality, technological innovation and a democratic polity. these elements might not all have originated in europe simultaneously; nevertheless, cumulatively they produced an engine of social and technical power that made europe and its emigrant colonies globally dominant. politically, modernity may be epitomised in the slogan liberté, egalité, fraternité. however, the choice of which of these principles should be prior with respect to the other two engendered three modern ideologies. if, of course, a reader would accept that brotherhood, or rather solidarity across generations can be attributed to the conservatives. received 30 august 2017 © 2017 andrey menshikov asmenshikov@urfu.ru published online 29 september 2017 125changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 following social-historical analysis of the origins of modernity in the age of western expansion, the ideological conflict between alternative versions of modernity during the twentieth century was seen as bringing a continuous modernisation agenda to the forefront. when the modernisation trajectories of alternative modernities failed to converge and the communist version of modernity eventually collapsed, modernisation theory, with its most simplified version of “transitology”, came under severe criticism (kapustin, 1998). competition between projects of modernity it made clear that modernity was not a “monolithic” unity. moreover, their internal complex dynamics required qualifications such as “second modernity”, “reflexive modernisation” and different “waves of modernisation”. with the growing globalisation and transnationalisation of social interactions, modernity becomes “liquid” or is split into a spectrum of “multiple modernities”, “entangled modernities”, etc. “multiplication” of modernity – despite the dead-end that was encountered by the alternative (soviet) modernity – brought traditionally “hard” sociological modernisation theories closer to “soft” civilisational approaches. thus, while the concept of modernity referred previously to a set of modern institutions (market, democracy, science, etc.) or values, now it could be used to describe the concrete historical experiences acquired by individuals living with these institutions and values. the human costs that modernisation exacted were now analysed as pathologies of the modern personality; henceforth, modernity’s conflicts and burdens were to be internalised. as analyses of modern identity, its genesis and dark sides (taylor, 1998; seligman, 2000; bauman, 2015) demonstrate, modernity has not delivered on its promissory note of emancipation as its classical theorists had imagined. liberty, the core value of modernity, ends up being institutionalised primarily in terms of the freedom of individualised consumption (of things, identities, values); meanwhile, collective solidarities erode and more purpose-oriented conceptualisations of liberty evaporate. we no longer strive for modernity; rather, we are obliged to cope with it. the new section of the journal – opening the debate – begins with peter wagner’s essay the end of european modernity? because europe has never been monolithic, wagner claims, none of modernity’s key components – democracy, markets, individual autonomy, separation of religion and politics – was implemented in the way in which the protagonists of the model had originally conceptualised and anticipated. thus, what is needed is a re-interpretation of european modernity. the question of european modernity, then, no longer concerns the invention and realisation of a model, but rather a rethinking of self-understandings and world-interpretations in the face of the challenges of different historical moments. this would require a public pan-european conversation on topics such as democracy, the economy, freedom and meaning in our current time. the current issue of changing societies & personalities contains reflections on the modernisation theories from various socio-cultural perspectives. in his paper entitled evolutionary modernization theory: why people’s motivations are changing, ronald inglehart presents his revised evolutionary modernization theory (emt), arguing that economic and physical insecurity are conducive to xenophobia, strong ingroup solidarity, authoritarian politics and rigid adherence to group’s traditional cultural norms. conversely, secure conditions lead to greater tolerance of outgroups, openness 126 andrey menshikov to new ideas and more egalitarian social norms. according to emt, there is a strong negative correlation between the level of existential security within a given society and its adherence to traditional cultural values. thus, the greater the economic and physical security found in the particular country, the fewer people will view traditional spiritual values, beliefs and practices as vital to their lives (and / or their communities) and the more people will adhere to the values of self-expression, which presuppose moral autonomy, tolerance, interpersonal trust and free choice. cultural change is shaped by people’s first-hand experience with existential security or insecurity: this correlation is shown in the findings of the world value survey held across over one hundred countries between 1981 and 2014. based on the emt, inglehart provides several predictions concerning forthcoming cultural and axiological changes. in his paper apologia of modernity, victor martianov recognises that modernity presents a continuing ideological problem within the social sciences; consequently, it tends to underlie other axiological, ontological and notional hierarchies. the problem of the global transformation of the national, class-industrial and predominantly western model of modernity into late, post-national, cosmopolitan modernity is at the centre of today’s discussions. in particular, in the world as a whole, the national model of modernity is becoming increasingly irrelevant for describing the actual socio-political and cultural regimes of a large part of twenty-first century humankind. under the conditions of the historical evolution of modernity, martianov argues, each of its main narratives – liberalism, democracy, nationalism – undergoes substantial changes: in searching for social laws applying to modern society, the globalisation of modernity confirms the continuing relevance of the formational approach of the hegelianmarxist philosophy of history (as compared with the positions of so-called civilisational theories, which emphasise the importance of cultural differences between societies). attempts to synthesise the formational and civilisational approaches into new theories, e.g. those addressing “multiple modernities”, on the other hand, tend to be heuristically less satisfactory and to involve additional methodological contradictions. in her paper historical responsibility, historical perspective, daria tomiltseva focuses on the concept of historical responsibility. in exploring the ability and willingness to participate in debates about the past, the discussion here concerns attitudes towards the public acknowledgement of historical guilt. since the second half of the twentieth century, such practices have increasingly become a “mandatory element” of speeches by politicians, corporate leaders or representatives of other large organisations that have a rich, but not always untarnished history. tomiltseva considers the possibility of comprehending historical responsibility from a particular historical perspective, paying special attention to the sources of contradictions between a consideration of the eternal and unchanging aspects of responsibility and the temporal, circumstantial contexts in which its burdens are taken up. the current issue of the journal includes two book reviews. in her review of rossiia v poiskakh ideologii. transformatsiia tsennostnykh reguliatorov sovremennykh obshchestv [russia in the search for ideology: transformation of value regulation in modern societies, 2016] (viktor martyanov, leonid fishman, eds.), elena kochukhova claims that the irrationality of political actors and their choices has in recent years 127changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 become a central preoccupation of researchers who analyse political events. in russia, these are increasingly at variance with the calculated scenarios and ideas concerning common values that have developed in the west. thus, the authors of the monograph rely on the notion that ideologies, which appeal to consciously held common values in order to legitimise permissible violence, are backed up with actions commensurate with these values. lilia nemchenko discusses sovetskii mir v otkrytke [the soviet world in postcards, 2017] by olga shaburova, who analyses handwritten postcards as something retained in family archives as memoirs of the past. the postcard is seen as an important symbol of the soviet way of life while the ritual of writing postcards – as an integral part of the soviet order, a special communication through which the public and private spheres are brought into a state of desired harmony. the author shows how the value of private life correlates with ideological messages of power relationships. the discussions on modernity and post-modernity will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. we welcome suggestions for thematic issues, debate sections and other formats from readers and prospective authors and invite you to send us your reflections and ideas! for more information, please visit the journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ references bauman, z. (2015). liquid modernity. cambridge, uk: polity press. latour, b. (2002). we have never been modern. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. lyotard, j., & bennington, g. (2010). the postmodern condition: a report on knowledge. minneapolis, mn: university of minnesota press. seligman, a. b. (2000). modernity’s wager. authority, the self, and transcendence. princeton: princeton university press. taylor, ch. (1989). sources of the self: the making of the modern identity. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. kapustin, b. (1998). sovremennost’ kak predmet politicheskoi teorii [modernity as a subject of political theory]. moscow: rosspen. changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 553–557 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.118 received 10 december 2020 © 2020 georgy a. vedernikov published online 29 december 2020 georgy.vedernikov@yandex.ru book review jean-françois caron (2020). contemporary technologies and the morality of warfare. the war of the machines. london: routledge georgy a. vedernikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia acknowledgement the work was supported by the russian science foundation, project no. 20-18-00240 this recent book on morality of warfare is written by jean-françois caron, professor and chair of the department of political science and international relations at nazarbayev university, kazakhstan, and fellow at the institute of political science and administration at the university of opole, poland. the author aims to show that the ethics of weapons systems such as autonomous and semi-autonomous robots, ai, cyber technologies and human enhancement technologies depends on which states use them. j. f. caron argues that these should be “reasonable states” or the states that adhere to the rules of modern warfare (international treaties and conventions). in this case, their use of modern lethal and non-lethal weapons against opposing military forces is morally and legally justified. since 1977, when michael walzer published his seminal work just and unjust wars: a moral argument with historical illustrations, the problematique of normalization and humanization of warfare has gained increased scholarly attention. the journal of military ethics published in the 2000s provided a platform for just war theorists to develop the principles that would limit the scope of permissible violence and make armed conflicts less bloody. in russia, the growing number of publications in journals logos, voprosy filosofii and sotsiologicheskoye obozrenie also point to increased interest in this topic. caron’s book logically continues the debate about modern military practices by putting the main emphasis on technology, which is a rather underexplored aspect of the problem. https://changing-sp.com/ 554 georgy a. vedernikov the book consists of six chapters. the first chapter starts with an overview of the most advanced methods and means of warfare, describing the distinctive features of different types of weapons, some of which, according to the author, can justify the use of these weapons. in the following chapters the author explains why the use of modern technologies is not only morally justified but is essential for a just war. the second chapter deals with the duty of care that the military institution has towards its members, in other words, the military commanders’ obligation to treat soldiers with care, ensure their safety during the period of service and curb any negligence towards them. the third chapter focuses on the ability of modern military technologies to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants (civilians) during military operations. the following three chapters cover the critique and arguments brought up by scholars and wider public against the use of modern military technologies. in the fourth chapter, the author argues against the opinion that even the most advanced technologies not only are incapable of reducing but, on the contrary, increase the number of breaches of just war morality. caron insists that to prevent war crimes from going unpunished, it is important to set strict rules for the use and development of military technologies. the fifth chapter discusses whether or to what extent moral it is to use the cuttingedge military technologies against the enemy’s soldiers due to the asymmetry that arises between those who possess such technologies and those who do not. finally, the last, sixth chapter describes the ethical and political fears concerning the use of modern military technologies from the perspective of the just war theory. the author argues that advanced technologies can serve as means of preventing wars rather than escalating unlawful violence. in his book, not only does caron provide an overview of the key works discussing the potential of the emerging military technologies and their implications but he also provides an in-depth analysis of the military reports about the operations that marked different stages in the evolution of such technologies in the second half of the 20th and early 21st century. nevertheless, in our view, in some parts of his analysis the author is prone to giving rather subjective interpretations. however, we cannot but agree with the author’s opinion that precision strikes against the attacker, which came to replace the “war until final victory” principle, appear to be a morally justified measure. in our view, the author leaves room for uncertainty when he fails to provide clear distinctions between what is “just”, “acceptable” or “legal” in the use of military technologies. as a result, the use of advanced weapons by a more developed country can easily turn the latter from a sovereign state seeking to protect its citizens into an aggressor persecuting undesirable communities and individuals. in this case the technological aspect that the author highlights is shifted to the political domain and requires a more conceptually elaborate reflection. modern military technologies one of the book’s obvious strengths is the detailed description of modern military technologies and their conceptualization. the author provides a careful examination of the new military weapons and their characteristics. another important strength changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 553–557 555 of the book is that the author manages to stay immune to widely spread fears and misconceptions concerning the use of aerial vehicles (uavs) based on artificial intelligence applications. it is shown how even the most technologically developed countries such as the usa, uk and china still have a long way to go on the creation of fully autonomous uavs or other similar devices before they are able to exclude humans from the decision-making chain. thus, the problem of the legitimate use of violence remains within the human sphere, which means that legally it is the drone operator, hired hacker or developer of an automated air defense system that can be charged with criminal negligence and misuse of military power. in his book, caron provides a clear-cut classification of the types of technical autonomy in modern military systems (p. 8): types of autonomy technical specificities automated systems weapons without autonomy weapons that have no autonomy and whose capacity to act depends on direct human control. examples: machine guns and remotely controlled robots that inspect, detect, or disarm explosives or bombs non-lethal preprogrammed autonomy weapons whose autonomy can be pre-programmed and whose lethal capacities are an exclusive human responsibility. example: drones lethal or destructive preprogrammed autonomy weapons targeting specific programmed objects with lethal force. examples: the israeli iron dome and the south korean sgr-ai system. autonomous systems lethal autonomy without human intervention hypothetical weapons able to show moral judgement when using lethal force against targets akin to human moral agency automatic decision-making systems the majority of prominent thinkers on the ethics of modern war (michael walzer, paul christopher, nicholas fotion, and brian orend) pay considerable attention to the notion of collateral damage, which is seen as the main counterargument against the use of lethal autonomous weapons. inhuman killer robots stand out vividly in the public’s mind, which means that any failures or errors in the work of automated systems are perceived as a sufficient reason to completely ban their use. to counter this view, the author brings up a tragic incident that happened in 1988, when the uss vincennes, a us navy cruiser, shot down an iranian civilian plane, killing all 290 passengers and crew members on board. this tragedy resulted from a https://changing-sp.com/ 556 georgy a. vedernikov series of human errors on the part of the us military commandment and pilots of the civilian plane. importantly, the uss vincennes was at the time one of the first vessels of the us navy that was equipped with the aegis combat system, a missile system that combined computer and radar technology to guide and destroy targets in record time and that could engage a multitude of targets simultaneously, the caveat being that the firing options could only be activated by a human being (pp. 46–47). the limited time, stress and hostile environment led the crew of the american cruiser to see the civilian plane as a threat although the ship’s automated combat system provided evidence of the opposite. this and other examples discussed in the book show that more objective and emotionless decision-making may provide a moral counterbalance in the discussion about collateral damage in drone warfare. following the western intellectual tradition, caron filled his book with practical cases and examples, which allowed him to avoid ungrounded theoretical speculations. principles of legality of the use of modern military technologies the un’s principle of “the responsibility to protect” (or r2p principle) is included in the international law regulating sovereign states’ rights and duties in relation to their citizens. the aim to prevent massive atrocities and crimes such as genocide and ethnic cleansing is at the core of this principle. as the author makes clear, this principle can be applied not only to the above-mentioned crimes but also to terrorist attacks committed by radical islamist organizations. in caron’s view, it is this principle that allowed to launch the international anti-terrorist struggle and gave western countries more opportunities for interference in the internal affairs of states that, according to their intelligence services, were helping terrorists. this reasoning brings us to the key question as to how to identify the actual need to engage in warfare with and without modern military technologies, especially if these military operations are to be conducted on the territory of another state and do not have a clearly defensive character. for the sake of conceptual clarity, caron proposes the following key principles. first, a state’s use of advanced military weapons against combatants (and non-combatants as “collateral damage”) of the opposing side can be considered legitimate if this state acts “reasonably” by adhering to all the international conventions. second, the state’s use of such weapons is considered legitimate if, in doing so, the state seeks to minimize the destructive effect of such weapons and to enhance their precision targeting. the author considers these principles universal in the sense that they apply to all modern types of weapons, since chapter 7 of the un charter does not refer to any specific weapons in its definition of acts of aggression, and because international law does not refer changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 553–557 557 to any particular level of intensity in its definition of an attack, the lawful use of force ought to apply independently of the arms or weapons used against another country’s sovereignty, a principle that is thought to also apply to a country’s cyberspace (pp. 108-109). being “reasonable” is understood by the author as the ability to follow un treaties, that is, a “reasonable” state will engage in a just, defensive war only if it has found itself under attack and there is a real threat to its civilians or military staff. the author does not deny that when conducting military operations involving high-tech weapons, a state may be pursuing its own hidden political or economic agenda. an air strike, deployment of special forces and maintaining full-time surveillance over leaders of terrorist organizations are univocally recognized as legal and ethical if they are likely to bring a decline in violence in the future. caron underlines that the moral side of preventive military action taken by developed countries against terrorist and similar organizations is a debatable issue since such military operations resemble police sweeps much more than ideological struggle between different cultures and worldviews. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 396–400 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.3.107 received 30 august 2020 © 2020 elena a. stepanova published online 9 october 2020 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com book review marlene laruelle (2018). russian nationalism: imaginaries, doctrines, and political battlefields. london: routledge. elena a. stepanova institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia in her book, marlene laruelle – the director and research professor at the institute for european, russian and eurasian studies (ieres) at the george washington university (washington, dc) – discusses the multilayered and multifaceted nature of russian nationalism as (1) a way to imagine the nation, (2) the set of doctrines and ideologies, and (3) a political movement. she begins with a review of western scholarship on russian nationalism as a independent research field with the following main directions: nineteenth-century russian political philosophy with its special attention towards the so-called “russian idea”; the revival of russian nationalism in late soviet times; the “dual”-nature nationalism in the post-soviet period with fluctuations from being an indicator of reactionaries rejecting democratic changes to a form of official state policy. the conducted study allows laruelle to make the following conclusions: first, “the western – in particular us – field of russian studies has been deeply molded by the state of the us–russia relationship”; second, “in western discourses, russia’s evolutions tend to be systematically interpreted in terms of what they mean for russia’s place on the international scene and its relationship with the west”, thus missing the interpretation of russia as “a conglomerate of diverse groups and institutions with largely decentralized voices and agendas”; third, “the study of ‘russian nationalism’ is still marked by a prism of russian exceptionality”, thus missing the comparative perspective; fourth, “priority has always been given to the ideological content of ‘russian nationalism’ over its social construction”; fifth, studies often “aim to produce an easy, unidirectional mapping” of nationalism, thus losing sight on its polyphonic nature; finally, “russian nationalism” is mainly seen as a political ideology, thus missing that nationalism is also expressed “in the intellectual, cultural, and communication https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 396–400 397 worlds”, as well as in “banal nationalism” of “folk culture, everyday habits, and routines grounded in common sense” (pp. 6–8). in accordance with the title, the book contains three parts. in part i (“nationalism as imperial imaginary”) laruelle focuses on several features of the imaginary realm of russian nationalism – cosmism, geographical metanarratives and alternate history – which could not be considered as typical characteristics, especially in comparison with “traditional” research stereotypes such as russian socio-cultural exceptionality proclaimed by past and present russian scholars. laruelle provides a comprehensive analysis of russian cosmism as a common ground for post-soviet russian nationalisms (p. 34), starting from its roots in german romantic philosophy of the nineteenth century through the concept of all-unity (vseedinstvo) and the russian intellectual tradition of the silver age, to nikolai fiodorov’s and konstantin tsiolkovskii’s cosmic utopia of the 1930s. in addition, she considers cosmism as a specific form of occultism, although with some major differences: cosmism awaits the re-animation of humanity into a single universal organism – and the conjunction between two adjectives, single and universal, is a sign of totalitarian thought – whereas occultism sketches a world of awakening filled with multiple, diverse, specific individualities, each one of which has, via different paths, formed its consciousness of the harmony of man and the cosmos” (p. 31). such a statement, although attractive by itself, seems to be under-elaborated; it is worthwhile to note that the chapter devoted to cosmism looks slightly alien to the following chapters devoted to geographical metanarratives and alternative histories. there laruelle stresses that, for many centuries, the territorial size and location in space have served as the justification of russia’s mission in the world; however, today’s resentment about the diminished space of russia compared with imperial and soviet past becomes “a fundamental driver of these present-day narratives” (p. 38). laruelle gives prominence to three types of such narratives: first, russia as a specific continent (eurasianism and neo-eurasianism), which is aimed at rejecting “atlanticist” domination and stating that russia–eurasia is the only possible driver of today’s multipolar world; second, the unique relationship between the russian nation and the cosmos (cosmism), which legitimizes the idea about the cosmos as a natural extension of the russian territory (which looks rather unsubstantiated); third, the arctic region as a potential fore-post for twentyfirst century russia (arctism), which is seen as a crucial element in the revival of russia’s great-power status. laruelle emphasizes several common traits of these three narratives: their proponents derive ideas from the underground counterculture of late soviet times. these ideas are built, on one hand, on resentment and, on the other, on keeping promises of better days ahead. the narratives not only rest on the assumptions of previous intellectual traditions, but also receive an updated version: “eurasianism is presented as an example of multipolarity and regional economic integration; cosmism has been rebranded by linking spatial conquest with russia’s https://changing-sp.com/ 398 elena a. stepanova need for modernization and high technology; and arctism applies to both new quests for energy resources and the concern with preserving the planet’s fragile ecosystems” (p. 50). laruelle argues that alternative interpretations of history – so-called “memory wars” (about 1941–45 great patriotic war in particular) – and constant rewritings of pre-revolutionary and soviet history are widespread in today’s russia as a means of understanding the present through the past. alternative histories indicate the decline of the marxist historical metanarrative, which has resulted in the revolt of alternate historians against academic specialists and their exclusive right “to draw the line between truth and lies” (p. 55), as well as in the attempts to diminish the trauma caused by the collapse of the soviet union; that is why alternative histories are closely linked to conspiracy theories concerning the struggle against russia led by internal and external enemies. analyzing in depth the past and present alternative histories, such as various nationalist historiographies, the “jewish question”, the “new chronology” movement, etc., laruelle highlights their commercial nature and notes their “indirect influence on the university milieus”, in particular, such academic disciplines as culturology, geopolitics, ethno-politology, and others (p. 66). commenting on the russian public’s perception of the alternative histories, laruelle mentions a particular sensitivity towards the postmodern question of personalizing the historical narrative, which results in the “right of each individual to create his own national and world history” (ibid.) as a form of symbolic compensation for the post-soviet trauma. part ii “nationalism as a doctrine” begins with an analysis of aryanism as an alternative attempt to prove russia’s full identification with europe. laruelle considers aryanism as a form of “white” racism very similar to the ideology, which has spread in europe and the united states. she also explores some types of neo-paganism and esoteric practices, which have become quite popular in russia in recent decades. considering various far-right doctrines and their promoters, laruelle focuses on the most famous of them, namely, aleksandr dugin as “the main manufacturer of a neofacism à la russe that is both within and outside the circles of power” (p. 95), whom she characterizes as the aggregator of doctrines from diverse origins, particularly, esoteric nazism, traditionalism and the european new right (p. 96). following an in-depth analysis of dugin’s ideas, laruelle raises two important questions: is the promotion of fascism in russia being successful? can dugin be considered a mainstream thinker? she gives negative answer to both these questions and notes that dugin has succeeded in promoting russia’s great power and its leading role in eurasia, interpreting the soviet union’s messianism, and referring to conservative values as russia’s own identity; “but he has failed to anchor new ideological toolkits – be they esoteric nazism, guénon’s and evola’s traditionalism, or the german conservative revolution – in russian public opinion or in the minds of decision-makers” (p. 124). however, in spite of labelling dugin as a marginal figure, the chapter devoted to him is the longest in the book. the final chapter of part ii analyses the phenomenon of izborskii club – a large group of russian and foreign conservative experts, where laruelle indicates its three main contexts: planting government/oligarch sponsored think tanks, defence of so-called traditional values, and aggressive nationalism. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 396–400 399 part iii – “nationalism as political battlefield” – describes three main actors of political russian nationalism in three generations: classic far-right groups; national democrats supporting the european-inspired populist ethnonationalism; and the resurgent militia groups connected with the expansion of “novorossiya”, as well as the actors’ ambivalent relationship with state powers due to the unclear legal definition of “extremism” and kremlin’s intention to consider “everything related to russian nationalism as a potential rival for legitimacy, and therefore as something it should bring ‘under control’” (p. 171). characterizing changing faces of the far-rights – russian national unity (russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo, rne), national bolshevik party (natsional-bolshevistskaia partiia, nbp), skinheads (britogolovye), anti-migrant movement, etc., laruelle underlines that all of them display typical fascist elements: the cult of the leader; the white racism; the celebration of violence; the belief in a widespread plot against russia that unites enemies of all kinds; the exaltation of military and paramilitary actions, and doctrines calling for a reactionary revolution, etc. (p. 156). nevertheless, she concludes, “yet one critical feature has remained relatively stable over time: a direct embrace of historical fascism or national socialism systematically provokes rejection from the russian public and therefore marginalizes those who claim it” (p. 170). the next chapter of part iii is devoted to the popular political activist alexei navalny along with other national democrats (natsdems) who combine pro-western liberal narratives with ethnic nationalism and virulent xenophobia – the characteristic, which may look confusing for western audience (p. 174). laruelle proves that navalny does not see any contradiction between democracy and nationalism because, for him, the term russkii has a civic, rather than ethnic, connotation. nevertheless, his position concerning the annexation of crimea remains ambiguous, as well as framing north caucasians (chechnya in particular) as archaic and alien to russian culture, and the call for the introduction of a visa regime with the republics of central asia in order to control the migration. thus, “his stance and actions may be labeled democratic, but not liberal. he believes in democracy as a form of government…, but his liberal convictions are less easy to capture… navalny considers that demos – the citizenry – should also be ethnos – the primordial group” (p. 189). in general, laruelle concludes, national democrats “have failed to offer a concept of civic belonging to the nation that does not reproduce the classic clichés of russian nationalism. they do not know how to articulate a liberalism that is founded on individual rights and a nationalism that believes in essentialized collective identities” (p. 191). the final chapter of part iii explores the concept of novorossiya (the selfname of parts of the eastern ukraine) as a “live mythmaking process”, which is characterized by the convergence of three competing but partly overlapping paradigms. the first paradigm is “post-soviet” labelled by laruelle as “red”, since it emphasizes the memory of the soviet union “in promoting a large unified territory, great-powerness, opposition to the west, and a socialist mission” (p. 197). the second paradigm is motivated by political orthodoxy traditionally symbolized by “white” colour (in reference to the white movement of 1918–1921), in which orthodox christianity is seen “as a civilizational principle that makes russia a distinct country https://changing-sp.com/ 400 elena a. stepanova with strong religious values that should shape the theocratic nature of the regime” (p. 201). the third paradigm (labelled as “brown”) is borrowed from the european fascist tradition and claims that novorossiya will be the battleground “where aryan supremacy could defeat europe’s decadence, and where young people could be trained in urban warfare to prepare to overthrow the regimes in power across europe” (p. 208). in the book, laruelle limits herself to studying nationalism as an ideological doctrine and as a political movement, which is not directly sponsored by the state. thus, she argues, “the russian state cannot be termed ‘nationalist’”, although interacting with various state actors at many levels (p. 9), and nationalism could hardly be interpreted as the mainstream ideological trend. laruelle provides a detailed and accurate depiction of the events, which have taken place in russia over the past twenty years. in general, the readers of the book might enjoy not only its content, but also its form. the structure of the book represents a perfect harmony: the title contains three concepts, the book has three parts each divided into three chapters, and in most of them three main arguments are discussed. changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 548–552 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.117 received 1 december 2020 © 2020 danis m. sultanov published online 29 december 2020 write.me.here@list.ru book review arseniy kumankov (2020). voina v dvadtsat’ pervom veke [war in the 21st century]. moscow: higher school of economics publishing house danis m. sultanov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia acknowledgement the work was supported by the russian science foundation, project no. 20-18-00240 arseniy kumankov has become known to a wider public for his popularization of philosophical theorizing about war. his new book voina v dvadtsat’ pervom veke (“war in the 21st century”) discusses modern theories of just war and their historical and philosophical contexts. this book provides a good introduction to contemporary normative debates in just war theory, but it also outlines the challenges that just war theory has to face when normative theorizing encounters the realities of current armed conflicts. among the four chapters of the book, the first deals at length with the main philosophical premises of classical just war theory and the relevant historical, social and political contexts. in the chapters devoted to modern war (chapter 2 and 4), a more critical approach to classical just war theory is adopted. kumankov shows that the traditional version of the theory is unable to adequately reflect the current situation and is thus gradually losing its edge. chapter 3 focuses on contemporary political thinkers’ more nuanced visions of different aspects of just war theory. the latter include the causes of war and methods of warfare that can be deemed just in the current political situation. in our view, kumankov excelled in contextualizing classical just war theory as the author analyzes the socio-political situation of each period that provided background of theorizing about the war. however, the attempt to theorize the concept of modern war is less convincing as the author outlines his views on the https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 548–552 549 normative potential of just war theory – even in its more ‘elaborate’ form – to address the realities of new wars. just war and limits of politics the author emphasizes the connection between the origins of modern political philosophy and the emergence of modern warfare. the former began with rejecting the concept of punitive war and prioritizing defensive war. due to the separation of politics as an autonomous and homogenous sphere, political space was open for the interplay of actors of equal status. as kumankov suggests, nobody can impose on others their idea of what is due, nobody can judge others. time and again this idea will be reproduced by philosophers, lawyers and state officials from the seventeenth to nineteenth century (see: p. 27). on the national level, this principle meant equality of citizens, while on the international level, it entailed the sovereignty of states recognized as equal agents of international relations. within its own borders, the states establish monopoly on violence and therefore only they can legitimately coerce those who breach the state’s law and order. for hobbes, a natural state of war of all against all necessitates a social contract whose execution is ensured by the government: by giving up the right to violence to the sovereign, they [citizens] instead are guaranteed a safe life (see: p. 24). the birth of a state as the main political actor makes state violence secondary and thus, in kumankov’s account, a derivative of politics. subordination of violence to political interests of the state is extended to the relations of countries with each other. as in the pre-contractual state, people sought their egoistic interests and lived in conflict with each other, the states, in ‘postcontractual’ era, pursue exclusively their own interests. in pursuit of these interests, states enter into agreements that can be broken when their national interests change. although such situation could be remedied by a government that would be supreme to the states and perform the functions of a supranational court (see: p. 24), this does not seem possible for international politics in its modern understanding. since there is no supranational government that would have the authority over national governments, the relations between them are based on mutual respect of each other’s right to self-determination, the right to pursue their own interests. kumankov notes that in political practice, we should consider as the main mechanisms of managing the war the notion of the dominant position of the state (national) interest and the decisive significance of the balance of powers principle (see: p. 33). as a political concept, state interest or raison d’état implies that the state is pursuing certain goals, primarily, the preservation of the state itself. in this homogeneous space, states resort to violence only if other states impinge upon their interests and only in order to put a stop to such encroachments; the ultimate goal of war is to restore the original balance that was broken by the intrusion of one of the parties. kumankov observes that competing states are constantly searching for a system that, on the one hand, would prevent some states from becoming too strong and, on the other, would allow them to pursue their own interests freely (p. 36). https://changing-sp.com/ 550 danis m. sultanov war is legitimized and regulated within the political sphere and so are the methods of warfare. regular armed forces are the main actors in conventional warfare. the author comments on the changes in the status of the military personnel by pointing out that initially the status of a military officer was a class privilege (hereditary appointment), but the situation changed due to the increasing military professionalization and the special role of the soldier, and the concept of military duty (p. 41). at the same time the rest of the state’s citizens are excluded from the military sphere and this distinction between combatants and non-combatants underlies the distinction between just and unjust methods of warfare. violence is permissible against combatants but not against civilians. introduction of regular armed forces thus contributes to the humanization of war since it seeks to limit the collateral damage. consequently, the author’s interpretation of the evolution of modern politics leads him to conclusions about what reasons to wage a war are considered justified and what methods of warfare are deemed appropriate. the book’s analysis, however, leaves out some important issues in dealing with armed conflicts of the “post-modern era”. the concept of “new wars” and its definition kumankov discusses at length what distinguishes the reality of ‘new wars’ from conventional warfare. the new wars lost their symmetry as a result of changes in the political sphere in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. today’s military action often has to be conducted against irregular armed groups such as guerillas, insurgents, terrorists, paramilitary groups and so on. according to the international legal norms, these groups cannot be considered official participants of warfare: these actors of international politics challenge the state monopoly on war, representing one of the opposing sides or even initiating escalation of armed conflicts (see: p. 89). means and methods of warfare have also changed. instead of classical battles between regular armed forces, smaller-scale, targeted strikes now prevail, which precipitates re-evaluation of the principles that the actors themselves are following. first, non-regular actors may be pursuing aims different from the eventual peace agreement and, second, the victims of retaliation are often not the regular military units but civilians. there used to be a clear distinction between just and unjust goals in war and harming civilians was considered wrongful. terrorist attacks as one of the methods of warfare in the period of new wars, on the contrary, are directed against civilians. their aim is to generate terror and wreak havoc. thus, acts of a military nature go beyond warfare in its strict sense since the goal they pursue – intimidation of civilian population – is political rather than military. asymmetry as a characteristic of new wars is a rather capacious category that includes a range of other characteristics discussed in the book. for example, since the scale of armed conflicts is now incomparable with classical wars or even more so with world wars, contemporary wars are much less intense. instead of large-scale frontline combats between the armies, modern warfare is characterized by swift, targeted strikes. as a result, both sides need fewer military personnel and the intensity of military action is also lower. modern warfare is characterized by the prevalence of changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 548–552 551 high-precision attacks and the absence of clearly defined frontlines since new wars involve regular as well as irregular forces, which may be dispersed across a large territory. low-intensity conflicts may last for an indefinite time for exactly this reason – that forces of one of the sides are dispersed and can restore their fighting capacity. because the opposing parties are so heterogeneous, low intensity in combination with longer duration of ‘new wars’ is possible. since armed conflicts now tend to be globalized, which is one more important feature of new wars, any local conflict may grow into a global one and involve large international players via proxy wars (p. 103). participation of large states in a proxy war happens at the expense of the local communities directly affected by the military operations. depending on their strategic interests, powerful states may instigate a party to a conflict but do little of the actual fighting themselves. first-world countries no longer consider it permissible to wage a war on their own territories, instead lending financial or military assistance to one of the warring parties elsewhere. since the clash of the key players’ interests is inevitable, these major powers, vying for influence and resources, act through their proxy surrogates in poorer countries. this undoubtedly reflects the asymmetry in relations between developed countries and third-world countries. the author quotes one of the contemporary theorists of war mary kaldor, who pointed out that identity politics often becomes a reason for “new wars” (pp. 107–108). exclusive identities, fostered by this kind of modern politics and foregrounding the national superiority, lack the intention to interact on equal terms with their opponents. asymmetry is particular characteristic of terror, which is a frequently used “mode” of warfare. terrorists as a political actor are not interested in participating in negotiations; neither are they willing to establish or maintain relations of mutual respect with other political actors. terrorist’s political objective is to exclude the other from politics by eliminating the opponents altogether. terrorists are difficult to identify because in their actions they strive to keep a low profile. in fact, they reveal their true intentions only during the terrorist attack but its execution depends on how successfully they had managed to keep the preceding stages hidden. furthermore, terrorist attacks are not military actions but actions of political nature since their goal is to sow fear and panic among civilians. these actions are hugely disproportionate to the means used, because terrorist violence is used not in response to somebody else’s armed violence on the battlefield, which exists separately from other spheres, as it had happened during classical wars. terrorist brings armed violence into the political sphere as a means of political struggle, which, by standards of modern politics, is an action inadequate to the content of the political sphere. since the author’s perspective is primarily normative in the book, kumankov in order to trace the development of just war theory applicable to “new wars” in chapter 3 focuses on the main philosophical contributions to contemporary just war theory. in other words, while in his discussion of the evolution of just war theory kumankov moves from philosophers to the notion of war as such, in this case his argument takes the opposite direction. the reality of “new wars” leads philosophers to turn reflexively to the conventional theories and principles. https://changing-sp.com/ 552 danis m. sultanov the criteria of just or unjust war come from our definition of politics since only a sovereign political actor is believed to have a right to legitimate violence. does it, then, mean that asymmetry as a feature of “new wars” signifies the end of modern politics as a homogeneous space for interactions of equal actors? if yes, then does the theory in its normative mode have the possibility to provide us with an understanding of asymmetrical normativity? an example of asymmetrical normativity can be found in the medieval theory of just war which posits that the side that aims to restore justice in a punitive war has a higher moral status than its opponent. but in regard to modern normative theorizing, asymmetry despite featuring prominently in the realities of “new wars” remains, in our view, more of an instrumental characteristic. it highlights what is new in the practice of warfare today but of itself it can’t direct us to a new understanding of political actors. yet, the latter – a new vision of political actors – would be necessary, because in classical “just wars” we are dealing with actors whose political status is equal, which is why war as an instrument of politics becomes regular. asymmetry in war should in this case be pointing towards the asymmetry of political actors. we can consider actors of politics in the medieval period as asymmetrical since at that time a punitive war created asymmetry between the perpetrator and the state that sought to restore the order and justice. in this case, can medieval wars be classified as “new wars”? it hardly is so. the normative discourse labels a war as “just” if a state engages in this war to protect its national interests. situations where the right of nations to self-determination is questioned by a certain aggressor without a valid reason include defensive war, preventive war, military aid, and humanitarian intervention, all of which are discussed in chapter 3. contemporary studies analyzed by the author in this chapter adopt the traditional notions of classical just war theory to the current situation. the key concept in this respect is that of national interest, since it is the countries’ respect for each other’s national interests that ensures political stability on the international arena. while asymmetry is a key characteristic of modern warfare, in politics asymmetrical actors are not always guided by the principle of mutual counterbalancing. the description of the evolution of classical just war theory demonstrates the connection between the changes in the perception of politics and rules of warfare. it remains unclear, however, why the author did not show such connection for new wars. however, it might not have been his primary purpose. the book voina v dvadtsat’ pervom veke (“war in the 21st century”) summarizes the main approaches to the questions of just war theory, namely, when can war be justifiable and what means and methods of warfare are acceptable. the book provides a comprehensive overview of the main questions of normative theorizing by classical and contemporary theorists on war, which is a major step in remedying the asymmetry between international and russian academic reflections on war. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.2.014 book review olga shaburova, sovetskii mir v otkrytke [the soviet world in postcards] (2017) moscow-ekaterinburg: “kabinetnyj uchenyj” lilia nemchenko ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia contemporary humanitarian studies sometimes resemble current artistic practices. both artists and scholars select as their object the exploration of uncontemplated phenomena and subjects. thus, as early as the 1970s, vadim siddur transformed a shapeless heap of scrap metal into the face of einstein; when, several years ago, the street artist pasha 183 placed the memorial poster “all remember. all mourn” on the window of the “akademkniga” bookshop in ekaterinburg, which was no longer functioning at the time, his gesture became a kind of requiem for the community of scholars and students who met at the checkout, united by their love of books in the unique environment provided by this shop in the university city. in her topic for scholarly analysis, olga shaburova selected something originally costing no more than a kopeck, something that people (some with regrets and others without compunction) took for recycling, or retained in family archives as memoirs of the past, something without which it is impossible to imagine any soviet family. we are talking, of course, about handwritten postcards. the postcard is seen as an important symbol of the soviet way of life; the ritual of writing postcards – as an integral part of the soviet order, a special communication through which the public and private spheres are brought into a state of desired harmony. the author promptly explains that, in considering the postcard as an agent that has absorbed the visual symbols of the soviet era, not all its axiological and symbolic resources can be revealed. shaburova’s book recalls the popular science film, a cinema genre developed and popularised during the soviet period. this was a rather complex genre inasmuch as it was not always possible to transform scientific knowledge into an art form. in successfully incorporating the rich graphic material (hundreds of received 13 march 2017 © 2017 lilia nemchenko lilit99@list.ru published online 29 september 2017 192 lilia nemchenko everyday soviet life. since the potential readership of the book is wide, the author has managed to keep a balance between purely scientific and informational discourses. capturing the phenomenon of the postcard requires dual encoding for the two surfaces – postcards) into a scientific framework, the author has relied on research in the field of social philosophy – in particular, the concept of everyday life – thereby expanding the research field of picture and greeting text – representing two different information sources: the generic stock imagery and the individual private messages. although in terms of type of communication and decorative and applied arts genre, the birth of the postcard had already taken place at the end of the 19th century, the author limits the subject of research to the soviet period – specifically, the period from the 1950s to the 1980s. the term “soviet world” acquires a literal as well as figurative meaning [translator’s note: the russian phrase “sovietskiy mir” can be translated as either “soviet world” or “soviet peace” – pax sovietica]. pax sovietica refers to the time of peace after world war ii, following the twentieth congress of the party and leading up to the late soviet period. with its diverse institutions, commonality and disciplinary practices, the soviet world encompassed particular communication forms. after all, despite its ideological unity, the soviet world was highly varied if only because of its multi-ethnic character. and here immediately it is desirable to learn from the author: was the specific national character traced in the outer and inner sides of the postcard or did these differences reside only in the language of the message? the soviet greeting cards differed from those of the other socialist countries, in a way that, for example, the newsreels of czechoslovakia, east germany, bulgaria and others, which wholly reduplicated soviet newsreels, did not. the book draws attention to the fact that the postcard boom coincides with the “thaw” and ensuing late soviet era. this is understandable, since it was during these periods that the burgeoning interest in private life, which is expressed marvelously in the literature and poetic cinema of the “thaw” period, was taking place. however, the author shows how the value of private life (a postcard is an open, private message) is correlated with ideological messages concerning power relationships. indeed, in order for the postcard to enter into everyday customary life, it was necessary, at least, for it to have been produced in large editions with a certain specified iconography. and here the author provides stunning gigantism of numbers (for example, the printed output of the postcard artist zarubin during the 70s-80s totaled 1,588,270,000 copies). thus it was that a minimal private missive came under the close attention of the authorities; in referring to the 1953 decision of the ussr council of ministers “on the improvement of the mass media of graphic art products and literature according to artistic criteria”, and on the council of ministers’ decision, which adopted in 1966 a resolution “on the expansion of the production of high-quality color postcards and art books”, the author shows how design affected the officially promulgated system of values. thus, postcards are issued, their quality improves with their diversified subject matter, and, once transformed into a mandatory ritual of soviet life, the practice of writing, sending and receiving postcards acquires the character of everyday practices. indeed, recalling my own childhood and youth, i can admit that in our family the topic of the necessity to buy cards for the upcoming holidays was regularly discussed. the 193changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 phenomenon of the postcard is curious in the fact that it combines the everyday and the festive. the routine of writing text messages and the cyclicity of the correspondences was connected with the desire to produce a new kind of quality. the author examines the canon of writing the text, in which the official is adjacent to the private. all postcards conform to a two-part form – “holiday congratulations and wishes”; this is the name of the first chapter of the book, in which the postcard is compared with the form of the poster. the dominant heroic discourse of the poster is lyrically complemented in the postcard; in the postcard, the admonitory tone characteristic of the poster will be replaced by one simulating free choice. the ritual greeting is seen in terms of a mass communication practice, in which power-related problems for the organisation and consolidation of the axiological construction of the soviet world are combined; this takes place according to the soviet festive calendar, e.g. “november holidays”, new year, “may holidays”. postcards also refer to the emergence of new holidays – day of the soviet army, international women’s day on 8 march, and, from 1965, victory day. people voluntarily took on board the prerogatives of power and authority, converting them into personal stories expressed in postcard texts. olga viktorovna considers the practice of postcard holiday congratulations following yurchak’s definition of the “endorsed ritual” (yurchak 2014). is the author interested, as an individual, in “breaking through” into the mechanically-induced behaviours? in exploring greeting texts, we find ourselves witnessing the emergence of the personal. as a rule, official congratulations on the 50th anniversary of the soviet army, may day or the anniversary of the great october socialist revolution were supplemented by a set of stories about health, illness, consumer victories or defeats (about the carpet her husband did not like, about the great piece of luck on the purchase of a “gift for a first grader”, or the inability to “obtain” a voskresenskaya primer). the study of greeting texts reveals a hierarchy of material wealth: the first priority is to obtain an apartment, then a tv then a refrigerator. the author explores the postcard messages so passionately and enthusiastically that she sometimes loses the sense of distance, not noticing that these texts contain a lot of clichés and stereotypes. there is an idealisation of the process of writing holiday congratulations, which does not take into account the fact that writing such greetings was very often a formalised ritual. the second chapter, entitled “glory to labour: soviet matrix”, marshalls a huge quantity of graphic material to examine the ideological dominance of greeting cards, showing how the official rhetoric of labour achievements, struggle and progress is transformed into personal, joyful, festive stories. the studies of a number of different representations of socialist labour allow us to discover in them the characteristics of festive activities. firstly, socialist labour is understood as free labour, not in the sense of individualistic liberalism, but rather in terms of harmonious unity with the team. secondly, it is this feeling of harmonious unity that led to a positive emotional effect. on holiday pragmatics, gadamer pointed out: “the essence of the holiday is not only in its separation from the ordinary, and not only in aimlessness and unconcern, which is anticipated and enjoyed – in the holiday 194 lilia nemchenko there is also a certain positive content” (gadamer 1991, p. 157). arkadii eremeev also wrote on the positive leitmotiv, understanding the holiday “as the production of happiness, positive emotions, as well as harmony, optimal conditions, additional enjoyment, pleasure, etc.” (eremeev 1997, p. 189). it is this specifically this labour, having not only a utilitarian but also a symbolic component that was necessary for the realisation of the socialist project. leisure activities (having a bourgeois character) were replaced by non-alienated labour; moreover, primarily, by hard, uninterrupted physical work (“saturdays” and “sundays” at weekends), but it is precisely such a way of life that should be realised as something desirable (holiday). people who lost their jobs during the collapse of the ussr retained this basic attitude. for example, in the video film by leonid tishkov, constituting one of the parts of the project by the artist about the verkhoturye skate factory (art residence ii industrial biennale), an employee acknowledges that “going to work was a holiday and going home was not always what you wanted.” in order to construct a new type of everyday life (“festive everyday life”), it was not only political means that were used, but also artistic – posters, newsreels and postcards. in contrast to the above-mentioned means, the postcard is relatively democratic; the communications it conduces are mainly private in nature and its public is broad. it is a consequence of the special aesthetic form that the representations of work activities portrayed on postcards have a festive character. joy in labour in terms of creativity and making was an integral leitmotiv value for the soviet citizen. however, the post-soviet citizen is more likely to refer to work simply in terms of necessity: as noted by d. bykov, “to glorify the process, it is all the same whether one glorifies alimentation or defecation, since all three components of the cycle (labour – consumption of its products – output of secondary product) are, in general, immanent and rather coarse features of human nature” (bykov 2014). but, on the other hand, continues the author, “it turns out that labour involves self-hypnosis of the very highest order. what kind of plot of land, ploughed by you personally, inspires you to think about your own power ... what is even fear of destitution – the main fear of the soviet population during the transition – partly overcome by labour, moreover, by normal, systematic labour” (bykov 2014). the iconography of labour receives a variety of interpretations in the soviet postcard: firstly, industrial-construction symbolism; secondly, rural labour; thirdly, various professional holidays; and finally, the benefits of labour to children. images of work processes are presented in the main types of postcards – november holidays, new year, international women’s day, and, of course, may day. the frequency of images of various objects of labour turns out to be representative. so, the champion in terms of the number of “visual references” in the postcards becomes the crane, a new vertical of soviet life: it is construction cranes and tower-blocks on the shop floor as well as cranes outside of construction projects, generally expressing the idea of construction as the main leitmotiv of soviet post-war life. if in the 30s, industrialisation found its visual expression in the form of tractors and tractor-drivers (viz. the 1939 cult film “the tractorists” [traktoristy] by i. pyr’ev and the song “give us a ride on the tractor, petrusha” [prokati nas, petrusha, na traktore]), then, in the 60s, the place occupied 195changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 by the tractor was taken by the “high-riggers”. postcards apparently complement the popular song “we are not stokers or carpenters” [“ne kochegary my, ne plotniki”] from the 1957 aleksander zarkhi’s movie “the height” [“vysota”]. the postcard unwittingly served as a navigator in the world of working professions – plumbers, masons, welders, metallurgists and surveyors looked at the soviet man, inviting the worthy to celebrate the new year and the anniversary of the great october socialist revolution. the journey through professions was not limited to the city either – the rural working life was transformed into an aesthetic form of a card in a holiday greeting card that looked at combine drivers, breeders, growers and jolly farmers returning from haymaking. naturally, after april 1961, a new hero emerged – the astronaut. separate chapters are devoted to the analysis of the iconography of cities, in which the urban environment appears like a renaissance landscape through the window, to postcards about friendship and love; in a word, outgoing paper with a sad figure of a postman. and although i do not always agree with the author’s nostalgia for the soviet world as a constructive life practice, one thing that is placed before us in an excellent design performance new slice of everyday life, which baudrillard (one of shaburova’s favourite authors) referred to as the mythological subject, minimally functional and “most significant”. references bykov, d. (2014). “blud truda” [the debauchery of work]. retrieved from http:// www.ereading.club/book.php?book=147696 (last accessed july, 1, 2017). eremeev, a.f. (1997). pervobytnaya kultura [primitive culture], part 2. saransk: mordvinian university press. gadamer, h.-g. (1991). aktualnost’ prekrasnogo [the relevance of the beautiful]. m.: iskusstvo. yurchak, a. (2014). eto bylo navsegda, poka ne konchilos’. poslednee sovetskoe pokolenie [everything was forever, until it was no more: the last soviet generation]. m.: novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.2.013 book review rossiia v poiskakh ideologii. transformatsiia tsennostnykh reguliatorov sovremennykh obshchestv [russia in search of ideologies: the transformation of value-based regulators in modern societies] (2016). viktor martyanov, leonid fishman, eds. m.: rosspen elena kochukhova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia ural state university of economics, yekaterinburg, russia in recent years, the irrationality of political actors and their choices has become a central preoccupation of researchers who analyse political events. in russia, these are increasingly at variance with the calculated scenarios and ideas concerning common values that have developed in the west. the “brexit” vote for britain’s withdrawal from the eu and the victory of donald trump in the us presidential election forced analysts and researchers to rethink the assumption that influences on people’s emotions are not a significant component of ideologies. in this connection, “post-truth”, the latest buzzword in political rhetoric, refers not to facts and logic, but rather to personal emotions that ignore counterarguments; “post-truth” verities are instead constructed around the ritual repetition of certain phrases. in this situation, all attempts to understand politics and ideology as rational phenomena are perceived sceptically, if not ironically. despite this, the authors of this monograph rely on the notion that ideologies are aimed at legitimising permissible violence through appeals to consciously held common values and are backed up with actions commensurate with these values. in the case of the study of the ethics and politics of modern russia, this methodological move unexpectedly turns out to be justified. for the authors, russia appears as one of several possible configurations of a contemporary society. however, when considering it in the context of global received 12 may 2017 © 2017 elena kochukhova elenascause@yandex.ru published online 29 september 2017 186 elena kochukhova contemporaneity, it is not possible to lay bare ideologies and their corresponding institutions, but only to expose the fault lines in the value system and political framework. in the introduction to the monograph, it is suggested that the relevant common values for contemporary russia consist in notions of a “desirable present and future [...] for humanity as such” (p. 14). in particular, these include concern for the future and the ethics of trust. but if russia, according to the authors, is to take increasingly peripheral positions relative to global contemporaneity, are there any domestic ideologies with the capability of carrying the ethical ideals of a common future for humanity, or are we here purely dealing with speculation? to answer this question, it is necessary to turn immediately to the third part of the monograph, which studies the appropriation in russia of ideologies that were formed as part of a widely understood european political process. the first two parts of the monograph are devoted to the theory of ideologies, allowing the authors to place the ideological development of russia in a global context. the history of the development of the ideologies of modernity is reprised. the securing of individual human freedoms is seen as a reference value around which the liberal consensus of modernity is constructed. turning to the subjects of the history of the 20th century, the authors show how liberalism became a meta-ideology, which, by entering into alliances with conservatism or socialism, softened the forms of left and right radicalism. the various crises in the project of modernity are associated with the inability of this fluid consensus to recast political arguments in the face of social transformations. investigating the features of neoliberalism that accompany late modernity, the authors consider first of all the institutional consequences of the introduction of the model of the “economic man” into the ideological value kernel. the substitution of the concept of the public good with its economic derivatives and the creation of an “ideology of the propertied” receives sharply critical treatment in the monograph. the chapters of the first two parts partially overlap each other in terms of content. the line of argument concerning theses of rootedness of ideologies in morality, the inhumanity of neoliberalism and the inadequacy of the postmodern idea of the “end of ideologies”, is thoroughly discussed. however, the new formats of collectivity and their value bases are given little attention. the tendency to more distinctly designate the generality of the theoretical positions of the authors leads to key ideas being systematically repeated and the monograph becoming in places more like a textbook. particularly suitable for educational purposes are chapters 2.2 “ideologies of modernity in the structural and functional perspective” (a variety of ideologies is clearly presented in tables and diagrams) and 2.3. “the concept of ideology in the second half of the 20th to the beginning of the 21st century: from the end of ideology to its global return” (the concept of ideology is presented as a necessary element of the modern era; the idea of the end of ideology is considered alongside the critique of this position in the work of f. jameson). perhaps, of all the theoretical texts of the monograph, the one that is freest from repetitions and most frankly expresses the general values of the authors is chapter 2.4, in which the advantages of communitarianism as a contender for meta-ideology 187changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 are described. the hope is expressed that the communitarian turn will be adopted in russia, since it “does not infringe upon the national sentiment”, allowing us to move from the logic of catch-up modernisation to an ideological common space in which a new world system can be created. an investigation of the grounds for the communitarian turn in russia is to be expected in the third part of the monograph, which deals with contemporary domestic ideologies. but the pathos of the movement towards communitarianism is stymied in its first appeal to russian political discourse. v. martyanov considers the rhetorical reinforcement of various anti-modern steps of the authorities in some detail. promising stability for a share of rent, the anti-modern consensus consolidates russia at the periphery of contemporaneity. conversations about non-economic values turn out to be speculation to the extent that they are not supported by institutional changes. the author retains the hope of overcoming this peripherality through “political and ethical projects and approaches that claim to be more universal, appealing to the more egalitarian future of all mankind” (p. 186). the second chapter elucidates the metaphor of “spiritual bonds”. l. fishman points to the lacuna between the rhetorical figure that refers to a religious conception of spirituality and the hidden request for modernisation. the appearance of this metaphor is interpreted as an attempt by the authorities to create a value basis for capitalist development. here the request for social capital, which is a necessary component of modernisation processes, comes into conflict with the logic of raw capitalism. it is suggested that the anti-capitalist premise of the “spiritual bonds” formula can be deciphered in terms of civic virtues. the author distinguishes the secular term “morality” and the religious term “spirituality”, showing how an attempt to conflate them into one metaphor leads to the emergence of an ideological tool for consolidating the existing political order. consequently, the task of developing social capital remains unresolved. in the following chapter, y. startsev explores how the metaphor of neo-feudalism is used when describing russian realities. it is hard to know whether it is simply intended to shock or rather as a means of expanding upon contemporary processes that cannot be described in other research languages. the author offers an open list of topics for which the optics of neo-feudalism may be productive. recognising its high methodological potential, the author confines himself to examples of individual phenomena that acquire a new signification if thought of as neo-feudal. also functioning as a metaphor is the idea of the “soviet past”. m. ilchenko argues that this metaphor is not applicable as a methodological tool for humanitarian research since the concept of “soviet” is significantly blurred and the “past” is often confused with the “present”. in contrast, when used as a rhetorical device by political authorities, it works productively since it allows significant political tasks to be solved through addressing collective emotions. firstly, the legitimisation of power since the 1990s and up to the present day has been constructed by means of a transformation of emotional attitudes towards the “soviet past”. secondly, the metaphor becomes a source of different (often opposing) meanings for filling an empty axiological or ideological field. the study of statements made by presidents of the russian federation and symbolic organisation of contemporary state holidays allows us to make the move 188 elena kochukhova from analysing political discourses to a consideration of the collective unconscious. however, the author dwells upon the statement that a thorough understanding of the soviet past is yet to be achieved. in the fifth chapter, i. fan discusses the notion that a lack of reflection on its own past may be what is preventing russian society from breaking out of the resource state trap. developing the analysis of political culture within a. etkind’s conceptual framework of internal colonisation, the author focuses on the relations of the “colonialists” with the “natives” and on the forcible displacement of borders. the rhetoric of ideologists close to the top leadership is considered alongside some works of literature and cinema in terms of carrying nationalistic and militaristic ideas into the mass consciousness. the author does not provide any positive examples of new cultural forms by which society comprehends itself. at the same time, it is to precisely such cultural forms to which the texts of the researchers, whose rationalisations support the argumentation of the original author’s thesis, relate. thus, it becomes impossible to raise the question of how the anti-modern discourse can be transformed. the shortcomings of the rhetoric of threats and violent changes are explored in the next chapter in terms of their conformity to the global context. v. martyanov contrasts soft hegemony (means of creating attractiveness) with the politics of hard power (instrumentality of military-economic pressure). the author reprises the main positions of supporters of the theory of soft hegemony. it is argued that political elites of different countries need to cultivate openness and trust, since, in the post-industrial world, the attractiveness of a society is made up of the combined efforts of each participant. the readiness of the russian elite to take a step towards openness and learn to use soft power to advance the interests of the state on the global agenda is viewed sceptically. in the seventh chapter, k. kiselev addresses a typically pessimistic contemporaneous agenda. according to the logic of modernism, all predictions of the end of history, economic collapse or environmental disasters are transformed into growth points. the author shows that, in the case of russia, this mechanism does not work. the analysis of everyday ideas about the fundamental orientations of human existence, i.e. space and time, shows that pessimism is reinforced by daily practices, whereas modernistic optimism is emasculated to cheers and patriotic slogans. in a situation where all greatness is located in the past and the normal achievements of modernity (from civil rights to everyday comforts) are still a matter of the distant future, the present is eternally hopeless. the vast russian expanse translates into everyday life as poverty; its state of disorder is justified by its scale and climate. this pessimism, which covers all of the conceivable space of russia as well as its entire foreseeable future, serves to block possibilities for its modernisation. the attempt to escape from pessimism is discussed in the subsequent chapter on the example of fantastical literature. l. fishman sees political science fiction as mirroring the last three, post-soviet decades. three ways of responding to ideological constructs are coherently discussed: revanchism-revisionism (in texts that can be conditionally combined as utopias), humanism (in anti-utopias) and social constructivism (in the stories of contemporary people who have fallen into the past). the question of how 189changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 contemporary people will construct ideologies in reality, rather than in fictional worlds, is deferred to the following chapter. both mythological and reactionary ideas about the desired future are found not only in fantasy literature, but also in reality. the problematic of the third part of the monograph is again concentrated on details concerning the anti-modern consensus. it is shown that legitimisation of permissible violence is carried out by the authorities with the help of “protective logic”, which, in turn, requires the idea of nationalism. postsoviet variants of ethno-nationalistic ideologies are criticised by the author as neither being able to unite within a shared set of common values, nor to conclusively defeat other ethno-nationalisms, for example, ukrainian. the paradoxical soviet version of “nationalist internationalism” is seen as a possible source of a new ideology: in the soviet era, there were enough achievements to be used as the basis for constructing a national myth. it remains an open question whether this strong – albeit compromised – source is likely to be used. summing up the research of ideological discourses in modern russia, l. fishman, the editor of the monograph, traces value transformations in russian society achieved through changes in the symbolic messages of victory day. victory as an archetype presupposes a confrontation in which the currently existing carrier of ideas has prevailed over other subjects and ideas. the fact that the victories of post-soviet russia are not connected with august 1991 (victory over the putschists), october 1993 (shelling of the parliament), june 12, 1990 (independence day) or december 12, 1993 (day of the enactment of the constitution), makes it possible to suspect political elites of impotence. the ten studies of modern russian ideologies presented in the third part of the monograph consist primarily of research simulations. unlike the plastic liberal consensus, at the core of which it is possible to identify stable basic values, antimodern discourses are fragmentary and negative. of course, liberalism can consist of nothing more than moralising (which is also happening in russia and is indicative of the attempt to treat civil virtues as “spiritual bonds”). even if one accepts the theory of russia’s special path, neither its nationalistic justification nor the idea of resurrecting soviet-inspired premises correlates with real infrastructural changes, and, in this sense, cannot be considered in ideological terms. in analytically following the political changes, the third part of the monograph is more focused on addressing what ideologies are not and why. the presented studies of the paradoxes of authoritarian rhetoric provide a contour outline of the discursive traps that can impede modernisation. in the longer term, the results of this complex collective work make it possible to take one more step – towards an effective study of the mechanisms that support a non-critical attitude to political decisions or create the (mere) appearance of a “community” in the understanding of values. in this sense, the third part of the monograph will be of interest to researchers attempting to understand irrational mechanisms of contemporary politics. in general, the monograph is of a theoretical character. chapters that manage to avoid a long digression into the history of concepts are few and far between. for those who only wish to get acquainted with the theory of ideologies and criticism of 190 elena kochukhova neoliberalism, this is a source of concentrated information, referring to the landmark works of i. wallerstein, f. jameson, d. harvey, l. boltanski, e. chiapello and others. following the logic of critical theory, an analytical investigation of the established order will necessarily involve a call for the creation of a new order. the communitarian turn and consequent possibility of going beyond the neoliberal logic of the late contemporaneity is explored only at the theoretical level, as a possible but not obligatory response of the fragmented societies of the russian federation to the anti-modern consensus imposed by the authorities. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.1.001 editorial “you cannot step into the same river twice”, – what does it mean for us today? elena stepanova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch, the russian academy of sciences the world in which we live is undergoing rapid transformations across all societal systems, affecting such spheres as economy, technology, politics and culture. undeniably, these processes in turn reshape human values, morals and religious beliefs. individual and collective identities cannot be static; rather, they are subject to various evolutionary influences. among the factors that pertain to identity change are global and regional pressures, post-industrial technological developments, migration issues, political challenges, as well as the changing role played by religion in post-secular societies. indeed, societies and individuals are varying constantly; therefore, identification of the forces driving these changes becomes one of the main concerns of modern intellectual history. theories and methodologies aimed at understanding the direction and mechanisms behind social change have differed dramatically since the emergence of the social sciences. a teleological approach towards history – and the notion of progress as the continuous improvement of society – was embedded in the judeo-christian tradition, whose concept strongly influenced social and political philosophy during the enlightenment period and inspired the writings of influential 19th and early 20th century social thinkers, from august comte to émile durkheim. in the classical period of the development of the social sciences, social dynamics was understood in terms of either evolution or revolution and seen as a predictable and irreversible process, along which societies moved from a primitive to a complex developmental stage. published online 15 april 2017 © 2017 elena stepanova stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com 5changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 the major intellectual insight of the first part of the 20th century concerned the essence, structure and functions of modern society. theories of modernization, which treated the latter as being an inevitable stage through which all societies should pass in the progress of humankind, declared the “western” way of social development to be an authentic pattern for the rest of the world to follow. nevertheless, towards the end of the 20th century, such historical events as the explosion of the new asian economies, the decolonization of most african nations, the collapse of socialist ideologies, the rise of islamism and other concepts alternative to western liberal democracy revealed the limits of existing social theories and methodologies as derived from the western experience of modernization. this theory of modernization was challenged by the contrary idea that there are in fact multiple models for development which modern societies may follow and that their choice is determined by a particular cultural-historical context; as a result, conventional social research dichotomies between “modern and traditional”, “highly-developed, less-developed and under-developed”, “civilized and uncivilized”, “eastern and western”, “the south and the north” have lost their distinctiveness and validity. today, the linear view of historical progress is giving way to nonlinearity and contingency and the teleology of the development of a society starting from a lower stage and progressing to a higher one has been largely discarded. as zygmunt bauman, the author of the famous metaphor depicting modernity as a “liquid”, underlines, the main feature of the contemporary phase in the history of humankind is the “non-directedness of changes”. such changes seem to become more and more random and unpredictable; therefore, the futurological utopian genre has lost all of its credibility. according to bauman, we now find ourselves in the period of an “interregnum”: one in which the old ways no longer work, but for which the new ways have not yet been established. it may seem that it is not just that one cannot step twice into the same river, as the ancient greek sophist cratylus said in his going beyond heraclitus, but instead it is that one cannot step into the same river even once. according to this logic, it is not possible to elaborate a solid definition of the manifestations of liquid sociality; elena stepanova6 likewise, it is not possible to distinguish between true and false social theories because all social change is eternal and any theory will soon be superseded by another even before the first has been verbalized. fortunately, the vast majority of researchers consider such extremist relativism as counter-productive. we are bound to continue in our endeavours to reveal the internal logic of social reality and to determine its causes and effects. at the same time, changing societies and transmuting personalities require us to employ flexible theories and methodologies when studying highly diverse historical experiences, social patterns, political institutions and cultures. changing societies and personalities are in need of new approaches both in the humanities and social sciences; these should include an analysis of both macro-social and micro-social forces operating in particular socio-cultural contexts, as well as a study of the interconnection between global and local communities, and the mutual influence of national societies and individual identities. today, the main concern of the social sciences is not so much in elaborating new concepts, but rather in describing the state of things as they are, and reflecting upon their essence and meaning. social scientists should not strive to be the “bearers of truth”, but rather should seek to act as observers, who occupy meta-positions above the fray. such a position neither presupposes the researcher to be completely independent of his or her own context, nor does it exclude his or her intellectual priorities; at the same time, it does not imply adopting a postmodernist point of view, according to which every person is imprisoned inside his or her subjective world. at the same time, an observer should not, when carrying out a study, pretend to be wholly impersonal and objective. on the contrary, the researcher should freely describe his or her own propensities, preferences, understandings and attitudes towards historical, cultural and political problems, while at the same time being self-reflective and aware of such propensities. this means that the researcher will free himor herself from any particular concept or school of thought; as a result the research will remain diverse, new and fresh. the only limitation the observer should obey concerns the very subject of research in its dynamics. the flexibility, broadness and malleability of the social sciences and humanities are defined by the 7changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 overall aim of the research – which is to elaborate new ways of living together in order to reconcile the needs of people belonging to different cultural, racial, ethnical, ethical and religious backgrounds. on behalf of the editorial board, it is my honour to introduce the first issue of “changing societies & personalities” (cs&p) – an international, peer-reviewed quarterly journal, published in english by the ural federal university, ekaterinburg, russia. this journal strives to become a forum for discussion and reflection informed by the results of relevant research into societal and personal transformations in different spheres. the journal will promote networking between researchers, enabling them to share their ideas, insights, methodologies and concerns about the past, present and future of societies and personalities. the aim of this journal is two-fold: firstly, to study social and individual transformations and their interconnection in history and in the present day; secondly, to reflect upon the approaches, theories, ideas and methods of the social sciences and humanities in studying changing societies and personalities. the journal wishes to stimulate a creative and mutually beneficial exchange of ideas between scholars from different countries and cultural backgrounds, taking into account national specificities in terms of the theoretical and methodological approaches applied. we welcome interdisciplinary approaches to academic research and writing, since social changes and personal transformations cannot be fully understood from the perspective of any single social science or humanities discipline; nor can it be comprehended within the bounds of a single academic discipline. culture, morality, religion, ethnicity, class, age and gender are among those points of scientific interest influencing choices of which research projects to pursue, as well as which methods and theoretical frameworks to apply. however, the interdisciplinary approach does not imply an erosion of academic requirements; the interdisciplinary approach to research should be grounded in a thorough knowledge of specific trends, theories and methodologies in the social sciences and humanities. cs&p examines how rapid societal-level changes are reshaping individual-level beliefs, motivations and values – and how these individuallevel changes in turn are reshaping societies. the journal welcomes elena stepanova8 theoretical and empirical contributions from a wide range of perspectives in the context of value pluralism and social heterogeneity in postmodern societies. the themes of the journal include but are not limited to: value implications of interactions between socio-political transformations and personal self-identity; changes in value orientations; materialist and post-materialist values; moral reasoning and behaviour; variability and continuity in the election of styles of moral regime and/or religious identity; the moral bases of political preferences and their elimination; social exclusion and inclusion; post-secular religious individualism; meanings, varieties and fundaments of tolerance or merely ‘tolerating’; ideologies of gender and age as variables in political, moral, religious and social change; educational strategies as training for specific social competences; social and existential security. the journal publishes original research articles, forum discussions, interviews, conference proceedings, review articles and book reviews. the papers included into the current issue are linked to the general theme of continuity and alteration of value systems. in the interview entitled “there is a crucial need for competent social scientists…”, ronald inglehart stresses the importance of the social sciences in analysing the main controversies of the contemporary world such as growing income inequality and the replacement of industrial society by the knowledge society. speaking about ethnic, religious, racial conflicts, and xenophobia, inglehart argues that the reasons for conflicts decline systematically as people become more secure. consequently, over time, people living in advanced industrial societies have become more tolerant towards diversity and less violent towards others. underlying the validity of religion as a source of the meaning of life, as well as pointing out the failure of the theory of secularization, inglehart determines religion as an expression of the basic human need for predictability and a distinction between right and wrong. in the paper “beyond the freakonomics of religious liberty”, ivan strenski describes his experience with religious freedom in armenia and points out the difference between the western and eastern approaches: if in the west the values governing religious freedom are analogous to the values governing economic markets, in the east 9changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 this may not be the case due to a different socio-cultural atmosphere. strenski argues that it might be better to think about religious liberty using models embodying other kinds of values than those dominating the thinking of citizens of western societies. he refers to western values in terms of a “market” model, which presupposes a free choice of beliefs, ideas and values, of association and companionship, as well as implying a market place for spiritual goods and services in which no one is permitted an advantage over any other buyer or seller. consequently, all religions ought to expect to compete equally and fairly for adherents. strenski distinguishes two possible reasons why the leading religious confession in armenia – the holy armenian apostolic church (haac) – is so determined to resist the western model of the freedom of religion: firstly, after 70 years of the soviet system hostility towards religion, the haac is not ready for a free religious market in the country; and secondly, it feels it should remain in a privileged position because of its historical role in preserving both armenian nationality and local christianity throughout the soviet period of active persecution of religion. on the other hand, new protestant churches in armenia see haac as the representation of a traditionalist religious monopoly that seeks to maintain its hegemony and restrict the religious choices of armenians. using the armenian context, strenski raises the question of whether it is always in the best interests of people to assert their right to religious liberty and whether the western understanding of a free religious market has its natural limits when applied to former soviet countries with their traditional religions, as well as to greece and turkey. the paper invites discussion on the possibility and potential necessity of an alternative model to the religious liberty market model, taking into account the unique socio-historical peculiarities and contemporary context of the given country, and so raises a question as to the optimal relation between religions in post-soviet states. the main topic of tim jensen’s paper “religious education: meeting and countering changes, – changing and standing still” is the challenges that religious education (re) faces in public schools in european countries due to increased religious pluralism and elena stepanova10 individualism. jensen stresses the importance of re since it is this education that is supposed to play a key role in paving the way for tolerance, social cohesion, peaceful coexistence, human rights and freedom of religion. in addition, re is expected to function as an antidote to what is seen as a growing fragmentation, as well as a lack of spiritual and moral orientation. jensen underlines the advantages and shortcomings of the confessional and non-confessional types of re in the light of transnational eu recommendations and academic discussions being held on the issue. using the scandinavian example, jensen reveals the ambiguity of the “religious dimension” of culture, which he acknowledges as the “crypto-confessional” approach in re. as a result, in most european countries, other religions besides christianity are still seen only from the point of view of the established “confession” or religion. jensen also observes the “citizenship education” as an alternative/substitute for re. the paper seeks answers to basic questions of re: whether re is the study of beliefs and values of oneself and others or a way to develop pupils’ basic beliefs, values and identities; whether re is merely a way to provide pupils with information about religions or a way to inspire religious faith in those pupils. nikolay skvortsov’s paper “the formation of national identity in contemporary russia” explores the complex issue of the search for national identity in post-soviet russia. he raises questions as to why problems of nation and national identity are arising now, stressing the fact that their topicality is connected both with internal and external challenges faced by contemporary russia, as well as concerning the need to strengthen the multi-ethnic russian state in order to mitigate negative developments in the sphere of international relations and prevent ethnic conflicts. referring to the definitions of the nation referred to in soviet social science, skvortsov underlines that the soviet model of the nation is based on ethnic nationalism as opposed to an understanding of the nation as a discrete political and territorial entity. thus, the author warns against possible dangers arising out of the tradition of interpreting the nation only in ethnic terms. he concludes that the integrated, multi-level structure of the russian national identity determines the complexity of 11changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 its formation in people’s minds. in solving this task, it is necessary for various social institutions to be involved – the family, the government, the educational system, mass media and others. in the current issue of the journal, two book reviews are published. andrey menshikov offers the reader a commentary on carlo invernizzi accetti’s relativism and religion: why democratic societies do not need moral absolutes (columbia university press, 2015). in this review, menshikov highlights two interrelated topics of the book: the first being a historical analysis of how the concept of relativism has become so prominent in catholic political theory; the second being an analytical study of the contradictions inherent in the idea that democratic regimes need to be complemented by a set of absolute moral or political truths in order to avoid degenerating into a form of totalitarianism. the analysis of relativism and religion, as described by menshikov, is based on a comparison of the secular relativist concept of freedom and the catholic church’s notion of freedom, which relies on an acceptance of man’s creation in the image of god. elena trubina offers the reader a review of the unhappy divorce of sociology and psychoanalysis: diverse perspectives on the psychosocial (lynn chancer, john andrews, eds., springer, 2014). in her review, the author underlines the increased alienation between the disciplines of sociology and psychology in the 20th century and highlights the important work done by scholars of the 21st century in a book in which the failure of two disciplines to engage in a productive dialogue is exhaustively analysed. from trubina’s standpoint, the reviewed work demonstrates examples of a disconnect between the two disciplines of sociology and psychology, while leaving open a possibility for their reconciliation. we welcome thoughts from readers and prospective authors, and invite them to send us their reflections and ideas! for more information, please visit the journal web-site: https:// changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.2.009 opening the debate the end of european modernity? peter wagner university of barcelona, spain icrea (catalan institute for research and advanced studies) diagnoses of our time if the west declines, how would we know? there seems to be quite some agreement about how the west rose. from around 1800 onwards, economic historians tell us, economic production increased much more rapidly in western europe than in other parts of the world, including areas of china and india that had been similarly rich and productive until then. the “great divergence” (kenneth pomeranz) between the west, gradually including north america as well, and the rest became ever more pronounced during the 19th and much of the 20th centuries. it started to diminish again only late in the 20th century, first with the rise of japan, later other east asian economies, and now china and possibly other countries. today we can largely take it for granted that the period in which the west was immensely more rich than all other parts of the world is over. this is a major problem for economic policy-making, and it may have considerable repercussions for democracy – indeed it already has. but should we really see it in as dramatic terms as the expression “decline of the west” usually suggests? if the outcome of this economic transformation were a planet marked by lesser material inequality – unfortunately this is far from the case – we should rather welcome this. if the outcome were a less resource-extractive and polluting way of life, even better – but also even much more unlikely. there has never been a good justification for the divergence of the west in terms of material wealth. if it now (relatively) declines in those terms, we need to find ways to cope, but we should not deplore the rise of the east, or possibly the south. so, let’s try another angle. the recent british television series downton abbey shows vividly and with great nuance the end of a world. one observes how the relations between the aristocratic family owning the estate and their numerous servants are transformed between 1912 and 1926 through war, democracy, the rise of socialist and feminist thinking, legal equality and economic changes. the new year’s partieshat close the series are harmonious, but everyone in the scenes is aware that this world of hierarchy, privilege and subservience is approaching its end. and every spectator knows the outcome, too, since received 30 june 2017 © 2017 peter wagner accepted 28 august 2017 peter.wagner@ub.edu published online 29 september 2017 129changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 post-second world war and much more so current english society show only minuscule traces of that past. almost every spectator also welcomes the changes that are shown – who is explicitly against equal freedom and abolition of privilege? significantly, though, one cannot help sympathizing with some of the conservative sentiments that are expressed, with the fear of the waning of a world of warm, personal relations marked by dedication to the other in favour of a colder, more formal and more efficiency-oriented life. but we would not call this the decline of the west either. thus, we need to go on searching for other understandings. often the period between the middle of the 18th and the middle of the 20th centuries is seen as the epoch of high or classic modernity. this periodization roughly coincides with the one of the economic rise of the west. it also marks the era that leads from the revolutions through the long and often overlooked “persistence of the old regime” (arno mayer) to the advent of formal equal freedom, which inaugurates the era in which we now live. but quite different emphases of interpretation can be hidden behind the term “modernity”. and, for the purposes of our reflections here, we need to ask what happens when high modernity is over, whether this is when the decline truly starts. cornelius castoriadis’s particular way of looking at the period from 1750 to 1950 is useful. he sees in european societies of the 18th century the second great awakening of the commitment to autonomy, to the principle that human beings give themselves their own laws of living together, after its first appearance in ancient greece. from then on the commitment to personal and collective autonomy, to freedom and democracy is alive in european history. castoriadis praises the artists and inventors of this period, but then says that this spirit of autonomy withers away again over the following two centuries to give way to “generalized conformism” in the late 20th century. this is another possible diagnosis of the decline of the west, and it comes closer to how we may want to grasp it. it is useful to start out from self-understandings of society. if there is rise and decline, there usually is also some consciousness of rise and decline, and be it a partial one. furthermore, it is fruitful to start out from some notion of modernity as autonomy. when human beings see themselves as able and willing to give themselves their own laws, such moment is rightly considered as a high point in history. this commitment is more telling for the rise of the west than increasing material affluence (though the relation between the two is well worth exploring in more detail). so what does it mean if this commitment rises and then withers away? we need to look at transformations of european modernity to develop a sense of rise and decline. individual freedom and purposeful action there has been something like a european core concept of modernity, in the centre of which stood individual freedom and rational action. but this was not the crown of a series of great achievements, as europeans tend to portray their history. it was developed in response to crises, namely to the cultural-intellectual and political challenges arising from the encounter with other, unknown people in america and the breakdown of the unity of christian cosmology in the wake of the reformation. the last 130 peter wagner resort in such crisis situation was the individual: as the subject of certain knowledge, as the source of interests and desires; as the holder of inalienable rights; as the atom with which viable polities could be constructed. all other socio-political phenomena were relegated to secondary status in such individualist ontology: the social contract was supposed to be drafted and signed by reasonable individuals. popular sovereignty became increasingly to be seen as the aggregate of individual preferences. the thus constituted polity needed to be distinct from the comprehensive world-views that tied human beings to each other, importantly through religious beliefs. given the explicitness and radicality of the ways in which the human condition was being rethought in enlightenment philosophy, the view became widespread that this marked the onset of european modernity – and, by implication, of modernity tout court. but today we can recognize that this core concept of modernity was nothing but a very particular interpretation of modernity. even though it was put forward very forcefully in europe during the 18th century, the individualist-instrumentalist model of the human being and of society and polity never went uncontested. alternative proposals were made in response. when european thought underlined the richness and density of social bonds among human beings, it did so in rejection of individualism and instrumentalism. when the emphasis was placed on meaning-providing communities into which human beings are always embedded, then this was meant to oppose the idea that human collectivities only come into existence through a contract between rational individuals. that is why it is always somewhat inadequate, even though not entirely wrong, to denounce european individualism-cum-instrumentalism from a critical, postcolonial or decolonial perspective. these responses brought about a great variety of intra-european self-understandings, which reflected different, and often quite distinct, regional historical experiences. europe has never been monolithic, and neither has european modernity. furthermore, one needs to underline that the core model of modernity was never applied in european history. this is so, partly, because it was rejected by elites aiming to preserve their privileges in the face of the revolutionary agenda entailed by the model, and partly because of the incoherence and inadequacy of the model itself. europeans have never in large numbers been convinced of an individualist ontology – much less, for instance, than the settler descendents in the us. none of its key components – democracy, markets, individual autonomy, separation of religion and politics – was implemented in the way in which the promotors of the model had conceptualized and expected it. re-interpretations of european modernity once this is recognized, then the question of european modernity is no longer the one about the invention and realization of a model but one of rethinking self-understandings and world-interpretations in the face of the challenges of different historical moments. the core model was created in the face of unknown alterity and cosmological divide during the period that europeans call “early modernity”. later transformations are distinct from earlier ones not least by the fact that they take place at a moment 131changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 when the core model already exists and shapes the discursive space within which re-interpretation occurs. major events in the european nineteenth century, which karl polanyi analyzed as a “great transformation”, were marked by the imaginary of market self-regulation and the imaginary of inclusive-egalitarian democracy. in both cases, the individual human being assumes a pivotal role and comprehensive worldviews are relegated to a secondary role. but both of this is the case much more in thought than in practice. recognizing the fallacies of instrumentalist individualism as well as, often enough, experiencing negative consequences of its partial applications, europeans tried to elaborate smooth compromises between different commitments, such as the “solidarisme” of the third french republic, or the inter-class alliances in scandinavia between the world wars. but such arrangements worked under rather favourable circumstances only, and they lacked the conceptual coherence of the core model. under more conflictive circumstances, europeans embarked on radical re-interpretations, such as the suprematist racial oppression and exploitation of colonialism and the “collective essentialisms” of fascism, nazism and stalinism. a high point of european modernity? based on the experience with the earlier trials, both the positive ones and the disastrous ones, it seemed that a stable institutional compromise could be reached after the end of nazism and the second world war. this was the liberal-democratic keynesian welfare and nation-state set in a context of increasing european integration. this organized european modernity was seen – and to some extent experienced – as the optimum combination of individual liberty, competitive-party democracy, social solidarity, and national belonging and community. when internal and external shocks to this “model” emerged from the late 1960s and through the 1970s, the general assumption was that adaptation was possible without major problems, in particular in the forms of greater individual liberty (later captured as “individualization”) and greater openness to the outside (later captured as “globalization”). it was little recognized that these changes, as justifiable as they may partly be in normative terms, undermined the bases of the socio-political arrangement. they undermined democracy by de-specifying the collectivity that self-determines its rules (no longer the nation, but neither europe nor the globe) and weakening the bonds between the members of a polity. and they undermined social solidarity by withdrawing resources from the polity through fiscal and legal competition. there was a moment when europe seemed to be ready to spell out, in the proper name of europe, the core principles of its particular interpretation of modernity. the eu charter of fundamental rights, proclaimed in the year 2000 and acquiring legal force with the lisbon treaty of 2009, may be read as such a document. this charter commits the european union and its member states to individual rights, democracy, solidarity, justice. beyond binding itself, europe aims at portraying itself globally as the leading defender of these principles. but these insights arrived like minerva flying at dusk. as we witness every day, europe easily recedes from these commitments in the face of problems such as the post-2008 recession with rising unemployment and public 132 peter wagner deficits and the recent refugee crisis. importantly, it becomes increasingly clear that europe lacks criteria for applying these principles. europe is abstractly committed to democracy but has developed little sense of requirements for democratic deliberation and decision-making. on the inside, there is no self-understanding of the eu as a polity with boundaries enabling collective self-determination. towards the outside, the rhetoric welcome for apparent “democratization” through movements such as in north africa, the middle east or eastern europe replaces reflection about conditions for viable democracy. until the double strike of 2016 with the british referendum and the us elections, similarly, europe led trade-policy negotiations, such as over the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (ttip) with the usa, as if it had remained blindly committed to the idea of the enhancement of peace and the increase of the wealth of nations by expanding commerce without any consideration for negative social and environmental consequences. misconceived freedom dismantling this european organized modernity may have been unavoidable for a number of reasons. but the dismantling happened without any guidance for re-instituting european modernity in a more adequate way. the destruction of the institutions of organized modernity largely happened in the name of freedom, be it the freedom for personal self-realization hailed by “1968” or be it the freedom of the entrepreneur. but, as michel foucault recognized, “the affirmation or the empty dream of freedom” leads into misconceived “projects that claim to be global or radical”, without being so. europe has fallen into the trap of hegemonic discourse.the new horizons of individualization and globalization, in sociological terms, or of human rights and democracy, in political terms, have caught europe unprepared. they do not provide for a place for europe, which needs to be specific, circumscribed in social space and rooted in historical time, without being narrow-minded with regard to others or determined by its past. and, thus, two historical shortcomings have become clear today: in cultural-intellectual terms, first, europeans have never determined their relation to the individualist ontology promoted in the enlightenment: is it the foundation for the normative claims on which a new and better society can be built, or is it an erroneous exaggeration of concerns arising in a situation of strife and radical doubt? this cultural-intellectual ambiguity, secondly, became dangerous in political terms: the calls for freedom and self-determination derived from enlightenment ontology could be adopted by elites for their purposes arguing against existing constraints, as freedom of commerce, as freedom to buy labour-power, as freedom to transform the earth. and even though this ontology also served the dominated groups – women, workers, the colonized – to make their claims for liberation and recognition, in their resistance to elites their political proposals could turn anti-liberal, as they do today again. thus, there is a strong tension between abstract normative commitments and the requirements of the current situation, but this tension is barely recognized. we can make it more visible by briefly addressing two questions that are central for any re-interpretation of modernity for our time – of european modernity in particular, but 133changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 for modernity in other parts of the globe as well. these are the questions of historical injustice and of the need to give form to processes of collective self-determination. putting the past to rest across the nineteenth century, the notion that europe had developed universal commitments that would be applied across the globe became widespread, not least as a consequence of actual european global domination. during the first half of the twentieth century, this notion was strongly shaken and widely abandoned. after nazism and the second world war, a self-critical view on one’s own collective memory was developed, to some extent pioneered, in many european societies, in contrast to earlier notions of national pride. some european polities re-constituted themselves in the face of historical injustices experienced and committed in the past. by the 1970s and 1980s, however, this focus on self-criticism gave increasingly way to the notion that the problematic past had been overcome and could now be settled. the apparent success of european integration created the basis for a new kind of collective pride. the “transitions” from authoritarian rule in southern europe and later the exit from soviet-style socialism and the reconstitution of polities in former yugoslavia were guided by the idea that the past needed to be quickly overcome and settled to open the path for a better future. similarly, the european sense of responsibility for the former colonies, still dominant in a paternalistic way during the 1970s, gave way to a view of co-operation on equal terms with everyone responsible for oneself. in other words, the idea that socio-political organization and co-operation in the present should be based on formal equality and on a “veil of ignorance” cast over past experience became more widespread. europeans see themselves as committed to values of freedom and equality, but they behave as if everyone on the globe could act as equally free without being conditioned in the present by the consequences of past injustice. democracy but little to decide after the second world war, europe had developed a commitment to democracy that was both firm and contained. the nation was the unquestioned site of popular sovereignty, and at the same time european integration and post-colonial co-operation were emerging forms of inter-polity coordination. within the polity, the egalitarianinclusive commitment to free and universal suffrage was no longer in doubt, even though political mobilization outside institutional channels was discouraged and radical political views outlawed or marginalized. on these assumptions, democracy seemed stable. from the late 1960s onwards, however, the scenario became much more unstable. internationally, the terms of trade turned more unfavourable towards the “advanced industrial economies”, and at the same time increasing international trade permitted less keynesian-style control of the national economy. furthermore, more radical political alternatives emerged in latin america and in decolonization struggles in the name of democracy. domestically, “unconventional political participation” increased and raised concerns about a “crisis of governability”. by the end of the 20th century, these tensions had found a “solution” that satisfied the elites for a while: 134 peter wagner intensified democratic participation was accepted while at the same time collective self-determination was emptied of substance because of global interconnectedness and interdependencies. here, again, an abstract normative commitment is applied without regard for the specific circumstances. thus, such “solution” cannot be stable: because of increasing dissatisfaction, governments are regularly voted out of office; but since incoming governments continue to pursue the same policies both citizen disaffection and non-democratic leanings increase. european politics is facing an explosive situation, with ever more cases of extreme political instability and, at the same time, an inability to create new avenues of collective action through deliberation in the public sphere. generalized complacency over the past half century, the impression was grew – or returned – that europe and europeans are on the winning side of history: other societies were inclined to copy the “european model” or at least parts of it; or they aimed to join “europe” as a collectivity or polity when they had some claim to be european; or people tried – and still try – to reach europe and settle there in the search for a better life, even risking and often losing their lives. this undeniable attractiveness of europe has led to a high degree of complacency among europeans, among elites as well as across society at large. it was – and often still is – widely assumed that europeans had gotten it right, whereas others still tended to get it wrong and thus had to orient themselves towards europe. but this is an enormous misconception of the history of europe and of world-history. this view tends to separate europe from other world-regions and situate it on a higher plane. instead, the orientations of other societies and people towards europe need to be understood as expressions of europe’s embeddedness in a global setting, in two senses: on the one hand, much of the “rise of europe” is a consequence of past european world-domination and of injustice inflicted on others. while the era of domination is largely over, the consequences are still present and cannot be ignored. and on the other hand, there has never been a european model of modernity that has generally provided a superior mode of socio-political organisation, but a particular, contingent trajectory of historical experiences and interpretations derived from them, not separated from but closely entangled with the rest of the world. such insight entails the need to explore the possibility that those particular circumstances may have changed for good. a leap in european consciousness so what is to be done? clearly, no model or recipe is at hand. but the least one can say is that a leap in european consciousness is overdue that, in turn, is a precondion for more adequate collective action. an explosive mixture of complacency and disorientation reigns over europe. it concerns all core aspects of the european selfunderstanding. european democracy is not consolidated at all. it has lost its proclaimed, though rarely well practiced, historical nexus of nation and people and has not built any other 135changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 ground to stand on. the current fear of so-called populism is another version of the historical hesitations about democracy among european elites; and it is an indicator that no strong culture of democracy has developed in europe during the times of formally democratic institutions. in contrast, the way to go is to overcome the notion of democracy as a mere institution and strengthen a democratic culture that is capable of self-transformation in the light of new challenges. in economic terms, europe did develop a sense of the embedding of markets in institutional frameworks of solidarity and democracy. but it has lost the confidence in being able to keep up such frameworks under changed circumstances and has largely abandoned them without replacement. true, sustaining such frameworks requires their competent monitoring and the continuous judgement of their adequacy. but instead of at least trying to do so, states have left the direction of economic development to the use of indicators that are manipulated at will by self-enriching business elites. it is of great urgency to restore the political capacity to frame economic action. among other elements, the abandoning of political capacity was also motivated by the misconceived notion of individual freedom. not least as a consequence of historical experiences with oppression and restrictions to personal freedom, the prevailing concept of freedom has thinned out and turned increasingly individualistic. alternative notions that see freedom thriving only in connection with democracy and solidarity do exist, but the need for them to be supported by institutions rarely finds consensus any longer. and something similar, finally, happened to public religion. historically, europeans have contributed to the liberal insight that notions of revealed truth cannot be imposed. often they have done so in a half-hearted way, keeping the majority religion in institutional connection with the state, and such arrangements have increasingly been criticized in recent years. however, rather little emphasis has been given to consider the question of religion as connected to the need for meaningful self-interpretation of the situation one finds oneself in – something that cannot be done individualistically but only by mobilizing collectively available sources of meaning. a leap in european consciousness is a first step in a necessary re-interpretation of european modernity, based on experiences in both an earlier and the more recent past. the second step would need to be future-oriented. it would require a europewide public conversation about democracy, the economy, freedom and meaning in our current time. such conversation already takes place in many sites, in europe and elsewhere. but it needs to acquire momentum and focus so as to allow reorientation of public affairs. the current state of europe does not invite for much hope that this will happen soon. but without it decline becomes inevitable. barcelona, 19 january 2017 changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 107–110 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.1.092 received 1 march 2020 © 2020 andrey s. menshikov published online 10 april 2020 asmenshikov@urfu.ru book review samuel a. greene, graeme b. robertson (2019). putin v. the people. the perilous politics of a divided russia. yale university press andrey s. menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia acknowledgements this text was made possible by the support of the project “expanding disciplinary horizons: new directions in russian studies” at the center for slavic, eurasian and east european studies, university of north carolina in chapel hill. in this highly readable book the authors challenge the prevalent approach in authoritarianism studies, which focuses predominantly on the ruling elite, and aim to analyze the “relation between the russian people and their authoritarian state” (p. 5). the idea of “co-construction of power” in contemporary russia lies at the center of the book’s argument, which highlights emotional commitment to the president. the latter is as important as a repressive state apparatus in sustaining russian authoritarian regime. the authors emphasize that “the power generally ascribed to putin himself actually stems from millions of private citizens willingly acting as unprompted enforcers of putin’s power in society… through small scale social pressure” (p. 12). why do ordinary russians support their authoritarian ruler? firstly, it is important to note that over the last 20 years this support was not achieved by the same means and was not based on the same reasons. during the 2000s, the kremlin’s “goal for the most part was to keep politics away from the people and the people away from politics” (p. 25). thus, following the maxim “don’t excite the people”, the ruling elite could consolidate its power in a trade-off for economic development with the majority of the population who eagerly engaged in the individual pursuit of prosperity. however, the large protests of 2011 that ensued after the “castling” between medvedev and putin https://changing-sp.com/ 108 andrey s. menshikov challenged that strategy. now “the goal was to transform passive acceptance of putin’s rule into active participation in that rule by using tried and tested political technologies to mobilize supporters and demonize opponents” (p. 25). these technologies included creation and manipulation of ideological cleavages, or “wedge issues”, such as conflicts over “traditional values” (protection of religious feelings, “lgbt propaganda” ban); normalization and legitimation of current regime by pervasive social institutions such as school, church, employment; adjusting putin’s image and making him a symbol of the russian nation and personification of its geopolitical success. the image of the “gatherer of lands” evolved in the context of the conflict in ukraine when the crimean peninsula joined the russian federation. thus, as the authors observe, “russia emerged from the crucible of annexation and war and global geopolitical confrontation a different country: one in which support for putin would be based not on fortunes of the economy or the successes of his policies, but on emotion, on pride and on a rekindled sense of russian identity” (p. 121). secondly, this change in the strategy also required a tighter grip on the internet. by 2012, when television was already steered from the kremlin, the time was ripe to curtail the freedom of speech in the internet, to take control over major internet platforms (social network vk, ria news agency, etc.), and to deploy “troll factories,” which produced “kremlin-approved version of online reality”. thus, to use hannah arendt’s term, “a lying world of consistency” (p. 106) was constructed by both television and internet media. however, fear of repression or broadcasted lies cannot alone account for the long-term enthusiastic support for the russian president. collective “effervescence” of the russian spring would obviously have an expiry date. therefore, the authors delve deeper into the “russian soul” and use social psychology to answer the question why ordinary russians support their authoritarian ruler. with the typology of personality traits known as ocean (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism), the authors could find that “respondents who were high on agreeableness – who think of themselves as sympathetic and warm, rather than critical and quarrelsome… – were seven times more likely to vote for putin than those who were low on agreeableness, and they were four times more likely to give putin a high approval rating” (p. 147). this paradoxical finding that nicer people prefer iron-handed leadership could be explained, in the authors’ view, by three major features of the russian political landscape rather than by some innate qualities of russian character. firstly, in postsoviet russia, both before and during putin’s rule, politics is very much focused on the person of the president, “which makes criticism and disloyalty closely associated with each other” (p. 149). secondly, as was mentioned above, the russian media environment is jealously guarded and thoroughly managed by the kremlin. thirdly, real ideological divides are absent in the political arena, while nationalism is highly important (p. 151), therefore, “politicians compete in their enthusiasm for russian patriotism” (p. 151) rather than discuss specific policies or programs. on the one hand, it allows to downplay the differences among russians and to emphasize their uniqueness in contrast to, in particular, the “westerners”. on the other hand, it also changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 107–110 109 makes it very easy to stigmatize those who do not have mainstream views. thus, the “big three” of russian politics – “autocracy, state-dominated media, and nonideological, patriotic politics” (p. 152) – create a different psychological terrain in which political choices have to be made. if the decisions are made dependent on the “friend-enemy” radar, then agreeable people who care for others’ opinion about them tend to follow what they perceive as mainstream views, or rather “what they are told is patriotic, communitarian, “normal” position” (p. 152). thus, psychological conformism can account for the “social consensus around the inevitability and righteousness of putin’s rule” (p. 205). this conformism makes it “hard to think of alternatives” and raises the “costs of being critical” (ibidem). although, as the authors recognize, there is little hope for change: “for the time being... the kremlin is winning” (p. 214), autocracy in russia is not inevitable, because there is neither historical nor cultural predisposition for “strong man’s rule”. russians, like many others, value their freedoms and support freedom of speech, fair courts, and free press. moreover, potential erosion of this authoritarian consensus is not impossible. major changes can result from the discontent with the economic failures of the current regime as well as from the weariness of the lack of choice such as vasily’s “sigh of an oppressed creature” – “i don’t see anybody... nobody at all” (p. 222). finally, the opposition has developed national networks which with “the strength of the weak ties” (p. 186) might be instrumental in the next election cycle to mobilize all dissenting forces to vote for the alternative. while the hope is faint, the authors build their argument on the assumption that the change is possible and will probably come from elections. two remarks might be relevant in this context. first, it is quite clear from the interviews that russians do not regard the current opposition as an alternative (as is pointed out by the authors, p. 206). i would emphasize the difference between electoral alternatives and alternative power structures. “systemic” opposition and non-“systemic” opposition are similar in that both have the power to mobilize certain sectors of society. the foremost converts this capacity to mobilize votes into resources (offices, finances, access to media), while the latter is curbed from exercising its potential to the fullest extent prior to elections and from benefiting from some victories it incidentally achieves after the elections. however, the “real” power includes the capacity to distribute resources, to establish the rules and enforce them, which actually predates election cycles. for “ordinary” russians, the distinction, therefore, between the authorities and opposition is not merely between, as propaganda would have it, “order” and “chaos”, “stability” and “revolution”, but between “real power” and “spouters”. to become powerful, the opposition networks would have to be able to achieve more than mobilization, they would need to have the capacity to distribute resources and demonstrate a viable organizational model, and do that obviously in a hostile environment. secondly, there seems to exist a deeper moral consensus between the current authorities with their sinister origins in secret services and many “ordinary” russians. one of the interviewees justified – quite ambivalently – her support for putin the following way: “we’ve lost our position, our authority”, she [marina] said. https://changing-sp.com/ 110 andrey s. menshikov “every year they just keep pushing us down, down, humiliating us. it’s offensive. from the point of view of an ordinary citizen, well, i just think we have the wrong foreign policy. i mean, in some areas we need to be more firm. look at the soviet union, for example, which i remember, i’m of that age. because they may have called us the evil empire or whatever, but when it came to our athletes, they were always protected and nobody would dare to say a word against them. it was simply unthinkable, even though, i’m sure, they were taking those drugs back then, too. so something’s wrong with our foreign policy” (pp. 202–203). marina, disconcerted with the wrong foreign policy, sees no wrong in foul play, she seems quite unperturbed by her recognition of presumed dishonesty of russian athletes and prefers power over fairness. i believe she and the current russian authoritarian regime would agree with the game of thrones’ character cersei that “power is power”, and who ultimately wields it in russia is no secret to “ordinary” russians. changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 401–403 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.3.108 received 29 august 2020 © 2020 ekaterina s. purgina published online 9 october 2020 kathy13@yandex.ru book review sara wheeler (2019). mud and stars. travels in russia with pushkin, tolstoy, and other geniuses of the golden age. new york: pantheon books. rachel polonsky (2010). molotov’s magic lantern. journey in russian history. london: faber and faber. ekaterina s. purgina ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia published within nine years from each other by british authors with a philological background, these books have quite a lot in common, primarily, the deep love for russia – “a country which is lovable despite it all” (wheeler, p. 16). both of these books can be described as superb examples of postmodernist travelogue aiming to embrace the whole complexity of the traveler’s physical, intellectual and emotional experience (as sara wheeler puts it, the focus of her book is “a russian literal landscape, and its emotional counterpart” [wheeler, p. 16]). thus, the journey or, to be precise, multiple journeys across russia encompass not only the movements from point a to point b but also the author’s reading list, her attempts to learn russian or to cook russian dishes. in s. wheeler’s book, the latter adds a new sensory dimension to the author’s quest as she is trying to recreate russian dishes back home in the uk with the help of a recipe book compiled by an exiled russian princess and adopted for america (“a sentence in uppercase in the preface to the best of russian cooking expresses an acute source of anguish concerning the produce available in massachusetts: ‘not enough different kinds of mushrooms!’” (weeler, p. 47). https://changing-sp.com/ 402 ekaterina s. purgina both mud and stars and molotov’s magic lantern can be considered as an “intellectual” version of a footsteps travel narrative1 as their geography is organized around famed literary figures: the “big-beast russian writers of the nineteenth century” in the case of “mud and stars” or, as is the case with “molotov’s magic lantern”, in addition to poets and writers, around a diverse array of political and social leaders, spies, explorers, party functionaries, scientists and literary scholars. thus, s. wheeler’s and r. polonsky’s travels turn into a pilgrimage of sorts to places associated with the names of these famous men and women. interestingly, the figures and places can coincide in both accounts or in some cases the footsteps destination for the same writer can be different: e.g. both authors pay tribute to dostoevsky by travelling to staraya russa while for chekhov, r. polonsky goes to taganrog and s. wheeler takes the trans-siberian to travel to sakhalin. the travel across space thus turns into a travel across texts and time as multiple allusions, references and associations are invoked along the way. the latter circumstance adds complexity to the country’s imagined landscape as modern, twenty-first century russia gets mixed with nineteenth-century or soviet russia. in both cases, the travelogue presents a sophisticated narrative, brimming with facts, anecdotes, digressions, personal reminiscences and ruminations. contrary to popular preconceptions, as s. wheeler explains, she is not aiming to search for the mysterious russian soul, which is a concept that fails to capture the diversity and grandiosity of this country: “there is no such thing as the russian soul, or perhaps even russian culture – it’s too big a country: one-sixth of the earth’s landmass, and it’s too diverse and too socially divided” (wheeler, p. 16). this description agrees with that of r. polonsky, who adds to the cultural and scenic diversity a temporal dimension: in her book, different russian regions are “inhabiting” their own time as the south is associated with scythia, siberia, with prehistorical times, and so forth. this complexity and multidimensionality in terms of content and structure, however, do not make these travel books particularly reader-friendly (r. polonsky’s book is especially demanding on the reader). they do not provide “light” reading as the authors are not too eager to “play by the rules” of the genre. their insistence on juggling strangely sounding russian names of people and places may be seen as “pretentiousness”, leaving the reader confused or frustrated or both. some of the reviewers on goodreads web-site describe s. wheeler’s book as “neither fish nor fowl”, and r. polonsky’s, as “disjointed, distracting encyclopedia of russian history”. it may seem that these books should appeal simultaneously to two groups of readers: those interested in travelling and those who like russian literature and history. however, it is precisely this quality of combining the two domains that may be off-putting to the reader and that leads to these books coming across as an incoherent collection of facts or, as one of the reviewers complained on goodreads, the failure of the book “to come together”. 1 in a footsteps narrative, the traveler seeks to retrace the same route as his or her predecessor or another famous figure, that is, to follow in his or her footsteps. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 401–403 403 while for an english-speaking reader molotov’s magic lantern and mud and stars may be quite a challenge primarily due to the lack of background knowledge, which can be insufficient to trace this winding path across the russian spatio-temporal landscape, for a russian reader they may present a challenge of a different kind. since most of the figures mentioned are a part of the secondary school program in literature or history in russia, it is mostly the way these figures are approached that may be a problem. to the best of our knowledge, neither of these travel books have been translated into russian. therefore, we can only speculate about the extent and tone of the public controversy that would have surrounded their publication in contemporary russia. for example, in the case of s. wheeler’s book, it is quite likely to be seen by some as an encroachment on the russian holy of holies – the golden canon of russian literature – as she brings to light the details of the famous writers’ private lives that are considered to be inappropriate to discuss openly in the public domain. for example, the “sun of russian poetry” alexander pushkin is dealt with rather unceremoniously in the first chapter of mud and stars, which begins with the following characteristic: “alexander sergeyevich pushkin was a lugubrious, bawdy, impetuous, whoring gambler who seldom missed an opportunity to pick a fight” (wheeler, p. 18). in general, however, the book offers a refreshing perspective on these iconic figures, making them slightly less awe-inspiring but at the same time much more human. meanwhile, r. polonsky’s text may present another kind of problem: it is not the figures of the past as such that may raise objections, but mainly the period she is interested in – stalin’s purge of the thirties – as her narrative mingles together the victims and executioners. in doing so, polonsky raises some tough questions – russia’s “damned questions” – about inequality, violence and power, pointing out the connection between the monstrous regimes of the past and the present of putin’s russia. the same question, though approached from a slightly different angle, is put by wheeler as she describes the love-hate relationship between the russian writers and their home land and shows how the legacy of state violence persists in contemporary russia in “its miasma of rumor, intrigue and killing” (wheeler, p. 45). strangely enough, there are few ordinary russians in the vast panorama of the country’s life portrayed in polonsky’s book: the narrator appears to be disinclined to “go to the people”, like the narodniki did, and prefers to marvel at the twists and turns of the fates of those long dead (in some cases, e.g. mikhail khodorkovsky, they are not exactly dead but can hardly be described as “ordinary russians” either). r. polonsky’s russians, unless they are prominent and/or dead, are for the most part bleak, static and unfriendly, not much more than a backdrop for the drama of russian history. in contrast, s. wheeler gives much more consideration to russia’s everyday life: her characters inhabiting khrushchevkas, “that are as russian as cucumber”, and striving to get by are infused with a peculiar charm of their own and portrayed with warmth and humour. both of these books make an enjoyable reading, tempting one to visit (or revisit) the books and places so lovingly described. it should be noted, however, that the pleasure of reading these books is proportional to the reader’s willingness to approach them with an open mind and on their own terms rather than following her own preconceptions. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 654–668 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.154 received december 22, 2020 © 2021 olga o. andronnikova, sergey i. kudinov accepted december 16, 2021 andronnikova_69@mail.ru published online december 30, 2021 kudinov-si@rudn.ru article cognitive attitudes and biases of victim mentality olga o. andronnikova novosibirsk state pedagogical university, novosibirsk, russia sergey i. kudinov peoples’ friendship university of russia, moscow, russia abstract the research analyses cognitive attitudes and biases in people with victim mentality. the hypothesis that the study aims to test is that there is a correlation between the level of victimhood and the cognitive attitudes and biases that determine victim behaviour. methodologically, the study relies on a range of tools, including the questionnaire “predisposition to victim behaviour”, the victim mentality questionnaire, the dysfunctional attitudes scale and the adjusted rebt-test (rational emotive behaviour therapy). the study was conducted in 2018 in russia and covered a sample of 106 people: 45 male and 61 female respondents aged 20 –29. the hypothesis was confirmed and correlations were found between the type of victim behaviour, victim mentality, dysfunctional attitudes and irrational beliefs. irrational beliefs are thus considered as victimogenic determinants correlating with the level of victimhood and forms of victim behaviour. these findings can be used to develop preventive and therapeutic strategies to help patients suffering from victim mentality and related problems. keywords cognitive attitudes, cognitive patterns, cognitive biases, victimhood, victimization, victim behaviour, victim mentality https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 654–668 655 introduction despite the broad array of modern approaches to studying human cognition, the problem of victimhood and victim mentality still remains a largely underexplored issue in cognitive research. it is, therefore, necessary to gain a more in-depth understanding of the cognitive processes inherent in individual victim behaviour in order to devise the ways to prevent and correct it (falikman & spiridonov, 2011). victimhood is a set of human characteristics caused by a complex of social, psychological and biophysical conditions that exist in a cultural context and contribute to the maladaptive style of an individual’s response, which leads to the damage of their physical or mental health (andronnikova & volokhova, 2018). it is important to distinguish between victimhood and victimization: victimhood may manifest itself through a range of behaviours and can be fixed in attitudes and identity while victimization is a process leading to the development of victim mentality through qualitative changes on three levels: structural pathologies, functional disorders, and patterns of victim behaviour (andronnikova & radzikhovskaya, 2011). in recent years, the problems of victimization and victim behaviour have been analysed from different perspectives. quite often, victimization is considered as a consequence of negative events experienced by a person. such approaches, however, do not give due account to the individual characteristics of this person, which impedes the prevention of further victimization. victimhood may be seen as a socio-psychological phenomenon (rohatsen, 2019), a personality characteristic (andronnikova, 2005; strelenko, 2013), as a result of social interaction deficits (rudensky, 2018; yatsenka, 2019), as a role (odintsova, 2012), and so on. such a multitude of perspectives leads to methodological problems and creates difficulties in developing some sort of general understanding of this phenomenon. to date, there is substantial research literature discussing the factors associated with the cultural, socio-political, psychological, and biological characteristics that contribute to victimization. however, until now, the victimogenic determinants associated with one’s cognitive-personality style, temporal personality perspectives, and cognitive patterns have remained under-investigated. at the same time, there is a lack of diagnostic tools to study victimogenicity. there are almost no research tools that could be used to explore victimhood as a set of human characteristics. moreover, there is insufficient methodological support for the development of measures to prevent victimization. as of today, to prevent victimization, behaviour and family-related approaches are used, but they do not give due regard to the need to correct the cognitive attitudes underlying individual emotional reactions, mental and behavioural responses in a situation of trauma. initially, victimology functioned within the framework of criminology. with time, victimology studies became much broader and more interdisciplinary in nature. nevertheless, there is still a perceived need to shift the research focus within these studies to the field of psychology, not only the psychology of age or social psychology, but also cognitive and personality psychology. to examine the cognitive mechanisms behind victimization it is necessary to look at the influence of cognitive attitudes and https://changing-sp.com/ 656 olga o. andronnikova, sergey i. kudinov cognitive biases on the victim’s behaviour and their life choices. therefore, it is important to research the nature of victim behaviour and victimogenic cognition (victim mentality) and identify the cognitive characteristics and biases that a victim personality possesses. this is the research gap that this study seeks to address. theoretical framework currently, much attention in psychological studies is given to victimogenic factors, including cognitive biases and attitudes, which is the topic we are going to address in this paper. there is a group of recent studies dealing with the problem of cognitive attitudes in psychology (bocharova, 2019; de houwer, 2019; rasskazova et al., 2019; shamionov & grigorieva, 2018; zmigrod et al., 2019). unfortunately, they do not address the question of victim mentality. speaking of the cognitive attitude characteristic of victim mentality, it is necessary to consider the concept of cognitive “patterns” that shape such attitudes. it should be noted that there is no agreed understanding of this concept among the researchers, although almost all the studies we analysed approached cognitive “patterns” as recurring elements of thinking that humans use for problem solving or reasoning, pointing out that these patterns constitute part of human personality (volkova & gusev, 2016). the concept of cognitive patterns was used by bartlett (1932) and piaget (1950) to describe the structures that underlie event interpretation such as beliefs and rules, self-attitude and the attitude towards other, specific and/or abstract impersonal categories (beck & freeman, 2002). thus, cognitive patterns determine a person’s emotional response, thinking and behaviour (padun & tarabrina, 2003). therefore, such concepts as cognitive patterns and cognitive attitudes may define a single phenomenon, and the functionality and dysfunctionality of patterns and attitudes will thus be determined by the degree of their influence on the social adaptability of a particular person. the patterns have additional structural qualities, and differ in the degree of their activation at different moments. in the case of a pathological condition, the “pattern” becomes hypervalent, occupies the dominant position and suppresses other patterns, thereby violating the adaptation and determining systemic biases in the information processing (linehan, 1993). in this context, a person may be seen as a fairly stable organization consisting of behaviour systems and forms that determine the specificity of the process of receiving the stimuli leading to a response (janoff-bulman, 1992; olson, 1994). hypervalent active patterns filled with victimhood content (for example, beliefs about life’s unfairness and injustice, one’s helplessness, etc.) mediate the stable adaptive responses that ensure a person’s victim behaviour and their self-identification as a victim. when individual patterns have a very low activation threshold, they are triggered by insignificant incentives and prevent the use of the patterns that are more adaptive to a given situation. in fact, we can speak of the impaired cognitive “flexibility”—the ability of cognitive mechanisms to be updated in response to the changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 654–668 657 changing environment (osavoliuk & kurginyan, 2018). the impaired behavioural flexibility means the inability to activate and transform the cognitive processes in response to the changing conditions, which leads to the inability of a person to independently change the usual way of perceiving information and regulating behaviour (deák, 2004) as well as the inability to explain life events (dennis & vander wal, 2010). due to the low activation threshold and impaired flexibility, an individual’s beliefs within the pattern increase, then become unconditional, and finally take an extreme maladaptive form. as a result, those individual struggles have difficulties in establishing adequate personal boundaries. this situation is additionally exacerbated by the history of childhood trauma, emotional neglect and broken emotional bonds with the closest people, leading to a cognitive impairment that occurs when the mechanisms of assimilation and accommodation described by piaget (1950) are disrupted. in other words, a child finds it difficult to assimilate a traumatic experience, but even more difficult is the accommodation of the pattern to this experience (padun & tarabrina, 2003). janoff-bulman and mcpherson frantz (1997) studied the structural and contentrelated change in the cognitive patterns of those who survived a psychological trauma. traumatic events have led to changes in these people’s “basic beliefs”. janoff-bulman and mcpherson frantz described the characteristics of these changes depending on the type of trauma and proposed a therapy aimed at restoring the basic beliefs. in their research on the consequences of child abuse, weismoore and esposito-smythers (2010) focus on the role of cognitive distortions and a low selfesteem. according to weismoore and esposito-smythers, the cognitive biases (overgeneralization and selective abstraction) mediate the prevalence of nonsuicidal self-harm as a way of coping with overwhelming emotions that arise from the perception of the world as a threatening place. miller et al. (2017) point out that the cognitive biases (the negative cognitive triad and cognitive distortions) increase (or decrease) the effects of dating violence. the negative cognitive triad is defined as the negative views of oneself, of the world, and the future. the cognitive distortions that usually develop in adolescence and stabilize in early adulthood (romens et al., 2009) include catastrophizing, overgeneralization, personalization, and selective abstraction. romens et al. (2009) consider cognitive distortions as the basis for cognitive vulnerability that leads to the risk of suicide. these results are supported by wolff et al. (2014). in psychology, studies of victim personality (see, for example, aquino & byron, 2002; braiker, 2004; sykes, 1992) connect it with the phenomenon of victim mentality that evolves within the family system and shapes the idea of oneself and the social situation. according to sykes (1992), helplessness and suffering experienced by a child lead to the emergence of a specific sacrificial mentality characterized by the need for compassion, sympathy, revenge and a sense of undeserved resentment. aquino and byron (2002) pointed out the following behavioural tendencies that may be predictive of perceived victimization in workgroups: the tendency to arouse other people’s compassion; the exaggeration of harm to oneself in various situations, sometimes catastrophizing harm or situation complexity; a sense of the world injustice https://changing-sp.com/ 658 olga o. andronnikova, sergey i. kudinov in relation to oneself; accusing others of creating the situations when victims had to work hard to compensate for the damage, etc. thus, the studies of victim mentality as a manifestation of specific cognitive processes indicate such obvious distortions connected to the perception of oneself and the world as catastrophizing, exaggerating consequences or difficulties and helplessness. considering cognitive biases characteristic of a person with a victim mentality, it is necessary to mention the phenomenon described by linehan (1993) as the “just-world hypothesis”. this protective mechanism mediates the state of security associated with the belief that everything that happens to a person is the result of their actions and that they can protect themselves by following the rules. in their study of the phenomenon of beliefs in justice, rubin and peplau (1973) found that it is characteristic of authoritarian and conservative people and also leads to a negative assessment of those who, for whatever reason, are discriminated. in their study of justice attitudes, harvey and callan (2014) also point out the relationship between the low self-esteem and people’s tendency to perceive negative situations and experiences as natural. their findings are supported by the research by callan et al. (2014), who discovered that in real life the participants’ beliefs about seeing themselves as “the ones who deserve bad results” mediate the relationship between their self-esteem and a variety of self-destructive thoughts and behaviour (for example, self-deception, thoughts about self-harm). this means that victim mentality and low self-esteem caused by traumatic experiences make a person consider negative life events as “being deserved” and thus render him or her unable to overcome the negative attitude on their own. these beliefs will lead to self-defeating beliefs and behaviours and to specific choices in various situations resulting in further victimization. this cognitive attitude (perception of oneself as deserving good or bad outcomes) determines the types of responses to unhappiness and, as a result, can shape the trajectory of well-being. this assumption is supported by büssing and fischer (2009). thus, the just-world hypothesis and low self-esteem are also characteristic of people with a high level of victimhood. while considering the victim’s cognitive attitudes, one cannot ignore the concept of “irrational beliefs”, which albert ellis and catharine maclaren (2008) defined as the attitudes that have no objective grounds and result in strong emotional responses. their research methodology is suitable for diagnosing cognitive attitudes constitutive of victim personality and thus will provide the theoretical framework for our further analysis. unlike the studies cited above, we aim to take a more comprehensive approach and use as a point of departure the assumption that cognitive biases mediate the occurrence of negative consequences of life events and engender specific ways of perceiving the world. the resulting hypothesis to be tested in this study is that there is a correlation between the level of victimhood and the irrational beliefs that determine the nature of victim behaviour. we have identified the following cognitive attitudes related to victim response types and victim mentality: the just-world beliefs, perceiving oneself as deserving negative events in the future, catastrophizing negative events or damage, the basic beliefs related to learned helplessness and excessive self-demands. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 654–668 659 materials and methods the purpose of this research is to study the cognitive biases in victim thinking. the victim’s behavioural manifestations that arise as stable models are based on the cognitive attitudes, which determine the person’s emotional response, thinking and behaviour in a traumatic situation. our study covered a sample of 106 specialists in psychological counselling: 45 male and 61 female respondents aged 20–29 (the gender imbalance of the sample was determined by the gender imbalance inherent in the profession). all of the respondents were russian. 15% of the respondents had secondary vocational education; 45% higher education; and 40% were enrolled in master’s studies. all the respondents gave their voluntary informed consent to participate in the research. the research was conducted in 2018 and was divided into several stages. within these stages the ideas about the overall design of the study were formed, the assumptions about possible cognitive characteristics of victim personality were discussed and substantiated, the research methods were selected and the data were collected and analysed. to test the hypothesis, we used a range of methodological and diagnostic tools. the first was the questionnaire “predisposition to victim behaviour” (andronnikova, 2005). this is a standardized self-report inventory (86 questions), which measures the respondent’s predisposition to certain forms of victim behaviour understood as a set of behavioural characteristics that increase the likelihood of the person’s falling victim to an accident, crime or unfortunate circumstances. since behaviour is determined by attitudes, we are going to focus on the latter. the methodology comprises seven scales: “predisposition to aggressive victim behaviour”; “predisposition to self-harming and self-destructive behaviour”; “predisposition to hypersocial behaviour”; “predisposition to addictive and helpless behaviour”; “predisposition to uncritical behaviour”; “predisposition to passive victim behaviour” and “realized victimhood”. the score of expert test validity is 0.78; the score of the method’s retest reliability, 0.79. the second tool was the victim mentality questionnaire (andronnikova & radzikhovskaya, 2011), which comprises 24 questions and is used to identify social and personal beliefs that form the structure of a person’s self-concept. the score of expert test validity is 0.63; the score of the method’s retest reliability, 0.67. the third tool is the dysfunctional attitude scale developed by beck & weisman adjusted by zakharova (zakharova, 2013). this scale is used to study the cognitive biases that underlie inappropriate emotional responses and psychogenic disorders. it contains 40 statements rated on a 7-point scale. the reliability coefficient is 0.77. the test developed by albert ellis as part of rational emotive behaviour therapy (rebt) and adjusted for the russian context by andrey kameniukin is applied to investigate cognitive biases (kameniukin & kovpak, 2008). ellis’s test contains 50 questions and 6 scales, 4 of which are the main scales and correspond to 4 groups of irrational beliefs: “catastrophizing”, “self-demandingness”, “demandingness to others”, “low frustration tolerance”, and “global evaluation”. https://changing-sp.com/ 660 olga o. andronnikova, sergey i. kudinov the study was conducted in accordance with the following procedure. first, all the respondents completed the victim mentality questionnaire and the questionnaire results were used to select participants of the focus group while the respondents with no victim mentality were included into the control group. at the second stage, other tools were applied (“predisposition to victim behaviour”; dysfunctional attitude scale; and the rebt test). mathematical processing of the resulting data was conducted by means of the ρ —spearman’s correlation coefficient for the high victim mentality group and the mann–whitney u-test for the two independent groups. we conducted comparative analysis (mann-whitney u-test) comparing the results of the groups, by looking at the strength of victim behavioural tendencies and realized victimhood. the correlation analysis to identify the correlation between victimhood and cognitive biases was carried out for each group. the mann-whitney and r-pearson criteria were chosen because the features are presented on a nonparametric scale, more specifically, on the order scale. results at the first stage of the study, we found that 29% of the respondents manifested strong signs of victim mentality (31 people). these respondents were included into the focus group for further research, and the other respondents formed the control group. we assumed that a person with victim mentality has the corresponding cognitive victimogenic characteristics that reduce their adaptability and make them more vulnerable in dangerous situations. for this group, we studied the level of realized victimhood and the typical forms of victim behaviour. according to the results of comparative analysis (mann–whitney u-test), respondents with victim mentality demonstrate much higher scores on the scale of “realized victimhood” ( p ≤ 0.01). this scale shows how often the respondents find themselves in the role of victim in different situations, e.g., in situations that threaten their life, social status, or health, because they display behavioural patterns that ultimately make them victims. comparison of the respondent groups according to the chosen victim behaviour parameters also showed a significant difference on the scales “predisposition to aggressive victim behaviour” ( p ≤ 0.01) and “predisposition to dependent and helpless behaviour” ( p ≤ 0.05). thus, people with victim mentality tend to demonstrate aggressive behaviour and end up in unpleasant or even in health or life-threatening situations. aggression may take the form of an open attack or a provocation by means of “conflict generators”— offensive remarks, mocking comments, etc. in their behaviour, these people demonstrate irascibility, dominance, predisposition to anger and irritability, low frustration tolerance and readiness to change the situation violently. another type of victimhood responses that prevail among the respondents in this group is related to their learned helplessness. the application of the dysfunctional attitude scale methodology has also brought some interesting results: we found a difference between the groups of respondents (p ≤ 0.05), which indicates that respondents with victim mentality are prone to or have changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 654–668 661 already encountered neurotic disorders, whereas they possess a limited ability to control their thoughts. ellis’s methodology was used to identify the irrational beliefs that are more characteristic of the respondents with victim mentality. the correlation analysis in the group of respondents with victim mentality showed a correlation between the type of victim behaviour, dysfunctional attitudes, and irrational beliefs (see tables 1 and 2). the correlations between victim mentality, dysfunctional attitudes and irrational beliefs are presented in table 1. victim mentality correlates with the “frustration tolerance” scale: the higher is the level of frustration tolerance; the lower is the level of victim mentality. this result confirms our assumption that psychological work with victim individuals may target frustration tolerance. the analysis of the correlation between the dysfunctional attitudes scale and the victim mentality questionnaire shows that there is a direct correlation between the scales manifested in the intensity of dysfunctional attitudes (including psychopathological neurotic symptoms) in the situation of self-identification as a victim. moreover, we found a correlation between the level of dysfunctional attitudes and the “self-demandingness” scale (–0.267, р = 0.049), which can be interpreted as a sign of neurotic self-demands, self-criticism and dependence on other people combined with pronounced dysfunctional attitudes. the correlations detected through the rebt methodology and the questionnaire “predisposition to victim behaviour” are shown in table 2. the predisposition to aggressive behaviour correlates with the catastrophizing attitude. there is a tendency towards a similar correlation for neurotic self-demandingness that leads to excessive stress, perfectionism and, finally, aggression. moreover, there is a connection to the parameter “global evaluation”, which can be interpreted as anger in response to being criticized. thus, the tendency to exaggerate the gravity of a situation or event (catastrophizing); to fixate on negative fantasies and to place excessive self-demands lead to increased aggression in interpersonal relationships and victimization. the scale “global evaluation” correlates with the scales “predisposition to aggressive victim behaviour”, “predisposition to self-harming and self-destructive behaviour” and “predisposition to uncritical behaviour”. in this case, it would be logical to suggest that global evaluation mediates the whole personality perception, which results in a low level of criticality in situation assessment and the inability to demonstrate an active coping behaviour (learned helplessness). the choice of a certain victim behaviour type in this case can be mediated by other factors such as the parenting type or personal characteristics. this question, however, falls outside the scope of this research and requires further exploration. the scale “predisposition to self-harming and self-destructive behaviour” reliably correlates with the scale “neurotic demandingness to others”. it is possible that an unreasonably high level of demandingness to others leads to frustration and auto-aggression as a result of the person’s inability to remake the world. https://changing-sp.com/ 6 6 2 o lga o . a ndronnikova, s ergey i. k udinov table 1 correlation analysis of the data of the victim mentality questionnaire, rebt test, and dysfunctional attitudes scale irrational beliefs dysfunctional attitudes scale victim mentality catastrophizing self-demandingness demandingness to others low frustration tolerance global evaluation 0.136 p > 0.05 – 0.080 p > 0.05 0.023 p > 0.05 –0.363 р = 0.002 0.008 р > 0.05 0.264 р = 0.021 table 2 correlation analysis of the data of the rebt test and questionnaire “predisposition to victim behaviour” irrational beliefs predisposition to victim behaviour predisposition to aggressive victim behaviour predisposition to self-harming and self-destructive behaviour predisposition to hypersocial behaviour predisposition to addictive and helpless behaviour predisposition to uncritical behaviour realized victimhood catastrophizing –0.331р = 0.034 – 0.133 р > 0.05 – 0.251 р > 0.05 – 0.242 р > 0.05 – 0.154 р > 0.05 – 0.061 р > 0.05 self-demandingness –0.271р = 0.02 – 0.106 р > 0.05 –0.269 р = 0.021 –0.326 р = 0.026 – 0.181 р > 0.05 – 0.181 р > 0.05 demandingness to others – 0.193 р > 0.05 –0.261 р=0.023 – 0.142 р > 0.05 – 0.254 р > 0.05 – 0.243 р > 0.05 – 0.171 р > 0.05 low frustration tolerance 0.062 р > 0.05 – 0.207 р > 0.05 0.035 р > 0.05 – 0.123 р > 0.05 – 0.071 р > 0.05 –0.254 р = 0.03 global evaluation –0.271р = 0.02 – 0.219 р > 0.05 – 0.192 р > 0.05 –0.346 р = 0.0001 –0.329 р = 0.0002 – 0.147 р > 0.05 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 654–668 663 at the level of tendencies, the “predisposition to hypersocial behaviour” scale correlates with the “catastrophizing” scale (the more dangerous the situation is, the more important it is to help others) and the “self-demandingness” scale. the scale “predisposition to addictive and helpless behaviour” correlates with the same scales and there is a tendency to have neurotic expectations from others, which supports the individual’s own infantile aspirations. uncritical behaviour is associated with the same scale—“neurotic demandingness to others”—at the level of statistical tendencies. quite predictably, we have also found a correlation between the scales “low frustration tolerance” and “realized victimhood”. discussion the analysis of the results and their comparison with the previous research reveal several important aspects of the cognitive attitude constitutive of a victim’s personality. firstly, the correlation between “low frustration tolerance” and “realized victimhood” scales has been confirmed, which supports our assumption that a person with a high level of realized victimhood tends to rely predominantly on irrational beliefs and is often unable to critically assess the situation. the catastrophizing attitude correlates with a person’s predisposition to aggressive victim behaviour, mostly of a defensive type. “demandingness to others” has a strong correlation with the predisposition to self-harming and self-destructive behaviour. special attention should be paid to such attitudes as self-demandingness that strongly correlates with the three scales of victim behaviour (predisposition to addictive and helpless behaviour, predisposition to hypersocial behaviour and predisposition to aggressive victim behaviour), and explains how chronic self-dissatisfaction and low self-esteem reinforce the victim’s behavioural forms and the anticipation of punishment rather than reward. this explanation is supported by the findings of wood et al. (2009) on emotional regulation, self-esteem and social justice. they have identified low self-esteem and negative emotional states in people who place high demands on themselves and consider themselves unworthy. callan et al. (2014) established the correlation between the negative experience, the subsequent devaluation of an individual and the formation of self-destructive beliefs and self-destructive behaviour. they proved that negative life experiences, no matter how random they might be, can lead to changes in self-esteem and become the basis for victim behaviour. the “global evaluation” scale, which reflects negative self-perception, has a strong correlation with the scales of victim behaviour (predisposition to addictive and helpless behaviour, predisposition to uncritical behaviour, predisposition to aggressive victim behaviour), which indicates the correlation between low self-esteem and the perception of unhappiness, which a person sees as resulting from their previous bad deeds. our research data confirm harvey and callan’s findings (2014) about the connection between the victim value level and the fairness justification type. they argue that a victim who has a low social value (a criminal, for example) is considered as a person who deserves punishment, whereas the one who has a high social value (a good person) is not seen https://changing-sp.com/ 664 olga o. andronnikova, sergey i. kudinov as deserving the misfortunes that have happened to them. this idea is supported by callan et al. (2014), who found out that people who are firmly convinced that they deserve bad things happening to them demonstrate a more pernicious behaviour, including self-deception, a desire to get a negative assessment from their close people and a search for negative reviews about their work. according to büssing and fischer (2009), the feeling of being unworthy of good things can underlie the types of human responses to unhappiness and, as a result, can determine the trajectory of well-being and recovery on condition that a disease is considered as a punishment. a fixed negative idea of oneself as a person who is incapable of protecting themselves (learned helplessness), reliance on evaluative biases in perception of other people, and exaggeration of negative consequences are described in studies about people with victim mentality (see, for example, büssing & fischer, 2009; callan et al., 2014). thus, our study confirms the assumption that a victim’s behaviour patterns are based on their cognitive attitudes, which opens avenue for further research. therefore, there is a need for a new look at the organization of counselling and therapeutic support for people who struggle with the victim mentality. the initial stage of victim mentality requires us to identify the cognitive attitudes that underlie the person’s disturbed selfimage and low self-esteem. then, based on the cognitive attitudes identified at the previous stage, it is necessary to plan the counselling process aimed at building up cognitive consistency: to reduce the non-adaptive pattern hyper-valence an develop new response patterns; to work out the victim content of the cognitive patterns, for example, to uproot irrational beliefs about the world’s injustice, catastrophizing; to increase response flexibility; to create non-victim attitudes and more appropriate behavioural patterns. finally, it is necessary to help people with victim mentality form a healthier selfesteem by means of their consistent immersion into positive self-esteem experiences. conclusions the theoretical analysis of the research on victim behaviour and cognitive features of victim personality has led us to define new approaches to counselling and therapeutic supervision of people with victim mentality. our research findings can be used to develop new ways to reduce victimhood by correcting the underlying cognitive biases. we assume that the irrational beliefs can be considered as victimogenic determinants correlating with both the level of victimhood and an individual’s forms of victim behaviour. however, this assumption requires further research. in this study, we showed that a person displaying different types of victim behaviour has a corresponding set of cognitive distortions. to develop preventive measures aimed at the reduction of the realized victimhood level, it is necessary to take into account the existing thinking patterns and specific cognitive biases characteristic of this or that patient. the empirical findings of this study confirm the initial hypothesis and indicate areas for further research on this topic. the research results can be used to develop measures aimed at preventing and reducing the level of victimhood in patients. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 654–668 665 references andronnikova, o. o. 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(2019). cognitive inflexibility predicts extremist attitudes. frontiers in psychology, 10, article 989. https://doi. org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00989 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-009-9452-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.03.016 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2014.03.016 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012881 http://vestnik.shgpi.edu.ru/journal/article/view/331 http://vestnik.shgpi.edu.ru/journal/article/view/331 https://sibac.info/conf/pedagog/xxix/33255 https://sibac.info/conf/pedagog/xxix/33255 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00989 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00989 changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 528–541 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.115 received 4 june 2020 © 2020 olga v. zalesskaia accepted 25 november 2020 olgazalesskaya@gmail.com published online 29 december 2020 article chinese migration and cross-border practices in the russian-chinese interaction in the far east: four stages of intercultural dialogue olga v. zalesskaia blagoveshchensk state pedagogical university, blagoveshchensk, russia abstract russian-chinese interaction in the far east covers relations between the two largest world civilizations: russia and china. one of its most important features is chinese migration in the russian far eastern (rfe) border region. this article analyzes the role and importance of chinese migration as an integral component of the sino-russian cross-border interactions that has had varied effects over the past century and a half. chinese migration is an indispensable condition for the emergence and development of cross-border practices in the rfe and the presence and economic activity of chinese migrants ensures the continued development of forms of cross-border interaction and, in general, the dialogue between the cultures. to substantiate this thesis, systemic and historical-chronological methods are used to analyze a significant amount of factual and statistical material accumulated by historical research in the works of russian and chinese historians and social researchers. keywords chinese migration, russian-chinese interaction, cross-border practices, the far east, intercultural dialogue https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 528–541 529 introduction sino-russian relations have an over four-century history. today, contacts between russia and china have become not only a part of global international relations, but also an essential component of an inter-civilizational convergence (myasnikov, 2017, p. 11). this makes new research on the history of this relationship – particularly in the russian far east (rfe) – increasingly important. russian-chinese interaction in the far east began to develop in the second half of the 19th century. after the signing of the aigun1 and beijing treaties2, there was a wave of russian migration from europe to the southern territories of the russian far east. through the development of agricultural, industry, and transport in this border territory, the two civilizations began to converge. it was here that russian-chinese interaction was the greatest. at the same time, chinese migrants in the russian far east formed one a distinct, but related subgroup. this chinese migration flow, which began in the 19th century, has today become an integral part of the rfe’s socio-economic life. and today more than ever, the economic activity and the peculiarities of the interactions of this chinese migrant population with the russian population continues to have a direct impact on the development of russian-chinese cooperation at all levels. consequently, the study of chinese migration continues to be important for the russian state. over the past 150 years, chinese migration to the rfe has been the most important element in determining sino-russian relations. several cross-border practices in the rfe are important to consider here. nevertheless, ethnic and migration studies remain “a rag-tag field”, defined by one scholar as “a ragged field of study, not an intellectually unified discipline” (detona et al., 2019, p. 7). scholars have mainly studied the socio-economic aspects of the chinese migration to the rfe, as well as the peculiarities of the chinese migrants’ legal status. yet the daily interactions of the russian population and chinese migrants, including cross-border practices and dialogue has not yet sufficiently been analyzed. the purpose of the current article is to analyze the role of chinese migration in the rfe border area as an integral part of cross-border sino-russian practices. throughout the long history of sino-russian relations in the rfe, a cultural dialogue between these two unique cultures has unfolded. while this dialogue is not an explicit part of the common understanding of either culture, it has been recognized to have important effects (ornatskaya, 2014, pp. 51–52). the current article explores this dialogue through everyday actions and interactions, i.e., situated discursive practices (linell, 2004, pp. 7–9). 1 the aigun treaty, which was concluded on may 16 (28), 1858, established the russian-chinese border, and legally assigned to russia the areas in the amur region. the russians claimed the territory on the left bank of the amur river to the sea, while the chinese claimed the right bank. the exclusive rights of russian and chinese vessels to sail on the amur, sungari, and ussuri rivers was also established. 2 the beijing treaty, which was concluded on november 2 (14), 1860, finally secured for russia the ussuri territory. the western border between the two countries was also fixed with this treaty. moreover, russia received the right to duty-free trade along the entire eastern border. https://changing-sp.com/ 530 olga v. zalesskaia this dialogue is most obvious in the rfe border, where, due to the geographical proximity of russian and china, maximum rapprochement occurs. the ongoing contact of these two cultures is highly interdependent in this region and could be interrupted only by force. at the same time, the rfe – traditionally conceived of in russia as a region far from the central russia, and thus already alienated from russian culture in general – is a peripheral area, remote from the cultural and economic centers of both countries. cross-border practices thus flourish here are considered to be forms of interaction that exceed each state individually. this article argues that chinese migration is an indispensable condition for the emergence and development of the cross-border practices in the rfe. the presence and economic activities of chinese migrants not only ensure the development of diverse forms of cross-border interaction; they are also integral in fostering of cultural dialogue and cultural diffusion. a system method was used in this study. this allows me to analyze chinese migration as a subject of the formation of social cross-border practices of russianchinese interaction in the rfe territories across cultural, historical and geopolitical contexts, and, at the same time, as a coherent system with its own development and homeostasis. furthermore, a historical-chronological method allows me to consider sino-russian relations through the prism of the chinese migration’s effect on the development and transformation of the rfe. historical stages of the intercultural dialogue between russia and china in the russian far east stage one–“creation”: the middle of the 19th century through the beginning of the 20th centuries. completely new patterns were formed in this period of the russian empire’s development of the rfe in the wake of the aigun and beijing treaties. these new patterns crystallized in the emerging contact zone of the rfe border. it was here that chinese migration flows increased the most. william petersen has called this migration an “impelled migration” (petersen, 1958, p. 262): in the middle of the 19th century, the invasion of china by imperialist powers and its transformation into a semi-colonial country led to the emergence of a layer of chinese coolies who went to work outside their homeland and made up a significant part of chinese migration. by 1897, there were 43,000 chinese citizens in the rfe (wishnick, 2002, p. 42). during this time, chinese migrants began to engage actively in the economic life of the region where there was previously a shortage of labor. the settlement of the region by ethnic russians from the west, however, was slow. from 1861–1891 about 43,000 immigrants arrived in the amur and primorye regions. the russians had followed a military-strategic orientation to the settlement of the rfe which resulted in a mixed population of cossacks, peasants, and prospectors, but very few workers (krushanov, 1991, pp. 32–34). this set the stage for an influx of chinese workers because of the exceptional proximity of the region to china. according to official data, the number of chinese prospectors in the mines of the mountainous districts changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 528–541 531 of amur, primorye, and transbaikalia in 1910 reached 25,000 people (ossendovsky, 1916, p. 20). chinese labor was widely used in the construction of railways. so, in 1892–1916, 200,000 chinese people worked on the construction of the trans-siberian railway (li, 2006, p. 121). because of socio-economic and geopolitical factors, chinese migration to the rfe became a hotspot for russian-chinese interaction, foreign trade, and chinese small to medium business. in 1910, in the primorsky and amur regions, there were 4,267 chinese trading enterprises with a total exchange of more than 25 million rubles (gravje, 1912, p. 362), or 185 million us dollars. chinese migration also led to the emergence of a host of illegal and semi-illegal activities that have long been rooted in the rfe: smuggling, honghuzies3, opiate smoking, horse stealing, poaching, and espionage. furthermore, the chinese population at this time started to stratify itself into specific trades and professions from merchants, workers, and artisans to tradesmen and smugglers. this influx of chinese migrants also led to significant cultural exchange. russian settlers became more acquainted with the chinese traditions. there is evidence that the russian urban population decorated their houses in chinese-style dwellings (petrov, 2003, pp. 754–755) and great interest in vladivostok grew because of the chinese celebration of the chinese new year in that city. moreover, since the end of the 19th century, chinese theaters have been an important part of settlements in the rfe. in vladivostok, for example, there were three chinese theaters by the end of the 19th century, and in khabarovsk, there were two theaters. in return, the chinese people showed interest in the russian language and culture. they visited russian libraries, theaters, museums, and concerts, and attended russian language courses or hired tutors. among the 1,987 people who visited the museum of the troitskosavskokyakhtinsky branch of the amur department of the imperial russian geographical society in 1904, 520 were chinese (26.2% of the total number of visitors). chinese children also had the opportunity to learn russian in the “vladivostok nikolayevsk city russian-chinese school” (opened in 1897 in vladivostok), which the chinese city society organization helped create. at the school, chinese children studied alongside russians. in 1899, there were 75 russian children at the school, 15 chinese children, and 5 children of russian koreans. the school also taught russian children chinese (petrov, 2003, pp. 702–705, 729, 755). the development of russian-chinese intercultural interaction was facilitated by the opening in 1899 of the eastern institute in vladivostok, where the teaching of sinology disciplines was pioneered in russia. among the faculty of the institute were several chinese professors. the activities of the institute made a great contribution to the development of scientific contacts between russia and china, and surely contributed to the cultural interpenetration of the two peoples and the formation of their inter-civilization relations. it must be emphasized that during this historical stage the rfe region was seen as part of periphery by both cultures. this peripherality had a direct impact on the 3 the participants of armed groups, which had operated in manchuria since the middle of the 19th century until 1949, were called honghuzies (from the chinese “honghuzi” – “red-bearded”). they were mostly either bankrupt migrants, or the chinese fleeing to manchuria from hard labor. https://changing-sp.com/ 532 olga v. zalesskaia development of cross-border contacts. the rfe regional authorities were entrusted with migration control and regulation of migrants’ activities; however, as there was no developed migration legislation, serious difficulties and problems arose. this situation was aggravated by the impossibility of accurately registering chinese migrants (because of shortcomings in statistical work); the isolation of the chinese community; and, at the same time, the mobility of the chinese; illegal chinese penetration into russian territory; and the cultural specifics of chinese names and surnames. local regional authorities were thus largely left alone to make decisions about chinese migrants. the committee on the settlement of the far east, established in 1909, developed measures to limit the influx of chinese migrants. the fee for a passing certificate or visa was increased and the use of chinese labor in military and railway construction was prohibited. these measures, as well as “the law about some restrictions on foreigners” (established on june 21, 1910), which prohibited the hiring of foreign nationals with treasury funds, only slightly reduced the number of chinese workers in the rfe. in 1910 before these measures there were 42,500 chinese workers in the rfe according to official figures (70% of the total number of russian workers), while in 1911 there were 36,200 workers (about 50%). however, less than a month after the adoption of this law, significant concessions were made. for example, §4 of the law gave the council of ministers the right to allow foreigners to perform urgent work (in case of a shortage of russian workers). this made it possible for many departments to obtain permits to hire chinese workers for construction and other works (romanova, 2000, p. 87). importantly, these restrictive measures were applied before the outbreak of world war i. on july 25, 1914, the tsarist government temporarily allowed chinese people to work at enterprises. subsequently, the number of chinese workers increased once again. by october 1917, there were about 500,000 chinese people in russia, including more than 200,000 in the rfe (li, 1996, p. 6; yin, 1997, p. 32). in general, this first historical stage saw a fairly stable development of crossborder practices. the field of interaction between chinese and russian populations expanded, and more forms of cultural contact became routine. due to civilizational differences, the chinese migrants did not seek to assimilate into russian society, but they did actively contribute to the socio-economic processes of the rfe. stage two – “conversion”: 1918–1938. the second stage was not long, but it was exceptionally. after october 1917, a new stage in sino-russian relations began. the new chinese migrants to soviet territory were now considered to be useful as participants in the upcoming class battles – particularly as the soviet leadership oriented itself toward the implementation of a world socialist revolution. chinese migrants on russian territory thus became an important element of the soviet national policy system. the policy regarding chinese migrants was developed in accordance with the programmatic guidelines of the ruling communist party. one goal was to use “revolutionary” chinese migrants in the implementation of socialist revolutions across asia. to achieve this aim, varieties of methods were used. first, an international consciousness for the chinese workers was needed. protecting the changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 528–541 533 rights of chinese migrants on soviet territory was seen as integral to the process of introducing chinese migrants to the revolutionary transformations in russia and further internationalist education. in april 1917, the union of chinese citizens in russia was created in petrograd. in december 1918, it was renamed the union of chinese workers. by the middle of 1920, the union included more than 50,000 people and had branches in samara, saratov, kiev, murmansk, vyatka, chelyabinsk, tashkent, yekaterinburg, tomsk, krasnoyarsk, irkutsk, blagoveshchensk, chita, khabarovsk, vladivostok, and other soviet cities (lin, 1994, pp. 101–102). under the leadership of the union, schools for political literacy were created; lectures were given; and communist cells were organized. on june 25, 1920, the central organizing bureau (csc) of the chinese communists in russia was created, which carried out propaganda work among the chinese workers living in russia. about 1,600 chinese attended a course at the university of chinese workers, while at the communist university of the east workers there were about 500 participants. chinese revolutionaries also had opportunities to get involved with the frunze military academy, the tolmachev military-political academy, the higher artillery school, the flight military theoretical school, the international leninist school, and the central komsomol school (pantsov, 2001, pp. 230–231, 237). in 1918–1922, the cardinal socio-economic and political transformations took place in the rfe. regions and governments changed kaleidoscopically during the civil war. in this difficult situation, however, the flows of chinese migrants and their economic activities in the rfe border region continued. because of a shortage of russian workers, there was need for chinese labor. during the civil war and intervention, the rfe’s ties with the central industrial regions were severed, so the russian population needed chinese food and industrial goods more than usual. the successive authorities had their own approaches to regulating soviet relations with the chinese people. in the amur labor socialist republic, chinese migrants were given equal rights as russians. during the years of the far eastern republic (fer), the chinese, who were regarded as a national minority there, were granted the right to create cultural-national autonomy. enshrined in art. 121 of the fer constitution, this right proclaimed: “all the national minorities in the territory of the republic shall be granted autonomy in matters pertaining to their national culture.” (constitution of the far eastern republic, 1921, p. 54). according to the constitution of the fer, two conditions were important for the development of cultural-national autonomy: (a) that chinese migrants be guaranteed all the rights as any other citizens of the fer, and (b) that they were also given the opportunity to preserve their distinctive and traditional characteristics. during the fer period, guidelines were also set for future regulation of russian-chinese interaction. chinese migrants were tacitly divided into “working people” – who needed to be internationalized and revolutionized – and “entrepreneurs” – or those that were not considered as the future revolutionary vanguard in the east and who were allowed to continue their economic activities in the rfe because of the socio-economic situation of the region and because of the historical practices of interaction between the population of two countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 534 olga v. zalesskaia in 1918–1922, cross-border practices were supplemented by an additional component: chinese migrants, who participated in the civil war in russia and, who upon returning to their homeland, passed on revolutionary experience and revolutionary ideas. the chinese people fought in the red guard units of the grodekovsky, ussuriysky, daursky, and other fronts, as well as participated in the liberation of primorye. the names of the leaders of the chinese armed groups (e.g., chen bochuan, sun jiwu, wang yingzu, san hu, yang dehai, li po, a. songfu, sheng chenghuo, and others) are still famous across russia. in total, there were 30,000–40,000 chinese people in the red army during the civil war (kheifets, 1959, p. 79; li, 1979, p. 42; li, 1987, p. 230). after the civil war and intervention, large-scale work to implement the principles of soviet national policy in the rfe was begun. chinese migrants were granted the rights of a national minority in the soviet state. chinese newspapers were organized; the latin alphabet was spread among chinese workers; and clubs were opened (in the late 1920s, in the rfe there were six clubs for eastern asian workers, with a total of 1,945 mainly chinese members) (state archive of the khabarovsk region, fond p-2, inv.11, file 193, p. 17). party education courses were also organized and libraries for chinese workers were created. the organization of chinese theaters in the soviet far east became an integral part of the general process of the rfe’s cultural development. the most fruitful chinese theater scene was in vladivostok, where on march 19, 1931, the unique chinese working youth theater was created. chinese workers were involved in the trade union, cooperative, and stakhanovite movement. in 1931, of the 50,000 chinese workers in the region, 6,300 were registered as members of trade unions (12.6%), as well as nearly 3,000 chinese migrants were employed in the handicraft industry (state archive of the khabarovsk region, fond p-2, inv.9, file 73, p. 191; state archive of the primoriye, fond p-67, inv.1, file 82, p. 108). in the 1930s, the chinese collective farms became a regular phenomenon. in 1932, there were 13 chinese collective farms in the region, in which about 3,000 chinese migrants worked together (zalesskaia, 2009, pp. 272–273). furthermore, more schools were opened for chinese children (by 1928, there were four first-level chinese schools in the soviet far east) and labor schools were opened for adults. by january 1, 1932, 809 chinese migrants and 3,828 children of chinese migrants were studying in the official educational institutions of the region (state archive of the khabarovsk region, fond p-2, inv.9, file 73, p. 126). additionally, the unique far eastern regional higher chinese leninist school was founded on march 1, 1933, which offered educational opportunities specially created for chinese workers who were previously unable to obtain secondary and higher education. this emphasis on education enriched the structure of the study system and contributed to its success. many of these chinese people educated on soviet territory subsequently became active participants in the revolutionary movements in china (zalesskaia, 2009, pp. 311–312). this progressive work stopped in the middle of 1930s, however, when the international situation forced soviet leadership to choose the security of the region over social development. during this time, chinese migrants were severely victimized, changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 528–541 535 and in 1938 they were even expelled from the soviet far east. for almost half a century, the rfe borders were closed. this period marks the beginning of stage three – “lockdown”: 1938–1988. during this period all the cross-border practices were significantly interrupted. in fact, during this stage there were virtually no contacts at the intercultural level. russian-chinese border interactions resumed again with the opening of borders in the late 1980s. this marks the beginning of stage four – “regeneration”: from the end of the 1980s (1988) to present. the first tourist exchange occurred in september 1988, when the ussr and the prc exchanged the first tourist groups. two groups of people – numbering 40 each – made a day-long trip on visa-free exchange from blagoveshchensk (in the center of the amur region) and heihe (on the ussr-chinese border). subsequently, the migration flow across the russian-chinese border began to re-emerge and chinese migrants started developing entrepreneurial activity again in the rfe. chinese migrants assessed the potential and prospects of the rfe market, established channels for the transportation of goods for trade in russia, and developed various forms of business organizations. at the same time, the chinese migrant population constantly communicated with the russian population. at the end of the 20th century, new cross-border practices started to unfold on border territories including “shuttle” (or “people’s”) barter trade, joint russian-chinese enterprises with foreign (chinese) investments, cross-border tourism, cultural relations, and – as before – smuggling, “gray” customs, illegal cross-border currency transactions, etc. while cross-border contacts re-emerged with active barter trade, over several years larger-scale business activities also developed in the rfe. for example, chinese shopping centers increased in russian cities, and there was a lively trade in a wide variety of goods. the russian financial crisis of 1998 significantly displaced many russian entrepreneurs, but this only opened up more space for chinese entrepreneurs. the same situation repeated after the russian financial crises of 2008 and 2014. during these times, chinese migrants developed their businesses drawing extensively on ethnic resources and ethnic networks. among chinese migrants, marriage with russian women was also a common way to obtain full rights in russia. when married to a russian woman, a chinese migrant was able arrange his business in the name of his wife, and thus pay much less rent and other taxes, as well as receive legal protection for their business on russian territory (zalesskaia, 2019, pp. 37–38). today, russia implements a special state policy in the rfe through the territories of advanced development and the free port of vladivostok. the aim of this policy is to increase the profitability and reduce the risks of foreign investors. eighteen territories of advanced development with special tax and customs status have already been created. russia’s implementation of major new investment projects in the rfe, as well as china’s promotion of the “one belt and one road” initiative, the heilongjiang development of the “three bridges – one island” plan all suggest rapidly increasing cross-border interaction. all this creates more opportunities for the formation and development of new cross-border practices, such as cross-border e-commerce, https://changing-sp.com/ 536 olga v. zalesskaia the development of financial infrastructure, the use of national currencies in mutual settlements, etc. in fact, the share of chinese foreign direct investment in the pacific russia is still less than 1%, of which two-thirds is directed to the trans-baikal region for the construction of the only major chinese plant in the pacific russia: the amazar pulp and saw mill (apsm). this means there is still much room for development. furthermore, the share of chinese investments in apsm and free port of vladivostok is only 16.3 billion rubles ($259 million) and 1.67 billion rubles ($25.7 million). in total, chinese businesses have invested less than $300 million across 45 projects. primarily, this chinese business is attracted to the extraction and primary processing of raw materials rather than the development of industry (larin, 2020, p. 21). despite the proclamation of favorable business regimes, chinese investors remain frightened by systematic problems: a small local market, the limited economic power of the region, the small population, and the lack of transport infrastructure. according to chinese experts, the underdeveloped russian border transport infrastructure has always been the main factor limiting the development of sinorussian trade and economic cooperation. many of the border port infrastructures are also dilapidated, and the capacity of the border ports is not commensurate with the cargo flow and the volume of cargo transportation, which leads to a large delay in cargo (guo et al., 2017, p. 76). moreover, the russian legal system seems to be too complicated for chinese migrants. sophisticated russian tax and customs laws often negate the benefits that the territories of advanced development and the free port of vladivostok regimes offer to potential investors. at the same time, regional leaders acknowledge that without the cross-border practices of chinese migrants, the economy of the rfe would lose significant infusions and income, and the russian population would lose the opportunity to purchase cheap everyday goods and a whole range of products. one attempt to close the borders resulted in immediate protests. in the summer of 2003, when fatal sars4 cases were first registered in china, 11 customs points were closed on the amur river by order of the federal government, and the import of chinese goods was limited. less than a week later, a picket was organized in front of the amur government building, the participants demanded that customs be opened, as almost all consumer goods were experiencing a shortage and the prices in the city markets has increased significantly. at that time, the borders reopened very quickly. today the situation is much more serious. on january 30, 2020, russian prime minister mikhail mishustin signed an order to close the russian border in the rfe to prevent the spread of a new type of coronavirus (covid-19). beginning march 18, russia further restricted the entry of foreigners and stateless persons. such unprecedented measures were not taken during the spread of sars and bird flu, which still had generally negatively effects on the development of crossborder trade and economic relations. many russian firms and private entrepreneurs have suffered losses, especially on imported goods for their business from china. since these measures have been put in place, rfe economic actors have been 4 severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 528–541 537 forced to reorient themselves to russian factories that offer goods at prices at least twice as expensive, and with high delivery costs. moreover, the closure of freight transport links with china has also led to a shortage of chinese vegetables. freight traffic has been opened and this may solve the problem of vegetable shortages (ob”em importa kitayskih ovoshchey, 2020). however, other goods have not yet been allowed to cross the border (the only exception are parts for a gas processing plant being constructed in the amur region). the education industry has also experienced negative consequences because of the closure of the border. chinese students who had returned home for chinese new year were not able to return to rfe universities. with the border now closed on orders from moscow, this has all ground to a halt, leaving the city frozen in limbo. businesses that depend on china are shriveling, hotels once full of chinese guests stand empty and the local university, once a magnet for paying pupils from china, is struggling to cope as hundreds of its students who went home for the lunar new year holiday find themselves stranded. ms. li lihua, a russian-speaking chinese businesswoman, who has been working in blagoveshchensk since the 1990s, said this is the worst economic situation she has encountered (see: higgins, 2020). in short, the covid pandemic has halted a significant part of cross-border practices between the territories of russia and china, and will undoubtedly have negative consequences for the development of relations between the two countries in the future. unfortunately, china’s success in stopping the covid epidemic on their territory will not be enough to neutralize this decrease in total trade turnover or the consequences of months of border closures and the slowdown of interregional and intercultural interaction. losses will continue to be felt even after the official end of the pandemic, and it is already obvious that such extraordinary circumstances will seriously hinder the development of cross-border practices in the future. discussion and results this article argued that chinese migration has played a crucial role in the historical process of sino-russian relations in the rfe. chinese migration has functioned as an actor in the practice of cross-border contacts and the forming of a special relationship between these two civilizations. it analyzed the historical stages of this interaction over the last century and a half and the characteristics of these crossborder practices at each historical stage was discussed. these practices act both as a “soft power,” and as a factor in overcoming the periphery status of the rfe territories. the article showed that in the absence of chinese migration flows to the rfe border region, cross-border practices cease. and when the flows resume, the cross-border practices reappear although they take new form to adapt to the sociohistorical conditions. the results suggest that the interaction between the two civilizations should be considered as a significant factor for cultural, historical and geopolitical devilment of the rfe territories, and, at the same time, as a form of interaction across societies and cultures. russian-chinese interaction has been influenced by many internal factors https://changing-sp.com/ 538 olga v. zalesskaia of the systems of russian and chinese societies, as well as sino-russian relations at the interstate and interregional levels. in this process of forming cross-border practices, the penetration of traditions and customs from one culture to another can be observed. these processes of cultural diffusion do not lead to the formation of a single culture, but to a dialogue between cultures. thus, the rfe region can be characterized as a unique territory for the development of sociocultural practices in the process of contacts between russia and china. due to chinese migration flows, cross-border practices are an important aspect of the rfe social life and an integral part of the interaction process between russian and chinese civilizations. the continued promotion of successful and mutually beneficial cooperation between russia and china requires yet more study, characterization and analysis, as well bilateral work to deepen and optimize cross-border interaction and minimize its negative sides. conclusion chinese migration in the rfe border region is an essential component of sinorussian relations at all levels. during the historical development of these relations, chinese migrants and the russian populations in the rfe took on many different roles over the past century and a half, including trade (and smuggling), guest labor, land cultivation, participation in the civil war, the perception of revolutionary ideas, etc. the cultural exchange component was an integral part of all these cross-border practices: there was familiarity with the traditions and customs of the foreign culture in both cases, as well as linguistic exchange. in other words, sino-russian relations in the rfe have developed through a process of mutual recognition, habituation, and coexistence. without this cultural dialogue, it would have been impossible to develop this interactional way of life. because of transcultural practices, the russian-chinese border region has accumulated a unique experience of cohabitation and cooperation between the peoples of the two countries. the study of this interaction is extremely important for understanding migration trends, their regulation, and the formation of a tolerant environment for different ethnic groups and their interaction. given the unprecedented increase in china’s influence in the world and the unique geopolitical proximity of russia and china in the rfe, chinese migration has the powerful potential of an actor of new cross-border practices. the crossborder practices that have emerged are poised to become an effective mechanism in the development of the rfe territories. however, the question remains, will the russian authorities at various levels be able to implement consistent and effective social and economic measures in the rfe? this all depends on the economic policy pursued by the russian government as to whether the presence of chinese migrants and the influx of chinese investments will contribute to the development of the rfe territories, or whether the raw materials orientation and peripherality of the rfe region will ultimately overwhelm economic development. if the latter, then in the not-too-far future, china may finally lose all interest in the 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(2019). the entrepreneurial activity of chinese migrants on the border areas of russia and china at the turn of the centuries: the features of “shuttle” migration in the context of state and regional policy. journal of economy, culture and society, 60, 27–44. https://doi.org/10.26650/jecs2019-0019 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.26650/jecs2019-0019 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 126–142 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.1.125 received 16 august 2020 © 2021 mithunasri l v, anil jadhav accepted 15 february 2021 mithunasri.v@associates.scit.edu published online 19 april 2021 anil@scit.edu article influence of self-perception and importance of body image on the methods implemented to enhance the physical appearance mithunasri l v, anil jadhav symbiosis international university (siu), pune, maharashtra, india abstract physical appearance refers to the traits and features in our body and to how we look. the importance given to the looks and complexion is a major factor contributing the perception of one’s physical appearance. in the current scenario, there are many ways to enhance the overall physical appearance. this study aims to find whether the satisfaction gained on behalf of the physical appearance has any impact on the value given to body image and the steps taken to enhance it. in this regard, the research also proves whether the noteworthiness on the looks affects the methods that are used to improve the body image. data was collected by the methods of purposive and convenience sampling from 462 people who live in tamilnadu, which is one of the southern states of india. the structural equation modelling (sem) technique was used to analyse the data using smart pls version 3.0 software. the results showed that the techniques implemented to enhance the physical appearance is influenced by the perception of individuals on their look and the level of importance given by them to it. also, it was ascertained that the self-satisfaction of persons with regard to appearance has a negative impact on the importance given by them to their body image. keywords physical appearance, self-satisfaction, importance, implementation, perception, body image https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 126–142 127 introduction right from our birth, until the very last moment, body is the prime asset for any individual. it is essential to take care of our physical appearance in order to lead a healthy life. in this era where people are obsessed with the way they portray themselves whether on social media or in real life, so much of importance is given to the various features and shape of the body. complexion also plays a crucial part in deciding the attractiveness of a body. people also take immense care to enhance their appearance in all possible ways. consequently, beauty becomes a valuable parameter in deciding the satisfaction of their physical appearance. in this 21st century, we live in a society that considers physical appearance as one of the most important parameters to judge others’ personality and richness. surrounded by the extreme influence of media, we are constantly compelled to see people with perfect looks around us – be it in magazines, on the news, in the movies and all over the internet. flawless body shape and an exemplary appearance is extremely valued since it automatically makes everyone to love and admire you. since the past few decades, a high focus on the self-perceived satisfaction due to their body image has been noticed in both men and women (tiggemann, 2004). body image at present is comprehended as a perplexing and multidimensional construct, which includes psychological, emotional and behavioural aspects of experiencing one’s body (cash & pruzinsky, 2002). hence, the look of our body has been given such an important value. the increase in awareness and consciousness in terms of health and aesthetics of the body led to immense body enhancement techniques and their modifications (jackson & scott, 2014). due to these advancements in sociology, the public discussion is inclined to talk about the shape and form of body and its impact in the mind of common people. we get that a lot of stress is made on the physical appearance these days. but the sole purpose of this research is to truly understand if in anyway it impacts the self-satisfaction of an individual. people do try a lot of costly and cost-effective techniques to enhance the body image. the study also aims to find out if it is because of the significant importance that is given to the looks and features. this research would give us a fair bit of understanding on how the gravity on achieving an ideal body image impacts the self-satisfaction and plays a vital role in the techniques used to enhance it. literature review the oxford english dictionary quotes the body as the “structure of bones, flesh, etc., of a human being or animal, living or dead”, which presents that body was treated as a sole materialistic entity before 1980s (simpson & weiner, 1989). but over the years, the perception of the body has changed to be the medium to portray the persons, their identification and mannerisms influenced by social and cultural factors. the body not only denotes an organism that has trunk and limbs, but also the metaphor of an individual (ozawa-de silva, 2002). appearance of the body is equal to the physical presentation of one’s highest owned property to this entire world. https://changing-sp.com/ 128 mithunasri l v, anil jadhav since body is presumed to be an uncertain one, it is more pliable and we are regularly trying to refine, improve and alter it. shilling (1993) explains that the body could be best actualized as an unfinished social and biological phenomenon, which is in a continual process of becoming “a project which should be worked at and accomplished as part of an individual’s self-identity”. turner (1984) expresses the idea that the bodies are controlled by the society with pre-occupied regulations of ideal appearance-based rules. these capture attention to the methods in which bodies are assessed, corrected and monitored in modern societies. body image is characterized as the mental portrayal of one’s own body and sentiments one has in regards to this portrayal (slade, 1994). it is a wide idea, yet, at its most essential is the way we see, understand, and assess our bodies. grogan (2006) specifies it as “a person’s perceptions, feelings or thoughts about his or her body”. unlike other senses as touch and taste, people gain early impressions of others depending on their visual appearance, voice or smell, without engaging the person’s will or awareness (groyecka et al., 2017). this in turn shows how significant the appearance of a person could turn out to be. contemporary society provides incredible obsession towards physical attractiveness and youthful looks, as shown by media, stressing whatever is beautiful is also good (dion et al., 1972). earlier studies believe that the socio-historical contexts have from multiple points of view influenced and moulded our impression of beauty and that our comprehension about what is beautiful is contextually negotiated and shifts relying on gender, socio-economic background, ethnicity, sexual orientation and other socially constructed factors (barriga et al., 2009). self-satisfaction wilson et al. (2013) discovered a solid connection between body image satisfaction and health-related quality of life, which is physical and mental. the satisfaction caused because of the looks always brings in a happy feel. the main reason for it would be the compliments that are received from the outside world for your appearance. on account of physical health, the point that body satisfaction held a more grounded prescient incentive than body mass index, which is a calculated ratio of a person’s height to weight is to be noted. this rightly indicates that the satisfaction levels have a lot to with the mental health. the fact that women’s self-perception issues and sociocultural pressures on them have intensified of late (pope et al., 2000) indicates that women record higher rates of body dissatisfaction and face greater pressure from print and electronic media to have an ideal body than men. it is believed that body dissatisfaction, which is a negative attitude towards one’s body image, arises from a sensed disparity linking the real physical appearance and the ideal perfect body state (heider, spruyt, & de houwer, 2018). the colour of one’s skin is predominantly segregated, since whiteness is believed to be the representative of beauty and grace in most western cultures; as, in comparison, blackness reflects hatefulness and ugliness (hunter, 2002). the words fair and pretty are interchangeable across india, where white skin is considered a symbol of caste and status, with turmeric powder being applied almost diligently changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 126–142 129 in attempt to achieve a lighter skin tone (li et al., 2008). due to such constructive differences over the skin tone, it is regarded as one of the main parameters to gauge the satisfaction of an individual on behalf of her/his appearance. importance studies have demonstrated a constructive connection linking body dissatisfaction and acknowledgment of plastic or cosmetic surgery among ladies, proposing that individuals may consider it as a way of acquiring greater confidence and social rewards from showing up increasingly appealing to other people (lunde, 2013). nonetheless, some experiments in the past have indicated that body image quality and self-confidence may not improve, although their body dissatisfaction decreases because of undergoing particular cosmetic surgery procedures. the ongoing rivalry in the mass media of ultra-thin models is believed to be a crucial factor in creation of a distorted body image (thompson & heinberg, 1999). recent results suggest that the physical appearance primarily evaluates the worth and position of women, and that the grading of their body appearance is an integral part of their confidence (davison & mccabe, 2006; vartanian et al., 2012). one trait that has been extensively observed in comparison to confidence and that has strong consequences for romantic desirability quotient is physical beauty viewed by itself (bale & archer, 2013). even limited exposure to photographs of the idealized male figure has been found to increase body dissatisfaction in men (baird & grieve, 2006). for both genders, this relation of exposure-dissatisfaction is predicted, as the theory of social comparison would assert (festinger, 1954). growing body dissatisfaction is likely to cause a more pessimistic appearance lens in association with self-assessments, leading ultimately to increased vulnerability to beauty-based rejection (webb et al., 2013). implementation body esteem refers to the contentment of a person with an appearance of his or her body (amos & mccabe, 2016). emotions regarding personal appearance are crucial for the self-perception of sexual desire, because the physical appearance is a strong predictor of reproductive success (ellis, 1992; frederick & haselton, 2007; gallup & frederick, 2010; van hoof et al., 2000). the authors (hausenblas & fallon, 2006) were led by the results about the effect of physical activity on body image and they concluded that physical exercise was correlated with enhanced and increasingly positive self-perception in individuals who are indulged in exercise when compared with the physically inactive ones. exercisers have a more positive perception on their body looks than nonexercisers and those who exercise regularly showed a more optimistic postintervention body image in relation to the non-exercising people. hence, the study concluded that exercise is related to improved perception of the body looks. (hausenblas & fallon, 2006). the dissatisfaction due to the looks is more easily influenced by external factors such as the intake foods with high calorific value and not indulging in any form of physical exercise (vocks et al., 2009). https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01074/full 130 mithunasri l v, anil jadhav research gap besides quite a few questionnaire-based researches on physical appearance, multiple experimental studies have investigated that various parameters affect the perception of physical appearance and gives us measures to find the level of satisfaction and importance given to it. certain papers referred talk about the several ways to enhance the appearance that are tried by common human. the factors already studied under the importance given to looks are all mutually exclusive and hence they are all taken in consideration together as one construct in this study. in this economical world, usage of homemade remedies and frequency of visiting a stylist is taken as worthy variables to find the intensity of attention and care given to the physical appearance. there is also a brief amount of pressure on every individual to portray their body in the best way possible to the outer world. that sense of stress is taken into consideration and it signifies the importance each person gives to physical appearance. comparison among individuals on behalf of their appearances has become more common when we live amidst a judgemental society. such parameters are considered in this study along with a few indicators that are already mentioned in the past researches. model and hypothesis development based on the previous theories and literatures, three research questions are proposed. • research question 1: does the level of satisfaction attained through physical appearance impact the importance given to it? • research question 2: does the contentment on the personal body image significantly affect the usage of various methods to enhance the physical appearance? • research question 3: does the importance given to physical appearance of an individual have an effect on the various techniques implemented to improve the body image? we have developed a theoretical model that contains one independent variable, which is the self-satisfaction, and two dependent variables which are importance and implementation. figure 1 depicts the research model. figure 1 research model self-satisfaction implementation importance changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 126–142 131 as a part of data analysis, this paper aims to test the following hypothesis. h1: the level of self-satisfaction due to physical appearance has significant impact on the importance given to it. self-satisfaction importance h2: the level of self-satisfaction has significant impact on the ways of implementation of several methods to enhance the physical appearance. self-satisfaction implementation h3: the importance put forth on an ideal physical appearance has significant influence on the implementation of different methods to enhance the physical appearance of an individual. importance implementation research methodology this section outlines the details of the method of research that comprises of the information on participants, data collection, model development as well as the testing of hypotheses. participants the population of the study is considered to be the people of tamilnadu, which is one of the popular southern indian states. so, the participants included were people who live in tamilnadu, among which most of them were from coimbatore. a google1 form consisting the questionnaire was shared across and 462 responses were obtained. there were 264 females and 198 males distributed among diversified age groups. the education qualifications and employment/affiliation status of the participants were also collected. the sample was deemed fit for the analysis as (hair et al., 2010) suggests that number of samples should be at least 10 times the number of items in the research instrument. data collection the data was collected through the convenience sampling method. the questionnairebased survey was shared in known whatsapp2 groups across the friends and family members who were living in tamilnadu. it was shared to approximately 650 people and 462 responses were obtained. as there were no restrictions imposed on the background of the respondent, except the fact that they currently live in tamilnadu, 1 google™ and the google logo are trademarks of google inc. in the u.s. and other countries. 2 whatsapp™ is a trademark of whatsapp inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 132 mithunasri l v, anil jadhav the data was collected in a span of 4 days. table 1 shows the background of the participants in detail. table 1 demographic details measure item frequency percentage (%) cumulative percentage gender male 198 42.9 42.9 female 264 57.1 100 age 15 & below 6 1.3 1.3 16 – 25 242 52.4 53.7 26 – 35 54 11.7 65.4 36 – 45 50 10.8 76.2 46 – 55 70 15.1 91.3 56 – 65 28 6.1 97.4 66 & above 12 2.6 100 education junior/elementary school 5 1.1 1.1 high school 33 7.1 8.2 bachelor’s degree/diploma 272 58.9 67.1 master’s degree/doctorate 145 31.4 98.5 others 7 1.5 100 employment salaried 85 18.4 18.4 self-employed 84 18.2 36.6 retired 17 3.7 40.3 student 201 43.5 83.8 housewife 62 13.4 97.2 others 13 2.8 100 research measurement and questionnaire design the purpose of the research is to study the relationship between the satisfaction of of individuals towards their physical appearance, importance given to one’s physical appearance and the methods that are implemented to enhance the physical appearance. modifications to indicators and constructs were done to make sure the constructs suffice the need of the research context. each construct is measured using a likert scale with several indicators. it is a scale developed with five levels of ratings, starting from 1 which denotes ‘strongly disagree’ to 5 that denotes ‘strongly agree’ on each of the pointers. table 2 shows the indicators involved in the study. data analysis smart pls 3.0 software, which assess the structural model (henseler et al., 2009) is used to develop the data analysis part. structural equation modelling technique was inculcated because it could test a causal relationship between the constructs that contain a number of indicators (hair et al., 2011). there are two major steps undertaken in analysing the data. the assessment of the measurement model is first conducted to ensure that each construct and indicators on the research instrument have met changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 126–142 133 the criteria (boudreau et al., 2001). the next activity is to conduct an evaluation of structural models in which the hypothesis will also be tested along with the model fit assessment. table 2 indicators construct indicators self-satisfaction height weight skin complexion features body shape importance comparison with others pressurized to look good partner’s appearance cosmetic/plastic surgery confidence & self esteem implementation visiting beauty parlour/saloon diet exercise use of homemade remedies money spent on beauty products evaluation of measurement model the levels of significance were tested and path analysis was carried over in assessing the hypotheses associated with study. the parameters and the latent variables are shown along with the structural model in figure 2. figure 2 initial structural model a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 c1 c2 c3 c4 c5 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 0.466 0.044 self-satisfaction implementation importance 0.610 1.044 0.411 0.842 0.846 0.770 0.680 0.755 0.405 0.713 0.703 0.711 0.784 0.383 0.793 0.693 0.227 -0.211 https://changing-sp.com/ 134 mithunasri l v, anil jadhav since a3 (skin complexion), b5 (confidence & self esteem) and c4 (homemade remedies) have very low factor loadings (less than 0.6), it shows that these parameters do not contribute enough to their respective constructs. the perceived reason for skin complexion not contributing to self-satisfaction as much as the other constructs might be because people are satisfied with their skin tone and since average indian skin complexion is not too dark, people are ready to accept the complexion. when it comes to confidence, people not only rely on their looks, but also there are other paramount factors that would increase or decrease their esteem even if they are not satisfied so much with their external image. homemade remedies might have been a valuable indicator about 10 to 20 years ago, but now due to advancements in technology and the increased awareness as well as buying power in people, they choose to move towards a scientifically proven source to enhance their body image. hence, we remove the three variables from the model. the structural model that is considered in the further analysis is depicted in figure 3. in this model, the factor loadings of all the parameters are above the mark of 0.6, so we can go ahead with the analysis part. figure 3 final structural model a1 a2 a4 a5 c1 c2 c3 c5 b1 b2 b3 b4 0.524 0.051 self-satisfaction implementation importance 0.611 1.009 0.813 0.815 0.756 0.671 0.729 0.705 0.665 0.696 0.770 0.761 0.737 0.261 -0.227 multicollinearity the score of variance inflating factor (vif) helps us to assess the multicollinearity in between the independent variables. construct should be considered to have an acceptable level of multi-collinearity if the vif score is lesser than 10 (hair et al., 1995). the vif score of the study variables ranges from 1.432 (diet) to 6.002 (features), hence meet the acceptable criteria. this is shown in table 3. table 3 multicollinearity vif vif vif a1 1.794 b1 1.725 c1 1.830 a2 2.032 b2 1.759 c2 1.432 a4 6.002 b3 1.469 c3 1.603 a5 5.991 b4 2.330 c5 2.183 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 126–142 135 reliability assessment the reliability of the study was measured using two important variates i.e., cronbach alpha and composite reliability (cr). the cronbach’s alpha (α) and the composite reliability (cr) values has to be greater than 0.80 for all constructs, only then it would indicate adequate internal consistency of the constructs (hair et al. 2010). the values for cronbach alpha ranged from 0.807 to 0.892 while that of the cr values ranged from 0.808 to 0.894 in the current study, indicating a high internal consistency as shown in table 4. convergent validity to what extent the various parameters measuring the same construct are in agreement with each other is checked by convergent validity (cv). babin & zikmund (2016) suggested that cv depends on internal consistency, essentially, how much the two measures are related to each other in a construct. hair et al. (2010) observed that the loadings for all items should be higher than 0.50 for convergent validity to be evident in a study. the cr and the average value extracted (ave) values in the current study both surpassed the prescribed value. thus, the study’s overall measurement model indicated satisfactory convergent validity as shown in table 4. table 4 convergent reliability and validity research constructs factor loadings cronbach alpha rho cr ave self-satisfaction a1 0.611 0.892 0.918 0.892 0.679 a2 1.009 a4 0.813 a5 0.815 importance b1 0.665 0.814 0.818 0.815 0.525 b2 0.696 b3 0.761 b4 0.770 implementation c1 0.756 0.807 0.809 0.808 0.513 c2 0.671 c3 0.729 c5 0.705 discriminant validity the uniqueness and distinctiveness of a measure is signified by discriminant validity. it is a scale showing whether a measure of a construct is too strongly correlated with a measure of another construct (babin & zikmund, 2016). discriminant validity is assessed by analysing the average variance extracted (ave) and the squared differences between the constructs (fornell & larcker, 1981). as shown in table 5, both constructs met the discriminant validity, because the ave for each construct was higher than its squared correlation with the other constructs. https://changing-sp.com/ 136 mithunasri l v, anil jadhav table 5 discriminant validity self-satisfaction importance implementation implementation 0.716 importance 0.678 0.724 self-satisfaction 0.094 -0.227 0.824 evaluation of structural model model fit is a measurement that describes how well a model represents the observations. it assesses the discrepancy between the observed values and the expected results produced by the model (bollen & long, 1992). the standardized root mean squared residual (srmr) is an absolute measure of fit, naturally, a value of 0 means a perfect fit and it ranges up to 1. a value of 0.08 or less is generally considered to indicate good fit (hu & bentler, 1999; maydeu-olivares, shi & rosseel, 2017). the srmr value for our study is 0.061, which is well, less than the limit. hence, this proves that the model is fit enough. bootstrapping to test the structural model, hair et al. (2017) proposed using a bootstrapping technique with 5,000 bootstrap samples to look at the r2, beta (β) and corresponding t-values. they also proposed that researchers would disclose the predictive significance (q2) as well as the effect sizes (f 2), in addition to these basic steps. so, a bootstrapping of the sample data was done and the results are shown in the figure 4. hypothesis testing the p-value would notify that there is an effect, but the extent of the effect cannot be perceived through the p-value (sullivan & feinn, 2012). the substantive value (effect size) and the statistical significance (p-value) are important findings in reporting and interpreting the studies. hahn and ang (2017) outlined the rigor in presenting findings figure 4 results of bootstrapping a1 a2 a4 a5 c1 c2 c3 c5 b1 b2 b3 b4 0.524 0.051 self-satisfaction implementation importance 5.141 6.041 7.249 8.243 20.366 14.491 18.924 18.645 14.913 18.037 23.289 18.234 17.970 4.544 3.384 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 126–142 137 in quantitative research that include the use of observational studies, measures of effect size and confidence intervals. it is shown in table 6. table 6 hypothesis testing study hypothesis hypothesis t-value decision r2 f 2 p-value self-satisfaction -> importance h1 3.384 supported 0.051 0.054 0.001 self-satisfaction -> implementation h2 4.544 supported 0.524 0.136 0.000 importance -> implementation h3 17.970 supported 1.082 0.000 self-satisfaction (β = -0.227, t = 3.384, p < 0.01, f 2 = 0.054) is a significant predictor of importance, but it influences negatively with explaining just 5.1% of the variance in importance. self-satisfaction (β = 0.261, t = 4.544, p < 0.01, f 2 = 0.136) and importance (β = 0.737, t = 17.870, p < 0.01, f 2 = 1.082) are both significant predictors of implementation explaining 52.4% variance of it. the f 2 values of range 0.02 is assessed as small effect, 0.15 is assessed as medium effect and 0.35 is assessed as large effects of exogenous latent variables. self-satisfaction has a positive influence on implementation, while the effect size is small, i.e., 0.136. importance has a very large positive effect on implementation with effect size of 1.082. results and discussion from the analysis made so far, it can be concluded that the self-satisfaction on behalf of the physical appearance does not have positive impact on the importance given to it. hence the hypothesis h1 cannot be accepted. it means that people who have a satisfactory body image don’t really stress too much and give a great importance to it. the implementation of various techniques to enhance physical appearance is highly impacted by the satisfaction levels of the body image of an individual. so, the hypothesis h2 is accepted. this proves that trying out various methods to improve the appearance essentially is influenced by satisfaction levels. the stress on the physical appearance has a very significant and a large impact on the various methods inculcated to improve it, which therefore proves the hypothesis h3 right, and it is accepted. this explains that importance given to the aesthetics of the body impacts directly the various ways that are inculcated to enhance it. finally, this research provides a new insight covering the self-satisfaction due to the physical appearance and how it impacts the importance given to it and paves way to use modern methods to enhance the body image. among the various methods taken over to preserve and improve the aesthetics of the body, the study showed that people mostly rely on visiting external sources like as parlours/saloons and exercising regularly, which is in correlation with the pointers of the previous researchers (hausenblas & fallon, 2006). diet has become an everyday phenomenon and it a common aspiration for all to follow a healthy diet and a good body appearance. the use of homemade remedies were popular in ancient times, but now with the fast paced world, people aim for instant, proven, risk-free, sophisticated and ready to use products which eliminates the need of self-made items. https://changing-sp.com/ 138 mithunasri l v, anil jadhav the research proves that the importance given to body image doesn’t seem greatly dependent on the confidence and self-esteem that one has. self-esteem and confidence is one latent factor that is least affected by poor body appearance. the self-perception about the beauty of oneself seems to rely highly on the weight of individuals as it also showcases the health and well-being. skin complexion is of least priority when it comes to impacting one’s perception on their appearance. this is in contrast with a lot of studies and researches undergone previously that stresses the racial differences due to darker skin tone (hunter, 2002). various features and shape of the body is denoted as significant factors when it comes to self-perception. conclusion the purpose of this research is to have an understanding on whether the perception of one’s own physical appearance has an impact on the importance given to physical appearance along with the different methods implemented to enhance it. the results derived through the analysis was only partially consistent with the hypothesis made. it showed that self-satisfaction does not have a great influence on importance. selfsatisfaction negatively impacts the importance given to physical appearance. to sum this up, it can be said that the effect of self-satisfaction on importance is small and negative. when persons feel very good about their physical appearance and is comfortable in their skin, they does not stress much on the body image. rather when they do not feel satisfied about their looks is when they start giving importance to the physical appearance. the perception of one’s body image affects the methods that are followed to enhance it. persons who are high in perception regarding their appearance would implement several techniques to keep up their looks. importance given to the looks plays a huge role in deciding whether persons are inclined towards the methods used to enhance the physical appearance. the ones who give more importance to the looks seems to put it more efforts to follow various techniques that would improve their body image. when persons give least consideration to their appearance, there is very low chances that they would try out various methods that enhances their body image. the research could be done as a differential analysis of self-perception among various age groups or between the genders, so a more detailed information of the classes can be obtained. other factors that impact the three elements taken into consideration can be studied in-depth to come up with the list of crucial reasons affecting the self-perception, importance and implementation. overall, this research can be considered as a start to delve deeper into the causes of motivating and demotivating factors with regard the body appearance. limitations the research used only three latent variables, which are self-satisfaction, importance and implementation. each of the latent variables had been accessed by only four indicators each, however there could be other indicators too that would changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 126–142 139 better define the latent variables. involving cross-sectional analysis by gender and age would have been more helpful to understand the current scenario with respect to the study. references amos, n. & mccabe, m. p. 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(2009). effects of a physical exercise session on state body image: the influence of pre-experimental body dissatisfaction and concerns about weight and shape. psychology & health, 24(6), 713–728. https://doi.org/10.1080/08870440801998988 webb, h. j., zimmer-gembeck, m. j., & donovan, c. l. (2013, july). adolescent appearance-based rejection sensitivity and the appearance culture between friends [conference presentation]. 18th biennial conference of australasia human development association (ahda), gold coast, australia. wilson, r. e., latner, j. d., & hayashi, k. (2013). more than just body weight: the role of body image in psychological and physical functioning. body image, 10(4), 644–647. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2013.04.007 https://doi.org/10.1210/jcem.85.4.6543 https://doi.org/10.1210/jcem.85.4.6543 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2011.12.005 https://doi.org/10.1080/08870440801998988 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2013.04.007 changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 205–219 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.2.098 received 24 january 2020 © 2020 elvira e. symaniuk, accepted 19 june 2020 irina g. polyakova, elena v. kvashnina published online 9 july 2020 e.e.symaniuk@urfu.ru, irinapolykova@yandex.ru doctor.kvashnina@gmail.com article review of international research on ethical and psychological barriers to reproductive donation elvira e. symaniuk ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia irina g. polyakova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia elena v. kvashnina “centre ivf-partus”, yekaterinburg, russia abstract this review examines the international research literature discussing the barriers for those considering the possibility of becoming donating sperm, eggs, or embryos or becoming surrogate mothers. while there is a significant body of research on donors’ motivations, less attention is given to the reasons why potential donors decide not to donate or withdraw from donation procedures. nevertheless, we have collected about 70 studies, including journal articles, book chapters and reports. contemporary findings show that as much as there is no single motivation for reproductive donation, there is also no single barrier to it. the studies we considered deal with two salient themes. first, barriers to reproductive donation serve as a space for negotiation of a donor’s beliefs, fears and perceived consequences of donation to themselves, the recipients and resulting offspring. second, these barriers are a complex web of intersecting factors, influenced by secondary factors. this review reveals the limited nature of our current knowledge of barriers to reproductive donation. indeed, research on this problem needs to catch up with research on motivation because obstacles to reproductive donation are no less important than the stimuli. keywords assisted reproductive technologies (art); motivation of reproductive donation; motivational barriers; legal regulation of assisted reproduction https://changing-sp.com/ 206 elvira e. symaniuk, irina g. polyakova, elena v. kvashnina introduction in the light of the rising number of infertility cases across the globe, reproductive donation has been the subject of extensive international interest in the past decade. this interest has been propelled by two main developments. first is the availability of technology for different types of donation such as sperm, eggs, and embryo donation, and surrogacy. second is the growing need for ethical frameworks of legislation and medical practices in assisted reproductive technology (art). studies on reproductive donation have predominantly been aimed to identify the ways in which donors are motivated to donate; but less attention has been given to the reasons why potential donors may decide against it. to our knowledge, no systematic review of the literature on this topic has been done yet, especially the studies of the factors that hinder certain types of donation more than others. this review focuses on the current body of knowledge on ethical and psychological barriers in reproductive donation. it is also aimed to provide insight into the specific differences in the barriers’ characteristic of each type of reproductive donation. in our analysis, reproductive donation refers to donation of sperm, eggs, embryos and surrogate motherhood. barriers are understood here as the factors that impede the initiation or continuation of the process of reproductive donation. these aspects are crucial because even though significant efforts have been made to improve the quality of reproductive donation, there are still potential donors who opt out of donation, which calls for a more in-depth consideration of decisionmaking in reproductive donation. this review can also be beneficial for professional art organizations, in particular those engaged in recruitment of new donors. the results of this review are meant to provide useful information for medical and legal professionals as well as policy makers on reproductive health. to this end, we collected materials written in english such as academic articles, book chapters and reports dealing with factors that deter potential donors from participating in reproductive donation. the reference search was conducted in 7 databases (ebscohost1, sciencedirect2, sage journals3, pubmed central4,proquest central5, scopus6, and jstor7), using the following terms alone and in combination: “motivation”, “reproductive donation”, “reproductive donors”, “sperm donors”, “sperm donation”, “egg donors”, “egg donation”, “oocyte donors”, “oocyte donation”, “embryo donors”, “embryo donation”, “surrogates”, “surrogacy”, and “ethical aspects”. 1 https://www.ebsco.com/ 2 https://www.sciencedirect.com/ 3 https://journals.sagepub.com/ 4 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/advanced/ 5 https://about.proquest.com/products-services/proquest_central.html 6 https://www.scopus.com/home.uri 7 https://www.jstor.org/ https://www.ebsco.com/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/ https://journals.sagepub.com/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/advanced/ https://about.proquest.com/products-services/proquest_central.html https://www.scopus.com/home.uri https://www.jstor.org/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 205–219 207 the search was limited to articles published in scientific journals in english between years 1992 and 2018. to be included in the sample, materials had to include a description of ethical and psychological reasons why donors may be hesitant about participating in reproductive donation. criteria used for exclusion include: date range, data on reproductive recipients alone, clinical research on gamete donation. however, articles containing information on donors’ perception on reproductive donation were not excluded because data on why they did not donate can be considered as barriers to reproductive donation. after the materials were screened and checked for eligibility and all duplicates were removed, about 70 references were identified as fitting the inclusion criteria. these were quite diverse in focus and method, with some works covering reproductive donation in general rather than dealing exclusively with the barriers to reproductive gamete donation. this systematic review has some important limitations. first, it provides a comprehensive overview only of the research on ethical and psychological barriers to reproductive donation published in english; this implies that there may be also non-english publications describing other barriers. second, we recognize that the references reviewed in this work do not comprise all information about donation barriers, and thus the information used in the discussion may not have been fully comprehensive. these limitations, however, are opportunities for further research. sperm donation barriers to sperm donation provoke a lot of discussions as different countries face a number of ethical and psychological challenges in dealing with this sphere, such as donor recruitment, donor compensation, donor anonymity, contact with donorconceived offspring, etc. psychological matters are usually related to donors’ altruistic motives and their concerns about the well-being of the resulting children while ethical issues, to donors’ anonymity, compensation, and contact with the resulting offspring (van den broeck et al., 2013). ethical barriers to sperm donation since matters of privacy are crucial for sperm donors, anonymity is an important consideration in donating. some donors are ready to participate in the process only if they remain anonymous because this way they can avoid conflicts or tensions in their own families (mohr, 2014). this becomes more relevant because of the global changes in regulations of anonymous donorship. for instance, denmark allows anonymous sperm donation (mohr & koch, 2016), but there is an increasing number of countries that mandate the removal of donor anonymity and urge fertility banks to register all potential donors with necessary information (van den broeck et al., 2013). donors might consider this as a threat to their privacy since donorconceived offspring will be able to trace and find their donors as well as half-siblings through these registries. there are also cases with courts mandating sperm banks to turn over a donor’s medical records when there is a need to check his or her medical history to resolve some health issues of the offspring (andrews & elster, https://changing-sp.com/ 208 elvira e. symaniuk, irina g. polyakova, elena v. kvashnina 1998). therefore, it can be difficult both for donors and sperm banks to have control over anonymity, which can lead to the scarcity of sperm donors (pennings, 2005). however, it is not much of a hindrance to donors if the release of information only includes non-identifying information, such as physical characteristics and the level of education (godman et al., 2006). as such, in countries where anonymous donation is prohibited by law, donor anonymity is ensured through the informal settings, in which this procedure is carried out (bossema et al., 2014). there are also barriers related to the moral side of reproductive donation itself or to how it is practiced. some potential donors hesitate to donate because of religious considerations about the unnaturalness of art, which can be seen as a form of discreet eugenics (van den broeck et al., 2013). meanwhile, there is also a moral concern about art disturbing the traditional bilineal kinship (mohr, 2018). for instance, potential donors may not be willing to share their sperm with single/lesbian women and lesbian couples because they believe that a child should be raised by parents of both sexes (ekerhovd & faurskov, 2008). psychological barriers to sperm donation donors may experience feelings of anxiety, insecurity and disgust concerning the process of donation. they may feel uneasy about having masturbatory ejaculation of semen in a sperm bank on moral grounds, which constitutes a “possible transgression of these boundaries for sperm donors” (mohr, 2018, p. 139). some may see the secretion of bodily fluids in plastic cups as inappropriate because this action is beyond their normative boundary (mohr, 2016). muslim men, in particular, experience conflicting attitudes to delivering semen samples in sperm clinics since masturbation promotes “guilty pleasures”, especially when pornographic materials are offered in clinics (inhorn, 2007). interestingly, donors may also be anxious about the possibility of discovering a fertility problem of their own (cook & golombok, 1995). sperm donors may also feel anxious lest others should find out about their donorship (schover et al., 1992; shepherd et al., 2018). anonymity may be particularly important when family issues are involved, which can serve as secondary barriers. while in some countries sperm donation between brothers is considered to be an acceptable intra-family situation (american society for reproductive medicine [asrm], 2017), anonymity is crucial for other forms of donation (brother–sister, father–daughter) because it can be classified as incest. this may prove to be a relevant dealbreaker for married heterosexual men since it can cause frictions in their relationships with their spouses and children (riggs & russell, 2011). the donor’s partner and family members can react differently to the situation of donation. therefore, in some cases, donors prefer not to inform their partners about their participation in the donor program while in other cases, donors, on the contrary, seek their partners’ explicit approval (lalos et al., 2003; thorn et al., 2008). thus, donors tend to be serious about the consequences of their donation both for themselves (van den broeck et al., 2013), for their families, and for the future children. each of these considerations can act as a barrier to donating (bossema et al., 2012). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 205–219 209 egg donation an important theme in research literature on egg donation is donors’ motivation to donate only for a specific segment of the population, which restricts the act of donation. in egg donation, barriers are mainly related to the process of donation and concerns about the welfare of the resulting offspring. yet donors may also have other ethical and psychological reasons to opt out of the donation process. ethical barriers to egg donation there are two main ethical obligations that egg donors feel: towards the recipient women and towards the resulting children. first, while women might feel a moral obligation to share their eggs with infertile women (blyth et al., 2011), this obligation can be restricted. some donors would only donate if they are personally acquainted with the prospective recipients (winter & daniluk, 2004; yee et al., 2011), which means that they may have reservations concerning donation to other recipients in need. moreover, as much as some donors would be delighted to meet the resulting offspring, some might not be at ease about it. second, donors might also feel morally obliged to ensure that the resulting offspring will be in good hands. some donors feel that they are responsible to ensure the resulting child’s emotional stability by being identified as his or her biological mother (bracewell-milnes et al., 2016). therefore, they express the desire to obtain information about the recipients before donating in order to evaluate the kind of life the resulting offspring will have (yee et al, 2011). interestingly, financial compensation is related to egg donors’ perception of fairness (partrick et al., 2001). some donors would be unwilling to donate unless monetary compensation was provided (ibid.), which can be corroborated by the fact that there are fewer egg donors from countries that prohibit commercial egg donation (gezinski et al., 2016). there are statutory restrictions such as legal measures that limit donation of oocytes due to the risk of possible kinship in the future (asrm, 2017). for instance, in canada it is prohibited to share one’s eggs and to engage in any commercial transactions of selling or buying oocytes (asrm, 2017). aside from ethical issues, religion also plays a part in potential donors’ decision not to donate. for example, the dominance of catholicism in italy and costa rica currently makes their context very restrictive for reproductive donation. likewise, muslim countries are very strict in regulating gamete donation (inhorn & patrizio, 2012). another factor that may be off-putting for potential egg donors is the mandatory lower age limit for those who want to be a donor with the goal of “ensuring donor maturity sufficient to understand the conditions of the procedure and make an informed decision” (asrm, 2017, p. 5). psychological barriers to egg donation fear and anxiety are crucial barriers to egg donation (shepherd et al., 2018). women may feel uncomfortable in the process of egg donation because of such medical procedures as injections and penetrations (ibid.). fear of the physical and https://changing-sp.com/ 210 elvira e. symaniuk, irina g. polyakova, elena v. kvashnina psychological risks associated with oocyte donation also plays a role in potential donors’ decision-making, especially when they are considering the implications of the procedure for their own reproductive health in the future (kenney & mcgowan, 2010; yee et al., 2011). furthermore, donors might have the fear of regret. for example, when the previous donation did not result in pregnancy, the donor may experience a feeling of disappointment that may deter her from donating again (winter & daniluk, 2004). donors may also feel uncomfortable with the idea of having “unknown” offspring (blyth et al., 2011). some donors would only donate if their anonymity is guaranteed (gürtin et al., 2012). embryo donation unlike gametes, which are the biological sources of human reproduction, an embryo is not a raw resource but rather an outcome from an assisted union between gametes. as such, embryo donation is a multi-party decision, which can be a battle between donors themselves or donors against time. there are two purposes of embryo donation: for reproduction or research. yet some couples choose to have their embryos destroyed. the general practice in embryo donation involves giving a written consent to freezing the embryos resulting from the ivf treatment. couples are also expected to communicate their desire to donate or discard their frozen embryos before the expiration of the storage period (svanberg et al., 2001). ethical barriers to embryo donation ethical principles, such as perceiving embryo donation as “child relinquishment”, play a part in donors’ decision-making (de lacey, 2005, p. 1661). in these cases, couples would choose to discard their embryos rather than donate them for research when the storage time has ended (svanberg et al., 2001). some donors view an embryo as a person/child and see the situation as an ethical dilemma. donors who eventually became parents through successful ivf brood over the idea that their embryos-turn-child would be mistreated and decide that it is better to terminate their embryos than to open the likelihood of these embryos having a life different from what their genetic parents want them to have (de lacey 2005). in another work of de lacey (2007, p. 1757), it is shown that provisional donors and discarders differ in terms of their interpretation of embryos, that is, embryo donors relate more to the “metaphor of pregnancy termination” while those who discard embryos emphasize the adoption metaphor. couples may choose to discard an embryo even after they have given their initial agreement to donate it, at the final stage of agreement and after passing all the necessary procedures (bangsbøll et al., 2004; laruelle & englert, 1995). nachtigall et al. (2005) report that as many as 88 percent of the couples who had initially decided to donate their embryos to research reconsidered their decision later. when they decided to donate, they might have “supported ed in principle, but only a small subgroup would actively consider donation” (newton et al., 2003, p. 27). this finding is consistent with the earlier studies that showed that more than a half of couples change their initial changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 205–219 211 intention to donate embryos to research (see brinsden et al., 1995; cooper, 1996; hounshell & chetkowski, 1996; klock et al., 2001; saunders et al., 1995). psychological barriers to embryo donation the option to delay the decision to donate serves as a psychological barrier to embryo donation because this option reinforces the “behavior in which individuals seek to avoid the responsibility of making a decision” (anderson, 2003, p. 139). mcmahon et al. (2003) report that 70 percent of participants intended to delay their decision on what to do with their embryos for as long as possible. in some cases, partners failed to reach a joint decision or forgot about the request (provoost et al., 2001). decision avoidance results in many embryos remaining in storage unclaimed or “lost to follow-up” (e.g. case in canada, see royal commission on new reproductive technologies, 1993 cited in cattapan & baylis, 2016). decision avoidance (anderson, 2003) intersects with the dual nature of embryo donors: a sperm donor and an egg donor. deciding with another person is much more complicated than making an individual decision, and usially state regulations in clinics require the consent of the two donors. for instance, the iranian parliament passed a law stating that infertility centers can donate embryos to the infertile only after the permission is obtained from the donor couples (alizadeh & samani, 2014). decision avoidance happens when some donor couples struggle with decision-making and find it difficult to reach a joint decision (provoost et al., 2011), especially whether to donate or to discard their frozen embryos. davis (2012, p. 386) observed that the possibility of a dispute within a couple led clinics “to require couples undergoing ivf to sign a cryopreservation consent or agreement to address the disposition of embryos in the case of divorce, death, or abandonment”. in the us, for example, in the event of death or divorce, which prevents donor couples from using their embryos for conception, courts can decide which donor’s interests must prevail (sheinbach, 1999). for many couples, however, financial reasons meddle with their decision-making as keeping embryos in storage will inevitably incur more expenses (davis, 2012). for example, the advanced fertility center of chicago charges $800 for embryos to be cryogenically frozen and stored for one year, and a certain amount for each subsequent year8. surrogate motherhood surrogacy is the most service-oriented type of reproductive donation. compared to the transactions of sperm, oocyte or egg donors, the duration of the surrogate’s involvement in the reproductive process is substantially greater and longer. barriers to surrogacy are related to donors’ trust in the recipients and fear of risks. ethical barriers to surrogate motherhood most ethical concerns about surrogate motherhood are related to donors’ religious views. for instance, in islam, surrogacy is ethically problematic because a woman 8 http://www.advancedfertility.com/ivfprice.htm https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.advancedfertility.com/ivfprice.htm 212 elvira e. symaniuk, irina g. polyakova, elena v. kvashnina becomes “impure” when she receives sperm from a man to whom she is not married (inhorn, 2006). muslim women believe that surrogacy can presumably be connected to ethical issues because it meddles with the sacredness of the husband-wife relationship (lasker, 2015). while the idea of surrogate motherhood is gradually gaining acceptance among the shiite population in iran and a part of iraq, lebanon, bahrain, syria, saudi arabia, afghanistan, pakistan, and india (abbasi-shavazi et al., 2008), many might still not be comfortable with being a surrogate mother. moreover, for some christians, surrogacy may confuse the child’s identity; obstruct the naturalness of procreation and child rearing (lones, 2016). in some cases, surrogates would only enter in a surrogacy arrangement with close relatives. some may involve sister-sister (kirkman & kirkman, 2002) and mother-daughter (brazier et al., 1997). some potential surrogates fear that they will eventually develop affection for the gestated offspring (agnafors, 2014; larkey, 2003) and this may complicate the separation later on. however, if the surrogate knows the recipients, it will be easier to compartmentalize her feelings because her duty as a surrogate is clear. psychological barriers to surrogate motherhood potential surrogate mothers have a common fear of having to regret their decision over time (teman, 2008). since potential surrogates need to feel sure of the people they are going to deal with, an initial negotiation is set (van den akker, 2000). agreements are based on trust arrangements (edelmann, 2004). an important factor is whether a surrogate mother has already experienced a positive relationship with the trusted couple or not. depending on this factor, she would want to make subsequent surrogacy arrangements in the future or not (imrie & jadva, 2014). however, in cases of mediated surrogacy, “surrogacy agencies choreograph the entire process, from matching of the surrogate and intended parents to administration and enforcement of contractual matters” (holcomb & byrn, 2010, p. 651). in this case, potential surrogates agree if they trust the agency involved. potential surrogates are also affected by the fear of hostility and humiliation from their families or friends (jadva et al., 2003; shenfield et al., 2005). the approval of their spouses may indirectly affect their decision to become a surrogate mother because a surrogate’s husband must agree to abstain from sexual intercourse during the given period (sama, 2012). conclusions it is now evident that in so far as there is no single motivation for reproductive donation, there is also no single barrier to it. as the studies covered by this review have shown, there may be multiple barriers to reproductive donation related to each other. barriers may overlap and can be influenced by secondary factors, which inform the donor’s decision. thus, a more comprehensive approach is necessary to the study of the psychological and ethical aspects of reproductive donation (sandberg & conner, 2008). the decision not to donate may be even more significant for donors changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 205–219 213 than the decision to do so. more importantly, the decision not to donate does not necessarily mean that potential donors are against reproductive donation as such. donors’ selectivity is based on what they think is best for themselves, the recipients and the resulting offspring. moreover, as shown in this review, barriers to reproductive donation vary depending on the type of donation (reproductive material). for instance, some donors might be very picky regarding the sexuality of the recipient couple, their socio-economic status or even personality. of particular interest in this review are instances when donors would rather not donate for the fear that their donation’s costs will outweigh the benefits. barriers are often indicative of the fact that non-donation is not inaction. first, barriers remind donors of their expectations of themselves and the ways their bodies should be handled. second, non-personal barriers show that potential donors are not isolated individuals and interact with other stakeholders in the field of reproductive donation. barriers serve as a space for negotiation of a donor’s beliefs, fears and perceived consequences of their donation to themselves, the recipients and resulting offspring. this review has shown that research on the barriers to reproductive donation needs to catch up with the research on motivation because hindrances to reproductive donation are not less important than what motivates donors to participate in reproductive donation. one aspect to focus on is the population included in research. while reproductive donation is practiced globally, there seems to be an imbalance in terms of what segment participate in research for each type of donation. for instance, there is a lack of comparison between what could be a barrier for sperm donors and what prevents non-donors from donating (daniels et al., 2005; frith et al., 2007). while there were reports on non-donors’ attitudes towards sperm donation (cook & golombok, 1995; lui & weaver, 1996), it still remains unclear if these attitudes were actual barriers. moreover, the research on sperm donation has been conducted predominantly in western countries, with an emphasis on actual sperm donor population (del valle et al., 2008; ernst et al., 2007), which means that some research findings should be interpreted with caution as there may be biases influencing their generalizability. as for the practical implications of the contemporary studies described above, they demonstrate the need for clear guidelines for reproductive donors. a more nuanced evaluation of informed consent should be discussed: if informed consent is measured only in terms of signed papers this concept can have hidden exploitative practices. donation contracts also often lack clarity regarding donors’ rights and obligations at different stages of the donation process. the majority of donors face a range of psychological and ethical problems concerning the reaction of their partners/ spouses, their immediate family members and friends to this situation, as well as diverse anxieties about the future of their own families, on the one hand, and the future of their potential offspring, on the other. we hope that the findings discussed in this review will allow researchers, medical practitioners, policy makers and reproductive donors alike to formulate recommendations on how to ensure more ethical practices of reproductive donation. https://changing-sp.com/ 214 elvira e. symaniuk, irina g. polyakova, elena v. kvashnina references abbasi-shavazi, m. j., inhorn, m. c., razeghi-nasrabad, h. b., & toloo, g. 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(2011). oocyte donors’ experiences of altruistic known donation: a qualitative study. journal of reproductive and infant psychology, 29(4), 404–415. doi: 10.1080/02646838.2011.611938 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/dei147 https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12504 https://scholarship.law.edu/lawreview/vol48/iss3/9 https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.humrep.a137694 https://doi.org/10.1034/j.1600-0412.2001.080009849.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.05.026 https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/den279 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2004.tb00337.x https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2004.tb00337.x https://doi.org/10.1080/02646838.2011.611938 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 669–685 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.155 received 19 may 2021 © 2021 christos konstantinidis, evangelos bebetsos, accepted 16 december 2021 filippos filippou, eleni zetou published online 30 december 2021 konstanc@phyed.duth.gr empempet@phyed.duth.gr ffilippo@phyed.duth.gr elzet@phyed.duth.gr article gender-related attitudes toward homosexuality in greece christos konstantinidis, evangelos bebetsos, filippos filippou, eleni zetou democritus university of thrace, komotini, greece abstract the purpose of this study is to investigate the relevance of the “attitudes toward lesbians and gay men” (atlg) scale developed by g. m. herek to the greek society. the study consists of two stages or sub-studies. at the first stage, the sample consisted of 186 undergraduate university students and at the second, 254 undergraduate university students, who studied at the department of physical education and sport science, democritus university of thrace in komotini, greece. methodologically speaking, our research relied on the methods of descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability analysis (cronbach’s α, composite reliability and average variance extracted) and t-test for independent sample. the results of the first stage showed that the two factors, men’s homophobia and women’s homophobia, accounted for 58% of the total variance. at the second stage, three confirmatory factor analyses were performed: men’s homophobia, women’s homophobia and total homophobia. we also found genderrelated differences in students’ attitudes to homosexuality, but only as far as male homosexuality is concerned. keywords homosexuality, homophobia, attitudes, gender, greece, atlg https://changing-sp.com/ 670 christos konstantinidis, evangelos bebetsos, filippos filippou, eleni zetou introduction homophobia according to schuiling and likis (2011), negative attitudes and feelings towards homosexuality or people who have been identified or considered as homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgender (lgbt), are characterized as homophobia. such attitudes are usually expressed in the form of detest, contempt, bias, aversion, or hatred, and they may be based on absurd fear, which is sometimes related to religious beliefs (mccormack, 2012). heteronormativity is institutionally imposed through daily patterns or interactions between pupils and teachers. such attitudes start at school and are later transferred to adulthood (chesir-teran, 2003). they may also lead to homophobic acts or verbal and physical abuse of pupils deviating from normative sexuality (kosciw et al., 2008). heteronormativity is also related to children’s constant admonition against homosexuality and the promotion of appropriate gender and sexual relationships inside and outside classrooms (eder & parker, 1987; nayak & kehily, 1996). these demonstrations of heterosexuality stigmatize people attracted to the same gender and have a negative effect on their well-being (konstantinidis et al, 2002). the massive rise of homosexuality in the 1980s had major implications for the homosexual community (e. anderson, 2009a). this was caused by two major sociopolitical facts. firstly, the spread of hiv/aids, which caused the death of thousands of gay men, and secondly, it became apparent that the share of homosexual men in general population was in fact quite substantial (e. anderson, 2009b). prejudices and fake news about hiv began to spread, with homosexual men being considered as “killers” of heterosexuality and traditional family (peterson, 2011). as an act of despair, men start to exercise to gain muscle and try to avoid the social stigma of homosexuality by various means such as the excessive use of steroids (halkitis et al., 2004) to ensure that their appearance corresponded to the established idea of masculinity (magrath, 2017), which was identified as the “rocky-rambo complex” (kellner, 1991). secondly, as a response to the outbreak of hiv/aids, the growing influence of fundamentalist christian movements stirred up hatred against the homosexual community. the religious rhetoric often worked cooperatively with the strong conservative policy (e. anderson, 2009b), for example, in 1988, section 28 was adopted in the uk, which prohibited the discussion of homosexuality-related matters in schools (epstein & johnson, 1998). in greece, hiv/aids as a social phenomenon did not play significant role in shaping peoples’ opinion about homosexuals compared to other european countries (mcnair, 2005). this can be explained by the social invisibility of homosexuals and the lack of organization within the lgbt community, the absence of what can be described as gay culture and the absence of a strong political, homosexual political pressure—the so-called gay lobby (phellas et al., 2014). in greece, there is still a perceived lack of research on homophobia (fygetakis, 1997; yannakopoulos, 1996), although in recent years there has been an academic interest in this topic (kalogerakou, 2018; papanikolaou, 2019; rapti, 2017; zervoulis, changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 669–685 671 2016). there are even less studies dealing with this topic in relation to sports (georgiou et al., 2018, 2019; grigoropoulos, 2010; grigoropoulos & kordoutis, 2015). we believe, however, that this is an interesting topic which is worthy of attention since the majority of people in sports are young adults—the category that constitutes the core of the greek society—and, therefore, their opinion is quite illustrative of the prevailing public attitudes to lgbt people. the contribution of this study to the existing field is that for the first time in greece, it is based on the data from various sports. it also relies on a more thorough statistical analysis to examine the reliability and validity of the “attitudes toward lesbians and gay men” (atlg) scale (herek, 1984) as an essential methodological tool. thus, the resulting data provide a more comprehensive and complete picture of the situation in greece related to the issue of homophobia in sports. in most european countries, the majority of people are tolerant toward homosexuality (on average, about 70%: spain 88%, germany 87%, the czech republic 80%, france 77%, the uk 76%, italy 74%). poland is the only notable exception, where the percentage of people who reported being tolerant to homosexuality is 42% while 46% of people expressed negative attitudes towards homosexuality (kohut, 2013). in greece, the situation resembles that of poland: only a half of the citizens consider themselves to be lgbt-friendly, with women being generally more tolerant to homosexuality than men. as for age differences, younger people tend to be more open-minded when it comes to sexual orientation, while older people seem to be more conservative (kohut, 2013). there have been a number of more specialized surveys focusing on specific population groups in greece (see, for example, drydakis, 2009; grigoropoulos, 2010; grigoropoulos & kordoutis, 2015; grigoropoulos et al., 2010; karellou, 2003; v. papadaki & e. papadaki, 2011; papadaki et al., 2015). unfortunately, in comparison with other european countries, greece ranks among the least tolerant countries in relation to homosexuality. there is an overall report, which reveals that the levels of homophobia and discrimination against the lgbt community are very high in greece (pavlou, 2009). unfortunately, many homosexual greeks find it very difficult to translate their sexual desires and behaviours into a political statement of homosexual identity even today (zervoulis, 2016). this is partly due to the change in the geopolitical situation of the country compared to the past. modern greece is a mediterranean country in the south-eastern part of europe. it is located at the crossroads between the west and east, conveying the experiences of its past and being influenced by both europe and the middle east. greece’s war history with other great civilizations of the wider middle east (such as the egyptians, assyrians and especially the persians) and the ottoman occupation, which lasted 400 years, and more in some areas, have severely affected the cultural background of the country (zervoulis, 2016). let us not forget that about 1.25 million greeks were expelled from turkey (fygetakis, 1997). at the same time, 50,000 inhabitants lived in athens, while today they are over 3 million. all these expelled people brought customs and beliefs with them, one of which certainly was the different types of their sexual attitude. these customs and beliefs were influenced due to the coexistence of these people with other cultural groups in the area (zervoulis, 2016). https://changing-sp.com/ 672 christos konstantinidis, evangelos bebetsos, filippos filippou, eleni zetou homophobia and gender gender is regarded as a critical factor that affects attitudes to homosexuality and homophobia. according to d’augeili and rose (1990), wright et al. (1999), warriner et al. (2013), moral de la rubia and valle de la o (2014), pavlica et al. (2016), men are homophobic to a greater degree than women. all of these studies considered young adults, in particular high school and college students. according to previous researchers (moral de la rubia & valle de la o, 2014; pavlica et al. (2016), the focus on this age is important, because it is the period when people form their social opinion. therefore, the researchers of this study decided to use the same age group sample. methodological tools to measure attitudes to homosexuality in sports to measure tolerance toward homosexuality in sports, several questionnaires were used (piedra et al., 2017). among the most common ones are the “attitudes towards lesbian and gays” (atlg) (herek, 1984), and the modern homophobia scale (raja & stokes, 1998). these two methodological tools were designed to measure the attitudes towards sexual minorities in general and not specifically in sports. they came to be regarded as universal instruments and were applied in a range of social and cultural contexts (cárdenas & barrientos, 2008; collier et al., 2015; moral de la rubia & valle de la o, 2014; o’brien et al., 2013; rosik, 2007). as far as sports are concerned, the most commonly used tools are the “perceptions of homophobia” rosik (2007) and “heterosexism in physical education scale” (phhpe) (morrow & gill, 2003), measuring the perception of homophobia and heterosexism (discrimination in favour of heterosexual and against homosexual people) among teachers (phhpe-ts) and students (phhpe-ss). research objective this study was considered necessary to address the perceived research gap due to the lack of studies on attitudes to homosexuality and homophobia in greece and, most importantly, the lack of suitable methodological tools. the main aim of the study is to adapt herek’s “attitudes toward lesbians and gay men scale” (altg) (herek, 1984) to the greek society. the research comprised two stages or sub-studies. methodology 1st stage at this stage, the purpose was to investigate the structural validity and reliability of the atlg scale for the greek context. sample the participants were 186 undergraduate students of the school of physical education & sport science of the democritus university of thrace in komotini, greece (74, 39.8% men and 112, 60.2% women). the age of the respondents ranges between changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 669–685 673 18 and 23 years old. the sexual orientation of the sample remains unknown because researchers did not consider it necessary and did not intend to draw comparisons based on the sexual orientation of the respondents. this clarification was added to the guidance text given to the research participants. the atlg scale the majority of research on sexual prejudice in relation to sports had mostly used the methodology developed by herek (1984)—the atlg scale (see, for example, a. r. anderson & mowatt, 2013; ensign et al., 2011; gill et al., 2006; o’brien et al., 2013; oswalt & vargas, 2013; roper & halloran, 2007; sartore & cunningham, 2009). another tool was called the “modern homophobia scale” (forbes et al., 2002), and it was used to measure the attitudes towards sexual minorities in sports. however, these scales were not designed to measure negative attitudes in a particular setting or environment, where there may be different types of stereotypes and prejudices associated with the traditional homophobic climate. the atlg scale was originally elaborated in english (herek, 1984) but it has been adjusted to other languages as well, such as spanish (cárdenas & barrientos, 2008), and it has been used for research purposes in many countries such as the united states (lamar & kite, 1998), the uk (hegarty, 2002), canada (mohipp & morr y, 2004), chile (cárdenas & barrientos, 2008), mexico (moral de la rubia & valle de la o, 2013, 2014) and ghana (norman et al., 2016). the questionnaire consists of 20 questions. the first ten deal with the attitudes towards homosexual men (atg subscale) and the other ten, with the attitudes towards homosexual women (atl subscale). the respondents’ choice of the degree of agreement or disagreement is expressed by using the 5-grade likert-type scale (from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”). the highest scores, close to 5, refer to greater identification with the statement, while the lowest, close to 1, refer to greater rejection of the statement. participants were also asked to provide information about their gender and age. statistical analyses the following statistical analyses were performed: an exploratory factor analysis (efa) was used to examine the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. factor reliability (cronbach’s α) was examined by conducting reliability analysis. descriptive statistics were calculated to broadly examine the degree of homophobia. the authors of this study proposed that if some of the factors turn out inappropriate, control of data and variables’ suitability could be seen as the first stage of factorial analysis. the following statistical criteria were used to ensure this control: the partial correlation coefficient, which is controlled with the value of kmo (kaiser–meyer– olkin) and bartlett’s test of sphericity (hair et al. 2009; teixeira et al., 2020), and the measure of sampling adequacy (msa). the kmo index takes values from 0 to 1. when the range of this value is between 0.8 and 1, the sampling is adequate. when this value is less than 0.6, the sampling is not adequate, and remedies should be taken. in some cases, limit is set at 0.5 (glen, https://changing-sp.com/ 674 christos konstantinidis, evangelos bebetsos, filippos filippou, eleni zetou 2016). regarding msa values, rates .9 and .8 are the most appropriate, concerning that values from .6 to .7 are acceptable but not so reliable, and those which are less than or equal to .5 have to be deleted and not be taken into consideration at the analysis to come (hair et al., 1998). results suitability of data and variables the results showed that the statistical criterion of kaiser–meyer–olkin is remarkably high (.939). furthermore, the bartlett’s test of sphericity rejects the zero hypothesis that the correlation’s table is the only one (the value of control function 2358.520, degrees of freedom 190, and p = .000). data analysis indicated that the survey’s data are suitable for a factorial analysis. in order to check if all the indicators are appropriate for this model, the value of the “measure of sampling adequacy” (msa) has been considered. according to the results, all the indicators are within the limits of the msa criteria with the index ranging between .879 and .963 (hair et al., 1998). exploratory factor analysis one of the objectives of the paper was to test the psychometric properties of the scale. a principal component analysis (exploratory factor analysis) with varimax rotation was performed using spss 26 to test the factor structure of the scale in the greek context. as shown in table 1, the two factors that emerged from the analysis accounted for 58% of the total variance. these factors corresponded to the two dilemmas (table 1). table 1 principal component analysis of the atlg questionnaire items 1 2 atg 1 .721 atg 2 .781 atg 3 .313 .716 atg 4 .485 .851 atg 5 .371 .825 atg 6 .468 .804 atg 7 .729 atg 8 .399 .887 atg 9 .353 .854 atg 10 .320 .650 atl 1 .777 atl 2 .536 atl 3 .818 .305 atl 4 .605 atl 5 .750 .361 atl 6 .832 atl 7 .663 atl 8 .694 .376 atl 9 .736 .363 atl 10 .772 .340 total variance: 58% % of variance 33.56 24.44 eigen value 6.06 5.20 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 669–685 675 reliability analysis the values for cronbach’s α were calculated to assess the internal consistency reliabilities of “men’s homophobia” (.93), and “women’s homophobia” (.89). the results indicated that both scales showed acceptable internal consistency since cronbach’s α was higher than .88. table 2 reliability analysis of the atlg questionnaire (1st stage) factors men women t-test significance cronbach’s αm s.d. m s.d. t p men’s homophobia 2.99 .95 3.89 .77 t(184) = 5.82 .000 .93 women’s homophobia 3.89 .94 4.08 .81 t(184) = 1.60 n.s. .89 discussion the purpose of the first stage was to examine the structural validity and internal consistency of the “attitudes toward lesbians and gay men” scale in the greek environment. concerning this tool’s structural validity, the exploratory factor analysis of the questionnaire has brought to light the two factors proposed by herek (1988). as can be expected from these foreseeable results, ours contradict those of earlier studies, such as those of lamar and kite (1998), who found 4 factors, cárdenas and barrientos (2008) in chile, who found 5, moral de la rubia and valle de la o (2013) in mexico, who found 3. concerning the differences resulting from the analyses, we believe that this difference may be due to the cultural and geographical differences between the countries surveyed. other factors may have contributed to this differentiation of results. for instance, in cárdenas and barrientos (2008), a 6-grade likert-type scale is used while we use the traditional 5-grade scale. furthermore, since the study of lamar and kite (1998) was conducted quite long ago, this may also have caused the differences in the results. we found that both scales, for men and women, showed acceptable high internal consistency. as for the degree of homophobia, the results indicated that greek men are friendlier towards lesbians than male homosexuals. this result can be based on men’s erotic fantasies about the relationship between two women (louderback & whitley, 1997). we believe that this explanation may also apply to people in greece and to the social stereotypes that prevail in greek society as the idea of sexual encounters between women is more widespread and accepted than between two men. in contrast with men’s behaviour, women’s attitude to male and female homosexuality is more conciliatory. greek women appear to be more openminded than men, a hypothesis that works cooperatively with the available research evidence (cárdenas & barrientos, 2008; moral de la rubia & valle de la o, 2014). most importantly, the outcomes of the study have shown the suitability and validity of the atlg scale in the greek context and we renamed the adjusted scale the “range of homophobia scale” (rhs). https://changing-sp.com/ 676 christos konstantinidis, evangelos bebetsos, filippos filippou, eleni zetou 2nd stage research goals the purpose of this stage was to confirm the factor structure and reliability of the greek version (rhs) of the atlg scale (herek, 1984). sample the participants were 254 undergraduate students of the school of physical education & sport science of the democritus university of thrace in komotini, greece (102, 40.2% men and 152, 59.8% women). the age of the respondents ranges between 18 and 23 years old. the sexual orientation of the respondents remains unknown because we did not intend to draw any comparisons based on their sexual orientation. this clarification was added to the guidance text given to the respondents. another reason why we chose not to ask the respondents about their sexual orientation was that the requirement to disclose information about their sexuality might have affected their answers. tools the instrument which was used was the adjusted atlg scale renamed as the rhs questionnaire statistical analyses the following statistical analyses were performed. confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was used to examine the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. factor reliability (composite reliability and average variance extracted) was examined by conducting a reliability analysis. descriptive statistics were calculated to broadly examine the degree of satisfaction. confirmatory factor analysis: the method it was used for estimation was the maximum likelihood (ml). the adjustment (fit) indices that have been taken into account and their acceptable values are the following: namely minimum discrepancy (cmin or χ2), degrees of freedom (df), minimum discrepancy divided by the degrees of freedom (χ2/df) less than 5, root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) less than .08, standardized root mean square residual (srmr) less than .05, incremental indices comparative fit index (cfi) greater than .90, normed fit index (nfi) (bentler, 1990; mcdonald, & marsh, 1990) and parsimony normed fit index (pnfi) values equal to or greater than .60. the control of the internal consistency of the factors was performed using the index composite reliability (aguirre-urreta et al., 2013; hair et al., 2019). the reliability of the factor is acceptable when the index takes values greater than or equal to .70. to assess the discriminant and convergent validity, the average variance extracted (ave) index was considered. values of greater than or equal to .50 are acceptable. results confirmatory factor analyses three confirmatory factor analyses were performed using lisrel 8.80. the method of estimating the parameters was that of maximum likelihood (bentler, 1990; platsidou, 2001). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 669–685 677 men’s homophobia the hypothesized model consists of one latent variable, namely “men’s homophobia”. the results of the confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the hypothesized model produced a significant chi-square, χ2(254) = 126.87, χ2/df = 3.639, p < .05. the nfi and cfi were found to be .94 and .95 respectively. the rmsea was also used to assess the degree of fit of the model. the rmsea value for the hypothesized model was found to be .065 and srmr = .038. women’s homophobia the hypothesized model consists of one latent variable, namely “women’s homophobia”. the results of the confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the hypothesized model produced a significant chi-square, χ2(254) = 115.36, χ2/df = 3.30, p < .05. the nfi and cfi were found to be 0.96 and 0.97 respectively. the rmsea was also considered to assess the degree of fit of the model. the rmsea value for the hypothesized model was found to be .063 and srmr = .041. total homophobia the confirmatory analysis was performed to check whether the 20 questions could be a factor in examining total homophobia. the theoretical model consists of one latent variable, namely “total homophobia”. the results of the confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the hypothesized model produced a significant chi-square, χ2(254) = 826.96, χ2/df = 4.86, p < .05. the nfi and cfi were found to be .94 and .96 respectively. the rmsea was also used to assess the degree of fit of the model. the rmsea value for the hypothesized model was found to be .062 and srmr = .044. composite reliability and average variance extracted as shown in table 3, all factors showed particularly good reliability since the cr index takes values .939 for men’s homophobia and .912 for women’s homophobia. in terms of discriminant and convergent validity, the ave index showed a satisfactory value for men’s homophobia (.608). in contrast, the factor “women’s homophobia” showed marginally acceptable values (.514) (table 3). as shown in table 4, men are more homophobic than women when it comes to male homosexuality. on the contrary, we found no gender-related differences in the level of homophobia towards lesbians. regarding total homophobia, no statistically significant gender-related differences are observed (see table 5). discussion the purpose of the study was to confirm the factor structure and reliability of the greek version (1st stage) of the scale of the “attitudes towards lesbians and gay men”, which means that it is relevant for the survey in greece. the theoretical model of confirmatory factor analysis included investigation of the three factors: the degree of homophobia against male homosexuality, the degree of homophobia against female homosexuality, and homophobia regardless of the gender. https://changing-sp.com/ 678 christos konstantinidis, evangelos bebetsos, filippos filippou, eleni zetou confirmatory factor analysis has shown the validity of the proposed theoretical model. the scale proposed by herek (1984) and the one we developed at the first stage can also be used as a single scale measuring homophobia regardless of the gender. the internal consistency of both the overall scale and the two factors was extremely high, considering the results that were similar to those of the first stage. table 3 construct item cr ave men’s homophobia .706 .939 .608 .797 .695 .848 .770 .788 .745 .877 .863 .681 women’s homophobia .754 .912 .514 .560 .820 .564 .774 .841 .668 .700 .738 .785 table 4 mean, standard deviation, and t-test of atlg questionnaire (2nd stage) factors men women t-test significance m s.d. m s.d. t p men’s homophobia 3.12 .85 3.98 .79 t(252) = 4.15 .05 women’s homophobia 3.45 .81 4.04 .82 t(252) = .618 n.s. table 5 mean, standard deviation, and t-test among genders total homophobia t-test significance factors m s.d. t p men 3.57 .91 t(252) = 1.57 n.s.women 3.73 .85 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 669–685 679 both the stability of the internal reliability of the two factors and the scale as a whole, as well as the stability of the averages presented in the second survey, show that the “attitudes toward lesbians and gay men” scale is a reliable measure of homophobia in greece. additionally, the validated new scale was renamed into the “range of homophobia scale” (rhs) based on the atlg scale and intended for the greek context. conclusion this study has shown the reliability of the atlg scale and subscales in the greek context, thus addressing the perceived gap in the current research on this topic (papadopoulos, 2019). this tool was used to measure the attitudes of greek people towards homosexual men and women by focusing on the students majoring in physical education and sports. taking into account the fact that only 22% of the citizens in greece feel comfortable about watching a public kiss (or even a handshake) between two people of the same gender (papaioannou, 2019), the research on attitudes to homosexuality is more relevant than 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why, in particular, does it matter to “freedom of conscience”? untangling these two usages, so often smuggled in under the cover of “religious liberty,” can, i urge, make a difference to discussions of freedom of conscience, because freedom of conscience often suffers at the hand of freedom of religion, as does religious freedom itself. in applying this convention, i am also aware that, although conceptually distinct, some fr and rf may have practical, material relations to one another. thus, it may be the case that, fr, such as freedom of conscience, or freedom to practice one’s religion, are only possible given fr, given some degree of sovereignty of the religious community of which a given individual can form received 1 august 2017 © 2017 ivan strenski accepted 23 october 2017 strenski@ucr.edu published online 27 december 2017 ivan strenski328 a conscience. how then are these two notions of freedom distinct – both logically, and as it happens, in their historical genesis? the first, “freedom of religion” arose from a papal declaration of freedom, made by 12th and 13th century pontiff, pope gregory vii, marking what legal historian, harold berman called the papal revolution. gregory laid down a statement of papal sovereignty over that of the holy roman emperor. we may be more familiar with this principle from thomas becket’s opposition to king henry ii. the raison d’être for his martyrdom was the defense what beckett called “the freedom of the church,” an institutional matter. later, in 1215, in the magna carta, king john affirms the very same institutional freedom in the following words: “first, that we have granted to god, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the english church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired.” (england, 1215) interestingly, in the decision of the hosannatabor case, the justices cited this very clause of the magna carta. controversy between church and state over religious offices is hardly new. in 1215, the issue was addressed in the very first clause of magna carta. there, king john agreed that “the english church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired.” the king in particular accepted the “freedom of elections,” a right “thought to be of the greatest necessity and importance to the english church.” (alito and kagan, 2012) in the us supreme court decision, hosanna-tabor v. eeoc ruling, scotus forbade the government from applying equal opportunity employment law to the case of a worker fired from her job with the church. the worker had fallen ill, and after recovering, wanted to reclaim her job. but, the firing was upheld, and the freedom of the church to do so was accommodated at the expense of the civil rights of the employee, because the employee was classified as a “minister” by the church. critically, neither the magna carta itself nor the hosanna-tabor case affirms individual freedom of conscience, or religious freedom. from alito’s decision, it should be clear about what (or whose) freedom is being affirmed, both by the magna carta and by scotus. plainly, it is institutional sovereignty, not personal liberty that both documents affirm. it is not, therefore, the right to believe according to the dictates of conscience against the authority of his religious community. it is, rather, the freedom (or sovereignty) of religious institutions that is affirmed – indeed, often to rein in believers with deviant consciences. part of the reason for this logical difference may be the different genealogies of these two notions. the differences between institutional freedom of religion and religious freedom (of individual conscience) have been traced to their difference geneses by historians like john neville figgis, harold berman, martha nussbaum and others. pope gregory vii’s so-called 12th century “papal revolution” asserts the freedom of the church, of religion, while the value of religious freedom (of conscience) arises in the liberality of the 17th century dutch republic and the colonial experiments of roger williams. (berman, 1983; figgis, 1997; figgis, 1998; nussbaum, 2008) 329changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 it has become commonplace; however in the west, to regard the religious liberty to be identified exclusively with sacrality of conscience, the right to believe whatever one chooses. historically speaking, this conception of religious liberty ignores that sense of religious liberty understood as the freedom of an institution, people, nation and such. it further tends falsely to collapse the notions of institutional freedom and freedom of belief or conscience into each other. this results in the irony of becket being held up as a paragon of religious freedom or independent conscience when, in fact, he was simply obeying hierarchically derived order in representing the claims of the roman church against the kingdom of henry ii! the differences in these two notions of religious liberty are thus at the very least historically deep. the depth of logical difference can better be appreciated by the frequent way claims to the rights of conscience are asserted against the authority or freedom of religious institutions, rather than in their behalf. i submit that while institutional freedom of religion may indeed “protect the individual” from a predatory state, it may also disadvantage the individual with respect to their church. in the hosanna-tabor case, the united state supreme court’s siding with the church over against the rights of an individual freedom of conscience demonstrates just such conflict within the notion of religious liberty. sometimes freedom of religion, freedom of a church, for instance, demands compromising of the freedom – religious or otherwise – an individual’s freedom or well-being. for instance, any number of critical roman catholic theologians, trying to assert theological lehrfreiheit at catholic institutions, as well as roger williams, william robertson smith, galileo galilei, ridley and latimer, michael servetus, thomas moore, hans küng, or the network’s “nuns on the bus” might complain of being oppressed by their churches. in their cases, the state stood by, exposing them to the predations of their religious institutions. in such cases, i think we can fairly say that freedom of religion (fr) militates against religious freedoms (rf). other burdens of freedom of religion’s unburdening one might extend this line of thought further and look anew at cases where the freedom of religion, that is, of religious institutions, is asserted to the disadvantage of the individual enjoyment of civil goods. in the united states, two recent and quite different cases, us supreme court decision, burwell v. hobby lobby (2014) and compounded case of zubic v. burwell (2015) serve nonetheless as examples of the kinds of rulings in which judicial exemptions granted to religious institutions, at least on the face of it, disadvantaged individual enjoyment of legitimate civic goods, including freedom of conscience, made possible by general laws. both rulings, and adjustments made to them, make these cases complex. without wanting grossly to oversimplify them, i simply want to shift the point of view from that of a putatively burdened religious institution to the other side. yes, one can understand how the federal mandate to offer contraceptive support to women employees of hobby lobby, the little sisters of the poor, and so on, might conceivably put these organizations into moral straits. and, yes, governmental ivan strenski330 officials did accommodate the scruples of the religious plaintiffs so that their women employees could receive contraceptive services from non-religious, public sources. still, the women involved were “burdened” – keep waiting through periods of uncertainty and deprivation of their legitimate civic goods, guaranteed to them under general law. while these are not cases where the interests of (institutional) freedom of religion directly conflict with religious freedom (of conscience), they are cases where (institutional) freedom of religion does “burden” the enjoyment of legitimate civic goods. here, it is not freedom of conscience that suffers, but simply the enjoyment of common civic goods ensured by general law. an individual citizen’s legitimate enjoyment of civic goods that has, thus, been “burdened” by the claim of a religious institution to have been “burdened,” in turn, by general law. i should immediately note, however, that the courts have commonly tried to balance these burdens upon the general citizenry over against those of religious plaintiffs. in the little sisters of the poor case, for instance, the federal government provided the contraceptive services from which the nuns sought exemption. the “burdening” of the general citizenry seems to be the social cost of freeing religious institutions from “burdens.” i believe that the equity of such civic burdening ought to be given further scrutiny. as to freedom of conscience, i have noted how institutional “freedom of religion” differs conceptually from this “religious freedom” – an individual liberty. this difference even extends to one of different historical origins – religious freedom, the free conscience, emerging later in the 17th century dutch republic, while freedom of religion dated from the assertion of papal independence from the holy roman emperor. interestingly, freedom of religion (fr) often excludes conscience-linked religious freedom (rf), as admirers of roger williams, william robertson smith, galileo galilei, ridley and latimer, michael servetus, thomas moore, hans küng, or the network’s “nuns on the bus” and a whole parade of religious dissenters can variously testify. more frequently than optimal, no attempt is made to distinguish the two – with the notable exceptions in the danchin, mahmood, shackman, sullivan collection of elizabeth castelli (castelli, 2015), saba mahmood (castelli, 2015), winni sullivan (castelli, 2015). readers suspicious of my insistence upon this distinction might rightly ask at least two questions straightaway. first, can the two really be separated in reality? does not the one actually require or entail the other? second, why would it make a difference to distinguish the two kinds of discourse? what is gained? the first question can be answered easily, and in fact has implicitly been so by castelli. she argues that – institutional – freedom of religion, such as that enjoyed by the roman catholic church, does not necessarily establish religious freedom for the individual. in fact, it creates a circle of sovereignty around its member, ruling out recourse to, say, us courts, to overrule the church. think how this ring of sovereignty was breached – and thankfully so – in the case of the catholic church pedophile scandals. nevertheless, religious freedom means that the freedom of the church sanctions a regime of discipline of – individual – religious freedom, such as in the case of doctrinal dissidents or irregulars. freedom of 331changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 religion entails the actual requirement of “submission to the magisterium,” as castelli reminds us. (castelli, 2015). it is important to make this distinction because the only reason castelli thinks her analysis catches the vatican in a contradiction about religious freedom is that she fails to understand the difference institutional freedom of religion from individual religious freedom. of course, in the catholic context, “religious freedom emerges as nothing more than a mode of shoring up the magisterium… not a set of values that shelters and protects acts of conscience…” (castelli, 2015) that’s what freedom of religion is all about! the church’s assertion of religious freedom is an assertion of institutional sovereignty, the right to rule within its own domain. in fact, this principle of institutional sovereignty very principle giving it jurisdiction over the consciences of its adherents, and which denies them religious freedom. castelli has no cause for surprise, nor reason to think she has pulled “gotcha” move on magisterial autocracy, by pointing to what is not really an inconsistency at all. castelli’s dare that “bishops should put their money where their collective mouth is and to defend religious freedom in their own polity,” reflects castelli’s fundamental confusion about the difference between institutional sovereignty or freedom and individual freedom of conscience. (castelli, 2015) not only do the two differ, but the sovereignty won in freedom of religion is precisely what makes denial of individual religious freedom possible and legally unassailable. of all american heroes of individual religious freedom, roger williams again knew this best of all, given his own experience of religious oppression constructed in the interests of the freedom of religion of the massachusetts bay colony. an interesting experiment might be to see which has been the greater oppressor of religion, its free exercise and so on – sovereign – free – religious institutions or the erastian state, as so often posed today as oppressor-in-chief of religion? given how long sovereign religious institutions have engaged in censure, ostracism, expulsions – or worse – of dissidents, heresy operations, excommunications, enforced or regulated orthodoxy and orthopraxis, regulations daily life, and so on, what are the odds? compared to this history could state limitations upon religion, in retrospect, then have been cumulatively greater? the results of such an inquiry would, at the very least, be interesting. references alito, s. j., & kagan, e. (2012). concurring. hosanna-tabor evangelical lutheran church and school v. equal employment opportunity commission et al. on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the sixth circuit. in 10–553. supreme court of the united states. washington, dc: government printing house. berman, h. j. (1983). law and revolution: the formation of the western legal tradition. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. castelli, e. a. (2015). the bishops, the sisters and religious freedom. in danchin, p., hurd, e. s., mahmood, s., & sullivan, w. f. (eds.) politics of religious freedom. chicago: university of chicago, 220–230. ivan strenski332 danchin, p. g., hurd, e. s., mahmood, s., & sullivan, w. f. (2015). politics of religious freedom. chicago: university of chicago. figgis, j. n. (1997). churches in the modern state. bristol: thoemmes press. figgis, j. n. (1998). studies of political thought from gerson to grotius, 1414–1625. bristol: thoemmes press. king john of england. (1215). magna carta. nussbaum, m. c. (2008). liberty of conscience: in defense of america’s tradition of religious equality. new york: basic books. nussbaum, m. c., gerken, h. k., ryan, j. e., & wilkinson iii, j. h. (2007). the supreme court 2006 term. harvard law review, 121(1): 1–183, 185–499. changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91–106 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.1.091 received 10 january 2020 © 2020 natalya l. antonova, anatoly v. merenkov accepted 10 march 2020 n-tata@mail.ru published online 10 april 2020 anatoly.mer@gmail.com article perceived personal attractiveness and self-improvement practices natalya l. antonova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia anatoly v. merenkov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the article discusses the results of a sociological survey of personal attractiveness perceptions and self-improvement practices (exercise, dieting, plastic surgery, learning, etc.) in yekaterinburg (russia). the purpose of the research is to identify ageand genderrelated similarities and differences in the perceptions of attractive appearance and personality traits among russians. the survey was conducted in 2019 and covered 680 people of both sexes and different age groups. it also included 33 in-depth interviews with respondents from different age groups. the survey results have shown that people resort to various practices for enhancing their physical shape and personality in accordance with established stereotypes of outer and inner beauty. younger generations of russians continue to reproduce gender asymmetry in their ideas of feminine and male beauty. the research has also brought to light a new system of gender inequality: women appear to be much more active in their pursuit of a healthy body and personality growth than men. inhabitants of yekaterinburg most frequently resort to such self-improvement practices as exercise and healthy eating. people in all age groups gave lower ratings to such qualities as stamina and productivity at work, which shows their lack of awareness of the role these attributes play in acquiring new knowledge and skills in the digital age. https://changing-sp.com/ 92 natalya l. antonova, anatoly v. merenkov introduction in recent decades, there has been a call for new ways to approach the complex relations between the social and the biological in the social sciences. the main principles in the study of this biological/social division were laid by herbert spencer (1876), emile durkheim (1895), and ludwig gumplowicz (1885). at the current stage, sociology studies interactions between biological and socio-cultural dimensions in human actions (jackson & scott, 2014; meloni, 2014). the interpretative schemes used to explain the behaviours of social groups and communities now include knowledge of biological reality and the physiological functions of the human organism. sociologists’ current interest in the body as a bio-social construct is determined by the following factors. the first is the rapid development of medicine and biotechnologies (the human genome project, assisted reproductive technologies, cloning, transplantology, neurointerfaces, exoskeletons, and so on), which raises a number of serious questions regarding the enhancement and modification of the human body in accordance with the dominant cultural standards and ideals or against them (marginal practices of body modification as a form of protest behaviour). the second factor is the explosive growth of the beauty and wellness industry, which makes these services more accessible for various social groups. plastic surgery (higgins & wysong, 2018), fitness services (crossley, 2006), nutrition counselling and diet programs (crossley, 2004), and invasive and non-invasive beauty treatments (yazdandoost, hayatbini, farid, gharaee & latifi, 2016) have turned into profitable, actively developing areas and have already become an important part of people’s lives. these services are now seen as valuable instruments to enhance one’s chances for upward social mobility and success in career and family life. the third factor is the increase in the perceived value of beauty and vitality and the rise of the healthy living movement. more and more people are trying to prolong their working lives by increasing their investment in fitness and healthier diets. the pursuit of beauty and longevity stems from people’s desire to improve their inherent or acquired capabilities. nevertheless, although new practices and technologies allow us to prevent some diseases and delay death, the fundamental laws of nature cannot be changed, as we still get sick, grow old and die. sociology seeks to explain and justify modern practices of body modification, identify the factors that determine the development of such practices, and consider interpretations of the human body as embedded in contemporary cultural and social contexts. keywords body, attractiveness, beauty ideals, body modification, sociodemographic groups, gender differences acknowledgements this research was supported by a russian foundation for basic research, grant № 18-011-00150 а changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91–106 93 theoretical framework the human body is a biological entity that grows, reaches maturity, and ages. the body is also affected by processes of socialization as an individual learns to conform to the established socio-cultural norms. the human body can be transformed in accordance with its owner’s wishes. according to michel foucault (1975), the perception and use of the body is a social construct. bryan s. turner (1984) believed that the body can be seen as a social object constructed, controlled, and disciplined by culture. in the modern world, the body is considered attractive and acceptable until it becomes old (turner, 1987). within the framework of pierre bourdieu’s theory, the body is a form of cultural capital (bourdieu, 1983). people are simultaneously biological creatures and social agents (bourdieu, 1990). social distances and norms characteristic of a specific culture and type of social relationship are “inscribed” into the body. in mid-twentiethcentury russia, for example, name tattoos on phalanges symbolized aggressive masculinity and their owner’s belonging to the criminal world. in modern societies, tattoos are often seen as a way to stand out from the crowd and to emphasize one’s individuality. when new zealand maori women reach adolescence, they start getting traditional female moko kauae chin tattoos, considered to be a physical manifestation of their true identity. body maintenance and enhancement require significant investments of time, effort, and money, although the result may still fall short of individual and social expectations. the body as an integral part of a human being may also be seen as a form of commodified physical capital (e.g. the body’s shape and active capacity) and be used as an object of self-presentation in various markets, as well as an article of exchange, sale, or rent. fashion models convert their bodily capital into economic capital. in their turn, clients may hire a fashion model and use his or her body for presentation of goods and services, thus converting it into their own symbolical capital. in postindustrial culture, the body is seen as a tool for enhancing one’s chances in life and realizing one’s aspirations. for men and women alike, increasing societal pressure to remain healthy, young, and beautiful for as long as possible is often accompanied by a growing feeling of inadequacy in comparison with the perfect body images circulated by mass media (sklar, 2015). body image is created by interactions between one’s thoughts, views, perceptions, and attitudes in relation to one’s body (cash, 2004). evaluation of one’s own body against a certain ideal determines the individual’s position and status within a social group and social system as a whole. body image dissatisfaction is detrimental to one’s self-esteem and impairs the general quality of life (clay, vignoles & dittmar, 2005). for example, the emphasis on a slim female body in contemporary society has led to the spread of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia (polivy & herman, 2002), unnecessary use of medicine such as laxatives and diuretics (grogan, 2006), and aesthetic surgery (sperry, thompson, sarwer & cash, 2009). laurie essig observes that in the modern fluid and fast-changing world, people are trying to maintain control over their lives and their future through body practices https://changing-sp.com/ https://guilfordjournals.com/author/clay%2c+daniel https://guilfordjournals.com/author/vignoles%2c+vivian+l https://guilfordjournals.com/author/dittmar%2c+helga 94 natalya l. antonova, anatoly v. merenkov (essig, 2010). body enhancement thus starts to be seen as a way of augmenting one’s life chances: a girl dreaming of a new nose, lips, or breasts is not much different from her peer dreaming of a posh car, big house, and a rich husband. body modification practices give individuals a feeling of control, which has an intrinsic value of its own. luisa stagi (2008) points out that it has now become important to demonstrate an “appropriate” appearance in the system of social interactions. such an appearance can be obtained through “body tuning”, which helps people adapt more efficiently to various situations in everyday life. those who fail to copy the ideal models can suffer from low self-esteem when comparing their bodies with these (often unrealistic) “perfect” body images (carlson, 2002). it was found that if a woman’s body does not match the ideal model, it may lead to the deterioration in the quality of life for women aged 18–42 (mond, et al., 2013). mass media, in turn, increases the pressure on men and women through the circulation of images of specific male and female body types (grabe, ward & hyde, 2008; grogan, 1999). starting from the late 1980s, consumerist culture emphasized the importance of personal appearance as a determinant of social well-being. the need to demonstrate a beautiful and sexual body (featherstone, 1991) turned an attractive appearance into an end in itself and the manifestation of the meaning of life. chris shilling (2003) introduced the term “body project” to denote the ways in which individuals relate to their bodies. in their individual choices, people may choose to engage in popular body projects or go for something different. people are generally aware of the available methods of body modification; in contemporary western societies, there is also a trend for closer connection between a person and his or her corporeality (shilling, 2003). in contemporary society, the human body is an instrument that can be used to achieve a higher status, gain certain material benefits, and so on. consumerist attitudes to the body lead to people’s alienation from their bodies, as bodies become objects of manipulation. when contact with the biological body is lost, the body ceases to function as the central axis of a man’s world (sartre, 1943) because self-awareness requires bodily sensory experience (merleau-ponty, 1964). having plastic surgery, like silicone lip augmentation, may result in an alienated relationship to one’s own body. jean baudrillard (1994) raises the question of the disappearance of the real (or natural) man due to his growing dependence on the social system, together with the general rise in social control. the body itself becomes subject to the social system’s requirements and conditions. arthur kroker and marilouise kroker (1987) speak of the “panic body”, a body agonizingly molded according to schemes determined by society. body-centrism has now reached its apogee, since body modifications are often performed in post-modern society an effort to reinforce one’s subjective autonomy. anne balsamo (1996) proposes thinking of plastic surgery as “fashion surgery”, that is, an instrument for creating multiple identities: the beauty industry and plastic surgery industry offer their clients surgical refashioning of their bodies – opportunities to “try on” various kinds of bodies the same way we try on new clothes. new technologies enable people to “customize” their bodies, which means that the body is turned into a kind of work in progress, transformed and molded to taste throughout changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91–106 95 one’s life (shilling, 2003). the body is not fixed absolutely because it is determined by the culture and discourse in which it is embedded. the body positive movement (cohen, irwin, newton-john & slater, 2019), which challenges the dominant beauty ideals and celebrates “natural” beauty and acceptance, co-exists with body hacktivism (duarte, 2013), a movement uniting proponents of extreme body modification who call themselves “cyborgs”. the normative system of contemporary society is much less rigid than that of traditional society. this includes views on how the body should look, how it should be maintained and experienced. despite the fact that the normative image of a body is a mechanism of social control, modern social systems offer a wide spectrum of options for choosing a body. an individual is left with a choice and has to invest certain effort in molding his or her body in conformity with the selected normative image. body image and the choice of body enhancement practices depend on the gender, age, ethnic identity, professional, and social background of a person (blowers, et. al., 2003; ricciardelli, mccabe & banfield, 2000). while our individual corporeal nature is biologically determined, culture and society have become an evolutionary adaptation mechanism. the biological and social nature of human being is reproduced in everyday life. a person who wants to be accepted by society has to conform to specific social expectations. materials and methods our survey was conducted in 2019 in yekaterinburg (russia) and focused on the commonly shared opinions and evaluations concerning attractive body and personality characteristics and practices for enhancing them. the data were analyzed with the help of a combination of methods. the study addressed the following goals: to identify the key characteristics that constitute male and female beauty ideals of russian people, and the factors that determine the formation and development of these ideals; to reveal the personality, and other characteristics people consider essential for success in professional and private life; and, finally, to consider the most widespread practices of self-improvement including those of body enhancement. we developed a questionnaire consisting of 12 questions (open, closed, semiclosed). we also developed a guide for in-depth interviews with young people, which comprised three sets of questions aimed at finding out the respondents’ perception of male and female beauty; the main practices of building a perfect body; and practices of body enhancement and their health effects. in all the questions, respondents could formulate their own opinion. the survey covered 680 people of different age groups living in yekaterinburg. these individuals were chosen with the help of the accidental sampling method (“man-in-the-street” sampling). on average, it took our respondents 15 minutes to complete the questionnaire. 30 percent of respondents were men and 70 percent, women. the age distribution in our sample was as follows: people under 30, 51 percent; 31–50, 32 percent; 51 and older, 17 percent. 71 percent of respondents https://changing-sp.com/ 96 natalya l. antonova, anatoly v. merenkov had higher education, while 48 percent indicated “specialist” in the “occupation” box. as for the income level, 40 percent respondents describe themselves as “middleclass”, that is, they have no difficulties buying basic necessities such as food and clothes as well as acquiring durable goods. only 9 percent described their income level as low – sufficient only to meet the basic needs. we used vortex software to process the questionnaire data. we also conducted 18 in-depth interviews with bachelor’s students majoring in the humanities. overall, we interviewed 10 first-year students (6 women, 4 men) and 8 fourth-year students (4 women, 4 men). the interviews were conducted at ural federal university in the students’ free time. we also had in-depth interviews with 8 respondents aged 30–50 (4 women, 4 men) and 7 respondents aged 51 and older (4 women, 3 men). on average, the interviews lasted 30 minutes. in the next stages, the interviews were transcribed; respondents’ answers to the same questions were grouped to show similarities and differences in their perceptions, which facilitated further interpretation of the results. results and discussion our study has shown significant ageand gender-related differences in perceptions of male and female beauty. it should be noted that our physical appearance and personality characteristics are partially hereditary (biologically determined) and partially depend on the environmental factors. with age, it becomes harder to meet beauty standards and to maintain the necessary level of productivity at work. therefore, more investment of effort, time, and money is required to maintain the desired body image. at this point, a person faces a dilemma whether to be “body positive” and accept the fact that his or her body and its potential are a result of the natural processes of mental and physical development or to try to build a body that corresponds to popular ideals of beauty by using the available means (e.g. exercise, diet, plastic surgery, etc.). older generations may face additional difficulties since they have to adapt to changing perceptions of attractive appearance and personality in society. our respondents’ evaluations of the importance of different body characteristics were determined by a combination of biological and sociocultural factors. table 1. male beauty perceptions of respondents (percent from the total number of respondents) indicators under 18 18–23 24–30 31–50 51 and older fit and athletic body 25 44 58 68 42 healthy body 27 58 57 65 70 beautiful face 30 52 48 27 22 beautiful figure 21 25 37 29 24 beautiful smile 20 22 41 24 20 slim body 15 21 28 30 42 young body 10 14 15 7 12 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91–106 97 at the age of 16–17, development of the human body is determined by the natural processes of growth. few respondents in this group face any health problems. respondents in this age group do not consider it necessary to exercise regularly in order to enhance their physical strength or attractiveness: “as long as i feel healthy, i don’t have much to complain about. i’d like to be taller, but it does not depend on me, i was born this way” (man, 16). women, however, as our survey has shown, believe that young men look more attractive if they have a slim body and beautiful face: “i like strong, fit and slim young men with attractive faces, those who take good care of themselves” (woman, 17). at this age one can get in shape by paying proper attention to diet and exercise. to obtain a perfect face one would have to resort to plastic surgery, but this option is seldom considered by young people. the body is usually fully developed by the age of 18, which is when young adults become more aware of the need to put some effort into maintaining and improving their physical capacity and fitness. in this age group, the share of men who go to the gym and establish workout routines is considerably higher than in the younger group. young men seek to build muscle and gain a classically masculine, v-tapered physique. our study has shown that, unlike older generations, young men in russia now tend to use cosmetics such as skincare and hair care products: “i look after myself, i want to be noticed. i use cleansing lotions when i have acne” (man, 23). in general, young russian men continue to reproduce a widespread stereotype of male beauty primarily associated with strength and health. men strive to have broad-shouldered and lean bodies with well-defined muscles. this ideal male form goes back to antiquity, when a strong physique was essential for those who engaged in physical labour and martial arts. in the modern world, the automation of production has rendered men’s physical labour less relevant, but the pursuit of physical strength continues in gyms and fitness centres. 37 percent of respondents reported exercising regularly to be more attractive to the opposite sex, which indicates the persevering nature of this ideal among young russian adults. thus, perceptions of ideal male beauty are a part of the system of gender roles and stereotypes, where men are seen as protectors and providers. by the age of 24, young men’s perceptions of male beauty undergo certain changes: first, there is a growth in the perceived value of a fit, athletic body among men aged 24–30 and older. this ideal of male beauty has appeared among middle-aged men comparatively recently: 48 percent of respondents reported engaging in sports and other kinds of physical activity in gyms and fitness centres, which yekaterinburg, like other large russian cities, has in abundance. “nowadays, a man has to be slim. it’s a trend. actors and politicians set an example. men with big bellies, those who move little are criticized. you have to look young at any age” (man, 44). in other words, a significant proportion of russian men pursue the youthful, fit ideal of the male body. interestingly, as our survey has shown, there is a growing share of those who try to improve their health through physical exercise and diet in order to be able to stand the pressures of modern life among 31–50-year-olds. “men in their forties who take care of themselves and their health look like thirty-year-olds. this is how they prolong their youth” (woman, 32). https://changing-sp.com/ 98 natalya l. antonova, anatoly v. merenkov quite predictably, men of the older age groups have the largest share of those interested in building a healthy, resilient body. 40 percent of respondents in these age groups try to stay in shape by exercising and walking in parks. the survey has shown that men in older age groups share the same image of male beauty with younger age groups. women tend to have higher standards of male beauty than men themselves. most men in our sample appear to be ready to embrace the age-related changes in facial appearance; unlike women, they are reluctant to try to slow down these processes or “turn back the time” by resorting to plastic surgery. table 2. feminine beauty perceptions of respondents (percent of the total number of respondents) indicators under 18 18–23 24–30 30–50 51 and older fit and athletic body 23 44 23 27 16 healthy body 25 60 58 55 48 beautiful face 43 35 74 70 52 beautiful figure 39 25 57 60 48 beautiful smile 41 22 59 51 46 slim body 27 21 44 58 44 young body 16 14 19 11 16 our survey has shown that feminine beauty standards require a woman to have a beautiful face and figure and to enjoy good health. some beauty stereotypes seem to be quite pervasive and persistent: for instance, fragile, delicate beauty is still largely seen as a necessary attribute of a “true woman”. women are harsher judges of feminine beauty than men, which is a remarkable gender-related qualitative difference. throughout their lives, women consistently strive to improve their appearance. interestingly, women are more pressured to meet beauty standards by other women than by men. despite calls for gender equality, russian women still tend to subscribe to the view that while men don’t need to look attractive at all times, women do: “i always need to look pretty. even if i have to pop outside for a minute, i will put on some make-up and wear something nice... men can’t imagine how much time and effort it takes for a woman to look good” (woman, 37). our survey has shown that over 40 percent of women aged 31–50 use cosmetic procedures against signs of ageing that help them look 7–10 years younger. 12 percent of women older than 31 admitted that they would be willing to resort to more radical anti-ageing procedures such as facelifts if they could afford it. in this respect, they adhere to the standards set by many celebrities and digital influencers. it should be noted that women aged 18–23 share with men the opinion that an attractive body should be fit and athletic. they go to gyms along with men and have the same views about the ways of building an attractive body. our study has found that many men and women in all age groups adhere to the cult of healthy eating. 28 percent of women and 20 percent of men under 18, 43 percent of women and 28 percent of men aged 24–30 maintain healthy eating habits. in the middle-aged and senior age groups, more people are now oriented changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91–106 99 towards following the guidelines on nutrition they get from the mass media: “i knew about the importance of healthy eating before. but now in all medical talk shows on tv they keep saying that you need to look after yourself by eating healthily. so, i started limiting myself and now i feel better than i used to” (woman, 62). our study has brought to light the key factors that affect contemporary beauty standards in russia. 41 percent of our respondents under 18 are not fully aware of the influence of their family, friends, and mass media on their perceptions of beauty and claim to be fully independent in their views on beauty. twice as many young women as men believe that their views on this question result from their own attempts of self-improvement (27 percent and 14 percent, respectively). young adults under 24 reported the impact of social networks on their ideas of beauty (25 percent women and 18 percent men). 34 percent of respondents aged 31–50 believe that their views might have been influenced by their friends and family and by celebrities. the cultural imperative to stay young as long as possible makes people resort to different strategies for maintaining a youthful body shape: 71 percent of our respondents in the age group of 24–30, 72 percent in the age group of 31–50, and 75 percent of those aged 51 and older think that their beauty ideals are not shaped by any external influences. images of beautiful people in magazines, tv, and social networks stimulated 28 percent of our respondents under 30 and 18 percent of respondents aged 31–50 to engage in wellness and body enhancement practices. 3 percent of young people under 30 and 6 percent in older age groups are interested in modern technologies of appearance enhancement. the study has shown that older people are more aware of the role of appearance in career development. 22 percent of respondents under 30 believe that employers may consider appearance as a hiring criterion. this opinion is shared by 27 percent of respondents aged 31–50, and 34 percent of respondents in older age groups. about a half of our respondents believe that the importance of an attractive appearance depends on the type of occupation. the majority of respondents (81 percent in the age group below 30; 69 percent in the age group of 31–50; 67 percent of young people below 30; and 57 percent of middle-aged respondents) point out the importance of a neat and well-groomed appearance for producing a professional and respectable image at a job interview. the ability to communicate with one’s boss effectively was ranked third in importance by 55 percent of respondents aged 24–50. facial beauty is seen as important for career development by 68 percent of women under 30 and by 35 percent of women aged 31–50. about half of our respondents in all age groups believe that it is crucial to look healthy. in addition to physical attractiveness, there is, however, another side to success in life – so-called inner beauty, certain personality traits that make us attractive in the eyes of others despite our imperfections or blemishes. people’s views on what constitutes inner beauty are formed through communication with others, reading books, watching films, and socializing. in many cases, inner beauty proves to be no less important than outer beauty. https://changing-sp.com/ 100 natalya l. antonova, anatoly v. merenkov table 3. respondents’ perceptions of an attractive male personality (percent of the total number of respondents) indicators under 18 18–23 24–30 31–50 51 and older intelligence 33 51 59 54 51 respect for others 29 34 49 55 59 willpower, patience 28 22 34 44 39 friendliness 26 25 38 43 49 mental balance, poise 24 24 35 44 39 communicative openness 21 22 27 24 20 responsibility 17 25 31 35 39 stamina and productivity 8 9 10 12 15 men in all age groups rank intelligence at the top of the list of attractive qualities. this result may reflect the enduring social expectation that men should play a major role in decision-making in all kinds of activities, including politics, warfare, production, and family life, while women should accept secondary roles. in russia, despite the progress made in the struggle for gender equality, men continue to hold the vast majority of decision-making positions: the corresponding stereotypes in the public consciousness persist (sillaste, 2016). respondents in the youngest age group (below 18) attach less importance to intelligence than other age groups, which, in our opinion, could be explained by the fact that young people are not fully aware of the role of intellect in success and professional achievement. we found that there are significant differences in the attitudes of representatives of different generations towards such qualities as “respect for others”. 34 percent of respondents in the age group of 24–30 believe that respect for others is a necessary moral quality; this opinion is shared by over half (59 percent) of respondents in the age group of 51 and older. this contrast can be explained by the orientation of younger generations, who grew up in the conditions of the market economy, towards more individualistic values than older generations. the older generation brought up under socialism largely adheres to the principles of collectivism, which requires people to behave respectfully towards others, regardless of their social status or job title (arutyunyan, 1979). a lack of respect for others diminishes the value of such qualities as friendliness. we found considerable age-related differences in our respondents’ evaluations of responsibility. in comparison with a collectivistic orientation, an individualistic orientation may result in lower levels of organizational commitment and responsibility. these feelings are enhanced through collective activity, when a group of people work towards a common goal. russian people of older generations generally have more experience of collective work than representatives of younger generations: “when i was young, i had to participate in the construction of a new enterprise. i was in charge of hundreds of people. i spent days and nights at work... at that time, commitment was valued highly” (man, 67). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91–106 101 table 4. respondents’ perceptions of an attractive feminine personality (percent of the total number of respondents) indicators under 18 18–23 24–30 31–50 51 and older intelligence 47 43 57 65 60 respect for others 46 45 62 72 68 willpower, patience 36 38 22 28 26 friendliness 47 44 63 68 74 mental balance, poise 27 29 43 51 58 communicative openness 25 28 29 31 34 responsibility 23 25 29 34 38 stamina and productivity 4 7 8 10 9 our study has revealed considerable differences in people’s perceptions of the personal qualities that women need to develop in order to be successful in their professional and family lives. in terms of personality traits, our respondents tended to place higher demands on women than on men. for example, in the age group below 18, respondents chose “intelligence” as an important quality for women 1.5 times more often than for men. interestingly, in comparison with men, women set the bar higher for their own sex. in older groups, the share of those who seek to acquire new knowledge and improve their computer literacy skills to be successful at work is growing steadily: “i had to change my job. i used to work with specific data collection software and then i had to teach myself to work with different software. nobody helped me, i did everything myself. there are no men doing this job in my environment. it is considered difficult and tedious, which is why it is mostly women who do it ” (woman, 58) respondents consider such qualities as respect for others, friendliness, and mental balance to be more important for women than for men. there are also agerelated differences in respondents’ perceptions of the qualities women need to achieve success in professional and private life: for example, senior respondents chose the aforementioned qualities 1.5 times more often than young respondents. our study has revealed an interesting paradox: while respondents (both men and women) evaluate intelligence highly, they do not give much importance to stamina and productivity in the workplace (this quality was chosen by 8–15 percent of men and 4–9 percent of women in all age groups). this is quite surprising because this quality has been considered crucial for success in professional and family life throughout the history of mankind. the reasons why the younger group rated productivity at work lower than other qualities can include the lower involvement of adolescents in household chores and their lack of interest in intellectual pursuits. as for older groups, they might consider stamina as less significant because they associate this quality with physical strength rather than with mental exertion and therefore think of it as a quality necessary mostly for manual workers. there is a popular stereotype that physical jobs require more stamina than intellectual ones. overall, our respondents’ perceptions of an attractive personality are quite contradictory and sometimes inconsistent: on the one hand, they attach great https://changing-sp.com/ 102 natalya l. antonova, anatoly v. merenkov significance to intellectual and cognitive pursuits but, on the other, they do not think that it is necessary to have stamina and be productive to achieve success in life. in other words, there is a lack of understanding that cognitive skills can be formed and developed only through conscious and persistent intellectual effort. stamina has not lost its former significance even now, in the digital age, as all sectors of economy are undergoing digital transformation and the jobs that consist of manual and routine tasks will soon be rendered obsolete by the development of artificial intelligence. stamina is necessary not only for manual labour but also for creative and cognitive activities (campa, 2015). our study has brought to light the practices our respondents use to improve their physical, mental, and social characteristics. self-improvement and self-development are deemed crucial in all age groups. 48 percent of women and 35 percent of men under 18, 65 percent of women and 54 percent of men aged 18–30 engage in different practices of self-improvement. in the group of middle-aged respondents (31–50), the share of such people is smaller (48 percent of women and 41 percent of men) while only every third respondent in the senior age group engages in self-education and self-improvement practices. the unwillingness or inability of middle-aged and senior respondents to work on self-improvement may be explained by the fact that by the age of 40–50, people have already developed a set of habits that determine their way of life and that are quite hard to transform. not all people in the middle-aged and senior groups are fully aware of the role lifelong learning plays in today’s dynamic world. our analysis of self-improvement practices has shown that the majority of our respondents associate this process with enhancing their health and building a strong, attractive body: “for me, self-improvement means primarily working on my appearance. a woman always has to look good. you have to exercise regularly, go to the gym, to your facialist, stick to a diet ” (woman, 34). respondents reported that they use gym workouts and dieting to boost their health. interestingly, in the youngest group (below 18), 45 percent of women and 32 percent of men exercise regularly: this share increases in the group of 18–30-yearolds (47 percent of women and 52 percent of men). in other age groups, the share of those who regularly engage in physical activity decreases: among 31–50-year-olds, 45 percent of women and 36 percent of men do so, while among those at the age of 51 and older, 34 percent of women and 23 percent of men report this. as for eating habits, in the youngest group (below 18), every third woman and every fourth man reported having healthy eating habits: this proportion persists in all other age groups. in this regard, we should note the effect of a large-scale healthy lifestyle promotion campaign that targeted all socio-demographic groups and was conducted through education institutions, mass media, and social networks. this campaign has succeeded in raising public awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle and the role of individual effort and initiative in creating an active, healthy, and attractive body. more than half of young and middle-aged respondents use clothes to highlight what they perceive as their “strengths” and conceal the “flaws”. in older age groups, this share is 25 percent: “i am really picky about the clothes i wear. it takes me a lot of time to choose clothes for myself; there are imperfections that i need to hide with changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 91–106 103 a certain kind of clothes. therefore, i need to be very careful with what i choose to wear” (woman, 47). plastic surgery merits special attention in this respect. plastic surgery is divided into reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. the latter is mostly used by healthy people. a survey has shown that the majority of american medical students would like to specialize in rhinoplasty and breast augmentation because these procedures are most in-demand among healthy people. fewer students are willing to master peripheral nerve surgery in the wrist and forearm (agarwal, mendenhall, moran & hopkins, 2013). while the purpose of reconstructive surgery is to restore bodily functions and help sick people, cosmetic surgery focuses on appearance enhancement and thus becomes a means for improving people’s psycho-social wellbeing. many people in contemporary society are concerned about the correspondence of their appearance to social standards and try to look young for as long as possible: “i think that plastic surgery is now becoming more and more accessible because the standards of life are improving and medical technologies are developing. so, i consider that it is acceptable and right to use the services of a good specialist to remain attractive” (woman, 44). our study has shown that only 9 percent of young and middle-aged respondents and 14 percent of senior respondents are willing to resort to plastic surgery. 74 percent of those who find this option acceptable are women. conclusion the survey results have led us to the following conclusions. first, in large russian cities such as yekaterinburg (korablyova & merenkov, 2019) russians of all age groups are interested in enhancing their appearance in accordance with existing beauty stereotypes. second, there is a persisting gender asymmetry in male and female beauty ideals even among the younger generation. third, a new system of gender inequality has emerged, different from the one produced by patriarchy and characterized by male dominance in social and cultural life. our study has shown that women are generally much more willing to spend time, effort, and money on increasing their intellectual capacity than men. fourth, the main practices of improving appearance include exercising in gyms and fitness centres and following a diet. even though plastic surgery is now becoming more affordable, people in all age groups are wary of its dangers, which is why it received lower ratings in our survey. fifth, people of different generations tend to reproduce the same moral values, for example, respect for others. on the other hand, there is a growth in the perceived importance of intelligence across all age groups, which seems quite logical in the current conditions of digitization: many spheres of public life are now being restructured around digital communication. sixth, such qualities as stamina and productivity at work scored low in all age groups, which is a surprising result since decreased workplace productivity may be an impeding factor to learning new information, acquiring new skills, and keeping up with the accelerating pace of technological change. finally, the most popular strategy of working on one’s inner beauty is self-education. https://changing-sp.com/ 104 natalya l. antonova, anatoly v. merenkov references agarwal, j. p., mendenhall, s. d., moran, l. a., & hopkins, p. n. 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(2016). the body image dissatisfaction and psychological symptoms among invasive and minimally invasive aesthetic surgery patients. world journal of plastic surgery, 5(2), 148–153. http://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-3999(00)00159-8 http://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-3999(00)00159-8 http://doi.org/10.1177/1559827615594351 http://doi.org/10.1097/sap.0b013e31817e2cb8 http://doi.org/10.1097/sap.0b013e31817e2cb8 changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 476–491 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.112 received 4 june 2020 © andrey g. shishkin, olga o. morozova accepted 26 november 2020 priemnaya@uralopera.ru published online 29 december 2020 ololmorozova@yandex.ru article art in the age of globalisation: dialogue of cultures (ural opera ballet theatre’s production of the opera tri sestry) andrey g. shishkin, olga o. morozova ural opera ballet theatre, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the article explores the dialogics of art and the role of art as a tool of dialogue between cultures on the example of the ural opera ballet theatre’s recent stage production of the opera tri sestry (three sisters), which demonstrates a successful interaction between different cultural traditions. interpreting chekhov’s play from a late 20th century perspective, hungarian composer peter eötvös presented new responses to the questions that tormented the play’s characters one hundred years ago. in his work, which blends french and german avantgarde techniques with structural elements drawn from film narrative and the japanese noh theatre tradition, he added a radically new dimension to chekhov’s play. as a result, he was able to open up latent meanings the play within the great time space proposed by the russian philosopher mikhail bakhtin. in turn, christopher alden (usa), the artistic director of the ural opera ballet production, merged voices from different artistic traditions into a new contemporary musical image. keywords globalisation, dialogue of cultures, art, theatre, ural opera ballet, tri sestry, chekhov https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 476–491 477 introduction in the contemporary global and intercultural space, which implies a convergence of nations and states, a “turning of many into one”, the significance of art as a dialogue between cultures cannot be overestimated. such an artistic dialogue is instrumental in the emergence of new cross-national audiences, which help individual cultures disseminate their values far beyond their national and traditional boundaries. nevertheless, the as-experienced effects of globalisation remain controversial. while, on the one hand, globalisation undeniably promotes development in many economic, technological and political spheres of human activity, on the other hand, it can exacerbate isolation and lead to confrontation between competing cultures. according to lyudmila egle, in a time of globalisation, nations tend to preserve their cultural identities (see: egle, 2009, p. 350). golbarg abutorabian notes that the unification of behavioural norms and cultural manifestations produces a protest mindset and promotes an intensive search for ethnocultural identification inside multiple cultures (see: abutorabian, 2011, p. 52). the protest mindset suggests that, while interacting and adapting to the new social environment, local cultures face the threat of being completely assimilated under the influence of stronger cultures. in attempting, on the one hand, to shut off themselves from the outside world, and on the other, to uncritically accept everything associated with globalisation, cultures can manifest extreme responses in the face of the possibility of their vanishing altogether. in this context, the only obvious way for cultures to ensure their preservation and development is for them to participate in a continuous dialogue that recognises their equal standing. such a dialogue between equal cultures lays the foundation for a process of continuing acculturation, in which both parties adopt elements of each other’s culture, acquiring universal features, while simultaneously retaining their uniqueness. according to mikhail popov and anna akulova, awareness of one’s own identity sets the stage for a dialogue. the dialogue is a manifestation of one’s own, rather than the opposite identity (see: popov, akulova, 2009). possibilities for dialogue between cultures in art art is one of the means by which culture can be adapted to new environments. according to marina moskalyuk, on a global scale, the us-versus-them opposition in art produces an exceptionally promising dialogue, thus contributing to the development of universal culture (see: moskalyuk, 2014, p. 411). the dialogue between cultures, which takes place during encounters with works of art, makes it possible to balance the aspiration for national self-identity with respect for other cultures and the perception of other nations’ values in all their uniqueness (bakhtin, 1995). such a dialogue relates to the inherent nature of art, which forms a space for mutual understanding and intercultural dialogue. art effortlessly overcomes linguistic boundaries and time frames. at the same time, being present in the universal categories of ethical and aesthetic values, it is art that helps us understand https://changing-sp.com/ 478 andrey g. shishkin, olga o. morozova and perceive the uniqueness of a different culture, the individuality of a different mind, the fundamentals of a different religion (see: moskalyuk, 2014, p. 413). a work of art that represents another culture can be understood through the revelation of timeless meanings and their aesthetic value. any work of art can be seen as a certain communication: it “speaks”, asks and answers, encapsulates “a message”, which can be “heard”, and which, when coming in contact with another text, will repeatedly become actualised in the entirety of cultural life (see: averintsev, 1994, p. 105). lotman compares a text (i.e., a work of art) with an information generator, having the characteristics of an intelligent individual and the ability to store different codes, transform received messages and generate new ones (lotman, 2009, p. 71). inside that text, the artist enters into a dialogue with other authors, from time to time using elements of their style, borrowing images and placing them into a new reality to facilitate dialogue. whether this takes the form of a dialogue of agreement, i.e. when the artist takes up and develops another person’s idea, or a disagreement, the space of art hosts an endless conversation between creators of artworks; such? a conversation reveals cultural constants, facilitating interaction with other cultural systems and helping them to perceive their uniqueness along with the discovery of new meanings arising in the work. according to alexander medvedev (2020), the recognition of the dialogics of art, together with the ability to hear the conversation of artists representing different styles and time periods, provides deeper understanding of the content of a composition, gives insight into the logic of art’s self-motion, and, more importantly, makes it possible to understand the dynamics of the actual reality, for one of art’s missions is to serve as a means of cognising reality (see: medvedev, 2020, p. 142). a dialogue between cultures within the space of art is becoming increasingly feasible when it involves synthetic types arising within art structures that involve a fusion of their constituting components. in terms of an art form, theatre is intrinsically dialogic. acting as a special channel of international communication, it generates a unique space that opens up across several dimensions – musical, verbal and visual. in contributing to the distinctiveness of a particular work, this multidimensionality shapes audience perception. an opera, which is typically born out of a dialogue between a composer and librettist, grows into a unique, multilayer and multi-subject polylogue conducted by the authors and directors of the musical work; it is an outcome of a successful dialogue between cultures in the space of the literary text. alla baeva notes that the opera, quickly and easily, makes inter and intra-genre contacts, thus becoming the joint creation of the composer, director and librettist (baeva, 1996, pp. 7–8). here it is emphasised that, in technical terms, the interaction of cultures takes place at the levels of libretto, musical score, director’s script, scenography and performance. opera staging as a specific form of intercultural dialogue taking place in bakhtinian great time, the theatrical production of an opera comprises a form of a dialogue between cultures, through and by means of changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 476–491 479 which each participating culture re-apprehends different meanings contained in the composition and discovers new meanings brought to life during different productions. the interaction of cultures within the musical performance space not only facilitates an appreciation of the values of other persons, nations and cultures, but also actively circumvents the tendency towards slavish imitation of foreign-born elements. instead, through comparison of different patterns of thought and cultural values, possible borrowings can be selected and worldview concepts carried over from one culture to the semiotic system of the other culture. the dialogue between cultures takes on a new dimension when the composer, author of the literary source and production team represent different cultural systems; in this case, the performance soaks up national and cultural features, its imagery and symbolic structure mirroring the different world views blended in the canvas of the literary text. in bringing the musical material to life, the director acts as intermediary between the authors of the musical work and the audience; on the other hand, the director is also a subject in the dialogue of cultures; when staging the performance, he or she expresses his or her attitude towards the musical work, toward the cultural values represented in it, as well as his or her own philosophy. audiences also have their own specific role to play in the dialogue of cultures, since any work of art, as dmitry likhachev points out, in its creation, suggests not only passive perception, but also active participation (see: likhachev, 1983, p. 62). this is especially true of a performance in a musical theatre: when an individual audience member is drawn into the dialogic cultural space through his or her perception of art, a performance can have a specific effect on him or her. in the words of sergey isaev, the meaning comes into being once we start interpreting the performance. we do not decode the existing meaning or try to detect it; instead, we create it. then, the analysis of the performance turns into a totally creative process, since the meaning is created from scratch, for the first time ever, rather than being retrieved from the place where it was kept hidden by the artist (see: isaev, 1993, p. 26). the fully-fledged perception of a musical performance constitutes the level of understanding of the “other”, impacting on the level of empathy in comprehending of the values-based idea implemented by the composer in his composition. as olga bochkareva notes, the dialogic reflection helps the audience member leave the boundaries of his “self” and connects the person with the other person. in this way, the dialogue triggers a successive movement of musical culture from one subject to the other subject, from “self” to “other” (see: bochkareva, 2013, p. 199). the audience perception is closely connected with the truth of art and the perceived “correctness” of its perception. for umberto eco, any work of art comprises an object offering infinite interpretative possibilities. however, it does not always please the creator of the work, who expects an adequate audience response to his or her artistic statement. analysing his relationship with the audience, anatoly efros (1985) wrote that, most of all, he valued people with normal, natural vision and hearing – those people who see what exists, rather than what they imagine. nevertheless, art seems to suggest that no two people will form the same impression of the same thing. still, one wishes that the deviation from truth https://changing-sp.com/ 480 andrey g. shishkin, olga o. morozova would stay within reasonable limits, i.e. that one’s work would be seen through normal eyes (see: efros, 1985, p. 90). the opera tri sestry1 (three sisters) written by the hungarian composer peter eötvös, inspired by anton chekhov’s play and staged by the american director christopher alden at the ural opera ballet theatre, offers the possibility to analyse the dialogue of cultures within the space of the opera performance at a time of globalisation and to identify special characteristics of the audience perception. written by eötvös in 1997 and premiered to critical acclaim, tri sestry was hailed as the most important new work of the year 1998 (“zum wichtigsten neuen werk des jahres 1998”) (beaujean, 2005). its production at the ural opera ballet theatre offered an unexpected interpretation of the russian classical play by, on the one hand, a european who is quite familiar with russian literature and soviet ideology, and, on the other hand, by a representative of american high culture. thus, the ural opera production transformed chekhov’s play into intermediary between cultures of three countries, subjecting it to substantial structural and plot-related changes at the same time as replenishing it with new meanings. implemented as an international project, the staging of the opera also involved the hosting a variety of events intended to explain the background of the opera to the audience and furnish clues to support its popular and critical interpretation. the creative work of the composer peter eötvös (born in 1944) is influenced by a number of diverse cultures. his childhood in post-war hungary was strongly influenced by russian culture; he studied composition in budapest and cologne; he gained european-wide fame as a conductor of contemporary music. eötvös worked as an assistant with karlheinz stockhausen, a german composer, conductor and one of the leading figures of the musical avant-garde. later, in the 1980s, he held the position of artistic director of the french ensemble intercontemporain (paris) founded by pierre boulez and specialising in 20th and 21st century music. as sergey nevsky (2019) notes, eötvös’ interaction with modern culture caused him to dismantle his musical language only to reassemble it later using elements of the tradition learnt in his younger years. eötvös builds a dialogue of multiple traditions, existing and bygone, like a big postmodern game. in this sense, umberto eco is his closest associate in art (see: nevsky, 2019, p. 21). the use of elements borrowed from a variety of traditional sources helps the composer to avoid dramaturgical tropes typical of european music; at the same time, it allows him to show every facet of the emotional life of the characters. tri sestry: transformations from the play into the opera commissioned by the opera national de lyon in 1997, tri sestry is peter eötvös’ first large-scale opera and the one that made him famous in the theatrical world. eötvös invited the german dramaturge claus henneberg to write a libretto. although 1 the performance is a laureate of the russian national theater award “golden mask” in the nominations “best performance in opera” and “best director in opera”, a laureate of the russian opera casta diva award in the category “event of the year” and the prize of the governor of the sverdlovsk region. the national newspaper musical review recognized the production as the “performance of the year”; the association of music critics included it among the best russian productions of 2019. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 476–491 481 henneberg did not know the russian language, he was ready to work with the translated text to write a libretto in german, after which the libretto was to be translated into russian. although the abridged version of the libretto prepared by henneberg differed greatly from eötvös’ understanding of chekhov in terms of dramatic quality, tension between the characters and melancholic mood, the composer decided not to use the standard adaptation of the chekhov’s play but instead to transform it by showing all the events from the perspective of the different characters as was done in akira kurosawa’s rashomon (inspired by ryūnosuke akutagawa’s story in the grove). as such, eötvös may be said to be the first composer to have used this technique in the context of opera. in the process of reconceiving the source text, he restructured it to present a version of chekhov’s play that was both condensed and creatively contrasting. nevertheless, he retained all the main storylines, themes and general ambiance of the play. in his words, he casted his vision in the score; it was very specific in the case with tri sestry: he did not deny chekhov, but he was translated into the language of opera (surnina, 2019). eötvös’ main characters are irina, andrei and masha, each of whom has their own “sequence” – or, in other words, a certain succession of elements or dramatic layers. inside each sequence, the composer arranged those scenes associated with or related to the main character; these scenes have their own logic of development and dramatic expressiveness. sequences follow one after another; each sequence is shorter than the preceding one. the triadic structure affects the conflicts between characters: the three sisters themselves represented by three sequences or triads. relationships are similarly represented by triangles: irina – tuzenbach – solyony; masha – vershinin – kulygin; andrei – natasha – the sisters. following the western classical tradition, the core of the musical narrative is also represented by major and minor triads. the opera has no choir; as in chekhov’s play, there are thirteen characters, whose voices comprise the narrative of the opera. in terms of character development, the composer intentionally confronts chekhovian psychological drama with traditions drawn from the japanese noh theatre. the interaction between the real and dynamic character, typical both of chekhov’s plays and european theatre in general, and the mask representing the japanese theatrical tradition, produces a peculiar “flickering” effect, creating the impression that the character is trying to break out of the boundaries of his or her assigned role. this interaction between the frameset and the character turns the character into a person of universal nature, which is especially noticeable in the original version of the opera in which all the parts were performed by men: even the three sisters themselves were sung by countertenors. peter eötvös said that in his opinion, it was a story about parting, rather than about family conflicts – he wanted to show not four women, but broadly speaking, four persons. in this case, countertenors had the function performed by cothurni in the ancient greek theatre – they lifted drama above the everyday routine (monolog petera etvesha, 2019, p. 25) – then, characters take on qualities of immaterial spirits of history, culture and geography. abstraction of music and “gender neutrality” of the characters make it possible to create a certain ritual mystery play, notes evgenia krivitskaya (2019). https://changing-sp.com/ 482 andrey g. shishkin, olga o. morozova peter eötvös worked on the opera libretto together with his wife mari mezei. on the basis of chekhov’s original text, the russian libretto was stripped into actor’s lines, words and remarks; next, it was reassembled as a mosaic panel, though having its own order. dialogues and soliloquies form a continuous flow, giving a sense of elusive reality; only on rare occasions the action comes to a stop, interrupted by monologues spoken by characters – solyony, andrei or vershinin. the effect of this composition is very chekhovian. characters are agitated; they live in anticipation of events that never happen; all of them speak frantically, but remain unheard (see: ryabin & korolyok, 2019, p. 14). this continuous flow is supported by repetitions, oppositions, variations, reflections, cross-talks taking place at the level of the dramatical structure, musical tissue and narrative. for example, in irina’s refrain: “where has it all gone? i have forgotten everything… i’m getting so forgetful…”; in the dialogue of vershinin and kulygin: “splendid fellows! splendid fellows! they are first-rate men! if it hadn’t been for the soldiers, the whole town would’ve been burnt down…” – “what…” – “splendid…” – “what time is it?”. eötvös places emphasis on the recurrent theme of the fire and a tangle of familiar phrases, fragments, recalls. chekhov’s characters do not hear and do not understand each other; they have no cause-and-effect relationships whatsoever (biryukova, 2019). the composer assigns specific timbral characteristics to all the characters, represented by thirteen groups of orchestral instruments. for example, the oboe and english horn stand in for irina; masha is represented by the clarinet, while the flute and alto flute identify olga (the three sisters together are represented by the string trio); andrei is identified with the soprano saxophone etc. the orchestral space is also doubled. here, eötvös borrowed stockhausen’s idea of two orchestras: the ensemble of soloists – the characters’ counterparts – is located in the orchestra pit, while the main orchestra is hidden behind the stage (or, in the ural opera production, above the stage). the traditional orchestral instrumentation was complemented by tom-toms, cymbals, gongs, cowbells, and a rainmaker (an instrument simulating the sound of rain), as well as by a custom instrument imitating a lion’s roar consisting of a small tub with crushed porcelain and plastic foam blocks: all these instruments are also located in the orchestra pit. in addition, the third sequence is accompanied by sounds of metal spoons the characters use to stir their tea in porcelain cups – all these sounds are also included in the score. eötvös’s opera in different musical traditions the system of mirrors, mirror images and reflections is continued in the musical text, saturating it with multiple external musical associations, as well as sometimes with direct quotes. musicologists note that the tri sestry opera features universal formulas and techniques of the european academic music of the second half of the 20th century: jazz intonations, the influence of the new viennese school, techniques of minimalist composers, the stylistic ambiance of the madrigal comedy, verdian detective and psychological drama, pastorale and new viennese cabaret, berg’s expressionist dramas, the music of stockhausen and boulez (krivitskaya, 2019). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 476–491 483 the author himself admits that he intentionally relies on the tradition of the western artistic music to form a link between the musical past, present and future. this correlates with the great time concept introduced by mikhail bakhtin speaking about the infinite and never-ending dialogue full of undying meanings. the culture of the past is asking us questions and is answering our questions, while restating its meaning and revealing its new facets to us. during this dialogue, people representing different time periods can become time peers. great time undiscriminatingly hosts homer and aeschylus, sophocles and socrates. you can meet dostoevsky there, for nothing vanishes without trace; everything restores to a new life. when a new period begins, everything that happened previously, everything experienced by humankind, sums itself up and acquires a new meaning (see: bakhtin, 1995, p. 8). the tri sestry opera is nurtured by the european and russian opera traditions. first of all, these are compositions of mussorgsky with their dramaturgy of nonmelodious vowels, percussive consonants (“zhzhzhazhda”, “zhzhal”, “zhzhzhisn”) and remarkable expressiveness of instrumentation. eötvös takes the genre pattern from tchaikovsky as well as his method of turning an opera into a succession of love songs (“it is close on midnight already, but still no sign of herman, no sign!” in the queen of spades). eötvös also uses associations (tuzenbach’s and solyony’s quarrel and duel bear a resemblance to the lensky and onegin storyline from eugene onegin). the haunting tune of the lost time and the clock breaking to pieces remind us of prokofiev’s ballet cinderella; andrei from tri sestry triggers associations with andrei bolkonsky from prokofiev’s war and peace; his vocal part is characterised by a narrative thoughtfulness and rationality that is fundamentally different from the overall style of eötvös’ composition; his monologue contains the direct tune quote from the anthem of the soviet union (“i believe in freedom” to the tune of unbreakable union), at the end of which andrei laughs. there are also similarities with the nose by shostakovich and dead souls by shchedrin. thus, the composer’s postmodernist strategy brings about a dialogue in the musical space, which forms the perception of tri sestry as a russian opera. the sounds of the accordion at the beginning of the opera are clearly associated with russian music. director christopher alden, when analysing eötvös’ compositions, said that it looks as though chekhov was mixed up and recooked (monolog kristofera oldena, 2019). nevertheless, eötvös’ work tends to be seen in terms of having added a new dimension of chekhov’s play. by using different – and not only musical – methods, the composer tries to uncover the meanings embedded by the writer; he translates the play into the language of opera, while using structural elements of narrative filmmaking as well as avant-garde music techniques to build russian art’s dialogue with french and german avant-garde. as a result, the composer examines chekhov’s play from the perspective of the 20th-century author, initiating a dialogue in great time, giving his answers to the questions tormenting characters of chekhov’s play one hundred years ago, and his answers are destructive and destroying. as the critic ekaterina belyaeva asseverates, while chekhov’s tri sestry is an open-ended drama incorporating elements of comedy and, despite everything, leaving a feeble glimmer https://changing-sp.com/ 484 andrey g. shishkin, olga o. morozova of hope, eötvös’ interpretation turns it into a completely cheerless absurdist tragedy intensified by elements of grotesque (belyaeva, 2019). the opera tri sestry was first performed in lyon in 1998, one year after it was written. it was staged by the japanese director ushio amagatsu as an opera with an all-male cast, in the tradition of japanese kabuki, which is related to cothurni and the symbolism of the ancient theatre and thus echoes the vision of the composer. ural opera, however, opted for a different approach, which was informed by the artistic vision of the opera’s stage director christopher alden. in terms of stage direction, alden, like eötvös in music, ranks among radical theatre directors known for their modernist views regarding the opera artform, drawing inspiration from modern visual art – first and foremost, from cinema. in his creative work, he was influenced by the more abstract than realistic europe poetic theatrical tradition, namely by such great modernists as pina bausch, peter brook, peter stein. the director admits that he eventually settled on opera as the most “unnatural” of all the art forms. alden launched his directing career with long beach opera (california), where its founder and general director michael milenski was building a director’s theatre whose repertoire featured non-mainstream names. alden wanted his performances to be “exciting and appealing to a mass audience, like a good movie.” he tried to find connections between stories taken as a basis for opera librettos and composers’ biographies, looking for similarities between the storylines of opera characters and various historical personalities, as well as employing elements of cinematic art. the stage director made his russian debut in 2012 when he staged britten’s opera a midsummer night’s dream at the stanislavsky and nemirovich-danchenko musical theatre. thus, the yekaterinburg production of tri sestry was his second work carried out in russia. the production team included the set designer irakli avaliani (new york), the costume designer doey lüthi (berlin) and the lighting designer seth reiser (rochester, new york state). the principal conductor of ural opera oliver von dohnányi oversaw the musical interpretation of the opera. tri sestry mirrored the director’s attempt to find an innovative, abstract and not too straightforward approach, which the opera itself, in fact, implies. alden wanted to recapture his attitude toward chekhov’s story and russian history from the perspective of chekhovian characters. nevertheless, while keeping an eye on chekhov’s story, his work is primarily an interaction with eötvös’ composition. tri sestry from three eras: alden’s directorial concept alden transferred the opera’s action into a surreal space between heaven and earth, looking like a waiting hall and almost exactly duplicating the interior design of the famous haus des rundfunks (broadcasting house) in berlin (eötvös’ creative life was closely connected with germany). in alden’s concept, the two-level structure, whose upper level hosts the orchestra, is shown as a dream house from the time when the father of the sisters was its master. in his words, the long dead actors are locked in a certain purgatory. they recall significant moments in their life, replaying them over changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 476–491 485 and over, while being trapped in the groundhog day loop (monolog kristofera oldena, 2019, p. 55). the directing solution was driven by the author’s implied closedness and circling nature of the story; at the same time, it fits in with chekhov’s perception of time that flows relentlessly, while staying in the same place: changeable, but unchanged. something happens, but nothing comes. a truly russian collision. and there is more than that. time always drags everyone into its vortex, like it happened to the sisters staying in the province (see: krylova, 2019). as can be seen from the above, the idea suggested by chekhov was picked up and developed, first by the composer, and then by the stage director. while in chekhov’s tri sestry, a beautiful, unknown life is passing by the characters, though somewhere outside the house it exists and can be enjoyed, in alden’s version (and in eötvös’ opera) time stops (the clock broke down). everything that happened keeps coming back. chekhov’s characters coexist together, like in the great beyond, playing back their past (or their present) over and over again: the fire, natasha with bobik in the carriage, protopopov, masha’s bidding agonising farewell, the nervous breakdown of olga who is in love with vershinin, andrei’s pathetic monologues about his ruined life, the loud sound of the gunshot fired by solyony (oleg budaratsky). this emotionless grotesque absorbs everything that fits into present-day actual reality (see: muravyova, 2019). the movement of time in the opera and performance, as envisioned by the stage director, should be the same as the feeling of time, which exists in human nature, when life is more than a chain of events succeeding one another. human experience is multilevel. the opera makes an attempt to communicate the idea that all of us live our lives at different levels at the same time (monolog kristofera oldena, 2019, p. 55). the persistent recollection of the same events correlates with alden’s perception of the soviet regime with its endless absurdity of bureaucracy. following the concept offered by eötvös and working around the symbolism of the number three, alden transforms the opera’s characters into representatives of three periods of the russian history. irina, the youngest sister, is a classic character; in her early 20th-century long dress, she belongs in the chekhovian times; masha, the middle sister, is from the soviet 1960–1970s, representing a type of a wealthy married householder; olga, the eldest sister, is our contemporary, a single and unfettered, ambitiously career-minded person, a businesswoman. as envisioned by the stage director, tri sestry remains relevant in any time. he said that the more they rehearsed, the better he realised that it was absolutely unimportant what time period the costumes came from to be used by thirteen characters in the world of the prozorov family. it is not important in what time they live; they cannot get out of this story. this story tells that we may not be as free as we would like to think; that we, pretty much, are a product of the beliefs, religions, doctrines and myths of the society we live in. this story also tells us what we inherit from our parents and how this colours our lives (monolog kristofera oldena, 2019, p. 55). by bringing representatives of different eras together into one space, the stage director points out that anticipation of coming changes was typical of people not only on the eve of revolution, but also in the soviet times and in present-day russia. in broader terms, such sentiments are in people’s nature, in any country of the world, https://changing-sp.com/ 486 andrey g. shishkin, olga o. morozova including the united states; therefore, the reference to russian realities was rather conditional. it was mainly manifested in the characters’ costumes and attributes assigned to them by the stage director (in the same way that eötvös associates them with different timbres of instruments). for example, tuzenbach walks with a portable radio pressed to his ear; solyony never parts with his gun; irina is always with her books; olga is never seen without a laptop; masha leafs through a burda fashion magazine; andrei, holding a pillow, wanders around the house; chebutykin takes the clock off the wall, drops it, breaks it and puts it back on the wall to break it again in the next sequence; natasha struts around the house with bobik’s smoking carriage, as if illustrating masha’s comment: “she walks as if it was she who started a fire”. while in the opera, the sound of accordion is associated with the russian ambiance (in addition to quotes and allusions to russian classical music art), in the staged action, its alternative is introduced in the third sequence when the stage director brings the voiceless guests of irina’s name-day party to the stage: a ballerina representing “high spheres”, a metaphorical bear (“a symbol of russia”), three little girls with whitened faces, who are associated with the sisters’ childhood, with coming death, and with a mysterious princess wearing a head-band and dying, being shot by solyony like aleksandra fyodorovna2 who was killed in yekaterinburg one hundred years ago. continuing the game that was started by eötvös, alden used mirror images and counterparts to produce the visual manifestation of the composer’s musical ideas. having, by his own admission, listened to the opera music at least forty times, alden came to understand all its subtle nuances. following the music and its transformations, he transforms the on-stage world from the humorous and light-hearted to vicious and horrible. the dreamy intonation well-remembered from the previous russian performance staged by christopher alden does not bring relief; on the contrary, it emphasises the endless torment of being horror-stricken by living through the nightmare of one hundred years of surrounding reality (see: ovchinnikov, 2019). thus, a new conceptual level was presented by the stage director who, inspired by the american reality, decided to turn the opera into a story about women living in a man’s world and having to become stronger and more assertive. alden is keenly aware of the increasingly central role played by women not only in russia or america, but also worldwide. as he describes, the world is going through very serious historical changes – for him, it is very important to show it in staging of tri sestry. it is a story about women who live in the world of men, who start wars commit, assault and force their way into love. in handling this world as well they can, women have to remain strong. the opera tri sestry is a powerful portrayal of sisterhood relations of the women supporting each other (see: monolog kristofera oldena, 2019, p. 55). in the opera, the stage director focuses on two extremes – strong women endowed with commitment, for example, to go to moscow, like the prozorov sisters, or to become the householder, like natasha (alden does not see her as a negative personality) – 2 aleksandra fyodorovna, original german name alix, prinzessin (princess) von hesse-darmstadt, (born june 6, 1872, darmstadt, germany—died july 17, 1918, yekaterinburg, russia) was consort of the russian emperor nicholas ii. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 476–491 487 and weak men. for example, in alden’s performance, andrei is associated with oblomov. dressed in pyjamas and a robe, he stays at home, reads newspapers and drinks vodka. chebutykin, an army doctor, feels helpless and keeps repeating: “i have forgotten everything… i do not know how to treat people… i can do nothing to help anyone.” this new conceptual level, which, to some extent, can be noticed in chekhov’s play, does not cause any internal conflict in terms of the play’s structure. in our opinion, the anticipation-imbued play (even though the anticipation is tedious and impossible), the farewell opera and the performance about strong women surprisingly blended in, being fully compatible and giving birth to new meanings incorporated in characters – slightly different from the chekhovian prototypes, but easy-to-understand by a modern audience familiar with the artworks of the 20th century. for example, the opera soloist olga tenyakova introduced natasha as “a stunning monster-blonde” reminding angela from godard’s movie a woman is a woman or a “typical american woman” from the sex and the city television series. the role masha, performed by nadezhda babintseva, turns her into a “lady of the art nouveau period” – stately, stylish, with a cigarette in her mouth, a broken-down voice and carmen’s impulsive temperament. vershinin, according to the director’s vision, comes onto the stage in a riot police officer’s uniform – as if right off the street, where, during the period of the premiere performances, people spontaneously gathered to protect the park at the drama theatre. ural opera prepared two main casts, the difference between which, according to morozov (2019), is in colours and accents: in the first case, sharper and more intense; in the second, smoother and softer. yet, the overall quality of work in both cases is quite high. almost all the soloists act thoroughly, neatly and at their best, performing in the highly sophisticated vocal design of eötvös and the sadness-laced stage-set grotesque of alden (see: bederova, 2019); the mussorgsky-and-prokofiev recitative declamation is very expressive, when performed by them; multiple non-vocal fragments (conversational phrases, exclamations of various pitches) are worked out with dedication and commitment. the challenging score is compiled by the conductor and musical director oliver von dohnányi and his assistant alexei bogorad, who aimed to achieve the preciseness and mathematical coordination in performance (see: matusevich, 2019). conclusion getting ready to stage the opera tri sestry, the theatre did a lot to prepare the audience – not only through brochures and the website, but also through a chain of pre-premiere interviews, coverage reports and meet-the-artist events. shortly before the premiere, on may 14, 2019, the yeltsin presidential centre hosted the hungarian musicologist gergely fazekas reading the lecture “love and other demons: music by peter eötvös.” on may 15, the piotrovsky book store (in the yeltsin center) welcomed the audience to a presentation of the compilation book “how opera should be watched”, which was introduced by its compilers – musical critics alexey parin and aya makarova. during the days of the premiere, the oval https://changing-sp.com/ 488 andrey g. shishkin, olga o. morozova foyer of the theatre hosted meetings with the stage director christopher alden (may 16) and the composer peter eötvös (may 17); the prominent critic aya makarova was invited to moderate the meetings. the educational efforts of ural opera ballet focused not only on information about the future performance, but were also aimed at transforming the attitude of the audience toward the opera genre. as the composer vladimir rannev notes, the opera genre is stylistically very flexible; its potential is not limited to the familiar format of the classical opera of the 19th century, which has come into our time as a conservative form of leisure activity. today, it can be a multilayered, intellectual or showy, encompassing boundless conceptual and aesthetic fields (ganiyants, 2019), which, to the full extent, can apply to the opera tri sestry. this multi-layeredness focusing not only on the emotional and sensual, but also on intellectual perception, is a result of interaction between and among the different artistic and national cultures in the performance. the professional community assessed tri sestry as a flawless product of world class and significance. it is a very sophisticated, beautiful, clever, emotionally charged performance completed with the respect for the audience – without arrogance, though without simplification. it follows and maintains the non-trivial, mathematically rational and enthralling interpretation of chekhov’s play, which was outlined by eötvös in the score (see: bederova, 2019). alden and his team offer masks we can accept or turn down; in any case, they are highly informal; they ask questions; they excite and wound (see: biryukova, 2019]. at the same time, the performances showed that, despite the educational programme and theatre’s efforts aimed at popularisation of contemporary opera art, the mainstream russian audience was not quite ready for such experiments with the russian classical work of literature, seeing it as an integral part of the specific time and their own culture. therefore, the interaction with chekhov’s text, especially when it is done by foreign stage directors, can be seen as an attempt to destroy the work’s cultural integrity. such an audience may have a very general idea about the plot and content of chekhov’s play; its expectations from the performance may largely be connected with filling gaps in school education involving a traditionally reverential attitude toward the writer’s works. therefore, tri sestry being introduced by ural opera may seem embarrassing to the audience: they offer a present-day narrative of chekhov, which is adequate to his work and the scale of his talent. for our part, in this case, the performance can be seen as the goal and the outcome of the completed cultural dialogue of the writer – composer – stage director, in which the play, music and theatrical production are equal in their impact on the audience; the dialogue, in which they enrich and complement each other. thus, the opera tri sestry introduced the vision of the classical plot of russian literature and russian history from a present-day perspective. it is an avant-garde interpretation of chekhov’s drama from the standpoint of the hungarian composer, whose formative experiences were dominated by the soviet union, and the american stage director who has his own independent view of russian history and culture. thus, the opera staged in the ural opera ballet theatre is a remarkable example of artistic traditions from different cultures and their creative interaction. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 476–491 489 references abutorabian, g. a. 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(2019, may 23). iskusstvo modeliruet nashu real’nost’: imeno tak, a ne naoborot [art models our reality: exactly this way, not vice versa]. colta.ru. retrieved from https://www.colta.ru/articles/music_classic/21278-iskusstvo-modeliruet-nashurealnost-imenno-tak-a-ne-naoborot https://changing-sp.com/ https://gazetaigraem.ru/article/16245 http://teoria-practica.ru/rus/files/arhiv_zhurnala/2009/3-4/popov-akulova.pdf http://teoria-practica.ru/rus/files/arhiv_zhurnala/2009/3-4/popov-akulova.pdf https://www.colta.ru/articles/music_classic/21278-iskusstvo-modeliruet-nashu-realnost-imenno-tak-a-ne-naoborot https://www.colta.ru/articles/music_classic/21278-iskusstvo-modeliruet-nashu-realnost-imenno-tak-a-ne-naoborot changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 441–456 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.110 received 4 june 2020 © 2020 alla v. drozdova accepted 5 december 2020 drozdovaalla@mail.ru published online 29 december 2020 article the dichotomy of public/private in the new media space alla v. drozdova liberal arts university – university for humanities, yekaterinburg, russia abstract today we exist in a situation in which the new media environment has resulted in paradigm shift in our conception of reality, altering public spaces and communities, as well as functional modes and mechanisms of the private sphere, through the creation of new digitally-intermediated methods of communication. in a mediatised culture, the boundaries between public and private have been fundamentally transformed. multi-screening has created a new mode of visibility for social cultures and subcultures, which, if it does not exactly abolish the boundary between private and public, at least allows us to rethink this dichotomy. having thus established a new mode of visibility, the advent of new media has led to the sphere of private life being absorbed by the public sphere, in the process not only of facilitating discussion, but also in becoming a means by which control is exerted by the state, the market and advertising. in turn, in coming under the domination of specific private or group interests, the public sphere itself has been transformed. while, in coinciding with the interests of other groups, these interests may achieve temporary commonality, they cannot be truly public in the original universal sense. the use of multiple internet portals in living reality creates a distinct or alternative level of virtual publicity. no longer requiring the usual physical spaces to regulate his or her inclusion in both virtual and traditional public spheres, a user of contemporary gadgets creates a remote and individually-tailored model of public interaction. this process of virtual individualisation indicates the ambivalent nature of the networked public sphere. while, on the one https://changing-sp.com/ 442 alla v. drozdova introduction today we exist in a situation in which the new media environment has resulted in a veritable revolution in terms of our conception of reality, fundamentally transforming public spaces and communities, along with functional modes and mechanisms of both public and private spheres, through the creation of new digitally-intermediated methods of communication. so-called new media accessible via digital devices and implying the active participation of users in the distribution and creation of content represents a revolutionary mass media format. this new mode of presence, taking the form of social groups, while not eliminating the boundary between private and public, in any case presents an opportunity for rethinking this dichotomy. new media have become one of the means by which private stories are assembled, represented and made available for general viewing as part of the public sphere. the purpose of this article is to examine how the conceptual public/private dichotomy “works” in the space of new media, what are the key features of contemporary network publicity and its relationship with network privacy, as well as what discursive and social transformations occur within the concept of “private life” in the context of digitallyintermediated civilisation. the transformation of classical theories of the public sphere we will begin by considering how the notion of the public sphere has changed in response to the advent of the information society and what are the distinct features of the networked public sphere in the 21st century. here, it is important to note that the contemporary concept of the “public sphere” (öffentlichkeit) was originally formulated by jürgen habermas back in 1962, long before the advent of the new media era. considering it in terms of forming an intermediary between society and the state, habermas based his notion of the public sphere on the principle of uniting citizens around a common (public) interest to achieve a rational consensus (habermas, 1962, pp. 15–26). the concept of the public sphere embodies habermas’ idealised model of communicative action, in the process of which a “morality of equal respect” is established. however, habermas’ fundamentally impersonal notion of the public sphere implies a space in which it is not so much actions that are carried out as the exchange of information and opinions. publicity, in the form in which habermas conceptualises it, has found its full embodiment in the idea of hand, in engaging in collective interaction and concern for common affairs, politically-active people need the presence of others, on the other, the fact of being rooted in their own experience results in the creation of burgeoning personalised and fragmented hierarchies. keywords virtual public sphere, privacy, digital profiling, social media, multiscreen, mediatised culture changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 441–456 443 communicative rationality, that is, in the ability of the subject to express himself, perceive another and find a common language with carriers of other points of view taking the form of arguments. however, habermas’s ideal-normative theory of the public sphere relies on a very limited view of the contemporary subject (warren, 1995, pp. 194–195). since habermas’ subject is not a concrete other, it is taken in its unembodied dimension and thus placed in the space of abstract rationality. in other words, habermas’s consensual model of the public sphere, while productive in many respects, left out of the analysis those who are in reality “excluded” from the sphere of public discussion of the public good. characteristically, in this sense, habermas becomes captive to his own discourse, since his idea of the unity of the public sphere essentially implies a refusal to take into account factual inequality. the momentous social changes taking place in recent years have again initiated discussions about the public sphere; as a rule, “publicity regimes” are considered outside the framework of changes to boundaries between private and public in media culture. in the context of the unfolding controversy, many researchers note that, with the change of publics, the public sphere itself is subject to redefinition. thus, according to nancy fraser the public sphere has undergone changes not only because publics have become diversified, but also because there is neither a relationship of dialogic equality nor a unifying interest, which can in principle be held in common by diverse social groups (fraser, 1992, p. 128). after all, such social groups that had previously been deprived of participation in public discussion (for example, women, migrants, people with disabilities, national minorities, etc.) have come to the fore, gaining voting rights for the first time in a multicultural, globalised world. needless to say, each of these groups brings their own values and heroes, their own problems asserted as fit for public discussion, to which factor can be attributed the increasing anonymity and amorphousness of the public space in the era of modernity. in recent years, researchers have been paying increasing attention to various symptoms of the decline, hollowing-out and de-politicisation of the public sphere. according to the classical habermasian position, the deformation of the public sphere took place according to the logic of the media market, which, as well as representing the interests of corporations and political elites, is also associated with the growth of state power. as habermas notes, the colonisation of the lifeworld that takes place through the “silent” media of communication – i.e. power and money – leads to structural distortions in communication and the violation of social integration, along with an externalisation of living interrelationships. it is certainly possible to agree with this: cultural media – art, cinema, literature and the mass media – create an officiallysanctioned, essentially manipulative public sphere in which the political participation of the public is typically reduced to the quiescent consumption of a media product. it is therefore no coincidence that media analysts (teun van dijk, danilo zolo) identify a contradiction between the dramatically increased access to public media and a deterioration in the quality of public debate. on the other hand, the specificity of the public sphere of contemporary society, with its inherent features of heterogeneity and competitiveness of public interaction, is determined both by new media and traditional media, which can act as counter-publics and mobilise people for collective action. https://changing-sp.com/ 444 alla v. drozdova the pluralisation of the public sphere in the digital age as we have already noted, under the conditions of a modern mediatised and consumer society, contemporary audiences have become increasingly heterogeneous, compartmentalised and explicitly segmented according to their interests, needs and lifestyles. at the same time, both the need and the ability to share a common “public interest” has declined. therefore, the modern public can be thought of “at best as a collection of non-intersecting microspaces, comprising livejournal1, blogs, forums, family networks, etc. (usmanova, 2009, p. 88). not only in real, but also in virtual public life, we are not dealing with a homogeneous public, but with a multitude of audiences and counterpublics, each having their own interests, aesthetics, needs and lifestyles. in other words, publicity loses its previous outlines and meanings: such a “cultural diversity” of the publics of network communications leads to the emergence of a disordered and non-collective publicity that actively invades the zone of privacy. let us now attempt to provide an outline of the diverse sociocultural factors that have determined significant changes in the nature of the public sphere and its relationship with the private. the fundamental novelty of today’s situation lies in the fact that a contemporary person finds himor herself in a “total transition zone” that lies between offline reality and the connection to virtual information worlds. this not only implies day-to-day living in such worlds, but also the value-semantic transition between the external and the internal, the individual and the mass, the private and the public. the quantitative “explosion” of internet users has led to more than 5 billion users, in the words of lev manovich, becoming producers of culture; with this critical mass of social connections, the prospect of “easy contacts” has increased. according to ekaterina sal’nikova, the use of gadgets and multiple internet portals in living reality creates a distinct or alternative level of virtual publicity (sal’nikova, 2015, p. 120). no longer requiring the usual physical spaces (squares, cafes, parks, streets) to regulate his or her inclusion in both virtual and traditional public spheres, a user of contemporary gadgets can create a remote and individually-tailored model of public interaction on a one-to-one basis and at his or her own discretion. even ten years ago, it was impossible to imagine that engagement in social, public life could be maintained from the privacy of one’s own home. today, under the conditions of pandemic, the home as a locus of privacy has paradoxically become the place where groups are spontaneously created and new public virtual arenas are born; here, the invasion of the private sphere by the public can clearly be delineated. a person now possesses the means to regulate the quality and content of publicity, as well as the level of his or her own involvement in it. thus, a personal model of publicity is created that resembles a kind of playing field. however, this process of virtual individualisation indicates the ambivalent nature of the networked public sphere. on the one hand, argues paulo virno, in engaging in collective interaction and concern for common affairs, “politically-active people need the presence of others”, while, on the other, 1 livejournal is a russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. livejournal™ is a registered trademark of livejournal, inc. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 441–456 445 the fact of being rooted in their own experience results in the creation of “burgeoning personalised and fragmented hierarchies” (virno, 2001, pp. 37, 39). for this reason, according to lance bennett, have great potential for studying the modern public sphere (bennett, 2012). the technological renewal of the media has led to a re-coding and reorganisation of the public space, along with the creation of new public actors and arenas, new forms of communicative interaction, as well as non-traditional forms of solidarisation. let us consider the potential of new media to act as intermediaries and public platforms capable of broadcasting and consolidating the meanings of social action. in recent years, the online medium of the internet has acquired the features of a social system, leading to the emergence of many “virtual worlds” whose subjects consist of real and virtual individuals, groups and communities. to designate this new situation, manuel castells introduced the concept of “networked space” (castells, 2001, p. 328), which is characterised by an exchange of different types of resources or flows of information, technology, capital, organisational interaction, images, etc. thus, according to inna kushnaryova, the “information internet” was replaced by its social equivalent (kushnaryova, 2012, p. 4); this transition is associated with the global development trend from “publication”, “document”, “message” to “co-authorship”, opening access to everyone who wants to participate in the creation, evaluation and analysis of texts that can change over time and whose content is not definitively specified. these new interactive “documents” have become the means by which a culture of participatory culture is formed, in which subject-users act in the new capacity of creators/prosumers or co-participants in civil actions. in essence, now we are dealing with the specific developmental consequences of the communication structures underpinning the internet, in which the usual scheme of “content producer/consumer” is supplemented by the additional link of “content modifier”, with these three links potentially representing independent participants in the creative process (not only the author and reader, but also those who adapt content or contextualise it with their commentary). therefore, a characteristic feature of new social media comprises the principle of active user participation in replenishing and creating content, which generally distinguishes these forms from those of the 20th century mass media. as we have already noted, the key feature of new media is their socialisation, which has also led to the formation of new public communities that are directly focused on mutual relationships. as a consequence of their intrinsic nature, the simplest online interactions take on a networked structure, creating what the french economist yann moulier-boutang calls a “pollinating” online world. in this sense, the audience of traditional media forms did not comprise a networked space, since there were no established connections within it. while, at first glance, the content of social networks and media may look the same, it is in the “the nature of its construction” that it has a fundamentally different, network character (see: lavrenchuk, 2010, p. 69). moreover, this type of social interaction does not rely on a single centre or unified growth point; there is no dedicated control level. therefore, unlike the traditional media, social networks create distinct groups or communities that coalesce around common interests, values, or some event. of course, it is not uncommon for such https://changing-sp.com/ 446 alla v. drozdova communities to determine the agenda, in the first instance, their own. as a product of an infinite number of private initiatives, they are not fully integrated into the general social idea. the network clearly demonstrates its isolation from many social problems and political topics: so many people, so many opinions… this is the conclusion that the network helps to draw on the basis of live communication. this is inevitable due to the observable fact that even the smallest groups manifest their own specific contradictions. another important characteristic of networked public communications is that the model offers a “simpler” communication platform than any traditional news media portal. in the networked media environment, the main motivation for social interaction consists in the human desire to be seen or heard by formulating and sharing some interesting news with someone. according to david marshall, it is these two dimensions – a form of cultural production and a form of public engagement and exchange – that make social networks simultaneously a media and communication form (see: marshall, 2010, p. 44). by means of software for exchanging messages between users, this communication is carried out in real time, in the “here and now”, providing an instant response to some important events of general significance. therefore, synchronicity is one of the most important aspects of the social media space: here nothing is ever deferred, but everything takes place in the reality of current time, where everyone is already connected to each other. in other words, social media is focused not on contemplation, but on (re)action, which occurs not according to tradition, but momentarily. the world of new media is instantaneous rather than sequential: the yearbook has taken the place of the chronicle, while linear relationships have been replaced by group communication configurations. during its formation, network communication was characterised by the horizontal nature of social ties, along with autonomy, accessibility and equal participation of users, which created opportunities for discussion of public issues free from power and the market, those which for various reasons had been excluded from the news agenda or remained on the periphery of discussion within the framework of traditional media. however, the modern virtual model of publicity is far from ideal; it dispels the liberal myth of network communication as a decentralised platform where an open and free exchange of opinions between users takes place, where other people’s opinions are respected and where an exchange of information is the subject of discussion. indeed, at an early stage in the development of social networks, new media were seen as a revolutionary weapon of the internet, the formation of a “new social system and civic engagement” (shirky, 2003), resulting in the creation of a new network-based public sphere. here it is emphasised that the traditional public sphere was to be replaced by a new multipolar environment, egalitarian in nature, without a single centre, clearly delineated boundaries or a hierarchical “top”. in other words, the online environment carried a positive political charge, ensuring not unilateral, but two-way information interaction of many actors – that is to say, their collective, public communication. based on these characteristics, social networks were viewed as a new independent arena for discussion, whose developmental logic implied the active and free collaboration of participants. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 441–456 447 however, a fundamentally different point of view has emerged, according to which social networks, in acting as a kind of filter and information selector, neither create new content nor new evaluations, but rather only redistribute and process information. thus, according to lev gudkov, social networks are the renewal element of a technologically novel form of old mechanisms of social communication (see: fanailova, 2013), including their own opinion leaders and the reproduction of those mass sentiments that are characteristic of society as a whole. analysing the content of the pages of ordinary russian users, sociologists note that about half of them use social networks for communication, shopping and entertainment, as well as for disseminating existing rather than creating new information. thus, in their online communication, participants, much as in everyday offline life, devote more time to private, domestic interests and hobbies, rather than socially significant issues. at the centre of the online discussion is the world of apparency, comprised of ostensibly meaningless events. for example, in a network context, a landscape viewed or a dinner eaten can become a topic for discussion. thus, it can be seen that the “agenda”, in which the personal and private begins to prevail over the public, is subject to fragmentation, pushing important and pressing social problems to the periphery of the sphere of network cooperation. in other words, as zygmunt bauman saliently notes, the modern lifeworld, both online and offline, has been transformed into an individualised and privatised version of events, consisting of “endless train of activities, in the center of which we find ourselves and our thoughts about ourselves” (bauman, 2007, p. 323). as a result, according to bauman, the former balance between the public and the private, by which means the stability of the social order was maintained, has been lost; contemporary society, in principle, does not recognise the need for a dialogue between the public and the private, since the public has been colonised by the private. since, in the networked world, “public interest” degrades to curiosity about the private life of “public figures”, “public problems” that cannot be subjected to such a reduction cease to be comprehensible. sceptically assessing the impact of the internet on society, jaron lanier in his manifesto you are not a gadget argues that social networks have led society down the wrong path, since here, instead of creativity and individuality, it is superficial judgments and the rapid creation and consumption of content that are privileged (lanier, 2010). indeed, social networks are increasingly becoming a platform for constructing the standards and values of mass media culture, progressively manifesting hierarchical features, including the presence of “stars”, who receive the lion’s share of comments, likes and hit counts. thus, the reorientation of communication towards the area of private interests turned social networks into an endless number of parallel universes, each enclosing the user in the loop of personality. the trend towards the personalisation of information, its increasing polycentricity and variability, exacerbates not only the atomisation of individual communities, which become a kind of sub-institution, but ultimately risks the formation of information “tunnels” or “ghettos”, i.e. subjective and multiplied “world pictures”. dmitry golynko-volfson interprets this chiefly in terms of the way that russian social networks immerse the user in the entertainment environment of image https://changing-sp.com/ 448 alla v. drozdova strategies and role-playing games, imposing a cult of comfortable consumption of information goods and services in an atmosphere of careless repressive hedonism (see: golynko-volfson, 2009, p. 103). indeed, with the widespread adoption of social media and online services, advertising and marketing strategies are being introduced into the public space, in which consumer values and practices take on a social dimension. thanks to new photo and video hosting services, users can instantly visualise their consumer preferences, as well as sharing with friends what they have bought or watched and where they have travelled. at the same time, for each photo or video sent from the application or project editor, the user can gain points and thus increase their rating. therefore, the term “user engagement” is increasingly used as the main parameter in measuring online audiences, which is achieved through wellthought-out scenarios and engagement tools (buttons for sharing on social media, giving ratings, registering and subscribing etc.). the representation of these practices in social media symbolises the expansion of the influence of new forms of marketing (guerrilla-, viral-, trust-) on the user’s life. it would seem that there is an image of a transparent society built on horizontal connections, as well as that of a participant who does not seek to hide the details of his or her private life. in the case of russian network communication, the “syndrome of public silence” characterises not only offline reality, but also the virtual sphere, in which a public dispute quickly develops into a “scandal” or a “performance”, transforming communication into part of the culture industry. it is the open space of the russian network media that creates a favourable environment for the ostentatious exhibition of tendentious private or group interests. what emerges in the place of communicatively mature public discussions is either a scattered polyphonic noise or an authoritarian monologue. the metaphor of “public silence” used in this sense encompasses both the inability to express oneself in the language of public communication and a willingness to express oneself in registers that do not correspond to the ideal of public discussion (indiscriminate speech, authoritarian monologue, etc.). as a result of the underdevelopment of “the public register” in modern russian interaction (both offline and online), public online communication becomes not only aggressive, but also vacuous. the diversity of the public of network communication leads to the immersion of participants in their own personal “filter bubble” (pariser, 2011), precluding their interest in another point of view and making it impossible to form a single public consensus. from public to private: a history of privacy in tandem with transformations affecting the public sphere, privacy is also undergoing significant changes. today, it can be stated with some confidence that the era of erased boundaries between public and private has begun in the sphere of network communication. since the question of what has become of privacy (as the “primary reality”) today is complex and requires extensive sociocultural analysis, we will content ourselves with analysing only those social effects that have been introduced by new media. however, making a digression into history, we must remember that changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 441–456 449 the idea of solitude and privacy is more a product of culture: for a long time, privacy was not a universally-held value. it should also be noted that privacy in the sense we understand it now did not exist until the 18th century. in premodern cultures, people living in small communities typically experienced little in the way of privacy. sex, breastfeeding and bathing took place in the full view of family and friends. in ancient rome, landowners built their homes with wide open gardens, transforming their homes into public museums in an ostentatious show of wealth. a change in the understanding of privacy took place during the early middle ages, with the monastic practice of practice of seclusion for the purposes of prayer. however, according to aron gurevitch, the confession procedure was public for the majority of parishioners: the communicant confessed to god (in the person of a confessor), repented of his sins and received absolution in the presence of fellow believers (gurevich, 2005). in other words, the world of the middle ages is a “common world”, a shared place of residence, work, prayer and reading. medieval publicity was realised in various forms of state, religious, scientific, artistic and everyday life. the need for a private sphere started to be articulated during the modern era, when class-based affiliations and models of social life started to be replaced by such behavioural attitudes of a person as individuality, self-development and responsibility for one’s life. rapid changes including industrialisation, urbanization and an accelerating pace of life led to feelings of constant tension, resulting in the desire for a private space where one cannot be observed. thus, the private home gradually became the locus of individual existence, in which, in contrast to the public sphere, natural-spontaneous human behaviour becomes possible. an idealisation of informal communication in the family circle arose, contrasting with the conflicts and stresses inherent in public bourgeois society. thus, in the aftermath of the industrial revolution, along with improved standards of living and the guarantee of basic needs, privacy came to be recognised as a basic human right. along with the bourgeois institution of privacy, which became a much more closed institution than before, arose a perceived need to protect the private sphere of the family from the encroachments of the outside world. for example, the uncontrolled use of the image of us first lady frances cleveland in product advertisements led to the emergence of one of the first national privacy laws. in 1903, the new york city legislature imposed a fine of up to $1,000 for the unauthorised use of someone’s image for commercial purposes. in other words, with the emergence of state institutions of modernity and the emergence of the capitalist economy, the term “private” began to refer to a wide range of phenomena: firstly, to the household; secondly, to the economic order of market production, exchange, distribution and consumption; and thirdly, to the sphere of civil, cultural, scientific and artistic etc. associations functioning within the framework of civil society. however, it should be noted that traditional media, which began to play an important role in the recognition of the concept of privacy, also involved itself in the representation of private life as that which ensured the unity of living, that is, the happiness of recognising one’s own experience in a new material form (see: bolz, 1989). in particular, television created the illusion of direct, trusting contact with the https://changing-sp.com/ 450 alla v. drozdova viewer. by entering the home and becoming “household names”, the heroes of the small screen seem to address an individual personally. in thus invading the private home space with information presented as belonging to “everyone”, the public becomes personal by virtue of the manner in which the person sitting in front of the screen is addressed. thus the “man on the telly”, whether an announcer, presenter, actor or even a portrayed character, comes to seem like an acquaintance or even a “relative”; with his scheduled arrival, he is imbued with the private meanings of the viewer. this phenomenon of “close contact” also affects the formats of television programmes. at the same time, a counter movement can be observed. already in the era of traditional media, the boundary between private and public was starting to blur with the emergence of intermediate forms of communication that engender a new kind of openness on the part of the viewer. although hidden from view, his or her life and intimate experiences more easily become the subject of general discussion as shown by the format of various talk shows on russian federal channels. the penetration of the airwaves by the social fears arising from the various private problems and interests of “the man in the street” lead, in time, to a disintegration of the public agenda. the concomitant inversion of the private and the public in media culture can then be asserted as a self-evident everyday reality. the public: the privatisation of the private in new media modern network media problematise the situation to a greater extent; in creating new modes of visibility and transparency of private life in full view of everyone, they have opened the personal world for public discussion. the public legitimisation of private life comes with the emergence of an open, complex, interactive social media structure, with many competing and collaborating communities of users who thus acquire the right to share their experiences publicly in a wide variety of forms. users of social networking services generally strive to socialise their every step; for them, it becomes important to record what they have read, listened to, watched, as well as where and with whom they have met. the principle of plurality and universal visibility across social networks, in which everyone began to see everyone else at the same time, led to the presence of the other becoming an integral part of contemporary media. multiple profiles on social networks made it possible to see the world of others; hence, the growing interest in other people’s everyday experience, in their diverse practices and lifestyles, even the most intimate and secret aspects thereof. the stars of tv have been replaced by bloggers, authors of scandalous posts on facebook2 and popular youtube3 channels and insta-girls, whose accounts invite their followers to transfer their personal values drawn from private life to different spheres of society, applying them in such a way that they act as a force for social transformation. of course, “public interest” in the private and intimate is not a new cultural phenomenon; however, each era has its own limits of the admissibility of the private in the public sphere. in new media, not only does the distance between the 2 facebook® is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 3 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 441–456 451 user and his or her world becomes transparent for the first time, but also the boundary between intimacy and publicity itself. thus, the constant fixation of private moments of life alienates the subject from his or her private space, which is increasingly displaced by the public space of narcissistic self-presentation. according to anthony giddens, the life forms created by modernity have torn us away from all traditional types of social order in a way that has no historical precedent. in a qualitative sense, they have thus managed to change the most intimate and deeply personal characteristics of our everyday existence (giddens, 1999, p. 115). thus, the urge to document life, to record the momentary and trivial in presenting a kind of visual diary of private life for public viewing, leads to a change in the algorithms of personification and self-identification. with the development of new media, a significant anthropological shift occurs: the reality-structuring “i” has vanished and in its place has appeared a kind of “multi-personality” performing various roles and having many hypostases and identities. in video blogs, in particular, as noted by alla chernykh, there is a legitimisation of public discourse about private things, when the unsayable becomes expressed and discussed, the shameful becomes acceptable or even decent and repulsive secrets turn into an object of pride (see: chernykh, 2013, p. 134). for example, the highest-rated positions of vloggers on youtube are occupied not by politicians, but by “opinion leaders” in beauty tips, whose subscribers – sometimes numbering in the millions – are interested in watching unpretentious, simple stories of a young girl’s day who “discovers” the secrets of makeup, meets with friends, goes shopping etc. roland barthes refers to this “publicity of the private” as a “new social value”, emphasising that “the explosion of the private in public”, i.e. public consumption of the private, is a deeply ambivalent process (barthes, 1980). the expansion of the boundaries of the private in social media is also characterised by the fact that discourses related to traumatic experiences are among those most often brought up for public discussion. today, in social networks, the traditional notion of privacy, which was closely associated with feelings of shyness and shame, has been transformed, with many prohibitions and regulations being reversed or simply annulled. thus, for example, such social hashtags as #imafraidtosay, #prosthesesarefree, #metoo, #faceofdepression have brought into the public space topics long considered socially taboo: suicide, disability, sexual violence and harassment. in other words, along with their alternative public discourses, the counter-publics are gaining a voice. in this regard, the emergence of such “volatile forms of sociality” as flash mobs on social networks suggests that novels forms and methods of human cooperation are emerging that were not characteristic of pre-internet communication. although virallyorganised flash mobs do not always address important social issues, this does not prevent them from becoming a new platform for social discussion. all these new tools and practices create a dynamic picture of continuous and varied “evidence” and documentation of reality, which, according to castells, leads to increasingly diverse social voices being heard and an increasing number of their stories becoming available and observed through such simple acts like photography or video, reposting stories or comments to blogs (see: castells, 2001, p. 269). https://changing-sp.com/ 452 alla v. drozdova the end of the private era thus, having become digital citizens, we find ourselves in a new situation of postprivacy, in which the private world is visualised and acquires mobility along with its owner-user (see: sal’nikova, 2015, p. 132). as umberto eco rightly observes, the internet makes us voluntarily withdraw our privacy, disavowing what used to be a zone of the unseen and the opaque (eco, 2007). we willingly share our life on the web with a wide circle of near and far. after all, if you are invisible on social networks, then you not only do not exist, but you are also probably hiding something. paradoxically, it is the sphere of the private that today correlates with activity and visibility; therefore, the border between private and public can be determined not only by referencing the duality of collective versus individual, but also through such concepts as the dichotomy of visible and by invisible. in social media, we have not only gained visibility under the gaze of the other, but our social data has become the new gold, which we voluntarily give away in the form of private messages, photos, likes, comments and reposts that leave a deep digital footprint. thus, our daily private lives become not only observable, but also included in the system of supervision over us. however, as eli pariser notes, with the development of digital technologies, our needs and preferences are personalised through the use of a system of numerous filters by internet companies that study our interests and desires to determine the purchasing goals and abilities of participants, who have inadvertently become a media audience. all this leads to the fact that the corresponding programs construct not only consumer practices, but also streams of information messages, determine “which videos we watch, which restaurants we should go to, which potential partners we will meet via an online dating service” (pariser, 2011, p. 19). as a result, in the era of personalisation of search and data tracking, the internet has ceased to be transparent and the world of everyday life has ceased to be an autonomous space. according to pariser, the contemporary internet is fraught with a threat, since the more private places a user creates on facebook, instagram4 or twitter5 etc., the more amenable this private life becomes to state and corporate control. the translation of complex social relations by personalised online systems into the space of only “friends” precludes the opportunity “to see the world from another point of view” and thereby presents an incomplete version of the picture of the world, stripped of alternative perspectives. in this case, the daily life of media users, although ostensibly constructed in accordance with their personal desires and interests, becomes more and more controlled by the social media platforms themselves. software algorithms analyse the nature, interests, desires and views of users to create a digital user profile. for example, researchers from university of cambridge and northern illinois university back in 2013 developed a technique for measuring the so-called “big five” personality traits using facebook posts (big five is a personality model that identifies five variables according to which we are perceived 4 instagram® is a trademark of instagram llc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 5 twitter® is a trademark of twitter inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 441–456 453 and evaluated by others: openness, neuroticism, extroversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness. the researchers were able to accurately identify political tendencies, religious preferences and many other factors by analysing “likes” left by users. michal kosinski, a researcher at stanford university, noted in an interview that ten likes (interests) are enough for the system to recognise your personality better than a work colleague, by 230–240 likes the computer will know about you more than your spouse does (see: dobrynin, 2016). it is not coincidental that the harvard labour historian shoshana zuboff defines the current situation in terms of the transformation of traditional capitalism into surveillance capitalism (zuboff, 2019). under surveillance capitalism is supposed the unilateral appropriation of human experience by private companies for transformation into their own proprietary data streams. although some of this data is genuinely used to improve products and services, the rest, considered in terms of “behavioural surplus”, is valued for its wealth of predictive signals. this predictive data is then processed by computer programs into highly profitable predictive products that anticipate our current and future consumer decisions. therefore, digital privacy has become a manipulative and market-based personal targeting tool for conducting effective marketing research, as well as for use in advertising and political campaigns. another notorious example concerns the use of big data methods in a political campaign. in 2015, cambridge analytica6 unleashed an app called this is your digital life, admitting that it was created to study the digital traces of users, on which basis their psychological profiles were to be constructed. cambridge analytica subsequently used its database to individually tailor messages targeting voters as part of donald trump’s election campaign. based on the analysis of data from 50 million users, cambridge analytica was able to provide recommendations for the conduct of the election campaign: what to tell a person and how to tell it in such a way that he believes the message and responds to it as desired. under the influence of the present coronavirus pandemic, the tendency for governments to accumulate private data has received a new impetus. in the context of global public emergency, it becomes necessary to consider issues concerning the forced transparency of personal life and the trend towards total digital control, which poses an existential threat to privacy and raises new concerns regarding the problem of personal data protection. the use of digital surveillance technologies such as qr codes, sms passes, questionnaires filled in by those arriving from abroad, requirements to report movements and confirm one’s actual place of residence, mandatory photographing and daily health diaries and the tracking of mobile phone data confirms the distinctively global character of the current situation. for example, the chinese government obliged its citizens to install special software on their smartphones. this official application assigns individuals a colour code of red, yellow or green to indicate their health status and impose a regime: travel freely, self-isolate at 6 cambridge analytica ltd was a private british political consulting firm that was involved in influencing hundreds of elections globally. it was a subsidiary of scl group (formerly strategic communication laboratories), a british behavioural research and strategic communication company. https://changing-sp.com/ 454 alla v. drozdova home for seven days or undergo two weeks of quarantine, respectively. the software provides access to personal data, which sends the data subject’s location, city name and identification code to the police. in italy, germany and austria, mobile operators have shared location data with health authorities to ensure that citizens comply with emergency social distancing measures. however, such measures can also be seen as testifying to the fact that, in modern civilization, the value of human life is so high that society, as a collective entity, is ready to sacrifice the private life of citizens for their own safety. consequently, the contemporary world, in which all the data about us is routinely collected, has become a reality that problematises a new set of relationships between people, the state and their employers. this may explain why, in the modern information society, privacy has turned into another form of inequality, with nontransparency becoming a luxury jealously guarded by the new digital aristocracy. conclusion thus, as a result of our analysis, we have seen that in the new media space, the border between the private and the public has become unstable. as a consequence, it is in the process of being redefined with the emergence of multiple networked publics and counter-publics, which have become the subject of observation and evaluation, collective discussions and even the intrusions of third parties. for this reason, the boundary between private and public can be defined not only in terms of the social collective versus the individual, but also according to such concepts as the visible/invisible dichotomy. we have seen that, in the era of new media, a personalisation of network publicity takes place, along with the sphere of private life itself turning out to be absorbed by the public sphere, open not only for discussion, but also for control by the state, the market and advertising. this is because every network activity comprises both an action and a digital footprint. in turn, in coming under the domination of specific private or group interests, the public sphere has also been transformed, since, while these interests may achieve temporary commonality, they cannot be considered to be truly public in the original universal sense of the word. from our point of view, the ambivalent nature of new media, being based on personalisation and filtering, sets out and defines the ambiguous and contradictory nature of the public/private relationship. thus, not only is the public responded to, but also represented in the private sphere, while, in the public sphere, privacy is reproduced up to and including its peculiarly intimate atmosphere and intonation. this rapidly changing network reality requires further development of conceptual tools for analysing the new content and forms of collective and private life, of which one of the most important remains the relationship between public and private. references barthes, r. 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(2019). the age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. new york, ny: public affairs. http://www.intelros.ru/pdf/logos/2012_2/01.pdf https://www.rsuh.ru/binary/object_46.1329383398.57711.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/19392390903519057 https://doi.org/10.1080/19392390903519057 http://artculturestudies.sias.ru/upload/iblock/c58/hk_2013_09_116_135_salnikova.pdf http://artculturestudies.sias.ru/upload/iblock/c58/hk_2013_09_116_135_salnikova.pdf http://shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html http://shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html https://en.ehu.lt/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/crossroad_3_4_2009.pdf https://en.ehu.lt/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/crossroad_3_4_2009.pdf https://doi.org/10.1017/ccol052144120x changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 372–388 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.140 received 5 april 2021 © 2021 michal müller accepted 8 september 2021 michal.muller@upol.cz published online 11 october 2021 article the value of work-related uncertainty: changes from demands on certainty to finding ways of living in uncertainty michal müller palacký university olomouc, the czech republic abstract given the negative consequences that excessive confrontation with uncertainty can have, its positive dimension is often forgotten. the aim of this article is to show that the uncertainty associated with work, working conditions and the context in which working relationships are formed can be considered as a positive value. this will be shown through four themes. the first theme concerns the economic system. it is important to show that a certain degree of insecurity is necessary not only for individual freedom in society, but also for society as a whole, as there is a relationship between economic and political freedom. the second theme concerns entrepreneurship. in this respect, the article reminds us that uncertainty is a prerequisite for entrepreneurial activity. the third area deals with employment. uncertainty and the life experience associated with it is an opportunity for personal development and the search for innovative ways of coping and solving problems, moreover, it is related to a sense of freedom. the fourth theme deals with the positive role of uncertainty in the context of the current crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic. however, this positive value will only emerge if human health is protected. keywords freedom, risk and uncertainty, sociology of work, value of uncertainty, work uncertainty acknowledgment this article was supported by the ministry of education, youth and sports of the czech republic within the project iga_ff_2020_012 “qualitative research of critical moments of managerial practice” of palacký university olomouc. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 372–388 373 introduction this article deals with the two important sociological concepts, which are also discussed in philosophy: uncertainty and work. work is a significant sociological phenomenon that has had a large impact on the formation of social reality throughout history. the concept of uncertainty is not yet properly analysed, because much more attention is given to risk, which is usually connected to quantifiable indicators (knight, 1921). risk and uncertainty are always situated in a social context, and sociology shows how the definition of these phenomena “shape social relations and distribution powers to groups, at the same time as other groups are excluded from decision making” (lidskog & sundqvist, 2012, p. 1019). this article focuses on how attitudes to uncertainty transform working relationships, especially in the context of freedom. it turns out that society is transitioning from excessive adherence to certainty, caused by negative experience during the early form of capitalism, to finding ways to live in uncertainty. work uncertainty and other work-related uncertainties have a positive dimension and thus represent significant value. this article aims to show three levels where uncertainty can be considered a value in relation to work: the level of the economic system, which affects freedom to choose an occupation; entrepreneurship, where uncertainty is a prerequisite for business and economy in general; and finally, employment, where uncertainty is necessary for a sense of freedom and for the possibility of development. the first part of the article will connect uncertainty with a related phenomenon— risk. the following sections will discuss the positive role of uncertainty at the level of the state, entrepreneurship and employment. then, it will be shown how these themes are now gaining more urgency in the context of the current covid-19 pandemic, which offers a space for reflection on uncertainty and its consequences, whether negative or positive. risk and uncertainty in our society the real world around us is a place where we can seldom meet with certainty. uncertainty is a much more complicated phenomenon; it is sometimes understood as a general term that includes several phenomena related to the uncertain nature of the world. in the scientific disciplines that deal with decision-making, the term “risk” is used to described those forms of uncertainty which are amenable to quantification of the probability that certain events will occur in the future. this basic distinction between risk and uncertainty is found in economic disciplines (knight, 1921). risk, sometimes referred to as expected uncertainty, is examined in different disciplines and is viewed through various epistemological approaches. as rolf lidskog and göran sundqvist (2012, pp. 1020–1021) argue, the question arises as to whether risk has physical characteristics that exist independently of the social and cultural context, or whether risk is shaped and constructed by that context. experts in their risk analysis aim at assessing actual threats by evidence-based scientific investigation. as a result, their risk analysis can be described from the https://changing-sp.com/ 374 michal müller realist perspective. on the other hand, the general public in their risk assessment are often influenced by the social context and communication processes that can amplify risk perceptions or reduce them. therefore, the latter can be understood from the social constructivist perspective. as jens o. zinn (2008, p. 173) shows, risk is also understood in theories as a way of dealing with uncertainty. in this context, it is a question of how these uncertainties are rationally managed, and individual theories differ not only in their approach to this rationality, but also in the way risk is measured. in some social sciences, the division between risk and uncertainty is not strictly conceptualized. at the level of ordinary language, the terms “risk” and “uncertainty” may be used in similar or identical contexts. we often find that we talk about risk in terms of a potential threat without determining any degree of probability. similarly, some concepts of risk perception, such as a culturally oriented approach, have little to do with probability calculation (lupton, 2013, pp. 9, 10). sjöberg et al. (2004, p. 7) distinguish risk per se and the engineered risk. the latter can be measured but cannot be overused in risk management. paul d. windschitl and gary l. wells (1996, p. 343) emphasize the fact that uncertainty is a psychological construct and exists only in the human mind, because if human knowledge were complete, nothing like uncertainty would exist. according to sjöberg et al. (2004, p. 7), risk is closely linked to uncertainty, and it is psychological uncertainty that is important for understanding human responses to situations whose consequences are unknown. in addition, it should be borne in mind that epistemic uncertainty also comes into play when making decisions, which means that the decision-maker does not have to be confident about the estimated probabilities (müller, 2016). sven ove hansson (1999, p. 539) realizes that while the distinction between risk and epistemic uncertainty is useful, it is not very clear how to distinguish the two categories. hansson illustrates this situation with the example of a meteorological forecast. if there is 50% probability of rain tomorrow and we believe this prediction, it will be a matter of risk. on the contrary, if the probability quantified for us by meteorologists is not credible enough, it will be a question of uncertainty. people realize that experts who make predictions can very easily be wrong. we can very rarely approach the probability available to us with certainty. hansson concludes that risk basically occurs only in textbook examples, such as a coin toss or dice (hansson, 1999, p. 539). uncertainty related to work in this article applies to all the situations where it is not possible to estimate the future development of the labour market due to the complexity of the environment, as well as situations where labour market actors feel uncertain, despite the probability of remaining in the job position. ulrich beck also describes this world of uncertainty in his “risk society”. he points out that risk is a hybrid entity, as it is both a real danger and something completely hypothetical, based on a social construction related to an uncertain future (beck, 1986/1992; zinn, 2008, p. 179). today’s world, shaped by modernization and technological development, there is increased uncertainty in the labour market. jobs that are changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 372–388 375 widely spread today will not exist in the future, and on the contrary, completely new jobs will appear. it is natural for people to worry about the future, nevertheless, in the following sections i will argue that uncertainty is not entirely negative but also has a positive value. the case of an economic system various texts in the fields of political philosophy, sociology and economics use terms such as “freedom”, “economic certainty”, “uncertainty” and “risk”. these terms are used in different contexts and with different meanings. in this section, i will argue that uncertainty and risk, if we consider the possibility of some quantification, can to some extent be understood as a price to be paid for democracy, related to the uncertain nature of the capitalist society. in this light, the discussion between the advocates of a centrally planned economy and advocates of capitalism is worthy of interest. to show the difference between these terms, we can use the text by friedrich engels (1880/1908) socialism, utopian and scientific and the text by friedrich august von hayek (1944/2001) the road to serfdom, where he criticizes socialist planning. engels’ argumentation in favour of a centrally planned economy includes an attack on capitalism, in particular the uncertainty associated with life in a capitalist society. the struggle between individual capitalists is, according to engels (1880/1908, p. 110), “the darwinian struggle of the individual for existence transferred from nature to society with intensified violence,” and despite the long human history, “the conditions of existence natural to the animal appear as the final term of human development”. the society is torn by the constant repetition of business cycles. according to engels, the anarchy of production is the cause of this “vicious circle”, or better, of the “spiral” that must come to an end. the business, credit, and speculation steeplechase lead to a collapse and, as a result, one must be liberated from the recurrent economic bankruptcies (engels, 1880/1908, p. 110). manufacturers merge, regulate production, determine the amount of production and the selling price. this, according to engels, leads to the situation where the whole industry “is turned into one gigantic joint-stock company” and “internal competition gives place to the internal monopoly of this one company” (engels, 1880/1908, p. 120). within monopolies, exploitation is so obvious that it must result in their collapse. the state must therefore take over production control. the industrial reserve army is a regulator that keeps wages as low as is suitable to capital needs. only the revolution to which history inevitably tends can restore the proletariat to human dignity: with the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization. that struggle for individual existence disappears. then for the first time, man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal https://changing-sp.com/ 376 michal müller kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. (engels, 1880/1908, pp. 133–134) engels is convinced that people will become masters of nature because and they are able to consciously manage the conditions surrounding them. in this socialist world there will be no place for uncertainty. according to engels (1878/1987), freedom consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature, a control founded on knowledge of natural necessity. people will be masters of the forces that have so far dominated them, making a leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. the proletariat through the revolution will liberate the world (engels, 1880/1908, pp. 135–136). for engels, the uncertainty associated with capitalism is thus an obstacle to freedom, which he sees as liberation from uncertainty. this planned organization also involves work. karl marx argues in following way: we also saw that capital, in the social production process appropriate to it— and the capitalist is simply personified capital, functioning in the production process simply as the bearer of capital—pumps out a certain specific quantum of surplus labour from the direct producers or workers, surplus labour that it receives without an equivalent and which by its very nature always remains forced labour, however much it might appear as the result of free contractual agreement. (marx, 1894/1993, pp. 957–958) therefore, according to marx, society needs to achieve freedom that “can consist only in this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power” (marx, 1894/1993, p. 959). it is evident that this concept of freedom takes on a somewhat different character than that of freedom, as understood in a democratic society. hayek (1944/2001, p. 46), as a supporter of liberalism, rejects central planning and draws attention to the danger of a socialist program that seeks to remove uncertainty from society. he points out that planning advocates regard planning as a necessity, as circumstances caused by free competition are beyond our control. however, their claims are not supported by enough arguments but only by reference to past authorities. the monopolies, which are often called a necessary product of the development of capitalism, were in fact the result of a government policy, “a conscious organization of industry” and “scientific planning”. according to hayek (1944/2001, p. 48), this has been the case in germany since 1878. protectionist policies in the usa have had similar consequences. according to hayek, effective control or planning of a system might not be difficult if the conditions were so simple that a single person or a commission doing the planning could actually take into account all the relevant facts. however, the real situation is much more complicated—information is necessary for decision-making, and a pricing system based on well-functioning competition is a suitable mechanism, which provides information on all minor changes (hayek, 1944/2001, p. 57). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 372–388 377 to direct all our activities according to a single plan presupposes that every one of our needs is given its rank in an order of values which must be complete enough to make it possible to decide between all the different courses between which the planner has to choose. it presupposes, in short, the existence of a complete ethical code in which all the different human values are allotted their due place. (hayek, 1944/2001, p. 60) however, the problem arises that we have no such universal value scale and that it is “impossible for any mind to comprehend the infinite variety of different needs of different people which compete for the available resources and to attach a definite weight to each” (hayek, 1944/2001, p. 62). for hayek, individualism is based on the fact that more than one section of the needs of society as a whole cannot be included under our value scale. the goals of public well-being should not be achieved at the expense of freedom. hayek (1944/2001, p. 69) points out that it is not necessary to completely abandon the idea of economic certainty, but it should be borne in mind that if the entitlement to social certainty is understood in an overly absolute sense, this becomes a great danger to freedom. limited certainty for all, which does not jeopardize general freedom or prepares for accidental life risks, is acceptable. however, it must be ensured that these measures do not destroy competition. a state that provides more security does not, according to hayek, suppress individual freedom. all economic activities are related to planning, but it is not possible to accept the situation where planning is used to replace the market. central planning takes a dramatic form in the context of work. rewards commensurate with the objective outcomes of human endeavour are incompatible with freedom of choice: in any system which for the distribution of men between the different trades and occupations relies on their own choice it is necessary that the remuneration in these trades should correspond to their usefulness to the other members of society, even if this should stand in no relation to subjective merit. (hayek, 1944/2001, p. 126) if we want to guarantee an unchanging income to everyone, it is necessary to abolish the freedom to choose an occupation, which is inadmissible, since the reward would have nothing to do with the benefits. people must be motivated to work—they perform better if they are guided by their own interests. the planned economy is moving towards a situation where discipline will be ensured by corporal punishment—the highest threat is no longer the bailiff but the executioner (hayek, 1944/2001, p. 130). the failure of an individual becomes a crime against society, certainty is redeemed by freedom. every decision-making is associated with risk and if we want to get rid of risk, we must also take away the possibility of making a decision. hayek (1944/2001, p. 137) admits, however, that a certain amount of certainty is necessary to preserve freedom, https://changing-sp.com/ 378 michal müller since most people are only willing to bear to some extent the risks that freedom necessarily entails. at first glance, it might seem that this comparison of dramatically different concepts is not up to date in the current debate, as we are now living in the world of mixed-type economies where the shortcomings of the market mechanism are corrected by the public sector. the relationship between freedom, uncertainty and risk is therefore not usually so dramatic. however, there are still views that words such as “communist” and “democratic” are not mutually exclusive and are compatible, although this has been debated in many studies (see: friedman, 1962/2002). the discussion of the relationship between risk, uncertainty and the fundamental values of a free society is still significant. given the current societal challenges, we must constantly seek acceptable levels of risk and uncertainty. the case of entrepreneurship in the capitalist society, uncertainty with its dynamic changes in the real world leads entrepreneurs to seek profit and try to avoid losses. without this important role played by entrepreneurs it would not be possible to talk about a functioning market, and economy where economic calculation is possible. according to von mises, a real economy without calculation is not possible. the world of certainty described in the previous section is deprived of any motive for doing business (see: rothbard, 1991; von mises, 1949/1998, pp. 694–705). ludwig von mises is even more radical in his arguments than hayek and shows that a centrally planned economy is not only flawed but in principle impossible (von mises, 1920/1990). murray n. rothbard (1991) notes that the collapse of socialism and the centrally planned economy is currently perceived in the context of a catastrophic economic failure, but decades ago, in the midst of debates about the nature of a socialist economy, the prevailing view was that the major problems of socialism are not economic. a frequently discussed topic was, for example, socialist efforts to transform human nature (see: camus, 1951/1956). but in 1920, economist and philosopher ludwig von mises came up with an original critique of a centrally planned economy based on economic calculations. in his article die wirtschaftsrechnung im sozialistischen gemeinwesen [economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth] (von mises, 1920/1990) he demonstrates that freedom, property and sound money are the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and evolution of human society (see: salerno, 1990). in his reasoning von mises is so prescient that he responds to the objections raised later (see: lange, 1938 p. 70). as joseph t. salerno observes (2014; see also salerno, 1990, p. 44), von mises points out that even if planners are not burdened with the knowledge problems hayek emphasizes, they will still not be able to determine how to allocate factors of production or calculate optima. allocation decisions are overwhelmingly complex as planners will be confronted with changed conditions at all times. the quantity and quality of productive services is subject to constant change as these services originate in a stock of gradually transformed physical assets and work capabilities. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 372–388 379 in the context of work, planners will never be able to plan working relationships and determine who, when, where and how to produce. and it is precisely the uncertainty that leads entrepreneurs to modify individual relationships and seek new, better solutions to current situations, and at the same time, they are motivated by profit. the pricing system is not the most important thing, as hayek points out, but the result of previously achieved prices that are based on valuations—mental operations. these prices are an instrument of economic analysis, which is not a means of acquiring knowledge, but a prerequisite for rational action. the existence of an economy, therefore, requires entrepreneurs who carry out the calculations, and these calculations cannot be replaced by any organized plan, or by the use of computation technologies. the real world is dynamic, filled with change and uncertainty. uncertainty leads entrepreneurs to seek profit. the role of the entrepreneur who deals uncertainty is essential for capitalist economy. von mises (1949/1998, p. 700) points out that the entrepreneur does not know whether his business will be successful, and thus finds himself uncertain. this method can be described as a trial-and-error method. socialists believe that this method can be imitated, but in a socialist economy, profit and loss calculation is not possible. von mises (1949/1998, pp. 701–702) also points to the absurd efforts of neo-socialists (such as lange, 1938), who first destroy all the characteristics of the market and then try to artificially organize society as if “the market”, competition and so on existed. these socialists want, says von mises, people to play at the market without realizing how this game is different from the reality. von mises points out (1949/1998, p. 704) that the great error of socialists is that they view economic problems from the point of view of subordinate officials who cannot see beyond their specific entrusted tasks. thus, in the eyes of the socialists, the allocation of capital and the structure of industrial production is something unchangeable and the need to change this structure is overlooked. according to the socialists, economic history is in its final stage. but managerial activities, as von mises shows, are only a small part of the market processes. von mises argues that one cannot play speculation and investment: “the speculators and investors expose their own wealth, their own destiny. this fact makes them responsible to the consumers, the ultimate bosses of the capitalist economy” (von mises, 1949/1998, p. 705). max weber (1921/1978) develops menger’s ideas in the field of economic sociology, and, like von mises, points out the problem of calculation in non-monetary economies. as stephen d. parsons shows, “weber argues that entrepreneurs make production decisions under conditions of uncertainty, where the goals of action are subject of choice and where the consumer wants to be formed through entrepreneurial action” (parsons, 2020, p. 149). moreover, according to weber, entrepreneurial activity related to rational choice is associated not only with the sense of freedom, but also with the responsibility for individual choices (parsons, 2020, p. 160; weber, 1919/2004, p. 92). here we return to the ethical problems that were mentioned in the context of a centrally planned economy. freedom is possible only in the context of uncertainty, which is a precondition for the freedom to choose an occupation, but also for one’s responsibility for their actions. https://changing-sp.com/ 380 michal müller the case of employment vicki smith (2016) in her review of the findings related to sociology of employment risk and uncertainty deals with the question of what social structural conditions may lead someone to consider employment risk and uncertainty perceived as an opportunity. this question brings us again to the positive value of uncertainty, and to another level that we examine in this article—the level of employment. smith mentions that “for sociologists of work, a core puzzle has been why some individuals and groups are positive about employment risk and turbulence, even seeming to favour it to the point of endorsing popular ‘free agent’ and ‘entrepreneurial’ ideologies” (smith, 2016, p. 70). according to smith, it is fascinating that the research on employment uncertainty has led to the discovery that some groups of people prefer constant change and uncertainty about employment and are able to accept uncertainty about their future job opportunities. this raises the following questions: “are they irrational, incapable of understanding how they are being used by employers? do they fail to recognize that corporations will callously dump free agents at a moment’s notice?” (smith, 2016, p. 370). before turning to our own psychological analysis of the positive value of job-related uncertainty, we first summarize the studies where smith (2016) finds the answer. smith explains “that people’s willingness to embrace risk and unpredictability—to view uncertainty and constraint as opportunity—is conditioned by institutional context and material practices”. to illustrate this point, she uses as an example the observations of wall street banking firms by ho (2009), media workers in manhattan’s silicon alley by neff (2012) and cases of project-based work. with time, employees get used to the corporate layoff strategy and employment culture that uses the rhetoric stating that layoffs and continual change are industry-specific and remain on the constant lookout for new job opportunities. in addition, short-term employment—and risk-taking—can be offset by financial remuneration (ho, 2009, p. 224; smith, 2016, p. 371). the analysis by gina neff (2012) is also worthy of interest in relation to work uncertainty. research has shown that media workers regard their job decisions as a series of investments that will stimulate their firms’ success. these workers were willing to take risks and work for unknown and startup companies. moreover, they were willing to accept poorly paid work or unpaid internships. as smith writes: experiencing turbulence and unpredictability from such an advantaged location makes it possible to emphasize positive discourses about the advantages of risk and opportunity, praising and seemingly embracing it: to rationalize away fears and concerns about periods of unemployment; to view oneself as being in control of one’s destiny; and to maintain individualistic perspectives on personal successes. (smith, 2016, p. 371) neff (2012, p. 37) points out that these workers were able to “convert uncertainty into opportunities for wealth and advancement”. a similar situation is also observed changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 372–388 381 for workers working on projects in the creative industry, where workers are exposed to fierce competition in uncertain conditions. smith (2016) notes that: these workers eschew attachment to one firm or one employer, undermining conventional sociological arguments that job stability and commitment alone can explain why workers work hard and put in quality effort. their experiences also undermine conventional expectations that workers prefer long-term jobs and continuity. (smith, 2016, p. 372) a guidance to understanding preferences can be found in the research by debra osnowitz (2010), who conducted interviews with contract professionals. these professionals experienced negative aspects of the work conditions as permanent workers such as management abuse, blocked mobility that led to feelings of uncertainty, while contracting gave them an illusion of certainty. there is another explanation for why job uncertainty may be perceived as an opportunity that is related to osnowitz’s observations. this explanation could be based on the ability of employees to perceive differences between social contexts and their consequences. however, in these considerations we move from the sociological to the psychological level of analysis, because in addition to social determinants, psychological determinants related to employees’ specific cognitive abilities and personality must also be taken into account. we need to talk not only about the social conditions that can transform uncertainty into an opportunity, but also about the personalities of people who tend to seek such conditions. one could say that certain professions are more acceptable to certain personality types of people, e.g., those who are better at working with risk and uncertainty. in the previous section we mentioned entrepreneurs and it was pointed out that in a socioeconomic perspective, uncertainty is considered as a prerequisite for a given type of activity. some people may seek out uncertainty directly because the sense of certainty also has its negative side, such as routine and repetitive work leading to overall stagnation. managerial work is associated with all sorts of uncertainties and turbulent changes in a globalized society. all management textbooks begin with the characteristics of managers’ personalities. being a manager means being confronted with uncertainty. one level of uncertainty relates to success in individual activities that fall under the managerial competence. the second level, which is closely related to the first, concerns the possibility of losing job in the event of misconduct, which implies the risk of unemployment. research shows that successful managers confronted with uncertainty and with states when habitual ways of doing things cannot be taken for granted reconsider—deconstruct—uncertainty to see new opportunities (müller & jedličková, 2020; rolfe et al., 2016; rolfe et al., 2017). critical situations associated with the so-called existential disruptions—situations where habitual ways of doing things are threatened (müller, 2019; rolfe et al., 2016)—and the uncertainty associated with them provide an important context for the process of becoming a manager. facing uncertainty and responsibility both for the future https://changing-sp.com/ 382 michal müller progress of the company, but also for one’s own uncertainty about the manager’s job leads to self-awareness of the manager’s own identity (müller, 2020). even managers who, in the context of a critical situation in a company, decide to change jobs and face uncertainty, describe this moment as liberating and reinterpret the crisis in positive terms (müller, jedličková, & halová, in press). existential approaches to management show that an important ability of a manager is to adapt to the constant alternation of success and failure, reminiscent of the sisyphean struggle described by camus (müller, 2021). greater willingness to face work uncertainty can also be seen in the younger generations, as evidenced by the data from sociological and demographic research: generations y and z are more willing to change jobs and have different work preferences than older generations (see: mccrindle, 2014). this situation illustrates the interaction of social conditions and the psychological (or biological, if we go to a deeper level of analysis) development of individuals who choose a certain type of employment—especially in the creative industry, social media, technology start-ups, and so on. it is possible that going through the process of education under uncertain conditions associated with constant change develops one’s ability to reinterpret uncertainty as an opportunity. understanding uncertainty and the ability to manage its manifestations is an important prerequisite for the self-development of managers and knowledge workers (müller & kubátová, 2021). another level may be the perception of freedom, which in the deterministic world depends on uncertainty, because without uncertainty, there would be no hope, ethics or freedom of choice, because all this is possible only because we do not know what the future will bring us (hastie & dawes, 2010, p. 333). work-related uncertainty in the context of the covid-19 pandemic the current period associated with the covid-19 pandemic is the greatest reminder of uncertainty in modern history. it shows both the negative and positive dimensions of this phenomenon. the pandemic crisis highlights the relevance of the themes presented above regarding the value of uncertainty at all levels. on the level of the state, the coronavirus pandemic required unprecedented state restrictions to protect public health. anti-epidemic measures have had a significant impact on human freedoms and rights. many countries could only handle the uncertainty of the pandemic through restrictions on freedom. in the context of the many victims and the uncertainty of further mutations of the virus, it is clear that these unprecedented measures were justified. however, governments of all countries faced difficult choices, as restrictions brought with them many other economic and social problems, as does any effort to eliminate uncertainty. the search for the optimal level of uncertainty is a task that humanity has faced since its inception, and the current era shows just how important this task is. as joyce j. fitzpatrick mentions pointing to the results of neurocognitive studies, we only learn from uncertainty: “if that is truly the case with humans then the learning occurring today with the uncertainty surrounding the covid-19 pandemic positions changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 372–388 383 us for considerable intense and dramatic learning” (fitzpatrick, 2020). it is precisely these difficult and uncertain pandemic conditions that can create the right backdrop for growth linked to learning and for realising our potential. the uncertainty of the pandemic has dramatically affected entrepreneurs, especially those whose activities have been constrained by government measures. but even in this area, uncertainty opens space for learning and for harnessing creativity. entrepreneurs confronted with uncertainty must look for new opportunities. recent research on the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on social enterprises, which represent a very vulnerable part of the market, particularly because they employ people disadvantaged in the labour market, shows that, despite numerous obstacles, many entrepreneurs have been able to seize the opportunities. in particular, these were the entrepreneurs operating in multiple business areas who were able to implement operational as well as strategic changes such as finding new customers, introducing new products or focusing on the production of respiratory masks (kročil et al., 2021). however, it is clear that the level of uncertainty associated with the pandemic is too excessive and that the full impact of the current crisis will not be assessed until much later. the covid-19 pandemic is undoubtedly having an impact on employment, and for many people the uncertainty may be very oppressive. however, even the current pandemic-related crisis can bring people the feeling of fulfilment from work and the discovery of meaningfulness (müller, 2020). even in the deepest crisis caused by the pandemic, managers can pause to reflect on the situation. the manager of a company that was deeply affected by the pandemic describes this situation in terms of her own interest in the phenomenological literature as an opportunity to discover self-awareness (kročil et al., in press). it is the experience of existential uncertainty that often reminds us of the possibility of non-being that provides a means to achieve authentic experience (müller & vaseková, in press). another significant change that the pandemic has brought about through the dynamic development of it is the possibility to work from anywhere in the world. this is especially true for talent who can be hired to work on the other side of the world, increasing the mobility of talented workers who can take advantage of more opportunities (haak-saheem, 2020). trends related to virtual work will continue, and the labour market will have to deal with this fact both in terms of supply and demand for labour (halová & müller, 2021). discussion and conclusion the article pointed out that the uncertainty associated with work, whether at the level of social structure, individual entrepreneurial activities, or employment, is a significant value if it does not take extreme forms. it is necessary to protect a certain degree of uncertainty because it is a condition for our freedom in a deterministic world. uncertainty is our greatest enemy, but also the greatest ally we need in our lives. it often becomes a neglected value. in addition to work-related uncertainty, we can talk about other uncertainties in this context, but what is most important is https://changing-sp.com/ 384 michal müller work which we devote most of our time to and in which many of us find opportunities for self-actualisation and meaning-making. in other words, we need to fill our lives with something. even if life was not associated with freedom, there is still a sense of freedom, as albert camus (1942/1979) observes, and we can add that this feeling is associated with uncertainty without which the economic system and business cannot function (von mises, 1920/1990). perhaps uncertainty is a solution to the problem of the globalized middle class that has nowhere to go, as noted by social anthropologist thomas hylland eriksen (2008). uncertainty makes it possible to create and build something again and again. and the understanding of uncertainty and the changes of approaches to uncertainty dramatically transform society and individual relationships within society. thus, all history seems to be teaching us how to live with uncertainty, how to conceptualize it appropriately, and how to optimize its impact. a world with extreme uncertainty and a world without uncertainty are not good places to live. both the analysis of socio-economic relations and historical experience show that if uncertainty is removed from society and a centrally planned economy is established, the freedom to choose an occupation and the incentive to work are thereby abolished. uncertainty is also important for business as it forces entrepreneurs to create new opportunities and seek profit. without uncertainty, in a centrally planned economy, there is no market or economy, there is no even business activity. entrepreneurs must be confronted with uncertainty about their existence (related to the threat to their being) and manage activities in order to achieve the optimum level of uncertainty and risk. in the context of employment, uncertainty is also important, and as sociological research shows, some people prefer the uncertainty of employment over certainty. these preferences are shaped by both social and psychological determinants. it is important to stress that uncertainty is important for personal development and for the sense of freedom. the present affected by the covid-19 pandemic brings considerable uncertainty that will transform various social processes. moreover, because of the hard-to-predict mutations and the uncertainty about the success of full-scale vaccination programmes, we cannot be certain about when the struggle against the pandemic will be over. this context shapes one of the greatest lessons in our lives, which directly affects our ability to cope with uncertainty. in this shattering of the preconceived meanings we have attached to our former places in the hierarchy of the world, we have an opportunity to reassert the importance of interpersonal relationships and the value of human life—in the name of common humanity and solidarity (patočka, 1990/1999). it is important for society to be able to assess an acceptable level of uncertainty that allows for a gradual return of people to their workplaces, because, as adrienne eaton and charles heckscher (2021) remind us, the workplace is an important place for the organization of workers and a space for mutual solidarity. as humans, we need to engage in face-to-face interactions and mutually affirm our humanity. it is only through common dialogue that we are able to deal with the greatest challenges, as evidenced by examples from the past (see: camus, 2002/2006). changing 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(2008). a comparison of sociological theorizing on risk and uncertainty. in j. o. zinn (ed.), social theories of risk and uncertainty: an introduction (pp. 168–210). wiley-blackwell. https://mises.org/library/ludwig-von-mises-social-rationalist https://mises.org/library/ludwig-von-mises-social-rationalist https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/31421344/explaining-risk-perception-an-evaluation-of-the-psychometric https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/31421344/explaining-risk-perception-an-evaluation-of-the-psychometric https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-898x.2.4.343 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.3.016 article fin de siècle in the trajectories of russian modernity: novelty and repetition maxim khomyakov higher school of economics, saint petersburg, russia ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the article is devoted to the discussion on fin de siècle in the context of the trajectory the modernity took in the twentieth century russia. the author follows c. castoriadis’ definition of modernity through double imaginary of autonomy and rational mastery as well as p. wagner’s characterisation of modernity as experience and interpretation. he demonstrates how in russian constellation of modernity autonomy came to be understood as a secondary to rational mastery and how collective autonomy started to dominate over individual one. for this purpose, he discusses details of n. federov’s “philosophy of the common task” as well as peculiarities of the development of russian society of the beginning of the last century. then m. khomyakov turns to the contemporary fin de siècle and discusses what he sees as a major crisis of modernity in general and democracy, in particular. thus, the article interprets fin de siècles as inherent to the modernity crises, the main elements of which are revising, reinterpretation, reformulation and renegotiation of the modernity’s fundamentals. keywords modernity, rational mastery, intelligentsia and people, fin de siècle, philosophy of common task, resurrection, crisis of democracy, sovereignty, collective and individual autonomy introduction the centenary of russian october revolution has revitalized discussions on the role of this catastrophic event in the trajectory of russian modernity and, at received 13 october 2017 © 2017 maxim khomyakov accepted 20 november 2017 maksim.khomyakov@urfu.ru published online 18 december 2017 221changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 the same time, raised question on the role of the peculiar cultural phenomenon of the end of xix – beginning of xx century, the fin de siècle. it is obviously tightly connected with a number of social catastrophes of the beginning of xx century, of which russian revolution was, probably, one of the most significant events. one of the interesting questions, then, is how the october revolution is intertwined with the cultural phenomena of fin de siècle and how they all influenced the trajectories, russian modernity took afterwards. another, equally interesting question is what these phenomena and events mean for the present fin de siècle we are arguably living through in the beginning of xxi century. how do the issues we face today relate to our experience, and how is general disorientation of the contemporary world connected with the disorientation of the end of xix century? these questions are, obviously, not only about the ways of russian modernity or about russian re-interpretation of the world, but also of more general philosophical kind – on the relations between fin de siècle and modernity as such. of course, we cannot expect to address all these questions here fully; it would be more than enough just to ask them properly. fin de siècle is often seen through the history “of conflicting narratives and trajectories” (marshall, 2007, p. 3). it is also sometimes considered as connected to the finis seculi, the end of the (old) world or fin du globe (oscar wild), as a kind of the apocalypse’s rehearsal. it is not accidental, then, that russian philosophers of this time saw similar rehearsal in really apocalyptic events of the october revolution. for nikolai berdyaev, for example, “the meaning of the revolution is internal apocalypse of the history. apocalypse is not only revelation of the end of the world, of the last judgment. it is also revelation of the constant proximity of the end inside of the history itself…” (berdyaev, 1990, p. 107). the concepts of apocalypse, of fin de siècle and of revolution, thus, seem to be tightly interconnected. the apocalyptic interpretation of the fin de siècle, on the one hand, archetypically refers to old religious millenarist expectations, but, on the other hand, reveals apocalyptic character of the modernity itself. the questions asked above, therefore, are inseparable from the question on the catastrophic nature of modernity. interestingly, some scholars find striking parallelism between fin de siècle of xix century and our own time, thus generalizing on the recurrence of this phenomenon. in this way elaine showalter explains this parallelism and recurrence with the psychological assumption that “the crises of the fin de siècle … are more intensely experienced, more emotionally fraught, more weighted with symbolic and historical meaning, because we invest them with the metaphors of death and rebirth that we project onto the final decades and years of a century” (showalter, 1990, p. 1). putting aside the implausibility of this explanation, the parallelism is noticeable and not only between 1890s and 1990s, but also 1960s, which fact enabled terry eagleton to claim that “the fin de siècle arrived earlier this century” (eagleton, 1995, p. 11). 1990s and 1890s are parallel in many things, except politics; the end of the twentieth century seems to have forgot about class, state, imperialism and modes of production. this forgetfulness is explained by the crisis of the alternative soviet form of modernity. thus, for eagleton “what we seem left with in the nineties, then, is something of the culture of the previous fin de siècle shorn of its politics” (eagleton, 1995, p. 11). 222 maxim khomyakov if we put aside ungrounded psychological or theological speculations, the parallelism still requires explanation. why fin de siècle is recurrent, if not because of internal apocalypse of the history or because of the psychologically acute perception of the crises in the light of the end of the century? what does it mean for the history? how the cultural phenomena are connected with social and political catastrophes so characteristic for any fin de siècle? this article will make an attempt to outline a very general view of a possible approach to this theme. on the reasons, which will soon become clear, i believe, however, that even most general view here cannot be given in abstraction from the real time and space that is from the real history of real people. that is why a large part of this text will be devoted to the real fin de siècle: of russian pre-revolutionary and revolutionary society, which, we hope, is a good illustration to the main general thesis of this article. we will start, then, with a general description of the linkage between modernity and fin de siècle. this description, being necessarily abstract and theoretical in the beginning, is a hypothesis, which will be empirically grounded later. in our description, we are going to base our considerations on the theory of modernity as experience and interpretation as it can be found in recent writings of peter wagner (wagner, 2008). then we will have a closer look at russian fin de siècle to locate a starting point for the trajectory russian version of modernity took afterwards. finally, we will try to briefly address the question on the current fin de siècle, which has been arguably accompanied with almost as catastrophic events as those of the fin de siècle one hundred years ago. since the main task of this article is describing the questions and laying the problems, the conclusions will necessarily be modest. fin de siècle in the trajectories of modernity after johann arnason’s and peter wagner’s seminal works on modernity (arnason, 1989; wagner, 1994) it has become almost a commonplace to refer to cornelius castoriadis’s characterization of modernity as based upon a certain “double imaginary signification”. namely, the modern period, according to castoriadis, “is best defined by the conflict, but also the mutual contamination and entanglement, of two imaginary significations: autonomy on the one hand, unlimited expansion of ‘rational mastery’, on the other. they ambiguously coexisted under the common roof of ‘reason’” (castoriadis, 1997, pp. 37–38). arnason thinks of these two principles, or, rather, “significations” as having divergent, mutually irreducible logics so that “the pursuit of the unlimited power over nature does not necessarily enhance the capacity of human society to question and reshape its own institutions, and a coherent vision of the autonomous society excludes an unquestioning commitment to the more or less rationalized phantasm of total mastery” (arnason, 1989, p. 327). these logics, however, are not only divergent, but also “entangled”, and both are present in modernity from its very outset (carlenden, 2010, p. 57). in short, “modernity has two goals – to make man master and possessor of nature, and to make human freedom possible. the question that remains is whether these two are compatible with one another” (gillespie, 2008, p. 42). 223changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 importantly, these two pillars of modernity are not definite principles; they are rather significations, in other words, “multiform complexes of meaning that give rise to more determinate patterns and at the same time remain open to other interpretations” (arnason, 1989, p. 334). the interpretations are given and the definite patters are formed, in their turn, in real historical situations by real people, and thus reflect complex interplay of different elements, including other imaginary significations, premodern traditions, popular sentiments or political considerations. the question of how these patterns are formulated against a particular socio-historical background is, then, one of the most important and interesting questions arising in the study of modernity. this is how we understand here the question of the trajectories of modernity. these trajectories are determined by particular constellations of autonomy and mastery, defined by the current interpretations of them, which are formed, in its turn, on the basis of previous experiences of modernity. however, if autonomy and rational mastery, freedom and control are conflicting but entangled significations, their relations unavoidably go through a number of crises, in which the experiences are re-evaluated, the concepts are re-interpreted and the constellations are re-made. in other words, modernity seems to require revolutions during which the very basics of the society are revisited and new world-interpretations are formed, which, in their turn become foundations for the new experiences. or, as peter wagner puts it, “… the experience with the application of a specific concept leads to processes of reinterpretation. sociopolitical change is not least based on conceptual reinterpretation” (wagner, 2016, p. 11). to understand this dynamics fully, however, we need to consider briefly relations between the main elements, which define the constellations of modernity. now, on the one hand, autonomy as auto-nomy that is as a capacity of giving oneself one’s own laws, consists in overcoming the boundaries, which are necessary for exercising the rational mastery. on the other hand, being a capacity of self-determination, autonomy is also about obeying the self-imposed laws, and thus, about reproducing the boundaries and frameworks. the picture will become more complex if we add here the distinction between individual and collective autonomy. if for the individual, the boundaries are given in the capacities of his/her physical body widened to some extent by the technology, the collectivity does not have any pre-existing boundaries and should be historically formed. therefore, the very notion of collective autonomy includes some inherent concept of the boundaries, defined through complex exclusion – inclusion interplay. moreover, if social outcome of the exercise of many individual autonomous wills is very uncertain, the mastery of the situation might call for the exercise of rich collective autonomy with its own collective intentionality (see, for example, wagner, 2016, pp. 98–101). in other words, any particular constellation of modernity is based at least on some interpretation of the relations between collective and individual autonomy as well as between autonomy and mastery, between emancipation and domination or between transcending the boundaries and laying them… thus, changing of the constellations is necessarily connected with re-negotiating new compromise, forming new boundaries and re-interpreting foundational concepts. revolution is, of course, the most radical, catastrophic expression of such renegotiation. in old lenin’s definition of the “revolutionary situation” it is characterized 224 maxim khomyakov by the impossibility for “the tops” to dominate in the old way and by the unwillingness of “the bottoms” to live in the old fashion (lenin, 1969, p. 218). revolution, then, happens when the old frameworks of domination (or mastery) hinder autonomy from its realization, and, thus, are re-interpreted as enabling heteronomy and un-freedom. active entrepreneurial revolutionary minority (such as bolsheviks in 1917) can grasp this moment, gain the power and political coup d’état crowns the revolution. what is more important and more fundamental, however, is exactly the reinterpretation of the main concepts. old constellations are reinterpreted as hindering autonomy (while before they were seen as enabling freedom), and new constellations based upon reinterpreted concepts are negotiated. this intense process is accompanied by revisiting (and reinterpreting) collective memory: founding historical moments, personalities and experiences. in result a new world-interpretation is formed as a framework for the new experiences. thus, the revisiting, reinterpretation, reformulation and renegotiation are the most basic elements of the social change, of which revolution is just one, most radical expression. cultural phenomenon of fin de siècle, thus, is more fundamental than social or political revolution. it is indispensible for the modernity. the history of modernity, then, is a history of consensuses and various constellations with the ruptures of the transformation moments of fin de siècle. it is clear therefore why for the father of russian social democracy, alexander herzen fin de siècle started in 1848, and for the european new left – in 1968. fin de siècle of xix century, being one of the most radical transformations of the modernity, only contingently, then, coincided with the calendar end of the century and gained millenarist and somehow mystical interpretation. an interesting question for the history of modernity is, however, which particular constellation became the result of one or another fin de siècle, and how it defined experience of modernity afterwards… these are the questions we should ask both on russian fin de siècle of xix century and on our present times. autonom(ies) and mastery of russian fin de siècle in xix century the experience of modernity of russian society of xviii–xix centuries was anything but unproblematic. and one of the main peculiar russian problems of this period was conceptualized as a radical divide between what in 1860s became known as the intelligentsia and peasant traditional orthodox “people”. the divide was one of the results of the swift installation of modernity on russian soil in xvii–xviii centuries. to cut very long history short, peter the great’s reforms created russian european nobility, who have been perceived as living in russia like in a foreign colony. this unfortunate divide persisted throughout the nineteenth century. the noble “european” stratum, however, was gradually widening and in the 1860s it started to include lower classes, mostly sons of the clergy, to form a peculiar social phenomenon: a rationalistic intelligentsia. although they started to talk and to write russian (before this time french was the main language of the nobility), their rationalistic mindset differed greatly from the orthodox mysticism of their own fathers and of the majority of the peasant population. 225changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 in different times, the basic cleavage of russian society has been conceptualized differently: as the east-west contradiction, as the orthodoxy-rational science divide, and so on, but it is the “intelligentsia-people (narod)” opposition that became the idèe fixe for all russian literature. thus, the famous russian husserlian philosopher, gustav shpet (1879–1937), described this problem of russia as the main problem of russian philosophy: “the ‘people’, and the ‘intelligentsia’ as the creative spokesman of the people, are related to one another both philosophically and culturally. russian philosophy approaches its problem of russia as the problem of the relations of the above-mentioned terms, sometimes from the side of ‘the people’, sometimes from the side of the ‘intelligentsia’, but always solves the only problem, the problem of the relation itself. the difference and even opposition of the answers – sub specie of the people and sub specie of the intelligentsia – defines the peculiar dialectics of russian philosophy…” (shpet, 2008, p. 76). internal and external divides reinforced each other: those critical of western europe also wanted to correct the excesses of russian enlightenment and to find a specific russian way in modern civilization; those who thought of the west as the best implementation of modern civilization naturally wanted to finish what peter the great had only started and to “westernize” the whole country. the split itself, however, has always been understood as a symptom of a deadly disease of russian culture. westernizers of the early nineteen century saw the nature of this illness in the ignorance and backwardness of the people, while slavophiles of the time interpreted the divide as a deadly split between borrowed enlightenment and original russian life. one of the fathers of slavophilism, alexey khomyakov, in his article of 1845 called this borrowed science “colonial” (khomyakov, 1900, p. 24) and vehemently condemned its discord with the life that had created great russia “long before foreign science came to gild its tops” (khomyakov, 1900, p. 22). being a follower of schelling and an admirer of britain, khomyakov, however, thought that scholarship (especially in the social sciences and humanities) must correspond to the life of the nation, must be of the same roots, so to speak. the absence of such correspondence leads to a situation in which “there was knowledge in the upper classes, but this knowledge was absolutely remote from life; there was life in the lower classes, but this life never rose to consciousness” (khomyakov, 1900, p. 22). this split was the primary object of analysis for russian philosophy and sociology, and arguably became one of the reasons for the radical reinterpretation of russian fin de siècle. now, after 1860s in the majority of the discussions the main characteristic of intelligentsia has been seen in the rationality of the educated class, in the “positive science” it supposedly masters (in contrast to the traditional orthodox religiosity of “the people”). in the most radical circles science, thus, was increasingly perceived as a kind of panacea, a kind of the instrument for perfect mastery – both over nature and over society. it is rationality and science, which dominated the discussion. the questions of justice, moral issues as well as social problems were to be solved by rational mastery of science. radical russian intelligentsia even tried to derive the whole of morality from positive rationality; not from kantian rational transcendental self, but – paradoxically – from natural science and evolutionary biology. famous 226 maxim khomyakov russian philosopher and one of the fathers of russian fin de siècle, vladimir soloviev reportedly described russian intelligentsia as guided by a strange syllogism: “all people descended from the monkey; therefore we must love each other” (berdyaev, 1989, p. 168). thus, of two modernity’s imaginary significations, autonomy and the mastery, it is the second that was increasingly getting dominance in russian discussions of xix century. formal freedom, autonomy was the object for discussion much more rarely. it has been often assumed, as we will see, that the perfect scientific mastery will finally free human beings, make them truly autonomous. in xx century, this trend found its perfect implementation in the idea of “scientific communism”… the “educated” worship of science and the “uneducated” worship of god were to be united somehow to solve the main russian question of the xix century. these attempts powered russian fin de siècle (including arts and literature), influenced october revolution, and, finally determined the particular form russian modernity took in xx century. thus, the same vladimir soloviev in a letter to the editor of the journal voprosy philosohii i psychologii, prof. n.y. grot, described his own early philosophical development as an attempt to reconcile the “existence of plesiosaurs” with “the true worship of god” (soloviev, 1914, p. 270; also see lukyanov, 1916, pp. 117–120). theologically speaking, this was a question of creating a new christian apologetics, of the possibility of uniting western science and russian orthodoxy, and thus, of reconciliation in the “philosophy of all-unity” (as soloviev called his theory) the “people” with the “intelligentsia”, and the west with the east. similarly to the social question, which could be answered either from the side of the “people” or from the side of the “intelligentsia”, the apologetic issue could be solved either sub specie of orthodoxy or sub specie of science. what almost all russian fin de siècle philosophers sought, anyway, was a reconciliation of science and religion. these characteristics of russian fin de siècle found their peculiar implementation in the works of one of the most original philosophers of this time, nikolay fedorov (1829– 1903). this odd personality in spite of his unwillingness to publish his works had a great impact upon russian and soviet culture of the twentieth century. among those who were influenced by his views we can count dostoyevsky, tolstoy, solovyev, mayakovski, khlebnikov, stravinsky, platonov, pasternak etc.; his ideas became the basis for a number of ideological movements, such as eurasianism (evraziystvo), cosmism, immortalism, hyperboreanism, etc. this surprising success of fedorov’s strange ideas is partly explained by the fact that he managed to give an answer to the question of russia in a distinctly modern and, at the same time, a peculiarly russian way. there is no place here to discuss fedorov’s theories in details, but some description of his ideas is necessary to demonstrate the way russian society tried to find its own path in modernity. in george m. young’s characterization, “fedorov … was simultaneously a futuristic visionary of unsurpassed boldness and an archconservative spokesman for ideas usually branded reactionary, a man with a twenty-first century mind and a medieval heart” (young, 2012, p. 10). it is not surprising, then, that he produced a theory that seemed to be able to transcend all contradictions of the present world, and to lead humankind toward a better future. fedorov himself calls his theory “a philosophy of the common task” and prefers to name it a “project”. his purpose is not to 227changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 explain the nature of things, but to transform the world. as he puts it, the main question of philosophy is not why existing things exist, but why “living beings suffer and die” (fedorov, 1906, p. 296). now, any “project” has three main elements: (1) a description of the state of affairs (the-world-as-it-is), (2) a description of the desired condition (the-world-asit-ought-to-be), and (3) a description of the way from the first to the second, from the reality to the ideal. and fedorov, trying to offer a new projectivist philosophy, does organize it in this three-fold way. “science should not be the knowledge of the causes without the knowledge of the goal, should not be the knowledge of the primary causes without the knowledge of the final causes (that is knowledge for the sake of knowledge, knowledge without action)…” (fedorov, 1982, p. 66). the state of affairs is described as the slavery of humanity, as its absolute dependence upon the blind forces of nature. this dependence is evident, for example, in various natural disasters, such as periodic famines, the last of which in russia of fedorov’s time happened in 1891 (fedorov, 1982, p. 58). the main evidence of this dependence, however, is death itself as the inescapable destiny of all living beings. this is the vicious blind circle of birth and death, which, according to fedorov, makes the current condition of humanity intolerable. nature, then, is the first and the main enemy of humanity, which, however, can become a friend. it is “a power as long as we are powerless… this power is blind as long as we are unreasonable, as long as we do not represent its reason… nature is for us a temporary enemy, but eternal friend, since there is no eternal enmity, the elimination of the temporary one is our task…” (fedorov, 1982, p. 521). interestingly, fedorov describes this condition in terms of the progress, thus, thinking of the progress itself as of the blind force of the nature to be eliminated through the joint efforts of humankind. in biology progress consists “in the devourment of the elder by the younger”, in sociology it is the “attainment of the largest possible measure of freedom … (and not participation of each person in the common task)”. in short, “while stagnation is death, and regress is not a paradise either, progress is the true hell, and a truly divine, a truly human task consists in the salvation of the victims of progress, in guiding them from hell” (fedorov, 1982, pp. 77–78). this description of the progress strangely reminds us of walter benjamin’s image of progress as a destructing storm, which is piling debris in front of the eyes of the backward-looking angel of history (benjamin, 1969, p. 257; wagner, 2016, pp. 102–103). according to federov, progress is destruction only because it is natural, “blind” actor of history. perfect mastery, thus, is mastery over the progress as well as over all other natural forces. as far as internal human nature is concerned, it is imperfect and blind partly because humans are born as animals. birth is, thus, the other side of death and should be eliminated together with death and the condition of progress. only god, being causa sui, is immortal. that is why, according to fedorov, the main path for humanity to god-like immortality is literal self-creation from dead matter. human society is no exception, since it is also dominated by the inimical blind forces of nature. this domination is evident in what fedorov calls the un-brotherhood (nebratstvo) and discord (rozn’) of contemporary society. since “history as a fact” is a permanent bellum omnium contra omnes, a “mutual extermination” (fedorov, 1982, 228 maxim khomyakov p. 202), “there would be no meaning in the history of humankind as long as history … is not our action, is not a product of our joint reason and will, as long as it is an unconscious and involuntary phenomenon” (fedorov, 1982, p. 197). thus, for fedorov the-world-as-it-is is characterized by the domination of the blind forces of nature. it pertains to the external world, to internal human nature and to the current condition of society. this world, being an “existing hell”, must be transformed by the joint efforts of all human beings. now, in order to complete his “philosophy of common task”, fedorov had to picture also the-world-as-it-ought-to-be, the world-inproject, the paradise humankind must aspire to. this ideal world is pictured by christianity. fedorov considered himself an orthodox thinker and thought that his theory fulfilled the promises and followed the aspirations of orthodoxy, despite the deeply promethean spirit of this theory. he did not want to build the new world without god; on the contrary, he thought that god himself wanted humankind to fulfill the “common task”. fedorov interprets almost all the contents of christianity in this new, “projectivist” way, as a call for humankind to join in the task of “regulating nature”. as one of his disciples explains: “propagation of life, immortality and resurrection is the essence of the saviour’s teaching. he calls his heavenly father ‘god of fathers’, that is of the dead, but at the same time also ‘not the god of the dead, but of the living’ (mark 12:26-27), that is, of those who are going to return to life, of those who will resuscitate; since ‘god has not created death’… and desires ‘all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ (1 tim 2:4)” (kozhevnikov, 1908, p. 273). contemporary christianity, however, is too contaminated with paganism, the main evidence of which is its “passive” character. even russian orthodoxy, the closest to the true christian religion, according to fedorov, transformed commandments into dogmata, and created rites out of tasks. the right interpretation of christianity, then, is to re-interpret all dogmata as commandments, and all rites as tasks. for fedorov all of them point toward one single project – the project of the “regulation of nature” and of the resurrection of the dead. science, art and religion are to be united in the project of resurrection. or, as george m. young explains it: “the scientific projects cannot be understood in isolation from the religious, political, sociological, artistic, and economic projects. in contrast to some of his followers, fedorov repeatedly emphasizes that technological advance, if pursued independently from advances in morality, the arts, government, and spirituality, and if pursued for its own sake or for purposes other than the resurrection of the ancestors, could end only in disaster. and further … he believed that spiritual development alone, without scientific technology, could also lead only to a dead end” (young, 2012, p. 50). now, the picture of “the-world-as-it-ought-to-be” or “the world-in-the-project” is quite clear: this is the world, guided or “regulated” by united humankind. humanity must fully dominate nature; it should regulate the movements of not only all stars and planets in outer space, but also of all the smallest particles of the matter. such humans are not mortal anymore; they have finally defeated their main enemy and become immortal and omnipotent. “the common task”, however, consists not only 229changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 in achieving immortality for one generation. for fedorov, this would have been appallingly immoral. humankind, in fedorov’s project, is united across generations, all to be resurrected by fellow humans, or, rather, by the sons and daughters of the dead. “universal resurrection is a full victory over space and time. the transfer ‘from the earth to heaven’ is a victory … over space (or successive omnipresence). the transfer from death to life or simultaneous coexistence of the whole series of times (generations), coexistence of succession, is a triumph over time” (fedorov, 1982, p. 572). now, if such is the ideal, how might it be realized? since blind forces of nature bring death not because they are evil in themselves, but exactly because they are blind, humanity’s path to salvation is, for fedorov, in regulating those forces. thus, first, sexuality should be reversed and directed to the dead parents; it must become, so to speak, the main resurrecting force. or, as fedorov himself puts it, “resurrection is replacement of the lust of birth with conscious re-creation” (fedorov, 1982, p. 81). this will transform human society into a society of the sons and daughters, working together on the resurrection of dead. such a society has one purpose, one task, which is really common, and this task transcends all private particularity of interests and desires. this truly totalitarian society of brothers and sisters eliminates discord and, thus, stops permanent war. together with the force of sexual attraction, the force of natural selection loses its grip on human beings. similarly to sexuality, however, this force should not be eliminated, but rather re-directed against the common enemy of humankind. armies, then, must be converted into troops, fighting nature. this society is, of course, a matter of the very distant future. fedorov describes it in daring and fantastic language, but rejects going into details about its possibility. “earth and then other planets, being created from cosmic dust, will create under the management of the reasonable beings from the same cosmic dust conductors of the force from the sun… through these conductors… earth and other planets … will accelerate or decelerate the movement of the whole system. the assemblage of worlds, inspired by the resurrected generations in their close brotherly union, will itself be the instrument of the resurrection of their predecessors, the fathers” (fedorov, 1982, p. 527). fedorov’s philosophy is, undoubtedly, one of the brightest, most bizarre and most peculiarly russian theories, which emerged during the fin de siècle. it has a number of very distinct features that helped it to attract a number of adherents in twentieth century russia. these features also help us to reconstruct the way it paved to modernity for several next generations. first, this philosophy unites science and religion in a very peculiar way, thus reconciling soloviev’s plesiosaurs with god’s worship. fedorov emphasizes this unity in almost all questions of importance. for him, the “common task” is “positivism in the sphere of final causes (fedorov, 1982, p. 85). however oxymoronic this idea might seem, fedorov managed to create an ideology, which became quite popular both among orthodox christian thinkers and among communists of the 1920s. in fedorov’s theory science and orthodoxy are at times kept separate (with science providing tools for the attainment of religious goals), but at times they are fused in the most uncritical way, so that science is treated religiously and vice versa. 230 maxim khomyakov this peculiar fusion of religion and science can also be easily discovered in the russian communism of the twentieth century (see, for example, berdyaev, 1990). secondly, fedorov, interpreting the separation of the “learned” from the “unlearned” as the main cause of the “un-brotherhood” and “discord” of the society, gives his own answer to the russian question on the re-unification of the “intelligentsia” and the “people”. this answer is reunification in action, a practical unification. the goal of universal salvation for fedorov is so powerful that it is able to heal this wound of russian modernity. obviously, the communists acted in a similar fashion: the eminence of their goal helped them to mobilize very different groups in the society. thirdly, and relatedly, in the divide between the slavophiles and westernizers, fedorov occupies the middle ground. he describes russia in distinctly messianic terms, but values western science and technology greatly. importantly also, his russian messianism is not exclusivist or chauvinistic: he thinks that russia would be the first to take up the task, which must be, however, a common task for the whole of humankind. as george m. young comments: “fedorov and the cosmists eventually offer a synthesis of westernizer and slavophile positions, welcoming western scientific and technological advances, but turning them toward slavophile goals of communal wholeness, unifying activity, and spiritual consensus – all contained in the well-known slavophile concept of sobornost” (young, 2012, p. 23). naturally again, this reminds us of lenin’s peculiarly messianic theory of russia as a “weak link” in the chain of imperialism, which therefore would lead humankind into the future paradise of communism. fourthly, fedorov’s “project” is certainly a deeply totalitarian one. everything and everybody must conform to the project and the holy goal of resurrecting the parents and regulating nature. no exception is granted, and no other goal is considered worthy. as michael hagemeister noted on the cosmists in general: “the image of humanity spreading its ‘noocratic’ rule over the universe, whence it can fulfill the “universal cosmic plan” of turning itself into an almighty immortal organism, thus attaining the status of god, is an image that quickly reveals its unmistakably totalitarian character. even fedorov’s world-delivering common task was totalitarian: no one had the right to be excluded or forgotten, no one could withdraw from the magnificent project” (hagemeister, 1997, pp. 201–202). finally, in fedorov’s project we face that peculiar interpretation of the double imaginary signification of modernity, which we, again, can easily find in russian communism. this interpretation is heavily concentrated on absolute mastery, on control and regulation, re-interpreting thus autonomy through this mastery, and not vice versa. for fedorov, total regulation of nature is a pre-requisite for obtaining true autonomy. only those who work for the common task can be called free and autonomous, while all others are just slaves of the blind nature. fedorov, thus, values only positive freedom, and not negative liberal freedom. his freedom is based rather on collective than on individual autonomy. negatively defined individual autonomy (freedom from the limitations) consists in arbitrariness. one of the main questions for the modernity here would be then how to ensure socially positive results of the independent realization of the multiple individual wills. or, as peter wagner explains, “one does need to recognize that the idea of collective self231changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 determination contains within itself a tension between a continuous free expression of the will of all, on the one side, and, on the other, the formation of general will, to use rousseau’s words, and the transformation of the latter into effectively behavior-orienting rules and institutions” (wagner, 2016, pp. 72–73). fedorov provides a totalitarian answer; according to his faithful follower, n.p. peterson, he thought that “so-called great principles of the great french revolution – freedom, equality, and brotherhood – are the product of extremely shallow thought, or even of thoughtlessness, since brotherhood cannot result from freedom to fulfil one’s whims or from the envious desire for equality; only brotherhood leads to freedom, for brothers who love one another will not envy one brother who is elevated above others… for that reason, we must seek brotherhood first, and not put it in the tail, after freedom and equality” (peterson, 1912, pp. 88–89). the image of the human race mastering both outer and inner worlds, both external space and internal nature, both planets and society, turned out to be very relevant for twentieth century russia. in its attempts to overcome the fateful split between the intelligentsia and the people, russian society of this time came to value control more than individual freedom from interference. it is not surprising, then, that fedorov’s ideas found wide reception and influenced not only such strange communist projects as preserving lenin’s body in his mausoleum or the project of turning back the northern rivers’ streams, of which some soviet officials and scientists dreamed for more than 20 years, but also the plot of dostoyevskiy’s famous brothers karamazov novel, futurist poetry of v. mayakovskiy and v. khlebnikov, as well as the quite successful soviet space exploration projects. thus, in fedorov we see the main principles, which have been both further developed in the soviet russia, and, at the same time, determined the trajectory russian modernity took in xx century. these ideas include such general principles as primacy of the mastery over autonomy, or dominance of the collective autonomy over individual one, but also such peculiar things as unification of religion and science (which in later russia took the form of religious worshipping of the science) or totalitarianism with its radical emphasis on solidarity and brotherhood. on the one hand, some of these principles correspond rather to genus temporis, to the path european modernity took after the fin de siècle. the cultural, social and political cataclysms of this period brought about what peter wagner called “organized modernity”, based upon “…the cultural reign of a strong conception of society” (wagner, 1994, p. 86). however, “the organization of modernity was much more radical under socialism than in the west… in all respects, we can see socialism as precisely the epitome of organized modernity…” (wagner, 1994, p. 101). on the other hand, we demonstrated how these ideas and principles (especially those, which defined peculiarities of the russian trajectory) were based upon the previous experiences with modernity, in particular the experience of intelligentsia – people divide as well as upon the conceptualizations and interpretations of these experiences, in particular the discussions on the relations between orthodoxy and rational science. fedorov’s philosophy of the common task reveals this complex set of the entangled interpretations in their most radical forms and thus represents one of the best cases for the studies of the modernity crisis of russian fin de siècle. 232 maxim khomyakov a new fin de siècle: a russian quest in the context of global challenges “dismantling of the conventions of organized modernity” (wagner, 2016, p. 116) started in the 1960s – 1970s in the west, but in the countries of the former soviet union it coincided with the final decade of the century. for russia, this dismantling was again rather painful, although, unlike previous fin de siècle, it happened without major bloodsheds of the revolution and civil war. collapse of soviet union and demolition of the berlin wall are the events, the real meaning of which is still very difficult to appreciate fully. for some short time it even seemed that the era of large social transformations and political cataclysms is over, which consideration enabled some social theorists to fantasize about a putative end of history (fukuyama, 1992). soon enough, however, fukuyama’s optimism has been substituted with huntington’s dark prophecies and looking forward to the ending of history gave way to expecting the clashes of civilizations (huntington, 1996). a brief period of the hopes for the united europe from lisbon to vladivostok was forced out by the new cold war era devoid, though, of an iron curtain. dismantling of the organized modernity in russia led to the experiences, which partly defined its being in antiphase to the conditions of global north and which brought it closer to the post-colonial countries of global south. the reinterpretation started with comprehensive critique of rationality, and, in particular, of its capacity to master nature and society. this quickly led to the emancipation of various religious and pseudoreligious beliefs and, at the same time, to the crisis of the organized science. the changes were so fast that russia was not able to develop institutions capable of ensuring socially positive outcome of the exercise of different individual wills, in other words, the democratic instruments of the formation of la volonte generale out of the simple sum of individual wills and wishes. fast emancipation of the individual in this situation brought about a short, but very painful period of social degradation and chaos. these shocking experiences led to a suspicion about possibility of handling society of atomized individuals and to an attempt of another re-emphasizing of the collective agency. however, by this time the russian society has already significantly changed. in reality, it does consist of more or less atomized individuals with very limited solidarity between them. the attempts of the government to employ old nation-building mechanisms (such as special memory politics, mobilization of the society against putative or real threats or even quest for the “spiritual bonds” inside russian orthodoxy) work only with some groups, whose influence is gradually diminishing. at the same time, two things are still very influential. the first is a fear of chaos experienced by the population in 1990s. this experience, however, is gradually losing its relevance with the lapse of time since for the younger generation the chaos was not part of its personal history. the second is almost post-colonial obsession with sovereignty. this obsession seems to be a reaction to both soviet experience, when all 15 republics had only very limited collective autonomy, and to the humiliating situation of the 1990s, when russia almost lost its sovereignty to the western powers. the emphasis on sovereignty, however, is one of the most evident features of emerging postcolonial countries. it is this emphasis on self-determination, national interests and so one, which today puts russia in opposition to the western (or northern) “developed” globalized world and makes it a “natural” member of the global south. 233changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 thus, it is not solidarity or the national pride of the victory in world war ii, which today defines focusing upon collective autonomy in russia. the fear of internal chaos and assertion of sovereignty are those bonds, which provide otherwise atomized society with a kind of collective agency. the obsession with sovereignty, in its turn, leads to securitization of the foreign policy. that is why contemporary russia substituted value-politics of soviet union, which was based upon some normative considerations (internationalism, class solidarity, anti-colonialism etc.) with extreme political realism of national interests. here again russia is in the antiphase to liberal foreign politics of the western countries. there were many attempts in russia to reconcile liberal values, nationalism, politics of interests, globalization, and general democratic principles. one of these efforts was a short-lived concept of the “sovereign democracy”, which at some point became quite popular in various circles of russian establishment. dismantling of the organized modernity in the west led to the weakening of “the institutional frames for collective self-determination, partly deliberately in favour of supranational or global cooperation and partly because of an alleged escape of sociopolitical phenomena from the view and grasp of political institutions” (wagner, 2016, p. 117). in russia, as we have seen, it resulted in focusing on the sovereignty, rise of nationalism, revival of religion and, at the same time, extreme individualization, and atomization of the society. one of the main questions for the moment is which of the trajectories would fit better the current experiences and which of the interpretations can provide them with necessary stability. a rather discouraging answer is “neither of the two”. hegemonic discourse of global north is characterized by what peter wagner called the “erasure of space”, when there is almost nothing between atomized individual and the globe and when the global politics of the liberal powers is suggested to be based upon recognition of the individual rights. “every social phenomenon that stood in between tended to be considered as having freedom-limiting effect. significantly, the notion of democracy, which presupposes a specific decision-making collectivity and thus appears to stand necessarily in an intermediate position between the individual and the globe, tend to be redefined. rather than referring to a concrete, historically given collectivity, processes of self-determination were, on the one side, related to social movements without institutional reference, and on the other side, projected on the global level as the coming cosmopolitan democracy” (wagner, 2016, pp. 120–121). together with an “erasure of time”, which strips human beings of any personal history and cultural identity, the erasure of space shapes contemporary hegemonic discourse. wagner calls the image of the free and equal individuals entering contract-based associations a “utopia” (wagner, 2016, p. 121). it is utopian in the sense that meaningful democracy does require some boundaries and shared historical identities. completely atomized free and equal individuals will have problems with mastering their societies. diminished ability of the contemporary societies to act collectively is compelling evidence in favour of this statement. even if utopian, the erasure of space and time is also very real. in today’s globalized and interdependent world the ability of the societies to autonomously determine their fate is rather limited. importantly this ability is radically diminishing if we go from global north to global south, from politically and economically powerful states to emerging 234 maxim khomyakov countries and the societies struggling with the consequences of colonialism. the decisions taken by, say, the us federal reserve system can influence greatly wellbeing of an average russian citizen. the “humanitarian intervention” wars, waged almost unilaterally by the usa, say, against iraq or libya destroy lives of thousands of the human beings. if this is the case, and if neither russian nor libyan citizen has a right to vote in the us elections, the question is to what extent this world-system is democratic and to what extent the human beings living outside of the global north are able to pursue their life-plans autonomously. formal domination of colonial system, when autonomy (freedom) and mastery (prosperity) of one part of the world were achieved at the expense of the formal exclusion of the other part of the world is now substituted with informal structure of exclusion and domination, characteristic for the post-colonial international system. the evidence is a recent (grossly exaggerated) scandal with “russian hackers” and their putative influence upon the us elections. on the one hand, the scandal is ignited by the american indignation at people, who dared to interfere to “our democracy”, “our freedom”, “our autonomy”. on the other hand, it is not clear to what extent in the current situation the us citizens can justifiably claim ownership of “their” democracy. arguably, if the influence of the us democracy meaningfully transgresses territorial boundaries of this country, the ownership of the polity erodes. classical system of sovereign nation states did not know this conceptual problem, but it formally excluded others through exercise of colonial power. informal postcolonial domination combined with the erasures of time and space, however, makes democracy problematic conceptually. thus, one can just wonder whether the hackers’ “interference” was not a legitimate attempt to realize their autonomy in the situation when all democratic procedures for them were out of reach. to wagner’s “erasure of time” and “erasure of space” we can also add what is possible to call “erasure of meaning”. namely, with dramatic changes in mass media, development of the social networks, blogs and online media, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish reliable sources of information from falsified ones. traditional critical thinking skills do not work anymore and publicly available information is getting increasingly liable to manipulation. in a way we enter the era of fake news (it is not accidental that the term is so popular today) and hybrid warfare (another popular term). humankind is still quite far from mastering the cyberspace with all its strange gods and dangerous demons. real democracy seems to be in danger until this erasure of meaning is effectively overcome by a new critical thinking skill adapted to the cyberspace. all these very general observations suggest that democracy today is both in danger and in crisis. human beings should make sense of its real meaning, of its proper space with newly laid boundaries, of its relation to “thick” cultural traditions and histories. now, does russian (ukrainian, british, american, catalan etc.) return to the traditional nationalism with its nation-building instruments and to the westphalia system of the sovereign nation-states help in the situation? it seems that there is no return anymore, and that humankind has to creatively reinterpret the basic concepts and experiences of modernity. the attempts to restore conventions of the organized modernity in answer to the current crisis will unfortunately lead just to further deterioration of democracy. we witness this deterioration everywhere: 235changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 in russia and in ukraine, in spain and in catalonia, in britain and in the us etc. current fin de siècle has just started and we are still to see what 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(1994). a sociology of modernity: liberty and discipline. london and new york: routledge. wagner, p. (2008). modernity as experience and interpretation: a new sociology of modernity. cambridge: polity press. wagner, p. (2016). progress. a reconstruction. cambridge: polity press. young, g. m. (2012). the russian cosmists: the esoteric futurism of nikolai fedorov and his followers. oxford: oxford university press. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.1.124 received 7 september 2020 © 2021 danijela brečko accepted 29 january 2021 danijela.brecko@sofos.si published online 19 april 2021 article intergenerational cooperation and stereotypes in relation to age in the working environment danijela brečko university of ljubljana, republic of slovenia abstract the problem of intergenerational cooperation in the workplace is becoming increasingly important, especially because of the ageing workforce. the article presents the issue of companies facing the challenge of changing a work environment that has to be tailored to the characteristics of each individual generation in the workplace. generational differences and similarities are explained in more detail, especially in relation to work, followed by a consideration of stereotypes and age discrimination in the work environment. the article illustrates the problem of stereotypes related to age at a selected company. in focus groups we found several positive as well as negative stereotypes regarding age in the workplace, which we use in a research questionnaire especially designed for this study. the questionnaire was completed by 394 employees, and the results used to provide answers to the following research questions: are there stereotypes within the company about the characteristics of different generations? and do different generations have different foundations regarding the company’s expected attitudes towards their work? the results show that in the focal company there are mostly positive stereotypes regarding age. we also found out that there are no significant differences between the different generations regarding the company’s expected attitudes towards their work. the respondents of all ages expected these attitudes to be based on similar foundations. keywords generations at workplace, characteristics of generations, older workers, age management, age-related stereotypes and discrimination, work attitude of different generations https://changing-sp.com/ 104 danijela brečko introduction in 2010, one in nine people in the world was older than 60, but in 2017 this was already one to eight. in 2050, one in five people in the world is expected to be over 60, and in more developed parts of the world this figure will be one in three (tros & keune, 2016, p. 5). rapid changes, especially in the developed world, are the result of three tendencies that occurred after world war ii. first, the appearance of so-called babyboom generation, also known as the prosperity generation, which currently accounts for the largest number of people approaching retirement age. second, on average women now have fewer children, especially in more developed regions of the world. and third, life expectancy is increasing as people are healthier due to greater access to health and social care. one consequence of these tendencies is an increase in the share of the elderly population in relation to the younger population (tros & keune, 2016). in anticipation of the economic and social changes associated with an aging population, it is essential to ensure development and progress, including the achievement of the goals set out by the united nations (un). in particular, at the second world assembly on aging, held from 8 to 12 april 2002 in madrid, spain, the un adopted the international plan of action on aging madrid – mipaa (united nations, 2002), which emphasizes the importance of taking into account older people in development planning. later, it was decided that countries must provide an environment in which older people share the results of development in order to improve their health and well-being (united nations, 2015). as people age, they often go through various changes, in areas such as personality, needs, impulses, intelligence, physical abilities, (working) memory, work experience, emotional regulation and social perceptions (bal, kooij, & rousseau, 2015). in theory and practice, it is not possible to find an unambiguous answer as to the chronological age of an individual that should be considered an “older employee”. however, it is possible to recognize the consensus that employees in the age group of 50 or 55 fall into this category (ibid.). however, this article does not focus only on older employees, as it is a topic that also concerns younger individuals who face low job security, with no improvement in this condition expected in the near future (international labour organization, 2013), and thus have to prepare for a significantly longer working life than their parents had. it is thus estimated that people currently in employment will work until the age of 75 (bal et al., 2015). defining generation each individual has their own characteristics, but certain things are the same based on age. moreover, differences between groups of individuals are not only related to their chronological age, but also differences between individual generations. generations are groups of individuals born in a particular historical period, in a particular area, and who share important life and historical events with major social dimensions that most representatives of the generation were directly confronted with during personal changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 105 development. the emergence of generations throughout human history is one of the fundamental sources for the dynamics of historical development. living in comparable conditions (economic, historical and so on), exposure to the same events (cultural, environmental), and exposure to similar technologies can affect individuals so much that they think, decide, and behave in similar ways. generations in society change approximately every twenty years or so, where some deviations from the years of birth emerge from the literature (dolot, 2018; speer, 2011). each generation is divided into three to seven annual subgroups, based on the first wave, core, and last wave (tolbize, 2008). due to the importance of the issue – the impact on the economy, the labour market, corporate strategies – intergenerational differences and the emergence of new generations have become the subject of research throughout the developed world. age management and intergenerational differences are and will increasingly be issues in all companies (maj, 2015). the following recent generations have been identified (tolbize, 2008): • traditionalists (silent generation, veterans), born between 1922 and 1945, who unconditionally value authority and a hierarchical managerial approach; • baby-boom generation (children of prosperity), born 1946 to 1964, defined as the workaholic generation; • generation x, born 1965 to 1980, who respect authority and believe that a work-life balance is needed; • generation y (millennials), born from 1981 to 1995, who grew up in prosperity and rapid technological development, • generation z, which also has many other names, such as igeneration, gen tech, online generation, facebook generation, and generation c (dolot, 2018), born approximately 1995 to 2010, which naturally communicates and works in both real and virtual worlds and loves change; • generation alpha, a new generation that already follows generation z and was born after 2010 as children of millennials, lives in the world of digital technology, and has not yet entered the labour market (mccrindle, n.d.). generational differences and similarities in the workplace in theory, there are at least two views on generational differences in the workplace. the first assumes that events influence and shape each generation, and although individuals in different generations are diverse, they nonetheless share a particular mindset, values, and behaviours because of the same events they have lived through. these thoughts, values, and behaviours vary between generations. the second view argues that although there are variations throughout a work cycle, life cycle, or career stage, ultimately all employees are equal in terms of what they want the job to offer them (tolbize, 2008). most companies today have a rich mix of generations among their employees. with each generation entering the labour market comes different attitudes, work ethics, life experiences, and goals. managing the work environment with generational diversity, as we are witnessing today, presents both an opportunity and a challenge: the https://changing-sp.com/ 106 danijela brečko opportunity to involve a group of people who bring unique experience and knowledge to the company, and the challenge of reconciling the generational differences that define them. there is also a risk that skills and knowledge will be lost through early retirement in this context, which will have a negative impact on the economy, businesses and the younger generations. attitude to work a factor that contributes to intergenerational conflicts in the workplace is the level of work commitment that representatives of each generation show. for example, generation x is recognized as a work-avoiding generation, employers complain that in general this generation is uncommitted to work, and work only as long as required to work or even less (tolbize, 2008). in contrast, the baby-boom generation is recognized as workaholic, with the trend of workaholism having emerged among them – although of all the generations mentioned in this study that of the traditionalists is the one recognized as the most industrious. perceiving how hard someone works can be related to how individuals approach their work tasks. the baby-boom generation is recognized as process-oriented, while the younger generations are seen as result-oriented, no matter when and where the work is done, which may create the impression of a lower level of activity. however, past surveys showed that 44% of employees aged 18 to 24 were willing to work more time in the workplace, while this percentage was only 23% among older employees (tolbize, 2008). affiliation to an employer another claim that often arises in connection with intergenerational differences is the different level of affiliation to the employer. the traditionalist and baby-boom generations are known for their very high loyalty to employers, unlike the following generations. the younger generations are more interested in having good workplace relationships with co-workers than with their employers. the younger generations value changing jobs as a form of career advancement, while the older generations – in the light of their greater affiliation to an employer – value gradual advancement within the same company. however, younger generations have come to realize that loyalty to an employer does not guarantee job security, as they often witnessed at their parents losing their jobs. employer affiliation has declined over time, with 70% of traditionalists, 65% of baby-boomers, 40% of generation x and 20% of generation y stating they would remain with the same employer (tolbize, 2008). employer affiliation among millennials and generation z is falling rapidly, with 61% of the latter stating that they would leave an existing employer within two years if had the chance to do so (pontefract, 2018). affiliation to the employer must also be considered from other angles. compared to the older generations, the representatives of the younger generations (from generation x onwards) do not in fact change jobs more often than representatives of the older generations did at the same age. the frequency of job changes is due in part to the state of the economy, as employees change jobs in times of economic changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 107 prosperity when opportunities are good. typically, younger employees change jobs more often, and then tend to stay with the same employer as they get older. employer affiliation is therefore more a question of employee age and other factors, and not so much a question of intergenerational differences. representatives of all generations point out the same reasons why they would stay with the same employer: the opportunity to advance and develop, the opportunity to acquire new skills, work tasks that are stimulating, and higher payment. employees, regardless of age or belonging to different generations, also show a higher degree of employer affiliation if the company has the same values as the employee, such as a focus on quality of life, good communication, autonomy at work, respect for both older, experienced employees and young, talented employees (tolbize, 2008). attitude to respect and authority authority is defined as one of the most important values in the workplace by 13% of the traditionalist generation, while this figure falls by at least half in all subsequent generations (tolbize, 2008). this suggests that the attitude towards authority is the same for all generations who are now actively involved in the workplace, although a hierarchical approach to leadership is slightly more desirable for the baby-boom generation than others. representatives of generation x and younger are relaxed towards their superiors and are not intimidated by job titles. representatives of generations y and z believe that respect should be earned, and thus do not feel unconditional respect for authority. both younger and older employees want to be respected in the workplace by coworkers and superiors, although the understanding of the concept of respect varies between different ages. older employees want their opinions to have weight based on their experience, while younger employees want to be listened to when presenting their views. older employees do not want the level of respect for all employees to be the same, but believe that those who are higher in the hierarchy or have more experience deserve a greater level of respect (tolbize, 2008). stereotypes about the characteristics of generations the results of some past research (bal et al., 2015) show some typical stereotypes about older employees, which can be classified into six main categories: poorer performance of work tasks, resistance to change, poorer ability to learn, shorter period to retirement (and thus not worth investing in), a higher cost but also greater reliability. the stereotypes about older employees, as held by other staff, are 60% positive according to descriptions given by younger employees, and 85% positive for those given by middle-aged employees. the most commonly named characteristic of older employees was experience. among the most common negative beliefs were the characteristics of resistance to change and inability or unwillingness to learn. on the other hand, stereotypes are also attributed to younger generations, ambition and a focus on personal success, a quick change of job when a better opportunity arises, and financial prudence regarding borrowing (stahl, 2018). formal https://changing-sp.com/ 108 danijela brečko education is no longer the main source of knowledge for younger employees. they strive to work in a positive work environment, with a well-established company brand. the key to their satisfaction at work is a diverse work environment where they can adopt multiple roles and do multiple jobs. however, there is also research, which finds that generational differences, in terms of what preferences and values a certain generation pursues in the workplace, are very small or negligible. in fact, within each generation there is a very wide range of these preferences and values. for example, an analysis of 20 different studies conducted on nearly 20,000 people (costanza et al., 2012) showed small and inconsistent differences in attitudes toward work, regardless of which generation the individuals involved in the research belonged to. the analysis concluded that although an individual employee goes through changes in their needs, interests, and preferences over their career, these changes are not related to which generation the individual belongs to. in a company context, negative beliefs about stereotypes associated with employees of different generations affect the discriminatory decisions of the employer regarding the management of such employees, and the discriminatory behaviour of employees regarding cooperation with such individuals. however, age discrimination is not only recognized in the key decisions of employers regarding employees of different generations, such as who to hire, educate or promote, as discrimination may also occur in the everyday work environment and behaviour: how the employer and other employees talk to such an employee, how they include or exclude them at individual events, pursue or ignore their ideas for work, and so on (bal et al., 2015). beliefs about the characteristics of different generations, which may turn out to be correct or false, stem from two different but interrelated factors. the first is the content and influence of the beliefs of other generations on a particular generation. the second, and newer concept, is that of meta-stereotypes, which are how a member of a certain generation believes other generations think of them as an individual (for example: older employees will worry that others think they are unwilling to learn, even if others co-workers do not actually have such an opinion of them). it is thus very likely that employees will have certain beliefs about the characteristics of other generations of employees (stereotypes), while assuming that other employees also make assumptions about them as individuals (meta-stereotypes). based on this assumption, research was conducted (king et al., 2019) that confirmed that a multitude of stereotypes and meta-stereotypes occur in the workplace, and that these beliefs are not always accurate or the same. the responses of employees who completed the survey, and belonged to different generations, were very different. stereotypes about older employees were mostly positive and included the words “responsible”, “working”, and “mature”, while older employees were concerned of being seen by others as “boring”, “stubborn”, and “weak-willed”. the stereotype of middle-aged employees was that they were “fair” and “ethical”, and the meta-stereotype was that they were “energetic”. stereotypes about younger employees ranged from the positive “enthusiastic” to the negative “inexperienced”, while younger employees were convinced that others saw them in a much more negative way (“unmotivated” changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 109 and “irresponsible”). the study concluded that older and younger employees feel that other generations see them in a much more negative light than they actually do, which means that no stereotype and meta-stereotype holds up completely. the potential consequences of these findings can be alarming, as erroneous stereotypes and meta-stereotypes can cause less cooperative relationships in the workplace and less knowledge transfer and learning, and this can negatively affect the work efficiency of an individual employee. meta-stereotypes, that is, an individual’s erroneous beliefs about what other generations think of him or her, can also affect that individual’s work efficiency. method we undertook critical assessments of intergenerational cooperation and age management in a company with over 2,000 employees from four generations, and with a large share of older employees. the selected company, called company x in this study, was founded in slovenia. according to its size, is classified as a large company. it is engaged in a gainful activity, being a slovenian provider of technological solutions. the technological industry, in which the company operates, is changing, developing and adapting to new technologies and the growing demands of users (company x, 2018). at the end of 2018, the focal company had over 2,000 employees, and the average age of these was 44.8 years. in studying intergenerational collaboration and age management in company x, we used an observation method (focus groups) that we performed with 150 employees. moderated focus group meetings were held in the company from 10 to 25 september 2019, primarily for preparation of the company’s strategy. in total, we have formed six focus groups, each with 25 participants. the sample included approximately the same number of employees from all departments. the moderators quantitatively checked the perceptions of the participants in the following areas: older employees and attitudes towards them, stereotypes about the elderly, problems faced by the elderly, the value of elderly employees for the company, motivation and commitment of the elderly, working conditions and health protection, attitudes towards the elderly and career development opportunities. moderators checked the perceptions of the participants with 10 pre-designed questions: • how old are the elderly, who are the “older” employees anyway? • what is the attitude in the company to old age and the elderly? • are there stereotypes about the elderly? how are they expressed? how do you feel about them? • what opportunities for training and career development do elderly employees have? • what is intergenerational cooperation like? • what is the attitude of the company towards the employment of the elderly? what are your experiences? https://changing-sp.com/ 110 danijela brečko • where do we have the biggest problems with working conditions for the elderly? what are some specific problems? • what is the value, or potential, of elderly employees for the company? • how do you see yourself, if you are older? what is your value? • how do you assess the commitment and motivation of the elderly, and why do you think this? each question was written separately on a poster and the participants spontaneously wrote down their answers. focus groups were moderated according to the principle of the open space method, which means that each participant in the focus group wrote down the answer to those questions to which they wanted or felt they could contribute an answer. for example, for the questions “are there stereotypes about the elderly? how are they expressed? how do you feel about them?” we obtained a total of 57 spontaneous responses. those that were very similar in content were combined into one answer, with 10 answers in total. we then classified the stereotypes about the elderly employees into two groups, those that related to cooperation and knowledge transfer in the company, which we termed positive stereotypes, and those that discouraged participation, termed negative stereotypes. we then used a quantitative research method, which was completed by a random sample of the employees, where the desired sample was ten percent of all the staff at company x. individual variables (nominal, ordinal and interval measurement scales) were analysed. in the following sections we will present the variables used in the analysis and their basic statistics, with the aim of providing appropriate and substantive answers to the research questions. the questionnaire was hosted using the services for online surveys 1ka1. the survey was conducted from november 24, 2019 to december 16, 2019. in the analysis of the questionnaires, we used the statistical software package spss (statistical package for the social sciences). the research was performed using the snowball method. we sent the questionnaire to 21 people employed in the selected company (in leading positions) and asked them to pass the questionnaire to their subordinates, taking into account the generational diversity of the workplace. the persons to whom we sent a hyperlink to the questionnaire were selected from our directory (105 persons) with a random 20% sample (random selection, as all units had the same probability of selection). a total of 394 people responded to the survey, and we received 334 questionnaires with at least one question completed, giving a positive response rate of 85%. a total of 255 surveys were completed in full (i.e., 76% of all questionnaires with at least answer). research questions with this research, we wanted to examine the following questions: • are there stereotypes about the characteristics of different generations of employees in company x? • do different generations use the same foundations in terms of the company’s expected attitudes towards their work? 1 https://www.1ka.si/ https://www.1ka.si/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 111 sample and variables in the statistical analysis of the survey, we took into account the relatively large sample, with more than three hundred individuals, born between 1946 and 2010, who completed the questionnaire. the studied variables can be divided into two groups: main and additional. as an additional variable we can only use the first variable (which generation you belong to according to the year of birth), as it specifies the age groups of the respondents. in the statistical analysis this was treated as a nominal variable, although age is basically of ordinal in nature (as it can be classified in order from lower to higher). some of the main variables were assessed on an interval scale measuring the strength of agreement with certain statements (1… strongly disagree, 5… strongly agree), the validity of a statement (1… not true at all, 5… absolutely true), or the strength of significance of certain items (1… most important), 9… least important). figure 1 shows the distribution of the answers with regard to “which generation do you belong to according to the year of birth?”, which shows that 207 (62%) respondents are representatives of generation x, 54 (16%) of generation y, 50 (15%) of the baby-boom generation, and 23 (7%) of generation z. figure 2 shows the rate of respondents in correlation with the basic population. figure 1 distribution of the variable “which generation do you belong to according to the year of birth?” 50 207 54 23 0 84 167 251 334 number of respondents baby-boom generation (children of prosperity), born between 1946 and 1964 generation x, born between 1965 and 1980 generation y (millennials), born between 1981 and 1995 generation z (igeneration), born between 1996 and 2010 source: own data figure 2 the rate of respondents in correlation with the basic population baby-boom generation (children of prosperity), born between 1946 and 1964 generation x, born between 1965 and 1980 generation y (millennials), born between 1981 and 1995 generation z (igeneration), born between 1996 and 2010 15 62 16 73 35 40 25 0 30 60 90 120 respondents in % basic population in % source: own data https://changing-sp.com/ 112 danijela brečko the number of respondents by generation is satisfactory in terms of the number or share of representatives of each generation in the basic population. most respondents are from generation x (the average age of this generation, born between 1965 and 1980, is 46.5 years), which also roughly coincides with the average age in the company, which is 44.8 years. we therefore estimated that the structure of respondents coincides with the age structure of employees in the company. results are there stereotypes about the characteristics of different generations of employees? to answer the research question “are there stereotypes about the characteristics of different generations of employees in company x?”, we wanted to find out whether the expression of individual characteristics in each generation is stereotypical, and if the beliefs of different generations are particularly characteristic of each generation. for this reason, we examined beliefs about the same traits, and whether these are expressed as stereotypical in all four generations, either as stereotypical in a positive direction (that a certain trait almost entirely belongs to a certain generation) or in a negative direction (or a certain trait does not in any way describe a particular generation). given the research question of whether there are stereotypes about individual generations in the selected company, and based on a number of characteristics highlighted by focus group participants, we made a simple analysis of stereotypes, as presented in table 1. we classified these stereotypes into those whose linguistic significance has a positive connotation (those stereotypes that are aimed at cooperation, knowledge transfer, progress in the company) and those with a negative connotation (those that discourage cooperation, knowledge transfer and progress). the results of the focus groups conducted in the selected company show a very diverse range of beliefs or stereotypes about the older generations. the strategy adopted by company x for older employees defines these as those aged 51 and above. for employees at this age, the focus group participants listed stereotypes that were overwhelmingly negative (36), with only 11 being positive. this could lead to the conclusion that in company x the beliefs about older employees discourage cooperative relationships with this generation, and do not encourage the transfer of knowledge between the younger and older employees. this is worrying, as such stereotypes cause the deterioration of cooperative relations in the workplace and reduce the transfer of knowledge and learning, which can negatively affect the work efficiency of individual employees and consequently the efficiency of the whole company. for this reason, we concluded that it is very important for company x to carry out more detailed research on the stereotypes about different generations of employees in order to combat the negative views that currently exist. for this purpose, in the research we deliberately focused on only a few of those characteristics that we considered to be more important for cooperation and knowledge transfer in the workplace, as follows: • motivation to work; changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 113 • desire to acquire the new skills needed to do the job; • adaptability to changes in the work process; • good physical readiness for work; • desire to have personal contact with other colleagues; • loyalty to the employer; • greater commitment to maintaining a work-life balance than to devoting oneself to work. table 1 stereotypes about the older employees in company x positive stereotypes negative stereotypes experienced “know-it-all” loving troublesome accurate without will full of wisdom listless practical boring flexible selfish they need to be useful excessively inquiring understanding looking back social they moan calm less vital eager for attention interrupting do not accept feedback insensitive to change inflexible impatient awkward nervous impatient disinterested sensitive clumsy honourable patronizing forget thinks easily self-interested overly concerned they see and hear poorly conservative difficult heavy stubborn imperious they think they are always right resentful uptight source: own data https://changing-sp.com/ 114 danijela brečko table 2 basic statistics for the baby-boom, x, y and z generations n mean std. deviation std. error mean the baby-boom generation is motivated to work 234 3.50 .999 .065 the baby-boom generation is eager to gain the new skills needed to do the job 234 2.94 .983 .064 the baby-boom generation is adaptable to changes in the work process 234 2.65 1.005 .066 the baby-boom generation is physically well-prepared for work 233 3.27 1.012 .066 the baby-boom generation is eager for personal contact with other co-workers 234 3.73 .976 .064 the baby-boom generation is loyal to the employer 234 4.32 .821 .054 the baby-boom generation feels maintaining a balance between work and private life means more than dedication to work 232 3.69 .902 .059 generation x is motivated to work 101 3.77 .773 .077 generation x is eager to gain the new skills needed to do the job 101 3.69 .821 .082 generation x is adaptable to changes in the work process 101 3.53 .912 .091 generation x is physically well-prepared for work 101 3.75 .713 .071 generation x is eager for personal contact with other co-workers 101 3.87 .757 .075 generation x is loyal to the employer 101 3.69 .718 .071 generation x feels maintaining a work-life balance means more than dedication to work 101 3.74 .757 .075 generation y is motivated to work 232 3.41 .858 .056 generation y is eager to gain the new skills needed to do the job 232 3.92 .813 .053 generation y is adaptable to changes in the work process 230 3.96 .819 .054 generation y is physically well-prepared for work 232 3.52 1.040 .068 generation y is eager for personal contact with other co-workers 232 3.23 .942 .062 generation y is loyal to the employer 232 2.66 .868 .057 generation y feels maintaining a balance between work and private life means more than dedication to work 231 3.20 .950 .062 generation z is motivated to work 253 2.91 1.008 .063 generation z is eager to acquire the new skills needed to do the job 253 3.47 1.056 .066 generation z is adaptable to changes in the work process 253 3.66 1.092 .069 generation z is physically well-prepared for work 251 3.15 1.132 .071 generation z is eager for personal contact with other co-workers 253 2.83 1.031 .065 generation z is loyal to the employer 253 2.13 .862 .054 generation z feels maintaining a balance between work and private life means more than dedication to work 251 2.82 1.116 .070 for the stereotype analysis presented in table 2, we excluded results that analyse meta-stereotypes by excluding respondents to whom a particular question referred. the stereotype was confirmed if the average values of the variables (responses) were greater than 3.67 (stereotype in the positive direction) or less than 2.32 (stereotype in the negative direction). if the average values were in between, i.e., they represented changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 115 a medium measure, we concluded that an individual trait is not stereotypical for a particular generation or that is neutral. the values of 2.32 and 3.67 were determined by dividing the scale of possible responses (1–5) roughly into thirds, with the lower third (mean values of variables 1–2.32) representing a stereotype in a negative direction (i.e., that a certain property is not or almost not expressed), and the upper third (average values of variables 3.67) represented a stereotype in a positive direction (i.e., that a certain characteristic is fully or almost completely expressed). we thus proceeded from the fact that a stereotype can only represent a more pronounced characteristic, but not every trait that is expressed only neutrally in an individual or an individual generation is a stereotypical characteristic. to determine what can be claimed at a 5% risk level, whether the mean values in the population are greater than 3.67 or less than 2.32, we tested the null hypothesis with a single-sample t-test (one sample t-test). based on the point average values of variables, we came to the conclusion that there are the following stereotypes in a positive direction at company x. • baby-boom generation: is eager for personal contact with other colleagues; is loyal to the employer; believes that maintaining a work-life balance means more than devoting oneself to work. • generation x: is motivated to work; is eager to acquire the new skills needed to do the job; is physically fit for work; is eager for personal contact with other colleagues; is loyal to the employer; believes that maintaining a work-life balance means more than devoting oneself to work. • generation y: is eager to acquire the new skills needed to do the job; is adaptable to changes in the work process. in contrast, there is only one stereotype in the negative direction. • generation z: is not loyal to the employer. table 3 verification of the assumption of arithmetic means for the baby-boom, x, y, and z generations test value = 3.67 t df sig. 2-tailed mean difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper the baby-boom generation is motivated to work -2.538 233 .012 -.166 -.29 -.04 the baby-boom generation is eager to gain the new skills needed to do the job -11.357 233 .000 -.730 -.86 -.60 the baby-boom generation is adaptable to changes in the work process -15.534 233 .000 -1.020 -1.15 -.89 the baby-boom generation is physically well-prepared for work -6.094 232 .000 -.404 -.53 -.27 the baby-boom generation is eager for personal contact with other coworkers .952 233 .342 .061 -.06 .19 the baby-boom generation is loyal to the employer 12.124 233 .000 .651 .54 .76 https://changing-sp.com/ 116 danijela brečko test value = 3.67 t df sig. 2-tailed mean difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper the baby-boom generation feels maintaining a balance between work and private life means more than dedication to work .259 231 .796 .015 -.10 .13 generation x is motivated to work 1.330 100 .187 .102 -.05 .25 generation x is eager to gain the new skills needed to do the job .282 100 .778 .023 -.14 .19 generation x is adaptable to changes in the work process -1.492 100 .139 -.135 -.32 .04 generation x is physically wellprepared for work 1.163 100 .248 .082 -.06 .22 generation x is eager for personal contact with other co-workers 2.672 100 .009 .201 .05 .35 generation x is loyal to the employer .323 100 .747 .023 -.12 .16 generation x feels maintaining a work-life balance means more than dedication to work .963 100 .338 .073 -.08 .22 generation y is motivated to work -4.624 231 .000 -.261 -.37 -.15 generation y is eager to gain the new skills needed to do the job 4.730 231 .000 .252 .15 .36 generation y is adaptable to changes in the work process 5.306 229 .000 .287 .18 .39 generation y is physically wellprepared for work -2.237 231 .026 -.153 -.29 -.02 generation y is eager for personal contact with other co-workers -7.141 231 .000 -.442 -.56 -.32 generation y is loyal to the employer -17.729 231 .000 -1.011 -1.12 -.90 generation y feels maintaining a balance between work and private life means more than dedication to work -7.466 230 .000 -.467 -.59 -.34 generation z is motivated to work -11.944 252 .000 -.757 -.88 -.63 generation z is eager to acquire the new skills needed to do the job -3.007 252 .003 -.200 -.33 -.07 generation z is adaptable to changes in the work process -.144 252 .885 -.010 -.15 .13 generation z is physically well-prepared for work -7.259 250 .000 -.519 -.66 -.38 generation z is eager for personal contact with other co-workers -12.963 252 .000 -.840 -.97 -.71 generation z is loyal to the employer -28.322 252 .000 -1.536 -1.64 -1.43 generation z feels maintaining a balance between work and private life means more than dedication to work -12.109 250 .000 -.853 -.99 -.71 table 3 continued changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 117 test value = 2.32 t df sig. (2-tailed) mean difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper the baby-boom generation is motivated to work 18.136 233 .000 1.184 1.06 1.31 the baby-boom generation is eager to gain the new skills needed to do the job 9.650 233 .000 .620 .49 .75 the baby-boom generation is adaptable to changes in the work process 5.017 233 .000 .330 .20 .46 the baby-boom generation is physically well-prepared for work 14.273 232 .000 .946 .82 1.08 the baby-boom generation is eager for personal contact with other co-workers 22.107 233 .000 1.411 1.29 1.54 the baby-boom generation is loyal to the employer 37.285 233 .000 2.001 1.89 2.11 the baby-boom generation feels maintaining a balance between work and private life means more than dedication to work 23.050 231 .000 1.365 1.25 1.48 generation x is motivated to work 18.880 100 .000 1.452 1.30 1.60 generation x is eager to gain the new skills needed to do the job 16.798 100 .000 1.373 1.21 1.54 generation x is adaptable to changes in the work process 13.389 100 .000 1.215 1.03 1.39 generation x is physically wellprepared for work 20.196 100 .000 1.432 1.29 1.57 generation x is eager for personal contact with other co-workers 20.591 100 .000 1.551 1.40 1.70 generation x is loyal to the employer 19.231 100 .000 1.373 1.23 1.51 generation x feels maintaining a work-life balance means more than dedication to work 18.886 100 .000 1.423 1.27 1.57 generation y is motivated to work 19.338 231 .000 1.089 .98 1.20 generation y is eager to gain the new skills needed to do the job 30.029 231 .000 1.602 1.50 1.71 generation y is adaptable to changes in the work process 30.308 229 .000 1.637 1.53 1.74 generation y is physically wellprepared for work 17.532 231 .000 1.197 1.06 1.33 generation y is eager for personal contact with other co-workers 14.692 231 .000 .908 .79 1.03 generation y is loyal to the employer 5.956 231 .000 .339 .23 .45 generation y feels maintaining a balance between work and private life means more than dedication to work 14.139 230 .000 .883 .76 1.01 generation z is motivated to work 9.357 252 .000 .593 .47 .72 generation z is eager to acquire the new skills needed to do the job 17.327 252 .000 1.150 1.02 1.28 table 3 continued https://changing-sp.com/ 118 danijela brečko test value = 2.32 t df sig. (2-tailed) mean difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper generation z is adaptable to changes in the work process 19.511 252 .000 1.340 1.20 1.48 generation z is physically wellprepared for work 11.638 250 .000 .831 .69 .97 generation z is eager for personal contact with other co-workers 7.871 252 .000 .510 .38 .64 generation z is loyal to the employer -3.423 252 .001 -.186 -.29 -.08 generation z feels maintaining a balance between work and private life means more than dedication to work 7.049 250 .000 .497 .36 .64 source: own data in table 3, these variables are shown in bold. however, when we performed the t-test and found variables for which we reject the null assumption and accept the alternative assumption, and at the risk level of 5% we claim that the average values in the population are greater than 3.67 or less than 2.32, then we obtained variables with statistically significant differences. these are underlined in table 3. one surprising finding from the analysis of the conducted survey refers to stereotypes about older employees. the focus group participants expressed many negative beliefs about older employees (in the focus groups those older than 51 were defined as older employees). in contrast, the results of a survey of older employees (which include members of the baby-boom generation and part of generation x) do not show characteristics that would discourage participation, knowledge transfer and progress at work. the baby-boom generation is eager for personal contact with other co-workers and is loyal to the employer. the only stereotype that is not geared towards employee collaboration, knowledge transfer, and progress in the company would be that maintaining a work-life balance means more to the baby-boomers than devoting oneself to work, it means that baby-boomers prefer to maintain work-life balance over commitment to work. we were also surprised by the difference between the stereotypes of different generations found in the other research and those found in our work. prior to our research, we expected a lot of negative stereotypes about both older and younger generations, but this was not found in the responses. there may be several reasons for this, including inappropriate sampling, misunderstanding of questions and assessments by the respondents, and so on. it may be because the questions in the focus groups were asked very narrowly, in the sense of “highlight one stereotype about the elderly”, while the survey allowed the assessment of the expression of individual traits on a 5-point scale, and this thus showed a more realistic picture of stereotypes in company x. inaccurate stereotypes and meta-stereotypes can pose a threat to collaborative intergenerational relationships within a company. the analysis of the survey conducted table 3 continued changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 119 in company x shows different stereotypes from those found by the related research presented in the introduction to this article, and thus we believe that is crucial that each company in its own internal environment makes the most accurate analysis of existing stereotypes. do different generations of employees come from the same foundations in terms of the company’s expected attitude towards their work? for this research question, we analysed the answers with regard to which generation the respondents belong to and the classification of values by importance and their interaction. we expected the analysis to show that all generations come from the same foundations with regard to how they expect the company to view their work. that is, that there would no differences in values for all four generations. we used the kruskalwallis rank sum test, which is a version of the mann-whitney multigroup test, in order to determine differences between groups when the dependent variable is measured on an ordinal scale. this test is equivalent to the parametric t-test or anova, where the values of the variables are converted into ranges. the test was used to check whether the average ranks are the same by groups, and at the same time we also compared the variability in the ranks within the groups with that between the groups. since rank 1 gets the smallest value of the variable, we further transformed the variables of the answers by mapping the range over the median of the answers. we changed the original maximum ranges to the smallest ranges, and vice versa. we thus obtained a new distribution that took into account ranges from minimum to maximum importance. the average values are quite similar, with the two extremes being those for “i am satisfied with the work i do” (on average respondents give it the greatest importance) and “i work in an environment where honesty and impartiality are valued” (on average respondents give it the least importance). table 4 the variables, including the significance of values in the workplace n mean std. deviation minimum maximum i am satisfied with the work i do 265 6.70 2.482 1 9 i am respected in the company as a person 260 4.98 2.397 1 9 the work i do is valued and respected in the company 260 4.55 2.416 1 9 i have guaranteed good pay for the work done 262 5.25 2.367 1 9 i feel fulfilled, my work serves a specific purpose 260 5.30 2.609 1 9 i am making personal and career progress with my work 262 4.48 2.535 1 9 i work in a work environment where there are collegial relationships 261 5.31 2.354 1 9 my job is safe and stable, in the company and in my workplace 260 4.61 2.788 1 9 i work in an environment where honesty and impartiality are valued 259 3.85 2.338 1 9 source: own data https://changing-sp.com/ 120 danijela brečko table 5 kruskal-wallis rank test 1 which generation do you belong to according to your year of birth n mean rank i am satisfied with the work i do baby boom 39 142.72 generation x 165 136.30 generation y 43 106.87 generation z 18 144.14 total 265 i am respected in the company as a person baby boom 38 129.75 generation x 161 129.46 generation y 43 133.09 generation z 18 135.22 total 260 the work i do is valued and respected in the company baby boom 38 145.57 generation x 161 131.38 generation y 43 120.10 generation z 18 115.69 total 260 i have guaranteed good pay for the work done baby boom 38 118.42 generation x 163 128.94 generation y 43 153.26 generation z 18 130.33 total 262 i feel fulfilled, my work serves a specific purpose baby boom 38 128.39 generation x 161 144.33 generation y 43 101.88 generation z 18 79.58 total 260 i am making personal and career progress with my work baby boom 38 104.72 generation x 163 126.55 generation y 43 162.06 generation z 18 159.89 total 262 i work in a work environment where there are collegial relationships baby boom 38 131.62 generation x 162 124.99 generation y 43 135.43 generation z 18 173.22 total 261 my job is safe and stable, in the company and in my workplace baby boom 39 119.15 generation x 160 132.43 generation y 43 129.47 generation z 18 140.36 total 260 i work in an environment where honesty and impartiality are valued baby boom 38 159.89 generation x 160 124.13 generation y 43 127.31 generation z 18 125.44 total 259 source: own data changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 121 table 6 kruskal-wallis rank test 2 chi-square df asymp. sig. i am satisfied with the work i do 6.622 3 .085 i am respected in the company as a person .159 3 .984 the work i do is valued and respected in the company 3.116 3 .374 i have guaranteed good pay for the work done 4.941 3 .176 i feel fulfilled, my work serves a specific purpose 20.256 3 .000 i am making personal and career progress with my work 15.190 3 .002 i work in a work environment where there are collegial relationships 6.914 3 .075 my job is safe and stable, in the company and in my workplace 1.333 3 .721 i work in an environment where honesty and impartiality are valued 7.320 3 .062 source: own data tables 5 and 6 show the results of the kruskal-wallis rank test. based on these, at the risk level of 5% we conclude that the average ranks of all four generations are the same (or not different), except those for the variables “i feel fulfilled and my work serves a specific purpose” and “i am making personal and career progress with my work”. in other words, for all variables except these two we cannot claim that there are differences in the ranking of the importance of items, so in this part the results support our expectations. in terms of the variable “i feel fulfilled, my work serves a specific purpose”, where we detected statistically significant differences, it is clear that generation z has the lowest average rank (and therefore rated it as less important value), followed by generation y, the baby-boom generation and generation x – younger generations therefore assess this variable as less important compared to the older generations. the results for personal and career advancement are almost the opposite – the baby-boom generation evaluates it as the least important variable, followed by generation x, and then generations y and z. here, too, it seems that the younger generations evaluate personal and career advancement as more important than the two older generations. it is thus true that the younger generations are, on average, more driven with regard to personal and career advancement than the older generations. the least differences in ranking between generations (based on the highest values of asymp. sig.) were found for “i am respected in the company as a person”, “the work i do is valued and respected in the company” and “my job is safe and stable in the company and in my workplace”. the results here did not surprise us, but instead confirm that, regardless of the age or generational affiliation of an individual employee, members of all generations draw on similar values when doing their work, which means that they are driven by similar motives at work, as follows: https://changing-sp.com/ 122 danijela brečko • to be satisfied with the work they do, • to be respected in the company as a person, • that the work they perform is valued and respected in the company, • that they are guaranteed good pay for the work done, • that they feel fulfilled at work and that the work serves a specific purpose, • that they can make personal and career progress, • to work in an environment where there are collegial relationships, • that their employment is secure and stable, • to work in an environment where honesty and impartiality are valued. a slightly less important value for the younger generations is that they feel fulfilled at work and that the work serves a specific purpose. with regard to personal and career advancement, however, almost the opposite is found. however, we estimate that the younger generations see many opportunities for advancement ahead of them, while the older two generations have already completed their career advancement and are now settled in certain positions. personal fulfilment at work and the purpose of performing work are also not so important for younger generations, because they may be looking for their personal fulfilment in private spheres, e.g., in starting a family or building a home, and therefore they do not worry about personal fulfilment in the workplace. the older generations have already established their homes, their children are becoming independent or have already done so, and thus they begin to look for their fulfilment in the professional sphere. however, reasons that are more precise could be found in further research. conclusion the article focuses on the field of intergenerational cooperation in the workplace. generational differences and similarities are seen in relation to work, such as attitude towards work, sense of loyalty to the employer, and attitude towards respect and authority. these generational differences and similarities relate in particular to certain stereotypes attributed to generations by theory. however, addressing such stereotypes is important from the point of view of preventing discrimination at work due to certain personal circumstances of individual generations of employees. the article highlights the results of some past research showing typical stereotypes about older employees, such as poorer performance of work tasks, resistance to change, poorer learning ability, not worth investing in their development, and a higher cost, as well as being more reliable. stereotypes are also attributed to the younger generations, such as ambition and attitude towards personal success, quickly changing jobs when there is a better opportunity, financial prudence regarding borrowing, formal education is not the main source of knowledge, and a desire for a diverse work environment. in a workplace context, negative beliefs about stereotypes associated with employees of different generations affect the employer’s discriminatory decisions regarding the management of staff, as well as the discriminatory behaviour of employees regarding cooperation with each other. some research confirms the link between stereotypes and actual employer changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 103–125 123 behaviour. beliefs about the characteristics of different generations, which may turn out to be correct or false, arise from two different but interrelated factors: the first is the content and influence of other generations’ beliefs on a particular generation (i.e., stereotypes), while the second is how an individual member of a certain generation perceives what members of other generations think of them (meta-stereotypes). we conducted a survey on intergenerational cooperation in a chosen company with more than 2,000 employees. based on the method of observation (focus groups) which we performed with 150 employees we obtained basic stereotypes, both positive and negative. we then used a quantitative research method, completed by a random sample of four generations of employees. we wanted to examine the following research questions: whether there are stereotypes about the characteristics of different generations of employees, and whether different generations come from the same foundations regarding the company’s expected attitude to their work. we came to the conclusion that there are the following stereotypes in company x: • the baby-boom generation is eager to have personal contact with other employees, is loyal to the employer, and a work-life balance means more than dedication to work. • generation x is motivated to work, is eager to acquire the new skills needed to do the job, is physically well prepared for work, is eager for personal contact with other co-workers, is loyal to the employer, and maintaining a work-life balance means more than dedication to work. • generation y is eager to acquire the new skills needed to do the job and is adaptable to changes in the work process. • generation z is not loyal to the employer. participants in the focus groups expressed many negative beliefs about older employees, while the results of the survey do not show indicate that older employees would in fact discourage participation, knowledge transfer and progress at work. the results of the survey also confirmed that, regardless of the age or generational affiliation of an individual employee, members of all generations work based on similar values, which means that they are driven by similar motives: that they are satisfied with the work they do, that they are respected in the company as a person, that the work they perform is valued and respected in the company, that they have guaranteed good pay for the work done, that they feel fulfilled at work and that the work serves a specific purpose, they progress personally and in their work careers, that the work environment has collegial relationships, their employment is safe and stable, and honesty and impartiality are valued. a slightly less important value for the younger generation is that they feel fulfilled at work and that the work serves a specific purpose. on average, it is most important for all employees of all ages to work in a company where they are satisfied with the work they do, where they feel fulfilled and that their work serves a specific purpose, and it is least important for them to work in an environment where honesty and impartiality are valued, and where their employment is secure and stable. https://changing-sp.com/ 124 danijela brečko references bal, p. m., kooij, d. t. a. m., & rousseau, d. m. 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personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83–102 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.1.123 received 14 july 2020 © giorgia salis, martin flegl accepted 29 january 2021 giorgia.salis@hotmail.it published online 19 april 2021 martin.flegl@hotmail.com article cross-cultural analysis of gender gap in entrepreneurship giorgia salis martin flegl la salle university, mexico city, mexico abstract women entrepreneurs have progressively gained more space in what is mostly a man-dominated business world. however, a considerable gender gap in the likelihood of starting a business venture still exists in most countries in the world. such gap can vary depending on the country and on its socio-cultural, legal and economic conditions among others. in this paper, hofstede’s cultural dimensions and the human development index of 55 countries are tested in order to identify what factors have a positive effect on the gender gap. results indicate that the most influential factor is the human development index, meaning that the more developed a country is, the lower the gender gap in the entrepreneurship is. in addition, the results also indicate that a lower level of gender gap is also observed in rather individualistic, pragmatic and risk-adverse cultures. keywords female entrepreneurship, gender gap, human development index, individualism, masculinity, socio-cultural environment introduction in the past decades, female entrepreneurship has been object of public consideration and academic research across the globe, as it has progressively gained more space in what is a mainly man-dominated field (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2017). in fact, female entrepreneurs have proved https://changing-sp.com/ 84 giorgia salis, martin flegl themselves to be crucial for the countries‘ socio-economic growth (bosse & taylor, 2012), bringing added value to the overall life quality of societies due to their tendency of spending more than men on family needs, e.g. household health, nutrition and education (nichter & goldmark, 2009). in addition, through their participation in such business activity, women manage to improve their own status by emancipating themselves from the ascribed roles of masculine-oriented societies (datta & gailey, 2012; treviño et al., 2018). however, despite the statistically acknowledged importance of women’s entrepreneurial action for the economy and for the society (brush & cooper, 2012), a significant gender gap in the likelihood of starting a business venture still exists in most countries (hughes et al., 2012). as the global entrepreneurship monitor‘s report shows (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2019a), of 48 countries surveyed (including all 4 regions of the world, i.e. east and south asia, europe and north america, latin america and the caribbean, middle east and africa), only six countries show equal rates by gender of total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (tea) (figure 1). two of them are found in the east and south asia region (indonesia and thailand), one is in latin america (panama) and three are in the middle east and africa region (qatar, madagascar and angola). as for the europe and north america region, many economies lack gender equality. in fact, in six countries in this region, women start at less than half the tea rate of men (slovenia, greece, sweden, switzerland, united kingdom, and turkey) and no country shows equal levels between genders. figure 1 total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (tea) rates by gender among adults (ages 18–64) in 48 economies, in four geographic regions (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2019a) 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0 ja pa n in di a ta iw an c hi na r ep ub lic o f k or ea in do ne si a th ai la nd ita ly c yp ru s g er m an y s lo ve ni a g re ec e r us si an f ed er at io n s w ed en po la nd s w itz er la nd fr an ce u ni te d k in gd om b ul ga ria s pa in c ro at ia ire la nd a us tri a n et he rla nd s tu rk ey lu xe m bo ur g s lo va k r ep ub lic u ni te d s ta te s c an ad a a rg en tin a pu er to r ic o u ru gu ay pa na m a b ra zi l c ol om bi a pe ru c hi le g ua te m al a m or oc co e gy pt ira n q at ar s au di a ra bi a u ni te d a ra b e m ira te s is ra el s ud an le ba no n m ad ag as ca r a ng ol a east and south asia europe and north america latin america and the caribbean middle east and africa female tea (% of adult female population) male tea (% of adult female population) source: global entrepreneurship monitor adult population survey, 2018 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83–102 85 as proven by these data, gender gap in early-stage entrepreneurship activity is more prominent in developed countries than in the developing ones. this is traditionally explained by the fact that in developing economies women face higher difficulty in entering the formal labour market and, therefore, have to turn to entrepreneurship as a way out of unemployment or poverty (minniti & naudé, 2010). however, there are several kinds of drivers determining such phenomenon due to its multifaceted nature (welter, 2011). in fact, these may include both contextual factors such as economic, regulatory and socio-cultural conditions (ahl, 2006; estrin & mickiewicz, 2011), as well as individual ones, such as personality traits (malach-pines & schwartz, 2008), whereby the former ones show a more solid scientific support than the latter ones. consequently, dheer, li and treviño (2019) stressed the importance of adopting an integrative approach to the analysis in order to have a more comprehensive understanding of the issue. on top of that, it is important to consider that gender gap in the likelihood of starting a business venture varies at different levels, i.e. at the intranational and national (or international) level (dheer, lenartowicz, & peterson, 2015). as for the first level, this is due to inherent cultural and economic differences that might exist within the same country, whereas for the second level, as previously explained, the reason of possible variations lies in specific contextual and individual factors affecting different nations. hofstede’s six-dimensional model (hofstede, 1980; hofstede, 1991; hofstede, 2003) offers the possibility to analyse gender gap in entrepreneurship on a cultural and international level. in fact, hofstede theorizes that a national culture consists of six dimensions: power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term vs. short-term normative orientation, indulgence vs. restraint. these cultural dimensions “represent independent preferences for one state of affairs over another that distinguish countries (rather than individuals) from each other” (hofstede, n.d.-a). in this regard, rubio-bañón and esteban-lloret (2016) analysed the entrepreneurial gender gap in 55 countries from various regions of the world and, using hofstede’s model, assumed that countries with a higher level of masculinity would result in having a higher level of gender entrepreneurial breach, as one might commonly believe. the authors divided the countries in groups depending on their level of masculinity (i.e. high, medium-high, medium-low and low) and their state of development was also considered. according to their results, no group of countries analysed showed a clear link between the level of masculinity and the rate of gender gap in entrepreneurship, as some rather feminine countries (e.g., norway) showed a higher gap in entrepreneurship than the masculine ones and vice versa. cardozo crowe (2010) also confirms this result by stating that in rather masculine countries women might engage in entrepreneurial projects more easily than in countries with more feminine cultures. that is because the former ones are impregnated over such masculine values as achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material rewards for success, while the latter ones will rather value cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life, which are indeed classified as feminine values (hofstede, 2001; hofstede, hofstede & minkov, 2010). https://changing-sp.com/ 86 giorgia salis, martin flegl as a continuation of the above-mentioned research works, this paper aims to deepen the analysis of the issue at the same levels (i.e., cultural and international) in order to investigate whether a combination of more variables might effectively influence gender gap in the likelihood of starting business ventures. materials and methods sample and data as already mentioned in the previous paragraph, the objective of this paper is to deepen the research work that was carried out by rubio-bañón and esteban-lloret (2016) by attempting to find out what variables and/or mix of variables affect gender gap in entrepreneurship. for this reason, the unit of analysis is the same geographical units as the above-mentioned paper, i.e. 55 countries from all regions of the world (east and south asia, europe and north america, latin america and the caribbean, middle east) excluding africa. for what concerns gender gap1 (i.e. the dependent variable of the analysis), data were collected from global entrepreneurship monitor 2019 entrepreneurial behaviour and attitudes report (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2019b), whereby the majority of data is from 2018, while for the missing countries, data were retrieved from reports of previous years down to 2013. in particular, in the gem report the calculation for determining gender gap is defined as total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (tea) rates by gender, “which is the percentage of female 18–64 population who are either a nascent entrepreneur or owner-manager of a new business, divided by the equivalent percentage for their male counterparts” 2. gem’s team generates the above-mentioned data through a tool called adult population survey (aps), which is given to approximately 2,000 randomly selected adults, and which “looks at the characteristics, motivations and ambitions of individuals starting businesses, as well as social attitudes towards entrepreneurship” (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2019b). as for the independent variables, as opposed to rubio-bañón and estebanlloret (2016), all of hofstede’s six cultural dimensions were taken into consideration this time (hofstede, 2001; hofstede, hofstede & minkov, 2010), i.e., individualism vs. collectivism (idv), power distance (pdi), uncertainty avoidance (uai), long-term vs. short-term normative orientation (lto), indulgence vs. restraint (ivr), masculinity vs. femininity (mas): • in individualist cultures, people are expected to take care of only themselves and their immediate families, as opposed to collectivist cultures, where people 1 for convenience, the “gender gap in entrepreneurship” variable will sometimes be referred to as simply “gender gap” throughout the paper. 2 early-stage entrepreneurial activity means that the activity is centred on the period preceding and immediately after the actual start of a firm. in global entrepreneurship monitor, the moment of start-up is defined by generating the first income from the sales of products or services. this early stage includes the phases of (i) nascent entrepreneurship when an entrepreneur is actively involved in setting up a business, and (ii) new business ownership, owning and managing a business in existence up to 42 months (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2019a). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83–102 87 expect relatives or members of a particular ingroup to look after them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty; • power distance has to do with the way a society handles inequalities among people. this means that a society with a high degree of pdi will accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place, and which does not need further justification. on the contrary, a low degree of pdi means that people demand justification for inequalities and strive for equal distribution of power; • uncertainty avoidance is related to the way a society deals with risks about the future, thus a higher degree of uai means that a society feels uncomfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity and has rigid codes of belief and behaviour. on the contrary, societies with a low degree of uai have a more relaxed attitude and give more importance to practice than principles. in other words, the former kind of society tries to control the future while the latter rather lets it happen; • long-term orientation has to do with the tendency of a society of accepting societal change that diverges with time-honoured traditions and norms, therefore societies that score low in this dimension see societal change with suspicion and vice versa. in the business context, societies that score high might also be defined as pragmatic (long term) and societies scoring low would be considered normative (short term) as the former ones encourage modernity and the latter are rather traditionalist; • a society is indulgent when it allows gratification of basic and natural human drives related to enjoying life and having fun, while a restrained society suppresses gratification of needs and has strict social norms; • masculine cultures are generally considered “tough” and more competitive than the feminine ones, standing for such values as achievement, heroism, assertiveness and material rewards for success. on the other hand, rather feminine cultures are seen as more “tender”, standing for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life. for each cultural dimension, a country has a score that ranges from 0 to 100, whereby a score is considered low to intermediate when it is below 50 and high when it is above 50. in order to develop this cultural framework, professor geert hofstede initially analysed data from a large database of employee value scores collected within ibm between 1967 and 1973. then he replicated and extended the research on different international populations and by different scholars, until the last edition of his book in 2010, which includes an analysis on 76 countries. despite the long distance of time, the scores can be considered up to date as cultures change very slowly (hofstede, n.d.-b). the last independent variable used in the analysis is the human development index (hdi)3 created by the united nations (2018a), which indicates the level of 3 “the hdi simplifies and captures only part of what human development entails. it does not reflect on inequalities, poverty, human security, empowerment, etc.”. for more details, refer to http://hdr.undp.org/ en/content/human-development-index-hdi https://changing-sp.com/ http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi 88 giorgia salis, martin flegl development of a country (i.e., very high, high, medium, low) from both a human and an economic perspective. in fact, this index comprises three dimensions: 1. long and healthy life, measured by the rate of life expectancy at birth; 2. knowledge, measured by the number of years of schooling for adults aged at least 25 and by expected years of schooling for children of school-entering age; 3. decent standard of living, measured by gross national income (gni) per capita. as data for certain countries (i.e., czech republic, guatemala, israel, jamaica, panama, suriname) were missing with respect to the long-term orientation (lto) and the indulgence (ivr) dimensions, the correlation coefficient was calculated for the above-mentioned countries by considering the rest of hofstede’s dimensions and by comparing them with those of the countries that had complete data. the cutoff level was 0.70 as from this level up there is considered to be strong correlation between the units analysed. as a final step, an average from those countries was calculated to assign the missing data. furthermore, as the hdi for taiwan and vietnam was missing as well, it was retrieved from other similar sources. for the former, the hdi taken into consideration is the one calculated by taiwan’s government (based on 2010 new methodology of undp) as the un itself does not recognize taiwan as a sovereign state4; as for the latter, the index was retrieved from the un’s human development report of 2018, which includes data up until 2017 (united nations, 2018b). methodology and hypotheses the methodology adopted is of econometric kind. a basic econometric representation can be expressed as follows: wi = a0 + a1y1i + a2y2i + … + akyki + ui, (1) where is a dependent variable, are the observed explicatory (independent) variables, is an index referring to number of observations, and is disturbance variable with a normal distribution with mean 0 and constant variance, so (gujarati, 2004). hence, for the purpose of this research work, is gender gap in entrepreneurship and are hofstede’s dimensions and hdi. the estimation of the effects of each independent variable and of their combination is based on simple and multiple linear regression. all data were first collected in an excel file and then transferred to the software stata/se 11.0 in order to run the estimations. as basis for the estimations, the following hypotheses were formulated with respect to the seven independent variables taken into consideration: h1: a higher level of individualism makes gender gap in entrepreneurship decrease in individualist societies people’s self-image is defined in terms of “i” and not “we” (hofstede, n.d.-a), meaning that social consensus does not particularly affect one’s self-perceived image. thus, gender gap might be positively influenced 4 for more details, refer to https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/world/asia/taiwan-united-nationsjoseph-wu.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/world/asia/taiwan-united-nations-joseph-wu.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/world/asia/taiwan-united-nations-joseph-wu.html changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83–102 89 by it in the sense that more women might be willing to follow their own ideas and determination and therefore start a business venture, without feeling restrained by the limits of a society in terms of entrepreneurial initiative, for example davis and williamson (2019). h2: a lower level of power distance does not necessarily make gender gap in entrepreneurship decrease considering that people living in societies with a low degree of pdi demand justification for inequalities and strive for equal distribution of power, one might think that a low level of this variable should correspond to a lower rate of gender gap in entrepreneurship as women might be driven by that kind of innovative mindset. in reality, kusterer (2014) and oecd (2016a) argue the opposite, as in the most egalitarian countries of the world, such as iceland and countries belonging to the scandinavian region (oecd, 2016b), there is still a considerable gender gap in the business area for what concerns women holding top corporate positions and their condition in starting entrepreneurial ventures. h3: a high level of uncertainty avoidance makes gender gap in entrepreneurship decrease as discussed by bosse and taylor (2012), the increased presence of women in the entrepreneurial field has a positive effect on the socio-economic growth of a country. for this reason, societies with a high degree of uai might be open to more women entering the business world in leading positions, as they would be seen as a possibility of growth for the country, which would therefore minimize such risks as social decadence and economic stagnation. h4: a higher level of long-term orientation makes gender gap in entrepreneurship decrease societies with a high score of lto are open to societal change and value a pragmatic approach to life and business, meaning that they do not blindly stick to timehonoured traditions and norms. this could mean that they are more open to women gaining power in social status by undertaking entrepreneurial initiatives. h5: a higher level of indulgence makes gender gap in entrepreneurship decrease similarly to the previous variable, indulgent societies do not have strict social norms and value personal gratification. for this reason, these kinds of societies could be open as well to women gaining power in society by starting business ventures. h6: a high level of masculinity does not necessarily correspond to high gender gap in entrepreneurship h7: a country’s level of development is not relevant in affecting gender gap in entrepreneurship as proven by rubio-bañón and esteban-lloret (2016), the levels of masculinity and of development of a country do not seem to be relevant when looking at the https://changing-sp.com/ 90 giorgia salis, martin flegl gender gap in entrepreneurship in different countries. however, they will be taken into consideration to see whether a combination of them with other variables from hofstede might make a difference in the analysis. results among all estimations, a total of 27 models have been taken into consideration. first of all, table 1 shows a one-to-one comparison of variables, meaning that each independent variable was taken singularly in order to assess which one(s) were relevant in affecting the dependent variable. in this case, the results show that power distance (pdi), individualism (idv), human development (hdi) and long-term orientation (lto) are the relevant influential factors affecting gender gap in entrepreneurship, with a level of confidence of 99% (***) for the former three and of 95% (**) for the latter. in particular, power distance (model 1) has negative impact on the gender gap as the higher the pdi is, the higher the gender gap is. this result goes along with the power distance definition stating that societies with a high degree of pdi accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place, and which does not need further justification. vice versa, in societies with a low degree of pdi people demand justification for inequalities and strive for equal distribution of power. similarly, the obtained result for long-term orientation (model 5) confirms the assumption that societies with high score in lto are open to societal change. in fact, the result indicates that the higher the long-term orientation is, the lower the gender gap in entrepreneurship is (constant –.002), i.e., these societies are open for equal representation of gender in entrepreneurship. furthermore, the result for individualism (model 2) confirms the assumption that individualistic societies show lower levels of gender gap (constant –.004), meaning that idv has a positive effect on gender gap. lastly, as opposed to the expectations, the level of development of a country, i.e., hdi (model 7), turned out to be relevant in affecting gender gap. in particular, it has a positive effect as the constant is negative (–1.377) meaning that the higher the hdi is, the lower the gender gap in entrepreneurship is (as observed with idv and lto). in more technical terms, it means that if hdi increases by 1, gender gap decreases by .934. however, the basic comparison does not capture the complexity of the matter and it would be wrong to make final conclusions over the stated hypotheses. therefore, it was necessary to use the multilevel linear regression. results of the multilinear regressions are shown in table 2, whereby the models focus on combinations of variables where the main variables taken into consideration are the relevant ones shown in table 1. in model 8, all variables were considered together and, as most of them turned out to be irrelevant, this model has no significance. only human development index is significant on the confidence level of 90% (*). in this case, the effect of hdi is the same as in the previous one-to-one analysis (model 7 in table 1) where it is also relevant and negative. in model 9, all variables but hdi were considered in order to see whether the absence of it affected the relevance of the other variables. in fact, changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83–102 91 without hdi, individualism and uncertainty avoidance are relevant, where the former has a confidence level of 95% and the latter of 90%. in addition, both are negative as in table 1, therefore they have a positive effect on the gender gap. however, this model cannot be considered significant as only two variables out of six are relevant. table 1 basic comparison of variables variables model 1 model 2 model 3 model 4 model 5 model 6 model 7 constant .477(.000)*** .883 (.000)*** .639 (.000)*** .783 (.606) .828 (.000)*** .610 (.000)*** 1.845 (.000)*** pdi .003(.009)*** – – – – – – idv – -.004(.000)*** – – – – – mas – – .001(.453) – – – – uai – – – -.001(.284) – – – lto – – – – -.002(.040)** – – ivr – – – – – .001(.271) – hdi – – – – – – -1.377(.000)*** r-squared .121 .220 .010 .021 .077 .022 .283 note. * p ≤ .1, ** p ≤ .05, *** p ≤ .01 table 2 multilevel linear regression variables model 8 model 9 model 10 model 11 model 12 constant 1.597(.000)*** .936 (.000)*** .743 (.000)*** 1.679 (.000)*** 1.930 (.000)*** pdi .000(.940) .001 (.368) .004 (.002)** .001 (.406) – idv -.002(.135) -.003 (.019)** – – – mas .000(.571) .000 (.453) – – – uai -.001(.139) -.002 (.052)* -.002 (.051)* -.001 (.114) -.001 (.156) lto -.000(.679) -.002 (.145) -.002 (.018)** -.001 (.174) -.001 (.235) ivr .001(.325) .000 (.763) – – – hdi -.934(.057)* – – -1.035 (.018)** -1.273 (.000)*** r-squared .390 .340 .255 .326 note. * p ≤ .1, ** p ≤ .05, *** p ≤ .01 https://changing-sp.com/ 92 giorgia salis, martin flegl in model 10, only three variables that turned out to be relevant in previous models were taken into consideration, i.e., pdi, uai and lto. this model is significant as all variables are statistically significant, with a confidence level of 95% and 90%. similarly to the basic one-to-one estimations, power distance keeps its positive impact on the gender gap (the effect is even stronger in the multilinear regression: .004 vs. .003), as well as the long-term orientation (with the same level). for what concerns uncertainty avoidance, results show that the higher the level of uai, the lower the gender gap (constant –.002), which confirms the assumption that the more risk and uncertainty adverse a society is about the future, the lower gender gap in entrepreneurship is. what is more, when hdi was added into this estimation (model 11), all three variables lost their significance and only hdi showed relevance. additionally, in model 12, hdi was combined again with those variables except for pdi, and hdi still turned out to be the only one relevant, with a confidence level of 99%. as hdi turned out to be relevant both when considered alone and every time it was combined with other variables, in table 3 all models focus on further combinations of it with other two variables. moreover, the focus was also on indulgence (ivr) in order to test its relevance combined with hdi and other variables. as can be seen, in all models 13–17, hdi is always relevant and negative (positive effect on the gender gap) with a confidence level of 99% and 95%. ivr is also relevant in all models except for model 13, where the third variable is lto. in particular, it has a confidence level of 90% and it is positive (i.e., it has a negative effect on the gender gap), thus the more indulgent a society is, the higher gender gap in entrepreneurship is. in fact, this result does not correspond to what one might expect since indulgent societies do not have strict social norms. however, of the models in table 3, none can be considered relevant, as only two variables out of three are significant. nevertheless, it was useful to consider those models as a basis for further estimations and observations on the same relevant variables in different models. table 3 multilevel linear regression, focus on ivr and hdi variables model 13 model 14 model 15 model 16 model 17 constant 1.787(.000)*** 1.880 .000)*** 1.666 (.000)*** 1.757 (.000)*** 1.603 (.000)*** pdi – – .000(.688) – – idv – – – – -.001(.188) mas – – – .000(.692) – uai – -.001(.228) – – – lto .000(.932) – – – – ivr .002(.113) .002 (.067)* .002 (.060)* .002 (.060)* .002 (.071)* hdi -1.467(.000)*** -1.456 (.000)*** -1.359 (.001)*** -1.444 .000)*** -1.130 .005)** r-squared .332 .351 .335 .334 .355 note. * p ≤ .1, ** p ≤ .05, *** p ≤ .01 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83–102 93 in table 4, all models focus on the combination of almost all variables with individualism this time. as can be observed, idv is always relevant with a confidence level of 95 or 90% except for model 22, where it is combined with hdi, which is in turn relevant and has a confidence level of 95%. in all cases, the effect of idv on the gender gap is positive (similarly as in previous models) and with the same level. this means that the constant of individualism, as hdi, is negative, meaning that the more individualist a society is, the less gender gap in entrepreneurship there is. furthermore, model 20 and 21 show that uai and lto are also relevant and negative as in other models in table 1 and table 2. however, the same two variables did not turn out to be relevant in table 3, whereby lto is also positive as opposed to the other previously mentioned models. table 4 multilevel linear regression, focus on idv variables model 18 model 19 model 20 model 21 model 22 constant .809.000)*** .665 (.000)*** .934 (.000)*** .867 (.000)*** 1.754 (.000)*** pdi .000(.594) .001 (.393) .001 (.427) .001 (.438) -.000 (.641) idv -.003(.011)** -.003 (.019)** -.003 (.008)* -.003 (.029)** -.002 (.129) mas – – – – – uai – – -.002(.057)* – – lto – – – -.002(.083)* – ivr – .002(.154) – – – hdi – – – – -1.09(.012)** r-squared .224 .255 .278 .269 .315 note. * p ≤ .1, ** p ≤ .05, *** p ≤ .01 for this reason, table 5 shows the last five models, which are a final attempt of combination of variables that were repetitively relevant in the previous models in order to see whether they keep their relevance among themselves. in particular, the relevance of lto was mainly tested this time, as the relevance of the other variables had already been tested enough in the previous models. model 23 is the most relevant in this group as all three variables put together, i.e., long-term orientation, uncertainty avoidance and individualism are all significant, with a confidence level of 90% for the former two and of 99% for the latter. model 24 is not relevant as only individualism shows significance at 99%, as well as model 25, where only hdi is relevant. model 26 shows that power distance loses its significance when combined with lto, uai and idv, which are the relevant variables of model 23. lastly, model 27 has the same significant variables as model 26 plus hdi. it is the only model where two variables combined with hdi are relevant. in addition, in this case lto loses significance. https://changing-sp.com/ 94 giorgia salis, martin flegl table 5 multilevel linear regression, focus on lto variables model 23 model 24 model 25 model 26 model 27 constant 1.132(.000)*** .918 (.000)*** 1.607 (.000)*** 1.005 (.000)*** 1.690 (.000)*** pdi – – – .001(.277) – idv -.004(.000)*** -.004 (.001)*** -.002 (.136)** -.003 (.022)** -.002 (.069)* mas – – – – – uai -.0021(.051)* – – -.002 (.038)** -.001 (.079)* lto -.002(.073)* -.001 (.252) -.001 (.262) -.002 (.054)* -.001 (.200) ivr – .000(.644) – – – hdi – – -.903(0.027)** – -.818 (.041)** r-squared .314 .263 .329 .330 .369 note. * p ≤ .1, ** p ≤ .05, *** p ≤ .01 finally, every variable was tested a total of 14 times except for masculinity, which was tested only 11 times as it never turned out to be relevant5. in fact, hypothesis h6 is not rejected, which means that mas cannot be considered significant in affecting gender gap in entrepreneurship, as already proven by rubio-bañón and estebanlloret (2016). on the contrary, it can be observed that hdi is always significant and always has a positive effect on the gender gap (it turned out to be relevant in all 14 estimations), meaning that the more developed a society is, the lower the gap is. for this reason, hypothesis h7 along with results provided by rubio-bañón and estebanlloret (2016) can be rejected. for what concerns ivr, it turned out to be significant 5 times out of 14 and it was always positive, meaning that the more indulgent a society is (i.e., the less strict it is in terms of social norms and personal gratification), the higher the gender gap. this result does not correspond to the expectations; therefore, hypothesis h5 is rejected. however, this variable did not turn out to be relevant many times and it only did when it was combined with hdi. as for the variables of the most significant models (10, 23, 26 and 27): • idv was often relevant (11 times out of 14) and always negative, meaning that the more individualistic a society is, the lower the gender gap. additionally, it turned out to be relevant in three of the above-mentioned models (23, 26 and 27), therefore hypothesis h1 is not rejected; • lto turned out to be relevant various times (6 out of 14) and it was always negative, meaning that the more flexible and pragmatic a society is in terms of 5 not all estimations are included in the tables as the aim of some of them was to further test the relevance of singular variables. as tested variables showed repeatedly the same behaviour, no more than 14 estimations were run. only models that were significant for the explanation of the gender gap are presented in the results. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83–102 95 societal change, the lower the gender gap. in addition, it was present in three relevant models out of four, therefore hypothesis h4 is not rejected; • uai was relevant 6 times out of 14 and in all four relevant models. additionally, it was always negative, meaning that the more risk-adverse a society is about the future, the lower the gender gap is: therefore, hypothesis h3 is not rejected; • each time pdi was relevant (4 out of 14), it was also positive, meaning that the more hierarchical a society is, the higher the gender gap, which makes sense in theory. however, it only turned out to be relevant a few times and only in one significant model (10). for the above-mentioned reasons, hypothesis h2 is not rejected. in fact, as discussed in the previous section, kusterer (2014) and data from oecd (2016a) already confirmed that even societies with low degrees of pdi still show considerable levels of gender gap in entrepreneurship, which justifies the low rate of relevance of positive pdi in the models presented above. to conclude, if taken singularly, human development and individualism are the variables with the highest rate of relevance among all that have a positive effect on gender gap, followed by long-term orientation, uncertainty avoidance and indulgence. however, as proven by model 23 and 26, it seems that the combination of high rates of individualism, long-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance is particularly relevant in decreasing gender gap in entrepreneurship. this would mean that rather individualistic, pragmatic and flexible societies in terms of societal change, which at the same time are averse to risk and uncertainty related to the future, tend to have a lower rate of gender gap in entrepreneurship. discussion comparison with other studies dheer, li and treviño (2019) adopted an integrative approach to the analysis of gender gap in the likelihood of starting business ventures, which gave the possibility to have a very articulate view on the matter. the focus of this paper instead is more specific as it is concerned with the cultural attributes and development conditions determining a lower level of gender entrepreneurial breach in a country. as for the independent variables used, among many others dheer, li and treviño (2019) included hofstede’s masculinity index. as already suggested by cardozo crowe (2010), they observed that a high level of masculinity seems to influence gender gap in a positive way, in the sense that the more masculine a society is, the less gender gap in entrepreneurship there is. in fact, the idea is that in such countries women are impregnated over masculine values (e.g., achievement, heroism, assertiveness, material rewards for success), which lead them to be more prone to engage in entrepreneurial ventures. in particular, their results show that when a country has a higher masculinity index, women are only 1% less likely than men to start a business as opposed to a 3% in countries with a lower masculinity index (dheer, li, & treviño, 2019). however, they analyzed a total of 45 countries, while in this paper a sample of 55 was taken into consideration. https://changing-sp.com/ 96 giorgia salis, martin flegl data analysed in this paper show that masculinity is not relevant in affecting gender gap, which was proven by rubio-bañón and esteban-lloret (2016) as well. in fact, the authors grouped the same 55 countries analysed in this paper depending on their level of masculinity by using hofstede’s classification (feminine, moderately feminine, moderately masculine, masculine) and for each group, they compared the mas index with the level of gender gap. they observed that there existed inconsistencies inside the same groups and among groups. for example, in the group of feminine countries (i.e., with very low mas), norway, which is the second-most feminine country of all (mas = 8), has the highest level of gender gap in entrepreneurship (0.59). conversely, certain moderately female countries (i.e., with a higher level of masculinity) such as brazil (mas = 49) showed lower levels of gender gap (–0.01). however, iran, which is a moderately feminine country like brazil (mas = 43), showed a higher gender gap (0.64), and so on. in addition, the authors took into consideration the countries’ level of economic development taken by gem’s classification (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2013), which they deemed irrelevant in affecting gender gap as well. however, they were only taking into account the combination of it with the mas index and did not use linear regression to analyse interactions between the variables. moreover, according to data collected by gem (2019a), only six countries of the 48 surveyed show equal tea rates between men and women, i.e., indonesia, thailand, panama, qatar, madagascar and angola. these countries span all three income levels (low income, middle income, high income) following a classification made by the world economic forum (schwab, 2018). indonesia, madagascar and angola are low-income, panama and qatar are high-income and thailand is middle-income. of the above-mentioned countries, indonesia, thailand and panama were also present in the sample of countries used for this paper. in fact, the three countries are the ones with the lowest gender gap in the list, after vietnam, philippines and ecuador. however, data for the latter three countries are from 2015 and 2017, while data for indonesia, thailand and panama are from 2018. for this reason, it can be worthwhile to further analyze data for indonesia, thailand and panama according to the results obtained in this paper in terms of socio-cultural and development conditions determining a low gender gap. for what concerns united nations’s hdi (2018a), indonesia has a medium human development (0.69), while thailand and panama have a high human development (0.75 and 0.78). in terms of uai, lto and idv, they all show low rates of individualism (20, 14, 11), while they have high rates of uncertainty avoidance (64, 48, 86) and relatively high rates of long-term orientation (32, 62, 45). therefore, they do not exactly correspond to models 23 and 26 and they do not have the highest level of hdi either (i.e., very high). on the other hand, by filtering countries according to models 23 and 26 and to results obtained for hdi (i.e., with intermediate/high levels of uai, lto and idv, very high hdi and low level of gender gap), spain and france seem to have the best attributes among all 55. in the case of spain, idv and uai are high while lto is intermediate (51, 86, 48), hdi is very high (0.891) and gender gap is low (0.11). as for changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83–102 97 france, idv, uai and lto are all high (71, 86, 63), hdi is very high (0.901) and gender gap is low (0.25)6. as for spain’s lto, as explained by (hofstede, n.d.-c), it means that spain is a rather normative culture (vs. the pragmatic kind), where people prefer clear structures and well-defined rules to deal with society, therefore seeing societal change with suspicion. however, according to recent studies (chislett, 2018) and socio-political observations (the difference between italy and spain, 2019), spain is a kind of society that has demonstrated openness to and great capability of social change. in fact, as observed by chislett (2018), in comparison with 1978, spain is “a new world” socially speaking. for instance, the condition of women has improved considerably, so much so that today there are more spanish women than men at universities (and their academic results are better). additionally, the female labour force participation rose from 20% to 53% since 1978, and 11 of the 17 ministers in the current government (2019) are women, which is the largest number in spain’s history and the highest proportion in the world. furthermore, while euroscepticism, xenophobia and far-right movements and parties are taking over many european countries (e.g., italy, uk, france and germany) mainly due to the big influx of immigrants, spain represents an exception. in fact, 68% of spaniards still think the european membership is a good thing (european parliament, 2018). moreover, spain is also the only country in europe that has no eurosceptic parties’ representation in the european parliament (special report on spain, 2018). finally, there are no french-style banlieues or usstyle ghettos in spain; in fact, spaniards are first in the ranking of social openness towards immigrants (chislett, 2018; special report on spain, 2018). for these reasons, spain might be a normative country, but it also shows social openness, which is in line with the results obtained in terms of attributes decreasing gender gap, and also with the rate of lto, which is, in fact, intermediate. limitations the aim of this paper was to compare results with the ones from rubio-bañón and esteban-lloret (2016). however, in terms of countries’ development, the mentioned authors referred to the classification used by global entrepreneurship monitor (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2013), which identifies three main phases of economic development based on gdp per capita and the share of exports comprising primary goods (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2013)7. on the other hand, for this paper the human development index was used, as it does not only measure a country’s development from an economic perspective but also from a human one, which can have an impact on the issue of gender gap in entrepreneurship as well. in fact, the hdi 6 the cut-off levels were >45 for idv, uai and lto as that level is considered intermediate, while from 50 upward it is high (hofstede, n.d.-b). >80 for hdi, which means very high (united nations, 2018a). ≤0.25 for gender gap in entrepreneurship, which can be considered low as france is 18th among 48 countries based on the level of gender gap, while spain is 8th (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2019a). 7 depending on their development phase, gem classifies economies as “factor-driven” or in stage 1; “efficiency-driven” or in stage 2; “innovation-driven” or in stage 3 (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2013; porter, sachs & mcarthur, 2002; schwab, 2018). https://changing-sp.com/ 98 giorgia salis, martin flegl includes measures of life expectancy, education of the population and gross national income (gni) per capita (united nations, 2018a). in addition, while the sample of countries used by global entrepreneurship monitor in 2013 includes all income levels (i.e., the sample used by the abovementioned authors), the countries analysed in this paper includes the medium, high and very high level of hdi, excluding the low level. for this reason, the results about hdi cannot be considered completely accurate. nevertheless, the identified countries showing the best attributes decreasing gender gap have a very high hdi, confirming the results showing that the higher the hdi, the lower the gender gap. finally, since data related to such variables as lto, ivr and hdi were missing for six countries in the first two cases and for two countries in the second, they had to be calculated by using the correlation coefficient with a cut-off level of 0.70. as for the gender gap variable, data were collected from reports of various years down to 2013, as not every country included in the analysis was taken into consideration in the last gem’s report available (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2019a). nevertheless, only 18 countries’ data (i.e., of belgium, czech republic, ecuador, estonia, finland, jamaica, latvia, lithuania, malaysia, mexico, norway, philippines, portugal, romania, singapore, suriname, trinidad & tobago, vietnam) had to be retrieved from previous years and the majority of them date back to 2015. conclusion as mentioned in the introduction, there are several kinds of factors determining the phenomenon of gender gap in entrepreneurship. this study highlights certain drivers of social, cultural and economic kind, which seem to decrease the gender gap, therefore it can be used as a cue for further and more extended research. in particular, it can be interesting to monitor the two countries identified, i.e., spain and france, in order to see whether their gender entrepreneurial breach decreases in the next years. moreover, future research could focus on specific geographical regions, e.g., europe and north america or latin america and the caribbean. the analysis could also be narrowed down to such variables as education and gni, which are part of the human development index that was used for this study. in addition, this research work only analysed early-stage entrepreneurship, thus future research could focus on the next stages by evaluating the performance and success of businesses run by women in comparison with those run by men. finally, as discussed in the introduction, according to gem’s study (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2019a), gender gap in entrepreneurship seems to be more prominent in developed countries than in developing ones as in developing economies women tend to turn to entrepreneurship as a way out of unemployment or poverty (minniti & naudé, 2010). in fact, this kind of entrepreneurship is defined as “necessity entrepreneurship”. however, data obtained for this study show that the more developed a country is, the lower the gender gap. for this reason, future research could further investigate necessity entrepreneurship at the international level, analyse changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83–102 99 what factors determine it, and when such factors actually affect gender gap. in the case of italy, for instance, despite the current bad economic conditions and the high rate of unemployment, the share of necessity entrepreneurship is very low thanks to its generous welfare system (global entrepreneurship monitor, 2019a). therefore, the distinction between female entrepreneurship and female necessity entrepreneurship related to a country’s economic conditions should be stressed when comparing gender gap across countries. references ahl, h. 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in fact, due to an increasingly solipsistic policy of international leaders, hostility against those who don’t match race, religion, culture or sexual orientation is even experiencing a renaissance. fake news start to replace facts. in germany, politicians of the (democratically elected) right-wing party afd [alternative for germany] publicly question the significance of the holocaust. according to the polls, around 33% of european youths have little or no knowledge about the attempted annihilation of jews during world war ii. in order to prevent the return of barbarism it is essential to remember and understand the characteristics that actually led to barbarism in the first place. peter weiss’ play die ermittlung: oratorium in 11 gesängen [the investigation. oratorio in 11 songs] written in 1965, takes a very thorough look at what auschwitz was, how it had been made possible and how it survived in society even after the war. the following article examines the play and its context in literature and films on the holocaust, paying particular attention to the possibility of explaining the, as elie wiesel has put it, “unexplainable” and converting it into a teaching experience for current generations. keywords auschwitz, holocaust, remembrance, education, alternative for germany, populism, xenophobia https://changing-sp.com/ 268 oliver keune a (rather personal) introduction last year i met with some old friends in berlin. thinking of how to spend our time reasonably, someone suggested to visit the former nazi concentration camp kz sachsenhausen, which, since 1993, serves as a public remembrance site under the name sachsenhausen memorial and museum. the idea was spontaneous and somehow peculiar, since all of us went to school in germany in the seventies, where, in history class, “the holocaust” was a recurrent (some jesters then even claimed: the only) subject being taught. hence, none of us felt a particular need for further “education” as to the nature of the nazi terror and its implications. we went anyway and, as expected, i found my suspicion confirmed. though the entire site is lovingly designed with the required professionalism and thoughtfulness, featuring a large number of permanent and travelling exhibitions, paying elaborate attention to detail—still there was nothing, virtually nothing new to me. the structure of power within the ss; the hard-to-bear descriptions of all sorts of atrocities; the individual stories of the ones who have been killed (and of the very few who were lucky to escape)—i had heard and seen them countless times before. nevertheless, the visit wasn’t in vain; on the contrary, while the head remained calm, the heart vehemently reacted. standing right in the place, where “it” had happened, resulted in an emotional chill i was completely unable to shake off. the horror of the events became palpable, at least to some extent. i’m not prepared to enter the discussion if there is an energy of a place—a theory which is very popular within the new age movement and is usually rejected or even ridiculed by natural sciences. i would rather call it “the power of a live experience”. and i have seen it many times myself, especially in former concentration camps that i have visited: dachau, buchenwald and now sachsenhausen. i have even experienced it even with visitors, mainly school classes that are habitually being brought out to these sites. when, under normal circumstances, there is constant chatter and merrymaking, here even the most hardboiled class hooligans keep silent, obviously taken aback by the intrinsic atmosphere this place exudes. the current situation during the celebrations to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitz in january 2020, politicians from all sides have again solemnly invoked the responsibility that auschwitz shall never happen again. they do this actually every year, but with regards to how the world is changing right now their appeal is probably not unfounded. currently, we are facing two fundamental problems in this respect: the first one lies within the rise of populism that enables politicians to offer simple answers to complex problems by dividing the world into “us” and “them”—them being preponderantly migrants, political dissidents or jews who serve as real scapegoats for actually not real crises. it is striking in how many european parliament’s right-wing parties have a seat right now (ehmsen & scharenberg, 2018). besides raising hatred against migrants or, quite general, “foreigners”, many of these parties—for example, jobbik and fidesz in changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 267–283 269 hungary (ehmsen & scharenberg, 2018, p. 4), the pis in poland (cienski, 2020) or the fpö in austria (goldenberg, 2018)—share an anti-semitic worldview, too, oftentimes entertaining the notion that there is a worldwide conspiracy going on, usually involving george soros or other major players of jewish descent who supposedly desire the downfall of the west by infiltrating it with foreigners, conducting a “great replacement” in order to weaken and finally topple western cultures (bergmann, 2018). consequently, in the last years—since the infamous utøya massacre, carried out by anders breivik in 2011—more and more individuals, seemingly fueled by the rhetoric of these parties and the cheering of like-minded supporters on some websites, or in the echo chambers of their closed facebook1 and whatsapp2 groups have decided to take matters into their own hands: the car attack in charlottesville, virginia in 2017; the las vegas shooting in 2017; the christchurch mosque shooting in new zealand and the el paso shooting, both in 2019, just to name the most prominent ones. all perpetrators were far-right white men who acted on the same ideology of racism and self-proclaimed supremacy of the white race as once the nazis did. in germany, as said above, a party called afd [alternative for germany] is growing in more and more numbers (“germany’s afd”, 2020). one of their chairmen, alexander gauland, thinks the germans are not acknowledging enough “the achievements of our soldiers during world war ii” (as cited in storbeck, 2017), and another leading figure, björn höcke, states that in the future the use of “a policy of well-tempered cruelty” (höcke, 2018, p. 254; my translation from german—o. k.) for germany will be unavoidable: “the responsibility will then lie with those who with their pathetic actions have made these measures necessary” (höcke, 2018, p. 254; my translation from german—o. k.). höcke has actually taken the boldness of his fantasies to such an extent that since september 2019 it is not only legal to call him a “fascist” (hänel, 2020) but a part of his party (the so-called “wing”) has been in march 2020 officially declared “extremist” by the federal office for the protection of the constitution, which is “the first time in germany’s postwar history that a party represented in the federal parliament has elicited such intense scrutiny” (bennhold, 2020). this party consciously tests the boundaries of what can be said out loud every day; it revels in permanent provocation, occasionally paddles back when the outcry is a little too loud, only to stylize itself afterwards as the victim of misunderstanding and over-exaggerated political correctness (mcguinness, 2019). with this tactic, they have successfully poisoned the political landscape. and the fact that within the last 8 months from writing this article three major shooting have occurred in germany—the murder of politician walter lübcke in june 2019, the synagogue shooting in halle in october 2019 and the hanau shooting in february 2020—all of them carried out by avowed neo-nazis who had attended meetings of the afd and who clearly were under the impression that they had to “defend” their country against jews and migrants, is indeed a signal that a politician’s words and actions can encourage people to want to contribute from their side. 1 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 2 whatsapp™ is a trademark of whatsapp inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 270 oliver keune admittedly, these terrorists are a rarity. almost all of them were loners who, like in a cliché movie, still lived with their parents, never had a girlfriend, felt neglected and unappreciated—lost individuals who, for once in their lives, wanted to be “someone” (in this respect, by the way, they are no different from muslim terrorists who are willing to sacrifice their life for the jihad). it clearly has to be emphasized that the majority of citizens of said countries is definitely not inclined yet to murder people for a “cause”. but—and it is the second fundamental problem—polls show an increasing approval of what right-wing politicians and their ready accomplices say and do, even to the point that “every second german (48 percent) expects the party to be involved in a state or even federal government within the next ten years” (“nearly 50 percent of germans…”, 2020). returning to the phenomenon of the holocaust and its inherent lesson—and it should be clear that “the holocaust” is a metaphor for racism and xenophobia in general—this results in a decreasing factor of deterrent. marc santora fears, that “the horrific lessons of the death camp are being lost” (santora, 2020). aaron breitbart, a senior researcher at the simon wiesenthal center, says: “not only are people willing to forget about the holocaust, they’re willing to deny it” (popescu, 2018). the list goes on and on. it is a natural process that, with every generation, the horror of an incident becomes more and more diluted. the generation that has seen world war ii (by the way, the generation of my grandparents) had sworn to themselves and to their children that something like this must never happen again. this (positive) attitude is being passed on to their children but evidently weakens with every additional step. as with anti-semitism in europe, it is not only growing due to an “imported” jew hatred by migrants from (primarily arabic) countries for whom “israel” and “jews” are synonyms. it is also growing amongst generic german and european citizens (großbongardt, rapp, & schaefer, 2019) for whom jews—as they are much less recognizable in daily life than, say, migrants from northern africa—serve as a concept of culprit responsible for everything that does not go well in my life. florette cohen abady states: “often those who are the most antisemitic have never even encountered a jew” (abady, 2019, p. 273). subsequently, the question is what can be done about it? how is it possible to reach anti-semites or racists in general? or at least those who are yet undecided but susceptible to extremist thinking? of course, there are countless initiatives worldwide with the goal to fight oblivion and to prevent the return of nazi ideology: holocaust museums like yad vashem in jerusalem; the memorial to the murdered jews of europe in berlin; the holocaust memorial at auschwitz itself, only to name a very few. many survivors of the holocaust have made it their lifelong task to teach the following generations, amongst them simon wiesenthal, otto frank and elie wiesel who, although he “stopped teaching holocaust studies at the universities” (potap, 2019, p. 106) after a very trying semester at yale, anyway went on “talking about oppressors, victims, observers, and survivors relevant to the holocaust or other forms of genocide” (ibid.). there are initiatives like the shoah foundation, founded by steven spielberg after the success of his film schindler’s list, which puts its major effort on recording changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 267–283 271 testimonies of holocaust survivors “to help silence the holocaust deniers who’d popped up during the making of ‘schindler’s list’” (cohen, 2014). and not surprisingly, a huge number of initiatives include the arts. looking back on history, the arts have always been regarded a decisive factor in improving a human being. when analyzing the greek tragedy and its power to purge the soul of the spectator, aristotle famously deployed the term “catharsis”, achieving this “through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions” (aristotle, trans. 1964, p. 296). friedrich schiller’s programmatic essay die schaubühne als eine moralische anstalt betrachtet [the theatre considered as a moral institution] went even a step further: “the theatre is more than any other public institution of the state a school of practical wisdom, a guide through the daily life, an infallible key to the most secret access to the human soul” (schiller, 1879, p. 46; my translation from german—o. k.). within the arts, it is probably—this claim, of course, is controversial but it is a major element of my argumentation—said live experience that has the most auspicious potential to reach people both on an emotional and, in an ideal scenario, on an intellectual level. this article examines peter weiss’ play die ermittlung: oratorium in 11 gesängen [the investigation. oratorio in 11 songs] as a possible example of displaying and exercising such a potential. i would like to point out that the main focus of the analysis will neither lie on a literary discussion of the play, nor on the nature of the documents, their authenticity and how weiss has translated them into his play. i count on the reader’s knowledge that die ermittlung [the investigation] is based on weiss’ frankfurter auszüge [frankfurt excerpts] (weiss, 1965, pp. 152–188), which in turn are based on bernd naumann’s reports (naumann, 1965) and hermann langbein’s protocols (langbein, 1995) of the auschwitz trial in frankfurt am main between 1963 and 1965, both published in 1965 in the frankfurter allgemeine zeitung (as cited in kaiser, 2013). i furthermore do not plan to conduct a general discussion on the dangers and possibilities of manipulating historical facts in theatre, since no one ever accused weiss of deliberately falsifying history. the analysis will rather focus on two central questions: the first part will take a look at the text itself in its formal construction and its corresponding ideological intention; in the second part, the question of why this very play might serve as a means of fighting increasing ignorance and separation will be looked upon. in other words, it should be examined which intentions peter weiss himself tries to pursue with his play; which parts of the phenomenon “holocaust” he captures and which techniques he uses in doing so; which comparable plays, books, films, operas there are, and why peter weiss’ play actually occupies a special position amongst them, without any judgment of quality. the play in order to demonstrate what the investigation is, it would be advisable to break down first what it is not. it is not a report of the frankfurt trial, as bernd naumann and hermann langbein have presented it, without no further intention than to dryly document it. as weiss himself writes in the foreword to the investigation, the intention https://changing-sp.com/ 272 oliver keune is “not to attempt to reconstruct the court before which the proceedings of the camp trial took place” (weiss, 1966, p. 1)3. nor is the play, in contrast to the natural task of the trial, the attempt to define guilt, on a legal or rather moral level. weiss explains in the preface that the “bearers of these names” (he speaks about the defendants) should not be accused once again in this drama (ibid.), probably because any doubt of their “guilt” would be absurd. incidentally, this is also supported by the fact that the investigation was already completed before the actual closing of the trial (haiduk, 1977, p. 132). thirdly, the play is not at all an attempt to visualize the reality of auschwitz, since, to quote the preface once again; it is “impossible trying to present the camp itself on the stage” (weiss, 1966, p. 1). peter weiss’ intention is a different one: firstly, he aims at a (basically factual) analysis of what happened in auschwitz, or, as erika salloch puts it, “the investigation shows the functioning of a concentration camp” (salloch, 1972, p. 43; my translation from german—o. k.). weiss’ claim in this respect is as comprehensive as possible, taking into consideration a large number of different factors: the meticulously planned and carefully organized mass extinction of people; the logistic procedures without which auschwitz would not have been able to operate as a killing factory; the description of various perpetrator types represented in the camp; and the perspective of the victims who were subjected to all kinds of repression, torture and murder. weiss’ second goal is the following: when he takes up historical topics, he is interested above all in their relation to the present (as cited in schumacher, 1965b, p. 4). weiss’ standpoint is a decidedly marxist one, as he himself had unmistakably stated in his 10 arbeitspunkte eines autors in der geteilten welt [10 working points of an author in a divided world] (weiss, 1971, pp. 14–24). his theatre is to be understood as a socio-critical and politically engaged art form that attempts to directly influence social developments. his technique hereby is the one of the documentary theatre. there is neither the space (nor the need) to extensively discuss the documentary theatre, which actually emerged from bertolt brecht’s political theatre in the twenties in germany, and was at its height in the sixties with peter weiss as one of its most prominent representatives. as weiss himself had pointed out in his programmatic 14 notizen zum dokumentarischen theater [14 notes on the documentary theatre], the most important characteristics are that the authors in their works point to existing social and political actualities, disclose them, and present them as pure facts for discussion and critical reflection: “the documentary theatre presents facts for evaluation. it presents various ways to perceive events and statements. it presents the motives for that perception” (weiss, 1968b, p. 34; my translation from german—o. k.). they capture reality, which they understand as changeable in so-called “models” (weiss, 1968b, p. 33) in order to achieve universal validity. they reflect political current events, aspire to uncover any form of government-induced conspiracy in order to expose them and its corresponding organs. the documentary theatre therefore is a theatre 3 in this paper, all quotations from the play die ermittlung [the investigation] (including the foreword) have been taken from the english translation by jon swan and ulu grosbard (weiss, 1966). for some reason—which we will not discuss here—parts of the dialogue of the original german version have been omitted in the english translation. hence, i will quote them directly from the suhrkamp edition (weiss, 1976a), translating them myself – o. k. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 267–283 273 of public protest that lays its finger into the wounds of society in order to stimulate a process of critical thinking, which might finally lead to political action (zipes, 1967). consequently, the investigation offers permanent cross-references from the past to the present, for example in comments and remarks of the defendants that prove that fascist and racist ideas are still virulent even twenty years after the downfall of the third reich. yes, its ideology might possibly even roar up again, as suggests the closing statement of mulka at the end of the play, followed by “loud approbation from the accused” (weiss, 1966, p. 270). likewise, the last sentence in weiss’ meine ortschaft [my place], a text with a similar topic that he wrote prior to the investigation: “it is not over yet” (weiss, 1968a, p. 124; my translation from german—o. k.); or the concluding words of his play marat/sade, a story that thematically, too, plays in the past but can be understood as a model for the present: “when will you finally learn to see / when will you finally understand” (weiss, 1976b, p. 255; my translation from german—o. k.). the cross-references also show that former nazi figures still (or again) hold honorable and well-paid positions in post-war german society, proving that the necessary process of denazification is in constant danger and far from being completed: “they live undisturbed / they hold high offices / they increase their possessions / and continue to work in those factories / in which the prisoners of that time / were wasted” (weiss, 1976a, p. 445; my translation from german—o. k.). finally, the investigation casts light on leading corporations and companies that were then involved in the killing of millions of people, and that have been re-established in present germany, having “ended up today in magnificent condition / and that they are now in the midst of/as they say/a new phase of expansion” (weiss, 1966, p. 131). this way weiss strives to reveal the typical patterns of the past in order to validly transfer them to the present. his method is that of discursively arranging the very facts that he has derived from naumann’s and langbein’s trial reports and from his own fact compilation, the frankfurter auszüge [frankfurt excerpts]. in this respect, he tries to avoid any form of individualization, in order to create a distance that still allows critical, intellectual weighing; include as many perspectives to the story as possible—weiss himself speaks of a “condensation” of facts (weiss, 1966, p. 1)— while at the same time keeping their authenticity intact. indeed, his play is not based on the biography of just one character, and it doesn’t even bother with culture or race—the expression “jew”, for example, does not appear even once throughout the entire drama. consequently, there is no actual hero, either, unlike, for example, in friedrich schiller’s classical historical dramas (william tell, don carlos, wallenstein and many more), or—to come back to typical representatives of the documentary theatre in germany in the sixties—in the works of rolf hochhuth (father ricardo in der stellvertreter. ein christliches trauerspiel [the deputy, a christian tragedy] (hochhuth, 1963) and heinar kipphardt (j. robert oppenheimer in in the matter of j. robert oppenheimer) (kipphardt, 1964) or joel brand in joel brand (kipphardt, 1988). peter weiss’ heroes (in this case the “witnesses”) are deprived of their names, their stories are no longer their own. they are a condensation of those suffered by many hundreds of thousands of fellow victims. the technique is clear: to keep the reader (and/or: the spectator) in a distance, similar to bertolt brecht’s https://changing-sp.com/ 274 oliver keune “distancing effect” (brecht, 1957), from which he does not pity, consumed by his emotions, but recognizes human and social patterns and transfers them to his present time. the fact that no solutions are being offered during the process is consequent and immanent to the method. this way, peter weiss differs fundamentally from many other authors of the holocaust literature who have opposed theodor w. adorno’s verdict “to write a poem after auschwitz is barbaric” (adorno, 1977, p. 30; my translation from german—o. k.) which, of course, was honorable, however even adorno himself could not maintain it during his own lifetime. in view of the fact that weiss had not been at the concentration camp himself, even though his name was “on the list of those who were to be transferred there for good” (weiss, 1968a, p. 114), his literature is decidedly not a personal one, like, for instance, the poems of nobel prize winner nelly sachs, especially the collection in den wohnungen des todes [in the habitations of death] (sachs, 1947); the memoirs of auschwitz survivor primo levi, se questo è un uomo [if this is a man] (levi, 1947); the work of giorgio bassani, for example, his novel il giardino dei finzi-contini [the gardens of the finzi-contini] (bassani, 1963); or, of course, the poems of paul celan, amongst them the most famous todesfuge’ [fugue of death] (celan, 1952). all these authors—and this is just a very sketchy collection—wrote mainly in order to somehow deal with their own traumatic experiences during the nazi time. neither is it weiss’ intention to just historically record the nazi crimes and save them for later generations, nor does he, as we have seen, pursue a plan to recreate the reality of auschwitz (or other infamous camps) on stage, as, for instances, rolf hochhuth has done it in der stellvertreter [the deputy] (1963) and, evidently, countless hollywood films have tried it, too, the most known amongst them schindler’s list (1992), la vita è bella (1997), the pianist (2002), defiance (2008), son of saul (2015). weiss’ goal is the factual report of what actually happened, presenting the spectator with a picture as accurate and complete as possible. the phenomenon of auschwitz as a whole shall become intelligible, setting off a process of reflection that gives way to an understanding of fascism itself (the most monstrous expression of which indeed was the holocaust) to serve as a model for each recipient’s current life. striving to an utmost level of comprehensiveness—the three hells what makes the investigation so unique in the history of art dealing with the holocaust, is the depiction of the various, as ernst schumacher has called it, “hells” (schumacher, 1965a, p. 934; my translation from german—o. k.) of auschwitz. those hells can be found separately in other works, but in the investigation, as a matter of fact, all three hells are present at the same time: the hell before auschwitz, which describes all the activities before and around the concentration camp; the hell of auschwitz itself, which takes the spectator right into the heart of the final solution, capturing the closed universe of the camp in its different expressions and perspectives; and the hell after auschwitz, which focuses on the repercussions. for all three “hells”, there are numerous dramatic examples. the hell before auschwitz is being featured in plays such as incident in vichy by arthur miller (miller, changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 267–283 275 1965) which—within the talks of the detainees—sheds light on how the nazis acted in order to implement their terror in europe; said joel brand by heinar kipphardt, a story around the attempt to exchange jews in a gigantic deal with adolf eichmann; or max frisch’s andorra (frisch, 1961) that indelibly describes how anti-semitism develops from humble beginnings to inhumanity. and not to forget (though we want to focus more on dramatic works than on films) the 1982 american television film the wave, based on the psychological experiment the third wave by ron jones in 1967 (jones, 1981), that showed exemplary how ordinary people, in this case a high school class, can be seduced into becoming ardent fascists. the second field, the hell of auschwitz, can be detected in plays such as hochuth’s already mentioned the deputy (at least in its 5th act), hedda zinner’s ravensbrück ballad (zinner, 1961), ghetto by yehoshua sobol (sobol, 1984) or—in a broader sense—in through roses by marc neikrug (neikrug, 1989), a “musical drama for one actor and eight solo instruments”. for the third field, the hell after auschwitz, we can name theatre plays such as die sperrzonen. eine deutsche tragödie [restricted areas. a german tragedy] by stefan andres (andres, 1959) or der schwarze schwan [the black swan] by martin walser (walser, 1964). all three approaches pursue a specific goal, but their perspectives are limited, and the fact that, as a rule, only one area is illuminated at a time, while other parts of the holocaust phenomenon are being neglected, lies in the nature of things and is, of course, no subject of reproach to any of the authors. however, all three approaches contain an inherent danger, which i would like to outline briefly. works about the hell before auschwitz do indeed have the potential to conduct a discourse about the premonitions and preconditions of the third reich and the final solution; something which—as has been emphasized in the introduction of this article—might be deemed considerably important in today’s world in order to recognize and tackle any form of awakening barbarism. but such works usually succeed less in shocking the audience, since the immediate examples of the consequences are missing. dieter lamping (1992) writes (and i agree with him) that “all poetry of rank about auschwitz is shocking—whether it is realistic or abstract. yes, one can even say: it has rank only in so far as it shocks” (lamping 1992, p. 279; my translation from german—o. k.). this cannot be stressed enough: the sheer phenomenon of the holocaust is so horrendous, so beyond the realm of humanity that it cannot leave any other sentiment than shock. thus, when a piece of work of art that deals with auschwitz itself does not shock, it has missed its aim. moreover, using the first approach might force the artist to yet attach some unambiguous references to the present—or otherwise “to have to trust in the politicalsocial ability of abstraction and concretion of their viewers” (schumacher, 1965a, p. 934; my translation from german—o. k.), which, for example, can be seen very clearly in heinar kipphardt’s bruder eichmann [brother eichmann] (kipphardt, 1983), which attempts to fill the historical gap by inserting “analogy scenes” (p. 6; my translation from german—o. k.) of american generals discussing the neutron bomb, reports on https://changing-sp.com/ 276 oliver keune junta torture activities, statements by the baader-meinhof investigative committee, and even an interview with the then israeli minister of defense, ariel sharon. works about the hell after auschwitz suffer from this incompleteness, too. in der schwarze schwan the black swan] (walser, 1964) the author manages to convey a psychologically intense portrait of rudi, the post-born child, who accidentally learns about his father’s concentration camp doctor’s past and is no longer able to cope with his guilt (for which he consequently shoots himself); but the actual hell of auschwitz necessarily gets lost along the way. at best, it can be conjured up in the metaphor of the black swan and move the audience. however, again, it in no way does shock them. as for the works of art that place the hell of auschwitz right in the center of their story, one is first confronted with the quite understandable difficulty of depicting the horror. here, the line between shock and incredibility, true intensity and false pathos is traditionally very thin. especially in their finales, a number of plays succumb to the tendency to sink into “conventional theatricality” (schumacher, 1965a, p. 932; my translation from german—o. k.). one of the most prominent examples in theatre is certainly rolf hochhuth’s the deputy. i think that no one will contradict the fact that the showdown between the diabolically oversized doctor, the opera-like death of carlotta and father riccardo’s heroic, though drowned in pathos struggle with himself and the world is bordering hard with the unbelievable and destroys a lot of the credit of the drama. likewise, hedda zinner’s ravensbrück ballad which ends in a downright mushy agony scene of the block elder maria, the positive hero of the play, while outside the victorious tanks of the red army are already standing in front of the barbed-wire fences—at such points it might become difficult to take the story still seriously. and yet another problem emerges. even when assuming that it is actually possible to reproduce the atmosphere of the camp “authentically” (which should never be doubted a priori), we are nevertheless presented with a very narrow section of the holocaust phenomenon. for characteristic and “new” are certainly not the extent of brutality and perversity of the perpetrators towards their victims—ruthless, brute violence against individuals by an oppressive regime, along with the will to annihilate an entire people, has existed practically at all times—armenia, rwanda, cambodia, indonesia, sudan, bosnia, etc. are just the most recent examples (andreopoulos, 1994). what is indeed new and up to this point still unprecedented about the holocaust is the highly perfected, industrialized system of killing—oftentimes even without any genuine hatred, as hannah arendt has shown in her book eichmann in jerusalem: a report on the banality of evil (arendt, 1963), describing killers who killed just because they considered it their necessary duty. this kind of cold professionalism and, as the cliché goes, typically german thoroughness, which resulted in the death of 6 million jews, not to count all the other victims of world war ii, has never before been witnessed. which leaves the question inasmuch a play like the ravensbrück ballad or a musical piece like through roses, which tells its story from the seemingly naive perspective of a gullible, inexperienced violinist, is able to achieve this kind of comprehensiveness. to be clear: it doesn’t have to do this, either. every author is changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 267–283 277 completely free to deal with the holocaust the way she or he wants. no one is under the obligation to cover every aspect of the shoah—which, of course, is impossible anyway. my only concern is to draw attention to the theoretical and practical advantages and disadvantages that arise from the choice of which hell of auschwitz one decides to portray. and—which is the main idea of this article—to determine which approach might be the most suitable so that the piece of art develops its utmost potential to reach the recipients. coming back to the investigation, ernst schumacher states (absolutely correctly, in my view) that in this drama all three “hells” are equally covered (schumacher, 1965a, p. 937), which is already evident from the three-dimensional concept of time: the investigation recounts a trial from the present in which witnesses tell of the camp’s past and the time before it. but this is only one basis of weiss’ discursive method. by depicting a truly extensive number of defendants and witnesses, each in his or her very own way of speaking and behaving, weiss succeeds in drawing an immensely complex picture of the fascist apparatus and its executors, their activities, their ideological preconditions and their morals. there is the sadistic torturer boger who enjoyed tormenting and killing beyond his mission; the smug kaduk who cannot understand why he of all people was arrested (weiss, 1966, p. 54); the always friendly doctors dr. vetter, dr. schatz, dr. capesius, “wellbred” (weiss, 1966, p. 91) men, who did not kill out of hate but “because they had to” (weiss, 1966, p. 91); the accused hofmann who affirms “i personally didn’t have anything / against those people / there were some like them at home too / before they were taken away / i always used to tell my family / you go right on buying from them / after all they are humans too” (weiss, 1966, p. 18); the medical employee klehr who loved the “round numbers” (weiss, 1966, p. 186) and who refuses to take any personal responsibility: “mr. president / we were all in a strait jacket / we were nothing but numbers / just like the prisoners” (weiss, 1966, p. 191); or the unterscharführer stark who held lectures on “humanism in goethe” (weiss, 1966, p. 136) in the camp while murdering detainees, and whose excuse is this: “it was hammered into us (…) we weren’t supposed to think for ourselves” (weiss, 1966, p. 156/157); or the camp doctor flage who showed that “it would have been possible / to influence the course of the camp operations” (weiss, 1966, p. 103). this is only a tiny part of the perpetrators before the and in the hell of auschwitz that are being presented and exposed. the play features a vast number of very different types of fascist personalities, conveying a solid image of how diverse—and in their thoroughness to destroy—how even the german nazi society actually was. with regards to the hell after auschwitz, weiss detects certain stereotypes, both in the terminology and a certain behavior of justifying themselves, which can be noticed in almost all of the accused and which implies a clear warning to the present day. this begins with the use of language, which has a clear method of linguistic diminishing: words like “only”, “never”, “not one time” or phrases like “i had to...” as well as sentences like “i don’t know”, “i don’t know anything about that”, etc. run through almost all statements. this is similar to looking back at their crimes: hardly anyone is aware of their guilt, let alone acknowledge it. the views vary between that they still https://changing-sp.com/ 278 oliver keune consider themselves “innocent even today” (weiss, 1966, p. 198), to the adamant request to finally be left in peace, after all in the past years one has demonstrated what a good person one has been, for example the defendant kaduk (weiss, 1966, p. 55). many refer to having only received “orders” (e.g., weiss, 1966, p. 177), or to having been corrupted and forced by the system, as one of them states: “i was against the whole thing / i myself was / persecuted by the system” (weiss, 1966, p. 269). the play ends with the cynical demand to be acquitted of all crimes because “our nation has worked its way up / after a devastating war / to a leading position in the world / we ought to concern ourselves / with other things / than blame and reproaches / that should be thought of/as long since atoned for” (weiss, 1966, p. 270). as for the hell of auschwitz (which is primarily depicted in the victims), it should be mentioned first that weiss’ method is more linear here. since it is no longer a question of individuals, but of the fate of millions of people—that’s why the witnesses lose their names, become “mere speaking tubes” (weiss, 1966, p. 1)—the author has the opportunity to tell the story in different thematic stages. the content of the 11 songs (from which, by the way, the two middle songs by lili tofler and unterscharführer stark must be subtracted as contrapuntally contrasting individual songs) is constructed in a narrowing of perspective, because it describes the path of the victims from the ramp (1st song) to the life in the camp and finally to the ovens (11th song). what happens along this way and is recorded in the reports of the witnesses, i would like to describe only in its most important parts due to the enormous amount of information. it describes the various types of interaction with the executioners, the methods of torture and repression; the various sections of the camp, that is: the life in the barracks, the work conditions, the medical experiments; the logistic and bureaucratic procedures; the behavior and degree of suffering from the part of the victims; the possibility or impossibility of resistance; the extent of extermination based on statistical figures. weiss thus succeeds not only in “conveying an astonishingly rounded impression of the course of the trial on some 200 pages, but also in giving a very clear picture of the hell of auschwitz. a comparison with the extensive documentation by langbein (1027 pages) and naumann (552 pages) gives the impression that there is hardly any important fact or context that weiss did not include in his oratorio” (haiduk, 1977, p. 142; my translation from german—o. k.). the third important complex of topics, that of the social-industrial survival of fascist activities, is interspersed by weiss in many places in a flashlight-like manner, such as the numerous references that former nazi criminals today once again hold respectable positions, for example as “superintendent / of the government railroads“ (weiss, 1966, p. 8) or as “the director / of a large business concern“ (weiss, 1966, p. 168), just to name two examples out of many more. and as far as the entanglement of industry in the organizational process of the concentration camps is concerned, which for the marxist weiss is particularly important, company names are mentioned explicitly several times, e.g., the ig-farben, krupp or siemens (weiss, 1966, p. 6); their continued existence after the war (“the manufacturers of these furnaces / the topf und söhne company / as it says in its patent specification / after the war / improved changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 267–283 279 their facilities / on the basis of experience gained”) (weiss 1976a, p. 439; my translation from german—o. k ); to the fact that these companies hugely profited from the cheap labor in the camps—even worse, the camps could not have even existed without the support of the industry. conclusion: “the investigation” as a teaching experience it is precisely this approach: to draw a picture of the holocaust and its implicit regularities as comprehensively as possible, which (in my opinion) makes the investigation a most appropriate and effective piece of art to reach and teach today’s generation. according to martin esslin, the text displays “such objectivity that it can provide the basis for a fully effective artistic experience” (esslin, 1965; my translation from german—o. k.), or, to use the words of legendary theatre director peter brook, it has the chance to become a “total theatre” (brook, 1968, p. 168). because of the fact, that the investigation, unlike a book or a movie, is a live experience—here i’m coming back to my initial story of my visit to the concentration camp sachsenhausen—its effect might even be stronger. hence, this article is also a plea to make this play more accessible to the public again: in the form of theatre performances, mandatory school tours, public events of any kind. because it is shocking, but at the same time offers a great amount of information to also intellectually grasp the full magnitude of the holocaust. it comprehensibly demonstrates how fascism emerges, but also gives a very vivid—to use the key word again, “shocking”—impression of its devastating consequences. it does not get lost in individual stories, which would make it easy for the recipient to view the protagonist’s fate merely as an isolated event, detached from his own reality, but instead presents him with a model to detect the inner mechanism of fascism and its epidemic character. and, by the way, it rids the recipient of the opportunity to act like many germans after the war did who—involuntarily paying tribute to the beautiful bon mot from the hollywood movie american beauty, where ricky establishes: “never underestimate the power of denial”—claimed before themselves and before the world that we really had no idea of what was going on. for the investigation exhibits too clearly the ever-same patterns how healthy patriotism degenerates into nationalism and finally into barbarism. references abady, f. c. 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(1967). documentary drama in germany: mending the circuit. the germanic review: literature, culture, theory, 42(1), 49–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/1 9306962.1967.11754658 https://changing-sp.com/ https://henschel-schauspiel.de/de/werk/1494 https://doi.org/10.1080/19306962.1967.11754658 https://doi.org/10.1080/19306962.1967.11754658 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 353–372 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.4.082 received 4 december 2019 © 2019 bengt-ove andreassen accepted 25 december 2019 bengt.ove.andreassen@uit.no published online 6 january 2020 article the norwegian political discourse on prohibiting muslim garments. an analysis of four cases in the period 2008–2018 bengt-ove andreassen the arctic university of norway, tromsø abstract the public and political debate about islam and muslims in norway have revolved around issues like topics of integration and “radicalisation” and the compatibility of islam with democracy and “western values”. clothing related to muslims – i.e. muslim women – such as hijab, niqab, and burqa are in the public and political debate often referred to as examples that islam is not compatible with “norwegian” (or “western”) values. several political initiatives in order to ban muslim garments in public places or in school has been rejected with reference to the norwegian state’s obligations to human rights. this article will illustrate how the political debate about muslim garments have evolved in the period from 2008 to 2018. four cases will be presented to illustrate this development, and show how each case have been evaluated by the ministry of justice in order to decide whether or not the propositions could be a violation of the norwegian state’s obligation to human rights. the fourth case will illustrate how secular arguments, and the strategic understanding of niqab and burqa as “neutrally designed”, paved the way for a national regulation and a ban on clothing covering the face in educational settings. keywords islam, muslims, human rights, norway, secularization https://changing-sp.com/ 354 bengt-ove andreassen introduction as in most european countries, islam has become a visible but also a highly contested and debated religion in norwegian society. this article’s aim and scope is to illustrate how public debate has influenced decisions and political propositions in the norwegian parliament concerning garments like the hijab, niqab, and burqa in the period from 2010 to 2018. the article will illustrate the constant political negotiation – or ambivalence – on how to deal with clothing related to muslims. one continuing point of reference in the political debate is the norwegian state’s obligations concerning basic human rights. several propositions about prohibiting “muslim garments” (hijab, burqa, and niqab) have been rejected in deference to human rights. however, in 2018, parliament sanctioned a general ban on clothing that covers the face in educational settings (kindergarten, primary to upper-secondary schools, university colleges and universities) ending what seems to have been a process, for over a decade, of finding a way to formulate a law that is not a violation of the norwegian state’s obligation concerning human rights. norway – a christian state, a secularized society? the first norwegian constitution was written in 1814. this was an important first step towards becoming an independent nation in 1905, when the union with sweden was dissolved. in its original form, the constitution stated that all citizens were bound to follow the lutheran confession in all their actions, and that the inhabitants had to belong to the lutheran faith. the so-called dissenter movement opposed the exclusiveness of the evangelical-lutheran religion and fought for extended justice for minority groups. in 1845, parliament passed an act allowing “dissenters” (christian groups that did not belong to the evangelical-lutheran state church) to practise their faith; this also included jews (oftestad, 1998, p. 117). since the revision in 1845 allowed dissenters to practise their religion, it also allowed parents who did not belong to the lutheran state church to have their children exempted from lutheran catechismal instruction in school. the education acts of 1889 and 1936 confirmed this right. as late as 1964, a revision of the constitution, which allowed for the free exercise of religion, was added, and § 2 now reads: all inhabitants of the realm shall have the right to the free exercise of their religion. the evangelical-lutheran religion shall remain the official religion of the state. the inhabitants professing it are bound to bring up their children in the same manner. this applied until 2012, when changes concerning religion were made in the constitution, following a process of disentangling the evangelical-lutheran state church from the nation state. adjustments were made in the constitution’s paragraphs concerning religion. chapter a, article 2, now reads: changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 353–372 355 our values will remain our christian and humanist heritage. this constitution shall ensure democracy, a state based on the rule of law and human rights (the constitution of the kingdom of norway, 1814). chapter b, article 16, now reads: all inhabitants of the realm shall have the right to free exercise of their religion. the church of norway, an evangelical-lutheran church, will remain the established church of norway and will as such be supported by the state. detailed provisions as to its system will be laid down by law. all religious and belief communities should be supported on equal terms rights (the constitution of the kingdom of norway, 1814). even after the adjustments to the constitution in 2012, there remains a special focus on lutheranism, and there is no legally defined relationship between islam and the state. however, from the vantage point of religious minorities, such as muslims, the focus on human rights and the legal requirement that all “religious communities should be supported on equal terms”, are important. this means, among other things, that formally approved and registered religious and secular humanist groups receive economic support from the state. this arrangement has been applied since 19691. the explicit reference to the evangelical-lutheran religion can be said to be a particular emphasis on christian values and thus form a particulate value basis for the state (lindholm, 2006, p. 194). therefore, in the question concerning whether the state of norway, with reference to the constitution, can be regarded as secular, one can hardly answer a simple yes. if one looks at established researchers’ definitions and understandings of what a secular state is, such as donald eugene smith’s classic definition of a secular state, the norwegian constitution must be regarded as christian: the secular state is a state which guarantees individual and corporative freedom of religion, deals with the individual as a citizen irrespective of his religion, is not constitutionally connected to a particular religion nor does it seek either to promote or interfere with religion (smith, 1963, p. 4). however, there is no single generally accepted standard definition of what a secular state is, as smith’s working definition offers. nevertheless, the description of a secular state is generally used when referring to a state’s constitution, without any special emphasis on specific religious values (juergensmeyer, 2008). if a state is to be understood as secular, religion must be understood separately from the value of being anchored in the state’s constitution, although in practice there will be a constant negotiation between religion(s) and state(s) with regard to values. by being explicitly rooted in religious values, and in reference to smith’s definition, it is clear that norway 1 the amount of financial support varies. in 2017, religious groups were supported to the tune of about 55€ for each member (jacobsen, 2018, p. 15). https://changing-sp.com/ 356 bengt-ove andreassen cannot be understood as a secular state, even though the constitution also stipulates religious freedom as a principle. the norwegian state has strived to be a national state that values basic human rights. in 1994, a “human rights law” (norwegian, lov om styrking av menneskerettighetenes stilling i norsk rett) was introduced (the constitution of the kingdom of norway, 1999). this started a process of a formal implementation of international conventions on human rights as a part of the norwegian constitution. in order to be in accordance with international conventions, the law has been adjusted several times, in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2010. in cases where there is conflict between national law and international conventions implemented in the “human rights law”, the latter should be preferred. despite the explicit reference to evangelical-lutheran religion in the constitution, norwegian scholars, knut lundby and pål repstad (2018, p. 13), have argued that norwegian society, as the rest of scandinavia, can be described as having a dominating “self-understanding of liberal open-mindedness, and secularity is often taken for granted.” a part of this is that equality between the sexes is a core value, and that conflicts are usually handled in negotiations within a neo-corporatist system, between the state and collective institutions, or in open public debate (lundby & repstad, 2018). thus, a nuanced description of norway might argue that, although the constitution is based on evangelical-lutheran christianity, the society appears secularized. even if one agrees with lundby and repstad’s description, it is obvious that christianity still serves as an important reference in different parts of society that are regulated by law. this becomes evident in public and political debates about what one should accept or decline, especially when it comes to religions that are not considered norwegian/christian. in school law and curricula, christianity is still highlighted as the religious tradition that has influenced norwegian society and today is a part of “our” cultural heritage. however, the latest school reform has diluted it somewhat. in the early 1990s, minister gudmund hernes, the minister for church, education and research, representing the labour party, prepared a new education act. an important part of this work was to include all levels of public school in a legally binding document, and, in 1993, minister hernes presented a completely new core curriculum, which applied to primary, secondary, upper secondary and adult education. the core curriculum was a general national guideline, describing in depth values for the school system formulated in the education act. perspectives in the 1993 core curriculum were linked to a renewed interest in the family, internationalization, the explosion of mass media, and an emphasis on multiculturalism. religion, and especially christianity, was given an important place in the core curriculum in the first chapter, entitled the “spiritual human being”. the first sentence states that education shall be based on fundamental christian and humanistic values. it should uphold and renew our cultural heritage to provide perspective and guidance for the future (the royal ministry of education, research and church affairs, 1993, p. 7). christianity is further elaborated as “a deep current” within norway’s (our) history: changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 353–372 357 the christian faith and tradition constitute a deep current in our history – a tradition that unites us as a people across religious persuasions. it has imprinted itself on the norms, world view, concepts and art of the people. it bonds us to other peoples in the rhythm of the week and in common holidays, but is also an abiding presence in our own national traits: in architecture and music, in style and conventions, in ideas, idioms and identity. our christian and humanistic tradition places equality, human rights and rationality at the fore. social progress is sought in reason and enlightenment, and in man’s ability to create, appreciate and communicate. together, this interwoven tradition provides us with unwithering values both to orient our conduct and to organize our communities. they inspire selfless and creative efforts, and encourage honourable and courteous behaviour (the royal ministry of education, research and church affairs, 1993, p. 7). in other words, by forming society’s norms, world view, concepts and the art of the people, christianity forms the common and normal state of society and even unites people across religious persuasions. “we”, the norwegians, are united on the basis of christianity, and references to “our history” and “our christian and humanistic traditions” are applied as if all citizens share a common history. christianity is communicated as a common national narrative, serving as a starting point or the main perspective for teaching in public schools (cf. andreassen, 2014). in addition, christianity is related to humanism, to the modern nation-state and democracy, and to our cultural heritage. christianity is solely understood through content and values other than strictly religious content. christianity is a culture and it is part of the nature of this culture to understand “others”, in order to better foster tolerance which unites “us” (the norwegians) with other cultures, and it also even unites us with other religions. the core curriculum applied in the period from 1993 to 2017. in 2017, a new core curriculum was introduced. the role of christianity in norwegian society was somewhat toned down, and the reference to humanism was highlighted: “the core values are based on christian and humanist heritage and traditions” (the norwegian directorate for education and training, 2017, p. 3). the core curriculum also placed more emphasis on basic human rights. a part of that is to work with the norwegian state’s commitment towards indigenous people (in norway, the sami) and national minorities (the forest finns, jews, kvens/norwegian finns, roma (gypsies) and romani people/tater), and their right to exercise their culture, language and religion. the norwegian state has ratified international conventions, securing the rights of indigenous people and national minorities. this is also a part of the “human rights law”. the point of referring to the constitution and school curricula is to provide an example of how christian values are preserved and continued in different parts of the norwegian legal system, together with human rights. legal documents and formal practice constantly have to create a balance between the emphasis on christianity as “cultural heritage” and human rights (freedom of religion, or indigenous or national minorities’ rights). if one isolates the formal documents, it is a paradox that norwegian https://changing-sp.com/ 358 bengt-ove andreassen society is described as secularized. perhaps it captures the fact that people inhabiting the norwegian realm do not think much about religion (christianity) and, in the legal system, there is the possibility of being indifferent, as long as people are not faced with “other” religions, which appear strange or even provocative, demanding religious freedom. statements demanding religious freedom bear the risk of being characterized as radical or extreme. muslims in norway as a growing religious minority in norwegian society since the 1960s and 1970s, a general estimate is that there are about 200,000–230,000 muslims in norway, which is about 4–5% of the total population (see also bøe (2018) and bangstad (2018) for estimates). according to official statistics, there were 166,861 registered members of different muslim religious groups in 2018 (statistics norway, 2019). the muslim groups comprised 156 organizations with names referring to islam. these include the ahmadiyya, as well as sunni and shia groups. the number of muslim organizations illustrates researchers’ comments about the norwegian islamic landscape being rather fractured and polarized (cf. bangstad, 2018, p. 497). as a religious minority, muslims do not have any specific rights such as those of jews, who are formally recognized as a national minority. this is to do with the criteria for national minorities in international conventions. like any religion, islam is diverse. muslims vary, and answers to the question “what is islam?” – no matter to which source it is directed (texts, classical/canonical or others, to learned or unlearned muslims, men or women, devout or non-devout) – will probably range on a wide scale. islam in norway and europe in general, including what has been called “euro-islam”, is no exception to this. even within discernible institutionalized “islams” in the eu, islam comes in many more than one shape. muslims in the eu and the european nation states come with various languages, educational, political, ideological, socio-economical and religio-theological backgrounds, agendas and aspirations. some are sunnis, some shi’ites, some alawi. some are salafi, others wahabi, others again may be salafi-sufi. some are well integrated, others are not. the pluralism within islam in the eu also has to do with the fact that the presence of muslims and their communities has different histories in the different countries2. in some eu countries, it goes way back in time, in others it is relatively recent, and, in norway for example, islam is made up of muslims of different nationalities than those in, for example, france, holland and england. furthermore, the various muslim groups, societies and/or institutions exist within different legal frameworks and must adjust to differing regulations for the majority as well as minority religions and differing laws and policies regarding integration. in addition, a rather complex matter is whether one is dealing with institutionalized or less institutionalized forms of islam. the number 2 in the presentation of the european context, i have to some extent relied on tim jensen’s (2007b) introduction on islam in denmark. both denmark and norway are a part of the same european context, and similar tendencies can be detected in each country. this especially concerns the discourse on clothing (hijab, niqab, and burqa) and the integration of muslims in norwegian society. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 353–372 359 of muslim organizations is one thing, but there is probably is a large number of silent, unorganized, and maybe less practising, muslims, who do not belong to an organized group and thus do not have or want to have a “spokesman”. one might thus assume that this group of muslims does not want to be categorized or represented primarily as “muslims” but, instead, address themselves through ethnicity or other categories. stressing that islam is not a monolith is of course a sort of banality that can be said concerning any religious tradition. however, the need to stress the existence of many islams and muslims is even more acute, due to the sweeping generalizations and gross stereotypes central to the islamophobic debates: debates that go back long before 9/11, and debates that may have far-reaching consequences (e.g. jensen, 2003). it may be argued that continuously representing and discriminating against muslims – as “foreigners”, “newcomers”, fifth-columnists and potential terrorists, a threat to political, military and social security, and as a potential threat to “norwegian or european values”, democracy and human rights – may be highly counterproductive to integration and security. islamophobic discourses, often buying into the very interpretations of islam propagated by (militant) islamists, arguably may play a role in the making of militant, anti-western muslim fanatics. consequently, general academic efforts to describe and analyse diversities and pluralism within a religion tend to become more than an academic virtue when it comes to islam (jensen, 2007a). the politicization of islam in europe and elsewhere is, of course, associated with instances of political islams, outside and inside europe. it is, however, also a consequence of the extreme degree to which islam, for a variety of reasons, has become the most disputed issue in public and political debates in many countries. this debate is, of course, largely triggered by incidents such as 9/11 and the bombings in madrid (in 2004), and london (in 2005), and the terror attack on charlie hebdo in paris in 2015. aspects of academic research and representations of islam no doubt have been influenced by this in different ways (hughes, 2012; rennie & tite, 2008). the politicization of religion in general, and of islam in particular, leads to a kind of politicization of the academic study. as a result, the role of the religious scholar in public debate has become a crucial question within the academic study of religions (e.g. jensen, 2007b/2008; mccutcheon, 2001). any survey on islam must include a discussion about the debates or discourses on islam. some debates, current stereotypes, and uses of islam and “the muslim” as the significant other are comparable and similar, if not identical, to what has been found since the beginnings of islam. it may be hard to document and explain in detail transmissions of stereotypes. nevertheless, it may be contended that the long history of the use of islam as the significant other has provided europeans with a vast number of images and stereotypes. analysis of media and popular culture discourses, such as films, has displayed how these media provide stereotypes and set the agenda for public debate and opinion on islam and muslims. more than ten years ago, the report, images of islam in the uk (moore, mason & lewis, 2008), documented stereotypical representations of islam and muslims in british newspapers in the period from 2000 to 2008. the coverage of islam and muslims in britain was documented to be rather extensive. an analysis of 974 newspaper articles about british muslims in the british https://changing-sp.com/ 360 bengt-ove andreassen press documented how language used to describe muslims was related to negative or problematic issues. nouns used in relation to british muslims were “terrorist”, “extremist”, “islamist”, “suicide bomber” and “militant”. the most commonly used adjectives were “radical”, “fanatical”, “fundamentalist”, “extremist” and “militant”. references to radical muslims outnumbered those to moderate muslims by seventeen to one (moore, mason & lewis, 2008, p. 3). overall, 26% of the stories presented in the british media analysed islam as dangerous, backward or irrational. research from other european countries coincides with this picture (sharbrodt, 2017). in norway, a report from the directorate of integration and diversity (imdi, 2010) documented similar tendencies. the public debate concerning muslims or islam in norway has been characterized by stereotypical ideas. islam and muslims have come to represent something new, strange and even a threat to norwegian society and norwegian and christian values. discussions like these prove that a more visible muslim presence in society over recent decades has resulted in public tensions over radical islamism, (muslim) immigration and globalization, which have triggered new right-wing populism (cf. døving, 2012). in 2017, a report on attitudes towards jews and muslims in norway (hoffmann & moe, 2017, p. 11) showed that negative attitudes towards muslims are rather common. this periodically results in a difficult cultural climate for muslims. in general, the norwegian public debate about islam has revolved around issues like integration and “radicalization” and the compatibility of islam with democracy and “western values” (bangstad & elgvin, 2016, p. 515). in the public debate, clothing such as the hijab, niqab, and burqa are often referred to as examples of islam not being compatible with “norwegian” (or “western”) values (døving, 2012). in the last two decades, islam has become a central topic in norwegian politics, which it never was before. a recurring discussion has involved questions concerning clothing. i will illustrate this tendency, by drawing attention to four cases of political debate concerning muslim garments. case 1: hijab in the police in 2008, a 23-year-old woman sent a letter to the directorate of police, asking if she could wear the hijab with police uniform. the woman, an immigrant from algeria arriving norway in 2000, had, according to newspaper coverage, dreamt of becoming a police officer since she was little. however, she feared that the dream could not come true since, a few years earlier, she had decided to wear the hijab. the norwegian police university college’s admission office had earlier rejected such practice among its students. however, this request from the 23-year-old woman was directed to the norwegian directorate of police, the first time the directorate had received a letter on this matter. the question was now no longer a question of what to wear with the police uniform during education at the police university college but a principal question applying to the police uniform as such. therefore, the directorate made inquiries into how regulations regarding wearing the hijab with police uniform were dealt with in other countries. in sweden and the uk, the hijab is permitted but, in denmark, such use is not permitted. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 353–372 361 seemingly, the directorate of police’s written statement was not meant for publication. nevertheless, after intense pressure from the norwegian press, the newspaper, verdens gang (vg), got to see – and on march 4 published – the written statement, dated january 29, 2009. shortly after vg had published it, the statement was also published on the ministry’s homepage. in the statement, the leader of the directorate of police, ingelin killengreen, concluded that the hijab, adjusted to match the police uniform, should be permitted. politidirektoratet har vurdert de sikkerhetsmessige og praktiske sidene ved bruk av hijab eller annet religiøst hodeplagg som en del av politiuniformen, og kan ikke se at det ut fra slike vurderinger kan reises innvending mot dette. det forutsettes imidlertid at hodeplaggene utformes som en del av uniformen og at det finnes praktiske løsninger som forhindrer at hodeplagget kan brukes til å skade tjenestemannen/kvinnen (directorate of police, 2008). the directorate of police has assessed the safety issues and practical aspects of the use of the hijab or other religious headscarf as part of the police uniform. no objection can be raised to this. it is assumed, however, that such a headscarf should be designed as an integrated part of the uniform and that there must be practical solutions to prevent the headscarf from being used to harm the officer (directorate of police, 2008, my translation) thus, the directorate concluded: politidirektoratet er ut fra en samlet vurdering av de hensyn som er nevnt foran, positiv til at det gis anledning til å benytte religiøst hodeplagg til politiuniformen. vi mener at hensynet til å rekruttere bredt og sikre at politiet representerer alle samfunnslag uavhengig av livssyn og etnisitet, må komme foran et strengt krav til en nøytral politiuniform. based on an overall assessment of the considerations mentioned above, the directorate of police is positive that wearing a religious headscarf with police uniform will be allowed. we believe that the need to recruit widely and ensure that the police represent every layer of society, regardless of religion and ethnicity, must come before the strict requirement of a neutral police uniform (directorate of police, 2008, my translation). when the statement was published, the director of communication at the ministry of justice, gunnar a. johannessen, confirmed that “police uniform regulations shall be amended so as to provide an opportunity for the use of religious headgear along with the police uniform” (regjeringen.no, 2009a). the directorate’s acceptance of the use of the hijab with the police uniform of course caused a massive public debate. this debate brought to the surface negative attitudes towards accepting the hijab with the police uniform, seemingly among a majority of the norwegian people. in addition, https://changing-sp.com/ 362 bengt-ove andreassen the police organization, politiets fellesforbund, reacted negatively to the directorate’s decision. in a statement to the newspaper, stavanger aftenblad, the leader of the police organization, arne johannessen, stated that “the police represent the state and no other. until today, the police uniform was clean. now that time is past”3. the directorate’s statement ended with a clarification that it would be necessary to make adjustments to uniform regulations for the police. in norway, such regulations are dealt with in the cabinet and must be presented in parliament for approval and for the king to sanction. however, a proposal to change the uniform regulations never got this far. the minister of justice, representing the labour party, knut storberget, apparently affected by the public debate and public opinion, in a press release on february 20, 2009 (regjeringen.no, 2009b), stated: det er avgjørende for tilliten til politiet at etaten speiler befolkningen. vi har vurdert om en endring av politiets uniformsreglement ville bidra til økt rekruttering av folk med minoritetsbakgrunn. jeg har nå landet på at dette ikke er et egnet virkemiddel og debatten har vist at en slik endring kan svekke opplevelsen av et nøytralt politi. derfor har jeg bedt om at den videre prosessen i politidirektoratet stoppes (the royal ministry of law and police, 2009). it is essential for confidence in the police department that it reflects the population. we have considered whether a change in police uniform regulations would contribute to increased recruitment of people from minority backgrounds. i have now come to the decision that this is not a suitable measure, and the debate has shown that such a change could undermine the experience of a neutral police force. therefore, i have asked that the further process in the directorate of police be stopped (the royal ministry of law and police, 2009, my translation). minister storberget’s decision came after a period of heated public debate after the directorate of police was positive about changing uniform regulations. politicians from both left and right disagreed with the directorate; several public polls showed massive resistance to the hijab in the police, and facebook groups against hijab in the police were established and had thousands of followers. in addition, the hijab was discussed in every debate program on different tv channels. what was seemingly a small question addressed to the directorate of police by a potential police student developed in a few months to a massive public debate and obviously affected the political level. after the original positive response from the directorate, the department of justice for a long time put a lid on the case. this of course led to conspiracy theories and speculations of disagreement within the government. however, when minister storberget sent out a press release on february 20, 2009, it was clear that the massive negativity regarding the hijab in the police that had surfaced in the public debate put the minister in a difficult situation. the directorate of police, which he was politically in charge of, had made a very 3 http://www.aftenbladet.no/innenriks/982903/-_overraskende_og_meget_skuffende.html [accessed and downloaded november 18, 2010]. the link is currently dead. http://www.aftenbladet.no/innenriks/982903/-_overraskende_og_meget_skuffende.html changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 353–372 363 unpopular decision. even if the directorate’s justification was to recruit police officers from different minorities, to reflect the growing diversity in norwegian society, it did not appeal to the norwegian people, politicians or to the police. therefore, storberget’s problem was whether to listen to the directorate of police or to the opinions presented in the public debate. he chose the latter. in the press release, he even used public opinion and related it to the public’s confidence in the police. this confidence was related to a neutral police force with a neutral police uniform. a police uniform is, of course, in itself never neutral. one can, rather, consider it a symbol of the state, the executive power of the state. i perioden som har gått etter at det ble bedt om grundigere utredning i saken, er det blitt klarlagt at det er liten støtte i politietaten, befolkningen og i stortinget for å foreta endring i politiets uniformsreglement. en endring av uniformsreglementet, med en åpning for tildekking av hår, har aldri vært et mål i seg selv. det har hele tiden vært tenkt som et mulig virkemiddel for å øke rekrutteringen til politiet fra minoritetsgrupper i samfunnet (the royal ministry of law and police, 2009). in the period that has elapsed since a more thorough investigation of the case was prompted, it has become clear that there is little support in the police, the population and in parliament to make changes to police uniform regulations. a change of uniform regulations, with the opportunity to cover the hair, has never been a goal in itself. it has always been thought of as a possible means to increase the recruitment of police officers from minority groups in society (the royal ministry of law and police, 2009, my translation). an interpretation of storberget’s decision, as presented in the press release, is that an adjustment in the uniform regulations, which implies the covering of hair, is not an appropriate measure in terms of recruiting police officers with immigrant backgrounds. whether this was storberget’s point of view all along, or if his decision was a result of public opinion, is difficult to tell. nonetheless, this case clearly showed that neither the public nor the government was ready to allow the hijab – a symbol of islam, which, in the last decade, has been widely disputed and debated in europe – in the norwegian police force. in an official report (nou, 2013:1), a group appointed by the government referred to the debate in 2008 and 2009 and recommended that the hijab should be allowed in the police. however, the suggestion did not result in any changes. case 2: hijab in schools about a year after the heated public debate on the hijab in the police, and in the wake of it, a public debate regarding whether schools had the opportunity to ban headscarves in their house rules, the royal ministry of education asked the justice department for an assessment of current law. https://changing-sp.com/ 364 bengt-ove andreassen hence, the minister of education, kristin halvorsen, representing the socialist left party (abbreviated sv in norwegian), in a letter dated february 26, 2010, asked the law division of the ministry of justice to evaluate the following question: er religionsfriheten, jf. grunnloven § 2, emk artikkel 9, barnekonvensjonen artikkel 14 og den internasjonale konvensjon om sivile og politiske rettigheter artikkel 18, til hinder for å innta et forbud i ordensreglementet mot bruk av hijab? (the royal ministry of law and police, law division, 2010). is the freedom of religion, cf. constitution § 2, echr article 9, article 14 of the crc and the international covenant on civil and political rights, article 18, an obstacle to adopting a prohibition in the order of rules on the use of the hijab? (the royal ministry of law and police, law division, 2010, my translation). in addition, the ministry of education requested an answer to the questions regarding whether the education act § 2–9 and 3–7, respectively, may provide municipalities and counties with sufficient authority to establish such a ban in schools’ rules and regulations. in a 16-page-long letter, dated march 19, 2010, the law division of the ministry outlined their interpretation of national and international laws at stake in relation to prohibiting muslim students from wearing the hijab in schools. the conclusion was that such a prohibition could not be effectuated in norwegian schools (the royal ministry of law and police, law division, 2010). in the letter, the law division put special emphasis on the norwegian constitution and paragraphs ensuring freedom of religion. the law division’s assessment, however, referred to the fact that the european court of human rights (echr) had, in some cases, accepted the ban on headscarves in some countries. these decisions, however, must be contextualized to each country’s constitution, i.e. france and turkey, where there is a fundamental distinction between state and religion. this does not exist in the norwegian case, in reference to the position the evangelical-lutheran religion had before 2012 (and to some extent after). the law division’s conclusion was that, in order to be in accordance with international conventions, such as the european convention on human rights (echr), the committee on the rights of the child (crc), and the international covenant on civil and political rights, norway could not prohibit the use of the hijab in schools. nonetheless, the law division also commented that the legal situation regarding this issue was unclear. still, the conclusion was that it would not be enough to make changes in the education act to prohibit the hijab: når det gjelder spørsmålet om hjemmel for et eventuelt hijabforbud, tilsier både følgene for elevene som rammes av forbudet og det faktum at et forbud reiser spørsmål i forhold til både grunnloven og menneskerettskonvensjonene, at et generelt forbud mot bruk av hijab krever hjemmel i lov. vi antar videre at dagens hjemler i opplæringsloven neppe gir grunnlag for et generelt changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 353–372 365 forbud mot hijab i skolen. et eventuelt forbud vil også måtte vurderes opp mot lovskravet i emk (the royal ministry of law and police, law division, 2010, p. 16). the question of the authorization for any hijab ban suggests both the consequences for students who are affected by the ban and the fact that a ban raises questions in relation to both the constitution and human rights conventions that a general prohibition on the use of hijab requires statutory authorization. furthermore, we assume that the current legal basis in the education act hardly provides a basis for a general ban on headscarves in schools. any ban would also have to be weighed against the requirements of echr law (the royal ministry of law and police, law division, 2010, p. 16, my translation). in a press release on march 22, 2010, minister of education halvorsen stated that this meant that the government would not take any further measures to prohibit the hijab in norwegian schools: jeg mener lovavdelingens vurdering viser at et forbud kun mot hijab vil være diskriminerende og dermed i strid med menneskerettighetene. vurderingen viser også at opplæringsloven neppe gir hjemmel for et generelt forbud mot hijab, og loven gir heller ikke hjemmel for et generelt forbud mot alle religiøse plagg. det er ikke aktuelt for regjeringen å foreslå endringer som kan åpne for slike forbud (the royal ministry of education and research, 2010). in my view, the review by the ministry of justice shows that a ban only on the hijab would be discriminatory and thus in violation of human rights. the assessment also shows that the education act hardly provides grounds for a general ban on the hijab, and the law provides no legal basis for a general ban on all religious garments. it is not appropriate for the government to propose amendments that could open the way for such a ban (the royal ministry of education and research, 2010, my translation). the minster also explained that it was important to get an evaluation of these matters, in case any proposals to change the legislation should appear. at that time, norway had experienced an extensive debate on the hijab in the wake of the police uniform question. however, an internal debate in the socialist left party and minister halvorsen’s statements in the newspaper, dagbladet, trigged that debate. on march 2, minister halvorsen wrote: i tråd med sentrale, liberale frihetsverdier mener jeg derfor både at jeg har rett og plikt til å si ifra at det ikke er ønskelig at småjenter går med hijab. hva unge og voksne kvinner selv velger å gjøre ut fra sin tro er selvsagt en helt annen sak (halvorsen, 2010). https://changing-sp.com/ 366 bengt-ove andreassen in accordance with central, liberal values of freedom, i mean that i have both the right and the duty to say that it is not desirable that little girls wear the hijab. what young and adult women themselves choose to do, based on their faith, is, of course, a completely different matter (halvorsen, 2010). several other politicians also made similar statements and openly stated that they would consider suggesting a prohibition of the hijab in schools. in march, when the statement from the department of justice was presented, the debate on a possible prohibition of the hijab in schools was not completely silenced. the public debate on islam continued in relation to a proposition in the norwegian parliament to prohibit the niqab and burqa in public places, described in case 3 below. however, the discussion concerning banning the hijab in schools was not over. in december 2010, representatives from the political party fremskrittspartiet – a right-wing party known for their restrictive policies regarding immigrants and islam – presented a proposal to ban the hijab in primary schools (stortinget, 2010–2011a). the proposal was dealt with in the committee for church, education and research (stortinget, 2010–2011b). the discussion referred to the decision the year before and came to the same conclusion: a law against the hijab would be in conflict with the norwegian state’s commitments to basic human rights. case 3: niqab and burqa in public places on march 3, 2010, representatives, siv jensen and per willy amundsen, also from the political party fremskrittspartiet, sent a proposition to the norwegian parliament, in which they proposed prohibiting garments covering the face in public places. in the proposal to the parliament (stortinget, 2009–2010a), it is made clear that the niqab and burqa are the core issue. in their background comments, amundsen and jensen write that the niqab and burqa might be considered suppressive towards women. in addition, they emphasize that such clothing makes identification difficult and represents a hindrance when it comes to integration. in the proposition, parallels are drawn to similar proposals in several european countries, such as belgium, the netherlands, denmark, and france. after a debate in parliament, a majority supported the proposition. thus, the formal document referring to the debate (stortinget, 2009–2010b, p. 3) reads: stortinget ber regjeringen legge frem nødvendige lovforslag for å nekte å yte offentlige tjenester til personer som opptrer i heldekkende plagg. stortinget ber regjeringen legge frem nødvendige lovforslag for å forby bruk av heldekkende plagg på offentlig sted. parliament requests the government to present the necessary bill to refuse to provide public services to persons acting in full-covering garments (my translation). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 353–372 367 parliament requests the government to present the necessary bill to ban the use of full-covering garments in public places (my translation). the committee of justice in parliament dealt with the proposition (stortinget, 2009–2010b) in may 2010, and the majority voted against it. as part of the discussions, the committee had asked minister of justice knut storberget for a statement from the ministry, regarding the proposition. the minister’s written statement, dated april 21, 2010 (and also published in full on the ministry’s website), concluded with a recommendation not to accept the proposition. the minister emphasized that “there is great danger that the general ban on wearing full-covering garments in public places will be in breach of echr article 9” (stortinget, 2009–2010b, p. 7, my translation). echr article 9 addresses the freedom of religion and belief in particular, and it forms the main reason for the minister’s recommendation to abandon the proposition. however, the minister ends his statement with a quite interesting remark: bruk av heldekkende plagg som burka og niqab synes å berøre et begrenset antall kvinner i norge i dag. jeg er enig i at denne type plagg gir uttrykk for et menneske og kvinnesyn som bør motarbeides, men det er grunn til å spørre om dette gjøres best og mest effektivt gjennom andre virkemidler enn et generelt forbud mot bruk av heldekkende plagg i det offentlige rom (stortinget, 2009–2010b, p. 7). the use of full-body garments, such as the burqa and niqab, seems to apply to a limited number of women in norway today. i agree that this type of clothing provides a view of men and of women that should be opposed, but there is reason to question whether this is done best and most effectively through other means than a general prohibition against the use of full-body garments in public places (stortinget, 2009–2010b, p. 7, my translation). to some extent, minister storberget clearly expresses agreement with amundsen and jensen. he finds that the niqab and burqa should be opposed in norwegian society but not by making it illegal to wear them. in addition, the minister regards norway as committed to international conventions, which are ratified and implemented in norwegian law. a general ban might conflict with the norwegian state’s commitment to human rights concerning freedom of religion. hence, the committee of justice in parliament stopped the proposal. case 4: niqab and burqa at universities in february 2012, a professor at the uit – the arctic university of norway reached national headlines when he refused to lecture, while a student4 wearing niqab was attending (ostring, 2012). the professor said that he used his right as a lecturer to reject this student’s attendance. according to him, this was a matter of principle, and he compared the niqab with other clothing that covers a person’s face. the professor 4 the student was a woman of norwegian origin and a convert to islam. https://changing-sp.com/ 368 bengt-ove andreassen referred to the possibility of making regulations locally concerning clothing, which applied to schools, universities and university colleges. the professor’s decision created another public debate concerning the clothing of muslims, this time with reference to the niqab and burqa, garments understood as more radical than the hijab. the debate also showed that the possibility of making local regulations was interpreted and practised rather differently in schools and universities. in 2016, three representatives from the labour party sent a proposal to parliament, suggesting “national regulations that ensure that pupils’, students’ and teachers’ faces should be fully visible in schools, universities and university colleges” (stortinget, 2016–2017, my translation). the argument was the importance of good communication in teaching processes and the need for national regulations concerning this. neither the niqab nor burqa was mentioned in the proposal. in parliament’s treatment of the suggestion, it was made clear that this would especially affect garments like the niqab and burqa (stortinget, 2017–2018, p. 12). the majority of political parties and representatives agreed with the suggestion. the result was a national regulation of clothing at all levels in the norwegian education system, from kindergarten to primary, secondary and upper-secondary schools, university colleges and universities, and even private schools5. with effect from 2018, this applies to children in kindergartens, pupils in schools, students in university colleges and universities, as well as teachers. in the background document, the law division of the ministry of justice assessed the question of whether this suggestion could be a violation of human rights. the proposition emphasizes that a teaching situation is a context that makes such a ban possible: lovavdelinga meinte at forbod som er grunngitt i eit sakleg formål, som er nødvendig, og som ikkje er uforholdsmessig inngripande, ikkje vil vere i strid med trusog livssynsfridommen eller diskrimineringslovverket. lovavdelinga slo fast at praktiske utfordringar med kommunikasjonen i undervisningssituasjonen og det sosiale samværet mellom elevane, kan gjere at eit forbod mot bruk av ansiktsdekkjande plagg, som er nøytralt utforma, ikkje er i strid med menneskerettane. (stortinget, 2017–2018, p. 17) the law division argued that prohibitions that are based on a factual purpose, which are necessary, and which do not disproportionately interfere, will not be contrary to the freedom of religion or the discrimination laws. the law division stated that practical challenges with communication in the teaching situation and the social interaction between pupils may mean that a ban on the use of facecovering garments, which are neutrally designed, does not violate human rights. (stortinget, 2017–2018, p. 17, my translation) thus, the arguments that paved the way for a ban on face-covering garments was the importance of communication in teaching situations. since this is a matter of 5 in the education act for primary, secondary and upper-secondary school, the paragraph was § 9–7 (law on primary and secondary education, 1998). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 353–372 369 principle, and the law does not mention any specific garments, it can be accepted or interpreted as a regulation that does not discriminate against individuals belonging to religious groups. however, it is worth noticing that, in this case and this line of argument, the niqab and burqa are considered to be “neutrally designed”. this is clearly a new way of talking about the niqab and burqa in the norwegian political discourse. the final solution – making muslim clothing secular in the years between 2008 and 2011, there were several political and public debates about muslims and clothing. while the directorate for police was initially positive about allowing the hijab in the police (case 1), although it was understood as a “religious headscarf”, the public and political debate rejected the idea. in the year after, when the suggestions of a ban against the hijab, niqab, and burqa in public places and in schools were discussed (case 2 and 3), they were refused with reference to the norwegian state’s commitments concerning basic human rights. the final solution, to ban muslim garments, was in the educational sector (case 4), with reference to the importance of communication. the political debates and the different propositions seem to have been aimed at curtailing muslim women’s rights to wear the niqab or burqa. analysing the political debates and propositions, it is obvious that norway’s obligation to international conventions has functioned as a prevention to toughening existing laws. it is obvious to argue that politicians seem to have learned from these processes, and “finally” found a way around the human rights obligations: to define muslim garments, such as the niqab and burqa, as “neutrally designed” and to use secular arguments (the importance of communication in teaching processes). this way, it is not related to freedom of religion, and the norwegian state’s commitment to human rights is not challenged. it is about ensuring good conditions for teaching and learning. in many ways, all four cases might be interpreted as an attempt to force the use of religious symbols in the public sphere back to the private sphere. all four cases, in some way or another, illustrate the political reluctance to allowing the hijab, burqa, and niqab in public places. wearing those kinds of garments is associated with religious radicalism, which is not appreciated in norwegian society, and often addressed in public and political debates. references andreassen, b.-o. 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(2012, february 15). forbyr niqab under forelesning [to prohibit niqab during lectures]. retrieved from https://www.nordlys.no/nyheter/forbyr-niqabunder-forelesning/s/1-79-5931730 https://www.ssb.no/en/kultur-og-fritid/statistikker/trosamf https://www.nordlys.no/nyheter/forbyr-niqab-under-forelesning/s/1-79-5931730 https://www.nordlys.no/nyheter/forbyr-niqab-under-forelesning/s/1-79-5931730 changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 457–475 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.111 received 4 june 2020 © 2020 lilia m. nemchenko accepted 20 december 2020 l.m.nemchenko@urfu.ru published online 29 december 2020 article theatrical dialogue in the digital age: from director’s theatre to the theatre onscreen lilia m. nemchenko ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract thanks to its inherent nature, theatre has been better able than other artforms to resist the challenges presented by information and digital culture, which are based on the principle of reproduction. since a theatrical text is created anew each time, an audience can enter into a real-time dialogue with a concrete group of players recreating an authorial concept. this is true even when, as in director’s theatre, a director’s interpretation is performed by different acting companies. today, however, the hubris of theatre critics and enthusiasts, who value unmediated dialogue as a pre-condition of theatrical pragmatics, has collided with the novel theatrical practice of live broadcasting, which was preceded by the standalone genres of radio and television plays. as a performance art, theatre possesses characteristics of a virtual object, where the information about such an object exists only in the memories of audiences or professional critics. in becoming digitised, theatre loses its former character – the uniqueness of presence in a concrete theatrical here-and-now that can never be repeated – and acquires a new mode of existence within a movie theatre represented in russia by the theatre hd project, which translates the theatrical educational mission into the digital age by involving new participants in creative dialogue. keywords dialogue, theatrical communication, performance, theatre, director’s theatre, digital age, theatre hd https://changing-sp.com/ 458 lilia m. nemchenko introduction contemporary theatrical practice is faced by two diametrically opposing trends: on the one hand, the emergence of small-scale theatrical forms (chamber performances, theatrical laboratories, immersive theatre) that strive to reduce the distance between director, actors and audience; on the other, the beaming of theatrical performances into cinema houses, where viewers potentially number in thousands and the traditional form of theatrical dialogue between the audience and the stage disappears. here dialogue implies communication of a special type, involving a subject-to-subject relationship between the sender and the recipient. historically, dialogue was understood in terms of communication between two – and, later, three – actors in ancient greek theatre. aristotle’s theory of catharsis expanded the notion of dialogue as a reciprocal emotional connection between the audience and the dramatic action. this connection gave rise to theatre’s specific sociocultural mission: to be a podium, a socialising medium, etc. since classical antiquity, which gave birth to the professional theatre, the pragmatics of dramatic performance – and of theatre in general – was aimed at moulding civic feelings to produce an experience of unity (here voltaire’s phrase “the nation is gathered in the stalls” comes to mind). in contemporary culture, theatre acquired another dimension, being described according to marketing concepts as a product or a type of service, whose quality is evaluated by quantitative markers – in this case, an increasing audience size. thus, in a theatrical context, the concept of dialogue is used to describe the theatre’s essential function. here we can and should talk about multiple dialogic connections: for example, such dialogues exist within the text of the play, in the connections that are formed between the actor and the portrayed character, between the actor and the place of action, as well as in many other communicative functions that fuse to bind an audience to the stage. the stage itself forms the location in which multiple dialogic connections unfold to result in the creation of a performance. the performance, a constant and central feature of theatrical events, serves as a vehicle for semantic meanings both in the traditional stage/audience communicative schema, as well as in the contemporary digital approach that is based on the new communicative agents of camera and screen. the system of audience expectations has always depended on a type of theatrical communication, which, in the decades prior to the digital age, was defined in terms of the concept of director’s theatre. the concept of “director’s theatre” referred to here, following bradby and williams (1988), is analogous with the phenomenon of “auteur cinema”, in which a director takes on the role of the dominant creative figure and the ultimate “author” of the resulting piece. prior to the emergence of director’s theatre as the dominant form, theatre was characterised by a two-element system. director’s theatre overcomes the text/ actor dichotomy, replacing this duality by the playwright/actor/director triad. this development increased both the quantity and quality of dialogic connections emerging within the theatrical text, within the relationships between the actors and other actors, and in their relations to the characters – as well as to the stage itself, changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 457–475 459 which, since antoine’s théâtre libre, has become a character in its own right. thus, despite the changing components of theatrical communication, the existence of a dialogue between the audience and the performance (stage) remains both necessary and sufficient to define theatre as an art form. as a participant in a theatrical dialogue in pre-digital and digital age, the actor is always a performer, who articulates the text or performs an action. simultaneously a person signified by the text (who has to methodically construct the character based on the reading of the text) – and a person that signifies the text anew within each interpretation. according to patrice pavis (1987/1991), mimetic action creates the impression that it is the actor who creates a word or an action; in reality, these are dictated by the text, the narrative, the acting style or the improvisation. the actor plays with the spoken word, placing it according to the prescribed meaning of a miseen-scene, addressing the audience through dialogue, but without the right to answer. here, it should be noted that the experimental approaches of contemporary interactive theatre do offer the audience the right to answer: this right is provided by the new conventions that have emerged in such practices as “promenade performance” or “quest performance”, in which the traditional distinction between an actor on the stage and the audience in the theatre auditorium ceases to function. however, these kinds of interactive dialogical approaches are for now not possible in the new digitised forms. therefore, when applied to the theatre, digital technology “works” with the other participants of the dialogue – the literary or musical (as in opera or ballet) text, the skills of the actors, the audio-visual framing of the performance – but not with the audience. instead, the audience enters into a new kind of pragmatic relationship with the video director. here we are faced with a question: what type of theatre (traditional, psychological, stylised, experimental, interactive) best maintains its integrity when filmed and digitised? the analysis of the theatre hd platform shows that the earliest participants in this experiment all belonged to opera and ballet – that is, the most stylised theatrical genres. the metropolitan opera in new york, which was the first major venue to adapt its performances for cinema houses, successfully continues this practice to this day. since every new artistic phenomenon is based on human abilities, without which artistic dialogue is impossible, it is important to try to evaluate the preconditions for the successful translation of theatrical performances into video broadcasts. theatre and technologies of reproduction: resistance and acceptance throughout its millennia-long history, theatre as a social institution and an art form – along with all types of associated communication framed by stage and audience – has been in constant flux. however, one thing has remained constant: the presence of the main participants in dialogue consisting of the performance and the audience. while the semantic concepts of performance, the acting techniques and the theatre’s mission undergone constant change, theatrical pragmatics has remained almost constant: the theatre has preserved its position as a socially and culturally relevant form of communication thanks to the immediacy of theatrical interaction. https://changing-sp.com/ 460 lilia m. nemchenko the active role of the audience remains a necessary precondition for meaningful theatrical communication. according to the semiotician yury lotman, theatre is the only form that demands the existence of the physically and temporally present addressee, changing the text in response to perceptions of audience signals, e.g. silence and vocal signs of approval or disapproval (see: lotman, 1998, p. 589). unlike other art forms, which only presume an addressee (viewer, listener, etc.), theatrical performance is an open dialogue unfolding in real time, in a concrete place, in front of the audience. obviously, in translating theatrical performance on screen, the theatre’s main component – immediacy of interaction in a situational context – is irrevocably lost. screened theatre ceases to be a performance art in the critical sense that no audience is present during the actual creation of the performance. what, then, is left of the theatre if the performative quality of its art is lost? can the history of theatre help us to rediscover phenomena and trends that have predetermined its relationships with the various technologies of reproduction – auditory in radio theatre and visual in cinema, which transferred the threedimensional theatrical space into the two-dimensional frame of the screen or onedimensional auditory space of radio? the development of technologies capable of documenting and reproducing spatial and temporal art of the theatre coincides with the birth of director’s theatre, which radically changed the elements of theatrical communication increasing the complexity of interaction. the sociocultural situation of the late 19th century from which director’s theatre emerged had been shaped by the age of industrial revolution that created a new type of culture: a realist culture striving to find causal connections between the social circumstances and inner lives of characters on the basis of the development of character. in the pre-director’s theatre age, literature in general – and the authorplaywright in particular – dominated the theatrical synthesis (the sole exception was the brief emergence of commedia dell’arte that excluded dramatic narrative as a literary genre). director’s theatre, conversely, presupposes at least two authors. exploring the nature of theatre, the blogger pavel rudnev notes that pre-director’s theatre is an author’s theatre. the theatre takes a play, previously written, and tries to bring it to life as effectively as possible, filling it with the actors’ emotions. here, the actors seem to be trying to recreate the playwright’s idea, the theatrical model that he had in mind when writing the play, by carefully considering the stage directions (rudnev, 2014). it should be noted that such declamatory theatre comprises an excellent pre-processed product for radio performances. pre-director’s theatre viewed the original dramaturgical literary or music text as a representation of a universe, since this theatre existed within the confines of logocentric culture. however, the entire history of director’s theatre (from duke von meiningen’s theatre till today) was in many respects a fight against the logocentrism of creative culture (nemchenko, 2008, p. 83), one that resulted in inevitable conflicts between the playwright and the director. director’s theatre problematised the relationship to the literary text offering the director opportunity to become something more than just an changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 457–475 461 interpreter of the dramatic text: a reader, a narrator, a literary critic and an architect of theatrical space. for konstantin stanislavsky, when the stage ceased to be a podium for reenaction to become a living world (rudnitsky, 1981, p. 42), the key artistic component was authenticity (physical, historical or psychological). in this context, written words became transformed into the organic psychological and physical expression of an actor/character. conversely, for vsevolod meyerhod, authenticity – as well as the text itself – were excluded from aesthetic principles. meyerhold’s concept of stylised theatre offered a new convention of communication with the audience. in place of forms in which an actor played a preacher and the stage formed a kind of a pulpit, he turned to theatrical forms such as the medieval street theatre, the travelling show, and the circus. the resultant critique of contemporary theatre – aimed especially at the psychological theatre – addressed all the main elements of theatrical synthesis: playwriting, acting and scenography. according to meyerhold’s stylised approach, the power of the theatre’s primaeval elements consists in the power of the masque, gesture, movement and intrigue (meyerhold, 1968, р. 213). in replacing psychological theatre with stylised acting methods, meyerhold carried out a reduction of the theatrical language, which was typical for the avantgarde artistic practices in general. meyerhold’s aesthetic revolution coincided with the avant-garde upheaval in art, when the development of new artistic languages went hand in hand with changes in artistic pragmatics: now art was supposed to take the audience’s perception into serious consideration by consciously constructing it. meyerhold considered that stylised theatre produces a type of performance in which the audience, comprising a fourth creative element in stylised theatre (after playwright, actors and director), actively uses its collective imagination to creatively fill in the hints presented on the stage (meyerhold, 1968, p. 212). similar ideas can be found in the manifestos of antonin artaud, who proclaimed that, in adding a different language to the language of words, he was trying to recreate its ancient magical power (see: artaud, 1938/1993, p. 121). some of those who oppose the translation of theatre onscreen interpret this process as a destruction of the communicative field uniting the stage with the audience, which was established in director’s theatre, seeing it as a return towards the stage that preceded director’s theatre, the obligatory “fourth wall” now represented in the form of a screen. it was director’s theatre that proclaimed the radical shift in the spectator’s position within theatrical communication. the elimination of stage lights, which had served as a kind of wall between the audience and the stage, made it possible to draw the spectator into the action as an additional medium of expression. by becoming involved in the dramatic action themselves, the audience was transformed into an indispensable participant, whose absence would make a performance impossible. antonin artaud describes the uniqueness of each concrete performance as one of the characteristics of theatrical communication, which strives to become a meaningful one-act event subject to all demands and sharing all circumstances, in which chance plays an important role (artaud, 1938/1993, p. 189). https://changing-sp.com/ 462 lilia m. nemchenko this characteristic of every single performance is also described by meyerhold through the concept of the variability of a theatrical text, in which performance can be interpreted as a specific invariant realised through a number of other variants (see: lotman, 1998, p. 589). alongside the co-creation enacted by the actors and the spectators, we can discuss the relationships emerging within the audience. in this case, the recipient of theatrical communication is not represented by an isolated individual spectator, but rather by the audience as an organic whole. according to anne ubersfeld, the spectator is never alone: while watching the performance, his gaze also touches upon other spectators, whose gazes, in turn, touch upon him. thus, as a psychodrama and a type of social interaction, theatre holds both of these paradoxical threads in its hands (ubersfeld, 1992, p. 196). exploring theatrical communication, lotman drew particular attention to the specific “theatrical vision”, which focuses on the “as if” existing stage objects and excludes “as if” non-existing ones (a sound technician sitting across, the ropes holding the stage sets, the neighbouring spectators) (see: lotman, 1998, p. 589). it is exactly these non-existent stage objects that would become the elements of theatrical synthesis when translating performance onscreen. how the theatre supported screen art the development of screen-based artforms was partially supported by the theatre. thus, performances produced according to biomechanical principles were based not on the spectator’s psychological involvement, but rather relied on the pragmatics of stage acting preferring it to the pragmatics of emotional immersion. in these performances constructed as a fixed system of mise-en-scènes, close shots and editing, we may establish a connection between meyerhold’s theatre and the new cinematic artform. movement, which was one of the main discoveries of cinema, dominated meyerhold’s theatrical performances. by referring to movement, the director developed artistic techniques that no longer required the actors to produce emotions to “inject” into the audience. unlike psychological theatre, the logic of narrative movement did not represent a linear narrative; rather, it followed the temporal and rhythmical structure of separate episodes, as can be seen in nikolay gogol’s revisor (the government inspector), alexsander griboedov’s gore ot uma (woe from wit) and others. referencing cinema, the director compared episodes with the wide shot, changing the scenes according to lighting and musical rhythms. in refusing to use figurative stage sets (the stage as a podium), he provided audiences with an opportunity to focus on the energy produced by actors’ bodies. one of meyerhold’s constructive techniques was to break the whole into its parts, a play into its episodes: for example, noting that alexander ostrovsky’s five acts were divided into 33 episodes contraposed to each other, providing great advantages in terms of influencing audiences (meyerhold, 1936/2016, p. 715). thus, the editing principle employed to organise the theatrical reality (space and time) was realised within the gamut of director’s theatre. the theatrical experiments changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 457–475 463 themselves typically dealt not only with an interpretation of a literary text, but with a new understanding of the theatrical performance as a spectacle created on the basis of laws of technical production, a spectacle that could organise society in a certain way by shifting the consciousness of its audience. editing as an expression of the discreet nature of events and of the fragmented nature of the world was understood as the operative structure of art. it is not by chance that the young theatrical innovators who would later move to cinema – grigori kozintsev, leonid trauberg, sergey eisenstein – were interested in music halls, variety performances and circus. what united these artistic practices was their rejection of a plot: the whole was constructed rhythmically rather than thematically. eisenstein even noted that cinema comprises the current and next phase of the theatre (eisenstein, 1997, p. 2). according to oksana bulgakowa, editing in theatre was understood in two ways. one was to follow an approach developed by the constructivists, who applied the concept of construction to all artistic phenomena (depending on the specific area, differences existed only in the materials subjected to disassembling and assembling, as well as in the corresponding techniques utilised for the purpose) and interpreted such construction as a combination of ready-made parts of architecture, performative episodes or film editing. on the other hand, theatre borrowed the idea of editing from cinematic art, but only in one aspect – as a tool for creating multi-plot narrative structures with parallel lines of action. viewed from this angle, editing in theatre does not differ substantially from editing in cinema (bulgakowa, 1988, p. 99). theatrical editing was almost always presented as a destruction of narrative dramaturgical continuum, as a division of a single storyline into different episodes. this resulted in the bouncing and syncopal rhythm of the performance, with breakages, segmentations and new assemblages, as well as in the possibility to transfer action from one plane to another, from the aesthetic reality to non-aesthetic one. the use of dynamic connections/ jumps between the planes and of unexpected transitions inside the performance is interpreted as an organising principle (bulgakowa, 1988, p. 103). meyerhold’s cut-and-edit theatre transformed the stage into a complicated mechanism that could be observed without an emotional response to what was going on: the emotions provoked were mostly those of astonishment and delight in the precision of the actors’ movements and the director’s inventiveness. since meyerhold was not interested in the traditional movements of the soul, atmosphere, stage breathing, half-tones used in psychological theatre, the director’s stylised theatrical aesthetics became a nourishing medium for future onscreen translations. interestingly, video recordings of rehearsals and fragments of performances by stanislavsky and meyerhold preserved in gosfilmofond provoke very different impressions: the film medium has turned anton chekhov's characters played by great maria lilina, olga chekhova, vasily kachalov and ivan moskvin into the wonderful and expressive performers of the text; however, these recordings completely fail to communicate the revolutionary character of stanislavsky’s innovations. on the contrary, video recordings of meyerhold’s the government inspector showcase the biomechanical capabilities when we witness the pantomime of the postmaster with letters spilling out of his clothes, the intricate movements of khlestakov’s hands taking the bribes or https://changing-sp.com/ 464 lilia m. nemchenko the functional construction of nine doors corresponding to the number of scenes in the performance. the bribe episode was developed by meyerhold in the technique of eccentric clownery. the action begins when all the nine stage set doors halfopen simultaneously, the hands of the officials reaching through to offer wads of cash. combined with the architecture of the stage set and the close shots of miseen-scenes, the acting techniques employed by igor ilyinsky, erast garin and vasily zaychikov resemble popular eccentric comedies of the silent film era featuring max linder, buster keaton, charlie chaplin and harold lloyd. while the greatness and the innovative character of moscow art theatre (mat) performances is beyond doubt, the only sources of information apart from photographs that we have about them are critical pieces written by the spectators and theatre historians. in this respect, video recording of the performance adds nothing to the stories about the performance: on the contrary, the stories become fuller and richer because they provide us with the differing viewpoints. mat video archives present theatrical works as an ethnographic material lacking any grounding. it is possible that the very nature of mat texts resisted video recording due to the lack of specific shooting techniques. cinema shines when there is an external movement; the cameras of the early 20th century could not preserve and transmit the internal movements. conversely, meyerhold’s archives perfectly correspond with the descriptions of his performances, even preserving the capability of producing an emotional response. this is due to the fact that the various manipulations – grotesque, extravaganza and pantomime – are all techniques that transmit movement, making them more accessible to cinema. another reason why meyerhold’s fragments were successfully translated onto film (it is a great regret that so few of these pieces have been preserved) is that the director followed the logic of musical development subjecting lighting and imagery to this principle. rigorous use of time and space required an economy of movements, stark precision, mathematically calculated concordance between the actors, a merging with the performance’s collective and choral principle: these are the achievements that allowed a theatrical text to be translated onscreen. this principle also applies to the brechtian performances, in which the theatrical text carries an intellectual rather than psychological load. the archive of brechtian performances (cinematic fragments from the “berlin ensemble” repertoire, robert sturua’s production of the caucasian chalk circle at the tbilisi shota rustaveli theatre, recordings of yury lyubimov’s productions) prove that the more rational the organisation of the performance and the more open its structure, the better suited it is to be transferred from the theatrical space into other media. the development of director’s theatre with its anti-aristotelian stance resulted in the accentuation of separate elements of theatrical synthesis and the accentuation of visual, musical and plastic components of the performance. this practice of differentiating and re-integrating different elements of theatrical performance produced a new theory of theatre, described by the concept of “postdramatic theatre” developed by hans-thies lehmann in application to theatrical developments after the 1960s (lehmann, 1999/2013, p. 76). according to pavel rudnev, lehmann changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 457–475 465 logically and terminologically draws upon the theatrical practices of brecht and mueller, artaud, kantor and grotowski, presenting post-drama not as a sudden fad but as a logically inevitable development of bertolt brecht’s anti-aristotelian stance that had emerged as a result of the rejection of the duplication of reality in psychological theatre (rudnev, 2013). thus, postdramatic theatre ceases to be text-centric, treats mimesis with suspicion and, in this respect, inherits the traditions of stylised theatre. lehmann also characterises the general scheme of the movement towards post-drama in terms of a movement from the theatre-story to the theatre-drama (lehmann, 1999/2013, p. 76). in the theatrical synthesis, the idea of an actor as a central character is also to be treated with suspicion. an actor, according to lehmann, is no longer merely an actor, but rather a “performer”, who offers his presence on stage for contemplation. thus, theatre audiences do not witness acting that mimics real-life role-relationships, but rather a real living human being performing a chain or a bundle of actions, which serves the same function for performance as tricks in the circus. in other words, here is we are dealing with an actual action, not a theatrical image of an action (ibid.). lehmann’s theory legitimises the artistic practices of grotowski, who, in striving to find sincerity in theatre, realised that it can be achieved by abolishing the source of the lie – that is, the role. based on the experience of director’s theatre, lehmann shows that the postdramatic theatre changes the relationships between the theatre and the everyday life. director’s theatre, as a theatre of interpretation, has always relied on the relative border between the performance and the everyday life. in this way, postdramatic theatre equalises both the everyday and the theatrical spaces. according to gilles deleuze, even the most mechanical, routinised, habitual, stereotypical repetition finds its place in a work of art. this is because a repetition is always dislocated relative to other repetitions if it manages to extract a difference out of them. for deleuze, there is no other aesthetic problem than that of the insertion of art into everyday life. the more our daily life appears standardised, stereotyped and subject to an accelerated reproduction of objects of consumption, the more art must be injected into it in order to extract from it that little difference which plays simultaneously between other levels of repetition (see: deleuze, 1969/1998, p. 293). it is worth noting that theatre has traditionally tended to be seen as in opposition to the everyday life: both in its spatial organisation, in the regulation of the audience’s behaviour, and of course in the spectacle itself. cinema, that emerged as a democratic art and that interests us a technology of translation of the theatrical text onscreen, also offered a set of rules to regulate communication, but not practices of the everyday (food in the cinema hall, regular clothing, etc.). the theatrical text: means of preservation the question concerning how to preserve the value of theatrical statements – including concrete performances – has been always complicated by the situational nature of the theatrical event – and, therefore, of theatrical communication itself. during the 20th century, theatre was presented with the possibility of documenting its events through filming and radio broadcasting. however, many theatrical https://changing-sp.com/ 466 lilia m. nemchenko professionals treated filming techniques with a certain contempt. a symptomatic example of such attitude concerns the story of alexander shiryaev, a dancing teacher who also performed at the mariinsky theatre. shiryaev, who understood the possibilities of filming ballet dancing, asked the direction of the imperial theatres for the permission to film standalone dances and entire performances. however, his request was categorically rejected by the theatre management. as a result, alexander shiryaev became a pioneer of puppet animation: his desire to film dance was stronger than any prohibition. while the theatre was sceptical in its treatment of new cinematic possibilities, this latter new art form, conversely, interpreted theatre as an event to be screened, as a readily available “raw material” of film. here, dancing was especially attractive. cinema’s uniqueness among other art forms lay in its possibility to reproduce and document, to preserve time through the movements of the camera. as an art of movement, dance corresponded directly with cinema’s core characteristic. we know that the lumière brothers were enchanted by the dancing of loie fuller, as testified by their danse serpentine [serpentine dance]. according to alla kovgan, director, video artist, curator and founder of russian kinotanets [cinema dance] dance festival, cinema was “born to dance”. kovgan thus considers all great cinema directors to be choreographers in some way (vasenina, 2016). the dialogue between theatre and cinema depended on the technical capabilities of the latter. while silent cinema experimented with video dances, sound cinema explored and developed its capabilities through music-based theatrical genres, such as musicals. kovgan explores the pre-wwii american musical films based on their two central figures: fred astaire and choreographer busby berkeley. for the former, the screen provided only technical means to an end, while the latter treated it as an expressive medium in its own right. thus, according to ekaterina vasenina, when playing roles in his own movies, astaire stipulated that the shots should be life-sized and with minimal number of cuts – as a result, astaire’s routines were often single-shot. although astaire was not particularly interested in cinema language, he had a clear understanding that he was working in film, not on the theatrical stage. vasenina remarks that astaire had an absolutely remarkable feeling of space and borders of the frame. understanding that time has a different meaning in cinema compared to the stage, his routines were never overlong (vasenina, 2016). in this respect, the american director-choreographer busby berkley was the complete opposite of astaire. according vasenina, his first love was the cinema: his routines were only possible on-screen. showing no interest in the uniqueness or virtuosity of individual dancers, he selected dancers of the same height and similar appearance, insisting on them having the same facial expression. with as many as a hundred girls on set at once, he made them practice ad nauseam, arranging them in geometrical shapes and then replacing the shapes with graphical lines (ibid.). this use of dance would facilitate the further development of cinematic language. not by chance, avant-garde cinema explored the other art forms, such as abstractionism in painting and drawing or cubism (ballet mécanique [mechanical ballet] by fernand changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 457–475 467 leger, diagonal-symphonie by viking eggeling, rhythmus 21 by hans richter, study nr. 6 and optical poem by oscar fishinger). since a theatrical text is created anew every time, its documentation is always problematic: what can be reproduced in theatre? of course, it is a verbal dimension expressed in word/sound. radio theatre it has already been mentioned previously that the development of the theatrical language within director’s theatre coincided with the industrial – and, later, technological – revolution. although, the new technologies for communication and information transmission were originally used solely for utilitarian purposes, very soon the creative and expressive capabilities of radio began to be explored. quite naturally, artistic radio broadcasts turned to the performance arts – and, therefore, to the theatre. radio theatre is the result of the first proper “meeting” of a theatrical play and media. real-time broadcasting of performances and the rapidly emerging new genre of radio drama, functioned, on the one hand, as a redacted version of live theatre; on the other, as a means of preserving and archiving. in radio plays, theatre returned to its pre-director’s past, with the actors performing in service to literature. however, according to pavis, when electroacoustic explorations are combined with the strict rules of theatrical drama, the result is a highly powerful and original work, proving that radio drama is already an established genre with a bright future ahead of it (pavis, 1987/1991). the pragmatics of radio theatre is found in its educational mission. it is not by chance that the first soviet radio dramas dealt with historical characters or broadcasted ideological proclamations. for example, the first radio drama in russia (1925) vecher u marii bolkonskoy [evening at maria bolkonskaya’s] was dedicated to the 100-year anniversary of the decembrist uprising, while the years of the first five-year plans saw the performances of torf [peat] by arseny tarkovsky, which explained to the audience why it was important to mine peat and protect the forests. when staging tarkovsky’s poem, director osip abdulov historically grounded peat mining by using the text of the decree issued by peter the great, who had first launched peat harvesting in russia. during their heyday, radio plays attracted far larger audiences than traditional live theatre performances. the democratisation of the audience presupposed a reliance on famous actors, especially on who possessed recognisable and unique voices. the perceiving subject found him/herself in a situation of behavioural freedom: freedom of movement, freedom to fill in a theatrical image carried by voice and sound. thus, for years the voice of nikolay litvinov became the popular voice of soviet storytelling. the 1960s were a decade that saw many famous directors working on radio – for example, anatoly efros who produced plays featuring vladimir vysotsky: first kamennyi gost’ [the stone guest] and later martin eden. the 1980s began with the portrait of dorian grey, a radio play produced by anatoly vasiliev, where the main voices belonged to vsevolod meyerhold’s actress maria babanova, and innokenty smoktunovsky. the practice of radio drama reproduced specific ways of working with the text, where the lack of immediate connection with the audience and https://changing-sp.com/ 468 lilia m. nemchenko elimination of the physical space of the auditorium was compensated by the freedom of association and the immersion in the semantics of voice which carried not only the traces of biological body (anatomical, vegetative, hormonal), but also, in the view of oksana bulgakowa, allowed a “localisation” of a socio-historical body, providing information on social background, upbringing and class reflected in orthoepy and prosody (bulgakowa, 2015, p. 3). according to roland barthes, the sensation brought by the sound of a familiar voice in radio play is akin to the pleasure of finding the flesh of the voice that had died in the text (barthes, 1989, p. 283). television theatre comprising yet another channel for documenting/archiving theatre, television, like radio, developed from the technology for news transmission towards an exploration of artistic capabilities. here the theatrical performance again becomes a readymade product transferred onscreen as a recording, a process later to be followed by the emergence of a new theatrical genre: the television play. becoming a part of a television program, theatre acquired a new communicative form, a form of “prelumière cinema” – that is, a form of individual viewing. by being transferred onscreen, theatre and all its elements – the actors, the playwright, and the director – address the viewer directly in his or her everyday space. the television play broke everyday monotony, allowing the viewer to enter a festive space. however, when performances are shown in a non-specialised space, they must attract the viewers and hold their attention by changing their original temporal and rhythmical characteristics. the educational mission of television drama is obvious both in the scope of its audience, and in the way it introduced the viewers to the famous and, more importantly, less famous texts, directors’ concepts and acting achievements. the lack of immediate dialogue with the audience is replaced by an opportunity to see in detail the staging, the actors, the reaction of live audience, if the play is recorded. this opportunity emerged thanks to the use of close-up shots discovered by the film. however, according to pavis, since close-ups are designed for a small screen, a theatrical director working with the pre-existing theatre or television play can either choose to reduce the most prominent theatrical features using cinema effects to make acting and staging appear more natural, or, conversely, to accentuate these features (pavis, 1987/1991). on the one hand, the audience of television drama is freed from the disciplinary practices of theatre auditorium – on the other, it is “non-free” compared to the spectator in the theatre, because its experience is conditioned by the pre-arranged semantic accents added by the producer and the operator through camera movements and editing. it is in the tele-theatre, where the most important methods of on-screen existence of a theatrical text, such as framing, close-ups and master shots, were worked through. theatre hd the theatre hd project is a logical extension of the cultural transformations of the 20th and 21st centuries, when theatre has entered the space of old (analogue) and new (digital) media, encountering and being transformed by the cinematic changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 457–475 469 experience, participating in the development of a new artistic language, and later taking part in radio and television experiments. at least two forms of theatre can be seen in practices of tele-theatre: live streaming (direct broadcast of a theatrical performance) and an innovative form (creation of a new genre), where the teleperformance becomes a synthesis of theatre and technical mass media. thus, theatre hd is based first of all on the broadcasting tradition. the name given to this means of organising a theatrical event in anglo-american discourse is “event cinema”, pointing not so much towards the characteristics of a theatre event translated onto screen, but rather in terms of its nature as a cinema event, when all the elements are changed: from public to content (the peculiarities of the “event cinema” are well documented in the materials of the live cinema conference at king’s college london on 27 may 2016 (atkinson & kennedy, 2016b). systematic analysis of live theatre broadcast as an emergent hybrid form is still in development. among the few academic publications on the topic, martin barker’s (barker, 2013) and lauren hitchman’s (hitchman, 2018) studies can be mentioned. for instance, hitchman engages the discourse of remediation and the ideological contexts of “liveness” (following benjamin and frederic jameson), noting that the live theatre broadcast can be seen as an attempt to transpose the stage onto the screen. … this transposition is not as neutral as might first be assumed, and is, instead, a form of adaptation. in the process of adaptation, the live theatre broadcast becomes a new medium, one with its own ontology and, resultantly, its own unique mode of audience perception (hitchman, 2018, p. 183). the theatre hd project translates performances of the top world theatres to the large screens of cinema houses across the globe (here we are talking about the performances of the metropolitan opera, uk’s national theatre, royal shakespeare theatre, the globe, la comédie-française, bolshoy theatre, etc. digital technologies not only provide a communication bridge between the theatrical text and the audience, which was already possible in the tele-theatre, but also an experience of the audience and performance as co-existing in a single space. this way, “event cinema” becomes interesting not only as an object of market studies (as a growing market segment), but also in terms of its aesthetic qualities and impacts on the audience experience (see: atkinson & kennedy, 2016b). naturally, this project has provoked sceptical reactions from conservative theatrical critics, who believe that theatre can only exist as an unmediated communication with the audience. the pronouncements of western critics were essentially the same as those of their russian counterparts: “the critics argued that you could never capture the heartbeat of a live production, that if you couldn’t smell the brylcreem to be showered in spittle sitting in the front row, then it wasn’t the real thing” (battersby, 2016). however, the project’s success shows that the critics’ fear of massification and mechanical reproduction of theatrical art turned into mass product proved to be unfounded, as expressed in the newspaper headlines, such as: “live theatre on the big screen: the fear that streaming plays in cinemas would https://changing-sp.com/ 470 lilia m. nemchenko cannibalise theatre sales has largely been disproven” (ibid.). first and foremost, this project performs an educational mission by enlarging the theatrical audience. matilda battersby notices the democratic character of the project only regarding one theatre, the nt: in seven years, 6 million people have watched nt live productions and its reach has grown to more than 2,000 cinemas in 55 different countries. it streams not just from its own theatre but from affiliate stages from the wyndham and the garrick, to the old vic and manchester international festival (battersby, 2016). the project overcomes the oppositions of centre/periphery and homeland/ overseas, bringing the best global theatre performances everywhere. “the audience for a single live broadcast of a shakespeare production by the rsc is about the same as the audience for an entire year at the royal shakespeare theatre in stratford.” that’s according to the rsc’s deputy artistic director erica whyman, who was speaking at the recent british theatre in hard times conference. “the upside is so massive and the exponential reach so great that we can change who the audience is,” said whyman (gardner, 2015). the project has been operating in russia since 2006, when the metropolitan opera first started streaming its performances. in 2009, the british royal theatre also began digitalising its performances; in 2012, the russian company coolconnections launched its broadcasts of world masterpieces, beginning with the performance of frankenstein staged by danny boyle for the royal national theatre. during its 4-season run, the performance was watched by 58,000 spectators in 70 cinema houses across russia, including in moscow, saint petersburg, kaliningrad, voronezh, yekaterinburg, and novosibirsk. undoubtedly, the project’s success was assured not only by the names of danny boyle and jonny lee miller, but also by benedict cumberbatch. in addition to its educational mission, theatre hd performs another important service: since the broadcasts are streamed in real time (taking into account time zones), it provides awareness of global humanist solidarity. in this case, we can see the shift in theatrical communication: instead of the simple audience/stage dialogue, there is a more complex, mediated encounter with the performance, where the director, the playwright, the broadcast producer and audience are united through the screen. just like director’s theatre created a new author in addition to the playwright, theatre hd creates a new communication between the theatrical director and broadcast producer. theatre hd project is a complex process of creating a new performance, since it is not possible to just set up a few cameras and expect a piece of theatre to work onscreen. “we have to give an experience to an audience that is better than in the theatre,” says tim van someren, a camera director who has captured as you like it, frankenstein and war horse for nt live. “i do mean ‘better’, because in cinema you’re guided. you won’t get splattered by blood in macbeth, but we will show you the best moments” (battersby, 2016). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 457–475 471 the effect of “being present” at a performance achieved in cinematic broadcasts is not just a technical gimmick; rather, it is a new form of communication that has to be analysed. how is this effect created – the effect in which the “fourth wall” destroyed by the avant-garde director’s theatre is replaced by the screen? nelly kogut, a researcher specialising in theatre in the digital age, proposes to describe the theatre hd phenomenon through the concept of “medialised theatre” (kogut, 2019). medialised theatre that utilises cinematic and screen tools operates not by using an event itself – that is, an object on screen – but rather with the characteristics of an image. the audience enjoys a feeling of “being present” at the performance because broadcasts utilise six or seven cameras positioned at various points throughout the auditorium: usually two or three cameras are positioned on rails at the centre and on both sides of the stalls allowing them to move about one and a half meter to the right or to the left while simultaneously zooming and making turns. at the centre of the stalls there is another camera on crane spanning the space inside the stage and above it, allowing to create expressive panorama shots. the other cameras are positioned throughout the stalls, and sometimes on the balconies; they are mostly used to create wide static shots (see: kogut, 2019). the theatre hd project not only changes the form of theatrical communication by replacing the traditional dialogue with a simulated presence in virtual space, but also qualitatively solves the issue of preserving the theatrical text, which, at the time of great actors and playwrights remained only in literary memoirs of their contemporaries. the theorists and practitioners of mediated theatre, such as radio and television theatre, accepted the drawbacks of the unmediated dialogue with the audience while centring their experiments on the improvement of technical possibilities of transmission. brecht already wanted to make the listener not just the one who listens, not to isolate him but to engage him into a relationship (see: brecht, 2014, p. 19). walter benjamin, who had experienced radio work, also meditated on the necessity and possibility to connect with the audience when introducing the concept of mediated communication as an immediacy of any spiritual communication, calling it magical (see: benjamin, 2012, p. 10). this immediacy is virtual and depends on technical capabilities. theatre hd’s cardinal difference from television play is not so much the fact that it transfers theatrical texts from the private into the public sphere, but, rather, that it manages to overcome the impenetrability of the television screen that had destroyed the traditional theatrical dialogue. the technical capabilities of theatre hd allow the audience to become actual witnesses of a theatrical event, since in broadcasts all mise-en-scenes are amplified: the cinema viewer experiences the performance as more perfect, because it does not depend any more on his or her place being at the gallery or in the stalls. theatre hd and television drama have one factor in common: the performances chosen for broadcasting tend to be the successful ones, staged by the famous directors and starring the top actors. by broadcasting the performances, the project’s authors perform an operation of translating the works that do not belong to mass culture in https://changing-sp.com/ 472 lilia m. nemchenko terms of their content into the space of mass culture, which relies on reproduction for its existence. both television plays and theatre hd share their education mission and attract wider audiences to the theatre. conclusion the starting point of this research was the problem of theatre’s existence in the digital age. can the theatre remain a theatre without an immediate interaction between the audience and the stage? • theatre is an art without a permanent text; an art based on dialogic relationships between the stage and the audience. a dialogue is a communicative form grounded in subject-to-subject relationship. the conducted research brings us to the conclusion that the entire history of theatre, from antiquity to theatre hd, is a history of increasing the complexity of the connections and the number of participants in a dialogue. • the history of theatre was described as following the three stages: predirector’s, director’s and postdramatic theatre. • the participants in the pre-director’s theatre included the playwright, the actors and the audience. this type of theatre was dominated by the dramaturgical principle (with the rare exception of commedia dell’arte). • director’s theatre complicates communicative connections through the introduction of a new dialogue participant (the director), who, in turn, recreates the theatre’s synthetic nature turning literature into a spectacle, a performance. avant-garde theatre of the early 20th century activates a dialogue with the audience by destroying the “fourth wall”. it was the director’s avant-garde theatre that developed the techniques of action breaks, editing, defamiliarisation (see: chubarov, 2018, p. 233), producing an illusion of “being present” in the digital incarnation of theatre. • as predecessors of theatre hd, radio theatre and television theatre are similar in their ability to penetrate the most private spaces. in terms of the development of theatrical language, radio plays and television plays relied on models that represented the shift from the pre-director’s to director’s theatre and from the pre-lumière to the lumière cinema. • television play is a direct predecessor of theatre hd. here we witness the emergence of a new communicative partner – that is, a television screen that destroys the dialogue between the stage and the audience. theatre hd is a project launched in 2006. its goal is to livestream the best theatrical productions by renowned venues in cinema houses. the radical novelty of this project lies in the simultaneous unfolding of theatrical performance and cinema broadcasting, thus creating an experience of being present within the theatrical dialogue. the project’s educational mission is obvious, as testified by the scope of its audience: a new audience is formed that is interested in the “sense of shared changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 457–475 473 experience, the value of being part of a shared community with shared tastes” (atkinson & kennedy, 2016b). it also created a new technique for documenting the theatrical text. the viewer becomes a participant in a dialogical 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(1992). iz knigi “shkola zritelya” [from the book “school of the spectator”]. in s. a. isaev (ed.), kak vsegda – ob avangarde. antologiya frantsuzskogo teatral’nogo avangarda [as always – about the avant-garde. anthology of the french avant-garde theatre] (pp. 196–201). moscow: tpf soyuzteatr. https://changing-sp.com/ http://pavelrudnev.livejournal.com/1572288.html http://pavelrudnev.livejournal.com/1572288.html https://teatral-online.ru/news/12595/ https://teatral-online.ru/news/12595/ http://oteatre.info/kogda-kino-tantsuet changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 296–314 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.2.176 received 4 june 2021 © 2022 aireen grace t. andal accepted 20 may 2022 airengrace.andal@mq.edu.au published online 11 july 2022 article coastal bodies and childhood memories: exploring baby boomers’ gendered memories of the waterfront in virac, catanduanes aireen grace t. andal macquarie university, sydney, australia ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract this work examines childhood memories of baby boomers in the municipality of virac, catanduanes island (philippines) to examine gender dynamics in virac’s seascapes. through drawing together donna haraway’s (1988) notion of partial perspectives and frigga haug’s (1987) memory-work, this article shows the entanglement between the fragmented memories of boomers and the gendered waterfront of virac. employing unstructured interviews, this work presents the meanings and imaginations of the waterfront beyond being economic and industrial spaces. three relevant discussions emerged from this interest: first, the boomers’ narratives demonstrate how coastal femininities and masculinities are constructed in relation to bodies; second, in contrast to the masculine dismissal of emotions and desires, women’s emotion-bound memories show potentials in navigating the symbolic meanings of bodies in relation to virac’s waterfront spaces; and third, memories recognise the past as a plurality of subjective meanings, with the waterfront as a relational space. these observations suggest that the waterfront and its contours work together to create remembered narratives that animate and shape virac’s waterscapes. this work is an invitation to provoke further thoughts and engage in alternative methods in making visible hidden gendered processes in hidden spaces. keywords waterfront, memory-work, feminist geography, gender https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 296–314 297 introduction the bicol region of the philippines is surrounded by waterscapes—the lamon bay in the north, visayan sea in the south, the pacific ocean in the east, and sibuyan sea in the west. bicol’s history is saturated by century-long maritime disputes and boat wars since the eighteenth century due to malay maritime raiding and piracy in southeast asia (mallari, 1986; warren, 2007). these events have been understood through masculine discourses down to the contemporary maritime industry and port traffic flows (see blair & robertson, 1906/1973; mallari, 1989; non, 1993). commerce has flourished through trade interaction via waters, whether it is along riversides and the near-by coasts in pre-colonial philippines or further across the seas and oceans as the route of galleon ships during spanish colonisation (gumba, 2015). of particular interest is virac, a municipality in the island-province of catanduanes in bicol, because of its maritime history. for a long time, virac had the only port in the island of catanduanes, making it the centre of trade and travel point in the island. during world war ii, the waterfront in virac was filled by passenger-cargo ships. right after world war ii, the former ships of the us military dominated the philippine shipping industry (baños, 2021), followed by the emergence of newly constructed railways and roads for trains and buses, respectively (the trucks, 2016). the narratives that couch virac and its region suggest a distinct privileging of masculine constructs of strength and rationalism to represent waterfronts, in which the ideas of global market capitalism “are a masculine fiction that presumes that all individuals are self-reliant, thereby disregarding the critical importance of care” (kumagai, 2020, p. 57). to this end, this work interrogates whether the masculine constructs of virac’s waterfront history resonate with lived realities. it shifts the focus from seeing the waterfront of virac as a mere economic site to spaces invested with meaning to different people. focusing on the childhood memories of viracnon1 women who spent their childhood along bodies of water, this work asks: how are waterfronts remembered and (re)constructed as gendered spaces? the aim is to have a retrospective visit on how viracnons make sense of the waterfront areas in catanduanes as a way to have an alternative understanding of virac’s historical transformation beyond an economic lens (nora, 1989). waterfront, in this paper, particularly refers to the coast of virac, catanduanes island, philippines. geographies of memory this article uses memory as an important tool to engage with the spatial sketches of virac’s waterfront history (hoelscher & alderman, 2004; nora, 1989). as shotter (1984) argues, the capacity to remember enables human agency to reinterpret because memory is where ‘‘past specificatory activities are linked to current specifiability— which makes for intentionality, and gives a ‘directionality’ to mental activities’’ (p. 208). personal experiences generate narratives that are products of both memory and 1 people of virac call themselves viracnons. https://changing-sp.com/ 298 aireen grace t. andal imagination as they are entangled with each other in telling personal stories. randall (2013) refers to this as a process of “narrative reflection” (p. 9) or looking back as a way to imagine the future, embracing perpetual change, and thinking that the ending of our narratives remains open. in view of memory as a reconstructive process (legg, 2007), the past is inevitably reinvented and reimagined, thereby not the exact replica of what happened (schacter, 1996). autobiographical recollections bring about recreated past events which “enable us to bring to the present that which is past (memoria), but never the thing itself, only its reconstructed image in personal terms (fantasia), and always in the context of our continuously evolving systems of self-constructions” (neimeyer & metzler, 1994, p. 130). the seascapes of virac make a vibrant case for examining memories of places because of their liminal character within the human-nature interface (preston-whyte, 2004). being an “anomalous category”, the sea is an open slate that is “overloaded with potential meanings” (fiske et al., 1987, as cited in azaryahu, 2005, p. 120). the non-fixity of seascapes challenges the notion of stability and permanence not only in terms of human’s relations to places but also in memory, alluding to the question on what kinds of memories are created in such “fluid” environments. such liminal qualities of the sea are even evident in the uncertainties found in applying legal measures in international waters and property issues in maritime territories (mallari, 1986; warren, 2007). this paper regards waterfront areas as “primal landscapes” 2 or “meaning-laden places where we explored, played, and tried to make sense of the world around us-form a primal landscape from which we compare and interpret future landscapes” (measham, 2006, p. 433). instead of landscapes, however, the waterfront becomes the centre of analysis as a memory-laden place where individuals create experiences and meanings to eventually remember, recreate, and reinvent. moreover, the focus on seascape memories contributes to the uneven literature that mostly discusses narratives related to landscapes and specific inland geographical sites such as monuments, buildings, cultural landscapes, and historical figures (see alderman, 2010; hayden, 1995; hoskins, 2007; johnson, 2012). studies on memories and waterscapes usually hinge on the discourse of temporariness related to tourists’ site visits and beach vacations (see baerenholdt et al., 2004; finlay et al., 2015; hein, 2016). this escapist lens frames the seaside as “a departure from normality” (elborough, 2010, p. 227), in which visitors experience the seaside only as a temporary place where “the stress of normal working lives is temporarily suspended, cultures merge, egalitarianism flourishes, and bonds of friendship are forged” (preston-whyte, 2004, p. 349). this work diverges from such memory-work of the seaside by shifting away from tourist experience and capturing the meaning-making and memories of those whose lives are daily intertwined with the sea. the memories of seascapes can be instructive in understanding how the sea is beyond a mere body of water and instead comprises waterbound spaces linked to life, history, and memory. 2 the term “primal landscape” was first coined by d. gayton (1996) in landscapes of the interior: re-explorations of nature and human spirit.. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 296–314 299 gender and memory work an important focus of this work is the memories of women who grew up in virac. guided by feminist geographies, this work builds on placing emphasis on the “voices and perspectives of women so that we might begin to hear the unheard and unimagined’’ (reinharz, 1992, p. 19). specifically, this work echoes feminist geographers who use emotion and affect as orientations to destabilise the gendered assumptions in knowledge production—masculine as rational and scientific and feminine as “biased, subjective or, worse, political” (mcdowell, 1992, p. 404; see also davidson et al., 2005; davidson & milligan, 2004; longhurst, 2001; mcdowell, 1999; smith et al., 2009). as deborah thien (2005) argues, emotions and affect have been devalued in favour of “reasonable scholarship” (p. 450). deviating from masculine rhetorics of logic and structure in virac, this work “document[s] transgressions” (boyer, 2004, p. 170) that open up a space for the discontinuity of the institutionalised historicisation of virac through letting women to “speakfor-themselves” (bornat & diamond, 2007, p. 21). this approach also resonates with the feminist criticism against positivism in the 1980s and the recognition of subjectivity as an analytical approach to advance research (stanley & wise, 1983; stephens, 2010). the memories of women thus serve as a way to provide “critiques and methods for examining the functions and effects of any structure or grid of regularity that we put into place” (st. pierre & pillow, 2000, p. 6). in analysing memories, this work adopts two different yet mutually reinforcing approaches: donna haraway’s (1988) notions of partial perspectives and frigga haug’s (1987) concept of memory-work. drawing from the experiences of women’s situated memories, this paper shows the link between the embodied self and virac’s waterfront, thus presenting the complicated entanglement of gendered bodies and seas. partial perspectives through memories are celebrated as a “privilege” rather than a “deficit” (haraway, 1988), which opens an opportunity to reveal silences and tensions that universal knowledge glosses over (haug, 1992). applying the wisdom of partial perspectives to a memory-work approach, this paper highlights the active processes through which women’s memories are informed by their past lived experiences in virac’s waterfront. aside from mere collection of personal and cultural meanings from women’s recollections, such an approach also “enables the connecting of personal narratives and experiences with social structures bringing to the fore relations of power and how they impact on body and place” (bryant & livholts, 2015, p. 193). although memory-work has been criticised for being “coloured by subjectivity” (reinharz, 1992), it is precisely the aim of memory-work to take into account subjectivities and sensitivities of individuals and their sense of being-in-the-world (farrar, 2001). as crawford et al. (1992) puts it, ‘‘the underlying theory is that subjectively significant events, events which are remembered, and the way they are subsequently constructed, play an important part in the construction of self’’ (p. 37). such an approach bolsters a meaningful access to the past of virac’s women. to be clear, this paper takes memory-work in its broadest sense, which is analysing memories as a way to reimagine events of the past. this paper does not engage in a collaborative reworking of personal https://changing-sp.com/ 300 aireen grace t. andal memories of both the participants and researcher (see crawford et al., 1992). finally, late childhood recollections are at the centre of discussion in examining waterfront memories since the exploration of past childhoods from autoethnographic and oral history approaches offers resources for reimagining how history can be differently conceived, how relationships between the sea and virac’s people can be understood in more complex terms, and how childhood memories can interact with waterfront spaces. participants: women baby boomers baby boomers represent the generation born after world war ii (1946–1964). public discourse about baby boomers often describes them to have benefited “from educational and welfare systems which they now seem intent to deny future generations” (phillipson et al., 2008, para. 4.9). however, such characterisations of baby boomers overlook their intra-generational heterogeneity. for instance, while baby boomers from middle class households had been well-served by a flourishing economy and education, others grew up facing struggles of poverty and low levels of education, ending up in casualised jobs and precarious work that resembles what is now considered a “gig economy” (france et al., 2018; morgan & nelligan, 2018). the case of boomers in virac provides an interesting case as they had spent their childhoods in a context far from the mainstream childhoods of boomers, that is, in a postwar transition of an island. today, this generation is entering their older years, carrying memories of their childhood in virac. this raises the importance of accounting for boomers’ memories as they carry unique substance, which are not to be reduced in a homogenised generational narrative. in this regard, the childhood memories of women from virac challenge the veracity of claims made around the legacies of the baby boomer generation. through semi-structured interviews with 12 women baby boomers who grew up in virac, catanduanes, this work presents an oral history of the attributes of childhood meanings of waterfronts in a context of changing island spaces after wwii. all participants identify as a woman, former girl (younger self at 8–12 years old) and female, and such terms are used throughout the article. the statements originally expressed in the participant’s local language were translated by the author. childhood memories serve as points of analysis to articulate unheard narratives and alternative histories (neimeyer & metzler, 1994) of virac’s postwar waterfront, to find paths toward understanding the present differently and to map out possible future imaginations of the virac waterfront. since memory is a reconstructive process (schacter, 1996), baby boomers’ recollections of virac waterfront areas render reinterpretations and recreations of prose narratives that reflect truthful accounts of what they held important in their remote past of the waterfront. the interviews not only provide retrospective narratives of the waterfront but also share a specific generational perspective. such an approach offers a way for reimagining how waterfront experiences during the postwar era can be differently conceived, how relationships between participants in the island can be understood in more complex terms, or how childhood memories can interact with blue spaces. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 296–314 301 memories of the waterfront: coastal femininities and masculinities feminine gaze and the macho port in the participants’ memories, the body serves as a relevant aspect of gendered inclusions and exclusions in seaports. the gendered space of the maritime industry has always been visible to the boomers growing up. according to the participants, the port community—port labourers, retailers, ship crew—embraced the narrative of the port as a “masculine” space due to the physically demanding nature of port activities. for example, big bodies are associated with power because of their ability to carry huge and heavy shipping equipment. based on the bodily structures and voice presence of muscled men in the port, the boomers as girls were able to construct their version of what they call “macho men”. the dominance of muscular male bodies saturated the sightscapes of the port, playing the central roles in the port’s imagery. these men were either ship manual workers or kargador, referring to those whose primary role was to carry ship items. men in uniform, however, receive a different attention. the ship captain and his uniformed crew received more reverence and respect from the women islanders as their constant subjects of admiration. as one boomer says, “boys would love to be captains and girls would like to marry captains” (66 years old). young boys would dream about being a ship captain and girls would fantasise getting married to a captain. some participants remember their “puberty crush” being a ship crew. as young girls, the boomers also looked up to their teenage sisters, who have influenced how the participants look at men’s bodies. since masculine bodies in the port were a regular visuality going to school, their older sisters developed attraction to these frequently idealised bodies, thereby also shaping the participants’ views of men’s bodies as subjects of desire. at the same time, however, the boomers remember mocking some men without a “macho” body. one participant even admitted: i fantasised about muscular bodies in my early puberty, especially when i see sea crews. i compared them to “skeleton” [very thin] boys in school. i have to admit, i judged them [skeleton boys] and thought they rose from the dead. i was drawn to older men because of my sea crew crushes (63 years old). not only did the girls witness teen girls’ desires unfold before their eyes, these “role model” teens have also shaped their standards of women’s femininity and beauty. for instance, the way they place gravity to the term “responsible” meant balancing between independence and maintaining the demeanour of a fragile body since physically strong women are viewed as “un-feminine”. if you’re hopelessly in love with a man, you should not grow your armpit hair or present traditionally masculine activities but you should not be a damsel in distress and carry your own weight too (64 years old). the teenage girls whom boomers look up to enjoyed being fashionable, which reinforced the idea that being a woman has strict standards to follow whilst also being https://changing-sp.com/ 302 aireen grace t. andal intelligent, curious, and strong. as such, they kept on the beauty ideals of fair skin and straight hair. the boomers had the idea of spatialising hair and skin colour. when i see a woman in a darker shade of skin, i can tell from her background that she’s poor, probably works in a farm, street vendor, or just exposed to the heat of the sun every single day. i did not want to have darker skin because i did not want to look poor (61 years old). feminine performance also required that men’s bodies be gazed at in public space but adored privately. the boomers had to shape their views of men’s bodies secretly, alone or with a small group of friends. girls were not expected to objectify, even compliment, men or boys as this would appear off-putting as they were only allowed certain forms of public display of attraction. girls and women were to suppress anger and frustration, and just smile and take it when men disrespect them to down to the core of their souls (68 years old). i wanted to be safely perceived as not “wild” but i understand the feeling of having to keep my thoughts and emotions hidden. i felt overlooked, and i indeed was. still am, i guess. i sometimes feel like i should warn others [women] (66 years old). macho women in the seaside market the femininity assumed in female bodies might seem imperceptible to the glamorised hugeness of the ocean and ships in ports. however, while the female body can be a subject of weakness, it can also be a position of power. the participants themselves recognise the roles of women in the seaside markets, which are integral parts of the everyday transactions and survival of the market. specifically, women were the leaders in market informalities in the seaside, which is a terrain of intellectual sources. six participants have mothers who work in the port, including food retail, micro-credit, and marine-based craftworks. as one participant mentioned: men have macho bodies but my mother has a “macho brain” in seafood retail. i guess, many people did not realise that being in the seaside market requires not only physical strength but also intelligence and strategy development, and at times compassion (68 years old). the participants remember the seaside markets as a territory of women’s intellect. whereas the coastal market’s narrative operates in logic of business deals and transactions, the feminine informal economy in virac were sources of emotional support, knowledge, and sound advice in the market. for example, one big role women played in the seaside market was having informal micro-credit businesses. instead of turning to big loan sharks for borrowing money, local people in virac preferred informal credit businesses run by women not only for lower interest rates but also for financial literacy. big credit businesses had been predatory, exploitative, and never lenient in changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 296–314 303 deadlines for borrowers. in contrast, women micro-creditors provided an opportunity for people to access small loans with reasonable interests. as a loaner, my mother never profited from others’ hardships and miseries. as a loaning woman, she could have easily milked out cash from them but she chose not to (63 years old). not only did local people benefit from access to alternative loaning schemes, but they also accessed financial knowledge, albeit informal, through women loan providers. although small-scale, women in informal microcredit businesses gave free financial advice and information to local people in virac. women loaners shared necessary tips to save money, prepare for children’s education, and be financially stable in old age. moreover, women in the seaside market were skilled bargainers and negotiators— skills that overshadow physical abilities. the participants recall that as young girls, they have seen and felt how trusted women were by fishermen in terms of monetary dialogues in seafood retail. women seafood retailers were dependable in having fair pricing as they did not haggle for lower prices compared to bigger businesses that push local fishermen to sell their catches for cheaper amounts. my father was a fisherman and manay [general term for an older woman] has always helped him in finding other buyers. she has never taken advantage of my father, especially when his catches were not the best (65 years old). most women in fish retail also prioritised small fishermen as suppliers over big companies. they even helped fishermen to contact local diners/eateries so that they can compete against big fishing companies in supplying catches to diners. through “word of mouth”, women retailers gave positive testimonies to hook up local fishermen with diners and even restaurants as suppliers of fish. however, some women were sometimes impolite negotiators, especially when they thought that the situation was unfair. one boomer recalls: but they do explode too! i remember a woman in the market who expressed her resistance to give some drunk men who want to get inihaw na isda [grilled fish] from her street food stall in the market (63 years old). a “soft” port? on the flip side of seeing subversions of masculine powers, the boomers remember their interest in men who show transgressions against gendered expectations, which they described as “macho men with soft spots”. for the boomers, “soft spots” mean showing vulnerability and fragility, departing from the narrative of strength and control, and instead shapes a space for compassion and emotions. this takes place in two specific scenarios—leaving and arriving at the port. the waterfront and ships became symbols of both connection and obstacles that unify and break families apart. when overseas male workers such as seafarers or soldiers arrive, the port becomes a space https://changing-sp.com/ 304 aireen grace t. andal of happiness as families rejoice and celebrate for the momentary reunion. yet, when the seafarers need to leave, the port transforms into a space of loss, fear, sadness, and insecurity. in both situations, men show emotions—bittersweet smiles, fear of uncertainty, parting tears—demonstrating “caring masculinities” (tarrant, 2020, p. 347). this veers away from the hegemonic masculinities of domination and emotional suppression (hooks, 20043). my father was a seaman and we just see him twice a year. when i look at the port, i remember my mother crying. it was sad. until now, the port reminds me of fearing that my father won’t be back (63 years old). men showing vulnerability also manifested among those whose families were separated by labour migration. a small number of men and children were left by women in the household to work in the city as domestic helpers. overseas employment for women has changed the meaning of motherhood among families. women’s physical bodies and strength have been relegated to bodies-that-provide while men’s bodies became bodies-that-care. and while hegemonic masculinities entail the image of men surrounded by women at their disposal, there are men abandoned by their female partners. in being separated by the sea, the bodies of men and women acquired new meanings—bravery, sacrifice, and sometimes, betrayal. the waterfront has served as a dividing line between family members, which eventually shifted the dynamics within families’ roles. when my mother left us to work, my father actually encouraged me to be as equal as him, even to take responsibility in the family. he took my opinions very seriously. he told me that when we get money or tasty food, it’s through my mother’s earnings (62 years old). confusion on the forbidden coastlines in their childhood, the participants remember the port as a place for adults. some waterfront spaces were off-limits to children such as the so-called inuman [drinking pubs] and pimp spaces. alcohol houses are places where men go to have an alcoholic drink called “tuba” or fermented coconut sap. inuman in virac located near the ports, open at night and can accommodate up to 15 people. as the participants remember: my father and his friends usually go to inuman [drinking pubs] to relax before going home. however, sometimes, they could not get in because it is full (65 years old). one time, my mother went to the inuman angrily because my father spent his money on drinks while we did not have enough for food (62 years old). 3 feminist, political activist bell hooks refusing to capitalise the letters of her name to subvert grammar prescriptivism. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 296–314 305 the pimp spaces are informal areas near the bay where pimps wait to match male clients with female sex workers. as brokers for sex work services offered by female sex workers, pimps usually talk to men tourists or shipping crew arriving from ports. while there are also local clients in virac, they pay less and sex workers get into more trouble if they entertain local men. as many of the participants recall, pimp spaces are considered sinful but practical. none of the participants have directly met a pimp but one of them was friends with a sex worker’s sister, and she recalls: my friend’s sister got into trouble for hanging out with a man whose wife was a war-freak. at that time, she was not very skilled in dealing with people. she was, maybe, 18 and she could have got skilled in sensing which clients are worth going for but she had no idea. they didn’t pay her enough, but she needed money. it’s not easy being poor (65 years old). such forbidden coastlines were where the participants came to understand female bodies as sexualised. the process of remembering about the waterfront usually leads to a condemnation of threats to safety. as some boomers explained, they were surprised at the number of times they recalled about their fear of sexual harassment. the participants felt conflicted over the feeling of disapproving the choice to be a sex worker on the one hand, and frustration that women on their island are being exploited due to their economically difficult situation, on the other. such situations influenced their identity and therefore their actions and strategies to be protective of themselves and their younger female siblings. interestingly, some participants initially hesitated to retell the stories of forbidden coastal spaces because they do not want to portray themselves, and generally girls in virac, as transgressors of restricted spaces. however, they said that there is no point in hiding such memories because it is worth remembering every part of virac—the beautiful, the ugly, and the in-betweens. the participants’ memories of the unfamiliar spaces of alcohol houses and pimp spaces provide an interesting retrospective account to the times they did not know about these places. but at the same time the participants appreciate the eye-opening realities of their seascapes as they associate forbidden spaces with growing up, “real world”, and even as a necessity. the participants mostly remembered gradually learning why some spaces were forbidden. this gives glimpses of changes in their constructs of the waterfront, from the mystery of “adult only” spaces transitioning to these spaces as unfortunate and sinful. faith, fantasies, and fears at the beach the water serves as an important part of religious celebrations and fiestas in virac. for instance, the fluvial procession of the penafrancia feast to celebrate the life of virgin mary is a shared memory among the boomers. this ritual involves making boats and placing virgin mary’s icon for a floating procession. this kind of feminine celebration is not uncommon in the history of pre-colonial bicol, in which femininity has played a big role in ancient practices. spiritual rituals involved feminine roles in worshipping a god called gugurang who lived in kamurawayan [heaven] is worshipped (roces, 1980). https://changing-sp.com/ 306 aireen grace t. andal to worship gugurang, an effeminate priestess, asog, together with a female assistant, baliana, leads a ritual called atang, in which people offer best harvests from the land and sea to gugurang in order to have their petitions granted or to demonstrate gratitude for answered prayers (san antonio, 1977; as cited in mintz, 1971/2019). another important dimension of the boomers’ childhood in virac’s waterfront is linked to how strongly they integrate their lived and fantasised childhoods with water. the participants expressed their desire to relive the interruption of reality through waterrelated myths like local sea mermaids and other sea monsters. while they did not have actual sensory experiences with such mythical creatures, these fantasies are real in their memories. since the water was part of their everyday sight, it is not surprising to expect the loss of mystery surrounding the sea. however, the water has remained partly bewildering because of the myths about it. for instance, the boomers remember believing that sea fairies attempt to reclaim the sacred parts of the waters against trespassing humans. while these fantasies were privately imagined in their minds, the boomers have experienced understanding and appreciating their culture’s folklore, bringing back the mystery of water. meanwhile, the participants also remember the feeling of fear of mythological creatures. for instance, in virac, the aswang is usually described as a shape-shifting creature who eats human flesh and has the power to change itself into animals or other forms. this mythical creature is a common object of fear in philippine folklore. another example is the notion of engkanto, which refers to any mythical creature with supernatural powers such as fairies or elves. however, the participants also expressed their frustrations over their fear of “evil” mythical creatures tagged as females such as the aswang. this image contradicts the charm they have seen growing up in the port, seaside market, or along the shores. this created a tension between the myths and realities for the boomers, underpinning the clashes in beliefs and expectations about women’s roles in society. finally, the participants also expressed their concern that such myths are not only part of their childhood but also of virac’s history and heritage. however, they are concerned that such existing myths and folktales are not officially recorded and will finally fade in time. discussion: bodies, subjectivities, and messy memories this section articulates the situatedness of the waterfront as necessarily gendered. the memories of women baby boomers presented hitherto are departures from the conventional approaches in understanding the waterfront as mere shipping route and economic zone. the location of the waterfront and its contours—built environments, moving bodies, and all cultural exigencies and conditions—work together to create remembered narratives that animate and shape virac’s waterscapes. bodies the boomers’ narratives demonstrate how coastal women creatively imagine and re-imagine their coastal femininities and masculinities and understand their social space in relation to their bodies. taking haraway’s critique of “disembodied scientific objectivity” (1988, p. 576), the memories of boomers are body-specific within a given changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 296–314 307 site, engaging in the exploration of body, sexuality, and subjectivity. the boomers themselves were able to identify the importance of exploring gendered bodies in the everyday coastal spaces, and the ways in which they were involved in constructing their understanding of their own bodies and of others’. such memories also illustrate transgressions of bodily binaries and meanings, revealing the complexity of bodies beyond feminine-masculine dichotomy. the participants were also able to witness different contexts of both reinforcing and challenging traditional gender roles through bodies. for instance, there was the presence of feminine bodies in ports but at the same time sex workers continued to be exploited in the same space. in folktales, women’s bodies are sources of both fear (imaginaries of aswang) and reverence (graven image of virgin mary). in addition, the boomers described how they used masculine bodies as objects of interest. all these point to an exploration of the irregularities in femininity-masculinity dynamics through bodies. their memories, based on an influx of experiences, demonstrate that femininity and masculinity oscillate from one space to another. for instance, the boomers’ narratives demonstrated resistance to the limited masculine constructions that foster domination and exclusions. rather, their memories elucidate masculinities that form a space of “care”. also, the term “macho” has gained new meaning through women-led informalities in the seaside market. through their recollections of the waterfront, the boomers have made sense of the meanings given to gendered bodies. the female body’s identity in the waterfront revealed the multiple and often conflicting gendered roles of women such as gazers of male bodies, sources of wisdom, sexualised beings, family providers among others. such multiple roles show the ties between the waterfront and gender as fragments of broader contexts captured in moments of memories—the port, seaside market, and beach made them recall their gendered past. for instance, the narratives highlight the importance of overseas rural–urban migration for that shift coastal women’s labour identities. as haug (1987) puts it, “everything remembered constitutes a relevant trace— precisely because it is remembered for the formation of identity” (p. 50). the boomers, as embodied subjects, remember the integrated flow of gendered identities through their own bodies and bodies of others. moreover, the waterfront offers an alternative space to articulate the link between bodies, spaces, and gender by challenging the literature in which gendered spaces are typically observed at home or workplace. these narratives in this work demonstrated homemaking in virac as both feminine and masculine through the memories of leaving and arriving at the port; the waterfront has been shown to inflect home, identity, and belonging in virac. this suggests a complicated dialogue between women’s bodily mobility and immobility. thus, the sea becomes the entrance to where bodies navigate different gender dynamics as demonstrated in the contrast between the sea and home, rendering a deeper understanding of domestic life in virac. subjectivities the memories shared by participants have made salient the role of the subjectivities and emotions they attach to the waterfront in shaping their identities, thereby showing the affective dimensions of the waterfront in women’s lives. this resonates with haraway’s (1988) critique of the scientific ideals in favour of partial perspectives not https://changing-sp.com/ 308 aireen grace t. andal as a weakness to be overcome, but as an advantage to be celebrated. in contrast to the masculine dismissal of emotions and desires, women’s emotion-bound memories have shown the potential of navigating the symbolic meanings of bodies moving through the virac’s waterfront spaces. emotion-oriented geographies of memory offer insights into the ways the boomers remember the waterfront as a matrix of interaction between the self and gendered spaces, instead of being mere transportation and trading routes. this approach counterpoises the neoliberal logics that normalise waterfronts as mainly economic zones. the boomers used their personal desire, pride, curiosity, confusion, faith, fear, and fantasies to access their memories of the waterfront. the most remembered memories are informed by a strong sense of joy, excitement, disgust, regret, surprise associated with the waterfront, enabling the participants to embark on a backward journey across the waterscapes that influenced their worldviews. the tensions and contradictions in the boomers’ memories about gendered bodies in the waterfront are indicative of their personal relationships with multiple layers of the waterfront in the past. for example, through remembering emotions, the actions of going and returning to the port suggests more than tangible movements of people and ships. rather, such actions underpin intimacy that goes out and returns when loved ones leave or go back to virac. likewise, the role of women micro-creditors as financial advisers goes beyond professional relationships. this is also instructive to understanding the notion of intimacy as having a plurality and varied meanings in their domestic relationships. as a participant stressed out: you may have read in history books about virac, about our population, fishing economy, and all those typhoons. but the views of viracnons’ about their own place is an emotional experience you can’t read in books or newspapers (68 years old). multiple, messy pasts finally, the memories shared in this work challenge the often-dichotomised categories of gender practices as traditional or defiant. rather, the memories shared in work recast gender and gendered spaces as fragmented lived experiences—both demonstrating disruptions of dominant gender narratives (e.g., vulnerable masculinities) to a continuity of traditional gendered practices (e.g., feminine beauty standards). on the one hand, the memories shared by boomers challenged the universalist and urban-centric constructions of feminism and homogenous representations of rural women (pini et al., 2020). whereas in western feminist geography, home can be a vilified location that is associated with restrictions (espino et al., 2012), the boomers’ homes were spaces of desire as opposed to the sea as a space of separation. but on the other hand, it is important to understand the uni-dimensionality of the waterfront spaces as working concomitantly to locate male agency and privilege throughout the cultural waterscapes, simultaneously downplaying women’s diverse experiences. although the port, seaside market, and beach reveal layers of femininities and masculinities, these spaces also show the emphasis on men’s visibility and women’s hidden roles in these places. more changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 296–314 309 than the materiality of the waterfront, it is the messy spatial tensions between the memory-holder and space that are remembered (see hetherington, 1997). as such, in contrast to historicism’s official recording of the past, memories’ partial perspective lay bare “hidden dimensions” (hughes & lury, 2013, p. 797) that impart another perspective, one that lends an ear away from the intentions of linear history. the patchworks of memories in this article recognise the past as a plurality of subjective meanings, treating memories of the waterfront as an interactive web of relations. notably, this captures haug’s vision for memory work as “the process whereby individuals construct themselves into existing social relations” (1987, p. 33). the memories shared here are fluid, in which instability is ever present behind the narratives of the waterfront. the idea of moving through space with memories is one that engages more directly with questions of perpetual interpretations and reinterpretations. that relationality extends to inquiries about the past as much as it does to current social practices. not only do the details in the boomers’ memories change per individual, but so do the reasons why such memories are remembered. the boomers have conveyed their memories in a way that the past appeared in their trivial experiences, which shaped their relationship with the waterfront. this calls for the willingness to be comfortable with ambivalence in retelling histories. there is no one coherent narrative that the boomers’ memories follow in their stories. as a collection of fragmented memories with sediment patterns of practices embedded in the fabric of the waterfront, virac lends itself to being seen as an “archive” of patchworks documented over time to be a collection of memories that remain fragmented but nonetheless resonate at present. showing the traces of the virac waterfront from a framework of partiality reveals that while memories are reinforced by historical processes such as economic development and urbanisation, these memories are nonetheless constructed through the constellations of partial memories. not only did the port, the coast layout, and the seaside market become a part of the parietal perspectives in virac, but so did the more hidden and restricted places. this allows for new perspectives on the waterfront to surface, which can challenge or disrupt conventional narratives and representations of virac. a participant has even expressed the same sentiment in saying: imagine telling these stories to researchers only to end up narrating my story bound to be “repackaged” or twisted to align in favour of what they have previously read or believed about virac’s history (65 years old). conclusion the memories shared in this work are more than time capsules of the boomers’ childhoods. memories can unfold many ignored realities, some of which even challenge dominant public historicism. the boomers’ memories of the waterfront remain relevant because they offer an alternative way of seeing virac’s history. the memories concerning the gendered spaces of virac’s waterfront show the potential of partial perspectives to guide historical knowledge. memories shared in this work https://changing-sp.com/ 310 aireen grace t. andal are not only linked to specific geographic spaces along the waterfront but are rather extended to the tensions of feminine and masculine identities, reflecting the range of gendered practices for further exploration. the women boomers of virac serve as enablers to turn our gaze to the waterfront’s gendered spatiality. dismissing the multiplicity of women’s views runs the risk of flattening and oversimplifying a rather entangled waterscape. as reinharz (1992) puts it, there are “women’s ways [emphasis added] of knowing’’ (p. 4). subjectivities and emotions are specifically relevant to how the boomers’ memories cement in particular spaces, which extend through time. by ignoring gender dynamics, what remains is only a decontextualised understanding of the waterfront’s reality in virac. to this end, the potential of research on marginal areas, in particular islands will require acknowledgements of partial perspectives as legitimate epistemological stances. it seems daring to navigate knowledge generation from hidden voices, perhaps even rebellious. such concerns generate messy and painful dialogues but are nonetheless necessary to understand deeper the intricate link between gendered spaces and memories. such ideas have already 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http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.4.084 received 11 november 2019 © 2019 sergei v. sokolov accepted 20 december 2019 sokolovsv@urfu.ru published online 6 january 2020 article between barbarism and progress: enlightenment historical writings on a major conflict in russian history sergei v. sokolov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the dichotomy of barbarism and progress has long been a focal point for the discussions about russia’s past and present. the discourse on russian barbarism had been known in europe since at least 16th century, but enlightenment thinkers gave it a new shape by juxtaposing the ancient conception of barbarism with the rather modern idea of progress. in this article, enlightenment historical writings are examined; the focus is on the question of how russian history was studied in order to find signs of barbarism and the different guises of progress. the primary sources for the article are mainly russian historical writings; however, relations and interactions between russian and european intellectuals, as well as intellectual exchange and influence, are also noted. as there were no word “civilization” in 18th-century russian, enlightenment was deemed by russian thinkers as the antipode to barbarism. it is concluded that most enlightenment writers saw christianization as a step forward from barbarism in russian history. parallels between russia and scandinavia as they were drawn by august schlözer are also analyzed. the article shows how the idea of conflict between barbarism and progress altered the understanding of russian history in the enlightenment. keywords barbarism, civilization, progress, the enlightenment, intellectual history, historical writings, christianization, scandinavia acknowledgements this work was supported by the russian science foundation under the grant no. 18-18-00216. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 388–406 389 introduction the discourse on issues of barbarism and civilization in relation to russia have been well studied in the recent academic literature. several volumes containing quite thorough research into the subject have appeared over the last three decades (scheidegger, 1993; wolff, 1994; poe, 2001; velizhev, 2019). there is also an endless list of less comprehensive academic and popular books and articles dedicated to the search for russia’s place among civilized or underdeveloped nations with assessments of the various primary and secondary sources. however, despite how massive the literature is, there is still a lack of works discussing the ways in which ideas of barbarism and progress were used in the study of russian history during the enlightenment. this caesura is the reason i decided to join the international horde of scholars by making a small contribution to this astonishingly dense field. as is obvious, the subject of barbarism, progress, and civilization in russia is infinitely greater than the scope of a journal article. i have no intention of offering a comprehensive treatment of the subject. my goal is to study an enlightenment perspective on barbarism and its opposites (enlightenment or civilization) in russia’s history with an emphasis on interpretations of the conflict between barbarism and progress. in other words, this study is focused on the enlightenment vision of barbarism and civilization in the russian past, the numerous meanings that the term barbarism had, and the role of the phenomena in country’s history. i will try to show divergent opinions on the history of russian society and its change (or inability to change) from barbaric to civilized. historical treatises on russia which lack the word barbarism or challenge the idea that russia was once a barbaric commonwealth are also worthy of note. in this work, i will pursue the goals and approaches usual for intellectual history. probably, the most useful methodological approaches belong to the german and anglo-saxon schools: here, i refer to the german school of reinhart koselleck (begriffsgeschichte) and the cambridge-born anglo-saxon “history of concepts” (the main figures of which are quentin skinner and john pocock). both approaches are relevant for my study, but skinner and pocock’s methods will be employed to a greater extent. skinner’s methodology has won wide acclaim in russian academia in recent years (timofeev, 2015) and has seen great success in studies of political ideas and social processes (bugrov, 2015; redin & soboleva, 2017; prikazchikova, 2018), and even in the studies of administrative development (kiselev & graber, 2015; lazarev, 2017) during the russian enlightenment. this study is mainly based on 18th-century russian historical writings, as russia’s history was rarely examined closely in other european languages during the enlightenment. there is another reason for the choice of source base: different european traditions and languages in the 18th century possessed slightly different understandings of civilization and progress. in french, civilization was more often used to talk about education and the refinement of manners (the french word civilisation was often translated as “polished” in 18th-century english); in britain, civilization was more about economics, the perception of civil rights, industrial development, and https://changing-sp.com/ 390 sergei v. sokolov social progress; and in german the term had close ties with culture and the nation’s spirit (velizhev, 2019, pp. 34–50). the types of historical writings used in this study vary from long narratives (tatishchev, 1768; shcherbatov, 1770; karamzin, 1818) to reviews and publicist works (boltin, 1788; karamzin, 1991). it is difficult to draw a line between academic and amateur enlightenment historical writing. both groups are studied together in the russian historiography, since the works of non-professional and professional historians had much in common in the 18th century. it is necessary to describe how barbarism in russian history was categorized, which nations were considered barbaric, and on which occasions the term was applied. it is also necessary to provide a comparative perspective. that means observing how historical russians, their society, customs, etc., were juxtaposed to or equated with neighboring nations and societies. the primary sources mostly originate between 1750 and 1820. although the word barbarism can be encountered in the connection to russian history before 1750, the idea of a conflict between barbarism and progress had not yet clearly emerged. by 1820, the enlightenment historical perspective had evolved into something very different, and therefore deserves special study. european notions of the “barbarian” in relation to russia and 18th-century dictionaries the historiography shows that the first modern accounts of travelers and various thinkers contained ideas about russia’s barbarian past and/or present. as the first eyewitness testimonies arrived, later travelers and writers began to expect barbarity and ignorance in russia, especially from the common people: the whole country was branded as barbarous or savage. for example, the english traveler and merchant richard chancellor, despite his admiration for the ivan the terrible’s court, called the people “barbarous russes” (cross, 2012, p. 18). giles fletcher, who was on a mission to russia in 1588, was very critical of russia’s “true and strange face of a tyrannical state […] without true knowledge of god, without written law, without common justice” (fletcher, 1591, epistle). as anthony cross writes: “for many in britain, russia represented an unknown; it conjured up images of a barbaric people living in arctic cold and ruled by tyrannical despots – a view established by english travel accounts of the 16th century” (cross, 2012, p. 92). all these stereotypes about moscovia were common across europe. even those who had some sympathy towards russia were certain that russians had a kind of barbarous history. they were “formerly called scythians” (wolff, 1994, p. 10), as captain jacques margeret put it, and were surrounded by “the most vile and barbarous nation of all the world (cogley, 2005, p. 781). furthermore, in some european languages the words moscow and muscovite had negative connotations. for instance, there is the italian word moscoviteria, a derogatory literary designation of behaviour supposedly characteristic of russians: the term muscovite “could be equated with asiatic” (berezovich & krivoshchapova, 2015, pp. 132, 147). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 388–406 391 however, only in the 18th century was the almost unequivocally acknowledged barbarism of russia placed on a scale of progress according to which all nations could be measured in compliance with universal laws of social development: this replaced the rather vague juxtaposition of russia with “our” culture or religion, as was common among 16thand 17th-century writers. as larry wolff has accurately concluded, “it was [...] the enlightenment […] that cultivated and appropriated to itself the new notion of “civilization”, an eighteenth-century neologism, and civilization discovered its complement, within the same continent, in shadowed lands of backwardness, even barbarism” (wolff, 1994, p. 4). paradoxically, the idea of russia’s barbarism was reinforced at the time, when the country became much better known due to its military victories and active diplomatic travelling of tsar peter (redin & serov, 2017, p. 477). at the beginning of the 19th century, the discourse of barbarism and civilization even became a tool for justifying napoleon’s campaign against the russian empire. there are numerous accounts of soldiers and officers from the 1812 campaign who labeled russia “a barbaric country” and branded russians as “barbarians”. napoleon himself on saint helena claimed that “the courage of the french was defeated by frost, the fire of moscow and russian barbarism” (segur, 1859, p. 311). thus, the conflict between the two empires was interpreted as a conflict between barbarism and progress (civilization). civilization was represented in this conflict by western europe. russia, due to its position on the map, was perceived as an asiatic country, even if it possessed a european façade in the form of its capital. count de segur, a french envoy to russia in 1784–1789, described st. petersburg as a combination of “the age of barbarism and that of civilization, the tenth and the eighteenth centuries, the manners of asia and those of europe, coarse scythians and polished europeans” (segur, 1859, pp. 329–330). his son philippe-paul, an army general who took part in the russian campaign of 1812 and became the author of a memoir, used “barbarism” quite often, although mostly in relation to cossacks or bashkirs. the position of russia in between the civilized and barbaric worlds became a typical matter for reflection in the first decades of the 19th century both in russia and in the west. in his lettres philosophiques, chaadaev wrote that russia is “situated between east and west, resting with one elbow on china and the other on germany”: “we should have combined within ourselves these two principles of intelligent nature imagination and reason, and unite in our civilization the histories of the whole globe” (aizlewood, 2000, p. 28). writing in french and using the word “civilization” quite frequently, chaadaev was deeply pessimistic about the past and future of russia. “we belong”, he wrote, “neither to the west nor to the east”: “we are an exception among peoples. we belong to those who are not an integral part of humanity but exist with the sole goal to teach the world some type of a pitiful lesson” (aizlewood, 2000, p. 29). unlike “civilization”, the term “barbarism” has had a much longer history and possessed quite similar meanings in major european languages in the 18th century. the literal meaning of “barbarian, barbarous” etc. was “non-greek or roman tribes, which once lived by the borderline of those ancient states”. however, this meaning was quite specific, and another, figurative meaning was very widespread. figuratively, https://changing-sp.com/ 392 sergei v. sokolov “barbarism”, as it was defined in an english dictionary from 1708, meant “inhumanity, cruelty”, while “barbarous” referred to “wild or rude people” (kersey, 1708). ten years later, nouveau dictionnaire de l’académie françoise provided almost the same meanings for barbare and barbarie, but with two significant additions. according to the french academy, barbarous could mean “lack of politeness”. barbarian or barbarous more often than not referred to a “broken language”, “a language, which has no relation to ours and which is harsh and shocking” (nouveau dictionnaire, 1718, p. 131). twelve years down the line, the new dictionarium britannicum mentioned both new meanings: “barbarous […] savage, wild, rude; also improper with respect to speech”; “barbarism […] an impropriety of speech, a rudeness in language” (bailey, 1730). “a form of speech contrary to the purity of language” was the first meaning of “barbarism” offered in the 1768 edition of samuel johnson’s dictionary (johnson, 1768). in 1781, the same definition was the first one provided for barbarisch in grammatischkritisches wörterbuch der hochdeutschen mundart, a dictionary of the german language by johann adelung (adelung, 1781). all dictionaries maintained “cruelty, cruel” as the proper synonyms for “barbarity, barbarous”. by the last decades of the 18th century, the situation had changed significantly. with the appearance of a clear antonym for barbarism (i.e. civilization), the meaning of this long-extant word began to change. from the 1770s, the conception of “civilized or polished nations” influenced the meanings of barbarism in european languages. for example, the british clergyman and historian william tooke when writing about russia held that without “agriculture […] the nations would be called savage”, while without commerce “they might be deemed barbarous” (tooke, 1799, p. 231). this judgement is characteristically 18th-century british due to the peculiar perception of civilization as a term describing economic and social development. such a view was not universally shared in france or germany. however, there were some remarkable exceptions, such as the göttingen professor august schlözer, an anglophile and historian of russia who maintained an understanding of barbarism and civilization very close to tooke’s. the influence of schlözer’s research was immense, particularly in the russian empire of alexander i. barbarism versus progress in russian history the word barbarian and its derivatives can be found in the russian language long before the 18th century. obviously, the term was borrowed from greek and became popular in mediaeval rus’. “barbarian, barbarism, barbarous” had both literal and figurative meanings in russian, as was the case in english, german, and french. the russian primary chronicle called the cruel biblical tribes barbarians. in 13th-century old church slavonic texts, barbarism was a typical synonym for heresy (avanesov, 1988, p. 359). 17th-century russian inherited the latter meaning. in the kievan synopsis of 1674, the word barbarians is applied only to the mongols and was often collocated with the adjective nechestivyi or zlochestivui (kievskiĭ sinopsis, 1836, pp. 125, 158), literally dishonourable and figuratively sinful, godless or impious. nechestivyi was changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 388–406 393 routinely interchangeable with pagan or non-christian in the language of the time (shmelёv, 1986, p. 350). the first comprehensive dictionary of the russian academy refers to the same two (literal and figurative) meanings of barbarian and its derivatives. it points out that the figurative meaning of barbarian was more popular in russian at the time. barbarous, according to the dictionary, meant “cruel, fierce, and inhuman” (slovar’ akademii rossiĭskoĭ, 1789, p. 492). however, the academy’s dictionary, unlike its european counterparts, does not include the meaning “broken language”; apparently, this meaning did not exist in 18th-century russian. barbarism had several meanings in the historical writings of the russian enlightenment. first, russian authors used this term in the ancient style: barbarians are peoples outside greece and rome. the scythians, sarmatians, goths, roxolanians, and others were called barbarians, with references to ancient and byzantine writers (lomonosov, 1766, p. 51; tatishchev, 1768, pp. 40, 123, 125; shcherbatov, 1770, pp. 136, 49, 114). figuratively, barbarism was often used as a synonym for cruelty, just as in most other european languages (shcherbatov, 1770, p. 291; shlёtser, 1819, p. 223; karamzin, 1991, p. 94). enlightenment russian historians did not regard russia as asia. on the contrary, they believed that barbarians like the huns or mongols brought barbarism to russia from asia (karamzin, 1818, p. 43). catherine the great stated in her nakaz of 1768 that “russia is a european state” (velizhev, 2019, p. 71), and russian intellectuals seemed to share this view. in the 18th century, russia did not associate itself with asia and connected barbarism with asian tribes. this distinguished 18th-century russian thinkers from their contemporaries in the west and from later russian thinkers, who, like chaadaev, the slavophiles, and 20th-century disciples of eurasianism, saw russia as at least semi-asian. the slavs were regarded by greek and roman authors as barbarians. 18th-century russian historians seemed to accept this in two respects. sometimes (although still quite rarely), they directly called the slavs barbarians. another method was to call the whole epoch barbarous, thus moving the emphasis from their ancestors to a vaguely determined area or group of nations. it seems that the barbarism of the slavs was a matter for debate, but the number and quality of works written in defense of these ancient ancestors was limited. such texts are mostly restricted to the so-called “norman” or “varangian” question, which made its first appearance in 1749 during a discussion between gerhard miller and mikhail lomonosov, professors of the academy. miller, following his mentor gottlieb bayer, proclaimed that the varangians (scandinavians) had once ruled over russia and founded its first dynasty. lomonosov set out his objections, postulating that the slavs had their own rulers. in the following decades, both sides had their disciples. however, this early discussion had very little to do with the issues of social development, progress, etc. the divisive issue was ethnicity, principally the ethnic origin of russia’s first princes. to this the idea of glory and splendor of national history was added. both sides believed that conquests, battles, plunder, and military victories were symbols of national glory. in this respect, barbaric slavic acts at the dawn of https://changing-sp.com/ 394 sergei v. sokolov their history were praised rather than dismissed. lomonosov’s fierce response to the idea of the scandinavian origin of the rurikids was grounded in the same logic: if the first prince of russia (rurik) had been a scandinavian, this would bring disgrace on the russian people (bugrov & sokolov, 2018, pp. 107–108). this is why although the word barbarian was (rather rarely) invoked by miller and lomonosov, neither found any conflict between barbarism and progress in the first centuries of russian history. moreover, lomonosov did not hesitate to use “barbarian, barbarous” in reference to the slavs (lomonosov, 1766, pp. 19, 79). along with the negative connotations of the word barbarism, the concept of the noble savage also existed in 18th-century literature. this idea embodies the notion of people as yet uncorrupted by civilization. many of the philosophers of the enlightenment held that humans have an innate moral sense, a mirror of humanity’s inherent goodness. this goodness can be preserved, but it is threatened by a “dirty” and immoral modern world. it is interesting that enlightenment european writers of the 18th century showed no inclination to portray contemporary russians and their ancient ancestors as noble savages. most probably, russians did not resemble the sentimental archetypal look of a noble savage, in contrast to the native americans or some other peoples discovered by europeans. however, the idea of a noble savage had its place in 18th-century russian historical writings. for example, mikhail shcherbatov applied this notion to the ancient scythians, who once had “a higher standard of morals than the most learned nation in the world [the greeks]” (shcherbatov, 1770, p. 10). in the 18th century, there were two main approaches to the conflict between barbarism and progress. the first approach, which can be called “cultural” and had its roots in greco-roman narratives, implied that civilization is under constant danger from barbarism. the danger may come from without or from within (ionov & khachaturian, 2002, pp. 61–78). a great example of the practical application of this approach can be found in edward gibbon’s the history of the decline and fall of the roman empire. gibbon portrayed the fall of rome as a result of a deluge of barbarians made possible by internal crisis (gibbon, 1891, p. 113). even more interestingly, gibbon fantasized about the possibility of a new barbaric invasion into europe. he seems optimistic and suggests that european nations (including russia) would withstand the invaders together (gibbon, 1891, p. 493). such a union of “civilized” nations would be unimaginable without a complete understanding of a principal conflict between civilization and barbarism. another approach was represented by a linear conception of progress. adam ferguson, a scottish philosopher, was probably the first to introduce this approach in his essay on the history of the civil society. ferguson believed that every society goes through the same three stages in its social development. the three consecutive stages are: savageness, barbarism, and civilization (enlightenment) (ferguson, 1782). this approach does not necessarily imply conflict, as barbarism was seen only as a stage. however, barbarous nations are such not because they are insufficiently “polished”: their aggression is caused by the pursuit of material goods, not an intense hatred of civilization. this approach became popular in russia after 1800, when changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 388–406 395 british philosophy became better known. at the same time, august schlözer’s book about early russian history was published: he promoted the fergusonian triad. at this time, the period when historians ascribed striving for glory to the ancient barbarians as a motive for military campaigns was coming to an end. the discourse on “glorious deeds and greatness” fell into decline: in its place, the main characteristics of barbarians became seeking profit (“predation”) and amorality. karamzin wrote that the barbarian invasion of rome (which had earlier often been attributed to the slavs) was caused not by the desire for glory, but the appetite for prey “which the huns, goths, and other peoples possessed: the slavs sacrificed their lives to this, and were not inferior to other barbarians in this regard” (karamzin, 1818, p. 58). however, during the second half of the 18th and the early 19th centuries, the concept of “civilization” did not yet exist in the russian language. as such, it is not fully correct to talk about a contraposition between barbarianism and civilisation. nonetheless, the french word civilisation was well known among the european educated elites, who spoke french well. the french phrase “civilisation en russie” would not have surprised the literate russian public, since it was used in one of the chapters of denis diderot’s book (mezin, 2016). instead of the dichotomy between barbarism and civilisation, we find in 18th-century russian an opposition between barbarism and enlightenment. indeed, the concept of “enlightenment” was so close to the meaning of “civilisation”, which became entrenched in russian in the 1830s, precisely because the former was placed in opposition to barbarism by russian history writers at the end of the 18th century. one of the meanings of enlightenment was the “softening of morals”, society’s achievement of a certain level of culture. the “softening of morals” was pointed out as one of the possible meanings of “civilization” in the complete dictionary of foreign words published in 1861 (geĭze, 1861, p. 549). mikhail velizhev observes that this was the first dictionary to cement the concept of civilisation in russian, but we should note that ivan poplavskii’s german-russian dictionary of 1856 directly connected the two concepts (velizhev, 2019, pp. 81–83). the other meaning of the word enlightenment, education, was also maintained in the 19th century as one of the meanings of the concept of “civilisation”. as soon as “enlightenment” was designated as a synonym for the later concept of civilization (at least in russian), the opposition between barbarism and civilization could be extended to enlightenment. at the turn of the 18th century, barbarism was seen not only as alien to enlightenment but also as openly hostile to it. nikolai karamzin pointed out in his history of the russian state that the conflict between barbarians and the roman empire was not merely a military conflict, but a horrible long-term war between “barbarism and civil enlightenment, which eventually ended with the downfall of the latter” (karamzin, 1818, p. 12). in the war against civilized nations, barbarians always had an upper hand and a near certain chance of winning. this was not just because of their ferocity, military capabilities, or indefatigable character. civilized or enlightened nations are susceptible to laziness and the corruption of morals, the main reason for their defeat. as karamzin wrote, “pampered by luxury, rome lost its noble pride together with its civil liberty” (karamzin, 1818, p. 12). https://changing-sp.com/ 396 sergei v. sokolov however, the invasion of barbarians did not necessarily lead to the complete destruction of a civilized nation. barbarians might enslave a more civilized nation instead of eliminating it. although such enslavement certainly brought absolute disgrace on a nation, it gave its people a chance for future liberation. 18th-century russian writers stated unequivocally that the mongols were barbarians. the period of the mongol rule was deemed a “yoke” (igo in russian): barbarous was often the word used to describe it. it is interesting that russian and european historians employed the same words about the period. in his history of russia, william tooke labeled the mongols as barbarians, writing that they “marked their footsteps with barbarities and devastations”; he characterized the period of mongol rule in russia as “the yoke of the barbarians” (tooke, 1800, pp. 240, 327). tooke’s contemporary nikolai karamzin, in the memoir on ancient and modern russia, called the period between the 13th and 15th centuries the “barbaric time of the khan’s yoke”, noting that the russian people “tamed by the barbarian yoke thought only how to save their lives and property and cared very little about civil rights” (karamzin, 1991, pp. 22, 78). earlier in the 18th century, archbishop feofan (prokopovich) invoked the “barbarian yoke” to describe the aftermath of the mongol invasion. moreover, 18th-century authors saw enlightenment as a reversible process. the entire matter could be returned to an earlier stage thanks to either internal or external reasons. the mongol invasion was viewed as an obstacle in the path of russia’s progress and was believed to have had a hugely detrimental effect on russia’s morals, culture, literacy, and politics. from the 18th-century point of view, other events might also contribute and reverse the progress of enlightenment. schlözer believed that the enlightenment of russia, triggered by the introduction of christianity, had been interrupted by “internal strife and the raids of the kipchaks and the mongols” and had therefore been postponed for 400 years (shlёtser, 1816, p. 181). all the cases mentioned by schlözer represent incursions of barbarism into the territory of enlightenment. for a historical writer of the 18th century, the mongols and kipchaks were two barbarian nations, and the ruthless strife between the russian princes was by no means an example of enlightened behaviour. furthermore, schlözer sincerely believed that the russian conquest of siberia had seriously damaged the enlightenment in russia because the region was peopled with savage tribes. christianization as civilization it was almost a universal idea among russian scholars from 1750 to 1820 that russia took a path towards enlightenment after the baptism by prince vladimir in 988. mikhail shcherbatov wrote about the event: “the gloom of idolatry was changed thanks to the light of the holy gospels, presenting to us a new condition in russia: ferocious hearts softened by good moral teachings no longer appear barbarian to us. although the ancient severity and remnants of idolatry still often occurred, virtues either equal to them or exceeding them presented themselves before our eyes” (shcherbatov, 1770, p. 271). ivan boltin, on many occasions an opponent of shcherbatov, agreed with him that christianity began to enlighten russia. moreover, he pointed out the forceful character changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 388–406 397 of the baptism and explained that the eastern slavs withstood christianization because of the principal conflict between their ignorance and paganism. this was a new explanation for the presumed conflict at the time of christianization (boltin, 1788, p. 543). at the beginning of the 19th century, schlözer concluded that “the introduction of the christian faith was” the strongest possible impetus for enlightenment (shlёtser, 1816, p. 181). for enlightenment thinkers, the most important thing was that baptism brought with it not only faith but also christian morality. shcherbatov wrote that “christian law, when directly understood, instructed us to honour our unity with our brothers: as a consequence of this teaching, barbarism was suppressed at its very roots” (shcherbatov, 1774, p. 121). lomonosov concluded that princess ol’ga “turned her thoughts to christian law, in which she saw greater humaneness and enlightenment than in the earlier barbaric ignorance” (lomonosov, 1766, p. 79). in his essays, m. m. shcherbatov called the greeks from whom rus received baptism an “enlightened people” (shcherbatov, 1770, p. 270). one of the main characteristics of an enlightened society was held to be its high level of morality in comparison with the preceding epoch (or, as shcherbatov put it, its “softened morals”) (shcherbatov, 1770, p. 270). in contrast, barbarian society was characterised by its crude morality, which constituted its social unenlightened condition. according to views from the era of the enlightenment, barbarian crudity in moral matters would be gradually overcome. some historians, such as shcherbatov, suggested that the meaning and content of historical development were determined by the “softening” and “improvement” of morality. discussing the baptism of rus, he wrote that upon princess ol’ga’s conversion to christianity the new religion did not successfully spread “because of the crudeness of morals” (shcherbatov, 1770, p. 269). rudeness was a characteristic of prince vladimir before christianization. he conquered cherson in crimea and demanded baptism in return for the town. immediately after the baptism his personality changed: unlike barbarians he kept his promise and returned cherson untouched. it is interesting that real vladimir probably destroyed the town, at least archaeological findings can be interpreted this way (romantchuk, 2016, p. 204). enlightenment through baptism was sometimes connected with the spread of literacy. the russian primary chronicle noted prince vladimir’s foundation of a school: “he took the children of the best families, and sent them for instruction in booklearning” (cross & sherbowitz-wetzor, 1953, p. 117). historians of the enlightenment necessarily focused on this fact (shcherbatov, 1770, p. 215). schools were important not only because they made people more educated but also because they facilitated the “softening of morals”. in shcherbatov’s conception, prince vladimir very well understood “that the seven holy gospels, sown everywhere, could not take root in peoples converted from idolatry if the previous severity and ignorance [continued] to abide in them: for this reason, he instructed that a school be established” (shcherbatov, 1770, p. 272). baptism was probably regarded as an escape from barbarism and a start to the enlightenment of the nation because the word prosveshchenie (enlightenment) has https://changing-sp.com/ 398 sergei v. sokolov close ties with religion in the russian language. a modern dictionary of medieval russian gives “baptism” as one of the five meanings of the verb prosveshchati – “ to enlighten”. according to the dictionary, the noun prosveshchenie can be used not only as a substitute for the word baptism but also as a synonym for “a space where baptism takes place, a baptistery” (bogatova, 1995, pp. 213–214). christian people could again become barbarians if they persecuted religion and the church. a remark of i. p. elagin’s in an unpublished section of his experience of telling stories about russia is entirely indicative of this notion. discussing the contemporary situation, elagin wrote that the most beastly habits were currently being observed among the turks and the french (this was during the events of the french revolution). elagin called both peoples barbarians (elagin, 1791). of course, calling the french a “barbarian people” might have been connected with more than just the persecution of the church; however, the context of elagin’s comments allows us to suggest that it was the rejection of christian morality by the muslim turks and the atheist french that, in his view, made these nations barbaric. it is curious that schlözer, when discussing the same “anarchic” times of the french revolution, did not refuse the french the title of enlightened nation; however, he did decisively condemn their crimes. thus, each historian individually made their own decision about whether to label contemporary european countries as barbarian. in any case, by the end of the 18th century a specific set of barbaric characteristics had been formulated, which included crudity, ignorance, murderousness, rejection of religion and the church, and other crimes. from the point of view of russian history writers, enlightenment by means of baptism was not equal to true enlightenment in the spirt of the 18th century. rather, baptism was considered a step to enlightenment, the beginning of a long path; nonetheless, without this step, reason would never triumph. furthermore, christianity was portrayed as a sort of surrogate of enlightenment for those social estates in which reason and science had yet to flourish due to their lowly position. in this regard, it necessary to once again turn to shcherbatov’s essays, which are well known for their critical attitude towards the enlightenment of the peasantry. in his essay “on the corruption of morals in russia”, he demonstrated that the measures taken by peter the great against superstition had both positive and negatives consequences. shcherbatov considered the main negative consequence to be the “harm” done to peasant morality: “at a time when the nation was still unenlightened […] by taking superstition away from an unenlightened people, he [peter] removed its very faith in god’s law […] superstition decreased, but so did faith”. “morals”, concludes shcherbatov, “for lack of any other [form of] enlightenment used to be improved by faith”. when the tsar began to suppress superstition, faith lost this basis and “began to fall into dissolution” (shcherbatov, 1969, p. 155). surprisingly, this excerpt is somewhat close to what georg wilhelm hegel had to say about the enlightenment attack on miracles some 50 years later: “when all prejudice and superstitions have been banished, the question arises: now what? what is the truth which the enlightenment has disseminated in place of these prejudices and superstitions?” (outram, 2013, p. 114). hegel saw a severe danger changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 388–406 399 in the enlightenment’s reckless disregard for religion and was much concerned with the undesirable prospect of religion’s complete destruction. the great significance given to christianization as a step forward from barbarism might seem quite counterintuitive when we talk about 18th-century thinkers. indeed, many contemporary historians hold that the enlightenment was “characterized by deliberate efforts to undermine religious belief and organizations” (outram, 2013, p. 114). however, when we take a closer look at the issue, it becomes obvious that, while organized religion was indeed under attack from the best minds of the epoch, the significance and great influence of all the good religion brought (including literacy) was never disputed. moreover, the fierce criticism of the enlightenment was aimed mostly at “bad beliefs”, namely miracles and superstitions. the idea of an omnipotent god was rarely in doubt: even when it was challenged, the debates revolved around the question of god’s power and his willingness to intervene in the established laws of nature. as keith thomas argues, the enlightenment view was confined to a god who worked “through natural causes” and “obeyed natural laws accessible to human study” (thomas, 1983, p. 659). the real picture of the enlightenment’s attitude towards religion is much more complex, especially if we depart from the views of a relatively small group of anti-religious french writers. in fact, enlightenment thinkers provided different arguments to pursue a divergent set of purposes ranging from religious obscurantism to the promotion of religious orthodoxy. furthermore, the enlightenment saw the rise of powerful religious movements: the great awakening in north america, pietism in germany, english methodism, and others. the enlightenment did not see an absolute decline in religious belief, so there still existed grounds to regard christianization as progress. even the very first conception of civilization put forward by victor riqueti, marquis de mirabeau, in 1756 held that european civilization was based on christian belief and its ideals (ionov & khachaturian, 2002, p. 59). this notion reflects 16thand 17th-century perceptions of religion and its role in the battle against barbarism. in this context, it is interesting to mention that 16thand 17th-century europeans “represented the [russian] land as decidedly un-christian, cruel and barbaric, asian as opposed to european, and some even suggested that the russians were in league with the turks and tartars to destroy christianity” (cross, 2012, p. 135). to sum up, we should not be surprised that baptism was regarded as a giant leap towards enlightenment by russian thinkers. as immanuel kant famously put it, “we are now not living in an enlightened age, but we do live in an age of enlightenment” (kant, 1784, p. 491). equally, denis diderot, a great philosopher of the french enlightenment, wrote in his sur la civilisation de russie that the progress of civilisation is a result of a social development, and civilisation can not be established from without. diderot believed that russia had embarked on the path to enlightenment, although barbarism still had a considerable influence (mezin, 2016, p. 62). so, we see that even the strongest proponents and most beautiful minds of the enlightenment believed that process was far from concluded by the end of the 18th century. perhaps it had indeed started in the 10th century? https://changing-sp.com/ 400 sergei v. sokolov barbarism in russia and scandinavia: august schlözer’s perspective august schlözer, one of the biggest enlightenment names in the field of russian history, wrote what is probably the most elaborate piece on history of barbarism in russia. schlözer’s sources of inspiration were the works of adam ferguson. schlözer admired the scottish and english enlightenment, could read english, and was acquainted not only with ferguson’s treatises, but also with works by david hume, edward gibbon, and other minor authors. he regularly reviewed new publications from the british isles in the several journals he edited. apart from his widely acclaimed book nestor. russische annalen in ihrer slavonischen grundsprache verglichen, übersetzt und erklärt (nestor. russian chronicles in the old russian language compared, translated and explained), schlözer authored some publications on universal history. especially popular was his 1779 children’s book vorbereitung zur weltgeschichte für kinder (an introduction to world history for children). in this book schlözer formulated (like ferguson) five fundamental factors for social progress from savageness to civilized status: lifestyle, climate and nutrition, the form of government, religion, and experience (of a nation or neighboring nations) (shlёtser, 1829). at the turn of the 19th century, there were only a few authors who investigated russian history within the fergusonian (or british) paradigm of civilization. semyon desnitsky, a legal scholar at moscow university, studied law in glasgow and attended the lectures of adam smith. desnitsky’s own research was not specifically aimed at the issue of barbarism or progress, but he formulated a theory of four stages in world history, quite like what schlözer and ferguson had put forward. according to desnitsky, every society goes from primitiveness through nomadism and agriculture to commerce (ionov & khachaturian, 2002, pp. 110–113). a universalist, desnitsky made no exceptions for russian history. in this respect he was close to russian masons such as ivan lopukhin (prikazchikova, 2018, pp. 713–719). nikolai karamzin, whose works enjoyed great popularity in the first decades of the 19th century, was somewhat connected with british thought. karamzin used the word civilisation (although in french) and understood progress as a steady process from barbarism to enlightenment. unlike all of the above, schlözer went very deep into the details and conceived his own conception of the civilizational development of ancient russia, scandinavia, and eastern europe. although schlözer did not mention the term civilization, he adopted aufklärung (enlightenment) or kultur instead: as i showed earlier, this was normal usage in the 18th-century russian tradition. the theme of the first volume of schlözer’s nestor was the historical roots of nations. this was an important motif for early modern european historians. the creation of a glorious and ancient history was one of the most significant national tasks required of intellectuals. they had no doubts regarding the historical antiquity of nations. as schlözer opined, “in the childhood of historical science [...] our great grandfathers assumed that since our ancestors have existed for more than 2,000 years, similarly [they assumed] each nation had to come into existence after the fall of the tower of babel” (shlёtser, 1809, p. 60). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 388–406 401 as i discussed above, in 18th-century russia the idea that the greatness of a nation’s history was defined by its antiquity and the glorious deeds of their ancestors dominated. therefore, russian authors in the mid-18th century sought to describe, in as much detail as possible, the early history of the slavs. all this was absolutely unacceptable to schlözer. indeed, he wrote his book as a refutation of the widespread and generally accepted reconstruction of the ancient history of the slavs: “better 600 years of authentic history than 3,000 years of fairy tales and fables”, confirmed schlözer in an earlier work from 1768 (shlёtser, 1809, p. 60). schlözer’s main idea was the savageness of the slavs before riurik formed his new state. he suggested that the early slavs were like “the inhabitants of siberia, california and madagascar: split into small hordes and lacking a political order, relations with other tribes, literacy, art, and religion (or only having a foolish religion)” (shlёtser, 1809, p. nd). his chief argument in favour of the savageness of the slavs was theoretical: savageness is the natural condition of a people emerging from a primitive state. as schlözer notes in his universal history, all nations can be categorized as “savage, barbarian, or enlightened” (shlёtser, 1829, p. 59). this was the key moment in schlözer’s historico-geographical views. he examined the social development of not only the eastern slavs but also of the entire region, which he dubbed “the high north”. besides rus, poland, the baltic, denmark, and scandinavia belonged to this area. the notion of the high north was a manifestation of schlözer’s german-centric viewpoint. he juxtaposed this region with the centre (germany and pannonia), which in turn was juxtaposed to the northern mediterranean (southern europe), where the greek states and the roman empire had once been located (shlёtser, 1809, pp. le–lz). step by step, these enlightened peoples had discovered and enlightened europe: around the 9th century, in the times of charlemagne, they had discovered the high north. according to schlözer’s theoretical postulations, the majority of nations received enlightenment from without. “the germans”, declared schlözer in his universal history, “were for 2,000 years half savage: the romans educated them”. after germany was enlightened, the germans on this side of the rhine, and especially in francia, were appointed by fate to sow the first seeds of enlightenment across the vast north-western world. only with the help of the germans did the scandinavians begin, little by little, to become human. prior to the arrival of the normans, it seemed as if the russian had been forgotten by the father of humanity because there, in the harsh north-western region, not one german landed on this side of baltic sea thanks to its great remoteness (shlёtser, 1819, p. 178). after the arrival of the scandinavians, rus began to move from savagery to barbarism. however, as i pointed out earlier, schlözer argued that real enlightenment only began after baptism. this means that the real “enlighteners” of the russian land were the byzantines, from whom rus accepted baptism in the 10th century. from the https://changing-sp.com/ 402 sergei v. sokolov scandinavians “there remains not the slightest trace – even scandinavian personal names disappear from the princely house after igor and were replaced with slavic ones” (shlёtser, 1809, pp. 21–22). the scandinavians had not been enlightened when they took over novgorod in the 9th century. their way out of barbarism had just started, so they could not transfer enlightenment to the slavs. a heated dispute was sparked as soon as schlözer’s book came out in russian. his theories about the barbarism and savageness of the slavs were heavily infused with the idea of a scandinavian invasion at the beginning of russian history, which provoked a negative response from the proto-slavophiles and some conservatively oriented thinkers. they believed that schlözer was driven by a prejudice that our slavs were civilized by the normans. at the same time, there were scholars like karamzin and mikhail pogodin who followed the scheme and defended schlözer and his ideas. schlözer has long been a divisive figure in russian historiography. schlözer’s main idea was not confined only to enlightenment as a synonym for social progress. thanks to him, the early centuries of russian history were placed on the developmental scale, and the country, although barbarous, was seen as gradually overcoming backwardness. this means that schlözer, like ferguson earlier, did not see civilization as the antipode to barbarism, but rather as a new stage in unstoppable social development. in this context, even the most barbarous facts of russian history (the mongol yoke, slavery, tyranny) were no longer seen as insurmountable obstacles on the pathway to civilization. on the contrary, civilization was deemed an inevitable station on the road of history. following schlözer, karamzin wrote about barbarism of the slavs. according to him, this was not a reason for national embarrassment, but was rather a common stage for all nations (karamzin, 1818, p. 27). schlözer’s british sources shared the same view. william tooke, describing russians at the time of prince sviatoslav, concluded that they were barbarians: but “all nations have once been barbarians” (tooke, 1800, p. 181). conclusion as we can see, enlightenment thinkers appropriated and enhanced a discourse on barbarism and civilization that had persisted in european thought for centuries. this discourse heavily influenced discussions about peripheral countries and cultures in the 18th century. there were numerous treatises discussing the exact position of russia and its people among civilized/barbaric nations at the turn of the 19th century. russian historical writers of the time followed the european fashion and reflected on the question. the word civilization may have not been incorporated into the russian language before the 1830s, but, nevertheless, enlightenment was regarded as the antipode to barbarism. in this context, social development was often associated with christianization, education, and the progress of morals. russia’s place and role in european politics and culture were hotly disputed, and the assessment of the country’s level of development was an important matter for foreign and domestic thinkers. this article was written as a contribution to a research project launched at ural federal university by a team of historians and philosophers. this project is dedicated changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 388–406 403 to concepts of conflict and concord in russian and european intellectual spaces in the modern era. the very concept of conflict presupposes identifying the sides of any given encounter and the reasons for the clash. civilizational differences (or at least as they appeared in the early 19th century) may well be regarded as such a reason. such a difference shaped the ways in which each side understood one another and even helped develop the self-identities of both russia and the west. thus, the discourse on barbarism became a justification for napoleon’s russian campaign of 1812. the response to these ideas in russian historical writings and media should not be omitted in future studies, both because of their potential in studying an early example of socalled “information war” and as an essential preliminary to the discussion between the slavophiles and the westernizers that sparked off in the 1830s. at the same time, the conception of “a broader european civilization”, which was put forward during enlightenment discussions, worked as a staging ground for ideas of concord and peace between similar (“civilized”) cultures. the dichotomic idea of barbarism/civilization survived long after its 19th-century heyday: to an extent, it still contributes to a stereotypical image of the world today, although in most cases it is not articulated openly. so, i believe that this 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(1994). inventing eastern europe: the map of civilization on the mind of the enlightenment. stanford, ca: stanford university press. http://ejournal52.com/journals_n/1442664712.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.3.020 research note comparative study of russian and slovenian managers using subjective criteria to control their professional performance1 eva boštjančič lubljana university, slovenia fayruza s. ismagilova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia galina mirolyubova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia nina janza lubljana university, slovenia abstract in this article, the first stage results of a russian-slovenian cross-cultural study are presented. the main purpose of the study is to describe key structural factors in the subjective criteria of performance monitoring used by russian and slovenian managers. the study, which comprises three steps, is of a comparative nature. in the first stage, differences between the monitoring systems of russian and slovenian managers are investigated. in terms of the theoretical background of the study, the model of subjective criteria used by managers to control their performance efficiency (g. myroliubova & f. ismagilova) was applied. in order to collect empirical data, a questionnaire was developed and implemented on 1 the version of this article in russian under the title “sub’ektivnye kriterii kontrolia sobstvennoj dejatel’nosti rossiiskih i slovenskih rukovoditelej: sravnitel’nuj analiz proffessional’noj kompetencii” [subjective criteria of the control of the own activity of russian and slovenian leaders: comparative analysis of the professional competence] has appeared in the journal “obrazovanie i nauka” [education and science] in no. 8 (137), 2016. thanks to the editors for their permission to publish the english version of the article. © 2017 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, galina mirolyubova, nina janza eva.bostjancic@ff.uni-lj.si received 13 october 2017 f.s.ismagilova@urfu.ru accepted 25 november 2017 gmirolyubova@gmail.com published online 18 december 2017 nina.janza@gmail.com 285changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 the basis of that model. the study discovered that the measurable and weakly measurable monitoring criteria used by russians and slovenians are similar. significant differences were identified: (a) between the mean values of measurable criteria for russian (56.11) and slovenian (60.39) samples; (b) within the structure of measurable criteria for the performance monitoring of russian and slovenian managers; (c) between the mean values of all measurable criteria (natural, binary, relational and conformity criteria) in the russian and slovenian samples. keywords control of performance, measurable and weakly measurable monitoring criteria, efficiency introduction in the field of contemporary socio-economic studies, interest in performance issues has never been higher. this relevance is connected not only and not so much with the need to expand the production of goods and services, but rather to an attempt to locate internal resources within the activity itself. today, it is not only the important result of the activity itself, but of the optimisation of the cost-effectiveness ratio. in this cotext, considerable attention is paid to solving issues of organisational effectiveness. however, despite the fact that this issue has long been on the agenda, there is still no consensus among researchers on either the key efficiency metrics, the methods for measuring them or the determinants of their efficiency (matthews, 2007). of course, the same kind of problematic is encountered at the level of research into the effectiveness of individual activities. to the existing unresolved problems one more is added: the powerful influence of the human factor, which hampers the diffeentiation of activity-based and personal components of efficiency. staying within the framework of psychological research, we precisely concentrate attention on the activity component of individual effectiveness in the belief that the individual’s ability to monitor the effectiveness of his or her own professional activity is one of best the ways of improving it. the monitoring of activities (job monitoring) is defined by us in terms of an employee’s ability to influence the process and end result of his or her own work. from our point of view, this is an extremely important aspect of the professional competency of key specialists and managers. in this study, we focused on the cross-cultural aspects of the monitoring of management effectiveness. we sought to clarify similarities and differences in those aspects of the activities that russian and slovenian decision makers view as key – i.e. as zones of special attention or zones of influence – into which business leaders are prepared to invest the resources at their disposal. research problem. a key aspect of increasing the effectiveness of management activities concerns whether the head of the subjective system possesses criteria for 286 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, galina mirolyubova, nina janza monitoring his or her own activities, which are congruent to the criterial system of organisational effectiveness. in this respect, it seems relevant to note p. drucker’s point that an effective manager needs to employ criteria that will allow him or her to focus on what is most important, in terms of his or her contribution to the success of his organisation, for determining the final results (drucker, 2011). conditions determining the specifics of the formation of a subjective system for monitoring the effectiveness of management activities can be considered in both external and internal terms. it is assumed that the management model forming the basis for organisational practice predetermines key efficiency orientations both at the organisational and individual levels. however, psychological studies were not carried out in order to examine this assumption. at the same time, in the scientific field of investigation of psychological efficiency, there are approaches to this problem in the context of activity, but none referring to personality. we observe that the vast majority of studies are aimed at considering the influence of personal characteristics on the effectiveness of the activity. thus, the salient need to research means for increasing individual effectiveness is not supported by research in this field. this necessitates a search for a means by which the problem can be approached and potentially solved. by identifying the factors determining the formation of such a subjective system, the optimal ratio of subjective criteria is modelled in terms of key monitoring points of the effectiveness of management activity based on the strategic objectives of the organisation. in the long term, this involves solving the issue of managing individual performance and integrating individual effectiveness into overall corporate performance. the aim of the present russian-slovenian cross-cultural study is to identify key factors influencing the structure of subjective criteria for monitoring the activities of russian and slovenian managers. the study, in which a comparative approach is taken, is comprised of three stages: stage 1. study of structural differences in the subjective criteria used for monitoring the activities of russian and slovenian managers. stage 2. investigation of the dependence of the structure of subjective criteria on organisational factors, in particular, organisational strategy and management policy in russian and slovenian companies. stage 3. investigation of the dependence of the structure of subjective criteria on the personal qualities of managers belonging to different cultures, i.e. russian and slovenian. the dependence of the criterial structure on individuals’ need for structuring and tolerance towards uncertainty was investigated (benjamin, riggio & mayes, 1996), (herman, stevens, bird, mendenhall & oddou, 2010). in the present article, the results of the first stage are presented and discussed. theoretical analysis of the problem in both psychology and management fields, the concepts of performance monitoring are based on the assertion that monitoring comprises a standard (benchmark) against which the employee processes and performance results are compared. these standards are also used to monitor methods for regulating activities and the 287changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 effectiveness thereof. criteria are advanced either in terms of subjectively chosen or independently created standards, which are used by employees for self-orientation and monitoring his or her activities. what determines the features of the formation of such a criterial system? in the broadest sense, the answer to this question lies in the features of the specific national culture. there is little doubt that national culture determines differences in management and that a given scientific model will be effective in different national management systems to the extent that it is congruent with the specificities of the national character (hofstede, 1980). the practice of organisational management, in turn, sets standards for administrative work. the studies confirm the differences in the value systems of managers from different national cultures and their influence on the style of decisionmaking, interpersonal behaviour, priorities and career paths, attitudes toward risk, correlation of personal and organisational goals, etc. (negandhi & prasad, 1971), (farmer & richman, 1965), (ronen, 1986), (england, dhingra & agarwal, 1974). we assume that the structure of subjective criteria used by managers and specialists for monitoring the effectiveness of their work (activities) varies according to the national cultures of which they are the bearers. the monitoring of work (or monitoring of activities) is an integral part of any management system; however, in different national cultures both the place of monitoring differs as well as the special emphasis on how the monitoring is applied. g. hofstede, in particular, describes in detail the impact of the “avoiding uncertainty” index on the organisational behaviour of employees and managers, while paying great attention to aspects related to the level of work monitoring and the extent of the need to have work structured according to established standards (hofstede, 1980). however, there are no studies in which attention would be paid to the way in which managers monitor the effectiveness of their own activities, on what guidelines they rely when exercising such monitoring and how the structure of subjective criteria for supervising managers ensures the monitoring of organisational effectiveness. thus, there are also differences between national cultures in terms of the extent and detailed modality of the monitoring of employees and managers. in the studies of d. gallie, in particular, it was noted that the highest level of monitoring of work was recorded in the nordic countries of norway, denmark, finland and sweden; it was somewhat lower in france, the benelux countries and great britain. in most southern european countries, as well as in ireland, the level of monitoring is below the european average. in addition, researchers point out that there are differences in the content of performance monitoring of employees from different national groups (gallie, 2011), (boštjančič & ismagilova, 2017). efficiency is understood as the optimal cost-performance ratio for a given situation. in this context, we are referring to management efficiency (or “operational” efficiency), which is determined by the business qualities of managers, as well as by how rationally their potential is used. psychologically, we share the assertion that effectiveness is an attitude that reflects individual values and preferences (cameron & whetten, 1983). this gives us grounds for assuming that individual subjects possess a set of subjective criteria on the basis of which the effectiveness of their activities is controlled. subjective monitoring of activities determines the extent of the individual’s 288 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, galina mirolyubova, nina janza personal influence on the main characteristics of work carried out on behalf of the employer and is characterised by subject-object relations (in contrast to the subjectsubject nature of self-monitoring activity). the monitoring criteria are considered in terms of an internal means of performing an activity (klimov, 1998). we assume the sources of their formation to consist of environmental and psychological factors (fig. 1). criteria for monitoring activities can be externally assigned to the subject through a system of cultural imperatives, according to organisational-activity standards, or be personally mediated. figure 1. factors influencing the formation of a system of subjective criteria for monitoring of management activities. surveillance “subjective criteria for the monitoring of activity efficiency” (survey “scc”) this questionnaire was developed on the basis of the model of subjective criteria for monitoring performance efficiency, by g. mirolyubova and f. ismagilova (ismagilova & mirolyubova, 2012a, 2012b, 2013), (ismagilova, mirolyubova, malysheva & mugatabarova, 2014). the questionnaire (fig. 2) is aimed at revealing the correlation of groups of criteria (i.e. the structure of subjective criteria) in the individual sets of criteria that managers use to monitoring the effectiveness of their activities. with the help of the questionnaire, an individual criterial profile of each manager, including professional-activity preferences, is determined. the comparison of such an individual profile with the organisational-activity standard allows the advantages and limitations of the manager’s administrative competences to be identified on behalf of the organisation. the questionnaire included criteria that were distinguished on the following grounds (ismagilova & mirolyubova, 2015): 289changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 1) measurability of the criterion (measurable – weakly measurable). the measurable criteria used were those that are easily reproducible with reference scales obvious to all participants (in the first place, quantitative). the monitoring criteria whose possibility of measurement is often not obvious even for the bearer (the subject finds it hard to name the measuring scale) were classified as weakly measurable. weakly measurable subjective monitoring criteria contain not quantitative, but qualitative characteristics of the work. 2) place of the criterion in the general process of activity (criteria for preliminary, concurrent and final monitoring). 3) primary source of formation of the criterion (based on a standard – based on experience). 4) scale of measurement used (absolute – relative). in turn, the absolute and relative criteria were divided into groups (classes) depending on the type of scale used: binary, natural, relationships, comparisons. the criteria based on professional experience were divided into explicit and implicit criteria. explicit subjective criteria are those presented in the subjective experience of the manager in terms of a construct differentiated by the degree of manifestation on an individual scale of measurement. implicit subjective criteria comprise an indivisible construct subjectively interpreted by its carrier. the questionnaire comprises 40 statements. below are examples of statements from the corresponding groups (classes) of criteria (table 1 and table 2). indicator “stages indicator “source indicator “scale of of monitoring” of monitoring” measurement” figure 2. model of subjective criteria for monitoring the effectiveness of activities. 290 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, galina mirolyubova, nina janza table 1. examples of subjective criteria based on the standard of work criteria in the monitoring stages groups (classes) of criteria criteria at the preconfirmation monitoring stage a b so lu te binary availability / lack of resources natural completion deadlines tasks / jobs r e la tiv e relationships tolerance level to deviations from norms and standards (degree of regulation of work) compliance extent to which task corresponds to organisational goals criteria at the stage of ongoing monitoring a b so lu te binary uniformity / unevenness of workload assigned between executives natural time taken to perform task main part of the work r e la tiv e relationships dynamics of the number of errors in the process of work compliance degree of conformity to established performance standards criteria at the final (concluding) inspection stage a b so lu te binary availability / absence of proposals for changing instruction / regulation of work schedule natural quantity / volume obtained result, overall number of solved tasks r e la tiv e relationships relationship of expenditures to results compliance correspondence of result to established quality standard 291changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 table 2. examples of subjective criteria based on professional experience criteria in the monitoring stages groups (classes) of criteria criteria at the pre-confirmation monitoring stage explicit degree of novelty of the problem implicit understanding of criteria, according to which they are evaluated fulfilment of task criteria at the stage of ongoing monitoring explicit the ability of workers to make their own decisions within the framework of their competence implicit overall level of satisfaction as to work progress criteria at the final (concluding) inspection stage explicit personal contribution to results of company activity implicit expert appraisal of goals achieved by the management for unambiguous interpretation of the statements included in the questionnaire, native speakers of russian and slovenian languages used english as an intermediate language. based on the theoretical principles on cultural differences in management practices outlined above and the differences in the subjective monitoring criteria recorded in the model and questionnaire, we formulated the main and two additional hypotheses that were tested at the first stage of the russian-slovenian study. main hypothesis (mh): structural differences exist in terms of the subjective criteria used for monitoring the activities of russian and slovenian managers. additional hypothesis 1 (ah 1): slovenian managers use measurable criteria to monitor their performance more often than russian leaders. additional hypothesis 2 (ah 2): there are structural differences in the measurable criteria for russian and for slovenian leaders. the main and both additional hypotheses are represented graphically in fig. 3. figure 3. first stage hypotheses for the cross-cultural russian-slovenian study. 292 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, galina mirolyubova, nina janza to test the proposed hypotheses, a comparative study programme was developed and implemented. research base the survey involved 268 respondents, of which 171 were russians and 97 – slovenians. the main characteristics of both samples are presented in tables 3, 4 and 5. the study involved business leaders with experience of working in the relevant organisation for at least one year. data collection was carried out simultaneously in both countries in 2015. table 3. socio-demographic characteristics of the sample samples total quantity (pers.) m/f (%) average age (%) business education (%) primary higher education additional education in management degree in management russian 171 56.1/43.9 34.86 100 100 0 slovenian 97 59.8/40.2 38.03 99 65 10.3 participants and graduates of the presidential programme for management’s personnel training were invited to participate in the russian part of the study, which was carried out under the auspices of the business school of the ural state federal university named after b. n. yeltsin (yekaterinburg). the students were given a paper version of the questionnaire; graduates participated in an online version of the survey (the electronic version of the questionnaire was prepared using the https://www.1ka.si website). postgraduates of urfu, e. k. mugatabarova and p. lobanova took part in the collection and processing of experimental data. the slovenian side also prepared an electronic version of the questionnaire via https://www.1ka.si, which was published on the internet. participants were involved in the survey by exchanging links to the study on social networks, publishing links to relevant websites, electronic newsletters of institutions, sending emails directly to managers and companies of 500 fastest growing companies in 2014. the overwhelming majority of participants filled in the questionnaire on the website; however, a number of managers completed it directly in paper form in the context of professional training. the average duration of completing the questionnaire was 15 minutes. the following independent variables were distinguished and approved: 1. permanent place of work of the subjects (implemented administrative practice) in russia or in slovenia as an indicator of the national cultural orientation of the subject and his or her inclusion in a specific (national) management system, conditioned by national culture. 2. the proportion of measurable criteria in the total selected criteria is interpreted in terms of an orientation toward the observance of organisational standards while supervising the effectiveness of the organisation’s activities. 293changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 3. the proportion of non-measurable criteria in the total selected criteria is interpreted in terms of an orientation towards professional experience while supervising the effectiveness of the organisation’s activities. 4. the ratio of the number of absolute or relative criteria to the total measurable criteria is considered in terms of the orientation / lack of orientation towards monitoring performance. 5. the ratio of the number of explicit and implicit criteria in the total weakly measurable criteria is considered in terms of an orientation / lack of orientation towards the monitoring of activities. table 4. professional sampling characteristics: management experience samples total quantity (pers.) average duration of employment as a manager number of subordinates (%) u p t o 5 p e o p le 6 – 1 0 p e o p le 1 1 – 5 0 p e o p le > 5 0 p e o p le n o t in d ic a te d russian 171 6.4 49 30 19 2 0 slovenian 97 8.6 24 48 24 2 2 table 5. professional sampling characteristics: area of activity of managers samples total quantity (pers.) characteristics of the organisation (%) area of activity with participation of foreign capital type of ownership pr od uc tio n sa le s co ns tru ct io n pu bl ic ad m in is tra tio n, in su ra nc e na tio na l in te rn at io na l st at e pr iv at e russian 171 29 16 11 2 94.7 5.3 17.5 82.5 slovenian 97 16 10 5 15 76.3 24.7 29.9 70.1 results of the study for data processing correlation analysis using non-parametric criteria (kendall’s tau-b and spearman’s rho), mann-whitney u-test, method of descriptive statistics. the statistical analysis of data was carried out using the spss statistics 17.0 software package. the table presents the results of testing the main hypothesis regarding the differences in the structure of subjective criteria for monitoring the activities of russian and slovenian managers (table 6). 294 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, galina mirolyubova, nina janza table 6. general results of sample alignment samples mann-whitney u-test (middle results) measurable criteria weakly measurable criteria russian 56.11 58.66 slovenian 60.39 60.19 in the slovenian sample, measurable and weakly measurable criteria of the effectiveness of professional activity are presented equally in the general structure of subjective monitoring criteria by managers (the distinction is not significant). in the russian sample, statistically significant differences were revealed in the representation of measurable and weakly measurable monitoring criteria by managers of the effectiveness of professional activity in the overall monitoring criteria structure. conclusion. in the structure of subjective criteria for monitoring the effectiveness of management activities, roughly equal proportions of both groups of criteria, both measurable and weakly measurable, apply to both russian and slovenian managers. the obtained data do not allow the main hypothesis to be considered as confirmed. the results of testing additional hypothesis 1 are also presented in table 7. from the data, it can be seen that slovenian leaders use measurable criteria more frequently than russian leaders when monitoring their performance. conclusion. additional hypothesis 1 was confirmed. a significant difference was found between the mean values of the measurable criteria in the russian (56.11) and slovenian (60.39) samples (table 6). the results of testing additional hypothesis 2 are presented in table 7. it is clear from the data that there are differences in the structure of measurable criteria for russian and slovenian leaders. a significant difference was found between the mean values of the measurable criteria in the russian (56.11) and slovenian (60.39) samples (table 6). significant differences are observed for eight (out of twenty) measurable criteria: four criteria from the “absolute” group and four from the “relative” group. two criteria are relevant to the monitoring of activities at the stage of preliminary monitoring, according to three criteria for monitoring activities at the stages of preliminary and final monitoring. table 7. comparative data by type of criteria measurable criteria mann-whitney u-test absolute natural 0.006 binary 0.037 relative correlation criteria 0 compliance criteria 0.006 295changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 table 8 below shows the distribution by monitoring stage of criteria that have selection differences in the cultural groups. pre-confirmation monitoring stage. a significant difference was found according to two criteria: a) according to the binary criterion “measurability of planned results”: in 25 % of the selections, russian managers indicate this criterion to be insignificant for monitoring work effectiveness (selection of “never” and “very rarely”); slovenian managers define this criterion as insignificant in only 6 % of cases. b) by the criterion of the ratio “percentage of the total volume of my work that can be delegated to my subordinates”: in 48.1 % of cases, russian managers do not use, or rarely use this criterion; slovenian managers choose this criterion as important in 83.5 % of cases (selections are “often” or “always”). ongoing monitoring stage. a significant difference in the selection of criteria among different cultural groups of managers was found in the following types of criteria: a) the natural criterion “amount of time devoted to the execution of work”. the main difference in the data concerns the selection labelled “rarely”: russian managers – in 30.4 % of cases; slovenian managers – in 17.5 % of cases. b) the criterion “cost/benefit ratio when making my decision”. in the slovenian sample, this criterion is more common (83.3 % of cases) than in the russian sample (54.6% of cases). c) the criterion “degree of compliance of the management methods (methods) used by me to those used in the organisational culture”. there is little difference between the russian and slovenian samples concerning the average position of the selection (“rarely” and “often”). the interest in this case is represented by the data of the extreme selections (selections “rarely” and “always”). the ratio of russian and slovenian data is as follows: at the selection of “never” 9 % versus 3 %; at the selection of “always” 5.4 versus 17.5 %, respectively. 296 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, galina mirolyubova, nina janza table 8. criteria that have selection differences between the cultural groups (by monitoring stage) performance monitoring stage criterion group (class) formulation of criterion (content) selection (%) "never", "rarely" "often", "always" r us si an s s lo ve ne s r us si an s s lo ve ne s preliminary monitoring binary measurability of the planned results 25 6 relationships percentage of the total amount of my work that can be delegated to my subordinates 48.1 16.5 59.9 83.5 ongoing monitoring natural amount of time devoted to the execution of work "rarely" 30.4 "rarely" 17.5 ratios cost/benefit ratio when making my decision 54.6 83.3 compliance degree of compliance of the management methods used by me with those used in the organisational culture "never" 9 "never" 3 "always" 5.4 "always" 17.5 final (concluding) monitoring natural number of complaints and comments on the results of my work 54.6 83.5 binary correspondence / mismatch of the achieved results with those planned "rarely" 18 "rarely" 5.2 "always" 37.5 "always" 51.5 compliance degree to which expenditures are planned 34.5 89.7 297changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 stage of final control. a significant difference in the selection of criteria among different cultural groups of managers was found in the following circumstances: a) by selection of the natural criterion “number of complaints and comments on the results of my work”. in the slovenian sample, this criterion is more common (83.5 % of cases) than in the russian sample (54.6 % of cases). b) on the selection of the binary criterion “correspondence/non-correspondence of the actual results with those planned”. it should be noted that marker “i never use it” it was not given by any of the respondents either in the russian or in the slovenian groups; 43–44 % of respondents in either group use this criterion frequently. however, according to the data of the estimated markers differences are observed “rarely” – 18 % of russian managers and 5.2 % of slovenian managers; “always” – 37.5 % and 51.5 % respectively. c) by selection of the compliance criterion “degree to which expenditures are planned”. in 34.5 % of cases, russian managers do not use or rarely use this criterion for the control of the effectiveness of their own work; in 89.7 % of cases, slovenian managers consider this criterion as important and significant. conclusion during this phase of the russian-slovenian study, we focused our attention on the influence of national cultural factors on the formation of a system of subjective criteria for monitoring work activities. the hypotheses concerning the existence of structural differences in subjective measurable criteria used by russian and slovenian managers was confirmed. there are significant differences in the preferences of slovenian and russian managers for subjective criteria at different stages of monitoring (preliminary, current and final). the proposed model and questionnaire developed on its basis can be considered as working tools for diagnosing the content and the set of subjective criteria for systematic monitoring of managers’ activities. in subsequent studies, this method will be tested in companies of various types operating in different markets and under various sociocultural conditions. references benjamin, a. j., riggio, r. e., mayes, b. t. 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(2015). what do russian managers want to add to life-long learning of their aged subordinates? iceri2015 proceedings, 8421–8429. retrieved from: http://library.iated.org/view/ismagilova2015wha matthews, j. r. (2007). evaluation and measurement of library services. westport, ct: libraries unlimited. negandhi, a. r., prasad, s. b. (1971). comparative management. new york: appleton century-crofts. ronen, s. (1986). comparative and multinational management. new york: wiley. changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 350–371 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.3.105 received 24 june 2020 © olga v. novoselova accepted 22 september 2020 novoselovaolga@urfu.ru published online 9 october 2020 article peculiarities of modern nationalist messages in online political communication: the analyses of donald trump’s and jair bolsonaro’s election campaigns olga v. novoselova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia corvinus university of budapest, budapest, hungary abstract as digitalized election campaigns are a new phenomenon, there are almost no studies defining the peculiarities of modern nationalist messages in online political communication. this article seeks to identify some communication patterns and recent innovations in delivering online nationalist messages. these patterns are regarded in conflation with nationalist and populist approaches by political leaders during their digital election campaigns. the literature review approach is chosen to explore the articulation of nationalist and populist messages during donald trump’s (the united states), and jair bolsonaro’s (brazil) election campaigns. overall, the study boils down to an analysis of the populist and nationalist signifiers in social media posts, and the degree to which their structures of meaning revolve around the vertical down/up or the horizontal in/out axis. as a result, some common traits of modern nationalist messages in online political communication are identified and future areas of research are proposed. keywords online political communication, nationalism, populism, election campaign, donald trump, jair bolsonaro acknowledgement the present publication is the outcome of the project „from talent to young researcher project aimed at activities supporting the research career model in higher education”, identifier efop-3.6.3vekop-16-2017-00007 co-supported by the european union, hungary, and the european social fund. https://changing-sp.com/ callto:16-2017-00007 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 350–371 351 introduction the victories of donald trump in 2016 (usa) and jair bolsonaro in 2018 (brazil) were marked by several novelties from the point of view of mechanisms of online political communication. according to the data, trump’s campaign messages were three times more retweeted and five times more shared on facebook than those from the opposite candidate (persily, 2017). based on a sample of 17 million tweets, woolley and guilbeault (2017) demonstrated how bots were able to occupy central positions in mediating information on twitter during elections. jair bolsonaro, in the same vein, with just six seconds of tv daily, left other candidates behind; those candidates used traditional models of communication, such as mass media, debates and voter support (piaia & alves, 2019). the victory of the brazilian political-fringe, divisive and intolerant political candidate (who joined the party only some months before the election, without a robust organizational structure in the states, and without a party alliance that guaranteed television time for electoral propaganda) had been seen as completely unlikely before the first round of the 2018 election. nonetheless, jair messias bolsonaro was the first case of building a candidacy mostly supported by digital channels in brazil. these two examples show that the digital campaigns, once relegated by marketers to the background in the mass media, have gained relevance. these practices have been professionalizing and diversifying due to the technological innovations that appear during each cycle, such as websites, emails, blogs, twitter1, facebook2, instagram3, youtube4 and, more recently, whatsapp5 (aggio, 2014). these significant changes in the mediated political communication system have given rise to scientific research devoted to the investigation of messages, posts, retweets etc., for defining modern communication styles successfully used by politicians in social media. as a result, flamboyant speeches, extremist rhetoric, emotional appeals and other techniques were attributed to populism by most researchers (fitzduff, 2017; gonawela et al., 2018; iasulaitis & vieira, 2019; ituassu et al., 2018). the nation-state remains the primary context for democratic political representation and public debate, making references to “the nation” unavoidable for most political discourses. traditionally, operating within a national context, politicians, even populists that do not endorse a nationalist program, tend to speak in the name of a people defined at the national level. these connections between populism and nationalism have led to a conflation of populism and nationalism, which is traditionally reflected in political communication styles (de cleen, 2017, p. 342). much valuable work has been done on how populism and nationalism come together in particular movements and parties (canovan, 2005; mény & surel, 2000; stavrakakis, 2005). however, explicit conceptual reflections on the relationship between populism and nationalism in the online communicational styles of politicians that could 1 twitter™ is a trademark of twitter inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 2 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 3 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 4 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 5 whatsapp™ is a trademark of whatsapp inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 352 olga v. novoselova strengthen such empirical analyses have not received much systematic attention. i argue that, although the results of studies devoted to political communication styles in social media might show the rise of populist messages, there is still a combination of populist and nationalist messages in different kinds of populist communications. this study explores how nationalism and populism is articulated in the communication styles of donald trump’s and jair bolsonaros’s election campaigns, and the peculiarities of expressing their messages in social media. with nationalism and populism as content, the study refers to the public communication of core components of ideologies with a characteristic set of key messages, or frames. with nationalism and populism as a style, it refers to the fact that these messages expressing ideology are often associated with the use of a characteristic set of presentational style elements. in this perspective, nationalism and populism are understood as features of political communication, rather than as characteristics of the actor sending the message in social media. hence, the focus is on the unique contribution of the communication processes to “constructing” ideas, and on the communicative styles that systematically co-occur with this construction. the study draws inspiration from research that has pointed to the articulation of nationalism and populism as distinctive discourses in different kinds of populist politics, where discourse theory studies are applied to produce a structure of meaning through the articulation of existing discursive elements (de cleen, 2017). this study will contribute to previous research in several ways. firstly, it will test a discoursetheoretical framework, which can further facilitate a rigorous study of the co-occurrence of populism and nationalism through the prism of articulation in the communication field (looking at the different ways in which populism and nationalism become intimately linked with each other in different empirical cases). also, it will advance the empirical study of how populist and nationalist messages are combined in social media. lastly, it will assist in expanding the context of political communication in social media. this article begins with a general explication of nationalism and populism approaches following by an overview of research devoted to populism and nationalism narratives used by politicians and further analysis of nationalist and populist messages in the election campaigns of trump (the united states) and bolsonaro (brazil). literature review many of the most prominent instances of populist politics have been nationalist, and nationalisms have often had a populist component. in ernest gellner and ghita ionescu's seminal volume on populism, angus stewart (1969, p. 183) goes as far as to call populism “a kind of nationalism”. however, nationalism is best understood as a malleable and narrow ideology, which values membership in the nation more than membership in other groups (i.e. based on gender, parties, or socio-economic status), seeks distinction from other nations, and strives to preserve the nation and give preference to political representation by the nation, for the nation (billig, 1995). the core concept of nationalism is the nation, which can be seen “as a limited and sovereign community that exists through time and is tied changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 350–371 353 to a certain space, and that is constructed through an in/out (member/nonmember) opposition between the nation and its outgroups” (de cleen & stavrakakis, 2017, p. 308). this does not mean that nationalists exclusively use the word “nation”. they also refer to “the people”, as well as, “state”, “land”, “freedom”, “democracy” and “culture”, which acquire meaning in relation to the signifier ‘nation’ (freeden, 1998, p. 750). conventionally, nationalism has been distinguished between an ethnic and a civic variant. civic nationalism is based on citizenship and the ability of individuals to join the nation, whereas ethnic nationalism is based on the myth of common descent and is thus less inclusive (kohn, 1944). according to florian bieber (2018), although nationalisms differ around the world, there are still some common patterns. the fear of immigrants, linked to the fear of a threat to the identity of the receiving country, is one of these patterns. the wish for homogeneity is an important element that fuels nationalism, and traditionally it has always been weaker in countries with a multifaceted identity and a high level of immigration that contributed to shaping this identity. even more polysemic and controversial than nationalism is the concept of populism, which refers to a wide range of empirical phenomena. it has been defined as a rhetorical style of political communication, a thin-centered ideology, a form of political behavior, and a strategy of consensus organization (mudde, 2007). populism is a dichotomic discourse in which the people are juxtaposed to the elite along the lines of a down/up antagonism, in which the people are discursively constructed as a large, powerless group through opposition to the elite, who are conceived as a small and illegitimately powerful group. populist politics claims to represent the people against elite that frustrates their legitimate demands, and presents these demands as expressions of the people’s will (laclau, 2005; stavrakakis & katsambekis, 2014). thus, three elements can be considered as the common denominators of these successive historical and scholarly theoretical shapes of populism. populism (1) always refers to the people and justifies its actions by appealing to and identifying with the people; (2) is rooted in anti-elite feelings; (3) considers the people as a monolithic group without internal differences except for some very specific categories who are subject to an exclusion strategy. if populists define the people in national terms (a tempting strategy in both nationstates and in multinational states) populism and nationalism merge; whereby, the corrupt elite can be either a minority accused of holding a disproportionate amount of political or economic power, or an elite accused of being beholden to foreign interests. conceiving nationalism and populism as ideologies that are articulated discursively by political actors and media actors bridges existing literature from political science and communication science (de vreese et al., 2018). from a distinct political communication point of view, the focus now shifts from what constitutes the ideology of nationalism and populism to how it is communicated. in order not to overlook the vast research area of nationalism and populism studies, further understanding of, and approach to, nationalism and populism, thus, centers around communication and social media. due to the fact that the advent of more sophisticated communication technologies, and the rise of social media, are seen to have created new opportunities and platforms for nationalists and populists to spread their messages, the main accent https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449057.2018.1532633 https://journals.sagepub.com/action/dosearch?target=default&contribauthorstored=de+vreese%2c+claes+h 354 olga v. novoselova in this study is paid to messages produced exactly in social media, skipping other mediums (engesser et al., 2017; gerbaudo, 2018). there is now a growing body of literature on populism, and in the emerging field of populist political communication, which has mainly concentrated on media effects and mediated populism in europe (aalberg et al., 2016). empirical examples in recent years have demonstrated this in switzerland (ernst et al., 2017), the netherlands (hameleers et al., 2016), hungary and italy (moffitt, 2016). hameleers et al. (2018) report on an unprecedented sixteen-country experiment testing the effects of populist communication on political engagement. some empirical tests for the presence of populism features in media content have been conducted (bos & brants, 2014; rooduijn, 2014), and, based on the use of content characteristics and style features, one can distinguish different types of populism such as complete populism, excluding populism and empty populism (aalberg & de vreese, 2016; jagers & walgrave, 2007). elena bloch and ralph negrine (2017) provided a framework, which assesses the relevant features of specific populist actors’ communicative styles, whereas christian fuchs (2020) defined the role of social media in the communication of nationalist ideology. nationalist communication on social media seem to be predominant, and a great change after years in which liberal culture used social media in a more effective way (adriani, 2019). l. hagen et al. (2019) investigated the frames and meanings of emoji characters expressed by actors in defining their own identities involved in the white nationalist conversation in twitter. ki deuk hyun and jinhee kim (2015) in their study contend that online political expression facilitated by news consumption enhances support for the existing sociopolitical system, both directly and indirectly through nationalism. although researchers find the combination of populism and nationalism style a “powerful cocktail” (sheranova, 2018, p. 2) as these features of communication style are defined to be used in online message building, only a few studies can be traced in the area of nationalism and populism conjunction as a communication phenomenon. arzuu sheranova (2018) considered the empirical case of the populist-nationalist leadership of hungary, and demonstrated the interplay between populism and nationalism. whereas, robert schertzer and eric woods (2020) found that ethnonationalist and populist themes were, by far, the most important component of trump’s tweets, and these themes built upon long-standing myths and symbols of an ethnic conception of american identity. however, this work tends to be quite limited. it often focuses on identifying discursive strategies that are broadly shared across movements and content, rather than on how nationalist populist communication is articulated between each other in the online messages of politicians. these studies are limited by the analysis of single country representatives, and doesn’t express the wide peculiarities, which could be a framework for further research. as a result, they can miss what makes these ideologies meaningful and, therefore, why they resonate with voters. this article adopts a literature review approach to analyzing how nationalism and populism are articulated in the two cases of online election campaigns, those from the united states and brazil, in ways, which surface important processes of https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2020.1713390?scroll=top&needaccess=true https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2020.1713390?scroll=top&needaccess=true https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 350–371 355 sensemaking and message construction, and highlight issues of conflation. first, i provide a choice explanation of donald trump and jair bolsonaro’s election campaigns, and give an account of my qualitative methods of data collection and an interpretive mode of data analysis. second, related shared generalizations centered on aspects of nationalist and populist conflation are elaborated. finally, i discuss the implications of my findings and methodological approach for understanding the processes of online political communication. methodology the study aims to identify the peculiarities in online political communication, which are seen in conflation of nationalism and populism approaches, through comparative empirical investigation of the parameters, as well as the operative variables in order to verify if there are specificities and regularities. for exploring the collective evidence in articulation of nationalist and populist messages in online communication, i selected the literature review approach (bass & wind, 1995) to make generalizations, rather than meta-analysis, because of the diverse design of the studies considered and the international scope (as it examines research by academician and practitioners in the united states and brazil). the empirical generalizations are made by analyzing the interrelations among nationalist and populist messages that researchers have studied in defining the specific style and way messages were disseminated, which were popular among target audiences in trump and bolsonaro’s election campaigns. studies eventually included were selected from an extensive database using investigations of the two presidential election campaigns at different angles of study. the study selection criteria were the following: (1) each study should focus on the online communication effects of election campaigns. thus, studies pertaining to general political issues and communication effects after elections were excluded; (2) the study should report empirical results or discuss empirical results of other studies; (3) the study should be in english, portuguese or russian; (4) the majority of studies were published in communication journals. relevant books and conference proceedings were also included. the key consideration was whether the study contributed to the stock of knowledge of how the new type of message is being built in political communication on the social media. in order to get a sample of research articles and case studies, the following snow-ball procedure was applied; i started with a well-known and widely cited set of research articles on trump’s and bolsonaro’s communications on social media, traced references in those articles, back-tracked the cited works in the references, and so on, until i was able to find no new relevant articles. this process resulted in a total of 54 research articles. i make no claim that this selection is complete, and there are practitioners and academic papers i missed, but i believe these studies are enough to shed a light on https://changing-sp.com/ 356 olga v. novoselova the peculiarities of nationalist messages in online communications in america and brazil. therefore, to trace commonalities in the diversity, the comparative method (esser & pfetsch, 2016) has been used, by which the election campaigns of donald trump and jair bolsonaro are analyzed. these two cases were chosen because there are clearly similarities between the phenomena of “trumpism” and “bolsonarism” that do not seem to be mere coincidence. trump’s and bolsonaro’s marketers have invested heavily in creating the image of a “new” politician. in the last decade, the re-emergence of nationalist populism has sparked much research into possible reasons for its renewed attractiveness and its implications worldwide (van hooft, 2016, p. 30). us president donald trump’s rhetoric and policies are especially considered as signs of, and impetus to, a renationalization of global politics, in which national interests are prioritized and international challenges and partners subordinated (kagan, 2018). other leaders with nationalist messages all around the globe have been riding on the wave of nationalist messages that trump has been spreading since his election campaign in 2016. one especially successful propagator of nationalist appeals is jair bolsonaro, who was elected brazil’s president in 2018. during his election campaign, he promised to fight globalism, and has been called the “trump of the tropics” based on their similarly nationalist rhetoric (shear & haberman, 2019). these phenomena pushed the scientific community to deeply study the peculiarities of these presidents’ election campaigns and their populist messages in social media. thus, considering these similarities and the presence of numerous studies devoted to trump’s and bolsonaro’s identity, rhetoric and use of media, this research is mainly concentrated on analyzing the conflation of nationalism and populism in their online messages during election campaigns, rather than on political regimes and the type of communication strategy after successful elections. data analysis the empirical generalizations have been developed from content analysis of empirical studies results due to the fact that this type of analysis is an appropriate method when the phenomenon to be observed is communication, rather than behavior, or a physical object (malhotra, 1996). this study carefully followed the procedures recommended in content analysis literature (harris, 2001). one of the most fundamental and important decisions is the determination of the basic unit of text to be classified (weber, 1990). six units that have been commonly used in content analysis literature are word, word sense, sentence, theme, paragraph and whole text (ibid.). sections such as analysis and results in articles were chosen as the units of analysis. the aim was to find the data used for analysis and the final results in those studies. the main codes were connected with central elements of populist and nationalist communication. in populist communication three elements are central: (1) reference to “the people” (2) a battle against the “corrupted elite” and with a possible extension of changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 350–371 357 (3) the identification of an out-group. these defining elements have been emphasized by several scholars of populism (aalberg & de vreese, 2016; kriesi, 2014; mudde, 2004). for nationalism, they are: (1) trust in other nationalities (perceived out-groups); (2) pride in the nation; (3) isolationism; (4) the rank of national identity over other identities; and (5) state vs. ethnic identity (bieber, 2018). during the process of analysis, special attention is paid to the content and how the nodal points of populism (the “people-as-underdog” and “the elite”) and nationalism (the (”people-as-nation”) acquire meaning through the articulation of populism and nationalism with their down/up and in/out structure in the candidates’ online messages (de cleen & stavrakakis, 2017, p. 312) results the success of the recent election campaigns of the american and brazilian presidents exemplifies the combination of nationalist and populist approaches in their online communication rather than a clear nationalist or populist strategy. the content of the messages was cumulatively intertwined with the features of both ideologies and distinguished as a more efficient one in the process of involvement. thus, according to no. 1, 5, 9, and 12 in the table 1, and the content peculiarities of candidates’ messages, the following generalizations can be made. g1: a positive association between candidates’ personal messages in their online presence, and claims of being an outsider and patriot of the country, are considered an indirect indicator of the predictive potential of online interactions with respect to electoral results. the notion of an outsider in the candidates’ messages refers to the elevation of their status as the representatives of the people and defenders against the others, which is the strategy of populist rhetoric. to reinforce the positive connotation of this word, references to patriotism and national values are applied. words like father, mother, son, family, boy and school refer to the narrative of the narrator’s past and family connections (santos et al., 2019, p. 5). it is an attempt to tell the story itself. this rhetorical construction resumes its personal and political trajectory, detaching itself from the main actors of negative reputation and approaching or, at least, illuminating its connections with actors of positive reputation according to their speech. regarding the structure of society, trump and bolsonaro vehemently defended nationalism using national symbols, such as the flags and their colors, to compose the visual identity of their campaigns. referring to the phrases “brazil above all, god above all” or “make america great again”, such words as brazil, god and america are central nationalist indicators. other words also gain relevance, especially the verbs believe, change and want that appear in argument sentences. the verb change, for example, appears more than 55 times in bolsonaro’s posts, like “[…] really change the destiny of our brazil”. this content is the construction of an idealized, fraternal and pious nationalism mobilized through an emotional rhetorical approach, using terms such as friend, hug, heart and love (santos et al., 2019, p. 6). https://changing-sp.com/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1940161218790035 358 olga v. novoselova table 1. the peculiarities of content in candidates’ messages according to rhetoric’s elements. summary of empirical generalization rhetoric generalization studies donald trump jair bolsonaro people vs elite 1. a genuine outsider from elite groups, a newcomer in politics; 2. personal involvement in the process of online communication; 3. criticism of parties and major political actors, the current institutional model, anti-establishment, media (elite groups); 4. elimination of corruption within the government; 5. poses as an outsider; 6. usage of a simple, informal, vulgar language as a way of being closer to people; 7. criticism of bolsa família program (fraud); 8. criticism of a large delegitimating strategy that targets the oligarchies as opposed to the people; enli, 2017; alcott & gentzkow, 2017; carreiro & matos, 2019; fontes et al., 2019; murta et al., 2019; loureiro & casadei, 2019; iasulaitis & vieira, 2019; magalhães & veiga, 2019; androniciuc, 2017; del valle et al., 2018; people as a nation 9. patriotism, national symbols; love for the country; 10. security (weapons, transfer of responsibility from the state to the citizen); 11. freedom for parents to choose educational models. 12. homeland symbols, brazil becoming a nation again, brazil above all; 13. defense of the traditional family and heteronormativity, moral and religious values; 14. order: increased criminal law, intolerance of social movements; passos de azevedo, 2019; santos et al., 2019; aggio & castro, 2019; obschonka et al., 2018; nai & maier, 2018; rudolph, 2019; nair & sharma, 2017; kellner, 2016; iasulaitis & vieira, 2019; ituassu et al., 2018; gonawela et al., 2018; fitzduff, 2017; rothwell & diego-rosell, 2016; rowland, 2019; whitehead et al., 2018; muller, 2019; down/up structure 15. protection of the constitution (through the appointment of conservative members to the supreme court); 16. protection of the country freedom and individual freedom; 17. decentralization; 18. defense and apology for the armed forces; 19. administrative reform, reduction of expenses, fight against fraud; 20. liberate the country, hostage to corruption, parties and the system; braga & carlomango, 2018; piaia & alves, 2019; vitorino, 2019; pybus, 2019; malala & amienyi, 2018; demata, 2019; tadic et al., 2017; passos de azevedo, 2019; yaquba et al., 2017; yates, 2019; srinivasan et al., 2019; bernecker et al., 2019; magalhães & veiga, 2019 in/out structure 21. construction of the wall and illegal immigration; 22. xenophobia and criticism of political minorities (women, lgbt's, foreigners, refugees, indigenous people, blacks and blacks, low economic strata); 23. animosity towards socialist countries; 24. remove brazil from the un security council; 25. the split of country between the good citizens, christians, and the communists (lgbts, women, blacks, indigenous people, northeasterners). yaquba et al.,2017; carreiro & matos, 2019; passos de azevedo, 2019; santos et al., 2019; iasulaitis & vieira, 2019; aggio & castro, 2019; ituassu et al., 2019; lima, 2019; obschonka et al., 2018; oh & kumar, 2017; costa & khudoliy, 2019; darwish et al., 2017; ahmadian et al., 2017; changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 350–371 359 it is worth mentioning frank, personal posts on social nets that blur the boundaries between a politician and ordinary people. the candidate’s personal involvement was also underlined by the account name, for instance, @real_donaldtrump, as though to underline the tweets, which came directly from trump himself and were not managed and crafted solely by his campaign (enli, 2017). single-source and experimental studies have repeatedly and independently verified that the combination of a satirical tone with negative and aggressive meaning, used with simple, informal language repeated per involvement cycle, were the language mechanisms of getting closer to ordinary people and braking barriers between them. researchers also emphasize the fact that highly personalized and hyperbolized messages on social networks are intended to transform political facts and events into a spectacle. the new technologies contribute to this process. the hyperbolization of broadcast messages on social networks (facebook, twitter) is another efficient mechanism used in the image building of these two politicians. the use of epithets appeals to the emotions of voters by means of representing everything that happens in the country in a superlative form, such as the worst, the most terrible, nightmare, catastrophe, etc. (passos de azevedo, 2019, p. 8). g2: exacerbation of nationalist mobilization in the process of giving the oligarchy’s power back to the people through the candidate. according to the statements 3, 8, 9, and 12 in the table 1, this positioning is part of a larger delegitimizing strategy that targets the oligarchies as opposed to the people (de la torre, 1992, p. 386), an oligarchy that can encompass various actors, including the social elite, the political class and the media. these politicians have used language to create otherness, with varying degrees of success. similar tactics of linguistic othering is a prominent example of how they create and disseminate a populist frame. trump’s strategy, like bolsonaro’s, was to present the mainstream media as the one chasing them. the candidates repeatedly claimed that the country’s main media outlets were campaigning against them, defending their main opponent and even publishing lying news that compromised their images (iasulaitis & vieira, 2019). the intention is to exacerbate nationalist mobilization with the promise to give back power to the people, through the candidate of course (santos et al., 2019). for trump, others’ supportive quotes or endorsements were the most common content. as much as 39.3% of his tweets belonged to this category, followed by criticism or attack on other (25%). the attack tweets took up a quarter of trump’s tweets including attacks on other candidates (16.9%). the attacks were often coupled with incivility; one out of ten (10.5%) trump’s tweets and retweets included uncivil wordings attacking other candidates (clowns, jabronis, corrupt liar, disaster, ambien for insomnia), journalists (outright liar, really dumb puppets), and debates (clown competition, garbage) (lee & lim, 2016, p. 850). such criticism of the main political actors and institutional mechanisms perceived in the two campaigns under analysis highlight the anti-establishment brand (iasulaitis & vieira, 2019). g3: such themes as, (a) violence/public security; b) health; c) the economy are the three key intermediate effects which lead to the success in elections. https://changing-sp.com/ 360 olga v. novoselova statements 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, and 24 in the table 1 empirically reconcile both types of rhetoric employed by the candidates. researchers come to the conclusion, based on trump’s and bolsonaro’s online messages, that politicians who managed to control the themes that are more prominent on the public agenda, covering these subjects in its favor, are more likely to win the elections (magalhães & veiga, 2019). these themes were classified with subgroups which include: (1) topics of public policies (violence, health, housing, education, environment, social security and bolsa família program), which occupies 47.96% of the debate space; (2) development (economy, inflation and agribusiness) with 13.3% of the debate; (3) corruption, with 17.24%, which can be grouped – if desired – into ideology/moral values (dictatorship, gender identity, racism, fascism, venezuela, human rights, protests, communism, school without a party), which adds up to 21.5% (magalhães & veiga, 2019). thus, nodal nationalist words in politician accounts referred to security. commitment, government, and citizen place a strong emphasis on the topic of public security, combating crime and other related matters. in other words, the posts of the candidates present a vocabulary that often associates the idea of citizen/people to the issue of security, including the use of commitment as a way to tie government actions with improving the individual’s life via security. the words that make up this class are aggregated around the idea of “security” (carreiro & matos, 2019, p. 4). in the sphere of foreign affairs, both candidates exercised the defense and apology for the armed forces in brazil and the united states. in addition, the candidates strongly defended the legalization of the possession of weapons (including a weapon becoming a symbol of bolsonaro’s campaign) triggered through images, gestures and emoticons. both candidates emphasized national security, the review of trade relations with china, strong animosity towards socialist countries, and their insertion in international organizations. bolsonaro even proposed to remove brazil from the un security council, “for taking a stand against israel and only defending what is no good” and defended the establishment of commercial relations without what he calls “ideological bias”, which refers to relations with countries with leftist governments (iasulaitis & vieira, 2019, p. 5). regarding the thematic plan, the analysis of relational pairs demonstrated that trump’s strategies in the immediately preceding election served as a showcase and demonstration effect for bolsonaro’s campaign (from the point of view of the agenda adopted and the style, and the strategies of using twitter for the candidate) filled with political humor techniques, sarcasm, irony, scorn, negative adjectives and nicknames of opponents, to carry out a negative campaign. g4: the concept of splitting the country into christian or family groups (to further their unification with the candidate’s help), and the minorities group, is applied as a paradigm of digital political communication in contemporary electoral contexts. according to the statements 9, 12, 22, and 25 in the table 1, populists claim that the will of the people is the only legitimate source of authority, but the concept of people inherently depends on there being some other groups that are opposed changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 350–371 361 to “us”. the politicians use social media to assert themselves as the defenders of the in-group against all out-groups, which is the in/out structure of nationalist rhetoric. though it is fundamental for populists to position themselves as the defender of the people, it must be clear who they are defending the people against (caiani & della porta, 2011, p. 187). populists often target and attack minority cultural and ethnic groups, both within their sovereign borders and beyond their borders. in these cases, bolsonaro defended morality and the traditional family, and opposed abortion under any circumstances, whereas trump gave a voice to christians and other proponents of traditional family valuesies (iasulaitis & vieira, 2019). though, on the surface, this color-blind and gender-blind language might make bolsonaro seem to be treating all people equally; in fact, color-blindness and gender-blindness are counterproductive ideologies ignoring the systematic discrimination and prejudice that women and people of color face (trujillo-pagán, 2018). both politicians use language to position themselves as the defenders of a constructed in-group against a constructed out-group. presumably, in-groups and outgroups are constructed because the people positioned in each group are not inherently interconnected. the lgbtq community, indigenous people and the political left are not intrinsically related. rather, bolsonaro and trump groups them together as the out-group in opposition to the in-group, which is similarly a constructed group. conclusion social media has rapidly accelerated the mediatization of politics by allowing political leaders to disseminate individualized content and directly interact with constituents, as well as creating niche interest networks where people can constantly interact with others who share their ideals (mazzoleni & bracciale, 2018). such opportunities may develop additional features of message building in the process of communication with voters. this article represents an attempt at identifying some communicative patterns and recent innovations in delivering nationalist messages, which are regarded in conflation with nationalism and populism approaches by political leaders during their election campaigns. when a politician articulates (elements of) different discourses, these are not simply added, one on top of the other. rather, through the articulatory process (and the elements thereof) each acquires a particular meaning. this means that when different political agents articulate populism and nationalism, this can lead to very different results (de cleen, 2017). donald trump and jair bolsonaro are the perfect examples of leaders who have capitalized on the mediatization of politics in order to gain political relevance in a relatively short period of time, and they are seen by many researchers as the candidates making use of populist or nationalist rhetoric. the analysis of particular politicians’ messages shows the articulation of populism with nationalism and applied literature review approach is aimed at uncovering the specificities of these cases in question. overall, the study of the articulation of populist and nationalist online messages boils down to an analysis of the location of the populist and nationalist signifiers in their https://changing-sp.com/ 362 olga v. novoselova messages on social media, of the degree to which that structure of meaning revolves around the vertical down/up or the horizontal in/out axis, and of the signifying relations forged between the populist and nationalist signifiers, and between the down/up and in/out axes. as a result, the developed generalizations uncover populist messages revolving around the exclusion of certain groups of people from the nation, from the nation-state, and from political decision-making. this style of content creation reinforces the fact that the “people-as-underdog” is a sub-group of the ethnically and culturally defined nation and includes no ordinary people of foreign descent (which are marked as another outgroup, called communists, in the case of bolsonaro). moreover, the “people-as-underdog” is constructed in opposition against migrants and other nationalist out-groups. indeed, populist messages have interpellated ordinary people primarily as an underdog, using the exclusionary nationalist terms family and christian. ordinary people, they argue, are the prime victims of multicultural society. thus, bolsonaro asked to “remove brazil from the un security council”, and trump demanded to “construct a wall from illegal immigration” (caiani & della porta, 2011, p. 188). also, the main argument presenting ”the elite” as lacking legitimacy is that it pampers ethnic–cultural minorities and does not take the interests of the ordinary people who suffer from diversity to heart (de cleen, 2016a, 2016b). trump and bolsonaro disseminate an exclusionary frame through messages on social media in order to establish themselves as the single representation of the constructed in-group and the defender against out-groups. what i see here is how positions on the in/out axis (membership of the nation, as well as, serving the interests of the nation) come to determine positions on the down/up 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(2019). the politics of spectacle and emotion in the 2016 presidential campaign. cham, switzerland: palgrave pivot. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-15804-0 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srx070 https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srx070 https://blogs.oii.ox.ac.uk/politicalbots/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/06/comprop-usa.pdf https://blogs.oii.ox.ac.uk/politicalbots/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/06/comprop-usa.pdf https://blogs.oii.ox.ac.uk/politicalbots/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/06/comprop-usa.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2017.11.001 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15804-0 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15804-0 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.3.018 article the end of utopias? leonid fishman institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the present article discusses the legitimacy of the question: are we really living in the era of “the end of utopias”? it is argued that a positive response to this question is possible only if, when considering utopias, their predominantly “left” content, left phraseology and the declaration of left anti-capitalist goals are placed at the forefront. however, if we approach utopias from the point of view of their objectively executable functions, their primary content is no longer utopian in the usual sense. a utopia is always a “function of the real” (labica, 2004, p. 291). contemporary utopian consciousness should be considered taking into account that: (a) utopias are inextricably linked with capitalism; (b) they serves its transformation (defining its “spirit” by its criticism) in transition from one stage to another; (c) they are an expression of the worldviews and aspirations of social groups (classes) rising at different stages of capitalism. therefore, in order to find the place in the social structure in which modern utopias are born, it is necessary to locate the “rising class”. the article defines the rising class as one that has, at least potentially, the greatest productivity. its role in social production is increasing; around it are formed production, cultural and other relations, which become decisive according to the foreseeable historical perspective. the “creative class” is considered in terms of a contemporary rising class. dazzled by its bright prospects, it is inclined to impose its utopia of the “creative economy” on the majority. the consequence of the rise of the “creative class” is a concomitant growth in the precarious social group of service workers and other social strata for whom the prospects of gaining entry into the ranks of the cognitariat are becoming increasingly unstable. now that these strata are more likely to struggle for their existence, they find themselves trying to defend what has been lost without raising questions about the need to radically transform the social system. variants of modern utopian consciousness are considered, proceeding from the outlined view of the socio-structural transformation of contemporary societies. received 31 january 2017 © 2017 leonid fishman accepted 02 april 2017 lfishman@yandex.ru published online 18 december 2017 260 leonid fishman keywords utopia, spirit of capitalism, rising class, creative class, technological substitution introduction today, it is difficult to resist the fact that “the end of utopias” did not transpire as predicted by g. marcuse (marcuse, 2004). no less often is it said that utopias have changed, e.g. become “concrete” or “private”, that their only function was “civil repair” (alexander, 2002) or that their object was the reform of democracy. according to f. ainsa, the creation of “partial” or “fragmentary” utopias is, apparently, the task of developed democratic societies, which should be solved by social collectives not loner-dreamers. at the present time, the traditional contradiction between the struggle for a complete renewal of society and maintenance of the status quo is being gradually replaced by a multiplicity of such mutually agreed “partial” utopias appearing in the spheres of education and labour or seen in the development of certain “segments” of contemporary urbanity. this becomes possible thanks to the recognition of two fundamental truths: the increasing complexity of the manifestations of a multipolar, interdependent world, and the need to search for a “consensus” (ainsa, 1997). however, reasoning of this kind differs little from the statement concerning the “end of utopias” if by the latter we refer to revolutionary utopias whose stated goal is to go beyond the limits of capitalism. in this case, if, when considering utopias, the predominantly “leftist” content, left-wing phraseology, declarations of anti-capitalist goals, etc., are at the forefront, we certainly live in the era of the end of utopias. nevertheless, if utopias are approached from the point of view of their objectively executable functions, their main content is no longer utopian in the traditional sense; perhaps those who proclaim the “end of utopias” are simply looking for and failing to find them in their usual place “under the sun”. however, a utopia is always a “function of the real” (labica, 2004, p. 291). it is from this point of view that contemporary utopian consciousness should be considered, irrespective of the form it takes. such an approach implies that utopianism: a) is inextricably linked with capitalism; b) serves its transformation (defining its “spirit” by its criticism) in the transition from one stage to another; c) is an expression of the worldview and aspirations of social groups (classes) rising at different stages of capitalism. utopianism and the spirit of capitalism the inextricable connection between utopia and capitalism is best viewed in the light of luc boltanski and eve chiapello’s concept of the changing “spirits of capitalism”. in the light of this concept, a utopia consists primarily in a criticism of capitalism. 261changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 utopian consciousness is closely connected with the image of capitalism, which serves as the object of its criticism. to a large extent, this determines both rising and descending consciousness and, as such, consists in the suspended state of relevant social groups. from this point of view, liberal utopianism is a critique of real capitalism in the sense of the pragmatic and not ideologically overburdened continuation of the domination of capitalist class – not to mention socialist criticism, which in this sense is the direct heir of the liberal (rosanvallon, 2007, p. 219). thus, utopian-critical consciousness is, so to speak, negatively shaped by the existing image of capitalism and the legitimising strategies transformed under its influence (i.e., the “spirit of capitalism”). even in a critical reaction to the discomfort of social existence, utopian consciousness cannot raise itself far above this existence. thus, utopian consciousness and imagination objectively perform the function of transforming (but not overcoming!) capitalism by influencing its “spirit”. the “spirit of capitalism” depends on utopias to the extent that it responds to the aspirations of the rising classes, placing upon their aspirations the means of their legitimisation. in legitimising itself, capitalism must connect its existence with the satisfaction of the aspirations and needs of the representatives of these classes, in such a way that these become possible (or even uniquely possible) precisely within the framework of capitalism (boltanski, chiapello, 2011, pp. 56–61). in other words, if we were actually living in the period of the end of utopias, this would imply the end of capitalism. capitalism certainly – and unambiguously – exists, although its continued existence is hardly problem-free. and this also means that utopias (or at least utopian consciousness and imagination) exist; their existence is a logical necessity. those who talk about the “end of utopias” are referring in historical terms to the specific socialist, communist, anarchic and other left-wing critiques of capitalism that are characteristic of its industrial stage. the present “end of utopias”, however, is just the end of the utopias of the era of industrial capitalism, traces of which are still evident in the vague dreams of some leftists concerning an “educational dictatorship” in the jacobin style (johnson, 2012). these utopias ceased to be relevant because they had already done their critical work on the transformation of early capitalism, with its “protestant work ethic”, into the “labour society” (castel, 2009) with – to use the terminology of boltanski and chiapello – the “second spirit of capitalism”. in so doing, they already managed to make way for those critiques that, to a large extent, determined the “third spirit of capitalism.” however, these critiques are not generally considered to be “utopian” since “utopias” are necessarily communist-socialist in their orientation. political discourses of the rising minority adhering to the position of k. mannheim, we proceed from the assumption that utopianism, at least in the epoch of capitalism, creates rising classes (mannheim, 1991, p. 122). therefore, in order to locate the place in the social structure in which modern utopias are born, it is necessary to identify the “rising class”. in what does it consist? which classes can today be considered to be “rising”? 262 leonid fishman taking as samples the leading classes of the modern era (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat), we can say that the rising class is that which disposes, if only potentially, the greatest productivity. due to its increasing role in social production, the members of such a class occupy key positions, are able to defend themselves, can sabotage production and communications, etc. around it are formed production, cultural and other relations, which become decisive according to the foreseeable historical perspective. when it comes to a contemporary rising class, the source of technical and cultural innovations allegedly playing a decisive role in the economy is usually considered in terms of “creative class” or “cognitariat”. in the past, utopias that transformed the spirit of capitalism were associated with rising classes, which constituted, if not a majority of the population, then a very significant (quantitatively and qualitatively) part thereof: hence the “third estate”, the working class and, finally, the “middle class”. however, the specific character of the present time consists in the fact that, if there are now rising classes, then they are quantitatively rather insignificant. even if we delineate the boundaries of the creative class as widely as possible, as r. florida is inclined to do, it still represents a clear minority of the working population of even the most advanced countries. a critical examination of the concept of the creative class reveals that the majority of the social groups attributed to it are in fact representative of the service sector, which was, so to speak, renamed in advance into “also creative class”. moreover, due to ongoing economic and technological changes, these individual groups are constantly shrinking. no sooner does one imagine oneself to be the main beneficiary from the achievements of progress, to which a bright future is almost guaranteed, than the next stage of development demonstrates this is not so. the periodic flaring up and fading of the utopias of the middle class, the creative class, and the bohemian bourgeoisie are cyclically accompanied with outbursts of jubilance and the loss of hopes. the utopia of “self-realisation” and the involvement of the majority of the population in a certain “creative economy” look very problematic in the outlined perspective. this understanding is reflected, in particular, in the following passage of r. florida, the creator of “creative class theory”. in his view, the creative class has enough power, talent and strength to play a significant role in the transformation of the world. its representatives (in fact, the entire society) have the opportunity to turn their inclination towards introspection and the revaluation of values into practical action aimed at a more ambitious renewal and transformation of society...” in practice, things are never quite so simple. in order to achieve genuine social cohesion, the creative class must offer representatives of other classes a realistic vision of ways for improving life, if not by participating in the creative economy, then at least by accessing some of its benefits. if it does not take these actions, the already constantly deepening social and economic contradictions will become even more significant. i am afraid this will lead to the result that our life at the top of an unhappy society will be far from serene. it is time for the creative class to grow up and take responsibility (florida, 2016). whatever may be said in the sense of creativity not being “the prerogative of a select few geniuses”, the most recent utopia that engenders capitalism cannot 263changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 be a utopia for the majority. as v. s. martianov notes, “the utopias of the creative class, e.g. hipster urbanism, gentrification and the creative industries, are oriented towards privileged urban minorities” (martianov, 2016, p. 49). in reality, fully-fledged membership of the “creative class” consists in only a very few leaders, e.g. engineers, scientists, top-managers, etc. the peculiarity of their social position generates a utopian consciousness typical of the self-defeating branch of the enlightenment, which is not oriented to the progress of mankind as a whole, but rather to the progress of reason (fishman, 2016) and, of course, its most “advanced” adepts. these latter, as winners, will receive everything, while all the others are taken into account at best as a problem to be solved, an annoying hindrance. it is possible to consider the specific utopia of the top of the “creative class” to be transhumanism. a worldview that pins its hopes on technological progress is not surprising for a social group that considers itself to be the main productive force, whose role will only grow, while other people will gradually become superfluous. however, in its fantastical variant, it is also attractive – both to superfluous and potentially superfluous people – to the extent that it promises a future in which artificial intelligence, robots and some kind of universal machine are engaged in production and service and the human being is fully supported by them. however, objectively speaking, this is precisely the utopia of a shrinking minority, which actually addresses itself not to “humanity” and “society”, but to that chimerical state of singularity when both humanity and society become superfluous. it only has a chance to transform capitalism if its adherents become more socially conscious than they are now. it would certainly be a mistake to reduce the political discourses of this rising minority to transhumanism, with its attendant deviation from social issues. representatives of the same minority, who understand the limitations of the “utopia of the creative class”, reflect on the rather gloomy prospects that the continuing progress of science and technology implies for everyone else today. for example, martin ford devoted a whole book to these perspectives, whose title speaks for itself: rise of the robots: technology and the threat of a jobless future. in this book, ford already comes very close to raising the question of the need for another transformation of capitalism: “we will have to get rid of the idea that workers are a source of funds for supporting pensioners and financing social programmes and instead admit that this source comprises our entire economy as a whole” (ford, 2016, pp. 368–369). however, it is just this kind of criticism on the part of the (so far) rising minority, which in the future can also be assimilated by the majority that, in its mass form, expresses itself politically in other ways. political discourses of the non-rising majority what about the majority that does not belong to the “creative class”? this consists, for the most part, in the service sector workers for whom to join the ranks of the creative minority is an almost impossible dream. this class, if not yet comprising “superfluous people”, consists of people involved in “useless work”, the demand for which is conditioned by the existence of other people engaged in similarly useless 264 leonid fishman work (greber, 2014, p. 151). moreover, the scope of this useless labour is reduced in proportion to the development of processes of technological substitution. in the classical mannheimian scheme, the specificity of ideologies and utopias is explained by the class position and the distorted point of view dictated by it, from which only a part of the real state of things is visible, and the other part is not visible or not completely visible. this “over-rational” scheme can be corrected in the spirit of d. greber by replacing the point of view with the “point of imagination”, with the illusory consciousness being explained by a “skew of the imagination” (greber, 2014a, p. 139). it is possible that this new interpretation is itself the product of the consciousness of certain social groups (service workers), whose representatives are guided primarily “by imagination”, and therefore that the position of the other groups is also assessed from the point of view of their “imbalances”. since there is no sustainable role in social production for social groups that are clearly not “rising” (“useless work” cannot be assigned to such), they also cannot offer projects for the reorganisation of society as a whole, i.e. analogues of classical utopias. the opportunity here, consisting not even in improving one’s position, but simply in not losing what one has, is illusory for these groups; therefore, they cannot see a “bright future”. however, they are still capable of expressing outrage at their position, clothed in rhetoric whose ideological zeal is neither right nor left (žižek, 2012, pp. 150–152). unlike the utopias of the industrial period, which were expressions of the aspirations of classes possessing the real possibility of empowered communication (because they really controlled important spheres of the economy), these sentiments are engendered by social groups whose ability to communicate with power centres is very limited. w. beck noted that nowadays the voice of a person as a citizen and a producer does not mean much; however, the voice of a consumer, a “global client”, which grabs more and more power, means a lot. like capital, it disposes a global “no”, a no-buying power. like capital, a political consumer can use the “no” policy as a calculated side effect of economic actions; that is, uncontrolled and with insignificant own costs” (beck, 2007, p. 317). but, apparently, this point of view no longer fully reflects reality. if, for the majority, salaries, in terms of purchasing power parity, do not increase (which is already a fact repeatedly confirmed by statistics), arguments concerning the alleged “power of non-buying” acquire a distinct shade of bullying. in addition, since the consumer does not constitute a class, consumers can neither sabotage communication nor production. at the same time, in the workplace, this consumer is usually a service worker, in which context he is obliged to understand a client who does not need to understand him, because he is “always right”. the skewing of imagination is thus caused by the fact that the service sector worker is doomed to constantly enter into a relationship of one-sided, “impotent” communication. in this process, he must constantly show benevolence and cordiality, affability, politeness, affability and graciousness, restraint, finesse, solicitude, skill and erudition, as well as the ability to use a smile (basova, 2008). the position of the service worker – the proletarian of contemporaneity – is characterised by the fact that he or she produces someone else’s “quality of life” at the 265changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 expense of his or her own. a large part of the service worker’s life, therefore, consists of pretending to be something that one is not. it’s not even about selling one’s labour, time or skills, but rather about disposing one’s spiritual qualities, one’s personality. in a literal sense, the service worker is involved in “selling oneself”. his or her natural desire therefore consists in life on the rent, which implies the cessation of such a trade. today it leads, for example, to downshifting, in which attitude many find an attractive alternative to the “rat race”. it also includes many alternative ways of life in squats, anarchic communities, eco-villages, etc. be that as it may, if the rethinking of the connection between a social position and a political discourse with an emphasis on “imagination” is adequate to the current state of things, it is obvious that a “skewed imagination” creates very specific forms of political thinking. utopias (as well as ideologies) in the former sense imply the primacy of rational goal setting, which goes beyond the framework of self-consciousness entirely as a consequence of “skewing of the imagination”. suspension within the framework of this distortion, as presently seems to be the case, gives rise to the absolutisation (if not ontologisation) of the communication method inherent to the social group (in this case, based on a quick reaction tailored to the customer’s desires). this leads to the justification of the “concrete utopia” that is embodied “here and now” in forms of social organisation that reveal a clear “similarity with capitalism itself” (manche, 2015). today’s majority political discourses are almost diametrically opposed to the utopias of the left in the traditional sense. this is an expression of the political aspirations of the “non-rising-class” and concerns the need to change the world to incorporate the virtues of a “concrete utopia”. since the skewed imagination of these social groups simply cannot imagine a “place that is not there”, it rather focuses on a “place that (and only that!)” is located in “civil society” and “democracy”. this kind of political imagination is easily assimilated by populist identity politicians and (thus) unlikely to transcend the emerging rental society. these modern “utopias” reflect the worldview of those social groups that cannot seriously count on this or that form of income as compensation for their lost former social subjectivity. therefore, they fluctuate between the desire for income compensation for the loss of subjectivity (which they often do not have and do not expect in a stable form) (fishman, 2016a, pp. 116–129) and gaining some “autonomy”, which for them becomes the only realistic strategy in relation to the formation of the rental society. ideologically, the requirements of income compensation can be disguised in the clothes of the former utopias; however, then we should refer to “reactionary utopias”, whose adherents want to return to a place that is no longer there. it has been repeatedly observed that members of movements like “occupy wall street” do not demand anything concrete; rather, they protest to signal their indignant outrage. but why? with full and frank awareness of their situation, they cannot demand anything but their share of rent; however, that entails admitting that they are superfluous people. nevertheless, recognising oneself as such either implies being reconciled to one’s position or posing the question more radically than these superfluous people are 266 leonid fishman capable of doing. they are not yet able to coldly face the facts because they believe that they still have something to lose. is a revolutionary utopianism possible today? (from the “function of the real” beyond the limits of capitalism) the foreseeable future will bring (and is already bringing) a steady decline in jobs due to technological substitution, including for those who are still engaged in the service sector. here we refer not to a skewed imagination, but about the fact that the social position that generates such an imagination itself ceases to be economically in demand. if an increasing number of people turns out to be banally superfluous, then it becomes more than simply another kind of utopia of self-actualisation; to that will be added another clear inflection of the utopia of demand, contrasted with the utopia of the total superfluity of a person in the context of transhumanism. the present situation is quite reminiscent of early capitalism, in which the bourgeoisie was an unquestionably rising class, while the proletariat was the nonrising moreover, “suffering” – class. now it is the “creative class” that is rising. like the bourgeoisie before it, it is just as dazzled by its bright prospects and just as inclined to impose its utopia of the “creative economy” on the majority; in this way, it closely resembles the classic utopia of the self-made man, according to which every hired worker can join the bourgeois. the consequence of the rise of the “creative class” is a concomitant growth in the precarious social group of service workers and other social strata for whom the prospects of gaining entry into the ranks of the cognitariat are becoming increasingly untenable. now that these strata are more likely to struggle for their existence, they find themselves trying to defend what has been lost without raising questions about the need to radically transform the social system. but must it always be thus? and is today’s analogue of the proletariat also only temporarily a non-rising class, which will proclaim its revolutionary utopias at some point in the future? the hope for the realisation of this assumption is that the proletariat of the industrial phase of capitalism’s development was not originally a rising class in many respects. it was a class whose political rights, access to culture and education were highly circumscribed; they did not even have enough free time for such things. and it created revolutionary utopias, because in the socio-political sense the prospects for its rise under capitalism seemed precarious and untenable. for the workers, the prospect of recovery through overcoming capitalism looked more realistic and convincing than the utopia of the bourgeoisie, which claimed that everyone could become a bourgeois. nevertheless, the industrial proletariat was an objectively rising class, since its economic role was growing by leaps and bounds. this seemed so obvious that even a look directed towards a fantastic future revealed [as in h. g. well’s novel the time machine (1895)], along with the privileged “eloi”, the oppressed “morlocks” on which, in fact, everything depended. ultimately, for several decades, a socio-political model was victorious in which the economic role of the working class (and then the “middle class” of wage workers) had become a condition for ensuring its political, cultural and 267changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 educational rise. thus, it was that the revolutionary utopias of going beyond capitalism turned into a critique that was functional for capitalism. with the social layer of service workers replenishing the ranks of the precariat, the situation is different. on the one hand, it cannot be denied that workers in the service sector have long represented a major part of the working population of most developed countries. on the other hand, the development of new technologies is buffeting them with increasing force; they are the primary candidates for victimhood of technological replacement processes. a single development of a particular kind of software is all that is necessary to force many workers out of the labour market, beginning with accountants and ending with taxi drivers or workers in the spheres of trade and fast food. many have already been superseded; others will be in the foreseeable future. today, technological progress destroys more jobs than it creates; in addition, the majority of newly created jobs are worse paid and require fewer qualifications (ford, 2016, pp. 93–177). of course, the growth of the creative class, accompanied by the process of its gentrification, creates vacancies for all sorts of domestic servants, which partly takes care of matters that were formerly a strictly familial sphere. a portion of this new servant echelon, according to r. florida, even has sufficient social capital to qualify for entry into the ranks of the creative class (florida, 2007, p. 94). nevertheless, it is obvious that the new gentry cannot provide employment for all those in need of it. in addition, there is no guarantee that the process of technological replacement will not in the foreseeable future lead to a reduction in the ranks of the creative class itself. thus, by contrast with the industrial proletariat and even with the “middle class”, the majority of workers in the service sector have no prospect of social recovery. the prospect of such a rise (“involvement in the creative economy”) can only ever apply to the minority of this class, consisting of the servants of the new gentry. others gradually turn out to be the “suffering class” or “underclass”, whose condition can be maintained by the payment of “basic income” or some other kind of benefit. according to z. bauman, “in a society where consumers, and not producers, are the driving force of economic prosperity (it is precisely in a revival caused by the growth of consumption that we place our hopes as a means of solving economic problems), the poor do not represent value as consumers: they are not spurred to make purchases by flattering advertisements, they do not have credit cards, they cannot count on current bank account loans and the goods they need typically bring tiny profits to traders or even do not bring any profits at all. not surprisingly, these people have been relegated to the “underclass”: they are no longer a temporary anomaly awaiting correction, but a class outside classes, a group outside the “social system”, an estate without whose existence it would be more convenient and everyone else would feel better.” (bauman, 2005, pp. 93–94) therefore, a stipend will be provided not so much for humane reasons as for the sake of maintaining the purchasing power of the majority of consumers, which is necessary in order to continue the mass production of goods and services and to make a profit. in fact, given the development of technological substitution processes within the framework of capitalism, the most favourable future variant for the majority of service 268 leonid fishman workers and other members of the precariat is the construction of a kind of neo-feudalism. this means that, in general, members of the creative class, who do not need many servants, will nevertheless keep them for humanitarian reasons, for preserving social stability and in order to ensure a relatively comfortable social environment. but even this comparatively favourable scenario does not give rise to real opportunities for the social uplift of the majority, since, according to the logic of capitalism, such opportunities can only appear in social groups whose economic role is growing, not decreasing. the logic of capitalism, which, from the economic point of view, leaves open the possibility of cultural, educational, etc. rises for the majority – a possibility still representing economic value – is also the logic of utopia as a “function of the real”. if there is no room for such a possibility (the neo-feudal perspective looks more like an anti-utopia), this implies that the path of utopia as a “function of the real” is closed to the majority. it also means that the prospect of recovery for the majority is now associated only with a society in which the production of “goods” and “services” in itself will lose its meaning, both as a leading way for human self-identification and as a source of profit; however, it does not imply the cancellation of a person’s need for creative activity and participation in public life. therefore, it is quite possible that it is only now that the time of real, revolutionary utopias – irreconcilable and reducible solely to the “function of the real” – is truly upon us. references alexander, j.c. 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(2012). god nevozmozhnogo: iskusstvo mechtat’ opasno [the year of dreaming dangerously]. moscow: evropa. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.150 received 22 june 2021 © 2021 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova accepted 16 december 2021 d.kochetkov@cwts.leidenuniv.nl published online 30 december 2021 igudkova@gmail.com article knowledge: from ethical category to knowledge capitalism dmitry m. kochetkov centre for science and technology studies, leiden university, netherlands department of project management, ministry of science and higher education of the russian federation, moscow, russia irina a. kochetkova peoples’ friendship university of russia (rudn university), moscow, russia institute of informatics problems, federal research center “computer science and control” of the russian academy of sciences, moscow, russia abstract in the post-industrial economy, the efficiency of scientific knowledge generation becomes crucial. researchers began to interpret knowledge as a factor of economic growth in the second half of the 20th century; since then, within the theory of economics and management, various approaches have been developed to study the impact of knowledge on economic growth and performance. with time, the focus of knowledgebased theories shifted from corporate management to macrosystems and economic policy. the article describes the main stages in the development of socio-economic concepts of knowledge and analyzes the theoretical and methodological aspects of each approach. the authors have also formulated the critical problems in the analysis of the economic category of knowledge at the present stage and suggested ways of overcoming them. the article may be of interest both to researchers and to practitioners in the sphere of corporate strategies and economic policy. keywords knowledge management; intellectual capital; knowledge economy; economics of scientific knowledge; triple helix; quintuple helix acknowledgement this paper has been supported by the rudn university strategic academic leadership program. https://changing-sp.com/ 554 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova introduction the category of knowledge was first introduced into scientific circulation in ancient greece. however, initially, this term had an exclusively philosophical or ethical meaning. socrates considered knowledge a source of virtue, and his disciple plato interpreted knowledge similarly. aristotle’s interpretation was much closer to the modern understanding of the word, but it would not even have crossed his mind to regard knowledge as a way of developing the greek economy (in fact, the very concept of economics in its modern sense did not exist at that time). until marx’s time, practice had been seen as something unworthy of a philosopher. the christian church even equated knowledge with revelation, and wealth was declared sinful. everything changed with the advent of the scientific and technological revolution, followed by the industrial revolution. natural sciences were rapidly developing, and technical inventions were rapidly changing the world. surprisingly, the economics came to the role of scientific knowledge and technological progress in the development of socio-economic systems only in the second half of the 20th century. at the present stage of the development of science, knowledge, as well as scientific and technological progress1, are considered the factors of economic growth, regardless of school and course within the framework of economic science. however, theoretical and methodological disagreements between neoclassicists, institutionalists, marxist, and other schools often obscure the very essence of knowledge generation processes and their economic significance. first, it is necessary to trace the evolution of the theory of economic growth. classical economists from adam smith to marshall attributed higher economic growth rates mainly to the accumulation of physical capital (marshall, 2013; mill, 1848; say, 1836/2008; smith, 1776/1874). thus, in the classical theory of economic growth, knowledge was absent as a category. the economic crisis of the 1920s–30s made economists concentrate on the problems of the business cycle: thus, keynes (1936) dealt with fluctuations in unemployment and output in determining interest rates and money supply. harrod and domar, following the keynesian model, adopted a constant savings rate and capital intensity ratio when deriving the economic growth formula (domar, 1946, 1947; harrod, 1939). solow’s neoclassical growth model included maximizing the profits of producers, who align marginal costs and marginal productivity of factors of production; maximizing utility by consumers, who save a fixed share of their income for future use; the equality between savings and investment, and the replacement of capital and labor (solow, 1956). technological progress was an exogenous factor in the solow model—countries with a higher level of savings had a higher income level. still, higher growth rates were possible only due to a higher level of technological progress. lucas (1988), arrow (1962), and romer (1990) made the technological 1 the authors consider scientific and technological progress as a process of implementing scientific knowledge in practice; therefore, in the text we will use the term “knowledge” in relation to both scientific knowledge and scientific and technological progress. in cases where the difference is essential for the study, we will make an appropriate emphasis. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 555 factor endogenous by introducing knowledge or human capital into the production function along with physical capital. not only is the economic interpretation of knowledge changing, but the new neoliberal paradigm of science and higher education is also emerging. this issue is considered, for example, in the article by olssen and peters (2005), and others (hornidge, 2011; jessop, 2016). in classical liberalism, the individual is characterized as having an autonomous human nature, capable of realizing their rights and freedoms. in neoliberalism, the state seeks to create not just a person, but a competitive entrepreneur. education and science in the concept of neoliberalism are interpreted in terms of inputs–outputs, thereby being reduced to an economic production function. the main aspects of the new public management are flexibility (for organizations through the use of contracts), clearly formulated goals (both organizational and personal), as well as focus on results (measurement and managerial responsibility for achievement). in addition, the microeconomic methods of the quasi-market or private sector with their new set of contractual norms and rules replaced the “ethics of public service”, according to which organizations were regulated in accordance with the norms and values arising from assumptions about the “common good” or “public interest”. consequently, the concepts of “professional” or “trustee” are considered in the framework of the “principal-agent” scheme. the scale of institutional changes at the current stage allows us to talk about a new socio-economic formation—knowledge capitalism. generally, nowadays, there are four factors2 that can shift the production possibility curve to the right without an inflationary gap (arranged in increasing order according to the degree of impact): • physical capital • increase in the quantity of the workforce • increase in the quality of the workforce • scientific and technological progress the first factor is functionally dependent on the level of savings and investments. the third and fourth factors are the result of the efficient generation of scientific knowledge, which can be accumulated both in the form of human capital and intellectual property3. accordingly, the effective generation of scientific knowledge can eliminate structural imbalances and ensure economic growth without inflationary costs. the purpose of this work is to propose a definition of the economic category knowledge, based on the comparative analysis of the interpretations of knowledge generation in various socio-economic concepts. furthermore, we intend to clarify what role knowledge plays in economic processes at the current stage of development and how this phenomenon affects various socio-economic systems. 2 the authors deliberately do not consider natural resources as a factor of economic growth in the new economy. on the contrary, the resource orientation of the economy of a country (region) may have extremely negative consequences. 3 an example is the leontief paradox, which showed the capital intensity of american exports precisely in terms of human and not physical capital. https://changing-sp.com/ 556 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova processes of knowledge generation the concept of knowledge generation is rooted in schumpeter (1934), who methodologically separated innovation from inventions. the cycle of scientific and technological activities includes three phases: invention (creating new knowledge)– innovation (implementing new knowledge)–imitation (copying innovation by other market players). vanderburg (2005) extends this scheme from the perspective of the technology life cycle: invention–innovation and development–diffusion–substitution. it should be noted that the concept of diffusion of innovation has become extremely popular towards the end of the last century (eveland, 1986; peres et al., 2010; rogers, 2003). lonergan expanded the scope of diffusion of innovation by proposing a repeated cycle of technological, economic and political changes: situation–insight– communication–conviction–agreement–decision–action–new situation–insight, etc. (lonergan, 1997). it should be noted that a distinction is made between analytical knowledge (scientific base) and synthetic knowledge (engineering base) (laestadius, 1998). science is to explain the global issues of human existence and the world, or to find universal patterns—“ truths” (frezza et al., 2013). lonergan (1997) further emphasized mathematical and empirical heuristic structures. engineering/ technology aims to meet the urgent needs of man and society (koen, 2003), to create artifacts. analytical knowledge more often takes an explicit or codified form (articles, reports, patents); synthetic knowledge exists in a tacit form, it results in new products and technological processes (popov & vlasov, 2014). codified knowledge has a standardized compact form (david & foray, 1995) and can be delivered over long distances (foray & lundvall, 1996); tacit knowledge is sensitive to localization—it is usually transmitted personally. this classification of knowledge came from the work of polanyi (1962), who wrote about the impossibility of separating the produced knowledge from the personality of the researcher. moreover, two types of knowledge (explicit and tacit) dynamically interact with each other, which is the basis of the spiral process of expanding existing knowledge. nonaka and takeuchi in the mid-1990s created a model for the interaction of explicit and tacit knowledge in the process of knowledge generation in the workplace. this model is known as seci and will be discussed in more detail in the following section of this paper (nonaka & takeuchi, 1995). individual and organizational knowledge is maximized by translating tacit knowledge into explicit, which can then be interpreted, presented, codified, stored, retrieved, and disseminated (nunes et al., 2006). sociologist pitirim sorokin proposed an original interpretation of knowledge generation as an epistemic process (sorokin, 1941). his model included three stages: • mental integration is the union of two narratives into a single system as an act of creation of the human mind; • empirical objectification is a means of “delivering” new knowledge to the final recipient; • socialization is the dissemination of knowledge among individuals through socialization agents. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 557 the latter emphasizes the social context of the utilization and dissemination of scientific knowledge, which makes it similar to the diffusion of innovations and hermeneutics. considering the acquisition of new knowledge as a production process, three stages of knowledge generation are traditionally distinguished: generation, dissemination, and utilization (popov et al., 2009). we proposed to supplement the model with the distribution of knowledge; thus, the knowledge generation cycle consists of four stages: (a) production; (b) exchange; (c) distribution; (d) utilization of knowledge (kochetkov & vlasov, 2016). it is essential to draw a line of demarcation between exchange and distribution. in the case of an exchange, we deal with the relationships of one or more economic agents. distribution implies the free distribution and use of new knowledge by an unlimited circle of economic agents. distribution of knowledge allows the creation of externalities that stimulate regional economic development. knowledge-spillovers, in this case, are an exogenous factor in relation to a particular company or industry (jacobs, 1969, 1984; porter, 1990). knowledge-based management concepts knowledge management considering the generation of scientific knowledge as a production process, we need to determine the control functions of this process. without dwelling on the whole variety of management theories, we adhere to the concept of the classical administrative school of management (fayol, 1949), which distinguishes four main functions of management: planning, organization, control, and motivation. it seems relevant to us to interpret motivation as leadership, respectively, further we will adhere to this functional scheme (planning, organization, control, and leadership). in the mid-1990s, nonaka and takeuchi developed the seci explicit/tacit knowledge generation cycle (nonaka & takeuchi, 1995). the acronym seci refers to the four-phase cycle of knowledge creation: • socialization: tacit knowledge is distributed between people through the institution of mentoring, conversations, corporate culture, exchange of experience, etc. key skill: empathizing. • externalization: people begin developing metaphors and analogies to explain the rational meaning of implicitly informed behavior. tacit knowledge becomes more explicit in the process of developing concepts. in other words, this process can be described as a codification of tacit knowledge. key skill: articulating. • combination: explicit ideas are combined with other explicit ideas in finding dependencies and eliminating redundancy; the culmination of the process is the creation of complete descriptions of processes and procedures for completing tasks. speaking of scientific knowledge, we mean the formulation of scientific laws. key skill: connecting. • internalization: explicit ideas expand during development. knowledge is again in the zone of socialization, and the spiral of knowledge cultivation is entering a new round. key skill: embodying. https://changing-sp.com/ 558 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova nonaka and takeuchi classified knowledge as an asset based on the seci model into four groups: • routine knowledge assets: tacit procedural knowledge routinized and contained in organizational culture, action, and everyday practice. • systemic knowledge assets: explicit, codified and systematized knowledge stored in documents, databases, manuals, specifications, and patents. • conceptual knowledge assets: explicit knowledge in a symbolic form, including product concepts, brand equity, design styles, symbols, and language. note that scientific knowledge also belongs to this group. • experiential knowledge assets: tacit knowledge arising from collective experience, including the skills and judgments of individuals, prosocial feelings such as trust and care, as well as motivational resources that fuel engagement, passion, and tension. the concept of nonaka and takeuchi is mainly focused on procedures, which causes difficulties in quantifying the result. in an attempt to bridge this gap, the theory of intellectual capital was developed. there are a number of terms quite similar to knowledge management. e.g., the term “cognitive management” can be found in literature treated as “the systematic management of processes by which knowledge is identified, accumulated, distributed and applied in an organization to improve its performance” (abdikeev, 2014, our translation from russian—d. k., i. k.). based on this definition, we can conclude that the terms “cognitive management ” and “knowledge management ” are synonymous. intellectual capital (ic) the concept of intellectual capital was originally used in corporate strategies and had the same theoretical prerequisites as knowledge management, so it is often very difficult to draw a clear distinction between these two theoretical concepts. brooking (1996) defined intellectual capital as a combination of intangible assets that allow companies to create sustainable competitive advantages. stewart (1997) defines intellectual capital as “knowledge, information, intellectual property, experience that can be used to create wealth” (stewart, 1997, p. x). dumay (2016) replaces “wealth” with “value” for two reasons: (a) the term “value” is used much more often in theoretical studies of intellectual capital and the practice of strategic management than “wealth”; (b) the inputs and outputs of the process of creating intellectual capital cannot always be measured in money. thus, the question about what constitutes the intangible assets that make up the intellectual capital of an organization is still open for debate. traditionally, three components of intellectual capital are distinguished: human capital, structural capital and customer capital (bontis, 1998; miller et al., 1999). the first two components are internal in relation to the organization; the third one is external. in relation to the latter, the term “relational capital” (khavand kar & khavandkar, 2013) is often used, which covers all external relations of the company, including market relations, relations of cooperation, power and management. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 559 this approach seems to be preferable, as the company in the process of creating value contacts not only customers, but also suppliers, authorities, and public organizations (for example, in russian business practice, relations with government structures make up an important part of intangible assets; sometimes they even are the key asset of a company). the concept of human capital goes back to adam smith as “acquired and useful abilities of all the inhabitants or members of the society. the acquisition of such talents, by the maintenance of the acquirer during his education, study, or apprenticeship, always costs a real expense, which is a capital fixed and realized, as it were, in his person” (smith, 1776/1874, p. 122). one of the first to use the term “human capital” was nicholson (1891). later it was adopted by various authors, but until the end of the 1950s, it did not become a part of the lingua franca of economists. this term was introduced into wide use by mincer (1958). schultz (1961) considered human capital as something akin to property, which fundamentally distinguishes this concept from the classical interpretation of labor in economic theory. the publication of the book by becker (1993) marked the finalization of human capital as an independent research field4. the main component of human capital is the knowledge and skills acquired in the process of education, training, and work. however, in recent years, health has been increasingly referred to as a component of human capital (goldin, 2016), although this indicator is often used in the analysis of macro systems5. structural and relational capital are sometimes referred to as social capital, which, in its turn, forms intellectual capital together with human capital. thus, the typology becomes multilevel. j. nahapiet and s. ghoshal (1998) refer to social capital as cognitive capital, which means general cognitive codes (symbols), language and meanings (narratives). this definition is very close to frolov’s classification of institutions (frolov, 2016): • regulatory—norms, rules, customs, standards, conventions, contracts, etc. (north, 1990); • functional—status functions and routines (nelson, 1994; searle, 1995); • structural—organizational forms and models of transactions (scott, 1995); • mental—collective representations, beliefs, stereotypes, values, cognitive patterns, etc. (denzau & north, 1994). thus, the term “institutional capital” seems to be more applicable in this case, because it more accurately describes the essence of the phenomenon (fig. 1). it is important to note that institutional capital comprises those institutions that directly participate in or contribute to the value creation process. 4 however, becker, by his own admission, was forced to use a long subtitle to defend himself from the attacks of critics. 5 on the other hand, firms also take care of their employees’ health, usually by paying for health insurance and sports. it recognizes the importance of employee health indicators in the value creation process. https://changing-sp.com/ 560 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova figure 1 the structure of intellectual capital human capital relational capital institutional capital knowledge and skills health internal environment external environment normative institutions functional institutions structural institutions mental institutions value creation regarding the process of creating intellectual capital, researchers most often identify combination and exchange (nahapiet & ghoshal, 1998). the concept “combination” goes back to schumpeter: “to produce means to combine materials and forces within our reach” (schumpeter, 1934, p. 65). this concept is also found in the cycle of generating explicit/tacit knowledge of nonaka and takeuchi (1995) and in studies of organizational learning (boisot, 2013; cohen & levinthal, 1990; kogut & zander, 1992). combination along with codification is one of the ways of producing new knowledge. knowledge exchange can exist both in the external and internal environment of an organization. the processes of internal knowledge sharing are most consistent with the institution of teamwork, which is a form of social interaction based on the unity of goals, objectives, and methods of work performed and built into the organizational context (kozlowski & bell, 2003). the most important determinants of a successful team are complementarity of skills (davis, 2009), mutual assistance (khatri et al., 2009), and trust between participants (chiregi & navimipour, 2016). the exchange of knowledge in the external environment refers to various forms of networking. as an example, we can cite “hybrids” in the terminology of williamson (1991), who made a methodological transition from the “ firm-market” dichotomy to the “market-hybrid-hierarchy” coordinate system. recently, researchers have increasingly used the theoretical and methodological apparatus of intellectual capital in the process of analyzing mesoand macro-systems (bounfour & edvinsson, 2005). in this case, the process of creating intellectual capital is supplemented by at least two phases—distribution and utilization. as mentioned above, exchange is a closed process in which two or more partners participate. in contrast, distribution is an open process of disseminating knowledge within a certain economic space. distribution creates positive externalities; therefore, its role for economic growth changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 561 is even greater than in the case of exchange. in particular, marshall (2013) was among the first to identify the role of externalities in economic development; later, arrow (1962) and romer (1986) further developed and supplemented the concept; it was finalized by glaeser et al. (1992). this type of externalities, known in science as mar (marsall–arrow–romer), is based on the flow of knowledge (knowledge-spillovers). a prerequisite for their occurrence is specialization, as externalities are endogenous to the industry. the concept of j. jacobs, unlike mar, implies a diversified economy (jacobs, 1969, 1984). the flow of knowledge in its interpretation is an exogenous factor in relation to a particular industry, but endogenous in relation to the territory. m. e. porter subscribed to the same view (porter, 1990). the utilization of knowledge in a given territory plays an equally important role in the process of creating intellectual capital. knowledge can be consumed as part of a product or service of both final and intermediate consumption. in the latter case, a company or another department within the same organization may act as a customer. in the situation of intermediate consumption, knowledge is often transferred in the form of intellectual property objects (ipos). thus, the key indicators for the analysis of the intellectual capital of a country, city or region could be easily identified—these are, first of all, indicators of the creation and use of intellectual property objects, the knowledge-intensiveness of goods and services produced, as well as indicators of the health of the population included in the workforce. it should also be noted that a country (region, city) is not an economic agent, unlike a company, therefore the main task of the government is to create conditions for the accumulation of intellectual capital within a given territory. accordingly, with reference to the mesoand macrolevels, our definition of intellectual capital of a region (country) is as follows: the intellectual capital of a region (city, country) is a set of assets, factors, and conditions that determine the production (codification, combination), exchange, distribution and utilization of knowledge in the process of public production in a given territory. research and practice in the field of intellectual capital is the subject of a wide range of organizational theories and methodologies, but the theoretical understanding of this matter is still quite limited (dumay, 2012). theoretical and methodological pluralism causes a lack of unified approach to the assessment of intellectual capital6. this theoretical inconsistency is an obstacle to understanding intellectual capital, possibly explaining the limited use of intellectual capital management and accounting (measurement) methods (rooney & dumay, 2016). thus, most schools, within the framework of knowledge-based management concepts, focus on the description of procedures, but have poor measuring instruments, and most importantly, do not provide a comprehensive theoretical understanding of the role of knowledge in the process of economic growth, which often interferes with their practical application. 6 for example, the lack of a unified approach to accounting for intangible assets is a rather serious problem, considered in accounting studies. https://changing-sp.com/ 562 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova knowledge-based economic concepts learning economy the distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge has been used in a number of works on the learning economy (david & foray, 1995; foray & lundvall, 1996; lundvall & borras, 1997; lundvall & johnson, 1994). the learning economy is an economic system in which the ability to learn is critical to the success of people, firms, regional and national economies. learning is understood not simply as access to information but as acquisition of certain knowledge and skills (lundvall & borras, 1997). learning as a process is present in both knowledge-based and traditional sectors of economy. the development of competencies in low-tech industries may be more significant for economic growth than in a small number of high-tech enterprises (maskell, 1996, 1998). the learning economy is one of the theoretical branches of knowledge-based economy; however, in economics and economic policy, the term “knowledge economy” is more rooted than “learning economy” (european council, 2000). nevertheless, the learning economy played an important role in the transition from managerial concepts of the micro-level to the analysis of knowledge generation processes and their impact on economic growth at the macro-level. first of all, this concept has been widely used in regional studies (maskell & malmberg, 1999; morgan, 1997; storper, 1995, 1997), particularly, in the theoretical concept of regional competitiveness. the discourse of competitiveness at the macroeconomic level goes back to michael e. porter. in his influential work, the competitive advantage of nations (porter, 1990), porter applied his concept of strategic advantage to firms and industries to analyze the competitive position of nations. he argued that the new competitive advantage paradigm had replaced the obsolete ricardian theory of comparative advantage. porter’s position was severely criticized, primarily by paul krugman (krugman, 1994, 1996). nevertheless, the concept of porter, despite some internal inconsistency and obvious incompleteness, was recognized both among the “new regionalists” (huggins, 2000, 2003; malecki, 2002; maskell & malmberg, 1999), and political discourse (european commission, 1999, 2004; dti, 2003). one of the most authoritative works on the new paradigm of regional development was published by morgan (1997). it formulates the following basic principles of a new approach to the development of regions: • the network paradigm overcomes the traditional state-market antinomy thanks to developed intermediary institutions, such as regional development agencies. • the convergence of economic geography and innovation studies creates a potentially important new research area that focuses on the interactive model of innovation, as well as the role of institutions and social agreements in economic development. the network model of innovation and development of the social capital of territories were put into practice in the 21st century, but mostly within the framework of the knowledge economy. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 563 knowledge economy the knowledge economy can be generally defined as an economic system where knowledge is a key factor (or resource) of production and economic growth (kochetkov & vlasov, 2016). the term “knowledge economy” was coined by machlup (1962) in relation to one of the economic sectors and this term immediately found wide application in the corporate sector. drucker (1970) noted the crucial role of knowledge in the process of creating added value. in the late 20th century, knowledge began to be perceived as a key factor in economic growth. thurow (1999) provided a set of applied recommendations for achieving a high level of social welfare through the knowledge economy. it was important to comprehend theoretically the role of knowledge generation in economic growth, to find their place in economic models. the knowledge economy is based to a large extent on endogenous models of economic growth. romer (1990) introduced into the production process the factor of accumulated knowledge that arises as a result of r&d at universities or research institutes. stocks of knowledge that exist in the form of constructions, formulae or models are non-rival goods with positive externalities in consumption, since they are freely available. romer assumes separate production functions for research products, intermediate and final consumption goods, illustrating the endogenous process of technological progress and its impact on economic growth. workers in the research sector produce new ideas that they sell to firms, which, in their turn, apply these ideas for production of final goods. the productivity of workers in the final goods industries increases when they get the best tools for the job. thus, economic growth is ultimately the result of the use of human resources in the research sector, such as universities and research institutes. the production function is similar to the solow model: − α α= 1 ( ) ,yy k al where y is the level of output, a is the level of technology, ly is the volume of labor costs, k is capital, and α is the labor input coefficient of production. the level of technology a is now the result of the workers’ efforts in the research sector. the total labor force (l) can be used either in the knowledge sector la, or in the final goods sector ly: = + .a yl l l technological progress in endogenous economic growth models equals an increase in research labor: = δ  .a a l a this definition implies that the increase in the overall productivity of factors of production will be proportional to the number of labor units related to research and development (r&d). with a constant share of labor involved in r&d, technological progress will be proportional to the labor force—the result found in the romer/ grossman-helpman/aghion-howitt models and many others. accordingly, higher population growth rates are beneficial, not harmful to economic growth because the economy can attract more people to research and development. https://changing-sp.com/ 564 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova an essential alternative specification of the r&d equation, which, at least on the surface, supports the key results of the romer/grossman-helpman/aghion-howitt models without imposing economies of scale, suggests that the increase in overall factor productivity depends on the proportion of research work, not its quantity: = δ = δ  .a la s a l eliminating economies of scale is an extremely attractive idea, but nonetheless, it contradicts the foundations of the romer/grossman-helpman/agрion-howitt models. the specification without economies of scale is counterfactual, according to which an economy with one unit of labor can produce as many innovations (or at least can generate equivalent growth in the total productivity of factors of production) as an economy with one million units of labor. besides, both specifications of the model did not find empirical evidence. jones (1995) showed the possibility of using the average research productivity parameter (the so-called decentralized model) in the model: ϕ λδ = δ ,aa l where δ is the average productivity of research labor, a is the stock of knowledge or technology in the economy, ϕ measures externalities during the r&d process, λ reflects the possibility that duplication and coincidence of studies at a certain point reduce the total number of innovations produced by la units. accordingly, the growth rate of knowledge is equal to: λ − ϕ δ =  1 .a la a a by differentiating this equation, one can find that the technological progress rate ga is determined by the population growth rate and externalities: δ = − ϕ , 1a ng where n is the growth rate of labor. the knowledge economy is an essential part of political discourse, e.g., it initially formed the basis of the regional policy of european integration (european council, 2000). the decisions of the lisbon european council are often regarded as a political failure now because these decisions were not implemented properly and did not produce expected results. nevertheless, it was these decisions that led to the development of such projects as the european research area (era) and smart specialization. the world bank is evaluating the level of development of the knowledge economy at the global level. its methodology includes 147 indicators for 146 countries in the following areas: economic indicators, institutional regime, power, innovation, education, gender indicators, and information and communication technology (ict) (chen & dahlman, 2005). based on these methods, the kam knowledge index (ki) and the knowledge economy index (kei) were created (world bank institute, 2012). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 565 economics of scientific knowledge the economics of scientific knowledge (esk) is one of the youngest areas in the heterogeneous field of “science of science”. the esk relies on concepts and methods of economic analysis to study the epistemic nature and value of scientific knowledge (zamora bonilla, 2012). the expression “economics of scientific knowledge” was first popularized by w. hands in a series of works from the 1990s (hands, 1994a, 1994b). the term itself arose by analogy with the sociology of scientific knowledge (ssk). the theoretical framework of the economics of scientific knowledge consists of two major theoretical paradigms—optimization and exchange. the former is based on the premise that the search for the best research methodology is the rational maximization of the utility function by the individual (scientist). c. s. peirce was one of the first scholars to discuss this topic in 1879, less than ten years after the emergence of marginal analysis in economic theory (kloesel, 1989). the book remained almost unnoticed but was re-discovered almost 100 years later by rescher (rescher, 1976). in his later works, rescher consistently developed pierce’s ideas (rescher, 1978, 1989). another author who tried to apply the costbenefit rationality to the problems of the philosophy of science was j. radnitzky (radnitzky, 1986, 1987). another approach to optimization is an attempt to define a specific (“cognitive” or “epistemological”) utility function that should be maximized by rational scientific research. it is a strategy of making decision on the adoption of certain assumptions or hypotheses. therefore, it is assumed that scientists must solve a scientific problem instead of looking for an alternative solution if and only if the expected utility (eu) that they receive from the first decision is higher than the expected utility that they will receive from any other solution to this problem. the expected utility of accepting hypothesis h, taking into account the evidence e, is defined as: ∈ = ∑( , ) ( , ) ( , ), s x u h e u h s p s e where s are the possible states of the surrounding world; u(h,s) is the epistemic utility of accepting h if the true state of the world is s; and p(s,e) is the probability that s is a true state, taking into account the evidence e. naturally, the fundamental problem of this approach is the very definition of a utility function (or what is a utility in this case) (zamora bonilla, 2012). levi (1967) and hilpinen (1968) add the risktaking parameter to the expected cognitive utility: = −( , ) ( , ) ( , ),eu h e p h e qp h e where parameter q is a measure of the scientist’s attitude to risk: the lower q in the researcher’s epistemological utility function, the greater is the tendency to avoid risk. numerous economic agents are interconnected, which generates multiple social phenomena that are also studied by economic science. from this theoretical premise, a paradigm of exchange in the esk was developed. the metaphor of the https://changing-sp.com/ 566 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova scientific market was put forward by coase (1988), who argued that he did not see the difference between the market for goods and the market for ideas. this approximation allows us to use market analysis methods for epistemological purposes. it should be noted that the theory of market relations in science studies is the subject of heated debate. a number of researchers claim that the more science becomes a market, the less it benefits ordinary citizens (fuller, 2000). the esk is a young7 and promising scientific field. however, it stands closer to epistemology than to economics. despite the use of economic research methods, scientific knowledge, as a rule, is considered in isolation from the actual economic processes. helix models the helix models describe the cyclic process of the development of economic and social systems. the triple helix concept was introduced at the turn of the millennium (etzkowitz & leydesdorff, 2000) and influenced regional development projects in the 21st century. its structural components were studied by henry etzkowitz from the university of entrepreneurship (etzkowitz, 1983, 1998), and by loet leydesdorff and peter van den besselaar in the field of evolutionary dynamics of science, technology and innovation (leydesdorff & van den besselaar, 1994, 1998). the triple helix implies the interaction of the university, business and government in creating innovation. an important role is played not only by the participants themselves, but also by the type of relationship between them. for example, in the ussr and other countries of the socialist camp, there was a closed model, where the state played the role of supreme arbiter (fig. 2) in relations between universities and industry—mode 1 (etzkowitz & leydesdorff, 2000). the model is characterized by isolation from the outside world, and the absence of a market mechanism determines the low efficiency of the innovation process. unfortunately, this model of “bureaucratic innovation” not only still exists in russia but is also actively stimulated by the state through direct financing mechanisms, tax incentives, and companies with state participation. figure 2 an etatistic model of university–industry–government relations state industry academia source: etzkowitz and leydesdorff, 2000. 7 excluding the work of c. s. pierce, but it was invisible to the scientific community for a long time. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 567 mode 2 of the triple helix implies the independence of its participants from each other. goods and services are acquired from each other on a contract basis for reasons of profit. thus, mode 2 goes back to the classics of economic theory, the “invisible hand” of adam smith (smith, 1776/1874). nevertheless, as we know from the further development of economic science, classical political economists did not take into account market failures. therefore, this theoretical model almost never works well in practice (just as there is no market economy in its purest form). mode 3 of the triple helix implies the overlapping of institutional spheres (fig. 3). it is in the overlay areas that redundancy is generated. generation of redundancy is on the top of information flows (leydesdorff, 2018; leydesdorff et al., 2017). the term “triple helix” is usually associated with this model. figure 3 the triple helix model of university–industry–government relations state industry academia tri-lateral networks and hybrid organizations source: etzkowitz & leydesdorff, 2000. for this model to function, an “endless transition” is extremely important. it is nothing more than an endless process of creative destruction according to schumpeter. this process stimulates a constant increase in the role of knowledge as a resource in production and distribution (etzkowitz & leydesdorff, 2000). in one of his later works, etzkowitz also emphasized the exceptional role of the university and state in the period of the change of technological paradigms (etzkowitz & klofsten, 2005). the university assumes the roles of creating development forms unusual for common practice (in addition to traditional training and fundamental research). business is increasingly engaged in self-training and research. the government (in this case, regional authorities) provides support for initiatives through regulatory mechanisms, fiscal policy instruments, and direct funding. elias carayannis and david campbell expanded the model of the triple helix by proposing the quadruple helix. in addition to the university, business, and government, the fourth helix includes civil society institutions. the authors themselves defined the fourth helix as “public” (based on media and culture) and “civil society” (carayannis & campbell, 2009). of course, the public is a core element in the knowledge-based society as the main consumer of knowledge. https://changing-sp.com/ 568 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova knowledge flows permeate all areas of public life. an equally important component is the “knowledge culture”, which includes values and lifestyle, multiculturalism and creativity, the media, universities, and multi-level innovation systems (local, regional, national and global) (carayannis & pirzadeh, 2014). together, they form the “creative knowledge environment” (cse), i.e., a social environment conducive to the creation of new knowledge and innovation. this concept directly correlates with the institutional environment, in particular, with the degree of economic freedom in the country and the type of social contract. if the quadruple helix contextualizes the triple helix model in social environments, then the quintuple helix introduces the natural context of innovation systems. the quintuple helix, in full accordance with the interdisciplinary nature of modern scientific knowledge, aims to create and develop conditions for the sustainable development of society, the economy and democracy in the midand long term. carayannis & campbell introduced the concept of “social ecology”, which represented a transdisciplinary field of research for comprehensive solutions to global problems (carayannis & campbell, 2010). thus, while the first three helixes represent the institutional spheres of the innovative development of society, the fourth and fifth helixes contextualize their interaction in social and natural environments. discussion and conclusions the socio-economic approaches to knowledge as an economic category are summarized in table 1. the subject-object scheme is the basis of classification. table 1 knowledge-based socio-economic concepts theoretical concept/ framework key thesis subject object note 1. theory of economic growth: 1) neoclassical solow model the level of technology is a given (exogenous) factor economic agents; macro level entities (city, region, country) technology level within the production function the most universal theoretical models; the theoretical basis of the knowledge economy and neoclassical theory as a whole 2) endogenous growth model the stock of knowledge accumulated in the economic system overcomes the law of diminishing returns stock and flow of knowledge within the production function 2. knowledge management strategic management of knowledge generation processes creates sustainable competitive advantages economic agents knowledge generation processes within the firm one of the most popular and widely used models in the corporate sector; however, the weak point is the lack of a single quantitative methodology for analysis and control changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 569 theoretical concept/ framework key thesis subject object note 3. intellectual capital the accumulation of intangible assets creates sustainable competitive advantages economic agents; since the 90s. xx century – macro level entities (city, region, country) intangible assets (human capital, relational capital, institutional capital) a more transparent quantitative methodology than in the previous case, however, key indicators remain the subject of discussion 4. learning economy learning ability is a critical factor in economic success economic agents; regions learning processes within economic systems this theoretical concept existed for a rather short period of time, losing theoretical competition to the knowledge economy 5. knowledge economy knowledge is a key growth factor in the new economy economic agents; since the 90s. xx century – macro level entities (city, region, country) knowledge generation processes within economic systems it is one of the most recognized and widely used socioeconomic concepts at the present stage of development; based on the theoretical basis of neoclassical models of economic growth; popular in political discourse 6. economics of scientific knowledge the researchers' decisions in the process of choosing a methodology are similar to maximizing behavior of an economic agent; it opens new possibilities for applying the methods of economic analysis in epistemology resercher; research team optimization of the function of cognitive (epistemic) utility a young and extremely promising field of research, which is closer to epistemology than to economic theory 7. helix models 1) triple helix overlapping of institutional spheres generates redundancy universitybusinessgovernment generation of redundancy and synergetic effect influenced most regional development projects in the 21st century 2) quadruple helix the fourth helix includes civil society institutions + public and civil society contextualizes the triple helix model in social environments 3) quintuple helix introduces the natural context of innovation systems + natural environment contextualizes the triple helix model in natural environment source: authors’ own development table 1 continued https://changing-sp.com/ 570 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova the variety of theoretical approaches is historically explainable, but at this stage we need integration. a theoretical understanding of the knowledge economy at the macro-level requires new approaches because the government is neither an actor in the generation of knowledge nor an economic agent. nevertheless, the government creates conditions for effective generation of scientific knowledge. in our opinion, it is necessary to formulate a new theoretical field that synthesizes the approaches of the knowledge economy, knowledge management and intellectual capital at theoretical and practical levels. the goal of the new scientific field should be the formation of the theoretical foundations of public administration, focused on improving the efficiency of knowledge generation processes as a factor in economic growth. let us call it the theory of knowledge-based public administration. this theory is based on two premises: 1. functional differentiation of entities in the process of knowledge generation. the process of knowledge generation includes 4 phases: production (codification/ combination), exchange, distribution, and utilization (fig. 4). the state, not being a direct participant in these processes, performs the essential function of creating the conditions for efficient generation of knowledge within the socio-economic system. these conditions are implemented in the form of institutions created by the government. at the same time, both government and actors in knowledge generation (universities, research institutes) are representatives of society; in other words, they are connected with society by principal-agent relations. in turn, economic agents are part of society, i.e., we can speak about the relationship between the whole and the part. figure 4 functional diagram of the entities in the process of knowledge generation actors of knowledge generation economic agents government production production utilization exchange exchange creating institutions distribution utilization society changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 553–580 571 for approximation purposes, we attribute knowledge generation actors to the public sector (universities, research institutes); corporate departments (r&d) are economic agents in this diagram. they both produce knowledge and make an exchange on a contract basis. nevertheless, it is the public sector that disseminates knowledge through various distribution channels, creating positive externalities. the corporate sector, on the contrary, is interested in limiting the effect of externalities through the legal mechanism of intellectual property. economic agents consume knowledge in the form of final or intermediate consumption products, as well as intellectual property objects. the government is also a consumer of knowledge, but its primary function is to design and implement optimal institutions. it is important to note that the generation of knowledge is a cyclic process, which is reflected in the seci explicit/tacit knowledge generation cycle. 2. the process of knowledge generation is based on the continuous transformation of intellectual capital. in the description, we followed the process approach: the inputs of the process are human, relational and institutional capital; outputs are products of final/intermediate consumption and objects of intellectual property (fig. 5). the outputs of one process can become the inputs of another. figure 5 the process of transformation of intellectual capital inputs outputs ic1 ic2 ic3...n human capital relational capital structural capital codification combination exchange distribution final consumption products intermediate consumption products intellectual property objects https://changing-sp.com/ 572 dmitry m. kochetkov, irina a. kochetkova if we look at the theory of the knowledge economy through the prism of k. marx’s theory of social reproduction (marx, 1885/1992), it becomes obvious that part of the country’s economy will always be involved in the process of reproduction of intellectual capital8. we can state the emergence of a new socio-economic formation—knowledge capitalism. we understand knowledge capitalism as an economic system based on expanded reproduction of intellectual capital and characterized by high mobility of resources and factors of production. accordingly, one of the important consequences of the transition to knowledge capitalism will be a further decrease in the role of national borders in the global economy, i.e. the process of its de-territorialization. knowledge capitalism along with the knowledge economy is a template for national policies (primarily, western countries and “developed” asia) starting with the reports of the oecd (1996) and the world bank (1998), which consider education as an underestimated form of knowledge capital that will determine not only the future of the economy but also society as a whole (guy peters, 2012). intellectual capital has a number of significant differences from physical capital that shape the new formation: • the accumulated intellectual capital (stock) directly affects the flow of new knowledge. this ability of the system to self-development underlies theories of endogenous economic growth. knowledge creates the effect of externalities—for example, the knowledge gained in one scientific field creates a cumulative wave in other scientific areas; the same applies to industries. at the same time, the costs of replicating knowledge in comparison with the costs of their creation are negligible. • the period of renewal of intellectual capital is much shorter than that of physical capital. it can be associated with moore’s law, according to which the chip power doubles every two years without increasing the cost. accordingly, the business cycle in modern conditions is becoming much shorter. • the intangible nature of knowledge does not allow us to talk about the complete alienation of the results of scientific work. the process of alienation is affected by such characteristic of scientific work as authorship. therefore, we can assume that an increase in the share of intellectual capital in products will contribute to a more equitable distribution of income in the future. • an essential component of intellectual capital is human capital, which has high mobility. therefore, the task of both firms and the government is not only to create/attract human capital but also to retain it. it is important to note that here we get a new “paradox of knowledge”. knowledge is created both through public funds and through private investment. it is impossible to split financial flows within one socio-economic system. therefore, private business often uses the knowledge created at the expense of all taxpayers to create their own products, including intellectual property. on the other hand, very often inventions of 8 even adam smith attributed knowledge and 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a research project implemented as part of the basic research program at the national research university higher school of economics (hse). the comeback of nationalism observed over the last several years apparently reached its pinnacle in 2020. until the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, the phenomenon termed the revival of nationalism mostly amounted to the growth in popularity of the political actors, whether parties or individuals, that are variously called extreme right wing, right-wing nationalist, or, perhaps the most frequently, national populists. the consolidation of power by viktor orban in hungary, the rise of the afd (alternative fur deutschland) party in germany, the growth in popularity of the front national in france, the referendum on brexit followed by boris johnson becoming the prime minister of the uk, jair bolsonaro becoming the president of brazil, and, most tellingly, donald trump wining the 2016 presidential elections in the us – this series of events made it obvious that nationalism, far from being gradually made obsolete by globalization, was back. this triumphal comeback, however, could be reasonably argued to belong exclusively to the public political sphere and not necessarily express the mass attitudes affecting everyday life. the growing electoral support granted to national populists could represent a proxy for something not directly related to nationalism. a widespread argument suggested that granting support to national populist at least partly constituted a kind of protest voting – a way to send a painful and not-to-be-ignored signal to the allegedly cosmopolitan ruling received 15 september 2020 © 2020 marharyta s. fabrykant published online 9 october 2020 mfabrykant@hse.ru https://changing-sp.com/ 276 marharyta s. fabrykant elites who would not otherwise listen to what the protest voters might believe was “the voice of the people”. if this explanation were accurate and sufficient, the new comeback of nationalism could be well contained within the political sphere narrowly defined (as opposed to “everything is political”) and, having served its purpose as a proxy and a tactical tool, gradually dissolved. the covid-19 pandemic undermined these expectations by showing the ongoing revival of nationalism to represent much more than an easily available form for expressing a substantively more general set of opinions. with what came as a surprise to many experts and informed observers, governments in various countries reacted to the by definition biological rather than social problem of the pandemic by closing national borders and pursuing their own independent and more often than not uncoordinated and vastly diverse policies, even within the eu. this reliance of the older, more familiar structures of the nation-state, until recently deemed outdated, rather than more up-to-date institutions aimed at promoting international cooperation, goes far beyond the narrower definition of nationalism as a political ideology and instead resembles “banal nationalism”. this term coined in by michael billig in mid1990s just as globalization was supposed to eradicate all things national, stands for the multiple ways the belief in nations and nationalities as objective and natural shapes the everyday perceptions, primarily via certain language structures and conventions of speech. “banal nationalism”, unlike its more familiar political counterpart, is not usually recognized as representing a certain ideologically charged belief, and, moreover, not easily recognized as conveying any message at all. this omnipresence of nationalism in its covert form further manifested itself at the later stage of the pandemic as what quickly got known as the “vaccine nationalism” – the geopolitical considerations as well as internal demand for new grounds of national pride amidst uncertainty and collective self-doubt, affecting the mertonian “republic of science” in its quest for the much needed solution of the universal problem. taken together, the events of the last years demonstrated the currently prevalent inclination to rely on habitual nationalism-inspired discursive and institutional structures in both all-too-settled times of the consolidated mainstream political elites and the “unsettled times” of the pandemic. contrary to the expectations once prominent in nations and nationalism studies, nationalism not only did not become wholly obsolete due to globalization, as was suggested in the 1990s, but also was not transformed into more pluralist, individually creative, and transient hybrid identities compatible with cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. what has made a comeback is clearly not any kind of “enlightened”, hybridized, or otherwise more sophisticated postnationalism, but an easily recognizable prototypical nationalism based on the uncritical belief in nations as natural driving forces of history. this belief is to some extent shared by some of the nationalism researchers in the academia, where until recently essentialist notions of the nation were espoused only by a small minority, mostly those belonging to the sociobiological or evolutionary psychological schools of thought in social sciences. this year, however, the nations and nationalism journal, one of the major trendsetters in nationalism studies, features a paper suggesting that opponents of nationalist populism would do well to embrace nationalism of their changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 275–284 277 own and attempt to combine it with their own liberal views to make the latter more attractive to the majority of the population. this attitude towards nationalism is profoundly ambivalent. on the one hand, it implies an instrumental use of nationalism as a dressing for the advancement of a different ideology. yet, on the other hand, the very need for making use of such an instrument rests on the assumption that nationalism is not merely something that people incidentally happen to want at the moment, and accordingly could be dissuaded from if necessary, but an important part of the current social reality that, at least in the foreseeable future, is here to stay. this view closely resembles the unambiguous and much more straightforward idea of the nation as a necessary precondition of any guided and predictable social change at the macrolevel. along this line of reasoning, the coverage of the protests following the 2020 presidential elections in belarus abounded in the literal, uncritical use of the apparently long deconstructed notions such as the “birth of the nation” and “national awakening” (echoing the view of the nation as a “sleeping beauty” exposed by ernest gellner). this profound shift in the academic stance on nationalism as a reaction to the newly revealed durability of nationalism itself marks a yet another unusual twist in the history of the year 2020. whether it represents the optimal, let alone the only possible reaction to the unpredicted comeback of nationalism, is another matter. the present special issue relies upon the belief that the range of replies posed by the new reality of nationalism to the nations and nationalism studies does not necessarily have to be confined to a binary choice between deconstruction vs. acceptance of all or some things national(ist). its emphasis on changes in nationalism suggests viewing the comeback of the prototypical nationalism amidst the social conditions profoundly different from those where it was conceived as a yet another transformation, which reflects its protean flexibility and requires a corresponding plurality of research perspectives. the authors of the articles comprised in this special issue represent this rich plurality of approaches as applied to some of the most pertinent issues in the contemporary nations and nationalism studies. the issue consists of four articles presenting research on various manifestations of nationalism and elena stepanova’s review of a recently published book on russian nationalism by marlene laruelle. in addition to these materials dedicated to nationalism, the issue also contains two contributions focused on other representations of cultural identity – an article on the dynamics of the soviet morality by victor martianov and leonid fishman, and ekaterina purgina's review of of two books covering the experience of their authors (sarah wheeler and rachel polonsky) getting acquainted with russian history and culture. national populism: what we need to know and how we (might) get to know it national populism, already mentioned here as one of the key topics in the ongoing discussions on the contemporary nationalism, is also one of the subject of one of the papers in the present special issue. the importance of returning to this already much debated phenomenon stems from the fact that, so far, the existing academic research as well as semi-academic expert analysis have not been instrumental in coming up https://changing-sp.com/ 278 marharyta s. fabrykant with a single exhaustive answer. instead, researchers have come up with a variety of versions that at present do not form a cohesive pattern. apart from the protest voting suggestion, several other explanations of the causes of national populism state it to be not a mere instrument of signaling and voicing general dissatisfaction, but a genuine expression of the attitudes shared by considerable sections of the population. thus, ronald inglehart and pippa norris in their most recent book “cultural backlash and the rise of populism: trump, brexit, and authoritarian populism” (2019), which, which has some of the national populist political leaders displayed on its cover, treat the revival of nationalism as a part of a more general traditionalist attitudinal, normative, and value set. according to this theory, the modernization of values, inevitable in the long run, does not necessarily run smoothly in a straightforward linear motion. any society at any given time point in its history is heterogeneous, and relatively more rapid social transformations are likely to increase this heterogeneity by way of necessitating everybody’s positioning vis-à-vis the ongoing social change. this differentiation of positions, in turn, may lead to the consolidation of those not ready to accept so much change at such a fast pace. moreover, traditionalists would arguably feel a greater need for collective mobilization due to their self-perception as caught by the tide of history not being in their favor, and therefore as underprivileged and underrepresented (hence the anti-mainstream appeal). national pride, as proved by the empirical data of the world values survey, constitutes an integral part of the traditional value set and for this reason features prominently in the more general cultural backlash. yet another kind of explanation presents national populism in connection with the gap between the expectations of the liberal democratic “end of history” and the less than perfect reality fraught with difficulties unevenly distributed across countries. the global north vs. south divide as well as the east vs. west controversies with the united europe highlight the tensions unlikely to be significantly alleviated in the near future and reflect deep-settled institutional controversies and dead ends that are all to easily perceived via the us vs. them nationalist frame. within this line of reasoning, national identities provide a readily available explanation and justification in multiple ways ranging from very straightforward to rather subtle. taken together, these lay theories of nationality show that a comprehensive theory of nationalist populism is unlikely to emerge otherwise than by means of empirical research. in this issue, olga novoselova's article represents such an attempt of making an empirically grounded and at the same time theory driven generalization upon some of the most widely debated cases of the contemporary national populism. her research is a comprehensive metaanalysis of a range of empirical studies on the online communication tools and techniques employed by national populist politicians and accounting for at least some of their popular appeal. in line with the theoretical frame of discussion outlined here, the majority of empirical research findings show the body of these online communications to go well beyond a mere expression of disapproval. nor even do they merely pander to nationalist aspirations by legitimizing this discourse and bringing it back to the public political sphere. instead, the messages transmitted to the public by the politicians in question gradually create changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 275–284 279 a comprehensive vision of as nation with its ascribed values, defining features and criteria of belonging solidified as the rules of inclusion/exclusion. many of the findings covered in the article echo the recent discussion whether nationalism and populism constitute to separate dimension that temporarily came together due to some contingent causes, or belong together for certain intrinsic reasons of their inner logic. novoselova’s conclusions apparently point towards the latter position by showing the repeating rhetorical tool of defining nation not as a country’s whole population but as “we, the people” as opposed to the national elites reframed as “others” on a part with foreigners from beyond the country. another dimension of novoselova’s article highlighting the importance of its contribution is the focus on online communication pertinent for the examination of the ways self-defined proponents of traditional values make effective use of modern technologies. same as in the case of (post)nationalism, the initial optimistic aspirations regarding digital technologies have gradually given way first to the recognition of their ambivalence as a double-edged sword and then, to focusing of their danger of posing potential threats to individual freedoms and established social institutes. in both these research directions, novoselova’s article provides a set of valuable conclusions and prompts future research. (trans)nationalism and attitudes towards migrants: relevant or interrelated? another article in this special issue raises a set of issues that have shaped much of the public debate on nationalism for at least as long as national populism, and of late in close relation. attitudes towards foreigners in general and towards migrants in particular, and especially negative attitudes such as xenophobia and migrantophobia, constitute a separate area of studies substantively different from nations and nationalism studies. the reasons for this differentiation are twofold. first, the ascribed others viewed and treated as foreigners are often defined along ethnic and racial lines rather than based on nationality proper. second, although nationality is defined via establishing external borders of belonging, attitudes towards foreigners, especially towards foreigners within a country, often play a less prominent role than foreigners’ attitudes ranging from international recognition to soft power affecting internal perceptions of a nation and displayed in the feelings of national pride, shame and national superiority. accordingly, nationalism is not necessarily xenophobic, and xenophobia does not necessarily have anything to do with the substantive side of national identity. nevertheless, the two phenomena recently came to be treated as a whole. this is partly due to the powerful impact of migration in challenging the essentialist motion of nationality as immutable or at least subject to at best a slow, painful and potentially traumatic transformation. successful integration of migrants into host societies contradicts the nationalist narrative of a search for national identity as a dramatic personal quest and an attempt at changing national self-identification, as an existential crisis. a curious twist in the nationalist worldview, strangely different from its more conventional versions yet internally coherent according to its own premises, is the so-called nativism based on the claim that each national culture is of equal worth in its own right – insofar as different cultures and their representative do not mix. thus, https://changing-sp.com/ 280 marharyta s. fabrykant a nativist maintains a positive attitude towards foreigners, but only while they remain foreigners. migrants pose the most obvious threat to this notion of the ideal world order as comprised of mutually detached nations. interestingly, migrants who keep the culture of their countries of origin tend to be accused of cultural expansionism and erasing the national identity of their host countries, while migrants willing to leave their old lives behind frequently face the accusation of being unable and/or unwilling to grasp the uniqueness of their host country and instead treating it as a mere commodity with no regard to its deeper meaning. thus, while not inherently interrelated, nationalism and attitudes towards migrants inevitably get intertwined when migration becomes a mass phenomenon redefining national identity. the article coauthored by natalia tregubova and maxim nee makes one step further in the research on attitudes towards migrants by focusing on the ways migrant themselves consider these attitudes in making sense of their positions in relation to various social groups and categories. their study on migrants’ identity construction in the social media shows that migrants are fully aware of the ways they are perceived by the non-migrant (or, more accurately, not recently migrant) parts of the population in the host country and have to consider these views among other external circumstances shaping the migrants’ social situation. the research findings show that migrants themselves do not see these consideration solely as adaptation to the differences between the country of origins and the host country, nor simply to the migrant status as such, nor is the attitudes towards migrants are estimated by migrants themselves solely on the xenophobic vs. tolerant dimension. instead, migrants navigate the space of the available options, tools, and restriction for their identity construction. the authors found the most frequent kind of migrants’ self-identification to be that of “low-skilled migrants from central asia” – a hybrid formulation that is illuminating in two ways. first, this identification is a hybrid one but not in the postnationalist and multiculturalist way of mixing various nationalities and ethnicities. instead, it put a regional identity on a part with education, professional qualifications, occupation, and, less directly, a position in the socioeconomic hierarchy, as well as the migrant status as such. second, the underlying factor that holds these substantively different dimensions of identification together is the mirroring of the external gaze of the majority of the population in the host country. the notion of the central asia as an undifferentiated place of origins clearly reflect the position of an outsider to whom “all central asians look the same”, while to the insiders, national and local differences within the region are known and matter. this mirrored self-identification is not, however, uncritically adopted by the migrants covered by the study, nor accepted as an immutable social fact, but are treated as a subject of discussion and a starting point for developing a variety of coping strategies. the focal point of this discussion, and arguably one of the most interesting findings of the study, is the issue of visibility. the public perception of migrants by the majority of the population is heavily yet far from obviously affected by the varying chances for different kinds of migrants of being recognized as such. those comprised in the category of “low-skilled migrants from central asia” are more different due to their frequently poorer russian language skills and disproportional representation in certain kinds of usually lowly paid and not prestigious jobs than changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 275–284 281 better qualified migrants, who are often relatively easily able to share the same life style as the non-migrants and for this reason do not fall into a specific category and do not contribute to the cognitive prototype of what a typical migrant is like. further research on the factors and implications of migrants’ visibility are likely to lead to new discoveries on the vaieties on migrants national identities. (how) can nationalists joke? nationalism and humor seem unlikely to appear within the same analytical framework, let alone a specific empirical study. in the first place, the prototypical rhetoric of nationalism rests on pathos and thrives upon high emotional tension and strong moral stance. nationalism is supposed to be all about soul-searching, rallying round the flag, and various degrees and modes of self-sacrifice for the sake of the nation. whether mainstream or counter-mainstream, the language of nationalism seeks to establish a coherent master narrative and place its adherents within a comprehensive and allegedly self-evident vision of the world. nationalists aspiring to enlist new recruits for their cause are more likely to use emotionally inflated and normatively charged speech, while maintenance of already firmly established national identities requires an unprepossessing sober style of unquestioning tacit agreement. humor contradicts each of these two options. it is difficult to find a place for jokes either in the pathos of the “hot”, fighting nationalism or in the implicit ethos of its “cold”, “banal” counterpart. rather than a tool of mobilization or stabilization, humor acts as an instrument of subversion. a joke functions at the intersection of cognitive processes of information processing and emotional experience of releasing tension. this feeling of release and liberation appears due to a clash of previously disconnected although familiar notions that allows seeing them in a new and unexpected way. a punch line in a joke shows that the world is not as it seems, but not in a grim way of conspiracy theories. the unexpected, as uncovered by means of humor, reveals new opportunities and mutability of old restraints and thus crates a vision of individual freedom. when and under what conditions would nationalists require a tool for unleashing individual freedom? the first and most obvious option appears to be that of presenting a positive role model of a typical representative of a nation, a “national hero” with an ability to joke in the face of danger as an essential part of its heroism. the characters of till eulenspiegel or the good soldier schweik owe their ability to attract and elicit sympathy precisely due to their extensive and constant vision of virtually anything and everybody, beginning with themselves, in a humorous way. this kind of defiant humor works well in shaping a national identity based on a dream of a peaceful and independent future against the background of horror and oppression, such as the fate of a smaller nation caught in a world war. in retrospect, this kind of humor ranging from mild self-deprecation to borderline cruel practical jokes brings back the bittersweet memories of forging the nation and helps to appreciate the achievements of peace. it is far less obvious whether nationalism can find its expression in more cerebral kinds of humor, such as sarcasm, satire and especially irony. irony, as a particularly intellectualized kind of humor, undermines the seeming immutability not just of internal https://changing-sp.com/ 282 marharyta s. fabrykant meanings and interconnections but of borders between the serious and the playful, the real and the imaginary, the grounds for decision-making and the inconsequential experimentation and exploration. the article by anastasia mitrofanova in this issue provides a valuable empirical insight into the uses of irony by nationalists in various genres of communication. her study shows that nationalists who use irony are neither the classical fighters for the correspondence between political and cultural borders as famously defined by gellner, nor are they marginal nonentities able to transcend the rules of navigating the serious and the humorous simply because nobody really cares whether they abide by the rules or not. instead, these ironic nationalists navigate the new, more complicated world of transient borders densely populated with marginalities of all sorts. the irony, the punch line effect of the unexpected here lies in the nationalists’ ability of speaking the languages of the various alternative ideology. by making use of this ability, they demonstrate the artificiality of any language and any ideology, transitivity of their borders, and groundlessness of their pretensions at granting there adherents with the ultimate truth. the ironic nationalist reject the traditional way an ideology gains power – by showcasing its attractive traits that make it appear distinct and favorably different from its alternatives. by way of mastering and ironically twisting languages of other ideologies, rather than developing and promoting the language of their own, the protagonists of mitrofanova’s study assert their power over their competitors. the lack of the language of their own makes these nationalists not merely immune to a similar attack and simultaneously show their urbane, superior understanding of the world of ideas and the rules of their construction. within this logic, the step beyond marks in the eyes of its proponents a step forward. how and to what extent this perception helps to attract followers, is another question. the study clearly shows that its protagonists aim not so much as gaining popular support measured in numbers as at establishing themselves among the loosely defined intellectuals and being accepted as intellectual trendsetters. these aspirations display a curious – one is tempted to call it “ironic” – contrast with miroslav hroch’s classical three stages of national identity formation moving beyond the narrow circle of its intellectual inventors into the broad anonymous majority of its followers, who for the most part may know next to nothing about the original creators. the use of intellectual irony brings nationalism back from the popular and homely notion back into the glittering realm where intellectual novelties are forged and appreciated by connoisseurs. thus, the research on the quixotic tribe of ironic nationalists echoes the other articles of this special issue over the major topics of the internal logic and popular appeal of nationalism granting its mutability and endurance. nations, empires, and colonies: coming together again the only theoretical article in this thematic special issue juxtaposes the nation with its closest historical counterparts. while at the individual level, nationality is most closely substantively related to race and ethnicity, nations at the macrolevel are usually defined via their comparison with empires and colonies. nation-states are changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 275–284 283 usually conceptualized as the universal form of a modern statehood as opposed on the one hand to the more archaic empires and, on the other hand, to the still largely hypothetical supranational and postnational forms of late modern statehood. unlike a nation, an empire does not need a shared identity or a shared culture. for this reason, paradoxically, an empire, while demanding strict subordination in the overt, literal, institutionalized way, does not usually require cultural homogeneity and symbolic power characteristic of a modern nation, such as the one described in eugene weber’s seminal work “peasants into frenchmen: the modernization of rural france, 1870–1914” (1976). an empire relies on military and bureaucratic rather than symbolic power and does not attempt cultural unification within its entire realm. on the contrary, the division of power within an empire presupposes a marked distinction between its center and peripheries (for example, alexander motyl in his book “imperial ends: the decay, collapse, and revival of empires” (2001) defines an empire as a state where peripheries are not allowed communicate with each other directly without the mediation and control of the center), and the visibility of this distinction is more easily ensured by preserving cultural differences. empires rest on keeping intact a variety of local peculiarities much as they were first found during the original conquer. nations reject this acceptance verging on indifference and replace it with a profound significance ascribed to cultural diversity as grounds for identities and justification for political sovereignty. second, nations strive to normalize this diversity by means of porserving the differences between independent nation-states and simultaneously striving to eradicate diversity within national borders. third, the modern world of nation-states is incompatible with the explicit imperial hierarchies of cultures and has the parity and equality of all nations as an essential principle of its makeup. despite these obvious differences, one has only to place the outline of the ideal type of the world of nation-states against the realities of the contemporary geopolitics to see the multiple covert survivals of the premodern imperial past. many nation-states, despite the shared high culture omnipresent in the media and centrally transmitted via education still struggle with making sense of their internal cultural diversity an integrating it into the higher-order pan-national framework. the hierarchies of national cultures has become more covert and negotiable, yet this constant chance at renegotiation makes the exercise in nation-branding and soft power all the more tempting, and the quest for rising in national rankings, all the more pertinent. moreover, the late modern increase in the mobility of people and information across national borders made the two imperial remnants intertwined by reproducing the overlapping contested places in the covert hierarchies of crossnational comparison both within and between nation-states. the article by maxim khomyakov shed some new light on the similarities, differences and interrelations between nations and empires. his focus is not on establishing a new general pattern, but on historical varieties of imperial and postimperial trajectories and ways of coping with various relations to a nation’s colonial past. the author builds upon the notion of internal colonization as applied to russia to make a statement that russian imperial and, accordingly, postimperial https://changing-sp.com/ 284 marharyta s. fabrykant experience is in a number of important ways substantively different from the heir of the former western european empires and, most tellingly, the u.s. for this reason, he argues, the majority of the russian population does not share the contemporary western discourse of racial justice and retribution of imperial grievances. the article demonstrates how the language of the western debate on racial issues leaves russia indifferent and how this indifference is represented using the language of liberty and pluralism. same as all the other articles of this special issue, khomyakov’s contribution explores the languages of the contemporary nationalism, counter-nationalism and the initially multivoiced debate on nationalism-related themes. the languages of nationalism might constitute an area of renewed importance, especially as, notwithstanding the abundance of specific case studies, there have not been major theoretical breakthroughs in this direction since michael billig’s “banal nationalism”, and so much has changed since then, particularly due to digitalization. obviously, nationalism and digital technology constitutes another promising subtopic in nations and nationalism studies. the researchers in this domain, however, still need to clarify their research question. it goes without saying that nationalists are able, ready, and willing to make use of the many opportunities offered by digital technologies. what we still do not know is how exactly digital manifestations of nationalism are different from digital transmission of other ideologies and worldviews. nor is it clear how the new medium of nationalism transforms the message itself and, in particular, to what extent and by way of which mechanisms digitalization contributes to nationalists’ attempts to adapt to the new trends of social change or, alternatively, preserve and revive the prototypical forms of nationalism generated under considerably different conditions of the early modernity. another recurrent motif in all the contributions to this special issue is the role of borders. be they the borders between ideologies (novoselova, life courses and resulting experiences (tregubova and nee), gravity and irony (mitrofanova), or natural borders between societies demarcating varieties of historical paths (khomyakov), the ability of nationalism to produce, reproduce, maintain and rearrange borders might be one of the secrets of its attraction and longevity. at any rate, now is the right time to study nations and nationalism, and more interesting insights are likely to come. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 9–35 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.1.120 received 5 july 2020 © 2021 mohmmed salah hassan, accepted 22 february 2021 hussam al halbusi, ali najem, asbah razali, published online 19 april 2021 fadi abdel muniem abdel fattah, kent a. williams sala142@yahoo.com hussam.mba@gmail.com alinajem18@yahoo.com asbahrazali@um.edu.my fadi.fattah@asu.edu.om kent.williams@dal.ca article risk perception, self-efficacy, trust in government, and the moderating role of perceived social media content during the covid-19 pandemic mohmmed salah hassan university of malaya, kuala lumpur, malaysia hussam al halbusi sultan qaboos university, muscat, oman ali najem university of malaya, kuala lumpur, malaysia asbah razali university of malaya, kuala lumpur, malaysia fadi abdel muniem abdel fattah a’sharqiyah university, ibra, oman kent a. williams dalhousie university, halifax, canada abstract the public’s actions will likely have a significant effect on the course of the novel coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic. human behavior is conditioned and shaped by information and people’s perceptions. this study investigated the impact of risk perception on trust in government and self-efficacy. it examined whether the use of social media helped people adopt preventive actions during the pandemic. to test this hypothesis, the researchers gathered data from 512 individuals (students and academics) based in malaysia during the covid-19 https://changing-sp.com/ 10 mohmmed salah hassan, hussam al halbusi, ali najem et al. introduction the current pandemic is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2). as of mid-april 2020, 2,074,529 confirmed cases and 139,378 deaths had been recorded worldwide, including 5,182 confirmed cases in malaysia. no treatments or vaccines had been developed, and preventive and quarantine measures were considered the best methods to avoid infection (world health organization, 2021). therefore, preventive measures were promoted at the individual level: regular handwashing, avoiding touching the face, and maintaining an appropriate distance from other individuals (“social distancing”). many countries promoted social distancing to contain the outbreak (world health organization, 2020). in malaysia, the government implemented social distancing by enforcing a movement control order, a set of regulations intended to control the disease’s spread. these measures included the immediate suspension of cross-border movements and the closure of public and private schools, universities, and nonessential businesses (prime minister’s office of malaysia, 2020). however, the ability to limit the spread of viruses such as covid-19 fundamentally depends on how people behave. therefore, it is vital to collect data on people’s perceptions of risk and their behavioral responses during a pandemic and provide information to policymakers on how people respond to public health issues (slovic, 2000). it is critical to explore and understand behavioral responses to the risk of infection during a pandemic, especially how people assert their risk perception and how these perceptions shape self-efficacy beliefs. one critical aspect of this exploration is understanding how social media exposure to information affects the relationship between risk perception and self-efficacy (bandura, 1990b; chew & eysenbach, 2010; isa et al., 2013). furthermore, it is essential to provide information to people when public health issues arise so they can understand the risks and respond effectively. hence, public risk perception and self-efficacy can help individuals understand and manage their responses (reynolds & seeger, 2005; vos & buckner, 2016). the media play a critical role in providing information to the public during crises. sources such as television and newspapers have long shaped people’s risk pandemic. our results suggested that risk perception had a significant effect on trust in government and self-efficacy. moreover, these correlations were stronger when social media was used as a source for gathering information on covid-19. in some cases, it even helped users avoid exposure to the virus. this study assessed the relationship between risk perception and the awareness gained from using social media during the pandemic and highlighted how social media usage influences trust in government and self-efficacy. keywords risk perception, trust in government, self-efficacy, social media, coronavirus, covid-19 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 9–35 11 perceptions and self-efficacy during public health crises, as was seen during the h1n1 outbreak (lin & lagoe, 2013). in the information age, social media plays a primary role in how the public acquires information and communicates about crises and catastrophes (schultz, utz, & göritz, 2011). notably, the number of people using social media platforms to gather information, especially during a crisis, has dramatically increased (liu, fraustino, & jin, 2012). hence, social media platforms (e.g., facebook1, twitter2, instagram3, youtube4, and whatsapp5) have become the primary source of information for many people. social media is considered the primary source of health information as well, influencing people’s risk perception and self-efficacy in preventive behavior (barmanadhikari et al., 2016; young & rice, 2011). therefore, social media’s importance in helping people make sense of the news during public crises needs to be examined. regarding this, it is crucial to understand whether using social media as a primary source of information shaped the relationship between risk perception and selfefficacy during the covid-19 pandemic. theory risk perception paek and hove (2017) defined the concept of “risk perception” as “people’s subjective assessment of the possibility that negative outcomes or diseases may occur” (p. 1). two main dimensions govern this perception: one, the perceived susceptibility dimension, which refers to how people perceive risk and the likelihood of contracting diseases, and two, the severity dimension, which refers to people’s ability to process information about risks and understand the seriousness and aggressiveness of diseases (balogway & mccomas, 2020; dryhurst et al., 2020; el-toukhy, 2015; pask & rawlins, 2016). according to protection motivation theory, susceptibility and severity play important roles in shedding light on risk perception (rogers, 1983). the two constitute the main dimensions of information when individuals consider the threats from a hazard. the theory assumes that individuals tend to feel pressured to adopt health recommendations to protect themselves from any harm. it further posits that a high level of perceived risk is needed to adopt healthy behaviors during a crisis. meanwhile, the extended parallel process model (witte, 1992) highlights that risk perception is a pivotal element that influences behavioral response during a crisis (rimal & real, 2003b). when people evaluate their susceptibility to the harm they might endure during a crisis, they often make assumptions using a heuristic process. individuals who are more aware of the risks are also more likely to assume that risks occur more frequently than they do (kahneman, slovic, & tversky, 1982). for instance, when individuals are heavily exposed to media coverage focused on a disease like the h1n1 1 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 2 twitter™ is a trademark of twitter inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 3 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 4 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 5 whatsapp™ is a trademark of whatsapp inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 12 mohmmed salah hassan, hussam al halbusi, ali najem et al. virus, they tend to have a higher perceived risk of contracting the virus compared to others (paek & hove, 2017). risk perception is mainly an interpretation and subjective judgment about a current risk (slovic, 2000). hence, it is an essential element of risk-based decisions, such as adopting healthy behaviors during a crisis. therefore, risk perception is explicitly associated with natural disasters, such as hurricanes or pandemics, as well as human-made disasters, such as nuclear radiation exposure (el-toukhy, 2015; rimal & real, 2003a). risk perception has a profound impact on society. how the public assesses the severity and susceptibility of a hazard can influence individual behaviors during a crisis, which profoundly affects the success of any policies and regulations implemented to address the crisis. the outbreak of covid-19 is no different. risk perception can substantially impact the precautionary measures that individuals undertake to reduce their exposure to disease transmission. risk perception shapes people’s decisionmaking in promoting preventive measures during a pandemic (choi et al., 2017). another element of risk perception is optimistic bias; this concept states that individuals tend to believe that the risks posed by a disaster will be less severe for them than for other people. this tendency to underestimate a disaster’s adverse effects – underestimating both the probability and the severity – is mainly dependent on the information disseminated regarding a hazard (weinstein, 1980). specifically, analyzing risk perception involves individuals’ cognitive judgment of their susceptibility to risk. however, such analysis ignores the effect of the information sources in shaping perception. slovic (2000) argued that perceived susceptibility and severity are generally influenced by individual emotions while making decisions or perceiving risk. human beings might perceive risk as more threatening when they dread it intensely. nonetheless, cognitive assessment and emotional judgments are often intense, determining people’s risk prospects and behavior (loewenstein et al., 2001). generally, research regarding the factors influencing risk perception has focused on how individual perception is affected by media content and the social, cultural, institutional, and political processes. this widely accepted view highlights that understanding people’s risk perception is determined not only by evaluating the scientific information they obtain or their physical experiences with a hazard. mccarthy, brennan, de boer, and ritson (2008) argued that one critical factor affecting risk perception is how the media shape public risk perception. they also cited various factors that affect the public’s risk perceptions, such as the media content, amount, tone, and the source’s trustworthiness. when public issues arise, people tend to perceive the risks to themselves (pask & rawlins, 2016). hence, the manifestation of infectious diseases that arise without warning, such as covid-19, often leads to immediate public perceptions of risk (oh, eom, & rao, 2015). thus, examining risk perception is essential to understanding how it shapes self-efficacy beliefs. trust in government citizen’s trust in government as a whole is a fundamental topic in the study of social psychology (hetherington, 1998; houston et al., 2016; miller, 1974; van der meer, 2010; vigoda-gadot & talmud, 2010). gamson (1968) defined trust in government as changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 9–35 13 “the probability (...) that the political system (or some part of it) will produce preferred outcomes even if left untended” (p. 54). coleman and iso-ahola (1993) described trust as a subcategory of risk: the expectation of gain or loss, which determines whether or not citizens will trust the government. trust is never absolute but always conditional and contextual (ruscio, 1996). levi & braithwaite (1998) argue that citizens often have widely different perceptions and identified two ways citizens can trust their government: one, they can trust everyone in the government as an institution, and two, they can trust that the decisions taken by the government are in the best interest of all citizens. this definition is based on the conceptual framework of game theory and the assumption that granting trust to the government is based on individual interest, so trusting the government depends on individuals’ strategies to maximize utility. in short, individuals’ trust in the government is based on self-interest (blackburn 1998; levi & stoker, 2000). trust in government is a critical factor that can determine the success of any policy. historically, during crises, trust in government has played a crucial role in shaping public behavior – specifically, people’s willingness to comply. trust in government also influences people’s support for government policies during crises, specifically health policies (sankar, schairer, & coffin, 2003; tomes, 2000). chanley, rudolph, and rahn (2000) argued that public trust in the government is one of the most significant factors influencing public risk perception and ultimately shapes public policymaking. therefore, trust in government highlights the importance of public support during a crisis. greater trust levels will minimize conflicts between the public and the government officials enforcing the rules (metlay, 2013). for example, if the public does not trust their government during a disaster – specifically, a health crisis – there will be a high degree of noncompliance and conflict between the public and the government institutes and their policies. negative risk perceptions can influence the public will and increase public opposition to government activities during a crisis (pijawka & mushkatel, 1991). empirical evidence on epidemics has shown that trust in government is vital to the any policy’s success during a crisis. for instance, slovic, flynn, and layman (1991) concluded that trust in government would decrease if the public viewed their government as abusing its power and being dishonest. during the 1894 smallpox outbreak in milwaukee, wisconsin, the government forcibly isolated poor immigrants in hospitals but allowed wealthy families to stay at home; thus, trust in government declined and deteriorated, leading to a month-long riot that accelerated the spread of smallpox (leavitt, 2003). at the core of trust in government during a crisis are the questions of how people trust government agencies and how risk perception shapes public behavior (smith & mayer, 2018). specifically, research has focused on the effect of risk perception on trust in government, although the number of studies has remained small. earlier works have examined how risk perception influences trust in government, a crucial link to understanding how people deal with public threats or epidemics (smith & mayer, 2018). in the covid-19 pandemic context, the amount of health-related information grew exponentially, and people gathered this information from many different sources. https://changing-sp.com/ 14 mohmmed salah hassan, hussam al halbusi, ali najem et al. in such cases, their trust in their government will likely affect their determination of the risks and benefits associated with the pandemic. in turn, this determination might influence their acceptance of government health measures to combat covid-19 (siegrist & cvetkovich, 2000). if citizens trust the government responsible for responding to a hazard, their risk perception will be positively influenced. their trust will help ensure public acceptance of and cooperation with government agencies (siegrist & cvetkovich, 2000; tumlison, moyer, & song, 2017; vainio, paloniemi, & varho, 2017). not surprisingly, studies that have focused on understanding the risk perception of different hazards have found a strong correlation between risk perception and trust in government (bronfman & vázquez, 2011; keller, visschers, & siegrist, 2012; vainio et al., 2017). self-efficacy self-efficacy helps shape individuals’ ability to overcome a social difficulty (bandura, 1990a, 1990b). this can be understood as individuals’ belief in their ability to manage a difficult task (bandura, 1997). bandura (1997) added that the primary understanding of self-efficacy theory is “people’s beliefs in their capabilities to produce desired effects by their actions” (p. 7). the theory argues that efficacy belief is a part of psychological adjustments during a crisis. self-efficacy is evident during public health crises, including the covid-19 pandemic. it plays a vital role in motivating people during hazards, driving specific changes in their behavior and attitudes (dorsey, miller, & scherer, 1999). thus, numerous studies have examined how self-efficacy is shaped by risk perception (e.g., coleman & iso-ahola, 1993; mishra & fiddick, 2012). however, the ability of self-efficacy beliefs to encourage a sense of competence and control over the perceived outcomes of a specific unwanted situation is seen as a higher level of self-efficacy that leads to a greater probability of enacting and adopting health measures during a public health threat (reid & aiken, 2011). thus, self-efficacy can also be seen as a social construct. although such constructs can differ depending on culture, individuals’ need for control seems universal, and studies have examined how individuals in different cultures practice self-efficacy (young, oei, & crook, 1991). for example, many studies have examined how selfefficacy changes behavior when dealing with health threats, such as smoking (carey et al., 1989). their primary interest concerns people’s perceptions and behavioral responses – particularly prevention measures recommended during health crises (giritli nygren & olofsson, 2020; isa et al., 2013). self-efficacy is viewed as a motive and need for control that can also be viewed as a behavior-altering drive. however, this drive is not a permanent personality trait. self-efficacy is the ability to direct skills to accomplish a desired goal in specific circumstances, usually created by a threat (chen et al., 2001; sherer et al., 1982; smart, kellaway, & worthington, 1984). according to social cognitive theory, self-efficacy is an action motivated from within rather than enforced by an environment. the theory has two central ideas. first, individuals’ cognitive capabilities are powerful tools that allow them to develop a course of action based on experience; testing hypothetical actions using our mental changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 9–35 15 capabilities will predict the outcome (bandura, 2001; barone, maddux, & snyder, 1997). second, humans are capable of self-regulation; that is, to achieve a goal, individuals will regulate and change their behaviors. self-regulation can help people anticipate expectancies and tap past knowledge and experiences to form beliefs about future events (molden & dweck, 2006). therefore, the construct of self-efficacy needs to be studied further. the present study sought to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between risk perception and self-efficacy during a pandemic. risk perception and self-efficacy are affected by information regarding a hazard. people gather information regarding a public health issue, which shapes their reactions and behaviors during a crisis (mccarthy et al., 2008; song et al., 2015). perceived quality of social media content traditional media, such as newspapers, radio, and television, were once most people’s primary information sources (dudo, dahlstrom, & brossard, 2007; paek, oh, & hove, 2016). these media sources are crucial sources of information on public health crises (lin & lagoe, 2013; oh et al., 2015). chang (2012) described the association between risk perception during the h1n1 outbreak and the information disseminated by television. today, however, social media has transformed how individuals obtain information. reveling in the rapid and continuous changes in the communications industry, people worldwide have shown an increasing inclination to obtain their information through social media platforms, such as facebook, twitter, and whatsapp. thus, as lin, zhang, song, and omori (2016) observed, people primarily obtain their health information during crises from social media platforms, which they consider most convenient. unlike traditional media, social media enables users to acquire, generate, and share critical health information. for example, many people used social media as a central public platform to discuss and exchange information during the h1n1 outbreak (davies, 2009). social media platforms are a primary contributor to people’s risk perception about public health crises and provide information that influences their protective health measures (chung, 2016). since the h1n1 outbreak, social media has become the primary means for people to express their emotional responses to health issues and virus outbreaks, such as worry and fear (chew & eysenbach, 2010; signorini, segre, & polgreen, 2011). during the mers outbreak, social media platforms played a significant role in disseminating factual information, including updates on the systems in place and prevention methods (song et al., 2015). however, popular and easy-to-access platforms are also associated with negative emotional responses to public health issues and are considered a primary contributor to fear and anxiety among the public (fu & zhu, 2020; paek & hove, 2017; signorini et al., 2011). aladwani (2017) found that the perceived quality of social media content encompassed four dimensions: (1) reflective quality, which concerns individuals’ beliefs about how the content supports their interests; (2) practiced quality, which concerns how the content meets their needs and shapes their behaviors; (3) advocated https://changing-sp.com/ 16 mohmmed salah hassan, hussam al halbusi, ali najem et al. quality, which concerns how people’s behaviors support and promote the information, and (4) stimulated quality, which concerns individuals’ feelings about the content and how it serves their immediate needs. people’s perceptions of the quality of social media content depend on how much they value and trust the information. the primary considerations are considered the content’s accuracy and whether the information benefits the users. risk perception incorporates the susceptibility and severity of public hazards (el-toukhy, 2015). therefore, social media content’s perceived quality shapes perceived susceptibility by providing information about the increasing number of people affected by a particular public health hazard; it shapes perceived severity by focusing on the hazard’s adverse impacts, such as death or severe injury (mcwhirter & hoffman-goetz, 2016). hence, exposure to negative information, such as potential pain caused by mers or h1n1 outbreaks, is positively associated with people’s perceived severity of a threat; information about the increasing number of deaths and infections could be associated with perceived susceptibility. social media content is assumed to increase people’s risk perception during a public health crisis (choi et al., 2017). vos and buckner (2016) concluded that social media content plays a critical role in spreading information about a crisis and making sense of public health issues. however, researchers have also cautioned that social media disseminates only limited information on self-efficacy. risk perception and self-efficiency also are constructs that depend on the information obtained about a crisis (agha, 2003). during the early stages of the covid-19 outbreak in china, conspiracy theories spread around the globe. the resultant racism, panic buying, and inaccurate information have all been linked to the dissemination of information on social media. widespread misinformation generated panic among the public (depoux et al., 2020). subsequently, some social media platforms, such as facebook, directed users to the expert sources (e.g., the world health organization) and myth-buster and fact-checker websites (e.g., factcheck.org, snopes.com) to combat misinformation about covid-19 (merchant & lurie, 2020). twitter began collating covid-19 information into lists to make it easy for users to search for updates (josephson & lambe, 2020). experts suggest that worldwide public panic is best ought with fact-based content (“covid-19: fighting panic”, 2020). as a primary source of information, social media can influence public health responses by providing accurate (or inaccurate) content. for example, during china’s quarantines following the initial outbreak, the government used social media platforms to provide advice and reassurance to the public about the quarantine rules and to promote its ability to manage the outbreak. hence, social media can boost awareness of a health hazard, including how to prevent infection by following protective measures (depoux et al., 2020). as of january 2021, 4.2 billion people worldwide are active social media users (statista, 2021). thus, the information shared could reasonably be expected to have shaped the public’s decisions during the pandemic and influence their trust in government and self-efficacy beliefs (depoux et al., 2020; jin, 2020; merchant & lurie, 2020). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 9–35 17 based on the above information, we formulated the following research hypotheses: • h1: there is a positive relationship between risk perception and trust in government. • h2: there is a positive relationship between risk perception and self-efficacy. • h3a: perceptions of social media content quality moderate the relationship between risk perception and trust in government, such that the relationship is stronger when the perceived quality of social media is higher. • h3b: perceptions of social media content quality moderate the relationship between risk perception and self-efficacy, such that the relationship is stronger when the perceived quality of social media quality is higher. figure 1 research framework social media risk reception trust in government self-efficacy h:3a h:3b h:1 h:2 method sample and procedure for data collection, the researchers used an online survey designed using google6 forms which was circulated to students and academics at the university of malaya (um) in kuala lumpur, malaysia. the survey was conducted during the restriction of movement order (rom) that began on march 18, 2020. the survey’s cover letter explained the purpose of the study and assured the confidentiality of the participants’ responses. variable measurement all the variables were measured using a self-report measure of multi-item scales derived from previous studies. all the measures were assessed using a seven-point likert-type scale, where 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree (all items are presented in the appendix 1). researchers using measures to examine a latent construct must choose carefully between reflective or formative indicators (becker 6 google™ and the google logo are trademarks of google inc. in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 18 mohmmed salah hassan, hussam al halbusi, ali najem et al. et al., 2012; sarstedt et al., 2019). reflective measurements, commonly recommended when personality and attitudinal variables are modeled, are highly correlated indicators (interchangeable) thought to be caused by a targeted latent construct. the formative measures involve indicators that might determine the construct without necessarily being highly correlated (not interchangeable), making traditional reliability and validity criteria inappropriate and irrelevant (cheah et al., 2019; sarstedt et al., 2019). the aforementioned criteria could be applied to distinguish between reflective and formative constructs (i.e., the direction of causality, interchangeability, covariation, and antecedents/consequences of indicators or dimensions) (sarstedt et al., 2019). the current study encompassed the two types of reflective and formative variables: multiple first-order constructs that represented important aspects of the targeted construct and second-order constructs. given its complexity, we modeled social media as a second-order formative construct. determining the type of formative construct is important because excluding any dimensions could alter the conceptual domain (e.g., becker et al., 2012; cheah et al., 2019; sarstedt et al., 2019). to measure risk perception, we adapted four items from witte (1996). we reflectively measured risk perception as a first-order construct. we also positioned trust in government as a dependent variable and measured it reflectively using three items as a first-order construct, a method borrowed from grimmelikhuijsen (2012). we reflectively measured the first-order construct self-efficacy using five items adapted from a prior study (rimal & real, 2003a). finally, we measured social media content using nine items slightly modified and adapted from aladwani (2017). thus, the perceived quality of social media content encompassed four dimensions: reflective quality (two items), practiced quality (two items), advocated quality (three items), and stimulated quality (three items). we reflectively measured these four dimensions as first-order constructs. later, we used them to describe social media’s perceived benefits: high scores indicated a stronger perceived benefit of social media content. data analysis and results to examine the proposed hypotheses, we used structural equation modeling (sem) with the partial least squares (pls) method, using smart pls 3.2.8 (ringle, wende, & becker, 2015). this is a powerful and robust statistical procedure (henseler, ringle, & sinkovics, 2009). therefore, this method did not require strict assumptions about the distribution of the variables, making it appropriate for complex causal analyses with both firstand second-order constructs (hair et al., 2017). to test the statistical significance of the path coefficients, we used the pls analysis with 5,000 subsamples to generate bootstrap t-statistics with n – 1 degrees of freedom, where (n) was the number of subsamples. demographic analysis we collected data on the participants’ sex, age, education, and job experience. as presented in table 1, most of the participants were under 35 years old and female; almost half had at least a bachelor’s degree. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 9–35 19 common method bias assessment common method bias (cmb) refers to variances attributable to the measurement method rather than the constructs being measured, such as when the difference between the trait and the measured scores occurs through using a common method to take more than one measurement of the same or different traits (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003). cmb could imply a risk in blindly accepting social science research results, given that bias can affect findings due to systematic errors. thus, in the current research, we attempted to prevent cmb during the research design phase by applying the procedural remedies proposed by podsakoff, mackenzie, & podsakoff (2012). moreover, we used a statistical technique to detect potential cmb situations, namely, a full collinearity test based on variance inflation factors (vifs) (kock, 2015). we followed the guidelines described by kock and lynn (2012). they proposed that test to assess both vertical and lateral collinearities and indicated that a vif achieving a value greater than 3.3 would indicate pathological collinearity, warning that cmb might impair the model. our model’s maximum vif was 2.112 (see table 2). table 1 profile of participants demographic item categories frequency percentage age (years) 18–24 168 32.8 25–34 154 30.1 35–44 129 25.1 45–54 47 9.2 55 and above 14 2.8 total 512 100.0 sex female 302 59.0 male 210 41.0 total 512 100.0 education level pre-university 32 6.3 bachelor’s degree 227 44.4 master's degree 151 29.5 doctoral degree 62 12.1 academician 40 7.7 total 512 100.0 position students 314 61.3 staff 198 38.7 total 512 100.0 note: sample size = 512 table 2 common method bias assessment using full collinearity estimates criteria variables risk perception social media usage trust in government self-efficacy vif 1.419 1.201 1.496 2.112 note: vif = variance inflation factor https://changing-sp.com/ 20 mohmmed salah hassan, hussam al halbusi, ali najem et al. measurement model assessment to achieve a reflective measurement model, individual item reliability, internal consistency reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity must meet specific criteria. in terms of item reliability, the results shown in table 3 revealed no significant problems. most items exceeded the recommended level of 0.707 (hair et al., 2017). to evaluate the constructs’ internal consistency, we used composite reliability ranging from 0.847 to 0.916, higher than the suggested cutoff threshold of 0.70 (hair et al., 2017). in support of convergent validity, the average variance extracted (ave) for the constructs ranged from 0.658 to 0.809, more than the recommended threshold of 0.5 table 3 measurement model: item loading/weight, construct reliability, and convergent validity first-order constructs second-order constructs items scale loading/ weight cr/vif ave/ t-value p-value risk perception rsp1 reflective 0.882 0.916 0.732 na rsp2 0.900 rsp3 0.878 rsp4 0.756 reflective quality req1 reflective 0.685 0.898 0.718 na req2 0.696 practiced quality prq1 reflective 0.853 0.847 0.711 na prq2 0.770 advocated quality adq1 reflective 0.807 0.883 0.715 na adq2 0.855 adq3 0.838 stimulated quality stq1 reflective 0.859 0.896 0.715 na stq2 0.864 stq3 0.735 social media content quality reflective quality formative 0.315 1.461 3.793 0.000 practiced quality 0.322 2.932 3.313 0.000 advocated quality 0.411 1.264 4.739 0.000 stimulated quality 0.402 1.462 4.280 0.000 trust in government tra1 reflective 0.863 0.851 0.658 na tra2 0.686 tra3 0.872 self-efficacy sef1 0.898 0.911 0.809 na sef2 0.906 sef3 0.921 sef4 0.893 sef5 0.877 notes: cr = composite reliability; vif = variance inflation factor; ave = average variance extracted; na = not applicable. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 9–35 21 (hair et al., 2017). for discriminant validity, shown in table 4, we uncovered no issues, as the ave for each construct was greater than the variance that each construct shared with the other latent variables (fornell & larcker, 1981; hair et al., 2017). the formative variables revealed minimal collinearity, as the respective vifs ranged between 1.264 and 2.932 (see table 3), far below the standard cutoff threshold of 5 (hair et al., 2017). therefore, collinearity did not reach critical levels in any of our formative constructs. moreover, we examined the significance and relevance of the outer weight’s t-value and p-value of the formative constructs. as shown in table 3, all the formative indicators were significant (hair et al., 2017). thus, our formative measurement model was successful. structural model assessment in explaining the dependent variables of this study (i.e., trust in authority and selfefficacy), none of the demographic variables (i.e., age, sex, and education level) showed a significant effect (see table 5). table 5 presents the findings related to h1–h3, which involved the direct and interaction effects. in support of h1, the direct effect of risk perception was significantly and positively related to selfefficacy (β = 0.533, t = 4.104, p < 0.001); thus, h1 was supported. h2 also showed a significant direct effect of risk perception on trust in government (β = 0.283, t = 2.832, p < 0.002); therefore, h2 was also supported. regarding the interaction effect, h3a assumed the interaction effect of risk perception and social media usage on trust in government, for which we found a significant interaction (β = 0.210, t = 2.289, p < 0.011). thus, h3a was supported. finally, h3b also showed a significant interaction between risk perception and social media on self-efficacy (β = 0.506, t = 3.571, p < 0.001). hence, the second interaction was also supported. to interpret this interaction, we followed dawson (2014), plotting high versus low social media usage regression lines (+1 and –1 standard deviation from the mean). this step indicated that the positive relationship between risk perception and trust in government was stronger (a more pronounced slope) when social media usage was high rather than low (figure 2). moreover, the positive relationship between risk perception and self-efficacy was stronger when the use of social media was high rather than low (see figure 3). table 4 descriptive statistics, correlation matrix, and discriminant validity variables mean sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. risk perception 5.885 1.190 0.856 2. self-efficacy 6.072 1.060 0.386 0.899 3. social media content 5.746 1.473 0.523 0.588 0.901 4. trust in government 4.322 0.677 0.539 0.470 0.480 0.969 5. age 2.280 1.092 0.405 0.307 0.253 0.030 na 6. sex 1.498 0.606 –0.119 –0.005 –0.134 –0.037 –0.028 na 7. education 2.705 1.022 0.149 0.184 0.161 0.168 0.618 –0.060 na note: sd = standard deviation; na = not applicable. bold values on the diagonal are the square root values of the extracted average variance, shared between the constructs and their respective measures. off-diagonal elements below the diagonal are correlations among the constructs, where values between 0.12 and 0.15 are significant at p < 0.05, and values of 0.16 or higher are significant at p < 0.01 (two-tailed test). https://changing-sp.com/ table 5 structural path analysis: direct, indirect, and interaction effects hypothesis direct effect std beta std error t-value bias and corrected bootstrap (95% ci) decision p-value ll 95% ci ul 95% ci h1 risk perception → self-efficacy 0.533 0.130 4.104 0.000 0.286 0.723 supported h2 risk perception → trust in government 0.283 0.100 2.832 0.002 0.121 0.441 supported control variables – age → trust in authority –0.294 0.127 0.316 0.310 –0.434 0.083 ns – sex → self-efficacy → trust in authority 0.009 0.046 1.166 0.215 –0.027 0.176 ns – education level → trust in authority 0.001 0.051 0.258 0.423 0.022 –0.214 ns – age → self-efficacy 0.095 0.032 0.021 0.221 –0.011 0.312 ns – sex → self-efficacy → self-efficacy 0.007 0.012 0.112 0.322 –0.021 0.242 ns – education level → self-efficacy 0.081 0.034 1.108 0.281 0.011 –0.254 ns hypothesis interaction effect std beta std error t-value bias and corrected bootstrap (95% ci) decision p-value ll 95% ci ul 95% ci h3a rip*smu → trust in government 0.210 0.092 2.289 0.001 0.030 0.342 supported h3b rip*smu → self-efficacy 0.506 0.142 3.571 0.000 0.257 0.714 supported notes: n = 512; bootstrap sample size = 5,000; se = standard error; ll = lower limit; ci = confidence interval; ul = upper limit 95% bias-correlated ci; ns = not significant keys: rip*smu → trust in government = risk perception*social media content quality → trust in government, rip*smu → self-efficacy = risk perception*social media content quality → self-efficacy changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 9–35 23 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5 low risk perception high risk perception tr us t i n g ov er nm en t low social media usage high social media usage 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5 s el f-e ffi ca cy low social media usage high social media usage low risk perception high risk perception figure 2 interaction plot of risk perception × effect of social media usage on trust in government figure 3 interaction plot of risk perception × social media usage on self-efficacy regarding its explanatory power, our model revealed moderate to substantial r2 values of 0.491 for trust in government and 0.513 for self-efficacy (hair et al., 2017). we used the stone–geisser blindfolding sample-reuse technique to determine the predictive relevance of our model. this technique revealed q-square values greater than 0. thus, our research model effectively predicted both trust in government (q2 = 0.220) and self-efficacy (q2 = 0.241) (hair et al., 2017). discussion and conclusion this study investigated the impact of risk perception on trust in government and self-efficacy during the covid-19 pandemic. significantly, this study introduced the contingent role of social media usage as a critical element during the crisis. in particular, risk perception, trust in the government, and self-efficacy during a public health threat were fundamentally dependent on information regarding the hazard (vos & buckner, 2016). other scholars have highlighted the importance of empirically investigating the potential effects of social media on behavioral responses (agha, 2003). hence, the present study provided new information on how social media helped shape the relationship between these constructs during the covid-19 pandemic. meanwhile, most governments and international agencies, such as the world health organization, adopted social media as a primary conduit for distributing information to the public (mejia et al., 2020). our investigation derived several significant findings. first, risk perception positively influenced our participants’ trust in their government (malaysia). this relationship can be understood as follows: people who perceived the risk of public health hazards were likely to increase their trust in the government during a public crisis (vaughan & tinker, 2009). we also found that individuals demonstrated significant compliance with the malaysian government’s policies to combat the public threat of covid-19. this finding contributes to the current knowledge of how people might trust their government during a pandemic, highlighting that people’s perceived https://changing-sp.com/ 24 mohmmed salah hassan, hussam al halbusi, ali najem et al. risk will increase their trust in the government during any health crisis, such as the covid-19 pandemic (slovic, 2000). in particular, taking into account the trust and confidence model, the public’s judgment of risk affected their trust in government and their indirect acceptance of government measures to combat a public hazard. the model also emphasized that people with high trust in the government (in this case, the malaysian government) were more likely to comply with government measures during a crisis (siegrist, earle, & gutscher, 2003). meanwhile, risk perception influenced how the public trusted the government during the pandemic, confirming previous findings (paek et al., 2008; vaughan & tinker, 2009). hence, this study concluded that there was a significant link between risk perception and trust in the government. second, this study also revealed that risk perception significantly influenced individuals’ self-efficacy, in line with previous findings. this relationship highlighted that people’s risk perception of covid-19 positively impacted their self-efficacy; people who perceived higher risk of susceptibility and severity of the outbreak adopted behavioral changes to implement protective measures against the virus (el-toukhy, 2015). according to the extended parallel process model, individuals who perceive high risk and high efficacy are called responsive individuals (witte, 1992). these individuals are aware of the severity of and their susceptibility to the disease and are highly motivated to implement preventive measures (flora et al., 1997). moreover, according to protection motivation theory, during a crisis, public risk perceptions will be high, which can influence the public to adopt protective measures (van der weerd et al., 2011; voeten et al., 2009). earlier research on this relationship has shown mixed results. weinstein (1983) and weinstein, sandman, & roberts (1990) found that risk perception and self-efficacy had a positive relation. however, whereas van der velde, hooykaas, & van der joop (1992) found that risk perception had a negative correlation with self-efficacy. rimal and real (2003b) argued that these results not as contradictory as they sounded since all the findings concerned different public health issues. hence, our study contributes to the literature by reflecting that the relationship between the risk perception of covid-19 and self-efficacy was significant. third, we found that risk perception was significantly related to trust in the government. however, this relationship must be viewed as dynamic in this era of rapid technological advances, especially when the government has little or no direct control over social network sources or social media content. our result indicated that the positive relationship between risk perception and trust in government would be stronger with higher social media usage to acquire information on covid-19. previous research has highlighted that risk perception and trust in the government fundamentally depended on information regarding a hazard, especially when the government’s disseminated information was consistent with that on social media – for example, numbers of infections and recovered cases of covid-19 (braun & gillespie, 2011). moreover, braithwaite (1998) argued that risk perception and trust in government were contingent on the information people acquired during a public threat; that is, the source of information played a critical role in the relationship. in our study, social media usage strengthened the relationship between risk perception and self-efficacy. however, this relationship can be understood as more people becoming aware of the virus’s changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 9–35 25 consequences from information gathered from social media, increasing their risk perception of covid-19 and spurring them to adopt protective measures. thus, our finding supported the argument that social media could promote healthier behaviors. our study’s results are relevant as they highlight the process through which social media can influence behaviors during a pandemic. we confirmed how social media usage could significantly influence risk perception and self-efficacy (agha, 2003). limitations and future research the findings of this study should be interpreted with caution in light of several limitations. the first the study’s cross-sectional data design. such a design makes it difficult to provide definitive conclusions regarding causality. however, as this study had to measure sensitive issues, such as the respondents’ ethical behavior (randall & gibson, 1990), we needed complete anonymity for the participants (randall & fernandes, 1991), which made it difficult to run a longitudinal analysis (e.g., podsakoff et al., 2003). second, all the respondents were chosen from one institute, the university of malaya. future work should expand the scope to include multiple organizations of different types and in different locations. our approach’s one clear advantage was that the data we collected from this distinct sector (students and academics) was more reflective of the broader population than data collected from a more restricted setting, such as a single organization (randall & fernandes, 1991). finally, this study was conducted in malaysia, and the results might be limited to the malaysian population and government. the results might not be generalizable to other countries owing to geographic, political, cultural, and other differences. informed consent: we obtained informed consent from all individual participants included in the study and from the research ethics committee of the university of malaya. funding: there was no funding for this research project. conflict of interest: all authors declare no conflict of interest. references agha, s. 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(2) stimulated quality: 1. i feel positive that the excellent content regarding covid-19 on my social media account can be helpful when i need it. 2. i have faith in the outstanding content relating to covid-19 of my social media account that it can meet my needs. 3. i am optimistic that the superior content regarding covid-19 of my social media account can be useful for my purposes. (3) practiced quality: 1. i feel positive that the excellent information of covid-19 on social media can be helpful when i need that very fast and free. 2. i have faith in the outstanding content of covid-19 on social media that it can meet my needs whenever i can. (4) advocated quality: 1. i would talk openly about covid-19 using my social media account. 2. i would join an active group to speak about covid-19 using my social media account. 3. i would speak publicly sharing any information i think can be useful for others using the outstanding content obtained from social media. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.3.104 received 23 june 2020 © natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee accepted 14 september 2020 n.tregubova@spbu.ru published online 9 october 2020 jintae@mail.ru article beyond nations and nationalities: discussing the variety of migrants’ identifications in russian social media natalia d. tregubova st. petersburg state university, st. petersburg, russia maxim l. nee st. petersburg state university, st. petersburg, russia abstract this article examines how transnational labor migrants to russia from the five former soviet union countries – azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, and uzbekistan – identify themselves in social media. the authors combine rogers brubaker’s theory of identifications with randall collins’ interaction ritual theory to study migrants’ online interactions in the largest russian social media (vk.com). they observed online interactions in 23 groups. the article illuminates how normative and policy contexts affect the russian federation’s migration processes through a detailed discussion of migrants’ everyday online interactions. results reveal common and country-specific identifications of migrants in their online interactions. migrants from kazakhstan and azerbaijan employ identifications connected to diasporic connections. migrants from kyrgyzstan, uzbekistan, and tajikistan in their identifications refer to low-skilled labor migration to russia as a fact, a subject for assessment, and as a unifying category. for these countries, the present and the future of the nation is discussed in the framework of evaluation of mass immigration to russia. keywords migration to russia, transnational migrants, labor migrants, ethnic and national identifications, interaction rituals, online interactions, social media acknowledgements this work was supported by the russian science foundation, grant no. 18-78-10049 https://changing-sp.com/ https://vk.com 324 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee introduction setting the problem the collapse of the soviet union resulted in the appearance of new states and state borders. russia has become a recipient country for many migrants, mostly from the former soviet union (fsu) countries. today russia is the largest recipient country in the region and one of the largest in the world. according to the united nations international migration report, russia was a number four country among places of destination for international migrants in 2017 (united nations, 2017). in the 1990s, those who moved to russia were predominantly ethnic russians and russophone citizens who wanted to resettle in russia (brubaker, 1995). however, since the end of the 1990s, migration to russia is primarily labor migration of those who return or plan to return to their homelands (malakhov, 2014; sadovskaya, 2013). post-soviet migration is a path-dependent process and, to a certain extent, it reproduces the soviet trends. the post-soviet region continues to be quite selfcentered in terms of migration despite of new migration flows (stepanov, 2018). massive labor migration to russia from central asian and caucasian states succeeds migration from “the soviet south”/“southern republics” to moscow and leningrad (sahadeo, 2019). old territorial divisions and classifications of “nationalities” (martin, 2001) remain significant for developing state policies dealing with migration, as well as for everyday life of migrants. ethnic classifications (nationalities), the ideology of “the friendship of the peoples”, and russian language as the language of intercultural communication constitute common frames for everyday interactions between migrants in russia (libman & obydenkova, 2019; sanders, 2017). soviet administrative policies shaped the territorial and national boundaries in such a way that today the distinction between internal and international migrants is blurred. in russia, migrants from the national republics of north caucasus and international migrants from south caucasus and central asia are often perceived by local russian residents as “visible migrants”, or just “migrants” (mukomel, 2016). at the same time, other kinds of identities, such as religion and orientations towards socio-cultural and historical specifics that formed the reality of nation-building before the soviet period, acquire their significance in post-soviet states (aitamurto, 2019; sullivan, 1995). these identities are important for migrants, because through them, migrants categorize themselves, but also are categorized by the local residents or by the state officials as muslims, asians, non-westerners, turks, etc. islam has a particular significance for migrants from central asia and caucuses as it provides both a way of integration into the russian society, and a way to dissociate from the “russian mainstream” (di puppo & schmoller, 2018). the intensity of migration flows exerts a substantial influence on the nationbuilding processes in the fsu countries (fabrykant, 2017; laruelle, 2009). issues of nationalism and ethnicity in the fsu countries are linked to religion, race, and racialization in a complex and ambiguous way, particularly in the case of islam (abashin, 2016; aitamurto, 2019; zakharov, 2015). russian nationalism is simultaneously characterized by modernization and nostalgia, striving for geopolitical influence and changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 325 xenophobia, promoting the nation-state and empire; these contradictions coexist with a “concentric logic” of “russianness” with ethnic russians at the core (laruelle, 2009). in central asian and south caucasian states, interactions between language (dialect), intra-state region, urban-rural division, nationality, religion and locality/ kinship constitute complex patterns of differences in nation-building (brubaker, 2011; faranda & nolle, 2011; pinchuk & minyazhev , 2017; reeves, 2019a; utyasheva, 2018). in this article, we address the following puzzle. in the situation of mass labor migration to russia from the fsu countries, various categories could be used for the purposes of migrants’ identification – by themselves and by others. some of these categories, such as nationality, are inherited from the soviet past. other categories, such as religion, belong both to the preand post-soviet periods. which of these categories are relevant for migrants in their everyday interactions? the research question we address is twofold. first, our focus is on migrants’ identifications1 in online interactions. in russia, as well as in other parts of the world, staying online is an integral part of migrants’ lives (reeves, 2016). nowadays much of migrants’ everyday interactions happen online, which in turn shapes the reality of their identifications. social media provide migrants with tools to stay connected with relatives and friends in their homeland as well as to solve everyday life problems in the host society (andersson, 2019). online technologies support various migrants’ activities and social formations, from family transactions to diasporic organizations (brinkerhoff, 2009; madianou & miller, 2012). therefore, it is relevant to ask how migrants identify themselves online. second, we explore the identifications of migrants from five post-soviet states: azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan. they have important similarities and differences as countries of origin of migration to russia. azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan are among seven leading countries of origin for migration flows to russia (the other two are china and ukraine). in 2019, more than 19.5 million international migrants entered russia, according to the ministry of internal affairs of the russian federation (2020). more than 4.8 million migrants were citizens of uzbekistan, about 2.8 million were from tajikistan, and more than a million from kyrgyzstan. about 0.7 million migrants were citizens of kazakhstan and azerbaijan. the goals of migration, as indicated by migrants themselves in official documents, are partly similar and partly different for the countries under consideration. migrants from kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan are predominantly labor migrants, while for migrants from azerbaijan and kazakhstan work is one of the main aims of migration. the most popular reason to emigrate for citizens of kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan is “work”. for migrants from azerbaijan, the two main goals are “private affairs”2 and “work”. for migrants from kazakhstan, the most popular goal is “private affairs”, followed by “work”, and “education”. 1 we use the terms “identification” in accordance with rogers brubaker’s theory of ethnicity (2004). the theoretical framework of the paper is discussed below in details. 2 we believe this goal embraces different kinds of migration, including informal labor migration. https://changing-sp.com/ 326 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee these five countries share two important characteristics as the countries of origin. first, they are countries with predominantly muslim populations. second, migrants from these countries are predominantly “visible” migrants. religion is one of the key characteristics used for the identification of migrants in post-soviet russia (sokolov, 2017; turaeva, 2019). visibility is highly significant for migrants’ perception by the russian officials and the public in general (chandler, 2011; sokolov, 2017). at the same time, citizens from these countries experience different official regulations and migration policies in russia. kazakhstan and kyrgyzstan are the member states of the eurasian economic union (eeu), so their citizens enjoy a privileged access to russia’s labor market in comparison with migrants from azerbaijan, tajikistan and uzbekistan. moreover, kazakhstan is both a sending and a recipient country. it is a place of destination for many labor migrants from kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan (laruelle, 2013). finally, azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan present regional diversity at both inter-state level (central asia and caucasus) and sub-state levels (fergana and pamir regions, among others). literature overview research materials that have already been published characterize a variety of ways of how migrants identify themselves and how they are identified by others in the fsu countries. identification could be based on nationality (ethnicity), religion, citizenship, the region inside the state, the larger region (central asia, caucasus), type of work, etc. some of these characteristics are directly inherited from the soviet time, or even in the earlier periods, some became relevant only after the ussr’s breakdown. different actors in different post-soviet states have used different combinations of these characteristics in their claims to construct their identity. in russia, labor migrants identify themselves in various ways that extend beyond nationality and citizenship. sometimes their identifications are related to labor: migrants identify themselves as “hard workers” (ni & lisitsyn, 2017). another identification is religion intersected with nation and region in various ways, for example as “central asia muslims” (turaeva, 2019) or “tajiks are the strongest believers” (roshe, 2018). a person from a local village/mahalla might also be a kind of identification (urinboyev, 2017). migrants’ identifications are influenced by the local residents’ attitudes towards migrants’ connections to ethnic hierarchies intertwined with job hierarchies, visibility, russian language proficiency, affiliation to a broader ethnicity (such as being slavs), and the region of origin. kyrgyz migrants perceive their ethnic status as low but superior to tajik and uzbek migrants and associate their superiority with proficiency in russian language (gerber & zavisca, 2020), while some tajik migrants compensate their low status by positioning themselves as pious muslims (roshe, 2018). migration research generally addresses three main topics: movement, control, and settlement (kivisto & faist, 2010). movement refers to the aims and patterns of migration. migration to russia from azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, and uzbekistan is primarily labor migration, as we have already noticed. labor migrants in russia are oriented towards paychecks. they commonly face dequalification, informal employment, and poor labor conditions, while wages received changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 327 by the russian and migrant workers are comparable (mukomel, 2017). however, migrants’ aims may eventually be transformed: migrants return to their homelands and then move back to russia, labor migration entails family migration and so on (brednikova, 2017). migration policies developed in the russian federation are strict and asymmetric: even a minor break of the legal rules means that a migrant has little chance to be legalized again (kubal, 2016). moreover, migrants often do not have a clear understanding of the russian legislation (varshaver, rocheva, & ivanova, 2017). a gap between formal and informal institutions leads to corruption and proliferation of migration-related businesses (malakhov, 2014). struggles for getting the proper documents are an important part of migrants’ everyday practices and interactions (reeves, 2019b). these problems, however, are less significant for migrants from the member countries of the eurasian economic union. for them, the regulations and requirements to stay and work in russia are more relaxed (mukomel, 2017). the issues of settlement concern migrants’ incorporation into host societies. migrants from azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan are partly transnational migrants. transnational social formations “consist of combinations of social and symbolic ties and their contents, positions in networks and organizations, and networks of organizations that cut across the borders of at least two nation states” (faist, 2013, p. 450). transnational ties are typical for migrants from kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan (abashin, 2017; brednikova, 2017; varshaver & rocheva, 2014) and occasionally occur for migrants from azerbaijan (braux, 2013; pinchuk & minyazhev , 2017) and kazakhstan (ryazantsev, 2016; safonova, 2008). migrants to russia engage in transnational social formations by staying in touch with their relatives at home and with compatriots abroad, sending remittances, visiting home, presenting gifts to their friends in their country of origin and in russia, and so on. interactions with the country of origin and with compatriots in russia are highly important for starting the migration process as well as for the settlement in a new environment (abashin, 2017; lisitsyn & stepanov, 2019; pinchuk & minyazhev, 2017). thus, research findings on movement, control and settlement of migrants to russia reveal three crucial sources for identification. they are class (labor status), citizenship and nation, respectively. interactions via social media constitute one of the most important sources of information and emotional support for migrants living in russia. social media are characterized by “scalable sociality”: “social media [colonize] the space between traditional broadcast and private dyadic communication, providing people with a scale of group size and degrees of privacy that we have termed scalable sociality” (miller et al., 2016, p. 9). migrants to russia use social media to stay in touch with relatives and friends in their homeland and in russia (ruget & usmanalieva, 2019; schröder, 2018; urinboyev, 2017), as well as to exchange information and goods with strangers (timoshkin, 2019). this scalability, together with the ubiquity of online connections make interactions on the social media of particular interest for studying migrants’ identifications. they also present the kind of data that is underappreciated in the studies of migrants’ everyday lives in russia, so far dominated by interviews and observation. https://changing-sp.com/ 328 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee theoretical framework and research questions this article looks at how inherited social categories and related symbols constitute resources for migrants’ identifications in online interactions. to analyze how ethnic, national, and other categories are used in online interactions of migrants, we combine several conceptual and theoretical sources. one source is the theory of ethnic and national identifications proposed by rogers brubaker (2004): “as a processual, active term, derived from a verb, ‘identification’ […] invites us to specify the agents that do the identifying” (p. 41). for brubaker, to study ethnic, national and other identifications means to answer the following questions: how do people identify themselves? how do other people identify them? in what types of situations do ethnic, national and other social categories become resources for identifications? answering these questions demands knowledge of historical and cultural contexts as well as details of everyday social encounters. brubaker provides two key distinctions: (a) between self-identification and identification by other actors, and (b) between relational and categorical modes of identification. relational identifications refer to the participation in a web of social relations; categorical identifications refer to the “membership in a class of persons sharing some categorical attribute (such as race, ethnicity, language, nationality, citizenship, gender, sexual orientation, etc.)” (brubaker, 2004, p. 42). our research focuses on migrants’ selfidentifications and external identifications of the categorical mode. we base our argument also on the concept of “everyday nationalism” proposed by paul goode and david stroup (2015). we focus on the “quotidian practices by which ethnic and national identities are elaborated, confirmed, reproduced, or challenged” (goode & stroup, 2015, p. 718) in contrast to institutional and discursive identifications in official documents, political texts, mass media, etc. everyday/“private” aspects of nationalism in contemporary russia seem to be quite distinct from the institutional ones and thus constitute a subject of special interest (goode, 2017). however, our unit of analysis is not everyday practice as such, but the situation of interaction in the social media. thus, the paper has a micro-sociological focus in contrast to the anthropological approach taken by goode. to study migrants’ interactions, we rely on the interaction ritual theory (irt) by randall collins (2004). the irt provides guiding principles for studying how cultural symbols gain relevance in interaction. the concept of the interaction ritual embraces a whole spectrum of interactions, from everyday talks to ceremonies. interaction rituals, according to collins, have four ingredients and four outcomes connected by a specific situational mechanism (collins, 2004, pp. 47–49). ritual ingredients are the group assembly, the group boundary to outsiders, the mutual focus of attention, and the shared mood. “as the persons become more tightly focused on their common activity, more aware of what each other is doing and feeling, and more aware of each other’s awareness, they experience their shared emotion more intensely, as it comes to dominate their awareness” (collins, 2004, p. 48). persons engage in common rhythms; rhythmic entrainment produces intersubjectivity and, for successful rituals, evolves into collective effervescence (emile durkheim’s term). ritual outcomes are group solidarity, the emergence of group symbols, the changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 329 standards of morality towards the group and its symbols, and emotional energy in individuals. the latter is a feeling of enthusiasm about the interaction that pushes individuals to participate in similar interactions in the future. the importance of symbols for individuals tends to fade away gradually; hence, symbols need to be recharged in new interactions. thus, according to collins, interactions tend to form patterns in time, interaction ritual chains. additionally, we apply the concept of attention space also developed by collins (1998; 2004). attention space characterizes symbols and ideas that are relevant for a community and are used in its interactions and discourses. there are two important observations about attention space: it is limited, and it is structured. first, several symbols are at the center of attention while others are employed marginally, in an episodic way. second, symbols and ideas are interrelated: some are in opposition, some are in affinity. the concept of attention space helps to combine collins’s and brubaker’s theoretical perspectives. who and what situational mechanisms make limited attention in interaction focused on the ethnic, national, religious or other social categories? this question combines collins’s interactional analysis with brubaker’s interest to mechanisms of group formation. to analyze online interactions of migrants as interaction rituals we rely on conceptual and methodological adaptations of the irt for studying online interactions provided by paul dimaggio and his colleagues (dimaggio, bernier, heckscher, & mimno, 2019). the authors combine collins’s ideas with a theory of speech genres developed by mikhail bakhtin in order to explore how mutual focus of attention, shared mood, and rhythmic entrainment exist in posts, comments, and threads. in particular, we consider national, ethnic and other social categories as potential group symbols. research materials that have already been published in combination with the formulated theoretical framework allow us to formulate five research questions for this study: 1) what social categories do migrants to russia from azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan employ in their attempts to identify themselves and to be identified by others in online interactions? 2) how are these categories related to each other? are they used individually, or are there elective affinities between social categories exercised for the purposes of identifications? 3) do identifications differ for migrants from different countries? 4) do they differ for self-identifications and external identifications? 5) what are the typical situations when the usage of “migrant” category is relevant? data and methods the source of empirical data are interactions in a sample of online groups found on the social media. specifically, we study migrants’ interactions in vk.com (vk is short for its original name vkontakte), russia’a most popular social network and one of the most popular in the fsu countries (timoshkin, 2019). the group is a specific form https://changing-sp.com/ https://vk.com 330 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee of interaction that enables users to communicate with a wide range of people, from friends to strangers. our sampling of groups was organized in two steps. first, in january-february 2020, we searched for groups that contain the morphemes migrant*/migrat*, azer*, kazakh*, kyrgyz*, tajik*, uzbek* in their titles. to embrace regional and ethnic diversity of sending countries, we also included such morphemes as badakshan*, dungan*, fergan*, karalakalpak*, pamir*, talysh*, and uyghur*. the search was conducted in the russian language for all morphemes and then additionally in the national languages for morphemes migrant*/migrat* and the name of the nation3. we looked through all the groups displayed in vk’s search output and selected groups of three types: (1) groups related to migrant activities; (2) 20 largest groups that provide information about the country of origin for each nation (both for russian and for the national language); (3) groups that discuss islam for each nation. more than 2000 groups were selected at this stage. second, in march 2020, we applied network analysis for further sampling4. we considered common members of two groups as a link between them. network analysis was conducted for the groups with different morphemes in titles, as well as for all groups together. based on the results of the network analysis, we selected 23 groups based on (a) centrality; (b) relevance for migration issues; (c) intensity of interactions in a group; (d) diversity of groups (including clusterizations)5. the online groups that were included in our study can be divided into four types. the first type is a community of migrants from one country that settled in a specific russian city. three kyrgyz, one tajik, and two kazakh groups belong to this type6. migrants’ communities provide a space for casual interactions, mutual assistance, and information exchanges. the second type is an information group. it contains information on various topics about a country of origin, including migration issues. this type is represented by one kyrgyz group; two tajiks groups (one of which is focused on the history of tajikistan); four uzbeks groups (with different target audiences: uzbek youth outside the country, immigrants who left the country in the 1990s, mixed audiences); one kazakh group; and two azerbaijani groups. the third type consists of the groups of national cultural organizations in russian cities. it embraces one azerbaijani and two kazakh groups. the fourth type consists of groups devoted to legal assistance/mutual assistance for migrants to russia from different countries. 3 for kazakh* we specified russia as a country due to larger amount of groups with this morpheme in title. for other morphemes a country was not specified. 4 we would like to thank anastasia kitaeva for her assistance in conducting network analysis. 5 we used the online service for social network communities analysis popsters (https://popsters. com/) to review the groups’ content and intensity of interactions and then to select the posts. the groups are: https://vk.com/podsluskakgz; https://vk.com/just_sss; https://vk.com/in_kyrgyzstan; https://vk.com/ piterskiekyrgyzy; https://vk.com/typicaltashkent; https://vk.com/uzbeki_so_vsego_mira; https://vk.com/ tashkent2x2; https://vk.com/uzbek.mahalla; https://vk.com/vatantj; https://vk.com/history_of_tajikistan01; https://vk.com/tadjiki1; https://vk.com/kazahi_omska; https://vk.com/club45832163; https://vk.com/ murager_moscow; https://vk.com/znewskz; https://vk.com/kazakh_in_moscow; https://vk.com/amor. official; https://vk.com/azerbaycan_tradition; https://vk.com/azerbaycan; https://vk.com/rossiyavsem; https://vk.com/migroland; https://vk.com/vestimigranta; https://vk.com/migrant_russia 6 one of the kazakh groups is a group for russophones in kazakhstan who plan to resettle in russia. https://popsters.com/ https://popsters.com/ https://vk.com/podsluskakgz https://vk.com/just_sss https://vk.com/in_kyrgyzstan https://vk.com/piterskiekyrgyzy https://vk.com/piterskiekyrgyzy https://vk.com/typicaltashkent https://vk.com/uzbeki_so_vsego_mira https://vk.com/tashkent2x2 https://vk.com/tashkent2x2 https://vk.com/uzbek.mahalla https://vk.com/vatantj https://vk.com/history_of_tajikistan01 https://vk.com/tadjiki1 https://vk.com/kazahi_omska https://vk.com/club45832163 https://vk.com/murager_moscow https://vk.com/murager_moscow https://vk.com/znewskz https://vk.com/kazakh_in_moscow https://vk.com/amor.official https://vk.com/amor.official https://vk.com/azerbaycan_tradition https://vk.com/azerbaycan https://vk.com/rossiyavsem https://vk.com/migroland https://vk.com/vestimigranta https://vk.com/migrant_russia changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 331 this type includes four groups selected on the basis of the morpheme migrant*/ migrat*. these groups are of different sizes and orientations, from pragmatic issues to defense of migrants’ rights. interactions in the former three types of groups combine, in different parts, the russian language and the national languages7. interactions in the fourth type are entirely in russian. the main research method of this study was online observation. we investigated online interactions in these groups in april 2020. specifically, we observed interactions that took place during the period from january 2019 to april 20208. in the study, we adopted the methodology developed by dimaggio et al. (2019). the unit of observation is a post along with its thread of comments. we focused on the posts that triggered discussions among users: for small and medium groups, we analyzed the posts with 10 or more comments; for large groups, we analyzed the posts with 20 or more comments. moreover, our observation was focused only on the interactions that comprise migrants’ identifications. in total, 578 posts were analyzed, along with their threads. during the observation, we identified the symbolic focus of the original post, symbolic foci of the thread, as well as self-identifications and external identifications applied by the users. then prevalent and auxiliary types of identifications were revealed, as well as typical situations of interaction. our analysis is qualitative, highly dependent on the context of interactions in a particular group. thus, in the presentation of our results we provide and discuss observations of interactions exemplary for all groups or for a specific type of groups. results common prevalent identifications: between market, state and nation five common prevalent identifications characterize migrants’ interactions in online groups. these identifications are common as they occur in all types of groups. they are prevalent as they occur regularly and were a topic for focused discussions. two identifications deal with a migrant as a person who moves from one country to another. three more identifications cover a migrant’s settlement in russia. for the latter selfidentifications are tightly intertwined with external identifications. the first prevalent identification is “migration as economic necessity”. it relates labor migration to economic or political situation in the country of origin, and image of the nation depends on how migration to russia is evaluated. this identification could be further specified in two matters. first, the definition of a migrant can be either derogatory (abusive) or neutral/moderately positive, and this issue is debatable by migrants themselves. the illustration is the following interaction from an uzbek information group: 7 we used google translate (https://translate.google.com) to comprehend the statements that are in the national languages. 8 for two groups the period of observation was january 2017 – april 2017; we extended the period to embrace more activities in the groups. https://changing-sp.com/ https://translate.google.com 332 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee observation 19 post: and here is the whole truth about the totalitarian regime mirziev called karimov’s rule “an era of fear” [...] comment: it is necessary to twist the economic balance so that the uzbeks would live better, and they would not call us gastarbeiters!!!! reply to comment: those who call us gastarbeiters have megalomania. the russians who go to work to the north, abroad, are also treated like slaves. russians and other nationalities have been working with us for more than 70 years, but no one has ever treated them like slaves and they have never been called gastarbeiters. i mean, here, in uzbekistan. so, i think any nation and any work deserves respect. second, being a migrant could be associated with returning to homeland or with staying in russia, and it is not obvious what place and what decision is better. consider an observation from a kyrgyz migrant community: observation 2 post: i’ll leave it here for myself [...] kyrgyzstan will not develop [...]. in the kyrgyz republic, every family has someone who left country as a migrant. in some families two or three persons work abroad. the people are coping somehow [...]. the people are trying to get along [...]. but our “elite” have hands that grow out of their ass and slime instead of brains [...]. comment: i fully agree with the author; i have not lived in the kyrgyz republic for 6–7 years. and nothing has changed during this time here. i also had a desire to fly back from the airport. i won’t say that in russia or in other countries we feel good. but how good it would be if you worked in your hometown and your close relatives were nearby [...]. comment: i partially agree, but in kyrgyzstan people also work to buy apartments, and other things too. if we were taught from childhood that kyrgyzstan is the best place in the world, this is our motherland and we must find our place here, then everyone would remain there. we all think that russia is better, and we are accustomed to the local situation [in russia], we forget and not fulfil our traditions, we think that “we live freely without obligations”, how bitterly we are mistaken. if we came home and worked hardly like in russia, it would be different, but we are not able to do this [...]. 9 examples of observations (posts and comments) are presented in fragments. translation into english preserves the meaning of the statements. however, we did not attempt to hold the slang or specific mistakes of the original comments and posts. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 333 comment: no one chose where he was born, it became easier for us to complain about one’s own life and to look for those who are guilty than to fight and to move, to find solutions to problems!!! as long as you have health and brains in place, you can work and earn money not only in kyrgyzstan but also in africa, for this you need only confidence and aspiration! the second prevalent identification is “a migrant subject to state regulations”. this identification is typically discussed in connection with the eeu and with requirements for obtaining russian citizenship. moreover, citizenship is spontaneously associated with ethnicity, in a variety of migrants’ interactions, both in national groups and in legal assistance groups. the logic of nationality and the logic of citizenship mismatch. this is articulated in claims to simplify requirements for russian citizenship for “russians”, in accusations of discrimination against non-slavs, as well as in assertions that nationality actually does not matter for migration regulations. to illustrate this incongruity let us refer to two posts with opposite logics, both are from groups of legal assistance: observation 3 post: the federation council of the russian federation called on the ministry of internal affairs to deal with companies that extort money from migrants [...]. on march 11, the federation council approved a law that abolishes the obligation to pass the russian language exam for residents of belarus and ukraine who are native speakers [...]. comment: and to other migrants from central asia? if you abolish it, do it for all. they again divide people into slavs and non-russian, yeah. observation 410 post: a letter was sent to me by mail. “[…] may be, we will try to write a collective appeal to putin and to ask him to supplement the second law, on obtaining a russian passport in a simplified way by amendments about ukrainian citizens living in the russian federation with a [legal] status (temporary asylum, temporary residence permit, residence permit), but with propiska in donetsk and lugansk region? […]” electronic signatures will not work. but, as far as i remember, is there some kind of official/semi-official website for petitions? do you believe in success of this idea, in general? comment: you want to give citizenship to ukrainians but what about [ethnic] russians? how is it for them? in common order? justice is off the hook. 10 this observation comes from a group of legal assistance for migrants from different countries. that is why issues of people from donetsk and lugansk region are discussed below together with migration from central asia. https://changing-sp.com/ 334 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee reply to comment: this is not the point. the fact is that the donetsk region was divided in into parts, into us and them. reply to comment: ukrainians have their homeland ukraine, we have russia [...]; why to solve everything at the expense of us? where is the simplification for us? we didn’t ride on the maidan [...], we were denigrated and kicked off [...] now give citizenship to all ukrainians [...]. and what about us? or should we suffer for years? and to stand in the queues with uzbeks and tajiks on a common basis? the third prevalent identification is “a migrant representing the nation”. in national information groups it is presented in the news about migrant heroes and migrant criminals. it constitutes the basis for solidarity or splits in online discussions where self-identifications and external identifications are intertwined (see observations 7 and 8 below). in migrants’ communities, there are typically discussions and criticism (or, less often, praise) of migrants’ behavior (i.e. everyday practices) and demands to behave properly. the argument is that the behavior of one kyrgyz in russia is a ground for judgment about all kyrgyz (the same for tajiks, uzbeks, etc.). this identification is combined sometimes with characterization of migrants as hillbilly insufficiently imbued with urban culture. consider, as an example, how this kind of self-identification arises in response to external identification in the kyrgyz migrant community: observation 5 post: this is to a post about the attitude of [ethnic] russians towards us! it’s our own fault that they treat us like that. firstly, our country, to put it mildly, is weak. secondly, our people in moscow and other russian cities behave very indecently. they are very arrogant and immediately begin to swear from a scratch [...]. comment: in principle, there are people who behave just wildly, but again, not all. comment: ahahw author is a moron! i will provide arguments about the post in private message. nothing personal, your worldview is just so funny, i can’t call you anything else. comment: as for arrogance, i agree, i talked with a colleague, she thought that i was from kazakhstan and said that the kyrgyz are arrogant and very pooreducated [...], that many kyrgyz do not know the russian language [...]; the author of the post really got the point. i think this is because most of the migrants are from villages [...]. the fourth prevalent identification is “a migrant as a native speaker”. there are claims on vk groups that migrants should use their native language. these claims are often related to fear of their own culture and language (see observations 9 and 12 below). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 335 the fifth prevalent identification is “a migrant as inferior to local people”. it relates to the following topics: difficulties in employment, racial profiling, biased media, and to a general belief that russians consider migrants as second-rate people. this self-identification is supported by two kinds of external identifications. the first one is provocations against migrants in online groups that do or do not result in further discussions. the second one is the accusation of migrants in hostility to russians that may turn into a squabble fueled by mutual diminishment of nationalities. counterarguments against radical nationalism in such discussions often arise from the soviet notion of “the friendship of the peoples”. the most vivid example that is characteristic for uzbek and tajik groups are claims that these nations expelled the russians in 1990s. here is a typical interaction from a tajik information group: observation 6 post: january 1, 2020, the procedure for obtaining quotas [for labor migrants] [...]. comment: stop going to russia and acting like filth. live at your own home. reply to comment: why so rude? i think you are not to decide for someone where to live and where to go. it is a choice for any citizen [...]. reply to comment: i know you hypocrites. i have a girlfriend from uzbekistan. she told how they terrified the russians back in the 90s. after they stabbed her uncle, they had to leave. and before that they had always said, they said “russians go home”. so get out of here, goddamn nazis. reply to comment: how old are you? probably, you’ve heard that then everyone had troubles. the union was disintegrating. there were clashes between people everywhere. according to the stories of elderly people, relatives, uzbekistan, in particular, tashkent city was built by the whole country, they sent professionals from all the national republics to rebuilt the city that was destroyed by the earthquake. so, it has become multinational. people lived well, friendly, nobody distinguished who is of what nationality, they learned the russian language, and russians learned the uzbek language. you need to understand, there is no bad nations, all are good, it is just bad persons in every nation […]. country-specific prevalent identifications: internal differentiation prevalent country-specific identifications in migrants’ online interactions split the countries into two groups. one includes kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan, the other embraces azerbaijan and kazakhstan. the key category for the split is “low-qualified labor migrants from central asia”. “central asia” typically refers to uzbekistan, tajikistan and kyrgyzstan. this category is employed for self-identifications as well as for external identifications and constitutes a basis for internal differentiation. for migrants from uzbekistan, https://changing-sp.com/ 336 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee tajikistan and kyrgyzstan, it acts both as a unifying identification (occasionally in combination with identification as a muslim) and as an object of detachment. the illustrations are the following interactions from the information groups of uzbeks and tajiks, respectively: observation 7 post: the heroism of the uzbeks and tajiks is not revealed! april 8 nursing home burned down! tajiks and uzbeks came running to the rescue from a neighboring dormitory for labor migrants, they risked their lives and saved 30 people, but there’s no word about them on [russian] tv! many thanks them and their parents! comment: and who said that they will show muslims on tv? this is media, they can show only when they do bad things, and they call them terrorists, and when their own people do it, they call it hooliganism, or a crazy person. i live in russia for a long time and i have never seen a tv program that depict muslims in a good way! [...] comment: our peoples have always been solid, uzbeks, tajiks, all of central asia. we should have joined a long time ago, we need to create a union. observation 8 post: about hatred of tajiks [...]. how long will tajiks be accused of all black deeds occurring in russia?! when anything goes wrong, just blame a tajik [...]. the janitor beat up the teenager, and they called him tajik for almost the entire tv program, which he is not, then at the end it turns out that it was uzbek [...] and the uzbek diaspora “bought out” their janitor for 50 000 rubles. is it fine? why to blame tajiks? [...] comment: tajiks and uzbeks are not just two different nations; they are two different races. russians, you are so stupid that you don’t distinguish races, and there are only four of them on earth. for migrants from kazakhstan and azerbaijan, “low-qualified labor migrants from central asia” is an external identification. consider two examples from the kazakh and azerbaijani groups, respectively: observation 9 post: a great film about how to be a kazakh, no matter where you live! we advise to watch it, especially for those who do not know for what and why they need to know the language, to honor the traditions and what to pass on to children. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 337 comment: russian kazakhs are the most non-patriotic kazakhs (russified). reply to comment: i do not agree with you! today, my brother told me – the guy from kazakhstan works with him at the factory, my brother spoke kazakh with him, and he said – i don’t understand, no one speaks kazakh in our family. and it’s kind of weird. reply to comment: there is no gastarbeiters among kazakhs, this kazakh is am improper kazakh. observation 10 post: the influx of migrants to russia has fallen to a minimum for the entire post-soviet period […]. comment: it’s just that all these migrants have already bought citizenship of the russian federation, now every second tajik has citizenship. comment: i don’t know where they decreased in numbers, today i was driving past the migration service, and it was crowded. five hundred people stood. and all were uzbeks or kyrgyz. this is in april, and soon there will be warmer and there will be more of them. it seems to me that though the cost of a patent has been raised and laws are constantly changing against them, those who are in need go here, they are trying their best, work for a penny to somehow feed their family at home. i feel pity for those people. “a member of the diaspora” is a crucial self-identification for migrants from kazakhstan and azerbaijan. this identification shapes a group border that separates “members of the diaspora” from “low-qualified labor migrants”, or “gastarbeiters”. for azerbaijani diasporic identification is not specified further. for kazakhs the division within the diaspora between russian kazakhs and kazakhstan kazakhs turns out to be salient (see observation 9). these two identifications, “low-qualified labor migrants from central asia” and “members of the diaspora”, imply different uses of ethnic categorizations. on the one hand, discussions of everyday problems of labor migrants amalgamate symbols of class, social status, religion and ethnicity. strong ethnic categorizations arise here mainly in response to violation of moral boundaries: for example, when someone generalizes one’s own negative experience of interaction with “kyrgyzs”, “tajiks” or “uzbeks” to the entire nation. on the other hand, ethnic categorizations strengthen transnational diasporic networks. being “azerbaijani” or “kazakh” means learning native language and culture, as well as being aware of what is going on in the homeland. such categorizations are constructed through symbols that refer to the imagined community, from national culture to political debates. https://changing-sp.com/ 338 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee changing identifications several discussions in vk groups were about migrants who change their identifications when they move to russia. these discussions are of special interest because they reveal significant characteristics of migrants’ condition in russia. some of them are related to collective emotions, while others are just pragmatic. first, consider two observations from a tajik information group. observation 11 post: pamir [a photo of a couple in national costumes]. commentary: this is a group for tajiks, they [pamiris] don’t consider themselves as tajiks when they arrive to russia or other countries [...]. reply to comment: yes, we are not tajiks, we are pamiris. with a capital letter. we have a different civilization, tradition, language, and everything else, and do not discuss us, ok. tajikistan is a state for us, not a home, our home is in the mountains, and your city will be destroyed. the mountains will remain, the pamir is the roof of the world, the world will be destroyed and the roof will remain. reply to comment: i know what culture you have in the pamirs, all men and women sleep in one place, this is a fact [...]. look at what you are, tajikistan gives you a passport, you still don’t consider yourself a tajik only in russia or in other countries, well, try it in dushanbe, you are cowards. reply to comment: why do you need a tajik passport if you do not consider yourself to be tajiks. observation 12 post: [...] we endure humiliation from all and everywhere [in russia]. but we are not averse to pretend to be caucasians, wearing hats, dancing lezginka, posing as dagestani and chechens. our young people are not averse to showing strength to their fellow countrymen, arranging showdowns and humiliating their own blood brothers. [...] find in yourself at least a little courage not to pretend to be someone you don’t know but to learn to support each other [...]. we are used to blame everything on our government. maybe we just cannot admit our cowardice and helplessness?! comment: the author of the post, the majority here supports you, but this is the case here, we have always depended on the russian federation… and government of tajikistan, as you can see, is inactive, so first you need to be independent from the russian federation. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 339 comment: “not to pretend to be someone you don’t know?” why such a neglect for caucasians. after all, it is clear whom and why they [tajik migrants in russia] are pretending to be. comment: you yourself say that the guys are pretending to be caucasians, but you yourself write in russian. so, you are pretending to be a russian? both observations refer to change in self-identification related to external identifications in russian society. however, these changes have different directions. pamiri migrants in russia are claimed to reveal their identity, whereas tajik migrants are claimed to hide it. observation 11 reveals a conflict between concepts of tajik nation and tajik citizenship for pamiris. migration to russia seems to be liberating for them, as, it is argued, it allows for national self-identification that is possible in tajikistan only in opposition to tajik majority. post in observation 12, in contrast, accuses tajiks in faking their identity to be more prestigious (caucasians). tajiks are considered here as having an inferior position in ethnic hierarchies, and caucasians better as they have reputation of tough guys and are russian citizens (dagestani and chechens are mentioned). at the same time, caucasians are migrants from what was called the “soviet south”, as tajiks are, and here citizenship becomes less important than visibility and ethno-territorial divisions inherited from the soviet past. juxtaposition of these two observations supports the statement about internal differentiation of migrants. both transformations of identifications help to avoid being classified as “low-qualified labor migrants from central asia” that is associated with weakness and low position in russian society. it is obvious in switch from “a tajik” to “a caucasian”, while “a pamiri” seems to be exotic/less-accountable identification in russia that is not strongly associated with labor migration. these observations also demonstrate that clash between national pride and “migrant” categorization is painful and fuels collective emotions from humiliation to rage. at the same time, a change of identification could have pragmatic purposes connected with labor migration. consider an observation from a kyrgyz migrant community: observation 13 post: hello, a passport has found more than a week ago. if anyone knows anything about the owner, please contact me [...] [photo of kyrgyz passport]. comment: who is this uzbek with a kyrgyz passport? reply to comment: kyrgyz uzbek. reply to comment: i’ve heard that uzbeks and tajiks make fake [kyrgyz] passports so as not to pay for a patent and work permit. reply to comment: yes, it is true! and this is the state who allows it. https://changing-sp.com/ 340 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee here the identification changes only in institutional contexts (for the police, the migration service, etc.) as citizens of kyrgyzstan are subjects to much simple migration regulations. thus, the citizenship has been changed, not ethnicity. note, however, that the change of identification lies within the category “low-qualified labor migrants from central asia”. probably, that is why it does not arouse emotional responses connected with ethnic hierarchies: neither “an uzbek” nor “a kyrgyz” seems to be better identification in russian society. auxiliary identifications in addition to the identifications characterized above, we observed migrants’ identifications that are auxiliary: they did not occur regularly, or often, or are not a topic for focused discussions. there are several auxiliary self-identifications in migrants’ online interactions. they are: • “muslim migrants”. this identification is primarily connected to discussion of everyday religious practices. for tajik and uzbek groups, it is also concerns a discussion that islam is easier to practice in russia than in the country of origin due to strict regulation of muslim practices by the state (especially in tajikistan). • “a person from a specific place” – city, town, village, or region (see observation 11). this self-identification could also be combined with the emphasis on nation, such that “we are all tajiks”. • “nostalgic migrants” identification arises in various situations, and it is of special relevance for russophone immigrants from uzbekistan to russia who left the country in 1990s. • a type of migration: educational or labor. • “too many migrants from my country”. • negative and positive auto-stereotypes. they are: “your own people cannot be trusted” (observed in kyrgyz and kazakh online groups); “tajiks are passive”; “azerbaijanis are entrepreneurial, decent and solidary”; “there exists ‘warm’ central asian mentality” (observed in uzbek groups); “uzbeks are generous”. auxiliary external identifications are: • imputation of ethnicity to the opponent (observed for russian, armenian and uzbek nationalities). • “we-migrants are better than you-migrants”. this identification applies to migrants from central asia, and the arguments are: “because we are russian”/“we know the language”/“our behavior is proper” (see observation 4 above). this identification occurs spontaneously or in response to provocations, “migrants are not welcomed in russia”. • “a migrant obliged to russian laws”. this identification appears in two forms: as a moral obligation to obey laws and as a righteous anger to unjust laws. • “a hostage of the situation” due to the actions of the authorities or economic policies of russia and/or the country of origin. it is simultaneously a self-identification and an external identification employed by advocated of migrants’ rights. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 341 contexts of identifications three more remarks about varying contexts of identifications in online interactions. first, discrimination against migrants does not universally function as a collective symbol in migrants’ interactions. a significant part of interactions that we observed are pragmatic. some interactions involve emotions that original posts do not intent to produce. let us consider a post focused on the insult of a kyrgyz migrant by a popular russian talk-show host. comments to this post do not demonstrate collective offence against russia: commentators blame the person, discuss his actions in a pragmatic manner, or address their negative emotions to kyrgyz authorities: observation 14 post: andrey malakhov reacted to angry comments of the kyrgyz people addressed to him. russian tv-presenter andrey malakhov made a statement after the scandal with the comment about the kyrgyz people […]. comment: well, he is partially right. salary of doctors and teachers in kyrgyzstan is tiny. our elections: for 1000 soms11 you can buy a voice. maybe those who are offended do not know how people live outside bishkek. reply to comment: i did not hear him speaking. but what i’ve read – it did not offend me at all. i am more offended by the theft of the state budget, the venality of the authorities and nazism. comment: malakh, you are an oligarch whore. comment: what do you want from a person who “washed” other people’s lingerie and digs into it during all his professional life. those who remember his program “big wash” will understand what i mean and how it relates to this person. second, the soviet type of identification – “the friendship of the peoples” policy in combination with “nationalities” classification – regularly arises in observed interactions. it is often presented in a truncated form, as a widespread judgment: “there are no bad nations, there are bad people”. however, some users directly refer to “the friendship of the peoples” and its implementation in soviet history, as observation 6 above reveals. finally, the dynamics and the focal topics of interactions also depend on the characteristics of a particular online group: its size, audience, language, who can post, who can comment, and so on. observations 3 and 4 (see above) are a good illustration. the observations are from two groups, both are legal assistance groups with active moderators. the first group is small. it is characterized by human rights rhetoric applied to low-qualified labor migrants in russia. interactions in this group often occur in broken russian. the second group is large. it focuses on obtaining 11 the som is the national currency of kyrgyzstan. https://changing-sp.com/ 342 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee russian permanent residency and citizenship and involves empathy over migrants’ troubles with these issues. it aims predominantly at migrants from the fsu countries, mainly at those for whom russian is a native language. as observations 3 and 4 demonstrate, in both groups there is a transition from the terms of citizenship to the terms of nationality. however, due to differences in initial goals and the target audience of the groups, this transition moves in the opposite directions: to accusations of discrimination against “non-slavs”, on the one hand, and to a call for privileges for “russians”, on the other hand. discussion and conclusions let us begin this section with the answers to the original research questions of this paper. what social categories do migrants employ in their attempts to identify themselves and to be identified by others in online interactions? migrants to russia from azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan employ a diverse set of social categories in their identifications. the prevalent categories are citizenship, nationality, language abilities, migrant-ness, as well as the category “low-skilled labor migrants from central asia” that amalgamates class, visibility and a broader region. auxiliary social categories are religion, interstate region, town/village/city of origin, urban/rural origin, tradition/modernity, broader ethnicity (such as slavs) in connection with race and belonging to the soviet culture. minority status, the aim of migration and kinship are employed occasionally. how are these categories related to each other? are they used individually, or are there elective affinities between social categories exercised for the purposes of identifications? there is an elective affinity that manifests itself in the category of “low-skilled labor migrants from central asia”. it exists in the interactions in all types of groups and provides the basis for internal differentiation between migrants. “low-skilled labor migrants from central asia” are opposed, on the one hand, to visible, but not (necessarily) low-skilled members of the kazakh and azerbaijani diasporas and, on the other hand, to non-visible ethnic russian and russophone migrants from central asia. do identifications differ for migrants from different countries? there are substantial differences in identifications of migrants from different countries. migrants from kyrgyzstan, uzbekistan and tajikistan in their identifications refer to low-skilled labor migration to russia as a fact, a subject for assessment, and on occasion as a unifying category. for these countries, the present and the future of the nation is discussed in the framework of evaluation of mass immigration to russia. migrants from kazakhstan and azerbaijan employ identifications connected to diasporic connections. furthermore, in kazakhstan there is a clear division between russian and kazakhstan kazakhs. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 323–349 343 do identifications differ for self-identifications and external identifications? external identifications and self-identifications are intertwined in typical discussions in vk groups. the perspective of russian society on migrants is, as it were, built into the perception of migrants themselves. what are the typical situations when the usage of “migrant” category is relevant? there are three types of situations associated with the usage of the “migrant” category. they are connected with the market, state and nation, respectively. first, “migrant” is a synonym for “labor migrant” who moves to russia due to economic necessity. second, “migrant” is a citizen of the state subject to specific institutional regulations. third, “migrant” is the other, a representative of his/her nation in russian society. the situation of the third type is primarily connected with three contexts: (a) discussions of migrants’ behavior in russia; (b) discussions of discrimination by police and employers; (c) provocations against migrants in social media. we should also add that migrants themselves sometimes perceive migrants from a different country as the others. the analysis of migrants’ online interactions allows us to formulate the following conclusions: 1. “low-qualified labor migration from the countries of central asia” (uzbekistan, tajikistan and kyrgyzstan) is a key categorization for national and other identifications of residents of these countries (both migrants and non-migrants). in uzbekistan, tajikistan and kyrgyzstan, the fact of labor migration to russia is highly relevant for the evaluation of the nation and its further developments. 2. migration to russia from kazakhstan and azerbaijan is fused with diasporic connections. 3. the issue of the language is highly significant for migrants’ identifications. the national language is often regarded as an indicator of belonging to a nation. the role of russian language is ambivalent. it is perceived as a valuable competence for a migrant in russia, yet as a threat to national culture as well. we believe this ambivalence is rooted in the legacies of the soviet national politics and policies. 4. current migration flows to russia are related with migration processes that took place after the collapse of the soviet union. for the countries of central asia (primarily, for tajikistan and uzbekistan), the exodus of ethnic russians in the 1990s is still important as a point of reference and evaluation of contemporary mass labor migration to russia. at the same time, the soviet type of identifications based on “nationalities” and “the friendship of the peoples” remains a reference point in discussions about migration. how do these results supplement understanding of migration processes in postsoviet region? let us return to the similarities and differences between the azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan that were formulated in the first part of this paper. the five countries can be structured into two classes: (a) kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan are characterized by huge labor migration to russia, while (b) https://changing-sp.com/ 344 natalia d. tregubova, maxim l. nee azerbaijan and kazakhstan provide less migrants coming with diversity of objectives. our study shows that for azerbaijan and kazakhstan migration to russia is closely connected with diasporic ties. both kazakhs and azerbaijanis detach themselves from “gastarbeiters” who came from kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, and uzbekistan. visibility of migrants from azerbaijan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan turns out to be important for identifications in online interactions. however, visibility is not equal to race: it acts as a combination of phenotype, fluency in russian language, and migrants’ everyday practices. visibility is also paired in online interactions to “invisibility” of ethnic russian (russophone) migrants from central asia. islam is present in observed online discourses to a varying degree and in different variations. islam turns out to be more significant for image of a nation. in different cases it is related to a nation in different ways. islam is a unifying category, however, for migrants it is typically an auxiliary identification. two points are important here: (1) belief that muslim migrants are not welcome in russia; and (2) conception that islam is easier to practice in russia than at home (for migrants from tajikistan and uzbekistan). differences in the migration regulations among the post-soviet countries are frequently discussed in social media. however, they are often connected to nationality: from the migrants’ point of view, nationality is/should/should not be decisive for facilitation of migration legislation in russia. regarding regional differences, we observe that “central asia” as an identification is widespread online while local identifications are not so 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(2015). race and racism in russia. london: palgrave macmillan. https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/migrationreport2017_highlights.pdf https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/migrationreport2017_highlights.pdf https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2014.3.06 https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2014.3.06 https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2017.1.12 changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 158–171 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.2.095 received 16 march 2020 © 2020 roman soloviy accepted 3 june 2020 r.p.soloviy@npu.edu.ua published online 9 july 2020 article “messianicity without messianism”: on the place of religion in the philosophy of jacques derrida roman soloviy dragomanova national pedagogical university, kyiv, ukraine abstract this article examines jacques derrida’s concept of “messianicité sans messianisme” (“messianicity without messianism”) as an important example of rethinking the role and nature of religion in the late period of the work of the philosopher. historical and philosophical analysis demonstrates that the appeal to the problem of messianism is inherent to many jewish philosophers of the early twentieth century. they tried to develop a concept of time that would maintain full openness to the future and at the same time remember the past. their work affected the interpretation of messianism in derrida, because he developed his concept in discussion with walter benjamin and emmanuel lévinas. as the most general structure of the experience of justice, openness to the undecidable future, and respect for other messianicity do not exclude the religious manifestations of messianism, calling instead for the unceasing deconstruction of their fundamentalist claims. keywords jacques derrida, religion, messianism, messianicity, hospitality, other introduction the overall goal of this article is to examine the rethinking of religion in contemporary continental philosophy as illustrated by jacques derrida’s concept of messianicity, which, according to many scholars, was the most influential form of philosophical interpretation of messianism during the twentieth century. with this aim in mind, we will start exploring the resurgence of the ideas https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 158–171 159 of hope and the future in the works of the key jewish thinkers of the beginning of the twentieth century. then we will analyze how their work affected the interpretation of messianism in derrida, who developed his concept in conversation with walter benjamin and emmanuel lévinas. the central part of the article will study in great detail the peculiarities of the derrida’s interpretation of messianicity as a primordial structure of experiencing an openness to the coming of the others when we are unable to foresee their arrival. it is impossible to predict what is coming, or to become ready for it. it should be noted that derrida’s idea of messianicity is strongly linked to his conceptualization of an alterity. it’s also worth noting that other is a key word in jacques derrida’s terminology. the concept of otherness is essential in all of his work, even when it is examined with varying methods. according to derrida, this concept cannot be reduced to a simple linguistic formulation; every other is wholly other, and any idea of the other is open to paradoxes and aporias. however, close reading of derrida’s work proves that he calls it “something that is completely other, something that cannot be returned to the same by any form of dialectical sublation” (miller, 1996, p. 155). the derridian concept of the other that implies absolute singularity of every being has essential consequences for moral obligations, political activities and religion. as we will demonstrate, derrida’s notion of messianicity does not exclude the religious phenomena. we will conclude with an analysis of the full range of interpretations that derrida’s concept of messianiсity has been received. while some researchers have interpreted it as a clear sign of the religious intentions of the late derrida’s philosophy, others have maintained the atheistic nature of the concept, as simply deconstruction. appealing to philosophical thought when developing the theological concept of messianism is a recent phenomenon related to historical developments during the last two centuries. one of the main paradoxes of modern history is that the unprecedented growth of violence and the cruelty that characterizes it have been accompanied by a previously unknown revival of the concepts of hope and the future. the decisive role played in this process belongs to a number of prominent jewish intellectuals who were active during the beginning of the twentieth century (walter benjamin, franz rosenzweig, martin buber, ernst bloch, theodor adorno, gershom scholem, among others). they all sought to clarify the nature of the relationship between european and jewish culture, as well as find answers to current social and political challenges. as the french philosopher pierre bouretz (2003/2010) emphasized, their versions of the messianic utopia were developed as a faithful companion to twentieth-century suffering and terror, and at the same time as a form of protest against the concept of the irreversible progress of the world – that is, against the horrific excesses of immanence. by promoting the concept of being “witnesses of the future,” they rejected the idea of the past as completed and done with, they defied attempts to predict the blind future, and they encouraged resistance toward the view of man “having become purely a historical being” (bouretz, 2003/2010, p. 11). their purpose was to remember the past and tradition while also developing a concept of time that retains full openness towards a future, which cannot be confined by any horizons of significance and expectation. philosophical reflection on messianism continued during the second half of the last century. https://changing-sp.com/ 160 roman soloviy derrida’s messianicity in the context of jewish philosophical messianism it should be noted that while attention to ethical and religious issues is inherent to derrida’s later work, the texts from his early years also address topics related to religion. already in glas (derrida, 1974/1986), the question of religion is the focus of the philosopher’s attention in his reading of hegel’s early texts. between 1980 and 1990, derrida turned to the analysis of negative theology and the problems of the translation of sacred texts, as well as to phenomena such as confession, faith, hospitality, and gifts. works of this period call into question the established treatment of derrida’s philosophy as promoting atheism and late period modern secularism. is it possible to talk about the appeal to religion of a philosopher who has gone to so much effort to critique the metaphysics of presence, which is so important to religious discourse? according to derrida, the fundamental feature of the history of western metaphysics is the modality of thinking about being in terms of presence. human thought and language always refer to something external, and the being is an ultimate reference and “transcendental signified” of our discourses. as such, it provides a metaphysical justification of certainty of human knowledge. derrida claims that metaphysics of presence is a profound mistake since it fails to recognize that human understanding of reality is linguistically mediated. his philosophical project intended to undermine the possibility of disregarding the linguistic mediation of reality by deconstructing the “transcendental signified.” at first glance, deconstruction is not favorable to religion. if the idea of god is regarded as the name of transcendental signified, then the classical theistic view of the omnipotent god as a ground of all meaning can be deconstructed as a merely human concept. however, as the reading of derrida’s texts shows, he is not interested in returning to traditional theism. his purpose is much more radical, for he is convinced that the god of conventional theism has become a thing of the past. derrida tries to think of god and faith after enlightenment skepticism, the death of god, and the destruction of metaphysics. “messianicity” is one of the essential leitmotifs of the final decade of derrida’s work. philosopher explores traditional theological themes without reference to religion as an established system of dogmas, mode of social organization, or a foundation for the moral life. the methodology of derrida’s employment of theological concepts is well illustrated by his reflections on the nature of religion in the gift of death (derrida, 1992/1996). the ambiguity of the issue of death is understood here as the context for analyzing the responsibility of free subjectivity, access to which is provided by religion. however, religion here doesn’t mean traditional denominational beliefs and practices, but what derrida defines as “religion without religion,” that is, not classical theism or institutional patterns of religion, but a form of faith that does not require an event of revelation for its existence. derrida addressed problems of messianism initially in the essay “violence and metaphysics: an essay on the thought of emmanuel lévinas” (derrida, 1967/2001). lévinas’ project was aimed to break with husserlian phenomenology and heideggerian ontology, which by attempting to possess and know the other, concealed its infinite alterity and reduced it to the same. derrida offers an extensive critique of lévinas’ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 158–171 161 interpretation of husserl and heidegger and questions his explanation of the ethical relationship in a face-to-face encounter. he also analyzes lévinas’ appeal to the tradition, which is beyond the bounds of the key concepts of greek thought, namely to “messianic eschatology.” it is certainly not that lévinas’ philosophy is based on the religious texts of judaism or is a form of “jewish theology” or “jewish mysticism.” moreover, the philosophy of lévinas “can even be understood as the trial of theology and mysticism” (derrida, 1967/2001, p. 103). in this sense, derrida is close to lévinas himself, who in totality and infinity denies the idea that eschatological theologies can supplement philosophical discourses through their prophetic proclamations of the ultimate purpose of being and through offering a clear picture of the future. in order for the “eschatology of messianic peace” to gain significance in philosophical thinking, it needs, according to lévinas, a primordial and original relation with being, a “relation with being beyond the totality or beyond history” (lévinas, 1961/2011, p. 22). derrida interprets this “beyond” as an appeal to experience itself, to practice, and to the irreducible alterity of the other. therefore, owing to eschatology, which goes beyond all totality and objective experience and awakens people to the fullness of their responsibility, a figure of the other is discovered, which, according to lévinas, cannot be understood within the framework of traditional philosophy, and which is the sole source of ethics. thus, in one of his earliest texts, derrida picks up on lévinas’ idea of messianic eschatology and uses it to assess if lévinas’ efforts to go beyond greek philosophical tradition are productive. it should be noted that despite the fact that for the first time derrida addresses the subject of messianism under the influence of lévinas, an even more important role in the development of his conception of the messianic was played by the philosophical legacy of walter benjamin (1892–1940), the author of one of the most influential versions of the philosophical understanding of messianism. written shortly before his tragic death in september 1940, benjamin’s on the concept of history (benjamin, 1996) denies that historical progress will inevitably lead to the replacement of capitalism by socialism. instead, the thinker underpins his own conception of historical time, the defining aspect of which is the idea of breaking, active messianic intervention in the course of events. refusing to interpret the historical process as a homogeneous and linear “empty time,” benjamin claims that every moment of the history is “the small gateway in time through which the messiah might enter” (benjamin, 1996, p. 397). for benjamin, temporality of “a time to come” is not of future as coming present, “but that of the future anterior, a time in which future and past do not so much come together as come about one another, doing so in a way that circumvents conventional modalities of presence and holds time open to the coming of another (levine, 2014, pp. 5–6). the sudden arrival of the messiah and the end of the history of the world – that is to say, large-scale historical transformations – can occur in an unprogrammed way, at any moment, even when their arrival is not expected. they are possible only as the radical interruption of linear time. therefore, benjamin is trying to defend the possibility of a revolutionary breakthrough in a situation where its occurrence is not conditioned by any socio-economic realities. here we find an echo of the widespread https://changing-sp.com/ 162 roman soloviy belief in jewish mysticism that glimpses of future salvation can be found in the present. in this context, it should also be noted that the experience of the moment as a moment of the symbolic unity of the religious community and its intense expectation of salvation is also inherent in the philosophy of franz rosenzweig. the author of the star of redemption (rosenzweig, 1921/2005) emphasizes that the community must be in a state of intense expectation that the kingdom of god is about to come. this experience of maximum intensity reveals an important paradox: the balance between the concentration of history in one moment interacts with a permanent delay, shifting the finale of history into the future. a critical moment of world history is approached by people who “have been endowed with a weak messianic power, a power on which the past has a claim” (benjamin, 1996, p. 390) – people who seek justice for the dead, forgotten in the whirlwind of historical cataclysms. they do not cherish the vain illusion that a happy future is coming as a result of rampant scientific and technological progress but retain the memory of a “secret agreement between past generations” who seemingly expected that new generations will set them free from stories written by the victors. the question of the degree of influence of benjamin’s “weak messianic power” on derrida’s “messianicity” remains debatable. at first glance, the approaches of the two philosophers are close enough, since both appeal to marxism and employ the notion of messianism. what is common to benjamin and derrida is “a certain messianic weakening,” or the refusal to give some specific content to the messianic promise or to determine the form of the messianic event. on this basis, john d. caputo even argues that benjamin’s “weak messianic power” and derrida’s “messianicity” are expressions of the same idea (caputo, 1997, p. 352). however, commenting on benjamin’s statement about weak messianism in specters of marx (derrida, 2006), derrida argues that the logic of his messianic thought is “turned toward the future no less than the past, in a heterogeneous and disjointed time” (derrida, 2006, p. 228). thus, while benjamin’s weak messianism contains a strong ethical impulse, calling for remembering the forgotten victims of history (or those who are at risk of oblivion), his appeal to the past carries with it the risk of losing focus on the future – that is, giving attention to what is always yet to come. history could be addressed with the critical selection of the heritage we want to bring to the future. the work of mourning is not a one-time task that can be accomplished and completed, but is rather an indication of an important way of being human. at the core, the formation of subjectivity takes place in the process of mourning, inheriting what is passed on from previous generations and developing an awareness of one’s duty toward them. we are not able to bring the dead back to life, but we are capable of witness and sorrow. it is impossible to establish justice and prevent the recurrence of wrongs from the past simply by “burying” the past. instead, one should constantly practice the “work of mourning” with its continued attention to the past for the sake of preserving the messianic hope for the future. thus, the decisive difference between derrida’s messianism and benjamin’s weak messianic power lies in the various “logics of inheritance.” for benjamin, it is important to preserve the totality of the past in order to perpetuate the memory of the forgotten victims of coercion and injustice, as well as to open up the possibility of changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 158–171 163 reawakening the past in an era of revolutionary catastrophes that threaten to forget about the suppressed. according to derrida, the duty toward the past consists not so much in preserving a certain tradition, but in remembering the past for the sake of repeating and confirming the difference of the other. mourning over difference requires a kind of “exorcism,” but not in order “to chase away the ghosts, but this time to grant them the right, if it means making them come back alive as revenants who would no longer be revenants, but as other arrivants to whom a hospitable memory or promise must offer welcome – without certainty, ever, that they present themselves as such” (derrida, 2006, p. 220). although inheritance confirms the return of the past, this past, paradoxically, is a time yet to come, a time that is fundamentally different from any other period in history that we know of. the task, therefore, is to open the past for the future, to leave in it the cracks through which newness can enter, to provide an opportunity for the disruption of the usual course of things. messianicity as openness to the arrival of an unpredictable other messianicity appears as a sign of the openness towards the future that is fundamentally unpredictable. this radical openness to the possibilities of the forthcoming offers a hope for coming of justice. undoubtedly, openness is never absolute – at every step forward something from the past is lost, and every moment of inheritance opens new possibilities for transformation and the multiplication of tradition. the driving force and at the same time the vulnerability of the gesture of inheritance derrida exposes in the concept of promise. according to the general structure of promise, the future (that is, not the future in conventional sense of the word, but the radical future – what derrida calls l’avenir) always exceeds any prediction or calculation. derrida denies an understanding of time as a sequence of modalized presents – the past is not the present that is past, and the present is not a mere result of the past. for this reason, the future cannot be regarded as a projected continuation of the present. it is not a descriptive empirical future, but a messianic eschatological future, an expectation of the arrival of an unpredictable other, in which our “come” is turned to the point that we cannot determine, predict, or calculate in advance who or what is coming. messianicity calls for inheriting those texts of the past that are most open to the future. this approach is exemplified by derrida’s interaction with the legacy of marxism, in which he sees the most striking modern manifestation of messianic hospitality, “certain emancipatory and messianic affirmation, a certain experience of the promise that one can try to liberate from any dogmatics and even from any metaphysico-religious determination, from any messianism” (derrida, 2006, p. 111). as derrida explains in his important essay faith and knowledge: the two sources of faith and knowledge at the limits of reason alone (derrida, 1996/2002), messianicity is depicted not as a religious phenomenon, but as the primordial general structure of experiencing an openness to the forthcoming (l’avenir) beyond any horizon of expectations defined by religious conceptual schemes. this messianic dimension does not depend on any messianism; it does not come from a definite revelation of https://changing-sp.com/ 164 roman soloviy the abrahamic religion. its essence consists in “movement of an experience open to the absolute future of what is coming, that is to say, a necessarily indeterminate, abstract, desert-like experience that is confided, exposed, given up to its waiting for the other and for the event” (derrida, 2006, p. 112). in contrast, religious and political messianisms form in advance a set of expectations and prophetic predictions that determine how, where, when, and under what conditions the other may appear. because messianisms contain a predetermined horizon of expectation, they inevitably commit violence towards unique singularities. thus, it is anticipated that we will extend radical hospitality to the arrivant without imposing on him any prior obligations or conditions. derrida defines it as “a waiting without horizon of expectation,” that is, “awaiting what one does not expect yet or any longer, hospitality without reserve, welcoming salutation accorded in advance to the absolute surprise of the arrivant from whom or from which one will not ask anything in return” (derrida, 2006, p. 211). an example of this register of an appeal to the present to go beyond itself is derrida’s interpretation of a “democracy-tocome,” which means not a specific form of government but something fundamentally different, something that still has to come, going beyond the previously known. the effectiveness of a democratic promise is linked to the eschatological expectation of some unpredictable alternativeness. it cannot be identified with any particular embodiment of democracy but calls for the endless transformation of the societies that exist here and now. in explaining the meaning of the messianic, derrida repeatedly uses the famous aggada of the babylonian talmud. he appeals to this story, influenced by the earlier interpretations of blanchot (1980, pp. 214–215). aggada begins with rabbi joshua ben levi meeting the prophet elijah and asking him when the messiah will come. the prophet replies that the rabbi can ask this question directly of the messiah, for he is sitting at the gates of rome dressed in rags. when the rabbi reaches rome and indeed meets the messiah in the company of the poor at the gates of rome, he asks him, “when will you come?” and the messiah answers, “now.” derrida notes a discrepancy, an inadequacy between the generalized and specific “now” in this story. in the same way that the messiah is not waiting and is coming right now, we should anticipate the coming of the future right at this moment in time. the messiah is not some future present; his coming is here and it is inevitable. the parable points to the messianic structure as responsibility, for the coming of the event. at the same time, derrida notes the “ambiguity” of the messianic structure: we can expect the arrival of the other, hoping in reality that he will not come, that the arrival of the messiah will remain in permanent delay. derrida points out that “we wait for something we would not like to wait for” (derrida, 1997, p. 24), or as john d. caputo explains, “the messiah must always be to come. the messiah is a very special promise, namely, a promise that would be broken were it kept, whose possibility is sustained by its impossibility” (caputo, 1997, p. 162). although derrida calls for a careful delineation of the notions of messianism and messianicity, he still leaves the question of the connection between them open. religious and political messianisms always annunciate the arrival of a clearly defined changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 158–171 165 messiah at a certain time and place. when the messiah actually comes, as soon as the future really becomes a definite presence, the messianic will immediately cease to exist, because its essence lies in the expectation of what is yet to come. the proclamation of the arrival of the messiah will pave the way for the other whose messianic experience is different from your messianism. derrida’s messiah is the one we hope to come to, even though we know he will never come. this is an impossible opportunity of the future. the impossible goes beyond the possible, not as its direct opposite, but as the desire to overcome what is obviously predictable. the coming of the messiah, his full presence, would deny any messianic expectation. by pointing to a particular messiah, confessional messianism defines the future and limits it to the scope of specific messianic determination. justice and expectations become related to counting, program, conformity, and predictable outcomes. idea of messianicity and religious messianisms derrida emphasizes that although his idea of messianicity is not related to what is considered to be the essence of religious messianisms, that is, the historical revelation and figure of the messiah, it does not mean that they should be dismissed as absurd eschatological fabrications. he refuses to identify messianicity with messianism, since the latter is always associated with a particular religion, limited by a specific cultural environment and a dogmatic system of beliefs. derrida’s secularized messianicity retains its separation from specific socio-cultural and religious contexts, allowing it to be a truly universal category. at the same time, as the most general structure of experience, messianicity does not exclude religious manifestations of messianism. at a roundtable at villanova university (1997), derrida explained his position in more detail. when i insisted in specters of marx on messianicity, which i distinguished from messianism, i wanted to show that the messianic structure is a universal structure. as soon as you address the other, as soon as you are open to the future, as soon as you have a temporal experience of waiting for the future, of waiting for someone to come: that is the opening of experience. someone is to come, is now to come. justice and peace will have to do with this coming of the other, with the promise. each time i open my mouth, i am promising something. when i speak to you, i am telling you that i promise to tell you something, to tell you the truth. even if i lie, the condition of my lie is that i promise to tell you the truth. so the promise is not just one speech act among others; every speech act is fundamentally a promise. this universal structure of the promise, of the expectation for the future, for the coming, and the fact that this expectation of the coming has to do with justice – that is what i call the messianic structure. this messianic structure is not limited to what one calls messianisms, that is, jewish, christian, or islamic messianism, to these determinate figures and forms of the messiah. as soon as you reduce the messianic structure to messianism, then you are reducing the universality and this has important political consequences. https://changing-sp.com/ 166 roman soloviy then you are accrediting one tradition among others and a notion of an elected people, of a given literal language, a given fundamentalism. that is why i think that the difference, however subtle it may appear, between the messianic and messianism is very important (derrida, 1997, p. 23). having stressed the necessity to maintain a distinction between the concepts of messianism and messianicity, derrida still hesitates about the true nature of their relationship, considering two possible hypotheses in faith and knowledge. according to the first one, messianicity is the most basic structure of experience, which has particular representations in historical messianisms. in this case, messianicity should be viewed on the same basis as the general structure of the offenbarkeit (revealability) developed by heidegger in the question of being (heidegger, 1957/1958), in order to clarify specific ways of being’s revealing itself and to evaluate their authenticity. religions are then only concrete examples of the universal structure of messianicity, and its study later involves first of all research into the fundamental ontological conditions of the possibility of religion. at the same time, derrida suggests another hypothesis, according to which the offenbarung (revelation) of abrahamic religious traditions were absolute, unique events, through which universal possibilities of messianicity have shown themselves. derrida does not give a definitive answer as to which of these hypotheses is more likely; he would like to find an explanation that combines both. the philosopher points out that, although his notion of messianiсity is significantly different from that of judaism, christianity, or islam, it still depends on these singular events of revelation. interpretations of derrida’s messianicity derrida’s concept of messianiсity has a wide range of interpretations. while some researchers have assessed it as clear confirmation of the religious intentions of the late derrida’s thought, others have insisted on the atheistic nature of the concept, as all deconstruction. the atheistic reading of derrida was supported by the swedish philosopher martin hägglund. in his view, widespread theological interpretations of derrida’s thought are inconsistent. the trajectory of deconstruction fits in completely with the logic of radical atheism, which not only denies the existence of god and immortality, as does traditional atheism, but also denies the very possibility of a person’s desire for god and immortality. in the seeming pursuit of infinite being and fullness, hägglund sees a desire to survive, to increase life expectancy that is determined by an openness to the unpredictable future that can either enrich or destroy us. “i argue that the so-called desire for immortality dissimulates a desire for survival that precedes it and contradicts it from within” (hägglund, 2008, p. 1). hägglund also sees radical atheism in derrida’s concept of messianicity. although this concept, more than any other, led to the suspicion that the philosopher secretly cherished the religious hope for salvation, according to hägglund, such readings of derrida’s thought are based on confusion of the notions of messianicity and concrete religious forms of “messianism”. in derrida’s vocabulary, messianicity changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 158–171 167 is just another name for the undecidable future, which creates a chance for the desirable, but at the same time threatens it from within. at the same time, traditional messianism is a religious or political belief in the future that will put an end to time, replacing it with an eternal tranquility that cannot be destroyed. the only common feature of messianicity and religious messianism is the formal structure of the promise of the coming, by which derrida reads messianism against itself. thus, hägglund concludes that derrida is inverting the logic of religious eschatology. derrida emphasizes that the coming of the other does not contribute to the end of time, but always exceeds any definite end of life or history. his version of eschatology proclaims not the end of time, but only absolute openness to the uncertainty and unpredictability of the future. in addition, messianic hospitality for the future is not connected to the promise of peace. the arrivant may not be the bearer of peace, the messiah, but as derrida recognizes, the wrongdoer, the bearer of hatred, evil, and violence. john d. caputo, an american philosopher and one of the influential proponents of the use of deconstruction in religious thinking, disagrees with such a reading of derrida1. in his interpretation, the concept of messianicity refers to the core of derrida’s special religion, “of the call for a justice, a democracy, a just one to come, a call for peace among the concrete messianisms” (caputo, 1997, p. xxviii). the difference between messianicity and messianism is interpreted as the difference between peace and war. the messianism of concrete, historical religions is always a source of exclusivism and violence, while the true meaning of messianicty lies in the promise of divine peace and the kingdom of god accessible to all. treating a specific religious tradition as the possessor of higher knowledge, granted only to god’s chosen people, is a formula for endless war. for instance, derrida viewed the conflict in the middle east as a merciless war of dangerous “messianic eschatologies”, driven by the desire to prove the truth of a particular version of messianism. therefore, as opposed to confessional messianism, caputo draws attention to the proclamations of the biblical prophets, who reminded their readers that god is seeking not ritual sacrifices, but justice for all oppressed people. in this approach, deconstruction is seen as the salvation of religion, because it cleanses it of its worst instincts. responding to hägglund’s reading of derrida in an atheistic perspective, caputo argues that the swedish philosopher misunderstood the deconstructionist’s interest in religion as an effort to protect common religious beliefs and denominational tenets. relying on derrida’s distinction between faith and religion, caputo defines the purpose of deconstructing religion in its reimagining as “religion without religion”, that is, more primordial faith (foi), quasi-transcendent for both theism and atheism, which are just different forms of dogmatic beliefs (croyances). this faith does not 1 for instance, see derrida, j., & caputo, j. d. (1997). deconstruction in a nutshell: a conversation with jacques derrida. new york, ny: fordham university press; caputo, j. d. (1997). the prayers and tears of jacques derrida: religion without religion. bloomington and indianapolis, in: indiana university press; caputo, j. d., dooley, m., & scanlon, m. j. (eds.). (2001). questioning god. bloomington and indianapolis, in: indiana university press); caputo, j. d., & scanlon, m. j. (eds.). (2005). augustine and postmodernism: confessions and circumfession. bloomington and indianapolis, in: indiana university press. https://changing-sp.com/ 168 roman soloviy exist in a state of unbroken peace; it is not protected from doubts, error, evil, violence, or death. rising from the abyss of unbelief, this “unprotected religion” is more open to uncertainty and structural risk. as caputo points out that in his analysis, hägglund relies on a truncated, caricatured version of deconstruction when he claims that it is the decisive refutation of religion and that “deconstruction proceeds on a level of neutral, value-free descriptive analysis of the logic of time” (caputo, 2015, p. 155). in fact, however, deconstruction is not about destroying religion by means of radical atheism; rather, it is a way of rereading and rethinking religion. caputo’s views on deconstruction are largely shared by another influential continental philosopher of religion, richard kearney. analyzing derrida’s statement that the name of god, like any other name, should be considered in the context of radical atheism, kearney concludes that derrida’s purpose is not to abandon the phenomenon of god as such, but to sustain a general openness to difference without name, that is, without the identity of the historical givenness of the deity of historical religions (kearney, 1999, p. 122). this general disposition to the arrival of the other, which is understood as the unpredictable occurrence of an event, is a messianicity that contradicts any form of the messianism of positive revelation. therefore, according to kearney, atheism for derrida is not a total rejection of the idea of god, but rather a disagreement with the statement that a definite god is a condition for the possibility of god, who still has to come, to be named. while agreeing with derrida’s call for unconditional openness to the arrival of the other, kearney nevertheless critically appreciates the assertion that the arrivant may be anyone or anything. he hopes that deconstruction waits for the coming of justice and associates this coming with the notion of a transcendent god who comes to save and liberate. however, for kearney, the possibility of combining the coming of this good god with the radical unpredictability of the future remains extremely problematic. caputo ignores this problem, agreeing with derrida that justice is concerned with the other, whose arrival cannot be predicted, while at the same time emphasizing that the other is always a victim and not a wrongdoer. given that, as derrida points out, anyone who comes can change his or her name and become anyone at any time, in “desire of god” (1999) kearney asks how we can distinguish between “between true and false prophets, between bringers of good and bringers of evil, between holy spirits and unholy ones … between a living god and a dead one, between elijah and his ‘phantom’, between messiahs and monsters” (kearney, 1999, p. 127). such a distinction is possible only if there are clear criteria. without giving them, derrida underestimates “the need for some kind of critical discernment based on informed judgment, hermeneutic memory, narrative imagination, and rational discrimination” (kearney, 1999, p. 139). however, it should be noted that derrida’s refusal to articulate a specific set of criteria does not mean that he underestimates the importance of identification and differentiation. on the contrary, derrida argues that such acts are necessary because of the unpredictability of the future. we have to identify and make decisions each time because we are not able to predict in advance how the other will act. establishing clear changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 158–171 169 preliminary criteria for the arrival of the other, derrida points out, would be an act of discrimination and a restriction of unconditional universal hospitality – openness to the newcomer, whoever he may be. total security is possible only if the possibility of something unexpected is closed. the rejection of the threat of trauma associated with the arrival of an unpredictable other is possible only at the expense of the rejection of the opportunity for transformation. another line of criticism of the messianic tradition of lévinas and derrida relies on a renewed reading of the texts of the apostle paul. in particular, we would like to mention such philosophers as alain badiou, slavoj žižek, and giorgio agamben. all of them, to one degree or another, accept jacob taubes’ confidence in the determining role of messianism in the theology of the apostle paul. they also share the conviction that messianism was an important structural factor in the history of western thought, finding expression not only in the judeo-christian religious heritage but also in secular phenomena. the findings of these philosophers signal a break with the phenomenological tradition of interpreting messianism. in particular, badiou deploys criticism of lévinas’ ethic of alterity, which, in his belief, either falls into quasitheological piety that emphasizes the absolute otherness of god or reduces itself to a liberal assertion of difference and individuality. badiou’s criticism of messianic ethics is based on a new reading of pauline messianism. the apostle’s faithfulness to the event of christ’s resurrection serves as foundation for a new universal truth that eliminates the conflict between jewish law and the greek logos. if badiou contrasts lévinas’ messianic otherness with paul’s messianic universality, žižek calls into question derrida’s messianic future, relying on the urgency of the messianic moment of the apostle’s theology, his emphasis on the messiah’s coming. the apostle’s belief that the messiah is here, according to žižek, resists the derridian existence in a state of uncertainty and constant delay, calling for life in the new space already opened by the event of christ (žižek, 2003, pp. 136–137). conclusion summarizing the analysis of derrida’s concept of messiancity, it should be noted that despite the criticism it has faced, the concept of “messianicity without messianism” has already became an influential concept in contemporary philosophy of religion. in the context of current civilizational challenges, it calls for openness to an absolute, unpredictable future and a respect for the other. in our view, derrida’s philosophy of religion and his call for the deconstruction of traditional messianism should not be characterized as atheistic. religious and political messianisms need constant deconstruction because, unlike abstract messianicity, they are incapable to respect the irreducibility of the other. however, their deconstruction is by no means an attempt to return to some sort of enlightenment version of “religion within reason alone,” for, as derrida points out, religion and science share a common source—the primordial faith that forms the basis for any social connection and communication. therefore, the deconstruction of messianisms means releasing religions from their fundamentalist claims in order to promote their openness to the other. https://changing-sp.com/ 170 roman soloviy references badiou, a. (1997). saint paul: la fondation de l’universalisme [saint paul: the foundation of universalism]. paris: presses universitaires de france. doi: 10.7202/004898ar benjamin, w. (1996). on the concept of history. in h. eiland and m. w. jennings (eds.), walter benjamin: selected writings, 4: 1938–1940 (pp. 389–400). cambridge, ma: harvard university press. blanchot, m. (1980). l’ écriture du désastre [the writing of the disaster]. paris: nrf/gallimard. bouretz, p. (2010). witnesses for the future: philosophy and messianism (m. b. smith, trans.). baltimore, md: johns hopkins university press. (originally published in french 2003) caputo, j. d. (1997). the prayers and tears of jacques derrida: religion without religion. bloomington and indianapolis, in: indiana university press. doi: 10.2307/j.ctt2005rjr caputo, j. d. (2015). unprotected religion. in e. baring & p. e. gordon (eds.), the trace of god: derrida and religion (pp. 151–177). new york, ny: fordham university press. doi: 10.5422/fordham/9780823262090.003.0009 derrida, j. (1986). glas (j. p. leavey jr. & r. rand, trans.). lincoln, ne: university of nebraska press. (originally published in french 1974) derrida, j. (1992). force of law: the ‘mystical foundation of authority’. in d. cornell, m. rosenfeld, & d. carlson (eds.), deconstruction and the possibility of justice (pp. 3–67). london and new york: routledge. derrida, j. (1996). the gift of death (d. wills, trans.). chicago, il: university of chicago press. (originally published in french 1992) derrida, j. (1997). the villanova roundtable: a conversation with jacques derrida. in j. derrida & j. d. caputo (eds.), deconstruction in a nutshell: a conversation with jacques derrida (pp. 3–28). new york, ny: fordham university press. derrida, j. (2001). violence and metaphysics: an essay on the thought of emmanuel lévinas. in a. bass (trans.), writing and difference (pp. 97–192). london: routledge classics. (originally published in french 1967) derrida, j. (2002). faith and knowledge: the two sources of “religion” at the limits of reason alone. in g. anidjar (ed.), acts of religion / jacques derrida (pp. 40–101). london and new york: routledge. (originally published in french 1996) derrida, j. (2006). specters of marx: the state of the debt, the work of mourning and the new international (1st ed.). london and new york: routledge. derrida, j., & caputo, j. d. (eds.). (1997). deconstruction in a nutshell: a conversation with jacques derrida. new york, ny: fordham university press. http://doi.org/10.7202/004898ar http://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt2005rjr http://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823262090.003.0009 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 158–171 171 hägglund, m. (2008). radical atheism: derrida and the time of life. stanford, ca: stanford university press. heidegger, m. (1958). the question of being (w. kluback & j. t. wilde, trans.). new york, ny: twayne publishers. (originally published in german 1957) kearney r. (1999). desire of god. in j. d. caputo and m. j. scanlon (eds.), god, the gift, and postmodernism (pp. 112–145). bloomington and indianapolis, in: indiana university press. lévinas, e. (2011). totality and infinity: an essay on exteriority (a. lingis, trans.). dordrecht: springer netherlands. (originally published in french 1961) levine, m. g. (2014). a weak messianic power: figures of a time to come in benjamin, derrida, and celan. new york, ny: fordham university press. doi: 10.2307/j.ctt13x0301 miller, j. h. (1996). derrida’s others. in j. brannigan, r. robbins, & j. wolfreys (eds.), applying: to derrida (pp. 153–170). london: palgrave macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978-1-349-25077-6_10 rosenzweig, f. (2005). the star of redemption (b. e. galli, trans.). madison, wi: university of wisconsin press. (originally published in german 1921) žižek, s. (2003). the puppet and the dwarf: the perverse core of christianity. cambridge, ma: mit press. doi: 10.7551/mitpress/5706.001.0001 https://changing-sp.com/ http://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt13x0301 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25077-6_10 http://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/5706.001.0001 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 143–145 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.1.126 received 26 december 2020 © 2021 louie g. giray published online 19 april 2021 louiegiray@gmail.com book review deborah h. gruenfeld (2020). acting with power. new york: currency/penguin random house louie g. giray polytechnic university of the philippines, taguig city, philippines deborah gruenfeld is an american social psychologist from stanford graduate school of business. in her latest book, acting with power (gruenfeld, 2020), she shares insightful lessons, gathered from many years of research and teaching about power. the book attempts to hit a two-fold objective: (1) to free the readers from the misconceptions of power, and (2) to help them realize that they already possess power, through the various roles they play in life. in the introduction, gruendfeld recounts her early professional experiences. after she earned her phd, she felt nothing had changed. she was immersed in the same routine of teaching, research, and experiments. however, to everyone else, she was different – someone who was supposed to be an expert. she felt an impostor. things changed when she joined a faculty development program related to acting. in the book, gruendfeld credits the program to understanding that “power comes from the role we play”. successful actors do not let their insecurities hinder them from doing what they need. she emphasizes that actors “step away from their own drama and learn how to play a part in the story”. for gruendfeld, acting as “the professor”, or any character, does not mean faking it. it has more to do with embracing the shared social reality and being committed to her part in the performance. moreover, her research and experiences boil down to the conclusion that success and happiness are not a result of much power one can garner – they are the results of what one is able to do for other people with the power one has. gruenfeld offers a caveat that when an individual thinks much of the power they possess, they think of power as a resource and the end in itself. this makes people do whatever it takes to get a coveted position of power, regardless of the means. while many writers on power discuss winning battles with others, gruendfeld claims that acting with power is about “winning battles with ourselves”. this eye-opening and captivating book has 10 chapters and is divided into four parts. https://changing-sp.com/ 144 louie g. giray part i “when the curtain goes up” discusses the concept of power – meaning, myths, and truths. power based on the prevalent definition refers to the capacity to control other individuals and the results of their actions. power, thus, is distinct from status or authority – one can have power without them. power and influence also differ from one another since influence is the outcome of power. power is not a personal characteristic, too. in this book, power means playing a part in someone else’s story. power, as the author emphasizes, is based on relationships – what makes an individual powerful depends on how a person is needed. power also is dependent on the context and is not permanent since one cannot retain power from one situation to another. in addition, gruenfeld argues that power is a social contract. when a powerful person violates an implicit agreement, their power deteriorates. for example, an entrepreneur who exploits their workers unjustly will see themselves later as having no power because no one wants to work with them anymore. gruenfeld further explains that power comes from the people’s need to gain rewards and to avoid punishments, which are at the disposal of a certain individual. but power is not immediately observable; it has properties that are hidden. knowledge is almost always a source of power, because what people know or do not know cannot be seen explicitly. part ii “the two faces of power” talks about the two typologies of power: (1) power up, and (2) power down, seasoned with various examples from history. gruenfeld discusses power up by referring to keith johnstone, a british actor and theater director who pioneered improvisational theater (see johnstone, 1987). in his terms, power up refers to playing high. it means raising oneself in comparison to others – by namedropping, claiming expertise, or pulling rank; and by looking down at others such as through insulting someone, disagreeing with them, or brushing them off. according to johnstone (1987), power up gives off the message, “don’t come near me, i bite”. in theater, as in life, playing power up takes up space, both in literal and figurative sense. a person who exemplifies power up does not have a hint of selfdoubt, maximizes their comfort, speaks slowly and deliberately, and uses complete sentences. such person does not offer an apology; they hold their head high and straight. furthermore, manifesting power up can convey arrogance or pride, or it can communicate responsibility and compassion. it just depends on the timing, action, and situation. on the other hand, playing power down invites connection and cooperation. a person intends to appear less threatening and less ruthless. playing power down, both in acting and in life, involves avoidance of provoking others, speaking quickly but haltingly – uncertainty is also evident. a person builds trust and makes others feel comfortable. playing power down does not imply surrendering power. it just shows respect. while playing power down can feel risky because others might think of it as a weakness, it actually can become an insignia of strength. part iii “taking the stage” discloses how to manage insecurities, otherwise known as performance anxiety among actors; and how not to lose the plot when acting in life and in theater. being oneself is a performance, according to goffman (1956). gruenfeld contends that acting is not faking – we are just wearing our roles. the author changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 143–145 145 suggests that we try to accept the reality of the stage we are on and to show a version of self that makes sense in this situation. we should stick to the storyline, though, which means that we should remain linked to the common realities. if we lose the plot, because we are too immersed in ourselves and our insecurities, we lose the track of our roles and responsibilities. this, in turn, can lead us to serious consequences like damaged relationships, lost reputation, or even criminal charges. gruenfeld proposes, therefore, that when we take on a role, we need to set aside our personal frustrations and craving for power. first, we need to ground ourselves with the context and understand who we are to the people in that certain situation and comprehend the impact that we can make we need to concentrate more on the work we do than on how we look or feel as we do it. the author summarizes that acting enables us to step beyond traditional self-views and open up to new forms of thinking and being. part iv “understanding abuses of power, and how to stop them” describes various types of abusive characters and advises on how to deal with abusive situations. people seek power for a variety of reasons. based on research, strong power motive predicts effective leadership according to many studies (e.g., magee & langner, 2008; winter & barenbaum, 1985). however, gruenfeld warns that when people see power as the end in itself, it leads to abuses and corruption because they want to be perceived as powerful but do not commit to a task they are in charge of. moreover, according to the author, the effects of power include: (1) disinhibition, people act more readily on almost all kinds of impulses; (2) objectification, treating humans as objects to attain personal aims; and (3) entitlement, thinking that they deserve the things they want just because they want them. gruenfeld further elaborates on the types of abusive characters and the ways of dealing with them. overall, i find the book powerful, compelling but accessible to wide audience due to lively examples, narratives and historical scenarios which illustrate the ideas. in addition, the author has the strong message, and i would recommend this book to those who want not only to understand power but to empower themselves. references goffman, e. (1956). the presentation of self in everyday life. new york: doubleday. johnstone, k. (1987). impro: improvisation and the theatre. london: routledge. magee, j. c., & langner, c. a. (2008). how personalized and socialized power motivation facilitate antisocial and prosocial decision-making. journal of research in personality, 42(6), 1547–1559. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.07.009 winter, d. g., & barenbaum, n. b. (1985). responsibility and the power motive in women and men. journal of personality, 53(2), 335–355. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1985.tb00369.x https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.07.009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1985.tb00369.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1985.tb00369.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1985.tb00369.x changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 248–251 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.2.100 received 10 june 2020 © 2020 elena g. trubina published online 9 july 2020 elena.trubina@gmail.com book review germaine r. halegoua (2019). the digital city: media and the social production of place. new york: new york university press. elena g. trubina ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia techno-capitalist urban redevelopment is marked by an increased popularity of digital urban governance and various intersections between platforms and urbanity. these exacerbate the existing socio-spatial inequalities while depolitisizing dataisation and digitalization, which now are widely considered the popular ways of general advancement of city life, particularly by authorities of all levels and corporations. while research into so-called “smart” or “digital” cities has mushroomed over the two last decades there remain some considerable gaps in our understanding of the links among the tangible, physical urban spaces, and the changes that the digital age brings, namely and most elementary, that participating in city life is impossible without being plugged. two of the most pressing gaps form the focus of this book that seeks to elucidate: first, how citizens daily engage in the digital placemaking practices; second, diversity of ways in which various populations employ navigation technologies and media platforms. while the attempts to make sense of the growing digitization and datafication of cities are timely and much-needed, a key limitation is that these often tend to locate governance strategies and processes of data circulation almost wholly in the digital realm. digitization, further, is often described as the top-down strategy increasingly used by the governments, municipalities and corporate players. this fails to make sense of numerous and intricate intersections of digital and physical spaces. it underestimates the material transmission of digital content in offline surroundings, as well as the digital remediation of urban places. however, since the uses of information and communication technology in the city are promoted by firms and governments, it is important to consider the tensions among citizen-oriented digital tools and “steering” of digitization by powerful urban and national players. in this vein, halegoua critically juxtaposes the visions and practices of digital urban professionals, the authorities, and the urban residents in five chapters. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 248–251 249 chapter 1 “smart city: strategic placemaking and the internet of things” looks at the image-making processes as envisioned by the corporations and authorities in “smart-from-the-start” showcase projects in three countries, namely, songdo international business district in south korea, masdar city in abu dhabi in the united arab emirates and planit valley near porto in portugal. united by their artificiality, these cities, the author shows, have difficulties attracting residents because they lack vibe, vibrancy, and history – traits that cities build for centuries. strategic placemaking and imagination are reductive in a sense that citizens are understood here as “points of data collection” and community as “quantified” (p. 53). in the next chapter, the one on digital infrastructure and urban transformation, halegoua focuses on the controversies stemming from the ambitious project undertaken by google corporation – google fiber in kansas city. google chose kansas city and surroundings in 2011 as the first city to launch a citywide network of fiber cables: a cheap super-fast internet and tv was made available. there, the corporate ideas about efficient services clashed with the values of citizens and their ways of understanding community and home. the author reflects on the contrasts between the rhetoric of “broadband optimism” and “ameliorating the digital divide” and things on the ground and claims that many efforts, which were progressively framed to be “sold” to municipal authorities did not materialize (p. 75). joining the growing group of scholars investigating the tactics of non-use, media refusal, and opting out and drawing on an extensive fieldwork, halegoua shows that the kansas city residents quickly realized that it is not their sense of place and identities that google had in mind. in other words, “google fiber was perceived as service that didn’t imagine them as potential users in realistic and meaningful ways” (pp. 87–88). reaching beyond the substantial social, technical, psychological and practical issues raised by the implementation of the top-down digital projects, the book also examines anthropological and other theoretical underpinnings of the digitalized everyday practices of navigating cities in chapters 3 (on navigating space as place) and 4 (on the spatial self). drawing on the mix of questionnaire use and interviews conducted in madison and lawrence, as well as the studies of spatial cognition, the author shows the changes in mental mapping of a city caused by the use of gps and other navigation devices. if in classic lynch’s study, it is the city’s legibility, that is its capacity to generate its image as a whole that is continuously emphasized, today the citizens not only are not concerned with “wholeness” but they delegated wayfinding tasks to their devices and are quite comfortable about it (p. 123). visualizing of routes and paths affords citizens’ “agency in placemaking” (p. 144). devices are also of great importance for broadcasting visited places that the users knowingly perform. in the strongest, in my view, chapter 4, the author traces the genealogy of the ways of registering and demonstrating one’s presence in place and their importance for constructing identities and building a sense of belonging. “geocoded self-presentation”, as well as selfie-making become parts of the spatial self which is interestingly discussed in this chapter. halegoua embeds her analysis of the connections between who urban dwellers are and places they want to be and seen in the account of the changed sense of the world, and asks a highly relevant https://changing-sp.com/ 250 elena g. trubina question: “when the world is presented as an expansively locatable series of places where a person can perpetually belong, does this alter individual or collective agency to intervene in the social production of place?” (p. 149). lefebvre’s perspective on the production of space in the current digital context is used by the author to problematize a number of skeptical and critical assessments of the impact that the digitalization has on a sense of place. rather than mourning the alleged fragmentation of places caused by digital navigation, etc., she powerfully shows how the very practices of constructing the cities are changing and how productive tensions between people, technologies, subjective connective and place-related agency, and embodied practices emerge. one of the subchapters of the book, i believe, will particularly resonate with readers: there, the author talks about self-quantification as the popular strategy of placemaking. the datafication of people’s bodies and practices is implemented through monitoring apps and wearable devices. the amount of attention directed at variously measuring a number of one’s steps, heartrate, distances covered, minutes spent without web surfing, etc. is indeed remarkable. equally remarkable is enthusiasm with which people entrust their privacy and autonomy in hands of global platforms, producers of smartphones and applications like fitbit, samsung health, getupp and many, many others. intense global tracking, processing and selling of personal data would be impossible without voluntary self-tracking and it is exactly its voluntariness that interests the author. halegoua charts ambivalences characteristic for those “new algorithmic identities”, for instance, the reduction of a sense of surprise and strangeness, which are historically important for exploring a city (p. 176). ambivalent is also the process of making sense of data since it is, as a rule, easier to gather data than to interpreted it and, as a result, location itself becomes context: “in the datafication of location, paradoxically, a sense of place is often the context that is both lost and sought through data collection and analysis” (p. 177). the final chapter of the book is devoted to the uses of digital media in creative place and the author completes a sort of the circle: having started from rendering the top down approaches to placemaking facilitated by professionals, the book in the end again returns to the practices of those who professionally implement placemaking activities (p. 183). continuing with capturing ambivalences of the urban digital era, the author admits to the vagueness of the very goals of creative placemaking (p. 185). indeed, for starters, what exactly differentiate creative placemaking from “simple” placemaking, particularly given that in the preceding chapters of the book halegoua impressively demonstrated richness and diversity of the everyday spatialdigital practices of lay citizens. it is natural then that creative placemaking is met with a great deal of skepticism, and the images of trojan horse covered with the blanket saying “art place grant” are used in the posters depicting what seem to be self-serving agendas of the boosters, which promise to bring vibrancy back to cities. summarizing the activities of three american funds for creative placemaking, halegoua posits a few contradictions marking the use of digital media to promote and indeed make spaces. deemed drivers of economic development, creative industries contribute to decrease of local business and physical sense of place. one changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 248–251 251 of the conclusions she comes to in this chapter is that “a shift in perspective and the incorporation of digital media as creative rather than commercial could help recognize experiences of place attachment and place identity that are emerging alongside digital media use in everyday life” (p. 213). this strikes me as not particularly realistic hope: first, the very juxtaposition of “commercial” and “creative” seems at odds with the predominant understanding of everything creative these days, namely, the commodification, mediatisation, and instrumentalization of creativity; second, however different the practices of users are, they obviously lack cultural or aesthetic novelty, which is commonly associated with creativity. similarly, i failed to fully grasp the force of the author’s juxtaposition of “the space of humanistic use and the space of top-down exchange process” (p. 222). the possibility of gaining “right to the city” through digital media and related placemaking – which is one of the main arguments of the book – seems to me very modest. i think that the book insufficiently takes into account an extent to which datafication is linked to dataveillance and more generally, the immense internalization by citizens of strategies of digital capitalism. whether their digital practices present the case of everyday creativity, as the author claims, or the case of puzzling compliance with the norms of big data epoch, is an open question. the book ends with generous suggestions for future research, and i am confident that it will acts as a stimulus to further research into digital cities. while you may not agree with all halegoua’ s arguments, this is a useful book, which should be read widely by all those interested in the connections between digitality, cultural politics, and everyday life. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 542–547 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.116 received 4 june 2020 © 2020 andrei yu. dudchik published online 29 december 2020 dudchik@philosophy.by book review julian baggini (2018). how the world thinks: a global history of philosophy. london: granta andrei yu. dudchik institute of philosophy of the national academy of sciences of belarus, minsk, belarus the concepts of dialogue and intercultural dialogue have gained popularity in contemporary humanities and social sciences as well as in international relations. in philosophy, various attempts were made to conceptualise the dialogue and to explicate its ontological, epistemological, ethical and other aspects. history of philosophy, in particular, has to deal with the problem of plurality of philosophical systems, discourses, traditions. while unsystematic attempts to conceptualise historical development of philosophical thought are known since antiquity history of philosophy as an institutionalised form of philosophical knowledge existed since the 18th century. it is an interesting and a significant moment that institutionalised forms of history of philosophy appeared in the situation of religious plurality and conflicts (santinello & piaia, 2011). classical canon of history of philosophy was centred mainly on the western european tradition, while traditions of the east (for example, the chinese or indian), though represented fragmentarily, were deprecated for lack of conceptualisation and systematic form. today, after criticisms of eurocentric and orientalist views in history of philosophy (kimmerle, 2016) non-western intellectual traditions receive more attention. the interest in a dialogue between philosophical traditions motivates not only specialised research but also popular books for the wider audience as well. an example of such popularising approach can be found in julian baggini’s “how the world thinks: a global history of philosophy” (baggini, 2018). julian baggini is well known for his popular works in philosophy. baggini has published more than twenty popular books on various philosophical issues. his interests are quite wide and are not limited only to the familiar problems of the english-language tradition and western philosophy as a whole. so in his last for today book he refers to the diversity of world intellectual traditions. baggini describes his approach as “philosophical journalism” (baggini, 2018, p. 14). https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.amazon.com/how-world-thinks-history-philosophy/dp/1783782285 https://www.amazon.com/how-world-thinks-history-philosophy/dp/1783782285 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 542–547 543 his first two books are, in fact, collections of interviews with famous contemporary english-speaking philosophers (baggini & stangroom, 2002, 2003). although most people do not articulate their beliefs about the nature of personality, the possible sources of our knowledge, ethical issues as philosophical doctrines, these beliefs are deeply rooted in cultures and, as baggini writes, influence our ways of thinking and living. while academic philosophy is usually presented in textual form “folk” philosophy – in preliterate cultures especially – existed mostly in non-systematic and non-textual forms. sedimentation, a notion borrowed from the french philosopher maurice merleau-ponty, refers to this implicit process of assimilation of meanings: “just as a riverbed builds up sediment comprised of that which washes through it, values and beliefs become ‘edimented’ in cultures. in turn, those values and beliefs begin to sediment in the minds of the people who inhabit those cultures from birth, so that we mistakenly take the build-up for an immutable riverbed” (baggini, 2018, p. xiv). inarticulate philosophical attitudes “create the rhetorical space in which cultures think, explain and justify” (baggini, 2018, p. xvi). baggini rejects, though, cultural essentialism, highlights the importance of various kinds of gaps, and ruptures in the history of philosophy. one has to avoid both extremes in comparing different philosophical traditions, neither we should overestimate similarity nor overemphasize difference. in his opinion, our “shared humanity” and perennial philosophical problems allow us to appreciate ideas and experiences of other peoples and cultures. baggini’s main task is a study of diversity of world philosophical thought in order to “dig up” the hidden foundations of how the world today thinks. in a prologue “historical review: from axial to the information age” baggini examines the diversity of philosophical traditions in world history, he notes that recent ideas about philosophy were developed during the period of the western dominance. this, in particular, led to the spread of the greek word “philosophy” or its variants in other languages, although in many cultures for a long time there was no special term to denote this kind of speculative thinking. along with classical texts and philosophical schools, there are also oral traditions in many parts of the world. baggini proposes using l. wittgenstein’s notion of “family resemblance” to indicate typical features of various intellectual traditions. according to baggini, people are engaged in philosophy, “whenever they set their minds to a systematic investigation of the nature of the world, selfhood, language, logic, value, the human good, the sources and justifications of knowledge, the nature and limits of human reason” (baggini, 2018, p. xxx). although boundaries between philosophy, religion, and folklore are not clear, they might be distinguished. complicated relations between philosophy and religion are important for baggini: we must acknowledge that the strict secularization of philosophy is itself a philosophical position that requires justification. to simply stipulate that faith separates you from philosophy is as deeply unphilosophical as stipulating that a sacred text must have the last word. both positions need to be argued for as part of a shared philosophical enterprise (baggini, 2018, p. 51). https://changing-sp.com/ 544 andrei yu. dudchik the main body of the book is divided into five parts, covering one of the main areas of philosophical knowledge: “how the world knows” – epistemology, “how the world is” – ontology, “who in the world are we?” – anthropology, “how the world lives” – ethics) as they are presented in different cultural traditions; the fifth part contains conclusions of a more general character. baggini, in the second part, observes that many positivists and science methodologists insist on a decline or even the end of traditional metaphysics with its speculative explanations of what the world is. although natural sciences now successfully resolve problems, which previously pertained to the domain of philosophy, there remains a large number of problems that cannot be subject to the expertise of positive scientific research. even if one abandons the idea that metaphysics can explain the world as it is, it still continues to study the human experience of interaction with the world. baggini calls this kind of research a “phenomenological metaphysics”. it will continue to be relevant even when the objective world is explained by positive sciences. such understanding of metaphysics, as baggini believes, could be not only recognized as relevant for contemporary texts, but is partially applicable to the metaphysical systems of the past, which can be understood in terms of a “phenomenological” rather than traditional “scientific” metaphysics. in the third part, baggini analyses three theories of the self in various philosophical traditions: the idea of the lacking self (no-self), present in hinduism, buddhism, and modern analytical versions of the philosophy of consciousness; the relational ideas of the self, exemplified in japanese and chinese systems, and in african folk philosophy, which baggini describes as “pro-social”; the idea of atomized, self-sufficient personality in the european philosophy. relational and atomistic views on the self are clarified by the categories of th. kazulis: “intimacy” and “integrity”. imbalance or even dominance of either of these characteristics, according to baggini, can lead a cultural crisis. the latter is familiar in contemporary western societies, where “much of the rise of populism and nationalism in the west is a backlash against the gradual erosion of belonging” (baggini, 2018, p. 215). baggini addressed the lack of integrity in previous works, and, in particular, the essay “in defence of hierarchy” that was written in collaboration with s. c. angle, k. a. appiah, d. bell and other intellectuals (angle et al., 2017). the fourth part discusses the cross-cultural study of values from a philosophical perspective. baggini uses the mixing desk metaphor: “in the studio, producers record each instrument as an individual track, playing them back through separate channels… the moral mixing desk works in much the same way. almost everywhere in the world you’ll find the same channels: impartiality, rules, consequences, virtue, god, society, autonomy, actions, intentions, harmony, community, belonging and so on” (baggini, 2018, p. 314). the main values, thus, in some variants could be found in almost all cultures, but the difference is in their relation to each other and the overall synthesis. such understanding of cultural values, according to baggini, allows to emphasize moral pluralism. moral pluralism, however, does not mean relativism that is based on the principle of non-interference (“laissez-faire relativism”), but it proceeds from the concept of a harmonious combination of different values within a unified vision of a particular changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 542–547 545 culture. baggini proposes to distinguish pluralism and relativism. in isaiah berlin’s approach, objective variety of values cannot be reduced to the predominance of any one of them and to the rejection of all others as false (berlin, 2000, pp. 14–17). at the same time in philosophy comparison and criticism of various systems is possible: real dialogue requires careful listening but also mutual examination and questioning. i would go so far as to say that to refuse to criticise in all circumstances is in itself disrespectful, since it treats “other” philosophies as more fragile and less able to stand up to scrutiny than our own. criticism and disagreement are only disrespectful when they come from a combination of arrogance and ignorance (baggini, 2018, p. 234). in the final part, baggini summarizes his survey of world philosophical traditions and offers his understanding of the major regional traditions of philosophical thought. he begins with the east asia, which includes china, taiwan, japan, and korea. the main virtue here is harmony, which requires constant self-improvement through various types of practical activities. this region is characterised by dominance of “metaphysical agnosticism”, which does not entail a complete understanding of reality. an important role is played by the “correlative” concepts of the self, as well as the concepts of emptiness and inconstancy with a certain ontological meaning. for indian thought, which possesses a highly developed arsenal of philosophical knowledge, as baggini notes, a focus on tradition and authority as sources of knowledge is widespread. its key philosophical characteristic is a “soteriological focus” that suggests a profound difference between the genuine and external aspects of reality and corresponds to “ethics of detachment”. the philosophy in islamic cultures (the arab world, north africa, the indian subcontinent, southeast asia) is characterised by a close relationship with theological doctrines and religious tradition in general, which deals with the most diverse aspects of everyday life. moreover, historically, islamic philosophy has been characterised by significant role of interpretative practices, which sets a certain impulse for the culture of islamic countries as a whole. western countries occupied a dominant position in the field of philosophy over the centuries “for reasons noble and ignoble”. the most important features of the western tradition as a whole include the following: the search for truth (“truth-seeking” orientation as opposed to traditions focused more on “way-seeking”); interest to issues of cosmogony, to the structure of the world as a whole; value of truth and knowledge as such; a desire to resolve contradictions; an interest in the study of laws and principles; a desire for impartiality as a moral virtue and a cognitive imperative. baggini explores the intellectual practices of “traditional societies” that are available today on the basis of the reconstruction of oral folk traditions – “folk philosophy”. in particular, the author analyses fundamental connections between the nature and the people who inhabit it, and this connection seems so deep that it is often not possible to separate one from the other. such cultures, as a rule, do not consider the individuals in isolation from the community to which they belongs, which sets their “communitarian ethos”. baggini writes that russian philosophy as https://changing-sp.com/ 546 andrei yu. dudchik a special intellectual tradition is characterised by criticism of the cartesian concept of the self-sufficient person, different from the orthodox ideal of “kenosis”, which implies a consciously humble relation to the believer’s self. in contrast to the western european rationality, in russian philosophy, intuition is prioritized in epistemology, it leads to a convergence of philosophy and literary and poetic creativity, as well as a difference in the concepts of truth as istina and pravda as an intuitive and morally coloured cognitive value. in social thought, baggini highlights the russian ideal of obshchina (commune) as a harmonious voluntary community. at least since the 19th century attempts to analyse world history of philosophy including various periods and regions existed, but today we have much more factual knowledge about various philosophical traditions and some new methodologies of qualitative as well as quantitative analysis. such a new approach in the history of philosophy could be a part of a broader study of the social and cultural context of the development and transfer of philosophical knowledge. the use of “global history” is growing in history and other fields, which merited some attempts to conceptualise it (conrad, 2017; stanziani, 2018). but baggini’s book is a rare example of “global” history of philosophy. another example might be found in “the idea of a global history of philosophy”, presented by a norwegian philosopher gunnar skirbekk at the 24th world congress of philosophy in beijing in 2018. later its extended version was published (skirbekk, 2018). according to baggini himself, one of the impulses to write the book was the discussion about the nature and role of comparative research in contemporary philosophy. in particular, the question is whether comparing philosophical systems is just studying diverse cultures through a comparison of ideas from different philosophical traditions, or could it give a new knowledge on the basis of comparison, striving to develop “hard-core philosophy” (chakrabarti & weber, 2015, p. 10). baggini identifies at least three aspects, in which comparative research can have a heuristic effect in philosophy. firstly, a combination of different perspectives allows us to get a better view than any particular approach could offer: an example is the famous indian parable about blind men exploring an elephant and exchanging their particular impressions. baggini uses an analogy with cubist painting, which combines different perspectives. he calls this aspect of his study a “cubist perspective”. secondly, different philosophical concepts add new theoretical problems and problematize existing ideas. as baggini writes, this is the best way to think about the question of what it means to be a person or a self. it is easy to think there is a single question here. in fact, it disguises myriad questions, such as: what is the self made of? is the self permanent? how do relations to others fashion the self? what gives us our sense of identity? in different traditions “the problem” of the self is likely to involve only one or some of these questions and others are set aside (baggini, 2018, p. 318). in various intellectual traditions, a “problem” usually involves only one or at the best a few of the possible aspects. the comparative approach, due to the changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 542–547 547 “disaggregating” perspective, allows to obtain a more “objective” understanding by dividing the apparently simple question into more complex parts. thirdly, multiple perspectives show that there is no one legitimate way to understand the world and to establish social norms. the division between these three perspectives is not strict, but the author intends to demonstrate their potential to enrich our knowledge in the general framework of a comparative study of philosophy, while not abandoning the desire to search for objective criteria for this knowledge. references angle, s. c., appiah, k. a., baggini, j., bell, d., berggruen, n., bevir, m., wang, r. (2017, march 22). in defense of hierarchy. aeon. retrieved from https://aeon.co/ essays/hierarchies-have-a-place-even-in-societies-built-on-equality baggini, j. (2018). how the world thinks: a global history of philosophy. london: granta. baggini, j., & stangroom, j. (eds.). (2002). new british philosophy: the interviews. london: routledge. baggini, j., & stangroom, j. (eds.). (2003). what philosophers think. london and new york: continuum. berlin, i. (2000). the power of ideas. princeton, nj: princeton university press. chakrabarti, a., & weber, r. (2015). comparative philosophy without borders. new york and london: bloomsbury academic. conrad, s. (2017). what is global history? (reprint edition). princeton, nj: princeton university press. kimmerle, h. (2016). hegel’s eurocentric concept of philosophy. confluence: journal of world philosophies, 1. retrieved from https://scholarworks.iu.edu/ iupjournals/index.php/confluence/article/view/524 santinello, g., & piaia, g. (eds.). (2011). models of the history of. philosophy. volume ii: from the cartesian age to brucker. dordrecht, the netherlands: springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9507-7 stanziani, a. (2018). eurocentrism and the politics of global history. cham, switzerland: palgrave pivot. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94740-2 skirbekk, g. (2018, august 14). the idea of a global history of philosophy (revised version of a lecture given at the 24th world congress of philosophy, beijing, prc). retrieved from https://khrono.no/files/2019/10/09/ theideaofaglobalhistoryofphilosophy.pdf https://changing-sp.com/ https://aeon.co/essays/hierarchies-have-a-place-even-in-societies-built-on-equality https://aeon.co/essays/hierarchies-have-a-place-even-in-societies-built-on-equality https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/confluence/article/view/524 https://scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/index.php/confluence/article/view/524 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9507-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94740-2 https://khrono.no/files/2019/10/09/theideaofaglobalhistoryofphilosophy.pdf https://khrono.no/files/2019/10/09/theideaofaglobalhistoryofphilosophy.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 407–411 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.4.085 received 15 december 2019 © 2019 daniil i. kokin published online 6 january 2020 d.kokin@icloud.com book review jonathan floyd (2019). what’s the point of political philosophy? medford, ma: polity press daniil i. kokin ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia during a conversation with scholars concerned with political philosophy, it is highly likely to hear that only political philosophers themselves are fond of reflecting upon their subject. it is far more fascinating to discover the field through vivid examples, key concepts, notable authors, or relevant political events that bother us. numerous introductory books on political philosophy usually introduce the subject to a reader exactly this way. this concerns both monographs and collected papers. take, for example, oxford very short introduction written by david miller (2003), or blackwell’s companion to contemporary political philosophy (goodin, pettit & pogge, 2007). however, the audience may vary: some books are made for students to “ease their sufferings” (mansfield, 2001), as well as for politicians (swift, 2019), or for the general public (parvin & chambers, 2012), or, of course, for scholars themselves (estlund, 2012). however, all these introductions have certain drawbacks. jonathan floyd’s new book what’s the point of political philosophy? is special in this context. although it is considered as introductory reading, it proposes an original and vivid approach. it is relatively short, written in a simple and lively language, has great examples, discusses current cases, and includes ideas and arguments from key figures in political philosophy. finally, this book is universal, that is, everyone can find something useful for oneself. the aim of the book is to provide “an original but accessible account of our subject” (p. 4). political philosophy has three main tasks or points: to analyze ideas, to critique them, and to attempt to order them in the best way possible. the fourth point is “to reflect upon these very points” (p. 3). the author distinguishes three groups of potential readers that can have their points of the book. scholars can “push forward our understanding of the nature, methods, and purposes of our field” (p. 4). students can use it as the subject guide and methodological https://changing-sp.com/ 408 daniil i. kokin advice. the general public can use it to understand what political philosophy “involves” and “why it matters” (p. 5). floyd tries to foresee and answer the possible pushbacks his book might cause. does this book change the world? it is quite obvious that political philosophy does not play a visible role in the “contemporary public climate of opinion” (p. 9). by saying that people rely on experts in different spheres, floyd believes we need experts in politics as well, who are none other than political philosophers. he considers politicians, “gurus and columnists, or maybe think tanks” (p. 10), have nothing to say about the nature and importance of the core ideas that shape our political realm. the main point is “about the wider understanding of key political ideas” (p. 11) in society, which is why he clarifies that the goal he is pursuing is enlightenment, not coercion. floyd realizes that his book is just “a drop in the ocean” and he hopes that it triggers a chain, comparing it with a “drop of blood in a sea of sharks” (p. 14). political philosophy, he concludes, has more point “when more people are aware of it” (p. 14). the book consists of three chapters, each of them discovers the particular point of political philosophy. floyd writes that the book’s structure is simple. however, it is only partly true. floyd does not show his cards right away and keeps his reader intrigued, thus motivating her to read it to the end while making things more complex. the first chapter, which explains what political philosophy is, has eight sections. at the same time, perhaps the hardest “how-to” chapter has only three parts (introduction and conclusion do not count), each representing a task (or, more precise, a way of doing political philosophy). finally, the last chapter explaining why doing political philosophy is divided into five essential parts. it is noteworthy that the first and last chapters are divided into more subsections than the how-ish one. floyd hopes that through this book he would be able to alter the role of political philosophy in the “wider public imagination” (p. 9). the first chapter is devoted to answering the question what political philosophy is. starting with simple accounts and coming to the big question “political philosophy is a subject concerned with […] what?” (p. 16), floyd provides a number of the subject’s definitions. he aims to formulate here the proper definition of political philosophy. by giving some of the examples, floyd, first of all, elaborates the working definition of political philosophy, saying that its primary business is “prescription and proscription”, “rather than understanding, explanation, comparison, prediction” (p. 17). through a three-stage argument (premise, deduction, further deduction), the author comes to the two options: conceptual and institutional approaches. he also adds to this puzzle a blurring of two quite separate domains: normative and descriptive, which is clearly arguable. floyd realizes that all these distinctions eventually create a total terminological mess. that is why he offers to consider definitions that describe the subject “in terms of specific problems, each of which combines both concepts and institutions” (p. 22). floyd tries to discover the rationale behind selections of the set of chosen relevant problems. the essential role in this enterprise is given to interpretation. there are problems, tasks, concepts, or even thinkers that define the subject. but what unifies those things? how to find the golden mean in defining political philosophy, making it neither too narrow, nor too broad? to determine the scope changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 407–411 409 and borders of the subject, floyd defines philosophy through its organising question, namely “how should we live?”, which has “both sufficiently inclusive and sufficiently exclusive” (p. 32) focus and starting point. he thinks that political philosophy should be separated from moral philosophy (“how should i live?”) on the one hand and social science (“how do we live?”) on the other. the question of separation is one of the hottest topics of the disciplines, and i think this kind of argument needs more elaboration. after that, floyd emphasizes the importance of subordinate (or second) questions to the organising question while also acknowledging the role of alternative questions. in the last section, floyd explains why answers to the organising question have different forms. he is sure that it should be principles, not precise policies, although they are inseparable because the “whys” always follow the “hows” (p. 40). what principles or combinations of principles answer the organising question best? floyd concludes that all considered definitions complement each other and attempt to answer the organising question. the second chapter is devoted to explaining three constitutive tasks of political philosophy: these are analysis, critique, and ordering. floyd notices that these tasks are “complementary, not competitive” (p. 44). analysis is aimed to clarify concepts understood as “particular variable-ideas and problem-ideas” (p. 46). variables are ideas we want to control, problems are ideas we want to avoid. however, floyd claims that we also can analyse principles as well. he provides numerous examples of this kind of activity, such as analysing the concept of equality that breaks up into either formal (focusing on racism, religious intolerance etc.), or substantive (similar chances) equality of opportunity (the same options), and equality of condition (equal amount of goods). regarding the second form of activity, critique, floyd holds that the key claim of this way of doing political philosophy is understood in three variants: “dangerous implications, inconsistency, suspicious roots” (p. 59). problematic implications can be either wrong assumptions or negative consequences of a given view. inconsistency implies that a principle has two or more incompatible ideas or commitments within it. “suspicious roots” means that the origins of the idea (or set of ideas) can be misleading because of its history, and thus rejected. the author considers marx’s claim about the ruling class and nietzsche’s idea of genealogy as examples. floyd concludes that although critique does not answer the organising question, it greatly contributes to it. ordering, as the third stage in the process of political philosophizing, is aimed “to build on earlier critical work by telling us exactly which answer to our subject’s organising question should guide us” (p. 74). it has two criteria: to be convincing and to be meaningful. floyd calls the standard way of ordering as mentalism or “thinking about thinking” (p. 76). this form of the ordering process is composed of two steps: extraction and elimination. extraction, meaning deriving principles from our normative thoughts, has three forms: impartial choices of the ideal state, considered judgements, intuitive choices of abstract principles. however, extraction is problematic because it may lead to incompatibility of many normative principles. elimination is a key stage, aimed to leave us with only one answer on political philosophy’s organising question. https://changing-sp.com/ 410 daniil i. kokin the role of elimination is paramount: floyd states that it is “three-quarters” of our argument. it is similar to critique but is used “as a means of undermining particular ordering” (p. 81) of a set of principles and also engages feasibility constraints: “because we cannot achieve such things, we ought not to pursue them” (p. 83). the result of ordering our thoughts is flexible in three ways. first, it can be either universal and timeless or just local and contemporary. second, it can be more or less idealistic, and, finally, individually or collectively established. however, it all “ultimately depends on the content of the normative thought we work with” (p. 84). it is possible to use various methods to prove our way of ordering. here floyd employs the findings from his previous book (floyd, 2017) by offering the alternative way of ordering called normative behaviourism. its key feature is that normative principles are based not on thoughts and normative commitments but the practice of people, on their behavior. the final chapter starts with exploring the reasons why one might want to do political philosophy. the first reason is intrinsic interest. a person can just find the subject curious, intriguing, and fascinating in many ways. second, doing political philosophy can be motivated by the wish to orient yourself “in the face of confusion, complexity, and conflict” (p. 96). finally, one can have in mind the goal of making a society she lives in a better place both in theory and practice. for through doing political philosophy you spread ideas, arguments and thoughts making people think about the way they would like to live. in the final sections, floyd reflects on how much influence political philosophy has today in real politics. the key thought here is that political philosophy influences our lives in numerous, sometimes unexpected, ways. he claims that rather than trying to educate the leaders, “we should think about reaching thousands, millions, even billions of people” (p. 125). the overall idea of the last chapter is to show that the key point of political philosophy is to change the world by orientating individuals and by benefiting societies through the production of ideas and arguments. the book might leave a mixed impression. the reader can think that there is only one true answer to the organising question. however, i believe that political philosophy is not only about searching for truth in the political realm. it is also about elaborating valid and reasonable positions, arguments, and principles that are relevant for the particular zeitgeist, and do not relate to the organising question in any way. as the work might be of interest for scholars, they can easily notice some inaccuracies across the quotations and references. for instance, some definitions of political philosophy are taken out of context (mcafee & howard, 2018), some concepts are used terminologically inaccurately (rawls’ reflective equilibrium), some books have only a part of their names (blau, 2017). however, it does not make floyd’s overall argument less valuable or less valid, for it remains clear throughout the book. floyd hopes that after reading this book one would want to read more political philosophy. whether he succeeded in explaining the point of political philosophy is up to the reader, who, i believe, will enjoy this book, either by agreeing or disagreeing with the main argument or by reflecting upon the role of political philosophy. in other words, after finishing the book, the reader will not remain indifferent to its points, regardless of the group s/he belongs to. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 407–411 411 references blau, a. (ed). (2017). methods in analytic political theory. cambridge: cambridge university press. estlund, d. (ed). (2012). the oxford handbook of political philosophy. oxford: oxford university press. floyd, j. (2017) is political philosophy impossible? thoughts and behaviour in normative political theory. cambridge: cambridge university press. goodin, r. e., pettit, p., & pogge, t. (eds). (2007). a companion to contemporary political philosophy. second edition. malden, ma: blackwell publishing. mansfield, h. c. (2001). a student’s guide to political philosophy. wilmington, delaware: isi books. mcafee, n., & howard, k. b. (2018) feminist political philosophy. zalta, e. n. (ed). the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. retrieved from https://plato.stanford. edu/archives/win2018/entries/feminism-political miller, d. (2003). political philosophy: a very short introduction. oxford: oxford university press. parvin, p., & chambers, c. (2012). political philosophy: a complete introduction. london: hodder & stoughton. swift, a. (2019). political philosophy: a beginner’s guide for students and politicians. fourth edition. cambridge: polity press. https://changing-sp.com/ https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/feminism-political https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/feminism-political changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 63–82 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.1.122 received 8 november 2020 © 2021 nadezhda k. radina, daria s. belyashova accepted 10 march 2021 nradina@hse.ru published online 19 april 2021 dashha19@yandex.ru article digital political participation of western and eastern parts of germany residents (based on change.org online petitions) nadezhda k. radina daria s. belyashova national research university higher school of economics, nizhny novgorod, russia abstract the article shows the results of a study aimed at finding the determinants, which describe the petitioning activity of the residents of the western and eastern parts of germany. the research material consists of 1,036 petitions from the german-language segment of change.org during the period of 2012–2018 (322 petitions from eastern part of germany, 714 petitions from western part of germany). a thematic classifier based on the analysis of electronic petitions was created. it subdivided all the petitions into 18 thematic groups, for example, human rights, animal protection, culture, politics, migration issues, proposals for reforming certain areas of life, transport system, internet, protection and support for people with disabilities and rare diseases, financial questions, environmental protection, housing issues, weapons/spirits/tobacco/drugs, healthcare, elderly people, education, sports, sustainable development. statistically significant differences between western and eastern territories were found only in the animal protection thematic group. it is stated that the bipolar construct east/west rooted in the historical logic of the legacy of socialism and capitalism on the german territories could not explain the logic of the petitioning activity of the contemporary germans. moreover, the historical heritage/separation factor is found in the socio-economic problems of the regions, but it is not critical while determining the values and civic activism of german people. https://changing-sp.com/ 64 nadezhda k. radina, daria s. belyashova introduction contemporary germany has a complex of territories that are both connected and divided historically. the unification of germany at the end of the 20th century formed a unique platform that allows researchers to study and compare the processes occurring in the western and eastern parts of germany in the context of historical (namely socialist) heritage and at the same time in the context of the formation of modern relations between european territories. the purpose of this article is to conduct a comparative analysis of digital political participation of residents of the western and eastern parts of germany in the form of online petitions to discuss the role of historical experience in shaping modern civil action strategies of the studied territories. the problem of the division of germany can be presented in a variety of contexts: centuries-old fragmentation of territories, mismatch of the borders of the germanlanguage space with state borders, absence of a unified capital for a long period, confessional division of german lands into the protestant north and the catholic south, etc. (rogozhin, 2011). throughout its existence, germany experienced not only regional, confessional, etc. “disintegration”, but also an especially acute split of the national identity of the population after the second world war (shultse, 2007). the reunification of germany in 1989 was “epoch-making” (weidenfeld & körte, 1991); it opened up opportunities for new searches in identity-building (klein, 2014; korotetskaya, 2012). at the same time, the period of existence of the east germany (officially the german democratic republic), and the west germany (officially the federal republic of germany), according to researchers, formed rigid ideological and political borders that divided the east and the west of the country, the so-called “mental barrier” appeared in the minds of germans, which differentiated all germans on the basis of their belonging to the lands of the gdr or frg (kauganov, 2013; poptsov, 2015). the last thirty years of the coexistence of german territories, have undoubtedly changed the self-awareness and self-perception of a united society, however, researchers looking at economic, cultural, political, psychological, social, etc. differences between the eastern and western lands do not give an unambiguously positive answer to the question of “equalization”, “achievement of similarity” or complete integration of territories. comparing eastern and western parts, researchers study: • socio-economic and demographic problems, which, as a rule, are more acute in the eastern lands, namely unemployment (semerikova, 2014), labour productivity (burda & severgnini, 2015); health (prütz et al., 2014), birth rates (klüsener & goldstein, 2012; vatterrott, 2011); education and iq (roivainen, keywords germany, online petition, electronic petition, digital political participation, change.org acknowledgement the work was supported by the grant of the russian foundation for basic research (no. 18-011-00140-а) changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 63–82 65 2012); cultural problems (including the problem of “second-class citizens”) (ushkevich, 2003), etc.; • problems of internal migration from the eastern to western part and within eastern lands (heiland, 2004; sander, 2014), as well as the impact of external migration on regional imbalances (scherr, 2013); • problems of decentralization and recentralization of the german federal system (wollmann, 2017), including the problem of “levelling” of the territories (lavrovskiy, 2001), territorial inequality (best, 2011; zawilska-florczuk, 2011), and the reproduction of neocolonialist relationships between eastern and western lands (klyuter & klyuter, 2001). only a few researchers express optimistic or non-trivial ideas (for example, in favor of the eastern territories) reproducing the context of comparison of the eastern and western lands (klüsener & goldstein, 2012; zawilska-florczuk & ciechanowicz, 2011). the majority of them, however, state that the rapprochement of east and west within the borders of one country is slower than it was expected with the unification of germany in 1989 (the process of unification of germany: 9 november 1989 [fall of the berlin wall] – 3 october 1990 [german unity day]). researchers approach comparative studies of the western and eastern parts of germany in the political sphere even more carefully, since the question of the “soviet legacy” is still very delicate (molodikova & lyalina, 2017). electronic petitions and digital political participation in this study, a comparative analysis focuses on the field of digital political participation of german population in the form of creating and supporting electronic petitions. in modern political science, political participation is one of the main theoretical categories and is defined as an activity whose main purpose is to influence the actions of the authorities (golbraykh, 2016). researchers distinguish between conventional (regulated by law, legal) and non-conventional (rejected by most of the society for religious, moral and other reasons) forms of political participation (malinovskiy, 2013). conventional forms include participation in elections, petition signing, meetings with political functionaries, legal strikes, demonstrations, etc. unconventional forms include participation in unauthorized demonstrations, illegal strikes, seizure of official buildings, traffic blocking, pickets, etc. (lamprianou, 2013). with the development of information technologies and digital political communication, offline political participation has also “grown” into digital forms of activity. researchers focusing on different forms of digital political participation (van deth, 2014) believe that there is no fundamental difference between online and offline activity. they distinguish between offline forms of political participation, hybrid forms, universal forms (such as electronic petition, whose digital format is determined exclusively by information technology), and those typical only of the online format (online commenting, reposts, links, in exceptional cases, even “likes”, etc.). considering that the electronic (online) petition is a universal form of political https://changing-sp.com/ 66 nadezhda k. radina, daria s. belyashova participation combining online and offline forms, digital activity allows online petitions to reach a new level of publicity, to become a more effective instrument of political influence (lindner & riehm, 2009). in contemporary research, online petitions are seen as a form of democratic innovation and a way to involve new populations in civic engagement (demushina, 2016). a number of analytical works convincingly prove that online petitions represent informative material for studying civic initiatives, political culture, various forms of civic resistance, etc. (berg, 2017). online petitions are submitted or filed on the internet using special portals, which can attract the widest public attention possible to the problem (lin, 2012). in addition to national resources for creation of online petitions and organizing polls, there exist international ones that operate in various languages, such as the online platform change.org (halpin et al., 2018). methods and materials this study is based on the concept of digital political participation understood as actions taken by ordinary members of the political system to influence the results of its activities. we use thematic mapping of petitions with the antconc software (analysis of lexical units in electronic texts), hierarchical cluster analysis, and χ2 criterion (chi-square of pearson) to determine statistically significant differences between numerical indicators. the empirical base of the study was extracted from the online platform change.org using the tools written in the python programming language. it consists of german-language texts related to germany. the total empirical base includes 1,036 petitions and covers the period since the creation of the german-language version of the platform change.org (from 2012 to march 2018). 322 petitions were originated in the lands of east germany (brandenburg, mecklenburg-vorpommern, saxony, saxony-anhalt and thuringia, berlin) and 714 petitions in the lands of west germany (baden-württemberg, bavaria, bremen hamburg, hesse, lower saxony, north rhine-westphalia, rhineland-palatinate, saarland and schleswig-holstein). among all the petitions filed, 193 petitions received the status of “victory” (63 petitions from the eastern part of germany and 130 from the western part). we have chosen the digital resource change.org due to the fact that this international platform for creating electronic petitions is one of the most popular non-governmental and publicly available online petition platforms in germany as in many other countries. results submitting petitions and collecting votes for petitions is a common practice of civic activism in germany. in accordance with the basic law of the federal republic of germany as amended on 17 july, 1975 (article 45c), a special petition committee was created in the federal republic of germany. complaints and requests forwarded to the bundestag go directly to the petition committee whose representatives consider changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 63–82 67 the complaints received. however, a petition must collect at least 50 thousand votes in order to be in the spotlight of the petition committee. the non-governmental german-language version of the platform change.org was launched in july 2012 and currently has more than 3.5 million users. any internet user can create a petition or sign the petition for which one is ready to cast one’s vote on the change.org platform. to create a petition, one must register on the website or log in to the website from a facebook1 account. no limit of votes has been established to determine the success (victory) of the petition – it all depends on the specific problem and the conditions for its resolution. after collecting votes and organizing a public relations campaign on social networks, the creator of the petition passes it to the authorities to solve the problem. if the problem is resolved, the author of the petition marks it as successful/completed on change.org. thus, submitted petitions reflect the aspirations of the population, and those supported reflect the willingness of the authorities or business to resolve a range of problems formulated in the petitions. classification of petitions we identified, classified, and grouped keywords to create a thematic classifier from the collection of downloaded petition texts using the antconc software. as a result, eighteen thematic groups united by a common problem were identified: • human rights (recht, unterstützung, demokratie, etc.); • animal protection (hund, tier, wolf, zirkus etc.); • culture (eastsidegallery, weimar, bach, kultur etc.); • politics (politik, der europäische feiertag, etc.); • migration issues (flüchtlinge, integration, etc.); • proposals for improvement of certain areas of life (sommerzeit, zeitumstellung, verbraucherschutz etc.); • transport system (bahn, verkehr, flughafen, etc.); • internet (livestreamgarantie, teamviewer, network etc.); • protection and support for people with disabilities and rare diseases (hilfe, behinderung, erkrankungen, etc.); • financial issues (geld, discounter, grundeinkommen etc.); • environmental protection (ozeane, abgas-skandal, etc.); • housing issues (bezahlbare wohnungen, bgb-vorschriften etc.); • weapons/alcohol/tobacco/drugs (kleinwaffen, todesopfer, freies verkaufsrecht, die spätis, alkohol, tabak etc.); • healthcare (krankenversicherung, psychologische hilfe, medizinische kontrollinstanz etc.); • elderly people (ghettorenten gerechtigkeit, gegen einsamkeit im alter, senioren etc.); • education (ganztagsschule, studenten, grundschule, etc.); • sports (olympischer sportbund, sport etc.). 1 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 68 nadezhda k. radina, daria s. belyashova • sustainable development (toxicsubstances, windenergieanlagen, gefahrengutlagers etc.). this thematic classifier was used to divide the petitions into thematic groups: all the petitions were assigned to one or another thematic group with the keywords used in the petition (one of eighteen). petitions that ended up in the “human rights” group included appeals calling against any discrimination. animal protection petitions called for humane attitude toward animals. the “culture” group addressed problems associated with the preservation of historical and cultural heritage objects (galleries, theaters, museums, historical parks, squares, reserves, etc.). the “politics” group included petitions related to both domestic and foreign policies of the state. “migration issues” combined petitions in support of refugees, as well as petitions against the policy of “open doors”, etc. the group “proposals for improvement of certain areas of life” included petitions to cancel the clock being put forward daylight saving time in germany, ban the installation of garbage bins in front of the houses, cancel fireworks on new year’s eve, etc. the “transport system” group included petitions of the respective subject. the “internet” group included petitions about video games, creation of the south park application for android2, change of twitter3 interface and others. the group “protection and support for people with disabilities and rare diseases” comprises petitions on the social protection of these population categories. the “financial issues” group combined petitions related to the state budget system (equitable financing, minimum wage, basic income, etc.). the “environmental protection” group included petitions on limiting the negative impact of human activity on nature (limiting atmospheric emissions, preserving forest complexes and marine ecosystems, etc.) the “housing issues” group included petitions on affordable housing, speculation in residential and commercial real estate, on rent increase, laws to promote housing cooperatives, etc. in the group “weapons/alcohol/tobacco/ drugs” were petitions on restriction of arms sale, free sale of alcohol and tobacco, legalization of marijuana, etc. the “healthcare” group included petitions representing a set of medical measures aimed to strengthen and preserve the mental and physical health of citizens of the federal republic of germany, make the quality medical care accessible, and expand preventive measures in the field of health. the group of “elderly people” included petitions calling for social protection of citizens of elderly for insurance of their high standard of living (clubs for older people, reduced retirement age, programs against loneliness in old age, etc.). the “sports” group included petitions related to change of olympic sports rules, exclusion of wrestling from olympic disciplines, ban of pepper spray at football stadiums, preservation of men’s teams in tennis, etc. the “education” group included appeals for recruitment of teachers to elementary schools, introduction of “nature management and environmental protection” course into kindergarten curriculum, maintenance of educational forums, winter holidays for all students, etc. the “sustainable development” group was made of petitions with proposals for improvement of environmental and technological profile of people’s lives: resolution to 2 android™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 3 twitter™ is a trademark of twitter inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 63–82 69 the problems of working at hazardous nuclear power plants in belgium, health threat of toxic substances and pesticides, expansion of wind generators, and protection of people living nearby on the electricity routes, etc. based on the identified eighteen topics, all german-language petitions territorially associated with germany were retrieved from change.org archives (1,036 petitions), divided into eighteen groups and analyzed in the context of lands (modern territorial units of germany), taking into account the historical division of east/west germany. subjects/themes of filed petitions: eastern and western parts of germany for the period from 2012 to 2018, the number of online petitions created on change.org varies significantly across federal lands. three groups of territories are distinguished: territories where the activity of creating and promoting petitions on change.org is low, medium and high. federal states with low petition activity: mecklenburg-vorpommern (13 online petitions), saxony-anhalt (15 online petitions), free state of thuringia (16 online petitions), brandenburg (18 online petitions), saarland (12 online petitions), the free hanseatic city of bremen (10 online petitions), the free state of saxony (42 online petitions), rhineland-palatinate (37 online petitions), schleswig-holstein (32 online petitions). territories with medium activity: baden-württemberg (98 online petitions), lower saxony (80 online petitions), the free hanseatic city of hamburg (72 online petitions), hesse (62 online petitions). areas with high activity in creation and promotion of petitions: berlin (218 online petitions), north rhine-westphalia (178 online petitions), the free state of bavaria (133 online petitions). it follows that the total number of petitions filed in eastern germany is 322 petitions, and in western germany is 714 petitions. this disproportion is due to the population, since the population of the western part of germany is four times bigger than the population of the eastern part (wollmann, 2017). at the same time, there is a significant differentiation in the number of requests in the eastern part of germany: a high concentration of online petitions is in the capital of berlin (218 petitions), and 104 petitions (one third of the total) fall on the rest of the land (see figure 1). figure 1 petition activity of the eastern german lands (number of petitions) (%) 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 mecklenburgvorpommern saxony-anhalt thuringia saxony brandenburg berlin https://changing-sp.com/ 70 nadezhda k. radina, daria s. belyashova berlin is a unique territory in germany that is highly focused on the advancement of online requests (it is also a territory integrating socialist and capitalist heritage). in the western part of germany, creating online petitions on change.org seems to be even more (see figure 2). figure 2 petition activity of the western lands of germany (number of petitions) (%) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 bavaria badenwurttemberg bremen hamburg hesse lower saxony north rhinewestphalia rhinelandpalatinate saarland schleswigholstein a comparative analysis of the petitions in western and eastern parts of germany representing thematic groups in accordance with the classifier presented above confirms that the problems motivated the creation of online petitions are similar in east and west. statistically significant differences (p<0.05) between online petitions created by residents of the western and eastern parts of germany are present only in relation to petitions for animal welfare: the theme of animal welfare is a priority for seven western federal lands. in the eastern part of germany, the theme of “animal welfare” is also popular, but it is just one of many significant problems, while in the west it is a leading one. when comparing statistically insignificant differences between the reasons for petitioning of western and eastern lands, the regional specificity is obvious, which, without statistics, can be attributed to speculation. however, the list of eastern lands “special petitions” (petitions on housing issues: petitions against weapons/alcohol/tobacco/drugs, petitions on the elderly/ senior citizens), and the list of petitions typical only of western lands (petitions on education, sports, sustainable development of society) are evidently different. the challenges of the eastern (“survival”) territories contrast with the challenges of western (“development”) territories. these signs seem to preserve the deprivation motives in the description of the eastern lands and the super-prosperity motives of the description of western ones; however, the identified differences do not look convincing enough against the background of the dominant similarity of the territories. subjects/themes of winning petitions: eastern and western parts of germany petitions registered on change.org and their voting indicators reveal the character of the public problems of territories being more or less supported (and shared) by other residents. at the same time, online petitions with the status of “victory” indicate the interests of those institutions and groups who are the recipients of electronic communications and have the power to “execute petitions”. by analyzing the winning changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 63–82 71 petitions, one can obtain information on the spheres and problems of public life in which the real interaction between the authorities and citizens is localized. in the entire collection of online petition texts from eastern part of germany, more than half are attached to the city of berlin (63 of 322 filed electronic petitions have the status of “victory”, which is 20%, that is, every fifth petition). the winning petitions were from the thematic groups “animal welfare”, “human rights”, “preservation of cultural heritage”, “migration issue”, “politics”. however, the number of votes did not become a factor affecting success. for example, the petition aiming to develop the south park application for android was implemented, although the appeal received the smallest number of votes (33). example of a winning petition: fs (id1518168) 09.05.2014 (33 participants) „eine south park app für android!” (south park application for android)4. example of a winning petition: nico trinkhaus (id3664055) 29.06.2015 (463,969 participants) „lassen sie raju, den weinenden elefanten, in freiheit leben!“ (let raju, the crying elephant, live in freedom)5. the largest campaign among the winning petitions is the campaign for freedom of taking photographs in public places (555,232 participants). in the eastern lands of mecklenburg-vorpommern and saxony-anhalt, the two winning petitions (concerning financial issues, social protection of vulnerable groups, as well as the protection of animals and migration problems). in the lands of thuringia and brandenburg – three winning petitions per each (animal welfare, migration issues and financial issues). in saxony – four (petitions on human rights, migration issues, etc.). let us consider the frequency of winning petitions in the eastern part of germany in a comparative context by subject (see figure 3). figure 3 comparative analysis of topics of winning online petitions on change.org in the eastern part of germany (%) 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 filed petitions victorious petitions note. 1 – human rights; 2 – animal protection; 3 – culture; 4 – politics; 5 – migration issue; 6 – proposals for improvement of certain areas of life; 7 – transport system; 8 – internet (games, internet, networks); 9 – protection and support for people with disabilities and rare diseases; 10 – financial issues; 11 – environmental protection; 12 – housing issues; 13 – weapons/spirits/ tobacco/drugs; 14 – healthcare; 15 – elderly people 4 https://www.change.org/p/south-park-digital-studios-llc-comedy-central-eine-south-park-appf%c3%bcr-android 5 https://www.change.org/p/lassen-sie-raju-den-weinenden-elefanten-in-freiheit-leben https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.change.org/p/south-park-digital-studios-llc-comedy-central-eine-south-park-app-f%c3%bcrhttps://www.change.org/p/south-park-digital-studios-llc-comedy-central-eine-south-park-app-f%c3%bcrhttps://www.change.org/p/lassen-sie-raju-den-weinenden-elefanten-in-freiheit-leben 72 nadezhda k. radina, daria s. belyashova the ratio of submitted and winning petitions shows not only the ranking of actual problems of the regions, but also the consistency of activity of those who submit petitions and vote for them and those who are authorized to fulfill the requests of the petitioners. in the eastern part of germany, petitions in favor of animal protection and petitions about financial problems are becoming outstanding in terms of the likelihood of their victory. addressees authorized to solve the problems of petitioners eagerly respond to problems of finance and animal welfare (the winning percentage of petitions for financial concerns and animal welfare among all petitions is higher than the percentage of petitions created for finance and animals). example of a winning petition on animal protection: laura pastoors (id12539674) 14.10.2017 (23,228 participants) „gegen den abschuss von 6 welpen in thüringen“ (against the execution of 6 puppies in thuringia)6. example of a winning petition on financial issues: wendula strube (id826358) 28.10.2012 (792 participants) „die praxisgebühr von 10,00 euro pro quartal ersatzlos streichen“ (practice fee of eur 10.00 per quarter is cancelled)7. social protection issues for people with disabilities are also supported in a 1 to 5 ratio: every fifth petition on this subject has received the status of “victory”. here is an example of a winning petition on protecting people with disabilities: lebenshilfe (id7437110) 30.06.2016 (71,290 participants) „teilhabe statt ausgrenzung von menschen mit geistiger behinderung!“ (inclusion instead of marginalization of people with intellectual disabilities)8. problems related to housing, weapons (including alcohol, smoking and drugs), as well as healthcare, did not find support from the recipients of the petitions. being representatives of the authorities, as a rule, they showed much less interest in petitions on environmental issues, the internet and transport. petitions on migration issues, human rights, politics or the preservation of cultural heritage were supported by representatives of the authorities of the eastern part of germany, but the likelihood of their support was generally lower than that of popular topics. example of a winning petition on migration issues: daniel zeller (id7326347) 18.06.2016 (12,862 participants) „familie brkiss aus potsdam braucht dauerhaftes bleiberecht!“ (potsdam’s brkiss family needs permanent residency)9. example of a winning petition on politics: david caspers (id11842012) 20.03.2017 (18,800 participants) „gegen alternative fakten im wahlkampf – mehr informationen für deutschland!“ (against alternative facts in the election campaign – more information for germany!)10. 6 https://www.change.org/p/gegen-den-abschuss-von-6-welpen-in-th%c3%bcringen 7 ht tps://w w w.change.org/p/die-pra xisgeb%c3%bchr-von-10 00 -eur-pro-quar tal-ersatzlosstreichen 8 h t t p s : // w w w. c h a n g e .o r g / p / t e i l h a b e s t a t t a u s g r e n z u n g v o n m e n s c h e n m i t g e i s t i g e rbehinderung 9 https://www.change.org/p/familie-brki%c4%87-aus-potsdam-braucht-dauerhaftes-bleiberecht 10 ht tps: // w w w.change.org /p/gegen -alter nati ve -fak ten im -wahlkampfmehrinfor mationen f%c3%bcr-deutschland?redirect=false https://www.change.org/p/gegen-den-abschuss-von-6-welpen-in-th%c3%bcringen https://www.change.org/p/die-praxisgeb%c3%bchr-von-10-00-eur-pro-quartal-ersatzlos-streichen https://www.change.org/p/die-praxisgeb%c3%bchr-von-10-00-eur-pro-quartal-ersatzlos-streichen https://www.change.org/p/teilhabe-statt-ausgrenzung-von-menschen-mit-geistiger-behinderung https://www.change.org/p/teilhabe-statt-ausgrenzung-von-menschen-mit-geistiger-behinderung https://www.change.org/p/familie-brki%c4%87-aus-potsdam-braucht-dauerhaftes-bleiberecht https://www.change.org/p/gegen-alternative-fakten-im-wahlkampf-mehr-informationen-f%c3%bcr-deutschla https://www.change.org/p/gegen-alternative-fakten-im-wahlkampf-mehr-informationen-f%c3%bcr-deutschla changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 63–82 73 therefore, the recipients of the online petitions on change.org related to the settlements of the eastern part of germany, (the authorities, as a rule) willingly support petitions to protect animals, to resolve financial issues and petitions on the social protection of people with disabilities. every fifth electronic petition created to address such issues was most likely to receive support. the total amount of the winning petitions in the western part of germany for the study period is 130 (130 of 714 filed electronic petitions have the status of “victory”, which is 18% representing every fifth petition, as in the east). the most frequent topics of the winning petitions are “animal welfare”, “culture”, “migration issue”, “human rights” and “proposals for changing certain areas of life”. most online petitions were implemented in the federal lands of north rhine-westphalia (30 petitions), lower saxony (22 petitions), bavaria (21 petitions) and hamburg (12 petitions). in the remaining lands, fewer than 10 successful campaigns were recorded. the least support among users was received by the petition, which was submitted to change.org in support of firetv av-receiver modems. example of a winning petition karl wester-ebbinghaus (id12807029) 29.11.2017 (9 participants) „amazon: vollständige unterstützung von firetv stick (2017) an technisch geeigneten av receivern!“ (amazon: full firetv stick (2017) support on technically suitable av receivers)11. a comparative analysis of submitted and winning online petitions posted on the non-governmental resource change.org from the western part of germany shows the following results (see figure 4). figure 4 comparative analysis of topics of winning online petitions on change.org in the western part of germany (%) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 filed petitions victorious petitions note. 1 – animal protection; 2 – politics; 3 – human rights; 4 – migration issue; 5 – proposals for improvement of certain areas of life; 6 – environmental protection; 7 – culture; 8 – financial issues; 9 – internet (games, internet, networks); 10 – transport system; 11 – sustainable development; 12 – education; 13 – protection and support for people with disabilities and rare diseases; 14 – healthcare; 15 – sports 11 https://www.change.org/p/amazon-vollst%c3%a4ndige-unterst%c3%bctzung-von-firetv-stick2017-an-technisch-geeigneten-av-receivern https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.change.org/p/amazon-vollst%c3%a4ndige-unterst%c3%bctzung-von-firetv-stick-2017-an-techni https://www.change.org/p/amazon-vollst%c3%a4ndige-unterst%c3%bctzung-von-firetv-stick-2017-an-techni 74 nadezhda k. radina, daria s. belyashova two topics – animal welfare and sports – are most likely to resonate with addressees of petitions (the first group). there are few petitions devoted to sports topics (11 petitions, 5 of them won), whereas popular problems of animal welfare among residents of the western part of germany turned out to be even more popular with the recipients/addressees of petitions (usually representatives of the authorities) of the western part of germany (every fourth petition with the status of “victory” belongs precisely to petitions defending animals). example of a winning petition on animal protection: stefanie braun (id1015513) 15.02.2013 (60 participants) „dr. tonio borg, eu-kommissar: verbietet kosmetika die an tieren getestet werden!“ (dr. tonio borg, eu commissioner: prohibit animal-tested cosmetics!)12. example of a winning petition about sports: felix schatter (id1012226) 12.02.2013 (6,757 participants) „deutscher olympischer sportbund: votum gegen den ausschluss des ringens von den olympischen disziplinen“ (german olympic sports confederation: vote against exclusion of wrestling from olympic disciplines)13. the next group brings together online petitions, which have approximately the same percentage of created petitions, and winning petitions: petitions for human rights, migration issues, culture, education, social protection and sustainable development. example of a winning petition about the problems of education: jan waldmann (id1304857) 17.09.2013 (5,058 participants) „uni hamburg: lassen sie uns nicht mit einem unfertigen uniabschluss zurück. unsere zukunft hängt davon ab!“ (university of hamburg: do not leave us with incomplete higher education, our future depends on it!)14. the third group of petitions contained problems that were less often supported in comparison with the frequency of their creation and posting online on change.org. this group includes petitions about political issues, ecology, finance, the internet, transport and healthcare. comparing online petitions on change.org related to the federal republic of germany, it should be noted that the share of winning petitions in the total array of identified petitions is quite large: in fact, in the western and eastern parts of germany, every fifth petition posted on change.org gets the status of “victory”. the recipients of online petitions (usually representatives of the authorities) both in the western and eastern parts of germany act in approximately the same way: the dominant support for petition activity of the inhabitants of germany relates to animal welfare. petition recipients also tend to help people: in the east (mainly in the capital), they usually resolve financial issues and social protection issues, whereas in the west, they support petitions about human rights, migration issues, cultural, educational, social protection, and sustainable development issues. at the level of winning petitions, the differences between eastern and western lands increase. in addition to the expressed interest in the field of animal welfare, 12 ht tps://w w w.change.org/p/dr-tonio-borg-eu-kommissar-verbietet-kosmetika-die-an-tierengetestet-werden?redirect=false 13 https://www.change.org/p/deutscher-olympischer-sportbund-votum-gegen-den-ausschlussdes-ringens-von-den-olympischen-disziplinen-2 14 h t t p s : // w w w. c h a n g e .o r g / p / u n i h a m b u r g l a s s e n s i e u n s n i c h t m i t e i n e m u n f e r t i g e n uniabschluss-zur%c3%bcck-unsere-zukunft-h%c3%a4ngt-davon-ab https://www.change.org/p/dr-tonio-borg-eu-kommissar-verbietet-kosmetika-die-an-tieren-getestet-werde https://www.change.org/p/dr-tonio-borg-eu-kommissar-verbietet-kosmetika-die-an-tieren-getestet-werde https://www.change.org/p/deutscher-olympischer-sportbund-votum-gegen-den-ausschluss-des-ringens-vonhttps://www.change.org/p/deutscher-olympischer-sportbund-votum-gegen-den-ausschluss-des-ringens-vonhttps://www.change.org/p/uni-hamburg-lassen-sie-uns-nicht-mit-einem-unfertigen-uniabschluss-zur%c3%b https://www.change.org/p/uni-hamburg-lassen-sie-uns-nicht-mit-einem-unfertigen-uniabschluss-zur%c3%b changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 63–82 75 which combines the supported petitions of the east and west, the western and eastern petitions with the status of “victory” differ in the breadth of topics. in addition, in the east, two of the three petitions territorially connected with the capital (berlin) receive the status of “victory”, while in the west, the winning petitions are distributed more evenly among the cities. thus, the social (but more often the state) machine supports socio-economic differences as an element of inequality between regions, dividing germany into east and west (among the recipients of the petitions there are also representatives of business, not just representatives of state authorities). does petition activity reproduce the historical division of germany into west and east? answering the question whether petition activity reproduces the historical division of germany it should be acknowledged that it is not reproduced, as the analysis on the materials of submitted petitions shows. first, civic activism associated with the creation and promotion of petitions is characteristic of all territories of germany. second, when classifying the themes of petitions (the problems articulated in them), western and eastern lands represented thematically close groups. the integration of the territories is proved by the results of the clustering of german federal lands according to their thematic preferences in submitting electronic petitions, which allows us to distinguish six groups of federal lands (groups of mainly mixed east-west type) (see figure 5). figure 5 groups of federal lands united by a common theme of electronic petitions 0 5 10 15 20 25 8 16 6 7 3 5 12 13 14 15 11 10 9 2 1 4 mecklenburg-vorpommern schleswig-holstein freie und hansestadt hamburg hessen berlin bremen sachsen sachsen-anhalt nordrhein-westfalen freistaat thüringen saarland rheinland-pfalz niedersachsen baden-württemberg bayern brandenburg https://changing-sp.com/ 76 nadezhda k. radina, daria s. belyashova the first group (the upper one in the figure) consists of the federal lands of mecklenburg-vorpommern (east), schleswig-holstein (west), hamburg (west) which demonstrated a priority to political issues. thus, residents of mecklenburg-vorpommern created petitions aimed to liquidate the eurosceptic and right-wing conservative party alternative for germany. in schleswig-holstein, petitioners protested against the pegida movement. foreign policy petitions prevailed in hamburg. the second group is represented by the single state of hesse. during the period covered in the study, the topics “animal welfare” (17.7%), “politics” (17.7%) and “human rights” (17.7%) turned out to be popular among residents of hesse who submitted electronic petitions. the third group includes the federal lands of berlin and the free hanseatic city of bremen with the most frequent topic of electronic petitions being “human rights”, which involves the fight against racism and racial discrimination, the problem of gender identity, fight against violence against women and children, etc.). both territories are represented by modern metropolitan cities; however, all thematic groups are present in berlin and in bremen (a city with low petitioning activity). there are no online petitions on animal welfare, internet problems and a number of other topics. the fourth group is represented by the federal lands of the eastern part of germany only – saxony and saxony-anhalt – where migration issues lead in petition activity. according to the quotas for the distribution of refugees across federal lands of the federal republic of germany for 2016, 5.08% of refugees arrived in saxony and 2.83% in saxony-anhalt (the western land of north rhine-westphalia accepted most of the refugees [21.21%]) (becker & gurkov, 2016), however, this number of immigrants was enough to provoke protests of the local inhabitants of these lands. most of the online petitions in these lands were submitted in support of the reception of refugees (as a response to the anti-migration speeches of fellow citizens), and the creators of the petitions insisted on preventing the deportation of citizens living for a long time in germany. the fifth and largest group includes the federal lands of north rhine-westphalia, thuringia, saarland, rhineland-palatinate, lower saxony, baden-württemberg, bavaria. the cluster consists of western and eastern lands (thuringia) and is united by the common priority theme of “animal welfare”. the last, sixth group is represented by one eastern federal land, brandenburg. brandenburg is the only land in germany where the “transport system” is the leading issue. the thematic mixing in the groups of western and eastern lands convinces us that not the historical heritage, but the modern factors influence the petitioning activity of the inhabitants of the federal republic of germany. online-petition activity of the eastern and western parts of germany: discussion petitions filed on non-state platforms (without control through registration), especially in the case of multiple voting in their support, reflect the urgent problems that the population faced. an analysis of the problems reflected in the petitions helps the changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 63–82 77 outside observer in determining the quality and living conditions of the petitioners, as the texts of petitions disclose in detail: “he that is warm thinks all are so”. statistically significant differences between the western and eastern lands (a higher number of petitions for animal rights and for ecology, petitions about sports, sustainable development and education, etc.), may be indirect evidence of a higher standard of living in the west of the country. residents of the western territories can afford to worry about the future (ecology, protection and rights for all, including animals) while the eastern ones are still struggling with the problems of the present (housing issues, transportation problems, etc.). nevertheless, the study showed that simply dividing west and east is not enough to interpret the differences in petitioning (civilian) activity of german population. statistically significant differences only formally differentiate between west and east; a more detailed analysis indicates differences between territories within the western and eastern parts. if we abandon the logic of “west/east” (interpretation by means of the historical legacy of capitalism/socialism), what other logic can be used to understand the reasons for the classification revealing the problems of the inhabitants of germany? is it the logic of regional features? urbanization? migration crisis? economic inequality of territories? the so-called donor lands (according to the german model of regional alignment – hesse, bavaria, and baden-württemberg) have a medium or high petition activity. the key problem that worries their population is the protection of animals. nevertheless, a number of regions with lower socio-economic indicators also ended up in the group with federal donor lands. the economic factor explains why donor regions were in this group of petition activity (they actively defend their rights and are concerned about the situation of the most discriminated group in the society – animals), but it does not explain why some of the less economically prosperous territories adhere to the same line of behavior in the field of creating petitions. regional features also only partially reveal the reasons for territories to fall into one group of petitioning activity. for example, hamburg, mecklenburgvorpommern and schleswig-holstein are neighboring lands; the thematic proximity of their petitions is probably explained by the general problems of the “northern territories” of germany (border, frontier territories). however, other border and northern territories do not share the guidelines of the “hamburg group”. at the same time, the fifth (largest) group uniting a significant number of lands does not fit into regional explanation. migration problems can be divided into problems of refugees and problems of partially integrated migrants. the analysis of quotas for migrants does not explain the reasons for the lands that commonly create petitions on migration issues. at the same time, the fourth group (saxony and saxony-anhalt) shows similar indicators for total numbers of unemployed (high rates) and unemployed migrants (low rates) (khrishkevich, 2016). probably, the migration theme (in its contradictory sound) is largely due not so much to the situation and the presence of migrants as to the sociohttps://changing-sp.com/ 78 nadezhda k. radina, daria s. belyashova economic status of the territory (economically successful territories are more patient toward migration issues). the urbanization factor is especially evident when analyzing the formation of the third group (berlin and bremen). these are not just urbanized territories, but student cities with a pronounced liberal ideology. perhaps their petitioning profiles are determined not by economic, frontier, or migration problems, but by social characteristics and intellectual traditions. thus, the results of the present study confirm the need to study economic inequality of germany territories (sirotin, 2008), including the analysis of the regions outside the east/west dichotomy (heiland, 2004; klüsener & goldstein, 2012; sander, 2014), as well as integration aspects of the inhabitants of germany (roivainen, 2012; zawilska-florczuk & ciechanowicz, 2011). conclusion when constructing the research design, initially, the east/west dichotomy was used as the focus in the study of the petition activity of the territories (federal lands) of contemporary germany. it was assumed that this dichotomy would explain the quantitative and qualitative differences in the petition activity of the population. as a result of the study, it was discovered that the east/west bipolar construct, rooted in the historical logic of the legacy of socialism and capitalism in german territories, cannot explain the logic of the petition activity of modern german residents. in the western and eastern parts of germany, the population is actively creating petitions (and posting them on the change.org non-governmental international petition platform), the content of the appeals is determined by a set of problems: the general socio-economic well-being (or disadvantage) of the territory, urbanization, regional features (the role of the frontier territories), the solution of migration issues in the context of the economic problems of the region, etc. statistically significant differences between online petitions created by residents of the western and eastern parts of the federal republic of germany are present only in relation to petitions for the protection of animals (in the western part of germany, animal protection is a key topic). the share of winning petitions in the total body of petitions is large; both in the western and eastern parts of germany, every fifth petition posted on change.org receives the status of “victory”. online petition recipients (government and business representatives) in both the western and eastern parts of germany are more likely to support petitions protecting animals. in addition, the winning petitions in the eastern part of germany support the solution of social protection problems, while in the western part of germany they support the solution of migration problems and address issues of education, culture, social protection and sustainable development. at the level of winning petitions, the differences between the eastern and western parts are increasing; in the east, petitions linked to the capital (berlin) are more likely to receive “victory” status, while in the west, winning petitions are distributed evenly. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 63–82 79 nevertheless, according to the results of the study, the historical heritage/ separation factor is taken into account in the socio-economic problems of the regions, but it is not decisive in determining the values and civic activism of german residents. references becker, a., & gurkov, a. 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(2011). one country, two societies? germany twenty years after reunification. warsaw: ośrodek studiów wschodnich. https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-studies/2011-02-15/one-country-twosocieties-germany-twenty-years-after https://doi.org/10.4054/mpidr-wp-2011-013 https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-studies/2011-02-15/one-country-two-societies-germany-twenty-years-after https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-studies/2011-02-15/one-country-two-societies-germany-twenty-years-after changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.2.094 received 13 may 2020 © 2020 tomáš bubík accepted 30 june 2020 tomas.bubik.@upol.cz published online 9 july 2020 article a graveyard as a home to ghosts or a subject of scholarly research? the czech national cemetery at vyšehrad tomáš bubík palacký university olomouc, czech republic abstract confirmed by a variety of sociological research, modern czech society is considered deeply secular, non-believing, rejecting religious institutions and traditional forms of religion. this paper focuses on a field study of religiosity, namely on funeral artifacts in vyšehrad, the czech national cemetery in prague, the czech republic’s capital. based on the findings of ethnographer wilbur zelinsky, the paper assumes that gravestones in particular record very private, innermost feelings, messages, tidings, and personal values, which can provide us with important knowledge about (especially) the bereaved persons’ attitudes to human ultimate things including religious issues in the moments of a great loss of a loved one, i.e. in the situation of so-called existential crisis. the aim of the paper is to answer two key questions: firstly, how religion (or non-belief) is presented in the czech national cemetery and secondly, to what degree is the gravestones’ character influenced by significant historical events of modern czech history. in other words, how much the image of religion in this nationally important cemetery corresponds with the degree of religiosity researched by standard sociological means. keywords funerary religiosity, national cemetery, czechness, national identity, vyšehrad, non-religion acknowledgment this article has been published as part of the research project “freethought, atheism and secularization in central and eastern european countries in the 20th and 21st centuries”; supported by czech science foundation (gacr), grant no. 18-11345s. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 137 introduction a secular and unbelieving character, latent anticlericalism, apathy and indifference concerning religious questions and even atheism are all positions, which have been linked in recent decades with the czech republic as well as with estonia within the framework of european society (bubík, remmel, & václavík, 2020). contemporary research confirms that religion is not an important theme for czech society and is much less visible in public life than is the case, for example, in the neighbouring countries like poland, slovakia and hungary (máté-tóth, 2019), that is in countries with a similar historical and cultural experience. there is nevertheless a need to distinguish within the positions of the czech population between the relationship to religion and the relationship to churches, that is between the institutionalized form of religion and personal faith, religiosity. in this context we define religion in durkheim’s sense as unified system of beliefs and practices uniting believers into one community (durkheim, 1912/2003, p. 65), whereas religiosity is a personal expression of faith that is not necessarily tied with it. a number of specialized studies dealing with the decline in the importance of religion in czech society are usually based on sociological studies, and they reveal much of importance (hamplová, 2013; horák, 2015; lužný, 1999; nešpor, 2010; václavík, 2009). this is first and foremost a significant decline in trust in religious institutions, rejecting traditional faith, loss of religious identity, as well as civic awareness of the importance of protecting one’s own privacy, in particular, when it comes to questions which are viewed as personal including the relationship to religion. it is nevertheless specifically this fact, the possibility of not answering questions about religious perception (for example, when carrying out a census), which significantly limits sociological inquiry (fialová & nešpor, 2018, p. 210; havlíček, 2019). although it has been clearly demonstrated that the number of people identifying with traditional religious perception has markedly decreased in the czech republic in recent decades, this does not necessarily mean that the number of non-believers or even atheists is growing. whatever the case, the set of so-called “religiously unaffiliated” significantly complicates a scientific view of the actual level of secularization of czech society. specifically, these circumstances can markedly relativize the specialized and lay claims that contemporary czechs rank among the least religious nations at present. this study attempts to take another approach. it is based on the conviction that science needs to focus attention primarily on research into so-called small and narrowly focused issues. contemporary society is extremely different in terms of ideology and values, and social science continues to succumb to the temptation to produce extremely general claims, for example, in connection with the character and level of religiosity or secularity. the author of this study is therefore putting forward the markedly more modest aim, this being to contribute to the study of one of the most important segments of material culture, these being cemeteries as locations with a cultural memory. this study specifically focuses on the vyšehrad cemetery in prague, which is specific in that it has been viewed as the czech national cemetery from as far back as the nineteenth century (gade, 2015). https://changing-sp.com/ 138 tomáš bubík this study is influenced by an emphasis on “a grounded theoretical and inductive approach to religion in locality” propagated by the religious studies scholar kim knott, according to whom the religious and non-religious are situated in the structure of the seeming secular world together. these do not therefore consist of two spheres of reality, which are distinctly separate, but which actually interlink with one another. the author of this study does not therefore share the traditional concept of “the holy and the profane” as ambivalent realities, but is of the opinion that specifically public space, in our case the cemetery, appropriately manifest these two categories. the role of the body is also essential in the framework of the study of religiosity in public space, which in our case will consist of a body (bodies), which is dehumanized. the method of placement of the body into a space actually constructs social reality, thereby giving (the body) a truly specific symbolism (knott, 2005), which can play an important role, for example, in the framework of religious, cultural, historical or political narrative, which they can even mutually link. the body and space will be therefore key components of this study, by means of which we can try to explain not only the processual changes in relationship to death among the czech intelligentsia, but also their relationship to religion. the study of funerary religiosity research into cemetery artefacts of the vyšehrad cemetery follows one essential aim, thus being a contribution to understanding so-called “funerary religiosity” (zelinsky, 2007, p. 453), as we are of the opinion that this type of religiosity is not only neglected, but is also an important component of the study of religiosity as such. although the fact that exploring something such as “funerary religiosity” can sound somewhat strange, it is important to emphasize that this primarily concerns the religiosity of the bereaved, which is manifested first and foremost in the formation of the gravestones of the close deceased and in adaptations to grave sites. the ethnographer wilbur zelinsky, for example, is convinced that gravestones in particular are artefacts expressing extremely internal feelings, messages and a mission, personal values and that “the testimony of cemeteries is some kind of final letter to the world” (zelinsky, 2007, pp. 446–447). laura suchan is also of the opinion that “gravestones are more than just memorials to the deceased” (suchan, 2008, p. 41). it is important in her view to view gravestones and cemeteries differently than merely from the perspective of genealogy. this consists, that is, of a form of expression, which is able to provide insight into the social history of the given society and thus “convey messages about religion” (suchan, 2008, pp. 41–43, 45). in other words, research into cemeteries can provide us with important knowledge about local history, period literature, architecture, art and about religion (mitoraj, 2001, pp. 82–87), or generally said about “mortuary ideology” and its conditioning to religious, social, historical, cultural and economic factors (gorman & diblasi, 1981, p. 79). while the work up until now focused on research into graveyards has been focused on the denominational affiliation of the deceased, the localization of graveyard motifs in various geographical areas, the diversity of iconography, the changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 139 change in gravestone motifs, etc., specifically zelinsky’s research is unique in that it is focused on research into funerary religiosity in connection with the study of the level of secularization. this is based on the fact that the bereaved confronted with the reality of death and mortality, along with the name, date of birth and date of death freely place on gravestones symbols and inscriptions, which correspond with their personal values and convictions. this therefore consists of an extremely sensible form of religiosity, which needs to receive deserved attention even in religious research (zelinsky, 2007, p. 453), and this specifically because it does not have always to correspond with a publicly declared religiosity, can be coordinated or supplemented. zelinsky’s working hypothesis is the assumption, which i also support in this study, that there is a close relationship between “deep down personal religiosity and its funerary expression” (zelinsky, 2007, p. 457). in other words, a person who experiences his faith personally, also expresses it in this manner. the submitted study therefore attempts to make use of this theoretical assumption1. one of its main goals is to therefore capture the changes in the attitudes of the czech intelligentsia to religion in time, along with the onset, character and changes to secular thinking. the research was focused on one concrete cemetery, which is unique in the czech environment. vyšehrad or also the slavín cemetery at the church (basilica from the year 2003) of st. peter and st. paul in vyšehrad in prague, the capital of the czech republic, is a locale where a number of renowned czech personages are buried, including their families. originally, however, only catholic christians were buried in this cemetery, and its western part serves as a burial ground for higher ecclesiastical dignitaries, priests, clergymen and nuns. the reasons behind the selection of this cemetery were several. the first of them is the fact that this cemetery in particular is the modern czech burying ground for a range of personages who contributed significantly to the building of czech national consciousness and the development of czech society. secondly, these people are perceived historically as models and examples of modern czechness. thirdly, there is the assumption that specifically the gravestones of these personages can help us understand the transformations on the relationship of czech society to religion. it is also assumed that the graveyard space, in the same manner as “funerary religiosity” in bohemia, underwent changes as of the nineteenth century which are linked with important ideological and also political milestones of czech history, that is: 1) the period after the year 1848 when transformations to the absolutist system of the austrian empire came about, which the czech lands were part of; 2) developments after the year 1918, which are linked with the emergence of an independent czechoslovakia and the democratization of society; 3) the events after the year 1945, when world war ii came to an end and essential changes in the national composition occurred (the expulsion of one third of the population) in post-war czechoslovakia; 1 zelinsky compares a large amount of data obtained from gravestones in the united states, canada and great britain. the greatest surprise of this research is the fact that the level of british and canadian religiosity recorded on gravestones is permanent and far greater than the american value, even though the united states is generally viewed as an extremely religious society. https://changing-sp.com/ 140 tomáš bubík 4) the events after the year 1948, when the communist regime came to power and the national establishment of atheism; 5) changes after the year 1989, which are linked with the fall of communism, the gradual renewal of democratic society, its differentiation, pluralization, and also marked by great consumerism. in other words, this paper presents the research into “the temporal patterning” (gorman & diblasi, 1981, p. 81) of the content of the gravestones of vyšehrad cemetery and what these gravestones can tell us in a time perspective about attitudes to death, to the nation, to the country and to religion, that is how so-called “mortuary ideology” changed over time, in the key historical stages, which czech society went through in the modern age. in light of the above-mentioned, there will be an attempt to answer two key questions: 1) how and to what extent religion is represented at the czech national cemetery – with the assumption that if this cemetery is a national symbol characterizing modern czechness, then this cultural icon should correspond roughly to the attitudes of czech society to religion in the modern age; 2) whether and to what extent the so-called final letters to the world of this cemetery are influenced by the significant historical events, which czech society underwent in its modern history. in contrast to zelinsky, i am of the opinion that gravestone messages, despite being direct and often of an internal character, are therefore conditioned by an ideological fixation, that is the spirit of the time and key historical events. the idea of the national cemetery in prague the history of europe as well as of the czech lands relate of several key characteristics, which local cemeteries are marked by. so-called “mortuary ideology”, corresponding to established christian tradition and its traditions concerning the character of burial and treatment of remains (of the body) of the deceased, has penetrated deep into social awareness and the legal principles of the particular european countries in existence at present. the traditional character of this “ideology” is based on biblical teachings about the body and physicality, the main idea of which is that the body was created by god and will one-day rise from the dead. the christian concept views death as a transition, which corresponds to the traditional emphasis on a respectable treatment of the body, including the placement of the remains in a chosen piety locale, this being a graveyard. over the course of centuries, a truly thorough manual of burial rituals came about, a prayer practice for the deceased, including so-called commemorative day for the deceased entitled “all souls’ day”. visiting a cemetery, at least on the day of the anniversary of a birth or death of a deceased person, belongs to the unwritten rules, a publicly respected form of piety. emotional respect for a close deceased person is thus a truly natural form of behaviour. with transformations in the area of religious faith in europe, which arise primarily in the reformation, changes also come about in the understanding of changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 141 mortuary ideology, the relationship to the body including attitudes toward death2, which culminates in the modern era in a requirement for a secular burial and with the right to engage with one’s own body (for example, in the form of the so-called cremation movement). according to olga nešporová, “the perception changed as to what behaviour is considered pious (in burial practice), and this in the sense of much greater tolerance for various kinds of treatment” in recent decades (nešporová, 2013, p. 234). it has also become apparent that christian symbolism is retreating to the background and that new parts of cemeteries in the czech republic not only do not make use of christian symbolism, but do not use anything else instead (nešporová, 2013, pp. 237–238). it is therefore clear that a marked change in traditional funeral practice, the customs connected with it, in particular those which are based on christian attitudes to death, is coming about in contemporary czech society. 5522 cemeteries and 266 private graveyards were listed in the czech republic in the year 2006 (eliáš & kotrlý, 2006). vyšehrad cemetery in prague, which is the central locality for the present research, is a piety location, where burials took place, according to archaeological findings from as far back as the eleventh and twelfth centuries (nechvátal, 1991, p. 5). a small graveyard emerged here over the course of time, where burials only took place occasionally (bedrníček, 2008, p. 4). the idea of building a national cemetery specifically at this spot emerged in the 1860s as part of the newly established association of czech writers under the name svatobor, the members of which were renowned personages from the ranks of czech cultural and business life, with the extremely renowned historian františek palacký at the forefront (potoček, 2005, p. 16). a number of nationalist focused catholic priests and later even tomáš g. masaryk, the first president of democratic czechoslovakia from the years 1918 up to 1935 and also his successor in the presidential office edvard beneš, were involved in it. the motto of the association was: pomáhej! osvěcuj! pamatuj! (help! enlighten! remember!). the aim was to support financially czech writing3, in particular impoverished writers, their families and the bereaved as a central element of the national revival and also, which is significant for our purposes, “the celebration of their memory” (liška, 2006, p. 11). help was provided also by means of prizes, scholarships or rewards, which was supposed to develop their further creative work, although this did not consist of only support for literary works, but also scientific work or historical (potoček, 2005, pp. 342–344). there was also a focus on publishing important works written in czech, the building of monuments, gravestones and memorial plaques at places of reverence, which contributed in a significant manner to the development 2 philipe ariés (1977, 1983) distinguishes between the old and the modern approach to death, which are perceived as clearly contradictory. the modern period and man, in contrast to the so-called old approach, do not in his view know how to deal with death and attempts to eliminate it from life. he distinguishes in this sense between the “sauvage’ and “domestiquée” approach to death. 3 literature was viewed as the most important source for national life and the national language, even being viewed as “a holy thing”, as mentioned in ohlášení (announcement) by svatobor, which was printed in národní listy ("the national newspaper") (1862, no. 89). the authors of this text included františek palacký and jan e. purkyně. https://changing-sp.com/ 142 tomáš bubík of national writing and culture, and this not only in the czech lands, but also abroad (potoček, 2005, p. 342). the actual association svatobor came about in the year 1862, this being a time when the czech lands were still a part of the hapsburg monarchy (from the years 1526 to 1918). the political situation in the monarchy, after the revolutionary year of 18484, was liberalized somewhat, leading to more open propagation of national consciousness and patriotism. this led to the idea of founding the national cemetery in an appropriate locality. after a certain period of weighing various possibilities, the choice was made for a locale, which had been the seat of czech political power in the past; it was also the burial site of the first czech king vratislaus i (888–921), from the czech royal přemyslid dynasty, which ruled the přemyslid state from this locale (nechvátal, 1991, p. 7). vyšehrad was an ancient slavic fortress “linked with mythical legends from the oldest national past”. it was viewed in the modern age as “the historical picture of czech life” (balák, 1946, p. 8). a number of renowned personages had been buried here from the time of the establishment of the national cemetery, including the poet karel hynek mácha (1810–1836), the writer božena němcová (1820–1862), the composers bedřich smetana (1824–1884) and antonín dvořák (1841–1904), the painter mikoláš aleš (1852–1913), the writer karel čapek (1890–1938) and a range of others. according to the founders of the association, the true greatness of the nation was to be embodied not only in care for its own history and language, but also in care for “the sons of the nation”, and this not during their lives, but also after their deaths. the national cemetery is therefore a graveyard where czechs are buried not in accordance with their religious allegiance or piety, but in accordance with their loyalty to the language and to the nation. in relation to the study of mortuary ideology, this cemetery is therefore a truly suitable locality. it helped to create the story of czechness, which contributed to the formation of national identity, and also reflects the czech national character. slavín tomb as a czech pantheon the memory of a nation is undoubtedly conditioned by the level of education, the character of the political system, technological development or the ruling ideology. the life stories of renowned persons therefore only have a time-limited length in the framework of the national memory. some of them can even be completely intentionally forgotten, and others, in contrast, recalled. awareness of the societal-wide importance of particular people is not only a generational, but a personal (for example, an intellectual) issue, and this is also the case with the individuals buried at the vyšehrad cemetery, where among the more than 600 buried only a few are still part of currentday general awareness (a number of the buried are, however, their relations). the idea of transforming vyšehrad cemetery into a national graveyard came about, however, gradually (nechvátal, 1991, pp. 8–11). the first separate, so-called national 4 the year 1848 is primarily linked in the hapsburg monarchy with the struggle of hungarians for freedom and independence, which helped other nations or ethnic groups in the monarchy with their efforts. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 143 graves were established with the aim of burying czech writers. we therefore read of one of the newly built graves: “nations cannot disappear if their language is alive”5. the maturity of a nation was supposed to consist of the maturity of the language and its writing. apart from language, there was also an emphasis on, for example, the idea of the country or nation, but language was viewed as the main element for forming continuity of national awareness, national identity and national distinctiveness. it is not therefore the territory, bloodline or religion, but the language allegiance, which is of the greatest importance for self-definition in the modern concept of czechness; it was defined in the nineteenth century in confrontation with germanness and the german language as well as in relation to austrian absolutism and the austrian form of catholicism or austro-catholicism. another idea emerged in the 1880s in connection with discussion about the character of a cemetery, thus being the establishment of a shared honorary tomb. this was not, however, accepted unanimously, with resistance even among the czech intelligentsia (nekula, 2017, pp. 389–390). this was supposed to consist of a so-called czech “pantheon”, a kind of “temple of humanity”, as is written on its epitaph. the tomb was finally built and named slavín (figure 1). it has been situated in the eastern part of vyšehrad cemetery from the year 18936. the first to be buried there was the renowned poet julius zeyer in the year 1901, this being eight years after the completion of the tomb. the last to be buried there was the conductor rafael kubelík in the year 1996. the personage of the poet zeyer, as the first to be buried, was supposed to imply “the christological and national narrative”, and specifically his burial at vyšehrad cemetery became “a visible symbol of czechness” not only for czechs, but also for prague germans, as it became a symbol of the nationally divided prague (nekula, 2017, p. 389), in the same fashion as in the czech lands. the tomb was built at the end of the nineteenth century, still during the period of austriahungary. the habsburgs, over the period of the three-hundred-year empire, was responsible in particular for the forced recatholization of the inhabitants of the czech lands, this involving the eradication of protestantism and also supporting the privileged position of german and german speakers and the confession of the catholic population. from the time of the imperial patent of toleration from the year 1781, the constitution guaranteed complete freedom of confession for 5 this was a motto by the czech writer, national patriot and slavist václav hanka (1791–1861). 6 slavín tomb was built in the year 1893. the first to be buried there was the poet julius zeyer. figure 1. slavín tomb https://changing-sp.com/ 144 tomáš bubík even non-catholics; however, within the protestant confession only lutherans and helvetian calvinists were allowed, these being non-czech denominations. czech and brethren confessions were not allowed. modern protestantism finally built upon these concepts, but only after the year 1918. these two protestant confessions, the helvetian and the lutheran, were extremely small in terms of numbers in the czech lands, thus being a result of the forced recatholization. protestants thus became a minority confession in the czech lands, which currently consists of half of a percent of the population. religious identity of the nineteenth century that is at the time of building national identity was primarily catholic. it is therefore not surprising that specifically church catholic symbolism played an important role in the symbolic and aesthetic creation of the national slavín tomb. 55 people were buried in this tomb over the course of more than one hundred years. the greatest number consisted of poets and writers (12), followed by actors (7), opera singers (6), painters (5), sculptors (5), architects (4), violinists (3), pianists (2), conductors and composers (2), directors (2), philologists (2), historians (2), archaeologists (1), literary historians (1), theatre critics (1), inventors (1) and economists (1). the tomb consists of a crypt, a catafalque with a cross and a monument with a sarcophagus, which are linked by a balustrade stairway. the tomb is covered by the gravestones of the persons buried there. they are simple and list, with one exception, only the birth-date and date of death. the cross as a traditional cultural burial symbol depicts the crucified christ, with a stone table underneath upon which the remains of the deceased are placed during funerals before being placed into the tomb (liška, 2006, p. 21). an inscription is on the table in the form of a verse from the new testament from the gospel of john 11:25: “whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”. a monument rises behind the cross in the form of a stylobate, upon the top of which is an allegorical figure of so-called the genius of the nation with wings seated on the sarcophagus. an inscription is placed under the sarcophagus, which is also the motto of slavín: “although having died, they still speak”. another two sculptures representing the nation are situated in the lower part of the sarcophagus. the first of them depicts “the mourning nation” with the inscription “his great sons now dust – the nation mourns, returning to earth”, the second “the nation rejoices” with the inscription “their deeds, rejoicing, celebrate for humanity for ages” (liška, 2006, 21). the tomb is dominated by four figures, with two of them being most prominent – the person of the crucified christ and the figure of the genius of the nation, which is reminiscent of an angel because of its wings. the symbol of the cross of christ is understood in christian culture as a symbol of suffering, death and crucifixion and victory over death in the form of resurrection. christian culture does not view suffering as an end in itself, but attributes it with a deep meaning; just as death does not represent a definitive end, but a transition, a hope for a new eternal life. the excerpt from the gospel of john thus makes reference to the importance of faith as a condition for future life, which expires without faith, in the same manner as a nation without a language. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 145 the character of a national tomb links the christian symbolism of a cross with the symbolism of the nation as a place for a life which is ours, which we own and from which we arose. the nation is a place where a person is born and dies; it takes care of life and death, which is shared with others; it is both the birthplace of ordinary people as well as remarkable ones, geniuses. the central figure of the genius of the nation, as well as the words placed on the inscriptions located on the monument, such as “genius”, “nation” or “land” are linked into one whole thanks to the arrangement of the space of the monument; but one cannot not notice that the symbolism of the christian cross is only a kind of transition or transitional level to something else, something higher, which can also be symbolized by the stairs of the balustrade, which lead from the cross to the actual monument. from the spatial perspective, the christian cross in slavín does not stand out, but in comparison with the character of the monument of the nation finds itself in its shadow. the memorial with the cross is significantly smaller than the monument with the sculpture of the genius of the nation placed on the top. the proportionality of both sculptures is thus diametrically different. the expression of the tortured christ also comes across as passive and, in this respect, both monuments are contrasting in expression. the majesty of the genius of the nation has wings, which manifest freedom, power and strength and which are as if in contradiction with the helpless position of jesus on the cross. the sculpture of genius also evokes the expression of a caring being, bending down over the coffin of the deceased son of the nation, and seeming to be preparing to breathe new life into him, while in contrast the sculpture of christ seems to loom in isolation in the space. the slavín tomb thus makes the strong impression that traditional religious identity and christ as a model followed (still ongoing) in the christian type of society are only a symbolic expression of a transition to a new, earthly and humanly focused ideal. at the same time, the process of social and cultural development begins to be understood in an environment of nationalists and intellectuals as a path to humanism, which leads from religion to a nation, from the church to a country, from the following of christ to the following of great personages of a nation, their great ideals. the philosopher ladislav kunte (1874–1945) truly distinctly captured the spirit of the day, which corresponds with our theme, when he wrote in the 1920s that modern man is not only losing faith in life after death, but that “life and the world as it is today has become the starting point and goal of the new faith” (kunte, 1920, p. 27). he at the same time realises that the nation for the czech patriot is “a being of its kind, which through something great, living, demanding respect, honour, devotion, sacrifice – a deity of its own kind, and everything which links one to a nation evokes mystical respect: the language of a nation, its history, a historical locale, historical personages, days” (kunte, 1920, pp. 94–95). even the patriotic phraseology has, in his view, a religious character, when he speaks of the responsibility to love the nation and the country, about sacrifices for the nation, about the altar of the nation and so on (ibid.). it is therefore apparent that the national tomb reveals that the importance of christianity was receding among the czech intelligentsia in the nineteenth century in favour of period nationalism and preparing a new path, an earthly one and most importantly one focused on human ideals. https://changing-sp.com/ 146 tomáš bubík the gravestone symbolism of the vyšehrad cemetery several important facts need to be kept in mind when studying national symbolism. first of all, the erection of the gravestones usually did not correspond in terms of time with the date of the death of the personages. in addition, various changes involving repairs, adaptations, overall reconstruction or even the selling of a grave spot could come about over the course of time. when studying this issue, we also became aware of the fact that a certain level of symbolic, aesthetic and cultural conservatism exists in the question of the character of the gravestones. their selection was thus influenced not only by the personal taste of the bereaved, but also by period fashion and local customs. the christian cross ranks among the most traditional symbols to be placed on the graves of the deceased in western culture generally, along with in the czech lands. this is also the case at the vyšehrad cemetery, where the symbol of the cross (figure 2) is not only part of the slavín tomb, but also predominates as a symbol in the architecture of the entire cemetery. if one were to briefly contemplate the meaning of a traditional symbol like the cross, one should emphasize that it consists of a symbol of a geometric shape, which consists of two pieces overlaying each other at a right angle. the actual word (“cross”: from the latin “crux”) originally meant an instrument of torture, used by a range of ancient nations for executing criminals. jesus of nazareth was also killed on a cross, as a result of which the cross became the main symbol of this religion and consequently even christian graves. apart from christian crosses, there are also various depictions of the face of jesus on the gravestones in the cemetery, usually with an anguished expression, with the crown of thorns which was supposedly placed on the head of jesus during the crucifixion. the motif of the lamb of god as a sacrificial animal also appears in one case on a gravestone, this being a symbolic depiction of the sacrificed jesus. a christogram was also used on several gravestones, with this ranking among the oldest christian symbols, even being used on the gravestones of christians back in classical times. this consists of the first two letters referring to the name of jesus in greek, that is the greek letters “χ” and “ρ” (read together as chi-rho), when the letters are written after each other. apart from these greek letters from the alphabet, there are also its first and last letter, that is “a” and “ω”, which indicate the beginning and the end, birth and death, which refer in christian theology to the fact that god figure 2. symbol of a cross changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 147 is the origin of everything and where everything returns, that is even the bodies of the deceased. the mother of jesus, mary, who is viewed as the mother of the catholic church, is also depicted on several gravestones. the catholic church is comprehended as the madonna protector, who cares for the souls of the deceased in a special manner and intercedes for their salvation. she is sometimes even portrayed with the infant jesus or also with the crucified christ in the form of piety (figure 3). finally, there are figures of angels, spiritual beings in human form with wings. the bible perceives them as messengers of god, who link the eternal world with the earthly one and who are also viewed as protectors of the bodies, whose souls have departed. figure 3. gravestone in the form of piety all of these presented symbols are traditional signs of christian identity and its mortuary ideology, and do not differ from established views as to what a usual christian tomb should look like. they consist of symbols, which are personal and which can be viewed as a so-called final letter to the world, but also as a letter fully corresponding with the cultural dominance of the catholic church in society. life in this cemetery over the last 150 years is therefore evidence of the fact that christian discourse and its mortuary ideology is still deeply rooted in czech society. when we speak of the vyšehrad cemetery as a national graveyard, we have to keep in mind that this consists of a cemetery, which was originally catholic. this serves to explain why there are no gravestones with protestant gravestone symbols in the national cemetery, such as the chalice or the bible, despite the fact that protestantism in the czech lands is among the most important religious traditions of a dynamic society from as far back as the high middle ages. the symbolic grave (a so-called cenotaph built in the year 2000) of dr. milada horáková (she was a member of the evangelical church of czech brethren), who was a victim of a judicial murder at the time of the rise of the communist regime and was publicly executed in 1950, is located at the cemetery, but the symbolism of the grave is political emphasizing the heroic position taken against the despotism of the communist party. https://changing-sp.com/ 148 tomáš bubík seemingly, for the same reason, due to this being originally a catholic cemetery, the national cemetery is missing any jewish grave symbols, such as blessing hands, a pot or the star of david. a number of jews identified historically with the german culture and language, but also with the czech culture after the establishment of czechoslovakia in the year 1918. these czech jews usually came from the circle of so-called assimilants, many of whom, however, were either murdered during world war two or emigrated prior to the war. the renowned prague jews included, for example, franz kafka (1883–1924), who is buried in prague, but not at vyšehrad cemetery. the reason for this could also be the fact that he wrote in german. when it comes to depictions of secular gravestones, the approaches are quite rich in variety and make up a significant part of this cemetery. a number of the graves in the vyšehrad cemetery are of a secular character and do not have any religious symbolism. the most frequent depictions are busts of the deceased personages, sometimes of larger than life size. this type of gravestone is therefore linked to a concrete deceased person, who is artistically rendered, often without any other secular symbols, which would indicate the position of the deceased or his or her family to death or to religion. the personality of the deceased is emphasized, his or her human dimension and skills, thanks to which the person became known. gravestones in the form of a bust were most frequently built during the period of the communist regime. this emphasis on individuality and the importance of the personage did not, however, actually correspond with the collective concept of communist society, which rejected and openly criticized the cult of the personality as of the 1950s. these gravestones actually served to evoke this impression. additional secular expressions of interest include, first and foremost, engravings of the personal autographs of the deceased, these being artistically stylized figures, most frequently women, as well as various musical instruments (guitar, violin, harp) or other objects, which are connected with the deceased (hands, football, ball), with even symbols of the scouting movement in several cases. a number of gravestones have both religious and secular symbols at the same time. one interesting discovery is that christian motifs continued to be used for decorating gravestones during the forty-year period of the communist regime. also, of interest is that no gravestones have been preserved with typical communist symbols such as the sickle, hammer or red star from the same period. there are none of them in the cemetery at this time. even the gravestones of renowned figures of the communist regime, such as the poet and writer vítězslav nezval (figure 4) or the historian figure 4. grave of the communist poet vítězslav nezval changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 149 and celebrated communist politician zdeněk nejedlý, do not contain any communist symbolism, or any other. the question therefore arises as to why certain renowned communists were buried specifically here in this cemetery, when the communist regime advocated an international, that is a non-national, policy. epitaphs as messages to the future it has already been mentioned that gravestones are understood here as bearers of reports, messages, which are designated, first and foremost, for future generations. they are expressions from the bereaved, usually related to the deceased person, but also expressing values, desires and convictions in order to communicate something completely personal. it is apparent that in existential situations, as in the case of the death of someone close, personal convictions appear more often and more open than is the case, with so-called ordinary life moments. i therefore attempt here to capture the content of this communication and place it into the period and cultural contexts. a chronological perspective can be very helpful in order to understand the transformations of mortuary ideology. gravestones and their inscriptions, if we were to arrange them from the oldest to the most current, can indicate transformations over time and their possible connection to the character of the day and our formulated key historical events. to create a time axis, i chose as the criteria the date of the death of the first person listed on the gravestone, and this as the approximate period for the erection of the gravestone. i should emphasize that this only consists of “a framework chronology”. i am aware, of course, of the fact that the time period of the erection of the gravestone often did not correspond with the year of the death of the personage and that gravestones were often built somewhat later. in addition, gravestones could be changed, altered or rebuilt completely new over time7. despite the fact that the exact time of the final adaptation to the gravestone cannot be verified, i finally did not resign on this criteria, as i am of the opinion that thanks to this we can at least approximately determine the time of its creation. in light of this fact, i will only attribute a corresponding weight to the conclusions. christian symbolism, if we leave out at this time the slavín tomb and the part of the cemetery where catholic clergy are buried, is present in more than half of the overall number of 46 inscriptions. the most frequent themes are references to god, the lord, jesus christ, the virgin mary, the idea of eternal truth, the theme of resurrection from the dead, the final judgement or the awareness that man comes from the dust of the earth. the following can be seen as an example of this theme: “beatified be the deceased who die with the lord” (year 1887), or the introductory words of the hymn hail mary in the latin version: “ave maria, gratia plena” (year 1892), “his soul lives with god” (year 1940), “thy will be done” (year 1949) or the new testament verse 7 the administration of the vyšehrad cemetery is not managed by any archive, which would contain information about the period of the building of the tombs or their consequent adaptations. there was not a requirement for the approval of the administration of the cemetery for building structures (repairs) of grave equipment at the cemetery in the nineteenth or even in the twentieth century, as is there is at present. https://changing-sp.com/ 150 tomáš bubík from the gospel of john “jesus said to her, i am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (year 1954). these therefore consisted of standard religious texts, which fully correspond with mortuary ideology and which are an expression of a personal, church conceived piety. it is of interest that this traditional form did not even become significantly less frequent in the first decades after the communist takeover (1948), which was accompanied by persecution of the church and denigration of religious faith in society. epitaphs from the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, in contrast, thematise the idea of the country and the nation, these themes having become extremely important and powerfully resonating within society. this is also attested to by particular examples: “if and when god gives you life, be loyal to your nation and faithful to your friends” (year 1869) or “my nation is my motto” (year 1888), “if only the misfortune of my nation could join me in one grave” (year 1890), “i wish my nation from all my heart that it would never descend into small-mindedness or ascend into arrogance” (year 1895) or “he went out into the world to seek truth in his great longing, fighting for the rights of his nation, rest in the arms of eternal truth” (year 1917). these inscriptions indicate, however, an already unclear link between the idea of the nation and religion. additionally, it seems as if the theme of the nation is gradually dwindling, which could have been the result of the gaining of national independence in the year 1918, with the founding of czechoslovakia. apart from christian, patriotic and nationalist themes, there are a number of inscriptions on the gravestones also emphasizing the themes of futility, fate and the transience of human life (for example, “where are those times, where is that time”; year 1962), the cycle of life (“the tree of knowledge is in sudden sorrow, what time has taken, it will also give”; year 2011), sorrow from the loss of a loved one, the importance of internal experience of reality, the seeking of truth within the human or in contrast the importance of seeking out oneself in nature (“we only find ourselves in nature”; year 1922). they further celebrate family, marital and filial love (“i love you to the skies, mother”; year 2004), as well as promoting the importance of faith, loyalty, justice or a life lived in devotion to music and art. these consist therefore of expressions of internal human feelings and basic values, which are not conditioned by period mortuary ideology or by important historical events, which occurred in czech society. they are expessions, which could be labelled as eidetic, as they express pure personal feelings which are a result of the loss of a loved one. these inscriptions in particular, as letters to the future generation, can be viewed as “secular humanist”. the non-religious character of the tombs gravestones and their symbolism are conditioned not only by the ideological beliefs of the deceased and their families, the traditional forms of their formation, the funeral mode, but also the economic possibilities of the bereaved. it is therefore assumed that the greater the originality of the gravestone, the larger the financial costs connected with its realization. in addition, these kinds of gravestones have a greater informative value than those which are simple and basic. originality of gravestones, which we changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 151 comprehend in the sense “of an unconventional design”, is also more typical among the intelligentsia and the more prosperous layer of society, among artists, and also with those deceased whose gravestones were financed from public resources. in other words, a higher economic status on the part of the bereaved makes possible a more distinct, that is a more original expression, this being the bearer of a richer informative message. while the gravestones situated on the national slavín tomb (with the exception of the tomb itself) are simple and only have a basic message about the deceased, that is the date of birth and death, a number of additional gravestones in the vyšehrad cemetery are extremely varied in terms of their content and execution, often truly atypical and interesting artistically. the gravestones of actors, artists and athletes rank among the most original. i have chosen as examples the gravestones of personages who died after the year 1989, that is after the fall of communism so as to be able to attempt to capture the character of the time period. these gravestones are executed, not only in an original manner, but a number of them also have a religious character. it is therefore assumed that their content will correspond to the freedom of the time and independent expression in questions, which concern the final affairs of individuals. it is apparent that the originality of gravestones is more frequent with actors or artists than with other professions. one of them, for example, is the gravestone of the actor antonín jedlička (1923–1993) with the artistic pseudonym “uncle jedlička”. this actor was primarily known for establishing a theatre focused on children, “who were introduced to theatre in the form of play” (potoček, 2005, p. 101). he also worked as a sound imitator (he was able to imitate hundreds of different sounds) in the radio and television and also wrote books for small children (ibid.). the gravestone is specific in terms of the fact that the only symbol which it contains is a (simple) symbol of a fir as a tree. this is located in the place where usually the symbol of a cross is placed on graves. the symbol of the tree was chosen because the name of this actor in czech consists of a diminutive of the word for a fir tree, that is jedlička (in english “little firtree”). the gravestone also contains his artistic name, which was primarily known by his child audience, that is “strýček jedlička” (in english “uncle fir-tree”). the gravestone does not make any reference to any post-humous content, but instead recalls the artistic role of this actor, in particular the role of the good uncle, who is kindhearted, merry, friendly and who even has a sense of humour even after the graves, which is confirmed by the symbolic tree on his gravestone. another original gravestone from the present is that of the actor radoslav brzobohatý (1932–2012), who was known as both a theatre and film actor and who was famous as a young man on the big screen, not only for his acting talent, but also for his manliness. his name is engraved on the gravestone, his own signature and also an excerpt from the song “moravia, moravia! dear moravia, what comes from you, noble band”. this consists of a nationalist song apparently from the time of the napoleonic (french-austrian) wars which took place in the czech (moravian) territory. this song is sometimes even viewed as the unofficial moravian anthem. the song has more verses, some of which emphasize, for example, an anti-french, others an anti-german character, etc. the reason for the placement on the gravestone is in all https://changing-sp.com/ 152 tomáš bubík probability the fact that the actor had a deep affection for moravia and wallachia (the eastern part of the czech republic) where he was born. although he spent most of life in prague, he was a moravian patriot, and also truly loved moravian folk songs. his gravestone, similarly as in the case of the actor jedlička, did not contain any religious motifs, but was intended to recall two things. the first is the personality of the actor, which is supposed to be captured by the engraving of his signature as well as the engraving of his portrait. the second, his deeply personal relationship to his native land, is his birthplace. the words of the song therefore emphasize the nobility of the personages who came from this region. the gravestone does not contain any information about his profession, but does recall his human character and relation to his homeland. the gravestones of the czech football players josef bican (1913–2001) and josef masopust (1931–2015), who were icons of czech football in the twentieth century, are also original. bican is even considered one of the greatest czech football players of all time. he first played for rapid vienna and later for slavia prague. he was the leading scorer, not only in the austrian, but also in the czech football league. josef masopust, in contrast, won a silver medal at the world cup in 1962 as a member of the czechoslovak national team and received that same year the golden ball for the best football player in europe. he is ranked among the top hundred world football players of all time. bican’s grave is primarily decorated by his bust with his name and then an engraving of a football, above which is the inscription “football international”. when his wife died in the year 2011, another gravestone was placed on the grave with her name and a message, which is a deeply personal message from his wife: “it wasn’t always easy, but life with you josef was lovely”. masopust’s gravestone (figure 5), which was an initiative of the club of friends of josef masopust, is in the shape of a smaller football pitch. apart from his date of birth and death, there is an engraving of his signature and a football. his signature is supposed to represent purity of play fair play. the model for the sculpture of the ball was the one used by masopust in the year 1962 at the world cup in chile, where he achieved his greatest success. the artistic goal behind the execution of the gravestone was for the ball to loosely diffuse into the space and be transformed into “the shape of a heart as an expression of the fact that the famous football player was first and foremost a husband, father, grandfather, friend and primarily a model of honesty. (...) this therefore serves as josef masopust’s eternal legacy primarily as a person” (pašková, 2017). both of these personages are linked by a figure 5. josef masopust’s gravestone changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 153 love for sport, specifically to football, where they achieved remarkable successes. their gravestones communicate that remarkable sports success also requires a remarkable character. additional interesting gravestones include those on the graves of personages such as the singer and musician waldemar matuška (1932–2009), the violinist josef suk (1929–2011) or the conductor jiří bělohlávek (1946–2017). all three of these personages are primarily linked by their relation to music, with this also being expressed in the stylization of their gravestones. all of them are also missing religious symbolism or inscriptions of this meaning. the singer matuška ranked among the most well-known singers of the second half of the twentieth century. near the end of the communist regime, he had emigrated to the usa in 1986, where he became especially popular among the czech and slovak expatriate community. his marble gravestone is decorated with an engraving of the body of a guitar, his favourite musical instrument, which a number of his listeners associate him with. an engraving of one of his most well-known songs “sbohem lásko” (farewell love) is located on the left side. the words are the introductory words of the refrain of this song and sound as follows: “farewell love, allow me to go, allow me to go, it will be peaceful, no tears will help with my wandering feet, i truly loved you, what more can i give you, i’m not perfect, allow me to move on to another house”. another of the personages is josef suk (figure 6) who was a renowned czech violinist, a soloist in the czech philharmonic, the grandson of the world-famous composer josef suk the greatgrandson of the composer antonín dvořák. he was also considered one of the finest performers in the world of the music of johann sebastian bach, wolfgang amadeus mozart or ludwig van beethoven. his gravestone therefore has understandably a violin, which was symbolically broken in half as a result of his death. his authentic signature is consequently depicted underneath. the last of our list of aesthetically remarkable secular gravestones belongs to the conductor jiří bělohlávek, who conducted a range of renowned orchestras both at home and abroad and who was the head composer of the czech philharmonic during the last five years of his life, where he also tried to propagate musical works by czech composers. the gravestone, apart from basic data, also contained the legend: “a renowned czech conductor”, an engraving of his signature and most interestingly an obelisk with his conducting notes which is particularly impressive. these gravestones are of interest due to several basic characteristics. this is first and foremost their secular character, which do not figure 6. gravestone of the violinist josef suk https://changing-sp.com/ 154 tomáš bubík contain any religious symbolism. in addition, the personages are linked by their love for music, with their gravestones expressing this connection both in words, as well as symbolically (in the form of the body of a guitar, the name of a song, notes for a violin or a conductor). finally, there are personal signatures, which are understood in the czech culture not only as an identification sign of the person, but also an expression of the character of the personage. the secular character of gravestones in the national cemetery began to be completely normal during the period of communism, where gravestones were built alongside each other with both christian and secular themes. this trend is current and completely natural at present which demonstrates that this cultural space, thanks to the initial efforts of the nationalists, changed significantly over the course of the following 150 years. conclusion this study attempts to answer several questions, which generally link academic study of religiosity in the czech republic. i consequently chose one of the important national and artistic gems, this being the national cemetery at vyšehrad in prague. the assumption behind this was that if this cemetery is a national symbol characterizing modern czechness, then this cultural icon should correspond with the attitudes of czech society to religion in the modern age. i further assumed that the attitudes of individuals to religion are not conditioned merely by personal experience, but also by the historical events which society undergoes, as these events have their own narrative power which influence public opinion, including attitudes to death on the part of society. the findings have led to the following conclusions. first, religion is an important element of the grave architecture of the national cemetery from its founding up until the present, despite the fact that it does not clearly predominate at present. second, a religious-patriotic or nationalist character was only of a time-limited duration, this being evidently the result of the obtaining of national independence. third, the inscriptions and gravestones remained completely untouched by the ideological influence of communism, with an extremely characteristic, for this time period, emphasis on the importance and significance of the deceased personages, which was, however, in my view not in ideological agreement with the concept of a classless and egalitarian society. fourth, apart from a religious and national perspective, the perspective of secular humanism also became important, thus being manifest as the most distinct form of a message to the future generations, as it represented generally shared desires and values and was to a minimum possible extent subject to important historical events and the character of the time. fifth, a significant part of the so-called final letters to the world, despite being personal considerations, corresponded to the spirit of the time in the sense that they adopted its discursive framework (religious, secular, national). it is therefore apparent that, despite the relatively secular character of modern czech society, the religious (christian) theme of the national graveyard is an important and permanent element. it is present in all of the historical periods and changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 155 predominates significantly in some of them. the theme even became an important means of self-expression of the elite during the time of the communist dictatorship. the secular humanist character of the gravestones, which are characterized by an emphasis on originality and the society-wide contribution of the deceased personages, consequently recedes over the long-term perspective. the character of this graveyard as a whole does not, however, clearly support the argument about a strongly secular or atheist character of czech society, if we take into consideration its thorough break from religion. the above-mentioned reasons therefore indicate that the czech national graveyard can also be understood as a certain kind of ideological laboratory; thanks to it we can determine that it was apparently the idea of a nation, which helped czechs overcome the hundreds of years of ideological conflict between catholicism and protestantism. this was not, however, an idea of a nation, which would focus on one of these confessions, but one which represented its secular humanistic perspective, which primarily placed an emphasis on man, on its early humanity and upon the construction of humanitarian ideals. in the first phase of the building of the national cemetery, the religious theme tended to be presented as more of the beginning of the process of national emancipation, which was moving from a religious perspective to a national one, but which did not amount to a marginalization of religion. this would seem, from today’s perspective, to reflect the fact that the efforts of nationalists were not established, over the long-term, by mere religious motivated nationalism, as was the case in neighbouring poland or slovakia, but seemingly not by any other. neither religious nor secular nationalism were the phenomena, which became established over the long-term in the character of the national cemetery, or among the czech intelligentsia. the development of modern czech society instead tended to lead from national consciousness to czechness, which, in my view, came about primarily through the attainment of political and national sovereignty. references ariés, ph. 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(2019). freiheit und populismus. verwundete identitäten in ostmitteleuropa [freedom and populism. identified identities in eastern europe]. wiesbaden: springer fachmedien wiesbaden. http://www.pohrebiste.cz/download/publpreh.pdf https://www.soc.cas.cz/publikace/neverici-apatheiste-nebo-skryti-verici-charakteristika-osob-ktere-se-v-ramci-scitani-lidu https://www.soc.cas.cz/publikace/neverici-apatheiste-nebo-skryti-verici-charakteristika-osob-ktere-se-v-ramci-scitani-lidu https://www.soc.cas.cz/publikace/neverici-apatheiste-nebo-skryti-verici-charakteristika-osob-ktere-se-v-ramci-scitani-lidu http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9376-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/481579 https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.4778 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 136–157 157 mitoraj, s. (2001). a tale of two cemeteries: gravestones as community artifacts. the english journal, 90(5), 82–87. nechvátal, b. (1991). vyšehradský hřbitov [vyšehrad cemetery]. praha: správa nár. kulturní památky vyšehrad. nekula, m. (2017). smrt a zmrtvýchvstání národa [death and resurrection of the nation]. praha: univerzita karlova, karolinum. nešpor, z. (2010). příliš slábi ve víře [too weak in faith]. praha: kalich. nešporová, o. (2013). o smrti a pohřbívání [about death and burial]. brno: cdk. pašková, i. (2017, april 7). náhrobek josefa masopusta vytvořil ondřej oliva. [the tombstone of josef masopust created by ondřej oliva]. dobrý den s kurýrem. retrieved from: http://www.idobryden.cz/kultura/nahrobek-josefa-masopustavytvoril-ondrej-oliva/b859b31a-16f7-11e7-9afc-005056ab0011/ potoček, v. (2005). vyšehradský hřbitov – slavín [vyšehrad cemetery – slavín] (1st ed.). praha: professional publishing. suchan, l. (2008). memento mori: bringing classroom to the cemetery. the history teacher, 42(1), 41–53. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40543773 václavík, d. (2009). náboženství a moderní česká společnost [religion and modern czech society]. praha: grada. zelinsky, w. (2007). the gravestone index: tracking personal religiosity across nations, regions, and periods. the geographical review, 97(4), 441–466. doi: 10.1111/j.1931-0846.2007.tb00406.x https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.idobryden.cz/kultura/nahrobek-josefa-masopusta-vytvoril-ondrej-oliva/b859b31a-16f7-11e7-9afc-005056ab0011/ http://www.idobryden.cz/kultura/nahrobek-josefa-masopusta-vytvoril-ondrej-oliva/b859b31a-16f7-11e7-9afc-005056ab0011/ http://www.jstor.org/stable/40543773 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1931-0846.2007.tb00406.x changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 284–286 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.2.134 received 19 may 2021 © elena g. trubina published online 9 july 2021 elena.trubina@gmail.com book review justin o’connor and xin gu (2020) red creative. culture and modernity in china. bristol: intellect books. elena g. trubina ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia “red creative” is a welcome, spirited and conceptually rich book that traces the adoption and development of creative industries in china. the book offers the reader a dense set of considerations at a moment when creativity discourses are ubiquitous but fewer people are thinking about what they portend. it demonstrates how differently the discourses of neoliberalism, civilization, culture and creative industries are translated and implemented in this country. it is often thought that the strength of cultural policy analysis rests on the extent to which it accords with key successes and pitfalls of the on-going capitalization on and commodification of culture. since the massive shift from an industrial fordist to a post-industrial post-fordist economy is truly global, it includes the imaginaries and best practices of re-inventing and regenerating localities through cultural activity, including festivals and biennials as the promising remedy. the creative industries are praised for increasing productivity through spillovers and generating jobs. creativity, more generally, has been widely considered as the major source of producing economic value. yet when cultural policy analysis comprehends principled moral reasoning, misgivings and ambivalences are abounding. these include our doubts about whether it is permissible to reduce cultural values to financial and organizational kpi, whether the processes of adjusting culture to management are always beneficial and rational, and whether justified and popularized recipes for success are sufficient for increasing knowledge of both the general educated public and academics. these doubts increase in case of the non-western countries which are variously prompted to embrace the creative economy discourse. a tension exists between the western models of cultural and creative industries and the local contexts in which stakeholders operate. traditionally, cultural policy analysts have relied on their western expertise as the basic data for cultural policy inquiry. the problem with that strategy is that they often share the same educational https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 284–286 285 background as well as a similar way of thinking. the more valuable then are the attempts to expand the base of expertise and analysis by combining intellectual efforts of scholars with significantly different background. while one of the book’s authors— justin o’connor, starting from his work in manchester, uk, in 1996, has become a key scholar in cultural and creative industries policy development, the other—xin gu— focused more closely on small-scale local creative industries development services not only in uk but in china and indonesia which has made her a specialist in the ways different social, economic and political conditions impact understanding and implementation of creative economy. both authors are unesco experts and thus are closely familiar with actors coming from different countries, from national associations to international institutions, and with diversified links among these actors, covering consultancy and funding, together with both scientific and market interests. in this book, the authors argue for the usefulness and power of diverse analytical tools—a deep historical account of the links among culture and modernity, participant observations in numerous field sites over an extended period of time, a holistic approach rather than a focus on one particular topic, focus on the ambivalences stemming from the authors’ attempt to capture “unknown knows”. they elaborate on this as follows: to see your country of birth anew, via a foreign narrative of an alternative future, of what is useful and what should be jettisoned in order to get there, is to make that unknown known visible; to do this demands you learn to “reknow” your own country, in an internal struggle made familiar by much postcolonial writing. at the same time, for the non-chinese author, the process involved making the known unknown—or at least strange. for what was this discourse demanding that a country of one billion, with historical roots reaching back into the axial age, must now be creative? (p. 7) conceiving of this discourse as a case of western developmentalism (p. 9), the authors develop three main conceptual frameworks, each amplifying a particular facet of “reddening” creativity (“red creative”, to remind, is the title of the book): from theory of neoliberalism, the authors spotlight the significance of depoliticization and a restriction of individual expression to narrow chinese subjects’ choices to consumer ones; theories of modernity (classic western ones and otherwise) provide a means of articulating the agentic force of change, located somewhere between material and affective; finally, the authors turn to conceptualizations of culture to think through its implication in the production of cities: culture, among many things, was used “to cement the ‘spatial fix’ under the imperative to be creative or lose the future” (p. 203). these three strands are synthesized throughout the course of the book in ways that refract the thick knowledge of cultural economies, the national cultural history, soft power concerns, etc. through the intriguing complexities, disjunctures and frictions of today’s urban china. the authors zoom in on shanghai (they have devoted two chapters to this city) and this writing strategy does let them to develop complex historic narratives that more fully engage the interdependencies of culture and state and economy than just a general analysis. they capture the “deep” history of creative industries in this city, spanning the whole twentieth and the beginning of the twenty first century. the book https://changing-sp.com/ 286 elena g. trubina traces shanghai’s emergence by the mid-1920s as the great cosmopolitan center of an international intellectual and artistic avant-garde (p. 98) to its remaking as the cultural hub which rapidly rose up the global creative cities index (p. 201) and the largest art market in the world. the 2010 expo, xintiandi, a redeveloped area of lilongs, numerous art galleries and “hip” areas are presented by the authors as the embodiment of “haipai”. shanghai’s recognizable “haipai” is the opposite of both beijing culture and rurality. haipai culture was formed in the context of shanghai’s cosmopolitanism, and then, by the end of the twentieth century, the golden years of the 1920s and 1930s were carefully brought back to life by intellectuals to be later appropriated by the shanghai government. “old shanghai” became an asset in the nostalgic context of the 1990s and the combination of both preand post-communist layers in haipai has helped to shanghai to return into the global orbit. o’connor and gu poignantly describe how the city’s past, including its pride—haipai culture—was selectively employed to find a new place for the city in the global order. rather than simply shifting the urban economy towards the post-industrial mechanisms (real estate speculation and advanced business services), the authorities retrieved the old shanghai to make the city look and sound less soulless (the opposite example here is shenzhen, which is built on the “industrial park” model): “shanghai’s haipai culture was used to reprogram the urban cultural landscape and rebrand its identity as a global cultural city” (p. 265). creativity is justifiably conceived in the literature as an individual capacity and thus creative subject comes to the fore. not only she or he forms unique esthetic or organizational content but this subject also crystallizes collective experience into the singular works that are often meaningful for millions. the authors devote to creative subjects the final chapter where they interestingly portray the links among creativity and conformity, a lack of time and opportunities to properly “gestate” the new products, and impossibility to nourish one’s uniqueness and unpredictability in a heavily disciplined milieu. acknowledging that the chinese creative subjects definitely need to be studied in more depth, the authors compellingly demonstrate that it is the government that finally attests to their creative talents: “a stronger nationalist sense of beating them at their own game” (p. 279) is always present. this is a vigorously critical book that in effect challenges many those who are too eager “to force chinese history into a western format” (p. 60). it is also strongly concerned with the current state of creative affairs. a peculiar combination of the “post-cultural” and “post-creative” industries, amplified by the aggressive use of “smart cities” ideology and related technologies, the authors demonstrate, leads to directing the opportunities of artificial intelligence towards increased manipulation of the chinese society, made easy by the wide-spread preoccupation of its citizens with consumption. combining wide learning with a tenacious and undogmatic focus on the problems of creative industries, o’connor and gu have written a book that identifies fresh solutions to many important problems and should become a key reference point for cultural theorists, “creatives”, scholars of china, and cultural policy experts. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 438–451 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.144 received 3 october 2020 © jamaluddin hos, ambo upe, accepted 20 september 2021 muhammad arsyad, hasniah published online 11 october 2021 jamaluddin_hos@uho.ac.id ambo.upe@uho.ac.id muh.arsyad@uho.ac.id hasniahantro67@gmail.com article time allocation and economic contribution of women in fulfilling the basic needs of poor households jamaluddin hos, ambo upe, muhammad arsyad, hasniah halu oleo university, kendari, indonesia abstract the primary purpose of this study is to explore the time allocation and economic contribution of women in fulfilling their families’ basic needs. this research used a qualitative approach and applied observations and interviews as the data collection technique. the research sample consisted of 25 people, including 23 stone-breaking women, who have a family, and 2 village heads, whose village areas contain stone-mining enterprises. the obtained data was analysed qualitatively, implying that the processes of data collection, data reduction, data display, and data verification were carried out simultaneously. the results of this study show that the respondents allocate more time to household chores than to stone-breaking work. however, through the activities as a stone breaker, homemakers do make a significant economic contribution to the family’s income. indeed, the sole reliance on the husband’s income as the head of the family cannot be sufficient for fulfilling the basic needs. the husband’s income only serves to maintain the survival of the family. keywords time allocation, economic contribution, women work, basic needs, poor households acknowledgment this work was supported by the directorate of research and community service, directorate general of research and development of ministry of research, technology, and higher education of the republic of indonesia under grant number 7/e/kpt/2019. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 438–451 439 introduction poverty is a state or condition in which a person, household, or community lacks the financial resources for a minimum living standard. poverty is a serious issue facing both developing and underdeveloped countries, including indonesia. in indonesia, many people experience a lack of a supportive environment leading to a restricted access to opportunities. indeed, this influences the capability of facilitating the affected community’s welfare. according to naschold (2012), structural poverty traps perpetuate the poor and the vulnerable (naschold, 2012). generally, developing countries are still experiencing difficulties in providing access to welfare for the poor in society (carrard et al., 2019; peters et al., 2008). conditions of poverty are usually assessed in monetary terms using information on household consumption expenditure and data on commodity prices (ngo & christiaensen, 2018). poverty is usually based on per capita income or expenditure; however, it is also known that these constraints have weaknesses due to their ability to simplify its meaning to the poor (karlan & thuysbaert, 2019). poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon pertaining to numerous aspects, such as low economic growth. a more growth-oriented development paradigm that has been applied in developing countries has given rise to structural poverty (bétrisey et al., 2016). therefore, the quality or state of being poor encourages social gaps inseparable from a nation’s development. people living in poverty do not have isolated living environments unless they live in a specific social habitus that depends on others and institutions for survival. many governments and non-governmental social institutions make attempts to reduce poverty by supporting the basic needs of people unable to earn sufficient income. according to nooteboom (2015), private and public institutions performing the state’s role and the policymakers responsible for development need to ensure that the rate of poverty within an environment is significantly reduced (nooteboom, 2015, pp. 280–294). as a rule, poor people have a high fighting spirit used to defend themselves and work hard to achieve daily needs. however, in most cases, this spirit is unable to provide a decent life (hos et al., 2019). domestic workers in turkey demonstrate high fighting power when commuting to the city’s outskirts, spending hours carrying out household duties in an employer’s house and returning home to attend to their family (erman & kara, 2018). in understaffed conditions, women play an essential role in sustaining the economic resilience of poor households. the increasing cost of living encourages homemakers to work for a living (samargandi et al., 2019). furthermore, poverty has encouraged many women in south asia to become agricultural workers forced to work to meet their families’ basic needs (rao, 2020). one example of women’s role in fulfilling the economic needs of low-income families is found in a stone-breaking company in the north moramo district of south konawe regency (makmur & sahrun, 2017). many families here participate in stone breaking, which involves carrying building materials for mixed cement cast. women, traditionally known as the weaker gender, work as stone breakers in indonesia. their involvement, especially of housewives, helps alleviate poverty, https://changing-sp.com/ 440 jamaluddin hos, ambo upe, muhammad arsyad, hasniah thereby providing essential needs. however, the process of balancing work and household chores is one of the most significant challenges faced by these categories of women (srivastava & cheema, 2019). in addition to housework, these housewives also need to fulfil their activities as stone breakers (public affairs). social norms still provide women with the obligation to carry out their household activities, and this view is accepted without questioning (bittman et al., 2003). in addressing the increase in workload, some women demand workload distribution with their partners and other family members (komatsu et al., 2018). the workload distribution happens because the dual role breeds the necessity to share a woman’s time between two main tasks: homemakers and stone breakers. women’s involvement in stone-breaking activities that are included in heavy and abusive work certainly has a subjective motivation known as background. limited access to decent work with a fair wage has forced housewives to undergo heavy and rough activities such as stone breaking (chakraborty, 2019; ibáñez, 2017). according to laranjeiro et al. (2020), limited access to a decent job is mainly due to a lack of skills, which is the main driving force of women's involvement in stone breaking. furthermore, in most cases, women join this occupation to support their husbands’ income to meet their families’ needs. based on the explanation above, this study aims to analyse women’s time distribution as homemakers and stone breakers. this study also aims to determine the income contributions of stone-breaking workers to the family income. research methods this research used a qualitative approach. this research was conducted inductively based on the logic procedures derived from the particular proposition in describing information. the study started from an observation over the research objects and ended at the conclusion (new knowledge) as a common hypothesis. the research was done by studying humans’ behaviour in the context and situation in which they are located; understand human behaviour based on their point of view; deep observations and interviews based on collecting critical data. the data collected in this study was obtained through in-depth interviews with respondents. in addition, a direct observation of social processes was conducted. methodologically, suppose the research is considered to be a sample use. in that case, it is more precisely referred to as snowball sampling, in which data extraction is carried out from various sides until it reaches information saturation. long before the research was conducted, there had been an inadvertent observation of stone-breaking women’s activities every time we visited the site for various affairs. observations were made on social practices, expressions, and facts related to stone-breaking activities carried out by women and connected to their activities to take care of the family as housewives. furthermore, in-depth interviews were conducted to determine the subjective meaning and provide a deeper understanding of the observed social practice phenomena. before conducting an interview, the researcher first asked the informant for permission. until the research process was complete, no informants changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 438–451 441 objected to being asked for information. interviews were conducted at work with an atmosphere of familiarity. an informant answered each question in detail while continuing to carry out her stone-breaking activities. both observations and in-depth interviews were conducted repeatedly to obtain accurate information. the sample consisted of 25 informants comprising 23 research subjects (stone-breaking women) and 2 village heads who live in villages located in stonemining areas. at the beginning of data collection, we faced difficulty in meeting informants due to the prolonged period of heavy rain. at the first interview, the mining site seemed totally deserted. the activity of breaking stones is usually suspended during the rainy season or when the stone is too wet to break. another difficulty was connected with gathering information about the income and expenses involved with stone-breaking activities and household purposes. generally, the informants could not provide exact figures because they had never recorded any of their income and expenses. these difficulties were overcome through data mining by applying data triangulation models and triangulation of data collection methods. we checked the correctness of information from several informants and used several ways of collecting data. moreover, intimate relationships with informants created by occasionally tucking humour and jokes into the interview process allowed us to increase the validity of research information. over time, through a fairly lengthy process and intensive and repetitive interactions with informants, the required data was collected. although the data was not be considered 100% reliable, it could be used as a foothold to select categories to find core or major categories in data analysis. the process of collecting and interpreting data was simultaneously conducted throughout the research process. the process of translating data in this study followed huberman & miles (1994) where data reduction activities, presentation, and verification are interconnected activities before, during and after the parallel collection of data (bokiev & samad, 2021). results and discussion time allocation for women as housewives and stone breakers time allocation or time management is a consequence of a housewife’s involvement in making a living. they have to divide their time between two main roles, namely as a housewife and as a breadwinner, to ensure everything is appropriately conducted. typically, the allotted time given to take care of the family is also adjusted to enable them to work and earn some money. these categories of women usually carry out household affairs before breaking rocks. the timing used to make a living and take care of the household for stone-breaking women dramatically determines the level of income and the quality of household management (seymour et al., 2019). however, when both are compared, the time used to perform home activities is greater than the stone breaking process. this trend is backed by the level of education and skills of stonebreaking women, which are generally low. therefore, the allocation of time used is still more dominant to work without wages in the household. these findings are consistent with research by d. salehi-isfahani and s. taghvatalab in iran (salehi-isfahani & https://changing-sp.com/ 442 jamaluddin hos, ambo upe, muhammad arsyad, hasniah taghvatalab, 2019), which show that more educated women tends to allocate more time to jobs. in india, there is also a limited access to decent jobs for poor women from less-educated households (singh & pattanaik, 2019). when compared to men (husbands), the time used by women to fulfil household chores is more significant. these findings are relevant to vu’s study in vietnam (vu, 2019), which stated that husbands spend 40.3–58.6 fewer minutes each day than their wives in terms of housework. in addition, dual roles spend more time working and increasing workloads for households. the division of work and the allocation of working time between husband and wife are significantly related to the local community’s culture (pollmann-schult, 2016). one of the stone-breaking female informants (hrtn, 27 years old) states that she breaks stones every day while also cooking at home to ensure the availability of food for the family. however, their husbands tend to assist in cooking when their wives are sick or need to attend to activities outside the village. however, this is also infrequent because they always prepare food when a plan comes up to leave the house. similarly, these men take care of the laundry and sometimes take their children to school in their wives’ absence. meanwhile, in terms of house cleaning, they ultimately carried out the process except on specific occasions when their husbands volunteer to help. these findings indicate that the time allocated to carry out certain activities is associated with availability and gender (adjei & brand, 2018; pailhé et al., 2019). hrtn’s statement represents the overall division of work in a stone-breaking family. these findings support the time allocation theory, in which married women with many household chores give preference to domestic time with fewer working hours (sakanishi, 2020). a woman as a housewife has the dominant task of completing domestic affairs. this condition necessitated a stone-breaking housewife to smartly divide the time in carrying out both affairs every day. according to nordenmark (2013), the tendency of women to accept unbalanced workload without resistance as shown by stone-breaking women, suggests that their social context is still influenced by conservative gender ideology (nordenmark, 2013). there are three types of stone-breaking working women. first, those who work on stone owners in certain places, along with other workers. second, those who work breaking someone else's stone brought at the place of the woman's residence. third, women breaking the stone brought from a mining site and delivered back when the work is ready. the first and second types are categorized as mining labour, because women work in favour of other parties to earn wages and are often powerless in managing time and demanding a more decent wage, despite being regulated by the law. the research carried out in india revealed that the wages of the majority of domestic workers is still under the standard minimum amount (gudibande & jacob, 2020). for stone-breaking woman, arranging their time is rather problematic because the time hours are determined by the stone owner: starting from 07:30–10:00 and continued from 14:00–17:00. therefore, household affairs are fulfilled in the morning before 07:30, noon between 10:00–14:00, and in the afternoon from 17:00 till evening. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 438–451 443 these workers practically do not have some time off, except at night around 21:00. furthermore, those with young children are forced to take them to work sites because there are no adults at home to look after the children. the second type of stone-breaking women slightly benefited from the workplace located in their yard. therefore, they can carry out their housework and breaking the rocks concurrently. hence, there is no time-use pattern that explicitly separates the living and household work time. however, when viewed in terms of allocating the time required to complete the work, the second stone-breaker type remains similar to the first type because both remain tied to the owner of the stone. therefore, the difference is only related to the workplace and the opportunity to carry out concurrent housework. however, those who belong to the third type of stone breaker are a little freer because they set the working time according to their desires and capacity. this is possible because the workplace is located close to their yard. therefore, they have the opportunity to do household chores while breaking stones well. they can also freely set the rhythm of their work without pursuing settlement targets by other parties. in general, household chores, such as cleaning or sweeping, washing clothes, caring for children’s school, and cooking, are performed before 08:00. during the day, i.e., between the hours of 11:30–15:30, cooking chores are performed, while from 17:00–21:00, from late afternoon to night, cooking, caring for school children’s preparation, and folding clothes is conducted. breaking of stones is generally performed at 08:00–11:30, which is continued from 15:30–17:00. when time is allocated in this manner, these workers can rest while conducting house chores, especially during the daytime after lunch and in the evening from 17:00 hours after preparing dinner for their families. preliminary studies have shown that stone-breaking women have a much heavier workload compared to men (husbands). during the break, which is usually from 10:00 to 14:00, the housewives return home to prepare lunch for their family. therefore, they have no time to take a rest. however, this is opposed to their husbands’ break time, whereby they tend to take a rest or take a nap before leaving for work again. furthermore, in the evening, these women are usually busy preparing dinner, folding clothes, and preparing stuff for children’s school, the husband also takes time to rest. these findings indicate discrimination, which gave rise to inequality in family workload distribution (stepanikova et al., 2020). there are still structural and cultural barriers to building gender equality in workload distribution (amâncio & correia, 2019; ocampo castillo, 2019). changes in work roles often lead to advancement in the family role that ultimately affects marital satisfaction (gordon & whelan-berry, 2005). when domestic and public roles change, marriage problems also advance. therefore, each pair needs to devise a strategy that best suits their needs, values, and life situation. traditionally, a husband's career is the most important. however, this is not the case due to some considerations such as a low-income husband while the wife has the opportunity to work to supplement the family income, therefore the spouse agrees to take turns taking care of the household or the wife stops working for a living (perrone & worthington, 2001). https://changing-sp.com/ 444 jamaluddin hos, ambo upe, muhammad arsyad, hasniah it is essential to realize the role equality between husband and wife, especially for couples that work together to earn a living. there is no clear guideline on duty division in most cases, thereby giving rise to gender discrimination (himsel & goldberg, 2003). a stone-breaking woman’s dual role associated with imbalance is one of the forms of gender discrimination in poor households, a common practice in developing countries (kizilova & mosakova, 2019). therefore, the same perception of gender justice needs to be built between husband and wife because it is an essential contributor to the satisfaction of a marriage between a working couple (frisco & williams, 2003). in couples, where both works to earn a living, the roles in performing household chores should be divided such that to best fit the needs and values of the family. economic contributions of stone-breaker women in the family due to the rise in staple prices, the socio-economic difficulties encouraged housewives in the north moramo district to indulge in the stone breaking process to assist their husbands in meeting their families’ needs. women carry out this stone breaking activity under the implementation of duties as housewives, which are their obligations and responsibilities as wives according to the existing cultural norms. an example of this case occurred much earlier in the nineteenth century in america, where homemakers carried out house chores such as cooking, clearing, transporting water and childcare, which is currently a paid job market (bradbury, 1984). however, in north moramo, stone-breaking women continue to carry out the housework while earning a living by breaking stones. the income earned by female stone breakers varies because it depends on the amount of time allocated to breaking stones and the volume of performed work (splintered stones). according to nln (34 years old), a stone breaker since 1997, her income was sourced from wages by splintering stones into several to achieve idr 250,000 or $17.73 per-truck, usually obtained within a week without rainfall. the money can then be spent on daily necessities such as rice, fish, vegetables, and sometimes for schoolchildren’s needs. according to nln, the stone-breaking activity is uncertain and dependent on the weather. for instance, during rainfall, the stone becomes hard to break, reducing the volume of work and wage. nln further stated that, although wages were set according to the work volume, each stone breaker’s income gained per month differed. in addition to the different working capabilities, wages were also influenced by uninterrupted supply of raw materials from mine owners, which depended heavily on users’ split requests. sometimes, job orders are delayed due to inadequate splintering of stones. similar to nln, smrm (37 years old) stated that the obstacles they often experienced were frequent rain and unavailability of the material from their boss due to the inability to transport previous work. this point shows that breaking stones is volatile, sometimes smooth, and challenging in obtaining a job order. in the presence of a sudden rainfall, workers are unable to work. similarly, when the splintered stone has not been transported, they cannot receive the next job from the mine order, thereby affecting their income. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 438–451 445 the description above represents the first type of stone-breaking income, when the work is determined by the terms set by the quarry owner. the second type of stone breakers (nl, 47 years old) revealed in an interview that the mine owner drove stones to her yard for breaking and splitting. according to nl, one truck of stone comprises about 5 cubes, with an average of splintered 50 carts completed in one week to earn wages worth idr 5.000 or $0.35 per-cart. therefore, based on this narrative, it is noted that when work is smoothly performed, an average income of idr 1 million or $70.92 per month is generated. this is similar to the income gained by the first stone breaker type. the difference is that the second is more profitable because they work from the comfort of their home. however, the first-type stone breakers cannot afford such a model because their houses have no road access for truck cars. the third type of stone breakers enables workers to break stones independently by purchasing the stone in the mining site and bringing it to a place for splintering. mrs. mn (62 years old), a stone breaker of this type, stated that stones are sold for idr 200,000 or $14.18 per-truck. one truck content, consisting of five cubes, can be completed within one week. after being split into 50 carts, it is sold for idr 10,000 or $ 0.71 per-cart. therefore, one truck’s sale becomes idr 500.000 or $35.46, with a profit of idr 300,000 or $21.27. mrs. mn’s narrative indicates that, in terms of income, the third type is slightly more profitable than the first and second, with an average of idr 1.2 million or $85.10 per month. other informants of the third type provided information similar to the average amount stated by mrs. mn. the description presented by some of the stone-breaking informants above is an overview of women’s income as stone breakers, without analysing the overall family wage. the activities performed by stone-breaking women in north moramo are due to the less profitable economic condition of their families. the work of stone-breaking women in north moramo is very diverse. some work as fishermen, gardeners, building labourers, paulaula (those that lift the splintered stone to a truck), as well as stone breakers. some perform more than one type of work, such as fishermen and builders or stone breakers. their husbands’ income tends to vary monthly, although it is generally considered low due to their inability to provide the family’s basic needs adequately. therefore, one of the main reasons why women work as stone breakers is to help their husbands provide the basic needs of the family. nln (34 years old) stated that her husband as a paulaula earns a salary of idr 60,000 or $4.25 per-truck; therefore, when three people transport the stones, the wages of each equal idr 20,000 or $ 1.42. this work is not continuous and depends on the order; hence it is difficult to calculate the actual monthly income. the information about the income of nln’s husband shows that when stones are transported in a truck three times per day, a wage of idr 60,000 or $4.25 is obtained and when calculated monthly, a profit of idr 1.8 million or $127.66 is earned. however, this income is still very minimal compared to the price of basic needs for one family. a stone breaker that earns idr 250,000 or $ 17.73 per-truck can earn idr 1 million or $ 70.92 monthly. therefore, the cumulative family income becomes idr 2.8 million or $198.58. https://changing-sp.com/ 446 jamaluddin hos, ambo upe, muhammad arsyad, hasniah another stone breaker named hltn (27 years old) stated that her husband as a fisherman earns an average income of idr 60,000 or $4.25 from each 2kg of fish sold. the amount was inadequate to meet the needs of a family with two young children. the first child was already in school (9.5 years), and the second was only a 1-year-old child. therefore, hltn’s husband had to indulge in breaking rocks to support the family. however, the small income prevented them from acquiring higher economic assets. fishers are generally associated with poverty because the majority rely solely on simple equipment due to their lack of capital (béné, 2003). furthermore, they also experience poor catches due to the sea’s erratic activity, which is dependent on the weather. in practice, fishing activities can only be carried out for 17–20 days monthly. the remaining days are associated with the time when the tide and wind are strong, thereby preventing them from carrying out sea-related activities. similarly, during the occurrence of a new moon, the amount of fish captured is usually lower than usual. therefore, these conditions make the income from fishing lower than that from breaking stones, thereby providing fishermen with a dual means of livelihood. in addition to working as a fisherman, they can also work as gardeners, paulaula, or building workers. this work diversification is a poor household strategy used to overcome the unprofitable economy for survival (gautam & andersen, 2016). one of the stone-breaking women, named wnd (66 years old), whose husband is a gardener, stated that the average income from the proceeds of banana, coconut, and vegetable sales is idr 50.000 or $3.55 per day. gardening in this context is a traditional process using simple equipment and processing systems that rely solely on energy. the description of husbands’ income above, both as fishermen, garden farmers, construction workers, and paulaula is a picture of wages based on rupiah earned and not based on economic concepts that consider various aspects to calculate profits. for example, this assessment does not consider such production facilities and infrastructure aspects, as boats, nets, trawlers (fishermen), hoe, crowbar, the cost of fencing, seeds (gardens), martyrs, gloves, and hats (paulaula and stone breaker). furthermore, physically hard work implies the presence of energy resources covered by food, beverages, and cigarettes. therefore, when all these aspects are taken into account, the income becomes much lower. the data related to the family income of stone-breaking women is still minimal, since many of them keep no record of monthly revenues. those with accurate records of income and monthly expenses are likely to hide them. however, the collected data can serve as an indicator for determining the relative socio-economic position of stone-breaking women in their families. a diversity of information on the contribution of husbands and wives into the family income shows that women play a very significant role in supporting their families’ needs. as a case in point, in nln’s family, 36% of the income was used to meet the basic requirements. these findings agree with the research carried out by (stier & mandel, 2009), which stated that working women increase the contribution relative to household income. when women rely solely on their husbands’ income changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 438–451 447 as the head of the family, there is a significant probability that some basic family needs cannot be fulfilled. this is because this income only serves to maintain the survival of the family. significant economic contributions to fulfil the family’s basic needs are the main factors that lead housewives into working as stone breakers, despite the difficulties associated with the job. the money gathered in small quantities through this activity is used to sustain the family’s basic needs. this undermines the common assumption that women are gentle creatures who are capable of carrying out less strenuous jobs. poverty has changed the viewpoint on stone-breaking work based on gender. conclusion the time allocated by women to breaking stones to make a living and take care of their family is more significant than their husbands’ due to their multiple roles in working and taking care of the family. due to the assistance rendered by housewives, the incomes of stone-breaking families have increased. this fact shows that the economic contribution of stone-breaking women (wives) in the family is very significant in meeting their basic needs. therefore, women need to assist their husbands in order to have enough savings. although this does not improve living standards, however, the economic contribution is the main reason why women remain stone breakers. therefore, it is necessary to build the same perception of gender justice between husband and wife, especially regarding time and workload distribution. stone-breaking women are categorized as economically disadvantaged social groups struggling to ensure the survival of the family. poverty has changed the way women think regarding the division of work by gender. the phenomenon of stone-breaking women is due to the poor’s work culture; therefore, it becomes intergenerational in the long run. stone-breaking women’s phenomena happens because there has been no 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(2019). home appliances and gender gap of time spent on unpaid housework: evidence using household data from vietnam. the singapore economic review, 64(1), 97–114. https://doi.org/10.1142/s0217590817430019 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.14453/aabfj.v13i2.3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100297 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100297 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2009.01.008 https://doi.org/10.1142/s0217590817430019 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.147 received 29 march 2021 © fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, accepted 1 october 2021 bolanle tawakalitu olatunji, published online 11 october 2021 grace oluwatobi ogunwale, olawale julius aluko fausatibrahim@gmail.com bensonosikabor@yahoo.com bolanletawakalitu7@gmail.com tobi.ayodele@yahoo.com juliwal2002@yahoo.com article forest in the context of social change: traditional orientation and forest mystification in a nigerian forest-reserve setting fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, bolanle tawakalitu olatunji, grace oluwatobi ogunwale, olawale julius aluko forestry research institute of nigeria, ibadan, oyo state, nigeria abstract this article exposits the mystification of forests among people residing in proximity to a forest reserve in southwestern nigeria. the theory of material engagement and the ecology of human development support the position that the forest is a classical motivator of traditional culture. still, socio-cultural change is prevalent. as an element of this change, forest-based social cognition warrants systematic examination in the interest of environmental sustainability. this is because the concurrent conveyance of sustainability-promoting immaterial culture across generations is a component of the pathway to a sustainable future. moreover, systems theory posits that social events affect each other. since social change is not solitary but encompassing, forest mystification was examined along with other indicators of traditional orientation including attitudes towards religion, ageing and gender, as well as cultural enthusiasm. the results indicate that forest mystification is still huge and connected with orientations towards ageing and cultural enthusiasm. this exemplifies the yorùbá social context’s manifestation of continuity as opposed to change in forest culture; and stands in solidarity with traditional african mentality. keywords social change, forest mystification, africa, yorùbá, traditional orientation, age, culture, religion, gender https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 497 introduction from time immemorial, human’s natural environment is the base of his subsistence and cultural progress, showcasing the interconnectivity and interdependence of humans and their persisting and evolving ecosystem. this presumption underlies the focal argument of the material engagement theory (met), which places the material world at the heart of human cognitive development and change. met is a platform expounding the active function of material culture or things in the composition of the human mind (roberts, 2016). it is a denunciation of the cartesian dichotomic separation of the mind, which is regarded as active; and the material world, which is construed to be passive (graham, 2019; roberts, 2016). it promotes the ideology that there is a dynamic relationship between the material world and the cognitive world, with the former promoting the development of the latter. material culture is therefore a tool of analysis for cognitive science (malafouris, 2004) and of course, human social thought. it is an active determinant of culture and who we are. material things ecologize and educate the mind of the individual and the collective (graham, 2019). further, met is synonymous with bronfenbrenner’s (1977, 1979) ecology of human development, which canvasses principles and analytical traditions that underscore the interconnectedness of human lives/outcomes in changing ecological contexts. social cognition is said to be ecological-context-dependent, making social thoughts develop pari-passu with human ecology (kilanowski, 2017; lyons et al., 2019). the theoretical supposition of met and the ecological perspective explicates the logic of the yorùbá socio-cultural reality. the forest is a classical locale of traditional culture among many peoples including the yorùbá of southwestern nigeria. the yorùbá people are typically referred to as ọmọ káàárọ̀-oòjíire, ọmọ oòduà (literally, the one who greets themselves in the morning by asking how the other is faring, descendants of odùduwà). the people are one of the three dominant ethnic groups in nigeria (the others being the igbo of the southeast and the hausa/fulani people of northern nigeria). being one of nigeria’s six geopolitical divisions, the southwestern region and its yorùbá people constitute about 18% (okolie et al., 2018) of nigeria’s population, which is over 200 million (population division, 2019). the term yorùbá evolved as a nomenclature to describe the people in the early 19th century (ajala, 2009). the need for such a nomenclature was borne out of the “internationalisation of political and economic forces, which favours generalization” (ibrahim, 2020, p. 750). prior to the 19th century, yorùbá people were autonomous groupings and they recognized themselves according to different yorùbá dialects such as the ijebu, ifẹ, and ọyọ (ibrahim, 2020, p. 750). despite the dialectic divisions, the yorùbá share tremendous cultural features including myths regarding the origin of human being and the recognition of odùduwà the prime ancestral figure (ibrahim & jegede, 2017a). this underscores the homogeneity of the cohorts that make up the yorùbá people. the yorùbá see human being as being on a journey between ayé (the world) and ọrun (heaven). the world is perceived as a market place whereas heaven is human being’s real home. at the same time, ọrun is projected as a very mystical place comprising supernatural bodies. yet, the world is also believed to be a https://changing-sp.com/ 498 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko strong manifestation of the supernatural bodies that ideally belong to ọrun. hence, the world is perceived as being manoeuvred by supernatural forces. the yorùbá strongly believe that there is “an interface of the visible and invisible, the tangible and intangible, the known and unknown[…]; the act of looking and seeing in yorùbá culture is much more than a perception of objects by use of the eyes” (lawal, 2001, p. 521). the people believe that “the invisible world is symbolized or manifested by visible and concrete phenomena and objects of nature” (jegede, 2002, p. 323). for instance, in an interpretative analysis of yorùbá proverbs, ibrahim (2016) reported that forests and trees are “humanized” by the people. yorùbá proverbs convey the idea that trees are seen and referenced like human beings in the culture. further, the forest and its physical dynamics reverberate through the socially constructed knowledge of the yorùbá. in this culture, the forest is a mystified cultural creation.adeduntan asserted as follows: to the yorùbá, the bush or forest is not just the habitat of flora and fauna, but also of spirits – iwin, ẹbọra, ànjọ̀ọ̀nú, sẹrankosènìyàn, ọ̀rọ̀, and so on. in other words, the bush or forest is a realm of the infinite where the giant rat may tie up the hunter’s dog, the ìrókò (a tree, the chlorophora excelsa) might tell the hunter in which direction to seek game, and porcupines could perform in a concert. (adeduntan, 2019, p. 2) as noted earlier, mystification is generously featured in yorùbá culture, not just the forest-related. perhaps, the greatest indication of the mythological concentration of yorùbá thoughts about forests is encapsulated in the writings of daniel o. fágúnwà (for instance, 1949, 1954), whose fictional expositions capture a true picture of cultural dynamics among the yorùbá. nobel laureate wole soyinka asserted that fágúnwà’s novels are robust projections of yorùbá culture, which is supernaturalistic and “densely mythological” (soyinka, 2010, p. 3). smith (2001) also concurred that the novels purvey yorùbá culture. the literal title of some of these novels including “ògbójú ọdẹ nínú igbó irúnmọlè” (fágúnwà, 1950, translated as the forest of a thousand daemons by soyinka, 1982), is a remarkable projection of how yorùbá culture and mentality is shrouded around their material physical environment which is dominated by rich forestall vegetation. certainly, the met and the ecological perspective find vindication in the yorùbá socio-cultural parlance. at the same time, the omnipresence of socio-cultural change in human communities globally is resounding. analysing data from four waves of the world values survey conducted between 1984 and 2004 with participants from 72 countries, li and bond (2010) reported evidence indicating that people are globally becoming more modern or secular in their orientation which is independent of socio-economic development. social change is prevalent everywhere including among the yorùbá due to several factors, especially western contact (lawal, 2001; olurode & olusanya, 1994). notwithstanding, cultural survival is also prominently featured especially in african contexts. for instance, opefeyitimi (2009) asserted that, despite modernity and change, yorùbá people subscribe to paranormal explanations, which populate their worldview. jegede (2002) similarly reported how supernatural entities are changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 499 important aspects of the perception of disease aetiology, making people engage in cultural practices such as charm-use and scarification to earn health. in the report of a qualitative study conducted among smallholder farmers to explore beliefs regarding climate change in northwestern nigeria, jellason et al. (2020) expounded how participants dominantly practised socio-cultural adaption to climate change such as making sacrifices and praying to god. indeed, traditional orientation is still reckoned with. this orientation is premised on being connected with pristine culture. however, this orientation is also a continuum that features modernistic orientation at one of its ends. determining the connection between traditional orientation (using specific indicators) and the traditionality of orientation towards the forest is the prime goal of this study. this goal is consequential for sustainability especially from socio-ecological and met’s perspectives. forest-based social cognition to track social change in the interest of sustainability borrowing from the much-referenced bruntland commission’s definition of sustainability, the current generation ought to consider the needs of future generations and decline from defiling future generation’s capacity to fulfil such needs (world commission, 1987). invariably, sustainability is a proposal for continuity or change, whichever is in favour of responsible use of environmental resources. from the socio-ecological perspective and met’s conception of the mind and material synergy, people think amidst rather than a detached environment. consequently, sustainability ought to necessarily encompass the conveyance of immaterial culture/mindset of sustainability in addition to material resources. both variables are essential elements of sustainability, which direct any pathway to a sustainable future. sustainability entails the ecology of the mindset of current and future generations. in other words, people’s persisting and evolving mindset or community psychology, which developed in the context of certain material entities such as forests, deserve to be focused. examining prevailing forest mystification in the interest of tracking change in social thought is therefore justifiable. moreover, it is established that social change is the outcome of changing human cognition, which is generated in an ecological context (alwin & mccammon, 2003; bandura, 2001, 2004). while mystification manifests itself in individual behaviour, it originates from a forest-ecological context. examining forest mystification is therefore tantamount to examining the relationship between the individual and society, which is a classical question of all time. this examination is a potential indicator of the social change being created in the yorùbá social context. further, social change entails a shift in the pattern of people’s behaviour, a difference in their ways of participating in the world. this behavioural component of social change is preceded by the cognitive and emotional components of change (graham, 2019). still, cognitive, emotive and behavioural components exist interconnectedly. social change is manifested in social practices and multiplied through mindsets. social cognitions regarding forest, the emotions that forests emit and people’s foresthttps://changing-sp.com/ 500 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko related behaviour are therefore intertwined. forest mystification is the quintessence of cognitive-emotive components, which precedes forest-related behaviour whose examination is therefore warranted. the criticisms against evolutionary theories have shown that social change is not unilinear (de vries, 2017; gedeon, 2018). instead, social change encompasses several aspects of society. the focal contribution of systems theory, which undertones material engagement theory and the ecological perspective is simply that one thing affects the other (mandavilli, 2018; strain, 2007). human social life occurs by the ongoing interaction among forces including physical and cognitive, as well as cognitive versus cognitive phenomena. it is virtually impossible to fully appreciate changing or continuing forest mystification for instance, without taking into account other elements of traditional orientation in the yorùbá social context. social phenomena are complex because of their interconnectedness. this complexity must be acknowledged by considering forest mystification in the context of other traditional social thought. developing a model of traditional orientation to examine its influence on forest culture or mystification is therefore apposite. hence, the articulation of social change on the premise of forest culture is appealing especially in a forest-shrouded yorùbá social context. a speculative model of traditional orientation featuring attitude to―religion, ageing, gender; and cultural enthusiasm―to establish influencers of forest culture or mystification was therefore developed. the correlations between each element of this model and forest mystification were examined. attitude towards religion, ageing, gender and cultural enthusiasm as traditional orientation religion is a ubiquitous social phenomenon that permeates virtually all facets of human society (ives & kidwell, 2019), and reflects people’s identity construction and decision-making (kose & cinar, 2020). about 84% of mankind is associated with a religion (the changing global religious landscape, 2020). meanwhile, there is a great diversity of beliefs and practices across and within world religions. in pre-colonial africa, people were engrossed with the traditional religion, which has deep connections with the culture and practices of the people. contemporary religions especially the abrahamic ones are precariously practised by the people. attitude towards religion is a focal indicator of traditional orientation because religious orientation and supernaturality becomes attenuated with increasing modernity (durkheim, 1912/1976; hardy et al., 2020; weber, 1946). secularization, science and increasing rationality is associated with modernity (berger, 1999; edgell, 2006; norris & inglehart 2004; wuthrow, 2007). in addition, increasing change in human societies characterized by urbanization and westernization is concomitantly associated with increasing negative attitudes towards ageing. youthfulness is prized in modern contemporary society while ageing is linked with poor health, reliance on others and lonesomeness (black, 2009; kalfoss, 2017). fealy et al. (2012) reported that older people are collectively changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 501 stigmatized with several negative identities like fragility, infirmity, vulnerability, etc. yet, in more traditional societies such as in precolonial yorùbá society, age is revered. the anthropological study reported by schwab (1955) indicated that everyday life in yorùbá society features the principle of seniority tremendously. gerontocracy is generously featured in the socio-political life of the yorùbá (fadipe, 1970). hence, the traditional attitude towards ageing is, by all means, an indicator of traditionality. the attitude towards gender is crucial signification of traditional orientation or otherwise. perhaps the most typical phenomenon characteristic of all human societies in their historical past is the subservient position of women as opposed to men (ibrahim, 2019). yet, the egalitarian positioning of women bears positive consequences for national economies (world bank, 2012). social values hardly advocate women empowerment, especially in more traditional settings. egalitarian gender roles underlie societal advancement and such equity becomes vivid with increasing development. no wonder gender inequities are more characteristic of less developing countries (duflo, 2012) like nigeria. such countries tend to demonstrate unequal attitude towards gender, thus marking the commitment towards traditional orientation. cultural enthusiasm is people’s keenness and excitement regarding their traditional, pristine culture. it is very conceptually close to cultural conservatism, which is about protecting ancient culture (crowson, 2009). studies have shown that cultural conservatism/enthusiasm is positively related to self-esteem (crowson, 2009; van hiel & brebels, 2011). cultural enthusiasm represents traditionalism (van hiel & kossowska, 2007) and is, therefore, a prime indicator of traditional orientation. these variables―attitudes towards religion, ageing, gender and cultural enthusiasm―collectively constitute the model of indicators of traditional orientation in this study (see figure 1). each of these variables is expected to influence forest mystification in the target population. invariably, the major objective of this study is to examine the influence of each variable on forest mystification. forest mystification was highlighted as a variable, while the effects of respondents’ sex, education, age, religion and ethnicity on this mystification were also determined. figure 1 traditional orientation and its indicators traditional orientation attitude towards religion attitude towards gender attitude towards ageing cultural enthusiasm https://changing-sp.com/ 502 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko materials and methods the study sites the study sites include eight communities within a 1–5 km radius (see table 1) of the onigambari forest reserve. the reserve is located in oluyole local government area (lga) of oyo state, southwestern nigeria. nigeria’s southwestern region is the homeland of the yorùbá people. oyo state is one of the six states constituting the southwestern region while oluyole lga is one of the 33 lgas in the state. the onigambari forest reserve is located on latitude 7⁰8′n and 7⁰3′n longitude 3⁰49′e and 3⁰22′e. it was declared a reserve in 1899 by ibadan city council―the british-colonially created unit that included indigenous chiefs in the administration of ibadan. the reserve occupies a land area of 13932.18 hectares. table 1 projected and sampled population of study sites study sites 1991 population projected population (2000) @ 2.5% growth rate projected population (2010) @ 2.6% growth rate projected population (2020) @ 2.6% growth rate proportionally sampled population olubi 297 372 482 625 22 onigambari 600 751 974 1,263 44 oloowa 95 119 154 200 07 busogboro 532 666 864 1,121 39 onipe 410 513 665 862 30 dalli 351 439 569 738 25 olonde 215 269 349 453 16 seriki 102 128 166 215 07 total 2,602 3,257 4,223 5,477 190 study design/sampling procedure this study is a snap-shot, non-experimental cross-sectional survey targeting members of communities around the onigambari forest reserve, nigeria. eight communities adjoining the reserve were identified. the population of each community as at the year 2000, 2010 and 2020 were projected. these projections were based on the population of the communities as declared at the end of the 1991 national census (national population commission, 1998), using the formula: = ×0 rtp p e where: p = final population, p0 = initial population, r = growth rate (at varying growth rates, see table 1), t = time interval (varying time interval, see table 1). the projected population of the communities is 5477 and was taken as total population (n) for the study. the following modified version of the cochran formula was then used to calculate sample size: = − + 2 2 2( 1) n npqz l n pqz changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 503 where n is the sample size, n, the population size = 5477, p, the (estimated) proportion of the population that has the attribute in question at assumption of 50% = 0.5; q is 1–p; z is the z-value obtained from z-table for 95% confidence which is 1.96; and l is the desired level of precision (i.e., the margin of error) which is set to 7% or 0.07. the required sample size was 189.3 ≈ 190. the selection of respondents from the eight sampling units was based on proportional representation: the projected population of each community was divided by the total population of the eight communities (5477) and multiplied by 190. the number of samples drawn from each community is shown in table 1. instrument of data collection a structured questionnaire was used to collect data. the questionnaire was translated into the yorùbá language to ease its administration among respondents who do not speak the english language. the questionnaire was administered through structured interviews. the aim of the study was explained to every potential respondent while their anonymity was assured. they were enjoined to offer their consent to participate in the study. respondents indicated their informed consent by appending their signature in an informed consent form. definition/measurement of variables • attitude to religion was defined in this context as the degree to which respondents are confident in their religion. it was measured with the fouritem turning to religion sub-scale of the multidimensional coping inventory, assessing how people deal with stress (carver et al., 1989). samples of items include: “i put my trust in god”, “i try to find comfort in my religion”. responses were “totally true (2)”, “fairly true (1)” and “not true at all (0)”. cronbach’s alpha was 0.745. • attitude to ageing was defined as the respondent’s evaluation of the extent to which pleasurable things and respect are attracted to older age. this was assessed using four of the eight-item psychological growth sub-scale of the attitude to ageing scale (laidlaw et al., 2007)1. responses were “totally true (2)”, “fairly true (1)” and “not true at all (0)”. cronbach’s alpha was 0.734. examples of items are: “there are many pleasant things about growing older”, “i am more accepting of myself as i have grown older”. • attitude to gender was operationally defined as the degree of respondent’s acceptance of egalitarianism in the assignment of social roles between men and women. it was measured with the eight-item gender-linked sub-scale of the social role questionnaire (baber & tucker, 2006). responses included “strongly agree (4)”, “agree (3)”, “disagree (2)” and “strongly disagree (1)”. cronbach’s alpha was 0.676. examples of items are: “for many important jobs, it is better to choose men instead of women”, “mothers should work only if necessary”. 1 the four selected items are reflective of peoples’ attitude to ageing irrespective of their age, unlike other items. https://changing-sp.com/ 504 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko • cultural enthusiasm was defined as respondent’s zeal regarding their culture and was assessed with the four-item tradition sub-scale of the personal cultural orientations (sharma, 2010). responses were also “totally true (2)”, “fairly true (1)” and “not true at all (0)”. cronbach’s alpha was 0.736. samples of items include: “i am proud of my culture”, “traditional values are important for me”. • forest mystification was defined as the respondent’s evaluation of the forest as a supernatural and paranormal spatial entity. it was assessed with a sevenitem author-constructed scale whose response categories were “strongly agree (4)”, “agree (3)”, “disagree (2)” and “strongly disagree (1)”. the scale was reliable (cronbach’s alpha was 0.885). there was a significant and positive correlation (r = 0.193, p < 0.05) between summary scores of the transcendence conviction sub-scale of the aspects of spirituality questionnaire (büssing et al., 2014) and the author-constructed scale of forest mystification. this is taken as an indication of the convergent validity of the author-constructed scale (see table 3 for items of this scale). all items were scored such that the higher the score, the more traditional the attitude to religion, ageing and gender; the more traditional the cultural enthusiasm, the stronger the forest mystification. respondent’s scores were simply aggregated. study hypotheses the general null hypotheses tested are as follows: • h1: there will be no significant difference in the mean score of forest mystification across sub-groups of age, religion, ethnicity, sex and education. • h2: there will be no significant relationship between pairs of attitude to religion, attitude to ageing, attitude to gender, cultural enthusiasm and forest mystification. statistical analyses descriptive analyses of distributions of socio-demographic characteristics were conducted using frequencies and percentages. means and standard deviations were used for the descriptive analysis of items in the author-constructed scale of forest mystification. the one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test was used to assess the normalcy of distribution of all interval-measured variables. homogeneity of variance across sub-groups of sex, education, age, religion and ethnicity was tested using levene’s test. when homogeneity was confirmed across sub-groups of age, religion and ethnicity, equality of mean scores of forest mystification were tested using one-way anova. when homogeneity was not confirmed across sub-groups of sex and education, the mann-whitney u test and the kruskal-wallis test with the pairwise multiple-comparison post-hoc test were used to assess the effects of sex and education on forest mystification. epsilon and epsilon2 were measures of effect sizes. pearson correlation coefficient (r) was used to examine the nature of the relationships between pairs of attitude to religion, attitude to ageing, attitude to gender, cultural enthusiasm and forest mystification. data were analyzed using the ibm spss (statistical package for social sciences) version 23.0. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 505 results distribution of respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics most respondents were male (64.7%) while females constituted 35.3%. the mean ± sd age of respondents was 37.13 ± 11.21 (minimum = 19, maximum = 64). the distribution of respondents’ age category resembles an inverted u, which reached a peak at the 36–45 age sub-group. most respondents (53.2%) had secondary education, while a noticeable proportion (14.5%) had no formal education. another noticeable proportion (10.8%) had post-secondary education while 3 respondents were holders of the first degree. more than half of respondents (52.6%) were christians while muslims were also vast (42.6%). nine respondents (4.7%) identified themselves as practitioners of traditional religion. yorùbá were expectedly predominant (82.1%). hausa respondents were noticeable (10.5%) while other ethnic nationalities including igbo, igbira, igede and idoma were marginally represented in the study. the distributions of respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics are shown in table 2. table 2 distribution of respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics (n = 190) socio-demographic characteristic sub-groups frequency percentage sex male 123 64.7 female 67 35.3 age* 16–25 31 16.3 26–35 57 30.0 36–45 61 32.1 46–55 28 14.7 56–65 13 6.8 highest education attained no formal education 27 14.5 primary 37 19.9 secondary 99 53.2 post-secondary 20 10.8 first degree 3 1.6 no response 4 2.1 religion islam 81 42.6 christianity 100 52.6 traditional 9 4.7 ethnicity yorùbá 156 82.1 hausa 20 10.5 igbo 7 3.7 others** 7 3.7 note. * the mean ± sd of age was 37.13 ± 11.21, minimum = 19, maximum = 64. ** igbira, igede, idoma. https://changing-sp.com/ 506 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko univariate analysis of forest mystification/items in the author-constructed scale of forest mystification the mean score of forest mystification was 23.70 ± 3.62 (range was 18 to 28). this mean is high and indicative of a strong manifestation of forest mystification in the study area. the item statistics on table 3 shows that respondent’s rating of items on the scale of forest mystification were generally similar and their agreement with items was high because the mean score of these items were all above 3 while the maximum score was 4. the generic item maintaining that forest is not just the habitat of flora and fauna but also of spirits attracted the strongest rating (mean = 3.65), followed by the item which upheld that there are creatures in the forest that cannot be seen with ordinary eyes (mean = 3.55). interestingly, the item affirming that there are some animals in forests that are spiritual and should not be consumed attracted the weakest agreement (mean = 3.17), suggesting that mystification weakens in the face of consumable things. the idea that there are mysterious trees in forests also attracted weak agreement (mean = 3.31), suggesting weaker mystification of trees when compared with spirits and other invincible creatures. table 3 item statistics, indicators of reliability and validity of the author-constructed scale forest mystification mean ± sd minimum maximum indicator of reliability (crobach’s alpha) indicator of validity (pearson’s r) forest is not just the habitat of flora and fauna but also of spirits 3.65±0.57 2 4 0.885 0.193, p = 0.008 special creatures that are neither humans nor animals are there in forests 3.43±0.73 1 4 there are creatures in the forest that cannot be seen with ordinary eyes 3.55±0.63 2 4 trees like ìrókò can provide directions to hunters in the forest 3.29±0.76 1 4 there is no deity (orisa) that does not have connection with forest 3.29±0.73 1 4 there are some animals in forest that are spiritual and should not be consumed 3.17±0.66 1 4 there are mysterious trees in forest 3.31±0.64 1 4 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 507 effect of age, religion, ethnicity, sex and education on forest mystification information contained in table 4 shows that the oldest age sub-group made up of respondents aged between 56 and 65 years held the strongest forest mystification (mean ± sd = 25.6 ± 2.5). this was followed by the next age sub-group (46–55) whose mean ± sd was 24.2 ± 2.6. the 26–35 age sub-group held stronger forest mystification (mean ± sd = 24.0 ± 3.8) when compared with 36–45 sub-group (mean ± sd = 23.1 ± 3.9) while weakest mystification was exhibited by the youngest age sub-group of 16 to 25 years (mean ± sd = 22.9 ± 3.2). these descriptive statistics generically suggests that forest mystification strengthens with increasing age. there is homogeneity of variance across sub-groups of age regarding forest mystification (p > 0.05) while the result of one-way anova shows that these means are not significantly different (p > 0.05). hence, age had no significant effect on forest mystification. forest was most strongly mystified among muslims (mean ± sd = 24.0 ± 3.1). the extent to which christians (mean ± sd = 23.4 ± 4.0) and practitioners of traditional religion (mean ± sd = 23.3 ± 3.2) mystified forest was very comparable. however, there was no significant difference in means across subgroups of religion with regard to forest mystification (p > 0.05). hence, respondents’ religion also had no significant effect on forest mystification. respondents who belonged to the yorùbá ethnic group held the strongest extent of forest mystification (mean ± sd = 24.0 ± 3.6) while hausa respondents were stronger in terms of this mystification (mean ± sd = 23.1 ± 2.7). igbo respondents held the weakest extent of forest mystification (mean ± sd = 22.9 ± 4.0). however, there was no significant difference in these means (p > 0.05). the results in table 5 indicate that male respondents exhibited a stronger extent of forest mystification (mean rank = 102.73) table 4 effects of age, religion and ethnicity on forest mystification sociodemographic variable sub-groups mean±sd levene’s test for homogeneity of variances anova levene’s statistic p value f statistic p value age 16–25 22.9 ± 3.2 1.665 0.160 1.848 .122 26–35 24.0 ± 3.8 36–45 23.1 ± 3.9 46–55 24.2 ± 2.6 56–65 25.6 ± 2.5 religion islam 24.0 ± 3.1 2.691 0.070 0.695 0.500christianity 23.4 ± 4.0 traditional 23.3 ± 3.2 ethnicity yorùbá 24.0 ± 3.6 1.454 0.218 1.090 0.367igbo 22.9 ± 4.0 hausa 23.1 ± 2.7 https://changing-sp.com/ 508 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko when compared with female respondents (mean rank = 80.93). the result of the mann-whitney u test shows that these mean ranks are significantly different (p < 0.05). hence, sex has an effect on forest mystification. epsilon was 0.188 while epsilon2 was 0.035. therefore, 3.5% of the variance in forest mystification is explained by sex. forest mystification was very similar between, and most strongly held by the holders of primary (mean rank = 98.42) and secondary education (mean rank = 98.70). forest mystification became weakened a little among respondents having no formal education (mean rank = 89.44) and was even weaker among those having post-secondary education (mean rank = 51.98) while it was weakest among first-degree holders (mean rank = 12.00). these mean ranks generically suggest weakening forest mystification with increasing formal education. kruskal wallis test shows that the means are significantly different (p < 0.05). hence, education has an effect on forest mystification. epsilon was 0.259 while epsilon2 was 0.067. as a result, 6.7% of the variation in forest mystification is explained by education. relationship between forest mystification and indicators of traditional orientation the results on table 6 indicate that attitude to religion is positively but insignificantly related to forest mystification (r = 0.085, p = 0.244). there is a positive and significant relationship between attitude to ageing and forest mystification (r = 0.335, p = 0.000). there is a negative and insignificant relationship between attitude to gender and forest mystification (r = –0.033, p = 0.663). cultural enthusiasm is positively and significantly related to forest mystification (r = 0.213, p = 0.003). table 5 influence of sex and education on forest mystification sociodemographic variable sub-groups mean rank mann-whitney u test kruskal wallis test epsilon epsilon2 statistic p value chi-square p value sex male 102.73 3144.50 .008 – – 0.188 0.035 female 80.93 education no formal education 89.44 – – 11.729 0.019* 0.259 0.067 primary 98.42 secondary 98.70 postsecondary 51.98 first degree 12.00 note. *the b.sc./hnd sub-group is significantly difference from the no formal education (p = 0.017), the primary (p = 0.007) and the secondary (p = 0.005) sub-groups. however, the b.sc./hnd sub-group is not significantly different from the nce/ond/hsc/a level sub-group (p = 0.068). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 509 table 6 relationship between forest mystification and indicators of traditional orientation forest mystification forest mystification pearson’s r 1 p value .000 attitude to religion pearson’s r .085 p value .244 attitude to ageing pearson’s r .335* p value .000 attitude to gender pearson’s r –.033 p value .663 cultural enthusiasm pearson’s r .213* p value .003 note. * significant correlations. discussion the univariate analysis of items in the author-constructed scale of forest mystification shows that the respondents’ agreements with items were notably high, signifying the embossment of continuity as opposed to change in forest culture of mystification in the target population. this is very instructive about people’s sense of solidarity with their culture, whether they are conscious about same or otherwise. as propounded by crow (2002), social events and manifestations are typically in pursuance of solidarity. the strong exhibition of forest mystification among respondents strongly suggests that people are rather motivated and are psychically attuned with their cultural dictates of forest mystification. indeed, this finding upholds the popularity of the african environmental theory, “eco-humanism” (eze, 2017, p. 626) which upholds the sacredness and humanity of nature. in this african perspective, sacred nature “means that everything on earth—rivers, mountains, trees, plants, seas, the sun, moon, stars, et cetera—has embedded force and spirit. the environment is not just inconsequential, it is part of life and constitutive of humanity” (eze, 2017, p. 627). indeed, this stands in favour of respectful attitude and behaviour towards the environment and its elements. in the light of these descriptive findings, proclaiming secularity as a global identity constitutes global injustice (wilson, 2017). descriptive findings indicate increasing forest mystification with increasing age. this is quite expected considering that older persons have experienced and assimilated the culture for much longer. however, age was not a significant determinant of forest mystification. this suggests the strength of the continuity of forest culture: with no significant difference in younger and older people’s extent of forest mystification, the survival of this culture is staunch. this is in favour of cultural survival across generations. quite similarly, azong (2020) reported that belief in witchcraft was prevalent among farmers of bamenda highlands, cameroon of which the age https://changing-sp.com/ 510 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko of participants expressing this belief was diverse (39 to 63 years). respondents’ religion and ethnicity have no effect on the extent to which they mystify forests. these are indications of the voidness of contemporary religions and ethnic affiliations on the traditionality of people’s orientation towards the forest. these suggest that in matters of supernaturality, africans tend to be united in orientation without reference to religion and ethnicity. finding that men hold a significantly stronger extent of forest mystification than women is definitely an interesting piece. although women’s subordinate positioning across all facets of life in developing and developed social contexts are generously acknowledged, substantial evidence showcases the powerholding status of women in african traditional contexts. for instance, in her muchreferenced book titled “the invention of women: making an african sense of western gender discourse”, oyeronke oyewumi (1997) argued passionately that gender was largely egalitarian among the yorùbá. the stratification of gender, she argued, was colonially entrenched. oyewumi cited the fact that yorùbá language is not gendered to drive home her thesis. ibrahim and jegede (2017b) asserted that custodians of ifá, the most central of yorùbá people’s frame of reference, include babaláwo (male) and iyanifa (female). in african contexts, women served as priestesses and diviners (amaechi & amaechi, 2019). nevertheless, there are tremendous bases to the claim that women experience constraints and domination, which are informed by african social structures and norms including in the yorùbá context. among the yorùbá, some taboos are instituted to exclude women from participating in traditional rites. for instance, menstruating women do not get involved in sacrificing to obàtálá, a yorùbá god. women are also excluded from orò, a popular yorùbá festival (familusi, 2012). the report of azong (2020) shows that women are often accused of being witches and using the same for destructive purposes including causing poor rainfall and harvests in bamenda highlands, cameroon. further, there is an abundance of language and social thoughts that dehumanizes women in african culture (oduyoye, 2001). it is probable, therefore, that negative human-social dynamics are propelling women to be more daring to cultural dictates and indifferent rather than reverential towards cultural knowledge. as it is, the current finding asserts men as opposed to women as significantly better champions of traditional forest culture. this is an interesting focus for further research. the significant effect of education on forest mystification such that increasing formal education accompanies weaker forest mystification is consonant with expectation considering that the degree of western education correlates very strongly with secular orientation irrespective of material security (braun, 2012; zuckerman, 2009). this buttresses the position that formally educated people are better champions of social change. people’s orientation about ageing and having respect for culture are positively and significantly related to the extent to which they mystify the forest. hence, the more people regard older age as attracting pleasurable things and respect, the more they exhibit zeal towards their culture, the more they perceive the forest as a supernatural and paranormal spatial entity. these findings are consonant with expectation. they indicate that people are more traditional about ageing and they are zealous about their culture. among the yorùbá people who are dominant in the target population, age changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 511 is superfluously revered. this society is a gerontocratic society by every standard. everyday attitude and behaviour in the yorùbá context are typically driven by the ideology of seniority (schwab, 1955). older age automatically confers authority among the yorùbá, though this might be limited in exceptional situations where an older person’s character is questionable (fadipe, 1970). it is also in order, that cultural enthusiasm is related to forest mystification in a significantly positive manner. on the contrary, attitude to religion is not significantly related to the extent to which forest is mystified in the target population. this can be understood in the context that attitude to religion in this study was defined in terms of respondents’ devotion to conventional rather than traditional african religious practices. the insignificance of the relation between the variables under consideration can be seen as reflective of the rather conflictual relationship between them: swidler (2013, p. 682) contended that “the axial religions [islam, christianity and judaism], and especially the pentecostal churches, devote their ritual power to a fierce war on demons, witchcraft”. the attitude of the axial religions usually makes adherence to traditional yorùbá religions to seem “heathen” and “unholy” (ajuwọn, 1980, p. 66). the insignificance of the relation between attitude to religion and forest mystification in this study is another indication of cultural survival in the target population. african ideologies are at the heart of africans even as they identify themselves as christians and muslims. for instance, olurode and olusanya (1994, p. 91–92) asserted that “while the yorùbá may profess islam or christianity because it is the mark of a “civilized” man to do so, at heart he is a traditionalist in the sphere of the supernatural”. in addition, attitude to gender is not significantly related to forest mystification in the target population, implying that people are no longer traditional about gender, at least when compared with their orientation concerning forests. gender dynamics have been changing from traditional to modern/egalitarian even in developing nations. for instance, hewett and lloyd (2005, cited in psaki et al., 2018) reported that 45% of girls and 66% of boys in twenty-four sub-saharan african nations ever attended school by 1960. by 1990, these proportions increased to 73% of girls and 78% of boys. this kind of rapid change cannot be said to have been recorded in matters of supernaturality. it is even interesting that attitude to gender is the only of the four indicators of traditional orientation which yielded an inverse relationship with forest mystification, suggesting that attitude to gender and forest mystification traverse opposing directions. it appears that the character of attitude to gender is modernistic while that of forest mystification is traditionalistic in the study area. hence, modernistic attitude to gender is not deterring of traditional attitude to the forest. conclusions there is a strong continuity in the forest culture of mystification in the study area. this bares the popularity of supernaturality and eco-humanism thereby standing in favour of solidarity to traditional african orientation as opposed to the modern orientation. age, religion and ethnicity are not significantly relevant in matters of forest mystification. forest cultural survival transcends divisions along age, religion and ethnic affinities. being male as opposed to being female, and having reduced https://changing-sp.com/ 512 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko education rather than otherwise are significantly predisposing to holding a greater extent of forest mystification. the greater the extent to which people are traditional in their outlook to ageing, the greater the extent to which they are zealous about their culture, then the greater is the degree of their forest mystification. in contrast, attitude to religion and attitude to gender are indeterminate of forest mystification. references adeduntan, a. 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(2009). atheism, secularity, and well-being: how the findings of social science counter negative stereotypes and assumptions. sociology compass, 3(6), 949–971. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00247.x https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.2202/1940-1639.1150 https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580913508568 https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580913508568 https://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.09.002 https://doi.org/10.1080/00207590500411443 https://archive.org/details/frommaxweberessa00webe/ https://archive.org/details/frommaxweberessa00webe/ https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2017.1308062 https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/4391 https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/4391 https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/139811 https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/139811 https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400831227 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00247.x 518 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko appendix traditional orientation and forest mystification: a study among rural dwellers of onigambari forest reserve of oyo state nigeria dear respondent, i represent a group of researchers at the federal college of forestry, forestry research institute of nigeria, ibadan, working on the above-named project. the aim of the research is to understand differential attitudes associated with forests in communities around onigambari forest reserve. your anonymity is highly guaranteed. this means that your responses will not be traced back to you, your name or any other means of identification. the estimated number of participants is one hundred and ninety. this means that you and 189 other people will be required to respond to this questionnaire. this should not take more than 25 minutes. your contribution will go a long way in helping to generate information about the study. thank you very much for your cooperation. dr. (mrs.) f. m. ibrahim 08055822100 instructions: • please answer the questions from your own perspective. it is about you, not someone else. • express your own personal views and not those prevalent in the society. • please feel free to provide true information, this is only an academic exercise. • nobody can challenge you about your responses. • tick your response like this √. thank you very much for your cooperation. god bless you. 1 age [please write your specific age] ______________ 2 marital status single _______ 1 married______ 2 divorced _____ 3 widowed_____ 4 3 highest educational qualification [please select your highest educational qualification] no formal education 1 4 religion islam ________ 1 christianity____ 2 traditional _____ 3 others_________ [please state it] primary school cert. 2 secondary school cert. 3 nce/ond/hsc/a level 4 b.sc./hnd 5` postgraduate diploma 6 masters degree 7 doctorate (phd) 8 5 ethnicity yoruba _______ 1 igbo _________ 2 hausa________ 3 others ___________ [please state it] 6 sex male _____ 1 female ___ 2 7 employment (you may select more than one option) unemployed 1 farming 2 trader 3 artisan 4 civil servant 5 student 6 others ________ [please specify] 8 age 16–25 _____ 1 26–35 _____ 2 36–45 _____ 3 46–55 _____ 4 56–65 _____ 5 66–above ___ 6 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 496–520 519 attitude to gender kindly indicate how well you agree with these statements. provide only one response (√) for each statement code items responses 9 atg1 a father’s major responsibility is to provide financially for his children strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 10 atg2 men are more sexual than women strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 11 atg3 some types of work are just not appropriate for women strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 12 atg4 mothers should make most decisions about how children are brought up strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 13 atg5 mothers should work only if necessary strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 14 atg6 girls should be protected and watched over more than boys strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 15 atg7 only some types of work are appropriate for both men and women strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 16 atg8 for many important jobs, it is better to choose men instead of women strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 attitudes to ageing kindly indicate how well these statements are correct. provide only one response (√) for each statement code items responses 17 ata1 as people get older, they are better able to cope with life totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 18 ata2 wisdom comes with age totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 19 ata3 there are many pleasant things about growing older totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 20 ata4 i am more accepting of myself as i have grown older totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 attitudes to religion kindly indicate how well these statements are true. please provide only one response (√) for each item code items responses 21 atr1 i seek god’s help totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 22 atr2 i put my trust in god totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 23 atr3 i try to find comfort in my religion totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 24 atr4 i pray more than usual totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 cultural enthusiasm how truly do these statements apply to you? kindly avoid sharing opinions with anyone. please, kindly respond to the questionnaire carefully code item responses 25 cor1 i am proud of my culture totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 26 cor2 respect for tradition is important for me totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all 0 27 cor3 i value a strong link to my past totally true0 fairly true1 not true at all2 28 cor4 traditional values are important for me totally true0 fairly true1 not true at all2 https://changing-sp.com/ 520 fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, ... olawale julius aluko forest mystification kindly indicate how well you agree with these statements. provide only one response (√) for each statement code items responses 29 mys1 forest is not just the habitat of flora and fauna but also of spirits strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 30 mys2 special creations that are neither humans nor animals are there in forests strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 31 mys3 there are creations in the forest that cannot be seen with ordinary eyes strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 32 mys4 trees like ìrókò can provide directions to hunters in the forest strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 33 mys5 there is no deity (orisa) that does not have connection with forest strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 34 mys6 there are some animals in forests that are actually spiritual and should not be consumed strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 35 mys7 there are mysterious trees in forests strongly agree4 agree3 disagree2 strongly disagree1 spirituality kindly indicate how well these statements are true. kindly respond to this questionnaire carefully code items responses 36 ats1 i am convinced of a rebirth of man (or his soul) totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 37 ats2 i am convinced of existence of higher powers and beings totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 38 ats3 i am convinced that soul has his origin in a higher dimension totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 39 ats4 i am convinced that man is a spiritual being totally true2 fairly true1 not true at all0 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 287–290 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.2.135 received 17 may 2021 © oleg s. kyselov published online 9 july 2021 oleg.kyselov@gmail.com book review karpov v., svensson m. (eds.). (2020). secularization, desecularization, and toleration. cross-disciplinary challenges to a modern myth. palgrave macmillan. oleg s. kyselov h. s. skovoroda insitiute of philosophy, national academy of sciences of ukraine, kyiv, ukraine the book under review examines the relationship between secularization and tolerance. for a long time the conventional view on this problem has been that secular societies provide religious tolerance better than religious ones. karpov and svensson question this statement and use particular cases to demonstrate that it is not true. on the other hand, the statement that the religious societies provide religious tolerance better than the secular ones is also false. the situation is much more complicated—the secular/religious status of the state/society does not influence the perception of and attitude towards the adherents of different religious traditions and non-believers. but let me start with an overview of the editors’ introduction to the book. vyacheslav karpov and manfred svensson write about the ups and downs of the secularization theory and its relation to the ideas of the enlightenment. they claim that the direct link between secularization and tolerance is also rooted in the age of reason. the origins of tolerance were connected to the rationalization of society, to the development of secular and non-orthodox religious thought, whereas the religious mainstream was considered to be a source of intolerance and violence. such assumptions were conventional and they existed if not as a part of the secularization theory but at least as parallel to it. at a certain point, however, social sciences started to seriously question the universality of the secularization process and the situation in europe started to be regarded not as an example for all the rest of the world but rather as an exception. in this case, such a connection between toleration and secularization, according to the book editors, should also be questioned. the imagined or real connections could be proved or disproved by the study of real cases, which is the idea underlying the https://changing-sp.com/ 288 oleg s. kyselov whole book. its main focus, however, is to show the absence rather than existence of such connection. karpov and svensson represent two distinct research traditions or rather research areas: one of them specializes in the history of tolerance and the other, in secularization/secularity theory. therefore, the book is divided into two parts: religion, secularization, and toleration in the history of ideas and secularizations and regimes of toleration: comparative perspectives. in the first part, the chapters are dedicated to tolerance in the works of augustine, aquinas, john owen, ibn ‘arabī, william penn, moses mendelssohn, and abraham kuyper. for example, manfred svensson studies the development of a concept of toleration by western christian theologians. his essay explores the relationship between tolerance, on the one hand, and patience, endurance, power, permission, justice, respect, recognition, and hospitality, on the other. in his discussion of ibn ‘arabī’s understanding of tolerance, stephen hirtenstein also provides an overview of the general idea of tolerance in islam, contending that “islamic civilization is founded on principles of toleration” (p. 63). andrew r. murphy describes not only penn’s theoretical justification of tolerance, but also its political implementations. mendelssohn’s understanding of secular state and individual religious freedom is discussed by holger zaborowski. the views of a dutch neocalvinist theologian and politician abraham kyuper on freedom of conscience and pluralist society are examined in george harinck’s chapter (it is especially interesting how harinck links kyuper’s views with the current affairs). there are two more contributions to the first part. steven d. smith proposes to doubt the secularization thesis. he argues that there was no decline of religion but substitution of its old forms with a new one and instead of the disappearance of religion there was its privatization. by the new forms of religion, smith understands immanent religion, dworkin’s “religion without god”, or a-theistic religion. in this case, the “secular”/“religious” dichotomy is not working, and as a result secularization theory loses its meaning. the author demonstrates that the notion “tolerance” has also been revised and become useless. in that way, the question about the link between secularization and toleration is meaningless. eduardo fuentes claims that there is no “clear line between religious and secular practices” (p. 153) and even shopping could be described as a religious phenomenon. in this context, the religious tolerance exists in this dual description: killing a calf could be seen as a secular practice and as a religious one—a sacrifice. in the second part of the book, we find texts dealing with social, legal, and historical issues. for instance, jean meyer and fenggang yang in their contributions on mexico and china respectively trace the history of religious (in)tolerance in particular regimes. barbara a. mcgraw, james t. richardson and effie fokas investigate the legal aspects of religious toleration in the u.s. supreme court and the european court of human rights. carol and ilan troen claim that in the discussions around the israel/palestinian conflict, the secular and religious arguments are intertwined and reinforce each other. the chapter that i find the most interesting in this part of the book is written by daniel philpott, who demonstrates the absence of any connection between islam changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 287–290 289 and religious (in)tolerance in muslim-majority countries. philpott asks the question “is islam tolerant?” and tries to find the answer by analyzing the data collected by the pew research center. he identifies three types of muslim-majority states: states with religious freedom (11 countries, in particular, albania, kosovo1, and senegal); secular repressive states (36 countries, in particular, post-soviet central asian countries, kemalist turkey, saddam hussein’s iraq); and states considered as religiously repressive (21 countries, in particular, saudi arabia, pakistan, indonesia). in his view, although the muslim world is less free, we cannot hold islam responsible for this fact. secularism, according to philpott, can be both positive and negative. the secular repression of religion in the muslim world is a result of the imported western ideology, according to which religion can be the enemy of economic and technological progress. the final chapter of the book is written by one of the editor—vyacheslav karpov. karpov disproves the statement that “secularization begets toleration while society’s movement from secularity leads to intolerance” (p. 299) by looking at the case of the ussr and ex-soviet countries. karpov not only compares contemporary ukraine and russia, but also draws some historical parallels. for instance, karpov writes about the differences between the ukrainian religious cultures of the 16th and 17th centuries. karpov links the pluralistic situation of the religious landscape of contemporary ukraine to russia’s regime of desecularization and tolerance. it is important to note that the chapter reflects the latest events in ukraine—the revolution of dignity, russia’s annexation of the crimea, and the military conflict in donbass. then karpov goes on to the theoretical conclusions. here we encounter some remarkable insights into (de)secularization and dedifferentiation. karpov argues that desecularization can be analyzed as dedifferentiation, but then notes that “[s]ecularization can combine differentiation and dedifferentiation” and that “[i]n some cases, a secular dedifferentiation takes time” (p. 318). secular differentiation can be illustrated by the case of the soviet union. in the end, karpov confirms the main idea of the chapter—desecularization can lead to toleration (at least limited and selective) or even to the emergence of a pluralistic and inclusive regime. the main question that arises with respect to the analysis presented in the book is the understanding of the secular state. it appears that when we are looking to (dis)prove the relationship between secularization and secular state (as we see in some of the book’s contributions), on the one hand, and toleration, on the other, we should first define what a secular state is. for instance, if we consider the ussr as a secular state, it means that it should be neutral towards religion2 (casanova, 2011). in the case of the ussr, however, the state used force against religion and, therefore, cannot be defined as secular. victoria smolkin writes that seeing religion as a private matter, as well as a neutrality towards religion, were never considered acceptable in the ussr (smolkin, 2018, p. 242). a similar situation was characteristic of communist china and kemalist turkey. at the same time, smolkin in her study of soviet atheism points out that in the late soviet period, sociological surveys showed people’s indifference towards religion, as well as atheism. during the perestroika 1 kosovo (officially the republic of kosovo) is a partially recognised state in southeastern europe. 2 such understanding is also found in some of the book’s contributions. https://changing-sp.com/ 290 oleg s. kyselov period, however, there was a surge of interest in religion, which turned into its revival after the collapse of the ussr. therefore, the forced secularization in the ussr, in my opinion, should be studied separately—as a special case of secularization, leading to indifference and what can be described as neutrality towards religion (and that is what we mean by secularity). the liberalization of the soviet religious policy (or better to say—loosening of the state control over religion and public demonstration of non-atheistic views) instantly increased desecularization. i would like to comment on one more point about the desecularization and (in)tolerance in post-soviet ukraine. there was a considerable unrest in the religious sphere in the 1990s and early 2000s. for instance, there were clashes between orthodox christians from various churches and greek-catholics; traditional churches used hate speech towards protestant missioners and preachers of new religious movements; the orthodox church and the muslim community had conflicts in the crimea concerning the use of toponyms and religious symbols. as a result, some scholars evaluated religious pluralism or multiconfessionalism as a negative phenomenon because it brought about religious conflicts (zdioruk, 2005, p. 91). a similar situation was observed in ukraine after tomos was given to the orthodox church of ukraine from the ecumenical patriarch: the stigmatization of the ukrainian orthodox church (moscow patriarchate) has become a norm of public discourse. these facts prove the main statement of the book—there is no straightforward connection between (de)secularization and religious tolerance, but at the same time the scholars should be more careful in their evaluation of the relationship between them. one should not examine only general trends in state-church and interconfessional relations, but rather follow “the devil is in the detail” principle. references casanova, j. (2011). the secular, secularizations, secularisms. in c. calhoun, m. juergensmeyer, & j. vanantwerpen (eds.), rethinking secularism (pp. 54–74). oxford: oxford university press. karpov, v., & svensson, m. (eds.). (2020). secularization, desecularization, and toleration. cross-disciplinary challenges to a modern myth. cham, switzerland: palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54046-3 smolkin, v. (2018). a sacred space is never empty. a history of soviet atheism. princeton, nj: princeton university press. zdioruk, s. (2005). suspil’no-relihiyni vidnosyny: vyklyky ukraini 21 stolittya [social and religious relations: the challenges to ukraine of the 21 century]. kyiv: znannia ukrainy. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54046-3 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.2.010 article evolutionary modernization theory: why people’s motivations are changing ronald f. inglehart university of michigan, ann arbor, usa higher school of economics, moscow, russia abstract a society’s culture is shaped by the extent to which its people grow up feeling that survival is secure or insecure. this article presents a revised version of modernization theory – evolutionary modernization theory – which argues that economic and physical insecurity are conducive to xenophobia, strong in-group solidarity, authoritarian politics and rigid adherence to their group’s traditional cultural norms – and conversely that secure conditions lead to greater tolerance of outgroups, openness to new ideas and more egalitarian social norms. earlier versions of this theory have been presented in publications by inglehart, norris, welzel, abramson, baker and others (inglehart & baker, 2000; inglehart & norris, 2004; inglehart & welzel, 2005; welzel, 2013), and a forthcoming book (inglehart, 2018) tests this theory more extensively, analyzing survey data gathered from 1970 to 2014 in over 100 countries containing more than 90 percent of the world’s population. keywords modernization, social change, existential security, post-material values, self-expression values introduction for most of history, survival was insecure, with population rising to meet the food supply and then being held constant by starvation, disease and violence. under these conditions, societies emphasize strong in-group solidarity, conformity to group norms, rejection of outsiders, and obedience to strong leaders. for under extreme scarcity, xenophobia is realistic: if there is just enough land to support received 4 june 2017 © 2017 ronald f. inglehart accepted 24 august 2017 rfi@umich.edu published online 29 september 2017 137changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 one tribe and another tribe tries to claim it, survival may literally be a choice high levels of existential security open the way for greater individual autonomy and more openness to diversity, change, and new ideas. the concept that deference to authority goes together with xenophobia and other forms of intolerance was first presented in the classic the authoritarian personality (adorno, frenkel-brunswik, levinson & sanford, 1950), which viewed authoritarianism between us and them. under these conditions, a successful survival strategy is for the tribe to close ranks behind a strong leader, forming a united front against outsiders – a strategy that can be called the authoritarian reflex. conversely, as a personality trait caused by harsh child-rearing practices. the authoritarianism concept was controversial from the start (christie & jahoda, 1954), giving rise to an enormous literature. its original theoretical basis and the instrument originally used to measure it have been largely superseded, but over the past seven decades scores of studies have confirmed that there is a strong tendency for deference to authority to be linked with xenophobia, intolerance and conformity to group norms. this seems to reflect a deep-rooted human reaction to insecurity. a review of a massive body of evidence from surveys, experiments and statistical data concludes that a syndrome of authoritarian racism, political and moral intolerance exists and that it is caused by individuals’ innate predispositions to intolerance, interacting with changing levels of societal threat (stenner, 2005). my own research suggests that given generations tend to have relatively high or low levels of authoritarianism, in so far as they have been raised under low or high levels of existential security. in the 20th century, industrialization, urbanization and mass literacy enabled the working class to become mobilized in labor unions and left-oriented political parties, which elected governments that implemented redistributive policies, providing an economic safety net. this was reinforced by the fact that during the decades following world war ii, the publics of advanced industrial societies experienced unprecedented levels of existential security as a result of exceptionally rapid economic growth and the absence of war. their younger members grew up taking survival for granted. this brought an intergenerational value shift from giving top priority to economic and physical security, toward greater emphasis on free choice, environmental protection, gender equality and tolerance of gays. this in turn led to major societal changes such as a surge of democratization around 1990 and the legalization of same-sex marriage. classic modernization theory and evolutionary modernization theory modernization theory has a long history. the idea that economic development brings predictable social and political changes has been controversial ever since it was proposed by karl marx. it is intellectually exciting because it not only attempts to explain what happened in the past, but also to predict what will happen in the future. so far, most efforts to predict human behavior have failed, and the key predictions made by marx’s early version of modernization theory were wrong: industrial workers did not become an overwhelming majority of the workforce, bringing a revolution of the proletariat; and the abolition of private property did not bring an end to exploitation 138 ronald f. inglehart and conflict – it led to the rise of a new ruling class, the communist party elite. human behavior is so complex and influenced by such a wide range of factors that any claim to provide precise, deterministic predictions is unrealistic. a central feature of modernization is that it makes life more secure, eliminating starvation and increasing life expectancy. at high levels of development, this brings pervasive changes in human motivations, enabling people to shift from life strategies based on the perception that survival is insecure, to strategies that take survival for granted and give top priority to a wide range of other human aspirations. the feeling that survival is insecure leads to ethnocentric solidarity against outsiders and internal solidarity behind authoritarian leaders. indeed, under conditions of extreme scarcity, survival may require closing ranks in a battle for survival. since humanity lived at the brink of starvation throughout most of its existence, an authoritarian reflex evolved in which insecurity triggers support for strong leaders, strong in-group solidarity, rejection of outsiders, and rigid conformity to group norms. conversely, high levels of security allow more room for individual free choice and more openness to outsiders and new ideas. evolution has shaped all organisms to give top priority to survival. organisms that did not do so, died out, and the vast majority of all species that ever existed are now extinct. thus, people evolved to give top priority to obtaining whatever is needed for survival when it is in short supply. one can live without oxygen for only a matter of minutes, and when it is scarce people focus all their efforts on getting it. one can live without water for a matter of days but when it is scarce, people struggle desperately to obtain it, killing for it if necessary. when dependable supplies of air and water are available, people take them for granted and give top priority to other goals. though one can survive without food for weeks, when it is scarce it takes top priority. throughout history food has usually been scarce, reflecting the biological tendency for populations to rise to meet the available food supply. there is a huge difference between growing up knowing that survival is insecure, and growing up taking survival for granted. for most of history survival has been precarious, and survival is such a basic goal that it dominates people’s life strategies, influencing almost every aspect of their lives. but in recent decades an increasing share of the world’s population has grown up assuming that they will not starve, and in societies where survival is taken for granted, major changes are occurring in job motivations, religion, politics, sexual behavior and how children are raised. social change is not deterministic but some trajectories are more probable than others. in the long run, once economic development gets underway, certain changes are likely to happen. industrialization, for example, brings urbanization, occupational specialization and rising levels of formal education in any society that undertakes it. farther down the line, it brings greater prosperity and better nutrition and health care, which lead to rising life expectancy. still later, changes in the nature of work and improved means of birth control make it possible for increasing numbers of women to take jobs outside the home. this, together with related cultural changes, leads to rising gender equality. 139changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 the cultural heritage of some societies resists these changes, because sociocultural change is path-dependent and cultural heritages are remarkably enduring. although classic modernization theorists from karl marx to max weber thought that religion and ethnic loyalties would die out, religion and nationalism remain major forces. thus, protestant societies allowed women to vote decades earlier than catholic societies; and japan incorporated women into the work force more slowly than other developed countries. but a growing body of evidence indicates that as modernization proceeds, these and other changes become increasingly probable. even japan is moving toward gender equality. value systems reflect a balance between the driving forces of modernization and the persisting influence of tradition. the exceptionally rapid economic growth and the welfare states that emerged in advanced industrial societies after world war ii brought major cultural changes. for the first time in history, a large share of these countries’ population grew up feeling that survival could be taken for granted. the cohorts born under these conditions began to give high priority to other goals, such as environmental quality and freedom of expression. this led to a process of intergenerational value change that has been transforming the politics and culture of high-income societies, and is likely to transform china, india and other rapidly-developing societies when they reach a stage where a large share of the population grows up taking survival for granted. the best-documented aspect of this process is the shift from “materialist” values (which give top priority to economic and physical security) to “postmaterialist” values (which emphasize free choice and selfexpression). but this is just one component of a still broader shift from survival values to self-expression values (inglehart & weltzel, 2005, chapter 2) that is transforming prevailing norms concerning politics, religion, gender equality, tolerance of outgroups, and bringing growing support for environmental protection and democratic institutions (inglehart et al., 2000–2004–2005). the rigid cultural norms that characterized agrarian societies are giving way to norms that allow greater individual autonomy and free choice – and are conducive to successful knowledge societies. converging evidence of the importance of existential security working independently, anthropologists, psychologists, political scientists, sociologists, evolutionary biologists and historians have been developing strikingly similar theories of cultural and institutional change: they all emphasize the extent to which security from survival threats, such as starvation, war and disease, shape a society’s cultural norms and sociopolitical institutions. thus, inglehart, norris, welzel, abramson, baker and other political scientists and sociologists argue that a new worldview is gradually replacing one that dominated western society for centuries (inglehart, 1971–1977–1990–1997; inglehart & abramson, 1995; inglehart & baker, 2000; inglehart & norris, 2004; norris & inglehart, 2004; inglehart & weltzel, 2005). this cultural change is driven by the profound difference between growing up feeling that survival is precarious, and growing up taking survival for granted. similar conclusions have been reached by researchers in several other 140 ronald f. inglehart disciplines. for example, a team of psychologists and anthropologists led by michele gelfand distinguishes between cultures that are “tight” versus “loose,” arguing that these qualities are shaped by the ecological and human-made threats that societies historically encountered (gelfand et al., 2011). these threats increase the need for strong norms and punishment of deviant behavior to maintain order. tight societies have autocratic governing systems that suppress dissent, provide strong deterrence and control of crime, and tend to be more religious. testing these predictions against survey data from 33 countries, gelfand et al. find that nations that encountered severe ecological and historical threats have relatively strong norms and low tolerance of deviant behaviour. similarly, a group of biologists and psychologists led by corey fincher and randy thornhill provide convincing evidence that vulnerability to infectious disease is linked with collectivist attitudes, xenophobia and rejection of gender equality – all of which hinder the emergence of democracy (fincher & thornhill, 2008; fincher, thornhill, murray & schaller, 2008; thornhill, fincher & aran, 2009; thornhill, fincher & murray, 2010). they rated people in 98 societies on a collectivist-individualist scale, finding that a high threat of disease goes with collectivist attitudes, controlling for wealth and urbanization. again similarly, biopsychologist nigel barber finds that religion helps people cope with dangerous situations; while religious belief declines as economic development brings greater economic security and health (barber, 2011). these findings echo the predictions of evolutionary modernization theory. working from still another perspective, historian ian morris, after examining a vast array of historical evidence, concludes that “each age gets the thought it needs” – with foraging, farming and industrial societies developing appropriate value systems through an evolutionary process rather similar to the one described in evolutionary modernization theory (morris, 2015). this article integrates these findings and examines the causal linkages underlying evolutionary modernization. it argues that economic development brings increased economic and physical security and reduced vulnerability to disease – which are conducive to increased cultural openness, which encourages democracy and more liberal social legislation. this is consistent with classic claims by theodor adorno et al. that dogmatism, rigidity, and intolerance become prevalent when people grow up perceiving threats, and with milton rokeach’s thesis that existential threats make people paranoid, defensive, and intolerant; absence of threats makes them secure, outgoing, and tolerant (adorno et al., 1950; rokeach, 1960). in keeping with these claims, self-expression values – which include tolerance of homosexuality – are most widespread in prosperous societies with secure living conditions (inglehart & weltzel, 2005). socioeconomic development directly affects people’s sense of existential security, determining whether physical survival seems uncertain or can be taken for granted. consequently, as we will see, the values and beliefs found in developed societies differ pervasively from those found in developing societies. 141changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 the rise of postmaterialism in the west the earliest and most extensive evidence that the basic values of developed societies are changing, concerns the shift from materialist values to postmaterialist values. more than 45 years ago, i argued in the silent revolution that “a transformation may be taking place in the political culture of advanced industrial societies. this transformation seems to be altering the basic value priorities of given generations as a result of changing conditions influencing their basic socialization” (inglehart, 1971). this theory of intergenerational value change is based on two key hypotheses: (inglehart, 1977): 1. a scarcity hypothesis. virtually everyone values freedom and autonomy, but people give top priority to their most pressing needs. material sustenance and physical security are closely linked with survival, and when they are insecure, people give top priority to these materialistic goals; but under secure conditions, people place greater emphasis on postmaterialist goals such as belonging, esteem, and free choice. 2. a socialization hypothesis. the relationship between material conditions and value priorities involves a long time-lag: one’s basic values largely reflect the conditions that prevailed during one’s preadult years, and these values change mainly through intergenerational population replacement. the scarcity hypothesis is similar to the principle of diminishing marginal utility. it reflects the distinction between the material needs for physical survival and safety, and non-material needs such as those for self-expression and esthetic satisfaction. during the past several decades, advanced industrial societies have diverged strikingly from previous history: a large share of their population has not grown up under conditions of hunger and economic insecurity. this has led to a shift in which needs for belonging, esteem and free choice have become more prominent. the scarcity hypothesis implies that prolonged periods of high prosperity encourages the spread of postmaterialist values, while enduring economic decline has the opposite effect. but there is no one-to-one relationship between socioeconomic development and the prevalence of postmaterialist values, for these values reflect one’s subjective sense of security, which is partly shaped by a society’s income level but also by its social welfare institutions and its security from violence and disease. per capita income is one of the best readily-available indicators of the conditions leading to this value shift, but the theoretically crucial factor is one’s sense of existential security. moreover, as the socialization hypothesis claims, people’s basic value priorities do not change overnight. one of the most pervasive concepts in social science is that one’s basic personality structure crystallizes by the time one reaches adulthood. considerable evidence indicates that people’s basic values are largely fixed when they reach adulthood, and change relatively little thereafter (rokeach, 1968). if so, one would expect to find substantial differences between the values of young and old in societies that have experienced rising levels of security. intergenerational value change occurs when younger generations grow up under different conditions from those that shaped earlier generations. 142 ronald f. inglehart these two hypotheses generate several predictions concerning value change. first, while the scarcity hypothesis implies that prosperity is conducive to the spread of postmaterialist values, the socialization hypothesis implies that societal value change will take place gradually, largely through intergenerational population replacement. a sizable time lag exists between economic changes and their political effects. the first empirical evidence of intergenerational value change came from surveys carried out in 1970 in six west european societies, to test the hypothesized shift from materialist to postmaterialist values.1 these surveys revealed large differences between the value priorities of older and younger generations. if, as claimed, these age-differences reflected intergenerational value change and not simply a tendency for people to get more materialist as they aged, we would expect to find a gradual shift from materialist to postmaterialist values as younger birth cohorts replaced older ones in the adult population. if this was happening, the implications were far-reaching, for these values were closely linked with a number of important orientations ranging from emphasis on political participation and freedom of expression, to support for environmental protection, gender equality and democratic political institutions. the value change thesis was controversial from the start. critics argued that the large age-difference found in 1970 reflected life-cycle effects rather than intergenerational change: young people naturally prefer postmaterialist values such as participation and free speech, but as they aged, they would come to have the same materialist preferences as their elders, so the values of society as a whole would not change (boeltken & jagodzinski, 1985). the value change hypothesis, by contrast, holds that young people are more postmaterialist than their elders only if they have grown up under substantially more secure living conditions. consequently, we would not expect to find intergenerational value differences in stagnant societies – and if future generations no longer grew up under more secure conditions than their elders, we would no longer find intergenerational value differences. but the degree of security experienced during one’s formative years has a lasting impact. consequently, as relatively postmaterialist post-war birth cohorts replace older, more materialistic ones in the adult population, we should witness a gradual shift from materialist to postmaterialist values. the differences between the formative experiences of the postwar birth cohorts and all older cohorts, produced major differences in their value priorities. but these differences didn’t become evident at the societal level until the first post-war birth cohort became politically-relevant young adults two decades after world war ii – contributing to the era of student protest in the late 1960s and 1970s. a widespread slogan among the protesters at that time was “do not trust anyone over thirty!” a forthcoming book analyzes cultural change, using evidence from hundreds of representative national surveys carried out from 1981 to 2014 in more than 100 countries2, together with economic, demographic and political data. this massive body 1 this hypothesis was triggered by indications of intergenerational value change that emerged during the student protest era of the late 1960s and early 1970s. 2 for detailed information on the world value survey and the european value survey see their respective websites: www.worldvaluessurvey.org and www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu 143changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 of evidence demonstrates that the predicted intergenerational shift from materialist to postmaterialist priorities has been occurring (inglehart, 2018). but it is only one aspect of a broader cultural shift from survival values that give top priority to the survival needs, to self-expression values that emphasize gender equality, environmental protection, tolerance, interpersonal trust and free choice. it also includes a shift from emphasis on hard work toward emphasis on imagination and tolerance as important values to teach a child. it is bringing new political issues to the center of the stage and encouraging the spread of democracy. cultural change and societal change changing values can change societies. a culture is a set of norms and skills that are conducive to survival in a given environment, constituting a survival strategy for a society. like biological evolution, culture evolves through a process analogous to random mutations and natural selection, but since culture is learned, it can change much more rapidly than biological evolution. in recent decades, the prevailing values of highly developed countries have changed profoundly, transforming cultural norms concerning gender roles, abortion, divorce, birth control and sexual orientation that had persisted for centuries. one of the most dramatic examples is the emergence of new gender roles. throughout history, women have generally been subordinate to men and limited to a very narrow set of roles, first as daughters and then as wives and mothers. in recent decades, this has changed radically. increasingly, almost any job that is open to men is also open to women. two generations ago, women comprised a small minority of those receiving higher education. today, women are a majority of the university students in most industrialized countries and a growing share of the faculty. less than a century ago, women could not even vote in most countries; today they not only vote, they hold a growing share of the parliamentary seats in many democracies and are moving into top political positions. after centuries of subordinate status, women are increasingly taking positions of authority in academic life, business and government. in another example of recent societal change, openly gay politicians have become mayors of major cities, members of parliament, foreign ministers and heads of government. since 2000, a growing number of countries have legalized same sex marriage. the rate of change varies enormously, with low-income countries3 (especially islamic ones) strongly resisting change. in many countries, homosexuality is still illegal, with some countries imposing the death penalty for homosexual behavior. thus, in recent egyptian surveys, 99 percent of the population said that homosexuality is “never” justifiable – which means that even the gays were condemning it. for those adhering to traditional norms, these cultural changes are alarming. they have given rise to some of the hottest political issues in developed countries. and they help explain the current conflict between islamic fundamentalists and western societies. the publics of 3 we refer to the world bank’s categorization of “low income” countries in 1990: we use income levels at this early date because there is strong evidence that one’s basic values are shaped to a greater extent by the conditions experienced during one’s formative years, than by current economic conditions. 144 ronald f. inglehart high-income societies have been changing rapidly, while the publics of most muslimmajority countries have changed relatively little – and from their perspective, the social norms of today’s high-income countries are decadent and shocking. a growing gap has opened up between people holding traditional values in islamic countries and the developed world. once, many people in these countries saw western democracies as a model to emulate. today, islamic fundamentalists see western culture as something to guard against. cognition and emotions as sources of value change classic modernization theory needs to be modified in another respect – its onesided emphasis on cognitive factors in shaping cultural change. weber attributed the rise of a secular, rational worldview to the spread of scientific knowledge: scientific discoveries had made traditional religious explanations of the world obsolete; as scientific knowledge spread, religion would inexorably give way to rationality. similarly, some modernization theorists argued that education drives the modernization process: within most countries, the more educated tend to have modern worldviews, and as educational levels rise, traditional religious worldviews will inevitably give way to secular-rational ones. this emphasis on cognitive forces captures only part of the story. emotional and experiential factors, such as whether people feel that survival is secure or insecure, are at least equally important in shaping people’s worldviews. higher levels of formal education are indeed linked with secular-rational values and self-expression values, but higher education is not just an indicator of the extent to which one has absorbed knowledge. it is also an indicator of the extent to which one has experienced relatively secure conditions during one’s formative years, since children from economically secure families are much likelier to get higher education. but each society also has a distinct social climate reflecting the prevailing mass outlook, which helps shape people’s outlook. thus, although higher education generally encourages people to place more emphasis on self-expression values, there is much more difference in the degree of emphasis on self-expression values between the highly educated people of different nations, than between the highly educated and the general public within the same nations (inglehart & weltzel, 2005, pp. 219–221). the cognitive component of education is largely irreversible – while one’s sense of security and autonomy is not. the feeling that the world is secure or insecure is an early-established and relatively stable aspect of one’s outlook. but this outlook can be affected by current economic and political events, and greatly affected by catastrophic events such as the collapse of the soviet union. such events are rare, but an entire group of countries experienced them in 1989–1991, when communism collapsed throughout central and eastern europe. the people of the soviet successor states experienced sharp declines in living standards, and lived through the collapse of their social and political systems, and the collapse of the belief systems under which they had lived for many decades. scientific knowledge did not disappear – it continued to grow; and educational levels remained high in these societies. but the prevailing sense 145changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 of existential security and individual control over one’s life fell sharply. if the emergence of modern values were solely determined by cognitive factors, then secular-rational values and self-expression values would have continued to spread. but if these values are shaped by feelings of existential security, we would expect to find a regression from modern values toward increasing emphasis on survival values and religion in the ex-soviet societies. as we see, this is exactly what happened. cultural change is not simply determined by cognitive factors. to an even greater extent, it is shaped by people’s first-hand experience with existential security or insecurity. an alternative explanation: rational choice this article argues that whether one has grown up perceiving survival as precarious or secure, together with historical cultural differences, has a major impact on people’s behavior – but we should consider a major alternative theory: rational choice. two contrasting types of theories are competing to explain how individuals and societies behave: rational choice theories, and cultural models. the rational choice school, which dominated economics and political science until recently, is based on the assumption that human behavior reflects conscious choices designed to maximize one’s utilities. this approach gives little weight to historical or cultural factors, assuming that – facing the same incentives – all people will make the same choices. this school has developed elegant and parsimonious models, but a growing body of empirical evidence indicates that these models don’t adequately explain how humans actually behave. accordingly, behavioral economics has become increasingly influential in recent years, incorporating emotional and cultural explanatory factors. there is no question that conscious choices by political elites can have important and immediate impacts. for example, when the u.s. supreme court legalized samesex marriage in 2015, it was immediately followed by a surge of such marriages. the proximate cause was the supreme court decision. but a deeper cause was a long-term shift in mass attitudes. same-sex marriage had been not merely illegal but unthinkable for centuries. but, as data from the values surveys demonstrate, this norm was gradually weakening through a process of intergenerational value change that took place over many decades. public support for same-sex marriage became increasingly widespread and articulate until the laws themselves were changed. a large body of psychological research demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of activity in the human brain takes place on an unconscious level. since we are only aware of conscious processing, we tend to assume that it determines our decision-making. and since humans are adept at rationalizing whatever choices they make, after the fact one can always fit a rational choice explanation to any set of events. but experimental research indicates that human decisions are heavily influenced by unconscious biases or intuitions (tvesky & kahneman, 1974; wilson, 2002; morewedge & kahneman, 2010; kahneman, 2011). moreover, conscious and unconscious processing occur in different regions of the brain. brain scanning indicates that when a decision is made, activity occurs first in unconscious areas and is then followed by activity in conscious areas: apparently, the decision is determined 146 ronald f. inglehart by unconscious factors, which are then rationalized into a coherent narrative by the brain’s conscious component (sanfey, rilling, aronson, nystrom & cohen, 2003; de martino, kumaran, seymour & dolan, 2006; soon, brass, heinze & heynes, 2008). similarly, recent findings in psychology and cognitive neuroscience suggest that moral beliefs and motivations come from intuitions and emotions that evolution has prepared the human mind to develop; and moral judgment is a product of quick and automatic intuitions that then give rise to slower, conscious reasoning that finds reasons to support the individual’s intuitions (green & haidt, 2002; heidt & bjorklund, 2008). paradoxically, having emotions is ultimately more rational than being purely rational. the fact that emotions evolved, enables people to make lasting commitments to stand by one’s friends or one’s tribe through thick and thin, in situations where a purely rational person would defect if it were profitable. emotions make it possible for people to work together in trusting, long-term relationships. in the long run, natural selection behaves as if it were more rational than sheer rationality itself (ridley, 1996). emotions enable people to make quick choices in situations where a rational analysis of the options might be almost endless. conscious reasoning then develops a coherent narrative – rational choice only seems to be determining human behavior. but since, in the long run, natural selection is very effective at producing cultural norms that have a good fit with their environment, the end result often resembles what would emerge from a process of rational choice. accordingly, cultural change often can be modeled pretty accurately using game theory (bednar, bramson, jones-rooy & page, 2010). rational choice models of cultural change may not reflect how given norms actually evolved historically – but they may capture the underlying logic of why a given arrangement fits its environment, and consequently survives. such models are like evolutionary biologists’ explanation that polar bears evolved white coats “in order to be less conspicuous against the snow.” biologists are perfectly aware that polar bears did not consciously decide to develop white coats, but this is a parsimonious way to describe how random mutations and natural selection led to this result. in contemporary social science, rational choice theorists often describe complex evolutionary processes as if they resulted from rational bargaining and conscious choice – even when they reflect evolutionary processes involving complex events with unforeseen consequences, rather than conscious choices. slow and fast cultural change a culture is a set of learned behavior that constitutes a society’s survival strategy. the norms governing this strategy usually change very slowly, often persisting for centuries, but under certain conditions they can change rapidly. though fashions change quickly, basic values tend to change slowly, through intergenerational population replacement, with multi-decade time-lags between the emergence of root causes and the time when cultural change becomes manifest in a society (inglehart, 1971–1990). empirical analysis of the materialist/postmaterialist value shift supports the idea that basic 147changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 values change gradually, largely through intergenerational population replacement (inglehart, 1971–1977–1990–1997). instead of spreading across the entire world evenly, as awareness of the optimal choice might do, this shift occurs only when a society reaches a threshold where a sufficiently high level of economic and physical security that younger birth cohorts grow up taking survival for granted. in contrast to this, rational choice theory holds that key institutions are adopted through conscious elite choices – which could change from one day to the next. it also tends to assume that institutions determine culture, in which case basic cultural norms would also change rapidly. rational choice explanations do not account for the fact that cultural change tends to occur through intergenerational population replacement, or for the persisting influence of religious cleavage and historical events that occurred many centuries ago. rising levels of existential security have been reshaping the world in recent decades. life expectancies, incomes, and school attendance rose from 1970 to 2010 in every region of the world (human development report, 2013). poverty, illiteracy, and mortality are declining globally (estes, 2010; ridley, 2011; hughes & hillebrand, 2012). and war, crime rates and violence have been declining for many decades (goldstein, 2011; pinker, 2011). the world is now experiencing the longest period without war between major powers in recorded history. this, together with the postwar economic miracles and the emergence of the welfare state, produced conditions under which a growing share of the world’s population has grown up taking survival for granted, bringing intergenerational shifts toward postmaterialist values and self-expression values (inglehart, 2008). but in addition to the shifts linked with intergenerational population replacement, conversion effects are also possible: given birth cohorts can become increasingly tolerant of new social norms due to diffusion of these values through education and exposure to the mass media – which now present these norms in a much more favorable light than they did decades ago. this could eventually transform what are perceived as socially desirable norms. in secure advanced industrial societies, among successful young people it no longer is socially acceptable to be sexist or a gay-basher. but the publics of low-income societies remain solidly opposed to gender equality and tolerance of gays. western motion pictures and television programs, cell phones and the internet have penetrated widely even in low-income countries, but they have not yet had much impact on their lifestyle norms (norris & inglehart, 2009). education and mass communications may play important roles in transforming attitudes toward gender equality and tolerance of gays but so far, their impact has been largely limited to societies with relatively high levels of existential security. it is perfectly conceivable that both intergenerational population replacement and value diffusion can occur. thus, intergenerational change seems to play the dominant role in the shift from materialist to postmaterialist values, but some value diffusion also seems to be taking place: given birth cohorts not only failed to become more materialist as they aged – they actually became slightly more postmaterialist over time. 148 ronald f. inglehart major predictions the theory just discussed, generates the following predictions: 1. when a society attains such high levels of existential security that a large share of the population grows up taking survival for granted, it brings coherent and roughly predictable social and cultural changes, producing an intergenerational shift from values shaped by scarcity, toward increasing emphasis on postmaterialist values and self-expression values. 2. as younger birth cohorts replace older cohorts in the adult population, it transforms the societies’ prevailing values – but with long time-lags. the youngest cohorts have little political impact until they reach adulthood, and even then they are still a small minority of the adult population; it takes additional decades before 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(2013). freedom rising: human empowerment and the quest for emancipation. new york: cambridge university press. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 389–404 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.141 received 12 april 2021 © sanja bizilj, eva boštjančič, gregor sočan accepted 11 september 2021 sabizilj@gmail.com published online 11 october 2021 eva.bostjancic@ff.uni-lj.si gregor.socan@ff.uni-lj.si article perceived efficacy of virtual leadership in the crisis of the covid-19 pandemic sanja bizilj, eva boštjančič, gregor sočan university of ljubljana, ljubljana, slovenia abstract as a crisis response to the covid-19 pandemic, many companies quickly established virtual leadership systems and enabled employees to continue their work from home. this cross-sectional research addresses virtual leadership efficacy assessed by the leaders and by their employees. the findings suggest that leaders evaluate themselves significantly better than their employees, and their leadership efficacy mainly depends on their previous experience of working from home and ability to use communication technologies. this research contributes to the understanding of the factors that have the biggest influence on the belief in leadership efficacy in the context of a rapidly evolving system of remote work. keywords covid-19 pandemic, virtual leadership, leadership efficacy, work from home, communication technology introduction on 11 march 2020, the world health organization (who director-general’s opening remarks, 2020) declared a pandemic due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus covid-19. many countries thus introduced strict measures to limit interpersonal contact and impose social distance for most of the population in order to control the infection. in slovenia, based on article 7 of the infectious diseases act, the government declared an epidemic on march 12, 2020 (ministry of health, 2020) due to the growing number of coronavirus cases and took measures to close educational institutions, reduce public life and encourage people to work from home. https://changing-sp.com/ 390 sanja bizilj, eva boštjančič, gregor sočan as many people switched to working from home, work processes became more flexible. however, although the lockdown was generally received positively, as it helped curb the spread of the pandemic, it also meant inequality among employees. broadly speaking, more educated and skilled employees could continue their work from home, while those who could not do so were forced to claim income support. moreover, while working from home was possible for people employed in education or finance or working for large corporations, and so on, those employed as truck drivers, as sales staff in grocery shops, or as production workers continued to go to work as usual to ensure the supply of essential goods. finally, many workers simply lost their jobs and became dependent on state aid. as this was a health crisis, the order to work from home did not apply to healthcare professionals and other healthcare employees. in this empirical cross-sectional research, we focused on leaders of those organizations that were able to adapt to the lockdown and allowed their staff to work from home. as all educational institutions were also closed, the work of some employees became very difficult to manage since they had to share time and space with their children, which could result in extra stress and disruptions. crisis situations threaten the viability of companies, generating feelings of doubt and uncertainty among the staff. in such a situation, everyone expects guidance from the management and leaders (rosenthal et al., 2001). much of the research dealing with crises focuses precisely on the responses of leaders (boin & hart, 2003; halverson et al., 2004). research on virtual work has intensified since 1990, when virtual communication options such as email, video and/or audio conferencing, and other forms of internetenabled communication gained popularity. there are several definitions of virtual work and virtual teams. an earlier study (cohen & gibson, 2003) summarized the definitions of virtual teams according to three characteristics. first, virtual teams are functional workgroups, that is, groups of individuals who are interdependent and working towards achieving a common goal. second, the individuals who make up a virtual team are in some ways dispersed. third, instead of personal, face-to-face business contacts that take place in traditional work environments, members of such teams mostly rely on computer technology to connect and communicate with each other. virtual leadership is one of the most important challenges in virtual teamwork, even under normal circumstances. the lack of personal contact with employees in different locations can cause difficulties in monitoring the performance of work tasks, coordinating the working group, establishing and maintaining trust, and resolving conflicts. researchers agree that virtual leadership is more challenging than traditional leadership due to the lack of personal contact (bell & kozlowski, 2002; cohen & gibson, 2003; hoch & kozlowski, 2014). leadership effectiveness plays a central role in the performance of a virtual team (bell & kozlowski, 2002; morgeson et al., 2010; zigurs, 2003), and the studies of virtual leadership mostly focus on two areas: the behaviours and personality traits of the leaders (gilson et al., 2015). virtual leadership is usually related to the organizational structure of the related organization, which enables such work and is normally introduced in a structured and planned manner, together with changed work processes and the organizational changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 389–404 391 climate that supports such a way of working. leadership encompasses many definitions and includes different leadership styles. in this research, we understand leadership in a broad sense, with a leader as a person who guides a group of people or an organization to achieve common goals. in response to the pandemic, the remote work mode was quickly introduced in many organizations. this change in the mode of work due to the pandemic has not been studied explicitly in the literature so we sought to answer the following research question: do digital communication skills affect the perception of leadership efficacy when remote work modes were introduced during the covid-19 crisis? to answer this research question, we empirically examined the perception of leadership efficacy from the perspective of leaders and employees in connection with their digital communication skills and previous experience of working from home. in the next section theory and hypotheses, we review the existing literature and develop the hypotheses guiding this research. in the section research methodology, we describe the methods and present the data analysis. the results are discussed in section results. finally, in section discussion, we assess the contribution of this study to the existing research field and consider its implications for management scholars and practitioners. theory and hypotheses albert bandura (1986) showed that the concept of self-efficacy, defined as an individual’s belief in one’s ability, can be a powerful predictor of an individual’s performance. empirical research has investigated the links between how selfefficacy predicts and affects performance (haase et al., 2018; miao et al., 2017). however, according to social cognitive theory, we understand an individual’s action as a triad of reciprocal relations between cognition, behaviour and the immediate, current situation. the concept of efficiency has recently been expanded to include the concept of “collective efficacy”, which would not only derive from the self-related perception about one’s own ability but would be part of the whole (social) system, which includes also an external source of efficacy (bandura, 1997; gibson & earley, 2007). an additional external source of efficacy is the perception of efficacy, which is defined as an individual’s perception of the usefulness of external resources that can affect their success (e.g., tools, technologies, etc.) and is complementary to self-efficacy in performance predictions (eden et al., 2010; eden & sulimani, 2013; walumbwa et al., 2008; yaakobi, 2018). since most empirical research has focused on self-efficacy, we have introduced both concepts into our work. on the one hand, we examined the aspect of leadership self-efficacy as a self-perception and compared it with the aspect of leadership effectiveness based on the employees’ perceptions. we proceeded from the definition that perceptions of collective efficacy and the effectiveness of another individual represent an external perception of effectiveness that affects an individual’s perception in the available human and other resources that are important https://changing-sp.com/ 392 sanja bizilj, eva boštjančič, gregor sočan to a performance of individual whose performance is assessed (eden et al., 2010). we assumed that the models of self-perception and perception are related as stated in the following hypothesis (hypothesis 1): hypothesis 1: according to the average scores on the items, there is a positive relationship between a leader’s self-perception (self-efficacy) and an employee’s perception of their immediate superior (efficacy). leaders, as key individuals in groups or organizations, are described as highly committed individuals, determined, goal-oriented, and capable of effective, practical, and rapid problem-solving (yukl, 2016). as studies show, the individuals in leadership roles usually have a high sense of self-efficacy and put a lot of effort into meeting leadership expectations and persevering in the face of problems (bandura, 1997; mccormick et al., 2002; yukl, 2016). based on these findings, we propose the following hypothesis (hypothesis 2): hypothesis 2: average assessments of leadership efficacy are higher when assessed by leaders (self-efficacy) than when assessed by employees. because many companies operate globally, they have introduced virtual work to harness the talents of employees regardless of location, enabling more innovative, efficient, and financially advantageous operations (bell & kozlowski, 2002; hertel et al., 2005). in addition to the benefits, there are also challenges involved in virtual work. hertel et al. (2005) describe individual challenges such as social isolation, misunderstandings, limited social contacts, and unclear roles and responsibilities. it is generally accepted that regardless of where work is performed—at the same location or remotely, the role of the leader requires similar skills (davis & bryant, 2003; kayworth & leidner, 2002; zigurs, 2003). however, reduced interpersonal contact and asynchronous communication are the main challenges of virtual leadership, as leadership is highly dependent on the quality of the leader-employee interaction (malhotra et al., 2007). the massive and rapid shift to remote work modes during the pandemic contributed to our interest in whether the previous experience of working from home had a positive effect on leadership efficacy, assessed by leaders and employees. therefore, we propose the following hypotheses (hypothesis 3a and 3b): hypothesis 3a: previous experience of remote work has a positive effect on leaders’ self-perception of their efficacy. hypothesis 3b: previous experience of remote work has a positive effect on employees’ perception of leadership efficacy. over the last 20 years, virtual work has become widespread due to the development of electronic communication technologies. for leaders, their ability to create a positive organizational environment that fosters strong collaboration has become vital. in addition to the social skills, they now need to master a variety of digital communication tools and be able to adapt digital communication to the receivers’ expectations and preferences (roman et.al., 2018). to test whether digital communication skills have a positive effect on leadership efficacy, we propose hypothesis 4: hypothesis 4: digital communication skills have a positive effect on the perception of virtual leadership efficacy. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 389–404 393 research methodology data collection and sample we performed a cross-sectional study. data were collected from april 12 to may 2, 2020 using the services for online surveys 1ka1. the questionnaire was divided into two sets of items. the first set was completed by leaders who assessed their leadership self-efficacy. the second set was completed by employees who evaluated the leadership efficacy of their immediate superiors. an invitation to take part in the study was sent to 2,120 potential participants (1,050 leaders and 1,070 employees) via several platforms facilitating convenience and snowball sampling methods. in total, 908 respondents completed the survey, of which 382 (42.1%) were leaders who assessed themselves and 526 (57.9%) employees who evaluated their immediate superiors. the group of leaders was composed of 223 males (58.4%) and 159 females (41.6%). as for their current jobs, 52.7% were employed in slovenian private sector companies; 5.6%, in the public sector; 41.7%, in foreign private sector companies. a total of 278 (72.8%) leaders at the time of the covid-19 pandemic reported working from home. of those working from home, 48.6% reported no previous experience of virtual leadership. as for the type of organization, the lack of previous experience of virtual leadership was the highest (76.9%) in the public sector, followed by 55.4% in slovenian companies and 44.5% in foreign companies. finally, 69.5% of the male leaders and 47.2% of the female leaders assessed their digital communication skills with scores of 9 or 10, on a scale from 0 to 10 (with 0 meaning “communication technologies are a big challenge”, so they mostly use phone calls, and 10, that they are well acquainted with the communication technologies and take full advantage of them). the group of employees who evaluated their immediate superiors was composed of 324 males (61.6%) and 202 females (38.4%). this group evaluated their immediate superiors, composed of 372 male leaders (70.7%) and 154 female leaders (29.3%). as for their current jobs, 44.2% were employed in slovenian private sector companies, 12.8% in the public sector, 43.0% in foreign private sector companies. a total of 378 (71.9%) employees at the time of the covid-19 pandemic reported working from home. of those working from home, 34.4% reported no previous experience of remote work. as for the type of organization, the lack of previous experience of working from home was the highest (56.8%) in the public sector, followed by 32.2% in slovenian companies and 30.0% in foreign companies. finally, 55.6% of the male leaders and 41.7% of the female leaders were assessed by their employees with scores of 9 or 10 on a scale from 0 to 10 (with 0 meaning “communication technologies are a big challenge for my boss, so they mostly use phone calls”, and 10, that the leaders are well acquainted with communication technologies and take full advantage of them). 1 https://www.1ka.si/ https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.1ka.si/ 394 sanja bizilj, eva boštjančič, gregor sočan measures in this study, we used the leadership self-efficiency scale (lse), developed by andrea bobbio and anna maria manganelli (2009), as a multidimensional scale for the self-assessment of leaders. to better suit the measurement object, we have adjusted the scale to the leadership efficiency scale (le), which was used by the employees to assess their immediate superiors. the instrument has not yet been translated and adapted for the slovene cultural and linguistic environment, so for this research we translated the questionnaire from english into slovene. all items are shown in appendix 1. we used this questionnaire to ask the respondents who were in the role of leaders to self-evaluate their leadership efficacy and those who were in the role of employees to evaluate the leadership efficacy of their immediate superiors. the lse scale includes 21 items grouped into six first-order scales, highly correlated but conceptually distinct (introducing and leading the change process, selecting effective employees, building and managing interpersonal relationships, self-awareness and self-confidence, motivating employees, reaching consensus within the team). the response scale ranged from 1 = “i do not agree at all” to 5 = “i completely agree”. the reliability of the original scales computed with ρ coefficients (bagozzi, 1994) ranges from 0.65 to 0.79. the le scale was derived from the lse scale. all questions are semantically the same, but instead of self-perceived efficacy for le we ask about the leadership efficacy perceived by the employee. it is thus basically the same instrument, where only the object of measurement (myself/another) differs. data analysis the data were processed using the statistical software package ibm spss statistics 25, r programming language and environment (r core team, 2019) and microsoft excel. all statistical tests were performed at the significance level α = .05. the factor structure of the lse and le scales was checked by confirmatory factor analysis using the lavaan package for r (rosseel, 2012). in our case, we wanted to determine whether the empirical data fitted the lse theoretical model, as assumed by bobbio and manganelli (bobbio & manganelli, 2009), with the assumption of six latent, mutually correlated factors with a second-order factor. goodness-of-fit was checked by using several indices simultaneously (bollen, 1989). a combination of different fit indices is generally used to determine the suitability of a model. the following indices and criteria were selected to determine the suitability of the models: χ2, the ratio between χ2 and degree of freedom (χ2/df), rmsea (root mean square error of approximation), srmr (standardized root mean square residual), and cfi (comparative fit index). non-significant χ2, χ2/df < 3, rmsea < 0.06, srmr < 0.08 and cfi > 0.95 were considered as critical values of indices indicating the adequacy of the model (hu & bentler, 1999; schumaker & lomax, 1996). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 389–404 395 results confirmatory factor analysis to verify the goodness-of-fit of the six-factor model to the expected structure of the lse and le scales, we performed a confirmatory factor analysis. according to the recommendations in the literature, we chose a combination of different fit indices, which are shown in table 1. table 1 evaluation of the general fit indices for the models model χ2 χ2/df cfi srmr rmsea lse scale 256.40 1.47 0.95 0.05 0.04 le scale 370.77 2.13 0.97 0.04 0.05 note. lse = leadership self-efficacy (assessed by leaders), le = leadership efficacy (assessed by employees). kenneth a. bollen (1989) recommends citing more indices of the goodness-of-fit to the assumed model compared to the null model. the value of χ2 was statistically significant for both lse and le (p < .001), indicating that the two models do not perfectly fit in the population. the value of relative χ2 (χ2/df) was considered when assessing the general suitability of the model. in our case, the value of χ2/df was less than 3, which means an acceptable model fit (schumaker & lomax, 1996). encouraging findings were also provided by the cfi indices (0.95 and 0.97), which likewise indicate a good fit of the model. an rmsea value below or equal to 0.05 means a good fit to the model. in our measurement model, the rmsea was 0.04 for lse and 0.05 for le, which means a good or appropriate fit of our data to the model. the srmr values were 0.04 and 0.05, which also shows a good fit of the model. table 2 summarizes the relationships between the observed and latent variables. standardized coefficients ranged from |.34| to |.69| for lse and from |.54| to |.89| for le, and all the items loaded significantly on their own factor (p < .001). based on this, we can confirm the hypothesized latent structure. correlations among the six latent variables are shown in table 3. high correlation coefficients (r > .90) between dimensions 2 and 4, dimensions 4 and 5, and dimensions 5 and 6, led us to evaluate whether they were distinct by comparing the six-factor model (baseline) to nested models with fewer factors. in the first alternative representation (a1) we fixed the correlation between factors 2 and 4 to one, and we constrained these two factors to have equal correlations with all the other factors. in the second representation (a2) the correlation between factors 4 and 5 was fixed to one, and in the third representation (a3) the correlation between factors 4 and 5 was fixed to one, and the correlations with all the other factors were constrained to be equal. we looked at the validity of alternative models with respect to χ2, χ2/df and aic. a significant χ2, χ2/df along with lower aic indicate better models (schumaker & lomax, 1996). the results are summarized in table 4. given that the baseline six-factor model proved to be better than the three alternative models (with the lowest values on all indices), we did not reject it despite the high intercorrelations. https://changing-sp.com/ 396 sanja bizilj, eva boštjančič, gregor sočan table 2 values of standardized parameters of the measurement models latent variables items standardized loadings r2 lse le lse le starting and leading change processes in groups y1 0.66 0.87 0.44 0.76 y2 0.63 0.80 0.40 0.65 y3 0.61 0.80 0.38 0.64 choosing effective employees and delegating responsibilities y4 0.53 0.78 0.28 0.61 y5 0.63 0.87 0.40 0.75 y6 0.67 0.87 0.45 0.75 y7 0.68 0.80 0.46 0.64 building and managing interpersonal relationships within the group y8 0.63 0.86 0.39 0.74 y9 0.34 0.54 0.12 0.30 y10 0.69 0.89 0.47 0.80 showing self-awareness and selfconfidence y11 0.52 0.71 0.27 0.50 y12 0.40 0.73 0.16 0.53 y13 0.57 0.76 0.33 0.58 y14 0.61 0.84 0.37 0.70 y15 0.56 0.76 0.31 0.58 motivating people y16 0.57 0.87 0.33 0.75 y17 0.67 0.88 0.45 0.78 y18 0.63 0.87 0.40 0.76 gaining consensus of group members y19 0.58 0.88 0.34 0.77 y20 0.68 0.79 0.46 0.63 y21 0.47 0.78 0.22 0.62 note. lse = leadership self-efficacy (assessed by leaders), le = leadership efficacy (assessed by employees). table 3 correlations between lse (n = 382) and le (n = 526) dimensions 1 2 3 4 5 6 starting and leading change processes in groups 0.88* 0.80* 0.90* 0.90* 0.86* choosing effective employees and delegating responsibilities 0.65* 0.82* 0.93* 0.89* 0.85* building and managing interpersonal relationships within the group 0.50* 0.68* 0.85* 0.88* 0.92* showing self-awareness and selfconfidence 0.73* 0.75* 0.75* 0,94* 0,93* motivating people 0.71* 0.75* 0.83* 0.86* 0,94* gaining consensus of group members 0.65* 0.72* 0.88* 0.76* 0.86* note. lse coefficients below the diagonal and le coefficients above the diagonal. *p < .001 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 389–404 397 finally, the data-fit of the second-order factor loadings was checked, and the results were satisfactory, as summarized in table 5. all the γ coefficients were significant. see figure 1. table 4 comparative fit indices and chi-square test for model comparison model χ2 df χ2/df p < aic baseline six-factor model 370.77 174 2.13 0.001 23559.59 alternative model (a1) 565.73 178 3.18 0.001 23618.33 alternative model (a2) 526.52 178 2.96 0.001 23579.00 alternative model (a3) 528.02 178 3.18 0.001 23580.60 table 5 evaluation of the general fit indices for the second-order model model χ2 χ2/df cfi srmr rmsea lse scale 273.36 1.49 0.94 0.05 0.04 le scale 418.98 2.29 0.97 0.06 0.04 note. lse = leadership self-efficacy (assessed by leaders), le = leadership efficacy (assessed by employees). figure 1 general model of the lse and le scales ξ1 = s-l(s)uv spr1 spr2 spr3 ius1 ius2 ius3 ius4 moo1 moo2 moo3 mot1 mot2 mot3 sis1 sis2 sis3 sis4 sis5 sog1 sog2 sog3 η1 = change η2 = choose & delegate η3 = relationships η4 = self-confidence η5 = motivate η6 = consensus ζ1 = .45; .15 ζ2 = .34; .15 ζ3 = .25; .19 ζ4 = .19; .05 ζ5 = .10; .05 ζ6 = .17; .08 γ11 = .74; .92 γ21 = .81; .92 γ31 = .87; .90 γ41 = .90; .97 γ51 = .95; .97 γ61 = .91; .96 ε1 = .56; .24 ε2 = .60; .36 ε3 = .63; .36 ε4 = .72; .40 ε5 = .60; .25 ε6 = .55; .25 ε7 = .54; .37 ε8 = .61; .26 ε9 = .89; .70 ε10 = .53; .20 ε11 = .73; .50 ε12 = .84; .47 ε13 = .68; .42 ε14 = .63; .30 ε15 = .69; .42 ε16 = .67; .25 ε17 = .55; .22 ε18 = .60; .24 ε19 = .66; .23 ε20 = .54; .38 ε21 = .78; .39 λ1 = .66; .87 λ1 = .63; .80 λ3 = .61; .80 λ4 = .53; .78 λ5 = .63; .87λ6 = .67; .87 λ7 = .68; .80 λ8 = .63; .86 λ10 = .52; .89 λ9 = .34; .54 λ11 = .52; .71 λ12 = .40; .73 λ13 = .57; .76 λ14 = .61; .84 λ15 = .56; .76 λ16 = .57; .87 λ17 = .67; .88 λ18 = .63; .87 λ19 = .58; .88 λ21 = .47; .78 λ20 = .68; .79 note. the first coefficient concerns lse, the second concerns le. https://changing-sp.com/ 398 sanja bizilj, eva boštjančič, gregor sočan the reliability of the scales proved to be adequate (α for the leadership selfefficiency scale is 0.88 and for the leadership efficiency scale is 0.96). the study also confirmed the simultaneous validity of both questionnaires and the positive correlation (r = .726, p < .001) between them. test of hypothesis we assumed that there is a statistically significant relationship between the average scores on the items between the self-perception (self-efficacy) and employee perception (efficacy) models. the calculated positive correlation coefficient (r = .726, p < .001) indicates a statistically significant relationship between the models of selfperceived (lse) and perceived (le) leadership efficacy, which supports hypothesis 1. in addition, we were interested in whether the average assessments of leadership efficacy on all six factors and the overall assessment of the whole scale (21 items) differ between the self-perception of the leaders and the perceptions of their employees. the difference was statistically significant (p < .001) on all six dimensions as well as overall. the cohen’s d for estimating the overall effect size of the differences between the dimensions on the scales was 0.67, as shown in table 6. therefore, hypothesis 2 was also supported. table 6 the mean score differences between leadership self-efficacy (lse) and efficacy (le) on six dimensions of the scale lse le p < cohen’s d m sd m sd starting and leading change processes in groups m 4.13 0.51 3.78 0.87 0.45 f 4.10 0.47 3.57 0.96 0.66 total 4.12 0.49 3.72 0.90 0.001 0.51 choosing effective employees and delegating responsibilities m 4.20 0.41 3.72 0.87 0.63 f 4.26 0.46 3.53 0.97 0.88 total 4.23 0.43 3.66 0.90 0.001 0.71 building and managing interpersonal relationships within the group m 4.19 0.48 3.75 0.92 0.55 f 4.25 0.51 3.46 0.95 0.92 total 4.22 0.49 3.66 0.94 0.002 0.67 showing self-awareness and self-confidence m 4.21 0.43 3.85 0.79 0.51 f 4.27 0.38 3.63 0.90 0.85 total 4.24 0.41 3.79 0.83 0.001 0.62 motivating people m 4.14 0.53 3.70 0.98 0.52 f 4.25 0.48 3.41 1.09 0.90 total 4.19 0.51 3.61 1.02 0.001 0.65 gaining consensus of group members m 3.88 0.50 3.66 0.89 0.29 f 3.97 0.52 3.48 0.94 0.61 total 3.92 0.51 3.61 0.91 0.001 0.40 general leadership efficacy score m 4.14 0.36 3.75 0.79 0.57 f 4.20 0.35 3.53 0.89 0.89 total 4.16 0.35 3.69 0.82 0.001 0.67 note. lse = leadership self-efficacy (assessed by leaders), le = leadership efficacy (assessed by employees). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 389–404 399 in addition, we assumed that the leaders who had previous experience of working from home would score higher on the leadership efficacy scale. with regard to lse, the assessment of self-perceived leadership efficacy compared between the group of leaders with previous experience with the group without such experience differed statistically only in the scale of introduction and management of change (p = .03, cohen’s d = 0.3), where self-perceived efficiency was higher for those leaders who had previous experience. with regard to le, previous experience of working from home had significant effects on perceived leadership efficacy (p < .05) on all scales, except for that of choosing effective employees and delegating responsibilities. based on the results, hypothesis 3a was not supported while hypothesis 3b was supported (table 7). table 7 results of hypotheses testing dimension on lse/le scale 3a 3b 4 starting and leading change processes in groups 0.003 (0.27)* 0.006 (0.31)* < 0.001 (0.61)* choosing effective employees and delegating responsibilities 0.246 0.207 < 0.001 (0.65)* building and managing interpersonal relationships within the group 0.177 0.001 (0.34)* < 0.001 (0.63)* showing self-awareness and self-confidence 0.064 0.046 (0.26)* < 0.001 (0.58)* motivating people 0.941 0.005 (0.30)* < 0.001 (0.73)* gaining consensus of group members 0.638 0.002 (0.30)* < 0.001 (0.65)* general leadership efficacy score 0.101 0.007 (0.30)* < 0.001 (0.70)* note. numbers above the brackets are p-values; the number in the bracket is cohen’s d value. *p < .05. given that leadership is related to communication skills (eisenberg et al., 2019), we concluded that experience with digital communication technologies has a positive effect on leadership efficacy. we compared the group of leaders whose communication technology skills were rated by their employees as excellent (scores 9 and 10) with the group of leaders whose skills were assessed as poorer (scores ≤ 6). in table 7, we see that the leadership efficacy scores were statistically significantly higher in those leaders whose digital communication skills were assessed as excellent (p < 0.001, d = 0.7). therefore, hypothesis 4 was supported. discussion the purpose of the research was to examine virtual leadership in times of crisis when the covid-19 pandemic was declared in slovenia. for this reason, we used the model of leadership self-efficacy to examine the self-perceived leadership in relation to different groups of leaders. as we also wanted to study the perception of leadership efficacy by employees, we adapted the model into a model of leadership efficacy. this research was based on social cognitive theory and used the concept of efficacy from the point of view of both self-perception (self-efficacy) and that of the https://changing-sp.com/ 400 sanja bizilj, eva boštjančič, gregor sočan environment (efficacy). the concept of self-efficacy originates from individuals’ belief in their own effectiveness and is an important motivational construct. it influences an individual’s decisions, goals, and emotional reactions, and the effort that they invest in a focal activity. given that in addition to internal influences there are also external ones that contribute to an individual’s belief that they can function successfully, we have added the concept of efficacy to the concept of selfefficacy. thus, we wanted to find out the external belief in the efficacy of leadership, which then indirectly affects the individual’s belief in the external human resources important for success in the workplace. these external human resources are, in our case, the skills of a leader that contribute to successful team guidance, motivation, and consensus among employees. the main findings of the research relate to the differences between self-perceived and perceived leadership efficacy between different groups of leaders. based on the results, we can conclude that the self-perception of leaders in all six dimensions (starting and leading change processes in groups, choosing effective employees and delegating responsibilities, building and managing interpersonal relationships within the group, showing self-awareness and self-confidence, motivating people and gaining consensus of group members) is statistically significantly higher than it is perceived by employees. experience is needed for virtual leadership, as our results showed that leaders who had previous experience of working from home were perceived as more effective. the efficacy of virtual leadership is also influenced by communication digital skills, which was also shown by our research. this study was a response to the covid-19 crisis and the general shift to working from home, and therefore the implementation of virtual leadership as a reaction to the pandemic. our study focuses on the context of the crisis and attempts to contribute to a better understanding of leadership efficacy in a virtual setting, as we anticipate that working from home will become more common and organizations will gradually introduce it even under normal circumstances. thus, the current study contributes to the critical body of research demonstrating how virtual leadership experience and communication technology skills influence the way leaders are perceived by themselves and their employees. moreover, the findings associated with our research have practical implications. first, as we have seen from the results, in addition to the general leadership skills, in the time of crisis, if one has previous experience of working from home, it makes them perceive themselves as more efficient. in practice, this can mean that leaders with previous experience of virtual work are less prone to micromanagement and feel less anxious about not being able to see their employees work and monitor their work progress. minimizing the gap of perception between the leaders and their employees is the key to preventing remote workplace harassment, i.e., excessive behaviour management by leaders, such as reprimanding and instructing employees in front of a large group of people during online meetings and issuing work-related instructions via chat or video phone after working hours. therefore, it is important to discuss and decide in advance how to report one’s progress to the manager when working remotely. second, virtual leaders must develop excellent communication technology skills. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 389–404 401 chat functions should be utilized to create a work environment in which employees can consult their leaders anytime. third, leaders need to pay more attention to their self-perceived leadership efficacy and have some scepticism about it, as it is significantly higher than the leadership efficacy that is perceived by their employees. in this new form of work, leaders should put greater effort into setting up some rules in advance for areas that require care when working remotely. this will put both leaders and their employees at ease and make it easier for leaders to manage and for their employees to work comfortably. although the sample in the study was appropriately large and we were able to confirm most of the hypotheses, one of the main shortcomings of the sample was the selection of participants. the survey covered the general population of employees, regardless of their affiliation to an organization. since the organizational cultures of individual companies differ from each other, it would be better to conduct a survey of leadership efficacy within individual organizations. the use of self-assessment questionnaires in this study is also worth mentioning, at least in the case of leaders. since the respondents could give answers based on various cognitive biases and might also have been inclined to give socially desirable answers (moorman & podsakoff, 1992), it should thus be noted that the results are likely to be subject to certain biases or errors associated with this method (spector, 2006). linking self-perception of leadership efficacy and the perceptions of the employees is one of the possible starting points for the analysis of leadership effectiveness, as it allows us to understand the factors that indirectly affect performance. a large divergence in leaders’ and employees’ leadership efficacy assessments in measuring different latent variables could be an indicator of the interventions necessary in terms of developing better leadership skills. however, testing this assumption would require empirical studies in the context of a larger organization. despite these limitations, our findings reveal that leaders 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(2003). leadership in virtual teams: oxymoron or opportunity? organizational dynamics, 31(4), 339–351. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0090-2616(02)00132-8 https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02 https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428105284955 https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428105284955 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2008.00131.x https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-m https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-m https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-m https://doi.org/10.15406/jpcpy.2018.09.00555 https://doi.org/10.15406/jpcpy.2018.09.00555 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0090-2616(02)00132-8 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.3.015 editorial editor’s note the current issue does not have any particular theme; rather, in the submitted papers previous themes are developed and the new ones are introduced. thus, in his paper entitled fin de siècle in the trajectories of russian modernity: novelty and repetition, maxim khomyakov continues the discussion on modernity in relation to twentieth century russia. he demonstrates how in russian constellation of modernity autonomy came to be understood as a secondary to rational mastery and how collective autonomy started to dominate over individual one. for this purpose, he discusses details of n. federov’s “philosophy of the common task”, as well as peculiarities of the development of russian society of the beginning of the last century. in general, the author follows c. castoriadis’ definition of modernity through double imaginary of autonomy and rational mastery as well as p. wagner’s characterisation of modernity as experience and interpretation. khomyakov stresses that the centenary of russian october revolution has raised question on the role of the peculiar cultural phenomenon of the end of xix – beginning of xx century, the fin de siècle, and put the following questions: why fin de siècle is recurrent, if not because of internal apocalypse of the history or because of the psychologically acute perception of the crises in the light of the end of the century? what does it mean for the history? how the cultural phenomena are connected with social and political catastrophes so characteristic for any fin de siècle? in his paper, khomyakov makes an attempt to outline general view of a possible approach to this theme. in the joint paper under the title conformity in modern science: an engine of societal transformation? natalia popova, yan moiseenko, and thomas beavitt indicates the changing role of science in the contemporary world. the research purpose of the authors is to investigate the phenomenon of conformity, which has always played a central role in social life, is acquiring new significance through its impact on science. though science is penetrating all spheres of life, scientists are increasingly being forced to conform to regulation and bureaucratisation. sociologists, biologists and psychologists have explored conformity (e.g. conformist behaviour) but, to the authors knowledge, there is no generally accepted understanding of its nature. this paper examines conformity through a comprehensive literature analysis and evaluates its role in shaping modern science. the authors provide some illustrations of how this happens in the everyday lives of researchers, such as the distribution of the imrad format of research articles. the authors hypothesize that conformity in science has consequences at three levels: (1) within a scientific community, when scientists follow prescribed patterns of conduct; (2) within a particular society when people from all walks of life conform to the standards set by the scientised world-view; and (3) at the global level when non-western societies conform to western standards of life by adopting the western scientific worldview. 219changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 leonid fishman in the paper the end of utopias? reflects upon the place of creating utopia in the contemporary social thinking and discusses the legitimacy of the question: are we really living in the era of “the end of utopias”? the author argues that contemporary utopian consciousness should be considered taking into account that utopias are inextricably linked with capitalism; they serves its transformation (defining its “spirit” by its criticism) in transition from one stage to another; they are an expression of the worldviews and aspirations of social groups (classes) rising at different stages of capitalism. therefore, in order to find the place in the social structure in which modern utopias are born, it is necessary to locate the “rising class”. in the paper, the rising class is defined as one that has, at least potentially, the greatest productivity. when it comes to a contemporary rising class, the source of technical and cultural innovations allegedly playing a decisive role in the economy is usually considered in terms of “creative class” or “cognitariat”. varieties of modern utopian consciousness are considered, proceeding from the outlined view of the socio-structural transformation of contemporary societies. the current issue has new section – research notes – that contain two papers: the first one – university students: connections between representations of stress and coping strategies by irina kuvaeva, nadezhda achan, ksenia lozovskaya – discusses the representations of stress (concept of stress) and a variety of coping strategies that people in collectivistic cultures use in attempting to deal with problematic situations. the second one – comparative study of russian and slovenian managers using subjective criteria to control their professional performance by eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, galina mirolyubova, nina janza – presents the results of a russian-slovenian cross-cultural study, which describes key structural factors in the subjective criteria of performance monitoring used by russian and slovenian managers. the comparative analysis reveals both similarities and differences between russian and slovenian approach. the discussions on the topics raised in the current issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal, and new themes will be introduces. we welcome suggestions for thematic issues, debate sections, book reviews and other formats from readers and prospective authors and invite you to send us your reflections and ideas! for more information, please visit the journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ elena stepanova stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 427–440 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.109 editorial media culture of a globalised world: evolution of language technologies natalia b. kirillova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia as a world civilisational phenomenon occurring at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries, globalism has affected not only politics and economics, but also culture. moreover, due to the expanding system of media communications and increasing mobility of images and symbols of the information age, which has profoundly affected methods of thinking and system of science and education, the globalisation of the world socio-cultural space can be seen as reflecting many aspects of the current “spirit of the time”. for this reason, various discussions currently taking place in the humanities are related to the nature and consequences of cultural globalisation including the sphere of language technologies, which influences the dialogue of cultures in the globalised world. on 24th–25th april 2020, the online international conference “dialogue of cultures in the age of globalization and digitalization” took place. the conference was organised by the chair of cultural studies and socio-cultural activity of the ural federal university along with the ural branch of the scientificeducational society of cultural studies of russia. papers in the current issue of changing societies & personalities are devoted to the main theme of the conference, including the language of culture. it was martin heidegger who put forward the idea that language is the “house of being” of humanity (heidegger, 1927/1993, p. 220). in this regard, the methods of language formation, its evolution, main trends and development are the subject of research interest, which also includes the language of media culture as an information-age phenomenon that affects the process of globalisation. an important factor of contemporary media culture is how representations of reality in the context of globalisation and digitalisation increasingly affect public consciousness and the process of socialisation on individual level. whether for realising one’s creative abilities or learning the “other”, contemporary communication technologies (digital cinema, television and photo, multimedia systems, computer-related art, social networks and mobile communications) received 4 june 2020 © 2020 natalia b. kirillova published online 29 december 2020 n.b.kirillova@urfu.ru https://changing-sp.com/ 428 natalia b. kirillova facilitate an interactive mode of communication. consequently, when researching contemporary media culture, it is necessary to use an integrated approach to its analysis as a system of information and communication, including the culture of production and transmission of information, as well as the culture of its perception (kirillova, 2016). the global socio-cultural space combines diverse media, such as print, visual, audio and audio-visual, each having its own sign system and language utilised as a means of conveying meaning. during different periods of the 20th century, the functions and characteristics of the media language were the focus of research by mikhail bakhtin, roland barthes, walter benjamin, jean baudrillard, gilles deleuze, jacques derrida, julia kristeva, yury lotman, mashall mcluhan, kirill razlogov, umberto eco and others. their works interpret the transformation of iconic systems of media culture, as well as the specifics of new digital media, which is based on the “human-machine interaction”. the new tendencies are analysed in the works of norbert bolz, jean-jacques wuneburger, manuel castells, niklas luhmann, lev manovich, william j. mitchell and erkki huhtamo. the most in-demand forms of media culture are on-screen. a cinematic narrative, interactive visualisation of texts, search engines, a mobile phone interface, etc., are all variants of media screen forms having their own linguistic communication forms. one of the pressure points of contemporary media culture is the dramatic increase in informational scope, producing a wide variety of socio-cultural effects. although we often evaluate media products (books, articles, films, photo, computer or television programs, social advertising, video clips, websites, etc.) in terms of language and information aesthetics, there are other cultural dimensions to take into consideration, such as “authorship”, “co-authorship”, “perception”, “type of media”, “concept”, “new media”, etc. the present editorial paper is aimed at identifying specific features of virtualisation of media culture as a phenomenon of a globalised world and considering the evolution of language technologies of different media as methods of codification and representation of reality, including the specific language of a modern digital screen, which promotes cultural dialogue and polylogue. transformation of media culture as a sign system an important research issue consists in the transformation of media culture as a sign system, forming an important factor in representing reality, which has gone from written culture to audio-visual and digital cultures including the search for a new language as a codifier of reality and retransmission of meaning. the structuralfunctional method used in the present paper not only helps to determine the key functions of media culture (informational, cognitive, communicative, compensatory, integrative, mediative), but also to identify specific features of the languages of different media: written (book), visual, audio and audio-visual. if the basis of the language of written culture is the letter, for audio culture it is a sound denoted by a musical note, while for visual culture it is an iconic sign. thus, the aesthetics of the changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 427–440 429 frame becomes the basis of the language of audio-visual media culture. a special place is given to the analysis of the digital screen language, which promotes dialogism and polylogism in communication. here, the use of a synergistic approach allows the interdisciplinary character of the study to be taken into consideration. from an informational and semiotic point of view, media culture comprises a triune system that includes artifacts (from latin arte – artificial and factus – made), symbols and signs. the system that serves the purposes of communication can be defined as a language. based on this, philologist and philosopher yury lotman showed that not only works of literature, but also any cultural phenomena may be regarded as texts, since they store special artistic information and are carriers of a certain thought – idea (see: lotman, 2000, p. 19). hence, a media culture text comprises both a written message and the additional content of electronic communications: a movie, a television or video film, a television program or clip, computer animation and graphics, website, etc. the language of different media comprises signs and sets of signs (“texts”) in which the relevant socio-cultural information is “encrypted”, by which means it is empowered to carry content, sense and meaning. evolving from the era of phonetic writing to the “gutenberg galaxy” (mcluhan, 2005), i.e., book culture, and then to electronic civilisation, the media text undergoes changes under the conditions of the modern “internet galaxy” (castells, 2004). the need for the representation and codification of reality gives rise to evernew iconic text forms that translate different ideas, images and representations. the text is a connected sign complex and the basis of humanitarian thinking (see: bakhtin, 1986, p. 281). therefore, in mikhail bakhtin’s philosophy of language, the word comes to the fore, in the absence of which there can be no text or dialogue. according to bakhtin, dialogical relations cannot be torn from the domain of the word, that is, language as a concrete integral phenomenon. language lives only in the dialogical interaction of those who make us of it. the whole life of a language, in any area of its use (household, business, scientific, artistic, etc.), is permeated by dialogical relations (see: bakhtin, 2017, pp. 274–275). the problems posed by bakhtin concerning the language of culture, dialogue of cultures and man in culture concepts turned out to be immensely relevant for researchers working in the second half of the 20th century. bakhtin’s follower julia kristeva stresses that the language of the text, which is not limited to what it simply represents, denotes reality. it participates in the movement and transformation of reality (see: kristeva, 2004, p. 35). kristeva argues that, since the text is always polyphonic, it becomes a platform for different ideologies that come out to bleed each other in the confrontation (p. 21). the value of kristeva’s work consists in her enrichment of semiotics with new terms: hypertext, intertext, genotext and phenotext. these terms, having become central to postmodern culture, denote dialogic and even polylogic relationships with reality, constructed as a mosaic of quotes, a mosaic of signs. from the perspective of roland barthes, media texts are a communication system that connects a person with the world around him, inevitably leading to the mythologisation of reality. the french philosopher argues that the language of media, https://changing-sp.com/ 430 natalia b. kirillova like myth, comprises a form, a way of signifying (see: barthes, 1957/2008, p. 264). under the terms language, discourse, word, etc., barthes means any significant unit or entity, whether verbal or visual; thus, in the same way as a newspaper article, photography can also be seen as speech. the researcher proves that language as a general understanding of the word is confirmed by the history of writing: long before the invention of the alphabet, objects were regular forms of speech or drawings like pictograms (barthes, 1957/2008). it is generally understood that writing as a system for recording signs of the natural language or everyday speech was among the greatest achievements of human thought. the master of post-structuralist philosophy, jacques derrida, in his works (“voice and phenomenon”, “letter and difference”, “fields of philosophy”, “positions”, etc.) evaluated letters and writing in accordance with the western tradition as “body and matter”, external to “spirit” and “logos”. his concept boils down to the realisation that, between man and truth, there is a very significant series of intermediaries, which are located mainly in the sphere of language. among the key concepts of philosophy of language, derrida distinguishes the following: deconstruction, difference, writing, and overcoming of metaphysics. the language for him is the signifying substance tied to the thought of the signified concept (derrida, 1972/2007, p. 29). before the advent of poststructuralism, the german philosopher of culture walter benjamin, reflecting on the language of symbols as a “tragic game” of mankind, stated that language should not be interpreted as an instrument of adequate communication, but as an arbitrary form of everything. according to benjamin, since a thing has a certain spiritual content, then language is involved in any material realisations and manifestations thereof: verbal communication is only a fragment of the functioning of the language. in his famous writing “the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” (1936), he revised the language of traditional arts, proving that with the development of photography and cinema, based on a synthesis of technology and creativity, a fundamentally new situation in culture is created that affects the transformation of the language of works of art (benjamin, 1935/1996, pp. 70–72). benjamin was among the first to see that the techniques of reproduction removed the object of art from the sphere of tradition, replaced its unique existence with the mass; thus, instead of individual communication with art, modern culture began to offer more and more diverse forms of “mass consumption”. inevitably, this, in turn, influenced the specifics of creativity, leading to its unification and standardisation. the sociologist jean baudrillard developed an original concept of the linguistic sign system and its intermediary function, translating them into the sphere of politics and economics. he defined the sign as a functional simulacrum (baudrillard, 1972/2007, p. 17); as a discriminant, the simulacrum structures itself through exclusion, by means of which all virtualities of meaning are shorn off in the cut of the structure (baudrillard, 1972/2007, p. 207). this means that a symbolic semantic operation must be performed not only on sound or visual, but also on social material, although its implementation requires a completely different logic. as the german media theorist norbert bolz argues, there is now no common media space. rather, different media are served by different value systems. different changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 427–440 431 informational worlds separate democratic, political and cultural boundaries (bolz, 2007/2011, p. 15). moreover, according to lev manovich, new media is concerned with cultural objects and paradigms enabled by all forms of computing, not just networking (manovich, 2013, pp. 32–33). however, none of abovementioned researchers note the significant distinction between auditory and visual communication systems. let us therefore consider these differences here. firstly, a structural differentiating factor consists in the time that flows through sound, speech, music and vocalisation. the structuring of visual systems, conversely, is associated with space: in traditional art, forms represented by painting and sculpture dominate, more recently joined by graphics, posters and various iconic sign systems. in computer graphics, as in network animation, the replication of architecture and painting comes to the fore along with photography. it is here that creative forms start to prevail that dependent on a symbiosis of man and machine. according to william mitchell, there are no “visual media”. instead, he argues that “visual media” is a colloquial expression used for such phenomena as television, cinema, photography and painting, etc. however, upon closer examination it turns out that all the so-called “visual media” also involve other types of perception (especially tactile and auditory), which means that they are mixed (see: mitchell, 2005, p. 257), that is audio-visual. in this regard, it is interesting to focus on the language of audio-visual (screen) media culture, which has become the most popular. screen culture is a special type of culture based on a synthesis of technology and creativity, and the screen is the material carrier of its texts. we can agree with kirill razlogov that screen-based culture at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries becomes the most important mechanism for the formation and translation of the norms, customs, traditions and values that form the basis of various communities of people and mass culture in general (razlogov, 2005, p. 13). therefore, it is natural that the content of on-screen culture includes a wide variety of audio-visual forms related to cinema, television, video and computer creativity, including gaming technology and multimedia systems. consequently, with the improvement of technical artefacts, the screen has evolved from a white canvas onto which a movie is projected to an electronic television tube and then to a computer display. during this evolution, the capability of screens for displaying transmitted images was greatly enhanced. thereby, the development of on-screen means of displaying reality has determined the formation of on-screen culture. and the terms “screen”, “screening”, “screen reality”, and later “virtual reality” became the key concepts of culture at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries. the novelty of on-screen forms of modelled reality underwent a qualitative leap into different socio-cultural dimensions represented by computerised representations of pages, providing the dialogic possibility inherent in the new type of “book”. although the fundamentally important concept of “dialogue” is associated with the thought of russian cultural theorists mikhail bakhtin and yury lotman, it is usually replaced in russian discourses with its loan translation from english – “interactivity”. meanwhile, thanks to kristeva’s work in culture and semiotics, the terms polylogue (the broad https://changing-sp.com/ 432 natalia b. kirillova exchange of meanings between authors and readers) and intertext (the general interrelativity between all texts) have been established, raising bakhtin’s polyphony to a qualitatively new step (kristeva, 2004, pp. 14–21). due to the availability of information networks, the computer is becoming an important part of the global polylogue, a new dynamised way of being for culture. the cinema-driven culture in which reality has long been reproduced is associated with “photogeny” – in louis delluc’s definition (1924), the aesthetics of the frame, which is common to all modern audio-visual means of communication (animation, art media, television, computer graphics, digital photo, etc.). on-screen media, consisting of synthetic types of creativity in which all previous sign systems are integrated, are influenced by the general laws of the development of technical culture and technological progress. on this basis, a new vision is formed according to a new type of imaginative thinking that integrates auditory and visual forms (kirillova, 2015, p. 45). if it is a letter in the written (book) culture that forms the basis of a sign system, helping to compile words and sentences, then the frame is the cornerstone of audiovisual culture. moreover, the photographic culture of the frame is associated with its use as a means of transmitting a direct impression of a real event. within cinematic culture, the frame is used as an editing cell (eisenstein, 1956, p. 199), which allows it not only to convey the impression of an event, but also to reveal the meaning of the event in the creation of an artistic vision of reality. it is no coincidence that the classics of russian cinema sergey eisenstein and vsevolod pudovkin saw the photographic way of reproducing reality (the frame) as that technical “first phenomenon”, forming the basis for the emergence of cinematic poetics, which refers to the possibility of perceiving images on a screen as sculpting in time (tarkovsky, 2002). cinema would become a language system that required a different type of perception, changing the very nature of object-subject relations. this led gilles deleuze to consider cinema as a kind of material equivalent of nietzsche’s will to power, a place where the philosophy of exacting meaning dissolves, where inchoate images that have not yet been fixed in the picture come to the surface. in capturing and fascinating us, these images appear to represent reality to us; however, this is not reality as such, but rather the reality of desires, forces that enter into relations with each other (deleuze, 1983/2004, p. 14). a big semantic load in this regard is carried by the frame. as the researcher notes, framing refers to the conditioning of a closed or relatively closed system, which includes everything that is present in the image: accessories, decorations and characters. therefore, the frame forms a set consisting of a large number of elements (deleuze, 1983/2004, p. 53). the universal language of the frame is capable of fulfilling iconic and symbolic functions, as well as those of speech signs, without being identical with any of them. however, the frame itself is a purely formal element – that is, it does not possess independent figurative content (the exception is photography). in addition, the iconic universality of the frame is widely used when working with a computer, where it acquires the features of an artistic image, a dramatic scene and an element of figurative narration; with all these transformations, it preserves the presence of a changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 427–440 433 moment that does not exist in an artwork created with the language of traditional arts. this synthesis of technology and creativity is what distinguishes the culture of the screen from the classical culture. owing to the syncretic language of the screen, a number of its elements are important both for creating screen work and for the qualified perception of the audience. elements of the language of the screen comprise the following concepts: objective and subjective points of view, a point of view and a distorted vision, a picture as a frame, long and short frames, a frame as an “external space”, a combination of frames, large, general and medium plans, etc. modern culture exists under the conditions of the “digitisation” of media creation, i.e. the creation of a digital image. here, we can agree with jean-jacques wunenburger, who observes that digital imagery reproduces reality in an increasingly complete form, permitting fantastic manipulations that are almost impossible to recognise as such. thus, images increasingly come to replace reality (reality and representation are always intertwined), putting more and more under the control of the creator. although such manipulability allows the quantity of objective information to be increased, it also increases the extent of the possible intervention of the subject, simultaneously affording both greater truth and more dexterous trickery (wunenburger, 2003, p. 88). according to the metaphorical definition of kirill razlogov, the screen becomes a kind of meat grinder of cultural discourse, transforming the reality effect of the audio-visual image into a mechanism of global falsification, which in turn acquires the appearance of absolute authenticity (razlogov, 2012, p. 37). this means that the phenomenology of the screen language becomes the main formative principle of modern media culture. thus, american “media archaeologist” erkki huhtamo’s suggestion that “screenology” be singled out as a special science is no accident, since the importance of screens in contemporary media practices increases, the task of understanding their cultural roles becomes urgent (see: huhtamo, 2004, p. 32). an alternative approach consists in the idea of a comprehensive humanitarian science of a globalised world proposed by the present author and encapsulated in the term medialogy (kirillova, 2015). it was the screen that became the construct of a new parallel world – “virtual reality” – and a new phenomenon – “virtual culture”. in the late 1990s, the concepts of “virtual reality”, “cyberspace”, “virtualisation of consciousness”, etc. became such dominant trends that today it is difficult to imagine the socio-cultural sphere without them, whether in terms of theoretical research, artistic practices or media communications. virtualisation and digitalisation as new paradigms the philosophical and cultural understanding of virtuality can be represented as the dynamics of the following key reading possibilities: (1) virtuality as a non-existent reality; (2) virtuality as an unknown reality; (3) virtuality as a utopian or ideal reality; (4) virtuality as an inner world subjectively experienced by an individual; (5) virtuality as an imaginary, imitation reality (“pseudo-reality”); (6) virtuality as an information and technical space, i.e. cyberspace, a technically-mediated environment, forming an https://changing-sp.com/ 434 natalia b. kirillova information resource of modern society and the media environment of modern culture (usanova, 2013). the mainstreaming of the problems of “virtuality” has a significant impact on modern culture, contributing to the transition of society to the “network type of existence” (in castells’ expression), the establishment of direct and equal relations of “everyone with everyone”, providing the possibility of more accurate, operational accounting of personal requests by institutional structures and fundamentally transforming the entire communication system. therefore, one of the most important skills acquired by a visitor of virtual space is the ability to independently choose the conditions for their own activity, which fundamentally contradicts any suggestion that the computer monitor is the same kind of “zombie box” as the tv. obviously, in extreme cases, such a selection may come to resemble the split personality of a schizophrenic (zvezdina, 2015, p. 386); nevertheless, in most ordinary circumstances, the ability to quickly switch between tasks or perform several functions at once is undoubtedly a useful skill. the same observation can apply in the perception of virtual reality. the transformation of the information sphere in which a person lives causes to reconstruct his or her thinking and perception, resulting in the ability to quickly switch from considering one item of information to another (zvezdina, 2015, p. 387). as a consequence, a person operates not so much with holistic concepts and complex logical chains, but rather moves between fragmentary images, situations and representations. it turns out that, for the emerging new consciousness, the outer surface of the event is of interest more than the essence of the whole set of premises and possible outcomes. although one of the disadvantages of this type of thinking entails an increasingly shallow perception of information, one of the major upsides is an unprecedented increase in the speed of its processing. at the same time, studies in modern humanities subjects increasingly focus on the variability and instability of reality – above all, on the fact that it is “virtual”, i.e., connected with spiritual and symbolic formations. moreover, it can be stated that games, illusion and chance as variations of the pseudo-real existence become dominant worldviews in modern culture; everything turns into an element of gambling and gaming: socio-cultural practices, commerce and politics (usanova, 2013). today, a special communicative role is given to the language of the digital screen, based on digital encoding (computer, tablet, smart-phone, etc.), which not only tells us something using a frame or visual images, transmitting a “picture”, speech and music, but also comes to talk to us directly. as a consequence of the interactive mode, we come directly into contact with it – that is, it becomes our interlocutor. at the same time in bolz’s figurative definition, a computer is worn as a “dress” serving as an information assistant, that is the direction of paradigm shifts determined by the progressive digitisation of our lives (bolz, 2007/2011, p. 14). paying tribute to “computerisation” as the main cultural phenomenon of the turn of the 20th–21st centuries, bolz argues that the computer is a technical medium creating a learning environment; it is an artifact that can be fully described functionally. therefore, to reveal the instrumental potential of computers, digital cameras and modern mobile phones implies understanding their changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 427–440 435 language and codes, since new computerised media are technologies that rigorously mathematise the world (bolz, 2007/2011, pp. 89–90). thus, the new media comprise a combination of language technology and digital computing. according to manovich, this definition of digital media, which became popular in the late 1990s, is not very successful, since it reflects only one idea – the idea of digitalisation. in his opinion, a more appropriate term would be computer media or programmable media (manovich, 2017, p. 31). manovich proposes introducing new directions and concepts related to digitalisation and the latest language technologies: web science, natural language processing, vernacular culture, digital heritage, etc. (manovich, 2016). highlighting the role of the internet as a means of free global communication (castells, 2001/2004, p. 5) and as a socially distributed “human memory”, we should keep in mind that some representatives of the humanities are biased towards the internet space due to the predominance of economic interests in it and concomitant mass flow of false information. in a recently published book, geert lovink, the founding director of the institute of network cultures (netherlands), provides a critical analysis of the growing contradictions in social networks, such as fake news, toxic viral memes and online addiction, which generates “platform nihilism” (lovink, 2019). michael stevenson, an american populariser of online science and education, speaks of the need for “the dynamics of the interaction of cultural and symbolic forms of capital within cyberspace” (stevenson, 2016, p. 1100). digital media researcher zizi papacharissi believes that “online networked platforms, supportive of big data and a variety of similar analytical formulations, blend interpersonal and mass storytelling practices variably, offering a reconciliation of primary and secondary orality tendencies and tensions” (papacharissi, 2015, p. 1099). it should be noted that, in an age of globalisation and digitalisation, on-screen (audio-visual) culture takes on a dominant role, partially “eating up” the book. screen culture has a wider range of distribution and closer feedback between the contacting parties, i.e., between the creators of cultural products and their consumers. what, then, did screen culture bring that was new and valuable? first, a new type of communication based on the possibilities of a person’s free access to the “information space”. the free dissemination of information has made the media space a constant meeting place for people seeking harmony in the vast information world, allowing a consideration of the multidimensional specificities of diverse cultures. at the same time, it became the basis of a new kind of thinking. however, the cultural phenomenon of the internet has influenced not only the new communications system, but also politics. according to castells, the internet is a communication medium that for the first time made it possible for many people to communicate with many others at any given time and on a global scale; this is not just a metaphor, but also a technology and an instrument for facilitating activity (castells, 2001/2004, pp. 6–7). the concepts of virtual reality, cyberspace, virtualisation of consciousness, etc. have become not just fashionable trends; today it is difficult to imagine the socio-cultural sphere without them. although the virtual space was created as an instrument, it overcame the functions of means, becoming a medium, i.e., a platform of life and socio-cultural activity. thus, in becoming the https://changing-sp.com/ 436 natalia b. kirillova virtualisation of consciousness, the network came to influence major developments in the very essence of human thinking. another property of virtual consciousness is polyphonism, which describes participation in virtual communication not as a dialogue – that is, as a sequence, as a logical chain of individual replicas – but rather as a polylogue, i.e., the collaborative product of multiple participants. this is a consequence of the very scheme according to which time and space is constructed online, since connected by the principle of hypertextuality – a set of interwoven links, whose image may be visualised as forming a web-like structure. hence, the perception of any object of virtual reality – namely, the attitude towards it as a product of the collective mind – is formed as a result of the interaction of several actors, often anonymous. the computerisation of text has thus had an enormous impact on the transformation of the entire process of perception of the surrounding world. automated writing means increasing the “productivity” of creating a written product, which, as a result, affects the speed of response to external stimuli in general. in addition, the perception of the text as a collage or mosaic was the result of an increase in the amount of information, which is incapable of being perceived in totality. this information ultimately breaks up into the simplest elements – fragments or “clips” that are primitive and easy to perceive and transmit. for the perceiver, the other side of this simplification often experienced in terms of the loss of a holistic picture of the world. * * * this introductory paper shows that, due to globalisation and digitalisation in the 21st century, an essentially dialogical – or polylogical – form of knowledge about the world has emerged that allows the acquisition of interactive and multimedia modern knowledge. a myriad of texts, static and moving images are thus circulating in the global information network, comprising the sphere of audio-visual language technologies and new media strategies that demonstrate the universality and interactivity of the screen along with its ability to facilitate the dialogue and polylogue of cultures in the globalised world. in the search for a new language as a codifier and a transmitter of meanings, contemporary media culture has become virtualised. through representing reality with the help of a digital screen, it has become a construct of “virtual culture”, which contributes to a new type of communication based on the possibility of free access of the individual to the global information space. the priority of screen media culture has rapidly grown to become the globally dominant form. thus, the internet has become a kind of “mirror-screen” of the life of the entire planet. for the reasons discussed above, the study of the language of new media as a way of coding and representing reality, along with the influence of new media on the processes of socialisation and adaptation of the individual in the globalised world, has become one of the most urgent tasks of the humanities in the 21st century. due to their interdisciplinary nature, these problems present themselves at the intersection of cultural studies, philosophy, linguistics and psychology. this approach became the changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 427–440 437 basis of the discussion at the international conference “dialogue of cultures in the age of globalization and digitalization”, the materials of which are presented in the papers of the current issue. in her article “the dichotomy of public/private in the new media space”, alla drozdova emphasises that the new environment of network media has caused a real revolution in our concept of reality by transforming public spaces and audiences, as well as modes and mechanisms for the functioning of the private sphere through the creation of online modes of communication. in a mediatised culture, the boundaries between public and private have been fundamentally changed. in creating a new mode of visibility for social cultures and subcultures, the phenomenon of multi-screening allows us to rethink the public-private dichotomy. in this way, new media have led to the sphere of private life being absorbed by the public sphere not only in terms of facilitating discussion, but also in becoming a means of control by the state, the market and advertising. in turn, in coming under the domination of specific private or group interests, which only achieve temporary commonality, the public sphere itself has been transformed. the modernisation of the modern theatre space, as discussed in lilia nemchenko’s “theatrical dialogue in the digital age: from the director’s theatre to the theatre onscreen”, is of no less interest. as the author notes, the nature of the theatre for a long time allowed it to withstand the challenges of information and then digital culture, whose prerequisite consists in the principle of replication. as such, the theatre already possessed the characteristics of a virtual object, information about which is stored exclusively in the memory of a professional critic or spectator. in becoming an object of digitalisation, the theatre both loses its virtual status and acquires a new format of existence and pragmatics: this can be seen not only online broadcasting, but also a unique manifestation of theatre in a cinema – theatre hd. in “art in the age of globalisation: dialogue of cultures (ural opera ballet theatre’s production of the opera tri sestry)”, andrey shishkin and olga morozova similarly draw attention to the importance of theatre as a means of dialogue between cultures in the practice of contemporary musical production operating in the global intercultural space. in this regard, the staging of the opera tri sestry (“three sisters”) at the ural opera ballet provides a vivid example of the fruitful interaction of artistic traditions of different cultures (russian, european, american) in creating a new synthetic image. although such connections involve various paradoxes, multiple levels of historical experience coexist in the space of this musical performance without contradiction, giving birth to a new modern work of art. in their article entitled “cultural and educational practices in the museum environment: transmission of cultural heritage”, natalia simbirtseva, galina kruglikova and elena plaksina consider a distinctive problem in the age of digitalisation and globalisation consisting in the preservation of cultural heritage. the authors consider practices included in the educational environment of the preschool-, schooland university levels in terms of the cultural and educational potential of actual and effective mechanisms for transmitting memory about values and meanings, places, objects of material value, etc. the virtualisation of https://changing-sp.com/ 438 natalia b. kirillova the contemporary museum space makes it possible to present projects at different levels that target a wide range of visitors in the offline space. an interesting analysis of intercultural dialogue is presented in the article by ksenia muratshina entitled “cultural exchanges between russia and turkmenistan: structure, dynamics and defining features”. the purpose of the article is to identify forms, features, factors and dynamics of the development of cultural cooperation between russia and turkmenistan over the past decade (2010–2020). the content of the concepts “cultural exchanges” and “cooperation in the field of culture” is considered by the author in the light of intergovernmental documents signed by russia and turkmenistan. the article also refers to interviews, materials from public organisations and news archives from the media of both countries. in “chinese migration and cross-border practices in the russian-chinese interaction in the far east: four stages of intercultural dialogue”, olga zalesskaia considers how the problem of the dialogue between cultures has exacerbated the problems of relations between different states in the age of globalisation on the example of chinese migration, which, as a factor in cross-border practices, reflects the historical process of relations between the two largest world civilisations. she concludes that chinese migration, which still has considerable potential in terms of various levels of cross-border practices, is capable of becoming an effective mechanism in the development of russian far eastern territories due to its strategically transparent and culturally sensitive approach. the book reviews section contains a review by andrei dudchik of the book by julian baggini entitled “how the world thinks: a global history of philosophy”. the analysis is based on the project of the modern british philosopher julian baggini, which realises his understanding of the relationship between philosophy in its historically changing forms and culture in a broad sense, as well as substantiating the heuristic potential of studying the history of philosophy in its global dimension as a basis for fruitful intercultural dialogue. in the same section, one also can find danis sultanov’s review on the book by a. kumankov “voina v dvadtsat’ pervom veke” [war in the 21st century], as well as georgy vedernikov’s review on j.-f. caron’s “contemporary technologies and the morality of warfare. the war of the machines”. references bakhtin, m. 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(2015). gipertekstual’nost’ sovremennogo myshleniya [hypertextuality of modern thinking]. bulletin of irkutsk state technical university, 4(99), 386–390. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412905054673 https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443715594103 https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816643789 http://teoria-practica.ru/rus/files/arhiv_zhurnala/2013/11/kulturologiya/usanova.pdf http://teoria-practica.ru/rus/files/arhiv_zhurnala/2013/11/kulturologiya/usanova.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 373–387 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.4.083 received 19 july 2019 © 2019 olga a. iakimova, andrey s. menshikov accepted 20 december 2019 yakimova.ola@gmail.com published online 6 january 2020 asmenshikov@urfu.ru article religious education in russian schools: plans, pains, practices olga a. iakimova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia andrey s. menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract since 2012 the compulsory course “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics” has been taught in all public schools of russia. the introduction of the course compelled russian scholars to engage in comparative research on the development of normative framework and teaching practice in religious education. despite the importance of global trends and international debates, it is crucial to observe the local dynamics and discover how particular conceptualizations of religion, education goals, principles and teaching practices affect religious education and its development. in our research, we focus on the case of religious education in sverdlovsk region with the view to discover how successful are the plans which originated in the efforts of the russian orthodox church to gain entry to public schools, but were moderated by the resistance of educational and academic community. how effective are the practices? what unforeseen issues transpired in its implementation? intending to highlight some major characteristics of the emerging model of religious education in russian federation we conducted a set of semi-structured interviews with the representatives of major groups involved in teaching (public authorities; established religious organizations; education officials; educators; parents whose children attend the course modules and, finally, academic community in religious studies) and on its basis we conclude that religious education at russian schools today rests on a discrepancy between the alleged goals of the course “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics”, which emphasize multicultural education, and its implementation, which stems from practical constraints and local agendas. https://changing-sp.com/ 374 olga a. iakimova, andrey s. menshikov introduction after nearly seven decades of official atheism, it took twenty years for russia to introduce religious education in public schools. this decision was extremely controversial at the time and remains quite polarizing now. since 2012, the compulsory course “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics” (frcse) has been taught to fourth-year students (aged 10–11) and includes six elective modules. four modules represent religions “traditional”1 for russia such as orthodox christianity, islam, judaism, buddhism; the fifth module purports to provide an overview of world religions; and the sixth module should enlighten students about secular ethics. parents (and schoolchildren) are supposed to choose which module to study. there is no exam or grades for this course. there is a variety of textbooks and teacher manuals, ranging from deeply confessional to “culturological” approaches in dealing with study materials (blinkova & vermeer, 2018/2019; ozhiganova, 2017; shnirelman, 2017). the introduction of the course in russia compelled russian religious studies scholars to join in the international debate on the religious education in schools and to engage in comparative research on the development of normative framework and teaching practice in religious education. in 2017, the special issue “religion and school in the 21st century: the experience of russia and europe” appeared in a leading national academic journal gosudarstvo, religiia, tser’kov’ v rossii i za rubezhom (“state, religion, church in russia and worldwide”, no. 4(35), 2017), covering current debates and trends in the european context as well as analyzing the regional cases of scandinavia, tatarstan, tambov, and russian national textbooks for the course. in 2018, another special issue “the politics and pedagogy of religion education” appeared in the journal changing societies & personalities (vol. 2, no. 3, 20182) offering a more diverse perspective with analyses of such cases as india, zambia, south africa, uk and russia. 1 “traditional religions” is a term attributed to the religions mentioned in the preamble to the russian federation 1997 federal law “on freedom of conscience and religious associations”. in the preamble, the special role of orthodox christianity in the history of russia, and in the establishment and development of its spirituality and culture, is recognized; the respect toward orthodox christianity, islam, buddhism, judaism as religions constituting an integral part of the historical heritage of the peoples of russia is expressed (on freedom of conscience and religious associations, 1997). 2 https://changing-sp.com/ojs/index.php/csp/issue/view/7 keywords religious education, religious cultures, non-confessional education, secular ethics, postsecularity, public space, russia acknowledgements the work was supported by the grant of the russian science foundation (no. 17-18-01194) https://changing-sp.com/ojs/index.php/csp/issue/view/7 changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 373–387 375 the concept of postsecularity underpins the discussions and analyses as it allows to account for the revitalization of religion in the public sphere and highlights the entanglements of secular and religious dimensions in political and cultural life of contemporary societies (uzlaner, 2013; see also uzlaner, 2019). in contrast, though, with some occasionally alarmist conclusions about the “return of religion”, it is important to note that in regard to the introduction of religious education in public schools, the dynamics of postsecularity is far from straightforward, but rather, as tim jensen argues, there have been some changes to re (religious education – o. i., a. m.) as a reflection of and response to the changes taking place in society and in the world at large as regards religion, but […] some of the responses and changes to re seem to be changes and responses meant to counter, if not stop, the changes that have to do with religion, the role of religion in society at large and the meaning (or not) of religion for individuals” (jensen, 2017a, p. 50). thus, the educationalist slogan of “religious literacy” can have quite a variety of meanings and serve different pragmatics in local contexts. in the next part, we offer an outline of approaches to religious education with the view to highlight the diversity of its possible conceptualizations. conceptualization of religious education in contemporary religious studies, a typology has gained currency, which distinguishes between (1) “learning into religion” (mono-religious model), (2) “learning about religion” (multireligious model), and (3) “learning from religion” (interreligious model) (jackson, 2014/2019). if a particular religious tradition is prevalent in a society and its teachings are regarded as the moral foundation of communal life, the educational system tends to foster certain confessional identity and leans towards “learning into religion”. it would tolerate minority religions, but approach to other religions would be primarily critical. in contrast with mono-religious situation, secular societies with sizable religious minorities may encourage “learning about religion(s)” in a comparative and neutral way because it is assumed to be conducive to developing tolerant attitudes, communication skills and respect for diversity as well as shared civic identity for a pluralist society. finally, a focus on personal development may lead to an educational preference for philosophical and moral resources which religious traditions can provide to students. therefore, religions are approached as different sources of spiritual growth and one can draw from any of them looking for one’s own truth in the interreligious dialogue by “learning from religion(s)”. it is evident that each model is rooted in certain historical and social context and is based on specific normative arguments and teaching practices (arweck & jackson, 2014; berglund et al., 2016; jensen, 2017b; shakhnovich, 2017; hvithamar & stepanova, 2011; stepanova, 2011). tim jensen, on the other hand, develops this typology in greater detail with respect to the european context. jensen identifies (1) confessional; (2) interreligious (intercultural or multicultural); (3) non-confessional religious education. also, he points https://changing-sp.com/ 376 olga a. iakimova, andrey s. menshikov out ethics, ethics and values, and philosophy as alternatives to confessional re, and describes citizenship education as another possible response to contemporary social challenges, pluralism in particular (jensen, 2017a). in what follows, we present our version of the typology of religious education (see also menshikov & iakimova, 2017). in discussions of religious education at schools, it is crucial in each situation to disentangle what is understood by the notion of “religion”; what goals school education in general and religious education in particular are intended to serve; which form the teaching of religious education can take in specific national or local context; who are the major stakeholders that push forward religious education; and what overarching moral or philosophical principle justifies the introduction of religious education and guides the practice of teaching it. in the discussions about religious education, we can discern at least four different meanings of what “religion” implies for different parties. religion can be understood as (1) a religious doctrine (“credo” and dogmatics); (2) a religious worldview (philosophical foundations and moral orientations associated with a certain religion); (3) a religious way of life and cultural practices (ranging from dietary and clothing preferences to calendar); and (4) a historical-cultural artefact (cultural heritage, historical tradition). it is apparent that these possible meanings are not mutually exclusive and often overlap, but it is also clear that teaching religion will be different as a result of the implied understanding of “religion”. in teaching, one can focus either on indoctrination and religious precepts, or on dialogue with moral and philosophical insights inherent in religion(s), or on “lived religion” and its today’s relevance for orientation in the contemporary world, or on universal erudition and detached knowledge of religious mythologies, arts, theologies, customs, etc. the educational goals can vary with respect to religious education from (1) outright catechization to (2) developing an attitude for dialogue in multicultural modern society, or, to (3) fostering national or civic identity and patriotism, or, finally, to (4) disseminating neutral research-based knowledge. it is again obvious that these goals are not mutually exclusive. they can actually be mutually supportive in different combinations. they all include both cognitive and moral elements, too. however, one can see that the dominant “loyalty” transmitted through education will be significantly different: there can be a focus on loyalty (1) to a religious community, (2) to a wider civil society, (3) to a nation-state, or (4) to a cosmopolitan “république des lettres”. here it should be highlighted that we do not presume to assert that each notion of religion or preference for certain learning outcomes exclusively belongs to a specific party or stakeholder such as (1) religious organizations, (2) state agencies, (3) ngos or (4) academic and teaching community. each faction always encompasses a variety of attitudes and views. for instance, many orthodox christians are wary of the prospect of the compulsory course at schools and fear it might repel children’s genuine interest in religion. many ethnonationalists, too, are less concerned with christian message and are keener on promoting patriotism – too often understood as servility to the state, or even more specifically present incumbents, – and “traditional” identity and values. moreover, the diversity of meanings is a resource rather than a problem because in polemics conceptual indeterminacy can be very valuable as it changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 373–387 377 allows to shift the ground and manipulate the opponents, and occasionally “troll” the discussants. therefore, each party in religious education discussions can navigate between these meanings and appeal to different interpretations in different contexts while pursuing their strategic agenda. the variety of notions of religion, goals, forms and stakeholders of education, and justificatory principles are summarized in the following table. however, we would like to emphasize that it is a spectrum rather than a classification and various combinations might be possible. in the european context, on the other hand, the overarching tendency is a move from “educating into religion” towards “educating about religion” (table 1). table 1. characteristics of different types of religious education e du ca tin g in to re lig io n criteria types of religious education e du ca tin g ab ou t r el ig io n confessional life orientation civic education religious studies religion understood as religious doctrine religious world view specific way of life and cultural practice religion as a cultural-historical artefact goals of education catechization development of cognitive and communicative skills for the life in multicultural society (“aptitude for dialogue”) fostering of civic identity and patriotism neutral researchbased knowledge teaching confessionally trained instructors; separative education secular instructors; intercultural dialogue; compulsory integrative education secular instructors; national tradition and civic values; opt-out possibility secular university-trained instructors in religious studies; compulsory principle (mono) confessionalism inclusivism and individual autonomy human rights and/or civic virtues (depending on national context) secularism and pluralism (neutrality to and equality of religions); no confessional education in public schools actors religious communities and organizations ngos state agencies academic and teaching community thus, despite the importance of global trends and international debates, it is crucial to observe the local dynamics and discover how particular conceptualizations of religion, education goals, principles and teaching practices affect religious education and its development. in our research, we focus on religious education in sverdlovsk region with the view to discover how successful are the plans which originated in the efforts of the russian orthodox church to gain entry to public schools, but were https://changing-sp.com/ 378 olga a. iakimova, andrey s. menshikov moderated by the resistance of educational and academic community. how effective are the practices? what unforeseen issues transpired in its implementation? further, on this basis, we intend to highlight some major characteristics of the emerging model of religious education in russian federation. research design: sampling and methods for the empirical part of our research, we selected a case of religious education in sverdlovsk region3 and, in particular, yekaterinburg. the city of yekaterinburg has often been named the “third capital of russia” since it ranks third in the size of its economy exceeded only by moscow and st. petersburg. its estimated population is approximately 1,500,000 citizens. the city is one of the largest educational centers in the country with 164 educational institutions and about 173,000 students (secondary schools and universities taken together). although it is generally assumed that the predominant religion is christianity, mostly represented by adherents of the russian orthodox church, the city also has a large community of muslims. other religions practiced in yekaterinburg and sverdlovsk region include judaism, buddhism, old believers, armenian apostolic church, roman catholic church, various protestant denominations, and several nrm (new religious movements) groups. since the 1990s, the role of religion in the public life in russia increased and the courses on religious education appeared in the schools of sverdlovsk region (as in many other russian schools) as a part of the regional component of the syllabus. these were mostly the courses on orthodox culture and ethics because what was seen as orthodox culture and morality were regarded “traditional” and essential for russian identity. in 2010, russia adopted a new federal educational standard; in 2012, an academic course “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics” was officially introduced on the national level, and it was declared compulsory for all public schools. during the period of transition (2010–2012), several regions had been selected for this course to be introduced on a compulsory basis two years earlier than in all other russian schools. sverdlovsk region was in this experimental group. in our case study of religious education in yekaterinburg, we planned, firstly, to find out: (1) is it possible to demonstrate distinctive preference of modules in certain regions of russia? (2) are there specific, regional trends in the selection of frcse modules? to answer these questions, we used the relevant data collected by the ministry of education and science of the russian federation4 from 2012 to 2018 3 sverdlovsk region is one of the largest and most developed in russia. its total area is about 195,000 sq. km and the population is approximately 4,300,000 inhabitants (84 percent are urban dwellers). historically, the region has been ethnically and religiously diverse. about 90 percent of the people are ethnically russian, although this would imply all kinds of slavic origins (ukrainians, belarusians); sverdlovsk region also includes substantial numbers of tatars and bashkirs. since economic development has gained momentum the region attracts substantial inflows of labour immigrants from the former soviet central asian republics such as kyrgyzstan, tajikistan and uzbekistan. the administrative center of sverdlovsk region is yekaterinburg. geographically, the city is situated between central russia and siberia, making it a transport hub between the western and the eastern parts of russia. 4 since 2018, it has been divided into the ministry of education (prosveschenie) and the ministry of science and higher education. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 373–387 379 (monitoring of the frcse course in rf). for the evaluation of this data we employed cross-tabulation analysis. secondly, we aimed to analyze religious education practice in public schools and conducted a set of semi-structured interviews with the representatives of major groups involved in teaching. we distinguished six groups of stakeholders depending on the role they played in the educational process: (1) public authorities and (2) established religious organizations (these two groups exist at the institutional macro-level); (3) education officials and (4) educators (mesolevel); (5) parents whose children attend the course modules (micro-level); and, finally, (6) academic community in religious and cultural studies (independent expertise, the expert-level). the guide for expert interviews comprised the following sections of questions: (1) the variety of ways religion enters the educational process. in this part, we gauged opinions in what forms religion's presence in contemporary schools is considered acceptable or not acceptable for religion to be present in contemporary school, for example, religion as a personal identity, a religious practice, a religious organization, a subject of study, etc.; (2) the practice of teaching the frcse at school. here, issues related to the educational process were explored, such as the procedure for choosing modules and instruction resources (course regulations and guidelines, teaching methodologies, teacher manuals, textbooks, teachers training, etc.); (3) the evaluation of principles, objectives, strengths and problems of religious education in russian public schools in general. in 2018 (from june to december), we conducted twelve interviews with representatives of all groups (two experts from each group), all from yekaterinburg. our interlocutors were people from the administration of the governor of sverdlovsk region; the ministry of education of sverdlovsk region; teachers and parents from secondary schools; representatives of the orthodox metropolitan diocese in yekaterinburg; academics from the ural federal university specializing in religious studies. “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics”: the structure and dynamics of selection of modules (within russian federation) the analysis of the structure of module selection and its dynamics over the time provides us with some interesting findings. firstly, the so-called “secular” modules, which include “secular ethics” and “fundamentals of world religious cultures”, are more popular among students (and parents) than those related to religious cultures. graph 1 shows that “secular” subjects were chosen for more than a half of 4th graders – 65 percent in 2012 and 57 percent in 2018 respectively. according to the data in table 2, “secular ethics” is more than twice as preferable in schools as is the “fundamentals of world religious cultures”. for example, during the academic year of 2017–18, about 41 percent of 4th graders studied ethics and only about 17 percent chose world religious cultures in general. https://changing-sp.com/ 380 olga a. iakimova, andrey s. menshikov secondly, although modules related to particular religious cultures have been less popular, as we can see in graph 1, they show an upward trend. the number of those who chose to study specific religious cultures has increased by 8 percent in the last six years. moreover, the data in table 3 specifies that it was the course “fundamentals of orthodox culture” that was favored. in 2012, only one third of the parents decided that their children should study orthodox culture, but in 2018 almost half of them did so (about 40 percent). 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2017–18 secular religious graph 1. the dynamics of selection of modules (persent) table 2. the dynamics of students’ module selection (2012–2018) in russia (percent) modules time intervals 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2017–18 secular ethics 44.8 45.8 44.6 40.6 world religious cultures 20.6 18.8 18.4 16.5 orthodox culture 30.4 31.2 32.9 38.5 islamic culture 3.8 – 3.6 3.9 buddhist culture 0.4 – 0.4 0.3 judaic culture 0.02 – 0.02 0.06 table 3. distribution of module selection within federal districts in russia in 2017–18 academic year (percent) modules federal districts central volga far eastern ural north western southern north caucasian siberian secular ethics 33 40 51 56 48 30 23 55 world religious cultures 11 19 16 23 18 8 23 20 orthodox culture 55 41 32 20 34 61 15 23 islamic culture .2 .8 .05 1 .07 1 39 .22 buddhist culture .02 .002 .01 .002 .01 1 0 1 judaic culture .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .002 .01 .33 note: since the beginning of the new millennium, the country has been divided into eight federal districts: (1) central federal district; (2) volga federal district; (3) southern federal district; (4) north caucasian federal district; (5) northwestern federal district; (6) ural federal district; (7) siberian federal district; and (8) far eastern federal district. in 2014, the ninth – crimean federal district – was added. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 373–387 381 to place sverdlovsk region in the national russian context it is important to assess the distribution of data over the territory of russia. the distribution of data in table 3 shows that studying “orthodox culture” prevails in central and southern federal districts: 55 percent and 61 percent of choices respectively. in volga federal district, the number of 4th graders who studied “fundamentals of orthodox culture” is also significant: 41 percent, which is approximately equal to the number of those who preferred secular ethics (40 percent). if we relate this data with the percentage of schools (table 4), we can notice that central and volga federal districts are those territories where almost a half of all schools in russia are situated (44 percent in total). if we add the southern federal district with its 9 percent of schools, we have a territory that contains 53 percent of russian schools and where the “fundamentals of orthodox culture” are chosen. table 4. distribution of schools in the federal districts of russia # federal district number of schools % 1 central 8,909 21 2 volga 9,775 23 3 southern 3,632 9 4 north caucasian 3,286 8 5 northwestern 3,066 7 6 ural 3,337 8 7 siberian 7,227 17 8 far eastern 2,226 5 9 crimean 626 2 the preference for the module “secular ethics”, in its turn, is more characteristic of the eastern part of russia. geographically, this cluster contains ural, siberian and far eastern federal districts. in each of these districts, more than a half of 4th grade students chose to study “secular ethics” in the school year 2017–18. it is interesting that the urals and siberia appeared to be the most secular oriented parts of the country: 79 percent of elementary school children in the urals and 75 percent in siberia studied secular modules in 2017–18 school year. one of our experts explained this as follows: in our case, the situation can be explained by the fact that historically, the region is a multinational territory (female, an education official in the ministry of education of sverdlovsk region). although, as has been mentioned, this choice can hardly be explained by the reference to ethnic and religious diversity because the majority are ethnically russian, similar to the european part where the number of students opting for the course “fundamentals of orthodox culture” increases. to summarize, the statistical data reveal that preferences for one or the other module of the course frcse differ in administrative and geographical territories of russia and do not solely depend on ethnic origins or assumed ethno-religious belonging, which is often invoked by religious leaders who are prone to claim, for https://changing-sp.com/ 382 olga a. iakimova, andrey s. menshikov instance, that all russians are orthodox and constitute their flock by the very fact of being ethnically russian. practices and problems (the case of sverdlovsk region) in principle, the declared goals of the course “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics” conform with “toledo principles”5 and seek to promote better understanding of religious diversity of the contemporary world. nevertheless, despite the important idea underlying the introduction of the course, its implementation prompted strong criticism from the academic community, who highlighted the dangers of confessional indoctrination and emphasized the fact that this form of religious education is separative. our academic experts in the field of religious studies argue that under the guise of a neutral course which views religions as cultural entities, in fact, a kind of religious upbringing has been implemented in schools (female, research fellow in religious studies). thus, the contradiction related to this course is between its proclaimed aim (which is multicultural education) and its implementation (which entails learning a particular doctrine and separation of students on the basis of their or rather their parents’ religious beliefs). academic experts see the reason for this in the concept of the course per se, because it tries to combine moral and patriotic upbringing with religious indoctrination (female, associate professor at the ural federal university). nevertheless, both academic experts and parents do not blatantly reject the course or religious education in general. they all agree that the course just needs to be better prepared, textbooks must be more interesting, and teachers should be more competent. in fact, educators and school officials are aware of these concerns. in their view, there are two main problems with this course. firstly, it is difficult to manage in terms of schedule: from the perspectives of making a schedule and managing the process of education in school, for school officials it is more convenient if students choose the same module out of six. given that we have a great deal of schools which work double shifts, it goes without saying that this issue is very sensitive for a schedule (female, schoolteacher, engaged in teaching the course frcse). 5 the toledo guiding principles on teaching about religions and beliefs in public schools (osce, 2007) is an influential document in debates on teaching religion in europe. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 373–387 383 secondly, not all teachers feel confident to instruct on world religions from the perspective of cultural and religious studies: there were no barriers for teachers of history or social science to get involved into teaching this course. yet, the way schools work does not let them do this. if we move educators of secondary school to elementary school, that would entail poaching a part of teaching hours from teachers of elementary school, from their teaching load. so, they started sending teachers of elementary school to re-training programs. and then there was an outcry from people. god knows what happened. that is, when they were introduced to the content – that was it, they had their minds totally blown (female, educational official, the institute of the development of education of sverdlovsk region). thus, at the moment, most teachers who teach this course are instructors of elementary school. to teach the course on “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics” they need to improve their qualifications, but the existing program of upskilling is not enough. for example, a standard upskilling program consists of 72 academic hours, only 12 hours are devoted to the content, that is, to all four world religions and two secular modules: thus, the main program was a program with 72 hours, where, generally speaking, for the content of the course per se – there were only two hours per each module, that is 6 by 2 – it is 12 hours. the rest of 60 hours: approximately 8 hours – for the new federal standard of education; approximately 8 hours – for the course regulations (recommendations, official documents, the constitution and so on, that is everything, on the basis of which we teach “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics”). you see, there are already 16 hours against 12! and the rest of the time is for teaching methods, traineeship, and project work. the main part of the upskilling program had nothing to do with religion! (female, schoolteacher, participant of the upskilling program). the fact that each world religion is allowed only two academic hours in teacher upskilling programs shows that even the re-training and advanced qualification institutes are not ready to offer sufficient expertise on this matter. apparently, this is the main reason why schools prefer to insist on the modules of “secular ethics”. their available instructors lack competences and confidence to teach religious cultures: after an upskilling program in moscow, a number of people immediately said – no, we do not want to conduct this course because its content is difficult, we are not ready for it. because you can be a perfect teacher of elementary school but after the university you have not had any concern with philosophy of religion or ethics. frankly speaking, many of those who went to moscow for upskilling even at university studied marxism and leninism but not the https://changing-sp.com/ 384 olga a. iakimova, andrey s. menshikov history of religions or ethics. a lot of people refused to teach this course (female, educational official, the institute of the development of education of sverdlovsk region). on the other hand, parents would prefer their children to study a general course surveying world religions: i think it would be reasonable to tell children what makes people different, to explain them why there are people who have beliefs and follow traditions different from the beliefs and traditions of one’s family. that is, a course like this must exist in any case (female, a parent to a 4th grade girl who just passed the course frcse). it is worth noting that representatives of religious communities argue for a more developed module structure of the course, which would be extended and include successively various religions: selection of a module based on parents’ choice should be canceled. there are four official religious cultures in russia, and all of them can be studied by students successively for four years. as for “secular ethics”, they have it anyway from the first to eleventh grade because all school life is connected with it (male, orthodox priest, the yekaterinburg diocese). “four official religious cultures” here refers to recognition of christianity (russian orthodoxy, in particular), islam, buddhism, and judaism as “traditional” religions that made the greatest contribution to russian history and culture. to summarize: officially the course “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics” has a module structure and is based on cultural and religious studies approach. it is also supposed to foster the responsible choice of parents and children in accord with their beliefs and values. the practice of teaching this course in sverdlovsk region proves that: when we evaluate why a particular module was chosen, we need to take at least three parameters into account: (1) the number of educators qualified enough to teach all these modules – because teachers have their rights, too, – if, for example, muslim culture is close to them, they teach it; (2) unwillingness of parents to separate their kids on the basis of religion; (3) the number of available textbooks on the module. these parameters are very important and, surely, they bring a lot of effort to nothing (female, education official, the institute of the development of education of sverdlovsk region). thus, in fact, freedom to opt for a preferable module exists formally but no major group of stakeholders is interested in ensuring the diversity of modules. educators are not willing to deliver the optional modules because diversity is always difficult changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 373–387 385 to manage and it means trouble with a schedule, expenses on purchasing a full set of textbooks for each elected module and on upskilling and re-training of teachers. parents do not wish to separate children and thereby to risk potential conflicts caused by religious affiliations. finally, religious community representatives favor a noncompetitive and more extended course of study that would include all major religions traditional for russia (starting with and showcasing russian orthodoxy), and prefer to exclude secular ethics altogether. conclusion the introduction of religious education to russian schools was regarded by many commentators as a success for the russian orthodox church, which managed to introduce covert catechization into the public educational system. the declarations of “culturological” approach in the course “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics”, and the right to choose the module – among the modules on “traditional” religious cultures of russia, overview module on religious cultures, or secular ethics module – did not abate the misgivings. the experts of the institute of philosophy (russian academy of sciences), for instance, were outspoken in their assessment of the offered selection: ethics can be taught at schools as a separate subject, but not as an artificial appendix to religious modules, as a poor show of imitating political correctness. the very title “secular ethics” demonstrates unprofessionalism and servility of those who stand behind the whole affair. briefly, neither the title, nor the position of the module in the course are acceptable (zubets). the ideologues and state officials, on the other hand, expected that religious education, more specifically, “traditional” religious education, would foster “patriotic” development of young children (and their parents) and ensure “moral and spiritual consolidation of russian society, its unity in the face of external and internal challenges, its strong social solidarity, confidence in russia, in its citizens, society, state, the present and the future of our country” (daniliuk, kondakov & tishkov, 2009, p. 5). the resulting compromise – separative confessional6 ethno-nationally biased7 civic education – is, however, at odds with the resources of schools, competences of teachers, and orientations of parents. the schools lack the capacity to satisfy the diversity of formally proclaimed selection and insist on the uniformity (due to the demands of the existing timetable, affordability of textbook sets, and teaching load distribution). the teachers lack the confidence and competence to teach and instruct on certain or all modules and seek to push for one module for all (either secular modules or confessional module of their personal preference). the parents 6 as most of the experts on textbooks and content of the course demonstrate (see the references in the introduction). 7 this implies that in the design and content of the course the underlying understanding of citizenship is based on the ethnic origin(s) and “tradition”. https://changing-sp.com/ 386 olga a. iakimova, andrey s. menshikov fear that the separative confessional education will foment religious conflicts among the students and will hinder the development of children’s communicative skills in a pluralistic society. it remains to be seen what actual learning outcomes this experiment will result in. thus, our findings show that religious education at russian schools today rests on a discrepancy between the alleged goals of the course “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics”, which emphasize multicultural education, and its implementation, which stems from practical constraints and local agendas. references arweck, e., & jackson, r. (eds.). (2014). religion, education and society: young people, religious identity, socialisation and diversity. london: routledge. berglund, j., shanneik, y., & bocking b. (eds.). (2016). religious education in a global-local world. springer. blinkova, a., & vermeer, p. (2018). religious education in russia: a comparative and critical analysis. british journal of religious education, 40(2), 194–206. doi: 10.1080/01416200.2016.1190687 blinkova, a., & vermeer, p. (2019). religious education in russia: a critical analysis of a widely used textbook. british journal of religious education, 41(2), 174–187. doi: 10.1080/01416200.2017.1405794 daniliuk, a., kondakov, a., & tishkov, v. (2009). kontseptsiia dukhovnonravstvennogo razvitia i vospitaniia lichnosti grazhdanina rossii [the concept of moral and spiritual upbringing of a citizen of russia]. moscow: prosveshchenie. hvithamar, a., & stepanova, e. (2011). shkola i religiia: evropeiskii opyt [school and religion: european experience]. nauchnyi ezhegodnik instituta filosofii i prava ural’skogo otdeleniia rossiiskoi akademii nauk, 11, 361–376. jackson, r. (2014). “signposts”: policy and practice for teaching about religions and non-religious worldviews in intercultural education. strasbourg: council of europe publishing. jackson, r. (2019). religious education for plural societies: the selected works of robert jackson. world library of educationalists series, london: routledge. jensen, t. (2017a). religious education: meeting and countering changes, – changing and standing still. changing societies & personalities, 1(1), 48–73. doi: 10.15826/csp.2017.1.1.004 jensen, t. (2017b). religious education in public schools: the most important tendencies (with special focus on scandinavia). gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov’ v rossii i za rubezhom, 35(4), 46–71. doi: 10.22394/2073-7203-2017-35-4-46-71 menshikov, a., & iakimova, o. (2017). poiski al’ternativy konfessional’nomu religioznomu obrazovaniiu v evrope: kriticheskaia refleksiia opyta [in search of http://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2016.1190687 http://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2017.1405794 http://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.1.004 http://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2017-35-4-46-71 changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 373–387 387 alternative to religious education in europe: critical assessment]. izvestiia ural’skogo universiteta. seriia 1. problemy obrazovaniia, nauki i kul’tury, 4(168), 165–180. monitoring of the frcse course in russian federation. retrieved from http:// orkce.apkpro.ru/401.html on freedom of conscience and religious associations, 125 federal law, the russian federation (1997). retrieved from http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_ doc_law_16218/ ozhiganova, a. (2017). teaching about religion in school: the pursuit of neutrality and the “culture wars”. introduction. gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov’ v rossii i za rubezhom, 35(4), 7–29. doi: 10.22394/2073-7203-2017-35-4-7-29 shakhnovich, m. (2017). religion in school: current european landscape. gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov’ v rossii i za rubezhom, 35(4), 30–45. doi: 10.22394/2073-7203-2017-35-4-30-45 shnirelman, v. (2017). religious culture or invitation to religion: what are the new textbooks about? gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov’ v rossii i za rubezhom, 35(4), 89–118. doi: 10.22394/2073-7203-2017-35-4-89-118 stepanova, e. (2011). religiia i obrazovanie v evrope: debaty o vzaimnoi sovmestimosti [religion and education in europe: debates on mutual compatibility]. izvestiia ural’skogo universiteta. seriia 1. problemy obrazovaniia, nauki i kul’tury, 3(92), 6–15. osce. 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(2019). konets religii? istoriia teorii sekuliarizatsii [the end of religion? a history of the theory of secularization]. moscow: izdatel’skii dom vysshei shkoly ekonomiki. zubets, o. p. zakluchenie po moduliu “osnovy svetskoi etiki” [the conclusion on the module “fundamentals of secular ethics”]. retrieved from https://iphras.ru/ page50562154.htm https://changing-sp.com/ http://orkce.apkpro.ru/401.html http://orkce.apkpro.ru/401.html http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_law_16218/ http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_law_16218/ http://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2017-35-4-7-29 http://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2017-35-4-30-45 http://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2017-35-4-89-118 https://www.osce.org/odihr/29154?download=true https://www.osce.org/odihr/29154?download=true http://www.strana-oz.ru/2013/1/kartografiya-postsekulyarnogo http://www.strana-oz.ru/2013/1/kartografiya-postsekulyarnogo https://iphras.ru/page50562154.htm https://iphras.ru/page50562154.htm changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 492–507 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.113 received 4 june 2020 © natalia a. simbirtseva, accepted 20 november 2020 galina a. kruglikova, elena b. plaksina published online 29 december 2020 simbirtseva.nat@yandex.ru kruglickova.galina@yandex.ru ebplaksina@mail.ru article cultural and educational practices in the museum environment: transmission of cultural heritage natalia a. simbirtseva, galina a. kruglikova, and elena b. plaksina ural state pedagogical university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract in the age of digitalisation and globalisation, one of the essential tasks addressed at the level of cultural policy, having relevance for all generations, consists in the preservation of cultural heritage. cultural and educational practices, integrated in the preschool-, schooland higher education environments and aimed at the formation of the worldview and identity of the younger generation, are considered by the authors as effective and relevant mechanisms for transmitting the memory of values, meanings, places, cultural artefacts, etc. therefore, it seems advisable for the organisers of multi-level projects to address the potential of the museum as a cultural institute. today, museums are oriented towards a wide variety of visitors, including professionals and creative audiences of all ages, in the presented activities and services. the transmission of cultural memory in the museum environment is implemented not only in traditional ways, but also through contemporary information and media technologies. the introduction of the younger generation to cultural heritage provides them with an opportunity to experience significant values and meanings of the cultural space and time of the city, region, or country at the personal level. keywords cultural policy, cultural and educational practices, museum environment, cultural heritage, transmission of experience, information technologies acknowledgement the work was supported by the grant of the russian foundation for basic research, (no. 17-29-09136/18). https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 492–507 493 introduction in the russian context, cultural policy is described by irina murzina as referring to actions carried out by the state authorities and public institutions of the russian federation aimed at supporting, preserving and developing all branches of culture and all types of creative activities of russian citizens and forming a personality based on the system of values inherent to russian society (murzina, 2017). in this connection, one of the main cultural policy directions consists in the protection of cultural and historical heritage. for this purpose, efforts in the field of culture, education and social policy should be unified. this is particularly significant for positioning the region as “culturally significant, possessing development potential in the post-industrial world, authoritative and competitive in the different spheres of economy and social development” (ibid.). according to murzina, one of the modalities for the implementation of cultural policy the region comprises the formation of a pool of qualified independent experts capable of objective – rather than strictly departmental – judgments concerning the sociocultural significance of events or projects, as well as media representatives interested in the development of the region (ibid.). another condition is the direct involvement of the society in cultural and creative activities and various social groups participating in them. thus, the creation of a supraregional cultural policy provides the necessary conditions for the production, preservation, functioning, development and transmission of the regional cultural values as the uniting vital origins. in 2016, the strategy of state cultural policy for the period up to 2030 was approved (on the approval of the strategy of state cultural policy, 2016). the strategic document identifies a threat to the unity of cultural space emerging against the background of insufficient use of the culture potential as a factor of social and economic development of the russian federation, including its national security and territorial integrity. culture retains great potential for the formation and strengthening of civil identity, ensuring the unity of the russian federation’s cultural and linguistic space. such a threat to social inequality in terms of the creative development of children and young people, as well as the social rehabilitation of people with various disabilities, has a negative impact on the general social well-being of the population. in this regard, a set of measures is to be implemented aimed at ensuring citizens’ constitutional rights to access cultural properties and use cultural institutions to create conditions for improving the population’s quality of life. one of the key problems related to the preservation and transmission of cultural heritage is its actualisation and representation within the region, in the professionallyoriented community, in the service sector and in society as a whole. today, much attention is paid to the problem of educating the population in the various spheres of modern society: social, economic, political, spiritual, etc. in this regard, the mechanisms for transmitting and popularising knowledge are becoming increasingly relevant. as part of the process of organising multi-level communication in the sphere of culture and art by contextualising knowledge and meanings, interpretation deserves https://changing-sp.com/ 494 natalia a. simbirtseva, galina a. kruglikova, elena b. plaksina separate attention on account of its special role in enriching human perceptions of the world. here, the main difficulty consists in taking into account the diverse reflections of different subjects when encountering artistic works and artefacts. thus, while the transmission and interpretation of meanings are realised at the social level, the comprehension of events and works of art presented as historically and culturally significant is deeply individual. the turn of the 21st century was marked by a greatly increased intensity of information density and widespread availability of various technologies and personal gadgets reflecting the high speed of changes taking place in the material and spiritual life of a given society. such transformations also affect the organisation of daily and weekly routines. due to a blurring of boundaries between working hours and free time for the 21st-century person, specific challenges arise concerning the organisation of sociocultural activities combining leisure and education. obtaining new information about something is a process to which modern society is highly attuned. however, the quality of information and criteria for determining its veracity vary widely; moreover, not everyone has the same ability to “sort the wheat from the chaff.” an important objective of cultural policy aimed at the preservation of cultural heritage, to be determined at the level of comprehensive and specialised educational institutions, thus becomes the multidirectional education of the population. situating modern museum in cultural and educational activities the normative document o prosvetitel'skoy deyatelnosty (“on educational activities”, 2002) outlines the main directions, purpose, objectives and principles of educational activities in the russian federation. here, education is designated as comprising a set of information and measures to promote and purposefully disseminate scientific knowledge and other socially significant information that form the general culture of a person, the basis of personal world view and a set of intellectual abilities for competent action (for practical activities in an informed manner) (see: on educational activities, 2002). thus, this normative statement relies on a contemporary understanding of the concepts of “education”, “continuous education”, “adult education” and “informal education”. it should be noted that education is defined as the purposeful process of informing the population about available sociocultural experiences, designed for a wide audience that is not necessarily divided into stable groups, which do not involve any formalised procedures for monitoring the successful comprehension of the information provided (ibid.). since, it is impossible to check the degree of “knowledge increment” following the attendance of events by an individual person, this is not a task carried out by the organisers cultural and educational activities; here it is tacitly assumed that any subjective value derived from such pastimes are a person’s own business. at present, cultural and educational activities are defined according to a number of key points: firstly, they form a part of an integrative multifunctional sphere changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 492–507 495 that comprises one of the components of social work; secondly, their main tasks comprise the organisation of people’s rational and meaningful leisure, satisfaction and the development of their cultural needs; thirdly, they consist in the creation of conditions for each individual’s self-realisation and development of their abilities, selfimprovement and amateur creativity carried out in their spare time. viktor tuev notes that this process of introducing people to culture, including their subsequent active inclusion in it, is governed by society and social institutions (tuev, 2003). here, the main objective is to disseminate various types of information in post-industrial culture. since cultural and educational activities are involved in almost all spheres of people’s lives: politics, the economy, education, medicine, leisure, a career, etc. (morozova, 2013), approaches and forms of their organisation are aimed at obtaining public support and response. defined as comprising a set of organised actions aimed at disseminating and explaining scientific knowledge, as well as other socially significant information, the role of educational events in the popularisation of cultural and leisure activities in an information society becomes obvious. here, such events correspond to the need to transmit the values of historical and cultural past along with an explanation of their significance and content to the general population. thus, at the turn of the millennium, the museum becomes a particularly relevant venue in which cultural and educational ideas are to be realised. the various programmes and projects designed on its basis are aimed, first of all, at educating in the spheres of culture and art, at familiarising the general population with their cultural and historical heritage, as well as forming personal moral and even spiritual guidelines. information technologies, which have become an integral part of present-day living and educational space, act as means and resources by means of which people are introduced to the values and meanings of culture. the various communicative technologies become means by which processes of communication are accelerated. by allowing their content visualised, allowing the relevant information to be made accessible to many people, dialogue is virtualised to enable it to be conducted independently of time and space in such a way that focuses on the specific needs of its participants. in the light of these opportunities for the application of information technologies, the mechanisms that ensure dialogic sustainability for all the participants in communicative interactions become increasingly relevant. one of the spheres that ensure the engagement of participants in the cultural space and construction of dialogic relations with modernity is the museum, which offers the visitor various options for understanding the memory of the past and the values of the current reality. according to tatyana kuryanova, the museum is thought of as an institution of living memory, covering all significant objects of peoples’ memory, as the main information factor contributing to the sustainable and harmonious development of civilisation (kuryanova, 2012). the introduction of information technologies has led to some positive results in this sphere. the number of visits to the “culture.ru” portal in 2019 exceeded 31 million, which is 26 times more than in 2014. 20,500 cultural institutions from all over the https://changing-sp.com/ 496 natalia a. simbirtseva, galina a. kruglikova, elena b. plaksina country have already registered with the “culture.ru” pro platform1. last year they used the platform to post more than 174,000 announcements. in the context of the increased openness and permeability of various spaces, including museums and other leisure and educational facilities, practices that allow the subject of culture to be included and immersed in the action are in increased demand. as larisa solonitsyna, director of the state central film museum in moscow, notes, in the modern world, museums have gone beyond the usual classical exposure of museum objects. the museum is now quite rarely just a venue for exposition: typically, educational programmes, masterclasses, film shows and lectures also happen there. the modern museum is a multifunctional cultural centre in which essential additional contemporary activities are organised around the collection or around a particular direction in which the museum specialises (sovremennyi muzey, 2017). in the age of information and digital technologies, museums offer various forms of communication: from conventional (lectures, discussions, exhibitions, etc.) to topical ones, offering the visitors concepts, which they comprehend independently. the space external to the museum has also changed: cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops and specialised literature shops have appeared. the public and social spheres have become a kind of continuation of the museum space, having taken on the tasks of mass popularisation of the museum as a cultural institute, as well as the implementation of principles of openness and accessibility of the museum to a wide audience. according to zelfira tregulova (director general of the tretyakov gallery), museums are transforming into very important places where people get impressions of all kinds, but all of them are connected with art, aesthetic experiences and sensations. even a souvenir shop in a modern museum should look like it’s just impossible to go past, and everything in this shop should attract (muzei xxi veka, 2016). this space then forms part of the essential aesthetics of the museum’s external appearance and attached space, providing part of its overall attractiveness to the consumer. russian museums actively employ social networks, especially vk2 (short for its original name vkontakte) and instagram3. museum institutions have created a single information space, i.e. a repository for digitised documents and photographs. this is a unique opportunity not only for ordinary visitors, but also for professional scientists and experts in local lore engaged in research. in some cases, where museums are ready for such openness, digitised documents are posted on the internet. this develops inter-museum interaction and attracts a new audience. many museums today host it departments, which form electronic catalogues, process virtual data and support the visual reconstruction of artefacts, creating information and multimedia products (kovalyova, 2015). the cultural and educational activities of the contemporary museum have become of particular importance, ensuring the involvement of individuals in the general cultural fund of humankind. as irina murzina notes, educational programmes developed by museum employees are designed for different socialand age-groups, 1 a platform for organisers to promote cultural events: https://pro.culture.ru 2 https://vk.com 3 instagram® is a trademark of instagram llc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. https://pro.culture.ru https://vk.com changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 492–507 497 allowing the realisation of the dialogic concept that is fundamental for the modern world (murzina, 2016). most museums offer a list of programmes targeted at different categories of visitors, their demands and interests. programmes are being updated and improved, allowing regular and “occasional” visitors to stay at the level achieved and expand their cultural knowledge. undoubtedly, cultural and educational activities today are predominantly realised by cultural institutions, which are oriented to the needs of the population and perform an important educational function in early 21st-century society. various forms of their implementation not only contribute to the dissemination of information about the world, presented in artistic images, in interpretations and reinterpretations of classical art works, as well as in historical artefacts, but also attract a greater number of visitors, who can profitably spend their spare time in demonstrating their activity, interest and creative abilities in participating in leisure events organised outside educational institutions. in 2017, the ministry of culture of the russian federation launched artefact, an augmented-reality smartphone app guide to the museums of russia. pointing a mobile device to an art object reveals its name, while the interactive tags provide more details about the exhibit. artefact was adopted by leading russian museums including the tretyakov gallery, the pushkin state museum of fine arts, the peterhof state museum-reserve. according to museum visitors, it provides a convenient and accessible communication channel between the visitor and the museum. using technologies familiar to the gaming generation, the app engages and educates by providing quick access to interesting information with visual feedback, as well as allowing users to access resources at any convenient time and regardless of location. a significant feature of the museum environment is the shared understanding of its universal accessibility through a process of dialogue. this concerns not only social and generational characteristics, but also cultural background factors. the museum has always been and remains the place where a person attributes the “ours” and “theirs”, “similar” and “different”. thus, the museum environment is involved in the formation of identity. contemporary projects implemented on the basis of museums are aimed at the active inclusion of the younger generation, ensuring not only cultural and leisure activities, but also cultural and educational outcomes. institutional decisions and tasks related to cultural and educational activities at the regional level also lead to relevant practices involving different social groups – children, adolescents, and young people – in order to form their identity and concept of national belonging. transmitting cultural heritage through museum practices in a multicultural environment, the process of familiarisation with russian language culture is popularised in pre-school educational institutions. modern technologies (visualisation and virtualisation) implement principles of visibility and accessibility when immersed in the interactive cultural and historical environment offered by the museum. at a regional level, the familiarisation of children with elements of ural culture https://changing-sp.com/ 498 natalia a. simbirtseva, galina a. kruglikova, elena b. plaksina during excursions offered by yekaterinburg museums, regardless of their nationality, is another example of this process. immersion in the museum space allows preschoolers to experience a sense of involvement in the history of their native region. this stimulates an emotional response, inspiring their further cognitive activity. older pre-school age children of pre-school educational institution no. 254 (yekaterinburg) (hereinafter – pei) were impressed by the familiarisation with the creative legacy of ural writers, which was carried out in various forms. during a visit to famous writer pavel p. bazhov’s memorial house-museum4, the children’s attention was focused on the peculiarities of the ural writer’s daily life, the conditions of creation of his works and thus the realities woven into his stories. the children plunged into the environment and settings of the times the writer lived in. further discussion with the children about what they had seen at the exhibition, what they liked and what they would like to share with their relatives upon their return from the excursion, revealed the children’s genuine interest in significant places in the cultural landscape of yekaterinburg. within the framework of speech development, the described experience also determined the trajectory of formation of evaluation statements, monologue speech skills, visual thinking, etc. in terms of literary development, the children became motivated to discuss the plot of a literary work and understand details embedded in the text. they learned to build a relationship with the past epoch, the household artefacts they saw and the personality of the writer himself, who thought so brightly and distinctively in terms of the artistic images of the urals. as a subsequent stage of the children’s acquaintance with the places described by bazhov in his tales, a visit to the bazhov places nature park enhanced perceptions of the writer’s creativity: for example, the “curved mirror” – a rock with a polished surface situated at the bottom of a mine mentioned in the tale tayutkino zerkal’tse (tayutka’s mirror) – is situated here. such a literary outing (with the participation of the children’s parents) based on bazhov’s tales was a particularly illustrative result of children’s interaction with their cultural heritage. at the event, the children performed the fragments of literary works they like, paying attention to the creation of images, props, and costumes, idea developed by the children themselves in response to their visit to the exhibition. certainly, role of the teacher-organiser and inspirer is extremely important at all the preparatory stages. demonstration of ural minerals (ophite, malachite, jasper, amethyst, etc.), whose names occur in the writer’s tales, organically fit into the holiday context. as a continuation, an exhibition of photographs and illustrations was organised, demonstrating the work of ural craftspeople working with local mineral materials. in the search for new ways to enhance the pei’s educational and subjectdevelopment environment, teachers are increasingly addressing the idea of cultural heritage preservation through the inclusion of the museum space resources in the space of the pre-school educational institution. while earlier it referred to older pre-school age children, already capable of analysing what they see and drawing conclusions based on their experience and knowledge, today the content of museum stands is better adapted for younger pre-school children. for example, within the 4 http://dombazhova.ru/ http://dombazhova.ru/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 492–507 499 implementation of the educational programme of the pei during familiarisation with various such topics as “toy” and “human being” is now included a visit to the museum exhibition “made in the ussr” (yekaterinburg), where modern children come into contact with household objects from the soviet era and have an opportunity to touch and play with real dolls and toys of those years, i.e., those their parents and grandparents played with. the distinctive features of the dolls, including materials, facial expressions, etc., are discussed with the children. comparing them to modern dolls, children themselves try to formulate conclusions, e.g., that modern dolls often do not correspond to the real appearance of a person: the material dolls are made of can be blue, bright pink, etc., the hair colour of most dolls also does not reproduce the natural shades of people’s hair; the body proportions are often violated – a huge head and a disproportionately small torso, tiny hands and legs, or incredibly long legs. most of the toys of the exposition are soviet cartoon characters: cheburashka, gena the crocodile, winnie-the-pooh and piglet, karlsson-on-the-roof and little brother, vasya the gnome, the wolf and the hare from the nu, pogodi! animated series, leopold the cat, buratino, etc. the acquaintance with these toys inspires children’s desire to watch the cartoons or read the stories in which these characters appear. according to results of the excursion, teachers facilitate various forms of reflection depending on the age-related capabilities of the pre-schoolers: designing a “literary corner”, where children bring books featuring their favourite characters by eduard uspensky, alan a. milne, alexey tolstoy, astrid lindgren and others, followed by collective reading and discussion of the plots within various topical units, e.g. organising a drawing or handcraft exhibition or arranging a literary excursion, including organising performances of the plots of the children’s favourite literary works. when working with younger pre-school age children, a visit to the family toy exposition is organised. in this case, the original idea – an appeal to the “epoch” – is still emphasised, with children being invited to bring a toy with which their parents played in their childhood. the teacher sets specific tasks for the children: to find out the origin of the toys, what materials are used in their construction, what names they were given by their owners and why, and then to share this information in the group. solving the set task contributes to the children’s speech development: improvement of dialogical and monological skills, grammar structures and enrichment of the children’s vocabulary. most importantly, such activities promote an intergenerational dialogue between children and their parents. inclusion in the museum space through immersion in the soviet era, which still seems relatively familiar to children’s parents, has rich potential for the organisation of work with pre-schoolers of different ages and for solving various educational tasks of the pre-school educational institution. the specificity of native language culture can also be revealed through the world of professions relevant in any culture. during the introduction to the topic of professions, children turn both to modern professions and to those that are losing or have already lost their relevance. one of the disappearing professions, discussed in the process of educational activity, is that of the postman. through a conversation with a teacher, https://changing-sp.com/ 500 natalia a. simbirtseva, galina a. kruglikova, elena b. plaksina children get an idea of the postman’s job responsibilities, analyse his or her activities, starting from the origins of this profession. inclusion of parents in the formation of the perceptions of this profession is aimed at implementing project activities in the pre-school educational institution, in which parents are involved together with their children. in a multicultural environment, this is appropriate and productive: as a holder of national cultural values, everyone can present information on the postman’s job in their country, on the peculiarities of correspondence, on the traditions of letter writing, on the history of stamps and creation of envelopes, etc. the concepts of this profession on the part of children and their parents in the context of 19th-century history is greatly enriched during a visit to the literary and memorial house-museum of the ural writer fyodor reshetnikov5, which presents objects associated with the postal service from the second half of the 19th century, e.g., a postal employee’s clothes and household utensils, postal carts etc. the joint activity of the educational relation participants resulted in the creation of a thematic corner exhibition, in which stamps, envelopes, postcards from different countries were presented, which, in turn, expands children’s geographical concepts. it is advisable to include the pre-schoolers’ stories in the exposition descriptions. this activity requires child-teacher-parent interaction. at the same time, children can trace the evolution of the letter: from pigeon mail and paper envelopes to e-mail, allowing the child to reach conclusions concerning the development of modern technologies. extending the concept of the world of professions, teachers organise preschoolers’ visits to the exposition at sverdlovsk railways museum of history, science and machinery (yekaterinburg)6. thanks to its interactive space, the children become acquainted with the job responsibilities of the railway manager, train driver, passenger car attendant, station master, etc. the sculpture entitled “the passenger” positioned in the centre of the exposition reminds visitors who is the main person around whom the railway service revolves. thus, the museum space indirectly teaches skills involving taking cognisance of the details and location of exhibits, relating one’s own representations of the surrounding reality to the newly received information. to not only receive publicly-available information about an exhibit within the museum walls, but also to learn to read “between the lines,” to form one’s own judgments, are necessary skills for the formation of a versatile personality. older pre-school children were invited to develop their own “railway route”. here, the objective was to develop a railway tour covering cities that the child and his or her family would like to visit. the real opportunities of the railways were taken into account. materials on the topic “a city begins with its railway station” were presented. together with his or her parents, a child responds by collecting information on the history and traditions associated with railway stations of different cities or even countries. familiarisation with professions through the transmission of the cultural heritage of the urals reveals its sociocultural potential: historical facts related to the birth and development of the railway, presentation of scientific and technical achievements 5 https://ompural.ru/museum/muzey-fmreshetnikova 6 http://rzd-expo.ru/museums/sverdlovsk_railway_museum/ https://ompural.ru/museum/muzey-fmreshetnikova http://rzd-expo.ru/museums/sverdlovsk_railway_museum/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 492–507 501 applied on the railway, as well as the significance of the railway professions, creating the necessary conditions for the formation of a child’s cognitive interest. visits to a number of museums, whose exhibitions are aimed at familiarising children with the history of a particular profession’s development, results in the inclusion of pre-schoolers’ families in implementation of project activities: presentation of a pre-schooler’s family member’s profession during the cultural and educational event “world of professions” designed to demonstrate all the diversity of human activities, enrich a child’s ideas and vocabulary and dispel myths about fashionable and popular professions. according to our observations, including everyone in an interactive process is an effective means of overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers to communication: at the end of the excursion, parents of children whose mother tongue is not russian are often seen to engage in communication regardless of their own level of russian proficiency. eventually, the parents start a closer interaction with the teacher. despite the language barrier, they enter into discussion of events taking place in the group attended by their child, take part in parental meetings and intensify conversations carried out through the medium of electronic messaging services. traditional forms of familiarisation with cultural heritage, which maintain their importance for older pre-school age children, have a greater value for the younger generation since they facilitate a dialogue with the living reality and stimulate the ability to see historical and cultural objects of the modern urban environment within spatial coordinates, thus becoming a part of their own lived experience. the emotional-sensual experience of events affecting the formation of a worldview always lies at the heart of children’s familiarity with the cultural environment of their urban environment. in november 2019, the first festival of children’s museum routes “time of discovery” was organised. this project, original in its content and unique for yekaterinburg, was supported by the department for culture of the government of yekaterinburg. although new to yekaterinburg, the festival took the form of an already-established tradition of children’s museum festival events held in many cities, including perm, moscow, kaliningrad, vladivostok and tallinn. however, one of the earliest adopters of this format is the children’s days festival in saint petersburg, which celebrated its 15th anniversary this year. while preparing for the festival in yekaterinburg, the organisers of the children’s days in the northern capital acted as consultants and masterminds. the event was held last year from october 26 to november 10 during the school holidays. sergey kamensky, director of the yekaterinburg history museum and curator of the festival, noted that permanent museum exhibitions are usually targeted at an adult audience. young visitors, as a rule, are not interested in reading long descriptions of exhibits, written in scientific language, or in being passive listeners not manifesting themselves. many of them believe that visiting a museum is boring. we want such visits to become fascinating events, comprising cognitive games for children (kostyuk, 2019). according to the information received from the project organisers, 12,000 schoolchildren of different ages took part in the project7. each of 7 http://ekaterinburg300.ru/vo-fest https://changing-sp.com/ http://ekaterinburg300.ru/vo-fest 502 natalia a. simbirtseva, galina a. kruglikova, elena b. plaksina the 14 leading city museums, which served as the festival venues, prepared special guides for children with bright pictures and tricky questions. in the course of the quest, the children were invited to exercise their observational skills and resourcefulness while getting directly acquainted with the museums’ collections, to look for answers to the questions, pay attention to the most unusual exhibits and learn interesting facts related to them. especially for the festival, the museums staff developed guides, which helped the young visitors digest the exhibition through the form of a game, without an adult’s assistance. in the festival curator’s words, “time of discovery” is a game-excursion. all achievements were recorded in the individually issued form “your route”: each museum visited by the student recorded the completed tasks. the main feature of the event was not the number of routes passed through, or even the number of “correct” answers, but rather the process itself. upon presentation of the participant’s diploma at yekaterinburg history museum, each participant received a memorable souvenir. the inclusion of the younger generation in such active cognitive activities connected with the region’s history and culture is an important step towards overcoming problems associated with the preservation of historical and cultural heritage, the transmission of memory and acquisition of identity, as well as taking the form of familiarisation with meanings and values of the past. this is what gives the process its vivacity and immediacy. the students obtained the opportunity to diversify their leisure activities within the urban environment, to demonstrate their independence and activity. the mini-guides created to pass the quest in each museum turned into unique “memory cards” about the event: the schoolchildren appeared to greatly enjoy sharing their impressions concerning those tasks which had been completed by everyone and which remained in their hands, having become a part of their personal history. a different kind of museum project was aimed at solving problems of civil-patriotic orientation, directly included in the educational environment. the implementation of “yekaterinburg – my favourite city” began with the thematic lesson dedicated to yekaterinburg’s patron saint catherine of alexandria. the objective of the lesson was to explain the significance of the patron saint’s personality to the schoolchildren, to introduce them to spiritual values and humanistic ideals. the author of the project, irina murzina, outlines the following priorities of the city thematic lesson: • to cultivate a sense of belonging to the city’s history as the basis of cultural identity; • to promote comprehension of such traditional russian spiritual and moral values as love for one’s homeland, faith, spirituality, true beauty and harmony, humanistic ideals; • to promote schoolchildren’s interest in the history of their native land (see: murzina, 2019). although the described event provoked controversy, receiving all kinds of comments both positive and negative in the media and on social networks, it is indisputable that, without knowledge of the place where a person studies, lives or works, the concept of history of the city, region or country will be incomplete. through changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 492–507 503 the author’s apparently simple and elementary ways of interacting with first graders and other students, mechanisms are launched that contribute to a personal feeling of the history of the place – and, along with this, the acquisition of identity. according to the information provided by the department for education of yekaterinburg, 162 schools took part in the project8. among the participants were 36,970 primary school students, 31,290 secondary school students and 2,217 teachers. these studies are described in detail on irina murzina’s facebook page9. the lesson dedicated to the saint patron of yekaterinburg became a part of the big regional cultural and educational patriotic project “we are uralians!” (regional’nyi kul’turno-prosvetitel’skii patrioticheskiy proekt “my – ural’tsy!”, 2019). its developers and authors aim to address problems of regional education through the creation of a systematic programme, encompassing all educational levels (from pre-school to professional education, including supplementary and leisure activities), devoted to the history and contemporaneity of the region. the project is focused on the implementation of the idea of unity of classroom, extracurricular and out-of-school activities according to the understanding that this is possible when combining the educational, cultural and intellectual space of the region. in order to achieve the main objective of the project (the development and implementation of a regional cultural and educational patriotic project aimed at formation of a positive identity (personal, regional, civil) and ensuring unity of all stages of education) (ibid.), the authors consistently address the ostensible tasks, including mechanisms for ensuring children’s direct involvement (in relation to the lesson) in cultural and educational practices. despite the process of introduction to cultural values being localised and limited to the educational institution, the penetration of such practices into education solves the problem of institutional isolation. familiarity with the city and its history through forms understandable and accessible for younger schoolchildren resolves a particular cultural tension that sometimes arises due to an inability to visit museums, unavailability of sources, lack of information or perceived need. in this sense, the project is significant in terms of cultural policy. in autumn 2019, employees of the sverdlovsk regional museum of local history10 launched an initiative entitled “the museum passes an exam”, which was aimed at demonstrating the possibilities of museum technologies to a youth audience. the action was organised by the centre for innovative museum technologies in cooperation with ural state pedagogical university. future teachers visited the two exhibitions of the sverdlovsk regional museum of local history in express-excursion mode. the first of these was poklevsky-kozell’s mansion11, where a classical interior exposition, revealing the daily life of pre-revolutionary yekaterinburg, was presented. 8 https://xn--80acgfbsl1azdqr.xn--p1ai/%d0%b6%d0%b8%d1%82%d0%b5%d0%bb%d1%8f%d0 %bc/%d0%be%d0%b1%d1%80%d0%b0%d0%b7%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%b0%d0%bd%d0%b8%d0b5 /%d0%b4%d0%b5%d0%bf%d0%b0%d1%80%d1%82%d0%b0%d0%bc%d0%b5%d0%bd%d1%82 9 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100030597372303 10 http://uole-museum.ru/ 11 http://uole-museum.ru/museums/muzejno-vystavochnyj-tsentr-dom-poklevskih-kozell/ https://changing-sp.com/ https://xn--80acgfbsl1azdqr.xn--p1ai/%d0%b6%d0%b8%d1%82%d0%b5%d0%bb%d1%8f%d0%bc/%d0%be%d0%b1%d1%80%d https://xn--80acgfbsl1azdqr.xn--p1ai/%d0%b6%d0%b8%d1%82%d0%b5%d0%bb%d1%8f%d0%bc/%d0%be%d0%b1%d1%80%d https://xn--80acgfbsl1azdqr.xn--p1ai/%d0%b6%d0%b8%d1%82%d0%b5%d0%bb%d1%8f%d0%bc/%d0%be%d0%b1%d1%80%d https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100030597372303 http://uole-museum.ru/ http://uole-museum.ru/museums/muzejno-vystavochnyj-tsentr-dom-poklevskih-kozell/ 504 natalia a. simbirtseva, galina a. kruglikova, elena b. plaksina the second exhibition took place at the sculptor ernst neizvestny’s museum12, where the future teachers got acquainted with original artistic works and modern presentation technologies. in special “record books”, the students assessed both museums for richness of content, historical credibility of the presented materials, attractiveness of the expositions and involvement in the atmosphere (budushchie pedagogi prinyali ekzamen u dvuh muzeev, n.d.). in the after-exam discussion, students, teachers and museum staff speculated on why not all museums meet the needs of today’s society and what specific problems historical, local lore and art museum should aim to overcome. during the discussion, the students were observed to be divided into two ideological camps. the first camp argued that historical museums lack interactivity due to not all of them being able to afford to host genuine masterpieces with which many visitors would like to get acquainted in order to access their historical, cultural and artistic heritage. according to the participants of the event, the main advantage of the application of information technologies in the museum environment became everyone’s access to information relating to cultural heritage: the opportunity to see the masterpieces on display in many countries of the world today without necessarily going there. the use of technologies for the preservation and transmission of cultural heritage provides an opportunity to familiarise oneself with it in detail: the images on the screens can be zoomed and rotated. documents and artefacts related to neizvestny’s fate characterise him as a person of extraordinary thinking who built his relationships in accordance with the social norms of his time. the other camp of students voted for the primacy of the museum exhibit: the authenticity of the museum object is important and interesting, first of all, by its involvement in the epoch it witnessed. here, the point is precisely the memory it carries and the ability to transmit the information embedded in it. both camps agreed that museums need to change, but while maintaining a balance between “classics” and “innovation.” along with the opportunities that information technologies offer to the visitor, the participants mentioned a loss of sense of ownership of the object – the opportunity to contemplate (and sometimes touch) an authentic artefact; they also noted that a museum object presented through multimedia loses its uniqueness and charm, becoming a product of mass consumption, about which walter benjamin wrote at the beginning of the 20th century (benjamin, 1935/1996). in this regard, the use of information technologies solves many tasks. for example, visitors entering ernst neizvestny’s museum in yekaterinburg are welcomed by the sculptor’s voice, preparing them for a dialogue with him as the author of many famous works, along with the epoch in which he lived and created, providing a special atmosphere for perception of the museum exhibits. it is clear that the opportunity to see the master’s works with the help of interactive and multimedia means does not necessarily detract from a genuine enjoyment and perception of the artist’s talent. students noted the attractiveness and involvement in the atmosphere of the exhibition, since everyone was able to construct their own 12 http://en-artmuseum.ru/ http://en-artmuseum.ru/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 492–507 505 route and hold an interesting dialogue with the historical and cultural heritage in the modern language. conclusion presently, forms of cultural and educational practices are quite diverse and aimed at the widest range of consumers. this meets the objectives of cultural policies related to the inclusion of cultural heritage and the transmission of the people’s experience and cultural memory. the preservation of cultural heritage – values, meanings and material cultural objects – is significant for the museum as a cultural institution and the functions assigned to it. the museum environment has always been an important element in the formation of historical memory, comprising a space for uniting its components. at present, projects implemented by museums in the regions contribute to the preservation and modernising of historical memory, as well as its transmission to future generations. among the most effective factors of development and transformation of museum spaces on the way to openness, accessibility and dialogue are those resources used to facilitate non-institutionalised activities. these include alternative museum initiatives, often of an informal nature: games, events, excursions, etc. they provide public resonance and interest in the museum as a multifunctional cultural centre, where boundaries (linguistic, ethnic, national, age, etc.) can be surmounted and communicative interaction facilitated, ensuring a dialogue between the past and the present. an important mechanism for the transmission of cultural experience, both of a particular people and of humanity as a whole, is the direct, living involvement of those to whom the transmission is provided. pre-schoolers, schoolchildren and students comprise a generation that will also face the task of facilitating the transmission of memory and experience. the formation of the younger generation’s identity, worldview, civic position and patriotism is possible through their inclusion in a dialogue about values and meanings. these are enshrined in images, stories, artefacts, oral traditions, etc. cultural and educational activities, intensively positioned by museums, have become a part of the museum environment in an age of globalisation and digitalisation. building constructive relations with educational institutions and organisations, the modern museum solves not only its “own” institutional tasks, but also apply to a different level of professional communication, which is characteristic of: • the directed actions of public authorities for management in the sphere of culture; • the formation of a professionally-focused and expert community (researchers, teachers, guides, marketing specialists, etc.) mastering the techniques and technologies of cultural and historical experience transmission; • the competent entry of all the dialogue participants into the space of culture; • intelligent immersion in the historical and cultural context; • competent interpretation of significant information; • competently solved marketing tasks. https://changing-sp.com/ 506 natalia a. simbirtseva, galina a. kruglikova, elena b. plaksina it should be noted that the described practices involving various aged children of and students took place in 2019. this is an intensive, substantial, but also complex, activity, which is carried out in order to reduce the increasing gap with the past and tackle intergenerational problems. cultural and educational activities are aimed at maintaining interest in the historical and cultural past, thus transmitting cultural heritage. the technicality of cultural heritage transmission organically combines traditional and innovative practices involved in the comprehension of significant events, places and artefacts. the development of a strategy of interactive communication in the context of modern culture is significant for participants regardless of how much emphasis is placed on the technological component. the main condition of communication sustainability is the acquisition of meaning, introduction to the values of cultural heritage and the interlocutor’s sensual-emotional response. well-organised communication allows the realisation of the cultural and educational potential of museums, using both traditional approaches (still relevant for the visitor) and multimedia technologies in its transmission. references benjamin, w. (1996). proizvedenie iskusstva v epokhu ego tekhnicheskoy vosproizvodimosti [the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction]. in s. a. romashko (ed. and trans.), proizvedenie iskusstva v epohu ego tekhnicheskoy vosproizvodimosti. isbrannye esse [the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. selected essays] (pp. 15–65). moscow: medium. (originally published in german 1935) budushchie pedagogi prinyali ekzamen u dvuh muzeev [future teachers took the exam at two museums]. (n.d.). sverdlovskiy oblastnoy kraevedcheskiy muzey. retrieved from http://uole-museum.ru/news/budushhie-pedagogi-prinyali-ekzamenu-dvuh-muzeev/ kostyuk, v. 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(2013). istoriya razvitiya kul’turno-prosvetitel’skoi deiatel’nosti v otechestvennom obrazovanii (konets xviii – nachalo xxi veka) [the history of the development of cultural and educational activities in russian education (from the end of the 18th to the beginning of the 21st centuries)]. chelovek i obrazovanie, 4(37), 174–179. retrieved from http://obrazovanie21.narod.ru/files/2013-4_174-179.pdf murzina, i. ya. (2016). muzei i shkola: napravleniya i perspektivy sotrudnichestva [museum and school: directions and prospects of cooperation]. chelovek v mire kul’tury: regional’nye kul’turologicheskie issledovaniya, 2, 27–30. retrieved from http://journals.uspu.ru/attachments/article/1231/murzina.pdf murzina, i. ya (2017). osnovy kul’turnoi politiki [fundamentals of cultural policy: cd-rom]. yekaterinburg: ural state pedagogical university. muzei xxi veka: mezhdu virtual’noy real’nost’yu i torgovym tsentrom [museums of the 21st century: between virtual reality and shopping centre]. (2016, february 18). strelka magazine. retrieved from https://strelkamag.com/ru/article/musei-discussion on educational activities, model law, the russian federation. (2002, december 07). retrieved from http://docs.cntd.ru/document/901865093 on the approval of the strategy of state cultural policy for the period up to 2030, executive order on the government of the russian federation no. 326-р. (2016, february 29) retrieved from http://docs.cntd.ru/document/420340006 regional’nyi kul’turno-prosvetitel’skii patrioticheskiy proekt “my – ural’tsy” [regional cultural and educational project “we are the uralians!”]. (2019). yekaterinburg: institut obrazovatelnyh strategiy. retrieved from http://ural-patrius.ru/ yubilej-pobedy/ sovremennyi muzey – eto mnogofunktsional’nyi kul’turnyi tsentr [modern museum is a multifunctional cultural centre]. (2017, december 8). lenta.ru. retrieved from https://lenta.ru/articles/2017/12/08/museums/ tuev, v. v. (2003). ob atribute “sotsial’no-kul’turnyi” [on the “social-cultural” attribute]. vestnik mguki, 4, 56–63. https://changing-sp.com/ http://obrazovanie21.narod.ru/files/2013-4_174-179.pdf http://journals.uspu.ru/attachments/article/1231/murzina.pdf https://strelkamag.com/ru/article/musei-discussion http://docs.cntd.ru/document/901865093 http://docs.cntd.ru/document/420340006 http://ural-patrius.ru/yubilej-pobedy/ http://ural-patrius.ru/yubilej-pobedy/ https://lenta.ru/articles/2017/12/08/museums/ changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.2.011 article apologia of modernity victor martianov institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia. abstract the article considers key factors and directions of the value-institutional evolution of modernity as a political project. it is argued that the movement of humankind towards the globalised world paradoxically turned not into a denial, but rather into a consistent radicalisation of the axiological political foundations of modernity. the thesis of the axiological unity and institutional diversity of global modernity is advanced in opposition to the concept of pluralist modernity as a rhetorically veiled civilisational approach. it is asserted that the constant self-adjustment of the central value system of globalised modernity is carried out in the context of a non-simultaneity effect, providing grounds for discussions about the insurmountability of pre-modern cultural barriers and traditions of different civilisations. the conclusion is justified that the success of the globalisation of modernity is contingent upon the possibility of building out the already existing world economy to include world politics, since the economic assimilation of the world by capitalism has largely outstripped the counterbalancing possibilities of its global political regulatory and compensatory systems, contributing to the intensification of conflicts and various inequalities. the increasingly intensive interaction and interdependence of humanity at the global level first implies the creation of ethical mechanisms of world politics based on concern for the interests of humanity as a whole. in seeking the solution to this problem, it is increasingly necessary to go beyond archaised political forms and the logic of decision-making that relates to territorial nation-states. in the discussion about the ethical and political values and institutions of the global, second or late modernity, the positionsof those subjects capable of presenting a moral game to humanity – received 6 june 2017 © 2017 victor martianov accepted 21 august 2017 martianov@instlaw.uran.ru published online 29 september 2017 153changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 open, egalitarian, universal, cosmopolitan approaches for solving general problems – will be a priori strengthened. keywords modernity, globalised modernity, radicalisation of modernity, global economics, world politics, capitalism, liberal consensus, postmodernism, nationalism, cosmopolitanism, collective action the fundamental importance of modernity as a central problem for the social sciences cannot be overemphasised. according to the figurative expression of e. hobsbawm, it was during the twentieth century that 80% of the earth’s population finally parted company with the middle ages and stepped into modern society. this is a society oriented toward the scientific mastering of nature and freedom to control one’s own destiny. modernity is the most ideological problem of the social sciences, the response to which is used to designate all other axiological, ontological and notional hierarchies. while we are all located in modernity, its constantly changing face can be seen differently depending on the historical stage of a particular society and the subject of its interpretation. while sharing some common features, the versions of modernity of the 18th and 19th centuries and at the beginning and end of the 20th century can be differentiated in a number of key aspects. it is the dream of all political and philosophical doctrines, state power apparatuses and social forces to exert an effective intellectual monopoly over modernity, due to the concomitant ability to legitimatise certain topical socio-political, cultural and economic orders. however, it is impossible to furnish a universal definition of a continuous or unfinished modernity (habermas, 2005) within which one is located without also presenting that position within the coordinates of the socio-political, economic and historical context in which the observer thinks. at the same time, the reflection of one’s own social engagement and partiality naturally turns into a falsification of any universal concepts and systems of legitimacy that appeal to modernity. the political project of modernity presents itself as a globally dominant, historically heterogeneous and far from exhausted political and historical project. since modernity is an unfinished project, it cannot be thought of as a whole or as the subject of a final historical outcome. however, we can learn a lot about the modernity, contemporary society and ourselves if we are able to understand the internal changes that the value-institutional political order of modernity has undergone over the past several centuries. concerning the genesis, transformation, possible alternatives and threats to the dominant political project of modernity, we can formulate the following interrelated sequence of theses. i historically, the political project of modernity came to supersede the ancien régime (old order), showing the construction of the social order for the first time and justifying 154 victor martianov its autonomy from the unchanging divine order. traditional societies are fundamentally distinguished from their modern equivalents in terms of the rate of social change. before modernity, the rate of change was so small that during one generation the changes were almost invisible, creating a general illusion that no changes at all had taken place since the creation of the world. therefore, the speed of change in contemporary society – in which, in fact, only the habitual way of life changes, i.e. its rituals, symbols and values – can seem almost like blasphemy from the point of view of pre-modern social groups. the speed of social change makes it clear that all societies are explicitly constructed. as a result, the main object of criticism of modernity is the uncovering of its ontological and axiological variability as well as the constructed nature of different social forces, interpreted in the context of the sacral tradition as inauthenticity, simulacrality, deconstruction, denial of god, distortion of sacred foundations, etc. nevertheless, it can be remarked that tradition differs only in the sense that the drawing up of its design is lost in a historical timescale. abolishing the earthly order is justified by the fact that it is a copy of the divine; consequently, every social evil has an apologia on the basis that everything real is reasonable. however, unpredictable results may ensue from citizens and social groups legitimising their right to change the political order. thus, the political order of modernity resurrects the scenario of the construction of the tower of babel, in which the final goal of achieving the ideal (divine) order has not been lost, but is constantly divided due to the conflicts of alternative perspectives produced by constantly transforming social groups as analogues of biblical languages. hence the insurmountable theoretical uncertainty and incompleteness of modernity as the mobile constellation of modern utopias and ideologies and the impossibility of their integration into a metanarrative, which hope j.-f. lyotard associated with the state of postmodernism (lyotard, 1979). a natural way of being for a modern society consists in permanent modernisation as a set of continuously improving changes. the desire for continuous innovation in itself is becoming a key – and perhaps the only – distinctive tradition of modernity: ‘modernisation is a “way of existence” in modernity, and it cannot end, at least until “modernity” is complete.’ (kapustin, 1998) in this case, in order to correspond to the prevailing principles of the maximisation of collective usefulness, any innovations must be publicly controlled and legitimated by being the object of a wide, constantly confirmed dynamic consensus of key social groups. therefore, modernisation is a continuous process, carried out under fundamentally incomplete conditions of freedom and in the absence of social forces that can achieve a zero sum victory once and for all. furthermore, this process is not identical to the movement towards an ideal final state, which often seems to be embodied in one or another political reality. the modernist project announced the universality of the human mind and the intelligibility of social and moral laws, leading to weber’s disenchantment of the world. in the ethical field, it is the project of independent rational substantiation of morals (macintyre, 1981); in the political sphere, the universal legislation of reason. at the heart of the political project of modernity lies the desire to develop universal political legislation for all mankind. the problem is that the class differentiation of the modern society presented a set of diametrically opposed versions of morality and reason, 155changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 which are the result of the free self-determination of peoples, each of which, while striving for universal legislation, is at the same time an expression of particular political interests. an objective (universal) normative rationality (common goals, values, ideals) of the monologic political mind thus becomes impossible. however, without integral instrumental rationality, expressed in terms of the rules of the game – conflict and interaction of social interests – society itself, seen as an institutional, process-based compromise of interests, becomes impossible to sustain. it is for this reason that increasing attention has been paid both to new disciplinary practices and to dialogue – communication of social forces, mechanisms for achieving sustainable agreements (conventions) expressed in various democratic mechanisms and institutions (elections, referenda, direct participation of citizens in making power decisions: demonstrations, rallies, jury trials, citizens’ gatherings, public hearings, etc.). under the conditions of modernity, the political community for the first time developed a fundamentally incomplete system of methods for resolving internal conflicts that allow for periodic review of the terms of the social contract, i.e., dominant social forces are given legitimacy for a limited time period. this allows the abandonment of extreme political interactions, in which the winner takes all, in favour of a system of political decision making related to cooperative, dialogical, solidary strategies of various social forces that allow the interests of different parties to be taken into account and society changed in a non-violent way. modernity is often criticised by contemporaries both from the left, and from the right. now as the iron cell of conformism (h. marcuse), then as the tyranny of the egoistic mind, leading to a dehumanising depreciation of human existence as well as to totalitarianism. thus, it seems that the real situation is more complicated. in achieving more rapid thematisation, modern theories and collective practices sharply increased the sensitivity of society itself to political problems of power, hierarchy, resource distribution, justice, freedom and solidarity in the context of unavoidable contradictions of group interests. these are political problems that have always existed; however, it is only under the glare of contemporary theoretical optics that they have become the focus of attention, bringing their historical character to light. in this way, it is shown that these problems are not eternal and can, in principle, be variably resolved by active constituents of the political order. ii during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most classics of european social thought analysed modern society at the ontological level according to the concepts of universal transition: from agrarian feudalism to industrial capitalism (k. marx), from traditional to modern society (m. weber), from organic to mechanical solidarity (e. durkheim), from community to society (f. tönnies), from military to industrial society (h. spencer), etc. thus, almost all the classical socio-political macro-theories that comprehend the transition to modernity – and the condition of modernity itself – are built on the identification of evolutionary stages of development thus forming a type of binary time code, one of whose branches has a privileged position with respect to the future, and the other personifying the past. while this transition actually did take 156 victor martianov place on a global scale, the modernist project historically did not end there, setting in motion complex processes of internal differentiation. in institutional terms, modernity is expressed in the complexity of the social subsystems – economics, politics, science, art, etc. – each of which acquires a certain autonomy, with its own value system and language of description. at the same time, modernity does not entirely displace previous social relations. the value system of modernity functions in parallel with the previous norms of social regulation, gradually coming to displace and replace them. thus, along with reciprocal and distributive exchanges, patrimonial political order and patron-client relations of elites of different levels, are formed civil nation-states, a self-regulating market, rational bureaucracy, mass parties, trade unions, civil organisations, representative bodies of government, etc. in all modern societies, without exception, we can observe the simultaneity of coexistence and the imposition into various spheres of life of reciprocal (gift-exchange, family, clan), distributive and market relations, as well as a long-term, gradual change in their correlation in favour of the latter. new social norms and regulators seldom replace the old all at once. typically, this displacement takes the form of a transplant, when the values of modernity at the institutional level are partially mixed with those of an obsolete cultural tradition. thus, the displacement of old values in the historical perspective creates transitional institutional effects, which are often erroneously explained in terms of the cultural and civilisational specifics (uniqueness) of a particular society. now, the problem of global transformation of the model of national, class-industrial and predominantly western modernity into the late, post-national, cosmopolitan modernity is at the centre of discussions. in the world as a whole, the national model of modernity, which derives habitual everyday life from historical social ideals and utopias, is becoming increasingly irrelevant for describing the actual socio-political and cultural regimes of a large part of mankind in the twenty-first century. transformations of the basic national model of modernity were facilitated by: – the saturation points of global markets and intensification of non-market competition, leading to the crisis of idealised capitalism; – another technological revolution related to automation and robotics; acceleration of the dynamics of changes in late-modern societies without economic growth or mass labour; – transformation of the social structure of society and the principles of its stratification, ever less connected with the market; – an increase in the internal heterarchy and heterotopy of territorial nationstates due to various internal and external challenges; – multiplication and strengthening of non-governmental political subjects in the globalised world (tnk, city networks etc.). however, despite convincing criticism, modernity remains the basic political model for the relevant description and legitimisation of global cultural and economicpolitical reality, which has not yet been pushed to the periphery of history by alternative political projects. for this reason, despite the constantly observed institutional and axiological changes, leading researchers emphasise that when we refer to the realities of our society we are nevertheless dealing with modernity, 157changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 be it the singular modernity of f. jamieson, the fluid modernity of z. bauman, the hyper-modernity of a. turena, the cosmopolitan, second or late modernity of u. beck or a. giddens’ concept of radical modernity. in the globalised world, the intensity of intellectual challenges to modernity is growing from the side of the post-industrial, post-ford, networked information society, knowledge society, etc. (postfordism, 2015). however, the main challenge is not merely institutional, but a more universal value-ethical challenge, whose sources are more widely defined. as a result, none of the concepts that claimed a global alternative to modernity were able to displace it from the dominant positions. these include postmodernism, post-industrialism, communism, alterglobalism, world empire (m. hardt & a. negri), religious fundamentalism, civilisational theories, theories of autarky and isolationism and a variety of utopian and traditionalist projects (fishman, 2008). it should be noted that the most heuristic critical challenge to the political paradigm of modernism was issued by postmodernism. persuasive examples of the axiological and methodological criticism of the theories of modernity can be found in the works of j. baudrillard, j. derrida, j. deleuze, j.-f. lyotard and others. for example, jameson argues that the intellectual map of modernity has largely developed its heuristic potential in social theory terms, to all intents and purposes becoming a synonym for capitalism. however, in throwing a real challenge to modernity, postmodernism itself failed to become a global utopia, merely morphing into the instrumental cultural logic of late capitalism (jameson, 1991). over time, postmodern theories, which initially claimed to represent a global alternative to the value core of modernity, came to be reabsorbed into it on the basis of critical self-reflection. postmodernism revealed and studied the dark side of modernity from a theoretical perspective (j. baudrillard). postmodern theories turned out to be heuristically strong in the study of various kinds of breaks, boundaries, peripheries and cultural contradictions of the political project of modernity, connected with criticism and challenges directed by various peripheries (geographic, economic, cultural) at the prevailing values and centres. however, postmodernism was unable to offer a global postmodern political project, since it lacks the ability to generate universality and totality in the area of values and aims. the hierarchical values and principles of a political attitude, structured around the criticism of any overwhelming periphery of centrism, proved to be unrealisable in practice. one of the networks or communications must remain ordering and dominant; otherwise, we are only dealing with a radical anarchism connected with a denial of the need for society as such. thus, if modernity is connected with individual and collective liberation as well as conscious and goal-oriented transformation of the world, postmodernism turns into forced reactive strategies connected with the adaptive accommodation of individuals and their groups to social, technological and axiological changes, over which they, in fact, do not exercise any power. the formation of the analytical model of late modernity is carried out against the background of a historical non-simultaneity effect, at a time when some regions of the world are entering the postindustrial stage of modernity, while others are merely living through the process of being forced to play catch up with modernisation and the institutional adaptation to modernity in the form of nation-states. the classical 158 victor martianov programmes of social knowledge of the original era of modernity were oriented towards the nation-state as the legitimate political form of its practical embodiment. it is for this reason that marx could still draw upon english political economy, german philosophy and french utopianism. under the conditions of globalised or late modernity, any national schools or theoretical models of social knowledge lose their self-sufficiency. nations become only private or special in comparison with universal laws, which are relevant only to the extent that they apply to humanity as a whole. at the same time, some popular theories, especially in the field of economics, continue to use ontological modifications of the classical transit discourse no longer in substantiating the transition to it, but in describing the very formation and subsequent transformations of modernity. for example, d. nort, d. wallace and b. wyngast describe modernisation as a transition from the natural state to the open access society, carried out by means of a transformation of the interaction of elites. the latter cease to be closed and begin to be guided by impersonal rules (north et al., 2009). a similar course of thought is present in d. acemoğlu and d. robinson, who describe the history of modernisation as an institutional transformation of societies in which extractive institutions are dominant, to societies with a predominance of inclusive institutions (acemoglu, robinson, 2012). however, more insightful and more convincing in this discourse are the optimistic ideas of r. inglehart and k. welzel based on many years of global sociological surveys on the transformations taking place in the value systems of modern societies. they consist in a justification of the general transition from the material survival values guaranteed for the majority of citizens during the deployment of the early industrial modernity to the postmaterial values of self-realisation, associated with post-industrial societies (inglehart, welzel, 2005). in a radical and idealised form, the concept of universal transition was applied by the apologist of the end of history f. fukuyama, who attempted to argue that all modern societies move “naturally” in the direction of the domination of the market and liberal democracy (fukuyama 1992). supporters of the movement towards the flat earth and end of history present rationales for the ethical and political unification of mankind, with globalisation being interpreted as the erasure of pre-modern cultural differences (j. bhagwati, t. friedman, i. wallerstein, a. maddison, a. touraine, v. inozemtsev, f. fukuyama and others). accordingly, continuing modernity can be adequately explained only from within its own value coordinates. and the more we are unable to explain the observed diversity in the logic of modernity itself, the more it will not turn out in the framework of the more localist and irrational discourse of civilisation that modernity has supplanted into the field of history. finally, there have been enough productive and, perhaps, too hasty attempts by z. bauman and u. beck to model a late-modern society from the latest – however unstable – trends, individual signs and changes in the outlook (bauman, 2000; beck, 1992). in this same connection, there are concepts that predict the turn of modern society towards new mechanisms of self-organisation. such include, for example, concepts of the post-industrial society, post-fordism (s. lash, j. urry et al.), the network society (m. castells, a. bard, et al.) and information society (d. bell, e. toffler, f. webster, v. inozemtsev, et al.) – all of which had a significant impact on public 159changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 opinion at the end of the twentieth century. however, these theories turned out to be too hastily grounded in some peripheral tendencies in social development, which consequently turned into utopias with overvalued social expectations. theories of the information society, knowledge society or creative class turned out to be somewhat naively optimistic, a pie whose slices were not intended for dividing equally among all societies and classes, and implying a rather more rapid transition to the future than the actual capabilities of even the most advanced modern societies. iii in its most general form, the value kernel of the political project of modernity represents the historically mobile construction of interrelated narratives that organise the institutional space of a post-traditional society. first, it consists in an aggregate of modern ideologies/utopias, as well as the conflict inherent between their value justifications, representing the dynamics of the clash of social forces rooted in capitalism. this research tradition relies mainly on the classic works of k. marx, k. mannheim, a. gramsci, h. marcuse, f. jameson and others, in which the appearance and transformation of modernity is due to the new social ontology of capitalism and the class structure of society that it engenders. the basic modern political narratives are comprised of capitalism, liberalism and nationalism. capitalism generates a constant increase in resources and assigns the dominant stratification of society into economic classes, each determined by its relation to the market. the strategy of obtaining moral and political compensation for the negative externalities and social costs of capitalism is implemented in the form of a constantly-revised liberal consensus (i. wallerstein) appearing as a fundamental fusion within the institutionally implemented liberal normative field of different versions of conservatism, socialism and left-right radicalism. finally, the territorial national state acts as the dominant political form, combining the principles of territorial sovereignty, power apparatus and citizenship. the nationstate permits the establishment of an acceptable balance between the market and the various background, non-economic factors that provide for its existence – which factors capitalism and its theories prefer to bracket out. this consists in a combination of capitalist production, exploitation, competition and the accumulation of capital with the institutional consolidation of a broad list of inalienable guarantees, rights and freedoms of citizens. the concept of democracy, most consistently worked out in the habermasian idea of communicative consensus, bears responsibility for the coordination and reconciliation of conflicting collective interests in a given modern society. the comprehension and legitimation of the constant changes of modern society as social norms are represented by the concepts of progress and revolution. the immanent theory of progress (modernisation) institutionally represents the differentiation of the new autonomous (self-referential) subsystems of an increasingly complex society, involving a delegation of the functions of social regulation and the power to produce norms. these narratives form the value and functional unity of modernity along with the basis for its self-description, reproduction and legitimation of the social order. 160 victor martianov however, under the conditions of the historical evolution of modernity, each of the indicated narratives undergoes substantial changes. the narrative of liberalism demonstrates a tendency to abandon the liberal consensus of collective political interests a) on the basis of modern ideologies and b) within individual nations in favour of shaping the contours of global liberal ethics based on agreement on universal human rights and freedoms and the development of moral conventions for maintaining the legitimacy of post-national political institutions. a negative trend running in parallel to this is the loss of ideological content on the part of the liberal consensus. it thus begins to express itself, not at the level of ideology, but at lower rhetorical levels, e.g. those of common sense, populism and pragmatism. the narrative of democracy is undergoing an evolution, with the principles of the dictatorship of the majority, the mobilisation of the masses and the expansion of the circle of citizens endowed with political rights giving way to problems of the coexistence of a multi-component society, access to civil rights and equal opportunities for citizens and immigrants. the evolution of the narrative of nationalism is connected with the movement from the sacralisation of territorial sovereignty to extraterritorial principles of open law and cosmopolitanism. territorially organised nations in a flat world (t. friedman) lose credibility in the field of developing dominant political values. under conditions of reflexive modernity, global openness of borders and increasing mobility, the process of legitimation inevitably shifts from nations to humanity as a whole. thus, the political logic of nation-states no longer corresponds to the increasingly intensive interaction and interdependence of humanity at the global level. the transition to late modernity is characterised by a kind of disintegration and loss of legitimacy on the part of normative nationalism in terms of unity of individual rights, collective autonomy of citizens and territorially limitations to sovereign space. the factor of space as a sacralisation of limited territory ceases to be significant. accordingly, all nations as territorial communities are experiencing an increasing deficit of legitimacy. the same assertion relates to nationalism supporting territorial political communities as well as to concepts of sovereignty in terms of the historical, ethnic and linguistic proximity of members of the territorial community. in this way, the historical realisation of the utopia of national modernity in the form of nation-states for the greater part of humanity simultaneously turns into its profanation as a consequence of the loss of the transcendental dimension to the political sphere. in addition, if nationalism emerged as a historical means for integrating and internally unifying a heterogeneous political space during the centralisation of large states, now it can also be rethought as a way of protecting a particular society from the global expansion of the world economy, which polarises national communities and increases their dependence on external factors, actors and contexts of interaction. for a certain historical period, the effects of modernisation served to obscure the moral limitations and inhumane goal-orientedness of the capitalist world-system. the complete globalisation of capital and technological revolutions devaluing working people make it necessary to reconsider the classical narrative of capitalism associated with constant geographical expansion and market competition in favour of its rental models (martianov, 2017). 161changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 it should be especially noted that the value kernel of the political project of modernity is ambivalent: it is simultaneously a method of explanation, but also of remoralisation/legitimisation of practices within capitalism. modern ideologies and utopias are designed to mitigate the permanent moral deficit provoked by capitalism under the conditions of the expansion of the limited model of homo economicus, which is absolutely inadequate for keeping society from decay (martianov, 2017). in turn, capitalism tends to identify itself with modernity by reducing it to neutral theories of modernisation, progress, development, specifically designed to mask the absence in it of any social goals and collective hopes (jameson, 2009). thus, capitalism does not have a general political goal or any socially utopian horizon and cannot therefore produce effective self-legitimation that relates to society as a whole. therefore, capitalism has to resort to palliative options of non-economic justification of its economic practices, primarily to an identification with modernity as the embodiment of the idea of the infinity of progress. nethertheless, the original logic of the expansion of capitalism in terms of colonialism and progressorism [term introduced by the strugatsky brothers] was subsequently subjected to substantiated criticism. equally critical was the expansion of capitalism into all spheres of social life, which went beyond the limits of market exchanges, giving rise to the total commodification of all other social relations. in this context, the ideological genesis of political modernity is evident from the crisis in christian morality, which was caused by the birth and development of the capitalist world-system. first emerging in sixteenth century europe and subsequently developed through the cycles of bourgeois revolutions, processes of colonisation (westernisation) and globalisation of cultural, economic and mass media communications, the principles of the capitalist world system, freed from the limitations of traditional christian morality, gradually came to embrace the whole world. founded by liberal consensus, the concept of human rights and freedoms has emerged as a distinctively post-traditional means by which christian values in their humanistic interpretation can coexist with the functional logic of capitalism, which is largely built on the systematic violation of these values. modern ideologies were used to substantiate hybrid intellectual constructions reconciling christian principles of charity, equality, brotherhood and mutual assistance with the values of the market, competition, personal success, the endless accumulation of capital and the class inequality of people inherent in the social relations of the era of capitalism. as a consequence, the axiological field of modernity is characterised by a duality that is not inherent in traditional societies: the gradual separation and autonomisation of private and public spheres in such a way that christian morality still prevails in the field of private life, while the rules of the public sphere are determined by the more limited pragmatic or utilitarian morality of homo economicus. as an effective strategy for the constant ethical self-correction of modernity, theories of justice are advanced in the field of political philosophy that allow a utopian dimension to be maintained. in terms of theories of justice in modern political thought, the theory of repair of late modernity is gaining popularity in the context of maintaining the legitimacy of the status quo. however, from a future perspective, it is not the discourse of repair (j. alexander), a return to an ethics of virtue (a. macintyre) or the 162 victor martianov preservation of some universal model of modernity (f. fukuyama) that is required, but the fundamental ability to construct ever more universal political and ethical grounds for modernity’s existence. iv concerning the continuing internal unity of the political project of modernity, it is possible to assert its axiological integrity despite (or perhaps because of) the variability of its institutional implementation. modernity can thus be viewed as an open constructor of values and the various possibilities for their interaction, including institutional. however, the presence of an axiological interpretation space neither abolishes the conceptual unity and finality of the value set of modernity, nor its hierarchical structure. otherwise, the very confirmation or recognition of the political project of modernity as a holistic concept and/or phenomenon would be extremely difficult if not impossible (wagner, 2008). in the course of the historical evolution of modernity, it is possible to observe the successive processes of its disengagement with the european version, which has nevertheless continued to assert itself as canonical and the only correct one in the discourses of colonialist theories that refer to catching up with modernisation, westernisation, civilisation and transitology. postnational modernity, then, consists in a geographical extension to the whole world of its original european model, which has rid itself of its particular cultural and historical content and traditions in favour of political ideas and institutions that have become universal. at the global level, post-national modernity jettisons its nontransitive, unique features in favour of such properties that are actually universalisable through building on any previous traditions and cultures. however, while postnational modernity may be normatively universal, in terms of an institutional plan for the realisation of its value kernel it is quite heterogeneous. this competition of institutional versions of modernism is a prerequisite for its flexible, nonregulatory and competitive development throughout the world. the non-simultaneous development of modernity in different parts of the world was conditioned by the fact that, in addition to the european version, all the later versions of the institutionalisation of a modern society already had ready-made models of modernity to which reference could be made in entering into various cultural conflicts and interrelations. thus, if the initial cultural-historical nucleus of modernity was determined by the west, then, concerning the growing cultural indifference of post-national modernity, it can be subsequently argued to have achieved autonomy from path dependence (dependence on the previous development), something that is confirmed by many examples of the effective modernisation of states and regions culturally different from europe. in searching for the social laws of modern society, the globalisation of modernity confirms the greater relevance of the formational argumentation approach of the hegelian-marxist philosophy of history than the positions of the civilisational theories (ch. taylor, s. huntington, p. buchanan, j. thompson, etc.), which emphasise the importance of cultural differences between societies. moreover, attempts to synthesise the formational and civilisational approaches into a third entity, for example, taking the 163changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 form of the sociocultural approach embodied by the concept of multiple modernities (s. eisenstadt, j. arnason, w. schluchter, b. wittrock, etc.) are heuristically less satisfactory and methodologically more contradictory (eisenstadt 2000). the main methodological problem of these theories is that ideas based on the idea of a particular civilisational norm necessarily describe the entire diversity of societies that fit into them only as temporary deviations. as a rule, however, deviations do not disappear in the course of time, but continue to accumulate, while the legitimacy of the norm itself is not questioned, including also for the civilisation that spawned its historical model; nevertheless, it inexorably retreated more and more from it. undoubtedly, during the expansion and intensification of modernity there are receding waves and rejectionist reactions to excessively rapid processes of catching up or the authoritarian modernisation of the semi-periphery and periphery of the capitalist world-system. at the same time, it is tempting to counter-modernise these waves and adopt reactionary positions proving the existence of irresistible cultural differences and advocating a return to tradition along with an apologia for the civilisational uniqueness of specific societies, which determines the inapplicability of modern values to them. however, acknowledging the challenges of modernisation is by no means the same thing as repudiating modernity per se. the thesis of multiple modernities presupposes the preservation of pre-modern cultural differences in the value system of modernity, turning into a civilisational approach that only uses the modernist conceptual apparatus and rhetoric for its effective refutation. this approach attempts to integrate the universalism of the values of modernity – the background patterns of human development that go beyond the limit of any civilisation – with the obvious difference between cultural environments and models for their realisation. the vulnerability of the methodological compromise inherent in the concept of multiple modernities consists in modernity in the form of competition between various cultural programmes being transformed into an attempt to present some particular societies as civilisational models of modernity, determined by the historical and cultural characteristics of world civilisations. however, this does not mean that modernity abolishes the historical civilisations that preceded it; on the contrary, civilisations become modern without losing their irresistible cultural differences. thus, the multiplicity of modernity is transformed into a conserved set of civilisations in the era of modernity, comprising an aggregated set of unconnected modernities. it seems that in reality the fundamental conflict between modernity and individual culturally-based civilisations is essentially impossible since under the conditions of modernisation the previous cultural differences invariably depart to the periphery of public life. the cultural norms of modernity may have first appeared in the west, but this does not by any means imply colonisation and westernisation when spreading beyond it. however, the acceptance of market values, liberalism, democracy, human rights, progress, etc. is not equivalent to an undermining of the foundations of any nonwestern culture: these pose a challenge to any previous traditional culture, including those of the western tradition. therefore, the increasingly popular culture-centric concept of multiple modernities results in a fundamental conceptual stretch – cultural 164 victor martianov factors refer to significant pre-modern differences in human communities, but are unlikely to retain such a form under the conditions of global modernity (martyanov 2010). in this context, any culture is important, but cultural versions cannot be considered as dominant explanatory factors within modernity, whose cultural anamnesis comprises the history of the west, albeit freed from its particularity. it seems that the problem of the influence of cultural factors in the context of global modernity is more complex. the difficulty lies in the fact that each society seeks to pick up more subtle sociocultural settings conducive to an effective combination of market and state regulation in the implementation of modern values, taking into account the dependence on prior cultural development. here the adjustment of the cultural environment to the deployment of modernity in a concrete historical society consists solely in a particular problem that is overestimated on the increase and located by the proponents of multiple modernities at the centre of their conceptual constructions. the problem is that the global deployment and intensification of modernity are carried out under the conditions of historical non-simultaneity of different societies. this gives rise to intellectual speculations about the insurmountability of cultural barriers and traditions of different civilisations, although in fact the cultural unity of any modern nation-states was formed simultaneously with their economic and political consolidation and did not precede it at all. moreover, globalisation processes affecting politics, culture, economy and law in the modern world dominate the secondary reaction to these processes, expressed in attempts at the cultural, ethnic, religious fragmentation of the world. therefore, drawing on the resources of further development in pre-modern discourses – historical analogies, civilisational approach, traditionalism, fundamentalism and cultural genetics, insurmountable identity or models of ethnonationalism – appears as an increasingly effective enterprise. globalised modernity presupposes the ability of a particular society to live in accordance with transnational, universal political rules, while still in the process of developing them; to think from universal human positions, taking into account more universal laws and background factors that go beyond the limits of sovereign territoriality and historical national myths to embrace all of humanity. if the national version of modernity appears as the institutionalisation of a liberal utopia, then the movement towards a post-national modernity turned paradoxically not into denial, but a radicalisation of its value bases. for example, a. giddens views globalisation as the process of modernity’s axiological radicalisation, encompassing the whole world, as it transitions from its limited origins to the mature version (giddens 1990). this transition is characterised by the growing dynamics of social changes and the triumph of individuality, radically exempt from external regulators and expressed by the growth of conscious or “reflective” sociality that comes to replace the social order regulated by society. globalisation appears as mega-trend, increasingly adopting a non-western view, embracing the world as a whole and challenging the customary system of nation-states. global modernity is less and less consistent with the cultural, geographic and historically classical theories of modernisation, trying to build the universal modernist hierarchy of the world on a global scale, where the countries of the centre of the world system will set the example of the end of history for the ever-lagging periphery, which 165changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 strives towards capitalism, democracy, nation-state formation, rational bureaucracy, autonomy of the individual, separation of power and property, etc. when common ideological universals are realised in practice in different regions of the world, institutional invariants of the fusion of liberalism, democracy, nationalism and capitalism inevitably arise within modernity. however, the transfer of the model of a specific national modernity in an unchanged form to any other sociocultural reality is impossible. for example, political norms in the foundation of a united europe differ fundamentally and in many respects deny the original principles of the european nation-based modernity. therefore, it is inevitable that the organisation of a political society will be transformed into the form of sacralisation of the territoriality of nationstates in favour of more universal projects that presuppose the whole world and all mankind as their place of action. it seems that the intermediate stage of the movement from nation-states to the global politics of modernity can be the strengthening of the regulatory role of intercountry associations, for example the european union, various customs and currency unions, free trade zones, common markets, etc. thus the axiological and institutional integration of humankind implies a weakening of the geographical and political centre in global politics. the centre will function not as an economic monopoly or a political hegemon, but rather as a place for the accumulation of resources and the imposition of hierarchies and networks across different areas. the centre will be less capable of expressing itself institutionally, but more at the level of general rules and objectives, i.e. axiologically. v from the perspective of its further development, the political project of modernity simultaneously faces significant obstacles and challenges while at the same time its potential for maintaining its global dominance is undiminished. in the context of the complex processes of modern globalisation, one of the key axiological challenges involves the possibility of completing the already existing capitalist world economy to conform to a world politics. the increasingly intensive interaction and interdependence of humanity at the global level requires the creation of more effective world political mechanisms for the regulation of issues concerning the interests of mankind as a whole. this problematic preserves the utopian dimension of modernity, its openness to the future and capability of further value-institutional improvement and dominance in relation to any alternative projects. presently, increasingly archaic territorial political institutions govern the economically globalised world. the economic integration of the world has far outstripped the political and ethical. the globalisation of the value bases of modernity thematises the ethical foundations of the limited interests and strategies of nation-states. global politics assumes the alignment of the political, economic and legal space of nations, while allowing the maximum cultural diversity: ethnic, religious, linguistic, etc. for the first time in human history, global modernity contains the possibility of creating a global politics in which the political domain loses its external space, i.e. the one that is traditionally populated with potential enemies. 166 victor martianov potentially, any country and any communicative association – even individual people – can become initiators and conveyors of more universal principles of modernity. in the global political discussion about dominant values players will have a greatly strengthened a priori position who are able to present to humanity the most egalitarian, cosmopolitan variants of solutions for general problems, i.e. those problems emanating from the long-term interests of all mankind and not primarily to the benefit of individual elites, classes, nations or regions of the world. such idealistic logic does not always bear direct and tangible dividends to the actors and societies that initiate it; moreover, these actors often stipulate material costs that are only paid off symbolically. as, for example, in the case of the ussr, which helped the world national liberation movements and raised its own periphery to the level of the metropolis. the new task of states that have lost their habitual functional status of key modernisers is not so much the control and distribution of resource flows, but rather the provision of infrastructure to support the necessary conditions for the individual and collective modernisation of society, which is expressed in the concept of the service state. effective connection to global modernity and the world economy assumes the path of organic modernisation. here the driving force of social changes is associated with the creation of institutional opportunities for expanding the available range of the selfrealisation of citizens in the context of the increasing influence of post-material values. any nation can improve its position in the world system not only in economic terms, but also in terms of caring about a common future in which there is a worthy place for everyone (martianov, fishman, 2010). the future comes first of all as an ethical turn towards a new value system. we do not know what the future will be, but we can know how it should be. elements of global political ethics are currently being developed in alternative globalisation, communitarian, cosmopolitan, environmental, anarchist and technocratic discourses, including those directed against the costs of the dominant neoliberal model of modern globalisation. in particular, the work of researchers including s. george, a. buzgalin, b. kagarlitsky, a. callinicos, e. laclau, c. mouffe, f. jameson, s. žižek and others, who advocate alternative mechanisms for the globalisation of modernity, also obtains a significant ethical charge through its adherence to a neo-marxist or post-marxist vision of the globalised world. however, this kind of ethics is typically built on opposition to the secondary costs of globalisation, acquiring the character of extremist endeavours seeking to turn the history of mankind back to some idealised fork at which it left the true path of development, whether that be fundamentalism, terrorism or extremism. in reality, such criticism, exaggerating all the complexity and duality of the development processes of the modern world, only strengthens its objects. references acemoglu, d., robinson, j. 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(2010) rossiya v poiskakh utopiy. ot moral’nogo kollapsa k moral’noy revolyutsii [russia in search of utopias. from a moral collapse to a moral revolution]. moscow: ves’ mir. 168 victor martianov north, d., wallis, j., weingast, b. (2009) violence and social orders a conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. postfordizm: kontseptsii, instituty, praktiki [postfordism: concepts, institutions, practices] (2015). eds. m. iltchenko and v. martianov. moscow: rosspen. wagner, p. (2008) modernity as experience and interpretation. a new sociology of modernity. oxford: polity press. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 355–371 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.139 received 21 june 2021 © 2021 oksana v. golovashina accepted 8 september 2021 ovgolovashina@mail.ru published online 11 october 2021 article battles for bandera: dissonant historical narratives of ukrainians in poland and problems of integration oksana v. golovashina ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia derzhavin tambov state university, russia abstract the increasing flux of ukrainian migrants into poland increases the urgency of correlating polish and ukrainian historical narratives. here, a key problem concerns the new pantheon of ukrainian national heroes, some of whom are viewed quite negatively by many poles. in this article, problems of competing historical narratives, as well as correlations between historical conceptions and models of migrant integration, are examined with the reference to field research carried out with ukrainian migrants living in poland. here, the main sources comprised interviews with migrants, monitoring of formal and informal cultural activities organized for migrants, as well as data obtained via social networks, thematic forums and the expatriate press. it was found that the main factors determining strategies for facilitating interaction between historical narratives comprise the degree of inclusion of migrants living in different communities of the host country, as well as the level of cohesion among the migrant communities themselves. keywords cultural history, historical narrative, social memory, poland, ukraine introduction in 2017, the annual visit of the polish president andrzej duda to ukraine began with a joint visit by the polish and ukrainian delegation to the memorial to victims of the totalitarian soviet regime in the piatykhatky neighborhood of the city of kharkiv. an assessment of this period of history as comprising a socialist occupation by the soviet union is one of the few topics on which the views of poland and ukraine generally coincide. since both countries shape their national https://changing-sp.com/ 356 oksana v. golovashina identity through a narrative of victimhood to their larger, eastern neighbor (formerly the soviet union, now the russian federation), it may be possible for them to find common ground when assessing many historical events. in many respects, poland’s 2003 accession to the eu became an example for euromaidan, a 2014 protest rally in kiev attended by thousands of people, whose success in toppling viktor yanukovych’s more russia-oriented government apparently fixed the country’s course towards european integration. in this context, poland’s model of national identity formation has often been cited by ukraine, albeit often without the necessary adaptation or consideration of historical specificities. like poland, ukraine refers to the period of socialist occupation to declare itself a victim of the same totalitarian regime and construct on this basis a new pantheon of heroic freedom fighters. however, since many of the heroes of ukraine are already included in the negative symbolic pantheon of poland’s enemies, it is precisely this pantheon that poses the main risk to polish-ukrainian relations. for instance, the ukrainian nationalist theorist and independence fighter stepan bandera is primarily known in poland as an initiator of acts of terrorism including the 1943 massacre of poles at volhynia. in turn, poland’s protests against commemorative practices associated with stepan bandera’s name have provoked a hostile reaction from ukrainian nationalists (ukrainian nationalists, 2014). in 2016, the polish director wojciech smarzowski made the first film depicting the events of the volhynia massacre (smarzowski, 2016). however, following a decision by the ukrainian government that cited the possibility of inciting social unrest, the film was never publicly screened in ukraine. moreover, some ukrainian actors turned down a role in the film on the pretext of it being anti-ukrainian (luty, 2014). thus, it can be seen that history is not always simply a story about events taking place in the past but can also become one of the actors in current political and socioeconomic processes. the “revanche of memory” observed by some polish researchers (machcewicz, 2012) transformed the socialist period into a new ideological and political battlefield. now, due to the replacement of the ideological battles of the cold war era with rival historical narratives affecting the contemporary political situation, a need arises to mitigate the potential for conflict through democratic discourse. once the prerogative of select intellectuals, history is increasingly becoming the object of everyday personal experience and collective interpretation. in democratic societies, this creates a situation in which it becomes necessary to take a strategic approach to emerging trends in collective representations. in addition to carrying personal and family memories, succeeding generations also refer to dominant official discourses (and sometimes their corresponding historiosophical models) when narrating their retained images of the past. in situations where conflicts arise between personal experiences and official interpretations, the ensuing combinations reveal often paradoxical interrelationships between collective representations and the influence of official discourses on them. in post-socialist countries, collective representations of the past that had been constructed under the influence of a socialist discursive model subsequently became part of a post-socialist critique (which, as a rule, turned out to have an anti-socialist character). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 355–371 357 since 2014, the number of ukrainian migrants in poland has been rising due to a combination of deteriorating economic conditions at home and opportunities offered by eu countries (special programs for ukrainian students, visa-free travel, etc.) (dobroczek et al., 2017). in 2013, ukrainians received 1,694 residency permits and 9,795 temporary residency permits (which are valid for up to three years); in 2014, 3,484 and 17,103 permits were issued, respectively, while for the first nine months of 2015 alone, the corresponding figures were 4,570 and 21,872 (office for foreigners, 2019). as of july 1, 2016, ukrainians held 31% of all polish residence permits issued to foreigners. of all ukrainian citizens studying abroad, a third were attending polish education institutions, while in the academic year 2014/2015 the number of ukrainians in polish universities was double that of the previous year (stadnii & slobodian, 2019). in the present paper, collective representations of the past are viewed as a source of environmental conflictogenity, while models of their adaptations are considered as one of the methods for adapting to a changing world. however, an analysis of considerable empirical data about ukrainians in poland, the influence of economic and political factors on migration flows, the gender and age composition of migrants, and relevant monographs (brzozowska & grzymałakazłowska, 2014; grzymała-kazłowska, 2015; kindler, 2011; mrozowski, 2003) has been omitted as outside the scope of the present study. while their respective governments are setting up commissions to settle historical issues, around a million ukrainians living in poland are experiencing historical narrative rivalry with their host communities at the same time as having to construct, on an almost daily basis, a dialogue with these same host communities. having few working models on which to such base a dialogue, the migrant communities themselves obtain and/or create models of interaction depending on their personal interpretations of the historical information received in their home country, their experiences of living in poland, interactions with the wider social environment, etc. while there are numerous public organizations based in poland aimed at helping ukrainians to resolve economic and social problems (for a detailed analysis see łada & böttger, 2016), for these migrants, the interpretation of historical events remains a largely personal matter. thus, while it is understood that most migrants are probably more concerned with finding a good job and solving bureaucratic problems than with the peculiarities of polish-ukrainian history, it is impossible to fully consider issues around the adaptation and integration of migrants without also taking into account the conflict-causing potential of collective memory. theory and methods the analysis presented in this article is informed by studies that deal with the influence of historical memory on the polish–ukrainian relations. a comparative analysis of contemporary political, economical, and social features of the contemporary phase of polish-ukrainian relations was carried out along with a consideration of poland’s foreign policy strategies towards ukraine (szeptycki, 2016). other authors place an emphasis on how historical memory is manifested in political documents https://changing-sp.com/ 358 oksana v. golovashina (mieliekiestsev, 2016) and the media (allison, 2015), without touching upon individual impressions and perceptions or the influence of the state’s politics of memory on the specifics of people’s daily lives. although various aspects of the ukrainian migration to poland have been studied in detail, the contemporary phase of the ukrainian migration to poland has not been covered in these works. thus, based on the particular case of ukrainian migrants in poland, the present article analyzes problems of rivalry between conflicting historical narratives in the context of intensive migration along with an examination of methods for reconciling the conflict potential of national histories in the context of currently intensifying exchanges between ukrainians and poles. thus, we will attempt to demonstrate, on the one hand, how migration affects the reproduction of historical memory, and on the other, in what ways historical narratives determine the living conditions of migrants. sources the present article reports on research carried out into the historical narratives of russian-speaking migrants conducted between october and november 2017 in the polish cities of warsaw, krakow and poznan. the purpose of the research was to analyze methods of interaction between different forms of cultural memory, including conflicts arising in the course of this interaction, the boundaries of assimilation and acceptance of various perceptions of the past, the mechanisms of “tradition creation”, as well as obliviousness to the past in the migrant environment and the influence of the cultural memory of the host community. the main sources comprised interviews carried out with migrants, analysis of formal and informal activities organized for and by migrants, as well as data obtained from social networks, thematic forums, and the migrant press. the study was supported by the centrum polsko-rosyjskiego dialogu i porozumienia [centre for polish-russian dialogue and understanding]. the paper presents the results of forty in-depth structured interviews carried out with ukrainian migrants aged 20 to 47 years who have been living in poland for between two and ten years. of the informants, which comprised 23 men and 17 women, 20 were from eastern ukraine and 20 from western ukraine. ten participants were students in polish higher education institutions (of whom eight also had a job), nine worked in the service sector, five were entrepreneurs, four were housewives, five were employed in the education sector, five worked in construction, and two were currently looking for a job. when selecting informants, quota sampling was employed, which entailed simple random sampling. with the consent of the informants, the interviews were recorded by the author of the present article using a digital voice recorder. an interview location was selected by the informants (typically, a cafe or their own place of residence). when processing interview transcripts and systematizing the data, the author of the article paid attention not only to the semantic content, but also to common discursive constructions, wording and underlying opinions. as additional sources, were also included: observations made by members of informal migrant communities (emigrant lyre poetry gatherings, regular club events of russian-speaking and ukrainianspeaking communities, theme nights organized by the ukrainian house in warsaw1, 1 український дім у варшаві changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 355–371 359 club of ukrainian wives2, and others); an analysis of the content of social network groups and sites for ukrainian/russian-speaking migrants overheard in warsaw3, poland for your own and our in poland4, warsaw for ukrainians5, typical krakow6, our people poznań7, poland: useful information, work, life8, work and life in krakow9, ukrainians in poland10; news channels and outlets polsha2411; life and work in poland12, our choice, a newspaper for ukrainians in poland13; publicly available data obtained from personal social media accounts and influencers on social networks. theoretical foundations the selection of theoretical foundations and methodological framework was determined by the purposes of the study. in order to study changes and transformations of images from the past, a methodological approach was required. in this connection, it became necessary to determine the impact of historical narratives on the integration of migrants, e.g., what difficulties may arise when the bearers of a certain image of the past find themselves in the middle of conflicting historical narratives (that is, when there is a transfer not only of people, but also of their ideas). therefore, the methodological framework of the study was informed by the process-relational methodology of jeffrey k. olick, who suggested that memory of the past should be seen as an activity, a process in which changing practices are of great importance. in particular, olick noted that the purpose of studying collective memory should be to understand “figurations of memory”, i.e., changing relations between the past and the present, in which images, contexts, traditions and interests are intertwined, albeit not always harmoniously (olick, 2007, p. 92). moreover, the dynamics of cultural memory are largely determined by its intermediaries, whose actions result in memories being made public (erll & rigney, 2009, p. 2). thus, it is argued that a cultural memory of a certain event does not exist in the mind as a stable and unchanging picture; rather, it is a “script” that is constantly being rewritten, only a few particular episodes of which at best have actually been “brought to the screen”. second, some of andrzej szeptycki‘s ideas have been rethought in the context of the “mobility turn” concept developed by john urry. as described by georg simmel, a migrant is generally considered as a “stranger” by his or her host community. thus, 2 клуб українських жінок 3 подслушано в варшаве https://vk.com/sekret_warsaw 4 польща для своїх & наши в польше! https://vk.com/polskaforyou 5 варшава для украинцев https://vk.com/wawa_ua 6 типичный краков | krakow | краків https://vk.com/typ_krakow 7 наши люди poznań, познань https://vk.com/poznann 8 польша: полезная информация, работа, жизнь https://www.facebook.com/groups/ 1444850238943158/ 9 “работа и жизнь в кракове” https://www.facebook.com/groups/382529975458952 10 ukraińcy w polsce/українці у польщі https://www.facebook.com/groups/426062464109096/ 11 https://www.polsha24.com/ 12 https://in-poland.com/ 13 наш вибір https://changing-sp.com/ https://vk.com/sekret_warsaw https://vk.com/polskaforyou https://vk.com/wawa_ua https://vk.com/typ_krakow https://vk.com/poznann https://www.facebook.com/groups/1444850238943158/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/1444850238943158/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/382529975458952 https://www.facebook.com/groups/426062464109096/ https://www.polsha24.com/ https://in-poland.com/ 360 oksana v. golovashina although living alongside the host community, a migrant does not fully participate in terms of that community’s specific conditions of interaction (simmel, 1908/2009). for this reason, in order to stabilize the relationship between migrants and their host communities, bülent diken proposes to inform an interpretation of the messages of “the other” by taking a hermeneutic approach (diken, 1998, p. 251). however, as we have seen in the context of polish-ukrainian historical dialogues, a migrant may be considered not merely as a “stranger”, but also as an “enemy” (simmel, n.d.). while some organizations may paternalistically depict ukrainians as younger brothers who need help, simmel emphasizes that conflicts between people and groups who have much in common are often more acute (simmel, n.d.). here, a paradoxical situation arises according to which, while ukrainians may be deemed “close” in one relation (according to geographical and linguistic principles), they can also be considered by the polish community as an “enemy” when it comes to certain episodes from the past. therefore, the relationship between poland and ukraine can be seen as complicated not so much by the historical conflicts themselves, but rather in terms of a rivalry of historical narratives, whose goals are determined by current political agendas in terms of forging a respective national identity to underpin national unity according to existing historical narrative models. ukrainian nationalism, which arises as part of an intense exercise in shaping national identity, conflicts with the polish historical narrative. following the accession of the conservative law and justice party to a dominant position in polish politics, the latter also carries strongly nationalist overtones. meanwhile, considerable experience of polish-russian dialogue has already accrued without relying on a bi-nationalistic model. before proceeding to analyze the obtained empirical evidence, a few more theoretical remarks are necessary. following jens brockmeier and rom harré, historical narratives are considered to comprise a subtype of discourse (brockmeier & harré, 2001, p. 40). despite the essentially descriptive nature of historical narratives in terms of stating what actually happened, their coherence is also reliant on certain explanatory models (danto, 1965, p. 290). thus, when ideas and images of the past serve as part of a historical narrative, this in turn presupposes the description of historical events within a representative form of historical knowledge that is affected by the present cultural and social context. while a historical narrative may be transmitted through the education system, family or various media, problems arise concerning, firstly, that images can have various meanings in different cultural and social contexts, and secondly, that how they are transmitted depends on the specific agents involved in their transmission. in a monograph, pamela ballinger describes the effect of history on identity in a situation of exile (ballinger, 2002) in terms of the agency of a particular historical narrative. while urry points to a decline in the primary importance of national identity in the context of a turn to mobilities (urry, 2000, pp. 161–163), the ukrainian situation may be seen as an exception to this tendency, since historical narratives underpinning their national self-determination still structure a number of ukrainian cultural practices. here we may also pause to consider the peculiarities of historical education in ukraine. in most post-soviet countries, including ukraine, school history teaching is essentially changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 355–371 361 narrative based (korostelina, 2010; richardson, 2004). thus, when studying a narrative of past events, children are generally inculcated with the ideologically correct (from the point of view of state actors) interpretation. in this connection, it can be observed that the state-approved ukrainian historical narrative generally depends on an interpretation that is relevant to the current political agenda. while the successful implementation of such an interpretive-narrative model of historical education may indeed lay the foundation for a national state identity, when such a model collides with an alternative narrative, not only does this hinder integration processes, but it can also form the basis of conflicts between migrants and their host community. historical narrative transfers: integration strategies the most common strategy, which was adopted by twenty eight of the forty interviewed migrants and by the majority of participants in activities observed in the migrant communities, was to deny the existence of any such narrative rivalry. in general, this strategy was preferred by young people who had been living in poland for several years. although not implying that ukrainians abandon their historical narrative upon arrival in poland in order to replace it with a new one, the essence of this strategy consists in (a) minimizing the influence of past events on modern life and/or (b) denying any personal connection with past conflicts. although this strategy may seem to broadly coincide with the foreign policy statements of the ukrainian establishment (president poroshenko, 2018; ukraine, poland in effort, 2017), this should not be interpreted to imply that the migrants are consciously repeating the rhetoric of the president of the country they left several years ago, but rather as constituting evidence of common cultural ground on which basis the political elite and the citizens of ukraine select similar strategies. such migrants argue that, since such tragic historical events as the volhynian massacre happened a long time ago, it is no longer necessary to pay them much attention: • it’s time to live for today [...], look ahead, not back [...] (f., 46). • that’s history [...], there are many bad things, but there are many good things as well [...]; it’s time to stop these endless quarrels […] (f., 37). some called for a broader view of history that is not limited to polish-ukrainian relations: • the germans have also been treating us badly—so what? (m., 23). • volhynia is a regional conflict, it means nothing, there were many of them in history, what’s the use in remembering that? (m., 29). the same strategy can also be seen in admissions of the equivalence of different interpretations and thus the possibility of their coexistence. according to these informants, history turns out to be a property of the state, created by those responsible for enacting state policy and therefore to be treated as part of state ideology: • here, they can make films about anything they like (referring to the film “volhynia”) […] and we can name our streets as we please (m., 41). https://changing-sp.com/ 362 oksana v. golovashina • in warsaw, they say one thing on the streets, while in lviv they say another. that’s okay (m., 33). the informants in this case avoided giving any personal appraisal of historical events or heroes, emphasizing that the state (whether ukraine or poland) has the right to adopt the historical narrative that suits it best because no one really knows what actually happened in the past. thus, in the terminology of astrid erll and ann rigney, the state acts as an intermediary in determining the possibilities of interpreting the past. the second strategy is manifested in terms of maintaining a distance from the tragic events of the past: • neither i nor my relatives participated in that [volhynia massacre] (f., 29). • the upa is not the whole of ukraine (f., 21). • i’m from another city/that’s a thousand kilometers from me (f., 37). such a stance allows migrants to tell themselves that the film “volhynia” does not concern them but describes other people with whom they have no connection. it is noticeable that those with other family histories can also employ this strategy: a person of ukrainian descent whose polish relatives suffered under volhynia said that it would not help them if he was to somehow develop a particular attitude towards this event now. therefore, this strategy allows the maintenance of a personal distance from memories of polish-ukrainian violence by negating the significance of the past. in such situations, as noted by jeffrey k. olick, it is not the image of the past that has changed, but rather the methods of its transmission under the influence of social practices (olick, 2007, p. 93). the main goal of denying the rivalry of historical narratives thus consists in a desire on the part of the migrants to reduce the possibility of conflict situations in the host country, i.e., not to become an “enemy” in simmel’s terminology. for such migrants, interpreting the events of the past is a less pressing issue than the need to find a good job and communicate with officials. this point of view is related to the informants’ acquaintance with history. even the youngest of the interviewed migrants spoke in terms of the unreliability of knowledge of their country’s past. concerning the narratives recalled from school textbooks, although they have retained a certain integrity over the last decade, those narratives broadcast through the media often put forward alternative interpretations that contradict previous ones; for example, while older relatives or friends can act as translators of the soviet historical narrative, this narrative is criticized by contemporary ukrainian history books. due to the presence of such intermediaries, the past loses its ontological status in the accounts of migrants, proving to be as valid as fiction, because (this turns out to be a rather common phrase among ukrainian and generally russian-speaking migrants): no-one really knows what actually happened in the past. as one informant explained: • even if he examines all the facts and sources and develop his own point of view, another person will come along who has also studied everything, but he is going to have another point of view (f., 21). in general, when participating in conversations about history, migrants kept changing the subject of discussion back to current political issues. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 355–371 363 thus, while migrants may be willing to establish a certain identity in which their original country’s cultural memory is reconciled with their lived cultural reality, they make a great effort to keep this identity separate from the “cultural memory” itself in order to construct something less controversial on its basis. at the same time, they emphasize the dominance of elements of the lived cultural reality: they strive for integration, play up aspects that appear to them to be “polish” (since their first day of arrival in poland, girls acquire the “western” habit of shaking hands when making people’s acquaintance, using polish words in speech, etc.), as well as sometimes cultivating a new identity by trying on the stereotypical image of a pole, all the while avoiding any topics associated with periods of conflict in the history of poland and ukraine. conversely, cultural memory may maintain a dominant position for quite some time, not only due to its inherent nature, but also when reinforced by the negative attitude of some poles towards the migrants as “ukrainians”, “newcomers”, zarabiający (migrant workers who come for the sole purpose of earning money), etc. however, it can be noted from the primary data that the significance of actual cultural elements intensifies along with the degree of integration as the migrants’ length of stay in poland increases. at times, informants’ explanations for their attitude to the ukrainian past were quite original: for example, one explained that he does not feel a connection with either ukraine or poland: • i’m a cosmopolitan. that is, a rootless man [...] and the fact that i have been living for 26 years in the territory of ukraine does not make me a ukrainian (m., 29). another considered his social identity to be more important than his national one: • i am a simple hard worker, and we have our own problems. that’s why we do not bother each other with that political nonsense. a worker’s life is the same everywhere! (m., 41). alternatively, a desire to explain the ukrainian actions in volhynia while maintaining a friendly attitude towards his polish hosts led another informant to appeal to a common enemy by claiming that the volhynia massacre was organized by soviet special services disguised as ukrainians. as a rule, the main goal of migration is to improve one’s financial and social situation. therefore, in preparation for a move to poland, migrants are more interested in finding out how to rent an apartment, pay for their phone or buy a car, than in “memory wars”: • did poland have any conflicts with the ukrainians? i didn’t know about that (m., 21). however, since ukrainians remain “strangers” to their host community (according to simmel’s terminology), the long-term, consistent implementation of the denial/ minimization strategy turns out to be problematic. since ideas and images from the past often have an all-too-real effect on conditions of mobility, ignoring them may lead to problems in terms of integration or adaptation. while migrants may claim not to be interested in historical narratives, the host community (especially such as in presentday poland) cannot entirely avoid touching upon past conflict events. according to https://changing-sp.com/ 364 oksana v. golovashina some informants, questions about attitudes towards volhynia and stepan bandera are more frequently encountered during interviews for obtaining a residence permit; as other informants noted, such interviews had not previously referred to assessments of historical events. the euromaidan period is noted by some ukrainian migrants as having been a high point in polish-ukrainian relations. at that time, many ukrainians gave interviews in the polish media concerning the situation in kiev; by providing “firsthand” commentary on what was going on in ukraine, they were able to dispel some negative stereotypes held by polish people about their neighboring country. with the help of funding provided by the polish authorities, various public organizations were established: ukrainian world, under the auspices of the open dialogue foundation and euromaidan warsaw; ukrainian house managed by our choice foundation; and the friends of ukraine network. however, following the short-lived euphoria of civil solidarity and influenced by a new wave of ukrainian migration and the return to power of the law and justice party14, polish-ukrainian historical conflicts started to regain their salience. one informant recounted an incident when she and a friend from moldova were having a conversation in russian. she stated that a polish passenger stood up and, using offensive language, referred to them as banderites and warned them not only to get off the bus but also to return home. meanwhile, the other passengers did nothing. when describing this incident, the informant agreed with the negative interpretation of bandera’s image expressed by the polish passenger but stated that it was not relevant to her since neither she nor her relatives had ever had anything to do with him. thus, while perceptions of the past may alter under the influence of various social factors, the merely superficial embrace of a polish historical narrative is not a sufficient condition for successful integration. the notion that professed ignorance of history contributes to more successful integration does not hold water, since, despite declared efforts to leave history in the past, migrants are still confronted by history in the form of media, films, as well as neighbors who have been inculcated with different values. therefore, some migrants (eight of those interviewed) agreed with the historical narrative of the host community. usually, this was stated in the discourse of awareness: • only here i came to realize what swine we were” (m., 38). • we were not told about this in school, but here it has become clear (f., 40). in seeking to justify their adoption of a polish historical narrative, the interviewed migrants sometimes referred to their own humanitarian education, which allowed them to draw an objective conclusion (regardless of the country in which they were educated). others cited the education of a polish spouse or friend; less frequently, to their own, self-directed study of sources: • we must admit our historical mistakes (f., 33). • i wasn’t aware about that before, but now i understand why poles do not like us (m., 28). thus, in the minds of migrants, the past is changing under the influence of the new social environment, as the studies of olick and erll & rigney confirm (erll & rigney, 2009, p. 1; olick, 2007, p. 113). in attempting to forestall possible conflicts with their 14 prawo i sprawiedliwość changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 355–371 365 host community, migrants instead emphasize those common features that unite poles and ukrainians: the “slavic soul”, shared aspirations for national self-determination, etc. at the same time, historical events in which the polish side failed to show itself in the best light (for example, the “pacification” of galicia) are either not commented on or declared to be the result of soviet propaganda. this point of view allows ukrainian migrants to establish their integration into the polish community and avoid harsh criticism of their homeland. the image of the soviet union (often extended to russia) as a totalitarian empire that sought to set one nation against the other (poles and the ukrainians), violently repressing any manifestations of free-thinking (which largely corresponds to the contemporary politics of memory of the polish people), is now being adopted by ukraine to suit a contemporary political agenda. in extreme cases, this may imply a change to one’s own family history, as in the case of a grandfather who was previously remembered as a participant in the great patriotic war (that is, part of the soviet heroic pantheon), but is now viewed as a war criminal. however, adopting a polish historical narrative is not sufficient to save a ukrainian migrant from being considered a “stranger”. the informants who followed this strategy generally continued to regard themselves as ukrainians and maintain contact with relatives living in ukraine. negative reactions to the informants’ “eastern accent” (typical of native russian, belarusian and ukrainian speakers who also speak polish), whether encountered in shops, at work or in the treatment of their children (especially those already born in poland), often expressed in the form of the denigrative banderovtsy, offends this group more than it does those who employ other strategies. nevertheless, many ukrainian migrants note that the root of this situation lies not with their polish host communities, but rather with the more recent ukrainian arrivals in poland. thus, while perceptions of the past may change under the influence of various social factors, the embrace of a polish historical narrative is not a sufficient condition for successful integration. an alternative strategy consists in maintaining a historical narrative that is characteristic of the country of origin. however, among the ukrainians interviewed, only a few had chosen this model. this group, which criticized poles for their simplified interpretations and reluctance to understand ukrainian history, did not intend to stay in poland permanently (although neither did they plan to return to ukraine). such a strategy tends to be more typical of immigrants from the republic of belarus. unlike ukrainians or russians, there are many belarusians in poland who have the status of political refugees. like the ukrainian migrants who had chosen to retain their own historical narrative, this group tends to perceive poland as a country of temporary residence, thus orienting itself not toward integration but rather aiming at a more or less comfortable transitory stay in poland. with their immediate circle of friends mainly consisting of their fellow citizens, their media landscape tends to consist of russianor belarusian-language public posts on social networks. even after receiving polish citizenship, expatriates from belarus often do not intend to settle permanently in the host country but either see it as a springboard for subsequent westward movement within the eu or a temporary respite before returning to their homeland in the event of a change in the political situation there. since no atrocity https://changing-sp.com/ 366 oksana v. golovashina comparable to volhynia can be found in polish-belarusian history, the informants propose that those with a poor grasp of the polish language (and having a so-called “eastern” accent) may present themselves as belarusians. unlike belarusians, however, the ukrainian expatriate community sees itself as highly disorganized and sometimes even divided. the lack of integration into existing or newly formed organizations on the part of more recent ukrainian migrants (i.e., since 2014) may partially explain the lack of active propagation of a ukrainian historical narrative in poland. “i’m looking for a ukrainian guy. don’t email me if you’re a banderite”, wrote one young woman from ukraine in a migrant social network group. while tolerant of migrants from other countries and inclined towards dialogue with their polish hosts, ukrainians are at the same time often intolerant of their own compatriots. while, despite their checkered shared history, they are often willing to abandon stereotypes associated with the russians and poles, some interviewees considered those who come from western ukraine to be aggressive, fanatical nationalists, while others refer to those from eastern ukraine as stupid, prone to alcoholism and ignorant of the ukrainian language. perhaps these conclusions, which the present author derived from communication with ukrainians in informal migrant communities formed on the basis of interests rather than ethnicity, are relevant only to this particular group of migrants. despite the current political situation, an analysis of rental ads and other communications with the mentioned circle of migrants demonstrated that a native of lviv might prefer to share an apartment with a russian than with a migrant from dnipro (previously called dnipropetrovsk). despite the existence of many organizations aimed at helping ukrainian migrants to integrate, many of the interviewed migrants tend to avoid their compatriots, instead (as especially typical for those with poor knowledge of the polish language) gravitating towards russian-speaking communities of interest. this leads to the propagation of only the most anodyne cultural images (national cuisine, popular culture, images from nature, literature). poles and ukrainians: close, but not together migrants tend toward the opinion that, despite the problems they will inevitably have to face, their adopted host country can provide them with the benefits that their home country cannot. thus, while expressing regret at losing connections with friends who remained in home country, an interviewed ukrainian migrant was glad never to have to deal again with state institutions. although it is typical of both russian and belarusian migrants that distrust of the state does not prevent them identifying with their national culture, definitions of ukrainian culture in recent decades continue to depend on the current political agenda and the residence of migrants. therefore, a strategy that involves maximum integration into the host community (with a tendency to assimilation) seems the best option for them. in the given political and social situation, however, this turns out to be impossible due to the propagation of a polish historical narrative that conflicts with its ukrainian counterpart. the research revealed few differences in the responses of migrants who had arrived on a work or education visa with those who were repatriating to poland on changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 355–371 367 the grounds of polish ancestry. despite the latter stating polish to be their native language (and consequently already being assimilated into polish culture), they also strove to avoid narrative rivalry, sometimes choosing polish narrative interpretations only following a long period of living in poland. indeed, in most of the studied cases, being of polish origin had hindered the integration process, since these repatriates not only had to jump through the same hoops faced by all migrants but were also forced to somehow neutralize the conflict between their origins and the reactions of others who defined them as ukrainians. the more repatriates considered themselves to be a pole, the more disappointment they expected to encounter when dealing with local residents. informants stated that, even if they knew the polish language as a mother tongue, they would still not be able to understand polish humor and would have to face the negative attitudes of those they encountered (e.g., university professors and local residents). an anticipated correlation between informants’ previous place of residence and their chosen strategy was not found: migrants from both eastern and western ukraine, who used the russian or ukrainian language during interviews and in communication with their compatriots, responded similarly to the interview questions. nevertheless, the immediate environment of migrants does have an influence on their choice of strategy. an analysis of social network accounts showed that the more connections the migrants had with their host community, the more they were likely to agree with the polish historical narrative. those informants inclining toward this strategy were either in mixed marriages (80 percent of those who supported polish historical narratives) or had polish co-workers. among the migrants from russia, while a number of divorces had occurred as a result of anti-russian narratives, no informants reported the possibility of maintaining neutrality in relation to “battles of memory”. according to existing research, the fairly widespread practice of intermarriage between poles and ukrainians tends to result in the assimilation of ukrainian migrants rather than their integration (brzozowska & grzymała-kazłowska, 2014; górny et al., 2007). some ukrainian migrants mentioned in interviews that poland had become their home following the birth of their children in this country. in the current situation, one can point to the emergence of a “migrant workers community”, whose members are united by lifestyle and social roles rather than ethnic origin. labor migrants (zarobitchany), who make up the bulk of those coming from ukraine to poland, are neither particularly concerned about competing historical narratives nor generally oriented toward integration. nevertheless, their behavior may be an additional reason for growing polish anti-ukrainian sentiment. some ukrainian informants who had been living in poland for more than five years noted that they had only started to experience hostility on account of their nationality in recent years. in detailed interviews, while only three stated that they had encountered explicit cases of ethnic discrimination, all of them mentioned hearing stories of such discrimination from his or her acquaintances, who in turn had heard them from other people. given additional comments in thematic communities, the level of anti-ukrainian sentiment can partly be explained in terms of the migrants’ own attitudes, which can be seen as a reaction to the growth of such sentiments in the media. https://changing-sp.com/ 368 oksana v. golovashina due to their ever-increasing number, ukrainian students, as well as those working in the service sector, childcare, or education services, cannot fail to influence their host community. in parallel with the patriotic policies introduced by the polish law and justice party, the growth in the number of migrants has resulted in an increase in nationalist sentiment among poles. conclusion on the basis of an empirical study, the interactions of migrant historical narratives with those of the host community were traced in terms of competition and conflict. despite frequent denials on the part of migrants that their successful integration into the host community is impeded by competing historical narratives, one of the main impediments to abandoning their own historical narratives consists in the negative reactions on the part of their host community. the main factors determining the strategies on the part of the migrant communities in terms of managing the interaction of their own historical narratives with those of their host communities are the level of their integration into those communities and the extent of their internal cohesion. taking into account the influence of the collective memory of the host community, the study reveals that the changing nature of historical conceptions should be considered according to a conceptual framework that is not only capable of describing the potential conflicts between historical narratives, but also offers a means for their possible resolution. the axiological character of historical narratives, both on the part of ukrainian migrants, as well as their polish hosts, leads to difficulties in terms of their possible reconciliation. the results of the empirical study show that, while some of the migrants are happy to forget about their history and national identity, they are continually reminded of it by their host community. thus, instead of reducing identification with a national historical narrative, the migration context tends to intensify it. for migrants, it is not always easy to simply leave the past behind, since it lurks in the speeches of politicians and puts words in the mouths of people sitting beside them on public transport. integration strategies on the part of ukrainian migrants in poland cannot be analyzed purely in terms of the activities of two actors (i.e., migrants and host community) due to the presence of more than two actors. thus, it is necessary to consider migrant integration and assimilation not only in terms of the amount of time they have lived abroad or the place they have come from (schiller, 1999; stack, 1996), but also in terms of their self-identification, in which attitudes to the historical narratives of their country of origin play a key role. the present study has focused on the role of historical narratives and the extent to which attitudes towards them lead to heterogeneity on the part of migrant communities. in the context of rivalry between historical narratives, the study of the relationship between migrants and their host community permits a return to the notion of migrants having their own views and values rather than comprising mere demographic shifts. when studying mobilities, the relevance of the obtained results is increased by including the migration of ideas. the study has shown that sharing a common physical changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 355–371 369 space does not automatically lead to the formation of a community of common destiny, but that migration in the context of rivalry between historical narratives exacerbates problems of identity both for the migrants and the host community. this increases the potential for conflict situations, whose resolution nevertheless requires an appeal to the axiological base of identity. in this way, perhaps “strangers” will not immediately become “natives”, but neither will they necessarily remain “enemies”. references allison, s. 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june 2021 © irina g. polyakova accepted 24 september 2021 irinapolykova@yandex.ru published online 11 october 2021 article informal sperm donation in russia irina g. polyakova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract rising infertility across the globe has created a growing demand for assisted reproductive technologies (art). in recent years, apart from sperm donation in formal settings such as fertility clinics, informal donation practices have emerged and spread across russia. these reproductive donation practices have become possible due to the development of social networks and private online platforms. we conducted a pilot study (eleven semi-structured interviews) of the informal sperm donation in russia and analysed donorrecipient interactions, donors’ expectations and experiences of finding recipients online. we focus on donors’ motivations and on the meanings, which donors invest in this practice that consumes significant resources on their part (medical tests and artificial insemination costs, travel and accommodation expenses, sometimes mutually agreed financial support of future offspring). we interpreted the practices that coalesced around informal donation from the perspective of symbolic interactionism, because it allowed us to showcase how actors reflected on and formulated the meanings of their actions in the absence of externally imposed rules (legal regulations, established moral conventions). since informal donation practices do not fit into the traditional schemes of interpretation, such research requires the actors involved in informal donation either to create their own schemes or to modify the existing conceptual frames in creative ways. the study shows that informal donors do not only provide their genetic material but also spend time and invested considerable resources to ensure their procreation, including eventual financial support of the child. at the same time, these men are not interested in marital relations or paternal relations with their offspring. thus, the informal sperm donors do not associate the parental project with traditional family and its values. we conclude https://changing-sp.com/ 482 irina g. polyakova introduction rising infertility across the globe has created a growing demand for assisted reproductive technologies (art). according to the russian association of human reproduction (rahr), about 12% of in vitro fertilization (ivf) cycles use donated material such as sperm, oocytes and embryos. sperm donation is one of the most widely used and well-known assisted reproductive technology; it is also the least traumatizing for the donor. in the last decades, there has been an international trend towards open-identity gamete donation (sperm and oocytes), with the corresponding changes in legal regulations (blyth & frith, 2009). in sweden, the uk and netherlands, after coming of age, a donor-conceived child has the right to receive identifying information about the biological father. the requirement to disclose the information about the donor’s identity has led some donors to seek greater discretion in informal settings. apart from protecting donors’ anonymity, informal settings open greater freedom to donors who might not be vetted for donation by fertility clinics. in canada, for example, even though the so-called home insemination is regulated by a number of legislative acts, there still remains enough room for legal ambiguities and complexities, resulting in lawsuits and litigations. the birth of a donorconceived child does not imply any legal obligations on the part of the donor unless the sperm was donated through sexual intercourse. in this case, the donor is given a year after the child’s birth to claim his parental rights (kelly, 2009; kelly, 2010). health canada even published materials warning of the potential dangers of using sperm from online donors (health canada, 2011). the emergence of online platforms offering sperm donor matching services enables donors and recipients to dodge the rules of fertility clinics but raises a number of ethical and legal concerns (ravelingien et al., 2016). in russia, according to the order no. 803н o poriadke ispol’zovaniia vspomogatel’nykh reproduktivnykh tekhnologii, protivopokazaniiakh i ogranicheniiakh k ikh primeneniiu [on the procedure of the use of assisted reproduction technologies, contraindications and limitations of their application] issued by the ministry of health on july 31, 2020, men aged 18–35, physically and mentally healthy, have the right to be sperm donors after undergoing medical screening and genetic testing. sperm donors can be anonymous as well as non-anonymous (o poriadke ispol’zovaniia, 2020). the order came into force on 1 january 2021. to facilitate the procedure of donor selection, it is advised to compile a list of donors with the information about their that art engendered a new phenomenon, which might be described as extramarital reproduction. assisted reproduction outside marriage gains footing in russia and requires more detailed further study. keywords sperm donation, informal sperm donation, assisted reproductive technologies, extrafamilial reproduction, donor motivation, online platforms for reproduction changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 481–495 483 appearance (height, weight, eye colour, hair colour, etc.) and results of their medical and genetic tests, their race and nationality. the order specifies that in any case, only the use of cryopreserved donated sperm is permitted after repeated negative results of the treponema pallidum antibody test, test for igg and igm antibodies to hiv-1 or hiv-2, and test for antibodies to hepatitis c and b virus (o poriadke ispol’zovaniia, 2020). in recent years, apart from sperm donation in formal settings (in fertility clinics and similar institutions), informal donation practices have emerged and spread in russia1. this phenomenon, however, remains largely underexplored in russian research literature although in other countries the questions of online informal sperm donation have been in the focus of scholarly attention for quite a long time (see, for example, ripper, 2008). in the last decade, this phenomenon was widely researched across different countries and contexts. a research team from the netherlands created a taxonomy of reasons for sperm donation in formal and informal settings, comparing the possible reasons for and against sperm donation conducted via medical institutions or through direct donor-recipient contacts (bossema et al., 2014). a large-scale british survey focused on men registered as sperm donors after donor anonymity was abolished in the uk (freeman et al., 2016). a large australian study of sperm donors identified the characteristics of donors that correlated with their willingness to act as donors in the context of identity-release legislation in australia, canada, the uk and usa (riggs & russell, 2011). lavoie and his colleagues discuss the experience of canadian donors offering their services online (lavoie et al., 2018). in this article, we are going to discuss the informal practices of online sperm donation in russia, focusing on donors’ perceptions of the process. the donors we interviewed treat this process with the utmost seriousness and invest into it a large amount of time and money: they study the medical and legal aspects of arts, undergo regular medical check-ups and screening tests, travel to other cities to meet potential recipients, create and maintain their own websites or groups in social media where they advertise their services and publish easy-to-understand materials on assisted reproduction. in our study, we discuss different aspects of donor-recipient interactions, but we focus primarily on donors’ motivations and their expectations concerning potential recipients as well as their evaluations of donor-recipient relationships. the article aims at shedding light on donors’ motivations and the meanings that sperm donors ascribe to donation, given the fact that these donors invest significant time and resources in their activity. methodology in our sampling and selection of informants, we focused on the outstanding group of individuals. after the quantitative survey of sperm donor motivations was completed online in october 2019 (polyakova, 2020), a group of 24 men who reported uncommon donation practices were discovered. while having various social and 1 these practices rely on online platforms such as http://donorspermi.ru/, https://mama-poisk.ru/, https://alldonors.ru/, https://rebenku.biz/. https://changing-sp.com/ http://donorspermi.ru/ https://mama-poisk.ru/ https://alldonors.ru/ https://rebenku.biz/ 484 irina g. polyakova demographic traits, these individuals showed greater involvement and expertise in reproductive donation. first, they were well informed about the details of art procedures; they have passed all the necessary medical tests or were ready to renew them upon first request; they were registered under several nicknames or had their own websites/accounts in social media devoted to reproductive donation; they published online photographs of their children, parents and other kin; they preferred artificial insemination and ivf to conception via intercourse; they were willing to travel to other cities to meet the recipient woman and to cover all the expenses; they were ready to cover the expenses of the ivf procedure and to support the mother and future child financially. these individuals were invited to participate in an in-depth interview. some of these individuals declined the invitation or stopped responding in the course of preliminary negotiations and scheduling. those who accepted the invitations were interviewed via skype2 (7), in person (2), and replied via emails (2). the research on this topic in various countries, in one way or another, deals with the same set of questions: who are sperm donors? what are their motivations for donating sperm and why do they choose to do it via the internet? what method(s) of insemination do they prefer? how do they prepare for donation? what are their expectations regarding the contact with the recipients? how many of them have donated their sperm? do they maintain contact with the recipients and resulting children? (freeman et al., 2016). the interview guide was designed in accordance with jane agee’s recommendations (agee, 2009): we started with the question types that she recommends, followed by additional questions that called for a more extended response with biographical details or a more detailed discussion of specific aspects. all responses have been anonymized and transcribed. we used categorization analysis to earmark and typologically distribute motives and practices of reproductive behaviour reported by the informants. in total, we interviewed 11 men, aged 28–53 (mean age is 35.67). only one respondent had no higher education (vocational secondary education), two respondents held two higher education diplomas and two other respondents held a degree above the bachelor level. most respondents were from moscow, others were from ufa, nizhny novgorod, krasnodar, yekaterinburg and chelyabinsk. as for the respondents’ professional background, there was an electrician, a lawyer a medical practitioner, two r&d specialists, two it specialists, two academic researchers, and two entrepreneurs. all respondents were heterosexual, four were officially married, seven had children born from a relationship. according to the respondents’ own assessments, the majority were middle-income and only three had a high income. conceptually, out study relies on the symbolic interactionism theory, which allowed us to show how actors formulate and realize the meanings of their actions in the absence of external rules imposed on them by social institutions (goffman, 2 skype is a registered trademark of the microsoft group of companies. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 481–495 485 1974). since informal donation practices do not fit into the traditional schemes of interpretation, such research requires the actors involved in informal donation either to create their own schemes or to modify the existing conceptual frames in creative ways. we believe that the theoretical approach from the perspective of symbolic interactionism is the most productive in this respect, since it takes as a point of departure the fact that people relate to events depending on the meanings they ascribe to these events; that these meanings are generated in the process of communication and interactions between the actors involved; and that, nevertheless, these meanings depend on each actor’s individual interpretations (see lavoie et al., 2018; poupart, 2011). in our case, communication between the actors—donors and recipients—takes place online and depends, on the one hand, on the motivations and life stories of the people involved in the process and, on the other hand, on their mutual expectations and the agreements they reach with each other. while symbolic interactionism helped us on the microlevel, it was the transformation of intimacy by anthony giddens (1992) that was the most illuminating for interpreting the emergence of informal online sperm donation on the macrolevel. in his study of 1992, giddens demonstrates that major social transformations including women’s entry into the paid workforce and technological advances, such as effective contraception, gave women greater control of their lives and of their bodies. as a result, sexual relations were emancipated from the familial social control and the reproductive function within the family. sex could be “pure” pleasure unburdened of risks of unplanned pregnancy and social opprobrium. on the other hand, late modern familial relations evolved into the search for strong emotional connection and sexual fulfillment (“pure relationships”) rather than—as previously—being strongly dependent on material constraints and social expectations of formal marriage for any “mature” individual. with the development of art and media communications in the last decades, human reproduction may, as we hypothesize, make another step in this process of functional differentiation in the intimate sphere: reproduction and child-rearing can become separate from both sexual and familial relations. we use the notion of extramarital reproduction to describe these new realities of seeking reproductive partners online and building certain relationships with the recipients and future offspring without entering into formal or informal marital relations with the reproductive partners. private sperm donors and the internet most respondents answered the question why they decided to become online sperm donors by saying that it was fast, easy and cheap or, as one of the respondents put it, “you wouldn’t expect me to place an ad in a newspaper, would you?” the respondents find it particularly important to be able to meet the mother of their future child: “i’d like to know in what conditions my child will be living in, whom he or she will look like, what he or she will wear—you can tell all this immediately just by looking at the woman”. the majority of donors point out that they can stop online communication at any https://changing-sp.com/ 486 irina g. polyakova moment if they choose to. it should be noted that four respondents have their own websites or have formed special groups online. the most interesting is the case of donor d., whose site, apart from his own photographs and a detailed description of the donor-recipient interaction procedure, includes photos of his parents and of over 20 children he fathered. the site also contains a section on embryos resulting from successful ivfs of different women and photos of these women. there are about 15 comments and responses from the women who used d.’s services and tips on the choice of a sperm donor, the information about ivf, the influence of genes on offspring and so on. despite such extensive coverage of his services and related aspects, d. admitted that sometimes he faces problems in his interactions with potential recipients: “only one out of the thirty women who wrote to me was actually ready for ivf and ready to become a mother of my child, the rest just wasted my time”, he says. some donors mentioned that many women who register on such websites actually do not do it in good faith: “there are women and not just a few of them who are looking for husbands, which seems strange to me, because it’s not a dating website, after all”; “many women put in some ridiculous demands, you wouldn’t believe it, but they claimed what they were looking for was a well-to-do, unmarried man with no children. i understand that it’s a serious business but in the few months that i have been on this site i keep seeing the same faces. what does it say to you? time goes by but nothing comes of it”; “a clear and straightforward description of the woman’s expectations is always preferable to hints and innuendos, but it is the latter what you normally get”. on the other hand, one of the donors, who created a woman’s account on such website, described his experience in the following way: “you get a lot of halfwits looking for sex adventures or those who themselves haven’t the slightest idea of what they are looking for”. our interviewees also admitted feeling exposed to a competitive environment when they offer their services online. in order to attract attention, donors often describe their ancestors’ achievements: “i have a good ancestry, my ancestors were scientists, engineers, state officials, entrepreneurs, famous military commanders and other respectable people. longevity runs in my family. moreover, we have always sought to work for the good of our country and people”. some donors also post information about their health status, hobbies, interests, skills and other strengths: “i am a civilized, cultured and well-rounded, educated person (biochemist). i don’t have any bad habits or addictions or a propensity to form bad habits. i am employed in the medical sphere, have a lot of interests and hobbies, in particular i am interested in science, technology, and robotics, i have an active, healthy lifestyle”; “i am by no means a couch potato, sitting in front of a telly surrounded by beer cans. i play bass, i play an ordinary guitar and percussion, i used to play in a local music band. i am good with hands and can do just about any job that needs to be done around the house such as repairing household appliances or build a house”; “i have contributed to many successful conceptions, the resulting children are all healthy and goodlooking; when they grow up, they will be successful and positive people, just like their biological father”. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 481–495 487 medical aspects all of our respondents claimed that they enjoy good health, do not smoke and seldom drink alcohol. three of them practice sport from time to time, all the others do it on a regular basis: “i have an active and healthy lifestyle in all seasons—volleyball, cycling, jogging, swimming, skiing, snowboarding”; “i practice sport: fitness, swimming, tennis, i have recently started learning to play golf’; “i used to box, to do martial arts and now i am into yoga”. all respondents pay much attention to the safety of sperm donation and agree that a preliminary medical check-up is necessary. the respondents either claim that they have up-to-date medical test results necessary for donation or that they are ready to renew them on first demand: “i am healthy, free of infection, and fertile; i am ready to show all the necessary documents”; “i have all the necessary medical tests, including a karyotype test, pcr swab test, spermogram, rhesus negative blood, which means that my sperm is suitable for all women who want to have a healthy baby, blood group o, the most common blood type”. a similar attitude to matters of safety and health is expected of the potential recipients. almost all our interviewees pointed out that they do not consider women with bad habits (especially smoking): “to improve your chances to have a healthy baby i think both of us need to go through a medical check-up (i hope you understand why)”. all donors are particularly attentive to questions of genetics, in particular “good genetics”. only two men are ready to consider conception through intercourse: “natural conception is possible provided there is mutual attraction and we both go through a full medical examination at a trustworthy medical centre. for me artificial insemination is an easier option”. these respondents also point out that for them, sex as such is not a goal: “i am not looking for sex on the side, i have no problem with this”; “i use a contactless method—artificial insemination or ivf. in other words, i am not trying to satisfy my sexual needs”. others prefer artificial insemination conducted at home or ivf in a medical clinic. almost all donors feel positive or neutral about ivf, claiming that “it is the end result that matters, not the means to achieve it’ and that ‘it’s” up to the woman to decide”. nevertheless, our respondents feel uncomfortable with the formal ivf procedure since it requires them to provide their personal data and sign the documents, therefore disclosing their identity. staying anonymous is a crucial requirement for many of them. several of our respondents reported the difficulties they faced in the process: if a man acts as a non-anonymous donor, he has to pass all the necessary medical examinations and tests, including “quarantining” of their donated sperm for six months and repeated testing afterwards. thus, it takes a long time before the actual procedure is performed. if the recipient woman is single, she can introduce the donor as her boyfriend but in this case, he would have all the rights and obligations in relation to the resulting child, which is something not all women are ready for as well as the donors themselves. one of the donors shared his experience of cooperation with a married couple: “i just turned up at a clinic with her husband’s documents and said that i am her husband and nobody suspected anything”. this situation is not surprising since this couple had been looking for and found a donor that would look like the husband. https://changing-sp.com/ 488 irina g. polyakova donation experience and donors’ expectations of recipients potential donors may have various expectations concerning the desired recipients. four of our respondents consider only single heterosexual women. these men also impose additional requirements, including the woman’s family, her age, financial status, appearance, habits, and life style: “i am looking for a non-smoking, confident woman, with natural beauty (no botox, silicone, especially huge silicone lips), preferably with income not lower than average for conceiving one or two babies”; “there are little chances that our acquaintance and communication will come to something if you already have a husband and/or a permanent partner—i want to be the child’s sole father”; “i am looking for a down-to-earth woman without bad habits. she should be registered in moscow or moscow region and she should have a place of her own for the child to live in”. three other donors, on the contrary, are interested only in heterosexual married couples as a guarantee that the child will be living in a traditional full family and will be well provided for: “a child is not a toy, which is why family couples are desired”; “i am not a fan of fatherlessness and i am not thrilled at the prospect of my children living somewhere without my help or supervision”, “i have to be sure that the child will have everything he or she needs and a full family”. other respondents are less demanding and are ready to cooperate with a heterosexual or a homosexual couple or a single woman. the majority of our respondents (eight out of eleven) claimed that mutual attraction is necessary for donation; one of them thinks that “it is necessary to reach some agreements”. interestingly, he is now engaged in negotiations with a potential recipient and has no previous experience of donation. seven out of eleven donors claim that they already have children conceived by donor insemination and four already have fathered 10 children or more. two respondents have previously donated their semen to sperm banks and received remuneration. at the moment of the survey one of the respondents has already passed the upper age limit and is no longer eligible as a donor for sperm banks, another has landed a good job and ceased to depend on financial compensations for donating sperm. nevertheless, both of them continue offering sperm donations online. interestingly, they do not require “mutual attraction”, the only thing that they insist on is their anonymity. one more respondent is now undergoing a medical examination at a clinic in order to be able to donate sperm to sperm banks. he commented that it is a really lengthy process. the majority of our respondents are unwilling to donate in a formal setting because of the lengthy period of waiting for the test results to arrive and because of much red tape. moreover, to them the whole process seems “sterile and impersonal” and one of the respondents commented: “i simply can’t stand hospitals”. interactions between the actors involved in the donation process most interviewees have said that the process of conception takes time, it also requires a lot of discipline, punctuality and tact: “i would like to make this very awkward moment easier for the woman as much as i can; it’s a very personal thing”; “i understand that for a successful conception regular meeting are necessary on certain days for changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 481–495 489 several months and i am committed to ensuring the desired result, i am responsible and punctual as far as agreements are concerned”. six respondents are ready to travel to a recipient woman’s city at their own expense in order to make the process of conception for her as convenient and comfortable as possible. five respondents are planning to support the mother and the resulting offspring financially or are already doing so. one is ready to cover the ivf expenses or have already done so. all of the respondents replied negatively to the question as to whether they are ready to marry the mother of their future child. as it was mentioned above, many of them prefer to deal with couples rather than single women. nevertheless, almost all of the respondents had difficulty in answering the question about their relationship with the woman’s husband or partner. the husband takes part in decision-making, approves or disapproves of the donor candidates, in some cases ensures the woman’s security in face-to-face negotiations. there is normally no informal communication between the husband and the sperm donor, which is not surprising, because the fact that the woman has a heterosexual partner automatically excludes any possibility of the donor’s further communication with the mother or the child. at the same time, the woman’s partner in a homosexual couple is perceived by the respondents in the same way as the recipient woman herself. both donors who had an experience of dealing with same-sex female couples observe that such couples are easier to engage with, “maybe because two women together are less afraid”. most donors reported having some negative experience of dealing with potential recipients via e-mail, telephone or in face-to-face communication. for example, they mention the bizarre behaviour of some potential recipient women: “i asked her what time would be most convenient for my visit to her city so that we could meet and then all of a sudden she snaps at me saying that she isn’t a hotel or a b&b. i didn’t even have time to answer that i was going to cover all the expenses”; “don’t message me if you are married, with children, or poor”’; “we’ve been writing to each other for a month, discussed everything, i was about to buy tickets and suddenly she just disappears”; “she looked at me and started demanding alimony for the child that didn’t even exist yet”, “she turned up looking like a dance club goddess or a star of the olympus, all dolled up, plastered, and i thought: what’s wrong with you? do you want a child or what?”, and other awkward moments. there is, however, a general opinion that if the donor and potential recipient manage to get past this stage and “get into action”, they usually get along well. four interviewees consider having a contact with the future child as highly desirable or even necessary. even though two of them are married with children, the same four respondents are ready to register as the child’s legal father and consider the child their heir in all meanings of this word. three respondents under no circumstances are ready to maintain contact with their future child, the rest leave it for the woman to decide. five respondents have already contributed to the birth of children by donating their gametes and maintain contact with them in different ways: “on the introduction website i met a woman, with whom we have an excellent friendly relationship and we’ve had two children together. however, i’ll also be happy to have children from other women”; “i keep in touch with all the mothers. so far it has been easy—the https://changing-sp.com/ 490 irina g. polyakova children are small and i come to see them, too. older children already call me daddy, their mothers say that i should come more often”; “i support all my women and children, including financially—there are feedbacks from the women”, “i don’t often see my son, but he knows that i am his father”. only one respondent involved his parents into the communication and upbringing of the children he fathered by donating: “they are just regular grandma and grandpa, who can take their grandkids for a weekend; my mother is very happy with this”. this, however, concerns not all of his children but only two of them—a boy and a girl, born from two different women who were willing to maintain further contact. he comments that the women are acquainted with each other and their children know that they are a half-brother and half-sister: “they behave like ex-wives would, except for the fact that there are no grudges to hold, and i think my mother told her neighbours the same”. four respondents are open about being sperm donors; four have special websites or groups in social media where they publish relevant and up-to-date information about themselves. one of them is married and his spouse approves of what he does because he uses only a “contactless method of insemination”: “i told her that i am solely interested in leaving a large progeny, spread my genes, and she understands that it has nothing to do with infidelity”. three other respondents are formally married. one of them is ready to inform his wife if he fathers a child provided that he chooses to maintain contact with this child. two others say that they don’t want their wives to ever find out about it. out of the remaining four respondents, to the question if they are going to tell their family members about their decision to donate, three said “no and i never will”, and one said that he will act “depending on the circumstances”. the majority of the respondents who wanted to stay anonymous as donors answered the question “why do you hide this part of your life?”, by claiming that their friends and family members “won’t understand’ them or said ‘i don’t know who i can talk to about this”. none of our respondents signed any contract with the recipients, except for the documents at the ivf clinic. motivations the simplest motivation is the desire “to continue my lineage”. these men, for different reasons, cannot satisfy this desire with their current partners (“this topic is considered closed in my family, with grown-up children and my wife already a grandmother”) or they cannot do so due to the absence of a permanent partner (“i am not ready to start a family, i don’t want to get married and i won’t”). however, they are ready to officially acknowledge paternity, participate in the child’s upbringing and make him or her their legal heir. moreover, some donors emphasize that they pursue altruistic motives: “i try to help people, i volunteer to search for missing persons and i help when a see an accident on the road, and i can help by donating”; “i do it because i can, in my inner circle of friends there was a couple who couldn’t have children, i helped them and the first try was successful, i liked it”; “i feel like a certain kind of benefactor, it’s no trouble for me to do it and i can make somebody happy”. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 481–495 491 some of the respondents spoke of donation as an opportunity to pass over their genes and leave progeny: “somebody has to contribute to this country’s gene pool”; “procreation is a natural state of a man”; “it’s important for me to know that the children continuing my bloodline walk this earth”, “i want to continue living in my children after i die, in them i live on and the more of them, the better”. many respondents emphasize that donating helps them make their life more meaningful: “i’m looking for some kind of meaning in everyday routines, giving somebody the gift of life is not a bad idea”; “i’ve achieved everything i wanted in life, now i’d like something else”; “mothers are grateful to me, i see how my children are growing and it brings meaning to my life”. discussion although social advertising is used extensively in russia, adverts urging men to donate sperm are still unimaginable. therefore, private donors advertise their services online. unlike the uk or austria, for example, where “sperm donation involves typical commodity exchanges in unconstrained marketplaces” (sobande et al., 2020, p. 71). sperm banks are competing for donors and professional advertising agencies are employed to advertise services of this kind in top printed media and on television. the reasons why russian donors go online are the same as for british donors: easy access, control over the situation and anonymity and opportunities for staying informed about the results of the process and keeping in touch with the resulting child (freeman et al., 2016). for our respondents, sperm donation in formal settings was unacceptable for different reasons. as bossema et al. highlight, the reasons in favour of formal settings are predominantly concerned with what they refer to as “cautious motives” such as having “legal and physical protection, evading social consequences, and having a simple procedure in terms of effort and finances” (bossema et al., 2014, p. 24). donation through a fertility clinic is safer in terms of genetic disorder prevention; it also prevents unwanted paternal feelings or social disapproval by friends or recipient. this observation was confirmed by the results of our survey, whose participants reported having to face the negative reactions on the part of potential recipients and to deal with ethical problems in relation to their own families and partners. reasons in favour of informal settings are described by the same authors as “approach motives”, that is, the ones “relating to procedural involvement and contact with the donor child and the recipient” (bossema et al., 2014, p. 24). it is interesting to compare a number of aspects in the experience reported by russian and canadian donors who took part in a similar survey (lavoie et al., 2018). the following similarities were identified: • both russian and canadian donors are not interested in the prospect of marrying a recipient woman and wish that the process of insemination be conducted on a neutral territory rather than in the recipient’s residence; • in general, the donors are aware of the health implications associated with this practice and take their own health seriously, undergo regular medical checkups and prefer insemination through donation rather than sexual intercourse. https://changing-sp.com/ 492 irina g. polyakova all of the donors were quite well-informed about art and were ready to consult potential recipients on these matters; • both russian and canadian donors consider donation a meaningful and satisfying experience but, with rare exceptions, are quite discreet about their donation experiences and are generally unwilling to share them with family or friends, preferring to stay anonymous. there are also differences between the donors in canada and russia: • the third of russian donors (four out of eleven) consider the possibility of maintaining contact with the resulting offspring crucial, that is, they would like to perform the role of a father, even though it will happen outside of the traditional family setting. in contrast, all canadian respondents agreed that “their role with regard to offspring was limited to genitor or biological father and that their involvement in the child’s daily life was neither expected nor wanted” (lavoie et al., p. 194); • unlike canadian donors, most of whom prefer to use some kind of a “contract” describing the rights and responsibilities of both parties, none of the russian donors we interviewed reported signing any legal documents, apart from those required by the fertility clinic; • only russian men discriminate potential recipients based on their social and/or marital status: some donors are ready to deal only with single and well-off women, some are interested only in family couples. canadian donors appear to be much less demanding in this respect. regarding the motives behind men’s decision to donate their gametes, we can conclude that it requires a certain form of altruism, taking into account the amount of time and energy the donors have to invest (bay et al., 2014). conclusions informal sperm donation is a relatively new phenomenon in russia. as arts are becoming more popular and accessible and society more accepting to assisted reproduction, the demand for informal sperm donation is growing. one of the factors contributing to this demand is undoubtedly the internet as digital platforms facilitating donor-recipient interactions are proliferating, thus providing a fast and cheap access to this service. participants in our survey admitted spending a large amount of time and resources on this activity while trying not to make this fact public. by their estimates, in total, they fathered nine children of their own and 47 were conceived through artificial insemination. one of our respondents remarked that “a private sperm donor has an iq which, as a rule, significantly exceeds the average level”. his opinion is indirectly supported by the level of education of our respondents: only one of them has no higher education, two out of eleven hold two or more diplomas of higher education and two more have graduate degrees. although the majority of donors are single or have no permanent partner, none of them has the intention of marrying the mother of the resulting child or starting changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 481–495 493 a traditional family. many would like to keep in touch with their children or already do so but only one of them has involved his family members into communication with the children and thus has created something resembling familial relationships. others either avoid discussing the fact of fathering a child at all or inform their inner circle of this fact but prefer not to meet the child in their own homes and do not tell their family members about the details of these meetings. thus, in the established practices of informal sperm donation in russia, men not only provide their genetic material but also spend time and invest considerable resources in procreation and further support of their offspring. at the same time these men are unwilling to start a family, which points to the fact that here we are dealing with a quite interesting phenomenon of extrafamilial reproduction. in this case, the respondents do not associate the parental project with traditional family and its values. in his seminal work the transformation of intimacy, a. giddens (1992) noted that modernization processes are gradually changing the functions of the modern family. as a result of the rising female labour force participation, which started in the first third of the twentieth century, women became more capable of acquiring income of their own and could provide for themselves and their children, thus becoming more independent of men. consequently, there was a reduction in the inequalities in the division of household labour and in the significance of the economic function of the family. after the sexual revolution of the 1960s, sexual relationships, which previously had been considered legitimate only within the strict boundaries of heterosexual marriage, became more socially acceptable. the stigma of shame was largely removed from sex, which led to more sexual freedom for women, with the exception of radical conservative circles. the development of birth control technologies made a substantial contribution to these trends, allowing women to defer pregnancy. thus, the emotional and reproductive functions of the family were separated. the latter remained a solid bulwark of “family values” since childbirth and upbringing are still largely associated with heterosexual marriage and matrimony while pregnancy in marriage is still perceived as more socially acceptable than pregnancies out of wedlock. the development of arts, however, has led to significant social changes, and reproduction outside the family has started to be more widely practiced. moreover, modern means of communication considerably facilitate this practice. the majority of our respondents identify themselves as middle-income. they, however, do not see this fact as an obstacle to covering the expenses associated with donation and, in some cases, offering financial assistance to the recipient woman and resulting child. only one man decided to openly discuss his desire to donate sperm with his wife and to seek her agreement. the desire to stay anonymous, especially in the case of married men, raises the question of how ethical this situation is in relation to the donor’s partner, who finds herself in a strange and dubious situation: although the contactless insemination method preferred by the majority of our respondents cannot be considered as sexual infidelity, their partners would still have to deal with the fact that these men have a second, “secret” life of their own. https://changing-sp.com/ 494 irina g. polyakova the donors reported that the choice of the insemination method is determined by the degree of “informality” of the situation: they have to see for themselves that the mother of the resulting child is a normal, sensible person who would be able to raise a happy, healthy child; discuss the possibility of keeping in touch with the child in the future and maintain contact with him or her or, on the contrary, to make sure that they will be in no way legally bound to the child. we share the opinion of our canadian colleagues in that “it would also be useful to study the views, experiences, and practices of recipients to gain a better understanding, in particular of the pathways that lead single women and couples (both lesbian and heterosexual) to publish online requests for donations” (lavoie et al., 2018) and believe that further investigation in this sphere is necessary. the methodological framework for this research also needs further elaboration: for example, it is necessary to clarify how to calculate and verify the number of children conceived from informal donors. russian legislation does not regulate these practices in any way, although it is already obvious that matters of filiation created by informal donor conception and the need to keep count of the children born from this or that donor is becoming increasingly important. references agee, j. 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(2020). soldiers and superheroes needed! masculine archetypes and constrained bodily commodification in the sperm donation market. marketing theory, 20(1), 65–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593119847250 https://changing-sp.com/ http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2011/13536a-eng.php http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2011/13536a-eng.php https://ssrn.com/abstract=1683581 https://ssrn.com/abstract=1683581 https://doi.org/10.1177/1060826517737047 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/view/0001202010190041 https://doi.org/10.17223/1998863x/56/18 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2016.07.004 https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/deq314 https://doi.org/10.5172/hesr.451.17.3.313 https://doi.org/10.1177/1470593119847250 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.2.012 article historical responsibility, historical perspective daria tomiltseva ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract this article examines the problem of understanding historical responsibility in the context of historical perspective. the author questions what makes responsibility historical, in which ways responsibility can be written into a chronology and how the meaning of responsibility should be understood. based on agamben’s reconsideration of pilate’s trial of jesus, an analysis of the origins of contemporary dualism in understanding the responsibility of the metaphysical perspective of an unchanging semantic value and the variability of the requirements of contingent situations for the execution of an act is carried out. in addition, the article examines the relationship of responsibility for the past (primarily constituted through the prism of guilt and memory) and responsibility for the future as viewed in an instrumentalist vein and in the context of messianism. historical responsibility can be conceptualised on the basis of an ontological approach to understanding responsibility (heidegger, levinas, derrida, nancy), according to which the connections of responsibility are not limited to imputations of obligations to recognise guilt, but rely on the fundamental basis of human activity. with this method of consideration, the historicity of responsibility does not lie in the localisation of certain events on time intervals, but rather is seen as the unfolding of the meaning of human deeds, thanks to which people, actions, intentions and ideas are organised into a single historical perspective. historical relationships of responsibility are not limited by the time, space or social status of people, but are tied by the finitude of the existence of those whom they bind. keywords responsibility, historical responsibility, past, messianism, history, chronology received 29 may 2017 © 2017 daria tomiltseva accepted 13 august 2017 tomiltceva_d@mail.ru published online 29 september 2017 170 daria tomiltseva introduction despite its relevance to political discourse, the topic of historical responsibility is not widely covered in contemporary russian research. as such, it is rarely seen as a topic in its own right, but is instead raised in relation to issues of historical memory or national consciousness. among recent interesting initiatives in this area, mention should be made of the proposal of the editorial board of the journal historical expertise “global memory: a culture of historical responsibility in the 21st century” (“global memory”, 2016, p. 10). the authors of the programme refer, in particular, to a possible direction for research in terms of an “investigation of the culture of historical responsibility, increasingly expressed in public apologies by political and public figures for crimes of the past” (“global memory”, 2016, p. 10) and suggest the possibility of “the adoption of the concept of historical responsibility in the political culture of the 21st century” (“global memory”, 2016, p. 10). when getting acquainted with the programme, the question arises as to whether such an understanding of historical responsibility is sufficient. after all, in the text presented, it is almost impossible to ascertain who should apologise to whom and for what; likewise, whether other gestures and practices are possible within the framework of a culture of historical responsibility and where is the limit after which sincere regrets and willingness to cooperate turn into mere politeness and cynical calculation? of course, in this case, the main emphasis is placed on the concept of global memory, compared to which historical responsibility is something of an auxiliary practice: the discussion primarily concerns a project that points out vectors for further research. however, it should be noted that k. a. pahluk (2016) asks questions similar to those expressed herein, but already applied to the concept of global memory. despite the text failing to present a detailed description of the concept of historical responsibility, it becomes clear that the discussion concerns itself with some practices of public acknowledgement of historical guilt and the ability and willingness to participate in discussion and a rethinking of the past. since the second half of the twentieth century, such practices have increasingly become a “mandatory attribute” of speeches by politicians, heads of corporations or other large organisations that have a rich, but not always untarnished history. in the research literature, these practices have been correspondingly referred to as institutional responsibility (green, 2002), corporate social responsibility (frank, nezhyba, heydenreich, 2006) and political responsibility (“thinking justice after marion young”, 2013). admittedly, these all have a broader interpretation and do not revolve exclusively around a concern with formerly committed acts. additionally, problems of interaction with the tragic past enter the research interests of many disciplinary areas, each relying on its own conceptual framework and accordingly presupposing the realisation of its own goals and a solution to specific methodologically and theoretically grounded problems. from this point of view, a study can approach these problems e.g. from socio-philosophical, anthropological or even psychoanalytic outlooks. however, a whole series of concepts used in such an examination have no affiliation to any one discipline: this generates many interpretative 171changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 discrepancies and rifts and also makes it extremely difficult to describe the root phenomena. the concept of historical responsibility can be counted among these. the difficulties associated with this concept are enumerated by the following: firstly, the problematic division in understanding moral, legal, political and even theological aspects of responsibility, of which discussion is unavoidable at the same time both as a form of ethical obligation and as a duty (in these sense the boundary between responsibility and accountability becomes blurred); secondly, the need to explain the nature of the writing of responsibility in the historical context. this article sets out to clarify these complexities whose purpose is to consider the very possibility of comprehending historical responsibility from the (same) historical perspective, which suggests tracing the sometimes-complicated relations between history, the temporal direction and the ways of conceptualising responsibility. since such a trajectory of purpose presupposes the solution of multifaceted tasks, the structure of this article will be organised as follows: starting from the complexities associated with the problematisation of responsibility itself, the two most common ways of measuring responsibility will be considered first, avoiding a division into disciplinary and functional affiliation. then, problematising the possibility of writing responsibility into the historical context, we consider the sources of the contradiction between a consideration of the eternal and unchanging sense of responsibility and the temporal, circumstantial context of its adoption; we analyse the possibilities of assigning responsibility to a chronological extent. finally, we will provide a conceptual basis for understanding historical responsibility and its consideration in the context of understanding the future. however, is it necessary to begin our examination with the question of what constitutes historical responsibility itself? due to the multifaceted nature of the issues that fall under consideration in this context, it is not a simple matter to find an adequate definition. in this article, the following positions will be supported: historical responsibility presents itself as a complex social phenomenon, presupposing the forging of such connections about the past, the future, and possibly also with bi-directional relations where the realisation of the past in the present, as well as the formulation of the future as a projection of the past, are implied. they are acted out both by individuals and various communities against a backdrop of feelings of guilt, retribution, repentance or recognition of merit, and are represented (mainly) in narrative, commemorative and political practices. in the context of such relations, the boundaries between individual and collective are often eroded, and legal and moral criteria for assessing unfolding events are problematic. not only does the study of historical responsibility not fit into any one thematic or disciplinary dimension (as we have already said), it also assumes the free inter-transitivity of various discourses from the position of research. as we can see from this definition, we do not limit our understanding of historical responsibility solely to practices of repentance and apology, but also include in it representations concerning positive responsibility, which involve the topic of merit recognition and the commemoration of outstanding events and figures. in addition, paying attention to the temporal aspects of responsibility, we propose to examine it in the context of both the past and the future (the need for such aspiration, though 172 daria tomiltseva in terms of understanding global memory and the ethics of altruism, is proposed by sergei ehrlich (2016). two measures of responsibility why is the writing on responsibility in a historical perspective a problem at all? this question is by no means absurd in its salience and relevance, despite the fact that it is easy to answer when referring to the superficiality of problems of historical politics and historical soldiers (miller, 2016; finkel, 2011). at the same time, the complexity that is concealed in the very notion of responsibility with this perspective of foresight remains unremarked upon. the fact is that, with regard to responsibility in the context of history and time, we simultaneously oppose (in the act of imputation) and connect (in acts of acceptance and recognition) something immutable and eternal – for example, human rights, with the (quasi) determination of the deeds and actions committed. for example, s. ehrlich presents a thesis, in agreement with “an ethics of history based on human rights, which in turn are derived from the promethean pity for people and from christian love for one’s neighbour.” (ehrlich, 2016, p. 21). considering this statement, it can be assumed that, through responsibility, the diversity of relative values, in the case of the researcher’s stated position, could be called egotistical, to be governed by good as absolute debtlove to one’s neighbour and compassion towards all men. such a position, in turn, presupposes the development of a certain system of requirements and prescriptions, pre-emptive, in the case of the future, and being maintained “retroactively” in the case of the past. however, regarding such a vision of responsibility, it is necessary to make two important qualifications. the first one assumes that we are dealing with the universalisation and absolutisation of certain values, without relating them to the cultural and historical context, both intentional and not (see, for example: pakhliuk, 2016, p. 36; guibernau, 2007). in addition, we should not ignore the consequentialist positions that are widespread in environmental ethics, and examine the problem of historical responsibility, for example, in the context of climate change (jamieson, 2013; brennan, lo, 2016). it should be noted that this line of argument can be not only about moral obligation towards the actions of the participants in the situation, but also about giving the absolute value status of the event itself, thus accumulating in itself the completeness of moral mandates. in the modern russian context, the great patriotic war can be regarded as such an event. (in this connection, a body of research has been compiled “victory-70: reconstruction of the jubilee” [2015]). the second reservation indicates that these perspectives of responsibility are not the only possible ones and that there are approaches – for example, those of heidegger, levinas or nancy – in which neither the correlation of the idea of good nor the universalisation of value is presupposed. instead, responsibility receives a different, ontological reading, in which it builds upon the initial foundation of basic human deeds and actions, tied to neither the eternal absolute and immutable senses, or to any prescribed practices. 173changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 thus, the very concept of responsibility turns out to be the more complex relative to imputation of obligations and recognition of merit, and acquires two dimensions, one of which is established and functions within the prescriptive systems (mainly moral and legal); the other relates directly to evolution and, therefore, infinitely changing human existence. this division leads to the fact that every discussion about responsibility, like every decision to be made, is built on the interoperability of these two dimensions, which sometimes even contradict each other. in this case, we have not only the factor of difference between moral and legal values, but also the impossibility of examining certain events and deeds adequately. at the same time, such “incommensurable” events become authentically historical for us, as they serve both as an expression and a point of problematisation of historical responsibility. in our opinion, through the source and signification of a similar understanding, a characteristic of the western way of thinking became the trial of jesus. responsibility: between historical and eternal in his modest work “pilate and jesus,” giorgio agamben quoting carl schmitt remarks that “christianity is a historical religion, that the ‘mysteries’ of which it speaks are also and above all historical facts, is taken for granted. if it is true that the incarnation of christ is a ‘historical event of infinite, non-appropriable, non-occupiable singularity’, the trial of jesus is therefore one of the key moments of human history, in which eternity has crossed into history as a decisive point. all the more urgent, than, is the task of understanding, how and why, this crossing between the temporal and the eternal and between the divine and the human assumed precisely the form of krisis, that is, of the juridical trial” (agamben, 2015, p. 2). this specific position is interesting for many reasons, but mainly because it highlights the borderline or crisis event, as the researcher calls it, which, in reality, involves too many fields of social knowledge concepts customary for us and widely used in ethics – above all, responsibility, guilt, history and repentance. considering the scene of the trial of jesus, agamben investigates the origins of the problem present in the western way of thinking of the nature of inter-transitivity in history and responsibility, within the fullness and complexity meant by the rationale, including the contradictions between universalist ethics and case law. indeed, irrespective of what views – religious or atheistic – one adheres to, the irresolvable inter-transitivities between the historical and the eternal, asserted by the researcher, leave an imprint on many customary phenomena and practices. with such an examination of political differences in connection with history, questions of the ethical and legal dimensions of certain events, one’s own methods of judging the past or looking at future prospects, determinism and indeterminism, one way or another accompany any assessment – condemnation and sentencing – become an approximate replica of pilate’s court. in other words, concerning extremely important events, those whose relevance and significance are perceived as enduring and endowed with some higher meaning, we find ourselves in a paradoxical situation: how to make a decision about these higher and enduring values using no other tools 174 daria tomiltseva than those represented in the contemporary arsenal of legal and moral criteria. in connection with this, questions of who should be held accountable for what and to whom, acquire a new and sometimes paradoxical tone. this situation, for example, is responsible for such painful debates about “ancestral territories”, the emergence of national states, political values and the consequences of geographical discoveries, say, in the context of postcolonial research, being made circular and insoluble. for this very reason, the conversation about historical responsibility turns to considering the book pilate and jesus. it is precisely responsibility, despite the fact that this word itself is almost not used by agamben, that is the only and absolute (absolutely insoluble) content of the unfolding confrontation between the temporal and the eternal, the divine and the earthly. it is very likely that such a view may give the impression of an overly complicated interpretation, though in reality only two “kinds” of obligations for making decisions are being dealt with – secular ones, to which legal criteria are applied, and spiritual ones, viewed from the standpoint of religious ethics. in that case, should these criteria be separated from each other and considered separately? this is the primary difficulty of our consideration. at first glance, it seems that in both cases it is necessary to follow the traditional logic of reasoning that recognises whosoever is guilty only when a number of conditions are met, and only in connection with the violation of certain regulations or prohibitions alleged by one system or the other (moral, legal, etc.). of course, from this position, the question of whether it is possible to implicate pilate in the death of jesus can be approached. then one of the possible considerations will be to try to resolve the situation within the parameters of the modern legal discourse of guilt, thus avoiding any reference to the metaphysical context of the problem. but the thesis put forward by agamben (agamben, 2015; dusenbury, 2017) in essence is that pilate does not make a final judgement on execution (does not pass sentence), and thus the question of legitimising the execution of jesus from the point of view of the law remains open and the whole situation is insoluble. moreover, religious methods of determining guilt are also untenable, it seems to the researcher that the ontological foundations of the unfolding evangelical drama are deteriorating: “if pilate, however, has not handed down a legitimate judgement, the encounter between the vicar of caesar and jesus, between the human law and the divine, between the earthly and celestial cities, loses its raison d’être and becomes an enigma. at the same time, every possibility of a christian political theology or of the theological justification of profane power turns out to fail” (agamben, 2015, p. 57). in agamben’s narrative, pilate is portrayed as a man tormented both by his own inability to make a decision and the impossibility of ridding himself of the pressure of circumstances and the demands of the social context to which the trial must conform, and turns out to be “not entirely” responsible if the traditional logic of reasoning is followed. however, in his criticism of agamben’s research, david lloyd dusenbury (2017) argues that pilate nevertheless passed the verdict; moreover – “this is the tragic interest of pilate’s psychology in the canonical gospels: he declares jesus to be innocent, but he orders the crucifixion. in terms of aristotle’s poetics, pilate kills 175changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 jesus like medea kills her children: consciously” (p. 12) (italics are the author’s – d.t.). it would seem that the problem is simply resolved, because the main criterion that makes a person responsible – consciousness – is observed. however, instead, the researcher pays attention to another dilemma, interpreting from early christian texts: “the roman prefect is neither crazed nor deceived. [that is, regarding an ability to bear responsibility – d.t.] and, because of this, the question – however misdirected – can be raised: is pilate’s decision to crucify the son of god an act of consummate impiety (since jesus is not only innocent, but ‘the light of the world’)a, or a sign of reluctant piety (since jesus, nevertheless, ‘must be lifted up’ for the salvation of the world)b?” (in this passage, the author refers to the gospel of john. when quoting, these references were designated by us as a and b. a: john 8:12, cf. 12: 34-36, 46. and for “son of god”: john 19: 7; b: john 3: 14-15). when put in this way, the issue of responsibility is radically changed, since it is not the guilt itself that is at the centre, but rather the “quality” of this guilt. moreover (agamben also draws attention to this), the messianic character of the decision is highlighted. then the actions of pilate are already simultaneously both intentional and predestined, although, this circumstance no longer allows responsibility to be discussed solely in the secular context and with the traditional logic of reasoning. in other words, using the “messianic perspective” interweaves the secular chronology of events into a timeless metaphysical context. indeed, therein lies the paradox insists on by agamben: when we consider pilate’s decision, there is not and can be no responsibility arising without a mutual interweaving and amalgamation of the temporal and eternal. consequently, it may be noted that it is not the question of whether or not the procurator of judea was able to render a judgement that is being dealt with, but rather whether or not we ourselves are able to decide on what happened by using this criteria and means. “the hermeneutical canon that we will maintain is, rather, that only as historical character does pilate carry out his theological function and, vice versa, that he is a historical character only insofar as he carries out his theological function. historical character [personaggio] and theological persona, juridical trial and eschatological crisis coincide without remainder and only in this coincidence, only in their ‘falling together’, do they find their truth” (agamben, 2015, p. 35). this tension between the historical as temporal and worldly, and historical as eternal, which causes their mutual infiltration of each other, has had a decisive impact on the formation of our modern (western-style) notion of responsibility, in all its ambiguity and multidimensionality. if agamben supposes that pilate’s legal decision was necessary for a kind of theological legitimisation, then in our ordinary life we are dealing more with the opposite statement: in order for some legal or moral decision to acquire meaning, it must acquire a “metaphysical” legitimisation within the event. the point, therefore, is not about separating the wheat from the chaff – separating responsibility into faults: moral, legal and political, but about the possibility or impossibility of writing the very principle of responsibility with the inherent articulations of truth and justice in the earth’s historical perspective. such a statement of the question itself is problematic – indeed, what exactly is meant by it? 176 daria tomiltseva responsibility and chronological expanse the simplest method for understanding history, to which the agamben interpretation of the trial of jesus seems to refer, is to present it as a way of isolating relations within an era or event. in other words, a chronology is needed into which some situation are slotted, or vice versa, a chronology is created as a consequence of the situation – different interpretations are possible here. the familiar division of the time of the entire world history into the periods “before the birth of christ” and “after” is the clearest example of this understanding. but how should historical responsibility be presented? in our opinion, there are two different approaches. the first will consist in trying to describe the historicity of responsibility, i.e., to construct history of responsibility itself. it could be described as the most traditionally academically. then we will proceed from the need to write responsibility in the chronology already existing, based on the fact that some ideas and some practices – imputations, recognition, pride, repentance, commemoration or oblivion – will be examined as establishing and transforming in time and space, through eras and cultures. for example, alexei miller, in his article “the politics of memory in post-communist europe and its impact on the european culture of memory” (miller, 2016) presents the causes, formation and development of two cultures and memory politics at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries each establishing its own understanding of responsibility. thus, the researcher notes that for western european countries “the consensus on the holocaust in itself was of great importance. he excluded the construction of national historical narratives in this part of europe in which the primary loser would be the titular nation. it was impossible to demand preference, referring to previous suffering. at the centre was the question of personal responsibility – and the measures that should be taken to prevent the recurrence of crimes such as the holocaust ”(miller, 2016, p. 112). at the same time, eastern european countries have a completely different understanding of the role of their citizens in the history of the twentieth century and instead of a consensus on common responsibility, their understanding is characterised as “export of guilt” (miller, 2016, p. 116). therefore, in setting the corresponding task, the transformations of responsibility in history will be possible to be described and analysed for trends and divergences from them, in order to emphasise, depending on the chosen approach, some generalising teleological line or the fundamentally random nature of occurring developments, based on for example the methodology of michel foucault. certainly, in this case there is always a choice: either the creation of an individual history of responsibility will be attempted, or – much more difficult – the tracing of a genealogy of responsibility. an obstacle in committing to this trajectory arises after turning to various concepts, historical and philosophical endeavours – or to the archives of quotes and practices: the problem with this practice is that it will scatter the logic of the initially chosen trajectory. in other words, this approach shows how responsibility is constituted in the past – allowing us to identify the various premises for such a constitution, for example, political or economic – but does not say anything about how the chronology itself is constituted through the prism of responsibility. 177changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 in this case, we do not mean the problem of giving meaning to the events inscribed in the chronology, which is precisely what this approach aims at solving. as a result, there is always a danger that, starting from some of the most popular ways of understanding the human relation organisation we call responsibility, we will reconstruct the dynamics of this organisation in the past, giving it some arbitrary duration in time and ascribing it meanings common to us in our modern context. in like manner, the history of all things and phenomena can be created. however, in such a history, the crises of the temporal and eternal, deliberate and predestined, legitimate and illegitimate as such are not understood or problematised. the second way is to try to define some perspective, from which responsibility with an unchanging value throughout time can be discussed, in the same way that some self-same idea or practice places a limit on the extent of the self-evidence of its own value, making any additional attempt towards a “dictionary” definition pointless. so, when it is said that it is impossible to overestimate the significance of the discovery by fleming of the discovery of penicillin or the discovery of america made by columbus, it seems to us that it is about the same understanding of responsibility. this understanding allows transitions between the comprehension of responsibility, as relating to private life and the responsibility extended to “wider” communities, to be made – for example, citizens of one state or persons united by a common history. indicative in this respect is the text of vladimir yakovlev entitled “my grandfather – chekist and murderer”, in which the author shares his experience of his own moral trauma in connection with the discoveries of his family history and encourages readers to responsibly rethink the past, advocating a broadening of all residents’ understanding within the country: “we often think that the best way to protect ourselves from the past is not to disturb it, not to dig into the family history, not to dig into the horrors that have happened to our relatives. it seems to us that it is better not to know. in fact, it is worse. much worse. what we do not know continues to influence us, through childhood memories, through relationships with parents. simply, without knowing, we do not recognise this influence and are thus powerless to resist it.” (yakovlev). it should be noted that this publication caused two radically different types of reader reaction: a general agreement with the call for responsible rethinking of the past, and radical denial, as well as scepticism about the authenticity of the narrative. in fact, such reactions are both indicative and predictable, since they reflect the poignancy and sensitivity associated with the task of rethinking the history of the twentieth century in contemporary russian society. for that very reason, any determination of the meaning, explanation or interpretation of responsibility becomes meaningless: this will only complicate the already developed system of relations, overload it with “superfluous” meanings and confuse both those who make the decision and those who must be held accountable. let us recall the classic example already given of eichmann’s recognition of moral guilt, but denial of criminal guilt (arendt, 2006). pilate’s court and all subsequent courts and decisions, becoming milestones in the continuous chronology of mankind’s responsibility, no matter whether it is about protecting the environment or about past episodes of injustice, violence or exploitation, address self-evidence, and at the same 178 daria tomiltseva time always need to be explained or correlated with the place in time. derrida saw this problem (with regard to the politicisation of forgiveness), in the following way: “it is between these two poles, irreconcilable but indissociable, that decisions and responsibilities are to be taken” (derrida, 2005, p. 45). when referring to this text, in the context of our consideration, it is necessary to pay attention to the following. listing the various politicised practices of recognising the guilt and turmoil of the traumatic past and substituting forgiveness (that is, practices that most often fall under the definition of historical responsibility), the researcher uses the notion of historical ecology (derrida, 2005, p. 45). this concept can be useful for understanding historical responsibility because it enables the limitations of the two approaches described above to be overcome. therefore, if we proceed from the most general definition of ecology as the interconnection of elements with each other and the environment that organises these interrelationships, and depends itself on their organisation (see, for example, sarkar, 2016), so with such an interpretation responsibility becomes the very method of organising the interrelationships of various elements of history (history as an environment): meanings, people, dates, events, intentions, goals, motives and results, both in the past and in the future. this very way of organising interrelationships is both self-evident and indefinable; the discussion, however, is not about an unchanging meaning, which could also be called substantivisation, at the basis of responsibility, and it is not being attempted here to write some events into the available chronology to the detriment of the rest that do not fit into a predetermined framework. it is noted that the understanding proposed here turns out to be close to the notion of the “signature” proposed by agamben (2009). historical responsibility as the unfolding of meaning but what is signified by the understanding of historical responsibility as an organisation of event interconnections, people and phenomena? on what principles can this interconnectedness be established? in order to answer this question, we need to turn to an ontological approach to understanding responsibility. in general, this approach assumes that resorting to responsibility not only does not imply the existence of any substantivist understanding, but is born every time from a single, concrete act of human interaction, becoming the very way of realising these interactions (as was noted above, referring to the concept of historical ecology). (on ontological approaches in the understanding of responsibility, see: raffoul, 2010). from this point of view, it must be said that responsibility does not arise after the fact, but becomes inherent in the event itself. with this understanding, historical responsibility is not bound by the need to be fully isolated in the existing chronology or completely governed by any external prescriptions and restrictions, say, in space and time. for example, in this context, responsibility could be said to begin at some defined moment in time, and end after the passing of a certain time period, in connection with, for instance, the expiration of a statute of limitations, or in connection with the advent of punishment or in finding those answerable in a different situation of political or legal status (as we can see in the case of criminal liability). 179changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 the investigation conducted by denis karagodin of the circumstances surrounding the shooting of his great-grandfather, stepan ivanovich karagodin serves as an illustrative example of this position. the researcher established the name and title of all persons involved in this shooting, beginning with those who directly committed the act and those who supported it and ending with the city authorities who signed the death warrant. it should be noted that the progress and results of the investigation were widely covered by internet publications, and its author started an open internet page for posting the latest news and updates in the investigation (http://blog. stepanivanovichkaragodin.org/). the interest generated by this story can be explained for several reasons: firstly, clarification of the tragic fate of people’s ancestors and the identification of specific culprits has never become a widespread russian practice; secondly, in this case it is completely impossible to discuss criminal responsibility in full (following the expiry of the statute of limitation and due to a lack of living culprits). however, the very relations of responsibility themselves do not disappear with time, thus marking events and people included therein. of course, in this case it is impossible not to analyse the question of whether such responsibility extends likewise to descendants. since this topic deserves a separate study, it will not be examined in detail here; it is noted that the discussion in this case cannot be about the responsibility of descendants for the past actions of their ancestors, but instead must concern the responsibility for comprehending and representing the events of the past. it is worth noting that in an interview with channel at2, on the question of whether he will acquaint the descendants of the accused with the results of the investigation, denis karagodin responded as follows: “descendants (if any) have no obligation towards me and do not owe me anything; the same as i owe them nothing. i do not track them in principle; their appearance in the “study” is always a kind of surplus to requirement – /.../ they are like an echo of an investigative thread – nothing more. /..../ disturbing them is unacceptable – they are not guilty of anything. this is essentially my position” (“to call the names of executioners”, 2016). on november 20, 2016 denis karagodin received a letter (“civil accord”) from the “granddaughter of nikolai ivanovich zyryanov – the executioner of the tomsk city department of the nkvd.” expressing feelings of regret and shame over newly discovered facts in her family history, the author of the letter notes: “so now it comes out that in one family there are both victims and executioners ...it’s very bitter to realise this, it’s very painful... but i will never disown my family history, whatever it may be. knowing that neither i, nor all the relatives whom i know, remember and love had anything to do with these atrocities that occurred in those years will be a solace to me” (“civil accord”, 2016). in the responding letter, denis karagodin suggests extending a hand of reconciliation and “nullifying the whole situation” by not distributing the tragedy and the blame to the descendants (“civil accord”, 2016). the new situation of reconciliation must now be built upon the knowledge of past events that have occurred and the principal agreement on their value. but, in this case, the very situation under discussion about historical responsibility changes, implying that we will consider history itself as responsibility. in this understanding, we again will conceptually proceed from an ontological way 180 daria tomiltseva of understanding responsibility. then, with a similar perspective of examination, the main task of the research becomes not only the analysis of objective facts, dates, conditions, prescriptions and norms, but also the establishment of the ethical nature of current events. this evaluation is a paradox in that the timelessness of the idea of responsibility and the inscrutability of its practices into the existing earth chronology are deprived of any external criteria for measurement, imputation and evaluation. as such, historical responsibility becomes an insoluble problem, determined only by the connecting objects themselves, primarily people and events. in the opinion of the researchers, the most appropriate concept of responsibility for this understanding is the concept of “responsibility for existence” j.-l. nancy (1999). researcher denied the understanding of the responsibility as some prescription and arguing that “we exist as this responsibility; that is, in heidegger’s words we ek-sist, we are exposed to one another to the world – the world which is nothing but this very exposure. existence is responsibility for existence” (p. 8). based on the views of the researcher, it can be said that the very constituting of historicity is no longer an external supplement to responsibility like a predicate, as, for example, a line of chronology or a successively unfolding scientific theory, but becomes the very method of its (responsibility) becoming. at the same time, this becoming is what nancy himself calls the responsibility of sense, where the sense is “the commitment the several between each other” (nancy, 1999, p. 8). the researcher notes the fundamental infinitude and untransmissibility of a sense connoting something that has been formed, is already taking place or which possesses substantial completeness. in contrast, nancy refers to the fact that sense is always expressed through the other, and that this, in turn, depends on the readiness of the person transmitting the thought to always be accountable for it (nancy, 1999, p. 7; p. 9). the becoming of sense is in fact, the way in which historical responsibility is phenomenalised in various social practices. the problem of the context of the future, which has hardly been touched upon in this discussion, is indicative of a greater attachment not to predicting the consequences, but towards the meanings that may arise in connection with deeds to be realised in concrete actions or events. true, in this case, we need to pay attention to the distinction between the concept of historical responsibility as the establishment of meaning and messianism, where the latter again refers us to the substantivist notion and the external justifications for history and chronology. historical responsibility as an aspiration for the future the problem of historical responsibility as an aspiration for the future is developed to a lesser degree. risking the use of the phrase, the imagination of the future, always seems less painful as a rule; therefore, the projection thereof produces a somewhat smaller emotional reaction. we can talk about such methods of presenting responsibility in two ways: the global, which most often involves understanding the responsibility of all mankind (which has already been touched upon in relation to environmental ethics and climate studies), and the local, which tends to be associated more with the notion of messianism. on the notion of messianism, we should examine in a little more detail. 181changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 2 what is messianism? in connection with this discussion, peter j. s. duncan offers the most appropriate definition of messianism: “the proposition or belief that a given group is in some way chosen for a purpose. closely linked to this is the view that the great suffering endured by the group will lead somehow to the redemption to the group itself and possibly of all humanity” (duncan, 2000, p. 1). thus, conversation in the context of historical responsibility can only go so far where obligations are concerned that are accepted by any community for the achievement or establishment of some desired state, say, economic, political, religious or legal, both within itself and other communities. ideas in the secular variations of messianism, can feature liberal worldviews of permanent revolution, ethnic unification, the construction of an open market, etc. in short, there are many versions, each of which presupposes the establishment of some uniform order, or the formation of social unity, initially based on ontological premises, for example: lineage, the past, or even an idea broadcast in scientific or political theories. at the same time, the task of establishing this order demands the exertion of efforts from a single, “elected” figurehead. (see, for example, duncan, 2000; merkel, 2008). for the formation and legitimisation of such concepts, it is necessary to reference historical grounds which may be derived from the declaration of past inherent merits, recognition of their significance (achievements, chosenness, righteousness), greatness and radical difference from other communities, which, therefore, cannot derive such self-positioning. note that this form of messianism is associated not so much with the figure of the messiah as with the mission. the community that has laid such obligations upon itself ascribes characteristics of the messiah to itself. but messianism can take a different form, resulting from the recognition of one’s own (global, universal) guilt, distributable to all humanity – if the discussion, for example, is about ecological ethics, or the need to preserve the memory of crimes against humanity. in the context of historical responsibility, this approach is manifested not only in religious, but also in purely secular interpretations. the opposite way of interpretation of messianism in this register is becoming obligatory in some communities: ethnic, religious or gender group, etc. where members of different communities represent their tragedy as something unique (finkel, 2011). but when it comes to the future, it should be borne in mind that the past, in the context of the event interpretation, can be perceived as an independently operating player, and in its metaphorical form, plunges one into a peculiar eschatology of responsibility, which in an instrumentalised way solidifies into real actions or processes. in this way, for example, we can talk about archives. for example, randall c. jimerson (2007) says: “in addition to protecting the rights and interests of all citizens, archives preserve vital aspects of cultural heritage. these dual responsibilities give archivists significant power, not only over questions of recordkeeping in today’s society but for future generations. such power carries an obligation to employ it for positive purposes, as archivists search for a role to play for the benefit of all people in society” (p. 254). however, if above we talked about the link to the past and the events that have already occurred to date, then, with regard to the future, such a linkage disappears. in this regard historical responsibility is viewed as a retroactive act imputing or acknowledging 182 daria tomiltseva the imminent pronouncement of guilt; that is, after the execution of certain planned acts as a means to an ends had been achieved. conclusion thus, in this article, we turned to the solution of a rather difficult task – to study how historical responsibility is conceptualised in the historical perspective. the very formulation of such a task, as well as the body of problems, issues and contradictions that had to be tackled during our consideration, showed the fundamental nonlocalisability of the problem of historical responsibility in some separate disciplinary and discursive boundaries, as well as its fundamental irreducibility to a limited set of practices. this means that we are dealing with a way of organising some people, events and phenomena into a single semantic field, the parameters of which are simultaneously mobile. moreover, now we can say that the writing of responsibility in the historical perspective does not mean how it should be expected, nor the fulfilment of an act of methodological reduction, or the fixing of certain events as points on the time scale. on the contrary, historical responsibility is nothing other than a meaningful unfolding and becoming of this very historical perspective, which covers looking back or seeking to look ahead, beyond the horizon of events, we conceive and cast our obligations into eternity. references agamben, g. 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(2016). “ecology”, the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (edited by zalta e.n.). retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/ecology/ “nazvat’ imena palachey” [to call the names of executioners] (2016). retrieved from http://tv2.today/tv2old/nazvat-imena-palachey victory-70: the reconstruction of the anniversary (2015). ed. gennady bordyugov. moscow: airo-xxi. yakovlev v. (2016). “moy ded – chekist i ubiytsa” [my grandfather – chekist and murderer]. retrieved from facebook https://www.facebook.com/1206441856087060/ photos/a.1214617398602839.1073741828.1206441856087060/1214765738588005/ ?type=1&theater https://www.facebook.com/1206441856087060/photos/a.1214617398602839.1073741828.1206441856087060/1214765738588005/?type=1&theater https://www.facebook.com/1206441856087060/photos/a.1214617398602839.1073741828.1206441856087060/1214765738588005/?type=1&theater https://www.facebook.com/1206441856087060/photos/a.1214617398602839.1073741828.1206441856087060/1214765738588005/?type=1&theater changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 172–189 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.2.096 received 2 april 2020 accepted 1 june 2020 published online 9 july 2020 © fayruza s. ismagilova, aleksey v. maltsev, erkinbai n. sattarov f.s.ismagilova@urfu.ru a.v.maltsev@urfu.ru sattotov1955@mail.ru article the uzbek national tradition in the pedagogical practices of adult educators fairuza s. ismagilova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia aleksey v. maltsev ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia erkinbai n. sattarov academy of the general prosecutor’s office of the republic of uzbekistan, tashkent, uzbekistan abstract while uzbekistan strives to preserve its traditional culture and values (for example, respect for elders), interest in modern teaching methods is growing incrementally. this study aims to investigate whether and to what extent the national context affects teaching methods, in particular the interactive methods, which uzbek professors use for training the civil service talent pool. the study is based on focus groups and content and cluster analysis. the results show that although uzbek professors acknowledge the importance of the national context, their adult students’ needs and their own pedagogical experience are paramount in their choice of interactive methods. we also found that professors are highly motivated to try new methods, despite the lack of adequate access to cutting-edge resources. therefore, their professional development should be aimed at improving their teaching qualifications by introducing the latest global trends in instruction methods. conventional methods have to be revised and complemented with modern ones. this will lead to mutual enrichment between unique and strong uzbek national traditions in education and contemporary international trends. keywords national identity, interactive methods, adult training, focus group https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 172–189 173 introduction problem: the education system in uzbekistan aims to protect national interests and preserve the country’s unique cultural and moral values along with its customs and traditions. some traditions are passed from generation to generation, such as shashmaqom (the classical music tradition), katta ashula (a type of traditional uzbek song), nowruz (rituals marking the celebration of the new year) and askiya (the art of wit) (included in the unesco representative list). however, equally important for uzbekistan is the task of keeping up with global realities and trends in education. the search for the right balance between openness to global influences, on the one hand, and desire to preserve the country’s national identity, on the other, inevitably affects professional education programs. today’s uzbekistan is a country seeking to adopt modern social practices while preserving its cultural and national identity, which means that the innovative methods of training in uzbek education need to be adjusted not only to the requirements of specific disciplines but also to the culture-specific characteristics of teachers and students. generational differences are most keenly felt in adult education. adult training methodology and techniques are now being actively developed, numerous methods are being adopted from other countries’ experience. the application of such methods in uzbekistan, however, may fail to be as effective as expected and encounter resistance on the part of teachers and/or students. the generation gap and the corresponding clash between tradition and modernity exacerbates the problem: young people are more oriented towards “modern” values while the older generation have deeper respect for long-held cultural and religious values (yuldasheva, 2018). to address the problem under investigation, we need to consider the following question: does the national context affect uzbek professors’ choices of interactive methods? and what are the other factors that play a significant role in their choices? research purpose: the purpose of the study is to explore uzbek professors’ ideas about the barriers to and opportunities for the effective use of interactive methods for training the civil service talent pool. method: we used focus groups for data collection. in our case, the focus group discussion centred around the limitations and strengths of 14 teaching methods. in particular, we asked the participants to answer the following question: do you recommend using this or that method in training the civil service talent pool in uzbekistan? why or why not? the sample consisted of 27 leading professors of the academy of the prosecutor general’s office of the republic of uzbekistan. all of these educators were involved in training the talent pool for the national civil service. the resulting responses were grouped with the help of cluster analysis. theoretical background and hypotheses education and national culture integration of positive international experiences and the centuries-old cultural and historical traditions of uzbek people is at the core of the development of national https://changing-sp.com/ 174 fayruza s. ismagilova, aleksey v. maltsev, erkinbai n. sattarov mentality in uzbekistan (yurevich, 2013). this approach known as “pragmatic traditionalism”, implies that an individual is proud of their origins but at the same time manifests certain behavioural modifications (finke, 2014). sometimes, however, these two tendencies contradict each other: some uzbek researchers are concerned about the impact that the unquestioned authority of the elders resulting from the eastern system of social relations has on younger generations. they believe that younger people’s respect for the authority of older people impedes the former from acting on their own and generating new ideas. a study of the values prevalent among young uzbek adults found that they attach little significance to such values as the “spirit of innovation (willingness to generate and adopt new, original ideas)” and “pro-active attitude in life” (seitov, 2018). the dominant role of the national-ethnic factor and the persistence of cultural norms and traditions despite the influence of globalization have been emphasized in a number of studies (adams, 2004; bekmurodov, 2004; ne’matov & enikeeva, 2016; welter et al., 2006). according to zh. ne’matov and a. enikeeva (2016), it is necessary to analyse the applicability of international management models and generalize available positive national experiences in order to create new management models adapted to the country’s unique context (ne’matov & enikeeva, 2016). while accepting this argumentation, we believe it would be more reasonable to adapt methods, which have already been internationally tested to the local cultural context rather than design new ones. trying to strike the appropriate balance between teaching goals and promoting national culture and values, professors tend to choose one of four possible strategies: avoidance, promotion, rejection and problematisation (sant & hanley, 2018). avoidance means that teachers can choose to avoid the topic of national identities by simply “skirting around it in lessons and steering discussion into safer territory when it is raised by students” (hand & pearce, 2009). active promotion of national identities stems from the assumption that shared values are necessary for the survival of any community; however, this strategy may make some teachers and students resentful (sant & hanley, 2018). rejection implies that teachers can choose to assert their personal views rather than the values commonly shared in society (peterson, durrant, & bentley, 2015). finally, the strategy of problematizing national identities means that teachers can take “a stance of neutrality, inviting discussion” and present it “as an open question or controversial issue” (maylor, 2016). as e. sant and c. hanley (2018) show in their study of british teachers, these four strategies co-exist in contemporary teaching practices. interactive learning means that all participants of the process engage with one another to find answers or solve problems together (panina & vavilova, 2007). the interactions described by panina and vavilova (information exchange, evaluation of one’s own actions and the actions of other participants, joint search for solutions) need to be carried out in a specific multi-cultural environment, in an atmosphere that fosters cooperative work (ibid, pp. 33–34). the choice of methods is made even more complicated by the fact that at the moment there are no officially established criteria for the comprehensive evaluation of civil servants in uzbekistan (malikova, 2018). therefore, regarding the national identity factor, we suggest that professors changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 172–189 175 follow one of the above-described strategies in their choice of interactive methods. as we can see, in uzbekistan much of the attention of academia and the wider public is focused on the challenges of strengthening national identity; this goal is also described in many official policy documents. this trend is also observed in the sphere of adult education. the possible downside of this emphasis on national identity is that it can impede efficient application of those interactive methods that conflict with the national or cultural characteristics of teachers and students. in view of the above, the hypothesis 1 to be considered in this study is as follows: • professors tend to choose interactive methods by following one of the four strategies in relation to the national context and national identity. interactive methods in adult learning interactive forms and methods may be roughly divided into discussion-based ones and role-playing. discussion-based methods include dialogue, group discussion, the case method (discussion of real-life situations), and meetings with guest experts. roleplaying methods include business role-playing, simulations and management games (panina & vavilova, 2007; senashenko & marushina, 2018). recently in education there has been an upsurge of interest in international corporate training techniques, such as buddying, shadowing, workshops and rotation. buddying is based on mutual help and monitoring between the two individuals while job shadowing implies that a younger employee should follow a more experienced worker to learn new aspects related to the job, organization, certain behaviours or competencies. buddying is sometimes described as informal two-way peer-to-peer mentoring or coaching (aban’kina & medvedeva, 2017). such methods as workshops, internships and rotation are also widely used (shubina, 2017). it is easy to see simply by looking at the terms, most of which are adopted from the english language, that the majority of the above-discussed methods appeared in response to globalization in professional education (azizkhodzhaeva, 2009). this makes the choice of methods harder for many professors since working with adults requires them to take into account the specific aspects of the socio-cultural enbironment, in which their students are operating. our analysis of the studies focused on socio-cultural characteristics of uzbekistan has shown that respect for parents and the elderly is a significant national value. other values include self-command and obedience to elders; gravitas, dignity; deliberative decision-making; love and care towards spiritual values, national history and culture (abdukakhkharova, 2017); and unquestioned fatherly authority (while the mother takes charge of domestic life in uzbek families, the father is responsible for all important family decisions and provides support to children only when necessary) (ubaydullayeva, 2018). training programs for young adults are oriented towards maintaining and developing these values. since the buddying method is based on equal partner relationships between the teacher and the student, we may suppose that its application in adult training in uzbekistan will be constrained. the limitation is linked to the fact that in uzbekistan a teacher (domla) is considered as a kind of father figure, someone who should be looked up to and respected, a student could find it difficult to engage in an equal partnership with him. https://changing-sp.com/ 176 fayruza s. ismagilova, aleksey v. maltsev, erkinbai n. sattarov on the other hand, programs aimed at helping students build their professional skills mostly deal with the cognitive sphere, which includes such qualities as tolerance towards other people’s opinions and views (siddikov, 2019) and divergent thinking (magroupov, 2019). these considerations lead us to suppose that the application of such methods as discussion, role-playing and metaphorical roleplay will have limitations resulting from the prevalence of strict traditional business etiquette, convergent thinking (tendency to come up with a single, well-established answer to a problem) and lack of tolerance towards other people’s opinions. the results of our theoretical analysis have led us to formulate three more hypotheses: • hypothesis 2. experts will consider such methods as buddying, discussion, role-playing and metaphorical role-play as having limited applicability in the uzbek national context. • hypothesis 3. experts will consider the methods of case study, in-basket technique and shadowing as holding more potential for training the civil service talent pool in uzbekistan. • hypothesis 4. experts will consider mentoring, coaching and workshops as the most effective teaching methods. method and procedure focus group discussion to test the above-described hypotheses, empirical data were collected by using the focus group method. the focus groups comprised professors involved in training young adults for the civil service talent pool at the academy of the general prosecutor’s office of the republic of uzbekistan. this method was chosen because the sample was comparatively small and it was impossible to conduct a larger-scale survey. we identified 14 interactive methods used by adult educators (babić, vukmirović, & capko, 2015; corder, 2008; kelly, 2017; makarova, 2014; marin, et al., 2010; roach, 2014; settles, 2009; shen, xue, & zhu, 2016; smith, 2017; wuestewald, 2016). the participants were given the following instructions: there are many teaching methods and techniques used for training young employees to perform a variety of tasks and improve their overall work performance. such an abundance of methods sometimes makes it difficult for professors to decide, which methods to apply and when. at certain moments you may feel at a loss, not knowing, which method to go for. therefore, it is important to have a toolbox of effective teaching methods at hand, especially when the need arises to design a new curriculum program or to spice up your methodology. we propose to discuss 14 modern adult training methods. please read the descriptions of these methods; in 30 minutes’ time, we are going to discuss the following questions: 1) which of these methods do you consider effective for training the civil service talent pool? give reasons for your answer. 2) which of these methods do you find ineffective or even inappropriate for training the talent pool? what are the limitations and barriers to applying these methods in your or your colleagues’ practice? changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 172–189 177 the list of interactive methods of adult learning: 1) the project method is a method of instruction based on solving practical problems that students define themselves. the role of the teacher in this method is to facilitate group work and monitor the progress of groups as they work through the task. 2) in-basket technique is used to teach students how to set their priorities right, deal with the most urgent problems, work with data, systematize, analyze and make well-informed decisions; in other words, to try and cope with the administrative and planning aspects of a managerial position. the student’s task is to perform a manager’s job when confronted with issues and problems that have accumulated in a manager’s “in-basket” and to take action on these issues and problems. 3) the case study method is based on active imitation non-role-playing learning. students try to resolve dilemmas (taking decisions or solving problems) from actual real-life situations (cases). 4) role-play that allows students to explore realistic situations by assuming certain roles and/or acting out professional situations. 5) metaphorical role-playing is a creative technique aimed at encouraging a collaborative search for solutions or a shift of perspective. what distinguishes this method is that the role-play centres around a metaphor (a legend or a parable symbolically representing real-life problems and relationships). 6) internship is a form of experiential learning, which allows a student to develop their skills in a professional setting under the guidance of an experienced specialist. 7) rotation is a training method where members of staff rotate roles or tasks by going from one job to another or from one department to another inside their organization. 8) shadowing is based on learning the reality of a job by spending time with a person working in that career. 9) discussion is based on the collaborative exchange of ideas in order to try to reach some kind of agreement regarding the given problem or question. 10) distance learning is a method of studying individually or in groups when lectures, seminars and tutoring sessions are conducted via the internet (skype, for example). 11) mentoring is a process in which senior professionals guide younger ones by sharing their knowledge and experience; from the psychological perspective, it is a relationship between people from two generations to ensure the transfer of skills and experience. 12) buddying is based on pairing two individuals in a single unit. the relationship established in the buddy system implies equality, sharing the information and/or providing each other with objective feedback and support in achieving personal and corporate aims and learning new skills. 13) coaching is a method of instruction, which is more structured, focused and short-term than mentoring. coaching sessions are held regularly and concentrate on specific development areas and issues. https://changing-sp.com/ 178 fayruza s. ismagilova, aleksey v. maltsev, erkinbai n. sattarov 14) workshop method is usually time limited, often to a single session, and implies that a top-level professional shares their experience and expertise with a group of students. procedure. the focus group gathered in a separate room and the whole session lasted for about 1.5 hours. in the first 30 minutes, the participants were given a list of methods to study and prepare. the discussion was conducted in uzbek, which is the language of instruction: the guidelines were also provided in uzbek. the moderator asked clarifying questions. the focus group discussions were recorded with the help of a voice recorder. the records were later transcribed and the data used for statistical and content analysis. participants’ responses were first entered into a simple table where we listed all the arguments for each method that participants mentioned in favour or against applying it. then all choice criteria were evaluated by two independent experts according to the provisions described further. there were no disparities in the expert evaluations. content and cluster analysis first, we conducted primary clustering of the factors that affected the choice of methods. these factors were then divided logically into three larger groups of factors related to social environment: 1) national cultural context of the learning process; 2) professional environment where adult students act and use their expertise; 3) pedagogical practice professors are involved in and their teaching experience. at the stage of secondary clustering, all the factors were decomposed; for each of the factors, the clusters and units of content analysis of the choice criteria were specified. to identify the criteria for the factor “national cultural context”, we used sources describing the cultural values and unique traditions of uzbekistan. finally, we identified 6 clusters as choice criteria (see table 1). table 1. cluster analysis of the choice criteria of the factor “national cultural context” no. nation-specific characteristics cluster 1 respect for elders; leadership of the elders in the family; the family elders as the ultimate decision-makers by virtue of the richness of their knowledge and life experience (seitov, 2018). transfer of knowledge from mentor to student 2 decisive power of public opinion (farmanova, 2019); sense of belonging to a community (muminov, 2017); connectedness and attachments; importance of reputation (urinboyev & svensson, 2018). working in a team 3 dignity (farmanova, 2019); long-standing authoritarian traditions (ne'matov & enikeeva, 2016); hierarchy (urinboyev & svensson, 2018). large distance in a teacher-student relationship 4 low value of innovation and personal initiative; importance of conformity (seitov, 2018). prevalence of traditional views 5 low tolerance of uncertain, unstructured situations or changeable environments; lack of divergent thinking skills (magroupov, 2019). search for the right answer changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 172–189 179 within the factor “professional environment where adult students act and use their expertise”, we identified four clusters of criteria depending on the following characteristics of the student group: a) age; b) high status in the civil service system; c) highly regulated professional activities; d) participation in the civil service talent pool. the factor “pedagogical practice professors are involved in and their teaching experience” was divided into three clusters of criteria depending on the participants’ individual attitudes to specific methods: a) knowledge of the method and ability to use it (teaching expertise); b) belief in the universal applicability of this or that method regardless of the cultural environment; c) willingness to expand and update the inventory of teaching practices inventory to keep up with cutting-edge global practices. results sample we conducted 2 focus group discussions including 12 and 15 participants. the average age of the participants was 45.2; their overall length of service was on average 21.1 years; and their work experience in education was 9.4 years. all professors teach different courses at the academy of public prosecutions of the republic of uzbekistan. their students are adults with university education, lawyers who are improving their qualifications at the academy. the average age of the students is 28 to 40 years: they have an average of 5-10 years of experience in law and public service. content analysis of responses to test our first hypothesis about the significance of the national context in uzbek teachers’ choice of interactive methods, we focused on those responses that dealt with the applicability of these methods in uzbekistan, that is, whether they are considered appropriate for use in uzbek education or not. these responses, which are in fact subjective criteria of each method’s applicability, were then divided into five clusters. examples of clustering are given below. the cluster of the criteria “transfer of knowledge from the mentor to the student as an established uzbek national tradition” included such responses as “the mentorstudent system has been one of the leading methods in professional training for as long as anyone can remember”; “uzbeks have a saying ustoz kurgan, which means ‘educated by a teacher’”. the criteria included in the cluster “teamwork as a national collectivist practice (community life or mahalla)” can be illustrated by the following example: “this method is effective because it helps you learn to work together, as a team”. https://changing-sp.com/ 180 fayruza s. ismagilova, aleksey v. maltsev, erkinbai n. sattarov the cluster “a large teacher-student distance based on unquestionable respect for the teacher (domla)” includes such responses as “a young generation always needs a teacher to teach them professional secrets” and “the situation when actual managers and their subordinates participate in role-playing together is unacceptable”. examples of the criteria included in the cluster “prevalence of traditional views and respect of the national mentality” are as follows: “this method disagrees with our national mentality” and “this method is not suitable for us because it requires us to make a lot of extra effort and it is against our laid-back national attitude”. the cluster “search for the right answer” can be illustrated by such responses as “this method is suitable because it allows us to give the right direction to young specialists", and “it is an effective method because it helps develop decision-making skills”. we calculated the number of culture-related responses given by each participant. table 2 shows the results of the content analysis of the choice criteria (“for” or “against”) for specific interactive methods within the factor “national cultural context”. table 2. content analysis of the choice criteria (“for” or “against”) for specific interactive methods from the group “national cultural context” no. clusters of criteria number of content units frequency of content units, % for against for against 1 transfer of knowledge from mentor to student 35 16 34.3 42.1 2 working in a team 22 1 21.5 2.6 3 large distance in a teacherstudent relationship 1 8 1.0 21.1 4 prevalence of traditional views 2 6 2.0 15.8 5 search for the right answer 42 7 41.2 18.4 total 102 38 100 100 as table 2 shows, there are two dominant criteria in our experts’ evaluations of interactive methods. first, there is the possibility of knowledge transfer from mentor to student (51 responses). second, there is the orientation of the method towards the “search for the right answer” (49 responses). both criteria correspond to the cognitive rather than the behavioural aspect of the method. at the same time, neither of the two behavioural criteria (the method fits into the national context or not and the method supports the patriarchal tradition of large teacher-student distance or not) appeared to have any significant impact on the choice of the method. in order to identify the role-played by a factor like “national culture” in comparison with others, we conducted content analysis of the criteria for the factors “professional environment where adult students act and use their expertise” and “pedagogical practice professors are involved in and their teaching experience”. after separating the responces, responses which we identified as clusters of the factor “national context”, we conducted content analysis of the remaining responses and divided them into two groups (factors “professional environment of adult students” and “pedagogical practice of professors”) and then assigned them to clusters within each group. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 172–189 181 the responses that corresponded to the professional and other characteristics of students included the following: 1) the method was described as “intended for adults” and “applicable to their work”; “it takes into account employees’ age”; and “it can be applied depending on the level of psychological maturity” (cluster “psychological maturity”); 2) the method was described as “unsuitable since not all people in these positions are ready to accept advice from others” (cluster “high status in the civil service system”); 3) the method was described as “suitable” since “students’ professional activities are rigorously regulated”; “the method contributes to a better understanding of the particularities of work in this profession” and “can be widely used to explain new laws and their correct application”; and “they are dealing with complicated work processes, which are not always open; therefore, this method will be of no use in training civil administration employees” (cluster “highly regulated professional activities”); 4) the method was described as “inappropriate” since “superiors often fear competition from their subordinates”: “it gives learners an opportunity to gain first-hand experience of what it’s like to be a boss” (cluster “participation in the civil service talent pool”). the quantitative results of the content analysis of these clusters are shown in table 3. table 3. content analysis of the choice criteria for the factor “professional environment of adult students” no. clusters of criteria number of content units frequency of content units, % for against for against 1 psychological maturity 8 9 4.4 12.5 2 high position in the civil service system 24 15 13.2 20.8 3 highly regulated professional activities 91 25 50.0 34.8 4 participation in the civil service talent pool 59 23 32.4 31.9 total 182 72 100 100 table 3 shows the prevalence of the cluster “highly regulated professional activities” (n = 116), that is, those criteria that focus on adult students’ professional needs and characteristics. thus, in their evaluations of interactive methods, professors put the main emphasis on whether or not these methods can help students meet the professional requirements and perform well at work. such aspect as students’ psychological maturity turned out to be the least significant factor in professors’ considerations (n = 17). finally, the third group of responses where the main factor was the pedagogical practice and experiences of professors can be illustrated by the following examples: https://changing-sp.com/ 182 fayruza s. ismagilova, aleksey v. maltsev, erkinbai n. sattarov 1) the method was described as “tried and tested” and “often used in practice” (cluster “professor’s knowledge and application of the method”); 2) the method “provides opportunities for gaining experience in different spheres”; “develops skills of dealing with difficult situations, problem-solving abilities”; the method was described as “too time-consuming as takes too much time to find the necessary learning materials”; the method “requires certain expertise” (cluster “evaluation of the method as a tool, regardless of the national context”); 2) the method was “new for me but i hope to use it for problem-setting” (cluster “evaluation of the method’s potential in terms of the most recent international trends”). quantitative results of the content analysis of these clusters are shown in table 4. table 4. content analysis of the choice criteria for the factor “pedagogical practice and teaching experience of professors” no. clusters of criteria number of content units frequency of content units, % for against for against 1 professor’s knowledge and application of the method 32 11 14.5 18.7 2 evaluation of the method as a tool, regardless of the national context 174 34 78.7 57.6 3 evaluation of the method’s potential in terms of the most recent international trends 15 14 6.8 23.7 total 221 59 100 100 table 4 demonstrates that the most significant cluster of criteria is “evaluation of the method as a tool, regardless of the national context” (n = 208): a method is evaluated as suitable (n = 174) or unsuitable (n = 34) from the perspective of its efficiency as a teaching tool, that is, outside of the national or professional context. in other words, in their choices professors were guided primarily by the efficiency principle rather than by nation-specific considerations (avoidance strategy). table 5 shows the results of our content analysis used to test hypothesis 1. table 5. distribution of the three factors of interactive method evaluations based on the results of content analysis factors of method evaluation method considered as suitable method considered as unsuitable total number of content units frequency of content units, % number of content units frequency of content units, % number of content units frequency of content units, % national culture 102 20.2 38 22.5 140 20.8 students’ professional activities 182 36.0 72 42.6 254 37.7 pedagogical practice and teaching experience 221 43.8 59 34.9 280 41.5 total 505 100 169 100 674 100 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 172–189 183 the results of our theoretical analysis have led us to formulate hypothesis 1: professors are likely to evaluate interactive teaching methods by the following specific strategies of strengthening national identity. if hypothesis 1 had been confirmed, the factor “national context” would have been shown to dominate in relation to other factors such as “professional environment of adult students” and “pedagogical practice”. as table 5 demonstrates, however, the dominant factor was “pedagogical practice” (41.5% of all units of content analysis). the factor “national context” (20.8%) ranked third after the factor “professional environment of adult students” (37.7%). to test hypotheses 2, 3 and 4, we calculated choice frequencies and ranked the fourteen interactive methods. table 6 shows method preferences expressed by the participants of our focus groups. the methods were ranked based on their popularity among the participants (see table 6). table 6. choice of methods by focus groups (27 people) ranking position method number of choices % of choices % of errors 1 discussion 26 96.3 ±7,6 1 case study 25 92.6 ±10,6 1 mentoring 25 92.6 ±10,6 2 project-based learning 24 88.9 ±12,7 2 role-playing 23 85.2 ±14,3 2 workshops 23 85.2 ±14,3 2 in-basket technique 21 77.8 ±16,8 2 internship 21 77.8 ±16,8 2 distance learning 21 77.8 ±16,8 2 buddying 20 74.1 ±17,7 2 rotation 18 66.7 ±19,0 2 coaching 18 66.7 ±19,0 3 shadowing 10 37.0 ±19,5 3 metaphorical role-play 8 29.6 ±18,4 the determination of the confidence interval for the choice of teaching methods allowed us to distinguish three groups: 1 – the most preferred methods, 2 – the medium preferred, and 3 – the least preferred (table 6). according to hypothesis 2, such methods as buddying, discussion, role-playing and metaphorical role-play are likely to rank low due to the limitations associated with the national culture of uzbekistan. as table 6 illustrates, however, only shadowing and metaphorical role-play were rejected by the professors more actively than the other methods. moreover, the method of discussion ranked at the top of the list. according to hypothesis 3, experts are likely to attach greater significance to such methods as case study, in-basket technique and shadowing. this hypothesis was confirmed partially since only the case-study method ranked high while in-basket technique was in the middle of the ranking and shadowing occupied a low position. finally, according to hypothesis 4, mentoring, coaching and workshops are likely to be seen as the most effective methods. as table 6 shows, this hypothesis turned out to https://changing-sp.com/ 184 fayruza s. ismagilova, aleksey v. maltsev, erkinbai n. sattarov be only partially correct since professors in our focus groups deemed mentoring and workshops as effective, but their preferences did not extend to coaching. discussion empirical data were collected with the help of focus groups, which consisted of professors training the civil service talent pool of uzbekistan. the purpose of our study was to find out which factors influenced focus group participants’ choices of interactive methods (the participants were given a list of 14 interactive methods). the first such factor was the influence of national context. this factor corresponded to our hypothesis that in their choices adult educators should take into account their national culture. drawing from our theoretical analysis, we supposed that this factor would be prevalent in our participants’ choices and preferences. the second factor we considered was associated with the characteristics of students as such. we called this factor “professional characteristics of students”. the third factor was referred to as the “pedagogical practice professors are involved in and their teaching experience”. we used cluster analysis to identify the clusters of criteria the participants of our focus groups mentioned in their responses. content analysis has provided us with a better understanding of the reasoning behind our respondents’ choices of methods. thus, in our study we moved from the analysis of theoretical premises to building hypotheses and to statistical and content analysis of the collected data. the theoretical analysis of the relationship between globalization trends, on the one hand, and the desire to preserve national identity and culture, on the other, has shown that in the case of uzbekistan, the latter trend prevails. therefore, we suggested that in their choice of teaching methods, uzbek professors are oriented primarily towards the national context. the results of our empirical study, however, refuted this hypothesis. all our hypotheses were confirmed only partially. we found that, apart from the national context, professors’ choices are determined by their personal experience and the needs and characteristics of their students. interestingly, both of these factors have a greater influence than the national context. in light of the above, the idea about the dominant role of traditionalism, especially among young people in uzbekistan (seitov, 2018), seems quite doubtful. it can be supposed that the results would be different if the sample consisted of rural schoolteachers. our study is theoretically relevant because it shows the influence of the following factors on the strategies professors use to adjust their teaching practices to the culturespecific characteristics of their audience. as the research makes clear, however, culture is not the only significant factor in the professors’ choices; professors also take into account such factors as the characteristics and needs of their students, their own teaching experience and established pedagogical practices. in other words, in their choice of training methods, professors do not prioritize the connection between the national culture, values and identity alone; but instead consider other factors such as their own prior professional experience and the needs of their adult students. it can thus be concluded that uzbek professors adopt a neutral position regarding the priority of national identity and culture in their teaching strategies (sant & hanley, 2018). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 172–189 185 limitations our study has several limitations worth noting. first, the research was limited by a relatively small sample size as the sample comprised 27 professors. even though we conducted a detailed analysis of their responses and comments, a larger sample would be more representative, leading to stronger, more conclusive results. the second limitation – the social desirability response bias – is connected to the respondents themselves. to minimize this limitation, we tried to provide a friendly, relaxed atmosphere for our focus group discussions, eliminating time pressure on the participants as much as we could. nevertheless, since all the participants were experienced professors, enjoying a high social status, they could control their answers and shift them in the direction of what they felt to be more socially acceptable. therefore, the possibility of bias cannot be fully eliminated as professors could be trying to project a more favourable image of themselves as modern, open-minded and cosmopolitan. finally, the third limitation was related to the translation of the participants’ answers from uzbek into russian. in order to deal with this limitation, we used back translation of the answers from russian into uzbek to eliminate the inconsistencies and inadequacies in translation. for the purposes of this article, the answers were then translated into english. practical implications the results of this study reveal at least two possible practical applications: first, the analysis of evaluative comments made by professors shows, on the one hand, their interest in new teaching methods and practices and willingness to adopt them and, on the other, a lack of adequate access to cutting-edge methodology. therefore, teacher training in uzbekistan should be aimed at improving professors’ methodological knowledge to keep them up to date with the latest global trends in this sphere. second, as the participants of our focus groups observed, although traditional teaching methods share a number of aspects with mentoring and coaching, the former enjoy less popularity in the sphere of adult training than the latter. thus, a thorough revision of conventional methods is required and they should be complemented with more upto-date methods, which will lead to mutual enrichment between strong and unique uzbek national educational traditions and contemporary international trends. avenue for future research some responses we received from focus group participants were not considered in the analysis since they addressed the questions outside of the scope of this paper. for example, some professors expressed regret that traditional, “ tried and tested” teaching methods were being replaced by others and no longer used that much. another interesting observation was that experienced professionals are often wary of becoming mentors, fearing that students may become their rivals in the future. we believe that this phenomenon requires a separate study focusing on the mentor-mentee relationship and its development over a period of several years. https://changing-sp.com/ 186 fayruza s. ismagilova, aleksey v. maltsev, erkinbai n. sattarov conclusion the results of our study do not support the hypothesis that the national context is a crucial factor in uzbek teachers’ choices of interactive methods, which are widely applied in international teaching practice. moreover, the factor “national context” ranked third (last) in the group of factors shaping the professors’ choices of this or that interactive 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(2013). strukturnye elementy natsionalnogo mentaliteta [the structural elements of national mentality]. psikhologicheskie issledovaniya, 6(29). retrieved from: http://psystudy.ru/index.php/num/2013v6n29/837-yurevich29.html https://changing-sp.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66254-1_10 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1045159515602256 http://psystudy.ru/index.php/num/2013v6n29/837-yurevich29.html changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 414–432 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.2.182 received 15 june 2021 © 2022 ana perić, marija maruna, accepted 20 may 2022 zorica nedović-budić published online 11 july 2022 aperic@ethz.ch marija.maruna@arh.bg.ac.rs znb.ucd@gmail.com article who plans what for whom under the “iron law” of megaprojects? the discourse analysis of the belgrade waterfront project ana perić eth zurich, switzerland university of belgrade, serbia marija maruna university of belgrade, serbia zorica nedović-budić university of illionis at urbana-champaign, united states university college dublin, ireland abstract urban megaprojects exhibit various distortions: special regulations, budget overrun, additional funding sources, long-term timeframes, and ad-hoc actor networks. coping with such challenges seems to be demanding even for the welfare states and advanced democracies built upon the governmental control of megaproject development. therefore, it is interesting to observe the nature of urban governance of megaproject development in a transitional society facing immature institutional and regulatory frameworks. against such background, this article examines the main forces behind the flagship project of contemporary serbia—the belgrade waterfront megaproject. by collecting 38 articles from the daily press, the paper identifies relevant stakeholders and present their statements to depict their positions, interests, and specific value frameworks. using the discourse analysis to interpret the statements, the paper offers the following results: first, recognition of conflicts and coalitions; second, elucidation of the decision-making flows, and third, identification https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 414–432 415 introduction observed through the lens of the physical structure and the built environment as an outcome of a planning process, megaprojects are not a new issue on the historical route of city development. almost all the countries, and particularly those in europe, faced the need for a massive urban redevelopment after world war ii. however, a distinctive point should be noted here for understanding the specificities of the contemporary megaproject developments around the globe. namely, up to the mid1970s, all the massive urban developments were coordinated by the state—the state was the main funding source, coordinator of the developmental activities, and executor of the final implementation steps (diaz orueta & fainstein, 2008). with the decline of public support in such projects and a substantial need for private finances, the public-private partnerships flourished as an adequate mechanism for managing large urban regeneration projects in the 1990s. the shift from a traditional industry towards a more creative one directly affected the vast parts of urban land, usually in the central city areas. the role of the state changed, too: first to the managerial, and afterwards to the entrepreneurial mode (fainstein, 2001; brenner, 2004, 2019). contemporary megaproject development frequently happens on abandoned industrial sites or deprived urban areas—brownfields—usually situated within the inner-city centre, well-connected to the transport nodes, equipped with diverse infrastructural networks, and close to the built urban patterns. however, new development demands the change of the previous land use and a significant improvement or new construction of both infrastructural grids and the building stock. against such a background, urban megaprojects are a point of interest to various stakeholders: developers chasing for profit through revitalising the site, citizens tending to protect their local urban identity, and planners and public officials stretched between the ethical norms to protect the public interest and pressure imposed by financially powerful actors. flyvbjerg (2017) further illustratively defines of power structures in the mentioned project. in addition, valuable insights into the problematic contextual features, e.g., tycoon-initiated urban development, the politics-led planning process, and weak civil engagement mechanisms, are elucidated. concluding lessons on how to curb the extra-nature of urban megaprojects appear relevant for similar socio-spatial settings. keywords belgrade, belgrade waterfront, discourse analysis, serbia, transitional societies, urban megaprojects acknowledgement this research was funded by the ministry of education, science and technological development of the republic of serbia, grant number 451-03-68/2022-14/200090. https://changing-sp.com/ 416 ana perić, marija maruna, zorica nedović-budić the “iron-law” as an operating mode of megaproject development. accordingly, the “iron-law” of megaprojects relies upon the logic of exception and includes extra budget, special regulations, non-standard organisational structure, questioning of public accountability, and the central role of developers at the expense of the city leaders, planners, and citizens. in recognising the potential negative externalities invoked by megaprojects, some authors claim the role of the public sector, the extent of governmental control and commitment to the social equity as a remedy towards an exceptional nature of megaproject development (fainstein, 2001, 2008). the management mode of megaprojects—based on strong developers, quite frequently including the international financial powerholders (flyvbjerg, 2014), seems to be similar regardless of the context—developed global north or developing global south (del cerro santamaria, 2013; lee, 2012; flyvbjerg, 2009). however, particular attention should be devoted to differentiating the role of the public sector in developed and developing societies. regarding the first, the success of the public intervention in the megaproject development depends on the specific social model the megaproject is embedded in (fainstein, 2008; perić & hoch, 2017). for example, in liberal democracies with a strong capitalist outlook (e.g., united states), the extent of government support would be marginalised. on the other hand, weakened, but still persevering welfare democracies (e.g., scandinavia) would provide much more room for public deliberation and negotiation of the initially posed interests by the private sector. interestingly, in both cases, the local authorities (e.g., city mayor) play a crucial role as they want to leave a mark on their cities (fainstein, 2008). however, what is happening in the transitional societies (e.g., post-socialist european countries) stretched between the need to catch up with the global competitiveness and the immature institutional and regulatory frameworks incapable of protecting the public interest amidst the run for developer’s attraction? the governmental efficacy in pursuing its control mechanisms lacks in the societies faced with political, institutional and market transition (cook, 2010; keresztély & scott, 2012; perić & maruna, 2012; cope, 2015; djurasović, 2016; zdunić, 2017; perić & d’hondt, 2020). but is the state and the city a weak side-lined party dominated by the developers’ commitment to private benefits? transitional societies face a paradox: though the public sector is not a key player in the megaproject game according to the previously described role of providing governmental control, it is not marginalised. the politics embedded into the highest governmental tiers becomes the key partner and enabler of the developers’ visions. this is known as authoritarian neoliberalism (bruff, 2014, 2016; di giovanni, 2016) in contrast to the previously mentioned strong local administrative scale as a prerequisite for successful megaproject development, transitional countries are dominated by the so-called “top-top” approach, i.e., a regulationist state-led process of urban development (zeković & maričić, 2022). lined up with the previous approach, serbia offers a typical example of the nation-state politics playing a significant role in pursuing megaproject development (zeković et al., 2018; grubbauer & čamprag, 2018; machala & koelemaij, 2019; perić, 2020b; piletić, 2022). state-led management of urban development appears changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 414–432 417 due to a specific nature of the serbian government, which can be described as “hybrid”, i.e., between democracy and autocracy (nations in transit 2020. serbia, 2020)1, or as vujošević (2010) puts it: a “proto-democracy”. under such circumstances, urban megaprojects are seen as a tool of the ruling political regime in strengthening its power and influence no matter the side effects on the entire society. consequently, high-level politicians’ nationalist narrative dominates the advertising of urban megaprojects seen as a source of income and new jobs for the residents, strengthening the national economy, boosting the overall prosperity, and positioning a city on the map of the world cities (grubbauer & čamprag, 2018). nevertheless, the reality is different—populist language usually serves only to hide corruption and political patronage under a veil of authoritarian entrepreneurialism (perić, 2020b; perić & d’hondt, 2020; zeković & maričić, 2022). in the next sections, we illuminate such narrative used in the megaproject development of the belgrade waterfront (bw) project. more specifically, we look at the planning phase of the bw project—from the project inception during the political campaign in 2012 till the start of the construction in 2015. observing the front-end phase is crucial, as we intend to reveal the narrative that triggers the exclusive position of megaprojects as a tool for urban development, and to illuminate different communication styles that settle the ground for megaproject development in the country facing transformation towards the liberal economy and political pluralism. the paper is structured as follows. after a brief overview of the specificities of urban megaproject development in different societies with a particular emphasis on the transitional countries, we present the methodological apparatus used in the research revolving around the discourse analysis as a relevant tool to discover not only given but also hidden factors shaping the story behind the bw project. the central part firstly presents the statements of the relevant stakeholders (units of analysis) to be then critically interpreted. the concluding remarks draw explicitly on the parameters that not only elucidate the narrative but also explain a larger social and institutional setting: actors’ coalitions and conflicts, decision-making flows, and power structures. recommendations on how to increase the level of governmental support and, thus, strengthen the commitment to social equity are briefly provided in the end. methodological approach the selected case for the analysis—belgrade waterfront, is referred to as the best practice example of urban development according to the political structures in power since 2012. to elucidate the narrative behind this project, i.e., to reveal major driving forces that have shaped its process and outcomes—all ingrained in different 1 according to the freedom house’s nations in transit 2020. serbia (2020) report on the fluctuation of the democracy level among the central european and the western balkans states over ten years (2010 –2020), in the period between 2010 and 2018, serbia was considered a semi-consolidated democracy, while in 2019 and 2020 serbia held the status of a “competitive authoritarian” or “hybrid” (between democracy and autocracy) regime. https://changing-sp.com/ 418 ana perić, marija maruna, zorica nedović-budić stakeholders’ positions, interests, and value frameworks as the main variables— newspaper articles were chosen as the source of information. more precisely, these were 38 selected articles published in three renowned daily papers— politika, blic, and danas, between 2012 and 2015. these papers provide objective information based on research journalism, analyse the relevant topics from different angles (urban planning, economy, social justice), and treat equally all the relevant stakeholders to comprehensively show various viewpoints on the topic. for brevity, the following sections provide and analyse 17 key stakeholders’ statements as the units of analysis. a discourse analysis was used to analyse the statements to get an insight into the way the stakeholders speak about the megaprojects, what they highlight as their advantages, and how they perceive its shortcomings. from the perspective of discourse analysis, political conflict is not a simple consequence of a conflict of interest but involves different meanings that people incorporate into the problem. therefore, if urban development stems from the decision-making process, the methodology to understand planning changes should not be normative, but descriptive, explanatory, interpretative, and hermeneutical (getimis, 2012). how actions are represented in the language is, thus, of crucial interest (jacobs, 2006). the discourse analysis does not start from a fixed theoretical and methodological stance; it is the process during which the topic is further refined to construct the object of research (fairclough, 2003). according to hajer (2006), the discourse analysis “opens up methodologically sound ways to combine the analysis of the discursive production of meaning with the analysis of the socio-political practices from which social constructs emerge, and in which the actors that make these statements engage” (p. 67). in brief, the methodological assumption of the discourse analysis is that different stakeholders tend to establish a specific narrative or the version of an event to pursue their own goals (jacobs, 2006; fairclough et al., 2004). hence, this analysis not only helps to understand what the main tone of the general narrative is but also identify what has been not said in the announcements and what that further reveals about the projects. in other words, the discourse analysis elucidates the ideological, political, and economic contexts that shape powerful stakeholders aimed at creating a hegemony of their interests (lees, 2004). in practical terms, the steps of discursive analysis start from data collection and description, followed by interpretation and, finally, the analysis ends with an explanation. as the key milestone in the entire process of the bw urban development was the adoption of the amended belgrade master plan in 2014 (the amendments, 2014), the analytical units were collected two years before and one year after the plan adoption to depict the most intense narrative on the bw pros and cons. provided original statements are analysed by the coding technique with the stated preferences further grouped according to their mutual similarities. such data interpretation aims at identifying the dominant discourses, i.e., various viewpoints of stakeholders and their interests based on the specific value system. more precisely, discourse analysis elucidates the stakeholders’ conflicts and coalitions, decision-making flows, and power structures. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 414–432 419 the discourse of urban megaproject development: the case of belgrade waterfront the bw project has been the paradigmatic example of contemporary belgrade urban development. since the beginning of the new millennium, the 90-ha area on the right bank of the river sava has been continuously deteriorating to, finally, transform into a huge brownfield area occupied mainly by an obsolete shunting yard as part of the belgrade main railway station and some dilapidated housing (figure 1). embedded in the central city core, the area has been always attracting the greatest attention, not only of national but also of international parties. bw was announced as the priority project during the 2012 political campaign of the then largest opposition party—the serbian progressive party (spp), which after winning the elections fulfilled its promise. the preliminary design project by skidmore, owings and merrill (figures 2, 3) served as a base for the final project design by the local planning and architectural offices, and amendments to the belgrade master plan in 2014 (the amendments, 2014). the construction of a grand political project financed by the united arab emirates (uae) investor, eagle hills (represented by sheikh mohamed alabbar), with considerable subsidies by the serbian government, commenced in september 2015. figure 1 the position of the belgrade waterfront project within the belgrade city pattern note. source: authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 420 ana perić, marija maruna, zorica nedović-budić figure 2 the model of the belgrade waterfront project note. source: https://www.belgradewaterfront.com; copyright: eagle hills. figure 3 the rendering of the belgrade waterfront project note. source: https://www.belgradewaterfront.com; copyright: eagle hills. https://www.belgradewaterfront.com https://www.belgradewaterfront.com changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 414–432 421 overview of the units of analysis in total, 17 statements as the analytical units are collected for the period between 2012 and 2015, as given in table 1 below. the table indicates the name of the daily press, the date and the title of the article, the stakeholder providing the statement, and the statement itself. the key wording within the statement relevant for the data analysis (i.e., the part of the statement depicting specific position, interest, and value framework) has been additionally underlined. table 1 overview of the stakeholders’ statements daily press, date the news article title stakeholder in the belgrade waterfront project stakeholder’s statement politika, 20.04.2012 rudolf giuliani in belgrade at the invitation of the progressives candidate for mayor of belgrade, a. vučić “i think that this is one of the absolutely greatest projects that belgrade and serbia can have. [...] we have secured investors, i tell you, of course, there will be tenders for everything” (politika, 2012; our translation—authors). blic, 01.08.2013 djilas: ‘belgrade waterfront’and the metro will change the image of the city mayor of belgrade, d. djilas “i believe that with the cooperation of the republic government and city authorities on the subway project and this project, we can do what is really good for all belgraders” (blic, 2013; our translation— authors). politika, 24.12.2013 emirates finances belgrade waterfront shopping center coordinator of the bw project/the spp board member, a. karlovčan “we will try to get money from the uea not only for the construction of facilities in the sava amphitheater, whose value is estimated at around 3.1 billion dollars, but also for clearing that location. [...] the competition will not be announced. [...] planning documentation will be flexible” (politika, 2013; our translation—authors). blic, 09.01.2014 vučić: alabbar invests $ 3.1 billion in belgrade waterfront first deputy prime minister, a. vučić “his [alabbar’s] conceptual plan is to clean everything up from there, and to make it the only task for serbia” (blic, 2014a; our translation—authors). blic, 19.01.2014 stefanović: belgrade waterfront is the future for the city and the people of belgrade speaker of serbian parliament/vice president of the spp, n. stefanović “we have shown that we know how to think strategically and that we know how to attract investors who will bring money, and not just expect something to drip from the budget and someone to give you something” (blic, 2014b; our translation—authors). danas, 20.01.2014 announce a competition for the project belgrade waterfront first deputy prime minister, a. vučić “i know that nothing is good enough for us serbs. whatever we do, there will always be someone who will find something wrong with it, even if it was the most beautiful project for our country ever” (danas, 2014a; our translation—authors). danas, 20.01.2014 announce a competition for the project belgrade waterfront president of the association of architects of serbia, i. marić “why such a rush as if they were races? i guess in this troubled serbia of ours, when such plans are in question, a wide circle of citizens, architects, engineers, economists should be asked” (danas, 2014; our translation—authors). https://changing-sp.com/ 422 ana perić, marija maruna, zorica nedović-budić daily press, date the news article title stakeholder in the belgrade waterfront project stakeholder’s statement blic, 20.01.2014 vučić on “belgrade waterfront”: work will be completed first deputy prime minister, a. vučić “we will respect the legal procedures and we will bring everything in accordance with the law, but other people’s money must be respected. [...] if you think we're going to europe and making fun of other people’s money, that our minds are much more important than someone’s three billion dollars, i have to ask you where you think we live” (blic, 2014c; our translation—authors). blic, 20.01.2014 transparency serbia’: is competition excluded for belgrade waterfront? ngo transparency serbia “will such an offer be accepted in the future when a potential investor presents a project that envisages the formation of a joint venture, in which the state or city offers land, and the investor money, or will we act selectively towards investors? [...] what is the legal basis for forming a joint venture—is it a public-private partnership project, has the ppp commission voted on it, as provided by the law from 2011?” (blic, 2014d; our translation— authors). blic, 01.03.2014 presentation in dubai, premiere of belgrade waterfront in cannes economic advisor to the first deputy prime minister, s. mali “tomorrow is the most important day in the development of belgrade waterfront so far. this is the key day, because after that we can start preparing urbanism and all other planning documents in order to realise that project. [...] the final presentation of the master plan of the entire project will be led by mohamed alabbar, who is the author of the project” (blic, 2014e; our translation—authors). blic, 27.06.2014 model discovered: this is “belgrade waterfront” prime minister, a. vučić “our plan is to change this part of the city and the face of serbia, which should look as beautiful and clean as this building” (blic, 2014f). politika, 05.10.2014 “belgrade waterfront” will not be a jungle of skyscrapers director of the urban planning institute of belgrade, n. stefanović “the competition was absent because politicians and the investor agreed. this is a project of national importance” (politika, 2014a; our translation—authors). politika, 06.11.2014 sanu presented 22 pages of remarks on “belgrade waterfront” sanu (serbian academy of sciences and arts), architecture and urban planning committee “if the draft spatial plan is not changed, ‘belgrade waterfront’ will remain an iisolated island in the center of the capital, difficult to access and barely passable, which will cause traffic problems in other parts of the city as well” (politika, 2014b; our translation—authors). danas, 15.11.2014 with swim rings and a song against “belgrade waterfront” activists “don’t let belgrade d(r)own” “we will not allow public finances to be spent on private projects that only bring spatial segregation and traffic collapse to the city. [...] the development, functioning of the city and its identity cannot be a product of investor desires, but exclusively of the needs of the society itself” (danas, 2014b; our translation—authors). table 1 continued changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 414–432 423 daily press, date the news article title stakeholder in the belgrade waterfront project stakeholder’s statement blic, 06.03.2015 architects: urgently suspend the belgrade waterfront project academy of architecture of serbia “the project itself and the manner of its implementation abound in a number of legal violations, all in the interest of a supposedly profitable economic idea, in cooperation with a private investor. [...] the spatial plan for the area for specific use that was adopted, actually legalises the largest illegal construction in the world. the plan was the subject of a fake, farcical public inspection” (blic, 2015; our translation—authors). danas, 10.03.2015 mali: everything we do is transparent president of the academy of architecture of serbia, m. mitrović “everything new is met with such a reaction from the public. a huge and fantastic issue is that the space of the sava amphitheater has been cleared. we know that all major projects are being built gradually, so the sagrada familia in barcelona has been built for 200 years” (danas, 2015a; our translation—authors).. danas, 29.03.2015 lawyers: “belgrade waterfront” project is unconstitutional group of 15 belgrade lawyers “whether it is legal and legitimate to sign an agreement with a foreign partner, and then change the legal regulations and adopt a special law that enables a non-transparent agreement, is a question for everyone who participates in the process of adopting this special law. [...] if the investor himself is not ready to solve property-legal relations by buying buildings and land from the current owners, why would it be done from the funds of all citizens, given to the budget of the republic of serbia?” (danas, 2015b; our translation—authors). note. source: authors. discourse analysis of the belgrade waterfront project the first idea on the belgrade waterfront project was coined in spring 2012 by aleksandar vučić, the then vice-president of the serbian progressive party (spp)— the largest opposition party in the political campaign for election bids at all levels (presidential, parliamentary, and local). the use of superlatives in describing the project was expected from vučić running for the position of the mayor of belgrade. additionally, his statements discover two distinctiveness: firstly, he uses direct language in addressing the general public (“i tell you”), and secondly, he highlights the need for transparency when referring to the bw project. such compelling and convincing language directed to the public intends to gain public support through diminishing negative project externalities, mainly concerning the endangered social justice and the public interest. in july 2012, the spp became the ruling one, with the newly elected president and the national parliament. however, the local authorities in belgrade kept the previous structure composed of most of the democratic party representatives. however, the dominance of the progressives invoked the soon replacement of the city authorities. hence, the vague statement from the mayor of belgrade in the summer of 2013 revolving around the benefit “for all” reads as djilas’s last attempt to create a tight relationship with the national government. as expected, he failed. table 1 continued https://changing-sp.com/ 424 ana perić, marija maruna, zorica nedović-budić with placing the spp political comrades in the belgrade city authorities, the parliament, and the government, the bw story started to heat up to reveal the details deemed contradictory to vučić’s pre-election promises. the newly elected coordinators of the bw project (at the same time high-level spp members) unveiled the specific nature of the new megaproject—the absence of tenders, and the flexibility in creating planning documentation, as backed up by the recently adopted legislation2. soon the uae eagle hills officer presented the project to the serbian government, and vučić decided to become the main spokesperson for the bw project, with the sporadic support of his political fellows. however, their narrative was a grievance towards the general public. namely, they directly accused people (“nothing is good enough for us serbs”, “i have to ask you where you think we live”), disregarded the public comments (“someone who will find something wrong”), and overtly supported private developers (“other people’s money must be respected”), instead of providing the direct answers to the concrete remarks, posed by the president of the association of architects of serbia, among others. what lay behind such accusing rhetoric was not only safeguarding the developer’s interests but more the need to hide their mutual relationship open for various inconsistencies and malversations due to the lack of institutional control of the feedback between highlevel politicians and developers. the public feedback to such a narrative was scarce. the non-governmental organisation transparency serbia emphasised the legal basis of the liaison between the government (providing land) and developers (securing money for urban development), and asked for a path-dependency in terms of respecting the existing regulations on public-private partnership and consulting the bodies which could offer useful advice. the progressives stayed deaf to such demands and continued glorifying “alabbar’s project” ready to prepare all the planning documents to accommodate it. as this was not a standard procedure, i.e., usually project follows a plan and not vice versa, the serbian politicians demonstrated they understood well the specificity of a megaproject development, as well as the readiness for its implementation. in june 2014, after the early parliamentary elections, vučić became the prime minister, and the determination to succeed in the bw project became more structured, followed by the narrative full of superlatives and transferring the image of bw to the entire country of serbia3. expert bodies close to the political regime (e.g., the urban planning institute of belgrade) were engaged to prepare the necessary planning documentation to proceed with the project. however, they were not asked for any expert advice; rather, they were seen as a means to translate “the politicians’ and the investor’s agreements” into the planning instruments that will ease the project 2 the act confirming the agreement on cooperation between the government of the republic of serbia and the government of united arab emirates (zakon o potvrđivanju sporazuma, 2013) legitimises the joint venture agreements to be made without an open tender procedure, while serbia was obliged to adopt any changes to other laws and regulations in a way they are desirable for the foreign investor. based on this law and the modified planning law (zakon o planiranju i izgradnji, 2014), the joint venture agreement was established in april 2015 (perić, 2020a). 3 this reflected the governmental decision (may 2014) to declare belgrade waterfront as an “area of national importance” for the economic development of the country. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 414–432 425 implementation4. the proactivity of the politicians was proven once again, as they undertook all the necessary procedural steps towards the project implementation— amended the master plan and changed the planning law to enable the production of a spatial plan, thus scaling up the entire procedure resulting in a “top-top” approach of governance and land use. the independent experts not familiar with the political regime, such as the sanu board, presented their arguments against the draft spatial plan of belgrade waterfront, however, they did not tackle the core of the problem concerning the project. sanu referred only to the negative consequences on the city in terms of its functional organisation (“isolated island”, “traffic problems”). however, the activists brought the essence of the problematics highlighting opaque and opportunistic decisionmaking process instead of focusing on “the needs of the society”. the other group of independent experts (academy of architecture of serbia) raised its voice against the project depicting it as “the largest illegal construction in the world”. however, such a tone was redundant as the spatial plan of belgrade waterfront (uredba o utvrđivanju prostornog plana, 2015) was adopted in january 2015, i.e., two months earlier. to make this entire situation more complex, the president of the mentioned academy supported the project at the same time inducing some irrelevant conclusions (“everything new is met with such a [negative] reaction”) aimed to create public confusion. such a discrepancy in the positions between the head of an organisation and its board, questions the independence and reliability of an expert body in fighting for the public interest. as the issue of legitimacy always coloured the narrative on bw, finally it was the group of belgrade lawyers who questioned the decision-making process, the preparation and adoption of the planning documents, and even an announced enactment of the lex specialis5—the law that should define the public interest in the bw project. the law was adopted in a fast-track decision-making procedure in april 2015, hence intrinsically providing fruitful ground for managing all future megaprojects in serbia. concluding remarks the discourse analysis of the daily press on the bw project elucidated not only the facts but also the general context within which a certain narrative is formed. it is the latter that requires greater attending, as “misinformation about costs, schedules, benefits, and risks is the norm throughout [mega]project development and decisionmaking” (flyvbjerg, 2017, p. 8). more precisely, the facts, sometimes purposefully, stay hidden or become revealed rather late during the process, e.g., when some key 4 the amendments on the master plan of belgrade (the amendments, 2014) were adopted by the city assembly in september 2014. however, as this plan was not legally backed up (as it dismissed the procedure of international competition for the waterfront area and the change of the land-use and arrangements rules) the planning law was updated in december 2014 (zakon o planiranju i izgradnji, 2014), to include new categories—areas with tourism potential, and areas of national importance—in the description of the coverage by the spatial plan for the area of specific use (usually made for areas with natural and environmental values, mining areas, and areas with hydro potential) (perić, 2020a). 5 lex specialis—the law on establishing the public interest and special procedures of expropriation and the issuance of building permit for the project “belgrade waterfront” (zakon o utvrđivanju javnog interesa, 2015). https://changing-sp.com/ 426 ana perić, marija maruna, zorica nedović-budić decisions had been already taken. hence, the discourse analysis proved to be a useful tool in addressing the project features and illuminating neglected contextual factors. these are elucidated in the following lines through the lens of conflicts and coalitions, decision-making flows, and power structures. conflicts and coalitions. since the very first idea on the bw project development, its initiators excessively used the justifying and euphoric narrative on the “project of national importance” and incorporated this phrase in all the necessary legislation to secure the project implementation. the high-level politicians, depicted primarily in vučić first as the prime minister and since 2017 as the president of serbia, in the symbiosis with the eagle hills, was determined to push the private interest above national priorities. interestingly, such close feedback between politics and money did not cause a huge negative reaction among the public. oppositional political parties sporadically interrupted the glorifying discourse, professionals in the public institutions became the tool in the visible hand of politics, while independent experts were lacking consistency and clear argumentation, with usually late reactions. as expected, such a response did not put the experts in the spotlight and left the public with little or no beliefs in the validity of their remarks. the only actor showing a fierce and constant revolt against the dominant political panegyric was the civil sector. the fact that they appear in the newspapers just at the end of 2014 confirms that public to-thepoint comments on the irregularities on numerous procedural steps were seriously taken by the politicians who purposefully limited their public visibility, framed within a broader context of non-transparent media coverage6. decision-making flows. fuelled by the foreign developer’s investment, the serbian political bodies fulfilled the necessary prerequisites to timely legitimate all the decisions that secured the project implementation. in other words, the required planning and legal documents were amended to embrace the changes that enable a smooth realisation of the bw project. for example, the planning law (zakon o planiranju i izgradnji, 2014) was updated to accommodate modification of the categorisation of the spatial plans. this enabled assigning the bw project to the spatial plan of the area of specific use (uredba o utvrđivanju prostornog plana, 2015). in practical terms, a city master plan became a national spatial plan. the higher instance attribution served to simplify and accelerate the decision-making process, leaving the crucial decisions about the future project development to be made by the highest political bodies. in addition, the law that equals private interest of the eagle hills with the public interest of serbia—lex specialis (zakon o utvrđivanju javnog interesa, 2015) was urgently prepared and adopted (for three months), to legitimate the financial profit for the developer under the veil of public benefit. such ad-hoc decision-making proves the role of politicians as quick learners eager to secure the required conditions for an exceptional, special, non-standard megaproject development at the expense of public accountability. 6 according to freedom house (freedom in the world 2022. serbia, 2022), since its newly elected regime in 2012, serbia has been continuously suffering from various “forms of political pressure on independent media and civil society organisations”. in 2022, serbia’s status declined from “free” to “partly free” due to continued attempts by the government and allied media outlets to undermine independent journalists through legal harassment and smear campaigns, keeping the same status today (july 2022). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 414–432 427 power structures. in terms of power structures and their representation in public, the bw case shows a distorted version of megaproject development compared to liberal democracies, where developers have a leading role. instead of the noticeable investors with quiet politicians, bw embraced the strong spokesperson of vučić, while alabbar’s name was mentioned on rare occasions. however, this is not a sign of a strong state and a high level of governmental control. in contrast, as the bw is implemented in serbia, a country with a high level of corruption and political patronage, i.e., the absence of control over the work of public bodies, vučić’s show-off in public hides the real power holders: eagle hills is silent and keeps its power far from the public eye. in addition, purposefully adopted autocratic role in decision-making power excludes all other parties but foreign developers. the illusion that the city mayor mali has been heard in the entire process comes from the fact that he is a high spp member and, hence, under the direct control of the key national figure as the president of the party. the absence of civil institutions and only the civil sector as a counterpart to the political hegemony illustrates a collapse of institutions, legal regulations, and society. expert power is undermined: as the experts’ statements designate that they are lost in the whirlpool of conflicting interests, without the necessary skills how to curb the private interests in a rudimentary market-economy, they have been left aside, serving only as the puppets needed to prepare the technical documentation under the reins of the national leader. strategic thinking and strategic planning do not exist. urban megaprojects lead to deregulation and question the role and purpose of urban planning, which is additionally undermined by political favouritism. strongly polarised national politics devoted to supporting private interests weakens the financial and institutional capacity of local authorities, erodes professional competences, and suppresses public opinions. as a result, a “top-top” approach in planning, governance and implementation of megaprojects in serbia relies upon the series of legitimation procedures supported by the state to protect the false public interest. the transformation of these conditions requires diverse social, political, and economic changes that go far beyond what “good planning” can achieve. nevertheless, the change starts with strengthening the role of the public institutions and a greater extent of governmental control of a megaproject development. accordingly, basic recommendations for reducing the negative externalities of megaproject developments are as follows (perić, 2020b; grubbauer & čamprag, 2018; zeković & maričić, 2022): • boost the autonomy of planners in making innovative procedures to create trust, mutual respect, and cooperation among numerous stakeholders • establish a synergy between experts and citizens to improve public dialogue and facilitate participation • strengthen the institutional capacity (both knowledge and finance) of local authorities to face the top-down decision-making • define the public interest through regulatory mechanisms to establish legitimacy • critically assess the discourse used in promoting megaprojects to dismiss the politicians’ nationalist narrative https://changing-sp.com/ 428 ana perić, marija maruna, zorica nedović-budić only when serbia paves the way towards democratic accountability will the populist political discourse vanish to enable transparent and collaborative mechanisms for protecting the public interest, overcoming polarisation, and boosting social equity as a counterflow to the “iron law” of 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http://www.parlament.gov.rs/upload/archive/files/lat/pdf/zakoni/2013/817-13lat.pdf http://www.parlament.gov.rs/upload/archive/files/lat/pdf/zakoni/2013/817-13lat.pdf http://www.parlament.gov.rs/upload/archive/files/cir/pdf/zakoni/2015/547-15.pdf http://www.parlament.gov.rs/upload/archive/files/cir/pdf/zakoni/2015/547-15.pdf https://doi.org/10.15203/ozp.1108.vol45iss4 https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2020.1774410 changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 508–527 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.4.114 received 4 june 2020 © 2020 ksenia g. muratshina accepted 6 december 2020 ksenia.muratshina@urfu.ru published online 29 december 2020 article cultural exchanges between russia and turkmenistan: structure, dynamics, and defining features ksenia g. muratshina ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract cultural exchanges are an essential component of humanitarian interaction between countries and societies, in particular, between political partners and neighboring states whose citizens regularly communicate with each other. this paper discusses cooperation in the area of cultural exchanges between the russian federation and one of its central asian neighbors the former soviet republic of turkmenistan. to date, cultural exchanges and humanitarian cooperation have received very little attention in central asian studies, despite the attention paid to russian-turkmen economic cooperation and policy aspects. this paper is aimed at illuminating the modes, factors, dynamics, and defining features of the russia-turkmenistan cooperation in the area of cultural exchanges over the recent decade. the notions “cultural exchanges”, “humanitarian cooperation”, and “cooperation in the area of cultural exchanges” are explored in russian-turkmen diplomatic documents and the legislation of the commonwealth of independent states. the author has studied such sources as diplomatic documents, interviews, newsletters of state institutions and non-governmental organizations, and news archives of russian and turkmen media. keywords russia, turkmenistan, humanitarian cooperation, cultural exchanges, “soft power” acknowledgement this work was supported by the russian science foundation under grant number 19-78-10060 https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 508–527 509 introduction humanitarian cooperation – namely, cooperation in cultural exchanges, education, science, media, sport, tourism, and youth policy, according to the agreement between the members of the commonwealth of independent states (cis) (agreement on humanitarian cooperation, 2005) – has become an integral part of russia’s relations with other post-soviet countries. it has also become an essential tool of policy coordination and integration in post-soviet space (ministry of foreign affairs of the russian federation, 2005). cultural exchanges, usually including those in art, concerts, cinema, theatre, libraries and book fairs, are an essential component of humanitarian cooperation, insofar as they can contribute to better mutual understanding and an increase in overall attractiveness of the respective countries’ policies. this humanitarian cooperation is often regarded as a tool of “soft power”. according to the concept of “soft power”, the cultural appeal of a state results in the increase of its political impact, and is thus regarded as an important factor for international communication (nye, 2004, 2008; nye & goldsmith, 2011; nye, jisi, rosecrance, & guoliang, 2009). this paper discusses the cultural cooperation between the russian federation and one of its central asian neighbors, the former soviet republic of turkmenistan. the research is aimed at defining the modes, factors, dynamics, and specific features of this bilateral cultural exchange in recent decade. the study of this area of interstate cooperation is informative in several aspects: it can illuminate the symmetry as well as asymmetry of cultural communication, it can identify the practices of “soft power” between the partner states, and, finally, it can contribute to building forecasts and better evaluating the relationship as a whole. turkmenistan is a quite special case because of the unique character of its political regime. in central asian studies, turkmenistan is usually viewed as having a strong continuity in “authoritarian” governance (gyene, 2016; horák, 2017; maerz, 2016; polese, ó beacháin, & horák, 2017; troitsky, 2014; zabortseva, 2018). it has also been described as an “autocracy” (basora, 2012) or a “totalitarian” regime (kubicek, 2013). beyond strongly influencing the internal politics of the state, this characteristic has also had direct impact on the state’s interaction with the rest of the world. turkmenistan is known for being an exceptionally closed state. for example, no turkmen university, theatre, or library has an open website. in addition, the state does not welcome the arrival of foreign researchers planning to conduct field investigations in politics or sociology, refusing to issue visa invitations. in fact, for a foreigner, it is even impossible to visit turkmenistan, unless you are a member of a state delegation, a celebrity on an agreed tour, a visiting researcher having a fixed purpose (e.g., a member of russian-turkmen archaeological expedition, or an officially appointed speaker at a conference), a businessperson officially invited for negotiations, or a member of an organized group of tourists with a strictly fixed route. consequently, an analysis and evaluation of cultural exchanges with a “closed” state and society like turkmenistan is challenging, but at the same time a matter of high academic interest. this paper is based on an analysis of diplomatic documents, https://changing-sp.com/ https://ezproxy.urfu.ru:2074/authid/detail.uri?authorid=36547988100&amp;eid=2-s2.0-85019742800 510 ksenia g. muratshina interviews with turkmen migrants to russia, newsletters of state institutions and of non-state organizations, and news archives of russian and turkmen media. the latter was possible thanks to the fact that the leading news agencies in turkmenistan – such as tdh1, orient2 and others – have open websites in turkmen, russian, and usually english as well. apart from the interviews of turkmen migrants to russia, it turned out to be impossible to get any statements directly from turkmenistan on this topic, as the possibility of regular communication with the outer world via the internet for turkmen citizens is limited. legislative framework since the collapse of the ussr, russia and turkmenistan have signed a number of bilateral documents, defining the cultural area of their cooperation. the importance of cultural cooperation and the obligation to develop cultural ties are fixed in the russian-turkmen treaties of 2002 (treaty of friendship and cooperation, 2002) and 2017 (treaty on strategic partnership, 2017), and in the detailed way the cultural area is referred to in the 1995 intergovernmental agreement on the cooperation in the field of culture, education, and science (agreement between the government, 1995). according to this document, both countries agreed on access to the cultural heritage of both countries, free and equal cultural development for expatriate communities, delegation exchanges, festivals, tours, exhibitions, film festivals, literature exchanges, ties between libraries, and cooperation between artists, publishing houses, and cultural foundations. the russian-turkmen bilateral agreement differs considerably from russia’s similar documents with other central asian partners such as kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, and uzbekistan. in russian-turkmen agreement, laconic phrases prevail, with minimal specifics added; furthermore, the structure of cooperation is far less detailed. moreover, there is a relatively limited set of obligations that are mostly reducible to simple cooperation. based on comparison with russia’s other central asian partnerships one can conclude that this is because of turkmenistan’s closed status and firm opposition to broader exchanges. in addition, in 2017 the russian and turkmen ministries of culture signed a program of bilateral cooperation for 2018–2020. the new program included the same areas of exchange: cinematography, theatre, literature, and art (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017a). lastly, it is important to note that turkmenistan is extremely centralized. although it defines itself “democratic”, nearly all power lies with the president, and no decisions or deals can be made with foreign partners without a thorough evaluation by the government. 1 the state news agency of turkmenistan – turkmenistan today. https://tdh.gov.tm/en/ 2 orient – information agency “media-turkmen”. https://orient.tm/en/ https://tdh.gov.tm/en/ https://orient.tm/en/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 508–527 511 cultural exchanges between state organizations the cultural cooperation between russia and turkmenistan is mainly carried out by state organizations controlled by the respective governments such as museums, theatres, and concert agencies. the first type of interstate cultural exchange to note are the “days of culture”. this event is organized annually on a reciprocal basis. in 2010, moscow and st. petersburg celebrated the “days of turkmen culture” in russia with the concerts by turkmen musicians, a presentation of an anthology of the works of the famous turkmen poet mollanepes, and an exhibition of turkmen applied and decorative art (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017g). in 2011, the astrakhan region of russia – that is geographically closest to turkmenistan – organized its “days of culture” in the turkmen capital ashgabat and in the city of mary. this program included the performance of astrakhan singers and dancers, a concert by the philharmonic orchestra, and exhibitions of paintings, palekh decorative art, and photography (krylov, 2011). in 2013, the russian state agency tasked with maintaining cultural ties with foreign partners and russian expatriates – the federal agency for the commonwealth of independent states affairs, compatriots living abroad, and international humanitarian cooperation (rossotrudnichestvo) organized the “days of russian language” in turkmenistan, offering lessons and seminars for teachers of russian language from turkmen schools, a conference for philologists, and a reading contest for schoolchildren (romanova, 2013). in 2013, 2014, and 2015, turkmenistan celebrated a film festival, which screened the most popular soviet and russian films (dni “mosfil’ma”, 2015). in 2016, the “days of turkmen culture” were organized in both moscow and vladimir by turkmen authorities and the russian state concert agency “rosconcert”. the program included concerts by turkmen musicians, singers, and dancers, meetings with turkmen writers and poets, and an exhibition of turkmen applied and decorative art (kovalevsky, 2016). the contents of the “days of turkmen culture” in russia in 2018 was similar (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2018e). in 2017, “the days of russian culture” were conducted in turkmenistan, including the performances of the igor moiseyev state academic ensemble, a lesson for the students of turkmen state institute of culture, a photography exhibition titled the nature of the russian north, and film screenings (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017b). the years of 2018 (v turkmenskoy stolitse, 2018) and 2019 (dni rossiyskogo kinematografa, 2019) were also marked by the “days of russian cinema” in turkmenistan, which included film presentations and meetings with directors and actors. in addition, in 2019 the “days of turkmen culture” were organized in st. petersburg (serdar azmun, 2019) and in tatarstan (letopis’ 2019 goda, 2020). besides the “days of culture,” more examples of exchanges between state cultural organizations can be cited. as a rule, they are organized with the help of both the russian and turkmen embassies and “rossotrudnichestvo”. in 2017, the russian state museum of oriental art and the turkmen museum of art held a joint exhibition of turkmen paintings in moscow (press office of the ministry of culture of https://changing-sp.com/ 512 ksenia g. muratshina the russian federation, 2017c). the same year, the a. a. bakhrushin state central theatre museum held a personal exhibition of turkmen and russian artist berdiguly amansahatov (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017q). in addition, that year the russian central museum of cinema organized an exhibition dedicated to the famous soviet film beloe solntse pustunu (“white sun of the desert”). in turkmenistan (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017f). in 2018, the moscow state conservatory celebrated turkmen musicians at a concert dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the world known turkmen composer nury khalmamedov (kovalevsky, 2018), and the moscow house of artists – with the help of the russian ministry of culture – organized an exhibition of paintings by artists from post-soviet countries, including turkmenistan (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2018a). in 2019, the ashgabat russian drama theatre toured in volgograd (grechukhina, 2019) and the famous russian pianist yuri bogdanov visited ashgabat (letopis’ 2019 goda, 2020). in addition, the russian state museum of oriental art presented an exhibition “splendid margiana” on the history of the margiana archaeological expedition, which involved the cooperation of russian and turkmen archaeologists and art restoration experts (letopis’ 2019 goda, 2020). in the beginning of 2020, the famous russian cellist and rector of the st. petersburg state conservatory, alexey vasiliev (embassy of the russian federation in turkmenistan, 2020b), as well as a leading opera singer from the mariinsky theatre tsvetana omelchuk (embassy of the russian federation in turkmenistan, 2020a) gave concerts in ashgabat. also, at the beginning of 2020 the institute of material culture (imc) of the russian academy of sciences presented a 3d copy of a sacrificial altar – which had been found in turkmen republic by russian archaeologists in soviet times and carefully preserved by imc up to present days – to the turkmen museum of art as a gift (tsinkler, 2020). in addition, turkmen artists and musicians regularly take part in international contests, culture festivals, art symposiums, and exhibitions held in russia. for example, in 2015 turkmen artists took part in the art symposium titled “great silk road” in yelabuga (federal agency for tourism of the russian federation, 2015). in 2017, turkmen artists took part in the festival of modern art titled territoriya in moscow (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017d), the culture festival caspian sea – the shores of friendship in makhachkala (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017i), and the art symposium ceremonies and traditions in yelabuga (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017h). moreover, young turkmen musicians participated in a festival in astrakhan (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017j). in 2018, turkmen artists took part in a festival of art and design in cheboksary (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2018f) and an art symposium in yelabuga (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2018c), while turkmen composers participated in an all-russian composing contest with international participation (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2018d). in 2019, turkmen composers took part in the winter festival of art in sochi (press office of the ministry of culture changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 508–527 513 of the russian federation, 2019b). turkmen masters of applied and decorative art also participated in an international exhibition in makhachkala (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2019f) and turkmen cultural studies scholars visited as guests at a conference on decorative art in derbent (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2019e). russian artists and musicians are also sometimes invited to festivals, national holidays, and contests organized by turkmen cultural institutions. for example, in 2012, ethnic pop band argymak participated in a music festival in the turkmen city of avaza (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017l). in 2013, several russian pop bands and singers were invited to take part in a gala concert for the all-turkmen week of culture, which also coincided with the celebrations of president berdymuhammedov’s birthday (volkova, 2013). in 2019, russian pop stars participated in a concert at a caspian economic forum in avaza (prezident turkmenistana, 2019) and russian theatres were presented at an international theatrical festival in ashgabat (v turkmenskoy stolitse, 2019). in addition, every year ashgabat holds an international book fair in which russian authors and publishing houses are represented by the russian federal agency for press and mass communications (rospechat’) (erusalimsky, 2012; rossiyskie knigi, 2017). it should be noted, that in russia, even in “official” exchanges between state organizations, turkmen culture is often represented through the efforts of local enthusiasts interested in oriental art and art research. for example, the state museum of oriental art regularly organizes exhibitions and lectures dedicated to central asian art (including turkmen art) and to turkmen art in particular (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017e, 2017n, 2019a). besides events in moscow, some museums and cultural centers in russian regions also from time to time present exhibitions and cultural program dedicated to international friendship which sometimes include turkmen art and traditions. in recent years, such events took place in 2017 in the krylov museum in the city of tula (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017k), in an art gallery in the city of nefteyugansk (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017m), in a tula art gallery (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017o), in voronezh state regional museum of art (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017r), and in orenburg state regional museum of art (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017p). in 2018, turkmen culture – among others – was presented at an exhibition culture has no borders in the chuchkovo state library in the ryazan region (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2018b). in 2019, a young artist from turkmenistan, l. kulova, was invited to take part in a collective exhibition in tambov regional art gallery (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2019g). in 2014, the agency for archives of astrakhan region opened access to its online collection of archival documents on the cooperation between russia and other caspian states, including turkmenistan (otkryta virtual’naya, 2014). russian archaeologist natalia solovieva (tsinkler, 2020), who is also head a russian-turkmen archaeological expedition, https://changing-sp.com/ 514 ksenia g. muratshina and i. golubnichy (kustov, 2014b), who is the chief editor of the newspaper moscow writer, were awarded the turkmen national magtymguly medal for their studies and popularization of turkmen culture. one can explain the interest and enthusiasm of russian activists and spectators in turkmen culture by appealing to the common soviet past. in addition, we can see that turkmen culture and turkmen art are a matter of interest for russian experts in oriental studies. the traditions and continuity in russian school of oriental studies have always been consistent, since the times of the russian empire and soviet union. in a multinational and multicultural russian society, the interest to central asia is persistent, as well as the readiness to communicate with other cultures and study their cultural heritage. non-state organizations in cultural exchanges in addition to exchanges between state cultural institutions, there are several examples of non-state participation in russian-turkmen cultural cooperation. these typically include the initiatives of expatriate communities. in russia, there are some well-organized turkmen expatriate communities, mostly in large cities like moscow, st. petersburg, yekaterinburg, and others. they usually have websites or online communities in social networks, although the majority of the latter are closed to non-members. these sites report recent news of interest to the community. moreover, these turkmen communities also often include several cultural initiatives. for example, in 2010, the turkmen diaspora in ivanovo organized a concert for a local orphanage to celebrate the day of the turkmen flag (ivanovo house of nationalities, 2010). in 2012 (griboedova, 2012) and 2014 (zaharov, 2014), turkmen students organized presentations of turkmen cuisine in barnaul. in 2014, the association russian-turkmen house and the congress of turkmens of russia presented an exhibition of turkmen painting in the moscow house of nationalities (moscow house of nationalities, 2014) and turkmen students and diaspora members represented turkmen culture at a festival titled “friendship meridian” in st. petersburg (kustov, 2014a). in 2017, turkmen students from tula state university gave a lecture on turkmen traditions of the new year celebrations in the local veresaev museum (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2017s) and musicians from the turkmen community of tula region took part in a concert in the local philharmonic society (turkmenskaya diaspora primet uchastie, 2017). in 2018, the turkmen community of st. petersburg organized a photo exhibition titled turkmenistan – the heart of the silk road (fotovystavka o turkmenistane, 2018). in 2019, turkmen students from the association of foreign students of moscow state university organized a book exhibition also titled turkmenistan – the heart of the silk road in the library of the russian town of pokrov (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2019d) and in tula turkmen students gave more lectures on turkmen national traditions in the veresaev museum (press office of the ministry of culture of the russian federation, 2019c). in addition, in changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 508–527 515 2019 turkmen community members in st. petersburg in cooperation with the local house of nationalities organized an exhibition of turkmen paintings and decorative art (letopis’ 2019 goda, 2020) and the turkmen community of edelbai village in the stavropol region organized celebrations of the 295th anniversary of the famous turkmen poet magtymguly’s birth (turkmenskaya diaspora v stavropol’e, 2019). in february 2020, a turkmen student from dagestan state agrarian university – who is also a member of “interdruzhba association” (association of international friendship) – conducted a “lesson of friendship” dedicated to turkmenistan, in a school in the city of makhachkala (charyeva, 2020). in addition, every year turkmen communities in russian cities organize the celebrations of nowruz holiday, which are open to everyone (turkmenskaya diaspora moskvy, 2011; turkmenskaya diaspora chuvashii, 2019). russian expatriates in turkmenistan, turkmen diaspora in russia there is very little research and almost no mentions in either russian or turkmen media on russian expatriates in turkmenistan. the author of the present article is aware of two publications: the research by natalia o. matveytseva on the evolution of social and political status of russian expatriates in the cis countries (2007) and by the institute of cis country studies presenting a comparative analysis of the legal status of compatriots in post-soviet countries (2014). both these publications claim unsatisfactory conditions for russian expatriates in turkmenistan (matveytseva, 2007; zatulin et al., 2014). since the 1990s, the turkmen government has pursued a path of total “turkmenisation” (ivanov, 2019) that has resulted in numerous human rights violations (v gosdume rossii, 2020). moreover, given the adoption of state laws that have forced people with dual citizenship either to denounce their non-turkmen citizenship or to leave the country (iskhod. russkie begut, 2015), it is safe to conclude that there is no role for the russian diaspora in turkmenistan currently. thus, apart from the above-mentioned official exchanges, any other means of representation of russian culture in turkmenistan are hard to assess. since turkmenistan does not welcome field research in the social sciences and has highly regulated laws of internet, this study employed a poll of turkmen immigrants – mainly, students and labor migrants – to collect details on russian culture in turkmenistan. however, even this was challenging, as the numbers of turkmen immigrants are much less than those of other diasporas from tajikistan or uzbekistan. furthermore, turkmen migrants by-and-large prefer not to answer polls, probably fearing persecution upon their return to turkmenistan. the author of this article was, however, able to find 40 migrants from turkmenistan, currently living in russia. the author achieved this with the help of online communities in the social network vk3, the help of the moscow office of the non-commercial organization all-russian federation of migrants, and thanks to local turkmen diaspora in yekaterinburg. 3 vk (short for its original name vkontakte) is a russian online social media and social networking service. https://vk.com https://changing-sp.com/ https://vk.com 516 ksenia g. muratshina of these 40 contacts, only six agreed to answer. even this small batch of results were curious: i studied in “russian” school, but didn’t get in touch with cultural exchanges with russia. we only studied russian literature and culture at school. there are russians living in turkmenistan, although much fewer, than earlier. they preserve their traditions, celebrate christian orthodox holidays. what can be interesting in exchanges? i don’t know. maybe, some theatrical performances on the works of famous russian writers. it can help to visualize and feel russia. and now there are very few russian books in bookshops, while in 1990s there had been a lot (guzel, 32). i saw easter celebrations by russians. and i know about the russian tradition to go to banya [russian sauna]. at school we studied russian writers. i like reality shows on russian tv (jeyhun, 24). at school we studied russian language and russian literature. the books of russian writers are translated into the turkmen language, too. i like the fashion style of russian girls (mekan, 24). i studied at “russian” school. because of this, books in russian were accessible for me. but generally, the government is against spreading of books in other languages than turkmen. from russian culture, in turkmenistan russian literature and cuisine are popular. can the exchanges be developed? i doubt, because in our country the government is pushing forward turkmen culture, everything turkmen, starting with the control of clothes in national style (myakhri, 28). i studied at “russian” school. my image of russia was formed by my mother, she is from russia. i read leo tolstoy, dostoyevsky, gogol, pushkin. talking about cultural events – i have visited some now in russia. i want to study in russian university in future. from russian experience – holiday celebrations, cultural events in russia are worth borrowing (anonymous, 33). i studied at “russian” school; i speak russian well. in turkmenistan i had experience of visiting some cultural events, dedicated to russia. among russian writers and poets, i know pushkin, among movie stars – boyarsky, among musicians – kirkorov, pugacheva and basta. generally, acquaintance with russian culture helps to feel more comfortable here and understand each other with russians better (anonymous, 32). what implications can be drawn from these answers? first, the official cultural exchanges are not accessible for the majority of people in turkmenistan. otherwise, these turkmen citizens could have at least remembered changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 508–527 517 visiting, say, some concerts of “days of culture” or a film festival. this does not mean the absence of the exchanges per se, but rather indicates their poor accessibility for turkmen citizens not only in small cities but also in the capital. second, the turkmen government is consistently carrying out a policy of total “turkmenisation”. the promotion of national culture, national literature, national language, and national fashion would certainly seem natural, provided that this policy did not imply a strict limitation on the representation of other cultures, including those with which turkmenistan officially “develops cooperation and cultural exchanges”. third, the cultural practices of russian expatriates and “russian” schools seem to provide more contact with russian culture for turkmens on a regular basis than the official exchanges between state cultural institutions. thanks to becoming acquainted with russian expatriates’ practices and studying at “russian” schools, locals can form their own first image of russia and russian cultural heritage. even if they do not become regular visitors of official events related to russia, their acquaintance with russian culture can contribute to developing more open-minded and culturally receptive personalities. conclusion the study of the cultural exchanges between russia and turkmenistan demonstrates the following: there is an “official” exchange – between the state institutions of both countries – and there is an “informal”, or non-state exchange provided by people-to-people exchanges and the activity of expatriate communities. the former mechanisms prevail over the latter in terms of organizational structure and size. moreover, it can be assumed that the latter would be impossible without the approval of the state institutions that facilitate the former. therefore, we can talk about strong state control over the exchange in both countries. however, this state control should not only be regarded in a negative way. it also demonstrates the interest of governmental circles in the continuation of such exchanges. at the same time, state control of the exchanges provides the state with control over the information about them too, and this creates a problem for the study and evaluation of these exchanges. while in russia it is possible at least to locate and study the organizational (state and non-state) reports, as well as detailed descriptions and photos from the events, this is not possible in turkmenistan. there is no open information about the accessibility of the events for turkmen citizens, the number of visitors, or their reactions. furthermore, field research in turkmenistan is inaccessible due to the refusal of the turkmen state to accept visitors doing research, other than fixed participation in a conference, fixed artist tour, or fixed route for a group of tourists accompanied by turkmen guides. the dynamics of the bilateral cultural exchanges between russia and turkmenistan over the recent decade can be characterized as stable. the continuation of the exchanges, despite the closed status of the turkmen state and its “turkmenisation” policy, testify to the sturdiness of the cooperation between the two countries. despite its attempts, turkmenistan cannot close its cultural space https://changing-sp.com/ 518 ksenia g. muratshina completely. economic communication with russia continues thanks to largescale events like the caspian forum, cis summits, etc. and moreover, it also can be assumed that these highly controlled cultural exchanges with the outer world – including those with russia – can probably be used positively by the turkmen regime to avoid acquiring the image of a completely closed totalitarian country. thus, international music festivals and book fairs continue to be organized, and international cooperation is demonstrated to the world. and while these cultural ties do not change turkmenistan’s restrictive cultural policy toward its foreign partners, the impact is still political. the events organized still create an environment of contacts, which importantly exceed political or business negotiations. even limited as they are, the exchanges will probably contribute to russia’s image as a friendly state toward contemporary turkmenistan. the main factors that define the trends of bilateral cooperation are the positions of state organizations in charge of cultural exchanges, the closed status of turkmenistan, and the above-mentioned bilateral state control over exchanges. this state control can be considered the main defining feature of russia-turkmenistan cultural exchanges. the second defining feature is their asymmetry. turkmen culture in russia has much greater opportunity to be represented, than russian culture in turkmenistan. this has been accomplished by the well-organized cultural initiatives of the turkmen expatriate community in russia. and, crucially, russian state authorities are in favor of such pluralism of culture representations, as it corresponds to the purpose of inter-ethnic accord. this pluralism can be understood as deeply rooted in the history of the multi-national russian empire and multi-national soviet union. at the same time, turkmen national policy limits the self-expression of nonturkmen cultures to a minimum. this contradicts its image of “not-a-completelyclosed-state,” and this is a fundamental contradiction. the cultural exchanges from the turkmen side therefore have a dualistic nature: on the one hand, they exist and are organized. on the other hand, they are not accessible and sometimes not even known to exist for the majority of turkmens, especially those who live outside ashgabat and who are not in any way linked to political and cultural circles. this is also a certain asymmetry, but it is not due to the weakness of russian “soft power,” but the external circumstances which are defined by the turkmen regime and its sovereign national and cultural policy. probably, given the 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(2014). sravnitel’nyi analiz pravovogo polozheniia sootechestvennikov, prozhivaiushchikh v postsovetskikh stranakh [comparative analysis of the legal status of compatriots in post-soviet countries]. moscow: institute of diaspora and integration/institute of cis country studies. https://changing-sp.com/ http://turkmenistan.ru/ru/articles/35774.html https://sng.today/ashkhabad/4839-turkmenskaya-diaspora-primet-uchastie-v-festivale-nacionalnyh-kultur-v-tule.html https://sng.today/ashkhabad/4839-turkmenskaya-diaspora-primet-uchastie-v-festivale-nacionalnyh-kultur-v-tule.html https://www.hronikatm.com/2019/05/magtymguly-295/ https://www.hronikatm.com/2019/05/magtymguly-295/ https://www.russkiymir.ru/news/267558/ http://tdh.gov.tm/news/articles.aspx&article15361&cat16 http://tdh.gov.tm/news/articles.aspx&article15361&cat16 http://tdh.gov.tm/news/articles.aspx&article20528&cat16 https://www.russkiymir.ru/news/51629/ https://ezproxy.urfu.ru:2074/authid/detail.uri?authorid=55195751200&amp;eid=2-s2.0-85058652692 https://ezproxy.urfu.ru:2074/sourceid/21100208046?origin=recordpage https://ezproxy.urfu.ru:2074/sourceid/21100208046?origin=recordpage https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2018.1538663 https://www.russkiymir.ru/news/11303/ https://www.russkiymir.ru/news/11303/ 4_2017.indd changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.4.022 article human rights advocacy of baptist initiators tatyana nikolskaya saint petersburg christian university, russia abstract among soviet believers who spoke in defence of their rights, the baptist initiators stand out. they collected information about persecutions, provided prayer, moral, material support, human rights assistance to convicted co-religionists and their families and opposed state interference in the affairs of the church. in defending the rights of believers, they also appealed to international public opinion. women were extensively involved in this activity. in 1964, the council of relatives of prisoners was created, which issued a special “bulletin”. although activists within the movement were regularly subjected to repression, their activities objectively influenced the adjustment of soviet religious policy towards evangelical christian baptists. keywords evangelical christian-baptists, initiators, human rights activities, council of churches, council of relatives of prisoners introduction in contemporary russia, russian protestants (evangelical christians, baptists, pentecostals and seventh day adventists) are generally contented with their situation. during the time that has passed since 1991, an entire generation has grown up, who may not any more face persecution on account of their faith, but who are at the same time vaguely cognisant of soviet realities. it can be said that in their entire 150-year history, russian protestants have never enjoyed so much freedom or so many opportunities for the development of their churches and various associated activities – as well as for their personal prosperity. in order to resolve emerging legal issues, protestant organisations and large communities engage professional lawyers to deal with the protection of their clients’ interests. the present russian authorities do not impede the received 26 october 2017 © 2017 tatyana nikolskaya accepted 28 november 2017 niktk@spbcu.ru published online 27 december 2017 tatyana nikolskaya334 existence of unregistered religious groups or entire denominations – i. e. those who do not conform to state registration: among them, the international union of churches of evangelical christian baptists (iucecb) and the united church of evangelical christians (ucec). however, some recently developing circumstances have begun to cause concerns within the protestant community. following the adoption of the so-called “yarovoya law”, repeated cases have been established when protestants of different denominations are liable for violations of the missionary activity rules. on april 20, 2017, the supreme court of the russian federation took the decision to liquidate the administrative centre of jehovah’s witnesses in russia and all its local religious organisations, and to confiscate their property. the main accusation was “extremist activity”, although, in reality, the adherents of this organisation profess pacifist principles. thus, 175,000 russian citizens were deprived of the right to freely profess their faith, as well as to receive legal protection against increased attacks (persecution of jehovah’s witnesses in russia, 2017). the christian community showed mixed reactions to this event: some expressed satisfaction that the authorities had “banned heretics”; others interpreted this case as a dangerous precedent that could be used against other denominations. as for the media space, at least at the state level, the coverage of the “sectarian” theme has so far been rather cautious. for example, in 2015, news reports about the mass murders in the city of gyumri (armenia) and nizhny novgorod did not place special emphasis on the confession of the murderers, despite the fact that in the first case the guilty was the son of a pentecostal pastor, and, in the second, a parishioner of the seventh-day adventist church. at the same time, on russian television, tendentious programmes periodically appear, in which so-called “sectarians” are accused of fraud, political unreliability or even subversion (for example, the television programme “the conspiracy theory. espionage under the guise of religion”, shown on october 16, 2017 on the zvezda tv channel). in this context, attempting to address the historical experience of russian protestants becomes a highly relevant endeavour: what were the consequences of protection of their own and other believers’ rights; how did they perceive persecution and discrimination in the past by the state and society; how did this take place and with what results? when studying the history of the dissident movement in the ussr, the majority of attention has tended to be focused on political and national communities. the human rights movement associated with russian protestantism has been studied to a significantly lesser extent, despite it arguably being more significant in terms of the number of people involved and the degree of its influence. if the political dissidents were grouped mainly in closed circles of intellectuals in a number of large cities, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, both church members and their relatives, were involved in the human rights struggle of russian protestants (baptist initiators, adventist reformers, pentecostals), representing different social strata, nationalities, professions, level of education and places of residence. it can therefore be claimed changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 335 that protestants formed the only mass human rights movement in the ussr among the russian people. among soviet believers who spoke in defence of their rights, baptist initiators are especially prominent. in the 30 years from 1961 to 1991, they actively participated in human rights activities: collecting information about persecutions, providing prayer, moral, material and legal assistance to convicted co-religionists and their families, opposing state interference in church affairs and campaigning for the rights of believers – including the right of the parents to give their children religious education – to be respected. they sent delegations and letters with petitions to government bodies, party and state institutions and the mass media of the ussr, as well as to international actors. despite the existence of laws on freedom of conscience and the assertions of soviet propaganda that persecutions for religious faith were absent in the ussr, the real situation was rather different. a number of prohibitions restricted church activities. many religious communities lacked state registration, for which they were fined and persecuted, including the arrests of ministers and activists. officials of the council for religious affairs, which was responsible for regulating religious organisations, interfered in the internal life of churches. believers, especially so-called “sectarians” (i. e. non-russian orthodox), often experienced discrimination in educational and professional spheres, as well as ostracism and contempt in the wider society. in the late 1950’s, a large-scale anti-religious campaign was launched across the country. the beginning of the initiators movement dates back to august 1961. a group of evangelical christian baptist ministers, headed by gennady kryuchkov and alexei prokofiev, issued an encyclical letter, which announced the creation of the initiative group for the preparation and holding of the all-union extraordinary congress of evangelical christians-baptists (ecb). this “initiative group” has given its name to the “initiators’ movement” or “the initiators” – both terms are widespread in the literature and historiography. kryuchkov and prokofiev were concerned not so much by the intensification of persecution and the outbreak of the anti-religious campaign, as by (as they saw it) the excessive accommodation of the leadership of the all-union council of ecb (aucecb) towards state structures. the trigger for the establishing of the initiative group was the aucecb’s issue of some instructive documents, which significantly limited intra-church activities. in 1962, supporters of the initiative group finally withdrew from their subordination to the aucecb. as a result of this schism, the alternative church structure of evangelical christian baptists headed by the council of churches (cc) of the ecb was established in the ussr (nikolskaya, 2009, pp. 202–203). while in terms of doctrines the initiators were almost identical to their loyalist colleagues, nevertheless, they placed a special emphasis on the independence of the church and the state. without trying to change anything fundamentally in the soviet system, the initiators consistently, for many years, sought to influence the soviet government and local authorities to accurate execution of their own laws on freedom of conscience, as well as those international human rights provisions recognised by the ussr. tatyana nikolskaya336 the activities of the initiators were diverse: the creation of an independent church structure, the publication of christian literature and periodicals, the organisation of children’s sunday schools and youth summer camps, etc. due to the space limit, in this article we will consider only one area of their activity: the struggle for the rights of believers. causes of the phenomenon traditionally, evangelical christians and baptists were not interested themselves in political and civil activity; to this day, many consider politics to be a matter unworthy of a christian. even such an authoritative evangelical leader as ivan prokhanov, the chairman of the union of evangelical christians, in the beginning of xx century, did not find the support of his co-religionists in his attempt in 1906 to create a christian political party called “union of freedom, truth and peace” (history of evangelical christian baptists of russia, 2007, p. 71). the majority of believers remained apolitical and simply loyal to the state. they considered the main task for their churches to be the spread of the good news about christ to all people, regardless of their political views. in addition, one of the guiding principles of baptism is the separation of church and state, which believers tended to interpret as political neutrality. last, but not least, russian baptists had before them the example of the orthodox church, which following the 1917 revolution, paid a brutal price for their political support of the autocracy. what then happened in the 1960s to prompt a significant proportion of ecb to start to participate in activities, which used to be non-typical for them? firstly, they were influenced by the historical situation of the late 1950s and early 1960s: the khrushchev’s “thaw”; the weakening of totalitarian power; the de-stalinisation and partial democratisation of soviet society; the mass liberation of political prisoners; the emergence of glasnost and relative freedom of speech together with a wearing of the “iron curtain”, and improving relations with the countries of the capitalist world. secondly, believers, especially of the younger generation, possessed increased social self-awareness and were more inclined towards civic engagement. consequently, many baptists saw human rights activity in terms of an opportunity to change their plight. unwittingly, this process was partially facilitated by the appeals of soviet government propaganda for citizens to liberate themselves from the “legacy of stalinism” and return to “leninist norms”. many baptists understood this in terms of the non-intervention of the state in the internal affairs of religious societies. the alleged heyday of the 1920s, glorified in the era of the “thaw”, was associated with the relative religious freedom that the baptists had enjoyed under lenin. it is therefore no accident that initiators interpreted the oppression of believers as a “shameful legacy of the period of the personality cult (i. e. stalinism – t. n.), which holds sway over the minds of many responsible workers and entire institutions” and expressed the hope that “as democracy and freedom deepen, those restrictions, which are in the regulations and laws now, should also be removed” (memorandum of the organising committee, 1962, pp. 4–5). references to the struggle against the personality cult were also contained in other statements, for example, in a letter from changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 337 the rostov-on-don group of the ecb, which was received in 1962 by the secretariat of the presidium of the supreme soviet of the ussr: “moreover, we live at a time when in our country the personality cult, under which we had no right to write with the entreaty that is set forth in this statement, has outlived its usefulness.” (letter from the ecb group of the baptist church, 1962, p. 13) the actions of the initiators were also influenced by political dissidents. thirdly, the leaders of the movement were able to provide a spiritual (theological) justification for human rights activities. in short, their position can be expressed as follows: the intervention of an atheistic state in the internal affairs of believers and the “conciliatory” position of the aucecb ministers had led to a spiritual weakening of the church. therefore, a revival of the church was impossible without a struggle for its independence from the state, for the right to freely profess its faith, and to educate its children (religious education of one’s own children was illegal in soviet union). in “the first epistle of the initiative group to the church of god” from august 23, 1961, it was stated that “satan through the aucecb has brought the church into an emasculated and fragmented state”, and that “until the church cleanses itself and takes up a proper state in the eyes of the lord, the lord cannot bless us…” (kryuchkov, 2008, p. 34). this idea was repeated many times in church documents and sermons throughout the soviet period. for example, the statement of the organising committee (dated october 17, 1963, which was illegally distributed among delegates during the all-union meeting of the ecb church) read: it is not a secret that the main difficulties that the baptist church is currently experiencing are caused by its ministers’ infidelity to god, the infidelity, which has been expressed in the church’s illegal and criminal connection to the world. it is no secret that this connection is designed to incorporate the church into the world, leading to its decomposition and ultimate destruction. (kryuchkov, 2016, p. 424) finally, the “human factor” had a special role to play here: the active position, energy and personal authority of the leader of the movement – gennady kryuchkov, the long-term chairman of the cc ecb. from the very beginning, kryuchkov consistently made the case to his actual and potential supporters concerning the need for civil activity. for example, according to kryuchkov’s recollections, even his closest associate alexei prokofiev was embarrassed by the concepts and methods of action unfamiliar to baptists: “where do you get all this from: initiative group, organising committee, congress? where did you learn all this? for me, there is only the bible, and nothing else is needed.” i answer: “it is necessary to know the laws of the country and, in order to defend oneself against lawyer-liars, it is necessary to be no less than these lawyer-liars, it is necessary to know not only the word of god. […] we are living in a society, which has got its own laws.” (kryuchkov, 2011, p. 12) indeed, kryuchkov was well acquainted with soviet laws and civil rights, and insisted that other believers find out how to use legal knowledge. tatyana nikolskaya338 it seems that if the movement had been headed by another person, the history of the initiators could have developed differently, most likely following the pattern of so-called illegal pentecostals: they firmly held onto their faith (for which they were persecuted), but they did not try to defend their rights before the state (with the exception of attempts to leave the ussr). thus, human rights activity was not an ultimate goal for the initiators: it was rather a means to help solve internal church tasks. most of the participants of the movement were not opponents of the soviet system as such: apart from religious issues, they were loyal citizens of their country, more appropriately comparable with the communists of the “sixties” than with radical dissidents. at the same time, one cannot help noticing a certain evolution in the positions of the initiators: as events unfolded, one part of the believers being tired of persecution and satisfied with certain concessions made by the state, moved to more moderate positions, while the other part continued going in their anti-soviet sentiments (up to the extent of renouncing soviet citizenship). letters to state and party bodies in august 1961, the initiative group appealed to the leadership of the aucecb with a written proposal to convene an extraordinary church congress. having failed to find support there, on august 23, 1961, the leaders of the movement independently sent an appeal to the head of the government n. s. khrushchev with a request to allow the congress. the first documents and actions of the initiative group show that the leaders of the youth movement were not categorically inclined, but rather hoped to start a dialogue between the leadership of the auceb and state structures. the fact that they themselves offered to hold a church congress contradicted neither state laws, nor baptist principles (which were rather democratic), or the rules of the auecb. unlike the pentecostals, who founded the union of christians of evangelical faith at a secret meeting in kharkov and only then appealed to the authorities to register it, the initiative group insisted on holding precisely a lawful congress that was authorised by the government, which testifies to its desire to act strictly within the law, and indicates certain hopes of achieving concrete results in the context of the “thaw”. soon, at the call of the initiative group, in the communities of the ecb, a campaign began to send letters and addresses to the council for the affairs of religious cults, as well as other state bodies, including party and government leaders. all these letters and appeals contained a request to allow the convocation of a church congress. during the period from august 21 to december 30, 1961 alone, 272 letters (according to other sources, around 400) from russia, ukraine, belarus, moldova, and kazakhstan were received by the party and soviet authorities with requests to permit the congress; the number of signatures in each letter ranged from 1 to 113. in 1962, the flood of letters receded sharply, but resumed in the autumn of 1963, when the council for the affairs of religious cults received 173 petitions about the congress. for the first time in many years, faced by the mass civil activity of believers, the authorities became alarmed. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 339 at the end of november 1961, the regional commissioners received the following instruction: “the council for the affairs of religious cults recommends that you take appropriate measures to prevent the illegal activities of the so-called ‘initiative group’… on the territory [you are responsible for] …” (nikolskaya, 2009, p. 203, 206). people who had signed letters were warned, threatened and summoned for interviews with the authorities. however, the believers continued to insist their demand be met. it is likely that these events influenced the decision of the authorities, who in 1963 allowed the convening of all-union conference-congress of the ecb church – an assembly that had not taken place since 1944. in 1966, another congress took place (history of ecb of russia, 2007, pp. 165, 167–168). both of them were held under the supervision of the aucecb, which prompted the initiators to refuse to recognise their outcome and persevere to achieve the convocation of “their own” congress. another line of activity taken by the initiators was the writing of requests for the protection of individual co-religionists (whether arrested or subjected to discrimination) and (in cases of dispersal of assemblies, closing, confiscation of prayer houses, etc.) entire communities. according to the official data, in the period from 1961 to 1964 alone, 806 people were convicted of religious activities for different periods and more than 400 people were deported for “parasitism” in accordance with the decree of may 4, 1961 (nikolskaya, 2009, p. 217). as for evangelical baptist christians, on february 23, 1964 (the date of the founding of the council of relatives of prisoners), there were 141 convicts in the ussr, age ranged between 23 and 76 years (history of evangelical christian baptists of russia, 2007, p. 167). in 1964, the believers were shocked when the arrested baptist nikolay khmara died in prison as a result of beatings during interrogation (this fact was later recognised at a meeting of the supreme court of the ussr on october 12, 1964) (nikolskaya, 2009, p. 217). within one and a half month after khmara’s death, the council of relatives of prisoners (crp) of the ecb was established. over time, a system of collecting signatures to support appeals and petitions was established in the communities of the cc ecb. the council of relatives of prisoners carried out thoroughgoing campaigns both in defence of convicted ministers as well as with regard to parents who had been deprived of their children. often, members of the community, when faced harassment, wrote petitions independently (the latter, however, included not only the initiators, but also members of the communities of the aucecb). for example, the leningrad community of the cc ecb was meeting in the house of protsenko in the village of kuzmolovsky in the leningrad oblast. following the decision of the vsevolozhsk people’s court of april 4,1984, the house was confiscated (the head of the family, vladimir protsenko, was at that time in custody), church members sent a petition addressed to the secretary general of the communist party of soviet union (cpsu) central committee, l. i. brezhnev and to the ussr prosecutor general. 81 persons signed the letter (bulletin crp, 1984, pp. 52–54). in an era when a simple signature under the letter was an act of civic courage, many thousands of believers of the ecb participated in the intercessory campaigns. however, there were cases when people later repudiated their signatures or exculpated tatyana nikolskaya340 themselves in terms of their incompetence. for example, in december 1967, members of the cc ecb communities in tula and novomoskovsk sent a collective letter (190 signatures) to government agencies, in which they described circumstances concerning the bullying of children of believers in schools. however, in the report of the plenipotentiary a. i. krapivina in 1968, it is detailed that some of the baptists repudiated their signatures, while others, according to the authorities, gave unconvincing explanations. as a result, the letter was found to be slanderous, although it is more appropriate to assume that some of the signatories subsequently “wavered” in fear for themselves or their children (bartov, 2017, pp. 130–131). although the initiators did not succeed in all cases, their petitions attracted the attention of the authorities to the problems of the rights of believers, encouraging them to understand these problems, or at least to provide explanations for the authorities’ actions. delegations to the leaders of the cpsu and the government it was not only through written petitions that baptists initiators tried to defend their rights. from time to time, entire delegations made their way to moscow seeking meetings with the party and the government officials. for example, in august 1965, 105 believers of ecb from different parts of the ussr arrived in moscow to ask for a meeting with anastas mikoyan, then chairman of the presidium of the supreme soviet of the ussr. a few days later, he agreed to accept the five representatives of the delegation, which took place in september 1965 (albeit without achieving any significant results) (kryuchkov, 2008, p. 239). the climax of the initiators’ public acts was their massive delegation on may 16–17, 1966. in april 1966, at a meeting in kiev, the ministers of cc ecb decided to appeal to the government of the ussr with a petition in defence of the rights of believers; for that, a delegation of representatives of communities from different regions of the country was to be sent to moscow. those wishing to join the action were to come to moscow in the morning on may 16, 1966, and, at a prearranged time, to approach the entrance of the central committee of the cpsu on staraya square (kujawski, 2014, p. 332). the petition contained certain requests: to allow the convocation of a church congress, to stop the persecution and interference of the state in the affairs of the church, to recognise the cc ecb and to permit the exercise of the right to religious education of the children (zavatski, 1995, p. 281). however, kgb units had evidently already got wind of the upcoming action. some of the believers, when trying to take a leave at their jobs for these days, were refused. many others, being already on their way to moscow, were removed from trains by the militia or detained at airports (kujawski, 2014, p. 333). nevertheless, on the appointed day, according to various sources, 400–600 evangelical christian baptists from different cities and regions of the ussr came to moscow (nikolskaya, 2009, p. 232, 234): for example, from the kiev community – 13 people (bogdanova, 2014, p. 53); from leningrad and pskov – 5 (kuyavsky, 2014, p. 333); from the gorky region – 7 (yudintseva, 2014, pp. 12–13), and so on. in referring to the figure of 430 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 341 people, the initiators themselves cite the opinion of the employees of the general prosecutor’s office that if everyone were to get to moscow, the number of delegates would reach more than 1500 people (kryuchkov, 2008, p. 238). evgeniy kujavsky, a minister of the cc ecb community in leningrad wrote: on the eve, brother mikhail khorev came to leningrad to visit us. all our fellow servants and zealots of the work of god gathered together. brother mikhail said that it is necessary to go to such a thing voluntarily, since it is not known how this can all end. five people agreed to go: vasily baluev, alexander dementyevich zavyalov, sister lida semenova, a deacon-elder from pskov and me. (kujawski, 2014, p. 333) upon arriving in moscow, participants of the delegation then met in the ilyinsky park near staraya square, where the building of the central committee of the cpsu was located. here they dispersed at random: some walking around the square, others sitting on benches, etc. exactly 10 minutes before the start of the action, all participants simultaneously moved to the entrance of the central committee to get there exactly at 9 o’clock (according to kujawski, 10:00). for 2–3 minutes a crowd almost 100 metres long and with a density of 4–5 people was formed at the entrance. when the attendant came out of the door, one of the members of the clergy loudly read out the statement, which was then handed over for transmission to the politburo of the cpsu central committee. after some time, the military security officer proposed that the participants go to a small side street near staraya square, where the reception and information department of the central committee was located (kujawski, 2014, pp. 333–334). the believers followed to this small side street, where they spent the whole day waiting and fasting, and every two hours they pray together on their knees. following attempts to persuade them to disperse, the authorities then tried to chase them away with the help of a water sprinkler (kujawski, 2014, p. 334). according to the memoirs of the delegation galina yudintseva, the believers spent the night right there in the alley: “they spread out newspapers on the asphalt and those who could sleep, slept right there.” (yudintseva, 2014, p. 13) the next day, many participants of the delegation fasted again; again, every two hours, they held a prayer. their anticipation was prolonged. according to the memoirs of e. n. kujawski, … the authorities could expect that if they kill the clock, some of us would start leaving the place, and that only a small group would stay for negotiations; that group would then be subjected to beatings (as it had already occurred twice) and then either forcibly sent home or put to the trial. however, not only our number did not reduced; on the contrary, a forty more people joined us. (kujawski, 2014, pp. 334–335) when, despite entreaties and warnings, the delegates moved to the entrance of the central committee of the cpsu at nikitsky pereulok, some buses drove up tatyana nikolskaya342 to the location of the action. militia officers then seized the participants and herded them onto the buses. a. i. zudin, one of the militia officer, was later testifying at the court against g. k. kryuchkov and g. p. vince: they prayed on their knees as well as standing up. it was rather unpleasant to watch such a huge mass of people kneeling down. they spent the whole night at the building of the central committee of the cpsu. the following day their number increased up to about 500 people. […] semichastny [the chairman of the kgb] told them that if they do not leave, he would be forced to put things in order. the buses were provided. […] we put them into the buses by force, as they were singing. (nikolskaya, 2009, p. 234) according to vasily ryzhuk, a minister, the delegates were taken by bus first to a racecourse, and then, in the evening, to the lefortovo prison for filtration (ryzhuk, 2012, pp. 49–50). some of the detainees were sentenced to 10–15 days in prison; many others were given fines to pay and other administrative penalties (kryuchkov, 2008, p. 239). for example, with the exception of vera shuportyak, who became the subject of criminal proceedings, the kiev delegates were escorted by militia officers back to their homeland after 15 days accompanied by the police (bogdanova, 2014, p. 53). on may 19, 1966, s. c. george vince and mikhail khorev (cc ecb ministers) came to learn about the fate of detained delegates; they both were arrested in the reception room of the central committee of the cpsu. on may 30, 1966, gennady kryuchkov, the chairman of the cc, was arrested in a moscow apartment (bratskiy listok, 1966, no. 6). not all participants of the delegation were ready for such an outcome. for example, g. yudintseva recalled: “my friend […] was in a cell with a sister from sumgait. this sister lamented: ‘there is no oil here, and they will not provide sausages …’ apparently, going to moscow, she did not anticipate the worst.” (yudintseva, 2014, p. 13) during the summer alone, about 10 trials of ecb were held in moscow (bratskiy listok, 1966, no. 8). the arrests continued over the following months. in september 1966, church union members n. g. baturin and p. a. yakimenkov, who had been in the delegation, were sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment (bratskiy listok, 1966, no. 10). november 29–30, 1966, moscow trial of g. k. kryuchkov and g. p. vince, who, among other things, were accused of “organising a demonstration” (both received 3 years of imprisonment) (nikolskaya, 2009, pp. 234–235). m. i. khorev was sentenced to 2.5 years (khorev family, 2012). the delegation of ecb (cu) on may 16–17, 1966 became the largest civil protest action of the “stagnation” era. information about this event immediately became of international significance. within both the ussr and elsewhere, the initiators began to be talked about in terms of a numerous, well-organised, purposeful and selfless religious “opposition movement”. later, some of the young participants of this action joined the ranks of clandestine ministers: for example, the evangelist joseph bondarenko (later one of the leaders of the movement of the autonomous churches of the ebc), the workers of the underground publishing house “christianin” svetlana beletskaya, changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 343 galina yudintseva, and others. young people in the cc communities were brought up to admire the example of the boldness and self-sacrifice of delegates. at the same time, the mass arrests represented a serious blow to the movement. such large-scale actions on the part of initiators were not to be repeated. appeal to international public opinion in terms of a distinct form of human rights activity, special mention should go to the appeal to international public opinion. soviet baptists took an ambivalent attitude towards the states of the capitalist world. on the one hand, despite their propensity for isolationism, they were people of soviet upbringing and consciousness who did not want to go against their homeland – especially under the conditions of a “cold war” that could easily become a “hot” one. the memory of the suffering and numerous victims of the great patriotic war (1941–1945) was still fresh in their minds. these simple soviet people sought peace and were genuinely perplexed when the initiatives of the soviet government met the mistrust or hostility of other countries. anti-soviet propaganda, which was conducted from abroad with the help of radio and imported literature, was also perceived by many people as untrustworthy. on the other hand, it was no secret to the soviet people that the standard of living and the degree of freedom in the western countries was much higher than in the ussr. protestants knew this, perhaps, better than others did. during the 1960s – 1980s foreign guests often appeared in the prayer houses of significant protestant communities in the large cities – whether famous people like the american pianist van cliburn, a baptist, or various unknown tourists. fashionably dressed, self-assured and contented with their lives, they showed better than any propaganda that the life of a christian needs not consist solely of tears and suffering. the contradictory attitude of believers to their state was expressed by herman gortfeld, a baptist from the city of frunze (in kirghiz ssr), who wrote in a letter to l. i. brezhnev with a request of emigration (dated december 21, 1973): “i do not have any bitterness about the domestic policy of our state, there is no bitterness towards the authorities, but i’m tired of shuddering every time i see a militiaman or a kgb officer.” (bulletin crp, 1973, p. 28) in the late soviet period, many believers sought understanding, sympathy and help outside the soviet world. more often, it was expressed in apolitical forms – communication with foreign co-religionists, receiving religious literature from abroad, etc. however, some believers also began to look elsewhere for sources of legal protection. for example, following his arrest in moscow, andrei amalrik (a dissident writer) saw in the militia station “an old woman dressed in black – a sectarian from tambov, detained near the embassy of sierra leone, which she wanted to enter to pass on letters about the persecution of believers… the sierra leoneans would certainly have been surprised to see her if she had managed to get there.” (amalric, 1991, p. 378) the initiators were certainly not so naive. they established regular contacts with foreign coreligionists and christian missions (for example, the “slavic mission” in sweden), through which information of a human rights was agilely transmitted tatyana nikolskaya344 abroad. those convicted of religious activities aroused widespread sympathy in the west on the one hand, as innocent victims of the soviet regime, on the other, as willing or reluctant opponents of this regime. many foreigners who visited the ussr or worked there tried to find out about the fate of these prisoners. for example, on the april 6, 1980 in leningrad, the us consul general buchanan and his wife came to the registered evangelical christian-baptist church for the morning easter service. in a short conversation with the church ministers, he enquired about “the recent arrest in leningrad of some prominent baptist preacher, whose name he did not mention. the consul general tried to find out from the interlocutors whether this was indeed the case and who exactly was arrested.” (zharinov, 1980) it seems the american diplomat was referring to m. v. khorev, a cc ecb minister, who was in hiding and had actually been arrested in leningrad on january 27, 1980, shortly before the events described (khorev family, 2012). following the creation of the council of relatives of prisoners, information on the persecution of ecb believers in the ussr was regularly transmitted abroad. particularly resonant was the story of the death under suspicious circumstances of ivan moiseyev (a member of the unregistered community of the european baptist church), a soldier who was serving in the soviet army. according to the official version, the young man drowned while swimming in the black sea near kerch. however, his relatives and coreligionists residing in volintiri in the moldavian socialist soviet republic claimed that when the zinc-lined coffin was opened, abrasions and burns were found on the head and body of the deceased. already on august 1, 1972, two weeks following the death of the young man, un secretary general kurt waldheim sent a statement on behalf of the moiseyev family to the soviet defense minister andrei grechko, the secretary general of the cpsu central committee leonid brezhnev and other authorities: “… by the conviction of faith in god, our son and brother moiseyev ivan vasilievich died of terrible martyrly torture …” the moiseyev’s demanded the appointment of a medical expert commission to find out the circumstances of ivan’s death, as well as for the “criminals who tortured him to be found and brought to justice.” (bulletin of the crp, 1972, pp. 6–9) the limits of this article do not allow going into this ambiguous story in detail; however, it is significant that the believers directly addressed not only the leaders of their own state, but also the un. however, although the story of moiseyev received a broad international response, in the end this did not help to shed any light on the circumstances of his death. to what extent were the efforts of believers to communicate internationally effective? in fact, the development of international contacts combined with the signing of a number of international human rights treaties forced the soviet government to pay more attention to public opinion in other countries. georgy vince, giving an interview following his arrival in the us, said “whenever there was any campaign seeking to offer us support in the west, our treatment by the prison guards and administration changed for the better. in the absence of such support, the conditions of detention immediately deteriorated.” (zavatski, 1995, p. 487) baptist prisoners also received moral encouragement from knowing that they had changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 345 not been abandoned, that thousands of people in the world were praying for them, participating in campaigns for their release and providing all possible assistance to their families. there are known cases when evangelical christian-baptist prisoners received early release: for example, a. m. vatulko, a. p. pilipenko and e. n. barin, released early in the beginning of 1978 (bulletin crp, 1978, p. 19); though it is not clear whether the influence of domestic and foreign human rights defenders was the cause here, or whether there might have been other reasons for mitigating the fate of prisoners (for example, their good behaviour). but, of course, the international prominence of george vince, the secretary of cc ecb, was a contributing factor in his eventual fate. in april 1979, instead of five years after exile, he was deprived of soviet citizenship by a decision of the presidium of the supreme soviet of the ussr and expelled from the ussr. vince’s family were also given permission to leave along with him. according to the memoirs of his daughter natalia, the deportation occurred as part of the exchange of five soviet dissidents for two soviet spies detained in the united states (vince, 2000, pp. 164–165, 169). according to his recollections, the minister himself interpreted this decision as “blatant lawlessness” and only left his native country reluctantly (vince, 1994, p. 250). soviet political dissidents (in particular a. d. sakharov) were also involved in the defence of baptist initiators. for example, on november 13, 1970, after a hunger strike had been declared by n. b. vladykin, the presbyter of an unregistered community of ecb in tula, a telegram was received by l. n. dagayev, the chairman of the tula city executive committee: concerned about the hunger strike of the baptist vladykin held in protest against the actions of local authorities to confiscate his house allegedly in connection with the religious meetings held there. i hope that the violations of vladykin’s rights may be redressed. his life is in danger. sakharov, academician, threetimes hero of socialist labour. (nikolskaya, 2009, p. 281) information about the initiators regularly appeared in the samizdat journal “chronicle of current events.” initially, it was handed over by boris zdorovets, but later, some of the initiators established contacts with political dissidents, for example, peter vince (zavatski, 1995, p. 486). at the same time, under the conditions of the cold war, the theme of freedom of conscience in the ussr perforce assumed a political character, and, in order to compromise the soviet regime, sometimes unverified rumours, exaggeration or falsification were employed. for example, the protestant pastor, the leader of the organisation “jesus christ to help the communist world,” richard wurmbrandt became the hero of the scandal, publishing a photograph of dutch or german kids dressed in striped dressing gowns after a swimming pool, claiming they were young soviet prisoners for faith (zavatski, 1995, p. 484). soviet propaganda eagerly seized on this story, disclosed by foreign journalists, with the goal of discrediting not only wurmbrandt, but also all foreign defenders of soviet christians (for example, see: tatyana nikolskaya346 vistunov, tyutryumov, 1980, p. 93). such cases genuinely increased the distrust of many soviet believers towards foreign organisations and the media. participation of women in human rights activities women were also extensively involved in the cc activity of promoting human rights. they collected and placed signatures under petitions, prayed for prisoners, helped their families financially and emotionally… the wives and mothers of convicted ministers had a particular role to play in this respect. according to soviet legislation, only close relatives had the right to find out the fate of the arrested person, to represent his/her interests and to solicit for mitigation. within the initiator movement, women also had to be concerned about arrested husbands, sons, etc. yet in 1964, a new structure appeared, an unusual one for russian protestants: the council of relatives of prisoners (crp). the date of the formation of the crp is considered to be february 23, 1964, when lydia govorun, nina yastrebova and lyubov rudneva met to organise petitions for persecuted co-religionists (kryuchkov, 2008, p. 454). the crp set the following tasks: to collect all available information about persecution, to transfer this information to international institutions, to create petitions to the authorities to stop persecutions, and to organise assistance to the families of the prisoners (belyakova & dobson, 2015, pp. 351–352). at first, the council of relatives of prisoners was led by lydia govorun from smolensk, who in 1963 was deprived of parental rights with respect to her 9-year-old son seryozha. the mother had no choice but to assert her rights regarding her child. after the believers went public with this story, the verdict of the court was declared to have been “in error”. according to deputy prosecutor b. kravtsov, govorun was guilty solely of leading the boy to worship and “as a mother, she is innocent of wrongdoing” (nikolskaya, 2009, p. 197). in 1966, l. k. govorun was arrested and sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment (kryuchkov, 2008, p. 459). then, for a long time, the crp was led by lydia vince, the mother of the twice-convicted george vince, the secretary of the cc. when, in 1970, she was also sentenced to 3 years, the crp was briefly led by galina rytikova (zavatsky, 1995, p. 283). after the departure of lydia vince to the us, together with her exiled son, she was replaced by alexander kozorezov (“affirm, o god, what you did for us!”, 1989, p. 9). since 1970, in addition to regular lists of prisoners distributed among the believers, the illegal “bulletin of the ecb council of relatives of prisoners” was regularly published. this samizdat publication presented information about all cases of persecution known to the crp (arrests, searches, dispersals of prayer meetings, harassment of children, etc.), as well as the texts of petitions and any responses to them (typically negative). it remains a mystery how these women, mostly burdened by families, managed to travel so actively around the country, to study a lot of complicated cases, to write and send letters of intercession, and above of all these, to prepare the forthcoming issue of the “bulletin” under the conditions of its legal proscription. not all believers approved of this activity, considering the primary task of a married woman to be the changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 347 upbringing of their own children, and not the public activity. in addition to l. govorun and l. vince, eight other participants in the ministry’s service were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment (kryuchkov, 2008, p. 463). nevertheless, the crp continued to operate right up to the time of perestroika. for believers, it became a kind of authority, to which one could turn for help. according to the memoirs of nikolay boyko, the cc minister, in 1968, following his arrest, the authorities attempted to take away the children from his family. then his wife valentina “went to the council of relatives of prisoners and sent a telegram to brezhnev about all the lawlessness committed against the small children, also reporting this to the whole church. after the petitions, the persecution of the children stopped.” (boyko, 2007, pp. 65–66) bot only family women, i. e. the wives or mothers of convicted ministers, engaged in human rights activities. for example, one of active human rights defenders was aida skripnikova, a believer from the leningrad community of the cc ecb. born in 1941 to a christian family, she came to leningrad from the urals as a young girl, and subsequently went to work for a building trust (serdobolskaya & vistunov, 1976, p. 118). in 1961, skripnikova joined the movement of baptist initiators in leningrad, participating in the writing and dissemination of religious and human rights materials; she was summoned to the public court with a group of other girls for the distribution of evangelistic leaflets (nikolskaya, 2009, pp. 207– 208). her poems and polemical articles, actively disseminated via samizdat, were also transmitted abroad. in 1968, aida skripnikova was arrested and sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment for the systematic distribution of materials from the cc ecb, containing “knowingly false fabrications defaming the soviet state and social system” (belyakova & dobson, 2015, p. 186). despite remaining an ordinary member of the church, skripnikova acquired almost higher prominence abroad than male ministers. she became the subject of many books, articles and radio programmes, with thousands of believers around the world praying for her and standing up in her defence. in this case, the personal disinterestedness of a. m. skripnikova in terms of copyright to her work is illustrated by the fact that n. belyakov and m. dobson, the authors of the work “women in the evangelical communities of post-war ussr” published her works with the permission of radio “svoboda” / radio “svobodnaja europa” (which were storing the materials in samizdat form) and not that of the writer herself or her relatives. evidently, aida skripnikova not only possessed courage and sincere faith, she also was a very gifted author, although she had no opportunities – and, probably, no desire – to develop her talent purposefully. in the ussr, there was a system of literary associations (lito) for novice authors, through which virtually all future writers had passed. however, the desire for a professional and creative career was not welcomed in the protestant milieu during the soviet era. in addition, if a baptist girl had brought her verses about god to lito, she would at best have received advice to “change the subject”; at worst, exposed to ridicule, mockery, or even being reported to kgb. we can say that skripnikova nevertheless realised her literary gift (including in the area of human rights activities). tatyana nikolskaya348 as it was mentioned above, the council of relatives of prisoners operated up until the time of perestroika. in september 1987, it was reorganised into the department of intercession of the cc ecb (kryuchkov, 2008, p. 463). the department continues to operate up to this day, making public some cases of violations of the rights of coreligionists, mainly in the countries of the former ussr. attitude of ecb to human rights activities paradoxically, while the initiators’ protection of the rights of believers brought them international fame and even succeeded in encouraging the omnipotence soviet power to make some concessions, this very human rights activity turned out to be most vulnerable to criticism from within their own baptist community. their appeal to the authorities, especially to foreign entities, met the most persistent criticism and rejection. kryuchkov wrote in his memoirs: “they say that if there were no activities of the initiators group, there would be no persecutions” (kryuchkov, 2011, p. 8) – an opinion, he probably heard on many occasions. y. f. kuksenko, a prominent minister, who later withdrew from the movement, believed that the may 1966 delegation was not only useless, but actually intensified the arrests; its numerical strength did not contribute to the organisation of negotiations, but rather appeared as an annoying challenge and “demonstration of power” to the authorities (kuksenko, 2005, pp. 133–134). in addition to a natural fear that this would only complicate their situation, believers sustained a persistent unwillingness to engage in politics. even the members of the cc communities were embarrassed to turn for help to the authorities and not to god. in their materials, the initiators underlined their avoidance of using “political” concepts like “demonstration”, “protest”, “human rights”, etc. human rights activities were even more negatively perceived by loyal baptists. for example, sergey fadyukhin, the aucecb minister, recalled that in 1966, in an interview with george vince, he among the errors of the council of churches he listed the following: “in your messages and leaflets you criticise not only the actions of the aucecb, but also the actions of the government and authorities. […] and the greatest mistake, which is very difficult to make up for, is that you asked for help abroad.” according to fadyukhin, vince replied that “we did not want and do not want to receive approval or reprimand from abroad. […] but there are unreasonable people among us …” (almanac on the history of russian baptism, 2004, pp. 257–258). the actions of the authorities against the initiators sometimes affected loyal baptists. for example, in 1976, following the appearance of an article about g. p. vince in “the literary gazette”, the authorities of the novgorod region decided to “deal with” the unregistered community of the ecb in the settlement of parfino, which was incidentally on the side of aucecb. r. v. nikolaeva, a community member complained in a letter to l. i. brezhnev: “representatives from the region began to come to us; i was summoned to the headquarters two times. these visitors from the region came to our workplaces and gave talks; we were held changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 349 up in front of all our colleagues as people who represented a threat to society…” (nikolskaya, 2009, p. 271). finally, soviet propagandists skilfully used the genuine or imaginary international links of the initiators in order to compromise them. according to the memoirs of nikolay boyko, the cc minister, in 1968, following his arrest in voznesensk (mykolayiv oblast, ukraine), rumours of his alleged anti-soviet ties with the united states were circulating in the city. during the trial, local residents tried to get into the hall to look at the “material evidence”: “concerning the weapon, the store of which was allegedly found in my house; the radio, via which i supposedly communicated with america”. learning that this evidence did not exist, the residents were outraged by the deception, with some even expressing sympathy for boyko (boyko, 2007, p. 69–70). but many soviet people considered not only “subversive” activities, but also any appeal to foreign entities to be criminal. conclusion it can be concluded that the human rights activities of baptist initiators had mixed consequences. on the one hand, their speeches and petitions with references to soviet laws combined with international publicity objectively influenced the adjustment of soviet religious policy. in the second half of the 1960s, the process of registering ecb communities intensified; the authorities even introduced a system of autonomous registration for communities who were ready to comply with legislation on cults, but did not want to join the auecb. in a number of cases, baptists managed to get children returned to their parents, to mitigate the fate of convicted ministers, and so on. however, the human rights activities of the initiators led not only to concessions by the authorities, but also to persecution, new arrests and trials. the persecution of baptist initiators in various forms continued up until perestroika. only then did the position of believers in the ussr change dramatically. the last cc ecb prisoners were released in late 1988 (consoled by common faith, 1990, p. 23). the contemporary successor of the council of the churches is the international union of churches (iuc) ecb, which was given this name in 2001 at the congress in tula (“the lord … visited his people and created deliverance to him”, 2001, p. 5). nowadays the initiators pay special attention to the study of their history, constantly publishing new documentary materials, memoirs and research. for this purpose, a special historical and analytical department was established at the iuc ecb. according to the official concept, the positive changes in the country were brought about by the human rights activities of the initiators (“intercession ministry”), combined with their faithfulness to god: the open speech of the initiative group’s ministers in defence of the violated rights of believers broke the 30-year silence of the church. their fearless call to action marked a new milestone in the history of the brotherhood – the revival of the intercession of the whole church! […] like a fertile stream, the numerous petitions of the initiative group, the organising committee, churches, groups tatyana nikolskaya350 and individual believers of the brotherhood, stirred and revived the once-silent camp […] everything that the brotherhood requested in petitions with prayer and fasting according to the will of god – was realised … (intercession – the spiritual heritage of the awakened church, 2009) however, now, the international church union of the ecb is perhaps the “quietest” protestant denomination in russia, standing away from any public activity. meanwhile, protestants of other denominations perceive the human rights experience of the initiators rather as heroism (or delusion) of the recent past, and not as a practical example to be followed. references al’manakh po istorii russkogo baptizma (2004). [al’manakh on the history of russian baptism]. st. petersburg: the bible for all. amalrik, a. (1991). zapiski dissidenta [notes of a dissident]. moscow: joint venture “slovo”. bartov, v. p. (2017). evangel’skie khristiane-baptisty v tul’skoi oblasti: povsednevnaia zhizn’ veruiushchie [evangelical christian baptists in the tula region: everyday life of believers (1945–1991)]. manuscript (in preparation for publication). belyakova, n. a., & dobson, m. (2015). zhenshchiny v evangel’skikh obshchinakh poslevoennogo sssr. 1940–1980-e gg. issledovanie i  istochniki [women in evangelical communities of the post-war ussr. 1940s–1980s. research and sources]. moscow: indrik. biulleten’ sru (1972). [bulletin of the crp]. 9, 6–9. biulleten’ sru (1973). [bulletin of the crp]. 13, 27–28. biulleten’ sru (1978). [bulletin of the crp]. 51, 19. biulleten’ sru (1984). [bulletin of the crp]. 121, 52–55. bogdanova, l. (2014). radostnoe poprishche [the joyous field]. publisher is not indicated. boyko, n. e. (2007). veriu v bessmertie [i believe in life eternal]. publishing house “the christian” msc ecb. bratskii listok (1966). [brotherly pamphlet]. 6. “gospod’… posetil narod svoi i sotvoril izbavlenie emu” (2001). [“the lord … visited his people and created deliverance to him”]. herald of truth, 4, 2–5. goneniia na svidetelei iegovy v rossii. spetsial’nyi otchet (2017). [persecution of jehovah’s witnesses in russia. special report. retrived from: https://www.jwrussia.org/sites/default/files/global_additional/17–06–19_special_report_rus.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 351 khorev, m. (2012). stranitsy zhizni [pages of life]. herald of truth, 4, 3–43. kryuchkov, g. (2008). velikoe probuzhdenie xx veka [the great awakening of the 20th century]. publishing house “the christian” msc ecb. kryuchkov, g. k. (2011). pobeda ot gospoda! [victory from the lord!]. publisher is not indicated. kryuchkov, g. k. (2016). ot smerti v zhizn’ [from death to life]. publisher is not indicated. kuksenko, y. f. (2005). nashi besedy [our conversations]. publishing house “title”, germany. kujawski, e. (2014). ostat’sia vernym [remain faithful]. saint peterburg. publisher is not indicated. nikolskaya, t. k. (2009). russkii protestantizm i gosudarstvennaia vlast’ v 1905– 1991 godakh [russian protestantism and state power 1905–1991]. st. petersburg: publishing house of the european university. pamiatnaia zapiska orgkomiteta (1962) [memorandum of the organising committee]. state archives of the russian federation (garf). f.-6991, op. 4, d. 133, l. 4–5. pis’mo gruppy ekhb g. rostova-na-donu (1962). [letter from the rostov-ondon ecb group]. state archives of the russian federation (garf). f.r.-4173, op. 5, d. 140, l. 13. ryzhuk, v. f. (2012). ispytanie very [test of faith]. publishing house “the christian” msc ecb. sem’ia khorevykh. stranitsy zhizni m. i. khoreva. 1931–2012 (2012). [family of the khorev’s. pages in the life of m. i. khorev. 1931–2012]. slide show. serdobolskaya, l., & vistunov, e. (1976). pod prikrytiem evangeliia [under the cover of the gospel]. leningrad: lenizdat. uteshilis’ obshchei veroi (1990). [consoled by common faith]. herald of truth, 3, 23–26. “utverdi, bozhe, to, chto ty sodelal dlia nas!” (1989). [“assert, o god, that which you have done for us!”]. herald of truth, 4, 2–11. vince, g. p. (1994). evangelie v uzakh [the gospel in bonds]. kiev: ipp “compass”. vince, n. (2000). the frontiers of childhood. publisher is not indicated. vistunov, e., & tyutryumov, m. (1980). litsa bez masok [faces without masks]. leningrad: lenizdat. tatyana nikolskaya352 yudintseva, g. i. (2014). samye schastlivye dni [the happiest days]. publisher is not indicated. zastupnichestvo – dukhovnoe nasledie probuzhdennoi tserkvi (2009). [intercession – the spiritual heritage of the awakened church]. booklet. zavatsky, v. (1995). evangelicheskoe dvizhenie v sssr posle vtoroi mirovoi voiny [the evangelical movement in the ussr after the second world war]. moscow: garant. zharinov, g. (1980). dokladnaia zapiska v sdr o prazdnovanii paskhi v leningrade [report in the sdr on the celebration of easter in leningrad]. state archives of the russian federation (garf), f.r.-6991, op. 6, d. 1851, l. 33. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 636–653 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.153 received 3 may 2021 © 2021 natalya a. kostko, irina f. pecherkina accepted 16 december 2021 n.a.kostko@utmn.ru published online 30 december 2021 i.f.pecherkina@utmn.ru article urban identities in russian cities and the prospects of their “smart” development natalya a. kostko, irina f. pecherkina university of tyumen, tyumen, russia abstract this article deals with the urban identity and its connection with the urban dwellers’ willingness to take part in the processes of decisionmaking concerning the future of their cities, their rejection, or, on the contrary, acceptance of the vision of “smart” development promoted by city leaders. the study gives special attention to the gap between the citizens’ perceptions of their cities and the ideal image of their city (perception-expectation gap). the study provides an overview of the contemporary approaches to the concept of “smart city”, and approaches to urban governance and city identity. the study focused on three russian cities—tyumen, tobolsk and khanty-mansiysk, located in tyumen region in western siberia. our surveys were conducted in november 2020 and involved the residents of these cities aged 18 to 70. in total, 877 people were surveyed in tyumen, 443 people in tobolsk and 498 people in khanty-mansiysk. the questionnaire, which was specially designed for this study, was aimed to measure the residents’ level of attachment to their cities and their perception-expectation gap. significant differences were revealed between the cities in terms of the strength of their residents’ urban identity, their emotional attachment to their cities, and expectations about their further development. we found that the larger is the perception-expectation gap, the less emotionally attached the citizens are to their cities and the less committed they are to contributing to its future development and prosperity. these research findings can be of interest to urban policy-makers, regional and national governments. the proposed research methodology can be adapted and/or expanded for further cross-city and cross-country analysis. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 636–653 637 introduction urbanization and the development of information and communication technologies (icts) are bringing radical change to modern cities and the world in general (bibri & krogstie, 2019). the visions of what the city of the future should look like are more often than not shaped by the “smart city” concept, which offers a universal view on how cities may integrate into the information society. a “smart city” comprises a set of aspects such as economy, mobility, environment, people, governance, environment, etc. (giffinger, 2007). this concept also implies a set of goals of urban development as well as resources and tools for reaching them. cities are dynamic systems whose prosperity to a great extent depends on the local governments’ ability to take into account the complexity of the processes of urban development and the specific local contexts. moreover, modern cities are facing enormous technological, informational and other pressures, which affect people’s daily lives, urban economy, urban space and so on. a viable way to respond to these pressures is offered by the “smart city” concept. however, digitalization as a core element of this concept may cause resentment and erosion of trust on the part of urban dwellers, who may be wary of the new technologies taking control of their daily lives, for example, of the city governments’ attempts to track and collect data about their activities (through video surveillance or facial recognition software). therefore, the main challenge of the implementation of “smart city” projects is to overcome this lack of trust. to this end, it is important to gain a better understanding of the citizens’ connections to the places they inhabit, in particular the nature of the relationship between what can be described as these people’s urban identity and the identity of the city. urban dwellers may reject the new “smart” identity of their city that the government envisions and refuse to legitimize it. this negative scenario can be avoided if more attention is given to the social context and to civil participation in decision-making processes. this study investigates citizens’ ideas about the cities they inhabit and about the ideal city they would like to live in. it is these ideas that local governments should focus on in order to promote the vision of a “smart city” and to gain the support of local communities. thus, one of the research tasks we aim to address in this paper is to provide an overview of the contemporary research on the themes of urban identity by showing its connection to the practices of city governance and the “smart city” concept. we also present and analyze the results of the survey that keywords smart city, urban governance, social space, social context, city identity, citizen participation acknowledgement this work has been supported by the grant of the russian foundation for basic research (project no. 20-011-00305). https://changing-sp.com/ 638 natalya a. kostko, irina f. pecherkina encompassed the residents of three siberian cities to show the correlation between these people’s urban identities and their willingness to contribute to their cities’ “smart” transformations in the future. the above-described research tasks determined the structure of this paper: the following section outlines the conceptual framework of the study and provides an overview of the literature on the “smart city” concept, city governance, and urban identity. the third section describes the research methodology and data. the fourth section presents the results of the survey. the fifth section discusses the survey results and summarizes our main research findings. the novelty of this study lies in the fact that it discusses the prospects of “smart” urban development by measuring the gap between the urban identity of the residents of three russian cities and the identity of their cities constructed by local governments in accordance with the “smart city” concept. theoretical framework “smart city” concept in contrast to the views upheld by the proponents of critical urbanism (greenfield, 2013; luque-ayala & marvin, 2015) and critical social theory (brenner, 2009; kitchin, 2014; sheltona et al., 2015; vanolo, 2016), we support the postulate that the “smart city” concept is based on the discursive logic of intellectual urbanism. this logic focuses on the goals and mechanisms of urban development, on the stakeholders steering the new processes, and on the need to integrate the “smart city” concept into the local context of each city (caprotti & cowley, 2018; bramwell, 2020). a detailed description of approaches and views on the “smart city” concept and its main structural elements is given in a number of works (albino et al., 2015; joss et al., 2017). among other things, these studies emphasize the importance of urban dwellers and urban communities in understanding the essence of the smart city. a smart city is a result not only of a carefully planned project relying on the assemblage of innovative technologies but also of the practices and initiatives of different actors and parties with different interests (coletta et al., 2019). the focus on the social aspect, however, does not solve the problem of determining what a smart city is, and who smart citizens are. the inclusion of a person in the structure of a smart city does not solve the problem of how sociality and social contexts should be incorporated into this concept. in our view, “smartness” should be measured through objective and subjective indicators, the former including material infrastructure and the latter opinions of residents (albino et al., 2015, p. 14). our study focuses on the latter aspect—the sociological parameters that can be used for city governance. in this respect, the term “social space” is quite relevant. it is defined as a spatiotemporal set of social ties, interdependencies and interactions, clashes of interests of different groups of citizens. this approach does not contradict the understanding of the city “as spatially polarized ensembles of human activity marked by a high level of internal symbiosis” (scott, 2008, p. 548), but it takes further the idea that interactions determine the changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 636–653 639 location (smirnyagin, 2016) and the ideas underpinning the theory of collective actions (batty, 2013). in the contemporary research literature, there are three main views on the role of smart technologies in cities. the studies of the first group emphasize the leading role that smart technologies play in urban development, economic growth, improvement of the living standards and so on (baculáková, 2020). the studies of the second group adopt a more critical view of smart technologies and point out the risks connected with their increased use. these studies argue that people are becoming increasingly dependent on modern technologies (biczyńska, 2019); that their application leads to the loss of privacy and social justice in modern society (vanolo, 2014); and that the unprecedented use of smart technologies such as surveillance software absorbs sociality and helps governments increase their control over people (schindler and silver, 2019). the studies of the third group view smart technologies primarily as tools to achieve the goals of urban development (hollands, 2015; mcfarlane & söderström, 2017). our approach to the use of smart technologies in cities is closer to the third view: one cannot escape the fact that modern urban dwellers increasingly rely on smart technologies in their daily lives (woetzel & kuznetsova, 2018, p. 66), and that these technologies form an important part of these people’s perceptions of urban life and their expectations concerning the development of their cities in the future. the question that remains open for discussion is who a smart citizen is. one of the indicators of “smartness” could be the social capital of urban dwellers (deakin, 2014), that is, the ties and relationships between individuals based on trust and solidarity. thus, we can define a smart citizen as an individual with high human, intellectual and social capital, who is pursuing the goals of personal development, the development of their community, city, and country as a whole. such orientations result from the influence of many factors, including those related to urban identity of citizens. city governance modern city leaders in their decisionand policy-making should take into account a number of social factors (mcfarlane & söderström, 2017; raco, 2018) related to the local context and characteristics of urban population. it is particularly important to ensure civil participation in decision-making and other processes on a regular basis in the conditions of digitalization (angelidoua & psaltoglou, 2017; cardullo & kitchin, 2019; joss et. al., 2017). in our study we are going to analyze the urban identities of people inhabiting second-tier cities in russia—these cities act as centres of territorial/regional development. in european practice, second-tier cities include small and mediumsized cities (up to 100,000 citizens) with their own development problems (atkinson, 2019; rodríguez-pose, 2018). in the research literature, there are two main views on how national governments should be dealing with the cities of this type. according to the first view, second-tier cities are less competitive than larger cities which drive national development; therefore, state funds should be spent on supporting the leaders rather than their less successful counterparts (crouch & le galès, https://changing-sp.com/ 640 natalya a. kostko, irina f. pecherkina 2012). the proponents of the second approach, on the contrary, argue that state funding should be allocated to second-tier cities to enable them to deal with their problems more effectively (yavo-ayalon et al., 2019, p. 796). we subscribe to the second view that second-tier cities with extra funds and other assistance from the state government would be more likely to make better use of their own resources (e.g., human resources) and thus develop more efficiently. thus, innovative development of second-tier cities to a great extent depends on their abilities to retain a qualified workforce and ensure their citizens’ support. in russia, second-tier cities include large administrative-territorial units of the regional level. these cities possess a considerable potential and are capable of benefiting from new resources although the positive effects may be not as strong as in the case of national capitals and megalopolises. for russia, it is particularly important to provide sufficient support for second-tier cities and thus prevent qualified workforce from migrating to the country’s two largest metropolitan areas—moscow and st. petersburg. the challenge of retaining the population in second-tier cities implies the need to develop concepts, strategies and models for the development of these cities, for example, the “smart city” concept. this concept not only offers a set of goals, tools, and resources but also provides an attractive vision of the future— an innovative, modern, digital city. what makes the “smart city” concept particularly attractive is that it shows the way to help struggling cities and areas to catch up with their more prosperous counterparts, improve their standards of living and become more competitive on the national and global arena. an important element of the concept is its focus on public engagement and on empowering the citizens by inviting them to take part in the process of decision-making. there are two major topics discussed in relation to urban governance: citizen participation in urban development and new resources for urban development (cruz et al., 2019, p. 1). we believe that these topics are in fact intertwined since citizen participation is by its very nature a social resource that can be used for urban development. therefore, building the conditions conducive to meaningful citizen participation should be viewed as an important part of “smart city” projects. people’s willingness to live in a smart city and contribute to its creation largely stems from their urban identity and ideas about the ideal city. it is also necessary to narrow the gap between the visions underpinning smart city initiatives and expectations of the key stakeholders, including urban citizens and communities (myeong et al., 2021, p. 47). in the research literature, there are three main approaches to urban governance: resource-based approach (drozdova, 2019; veselova et al., 2018), object-based approach (kolodiy et al., 2020), and subject-based approach (vorob’eva et al., 2019). the resource-based approach prioritizes the key factors that determine a city’s development. one of the most urgent problems is to find the necessary resources (bramwell, 2020). nowadays more significance is attached to intangible rather than tangible assets (morozov et al., 2020). interestingly, one of the reasons behind the popularity of the “smart city” concept is that the smart city itself may be considered a resource (sheltona et al., 2015). the object-based approach foregrounds the role of citizens: the main goal of smart governance is to enhance social development changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 636–653 641 (tikhonov & bogdanov, 2020). within this approach, smart governance has much in common with the concept of multi-level governance in europe (grisel & waart, 2011, p. 175). the subject-based approach aims to identify the key stakeholders involved in urban development and governance. in our view, the most productive strategy is to combine all the three approaches: not only is it important for a city to accumulate sufficient resources for further development but it is equally important that the city’s residents were aware of the significance of these resources and recognized the need to use them. this condition is met if the urban dwellers’ identity correlates with the identity of the city. social parameters of cities, for example, the local context, should also be taken into account in the practice of governance. the local context of each city is unique. each of the city’s subsystems, characteristics or elements can contribute to the implementation of a “smart city” project or, on the contrary, inhibit it. the question that needs to be addressed, both theoretically and practically, is how the universality of the “smart city” model can be combined with particularities of life in this or that city and its social space. the goals and tools of “smart city” projects are rather standardized and need to be carefully adjusted to the local context of each particular city. otherwise, the clash between the general vision of “smart” urban development and the local context can cause conflicts in the future. urban identity the discussions surrounding identity and its various types, in particular civil identity (drobizheva, 2018), show that this word, which used to be largely an academic term, has entered other, more general contexts such as governance. in fact, there are studies that point directly to the potential of identity for city development (morozova et al., 2020). it is important to distinguish, however, between the urban identity of citizens and urban identity as the identity of a city itself since it is the interrelation of these two identities that shapes people’s attitudes towards the visions of their cities’ development in the future and their willingness to contribute to these transformations. in his seminal work, the image of the city (1960), kevin lynch defines identity as a “sense of place” or the extent to which a local inhabitant or a visitor to the city can recall or recognize this place as being distinct from other places, as being unique or having its own peculiar character (lynch, 1960). he also points out that a public image of any city is the “overlap of many individual images” (lynch, 1960, p. 46). kees terlouw in his study of regional identity distinguishes between “thick” and “thin” identities, that is, the well-established and more stable identities of old regions and more transitory and fluid identities of new regions as well as their “hybrid” types (terlouw, 2012). he also points out four main aspects (or “shapes”) constituting a regional identity: territorial (borders, land use patterns, territorial shape); institutional (institutions used for communicating regional identity, e.g., educational institutions and the mass media); symbolic (this aspect stems from stereotypes based on the territorial shape of a region and the characteristics of its population); and functional (the established role of a region in larger systems) (terlouw, 2012, p. 709). terlouw’s reasoning is quite applicable to a city’s identity. https://changing-sp.com/ 642 natalya a. kostko, irina f. pecherkina it is also important to emphasize the role of the city dwellers’ perceptions in shaping the identity of their cities. according to pierre bourdieu, the subject’s perception of the social world arises as a result of its subjective structuring, which is directly related to the identity of the individual. the structuring by the individual of his perception regarding the city and its (city’s) identity determines the urban identity of the city dweller (bourdieu, 1993). city dwellers may be feeling a stronger or weaker connection to their cities. borén, et al. (2020) put forward the concept of “intra-urban connectedness” to denote “the creation of new institutional arrangements between actors and institutions underpinning the local performance of a creative economy with a further dimension, which is a strong … adherence to a political cause and particular urban identity” (borén et al., 2020, p. 255). therefore, intra-urban connectedness, which is partially based on citizens’ urban identity, determines the city’s overall readiness for innovation, e.g., for building smart city digital eco-systems. galina gornova in the study of the structure of urban identity, which she defines as an established individual vision of oneself as an inhabitant of this particular city, the feeling of being naturally connected to this city, emotional sensation of belonging to this city and its community, describes its four main constitutive components: a cognitive component, affective component, value-normative component, and practical (behavioural/instrumental) component (gornova, 2018). she argues that the cognitive and affective components play the most significant role in the development of city residents’ urban identity. the urban identity of citizens and the identity of the city itself are not static, their structures include a variety of constantly changing elements (d’ambrosio, 2019; rosa, 2013; terlouw, 2009; terlouw, 2012). the traditional city and its identity are transformed under the pressure of digitalization, acquiring new features and properties. this is what makes the study of the gap between citizens’ perceptions of their cities, the identities of these cities, and the future visions of their development devised by city leaders particularly relevant. methods and materials methodologically, our study relies on a number of previous studies (for example, jabareen & eizenberg, 2021; radina, 2015; van houtum & lagendijk, 2001) and was conducted in accordance with the quantitative approach. we carried out sociological surveys in three cities of tyumen region, located in the southern part of western siberia—tyumen (816.8 thousand people as of 2021), khanty-mansiysk (104,054 people) and tobolsk (102,000). tyumen, which is the capital of the region, is the largest while khanty-mansiysk and tobolsk have approximately the same population size. our surveys were conducted in november 2020 and involved the residents of these cities aged 18 to 70. the questionnaire was specially designed for this survey and comprised 51 questions. in total, 877 people were surveyed in tyumen, 443 people in tobolsk and 498 people in khanty-mansiysk. the sample reflected the gender and age makeup of these city’s population. the sampling error does not exceed 3% per single feature. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 636–653 643 as was explained above, urban identity is viewed as a type of social identity that can be described by looking at its affective, cognitive, assessment and behavioral components. we focus on the affective (emotional) component—the feeling of belonging, the citizens’ emotional connection with the city. we are also interested in the motivations of urban dwellers—why they choose to live in this or that city and whether they are going to stay there in the future or would like to leave it. the theme of urban identity was addressed in the question: do you agree with the following statements: a. in my city i feel really at home; b. many things in the city remind me of my past. c. i have a sense of belonging to this city. d. my future is closely linked to this city. e. i feel close to the people of my town. each of these statements corresponded to one of the indices we used to calculate the integral index of urban identity. a 5-point consent scale was used to assess the respondents’ answers to this question: “1” corresponds to “everyone fully agrees”, “0” corresponds to “everyone completely disagrees”. the indices (see table 1) were calculated by using the formula of equality (0* “i completely disagree” + 0.25* “i rather disagree + 0.5* “both yes and no” + 0.75* “i rather agree” + “i fully agree”). the integral index is equal to the sum of all indices divided by their number. the index value of less than 0.5 was estimated as the low degree of citizens’ emotional attachment to the city; from 0.51 to 0.8, as medium degree; and more than 0.8, as a high degree of emotional attachment. to study the citizens’ actual perceptions of their cities, we asked them to choose from the list of ten characteristics, including innovative economy, transparent governance, business climate, and “smart” technologies: • innovative, competitive economy • transparent, open city governance • digital (smart) technologies in city governance • good business climate • tigh standard of living • comfortable environment • high level of education of its citizens • tourism • friendly community • unique, high-quality products by local manufacturers then the citizens were asked to choose the characteristics of their ideal cities. for both questions, the same set of 10 characteristics had to be rated on a 5-point scale. in the first question, “1” meant “this does not apply to my city at all” and “5”, “this fully applies to my city”. in the second question, “1” meant “it does not matter” and “5”, “an ideal city must have this characteristic”. the questionnaire also included a question as to how the respondents would describe the role of their cities in the development https://changing-sp.com/ 644 natalya a. kostko, irina f. pecherkina of their regions and the country. the list of characteristics included 15 positive and negative statements: • strategically important • technologically advanced • generator of creativity and ideas cultural, historical centre • educational centre • tourist centre • centre for the development of technologies, innovation and entrepreneurship • economic centre • “smart city” • a major hub for the exploration of northern territories • destination for low-skilled migration • talent factory • province in all respects • exporter of resources, including labour resources • i don’t know the respondents could choose any number of characteristics or add their own ideas. it should be noted that in all the three locations only a small number of respondents chose the characteristic “smart city”. data analysis and results the results of our analysis have shown significant differences in the urban identities of the citizens of the three cities under consideration (table 1). in tyumen, residents show a relatively high level of attachment to their city: 80% of respondents perceive tyumen as their home, almost 70% of them connect their future with the city (integral index, 0.71). the situation in smaller cities—tobolsk and khanty-mansiysk—is somewhat different. in terms of the sense of “ feeling at home” in their cities, residents of khanty-mansiysk have shown similar results to residents of tyumen (statement in my city i feel really at home—index 1, emotional attachment). the integral index for residents of khanty-mansiysk, however, is smaller than the integral index for tyumen— 0.67, which can be explained by the differences in people’s responses to the two statements—many things in the city remind me of my past (index 2, rootedness), and my future is closely linked to this city (index 4, future). khantymansiysk, like many cities in the north of tyumen region, is a city of migrants who come from the “mainland” and consider khanty-mansiysk as a temporary place to stay and who sooner or later plan to go back to their hometowns or elsewhere. this explains the weakness of the residents’ connection with the city’s past or future of the city and correlates with the data on the length of residence in the city. in khantymansiysk, the average length of residence is 19 years, while in tyumen it is 28.2 years, and even more in tobolsk, 32.4 years. although tobolsk has the longest average period of residence, its integral index is the lowest, 0.65. in khanty-mansiysk, 77% of respondents agreed with changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 636–653 645 the statement in my city i feel really at home (index 1, emotional attachment), in tyumen, 80%, and in tobolsk, only 61%. citizens of tobolsk connect their past with the city, which has a rich history, and associate it with an array of unique historical and cultural monuments and they envision it in the form of its unique historical and cultural monuments (in fact, tobolsk scored the highest as a cultural and historical center). however, the citizens do not feel emotional attachment to the city or to its community, and they do not see their future in it. 19% of the respondents from tyumen, a quarter of the respondents from khanty-mansiysk and 30% of the respondents from tobolsk have shown a low level of attachment to the city, that is, their urban identity is not very strong (the index is below 0.5). these data are confirmed by the correlation with their responses to the question about their attitudes towards the city (the affective component of urban identity) (table 2). table 1 indices of the identity of citizens in the cities of tyumen oblast judgments tyumen tobolsk khanty-mansiysk 1. in my city, i really feel at home 0.81 0.69 0.80 2. many things in my city remind me of my past 0.66 0.68 0.57 3. this city is really close to me 0.75 0.68 0.75 4. my future is closely linked to this city 0.73 0.65 0.63 5. i feel that i am close to the people of my city 0.59 0.53 0.61 free index 0.71 0.65 0.67 table 2 attitude of citizens to the city of their residence, % how do you feel about the city you live in? i am glad that i live here i am rather pleased, but many things do not satisfy me i do not have peculiar feelings towards the city i do not like to live here, i would like to leave the city tyumen 64 25 9 2 100 tobolsk 32 55 8 5 100 khanty-mansiysk 61 27 8 4 100 as was discussed in the theoretical section, an important factor is the gap between the citizens’ perceptions of the real city they inhabit and their ideas about the ideal city they would like to live in. we found that residents of the three siberian cities were quite unanimous in their ideas about an ideal city. they most often prioritized a comfortable living environment, high standards of living, democratic city governance and good business climate—these characteristics were the most frequently chosen as attributes of an ideal city (figure 1). only in tobolsk, where the https://changing-sp.com/ 646 natalya a. kostko, irina f. pecherkina authorities and residents place high hopes on the city’s development into a major tourist centre (table 4), attractiveness for tourists turned out to be a significant characteristic for an “ideal city”. the perception-expectation gap is significant in all the estimated parameters of the three cities. it reaches the highest level in tobolsk—the city with the lowest urban identity index (figures 2–4). the gap between the residents’ vision of an ideal city and their perceptions of the real cities (or the perception-expectation gap) correlates with the values of the integral urban identity index. the larger is this gap, the weaker is the urban identity and the greater is the respondents’ desire to move to another place (the spearman correlation coefficient is 0.198 and 0.216 if the error is less than 0.001, respectively). the average gap in the 10 parameters we considered is 1.5 times higher in the group of the respondents who would like to leave the city in comparison with those who are satisfied with their life in the given city. the contradiction between the perceived reality of urban life and the residents’ expectations indicates their rejection of the city’s identity and also reveals the weakness of social ties in the city. the priorities indicated by the respondents’ choices are a comfortable urban environment, good business climate, a close-knit and friendly community, and high standards of living (see table 3 below), i.e., the same parameters that determine these people’s visions of an ideal city. figure 1 ideas about the “ideal city” in the cities of the survey, average ratings on a 5-point scale 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 comfortable environment high standard of living of its citizens good condition to develop business transparent, open city governance high level of education of its citizens benevolent, hospitable residents (citizens) unique, quality products by local manufacturers innovative, competitive economy digital (smart) technologies in city governance tourism ideal city tobolsk khanty-mansiysk tyumen changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 636–653 647 figures 2–4 respondents’ perceptions about the “ideal city” and their city, average estimates on the 5-point scale 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 innovative, competitive economy transparent, open city governance digital (smart) technologies in city governance good condition to develop business high standard of living of its citizens comfortable environment high level of education of its citizens tourism benevolent, hospitable residents (citizens) unique, quality products by local manufacturers tyumen ideal city their city 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 innovative, competitive economy transparent, open city governance digital (smart) technologies in city governance good condition to develop business high standard of living of its citizens comfortable environment high level of education of its citizens tourism benevolent, hospitable residents (citizens) unique, quality products by local manufacturers tobolsk ideal city their city 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 khanty-mansiysk ideal city their city innovative, competitive economy transparent, open city governance digital (smart) technologies in city governance good condition to develop business high standard of living of its citizens comfortable environment high level of education of its citizens tourism benevolent, hospitable residents (citizens) unique, quality products by local manufacturers https://changing-sp.com/ 648 natalya a. kostko, irina f. pecherkina table 3 correlation by spearman criterion between city identity index and the gap in estimates of characteristics of their city and of the ideal city city characteristics city identity index innovative economy 0.127 transparent, open city governance 0.148 digital (smart) technologies in city governance i.c.** good condition to develop business 0.157 high standard of living of its citizens 0.152 comfortable environment 0.246 high level of education of its citizens 0.144 tourism i.c. benevolent, hospitable residents (citizens) 0.165 unique, quality products by local manufacturers 0.128 average gap in ideas on 10 parameters*** 0.198 * in all cases, the maximum bilateral significance, that is, the probability of error is lower than 0.001; **i.c. — irrelevant correlation; ***average gap in ideas about the ideal city and the city of residence = sum of all gaps divided by their number table 4 rating of the most popular statements about the role of the city in the development of oblast and of the country as a whole, % how would you characterize the role of your city in the development of the region and the country as a whole. my city is: level of citizens’ city identity total from sample in each citylow average high tyumen 1. strategically important 32 36 38 36 2. educational centre 25 31 37 32 3. cultural, historical centre 15 29 38 29 8. smart city 9 15 21 16 khanty-mansiysk 1. cultural, historical centre 28 42 47 40 2. strategically important 17 38 38 33 3. tourist centre 18 22 34 24 10. smart city 8 10 15 11 tobolsk 1. cultural, historical centre 55 64 74 64 2. tourist centre 47 44 65 51 3. province in all respects 45 25 9 27 11. smart city 2 1 2 2 level of citizens’ city identity: low – consolidated city identity index, i ≤ 0,5 average – 0,51 ≤ i ≤ 0,8 high – i > 0,8 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 636–653 649 the residents’ assessment of the status of the city, its role in regional and national development is also of interest. the respondents were offered 15 characteristics, out of which they could choose any number of options or they could add new ones. (see table 4 below) each city has shown its own unique configuration of characteristics in this respect: tyumen and khanty-mansiysk are perceived by most of their citizens as strategically important, as a centre of technological development, innovation and entrepreneurship, and as an economic centre. tobolsk is seen primarily and exclusively as a cultural, historical and tourist centre (the remaining “positive” statements accounted for no more than 8%). in addition, 27% of tobolsk residents describe their city as a province in all respects while similar opinions were voiced only by 8% of the respondents in tyumen and 13%—in khanty-mansiysk. as for the “smart city” characteristic, in tyumen it is in the middle of the ranking (8th position), in other cities it is closer to the bottom (10th position in khanty-mansiysk and 11th in tobolsk). discussion and conclusions the success of smart city projects depends on the willingness of urban authorities to take into account the city’s social context, primarily the social space and its key element—the identity of urban dwellers and the identity of the city. it is, therefore, necessary to address the perception-expectation gap, that is, the gap between the urban dwellers’ vision of the actual cities they inhabit and their expectations constituting the image of an “ideal city”. this gap, in its turn, correlates with the citizens’ acceptance or rejection of the vision of their cities’ “smart” development in the future. we believe that this gap can be narrowed if the concept of urban identity is institutionalized in strategies of urban development. in their decision-making, city managers should give due regard to the identity of the city’s residents, their needs, interests, and priorities. our analysis of the identity of the inhabitants of siberian cities tyumen, tobolsk and khanty-manskiysk has shown different local contexts, which should be taken into account in governance practices. interestingly, the residents of tyumen have shown the strongest emotional connection with their city while in khanty-mansiysk, on the contrary, a large part of the population tend to see this city as a destination for labour migraion; people often do not associate their future with this city and plan to move elsewhere. an interesting case is presented by tobolsk, which in kees terlouw’s terms, is a city with a “thick” identity: even though many of the respondents have reported that they feel that their past is strongly connected to this city, they are not satisfied with the prospect of connecting their future with it—in fact, tobolsk has shown the lowest integral index of urban identity among the three cities under consideration. our findings can be of interest to national and regional policy-makers and city managers since they reveal the importance of the social factor for planning smart urban development and other reforms. at the moment, in the eyes of the urban dwellers we surveyed, the “smart” city is not a significant characteristic or an important element of their cities’ new identities. https://changing-sp.com/ 650 natalya a. kostko, irina f. pecherkina references albino, v., berardi u., & dangelico, r. m. 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http://www.energoatlas.ru/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/smart-city-solutions-what-drives-citizen-adoption-around-the-globe-ru-mccinsey.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12431 changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–90 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.1.090 received 16 january 2020 © 2020 jernej jelenko accepted 10 march 2020 jernejelenko@gmail.com published online 10 april 2020 article the role of intergenerational differentiation in perception of employee engagement and job satisfaction among older and younger employees in slovenia jernej jelenko university of ljubljana, slovenia abstract with the ageing population in the developed world, age diversity in the workforce in organizations is growing. consequently, perception of the work environment, job satisfaction and engagement are influenced by differences in age as well as a corresponding diverse set of values and often manifested through age discrimination. using an age-diverse national sample (n = 1505) of older (n = 750) and younger (n = 755) workers in slovenia, this study investigates the understudied influence of intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) on job satisfaction and employee engagement between two age cohorts. three different instruments were used: intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure (idwm), job satisfaction questionnaire (jsq) and utrecht work engagement scale (uwes-9). the main goal of the study was to (through structural equation modelling) find out if and how the perception of intergenerational differentiation in the workplace affects job satisfaction and employee engagement between young and old employees. the constructed structural model shows that independent of the age group, intergenerational differences have a direct negative effect on job satisfaction and an indirect negative effect on employee engagement. it was also found that perceived age discrimination has both a greater direct effect on job satisfaction among older employees and a greater indirect effect on older employees’ engagement than on younger employees’ job satisfaction and engagement. thus, by https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–90 69 introduction the workforce is ageing in parallel with the ageing of the population (rippon, kneale, de olivera & demakakos, 2014). simultaneously, an insufficient number of younger workers (18–35 years old) are entering the labour force to replace workers who are retiring (e.g. chand & tung, 2014). as a response, in order to stay competitive and preserve economic growth, organizations are challenged to identify older workers’ (aged 55 and older) needs and perceptions, and develop practices that retain them (sausa, ramos & carvalho, 2019). if organizations do succeed in retaining older workers, they are consequently faced with the challenge of managing increased age diversity in their work environment. diversity across age and work values (e.g. smola & sutton, 2002) inevitably produces generational differences in the workplace which enhance the likelihood of encountering greater age-related perspective dissimilarity with one’s coworkers (avery, mckay & wilson, 2007) and can bring forth age discrimination in the workplace (prelog, ismagilova & boštjančič, 2019) and beyond. many concerns exist about the effect of age dissimilarity, discrimination and age-based value changes in the work environment, as well as the subsequent perceptions once applied outside the workplace. two of the most important organizational factors for retaining older workers (decreasing the intention to quit) regard personal outcomes such as job satisfaction and engagement (bentley et al., 2019; schaufeli & bakker, 2004) and are closely related to positive employee and organizational outcomes at large (e.g. davar & ranjubala, 2012). researchers found evidence that perceived age discrimination influences workers across different age groups with negative effects on job satisfaction and engagement (e.g. bayl-smith & griffin, 2014; james, mckenchnie & swanberg, 2011; snape & redman, 2003). since studies suggested that ageism and age discrimination against older adults is more pernicious, past research and the majority of literature findings have more often focused on a particular age group (e.g. nelson, 2005). this paper differs from past research by highlighting the importance of age discrimination effects on job satisfaction and employee engagement across the two most prominent age groups, older and younger, which will play a deciding role in the broader socio-economic context via the future job market, providing higher economic growth, a sustainable healthcare and retirement system, etc. while the groups differ in examining the organizational level the study implicitly identifies that these intergenerational differences in age related values and value changes exist not only in the organization but spread through society. keywords intergenerational differentiation, age discrimination in the workplace, job satisfaction, employee engagement, older workers, younger workers, age-related value https://changing-sp.com/ 70 jernej jelenko their current values, they are both subject to constant age-related change, suggesting that personal values change normatively with age (fung et. al., 2016; heckhausen, wroch & shultz, 2010). also, in light of past studies which tended to focus only on a certain occupation (e.g. redman & snape, 2006), this paper focuses on a wide range of different occupations. it makes several propositions; one, that the level of work engagement is subject to the psychological consequence of age discrimination, which is a derivative of intergenerational differentiation, and that it is a psychological antecedent of preference for early or late retirement. it also proposes that job satisfaction is influenced by age discrimination, and employee engagement by job satisfaction. it lastly proposes that the two most diverse age groups perceive discrimination, job satisfaction and employee engagement differently and that their job satisfaction and engagement are correspondingly differently affected. in this manner, it is visible that people of different ages tend to differ in many aspects (key identifying historical events, physical ageing, life stage requirements) (schwarz, 2005) of their expectations and values allowing us of clear view to recognize the importance of their value. intergenerational differentiation and age discrimination one of the most prominent and common agents of diversity in organizations is age (glover & branine, 2001). consequently, the topic of intergenerational differentiation in the workplace has been immensely popular over the past decade, though research on this topic has often seemed opportunistic, lacking rigour and depth (costanza & finkelstein, 2015), or guided by much popular speculation but relatively little substantive research (reeves & oh, 2008). the main problems surrounding intergenerational differentiation research were methodological – conceptualization and especially measurement were based on a single item indicator (e.g. brown, 2001; utsey, 1998; williams, neighbors & jackson, 2008). intergenerational differentiation is based on the assumption that chronological age is the main determinant of an individual’s characteristics, assuming that a particular age group is better than another (cavanaugh & blanchard-fields, 2006). the behavioural aspect of that age bias or of intergenerational differentiation is age discrimination. it is linked to the individual’s tendency to treat members of the other (in the case of organization) workgroup or members of another generation as inferior (finkelstein & farrell, 2007). age discrimination embodies an unwanted behavioural dynamic between the generations which is grounded in the assumption that each generation or age cohort has different work behaviour patterns, attitudes, expectations, habits, values and motivational mechanisms (e.g. veingerl čič & šarotar žižek, 2017; hansen & leuty, 2012). it is also grounded in a biased assumption that age (any age) is a determining factor of one’s ability, talent and potential. age discrimination can also be perceived through biased decision making and unfair behaviours from superiors or coworkers. in summary, anyone who is subject to unfair or different treatment in the context of his or her employment on the basis of age experiences age discrimination in the workplace (zacher & steinvik, 2015). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–90 71 although the research in the field of age discrimination has often taken the position of addressing discrimination against the elderly, the assumption that younger employees are not susceptible to age discrimination is not true. for example, garstka, hummert & branscombe (2005) as well as snape & redman (2003) indicate that younger employees are in some cases treated less favourably than older employees, so neither younger nor older employees are unaffected by age discrimination (gee, plavalko & long, 2007). whether older or younger, employees who are subject to age discrimination feel tremendous psychological pressure and burdens. often, they develop self-defeating patterns of behaviour. research shows that, similar to other diversity demographics (e.g. gender and race), age diversity rarely has a single effect (horwitz & horwitz, 2007). bias in the form of age discrimination can have a negative effect on productivity (thorsen, et al., 2012) and the employeeemployer relationship (zacher & steinvik, 2015), as well as affect working conditions (mccann & giles, 2002), employee engagement (james, mckechine, swanberf & besen, 2013), job satisfaction (macdonald & levy, 2016) and one’s general life outlook (donizzetti, 2019). job satisfaction job satisfaction is a desired or pleasant, positive emotional state which results from the employee’s experience at work and represents one of the most important constructs in organizational studies (e.g. judge, bono & locke, 2000). it defines an individual’s assessment or experience of all aspects of work (working conditions, elements of work, the workplace, etc.) that are important to him or her (mullins, 2005). more specifically, it is an individual’s emotional response to the work environment, or a result of comparing one’s own expectations of one’s work and the opportunities offered by work (armstrong-stassen & ursel, 2009) with organizational reality. job satisfaction is indissolubly connected with the work environment, e.g. interpersonal relations (thorsen at. al., 2012) and social support. factors such as reward, recognition, cooperation, fair treatment by leaders, sensible organization policy, team spirit, etc. can increase job satisfaction (abraham, 2012). the impact of interpersonal collaboration can have a positive effect, while the impact of intergenerational differentiation (manifested through age discrimination) can have a negative effect on job satisfaction. those who perceive the environment positively and interpersonal interactions to be emotionally or instrumentally rewarding with a low perceived degree of age discrimination are usually more satisfied with their work than those who do not (ducharme & martin, 2000). job satisfaction is consequently built on the correspondence between the needs and desires of employees and organizational reality. when employees perceive their job to fulfil their needs, values and personal characteristics, their job satisfaction rises (ellickson & logsdon, 2001). job satisfaction is one of the key prerequisites for an individual’s work achievements. satisfied employees are more productive (syptak, marsland & ulmer, 1999), and according to some studies (using a facet approach to job satisfaction) even more engaged (e.g. bellani, ramadhani & tamar, 2017). https://changing-sp.com/ 72 jernej jelenko employee engagement because employee engagement is personified by how an employee thinks, feels and acts in regard to the organizational goals (cook, 2008) and consequently predicts many positive outcomes for organizations (saks, 2006), engaging employees is one of the most important management challenges (avery et al., 2007). “employee engagement is an individual employee’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioural state, directed toward the desired organizational outcomes” (shuck & wollard, 2010, p. 103). cognitive engagement refers to the beliefs about one’s employer and the workplace culture, emotional engagement refers to how an employee feels about the workplace (it forms meaningful connections among co-workers [bakker, 2011]), and behavioural engagement refers to willingness to engage one’s job responsibilities to reach high levels of productivity and performance (shuck & reio, 2011). it can also be characterized by a “positive fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication and absorption” (schaufeli, salanova, gonzalesroma & bakker, 2002, p. 74). engagement arises in employees who are emotionally connected with others (kahn, 1990). kahn pointed out that those who perceive more supportive conditions for their type of authentic expression tend to be engaged. he assumed that employee engagement requires three psychological preconditions in the workplace: meaningfulness, psychological safety and availability (ibid.). schaufeli & bakker (2004) found a positive relationship between employee engagement and job resources, such as performance feedback, social support, etc. they stated that the most important situational factor in predicting work engagement is work resources (ibid.). saks (2006) supports this claims in the framework of social exchange theory. he explains that if the management of an organization devotes to employees the resources needed, they will respond to the organization’s devotion by being engaged. alfez, shantz, truss & soane (2013) also associated employee engagement with organizational support and employee-manager relationships. may, gilson & harter (2004) reported that individuals with a rewarding interpersonal interaction with their coworkers expressed greater psychological safety at work, which is also a prerequisite of engagement. engaged employees are, after all, those who through the work environment feel energetic, dedicated and immersed at their work (bakker & schaufeli, 2008). by taking into account the research in this area and broadening the findings, this paper further suggests that intergenerational differences and age (dis)similarities to one’s coworkers could have an impact on the level of employee engagement. the research subject and hypothesized structural relationship model this research aims to address the relationship between the intergenerational differentiation in the form of age discrimination, job satisfaction and employee engagement. none of the previous studies attempted to integrate these three constructs into a comprehensive model. prior research and literature have shown that coworker relationships influence employee attitudes and behaviours (avery et changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–90 73 al., 2007). findings also suggests that coworker relations may impact job satisfaction and employee engagement. the hypothesized relationship model shown in figure 1 is based on the assumption that intergenerational differentiation (in form of age discrimination) have a direct effect on job satisfaction and employee engagement. the relationship between intergenerational differentiation (age-discrimination), job satisfaction and work engagement can be understood as a social exchange between the worker and the organization. social exchange theory (set) (blau, 1964; cropanzano & mitchell, 2005) suggests that workers who feel valued, appreciated and receive socio-economic resources (from the organization) will be satisfied and reciprocally give organizational investment back in the forms of increased satisfaction, engagement and performance (kahn, 1990; saks, 2006; sousa et al., 2019). may et al. (2004) also found that workers who have rewarding interpersonal interaction with their coworkers expressed greater psychological safety at work, a significant marker of engagement. the hypothesized model is in line with previous research that shows job satisfaction as a driver and an antecedent of employee engagement (abraham, 2012; avery et al., 2007; garg & kumar, 2012). employee engagement is related and, in its ambiguous conceptualization, overlapped with some other well-known constructs (e.g. job satisfaction) (e.g. nimon, schuck, & zigarmi, 2015). it differs from job satisfaction because it combines an increased high level of work pleasure (dedication) with high activation (vigour, absorption), while job satisfaction is typically a more passive form of employee well-being (bakker & hakanen, 2014). in fact, many researchers (djoemadi, setiawan, noermijati & irawanto, 2019; shmailan, 2015) found that job satisfaction has a significant and direct effect on employee engagement. job satisfaction is an important driver of work engagement, which (compared to job satisfaction, itself) is directly related to individual and organization performance. to obtain a more thorough understanding of the psychosocial factors influencing job satisfaction and engagement, structural equation modelling (sem) was used. the hypothesized research model shown in figure 1 was tested (using sem) on two different age groups, older and younger workers. integenerational differentiation (age discrimination) employee engagementjob satisfaction h1 h3 h2 figure 1. hypothesized model of intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) effect on job satisfaction and employee engagement. https://changing-sp.com/ 74 jernej jelenko methodology participants and the procedure to obtain a more complete understanding of the age discrimination influencing job satisfaction and engagement, this study utilized an age diverse national sample of 1505 workers from a range of occupations and organizations in slovenia. participants (n = 1505) were employees of 25 slovenian organizations recruited through a random sample. the sample was divided between 750 older employees and 755 younger employees. more specifically, socio-demographic characteristics of the overall sample relative to categorisation – older and younger employees – are shown in table 1. according to the international classification of economic activities (isic), participating organizations operated in different parts of industries (table 2). all organizations involved were approximately equally distributed between the public and private sectors. out of 25 organizations, 13 (53.5 %) of them (806 employees) were part of the private sector and 12 (46.4 %) were part of the public sector (699 employees). table 1. socio demographic characteristic of sample (n = 1505, younger employees n = 755, older employees n = 750) total sample younger employees older employees total n (%) total n (%) total n (%) gender male 679 45.1 322 42.6 357 47.6 female 826 54.9 433 57.3 393 52.4 age 18–28 250 16.6 250 33.1 / / 29–35 505 33.5 505 66.8 / / 55–60 677 44.3 / / 677 90.2 > 60 73 4.8 / / 73 9.7 level of education non-university 754 50.1 348 46.1 406 54.1 university 751 49.9 407 53.9 334 45.9 position in organization non-leader 1313 12.8 686 90.9 627 83.6 leader 192 87.2 69 9.1 123 16.4 field of work blue collar 719 47.9 346 48.0 373 51.8 white collar 786 52.1 409 52.0 377 48.2 table 2. list of participating companies according to the international standard industrial classification of all economic activities (isic) isic code n of companies n of employees share of participants in the sample (%) c manufacturing 10 632 41.9 p education 6 344 22.8 q human health and social work activities 4 236 15.6 i accommodation and food service activities 2 116 7.7 r arts, entertainment and recreation 1 60 3.9 m professional, scientific and technical activities 1 59 3.9 j information and communication 1 58 3.8 25 1505 100 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–90 75 the inclusion criterion for participation was holding an employment contract for either a fixed-term or an indefinite period. the age criterion for inclusion was divided into two groups: from 18 through 35 years old and from 55 and on. inclusion criterion was also a slovenian citizenship. additional inclusion criteria for organizations were that they operate in the territory of the republic of slovenia (the primary activity the labour force is located in the territory of the republic of slovenia) and have at least 30 employees who were less than 35 years old and at least 30 employees who were more than 55 years old. on the basis of the inclusion criteria described above, the hr department representative of each organization sent a link to the questionnaires via e-mail. the average time to complete a set of questionnaires, including socio-demographic variables, was 8 minutes. all participants were granted full anonymity and given the opportunity to see their own results after they had completed the questionnaires (and data were analysed). data collection took place from january to july 2018. research tools participants filled out three different questionnaires. first was the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure, a self-assessment questionnaire which included seven items. the participants assessed the frequency of behaviour on a 7-point rating scale ranging from 0 (never) to 6 (always). participants rated, for example:  (igd1) i feel that in communication other employees look down on me and regard me as inferior because of my age;  (igd2) in my work, i only work with employees of my age/generation;  (igd3) other employees don’t appreciate my knowledge and skills due to my age;  (igd4) my manager micromanages my work due to my age;  (igd5) due to my age, i constantly have to do the tasks that the rest of the staff refuses;  (igd6) my superiors humiliate me because of my age;  (igd7) in my workplace, i only cooperate with employees of my age. the higher the ratings total of the items, the more the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace is perceived. based on a preliminary study, the original questionnaire was reduced from 8 to 7 items of intergenerational differentiation. the internal reliability for both questionnaires’ variations was adequately high (8 items, α = .79; 7 items, α = .81), although removal of an item improved internal reliability. items were then divided into two subsections of factors – cooperation (2 items) and discrimination (5 items). during a preliminary study, it was determined that the results are not equally distributed. the second questionnaire, job satisfaction questionnaire, also a selfassessment questionnaire was developed and used in a broader project of measuring organizational climate and job satisfaction in slovenia (siok). on a 6-point frequency rating scale ranging from 1 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied) it measures 11 different facets of job satisfaction, i.e. satisfaction with: (sat1) work, https://changing-sp.com/ 76 jernej jelenko (sat2) direct superiors, (sat3) salary, (sat4) status within the organization, (sat5) working conditions (equipment, premises), (sat6) training opportunities, (sat7) continuity of employment, and (sat8) working hours. based on a preliminary study, the original questionnaire was reduced from 11 to 8 items or facets of job satisfaction. the internal reliability of the 11-item questionnaire (α = .87) decreased (α = .83) for shortened 8 items questionnaire. the decrease in internal reliability was minimal, corresponding with the reduced number of facets. all the remaining features of the original questionnaire were maintained. the third questionnaire was the employee engagement questionnaire utrecht work engagement scale (uwes-9). participants completed a 9-item shortened version of the established 17-item measure of employee engagement self-reported questionnaire called the uwes-9 (schaufeli, salanova, gonzalesroma & bakker, 2002). the reason for a shorter version was time-effectiveness and adequately high internal reliability (α = .85–.92). an additional advantage was its free accessibility online. participants assessed the frequency of behaviour on a 7-point frequency rating scale ranging from 0 (never) to 6 (always). they rated: (eng1) at my work, i feel bursting with energy, (eng2) at my job, i feel strong and vigorous, (eng3) i am enthusiastic about my job, (eng4) my job inspires me, (eng5) when i get up in the morning, i feel like going to work, (eng6) i feel happy when i am working intensely, (eng7) i am proud of the work that i do, (eng8) i am immersed in my job, (eng9) i get carried away when i am working. all three questionnaires together form 24 indicators – the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure (7 indicators), the job satisfaction questionnaire (8 indicators) and utrecht work engagement scale uwes-9 (9 indicators). in addition, participants were asked to answer 5 socio-demographic questions regarding their gender, age, level of education, position in their organization (leader or non-leader) and field of work (blue or white collar). altogether there were 29 items analysed in the survey. data analysis the data were analysed with the ibm spss statistics 23.0 and ibm spss amos. first, descriptive statistics (average and standard deviation) and correlation analysis (spearman’s correlation test [ρ]) were employed. after testing for normality of the distribution, exploratory factor analysis with principal components and varimax rotation was undertaken to examine which indicators comprised coherent groups of items (factors). confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was based on findings of exploratory factor analysis (efa). cfa was made using a maximum likelihood method, which can be used in most cases where non-normality is present (finney & distefano, 2006). the kaiser criterion was applied to select the number of factors (blaikie, 2003) and the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) test and bartlett’s test of sphericity were applied to measure the sampling adequacy (munro, 2005). the hypothesized model (interaction between the latent and manifest variables and their impact were studied simultaneously) was tested using structural equation modelling (sem). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–90 77 results descriptive statistics and correlation analysis descriptive statistics (averages and standard deviations) and correlation analysis for the variables are presented in table 3. this analysis included 19 items across the three constructs (intergenerational differentiation (4 items), job satisfaction (6 items) and employee engagement (9 items)). during the analysis the findings of the preliminary study were confirmed; data acquired with the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure were not equally distributed. the results of spearman’s correlation coefficients between indicators showed that all indicators correlate. the highest values of correlations are among indicators of the same construct, e.g. intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) correlated moderately and strongly. the strongest correlation was between age discrimination on the basis of inadequate knowledge and discriminatory (inferior) communication because of employees’ age. in the construct for job satisfaction, the highest correlation was between satisfaction with working hours and continuity of employment. among indicators of employee engagement all correlations were strong. as expected, all indicators of employee engagement correlated moderately with satisfaction with work. also, most employee engagement indicators correlated moderately with satisfaction with working hours. correlations between indicators of intergenerational differentiation, job satisfaction and employee engagement were negative and weak (see table 3). confirmatory factor analysis, reliability and validity after examining efa, cfa was performed. the model was simplified to ensure a proper model fit. variables with low factor loadings were excluded. in the case of intergenerational differentiation 3 out of 7 items were excluded, in the case of job satisfaction 2 items out of 8 were excluded, and in the case of employee engagement none was excluded. indicators were eliminated from the scale in consideration of their utility. according to different authors, the exclusion criteria can be very different. regarding several authors mentioned below, which for interpretive purposes propose different cut-off limits, current factor loadings in combination with sample size is far above the cut-off limit (maccallum, widaman, preacher & hong, 2001; tabachnick & fidell, 2013). cfa also showed that the model fits the data adequately (all factor loadings were higher than .5) which indicates that all the latent variables are represented by the indicators (table 4). in table 4, indicators of reliability and validity of the constructs in the model were calculated. composite reliability (cr) and convergent validity (ave) were achieved in all cases. internal consistency was identified with cronbach’s alpha coefficient. as seen from table 4, all cronbach alpha coefficients were between acceptable and very good (cortina, 1993). all scales of measurement here are therefore valid and reliable with a high level of internal reliability and adequate discriminant validity. https://changing-sp.com/ table 3. average values (m), standard deviations (sd) and sperman‘s correlation coefficients, between indicators of the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure (igd), job satisfaction questionnaire (jsq) and employee engagement (uwes-9) m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 igd1 2.13 1.409 1 igd3 1.84 1.341 .635** 1 igd4 2.06 1.504 .532** .548** 1 igd5 2.14 1.498 .499** .458** .510** 1 sat1 3.9 0.824 –.165** –.170** –.191** –.224** 1 sat2 3.74 1.064 –.225** –.187** –.241** –.245** .530** 1 sat3 2.95 1.045 –.143** –.132** –.188** –.202** .477** .413** 1 sat4 3.48 0.955 –.228** –.204** –.236** –.263** .544** .531** .606** 1 sat5 3.6 1.063 –.166** –.171** –.215** –.206** .450** .434** .435** .520** 1 sat6 3.51 1.038 –.155** –.162** –.184** –.202** .489** .462** .445** .563** .542** 1 eng1 4.57 1.312 –.114** –.131** –.219** –.189** .461** .374** .382** .384** .310** .328** 1 eng2 4.71 1.299 –.135** –.125** –.205** –.203** .495** .416** .376** .423** .332** .346** .793** 1 eng3 4.95 1.351 –.140** –.136** –.194** –.191** .518** .391** .388** .440** .356** .371** .652** .714** 1 eng4 4.65 1.538 –.170** –.181** –.215** –.224** .524** .398** .418** .473** .369** .418** .663** .690** .813** 1 eng5 4.56 1.548 –.136** –.144** –.218** –.241** .528** .432** .416** .466** .336** .389** .650** .710** .737** .778** 1 eng6 4.67 1.610 –.135** –.103** –.213** –.216** .454** .362** .380** .408** .345** .334** .633** .669** .663** .691** .763** 1 eng7 5.35 1.513 –.149** –.149** –.227** –.194** .472** .364** .369** .420** .329** .356** .581** .609** .716** .692** .710** .684** 1 eng8 5.11 1.469 –.159** –.145** –.223** –.213** .486** .381** .370** .429** .349** .356** .610** .642** .691** .716** .715** .734** .757** 1 eng9 5.08 1.448 –.148** –.145** –.217** –.229** .455** .345** .329** .385** .324** .328** .597** .612** .687** .705** .677** .693** .708** .831** 1 note: **p < .01 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–90 79 table 4. standardized factor loadings, validity and reliability indicators (n = 1505) variable construct λ composite reliability (cr) cronbach α convergent validity (ave) (igd1) intergenerational differentiation in the workplace (age discrimination) 0.821 0.890 0.820 0.543 (igd3) 0.776 (igd4) 0.694 (igd5) 0.643 (sat1) job satisfaction 0.724 0.923 0.854 0.502 (sat2) 0.668 (sat3) 0.689 (sat4) 0.809 (sat5) 0.662 (sat6) 0.695 (eng1) employee engagement 0.781 0.977 0.958 0.719 (eng2) 0.815 (eng3) 0.867 (eng4) 0.879 (eng5) 0.875 (eng6) 0.838 (eng7) 0.851 (eng8) 0.872 (eng9) 0.849 discriminant validity was also tested in order to avoid the possibility of multicollinearity. discriminant validity shown in table 5 determines whether the constructs in the model are highly correlated among each other or not. it compares the square root of ave of a particular construct with the correlation between that construct with other constructs. the value of the square root of ave should be higher than correlations. as table 6 shows, all values of correlations are lower than ave (convergent validity), so latent factors are appropriately explained by the observed variables (henseler, ringe & sarstedt, 2015). table 5. discriminant validity of factors (job satisfaction, employee engagement and intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination)) (n = 1505) job satisfaction employee engagement intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) sic ave job satisfaction 0.709 0.709 employee engagement 0.848 0.703 0.848 intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) 0.737 –0,357 -0.257 0.737 structural equation model the model presents a good fit of the data. the table 6 shows multiple indexes of fit which were developed to address sensitivity in the chi-square statistic. regarding chi-square statistic sensitivity to the sample size, it is no longer relied upon as a https://changing-sp.com/ 80 jernej jelenko basis for acceptance or rejection of a model (schermelleh-engel, moosbrugger & müller, 2003; vandenberg 2006). as a result, multiple fit indexes were estimated to provide a more holistic view of fit, taking into account not only the sample size but also model complexity and other relevant issues of the study. indexes cfi, tli and nfi approved the model fit. pnfi also indicates that the model shown in figure 1 is parsimonious. the structural equation model (figure 2) follows the hypothesized model based on theoretical findings. it includes three constructs (intergenerational differentiation measured in a form of age discrimination, job satisfaction and employee engagement). overall, the structural model included 19 observed variables. table 6. model fit (n = 1505) model χ² df rmesea (90% ci) cfi tli nfi pnfi p du(s/v) 1704 150 0.083 [0.079; 0.087] 0.924 0.914 0.918 0.805 .000 note: χ² – minimum of discrepancy, df – degrees of freedom, rmsea – root mean square error of approximation (< 0.05 or 0.08), ci – confidence interval, cfi – comparative fit index (> 0.90), tli – tucker lewis index (> 0.90), nfi – normed fit index (> 0.90), pnfi – parsimonious normed fit index (> 0.60). igd1 igd3 igd4 igd5 intergenerational differentiation – age discrimination employee engagement e75 e73 e72 e69 .67 .60 .48 .41 .82 .78 .69 .64 .49 .36 .70 e54 e68 job satisfaction .13 e53 e52 e51 e50 e49 e48 sat6 sat5 sat4 sat3 sat2 sat1 .69 .66 .48 .44 .81 .65 .69 .48 .67 .45 .72 .52 .61 .66 .75 .77 .77 .70 .72 .76 .72 .85 .87 .85 .84 .88 .88 .87 .81 .78 eng1 eng2 eng3 eng4 eng5 eng6 eng7 eng8 eng9 e4 e5 e6 e7 e8 e9 e10 e11 e12 figure 2. structural equation model (n = 1505) changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–90 81 the structural equation model tested on the sample (n = 1505) shows a negative but weak (–.36) although direct effect of intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) on job satisfaction. figure 2 also shows a high (.70) effect of job satisfaction on employee engagement. even though the direct effect of intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) is not statistically significant, an indirect effect on employee engagement is shown. intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) explains a relatively small (13%) proportion of job satisfaction. on the other hand, there is a significantly larger (49%) proportion of employee engagement explained by job satisfaction and intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) that contributes to the variance explained by its indirect influence. both factors explain almost half of the variance of employee engagement, so the predictive strength of the model with two predictive factors is estimated as relatively good. in additional research, more factors that improve the predictive strength of the model should be identified and incorporated. when the structural equation model shown in figure 2 is compared over the two age cohorts, older (n = 750) and younger (n = 755) employees, the data in table 7 shows that the effect of intergenerational differentiation is negative but higher (–.41) for the sample of older employees than the sample of younger (–.32) employees. intergenerational differentiation had greater influence on job satisfaction among older employees (greater age discrimination corresponds to lower job satisfaction). in the group of younger employees, age discrimination played a less important role regarding job satisfaction. table 7. regression weights/influence and r square based on a sample of older (n = 750) and younger (n = 755) employees older younger regression weights/influence job satisfaction <intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) –0.41 –0.32 employee engagement <job satisfaction 0.71 0.70 r square job satisfaction 0.16 0.10 employee engagement 0.50 0.49 there is little difference regarding the effect of job satisfaction on employee engagement between younger and older employees. moreover, intergenerational differentiation account for (explains) a greater degree of job satisfaction of older employees (16%) than younger (10%). there is almost no difference in the effect of job satisfaction on employee engagement between the age groups. consistent with the lower effect of intergenerational differentiation on job satisfaction in the younger employee segment, in that age group intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) also make up a lower percent of the explained variance (6% less) than in the age group of older employees. https://changing-sp.com/ 82 jernej jelenko discussion results of the research confirm the relationship between intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination), job satisfaction and employee engagement. the hypothesized model was partly confirmed during the analysis. the study confirms that there is a negative but significant direct effect of intergenerational differentiation, manifested through age discrimination on job satisfaction (h1). also, the findings of alarcon & edwards (2011) were confirmed when a significant direct effect of job satisfaction on employee engagement was (h2) shown. the effect of intergenerational differentiation on employee engagement is indirect through its effect on job satisfaction (h3), as the direct effect was not found as significant. findings are conclusive and in alignment with set theory (cropanzano & mitchell, 2005) and the position of job satisfaction as a driver of employee engagement (e.g. abraham, 2012). a focus of interest was also on how age discrimination affects job satisfaction and employee engagement in groups of young and old employees. the analysis showed that, statistically, the group of younger employees differs significantly from the older employees regarding the effect of age discrimination on job satisfaction. intergenerational differentiation had a higher influence on job satisfaction among older employees. age discrimination was perceived as more influential while job satisfaction was perceived as less. also, in the age group of younger employees, age discrimination played a less important role in relation to job satisfaction. this could be partly understood through generativity (role of older people to nurture and guide younger people and care for the next generation) (kuther, 2016) and partly through socio-emotional selectivity theory (sst) (carstensen, 1992). sst suggests that older people, relative to younger, have greater selection preferences for social contact that fulfils quality relational needs (carstensen, 1992) and are more focused on maintaining positive emotions and psychological well-being (carstensen, 1998). due to the high importance of interpersonal relationships for older employees, age discrimination had more erosive effect on older than on younger employees. moreover, there were statistically different effects of job satisfaction on employee engagement between age groups. the predictive strength of the model was 1 % higher in explaining .50 of variance of employee engagement and 6 % higher in explaining job satisfaction in .16 in the group of older employees, compared to younger employees. limitation and future research it should be pointed out that research had certain limitations and that the conclusions based on the results are also limited. first and foremost, the design of the research tools was based or subject to self-assessment (perception of one’s own experience of the work environment). perception always reflects a certain degree of subjectivity, or from another perspective, individuals could only evaluate those aspects of the work that they have become aware of. one of the potential drawbacks of the research was also the conceptualization of intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure. the developed and used measuring instrument should serve as the basis or stepping stone for future researchers to construct a superior instrument which will be changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–90 83 (by its conceptualisation) more complex to include more factors. to further explore this field, a higher quality research tool would need to be constructed to comprehensively capture intergenerational differences regarding knowledge transfer, cooperation, etc. lastly, the sampling process and the structure of the sample should also be taken into account. the acquisition of organizations that were invited to participate was entirely ad hoc. both organizations and participants (i.e. employees) volunteered for the survey. in this light, a reasonable suspicion has been made: with greater engagement and participation of a particular organization, the more it has (or at least its management structures considered to have) a more optimal (age discrimination free) work environment, higher levels of satisfaction and engagement. thus, it can be concluded that environments whose leadership did not share this view elected not to participate. similarly, employees who participated in the research may have considered themselves more satisfied and engaged than the others. conclusion increasing age diversity in modern organizations is calling to an increased awareness of intergenerational differentiation and the effects of age discrimination on favourable organizational and personal outcomes. it calls for re-evaluation of organizational practice and management, and recognition of the perception of other older workers who hold somewhat different work values (smola & sutton, 2002). the findings of study present key implications for both human resource management and employees. it serves as a better insight into effects of age discrimination across age groups. while several studies have already been performed, much time and effort still need to be invested in composing a more detailed multifactor age discriminate measure, and consequently more detailed research. despite the above limitations, the study results provide important insight into effects of age discrimination on job satisfaction and employee engagement. first of all, it confirmed the established relationship between job satisfaction (examined by the facet approach) as an antecedent and predictor of employee engagement (bellani, ramadhani & tamar, 2017). also, perceived age discrimination had a larger direct effect on job satisfaction among older than young employees. moreover, the data analysis showed that in the group of older employees, age discrimination explained a larger proportion of job satisfaction among older employees and also a larger proportion of their engagement. results of this study suggest that older employees are more susceptible to age discrimination and that perceived age discrimination causes more negative effects on positive employee outcomes than it does on younger employees. findings are conclusive with findings of fung et al. (2016) who found that older people had lower endorsement of agentic personal values and higher endorsement of communal personal values than did younger people. this highlights the importance of interpersonal contact, relationships, and instrumental and emotional help for older generations which according to researchers sits in a negative relation to age discrimination (chou & choi, 2011). it also offers important data for hr practitioners and organization management who should systematically and holistically develop https://changing-sp.com/ 84 jernej jelenko and implement approaches to prevent age discrimination, especially towards older employees. although the differences among younger and older employees were statistically significant, it is valuable to note that only the effect from intergenerational differentiation (age discrimination) on job satisfaction showed an important predictive difference between the age cohorts, explaining more about job satisfaction among older employees compared to younger. all other differences in the model showed that the predictive model for both groups are largely alike. this suggests, to different degrees for both age cohorts and in the broader social context, that age discrimination where it derives from differences in age-related values and structural changes can have negative impacts on social cohesion and well-being (abrams & swift, 2012; stokes & moorman, 2019). in addition to those impacts, when those differences take the form of discrimination, more negative individual and socio-economic effects abound, such as segregation and exclusion (simms, 2004). these forms of estrangement and isolation shock and weaken the integrity of social institutions and foundations, undermining family and community structure while further burdening the welfare state (stypinska & nikander, 2018). on the other hand, older employees have greater need for social and emotional support, and this presents a greater opportunity for knowledge transfer that would fulfil and maximize the positive individual and social aspects of intergenerational differences. references abrams, d., & swift, h. j. 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(evans, 1997, p. 2) similar developments arose in non-christian societies outside europe, albeit to a different degree: for example, in muslim lands, the dominant religious forces imposed various limitations on minority religions, although in general, intolerance of other religions was not as extreme as in europe. the common development in the medieval period of the european history was the unity of the state central authority and the dominant religion, which was aimed at the prevention of practicing of other religious beliefs. it was almost impossible to view conscience outside a theological framework: “the result was that while the minority approach towards religious belief might have differed from the majority, thereby raising an issue of conscience, a similar oppressive outcome resulted when, or if, the minority assumed power” (hammer, 2018, p. 12). the reformation generally recognized the individual conscience, but only in the framework of the word of god. nevertheless, the idea of the personal © 2017 elena stepanova stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com published online 27 december 2017 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 323 understanding of scriptures inevitably led to the freedom of thought outside christian dogmatic. the next stage of the freedom of conscience was the recognition of the religious freedom in post-westphalian europe. the diversification of christianity during the reformation and the rise of the secular states resulted in the acceptance of personal liberty and individual freedom of belief including atheism and agnosticism. two writers – pierre bayle in france and john locke in england – developed ideas of the independent approaches to ethics based on conscience as the internal source of ethical knowledge, and religious toleration based on the recognition of the inherent limitations of the human’s ability to comprehend the nature of a deity. gradually, human beings acquired the privilege of a reasonable inquiry into nature, society and human subjectivity. it was a sense, in charles taylor’s words, that “freedom of conscience was a value that should be espoused, independent of confessional adherence, that there was something retrograde in its violation, something uncivilized”. (taylor, 2007, p. 259) in political practice, it resulted in the separation of church and state, which was for the first time articulated in the us constitution, thus legitimizing the very term “conscience” as opposed to “religion”. so, the right to freedom of conscience emerged through centuries as an independent right that need not centre on religious beliefs (hammer, 2018, p. 26), thereby comprising the right to freedom of thought and religion. in the xxth century, freedom of conscience was codified in the international human rights system as the forming part of the corpus of human rights, because it is assumed that without freedom of conscience there could be no real freedom of speech, opinion, expression, peaceful assembly, association or participation in social life. the creation of the league of nations following the world war i generally indicated that religious tolerance was recognized as a fundamental concept to ensure peaceful coexistence among countries in the world. although the league’s covenant did not contain special article on the freedom of conscience, later the principle was fully implemented in the “universal declaration of human rights”, which was proclaimed by the united nations general assembly in paris on 10 december 1948 as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. the article 18 of the udhr states: “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” today, in most parts of the world freedom of conscience, thought and religion is taken for granted, and many people look at is as a natural human right. nevertheless, we do not have to forget that this right has been acquired in quite recent times, and the way to it was dramatic (bury, 1913). even in nowadays, article 18 is violated constantly, and millions of people around the world continue to be oppressed because of their beliefs. at the same time, the udhr in general, and article 18 in particular remains the subject of serious debates. it is generally agreed that the udhr was adopted in the aftermath of the world war ii as an attempt to ensure that such a catastrophe would never take place again. nevertheless, eventually the universality of the 324 elena stepanova declaration has been questioned due to the undermining of contextualization, or acknowledging cultural differences that exist between societies in different parts of the world. religious beliefs and moral standards are shaped by the particular socialcultural context, and the very concept of the freedom of conscience and freedom of religion emerged in western european christian context; it means that its content and significance could not be the same everywhere and for everyone. contemporary ‘post-secular’ societies are characterized by religious diversity and deprivatization of religion. they embrace freedom of conscience and allow each individual to decide for himself/herself how to pursue the ultimate meaning of life. they are marked by the fact that religious beliefs – both historical and new ones – as well as atheism, agnosticism and non-religious lifestyles, are equally viable options. nevertheless, post-secularism (whatever it means) challenges two main principles of secularism – equal respect to all beliefs, and freedom of conscience – and its two operative modes – separation of religious institutions and state, and state neutrality towards religions. consequently, the popular expression, which is prescribed to voltaire: the willingness to defend to the death the one’s right to say what is disapproved – remains a disputable subject. the current issue of changing societies & personalities discusses some aspects of the freedom of consciences and freedom of religion in past and present. ivan strenski’s on an antinomy in the discourses of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience introduces the new section of the journal – essay – and opens discussion on the questions: can freedom of religion and religious freedom really be separated in reality? does not the one actually require or entail the other? in reflecting on the distinctiveness of the terms “freedom of conscience”, “freedom of religion”, and “religious freedom”, as well as their interconnection, strenski goes back into the genealogies of the notions and argues that freedom of conscience and freedom of religion not necessarily imply each other. he uses some decisions of the us supreme court, as well as historical examples, as illustrations of the controversy of individual and institutional religious freedom. tatyana nikolskaya in the paper human rights advocacy of baptist initiators stresses that knowing the history of protestants in the ussr is especially important due to resent cases of violations of the religious freedom and non-traditional denominations’ rights in russia, as well as the necessity not to forget about tragic pages of persecution and discrimination in the past. the paper elucidates the unknown pages of evangelical christians and baptists’ struggle for the right of believers, which according to the author formed the only mass human rights movement in the ussr. although evangelical christians and baptists traditionally were not interested in political and civil activity, in 1960th many of them started to participate in the struggle for the independence from the state and the right to freely profess their faith being influenced by the assurance in weakening of totalitarian power in the khrushchev’s “thaw”. this did not came true, and hundreds of people were convicted of religious activities and sentenced to prison. nikolskaya devotes special section of her paper to the participation of women-believers in human rights activities, and underlines: “it remains a mystery how these women, mostly changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 325 burdened by families, managed to travel so actively around the country, to study a lot of complicated cases, to write and send letters of intercession…” finally, she stresses the mixed consequences of the human rights activities of baptist initiators, and mentions criticism of the initiators’ protection of the rights of believers from within their own baptist community because of a fear to complicate their situation, and of persistent unwillingness to engage in politics. mark s. cladis’s paper solidarity, religion, and the environment: challenges and promises in the 21st century argues that religion and solidarity should not be treated as anomalies in modernity because solidarity plays an important role in establishing freedom of conscience and individual rights. in addition, religion and solidarity could be seen as cultural resources in dealing with the environmental problems. he stresses that “both religion and solidarity can act as double-edged swords” in a sense that they could contribute to peace and justice, as well as reinforce oppressive social practices. in exploring religion and solidarity, cladis refers to e. durkheim who had discovered religion as social ideas, beliefs and practices that shapes a society’s moral universe, and solidarité as an enduring source of human social identity and fellowship. mentioning the today’s suspicion about the concept of solidarity due to doubt in common ground among diverse human communities and individuals, cladis insists that solidarity remains a powerful notion, which celebrate diversity as a precious public resource. gnana patrick in the paper religion and the subaltern self: an exploration from the indian context introduces the concept of the subaltern studies project (ssp) and the interface between religion and the subaltern self in the indian context. the term “subaltern” was taken from italian marxist antonio gramsci who meant by it the subjected underclass under the dominant power influence. the term underlines the recognition of the historically subordinate position of various groups because of race, class, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc., and seeks to provide them a voice and agency. the author clarifies the relationship between the subaltern studies and the post-colonial studies in their approach towards religion and stresses the difference between them. the basic argument of the paper is that religion, considered on its own, could be an emancipatory experience for the subaltern self, due to its effective interpretive potential for the subaltern self to take on the caste system, which remains deeply entrenched into the indian collective consciousness. examples from the pre-modern and modern periods of the history of india are observed in order to support the argument. in the book review section, anatoliy denysenko reviews the roman soloviy’s volume fenomen poiavliaiushcheisia tserkvi v kontekste teologicheskikh i ekklesiologicheskikh transformatsii v sovremennom zapadnom protestantizme [the phenomenon of the emerging church in the context of the theological transformations of the ecclesiastical transformations in contemporary western protestantism, 2017]. he considers the book as one of the most important not only in the ukrainian (post-) protestant theological environment, but also in the ecclesiastical sphere of the evangelical communities of the post-soviet space. in reflecting on the nature of (post-) protestantism and the phenomenon of the “emerging church”, denysenko 326 elena stepanova following soloviy in the search of a new christian theology, which could find new ways of expressing the gospel in the contemporary culture. the discussions on the freedom of conscience, freedom of religion and religion freedom in the past and present will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. we welcome suggestions for thematic issues, debate sections and other formats from readers and prospective authors and invite you to send us your reflections and ideas! for more information, please visit the journal web site: https://changing-sp.com/ references bury, j. b. (1913). a history of freedom of thought. new york, ny: henry holt and co. evans, m. d. (1997). religious liberty and international law in europe. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. hammer, l. m. (2018). the international human right to freedom of conscience: some suggestions for its development and application. london: routledge. taylor, ch. (2007). a secular age. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.2.099 received 8 december, 2019 © 2020 dmitriy a. davydov accepted 9 june 2020 davydovdmitriy90@gmail.com published online 9 july 2020 opening the debate the crisis of humanism and emerging post-anthropocentric epoch: a personalistic view dmitriy a. davydov institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the present article is devoted to a discussion of the crisis of humanism and prospects for a post-anthropocentric society. the evolution of humanism is traced as a broad cultural phenomenon that affects all spheres of society. the author sets out to show that the crisis of humanism is associated not only with philosophical criticism from the perspectives of transand post-humanism, but also with the prospects for a society in which humanistic ideas about a person as a bodilyand mentally-autonomous being continue to predominate. in this regard, various ethical and philosophical concepts are considered that seemingly point to the inevitability of going beyond the limits of anthropocentrism. however, one particular problem that emerges is either ignored by many authors or remains to be properly resolved. this problem is associated with the prospect of losing the capability of “metamorphosis” due to the latest human technologies for universal communication (empathy and understanding) along with the destruction of the fragile global “lifeworld”. the destruction of this lifeworld is fraught with alienation and the multiplication of planetary risks. the author proposes that the problem of unpredictability and the danger of manmade interventions in human nature can best be approached by considering the hypothetical posthuman in close relationship with the social whole. this philosophical “optics” can be borrowed from the philosophy of personalism, understood here as the set of philosophical attitudes that affirm the highest value of a personality as a transcending being, involved in a timeless dialogue with other personalities. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 221 keywords humanism, posthumanism, transhumanism, personalism, philosophical anthropology, human nature acknowledgements the present article was completed as part of the project mk-2621.2019.6 of the grants of the president of the russian federation for state support of young russian scientists – candidates of science (tender – mk-2019). the author expresses his deep gratitude to thomas a. beavitt for a thoughtful translation and careful revision of the work, without which this publication would have been impossible. introduction in this article, i address the theme of the crisis of humanism. although this topic has been relevant since nietzsche, today the prospect of a posthuman society (in the broad sense) is becoming quite real. humanism has suffered a double blow: on the one hand, as anthropocentrism comes under increasing criticism; on the other hand, as a set of value attitudes that emphasise the unique and exceptional nature of man, which may be radically transformed in the not-too-distant future. in this context, corresponding ethical discourses arise, which state both the inevitability and the desirability of the post-anthropocentric era. nevertheless, in what follows, i aim to show that discussions about a post-anthropocentric future are far from being concluded. rather, in stating the problem, the unsatisfactory nature of the available solutions only becomes more glaringly apparent. this problem involves the imminent destruction of the fragile planetary “lifeworld” (or intersubjective space) as a result of chaotic “improvements” carried out by people to their bodies and consciousness. as i will try to show, the destruction of this intersubjective space is fraught with alienation and the multiplication of global risks. thus, in order to address the problem of increasing unpredictability and mitigate the danger of manmade interventions in human nature, it will be necessary to consider the hypothetical posthuman in close interrelation with the social whole. the necessary “optics” for such an approach is provided by the philosophy of personalism, which can be understood in a broad sense as giving the central role to personality, considered as a transcending being in timeless dialogue with other personalities. the main thesis of the article is that, unlike other “post-anthropocentric” philosophical concepts, the personalistic way of understanding reality is more “sensitive” to the issues of maintaining unity, integrity – and, accordingly, the vitality of society. humanism: from “dawn” to “dusk”? to begin with, due to ambiguities inherent in the term “humanism” stemming from its use in a variety of contexts, it will be necessary to try to create some conceptual clarity. in a broad sense, humanism can be used to describe any orientation towards human beings in terms of their happiness, material or spiritual well-being, etc. thus, https://changing-sp.com/ 222 dmitriy a. davydov for example, one can sometimes find such usages as “christian humanism”. in what follows, however, the term “humanism” is understood in its narrowest sense as comprising the set of common ideological attitudes within which a human being is considered as a free, unique, autonomous and terrestrial – or “earthly”– creature. humanism, therefore, proceeds: (1) from the immanence of human existence, the humanity of man; (2) from the fact that the ultimate source of higher values, forming a kind of “ethical measuring stick” is man himself, his “interests”; (3) consequently, the consideration of everything else only through the conceptual prism of a person understood only in this way (i.e. anthropocentrism). here i would like to once again emphasise that, in what follows, humanism is not considered as an ideology in its own right and should therefore not be exclusively associated with e.g. liberalism, since it can also be present in varying philosophical or ideological trends (for example, in sometimes absurd and contradictory combinations in the ideologies of national socialism or communism). subsequently, we will not additionally distinguish between the various varieties of humanism (e.g. renaissance, enlightenment, modern secular humanism, etc.). it is undoubtedly worth pausing to consider the very significant differences between the different varieties of humanism, since these involve the most diverse understandings of man in terms of his nature and essence. at the same time, we will note not so much the specifics as those elements of continuity that allow us to draw conclusions about humanism (and its crisis) as a kind of integral cultural phenomenon or at least an interconnected set of those traits in philosophical thought and everyday thinking that originated in the renaissance era and which, albeit gradually changing, have survived to this day. in order to show that “humanistic civilisation” has entered its sunset period, it will be first necessary to clarify what are the constituent elements forming the backbone of humanism itself. here it will be necessary to take cognisance of the inseparability of humanism from those processes that gradually led to the formation of bourgeois society (some historians attribute these changes to the so-called commercial revolution, which took place from around the end of the 13th to the 18th century1). the rise of bourgeois society was accompanied by a disenchantment (weber, 1905– 1910/2002) of the world. as solomon stam notes, the advent of humanism (here we are talking about its earliest form during the renaissance) became possible because at first in the most developed cities of italy of the 14th–15th centuries, and then in other western european countries, a capitalist system arose, an early bourgeoisie, adversarial dominant feudalism and its powerful servant – the church (see: stam, 1984, p. 4). humanism would not have been possible without first creating a basis for the direct growth of material well-being, providing giving hope for a joyful life together, for incremental progress – in short, the possibility of realising heaven on earth. stam continues that after a millennium that saw the domination of christian-ascetic ideology proceeding from the dogma of “original sin”, it was as if comprising an inevitable gravitational force over people, concerning the depravity and insignificance of a 1 this was facilitated by the rapid growth of cities, the emergence of banks, joint-stock companies, the growth of money circulation, the gradual technological progress in navigation, cartography, the discovery of america, etc. (see spufford, 1989). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 223 person (innocent iii equated a person with a worm, even placing him lower than the worm); and it should have been, first of all, moral to rehabilitate a person, justify his high dignity, his limitless possibilities for improvement and creativity, to which giannozzo manetti would refer as “the greatest and immeasurable glory of our humanity” (see: stam, 1984, p. 6). accordingly, in justifying the desire for “earthly” well-being, humanism as “immanent” anthropocentrism rehabilitates what was earlier considered in terms of vice: ambition, the desire to receive earthly pleasures (including “earthly” love) – even, in some cases, greed. the sacralisation of earthly man along with his own earthly aspirations (not transcendental essences) was expressed in the praise of all the “earthly” ones, from the ubiquitous eroticism and satire of the decameron (boccaccio, 1353/2003), the erotic love stories of the heptameron (marguerite of navarre, 1558/1984), bracciolini’s earthy scatological humour (bracciolini, 1470/1984), the vulgar jokes and relentless satire of gargantua and pantagruel (rabelais, 1532– 1564/2016), erasmus’ praise of folly to the thoroughgoing (not to say humorous) disparagement of all christianity of bonaventure des périers’ (des périers, 1537/1965) in cymbalum mundi. in his utopia, thomas more depicts a hedonist society for whom the highest happiness is to have all material wealth in abundance and a “pleasant life”: the utopians therefore regard the enjoyment of life – that is, pleasure – as the natural object of all human efforts; and the natural, as they define it, is synonymous with virtuous. however, nature also wants us to help one another to enjoy life, for the very good reason that no human being has a monopoly of her affections (more, 1516/2003, p. 92). moreover, the philosophy of renaissance humanism is already characterised by an internal antinomy associated with the understanding of “liberation” from the transcendental. the labours of many early humanists are characterised by a duality of evaluations of the “immanent”2. it would seem that this dichotomy had already encompassed “in itself” the embryo of the subsequent long (still ongoing) philosophical discussion concerning the shortcomings of “immanent” anthropocentrism, within which framework the philosophy of posthumanism would arise. as noted by r. chen-morris, h. yoran, and g. zak, optimism and doubt are different sides of the same coin as they are minted from the same presupposition of humanist discourse, namely, the undermining of the metaphysical mooring of human reality. humanist discourse rejects – usually implicitly – the fundamental assumption of the western philosophical tradition that behind phenomenal reality there is an intelligible and unchangeable substance. instead, humanists often assume that human reality is an artifact that can be fashioned by human efforts: hence humanism’s sense of liberation, creative 2 even in petrarch's “contempt for the world”, we see precisely the internal struggle of striving for the active affirmation of the ambitious contemporaneous “earthly man” with an ascetic worldview (petrarch, 1343/2011). https://changing-sp.com/ 224 dmitriy a. davydov cultural energies, and anthropological optimism; and hence the novel historical, ethical, and political theories elaborated by the humanists. but the undermining of the traditional metaphysical order of things necessarily threatens basic beliefs and convictions and creates a sense of cultural dislocation and psychological anxiety. in the intellectual sphere, this shift gave rise to fundamental questions concerning the ultimate foundation of ethics and the legitimation of the political order. it is this ambiguity that characterises the humanist discourse and establishes it as the foundation of modernity itself (chen-morris, yoran, & zak, 2015, p. 430). the further evolution of humanism took place mainly in the direction of an “excision” of its former theistic “birthmarks”3. in its mature, completed (“pure”) form, humanism is precisely secular (“exclusive”) humanism, characterised by the primacy of reason, ethics based on critical thinking – and, of course, the ideal of freedom (kurtz, 2007). the crisis of humanism: “external” or “internal”? the emergence of the critique of humanism may be dated to around the same period as criticism of the christian worldview started to become a feature of the philosophical thought of the modern era. although the isolated “i” of the modern individual subject would give rise to a sense of strength, power, invulnerability to spirits, along with pride and dignity, at the time, it was confronted with a disenchanted world that was typically experienced as flat and empty (taylor, 2007, p. 593). all of this not infrequently resulted in an urge to overcome the “immanent order” of modern reason, to go beyond the present dimension of a disciplined economic or reproductive activity. charles taylor, for example, views some manifestations of romanticism as an attempt to revolutionise the “immanent order”. he writes: the depth and fullness of ordinary life has been articulated for us in an art which constantly seems to transgress the limits of the natural-human domain. the romantic sense of nature, for instance, is hard to separate from images of a larger force, or a current of life sweeping through all things. these images, central for instance to wordsworth’s poetry [...] break the carefully erected boundaries of the buffered identity, which neatly divide mind from nature (taylor, 2007, p. 701). the romantic search for inspiration and “depth” in the boundless forces of nature can be seen as a kind of attempt to break out of the “immanent” order. to a certain extent, a “anti-humanistic” attitude was characterised by heroic ethics centred around aristocratic military virtues that resisted the humanistic affirmation of the highest value of human life (taylor, 2007, p. 320). in terms of being impregnated with references to heroic ethics, nietzsche’s philosophy can also be conditionally referred to as anti-humanistic. nietzsche’s superman is a being who, in standing over the “ordinary” man and his present being, affirms his self-over-others. 3 here we must emphasise the word “old”, inasmuch as we are talking about medieval theology. here it is worth noting that christianity itself also subsequently absorbed the influence of humanism. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 225 nietzsche considers the lives of individuals to be below the values that the superman creates (“creating values is the true right of masters” (nietzsche, 1886/2017)). many of nietzsche’s ideas were anticipated by max stirner, who contraposed humanistic “faith in man” with the egoism of the unique. stirner’s interpretations of the overwhelming and exclusive “religion of humanism” turned out to be prophetic (we recall, for example, the totalitarian ussr, in which masses of people were destroyed in the name of the abstract “man” of the communist future). as stirner writes, if as in the revolution, “the human being” is understood as the “good citizen”, then from this concept of “the human being” come the well-known political offenses and crimes. in all this, the individual, the individual human being, is regarded as scum, and contrarily, the universal human being, “the human being”, is honoured (stirner, 1845/2017). nevertheless, humanism should not be considered solely as a belief in an abstract “person” (the so-called “metaphysical” humanism – see heidegger, 1946/1978). the fact that such a faith has appeared and still exists only implies that humanism as an “immanent” anthropocentrism has become the source of various corresponding ideological trends connected with the construction of abstractions – or, as stirner would say, “spooks”. like nietzsche, however, stirner can also be seen in partially humanistic terms. for both thinkers, there is no “higher” reality. there is only the “i” (superman / the unique), confronted both by a hostile material world and the “others”. their philosophy is imbued with love for man as a terrestrial creature, the only difference being that the humanism in question is not misanthropic, but egocentric. one can even say that this is the “purest” anthropocentrism, because the human being itself is taken here not as some kind of abstract whole, but as directly existing. therefore, we should not be too surprised when jean-paul sartre, in his famous essay “existentialism is a humanism”, sets forth ideas that have much in common with stirner’s ideas. here, true humanism is to be found in the freedom of choice of an “abandoned” person. sartre writes: this is humanism because we remind man that there is no legislator but himself; that he himself, thus abandoned, must decide for himself; also, because we show that it is not by turning back upon himself, but always by seeking, beyond himself, an aim which is one of liberation or of some particular realisation, that man can realise himself as truly human (sartre, 1956/1989). nevertheless, humanism gradually “accumulated” contradictions. in the first place, the internal contradiction of humanism inherited from the renaissance, consisting in an ambiguous combination of the “costs” and “benefits” of rejecting the transcendental, never disappeared. therefore, strictly speaking, humanism has never been able to achieve absolute dominance or completely push out the transcendent from social life – which today, although in a somewhat individualised form, has maintained its position in the search for religious meaning (taylor, 2007). secondly, the “immanent order” of modern societies accumulated its own set of contradictions. belief in reason, freedom https://changing-sp.com/ 226 dmitriy a. davydov and human dignity did not end up saving humanity from destructive wars, exploitation, violence and injustice. serious damage to humanism was inflicted by sigmund freud with his criticism of man as a rational autonomous being (see, e.g., freud, 1927/1949). in the end, this accumulation of contradictions led to serious philosophical criticism of the “predominating” position of humanism. posthumanism thus emerges as a kind of development and deepening of postmodernism (the term “posthumanism” in the modern sense appears in 1977 (hassan, 1977)4. the philosophy of posthumanism is gradually being formed and developed in the field of literary criticism (hayles, 1999), as well as in philosophical studies on the deconstruction of “the human”. today, it is widely represented in feminist discourses (donna haraway, rosi braidotti, karen barad, stacy alaimo, f. ferrando [alaimo, 2016; barad, 2003; braidotti, 2013; ferrando, 2019; haraway, 1991] and others). in general, posthumanism is characterised by a scepticism towards any idealisation of human subjectivity. thus, the idea of the cartesian subject was first deconstructed within the framework of the “linguistic turn”, when it was shown that man comprises a location where discourses intersect, something hidden by the veil of the unconscious; that the free subject is an illusion, and that, in general, as michel foucault observes, “man is a recent invention”. subsequently, however, the conceptual focus has shifted somewhat, with proponents of the “new materialisms” trying to overcome the dualism of matter and culture that resisted the efforts of postmodernists. “the death of the subject” means that, in the material sense, a person is not a “centred” monad point in space. moreover, between matter and culture there is an “intra-action” – that is, an instantaneous two-way relationship. from this perspective, a person can only be seen as part of a very complex material and cultural “context”. in other words, it is not man, but matter itself that turns out to be “agential” (agential matter – “agent”, acting matter). as mónica cano abadía explains, this critical posthumanism, indebted with french antihumanism, feminist anti-universalism and anti-colonialism, tries to disconnect the definition of the human of its universalist position. the human within humanism is a “systematised standard of recognisability – of sameness – by which all others can be assessed, regulated and allotted to a designated social location” (cano abadía, 2018, p. 173). to abandon this regulatory notion of the human means to embrace a more complex and a less discriminatory vision of the subject. thus, a posthuman vision of the subject could lead toward more respectful, anti-universalist, materialist and post-anthropocentric ways of analysing our world (ibid.). in essence, the posthumanist position entails an abandonment of ethics based on anthropocentrism. “posthumanism”, writes francesca ferrando, “can be seen as a post-exclusivism: an empirical philosophy of mediation, which offers a reconciliation of existence in 4 foucault’s death of the subject (foucault, 1966/1994), derrida’s grammatology (derrida, 1967/1977), the collapse of metanarratives in j.-f. lyotard (lyotard, 1979/1984), schizoanalysis by gilles deleuze and félix guattari (deleuze & guattari, 1972/1977) and many more. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 227 its broadest significations. posthumanism does not employ any frontal dualism or antithesis, demystifying any ontological polarisation through the postmodern practice of deconstruction” (ferrando, 2013, p. 29). nevertheless, there is reason to believe that post-humanism, though dangerous, is not fatal to humanism. in the end, posthumanist criticism focuses mainly on a very specific ideological form of humanism. the direct association with humanism of such phenomena as colonialism, racism and male domination by some posthumanist philosophers5 seems at least dubious. here we are again talking about criticism of the humanistic “spooks” (or rather, constructed ideas about the abstract “human”). at the same time, it is possible to doubt the sequence of posthumanistic anti-anthropocentrism. in this form, posthumanism continues to take the form of the self-reflection of the modern “isolated self”. however, ultimately, this “isolated i” cannot offer anything more than a particular recognition of “myself” that emerges from the process (assembly/relational entity, etc.) consisting in the general cosmic order of things. thus, although a different “spook” is being constructed, a different idea of the abstract “man”, it is already striving for a peaceful life-coexistence within the framework of an infinite variety of different forms of subjectivity, as well as “reconciliation” with “matter” itself (for example, planet earth and biological processes occurring on it). here it becomes apparent that we are talking about a new humanistic “spook”. however, if previously the criterion of non-human could be applied to one who did not meet european norms of rationality/subjectivity, today a non-human becomes one who does not agree with the “new” values of tolerance, multiculturalism, etc., towards which posthumanism is ostensibly oriented. while this may no longer be aggressive anthropocentrism (although it is necessary to consider in relation to whom this aggression is considered), from the very fact that a “person” recognises his responsibility for aggression or violence against any other and from free choice in favour of moving to the “ontological equality” of various forms of being, it is still possible to make out the outlines of anthropocentrism. rather, it consists in an act of self-reflection, a kind of “goodwill”, but not a consistent and direct departure from the limits of humanism (in fact, in some cases there are no intentions to build any kind of neo-humanism (braidotti, 2019, p. xiii)6. 5 r. braidotti: “the human is a normative convention, which does not make it inherently negative, just highly regulatory and hence instrumental to practices of exclusion and discrimination. the human norm stands for normality, normalcy and normativity. it functions by transposing a specific mode of being human into a generalised standard, which acquires transcendent values as the human: from male to masculine and onto human as the universalised format of humanity. this standard is posited as categorically and qualitatively distinct from the sexualised, racialised, naturalised others and also in opposition to the technological artefact. the human is a historical construct that became a social convention about ‘human nature’” (braidotti, 2013, p. 26). 6 consistent posthumanism would completely deny the anthropocentric view. this would mean, for example, the struggle for recognition of the “right” of sars-cov-2 and all other bacteria and viruses to equal existence as forms of vitality/materiality/agency and so on. it would also imply the denial (“deconstruction”) of all elementary “human” categories of thinking (like “tolerance”, the desire for equality, the maintenance of life, etc.). to consistently avoid anthropocentrism, posthumanists should author their writings on the “behalf” of assemblies/relationalities, avoiding all human “proper names” that imply centring on a particular person. however, it turns out to be based on the same anthropocentrism, but with a conscientious (often hypocritical) overlay expressing concern for non-human others. https://changing-sp.com/ 228 dmitriy a. davydov far more dangerous to humanism is humanism itself, with the real threat consisting not in “external” criticism, but rather in terms of an “internal” transformation into something hostile to it. and here it is necessary to look not so much at the various ethical positions, not at the sphere of philosophical discussions, but at humanism as a cultural fact of social life, as an “immanent” anthropocentrism permeating the consciousness of a modern person. this “immanent” anthropocentrism implies the consideration of man as one of the “objects” of the material world that can undergo a radical transformation. technological development itself warrants the relatively rapid disappearance of the human, i.e. the very species homo sapiens. a number of philosophers and researchers argue that sooner or later technologies will allow the creation of superhumans (immortals with “improved” brains and physical abilities), that people will change genes, integrate into the technological environment (i.e. become cyborgs) – and that artificial intelligence technologies will develop giving rise to superconsciousness or super-beings endowed with such a consciousness (or there will be a union of all beings into one super-being, etc.). here we are talking about the philosophy of transhumanism as espoused by julian huxley (huxley, 1958), robert ettinger (ettinger, 1972), f. m. esfandiary (esfandiary, 1989), nick bostrom (bostrom, 2016), ray kurzweil (kurzweil, 2005), and many others. transhumanist philosophers emphasise the inevitability of overcoming humanity’s limitations by means of technology. “backward” humans will continue to occupy a place either in some kind of zoo reservation or on the fringes of the future civilisation, while the initiative passes to a new race (or races) of intelligent artificially-derived superhuman humanoids (or completely artificial robotic creatures). at the same time as adhering to liberal or libertarian beliefs that advocate the freedom of everyone to control their bodies, most transhumanist authors somewhat paradoxically assert the futility of attempts to prevent the appearance of the transhuman7. however, the prospect of a radical technological transformation of human nature does not in itself imply a crisis of humanism. after all, as has been repeatedly noted by various theorists (see ferrando, 2019), transhumanist discourses remain primarily anthropocentric in their basic orientation. a genuine crisis of humanism is rather associated with those dangers that logically arise from the attempts of human beings to intervene in their own biological natures. this perspective has spawned a whole branch of ethical debate – for example, as seen in polemics between bio-conservatives and techno-liberals (see bailey, 2005; fukuyama, 2003; habermas, 2003, etc.). at the same time, it should be emphasised that the prospect of a radical transformation of human nature is not something that has been “invented” by ideologists or ethics. rather, it is the reality of a society in which the principles of “immanent” anthropocentrism come to prevail. in such a society, the introduction of technologies for changing the nature of man is indeed inevitable. in a disconnected and alienated world, in which there is no single organising and controlling centre (after all, the “highest value” of 7 as clarified by y. n. harari, “this will not happen in a day, or a year. indeed, it is already happening right now, through innumerable mundane actions. every day millions of people decide to grant their smartphone a bit more control over their lives or try a new and more effective antidepressant drug. in pursuit of health, happiness and power, humans will gradually change first one of their features and then another, and another, until they will no longer be human” (harari, 2017, p. 60). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 229 bourgeois society continues to be a certain “isolated” entity, considered in terms of its essential separateness), it is impossible to completely ban certain experiments aimed at the transformation of the human body and consciousness. even if such bans were to be applied in some countries, there would still continue to be numerous “dead zones” that do not fall under the purview of ethical regulation. what dangers are we talking about here? in most cases, we are talking about potentially unpredictable health risks for those whose bodies will be “improved”, be it genetic engineering (using crispr genome editing mechanisms, etc.) or cyborgisation (implantation of mind-changing chips in the brain, etc.). there are also risks associated with the insecurity of human nature transformation technologies themselves (for example, scenarios of uncontrolled self-replication of nanorobots – the so-called “grey goo”). finally, we can mention potential “social” risks: e.g. unequal access to human improvement technologies, which may result in a further increase in social inequality. nevertheless, i consider that these are not the principal problems associated with technologies for changing the nature of a human being. much more serious, yet rarely-considered despite being the potential source of an infinite number of additional misfortunes, is the very real prospect of the destruction of human “lifeworld” as a result of an infinite number of “modifications” that make the achievement of global unity unrealistic: the destruction of the “organic” basis for an empathic commonality of experience due to prevailing practices that radically alter the body and mind. such a destruction of the “community of experience” is fraught with alienation, the disintegration of humanity into “(post-)humanity” lacking mutual comprehension and the total chaos of untrammelled technological progress. all this can lead to the destruction of the ability to reach consensus, which is fraught with the most adverse consequences imaginable. therefore, what is important concerns not so much how we look at various technologies today, but whether we will be able to enter into any constructive dialogue about them in the future? we shall not assert that this problem has been completely ignored in modern discourses concerning technologies for changing the nature of man. however, the available responses are not altogether convincing. in briefly considering them, we will also try to outline one of the possible approaches to solving this problem, which can be formulated based on the philosophical optics of personalism. the end of dialogue? from a personalistic perspective, the main problem facing “changing” humanity today can be seen to consist in the “disappearance” of dialogue (as a moment of intersubjective unity). there is no philosophical consensus about what constitutes the essence of a person: despite many scientific and technological advances, we still do not know what a human being is. however, it is difficult to argue with the proposition that all representatives of the species homo sapiens have something in common. no matter how cultures, languages, social idealities, etc. may vary, there is something that allows all people to at least partially understand the experience of other people, https://changing-sp.com/ 230 dmitriy a. davydov even those who lived in previous times. nearly everyone is able to admire the heroic exploits of the characters of the iliad or appreciate the rousing signification of beethoven’s ninth symphony. although this experience can be perceived by us in a “distorted” sense, i.e. not in the same way it would be perceived by our contemporaries, nevertheless, it still will not be something completely alien for us or inaccessible to our understanding. at the genetic level, changes taking place in a human being over thousands of years have been insignificant; therefore, a certain set of common biological processes preserved in the human body and brain still determine repetitive patterns of behaviour conferring the capability of empathic experience (for example, the activity of mirror neurons). needless to say, today we live in a world of alienation, full of injustice, cruelty and indifference. nevertheless, remaining common “species” traits inspire the hope that someday it will be possible to arrive at a more solidary state (the hope for a postcapitalist society, in which the alienating principle of the pursuit of profit is replaced by the principle of solidarity on a global scale is still very much alive (see, e.g., mason, 2017; srnicek & williams, 2015, etc.)). the main obstacle to this is, as already noted, that technologies used to change human nature can destroy that generality, which supports – however tenuous and barely noticeable – a unity between people (what can be referred to as a “universal human identity”). how do the proponents of various ethical and philosophical movements respond to this challenge? as we have already seen, the crisis of humanism is experienced not so much in ideological terms as at a social level. therefore, it becomes necessary to focus not on the ideological component of humanism per se, but rather at how it affects society (or reflects this structure) and what risks connected with further technological development can be mitigated or obviated by this social structure. since humanism is “genetically” associated with the bourgeois economy (gorfunkel, 2017), the modern capitalist world-system (see, e.g., wallerstein, 2004) – along with its inherently competitive struggle and individualism – is also largely a product of humanism (although, of course, we are talking here about an interdependent relationship, expressed in marxist terms concerning the dialectic of the “basis” and “superstructure”). along with “improvements” connected with increasing individualisation, such social conditions are likely to lead to an increasing descent into chaos. thus, it follows from humanism and the forms of transhumanism ensuing from it that people should have the freedom to change their own organism. as gilbert hottois notes, the vast majority of transhumanists are agnostics or atheists, secularists and free-thinkers. the values and intentions they proclaim are close to modern secular humanism (see hottois, 2014, p. 48). liberal and libertarian transhumanists assert that, if an “earthly man”, on the basis of his own “earthly” moral principles or preferences, receives technological capabilities allowing him to cease to be a representative of the species homo sapiens, then such is his choice, which should only be supported. moreover, all liberal and libertarian transhumanists do is to take this same “earthly man” and unfold the old anthropocentric ethics of the “supremacy of a higher being” over the rest of the world in a new way. hence, the main problem, for this is the direct path to a chaotic collapse of the processes of transformation of human nature, leading to the destruction of what changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 231 can be conditionally designated as the “lifeworld”8. as spanish scholars armesilla conde and santiago javier point out, transhumanism will give rise to a minority of creatures for an indefinitely long time, economically and politically influential, proud of their way of life, separated from the rest of humanity that experiences less improvement, which will be developed only to maintain the appropriation of capitalist property, of the capitalist division of labour, of capital as the primary element of industrial relationship (see conde & javier, 2018, p. 66)9. since the individualised and atomised society is already characterised by a mass of contradictions, the ultimate diversification of human corporeality will only deepen these contradictions, destroying the already fragile organic “props” of universal solidarity. of course, not all forms of transhumanism are blind to issues connected with maintaining the integrity of the social organism. in this connection, so-called democratic (social democratic?) transhumanism deserves special attention. for example, james hughes focuses on problems related to the provision of equal access to “human improvement” technologies, as well as on issues of reaching consensus on the control of technological risks associated with the use of these technologies. however, the main thrust of hughes’s “social” discourse emphasises the exclusive right of people to something he refers to as “bodily sovereignty”. hughes writes: we not only need to radicalise our understanding of citizens, the bearers of rights, but also of the rights we have to control our bodies and minds, and the structures we need to make those freedoms real. the right to control our bodies and minds should include the right of sane adults to change and enhance their own minds and bodies, to own our own genetic code, to take recreational drugs, to control our own deaths, and to have ourselves frozen. procreative liberty, an extension of the right to control our body and life, should include the right to use germinal choice technologies to ensure the best possible life for our children. strong democratic government is required not only to protect these rights, but to ensure that the technologies are tested for safety so that consumers understand their risks and benefits. we also need strong social democracies to ensure all citizens have access to these options, not just the affluent (hughes, 2002; see also hughes, 2004). 8 the understanding of “lifeworld” here is close to that expressed in the work of jurgen habermas. according to habermas, “the lifeworld is, so to speak, the transcendental site where speaker and hearer meet, where they can reciprocally raise claims that their utterances fit the world (objective, social, or subjective), and where they can criticise and confirm those validity claims, settle their disagreements, and arrive at agreements. in a sentence: participants cannot assume in actu the same distance in relation to language and culture as in relation to the totality of facts, norms, or experiences concerning which mutual understanding is possible” (habermas, 1987, p. 126). 9 accordingly, “liberal-libertarian” transhumanism turns the old idea of perfecting man inside out, reducing him to a purely technological problem. as nicolas le dévédec remarks, “in its journey from the enlightenment to transhumanism, the notion of perfectibility has been particularly distorted. though it refers to a political project and an improvement of human beings in and by society in the enlightenment (proposed in particular by jean-jacques rousseau), it is simplified in transhumanist rhetoric to the technoscientific adaptation of the human being and of life itself. for transhumanism, politically changing the world is no longer the question” (le dévédec, 2018, p. 3). https://changing-sp.com/ 232 dmitriy a. davydov admittedly, a “democratic” approach may help to mitigate “direct” risks, but it will not solve the problem of maintaining a “communicative whole”. sooner or later, “improved” (post-)people will lose their ability to sympathise with everyone else and, as a consequence, will cease to share a common human identity (i would label such a hypothetical situation with the term “great misunderstanding”). here we can assume that the problem consists in the “immanent” order of modernity. at the same time, any appeal to the transcendental is likely to lead to even greater risks of destruction of the already tenuous layer of the universal human “lifeworld”. there have been many recent attempts to include the idea of technological “improvement” of a person in various religious discourses (see, e.g., cole-turner, 2008; donaldson & cole-turner, 2018; maher & mercer, 2009; maher & mercer, 2014, and other). in other words, although an appeal to the transcendent can function as a source of basic values and life guidelines (for example, god the father as something that binds all that exists into a single whole, etc.), a transcendental a priori cannot form the basis of social unity – at least, not on a global scale. however, in adhering to the positions of humanistic naturalism, we can at least – as francis fukuyama does – appeal to “natural equality” (fukuyama, 2003). as we already noted, human nature provides the vast majority of people with a basic set of behaviour patterns, including the universal capacity for empathy. since, by its very nature, what is transcendent is fundamentally unknowable, anyone may have their own ideas about it – or, for that matter, may choose not to acknowledge its existence in any way. as history clearly shows, all attempts to universalise the transcendent have led to aggression, wars, extremism, the destruction of trusting relationships, etc. when it comes to factors of estrangement, it is clear that religious disputes can only “add fuel to the fire”. however, we can say that mainstream religious worldviews predominating in contemporary society have either been supplanted by “immanent” humanism and have, as a consequence, become highly individualised (taylor, 2007). from here, it is possible to progress to a “posthumanistic” position, in which the emphasis is shifted from the person to agency per se and whose claims to universality repudiate all hierarchical forms of organisation. if all forms of being are fundamentally equal, then social unity is feasible precisely in such a denial of all totality. thus, the idea of de-universalisation (deconstruction) can itself become universal and unifying. if there is no longer such a thing as a universal truth, then there remains only the universal enjoyment of diversity and the freedom to play with various significations. here we see something akin to the christian idea of unconditional love. the postmodern philosopher gianni vattimo aptly notes that in the era of the collapse of metanarratives, the christian doctrine of universal love experiences a second birth along with the decline of metaphysics as a systematic philosophy (or the possibility of such philosophies), capable of offering a coherent, unified, strictly justified picture of the unchanging structures of being, having itself exhausted the possibility of a philosophical refutation of the existence of god (see vattimo, 2007, p. 22). this also means that it is possible to take another look at the idea of christian love through a distinctive kind of “weakening of being”. every life, writes vattimo, is changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 233 nothing but a perfect enjoyment of the meanings and spiritual forms produced by the history of mankind and constituting the “kingdom of immortality” (see vattimo, 2007, p. 65). under the pretext of combatting humanistic myths and affirming true diversity, posthumanism actually leads to a blurring (as it were, “comparing”) of differences (as, for example, occurs in the desire to blur gender differences in the future cyborg society imagined by donna haraway (haraway, 1985)). as the posthumanist philosopher francesca ferrando writes, “posthumanism challenges biocentrism, sentiocentrism, vitalism, and the concept of life itself, blurring the boundaries between the animate and the inanimate, in a quantum approach to the physics of existence” (ferrando, 2019, p. 5). within this approach, the human “dissolves” into matter, breaking up into atoms (“waves”, “assemblies”, “relativities”, “vibrations”) to reach a state in which everything is intertwined with everything else. although this might sound attractive in theory, it is not at all clear how it can be put into practice. here posthumanistic discourses can be seen to possess a certain critical energy, which nevertheless starts to flag whenever its creative potential is called into question. in this case, there is nothing with which to replace humanism, due to the tendency of posthumanism to establish a “negative” agenda (i.e. to deny some points of mastery and dominance), while little attention is paid to maintaining social unity. posthumanistic discourses can thus be seen as focusing on distancing10 rather than on unity and transformation. finally, many controversial contemporary social phenomena can be described in terms of a movement toward posthumanism: the erasing of cultural differences, the emergence of human-gadget, human-product and product-human blends, the hybridisation of person and machine, as well as the prospect of disposing of people considered “superfluous” to the contemporaneous economy into the virtual space (fishman & davydov, 2015). in the manifesto of metahumanism (metahumanism compromises a movement within which a philosophical synthesis of posthumanism and transhumanism is attempted), authored by jaime del val and stefan lorenz sorgner, we find the following: it deepens the view of the body as field of relational forces in motion and of reality as immanent realised process of becoming which does not necessarily end up in defined forms or identities, but may unfold into endless amorphogenesis. monsters are promising strategies for performing this development away from humanism (del val & sorgner, 2011). however, it is hard to understand how “monsters” resulting from unrestrained and chaotic self-transformations can even share common experience or emotions, let alone agree on socially significant problems having a global scope. thus, as we have discussed, the crisis of humanism is not in the first place an ideological crisis. rather, it is a crisis of “immanent” anthropocentrism as a broad 10 r. braidotti: “we have to realise that, contrary to the marxist-leninist idea of a global revolution, the changes that we can achieve are collective, but step by step, by distancing ourselves. look at how feminism has shown us how to distance ourselves from male violence. or how anti-racism has shown us how to distance ourselves from white supremacism. the point is to distance ourselves. it is like an exercise in detoxification. we have to detoxify our bad habits, in our way of consuming, of thinking, and of relating with others” (andrés, 2019). https://changing-sp.com/ 234 dmitriy a. davydov cultural phenomenon, serving to legitimise, in particular, the modern capitalist worldsystem. the essence of this crisis lies in the destructive potential of the activities of the “immanent man”. moreover, the main problem here is not so much that the modern order is capable of creating global problems that could potentially lead to the destruction of life on earth, but rather that the “immanent man”, as a result of interventions in his body and consciousness, risks breaking the last strings that connect him with other people in common humanity. in the latter case, the mechanisms of empathy and collective reflexivity are destroyed, which is a direct path to an ultra-alienated society. in order to solve this problem to overcome such a crisis, a shift in ethical optics is necessary. accordingly, the focus of our consideration should shift from the human as “being present” (dasein) to personality forming an organic part of the social organism. such optics can be provided by the philosophy of personalism. a personalistic perspective? we should start by noting that the term “personalism” has many possible meanings. we can take “personalism” to refer to that idealistic philosophy, which asserts that the real is the personal. within the framework of this approach, it is assumed that personality is substantial, i.e., comprising the primary form of being. however, here personality is not only substantial, but forms the primary category, within which any explanation of reality may be proposed on the basis of personal “attributes”: consciousness, thinking, self-awareness, individuality, goal-setting, progress towards an established goal, modes of development, etc. accordingly, it is asserted that god, comprising personality per se, is real. this understanding is most closely related to christian tradition, being rooted in the doctrine of the trinity. according to niels gregersen, the doctrine of the trinity was truly revolutionary in relation to prechristian thought due to the fact that the very existence of god began to be seen as consisting in acts of communication. divine personalities (prosopa = hypostaseis) are defined as existing in relationships, in communication. thus, the father is the father only in relation to the son, the son is the son only in relation to the father, the spirit is the spirit only in relation to the father from whom it emanates. it is only in the mutual surrender and perichoresis of divine personalities that god exists as god (see gregersen, 2013, p. 11). modern forms of personalism arose as a kind of reaction to the depersonalising elements in the rationalism of the enlightenment, including pantheism, hegelian absolute idealism, individualism, as well as political collectivism informed by materialistic, psychological and evolutionary determinism. although personalism is very closely associated with christian theology, there are also aspects of personalism that not only go beyond the christian philosophical picture of the world, but also beyond religion itself. personalism affirms the supreme reality and value of personality, i.e. both divine superpersonality and a human person in dialogue with it (in the image and likeness of god). the personalistic approach emphasises the significance, uniqueness and integrity of personality, as well as its fundamentally relational (dialogic) or social dimension (williams & bengtsson, 2018). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 235 since we cannot consider all possible personalistic philosophical currents here (not least on account of their diversity and abundance), instead we will try to state the position that seems most relevant to the context of philosophical discussions about technologies for changing the nature of man. the personalism to which we now turn is not represented by a specific philosophical school or movement. rather, it consists in an attitude, a way of thinking that can be present in certain people, regardless of whether they consider themselves to be personalist philosophers or not. moreover, it makes no difference whether a particular discourse is defined as “religious” or not. here we will agree with jean lacroix, according to whom personalism is not a philosophy in the proper sense of the word. or, seen another way, it is possible that not one, but several philosophical concepts of personalism exist, feeding on the same inspiration, but deriving from it various, largely dissimilar teachings: there are, for example, atheistic and christian concepts of personalism, not to mention many others (see lacroix, 2004, pp. 15–16). accordingly, we refer here to personalism as consisting in a particular view of the world, in which the focus is on the being of personality as an organic part of the social whole (here we must separately emphasise the word “organic” – see below). at this point, we will pause to make a necessary distinction, since the term “personality” has its own special meaning in the personalistic “tradition”. this does not refer to the same thing as each and every individual or individuality. in the context of personalism, personality exceeds the set of “social qualities” of an individual human being. the philosophers nikolay berdyaev (berdyaev, 2010; 2018), e. mounier (mounier, 1999), jean lacroix (lacroix, 2004), and many others understood personality as an ecclesial being constituted as such by mode of existence and independence of being; this existence is supported through the adoption of a hierarchy of freely applicable and internally experienced values, through responsible inclusion in activity and a constant process of conversion; thus, it carries out its activities in freedom and, moreover, develops its vocation in all its originality through creative acts (see mounier, 1999, p. 301). in other words, a personality is a spiritual being involved in creative activity who actively asserts himor herself through an intersubjective individuality. here it is necessary to once again emphasise that personalism implies a fundamental distinction between the terms “personality” and “individual” or “individuality”. this difference could not be more perfectly expressed by nikolay berdyaev. according to him, the concept of personality should not be confused with the concept of the individual, as frequently occurred in the thought of the 19th and 20th centuries. since the individual implies a naturalistic category, i.e. biological and sociological, the concept appertains to the natural world. if, from a biological point of view, an individual forms part of a genus, then from a sociological perspective it functions in terms of forming part of society. that is to say, it comprises an atom – indivisible, without internal life, anonymous. thus, an individual cannot be said to have an existence independent of genus or society. in itself, the individual is an inherently generic and social being, only an element or part defined by its interrelationship with the whole. personality, on the other hand, has a completely contrasting meaning, which derives from spiritual and religious categories. https://changing-sp.com/ 236 dmitriy a. davydov personality speaks of a person’s belonging not only to the natural and social order, but also to another dimension of being, to the spiritual world. therefore, personality invokes a higher order of being than the natural and social. we will see that it cannot be part of anything whatsoever. society tends to consider personality in terms of an individual subordinate, as something that it owns due to having created it. from a sociological point of view, personality indeed forms a part of society – and a very small part at that. thus, if society comprises a big circle, personality represents a small circle inserted into it. on a sociological basis, personality lacks the ability to oppose itself to society and cannot fight for its own interests. however, from the point of view of existential philosophy, the opposite is true: society is a small part of personality, merely its social aspect; even the world is only a part of personality. it is not society nor nature that form an existential centre but personality, which cannot be reduced to object but is always an existential subject. of course, personality realises itself through social and cosmic existence, but it can only do this due to a principle that is independent both of nature and of human society forming within it. personality is not defined as a part in relation to any whole (by “part of the whole” here berdyaev means precisely a mechanical, instrumental unit as part of the whole. in what follows, i will use the more appropriate term “organic part of the whole” – d.d.). personality is itself a totality, integrating the universal in itself and refusing to be part of any generality, world or society, universal or even divine being. since personality is not in any way natural, it does not belong to an objective natural hierarchy and cannot be inserted into any natural series. rooted in the spiritual world, the existence of personality presupposes a dualism of spirit and nature, freedom and determinism, individual and general, the kingdom of god and the kingdom of caesar. the existence of human personality in the world suggests that the world is not self-sufficient, that the transcendence of the world is inevitable, its completion being found not in itself, but in god, the supermundane being. the freedom of the human personality is freedom not only in society and in the state, but also from society and from the state, determined by the fact of forming an exception to the world, an exception to nature and society, an exception to the kingdom of caesar (see berdyaev, 1999). here, we should not be confused by the appeal to the term “existential”. in the sense that personalism is the philosophical attitude of a “sufferer” confronted with the abyss of its own subjective non-existence, the personalistic attitude is very close to the existentialist position. nevertheless, the personalist philosophers tend to avoid all individualism. in experiencing its finiteness and mortality, as well as the emptiness of the modern “immanent order”, the personalistic “personality” experiences something like “existential suffering”. however, it is not by reflective “withdrawal into oneself” (as, for example, in sartre), but by transcending or going beyond one’s own limits – i.e. by becoming an involved, social being – that it is possible to escape from this condition. thus, we may also consider personalism as a distinctive philosophy of acquiring the sense of life by means of an “active” appeal to the eternal. such an appeal is possible either by means of creative dialogue with the divine superpersonality, or through involved being in this world. a man struggles with his finiteness and mortality, with all changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 237 “dissolving” tendencies; in so doing, he is included in what can be designated as eternal. this “inclusion” or involvement occurs without loss of individuality, as a face portrays the uniqueness of countenance. on the other hand, it is exactly in creative activity that true individuality can be exercised, which receives its meaningful content in dialogical relationship with others. personalism, therefore, invokes the space of intersubjectivity. at the same time, we understand intersubjectivity specifically in terms of sincere understanding of the other, i.e. compassion or “sympathy” for his or her experience. here, personality is subjectivity (including inherent subjectivity), which transcends the biological matter of its medium, in the intersubjective space of culture. it may be objected that, if considering personalism as a certain tendency or the aggregate of some characteristic premises of thinking, then the features of personalism can be found in many philosophical trends. thus, a personalistic way of thinking (although often not in its entirety!) can be seen in teilhard de chardin’s concept of the noosphere (the noospheric planetary unity of mankind here functioning as an analogue of the personalistic “superpersonality”) (teilhard de chardin, 1955/2008), the personalistic spirit of russian religious philosophy (from vladimir soloviev and fedor dostoevsky to aleksei losev [see kolesnichenko, 2018]), the philosophy of cosmism of nikolai fedorov, konstantin tsiolkovsky, vladimir vernadsky and others, as well as the communist god-building project of anatoly lunacharsky (lunacharsky, 1925), and others. nevertheless, special attention should also be paid to marxism, which in many of its variations is very close to the personalist worldview (for example, some works of freudo-marxist erich fromm are conceptually very similar to the works of the personalist philosopher emmanuel mounier (see, e.g., fromm, 1955/1990, 2013). the proximity of personalism and marxism has been repeatedly noted by the classic personalist writers themselves (see lacroix, 2004, pp. 290–535). such proximity should not be surprising, since in both philosophical traditions people are no longer considered as isolated beings, but rather as located between the immediate bodily, biological being and the social organism. there can be no such thing as an isolated “personality”, any more than personality can be located in the faceless, mechanical part of the collective whole. karl marx himself showed a particular sensitivity to this question, describing man as an “ensemble of social relations” (marx, 1969). in his exploration of marx’ philosophical and anthropological ideas, pyotr n. kondrashov cites the following features of the author’s personalistic understanding of man: a person is both originally built into the object-external world (nature, culture, society, the world of symbols, social consciousness) as well as being in a dialectical relationship with it, forming and revealing itself in the intersubjectivity of social relations, experiencing its being-in-the-world as a suffering person in the form of partial, existential relations-to-the-world and to-oneself (see kondrashov, 2019, pp. 154–165). therefore, for marx, more important than all other questions was the achievement of a social condition that would eliminate alienation between people. the movement towards such a state could also be described as humanism (i.e. “genuine”, “real” humanism, etc.). however, from the point of view of semantics, it would be preferable to consider this in terms of personalism, since it is assumed https://changing-sp.com/ 238 dmitriy a. davydov that there can be no autonomous, free, truly “personal” being as long as the social organism is loaded with contradictions. if, strictly speaking, there is no dialogue (but there is monological “imposition”, “violence”, “coercion”, “deception”, “repression”, “insincerity”, etc.); if there is an alienation of individual public “bodies” (or even “cells”) with respect to the organic whole, then the human “i” is not free (i.e. it does not seem to belong to itself), because it is (and is being formed!) in the discursive chaos of hostile forces. this point should be emphasised due to its relevance in the context of attempts to change human nature: “personality”, according to this approach, cannot have any kind of independent existence or be confined to an isolated natural container such as the individual human brain. thus, personality consists in a set of relationships converging in a certain relatively autonomous whole. this statement recognises the posthumanistic approach discussed above. however, for marx, along with many other personalist philosophers, a person cannot be liberated from the “fetters” that confuse and oppress him unless or until the social organism itself is freed from its internal contradictions as an intersubjective whole11. in this sense, marxism is essentially personalistic. however, here we by no means assert that marxism is the same thing as personalism. although we have seen that personalistic intuitions are present in many marxist schools, we should also consider some elements of marxism that would appear to be hostile to personalism. for example, personalistic philosophers have repeatedly criticised depersonalising interpretations of marx’s philosophy, which reduce the being of personality to class categories in a kind of “tilt” towards collectivism (berdyaev, 1999). it would also seem that historical relativism and anthropological praxis involving essentialist doctrines concerning humanity (see kondrashov, 2019, pp. 91–153) are somewhat contrary to the personalistic way of thinking. in reducing the essence of humanity to a revolutionary change in the person and his/her environment, a consideration of subjectivity is constrained to the context of the present set of social relations, thus denying the essential personalistic idea of eternal dialogue. in this case, a public organism (the “totality” of social relations) is considered only in the context of a certain temporal discreteness, within which elements of the “new” are extrinsic (alien) to the elements of the “old”. in this regard, a real dialogue of personalities (and, therefore, a truly inalienable personal being) becomes impossible as a consequence of the denial of intersubjective continuity. here we will draw attention once again to the 11 karl marx: “let us suppose that we had carried out production as human beings. each of us would have, in two ways, affirmed himself, and the other person. (1) in my production i would have objectified my individuality, its specific character, and, therefore, enjoyed not only an individual manifestation of my life during the activity, but also, when looking at the object, i would have the individual pleasure of knowing my personality to be objective, visible to the senses, and, hence, a power beyond all doubt. (2) in your enjoyment, or use, of my product i would have the direct enjoyment both of being conscious of having satisfied a human need by my work, that is, of having objectified man's essential nature, and of having thus created an object corresponding to the need of another man's essential nature. (3) i would have been for you the mediator between you and the species, and therefore would become recognised and felt by you yourself as a completion of your own essential nature and as a necessary part of yourself, and consequently would know myself to be confirmed both in your thought and your love. (4) in the individual expression of my life i would have directly created your expression of your life, and therefore in my individual activity i would have directly confirmed and realised my true nature, my human nature, my communal nature. our products would be so many mirrors in which we saw reflected our essential nature.” (marx, 1966, pp. 126–127). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 239 “existential” component of personalism: an inalienable personality can only find life to be meaningful through engagement in eternal or timeless dialogue. in this context, a personalist is any person who strives to ensure that his or her activity involves some kind of meaning, comprising a kind of being for the sake of descendants. accordingly, if the intersubjective space of culture is subjected to rupture, then any meaning appertaining to the personal existence of living people is lost. for this reason, personalism implies a rather negative attitude towards the transhumanistic rhetoric of a “rupture” leading to the transition to a new, “postsingularity” level of consciousness (for example, ray kurzweil’s computron (kurzweil, 2012)). according to personalist ethics, any creation of “monsters” with which it is impossible engage in sincere dialogue starts to look something like collective suicide. even if the “monsters” themselves do not pose an immediate danger, this scenario would rupture the relatively fragile strands that bind humanity into a single intersubjective whole. it should have already have become clear that personalistic optics implies an appeal to social holism – here it is emphasised once again that we refer to an “organic”, not a mechanical (!) whole. relatively speaking, the crisis of humanism pertains to the humanistic society in which the individual and his or her “earthly being” forms the “centre” of the universe (and worldview). conversely, a personalistic society (as a normative ideal) is first and foremost one comprised of those who strive to become part of a bigger picture, taken in the timeless (absorbed into eternity) dimension of the intersubjective space of culture (history, memory, etc.). this is neither consumerism nor hedonism, neither thrillseeker nor everyman, but rather encompasses those who go beyond the narrow framework of material existence, striving for an active creative statement in the world. however, such an ideal can only be constructive if the person is striving for mutual love and the unity of the intersubjective space itself. one of the most significant axiological shortcomings of both postand transhumanism is their focus on the destruction of all intersubjective unity. posthumanism, as we have seen, entails risks leading to value chaos, while transhumanism leads to chaotic technological transformations of the human species, which can lead to the complete disappearance of that which serves as the basis for possible commonality of experience, as well as affection and feelings. postand trans-humanism can thus be seen as two essentially different paths to the destruction of a common mental space, to total alienation and the destruction of commonality. conversely, the ideal of personalism implies that the larger (wider, deeper, longer up to eternity) the intersubjective space, the stronger the unity of the person with the entire world (for example, through creativity aimed at the benefit of all of humanity). we will try to concretise the foregoing regarding its prospects for technological transformations of human nature. 1. first of all, it is worth noting that the personalist perspective – at least in the version that we are considering here – implies its own “ethical perspective”, in which the focus is placed not on the individual, but on the personality forming an organic part of the social whole (here, the social whole should be understood as the human social whole whose formation takes place on a planetary scale). thus, it is meaningless to consider ethical problems associated with trying to change human https://changing-sp.com/ 240 dmitriy a. davydov nature if the ethical problems of a changing society are ignored. this position finds agreement with habermas’ position that irreversible interventions in the genes of unborn children should not be allowed, since this implies a “predetermination from the outside” (habermas, 2003) involving a kind of “ontological lack of freedom”. however, no less unfree is the one whose “i” is formed in a monological (alienated) framework of social relations. it should be borne in mind that the biological “substrate” of innate physicality serves as a kind of “barrier” that protects against manipulative external interventions in subjectivity (for example, while advertising can encourage a person to buy sparkling water, it does not in itself generate thirst). however, the technological “erosion” of this biological “barrier” has the potential to make people more vulnerable to such “transforming” power. here, it is irrelevant if the changes are reversible or not, or whether they are the subject of formal consent. in an alienated world, overcoming such “natural” boundaries is the path to absolutely asymmetric relationships (for example, when a person ceases to understand whether he or she really is the person as whom he or she identifies or whether he or she (or some other gender identification) has been completely “constructed” by someone else). 2. accordingly, truly symmetrical, dialogical relations are possible only if the main social contradictions are “resolved”: socio-economic inequality on a global scale, the division of humanity into hostile nations, poverty and indigence, aggression and exploitation, etc. only in such a case is it possible to predict the advent of personal freedom. this is also a kind of “posthumanistic” perspective, since the “authenticity” of a person’s personality is then considered in terms of the transparency of the communicative space. a personality does not belong to itself until it participates on an equal footing in a collective, (self-)identification as an equally-valued and equallyparticipating member of a social organism (there is no paradox here since “immersion” in a social whole and dependency on it are inevitable: the only question is whether this “whole” is hostile or friendly, whether it is partly “mine” too). therefore, the ethical priority in this case is expressed in the desire for at least an approximate achievement of a “disengaged” state, i.e. the struggle for a post-capitalist future (see, e.g., davydov, 2020), direct e-democracy (see, e.g., fuller, 2015), world citizenship12, etc., and only then – balanced and gradual technological interventions in the human body. such a perspective is certainly no more utopian than transhumanistic anticipations of technological singularity, universal cyborgisation, or, say, the construction of the above-mentioned computron. 3. the main danger associated with technologies for changing human nature is associated with the potential chaos of bodily and mental transformations, which can lead to the destruction of the universal human intersubjective space (lifeworld). the only obvious means by which this can be countered consists in collective reflexivity. at the same time, it is clear that simple democratic declarations or appeals to the existing mechanisms of nation states or international organisations will not be sufficient. what is needed is not more formal prohibitions or permits, but a genuine rapprochement of people on a global scale: a movement towards understanding and the possibility of sincerity. in this connection, the “noospheric” optics of teilhard de 12 world standardisation: https://www.mundialization.ca/about-hmc/history-of-mundialization/ https://www.mundialization.ca/about-hmc/history-of-mundialization/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 220–247 241 chardin might seem to offer the best fit. a growth in global consciousness (collective self-awareness) becomes necessary due to a constant increase in complexity of the human social organism itself. conversely, a lack of connectivity, “centring” and “nervous” (communicational) sensitivity or coordination of the social whole can lead to a systemic inability of mankind to prevent global catastrophes. in demonstrating to what extent the human organisation is “ungathered” or “mismatched” on a global scale, the covid-19 pandemic recalls the postmodern “body without organs”: humanity is not able to recognise itself in its entirety (totality) or make timely, reflective decisions. under such conditions, endless (and unprecedented!) interventions in the human body and consciousness are likely to lead to the destruction of what unites people into a single unified species (without “bodily” understanding, the possibility of achieving mutual understanding of the “social” becomes extremely doubtful). in addition, the technologies for changing human nature, as already noted above, are freighted with all kinds of inherent risks. 4. a personalistic perspective does not exclude the possibility of carrying out technological “improvements” to the human body. rather, such improvements should be dialogical and transparent. in this context, we may simply remark that personalistic ethical optics is free of many of the essentialist features of anthropocentrism. a person is someone with whom i, also a person, can enter into sincere relationships, one whom i can try to understand and towards whom i can experience empathic feelings. finally, a person is someone who is in the same dialogical and symmetrical relationship with the social whole in which i also participate. therefore, a purely biological personality can be non-human in the “natural” sense. but if someone “drops out” or “withdraws into the shadows”, losing the ability to engage in dialogue, sincerity, love, then, for the public organism, such an element may turn out to be something like a cancerous tumour, representing a mortal danger. accordingly, the personalistic approach suggests that all kinds of transformations of the human body should flow out of social dialogue itself, collectively and excluding any intersubjective asymmetry. 5. finally, the desire for unity of the intersubjective space of culture, affirmed by personalism, implies a special, “existential” view. the state of personalistic unity and integrity (“collectedness”) is possible only within the framework of continuity. “novelty” is to be celebrated not as something that breaks intersubjective space, but in its enrichment or transformation of this space. otherwise, we are merely discussing the existence of what is alien. such activities are, therefore, only meaningful to the extent that they are addressed to eternity. the person finds himor herself not only in being present in the here and now, but also in the social whole, which goes beyond the boundaries of the present. thus, personality does not exist here and now, but rather in the timeless dialogue of everyone with everyone else. only in and through such a dialogue does personality acquire ontological status. therefore, technological “improvements” to human beings can be directed not only to the future, but also to the past, i.e. towards an understanding of past experience including aesthetic enjoyment of what has already been. maintaining the reflective unity of the social organism involves a consolidation of past and future. https://changing-sp.com/ 242 dmitriy a. davydov conclusion in the foregoing, i have tried to show that the historical phenomenon of humanism (as “imminent” anthropocentrism) is in deep crisis. moreover, this crisis is not limited to strictly ideological considerations. in essence, it is a crisis of humanistic anthropocentrism itself, which provides the impulse towards mechanisms of technological changes in the biological nature of individuals. such “improvements” in the conditions of existing alienated social relations are likely to lead to the destruction of the universal human “lifeworld”, a further increase in disunity and to general misunderstanding (up to the complete loss of the ability to empathise). in the long run, we are talking about the disintegration of a relatively unified humanity into many (at best, autonomous; at worst, mutually hostile) humanities. in this article, i have tried to show that many of the concepts of a post-anthropocentric future that are available today do not offer any reasonable solution to this problem. in response to this lacuna, a personalistic alternative is presented, which places personality – considered as an organic part of the global social whole – at the centre of the consideration. here it is important to emphasise the risk that humanity may presently be approaching a situation where further centrifugal forces applied to an already atomised society (consisting of people considered as self-identical) threaten an “ideal storm” in terms of 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(2018). personalism. in stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/personalism/ https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-stirner-the-unique-and-its-property https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-stirner-the-unique-and-its-property https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/personalism/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 123–143 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.166 received 30 july 2021 © 2022 sikandar, sanaullah panezai, shahab e. saqib, accepted 17 february 2022 said muhammad, bilal, imran khan published online 11 april 2022 sikandar@awkum.edu.pk sanaullah.panezai@gmail.com shahabmomand@gmail.com said100487@gmail.com bilalanwer776689@gmail.com awkumkp1@gmail.com article factors determining child labor: empirical evidence from khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan sikandar abdul wali khan university, mardan, pakistan sanaullah panezai university of balochistan quetta, pakistan shahab e. saqib the higher education department, khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan said muhammad zhengzhou university, china the higher education department, khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan bilal abdul wali khan university mardan, pakistan imran khan abdul wali khan university mardan, pakistan abstract children are forced to work when their families face financial pressures due to poverty, illness, or the loss of jobs. there is, however, still a perceived lack of research on the key factors contributing to child labor in pakistan. this study examines the determinants of child labor in mardan and nowshera districts of khyber pakhtunkhwa, a province of pakistan. a total of 200 households were interviewed. a semistructured questionnaire was developed to collect data from the https://changing-sp.com/ 124 sikandar, sanaullah panezai, ... imran khan 1. introduction child labor is frequently characterized as work that affects children in their initial stage of life; it effects their hidden capacity, dignity, and is harmful to their physical and mental health (hilowitz et al., 2004; shalhoub-kevorkian 2020). it is estimated that 121 million children will be engaged in child labor by 2025. among these children, 48% are aged 5–11; 28%, 12–14; and 25%, 15–17 (thévenon & edmonds, 2019). boys are more often than girls engaged in outside domestic work. however, according to the sustainable development goal (sdg) target no. 8.7 aimed to eradicate child labor in all its forms by 2025 (thévenon & edmonds, 2019). therefore, national governments and international organizations are trying to reduce child labor, which has already brought some results: in 2016, 152 million children were in child labor compared to 246 million in 2000 (thévenon & edmonds, 2019). however, the covid-19 pandemic is likely to cause in increase in child labor. not all types of work are considered child labor, but only those that can influence children’s health and deprive them of education (ibrahim et al. 2019). moreover, child laborers are from poor families and may suffer from malnutrition, which makes them more vulnerable to various diseases (ibrahim et al., 2019). according to the international labour organization, in 2008, 8.3% (3.3 million) out of 40 million children (unicef, n.d) were full time and/or low protection laborers in all the territories of pakistan (ahmad et al. 2020; asis & piper 2008). furthermore, family heads whose children are in child labor. a stepwise-regression model was adopted to explore the strength of the relationship between independent variables and dependent variable. the dependent variable was the child labor ratio and the independent variables were the socio-economic and demographic’ characteristics such as age, education, family size, parents’ occupation, the number of adult males and females, family income. the findings show that the family size was the most important determinant of child labor. likewise, the number of adult females, parents’ occupation as daily wages labor, and the parents’ age had a positive influence on the extent of child labor. however, the number of adult males, family income, and parents’ education had a negative relationship with the extent of child labor. the questionnaire survey had shown that families considered poverty to be the main reason behind child labor, unemployment was the second reason and the third was number of dependent females within the families. therefore, the government may target these families from lower socio-economic backgrounds to disseminate information about family planning and also include these people in the current governmental program to help them financially. keywords child labor, family size, dependency, poverty, pakistan changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 123–143 125 low-income families cannot afford to pay school fees and have to send their children to labor to add to the family’s income. the main factors involved in child labor are the socio-cultural factors, i.e., large family size, agro-based economy, family issues, divorces, and the joint family system. according to awan et al. (2011), the prevalence of child labor results from the combination of issues and factors, i.e., illiteracy of the parents/guardians, health issues, failure in child law enforcement, social inequality and poverty. however, other social factors contribute to the curse of child labor (lareau, 2011) such as living from hand to mouth, and lack of job opportunities for parents (lassus et al., 2015). according to the united nations understanding, “children are classified as child labourers when they are either too young to work, or are involved in hazardous activities that may compromise their physical, mental, social or educational development” (un, 2020). poverty, income level, migration, education level, and family size were the primary determinants for child labor (khan et al. 2003). there is also evidence that low family income is the main source of child labor (abrar & arsalan, 2010; ahmed et al., 2012). child labor has venomous impacts on society. therefore, international laws have been established to safeguard the rights of children and put an end to child labor around the globe (doytch et al., 2014). simultaneously, there have been laws for the protection of children’s rights in pakistan (ullah et al., 2017). pakistan complies with the international child protection laws; the country has banned early child labor to protect children’s rights (basu & tzannatos, 2003). the constitution of pakistan has safeguarded the rights of children (cole, 2002). article 11 (3) of the constitution prohibits the employers to hire children below the age of 14 to work in mines or take up other hazardous jobs at industrial facilities. article 3 of the ilo minimum age convention states: “the minimum age for admission to any type of employment or work which by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out is likely to jeopardize the health, safety or morals of a young person shall not be less than 18 years” (ilo, 1973). there is a desperate need to regard children’s privileges at the individual, cultural, and state levels (edwards, 2009). several studies have been conducted in pakistan that reported different determinants of child labor. for instance, kakar et al. (2011) explored poverty, lack of resources, and bigger sizes of families in sindh. another study from southern punjab revealed a lack of educational opportunities for children from low-income families and increasing poverty (haider & qureshi, 2016). moreover, parents’ education level, ownership of assets, and household composition have a significant effect on schooling and child labor in central punjab (khan, 2003). due to the geographical and cultural differences among all provinces of pakistan, the determinants of child labor are different in different regions (haider & qureshi, 2016). to the best of our knowledge, most of the studies has explored the factors responsible for child labor. however, to rank these factors, no study has been found. this study is unique in three aspects: first, it has explored the important determinants of child labor in pakistan. second, we have measured on the basis of estimated results the strength of relationship of these determinants with child labor. third, we used multiple responses technique to rank important reasons. https://changing-sp.com/ 126 sikandar, sanaullah panezai, ... imran khan 2. literature review about, 12.5 million children in pakistan suffer from the curse of child labor largely because of poor economic conditions (jaafar et al., 2013). child labor has a strong correlation with poverty (anderson, 2018). according to hafeez and hussain (2019), the primary areas for child labor are manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture. according to the study of srivastava (2011), child labor has associated with many issues and factors i.e. illiteracy of the parents/guardians. we have searched the literature and summarized the obtained data in tables. the literature that was most relevant to our study objectives is included in review. moreover, the literature on the consequences of child labor is also included in this section. the literature review summarized in table 1 shows that there are several factors (latif et al., 2018) responsible for child labor that include poverty, parents’ education, or low social status two categories of child labor are identified: children working in factories, and children engaged in work (latif et al., 2018). poverty is a global issue, which affects developing countries all over the world. pakistan is one of the countries in south asia with millions of people living in extreme poverty (abdullahi et al., 2016), supposed to be the main reason of child labor. 3. conceptual framework in table 1, we have reviewed the literature. the literature review has helped us to find out the determinants of child labor that are shown in figure 1. to guide do such analysis, we have developed a new framework for explaining child labor (webbink et al., 2013). our framework is based on considering (a) demographic factors and (b) economic factors. these factors affect the child labor which is our dependent variable. figure 1 factors of child labor note. we created it on the base of the literature review. c hanging s ocieties & p ersonalities, 2022, vol. 6, n o. 1, pp. 123–143 1 2 7 table 1 summary of research literature s. no author, year country/ region of the study publication type depended variable independent variables findings 1 bhalotra and heady (2000) pakistan and ghana discussion paper child labor both girls and boys farm size, household income. household size child labor is increasing with increase in farm size and decreasing with increase in household size for both boys and girls in pakistan and ghana. increases in household income have a negative impact on work for boys in pakistan and for girls in ghana. 2 daga (2000) india journal article physical and mental health of child labor child labor work, rural and urban areas various types of illnesses were associated with child labor in rural areas. 3 brown et al. (2002) global discussion paper prevalence of child labor socio-economic factors poverty and low household income sources are the main source of child labor. 4 basu and tzannatos (2003) global journal article child labor participation factors responsible for child labor the poverty and less investment in education are the main reasons of the high prevalence of child labor in many developing countries. 5 khan (2003) pakistan journal article prevalence of child labor socio-economic urban areas education of the head of household and parental education is positively associated with child schooling and negatively associated with child labor. the ownership of assets negatively associate with child labor, the household size affects work positively. children from urban areas are more likely to go to school and are less involved in child labor. 6 bass (2004) sub-saharan africa book issue of child labor miscellaneous occupations, poverty, illiteracy, household size, family income poverty, illiteracy, household size affects the child labor. 7 hilowitz et al. (2004) global report issues of child labor around the globe parents attitude, low income, family size, parents needs help parents attitude is that their child should work with them and help them, they have low family income, and many parents fear school will teach their children to rebel against the family’s traditions and norms. others fear that the children will learn bad habits away from home https://changing-sp.com/ 1 2 8 s ikandar, s anaullah panezai, ... im ran k han s. no author, year country/ region of the study publication type depended variable independent variables findings 8 nkamleu and kielland (2006) côte d’ivoire journal article child labor in cocoa sector gender and age of children, whether or not the child is the biological child of the household head, parents’ education, the origin of the farmer, household welfare, household size, the household dependency ratio, the size of other perennial crop farms, the number of sharecroppers working with the household head parents’ education, the origin of the farmer, household welfare, household size, the household dependency ratio, the size of other perennial crop farms, the number of sharecroppers working with the household head, and communities’ characteristics are all pertinent in explaining the child labor 9 dimova et al. (2008) tanzania discussion paper child labor migration and remittances the migration and remittances sent by the emigrating parents might enable their children to stop working as a child labor. 10 srivastava (2011) india journal article child labor issues and challenges socio-economic and policy poverty is one of the important factors for child labor problem. the endurance of young children is higher and they cannot protest against discrimination. many ngos like care india, child rights and you, global march against child labor, etc., have been working to eradicate child labor in india 11 ahmed et al. (2012) khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan discussion paper child labor socio-economic and demographic factors head of the household’s education and household’s average income are significantly and negatively correlated with child labor. the age of the child and family size are insignificantly correlated with child labor. table 1 continued c hanging s ocieties & p ersonalities, 2022, vol. 6, n o. 1, pp. 123–143 1 2 9 s. no author, year country/ region of the study publication type depended variable independent variables findings 12 latif et al. (2018) pakistan journal article prevalence of child labor in different sectors occupational sectors child labor is present in four major sectors namely mechanical, agricultural, industry and general labor. power looms and agricultural sector is the worst and most affected sector of child labor. 13 ram et al. (2019) pakistan journal article child labor issues and consequences status of children daily earning. type of work done by children and their parents/guardians. status of education of the children engaged in child labor the major reason of the child labor is poverty, children work to fulfill family needs. a large number of children work at automobile repair shop. the major reasons behind not going to school involve poor economic conditions, which lead to work to support family. 14 ahmad et al. (2020) pakistan journal article prevalence to child labor socio-economic and demographic factors, and policy factors the major factors behind child labor include generational poverty, high illiteracy ratio among the parents, unemployment, large family sizes, feudalism and flexibility in the existing child labor laws. 15 quintero (2020) pakistan report child labor issues policy factors in pakistan, it is illegal to employ children under the age of 18 in factories. until recently, the country lacked a law prohibiting children from working at home in most states. on aug. 6, 2020, pakistan banned child domestic labor for the first time, passing an amendment that makes it illegal for children to participate in domestic labor. the government recognized the consequences of this labor, such as trauma and abuse, among young domestic workers. 16 enebe et al. (2021) nigeria journal article prevalence of child labor socioeconomic predictors of child labor the prevalence of child labor among junior students in public secondary schools in study area was high, and was predicted by the level of schooling and income earned. table 1 continued https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/696798-child-domestic-labour-prohibited-under-child-employment-act-1991 130 sikandar, sanaullah panezai, ... imran khan demographic factors such as age, education, family size, number of adult male family members of child labor, number of adult females in the household are affecting child labor. child labor is also more prevalent among the poor families and is often used to make ends meet (nkamleu & kielland, 2006). decision-makers in these families are generally parents or caretakers of the child, but other family members may also have a voice (dimova et al., 2008). therefore, the socio-economic characteristics of the household and parents play a significant role in child labor (homaie rad et al., 2015). child labor is a global phenomenon (de lange, 2009) and mostly takes place in rural areas. parents’ age, their education, family size, the number of dependent family members are important determinants of child labor (hussain et al., 2018). as for the economic factors, the following determinants are usually identified: family income, father’s occupation, and household assets (quintero, 2020). 4. materials and methods 4.1 study area this study has been conducted in two districts mardan and nowshera situated in the central zone of khyber pakhtunkhwa, a province of pakistan (figure 2). mardan district has 2.3 million inhabitants and nowshera has 1.5 million (pbs, 2018). figure 2 study area map source: authors’ adaptation changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 123–143 131 4.2 sampling procedure mardan and nowshera districts were purposively selected because they are more densely populated than other districts in pakistan, except peshawar (pbs, 2018). the number of children in child labor in the province is estimated as 1.5 million (zia, 2012). however, the total population in the province is 35.53 million (pbs, 2018). proportionately distributing the number of children by districts we get the average figure of 164,000 for each district. according to yamane formula (1967), the total sample of child labor households were 203. for our study, we selected and interviewed 200 households in which the children were involved in child labor. we have obtained the data on child labor from the education labor organization offices in mardan and nowshera districts. the education labor organization office had already shared with us some information for academic purposes. these households were interviewed at their homes. consents for interview were obtained prior to start it. 4.3 data collection this is a cross-sectional study design in which we have collected data from the samples of child labor households in the mardan and nowshera districts at a specific point in time. the respondents were the households’ heads. through semi-structured questionnaires, the data were collected from these respondents. the questionnaire contained two parts: in the first part, the child labor information was collected, in the second the respondent’s information was asked. 4.4 data analysis 4.4.1 descriptive statistics (parents and children) the socio-economic characteristics of child labor such as age, education, and occupation were descriptively analyzed. in addition to this, the minimum, maximum, mean, and standard deviation values for household information such as the age of the household head, education, family size, number of adult males and adult females, number of children in child labor, the total number of children and occupation were calculated. 4.4.2 regression model stepwise regression has been employed in this study (see the formula). stepwise is a kind of multiple regression that is usually used in social sciences (fox, 1991). in stepwise regression, the researchers are more interested in explaining the most important predictors that cause variability in the dependent variable (lewis, 2007). the dependent variable is the child labor ratio that is obtained from the number of children involved in child labor in the family and the total number of children. in our case, we have obtained the predictors with their variability in child labor. y = α + βi xi + ε where y is the dependent variable, α is constant, βi shows the co-efficient of predictors, xi are the predictors in the regression model, ε is the error term. https://changing-sp.com/ 132 sikandar, sanaullah panezai, ... imran khan 5. results 5.1. socio-economic characteristics of child labor and households results in table 2 show that the mean age of parents is 34.88. it implies that the parents were mostly young. moreover, they had only primary-level education (6.45 years of schooling). the family size was 8.35 persons. the number of adult females was 5.18 and adult males, 4.42. on average, there were 2.21 children per family. most of the respondents were from the working class. results in table 3 show that the mean age of child labor was 12.21 years. they on average have received 4.27 years of schooling. table 2 results of descriptive statistics variables explanation min max mean sd parent characteristics age parents’ age in years 22.00 47.00 34.88 6.21 education parents’ education in years of schooling 0.00 16.00 6.45 3.81 family size number of family members 4.00 14.00 8.35 2.91 adult females number of females 2.00 8.00 5.18 1.80 adult males number of males 2.00 8.00 4.42 1.35 monthly family income converted to usd 32.5 110.5 59.58 16.82 child labor number of family members child labor 1.00 3.00 1.33 0.48 children total no of children 1 4 2.21 0.52 f % occupation 1=labor, 0= non-labor 122 60.10 note. source: field survey. children were involved in different occupations (table 3). the most part (14.8 percent) were employed in grocery shops while 9.9 percent were working as trainees in various mechanic garages (bike shops). in addition to this, 7.4 percent worked in tailors’ shops. table 3 child labor characteristics child characteristics min max mean sd age child age in years 6.00 16.00 12.21 2.20 education of a child involved in child labor in years of schooling 0.00 9.00 4.27 1.87 occupation children working in different occupations f % bike shop 15 7.4 hotel 20 9.9 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 123–143 133 child characteristics min max mean sd cycle shop 20 9.9 tailor shop 15 7.4 car mechanic 15 7.4 general store 30 14.8 salesman 10 4.9 heavy vehicle mechanic 5 2.5 bakery shop 5 2.5 car washing 15 7.4 clothes maker 5 2.5 handcrafts 20 9.9 bookshops 15 7.4 medical store 5 2.5 ice cream shop 5 2.5 driver 3 1.5 note. source: field survey. 5.2 correlations between the variables the variables were used to check the correlation between the child labor ratio (as a dependent variable) and the parents’ age, parents’ education, family size, the number of adult males and adult females, family income and parents’ occupation as independent variables (table 4). the correlation analysis revealed seven variables that have a significant (p < 0.05) relationship with the dependent variables. these variables were further used for the regression analysis. table 4 correlation matrix of the study variables variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. dependent 1 2. parents’ age 0.11* 1 3. parents’ education -.241** .184** 1 4. family size .751** 0.041 -.144* 1 5. adult females .721** 0.052 -.169* .469** 1 6. adult males .366** 0.045 -0.120 .375** .261** 1 7. family income -.288** 0.091 .430** -.242** -.190** -.232** 1 8. labor .597** 0.035 -.195** .634** .312** .295** -.283** 1 note. * = significant at the 5% level and ** = significant at the 1% level. table 3 continued https://changing-sp.com/ 134 sikandar, sanaullah panezai, ... imran khan 5.3 stepwise regression model the socio-economic factors are regressed by the stepwise method to explore the importance of the selected variable based on the r2 criteria. six models were obtained after the regression analysis. model 1 shows that 56.4% of the variation in the dependent variable that is child labor is due to family size. similarly, 17.4% variation is explained by the number of adult females. moreover, daily wage labor, 2.2% by number of adult males in the household, 0.7% by parent education, 0.5% by family income, 0.4% and parentage, and 0.7% variation is explained in the dependent variable. all the models were significant at the 5 percent level of significance. table 5 results of the regression model model depends on r squared (%) significance 1 family size 56.4 0.000*** 2 adult females 17.4 0.000*** 3 labor 2.2 0.000*** 4 adult males 0.7 0.000*** 5 family income 0.5 0.000*** 6 parents’ education 0.4 0.012** 7 parents’ age 0.7 0.015** note: * = significant at the 5% level and ** = significant at the 1% level. 1. predictors: (constant), family size 2. predictors: (constant), family size, adult female 3. predictors: (constant), family size, adult female, labor 4. predictors: (constant), family size, adult female, labor, adult male 5. predictors: (constant), family size, adult female, labor, adult male, family income 6. predictors: (constant), family size, adult female, labor, adult male, family income, parent education 7. predictors: (constant), family size, adult female, labor, adult male, family income, parent education, parent age 5.4 results of the regression model the results of the whole regression model included all independent variables. results for the family size show that if it is increased by one family member, the dependent variable (child labor ratio) will increase by 0.09. furthermore, the number of adult females has a positive and significant (0.160, p < 0.01) relationship with child labor. daily wage labor as father occupation, has positive and significant (0.233, p < 0.05) association with child labor the number of adult males in the family has a negative and significant association (–0.040, p < 0.00) with child labor. as for the parents’ education, this indicator is highly significant and positively associated with the child labor mentioned in table 6. as for the monthly family income, a 1 usd increase causes the child labor ratio to decrease by 0.011. parents’ age was also significantly positively associated with child labor. these results are significant at 99% (p < 0.01). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 123–143 135 table 6 results of regression coefficients independent variables un standardized coefficients standard error standardized coefficients sig. vip family size 0.090 0.010 0.414 0.002*** 1.938 adult females 0.160 0.014 0.452 0.000*** 1.306 labor 0.233 0.057 0.180 0.000*** 1.708 adult males –0.040 0.016 –0.086 0.000*** 1.008 family income –0.011 0.003 –0.288 0.000*** 1.007 parents’ education –0.014 0.006 0.087 0.012** 1.099 parents’ age 0.008 0.004 0.083 0.015** 1.047 constant –0.494 0.156 note: *=significant at the 5% level and **= significant at the 1% level. 5.5 reasons for child labor the respondents were asked to select the reasons for child labor from the list of seven reasons (table 7). poverty was ranked as the main reason for child labor. among the respondents, 22.6% of parents reported that they children had to get a job because of the family’s poverty. education expenses were the second-ranked reason that the patens reported, 11.3% couldn’t provide their children with basic education. unemployment (no regular work) was the third-ranked (17%) reason besides a percentage; 15.1% depend on the female while the current inflation was 13.2% according to the respondents. because of the natural disasters and floods, the people from other areas migrated to the districts in question. there were also ongoing migrations within the district. these contributed to the level of child labor and to the lack of access to education. table 7 reasons for child labor (multiple responses) responses rank f percent of cases poverty i 120 22.6% education expenses ii 60 11.3% no regular work iii 90 17.0% dependent females iv 80 15.1% current inflation v 70 13.2% natural disaster vi 60 11.3% access to school vii 50 9.4% total 530 100.0% https://changing-sp.com/ 136 sikandar, sanaullah panezai, ... imran khan 6. discussion the present study has applied a different approach from that of the earlier studies in the sense that this study has used the ratio of number of children involved in child labor to the total number of children in the family. second, this study has used the step-wise regression model that was probably never used before in this field of studies. the families in which the child labor ratio was higher were larger in size and had a higher proportion of more adult females. in these families, the burden on the male earners were more. therefore, their children were entered in child labor. furthermore, the parents of these children were from the daily wage labor group (chowdhury, 2021); it implies that these children were from the lower socio-economic strata of society. moreover, most children worked in grocery stores (camilo & zuluaga, 2022). many of the children were working in motorbike, bicycle, and car repair shops (quintero, 2020). the findings of the regression model show that the family size was the most important determinant of child labor. child labor was more common in such households in which the household size was larger. it implies that with more household size, the dependency on parents increased. they were unable to finance their family expenditures. therefore, they sent their child to work instead of going to school. the findings of the study agree with the results of hussain et al. (2018) who revealed that the family size has a positive correlation with child labor. these families tend to be larger because of the large number of children, who generate more family income for the family to support their parents (koohi-kamali & roy, 2021). a study conducted in faisalabad has reported that families consider children as a means of obtaining more income (hussain et al., 2018). furthermore, they revealed that child labor was more prevalent among the large family-size households. in these households, poverty and illiteracy were common characteristics. they couldn’t provide basic needs life to their all children such as provision of better food, education, clothing, recreation, etc. the findings of our study are in agreement with the abovementioned studies that children involved in child labor is due to large family size, low poverty level, and uneducated parents. our results taken from pakistan case study are similar to that of nigeria. olaitan et al. (2017) revealed that the family size is one of the prominent reasons behind child labor in nigeria. adult females in the family are positively associated with child labor: the more females a family has, the more likely this family is to send the children to work at an early age. this situation largely stems from the socio-cultural context in pakistan since women are expected to work at home rather than take up paid jobs. therefore, they are dependent on care givers in the family. an earlier study conducted by malik et al. (2019) revealed that in pakistan the households are headed by male members and the females are dependent, which creates a positive correlation between poverty and male dominance and which further leads to the more extensive use of child labor. ray (2000) argues that because of cultural or religious restrictions against women working outside home, households in pakistan rely more on child labor. the third determinant was the father’s occupation. whether the father is in formal job or working as daily wage labor. the results show that when the father was changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 123–143 137 daily wage labor, there is more child labor in those families. this variable is used as a proxy for the economic position of the family. hence, when a person is daily wage labor, having no regular work, will send their children to work to help him in family expenditure financing. these people are mostly poor and dependent on children income. while, the poverty and low income of the families are the factors that are determine child labor (de carvalho filho, 2012). it implies that like other nations around the globe, poverty and low income is one of the important determinants of child labor in pakistan. for instance, unlike the number of adult females, the number of adult males is negatively associated with the extent of child labor in the study area. it implies that as the number of adult males’ increases, less children are involved in child labor. parents’ education has a negative correlation with child labor. the better educated the parents are, the less it is likely that their children will engage in child labor. same is the case in nigeria. owoyomi et al. (2017) revealed a negative relationship between parental education and child labor in nigeria. parents’ age is positively associated with child labor. the older the parents are, the more likely they are to send their children to work. when the parents are getting old age. they might have less energy to work, or unable to work. therefore, the responsibility comes to the shoulders of children. children starts go to work instead of school. our results are consistent with that of homaie rad et al. (2015) who revealed that in iran, the mother’s age is positively associated with child labor. the findings for the family income show that the higher is the family income, the less likely the children in the given family to be engaged in child labor. thus, child labor is more common in among poor families. poor families need diversification in their income sources. therefore, they send their children to work to remove their financial hurdles. similar to our findings, the other studies reported the same association between child labor and income. for instance, ram et al. (2019), who reported from sindh pakistan that child labor was common among the low income households. another study from majeed and kiran (2019) revealed that parents’ income is a very important determinant of child labor. there is ample evidence that poverty and low income are linked to the prevalence of child labor. nizamani et al. (2019) stated that pakistan is one of the countries in south asia with millions of people living in extreme poverty. certain steps are taken to decrease poverty in pakistan but there is still much to be done in this sphere. pakistan ranks 157th out of 188 countries in the human development index (ram et al., 2019) and 44% of children work to earn money for their families (asian human rights commission, 2011). when parents have either low wages or when they do not get enough work to provide basic needs to their families, they are forced to send children to work. 7. conclusion to achieve the sustainable development goal (sdg) and eradicate child labor in all its forms by 2025, it is necessary to gain a more in-depth understanding of the reasons behind child labor. this study has focused on the case of pakistan to show that the large family size, number of female family members, poverty, and low income are the https://changing-sp.com/ 138 sikandar, sanaullah panezai, ... imran khan leading causes of child labor in this developing country. moreover, the government should extend financial help to these families. simultaneously, there is need of awareness programs to encourage these parents to send their children to schools. moreover, the law enforcement is needed to completely ban child labor in all it’s forms and all industries. government interventions should be implemented to reduce fertility and to raise family planning awareness. limitations of the study this study was conducted in two districts of the central zone of khyber pakhtunkhwa in pakistan, where trade and commerce are more developed than in other districts. therefore, the findings of the study may not be generalized to other parts of the province. moreover, this study has explored number of adult females who are not working as one of the important determinants due to the local cultural context. the findings may be different in societies where the females are mostly working and have no cultural obligations for females to outside homes. references abdullahi, i. i., noor, z. m., said, r., & baharumshah, a. z. 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(2012, june 12). 1.5m child labourers in khyber-pakhtunkhwa: sparc. the express tribune. https://tribune.com.pk/story/392580/1-5m-child-labourers-inkhyber-pakhtunkhwa-sparc https://journals.researchub.org/index.php/jsshr/article/view/513 https://journals.researchub.org/index.php/jsshr/article/view/513 http://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/block-wise-provisional-summary-results-6th-population-housing-census-2 http://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/block-wise-provisional-summary-results-6th-population-housing-census-2 http://www.pbs.gov.pk/content/block-wise-provisional-summary-results-6th-population-housing-census-2 https://borgenproject.org/child-labor-in-pakistan-3 https://doi.org/10.7537/marsnys120819.08 https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/14.2.347 https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1652 https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1652 https://doi.org/10.4103/0972-6748.98406 https://doi.org/10.1787/f6883e26-en https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arabjc.2013.09.021 https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-day-against-child-labour https://www.unicef.org/pakistan/child-protection-0#_ftn1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9960-0 https://tribune.com.pk/story/392580/1-5m-child-labourers-in-khyber-pakhtunkhwa-sparc https://tribune.com.pk/story/392580/1-5m-child-labourers-in-khyber-pakhtunkhwa-sparc changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 123–143 143 appendix 1. questionnaire for household survey my name is sikandar i am currently pursuing mphil degree at abasyn university “ms economics”. my research topic is “determining child labor: empirical evidence from khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan”. all the information collected through this questionnaire are highly confidential and purely for academic purpose. so kindly do not hesitate to express your real situation and personal opinion. thus, i appreciate your cooperation for giving your time and for the success of my research. respondent’s name: ____________________ date: _______________ village: ______________________________ union council: ________ tehsil: _______________________________ a. demographic profile of the respondent or family characteristics 1. age: ____________________________________ (years) 2. education: _______________ ________________ (years of schooling) 3. how many people are there in your household _______________________? 4. how many are female in your household above age 18 who are not working _______________________________________________________ 5. how many are male in your household above age 18 who are not working _______________________________________________________ 6. what is monthly family income ________________________________? 7. how many children are working in your family ______________________? 8. what is the total number of children _____________________________? 9. what is your main occupation _________________________________? b. children characteristics of child who is working. please mention below, children working in different occupations. s. no age gender education occupation 1 2 3 4 5 section c: reasons behind child labor in your opinion what are important reasons behind that your children are working. 1. ___________________________________ 2. ___________________________________ 3. ___________________________________ 4. ___________________________________ 5. ___________________________________ https://changing-sp.com/ 4_2017.indd changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.4.025 book review post-protestantism: contemporary exclusions, critical theology and reformation 500 in the context of the phenomenon of the “emerging church” anatoliy denysenko national pedagogical dragomanov university, kiev, ukraine “how are you gonna be a revolutionary if you’re such a traditionalist?” (la-la land, 2016) in 2016, the compilers of the oxford dictionary declared their word of the year to be “post-truth”. it will soon become known which term will become the marker of 2017. but this is not the main topic of the present discussion. i venture to suggest that one of the most important terms for thinking protestants in the year in which 500 years of the reformation is celebrated (or, rather, remembered) is the term “post-protestantism” (longbons, 2013). i am convinced that this word represents a watershed between the protestantism that we already know – fundamentalist, conservative, denominational, modernist – and a protestantism, which (at least in ukraine) is only just emerging: post-fundamentalist, post-conservative, post-denominational and post-modernist. following the publication of first the russian and then the ukrainian version of the book entitled the emerging church by roman soloviy, pentecostal author and head of the research centre of the euro-asian accrediting association (eaaa) (soloviy, 2014), a revised version of soloviy’s argument is now presented under the updated title the phenomenon of the emerging church 1 (soloviy, 2017) (the book was published with the support of the eaaa research centre). as was the case two years ago, this work can today be considered one of the most important books not only in the ukrainian (post-) protestant theological environment, but also in the ecclesiastical sphere of the 1 soloviy, r. (2017). fenomen poiavliaiushcheisia tserkvi v kontekste teologicheskikh i ekklesiologicheskikh transformatsii v sovremennom zapadnom protestantizme [the phenomenon of the emerging church in the context of the theological and ecclesiastical transformations in contemporary western protestantism]. kiev: dikh i litera. received 3 december 2017 © 2017 anatoliy denysenko published online 27 december 2017 anatoliy.denysenko@gmail.com 392 anatoliy denysenko evangelical communities of the post-soviet space. i am certain that the topics that achieve definition in this work will be the subject of many discussions at pastoral conferences and episcopal meetings, as well as in academic circles. by “post-protestantism,” i refer to the phenomenon of postmodern ecclesiology, about which soloviy writes in detail. by its very existence, the phenomenon of the emerging church reminds us that christianity has already crossed the boundary of protestantism and passed into the era of post-protestantism. moreover, this comes at a time when protestants of the post-soviet space are, at best, standing still, and, at worst, looking back, hoping to tie in their current practice to the experience of the early church. it turns out that if you cannot say anything new and when you cannot adapt your “own” faith to a changing world, then the outcome consists in the so-called turn ad fontes (“to the origins”). this is what is referred to in terms of a flight to the (abstract) ideal early church and (fictitious) impeccable beliefs of the first christians. instead of constantly looking back, one should look to the future, not for the purposes of establishing oneself in modernity, but instead with the goal of adapting oneself to current practice – or, what is more likely, also adapt oneself to the future – which our protestants somehow cannot embrace. today our notions are constructed around postmodern culture, not only in terms of the world around us, but also as concerns the church. this thought is perhaps the most important one expressed in the book the phenomenon of the emerging church. the author writes: “postmodernism increasingly defines the cultural space of our time. how should evangelical theology take cognisance of this cultural situation?” (soloviy 2017, p. 6) soloviy, considering the worldview outlook, theological and ecclesiological features of the emerging church, indicates that one of its main advantages consists in its emphasis on the need to formulate new ways of expressing the gospel in contemporary culture (ibid., p. 315). the fact that the emerging church has an inherently dissenting character, directed against modernism and its influence on christianity (ibid., p. 317), points to its post-protestant character. it is widely believed that the decline of spirituality in society around the time of the reformation, exacerbated by the toxic behaviour of the church, resulted in the formation of a new principle, which we now refer to as the “protestant principle”. this principle is enshrined in the constant need of the church to engage in self-reflection, to take a critical attitude towards its practice, and experience a constant thirst for reform. on the one hand, the reformers placed an emphasis on the personal choices of an individual person as opposed to the authority and tradition of the institution of the church. on the other hand, we should not forget that protestantism reached its apogee during the time of modernity, i. e. exactly the culmination of that against which the postmodern critique is directed. from a cultural point of view, then, the era of protestantism represents a time of enlightenment, rationality and science. on the one hand, protestantism – as, in principle, western ideology per se – is fundamentally modern in the sense of its assertion of the primacy of human freedom over any tradition, church authority (or, for that matter, any other form of hierarchical authority). on the other changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 393 hand, the very strong emphasis on rationality became a kind of impetus for the birth of the so-called post-denominational “free” churches, which rejected the episcopal (like any other hierarchical) form of government, but at the same time as agreeing with the fundamental principles of protestantism. it is with exactly such trends in modern ecclesiology that the author of the phenomenon of the emerging church is concerned. post-protestantism also characterises the emergence in the theological academic environment of the late 20th to early 21st centuries of such trends as postliberalism, radical orthodoxy and ecumenism, which tried to take a more holistic, less individualistic, approach to seeing the christian tradition as a whole. here, the individualistic approach is presented as characterised by isolation and the creation of so-called theological and ecclesiological ghettos. soloviy’s book, if read in the context of the reformation commemoration, encourages the assumption that the biggest mistake of modern conservative protestants (including post-soviet) is nostalgia for the last “golden age” of biblical christianity. while luther, calvin and other reformers were known for their openness to the new, advocated dialogue with the modern world, accepted the challenges of the cultural paradigm of their time, and even in some areas were ahead of the curve, post-soviet protestants tend to dwell in the past, living off the legacy of christians who suffered for their faith during the times of the ussr. when, in accepting the challenges of the present, contemporary western christianity is attempting to build a tolerable, future-oriented theology and ecclesiology, we are still bogged down with details concerning the eucharist of the early church. the well-known german-american theologian paul tillich once jotted down in his sermon forget and be forgotten the following thoughts: “life could not continue without rejecting the past in the past”, “life uses the past and past battles to simultaneously break through to one’s own renewal.” (tillich, 2009) existing nations, writes tillich, were not able to discard anything from their heritage; thus, the path to progress was closed to them until the burden of the past broke down its present leading to their demise. sometimes (even in the context of the reformation commemoration) we need to ask ourselves: is not the christian church also excessively burdened by its past and its failure to break down its present? (ibid., p. 263). in his book the next reformation: why evangelicals must embrace postmodernity, the american professor of religious studies karl raschke sets out his ideas about the “next reformation”, which, according to him, will by its nature have a post-denominational character. raschke describes luther as a man who was not of his time: he was neither a scholastic – that is to say, an academic theologian, wedded to aristotelian philosophy – nor a humanist in love with greek or latin literature. his passion was the bible, which he studied alongside the church; the latter, however, though making a concerted attempt to make its message accessible to the contemporary world, was not as meticulous in its approach as luther himself was. raschke contends that, according to the standards of his time, luther would be considered a postmodernist (raschke, 2005). the reformation 394 anatoliy denysenko itself may be seen as a reaction against modernism in its medieval manifestation; the word “modern” comes from the latin moderna, which means “only just” or “just now” (ibid., p. 110). reformation, in essence, was a 16th century version of deconstruction (derrida’s terms). soloviy dedicated 300 pages of text to a discussion of post-conservative christianity, which, according to him, is best reflected in the practices of the group referred to as the “emerging church”. this text informs us that the movement represents not so much a return to the authentic biblical and theological origins – or even to the bible as a single guide to faith and practice – but rather consists in a redirection of our attention towards a less modernist (rationalist) approach, in keeping with the culture of postmodernity. in bypassing traditional evangelical theology, this approach offers an alternative, more sustainable postconservative path. the origins of the term “emerging church” are derived from the so-called emergent village, a group of churches that began to coalesce in the 1990s due to a general sense of disillusionment and disappointment in the regular church institutions of the late 20th century. the acknowledged father of the “emerging church” is the american pastor brian mcclaren, who, in his pastoral work, tried to reach out people who had no church affiliations (ibid., p. 273). the titles of mclaren’s books refer to topics that are quintessentially representative of the “emerging church”: the church on the other side (2009); everything must change (2009); a generous orthodoxy (2009); a new kind of christian (2010); the last word and the word after that (2013). the new testament is considered by representatives of the “leading churches” as a kind of visual aid for understanding how the early church was able to adapt and evolve in its contemporary world, taking rapid changes into its stride to boldly overcome arising challenges. the holy scripture represents the recorded word of god, which tells how the ancient faith community reacted to situations on the basis of one life context or another. for mclaren, the church is understood as “a society that shapes disciples who work for the liberation and healing of this world, based on a relationship with jesus and the glad tidings of the gospels.” (smith, 2014) the new ecclesiology shows little interest in any the following traditional questions: the nature of the church, the foundations of the church, the church structure, or a different understanding of what the form of government of the church should be. the question of denominational membership is also something that is decidedly not on the agenda. all this is due to the fact that the social group behind what the “emerging church” is trying to achieve is essentially postmodern in its perceptions of the world. all these secondary themes are only of interest to the postsoviet evangelical community to the extent that it continues to cling to modernist constructions and be guided by its existing precepts. although mclaren does not provide an evaluation of the phenomenon of the “emerging church”, the attentive reader may note that the representatives of this movement, like those during the reformation, call for a new theology within the new church, thanks to which a new paradigm could be created by means of changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 395 which people who are not already interested in christ would become interested and the good news about jesus could be told to unbelievers in a new way. given the theory and practice of the “emerging church”, it is reasonable to assume that in the 21st century it will be the modern mainstream protestant church that will be identified as representative of the force against which luther railed, and that the postmodern ecclesiology with its critical theology, which is expressed in a struggle against established concepts and practices, and, corresponding to the spirit of the reformation, will act as the spiritual descendant of luther. notwithstanding the french philosopher jean-francois lyotard’s definition of postmodernism as a suspicion of metanarratives, the reformation of the monk luther can be considered as nothing more than a suspicion of the metanarrative of his own church. like luther, postmodernism challenges all “comprehensive” or “totalitarian” schemes for explaining reality or claims regarding the status of truth and authority. such metanarratives include not only political and social ideas, but also religious worldviews, metaphysical philosophies and even complex scientific theories (olson, 2007). the question facing protestants in the year of the 500th anniversary of the reformation is rather striking: what are we protesting against today? for the inheritors of the reformation, the catholic church and its practices are no longer the enemy. on the contrary, in some spheres of service, closer cooperation between the two branches of christianity is increasingly taking place. into which temple, then, should contemporary reformers enter; who needs to be thrown out of it; whose tables are to be turned over? when all is said and done, on which door is it necessary to nail the 95 theses of today’s world? clearly, everyone must answer this question for himor herself. however, i will assume the religious postmodernism, which we are only just starting to understand today, is precisely the embodiment of the spirit of the reformation. luther recalled that authentic theological thinking revolves around the cross, the gospels and grace, not selfrighteousness, metaphysical debates or the law. the next reformation, which i believe is already gradually taking place in the hearts and minds of the young generation of evangelical believers (at least, those not affected by fundamentalism), will occur: (a) in an atmosphere of radical humility before the kierkegaardian “paradox,” (b) with a rejection of the propositional theory of truth, (c) in the absence of pride, not only in our lives, but also in our thoughts (raschke, 2005). the pagans of the first century considered christianity a manifestation of atheism, and that its argumentation was illogical and contradictory. the roman authorities did not respect christians. today’s post-protestantism is referred to in terms of liberalism and even as the first steps towards atheism. ossified church structures may not respect it, often ridiculing it or considering it provocative and harmful. nevertheless, post-protestantism, in the form of an “emerging church”, constitutes the starting point of a new theology, which by its inherent nature will be both critical in its outlook and global in its aspect (raschke, 2016). november 3, 2017 396 anatoliy denysenko references longbons, j. (2013). post-protestantism: a postmodern ecclesiological approach. in simpson, c. b., & cone, s. d. (eds.). theology in the present age. eugene, or: pickwick publications, 131–152. olson, r. e. (2007). reformed and always reforming. the post-conservative approach to evangelical theology. grand rapids, mi: baker academic. raschke, c. (2005). the next reformation: why evangelicals must embrace postmodernity. grand rapids, mi: baker academic. raschke, c. (2016). critical theology. introducing an agenda for an age of global crisis. downers grove, il: ivp academic. soloviy, r. (2014). poyavlyayushayasya tserkov’: evangelicheskoe hristianstvo pered vyzovom postmodernizma [the emerging church: evangelical christianity face the challenge of postmodernism]. cherkassy, ukraine: colloquium. soloviy, r. (2017). fenomen poiavliaiushcheisia tserkvi v kontekste teologicheskikh i ekklesiologicheskikh transformatsii v sovremennom zapadnom protestantizme [the phenomenon of the emerging church in the context of the theological and ecclesiastical transformations in contemporary western protestantism]. kiev: dikh i litera. tillich, p. (2009). forgetting and being forgotten. in lifintseva, t. p. the philosophy and theology of paul tillich. moscow: kanon plus, 261–268. changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 217–220 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.171 book review dhingra, p. (2021). hyper education. why good schools, good grades, and good behavior are not enough. nyu press. louie giray, jelomil edem polytechnic university of the philippines “open your kids up to more this school year” is one of the advertisements of kumon, a famous educational network that has learning centers in various parts of the world. parents then are urged to enroll their children so as for the latter to succeed more. kumon is only one of the numerous afterschool programs that is growing as an answer to the increasing demand of many parents wanting their children to become academically skillful and competent. meanwhile, some parents look for tutors or, on their own, they lend their time to teach their children, as a supplement to the school education. this trend is named hyper education. this is a common practice of middle to highclass families, with the belief that it can ensure the future success of their children. this topic is explored in hyper education, written by pawan dhingra. a multiple award-winning author and former museum curator at smithsonian institution, dhingra is a professor at amherst college. his research interests range from american studies, cultural sociology, and education. in the book, the author shows how asian american parents make their children improve academically through hyper education, referring to the practice of extending education through privatized, extracurricular learning. divided into three received 22 november 2021 © 2022 louie giray, jelomil edem published online 11 april 2022 jelomiledem.00@gmail.com lggiray@pup.edu.ph https://changing-sp.com/ 218 louie giray, jelomil edem parts, this well-researched book talks about the different sides of hyper education and how it becomes a habit for asian american parents to use it as part of their parenting style. part i starts that a good school being a learning environment that nurtures children’s capabilities and skills. through schools, students learn and become better. however, the author contends that parents and families increasingly become dissatisfied with their children’s learning in schools, leading to their engagement in different private learning centers. this also results in the establishment of many private learning centers. greenblatt et al. (2019) comment that education is a means to acquire skills that are relevant to their development, which can subsequently mobilize individuals socially and economically. parents understand this and so they want their children to have leverage in life. one way is through extra academics. many asian american parents do not have a choice but to engage their children in different learning centers that can help the latter develop more, because schools are not enough anymore given their inherent weaknesses. even schools that follow innovative curriculum cannot satisfy some parents, these various expectations result in the foundation of different learning centers. moreover, dhingra explains that public schools are not enough for some highperforming students. this also leads their parents to engage them in private learning centers, leading to more academic workloads for children. nevertheless, schools are still viewed as the main source of education for students. part ii focuses on the case that asian americans, especially the indian american, parents infuse to their children that life is a competition, and the latter must stand out to get ahead in life and so the earlier that children are equipped with the skills that can differentiate them from others, the better. it is viewed as the safest course to any opportunity in the future. concerted cultivation, which refers to the parenting style that incorporates organized activities in the life of the children (lareau, 2011), is present among asian american families. parents believe that academic pursuits. especially in math, are an important tool for the future. hence, they enroll children in activities or learning centers that help them improve in academics, though the children express little fun. however, this does not mean that parents do not care about the enjoyment of kids and so they make sure that the tasks are enjoyable to do. parents believe that had they not pushed students in extra academics, they would have become violent or be led astray. also, this is an anti-assimilation tactic that can make children immune from negative behaviors in the american culture. parents believe that it can lessen uncertainty about the children’s future, and this can be a way to compensate for the failings of the school and the curriculum. asian americans see hyper education as a source of pride and a way to develop cultural values. these parents feel the responsibility to nurture the interests and capacities of children. besides, it is a tool to develop hard work and to not spoil their kids, complemented with the delay of gratification. hyper education and tiger parenting are commonly linked together. however, the author asserts that it is changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 217–220 219 incorrect because hyper education is barely done without the appreciation for the activities; it is not also utilized in a tortuous manner. part iii accentuates that hyper education has become a normal part of the lives of the youth, which is supported by parents and the community. hence, extra academics and competitions have become part of their identity also. the usage of family outings, purchasing of software programs, and traveling abroad for contests are a manifestation that parents are willing to go the extra mile to facilitate children’s success. these youths, however, sacrifice friendships and entertainment because a lot of time and effort is devoted to extra academics. meanwhile, parents may sometimes force children to compete against their will, thinking it would do good for them. they may use threatening techniques; the consequent effects, of course, are less enthusiasm or, worse, resentment among kids. asian americans are viewed still as foreigners and are frequent topic to racist critiques that no “real americans” have been winning competitions, most especially in math and spelling bee (pandya, 2017). this is contrary to the warm support of families and community members. hence, youths feel that there is a disconnect. furthermore, teachers and other school personnel have mixed reactions to students who are taking extracurricular education. while some believe on its importance, others see it in a negative life since it exceeds the school norms and can cause children stress. these children try to fit in by not talking much about their academic achievements; seeing their extra academics as equals to sports, hence “brain sports”; and connecting it with popular endeavors. but, at the same time, they take pride in their unique academic which spotlights their good behavior. the book contributes to the understanding of hyper education trend which is becoming prevalent not only among asian american parents in the us but also in other parts of the globe. interestingly, similar practice can also be seen among hispanic and african american parents (america after 3pm, 2014). this book is well-researched, extensive, and has a lot of narratives. moreover, dhingra has painted a brilliant picture of the positive and negative effects of hyper education, incorporating the vivid voices and perspectives of the people who are engaged in it. though it is insightful, the book has points for improvement. first, there are numerous chapters and subchapters per part. surprisingly, in the conclusion, it has many subdivisions, also. this can lead to confusion among readers. the primary points may not be well impressed and may not come across clearly to the readers. valuing brevity, limiting it to three or four chapters per part is suggested. second, curtailing the narratives to representative cases can help readers not be overwhelmed. repetition of ideas across the chapters is noticeable. hence, deleting the redundancy and focusing on the salient points can be helpful to make the book more impactful. all these can be put into consideration once the author plans to publish its next edition. overall, the contribution of this book is unparalleled. this is still recommended for parents, teachers, and other stakeholders who are engaged in the field of education. this can offer meaningful discussions and productive undertakings that can result in further enlightenment of hyper education practice. https://changing-sp.com/ 220 louie giray, jelomil edem references america after 3pm: afterschool programs in demand. (2014). afterschool alliance. https://www.afterschoolalliance.org/documents/aa3pm-2014/aa3pm_ key_findings.pdf greenblatt, d., michelli, n. m., auslander, l., campo, s., hardy, s. j., jacobowitz, t., & watson, a. m. (2019). reimagining american education to serve all our children: why should we educate in a democracy? routledge. lareau, a. (2011). unequal childhoods: class, race, and family life, with an update a decade later. university of california press. pandya, s. (2017). freaks and geeks: on the provisional citizenship of indian american spelling bee winners. journal of asian american studies, 20(2), 245–263. https://doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2017.0018 https://www.afterschoolalliance.org/documents/aa3pm-2014/aa3pm_key_findings.pdf https://www.afterschoolalliance.org/documents/aa3pm-2014/aa3pm_key_findings.pdf https://doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2017.0018 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 549–552 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.149 editorial in search of new research paradigms elena a. stepanova institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia permanent socio-cultural transformations, reflection on which is the main scope of changing societies & personalities, continue to generate social theories with their own methodologies for constructing and representing social reality. the poly-paradigmatic nature of contemporary social knowledge implies its embeddedness in various theoretical systems that create alternative pictures of the world. on the one hand, social knowledge is pluralistic, that is, allowing for a plurality of equivalent explanatory concepts; on the other, it is interdisciplinary, that is, irreducible to the methodology of a single social or humanities discipline. the paradigms of social knowledge are immanently linked to social, political, economic and cultural contexts of a particular society. structurally, these paradigms comprise not only explicit (conscious), but also hidden (unconscious) elements. the articles presented in the current issue of changing societies & personalities demonstrate all these qualities: they are based on different conceptual foundations; they reflect specific features of the current state of the described societies; they are self-critical and leave room for further research. in thе article knowledge: from ethical category to knowledge capitalism, dmitr y m. kochetkov and irina a. kochetkova assert that contemporar y economics considers knowledge as one of the main factors in economic growth, along with scientific and technological progress. the economic interpretation of knowledge is currently changing, and a new neoliberal paradigm of science and higher education is emerging. the authors aim to define “knowledge” as an economic category in comparison with various knowledge-based economic concepts. the authors analyze the learning economy where learning “is understood not simply as an access to information but as acquisition of certain knowledge and skills”; they describe the knowledge economy as an economic system where “knowledge is a key factor (or resource) in production and economic growth”. they examine the economics of scientific knowledge (esk), an approach to understanding science, which relies on the concepts and methods of economic analysis in the study of the epistemic nature and value of scientific knowledge. received 23 december 2021 © 2021 elena a. stepanova published online 30 december 2021 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 550 elena a. stepanova several helix models are constructed to elucidate interactions between the university, business, government, civil society institutions, etc., and to determine favorable conditions for sustainable development. finally, the theory of knowledge-based public administration is proposed as a new research field. in the article changing the paradigm of inclusion: how blind people could help people without disabilities to acquire new competences, konstantin v. barannikov, fayruza s. ismagilova, zijun li, and oleg b. kolpashchikov stress the exceptional importance of involving people with disabilities (pwd) in the workplace. the initiation of effective disability inclusion programs has become a vigorous imperative for organizations, which presupposes the fulfillment of productive and competitive diversity for them, as well as the possibility for people with disabilities (pwds—over 15% of global populations) to become equally recognized and appreciated for their potentials. the authors point out the wide distribution of a paternalistic paradigm—“a model of attitude towards a person who is incapable of independent existence and selfdevelopment and therefore needs protection, care, and control”. the authors disagree with this approach, claiming that pwds possess unique potentials, particularly in mentoring activities. as a result, a new disability inclusion paradigm is proposed for involving successful blind professionals, who have the ability to adapt to changing conditions because of extraordinary tactile and auditory perception skills and cognitive capacities, including memory and language. in addition, successful blind people have a high level of ambiguity tolerance, which is a crucial quality for leadership. the article defines inclusion “as an intercultural interaction between people with and without disabilities”, which enriches organizational diversity and culture. rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, and prima naomi in the article surviving covid-19 pandemic: the role of social media and family social capital in promoting a healthy lifestyle in indonesia describe the efforts of the indonesian government undertaken to curb massive covid-19 outbreaks. specifically, the authors analyze the policy of emergency public activity restrictions (ppkm), which, among other things, urges government offices, schools, and private companies to shift their operations to the online mode. as a result, the potential of social media and the number of social media users in indonesia is constantly growing (about 160 million active users out of 272.1 million of total population). in particular, the article focuses on the role of women in the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, because “in indonesia, mothers are responsible for the health and happiness of their families and they are also the ones who introduce new values and habits into family routines”. the authors investigate the relationship between the extent to which mothers in indonesian families use social media and their views on the principles of healthy living based on the survey of 156 married female respondents conducted in 2020. the article a general attitude towards shopping and its link with basic human values in the uk by francesco rigoli proposes a classification of shopping as a prototypical expression of consumer culture according to the two broad conceptional frameworks: self-expression theories and social status theories. the former “interprets the appeal of shopping as arising because shopping would be experienced as a manifestation of personal freedom, choice, and autonomy, allowing one to changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 549–552 551 articulate one’s own identity, rationality, and creativity”. the latter maintains that “in consumer societies, which goods one purchases is fundamental for defining social status, thus rendering shopping attractive in the race for social rank”. the author notes that the debate between self-expression theories and social status theories raises an empirical question concerning the real appeal of shopping for common people. natalya a. kostko and irina f. pecherkina in the article urban identities in russian cities and the prospects of their “smart” development investigates “citizens’ ideas about the cities they inhabit and about the ideal city they would like to live in”. the authors present the results of a survey conducted among the residents of three siberian cities—tyumen, tobolsk and khanty-mansiysk, located in the tyumen region in western siberia,—in order to show the correlation between these people’s urban identities and their willingness to contribute to their cities’ “smart” transformations in the future. in the article, the concept of “smart city” is used, which offers a versatile view on how cities may integrate into the information society comprising such aspects as economy, mobility, environment, people, governance, environment, etc., as well as provides an attractive vision of the future. the authors stress that “an important element of the concept is its focus on public engagement and on empowering the citizens by inviting them to take part in the process of decision-making”. in the article, different local contexts, which should be taken into account in governance practices, are investigated. the article cognitive attitudes and biases of victim mentality by olga o. andronnikova and sergey i. kudinov is focused on the problems of victimization and victim behavior, which are analyzed from different perspectives. the authors define victimization “as a consequence of negative events experienced by a person”; and victimhood “as a set of human characteristics caused by a complex of social, psychological, and biophysical conditions that exist in a cultural context and contribute to the maladaptive style of an individual’s response, which leads to the damage of their physical or mental health”. the nature of victim behavior and victimogenic cognition are examined with the purpose of verifying the main hypothesis of the article: the correlation between the level of victimhood and the irrational beliefs that determine the nature of victim behavior. the study is based on the interviews with 106 specialists in psychological counseling. christos konstantinidis, evangelos bebetsos, filippos filippou, and eleni zetou (komotini, greece) in the article gender attitudes toward homosexuality in greece, mark two major socio-political reasons for the massive rise of homophobia in the 1980s: first, the spread of hiv/aids, which caused the death of thousands of gay men, and second, the growing influence of fundamentalist christian movements, which aggravated the hatred against the homosexual community. concerning greece, the authors note that the research on homophobia is limited; they mention the divided nature of the society where only half of the citizens are homosexual-friendly. women are more receptive to homosexuality than men; younger people are more open-minded concerning sexual orientation than older people. the article pays special attention to homophobia in sports. data on the current situation in various sports in greece is collected and analyzed. the authors used the attitudes toward lesbians and gay https://changing-sp.com/ 552 elena a. stepanova men (atlg) scale to measure people’s attitudes toward homosexuality. in addition, the relevance of the atlg scale to the population of greece is estimated. the book reviews section contains three reviews. trade, politics and borderlands: russia and britain in the age of enterprise is a review of matthew p. romaniello (2019), enterprising empires: russia and britain in eighteenth-century eurasia by sergei v. sokolov, who investigates commercial relationships between the british and russian empires throughout the long 18th century. the second review orwellian doublespeak: dialogicality and the english language by thomas beavitt is aimed at validating (or rejecting) the ironic usage of the term “orwellian” as applied in the context of contemporary english language scientific communication. the third—reactualisation of triadology in polemics with postmetaphysics—by andrey v. lavrentiev is a review of oleg davydov’s revelation of love. trinitarian truth of being, 2020, which is considered as an attempt to justify the truth of the christian understanding of reality in the contemporary world. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 304–322 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.3.103 received 31 august 2020 © 2020 anastasia v. mitrofanova accepted 30 september 2020 avmitrofanova@fa.ru published online 9 october 2020 article irony as a political demarcation tool of the new russian nationalists anastasia v. mitrofanova institute of sociology, federal center of theoretical and applied sociology, the russian academy of sciences, moscow, russia abstract the article discusses how and why the new nationalists, who call for political self-determination of russians but share some ideological concepts with liberals, use stiob – form of ironic parody based on overidentification and decontextualisation, resulting in destruction of the authoritative discourse. their entertaining, or educational-cumentertaining projects located in the gray area between politics and counterculture strive to undermine domineering political discourses (liberal, neo-soviet, leftist, official patriotic and old nationalist) and to go beyond the left-right dichotomy. the author concludes that the main function of stiob and other forms of irony for the new nationalists is negative identification. ambivalence of the language of stiob simultaneously attracts the target audience of nationalists (“those in the know”) and does not prevent solidarizing with any political platform when needed. the article is based on qualitative analysis of narratives produced by nationalist social media influencers, including fiction, essays, talks, lectures, interviews, live broadcasts, posts in blogs, social networks and messengers. keywords new nationalists, irony, stiob, parody, digitalization of politics introduction in this article, i will speak about nationalists who envision the russian federation as a state dominated by ethnic minorities and call for political selfdetermination of russians (mitrofanova, 2006; 2016), although most of them understand russianness in terms of culture, not biology. their political ideal is known as the russian nation-state (russkoe natsionalnoe gosudarstvo), https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 304–322 305 commonly abbreviated as rng. i focus on a stream that shares some ideological concepts with western-style liberalism, known as national democrats (the natsdem), liberal conservatives, right-wing liberals, or simply as the new nationalists (laruelle, 2018, pp. 174–180; mitrofanova, 2012)1. they antagonize the old right, or the old nationalists and sometimes solidarize with liberal political figures, such as mikhail svetov, valerii solovei, or alexei navalny. in many aspects they resemble the american alt-right (see: naked pravda, 2020b) and the european right-wing populists. the new nationalists renounce the style of the old ones and self-identify ironically as “beardless”. besides, they became notorious for their use of satire as a political instrument. the new nationalists in russia utilize such concepts of the western far right as “cultural marxism”, but the question of mutual influence remains so far open; some interactions exist, but they hardly have serious impact on both sides. the article discusses how and why the new nationalists use a specific form of ironic parody known as stiob2. it is based on qualitative analysis of narratives produced by social media influencers, including fiction, essays, talks, lectures, interviews, live broadcasts, posts in blogs, social networks and messengers. visual content, such as memes, demotivators, cartoons, etc. remains outside the framework of this publication (see: babikova & voroshilova, 2017; kalkina, 2020; sanina, 2015). i relied mostly on individual online platforms such as personal or friendly youtube3 channels; profiles on yandex4 zen and facebook5; discord6 and telegram7 channels; personal websites. of collective projects, i used telegram-channels the right news [правые новости] and memes for russians [мемы для русских], vespa.media – journal of the national revenge (website, facebook and telegram). to be confident that the narratives are not parodies, i chose resources created by eminent nationalists, or, at least, by people whose belonging to the milieu had been confirmed by well-known influencers. key personalities are konstantin krylov (1967–2020), vladimir lorchenkov (b. 1977), dometii zavolskii (b. 1980), egor prosvirnin (b. 1986), aleksandr bosykh (b. 1978), and nikolai rosov (b. 1995). data collection took place in 2018–2020, although sporadically i refer to older digital content, retrieved with the help of keywords. the research was based exclusively on observation and was limited to profiles and posts open to the public. no quantitative methods were applied. themes brought up in the publication have been partly discussed by linguists studying irony as a narrative technique in the russian language in general (guseinov, 2005; kornilov, 2015; panchenko, 2016; ruzhentseva, 2014; tomson, 2009; vokuev, 1 i prefer calling them «new nationalists», because this definition seems to be acceptable for the majority of the milieu. 2 stiob – a form of parody, an ironic aesthetic that “required such a degree of overidentification with the object, person, or idea [...] that it was often impossible to tell whether it was a form of sincere support, subtle ridicule, or a peculiar mixture of the two”. according to alexei yurchak, it was the fundamental feature of late soviet and early post-soviet culture (yurchak, 2005, p. 250). 3 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 4 yandex™ is a trademark of yandex inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 5 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 6 discord ™ is a trademark of discord inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 7 telegram™ is a trademark of telegram messenger llp. https://changing-sp.com/ 306 anastasia v. mitrofanova 2011), or with a focus on political discourse (babikova & voroshilova, 2015; fenina, 2015; gornostaeva, 2018; shilikhina, 2011). stiob and related forms of irony have been extensively studied by anthropologists and sociologists of soviet and early postsoviet counterculture (boym, 2006; dubin, 2001; gudkov & dubin, 1994; ioffe, 2016; klebanov, 2013; stodolsky, 2011; yoffe, 2013; yurchak, 2005, 2011) and mass culture (dunn, 2004; hutchings, 2017, 2020; noordenbos, 2011; yoffe, 2005). the aesthetics of stiob: between politics and counter-culture digitalization definitely provides for further blurring of the border between politics and fun (for a review of contemporary literature on humour in politics, see: petrovic, 2018). political discourse as a whole becomes more entertainment-oriented. in last years, gamification became a visible characteristic of social media broadcasting (see: woodcock & johnson, 2019). apart from being an important part of contemporary leisure culture, videogames are also communication platforms for networks of likeminded people. it is reported that american far right use in-game chat rooms to recruit new supporters (kamenetz, 2018). in russia currently there is no such evidence; nevertheless, the new nationalists extensively use streaming of videogames – live or pre-recorded – to convey their message. communication often takes place in chat rooms created on platforms, like discord, designed for videogamers. some nationalist authors consider street-level political activism outdated and suggest that one clip dedicated to fallout and published on youtube does more for advancing the right-wing ideas that hundreds of demos (see: maksimov, 2018). to be watched, nationalist streams need to provide some interesting information, mostly not related to the ideology. most of social media influencers create educationalcum-entertaining (“edutaining”) content, such as popular lectures about science, or talks with internet celebrities (figure 1). history is the most popular topic, because in russia it is commonly discussed as a substitute to politics. figure 1. anthropologist drobyshevskii, a youtube celebrity, as a guest of nikolai rosov’s stream; pre-recorded game ancestors in the background reflects the profession of the invitee (groza, 2020a) changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 304–322 307 the easiest ways to attract more viewers are satirical parody and irony, especially their most harsh forms, such as stiob, conceptualised by alexei yurchak (yurchak, 2005). mark yoffe who invented a bunch of words to discuss the phenomenon (stiobbing, stiobber, stiobbee, stiobby, to out-stiob8) understands stiob as interaction between “those ‘in the know’ who presume that their utterances, aside from signifying the obvious, also signify something else, often the opposite of what is being stated straightforwardly” (yoffe, 2013, p. 209). successful stiob is ambivalent and indistinguishable from the original discourse (klebanov, 2013, p. 232; yoffe, 2013, p. 222; yurchak, 2011, p. 319). sometimes the degree of overidentification becomes so surprise that stiob is often described as a blatant, cruel and merciless form of communication. yurchak suggests that overidentification is necessarily accompanied by decontextualization, when the object of stiobbing is placed in a context that is unintended and unexpected for it (yurchak, 2005, p. 252). lev gudkov and boris dubin also define stiob as a public deflation of symbols by their demonstrative use in the context of parody (gudkov & dubin 1994, p. 166). a. kugaevskii (2006) suggests that there are two kinds of stiob: direct defamation of the object (another words, its decontextualization) or exaggerating the object’s qualities and reducing them to an absurdity (i.e., overidentification). both kinds aim at deconstruction, or even total destruction of a discourse. scholarly attention to stiob resulted from the studies in the second russian avant-garde. some directions in art of that period based on overidentification with the domineering discourse: for example, conceptualist performances could hardly be differentiated from the normal soviet life (a stiobby visit of conceptualists vadim zakharov and igor luts to the lenin’s museum in 1979 did not differ from any other visit). stiob works well in the situation of a hypernormalized authoritative discursive regime, where reproduction of formulaic structures becomes more important than solidarity with their initial meanings (yurchak, 2005, p. 284). this kind of irony is commonly associated with political languages of (post)socialist countries; however, it is not uncommon to apply the concept of stiob to western societies. yoffe traces it in black american culture and in the work of tarantino (yoffe, 2013, pp. 216–217); boyer and yurchak discuss the emerging genre of american stiob in the sphere of news media (2010). similar kind of irony is utilized by the alt-right in the u.s. (see: woods & hahner, 2019) and by the european populist right, wearing pig masks or carnival muslim costumes during their demos (pilkington, 2016, pp. 192–193). yoffe suggests that stiob, at least, in russia, “is a more powerful tool in the hands of right-wing nationalists” (yoffe, 2013, p. 210). in fact, the second avant-garde was politically ambivalent: commonly associated with leftism, it was, nevertheless, “rightwing oriented” (ioffe, 2016). this ambivalence was equally characteristical of the first avant-garde and of the post-soviet counterculture exemplified by a conceptualist artist sergei kurekhin (boyer & yurchak, 2010; klebanov, 2013; yurchak, 2011) who eventually became a promoter of ultraconservative political agenda. stiob shaped many activities of the national bolshevik party; both aleksandr dugin and eduard limonov, once its leaders, could not be precisely categorized in accordance with left8 boyer and yurchak offer also “stiobesque”. https://changing-sp.com/ 308 anastasia v. mitrofanova right scale. kurekhin, limonov and dugin are transitional figures providing a bridge between the artistic world and the domain of politics. the new nationalists are not necessarily artists, but following the suggestion of fabrizio fenghi (2017, p. 184) that the aesthetics of the national bolsheviks should be seen as an adaptation of the style and posture of the historical avant-gardes, i locate them in the grey zone between art and politics. maria engström states with regard to politicized orthodox groups that some radical discourses are so marginalized that they have to ally themselves with counter-cultural forces (engström, 2015, p. 71). the same assumption is correct about the new nationalist milieu, where writers and other art-makers play an important part. new nationalist literary parodies boris dubin rightly mentions that stiob is tied to literature (dubin, 2001, p. 174); therefore, i would like to begin with literary parodies produced by three new nationalist writers: the late konstantin krylov, head of the national democratic party that existed mostly on paper (also known as a sci-fi writer mikhail kharitonov), vladimir lorchenkov and dometii zavolskii. from many russian literary canons listed by alexei yudin (2017, pp. 346–347), nationalist writers have selected the genres of mass literature (detective stories, adventures, sci-fi, etc.) and juvenile literature, often blending them. books belonging to these literary canons are unmistakably recognizable and easily comprehensible; they are also conveniently structured to perform political tasks: both genres admit no undertones and are built on clear antagonism between good and evil, us and them (nosova & chernyak, 2016, p. 34). writers of parodies use fixed discursive units or “precedent phenomena” (babikova & voroshilova, 2017) loaned from the original text to invert its meaning and to switch between good and evil. inversion is then presented as revealing the true nature of things, which the original text conceals. politicized parodies, of course, target not the original texts as such; bit a social context to which these texts belong (yudin, 2017, p. 339). konstantin krylov’s relatively popular novella rubidium [рубидий] travesties a famous novel “monday begins on saturday” [понедельник начинается в субботу] by the strugatsky brothers. the parody is complex and includes a scrupulous stylization of the original text, but i will like to limit my analysis to the types of ethnic russians shown in rubidium. the first type – a soviet russian – is the protagonist, privalov. following the original text, krylov pictures him as a naïve person, unaware of what actually happens in his social environment, which miraculously acquires an ability to see the true essences of people. then three other types of russians are revealed. one is korneev, who was a talented young scholar in the original novel, whose only problem was “rude” speech (in krylov’s parody, he endlessly spews mat and obscenities). magic reveals korneev’s true nature as of a “red”, i.e. soviet, man who is not russian any more. professor vybegallo, poorly educated and mean in the original novel, turns out to be an enchanted pre-revolutionary russian intelligent filipp filippovich preobrazhenskii (a personage from mikhail bulgakov’s story heart of a dog). he explains that privalov changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 304–322 309 is under control of numerous spells, which do no harm to his non-russian colleagues because they have nationality, and it blocks such things (see: kharitonov, 2016). the fourth russian is sasha drozd, a loafer from the original text, who eventually degrades to the position of the local analogy to house elves, but after disenchantment reincarnates into a talented photographer. while rubidium is based mostly on decontextualization, some other parodies by krylov imply high degree of overidentification. he wrote a blog on behalf of a jewish poet yudik sherman [юдик шерман]. travesty nature of this mask is mostly evident, but there are some exceptions, such as “a genuinely jewish verse in the style of the jerusalem poetry almanac” written on behalf of a jew who gets outraged because of a phone bill for a conversation with jerusalem. he laments about jews who had to pay “for the right to exist” and declares that some indefinite “them” should pay: for our bible, for our einstein, for our women, for our genius, and for our pain (see: sherman, 2009). the verse is totally ambivalent and can be mistaken for serious poetry, although several suspicious lines are still present. obviously, krylov hints here to jewish greed, but this layer of parody is superficial. krylov considered anti-semitism a “marginalizing ideology” aiming at provoking a feeling of complete helplessness and inability to do anything (see: krylov, 2009). krylov’s stiob targets the “old right” sharing this ideology and envisioning jews as all-mighty people whom russians will never be able to overcome. vladimir lorchenkov, who lives in canada and spells his name as lorcenkov, is not politically active; more than once he claimed not being a russian nationalist. nevertheless, his essays demonstrate that he supports the idea of a russian nationstate, although evaluates its perspectives pessimistically. lorchenkov’s works, as well as those by krylov, are full of stiob and other types of irony, as well as of mat, violence and physiological details. a short story the city of the sun [город солнца] refers to a modern fairy tale by an italian communist writer gianni rodari, the adventures of the little onion [cipollino], belonging to the soviet canon of juvenile literature. the original text is about a proletarian revolution in the kingdom of vegetables and fruits, but lorchenkov decontextualizes it, describing a country torn by civil war, where a revolutionary squad of vegetables perpetrates monstrous violence (lorchenkov, 2012). the author parodies the style not of gianni rodari, but of isaac babel’s collection of short stories about civil war konarmiya [конармия]. he mentions a combatant named garlic ([чесночок], a hint at jewishness) who wants to become a writer and takes babel as a pen name (this personage also resembles eduard bagritskii and other early soviet authors). lorchenkov’s target is left-wing ideology in general; that is why he choses an italian children’s story with a clear reference to an utopian book by another italian author, tommaso campanella. lorchenkov also authors a cycle of fake translations from writers and poets representing soviet nationalities. these personages are given stiobby names and texts: for example, a verse by “petro zakolbyuzhnyi, a ukrainian poet” consists of one phrase – “glory to ukraine”; in every line, syllables and letters mingle until the text gradually becomes a mess (tsargori, 2018). “translations” target not some concrete authors, but the concept of national literature as such, both soviet and post-soviet. dometii (dmitrii) zavolskii is much less known than krylov and lorchenkov; besides, unlike them, he avoids mat, aggression, obscenities and physiological https://changing-sp.com/ 310 anastasia v. mitrofanova details. his cycle of short stories “mishka and i, and all the secrets of the ussr” [мы с мишкой и все тайны ссср] refers to books from the soviet juvenile canon, such as nikolai nosov’s short stories about two friends, one of whom is called mishka, and short stories by viktor dragunskii about deniska and mishka (zavolskii provides no name for the narrator). both authors were known to each soviet child and are available in bookstores even now. zavolskii also refers to the mass literature canon, namely, to soviet sci-fi and adventure fiction. short stories about mishka are overloaded with details: the discourse there is so thick that leaves a grotesque impression (zavolskii, 2014). zavolskii uses some discursive units recursively until this condensation of discourse results in its full destruction. konstantin krylov commented on extremely high concentration of specific personages untypical of the real soviet literature: spies [шпионы], chekists [чекисты], and even masons (kharitonov 2015). the target of zavolskii’s parody is so-called soviet nostalgia (see: zavolskii 2019). by condensing the soviet discourse, he wants to demonstrate that contemporary “sovietophiles” intentionally distort the image of the soviet union and edit out most of its negative characteristics. stiob as a narrative technique in the new nationalist social media most of stiobby texts, written or visual, heavily rely on using specific languages, the most prevalent of which are padonkoffsky jargon, lurkoyaz – the language of a parodic lurkmore encyclopedia [луркоморье], and the language associated with a fake web personage lev sharansky. gasan guseinov associates padonkoffsky jargon with the historical russian avant-gardes (guseinov, 2005); it implies deliberate distortion of words, which then become fixed as the new norm (e.g., afftar instead of avtor). lurkoyaz is notorious for using mat and other obscene words, as well as unique neologisms and memes (see: dementiev, 2015; ivannikov, 2019; shulgin, 2010). the new nationalists have also borrowed such characteristics of lurkoyaz as english transliterations, ukrainian memes, and caricature «jewish accent» (oy vey and the like). lev sharansky is a stiob parody of a former soviet dissident, now a liberal blogger, living in america but commenting on russia. his avatar image is aleksandr solzhenitsyn (it is not clear who actually authors the meme). sharansky was extremely popular in 2011–13, although the blog is still operating. memes, such as “freedom is better than non-freedom because of the presence of freedom”, are known as “sharanisms”. sharansky’s personality is based on perceiving the language of the russian liberals as hypernormalized and consisting of “esoteric” formulaic structures (similar phenomenon in the u.s. is described in boyer & yurchak, 2010, p. 182). while padonkoffsky and lurkoyaz are totally ambivalent and give an opportunity of mutual stiobbing for all ideological platforms, including liberals (see: dementiev, 2013, p. 39; guseinov, 2005), the language of sharansky targets a specific group of pro-western liberals. it distorts, misuses, or excessively concentrates their discursive units to providing a stiobbing effect. ambivalence of shcharanisms is that they can be utilized by all non-liberals, either leftor right-wing. an example of this newspeak is: the fall of changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 304–322 311 the regime is inevitable. the days of the putin’s dictatorship are counted. vlad putin, a bloodstained tyrant, from the kremlin wall gloomily looks through binocular at the creative class that drinks smoothies at jean-jacques café (see: sharansky, 2015). and this is how a nationalist shows overidentification with liberal discourse using shcharanisms: while you are celebrating here, the bloodstained kgb [кровавая гэбня] exposes the opposition to pshychotrope warfare! everyone, urgently follow the example of the handshakable parliamentarians and make protective equipment! (see: bosykh, 2012). similar techniques of stiobbing are used when nationalists borrow stereotypic formulations directly from the antagonistic discourses: • liberal discourse: as a russian i am deeply ashamed of the molotovribbentrop pact, thanks to which hitler, without any effort, was able to access the magnificent industrial base of czechoslovakia. forgive us, the czechs! (see: prosvirnin, 2019). here the speaker refers to a meme “forgive me (us)”, associated with a 2014 echo of moscow [эхо москвы] broadcast (see: “liya akhedzhakova”, 2014). • soviet discourse, a dialog between right-wing broadcasters nikolai rosov and vatoadmin (a stiobby nick): in rosov, words, in a soviet country store it was always fully packed by people, sort of “comrade, i am now going to eat your ear”, this was how closely to one another they stand. vatoadmin asks: were there situations that they ate ears? rosov responds: well, no, i am kidding. sorry (see: koverarab, 2020). this dialog exemplifies an attempt to utilize condensed soviet discourse; besides, it is exactly what yoffe means speaking about “the mutually mocking conversation of two stiobbers trying to out-stiob each other” (yoffe, 2013, p. 223). • official patriotic discourse: egor prosvirnin and his guest artemii sych declare that “a german spy [putin] has banned the victory day” (because of lockdown); by saying this they seemingly solidarize with those who celebrate the holiday in spite of the ban, but immediately proceed to stiobbing communists who went to the city center armed with the victory banner and butthurt [english transliteration] and were detained (czarstream, 2020)9. target groups: noviops and uncool boomers targets of nationalist stiob fall into three complex categories: (1) pseudo-liberals, because the new nationalists envision themselves as the true liberals/non-russians as oppressors of ethnic russians; (2) “sovietophyles”/leftists/loyal citizens of the russian federation; (3) the “old” nationalists, or the old right, i.e., orthodox monarchists. the first two categories can be further generalized under the umbrella of the noviop (for “new historical community of the soviet people” [новая историческая общность]). this stiobby abbreviation referring to a soviet formulation was invented by philosopher and writer dmitii galkovskii. it stresses genetic and spiritual kinship between the two 9 prosvirnin confirmed many times that for him the great patriotic war was “a war of kolyma with buchenwald” (czarstream, 2019); this adds more layers to the nature of stiobbing in this broadcast. https://changing-sp.com/ 312 anastasia v. mitrofanova groups, because liberals are seen as main beneficiaries of the soviet and post-soviet “friendship of peoples”. the new nationalists declare that liberals pretend to descend from groups persecuted in the ussr (the nobility, dissidents, ethnic minorities, etc.) but have no right to claim this heritage, because they and/or their grandparents belonged to the anti-russian soviet elite and were responsible for the 1917 revolution and subsequent political repression. vladmir lorchenkov, in accordance with his own formula “scratch a noviop – you’ll find a hangman” (tsargori, 2019), provides a fake biography for abovementioned “zakolbiuzhnyi”, informing that the poet was born in a family of a party functionary and a komsomol activist, and that he became an active member of the communist party of the soviet union (cpsu) to destroy the regime from within (see: tsargori, 2018). sovietophiles, leftists, and liberals appear in the nationalist ironic discourse as dogmatists, unable to think independently and following guidelines: the sheep of navalny do not even need arguments – they are just driven like an unconscious herd (see: bosykh, 2020); biorobots, loaded with software worked out by western cultural marxists (see: bennen, 2017). they are also portrayed as people alien to russia and hating it; mostly as having non-russian origins: some shenderovich10, clever head, has read in his life one book about 120 recipes of vorschmack (see: czarstream, 2020). nationalists often speak on behalf of a younger generation, which never experienced life in the ussr, and contrast it to people of forty or fifty, “uncool boomers” (czarstream, 2019). nikolai rosov describes vladimir putin ironically as an obsolete soviet pensioner: if you ask him what sort of dream he has in life, it will be something like soviet slippers and the fish that bites (see: andrey_funt, 2020). a creator of “memes for russians” describes the generations born in the ussr in the absurdist manner as those who fixate too much on some emotions from their childhood or youth, when there were seltzer, ice-cream; two-roubles sausage sits in sour-cream, when comrade lenin’s head rises two times per night, etc. (see: czarstream, 2019). nationalists equally despise people loyal to the russian federation, and particularly its public officials: one of the figures most stiobbed by them is margarita simonyan, an ethnic armenian and editor-in-chief of russia today. hypernormalized official political language of the russian federation (see: brock, 2018, p. 285) became for the new nationalists a source of meaningless formulations (traditional values, spirituality, the great victory, etc.), which they use as building blocks for stiobbing. from the very start of the new nationalist movement in the mid-2000, its participants jeer at the “old right” (orthodox nationalist monarchists). one of the first natsdem, aleksandr belov, stated that nationalists should look respectable and wearing not beards and huge boots, but suits and ties (see: kozenko & krasovskaya, 2008). this stiobby attitude to the style of the old right remains prevalent. krylov described the old nationalists as lunatic lads of undefined age, often in some rags and with sunken eyes (see: krylov, 2009); others offer descriptions like “our bald-beardedfat alt-right [english transliteration]” (maksimov, 2018). while the above-said might be designated as detractive stiob, overidentification examples are also abundant. marina urusova, egor prosvirnin’s fiancée, has issued 10 victor shenderovich is a liberal journalist. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 304–322 313 a 30-minutes feature video “the foundations of orthodox culture (real)”, where she appears as someone scrupulously observing everyday orthodox rites: lighting candles, kissing icons, putting sign of the cross on everything, fasting, confessing; she even rinses throat with holy water and prays instead of medication (czartalks, 2020). the video looks like a serious message except that orthodox discourse there is overly condensed; there are also some subtle clues, for example, cheerful music that decontextualizes the scenes of strict fasting. the heroine prays at the icon of the holy tsar nicholas ii, obviously hinting at orthodox monarchists; after kissing this icon she fells seriously ill. making this short but semi-professional film obviously required a significant amount of time and money; it signifies that demarcation with the obsolete version of nationalism is extremely important for the new generation. the latter make effort to destroy the image of russian nationalism as something overly-serious, asserting instead that it can be fashionable; it can be youthful; it can be funny (see: czarstream, 2019), or even that nationalism should be “cute [няшный]” (groza, 2020c). breaking the taboos: sex, violence and fascism focus on violence and sexuality have been characteristical of the historical avantgardes, asserting themselves through direct or indirect calls to violence, symbolic violent acts, such as burning books, obscene words (including mat), rough speech, criminal jargon, uncensored descriptions of sex. at the same time, dennis ioffe theorizes that these grotesque violence and sexuality were purely symbolic, unserious, and that the surrealistic terror of the brutal stiob was needed to blow up the established social practices, either soviet or bourgeois (see: ioffe, 2016). national bolsheviks were notorious for their aggressive and sexualized style in the aesthetics and ideology (fenghi, 2017, p. 195). stiobby aggressiveness of this sort was not rare with some of the old nationalists; for example, the union of orthodox banner-bearers [союз православных хоругвеносцев] practiced burning books and photographs of its antagonists (engström, 2017). some linguists are convinced that the language of politics is naturally “agonal” (deathly) and destructive (see: gornostaeva, 2018, pp. 58–59). it is no surprise that the new nationalists extensively exploit violence and sexuality. answering a reader, konstantin krylov explained that he could not refrain from “stiob and obscenities”, because poesy was a dialog with the world, and the world was so nasty that any other communication with it seemed impossible (krylov, 2015). sometimes nationalist broadcasters use aggressive nicks like pogrom, or thunderstorm [гроза]; most of them publicly use mat and other obscene words, or trivialize violence through calls to “shoot”, “hang”, or “execute” their antagonists. egor prosvirnin-pogrom ironically suggests shooting down all the obstetricians as a method of raising birth rate (czarstream, 2019); nikolai rosov joyfully proposes using a nuclear strike to destroy ugly soviet buildings (andrey_funt, 2020); pogrom and artemii sych make jokes about hanging margarita simonyan (czarstream, 2020). some nationalists go into detailed descriptions of violence under the pretext that they need it to expose the state’s repressive system (groza, 2020b). https://changing-sp.com/ 314 anastasia v. mitrofanova unlike the old right, seriously concerned about the emerging threats to morality, the new nationalists see sex more as a fun than a danger. they portray nationalism as something “sexually attractive”, and their invitation-only forum is called russians. sexy. at the same time, their broadcasts and visual memes are full of rude jokes about sex, including rape, homosexuality and other sensitive topics. this dialog between prosvirnin and an imagined interlocutor from an orthodox monarchist tv-channel tsargrad shows that he envisions moral wars of the old right as irrelevant: tsargrad channel, what can they say about the protests in khabarovsk? well, they can say: in america, you know, there are [...] transsexuals there. ok, what about khabarovsk? in khabarovsk we need no [...] transsexuals; one should pray, fast and put the sign of a cross (see: sergei zadumov, 2020). as well as their western like minds, the new nationalists in russia target the highly formalized language of political correctness, which became, as boyer and yurchak correctly state, a new authoritative discourse (2010). apart from using mat and other obscene words, they publicly demonstrate socially unapproved habits, such as smoking (figure 2). the calling card of the new nationalists is using fascism as a material for stiobbing. contrary to neo-nazi groups seriously associating themselves with fascist ideology, they mostly speak about it using stiobby words, such as svaston [свастон] instead of swastika. nevertheless, such evident despise of fascist symbols does not prevent them from borrowing fascist aesthetics and ideology. i suggest that, as well as in the case of national bolsheviks, this fact “should not be interpreted literally, but as part of a new performative mode of political dissent” (fenghi, 2017, p. 193). the same way of appropriating fascist symbols can be found in russian counterculture, especially in rock-music (gabowitsch, 2009; kasakow, 20096). figure 2. egor pogrom and artemii sych smoke during a live broadcast. the plaque reads: russian occupation government1 (czarstream, 2020) 1 alert: smoking seriously damages your health and those around you. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 304–322 315 the new nationalist discourse of fascism is mostly ambivalent and does not betray the “true” position of a speaker. for example, nikolai rosov produced a videostream “smiling fascism”, where he describes the british fascists as a women rights-oriented and “cute” movement, while jeering at both the ussr and nazi germany (groza, 2020c). racism in 2020 became another popular topic for stiobbing. the new nationalists overidentify with the discourses of oppressed groups: as vladimir lorchenkov says, for a frenchman, [...] means you, or me (chuzhbina podcast, 2020); egor prosvirnin refers to russian as “victims of the holocaust” (czarstream, 2019). in june 2020 a libertarian broadcaster mikhail svetov initiated a hash tag #russianlivesmatter against police brutality in russia, which was immediately caught by nationalists. it is unclear whether svetov’s initiative was stiobby; my personal opinion is yes, because he demonstrated obvious overidentification with civil rights activism in the u.s. (naked pravda, 2020a). whatever his intentions might have been, the use of the hash tag by the nationalists is an example of decontextualization. conclusions negative identification is the main function of stiob and other forms of irony for the new nationalists. they make use of hypernormalization of the available political discourses (liberal, neo-soviet, leftist, official patriotic and old nationalist) and undermine them from within leaning on their own formulaic units. all these political platforms, in the eyes of the new nationalists, are interwoven and constitute one domineering discourse, evaluated as obsolete and irrelevant, regardless of ideology. nationalists go beyond the left-right dichotomy, rejecting, instead, the discourse as a whole. applying stiob as a specific technique of narration lets the new nationalist influencers express their opinions with such degree of ambiguity that these opinions sound totally obscure and not comprehensible. this ambivalence provides a successful decision for two tasks. firstly, it helps to map out the peripheries of the milieu, or, as alexei yurchak formulates, to reach the public of svoi, or “normal people” (yurchak, 2005, pp. 287–288). this public consists of those who get the point even in case of multi-layer stiobbing; mostly it becomes possible thanks to the fact of belonging, of knowing (in real life, or – more often – on the web) the right people. those who miss the point and take stiob at face value reveal their alienness and get expelled from communication. second, stiob enables the new nationalists at any moment to take back what has been said and solidarize with any political platform when needed. they, for example, experienced no difficulties in supporting the people’s republics in donbass together with pro-soviet and leftist groups, or with supporting a libertarian initiative #russianlivesmatter. besides, irony provides escape clause to avoid moderation of social networks and other public platforms. extensive usage of stiob and parody reveals that the new nationalists remain minoritarians in russian politics. it is symptomatic that other ideological groups never practice similar ironic overidentification with them. at the moment, the new nationalists constitute a highly marginalized group and more a counter-cultural than political https://changing-sp.com/ 316 anastasia v. mitrofanova phenomenon. most of their propaganda is currently done via live internet-broadcasts having a lot in common with staged performances; nationalist web resources mostly provide entertaining or educational-cum-entertaining content often barely related to any ideology. those of them, who reach relative political success, for example, through winning elections at municipal level, avoid using stiob; instead, they promote local “apolitical” agenda (environmental and urban issues, and the like). both options let the new nationalists to preserve ambivalence and to be simultaneously “in” the domineering discourse and “out” of it. i can conclude that the new nationalism in russia repeats worldwide developmental trends of socio-political movements known as the right-wing populists, the new far right, or as the neo-nationalists. these movements increasingly become less ideology-driven and less interested in the traditional conservative agenda; instead they produce either handy or entertaining (or both) content to attract as many people of diverse ideological orientations as possible. for researchers this means turning from party platforms and political manifestos to seemingly non-political (i.e., non-electoral) phenomena, often in the field of web culture. there is, nevertheless, an important distinction between similar right-wing movements in russia and in the western countries: the new nationalism in russia became entirely digitalized. in the period from early 2010s to the mid-decade, their legally operating organizations were outlawed and their leaders arrested; informal groupings, involved into street-level violence, were dispersed by the law-enforcement bodies. at the moment, activists who still show interest in the electoral process do not disclosure their affiliation with nationalism; radical street politics is currently non-existent for all ideological platforms. as a result, researchers of russian politics intending to figure out what goes on in the nationalist milieu need to focus on seemingly non-political spheres, such as videogames, digital comedy shows, popular science lectures and other phenomena of digital culture. references andrey_funt (2020, april 13). nikolai rosov (groza). nam nuzhna velikaya rossiya! 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personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 320–324 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.137 editorial the transformation of values in the times of uncertainty elena a. stepanova editor-in-chief institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia the current issue of changing societies & personalities continues its main thematic thread—reflection upon value transformations in various socio-cultural contexts. the keyword that may characterize the entire issue is uncertainty. on the one hand, uncertainty inevitably follows any transformation. on the other, the covid-19 pandemic, which is analyzed in several articles from different perspectives, is far more than a health crisis. covid-19 is affecting societies at their core by changing the habitual way of life, and its long-term impacts are hidden in the fog of the future. the pandemic will end sooner or later, but uncertainty will remain. from big things to small, from philosophical concepts to everyday feelings, being uncertain means that people and societies are alive. revealing the historical roots of post-colonial thought, konstantin d. bugrov (yekaterinburg, russia) begins his article colonial revolution and liberatory war: from communist to post-colonial theory (georgy safarov, mao zedong and frantz fanon) by mentioning vladimir lenin’s justification of a national liberation war even if it is a war of a colonial semi-feudal state against a well-developed imperialist state. lenin’s idea was followed by the communist international (comintern), which in 1920 proclaimed the possibility of a direct transition of colonies to socialism. bugrov outlines three key tendencies of the communist thought developed in the 20th century, which had an impact on the further development of the colonial (and post-colonial) agenda: the intellectual legacy of antonio gramsci; the orthodox leninist thought represented by different types of the ussr-inspired communist movements across the world; and some radical interpretations of the resolutions of the 2nd comintern congress. the article explores the concepts of three political figures: georgy safarov who, as bugrov argues, arranged a set of rather unsystematic bolshevik/comintern ideas on colonial revolution into a theory of anti-colonial peasant war; mao zedong who insisted on achieving national independence by means of war rather than received 22 september 2021 © 2021 elena a. stepanova published online 11 october 2021 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 320–324 321 by overcoming economic backwardness; and franz fanon who developed a theory of revolution in africa and considered colonial dependence not only as a system of subjugation, which permanently reproduces backwardness, but mostly as a psychological trauma. bugrov explores both similarities and differences between the three trends in the shift from the communist to post-colonial paradigm of thinking. oksana v. golovashina (yekaterinburg, russia) in the article battles for bandera: dissonant historical narratives of ukrainians in poland and problems of integration, stresses that today’s interpretation of history has more than ever moved from the hands of professional intellectuals to become an object of everyday personal experience and collective interpretation. in conflicting situations, which arise between personal experiences and official interpretations, “the ensuing combinations reveal often paradoxical interrelationships between collective representations and the influence of official discourses on them”. in the post-socialist countries, where collective representations of the past that were constructed under the influence of a socialist discursive model, the conflict of interpretations becomes quite passionate. golovashina analyzes the increasing flux of ukrainian migrants into poland and examines polish and ukrainian historical narratives. in particular, she focuses on a new pantheon of ukrainian national heroes, some of whom are viewed quite negatively by many poles, according to the field research of ukrainian migrants conducted between october and november 2017 in the polish cities of warsaw, krakow and poznan. the article analyzes historical narratives in the context of intensive exchanges between ukrainians and poles along with an examination of methods for reconciling the conflict potential of national histories. as michal müller (olomouc, the czech republic) notes in the article the value of work-related uncertainty: changes from demands on certainty to finding ways of living in uncertainty, work and uncertainty are two important objects of sociological research that have a philosophical overlap. presently, according to müller, “it turns out that society is transitioning from excessive adherence to certainty, caused by negative experience during the early form of capitalism, to finding ways to live in uncertainty”. firstly, uncertainty is introduced in the context of risk as a related phenomenon because modernization and technological development increases uncertainty in the labor market. at the same time, uncertainty and risk might be understood as a price to pay for democracy, which is related to the uncertain nature of capitalist society. then müller discusses the positive role of uncertainty at the level of the state, entrepreneurship, and employment. he points out that “it is precisely the uncertainty that leads entrepreneurs to modify individual relationships and seek new, better solutions to current situations”. finally, müller shows that the very theme of uncertainty becomes relevant more than ever in the context of the current covid-19 pandemic, which seems to be the greatest reminder of uncertainty in the modern history, and forces to reflect upon its consequences, both negative and positive. müller concludes that, on the one hand, uncertainty “associated with work, whether at the level of social structure, individual entrepreneurial activities, or employment, is a significant value, if it does not take extreme forms”. on the other, freedom as a responsibility for individual actions is possible only in the context of uncertainty. https://changing-sp.com/ 322 elena a. stepanova the analysis of the new reality of covid-19 is continued by sanja bizilj, eva boštjančič, and gregor sočan (ljubljana, slovenia) in the article perceived efficacy of virtual leadership in the crisis of the covid-19 pandemic. in many countries, strict measures were introduced in order to limit interpersonal contacts and thus control the infection. under such circumstances, virtual leadership becomes one of the most important challenges faced by entrepreneurship, since a lack of personal contacts with employees could cause difficulties in monitoring work performance and resolving conflicts. the article aims to answer the following research question: “do digital communication skills affect the perception of leadership efficacy when transferring to remote work in the context of covid-19?” the research focuses on the leaders of those organizations that allowed the staff to work from home. the authors note that the research is “based on the social cognitive theory and the concept of efficacy from the point of view of both self-perception (self-efficacy) and that of the environment (efficacy)”. in addition, the importance of digital communication skills for effective virtual leadership is demonstrated. irina m. kyshtymova, lidia v. matveeva, and anastasia a. deineko (irkutsk and moscow, russia) explore current attitudes toward the image of the mother, which is increasingly formed “not only via direct mother-child communication, but is also mediated by media narratives.” in the article cartoon image of the mother, its perception by elementary school students and correction in the process of media education, the authors point out that the overwhelming presence of various media forms exposes children to not only children’s content—first of all, cartoons—but also commercials, news programs, talk shows, and other information addressed to adults; which is why the impact of media products, cartoons in particular, on children’s development and behavior is a promising research direction. the aim of the article was “a psychological analysis of cartoons displaying different images of the mother in order to theoretically substantiate and empirically test their influence on the perception of the mother by younger schoolchildren”. the authors stress the need to develop effective algorithms for the psychological analysis of media content in order to estimate its role in the formation of a child’s personality and their attitude toward significant others. in the article the efficacy of a holding community program—promoting social reflection at school, anna siegler, sára serdült, fanni csernus, lilla dézma, izabella ilea, and sára bigazzi (pécs, hungary) mention that, from their perspective, hungarian public education focuses primarily on the development of cognitive rather than social and emotional areas. however, the contemporary philosophy of educational systems in many countries presupposes the importance of social cohesion and active citizenship, which requires cultivation of positive relationships and reciprocity between school students. the authors present a concept of holding environment; it is based on the methodology of conflict resolution, intergroup dialogue, socio-emotional competence development, prejudice reduction, and human rights education. the authors insist that enabling students to be reflective means making them active shapers of society “not by the absorption of ready-made knowledge or the compliance with rules, but through dialogue.” the article evaluates changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 320–324 323 the effectiveness of the proposed holding community program in developing perspective-taking, reducing prejudice, and promoting active participation. jamaluddin hos, ambo upe, muhammad arsyad, and hasniah (kendri, indonesia) in the article time allocation and economic contribution of women in fulfilling the basic needs of poor households explore poverty as one of the most significant problems in developing and underdeveloped countries, including indonesia. special attention is paid to women who play an essential role in sustaining the economic resilience of poor households. the authors study the case of women’s labor in stone-breaking companies, which involves producing building materials for mixed cement cast. they stress that “women’s involvement in stone-breaking activities that are included in heavy and abusive work certainly has a subjective motivation known as background. limited access to decent work with a fair wage has forced housewives to undergo heavy and rough activities such as stone-breaking… furthermore, in most cases, woman join this occupation to support their husbands’ income to meet families’ needs”. the research is based on the data collected through in-depth interviews with 25 informants. the results show that, although stone breaking is a heavy work, women allocate sufficient time to taking care of their households. at the same time, the economic contribution of women to sustaining the existence of their families is quite significant. as olga v. kruzhkova, irina a. simonova, anastasia o. ljovkina, and marina s. krivoshchekova (yekaterinburg and tyumen, russia) state in the article vandal practices as a psychological response to the covid-19 pandemic, the pandemic situation is completely new to the contemporary world and may elicit a strong emotional response in people both at the level of individual reaction and collective experience. transformation of people’s emotional states caused by quarantine restrictions, which significantly reduce social activities, changes routine actions and may trigger destructive criminal activities. at the same time, the accumulated feelings of fear, anxiety, and helplessness “force people to seek solutions to a difficult situation at any cost”. the authors aim to classify vandal practices as a response of people, groups, and society to a global threat caused by the covid-19 pandemic. this social tension is often translated into protests and vandal actions. the authors consider vandalism as “an individual impact on the objects of urban environment which is revealed through changing their current state without appropriate sanctions from the other entity that has legal rights to these objects (its owner or manager)”. in the article, 80 cases of vandal actions are analyzed, and vandal actions are classified. irina g. polyakova (yekaterinburg, russia) in the article informal sperm donation in russia notices that assisted reproductive technologies (art) are becoming more popular and accessible. society is becoming receptive to assisted reproduction, and sperm donation is one of the most widely used and well-known art. recently, practices of informal sperm donation, along with those conducted in formal settings (in fertility clinics and similar institutions), have seen a growing demand in russia. a factor contributing to this demand is undoubtedly the internet as digital platforms facilitating donor-recipient interactions provide a fast and cheap access to this service. nevertheless, informal sperm donation remains a relatively new phenomenon, which https://changing-sp.com/ 324 elena a. stepanova remains underexplored in russian research literature. the article discusses the informal practices of online sperm donation in russia, focusing on donors’ perceptions of the process, motivations, and expectations concerning potential recipients, as well as their evaluations of donor-recipient relationships, and taking into account that donors invest significant time and resources in their activity. the study is based on interviews with 11 men aged 28–53 from the perspective of symbolic interactionism as the most productive theoretical approach in this respect. polyakova concludes that “the emergence of online platforms offering sperm donor matching services enables donors and recipients to dodge the rules of fertility clinics”, at the same time as raising a number of ethical and legal concerns. a forest as a classical locale of traditional culture among the yorùbá people of southwestern nigeria, which constitutes about 18% of nigeria’s population, is the focus of a research study undertaken by fausat motunrayo ibrahim, benson osikabor, bolanle tawakalitu olatunji, grace oluwatobi ogunwale and olawale julius aluko (ibadan, oyo state, nigeria). the yorùbá strongly believe that there is an interface of the visible and invisible, the tangible and intangible, and regard those human beings are on a perpetual journey between ayé (the world) and ọrun (heaven) where “the world is perceived as a market place whereas heaven is man’s real home”. in the article forest in the context of social change: traditional orientation and forest mystification in a nigerian forest-reserve setting, the authors take into account the complexity and interconnectedness of various elements of traditional forest mystification in the yorùbá social context. forest mystification as a marker of the relationship between the individual and society is examined along with other indicators of traditional orientation including attitudes toward religion, ageing, gender, and cultural enthusiasm. the article studies the correlations between each element of this model and forest mystification. the book review section contains the review by andrey s. menshikov of daria dubovka’s book (2020) v monastyr’ s mirom. v poiskakh svetskikh kornei sovremennoi dukhovnosti [to the monastery in peace: searching for secular origins of contemporary spirituality]. the reviewer analyzes the specifics of the author’s approach toward what it means to be a devout orthodox christian today. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 285–303 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.3.102 received 22 august 2020 © 2020 maxim b. khomyakov accepted 29 september 2020 maksim.khomyakov@urfu.ru published online 9 october 2020 article nationalism and colonialism: oceans, civilizations, races maxim b. khomyakov university of central asia university of johannesburg, south africa ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the article is devoted to the analysis of the complex interrelations between the imaginaries of nation and colony, and, by the same token, between nationalism and colonialism. the author argues that modern nationalism has always contained colonialism as its integral part and parcel. colonies are interpreted as “mirrors” for the nationbuilding; while oceans, civilizations and races are the factors which keep distance between what is considered to be national and what is to be interpreted as colonial. in their turn, movement of the population, education and modernization were important tools for bridging the gaps between nations and their colonies. russian national, imperial and colonial experience in this context is rather anomalous, because, according to the author, it constantly blurs the existing boundaries and mix up differences. one of the interesting results of this historical experience is current insensitivity of russian society to such pressing issues of the today’s european and american politics as the war against symbolic representations of the racist nationalism. keywords colonialism, nationalism, imperialism, nation-building, modernity, modern history of russia, social imaginaries, racism, civilizations, ethnic identities, frontier, orientalism acknowledgement this work was supported by the russian science foundation under the grant no. 18-1800216. https://changing-sp.com/ 286 maxim b. khomyakov introduction nations and nationalism as we today know them are modern phenomena. the very idea that communities of human beings whose sense of belonging is based upon certain historically constructed common features (ranging from language to racial characteristics or myths of common origin) are to politically and economically organize their life together on certain territory, is closely connected with the modern condition (see, however, smith, 1986, and armstrong, 1982 for the accounts of ancient ethnic origin of the national identities). even if, as some authors claim, nationalism has medieval sources (adrian hastings, for example, traces these sources back to the obscure times of bede the venerable, see hastings, 1997, p. 38) today’s nationalism is distinctively modern. in its turn, modernity, according to cornelius castoriadis’ characterization, “is best defined by the conflict, but also the mutual contamination and entanglement, of two imaginary significations: autonomy on the one hand, unlimited expansion of ‘rational mastery’, on the other. they ambiguously coexisted under the common roof of ‘reason’” (castoriadis, 1997, pp. 37–38). arguably, both autonomy and rational mastery in their turn are enabled by a certain type of collectivity, which provides the ground for the collective decision-making and shared responsibility for the future. such collectivity is seen as the last source of sovereignty (anderson, 2006, p. 7; miller, 1995, p. 30), and, thus, as the “final” autonomous being. being the last sovereign, this collectivity is entitled to produce the laws, through obeying which it also exercises its autonomy. as such this collectivity represents moral community (miller, 1995, pp. 49–80; moore, 2001, pp. 25–35), providing basis for solidarity, mobilization, political obligations, collective responsibility, feelings of belonging and common destiny, etc. in short, these communities took the holy place previously occupied by the church and god himself, the position of the source of all sovereignty and all power (anderson, 2006, pp. 9–38). worshipped under the name of the nations, these communities became the main object of the modern religion of nationalism. both autonomy and rational mastery are “imaginary significations”, that is “multiform complexes of meaning that give rise to more determinate patterns and at the same time remain open to other interpretations” (arnason, 1989, p. 34). modern people are interpreting them as the members of nations, which, by the same token, are indeed “imagined communities” (anderson, 2006). it is imagination that connects nations with autonomy and mastery: through imaginations nations understand themselves as autonomous (free) and rational (powerful); and it is through autonomous and creative imagination that large anonymous communities form the sense of belonging and obtain the moral obligations needed for them to become modern nations. since imagination is a phenomenon of human creativity, nationalism essentially is a creative reconstruction (through experience and interpretation) of the human world. although in various nationalistic myths the nations are often represented as primordial entities, as something rooted in the “blood and soil” (barry, 1999, pp. 17–20), they are, however, constantly imagined and constructed. it can be said, then, that there are no changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 285–303 287 nations, but only various national building processes, or, by the same token, various nationalisms. nationalism, therefore, can be described as a creative imagination of the national building process. it is not surprising, then, that many authors trace sources of nation-building to the spread of the vernacular literary traditions (anderson, 2006, pp. 37–46; hastings, 1997, pp. 21–25). national literature, it seems, created not only the russians (lotman, 1987, p. 196, p. 320); its imaginative role was crucial in formation of all modern nations. according to yu. lotman, when the world of the medieval cultural values and moral principles was substituted with the modern culture, it is the literature – and this is especially obvious in russia – which took the role of the spiritual and moral guide of the social life (see: lotman, 1987, p. 320). imagination (including literary one) is crucial for both interpretation and experience of the reality. it is through the lens of imagination that autonomous human beings are making sense of their world, experience it and interpret this experience. that is why, according to peter wagner, modernity itself is experience and interpretation of the modern conditions (wagner, 2008). the reality to be interpreted and experienced is rephrased by wagner as problématiques, to which any society needs to give an answer. namely, “the question about the rules for life in common constitutes the political problématique […]; the one about satisfaction of needs, the economic problématique […]; and the one about valid knowledge, the epistemic problématique” (wagner, 2008, p. 4). literature, science, music, theater, political institutions, economic arrangements etc. all are somehow answering the questions on how the community should govern its life together, by which means it will satisfy its material needs, and how the valid knowledge is produced. wagner’s characterization is rather persuasive. however, it would also make sense to ask the question on what “the society”, which needs to give an answer to the problématiques is? wagner’s description seems to suggest that this society is a kind of linguistic, historical and cultural community (since it requires common experience [history and culture] as well as shared interpretations [culture and language]), united by common political, economic and epistemic life. in short, the society in question is modern nation. it is nation, then, which seeks to autonomously answer modern questions. at the same time, however, the opposite is also true: the nations are formed in the process of answering these questions. nations are shaped by their answers and in this way obtain their national histories. this answering, in its turn, is not happened in isolation: nations in their nation-building face other realities, in which they are reflected like in (sometimes very distorting) mirrors. these mirrors include other nations and ethnic groups, as well as nature and geography of the national territory and so on. nation-building, thus, is both limited and enabled by these externalities. now, this article is devoted to the analysis of the imaginary of the nation and nationalism in terms of its interrelations with another important modern imaginary: one of colony and colonialism. it will briefly demonstrate how interplay of the concepts of nation and colony produces modern understanding of the community. since, as the text will show, it is the concept of the colony, which provides both the image of “the other”, and the mirror needed for the effective nation-building, the colony is imagined https://changing-sp.com/ 288 maxim b. khomyakov as what is distant geographically, different civilizationally and alien racially. the distance, however, is both postulated and bridged: postulated by oceans and bridged by resettlement, postulated by civilizational gap and bridged by education, and, finally, postulated by race, and bridged by citizenship. the main question, which the article seeks to answer, then, is a question on the nature of this dialectic of distancing and approximation in the interplay of the ideas of colonialism and nationalism. another important task relates to the analysis of the peculiarities of russian colonial-and-national imaginary to the “model” european one. in many instances, as we will see, russia is an anomaly, but it is exactly this anomality, which makes its case especially useful for the conceptual analysis. modern mirrors it is not at all accidental that the formation of modern european nations coincided with the development of the worldwide colonial system. colonies seemed to provide europe with the finest possible mirrors, helping european nations to find answers to the modern questions. on the one hand, colonies gave to the europeans contrasting examples of the “backward” peoples, thus, justifying civilizational mission and “white man’s burden”, but, on the other hand, represented something like testing areas for the institutional arrangements to be used domestically afterwards. in india, for example, the british colonists tried the first joint-stock company (metcalf & metcalf, 2006, p. 44), the first government-run schools, trigonometrical survey, separate cemetery, competitive examination for the civil service etc.: “the institutions of the modern state took shape in the colony, which can be seen as something of a laboratory of administrative practice, before making their way back to england” (ibid., p. 83). being a laboratory, the colony, however, at the same time must remain separate, different, alien, since only in such way it can perform its function of the mirror. it is just very natural, then, that various colonial rebellions strengthened metropolitan nationalism. until very recently this cultural alienation very often took racial forms. sepoy mutiny, for example, intensified british racism and resulted in creation of the separately demarcated spaces in indian cities. “these spaces communicated racial difference. […] they represented, moreover, as part of lived experience, an association of british culture with the ‘modern’ in contrast to the older sections of the city seen as ‘medieval’ or ‘traditional’ – always the necessary foil to modernity. the ‘colonial city’ was predicated on such duality” (metcalf & metcalf, 2006, p. 108). duality of metropolitan and colonial, modern and traditional created world of the simple binary oppositions, which survived up to the twenty-first century. the discourse of the binary oppositions, where “we” are described as mastering “our culture”, autonomous, civilized and mature, while “they” are heteronomous, barbaric, childish, and are dominated by their culture, can be found both in imperial british description of india and in recent george w. bush’s “war against terror”. wendy brown comments: “we” have culture while culture has “them”, or we have culture while they are a culture. or, we are a democracy while they are a culture. this asymmetry turns changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 285–303 289 on an imagined opposition between culture and individual moral autonomy, in which the former vanquishes the latter unless culture is itself subordinated by liberalism. the logic derived from this opposition between nonliberalized culture and moral autonomy then articulates a further set of oppositions between nonliberalized culture and freedom and between nonliberalized culture and equality (brown, 2006, p. 151). theoretically, however, nationalism is ambiguous. on the one hand, it is nurtured by the differentiation, colonialism, and alienation; on the other hand, it also contains an important emancipatory trend: in theory, all nations are equally entitled to the national state. thus, in the universalistic nationalism as well as in the very universality of the droits de l’homme et du citoyen there has always been a seed of the elimination of the very same colonial dependency, which so actively participated in the formation of this nationalism. thus, the great french revolution, which intended to establish liberty, equality and fraternity for the citizens of the metropole, led to the demand of the equal rights among the colonized population as well as to the abolition of the slavery in some of the french colonies. maintaining colonial system after the revolution, in its turn, required complex theoretical argumentation on the unpreparedness of the colonies to the full autonomy, and, by the same token, radical displacement of the full exercise of the autonomy to the future. thus, for example, in the french caribbean the administrators confronted the dilemmas of a republican imperialism in which colonial exploitation had to be institutionalized and justified within an ideological system based on the principle of universal rights. the solutions these administrators crafted were a foundation for the forms of governance employed by the french “imperial nation-state” of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. in this empire, as in the revolutionary french caribbean, the colonized sometimes used claims to universal rights in demands for representation. but even as the colonial state presented itself as the bearer of the liberatory possibilities of democracy, administrators argued that the majority of the colonized did not have the cultural and intellectual capacities necessary to responsibly exercise political rights. the promise of access to rights was extended by the colonial administration but was constantly deferred to some unspecified moment in the future (dubois, 2004, pp. 3–4). in the beginning the rights were understood in the nationalist framework of thought as applicable to the co-citizens only, as a part of the nation-building process. their very universality, however, gradually made them an instrument, applicable to much larger realm of international relations. as samuel moyn explains it, droits de l’homme et du citoyen meant something different from today’s “human rights”. for most of modern history, rights have been part and parcel of battles over the meanings and entitlements of citizenship, and therefore have been https://changing-sp.com/ 290 maxim b. khomyakov dependent on national borders for their pursuit, achievement and protection. in the beginning, they were typically invoked by a people to found a nation-state of their own, not to police someone else’s. they were a justification for state sovereignty, not a source of appeal to some authority– like international law– outside and above it (moyn, 2014, p. 58). the very history of the idea of human rights, thus, clearly demonstrates historical dialectics of the national and colonial: being applicable first to the national realm only, the rights became a tool of overcoming the very gap between the national and colonial. these introductory remarks seem to be enough to firmly support our claim that nation and colony, as well as the ideologies of nationalism and colonialism, are closely connected, entangled concepts. they are engaged in complex dialectical interrelations with each other. nationalism of the metropole is reinforced by the reflection in the mirror of the colony; in its very reflection, however, it contributes to the production of the colony’s nationalism, which, in its turn, destabilizes colonial system. if this is so, we have at least two rather different nationalisms: of the metropole and of the colony. the first starts with the idea of the civilizational (cultural, racial) superiority and combines domestic nation-building with civilizational mission abroad; the second is consolidated in the liberation struggle and had to define its tasks in negative terms. in the absence of the positive programme the anti-colonial nationalism is often weakened immediately after the liberation and tend to re-produce neo-colonial conditions. the difference between these two types of the nationalism was well-known to revolutionary soviet politicians, who supported anti-colonial (e.g. anti-russian) nationalism of the “backward people”, and by all means suppressed russian nationalism, in which they saw chauvinism of the former metropole. as lenin dictated in 1922, a distinction must necessarily be made between the nationalism of an oppressor nation and the nationalism of an oppressed nation, the nationalism of a large nation and the nationalism of a small nation. [...] thus, internationalism on the part of oppressor or so-called “great” nation [...] must consist not only in the observance of the formal equality of nations, but even in an inequality, of the oppressor nation, the great nation, that must make up for the inequality which obtains in actual practice” (lenin, 1970, pp. 358–359). in russia of the 1920s, this approach led to the creation of what terry martin called affirmative action empire (martin, 2001). for us, however, this distinction is important because it demonstrates intricate complex dialectics of the national and colonial. the rest of this article is essentially an attempt to analyze some aspects of this dialectics: we start from identifying the main characteristics of colonialism and proceed with the analysis of their interrelations with different types of the nationalism. it is impossible, of course, to provide here a fully comprehensive all-embracing picture; that is why we focus upon just some features, which, however, seem to be among the most crucial characterizations of modern colonialism and nationalism. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 285–303 291 plantation modern colonialism is part and parcel of modernity. arguably, it is colonialism that represented the first historical form of both globalization and modernization. it is through its colonies that europe tried to modernize (or to civilize, according to the dominant terminology of this time) the world, and thus to make european modernity truly global (see for example, ferro, 1997, p. 86). on the one hand, colonies provided europe with an image of “the other,” thus contributing to the consolidation of the idea of europe itself. it was colonialism, undoubtedly, that introduced a “new accumulation regime,” and thus “drew europe into a global economy” (stråth & wagner, 2017, p. 92) contributing also to the unification of europe (ibid., pp. 48–52). on the other hand, colonial experience linked modernity with oppression, or rather, “modernity itself [...] inaugurated a history of oppression” (ibid., p. 12). in short, we cannot hope to understand modernity without the history of colonization, which was at the same time a history of modernization, and a history of oppression and imperial domination. what, however, do we have in mind, when we talk of colonial experience? it seems that today “colonialism” and “colonial” sometimes mean many different things. the authors are talking about colonization of the land and colonization of the people, colonization as external domination and colonization as modernization, colonization of the foreign peoples and domestic colonization of the peasants (see e.g. etkind, 2003, p. 111). but does not it essentially blur all borders and differences between various types of domination? after all, domination always is alienation, a production of the cultural distance, that is, for some authors, a colonization. now, to define intricate relations between the national and the colonial it would seem to make much more sense to start with more traditional concept of colonization. first of all, one early modern meaning of colonization was “plantation” – and not only of exotic plants such as sugar cane or pará rubber trees, as we would probably expect, but of people. such was, at least, francis bacon’s understanding in his essay 33 “on plantations” (bacon, 1625/2001). colonies, then, presuppose transfer of people from their motherland to elsewhere, their “plantation” on the other soil. this, in its turn also means more or less clear distinction between internal, national, and external, colonial. that is why it was always easier to talk about the colonies in the context of ocean empires, where internal and external were separated by masses of water than in relation to the continental empires, where, like in russia, the boundaries between national and colonial have always been rather blurred. in any case, we talk of the colonies only when some trans-plantation of people takes place. that is why we talk about ancient greek colonies or german colonies in the volga region of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century russia. when, however, we refer to modern colonies as sources of wealth for the metropole or as the tools for “modernization” or a primitive form of modern “globalization”, we always think of them as maintaining tight connections with the country of origin or as being externally dominated by the mother country. the colonies were able to become the tools of modernization, thus, because “history of the colonies is surely the history of the ways in which the power, prestige and profits https://changing-sp.com/ 292 maxim b. khomyakov of some countries were enhanced [...] by external dependencies of migrant settlers” (finley, 1976, p. 174). that is why the usa of the nineteenth century can be referred to as a british ex-colony, but communities of german mennonites in russia of the eighteenth century have never really been true colonies of the german principalities. it is in this context of the tight connections with the metropole, that bacon thinks that the new plantations must be taken care of before they can produce handsome profit: “planting of countries is like planting of woods; for you must make account to lose almost twenty years’ profit, and expect your recompense in the end” (bacon, 1625/2001, p. 123). in addition to these three main elements – trans-plantation, external territory and formal (state) dependency – the very notion of soil seems to be of paramount importance. the main object of colonization seems to be exactly the soil, the land and not just a group of people. the external land, the territory, is where the transplantation happens. in the ideal case, the land should be free, empty or belong to nobody. the discourse of nobody’s land or terra nullius is, thus, very important for the justification of colonization. this discourse equally applies to the vast siberian territory in russia or the lands of the present-day kwazulu-natal and highveld after the turmoil of mfecane and difaqane, which led to the depopulation of these territories, subsequently occupied by white settlers (giliomee & mbenga, 2007, pp. 124–138; nattrass, 2017, pp. 57–58). as bacon put it, “i like a plantation in a pure soil; that is, where people are not displanted to the end to plant in others. for else it is rather an extirpation than a plantation” (bacon, 1625/2001, p. 123). now, all three traditional elements of the colonial situation – transplantation, external territory and formal dependency – reproduce sharp difference and distance between national and colonial, between the land, that plants and the soil, in which the colony is planted. kept in this way on a distance, colony becomes a good mirror for the nation. colonial is understood as external, while national in the contrast is defined as internal and domestic. in this understanding colonial distance is defined geographically, while bridged politically (through dependency) and demographically (via transplantation of the population). the clearest case, then, is presented by the ocean empires, where the colony and the nation were divided by the water. in these empires the notion of colony (of what belong to us “there”) seems to be very important for the definition of the nation (of who we are “here”). russian case, on the other hand, seems to be much less evident. being the country, which is colonizing itself (see: klyuchevsky, 1904/1908, p. 24), it was constantly transforming the frontier into national territory, thus, changing would be colonies into what gradually came to be defined as the core of the nation. consider for example, that in the period of the sixteenth – eighteenth centuries russia had proper borders only in its western part. as michael khodarkovsky explains, borders required that neighboring peoples define and agree upon common lines of partition. […] a frontier is a region that forms a margin of a settled or developed territory, a politico-geographical area lying beyond the integrated region of the political unit. […] in the west, where russia confronted other sovereign states, changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 285–303 293 the territorial limits of the states were demarcated by the borders. in the south and east, where russia’s colonization efforts encountered disparate peoples not organized onto states and with no boundaries between them, the zone of separation between russia and its neighbors was a frontier (khodarkovsky, 2002, p. 47). this partly explains the fact why it was always difficult for the russian empire to clearly distinguish between the national and the colonial. another differentiation seems to be relevant here for better understanding the nuances of the interdependency of the colonial and the national. it is differentiation between jus soli and jus sanguinis, between soil-based and blood-based nationalisms, which rogers brubaker finds in french and german nationalisms respectively. stating that “the modern nation-state is […] inherently nationalistic” and that “its legitimacy depends on its furthering […] the interests of a particular, bounded citizenry”, he observes: “french understandings of nationhood have been state-centered and assimilationist, german understandings ethnocultural and ‘differentialist’” (brubaker, 1992, pp. 10–11). these two nationalisms treat the distance between the colonies and the nation differently. if for the french jus soli people from colonies can become members of the french nation, the community of descent of the jus sanguinis is rather exclusivist and perceive the gap with the other peoples as unbridgeable. even if it seems too much to say that “[…] jus sanguinis leads logically to ethnic cleansing, jus soli to ethnic integration” (hastings, 1997, p. 34), the differentiation between these two types of nationalism helps us to understand different variants of the relations between colonialism and nationalism. thus, france, for example, has finally come to treat its colonies as certain extension of the french nation. that is why french citizenship (that is membership in the french nation) has been given at birth to any child, at least one parent of whom was also born in france (including algeria or other colonial territories before independence). this late french understanding of the colonies as extensions of the metropole nation is, of course, very different from, for example, british almost apartheid concept of the indian sub-continent. interestingly, in his famous study of 1902 j. a. hobson located the cause of this different understanding of the national and colonial in the influence of imperialistic attitudes. for hobson colonialism is not only very different from imperialism, but, in its original spirit, is contradictory to imperial domination. genuine colonialism is, for hobson, “migration of part of a nation to vacant or sparsely peopled foreign lands, the emigrants carrying with them full rights of citizenship in the mother country, or else establishing local self-government with her institutions and under her final control, may be considered a genuine expansion of nationality” (hobson, 1902, p. 6). imperialism, however, is a domination over foreign territories, which does not always imply migration of people. some colonies, according to hobson, choose self-governance in the spirit of genuine colonialism (south africa, for example), while others (such as india) are exploited in the spirit of imperialism. colonial imperialism, https://changing-sp.com/ 294 maxim b. khomyakov thus, for hobson, is a perversion of colonialism, when colonies are not considered anymore as extensions of nationality but are imperialistically exploited. france and germany for him are equally imperialistic, and the french and german territories in africa and asia are not real colonies, since they “were in no real sense plantations of french and german national life beyond the seas; nowhere, not even in algeria, did they represent true european civilization; their political and economic structure of society is wholly alien from that of the mother country” (hobson, 1902, p. 7). anyway, it is pronounced difference between the colonial and the national, which for hobson was the main evidence of the imperialistic (and therefore quasi-colonial) domination. colonialism, thus, is always located somewhere in between nationalism, on the one hand, and imperialism, on the other. civilization terra nullius, however, is rarely “pure” in bacon’s terminology, since it is often occupied by different indigenous peoples. existence of indigenous population certainly complicates the issue and requires an elaborated theory of what is terra nullius if it is already occupied, and whether new-coming settlers can really wage just wars against local people who are defending the land upon which they have lived for millennia. it is here that the notions of civilization and barbarism enter the complex colonial discourse. bacon already used the notion of superiority of civilization over barbarism as a reason for colonial domination, and the notion of modern moral education of the “savages” as a justification for the land expropriation: if you plant where savages are, do not only entertain them with trifles and gingles, but use them justly and graciously, with sufficient guard nevertheless; and do not win their favor by helping them to invade their enemies, but for their defense it is not amiss; and send of them over to the country that plants, that they may see a better condition than their own, and commend it when they return (bacon, 1625/2001, pp. 125–126). the discourse of colonization is thus connected with the discourse of civilization on the one hand, and education, on the other. how, then, is civilization conceptualized, and why does this conceptualization help to justify expropriation of the land from “uncivilized” people or rather to understand this land as a proper terra nullius? first of all, there is a christian theological background in early modern thinking about land ownership. as david boucher noted: “the basic premise among jurists and philosophers in the early modern period regarding property rights was that god gave the whole world in common to mankind, and those portions that remained unoccupied or uncultivated, which did not necessarily mean upon which no people resided, were available for legitimate occupation” (boucher, 2016, p. 71). moreover, since god gave the land to humankind to make the most of it through its cultivation by labor, only those who cultivate the land (and not simply occupy it) can claim the property right. property comes with labor and not with occupation. thus, uncultivated land is conceptualized changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 285–303 295 as terra nullius even if it is occupied by “savage” hunters and gatherers: “vitoria, ayala, suarez, gentile, locke, wolff and vattel, for example, contend that people have an obligation to cultivate the land, and if they do not, they have no right to prevent those who would” (boucher, 2016, p. 71). thus, colonialism, originally at least, is more about the land and the property, than about the “colonized” people. legitimation of the expropriations, however, was a starting point for the civilization discourse, which drew sharp boundaries between modern european nations and the “savage” indigenous populations of the colonies. colonization, then, came also with a special “white man’s burden”: to serve, in kipling’s words, “your new-caught sullen peoples, half devil and half child” (kipling, 1899). we have seen that already bacon recommended to send the “savages” to “the country that plants”, so that they would see for themselves the advantages of the european ways of life and would commend them after returning home. the “white man’s burden” then is conceptualized as the education for modernization. this educational dimension of colonial imperialism seems to be a unique feature of modernity. if rome, according to vergil, must only govern the peoples (vergil, n.d., 851–853), modern europe had to educate them. john stuart mill, for example, has famously made moral education in colonies an important element of his concept of liberty. for him, despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion (mill, 1991, p. 31). “barbarians”, “savages”, are “half children”, and since nobody grants to children (who can harm themselves and others) the full liberty of adult people, it cannot be granted to the “barbarians” either. if, in thinking of the “savages”, john locke focused upon rational mastery of the world (effective use of the land), mill pays attention to the individual autonomy (capacity to be improved by free discussion). both elements define “civilization” in contrast to “barbarism”. although mill himself referred to the subjects of charlemagne as “the barbarians” of these passages (mill, 1991, p. 31), one cannot help thinking that for him, at some point a high officer of the east india company, this notion covered also the population of the indian sub-continent. civilization discourse is really ambiguous in so far as it concerns relations between the nation and its colonies. on the one hand, it compares “barbarians” to the children, and thus, being a discourse of moral education, is aimed at the equality, at eliminating domination, at moral maturity of the “savages”. children are growing up, and so do the barbarians. on the other hand, the discourse tends to displace the maturity and autonomy of the colonial population to more or less distant future. one of the mechanisms of this displacement is a myth of the slow “sleepy” nature of the “oriental” civilizations. they all are too slow in reaching moral maturity of the readiness to the exercise of autonomy. thus, they will have to remain colonies for a long period. https://changing-sp.com/ 296 maxim b. khomyakov this displacement, in its turn, contributed to the establishing of the persistent cultural distance between the colony and the metropole. this cultural distancing in addition to the geographical one became another key instrument for the differentiation between the national and the colonial. russia, again, had some important peculiarities. on the one hand, a world mission of russian empire has been interpreted in terms of civilizing asian people. even those authors, who as engels were skeptical about a “russian world”, have semi-reluctantly recognized this mission. thus, engels wrote in 1851 to marx: “russia, on the other hand, is truly progressive by comparison with the east. russian rule, for all its infamy, all its slavic filth, is civilizing for the black and caspian seas and central asia, for the bashkirs and tatars” (engels, 1913/2010, p. 363). this arrogant phrase is closely echoed by the nationalistic fyodor dostoyevsky: in europe we were dependents and slaves; we will come to asia as the masters. in europe, we were tatars; in asia, we are europeans. our mission, our civilizing mission in asia will attract our spirit. just build two railroads, one to siberia, another to central asia (see: dostoyevsky, 1881/1984, pp. 36–37; see however danilevskiy, 1869/2016, p. 98). on the other hand, being a strong european empire in the mirror of its asian possessions, russia itself was an “asian” “backward” country in the mirror of the “enlightened europe”. this self-orientalization narrowed the gap between the russians and “asian tribes” on the borders of the empire. taken together with the lack of the clear physical borders, it significantly blurred the difference between the nation and colony. thus, if for the much of the nineteenth century, siberia was perceived as a colony (see, for example, yadrintsev, 1882), and its russian population – almost as a separate proto-nation, in the twentieth century it became an integral (and central) part of the russian national territory. that is why, in spite of the constant calls to treat newly acquired russian lands according to the european colonial model (see: khomyakov, 2020, p. 239), the officials of the empire have always insisted that these lands are not really the colonies, but extensions of the russian national territory (for a discussion see sunderland, 2010). “colonization” in russia has always meant “resettlement” or “development of the territories”, so that in 1920s there existed a state research institute of colonization (goskolonit). this absence of the strict differentiation between the colonial and the national, has certainly influenced upon the very imaginary of russian nation (see, for example, khomyakov, 2020, p. 240). therefore, for the imperial exprime minister sergei witte, the russian empire represents agglomeration of different nationalities, therefore, essentially, there is no russia, there is only the russian empire (see: witte, 1923/1960, p. 129). races the discourse of civilization was, on the one hand, supported by various modern racial theories, but, on the other hand, was also in radical contradiction to them. races are different, and according to the racial theories, these differences can be ordered hierarchically. this explains why the “lower races” are so slow in their changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 285–303 297 development, and, thus, legitimizes civilizational mission of the “higher races”. on the other hand, races are primordial and, thus, insuperably different. what insuperability justifies, however, is rather apartheid, separation of the races in the society, and not so much education, civilization or modernization of the “lower races”. insuperability of the differences makes civilizational efforts futile. racism, thus, produces perfect separation of the nation and its colonies, even if they exist, as in south africa, in the framework of the single society. we have already mentioned masses of water, which endowed ocean empires with clear boundaries between national and colonial territories. now we see that the most powerful discourse, which rendered population of those territories different, was, in reality, the discourse of the race (or, in some cases, of ethnos). existence of obvious physical differences made race an effective instrument for separating external and internal. races and oceans, thus, played similar roles in modern colonialism (there is a rich literature on these issues. see, for example, betts, 1982, demonstrating how the french empire was constantly re-producing differences between white colon and black or yellow indigènes). oceans, however, can be sailed and, thus, bridged, while racial differences are imagined as perennial. more liberal forms of racism, however, did not deny possibilities of education. even if the “lower” races are slower, they are still able to imitate the ways of the higher civilizing nation. some russian liberals of the nineteenth century were professing this kind of the racism. a brilliant historian of siberia, afanasy shchapov (1831–1876) wrote in 1864: let us be humane and scientifically attentive to our lower brothers, the alien tribes. they are also waiting for facilitation of their struggle with the climate, hunger, with the violence of the higher tribe, waiting for the enlightenment and for their conflation with the higher, more developed slavic russian tribe (see: shchapov, 1865/1906, p. 366). see similar considerations in works of the shchapov’s follower, nikolay yadrintsev (yadrintsev, 1891, p. 189; yadrintsev, 1882, p. 123). lower races are slower in their development, but nothing really precludes them from getting to the level of the “higher races”, whose task is to help their “brothers” in this difficult process. in general, however, racism helped to substitute what hobson called “colonial spirit” with purely imperialistic exploitation, and to abandon the very thought of the possibility of considering “colonial” as an extension of the “national”. later leninist literature would tightly connect colonialism to imperialism and to the development of transnational monopolies. in this interpretation colonialism is essentially a fight between imperialistic nations for the new markets and exploitation of some nations by the others (lenin, 1917/1964). as for the racial issues, although, as we have seen above, russian intellectuals had not escaped the racist theories, these theories in general, it seems, were not as widespread and popular as they were elsewhere. racist considerations, at the same time, were substituted in russia with equally primordial ethnic ones. ethnicity played in russia almost the same role, which in the ocean empires has been played by the race. interestingly, “ethnic” characterizations in russia were generally used in description of the “undeveloped” or “backward” people, while population of the https://changing-sp.com/ 298 maxim b. khomyakov “central” and “western” (predominantly christian) regions of the empire was described as “nations”. later primordial ethnicity has often been described as “nationality”, while “nation” required certain level of the modernization and development. in general, however, the terminology has never been stable in the country, which stubbornly denied its colonial nature even after conquering caucasus and central asia. michael khodarkovsky describes it in the following way: it was not until the mid-eighteenth century that the collective terms for russia’s non-christian subjects emerged in the official russian language. the nonchristians were now more systematically referred to as inovertsy (of a different faith), and by the early nineteenth century as inorodtsy (of a different origin, descent, and later race). the two terms conflated notions of people and faith, emphasizing unmistakably that the non-christians were different from the russians in both religion and race. religion also marked the boundaries in the usage of the term “nation” (natsiia), which by the late eighteenth century was largely for the christian peoples […] within russian empire, while the nonchristians were referred to as a people (narod or ludi) (khodarkovsky, 2002, pp. 188–189). what was religion in the eighteenth century became modernization or westernization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: if all societies are classified relative to their degree of “westernization” – and they have been so classified in russia […] then a truly “meaningful” change has to result in the west being “outwested”, that is, in certain economic, social, and cultural expectations being fulfilled. […] the estonians, for example, who in nineteenth-century russia tended to be portrayed as “sullen finns” and inarticulate rural barbarians […] came to represent the epitome of western development and sophistication after their reincorporation into the empire in 1940 (slezkine, 1994, pp. 390–391). this absence of the clear racial classifications is yet another evidence of the blurred boundary between national and colonial in russian empire. in russia, thus, we have a very peculiar imperial arrangement, where nation and colony are not separated by any clear border in the form of the oceanic water, are not interpreted in terms of racial differences, and where the mother nation imagined itself a backward colony of the enlightened europe. being a civilized nation with clear “white man’s mission” in the east, the russians thought of themselves as of barbaric people in relation to europe. although soviet modernization changed the picture rather radically, one still can really describe soviet union neither as a colonial empire nor as a national state (see: khomyakov, 2020, pp. 225-263; slezkine, 2004, p. 275). the blurred boundaries and unclear borders between different nations and numerous ethnic groups, thus, seem to represent one of the defining features of russian modernity. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 285–303 299 conclusion in conclusion let us to recapitulate. the national is separated from the colonial by physical boundaries, distance between civilization and barbarism, racial or ethnic differences. in classical european colonialism, these differences were sharp and clear. they started to disappear only with a radical development of the emancipatory logic of nationalism and with the technological innovations of the jet plane, which made distant places easily accessible for the mass tourists. ideology and technology, thus, equally contributed to the world’s emancipation. in russia, on the contrary, the borders were constantly erased, the frontier cultivated, the differences mixed up. racial issues have never been so acute here as in europe or the new world and civilizing other tribes very often turned out to be self-civilization. russia has always been both orientalizing and orientalized, imperial and colonial, eastern and western, civilized and barbaric, european and asian, in short, nation and colony. russian nation-building has been accompanied by the intertwined processes of colonization and self-decolonization and has always been influenced by the imagination of the borders and frontiers. the triptych of alienation/bridging of oceans/navigation, civilization/education and racism/modernization has not really worked in russia in the way it worked for the european ocean empires. in result, russian self-image in the colonial mirrors was very often too distorted and unclear to significantly help in nation-building; much clearer image has been provided by the mirror of the enlightened europe, in which one of the largest empires appeared to be a backward barbaric semi-colony. these peculiarities seem to persist until today. current rise of anti-colonial and anti-racist protests after killing of george floyd is undoubtedly connected with the history of exclusive interpretation of nation and with colonialism built into nationalism and processes of nation-building. black lives matter movement’s war against symbols and monuments is essentially a radical re-interpretation of the founding events of the american and european nations. discourses are being reconsidered everywhere: started in the ex-colonial america, it went as far as imperial spain and portugal. the discussion of the racist elements in european nationalism is gradually rising almost everywhere. thus, for example, a recent publication on portuguese national identity asks: “with the growth of anti-racist movement in portugal, our entire national narrative is being challenged, confronting us with the possibility of racism as a structural reality in portugal. are we a racist country?” (braga, 2020). in a way, this development undermines very foundations of the liberal nationalism, which, as we have seen, had been developing in close connection with colonialism. in this sense, elimination of the remnants of the colonial system might well turn out to be a start of the dusk of nationalism, which many experts were expecting for a long time. eric hobsbaum, for example, saw in the rise of the literature of nationalism an indicator of its near demise: “[…] the very fact that historians are at least beginning to make some progress in the study and analysis of nations and nationalism suggest that, as so often, the phenomenon is past its peak. the owl of minerva which brings https://changing-sp.com/ 300 maxim b. khomyakov wisdom, said hegel, flies out at dusk. it is a good sign that it is now circling round nations and nationalism” (hobsbawm, 1990, p. 192). russia seems to be excluded from this process. because of its peculiar history and unique relations between the imaginary of the russian nation and the idea of colonial empire, it lacks european and american sensitivity to the issues of race. one of the current radical examples of this insensitiveness is a politically motivated and culturally conditioned paper of otherwise prominent scholar, alexander v. lukin. interestingly, among other things, he argues that “the west (the u.s. and europe) are no longer free societies”, while “universities in russia are […] much freer than in the u.s. and western europe where they have turned into places where lecturers and students are forced to repent and get expelled for inadvertent remarks” (lukin, 2020). russia and the post-colonial world of the european empires and their more or less distant ex-colonies speak today very different languages. what seems of paramount importance in the west sounds ridiculous in russia, which in result suddenly started to feel more emancipated than liberal europe itself? probably, however, it is historically determined insensitivity mistakenly taken for the freedom. russia has, of course, its own foundational historical myths, fundamental for the current imaginary of the russian nation. and it is as difficult for the russians to speak of them freely, as it is currently is difficult for the americans to express their disagreement with the anti-racist war with the symbols. most influential among these russian myths are history of the wwii, the role of russian language as well as some remnants of the colonial past (see, for example, discussions around the monuments to the conqueror of caucasus, general ermolov). race, however, is not included in these themes. surely, it does not make russia much freer than europe and the us as far as the freedom of speech is concerned; 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(originally published in russian 1923) https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1017/s0037677900016727 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0037677900016727 https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350007109 https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vergil/aen6.shtml https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/vergil/aen6.shtml changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 291–296 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.2.136 received 12 june 2021 © andrey d. nazarov published online 9 july 2021 andrey.nazarov451@gmail.com book review german yu. kapten (2020). problema sakralizatsii voiny v vizantiiskom bogoslovii i istoriografii [problem of sacralization of war in byzantine theology and historiography]. st. petersburg: izdatel'stvo russkoi khristianskoi gumanitarnoi akademii. andrey d. nazarov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia acknowledgement the research was supported by the russian science foundation, project no. 20-18-00240. the question about whether there was the idea of sacred war in the orthodox eastern roman empire has been in the focus of scholarly attention for a long time. in her seminal study, athina kolia-dermitzaki argued that the byzantine warfare against the persians and the arabs prefigured the western european knighthood’s crusades (kolia-dermitzaki, 1991). some scholars in byzantine studies (koder & stouraitis, 2012), though, contested that thesis. there is still no scholarly consensus about the role that religion played in byzantine wars (see, for example, stephenson, 2018; stouraitis, 2018). german kapten’s book is thus the first attempt (in russian) to systematize the questions related to sacralization of war in the eastern roman empire in a comprehensive manner. in the introduction to his book, kapten remarks that the “byzantine attitude to war is underpinned by a rather complex conflict between eastern orthodox theology and the everyday lives of the people who built their world outlook in accordance with its religious dogmas” (kapten, 2020, p. 9). he then goes on to define the key features of the sacred war in the following way: 1) it is an armed conflict between adherents of different religious traditions; 2) the decision to start the war is authorized by the leaders of these religious traditions; https://changing-sp.com/ 292 andrey d. nazarov 3) combatants are promised spiritual rewards; 4) refusal to assist in such a conflict may be considered sinful (kapten, 2020, p. 11). kapten distinguishes between the notions of sacred war and just war. the latter, in his view, is waged by a lawful ruler for a just cause and for the benefit of all. in making this conclusion, kapten cites thomas aquinas and hugo grotius and points out that the byzantine church fathers took little interest in social philosophy (kapten, 2020, p. 28). however, it might be a more viable approach for the researchers to look at the vast body of byzantine political literature which reflected on the questions of public peace, responsibilities of the emperor, the limits to his power, and so on (see: valdenberg, 2015). the first chapter in the book, voina v bogoslovii [war in theology], discusses the views of the early christian thinkers, who, according to kapten, strove to protect the believers from all that is sinful; bloodshed was included in the latter. the author focuses on tertullian, whose reasoning is undoubtedly of great interest. it should be noted, however, that this theologian’s views belonged to montanism, which was a radical movement without a universal support in the roman empire. therefore, tertullian’s ideas should be considered more as an exception rather than as a general rule (shean, 2010, p. 77). kapten also mentions the diversity of opinions expressed by the church fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries concerning the permissibility and nature of military service. he emphasizes that in the christian circles the unquestionable preference was given to peace although there was also a general agreement that wars are inevitable. as a result, many christians chose to abstain from military service, devoting themselves to peaceful occupations. the edict of milan of 313, however, removed some of the moral objections to military service, which had been theretofore associated not only with violence but also with participation in the worship of the imperial cult (kapten, 2020, pp. 20–24). nevertheless, as john f. shean has shown, christians were enlisted in the army as early as in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. moreover, christian religious pacifism of the late antiquity should not be equated with modern ideology of pacifism (shean, 2010). kapten points out that the works of the church fathers of the 4th century also dealt with the questions of war and violence: for instance, st. basil of caesarea wrote in his canonical epistle that although the killing of the enemy in self-defense is allowable, it still remains a reprehensible act. for this reason, st. basil admonished that the soldiers who had taken enemies’ lives should be excommunicated from the holy communion for three years. however, john zonaras and theodore balsamon, 12th-century commentators on st. basil’s epistles, remarked that his words in this case should be considered a recommendation rather than a strict rule (kapten, 2020, pp. 28–32). kapten argues that the diverging historical paths of the latin west and the greek east resulted in different models of war sacralization in these regions. in byzantium, the distance between the clergy and the military was defined rather clearly. the catholic tradition saw sin as a legal breach of one of the commandments, while the changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 291–296 293 eastern church fathers did not provide any precise definitions of guilt. rather, they saw sin as a disease, which made war inadmissible in their eyes, even if the secular law did not see warfare as objectionable (kapten, 2020, pp. 38–39). any warfare was to defend the empire’s borders or to win back the territories that used to be a part of the empire (kapten, 2020, p. 42). in kapten’s exposition, the byzantine emperors’ will had not acquired equal status with god’s will, coercion in religious matters and forceful conversions were inadmissible, while the doctrine of just war was hardly developed (kapten, 2020, pp. 46, 50–51). the idea of war as it was presented in the holy scripture was not adopted by the eastern roman tradition. in the eyes of the byzantine intellectuals, the maccabean revolt against the seleucids was an isolated incident belonging to the distant past while the figures of the old testament’s heroes were primarily a source of literary allusions. in the second chapter sakralizatsiia voiny v istoriografii [the sacralization of war in historiography], kapten points out the incompatibility of the notions of “war” and “sacred” in byzantine historiography. epithets ἅγιος and ἱερός (“saint” and “sacred”) were used to denote categories related to the religious sphere and also to characterize the emperor’s power. war as a cause of misery and destruction by definition cannot be sacred (kapten, 2020, pp. 70–71). therefore, the ideal to strive for was the world that excluded the need to wage war (kapten, 2020, p. 74). kapten emphasizes the byzantine rulers’ desire to maintain social justice. similarly, a war should only be fought for a just cause. piety of the soldiers and their righteous conduct were necessary to ensure divine support for the army. remarkably, protection of faith proved to be an important factor that determined much of the eastern roman foreign policy in the 6th century. kapten observes that this is particularly true in regard with the wars of justinian i (527–565) against the germanic kingdoms in the western mediterranean. the rulers of these realms belonged to arianism, anathematized by the ecumenical councils of 325 and 381. kapten contends that the foreign policy doctrine of justinian i stemmed primarily from his desire to exterminate heresies. this opinion, however, seems questionable for the simple reason that the idea of the reconquista of the west started to crystallize only after the first victories belisarius had won in africa and italy in the 530s (serov, 2008). under emperor heraclius (610–641), when byzantium engaged in the devastating war with the sasanian empire, the attempt was made to give wars religious significance and turn them into sacred wars. kapten argues that heraclius was strongly influenced by the sasanian model of the relationship between secular and religious authorities. thus, at the beginning of the 7th century, warfare in defense of religion was sacralized and the emperor assumed the role of a spiritual leader (kapten, 2020, pp. 93–103). during iconoclastic crises (730–787, 814–842), the emperors sought to expand their power by subjugating the church. the preamble to the ecloga, a compilation of byzantine law published under emperor leo iii (717–741), stated that the task of utmost importance for the ruler is to ensure that all his subjects are secure and well protected, which can be achieved by maintaining a just order, and that the https://changing-sp.com/ 294 andrey d. nazarov cornerstone for the success on the battlefield is piety (kapten, 2020, pp. 114–121). according to kapten, between the 7th and 10th centuries, in byzantium the prevailing principle that prioritized justice was replaced by the one that prioritized orthodoxy. a righteous ruler, regardless of his moral qualities, could bring peace to his subjects. the emperor’s military expertise was of no importance because the enemies of the pious empire were weak (kapten, 2020, pp. 122–123). however, kekaumenos, a prominent 11th-century byzantine general and writer, postulates that adherence to the principles of justice only entitles a person to be in command positions but the victory on the battlefield depends entirely on the commander’s personal qualities and faith in god (kapten, 2020, p. 126). it should be noted that the taktika of leo vi (taktika, 2010) written in the early 10th century describes at some length the ways of ensuring that war has a just cause. the treatise uses a common rhetorical device by claiming that although wars are the devil’s work, the empire has to engage in warfare in order to defend itself from its aggressive neighbors (mokhov & kapsalykova, 2019, pp. 84–85). we cannot overlook the fact that among the byzantine writers there were not only armchair experts but also those who had real combat experience. unfortunately, in his book kapten fails to describe how byzantine idea of war evolved during the rule of komnenoi and palaiologoi, while the author occasionally makes extensive digressions into the history of cultural contacts between the byzantines and the latins. the book also makes scarce use of the rich variety of sources of that period, including the renowned works of john kinnamos, nikephoros gregoras, laonikos chalkokondyles and others. regarding the last centuries of the empire, kapten observes that it was hard to maintain the sacred status of war while being on friendly terms with the ottoman sultans. moreover, there was a shift from the universalist imperial ideology to the national greek vision, which undermined the traditional models of war sacralization (kapten, 2020, p. 181). the third chapter sakralizatsiia voiny v nekotorykh aspektakh vizantiiskoi kul’tury [sacralization of war in some aspects of byzantine culture] is especially riddled with controversial statements and unsupported generalizations. the chapter begins with outlining the byzantines’ attitude to the barbarians, including foreign immigrants. the author notes that valor was considered as a merit only among the peoples surrounding the empire while in byzantium itself warfare was not seen as a respectable occupation (kapten, 2020, p. 205). however, this statement is contestable since byzantine literature provides ample examples of soldiers being praised for their courage on the battlefield (mokhov & kapsalykova, 2019, p. 177 ff.). kapten then goes on to discuss the hierotopy of the battlefield. the author describes various sanctificatory rituals for the troops and offers examples of how religious imagery was used in the propaganda (kapten, 2020, pp. 205–222). then, the analysis of the byzantine soldiers’ worldview follows (kapten, 2020, pp. 223– 242), which deserves strong criticism. it should be noted, first, that there was a significant difference between the soldiers of the early byzantine army, where the traditions of the imperial army of the principate period were still very strong, and the late byzantine changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 291–296 295 pronoiarioi1. moreover, even if we do not take into account foreigners, the imperial army was ethnically quite diverse. there were differences that stemmed from the specific living conditions and military traditions, for instance, between natives of isauria and thrace. in short, the author’s attempt to embrace the byzantine army’s culture in its totality leads him to undue oversimplification. to sum up, the most successful part of kapten’s book, in our view, is the first chapter, which analyzes the ideas about war in the early byzantine theology. but in the subsequent chapters the author seems to be misled by his own conceptual framework, in particular, by trying to maintain his distinction between the notions of justice and righteousness for the byzantine political thought. moreover, the third chapter sticks out in the general argumentative structure of the book. in our view, the book has failed to take into consideration necessary primary sources and recent relevant literature on the subject. despite these weaknesses, kapten’s book is well worth reading as it sheds a great deal of light on the understanding of war in the byzantine empire. references kapten, g. yu. (2020). problema sakralizatsii voiny v vizantiiskom bogoslovii i istoriografii [problem of sacralization of war in byzantine theology and historiography]. st. petersburg: izdatel’stvo russkoi khristianskoi gumanitarnoi akademii. koder, j., & stouraitis, i. (eds.). (2012). byzantine war ideology between roman imperial concept and christian religion (proceedings of the international symposium, wien, 19–21 may 2011). wien: verlag der österreichischen akademie der wissenschaften. https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at/product?info=14373 kolia-dermitzaki, a. (1991). ho vyzantinos “hieros polemos”: he ennoia kai e provole tou threskeutikou polemou sto vyzantio [the byzantine “holy war”. the idea and propagation of religious war in byzantium]. athens: stefanos vasilopoulos. mokhov, a. s., & kapsalykova, k. r. (2019). «pust’ drugie rasskazyvayut o vygode i roskoshi, chto prinosit voyna»: vizantiyskaya polemologicheskaya traditsiya x-xi [“let the others speak of the benefits and luxury that the war brings”: byzantine polemological tradition of the 10th–11th centuries]. yekaterinburg: izdatel’stvo ural’skogo universiteta. serov, v. v. (2008). “o vremeni formirovaniya yustinianovskoy idei rekonkisty” [creation of the ideology of justinian’s reconquista]. izvestiya of altai state university, 60(4 –3), 236 –240. http://izvestia.asu.ru/2008/4-3/hist / thenewsofasu-2008-4-3-hist-45.pdf shean, j. f. (2010). soldiering for god: christianity and the roman army. leiden and boston: brill. 1 pronoiarios was a person whom the emperors granted a right to collect taxes on a certain territory (a pronoia). this practice was common from the 11th to 15th centuries and often these grants were bestowed for military service. https://changing-sp.com/ https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at/product?info=14373 http://izvestia.asu.ru/2008/4-3/hist/thenewsofasu-2008-4-3-hist-45.pdf http://izvestia.asu.ru/2008/4-3/hist/thenewsofasu-2008-4-3-hist-45.pdf 296 andrey d. nazarov stephenson, p. (2018). the imperial theology of victory. in ya. stouraitis (ed.), a companion to the byzantine culture of war, ca. 300–1204 (pp. 23–58). leiden and boston: brill. stouraitis, ya. (2018). state war ethic and popular views on warfare. in ya. stouraitis (ed.), a companion to the byzantine culture of war, ca. 300–1204 (pp. 59–91). leiden and boston: brill. taktika–dennis, g. t. (ed.). (2010). the taktika of leo vi. washington, dc: dumbarton oaks research library and collection. valdenberg, v. e. (2015). istoriya vizantiyskoy politicheskoy literatury v svyazi s istoriey filosofskikh techeniy i zakonodatel’stva [history of byzantine political literature in connection with the history of philosophical movements and legislation] (2nd edition). st. petersburg: dmitry bulanin. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 233–251 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.2.131 received 8 december 2020 © victor a. shnirelman accepted 14 may 2021 shnirv@mail.ru published online 9 july 2021 article the “end of times” and the antichrist’s arrival: the orthodox dogmas and prophecies in the national-patriotic media in post-soviet russia1 victor a. shnirelman institute of ethnology and anthropology, russian academy of sciences, moscow, russia abstract a return of the orthodox religion and a renaissance of the russian orthodox church gave a way for politically active movements of orthodox fundamentalists and monarchists. they were obsessed with the idea of the “end of time” and argued that the antichrist was at the door. the article focuses on several national-patriotic newspapers and their interest to orthodox prophecies about the end of time, which can be traced from the turn of the 1990s. it is examined who exactly, in what way and for what goals developed and discussed eschatological ideas. the major themes, rhetorical means and key words are scrutinized, which helped consumers to disclose the “enemies of russia” and to reveal their “perfidious plans” and “harmful actions” aimed at the destruction of russia and its people. a relationship between this ideology and theological teaching of the end of time is analyzed. keywords russian orthodoxy, eschatology, fundamentalism, image of enemies, the antichrist acknowledgement the research was supported by the fundamental and applied studies program of the ministry of education and science of the russian federation “the ethnocultural diversity of russian society and consolidation of an all-russian identity, 2020–2022”, within a project “the ideological basis and practices of radicalism and extremism”. 1 this is the revised version of victor shnirelman's article (2014), “v ozhidanii antikhrista: pravoslavnaia dogmatika v natsional-patrioticheskikh smi” [expecting the antichrist: orthodox dogmatics in national-patriotic media]. stranitsy, 18(1), pp. 73–90. https://changing-sp.com/ 234 victor a. shnirelman introduction a number of new political movements with their own programs and hopes had come onto the scene in the ussr at the wave of perestroika by the end of the 1980s. as the communist ideology declined and a democracy arrived, there was an evident trend towards religion, including the russian orthodoxy, particularly after the celebration of the millennium of the baptism of rus’ in 1988. having thrown away the burden of totalitarian ideology, russian society demonstrated a fast fragmentation. various interest groups emerged with their own views on the further development of the country and even on the very goal of its existence. the former uniform macro-ideology was replaced by numerous micro-ideologies based on a complex combination of political, social, economic, ethnic, religious and cultural ideas. in this article, i focus on the period of 1990–1993, which marked the beginning of political life in contemporary russia. political pluralism came into being, censorship vanished and a freedom of speech was introduced for the first time after a long period of the tough authoritarian regime. religion became legitimate and turned into a useful resource for political projects. i will analyze an impact of certain orthodox dogmas on the propaganda, which was actively disseminated by several nationalpatriotic media. i will focus, firstly, on the orthodox-monarchist periodicals (tsar’-kolokol [tsar bell] and zemshchina) with a limited circulation, secondly, on the well-known russian nationalist newspaper russkiy vestnik [russian herald] and, thirdly, on the den’ [the day] newspaper of the so-called “spiritual opposition”. these media were chosen because, while sharing (at least rhetorically) loyalty towards the russian orthodoxy, they applied to different audiences, represented different streams of the nationalpatriotic political wing, and had different political views. tsar’-kolokol and zemshchina aimed at a narrow circle of monarchists, as well as clergy and believers in the russian orthodox parishes and monasteries. zemshchina appeared irregularly in ca. 990 copies; 97 issues were published in 1990–1993. the newspaper was officially issued by the soyuz “khristianskoe vozrozhdenie” (union of “christian revival”–ucr), headed by vladimir osipov (see: dunlop, 1983). initially it represented also a voice of the bratstvo vo imya svyatogo tsarya-iskupitelya nikolaya ii [brotherhood for the sake of tsar-martyr nickolas ii] led by andrey shchedrin (nikolay kozlov), who was obsessed with a “ritual murder”. the newspaper together with its editorial board was enrolled into the dwarf neo-nazi people’s national party in 1994, and its content had changed since then. these media were established and run by the orthodox monarchists who appeared in russia in the 1980s and came out from underground in 1987–1988 (platonov, 2012, pp. 184, 503–504). they hoped that a revitalization of the russian orthodoxy would bring about a radical transformation of the russian society. at the same time, they were sensitive to rumors about some “mighty secret agents”, who wanted to destroy russia (kruglov, 2004, pp. 324–327). russkiy vestnik was sponsored primarily by the cossacks and initially aimed at all ethnic russians regardless of their political or religious views. yet, over time, changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 233–251 235 it turned to those who identified themselves with the russian orthodoxy. at the beginning, this newspaper enjoyed a press run of 100 thousand copies per issue, but had reduced to 60 thousand copies by the end of 1992. den’ newspaper was established in 1991 by the union of writers of the russian soviet federative socialist republic, but its policy was entirely in the hands of its editor alexander prokhanov. the newspaper stood for the great empire and presented itself as a neo-eurasian voice. it appeared irregularly in editions ranging from 85 to 120 thousand copies. zemshchina claimed its christian orientation from the very beginning, which made a point of reference for a discussion of any key problem. initially, both russkiy vestnik and den’ provided only a limited space for the russian orthodox issues, but over time it expanded. the zemshchina discourse focused on the end of time and ritual murder; russkiy vestnik aimed at the orthodox monarchy; and the den’ authors were obsessed with conspiracy. eschatology, the fate of russia and neo-monarchists in the turbulent years, when russia’s destiny was at stake all these newspapers took an active part in discussions around its history and did all their best to predict its future. the orthodox fundamentalists extensively used the christian sources of information. they stuck to traditionalist views and believed that the world was moving to a decline and a catastrophe as the book of revelation of st. john the divine (apocalypse) predicted. this part of scripture is not easy to understand, and it has been provided with numerous interpretations for centuries. st. john tells us that the antichrist would arrive at the end of time. he would tempt and charm many people, and they would proclaim him the ruler of the world and accept a uniform religion he would introduce. yet, not everyone would be tempted, and being supported by satan, the antichrist would arrange harsh persecutions of the devoted christians. according to a popular christian belief appeared in the second century a.d., the antichrist is identified with the jewish messiah originated from the tribe of dan. he would establish his capital in jerusalem and his headquarter in the third temple. the jews would celebrate his arrival and support his attempt to eliminate christianity. the disorder would last for three years and a half, after which the savior would arrive to gain a victory over the forces of darkness, and a millennial kingdom would be established. an important point of this narrative is that bishops would also be tempted by the antichrist, and the church would be ruined almost entirely. thus, the narrative is dangerous for the clerics because it permitted their criticism for apostasy from the side of parish. the growth of eschatological mood has been observed many times over the last two thousand years, and sometimes people were scared of the end of time. yet, this has never happened. that is why one of the key actors of the myth in question is the “restrainer”, i.e., the factor, which stops satan from using all its might and impedes the coming of the antichrist. the term of katechon (“restrainer”) was borrowed from st. paul’s teaching (2 thess. 2, 7). https://changing-sp.com/ 236 victor a. shnirelman regardless of numerous and controversial theological interpretations of the term, certain russian orthodox thinkers of the 19th century identified the russian emperor with the uderzhivayushchiy (“restrainer”) (belyaev, 1898, vol. 2, p. 522). according to the russian clergy, the true christianity survived only in russia, and therefore god would save russia from the antichrist. and russia would save the rest of the world. this view was taken by the orthodox-monarchist media as a basis for their ideas on what was going with russia and what would be its destiny. therefore, they paid great attention to prophecies about the end of time and to signs of its coming, in particular. for them, the most important omens were linked with the jewish activity because, according to the myth, jews not only were anxiously waiting for the antichrist’s arrival but also did all the best to speed it up and to harm christians as much as possible. thus, the judeophobe was embedded in this outlook by no means accidentally and was fostered by conviction rather than by emotions—this can be defined as the doctrinal religious anti-semitism. it necessarily included blood libel closely linked with the idea of the restrainer (i. n., 1990, p. 7; kozlov, 1990, pp. 29–56; sel’ski, 1994, p. 65; tsar’-kolokol, 1990b, p. 44). indeed, those who paved the way for the antichrist had to eliminate the restrainer and to make that in a ritual way based on traditional practices. hence, an idea was popular in these circles that the tsar nicholas the second had been murdered ritually by jews, which strengthened a parish’s belief in the coming apocalypse. the monarchist media were alarmed with the allegedly kabbalist inscription left in the ipatiev’s house in yekaterinburg where the tsar and his family were executed, and republished an occult article of 1925, which claimed that the obscure signs reliably confirmed that the tsar had been sacrificed (enel’, 1990, pp. 25–35; see also: enel’ 1991). and it is no accident that the american political scientist walter laqueur noticed a revival of the idea of the antichrist among the contemporary russian right-wing radicals (laqueur, 1993). moreover, the right-wing media sometimes turned the christian myth of the antichrist into the nazi myth of the eternal confrontation between the aryans and the semites. it was presented in a symbolic way as an opposition between the swastika and the star of david (tsar’-kolokol, 1990a, p. 21; demin, 1993, 1994). zemshchina and the ritual murder initially the russian orthodox monarchists disseminated their ideas through the tsar’-kolokol almanac issued in 1990–1991. some articles were provided with comments discussing the “jewish plot” as though its goal was to tempt sacred rus’ for the sake of satan’s triumph. they stuck to a traditional view of the apocalypse including “blood libel” together with prophecies about russia’s mission in the world and its salvation due to god’s benevolence. monarchists viewed the tsar’s death as crucifixion at golgotha, and an idea was developed that god’s mother had taken the restrainer’s role after his murder. they treated jews as a monstrous sect or a satanic force with the mission to pave the way changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 233–251 237 for the antichrist. ritual murders were considered one of the most convincing proofs for that. this point made up a core of the discussions in zemshchina in 1990–1993. the ritual murders were extensively discussed in almost every single issue and ascribed to the talmudic jewry. the key terms of the eschatological discourse were borrowed from the apocalypse and st. paul’s epistles, such as a “secret of lawlessness”, “prince of this world”, “children of satan”, “sons of death”, “satanic forces”, “seal of the beast”, “end of time”, “restrainer”, etc. notably, with a growth of the anti-semitic emotions, a “judeo-masonic plot” turned in the newspaper into the world “talmudic plot” (cf. vozzvanie predsobornogo soveshchaniya, 1991), which emphasized the key role of talmud in this discourse. indeed, the ucr considered an unmasking of the world talmudic plot against russia and a struggle against the eternal enemy under the aegis of the russian orthodoxy as one of its most important goals. the nature of the struggle was emphasized by that, since the late 1991 the newspaper had begun using the swastika either for decorating articles or as a protection for the author’s signature side by side with traditional symbols of a double-headed eagle and an orthodox cross. zemshchina shared a traditionalist view on history, which claimed that after creation the world was under a permanent decline up to the very end of time when the antichrist had to arrive. stability in the world was allegedly protected by russia with its “god-bearing” people, and the orthodox tsar functioned as the restrainer. yet, demonic, godless forces came to power in 1917—they had murdered the tsar ritually, and then occupied themselves with an extermination of orthodox people under the aegis of mestechkovy [local] nationalism and russophobe. allegedly, they wanted not only to destroy russia, but also to build up the world kingdom of the antichrist. all of this was emphasized in the ucr manifesto published in may 1990 in the first issue of the newspaper. according to this document, the movement’s goals were russian people’s regeneration, their return back to the church, the re-establishment of the tsar’s rule and building up of the sacred rus’, which had to protect the world from the antichrist (manifest soyuza, 1990, p. 1). evidently, this program made a political factor derivative of a religious one. while promoting the program, the newspaper focused on the following themes: a struggle against heresies (embracing freemasonry, catholicism and protestantism) and ecumenism; a rehabilitation of the emperor nicholas the second as the tsarmartyr, unmasking of the ritual murders (including an attempt to prove that many russian tsars were murdered ritually); a struggle for a restoration of monarchy and sacred rus’; an exposure of both the “godless west” and an idea of the world government, a struggle against population recording through an introduction of personal identification numbers (viewed as the “beast’s number”) implemented by authorities; a glorification of icons’ miracle power; and a celebration of the church fathers and russian orthodox enlighteners, whose prophecies of the end of time were regularly published and discussed in the newspaper. notably, the newspaper paid special attention to those prophecies or their fragments, which represented jews as natural supporters of the antichrist. https://changing-sp.com/ 238 victor a. shnirelman thus, the image of the enemy proved to be one of the most important points. the enemies were depicted as kikes, zionists, talmudic priests and freemasons. the authors were searching for a “monstrous sect” among them, which was arranging ritual murders. it is worth noting that certain authors tried to make a sharp distinction between jews and kikes, although without great success. whereas initially jews were viewed as enemies without any reserve, over time the major authors began to claim that they struggled only against a “secret sect” among jews. later on, they began to single out and even approve of orthodox jews, who broke away from judaism. while emphasizing that the church originated from the jewish christian community, the authors began to argue that the terms jew, judaists, israelite with a capital letter meant christians, but unfortunately were viewed as talmudic kikes in everyday life. later on, they began to oppose the jewish people of the old scripture to kikes, who turned into a sect of initiated and began to serve devil in the new testament times. in the late 1992, the newspaper acknowledged that the lion’s share of the moscow orthodox christian community consisted of ethnic jews, and called for distinguishing between jews-christians and judeans to avoid inter-ethnic conflicts. yet, one of the major authors warned against an unreserved trust towards jewish christians even when they criticized or entirely rejected their brothers in blood. and in the very late 1993, the newspaper accused jews-christians of the aspiration to undermine the very basics of the church. thus, a circle was closed, and once again, all jews found themselves guilty before the church. the newspaper authors tirelessly exposed talmud as a case of human-hatred ideology. in addition, they permanently recollected the revolution of 1917 and argued (with a reference to less reliable documents of the civil war [1917–22]) that it had been organized by the jews, who were freemasons. the authors represented the soviet period as the jewish yoke or a period of the talmudic imprisonment. and they viewed socio-political confrontation either as a struggle of the orthodox monarchism against the atheist talmudism (derzhavnoe stroitel’stvo, 1991; shiropaev, 1991), or as a clash between the new testament church and the talmudic jewry (talmudicheskaya konspiratsiya, 1991). in this regard, no rapprochement with jews was possible at all. indeed, all of them allegedly originated from the tribe of dan and, thus, were the antichrist’s relatives. certain authors tried to provide this argument with a racial foundation (bolotin, 1991). in addition, the newspaper was attentively analyzing the activity of the russian orthodox church hierarchs and blamed them for apostasy. it criticized the patriarch alexy ii for his favor of judaizers and discovered a challenge in his visit to new york in 1991, where he visited synagogue and talked before the rabbis. while organizing a campaign against a celebration of hanukkah in the center of moscow in december 1991, the newspaper was puzzled with the inactivity of the metropolitans, who declined to take part in the protests. and the newspaper could not but accused the hierarchs of the pre-revolutionary russian orthodox church of betraying the tsar. it went so far as to blame the contemporary hierarchs of the russian orthodox church for the judaizers’ heresy. the newspaper did not wish to disguise its frustration and warned the hierarchs that those faithful could stop changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 233–251 239 to obey (zayavlenie dumy soyuza “khristianskoe vozrozhdenie”, 1991). at the same time, the newspaper rehabilitated the сhernaya sotnya [black hundred] as a community of virtuous russian patriots, and scarred the general public with secret murders of contemporary priests and russian patriots. to put it another way, in this presentation the russian patriots proved to be more loyal to orthodoxy that the russian orthodox church itself. that is why they suffered as the major target of the satanic forces. the newspaper chose hasidim as the key target and was searching among them for a monstrous sect occupying itself with ritual murders. in a very bizarre way, this accusation was coordinated with a ban on passing rabbi schneersohn’s manuscripts from the lenin library to hasidim—allegedly otherwise the anti-christian era would come, and a triumph of the talmudic human-hatred consciousness would begin (delo beylisa, 1991; cf. bolotin, demin, & shiropaev, 1991; igla satany, 1991; novogodnee pozdravlenie, 1991; odna tayna, 1991; pomogite detyam, 1991; zayavlenie o khasidskikh rukopisyakh, 1991; zayavlenie dumy soyuza “khristianskoe vozrozhdenie”. k delu o khasidakh, 1991). the newspaper used to disseminate fantasies that the manuscripts contained data on human sacrifices and, moreover, plans for the russian people genocide. all of this seemed very important for the newspaper with respect to prophecies claiming that the antichrist had been already born and would be active in 1992. whereas initially the newspaper called for a spiritual battle (bran’ gospodnya, 1991; nevidimaya bran’, 1991; slovesnaya bran’, 1991) and for an enlightenment activity with the help of cross and prayers, later on its authors decided that this was less sufficient. they turned their eyes to oprichnina as a russian kind of inquisition. noteworthy, they intended to enroll the baptized jews and muslims into a restored oprichnina. yet, in the early 1990s, its actions were still restricted to only rhetoric (kozlov, 1991; oprichnaya gramota, 1991; oprichniy nakaz, 1991; oprichnoe poslanie, 1991; oprichnoe sluzhenie, 1991; stenorushenie, 1991)2. the newspaper’s infamous anti-semitic mood was based on both certain prophecies about the end of time and faked protokoly sionskikh mudretsov [protocols of the elders of zion], as well as obsolete radical right publications on the russian revolution, which had been previously used by german nazis. the newspaper republished pre-revolutionary priests’ opinions and russian émigré discussions, yet it mostly respected the priests of the russian orthodox church abroad. it also used to republish materials from the tsar’-kolokol almanac. notably, only a few contemporary authors published their articles by their own names—most of the publications came out anonymously. it is also worth noting that, while viewing the tsar as the restrainer, the monarchists were planning to pass power in future russia not to a monarch but to allrussian zemsky sobor, which, in their view, could take up the function of a restrainer (gryadushchee voskresenye, 1991). simultaneously, the newspaper took an active 2 the oprichnina movement was initiated by shchedrin (kozlov), but the only result of his schizmatic activity was that the “brotherhood for the sake of tsar-martyr nicholas the ii” has been broken into two parts. https://changing-sp.com/ 240 victor a. shnirelman part in the campaign against prince vladimir kirillovich romanov (1917–1992) as a possible future ruler. it seems that it wanted to provide the authoritarian political body rather than the tsar with the role of the restrainer. therefore, it argued that the soviet state partly maintained the function of the restrainer (obrashchenie, 1991). some of these themes were discussed in 1993 in another almanac named k svetu [towards the light] issued by russian orthodox journalists. although it focused on the orthodox everyday life, its editors considered it important to devote one of the issues entirely to sergei nilus’ life and works. they published various apologetic materials about this well-known eccentric mystic, including his prophecies about the coming antichrist and arguments in favor of authenticity of the “protocols of the elders of zion” (k svetu, 1993). russkiy vestnik and the end of time over time, the apocalypse became a point of discussions in russkiy vestnik, which initially looked quite temperate. the newspaper was established in the very late 1990 to cover various aspects of russian people’s life. the goal was to unite all russian patriots—communists and monarchists, orthodox people and pagans. yet, over time, the newspaper turned into a voice of the orthodox-monarchist faction of the russian nationalist movement. that is why it was no accident that eschatological themes received more and more extensive coverage at its pages—initially as obscure hints, then as more clear messages. at the same time, they were discussed side by side with such issues as economy, military and russian people’s life, especially the cossacks, as well as the soviet union dissolution, ethnic conflicts and local wars at the borderlands of what was formerly the ussr. a search for the enemy started with the trotskyists and catholics, and further on encompassed zionists, freemasons, protestants, theosophists, democrats and, in general, world back-stage and the new world order. thus, the discourse shifted to conspiracy, although it never reached an intensity demonstrated by the den’ newspaper. the newspaper’s authors made their best to rehabilitate the “protocols of the elders of zion” and to confirm the reality of the “world conspiracy”. the enemy opposed russian people, who looked as permanent victims, subjugated to foreign rulers and exposed to genocide. the heroes were represented by patriots, who struggled for their human rights as, for example, soyuz russkogo naroda (“union of the russian people”) that was depicted as a protector from social terror. over time, the discussion of the murder of the last russian emperor and his family, as well as their inclusion into the list of martyrs became the third important theme in discussion. this theme was closely connected with the one of orthodox monarchy, which already in 1992 was presented by the newspaper’s authors as an ideal state establishment. eschatological prophecies that had become more and more popular since the fall of 1991 made up the fourth theme. it was at that time that the newspaper began to celebrate certain orthodox icons allegedly having secured russia from foreign invasions. the fifth theme, not the major one but important for my analysis, was the criticism of the russian orthodox church for its passivity and unwillingness to discuss changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 233–251 241 urgent social and political problems. it is in this context that one comes across the issue of apostasy. over time, all these themes have to be discussed with the eschatological overtones. democrats (including “children of synagogue”) were depicted as being driven by satanic forces, as destroyers and parasites, strictly connected with forces of lawlessness. they were ascribed satanic plans as though they acted in the name of the “prince of this world”. the west having broken away from christianity was listed among the evil forces. only christian monarchy as the natural statehood established by god could resist them. in this discourse, russians looked but as natural proponents of the principle of pravoslavie, samoderzhavie, narodnost’ [orthodoxy, autocracy, peoplehood], and democracy proved to be incompatible with christianity. the orthodox monarch served a restrainer, who did not let the antichrist to arrive. and his dethroning was accompanied with the aggression of non-russians against the church. the author of these arguments did not want to know where the antichrist was in the soviet period. having ignored this period, he focused on the perestroika time and accused it of satanism. he made the godless west its ally, who hated russia for its loyalty to the orthodox faith, which persistently resisted the antichrist (tuskarev, 1992, pp. 12–13). the former view of the world and its history was radically changed by that discourse. the soviet view of the capitalist and imperialist west hostile to the soviet socialism was replaced by a civilizational paradigm with its emphasis on cultural and religious factors. for the newspaper authors, the major conflict of nowadays was a struggle between western and russian civilizations (platonov, 1992, p. 13). according to the head of the soyuz dukhovnogo vozrozhdeniya otechestva [union of spiritual regeneration of the fatherland] mikhail antonov, market economy did not fit into the orthodox milieu while being linked to the society of protestant-catholicjewish-shinto world and life view. he called for resistance against this hostile world to respond the challenge of the end of time. he claimed that protestants and catholics wanted to introduce neo-slavery and to establish world government, which would open the door to the antichrist. at the same time, the russian orthodoxy and russia itself proved to be a shield against “forces of darkness” (antonov, 1992a, p. 4; 1992b, p. 6). in this context, certain authors associated social revolutions directly with apostasy, which helped the antichrist to arrive. their driving forces were identified with non-russians. therefore, russians had to throw away the spirit of the french revolution of 1789 and to be reactionaries. to this end, they had to support the monarchist slogan of “orthodoxy, monarchism and populism” and to build up a “russian kingdom” (shiropaev, 1992, p. 11; cf. balkov, 1992, p. 13). to be precise, a reference to non-russians was often replaced with the euphemism of freemasons. in this discourse, masons included both socialdemocrats and jews as though the latter organized the revolution of 1917. while putting the revolutionary events in russia into the apocalyptic context, one author insisted on their religious rather than social motives. he recalled the devil’s hatred towards the orthodox faith and russian people. as a result, russians were advised https://changing-sp.com/ 242 victor a. shnirelman to come back to prayers and to jesus christ (bulgakov, 1992, p. 3). thus, the circle was closed, and the reader had to come back to the idea of the judeo-masonic plot. notably, the newspaper referred to the church hierarchs’ authority—mostly from abroad, but also from the moscow patriarchate. it published the reflection of the late archbishop of the russian orthodox church abroad konstantin (zaytsev), 1887–1975, who identified great russia, or sacred rus’, with a restrainer and argued that the western hatred towards it was rooted in religion. in his view, world was rapidly moving to the antichrist epoch, and only the orthodox church was able to stop it (konstantin, 1992, p. 12). this argument was shared by both the head of the russian orthodox church abroad metropolitan vitaly (ustinov), 1910–2006 (vitaly, 1992, p. 2), and metropolitan of st. petersburg and ladoga ioann (snychev), 1927–1995. the latter identified a restrainer with russian people, who were the only actors able to save humanity from the satanic evil, aspiring to enter the world (ioann, 1992, p. 12). in saying that, metropolitan ioann did not hesitate to refer to nilus’s fantasies. thus, after the newspaper shifted to the russian orthodoxy, it began viewing contemporary world and its destiny through the glasses of orthodox dogmas—it alarmed readers with images of the coming antichrist and argued that only the orthodox monarch as a restrainer could stop the catastrophe. yet, the readers evidently were less interested in that. the newspaper received dozens of letters from them, but only a few (mainly youngsters) sharing the idea of the orthodox monarchy (and immediately demonstrated their anti-semitic stance) (fedosov, 1992, p. 7; sovet nizhegorodskogo, 1992, p. 4), believed that nowadays the enemy of the humanity wanted to destroy the orthodox faith (evgenyeva, 1992, p. 8), and ascribed masonry a “satanic cult” (pis’mo iz sankt-peterburga, 1992, p. 2). the newspaper’s shift towards the orthodox identity and a monarchic idea was marked with several landmarks. the first step was taken in july 1991, when, firstly, criticism against masons and zionists grew up, and secondly, the urgency of national ideology was emphasized. thus, a way to rapprochement with the russian orthodox church and to monarchist idea was opened. it is at that time that the newspaper made an attempt to put into question a faked nature of the “protocols of the elders of zion” and to argue that they were completed by the freemasons and zionists rather than by the tsarist secret agents (a. ivanov, 1991). simultaneously, the newspaper re-published an article from emigrant media, which focused on rehabilitation of the swastika. also, for the first time, it published an eschatological prophecy on great unrest, which had to be followed by a spiritual regeneration of russia. the authors became fascinated with the miracle power of orthodox icons. finally, it was in july that a supplement focused on the “russian question in the ussr” was published, which covered the issue of the russian people’ genocide arranged by zionist-fascists. so, it is in july, i.e. at the eve of the august putsch [coup] that all the major themes of the russian version of the apocalypse were already on the scene. a new step towards the russian orthodox church was made in fall 1991; in september, the newspaper’s office was sanctified by the priest vasily mel’nichuk, changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 233–251 243 and in november it was blessed by the patriarch alexy ii. ever since, the newspaper had stopped dealing with neo-pagan authors. instead, its orthodox propaganda hardened, and zemshchina’s authors were welcomed, which provided them with a podium to appeal to the mass audience. ever since, the newspaper had published more and more materials on the tsar’s mission side by side with prophecies about the end of time. in addition, the newspaper began to participate regularly in campaigns organized by orthodox fundamentalists—against hanukkah in kremlin in december 1991, against passing rabbi schneersohn’s collection of manuscripts to hasidim, as well as against recognition of prince vladimir kirillovich as a legal monarch. in addition, the newspaper published discussions around the canonization of the tsar’s family initiated by fundamentalists. it also informed readers of a “public investigation fund” established to investigate criminal deeds in secret circumstances including mystic murders (v zashchitu grazhdan, 1991, p. 2; cf. obrashchenie, 1991). it goes without saying that they meant ritual murders. it is in this context that the newspaper informed its readers about deaths of certain well-known russian nationalists from the hands of secret murderers and pointed to ritual (according to judaist rite) nature of those murders committed by some anti-russian agents. this stance grew up, especially after the nationalist musician igor’ tal’kov’s murder on november 6, 1991. the newspaper’s drift towards the orthodox identity had finally come into fruition by the early 1992. since that time on, it had been speaking on behalf of russian orthodox people alone rather than russians in general, be them different christians, pagans or non-religious at all. priests appeared among the authors, and the church-religious field expanded far beyond the space initially provided for that and received room even within political, economic and military discussions. the folk traditions that were associated with paganism earlier, found their place within the orthodox doctrine. for example, folk medicine began to be represented mostly by the orthodox pray. kids’ education and secrecy of marriage were directly linked to orthodox rites. even food recipes and festive table demonstrated the orthodox spirituality. and the school of survival was now taken in the orthodox way as a struggle against evil forces. ever since, the russian way had been viewed by the newspaper as both orthodox and monarchist, and its enemies had been associated with the rest of the world with its heresies, satanic sects, godless west and evil forces as though all of them wanted to establish the world government. whereas in 1991 many authors still emphasized internationalism as natural for russian people, a year later its interpretation has been changed to the opposite (afonina, 1992, p. 14). almost all russian enemies were presented as freemasons—the label, which was turned into a code word for any enemy, i.e. satanic forces. as a result, images of jews, zionists, masons and democrats blended up into some awful mix that hung over russia as a sword of damocles and arranged the black mess. all this made russkiy vestnik closer to zemshchina, although its authors never went so far as to blame the talmudic judaism. https://changing-sp.com/ 244 victor a. shnirelman den’, eschatology and conspiracy the radical den’ newspaper was very active in 1991–1993, when it proclaimed itself a spiritual opposition. whereas the orthodox-monarchist media and the russkiy vestnik newspaper aimed at ethnic russians, den’ stuck to the eurasian program and favored both russian orthodox and muslim people. evidently, that is why it participated in the eschatological discourse less intensively than russkiy vestnik and much less than zemshchina. den’ turned to the russian orthodoxy between late 1991 and early 1992, and in his new year congratulation, alexander prokhanov addressed the readers on behalf of believers (prokhanov, 1992, p. 1). the “new year address of patriarch tikhon” of 1918 was reprinted in the same issue, which demonstrated the orthodox orientation of the newspaper. yet, during almost the whole 1992, the newspaper was still eclectic and could not choose what sort of orthodoxy to follow. it seems that the newspaper finally obtained its religious identity only in october 1992, when it asked radical orthodox priest dmitry dudko (1922–2004) to be its spiritual father. nonetheless, eschatological themes closely connected with den’s favorite conspiratorial ideas began entering the discourse already in the early 1992. the newspaper addressed the same themes as russkiy vestnik and zemshchina, namely, satanists and evil forces; russian autocracy and its religious origins; international zionism and hasidim. latent anti-semitism presented itself permanently in the newspaper, and sometimes it expressed itself in statements on the “zionist mondialism”, which had allegedly destroyed the ussr. the rhetoric also included the idea of occupation of russia by the new power of “sverdlovsbronsteins”3 who had not learned to pronounce “r” correctly (o. ivanov, 1992, p. 3). yet, freemasons were the worst, and they were permanently blamed for secret evil plans. the newspaper accused bolsheviks for their following masons, masons—for a service to some secret jewish organization, and all of them—for the destruction of the christian civilization in russia. sometimes even the moscow patriarchate was criticized for ecumenism and rapprochement with judaism. although prophecies about the end of time were welcomed in the very first issue where saint serafim of sarov’s views on the tragic fate of russia and an arrival of the antichrist were published (gryadushchie sud’by rossii, 1991, p. 7), in 1991, this sort of materials appeared very rarely. at that time, only father antony focused on the apocalypse (antony, 1991, p. 5), and writer vladimir karpets recalled serafim of sarov’s prophecies (karpets, 1991, p. 4). even dudko in his attempt to understand the nature of the august putsch of 1991 mentioned satanic forces and the coming end of times, but avoided getting deeper into that (dudko, 1991, p. 5). finally, emigrant mikhail nazarov mentioned the end of time in his argument against neo-pagans (nazarov, 1991, p. 5). only in june 1992, dudko put forward the idea of the end of time and godbearing russia, which was confronted by the entire world instigated by sanhedrin (!). 3 yakov sverdlov was the chairman of the all-russian central executive committee (1917–1919); bronstein is the real surname of leon trotsky. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 233–251 245 noteworthy, while discussing russia’s mission, he initially referred to dostoevsky’s prophesy rather than to the church fathers. he claimed that the antichrist had not come yet because of the restrainer. initially, he did not know who the restrainer was precisely (dudko, 1992a, p. 6). but in october 1992, he was already sure that it was russia itself. while discussing the prophecies, he referred to the russian saints, including serafim of sarov (dudko, 1992b, p. 6). after him, the same idea was discussed by alexander dugin, who introduced himself as an esoteric scholar. he claimed that the restrainer was either russian god-bearing people or russia, which he identified with the soviet empire. in july 1992, he stated that katechon had lost its power after the dissolution of the ussr. yet, he believed that misfortunes arrived not for long; as russia does not belong to this world, jesus christ still is its god, which promises a fast regeneration (dugin, 1992, p. 5). to be sure, all of this looked like heresy from the theological point of view. finally, an interview with the aforementioned metropolitan vitaly was published in november 1992. on behalf of the russian orthodoxy as the genuine christianity, he attacked all other religions as heresies brought by the devil. he predicted that the antichrist would arrive very soon. he also underlined a special role of russia: the world’s future depended on russia—that is why it was hated by satanists, who instigated the wave of russophobe (lish pravoslavie izluchaet lyubov’, 1992, p. 5). conclusion thus, the russian orthodoxy coming back to public discourse and its usage by national-patriots were accompanied by a growing interest towards eschatology, which helped them to explain (in fantastic terms though) the nature of the current crisis and to develop their view of russia’s role in the world and its future, as well as to disclose its numerous enemies. the discourse covered several key themes— good and evil, friends and enemies, local and global, national and cosmopolitan, autocracy and democracy, the unity of empire and the value of national state, and the like. all these themes were perceived at two different levels—phenomenological and metaphysical. the former focused on the current events and their discussion in political, social and economic terms. at the latter level, one dealt with the traditionalist concept of involution. it depicted the movement from the golden age to decline and decay, which was explained by the christian eschatology with a reference to satanic forces that paved the way for the antichrist. only a restrainer could resist, and from this point of view, the major conflict in the world emerged from a clash between the restrainer and evil forces, whoever they were. the new testament and the church fathers identified evil forces with jews, which view was secured by a long theological tradition4, taken for granted by national-patriots. therefore, fundamentalists have been tirelessly searching for the signs of the antichrist’s arrival in almost any activity of jews, zionists or freemasons whatever they are called. to be sure, not all participants of the discussion understood the spiritual depth of these signs, which has been pointed out by metropolitan vitaly. 4 the second vatican council has declined that point of view. https://changing-sp.com/ 246 victor a. shnirelman the russian orthodox tradition has its own flavor. while proclaiming russian people as god-bearing one and moscow as the third rome, the conviction exists that only the russian orthodoxy maintains a genuine christian spirit. thus, russia (or russian people) as the only stronghold of the christianity is viewed as a restrainer. hence, it naturally opposes the rest of the world, which allegedly has given up with god and is under decay. it is in this context that messianic prophecies about the russian wonderful future became popular among russian priests and holy elders, who believed that russia would avoid the kingdom of the antichrist and would rescue the world. at the same time, this made russia a natural target for satanic forces; such idea caused paranoid emotions, as well as extreme forms of xenophobia among national-patriots. that is why the revival of the russian orthodox historiosophy with its eschatological attitude inevitably led to regeneration of the doctrinal religious anti-semitism imbedded into it. however, the narrative of apocalypse can be interpreted in various ways; there is the distinction between philo-semitic, judophobic, as well as quite neutral interpretations, which does not cover the jewish factor at all (shnirelman, 2013). nonetheless, in the 1990s, russian national-patriots were obsessed with the jewish factor, which they viewed as the key one with a great explanatory power. for them, it not only explained what happened in the world history and what the humanity can expect in future, but also was both inevitable and harmful, as the new testament and the church fathers have predicted. yet, the russian nationalism was segmented into several factions with different ideas in mind, and also demonstrated a dynamic through time, which was reflected in the three newspapers that were under study. zemshchina represented the most radical faction of the russian nationalism, which entirely rejected the soviet heritage as the jewish project and looked back to highly romanticized pre-revolutionary past with its monarchic political arrangement allegedly given by the lord. in this paradigm, jews (and non-russians in general) were viewed as the most harmful enemies of the established russian order, who successfully undermined it, and the narrative of the antichrist provided an explanation of what was happening and why. it is no accident that the editorial board had shifted to the neo-nazi program by the mid-1990s. russkiy vestnik was somewhat more temperate and initially provided a floor for various voices of russian nationalists, including neo-pagans. yet, after the newspaper had shifted to the russian orthodoxy, it became more rigid and exclusive. russkiy vestnik had begun celebrating the russian monarchy and, since that time, it welcomed certain zemshchina authors with their fundamentalist views. the newspaper was hostile to non-russians (including the jews) from the very beginning, but a shift towards russian orthodoxy provided a new understanding of history and russia’s messianic role in the world. needless to say, eschatology played a key role there. finally, the den’ newspaper focused on the value of empire be it soviet or nonsoviet. it was obsessed with the image of enemies, who made all the best to spoil and undermine it. the newspaper stuck to conspiracy, and an image of the antichrist changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 233–251 247 helped to understand what the russian mission was, and why exactly russia was attacked by numerous enemies. yet, the phenomenological approach seemed more appropriate for the newspaper’s authors than a metaphysical one. that is why they stood for a strong authoritarian leader rather than for the tsar. the idea of the orthodox monarchy was exploited by all three newspapers. it was no accident since it was instrumental with respect of the idea of a restrainer. at the same time, the image of the tsar as a restrainer was easily replaced by russia or russian people. as a result, the fundamentalist approach to the russian orthodoxy transforms political factor into religious one. thus, a new political theology was born in russia at the turn of the 1990s. it is still alive, and although judeophobe has shrunk during the recent decades it immediately comes back onto the scene in critical periods as, for example 2014 (shnirelman, 2016) and 2017 (shnirelman, 2020a, 2020b), when once again they recalled the end of time and the tsar’s ritual murder. references afonina, v. 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(1991). zemshchina, 72. zayavlenie dumy soyuza “khristianskoe vozrozhdenie”. k delu o khasidakh [a statement of the council of the union “christian revival”. on the case of hasidim affair]. (1991). zemshchina, 75. zayavlenie o khasidskikh rukopisyakh [a statement on the hasidic manuscripts]. (1991). zemshchina, 53. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.165 received 15 september 2021 © 2022 evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, accepted 25 march 2022 kseniya m. kozinskaya published online 11 april 2022 epopov@mail.ru vay_uiec@mail.ru ksush1@yandex.ru article the sharing economy and social entrepreneurship for sustainable development evgeny v. popov russian presidential academy of national economy and public administration, ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia anna yu. veretennikova institute of economics, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, russian presidential academy of national economy and public administration, ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia kseniya m. kozinskaya ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract in the present work, the authors set out to identify common ground between social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy, justify the application of these models for the sustainable development of society, as well as conduct a bibliographic study into these concepts to identify areas of overlap between them. for a more in-depth analysis, we studied 20 social entrepreneurs and 20 english versions of websites of organizations that implement the sharing economy model. based on semantic data analysis and latent dirichlet allocation, the texts under examination were grouped into 5 topics according to frequency of occurrence of keywords using the python programming language. in order to trace a connection between these topics and sustainable development, we selected words that can serve as markers of environmental, social and economic aspects of the activities of these organizations. each identified topic has https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 99 introduction originally developed by the brundtland commission in 1987, the concept of sustainable development has been at the forefront of global discussions between researchers and practitioners for over 30 years. the essence of this phenomenon largely corresponds to the main concept set out in the definition by wced (world commission on environment and development), where sustainable development is considered as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (wced, 1987). the design and scaling of solutions having an impact on sustainable development goals can be understood as presenting major and complex challenges requiring the introduction of new approaches. in this regard, it is potentially beneficial to look for new forms of economic interaction that ensure the sustainable development of society. the concept of sustainable development is closely linked with the need to tackle environmental and social problems arising at various levels of economic activity. all governments implement regulatory procedures to control environmental pollution and stimulate a global transition to sustainable development. as part of the activities of economic entities, new business models are developed and applied to increase the social responsibility (zhang et al., 2017). companies widely apply digital technologies (george et al., 2021) in an attempt to identify more efficient means for utilizing tangible and intangible resources. such solutions to sustainable development problems potentially include the development of social innovations. the search for solutions to environmental problems and approaches to improving resource efficiency stimulates interest in the sharing economy as a novel business model based on the use of digital platforms (schwanholz & leipold, 2020). its rapid development, which is due not only to the transformation of production and business models but also to the transformation of consumption patterns, helps to create an environment for civic initiatives, including solving social and environmental issues. in practice, there are various options for forming and maintaining the sustainable development, such as direct investment in social initiatives, responsible business appeared to have an aspect of digitalization. the study revealed that the application of the sharing economy model by social entrepreneurs and companies contributes to the sustainable development of society. the obtained results can be used in elaboration of approaches to provide the sustainable development of society. keywords sustainable development, sharing economy, social entrepreneurship, digitalization. acknowledgment this work was supported by the russian foundation for basic research under grant №20-010-00333. https://changing-sp.com/ 100 evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, kseniya m. kozinskaya conduct, corporate social responsibility, quality management of goods and services produced according to modern standards. thus, working together with the government, companies establish new approaches that tackles the problems of sustainable development. in the search for solutions to social, environmental and economic problems, social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy release resources and involve civil society in sustainable economic interconnections. however, they should be seen as alternative or supplementary business approaches that provide new opportunities rather than constituting a comprehensive economic revolution. this study was aimed at examining these models in terms of their similarity and suitability for stimulating sustainable development. from the conducted semantic analysis of websites of 20 sharing economy organizations and 20 social entrepreneurs, it can be concluded that these models can serve as growing points of sustainable development in the future. social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy as new opportunities for sustainable development sustainable development sustainable development, now generally considered to be among the most important economic goals, implies a balanced solution to socio-economic problems to preserve a favourable environment and natural resource potential in order to meet the needs of present and future generations. the 1987 brundtland report, on the basis of which the concept was formed, placed an emphasis on integrated development, including economic, environmental and social components, which is understood as managed sustainable development. economic sustainability implies solutions that provide financial support to organizations that takes social and environmental perspectives into account. although economic sustainability ensures a company’s efficient operation that meets the needs of key stakeholders, an exclusive focus on economic aspects in the process of reproduction of goods fails to provide the stability of the socioeconomic system. the necessary balance is achieved through a harmonious combination of social, environmental and economic factors, which contributes to the integrated development of individual economic entities and society as a whole. at the same time, the economic factor is significant not only for short-term, but also for long-term goals (dyllick & hockerts, 2002; steurer & konrad, 2009; vachon & mao, 2008). the most important factor in the formation of environmental sustainability is the appropriate conservation of natural resources (goodland & daly, 1996; sun et al., 2020), which is not only necessary for solving environmental problems, but increasingly also used by economic entities to achieve competitive advantage. achieving environmental sustainability fulfils the key function of the sustainable development concept, since it is by this means that the well-being of present and future generations will be ensured. hence, it is this component of sustainable changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 101 development that places the concept in its global environmental, socio-economic and political context (klarin, 2018; madsen & ulhøi, 2015; sharpley, 2000). the multidimensional concept of social sustainability is based on the social goals of sustainable development. however, despite the current focus of european politics on “sustainable communities” and social cohesion, there is a lack of theoretical clarity surrounding the definition of social sustainability (alipour & galal ahmed, 2021). the uk’s 2003 sustainable communities plan abbreviates its definition of sustainable communities as “places where people want to live and work, now and in the future” (odpm, 2006, p. 12). this document notes that such places meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. as well as being well-planned, -constructed and -maintained, sustainable communities are safe and inclusive, offering equality of opportunity and good services for all categories of citizens. such a definition implies that different generations have equal access to resources and opportunities to benefit from development. thus, meeting the needs of the present generation should not sacrifice the ability to meet the needs of future generations, which includes three important elements: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. these elements are combined to improve the quality of life through two critical concepts: needs, especially the basic needs of people living in poverty, which should be prioritized in the development process; and an understanding of the limited capacity of the environment to meet current and future needs, especially given the current state of technology and social organizations. thus, sustainable development is closely linked with efforts to reduce poverty, since those living in poverty cannot meet their most basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter. nevertheless, a correct understanding of the limitations of technology and social organization implies a realization that everyone’s actions have environmental consequences. while the institutional regulation of both environmental and social problems implies the top-down initiation of sustainable development by government, this process can also be initiated “from below” through the active involvement of civil society. thus, the concept of sustainable development not only implies the design of formal institutions, but also to the emergence of informal rules and norms, in particular, those arising in relation to ethical patterns of consumption (kanaeva, 2018). in this regard, soubbotina (2004) emphasizes equitability in sustainable development, defining it as a “fair and balanced” approach to ensuring sustainable access to opportunities and prosperity. equity can be achieved by balancing the interests of different representatives of society, whether belonging to the same or different generations. the increasingly important role played by civil society in implementing the concept of sustainable development mirrors the function of civic initiatives in driving processes of social change. in the course of a more detailed analysis of business models widely used by civil society to implement sustainable development, we identify the potential of the sharing economy and social entrepreneurship in the implementation of this concept. https://changing-sp.com/ 102 evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, kseniya m. kozinskaya the sharing economy: essence of concept and potential application to ensure sustainable development the dissemination of the sharing economy concept has consisted in a response to the search for a more sustainable and inclusive business model that would help resources to be managed in alternative ways, bypassing traditional institutions (akhmedova et al., 2020). “sharing economy” is an umbrella term that encompasses various aspects. other terms used to describe this phenomenon include “collaborative economy”, “sharing economy”, “access economy”, “collaboration economy” and “on-demand economy” (veretennikova, 2020). acquier et al. (2017) note that sharing economy and organizations implementing this model are associated with the sharing or exchange of underutilized resources such as real estate, instruments or financial assets (e.g., schor & fitzmaurice, 2015). while it is not necessarily a common feature of all sharing economy organizations, the possibility of underuse of resources is evidence of the potential of the sharing economy to mitigate sustainability concerns (e.g., botsman & rogers, 2010). in addition, the sharing economy employs agents to draw attention to the exchange and prospects of developing inclusive organizational forms (frenken & schor, 2017). the sharing economy encompasses various entrepreneurial initiatives in terms of the legal form of their business organization including value creation, the utilization of technological resources, and presence of underlying values (acquier et al., 2017; sundararajan, 2016). entrepreneurs who apply the sharing economy model generally share a common desire to optimize underutilized resources. many such organizations claim that their business models have the potential to transform society and promote social initiatives: improving access to goods and services by reducing the income of large businesses, building social networks, extending the life of facilities, encouraging recycling, etc. thus, the sharing economy model can be considered as a hybrid economic model between ownership and exchange. within such relationship models, transactions between economic agents are typically streamlined by actively utilizing various online services and digital platforms. the bibliographic study of the sharing economy revealed two main perspectives regarding its development. the first is based on the idea that the major goal of the sharing economy is to create an alternative to existing economic models. advocates for this view argue that it allows for a more inclusive and collaborative financial system, involving equitable production and a new social order (e.g., bauwens, 2006; rifkin, 2014; sundararajan, 2013). the second perspective of the sharing economy relates to the idea that it could lead to the end of capitalist relations (e.g., benkler, 2017; sundararajan, 2013). adherents of this position generally assume that a shared system for the production and management of resources, as well as cooperative social practices, will become more widespread, transforming the existing economic system to create a more democratic and inclusive social order. the underlying concept of human well-being focuses on social values such as collaboration, solidarity, social cohesion, equality and participation. proponents of this point of view typically argue that the purpose of the sharing economy should be to create an alternative economic system that changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 103 emphasizes social and environmental values over economic ones (e.g., benkler, 2017; rifkin, 2014). sharing economy initiatives that involve broader social groups mainly operate within non-profit business models, advancing their mission through the development of social innovation. since the purpose of this type of organization is to fulfil a social mission, such initiatives also have significant potential for environmental innovation. the advancement of the sharing economy (botsman & rogers, 2010) has encouraged economists and policy makers to consider this model as a new type of economic interaction with the potential for sustainable economic development (heinrichs, 2013; martin, 2016). sharing can reduce overconsumption and minimize energy expenditure, while lower prices can increase the consumption of goods and services (pargman et al., 2016). at the same time, researchers express opposing positions regarding the sharing economy. for example, dillahunt and malone (2015) believe that sharing economy organizations can provide employment opportunities, while others (erickson & sørensen, 2016) argue that sharing economy employment structures do not provide a high level of security for employees. thus, research into the sharing economy creates a series of debates about whether it can lead to a society’s equitable and sustainable development. in some studies, the sharing economy is presented as a model for sustainable development and as a driving force behind sustainable economic growth (heinrichs, 2013). it improves standards and quality of life by more efficiently allocating existing resources (bonciu & balgar, 2016). in addition, some scholars believe that applying the sharing economy model can reduce costs (plewnia & guenther, 2018), thereby decreasing inequality and providing income for people from all social strata (fraiberger & sundararajan, 2015). on the other hand, scientists question the real impact of sharing economy on sustainable development. for example, hamari et al. (2015) point out that the sharing economy does not necessarily contribute to sustainability; it is time to reinforce the presence of fragile economic paradigms (martin, 2016), which could lead to a breach of government regulation and possible monopolization of these emerging firms with the sharing economy model (cheng & edwards, 2019; williams & horodnic, 2017). some argue that the sharing economy is vulnerable to the formation of monopolistic practices and that this reflects an intensification of an ongoing neoliberal trend that abuses the concept of entrepreneurship (matzler et al., 2015; qiang et al., 2016; zervas et al., 2015). social entrepreneurship and its potential according to the concept of sustainable development another emerging economic phenomenon, offering high potential for solving social and environmental problems through the development of business activities, is social entrepreneurship. increased research interest in this topic is accompanied by the further institutionalization of social entrepreneurship in the academic community. the multidimensional concept of social entrepreneurship refers to business activities undertaken to achieve a social mission (mort et al., 2002). definitions of social entrepreneurship generally fall back on those of classical entrepreneurship https://changing-sp.com/ 104 evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, kseniya m. kozinskaya (abu-saifan, 2012; santos, 2012). the most commonly used definition of an entrepreneur formulated by schumpeter (1954/1994) is that of an innovator who combines production factors in an economic development approach. such a combination can take the form of production methods that solve production problems and encourage the invention of new products. for schumpeter, entrepreneurship entails a process of creative destruction since entrepreneurs trying to find a unique combination of factors of production may ignore existing technologies and products. by adding the word “social” to the word “entrepreneur”, schumpeter emphasizes that social entrepreneurship is not just “business as usual” but necessarily focuses on social development. dees and anderson (2006) and dees (2001) understand social entrepreneurship as an action aimed at achieving change implemented through entrepreneurial principles and models, which meets social needs, overcomes social problems and maintains social values. from this definition, it is clear that social entrepreneurship does not prioritize the achievement of economic value. however, social entrepreneurship cannot be equated with classical entrepreneurship. as opposed to classical entrepreneurship, the main feature of social entrepreneurship lies in its social mission and performance measured according to social criteria. as shown by mair and marti (2006), the main priority of social entrepreneurship is the creation of social welfare, while other types of business activity (for example, business entrepreneurship) prioritize the advancement of economic interests. santos (2012) similarly highlights the underlying motivations of social entrepreneurs. according to santos, the primary motivation for any social entrepreneur is to create value for society. whether such value is achieved through business activities, business organization, or business/venture capital management, it is aimed at achieving desirable social change (george, 2009). the well-known social entrepreneurship theorist j. gregory dees defines this type of activity as a change-based process that creates social value through innovation and creativity (1998). since the creation of social value is considered as a prerequisite for social entrepreneurship, choi and majumdar (2014) believe that it can be seen as a necessary factor. however, the creation of social value is not a sufficient factor for social entrepreneurship: the creation of social value must be supplemented by one of the following conditions: the presence of a social entrepreneur in a type of organization (social enterprise) that takes a market orientation, as well as participation in social innovations that tackle social issues. according to another point of view, social entrepreneurship is seen as charity, usually aimed at achieving specific social goals. according to dacin et al. (2010), social entrepreneurs are social investors who use their resources and capital to run businesses that are primarily designed to support the poor. the philanthropic impulse underlying these non-profit organizations emphasizes the social impact created by rigorous business and management principles, venture capital and strategic approaches. thus, social entrepreneurs can also be called venture philanthropists (robinson, 2006). the ashoka foundation, which has been recognized as the first organization to use social entrepreneurship, identifies social entrepreneurs as offering innovative solutions to social problems that plague their societies (mair & marti, 2006). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 105 such people tend to be forward-thinking and ambitious, as well as having a solid understanding of the potential for a better future. as such, they are always searching for new ways to realize their vision and overcome social problems. ashoka stresses the role of other agents (that is, those outside the government and the private sector) in finding solutions to social issues. social entrepreneurs can transform existing systems, propose alternative solutions and inspire others to change the direction of the social problems they face. in this way, social entrepreneurs both understand the critical value of ideas and use them to bring about social transformation through “changing direction”. seelos and mair (2017) argued that some social enterprises have been able to find new solutions to social problems through innovation. in this way, social entrepreneurs use the most effective methods to provide services taking the form of social activity (ratten, 2018). social entrepreneurship is an innovative approach that explains various subjects in education, environment, fair trade, health and human rights; more broadly, it is an essential component of the sustainable development framework (korsgaard et al., 2015). nowadays, entrepreneurship can be a source of many social and economic consequences. the broader entrepreneurship culture fostered by the social focus creates an opportunity for entrepreneurs to identify resources, opportunities and challenges, as well as inventing new solutions to expand various aspects of their workspace to create a context for sustainable development (korsgaard et al., 2015). in this way, social entrepreneurship contributes to the sustainable development of a particular society. in addition to increased levels of uncertainty in politics, economics and environmental development (seelos & mair, 2004), as well as the growing diversity of social needs, various social needs are unmet due to market challenges (phillips et al., 2015). market failures exclude certain social groups, especially the poor, from access to resources, as well as preventing them from participating in and taking advantage of existing economic opportunities (rauniyar & kanbur, 2009). sustainable development mitigates the adverse effects of market failures, reducing poverty and helping to create a prosperous society (maeda et al., 2014). according to hansson et al. (2014), when traditional approaches funded by public institutions and government agencies fail to address social needs or have a negative impact on social life, social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy must play a more critical role in development than before as components of sustainable development. in their study, hansson et al. point to the importance of social initiatives in achieving sustainable development, as evidenced by the efforts of the swiss government to develop a long-term development plan designed to become the primary vehicle (private or public) of social innovation. in a similar vein, phills jr. et al. (2008) emphasize the use of social entrepreneurship to overcome market disruptions, pointing to the novelty, improvement, and sustainability of social entrepreneurship. through social entrepreneurship, new ideas and approaches can be applied at a cross-sectoral level to better address social needs. by focusing on long-term solutions, social entrepreneurship can ensure environmental, economic and organizational sustainability. https://changing-sp.com/ 106 evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, kseniya m. kozinskaya social entrepreneurship activities are often associated with social innovation, which can be seen as forming their essential foundation (dees, 1998). social entrepreneurship refers to the activities carried out by agents to bring about social change, while social innovation is a process that can result in specific social change (cunha et al., 2015). thus, social entrepreneurs are seen as harbingers of creative destruction, contributing to social change and social movement. this is often referred to as unconventional ways of acting and thinking, and it is a common characteristic of social entrepreneurs. unconventional methods such as collaborative and creative work can be an essential step towards achieving sustainability (manzini, 2012). since the sustainable social development concept is fairly recent, there are few studies that broadly examine its relationship with social entrepreneurship. however, works by buzinde et al. (2017) and sheldon et al. (2017) show how social entrepreneurship in tourism can positively impact sustainable development. wanyama (2014) investigates the vital role played by social entrepreneurship in achieving sustainable social development—in particular, in increasing wages. meanwhile, ramani et al. (2017) examine the role of social entrepreneurship in achieving sustainable development in water and sanitation management in india. drawing on the theory of schumpeter, rahdari et al. (2016) depict a framework for realizing sustainable development with social entrepreneurship. seelos and mair (2004) also show the link between social entrepreneurship and promoting sustainable development. they argue that sustainable development can be realized via three approaches: a. meeting basic needs; b. building communities that use shared norms, rights and actions to encourage active participation in social and economic development; c. considering the needs of future generations in every currently undertaken activity. as well as solving environmental and social problems, social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy contribute to economic growth becoming tools for the sustainable development of society. thus, social entrepreneurship and sharing economy organizations are not new forms of economic activity. social entrepreneurship is one of the forms taken by classical entrepreneurship, in which the emphasis on making a profit is shifted to solving social problems. at the same time, the goal of creating a profit remains one of the most important goals. sharing economy organizations also have a classical form of economic interactions built into the tasks and needs of modern society. whether undertaken in developed or developing countries, the basis for the development of social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy is formed by civil initiatives that solve social problems—that is, involving the formation of these types of activities “from below” (stephan et al., 2015). at the same time, the formal institutional environment should support and not hinder the development of these initiatives. since most research works are devoted to the concepts underpinning these activities, in our study, we consider social entrepreneurship and sharing economy changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 107 as models for sustainable development. thus, we put forward the following hypothesis: h1: sharing economy and social entrepreneurship can be used as alternative socio-economic models for sustainable development of society. digitalization is an essential condition for the development of institutional environment of social entrepreneurship due to its ability to reduce transaction costs, accelerate the obtaining of necessary information, ensure the mobility of resources and support the emergence of new ways of support. the studies into this topic (for example, hajli, 2014; igarashi & okada, 2015) demonstrate the relevance of research investigating the role of digitalization in socio-economic change. in this way, digitalization provides the context in which contemporary socioeconomic processes are manifested. we studied three components of the sustainable development of society: economic development, social progress, responsibility for the environment. digitalization is considered as an add-on that accelerates these processes. thus, we put forward the hypothesis h2: h2: the use of digital technologies in projects of sharing economy and social entrepreneurship stimulates the sustainable development of society. methodology researchers into social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy focus above all on the essence and features of these phenomena (choi & majumdar, 2014). most of the studies investigate the motives, main characteristics and success factors of organizations that use these models. social entrepreneurship researchers focus on the study of leadership issues and individual features of entrepreneurs. as a result, more relevant aspects remain unexplored. our bibliographic analysis showed that the number of conceptual papers investigating the sharing economy and social entrepreneurship (bacq & janssen, 2011; desa, 2012; dhesi, 2010; estrin et al. 2013; mcmullen, 2011) exceeds the number of empirical studies. moreover, those empirical studies that do exist are often largely descriptive and omit rigorous analysis methods (short et al., 2009). for instance, mathematical analysis tools are quite rarely used in such studies. we believe that the main reason for this problem is the lack of statistics. studies on the sharing economy are often based on data from surveys that disregard dynamic aspects. data on social entrepreneurship by countries is not updated more frequently than every five years. the research procedure developed in the present study is based on the methodological analysis tools that were presented in the work of d. wruk, a. oberg, j. klutt, and i. maurer (wruk et al., 2019). although these researchers investigated how value propositions and business model features are interlinked in sharing economy, we were able to adapt successfully this approach for our own study. topic modelling approaches are efficient due to about 80% of big data being available in unstructured text forms, such as blogs, websites, and social networks (cogburn & hine, 2017). thus, this method allows all data sources related to natural language to be used. in order to extract information from these sources, https://changing-sp.com/ https://philpapers.org/s/dominika%20wruk 108 evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, kseniya m. kozinskaya it is possible to apply various tools for processing texts, including semantic and social data. topic modelling comprising an unsupervised machine learning technique capable of scanning a set of documents, detecting word and phrase patterns within them and automatically clustering word groups and similar expressions that best characterize a set of documents. as such, topic models are a form of latent variable model. in order to identify latent variables, fuzzy clustering is used. this comprises an algorithm in which each element has a probability of belonging to a particular cluster. in our study, we used the latent dirichlet allocation (lda) probabilistic data analysis method (landauer, foltz & laham,1998; glushkov, 2018). lda comprises two parts. the first consists in a probabilistic model for describing text data in terms of a likelihood function. in the second part, given the impossibility to maximize the likelihood function, lda uses an inference algorithm. the probabilistic lda model considers that each document d of d documents in the entire text can be described as a probabilistic combination of t topics. the value of t (the number of sections) is determined by the user according to the required precision. latent semantic analysis (lsa), which is the essence of topic modelling, allows for mapping texts (or documents) into the so-called “semantic space” (landauer et al.,1998). since, according to this type of analysis, texts are assumed to be just a collection of words, their order in sentences making up documents can be ignored. the only important thing is how many times a particular word occurs in the document. although semantic meaning is determined by a set of words that are usually collocated, each word has its own unique meaning. as a result, we obtained groups of words forming so-called “topics”. as well as taking into account the distance between these words and their weight in texts, such topics are united by a common meaning. to conduct the latent semantic analysis, we used tools and libraries written in the python programming language. in order to use the off-the-shelf software libraries, it was necessary to limit our analysis to texts written in english. the research procedure included three main stages comprising the selection of texts, as well as their coding and analysis. in the first stage, we selected social entrepreneurship organizations that were presented on the causeartist1 platform, which comprises a global community of social entrepreneurs, business leaders and individuals who support social projects. thus, causeartist serves as a platform providing the newest information, tools and resources for collaborative activity having a global impact potential. the operator of this platform forms an annual list of new social enterprises that represent the most interesting projects worldwide. in this study, we used organizations operating in english-speaking countries in 2020 and having a description in english. thus, from a total of 37 options, we selected 20 organizations, including social entrepreneurs from the uk and the usa. in order to form texts pertaining to the sharing economy organizations, we used american news resources dedicated to sustainable development. companies 1 https://causeartist.com/ https://causeartist.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 109 from the usa, india, the uae, and germany were also included. of these, we also selected 20 organizations. next, we analysed the websites of the selected organizations and formed texts for latent semantic analysis. to prepare these data, we used the “about” sections. as a result, 40 texts were selected. in the second stage, using the latent semantic analysis and the python programming language, these texts were divided into topics. the index of the topic for each text is presented in the appendix (table 2). in addition, the table 2 indicates the likelihood of this text being relevant to a particular topic. in the third stage, we analysed if the topics obtained correspond to the three components of sustainable development: social, economic and environmental. results using the latent semantic analysis (lsa) described above, all texts were divided into five blocks covering social, economic, environmental and digital development issues. this grouping responds to the inclusion of these aspects in the concept of sustainable development and the importance of digitalization processes in this area. the obtained results (сolumn 2 in table 1) present most frequently used words (or parts of words) within a given topic. for example, the text «people 0.017» means that the frequency of using word «people» in topic 1 equal 0.017. table 1 semantic analysis results the number of topic content distribution of results by topic social economic environmental digital topic 1 people 0.017 idea 0.013 support 0.011 make 0.010 startnext 0.010 platform 0.009 creat 0.008 ola 0.007 commun 0.006 wifi 0.006 people 0.017 support 0.011 commun 0.006 platform 0.009 wifi 0.006 topic 2 student 0.014 good 0.009 job 0.007 one 0.007 profit 0.007 world 0.007 cape 0.007 college 0.007 mission 0.005 provid 0.005 mission 0.005 provid 0.005 good 0.009 job 0.007 profit 0.007 world 0.007 https://changing-sp.com/ 110 evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, kseniya m. kozinskaya the number of topic content distribution of results by topic social economic environmental digital topic 3 talent 0.010 creat 0.009 home 0.008 world 0.008 people 0.008 skillharbour 0.007 work 0.007 skill 0.007 make 0.007 connect 0.006 people 0.008 work 0.007 skill 0.007 skillharbour 0.007 world 0.008 topic 4 food 0.016 make 0.009 healthi 0.009 common 0.008 work 0.007 pet 0.007 creat 0.006 spread 0.006 note 0.006 raw 0.006 healthi 0.009 common 0.008 work 0.007 pet 0.007 raw 0.006 topic 5 give 0.014 social 0.009 people 0.008 home 0.007 business 0.007 care 0.007 want 0.007 world 0.007 commun 0.007 live 0.006 social 0.009 people 0.008 commun 0.007 care 0.007 business 0.007 world 0.007 thus, four out of five topics cover all three aspects of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. word combinations related to digitalization processes were only found in the first topic. in the last stage of the study, we determined the topics to which the sharing economy and social entrepreneurship texts belonged. the results are presented in figure 1, in which the y-axis represents the number of organizations related to a particular topic from the fields of social entrepreneurship or sharing economy. the presented one-dimensional linear distribution of information resources over these topics demonstrates reasonably uniform distribution. however, in the first topic, texts relating to sharing economy organizations are prevalent. at the same time, this is the only topic for which the digitalization block has was filled. the same topic combines the most significant number of resources. table 1 continued changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 111 figure 1 distribution of information resources of social entrepreneurship and sharing economy in the identified topics 5 3 3 4 3 8 1 4 5 7 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 topic 1 topic 2 topic 3 topic 4 topic 5 social entrepreneurship sharing economy discussion the analysis and results presented above allow an assessment of the main goals and values within which organizations operate using the sharing economy and social entrepreneurship models. it was revealed that the main goals of the majority of analysed organizations are social or economic; in some cases, they were environmental. since all these components form the basis for the sustainable development of society, we concluded that the social entrepreneurship and sharing economy models are part of the development of this phenomenon. it is important to note that these models are bottom-up initiatives—that is, formed by the society, but not government. thus, we confirmed the hypothesis h1 that the organizations of social entrepreneurship and sharing economy could serve as the basis for developing new models for sustainable development, as well as having similar features in terms of the goals and objectives defining their activities. the established link between social entrepreneurship and sustainable development is empirically relevant. this can be seen in the example of the bangladesh rehabilitation assistance committee (brac). through its network of volunteers, brac has provided poor women with the help they need to obtain adequate health care and education about the best and safest ways to provide food for their families. brac has successfully reduced poverty by giving communities economic and social access, including but not limited to access to education, health care and microcredit programs aimed at promoting sustainable development (seelos & mair, 2004). the social entrepreneurship organization sekem, which aims at promoting sustainable business practices in egypt, has had a similar impact. this organization shows how business can combine profitability and participation in the global market with a humane approach to people and environmental awareness. sekem’s business activities are based on four principles of sustainability, also known as the “flower of sustainability”: (a) economy; (b) social life; (c) cultural life; (d) environment. these four principles indicate that sekem can implement sustainable business practices and https://changing-sp.com/ 112 evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, kseniya m. kozinskaya implement them through seven activities, namely those related to economic life, social life, cultural life, water, soil, plants, animals, energy and air. first is the sustainability of economic activity, which is realized through equity and ethical values, as well as environmental, social and cultural development. in order to measure the level of business sustainability, the sustainable business practice self-assessment tool is used. this method allows sekem and its business partners to anticipate sustainability gaps or other issues that hinder the sustainability of their business and identify the correct form of intervention needed to bridge those gaps. the second component is social stability, which is implemented for the development of interpersonal relationships. sekem has developed a culture of mutual understanding and trust with its business partners and supporters. the goal of this approach is to create a sense of equality. sekem also drew attention to the need to promote gender equality in order to create a sustainable society. this is followed by cultural sustainability, for which purpose sekem focused on individual development—in particular, on innovativeness and social responsibility, realized through a holistic cultural approach. education is also being used to promote sustainable development, especially among the youth of egypt. finally, in terms of the environmental component, sekem has pioneered the successful transformation of desert into productive agricultural land. this was achieved by practicing sustainable organic and biodynamic agricultural techniques to reclaim desert lands in a sustainable manner that allows them to be used for agricultural purposes (seelos & mair, 2004). thus, numerous studies and research projects indicate the increasing importance of social entrepreneurship in the sustainable development of society since many social entrepreneurs successfully overcome economic problems and promote social change through, among other things, social innovation. as agents of change, social entrepreneurs take advantage of opportunities that others cannot. they also develop new approaches and solutions to bring about social change and build a better society. hypothesis h2 was not confirmed, since all topics, except for one, lack content that includes digital aspects of the activities of the considered companies. at the same time, digitalization is typical for the topic “0”, whose analysis demonstrates its social functionality. however, as shown in table 1, the economic and environmental components are not affected in this case. since no unambiguous conclusions can be drawn from the obtained results, further research is needed. the presented analysis shows that the basis for social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy is the uniformity of values. the aim of the sharing economy is to increase the efficiency of underutilized assets, which has a beneficial effect on the environment by prolonging the working life of particular resources. although social entrepreneurship is generally focused on solving social problems, it contributes to increasing civic responsibility, thus combining environmental and social values, which are at the heart of the concept of sustainable development. although the regulatory mechanisms corresponding to these concepts differ, the idea of sustainable development has been approved at the international level, as well as being enshrined in the relevant federal documents. this gives rise changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 113 to the need to consider this paradigm when designing business processes and formulating an appropriate environmental and social policy for large enterprises. the effectiveness of social entrepreneurship resulting from the increase in civic initiatives is dependent on the conditions for information, material, financial and consulting support provided by the relevant institutions. although, on the one hand, the sharing economy generates the risk of the transformation of traditional market institutions, it also serves as value guidelines for sustainable development, realizing ethical consumption and use of resources. for example, this concept is actively used for the development of urban areas. we can directly observe the role of social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy in sustainable development, in which the involvement of civil society in solving social and environmental problems contributes to the formation of a solidarity economy. at the same time, various institutional contradictions and barriers prevent the potential of these concepts from being more thoroughly realized at the current development stage. future work will involve a more detailed analysis of the stated limitations. conclusion the discussed social entrepreneurship and sharing economy models can form the basis for sustainable development. the results of the present study demonstrate the similarity of these models, as well as testing their suitability for stimulating sustainable development. the latent semantic analysis of sharing economy and social enterprise organizations confirmed the high potential of these models for pursuing sustainable development. at the same time, despite the obvious conclusion that 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2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 98–122 121 appendix table 2 the list of organizations for analysis company country type sphere index of the topic probability of the text relation to the topic bea uk social entrepreneurship employment 5 0.9868873 era92 uk social entrepreneurship design and technology 5 0.9927051 millie giving usa social entrepreneurship donation 5 0.99074644 freewill usa social entrepreneurship consulting 1 0.9933407 rooted school usa social entrepreneurship education 2 0.99449664 yescacao usa social entrepreneurship production 4 0.99380136 madison grace boutiaue usa social entrepreneurship production 5 0.9891996 cnote usa social entrepreneurship found 4 0.99722916 branden harvey usa social entrepreneurship media 2 0.9791897 vera usa social entrepreneurship ecology 1 0.99246365 unlocked usa social entrepreneurship employment 5 0.9854808 panion usa social entrepreneurship employment 3 0.98748225 cape cod usa social entrepreneurship it 2 0.9934011 mauiraw usa social entrepreneurship food production 4 0.9975811 tribesforgood usa social entrepreneurship education 5 0.98888355 folksandtales usa social entrepreneurship production 3 0.9933092 venturewithimpact usa social entrepreneurship work and travel 4 0.99319035 mauro usa social entrepreneurship agriculture 1 0.9870728 natakellam usa social entrepreneurship education 5 0.99438983 silvernest usa sharing economy renting 1 0.97181207 couchsurfers usa sharing economy renting 3 0.9884213 at fiverr usa sharing economy employment 3 0.9686699 network.fon usa sharing economy it 1 0.99174255 fat llama usa sharing economy renting 1 0.9962474 https://changing-sp.com/ 122 evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, kseniya m. kozinskaya company country type sphere index of the topic probability of the text relation to the topic aarp usa sharing economy it 1 2 3 4 5 0.010198279 0.010030525 0.9595116 0.010167937 0.01009168 dolly usa sharing economy renting 4 0.9965199 spotahome usa sharing economy renting 3 0.99276215 ola india sharing economy transport 1 0.9938339 careem uae sharing economy finance 1 0.98475534 the balance usa sharing economy consulting 5 0.99049836 poshmark usa sharing economy ecommerce 1 0.9648382 sittercity usa sharing economy marketplace 4 0.99409854 eatwith usa sharing economy entertainment 5 0.99432355 99designs usa sharing economy design 4 0.9941824 foodcharing germany sharing economy food sharing 4 0.9947868 startnext germany sharing economy crowd funding 1 0.99670476 skillharbour usa sharing economy services 13 0.020016285 0.97631294 freifunk usa sharing economy it, education 4 0.99250764 common usa sharing economy housing and renting 1 0.98884165 table 2 continued changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201–219 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.2.129 received 26 april 2021 © 2021 elena a. ostrovskaya accepted 14 may 2021 e.ostrovskaya@spbu.ru published online 9 july 2021 article tradition as a homeland to return to: transnational religious identity of the post-soviet orthodox jewry elena a. ostrovskaya saint petersburg state university, saint petersburg, russia abstract this article highlights the outcome of a long-term field research into the transnational identity of the post-soviet orthodox jewry. it analyzes biographical interviews taken between 2015 and 2018 in st. petersburg and minsk to define the religious identity and day-to-day practices of post-soviet orthodox jews. in this article, i argue that the communities of post-soviet orthodox jews is a new socio-cultural phenomenon with no historical prototypes. as to the research methodology, it was a combination of the transnational approach, random choice casestudy targeting post-soviet orthodox communities of orthodox jewry in large cities, and the biographical method. the backbone of the post-soviet orthodox communities of different strains of judaism was formed in 1990–2008. it is made up of three generations of men and women born in the late 1940s–1960s, mid-1960s–early 1970s, and the 1980s. each of these generations is characterized by its own unique pattern of observance, the formation of which is directly conditioned by the circumstances of involvement in religious jewry. the transnational pattern of observance of the post-soviet orthodox jews involves the model they confronted at the very beginning of their journey, the model they learned in overseas educational institutions or through incoming envoys and rabbis in the country of residence, and the model of balance between the required and possible in the modern post-christian and post-atheist environment. keywords post-soviet or thodox jews, transnational religious identit y, transnational approach, models of compliance, biographical method https://changing-sp.com/ 202 elena a. ostrovskaya introduction academic study of the post-soviet observant jewry in a diversity of its congregations and modes of compliance is the only recently emerging ethnography of post-soviet jewish communities that remained in the former soviet union (cooper, 1998, 2003; golbert, 2001; goluboff, 2003, 2008; sapritsky, 2010). work on ex-soviet jews in post-soviet countries is still scarce and is highly dominated by the survey method, archival and statistical data (sapritsky, 2010, p. 17). in this article, i invite the reader to get acquainted with the results of my research of the post-soviet orthodox jewry from the perspective of their transnational patterns of identity, through which they construct trans-local discourses about the daily observance of the commandments. russian-speaking orthodox jews of the post-soviet space are an integral part of the transnational jewish diaspora and contribute to the discourses of modern observant jewry about the model of observance in modern conditions. my field research of the post-soviet russian-speaking lithuanian, chabad and hasidic communities of st. petersburg and minsk was launched in 2015. my focus was on the religious identity and day-to-day practices of post-soviet orthodox jews. in the beginning, i invariably asked respondents to advise—who, in their opinion, should be interviewed. from time to time, i was asked the same counter questions: • “are you only interested in observing? we have men who come to support the minyan1, but they have russian wives”; • “do you need those who are strictly observant? i have a friend who is already observing and preparing to undergo conversion”; • “why don’t you talk to our people, who are here on holidays, do not observe, but respect and sympathize?” after clarifying that i am only interested in observers, the respondents recommended to me “knock on my facebook2 account and see the names of my friends (...)”. in biographical interviews, mentioning the name of the first rabbi in the respondent’s life was often accompanied by an invitation to send a facebook link to him. further, regardless of my reaction, they usually sent this link through whatsapp3 messenger. explaining to me the importance of “interviewing this particular rabbi”, the respondents emphasized that they continue to communicate through social networks with those with whom they once began their journey to jewry. moreover, they often prefer to ask a question not to the rabbi of their local community, but “through the internet to their rabbi”. my next discovery was the diverse world of transnational diaspora ties between russian-speaking orthodox enclaves. as the collection of biographical interviews progressed, it became increasingly clear that the vast majority of respondents came from jewish families who did not follow the commandments and were not familiar with the jewish/judaic way of life. the revival of jewry, initiated in the 1990s, revealed a complete loss of the connection between the present generations and the previous forms of communal life and daily 1 in orthodox judaism, that is the quorum of 10 adult jews required for communal worship. 2 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 3 whatsapp™ is a trademark of whatsapp inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201–219 203 observance of the commandments. this entailed an appeal to the experience of the russian-speaking orthodox diaspora in israel and the united states, the arrival of those foreign rabbis and mentors who were ready to go to perestroika russia to revitalize judaism. most of the chabad, hasidic and lithuanian post-soviet communities were created with the support of the israeli, american and european orthodox enclaves of the jewish diaspora. in interviews with eyewitnesses of those events, the thesis is clearly expressed that the environment of observant russian-speaking jews was formed in several stages. the first stage fell on the period of the 1980s and until the early 1990s, when disparate groups of zionists, religious zionists and the religious jewish underground consolidated by mastering the practices of observing the commandments. the second phase took place in 1990–2008 and included the arrival of foreign rabbis who created the infrastructure for observance (synagogues, jewish kindergartens, religious schools, yeshivas, kosher production) and the formation of rigid boundaries for dividing the chabad, hasidic and lithuanian communities (ostrovskaya, 2019). the third stage started in 2008 and was marked by the mediatization of the communicative practices of observant jewry throughout the post-soviet socio-cultural space. the digitalization of russian-speaking orthodox jewry has made it possible to synchronize and correlate the communicative practices of communities in different localities of the jewish diaspora. local communities and synagogues of various postsoviet countries create their own internet sites and pages on social media facebook, vk4 (short for its original name vkontakte) and instagram5. their communications about day-to-day observance are intertwined with the numerous practices of religious russian-speaking enclaves of the jewish diaspora. the internet and new media play a key role in bringing about such interweaving (ostrovskaya, 2020). having studied the life of the chabad, hasidic, and lithuanian communities of st. petersburg, minsk, and kiev for quite a long time (2015–2020), i have come to the conclusion that they are very protective of their communal identities and are inclined to strongly exclusive and highly competitive models of religious observance. their daily life gravitates towards the ghetto format within a wider non-jewish urban culture. each of the communities maintains a constant contact with those yeshivas of foreign orthodox enclaves who participated in its foundation. most of the chabad, hasidic and lithuanian communities are under the leadership of foreign rabbis and rabbanits6, who stay for a long time in russia and the cis countries. the core of the membership in the post-soviet orthodox jewish communities consists of three generations: men and women born in the late 1940s–1960s, mid1960s–early 1970s, and in the 1980s. each of these generations has its own unique pattern of observance, which evolved as a result of the particular circumstances of their involvement in religious jewry, the experience of communication with foreign rabbis of a particular strain of judaism, receiving a religious education, participating 4 https://vk.com vk™ is a trademark of vkontakte llc. 5 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 6 rabbanit—the wife of rabbi or the female relative of a rabbi, sometimes also an instructor herself. https://changing-sp.com/ https://vk.com 204 elena a. ostrovskaya in the life of a synagogue, and choosing further life strategies. according to different interviews, step-by-step those rabbis formatted the rigid boundaries which divided the chabad, hasidic and lithuanian communities. in this article, i argue that the communities of post-soviet orthodox jews is a new socio-cultural phenomenon with no historical prototypes. it started as early as the late 1980s and continues evolving. its identity is a complex and dynamic pattern resulting from religious and “social remittances” of observing jews. to define this pattern, i employ the transnational approach and the concept of transnational religious networks involving transnational actors, religious practices, “religious remittance” and transnational religious identity (lacroix, levitt, & vari-lavoisier, 2016; levitt, 2001, 2002, 2003; levitt & glick schiller, 2004). as for the research methodology, it was a random choice case study targeting post-soviet orthodox communities of observing jewry in large cities. the biographical method, which has proven its viability in the research on hard-to-reach communities (ostrovskaya, 2016), was employed in the field study to assess the level of respondents’ integrity at different ages and to reveal the key elements in their patterns of observance. the material was gathered through criteria-based sampling. the respondents were chosen according to the three main criteria: their place of residence, length of observance and generation. the respondents that met the chosen categories had the length of observance of at least 10 years, a permanent or temporary residence in st. petersburg or minsk, and belonged to one of the following age groups: those born in the 1950s, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, or in the 1980s. this article covers a selected number of 18 minsk and 29 st. petersburg interviews with chabad and migdal ohr members7. transnational network of the post-soviet orthodox jewry i would like to start my analysis with a brief overview of the key notions of the concept of transnational religious networks and accompany it with illustrations from my research. the orthodox communities of st. petersburg and minsk are different. the distinctive character of the observant jewish community in saint petersburg i discussed in detail elsewhere (ostrovskaya, 2016). here i highlight only the main feature, which distinguishes it from the observant community in minsk. the former is mainly chabad with a decent infrastructure and secured “religious remittances”. its members born in the mid-1960s and 1970s are in charge of communicating the traditional patterns. by contrast, minsk dominated by the lithuanian community involves in its transnational activities different generations with the most persistent adherents to the transnational pattern born in the 1980s. transnational actors or transmigrants come from different countries and stay in contact by sharing a common system of beliefs and religious practices. among these 7 since this research dealt with sensitive issues and its publication ought to comply with accepted ethical research guidelines, we find it is necessary to emphasize that all respondents were informed about the fact that i was conducting a sociological study with the intention of publishing a research article in an academic journal. permission was obtained from the respondents with regard to transcribing their interviews and the quotes used in the publication were also approved. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201–219 205 actors are ethno-religious communities, religious organizations and religious leaders who interact with each other over the national borders (faist, 2004; haynes, 2001; levitt & glick schiller, 2004). post-soviet observing jews involved in transnational religious communication tend to stress their cultural and social differences. they participate in “religious remittances” of the relevant transnational jewish communities, as well as religious festivals and events. they spend holidays in israel or the united states; attend overseas religious seminars; address broader transnational communities to solve their pressing ideological, material, financial, and other problems. this interaction involves both migrants to israel or the united states and those who live in the countries of initial socialization, relatives and friends, foreign rabbis and emissaries settled in russia and belarus with their families or making trips there. an in-depth analysis of the post-soviet transnational landscape has revealed that chabad and lithuanian transnational organizations have been its most active parties. in the 1990s, they re-established the jewish tradition in the countries of the former soviet union, spread the transnational pattern of daily religious practices in communities, as well as communicated the patterns of observance and basic religious education. transmitting beliefs and values to two or three other countries is typical of both religious communities and individual actors (levitt, 2002, p. 2). this involves providing for religious organizations in other countries, fundraising, guest visits of religious mentors and religious teachers, religious consultations for believers in the countries of exodus, pilgrimage, and shipping religious products (levitt, 2003; wuthnow & offutt, 2008). my interview questionnaire included a question about the basic set of the doctrines and practices for an observing orthodox jew. most respondents stated that although the degrees of observance may vary community wise, the observance pattern differs from the kosher style. these fundamentals include kashrut, shabbat, three daily prayers for men, chuppah8, the jewish home, the mikvah9, and the family chastity rules. regarding this question, respondent t., 1972, born and living in st. petersburg, the spouse of a rabbi, the headmaster of a women’s school, said the following: jewish religiosity is about observing saturday, jewish holidays, kashrut laws of the family chastity. a woman is expected to dress modestly, which means covering her knees, elbows, and wearing a headgear or wig. a married woman goes to the mikvah. a religious man is prescribed a 3-time daily prayer in a synagogue with or without a minyan of 10 men. the degree of observance is relative: some are stricter than the others. 8 a jewish wedding or a canopy under which the bride and groom stand during the jewish wedding ceremony. 9 a ritual bath or bathing place for married women (for purification in accordance with jewish law). https://changing-sp.com/ 206 elena a. ostrovskaya the daily routine of st. petersburg and minsk jewish communities includes men’s prayer in minyan, classes for women and studies of religious texts for men, family and communal shabbats with optional overnight stays, and cyclical religious holidays. some of the examples of transnational religious practices, apart from the sabbath, are the wig as a mandatory headwear for observing married women, celebrations of sukkot, hanukkah, passover, patterns for women’s and men’s fashion, etc. transnational religious practices include communities’ financial transfers, fundraising in favor of a foreign subsidiary, charitable donations to overseas religious educational institutions, etc. (wuthnow & offutt, 2008, pp. 221–222). for example, observant jewry provides for chabad envoys and communities created in different cities. emissaries (shluchim) are commissioned to go to the former soviet countries and build synagogues and necessary infrastructure, such as jewish kindergartens, jewish schools, yeshivas and kolel, dining rooms, kosher food stores and so on. both chabad and lithuanian rabbis raise funds for local synagogues, jewish religious schools for boys or girls. transnational religious practices also imply lectures, seminars, training sessions by religious leaders, teachers and scholars of one country in communities and affiliated religious groups of other countries (offutt, 2011, p. 796). both chabad and lithuanian communities have been inviting rabbis from abroad, mainly from the usa and israel. while chabad shluchim tend to bring their families and remain in the host community for a long time, their lithuanian counterparties prefer to go on trips and stay on if required. along with this, experts on the torah and jewish religious tradition can come to give lectures; rabbanits would teach women religious chastity, the concept of the jewish home, the roles of spouses and mothers, etc. there are objective and subjective dimensions to the above-mentioned transnational religious practices. the objective dimension is formed by the institutional communication between transmigrants and their home countries. for example, migrants securing their ties with the country of origin tend to join a religious organization, which they associated with before their migration (levitt, 2001, p. 16). the subjective dimension means that religious commitment and religious practices are used for building social networks in a host country rather than for religious purposes, for example, for obtaining economic support, legal advice, expressing political interests, learning the language of the host country, visiting national schools, joining various hobby clubs, etc. (carnes & yang, 2004; hagan & ebaugh, 2003). there are certain features of the subjective dimension for post-soviet observing jews. in the early stages of their return to the tradition, most respondents relied on religious practices to migrate and get integrated into the new network more easily. the subjective dimension for observing jews meant abandoning the sociocultural and other contexts of the country of residence with the following involvement in the transnational network of observant jewry. religious requirements compel believers to seek like-minded people and those who share this worldview. lonely compliance is hardly possible because of kosher changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201–219 207 food restrictions (meat of a properly slaughtered animal, dairy produce from kosher facilities); monthly immersion in the mikvah for women; three daily prayers in minyan for men, etc. outside the community, it is difficult to carry out the key rites such as circumcision, the first haircut, bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah10, chuppah, and funeral. the difficulties with implementing observance practices in post-soviet everyday routines result in people’s inclusion into transnational networking and migration. other examples of non-religious interest in the jewish community might be a job in a yeshiva, low-cost accommodation and food for children studying abroad through a transnational network, religious festivals of the year cycle, synagogue gathering for elderly jews with a non-observant lifestyle. some maintain long-term relations with observing communities to make a shidukh11 and find a jewish woman or a jew as a bride or groom for themselves or their children. jewish youth seeking to preserve their ethnic identity attend events held by stars clubs in synagogues, which assist in their trips to israel, finding a married couple, and learning the jewish cultural and religious tradition. the next key concept for transnational religious networks is “social remittances”—a term introduced by peggy levitt to define interaction of transnational actors over national, territorial and socio-cultural boundaries (levitt, 1998, p. 926). levitt compares these interactions with the financial transfers made by migrants from the host to home countries. her research has shown that stable and long-term contacts between migrants and their homeland are not limited to money. in fact, they are transferring newly acquired or revived religious values, ideas and patterns of interaction. she refers to such “social remittances” as “religious remittances”. thus, “religious remittances” is a transfer of religious values, ideas, beliefs and practices from one sociocultural context to another, as well as their subsequent transformation. these transfers are carried out through the exchange of letters, e-mails, photographs, videos, telephone calls, short-term visits of migrants to their homeland, or relatives to them abroad (ibid.). “religious remittances” carried out by post-soviet orthodox jewry have altered with their integration. after migrating, the majority of respondents have chosen some religious practices to create their own pattern. in fact, they have even recast “religious translations” of professional envoys. this shows in the biographical narrative of respondent b., born in 1980, newyork, usa, into a chabad family with relatives on the mother’s side coming from vitebsk and nizhniy novgorod, currently settled with her husband—shluchim in minsk. she recalls the history of minsk chabad community covering the construction of a synagogue, kindergarten and school, as well as the census of jews. she interprets her and her rabbi husband’s goals as following: 10 mitzvah—any commandment, ordinance, law, or statute contained in the torah and, for that reason, to be observed by all practicing jews. the talmud mentions 613 such mitzvahs, 248 mandatory (mitzwot �ase) and 365 prohibitive (mitzwot lo ta�ase). bat mitzvah—a jewish ceremony held to celebrate a girl reaching the age of twelve, in which she is given the religious responsibilities and duties of an adult woman. bar mitzvah—a jewish ceremony held to celebrate a boy reaching the age of 13, in which he is given the religious responsibilities and duties of an adult man. 11 shidukh, or shidekh is a marital matchmaking. https://changing-sp.com/ 208 elena a. ostrovskaya no, we do not work only with those who observe. here’s our class in the pictures. these are guys who don’t. our task is to expose them to the torah, our traditions, history, and give them choice. their choice. but of course, we want their positive decision. this is our ultimate goal. but first, we want them to be aware of their identity, so that they appreciated being jews and wouldn’t deny or hide it. then again, it is crucial that younger people should marry each other. to preserve our people. if you have a jewish family, you can then work with them, and if a guy marries a russian girl, according to the jewish law, the child is no longer a jew, and there is no one to work with. we work only with halachic jews, which means that the mom is jewish, well, it is still difficult. here we are now, we are preparing for the next school year enrolling children in the first grade. there’s a family, their eldest daughter has stayed with us for some time. then they had another little girl. and i really wanted this girl to come to us. it’s a good family and a good mom. they came to the meeting and seemed pleased. but the day before yesterday i talked to her, and i was very upset when she said they wouldn’t send her. the husband refused to. and i can’t say i don’t understand him. he’s russian. he has no connection to the jewish people, except for the fact that his wife is jewish. they are a non-observing family, but they are not against their jewishness. perhaps even proud of it. but still the husband stands in the way, interferes. and so, one of our goals is to get our children to marry each other. having lived in the post-soviet environment for twelve years, knowing well the russian and belarusian urban environment, the respondent transforms the transnational pattern of observance by shifting the emphasis to the ethnic component. multiple transnational identity of the post-soviet orthodox jews transnational religious identity is a combination of practices acquired in the country of origin and those assimilated in the host countries. it is formed through the “religious remittances” of ideas, values and beliefs, their interpretation and further transformation. thus, migrants perceive themselves as followers of a specific religious doctrine, and only then as members of a particular ethnicity or citizens of a particular state (khagram & levitt, 2008, p. 1). the transnational identity is a multiple identity involving local, regional and transnational dimensions. the local dimension means interaction with the family, friends, peers, and membership in a religious organization. the regional dimensions imply the socio-cultural environment. the national dimension involves the political ideology, traditions and customs of the host country, the attitude of governments towards religious and ethnic diversity, and migrants’ integration. i focus now on the identity of the post-soviet orthodox jews who either have not left the place of socialization, or have returned there. they are not migrants in the literal sense, but rather transnational actors in the global networks of religious interaction. among these are rabbis born and raised in the soviet union who migrated and returned as envoys or as leaders of a particular community. they change places travelling from changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201–219 209 belarus to israel or from the united states to russia and vice versa. another example is ordinary members of the chabad or lithuanian communities residing in belarus or russia with or without israeli citizenship, who stay for some months with their relatives in israel, the united states, take religious courses or go on holidays abroad. the orthodox jews define themselves as “returning to the jewish tradition” (baalei teshuva), rather than citizens of specific states. this distinguishes their transnational religious identity from the conventional concept implying that adjustment begins in the host country with the previously acquired religious values, beliefs and practices transforming and being retransmitted to the countries of origin. by contrast, the assimilation of the new patterns started in russia and belarus with their refusal to identify themselves with the ideological, socio-cultural context of the country of their socialization. and here it is perfectly relevant to talk about the three contexts of such a “starting point”: the soviet context of “refuseniks”, who sought to leave the country and were denied visas (1); the entropic context of timelessness and chaos of the “perestroika era”, in which the only life-saving straw was the jewishness of one’s mother or father (2); and the modern context of the islet of jewish observance in the situation of the post-christian cultural majority (3). returning to the tradition and becoming observant meant becoming aware of the discontinuity in one’s family and country. most of the respondents have gone a long way to form their model of observance. the pursuit has implied migrating, studying at various jewish institutions, attending religious seminars and educational camps, meeting different teachers and rabbis. as a result, the transnational pattern of observance in post-soviet jews involves the model they confronted at the very beginning of their journey, the model they learned in overseas educational institutions or through incoming envoys and rabbis in the country of residence, and the model of balance between the required and possible in the modern post-christian and postatheist environment. i found that in the biographical narratives of different age groups one of the three models prevails. respondent h. was born in tashkent, 1960, into a non-religious jewish family of a military servant, graduated from the institute of technology in leningrad, migrated to israel, became a rabbi, and returned to st. petersburg to start a school, which formed the lithuanian community: how did i start observing? well, i wanted to get acquainted with the jewish tradition, because there was only the entry in the passport we knew of. yet to go and learn was not possible in those days. the viable option was to join the jewish underground community, which wasn’t at all easy. they were adamant. we had one “otkaznik”/“refusenik” (the person, who wasn’t granted the permission to migrate) at our factory. he was an intelligent person with an engineering degree, who worked as a mechanic, which was considered lucky. do you know about the jewish “refusenik” movement? no? i’ll fill you in. in short, when jews applied for the permit to migrate and were refused, the soviet government stripped them of their social status and canceled their distinctions. they became outcasts in the country where they were born and grew up, fell into the position of “declassed https://changing-sp.com/ 210 elena a. ostrovskaya elements”. are you familiar with this expression? it referred to any kind of deviants, such as drunks, parasites, criminals. so, the waiver of an exit visa placed a man in the “underclass”. their life didn’t stop, though. they needed to provide for their families and teach their children. most “refuseniks” worked at gas boiler rooms, became watchmen, attendants. most of them had a degree, were the intellectual avant-garde of the time. the “renegade” status meant that they were dead for the state. anyway, you need to read about that. as to your question, i addressed this “refusenik” at the plant saying: “mark, i want to learn hebrew, can you help?” he gave me a phone number and told me to mention his name. i wanted to study hebrew, not yiddish. i thought yiddish was irrelevant to the jewish identity. our motto said israel-zionism-hebrew. israel was perceived as our only hope. what else does a man have when he is cut off from the tradition? there’s a country out there where you can be a jew, live in peace, study, work, have children, develop (...) i didn’t think of religion then. i was not a “refusenik”, i could not apply at the time, they did not accept applications. i joined the hebrew group, it was called the ulpan, which is aramaic for “the place for education”. i didn’t know it then. there i began to learn hebrew. it was nothing serious, a place for the youth to hang out. mark’s sister was there too. she offered me to study the torah, which she said was “really dangerous”. i agreed and got interested. she introduced me to a man, one of the few in the city who did religious texts. mr. g. worked as a watchman at a construction site, although he was also an engineer. now i realize that g. had just started to read the torah, but it was deep in comparison with other groups in the city. and so, i joined them. i gradually became interested in judaism. it was inevitable. when you immerse in these texts and study complex issues, you take obligations to adhere. after all, it is not solely academic. you begin to observe, like, stop eating non-kosher, then observe the sabbath, abandon some habits. many of my friends did the same. what happened next? in ‘86 we went on a mountain hike, g. went with us. once, during a break, we began to discuss our future. most of us thought that the invincible soviet government would crush us. the most resentful of us might be released. no one could think of its fall. foreigners would come and speak of perestroika. we wouldn’t listen: it didn’t make any difference to us. our future seemed bleak (...) in a year they started to summon the most notorious refuseniks and offer them to leave. wow, we were excited! the first stage went smoothly, but we feared that the soviet government would drop it. no one knew it was about to fall. g. was called on, and he left. someone had to take up his classes. g. asked me to do it. at that time, i was observing. obviously, it was necessary to quit the job, because it was difficult to do both. g. quit and so did i. he left in january ‘87, and in february ‘88 they began to take applications (...) i applied for a visa and got it in june–july. i had six months to prepare for the move. i took my time and left in december. as soon as i arrived, i entered yeshiva to study. it was a special yeshiva for jews from the ussr. then there were several such yeshivas. i was almost 30 at the time. i thought i would study for a year, and then go to work as an engineer because in israel it is even easier to get an engineering position than in changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201–219 211 russia. but i studied further. first, i studied, then i got married, then i was offered to come here and open a religious school. the foundation sent me here in ‘91 and i opened a school, which lasted for 17 years. i was its headmaster. after the first three years, i was going to leave, but it turned out otherwise. the foundation agreed to a compromise: i continue my studies in israel and come here for a while. as a matter of fact, then i got rabbi’s semicha12. the funding was cut, and the school had to close leaving behind a community of former students and new people. i will support it while i can”. another two biographical narratives belong to respondents born in the late 1960s and early 1970s. in younger years, they lived through the post-soviet chaos of perestroika and religious revival. respondent h., the rabbi of the district synagogue of st. petersburg, was born into a leningrad non-religious jewish family, 1966, studied in st. petersburg, and remained in russia to build an observing chabad community. h. has stated that his dedication resulted from his mother’s instructions. he has highlighted the cluster between his original ideas about observance and the pattern of “religious remittances” circulated at that time by chabad envoys arriving in st. petersburg. he communicated with russian observing families, studied in a yeshiva in moscow, and helped to build a chabad synagogue in moscow, which brought him to stay and return to st. petersburg for the sake of a yeshiva: when i was 10, i had a friend, he was not a jew, but with a jewish surname. my mother once said to me: “(...) you know what? you and him need to be circumcised? – what? – circumcised? – what is circumcision? i’ve heard of it”. mom: “that’s how we do it. jews are circumcised. – why haven’t i then? – well, when you were born, your grandpa wanted, and i refused. – how come you said no? – in the war they figured us out by circumcision”. i was confused then, but started to think of having it. it was the end of ‘89, hanukkah. i also thought of leaving for israel. i started to convince mom, because i couldn’t leave her behind. i begged, but she didn’t want. she gave in in six months. we changed the money. 330-odd dollars was it. rubles to dollars. we got packed. i went to the synagogue at the time. there i asked one friend: “when i come to israel, say, and want to study in a yeshiva, will they take me?” he said, “well, of course, they will. but why go to israel when we have an m. k. yeshiva here in the synagogue”. well, i came to the synagogue and found this m. k. i told him i wanted a circumcision. he pointed at the man standing next to him. i was back from a rehearsal with a guitar. and he says, “let’s go”. i was taken aback, asking, “where to?” – “well, you wanted to have the circumcision? – yes, well, i’m not ready. we have a concert in a couple of days. – do you want to get circumcised or not? – i do. well, come, then”. i did want to. then came the first shabbat i observed. on the last day of hanukkah i was at the concert in c. c. kirov. m. k. organized it. so, i was slowly getting 12 semicha (semikah) is the traditional rabbinical degree conferred by orthodox rabbis. https://changing-sp.com/ 212 elena a. ostrovskaya into it. on the day of the circumcision, i came home. mom asked, “did you get circumcised? – how did you know? – it’s the way you walk, i can tell”. i had a lie-in for two weeks thinking i did the hardest part. what was next? shabbat, kashrut (...) as for migration, it was quite a story. there were two chabad chassids i communicated with. i had some classes with m. k. in the morning we would come to the synagogue and study. in the afternoon, david abramovich would bring some pie, in the evening we had borscht, that’s all we ate. on saturdays, we went to the sabbath. but then it stopped. m. started a school and wanted to close the yeshiva. we lost touch with m. k. at some point. i was very, as you say, young and hot-tempered. it was all black and white for me. he was building the first school in the synagogue. now it is on dobrolyubova str. he expected us to help along. i asked him, “will you do prayers there?” – “no, not there. it is not about religion”. he wanted a non-religious school. i hoped for a religious teacher then, but he wanted a jewish school. i told him i didn’t see the point. “you do not see the point? oh well, then you are not going to help me”. – “fine. i will not be helping you”. at that time, he was already baffled by the school, did not go to the yeshiva. there was another thing with smoking. i wanted to ban women from smoking. don’t know why it bothered me then. i asked my friend to make a poster of a woman with a cigarette wearing trousers, all black and red. i hung it on the wall for everyone to see. the rabbi’s wife was a smoker. she didn’t wear trousers, but she liked to think she could if she wished to. when she saw the poster, she asked me, “i can’t smoke then, can i? – no, you can’t. – you can’t come here then”. so, there i was with no place to have the shabbat. i was alone in the synagogue; there was nothing to eat. david abramovich invited me, and i went to see him on the sabbath [...] soon i was finally ready to leave, but i had to fulfill the formalities. once i spoke to one observing friend about my plans, and he suggested asking the rebbe. well, how would i do it? we called the rebbe’s secretary and he referred us to the local council of the chabad rabbi. there was no such thing in st. petersburg. i went to moscow to berel lazar. i told him that i wanted to leave, to be repatriated, while i couldn’t leave or take my nephew with me. he says to me, “what are you going to do in israel? – i’m going to study in a yeshiva – are you sure? you will have to earn to make a living. your mother is retired. what will you live on?” i said i would let an apartment. he said, “you will hardly be able to study. you have to decide for yourself. i think you should stay”. i thought carefully about his words. i didn’t want to give up on my nephew. then again, there was no point in leaving if i had to work there. in the end, i dropped this idea. but i wanted to learn and called berel lazar. he summoned me to moscow. i went there to study, worked in the community, built a synagogue there, yeshiva. then i married (...) then i came here to do yeshiva. i’ve been doing it since 1992. the similar idea of conflicting transnational patterns of religious values and practices within the same community of jews returning to the tradition can be traced in most narratives. here is another narrative by respondent m., a rabbi in minsk, born changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201–219 213 into a non-religious jewish family in mogilev, 1969, who studied in st. petersburg and then migrated to israel. he also mentions a non-religious reason for returning to the tradition; conflicting patterns of judaism renaissance in russia in the 1990s; final stages of integration into the tradition in israel: i got to st. pete in a very bad year, when all the students were taken to the army. and, frankly, i don’t remember much of the first year. but then, when i left the army, i met e. (...) i’d always been interested in jewry. by the way, there was this i. d. in st. pete. you are not familiar with this name, are you? i’ll tell you. he did research into judaism. he founded the jewish university of st. petersburg (spbp). well, let’s just say i love him very much. in fact, i did my first sabbaths with him. before i. d. met e., i attended some of his lectures. well, i was interested in something jewish. when perestroika started, they opened up some libraries. you could borrow some books there. i saw an ad for this dvorkin university. got interested. i went to see it. it wasn’t a university then, it was more of a club with all sorts of lectures, hebrew classes. you see, it wasn’t really academic. there was an interesting guest speaker, we would go and listen to him. well, i did another two years in st. petersburg like this. i would come round now and then later. i mean. it was right not to go there more often. you see, judaism is a lifestyle. see, it’s a way of life. and dvorkin’s university was about teaching sacred texts to everyone, jews and not jews. i am against academic judaism. in my opinion, it doesn’t make sense to study religious texts from a non-religious point of view. for a historian it’s ok. i. d. thought that it was possible to study religious texts with no intention to bring people closer to religion (...) e. taught me different things. he came to peter in ‘89 to open a school. he started looking for jews who might be interested. he went to dvorkin’s university and dragged me with a couple of others out of it. he rented an apartment where we celebrated the shabbat. he studied there with us in-between his trips. he found a man to take care of us when he was away. he left money for us to spend on the shabbat. i remember it was spacious there. we boiled potatoes, bought salmon. that was a pretty decent sabbath, even in the absence of kashrut. vegetables, some fruit. we sat there geeking out, talking smart. and the apartment was near the palace square. we would come to i. d. sometimes, to one of these ilya’s meetings. ilya was a very peculiar man. i didn’t see him for a long time afterwards. then he came to kiev, where i worked and lived with my family. i invited him to the sabbath. his first words were “you should know i’m against keruva13. i teach people, but never persuade. e. had told us once that we should bring non-observing people to the god, and if it takes to persuade, then be it. so, it is none of d’s business, whether his students become observant. it is for them to decide. we do not agree on this. we give them a hand when they are falling (…)” what happened then? i didn’t get my degree and went to israel with my parents. i didn’t think twice. everyone went, and so did i. in 1991 we thought it was our heaven on earth. we weren’t right. on 13 keruva (lit. ‘to draw closer’ or ‘in-rich’) is a concept of jewish outreach, which is directed at jews who have ‘gone astray’, or who have been born jewish in a non-observant family. https://changing-sp.com/ 214 elena a. ostrovskaya the third day i went to a yeshiva. then started a course at machon lev. i married. i was 25 at the time, mind. i studied at kollel, worked for ash-a-torah, an american foundation for observing americans. they opened a russian department with an interesting man at whelm. ash-a-torah has grown into an empire, and he was one of those few who started it. he had a ukrainian background and chose to work with russian jews. he comes from a canadian wealthy respectable family. ash-a-torah claimed that judaism is smart, so they educated a lot. i used to be a madrich14 at their seminars. they raised a lot of money for the kiev branch. i went to kiev. my family came and went back. i would go to see them. the affiliate ran out of money. no clue. raising money is difficult. i can’t do it. i know some wealthy people, but i can’t ask them. judaism teaches that theory is better than practice. i’ve learnt that i got some things totally wrong. i had a dream once to build an ideal community in kiev. it was a utopia. i see it now. there was this belarus project. i joined it. two biographical narratives of the 1980 respondents reveal new approaches to the issues of the “exodus”, conflicting transnational patterns, life strategy. respondent i., born into a non-religious jewish family, 1981, a former long-term mashgiah15 of the lithuanian synagogue, contributed to the revival of minsk observing community, repatriated to israel. according to him, he has been “emerging into jewry and observing jewry” since he was 13. his ethno-religious self-consciousness was formed gradually, first, with the help of his parents, then, through closer observance of the tradition, through the reflection on the conflict patterns of religious practices: (...) until i got into a jewish sunday school in ‘94, i knew nothing. before his trip to israel, my dad went to learn hebrew for a couple of months. at some jewish concert, he met his teacher, who had just opened a sunday school for children. she said, “bring your son, there’re children of his age. he’ll like it there”. i was almost 13 years old. so, i did. the school was organized by the israeli cultural center. it wasn’t religious at all. they did some minimum for hebrew on the then computers with floppy disks. there i learnt the alphabet. they taught us basic things about jewish holidays. i enjoyed it, though. i went there every sunday for several months. i didn’t have classes on sundays at school. why not go then? the sunday school enrolled children for summer camping. went to the camp, then another one. there i learnt that they had opened the second synagogue with classes for children on fridays. first, children thought of it as a sunday school rather than a synagogue. it was some sort of entertainment for them. i spent there 23 years (...) the chabad and lithuanian synagogues did not like each other, although they cooperated to deal with common problems. the chabad community built the one and only mikvah at that time. the mikvah in the second synagogue was not completed. visiting the “alien” 14 a leader or teacher in israeli youth groups. 15 a supervisor authorized to inspect meat stores, bakeries, public kitchens, and commissaries to ensure adherence to orthodox jewish ritual cleanliness. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201–219 215 mikvah was not approved by the rabbi, so he suggested going to moscow. then the husband of my wife’s teacher stepped in. he taught at the newly opened boarding school karlin-stolin hasidim in pinsk. he called the rabbi and suggested a reasonable jewish approach, saying that anybody can go to a kosher mikvah regardless of politics. as it turned out later, the rabbi of the second synagogue was reluctant to take us out of fear to cause a conflict. anyway, thanks to pinsk this case was settled (...) respondent v., 1979, st. petersburg, graduated from the lithuanian school for girls, distanced from and returned to the community with the subsequent migration to israel. in her narrative, she emphasizes that the idea to move from a regular school to a jewish school belonged to her mother and grandmother. however, her decision to move to a religious school for girls in the lithuanian community had provoked protests from the family. she finished this religious school, but then rejected the tradition and went into it later: when i finished the 7th grade, my mother and my grandmother took me to sokhnut summer camp, where you come in the morning and leave in the evening. in this camp, i learned about a non-religious jewish school yerushalayim. we didn’t mean to migrate. we already had 3 invitations from israel in our closet. my mom didn’t want all that, she would say, “st. pete is our home”. anyway, this school was fun, because it was so non-soviet. academically it was no good, though. i decided to get out of there. my girlfriend left, and i was sad. i was 13 years old, when an adult called and asked for me. they asked me if i wanted to study at their religious school. i think the jewish agency probably learnt the phone number through sokhnut. an all-girls school sounded great. and i told my mom and grandma that we would go for an interview the next day. we did and they took me. i learnt it later on august 29th when they called and asked for my documents. it was a big fight at home. my family changed their mind and thought […] still my documents were handed in and i spent my last 3 years of school there. the schools for boys and girls were in different buildings. the first year was good. i philosophized, even tried to observe. i didn’t get the point and felt bad about it. it felt like a burden. and all the time felt that i lump stone rests and presses. by the 10th grade, i had quit. not that i was really observing, just did a little of something. in the 10th grade, i dropped the idea and decided that i was cosmopolitan and not associated with any religion in the world. i finished school and entered the academy of film and television. i liked the name. my only interest then was rock music. i walked for 4 hours a day with headphones on, all alone. when i graduated from the academy, all my romance ended, i got lost, i did not understand who i was, i did not understand what to do (...) suddenly it was over, studies were over. i had to look for a job, and there was none. when i found a job, i still didn’t know what to do with myself. i quit that job, worked as a personal assistant. gave it up again. then i met a younger sister of one of my classmates who invited me to a religious camp. i refused. but she was https://changing-sp.com/ 216 elena a. ostrovskaya so persuasive. she pressed me, and i agreed. but i never came back. one girl called me for the sabbath, but i didn’t show up. but then god did something to me. during the class, i decided not to come another time. i went to a rock club one saturday night. after the concert, i ran into a girl from the community in the doorway. i said, “what are you doing here on saturday?—well, i made it the last minute. had to stand in the back”. i thought, “hmm. there are normal people in this community. i need to go again. that was it. it went from classes to the shabbat”. conclusion most of the respondents speak about their return to the tradition, which their parents or grandparents broke up with in soviet times. they have a different pattern for the “exodus”. the country of their primary socialization is the country of departure in the context of regular inter-country migration. it is not the country they leave and return to. they go into and come out of the tradition, which they were fully exposed to as adults, having had some awareness as younger people. as a result, when they chose to stay, the country they were citizens of became their host country. the generation of the 1950s and early 1960s took “refuseniks” as their first role model on the way to the tradition. they went underground to observe and study religious texts. they did everything by themselves under the pressure from the soviet government. the second component of their pattern was formed after their migration and exposure to religious values and practices communicated in yeshivas and colleges of israel or the united states. their pattern was finalized when they returned to the country, which they had left. this time they came as rabbis, envoys, experts on the tradition, teachers, volunteers relevant to the russian and belarusian community. interestingly, the voluntary decision to observe at the start of the pattern was made in the context of prohibition and ideological pressure. with regard to religious practices, we can speak of the subjective dimension here. the decision was made in the hope for migration, without any deep understanding of the ideological implications of the observance of religious texts. the generation born in the late 1960s and early 1970s worked their way into the tradition at the time of judaism renaissance in russia and belarus. on the other hand, the total ideological and socio-cultural entropy offered a paradoxical combination of diverse opportunities and the lack of clear-cut patterns. in terms of religious observance, this meant studying, working and living in a country with established religious centers, or staying and coping with this chaos of various projects for religious jewry revival. those who stayed learnt different patterns of religious transfers from chabad envoys, litvak rabbis, or self-taught individuals. when they left for israel or joined the community later, they were faced with the inconsistencies in the two patterns. most interviewees referred to the concept of “ideal jewry” conflicting with the requirements of the community. the third feature in their pattern is the post-atheist, post-christian environment they had to operate in. this environment was vulnerable. there were hardly any changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 201–219 217 stable elements in the community. even those who had lived and observed in russia and belarus for years did not totally reject the idea of migration. serious immersion in the tradition, compliance with the jewish family and jewish home concepts, religious education and upbringing for children are hardly manageable in russian and belarusian modernity. the most common option in both countries is forced migration to israel for the sake of better schooling and more open lifestyle. respondents of the 1980s reveal the third transnational identity pattern. this pattern is not fully completed. most of them have experienced voluntary deep immersion into the tradition as teenagers, as well as a period of doubt and conflict. as a rule, they were exposed to the tradition in jewish religious schools, where they learnt to observe in the post-christian majority, non-jewish sociocultural environment. this made the first component of their pattern. going through the stage of distancing and doubts, they tried different models of observance or patterns with no ethno-religious affiliation. comparative analysis of the st. petersburg and minsk interviews has shown that the second component of the pattern was activated by some events. for women, this event was the marriage to an observant jew, followed by their further joint in-depth study of values and practices. in the male narratives, there was a variety of options, such as a religious school, migration to israel to study in a yeshiva or kolel, frequent visits to the country of departure, imprisonment or fatal diseases of close relatives and friends. it is crucial that with the 1980s generation, the first component of the “exodus” was formed in the early stages of socialization through jewish self-awareness and family-run ethnic identity. in most interviews, both in st. petersburg and in minsk, the initiators were the parents, who would offer their 13-year-old son or 12-year-old daughter to go to a jewish holiday camp or jewish sunday school. in some cases, parents, especially jewish mothers, chose for a son or daughter to study in a jewish secondary school. however, this choice resulted from mothers’ desire for better education with no awareness of the possible ideological consequences for their son/ daughter. thus, the first component of the pattern for this generation meant reflection on the jewish identity. later, the respondents would make their own choice in favor of religious education and even observance. the second component of the 1980s pattern made a revised version of “religious remittances” typical of st. petersburg and minsk respondents, who had to compare multiple and partly conflicting religious patterns in their socio-cultural environment. outside jewish religious schools, they often examined the chabad and lithuanian patterns to make their own choice. interestingly, some of those who started as litvaks and went to israel to study in a yeshiva would return and distance or join the chabad community. for the generation of the 1980s, returning to the tradition implied achieving a balance of the religious and secular lifestyles. the respondents of this generation could choose belief or disbelief, secular schools or religious ones, observant jewry or non-observant jewry. they established their identity, they took obligations to comply, their lives were bound up with their communities, then they abandoned their communities, and came back with a migration plan. https://changing-sp.com/ 218 elena a. ostrovskaya references carnes, t., & yang, f. 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(2008). transnational religious connections. sociology of religion, 69(2), 209–232. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/69.2.209 https://changing-sp.com/ https://ccis.ucsd.edu/_files/wp48.pdf https://ccis.ucsd.edu/_files/wp48.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2003.tb00160.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00227.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2011.01600.x https://doi.org/10.21557/ssc.48032573 https://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2020-38-2-263-292 https://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2020-38-2-263-292 http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/4164/ https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/69.2.209 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 690–694 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.158 book review orwellian doublespeak: dialogicality and the english language thomas beavitt, institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia the english writer george orwell is often credited with uncannily accurate prophetic powers, so much so that the adjective “orwellian” may (ironically) refer to that predicted dystopian future through which we are presently living (mckenna, 2019). various terms drawn from orwell’s novel “1984”—including “big brother”, “thought police”, “two minutes hate”, “room 101”, “memory hole”, “newspeak”, “doublethink”, “unperson” and “thoughtcrime”—have also entered the popular lexicon. but perhaps the most striking illustration of the political tendency to abuse language appears in the incongruous fictitious slogan war is peace. slavery is freedom. ignorance is strength. in his famous 1946 essay politics and the english language (orwell, 1946), which has since become a “required text” (pinsker, 1997) in the essay canon (bloom, 1999), orwell asserts that “all issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia”. to his list of contemporaneous terms that suffer from political “abuse”1, he adduces the term “science”. it is interesting to consider what orwell would have made of the common present-day usage of this word that employs the definite article (“the science”), often prefaced with imperative verbs such as “trust”, “listen to” or “believe in”2, to imply something that is established as beyond appropriate criticism. in a previous work, we examined the extent to which english functions as an “interlingua” to facilitate scientific communication, as well as some senses in which it can be criticised as promoting linguistic imperialism (popova & beavitt, 2017). in subsequent works, we considered three sociological aspects of the phenomenon of science (popova et al., 2018) and discussed usages of the english article system from the perspective of russian scientific 1 “ fascist”, “democracy”, “socialism”, “ freedom”, “patriotic”, “realistic”, “justice”, “class”, “ totalitarian”, “science”, “progressive”, “reactionary”, “bourgeois”, “equality” 2 google ngram search, retrieved 27-09-2011 received 30 september 2021 © 2021 thomas beavitt accepted 16 december 2021 tommy@globalvillagebard.org published online 30 december 2021 https://changing-sp.com/ https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=trust+the+science%2cbelieve+in+the+science%2clisten+to+the+science&year_start=1946&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 690–694 691 communication, which is increasingly conducted in the english language (beavitt & popova, 2020) indefiniteand definite articles in english. while existing pedagogical approaches are successfully used to teach near-native competency in the use of english articles, the final stage of native-equivalent competency continues to evade even advanced esl/eap students, especially those whose first language (e.g., russian). while some of these usages appear to be both rhetorical and covert, we also drew attention to the many ways in which the english article system can function to enhance the dialogicality of a text. in order to validate or reject the ironic usage of the term “orwellian” as applied in the context of contemporary english language scientific communication, the following research question arises: are we currently living in an orwellian dystopia? if so, what role does language—in particular, the english language—play in how this dystopia is unfolding? aiming his invective at the “abuse of language” based on the erroneous belief (perhaps traceable to analytic philosophy) that “language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes”, orwell pithily observes that a man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. it is rather the same thing that is happening to the english language. it becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. (orwell, 1946) in his much-cited critique of orwell’s essay, carl freedman refers to the “seductive” implication that “compositional pedagogy can be a purely technical and ideologically neutral task”, i.e., a simple matter of “teaching the student how best to express his or her thoughts on any given topic”. for him, such an “intuitively false” assumption would rest on a “naively empiricist view of language as a wholly passive, unstructured material which can be cut, like so many yards of cloth, to fit […] any pre-given and presumably non-linguistic thought” (freedman, 1981). objecting to the “predictable” and “dreary” insertion of “whose” (e.g., “whose science?”) before every hegemonic “value word”, sanford pinsker also worries that “clear writing” has come to be seen as an “academic liability rather than as an asset”. he reports the concern raised by students that, if it is “too clear”, their writing will risk being dismissed as “under-theorised” (pinsker, 1997). why do people write? orwell seems to have a clear idea why he writes, but he does not explicitly address the problem in his essay. perhaps it is to propagandise a certain political position? in any case, for him, writing seems to have something to do with “having something to say”. maybe he even feels that good writing will have the effect of “making the world a better place”? in his 2015 orwell memorial lecture, the english theologian rowan williams discusses orwell’s now “familiar” rules for good writing: avoid “secondhand metaphors”, use short words where possible, abbreviate, use the active voice in preference to the passive, and avoid using “foreign” phrases where a common english alternative https://changing-sp.com/ 692 thomas beavitt exists (williams, 2015). according to williams, following these rules can help a writer to communicate something other than that he or she is “powerful enough to say what he or she likes”, while breaking them may constitute “ways of avoiding communication” on the part of those who “do not want to be replied to or argued with”. in particular, williams endorses orwell’s injunction against “bad or confused metaphor”, since such expressions are intended to “conceal or ignore” in order to “shrink the limits of the world to what can be dealt with in the speaker’s terms alone”. good metaphor, conversely, “presents us with something we can’t visualise” in order to increase “awareness, in unexpected ways, of what we see or sense” (williams, 2015). thus, for williams, the essential criterion concerns whether a writer’s language “invites response”. in envisaging good writing as an essentially dialogical process, involving rather than excluding the reader, williams nevertheless remarks that a writer “sometimes has to be difficult”; thus, it becomes necessary to distinguish between “necessary or salutary difficulty” and the “self-serving obfuscation” that orwell identifies as a “tool of power”. in the light of justifiable “scepticism about anything that looks like complexity for its own sake” and “feeling that it ought to be possible to say things straightforwardly” (williams, 2015), such necessary or salutary difficulty can also be seen in terms of a challenge issued to the reader to create their own synthesis. therefore, in order to write more dialogically, with the aim of including rather than excluding readers, how reliable are orwell’s “rules”? orwell’s ironic objection to the use of ready-made phrases, which “perform the important [emphasis added] service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself”, appears not to take into account that such collocations, like the words that make them up, have specific meanings in different discourse contexts. moreover, when english is used as a second language (esl), a different consideration emerges, since acquiring fluency in a language is highly dependent on the ability to memorise and appropriately turn recognisable phrases (wray, 2007). considered from a wider educational perspective, then, one possible reason for writing in a particular language might be in order to provide “authentic” material for those who set out to “learn” that language, i.e., participate in its discourses. if an l2 reader “hears the author’s voice” (a possible criterion for dialogical writing) in the form of an “internal” dialogue, they is already well on the way to l2 fluency. for esl users, the admonition against using “foreign” words and phrases also seems less applicable, since the primary aim here is to maximise one’s comprehensibility to an interlocutor, who may also be an esl user, rather than conform to some supposed autochthonous linguistic purity asserted on the part of “english”. in such cases, using words derived from e.g., latin and greek roots that may be common to a reader’s l1 and l2 may be less excluding, i.e., more dialogical. orwell’s admonition to avoid using the passive voice can also be legitimately criticised, not least since over 20 percent of orwell’s sentences in this essay are constructed in this way. although he readily admits that he commits “the very faults i am protesting against”, this does not inspire confidence in the infallibility of the rules he sets out. while usages of the passive voice have indeed tended to decline since 1946, accompanied by an increase in the use of first-person pronouns (banks, changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 690–694 693 2017), this decline is by no means terminal. besides, while writers admittedly tend to use the passive voice when they don’t want to name the actor of the verb, such concealments are not always dishonest. for example, in scientific writing, it may be more dialogical to invite a reader to participate in an attitude that “it is known…” rather than baldly state that “we (scientists) know…”. in his recent spectator review of uk labour party leader keir starmer’s blandly designated pamphlet “the road ahead” (starmer, 2021), sam leith’s criticisms were encapsulated in the title: “keir starmer’s essay is a cliché-ridden disaster” (leith, 2021). noting that we live “in an attention economy”, in which readers’ attention is at a premium, leith criticises the “quite inordinate length” of starmer’s “pieties, bromides and abstractions”, comprising “a groaning tumbril of dead metaphors trundling along the slow road to nowhere”. prodding several of these metaphors to confirm that they are indeed dead, leith channels orwell to show that these constitute examples of “writing that isn’t paying attention to what it’s saying”, i.e., excluding the reader by undervaluing his or her attention. for george trail, orwell’s rhetorical approach is based on compelling a reader’s participation, i.e., involving him or her “as an active and engaged consumer of the essay” (trail, 1995). the brief analysis presented in the present review would suggest that the author achieves this as much by creatively breaking his own rules as by obeying them. indeed, since dialogicality by no means implies agreement, it may be observed that orwell breaks his own rules as part of a strategy to achieve more active reader participation in the dialogue presented by his text. in scientific writing based on empirical research, a key function of the text is to describe the “laboratory” or experimental setup in sufficient detail to allow a reader to repeat the experiment in order to verify the results (and conclusions) for them. here, while accuracy is paramount, it makes little difference whether active (“we placed the samples in sterilised petri dishes”) or passive (“the samples were placed in sterilised petri dishes”) constructions are used. in discussions of obtained results, on the other hand, a more dialogical strategy may involve the reader using an active construction with “we” (“we can see from the data presented in the table that…”). however, if what follows from “that” is not what the reader “sees” through his or her own interpretive lens, prompting him or her to repeat the experiment under similar conditions to those earlier described, then the text will have fulfilled its dialogical purpose. in conclusion, while one encounters many ironically rhetorical usages of the term “orwellian” to refer to that predicted dystopian future through which we are presently living, such uses should not be taken “literally”. readers may experience various emotions when presented with texts that invite their dialogical participation, not all of which are necessarily experienced as “positive”. in extreme cases, dialogicality may even result in the overturning of a scientific paradigm or collapse of a political consensus. conversely, non-dialogical texts, which exclude a reader by demanding his or her a priori “agreement”, imply the eventual redundancy of the human author, to be replaced by machines spewing out incontrovertible “facts”. dear reader, if i have managed to hold your valuable attention as far as this conclusion, i trust you will “agree” that the latter would constitute a perfect example of an “orwellian dystopia”. https://changing-sp.com/ 694 thomas beavitt references banks, d. (2017). the extent to which the passive voice is used in the scientific journal article, 1985–2015. functional linguistics, 4(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/ s40554-017-0045-5 beavitt, t. a., & popova, n. g. (2020). the role of the english article system in developing dialogical context: a view from russian science. journal of language and education, 3, 52–68. https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2020.10360 bloom, l. z. (1999). the essay canon. college english, 61(4), 401. https://doi. org/10.2307/378920 freedman, c. (1981). writing, ideology, and politics: orwell’s “politics and the english language” and english composition. college english, 43(4), 327. https://doi. org/10.2307/377118 leith, s. (2021, september 23). keir starmer’s essay is a cliché-ridden disaster. the spectator. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-s-essay-is-a-clich-ridden-disaster mckenna, t. (2019). behind the black mirror: the limits of orwellian dystopia. critique, 47(2), 365–376. https://doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2019.1601887 orwell, g. (1946). politics and the english language. horizon, 13(76), 252–265. https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/ pinsker, s. (1997). musing about orwell’s “politics and the english language”—50 years later. the virginia quarterly review, 73(1). https://www.vqronline.org/essay/musing-aboutorwell%e2%80%99s-politics-and-english-language%e2%80%9450-years-later popova, n. g., & beavitt, t. a. (2017). english as a means of scientific communication: linguistic imperialism or interlingua? integration of education, 21(1), 54–70. https://doi.org/10.15507/1991-9468.086.021.201701.054-070 popova, n. g., biricheva, e. v., & beavitt, t. a. (2018). three aspects of the phenomenon of science: in search for unity among sociologists. the education and science journal, 20(9), 35–55. https://doi.org/10.17853/1994-5639-2018-9-35-55 starmer, k. (2021). the road ahead. fabian society. https://fabians.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2021/09/the-road-ahead-final_web-fri-1.pdf trail, g. y. (1995). teaching argument and the rhetoric of orwell’s “politics and the english language”. college english, 57(5), 570. https://doi.org/10.2307/378827 williams, r. (2015, november 17). war, words and reason: orwell and thomas merton on the crises of language [the orwell memorial lecture 2015]. university college london. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/programmes/theorwell-lecture-2/2015-dr-rowan-williams/ wray, a. (2007). set phrases in second language acquisition. in n. r. norrick (eds.), phraseologie [phraseology]: ein internationales handbuch der zeitgenössischen forschung [an international handbook of contemporary research] (vol. 2, pp. 870–881). de gruyter mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110190762.870 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40554-017-0045-5 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40554-017-0045-5 https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2020.10360 https://doi.org/10.2307/378920 https://doi.org/10.2307/378920 https://doi.org/10.2307/377118 https://doi.org/10.2307/377118 https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-s-essay-is-a-clich--ridden-disaster https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-s-essay-is-a-clich--ridden-disaster https://doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2019.1601887 https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/ https://www.vqronline.org/essay/musing-about-orwell%e2%80%99s-politics-and-english-language%e2%80%9450-years-later https://www.vqronline.org/essay/musing-about-orwell%e2%80%99s-politics-and-english-language%e2%80%9450-years-later https://doi.org/10.15507/1991-9468.086.021.201701.054-070 https://doi.org/10.17853/1994-5639-2018-9-35-55 https://fabians.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/the-road-ahead-final_web-fri-1.pdf https://fabians.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/the-road-ahead-final_web-fri-1.pdf https://doi.org/10.2307/378827 https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/programmes/the-orwell-lecture-2/2015-dr-rowan-williams/ https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/programmes/the-orwell-lecture-2/2015-dr-rowan-williams/ https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110190762.870 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.138 received 7 june 2021 © 2021 konstantin d. bugrov accepted 8 september 2021 k.d.bugrov@gmail.com published online 11 october 2021 article colonial revolution and liberatory war: from communist to post-colonial theory (georgy safarov, mao zedong and frantz fanon) konstantin d. bugrov institute of history and archaeology, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the article investigates the intellectual roots of the concept of colonial revolution, which goes back to the 2nd congress of the communist international, examines its importance in shaping the communist political thought and outlines its subsequent transformation in the wake of post-colonial theory. the author starts with analyzing the political ideas of georgy safarov—comintern [the communist international] theorist. he was among the most original thinkers who elaborated the concept of colonial revolution. safarov, drawing from his own experience in central asia, insisted that global capitalism is “retreating to the positions of feudalism” while operating in colonies, treating them as collective “serfs” and lacking any proper social basis save for its own enormous military force. such analogy led safarov to envisage the colonial revolution as a “plebeian” revolt and liberatory war against the inhumane and stagnant colonial order, opening the way for a noncapitalist development with certain assistance from the soviet union. similar ideas were independently formulated by mao zedong in the 1930s. he saw colonial revolution in china as a “protracted war” of liberation and listed the conditions under which victory was possible. however, the subsequent development of a former colony was seen by mao as a transitory period of “democratic dictatorship”. similar ideas of colonial revolution as a liberatory peasant war and “plebeian” movement were developed by franz fanon in the context of his own war experience in algeria. developing the idea of “plebeian”, peasant revolt and justifying the violence as the sole means of ending the rule of colonial power, fanon at the same time differed from the tradition https://changing-sp.com/ 326 konstantin d. bugrov introduction the relationship between marxism and post-colonial intellectual paradigms was scrutinized many times (moore-gilbert, 2001; wolfe, 1997). of course, marxism historically had many faces, and one of them was especially preoccupied with the colonial problematics based on the intellectual legacy of the communist international and, speaking more broadly, the communist thought. after the beginning of the first world war, the radical wing of russian socialist democracy party (bolsheviks) was consolidated around vladimir lenin in the anti-war, defeatist stance; nikolay bukharin was among the first who postulated that the military domination of developed western countries in the colonies is unable to move the colonies forward in a violent but progressive way. at the same time, lenin criticized rosa luxemburg, who thought that, besides revolutions, the era of imperialism cannot produce liberatory wars. to develop his arguments, lenin together with grigory zinoviev published socialism and war (1915/1931), where two types of just wars were defined: revolutionary wars (in respective periods of history, bourgeois states against feudal states, and proletarian states against bourgeois states) and national-liberatory wars; thus, even the war of colonial semi-feudal states against developed imperialist states could be justified: if tomorrow, morocco were to declare war on france, india on england, persia or china on russia, and so forth, those would be “just”, “defensive” wars, irrespective of who attacked first; and every socialist would sympathize with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slave-owning, predatory “great” powers. (zinoviev & lenin, 1915/1931, p. 5) it was lenin who developed “classical marxist heritage on the national and colonial question” (white, 1976, p. 173). the russian revolution of 1917 and the political success of the leninist strategy which called for an unconventional support of the 2nd comintern congress (represented by safarov, mao and the others) while describing the independent existence of former colonies. for fanon, the worst consequence of colonial rule is not permanent backwardness but psychological trauma, an inevitable result of a brutal conquest which requires therapy. the author concludes that such conceptual transformation was stimulated not merely by the disappointment in soviet and chinese economic strategies, but also in the geographical and cultural factor which made the reintegration with the former colonial powers preferable to the direct “escape” into the socialist camp. keywords colonial revolution; post-colonial studies; liberatory war; georgy safarov; mao zedong; frantz fanon changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 327 of national-liberatory movements eventually solidified the positions of such ideology and provided the basis for a political experiment, which historian terry martin called an “affirmative action empire” (martin, 2001, p. 1). the foundation of the communist international (comintern) finally formed the communist perspective on the colonial question: the key formula of the 2nd congress of the comintern (1920) was the possibility of direct transition to socialism in colonies. as grigory zinoviev, one of the leaders of the bolshevik party, stated in 1920, from the moment of the revolution in russia, “we can say that china, india, turkey, persia, armenia can and ought also to begin the struggle directly for a socialist order” (white, 1976, pp. 180–181). there were considerable disagreements regarding the political and social strategy of the colonial revolution. lenin insisted that the communist movement in colonies might rely upon the alliance with “bourgeois-democratic liberation movements”, while indian communist manabendra roy argued that support has to be reserved only for “revolutionary movements of liberation” (haithcox, 1971, p. 11). indeed, anticolonialism was a diasporic production, a revolutionary mixture of the indigenous and the cosmopolitan, of situated local knowledges combined with universal political principles, constructed through international networks of party organizations, political contacts between different revolutionary organizations, and personal contacts between activists, generating common practical information with political and intellectual influences. (young, 2003, p. 7) through the 1920s, the comintern was engulfed in disputes on different aspects of the colonial revolution, spurred by the revolutionary events of the second half of the 1920s in china. post-colonial theory is often seen as a product of disappointment in the whole socialist and revolutionary project, strengthened by the demise of planned economy both in the ussr and china. when “uncertainty reigned as to what would follow in the wake of socialism” (mueller, 2019, pp. 533–534), the attractivity of communism per se fell. communist ideas remained among the intellectual sources of post-colonial theory. the key post-colonial thinkers like gayatri spivak not just readily used marxist concepts and ideas, but also referred to lenin, thus provoking harsh critique from figures like neil lazarus and aijaz ahmad, who were attacking post-colonial agenda as a sort of post-modernist attack over “universalism, rationalism and secularism” (ahmad, 2011, p. 37), which was highly valued by classical marxism. another source of discontent is post-colonial theory’s emphasis on culture rather than economy. for instance, benita parry, inspired by leo trotsky’s ideas on “combined and uneven development”, criticized gayatri spivak and other prominent figures from the field of subaltern studies: it is now impossible to overlook a strong impulse in the contemporary postcolonial discussion to find a middle ground between the terms “domination” and “oppression”, to define colonial relationships as generically ambivalent, and https://changing-sp.com/ 328 konstantin d. bugrov to represent colonial locations as always and necessarily the site of dialogue. a tendency to privilege the cultural assimilation sought and achieved by colonial elites over popular resistance to colonial violence is both ahistorical and morally vacant in its detachment from the outrages visited on the dispossessed. (parry, 2002, p. 144) or, as some contemporary marxist critics of post-colonial agenda put it, “exploitation cannot be transformed by producing alternative representations or interpretations” (scatamburlo-d’annibale et al., 2018, p. 153). this article focuses on the history of an important concept that emerged within the vast intellectual heritage of the comintern—the concept of colonial revolution. such historical inquiry allows us not only to learn better the origins and genesis of the intellectual framework within which the colonial system was dismantled, but also to uncover some of the historical roots of the post-colonial thought, and to provide an explanation of its break with the revolutionary and communist thought as it was developed by lenin and the 2nd comintern congress. to proceed with the analysis, we must make one more important distinction between different traditions in the communist thought. we may roughly outline three key lines in which loosely understood communism influenced the theories and ideas about the colonial revolution and subsequent independent development of former colonies. the first tradition could be referred to as hegemonist and is based upon the intellectual legacy of antonio gramsci. even though gramsci himself did not pay special attention to the problem of colonial revolution (he actually saw italy in terms of colonial subjugation, as industrially developed north commanding the peasant south), his reflection on the reciprocal and complex character of political power, described within the concept of hegemony, proved to be quite valuable to describe the experience of colonial rule as well. the gramscian notion of hegemony heavily influenced post-colonial studies in asia and latin america, and, although the source of marxist influence in indian subaltern studies were edward thompson and victor kiernan, it was gramsci who emerged by the late 1980s as one of the key names of the new intellectual current (brennan, 2001, pp. 150–152). gramsci was also interpreted in non-marxist contexts, for example, in the writings of norberto bobbio. still, gramsci belongs to the communist tradition; gramscianism could be considered an intellectual apology for the inability to wrestle the power by means of revolt; rather, it gave preference to a “long march” in order to culturally overweight capitalism. by the end of the 20th century, and with the influential additions by authors like ernesto laclau and chantal mouffe, these broadly understood gramscian ideas became a dominant force in the european left. the second is the orthodox leninist thought represented by different types of the ussr-inspired communist movements across the world, especially in the intellectual production of the different wings of the ruling communist party in the ussr. being definitely sympathetic to the “wretched of the earth”, this version of communism was always ready to turn to them by its other side, namely, the cold and cynical machiavellian calculation of (economic) power. a follower of leo trotsky, changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 329 american communist ted grant stated in 1964: “the idea of leaning on the peasant masses, of the ‘revolutionary elements with nothing to lose’ and of the lumpen proletariat as a revolutionary force, superior to the ‘respectable industrial proletariat’ which has a higher standard of living, as the decisive force in the revolution, is the idea of bakunin and not of marx or trotsky” (grant, 1964). while trotskyism generally dismissed the peasant movements in colonies, its stance was paradoxically close to the intellectual positions of the official moscow, the self-proclaimed death enemy of trotskyism: an arrogant idea of superiority based on its economic strength. the psychological problems in dealing with moscow are summarized in enver hodzha’s diatribes against “khruschevites”: he was blaming the soviet leaders for their arrogant behavior and disdain for albania’s needs. the economic advice from moscow were seen by hodzha as an attempt to humiliate the underdeveloped countries: you are not exact in your planning. the hydro-power station is costing you an enormous amount and you won’t know what to do with the current. likewise, you have planned to build unnecessary factories, like those for steel, timberprocessing, paper, glass, linseed, bread, etc. does albania need all these factories? why are you building the refinery? the question of agriculture is critical, therefore reduce your investments in industry and strengthen agriculture! (hoxha, 1980, pp. 70–71) indeed, the political program of bolshevism in the 1920s shifted to the ambitious task of economic rivalry with the capitalism, which the soviet state pursued with certain, if limited, success. there communism as a science of political-economic domination risked being dissolved in the general stream of modernization theories. immanuel wallerstein remarked: “we could say that the stalinist version of the theory of stages simply changed what state represented the model: the soviet union became the model state instead of great britain. but the idea that there was a model, and that each state must follow more or less parallel routes, was epistemologically the same, notwithstanding the political difference” (stame & meldolesi, 2019). and even though former colonies were seen by red moscow with sympathy in their anti-imperialist struggle, they were treated as inferior in terms of technological and industrial development, way behind the unparalleled soviet power; the understanding of colonial revolutions was deployed to mark the difference between developed (that is, both capitalist and socialist) and undeveloped countries. the third tradition emerged from the more radical understanding of the resolutions of the 2nd comintern congress by the authors especially interested in discovering the condition under which the success of revolution in a colony would depend primarily upon the actual political and military qualifications of the revolutionary movement itself. as laclau and mouffe emphasized, the key moment in the transformation of the leninist paradigm of marxism came when it encountered the endless variety of peripheral popular movements: https://changing-sp.com/ 330 konstantin d. bugrov while implicitly retaining the notion of hegemony as a merely external alliance of classes, the new strategy conceived democracy as a common ground which was not open to exclusive absorption by any one social sector. a number of formulas—ranging from mao’s “new democracy” to togliatti’s “progressive democracy” and “national tasks of the working class”—attempted to locate themselves on a terrain that was difficult to define theoretically within marxist parameters, since the “popular” and the “democratic” were tangible realities at the level of the mass struggle but could not be ascribed to a strict class belonging […] from china to vietnam or cuba, the popular mass identity was other and broader than class identity. (laclau & mouffe, 1985, p. 62) the encounter happened exactly on the premises of the comintern, but there was a serious difference between mao and togliatti. in italy, the communist party operated as a legal force aimed at political struggle, in terms of either the leninist struggle for power or gramscian “long march” for hegemony, while in china the party was engaged in the war against the foreign occupation. this national-liberatory momentum was downplayed or even missing in both leninist and gramscian visions of marxist political philosophy, but for the colonies it was the most important part. the complex interaction of “class” and “mass” in the context of liberatory struggle was the intellectual focal point where the marxism went colonial and, subsequently, postcolonial. it was associated with the violent movements within the new communism, and typically, this intellectual current is characterized as distinctly critical towards both european socialist democracy and the soviet model of leninism. there were debates in latin america between the foquistas or guevaristas and their fewer radical opponents like vania bambirra in relation to how exactly organize a rebellion (briceno ramirez, 2016). the ideas of “urban guerilla” and other radical concepts of partisan war might be seen as by-products of this tradition. it was the tradition which frightened сarl schmitt to such an extent that he devoted a full-scope study, theory of the partisan (2007), to the attack on this tradition, which he saw as the biggest threat to the international order. indeed, it was the partisan, rather than the critically-thinking intellectual or engineering economic planner, that played key role there. the three key traditions of the communist thought developed in the 20th century were considering the revolution of disputed hegemony, economic build-up, and liberatory war. each of them had a certain impact upon the development of the colonial (and post-colonial) agenda. however, originally it was the third tradition that was dealing specifically with the problems of socialist revolution in a colony. this allows to specify the scope of the present article: it deals with the intellectual impact of the third tradition, a certain part of the larger communist (leninist) body of thought which, in its own turn, was a part of the global marxist thought. the theories of the third international were incorporated into the body of anti-colonial liberatory thought already in the 1920s when the attention of the comintern was attracted to asia and, particularly, to china. the development of this tradition was driven forward by the experience of the actual military (rather than political) struggle in the colonies, inevitably merging the concepts of liberatory revolution and liberatory war. thus, the changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 331 issue of colonial revolution—that is, the revolution in an undeveloped country under the military influence of capitalist powers, which is capable of overcoming not merely its own backwardness but also the military superiority of the metropoly—emerged as a problem of liberatory warfare. at that time, the key questions were formulated: first, how could the revolution in a colony succeed both socially (since there is no proletariat) and militarily (since capitalism is powerful)? second, how could a newly emerged state be independent and avoid succumbing to the economic power of imperialists and, so to say, deal with what michael hardt and antonio negri called “the poisoned gift of national liberation”? the body of theoretical works, political proclamations and methodological approaches developed within the comintern during the interbellum was enormous, and this is even more true in relation to anti-colonial and new communism writings of the middle of the 20th century. it is beyond the scope of the present article to cover it all. i would concentrate on three figures of greatest prominence: i start with georgy safarov, a prominent but almost forgotten figure in the bolshevik party of the 1920s who in 1921–1931 elaborated perhaps the most interesting theory of colonial revolution. then i will discuss the political concepts of protracted war developed by mao zedong. the final part of the article deals with frantz fanon and his theory of revolution in afriсa. why these figures? many soviet theorists tried to find in the comintern’s resolutions some ideas about the colonial revolution, but safarov was the first soviet author who took the colonial theory seriously, as well as the most original thinker among soviet intellectuals who discussed the subject; it was safarov who provided the detailed argumentation in support of lenin’s insights about the national-colonial question. in the 1930s, the comintern, following moscow’s political aspirations, oriented itself towards europe rather than asia and africa; and the whole colonial agenda receded into the background. still, the colonial agenda was elaborated by the chinese communists; this subsequent development of the comintern’s ideas regarding the revolution in a colony is researched through the intellectual heritage of mao zedong. after the second world war, a full-scale anti-colonial movement emerged, supported both by the ussr and the revolutionary china. this period provides plenty of figures to choose from. robert young once stressed that theoretical and political identification of post-colonial theory “goes back to the works of frantz fanon and che guevara” (young, 2003, p. 7). unfortunately, fanon’s relations with the preceding comintern and anti-colonial tradition is often overlooked; for instance, in the recent and otherwise illuminating book on fanon’s thought, frantz fanon, postcolonialism and the ethics of difference by azzedine haddour, the comintern legacy or at least lenin’s ideas are not mentioned as if there was no decades of anti-colonial thought and action in the period of the 1920s–1950s based upon the comintern resolutions and subsequent experience of liberatory wars; instead, fanon is directly compared with the “marxist orthodoxy” (haddour, 2019, pp. 160–161; salem, 2018, p. 429). the present article aims, above all, at filling this gap. thus, the three selected figures shed light on the changes which the concept of colonial revolution endured at different times and in different places. we should, however, keep in mind the general problem—the trajectory of the concept’s travel from the communist to post-colonial https://changing-sp.com/ 332 konstantin d. bugrov paradigm of thinking or, in other words, how the concept that originally developed within the third tradition of communist thought became associated with the first, gramscian tradition. of course, there were certain mutual influences between these thinkers: they all were borrowing from the intellectual legacy of lenin and the comintern, in which safarov himself played an important role and which influenced both mao and fanon. however, this article is aimed not at uncovering “intellectual genealogy” (safarov’s influence on mao, safarov and mao on fanon, etc.), but rather at investigating the similarities and differences in the deployment of concepts, originally elaborated in the period of the first world war, russian revolution of 1917 and the foundation of the comintern in 1919. such deployment occurred in different locations and under different circumstances: that is, safarov’s experience of supporting indigenous peoples in their struggle against russian colonists in central asia amidst the civil war; mao’s action in north-western china as an actual military leader fighting japanese invasion; and fanon’s experience in algeria as a leading theorist of the liberatory war against france. no doubt, safarov’s situation was peculiar, since in central asia there was in fact a revolution “from above” rather than a liberatory war; yet in a broader sense, all these cases could be seen as revolutions in colonies, which were theorized with the help of conceptual tools derived from the resolutions of the 2nd congress of the comintern. thus, the article aims to demonstrate how the very idea of revolution in a colony was developed in several important contexts, traveled through several locations, eventually becoming a foundation for the theory of liberatory war and the basis for the counter-hegemonic project of post-colonial theory. in addition, the article aims at considering the problem of relations between post-colonial theory and the communist concept of colonial revolution. therefore, the article makes a special emphasis on fanon’s wretched of the earth (1961/1963) in order to show how the development of the problems of colonial revolution, which mainly took place within the third tradition of the communist thought, was combined with the innovative psychoanalytical approach, thus putting the intellectual tools of the first (gramscian) tradition centre stage in the post-colonial agenda. safarov’s plebeian revolution georgy safarov, a prominent bolshevik since 1908 and an affiliate of vladimir lenin and grigory zinoviev, held important political positions in central asia in 1919–1921 during the years of political and military struggle in the region—he was a member of several governing bodies whose task was to put central asia under the bolsheviks’ control. in 1921, he summarized his practical experience on the theoretical level by publishing a paper entitled kolonial’naia revoliutsiia (opyt turkestana) [colonial revolution (experience of turkestan)]. the following year, he published a book under the same title where he expanded his vision of the subject. safarov’s work was successful, and he tried to solidify his reputation as an expert in colonial and national matters. in 1923, he published natsionalnyi vopros i proletariat [national question and proletariat]. in the subsequent years safarov was somewhat distracted by his participation in the changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 333 struggle for power within the bolshevik party: in 1923–1924 as a staunch supporter of grigory zinoviev, he was among the leading bolshevik theorists attacking leo trotsky. when in 1925 zinoviev became a target for the attacks from joseph stalin and nikolay bukharin, safarov again was at the forefront of the conflict. he played an important role as a member of the so-called “united opposition”, when zinoviev, trotsky and their supporters joined forces. after the defeat of the “united opposition”, he was arrested and exiled to achinsk, but in 1928 he returned to moscow and was permitted to work in the comintern. in 1930, safarov published his paper problema natsii i antiimperialisticheskie revolutsii [problem of nation and the anti-imperialist revolutions]; just as ten years before, the paper was soon followed by a larger volume expanding the key points, entitled problemy natsionalno-kolonialnoi revolutsii [problems of national-colonial revolution]. in 1934, after the murder of sergey kirov, safarov was arrested again and was imprisoned—thus effectively putting an end to his career of a political theorist—until his execution in 1942. what new ideas did safarov bring to the general understanding of colonial revolution elaborated at the 2nd congress of the comintern? he remained fiercely loyal to kautsky’s economic approach to understanding the nation and relied on kautsky’s theory for describing the present-day western nation-states as outcome of the political and economic ascent of the bourgeoisie. in the course of the bourgeoisie’s rise, it consolidated the emerging common market by means of cultural and political control, and, in doing so, disposed of the political domination of feudal elites. however, globalization undermines the basis of nation-states effectively dissolving them within the larger trans-national economic complexes; the contradiction between the global economy and the political superstructures of the nation-states leads to permanent waves of military conflicts among the leading capitalist powers (here safarov follows the analytical works of lenin and bukharin on imperialism). the bourgeoisie’s fight for national independency against the feudal empires used to be progressive, as it was paving the way for new capitalist formation, but nowadays nationalism turns out to be reactionary for reasons explained above. sooner or later, economic progress will destroy national borders, replace national languages with the sole “language of international trade”, and bring about an “american mill of nations” on a global scale. such transition is possible only after the global socialist revolution. these arguments are fully in line with the classical kautskian vision of the national question. however, speaking of colonial issues, safarov takes on a different direction. he argued that colonial rule of capitalist powers over the backward feudal countries did not undermine the basis of feudalism in colonies, but rather strengthened it. contrary to what the european socialist democracy believed colonialism did not have any developmental mission in the colonies. safarov even wrote about the “blockage of economic development of colonies by imperialism” (safarov, 1930, p. 77). although this was, again, a commonplace of leninist thought, safarov masterfully expanded this point by dwelling on his own revolutionary experience in central asia: as he observed, in the colonies, even the social groups exploited by the metropolitan country became privileged oppressors. to be an industrial worker was a privilege in central asia. thus, colonial central asia was suffering from three main types of exploitation: https://changing-sp.com/ 334 konstantin d. bugrov the native feudal elites, the foreign (namely, russian) capital, and the russian settlers who literally seized the land and water from the natives. while at home the bourgeoisie had dismissed feudalism and established formal equality of citizens before the law, in the colonies the situation was absolutely different. colonial rule is based almost solely upon the brutal force—the overwhelming technical-military strength of the imperialists. here “national inequality is simultaneously an estate, political inequality: for one, being a member of the ruling nation, has specific rights and privileges, while the others are stripped of a part of their rights or of any rights—like serfs lacking any rights under the feudal regime” (safarov, 1931, p. 16; my translation from russian—k. b.). for safarov, the settlers and colonizers cannot be the backbone of revolution in a colony, even though they represent more progressive economic orders than the natives, many of whom are still nomadic. the conclusion is clear: the colonial revolution could only be exercised by the natives, who must both eradicate their own comprador and semi-feudal elite and drive the settlers and colonizers off the land. but if there is no native working class, then what social force is capable of being revolutionary within the marxist theory of proletarian revolution? safarov was searching for an answer by reiterating the idea of “plebeian elements” referring both to lenin and to engels and striving to develop a more systematic theoretical approach. safarov laid a special emphasis on this analogy—the imperialists are “attaching” the enslaved colonies to the production of raw materials just as feudal landlords were “attaching” serfs to the land (see: safarov, 1931, p. 104), and putting them into ghettoes. in other words, capitalism, while entering the global market, “retreats to the position of feudalism” (safarov, 1931, p. 93; my translation from russian—k. b). this characteristic was apparently pejorative: the feudal system reproduced by imperialism on a global scale has nothing to do with the progress and must be demolished recklessly. the bourgeois revolution will not redeem the backward areas of the world, and the creation of “ordinary” nation-states with their respective capitalism is impossible for colonies: “what if complete hopelessness of the situation, tenfold the strength of the workers and peasants, opened us a possibility of a different transition to creation of the new prerequisites of civilization in regard to other european states?” (safarov, 1930, p. 79; my translation from russian—k. b.). thus, the revolutionary thrust of the exploited native plebeians is the only solution, for “political superstructure and culture are forming in the process of storm and onslaught of the masses not in a strict compliance with the turtle pace of economic development” (safarov, 1930, p. 78; my translation from russian—k. b.). safarov sums up: anti-imperialist struggle gives birth to a long chain of social changes, political and cultural revolutions, which form the existence of backward peoples. across all the historical leaps and “breaks of gradualness”, the clash between the “lutheran-knightish” and “plebeian-muntzerian” tendencies runs like a red thread. all these preliminary stages of revolutionary development are turning out to be in the final historical account the forms of their convergence with both changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 335 the global socialist revolution and its most important pillar—the first socialist soviet union. (safarov, 1930, p. 95; my translation from russian—k. b.) in other words, colonial revolutions, destructive and purging as they are, will open the way for the colonial nations to integrate directly into the soviet system in their own distinctive manner. of course, safarov did not openly advocate the peasant war; rather, he emphasized the role of the rising proletariat of colonies. however, his favorite analogy, which presented colonies as collective serfs, his frequent references to the “plebeian-muntzerian” movement (traceable, again, to engels’s writings on the peasant war in germany), and his calls for an immediate revolutionary thrust in the colonies were indicators of his sympathy towards the idea of a peasant uprising. the very term plebeian was borrowed by safarov from the works of karl marx and friedrich engels. obviously, marx referred to plebs in a rather ambiguous way (bourdin, 2013). in his recent work, martin breaugh outlines the european tradition of plebeian politics (strangely enough, breaugh excludes marx from the line of plebeian thinkers, while simultaneously including giambattista vico and montesquieu, and he barely mentions lenin or mao at all, let alone safarov): “it arises when people excluded from the res publica transform themselves into political subjects able to act in concert […] the plebeian experience thus confirms the existence of communalist and agoraphile political traditions throughout western political history” (breaugh, 2007/2013, p. 241). santiago castro-gomez adds that during his early years marx was moving away from an abstract, hegelian republicanism towards exactly this kind of plebeian republicanism (castro-gomez, 2018, p. 25). the very manner of describing social structures by means of roman historical analogies is in use even today (ferguson, 2019, p. 15). in turn, engels frequently spoke about “plebeian and proletarian ascetism” of thomas muntzer’s followers in the peasant war in germany: the plebeian opposition consisted of ruined burghers and the mass of townsmen without civic rights—journeymen, day labourers, and the numerous precursors of the lumpenproletariat, who existed even in the lowest stages of urban development. the lumpenproletariat is, generally speaking, a phenomenon that occurs in a more or less developed form in all the so far known phases of society. (marx & engels, 1978, p. 407) engels’s treatise played a pivotal role in making the concept of “plebeian elements” important for the marxist tradition, especially when one talked about the revolutions of the 17th–18th centuries, the period when the working class was absent from the historical scene. the mentions of “plebeian elements” or even “plebeian parties” entangled with the numerous references to the history of the french revolution are abundant in the works of bolshevik political leaders including lenin and trotsky. of course, this concept remained problematic as it was not clearly distinguished from the concept of “petty bourgeoisie”. one of soviet social historians from the 1930s, nikolay lukin, explained the exact composition of these plebeian elements: the https://changing-sp.com/ 336 konstantin d. bugrov waged workers (including seasonal workers), handicraftsmen, street traders and the lumpen-proletariat, that is, “porters, organ-grinders, jugglers, dog-shearers, beggars, etc.” (lukin, 1934, p. 113; my translation from russian—k. b). after achieving independence in the “plebeian-muntzerian” way, how could former colonies evade being dependent upon western capitalism in economic terms and secure themselves against what trotsky later called the “intervention of cheap goods”? (trotsky, 1936/1937, p. 17) safarov responds by referring to marxist classics: the proletariat will help its peasant brothers and sisters in creating a new, socialist economy. surely, such help could be provided by the victorious european or american proletariat, but safarov does not discuss such possibility; after all, that point would mean that the colonial revolution depends upon the european revolution, and that, without the european working class, any revolutionary thrust in the colonies would be futile. thus, safarov envisioned that the soviet union would assist the newly emerging peasant revolutionary countries, just as soviet russia assisted the native peoples of central asia, in the collectivization of the country and industrialization of the cities. thus, bolshevik experience of managing a socialist revolution and the subsequent socialist build-up in a colony became for safarov a pattern for all colonial countries struggling for liberation. in a peculiar way, he brought together the sympathy towards the uncompromising struggle for liberation in colonies and the sheer admiration for the ussr’s growing industrial strength. the rhetoric of violent liberation was intertwined with the vision of industrial power. as modest kolerov has recently noticed, “awareness of the technological and social backwardness of the ussr gave a touch of national liberation to the pathos of the bolsheviks” (kolerov, 2017, p. 129; my translation from russian—k. b.). it was safarov who put together a set of rather unsystematic bolshevik/comintern ideas on colonial revolution to develop a theory of anti-colonial peasant war (though it was never presented as a single theoretical construction, partly due to safarov’s passionate style of arguing). while the very concept of peasant uprising as a way to revolution in a colony was widespread among the bolshevik theorists, safarov diligently devised a suitable analogy presenting the whole revolutionary struggle in colonies as a “plebeian-muntzerian” uprising thought in terms of a peasant war against the feudal regime. safarov drew a totally different conclusion from the one made by manabendra roy, who insisted that the indian revolution was possible only due to the fact that capitalism presumably had done much to develop india’s industry, or the ideas expressed by karl radek in regard to china. he also was the first communist thinker to postulate the grave differences between the colonizers and colonized; the former, even being exploited workers, had a privileged status in a colony. another important aspect of safarov’s vision of the national-colonial revolutions was his position of an external observer. being in the middle of the revolutionary events of central asia, he nevertheless remained an emissary from moscow, and, deliberating on the chinese and indian revolutionary movement, he was still pursuing the soviet political line, that is, any revolutionary movement in the world was seen as inferior in comparison with the safety of the soviet state. from this perspective, the permanent and fierce fight in the colonies could also be seen as changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 337 a tool of providing protection for the ussr on the grounds that the imperialists being busy in colonies would not dare to attack the soviet union. however, in the mid-1930s the whole colonial agenda faded into the background in soviet marxism and in the comintern: the chinese revolution was in the stalemate, and the war in europe was approaching, so for the red moscow the very colonial powers started to be seen as desirable potential allies against the aggressive fascist bloc. in turn, it led to the disappointment in the comintern’s liberatory rhetoric, for most of the colonial world was under the domination of those very “peaceful democracies” whom the red moscow tried to approach as allies. mao’s protracted war while moscow started to pay less attention to the colonies, the struggle in colonies was going on, with china as the largest battlefield. the country nominally united by kuomintang was still suffering from the civil war as neither the military leaders nor the communist party submitted to chiang kai-shek’s rule. soon, internal tensions attracted hostile attention from abroad. since 1931, japan started to invade china, and in 1937 the war was declared openly. the communist forces led by mao zedong, who at the time strengthened his position as the leader of the communist party of china, retreated to the western regions of china in 1935. from the city of yanan, mao ruled the whole shaan–gan–ning border region (since 1936 communists and kuomintang became allies against the japanese). the period of isolation in yanan is considered to be as the most productive in mao’s political career. here, he developed his famous theory of protracted war, a great revive of the peasant war or, as carl schmitt called it, the theory of the partisan (schmitt, 1962/2007). in 1938, a series of lectures of mao zedong were published under the title on protracted war. mao was familiar with the statements of the comintern on colonial revolution and warfare, as well as with the overall leninist approach to the problem of just and unjust wars. mao’s ideas became an important step in the development of anti-colonial thought under the leninist (or the comintern) aegis, especially given the fact that by the end of the 1930s, the moscow theorists were much less interested in the anticolonial struggle than ten years before. unlike safarov, mao was not interested at all in the problem of the indigenous-settler relationships (most probably since china was not colonized by settlers either from the west or from japan), and he did not use the very term “colonial” (let alone “national-colonial”) revolution. but even if mao did not use this word, he surely elaborated the concept, producing a comprehensive analysis of colonial revolution interpreted as a liberatory war and reflecting the chinese communists’ unique experience of protracted partisan war against the kuomintang and japanese invaders. mao’s elaboration contributed greatly to the formation of a new understanding of colonial revolution (already outlined in safarov’s works) as a liberatory anti-colonial war. of course, since 1927, the primary enemy of the communists in china was kuomintang, but soon that political enemy was re-imagined as an agent of imperialists. as mao postulated already in his why is it the red political power can exist in china (1928), https://changing-sp.com/ 338 konstantin d. bugrov regime of the new warlords of the kuomintang remains a regime of the comprador class in the cities and the landlord class in the countryside; it is a regime which has capitulated to imperialism in its foreign relations and which at home has replaced the old warlords with new ones, subjecting the working class and the peasantry to an even more ruthless economic exploitation and political oppression. (mao, 1965a, p. 63) in problems of strategy in china’s revolutionary war (1936), he theorized over the laws of the revolutionary war, which could be either a “class war” or “national war”, in the specific conditions of “semi-colonial china” (mao, 1965a, pp. 179–181). in bankruptcy of the idealist concept of history (1949), mao provided a concluding description of china’s revolution as a liberatory war against the “imperialists” and their “running dogs”: in its first battle, this scientific and revolutionary new culture acquired by the chinese people defeated the northern warlords, the running dogs of imperialism; in the second, it defeated the attempts by another running dog of imperialism, chiang kai-shek, to intercept the chinese red army during its 25,000-li long march; in the third, it defeated japanese imperialism and its running dog, wang ching-wei, and in the fourth, it finally put an end to the domination of china by the united states and all other imperialist powers as well as to the rule of their running dogs, chiang kai-shek and all the other reactionaries. (mao, 1961, pp. 456–457) the fact that certain “running dogs” were at times seen as allies (as was the kuomintang during the struggle against the japanese invasion) did not affect the key ideas of mao’s military-revolutionary strategy. indeed, in his works of the late 1930s, mao examined the possibility of success in a colonial liberatory war. he followed (perhaps unintentionally) safarov in saying that imperialism rules colonies by sheer force; therefore, colonial countries cannot just develop their respective economies under the colonial yoke to a degree when they will become powerful enough to compete with the imperialists. the marxist understanding of power prevented them from considering that the spirit or enthusiasm of uprising to would outweigh the imperialists’ war machines with their technological sophistication. mao’s answer was that, even though japan was stronger in purely military terms, china was much larger and more capable to wage a war of attrition; that is why the liberation war was a “protracted war”. the key issue was to mobilize the mass of peasantry: besides employing trained armies to carry on mobile warfare, we must organize great numbers of guerrilla units among the peasants […] the chinese peasants have very great latent power; properly organized and directed, they can keep the japanese army busy twenty-four hours a day and worry it to death. it must be remembered that the war will be fought in china, that is to say, the japanese army will be entirely surrounded by the hostile chinese people. (mao, 1967, p. 10) changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 339 when the peasant mass entered the battlefield, the preponderance of china in terms of military force would be ensured. however, mao was aware that there were lots of examples when smaller countries conquered larger ones—like in the case of britain against india, or italy against ethiopia. mao made great efforts to explain how china could avoid the same fate as ethiopia or india. when italy attacked, ethiopia proved unable to defend itself, while the expectations of the imperialists’ collective attempt to prevent italy from devouring it also failed. according to mao, the situation in china was different, for it was much more developed economically and socially than india during the british conquest or ethiopia during the italian invasion. in addition, british imperialism was dynamic and rising, while japanese imperialism was declining and decaying. japan was internally weak, mao insisted, and the revolution in japan was an important factor for planning and waging the war of liberation. in speaking so, he echoed the classical approaches of the leninist theory of war. in addition, the international situation by the end of the 1930s had changed totally: the popular movements in the world today are developing on a scale and with a depth that are unprecedented. the existence of the soviet union is a particularly vital factor in present-day international politics, and the soviet union will certainly support china with the greatest enthusiasm; there was nothing like this twenty years ago. all these factors have created and are creating important conditions indispensable to china’s final victory. (mao, 1967, p. 20) thus, the three main factors made chinese victory inevitable: the strategic advantage in resources (or, simply, china was bigger); the internal weakness of japanese capitalism; and the international situation—both the existence of the soviet union and the possibility of anti-japanese coalition. among these three factors, the mobilization and unity of china’s forces was the most important one; the two others (the revolution in japan and international coalition against japan) could reduce the time and costs required for the final victory (see: mao, 1967, p. 107). importantly, mao often stressed that the war against japan would be long and disastrous: even though the final victory would inevitably be achieved, no one could expect a fast and easy victory. the process of the war of liberation here was—just as in safarov’s works—constitutive. however, in the way he envisioned the events to follow after the defeat of the imperialists, mao differed from safarov. by the end of the 1930s, mao embraced the concept of new democracy. he referred neither to lenin or stalin, nor to the comintern’s directives and resolutions (see: smirnov, 2012, p. 383). however, the intellectual roots of this concept are quite clear. in 1928, striving to support the integration of the communist party of china and kuomintang, the comintern proposed the slogan of “people’s democratic dictatorship”. it was heavily criticized by the leftist opposition within the bolshevik party, including safarov. however, the terms of “democratic dictatorship” and “sovietization” were rather vague. new https://changing-sp.com/ 340 konstantin d. bugrov democracy ought both to unite different social groups (that was what the comintern pursued under the banners of “popular fronts”) and to facilitate the accelerated development of capitalism in china. the latter resembled the older comintern politics towards chinese revolution in 1927, when moscow leaders insisted on integrating communists into the kuomintang structure, but at that time with the communist party at the helm, which was seen as the only way out of backwardness and poverty. unlike safarov’s ideas of the national-colonial revolution driving subjugated nations directly to socialism and skipping the phase of the bourgeois republic with the support from the already existing “workers’ state”, mao’s new democracy meant to serve as a specific bourgeois phase of development under control of the communist political force. apparently, the leaders of the chinese communists didn’t believe in any substantial assistance from the soviet state; so, mao prepared not for the skipping of the capitalist phase in chinese history, but for a long period of co-existence and cooperation with their political opponents as well as with the western powers. thus, maoist thought of the 1930s–1940s creatively combined two concepts: the idea of “democratic dictatorship”, which was already permanently present in the comintern’s political assessments since the late 1920s; and the idea of peasant war, which coincided with what safarov wrote about the “plebeian” movement. these key ideas were now reiterated in the light of mao’s own experience of a long peasant war, semi-partisan fighting, and prolonged isolation in yanan, giving birth to the specific concept of peasant war: “the communists’ arrangements for the peasants, and their provisions to the uprooted rural people serving the 8th route army, permitted them to inspire the peasants to see the war as a quest to restore the values of family and village life and to support the great leap from local, self-defensive insurgency to national revolutionary war” (thaxton, 2017, p. 55). most probably, these political concepts also emerged from the influence of earlier sun yat-sen’s thought on democracy (bedeski, 1977, pp. 340–341). this was a distinctly—yet recognizably marxist and, more strictly, communist—maoist concept of colonial revolution and liberatory war. even as the people’s republic of china was affected heavily by the soviet experience since the late 1940s, mao was permanently aware of the undesirable effects of direct intellectual exports from moscow. historically, it turned out that a decisive role was played by the international factor rather than by china’s own mobilization of resources, as the japanese empire was destroyed by the international coalition, though the japanese army was unable to conquer china by force, just as mao predicted. but events went a different way: in developing the strategy of the new democratic revolution, mao zedong expected the support from the usa to rebuild the economy of the new democratic state after the war. instead of lending such support, the usa openly intervened into the chinese civil war on the side of the kuomintang, providing ostensible military and financial help to chiang kai-shek. thus, real support to mao zedong was provided by the soviet union, which assisted in creating a military-revolutionary base in manchuria. (smirnov, 2009, p. 27; my translation from russian—k. b.) changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 341 the resulting changes in political attitudes strongly resembled the ideas which safarov put forward in his problems of national-colonial revolution: the soviet union started to provide massive assistance to drive the chinese economy forward1. for example, the concept of peasant war proved incompatible with the radical land politics of dekulakization, which some of the stalinist factions of the chinese party were trying to pursue (womack, 1982, pp. 135–137). in the 1945 speech entitled on coalition government, mao proclaimed: some people fail to understand why, so far from fearing capitalism, communists should advocate its development in certain given conditions. our answer is simple. the substitution of a certain degree of capitalist development for the oppression of foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism is not only an advance but an unavoidable process. it benefits the proletariat as well as the bourgeoisie, and the former perhaps more. it is not domestic capitalism but foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism which are superfluous in china today; indeed, we have too little of capitalism. (mao, 1965b, p. 283) thus, “new democracy” was rather meant to facilitate the capitalist development under the watch of the communist party. surely, mao distrusted the bourgeoisie, that is why political control had to remain in the hands of the communist party. mao retained his concept of “new democracy”, albeit in a slightly different form. he emphasized in his 1949 work, on the people’s democratic dictatorship: “who are the people? at the present stage in china, they are the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie. these classes, led by the working class and the communist party, unite to form their own state and elect their own government” (mao, 1961, pp. 417–418)2. despite the fact that certain party members thought “new democracy” to be a transitory period for a couple of decades, its conceptual apparatus still serves as a symbol of social consolidation and concord in present-day china (see: rudolph, 2021, p. 299). the idea of protracted peasant war, which had liberating, emancipatory and democratic effects by itself, was a step in the same direction as safarov’s plebeian uprising. while the final purpose, besides the national independence, was certainly economic and cultural development, the economic build-up itself was not considered to be a liberatory process; it was understood rather as a firmly controlled capitalist 1 in the 1930s, the soviet union depended on the west for technological assistance, relying upon foreign cadres, technologies and equipment. during the first five-year plan of china, the scale of the task was comparable, yet now all the foreign support came from the ussr, which alone played the same role as the united states and germany together played for soviet industrialization in the 1930s. 156 industrial objects were reconstructed or built from scratch with the soviet assistance (see: hanbing, 2010, p. 157). but while the industrial build-up was underway, the collectivization of the land was halted. 2 mao classified all political regimes in the world as different kinds of dictatorship: that is, the republics under the bourgeois dictatorship, republics under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and republics under the “joint dictatorship of several revolutionary classes”. again, he closely followed the leninist patterns in considering any republic as a dictatorship, but added to that his own specific treatment of the concept of the dictatorship of several revolutionary classes, a transitional political regime, which by the end of the 1920s was promulgated in the comintern by joseph stalin and nikolay bukharin. https://changing-sp.com/ 342 konstantin d. bugrov growth under the aegis of the triumphant communist party—a vision rather similar to lenin’s new economic policy, though in the presence of the soviet neighbor it was reshaped heavily. indeed, stalin himself considered the chinese position as a sort of an imitation of soviet russia’s new economic policy, and so did the number of influential chinese party officials; those who insisted on forced emulation of the soviet model were criticized harshly. national independence achieved by means of war rather than economic victory over backwardness was the key idea in maoism at that time. those ideas brought the maoist concept of protracted war close to what safarov envisioned, but there were two conceptual lines that differed in relation to the national bourgeoisie: while safarov believed that the colonial bourgeoisie was feudalized and had to be swept aside, mao—while using the very term “feudalism” in the same pejorative way as safarov did—drew the line between the “good” and “bad” bourgeoisie, allowing for a sort of social consolidation to support independency. of course, these distinctions remained part of the tradition stemming from the resolutions of the 2nd congress of the comintern. despite the differences, both approaches welcomed a broad social movement involving the peasantry and petty bourgeoise, both were demonstratively hostile towards “feudalism”, and both insisted upon the possibility of winning the liberatory war against the imperialists and staging a revolution even in the absence of the revolution in the west. fanon’s counter-hegemony the intellectual and political context in which franz fanon’s writings appeared was quite different, but it bore certain similarities with the experience of safarov in central asia and mao zedong in yanan. fanon’s political thought emerged in the context of the algerian war, which, in its turn, was part of the broader frame of africa’s liberation from colonial dependency. fanon most probably was familiar with the resolution of the first four congresses of the communist international (hudis, 2015, p. 79). in his arguably most influential work, the wretched of the earth, fanon described the process of colonization as brutal subjugation by sheer violence, pointing out that the settlers’ presence in colonies “was carried on by dint of a great array of bayonets and cannons” (fanon, 1961/1963, p. 36). the conquest is inevitably followed by the psychological trauma, as the new masters turn the colony into a space of delusion. the subjugation strips the colonial peoples of their history: in colonies the settlers made history, and while they drove the social progress, they faced the “torpid creatures, wasted by fevers, obsessed by ancestral customs, form an almost inorganic background for the innovating dynamism of colonial mercantilism” (fanon, 1964/1967, p. 51). for fanon, “the colonial world is a world cut in two” (fanon, 1964/1967, p. 38), and to revolt is to discover the grim truth behind the web of words so carefully woven by the imperialists: after centuries of unreality, after having wallowed in the most outlandish phantoms, at long last the native, gun in hand, stands face to face with the only forces which contend for his life—the forces of colonialism. and the youth of changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 343 a colonized country, growing up in an atmosphere of shot and fire, may well make a mock of, and does not hesitate to pour scorn upon the zombies of his ancestors, the horses with two heads, the dead who rise again, and the djinns who rush into your body while you yawn. the native discovers reality and transforms it into the pattern of his customs, into the practice of violence and into his plan for freedom […] what they demand is not the settler’s position of status, but the settler’s place. the immense majority of natives want the settler’s farm. for them, there is no question of entering into competition with the settler. they want to take his place (fanon, 1964/1967, p. 58)3. this famous justification of violence is quite similar to the formulas of the comintern thinkers and, in particular, to safarov’s vision of imperialism as a global reactionary force, which subjugates and governs colonies without any popular support, relying solely on its terrifying military strength, on dreadnoughts and airplanes. inevitably, the colonial population, for whom this brutal conquest was aggravated by the psychological trauma, might only rely on violence, according to fanon’s premises. as fanon recognized the violent liberatory war against colonialism as the only solution for colonies, he faced the same question as safarov and mao: how could a colony be victorious against such monstrous war machine? many authors considered the spirit of liberation and enthusiasm to be sufficient for a victory. for instance, kwame nkrumah in his handbook of revolutionary warfare (1969), comparing the overall strength of the imperialists with that of the independent states of africa, was optimistic: “we possess the vital ingredient necessary to win—the full and enthusiastic support of the broad masses of the african people who are determined once and for all to end all forms of foreign exploitation […] against such overwhelming strength organized on a pan-african basis, no amount of enemy forces can hope to succeed” (nkrumah, 1969, p. 23). but fanon, whose connections to marxism made him sensitive to the realistic arithmetic of power, provided much more elaborated argumentation. first, there are powerful rivals of the imperialists representing the socialist bloc, whose industrial and military strength somewhat undermines western military superiority. sebastian kaempf stresses the manichean aspects of fanon’s approach to colonialism presumably borrowed from the writings of jean-paul sartre: “it was along the lines of sartre that fanon came to see a world made up of binaries as well as dialectics, and divided into two compartmental zones: the zone of the coloniser 3 this apology of violence typically attracts students of fanon’s political philosophy; there was a debate on whether fanon unconvincingly supports violence or not. sebastian kaempf summarizes fanon’s views of violence as following: “precisely because colonialism represented a systematic and deliberate form of exploitation and dehumanization, it could only be overcome by force” (kaempf, 2009, p. 140). there is a debate on whether fanon was unconvincingly supporting the extreme violence of not, and some authors argued that “he was not, as is customarily thought, an advocate of the indiscriminate use of violence” (jinadu, 1973, p. 256). l. adele jinadu, for instance, is trying to find an inconsistency in fanon’s analysis: “what fanon probably overlooks, in effect, is the important fact that social injustice is not a defining characteristic of colonial rule. there is no logical contradiction in the notion of an ‘enlightened’ or ‘benevolent colonialism. thus, marx could, with respect to british rule in india, talk of the ‘unconscious’ benefits of colonial rule” (jinadu, 1973, p. 261). unfortunately, jinadu totally overlooks the whole tradition of leninist and maoist thought which develops marxist theory in an opposite way, and which definitely influenced fanon’s own writings. https://changing-sp.com/ 344 konstantin d. bugrov or settler and the zone of the colonised or native” (kaempf, 2009, p. 140). in fact, fanon analyzes the anti-colonial struggle in the context of confrontation between the capitalist and socialist blocs, which both stimulates violence and creates possibilities for liberation, since “all the jacqueries and desperate deeds, all those bands armed with cutlasses or axes find their nationality in the implacable struggle which opposes socialism and capitalism” (fanon, 1961/1963, p. 78). the military and diplomatic confrontation of the two blocs was seen by fanon as an important factor in the liberatory fight of colonies: when mr. khrushchev brandishes his shoe at the united nations, or thumps the table with it, there’s not a single ex-native, nor any representative of an underdeveloped country, who laughs. for what mr. khrushchev shows the colonized countries which are looking on is that he, the moujik, who moreover is the possessor of space rockets, treats these miserable capitalists in the way that they deserve”. (fanon, 1961/1963, p. 78) second, within the very colonialist camp there are forces which cannot support older, militaristic ways of control, preferring milder methods of ensuring their hegemony over former colonies. fanon’s vision of victory in a colonial revolt was different from what mao postulated. while mao expected three factors to play—that is, china’s impressive domestic resources, japan’s internal weakness, and the changing international situation—fanon believed that the victory was possible due to internal changes within the very structure of imperialism. though it conquered the colonies with a “great array of bayonets”, it cannot rely upon sheer strength anymore. surely, the confrontation of capitalism and communism creates new possibilities for colonial liberation, but the key factor is the change within the capitalist order itself. fanon even draws a historical parallel: once german nazism turned europe into a “veritable colony”, and now germany has to pay reparations. however, such payments did not prevent germany from re-integrating into the european economic system; the west was in need of economically healthy and strong germany. the same will happen to the third world: the colonies have become a market. the colonial population is a customer who is ready to buy goods; consequently, if the garrison has to be perpetually reinforced, if buying and selling slackens off, that is to say if manufactured and finished goods can no longer be exported, there is clear proof that the solution of military force must be set aside. a blind domination founded on slavery is not economically speaking worthwhile for the bourgeoisie of the mother country. the monopolistic group within this bourgeoisie does not support a government whose policy is solely that of the sword. what the factory owners and finance magnates of the mother country expect from their government is not that it should decimate the colonial peoples, but that it should safeguard with the help of economic conventions their own “legitimate interests”. thus, there exists a sort of detached complicity between capitalism and the violent forces which blaze up in colonial territory. (fanon, 1961/1963, p. 65). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 345 from here, a new strategy of imperialism emerges, replacing bayonets with compromises: “their purpose is to capture the vanguard, to turn the movement of liberation toward the right, and to disarm the people: quick, quick, let’s decolonize. decolonize the congo before it turns into another algeria” (fanon, 1961/1963, p. 70). the thrust was based upon the marginal social groups. as clyde barrow emphasizes, “fanon was the first political theorist influenced by marx to seriously revisit the problem of the lumpenproletariat after the russian and chinese revolutions” (barrow, 2020, p. 87). the weak, greedy and corrupted bourgeois elite, which emerged within the system of colonial rule, will be unable to establish strong and healthy national states (eyo & essien, 2017, p. 69). therefore, colonies will remain economically dependent producers of raw materials, or—to use safarov’s analogy— will be “attached” to particular types of raw materials just as serfs were attached to the land: “the national middle class will have nothing better to do than to take on the role of manager for western enterprise” (fanon, 1964/1967, p. 154). moreover, fanon was aware that while colonial rule by force is collapsing, the rising “middle-class bourgeoisie” of former colonies might easily provoke a period of inter-african wars (see: fanon, 1964/1967, p. 186). the african countries, now emerging as formally independent nation-states, will compete with each other, triggering the wave of militant nationalism: “if the national bourgeoisie goes into competition with the europeans, the artisans and craftsmen start a fight against non-national africans […] from nationalism we have passed to ultra-nationalism, to chauvinism, and finally to racism” (fanon, 1961/1963, p. 156). of course, imperialists will use tensions between african countries trying to increase their dependency upon former masters, especially in relation to the cultural and ethnic differences of the northern and southern parts of the continent. taking all that into account, fanon envisaged no place for the middle-class in the emerging african states: “the combined effort of the masses led by a party and of intellectuals who are highly conscious and armed with revolutionary principles ought to bar the way to this useless and harmful middle class” (fanon, 1961/1963, p. 175). that’s why he was proposing “african unity”, that is, “a principle on the basis of which it is proposed to achieve the united states of africa without passing through the middle-class chauvinistic national phase with its procession of wars and deathtolls” (fanon, 1961/1967, p. 187). as derek wright puts it, “the continentalist turned white racialisation of black identity to serve the purposes of a spurious cross-cultural unity” (wright, 1986, p. 680). the racial boundaries will become the basis for the creation of a state that will unite the whole continent—though fanon was aware of the differences between the northern and sub-saharan parts of africa, he believed that the common traumatic legacy of colonial rule will contribute to bringing different parts together. in addition, the slogan of the united states of africa surely echoed the slogan of the european socialist democracy of the early 20th century, namely, the united states of europe. this new state will be strong enough to protect itself against the sweeping economic penetration of former colonial powers. of course, that might result in a european blockade, aimed at throwing africa back to the new middle ages and starvation without the access to european technologies, capitals and engineers. the https://changing-sp.com/ 346 konstantin d. bugrov socialist alternative, though fanon was rather sympathetic towards soviet socialism, seemed inappropriate to him as well. he was skeptical towards any sort of the “great leap forward” to spur industrialization in a single country: “let’s be frank: we do not believe that the colossal effort which the underdeveloped peoples are called upon to make by their leaders will give the desired results. if conditions of work are not modified, centuries will be needed to humanize this world which has been forced down to animal level by imperial powers” (fanon, 1961/1963, p. 100). he emphasizes: there is no question of a return to nature. it is simply a very concrete question of not dragging men toward mutilation, of not imposing upon the brain rhythms which very quickly obliterate it and wreck it. the pretext of catching up must not be used to push man around, to tear him away from himself or from his privacy, to break and kill him. no, we do not want to catch up with anyone. (fanon, 1961/1963, p. 314) fanon saw colonial dependence not only as a system of subjugation, which permanently reproduces backwardness, but mostly as a psychological trauma, which means that colonial countries need no economic strategy of development but a psychological remedy. here, the contrast with the communist thought—be it safarov’s national-colonial revolution, or mao’s “new democracy”—is remarkably ostensible. conclusion in answering the question of how the colonial revolution is possible, different authors, following the resolution of the 2nd congress of the comintern, developed similar approaches. the vision of a peasant, “plebeian”, anti-feudal war along with the analysis of internal contradictions within the imperialist camp create for safarov, fanon and other authors the very possibility of victory. fanon thought that the great jacquerie of colonial people against the powerful imperialist exploiters could be won due to the three main factors: the internal changes in the very social organization of capitalism; the specific spirit of freedom that inflames the subjugated (similar to the spirit of the spanish guerillas who fought napoleon); and the confrontation of socialism and capitalism that undermines the positions of the west. this triad is similar to the three factors of victory in mao’s “protracted war” as well as to the broader intellectual framework once set by the comintern thinkers in the interbellum: the combination of factors internal for the oppressed (partisan warfare); for the oppressor (weakness of japan in mao’s writings and domestic changes in western politics in fanon’s texts); and the overall context of international relations, in which the soviet union plays a special role. colonialism was stripped of any progressive connotations and thought to be an ultimate evil perpetuating the backwardness of colonies. thus, colonial revolution was reduced to the liberatory war against colonialism, and as such it no longer depended upon the revolution in the west; it was not even an issue of the colony’s own economic development. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 347 the social-economic development which was supposed to protect former colonies from an indirect “economic intervention” after the war remained a problem for the concept of colonial revolution all the way from central asia to algeria. everything that soviet and chinese thinkers could advise was forced economic development. safarov thought that the solution was the direct economic support from the soviet state, thus effectively replacing the expectations of the european revolution with the hope for soviet assistance. mao to some extent also relied on the help from abroad; nevertheless, the key issue of “new democracy” was to use domestic capitalists to drive the economy forward under the strict control of the “democratic dictatorship”. later mao also adopted the strategy of the “great leap forward”, and even after that remained faithful to the stalinist-type planned economy. fanon’s dream of a large, united african state standing against the imperialists and reducing the chauvinist tensions resembles the visions of powerful communist states of the soviet union and china. however, he defied the idea of rapid modernization under the aegis of socialism—whether in the form of the “great leap forward” or as a reliance upon the direct soviet aid. fanon also had no trust in the native bourgeoisie. emphasizing the need for psychological change rather than for “chasing someone” technologically and economically, fanon envisioned a different path, the one which eventually led to the emergence of the post-colonial paradigm with its focus upon cultural therapy rather that liberatory action, and on subalternity rather than oppression. such interpretation of fanon’s ideas has been recently developed by ranjana khanna (khanna, 2013, pp. 134–138). arif derlik summarizes it the following way: escaping into the second world of socialism, or “de-linking” from the system, were the only options available, and neither offered a satisfactory solution of the problems faced by colonial and neo-colonial societies. the first implied escaping one kind of colonialism to be entrapped in another, but without the structural integration that came with incorporation in capitalism, which at least brought some benefits with it. the other alternative meant opting out of the system only to be isolated, while leaving the system intact. (dirlik, 2002, p. 435) the formula of “another kind of colonialism” seems to be inadequate to grasp the proper relations within the socialist camp, but those former colonies and semicolonies—for instance, vietnam or cuba—which entered the global socialist system in the 1950s surely were treated within the second tradition of orthodox leninism, in which peripheral former colonies were seen as inferior and undeveloped—the same arrogant approach which enraged enver hodzha in his encounter with the soviet leadership in moscow. regardless of the terms, the “escaping into the second world” was not a simple option to choose or reject; such “escape” demanded certain historical, political and geographical conditions. unlike the soviet and chinese cases, the wave of revolutions in africa and southern asia mostly swept over the countries under direct control of colonial empires, while the soviet union was far away, both geographically and culturally. even the victory in war left former colonies vis-à-vis powerful capitalist countries, which would be able to corrupt and indirectly control the https://changing-sp.com/ 348 konstantin d. bugrov greedy and stupid native bourgeoisie. development of the theory of colonial revolution was mainly connected with the bolshevik party, where it was also used as a part of international politics securing the safety of the soviet union, and with the chinese communist party, where it opened the way for a victorious liberatory war and national revolution. it is important that these two states had a common border and, so to say, were territorially close to each other. fanon’s rejection of accelerated economic modernization as incompatible with the essence of the colonial revolution—the great jacquerie—was not an isolated phenomenon. sanjay seth connects the emergence of post-colonial theory in india with the maoist naxalite movement in india rather than with the overall disappointment in socialism. seth argues that by the mid-1960s, a new way of thinking about revolution had arisen, one more willing to use marxism for a critique of enlightenment, than to see marxism as the culmination and fulfilment of enlightenment rationalism; and one alert to the possibility that anti-colonial nationalism and the nation-states to which it gave birth may not have been the answer of the oppressed to their subordination, but yet another form of bondage to modern european knowledge and its forms of construing politics and community. (seth, 2006, p. 603) the naxalites developed the extreme form of jacquerie but the post-colonial indian thinkers like homi bhabha substituted the maoist organization with the “denial of organizational policy”, as “ambivalence is understood as the extent of politics” (hutnyk, 2003, pp. 484–485). not striving to “catch up with anyone”, unwilling (or unable) to “escape into the second world”, post-colonial thinkers developed a specific strategy of complex relations with the former colonial powers, in which “the humiliated ones” would be able to pursue their own “counter-hegemonist” strategy. these relations were no longer determined by the sheer force of imperialists, and from that point gramscian patterns became applicable to discuss and reinterpret transitional experience (bentouhami, 2014, p. 118). as arif dirlik points out, “this new emphasis helps give voice to the victimized but, in the process of rescuing the colonized from voicelessness, also blurs the depth of the victimization colonialism visited upon its ‘objects’” (dirlik, 2002, p. 433). indeed, nowadays, postcolonial theory is criticized from the position of decolonization for reproducing the colonialist structures of modernity with its strict division of object and subject (tlostanova & mignolo, 2009, pp. 130–132). the theory of colonial revolution, which goes back to the 2nd congress of the comintern, presented colonialism as an ultimate evil, incapable of bringing any progress to its victims. colonial revolution was theorized by those communist authors of the 1920s who were inclined to find conditions under which such action could lead to a victory (safarov was the most consistent there) as a national-liberatory war against the colonial regime that not only galvanizes everything reactionary and feudal in colonies, but also operates on the basis of sheer power—dreadnoughts and airplanes, without a proper social base or consent within the colony. in addition, the possibility to move directly to socialism was provided by the existence of the soviet changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 325–354 349 union, capable to help former colonies in economic, political, and military spheres. to win the war meant to succeed in the revolution, though—most probably—the ideas of safarov and other soviet thinkers were also motivated by the desire to improve the international positions of the isolated soviet state. but with the theoretical and practical triumph of mao, the strategy of a “protracted” peasant war became globally recognized; the theory of colonial revolution as a liberatory war turned out to be the working one. both the ussr and china pursued forced economic development, striving to outperform the capitalists. but as the limits of the second world were unable to broaden endlessly, the theorists of the new revolutions in colonies strove to discover a possibility to re-enter the relations with the former colonial powers. as we saw in the case of fanon’s deliberations on europe’s possible “reparations” to undo the damage done by the colonial regime, the radical break with the ex-masters was followed by entering the relations of hegemony, based on persuasion and consent rather than violent governance by the “great array of bayonets”. these new relations were described in gramscian terms of a long-term struggle over hegemony rather than in terms of forced economic build-up in the form of stalinist industrialization or maoist “great leap forward”. to sum up, the comparison of safarov and mao with fanon shows how the theory of colonial revolution as a national-liberatory war outgrows its initial sphere of use, leading the colonial peoples from the rule of sheer violence either to spaces of socialist planned autarky or to counter-hegemonic hybridity within the globally reaching capitalism. the historical-geographical peculiarities still influence the development of postcolonial studies. today, the post-colonial thought is associated mostly with southern asia and africa, the former colonies of british and french empires, while russia and china as the former “second world” and the key locations in the early development of the theoretical approach to colonial revolution are underrepresented in this field. when post-colonial studies emerged in the 1970s, the soviet communists, who once stood at the roots of this intellectual adventure, definitely lost sensitivity towards colonial issues, as illustrated by aleksander gordon’s book on fanon (gordon, 1977). the subject of this book is the “national-liberatory struggle” rather than “colonial revolution”; the legacy of the comintern is not mentioned at all, while fanon is characterized exclusively as a “humanist”; his apology of violence is downplayed, and he is compared favorably with jean-jacque rousseau. the subsequent collapse of the ussr and severe damage to the reputation of communism changed things dramatically; on the one hand, the former soviet union is studied now among other colonial empires, and on the other hand, the former center of the “second world” became part of the “poor north”, borrowing madina tlostanova’s term. the things are different in china. recently, daniel vukovich pointed at the fact that the very post-colonial agenda in chinese academia is different from the similarly named approaches in south asia or africa: the mainland intellectual political culture (to use a phrase from said) is itself in many ways postcolonial in two fundamental senses. it is deeply concerned with “becoming-the-same” as the modern, advanced west (if not outperforming https://changing-sp.com/ 350 konstantin d. bugrov it and “winning”) and with never forgetting—via education and propaganda institutions—the era of national humiliation, that is, the era of near-colonialism, the collapse of the dynastic system, disunity and chaos, and japanese invasion […] importantly, much of the chinese new left also breaks with a major political plank in western and global political thinking: it is resolutely pro-state and seeks to retain and enhance, not cut back or avoid, state capacity. (vukovich, 2017, pp. 149, 153) there is sound critique of post-colonial paradigm from the chinese authors: it is not wrong that post-colonialism pays attention to “uncovering the secret” and “decoding” western cultural hegemony. the problem is that it unilaterally emphasizes the importance of language on decolonization of thought and addicts itself to discourse, but cares little about the social, political, and economic system and other forms of social practice. (yang & zhang, 2006, p. 293) the growth of china’s technological and economic strength and its increasing “economic colonization” across africa and eastern asia, which is yet to be considered through the lens of post-colonial theory, might become a decisive factor to re-evaluate the concepts of coloniality and dependence in the near future, so some new twists to the century-old tale of colonial revolution are to be expected. references ahmad, a. (2011). on post modernism. the marxist, 27(1), 4–38. barrow, c. w. 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(originally published in russian 1915) http://www.jstor.org/stable/40401942 https://doi.org/10.2307/2170830 https://doi.org/10.2307/2170830 http://www.jstor.org/stable/161245 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11466-006-0009-4 https://www.nodo50.org/cubasigloxxi/congreso/young_15abr03.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 364–379 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.2.180 received 14 july 2021 © 2022 polina golovátina-mora accepted 20 may 2022 polina.golovatina@ntnu.no published online 11 july 2022 article follow the river: city regeneration in tension as works of water polina golovátina-mora norwegian university of science and technology-ntnu, trondheim, norway abstract the article looks at some examples of the urban regeneration strategies and initiatives in medellín, colombia. being part of the process of regeneration of the country after the decades of the armed conflict the initiatives transform the city at least by creating the discourse that facilitates the social change in the city. the ontological proposal of feminist more-than-humanism focusing on materiality of water, particularly its rhizomatic connectivity, allows rethinking the concept of the city and its regeneration as generation of the inclusive space that provides habitat and life for anyone who wants to live in, around, through, and with the city. the revised initiatives are symbolically divided into two groups: water plans of connection-fragmentation policy and traces of water—mostly grassroots connectivity in response to the dominating power structures. they are not uniform groups and are the products/processes of tension between opposite tendencies. creative tension is works of water. water looks at limitations as at the opportunity to create the new. its regeneration is not rebut generation of the inclusive habitat that provides life for anyone who wants to live in, around, through, and with the city. keywords feminist more-than-humanism, medellín, rhizome, civil disobedience, molecular revolution the year of 2021 became the year of mass insurrection in colombia against the oppressive system of violence, racism, and classism. the level of mass consciousness, courage, and decisiveness was impressive. the processes, thoughts, ideas that were covered or suppressed for decades were revealed, the alliances got stronger. the government applied the violent dissipated strategy of https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 364–379 365 reaction to the mass protests heavily based on the doctrine by chilean politician and journalist lópez tapia (blanco, 2021). the doctrine misuses the guattari’s concept of the molecular revolution (1984), which he develops as an individual and social resistance to fetishism and reductionism imposed by capitalist system, as the implicit vitality of the society that ensures the resilience of the body under the necropolitics. guattari unfolds the concept in appraisal of the social transformation in brazil in 1982 (guattari & rolnik, 2008). the context of the contemporary social movement in colombia reconfirms the importance and productive potentiality of the analytical lenses that the article presents. the article revisits the water as a theoretical lens and discusses its applicability to understand the urban regeneration dynamics. i would like to start with looking at the materiality of water before i can unpack aquatic logic or thinking with water as an inspired in water onto-epistemology that shapes different branches of feminist more-than-humanism. water in tv series longstreet, bruce lee’s character summarized the potential of water: “be formless, shapeless, like water... now, water can flow, or creep, or drip, or crash. be water, my friend” (silliphant et al., 1971). this stance, first, indicates the possibility of acting like water, and, second, elaborates on its meaning: it emphasizes the adaptability and plasticity yet resistance of water, its dynamic and ever-changing nature yet its ability to maintain its own structure. in other words, this passage teaches that one can reach one’s goals even more surely and strongly when working together with something or someone, maybe despite but not against them. water metaphor can be developed further. its molecular structure makes it the substance that sustains life on this planet thanks to its quality of cohesion, or its bonding ability. its molecular electric asymmetry enables adaptive temperature balancing for organisms and transmission of the nutrients. roughly speaking, drinking is breathing and eating. translating the chemistry to social language, water suggests the crucial importance of asymmetry or decentralization for better understanding, of diversity for true sustainability (kagan, 2011), of deconstruction as creation (deleuze & guattari, 2005). its adaptability stresses the idea of universality of locality or situatedness, relationality principle over the principle of relativity that informs the processual thought such as feminist more-than-humanist approach (ulmer, 2017). as larger bodies of water, lakes, rivers, and oceans introduce the concept of the active, constructive, unpredictable, and diversifying diffraction in addition to rather onedimensional, linear, passive, and representational reflection (barad, 2007; van der tuin, 2014; geerts & van der tuin, 2021). while the concept of diffraction comes from optics, one can observe the phenomenon in the water bodies, both in the diffraction of the light waves and the actual water waves: the phenomenon of waves’ response to appearance or disappearance of an obstacle. the process of the creation of waves in the ocean as an ever-going process of energy movement between objects and forces is inspirational. so is the ocean’s power to shape weather, climate, landscapes miles away from the shore. https://changing-sp.com/ 366 polina golovátina-mora both the fact that life on the earth appears in water and the ability of water to transform and magnify the forms of the objects makes water a real and metaphorical laboratory. diversity of the forms of life in the water bodies and its ecosystems is an endless source and inspiration for studies in many disciplines. to sum up, water questions the instrumental and teleological—destination oriented, western imaginary and refocuses attention from the goal to the dynamism of process and relations that emerge in it. this focus brings at first sight spontaneous, but in actuality knowledge more grounded in the reality’s diversity (guattari & negri, 1990) and its intra-active performativity (barad, 2007). as a universal solvent, water dissolves and reassembles the existing structures; in the terms of the social theory, water as a theoretical framework deconstructs the imposed conventionality of the norms and reassembles them in the new more vivid manner. is water a metaphor though? fiction, speculative, experiment, and statisticsbased literature speak of the “principle of similarity” (bakhtigaraeva, 2017) in the world and compare the vein structure of the leaves with that of the river’s networks (figure 1), roots, bronchial and cardiovascular systems (bakhtigaraeva, 2017; bredinina, 2020; deleuze & guattari, 2005; pelletier & turcotte, 2000; sánchez et al., 2003; thoreau, 1854/2019). figure 1 leaf’s vein structure as the river’s network note. source: the author. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 364–379 367 biological studies (e.g., pelletier & turcotte, 2000; sánchez et al., 2003) based on the statistical similarity of such networks argue that they are most optimal for transporting nutrients. constituting 60–65% of our body and 71% of the earth’s surface, water shapes the logic of life and our thought and enables our mutual understanding and relatedness with other creatures in the planet, making us an integral part of the planetary processes instead of being outside or above them (neimanis, 2016; marzec, 2019). as thoreau (1854/2019) poetically elaborates: “no wonder that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly. the atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by it. the overhanging leaf sees here its prototype” (p. 179). thoreau (1854/2019) sees the whole world organization impregnant with the river logic; he traces it in the human vocabulary, compares bodies with frozen drops and wonders “what the human body would expand and flow out to under a more genial heaven” (p. 180). in her influential for feminist more-than-humanism theorization, barad (2003) expresses a similar idea when she explains the world as an “ongoing flow of agency through which ‘part’ of the world makes itself differentially intelligible to another ‘part’ of the world” (p. 817). the influence of water on our everyday life, bodies and minds is well documented in the myths all around the world, as well as in the contemporary world literature, plastic arts, music, media (chen et al., 2013; golovátina-mora & golovatina, 2014; jue, 2020; helmreich, 2011; strang, 2004). the co-authored volume liquid antiquity (holmes & marta, 2017), for example, develops the argument of how the thought of water defined not only the plot but also the forms of ancient art and through that at least the western contemporary art. considering this, water is not a mere participant of social, economic, political or cultural life, but it shapes the aquatic or amphibian thought itself, framework, logic of thought, intuition (roca-servat & golovátina-mora, 2020). water builds or encourages, indicated the alliances and clues to understand the course of the event. all one needs to do is look for the river and follow it. aquatic lenses an image of a woman washing dishes and clothes in the river is probably familiar to many cultures and can be often seen even nowadays. the river takes away the dirt with or without an improvised or real detergent. the long and fast river takes it miles away from a small settlement without any immediate consequences—out of sight, out of mind. as a universal solvent, water can both nourish the body when clean and poison it when contaminated. materiality of water defines rhizomatic bonding or interconnectedness of the world and reminds about it. from the perspective of processual thinking, direct cause-affect relations are always locally defined or situated and should not be perceived as universal (barad, 2007; deleuze & guattari, 2005; latour, 1996). what is universal, though, is the complexity and deterritorialization or constant deconstruction and renewal of the rhizomatic structures. https://changing-sp.com/ 368 polina golovátina-mora analyzing the networks of the gorgonian corals, sánchez et al. (2003) propose that the nature of their branching is tributary, “the product of a complex interaction between an intrinsic self-organized process and environmental effects that could vary from the physical properties of the habitat to the changing environment of the colony itself” (p. 137). these findings resonate with barad’s elaboration of the world’s “ongoing open process of mattering through which ‘mattering’ itself acquires meaning and form in the realization of different agential possibilities” (barad, 2003, p. 817). focusing on the local causal relations may explain a local spatial-temporal condition but inhibits larger understanding of things or foreseeing their further development. artificial blinding is both counterproductive and unethical as it silences the rich variety of forms of knowing, impedes the constructive creativity of this diversity, and intentionally ignores the already existing processes the structural social and ecological crisis is civilizational because it is stipulated by the dominating and excluding western patriarchal anthropo-, logocentric form of thinking. it produces an urgent need for the mindset that would be inclusive, equitable, and responsive (neimanis, 2016) and would enable honest understanding of the actual origins and consequences of the crisis. colombian sociologist fals-borda (1987) argued that without a holistic view, which connects theory with everyday practices in all their diversity and totality, it is impossible to achieve a more versatile understanding of the reality and even more impossible to actually transform it. such praxis-oriented approach, where praxis means continuous and mutually enriching-enhancing interaction of theory and practice, informs different branches of the critical thought, including postcolonial, feminist, indigenous, and more-than-humanist thought and constitutes the aquatic lenses of thinking with water. materiality of water does not offer a new paradigm as such but rather re-channels our thinking towards equity, inclusion, and plasticity. in fact, its plasticity challenges the idea of the necessity of paradigm understood as a totalizing or directing ideology. it rather offers “the prospect of an ethico-political choice of diversity” (guattari, 2015, p. 98). water calls for recognition and coheres different seemingly unrelated components—people, phenomena, events, texts or happenings—in a “unified disunity” or “fluidarity”—“a pragmatic solidarity without solidity” (guattari, 2000, p. 15), “in absolute respect of their own times” (guattari & negri, 1990, p. 120). if water offers any paradigm, it is intuitive, spontaneous and self-renewal rather than imposing, which is only possible in open free movement that is not anarchic or chaotic, but rather selfgoverning or performative (barad, 2007), liberated of the imposed order (feyerabend, 1975; thoreau, 1849/2007). the very nature of water, its materiality suggests the approach. hybrid, unifying and connecting, adaptable, at the same resilient and resistant, water becomes a central element for the development of the critical thought and an eloquent framework to contest the existing methodologies starting with their ontological principles and the ontological dimension of the relations with the otherness: waternature-society. water is a mediator, a background, and a form, epistemological (knowledge), ontological (worlds), and methodological (ways to look at it) for the social-environmental relations. aquatic logic implies emergent (somerville, 2013) changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 364–379 369 thinking in relations with the multiple others, which includes social relations, practices, and processes. it cannot be applied to analysis of something as an external method but emerges out of and in the process of analysis. it is there. it is not thinking instead or like water, but rather with it, in connection to it, recognizing that we are part of it (roca-servat & golovátina-mora, 2020, p. 15; chen et al., 2013, introduction). the city-water relations in medellín: an overview as a conceptual category, water calls for rethinking social dynamics, relations of power and politics of othering and reveals the systemic violence against any other— water itself, weather, hills, mountains, forests, animals or marginalized human groups. if we see the city as a human habitat within and in coexistence with the broader environment, it becomes clear that the city as a human-centered space cannot provide conditions for dignified human life and development without mutually enriching interaction between not only human but also between human and nonhuman, living and non-living beings. while such interaction is inevitable, it has to be conscious and cherished in order to be mutually enriching. in the heatwave of summer 2019 in london, the posters in metro reminded its visitors to carry water with them at all times. the informational materials on covid-19 in 2020 recommend washing hands regularly to avoid propagation of the disease. taken for granted and unquestioned access to water is the sign of privilege. paraphrasing cox’s statement that “theory is always for someone and some purpose” (cox, 1981, p. 128), water as a political body: it is never neutral, it is always for someone and some purpose. environmental and water justice sees water-society relations as hydro-social cycle, the on-going process of hydro-social metabolism, a social-natural process of mutual co-creation between water and society (swyngedouw, 2009). from this perspective, the meaning of water differs across groups and territories. these multiple waters challenge, deconstruct or reconfirm the existing normative system regulating water-society relations, and create the sites for emergence of the new systems through everyday practices (botero-mesa & roca-servat, 2019; boteromesa & roca-servat, 2020; roca-servat & botero-mesa, 2020) whether directly related to water or not. water in all its forms, rivers and precipitation or its absence, is the subject of constant debates in medellín, the second largest city of colombia. the medellín river and its multiple tributaries define the relief of the valley and the infrastructure of the city of medellín. shaping the landscape and so the city itself, the river medellín was rather opposed by the city than cooperated with. the city river and its multiple tributaries have been often seen as a nuisance, a monster that contests the existing social-political and economic order (golovátina-mora & mora, 2013; roca-servat & golovátina-mora, 2020). the most common solution has been to make the river, and water generally speaking, invisible by channeling it, preferably under the surface, silencing or ignoring it. stratification of the city organization defines the water landscapes, but not the relations with water. there is a common failure to connect https://changing-sp.com/ 370 polina golovátina-mora multiple waters of the city. the same district can paradoxically suffer from flooding and from the absence of the regular water supply. multiple waters define and are defined by the multiple cities within the city (figure 2). while their relations are rather asymmetrical, they do exist as parts of one metabolic process, and the strength or existence of one force or movement incites the challenge, paraphrasing vision (russo & russo, 2014). the restrictive policies are reproduced in other spheres of city organization and contributes to the further alienation of the city itself. alienation results in the regular air contamination orange alert, increasing dominance of the gated communities, restricted public space, and recurrent violence (e.g., valdés, 2017). at the same time, within last ten years urban movements, groups, and organizations that offer, employ, and appropriate ecological thinking became significantly active. ecological thinking implies environmentally conscious behavior but goes beyond it towards looking at oneself not as at a detached organism but as a part of the organism-environment-circumstances system. figure 2 image of the channeled marginalized creek and the homeless person on its bank. medellín, barrio laureles note. source: the author the urban regeneration movement sees the city as a complex system that includes nature, traffic, streets, human and non-human inhabitants. it aims at visualizing the opportunities for interaction with the urban environment for the sake of city regeneration they are part of. the discourse of the city regeneration, however, is often framed within the popular and accepted discursive lines. the articulation of the goals is repetitive and often aligned with the official national and local urban development plans: developing citizen culture, building community, creating conditions for better together living of all the inhabitants of the city including the nature. this could be the mere use changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 364–379 371 of the buzz words but also the only possible tactics of the holistic development within and with the city. being part of the country regeneration and peace process, they also create a certain discourse that facilitates more inclusive regeneration. environmentally conscious actions become an integral part of the ecological and holistic effort in the context of the recently signed peace, debates about forgiveness, inclusion of the members of farc (fuerzas armadas revolucionarias de colombia) in the political process, recognition of homosexual marriages, granting legal rights to the atrato river even if within certain limits (mount, 2017; vargas-chaves et al., 2020). progressive laws are especially impressive in a generally conservative and rather right-wing prone country, such as colombia. the weak state that became the reason of the long-lasting domestic armed conflict and violence at the same time is the possible reason for the progressive civil achievements. yet again, the weakness of the state does not guarantee the implementation of the laws. so, “strength incites challenge. challenge incites conflict” (russo & russo, 2014). tension within and in connection to these progressive forces, rather than the achievements themselves, is the works of water. its deployment in the city can be generalized in two tendencies of water in the city: water plans of connectionfragmentation policy and traces of water—mostly grassroots connectivity in response to the dominating power structures. water plans this section revises the officially accepted often private initiatives of the city regeneration by means of regeneration of the public space. quite a few of them use water or rather a river in their names. the river, however, appears rather as a memory than the actual material being; as an imitation that is easier to keep under control. the river city (ciudad del rio) is an open public place actively used for picnics, dog training, outdoor sports, skateboarding, and public artistic workshops. it is a place for crafts and arts fairs and farm markets. the remodeling of the modern art museum of antioquia, which offers its space to free talks and discussions among other events, made this area even more popular among younger and bohemian public. the area is surrounded by spectacular graffiti murals. the space was extended over the road to the river market—a more sophisticated food court that became popular soon after it was opened. it regenerated the area around turning it into an attractive both indoors and outdoors place of encounter. the park was built on the site of the demolished old steel factory. the use of the word river in the name is rather symbolic. as the web site presenting the project states: medellín prospered in the long and deep valley. like those plants that grow in the ruins demonstrating certain stubbornness and the adventurous spirit determined to find a loophole for the life to sprout. […] ciudad del río is an urban project that gave life back to an area that used to be polluted by industrial activity. where before there were only chimneys, ovens, and machines, today we see nature, color, art, and life sprout. (botero & botero villegas, 2016, ch. 3; my translation—p. g.-m.) https://changing-sp.com/ 372 polina golovátina-mora the project continued to grow and is embedded in the overall urban strategy “to enjoy the river”. the river became a metaphor for life, and urban life is conceptualized as public space and friendly atmosphere even if still stratified (golovátina-mora & mora, 2013). by its nature water inescapably corrected the discourse: organized in chapters that reflect the phases of the project, the project website shows the green past of the medellín river and its present encaged in concrete (botero & botero villegas, ch. 1). with the time public and private tendencies were getting more mixed in the space that continued demonstrating the diverse forces sprouting and interacting in it. days of the beach (días de playa) was an event that was held the first weekend of every month with the support of city administration and executed by different official and private organizations, collectives, and individuals in the city center that from the actual center of city life turned to a precarious and dangerous place with dusty buildings and polluted air. the santa elena creek that gave the name to the area suffered pollution with the further urbanization until it was perceived as a health hazard and a nuisance and put underground. days of the beach were part of the general effort of public space recovery: “a pilot project of building the city and the citizenship. we change the planning paradigm of our cities from the closed scheme towards the collaborative, open and free” (dias de playa, 2018a; my translation—p. g.-m.). the place was chosen both symbolically and strategically: “the beach avenue is a place where we can dream together to create the future of the centre and of the city”, said the slogan of the event (dias de playa, 2018b; my translation—p. g.-m.). the symbol of the event pictured a yellow round sand beach (or the sun?) framed by the blue river and green leaves of the plants. the event commemorated the river and recognized the victims of the progress and urbanization that was mirrored by the house of memory museum constructed at the end of the avenue in 2006 as part of the program of recognition of the victims by the city of medellín. its goal, according to the official web page of the museum, was to understand and resolve the armed conflict as well as different violent acts and scenarios by exercising memory in the form of open, multiple, critical and reflexive dialogues… live the cultural transformation that colombia is longing to [...] to see in order not to repeat [...] meet new hope and think other possible futures. (quienes somos, n.d.; my translation—p. g.-m.) the web page of the event day of the beach complemented its vision. it was teaching about the past, the present, and the future of the place—the river, the city, and the society. the past was telling the story of the river-city relations showing the pictures of the organized walking tours along the river. it was emphasized with the reference to the indigenous tradition that walking is an important tool of learning and knowing. the días de playa web page (dias de playa, 2018c) indicated where the remnants of the river could be found: hidden underground bridges, people, and “permanent inhabitants of the area”—the trees and animals (my translation—p. g.-m.). the page did not make the distinction between plants, constructions, and people, they were all called inhabitants. the future of the river-beach-area-city-society was part changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 364–379 373 of the initiative: fishing for dreams and ideas—a fishnet with pieces of papers where anybody can write its vision of the city. the web page revealed that some proposals made a direct reference to the river reflecting the need of being in touch with water. the final for this section example is the river park (parque del río)—“an integral strategic project for the urban transformation, transformation of the public space and mobility, which will convert the river medellín in the environmental corridor of the city as well as a public space of the city and the region” (alcaldía de medellín, 2014, p. 18; my translation—p. g.-m.). its overall goal was to “return life to the river and the river to the city and its inhabitants” (p. 2; my translation—p. g.-m.). the plan was to visually emphasize the river by making its embankments an encounter space and put the yet increasing, almost double according to the plan presentation, traffic underground. it also included the regeneration of the city hills that would contribute to this environmental corridor for all the city dwellers—humans, plants, and animals. the projection images showed happy young people playing, walking among tall trees through which you can see diffused sun light. the river, however, was not seen anywhere there. the general plan image presented trees but no actual access to water. the river remained visually separated from the human inhabitants and domesticated animals. however, the project has been developing and may overcome the formal institutional fear of the waters. by now the project has been not just an engineering exercise and construction but included educational and creative workshops, community-based activities, sport events aimed at drawing attention to the project but also at raising general awareness about the state of water in the city and establishing closer emotional relations with it. these three but not the only projects were grouped as one conflicting tendency that evidence the tension. the dominating idea, yet, is to allow creativity sprout in an organized and controlled “good clean fun” (ramis, 1993) way. traces of water traces of water symbolically bring together ecological community-based and grassroots often scattered movements and initiatives that are not directly connected to water but form the overall discourse of the holistic social transformation and like water drops eventually reach the critical mass that becomes recognized and institutionalized. the pet friendly movement is one of the examples. the number of pet friendly cafes, restaurants, and malls is growing in medellín. they do not have special playgrounds for pets but allow the pet owners enjoy the service together with their pets. there are countryside day-care services, occasionally run by trained animal psychologists, that offer training, hotel, and transportation services for pets. this service is, however, limited to dogs and cats. when the data analyzed in this paper was collected in 2017–2018, there was a strong tendency in the public discourse: the company ecopoop offered an alternative to plastic dogs’ excrement bags and process excrements to plant fertilizers, thus, “creating citizen culture for improvement of health, cooperation, and well-being of the community and the environment” (nosotros, n.d.). “with us your pet enters the natural https://changing-sp.com/ 374 polina golovátina-mora process of the cycle of life and returning to earth”, summarizes the advertisement of then local pet burying service company animal compost (despedida natural para tu mascota, n.d.). signs educating dog owners portrayed a happy but busy looking puppy with a dust pin. volunteer rescue organizations scattered all over the city, actively used social media to publish announcements for adoption, fundraising, and updates on the lost pets. the direct result of such campaigns was that pet stores in medellín stopped selling animals and restricted their offer to pet products and services. all together this created a certain civil culture, more open, sensitive, and conscious. people in the streets, although mostly in the richer neighborhoods, are more likely to stop and talk to a dog and by extension to a dog owner. the overall language both among pet owners and general public includes such words as “my pet is my family”, “pet parents”, “fluffy children”, “my love”, “my prince” or “my queen”. a few dog owners prefer to use the word perronalidad (dog’s personality) to emphasize that dogs have their own way of being and their own character as a person could have. there are still, however, very few dog parks, and the streets are not designed to walk a dog; there are almost no playgrounds for children either. these practices, often spontaneous and individual initiatives, became part of the official process of the construction of peace and overcoming violence and prepared background for the bill 1774 passed in january 2016 that recognizes the animal rights and makes the subjects of protection by penal law instead of the civil law as it was before. since then, no building or apartment owner can officially ban presence of a pet. now a popular touristic destination—salento, quindío—a little town that used to be the armed conflict zone territory, embodies this process: plants, land, people, dogs, cats that roam freely the town streets and are taken care of collectively, altogether form an alliance of peace reconstruction. “united with social meaning”, says every street sign of the town. usage of the recycled materials in the craftworks and designs together with the campaigns for recycling and garbage processing, second hand and clothing swaps, anti-disposable utensils and face masks movement raise awareness of the overuse of plastic and disposable materials in our everyday life. the institutionalized policies work hand in hand with grassroots initiatives and new business opportunities. there is a strong movement towards a healthier lifestyle that also aims at increasing knowledge of the local communities, territory, agriculture, and rural areas. some examples are promotion of the organic, slow, vegetarian, and vegan food; support for small coffee and chocolate farms and the from farm to table initiatives; ecological walking tours in the city outskirts, marathons and ciclovias (cycling routes) that often extend their trajectories to the countryside and smaller towns; city gardening and compost making classes. continuous cutting down trees for construction purposes coexist with the park extension strategies. yoga studios started as hipster urbanism tendency (cowen, 2006; hubbard, 2016), yet prepare the society for inclusion of alternative practices and ways of thinking. they act as a community building centers, even though they become the centers rather for expats and colombians who lived abroad. sessions in both spanish and english are common. they organize potluck meetings, seminars, and activities to changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 364–379 375 bring people together, exchange experience and ideas and promote integral thinking. co-working areas in a form of renting office spaces and coffee place as a community building space have become within last few years a new business opportunity among designers, artists, and intellectuals in medellín. many of the above-mentioned groups and initiatives cooperate with each other based on the common values and goals. not working explicitly with water, they are the secret works of water or traces of water. limitations of these initiatives imposed by the urban segregation, differences in the access to the resources and the dominating economic model generate criticism and new spaces for discussion, merge initiatives and include new initially marginalized groups. all this slowly but steadily transforms the city towards recognition of the importance of the public space as urban regeneration that also implies greener, bluer, and more breathable city. water can be traced further towards the off grid urban, periand semiurban and rural communities contesting the dominating structures and power relations in tension and unfortunately as part of the continuous conflict (roca-servat & perdomosánchez, 2020). conclusion regeneration of multiple waterfronts in the city can create more sensibility towards water together with more-than-human inhabitants of the city, however, it can also— even if temporarily—reconfirm the oppressive system and its structure. at the same time, water reveals structural incoherencies on the molecular and intuitive level, social injustices in all its complexity and the profound nature of the problem by bringing to the surface or magnifying the oppressive structures, conditions, and practices that people are not always aware of. without this awareness, any action aimed at social and environmental change will be more difficult or even fruitless. water is present in the social discourse as a memory, nostalgia, and the public motivator. it indicates the sites for possible solutions that have always been there. social longing for water evidences the role of water as a social solvent which yet coexists with fear of water and the desire to control it. recognizing and supporting traces of water can facilitate and strengthen critical progression in the society, based on more-than-humanist justice and care. aquatic logic, as water itself, has an enormous regenerating power of self and the other in the city and beyond it. it is always the same and never the same all together. it does not work within cause-and-effect paradigm but operates with non-linear unpredictable and multidimensional affects. it does not destroy the limitations of the imposed structures but just goes over, around, through or with them to produce what better fits the momentous circumstances. it looks at limitations as at the opportunity to create the new. its regeneration is not rebut generation of the inclusive habitat that provides life for anyone who wants to live in, around, through and with the city. “in order to control myself, wrote bruce lee, i must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature” (as cited in popova, 2013). what the city of medellín, and possibly any other city, needs, is naive honesty in its relations with water. https://changing-sp.com/ 376 polina golovátina-mora references alcaldía de medellín. 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(2017). ciudades sostenibles en el posconflicto en colombia: cartagena, bogotá, medellín, bucaramanga [sustainable cities in the post-conflict in colombia: cartagena, bogotá, medellín, bucaramanga]. friedrich ebert stiftung en colombia, foro nacional ambiental. https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/ kolumbien/13432.pdf https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-5193(03)00017-1 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1936-704x.2009.00054.x https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2017.1336806 https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2014.927631 http://190.15.17.25/juridicas/downloads/juridicas17(1)_2.pdf https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/kolumbien/13432.pdf https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/kolumbien/13432.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.3.106 received 11 may 2020 © 2020 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman accepted 19 july 2020 martianov@instlaw.uran.ru published online 9 october 2020 lfishman@yandex.ru opening the debate the rise and decline of soviet morality: culture, ideology, collective practices1 victor s. martianov institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia leonid g. fishman institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia abstract in the article, it is proposed that the collapse of soviet society was presaged by a growing crisis in late soviet morality. on the periphery of late soviet morality, collective cultural practices are seen to have successfully functioned based on a limited ethics of virtue. in the absence of an alternative to soviet ideology, social regulation started to draw upon values intended for the reproduction of local communities. a growing contradiction between the limited values of the new social class/corporate entities and the need to develop universal values for a big society is currently the key ideological legitimation problem facing the russian political order. keywords soviet morality, soviet culture, homo sovieticus, big society, commonality, rental society, virtue ethics, utopia, legitimation, social regulation, heterarchy, double standards acknowledgment the work was supported by the research project “social cohesion in russia and the construction of civil identity as a way to achieve it” under the guidance of v. n. rudenko (research program “ethnic and cultural diversity of russian society and the strengthening of russian national identity”). 1 some findings described in the article were previously presented in russian in the journal novy mir (2020, no. 3). the permission to publish the article in a revised form was obtained from the editorial board of novy mir. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 373 introduction in the present article, we discuss the nature of the post-soviet moral and social order and consider why such a moral and political scenario transpired. in this context, despite having undergone significant transformations, soviet morality continues to play an important role in structuring the values that form present russian society. in critiques of contemporary russian society, negative metaphors of quasi-class stratification, neopatrimonialism and neo-feudalism are often deployed to indicate the non-modern, non-market nature of post-soviet social stratification. a deeper examination of these metaphors may support a relatively consistent elucidation of the source of values inherited from the past, along with a plausible prognostication of the evolutionary vectors of russian social morality. ultimately, the origin and transformation of the norms and values pertaining to social classes can be explained partly in terms of the unchanged expectations of the members of these classes, partly in terms of changes in these expectations. on the other hand, the neo-classist metaphor on the whole reflects aspects of the social reality of modern russia that only superficially resemble the class – or estates – structure. in any case, this form is quite distinct from the traditional forms of social stratification, if only in terms of the normative content it structures. indeed, while already in the ussr it was possible to speak of quasi-classes – since these structures could, if desired, reveal intra-class values, norms, codes of honour, etc. – contemporary quasi-classifications resemble them only from the point of view of the administrative hierarchy. thus, this social stratification can be seen as a purely pragmatic construct, aimed at justifying the existing public resource distribution hierarchy. since intra-class values can be found only in the higher, governing classes, periodical attempts to formulate codes of honour, e.g. codes of ethics for officials etc., can be witnessed in the so-constructed universum. while, from the perspective of the hierarchical distribution of resources, the rest of the political elites may be treated as dependent classes, they do not consider themselves to be bound by class codes of honour, but instead can be seen to subscribe to the apparently popular versions of nationalism and patriotism. from a moral point of view, a neoclassist society presents a depressing picture in which, in being openly reduced to the rights of the strong, social relations are simultaneously stripped of their romantic veneer. this represents a version of an atomised society in which the formation of social groups having a distinct collective identity and morality is prevented by the will of the authorities or the repayment of loans acting as a universal regulator of behaviour (see: dragunsky, 2019). however, no society or its morality can be objectively described in exclusively negative terms, i.e. in terms of what is not there. thus, since no society is hell on earth, the same norms and values do not necessarily generate rogue or unmeritorious institutions and practices. from this follows a basis for possible hope. in the present article, we analyse the cultural and ideological formation process of high, universal soviet morality, leading to the construction of the communist personality along with the destruction of previous class-based values, barriers and practices. in so doing, https://changing-sp.com/ 374 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman we see that the high moral goals set out during the implementation of the soviet project were only partially achieved as a consequence of many cultural-historical and ontological obstacles encountered along the way. these transformations of soviet morality, largely taking place as a consequence of the internal evolutionary logic of the soviet project, resulted in a kind of moral bear market, in which the utopian goals of the communists gradually came to be devalued by the new values of the consumer society. thus, already by the late soviet period, the value systems of private and corporate interests had begun to contrast themselves more actively with official morality and public interests, clandestinely preparing the cultural ground for the transition to a new social state. homo sovieticus: crafty slave or victim of deceit? today we are witnessing the gradual loss of the soviet idea as an independent value through its transformation into symbolic material for present struggles, in which the validity of the soviet experience is either asserted or denied. due to the politics of memory, completely opposing ideological perspectives of view on the soviet phenomenon are legitimised: on the one hand, standing for repressive totalitarianism; on the other, representing the avant-garde of humanity, by which means the global understanding of the situation of the working classes was transformed, resulting in the development of a welfare state in all modern societies. accordingly, subjects of such retrospective value constructions place their soviet personal, family and group experiences in fundamentally opposing ideological containers without interference or hesitation, marking all contradictions and objections as insignificant exceptions to this experience. however, the much more subtle, complex, historically variable and contradictory value structures actually existing at all cultural levels and in all communities during soviet times is not reducible to the official hierarchy of higher values. consequently, it is not justified to reduce the historical phenomenon of the soviet project or the value motivation of various social groups within it to ideological caricatures; even less so, to interpret this experience in terms of deviations from the universal path of human development as described by mainstream contemporary economic and political discourses. it is generally understood that a sharp moral transformation occurred within soviet society during the late 1980s and early 1990s. in any case, it seemed so due to the suddenness of the transition; as alexei yurchak laconically put it, “everything was forever, until it was no more” (yurchak, 2014). although the transition can hardly be said to have occurred easily, it is not necessarily the case that the social catastrophe was accompanied by a moral catastrophe. even if they did not find their market niche from the outset, the majority of people did not generally have to make a huge effort to get over themselves in order to adapt to a new way of life. of course, this does not imply that all citizens at once rushed to join the mafia and kill each other; on the other hand, they turned out to be surprisingly tolerant of those who did do this. while such behaviour was not condoned in terms of morality, neither did it necessarily provoke an outspoken rejection; at times, excuses were even made for it. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 375 on the other hand, from the point of view of officially declared values, the difference between the soviet before and the post-soviet now appeared significant. a similar consideration arises when considering relations between people in everyday life: during the 1990s, many suddenly realised that in terms of human relations, soviet life had been quite tolerable. there had been more trust, warmth, mutual assistance, etc. – and where had all this gone? to the last question, domestic and foreign social scientists gave two main answers, in equal measure ideological and crudely one-dimensional. the first was that soviet people themselves were irredeemably duplicitous and hypocritical. advocates of this point of view were not shy to express themselves; for them, soviet society comprised a colony of three hundred million slaves for which there were neither moral values, nor religious – only propaganda and ideology constructed on lies and hypocrisy (see: panfilov, 2016). as a. yurchak notes, in emphasising the categories of universal duplicity, lies, bribery, denunciation and immorality as basic principles in the relations of soviet people with the system and each other, the authors construct a new binary model in which the lies and immorality of the “socialist subject” are opposed to the integrity and honesty of some other, unnamed, “normal” subject (obviously a liberal subject) (see yurchak, 2014, p. 44). in other words, in order to account for what grew out of it, it is necessary only to note that the soviet moral climate was already sufficiently permeated by evil. thus, homo sovieticus can be conveniently described in negative categories: in the first place, he lacks a sense of his own self-worth, which is either substituted either with pusillanimity or arrogance. in yielding to totalitarian oppression, the soviet people said one thing on the record, but another in private; they swore public allegiance to various values and ideals, while in their hearts they nurtured something quite different. thus, it was clear that, with the advent of freedom, these slothful servants of the regime quickly showed their true faces and behaved accordingly; the majority of them turning out to be philistine, greedy and self-serving, with only a minority turning out to be simultaneously civilised and liberal. however, such explanations were based on rather simplistic ideas about soviet realities and human behaviour. in addition, retrospective ideologisation must be taken into account: recalling their lives in soviet times, those whose standpoint is distanced by hindsight tend to be unreliable eyewitnesses, instead ascribing to their past selves the views and motives of the present (see yurchak, 2005, pp. 42–43). in other words, the present-day critics of soviet society did not necessarily perceive their contemporaneous soviet reality as a totally immoral hell in which they were forced to hide their true faces. indeed, we can assume that it was exactly this binary narrative featuring dissembling slothful servants that was accepted after the fact, when it was necessary to explain and justify how morally decent people seemingly left to their own devices (i.e. not under compulsion), arranged at first wild capitalism with criminal revolution, followed by an atomised society characterised by a low level of interpersonal and institutional trust. the starting point of the discussion consists in the thesis that, if soviet society had consisted of decent and worthy people, then it could not have reached such a moral nadir in terms of everyday (and political) https://changing-sp.com/ 376 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman life. for this type of detractor, the after-fact of evil always and only grows out of evil. thus, it was only natural for them to convince themselves that the society to which they had given the best years of their lives was never morally sound, being comprised of individuals and collectives that to some extent resembled moral freaks – with the exception, of course, of the few critics themselves, who were either at that time not like all the others, or else came to see the light later, belatedly realising all the immorality of their former existence. the second simplistic response was based on the idea of a single value model, which formed the moral basis of the overwhelming majority of soviet people, as well as the idea of a highly moral and highly cultured society, which, with the beginning of reforms, was subjected to forced degradation. the reformers lowered the threshold of society’s sensitivity to social pathology. since the 1990s, public immoralism has begun to spread in the country; there has been a looting of the state accompanied by a total erosion of culture and morality (see: simonyan, 2011). and, if moral degradation has not yet swept all before it, this is only because it encounters the resistance of traditional russian values, which found support and substantial development in the soviet period of history (see: rutkevich, 1998, p. 9). or, as sergei g. kara-murza wrote, since the end of the 1980s, russia has been carrying out a comprehensive and well-developed relativisation programme, followed by the dismantlement of moral standards and prohibitions and the introduction of radically amoral values (see: kara-murza, 2005, p. 546). from this, it followed that soviet people with high moral virtues had been cynically deceived. appealing to their moral feelings, as well as partly to ideologies, malefactors from the foreign and domestic elites were able to connect high moral ideals and ideas about a worthy life with an anti-soviet project, i.e. capitalism. by the time they realised their mistake, it was too late. this answer already looked somewhat more plausible, since it was based on the well-known facts of the manipulation of public consciousness in the era of perestroika and yeltsin’s reforms. nevertheless, it remains difficult to believe that, through manipulation alone, it was possible to turn black into white, to seduce people of a highly moral and highly cultured society, forcing them to exercise comparative tolerance with respect to the moral realities of the great criminal revolution. after all, as abraham lincoln said, you cannot fool all the people all the time. and, most importantly, why did this period become a moral disaster only for a relatively small number of alarmists, while the majority survived it with relative sanguinity? it is not difficult to notice that, despite all the differences, both of these answers proceed from the observed fact that, during the 1990s, a sharp transition took place from a society that had some moral and cultural values to one having completely different values. both answers are aimed at trying to explain the high speed of this transition, described in terms of a genuine collapse in moral values. but was it really like that? having reason to doubt the above answers, we propose to outline the main features of a third. of course, this alternative response cannot be considered exhaustive either; however, we hope that it avoids the gross oversimplification and limitations of the two already mentioned. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 377 a soviet upbringing… based on non-soviet models? we will proceed from the fact that soviet morality was not based on a single basic value model. at a minimum, it consisted of two-tiers; that is, like the morality of every big society, it consisted of universal principles combined with virtue ethics. the highest universal principles of soviet morality were determined by communist ideology, which in many respects was the continuation of a wider, progressivehumanistic worldview having its roots in liberalism. looking retrospectively at the evolution of the highest values of the soviet political project, we can confidently say that it was based on the desire to actualise universal left utopias, intended not only for citizens of the ussr, but also for the rest of the world. this utopian ideological programme included the following elements: emancipation of working people from the rule of the bourgeois minority; the dismantlement of the estate structure in favour of civil equality; the expansion of social benefits addressed to the majority; egalitarianism; classical liberal ideas of the growth of opportunities for everyone and progress as a form of the unfolding of history; the value of the future; the world revolution as a catalyst for necessary social changes; and hence the original bolshevik eschatology, later to be replaced by moderate ideas of the evolutionary superiority of socialism followed by peaceful coexistence. thus, in the dynamics of its core of values, soviet society appears as a leftist late-liberal revolutionary project that takes the reasons for the failures of the european revolutions of the first wave into account, whose political and economic results were largely attributed, on behalf of the third estate, to the bourgeois elites. while the party vertical of power played a key role in the management of soviet society, the role of other authorities (the system of councils, the economic and judicial verticals, etc.) only decreased with distance from the revolution (orekhovsky, 2019, p. 32). thus, the communist party was responsible for the development, dissemination and control of the highest values that integrated soviet society across all social boundaries and inequalities. at the political level, the values of soviet society were purposefully inculcated with the help of various mechanisms of institutional implementation, functionally opening them for the majority. during the soviet period, ideological bullishness was pushed at all levels of the social system, starting with a single hierarchy of media and ending with the organisation of special forms of collectivism (party, komsomol and pioneer meetings, political literacy lessons, meetings of labour collectives, community work days, demonstrations on public holidays calendar etc.), which were formed to support and reproduce the highest soviet values. it is true that, from a certain point of view, there was no soviet social morality as such since, inasmuch as pre-revolutionary russia did not manage to achieve a moral phenomenon similar to the western model, the conditions for its formation in soviet russia were even less favourable (gudkov, 2013, pp. 125–126). adhering to a less radical point of view, some authors consider soviet morality to be an inferior form of pseudo-morality (zinoviev, 1994, p. 261), taking it as axiomatic that there should no place for ideology in the normal, which implies that morality and ideology should be kept separate (stolyar, 2010, pp. 87–88). these authors assert that it is possible to https://changing-sp.com/ 378 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman distinguish between ideological morality (or pseudo-morality) and personal morality (or actual, proper morality). here ideological morality is subsumed into ideology, interpreting what a person in a communist society should be like and urging people to follow this model. although such morality closely resembles real (personal) morality, in reality it only approximates to it to the same extent as communist ideology comprises a new form of religion (see: zinoviev, 1994, pp. 261). here we see the idea of a particular real or personal morality, which exists separately from ideology or religion. however, if such morality also exists somewhere, then this must consist in the familiar virtue ethics that is characteristic of local communities and undoubtedly forms the actual moral horizon for such authors. finally, such a distinction between true morality and soviet pseudo-morality can never be made coherently, since the authors accept the need, if not for ideology, then for something analogous (typically religion) in order for the morality of modern society to coalesce into a necessarily complete form (i.e. serving to indicate the proper placement of virtue ethics). in particular, the inconsistencies in this position arise from its advocates’ excessive zeal to distinguish between ideology and morality. as marina stolyar notes, ultimately, people were interested not in ideology itself, but in its supporting pillars – morality, philosophy, art and especially religion – that allowed soviet ideology to hold out for such a long time (see: stolyar, 2010, p. 175). she states that too often in the last decades of its existence, soviet ideology resorted to borrowing the energy of the “moral factor” for its own support. here, in accepting that in its fall, the bankrupt system pulled down everything connected with it – so that the socialist moral crisis turned into a devaluation of morality in general. she argues that the opposition of ideology and morality ended in the fall of ideology and the victory of morality; however, it was a pyrrhic victory (see: stolyar, 2010, pp. 87–88). in one sense, it can be agreed that a victory of morality really did occur following the collapse of the ussr. however, this should be seen in terms of a victory of onehalf of soviet morality over the other, rather than morality in general over ideology. in our opinion, such confusion arises from the indistinguishability of universal morality and virtue ethics. to avoid this kind of confusion and inconsistency, we proceed from the realisation that the urge to distinguish between ideology and morality is not as productive as it might once have seemed. in the societies of modernity, ideologies have long played a similar moral role to that formerly performed by religions; indeed, they are often with some justice referred to as civil religions (fishman, 2014). therefore, we see no reason not to accord such a full value to soviet morality. we consider that other major component of soviet morality, virtue ethics, to focus on the values of commitment to the local, collective community, i.e. they do not claim universality and do not refer to the transcendent in any form, whether that be religious, ideological or ethical. this explains both the inevitability of virtue ethics and their limitations. although clearly unsuitable for integrating individuals into a complex big society, virtue ethics are indispensable for creating the ties characteristic of a small community, without which the functioning of most social institutions remains unthinkable. however, being left to its own devices, a virtue ethics approach is equally (un)suitable for the communist party and the christian changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 379 church, as well as for the gang, the mafia, or any of the other communities of friends fighting for a place under the sun that may arise during the crises that periodically afflict big societies. during the turning point of the 1990s, when the universal principles of soviet morality crashed, ethics of virtue, suitable for various purposes including any social system, survived and remained popular. it was this that made the criminal revolution acceptable to the majority. secondly, it should be borne in mind that the soviet project entailed elevating man through culture, proceeding from the fact that it has historically been the case that the poor are poor and the rich are rich, but this must be done away with. the rich must be punished, while the poor must be accustomed to the idea that their poverty will be replaced not with coveted wealth, but by high leisure (see: cantor, 2011, p. 211). as evidenced by numerous artistic experiments that completely denied the pre-revolutionary achievements of russian culture, soviet culture began with a promise to give the people a kind of new heaven on a new earth. however, over time, radical cultural experiments gave way to a more realistic strategy of mastering the cultural heritage of mankind, which turned out to be valuable for the cause of communism. according to konstantin bogdanov, the arguments of lenin and trotsky about the world revolution, which justified the herostratic attitudes of the cultural elite of the twenties, already looked like an anachronism by the mid-thirties. by the mid-1930s, futurological utopias as represented in literature and art became balanced and gradually replaced by historical retrospection, designed to present the present as a logical outcome of previous history, which, over its entire course, “dialectically” prepared the ground for the flourishing of stalin’s rule (see: bogdanov, 2009, pp. 107–108). as a result, the area of historical dynamics of soviet morality that interests us has always been heterogeneous enough to allow (and even welcome) a number of ethical, personal and broadly cultural patterns that are not directly related to communist ideology, but borrowed from the area of universal human values. objectively, a major role was played by attempts to integrate pre-revolutionary cultural achievements into the soviet cultural hierarchy, including folklore (fairy tale, myth), as well as the ancient heroic epic and other elements borrowed from noble or bourgeois culture, not to mention science and technology. the success of the soviet moral and cultural project depended both on the degree of subordination of communist morality to virtue ethics, as well as on the integration of previous neoclassical and on other cultural paradigms. when this connection turned out to be strong, the values of virtue ethics began to glow with the reflected light of the universal moral values of the communist project – or, in its broader interpretation, the values of humanism, progress, beauty, goodness and truth. although these values were kept in their place, in reality, their carriers tended to overestimate them, considering them to be self-sufficient. conversely, to the extent that the connection between communist morality and virtue ethics turned out to be weak and formal, soviet morality and culture acquired a deep resemblance to other cultures – either bourgeois, or noble (in its heroic form, closest to virtue ethics), which was unable to effectively resist the criminal revolution. https://changing-sp.com/ 380 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman based on the foregoing, it is necessary to acknowledge the content of those cultural strata (primarily literature) in which virtue ethics, heroic values and bourgeois morality, being never digested, were waiting in the wings. the ethics of virtue is primarily associated with all kinds of literature that describe the acts of heroes. in the soviet context, these heroes initially consisted of prominent actors of the revolution and subsequent civil war. this can be seen as indicative of an attempt to tame the heroic problematic. thus, already by the 1920s–1930s it was being acknowledged that the cult of heroes was not in itself something fundamentally socialist. to some extent, this cult was not very desirable, since, in its orthodox historical and materialistic interpretation, marxism did not accord the same importance to the role of personality in history as bourgeois, feudal and even utopian-socialist. soviet writers emphasised that the main basis of our heroism is a correct understanding of the consciousness of class duty and, at the same time, overcoming the fear of death, which leads the hero to victory, which should be shown by us as a natural embodiment of class duty as correctly understood (see: bogdanov, 2009, p. 176). therefore, in particular, a hero of the civil war had to be a collective type of hero; although it was not necessary to pull out the hero from the mass, at the same time the mass should not be faceless. here, it was necessary to show that the heroes were driven by class duty; the hero himself had to be of a proletarian background, not a fellow traveller, etc. (ibid., p. 177). whatever else might have been the case with the characters in soviet literature, archetypes produced within the genre were insufficient on their own to form a basis for upbringing and education. thus, the country of victorious socialism could not limit itself to educating its citizens solely on the example of heroic proletarians. the reason was banal: neither world nor domestic culture had in its repertoire enough sufficiently attractive and holistic samples of a harmoniously developed personality drawn entirely from the oppressed classes. however, these samples were abundant among the ruling classes, i.e. the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, which historically had sufficient leisure time for personal self-improvement. despite russian literature becoming highly critical of the nobility from the second half of the 19th century, increasingly describing them as a decadent, parasitic class, along with the aristocracy in general, they had already established patterns of a harmoniously developed individual, including personality and patriotism. just as, at one time, such heroes were the subject of imitation by the bourgeoisie in europe, they were to also become the model for emulation by homo sovieticus. an educated nobleman of the 18th century was characterised by such as definitions as “nobleness”, “service”, “honour”. nobleness and honour were understood in terms of a person’s characteristics, the basis on which his reputation is earned. service was understood as love for the fatherland, duty and readiness for self-sacrifice. but wasn’t that also what was required from homo sovieticus? thus, there was no essential contradiction between the figure of an ideal nobleman and the ideal of patriotic soviet citizen. returning to the cultural meaning of the soviet project, we once again note that it can be seen as largely consisting in equating citizens with the nobility on a moral level. of course, this cultural transformation also implied the exclusion of all sorts of changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 381 material excesses and material inequality as a potential factor in personal and moral degradation. it is no coincidence, for example, that soviet science fiction emphasised the asceticism of the people of the future, who understand that the endless expansion of material needs is meaningless, especially when it becomes an end in itself (efremov, 1957/2020). a specific cultural problem relating to the soviet period concerned the definition of a sufficiently deserving level of needs, based on a kind of public consensus. in a certain sense, the soviet cultural and educational project comprised a project to inculcate victorious workers into a high noble culture: according to galina ivankina, many people love the ussr for the aristocracy of its culture, its literacy and breadth. for those same krapivin boys who turned out to be the refined heirs of the offspring of nobility with the same heightened sense of justice (see: ivankina, 2015). the bourgeois cultural influence on soviet people was perhaps less noticeable due to the fact that russian pre-revolutionary history did not allow the russian bourgeoisie to survive the great and heroic times. consequently, russian culture lacks a holistic, heroic or positive personality model of bourgeois culture. however, the objective needs of modernisation resulted in the need to learn from the champions of such culture, i.e. western capitalists. marxism recognised the great historical role of the bourgeoisie, which did not immediately become reactionary and corrupted. therefore, at least in the early years of soviet power, the bolsheviks did not hesitate to openly take lessons from the bourgeoisie – not only technically, but also culturally in the broad sense of the word. it was not only lenin or gorky who called for this engagement, but also other bolshevik leaders and cultural figures of a lower rank. accordingly, it was not only their material and scientific achievements that should be borrowed from the capitalists, but also those character traits that contributed to the emergence of these achievements. based on these borrowings, an extensive subculture arose to encompass those soviet social strata that participated in military-political, cultural and economic competition with the west (karacharovsky, shkaratan, yastrebov, 2015, pp. 86–87). paradoxically, in the field of upbringing and culture for bourgeois cultural discourse, things were not so bad in the ussr. many of the foreign classics available to the soviet reader contained images of bourgeois heroes, which, in the soviet interpretation, were often served as of the people. often these comprised images of heroic bourgeois – participants in revolutionary and liberation struggles (till eulenspiegel, the gadfly, heroes in the works of victor hugo, etc.). the bourgeois was attractive not only as a revolutionary, but also as an active, purposeful entrepreneur and hero of labour – and even more so, as an adventurer, a gentleman of fortune. although bourgeois economic science was condemned by soviet ideological workers for being addicted to robinsonades, fictional characters like robinson crusoe himself or those inhabiting jules verne’s “mysterious island” were represented to enthusiastic young soviet readers as heroes of labour. in authors such as balzac, we encounter bourgeois characters like gobseck, who, if not morally flawless, were at least colourful and not inferior to aristocrats in terms of the nobility and beauty of their souls. in general, the classical foreign literature of the 19th century often portrayed attractive patterns of interference of bourgeois and noble personality patterns (see: ossovskaya, 1987, https://changing-sp.com/ 382 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman pp. 427–460). in such cases, the soviet reader could recognise in the bourgeois a social type who, like himself, strove for the sublime, as well as possessing attractive complexity and depth of personality. even negative bourgeois characters like the renaissance man archetype had bright personalities, which were welcomed by the intelligent reader, their transgressions instinctively forgiven. in this connection, we cannot fail to note that all the above-described processes took place in the ussr against the background of the formation of an actual personality cult, which was initially formed in a framework bounded by ideological contingencies. however, towards to the end of the soviet era, the practice of forming a personality by imitating heroes had mostly been left behind; moreover, it was not necessarily officially sanctioned (kharkhordin, 2002, pp. 463–472). one of the characteristic symptoms of this process was a change in the teaching of literature at school, which is described as a process of liberation from the ideological standards of the interpretation of literary works. in this endeavour, more and more attention was paid to the inculcation of pure morality. as evgeny ponomarev states, more and more often teachers transfer morality to the everyday level, saving it from a loop of abstract ideologies. thus, the history of russian literature turned into a textbook of practical morality. this trend had existed before, but never taking such a complete and explicit form (see: ponomarev, 2017, p. 133). in many respects, soviet upbringing and education can be seen as having cultivated in a person either altogether bourgeois qualities or those attributable to the ethics of virtue, being independent of high communist ideals. informal late soviet cultural practices: from the renewal of communism to instrumental ethics it was not only in culture and in art that the highest form of communist morality in the soviet project was undergoing rapid historical evolution. a variety of informal movements was also making a significant contribution to a critical rethinking and consequent weakening of official morality. even more intensely, than in the small dissident groups that directly opposed the soviet political system; these movements were involved in re-evaluating official soviet morality, albeit without significant social support. although not explicitly contradicting official ideology and morality, these informal cultural movements, which aimed at inculcating children and youth with cultural values according to various alternative canons, were engaged in stress testing the highest form of soviet morality at the level of experimental cultural practices. these movements (communard youth organisations, student song clubs, travel clubs, etc.) were quite numerous. in the ussr the amateur bard song movement alone had around 5 million members. there is reason to believe that the general vectors of the moral evolution of the participants in these movements were approximately equivalent – if only because they were presented with a similar range of choices in the directions of moral evolution, arising as responses to similar challenges and determined by similar constraints. from the point of view of ideology and morality, the informal social minority hardly differed in practical terms from the majority that did not changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 383 participate in such activities. therefore, informal activities consisted in such a type of deviation from the ideological and moral norm (wider, from the norm of practical reason) that, at least in part, anticipated the moral transformation of the majority in the process of large-scale changes. the status of informal movements in soviet life remained uncertain. on the one hand, they were not illegal or oppositional in the literal sense of the word; therefore, participating in them cannot be attributed to the phenomenon of internal emigration. at various times, to a greater or lesser extent, they enjoyed the patronage of official structures. conversely, ever-changing limits to their adoption were frequently imposed by soviet officialdom. what, for example, was the source of the increase in mutual alienation between soviet officialdom and the communards and other related movements? alexander shubin explains this in terms of the contradiction between the needs of industrial society, which was satisfied by the soviet school, and the humanistic traditions of russian culture, which developed under the slogan of the formation of the diverse personality: how many workers can be churned out – but society also needs a creative personality! (see: shubin, 2008). it is difficult to give a comprehensive answer: individual fates, along with cultural, demographic, economic and other social transformations, were intertwined too closely at different stages of the history of the ussr, from which a different understanding of the essence of the social order, which was satisfied by the appearance of such movements, ensued. informal movements were the result, on the one hand, of a recognition of the formalism and insufficiency of the soviet education system, while on the other hand, they consisted in the objective result obtained within the soviet educational paradigm when attempts were made to overcome its insufficiency. the communard and related movements initially appeared in view of the need to provide a more solidly founded inculcation, a greater degree of consciousness than was objectively achieved within the framework of official education institutions. however, a greater degree of consciousness implied a significant degree of individual independence, which in many respects predetermined the logic of the evolution of the communard and related associations. regardless of the subjective wishes of their founders, these movements objectively responded to an already manifested need on the part of a significant number of individuals for a self-realisation and personal growth space, which was not being provided by officially sanctioned spaces. the principal social paradox, which became apparent at the early stage of such movements, was that ideological involvement could only be successfully achieved within the framework of smaller social groups. this was due to their being fused with a virtueor heroic ethic to a greater extent than could be achieved or afforded by the official system or indeed any big society. the key problem here was that the didactic techniques for cultivating virtues began to assume a greater significance than the twotier ethical paradigm implied. over time, it became increasingly difficult in practice to combine such inculcated virtues with the high ideals of communism and humanism. in any case, the educators themselves did not find this necessary, instead, simply paying tribute to the formalities. for such educators, what became necessary – and, most importantly, comprehensible – was the education of creative personalities, https://changing-sp.com/ 384 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman which at the same time cohered with emerging corporate structures and networks. this inevitably led to an increase in the role played by personality patterns alien to the soviet state, both in the sense of class ideology and the techniques used to cultivate them. as a result, various kinds of moral collisions arose that were not objectively inculcated in the people of the communist future, but in some others committed to instrumental values, which later came to predetermine their comparatively conflictfree entry into the era of markets and democracy. it should be admitted here that socialism comprised a largely artificial system, which could retain its specificity only under the conditions of political, ideological and moral leadership of the ruling party. socialism was impossible without the constant and relentless correction of the grey realities of everyday life by the efforts of ideology and culture, concentrated in the ideal. according to evgeny dobrenko, if we try to mentally subtract socialist realism from the picture of “socialism” – novels about enthusiasm in production, poems about joyful work, films about a happy life, songs and paintings about the wealth of the soviet country, etc. – we will have nothing left that could be called socialism itself. there will be grey everyday life, routine daily work, an unsettled and difficult existence. in other words, since such a reality can be attributed to any other economic system, nothing remains of socialism in the sediment. we can therefore conclude that socialist realism produced the symbolic values of socialism rather than the reality of socialism (see: dobrenko, 2007). consequently, the goal of communist education and the morality of lofty ideals resulting from it should have been closely intertwined from the outset with the cultivation of virtueand heroic ethics required here and now, which typically became the moral limit of the education programmes carried out within the framework of socialist institutions and collectives. the secret lurking at the heart of socialism, therefore, consisted in the fact that no specific dominant socialist consciousness could exist in its presence: upon closer examination, such consciousness is decomposed into the moral equivalents of phenomena that occur in all class societies. at the same time, in order to avoid them conflicting with the same objective social development needs as understood by communism, a person had to achieve a high degree of understanding of his objective needs and desires. however, in the collective practices of informal movements, relatively stable results in communist mass education were achieved not on the path of high consciousness gained by mastering marxist-leninist theory, but rather by applying well-known educational methods taking the form of not allowing free time, setting new goals and objectives, as well as involving participants in collective activities, etc. the turbulent history of the first half of the twentieth century itself contributed to such an educational approach. the result was a person brought up with a clear bias towards heroic and virtue ethics, in which such heroism and virtue were associated with the high ideals of communism and humanism by knowing their place rather than presenting themselves as intrinsically valuable. however, when the enthusiasts of the late 1950s, noticing the clear moral exhaustion of soviet society, set out to achieve similar moral results to those obtained during the early soviet period, they needed a form of organisation with an even greater degree of artificiality (since the heroic age changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 385 of the soviet system had already passed): this form of organisation was the commune and its various analogues. the bias towards early soviet practices was one of the reasons why the soviet officialdom took a dual position in relation to communardism. in such communes, one could see a hidden reference to the days of stalinist rule with their moral rigour and the potentially dangerous enthusiasm of indoctrinated adherents. nevertheless, under the new conditions, the stalinist methods increasingly objectively served not socialist goals, but rather to educate in the spirit of abstract humanism, resulting in the emergence of an almost openly bourgeois creative personality, albeit one hiding behind the fig leaf of soviet ideology. the communard experiment, as its enthusiasts intended, was originally aimed at educating a person in a communist society. although it never sat very well with official communist values, in terms of inculcating the virtues necessary to achieve more modest intermediate goals it was much more successful. here we touch on the other side of the moral problematic of the communard movement. since communardism initially arose as a reaction to the incompleteness and inconsistency of communist education, it had to be guided by high values and goals. this implied a fairly serious tension in the disparity between the actual and the due. nevertheless, simply in terms of ideology and other consciousness, the communardist education project did not imply anything specifically communist. the self-confidence – nowadays being taught on a large scale by coaches of various kinds – involved in the inculcation of a creative person and imposing a gratingly banal love for the people has a common place in a number of religious and moral teachings. thus, inculcation in the ethics of virtue quickly came up against its natural limits. while neither heroic ethics nor the aim to achieve personal realisation contradicted official ideology, nevertheless the communard educators rebelled against the inconsistency of real-life practices with declared ideals – above all, ideals that implied a high degree of heroism and altruism. in fact, the official soviet upbringing inculcated children with that which they could hardly apply in reality: specifically, the foundations of heroic ethics at a time when the possibility of carrying out any truly heroic deeds was almost completely absent. although the communist education system tried to break this deadlock, objectively it created only palliative organisational structures along with correspondingly dubious educational practices. as a result of such an upbringing, people grew up with a vague longing for heroism, a desire to be members of a community welded together by strong friendly relations, as well as a desire to do at least something useful for others, in order to bring joy to themselves. did this make them immune to the blandishments of a bourgeois lifestyle? hardly. this small shift in emphasis was enough to begin to educate people who were notably able to fight for their private interests. on closer examination, such attitudes quite closely resemble the contemporary revelations of successful people. counterintuitively, such people are also creative personalities, who enthusiastically create and – quite in the spirit of the arguments of the apologists for capitalism – assert that they work not for themselves, but for the benefit to others. thus, the paradoxicality of the phenomenon of communardism and similar movements consisted in the following: the ideological substantiation of the need https://changing-sp.com/ 386 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman for communardistic experiments appealed to high humanistic and communist ideals that required the cultivation of a versatile personality – not just on the scale of narrow social and professional groups, but on the scale of society as a whole. nevertheless, the communard movement led to the formation of communities quite far from the high goals articulated from the top floor of the soviet ethical pyramid. it can be seen that, neither in the soviet union, nor in the capitalist societies of the west, has industrial society matured such as to permit all citizens to become creative individuals. consequently, the communard experiment was doomed – both by the nature of society itself and by the sabotage and opposition of official authorities – to break into many local groups formed around individual pedagogical successes, leading to the formation of communities welded together almost exclusively by virtue ethics. after all, this was more intelligible and comfortable for the participants of such groups, who had apparently not seriously considered any values and goals other than those corresponding to the interests of local communities or individual creative development, who did not strive for anything other than their emotional comfort and that of their associates. this paradox was resolved by the gradual reduction of communardism to purely pedagogical experiments, which lacked an orientation towards changing social reality itself. thus, the communard movement was for the most part transformed into a set of pedagogical techniques equally appropriate for participants in business trainings and totalitarian sects. the overstated self-esteem of these innovators, who only felt like something more than business trainers when they were dominated by a formal – but ideologically determined – system of values, is even more revealing. this selfesteem disappeared when the communards gradually realised that they were merely the owners of a certain pedagogical technology: the “centennial communardist cycle” has closed, and on a new spiral, we can again see the “original” attempt to create the same “new school” that lev tolstoy and stanislav shatsky also tried to create (see: sokolov, n.d.). ultimately, the general vector of the communard educational experiments boiled down to the cultivation of a kind of alternative to official soviet quasi-class stratification. more precisely, it consisted of splitting society into small groups with their own locally applicable codes of honour, in which priority was given to the education of the creative person and development of personality. the result was a person whose moral coordinates were no longer determined either by the moral norms of soviet quasiclass stratification or by the high ideals of communism. nevertheless, while such a person might fervently adhere to the internal norms of such small groups for a while, an eventual parting of ways was almost inevitable due to a growing unwillingness to obey the leader, whose moral authority inevitably eroded over time. however, since inculcation was carried out with the aim of forming personality, such a result was considered to be a pedagogical success. perhaps this was indeed so. however, the question then arises as to the capabilities of such a person in the context of high soviet morality. he or she was naturally inclined toward a naive struggle for his or her own comfort (see: dragunsky, 2019). the horizon of this person’s ability to create social institutions (if we understand the latter as a symbiosis of norms and structures) changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 387 consisted in the tendency to unite into common interest groups. on the one hand, such a person could not become a committed citizen of a modern society, since already or still lacking a conscious commitment to any universal value system. on the other hand, he or she could only be involved in the emerging post-soviet social stratification according to his or her outward position in the evolving hierarchy of social groups that did not yet have their own corporate codes. 1990s: moral non-catastrophe although the abrupt change in the social order resulted in a restructuring of priorities, this did not imply a complete moral collapse. was socialism replaced by capitalism? even if it was not, in many ways, soviet society had become more bourgeois than socialist. although under the conditions of the soviet period, bourgeois values did not manifest themselves, so to speak, in their purest forms – and while soviet ideology and socialist phraseology condemned and inhibited bourgeois or philistine motivations in official life – in real life these latter, of course, dominated (see: voeikov, 2015, p. 134). as the significance of the upper stratum of soviet values decreased, consumer discourses strengthened along with a painful sensitivity to the material dimension of life, inequalities of consumption and lack of access to scarce goods. meanwhile, a reverse movement was taking place from universal quasi-aristocracy, not even to bourgeois values and behaviour, but into new proto-class stratification on the basis of professional, corporate and administrative access to resources. over time, the official soviet project began to lose its ability to coherently define and defend the public/state interest, which was increasingly being eroded by private, group, corporate, regional, sectoral, republican, and other non-universal interests (glinchikova, 2011, p. 157). strictly speaking, the expansion and institutionalisation of shadow schemes for the exchange of these resources among the nomenklatura and resource crafts classes (farmers, speculators, cultural figures, managers of shops and consumer goods bases) created those active minorities that later became the fertile soil for the emergence of post-soviet elites. of course, various structural changes simultaneously taking place in the background played a key role in influencing the transformation of soviet morality and ideology over the 70 years of its existence. the constant complication, individualisation and rationalisation of everyday life, especially in cities, increasingly reduced the effectiveness of moral regulators of the pseudo-collective type. along with an expansion of the space of differentiated regulation for different spheres of life and creeping de-ideologisation, the everyday practices of citizens gradually started to lose their connection with the sphere of higher values. during the period of stalin’s rule, various critical problems associated with the survival and modernisation of soviet society were being tackled, requiring the exertion of all available forces and resources. due to the existential nature of this effort, it was not compatible with dissent or competition between groups of political elites. however, by the second half of the 1950s, having succeeded in becoming a world superpower, soviet society began to allow much more freedom, competition, difference of opinion – https://changing-sp.com/ 388 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman and even dissent – in the process of expanding the individual freedoms of citizens. according to alexander shubin, the soviet social dress of the 1960s and 1970s only “didn’t fit too tightly” due to the extreme constrictiveness of the pre-war version. in moving into separate apartments, former residents of communal apartments experienced a great surge of freedom. in familiarising themselves with the secrets of the stalinist era (albeit only to a limited degree), intellectuals were practically choking on freedom. by the 1970s, people were already growing out of such “suits”, and while a lack of freedom was being felt more acutely, as we will see, the sphere of freedom was actually expanding – it’s just that was expanding more slowly than the need for self-expression and results of intellectual questing. having “dispersed” the growth of needs, soviet society now failed to keep pace with them (see: shubin, 2008, pp. 8–9). the most important factor in the devaluation of the highest soviet values was the gradual suspension of the revolutionary impulse underlying them. the evolution of the value core of the soviet project demonstrates a transition from the revolutionary phase, in which images were strongly associated with control of the future, to a more conservative cultural logic, involving a revision of the position of the soviet project in the value hierarchy of world culture. the sacral centre of the soviet project was under increasing pressure of depoliticisation and profanisation, as a consequence of which higher symbols and ideological systems were transformed into material for low literary genres, anecdotes and urban legends (arkhipova & kirzyuk, 2020). for the soviet political order, the semiotisation of the communist cultural space brings about the failure of the legitimising function. the desacralisation of the highest soviet values was the result of losing the utopian dimension associated with the revolutionary transformation of the world, along with the capability to offer hope. in particular, a. yurchak interprets the performative shift taking place in the official soviet culture of the 1970s–1980s as a sign of growing stagnation and crisis. this is a shift from meaningful production and discussion of ideological facts and meanings to the reproduction of ritual actions and formal linguistic usages, aimed only at confirming the subject’s external loyalty to the moral standards/values adopted by the soviet society. as a result, the living language of party disputes and discussions gradually turns into a wooden language, a frozen, constantly repeating and awkwardly complex linguistic form (see: yurchak, 2014, pp. 72–75). analogous processes of ossification and formalisation occur in diverse areas of culture and art, as well as in the collective practices of social and everyday life. meanwhile, a decline in the powerful value impulse of communist ideology was also occurring due to a proportion of the tasks set by the revolution in late soviet society having been successfully implemented in the social state, transforming utopia into part of everyday life, which was supposed to remain the eternal achievement of the working people. however, the implementation of these values – for example, in the form of the soviet social state – simultaneously became their profanation, since they became part of everyday soviet life, which, since apparently established forever, no longer needed any additional value justification. at the same time, another of the highest axiological components of the soviet project, which related to the global changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 389 expansion of socialism as the more progressive and humane social system, failed to receive historical confirmation and began to be emasculated in the form of pedestrian plans by nikita khrushchev to catch up with the united states in the per capita production of meat, milk, pig iron and various other goods. as a result, late soviet society gradually began to transform into a society without utopias, in which the hopes, aims and opportunities of citizens began to find their ideological justification at the lower levels of the value hierarchy. the ideas of revolution, cosmopolitanism, the class struggle and transformation of mankind finally gave way to various ethics of virtue under the conditions of developed socialism, which naturally began to fall into a state of stagnation. it is evident that the expanding autonomy of lower-level values led to a strengthening of corresponding shadow networks and institutions for the distribution of public resources. thus, the logical next step was that they would start to present a challenge to the highest ideological values and institutions. as a result, perestroika, although aimed at reviving the highest soviet political values (democratisation, transparency, acceleration, selfgovernment), turned into a final defeat of these values, due to the gaining confidence of non-soviet social groups interested in changing the entire political economic order and its moral foundations. what actually happened in the 1990s? it is appropriate to consider the situation in the field of public morality of the 1990s as resulting from the extemporary dominance of the ethics of virtue, as a result of the re-actualisation of those values, virtues and personality patterns that had hitherto played a subordinate role in the integral structure of soviet morality. nevertheless, it was the presence of such values, on the one hand, that prevented the moral catastrophe from being as total as it appeared to many during the 1990s, and, on the other, ensured moral continuity between the past and the future. for the later soviet generations, the morality formed by the october revolution and great patriotic war, which “would live a native country, and there are no other worries”, was already being gradually superseded by the ethical priorities of concern for oneself and the environment. following the collapse of the ussr, this long-term trend of moral de-universalisation would continue, albeit in a more consistent and legitimate form. moreover, the active value transformation in the post-soviet period was carried out mainly in private life, with surprisingly little effect on the public sphere as an area of common life, now freed from the highest communist values of the soviet project: the growth of diversity and individualism primarily characterises the private sphere, consumption and everyday practices, while the symbolic sphere remains as if frozen (see: volkenstein, 2018). this trend is also confirmed by the strengthening of symbolic policies aimed at appropriating the highest achievements of the ussr, since current russian politics, being saturated with virtue ethics, are not capable of providing consolidating moral models at this level. although, during the reform process, society turned out to have disintegrated, with soviet collectives disbanding and the level of mutual trust and trust in state and social institutions having significantly decreased (martianov, 2017), nevertheless this disintegration still had not reached the stage of complete atomisation or individualisation. people remained friends and classmates, colleagues and allies in shared struggles, https://changing-sp.com/ 390 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman as well as continuing to be part of families and other small communities. the latter were held together by bonds of mutual fidelity, comprising the main elements of virtue ethics, which, in appealing to the best aspects of human nature represented by heroic values, justified the struggle for their own. ultimately, it appears as if the presence of high moral values inherited from the soviet era not only failed, in some cases, to prevent people from participating in the great criminal revolution, but can even to seen to have prompted it. participation in various criminal or quasi-criminal groups, in essence, required the same moral qualities as those pertaining to the idols of millions of soviet boys, those musketeers, pirates, noble robbers, adventurers, rebels, revolutionaries and other similar heroes who populated classic literature, folklore and cinema. finally, it should be emphasised that the criminal culture of the 1990s did not appear from scratch, but continued the rich traditions of soviet criminal subculture, whose actual dimensions were concealed for ideological purposes along with the increasing late soviet statistics on crime and suicide (rakitin, 2016). is it any wonder that people of the sufficiently numerous subculture of traders not only responded tolerantly to the criminal revolution of the 1990s, but even took to it like a fish to water? however, as we can see, this new way life was not so very far from the old, being similarly regulated by various codes and rules of the criminal world. therefore, it would be an exaggeration to state that the loss of universal moral values led to total moral relativism, which is determined by a situation where people are primarily guided by internal corporate standards. it is the clear correspondence of such norms with the equivalent norms of other corporations in a classless society (fishman & martianov, 2016) that allows both moral communication and the existence of something like a social contract. in the late ussr, the flip side of soviet values was a generalised image of the west taking the form of a consumer paradise, all the power of its advertising being used to destroy the habitual soviet asceticism, which had failed to take account of everyday life, the comfort and amenities of the private life world against the background of the movement towards communism in the discourse of the total liberation of mankind. thus, the great criminal revolution was fed by the energy of the destruction of the soviet value core. it was widely believed that its collapse would in itself lead to the triumph of universal values that had already taken place in the imaginary west. however, no natural value transition occurred; instead, the 1990s came to function as a magical negative mirror used by the political regime of 2000s–2010s to obtain legitimacy from its converse. thus, the political elites are effectively selling a bear market by presenting extremely mundane, pragmatic and contradictory values to form a populist patchwork quilt (martianov, 2007). however, they did not propose a new stable value hierarchy, structuring ideas of the common good and taking a form capable of supporting a big society. as a result, the symbolic transition from liberal-market to sovereign-patriotic rhetoric only strengthened the corporate, rentier social structure, in which all the basic characteristics of neo-patrimonial political elites, including management methods and opaque regimes of ownership, have yet to undergo qualitative axiological and ontological transformations over the course of post-soviet history. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 391 conclusion the prospects for further moral transformation seem limited and ambiguous. on the one hand, collective disappointment in the once-idealised west is growing inexorably. on the other hand, the russian political order has not been able to offer a strong institutional and axiological framework for the just and universal integration of values. in the absence of a common system of higher values, the radical individualism of the majority of russian citizens prevents them from creating effective structures of collective action capable of supporting a big society. there is a poorly-reflected public demand for a change in the subjects of collective valueinstitutional regulation when, in the place of their big hierarchy there were only strong grassroots social connections (family, work collective, neighbours, etc.). in such a situation, the observed growth of individualism turns out to be in many respects an inductive mechanism revealing the impossibility of institutional trust and reliance on stable collective structures – including the state, which has ceased to guarantee fundamental ideological constants that structure the common existence of its citizens. an increase in the diversity of behavioural patterns, social norms and identities, as well as types of interaction and practices, does not lead to an expansion of available opportunities, but rather appears as a necessary means of adapting individual citizens to the new social order. as a result, local values derived from virtue ethics continue to prevail in the form of competitive individualism, as implemented within corporate-class communities. accordingly, social innovations often conceal the archaic survival practices of various itinerant workers and migrants, placed in an updated technological setting. the lack of universal values confirms the specific rentier character of modern russian society, which is yet to develop a moral alternative to the interests of key social groups that came to power during the criminal revolution (fishman, martianov, & davydov, 2019). in universal public spaces supported by the state and having common goals defined by official discourses, social groups cease to interact with each other. the collapse of soviet society resulted in the possibility for other groups, classes and corporations to become effectively invisible, even when occupying the same urban space. delimited by a variety of local rules and social codes, such collective entities construct their communications topologically as disjoint or extremely mediated. due to being limited by self-sufficient corporate interests in the new space of rentier hierarchy and intergroup differentiation, society acquires more and more blind spots, preventing the emergence of a general relevant picture from any one collective position. in fact, in the 1990s and partly in the 2000s, the majority did not experience catastrophic moral discomfort concerning the lack of universally valid values that went beyond the ethics of virtue. following the collapse of the two-level soviet morality, society switched to an emergency mode of regulation by peripheral and auxiliary values, which became established as the new working norm. at first, the authorities felt some discomfort in this connection, since from the top down there were notions to formulate something like a national idea or nationwide value system that should appear organically. in any case, the national idea was considered as a domestic https://changing-sp.com/ 392 victor s. martianov, leonid g. fishman invariant of the liberal, democratic, western idea – in a word, universal. however, over time, in view of the objectively evolving realities of a neo-classist society, its essential axiological banality and class-corporate boundedness at the ideological level led to the effective rejection of this claim. thus, the political order prevailing in the decade 2000–2010 was forced to distance itself from the liberal universalist principles and foundations proclaimed during the 1990s. it became evident that the search by the new elites for a system of common values combining alternative-liberal ideas with a soviet heritage came to a standstill, becoming an extracurricular activity or traditional national entertainment in the expression of vladimir putin. even when the need to consolidate society around common values is actualised for some reason, it is still necessary to try to satisfy it by issuing universal versions of various local values: whether structured by orthodox christianity (to the extent that it is identified with culture and tradition) or located directly in familyor traditional values and patriotism. consecutive attempts by political elites to simulate the higher echelons of post-soviet morality, imitating the form of the external moral discourse on behalf of the russian orthodox church, have not met with any obvious success. the latter is seen as too biased in the public space, raising many questions regarding the application of double standards in moral assessments of contemporary realities of political life. thus, religious institutions and major russian denominations are used in a technical sense by the kremlin to legitimise the political regime albeit, but without significant institutional and moral autonomy (stepanova, 2019). against this background, insistent attempts to legitimise the new russian elites in terms of the soviet project are turning into a symbolic appropriation of the highest achievements of the ussr, accompanied by a careful removal and suppression of the ideological values that underlie these achievements. the latter is not surprising, since soviet big society values directly contradict the currently dominant rentier model. the formation of truly new big society values, on the other hand, implies serious social transformations, suggesting a critical reflection on the rentier and corporate values and practices of russian political elites. however, the political discourses circulating in public space are unable to solve the principal problems associated with a genuine understanding of the society in which we live; all the more so when it comes to providing a justification of the highest values for this society. therefore, even if the need to seek an axiological alternative to the big soviet society is proclaimed, this quest inevitably becomes frozen halfway. it boils down, in essence, to a single protracted attempt to reformulate a class ethic of virtue in such a way that it becomes suitable for the moral nurturing of a big society. how productive such a strategy could be and how soon it would cease to satisfy both the top and bottom social echelons is a question that deserves a separate study. references arkhipova, a., & kirzyuk, a. 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(n.d.). istoriya kommunarstva: retrospektiva i perspektiva v kontekste obshchestvenno-pedagogicheskogo dvizheniya [the history of communism: a retrospective and perspective in the context of the socio-pedagogical movement]. retrieved from: http://www.altruism.ru/sengine.cgi/5/22/7 https://doi.org/10.17506/ryipl.2016.17.1.6182 https://doi.org/10.17506/ryipl.2016.17.1.6182 https://ru.krymr.com/a/27593417.html http://www.altruism.ru/sengine.cgi/5/22/7 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 372–395 395 stepanova, e. (2019). competing moral discourses in russia: soviet legacy and post-soviet controversies. politics, religion & ideology, 20(3), 340–360. https:// doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2019.1656070 stolyar, m. b. (2010) religiya sovetskoy tsivilizatsii [religion of soviet civilization]. kiev: stilos. voeikov, m. (2015) vpered k kapitalizmu? k voprosu o predstoyashchey stadii sotsial’no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiya rossii [forward to capitalism? on the upcoming stage of socio-economic development of russia]. svobodnaya mysl’, 4, 126–139. volkenstein, m. (2018). raznoobraziye i prisposoblenchestvo. kak i v chem moderniziruyetsya rossiyskoye obshchestvo [diversity and adaptation. how and in what is russian society being modernized]. inliberty. retrieved from: https://www. inliberty.ru/article/modern-volkenstein/ yurchak, a. (2014). eto bylo navsegda, poka ne konchilos’. posledneye sovetskoye pokoleniye [everything was forever, until it was no more: the last soviet generation]. moscow: novoye literaturnoye obozreniye (in russian, authorized translation). zinoviev, a. (1994). kommunizm kak real’nost’. krizis kommunizma [communism as a reality. the crisis of communism] (grekov l. i., ed.). moscow: tsentrpoligraf. https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2019.1656070 https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2019.1656070 https://www.inliberty.ru/article/modern-volkenstein/ https://www.inliberty.ru/article/modern-volkenstein/ changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 170–174 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.2.127 editorial “by the rivers of babylon” and elsewhere: weeping and recovering elena stepanova, editor-in-chief institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia the current issue of changing societies & personalities is devoted to a theme having an exceptional importance for the humankind—the fate and deeds of jewish people in various places and contexts, as well as the roots of antisemitism, which still exists in many settings 75 years after the auschwitz liberation. research literature on the past and present jewish history, as well as the phenomenon of anti-semitism, is enormous. however, there is always room for reflection, and i hope that this issue of cs&p will contribute to the tradition of jewish studies in various ways. i would like to introduce the current issue by quoting hillel levine’s1 unpublished article, which he has kindly placed at our disposal: before we seek the answers, we must know the questions. the popular characterization of the jews as the “chosen people”, a characterization that assumes that this is paramount in the way in which the jews themselves view their relationship to god, with no small measure of arrogance and conceit. this characterization is imprecise at best and tainted with anti-semitism at worst. as an acid test of its alien-ness to the jewish experience, there is hardly a precise term for the “chosen people” in classical hebrew. to be sure, there are strong conceptions of jews having a special relationship with god. but several dimensions are overlooked, even by those non-jews who would speak of this chosen-ness with the best intentions and with the most positive feelings towards the jews. as jews perceive that special relationship, it involves far more obligations than privileges; it becomes the 1 hillel levine is the president of the international center for conciliation (https://www. centerforconciliation.org/) and emeritus professor of religion, the elie wiesel center for jewish studies, boston university. received 22 june 2021 © 2021 elena a. stepanova published online 9 july 2021 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.centerforconciliation.org/ https://www.centerforconciliation.org/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 170–174 171 basis for the harsher standards against which jews see themselves measured, judged, and therefore so often failing and punished. this is so much the case that, particularly in the post-holocaust period, there have been many jews who utter the term “chosen people” with the same irony as their worst enemies. contemporary jewish literature has many expressions of protest and rebelliousness against god, precisely on this point: “o god of mercy, why don’t you take your mercy and chosen-ness and endow it upon a different people!”2 when examining the biblical concept of chosen-ness, levine underlines that the bible describes a common origin for all people, for each and every individual of every religion, nation, and background, because every human being is chosen and created “in god’s image”. at the same time, each and every individual, from birth, is wholly unique and different from all other human beings. on this ground, levine focuses on another moment in the history of the jewish people, i.e. the formation of their notion of chosen-ness and their capacity to foster pluralism, which is described by the psalmist: by the rivers of babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered zion. upon the willows in the midst thereof, we hanged up our harps. for there they that led us captive asked of us words of song, and our tormentors asked of us mirth: “sing us one of the songs of zion”. how shall we sing the lord’s song in a foreign land? (ps 137:1–4, kjv) could there be a more powerful description of social inclusion or exclusion as a legacy for people that could augment their sense of choosing or being chosen? the failed god of israel is to be abandoned by god’s otherwise abandoned, lonely, and suffering people. but jews, levine argues, do not relegate their god, who failed to protect them, to demonic status: the god chosen by vanquished israel is experienced unambiguously, now, and for all times. that god is not only the god of zion but as the god of the entire world, altogether supreme. the jews well learn to sing the song of the lord on alien soil while sacralizing their unbreakable connection to zion and jerusalem. this affirmation of god’s unity and unlimited power is linked to the jewish capacity to have multi-centers of homeland and diaspora where jewish culture can thrive, particularly when jews are not assaulted3. in the current issue of cs&p (essay section), olga potap, marc cohen and grigori nekritch’s essay society for the protection of the health of the jewish population (ose): jewish humanitarian mission for over 100 years explores the history and mission of the society for the protection of the health of the jewish population (ose), founded in russia in 1912. the authors overview several periods 2 levine, h. (2021). “chosen people” and the “choosing” people: jewish sources of monotheistic pluralism [unpublished manuscript]. international center for conciliation, https://www.centerforconciliation.org 3 ibid. https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.centerforconciliation.org 172 elena a. stepanova of ose activities starting from pre-world war i period, during world war i and after; during world war ii and after. they highlight the role of ose in the caregiving of the holocaust survivors and their children, and depict the ose functioning during the covid-19 pandemic. in the essay, three different life stories of the holocaust survivors are presented as they were told. as the authors underline, “these are the fates of people who did not want to submit to tragic circumstances and who found the strength to actively resist them even when the hope of salvation was negligible”. they conclude that the results of the ose activities “in the 20th century, full of dramatic events, showed the correctness of the choice of its conceptual ideological, professional, and humanistic principles”. in the article tradition as a homeland to return to: transnational religious identity of the post-soviet orthodox jewry, elena a. ostrovskaya analyses the results of field research on the post-soviet russian-speaking lithuanian, chabad and hasidic communities of st. petersburg and minsk concerning their religious identity and day-to-day practices. reviewing the collection of biographical interviews, the author notes that the vast majority of post-soviet jews were not familiar with the jewish/judaic way of life; thus, the revival of jewry in the 1990s revealed a complete loss of the connection between the present generations and the historic forms of daily observance of the commandments. ostrovskaya observes three stages of the revival: the first stage (1980s–the early 1990s), when the religious jewish underground “consolidated by mastering the practices of observing the commandments”; the second phase (1990–2008) was marked with the arrival of foreign rabbis who created the infrastructure (synagogues, jewish kindergartens, religious schools, yeshivas, kosher production, etc.); the third stage (started in 2008) involved the mediatization of communicative practices and the digitalization of russian-speaking orthodox jewry. the article reveals various factors influencing the process of obtaining religious identity by the jewish generation of the 1980s. ivan peshkov in the article b(ordering) utopia in birobidzhan: spatial aspects of jewish colonization in inner asia reflects upon the formation of jewish settlements in birobidzhan region, far east of russia, from an unexpected angle, “showing the complex relationship of the new formation of immigrants with alternative models of territoriality in the region” in order to de-colonize “the dominant perspective of the birobidzhan project research, in which the colonial categories of empty land, useless territory, natives, and comical distance from the center are accepted as legitimate descriptions of reality”. when analysing the formation of the jewish autonomous region (1934) in the context of the jewish question between two world wars, peshkov mentions the soviet outlook on the borders as a source of danger and an area of confrontation with the enemies. the author underlines that the soviet project of jewish autonomy was originally utopian, intending “to combine jewish dreams of their own land with the demands of a new society: jewish culture was to become modern, proletarian, and secular”; and describes several stages of the failure of the project. in the article the “end of times” and the antichrist’s arrival: the orthodox dogmas and prophecies in the national-patriotic media in post-soviet russia, victor a. shnirelman focuses on several national-patriotic newspapers published in changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 170–174 173 1990–1993 in russia, which took an active part in discussions around the country’s past, present and future, proclaiming that the world was moving to a decline and a catastrophe (“end of time” and the expectation of the antichrist arrival). in the 1990s, orthodox-monarchist newspapers promoted the idea of some 19th century orthodox thinkers that the genuine christianity survived only in russia; therefore, god would save russia from the antichrist, and russia would save the rest of the world. as shnirelman shows, they “paid great attention to prophecies about the end of time and to signs of its coming, in particular. for them, the most important omens were linked with the jewish activity because, according to the myth, jews not only were anxiously waiting for the antichrist’s arrival but did all the best to speed it up and to harm christians as much as possible”. the author concludes that, in 1990s, a new specific type of political theology was born in russia. the article time, moment, eternity: hieroglyphs and meditations in yakov druskin’s philosophy by andrey s. menshikov is devoted to druskin’s concept of temporality in the context of “complete revision of how philosophy should be done”, elaborated by henri bergson, edmund husserl, franz rosenzweig and some other european philosophers. menshikov analyses druskin’s understanding of temporality and stresses the complexity of adequate translation, because druskin “uses a number of categories, which despite their apparent simplicity are hard to translate”. another difficulty is caused by the fact that druskin’s “texts are not purported to inform the reader, they intend to transform, to reproduce in a reader the transformation that was exercised and perfected by the writer”. menshikov concludes that druskin’s philosophy cold be placed on par with most prominent european intellectuals of the first part of the 20th century. oliver keune in his article preventing anti-semitism and other forms of barbarism in the present and in the future through art: using the example of the play “the investigation. oratorio in 11 songs” by peter weiss, reflects upon the prevalence of anti-semitism 75 years after the auschwitz liberation. the author points out two fundamental problems in this respect: the first one is the rise of populism “that enables politicians to offer simple answers to complex problems by dividing the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’”; the second is an increasing approval of right-wing politicians’ position including the willingness to forget—or even deny—the holocaust. keune raises the following questions: what can be done about it? how is it possible to reach anti-semites? in searching answers to these questions, he uses an example of art, which has always been regarded a decisive factor in improving human nature. in this respect, he examines peter weiss’ play the investigation. oratorio in 11 songs “as a possible example of displaying and exercising such a potential” and “a most appropriate and effective piece of art to reach and teach today’s generation”. the book reviews section contains three reviews. the first is by elena trubina of justin o’connor and xin gu’s book (2020) red creative. culture and modernity in china. the reviewer analyses the specifics of the authors’ approach towards creative industries in the socio-cultural context of modern china. the second review is by oleg kyselov of the book secularization, desecularization, https://changing-sp.com/ 174 elena a. stepanova and toleration. cross-disciplinary challenges to a modern myth (2020) edited by vyacheslav karpov and manfred svensson. the reviewer stresses the main message of the book: the complexity and ambivalence of the interconnection between religion, secularization and desecularization, on one hand, and toleration, on the other. andrey nazarov in reviewing german y. kapten’s book problema sakralizatsii voiny v vizantiiskom bogoslovii i istoriografii [problem of sacralization of war in byzantine theology and historiography] (2020) pays special attention to the accuracy of analysing the “sacred war” idea in the orthodox eastern roman empire presented in the book. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 965–979 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.212 research note at the crossroads of marriage: experiences of young urban middle-class women negotiating family and sexuality within heterosexual intimate relationships in north india tanya lamba tata institute of social sciences, mumbai, india abstract this paper critically examines the experiences of women in heterosexual intimate relationships. it aims to understand how women negotiate social structures of family, marriage choice, and community through intimate relationships. young women are challenging gendered power relations, traditional family structures, and marriage norms in their everyday lives. by this, women challenge the old structures of patriarchy, caste system, and control of their sexuality. a qualitative research design using in-depth interviews with 12 working women in the age group of 25–30 years who were in intimate relationships was conducted. the study was based in delhi and done over two months in 2019. women were selected through snowball sampling. narrative analysis has been used to evaluate women’s experiences in intimate relationships. the narratives show the struggles and negotiations that women do for love and how these struggles are becoming a way of challenging various structures like patriarchy, caste, class, and religion. women choose their life partners or arrange for their love marriage. still, the choice of the partner and the idea of marriage are influenced by the broader patriarchal, caste, and class structures. the women in this study have been able to move beyond the traditional norm of arranged marriage but have still not taken the leap of choice free of the broader institutions of received 8 september 2021 © tanya lamba accepted 15 december 2022 tanyalamba92@gmail.com published online 30 december 2022 mp2019ws008@tiss.edu https://changing-sp.com/ 966 tanya lamba introduction i am a young unmarried woman brought up in delhi in an urban middle-class family. while growing up, i saw the long-term companionship of heterosexual partners only within marriage families have arranged. the middle class in india is governed by class, religion, social status, and caste endogamy, which necessitates finding suitable partners within one’s community and socio-economic background. i was socialised to believe there is an appropriate age at which women must get married as the reproductive clock is ticking like a bomb. much later, i understood how this biological reasoning has a lot to do with controlling women’s sexuality. the image constructed of the husband is of an authority figure who is meant to replace the patriarchal father for a young woman. since childhood, we (urban middle-class women) have subtly had various restrictions to control our mobility and sexuality. for example, i was not allowed to do things like go out late at night or wear certain kinds of clothes that were considered revealing and attracted male attention. i was told i could do it if my future husband allowed me to because i would have other symbols of marriage, like a ring or a chain, giving the message to other men of being committed. therefore, growing up, i always felt i needed a partner who thought like me and would let me do as i wanted. alas, that was not easy when the partner was going to be chosen by my parents and would have a similar mindset and social constructs to them, subtly controlling me and following the same patriarchal institutions. when i was twenty-four years old, i met a man in college who i liked, with similar goals in life, and who respected me for who i was and supported my ambitions. the first battle was won; i found a companion who would let me live as i wanted, but the catch was that we were from different castes, ethnicity, and religion, which did not seem to matter at the onset of the relationship. still, they become factors that need to be considered when we are forced to think of marriage. marriage was an eventuality that could not be ignored, and an intimate relationship without a legitimate name could not be socially acceptable for very long in our country. now, we wanted to have a future together, and marriage seemed the only socially acceptable way of doing that; hence, we had to consider it an eventuality. these discussions and considerations made me take on this study to understand marriage from the perspective of young middle-class women choosing their partners caste, class, and family. the paper concludes by emphasising that although women choose their heterosexual partners for marriage, their choices are still influenced by their caste, class, and patriarchal structures. keywords intimate relationship, family, marriage, negotiation, power, love, choice, freedom, intimacy changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 965–979 967 within the broader patriarchal structures. the questions i have addressed in the paper are: how do young middle-class professional women negotiate marriage within urban contexts relationships? what are the various ways women negotiating with their partners, family, and society at large? how does the transition from personal relationships to marriage take place? why do women have to struggle for this transition? urban middle-class young women’s intimate lives concerning marriage become pertinent to understanding the changing traditional sexuality norms. this paper brings forth the dialogue of women with patriarchal institutions like that of family, heterosexual intimate relations, and gendered power relationships. it looks at the individual struggles of women’s assertion of their choice of partner and marriage within the broader structures of family, sexuality, caste, and patriarchy. the study is socially constructed to examine how women’s experiences of intimacy, family relations, and marriage are gendered. it aims to understand how educated, working, and young middle-class women negotiate marriage in everyday life within their intimate relationships. arranged marriage and the importance of social status historically, it has been seen that in the structure in which women have been subordinated, they have held the reproductive power. one way to control their “power” was to treat it as dangerous, an “innate” quality of women who needed to be tamed. the façade created was a threat from the “uncontrolled sexuality” of women. hence, the ideology of fidelity and chastity has been promoted throughout history, making women aspire to these ideals (chakravarti, 1993). women should prioritise marriage and motherhood over their professional development ambitions (saraswathi, 1999). this institution transcends all other achievements of her life; marriage is mainly seen as the ultimate achievement of a woman’s life. therefore, intimate relationships are still negotiated according to social norms. in this paper, we analyse how they negotiate, resist, and reproduce these structures during the transition of their intimate relationships toward marriage. the pattern of marriage and romantic relationships is changing over time but it is important to see if there is any consequent change in the resulting social structures. these structures are the root of gender relations. hence, we need to recognise the shifts in the forms of gender, caste, ethnicity, class, and so on. they, in turn, influence the development and well-being of women (sassler & lichter, 2020). role of family in finding marriage partners for young adults in india, choosing a partner is predominantly made by family and the broader kin group. the practice of arranged marriage is still the most prevalent form of marriage. however, urban india is seeing a new trend of arranged marriages, where the woman’s choice is given some consideration (progress of the world’s women 2019–2020, n.d.). within the urban middle-class society of north india, love marriage is not a norm but rather an exception. these urban middle-class women are disrupting the https://changing-sp.com/ 968 tanya lamba traditional social order and kinship relations. often, they lead to a rift between young adults and their parents and may even lead to violence (mody, 2008). previous research shows (kakar, 2006) that family and broader social approval play an important role in women’s relationship choices. an individual’s identity is formed by their role in their families (kakar, 2006). breaches in caste linkages are supposed to bring down the status of the family and that of the clan and extended caste group. this is one of the primary reasons for enforcing strict sexual and caste codes. central to the regulations is the control of female sexuality, and conferring her sexuality in marriage is imperative for the patriarchal forces to maintain power, hierarchy, and caste purity. it has been seen that any infringement of kinships and caste faces violence. the control of the sexuality of the woman is linked to the control of her reproductive and productive labour, its power is crucial for patriarchal power and authority (chowdhry, 1997). education and financial independence as factors leading to love marriage love marriage or marriage of choice needs to be seen within the changing socioeconomic processes. the changing structures are influenced by the global and local systems, which are reflected in the culture and beliefs of that society. women are pushing the traditional boundaries, with an increasing push towards love marriage. love marriage is seen as the next step of an intimate relationship. hence, we are looking at the transition to marriage from an intimate relationship and the interface of caste and family rules and norms within this space (allendorf, 2013). the traditional form of marriage in india—arranged marriage—restricts personal choice where individual ambitions are suppressed. there is pressure to conform to the gendered division of labour, which regulates individual freedom. however, this picture is changing to an extent and can be noted in marital dynamics among educated, urban, and english-speaking classes of people. palit’s (2014) study on intimacy among indian couples in educated, urban areas said that their social content and women’s education and employment influence a couple’s relationship. most women are reclaiming marriage. it does not represent just the traditional aspect of gendered marriage. the women are forming their understanding of this institution. women are not just negotiating their intimate relationships but negotiating marriage structures. for these young women, it becomes important to choose their partner and future, which is also acceptable to their parents. the family has been central as a source of security and comfort and a place of nurturance. hence, there is a certain desperation to maintain this relationship, despite the oppressive structures of the family. over time, the power dynamics are changing due to increased economic opportunities, leading to complex relationships between caste members and the members within caste groups. the younger members are questioning caste and kinship ideologies by breaching traditional sexual norms. individual violations are taking place, and the restrictions seem more relaxed. however, the consideration of class and status is still prominent, allowing caste flexibility (chowdhry, 1997). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 965–979 969 middle-class women’s sexuality and gender the middle-class urban communities are the largest consumer base in the newly emerging markets. with the onset of the internet era, the traditional ways of finding partners have shifted to online platforms such as jeevansathi.com and bharatmatrimoni.com. these have become the newer mediums of finding potential marriage partners based on caste, class, ethnicity, religion, etc. though the ways of finding a potential heterosexual partner are adapting to the new times, the sexuality, caste, class, and embodiment norms remain intact in the mainstream marriage discourse. within this interplay of modernity, capitalism, and traditional patriarchy, young middle-class women must choose partners and marriage. there is the image of a sexually liberated, independent, professional working young woman who is seen as a consumer. this image is paradoxical with the embodiment of cultural traditions, sexuality, and desirability. the middle-class women’s narratives have previously been seen within the discourse of modernity versus tradition, saying that the norms of sexuality and gender are becoming obscured. at the same time, more than 95% of marriages within the indian context conform to the traditional arranged marriage. within this discourse, love marriages have been seen as a way of modernity, where love and mutual respect are essential to the relationship. in the arranged marriage setup, aspects like social class, caste, and occupation of the potential partners are significant considerations for families (puri, 1999). the women and men grow up living with the practice of segregation, the underlying ideology being that women are perceived as both dangerous and in danger. their sexuality is uncontrollable, hence seen as dangerous, and if their sexuality is not controlled, it can threaten the social order. they are also in danger because if their sexuality is violated, it can bring shame and dishonour to the woman and her family. the former is seen to govern the adult woman’s sexuality (abraham, 2002). the practice of social segregation plays out in women’s daily lives growing up, which in turn affects the development of intimate relations. chakravarti (1993) looked at the relationship between caste and gender, focusing on the subordination of the upper caste women. she said that the need for sexual control of these women is to maintain patrilineal descent and caste purity, an institution particular to hindu society. to maintain the three, it becomes essential to organise female sexuality strictly. method the paper is based on an empirical study that used a qualitative research design for conducting the research and analysis. in-depth interviews have been conducted for data collection based on identified themes from a literature review: intimacy, love, power, power in intimate relationships, everyday experiences in intimacy, family, https://changing-sp.com/ 970 tanya lamba marriage, choice, freedom, agency, individuality, and so on. narrative analysis has been used to analyse women’s interactions. the population for the research was unmarried urban middle-class women in delhi who identified themselves as in a heterosexual intimate relationship. the women interviewed all worked in the development sector and completed their post-graduation in social sciences. the women at the time of the research were all working in delhi. the women were in the age group of 25–30 years. these women belonged to various states: assam, maharashtra, punjab, bihar, and delhi. the partners of most of the women were also from similar socio-economic and religious backgrounds. all the women identified themselves as upper caste or middle class; caste and class have been used interchangeably by the women throughout the research. though the women belonged to different cultural backgrounds, they were all middle-class educated urban women and economically independent. the data collection was conducted in delhi from january 2019 to march 2019. sample population the women participants were advantaged educationally. they have all completed up to their master’s degree and earned above 6 lakh rupees per annum. the women who identified themselves as being in a heterosexual intimate relationship were approached to participate in the research. the women in the study have been in intimate relationships for more than two years, with few having been in them for more than five years and two being in them for more than ten years. data collection convenient sampling and snowball sampling methods were used to find participants. a participant information sheet was made and shared with friends and colleagues to share with their known contacts. consent was taken verbally by telephone conversation or text message, and the women participants decided on a convenient date, time, and place for the interview. the location of the interviews differed based on the day, time, and comfort of the women. however, most were conducted in coffee houses and the homes of the women. the total number of women interviewed for the research was 12, with multiple in-depth interviews conducted. method for data collection in-depth interviews were conducted with the women based on the themes identified through secondary research, personal experiences, and a pilot study. these identified themes only acted as a guide for the interview, as newer themes emerged during the interview process. the in-depth interviews were conducted using a conversational method. the process also involved sharing personal experiences by the researcher. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 965–979 971 coding, transcribing, and analysis of women’s narratives the interviews with the women were audio recorded by the researcher after taking verbal consent from the participants. the interviews were conducted in a combination of english and hindi. the first level of coding involved identifying common ideas and concepts throughout the women’s narratives and shared pictures. these themes and concepts were identified within the backdrop of women’s everyday intimate experiences. a few concepts that were identified at this stage of coding included the marriage negotiation, marriage decision conflict, obligation to get married, marriage as a way of social approval, power, sexual relationships, assertion, choice, freedom, love, and individual trope within the relationships, caste, tradition vs. modernity, family approval, social structures, and traditional gender roles. the second level of coding led to the development of broader themes of the paper. the concepts were under more general themes of marriage, power, family, sexuality, patriarchy, and caste. these themes and their interrelations formed the basis of the paper’s discussion and argument of how they affect women’s intimate relationships. ethical concerns the audio recording was done for all the interviews after obtaining permission from the participants. they were deleted after transcribing the tapes. the names or any other identifying information of the women were not used. codes were assigned to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the women. the transcribed interview was shared with the women for their feedback and to allow dialogue and make the women active participants in the research. the study was conducted using the ethical guidelines provided by the internal ethics committee of tata institute of social sciences, mumbai. the internal ethics committee approved the study as part of the research course of the college. limitations of the study the number of participants was limited and particular to only these unique experiences of women. the women interviewed were all middle-class women residing in delhi and working in the development sector. the findings cannot be generalised to a larger group of women and can only be understood by women in this context. furthermore, only women were interviewed for the research; the perspective of the men partners was not part of it. it is one more reason that the findings cannot be generalised. discussion and results the women who were part of the study were middle-class unmarried young women educated and working in metropolitan delhi. the urban space provides women with a certain kind of anonymity and freedom. financial independence has given these women a space for making their own choices in their lives, particularly about their intimate and marriage partners. invariably these women seek partners from a similar social class and lifestyle, thus aspiring for common life goals. https://changing-sp.com/ 972 tanya lamba the narrative of the young middle-class women builds into the discourse of marriage as a way of companionship. the women’s narratives show that they view marriage as a space for mutual respect and egalitarianism. all the women indicated that they wanted to marry their partners in the future, showing the pervasiveness of marriage as a social expectation (puri, 1999). the analysis of middle-class women’s narratives addresses the dominant marriage discourse of control of women’s bodies and sexuality. at the same time, it engages with ways in which women negotiate these norms and structures within their intimate everyday lives. the narratives emphasise that it is important for them to know their partners before marriage and have an emotional connection with them. they see themselves in a position where they can easily express themselves and their needs to their partners. for them, the intimate relationship as a space for speaking their minds becomes important, and they want the same in their marriage. underlying these expressions of respect and equality is the assumption that the partner is from a similar social class. hence, the desired gender equality is due to having similar socio-economic backgrounds. i have traced how the idea of marriage is introduced within the intimate relationship and why women question these notions, what are women’s challenging perceptions of women about marriage, and why the idea of marriage is used to introduce the relationship to parents. there is also a discussion about patriarchy, caste and class and how they add to the complexity of intimate relations. it is mostly within these boundaries that women negotiate their intimate everyday lives. the patriarchal and caste structures govern their decisions as the women internalise them, yet they are questioned differently. the researcher discusses the back and forth between social structures that women do in their lives and decision-making regarding intimate relationships. as thapan (2009) observed, women are “prepared” in various ways for marriage, which the narratives of the women in this current paper reflect. the narratives show women’s conflict in relation to family commitment and the decisions they make for themselves. family pressure to marry the factors influencing the marriage decision are family, individual, dating experience, and so on. the narrative below talks of how the traditional idea of marriage and intimate relationships interact. the structures of control, like family and community, that adhere to the institution of marriage play out. the parents feel that their daughter has reached the age of marriage and their conversations start revolving around it. according to the women, the parents ask about the presence of a potential partner or if they were to look for a partner for them. the age of marriage is a socially defined idea determined through the control of women’s sexuality. this narrative shows the parents are open to the idea of a woman finding her partner. it indicates a dialogue between the traditional arranged marriage by parents and the woman regarding her freedom to make her own choices and yet have the support of the family. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 965–979 973 they [parents] had said that i had reached marriageable age and that if i had someone, then i should tell them, or they would start looking. and if there is someone, they will not have a problem; it will be better as it will save them time. (ankita, personal communication, january 2019) like the above narrative, the parents’ concern is to find a life partner for the woman. the young couple had not thought about marriage and were concentrating on their careers. in the narrative below, the marriage decision is not only in the hands of the partners but also influenced by the family, creating the pressure to find a partner and get married even though the woman and her partner have not decided on marriage yet. the parents are informed about the relationship when it reaches a stage where it can take the form of marriage. the woman has been in the relationship for more than eight years and only informs them when she is pressured to marry. actually, at that time, my partner and i had not decided; we wanted more time to settle down and for more time in our relationship. after this they [parents] were after me. they started pestering me, and i also told them that there was someone in my life, after that, they became a little quiet; they wouldn’t have to look for anyone. (ankita, personal communication, january 2019) the distinction between love and arranged marriage for these middle-class young women is a little blurred. in most cases, the intimate relationship that starts from mutual attraction must seek parental approval for marriage. the parental love, care, and concern then become forms of controlling young women within their own homes. marriage or independence? “love marriage” is seen as a deviance from the mainstream “arranged marriage”. love marriage is discouraged among the young to maintain the hegemony of arranged marriage, caste, and religious and family practices. at times, love marriage faces various negative responses from family and community. hence, women choosing their partner push the traditional boundaries of sexuality and control. the narrative below shows the woman reflecting on the idea of marriage with her intimate partner. conflict arises on the issue of getting married and when to get married. through the narrative, the woman uses her agentic expression by saying that she does not want to get married, problematising the concept of marriage in her own experience of intimacy. “i was not sure about marriage. i do not want to get married, and he was like he wants to get married” (sneha, personal communication, january 2019). within the dominant gender discourse, marriage is seen as a life achievement, a mark of celebration and status (sassler & lichter, 2020). in the above narrative, sneha asserts her agency by saying that she has her own priority (career) and feels marriage will hinder her goals. during the interview, she reflects on her choice vis-à-vis her partner and wants to think about marriage later. she feels marriage will jeopardise her independence and career goals. https://changing-sp.com/ 974 tanya lamba from the narrative below, marriage is an area of conflict for sneha and her partner, including whether to marry and at what stage of their relationship. conflict arises because her partner wants to marry due to social expectations and pressure from his family. sneha must negotiate within these predefined social structures of marriage. in this case, sneha uses the job as a reason to delay marriage, but the internalisation of the norm is strong; therefore, she does not outright reject the idea of marriage. for these reasons, i see the conflict as positive, caused by the woman asserting her choice over the social pressures and norms. it is essential to acknowledge the space sneha has provided for her career growth, though it has an expiry date in this case. there is an understanding of marriage at a later stage, but the man decides the timing of the marriage, and the woman negotiates to delay the marriage as she prioritises her career over marriage. notably, the question of marriage arises only once the male partner is settled or has a stable income. this highlights the man’s traditional breadwinner role and sees him as the prime earning member of the new household. marriage seems to be a compulsory eventuality of the relationship; hence, this is how the broader social structures play out in women’s lives. yes, we do fight, especially right now due to marriage issues […] i said that i had to complete one year in my job, it could only be after that. so, we decided for next year beginning and this way i was able to achieve my goal. (sneha, personal communication, january 2019) the women selecting a life partner represents a certain level of assertion of their sexuality, giving them reproductive and productive labour based on their choice. it signifies an authority loss on the part of the senior male member. this loss becomes a consideration by the senior male member to oppose or be discontented with such a move. an assertion by the woman in this form affects the family hierarchy and disrupts the power equation in the family (chowdhry, 1997). women mostly do not share the existence of their intimate relationships until they must, which is in the context of marriage. from payal’s narrative, it can be seen that the family makes decisions regarding marriage, and the extended family members also consider it their prerogative to influence and direct the marriage of younger family members. women have been socialised in a way where they see their parents in an authoritative position. hence, in this narrative, the woman does not directly tell her parents that she has chosen her partner; instead, she matter-of-factly breaks the news. her mother’s initial silence and her father’s complete silence signify a gap in the traditional family hierarchy and create an imbalance in the power structure. one day we were having a discussion at the table where my mother said that she was telling my aunt that i would have told them if there was someone and then i was like, yes there is [...] and she was like “what?” and i was like, yes there is. first, she kept quiet, and my father pretended that he did not hear anything. so, my mom kept asking who he was. (payal, personal communication, february 2019) changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 965–979 975 natasha is referring to age as a criterion for marriage, highlighting that marrying at a young age is a social construct and restricts the sexuality of individuals. her narrative talks about the family pressure to get married at a particular age. at the initial stage of the relationship, natasha could negotiate the social control of marital age. at the same time, she knew that she could only stall marriage till a certain age. the broader structures of patriarchy determine the course of the relationship through family pressure, stereotypes related to marriage and so on. natasha is constantly negotiating with and within these structures. for her, the ability to delay the marriage as much as possible can be equated with her ability to push the set boundaries of the patriarchal structures. so, he is four years older than me, and he has crossed the 30 mark, and there was pressure from his side of the family. when we started seeing each other, he was in his late twenties, and i was in my early twenties, and i told him then there was no chance of getting married that early. (natasha, personal communication, february 2019) the women can be seen to struggle with the traditional marriage system based on family, community, and culture. on the other hand, the women have freedom, choice, and autonomy. when the relationship reaches the marriage stage, the women are seen negotiating to arrange their love marriage. the traditional idea of marriage is still dominant for women, influencing their decisions in intimate relationships. in natasha’s narrative, she wants approval of the relationship from her parents before she takes the relationship to the next stage. natasha says that if her parents disagreed, there would be no point. her statement implies that she would discontinue the relationship if her parents did not consent. the traditional patriarchal norms are embedded in her thoughts, actions, and language. so, i did not confirm to my partner; i did not want him to feel that i was trying to stall it, but i told him that i wanted my parents to agree and then i would say yes to him. i wanted clarity and not be like [...] that my family refused. it could be that the family refuses, then there would be no point. (natasha, personal communication, february 2019) the woman must negotiate not only with her own family but also with a new family she must call her own. we get a glimpse of this negotiation within the context of women’s wedding plans with both sets of families. misha’s narrative shows an inherent conflict between the traditional and individualistic ideas of a wedding. the narrative describes the desire of the man’s family for a big affair with many family members and friends present. this scenario is juxtaposed with the couple’s desire for a small ceremony with people they care about. here, a big affair signifies the wedding as a way of displaying the family’s social prestige and wealth to the larger community. the small affair https://changing-sp.com/ 976 tanya lamba is about discreetly celebrating the occasion with loved ones—not a public affair. this narrative is representative of the diversion between the traditional belief system and the more individualist modern interpretation of the wedding ceremony. “they wanted a big affair, and we wanted like a small affair, something like a court marriage and a reception after that” (misha, personal communication, february 2019). control over the sexuality of young middle-class women the below narrative represents sexuality as a taboo and how various structures of the social system control it. even though the woman desires physical intimacy, she does not engage in it because of the mental structures that society has created. she is an embodiment of them. the systems are so deeply embedded that they are “naturally” followed by the individuals as members of that society. the maintenance of control over the sexuality of the woman is achieved through various social agents in the below narrative: the neighbours and parents. this narrative talks about the physical intimacy in the relationship and the influence of social factors. the couple monitors its sexuality to avoid being judged by people, such as neighbours, and thus the idea of not talking and keeping sexuality under wraps. engaging in sexual intercourse is acceptable when the partners have been married (i.e., “licence”). she feels that marriage provides privacy and social acceptance for what she desires. she feels that doing it without marriage is not okay because it goes against social norms. sneha, therefore, sees marriage as an institution and appropriate space for engaging in sexual intercourse. the institution of marriage controls the sexuality of women to maintain caste purity by restricting their sexual engagement to one partner or the concept of monogamy so that the man’s lineage is “pure.” the social significance of chastity and the threat of digressing from sexuality norms ensure heterosexual sexuality within marriage (puri, 1999). “it is better to do it [sexual intimacy] after marriage. we will have a licence. we will not have to be worried about where we want to do it” (sneha, personal communication, january 2019). the “management” of female sexuality is usually not done by her only but also by various other cultural institutions (chakravarti, 1993). the gender differences and the double standards in young women’s narratives towards sex and premarital sex resonate with the cultural and social constructions that subordinate and control a woman’s sexuality. it is both the heterosexual partners who together work towards the construction and maintenance of patriarchal ideology represented by the concept of virginity, which is central to the idea of marriage (abraham, 2002). payal’s narrative below exemplifies the above point about women’s dilemma around premarital sex. the women are socialised such that it becomes an integral part of them not to engage in sex before marriage due to the social and cultural norms and taboos. in their intimate relationship, they face a situation where they want to engage in sexual intercourse. it is then that the idea of tradition conflicts with the demand for an intimate relationship. hence, the woman engages in sexual intercourse knowing that she will marry the same person, giving a sense of taking changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 965–979 977 action within the prescribed norms of the society. “i had thought in my head that i did not want to have intercourse till we were absolutely certain and decided about the timeline as to when we want to get married but i got over the mental block” (payal, personal communication, february 2019). natasha’s narrative shows that the norms and sanctions are so deeply embedded that the women follow the unwritten rules. in this case, the control of the structures is deep-rooted to the extent that she does not talk about needs or desires. instead, she feels sexually obligated to her partner because they are in an intimate relationship. “my orientation is not very clear [...] like sex is taboo and i was never very open about it [...] so he tries to help me learn and explore, he will forward me articles to read and all” (natasha, personal communication, february 2019). in the brahmanical patriarchy, the upper caste women are considered gateways to keeping the caste “pure.” there is a constant control of the woman’s sexuality and reproduction. in this narrative, the woman unconsciously abides by the self-regulatory code, a consequence of the norm of endogamous marriage (chakravarti, 1993). in the narrative below, the intersection of gender and caste manifests in how the woman perceives her relationship and her constant reference to caste. it shows how caste endogamy is maintained where the woman has internalised the social norm and control. the woman seeks a partner from the same caste and expects her parents to approve of him with minimal conflict. hence, the woman exercises her choice in a partner, but at the same time, traditional structures bind her because acceptance by parents and society is imperative to continue the relationship. the woman exercises the power of choosing her life partner, but the social systems determine the person she chooses. she may like multiple people, but her criterion is caste endogamy. hence, the overarching social divisions continue to play a dominant role in a woman’s life. their concern was if he belonged to the same caste. it just happened; i did not think much. so, i belong to the brahmin community and he also belongs to the brahmin community. but there are categories within that also, that was not same. so, my father was like you did not get a brahmin which is same as us and i told him that, he was expecting too much. (natasha, personal communication, february 2019) any rupture in the caste links can bring down the status of the immediate family and the clan group. this is one of the reasons for the strict enforcement of sexual and caste codes. these codes centre around the control of women’s sexuality, and the transfer of this sexuality in marriage is integral to patriarchy, caste purity, power, and hierarchy. the principles of gender and caste are still a guiding force for marriage and choice (chowdhry, 1997). the narrative exemplifies how caste and gender govern a woman’s life. she is conscious that caste is present but feels it has to be done to avoid conflict with her parents, thereby continuing with the traps of caste, class, and gender. the parents, in a https://changing-sp.com/ 978 tanya lamba way, show their dissatisfaction with the daughter’s partner by saying that she could have found someone “better” or more appropriate. the woman has subordinated herself to the family structure so much that she interprets her father’s authority as that of love. “it did not matter much, but at the back of my mind i knew that if the caste were not same then there would be a lot of tension” (natasha, personal communication, february 2019). conclusion from the research, it can be concluded that the broader social structures of gender, caste, and class have a significant influence on the decision-making of women regarding their intimate relationships, relationships, partners, and marriage. women negotiate within these broader social structures by asserting themselves in relation to the intimate relationship. the idea of marriage still holds great importance in most women’s lives, but they do not blindly follow the social norms of marriage. instead, they assert, resist, and reproduce the structures in various ways. the broader structures of society, including marriage, caste, and class, play out differently in women’s intimate relationships. women have internalised many structures and manage their relationships according to those structures. through the struggles and negotiations, women are trying to challenge the broader patriarchal power structures in their everyday lives. the fact that women are questioning these almost invisible structures and are conscious of them is a step closer to a genderequal society. we are not there yet, but we are moving in the right direction. the everyday conditions of women’s lives signify not just their habits but a space for articulating change and resistance. gender, class, and caste become a part of life through which women negotiate and strategise to ensure their place and position in society. the articulation of their lived experiences of womanhood, intimacy, identity, and how women resist and comply with structures. the decisions, choices, and identities are constructed through these struggles in their everyday lives. these struggles may not lead to transformation, they may only maintain their position in the structures, but at the same time, it is important to recognise these attempts at resistance. it symbolises young women’s awareness of their situations and ways of dealing with them differently. women are constantly negotiating, manipulating, and strategising situations and interactions in everyday life. in the paper, i looked at women’s experiences negotiating gender relations and norms to achieve an intimate egalitarian relationship. there is a long way ahead of us to disentangle ourselves from the patriarchy, caste, and class deeply embedded in our lives and relations. for women to be in more equal relationships in their everyday lives, their struggles must be recognised and supported at the level of individual agency within the private sphere of young women’s lives. intimacy, mutual respect, and companionship are ideals that women use as a standard for achieving a gender-egalitarian relationship and marriage. while women are not ceasing to be affected by the inequality, they are also not letting themselves be subordinated by them completely. the ideals of gender equity within the relationship help them negotiate a relationship entrenched in patriarchal inequalities. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 965–979 979 young middle-class women are choosing their partners, delaying marriage, putting their career goals ahead of marital goals, engaging in sexual intimacy before marriage and imagining a more egalitarian married future. they are pushing the boundaries of the traditional patriarchal context through everyday interactions with family and intimate partners. yet, though these pushes may be in the right direction, they are not making the leap to question or completely resist the sexuality, caste and class norms. references abraham, l. 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changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.1.031 book review religious complexity in the public sphere: comparing nordic countries (inger furseth, ed.). springer, 2017 1 elena stepanova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia in the contemporary world, religion holds a significant place in many people’s lives, intersecting with other identities. at the same time, religion has been increasingly acknowledged as an important aspect of national and international politics, a pervasive and contentious cultural force, and a subject of significant public concern. thus, a clear need exists for scholarly research, thoughtful conversation and an ability to reach beyond the walls of the academy to translate this research to the wider public. today, religions in most countries in the world are directly or indirectly involved into political activities, influencing citizen’s perceptions of state government legitimacy. religions investigate alternative strategies of the presence in mass media, as well as adopt electronic and digital media technologies, reconfiguring a practice of religious mediation. religions are taught in various forms and measures in public schools and higher educational institutions. religions are involved in public institutions such as hospitals, army, and prisons. in addition, the increased involvement of religion in the public sphere can be understood in the context of value changes. the implication is that we are seeing the emergence and development of both post‑modern and post‑material values leading in some religious contexts to anti‑modern counter‑ reactions. religious leaders and believers are today one voice among many. this suggests the importance of putting appropriate emphasis on the agency of religious interest groups from both conceptual and empirical perspectives. in the last decades, scholars across the globe are engaged in the discussion of religion’s place on the private/public continuum and of the rationality in the public sphere. contemporary debates on religion’s place in the dichotomy of public/private extend beyond the question of religion’s presence 1 the work is supported by the russian science foundation (rsf), grant number 17–18–01194. received 5 march 2018 © 2018 elena stepanova published online 3 april 2018 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com 76 elena stepanova in the public sphere and address the legitimacy of admitting religious arguments in public deliberation on social and political problems of the day. rejection of enlightenment’s myth of private religion leads to recognition that religion has always played and continues to play a significant role in public space. religion in the modern world steps out of the private domain as it assumes the task of preserving national, ethnic or group identity, and on these grounds, it justifies its demand for the voice and rights in current discussions of social and political problems. deprivatization of religion can be observed on individual as well as on institutional level. in all the nordic countries (denmark, finland, iceland, norway, and sweden), the lutheran majority churches were closely intertwined with the state since the reformation in the sixteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth century. the reformation resulted in the establishment of evangelical lutheran state churches, which implied that every citizen was a member. in xx century, the nordic countries being marked by christian (mostly lutheran) heritage became pioneers of secularism; for most citizens, religious affiliation came to mean less and less. today, the nordic majority churches are characterized as semi‑autonomous with different degrees of autonomy from the state. recently, a dramatic and unexpected resurgence of religion came in the form of immigrants. the nordic countries were largely religious monocultures until immigration grew few decades later than in most other european countries. since then, immigration has changed the nordic ethnic and religious landscapes and especially transformed sweden, norway, and denmark into relatively diverse nations. the presence of actively religious immigrants encouraged some nonimmigrant residents of nordic countries to think more about their own religious heritage, values, and identities. thus, the changes taking place in the nordic countries are similar to changes taking place in many other european countries. the book religious complexity in the public sphere: comparing nordic countries (inger furseth, ed., springer, 2017) is the result of a 5‑year research project “the role of religion in the public sphere. a comparative study of the five nordic countries” (norel) (2009–2014) 2. the research group included more than 20 scholars and 2 phd students from all five nordic countries. inger furseth from the kifo institute for church, religion, and worldview research, university of oslo (norway) edits the volume. contributors represent the leading nordic universities: aarhus university (denmark), uppsala university (sweden), university of iceland, university of copenhagen (denmark), university of helsinki (finland), university of agder (norway), and some others. in the introduction to the book, inger furseth describes the methodology and main concepts of the research. thus, the concept of “religion” refers to a wide variety of beliefs, practices, symbols, and social arrangements; it is not seen as unitary and homogeneous, but as constructed, given meaning, and contested in various situations (p. 12); secularity is treated as a descriptive opposite to religion in the sense that the secular refers to the temporal, profane world, or the nonreligious (p. 13). stressing the lack of theorizing regarding the presence of multiple religious trends 2 www.kifo.no/forskning/religion‑in‑the‑public‑sphere‑norel/research/ changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 77 that take place simultaneously, the concept of religious complexity is introduced in the book in order to analyze multiple religious trends in contemporary nordic countries. religious complexity as a meta‑theoretical concept refers to the simultaneous presence of several, and sometimes contradictory, religious trends that may coexist at different levels in society. the book argues that in the nordic countries “religious complexity consists of seemingly contradictory trends, such as a growing secularization in the populations, trends of both differentiation and de‑ differentiation of religion at the state level, a growing presence of religion as a topic at the political level, a greater visibility of religion in the media, and a deprivatization of religion at the level of civil society” (p. 16). each trend is discussed in light of different theories relating to secularization, differentiation, politicization, mediatization, and deprivatization. it is stressed that religious complexity may emerge in homogeneous societies with little diversity, as for example in a country with a dominant protestantism that experiences different developments of religious decline, growth and change at different levels, and several religious forms at each level. the complexity frame of reference rejects the notion that social change is necessarily gradual and emphasizes ruptures and path dependence. underlying that the mere presence or visibility of various religions does not indicate that they dominate or have authority over other institutions or individuals, the concept of religious complexity implies that multiple forms of religion coexist at different levels, so that the presence of religion may be growing in the public sphere, while the individuals simultaneously are becoming more secular, or vice versa (p. 22). in the book, four main themes of the presence and visibility of religion in public sphere are studied: religion and state; religion on the political agenda; religion and the media; religion and civil society. in the chapter on religion and state the authors indicate the significant shift from church‑state terms (with the preference to state, established, or national churches) to religion‑state ones with the consequent emphasis on religious diversity. at the same time, today, with the exception of denmark, all the nordic majority churches (and the orthodox church of finland) have become more autonomous in relation to the state since the 1980s. the authors underline that the use of the concept of “semi‑autonomous” churches (again with the exception of denmark) places the nordic church‑state relations as parts of a larger pattern of european model of church‑state relations, where individual freedom of religion (and a neutral position of the state toward various individual religious subjects) is combined with the preferential treatment of one or two religious institutions, typically the historical majority churches (pp. 89–90). the authors mention that in the nordic countries, the evangelical lutheran majority churches traditionally have been important elements in the legitimization of the nation‑state at official occasions such as the opening of the parliaments, national holidays, and the celebration of national heroes. the authors observe the concept of “culturalization of religion” and conclude that it may allow majority religions a presence in places from where religion is banned or regarded with suspicion. the second theme – religion on the political agenda – is developed in relation to several aspects. thus, the observation of party platforms shows that christian 78 elena stepanova democratic parties refer to christianity as the foundation of society and the source of core values, such as solidarity, ethics, and view of human beings; religious denominations and particularly the majority churches are seen as contributors to common welfare and part of the cultural heritage. on the contrary, the right‑wing populist parties do not refer at all to religion as connected to party identity. reviewing the controversial issue of the same‑sex marriage, in which the nordic countries have been pioneers in making it gender‑neutral, the authors of the chapter on religion and political agenda stresses the importance of the double track system, which permits both civil and religious marriages with full civil law effects. they present pro and counter arguments, and interpret the debates as a struggle over core values in society, namely, the cultural and social value of marriage, and whether such an institution should depend on religious approval or not. generally, the analysis of debates on same‑sex marriage illustrates the significance of gender and sexuality in nordic political debates on religion: the focal points for the discussion became the relation between two core values in nordic societies: gender and sexual equality, and religious freedom. the importance of their relation is also salient in parliamentary debates on symbols, such as the wearing of religious headgear, or on religious education. one more aspect of political agenda – the securitization of religion – is understood as an extreme version of politicization or a process whereby politicized issues are socially constructed as a threat that requires special measures. the analysis of party platforms and parliamentary debates show how the right‑wing populist parties, especially in denmark, norway, and sweden, emphasize a conflict where christianity is perceived as a religion that is linked to and helps preserve national identity, while islam is a religion that can put national identity in jeopardy (p. 180). in general, the analysis provided in the book clearly shows that the question of how to combine a situation of religious and cultural diversity with core values in the nordic countries as social democratic welfare states of universalism, generous benefit levels, and egalitarianism, is one of the most demanding challenges in contemporary nordic politics. highlighting the third theme – religion and media – the authors argue that the visibility of religion in the media is of key importance when trying to understand the public role of religion: if the thesis of the return of religion to the public sphere is to be valid, religion has to be visible in the media. they critically observe the “mediatization of religion” theory and its particular characteristics in the nordic countries, and conclude about the nordic “paradox”: the considerable and continued media presence of religion on the one hand and the diminishing commitment to organized religion, on the other (p. 201). the authors show that the attention of the media has shifted from the majority churches to islam, especially in the religiously most diverse countries of sweden, norway, and denmark. at the same time, attention has gradually shifted away from the coverage of religion as news to debates on religion often presenting religious meanings that do not necessarily follow traditional understandings. in addition, the image of religion in popular lifestyle magazines, films, and on internet is discussed in the book in details. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 79 the fourth theme – religion and civil society – is observed in terms of “social capital”. the authors of the book conclude that due to the looser ties to the state, most nordic majority churches in in their statements on public policies tend to behave much in the same ways as other faith and worldview communities at national and local levels. it proves that the majority churches (except the danish one) could be viewed as part of civil society (p. 255). in conclusion, the editor of the book stresses the need to develop new concepts in order to analyze the religious situation in contemporary western societies, which would go beyond the customary terms such as secularization, desecularization, or post‑secularity, and be more contextualized. from the authors of the book point of view, the new concepts should take into account generational changes towards more individualized and subjective approach to religious and secular worldviews and practices. this trend can have a secularizing effect in the sense that the choice to be secular is seen as a matter for each individual, and so is the choice to remain outside any faith and worldview community; it also mean the significant shift in the presence of religion in public sphere. other important issue is the growing diversity of the nordic welfare states and the ways to facilitate equal and fair treatment of all, which brings religion to the forefront in politics. changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.162 received 30 july 2021 © 2022 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, accepted 17 february 2022 alexander i. koryushkin published online 11 april 2022 zavershinskiy200@mail.ru aikor@peterlink.ru article political socialization in a changing society: a crisis of value orientations or asynchronization of national memories? konstantin f. zavershinskiy alexander i. koryushkin saint petersburg state university, saint petersburg, russia abstract the article examines qualitative changes in the socio-cultural parameters of intergenerational communication that impact social cohesion and civic identification in contemporary society. diversification of symbol production and an increase in the number of agents of political communications, a greater heterogeneity of political ideologies, and modes of political representation shape political processes. to adequately address these changes, one needs new theoretical models of political socialization. such models would examine youth political incorporation as a particular form of communication predicated on the spatial and temporal design of political events within national communities. the focus on generational differences in the interpretation of political events helps explain youth positioning vis-à-vis older generations. in this case, political socialization goes beyond the processes of the younger generation’s adaptation to institutions and value-normative regimes of the “adult” society. it is a communicative process of establishing generational political expectations. analysis of the legitimating profiles of national memory—those that include competing symbolic representations of images of the future and the past, typologies of the heroic, concepts of guilt and responsibility—is crucial to studying the political socialization of the younger generation. the authors emphasize the significance of both a theoretical and applied analysis of symbolic structures of political memory and the role of iconic https://changing-sp.com/ 36 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, alexander i. koryushkin introduction variability and hybridization of political ideologies and institutions transform valuenormative foundations of political socialization in contemporary societies. changes in political communicative processes dissolve spatial-temporal boundaries of national communities and destroy the intergenerational continuity of identity. as national political systems are evolving, traditional value-normative generational conflicts and issues of succession among political elites become more acute than ever. in this paper, we address the need to analyze and theoretically describe the emerging qualitative changes in the socio-cultural parameters of societal cohesion and civic identification. contemporary political-cultural processes generate new marginal political chronotopes and exacerbate intergenerational confrontations. as asynchronous social communication is becoming increasingly common and there is a lack of stable correlation between generational changes and transformations in institutional and cultural patterns, “the new generation tends to regard society as too conservative or even repressive” (giesen, 2004a, p. 31). the rapid destruction of hierarchical distinctions between the world of “the youth” and the world of “the adults” further complicates intergenerational relations and increases the degree of their variability and arbitrariness. geopolitical processes and digital innovations in economic and political communications have exacerbated authoritarian tendencies and strengthened antidemocratic, ethno-nationalist, and populist discourses. these processes can partially explain the changing demarcations in political identification and the destruction of value-normative intergenerational cohesion (fouskas & gökay, 2019). migration, demographic changes, and inefficient state policies further impacted the precarious “balance between generations” (krastev, 2020b). younger generations fluctuate between apolitical consumerist survival strategies and occasional flares of violent anarchical protests. as i. krastev points out, a fin de siècle generation is a “google history” generation that “lives outside history” because it does not link the process of historical knowledge acquisition with experiences of previous generations (krastev, 2016, pp. 58–59). younger generations’ standardized expectations acquired from older generations through childhood socialization clash with the nonstandard realities of rapid social change. the young generation turns into a precariat class consumed power in understanding intergenerational continuity and change. drawing on the methods of cultural sociology, the authors outline novel theoretical approaches to studying youth political socialization in today’s society. keywords political socialization, symbolic structures, political memory, generations, national memory, profiles of legitimation, iconic power changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 37 by “the fear of fear” as it is unable to rely on the experiences of the past generations for guidance (bude, 2018). the novel coronavirus pandemic has further aggravated the problem of intergenerational continuity by increasing isolationist tendencies in domestic and international politics and by highlighting the unpredictability of political communications and the emulative nature of current value-normative orientations. more so, the pandemic has led to “ineffective symbolization”, increased the feeling of purposelessness, and destroyed people’s strife for change by emphasizing the imminence of “the new barbarism” (žižek, 2020). the pandemic exacerbated the crisis in the projects of liberal globalization and in the social construction of cosmopolitan identities by giving rise to ethno-nationalism and populism and blurring the distinctions between democracy and authoritarianism (krastev, 2020a). the pandemic has also exposed the limitations of traditional value-normative models of youth political socialization. the young generations can no longer trust the existing political institutions and the value-based rhetoric of political elites. we argue that contemporary problems of political socialization are not only caused by the expected differences in value-normative positioning of the younger and older generations, as it was postulated in the theoretical models of the last century. the qualitative changes in symbolic self-positioning and representation of the younger generation are substantively novel and need to be theoretically and methodologically explicated to adequately address the problem of generational continuity and contemporary political socialization of youth (zavershinskiy, 2021). sociology, psychology, anthropology, international relations, law, pedagogy, and medicine use multiple and often contested versions of terminology and temporal frameworks to describe generational and age-based gradations of their subject populations. this research uses the two key concepts of intergenerational continuity—youth and generation. in this article, we focus on young citizens from mid-teens to mid-twenties because primary active processes of political socialization take place in this age group (cf. pickard, 2019, pp. 29–30). we base our discussion on manheim’s ideas of generational stratification. according to manheim and his followers, youth acquire their social sense of generational identity through their involvement in historical events. a generation could encompass multiple antagonistic groups that nevertheless recognize themselves as a particular wholistic entity in space and time (mannheim, 1952). the concepts “political generation” and “political generational identity” are used in this article to characterize the political unity of young people who were born within the given temporal interval (about 20 years) and who share a common collective memory. generations represent a “symbiosis of life and time”, because “history creates generations, and generations create history” (strauss & howe, 1997). we argue that the political-cultural generational identity of youth emerges in the process of practical and semantic involvement in collectively meaningful political events that transform a young political generation into an adult generation. we do not attempt an applied analysis of multiple political groups and sub-groups present in contemporary youth movements. instead, we articulate the theoretical https://changing-sp.com/ 38 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, alexander i. koryushkin and methodological priorities of the research on contemporary youth political socialization that emphasizes communicative aspects of the social construction of political memory in political spaces of europe, russia, and the united states. in this article, we address the questions relevant for understanding the specifics of political socialization in the context of contemporary political communicative practices. what theoretical and methodological models of youth socialization do contemporary researchers use? what theoretical conundrums do such models present and what are the strategies for dealing with them? what role do the symbolic structures of contemporary political memory play in the processes of youth political socialization? how do national memory legitimation profiles affect the political socialization of youth and intergenerational political continuity? the lack of theoretical and methodological foundations in answering these questions creates epistemological aporias and engenders the descriptions of youth political orientation that appear in-depth but fall apart when confronted with facts confirming the crisis in political intergenerational continuity. we challenge the assumptions that the loss of the previously effective socialization practices among youth is a result of the temporary recoils of democratization processes. political socialization is not only a dependent variable predicated on the degree of effectiveness of institutions controlled by the older (or adult) generations, as the traditional functionalist paradigm postulates. its contents depend on dynamics of symbolic structures of society’s political memory. we argue that the focus on political socialization as an independent variable in generational dynamics provides an opportunity for developing new theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding political socialization as the production of symbols of political identity in the public sphere. this production of symbols has a high degree of autonomy from the purposeful organizational or ideological activity of political elites or social institutions. the symbolic, often spontaneous structuring of the horizons of specific political expectations of generations in the political memory of modern society is increasingly exacerbating the conflicts between age strata, regardless of the achievements in the socio-economic or professional socialization of young people. moreover, the technological realities of modern communications increase the number of participants in the production of political content and thus become a major source of symbolic inflation that destroys political trust and exacerbates communicative chaos. methodological conundrums of studying youth political engagement: the dichotomous research paradigms since the 1960s, political scientists have examined theoretical and methodological aspects of intergenerational politics. they analyzed the political socialization of youth as a phenomenon associated with potential generational value-normative cleavages within national communities and foreign policy orientation among political elites belonging to different age groups. the seminal work by d. easton and j. dennis children in the political system: origins of political legitimacy (easton & dennis, 1969) is particularly interesting as an early attempt to conduct a comprehensive changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 39 sociological investigation of political socialization of youth and children. since then, the theoretical understanding of youth political socialization has undergone multiple critical revisions. the last decade, we argue, has seen an increasing epistemological divergence between the two primary research strategies of this subject. the first research paradigm, currently dominant in political science, defines youth as “citizens in becoming and in anticipation” who require political enlightenment and should be slowly introduced to political processes before they reach the age of official inclusion in electoral processes at all levels. the second paradigm, in contrast, interprets the political socialization of youth as a dynamic socio-cultural process predicated on the impact of the qualitatively novel communicative phenomena that emerge out of the growing autonomy of symbolic communicative structures. at the same time, both paradigms underline the social significance of youth’s constructive political activity and effective integration of younger generation in political communications. however, despite some important conceptual similarities between the two paradigms, there is an increasing divergence in methodological positioning evident in researchers’ epistemological foundations. the politico-functionalist paradigm: a generational continuity the first, politico-functionalist theoretical paradigm follows the positivist scientific principles articulated in the early studies of political socialization in political science. as mentioned earlier, even today, studies of youth socialization in politics are built on the theoretical and methodological foundations of early functionalist theories. politicization, political personalization, idealization, and institutionalization during the course of an individual life remain the primary focus of interdisciplinary research on political socialization in youth politics and political representation of age groups within this generational stratum of society (cf. sears & brown, 2013). this research paradigm is premised on the assumption of common institutional parameters of political socialization and postulates the hierarchical structuring of intergenerational relations (via macroeconomic, political, and social institutions). socio-political institutions define the political orientations and political activities of young people. the goal of political socialization is to ensure stable regulatory attention of the older generations to the younger generations’ political expectations. the destruction of such a hierarchical order of generational relations is perceived as anomalous and unnatural. young people are incorporated in political life and in the social construction of political culture as future potential citizens through the existing democratic institutions of upbringing and education controlled by older generations. political cultures in a given society define and shape these institutions. within this theoretical framework, effective political activities of an older (adult) generation are the cornerstone of youth political socialization and identification. politico-psychological studies foreground the view that political socialization in general (and socialization of youth in particular) is a social process shaped by older generations. political socialization is acquired through education and upbringing as its manageable components. the study of these components requires clarification of the connections between various spheres of life in a given political community. https://changing-sp.com/ 40 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, alexander i. koryushkin analysis of youth politics, in this case, is focused on social politics as a factor of providing youth safety and offers a way to realize their social activities. political and psychological studies of political socialization aim to combine both research strategies and utilize institutional analysis and axiological modeling while also incorporating cognitive and socio-psychological analysis of how the political is represented in youth consciousness. within the framework of political psychology, emphasis is often placed on understanding social constructions of youth political identification. such an approach conflates the processes of political identification and cannot go beyond outlining the value-normative models. the temporal dimensions of this process and communicative thematization of political generational expectations remain peripheral within this line of politico-psychological investigations. in modern studies of intergenerational dynamics, the term “political socialization” now tends to be used less and less often. the study of political socialization is reduced to describing young people’s participation in election campaigns and protest movements, which means that this concept is replaced by the concept of politicization. the symbolic-interactionist paradigm: an inter-generational solidarity the second, symbolic-interactionist research paradigm postulates that there are no universal normative characteristics of political youth socialization because those are dependent on specific historical, social, economic, and cultural conditions. the symbolic self-representation of youth in political culture is predicated on the generational perception of the temporal and spatial boundaries of political communications that characterize communities at different stages of their political development. youth is not only a socio-biological, psychological, or socio-economic factor of social institutionalization but also a socio-cultural category, which explains why the concepts of political socialization and youth politics vary in their contents and account for communicative autonomy of different age groups (including the young). such theoretical argument gives young people voices and ability to be actors in the communicative processes that enable them to be incorporated in and/or excluded from political life (leonard, 2016). while this research paradigm remains somewhat peripheral and declarative, it explains political obedience or the level of protest activities of youth not only as a function of an institutional order or stability of valuebased orientations but shifts analytical attention to the spatial-temporal dimensions of this or that political event that defines youth’s actions. claims that society needs a new model of relations between generations, mass media and forms of civic engagement frequently lead to fairly traditional judgments typical of the structural and functional analysis of the political socialization of youth (clark & marchi, 2017; zhu et al., 2019). it is stated that young people are more adaptive and creative in relation to the realities of modern mass media and digitalization and therefore are able to overcome the inertial attitudes of the ruling generation, their institutional and cultural dominance. older generations must contribute to the development of young people’s media literacy and unite with them on the basis of new social movements struggling for civil rights for the sake of the “well-being of future generations” (chevalier, 2019; levin, 2016). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 41 this paradigmatic approach examines the young generation’s involvement in politics not only as adaptation to values of the adult society but also as active engagement in the transformation of the older generation’s understandings of the events that are vital for social consolidation and collective functioning. within this theoretical model, new political generations emerge not only as local alternative youth subcultures but also as a result of internal generational narratives of political identification that clash with dominant discourses. asynchronicity of political socialization in resolving the dichotomies of these two theoretical models, giesen’s methodological approach to the study of contemporary communicative dynamics of social life through the concept of asynchronicity seems particularly helpful (giesen, 2004a). this approach overcomes the inertia of modernist models that consider society as a system of interconnected sub-systems that should ideally be tightly interlinked to exchange information and systematically overcome imperfections of the past and failures in system coordination. according to giesen’s model, social life functions differently from the functionalist or progressivist scenarios. asynchronicity of generational differences manifests itself in the perception of social time and the corresponding differences in the interpretations of the significance of social events. the paradigm of asynchronicity is associated with the disjunctions between institutional norms and behavior of different generations and explains change as an outcome of intergenerational communication. political discourses regarding people’s agency in social, cultural, economic, political, and legal communications are always linked with variable time contexts among the actors of such processes. the desire of political elites to preserve the continuous evolution of social institutions and cultural patterns from the past to the present and the future often clashes with differences in the symbolic perception horizons of the significance of such events among young people. events that one generation remembers as a victory may be perceived as a defeat or an unimportant event by another generation or a group of people living in a different time horizon. the younger generation can reorient themselves towards the events that are meaningful for them or imagined markers of successful life in the present and the future. this can erode or even destroy the foundation of common understanding within society and cause political conflicts. moreover, extraordinary political events, such as the covid-19 pandemic, can rapidly bring young people out of the shadow of the political experience of previous generations and force them to radically reformat the current cultural patterns, institutions, and political narratives. we argue that further development of the theory of political socialization creates the need to define the concept of political socialization as a communicative process of social construction (self-construction) of political expectations among the younger generation, which is categorized and symbolically represented in the national memory of communities as a semantic focus of events significant for the collective memory of generations. national memory as a melting pot of generation-specific political expectations could offer semantic contraction of age-strata’s political expectations. it can, however, turn into a nuclear reactor with an uncontrollable chain reaction of conflicting political narratives. https://changing-sp.com/ 42 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, alexander i. koryushkin communicative dimensions of the political socialization of youth political culture and political memory in the light of the theoretical and methodological challenges discussed above, it is necessary to develop a theoretical and methodological framework for studying political socialization as a specific temporal structuring of the generational political expectations in the political memory of communities. we believe that the concept of political memory allows for a more comprehensive analysis of political socialization, in contrast to traditional interpretations of political culture as a complex of valuenormative orientations cultivated in the process of political socialization. as a form of political memory, political culture can be defined as semantic programming of political experience and a set of interconnected mutual expectations, methods, and schemes that bring individuals together as political communities (or exclude them from such communities) through symbolization and typology of political events in space and time. at the same time, expectations do not imply only subjective motivations of political actions, but encompass the structure (configuration of events) and the internal solidarity of expectations, which ensure the likelihood that the required kind of action will be performed (filippov, 2015, p. 212). the primary communicative function of political memory is the legitimation and de-legitimation of power in shaping or destroying solidarity in a given society. the symbolic horizons of political memory bring about political expectations that act as generative models of events of political solidarity, providing synchronization/ desynchronization of both individual and collective national political memory. the series of events in national political memory is based on the symbolization of the practice of controlling coercion within generally binding decisions, complemented by the symbolization of the bodily sensory perception of the heroic and sacrificial. it is especially important to consider such theoretical premises when implementing public policies orientated towards shaping and directing national memory. this memory based on citizenship codes of solidarity can overcome the differences in the ideation and representation of the significant past, present, and future that are being continuously multiplied and reinterpreted within the realities of modern political communications. political rights, granted to all socially responsible community members, regardless of their class, ethnicity, or regional affiliation, form the foundation of civil solidarity codes and could facilitate the transition to a more spatially stable level of political solidarity and national identification. socialization, values, and temporal structuring in our interpretation of political and cultural phenomena, we adhere to the conceptual framework that defines political culture as a continually evolving symbolic network of meanings. this approach, in our opinion, counteracts the epistemological limitations of research programs that reduce political socialization only to values, norms, and ideologies derived from the structures of social institutions or behavioral models that do not account for qualitative changes in modern political communications. we follow n. luhmann’s theoretical argument that socialization is always selfchanging societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 43 socialization because a person “shapes oneself in such a way that one lives up to the demands of social intercourse, fulfills specific preconditions, or triggers certain reactions, possibly even negative ones” (luhmann, 2002/2013, p. 97). as “every system develops its structures <of socialization, which> […] are not predetermined by any cultural prescriptions <or> […] copying of a trivial and banal program”, it is also true that communications “can always say yet another thing if one gets into trouble” (pp. 97–98). this can increase variability in cultural programs of socialization and unpredictable consequences that can further “formulate a certain modernity and, in comparison to the tradition, a loss of reality” (p. 100). in this context, the success of the political socialization of youth and intergenerational interactions depends not only on the purposeful organizational or ideological youth policy implemented by cultural and political elites but also on the politics of memory aimed at structuring the horizons of societal expectations. the compatibility of socio-economic or socio-political interests of generations does not automatically predetermine the stable political identity of the community. the latter could only arise if the intergenerational consensus is maintained about the common historical fate of both younger and older generations. traditional sociological concepts interpret political socialization as a transfer of significant value models from one generation to the next. the success of political socialization is associated with the degree of the younger generations’ acceptance of and assimilation to these models and the degree of its value-normative content representation within youth strata. the social construction of the generational symbolic boundaries, in our opinion, involves going beyond the interpretation of political socialization as the socio-cultural dynamics of value-normative preferences. without refuting the communicative significance of values that signal social problems, communicative practices encompass more than values, because the latter are too abstract. values are “nothing other than a highly mobile set of viewpoints, rather than a fixed set of viewpoints. they do not, as ideas once did, resemble fixed stars, but rather balloons kept on hand to be inflated when called for, especially on festive occasions” (luhmann, 1997/2012, p. 204). as luhmann notes, value justifications occur through ideologies and argumentation. in this case, “ideology commits the big crimes and argumentation engages in the petty stratagems” (p. 205). values in modern communication often lack the important qualities inherent in other symbolic carriers, and their significance in decision-making is highly controversial. being increasingly more diverse and hybrid, modern ideologies offer a clear example of that. labeled as conservative or progressive, dominant ideologies lose their semantic certainty. for example, the communist ideology in modern russia has included conservative and religious value orientations in its content. in modern ukraine and some post-socialist countries, the liberal-democratic rhetoric is combined with the radical-conservative ethno-nationalist discourse of “land and blood”. in the political space of the eu and the united states, both liberal and conservative parties utilize the rhetoric of fake news and tend to make populist claims. we believe that when modeling a dialogue between generational communities, it is necessary to account for the differences in the interpretation of the past, present, and future. the peculiarities of their communicative binding in the symbolic https://changing-sp.com/ 44 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, alexander i. koryushkin structures of diverse collective representations play an important role in structuring intergenerational communication. when describing the dynamics of the generational political identification, it is important to account for the specifics of national memory as a historical form of social memory that arises through the symbolic definition of the spatial and temporal boundaries of individualized communities. like other forms of social memory, it is a diachronic clash between different interests and meanings, rather than a form of their static expression (olick, 2016). at the same time, it is important to account for the autonomy and spontaneity of social memory as a dynamic compulsion to action through its complex symbolic configurations that legitimize the struggle for power. the core of this semantic process is the correlation of real facts and events with the systems of symbols that generate sacred objects (alexander, 2006a, 2012a). formation of collective ideas about the political past, present and future is always associated with re-writing of the symbolic calendar of collectively significant political events and the associated sacred pantheon of the heroic and criminal. the symbolic constructs created through this process often acquire new meanings, radically different from the original, and begin a life of their own in the activities of political amateurs. political socialization and national memory legitimation profiles despite the rise in globalization and the introduction of novel communicative technologies, national identity processes within local communities continue to affect political socialization. in this regard, we find the theoretical models of s. eisenstadt and b. giesen particularly useful. they argued that control over the distribution of values and institutionalization is relevant for the study of the historical dynamics of the interand intra-group positioning of national communities, along with social differentiation. thus, the investigation of political socialization needs to give due regard to the symbolic specificity of the spatial and temporal coding of the boundaries of such communities (eisenstadt, 2002; eisenstadt & giesen, 1995). the formation of institutions of national statehood always accompanies and often precedes the qualitative transformations of collective ideas about who has the right to participate in the political changes and what is considered a turning point, thereby establishing a historical event in the political evolution of the nation. the revolutions of the modern era have significantly expanded the space for political participation, spawning new symbols of identity and creating a new symbolic calendar of political events. while political, economic, and social boundaries in many contemporary national communities could be taken for granted, these communities experience a heightened sense of uncertainty in the symbolic boundaries under the influence of modern communicative practices. processes in modern social memory do not just reflect the evolution of institutional structures of values preferences of cultural and political elites in the organization of political socialization, childhood politics, and youth policies. these processes are becoming the decisive symbolic triggers of political socialization; they play an important role in production of identities, interests, and meanings over time. the study of the symbolic dynamics of political socialization in the context of modern cultural sociology involves the analysis of temporal regimes and historical forms, levels of national memory, the pragmatics changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 45 of its mnemonic practices, and the production of symbolic codes of public spaces (alexander, 2006a, 2006b, 2012a). this study puts forward a new concept of civil society as a way of life and not just as a set of rational democratic procedures. since political culture of civil society is formed through symbolic binary coding (denotation) of the existing political institutions and forms of political activity as political evil and good (democratic/non-democratic), civil democratic consolidation of society presupposes an existence of a political conflict. however, the conflict in the civil sphere can be overcome by cultivating forms of solidarity with strangers on the basis of common political expectations in national memory. to understand the role of national memory in the production and destruction of national identity, it is important to study the specifics of its symbolic figurations that reflect the changes in the past-present relationship. these relations emerge as a result of conflicts between competing memories, different genres and legitimation profiles. jeffrey olick introduced the concept of legitimation profile in order to describe the unique contours—more and less smooth—of political meaningmaking in any period of time. profiles comprise diverse meaning elements, including images of the past, identitarian claims, rhetorical styles, attributions of present responsibility, policy characterizations, types of heroes, styles, sense of inside and outside, moral and practical purposes, and procedures. the notion of profile captures the impossibility of apprehending these meanings as discrete elements, and the necessity of viewing them as wholes greater than the sums of their parts. this is the mundane sense of a profile: an outline visible only as a whole. in this way, profile looks out from the political field to see it as part of a wider cultural moment. (olick, 2016, p. 62) an unprecedented increase in the importance of the political present in contemporary politics accompanies the formation of national identity. such present becomes a symbolic measure of the suitable past and the starting point in designing a proper future. images of the past, political characteristics of elites, typology of the heroic, ideas of duty, guilt, and responsibility, priority strategies and practices of dealing with enemies open a wide space for legitimation of political order through the competitive dynamics of various semantic components and symbolic contours of national memory or national memory legitimation profiles. all these elements determine the direction of the political socialization of young people, while the conflict of these elements can stimulate the politicization of young people, focused on the radical reformatting of national memory legitimation profiles. therefore, to properly describe the political socialization of youth, it is imperative to examine national memory legitimation profiles, as this will allow us to forecast the emergence, the patterns, and proliferation of identity conflicts within local communities. in his interpretation of the political and cultural foundations of symbolic representations of the boundaries of collective memory and sacralization/desacralization in the context of such ideal-typical concepts as triumph and trauma, b. giesen described four main symbolic figures underlying national identity—the https://changing-sp.com/ 46 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, alexander i. koryushkin triumphant hero, tragic hero, victim, and perpetrator (giesen, 2004b). developing the theoretical foundations of this phenomenology of heroism and sacrifice for the case of europe, giesen analyzes the transition from heroism to sacrifice in collective identity and shows that in the western civilization, national identification replaces the death of heroism with an increasing influence of a sacrifice (giesen, 2013). his observation challenges the division of communities into heroic and criminal. such obfuscation of differences between the sacrificial and criminal leads to discursive splits in political socialization. these theoretical premises, in our opinion, are very important not only for analyzing the national memory legitimation profiles but also for understanding victimization and de-heroization, which younger generations are increasingly embracing. this contributes to the accumulation of protest potential within the national spaces of europe, russia, and the united states. moreover, images of victorious heroes and innocent victims as representations of the younger generation reproduce this model in the cultural production of the political. like other forms of collective identity in complex societies in search of generational continuity, national identity is formed through the social construction of the symbolic boundaries of communities based on symbolic inclusion/exclusion of “others”. however, in contemporary society, this process takes place in the context of the growing erosion of the symbolic structures of national identity. therefore, socio-cultural modeling of symbolic structures of national memory and the profiles of its legitimation helps us better describe the evolution of basic political narratives of political memory that affect the political socialization of modern generations in eurasia. consequently, we will be able to better predict the risks and dangers arising in the realities of symbolic practices of modern intergenerational communications. symbolic practices of modern political intergenerational communications political socialization and the iconic power to examine political socialization as a communicative process, it is essential to analyze how effective symbolic structures are at mobilizing groups, expressing and condensing their emotions in a targeted manner. members of the younger generation are increasingly challenging the symbolic discourse of older generations and creating novel symbolic content aimed exclusively at a young audience. the recent events in the post-soviet space (ukraine, belarus) and protest movements in the united states and eu provide ample examples of this phenomenon. this phenomenon can also be illustrated by the rapid growth of social networks that produce and circulate sensual-imaginative political content, in particular facebook1, twitter2, instagram3, 1 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. in the russian federation, it is recognised as an extremist organisation and its activity is prohibited. 2 twitter® is a trademark of twitter inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. in the russian federation, its activity is prohibited. 3 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. in the russian federation, it is recognised as an extremist organisation and its activity is prohibited. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 47 and youtube4. political blogs written by young people and for young people and youth networking communities explore diverse forms of self-expression (rambukkana, 2015). both producers and consumers of such symbolic products belong to the young generation, which is heterogeneous and consists of qualitatively diverse groups. mnemonic actors offer political visualization of the new generation’s priorities that become effective political triggers as symbols of sensual-figurative prototypes of novel forms of heroism. by so doing, these symbols clash with images of the older generation’s heroic past. political memes, associated with the deconstruction of the soviet heroic content by ridiculing the political leaders of this period or transforming their positive images into criminal ones, illustrate this observation. something similar is found in the media space of the united states and the european union, where previously heroic images of politicians of the past, who symbolized the idea of the civilizing, democratic mission of the west, began to be presented as carriers of political racist evil. from george washington and theodore roosevelt to john marshall and woodrow wilson, american heroes are currently standing public opinion trial as historians discover new documents and review old evidence. the younger generation’s cultures of memory do not exist independently of the adult world, and their symbolic capital can be appropriated and partially mastered by adult political actors. nevertheless, they do influence the political world of adults. this can be illustrated by the internet memes that are born within the internet space and legitimize both constructive and destructive activity of the younger generation towards the existing political institutions and models of political behavior. the widespread media memes about the corruption and venality of state institutions and political parties mostly target the youth audience. in our opinion, the intergenerational clash can be best described with the help of such sociological concepts as iconic experience, iconic consciousness, social unconscious or sensory consciousness. iconic forms act as communicative mediators between more abstract symbolic representations and everyday representations of bodily, material experience of existence. iconic signs display referent concepts as an approximation of their bodily-sensory incarnations. a powerful condensation of meanings of the profane and the sacred amplifies their socio-political significance in the popular imagination. researchers note that iconic images and symbols have not lost their effectiveness in the contemporary world. on the contrary, thanks to modern communications, their influence has increased. as j. c. alexander notes, iconic power and iconic images can act without the help of other forces. once formed, they become independent of the processes that produced them. in modern society, the process of producing iconic images is deeply diversified and therefore escapes the control of official institutions (alexander, 2012b, pp. 34–35). political socialization more and more often takes place outside the framework of such previously influential institutions of socialization as the education system, political parties, state political information systems, etc. the emergence of online communities radically expands the circle of participants in the production of political content and behavior models, and involves previously apolitical youth groups in the political process. this enhances 4 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 48 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, alexander i. koryushkin individualization of political communications thus stimulating the replication of superficial, profane ideas about politics (stiegler, 2016/2019). c. bottici draws attention to similar phenomena. resolving the dichotomy of imagination as a subjective and objective ability of a person in political interactions, she introduces the concepts of political imaginary and imaginal. they are designed to describe the processes associated with the production of collectively significant images and symbols that create a sense of political reality, political corporeality. political communications, she argues, have reached a critical threshold in their quantitative and qualitative capacity in the production of “imaginal” images. not only do they mediate political activity but also become rightful actors and take our place (bottici, 2014, p. 178; cf. bottici, 2019). iconic objects and signs are characterized by a high degree of physical verisimilitude with their signifiers, evoking a collective sensory-emotional response that provides penetration of contents of more abstract symbols of political identification into the everyday life representations. iconic images and symbols trivialize more rational or abstract sacred forms of symbolic representation of the political. thus, symbolic representations are transformed into a mythical narrative that binds together the rational and irrational representations in the collective consciousness. at the same time, symbols and more abstract substantiations of the past, present, and future are complemented by the symbolization of the bodily sensory perception of social reality through the symbolization of heroic and sacrificial events. this is central to the political socialization of youth since the sensory-figurative component at this stage of socialization plays a very significant role in cognitive development, inclusion in and exclusion from social communications. the majority of people (especially younger ones) intuitively perceive these symbols as something simple and understandable, which is conducive to the rapid formation of an emotional community. in modern communications such effective use of audiovisual technologies for the creation and replication of iconic symbols, triggers mass political mobilization. there are examples of this in practically all post-soviet color revolutions or protest actions of new social movements, which engendered numerous traditional and new imaginal symbols, presented in political advertising, art comics, hashtags, flash mobs, etc., evoked a strong emotional response and instigated a tragically dramatic political confrontation. in the context of socio-cultural concepts and symbolic practices of positioning the modern youth, iconic power can be viewed as an important strategy of political socialization. its iconic forms increase their influence on the participation of young people in political communications by controlling the sense of political solidarity in national communities and giving rise to new forms of political and cultural hierarchy. political socialization and dynamics of legitimation profiles studying the role of symbolic structures and practices of political memory in the political socialization of modern youth allow us to make several practical explications regarding the problems of legitimation and transformation of political socialization of youth in europe, russia, and the united states. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 49 contemporary problems of the political socialization of young people in europe and russia are linked with political problems and symbolic inflation of the structures of older generations’ political memory. the transformation of the european symbolic space that followed the collapse of the soviet political space became a catalyst for qualitative changes in the structures of national political memory. the economic and migration crisis in the eu and the coronavirus pandemic have created a heightened potential for conflict inherent in such processes and increased the asynchronization between younger and older generations’ ideas about the significance of certain milestone political events of the past. it is obvious that the processes of political socialization of youth in the space of the modern western world differ in their dynamics and contexts, in the symbolic representation of the place and role of youth in the political space. at the same time, the dynamics of legitimation profiles in different societies exhibit common tendencies in the asynchronization of political identifications of generations. in the context of increasing differentiation and asynchronization of communications, symbolic inflation is growing due to the loss of confidence in the institutions of power, which are proclaiming unrealizable, illusory policies (luhmann, 1997/2012, pp. 230–231). the proliferation of digital technologies for the replication of symbolic content leads to symbolic poverty—people’s loss of ability for sustainable self-identification and the erosion of the spatio-temporal articulation of events, thereby destroying the process of generational continuity (stiegler, 2004/2014, pp. 10–33). to analyze the national memory legitimation profiles in modern russia and their influence on the interaction between political generations, it is important to examine event structures of the generationally specific forms of political socialization. in russia, national memory is characterized by a conflict between various politics of memory that can be traced to competing narratives of political identification in domestic and foreign policy relations. the processes of political socialization and resocialization of youth symbolically reformatted the spatio-temporal boundaries of the younger generation during the collapse of the soviet union; they unraveled and delegitimized the structures of its political memory. the dissolution of the ussr was accompanied by the disintegration of the soviet political identity in the search of the newly independent states for a new symbolic political calendar and political narratives to legitimate their sovereignty. these events triggered the processes of symbolic coding, brought about an intense competition of generational political narratives and inspired a frantic search for a unifying political narrative that would be adequate to the socio-cultural characteristics of political memory in russia. such dynamics of political communications inevitably diversify and misalign generational time horizons and manifest themselves as novel symbolic representations and iconic content. in modern russia, the political discourses of different generational strata offer qualitatively different interpretations of the founding political events significant for these generations. some continue to focus on the events of the soviet union while others fixate on “new russia” and the related traumatic events. the dynamics of the profiles of the legitimation of national memory of modern russia can be interpreted as an evolution from the grand narrative of new russia https://changing-sp.com/ 50 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, alexander i. koryushkin in the 1990s to the narrative of national consolidation in the 2000s. while the grand narrative was oriented towards russia’s entry into the civilized community and followed the principles of euro-atlantic solidarity, the consolidation rhetoric of the early 21st century explored more stable forms of national identity and adhered to the symbolic core of civil patriotism. focusing on the russian elites’ memory politics, some authors distinguish two large periods characterized by different concepts of the official historical narrative—new russia and millennial russia (malinova, 2019). liberal-minded researchers often argue that the narrative turn of the early 2000s, both in russia and in some eastern european countries, which led to the development of novel forms of national patriotism, should be considered a particular, isolationist tendency (koposov, 2018). we, however, subscribe to the view upheld by the scholars who, despite all the critical reservations about the risks of abandoning the paradigm of persistent study of the painful past, note the fundamental importance of consolidating russian society around positive national symbols (malinova, 2021, pp. 1001–1002). we believe that such narrative turn in the evolution of russia’s national identity can smooth out the intense conflict of the intergenerational political narratives that emerged after the collapse of the soviet union and facilitate compatibility of the ground generational expectations in contemporary russia. the temporal differences between generations affected political socialization of the soviet youth in the late 1980s. in the late ussr, the soviet heroic metanarrative was devalued and the iconic images of young people in politics were desacralized. the images of soviet heroes acquired negative or criminal features, and antiheroes, on the contrary, were endowed with the features of the heroic and sacrificial. these processes concluded the early 2000s with the appearance of new national memory legitimation profiles. the political and cultural realities in eastern europe and post-soviet russia show that symbolic representations of heroic fighters from the soviet legacy did not have an expected socializing effect on youth. after the collapse of the soviet bloc, the discourse of the heroic within the youth strata began to transform into the discourse of victimization. at present, changes and conflicts in the national memory legitimization profile are quite obvious, due, inter alia, to the inconsistency of the temporal horizons of generations. the politicization of racial, gender, social distinctions and, accordingly, the re-definition of such iconic concepts as “victim”, “criminal”, and “external enemy” contribute to increased tensions and fragmentations within and across the generations. cases of recent racial unrest in the united states exhibit similar tendencies. radical reformatting of the images of the heroic, sacrificial, and the criminal, the death of the triumphant hero and the sacralization of the victim overturn the referent symbols used by mass protest movements, whose active participants were representatives of youth strata. while problems of youth political participation in public life are evident worldwide, we can be cautiously optimistic regarding the adaptation of the younger and older generations to the ongoing communicative turbulences both in their national spaces and in the space of political communities. european social scientists who study youth changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 51 political participation as a form of political socialization show that, despite the global wave of youth protests and the growth in repressive practices of state institutions, the political activity of youth, intent on making the world a better place for all, contributes to the democratization of societies and establishes a constructive dialogue with the authorities and older generations (pickard, 2019; pickard & bessant, 2018). similarly, e. b. shestopal, an authoritative scholar who has researched the dynamics of political socialization in russia over the past two decades, points out that the results of the young people’s political inclusion and the resocialization of older generations in post-soviet society were mainly positive (shestopal, 2019). at the same time, the research focus on communicative strategies in studies of the intergenerational dynamics of political socialization methodologically captures the high degree of heterogeneity of this process. in the political spaces of russia and western countries, the national memory legitimation profiles are radically different. accordingly, the political socialization of young people with their interpretation of basic constituent events and the conflict of practices of victimization and heroization follow divergent scenarios and engender discursive schisms and memory wars. thus, there is a need to symbolically reformat the memory of older generations and construct new national memory legitimation profiles of new generations to overcome the growing semantic confrontation caused by the qualitative differences in the political and cultural foundations of political solidarity. as the generational splits in europe, russia, and the united states show, the pendulum of youth political anomie and political activism can suddenly turn into intense spontaneous destructive activities of young people to delegitimize the existing social institutions. the dynamic consensus between generations in modern communications requires not only the development of organizational resources of political socialization, ideological campaigns to maintain the importance of its heroic content or the axioms of political values but it also necessitates the participation of young people in the symbolic construction of the political future and active creation of its event content. this content could be both real and imaginary, and it can bring the expectations of young people from beyond the horizon of the consumerist everyday reality and overcome the radical political rejection of the older generations. conclusion the semantic diversification and moral devaluation of communications in modern communities and the increasing variability and hybridization of political ideologies and institutions that implement policies of generational succession necessitate a significant correction of the research agenda in understanding political socialization and positioning of youth in modern society. in the realities of modern political communications, one needs to account for the risks of increasing asynchrony (different timing) of differences in the perception of social time by generations and the consequent changes in the semantics, axioms, and even aesthetics of formative political events. the more traditional research agenda deals with the political socialization of youth as politicization of an age-minority (future or novice citizens) that emerges as https://changing-sp.com/ 52 konstantin f. zavershinskiy, alexander i. koryushkin an outcome of political activities of the older (adult) generations. in our opinion, it would be more productive to supplement this research agenda with studies that focus on political socialization as a set of socially constructed communicative practices of political expectations among young people as those expectations are categorized and symbolically reflected within the national memory of communities. according to this approach, young people do not just adapt to the institutions and ideological regimes of an adult society, but actively select and challenge political ideas of the older generations by creating their own, often alternative narratives of national identity. such narratives are ambivalent in a communicative sense and can destroy the dominant ideas, but they can also act as a connecting link between the projections of the past and future and can strengthen civic identity. this perspective on youth political socialization better captures the dynamics of temporal structuring in the communicative spaces of the contemporary political memory and explains the successes or failures of the political socialization of young people as largely predetermined by intergenerational communicative (mis)understanding. the study of temporal changes in the national memory legitimation profiles sheds light on the dynamics of the conflict between its various competing semantic components (images of the past and the future, political characteristics of elites, typology of the heroic, ideas of duty, guilt, and responsibility, priority strategies and practices of dealing with friends and enemies). all these elements determine the direction of youth political socialization, and their conflict can act as a semantic trigger for reformatting of the existing profiles of political legitimation. in the context of socio-cultural studies of the pragmatics and symbolic effectiveness of political socialization, the production of sensual images of the political is a primary strategy to implement modern iconic power, whose symbolic forms significantly affect the positioning of young people in political communications by cultivating/suppressing the sense of generational solidarity and generating new forms of political activism/escapism. iconic images addressed to and produced by young people play a significant role in political and cultural reproduction and modern political socialization. these images are a significant resource for studying the processes of social construction and replication of political values and behavioral models. the aforementioned theoretical and methodological agenda for the investigation of the political socialization of modern youth and the methods of symbolic representation of its political expectations in national memory through the concept of iconic power explain the struggle between the memories of political generations, the collisions of memory politics of the younger generation with the symbolic structures of the older generation’s political memory. society responds to the fast cultural, political, economic, and technological transformations sweeping the globe by changing national memory legitimation profiles within its constituent strata—images of the past clash with images of the future; the key symbolic figures of the heroic are transformed; young generations radically redefine the notions of duty, guilt, and responsibility for events of the past and of the present. it is in this context that we observe the rise in conflicts between different political generations. a better understanding of these dynamics can help prevent or relieve the intergenerational tensions in contemporary politics. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 35–55 53 references alexander, j. c. 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(2020). pandemic!: covid-19 shakes the world. polity press. https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199760107.013.0003 https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199760107.013.0003 https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2019.01.02 https://doi.org/10.31119/pe.2021.8.1.5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2019.10.010 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2019.10.010 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 686–689 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.157 received 30 november 2021 © 2021 sergei v. sokolov accepted 16 december 2021 sokolovsv@urfu.ru published online 30 december 2021 book review trade, politics and borderlands: russia and britain in the age of enterprise review of matthew p. romaniello (2019). enterprising empires: russia and britain in eighteenth-century eurasia. cambridge university press sergei v. sokolov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia acknowledgements the research was supported by the ministry of science and higher education of the russian federation in the framework of the state task on the topic “regional identity of russia: comparative historical and philological studies” feuz-2020-0056 in this well-written book, matthew p. romaniello presents a study of the commercial relationships between the british and russian empires throughout the long eighteenth century. the book title is accurately chosen. the author describes not only british efforts to establish trade with russia (or through russia’s lands), but also surveys russian commercial enterprises in both asia and america, revealing the russian government’s great desire to take advantages of its vast territory and the political situation in the borderlands. both russia and britain were equally enterprising commercially—this is probably the main idea behind the whole book. with a caveat on the difference between the two in terms of naval power and financial resources, the author claims that “the traditional argument of russia’s economic ‘backwardness’ can be challenged”, and the russian “eighteenth-century commercial economy was undoubtedly robust and as successful as those of europe’s leading countries” (romaniello, 2019, p. 3). the author points out that this observation is not new. his work is indeed based on a large historiographical tradition, which holds divergent opinions and investigates different aspects of russian and british commercial relations within this period. on the one hand, the abundance of literature makes it difficult for any new study to present novelty and uniqueness, but, on the other, this historiographical situation provides an opportunity to use a great deal of facts https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 686–689 687 and figures collected in studies of anglo-russian trade and diplomacy. romaniello has managed to find his own focus: the book is centered on significant actors, such as traders, entrepreneurs, and diplomats. it is based on different narrative and private sources—travel accounts, diplomatic correspondence, letters, and memoirs. with these documents, the author explains to us the aims and course of eighteenthcentury british trade in russia, asia, and america. talking a lot about people, the book contains few figures: the author takes full advantage of previous studies (kaplan, 1995) to assess the volume of finance and goods. this approach helps explore human dimension in international commerce. the other important “heroes” of the book are commercial companies. the research is concerned with commercial activity of all charted british companies involved in the trade with russia including the russia company, the levant company, the eastland company, and the east india company. the author studies their business, efforts, and rivalry, touching on a wide range of matters from commercial competition to parliamentary lobbying. it is especially valuable that the book covers the eighteenth-century history of the russia company. it has long been held that the heyday of this company occurred in previous centuries, with the eighteenth century being largely neglected. romaniello reveals that the company was very active in several decades of the eighteenth century, namely in the 1730s and 40s, immediately after the signing of the anglo-russian commercial treaty (1734). from the russian side, significant attention is paid to the russian american company, the first russian established company to trade north american commodities. although the scale of this company cannot be compared with its english counterparts, it was once a very significant enterprise for the russian empire and allows the author to some extent equate russian business with its british counterpart, at least in terms of its organizational forms and goals. the list of archival sources is impressive (romaniello, 2019, pp. 264 –265). the author uses documents from britain, russia, the united states, spain, and denmark. the british librar y, the national archives in kew, the national librar y of scotland, the national records of scotland, the russian state archive of ancient acts, the library of congress, and the national archives and records administration (usa) are the most significant depositories employed. there is a certain inclination towards english archival sources, as is also the case for the published primary sources. this has an impact on the visibility of russian characters and positions, which i will discuss later. the book is arranged chronologically and encompasses around 150 years: from muscovite trade regulations (codes) issued in the 1650–60s to the napoleonic era, when russia for a short time joined the so-called continental system. the chronological arrangement does not mean that the author describes every set of events in anglo-russian relations. the five chapters are dedicated to different chronological periods. within each period, the author focuses on significant points in imperial entrepreneurship that were crucial for anglo-russian commerce. the first chapter analyses the struggle of english merchants to regain commercial privileges in russia in the second half of the seventeenth century. https://changing-sp.com/ 688 sergei v. sokolov the torgovyi ustav (1653) and its renewal in 1667 marked the russian transition to mercantilism. it put an end to the earlier policy of massive privileges for foreign merchants and companies. at the same time, england introduced a more organized approach to its merchant companies, putting its trade under governmental control through the navigation acts. the moderate success of british enterprises in russia is investigated in chapter two. britain achieved its long-sought goal to sell american tobacco in russia (1698). british interests included the transition trade with china, with the english medic john bell making his way to this country through russia. but the most desirable destination was iran. from the sixteenth century, when antony jenkinson travelled through russia down the volga river, the english deemed the iranian trade highly profitable. the attempts to establish a steady route failed in the sixteenth century and during the reigns of the early romanovs. at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the russia company doubled its efforts, but did not succeed until the 1730s. the third chapter studies the iranian affair. it begins with the signing of the anglo-russian commercial treaty of 1734, which was a great achievement of british diplomats. the treaty allowed british merchants to trade with iran through astrakhan. soon after this, the british adventurer and naval captain john elton made it down the volga, reaching astrakhan and then iran. when his activities became suspicious to the russian government, the russia company dispatched jonas hanway in an attempt to mitigate the situation. the account left by hanway (a very detailed book, in fact) is one of the main sources for romaniello. the failure of the british to secure a foothold in the iranian silk trade (1746) and the later desperate attempts to rectify the situation are also matters of concern in the chapter. additionally, the author follows russian success in siberia and iran, looking closely at the treaties and institutions of russian commercial agents and consuls on the caspian sea. the important conclusion of the third chapter is that russia had the upper hand in trade relationships at the time, as the british navy was dependent on raw materials from russia. chapter four investigates the time of catherine the great. in this period, britain did succeed in signing a new treaty with russia (1766), but it did not give british merchants the same privileges as the previous agreement. russia made advances in the black sea region by waging war against the ottoman empire: this contributed to deterioration in the anglo-russian relationship. the chapter describes how the new notion of russia as a rival emerged. russian success in the far east and north american exploration added to these fears. in the fifth chapter, a broad picture of russian enterprises is built up. the chapter focuses on the pacific region where the russian american company emerged (1799), but the european theater and the black sea are not omitted. the close look at russian borderland territories has an unexpected outcome: the book can be considered a history of commerce on the russian frontier and in the empire’s remote regions. the actions of british agents and companies in these territories are thoroughly studied by romaniello. both the personal and institutional dimensions are examined. for example, the author provides a quite in-depth description of the interactions between the russian administration in astrakhan and changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 686–689 689 british merchants, focusing on the encounters of john elton and jonas hanway with the astrakhan governor vasilii tatishchev. the latter was a big proponent of the merchants, although he was suspicious of british enterprise this part of the book also has a downside however: the author does not really take into account o the fact that some of russia’s remote territories had a special status, with their administrators exercising considerable power over internal and external affairs (lazarev, 2017). taking the role of regional administrators and elites more fully into account would give a broader perspective on the reasons for the ups and downs in both british and russian commercial enterprises. another potential criticism is rooted in the weakness of the book’s russian characters. while british voices are clearly audible, russian actors remain nearly silent most of the time. this can be easily explained by the composition of the sources. the author tends to rely on english sources, which leads to more detailed description of british characters. in most cases, the author gives a very accurate image of the events, but there are some gaps. for instance, the denunciation of the anglo-russian treaty deserves a more thorough study from the russian side. romaniello, following english accounts, explains that captain john elton was the main culprit, with his activities on the caspian sea (he built several warships for the iranian shah) resulting in russian withdrawal from the treaty. however, as russian sources show, the new government of empress elizabeth (1741–61) embarked on a policy of protectionism in favor of domestic merchants (iukht, 1994), and therefore elton’s malevolent activity was rather a pretext han the true reason for the abolition of the anglo-russian commercial treaty. this minor criticism does not undermine my overall positive opinion of the book. the study’s selectiveness gives it a much-needed focus, and a certain lack of the russian viewpoint is compensated by a quite comprehensive english source base. this is the research of this issue that has long been needed: a personality-centered, very well-written, and academically in-depth book exploring the vast geography of anglo-russian commercial and diplomatic interactions in the age of enlightenment. references iukht, a. i. (1994). torgovlya s vostochnymi stranami i vnutrennii rynok rossii (20–60-e gody xviii v.) [the eastern trade and russia’s internal market in the 1720-60s]. institut rossiiskoi istorii rossiiskoi akademii nauk. kaplan, h. h. (1995). russian overseas commerce with great britain during the reign of catherine ii. american philosophical society. lazarev, ia. a. (2017). mesto ukrainskoi kazatskoi elity v sostave rossiiskogo dvorianstva v pervoi polovine 1760-kh gg. [the place of the ukrainian cossack elite in the russian nobility in the first half of the 1760s]. voprosy istorii, 3, 70–85. romaniello, m. p. (2019). enterprising empires: russia and britain in eighteenth-century eurasia. cambridge university press. https://doi. org/10.1017/9781108628600 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108628600 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108628600 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.1.026 editorial the current issue includes papers, which analyze the roots of transformations in various spheres: in the art of dance in the 20th and 21st centuries; in mass attitudes in the nordic countries; in the model of management in china; and in the perception of the canonical philosophical texts. in the paper philosophical pursuits in dance practice of the 21st century: body concepts, maria kozeva & galina brandt stress that each time has its own dance culture with its own content, form, and ascribed meaning, and explore transformations in the art of dance in the 20th century in parallels with the philosophy of body. they explain the shifts in the form and content of the dance as radical change in understanding of the dancing body itself. the authors refer to the theories of prominent philosophers friedrich nietzsche, sigmund freud, maurice merleau‑ponty, gilles deleuze, jean baudrillard, and michel foucault who radically changed philosophical discourses concerning the nature of the body, conceiving it “as a dynamic existential unit participating in a socio‑cultural context and subject to various influences and interactions”. kozeva and brandt argues that in modern dance originated in the usa the body is neither an ideal image for the expression of abstract humanistic ideas, “but rather that of a real person living in modern reality, trying to understand, define and express itself within this reality”. the authors observe several radical reforms in the art of dance in the 20th century, and conclude that today dance provides a body the freedom to express itself in every possible way. olga iakimova in the paper exploring the dynamics of xenophobia in the nordic countries notes that since the 1990s, xenophobic, deeply conservative, and extreme right‑wing political movements have emerged as increasingly strong electoral forces in much of europe. at the same time, the nordic countries have a long reputation of the most tolerant countries in the world. nevertheless, recently, xenophobic and anti‑european parties has won a large share of the vote. at the same time, immigrants are widely perceived as an “outgroup”. iakimova stresses that today xenophobia departs from the behavioral norms of civilized society, in which people are expected to relate with one another with respect and dignity, and raises a question: “why do people engage in xenophobic behavior even in the world’s richest countries in times largely free of armed conflicts, natural disasters and poverty?” in the search for an answer, she observes various theories, which provide interpretations of xenophobia, published online 3 april 2018 © 2018 elena stepanova stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com 5changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 explains the reasons to prefer the particular theory, and checks its relevance to the analysis of the roots of xenophobia in nordic countries. larisa piskunova & lu jia jin in confucianism as the axiological basis for china’s management model reflect on the problem of organisational culture paying special attention to its socio‑cultural and national factors. they explore the influence of confucian and neo‑confucian ideals and values as the basis of the chinese intellectual tradition, practice of thought, and behavioural patterns over management models in contemporary china, and point out that “chinese and western management theorists actively explore the specificity of china’s management model in terms of its spiritual foundations, social order and traditional economic life”. the authors present the interpretation of the ethical‑philosophical foundation of confucianism, and analyze its role in the formation of the chinese management model. the main concern of aireen grace t. andal in her paper decanonized reading: intellectual humility and mindfulness in reading canonical philosophical writings is the canonization of philosophical thinkers (mostly western ones), their ideologies, and texts. such concern causes her to raise a question: “how should readers from different backgrounds renegotiate and locate their own identities relative to those of the canonical texts?” she means also that the readers and scholars of those texts should keep skeptical view on them. the author stresses that the understanding of culture, values, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability, colonial peripheries, etc. presented in canonical texts should not be taken for granted but “are highly in need of reexamination”. from the author point of view, the non‑western philosophical texts should not be dismissed from the curriculum of the departments of philosophy. at the same time, as the problem cannot be solved by simply adding more texts, the author presents her own vision on what and why is to be done using examples from various universities’ curriculum. in the book review section, the critical observation of the book religious complexity in the public sphere: comparing nordic countries (inger furseth, ed., springer, 2017) is presented. in the review, the significant place of religion in people’s lives is pointed out, and the types of the visibility of religion in the public space of the nordic countries are discussed. discussions on the topics raised in the current issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal, and new themes will be introduces. we welcome suggestions for thematic issues, debate sections, book reviews and other formats from readers and prospective authors and invite you to send us your reflections and ideas! for more information, please visit the journal web‑site: https://changing‑sp.com/ elena stepanova, editor-in-chief changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.1.027 article philosophical pursuits in dance practice of the 21st century: body concepts maria kozeva liberal arts university, yekaterinburg, russia galina brandt liberal arts university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the art of performance dance in the 20th century is undergoing a transformation involving values, concepts, and styles that are quite distinct from the traditional principles of classical art dance. this turn, beginning around the middle of the 20th century, has found expression in a “radical shift” in terms of the form and content of dance, affecting its components, nature, and purpose; therefore, it is not surprising that the quest for new conceptual foundations acquired its own outlook not only, and not so much in art criticism as in philosophical terms. it can be said that the epicentre of these shifts was a new understanding of the dancing body itself. the diversity of practices – dance theatre, physical theatre, dance performance, non‑dance movement, postmodern dance, contemporary dance – have in turn become ways of embodying these new bodily concepts. of course, the primary results of this quest have had a non‑verbal character; nevertheless, in general terms, the level of “conversation” allows us to perceive the philosophical concepts underlying the discoveries made. the task of this article is to clarify these concepts through examining changes ideas about the body within dance culture over the course of the last century. the examination is carried out sequentially through the ages of the twentieth century: the development of new conceptual directions of the body in the dance practices of western received 19 january 2018 © 2018 maria kozeva, galina brandt accepted 5 march 2018 mkozeva@yandex.ru published online 3 april 2018 gbrandt@bk.ru 7changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 countries are shown, referring each movement to precisely the process from which it respectively proceeded. thus, the body seen as a means, an “instrument”, for the transmission of higher spiritual meanings, as was generally the case in classical dance, becomes in itself the goal and subject of special interest. here it is as a space of freedom and a field for unravelling unconscious (psychosomatic) aspects, both in terms of the vehicle of sociality, and as its construct, that awareness of the normative practices of body as a repression of social control can be observed. it is clear that the basic “narratives” identified in the article also unfold in the philosophical studies of the 20th and 21st centuries. thus, the parallel nature of these processes testifies to a cardinal revision by european society of its physicality. keywords body concept, dance body, freedom, unconscious, social criticism, illusion, deviant body the art of performance dance in the 20th century is undergoing a transformation to encompass values, concepts, and styles that contrast with the traditional principles of classical art dance. this turn, beginning at the middle of the 20th century, was expressed in the “radical metamorphosis” (bechkov, 2000, p. 63) of the form and content of the dance, affecting its components, its nature and purpose; therefore, it is not surprising that the search for new conceptual supports involved not only distinctions within art criticism but also its own philosophical horizons. it can be said that the epicentre of these shifts was located in a new understanding of the dancing body itself. dance practices – dance theatre, physical theatre, performance dance, non‑dance movement, postmodern dance, contemporary dance – have become ways of embodying these new bodily concepts. the very word “concept”, often used as a synonym for “understanding”, is important here, since it is important for us to emphasise the process, creation, and in a sense even the extortion of new meanings of physicality. the distinction is precisely formulated in comte‑sponville philosophical dictionary: “an understanding is something given, whereas a concept has to be specifically formulated. understanding is the result of a certain experience or upbringing (what the ancient greeks called prolepsis); concept is the result of a certain work. understanding is a fact of reality; concept – product” (comte‑sponville, 2012, p. 261). the concept of the body underwent a radical metamorphosis during the 20th century, being rethought in the most significant way not only in the field of art dance proper, but also in philosophy. friedrich nietzsche, sigmund freud, maurice merleau‑ponty, gilles deleuze, jean baudrillard, michel foucault are some of the most prominent thinkers who radically changed philosophical discourses concerning the nature of the body, conceiving it neither as an object limited exclusively by maria kozeva galina brandt 8 spatial, anatomical boundaries, nor as a “sum of its organs”, but rather as a dynamic existential unit participating in a socio‑cultural context, and subject to various influences and interactions. however, it is unlikely that the practitioners of dance specifically studied the works of philosophers in order to improve their works. these processes of a new comprehension of one’s own physicality – mental and practical (is there still an art where the body is so universally significant in the process of creation – and, as a result, the product, the fruit of creative endeavour?) – took place in parallel. of course, the results of such pursuits in the field of dance have been mainly of a non‑verbal character; nevertheless, the level of “conversation”, allows us to discuss the philosophical concepts underlying their discoveries in terms that are more general. the aim of this article is to clarify these concepts through an examination of changing ideas of the body within dance culture over the course of the last century. the body as a space of freedom each era has its own dance culture, with its own content, form and ascribed meaning. dance as an expression of spontaneous joy, dance as part of a cult and ritual, such as demonic spectacle and bacchanalia, court entertainment, secular law, fine art, etc. kept people spellbound for centuries. it was during the age of enlightenment that dance – and, consequently, the body of the dancer – was to become the subject of theoretical consideration. consequently, it is at around this time that dance becomes an independent art genre, taking the form of ballet performance. carlo blasis, jean‑ georges noverre, other early practitioners and theoreticians of court ballet explore the dancing body primarily as a means or instrument for the expression of ideas and concepts (klassiki khoreografii, 1937). this consideration remained decisive up to the 20th century. at around the very beginning of the 20th century, the situation began to change: the body began attracting attention not only in the capacity of a means of expression but also as an object of interest in its own right. thus, in the modern theory of dance, a natural, free, expressive body contrasted sharply with the “ideal”, artificial body expressing abstract ideas within classical dance. it was found that ballet dance acts as a “power” upon the human body, reducing it to a “perfect instrument”. in the early 20th century, partisans of the “new dance” stood against the “ballet” approach. foremost amongst these were the futurist loie fuller and isadora duncan, the originator of so‑called “free dance”. dance, they argued, must describe modern man by new figurative means. in reflecting on the “new dance”, duncan “recreated her physicality”, and “re‑invented herself as an embodied spirit”. in her own way, the dancer (sirotkina, 2015), referring to the ideas of antiquity, “returned” the particular culture of that era to dance, the idea of “trusting the body”, admiring its natural properties, freedom, graceful power, and health. duncan’s dance carries the idea of a natural, free body harmonious with culture. the body of her dance does not need exhausting training as in ballet; rather, it is “liberated” from such laws. the feelings and experiences of the person dancing – the value embodied in the dancer’s 9changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 spiritual experience – are real and vivid at the moment of performance. undoubtedly, duncan’s art articulates humanistic ideas, with her dance expressing an optimistic view of the person and his future. nevertheless, the body in the early modern dance continues to be seen as a means of expression. duncan’s idea of dancing at a particular historical moment becomes both a protest against ballet dancing and a utopian dream of a new perfection and freedom of the body. the body of duncan’s dance in an antique chiton and the idea of her dance turn out to be “extracted” from the historical context, relative to which period of dramatic context they appear as if “positioned above”. let us trace, as far as possible, and step‑by‑step, the processes of new conceptual directions of the dance body in the practices of western countries in the 20th century, each time addressing the place from which these processes proceeded most distinctly. the body as the field of real psychosomatic processes most typically, such a place turned out to be america (souritz, 2004) where already in the 1920s the advocacy of “free dance […] for the highest good”, for the “self‑ realisation of those believing in the victory of the eternal rational principle and the establishment of harmony”, was structuring the attitudes of the new dance generation. from the perspective of the first exponents of american modern dance, the art form was intended to touch upon poignant social themes that “reveal serious problems of the current interest of modern life” (banes, 1978). dance, then, should “speak about” modern man who, in an era of rapid changes, wars and crises is experiencing states of fear, confusion, and neuroses. martha graham, doris humphrey, and charles weidman – the american pioneers of modern dance – “blew up” traditions through their observations of the basic dance processes revealed in the body, in its physical reality and deep mental processes. as a consequence, of their theoretical and practical pursuits of dance through constant experimentation, they seemed to re‑discover and “reinstate” the body in the field of gravity, i. e. as an objective fact of life (each in its own way). in dance, the body no longer struggles with gravity; rather, according this new idea, the body openly acknowledges its weight: the body of the dancer – the body of a real, ordinary person far from the idealistic parameters of ballet. martha graham releases the body onto the surface of the floor, bringing it closer to the ground (her dance classes begin with the movements of the dancer sitting on the floor), stabilising the body by rooting it, demonstrating in dance the state of ultimate effort through two oppositional actions – ultimate compression and release – thereby allowing the body to feel its energy and strength. doris humphrey plays with the measure of exertion in the process of movement by dropping the body and restoring balance, choosing only the necessary tension in order for the body to rediscover the moment of balance. in modern dance, the traditional vertical aspiration of the body in ballet is supplemented by mastering and searching for expressiveness in horizontal space. during the first half of the 20th century, research into breathing maria kozeva galina brandt 10 as a function of the living organism – having a direct connection with the states of human excitation manifested in the body – was carried out by the psychologists wilhelm reich, alexander lowen, et al. the acceptance of distortion in the natural breathing cycle also became a subject of interest and research in the practices of modern dance. experiments in this area manifested themselves on the surface of the body, making it possible to use dance to express emotions and energies that are otherwise latent or “hidden” in the mysteries of consciousness and the human body. the dance lexicon and syntax of american modernists was based on the original expressive gesture using previously non‑traditional approaches to movement in dance (e. g. fading, falling, running, rolling, and exalted movements). according to sally banes, “the kinetic danger of constant falling and rising in the balancing movement is analogous to states of social existence” (banes, 1978); experimentally originated dance structures became metaphors of the uncertain and volatile state of modern reality. thus, the search on the part of the “big four” (martha graham, doris humphrey, charles weidman, hanya holm) for an original language in dance (banes, 1978) brought the objective reality of the body, its weight, interaction with the gravity, its feelings and the physical energy of expressive movement, not manifested in ballet, both into the awareness of the dancer and that of the viewer, thereby discovering new semantic possibilities of the body in the dance. in modern dance, the body becomes neither an ephemeral tool, nor an ideal image for the expression of abstract humanistic ideas, but rather that of a real person living in modern reality, trying to understand, define, and express itself within this reality. the strong body stands (barefoot) on the ground. its movements are expressive, meaningful; its gestures full of significance – everything is aimed at conveying the emotional state of the dancer within the entire possible spectrum of experiences and feelings. herein lie the important attainments of american modern dance. nevertheless, it is important to note that modern american dance, being comprised of four original methods, directs dancers to follow only these methods. and in this context new bodily limitations are discovered: modern dance means that production is performed according to the technique of a particular professional choreographer (one of the four mentioned above), which represents a rigid framework of bodily movements. thus, as sally banes notes, far from “freeing the body and making dance accessible to all, bringing together different social strata, creating equality in the dance halls and in the ranks of spectators”, modern dance became an “exclusive form of art accessible only to the chosen ones” (khlopova, 2015). in many ways, this was the reason why, by the 1940s and early 1950s, the political and artistic verve in american modern dance had died down. there was a growing sense of the necessity for a “new modernity”. the body as the “location” of social criticism by the 1930s, the most interesting developments in dance were taking place in germany. despite (or perhaps, conversely, as a consequence of) the harsh appeal to the body as a means of expressing the political interests of totalitarian regimes – 11changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 everyone is familiar with the body of the “parade”, “physical education”, “march” – expressionism became a vivid phenomenon. the central idea of rudolf laban, the german founder of expressionistic dance, is directly opposed to the idea of the mass nazi marches; on the contrary, his interest lay in diversity and respect for the individuality of the person. it was he who – both in theory and in practice – laid the foundations of the system that is still relevant today, structured by the principle of the autonomous space of the dancer who independently creates, and – by means of his or her own movements – delivers his or her ideas into the world. initially, in laban’s system, the considerations were not only to search for a new language and new forms of expression (i. e. “how to move”), but also “the construction of a new dancer – universal, widely educated, open to all influences and able to analyse the motives of his or her own movements” (i. e. be the one “who moves”) (gerdt, 2015). laban’s ideas were picked up by kurt joos, whose choreography became an arena of social critique. in his ballet “big city”, joos depicted social contrasts: the dances of different social strata were performed simultaneously in one performance space (a crude dance to bagpipe music juxtaposed with a fashionable charleston). in this connection, valeska gert’s creativity is also interesting. the singer and dancer of the berlin cabaret turned to “the lower classes and the riff‑raff”, assimilating “everything unrefined and ugly” and that which “is uniformly unacceptable for all healthy regimes” (mani, 1996). she brought onto the stage, “in herself and with herself”, the energy of the street: obscenity and aggression, conformism and intolerance. thus, it can be said that already during the pre‑war era the body within expressionistic dance, – grotesque, disgracefully parodic, conveying pain and confusion – was not only becoming a new expressive medium, but also conveying an impression of the characteristic modern social features symptomatic of belonging to a society fragmented and torn apart by crises and internal contradictions. the development of german expressionist dance was interrupted by the interference of the political power of the nazis, who realised to what extent an expressive movement could influence people. since incapable and unwilling to cooperate with the new political regime, laban and joos promptly emigrated. the body as an intrinsic value returning to the dance processes that took place in america, we will see that in the middle of the last century the american merce cunningham continued to “shake” the foundations of now‑traditional modern dance. the value of the ideas proposed by cunningham lies in their proposal for a new way of seeing dance: not as a robust predefined structure with predefined meanings (as it was, if you recall, in modern dance), but instead as a volatile, fluid, ephemeral, living space. the novel idea was that dance could be about anything in terms of content and form; however, initially, at its core, it necessarily carries the idea of the human body and its movements, starting with the most elementary (walking). according to cunningham, the expressive basis of human movement is inseparable from the body itself: even the gait of each person is different. the movement of the body is here regarded as significant in itself. in short, maria kozeva galina brandt 12 it can be said that the body in dance has already won the right to its own physical reality, the ability to feel and express feelings through movement and gesture in an individual manner. the practices of german expressionist and american modern dance in “discovering the body” bring choreographers of the second half of the 20th century closer to a new understanding of the body as an autonomous subject. here the body and dance begin to articulate “not sense, but energy”, to represent “not an illustration, but an action”. in other words, “everything here becomes a gesture; in this body, previously hidden energies are released” (lehman, 2003, p. 269). thus, while the body is already seen as intrinsically valuable, new restrictions and new dependencies are again revealed. for example, theatrical, and – more generally – social conventions, including: the specific dimensions of the stage, the specific time period, the scope of the plot, psychologism, the accentuation of expressiveness of movement, the expectations and tastes of the public, and the “natural” desire of the dancer to please his or her audience. in this situation, the body becomes, on the one hand, its own message, finding ways to overcome itself as a value, to identify and express its state, and its individual nature. at the same time, it reveals itself as deeply foreign to itself, revealing and clearly senses its rootedness in the society and its total dependence on it. “what here can be considered “our own” remains unknown,” notes a researcher of dance theatre of the end of the last century (leman, 2003, p. 269). the body as an illusion given the discoveries of these new dependencies of dance, the judson dance theater, which appeared in the usa in the early 1960s, instigated a new radical reform. here for the first time the idea was voiced that all restrictions should be lifted from dance. any (professional or non‑professional) body available and suitable for dancing, any space, any music, any clothing, any time format or dance form was considered to be valid (banes, 1978). in this sense, judson theater’s artistic experiments with the body under gravity are significant. for example, tricia brown used mountaineering equipment and the walls of urban buildings as surfaces for the study of movement and body effort. playing with the parameters of space‑time, simone forti, in the performance “huddle”, presented six or seven performers, standing in a group, who coherently, one after another, began to climb over the mass formed by each other’s bodies, creating complex surfaces on the stage. the duration of this living changing sculpture was determined only by the choice and resolution of the artists, ranging from a few minutes to several hours. trisha brown’s dance company also carried out performances on rooftops. for better visibility, dancers wore red suits. in this form, brown (or one of the participants) displayed a movement routine, which was then copied by dancers on neighbouring roofs. typically, the rest of new york carried on with its daily life oblivious to these “performances”, which only the artists themselves knew about. such experiments bear witness to the advent of the epoch of the postmodern dance; here, there is a decisive rejection of showmanship, dance technique, dance 13changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 music, costumes, performance space, the separation of the role of author and performer. choreographers and dancers are no longer oriented to the taste of spectators; indeed, any random movements or gestures were considered dance. postmodernist dancers left behind the closed spaces of dance studios, instead placing their bodies in parks, forests, on roofs, in galleries. a new form of expression was defined – “performance”. the location, moment, and duration of its execution were determined now by the participants themselves, with the presence of spectators becoming less important. at the same time, as postmodern reflections concerning the social mechanics of designing the “body” as a dancer are actively being established, so are those of an ordinary person. here, the focus of attention is the phenomenon of socio‑ political mistrust of the body. it may seem surprising that the general philosophical and humanitarian thought in of the 70’s were marked (thanks in the first place to the works of michel foucault) by the realisation that the body, as existing in society according to its laws, is a product of history and culture. appearance, clothing, behaviour, manners, lifestyle, ways of feeling, talking, moving, and interacting – everything in the bodily form of a person turns out to be “manufactured.” from this point of view, there is no sense of being “at home” in the body since it no longer belongs to the person. henceforth, it makes no difference which body is designated by society and offered to the person for use – “normal”, “ideal”, “expressionistic”, “beautiful”, or “ugly” (gerdt, 2015). obviously, the body in the modern world is the performer of a social role, whose goal is to express a certain ideology. thus, in the dance practices of the twentieth century, it was the “social body” – the body as a historical and cultural phenomenon, as a temporary form, as an illusion – that was brought out onto the stage. to express this idea, dance began to search for expressive means, and, in so doing, explicitly repudiated the function of translating opinions and plots imposed on it; the dance body, as a traditional expressive means, must be symbolically “destroyed” so as not to be used as a tool for manipulation. in her may 1981 performance, the french choreographer magee marin offered dancers costumes that were fake bodies – “puppets, overweight, totally ruined, as if it they were not living people, but dead people who had risen from their graves before the spectators” (gerdt, 2015). the play seemed to say that there is no body, there is no need for it to be alive and suffering, since it is too disturbing, but there are masks in which bodies can be hidden, masks in which these anxieties can be concealed. this idea of mistrust of the body also features in marin’s “singspiele” project. the dance performer benjamin lebreton presents a body on the stage, which is, as eyewitness researchers remarked, “deeply alien to himself” (leman, 2003, p. 269): it is not clear whether this body can be considered “its own”. his body in the performance is represented as a chameleon, a deceiver, which transmits hundreds of identifications of fashion, religion, sexual, and cultural affiliation. lebreton’s portrayals involve many “faces”. these “faces” are photographs of people both famous and unknown, of different sexes, nationalities, and ages. the performer attaches photos to his own face like pages of a tear‑off calendar. one by one, he maria kozeva galina brandt 14 changes his facial masks and immediately changes clothes – to men’s, women’s, national, evening, and everyday clothes. “the person on stage is the same, but his faces and rags change so that it seems that he is first taller, then shorter; one moment older, the next younger; here thinner, there fatter; now a man, then a woman” (gerdt, 2015). the postmodern idea of distrust of the body was actively expressed in a completely different way by the german choreographer pina bausch, whose work unfolded over the last decades of the 20th century. the main idea of bausch’s dance theatre is the attraction and the desire to express in dance the social body as a phenomenon, to convey the ways in which the body presents itself in everyday life. “in society, the body never appears the way it truly is, it is always the way it is made to be, or the way in which others want to see it”, bausch says of her work. in her performances, the body demonstrates the states of fear, loneliness, insecurity, misunderstanding, but also amazing tenderness, and, although tormented by pain, fragile beauty of a person, passing these states by means of emotionally expressive, bold, at times grotesque. in bausch’s performances, through action, gesture, and dance, people from all walks of life are seen on stage, not exclusively dancers. they look the way ordinary people often look in everyday life: sweaty shirts slipping off their shoulders and exposing their chests, straps of shirts, slips, heels, and women’s hairstyles. movements in dance arise from moments of internal tension, when otherwise it would be impossible to express oneself. movement develops from the ordinary – slapping, scratching, nose‑picking, wiping away tears and other trivial bodily functions – to the utmost extreme – hugging, falling, jumping. olga gerdt remarks that pina bausch was looking for a means to express the source from which her dance grew: necessity and desire (gerdt, 2015). the body can appear as an apparition, an illusion, hidden behind a mask, a role or a costume, but with pina bausch these illusions were destroyed in front of one’s eyes because the apparition, the costume, the manner, and the action of the character in her performances only act as expressive gestures, which usher in an even higher energy, whose desires and necessity to express these yearnings, the pain, and despair of the body, were bursting outward. not the “norm”, the “other”, the deviant body for postmodern dance, another important point of criticism is the idea of the full body. generally, the idea of “fullness” in the modern world is felt as dangerous, based on the world’s experience of genocide, nazism, and segregation. rejecting this totalitarian dictate of the “norm”, postmodern dance presented on stage a “different” body, a “deviant” body: “a person with illnesses, with a body having a little more fat and skin as well as less height than what is required for admission to the conservatory of modern dance. in this body there might be an insufficient number of organs or limbs, there may be some muscles” (borisenko, 2015). so, the french self‑ taught choreographer olivier dubois, not having dance training (especially ballet), as his first choreographic experience, which was shocking for the spectator, directed 15changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 the attention of the ballet public to “afternoon rest of the faun”, where he himself performed the role of the faun, dancing on stage with professional dancers. despite having a rather bulky physique, dubois performed the technically difficult role of nijinsky – a role of the academic repertoire. dubois’ task was to show how a non‑ ballet body can exist within the framework of the ballet’s movement parameters. the part was executed exactly according to the book. but due to the peculiarities of his non‑ballet physique, his movements and gestures did not conform to the academic form expected by the viewer. according to the choreographer himself, the audience saw a “puffy man in a multi‑coloured leotard, parodying the gestures of nijinsky”, perceived the deed as a scandal, shouting: “remove this piglet from the stage!” (borisenko, 2015) in the performance “the cost of living” by the english physical theatre company dv8 (deviate), the characters go on to take shocking physical risks, and brazenly create figural metaphors for extreme emotions. one of the characters has only half a body, he has no legs. we are presented a character in a dance class, who dances a duet with a dancer; the happiness of this moment gives way to dismay, when he is left alone looking after the departing dancer who has just danced with him. the play shows how his life consists of similar constant searches for ways to “integrate” into the lives of “normal” people. in her project body_remix, the canadian choreographer marie chouinard presented a set of tools that a contemporary person is using to try to “improve” his or her body with (pointes, crutches, etc.). it is interesting that pointes and crutches are presented as equivalent to prostheses. with such a staged “statement”, chouinard dealt a heavy blow to the concept of a complete body. chouinard shows that any body appears imperfect in modern culture, constantly seeking perfection, but not in itself, instead being fobbed off with illusions and prostheses. compared with traditional forms of dance, modern dance gives to any body the freedom and choice to express itself. in nullifying the traditional bodily hierarchy, as evgeny borisenko rightly observes: “the normative control mechanisms that shape the dancer’s body give way to new choreographic practices articulating the pluralism of physicality and the possibilities of bodily self‑expression” (borisenko, 2015). thus, dance itself, through experiencing the “ultimate metamorphosis” in form, content, and meaning, in a certain sense becomes a non‑dance. or, conversely, the world around can be interpreted as a universal dance. in this way, we can observe how in the dance practices of the 20th century new concepts of the body were “produced”. all of them are considered sequentially as they appear – from the body as an ideal instrument to the “non‑normative” pluralism of physicality, which simultaneously continues to be part of 21st century dance. the body as a subject of special interest, as a space of freedom, as a field for the unfolding of the unconscious (psychosomatics), as a carrier of sociality, and as its construct, awareness of the normative practices of physicality as a repression of social control – all these “plots” are known, and also unfold in philosophical studies of the 20th and 21st centuries. the parallel nature of these processes testifies to a truly cardinal revision by european society of its physicality. as for the dance body itself, maria kozeva galina brandt 16 first of all, it turns out to be the body of protest: with its energy, pain, and desperation breaking out, it expresses distrust of the actual social and political situation, exposing the masks and roles of man in modern society. therefore, in the first place, the body in dance is gradually “absolutized”, “appropriates every discourse”, and “does not show anything but itself” (leman, 2003, p. 156). however, this is a topic for a future conversation. references borisenko, e. (2015). telo sovremennogo tantsa [the body of contemporary dance]. teatr, 20. retrieved from: http://oteatre.info/telo‑sovremennogo‑tantsa/ bychkov, v., bychkova, l. (2000). xx vek: predel’nye metamorfozy kul’tury [xx century: ultimate metamorphoses of culture]. polygnosys, 2, 63–76; 3, 67–85. banes, s. (1978). terpsichore in sneakers: post-modern dance. boston: houghton mifflin company. comte‑sponville, a. (2012). filosofskii slovar’ [philosophical dictionary]. moscow: eterna. gerdt, o. (2003). iskusstvo zadavat’ voprosy [the art of asking questions]. peterburgskii teatral’nyi zhurnal, special issue, 6–8. gerdt, o. (2015). contemporary dance: istoriia trekh smertei [contemporary dance: a story of three deaths]. teatr, 20. retrieved from: http://oteatre.info/ contemporary‑dance‑istoriya‑treh‑smertej/ gorfunkel, e. (1996). chas valeski gert [the hour of valeska gert]. peterburgskii teatral’nyi zhurnal, 9. retrieved from: http://ptzh.theatre.ru/1996/9/110/ khlopova, v. (2015). amerikanskii tanets xx veka: zachem terpsikhora nadela krossovki [american dance of the 20th century: why terpsichore put on sneakers]. teatr, 20. retrieved from: http://oteatre.info/amerikanskij‑tanets‑xx‑veka‑zachem‑ terpsihora‑nadela‑krossovki/ klassiki khoreografii (1937). moscow–leningrad: iskusstvo. lehmann, h.‑t. (2003). postdramaticheskii teatr [post‑dramatic theatre]. moscow: abcdesign. sirotkina, i. (2015). aisedora dunkan: sto desiat’ let svobodnogo tantsa [isadora duncan: one hundred and ten years of free dance]. teatr, 20. retrieved from: http:// oteatre.info/contemporary‑dance‑istoriya‑treh‑smertej/ surits, e. (2004). balet i tanets v amerike: ocherki istorii [ballet and dance in america: historical review]. yekaterinburg: izdatelstvo uralskogo universiteta. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 521–524 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.148 received 25 september 2021 © andrey s. menshikov published online 11 october 2021 asmenshikov@urfu.ru book review daria dubovka (2020). v monastyr’ s mirom. v poiskakh svetskikh kornei sovremennoi dukhovnosti [to the monastery in peace: searching for secular origins of contemporary spirituality]. eusp press andrey s. menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia acknowledgements this research was supported by the grant of the russian science foundation (#20-18-00240) this book was published by the european university in saint petersburg, which is one of the leading research universities in russia. it is authored by daria dubovka, the european university graduate, who studied under j. kormina and s. shtyrkov, leading russian scholars in anthropology of religion, and it is written after extensive fieldwork in russian monasteries. this cover information would promise an exciting read and no reader will indeed be disappointed. but what captured my attention from the first lines of the book was the pristine personal voice of the author who engages her readers in a candid conversation and erudite reflection about what it means to be a devout orthodox christian today. while starting with criticizing essentialization of distinction between secular and religious spheres and of “othering” religious individuals, dubovka strives to formulate and to practice the methodology that would allow scholars of religion to describe inner transformation that individuals undergo in the monasteries without either yielding to christian—“native”—categories or reducing personal religious experience to external factors and structures (see p. 20). this quest for methodology is, in essence, spurred by the question about the agency of religious individuals and, as dubovka defined her intention in the conclusion, can be equated with “practical theology” (p. 185). https://changing-sp.com/ https://rscf.ru/prjcard?rid=20-18-00240 522 andrey s. menshikov the study is based on participant observation in a number of russian convents during longer periods of time over several years and on the interviews with their inhabitants—from abbesses to pilgrims and tourists. given severe conditions of monastic life and lower status of temporary laborer, assumed by dubovka, on top of gender inequality in the orthodox milieu, this ethnographic research is an outstanding achievement and fully merited its praise from “official opponents” during the dissertation defense at the museum of anthropology and ethnography (kunstkamera) in 2017. however, while sympathetic of the practical challenges this fieldwork caused to the author it is for the intellectual challenges dubovka poses before the reader that i admire her study. the first two chapters take us from history and brief description of the current socio-economic state of orthodox monasteries to the ascetic practices that are exercised there. late soviet fascination with russian national tradition as well as disenchantment with communist ideology paved the way for the restoration of religious monuments and revival of religious communities after the collapse of the ussr. both trends coalesced around resuscitating historical russian monasteries such as goritsy monastery, or goritsy convent (воскресенский горицкий монастырь), whose architectural complex survived the soviet atheism—mostly in a deplorable state, though. yet, material circumstances of bringing religious life back to dilapidated buildings limited rigidly what kind of spiritual exercises can be practiced. priorities in resource distribution were given to sacred spaces such as churches and to survival infrastructure such as silos, cattle folds and farms. living quarters are the last to be renovated and there is next to nothing that remains to be allocated for installing modern sanitary facilities such as hot water supply and canalisation. while patristic ideal showcases incorporeality of monastic body, which is likened to angelic nature, and calls for transcending all the needs of the flesh, “of all the ascetic practices dealing directly with the body, the monasteries of today can afford only restrictions on hygienic habits of modern women” (p. 72, my translation from russian—a. m.). as dubovka emphasises, despite the proclaimed monastic ideal, which seeks to transform human being into bodiless spirit, it is in the monasteries where a sweating and grimy body found its legitimate haven… in turn, this unwashed body helps to maintain asocial monastic community, where relationship with god is superior to relationships with fellow humans. (pp. 76–77, my translation from russian—a. m.) another limitation stemming from socio-economic conditions of the monasteries at present is the dire need for labor, mostly unskilled and routine labor. since monasteries can rarely afford hired professionals, they have to employ for their chores the unpaid temporary laborers who come to the monasteries with their spiritual needs. temporary laborers are willing to exchange their manual labor for the spiritual rewards such as spiritual guidance, prayers on their behalf, atonement, etc. but both permanent and temporary inhabitants of the monasteries who have to work for the monasteries’ survival feel that “labor has become the opposite of prayer (антонимом молитвенной деятельности) in modern monasteries” (p. 82, my translation from russian—a. m.). in this case, “prayer” changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 521–524 523 refers to hesychastic practice of spiritual contemplation and repetition of jesus prayer, which requires intense concentration and withdrawal from the mundane. however, while most inhabitants seek special religious experience, the monastery can guarantee only an ordinary routine of labor. consequently, monks and laborers face a complicated task of transfiguring their labor such as peeling potatoes, watering gardens, and washing windows, into a source of spiritual experience (p. 95, my translation from russian—a. m.). whereas the first chapters dealt with current socio-economic situation of the monasteries and ensuing restraints on ascetic experience, the third chapter aims at “demonstrating that current monastic practices of self-transformation (практики работы над собой) originated in recent soviet past rather than having ahistorical or pre-revolutionary provenance” (p. 37, my translation from russian—a. m.). unlike patristic examples of asceticism, in which humility was achieved by subverting social decorum, modern humility is cultivated by the very organisation of labor in the monasteries rather than by engaging in an unbefitting labor. labor is organised in a way that challenges people’s innate moral intuitions, for instance, by subordinating older persons to the younger or assigning physical labor to those who come to the monastery in the hope of hesychastic contemplation. the inhabitants have to devise ways to spiritualise their everyday existence in the monastery because there is little else available to them in their search for spiritual transformation (see pp. 100–101). the monasteries reenforce this reinterpretation of the everyday labor by “institutionalising the practice of obedience (послушание)” (p. 117, my translation from russian—a. m.). the notion of “obedience” refers to specific labor tasks assigned by the superiors. by using this moral notion to describe routine labor operations the inhabitants reimagine their chores as spiritual exercises. as dubovka summarises, as a current response to the fundamental paradox of monasticism—how can one be bodiless while having a body?—contemporary nuns strive to achieve robotisation (desirable even if unattainable) of the body rather than to subjugate the flesh with fasting and chains. obedient body – a mechanism for labor operations—is also best suited for simple manual work, which is required in contemporary nunnery (p. 119, my translation from russian—a. m.). both strategies of conceptualising spiritual transformation in modern monasteries – robotisation through “obediences” assigned in everyday labor rather than virtue exercises and prayerful contemplation underpinned by new-age “energy” imaginary rather than traditional hesychasm—can be explained, in dubovka’s view, by the soviet cultural legacy that current inhabitants bring with them to the monasteries. in the fourth chapter, d. dubovka points out that after some time, tough, those who come to the monastery to work on their selves (нацеленные на работу над собой насельники) have to acknowledge that https://changing-sp.com/ 524 andrey s. menshikov current monastic view on human nature cannot be wedded to the techniques of self transformation, couched in the metaphor of progress[…] those who came with the hope of achieving progress in spiritual work by systematic exercises find themselves at a dead end (pp. 141–142 my translation from russian—a. m.). thus, the question of agency of religious individuals arises. whereas saba mahmood criticised secular notion of agency as resistance to any authority and argued for religious agency, which could be expressed in a voluntary obedience to the chosen authority, dubovka insists that “these two notions of agency are no longer impervious to each other” (p. 124, my translation from russian—a. m.). modern religious individuals are never immune to doubt or to alternative interpretations of their monastic experience. when the monastery cannot adequately satisfy the spiritual needs of its inhabitants because its routine flattens the ladder envisioned by john climacus and locks the inmates up in the recurrency of tedious labor, religious individuals can abandon the monastery. but their choice is not limited to religiosity in the monastery or secularism beyond its walls. they can remain religious and pursue their religious quest of self-transformation. moreover, they can argue that their religious experience is more under their control and can be better cultivated outside the monastery. thus, if we rely on longitudinal observation in our assessment of agency, we will need to re-conceptualise the opposition between secular and religious agency and extend s. mahmood’s notion of religious agency. in the final chapter, dubovka analyses the case of charismatic leadership. in a charismatic community, spiritual gifts are bestowed on the elder—community leader—and only through him can be transmitted to other individuals. besides, these exclusive gifts of the elder include clairvoyance. therefore, “ritual communication cannot be separated from everyday communication; consequently, any conversation can be interpreted in a sacred register” (p. 170, my translation from russian—a. m.). thus, “in nikolskoye, interpretation has become the key to reproducing charismatic authority” (p. 176, my translation from russian—a. m.), as the community members constantly convince themselves and their fellows in their leader’s clairvoyance by interpreting—with the benefit of hindsight—any of his utterances as prophetic. this confidence in the leader’s divine grace allows the members to defer all responsibility for their lives to the purview of their leader. in the previous chapters, dubovka demonstrated how robotisation through manual labor in obediences and energy manipulation in prayerful contemplation reflect, respectively, organisational and mystical aspects of modern religious experience. however, in the charismatic community, another—communicative aspect—comes to the fore. thus, the question of religious agency devolves to the question of how the practice of interpretation is performed by the religious individuals in specific circumstances. the latter question can only get an adequate reply on the basis of empirical research, or to be precise on the basis of ethnographic methods. daria dubovka’s book is a brilliant example of empirically grounded and theoretically rich study of modern religiosity in russia. changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 927–944 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.210 article the role of managers’ cultural intelligence and demographic variables in building trust in business relations eva boštjančič university of ljubljana, slovenia fayruza s. ismagilova tashkent state pedagogical university named after nizami, tashkent, republic of uzbekistan sara pavlović milijašević university of ljubljana, slovenia abstract this article examines the role of such factors as gender, age, nationality, and cultural intelligence in building trust between business partners coming from different countries. the research involved 560 employees, of which 115 were croatians (20.5%), 114—russians (20.4%), and 331—slovenians (59.1%). in addition to socio-demographic questions (gender, age, nationality), we employed the organizational trust inventory and the cultural intelligence scale. the research was made available to the participants online and in three language versions— croatian, russian, and slovenian. we discovered that gender played the greatest role in building trust between business partners, since women rated all trust components higher than men. cultural intelligence, nationality, and age are not predictors of trust among business partners. our data contributes to a clearer understanding of the ambiguity of predictors of trust. while previous studies have focused on cultural intelligence as a factor in successful international interaction, our results show that cultural identity retains its importance even in the context of globalization and international cooperation. keywords trust, cultural intelligence, nation culture, managers, croatia, russia, slovenia received 23 november 2021 © eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, accepted 22 december 2022 sara pavlović milijašević published online 30 december 2022 eva.bostjancic@ff.uni-lj.si ismagilova.f@gmail.com sara.pavlovic.72@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 928 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, sara pavlović milijašević introduction business partnerships have their own specifics, distinguishing them from other types of relationships (hierarchical, romantic, etc.). the peculiarity of business partnerships is expressed in the fact that each of the partners has their own goals, which are achieved only as a result of their joint work. however, these goals can have different significance for each partner, and even contradict each other. such business cooperation is successful and long-term only if each party is ready to avoid taking excessive advantage of the others. studying the differences between national cultures, organizational cultures, forms of leadership, and their consequences can help not only in understanding business partners with another cultural identity, but also in establishing and developing productive cooperation (javidan et al., 2006) and a global mindset (javidan & walker, 2013) that can help businesses to grow around the world. our society is changing, migrations are an everyday occurrence, and more and more people are now working for international companies, with society moving away from the traditional and approaching the modern pattern (lópeznarbona, 2018). thus, there has been a rise in creative collaboration across countries and continents, for which certain levels of cultural intelligence are needed to build trust to reach the desired levels of creativity (chua et al., 2012). although trust is a trait of an individual, used to describe how they cope with uncertainty, it is also about the interactions that occur between the individual and another person, group or environment (liu et al., 2018; olk & elvira, 2001). the personality and behavioral factors of trust, which researchers pay attention to in business relationships, can be put into two groups: (a) indicators of trust are signs which indicate that business partners can trust each other; (b) the preconditions for trust are the actions of participants in business relations that lead to the emergence of confidence between partners. the first group contains a number of universal indicators of trust (e.g., they are in compliance with the personal arrangements with the partner, along with formal and informal rules of interaction, and help in maintaining open communication between partners, providing honest feedback, and taking into account the needs and interests of all partners, and making a demonstration of unity of opinion on ways to achieve mutually favorable results; balakshin, 2011). the second group involves several factors that affect the building of trust, including social norms, values, and underlying behavioral assumptions (doney et al., 1998), the length of the prior alliance relationship (liu et al., 2018), the level of strategic alliance risk, and the strength of interpersonal attachment (cropanzano et al., 2017; liu et al., 2018), perceived organizational support, procedural justice and transformational leadership (connell et al., 2003). trust in the international collaborations of organizations, and their evolving in support of processes that enhance trust, is also impacted by culture, through the socialization of an individual that differs from one country to another (bstieler & hemmert, 2008; dyer & chu, 2003; huff & kelley, 2003). an individual’s gender is believed to have no particular impact on trust, since as much as a third of studies found no correlation between gender and the level of trust (e.g., croson & buchan, 1999; changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 927–944 929 kaasa & parts, 2008; stolle & hooghe, 2004). in cases where differences were found, they tended to favor men, who were reported to be more trusting than women (e.g., buchan et al., 2008; van oorschot & arts, 2005). cultural intelligence (cq), as the capability to function effectively in intercultural contexts (afsar et al., 2021; earley & ang, 2003), plays an important role in business relationships, i.e., in the formation of trust, which is the subject of this research analysis. the role of cultural intelligence as a valid predictor of behavior in international situations has, thus far, been confirmed in numerous research studies— for example, it predicts global leadership effectiveness (rockstuhl et al., 2011) as well as the leaders’ performance in culturally diverse teams (groves & feyerherm, 2011). however, it has predictive validity only in culturally diverse contexts, and not in homogeneous ones (e.g., adair et al. 2013; afsar et al., 2021; chua et al. 2012; groves & feyerherm 2011; rockstuhl et al., 2011). as the role of cultural intelligence in establishing trust in business relationships has not been researched thus far, our research aimed to analyze the demographic and personality factors that can build trust in international business relations. to this end, our research included leaders and managers of three nationalities (croatians, slovenians, and russians) that do business with each other. our aim was to highlight the role of cultural intelligence in particular as a personality trait and capability that can be measured during the staff selection procedure, that can be developed at the time of employment, and that might help us predict how an individual will cope with and behave in an international business environment, and how they will create an adequate level of trust in order to ensure successful business collaboration. on trust in business relationships blomqvist and ståhle (2000) emphasize that when it comes to analyzing trust in business relationships, two levels should be included: interpersonal and interorganizational. despite significant differences, trust on those levels is interrelated, as the relation between companies ultimately comes down to relations between individuals or groups of people. it is a company, however, that works on a reputation, appearance, and organizational culture which leads to the unification of employees’ behavior and their approach to business relationships. the two dimensions of trust thus ultimately interact with each other (blomqvist & ståhle, 2000). in business relationships, the level of trust between business partners also depends on the level of control and conflict. the presence of trust has the greatest positive impact in high stakes conflicts (balliet & van lange, 2013), while edelenbos and eshuis (2012) argued that trust and control can coevolve symbiotically, reinforcing one another. these findings indicate how complex the understanding of building trust is. the complexity intensifies further if we add cultural context, which is based on organizational culture and the culture of the nation of the individual in question. cultural norms and values greatly affect how trust between business partners can be established (bstieler & hemmert, 2008; doney et al., 1998). the cultural https://changing-sp.com/ 930 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, sara pavlović milijašević dimension that differentiates between eastern and western countries was already pointed out by hofstede (2001) two decades ago, and it is precisely this dimension that is said to have a major influence on trust between organizations. the level of trust is based on the prevalence of social ties between different parties or individuals within a particular culture. we can thus distinguish “low-trust” societies, where trust is hard to come by because it is believed within that culture that trust can only be found within channels that are already well-known, such as family. lowtrust societies need more time to establish the same level of trust with outsiders. in “high-trust” societies, however, the situation is quite the reverse. in view of the above, slovenia and croatia can be classified as high-trust societies, like germany, for example, while russia can be classified as a low-trust society, like italy (bstieler & hemmert, 2008). it should be noted, however, that both highand low-trust societies are changing through globalization (lópez-narbona, 2018). in this process, the expansion of the system of media communications and the mobility of symbols is key, and this affects the way individuals think through the “globalisation of the world socio-cultural space” (kirillova, 2020). trust and distrust are (contrary to what one might expect) not completely mutually exclusive, opposing categories. although traditionally understood as a continuum, the latest research suggests that they are separate but connected constructs—a lack of trust does not necessarily mean distrust (hardin, 2004; lewicki et al., 1998; lumineau, 2017). the elements that contribute to trust differ from those that contribute to distrust (lumineau, 2017). more specifically, trust is connected with confidence, decreased uncertainty, greater psychological security, and problemsolving through knowledge sharing (cook & schilke, 2010; lumineau, 2017), while distrust mainly relates to monitoring potential vulnerabilities and increases constructive skepticism (lumineau, 2017; priem & nystrom, 2014). the role of cultural intelligence in building trust in business relationships at a time of rapidly progressing globalization and the emergence of multicultural environments, cultural intelligence is one of the vital predictors of workplace performance and, as such, is the subject of research interest. according to earley and ang (2003), cultural intelligence represents an individual’s capability for successfully adjusting and performing effectively in culturally diverse situations. other authors define cultural intelligence as the capability to adapt, and a set of skills that enables one to lead in various inter-cultural situations (afsar et al., 2021). cultural intelligence (cq) contains several components, i.e., the cognitive, motivational, behavioral, and metacognitive ones. the cognitive component of cq relates to the knowledge about different cultures which we gain either through personal experience or formal education (ang et al., 2007). the motivational component relates to the degree of interest a person has in learning about new cultures, people, and situations. the behavioral component relates to an individual’s capability to behave in line with the rules of a certain culture when a situation requires them to do so (ott & michailova, 2018). the metacognitive component is the most changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 927–944 931 important when it comes to building trust in business relationships, and it relates to an individual’s conscious cultural awareness and knowledge about different cultures (afsar et al., 2021). the metacognitive component of cq is essential in adjusting to unfamiliar cultural norms, values, and beliefs. individuals with a higher metacognitive component of cq find it easier to learn about new cultures without being hindered by their prior knowledge about these cultures (afsar et al., 2021; malek & budhwar, 2013). chua et al. (2012) reported that individuals with high metacognitive cq share more ideas and have greater affect-based trust toward their intercultural ties, and this leads to more successful creative collaborations. in a workplace context, a high level of cultural intelligence enables the forging of positive and productive business and personal partnerships based on attributing importance to cultural differences (white, 2016). effective communication in different cultural environments and the creation of a common background are not possible without a certain degree of cultural intelligence, which could play an important role in the process of establishing trust between business partners coming from different countries. thus far, research pertaining to this area and conducted in various cultural environments shows that cultural intelligence is connected to the efficient functioning of inter-cultural teams, namely through their tendency to share information and level of cooperativeness. groves et al. (2015) demonstrates that those with high cq display more interest based negotiation behaviors, which, in turn, result in better negotiation performance. higher cq is also connected with more innovative ideas, in terms of idea generation, promotion, and realization (afsar et al., 2021). what is more, cultural intelligence facilitates the functioning of multi-cultural teams through the encouraging of information sharing, which is also directly connected with trust (bogilović et al., 2017). the functioning of multi-cultural teams and business collaboration between different cultures is frequently difficult because the process of aligning interests is often hindered by different objectives, religious, national, and cultural backgrounds, as well as values and social norms. we can therefore expect individuals with higher cq to adapt to situations more quickly, to be more inclined to understand individuals coming from another culture, and, consequently, to exhibit higher levels of cooperation and trust (elianto & wulansari, 2016; rockstuhl & ng, 2008; tuan, 2016). in the research, we compared the role of cultural intelligence among three slavic nations (croatia, russia, slovenia) in the process of building trust in business relationships. even though the cultural backgrounds of these nations are relatively similar, and despite the research being conducted over the same time period, we expected certain differences to emerge. to this end, we posed the following research questions: (a) does the participants’ gender affect the level of trust in business relationships? (b) do statistically significant differences emerge in the level of trust in business relationships among the participants coming from three different countries, i.e., croatia, russia, and slovenia? (c) is it possible to predict the level of trust in business relationships based on the participants’ gender, age, country, and level of cultural intelligence? https://changing-sp.com/ 932 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, sara pavlović milijašević method participants the research involved a total of 560 employees. a total of 115 croatians (20.5%) and 114 russians (20.4%) completed a questionnaire to assess slovenians. of the 331 participating slovenians (59.1%), 228 of them do business with croatian partners, and 103 of them with russian ones. the sample included 55.2% men and 44.8% women; the average age of participants was 42 years (sd = 10.2 years). the youngest participant was 20, and the oldest 70 years old. most participants (57.1%) completed post-secondary, higher or university education, 28.9% had a master’s or a doctorate of science, while 13.9% of the participants had only completed primary school, a secondary technical school, or the general upper secondary school (gimnaziia). respondents were able to choose multiple answers to describe their position at an organization. while 46.6% of them hold a management position at their place of work, 42.5% stated that their company has only non-management employees. 28.0% of the participants own the company they work in. measures in the research, we employed the organizational trust inventory (oti) and the cultural intelligence scale (cqs) and added socio-demographic questions (gender, age, nationality). the organizational trust inventory (cummings & bromiley, 1996) is based on a multidimensional theory of organizational trust. in the research, we used a shorter version of the questionnaire (oti/r), translated into slovene, croatian, and russian, where the participants used a seven-point likert scale (ranging from 1—“strongly disagree” to 7—“strongly agree”) to rate 12 items that measure the three dimensions of organizational trust: keep commitments (e.g., “we think that our business partner meets its negotiated obligations to our department”), negotiate honestly (e.g., “we feel that our business partner negotiates with us honestly”), and avoid taking excessive advantage (e.g., “we feel that our business partner takes advantage of people who are vulnerable.”). the questionnaire is structured in such a way that enables entering the name of the person/ group the participant is rating for each item. in our case, slovenian participants rated their trust in business partners from croatia and russia, while croatian and russian participants rated their trust in business partners from slovenia. the questionnaire’s authors confirmed the instrument’s reliability in several studies (cummings and bromiley, 1996); the “negotiate honestly” dimension has the highest reliability (α = .94; in our study α = .72), followed by the “keep commitments” dimension (α = .94; in our study α = .71) and the “avoid taking excessive advantage” dimension (α = .90; in our study α = .74). the reliability analysis revealed that the internal consistencies of all dimensions were acceptable, and the oti is appropriate for further scientific use. the cultural intelligence scale (van dyne et al., 2008) comprises 20 items that measure four dimensions: the metacognitive (e.g., “i am conscious of the cultural knowledge i use when interacting with people with different cultural backgrounds”), the cognitive (e.g., “i know the cultural values and religious beliefs of other cultures”), the changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 927–944 933 motivational (e.g., “i am sure i can deal with the stresses of adjusting to a culture that is new to me”), and the behavioral (e.g., “i change my non-verbal behavior when a crosscultural situation requires it”) dimensions. the participants rate each of the 20 items on a seven-point likert scale (1—“strongly disagree”, 7—“strongly agree”). several studies show the very good psychometric properties of the cultural intelligence scale, i.e., cqs (van dyne et al., 2008). the results of the 2008 study support the stable four-factor structure, while the internal consistency of individual dimensions exceeds .70 in all dimensions (boštjančič et al., 2018b). the highest reliability is attributed to the cognitive dimension (α = .95), followed by the motivational (α = .92), behavioral (α = .85), and metacognitive dimensions of cultural intelligence (α = .79). for research purposes we translated the scale into croatian, while for the slovene version we used the translation produced by the researcher u. belak (boštjančič et al., 2018a), and an earlier russian translation was used with the russian participants (belovol et al., 2012). procedure the research was thus conducted by means of an online survey in three language versions—slovene, croatian, and russian. we invited people to take part through a publicly available database of slovenian exporters to croatia and russia, and a database of croatian and russian importers to slovenia. the condition to participate in the research was the minimum of a six-month business collaboration with a business partner from one of the focal countries. an e-invite with information about the purpose of the research, how the gathered data would be used, and information about guaranteeing anonymity was sent to approximately 4,700 companies that do business between slovenia and croatia (4% response rate), and to some 500 companies doing business between slovenia and russia (20% response rate). data collection took two months, and in the second part of the project we attempted to achieve greater responsiveness by requesting help from international business associations that cover business in the three countries examined in this research. the survey battery was administered in line with slovenian law (zakon o varstvu osebnih podatkov, 1999) and the ethical standards for research approved by the ethics committee at the faculty of arts, university of ljubljana (slovenia). the consent of the participants was obtained by virtue of survey completion. the participants were also told that they could withdraw from the study at any time, and that they would not be paid for participating. results our first analysis was focused on gender differences with regard to trust inside our sample as a whole (table 1). we found statistically significant results in all three dimensions of trust, namely keeping commitments commitments (f = 4.461; p = .035), negotiating honestly (f = 4.012; p = .046), and avoiding taking excessive advantage (f = 4.315; p = .038). in all three dimensions, women were the ones with statistically significant higher values of trust. on the other hand, age was not a statistically significant component of the degree of trust in establishing and maintaining business relationships. https://changing-sp.com/ 934 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, sara pavlović milijašević table 2 shows that nationality had a statistically significant impact on the difference in trust in our sample as a whole (f = 6.369; p < .01)—with the croatians getting statistically higher results than the slovenians and russians. there are also statistically significant differences in two other dimensions of trust, namely commitments (f = 10.02; p < .001) and negotiating honestly (f = 10.02; p < .001). the differences between the nationalities for the dimension avoiding taking excessive advantage were not statistically significant (f = 1.164; p = .313). table 1 building trust in business relationships—mean and standard deviation of variables for the whole sample and for men and women separately, including differences between groups and their significance whole men women differences between groups mean and standard deviation mean and standard deviation mean and standard deviation oti—general 59.30 (12.25) 58.18 (12.22) 60.75 (12.17) f = 5.616; p = .010 keep commitments 20.48 (4.50) 20.11 (4.52) 20.96 (4.44) f = 4.461; p = .035 negotiate honestly 20.26 (4.42) 19.91 (4.45) 20.70 (4.35) f = 4.012; p = .046 avoid taking excessive advantage 18.56 (5.12) 18.15 (5.26) 19.09 (4.89) f = 4.315; p = .038 table 2 cultural intelligence and building trust in business relationships—mean and standard deviation for the whole sample and separated by country of origin, with differences between groups and their statistical significance. whole slovenia croatia russia differences between group mean and standard deviation mean and standard deviation mean and standard deviation mean and standard deviation oti—general 59.30 (12.25) 58.66 (12.39) 64.09 (11.31) 58.21 (11.81) f = 6.369;p = .01 oti—keep commitments 20.48 (4.50) 20.19 (4.47) 22.67 (4.17) 19.98 (4.45) f = 10.02; p < .001 oti—negotiate honestly 20.26 (4.42) 19.87 (4.45) 22.20 (3.78) 20.18 (4.41) f = 10.02; p < .001 oti—avoid taking excessive advantage 18.56 (5.12) 18.60 (5.19) 19.21 (5.53) 18.04 (4.62) f = 1.164; p = .313 cqs—metacognitive 5.64 (0.89) 5.68 (0.89) 5.56 (0.88) 5.90 (0.88) f = 13.07;p < .001 cqs—cognitive 4.62 (1.04) 4.66 (0.99) 4.53 (1.19) 4.58 (1.09) f = 9.88;p < .001 cqs—motivational 5.56 (0.93) 5.93 (0.94) 5.88 (0.78) 5.56 (0.94) f = 2.88;p = .090 cqs—behavioral 5.12 (1.10) 5.04 (1.07) 4.86 (1.21) 5.51 (1.03) f = 0.004;p = .949 cqs—general 20.94 (3.04) 20.86 (3.10) 20.83 (3.06) 21.24 (2.86) f = 2.78;p = .096 c hanging s ocieties & p ersonalities, 2022, vol. 6, n o. 4, pp. 927–944 9 3 5 table 3 means and standard deviations of variables with pearson correlation coefficients mean sd country gender age oti—general oti—keep commitments oti— negotiate honestly oti— avoid taking excessive advantage cqs— metacognitive cqs— cognitive cqs— motivational cqs— behavioral country – – gender – – .17** age 41.99 10.21 −.16** −.18** oti—general 59.30 12.25 .02 .11* .00 oti—keep commitments 20.48 4.50 .02 .10* −.01 .91** oti— negotiate honestly 20.26 4.42 .06 .09* .01 .89** .83** oti—avoid taking excessive advantage 18.56 5.12 −.03 .09* .00 .82** .58** .53** cqs— metacognitive 14.33 5.25 −.07 .05 .12** .07 .12* .16** −.07 cqs— cognitive 19.02 8.10 −.05 .01 .08 .03 .07 .11* −0.08 .57** cqs— motivational 15.44 6.23 .04 .03 −.04 .09* .12* .16** −.02 .57** 0.47** cqs— behavioral 18.89 7.62 .14** .12** −.02 −.01 .03 .06 −.10* .48** 0.38** 0.50** cqs— general 157.58 99.56 .00 .04 .00 .03 .04 .07 −.03 .67** 0.68** 0.70** 0.67** note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01. https://changing-sp.com/ 936 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, sara pavlović milijašević table 3 presents the correlations and their reliability for major variables in this study. the participants assessed dimensions of trust as follows: the highest was keeping a commitment, followed by negotiating honestly and avoiding taking excessive advantage. with regard to the research questions examined in this study, statistically significant correlations emerged between gender and all trust dimensions. the general score of oti and the general score of cqs do not correlate (p = 0.03). there are, however, significant correlations between the sub-scales of the cultural intelligence questionnaire and the questionnaire about trust, which is in line with expectations regarding the measurement properties of the scales used (boštjančič et al., 2018b; cummings & bromiley, 1996). the participants with more distinct metacognitive, cognitive, and motivational dimensions of cultural intelligence reported more frequently on the presence of trust (the “negotiating honestly” dimension). the latter correlations are positive, yet low. predicting trust based on gender, age, nationality, and cultural intelligence is not statistically significant in any of the four cases (table 4)—for all three dimensions of trust and for the overall measure of trust. the share of explained variance in all cases is less than 2% (in predicting overall score r2= 1.2%, in keeping commitments r2 = 1%, in honest negotiation r2 = 1.6% and in avoiding exploitation r2 = 1.2%). the best predictor of trust was gender, which predicted the dimension of keeping commitments, and the overall result on the dimension of trust was statistically significant. the remaining three predictors (age, nationality, and cultural intelligence) did not prove to be statistically significant predictors for any of the trust dimensions or for the overall score. discussion our international research focused on the problem of identifying the prerequisites of trust among entrepreneurs and employees from three different slavic countries. the purpose of our study was to answer the research questions about the relationships between trust in international business relations and those factors that can potentially enhance or weaken different forms of trust. in the study we included entrepreneurs and employees from similar cultural backgrounds, from central and eastern european slavic countries, namely slovenia, croatia, and russia. the main results of our study are presented as follows. the proportion of explained variance in all cases was less than 2%. the best predictor of trust was gender, which statistically significantly predicted the dimension of keeping commitments and the overall result on the dimension of trust. this result may have been due to the fact that trust can be influenced by quite a few other factors that we did not include in our research—e.g., self-confidence, decreased uncertainty, greater psychological security, and problem-solving through knowledge sharing (cook & schilke, 2010; lumineau, 2017). c hanging s ocieties & p ersonalities, 2022, vol. 6, n o. 4, pp. 927–944 9 3 7 table 4 results of multiple regression for subscale prediction and overall score prediction for the oti trust questionnaire prediction keep commitments negotiate honestly avoid taking excessive advantage trust – overall score variable coeff. se t p coeff. se t p coeff. se t p coeff. se t p gender .876 .411 2.133 .033 .789 .402 1.962 .050 1.072 .468 2.291 .022 2.737 1.117 2.450 .014 age .006 .020 .279 .766 .016 .020 .822 .412 .006 .023 .242 .809 .028 .055 .507 .613 nationality .034 .244 .140 .889 .279 .240 1.163 .245 −.300 .279 −1.076 .283 .013 .666 .019 .984 cultural intelligence .002 .002 .820 .413 .003 .002 1.541 .124 −.002 .002 −.723 .470 .003 .006 .553 .581 https://changing-sp.com/ 938 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, sara pavlović milijašević trust is also viewed differently by different nationalities. croatians achieve higher values of trust than slovenians and russians. the reason for this can be found in the differences in the relative economic development of the three countries. croatia is the least economically developed, and therefore croatian entrepreneurs risk less than entrepreneurs from russia or slovenia (komes, 2017). additionally, of all the nations of the former yugoslavia, slovenians have the least trust in croatians, which we could explain by the presence of many negative stereotypes about croatians in slovenia, such as they are jealous and lazy (komes, 2017). the lower level of trust among russians may also be due to the fact that, according to hofstede, it can be classified as a low-trust society (bstieler & hemmert, 2008), as in russia trust is very important within already known channels, while in slovenia and croatia this is not the case. given the results of our research, the differences in cultural intelligence do not predict trust and do not correlate with it in a statistically significant way. this result underscores that cultural differences are more important than cultural intelligence in terms of trust. it can be assumed that the cultural affiliation of the subject remains dominant with regard to the issue of trust in a business partner. it should also be noted that trust and mistrust are not exclusive and opposite categories, but only related constructs—the fact that there is no trust does not mean there is mistrust. the elements we have included in our study cannot be considered elements that can contribute to mistrust (hardin, 2004; lewicki et al., 1998; lumineau, 2017). theoretical significance and practical implications the results of this study show that the gender of the participants affects trust, as all components of trust are higher for the female participants than the male ones. this was not the case in the previous literature, as many authors (croson & buchanan, 1999; kaasa & parts, 2008; stolle & hooghe, 2004) found no significant effects of gender on trust, while others (buchan et al., 2008; van oorschot & arts, 2005) found that men are more trusting than women. at the same time, our data provides new insights into the relationship between trust and cultural intelligence, as it motivates researchers to respect the cultural factors associated with business partners and not be so confident that cultural differences are easily erased by high levels of cultural intelligence. these results should be taken into account when considering how personal and cultural predictors of trust relate to the level of trust in international business relations. the data also contributes to a clearer understanding of the ambiguity of predictors of trust, even in such objective conditions as business partnerships and cooperation. while previous studies have focused on cultural intelligence as a factor in successful international interaction, our results show that cultural identity retains its strong importance even in the context of globalization and the intensification of international cooperation. the results obtained in this study are of interest to those who help develop business cooperation between countries, such as state and public organizations supporting entrepreneurship. in addition, the results will be useful to business school educators and organizational consultants. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 927–944 939 our data enriches knowledge by offering a new approach to building trust between businesspeople from different cultures. as such, one of the recommendations may be to maintain a balance between the number of men and women in any team focused on the development of international business relations. another recommendation calls for more respect and the careful study of a business partner’s culture. our findings also further underscore the need to take a fresh look at cultural stereotypes as potential barriers to developing trusting business relationships. avenues for future research in our research, we addressed the issue of predicting trust between business partners from different countries and cultures. further research is needed in this area, in the direction of examining trust in business relations with regard to adjacent and more distant regions—in other words, it should be examined whether the physical distance between countries or regions can have an impact on trust in business relationships. given the size of the countries involved, it would be appropriate to explore the level of trust by region in the future—trust could be higher in bordering regions, for example, both due to more frequent contacts and more similar cultural environments (komes, 2017). it would also be important to check whether membership of the countries of one or both business partners in the european union has a significant impact on the trust and work of business partners in different countries. there is a considerable literature on the relationship between slovenia and croatia, but that between slovenia and russia has not yet been sufficiently researched. further research could explore this relationship in the case of business partners as well as the general populations in both countries. similarly, it would be worth examining whether the yugoslav-era stereotypes of slovenes about croatians, and vice versa, still exist, what they are and whether they have changed over time, as this could also have a significant impact on trust in business relations. future research should aim to be based on larger and more representative samples of entrepreneurs and employees developing international business partnerships. researchers can focus on the difference in motivation as a driving force for building trust with a partner from a different culture. it may also be worthwhile to find out exactly what gender characteristics (e.g., femininity, masculinity, kindness, responsiveness) are the prerequisites for trust in business partnerships, regardless of the cultures of the partners. limitations while our research has proven to be productive, it still has some limitations. first, the groups of subjects were selected ad hoc, depending on the voluntary participation of entrepreneurs and employees, and were not based on a systematic sample. consequently, our subjects can only partially be regarded as representative of the large social group of employees from central and eastern europe. this limitation is also evident in many other cross-cultural studies. second, the study of the data allowed us to firmly control possible occupational, social, and demographic factors. therefore, these factors make it difficult to formulate https://changing-sp.com/ 940 eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, sara pavlović milijašević more general hypotheses among a wider range of employees. however, this is beyond the scope of our research. third, the use of cross-sectional and self-reporting methodology for data collection could have affected the quality of measurement of the parameters underlying trust. in our research, we used a self-assessment questionnaire that allowed us to collect data from a relatively large sample in three different countries on the topic of trust in interpersonal business relationships and cultural intelligence. in the case of any self-assessment questionnaire we naturally encounter subjective assessment, but only in this way were we able to measure the subjective assessment of the dimensions considered in this study. in our case this is a more important factor than the objective assessment of these dimensions. the problem with self-assessment questionnaires is that participants may assess their characteristics too little or too rigorously—thus producing unrealistic results (demerouti et al., 2015). our results, however, are valid for answering our research questions, since the study design was carefully organized, the investigated variables were operationalized, and robust psychological data collection and processing techniques were used. conclusion building trust is a topic that has remained in the spotlight for many years, despite a changing society. in this context we are talking about the trust that arises in the relationship between two people or, in our case, between two businesspeople with different cultural backgrounds (croatia, russia, or slovenia). human personality also plays an important role in this process, as noted by previous researchers— in our study all components of trust were higher for the female participants than the male ones. cultural intelligence advances cross-cultural knowledge 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wajeeha@ndu.edu.pk published online 10 october 2022 zabbas@numl.edu.pk article in the eyes of the beholder: leaders’ personality and courageous followership wajeeha brar ghias national defense university, national university of modern languages (numl), islamabad, pakistan syed zaheer abbas kazmi national university of modern languages (numl), islamabad, pakistan abstract the literature on leadership through the lens of followership does not provide empirical evidence of leaders’ personalities and their perception of subordinates’ courageous followership behaviors. this paper explores the connection between personality and courageous followership. the study sample is 190 school leaders working in the top private schools in pakistan as regular employees. the responses collected through simple random sampling techniques and stata 16 software are used for data analysis. data analysis indicates that leaders having extraversion, agreeableness, consciousness, and openness to intellectual/imagination personality traits perceive their subordinates’ behaviors as courageous followers, whereas the neuroticism personality trait resulted in a negative perception of courageous followership behaviors among pakistani school leaders. this paper is prominent research in a new direction of leadership through followership. this study recommends emphasizing the development of positive personality traits in leaders so that they can transform their subordinates into courageous followers which is an antidote to toxic leadership. keywords personality, big five traits, followership, courageous followership, proactive https://changing-sp.com/ 548 wajeeha brar ghias, syed zaheer abbas kazmi introduction good leadership and followership are important for organizational success. leadership along with followership reflect the behaviors, actions, or roles that individuals play in their respective positions in organizations. the role of followership and followers has recently been considered a crucial component of leadership research (uhl-bien et al., 2014). in addition to leadership, focusing on followership helps to explain the complex relational interaction among leader-followers to understand more about organizational dynamics and complexities (uhl-bien & carsten, 2018). considering the changing environment and lessons learned owing to covid-19, we need to develop leadership and followership equally to deal with the complexities and challenges of today’s organizational problems (uhl-bien, 2021). management theories also need revisions and should refocus by adding an ethical dimension in research (ghoshal, 2005) that places all responsibility on leaders for the failure or success of organizations, which is not a viable solution. individuals in academia should also see their role as proactive and responsible as well as accountable members of society. the seven important skills needed for the 21st century include critical thinking, integrity, resilience, adaptability, empathy, optimism, and being proactive (prince, 2019). a proactive role demands individuals, to be honest, committed, and proactive in their respective roles whether a leader or followers. education is the key builder of society, and the education sector plays a key role in the development of society. according to the global competitiveness index 2020 (schwab et al., 2020), institutions play a pivotal role in a country’s development. among institutions, the education sector is considered the fifth pillar for efficiency enhancers of a country. in pakistan vision 2025 document (ministry of planning, development & reform, 2014), the government of pakistan (gop) set a target of increasing public expenditure on education from 0.2% of the gross domestic product (gdp) to 1.4 % by 2025. despite all the efforts, pakistan is ranked 110 out of 141 nations in the world on the global competitive index (schwab et al., 2020), where institutions are ranked 107 among 141 countries in terms of the performance of institutions. one of the reasons for its low ranking is the high level of corruption and lack of transparency, which is also reflected in its low rank on the transparency indicator where pakistan is ranked 101. to improve transparency, organizations need to promote transparent leadership and encourage effective and honest followership as this helps in promoting a culture of transparency. we have toxic triangles in our institutions, which is a combination of unethical leaders, conformer followers, and an environment of corruption (padilla et al., 2007). employee silence is one of the mediating factors in the development of toxic leadership and low organizational performance (saqib & arif, 2017). the deference to authority on unethical standards along with fighting against a toxic work environment remains a matter of concern in an asian country like pakistan (anjum et al., 2018). particularly, in asian cultures, such as in pakistan, a leader’s authority is many folds, and it is the leadership style that develops followership behavior. it is necessary to identify the dimension of a leader’s personality that promotes a proactive type of followership. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3 pp. 547–563 549 courageous followership is a type of behavior that develops the capacity of the manager to speak up against unethical practices and make them partners with leaders (chaleff, 2009). this proactive behavior not only challenges unethical practices, but it also makes individuals support their leaders by assuming responsibility, serving the leader, and taking part in the transformation. research on courageous followership in pakistan found a positive impact on exemplary leadership practices among public and private sector managers (ghias et al., 2018). moreover, in the pakistani context, islamic work ethics also value the individual behavior of courageous followership in non-profit organizations (ghias et al., 2020). we need to inculcate and promote courageous followership behavior among institutions to get rid of toxic triangles and overcome inefficiencies to compete with world countries. further, evidence from pakistan (sharar & nawab, 2020) suggests that schools must encourage the development of leadership traits among young teachers by encouraging and developing their leadership skills. leaders should be aware of the behaviors of their followers and to ensure that they attain the maximum benefit, leaders must be trained to appreciate the proactive behavior of followers. organizations need to encourage the proactive behavior of their employees and develop leaders who can promote and encourage proactive behavior (mccormick et al., 2019). courageous followership is a form of proactive behavior in followership roles that inculcate the development of exemplary leadership (ghias et al., 2018) and develop individuals to be transformational leaders (green, 2018). personality studies taking a research approach to followers’ personality traits on the perception of their leadership style (hetland et al., 2008) found that avoidant leadership is preferred by subordinates having personality traits of openness and agreeableness. d. r. kudek (2018) studied two dimensions of followership styles, independent thinking, and active engagement (kelley, 1992) as outcomes of the big five personality traits. to measure personality, the researcher used the mini-international personality. the item pool developed by donnellan et al. (2006) was in a non-student population. the results of the study concluded that four personality traits, extraversion, agreeableness, consciousness, and openness to experience, have a positive relation with followership dimensions of independent thinking and active engagement, while neuroticism is negatively associated. this study also recommended seeing leaders’ perceptions of their followers in different cultural and organizational contexts. from the cultural perspective, arun and gedik (2020) analyzed the role of asian values on leadership styles and leaders’ roles and found that asian cultural values have a different application to mintzberg’s leadership roles. this research study will be meaningful from different cultural perspectives as leaders’ perception of subordinates’ followership is still untapped in leadership and followership research. therefore, literature reasoning also supports undertaking this study in pakistani private schools to research leaders’ personalities and their perceptions of subordinates’ courageous followership behavior. the united nation sustainable development goals (department of economic and social affairs, 2015) adopted by 193 member countries in september 2015 also represents a renewed focus on inclusive, lifelong, and equitable education. based on statistics mentioned in annual status of education https://changing-sp.com/ 550 wajeeha brar ghias, syed zaheer abbas kazmi report 2019 (aser pakistan, 2020), 62% of children are attending private schools which are preferred over government schools. it is pertinent to understand the leader’s perception of followership behavior as they are inculcating values and ethics to future generations. if such a culture is present in school leadership, it will be transformed for future generations. literature review and research hypotheses courageous followership the history of followership behavior is as primitive as human civilization; leadership and followership are processes co-created for social exchange. management scholars in the twentieth century recognized the independent role of followers (uhl-bien et al., 2014). earlier leadership theories of great man, where leaders were considered heroes, have evolved with the growing changes in the social-economic paradigm recommending a shared form of leadership (northouse, 2019). the followership research is still in its infancy; the word search on web of science (wos) by the authors resulted in 171 articles on “followership” and 25,585 articles on “leadership” that reflect the minimum focus of research on the followership construct. seminal work on followership in the management domain was introduced by kelley (1988) in the article in praise of followers in which he highlighted that role of followers in an organization deserves equal importance as leadership. kelley introduced the followership styles grounded on two behavioral dimensions—independent and dependent thinking, and active/passive engagement of followers. the followers adopt five different styles; passive, alienated, conformist, pragmatic, and collaborative or star followers. while extending the work of star followers, chaleff (2009), a management practitioner, introduced the concept of courageous followership—a proactive form of followership with dimensions of assuming responsibility, serving the leader, taking part in organizational transformation, challenging the wrongdoings of leaders, and undertaking actions such that the follower is sufficiently capable to leave the organization due to unethical practices of the leaders to take moral action. the work of followership is still in its infancy as most of the followership models in management are developed by practitioners and theory building needs more empirical investigations (northouse, 2019). the overarching theory of followership posits to analyze the role of a leader’s personal behavior as an outcome of their follower’s behavior, as leadership is a process where leaders and followers interact to complete the leadership process. (uhl-bien et al., 2014). this study will answer the question that what type of personality of leader encourages proactive courageous followership behavior. big five personality traits personality traits can be defined as the persistent, cognitive behavior that individuals exhibit with consistency in different situations. parks-leduc et al. (2015) define personality traits as behavioral components that differentiate it from other individuals. many research concepts and theories have been studied over time, but the big five personality traits are the most widely researched, which focus on the researcher’s changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3 pp. 547–563 551 understanding of the behavior and attitudes of individuals in an organization (lynn, 2021). the big five personality traits can be differentiated into five personality traits, namely extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, consciousness, and openness to experience such as intellectual/imagination (john & robins, 2021). the extroversion personality is related to sociability and high energy, while agreeableness is related to compassion, trust, and respect toward others. consciousness personality is related to productivity and responsible behavior, while openness is related to imaginative and open-mindedness towards experiential life, whereas neuroticism is related to negative emotions such as anxiety and depression (john & robins, 2021, p. 42). the research on followers’ personality traits found that the big five personality traits are related to followers’ perceptions of transformational and transactional leadership (hetland et al., 2008). the personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness, consciousness, and openness to experience are positively related to authentic leadership and negatively associated with neuroticism in a dyadic time-lagged study among students in pakistan (shahzad et al., 2021). many research studies have examined personality with leadership traits or leader’s personality impact on job outcomes of employees (ishaq et al., 2021; sameer & priyadarshi, 2021) but the research on big five personality traits do not answer the relationship of leader’s personality and their perception of the subordinate’s courageous followership behavior. in this regard, the following section will build a theoretical understanding of the relation of a leader’s perception of subordinates’ followership with leaders’ personalities. extraversion and courageous followership extraversion personality traits are associated with individuals’ attitudes towards energy assertiveness and adaptive nature to change. extravert leaders tend to be more sociable and encourage team performance which is highly related to subordinates’ attitudes, such as organizational commitment (simic et al., 2017) while playing a positive role. extroversion leaders show a high level of leader-follower exchange relationship (dust et al., 2021), which means that extraversion leaders like to promote individuals in their group having traits of confidence, dedication, and proactive behavior. courageous followership is also related to a high level of organizational commitment (dixon, 2003) and inculcates exemplary leadership (ghias et al., 2018). this aspect that extraversion leaders might like courageous followership behavior of their subordinates leads to the following hypothesis: h1: extraversion leaders’ personality is positively related to the leaders’ perception of subordinates’ courageous followership. agreeableness and courageous followership agreeable traits of personality are related to accepting, conforming, and nurturing attributes (northouse, 2019). individuals with agreeableness traits are warm and honest, and never tend to affront their subordinates (zhang et al., 2021). even leaders with agreeableness traits are perceived as authentic leaders by their subordinates (shahzad et al., 2021). individuals with agreeableness traits are kind, trusting, and welcoming to subordinate action which helps to boost the morale of followers (ishaq https://changing-sp.com/ 552 wajeeha brar ghias, syed zaheer abbas kazmi et al., 2021). courageous followership is an authentic form of behavior that naturally works for the common purpose of the organization and leader’s success (chaleff, 2009) and such behavior might be liked by agreeableness leaders. h2: agreeableness leaders’ personality is positively related to leaders’ perception of subordinate courageous followership. consciousness and courageous followership the consciousness personality trait of leaders is related to the behavior of being careful, ambitious, and practical (northouse, 2019). leaders high on this trait are self-disciplined and honor integrity and values at the workplace (kalshoven et al., 2011), follow the organizational rules and regulations and enhance positive leadership behavior among individuals. research literature reflects that consciousness personality traits are associated with positive leadership and organizational attitudes of employees, while courageous followership is nurtured when leaders are open and allow their subordinates to access them (chaleff, 2009). the consciousness trait is also related to the active engagement of followers (kudek, 2018). leaders with this trait will likely have positive perceptions and likeness for courageous followership behavior of their subordinates. h3: consciousness of leaders’ personality is positively related to leaders’ perception of subordinate courageous followership. neuroticism and courageous followership the neuroticism trait is the tendency of individuals to exhibit behaviors of anxiety, low self-esteem, and hostility (northouse, 2019). individuals with neuroticism traits cannot handle difficult situations (djurkovic et al., 2006) which lead to more anxiety and low patience levels, and increased emotional distress. the neurotic behavior of individuals will lead to distressful behaviors in the workplace and individuals will not be ready and comfortable to interact with other members of the organization (friedman, 2019). leaders with neuroticism are more likely to exhibit destructive leadership behavior, such as abusive supervision (ryan et al., 2021). abusive supervision enhances employee silence behavior due to the fear of low-performance evaluation by leaders and takes the lead towards more neurotic employees (de clercq et al., 2021). on the other hand, a courageous follower is a form of proactive behavior, an antinode to destructive leadership (chaleff, 2009), and promotes the positive side of leadership (green, 2018). therefore, considering the above literature discourse, we can propose that neuroticism among leaders is a negative trait that is less likely to appreciate the courageous followership behaviors of subordinates. h4: neuroticism of leaders’ personality is negatively related to leaders’ perception of subordinate courageous followership. openness to intellect/imagination individuals with openness to intellect/imagination traits of personality exhibit creativity, innovation, and curiosity about new ideas (northouse, 2019). it develops the capacity of individuals to seek feedback from subordinates (shahzad et al., 2021) and they show a higher tendency to enhance social relationships and changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3 pp. 547–563 553 development activities for organizational change. individuals with openness to intellect and imagination will support subordinates’ behaviors of courageous followership as this behavior also leads to organizational change and improvements (chaleff, 2009). furthermore, openness to intellect and imagination is also related to the independent thinking of followers (kudek, 2018). this leads to the following hypothesis: h5: openness to intellect /imagination leaders’ personality is positively related to leaders’ perception of subordinate courageous followership. figure 1 conceptual framework: personality and courageous followership big five personality traits extraversion agreeableness neuroticism consciousness openness to intellectual / imagination courageous followership note. source: developed by authors. methodology the study is descriptive while considering leaders in private sector schools as units of analysis. the data collection is cross-sectional with minimal interferences of researchers in a non-contrived environment. sample the population constitutes private schools in islamabad. a list of private schools was obtained from the private educational institutions regulatory authority islamabad1 (peira-ict). a total of 337 schools are registered in peira-ict. the selection of schools and school heads was based on research criteria. firstly, schools with a less rigid hierarchy and a framework of open communication and critical thinking were selected. secondly, schools with international certifications and standards with a higher student enrollment were included in the research study. lastly, the schools willing to participate and available for research due to covid-19 constraints and the availability of staff were included in the study. totally, 30 schools were included in the study. each school administration was contacted personally by researchers through small interactive sessions. the list of school heads and coordinators in 1 registered institutes. (n.d.). private educational institutions regulatory authority ict-peira. https://peira.gov.pk/institutes/registered.php https://changing-sp.com/ https://peira.gov.pk/institutes/registered.php 554 wajeeha brar ghias, syed zaheer abbas kazmi leadership positions was collected from the administration. in each school, there are 10 key leadership positions including school head and coordinators who supervise five or more teachers in their daily activities and decision-making. totally, 300 questionnaires, 10 in each school, were distributed through simple random sampling techniques. totally, 242 questionnaires were returned with an 80% response rate. after data screening, a total of 190 responses were included for analysis in the stata 16 software (statacorp, 2019). instrument the study used a courageous followership questionnaire developed by dixon (2003) with 19 items scale rated by leaders about their subordinates’ courageous followership behavior. this scale is widely used in research to study courageous followership behavior among faculty members with an overall reliability α = .74 (schwab, 2017). this instrument is used in a variety of sectors, such as military organizations (green, 2018) in pakistan to measure managers’ followership and leadership behaviors (ghias et al., 2018) with α = .78. it is also used in measuring the relationship between islamic work ethics and project managers in ngos (ghias et al., 2020). this instrument is also used in studying students’ courageous followership behavior and its impact on authentic leadership among university students in pakistan (zafar et al.,2021). in this study, the reliability of courageous followership α = .83 shows consistency with previous research. a mini scale of personality with 20 items has been used to measure the leader’s personality. the scale was developed by donnellan et al. (2006) from an international personality pool of 50 items through rigorous tests. the properties of the scale were further validated by r. e. baldasaro and colleagues (2013) considering 15,701 young individuals and the reliability of the instrument was within the acceptable range. the mini-scale of personality has been widely used in different populations with acceptable scale validity and consistency (perry et al., 2020). to check the reliability of the instrument, data were processed in stata software, where items with reverse codes were adjusted. the reliability of each is as follows: extraversion α = 0.88, agreeableness α = 0.76, consciousness α = 0.86, neuroticism α = 0.77, and openness to intellect/imagination α = 0.82. results respondents profile the results of the study are obtained using stata 16 software through descriptive, pearson correlation, and multiple regression analysis. the sample demographics consist of 76% female and 24% male, where 35% are 20–29 years, 51% are 30–39, and 14% are 40 years and above. the education level of the school leaders represents 10% having doctorates, 56% having master’s degrees, and 34% having bachelor’s degrees. considering the work experience, 26% had 1–6 years, 45% had 7–13 years, and 29% had 14 years and above. concerning the nature of the job, 81% were regular employees and 19% were on a contractual basis. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3 pp. 547–563 555 descriptive statistics and correlation matrix the descriptive statistics table explains the mean and standard deviation values of the variables. the pearson correlation matrix reflects those values of r should be from –1 to +1 (cohen, 1988). the association of courageous followership is significantly positive with extraversion r = 0.47, p ≤ 0.05, agreeableness, r = 0.54, p ≤ 0.05, consciousness, r = 0.43, p ≤ 0.05, and openness to experience, r = 0.38, p ≤ 0.05. the neuroticism trait of personality has a negative significant association with courageous followership r = –0.40, p ≤ 0.05. table 1 descriptive statistic and correlation matrix (n = 190) correlation statistics i ii iii iv v vi mean sd i – 3.16 .59 ii 0.48* – 3.38 .58 iii 0.32* 0.38* – 3.05 .59 iv –0.37* –0.44* –0.25* – 2.72 .65 v 0.26* 0.29* 0.36* –0.18* – 3.58 .48 vi 0.47* 0.54* 0.43* –0.40* 0.38* – 3.64 .55 * correlation is significant p ≤ 0.05. note: i = extraversion, ii = agreeableness, iii = consciousness, iv = neuroticism, v = openness to intellectual/imagination, vi = courageous followership note. source: developed by authors from research data. hypothesis testing regression analysis the multiple regression analysis was computed with standardized variables to test hypothesized relationships in h1, h2, h3, h4, and h5. the results of multiple regression analysis are exhibited in table 2. the data was analyzed for regression assumptions. the pearson correlation table 1 confirms no multicollinearity in data as the values of pearson correlations are less than 0.80. the variance of inflation values was less than 10 as exhibited in table 2. the data is normally distributed as the assumption of variance is met, heteroscedasticity χ2 = 2.14, p ≥ 0.001. no variance in residual of data was found. table 2 multiple regression analysis personality and courageous followership (n = 190) model b std. error β t sig. view (constant) 1.08 .73 1.97 2.70 .000 – extraversion .21 .072 .19 3.10 .001 1.39 agreeableness .25 .065 .27 4.08 .002 1.30 consciousness .16 .062 .16 2.67 .001 1.25 neuroticism –.11 .052 –.13 –2.26 .001 1.26 openness to intellect / imagination r2 = .44, ∆r2 = .41 f = 28.18**, df (5,184) .20 .069 .17 2.98 .005 1.15 * p ≤ .05, ** p ≤ 0.01, *** p ≤ 0.001 note. source: developed by authors from research data. https://changing-sp.com/ 556 wajeeha brar ghias, syed zaheer abbas kazmi the data of responses collected from school leaders on the big five personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, consciousness, and openness to intellectual/imagination as independent variables and leader’s perception of their subordinate’s courageous followership as a dependent variable is regressed using stata 16 software. the results in table 2 verify the relationship between independent and dependent variables. the value of r2 in h1, h2, h3, h4, and h5 as a significant contribution is made to leaders’ perception of their subordinates’ courageous followership behavior due to extraversion (β = .19, p < .01), agreeableness (β = .27, p < .01), consciousness (β = .16, p <. 01), neuroticism (β = .13, p < .01), and openness to intellectual/imagination (β = .17, p < .01). discussion this study aims to resolve the research problem in an untapped area of followership and personality from cultural and theoretical perspectives using a sample of pakistani private school leaders. more specifically this study answers the research question: what type of personality of leader encourages proactive courageous followership behavior? our analysis of leaders’ personalities and their perception of subordinates’ courageous followership behavior shows that the personality dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience and consciousness positively influence leadership perception of courageous followership behavior of their subordinates. on the other hand, neuroticism has a negative influence on courageous followership behavior. among the personality traits, agreeableness has the highest beta value (β = .27, p < .01), which means that if a leader has high agreeableness traits, they will encourage the subordinates to exhibit more courageous followership behavior. this is evident as agreeableness is related to conforming, accepting, and listening to advice behavior and leaders high on this trait are most likely to accept and promote courageous followership as a proactive form of subordination. according to zhang et al. (2021), highly agreeable leaders tend to have a high level of information-seeking behavior from their subordinates, and leaders who are information seekers accept the subordinates’ proactive behavior. the result that agreeableness is a high predictor of courageous followership is different from the results of agreeableness relation with leadership (shahzad et al., 2021) in which agreeable has a low moderate effect. this may be because agreeable personality traits promote fairness and justice, and such a personality will be more inclined towards courageous followership as subordinates are fair with the leader as well as with the organization (chaleff, 2009). another reason may be that the data was collected from diverse sectors (shahzad et al., 2020), whereas the current study’s data constitutes academic leaders who seem more responsible as nurturers of society. extraversion personality trait is another high personality trait in relationship with courageous followership (after agreeableness). an extraversion personality is change-driven and always appreciates individuals with proactive personalities changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3 pp. 547–563 557 because such leadership traits are more transformational (schreyer et al., 2021). extroversion leaders show a high level of leader-follower exchange relationship (dust et al., 2021) and like to promote individuals in their group with traits of confidence, dedication, and proactive behavior which is confirmed by the result of this study. consciousness is also related to courageous followership which is consistent with previous research, such as kudek (2018) in which teachers’ conscious trait is related to kelley’s active engagement and independent thought. this is true in this study’s results as academic leaders’ conscious traits influence leaders’ perceptions of their subordinates’ courageous followership behavior which is also derived from kelley’s followership styles (chaleff, 2009). such leaders value integrity and carefulness, and such personalities are high on information seeking and promoting employee advice (zhang et al., 2021). this is true in this study result as the conscious personality trait was found to be influencing the leaders’ perceptions of their subordinates’ behaviors. from a cultural perspective, the result of this study is rather true as in pakistan, conscious traits of leadership are also moderately related to sustainable intentions and individuals high on this dimension appreciate feedback (ishaq et al., 2021). similarly, courageous followership is nurtured if leaders allow their subordinates to access them (chaleff, 2009). another personality trait is neuroticism in which individuals high on this trait show mood swings, anxiety, and low level of self-esteem. the results of this study demonstrate that leaders high in neuroticism do not perceive their subordinates as courageous followers as neuroticism is negatively related to courageous followership behavior. this is true as neurotic leaders, due to their negative attitude, reflect ostracism and high feelings of jealousy (howard et al., 2020). another reason why neurotic leaders do not perceive their subordinates as courageous followers is envy at the workplace. meta-analysis drawn on social comparison theory based on workplace envy indicates that neuroticism tends to enhance individuals’ ability to feel more with workplace envy (li et al., 2021). lastly, the result of this study indicates openness to intellect/imagination has a high moderating impact after extraversion traits on courageous followership. the reason for this may be that highly creative leaders have shown high congruence with highly proactive subordinates (peng et al., 2020) as it benefits and supports the leaders. conclusion to conclude, this research study implies that the big five personality traits of leaders are linked to their perception of the courageous followership behavior of their subordinates. although from a cultural perspective the deference to authority is still a matter of concern in an asian country such as pakistan (anjum et al., 2018), leaders prefer and like the passive behaviors of followers. interestingly, the overall results of the study indicate novel findings as positive personality traits of leaders provide a high perception of their subordinates’ courageous followership behaviors, and negative personality traits, such as neuroticism, negatively impact subordinates’ courageous followership. this result may be due to the collection of data after the breakthrough https://changing-sp.com/ 558 wajeeha brar ghias, syed zaheer abbas kazmi of covid-19 scenarios where leaders need the proactive behaviors of followers (uhl-bien, 2021). in a collective culture, especially in crisis due to covid-19, leaders promote creative followers while fostering social relationships to enhance social capital (tang et al., 2021). the present study has certain implications, particularly in the education sector of pakistan. the study results provide a ray of hope for the cultural acceptance of subordinate proactivity. if leaders in schools are ready to perceive their subordinates proactivity positively, it will enhance the overall culture of transparency as it is one of the problems in which pakistan is ranked 101 among 141 world countries (schwab et al., 2020). moreover, in the contemporary world, we need to promote transparent leadership and encourage effective and honest followership (uhl-bien, 2021) as effective followership helps promote a culture of transparency. another important implication is that if courageous followership, a form of moral and ethical behavior (chaleff, 2009), has acceptance in academia, the future generation will be in safe hands. further, earlier studies (maxwell & schwimmer, 2016) have emphasized that teachers’ professional development in ethical education not only adds value to the teachers’ professional career, but it also promotes students’ intellectual ability toward cognitive moral judgment. this is more required in the present situation as hope and self-leadership are moderated by a proactive personality (abid et al., 2021). the present study has a few limitations. firstly, the data was collected from only private school leaders of the top schools in islamabad, pakistan, while it did not include public school leaders. the results could have been different as there is a difference in public and private sector leadership and followership behavior (ghias et al., 2018). the questionnaire used for data collection is self-reporting in a personality perspective that might have created biases towards leaders’ perceptions. importantly, another limitation may be the collection of data post the covid-19 outbreak that might have changed the perception of leaders towards courageous followership. the deference to authority is a matter of concern in an asian country such as pakistan (anjum et al., 2018). future research should explore a better understanding of personality and followership. it would be interesting to undertake a comparative analysis of public and private school teachers along with other schools which are not even at the top. the results of such an analysis may identify leadership and followership problems. the longitudinal study can be very beneficial in the future, after training leaders on good personality and subordinates on courageous followership behavior, the research can measure the impact of change. this will lead to a better understanding of behavioral components as training of individuals for exemplary followership is part of islamic teaching too (nurhadi, 2020) and can be beneficial to build an environment of ethical culture because practicing islamic work ethics enhances the capacity of individuals’ courageous followership behavior (ghias et al.,2018) that might be true in the teaching profession too. future research can also examine the same study at the end of the pandemic as life goes back to normal, to understand the impact of the pandemic on the personality of leaders and followers’ behavior. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3 pp. 547–563 559 conflict of interest author 1 and author 2 states that there is no conflict of interest for this publication. the research was conducted without any financial assistance. authors contributions author 1 has contributed to the conceptualization, methodology, writing & reviewing of original draft and approved it for publication. author 2 has contributed to the methodology, writing & reviewing of original draft, supervision, and approved of it for publication. references abid, g., arya, b., arshad, a., ahmed, s., & farooqi, s. 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(2021). big five personality influences trajectories of information-seeking behavior. personality and individual differences, 173, article 110631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110631 https://changing-sp.com/ https://revistia.com/files/articles/ejser_v4_i4s_17/jelena.pdf https://revistia.com/files/articles/ejser_v4_i4s_17/jelena.pdf https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.601389 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.601389 https://doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2021.1917490 https://doi.org/10.1108/s1479-357120180000009005 https://doi.org/10.1108/s1479-357120180000009005 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2013.11.007 https://doi.org/10.36902/rjsser-vol2-iss1-2021(266-274) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110631 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 422–437 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.143 received 17 december 2020 © 2021 anna siegler, sára serdült, fanni csernus, accepted 8 september 2021 lilla dézma, izabella ilea, sára bigazzi published online 11 october 2021 siegler.anna@pte.hu serdult.sara@pte.hu csernus.fanni@pte.hu dezma.lilla@pte.hu ilea.izabella@pte.hu serdult.sara@pte.hu article the efficacy of a holding community program— promoting social reflection at school anna siegler, sára serdült, fanni csernus, lilla dézma, izabella ilea, sára bigazzi university of pécs, pécs, hungary abstract the authors developed a holding community program to achieve the following objectives: (a) to increase the perspective-taking capacity of adolescents; (b) to promote interpersonal and intergroup harmony; (c) to empower school students to be more (pro)active in their communities and in public life. apart from the intervention itself, the study comprised a pre-test and a post-test and involved a total of 240 hungarian high school students (159 female, 66.3%). the students were aged 14–18 (mage = 15.33; sdage = 0.88). they were recruited from four high schools. control groups (n = 122) were chosen from the same institution and graded as experimental classes (n = 118, 7 classes). both immediate and long-term effects of the intervention (4–6 months after the intervention) were explored. quantitative analysis of the data indicated that the two-day intervention program had significantly increased the students’ perspective-taking capacity (short-term: f(1, 238) = 6.03, p < 0.05, long-term: n.s.) and efficacy beliefs (short-term: f(1, 238) = 3.83, p = 0.052, long-term: f(1, 238) = 3.38, p < 0.05). after the training, students were more willing to participate in collective actions (short-term: f(1, 238) = 7.32, p < 0.01, long-term: f(1, 238) = 3.83, p < 0.05). these results seem quite promising but the outcome was not significant regarding its effect on prejudice. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 422–437 423 introduction institutionalized education is a constantly evolving social construct, which is changing alongside the understanding of knowledge construction, essential competencies, and the role of teachers and learners. modernization of educational systems is a key issue in international policies, which in the last decade have highlighted the importance of learning in ensuring social mobility, equity, social cohesion and active citizenship (e.g., the strategic framework for european cooperation in education and training: et 2020). to achieve these objectives, it is necessary to enhance social and emotional skills because the development of these skills is crucial for promoting social inclusion and cohesion but also because of their importance for knowledge acquisition (corcoran et al., 2018; elias et al., 1997; trilling & fadel, 2009). nonetheless, in general, national education systems still largely focus on fostering the students’ academic performance rather than their social-emotional skills (paksi, 2019; sugimoto & carter, 2015), the hungarian public education system being no exception (zsolnai et al., 2015). furthermore, there is a perceived lack of preventive measures, e.g., strategies for prevention of abuse, violence and similar behaviour (paksi, 2019). hungarian society still has a long way to go in terms of social inclusion (kende et al., 2018; örkény & váradi, 2010) and politically motivated intergroup violence is an existing problem (faragó et al., 2019). from the psychological perspective, the implementation of widespread and evidence-based prevention programs remains an important educational goal for public schools. interpersonal competencies: essential, but not enough social and interpersonal competencies are seen as vital for academic progress of students (webster-stratton & reid, 2004; zsolnai, 2002) and also as essential for promoting diversity and inclusivity; for example, perspective-taking contributes to prosocial behaviour (hodges et al., 2011), increases the propensity to help others and reduces outgroup bias (batson et al., 2002; vescio et al., 2003). helping an individual to acknowledge that there is another viewpoint strengthens the self-other relationship by creating an overlap between the self and other cognitive representations: when people describe others, they tend to attribute a greater number of characteristics (especially positive) to the target of perspective-taking (davis et al., 1996) and keywords perspective-taking, prejudice, active citizenship, program evaluation, education acknowledgements this work was supported by the [hungarian national research, development and innovation office—nkfih] under grant [k 119793—the influence of social identity on intergroup prejudice and collective action]. https://changing-sp.com/ 424 anna siegler, sára serdült, ... sára bigazzi perceive themselves as being closer to those whose perspectives they are taking (myers & hodges, 2012). although an attempt to discover shared reality may motivate perspective-taking, such motivation in itself does not guarantee its successful outcome (hodges et al., 2018). in some cases, perspective-taking is used to reinforce the differences between the self and the other with the other being perceived as a threat. in these cases, perspective-taking increases avoidance and social distancing (bigazzi et al., 2019; hodges et al., 2018; vorauer & sasaki, 2009). it creates a barrier to one’s understanding of the mental state of the other and impedes cooperation. to prevent this rebound effect, it is important to ensure that competence development should meet certain requirements. to reduce negative biases, educators have to put effort into creating and maintaining a safe space (twemlow et al., 2001), strengthen students’ positive self-views (todd & burgmer, 2013), promote inclusive, complex identification—the process of associating oneself closely with other ingroup or outgroup individuals and their characteristics or views—(brewer, 2000) and help students find common values and goals to overcome the differences between them (allport, 1958; aronson & patnoe, 1997). identity in play: reducing negative interpersonal and intergroup attitude in research literature, prejudice is usually defined as negative evaluations, beliefs, or feelings directed at people because of their perceived group membership. several studies that compared populations of diverse background have found that people begin to develop prejudices at the age of 4 or 5, while adolescence is a critical period in which intergroup attitudes are formed and solidified (aboud et al., 2012). to explore, challenge, and overcome biases, various methods were implemented in recent decades. the common ingroup identity model (gaertner & dovidio, 2000) proposes that prejudice can be overcome with the help of recategorization. members of different groups can share a common ingroup membership focusing on a more inclusive superordinate group representation. there is research evidence that shows that perceived shared identity leads to lower levels of intergroup threat (riek et al., 2010) and to more positive evaluations of outgroup members (guerra et al., 2013). the approach of dual (gaertner et al., 2016) and multiple social identity (brewer, 2000) takes into consideration the fact that apart from one common identity representation, separate/initial group identities can also be maintained within the context of a superordinate category. some findings suggest that groups in a vulnerable position (e.g., minority groups) prefer a dual identity representation, where identification with the majority group does not require denial and devaluation of the minority position. thus, people become more willing to address injustices without having to face a perceived identity threat. on the other hand, those in the position of power prefer a one-group representation because they are suspicious of any collective action that challenges the status quo or the boundaries of the majority group (gaertner et al., 2016). the intergroup contact theory states that under optimal conditions (equal status, common goals, no intergroup competition and authority sanction), increased changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 422–437 425 contact with outgroup individuals could lead to better mutual understanding, more positive intergroup attitudes, and willingness to engage in contact (kende et al., 2017; pettigrew, 1998, pettigrew et al., 2011). even an indirect, vicarious contact (e.g., by observing members of outgroups through the mass media or having a friend who knows someone from an outgroup) can be beneficial (paolini et al., 2004). thus, even indirect exposures can provide counterstereotypical information that may change the pre-existent intergroup representations. within educational contexts, the intergroup dialogue is a similar pedagogical approach that seeks to establish a common understanding among the people whose social identities and life experiences differ from one another (ford, 2018). in line with our approach, the goal of the intergroup dialogue is to create a space that would promote the exchange of different perspectives and seeking mutual understanding. it also addresses the issues of collective identity and promotes discussions on how to overcome intergroup conflict, which keeps individuals alienated from others, through non-violent and collaborative negotiations. among young adults, participation in the intergroup dialogue has proven effective in fostering cross-cultural communication and creating awareness of social justice issues (ford, 2018; hammack & pilecki, 2015). one question remains open: how can be prejudice reduction effective when the target of prejudice is not part of the dialogue? it is important to reduce uncertainty by getting to know outgroup members and thus improve the intergroup relationship, but in educational settings sometimes a specific constellation of diversity is not available or is less accessible. not to mention how can psychological intervention make a difference for empowering adolescents living in contexts where discrimination is socially acceptable or even supported? foster holding communities in their school years, children prioritize peer opinions and tend to identify with certain social groups. peer group norms and attitudes become increasingly relevant and solidify in adolescence (nesdale, 2007; raabe & beelmann, 2011; váradi, 2014). programs to prevent outgroup discrimination beyond any doubt should take into account the potential power of these increasingly important peer relationships. promoting positive relationships and reciprocity between students is the key to cultivating an optimal learning environment in schools and promoting reflectivity, which can provide a fertile ground for social awareness. the concept of a holding environment was first introduced in developmental and psychoanalytic research literature (winnicott, 1965): according to this concept, optimal development depends on the mother’s and attachment figure’s ability to provide the child with a safe enough space to move gradually toward autonomy. failures and acts of reparation provide opportunities for the child to experience the unknown and different perspective, giving them space to practice, change, and develop. in a good relationship, acceptance and mentalization (fonagy et al., 1991)—the ability to reflect upon and to understand one’s state of mind—leads to self-acceptance, self-reflection, and capacity for self-regulation. this dynamic over https://changing-sp.com/ 426 anna siegler, sára serdült, ... sára bigazzi the last decades has been broadened from dyadic relationships to the group level: peer consultation groups (minkle et al., 2008), work (kahn, 2001), school (hyman, 2012; twemlow et al., 2001), and communities (bigazzi et al., 2020; jovchelovitch & concha, 2013). in these settings, each member of the group shares the responsibility to support other group members, to create a safe space for conducting intrapersonal and interpersonal work, and to contribute to socially responsible efforts. if children feel criticized or conditionally accepted in their school community, they may internalize the attitude that contributes to limited self-worth, feelings of isolation, while the feelings of acceptance and belonging provide the support necessary for people to thrive. an environment of acceptance minimizes the threat-induced defensiveness and enables children to work with self-other differences and create an inclusive space where new social perspectives and cognitive alternatives may emerge. youth empowerment and psychoeducational work should involve the entire school community (twemlow et al., 2001). children and adults are active agents whose reactions alter the dynamics of power by supporting or hindering others. if we enable students to be reflective, they will be able to manage social interactions on their own and actively participate in social life not through the absorption of readymade knowledge or the compliance with rules, but through dialogue and construction. on the other hand, teachers should also realize that they are part of the community and their (lack of) actions will have an impact. human interactions do not happen in a vacuum. from the socio-psychological perspective, youth empowerment should involve the whole community. a planned intervention should take into account not only its object, but also the social context that will be influenced indirectly by the intervention. disadvantaged groups are often the target of interventions, while these interventions do not work with whole community that these groups are part of. when empowered members of the disadvantaged groups reposition themselves, they also reframe their relations with others, with the members of the whole community. if these others are not involved and strengthened to accept the change, the intervention loses some of its efficacy. the overlooked inequalities and power imbalance cause conflicts where neither the members of the majority nor the members of minority groups can engage in a safe dialogue. in this process, the indirectly involved actors should be aware of their superior power positions and make constant efforts to deconstruct them. deconstruction is a prerequisite for changing the dominant forms of communication, creating space—an incubator—where new social realities and cognitive alternatives may emerge. in this space, minoritized or disadvantaged groups can elaborate their own perspectives, test the validity of possibilities, and later construct and disseminate their own versions of reality. (bigazzi et al., 2020, p. 131) to enhance prosocial attitudes and active citizenship, it is important to strengthen social-emotional competencies and critical thinking skills of community members. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 422–437 427 intervention the holding community program (hcp) that we have designed is based on the methodology of conflict resolution and on the existing research evidence on complex social identity, intergroup dialogue, socio-emotional competence, prejudice reduction and human rights education. the hcp aims to facilitate the dialogue between the students to promote critical thinking and to exploit the power of peer influence thereby stimulating the coconstruction of knowledge. the hcp encompasses an intensive two-day training and utilizes non-formal education methodology (hamadache, 1991; latchem, 2014) for experiential learning and knowledge co-construction. to ensure active learning, the err (evocation-realization-reflection) teaching framework was also used (bárdossy et al., 2002). in line with the err framework, within each uninterrupted intervention period, three phases of the learning process were realized: the evocation stage (students are encouraged to think about what they already know); realization of the meaning (students are expected to come into contact with the new information); and reflection stage (students express their ideas and expand their own understanding). specific techniques such as kinetic icebreakers, modelling, role playing, small group cooperation, sharing of personal narratives and reinforcement of positive interactions were used in order to stimulate communication. the first day of the program is focused on the relationship between the self and the other. after the mutual trust between the participants is established, the training process concentrates on the following six objectives: first, to raise the awareness of the complex nature of (social) identity; second, to strengthen the feeling of community by paying attention to similarities and differences; third, to practice recognition of each other’s emotions and mental states, to practice perspective-taking within the comfort zone; fourth, to practice mentalization and assertive communication in emotionally saturated, conflictual situations; fifth, to explore the psychological consequences of inclusion and exclusion and, finally, to discuss the values that are prevalent in society. the second day takes further the results that have been achieved in the first day. the relationship between the self and other is expanded by adding the intergroup context and horizon of action to the dialogue. the objectives of the second day are as follows: first, to create awareness and critical understanding of the dynamics of power, socialization, and social inequalities; second, to experience the impact of stereotypes by taking the perspective of the privileged and disadvantaged; third, to explore the processes leading to discrimination and hate crimes; fourth, to strengthen the active bystander attitude and prosocial behaviour; fifth, to enhance self-efficacy in handling sensitive social issues and, finally, to discover cognitive alternatives for collective action. research objective this study aims to evaluate the results of the holding community program. we expected that the adolescents who took part in this experiment would show better results in perspective-taking (primary outcomes). furthermore, we assume that the https://changing-sp.com/ 428 anna siegler, sára serdült, ... sára bigazzi improvements in social-emotional competencies would lead to the improvements in prosocial behaviour and help the participants overcome their prejudicial attitudes (secondary outcomes). method procedure the study used a non-randomized pre-test in combination with an immediate posttest and a delayed post-test. the program in the experimental classes was launched two to three weeks after the pre-test. the first post-test was administered immediately after the intervention, while the follow-up post-test was administered 4–6 months after the first post-test. the answers from the control classes were collected in the same periods as from the experimental classes. classes of students were assigned through convenience sampling to the target group and control groups, and comparative analysis was conducted to ensure that there was no preliminary difference. the interventions were carried out with complete classes by two or three psychologists and consisted of two full day sessions per class. in total, five instructors participated in the research. the control group followed their regular curriculum. to ensure the ethical treatment of the participants, the experiment was approved by the local ethical board, the consent of both students and parents was obtained prior to the experiment. participants in the pre-test and post-test, a total of 240 students participated (159 girls, 67%; age: 14–18, mage = 15.33; sdage = 0.876). the four schools where the experiment was conducted were situated in pécs, hungary. although the size of the classes sometimes varied, from each school an almost equal number of experimental and control classes took part and the age groups were identical. the effects of the intervention were further investigated with the help of a four to six-month follow-up test in which 125 students participated (92 girls, 74.6%; age: 14–17, mage = 15.25; sdage = 0.922). since the follow-up test coincided with the introduction of the distance learning mode due to the covid-19 pandemic (the spring of 2020), many students declined to invest their time in the delayed post-test (the attrition rate was 48%). comparative analysis was conducted to ensure that there was no difference between the dropouts and remaining participants in the relevant variables. instruments first, the students were asked to provide their demographic data: age, gender, grade, and place of residence. after the demographic questions, all the other scales were measured on a 6-point likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree/not at all, 6 = strongly agree/certainly). since we planned to repeat the questionnaire survey, it was important to keep the questionnaire package short to ensure that students can pay sufficient attention. to assess perspective-taking, we used the interpersonal reactivity index (iri, see davis, 1983; hungarian version in kulcsár, 2002, pp. 411–427). the iri changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 422–437 429 is a self-report measure of individual differences in empathy with four subscales (personal distress, fantasy, empathic concern and perspective-taking). in our study, we administered the perspective-taking subscale (7 items), which measure the ability and tendency to look at the world from somebody else’s point of view, e.g., when i’m upset at someone, i usually try to “put myself in his shoes” for a while. cronbach’s alphas at the pre-intervention, post-intervention and follow-up stages were .697, .765 and .747, respectively. to assess identity threat, we used relevant scales of the multiple threat and prejudice questionnaire (mtpq, see bigazzi et al., 2019), which captures the subjective sense of danger and fear related to different identity aspects. bio-national identity in this questionnaire is based on the exclusive perception of belonging to a certain nation, rooted in one’s biological heritage. in this case, the threat is seen as a genetic contamination of target groups (e.g., i think there is a real danger that white people become a minority in our homeland), while gender identity is worded around the traditional representation of gender roles (e.g., i would feel upset if i were considered a homosexual). we adjusted this instrument to make it more suitable for our age group, but the internal validity for these scales proved to be satisfying through time: bio-national .797, .814 and .784; gender .804, .846 and .854. we adapted the social distance scale of bogardus (1933) to capture prejudice (this instrument was applied in other studies—see, for example, faragó & kende, 2017; orosz et al., 2016). we measured the degree to which respondents would be willing to accept a member of each outgroup (e.g., roma, migrant, homosexual) as a member of their class (1-1 item). higher scores indicate higher levels of prejudice in this instrument. in selecting outgroups, we sought to cover the most relevant minorities in the hungarian context. we aimed to shed light on adolescents’ motivation to participate in social actions, in other words, we were interested in how adolescents perceive their ability to participate in superordinate group matters and how willing they are to participate in collective action to improve intergroup relations and reduce social inequalities. efficacy beliefs, which will be understood here as one’s feeling that s/he is able to contribute to societal life, were measured with the help of the two items designed for this study: to what extent do you feel that you can take an active part in what happens to the hungarians? and to what extent do you feel that you can take an active part in what’s happening to people around the world? the alphas were .700, .729 and .784. collective action was measured with the help of an item concerning the respondents’ willingness to participate in collective action to increase social justice, therefore, it captures their intention to act rather than previous attendance. students were asked to evaluate the following statements: i would like to organize programs to help the disadvantaged groups at school; i would like to go to a school community service for an organization that represents the interests of a disadvantaged group; and i would love to participate in a program aimed at reducing prejudice. the internal validity for this scale was acceptable through time: .799, .886 and .902. https://changing-sp.com/ 430 anna siegler, sára serdült, ... sára bigazzi results the statistical analyses were performed using ibm spss statistics 25. baseline equivalence was assessed to ensure that the experimental and control groups were not statistically different for the measured variables. for this purpose, the independent samples t-tests were performed to compare the pre-test scores. the results showed the desirable correspondence (means and standard deviations are provided in table 1). immediate effect paired t-tests were first conducted to find possible differences between the pre-test and post-test scores in the intervention and control groups. the results we obtained seemed quite promising as we found significant differences between the groups (table 1). to test our hypothesis that the intervention would change the outcome variables, we then performed repeated measures anova with intervention (the person participated in the holding community program or not) as a between-subjects factor, and time (pre-intervention and post-intervention) as a within-subjects factor. the interaction effects are presented in table 1. the hcp was an effective tool to develop perspective-taking: after the training, students were more willing to participate in collective actions. compared to those in the control group, participants of the intervention group tended to accept members table 1 means and standard deviations in the preand post-test scores for the intervention (n = 118) and control (n = 122) group intervention control pre-test (intervention vs. control) t(238) repeated measures anova (1,238) pretest m (sd) posttest m (sd) t(117) pretest m (sd) posttest m (sd) t(121) perspective taking 4.13 (0.84) 4.36 (0.91) –3.49** 4.01 (0.756) 4.02 (0.81) –0.22 1.18 6.03* bio-national identity threat 3.00 (1.42) 2.70 (1.32) 2.96** 2.66 (1.33) 2.55 (1.19) 1.20 1.94 1.96 gender identity threat 4.1 (1.58) 3.77 (1.60) 2.98** 4.08 (1.58) 3.96 (1.63) 1.26 0.05 1.97 prejudice (roma) 2.98 (1.62) 2.48 (1.58) 4.55** 2.62 (1.58) 2.41 (1.47) 1.93 1.74 3.58 (p = 0.060) prejudice (homosexuals) 2.25 (1.69) 2.11 (1.58) 1.51 2.95 (1.57) 2.24 (1.63) 0.55 –0.19 0.37 prejudice (migrants) 3.07 (1.77) 2.62 (1.69) 3.42** 2.96 (1.75) 2.65 (1.65) 2.77* 0.52 0.70 efficacy beliefs 2.96 (1.34) 3.19 (1.33) –1.72 2.75 (1.33) 2.67 (1.25) 0.92 1.18 3.83 (p = 0.052) collective action 4.17 (1.28) 4.38 (1.35) –2.24* 3.94 (1.26) 3.80 (1.36) 1.55 1.38 7.32** note. * p < .05 ** p < .01 changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 422–437 431 of the roma community and believed themselves to be able to take a more active part in social life. members of the intervention group had lower scores on the explicit measure of threat and prejudice toward migrants and therefore showed a desirable change in their attitudes although it reached the conventional levels of significance only in the t-test. the repeated measures anova revealed no significant interaction effect (see table 1). the study’s findings confirm the short-term effectiveness of the hcp, which appears to increase the perspective-taking capacity of adolescents and motivate them to be an active part of their environment. follow-up due to the high attrition rates, the independent-samples t-tests were carried out to compare the dropouts and remaining participants. the results show that there was no significant difference in terms of age (t(238) = –1.579, p = 0.116) and most of the observed variables at the baseline (see table 2). however, more boys than girls tended to drop out (χ2 = 6.30, p = 0.12) and those who did not complete the follow-up questionnaire showed a perceived greater threat to their gender identity (mremaining = 3.85, sdremaining = 1.62, mdropouts = 4.35, sddropouts = 1.51) in the pre-test. the combination of these results is consistent with the previous findings of the studies using the mtpq, where men were found to be more susceptible to the gender identity threat than women (géczy & varga, 2019). table 2 means and standard deviations in pre-, postand follow-up-test scores for the intervention (n = 80) and control (n = 45) group intervention control pre-test (remaining vs. dropouts) t(238) repeated measures anova (1, 238) pretest m (sd) posttest m (sd) followup-test m (sd) pretest m (sd) posttest m (sd) followup-test m (sd) perspective taking 4.16 (0.77) 4.44 (0.89) 4.31 (0.88) 3.80 (0.71) 3.95 (0.85) 3.97 (0.80) –0.79 0.61 bio-national identity threat 2.91 (1.35) 2.65 (1.23) 2.55 (1.35) 2.45 (1.44) 2.38 (1.11) 2.15 (1.21) –0.95 0.52 gender identity threat 4.00 (1.56) 3.56 (1.61) 3.67 (1.67) 3.57 (1.69) 3.30 (1.54) 3.35 (1.66) –2.50* 0.28 prejudice (roma) 2.82 (1.57) 2.33 (1.49) 2.23 (1.41) 2.40 (1.66) 2.16 (1.33) 2.22 (1.58) –1.20 1.94 prejudice (homosexuals) 2.19 (1.63) 2.01 (1.47) 1.89 (1.35) 1.96 (1.36) 1.84 (1.43) 1.87 (1.46) –1.71 0.61 prejudice (migrants) 2.90 (1.77) 2.49 (1.65) 2.38 (1.55) 2.64 (1.79) 2.36 (1.53) 2.31 (1.52) –1.93 0.29 efficacy beliefs 2.88 (1.34) 3.22 (1.29) 2.97 (1.37) 2.68 (1.30) 2.40 (1.12) 2.39 (1.14) –0.61 3.38* collective action 4.20 (1.31) 4.55 (1.33) 4.28 (1.48) 4.00 (1.15) 3.75 (1.34) 3.75 (1.24) 0.94 3.83* note. * p < .05 https://changing-sp.com/ 432 anna siegler, sára serdült, ... sára bigazzi to test whether these effects would persist over time, repeated measures anovas were conducted again, with three time points. while the change in collective action remained significant, the effect of the improvements in the perspective-taking capacity faded over months. interestingly, the interaction effect on perceived efficacy became greater (see table 2). discussion the goal of this study was to measure the effectiveness of the hcp aimed at the development of perspective-taking, reducing prejudice and promoting active participation. our findings suggest that this intervention can enhance socialemotional skills and civic engagement. moreover, it encouraged student reflection about matters of social diversity and inclusivity. the intervention was less effective in dealing with prejudice. this result can be explained by the fact that the prejudice against minority groups has been strongly institutionalized in hungary in the last decade. declaring a positive attitude towards institutionally discriminated minority groups means not only reframing one’s relationship with the minority members but also taking a stand against the authorities and political institutions normalizing such prejudice and discrimination. we might suggest that more targeted programs are needed to deal with the prejudice against specific minority groups. the result shows that a change in perspective-taking was detectable but it has not persisted in the long-term, underlining the greater importance of systematic prevention and long-term intervention planning. likewise, it deserves our attention because most research involving psychological field experiments merely focuses on the immediate effect (paluck & green, 2009) rather than long-term effectiveness. when we asked the students how they benefitted from the program, they reported that the program helped them acquire new knowledge about the member of different groups and bond with them. they also said that they learned “new things about how to deal with different challenges in life” and realized their role in eliminating external stereotypes. during the training sessions, students often demonstrated a fairly limited experience of social life. research shows that engaging in collective action beyond educational settings often remains suspended in the absence of cognitive alternatives (tajfel, 1978). we suggest that, in order to stimulate critical social awareness, educators should create more opportunities for exploring together with students’ collective actions and their possible consequences. although we think that these results contribute to the psycho-educational field, some limitations of the study should be noted. although the instruments we used have adequate psychometric properties, self-report measures can be subject to bias. in future studies, it would also make sense to enrich the self-administered questionnaires with more qualitative data and behavioural observations, which may provide us with some deeper insights. further research may also explore the effects of longer interventions for the achievement better results sustainable over time. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 422–437 433 moreover, further research should also investigate if the effects of this intervention differ for those in the majority or minority positions. another question worth analysing is how the impact changes for those who belong to minority groups in a broader social context but belong to the majority in their class. as empowerment cannot happen in a vacuum (bigazzi et al., 2020), these conditions presumably alter the identification and development processes. in conclusion, we found that the hcp is suitable for fostering positive interpersonal competencies. 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(2015). szociális és érzelmi tanulás az iskolában [social and emotional learning at school]. iskolakultúra, 25(10), 59–68. https://doi.org/10.17543/iskkult.2015.10.59 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3155-2_2 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031999 https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.158.5.808 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-05891-3 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.163 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.163 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02265.x https://doi.org/10.1097/00001163-200404000-00002 https://doi.org/10.1097/00001163-200404000-00002 https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410220138548 https://doi.org/10.17543/iskkult.2015.10.59 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 79–97 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.164 received 3 september 2021 © 2022 andrey v. rezaev, accepted 24 march 2022 natalia d. tregubova, anastasia a. ivanova published online 11 april 2022 n.tregubova@spbu.ru rezaev@hotmail.com anaspis100@gmail.com article from uncertainty to trust: covid-19 pandemic responses of south korea and sweden andrey v. rezaev, natalia d. tregubova, anastasia a. ivanova saint petersburg state university, saint petersburg, russia abstract epidemiological situations, such as the pandemic of covid-19, pose a clear and significant problem for the states in their efforts to construct and to control their population. the widespread introduction of a lockdown as a regulatory method during the current pandemic could be associated with the need to preserve an understandable, quantifiable, and predictable management object. this paper considers, analyses, and compares two deviant cases of covid-19 pandemic responses: south korea and sweden. in south korea, the pandemic regulations were dominated by large-scale testing and contact tracing, while lockdown policies have played a supplementary role. sweden’s attempt to develop population immunity by introducing less stringent measures that its neighbours has attracted much attention worldwide. the authors conduct desk research and analyse secondary data on pandemic regulations and their effects in these two countries in 2020. similarities and differences between swedish and south korean cases are formulated regarding trust inside and between the states. keywords trust, modern state, covid-19, pandemic regulations, healthcare in sweden, healthcare in south korea, democratization of expertise acknowledgments the research was supported by the grant of the russian foundation for basic research (project no. 20-04-60033) https://changing-sp.com/ 80 andrey v. rezaev, natalia d. tregubova, anastasia a. ivanova introduction epidemics have always been more social rather than biological processes since the spread of infections is mediated by social interactions. therefore, the investigation of the ways pandemics unfold requires joints efforts on the part of natural sciences and health sciences, mathematics, economics, and social studies. in research literature, the success in dealing with epidemic crises is often attributed to the actions of central governments and their ability to foresee the future and lead governmental agencies and societies in the right direction. this paper is based on the idea developed in the scholarly literature: modern states (regardless of their degree of democracy or authoritarianism, corruption, and other characteristics) need an understandable, quantifiable, and predictable object of regulation—population (see, e.g., foucault, 1975/1995; papakostas, 2012)1. epidemiological situations, such as the pandemic of covid-19, pose a significant problem to the modern states in their efforts to construct and to control their population. thus, the widespread introduction of lockdowns as a regulatory method during this pandemic could be associated with the need to preserve an understandable and quantifiable management object. this paper considers, analyses, and compares two “deviant” cases of lockdown policies: south korea and sweden. in south korea, large-scale testing and contact tracing dominated the pandemic regulations, while lockdown policies have played but a supplementary role. the other case is sweden, whose social distancing regulations were less stringent that its neighbours’ and which for this matter was widely criticized for its efforts to develop population immunity. therefore, our main focus in this paper will be on the following questions: a. how do south korea and sweden construct their populations as a quantifiable and predictable object of regulation in the times of covid-19? b. how do these states use information technologies in their regulations to control the population? c. have south korea and sweden managed to establish trust in their relations with their populations and other states regarding their ability to cope with the pandemic? these questions will be address through secondary data analysis and desk research. in addition, we are going to analyse the data provided by national governments and international organizations in 2020 (and earlier). 1 foucault’s and papakostas’ works belong to different theoretical traditions and present different empirical foci. papakostas belongs to organizational materialism and reflects on state as an organization. he is interested in how modern states have developed records of population to provide effective direct tax collection (papakostas, 2012, p. 15). “these records transform concrete individuals and resources into abstract individuals and resources in the form of more or less sophisticated statistical abstractions of the population and its resources. this is a matter of the state making organizational observations of the same individuals and resources, and based on these observations it is possible to create accurate statistical representations of people and resource” (p. 17). foucault develops poststructuralist critique of state with a special attention to the ways to control the population, for instance, through imprisonment: “the need to measure, from within, the effects of the punitive power prescribes tactics of intervention over all criminals, actual or potential: the organization of a field of prevention, the calculation of interests, the circulation of representations and signs, the constitution of a horizon of certainty and proof, the adjustment of penalties to ever more subtle variables” (foucault, 1975/1995, p. 101). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 79–97 81 the paper will be structured as follows: the next section describes the theoretical framework of our research. then, a description of the cases of south korea and sweden will be provided. finally, we are going to compare these cases, discuss the results, and make preliminary conclusions. theoretical framework the state regulations of social interactions during a pandemic ultimately seek (albeit indirectly) to influence the epidemiological dynamics. in one way or another, any regulation aims to control the incidence rate and the consequences of the pandemic, regardless of the declared goals or specific measures being taken (epidemiology, state security, individual freedoms of citizens, etc.). the regulation policies rely on a particular epistemic foundation and have a “knowledge” background: regulation requires a conceptualization of regulation, which inevitably acts simultaneously as the subject of specific knowledge and regulation or management itself (foucault, 1975/1995). in this paper, we use the theory of trust developed by papakostas (2012) to trace these regulations’ relationship with the formation of trust inside and outside the states i.e., public trust in the government and the trust of other states and external organizations in the state’s implemented strategy. social sciences tend to explain trust through particular cultures. belonging to a specific culture and pathdependency are important explanations in answering the question as to why there is trust or there is no trust between individuals or other units of social analysis. papakostas (2012), however, suggests that social relations, which lead to mutual trust or distrust, cannot be exhaustively explained in these terms: trust is regarded as an organizational and relational phenomenon. papakostas’ theory is based on organizational materialism. the structural context of trust/distrust is conceptualized as “a social landscape,” which includes “what is going on inside, outside, and between organizations” (p. x). he follows göran ahrne and charles tilly in defining an organization as “all sorts of well-bounded clusters of social relations in which occupants of at least one position have the right to commit collective resources to activities reaching across the boundary” (p. x). the concept of boundaries becomes critical in considering the mechanisms behind trust maintenance or undermining. trustor distrust is a relational concept devised by using the following formula: “a trusts or distrusts b in respect to x but in a social context defined by the boundary y” (papakostas, 2012, p. ix). an important point here is the third part, which includes boundary work: the division of social space into zones of conditional trust. physical, social, and organizational barriers are involved in creating boundaries. they divide and “mark up” the social landscape, building certain social relationships within and outside them. these two different modalities of trust relationships depend on internal control and problematization of the organization’s actions from the outside. there is a problem of transparency for those outside the boundaries, while within the organization itself; there is a lack of trust in specific individuals. in the latter case, the https://changing-sp.com/ 82 andrey v. rezaev, natalia d. tregubova, anastasia a. ivanova basis is the belief that individuals behave differently depending on whether they are being watched or not (hanson, 1993, as cited in papakostas, 2012). thus, the basis of trust in individuals outside the organization of which they are members is not their personal qualities but the organization that provided the check results. during the pandemic, the world becomes an ordinary social landscape divided into nation-states with clear boundaries and their particular structures and institutions. thus, we are interested in the relations of trust or distrust within states and outside of them. whereas borders usually create trust inside and the problem of trust outside, the global crisis problematizes both relations. the covid-19 pandemic has set a new unstable context in which trust relations are being reassembled in both ways. the relationship of trust in the social context y is determined, according to papakostas, by specific social mechanisms (papakostas, 2012, pp. ix–xi). these are manifested in the transformation’s reliability of particular individuals and their resources into abstract categories and the quality of their accounting and identification (including the possibility of localization of individuals and their resources as various representations). thus, the relationship of trust a to b, that is, the trust of external organizations or the state’s population, is a question of the ability to trust that the state has created reliable ways of observing this individual and their resources. at the same time, the states in the world differ in their ability to perform this function. following the premises outlined by papakostas, it can be stated that the differences in quarantine regimes in different countries are associated with the following: first, with the specific bureaucratic procedures for accounting and control in each country; second, with the socio-political characteristics of the government’s interaction with the population; and, finally, the expectations of the citizens of the country themselves. mechanisms of accounting play a crucial role in trust formation. scholarly interest in accounting stems from management and finance studies; however, it goes beyond, to the issues of governmental control over individuals and construction of “governable persons” (miller & o’leary, 1987). in this paper, we define accounting in a broad sense, as an ability of a bureaucratic organization “to be able to transform individuals into abstract administrative cases [...]; it also requires citizens to have a relatively high level of education, accept that they are transformed into abstract individuals and moreover understand the operational logic of a bureaucracy applying general rules to individual cases” (papakostas, 2012, pp. 73–74). records of the population are the key source of the information for tax collection and they are also the key source of the government’s infrastructural power (papakostas, 2012, p. 15). papakostas argues that this ability is necessary for establishing and maintaining trust between and within organizations. when analysing the results of a certain policy, it is crucial to consider the three factors at work: detection (i.e., testing capacities and their implementation), containment (i.e., how this country manages to inhibit the virus from spreading), and treatment of confirmed patients (e.g., see kim et al., 2021). this paper focuses on the first two factors, detection and containment, since they are crucial in keeping the changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 79–97 83 records of the population on both levels: abstract representations of individuals and their localization based on these representations. we analyse both detection and containment with a particular emphasis on information technologies. trust, as we have already mentioned, is related to the problem of transparency. the use of information technologies helps, at least partly, to solve this problem. finally, in this paper, we are interested in the problem of expertise. there are three crucial elements for trust relations to function effectively in a society in times of uncertainty and crisis: relations between policymakers and experts, between policymakers and citizens, and public trust in government (cairney & wellstead, 2021). south korea’s covid-19 crisis management south korea exemplifies the case of a country that quickly flattened the epidemic curve with outstandingly minor infection and death rates. besides, the covid-19 burden was not heavy on the country’s economy compared to other high-income countries since south korea implemented relatively less strict measures than the latter (lim et al., 2021). experts outline three main reasons for such a success: (a) sophisticated large-scale testing with the help of the latest molecular diagnostic kits and innovative testing infrastructures; (b) innovative technologies for contact tracing; and (c) free medical treatment (kim, 2020; kim et al., 2021; lee & lee, 2020). south korea was one of the first countries to report on the first case of covid-19 on january 20, 2020; by march 12, south korea had reached the plateau (park & chung, 2021). it was one of the most timely and sophisticated responses to the covid-19 epidemics in the world. in august, the country experienced a mild second wave with 200s and 300s cases daily, and by october, the numbers had declined to double-digits. however, since november 2020, there has been a noticeable increase in daily new confirmed cases. on december 7, the south korea’s ministry of health and welfare reported that the situation had worsened, and the need for stricter mitigation measures emerged. for example, on december 12, there were 1,030 new registered cases (see figure 1). according to south korea’s ministry of health and welfare (mohw, n.d.), by december 13, 3,374,595 people had been tested with 42,766 (1.27%) positive results, 90,129 (2.67%) being in progress, and 3,241,700 (96.06%) being negative. korea disease control and prevention agency state that people who visit temporary screening stations for a covid-19 test are advised to return home immediately, stay home, and avoid contact with family and friends until finding out the test result. in case of a positive outcome of a rapid antigen test, people are required to give a nasopharyngeal pcr test, after which these individuals must be quarantined until the pcr test result becomes available. innovative testing strategies deliver first results in as little as seven minutes. temporary screening stations or “phone booths” are small spaces where a glass fence separates healthcare professionals and patients. the former uses the telephone to communicate and arm-length rubber gloves to perform testing. these precautions have allowed south korea to increase the testing capacity tenfold. https://changing-sp.com/ 84 andrey v. rezaev, natalia d. tregubova, anastasia a. ivanova moreover, these stations are disinfected and ventilated after each test. reducing the space in which the patient is tested has made it possible to speed up the room’s disinfection procedure. currently, a medical professional can take 70–80 tests per day. active detection of covid-19 cases thus happens irrespective of clinical symptoms. figure 1 daily new confirmed covid-19 cases in south korea in 2020 note. see: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/south-korea?country=~kor in the press release of november 11, 2020, the korea disease control and prevention agency (kdca) reported on the elaborated classification of social distancing levels (kdca, 2020). they distinguish five levels: • level 1 refers to preventive measures when the weekly average of daily local transmission cases is below 100 in the greater seoul area, below 10 in gangwon and jeju, and below 30 in other regions. • level 1.5 is announced when local circulation begins with 100 or more, 10 or more, and 30 or more cases in the respective areas. • level 2 refers to local transmission intensification and the beginning of nationwide community transmission and involves at least one of three criteria met: case numbers 2x or more of the criteria for level 1.5; transmission continues in two or more regions; more than 300 cases nationwide. for this level, there are supplementary indicators. the first criterion is the weekly average number of patients aged 60 or above. for the second criterion, experts add the hospital bed capacity to treat severe or critical cases, and https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/south-korea?country=~kor changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 79–97 85 this indicator is considered relevant for moving up to levels 2.5–3. for the last criteria, the epidemiological investigation capacity is calculated. other vital indicators are the primary reproduction number, cluster infection situation, percentage of cases with the transmission chain under investigation, and percentage of cases confirmed while under home quarantine. • level 2.5 represents the intensification of nationwide community transmission with 400–500 new daily cases or a rapid surge in the number of cases. • finally, level 3 corresponds to the nationwide massive community transmission wherein 800–1,000 or more new cases are registered daily. the kdca also provides detailed information about covid-19 related issues on their website in the section of press releases in both korean and english. in their daily report on the covid-19 situation in the country, the kdca presents the number of new and cumulative cases in the whole country and divided by regions, the number of imported cases and the region/country where it has been imported from, and the place of confirmation (either at the point of entry or in a community). moreover, the reports include information on confirmed cases status (the number of people discharged from isolation, under isolation, severe/critical cases, and deceased). furthermore, the reader finds the information about the recent major local clusters of outbreaks (their location in the region, the specific place where it happened, e.g., school, construction site, university, the number of recent cases, and total cases). then the kdca provides a table with weekly risk assessment indicators with data for four previous weeks. they also provide the calculated values of the risk of possibilities with the chain of transmission under investigation, percentage under management (percent of new cases confirmed while under selfquarantine), the new cluster, reproduction number (rt), and the number of average critical/severe patients, deaths, and intensive care units available. there is also a table with the ranking of the transmission sources by age group, that is, the most common places where people may catch the infection for different age groups counted since october 1, 2020. finally, the kdca reports on test results and confirmed covid-19 cases. first, the table shows the overall case and test status since january 3, 2020 (cumulative) and daily difference. then, it describes how many individuals were tested in total and tested positive pcr (including confirmed, under isolation, discharged from isolation, and deceased), the number of tests in progress, and tested negative (pcr). further, the kdca provides graphs showing the dynamics of testing and confirmed cases. second, the reader finds a table with the regional distribution of cases with the number of new cases (local and imported), the cumulative total number of cases (since january 3), the share of people infected, and the incidence rate per 100,000 population. furthermore, the reader can find out the socio-demographic characteristics of confirmed cases and groups (gender and age group for confirmed cases, deaths, severe/critical cases). the kdca also provides diagrams with new cases by the chain of transmission (for the last two weeks) and the dynamics and distribution of imported cases. the report ends with a table of regional distribution and epidemiological links of confirmed cases. https://changing-sp.com/ 86 andrey v. rezaev, natalia d. tregubova, anastasia a. ivanova new information and communication technologies such as gis, mobile applications, and mobile phones are central to the containment and control of the spread of the virus. leveraging technological advances has enabled south korea to actively detect recent cases through contact tracing and establish fast and effective communication between the health authorities and the public (oecd, 2021; kim et al., 2021). for example, in an investigation or confirmation of a new case of infection, citizens receive an sms alert. in addition, data from cell phones, credit cards, and security cameras are used to track movements and contacts. south korea also counts mobile traffic and includes it in the metrics. an increase in the traffic volume indirectly points to a decrease in the intensification of personal contacts. thus, a change in the traffic volume can also be used to assess the consequences and success of the measures introduced (for example, when moving from one stage of restrictions to another). south korea’s response to covid-19 and its citizens’ compliance with such drastic accounting measures could be explained by the specific cultural context (see, for example, yan et al., 2020). however, it was the korean experience of dealing with previous pandemics that prompted the introduction of such measures. thus, the state and the people had to make conscious efforts to build trust in situations of an epidemic threat. the significant difference between south korea and other high-income countries is its focus on hospital-based care. even before the outbreak in 2016, korea had 12 beds per 1,000 people. in 2020, the number of beds became 12.4 (oecd/who, 2020). this is more than double the average number of beds in oecd countries. ensuring such a high number of hospital beds became possible primarily because of the policy decision taken after the 2015 mers-cov outbreak (kim et al., 2021). in many ways, following this outbreak, the legislation regarding the prevention of epidemiological threats was changed. as a result, epidemic preparedness has become a vital function of the public health system. following this premise, the mechanisms of interaction between the ministries and local governments have been reoriented to ensure a fast response in case of an emergency. in addition, in 2015, the government’s collection and sharing of personal data became possible and legal with the infectious disease prevention and control act, which specifies that the prevention and control of infectious diseases is the only goal of this process. during the failure of the fight against the mers-cov outbreak, the public trust in the state was undermined (kim et al., 2020; lim et al., 2021). the pandemic governance, in its turn, increased public support for the government (kye & hwang, 2020; park & chung, 2021; rich et al., 2020). thus, the trust within the state has been reassembled and re-established. as kye and hwang (2020) put it, “south korea may be transforming from a low-trust to a high-trust society”. moreover, the global approval of south korea’s response to covid-19 (assessed in epidemiological terms) demonstrates an increase in trust in the state from outside its borders. thus, an organized and urgent response to an epidemic threat resulted from the pre-established and strengthened response mechanisms to epidemiological threats in general. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 79–97 87 sweden’s covid-19 crisis management when the covid-19 came to europe, most eu countries opted for a nationwide lockdown in late march, 2020, which lasted until may with varying degrees of preventive measures. however, sweden chose a less strict approach, relying on providing recommendations for the population rather than imposing mandatory rules of behaviour in new circumstances (capano et al., 2020; pierre, 2020). as a result, the government avoided introducing a lockdown and allowed further business operations and gatherings of up to 50 people (oecd/european union, 2020). such a course of action gained an entire global spectrum of assessments and attitudes, from heavy criticism to excitement and appraisal. some experts’ estimations of sweden’s covidresponse report that social distancing and isolation of confirmed patients without lockdown has proven effective in reducing the negative direct health impact from the covid-19. however, such an approach results in a higher death toll (pierre, 2020). usually, swedish statistics are compared with those of the neighbouring scandinavian countries because of the apparent similarities in their economies, politics, and culture. other assessments suggest that the time needed for people to adjust to new rules without restrictive measures resulted in higher infection rates (cho, 2020). the first case in sweden was reported on january 31, 2020 (first case, 2020). the country followed the logic of “flattening the curve,” but in a particular way, which has riveted the world’s attention from the very beginning. the difference in sweden’s approach is avoiding lockdowns, which is a popular measure in most countries, especially in europe. instead, the government followed the strategy of mitigation rather than suppression of community transmissions (sjödin et al., 2020). although such an approach is often believed to be driven by economic considerations and sweden’s economy indeed has suffered less in comparison to other eu countries, the country’s measures, even without lockdowns, resulted in a considerable contraction of the labour market and businesses’ closure (hensvik & skans, 2020). for example, the largest cinema chain filmstaden announced in march 2020 that it would be shutting down the next day because of the scarcity of visitors (filmstaden, 2020). thus, it would be too far-fetched to say that life in sweden remained “normal” as in “being the same as in the pre-pandemic times.” for european countries, it has been crucial to increase their testing capacities during the pandemic. in a bit more than a month after having reached ten deaths per million population, sweden and eight other eu countries achieved a doubling of the cumulated number of tests per thousand people (oecd/european union, 2020). however, there is still a limited number of covid-19 tests (viktigt att testkapaciteten, n.d.). in the second half of november 2020, the public health agency of sweden announced new recommendations on testing procedures imposing limits on who can get tested (swedish health agency, 2020). the report states that one reason for these limitations is the rapid growth of cases combined with the high incidence of other respiratory diseases during the season. moreover, different regions exhibit different testing capacity levels, and in some of them, the demand exceeds the offer. in this case, it is rational to adopt stricter criteria https://changing-sp.com/ 88 andrey v. rezaev, natalia d. tregubova, anastasia a. ivanova by which individuals can get tested. these enduring symptoms of covid-19 (more than 24 hours) are not linked to some other possible reasons (for instance, allergies) or contact cases. in some cases, self-sampling is possible. the antigen test can be done as an addition to the pcr test. the procedure of booking a test depends on the region to which a person belongs. it can be done by logging into 1177 vårdguide2 [healthcare guide], or by contacting a health centre. for the former option, if a person does not speak swedish, they need to use an online translation tool since there is no information in other languages. in some regions, anyone older than eighteen can get tested for covid-19 antibodies. in analysing the containment strategies in sweden, it is essential to consider the role of digital technologies. from the beginning of the pandemic, digital health tools have played a crucial role in limiting the spread of the virus by enabling and encouraging people to get e-services for health (for example, online consultations). in pre-pandemic times, sweden had already set a goal of making the country a global leader in e-health by 2025. it has achieved considerable success in implementing electronic healthcare services (glenngård, 2020). for example, more than 90% of prescriptions were electronic, i.e., they were issued through the digital network linking patients with the doctors’ prescription systems and the national e-prescription database (deetjen, 2016). telemedicine has also been expanding and developing and has achieved its boom since the covid-19 outbreak. for example, the service 1177 vårdguide [healthcare guide] mentioned above used to register 200,000 calls per day in the pre-covid times, and on march 12, 2020, the national e-health hub got 1.6 million patient calls. in stockholm, digital medical visits increased to 36,000 in april, 2020 compared to 3,000 in january, 2020 (cederberg, 2020). at the same time, the use of e-health technologies could be regarded as compensation for underdeveloped hospital-based care (anell, et al., 2012). in contrast with the case of south korea, sweden had 2.1 hospital beds per 1,000 inhabitants in 2018, one of the lowest rates (oecd, n.d.). scholars and experts have come up with various explanations for the swedish government’s decision to take a different path in regulating social interactions during the current pandemic and not introducing lockdown policies. there are generally four kinds of such explanations emphasizing the following arguments. one of the most widely discussed reasons to introduce an exceptional policy is population immunity achievement. since the pandemic’s beginning, scholarly literature, media, and other public domains of discussion have focused on sweden as an “experiment” in processing through the pandemic to develop population immunity naturally (see, e.g., capano et al., 2020). although the swedish government insisted that population immunity was not their goal (irwin, 2020), this explanation line has been very prominent (see, e.g., orlowski & goldsmith, 2020). the second most discussed reason is saving the economy while sacrificing public health. while strict lockdown measures are the most appropriate in epidemiological terms, they have severe economic consequences. as the country 2 a website https://www.1177.se/ or an app. https://www.1177.se/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 79–97 89 that imposed low-stringency measures, sweden attempts to save itself from the economic fallout (cross et al., 2020). the third explanatory framework stresses the role of sweden’s constitution in setting the state’s response rules. while such measures as lockdown are ruled out by chapter 2, article 8 guaranteeing freedom of movement, a particular set of policymaking strategies in response to covid-19 are granted by chapter 12, article 2 and chapter 14, article 2 establishing unique independence for public agencies and giving remarkable powers to local governments respectively (jonung, 2020). finally, there is another view of the advantages of the swedish approach and, therefore, the reasons why the government chose this line of action. flattening the curve without implementing strict measures can be considered more sustainable in the long term from the psychological and social perspectives. for example, keeping schools open can be seen as intended to avoid a negative impact on mental health and childcare problems (pierre, 2020). despite the differences in the explanations, there is one feature that they have in common: they all highlight sweden’s exceptional reliance on the high level of trust between the government and the population (sjödin et al., 2020). esaiasson et al. (2021) found that from the very beginning of the epidemiological crisis in sweden to the acute phase in the spring of 2020, the approach resulted in higher institutional and interpersonal trust levels in sweden. furthermore, the way the swedish government led the country through the pandemic did not result in a polarization effect. on the contrary, institutional, state, and government support and cooperation were crucial for responding to the epidemiological crisis effectively. sweden has been referred to as a country of state individualism, i.e., a combination of individualistic attitudes of swedish people flourishing within a strong state and governance (orlowski & goldsmith, 2020). what is particularly interesting in sweden’s case is the state’s reliance on the population and tendency to empower the people to play an essential and active role in the situation of uncertainty. the government opted for balancing between the state’s response and individual responsibility. consider, for example, these lines from the swedish news website the local sweden3 quoting li bennich-björkman, a swedish political scientist: it’s important to underline the confidence from the government and authorities towards the citizens. it’s important for the trust to go both ways because if the authorities start to be harsher in pushing people to do things, you could see citizens respond by having less trust and confidence in them in the future. it’s not just about the model of ministries and government, it’s also about safeguarding the confidence we have between individuals and the government. (edwards, 2020) however, sweden’s unique low-stringency approach has been heavily criticized outside the country’s borders. while initially the global and national public discussion 3 https://www.thelocal.se/ https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.thelocal.se/ 90 andrey v. rezaev, natalia d. tregubova, anastasia a. ivanova domains (such as scholarly literature, media, other governments, and others) responded to the swedish government’s decision with interest, this interest later faded and turned to disapproval. for example, simons (2020) demonstrates how the attitudes to the swedish model changed from seeing it as an exemplary model to heavy criticism within just a few months since the start of the pandemic. the criticism of the swedish government’s decisions “from the outside” often concerns numerous deaths. however, the number of fatalities is not so much associated with how the country conducts testing and containment but with its treatment capacities. it is hardly possible to talk about any unique “swedish model” here. for example, the number and dynamics of infections per million people make sweden comparable to denmark (see figure 2). at the same time, the differences in governmental reports published in different countries make cross-country comparisons problematic and it is very difficult to make any conclusions as to how successfully this or that country has tackled the crisis. for example, the swedish authorities continuously check the list of people who test positive for the virus, and each time it is found that one of them died within 30 days of the test, this is recorded as a death from covid-19, even if the cause was cancer or a heart attack. thus, sweden reports on the number of people who die “with” covid-19, not “from” covid-19. in contrast, in the neighbouring country norway, a doctor must come to a straightforward conclusion that it was the coronavirus that killed a person. figure 2 daily new confirmed covid-19 cases in scandinavian countries in 2020 note. see: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden?country=dnk~fin~nor~swe https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/sweden?country=dnk~fin~nor~swe changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 79–97 91 comparing two cases: covid-19, reassembly of trust, and democratization of expertise sweden and south korea have approached the uncertainty caused by the current pandemics differently. while korea aims at minimizing the uncertainty to the maximum extent possible, sweden opted for reliance on its population’s conscious and responsible decision-making. south korea has followed the path of virus suppression with testing and containment mechanisms established and institutionalized in advance. other countries, for example, european countries, lacking such tools, are forced to follow the path of adaptation and recovery (oecd/european union, 2020). in the absence of mechanisms for keeping comprehensive records of individuals concerning their movements and infection, most eu countries introduced lockdowns. thus, korea’s ways of keeping records and lockdown can be seen as extreme measures of population control during the pandemic, whereas sweden is a case of a less invasive policy. south korea is an extreme case illustrating the state’s capacity to gain knowledge about the population and to control it. in addition to mass testing, the state uses the latest technological tools (information technologies) to track contacts and movements. from the description of the data that the kdca presents in its daily reports, it can be seen that the record-keeping techniques are extraordinarily detailed. since the disease was contained, no lockdown was necessary. sweden avoided the latter as well, yet without using such accounting techniques. although sweden has a wellestablished and reliable system of public and citizen records (papakostas, 2012), this was not enough to reproduce a similar effect of trust in the situation of a pandemic. the swedish state won the trust of its citizens but failed to build trust with its neighbours. in times of covid-19, the reassembly of trust occurs mainly through supervision. we primarily associated this tendency with the trust of other states, that is, external organizations, as it is directly related to the problem of transparency. in the case of covid-19, it is testing and non-pharmaceutical interventions, i.e., containment measures, such as the techniques of keeping records about individuals. it should be noted that keeping records is crucial in order to move between abstract representations of individuals and the specific local details about them. the former come as general statistics, including the presence or absence of infection and other relevant demographic, social, and economic parameters crucial for further consideration and response. the opposite is also important: it is necessary to identify a particular individual and trace their contacts. besides, different strategies of detection and containment imply various expertise deployment. in the cases where a state opts for less stringent accounting techniques, it essentially democratizes expertise and decision-making. one could suggest that extreme measures operate in traditional decision-making frameworks, whereas sweden is an example of the realization of the principles of “post-normal science”. funtowicz and ravetz (1993) developed this concept to grasp the challenges of policy issues concerning risk management. post-normal science is opposed to traditional problem-solving strategies like core and applied science and professional consultancy since it implies the inversion of domination of hard facts over https://changing-sp.com/ 92 andrey v. rezaev, natalia d. tregubova, anastasia a. ivanova soft values. that happens because “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent” (p. 744). this version of science suggested by funtowicz and ravetz involves democratization of science and, eventually, expertise and decision making by extending the community, which assures the quality of scientific inputs to the policy. thus, the “extended peer community” would involve all the people related to the issue in various ways. martin et al. (2020) demonstrate how the current policies encouraging or compelling the use of face-coverings in non-clinical settings ran counter this suggestion by incorporating claims which are based on very little evidence and, at the same time, do not include all the relevant communities into the discussion (for example, deaf people). in sweden, one can observe a situation described by evans and collins (2008), wherein the state grants the population the right to exercise their expertise within the national borders. “in these situations, access to specialist or technical expertise is not a barrier to good decision making, implying that expertise to be everywhere has been overstated” (p. 618). the fundamental premise here is that individuals are able “to make good decisions based on simple and widely available information” (p. 617). therefore, when analysing the failures of sweden’s response to covid-19, the government’s failure to provide complete and accurate information about the coronavirus becomes one of the central factors (habib, 2020). that is, failures are not a matter of the strategy per se but of how the information is conveyed to the population. while a controversy “travels” beyond the field of science and enters a heterogeneous arena, scientific expertise can lose its authority and give way to other social groups with various and contradictory claims. the uncertainty over covid-19 reinforces the role of science in decision-making. in the current pandemic situation, science can no longer be sufficient, especially since there is still a lack of evidence. at the same time, the most prominent figures who frame sweden’s response to the pandemic stress that the guidelines need to be evidence-based for the government to discuss stricter measures. the lack of evidence also indicates the absence of a definitive way of straightforward critique. johan giesecke, a prominent swedish epidemiologist who hired anders tegnell, the current state epidemiologist of sweden, emphasizes that the lack of evidence-based arguments underlying the lockdown introduction is a matter of possible criticism (sayers, 2020). anders tegnell supports this line of reasoning in his interview to the nature: “closedown, lockdown, closing borders—nothing has a historical scientific basis, in my view” (paterlini, 2020). kavaliunas et al. (2020), in their turn, argue that the swedish model is evidence-based, that is, based on the evidence the world community has at their disposal currently. conclusion the accounting of individuals becomes the central mechanism of trust enhancement in the epidemiological and pandemic crises both within and beyond the borders of nation-states. in a situation of uncertainty, it becomes necessary to take measures to establish epidemiological control over the population. states opt for different ways to reduce the level of uncertainty. south korea, for example, has followed the path of changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 79–97 93 total control and accounting of individuals, their movements, and contacts. countries whose technological and other capacities are not enough to introduce a similar control system resort to lockdowns and other high-stringency measures, which also serves to reduce uncertainty. sweden took the third way, in which the absence of evidencebased hard facts meant a choice in favour of self-regulation and individual responsibility. in contrast, the authorities have sacrificed subtlety to certainty in the first two cases. swedish authorities gave priority to the values of government-population cooperation. technologies engineered and introduced to deal with epidemics represent a distinct “style of knowing” (kwa, 2011) since they rely on visualization to obtain a concrete picture. however, these technologies can be used in different ways and for different purposes. in south korea, technology is used (as opposed to the active involvement of individuals) to build mechanisms of testing, observation, and tracing. in sweden, the technology is applied to enhance the population’s active participation in solving a common problem. social conceptions of what is desirable and possible in the times of epidemiological crises differ from and sometimes contradict each other, mainly because the world has become an arena of rigorous scrutiny and politicized criticism and decisions. while the korean government attempted to increase trust and legitimate their power and this aim dictated their ways of dealing with the covid-19, the government of sweden based its decisions on the current high level of trust. both countries had institutionalized particular mechanisms for their strategies: for south korea, it was testing and digital technology, whereas for sweden, it was the institutionalization of mutual trust. however, when it came to outside assessments of the state’s success and correspondent trust in the government decisions, the outcomes were different. south korea enjoyed a high level of trust from other states, while swedish policies were widely criticized internationally. it is too early to say which strategy was the most appropriate. each strategy has its advantages and disadvantages. on the one hand, south korea seems to handle the epidemiological crisis exceptionally well. however, the country faces severe problems in the sphere of public mental health (lee et al., 2021). sweden empowers its population and reinforces mutual trust relations but has a high death toll and worse covid-19 epidemiological indicators than its neighbours have (though, as was discussed above, comparability of indicators from different countries is problematic). at the same time, the world community has lost trust in sweden’s strategy to counter the pandemic. the only criteria we can apply to evaluate the situation are the number of deaths and infections rate, which are reliable criteria in the short-term but not so reliable from a long-term perspective. social, cultural, psychological, and other repercussions can become visible only after decades. references anell, a., glenngård, a. h., & merkur, s. 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(2020). why do countries respond differently to covid-19? a comparative study of sweden, china, france, and japan. the american review of public administration, 50(6–7), 762–769. https://doi. org/10.1177/0275074020942445 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2020.1783787 https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2020.1783787 https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/what-do-south-koreans-think-of-their-governments-covid-19-response/ https://thediplomat.com/2020/10/what-do-south-koreans-think-of-their-governments-covid-19-response/ https://unherd.com/thepost/coming-up-epidemiologist-prof-johan-giesecke-shares-lessons-from-sweden/ https://unherd.com/thepost/coming-up-epidemiologist-prof-johan-giesecke-shares-lessons-from-sweden/ https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia1010004 https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyaa121 https://www.thelocal.se/20201119/sweden-puts-new-limits-on-testing-to-free-capacity/ https://www.thelocal.se/20201119/sweden-puts-new-limits-on-testing-to-free-capacity/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/nyheter-och-press/nyhetsarkiv/2020/november/viktigt-att-testkapaciteten-anvands-pa-ratt-satt-under-covid-19-pandemin/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/nyheter-och-press/nyhetsarkiv/2020/november/viktigt-att-testkapaciteten-anvands-pa-ratt-satt-under-covid-19-pandemin/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/nyheter-och-press/nyhetsarkiv/2020/november/viktigt-att-testkapaciteten-anvands-pa-ratt-satt-under-covid-19-pandemin/ https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020942445 https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020942445 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 618–635 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.153 received 6 september 2021 © 2021 francesco rigoli accepted 16 december 2021 francesco.rigoli@city.ac.uk published online 30 december 2021 article a general attitude towards shopping and its link with basic human values in the uk francesco rigoli city, university of london, united kingdom abstract prior literature about shopping has focused mostly on specific aspects such as on attitudes towards specific products or shopping practices. a general shopping attitude (gsa), capturing how much an individual is attracted by shopping in general, has rarely been explored. in an online questionnaire study conducted in the uk, here we developed and validated a self-report scale to assess gsa. moreover, adopting schwartz’s theory of basic human values as framework, we explored the relationship between gsa and general value orientations. we observed that people valuing more self-enhancement versus selftranscendence (i.e., valuing the own social status and wellbeing versus the wellbeing of others and of the environment) reported more positive gsa. this fits with theories proposing that, in consumer societies, shopping is appealing because it allows one to achieve social status. contrary to perspectives claiming that shopping is appealing because it enables expressing creativity and freedom, a negative relation between gsa and self-direction (i.e., a tendency to value freedom and creativity) emerged. rather, this observation fits with proposals viewing the appeal of shopping in its ability to enable one to conform to a reference group’s standards. these findings shed light on general value orientations underlying the appeal of shopping. keywords general attitude towards shopping; social status; self-expression; conformism; basic value https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 618–635 619 introduction influential scholars regard consumer culture as being at the centre of contemporary society (especially in western europe and the usa but increasingly also elsewhere) and shopping as a prototypical expression of such culture (featherstone, 2007; slater, 1997; stillerman, 2015). many of these scholars view the modern individual as being fascinated by shopping. where would this fascination come from? to this question, different answers have been proposed by scholars. we propose to classify some of the approaches to this question in two broad families: selfexpression theories and social status theories. the former interpret the appeal of shopping as arising because shopping would be experienced as a manifestation of personal freedom, choice, and autonomy, allowing one to articulate one’s own identity, rationality (about which goods maximize utility and minimise monetary cost), and creativity (campbell, 1987; douglas & isherwood, 2021; holt, 2004; miller, 1998; zelizer, 1989). for example, douglas & isherwood (2021) view consumption as a creative ritual enacted to mark identity and express meaning within a community. contrary to this view, social status theories maintain that, in consumer societies, which goods one purchases is fundamental for defining social status, thus rendering shopping attractive in the race for social rank (bourdieu, 1979/1984; hirsch, 1976; veblen, 1899/2005). as an example, veblen (1899/2005) introduced the notion of conspicuous consumption to describe a tendency to purchase luxury goods in order to signal economic power. this debate between self-expression theories and social status theories raises an obvious empirical question: what is the real appeal of shopping for common people? what is the actual attitude common people have towards shopping? arguably, people vary in their attraction towards shopping; why are some more attracted than others? do certain general value orientations, such as valuing self-expression (campbell, 1987; douglas & isherwood, 2021; holt, 2004; miller, 1998; zelizer, 1989) or valuing social status (bourdieu, 1979/1984; hirsch, 1976; veblen, 1899/2005), account for these individual differences? surprisingly, these questions remain largely unaddressed. the present paper explores them in the context of contemporary british society. although prior literature about shopping behavior is overwhelming, this has focused on specific aspects such as on attitudes towards specific products or shopping practices (e.g., online shopping). a general shopping attitude (gsa), capturing the appeal of shopping in general, remains to be explored. here we focus on examining such gsa and in exploring its link with general value orientations such as valuing self-expression or valuing social status. to this aim, the study sets two objectives. the first consists in developing a self-report measure of gsa. the second objective is to explore the relation between gsa and general value orientations. with this regard, we relied on the theory of basic human values (schwartz, 1992), because, as we shall see, this proposes that human values can be described by two broad dimensions analogous to valuing self-expression and valuing social status, respectively. below, we spell out these two objectives in detail. https://changing-sp.com/ 620 francesco rigoli general shopping attitude (gsa) although our specific focus on the concept of gsa is new, to some degree two previous lines of research tap into it, albeit only indirectly. a first research line has explored a materialistic value orientation, capturing a tendency to care about materialistic concerns such as money, appearance, social comparisons, and material goods (kasser & kanner, 2004). while this construct appears to encompass aspects potentially related with gsa, it remains unclear to what degree these aspects are captured. moreover, several aspects external to the notion of gsa are also included. finally, operationalizations of the materialistic value orientation appear to encompass certain personality traits or general values from the outset (e.g., including most items referring to negative emotions or envy) (solberg et al., 2004). conversely, when constructing the gsa, we aimed at removing any explicit overlap with personality or general values, in such a way that any relation found empirically could not be explained by semantic overlap (see below). for these reasons, the construct of materialistic value orientation is not suited to assess gsa in a specific fashion. a second relevant research line has explored the motives driving people when shopping. after initially identifying 11 of such motives (tauber, 1972), more recent work has grouped these in two broad dimensions comprising utilitarian and hedonic factors (babin et al., 1994; guido, 2006). utilitarian motives would be at play when shopping is instrumental to purchasing a desired item in an efficient and rational manner, whereas hedonic motives would be aroused by the ludic and entertaining nature of going shopping as such. however, this research approach does not examine to what extent, overall, people are attracted by shopping: knowing whether utilitarian or hedonic motives are engaged during shopping does not tell us precisely to what extent shopping is appealing for an individual. altogether, previous literature does not yet allow for a specific assessment of gsa; the present study aims to fill this gap. in short, a first objective of the paper is to develop a method to assess gsa. below, the second objective is examined, consisting in exploring the link between gsa and general value orientations in the context of the theory of basic human values (schwartz, 1992). basic values and gsa the theory of basic human values (schwartz, 1992) is one of the most influential perspectives on the psychology of human values, corresponding to abstract principles driving human behaviour in everyday life. this theory postulates the existence of ten basic values arranged (based on their pattern of correlations) along a quasi-circular organization (fig. 1): basic values appear to be distributed circularly but not evenly spaced, thus forming clusters (from which the definition of quasi-circular arrangement). the ten basic values are: • self-direction (valuing independent thought and action, autonomy, freedom, and creativity) • stimulation (seeking novel experience, arousal, variety, and challenge in life) changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 618–635 621 • hedonism (valuing enjoyment and pleasure) • achievement (reflecting a strive for acquiring competence in fulfilling socially defined goals) • power (valuing attainment and preservation of dominant positions in the social system) • security (seeking harmony, safety, and stability of society and relationships) • conformity (restraining from actions, inclinations, and impulses that violate social norms) • tradition (acceptance, commitment, and respect for norms, rituals and ideas of the own culture) • benevolence (commitment for the wellbeing of close others in everyday interactions) • universalism (understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the wellbeing of all people and nature) figure 1 representation of schwartz’s theory of basic human values power security self-transcendence self-enhancement c on se rv at io n o pe nn es s to c ha ng e ac hi ev em an t he do nis m stim ulati on self-direction u niversalism be ne vo le nc e co nfo rm ity tra diti on note. adapted from schwartz, 1992, p. 24. moreover, the space where the basic values are arranged can be described by two broader dimensions. the first opposes self-enhancement, emphasising the own well-being and social position (and including power, achievement, and hedonism as basic values), versus self-transcendence, focusing on the welfare of other people and of the environment at large (and including universalism and benevolence as basic values). the second dimension opposes conservation, valuing stability and compliance with social norms (and including tradition, conformity, and security as basic values), versus openness to change, valuing freedom, change, and autonomy https://changing-sp.com/ 622 francesco rigoli (and including self-direction, stimulation, and hedonism as basic values—note that hedonism is relevant for both self-enhancement and openness to change). this twodimensional structure is particularly relevant for assessing self-expression (campbell, 1987; douglas & isherwood, 2021; holt, 2004; miller, 1998; zelizer, 1989) and social status (bourdieu, 1979/1984; hirsch, 1976; veblen, 1899/2005) theories of shopping (introduced above): the self-enhancement versus self-transcendence axis appears as remarkably appropriate for describing how much individuals value social status (with self-enhancement corresponding to heavy interest in social status and selftranscendence to poor interest in social status), whereas the conservation versus openness to change axis appears as remarkably appropriate for describing how much individuals value self-expression (with openness to change corresponding to valuing self-expression and conservation to disregarding self-expression). thus, when exploring the link between gsa and human values, two predictions arise from self-expression and social status theories of shopping: (a) following self-expression theories, individuals stressing more openness to change versus conservation are predicted to have a more positive gsa; (b) following social status theories, individuals stressing more self-enhancement versus selftranscendence are predicted to have a more positive gsa. this paper aims to test these predictions. methods participants recruitment of participants was carried out online using the prolific website1. any (18 years old or older) individual from any country interested in participating to online social science studies can register with the prolific website. individuals receive monetary reward after participating to a study. most people get to know prolific via social media, poster/flyer campaigns at universities, and through referrals from researchers and participants already using the site. when registering to prolific, individuals are asked demographic questions, which later allow researchers to pre-screen participants during recruitment. when a researcher creates a new study, any eligible participant (i.e., those meeting the pre-screening criteria) can sign in and participate until the sample in complete (the sample size is established a priori). eligible participants are informed that a new study is available because the study becomes visible to them when accessing the prolific website, and because the prolific system sends an email to a random subset of eligible participants (rigoli, 2021). for the present study, 300 adults were recruited (all participants were included in the analysis). this sample size was established a priori based on a pearson correlation hypothesis testing, a type-one error rate of 0.05, a type-two error rate of 0.1, and an expected pearson coefficient of r = .2 (this requires 259 participants minimum; we rounded this number to 300). by relying on the prolific pre-screening, we ensured that all participants were uk citizens (citizenship was established based 1 www.prolific.co http://www.prolific.co changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 618–635 623 on the following pre-screening question: “what is your nationality?”). participants were all english speakers (this also was ensured based on a pre-screening question)2. to assess test-retest reliability, 100 participants among the 300 initially recruited were tested again after about two months. procedure and measures the study was published on march 11, 2021 and the sample was fully collected on the same day. participants answered a set of questions online via the qualtrics website3. answering all questions took approximately 10 minutes, and subjects were paid £1.50 for participating in the study. questions included a newly created gsa scale and the schwartz’s value survey (svs) (schwartz, 1992), a widely used instrument to assess basic values. these measures were the focus of the study. for exploratory purposes, we also asked some additional questions. below, the gsa scale, the svs, and the additional questions are described in detail. to assess the test-retest reliability of the gsa scale, a subset of participants (n = 100) filled this scale on may 28, 2021. gsa scale as it was mentioned above, a main objective of the study was to develop and validate a self-report measure of gsa. this scale was constructed as follows. we considered theories viewing attitudes as constituted by three facets (eagly & chaiken, 1993): emotional (reflecting the affective states elicited by an action/object), cognitive (describing beliefs about the benefits associated with that action/object), and behavioural (capturing a tendency to engage in that action/object). following these theories, we formulated three items for each facet (items were initially created after discussions with common people and marketing experts). for each item, participants had to indicate how much they agree or disagree (on a 5-point rating scale) with the following statements: • when i have free time, i spend much time and energy going shopping • shopping is one of my favourite hobbies • even when i am currently unable to go shopping, i often make plans about it • shopping often makes me forget problems • shopping often makes me feel euphoric • shopping is often boring • shopping helps me expressing myself • shopping helps me being liked by other people • shopping helps me fulfilling my personal goals items 1, 2 and 3 map to the behavioural facet; items 4, 5, and 6 to the emotional facet; and items 7, 8, and 9 to the cognitive facet. the total score of the scale was calculated as the sum across items (with item 6 being reversed). 2 the study was approved by the research ethics committee of the university supporting the study (located in the uk; irb code: eth1920-0624. 3 www.qualtrics.com https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.qualtrics.com 624 francesco rigoli schwartz’s value survey (svs) to assess values in the context of the theory of basic human values, we administered the svs (schwartz, 1992). here, for each of 56 items describing a general human value or principle, participants are asked to indicate on a 9-point rating scale (ranging from –1 [opposed to my principles], 0 [not important], 3 [important], 6 [very important], 7 [of supreme importance]) how much that item is important for them. scoring of the scale worked as follows. first, to correct for individual tendencies to report a different overall average score, for each participant the average across all items was subtracted to each item. second, only 45 items (those established by prior literature as adequate for cross-cultural comparisons; schwartz, 1992) were further considered. among these, each item maps to a specific basic value; items associated with the same basic value were averaged to obtain the score for that basic value. for example, the basic value of power was scored as the average across 4 items (social power, wealth, authority, and preservation of public image). finally, the scores for the two broad dimensions of self-enhancement versus self-transcendence and openness to change versus conservation were computed. for the former, we summed all items for self-enhancement and subtracted all items for self-transcendence (i.e., we summed items for power [4 items], achievement [4 items], and hedonism [2 items], and subtracted items for benevolence [5 items] and universalism [8 items]). for the latter, we summed all items for openness to change and subtracted all items for conservation (i.e., we summed items for self-direction [5 items], stimulation [3 items], and hedonism [2 items] and subtracted items for tradition [5 items], conformity [4 items], and security [5 items]). additional questions in addition to the gsa scale and the svs, the following variables were also collected: • age, assessed through the statement “indicate your age”, answered by indicating a number. • gender, recorded through the statement “indicate your gender”, with male and female as options. • ethnicity, assessed through the statement “indicate your ethnicity”, with caucasian, ethnic minority, and mixed as options (the two latter categories were collapsed for analyses). • education, assessed through the statement “highest education”, with options 1 = “no formal qualification”, 2 = “gcse”, 3 = “a level”, 4 = “undergraduate degree”, 5 = “graduate or doctorate degree”. • socioeconomic status, assessed through the question “how would you define your economic status in comparison with other people in the uk?”, with options 1 = “substantially worse off, 2 = “moderately worse off”, 3 = “middle level”, 4 = “moderately better off”, 5 = “substantially better off”. • religiosity, assessed through the question “do you consider yourself a religious person?”, with options 1 = “not religious”, 2 = “somewhat religious”, 3 = “religious”, 4 = “highly religious”. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 618–635 625 • political orientation, assessed through the question “overall, are your political opinions closer to the left or to the right?”, with options 1 = “strongly right”, 2 = “moderately right”, 3 = “neutral”, 4 = “moderately left”, 5 = “strongly left”. • life satisfaction, assessed through the question “overall, how satisfied are you about your life?”, with options 1 = “very unsatisfied”, 2 = “unsatisfied”, 3 = “neither satisfied nor unsatisfied”, 4 = “satisfied”, 5 = “very satisfied”. statistical analyses to ascertain that a single factor underpinned all items of the gsa scale, we ran an exploratory factor analysis based on maximum likelihood. decision on how many factors to retain relied on considering both the point of inflection criterion and the kaiser criterion (counting how many factors had eigenvalue higher than one). to assess the internal consistency of the scale, the cronbach’s alpha score was calculated (and a decision whether any item should be retained was based on looking at the alpha score if that item was deleted). finally, to evaluate convergent validity of the scale, its relationship with age and gender was assessed. a large body of evidence indicates that shopping is more common among females (milestone & meyer, 2012; stillerman, 2015) and young people (stillerman, 2015; wassel, 2011). thus, a valid gsa scale would be expected to be related with gender and age accordingly. to assess the test-retest reliability of the gsa scale, for participants who filled the scale twice we calculated the pearson correlation of the total score between time one and time two. after validating the gsa scale, we examined its relationship with the svs adopting pearson correlations. to ensure a family-wise type-one error rate of .05, we distinguished between a priori and post-hoc tests. a priori tests, for which twotailed p = .05 was adopted as significance threshold, were restricted to the two broad dimensions of self-enhancement versus self-transcendence and openness to change versus conservation. post-hoc tests concerned the pearson correlation between the gsa scale and individual basic values (10 tests in total). adopting a bonferroni correction, a two-tailed p = .005 was employed as significance threshold for post-hoc tests. finally, for exploratory purposes, the pearson correlations (and associated p values) between the gsa scale and the additional questions was calculated, although these do not represent hypotheses tested in this study. results descriptive statistics for interval variables are reported in table 1 (for gender and ethnicity, the sample included 175 females and 270 white participants, respectively). the exploratory factor analysis of the gsa scale produced the scree plot shown in fig. 2. both the kaiser criterion and point of inflection criterion indicate that a single factor underlies all items (with 56% of variance explained and a minimum communality score of .382). when considering internal reliability, a cronbach’s alpha of .918 was obtained (a minimum item-total correlation of r = .609 emerged; alpha did not improve if any item was removed). these results show that the scale had internal reliability (nunnally & bernstein, 1994). supporting convergent validity https://changing-sp.com/ 626 francesco rigoli of the scale, females exhibited higher gsa than males (t(298) = 3.835, p < .001), and the gsa scale correlated negatively with age (r(298) = –.193, p = 0.001). concerning the test-retest reliability of the scale (calculated as the correlation between total scores for time one and time two), according to standard criteria (cicchetti, 1994) this resulted to be good (r(98) = .724, p < .001). the gsa scale exhibited a positive relationship with the self-enhancement versus self-transcend dimension (fig. 3; r(298) = .281, p < .001), but not with the openness to change versus conservation dimension (fig. 4; r(298) = –.037, p = .523). table 2 reports pearson correlations between the gsa scale and individual basic values (and among basic values themselves). based on a bonferroni correction applied to these tests (implying in a significance threshold of p = .005; see the methods section above), a significant positive correlation emerged for power (fig. 5; r(298) = .277, p < .001) and a significant negative correlation emerged for selfdirection (fig. 6; r(298) = –.172, p = .003) and universalism (fig. 7; r(298) = –.197, p < .001); non-significant results were obtained for other basic values. finally, table 3 reports pearson correlations (and associated p values) for the relationship between the gsa scale and the additional questions (and among these questions themselves). we report these data for exploratory purposes, stressing that no hypotheses were tested regarding them. table 1 descriptive statistics for all interval variables mean sd skewness gsa 20.71 7.81 .27 self-direction .66 .77 .54 stimulation –.68 1.16 –.29 hedonism .43 1.16 –.32 achievement –.19 .86 –.15 power –2.06 1.30 –.04 security .16 .80 .07 tradition –1.14 .99 –.27 conformity .03 .90 –.30 benevolence .75 .67 .31 universalism .70 .89 –.04 self-enhancement vs self-transcendence –17.47 14.79 .05 openness to change vs conservation 6.83 13.99 .22 age 36.81 13.73 .80 education 3.50 1.09 –.29 socioeconomic status 2.97 .85 –.048 political orientation 3.27 1.18 –.17 religiosity 1.48 .75 1.53 life satisfaction 3.41 1.06 –.52 c hanging s ocieties & p ersonalities, 2021, vol. 5, n o. 4, pp. 618–635 6 2 7 table 2 pearson correlation matrix for the gsa scale and the basic values gsa self-direction stimulation hedonism achievement power security tradition conformity benevolence universalism gsa scale 1 r = –.172 p = .003** r = .024 p = .677 r = .132 p = .022* r = .151 p = .009* r = .277 p < .001** r = –.030 p = .609 r = –.010 p = .867 r = .116 p = .044 * r = –.145 p = .012* r = –.197 p = .001** selfdirection 1 r = .170 p = .003** r = .065 p = .262 r = –.013 p = .818 r = –.281 p < .001** r = .271 p < .001** r = –.371 p < .001** r = –.292 p = .677 r = –.001 p = .989 r = .200 p = .001** stimulation 1 r = .202 p < .001** r = .105 p = .070 r = .006 p = .917 r = –.357 p < .001** r = –.344 p < .001** r = –.295 p < .001** r = –.076 p = .189 r = –.012 p = .843 hedonism 1 r = –.032 p = .578 r = .209 p < .001** r = –.159 p = .006* r = –.246 p < .001** r = –.267 p < .001** r = –.109 p = .060 r = –.111 p = .054 achievement 1 r = .329 p < .001** r = –.130 p = .024* r = –.210 p < .001** r = –.040 p = .493 r = –.148 p = .01* r = –.305 p < .001** power 1 r = .067 p = .245 r = .152 p = .009* r = .030 p = .603 r = –.466 p < .001** r = –.570 p < .001** security 1 r = .198 p = .001** r = .245 p < .001** r = –.181 p = .002** r = –.260 p < .001** tradition 1 r = .384 p < .001** r = –.128 p = .026* r = –.398 p < .001** conformity 1 r = –.088 p = .130 r = –.416 p < .001** benevolence 1 r = .290 p < .001** universalism 1 note. * for p < .05; ** for p < .005. https://changing-sp.com/ 6 2 8 francesco r igoli table 3 pearson correlation matrix for the gsa scale and the additional questions gsa age gender ethnicity education socioeconomic status political orientation religiosity life satisfaction gsa scale 1 r = –.193 p = .001** r = .217 p < .001** r = .191 p = .001** r = –.065 p = .262 r = –.001 p = .984 r < .001 p = .995 r = .143 p = .013 * r = –.025 p = .670 age 1 r = –.015 p = .790 r = –.160 p = .005* r = –.184 p = .001** r = .064 p = .271 r = –.244 p < .001 ** r = .052 p = .369 r = .119 p = .039* gender 1 r = .007 p = .902 r = .100 p = .084 r = .085 p = .142 r = .105 p = .068 r = –.031 p = .595 r = .119 p = .040* ethnicity 1 r = .005 p = .933 r = –.070 p = .226 r = .087 p = .131 r = .207 p < .001 ** r = –.066 p = .245 education 1 r = .256 p < .001** r = .238 p < .001 ** r = – 0.61 p = .289 r = .119 p = .039* socioeconomic status 1 r = –.130 p = .024 * r = .041 p = .480 r = .401 p < .001** political orientation 1 r = –.220 p < .001 ** r = –.176 p = .002** religiosity 1 r = .087 p = .131 life satisfaction 1 note. * for p < .05; ** for p < .005. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 618–635 629 figure 2 scree plot relative to the exploratory factor analysis of the gsa scale factor number e ig en va lu e 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 figure 3 relationship between self-enhancement versus self-transcendence and the gsa scale 30 20 10 0 g s a sc or e –65 –45 –25 –5 15 self-enhancement versus self-transcendence https://changing-sp.com/ 630 francesco rigoli figure 4 relationship between openness to change versus conservation and the gsa scale 30 20 10 0 g s a sc or e –40 –20 0 20 40 60 openness to change versus conservation figure 5 relationship between power and the gsa scale 30 20 10 0 g s a sc or e –20 –15 –10 –5 0 5 power changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 618–635 631 figure 6 relationship between self-direction and the gsa scale 30 20 10 0 g s a sc or e –5 0 5 10 15 self-direction figure 7 relationship between universalism and the gsa scale 40 30 20 10 0 g s a sc or e –15 –5 5 15 25 universalism https://changing-sp.com/ 632 francesco rigoli discussion this paper offers a method for measuring gsa through a short self-report scale and supports the internal reliability and convergent validity (based on a correlation with gender and age) of the scale. consistent with status theories of shopping (bourdieu, 1979/1984; hirsch, 1976; veblen, 1899/2005), the gsa scale was related with the selfenhancement versus self-transcendence dimension. a lack of correlation between the gsa scale and openness to change versus conservation does not fit with selfexpression theories of shopping (campbell, 1987; douglas & isherwood, 2021; holt, 2004; miller, 1998; zelizer, 1989). regarding individual basic values, the gsa scale correlated positively with power, and negatively with universalism and self-direction. these findings show that valuing the own power and status and disregarding the wellbeing of others and the environment (aspects captured by the selfenhancement versus self-transcendence dimension) encourage a more positive gsa. this is in line with proposals highlighting competition for status as driving shopping (bourdieu, 1979/1984; hirsch, 1976; veblen, 1899/2005). according to this view, in consumer societies status is often measured by the goods one buys and exhibits. these goods would represent signals of status such as wealth (e.g., expensive items reflecting affluence), power, and taste (i.e., the ability to select products based on their supposed quality and beauty; bourdieu, 1979/1984). our results indicate that, although appreciating power and disregarding universalism appear as primary basic values in driving the relationship between gsa and valuing social status (as these basic values exhibit a significant correlation with gsa; table 2), a consistent pattern is evident also when considering the remaining basic values (though statistically non-significant, for these basic values the correlation with gsa goes in the expected direction; table 2). not only a lack of correlation between openness to change versus conservation and gsa fails to support self-expression theories of shopping (campbell, 1987; douglas & isherwood, 2021; holt, 2004; miller, 1998; zelizer, 1989), but an inverse correlation between self-direction and gsa goes exactly in the opposite direction. this finding indicates that people reporting more positive gsa disregard autonomy, freedom, and creativity. we can interpret this observation in light of the notion that conformism might be a key driver of shopping (riesman, 1950/1961; simmel, 1900). conformism implies a motivation to comply with the prevailing social norms, thus suppressing inclinations towards personal autonomy, freedom, and creativity. in the context of shopping, conformism would instigate people to purchase goods that are currently in vogue among a reference group, rather than those that enable original self-expression. notably, regarding the openness to change versus conservation axis, no basic value showed a significant correlation with gsa except for selfdirection. for example, when considering basic values underlying conservation, no correlation emerged for tradition, conformity, and security. this might occur because, in consumer societies, trends and products are constantly changing. hence, a more positive gsa might ensue from welcoming the dynamic nature of consumption (hence not appreciating conservation values more than other people) and yet perceiving changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 618–635 633 such dynamics as driven by external, rather than self-established, standards to which one strives to conform (hence discounting self-direction). we highlight some limitations of the study. first, this was carried out in a specific time (march 2021) and place (uk). many scholars view the uk as being among the countries where consumerism has been well-entrenched for longer (slater, 1997). whether similar results extend to countries with different society, culture, and history remain an open question. a possibility is that this might depend on how pervasive and long-lasting consumerism is in a country. for example, in societies where consumerism is relatively new and is not so pervasive, people reporting more positive gsa might be even more motivated by social status and conformism. this would fit with the proposal that self-expression becomes more important in postfordist societies (where consumerism is more wellestablished like in the uk) compared to fordist ones (where consumerism is more recent) (featherstone, 2007; slater, 1997; stillerman, 2015). adoption of online recruiting represents a second limit of the study: this implies that categories such as internet illiterates and older people are likely to be underrepresented in the sample. linked to this, a large body of research has shown that specific segments of the population (defined in terms of socio-demographic characteristics) are driven by different values during consumption (dolnicar et al., 2018; mcdonald, 2012). in light of this literature, our study leaves open the question of whether our findings generalise across different population segments. in summary, this paper develops a method to measure gsa through a short selfreport scale, and explores the link between this variable and general value orientation. consistent with social status theories of shopping (bourdieu, 1979/1984; hirsch, 1976; veblen, 1899/2005), gsa correlated with a self-enhancement versus selftranscendence value orientation. contrary to self-expression theories of shopping (campbell, 1987; douglas & isherwood, 2021; holt, 2004; miller, 1998; zelizer, 1989), it did not correlate with openness to change versus conservation. rather, an inverse correlation with the basic value of self-direction emerged, suggesting that conformism (riesman, 1950/1961; simmel, 1900), and not self-expression, might explain a fascination towards shopping. altogether, these findings contribute to shed light on the motives that drive many to engage in an activity (shopping) that takes central stage in contemporary society. references babin, b. j., darden, w. r., & griffin, m. 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(1989). the social meaning of money: “special monies”. american journal of sociology, 95(2), 342–377. https://doi.org/10.1086/229272 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1037/10658-003 https://doi.org/10.1177/002224297203600409 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7374-0_22 https://doi.org/10.1086/229272 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 198–202 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.2.037 book review ronald inglehart (2018). cultural evolution, people’s motivations are changing, and reshaping the world. cambridge university press ana maria lópez narbona university of michigan, usa university of malaga, spain in cultural evolution, people’s motivations are changing, and reshaping the world, ronald inglehart undertakes a comprehensive scholarly examination of his proposition that “high levels of economic and physical security led to pervasive intergenerational cultural changes that reshaped people’s values and worldviews, bringing a shift from materialist to post-materialist values, which was part of an even broader shift from survival to self-expression values”. this book builds on the author’s previous work concerning modernization as a multifaceted process of social change pivoting on value change, that is transformational in its impact and progressive in its effects. inglehart’s work builds on, but substantially revises, classical modernization theory as developed by marx, weber, durkheim and many others, updating it to examine post-modern society and beyond, inquiring into the trajectory of the knowledge society and the artificial intelligence era. in this book, inglehart applies the principles of evolutionary theory to develop a new theoretical framework for modernization theory. evolutionary theory and functionalism shaped modernization theory as early as in the 60s, emphasizing the ability to adapt to gradual, continuous change as the normal condition of stability, by attributing causal priority to immanent sources of changes, and by analyzing social change as a directional process. as the author suggests, “evidence from around the world indicates that socioeconomic development tends to propel various societies in a roughly received 17 april 2018 © 2018 ana maria lópez-narbona published online 1 july 2018 alopeznarbona@uma.es https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:alopeznarbona@uma.es changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 198–202 199 predictable direction, but these changes are probabilistic not deterministic. and cultural change is path dependent. the fact that a society was historically protestant or orthodox or islamic or confucian gives rise to cultural zones with distinctive value systems that persist even when one controls for the effects of socioeconomic development. although the value systems of different countries are moving in the same direction under the impact of powerful modernizing forces, their value systems have not been converging, as simplistic models of cultural globalization suggest.” by revisiting the scientific concepts of evolutionary theory and blending them with modernization theory, the author succeeds in marking the categories that tell us more about the subject matter than any other categorical sets (kaplan, 1973). according to inglehart, “the central claim of classic modernization theory is that economic and technological development tends to bring coherent and roughly predictable social and political changes. evolutionary modernization theory agrees, but argues that these societal changes are largely driven by the fact that modernization brings value changes that are causing the people of economically advanced societies to have systematically different motivations, and consequently different behavior, from the people of less developed societies.” the book is structured in an introduction and ten thematic chapters. the introduction presents the approach and concepts of evolutionary modernization theory that are used in the work. the chapters address various social phenomena in an ambitious and comprehensive way. from the end of secularization, to the feminization of society and the rise of trump and the xenophobic populist parties, the author covers a broad specter of social life. the book analyzes a wide number of topics in comparative perspective covering over 100 countries, which permits a rich examination of both individual and cross-cultural levels. additionally, inglehart examines the data in a longitudinal perspective discriminating between enduring birth cohort effects and transient life-cycle effects. as the author points out “a large body of evidence, analyzed using three different approaches, (1) cohort analysis; (2) comparisons of rich and poor countries; (3) examination of actual trends observed over the past 40 years, all points to the conclusion that major cultural changes are occurring, and that they reflect a process of intergenerational change linked with rising levels of existential security.” inglehart tests his main hypothesis in connection with various realms of society including economy, gender equality, sexual behavior, democracy, happiness, religion, individualism versus collectivism, among others. the author discusses the transformation of many aspects of human existence from individual personality to international relations. the author provides deep insight into the factors that impact on values and behaviors in numerous countries, employing survey data from the world values survey and the european values survey, from 1981 to 2014, with surveys in more than 100 countries that contain over 90 percent of the world’s population, based on more than half a million personal interviews. https://changing-sp.com/ 200 ana maria lópez narbona one of the most critical findings confirmed in this book is the evolution towards a globalized world that has increasing inequality within countries. according to the oecd, income inequality in oecd countries is at its highest level for the past half century. in 2015, many countries adopted the un 2030 agenda for sustainable development, among which, goal 10 refers to reducing inequality within and among countries. however, the outlook seems pessimistic as many societies, according to inglehart, “…are currently regressing toward the xenophobic authoritarian politics linked with insecurity. but, unlike the xenophobic authoritarianism that surged during the great depression, this does not result from objective scarcity. these societies possess abundant and growing resources, but they are increasingly misallocated from the standpoint of maximizing human well-being.” the future seems also uncertain as the inadequate regulation of financial sector and the deregulation of economy and financial markets are contributing to financial capitalism that is deepening inequality. the author comments that “trump promised to make america great again. but trump’s policies of deregulating the financial sector, cutting medical coverage and reducing taxes on the very rich are the opposite of what is needed by the people who have been left behind. they will make america great for billionaires who pay no income tax”. another main contribution emanating from this work is that it takes into account cognitions and emotions as sources of value changes. according to inglehart “…experimental research indicates that human decisions are heavily influenced by unconscious biases or intuitions”. in recent years, social scientists have underemphasized the role of emotions as mediators in human cognition, behaviors, and values. but recently, emotions are gaining momentum (hochschild, 2016). inglehart’s analysis based on evolutionary modernization theory has certain limitations, as the author points out. the first is that his analyses are largely confined to national territorial states, partly because he mainly uses the data of the world values survey, which carries, out representative national surveys. this could be taken to imply that the transformation of societies reflects internal processes of change, ignoring the role of interactions between societies. the author with his deep knowledge of the world history brilliantly solves this limitation. in any case, the tradition of books that use the national level for their analysis is long and rich (among others, see merrit & rokkan, 1966). second, the evolutionary modernization theory approach could be considered to be the product of an ethnocentric world-view in which the benchmark universally applied is that of the united states of america. however, in the present book, this limitation is overcome as fundamental values and structures associated with modernity and post-modernity are contested. on the other hand, there is evidence that changes tend to be produced in societies of the “social center” and then spread to societies of the “social periphery” (galtung, 1976). changes toward postmaterialist values and, since 2000, a reversion toward materialist values have begun in the most developed countries (and specifically in the united states of america) changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 198–202 201 and within the most prestigious social positions. furthermore, there is theoretical and empirical evidence of the complementary relations between galtung’s centreperiphery theory and inglehart’s theory of value change, based on spanish and international data (díez-nicolás, 2013). third, long-term ecological viability as a fundamental human value should play an important role in the analysis of advanced industrial societies (giddens, 1991; beck, 1992). the author’s concerns about inequality have important implications on the ecological viability of modern societies. recent literature on the topic of ecological inequality focuses on inequality and green trade (oosterveer, 2007), power and inequality related to environmental and informational flows (mol, 2008), differential effects of stringent environmental policies and the unequal distribution of environmental risks (smith, sonnenfeld, & pellow, 2006). fourth, one of the main conclusions of the book is the threat for stability posed by the unequal allocation of resources. the resources are considered in terms of economic scarcity. however, they should also be considered from the point of view of the scarcity of cultural resources, because the present environment of mankind is more and more socio-cultural, not only natural. the debate should address the citizenship and the problem of the unequal distribution of resources in society. in this point, inglehart leaves the door open to future research in the political realm as insecurity today results not from inadequate resources but from growing inequality, which is ultimately a political question. fifth, the book seems to support the notion that tradition and modernity represents two mutually exclusive, functionally independent clusters, but inglehart’s evolutionary modernization theory does not treat all modern or post-modern societies as similar, recognizing different traditions. in his book, inglehart suggests that “…the forces of modernization have impacted on large numbers of societies in enduring and comparable ways. urbanization, industrialization, rising educational levels, occupational specialization and bureaucratization produce enduring changes in people’s worldviews. they do not make all societies alike, but they do tend to make societies that have experienced them differ from societies that have not experienced them, in consistent ways.” with this book, inglehart has established a powerful baseline for future research. among the topics that deserve further analysis, we suggest the research on immigration and citizenship and the evolution of values in a context of financial capitalism because as the author warns “in recent decades, much of the population of high-income countries has experienced declining real income, declining job security and rising income inequality, bringing growing existential insecurity. this has happened in context with a massive influx of immigrants and refugees.” understanding the role played by immigrants is critical for societies in general and western societies in particular as an important percentage of western countries’ citizens now is of immigrant origin and citizenship is bound up with the problem of unequal distribution of resources in society. financial capitalism threatens to undermine the very foundations of our societies of individuals (elias, 1987). https://changing-sp.com/ 202 ana maria lópez narbona references beck, u. (1992). from industrial society to risk society: questions of survival, social structure and ecological enlightenment. theory, culture and society, 9(1), 97–123. diez-nicolas, j. (2013). sociological theory and social reality. revista española de investigaciones sociológicas, 143, 7–24. doi: 10.5477/cis/reis.143.7. elias, n. [1987] (2001). the society of individuals. bloomsbury academic. galtung, j. (1976). social position and the image of the future. in: h. ornauer et al. (eds.). images of the world in the year 2000: a comparative ten nation study (pp. 381–400). atlantic highlands, nj: humanities press. giddens, a. (1991). modernity and self-identity. self and society in the late modern age. stanford university press. hochschild, a. r. (2016). strangers in their own land: anger and mourning on the american right. the new press. kaplan, a. (1973). the conduct of inquiry. transaction publishers. merrit, r. l., & rokkan, s. (eds.). (1966). comparing nations: the use of quantitative data in cross-national research. yale university press. mol, a. p. j. (2008). environmental reform in the information age. the contours of informational governance. new york: cambridge university press. oosterveer, p. (2007). global governance of food production and consumption. edward elgar publishing. smith, t., sonnenfeld, d. a., & pellow, d. n. (eds.). (2006). challenging the chip: labor rights and environmental justice in the global electronics industry. temple university press. http://dx.doi.org/10.5477/cis/reis.143.7 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 144–163 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.167 received 21 may 2021 © 2022 mojtaba valibeigi, accepted 25 march 2022 sakineh maroofi, sara danay published online 11 april 2022 mojtaba.valibeigi@gmail.com s.maroofi@bzeng.ikiu.ac.ir sara.danay94@gmail.com article forgotten territories in the iranian home: issues of segregation mojtaba valibeigi sakineh maroofi sara danay buein zahra technical university, iran abstract this article addresses issues associated with segregation and gender discrimination in the traditional culture of iranian home. the concept of iranian home with an emphasis on its territories and social characteristics, as well as segregation and gender aspects, was investigated. using expert opinions, seven house samples were analyzed. following a review of plans and maps, interviews, and visual observations, a content analysis of activities, social relations, and physical features was conducted. the results show that individual values have been forgotten, and the privacy is defined as a collective state for a family. under the management of the father, home has a biological and economic nature. all household activities and social relationships are determined by gender. among the things having distinct segregation attributes are permanent house elements, such as walls and entrances. finally, it seems that the culture of iranian home further emphasizes such concepts as confidentiality, purity, cooperation, and humility. keywords home values, space syntax, territory, segregation, gender discrimination https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 144–163 145 introduction the concept of home is a result of complex, dynamic, and competitive processes developing under the action of external and internal factors. in recent years, the meaning of home has attracted much attention within the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, history, architecture, and philosophy (mallett, 2004). critical studies into the material realm of this concept indicate that home is created by numerous cultural, economic, and social factors (lewis et al., 2018; peil, 2020). these approaches reflect that all architectural spaces are determined by the underlying social-cultural contexts. a possible approach to identifying sociocultural contexts in architecture consists in studying spatial patterns or space syntaxes. home syntax seeks to describe living spaces in terms of spatial configurations that express social or cultural meanings. this approach can also be used for developing practical solutions to the problems of segregation and gendering (luisa maffini & maraschin, 2018; peil, 2020; zerouati & bellal, 2020). in this research, we aim to elucidate whether the traditional culture of iranian home, including the concepts of sanctity and privacy, may lead to segregation and gender discrimination. personal syntaxes in iranian households seem to be ignored, while gender segregation is emphasized. using space syntax criteria, we investigate forgotten territories, spatial segregations, neglected values, and gender discrimination in iranian homes. the study was conducted according to the following logic. first, we describe the specifics of iranian home with an emphasis on its gender aspects and territories. second, the home syntax and its social characteristics are reviewed. third, the research methodology is explained. then, according to three concepts of space syntax (i.e., activities, social relations, and physical features), the questions of sociospatial meaning and gender segregation in the culture of iranian home are discussed. home concept: territories and syntaxes various aspects of the concept of home were discussed in relation to issues concerned with segregation or gentrification (peil, 2020). home spaces are seen as those shaped by inclusion, exclusion, and power relations. lived experiences, social relations, and emotional significance contribute toward making a living space a site of personal history and memory (ellis et al., 2004; hall et al., 2019; peil, 2020). feminist research has pointed out that the concept of home entails political implications both at the family and society levels (hurdley, 2013; scicluna, 2017). geographical works also examine the use of space, for example, the spatial separation of men from women and children at home, and discuss the implications of gendered spaces such as the kitchen, suburbia, or home as work (king, 2013; scicluna, 2017). the gendering of home informed by feminist research since the 1970s, and more recently by postcolonial theory, has formed a prominent field focusing on issues of housework, house design, and the house as an expression of status. feminist theory has been used to challenge the idea of home as a bounded place of security and retreat, and to criticize the public–private dichotomy (lonergan, 2018; madigan & munro, 1991; smith & johnson, 2020). feminists also identify home as https://changing-sp.com/ 146 mojtaba valibeigi, sakineh maroofi, sara danay a site of oppression, where women are constrained to reproductive and domestic labor with no economic control over its management. recent research has introduced a more varied approach, examining home as a site of resistance where repressed groups in a family (women, girls) or society (minorities) can gain control over certain aspects of their lives. this allows home to be viewed as a potential site for radical subversive activity. for example, this can be the case in an autocratic society where home may become a center for opposition. discussions held at home, or inside activities undertaken in private, may have an effect on public life, thus distorting the established division between the private and public spheres (brickell, 2012; domosh, 1998; duncan & lambert, 2004). as davidoff and hall (2018) pointed out, the concept of home as a private realm resulted from the realignment of economic, political, moral, and spatial orders at the end of the 18th century. at that time, the middle class redefined home and dwelling culture through the lens of a spatial moral and gendered separation between collective (public) and personal life (private). as a ‘‘territory of the mind’’ (p. 319), the distinction between public and private was reproduced in the rules of etiquette, regulating social interactions, and, importantly in the bricks-and-mortar understanding of home. for instance, bricks represent order and organization in a house, while the outer walls represent social structure, strength, and security. family relations were played out in private homes, which were physically distinct from the marketplace; productive work was banished from dwellings, or was restricted to domestic servants (blunt, 2005; domosh, 1998; dowling, 2012). for example, family and home life of english middle class was created according to an idea that home should be a place enclosed from the intrusion of people who were neither family nor friends. hence, the late 18th century treated home in terms of privacy parameters, viewing it as a sanctuary or haven for a family with specific class and gender characteristics (blench, 2001; brickell, 2012; mcdowell, 1989). regarding home as a haven or sanctuary forms the central idea in the concept of home privacy. while public space outside someone’s home is seen as imposing and dangerous, the inside home space is enclosed and safe. home is a sanctuary, a place to retreat into, providing a respite from the uncertainties of commerce and the messiness of politics. home is also a respite from work, a place of relaxation, a haven (dowling, 2012). however, feminist researchers question the pertinence of home as a sanctuary to women, who bear primary responsibility for domestic labor and childcare. as such, home is a space of work for many women and cannot, by definition, be a sanctuary or respite from work. moreover, in the context of domestic violence and emotional abuse, home becomes a site and source of alienation and upheaval, rather than a haven. indeed, the presumed sanctity and privacy of home, in legal and cultural terms, can lead to an underreporting of domestic violence and work to exacerbate these situations (bowlby et al., 1997; scicluna, 2017). home territories home as a private space or realm is one of its key meanings. in defining the privacy of home, comparisons are often made with what home is not. home is not a state/ government, home is not work, home is not a church, home is not the realm of politics, and home does not encompass commercial activities. hence, the contrast changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 144–163 147 with the public is central to the definition of the private (birch, 2008; madanipour, 2003). essentially, home as the private denotes its separateness from the collective nature of public life. important concepts in this field include such terms as privacy, intimacy, and territory interactivity. private, familial, and social territories are defined, respectively, by solitude, confidentiality, and interactive realms, (dowling, 2012; fahey, 1995; sciama, 1993). personal space is a behavioral and environmental concept. sommer (1969) believed that personal space is a protective, small, and invisible territory that makes a bubble between oneself and others. private space is dynamic and creative. a person may feel annoyed because of the infringement of others to this space. personal specifications (personality, emotions, gender, and age) along with physical environmental contexts like social norms and cultural rules affect personal space (hecht et al., 2019; wells et al., 2016). personal syntax can be regarded as a bubble with a person at its center, forming an area, which the person does not wish to be invaded. it is a spatial and behavioral hierarchy that manifests itself most clearly at home. confidential syntax is reserved for close friends, lovers, children, and family members. the confidential syntax in islamic sexual jurisprudence is related to the word mahram. a mahram is a trustworthy family member who is allowed to enter the house. thus, mahram syntax brings intimacy, kinship, and closeness (aryanti, 2013; majid et al., 2015). in-home confidentiality is formed by separating inner space from the outside world. strict admission formalities are necessary to enter a house, as well as any inside space. strangers are supposed to have a special entrance permission (habib et al., 2013; hajian et al., 2020; karimi & hosseini, 2012). each space in a house has its own identity. according to the presented classification, semi-private spaces are home territories that guests can attend upon arrival. these spaces are clearly distinct from the inner spaces where privacy is guarded. home and space syntaxes space syntax is mainly used to analyze spatial configurations. this theory was developed by hillier and hanson in their work the social logic of space published in 1984. the researchers outlined a syntactic theory for the organization of spaces in buildings and settlements. it was argued that buildings, towns, and cities exhibit particular spatial properties, which are governed by social rules regulating human interaction. the spatial configuration of a dwelling or settlement is believed to present a fairly precise map of the economic, social, and ideological relations of its inhabitants (dursun, 2007; hillier, 2007; hillier & hanson, 1984; van nes & yamu, 2021). the theory of space syntax assumes that space is the primary core of sociocultural events. however, since space is shaped through social, cultural, and economic processes, it is usually regarded as invisible. as a result, its form is not taken into account (asif et al., 2018; pafka et al., 2020). spatial and social forms are in such a close relationship that a certain spatial configuration may define a number of social patterns, including the distribution patterns of land use, movement, urban crimes, and location of immigrants (rashid, 2019). https://changing-sp.com/ 148 mojtaba valibeigi, sakineh maroofi, sara danay early space syntax approaches offered mostly quantitative solutions, neglecting all design traditions and spatial cultures. however, in developing various methodological aspects of this theory, apiradee kasemsook proposed qualitative approaches to analyzing society and human beings, including the relationship between humans and the physicality of a city (kasemsook, 2003). according to canter (1983, 1997, 2016), spatial syntax can be analyzed based on four factors: land-use differentiation, place goals, interaction scale, and design aspects. land-use differentiation is connected with current activities occurring in the space; place goals and interaction scale are linked with personal, social, and cultural aspects; design aspects are related to physical features. based on this, the syntax of home can be considered in relation to the following three factors: (a) activities, values, and goals; (b) physical characteristics; (c) communication. the factors of activities, values, and goals describe daily activity patterns. physical characteristics determine how to separate spaces, their sizes and positions, decorations, etc. communication factors determine relationships between various house spaces, including a range of semi-public, semi-private, and private spaces. figure 1 shows a theoretical framework for studying the space syntax of iranian homes. figure 1 the theoretical framework of the research daily activities: eating and cooking, sleeping, having fun, working spatial-physical characteristics: transparency, dimensions, position, decorations social relationships: type of interaction (acquaintance/stranger), mode of interaction (group/individual), gender (male/female) space syntaxes and the issues of segregation note. source: the authors. methodology content analysis is a widely used qualitative research technique, whose current variations include conventional, directed, or summative approaches. although all three approaches can be used to derive meaning from textual data, they differ in terms of coding schemes, origin of codes, and threats to trustworthiness. in conventional content analysis, coding categories are derived directly from the textual data under investigation. in the directed approach, analysis starts with a theory or relevant research findings as a guidance for initial codes. summative content analysis involves counting and comparisons, usually based on keyword lists or summaries followed by the interpretation of the underlying context (kyngäs & kaakinen, 2020). content analysis expresses relationships between the components of a research topic, which can include, e.g., paintings on the wall of caves, music, books, articles, changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 144–163 149 handwritings, post cards, films, maps, direct and indirect observations, etc. (banks, 2018; flick, 2018). in some cases, a research topic needs further description based on an existing theory. the directed content approach aims to conceptually extend a theoretical framework or theory. the existing framework can lead to a more focused investigation of a research question. it can provide a way to identifying the key concepts and main components followed by their classification. in addition, it helps to determine the initial coding scheme or relationships between the codes. in this study, we used the method of directed content analysis. according to canter’s place facets, the space syntaxes of iranian traditional homes were studied in terms of three factors, including activities, social relations, and physical characteristics. by comparing these factors, we tried to perceive the culture of iranian home. according to the conducted review of documents and texts, five different types of traditional iranian houses can be distinguished according to the location of buildings and open spaces therein (figure 2). these include: (a) the central courtyard and four-side building; (b) three-side building; (c) two-side building; (d) one side building; (e) central building in the form of a pergola. in fact, there are four types of structure in the spaces of iranian houses: (a) three rooms and a porch; (b) closed spaces and connection between the ground floor and the first floor from inside the building; (c) spaces allowing free passage to one another; (d) one room in the middle and two corridors on two sides. figure 2 the location of open space and buildings 1) the central courtyard and the four sides building 2) three sides building 3) two sides building 4) one sides building 5) central building in the form of a pergola note. source: the authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 150 mojtaba valibeigi, sakineh maroofi, sara danay five open interviews were conducted with experts in the field of traditional architecture to reach a theoretical saturation. one of the most important questions in the interviews was “could you please introduce the types of traditional iranian houses?” based on the opinions of 5 experts, a list of seven houses was compiled, including: • boroujerdi home: the borujerdi house is a historic house museum in kashan, iran. it was built in 1857 by architect ustad ali maryam for the bride of borujerdi, a wealthy merchant. the bride came from the affluent tabātabāei family, for whom the architect had built the nearby tabātabāei house several years earlier. • bekhradi home: the bekhradi’s historical house was built during the safavid dynasty (17th century) in isfahan. this historical building is the first and only safavid historical house that has been restored and used in iran as a traditional residence since 2005. the house is located in sonbolestan, one of the oldest neighborhoods in northeast isfahan. • zinat al-muluk home: the historical house of zinat al-mulk is one of the monuments of qajar era in shiraz, which was built by ali mohammad khan ghavam al-mulk during 12 years. this house is part of the narenjestan mansion, connected through a door in the basement. at first, this house was the residence of ghavam and his family and named after ghavam child, zinat al-muluk, because she lived there for a time. • ansari home in oromie: ansari’s house is one of the oldest houses in orumieh, which was built between 1330 and 1334, according to the form and inscriptions in the decorative tiles of the house during qgajar era. • samadian labaf hom: the labaf house is a historic house dating back to the qajar era, located in isfahan. • tadayon home in semnan: tadayon house is a historic building belonging to qajar era located in abbasieh district, one of five districts of semnan county. this house is positioned next to the north-south rasteh (a group of shops) of semnan bazaar built almost at the same time. • beheshti home in qazvin: seyyed mahmoud beheshti’s house is a three-store house of the qajar era. the house has a large interior and exterior, a formal vestibule, a beautiful corridor leading to the same vestibule and two courtyards. this house is located in one of qazvin’s old neighborhoods called dimaj. these houses were selected among different types in order to reach the representativeness of the sample. subsequently, the space syntax factors i.e., activities, social relations, and physical features, in these houses were examined. for qualitative field research, we used qualitative sampling, also known as purposeful sampling or theoretical sampling. the sample size was determined by a theoretical saturation of the contents, culture, and context of the case study. saturation implies that research themes are well developed in terms of features and dimensions (hennink & kaiser, 2020; kyngäs & kaakinen, 2020; lambert, 2019; low, 2019). finally, in these houses, daily activity patterns, gender norms, social relation norms, and other cultural aspects were examined. then the gendering and segregation issues of iranian houses were discussed in comparison with contemporary houses. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 144–163 151 results first, the physical features of iranian homes were examined by reviewing plans, observations, and interviews. then, different spaces and activities for identifying gendering and segregation issues were classified. finally, by comparing activities, social relations, and physical features, the socio-spatial meaning of the concept of iranian home was derived. analysis of physical and spatial features gender segregation clearly forms the culture of iranian home. this aspect seems to be one of the main factors that promotes introversion in iranian homes. the desire to protect the inviolable privacy of the family away from the eyes of strangers has justified such introversion in home cultures. introversion in iranian homes was found to be manifested in the avoidance of ostentation, tendency to suppress emotions and their expression. for instance, the culture of iranian home appears in the form of tortuous passages, mud and soil walls. houses frequently look simple from outside, although featuring beautiful and detailed interior design. figure 3 shows that zinatolmlouk house represents a complete example of an introvert iranian home culture with its tendency to separate from the outside space. the central courtyard plays the role of isolating inside and outside spaces. there are five syntaxes in zinatolmlouk house, including family, individual, welcome, service, and courtyard. figure 3 the principles of introversion in zinatolmlouk house note. source: the authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 152 mojtaba valibeigi, sakineh maroofi, sara danay home culture from outside to inside in traditional cultures, houses are separated into the inside and outside parts. the central courtyard can be considered as the peak of introversion in iranian home culture. such houses have a history of eight thousand years (soflaei et al., 2017; soleymanpour et al., 2015). as pirnia (2005) notes, in iran, a garden and a pool were built in the middle of the house, with the rooms and halls wrapping around them like a closed embrace. there was no window or hole in the house, or outside the wall. therefore, nothing could be seen from the outside. the exterior was designed with arches, gates, and congresses. for example, in figure 4 (boroujerdi’s house), the opening only leads to the courtyard, and a complete wall without any window or view from the outside proves the importance of this aspect. in boroujerdi’s house, the space of the family members (blue section) where mostly assigned to women. this house section was completely separated from the guest’s room (black section); the central courtyard was located in the center. some features of the culture of iranian home include the following: • a lack of direct visual connection between the interior (private and semiprivate) and exterior (public) spaces; • the presence of such spaces, as a courtyard and porches such that the entrance could lead into these spaces. figure 4 the issues of segregations in boroujerdi’s house in kashan note. source: the authors. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 144–163 153 for a long time, iranian home culture has placed a special emphasis on courtyards, gardens, porches, pergolas, and other introverted structures that surround the naves and create attractive and familiar environments. the key features of the traditional cultural concept of iranian home are privacy for a family as the smallest social entity. a house is a private place for such a social entity, but not a place for having personal privacy. moreover, architects have used special strategies to reach those purposes. spatial order (step-by-step movement from alley or street to the entrance space of the house and then private spaces), as well as the internal and external system operation, is a way to provide decent privacy. figure 5 demonstrates that the entrance is separated from the main building by a corridor. in order to maintain complete privacy, this entrance first leads to the porch and then to the courtyard. in iranian homes, such private spaces as rooms have a more restricted connectivity. the reason was for a non-mahram to have no control over these spaces, allowing the women of the family to feel more comfortable at home in these spaces. figure 6 “tadayon’s house” shows a house with two parts—exterior and interior. the inner part was the living space of the family members (southern part), which included summer and winter halls; the outer part (northern part) was a space for men, where the housefather usually met the guests. family members occupied the southern and eastern parts. in this section, women performed their daily routines. this part of the house was separated from the northern entrance, such that strangers could not access easily. the t1 rooms in the northern part were related to guests, while the t1 rooms in the eastern part were related to women and household activities. figure 5 bekhradi house in isfahan note. source: the authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 154 mojtaba valibeigi, sakineh maroofi, sara danay in general, all iranian homes feature three main space types, including public, semipublic (semi-private), and private (confidential territories). depending on their functions, some forms of gender segregation are obvious. figure 7 demonstrates these divisions clearly in the plan of bekheradi’s house. the public space (black section) covers the entrance and porch of the house, the semi-private space (blue section) is related to the yard and porch, and the private space (yellow section) are the rooms of the house. figure 6 the gender segregation in tadayon’s house in semnan stairway l room t1 yard b summer hall v1 winter hall t’2 hall t2 courtyard o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 note. source: the authors. figure 7 territories in the iranian home culture in bekhradi house note. source: the authors. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 144–163 155 public spaces • entrance: the entrances themselves manifest interconnected spaces in a house. for entering, the door and front of the house are both a barrier to entry and a place to greet semi-familiar guests. it is used as a waiting space for guests, where the residents of the house pay some usual compliments. • porch and corridor: porch or karbas is a space that has many types of entrances. it is often located right after the entrance space; one of its functions is to divide the entrance path into two or more directions. in some public buildings or houses, two or more paths led into the porch, each of which led to a specific space, including the interior of the building, which is the courtyard. • corridor: the corridor is the simplest part of the entrance space, the most important function of which is to provide communication and access between two places. in some types of buildings, such as houses, baths, and in some cases mosques and schools, the extension and direction of the path is changing the corridor. the corridors that led indirectly to the courtyard are aimed at solving the issue of confidential territories. semi-public spaces • balcony: it can be considered as a space filter and a common part between open and closed spaces. this space can be either open or semi-public. in iranian architecture, the balcony is used as a joined space. • yard: housing is important in islamic architecture due to its direct connection with family life. a muslim’s house should be the safe keeper of the family and should be built in accordance with islam. in this regard, the main effect of islam in the structure of a traditional house is introversion. burckhardt (2009) points out that the courtyard is an element of muslim house, which receives light and air not from the street, but from inner courtyards. private spaces • types of rooms: the interiors of the house are the most varied part, so that the residents of the house would not feel tired. the rooms in a traditional house were arranged around the yard according to their importance and purpose. summer rooms were usually located in the southern side in order to be less exposed to the sun during summer days; winter rooms were located in front of the summer rooms exactly on the side that gets most of the sun during the day. other spaces, such as storage, kitchen, and stables were located in the second row and behind the rooms (mamani et al., 2017) service space: • a backyard was a yard type that usually had a secondary function as an open space for service. it was designed and built in that part of the house to provide light and ventilation; its location and types are highly diverse. service areas, including the kitchen or bathroom were typically built away from the private spaces of the house. https://changing-sp.com/ 156 mojtaba valibeigi, sakineh maroofi, sara danay gender norms and activities in iranian home culture different home syntaxes shown in table 1 identify the issues of gendering and segregation in iranian home culture according to gender norms and activities. table 1 investigation of the gender norms and activities in iranian home culture syntaxes male/female daily/nightly entrance to enter the house, two different clones were installed on the door; the women used the clone with the lower voice (sound) and the men used the clone with the bass voice (sound). depending on the type of life and hours of activity, the amount of entry and exit during the day was much more than at night. room girls had rooms separate from boys, and at the ceremonies and parties, women gathered in rooms separate from men. in the rooms, activities such as eating, playing, reading, talking for the day and activities such as sleeping, getting together and talking and reminiscing were provided. living room the living room was mostly a place for parents to rest, especially the father of the family. due to the life style of the period, this space was mostly used in the evenings and nights for activities such as talking and reminiscing. winter living all the family members gathered in the winter, and the girls and boys shared their memories of the grandmothers. at night, it was a gathering place and the main living space, so activities such as eating, sleeping, talking, reminiscing, etc. took place in it. summer living they gathered in a shady and airy space during summer nights and days. due to its location on the north side without direct sunlight, it was a suitable space to use in days and nights. warehouse the warehouse used by women was mostly related to the kitchen. sometimes women used livestock storage. this space was much more used during the day in the waking time and work and activities of men. at night it was limited to essential uses. pasto pasto was mostly used for women-specific activities and for their greater comfort in the presence of their in-laws (changing clothes, etc.). due to the fact that the closet was on a steeper level than the yard, the light reaches it with less intensity, so there was more silence, calm and comfort in them. at all times of the day, it was suitable for activities such as rest and more private activities. restroom most of the time, toilets used by men and women was different. there was no difference in day and night use. balcony the activities that took place in the living room took place in this space when the weather conditions allow outdoor use. this space was very active during the day as a semi-open and sunny space, and in summer nights, due to the possibility of enjoying the pleasant breeze and watching the sky, it was a suitable place to sleep. yard the yard was a place to spend time with neighbors and friends, as well as doing daily household activities such as washing, sweeping, cleaning vegetables, and so on. this space was used more during the day due to the time of awakening and activity. at night, it was a space for division and in summer, due to the possibility of enjoying the pleasant breeze and watching the sky, it was a suitable place to sleep. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 144–163 157 different territories in a house are described in table 2. table 2 confidential and formal territories, semi-public and private territories in iranian home culture syntaxes formal/intimate public private entrance it is a formal space. strangers stopped there to get permission from the owners to let them in. as the most public house space, it connects the house with the outside. room strangers usually have no way into the room. it is considered as the most private space for the family of the house. living room for the reception of guests, it was male space; in other cases, it is used by the father of the family. it is mostly a public space. winter living opportunity to gather around the chair and people recounting the memories of the chair in the winter, usually strangers at parties can enter this space. it is a place to receive guests and a place to talk to others. summer living this living room has been very popular in summer as a place to rest and eat family meal. it is a place to receive guests and for others a place to talk. kitchen serving the living room and access to the warehouse, a space that strangers have no access to. this space is especially for women used for food preparation and cooking and located in the corner of the house. warehouse located near the front door for ease of transportation of equipment and fodder for livestock, used by family members, especially father. due to their functional nature, warehouses are mostly used individually and have minimal spatial qualities. pasto enclosed space for storing things and food behind the warehouse with access for members of the house; strangers have no access to it. a very private space is in the third category of space relative to the courtyard, after the porch (semi-open), room (closed), pasto, (completely closed). restroom formal space is used by members of the house and guests due to its location in a corner of the yard. the toilet is an individual and private space. according to the behavioral patterns of iranian society, the toilet is a space that tries to be kept out of sight. balcony semi-open space is a filter for entering space for strangers, space for eating, sitting together for family members and acquaintances. the porch is a semi-open space that is used collectively and individually in summers. yard the yard is a space for children to play and the general daily activities of family members and to hold ceremonies and occasions. the yard, in addition to group activities such as children playing, was used for ceremonies, meeting with neighbors, etc. https://changing-sp.com/ 158 mojtaba valibeigi, sakineh maroofi, sara danay discussion and conclusion this research was aimed at analyzing the issues of segregation and gender discrimination in the traditional culture of iranian home. the study was based on three factors: (a) activities, values and goals, (b) physical characteristics, and (c) communication. according to the factor of activities, values, and goals, iranian home is a collective entity and an economic unit managed by the father. in the past, the inhabitants produced most of their necessities at home. the kitchen, on the other hand, was a place for providing and preparing food. today, food is prepared outside the house but is consumed inside. most of the activities that families used to do at home in the past are now mostly done in different places outside the house. today’s houses mostly play a residential role; therefore, a reduction in the size and area of houses is observed. concerning physical characteristics, our study shows the importance of axial space. in other words, the definition of various spaces in traditional houses is based on permanent elements, such as walls and entrances. a kind of axial space is described through the division of spaces, separations, sizes and positions, and decorations. compared to traditional houses, today’s houses contain more semipermanent elements—furniture, which is frequently used to separate and define spaces. traditional houses used to be decorated with permanent elements. at present, a greater tendency for non-fixed, movable elements is observed. work and family relationships are directly linked. the division of labor was done by the father of the family. most of the time, he and his children worked together, and the children continued the father’s business. moving some activities outside the house has resulted in a decreased family control and power. in addition, previously enjoyed opportunities for family members to interact have been lost. the traditional culture of iranian home is masculine, and values such as hijab (veil), cooperation, purity, contentment, god-centeredness and obedience, and humility in home design are considered to be critically important. therefore, the most private spaces are interactive spaces and confidential territories. confidential territories are not places where one can be alone; rather, they are interactive places for two or more people who feel semantically and physically comfortable with each other. at the same time, they create security for a family. thus, in the traditional culture of iranian home, privacy was defined for a family, but not for a person. concerning communication factors, open and semi-open spaces in the traditional iranian houses, such as courtyards, balconies, and porches, played a critical role in organizing, dividing, and separating spaces. this is no longer the case in contemporary houses. in the past, the house played a multifunctional role. the house was a place for large families, sometimes spanning three generations. it was both a place to live and sometimes a place to work. it was a kind of an economic unit inside a house where housework was done by women and girls; usually it was continued by men outside. home also performed a protective function for women, a role that clothing and veils also played in a different way. the gender function of the traditional home was to create privacy for women and protect them by making a distance (a veil) between women and the outsider. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 144–163 159 the concept of privacy has changed from a collective state to an individual state. in the past, privacy was defined for a group of people and the space did not belong to a specific person. the room where they used to sleep was the same space as for other family members. therefore, the space did not belong to a specific person. for comparison, spaces today are defined according to the location of furniture, such as tables, chairs, beds, in other words, more private realms. the iranian perception of home presupposes introvert architecture. as an economic and livelihood unit, the iranian house focuses on the father as the manager and authority. traditional houses had gender functions. home, like other social categories, was treated as a masculine concept, implying the comfort and well-being of men and protection of women. according to the traditional division of labor, women played the role of housewives; however, everybody loved and respected them much more than any other member of the family. the concepts of privacy and individuality are cultural concepts that differ from one culture to another. in societies where individualism is more developed and individualistic values prevail, one of the key concepts of social life is personal territory in both spatial and social sense. in these home cultures, each member of the house can have their own “privacy” inside the house. therefore, it is the division of space in a house that matters, rather than its area or form. conversely, in iranian home cultures, the main cultural function of the home is to preserve family collective values. in other words, home is a place to express traditional religious values and preserve the family. the reason why there is no syntax between family members may be rooted in persian language. hence, children never have their own private rooms. in contemporary houses, a change from social to personal values can be observed. the human becomes freer from some family and social limitations, which has caused a challenge to the family subjectivity and agency. in redefining traditional and modern concepts, it seems that the traditional culture of iranian home can be seen as the source of creative design patterns. in such a redefinition, traditional collective values of moral and rational concepts could be combined with feminist and individualistic values, at the same time as maintaining privacy, peace, and security of the inhabitants. in this regard, iranian home culture can cause personal growth and create a sociable place for households. references aryanti, t. 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(2020). evaluating the impact of mass housings’ inbetween spaces’ spatial configuration on users’ social interaction. frontiers of architectural research, 9(1), 34–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2019.05.005 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12381-9_10 https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46038-7 https://hbr.org/2020/05/gender-equity-starts-in-the-home https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.09.130 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.08.118 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59140-3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2019.05.005 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.188 received 12 december 2021 © 2022 mitashree tripathy accepted 17 august 2022 mitashreetripathy84@gmail.com published online 10 october 2022 article representing the powerful principle of virtue ethics: commitment at workplaces mitashree tripathy birla global university, bhubaneswar, odisha, india abstract the emergence of virtue ethics as a value foundation of society can be traced back to ancient philosophers. having a committed workplace is a significant advantage for any organization. a committed workplace establishes a level of enthusiasm among employees that keeps them motivated to perform their duties and assignments, which provides benefit for both employees and organizations. commitment at the workplace also provides subtle rewards such as pride, value, and positivity that one may experience. irrespective of extrinsic or intrinsic motivation, some benefits are achieved thus driving commitment. however, another side of commitment referred to as blind commitment can ultimately make the company lose its susceptibility to innovations and adaptability to changes. this paper aims to explore the reasons behind commitment at the workplace as an appropriate paradigm of virtue ethics. the paper further subsequently discriminates this form of commitment from blind commitment for long-term benefits at the workplace. the paper aims to explore the extensiveness and intensity of virtue ethics that explains general moral philosophy and affects business and management ethics. keywords philosophy, virtue, ethics, commitment, workplaces, organizations https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 525 introduction moral theory often conveys ideas about actions that describe whether an action is right or wrong and good or bad. moral theory attempts to answer the questions that replicate general moral debates, and discussions often lead to moral arguments. for example, when someone states that a specific action is morally right or wrong, it would be reasonable to inquire their thoughts behind the questionable action. such inquiries lead to moral arguments, and these moral arguments lead to moral judgements which “are often of the utmost importance” (waluchow, 2003, p. 15). moral arguments are frequently accompanied by clarity of thoughts and understanding after a thorough analysis of problems, quandary, and notions that need to be addressed and practiced. for example, it may be considered morally wrong to kill a person, but if the person has raped and killed several innocent girls will it still be wrong? as another example, will an act of a father who could not keep a promise towards his child because of his work be considered as wrongful? a methodical examination of these examples would indeed provide a precision in the thought process as well as weigh the morality of actions. some people would argue that, although the act of killing is wrong, killing a rapist is not a crime. regarding the second example, breaking a promise is wrong but if the father’s intention is right and due to external factors, he cannot cope with the situation to keep his promise towards his child, he is not wrong. likewise, there are several understandings of right and wrong actions and its philosophical underpinnings may sometimes lead to numerous moral judgements. hence, moral theory is a must for every individual as it serves precision and provides reliability of an action. we now come to believe that the hypothetical aim of moral theory is to unravel the fundamental nature of right and wrong actions such that one may become able to explain why a certain action is right or wrong and good or bad. however, the next question that follows is: does there exist any fixed set of principles that determine whether an action is right or wrong? studies indicate that perhaps several underlying principles may determine an action as right or wrong. however, “although the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on certain underlying features of actions, such features vary so much from case to case that there is no fixed set of underlying features to be discovered” (timmons, 2013, p. 4). there are several moral theories like moral relativism, divine command theory, deontology, kantian theory, moral pluralism, and many others that have been defined differently by moral theorists often counteracting the preceding definitions; nevertheless, the primary purpose of all moral theories is to provide standard and systematic answers to moral questions like what to do? and how to behave in a particular situation? thus, standing in the tradition of moral philosophy and moral judgement, it can be assumed that there is a standard moral point of view that navigates to make ethical decisions and that this moral point is further evaluated again based on ethical judgement. what can be derived from this approach is that there is a specific background of philosophy that provides an unbiased index where people can gauge their arguments or actions so that a decision can finally be made. interestingly, concepts and theories on inability to comprehend or make decisions on rightness and https://changing-sp.com/ 526 mitashree tripathy wrongness, the goodness and badness of things also exist. one such theory claims that, in a certain situation that requires judgement or administration based on moral theory, one may not make subsequent decisions due to the lack of moral thinking. this theory is called moral or ethical blindness that incapacitates one’s notions or views on making or acting upon a judgement. in such a situation, one may be completely blind towards adapting ethical dimensions towards deciding or concluding. in short, “people may behave unethically without being aware of it—they may even be convinced that they are doing the right thing” (palazzo et al., 2012, p. 324) and realize later that they were involved in an unethical decision-making process. the central basis of ethical or moral blindness is that under certain circumstances the moral facet of deciding gradually fades away and that the decision maker slowly becomes unconscious of it. often, such unethical decisions are promoted when one is completely disengaged from making decisions based on moral dimensions and this can be triggered by individualistic preferences, situational contexts, and organizational forces. focusing on the organizational forces, employees may be more precisely associated with such virtues as obedience, commitment, and role identification. these virtues do not let the employees be logical or critically evaluate a given situation. such blindness in moral thinking leads to blindness in commitment. employees can completely turn a blind eye towards ethical decision-making and stay committed more towards their roles and responsibilities as instructed by their authorities than their ethics and moral. moving ahead with the flow of the paper, it would be apt to mention here that unlike other moral theories that primarily focus on the morality of an action, virtue ethics chiefly emphasizes the morality of character or, in simple words, on being good or bad. overall, virtues are morally good qualities that deserve praise. in this connection, virtue refers to “a disposition or a pattern in someone’s character or personality that leads them to act morally” (van hooft, 2014, p. 1). these traits of character are admirable and often urged by the society to be practiced. they are loyalty, trust, kindness, courage, honesty, patience, and the like. however, the concept of virtue is not similar in every context. for example, the concept of virtue may vary between a male and a female. the male is considered as the head of the family who is supposed to take risks, be strong, and earn bread and butter for his family, while the female is expected to show the virtue of care and nurturance for the family. similarly, such professions as medicine and nursing practice modesty and devotion, whereas the military professions consider these virtues as meekness and estimate straightforwardness and assertion. furthermore, the younger generation may observe the concept of virtue different from the older generation and likewise. let us say the older generation would believe in walking to save money, whereas the younger generation would ride vehicles to save time. in the examples mentioned above, each of virtues stands correct based on its respective context. studies claim that even if one’s attainment of a virtue is tied to some culturally, socially, gender, or generation “dependent particularities, one relatively quickly learns their formal and simultaneously universal core” (höffe, 2010, p. 129). in a nutshell, we understand that virtues are mostly context-dependent. one immediately learns the virtue and also understands how it is supposed to be used in its specific and universal mainstay. when someone is loyal, it is immediately learned changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 527 that loyalty is the key to building good relationships. loyalty must be maintained at personal grounds, professional and even national levels. this virtue becomes highly compatible with one’s character. in contrast, for those who have not learnt in general the use of loyalty or have not shown devotion or faithfulness, this universal core of loyalty is unidentified and thus remains truly unclaimed. as already discussed, virtues emphasize characteristic traits that guide how an individual ought to behave. however, virtues are sometimes confused with values. in their study, van oudenhoven et al. (2012) state that values are desirable but may not be put into practice and that is why not all values may be considered virtues. common examples under this category are humor, beauty, and intelligence that, although being values, may not be virtues, as virtues “refer to concrete social interactions between individuals, which is why virtues can become guiding principles when people try to enhance social cohesion or integration of immigrant groups” (p. 29). based on similar examples, the display of commitment can then be considered as a virtue, since commitment augments social bonding (hirschi, 1969). thus, commitment as a virtue stands equal along with other moral characteristic features such as honesty, sincerity, civility, dedication, competence, courtesy, tolerance, justice, integrity, compassion, benevolence, truthfulness, trustworthiness, courage, faithfulness, collegiality, loyalty, optimism, and selflessness and can be perceived within the cluster of virtue ethics (lawton, 2005) that improve interpersonal connection and bonding. commitment is considered as an act of “resolution, a plan, a decision, a choice that is treated by the person making it as not to be altered simply at will” (chartier, 2017, p. 71). an act subjected to change or altered as and when required or according to convenience is not commitment. rather, an act that is more conscious and determinate is commitment. commitment is caring deep with no holding back. the notion of commitment is purely distinct and originates, in its most profound form, from an individual’s perception, heart, or inner self. it may “not be confused with intention to follow a course of action or with involvement in a course of action” (walton & krabbe, 1995, p. 14) because the intention is only a thought of doing an action and involvement reveals the degree of participation in it. on the other hand, commitment is an intense affair. after understanding the concept of commitment as a virtue, it is further essential to gauge its depth at the workplace. workplaces are rapidly shifting and so does our need to understand the actions and consequences of commitment or the complexities involved in the process and the varying results that are achieved to provide for diverse workplaces’ practices and policies. it is essential to examine the inconsistent concepts related to commitments at the workplace which have been relatively significant because of workplace concerns. in an organization, a committed employee is considered as the one who sticks through ups and downs, does work diligently, puts a lot of efforts to increase the productivity, protects organization’s assets and makes organization’s goals as one’s own. however, numerous changes affect workplace commitment such as changing relationships, work forms, people and positions, and organizational goals. each change has made commitment more significant and applicable than ever. furthermore, any such a change or drive that https://changing-sp.com/ 528 mitashree tripathy keeps the level of enthusiasm high in an employee igniting a feeling of responsibility towards the organizational goals, mission, and vision or any other relevant targets in the workplace is termed as workplace commitment. at such an expository point when we now have an awareness of workplace commitment, the question that arises is: does there exist a drawback of the commitment too or in other words are there any limitations to commitment? will the virtuous act of commitment be justified if an organization “leads employees to accept the status quo even if it ultimately means that the company loses its ability to innovate and adapt to change” (meyer & allen, 1997, p. 3)? alternatively stated, does blind commitment (randall, 1987) stand morally correct even if the organization provides pay checks only for the working hours, but with an indefinite approach towards the employees to promote learning and growth? studies indicate that “high level of organizational commitment can blind employees to evil and render the individual vulnerable to unethical and corrupt behavior in the interests of achieving corporate goals” (hildreth et. al., 2016). too much of commitment remains unidentified causing ill-effects on health, happiness, and creativity. blind commitment may end up turning the employees exposed to risks and hazards in an organization. the current paper explores the importance of commitment as powerful principles of virtue ethics and also emphasizes the limitation of employee commitment mostly focusing on blind commitment. literature review the study of commitment has been a topic of grabbing interest and a radical concept to comprehend the varying nature of human behavior. interestingly, commitment has been conceptualized and defined variedly in the literature. as a study but “treated as a word requiring no such definition” (becker, 1960, p. 32), commitment was predominantly and explicitly studied in the fields of psychology and sociology. however, after 1960, most of the workplace literature mentioned the notions of commitment and loyalty of employees towards an organization only being highly conformed than that of their objectives. at such a point, the research interest of psychologists and sociologists centralized on the engagement of employees in collective actions like strikes and negotiations. through commitment towards their employers, union groups are able to grapple with the difference of status and power between the workers and the management thus improving social welfare (roethlisberger & dickson, 1939). gradually, the notion of commitment gained widespread use in the workplace literature. although many authors studied commitment as a predisposition and a mechanism through which commitment to a course of action may occur (becker, 1960), there were other studies which viewed commitment more as a psychological perspective largely based on attitude (kiesler, 1971). this attitude unites an employee with a goal, and the behavior followed by the drive to achieve the goal is considered as a commitment. contemporarily, it was hall (1971) who described career commitment as “the strength of one’s motivation to a chosen career role” (p. 59). further studies also indicated the experiences of the employees who had faced several hardships attaining rewards that changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 529 in one way or another encouraged their bonding with an organization (grusky, 1966). henceforth, multiple constructs on commitment at workplaces such as cosmopolitan integration and organizational introjections (gouldner, 1960), organizational control and use of power for employee management (etzioni, 1961), escalation of commitment (staw & fox, 1977) were identified providing insightful comprehension of commitment and its study. later, some authors described it as a relative strength of an individual’s identification and involvement in a particular organization (steers, 1977). it was after the development of the organizational commitment questionnaire (mowday et al., 1979) or later the three component model (allen & meyer, 1990) of organizational commitment containing three components—attentive commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment—that corresponded to distinct psychological states and achieved a broad recognition, “a construct of importance to employees and organizations that managers could measure and attempt to influence” (klein et al., 2009, p. 6). studies indicating the same reasons describe commitment as a “psychological state” (allen & meyer, 1990, p.14), a “psychological attachment” (o’reilly & chatman, 1986, p. 493) or “psychological bound” (mathieu & zajac, 1990, p. 171). other studies claimed that “commitment is an attitude that develops from a process called identification, which occurs when one experiences something, someone or some idea as an extension of oneself” (fink, 1992, p. 7). still, more studies described commitment as a constituent of three factors like “a strong belief in and acceptance of an organization’s goals and values, a willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization and a strong desire to maintain membership in an organization” (mohan, 1993, p. 71). over the past two decades commitment was mentioned within several conceptualizations with some variations, however, “despite more than 40 years of theory development and research there is still no easy answer” (klein et al., 2009, p. 39) to a proper definition of commitment. the origin of ethics often arises from the simplest questions like how to lead a life? and what one must do to lead a good life? answers to these questions are in one’s wants in life. a little contemplation would clarify that there are always good things like living and doing well that one most importantly wishes to achieve. everything in life is based on desire, that is stronger than a mere wish. while wishes remain in thoughts, desires generate actions. these actions are aimed at achieving one’s desires. desires are the sources of actions that represent human living. early ethicists developed far-reaching accounts on moral psychology and human behavior because of the same reasons. ethicists view ethics as life-forming actions derived from a basic concept that “if what we do originates in our natural desires, then the ethics originates in our natural desires for doing well and living well” (devettere, 2002, p. 13). one explanation that may be put here is that our living is moved mostly by desires and not solely by reason. these desires function independently of reason. the psychology of desire bounces from the thoughts based on cognitive ability and can be rational or from the feelings without much reflection that can be non-rational. studies also claim that experiences take place when there is conflict between nonrational desires and reason. for instance, at times our bodies feel the need to get indulged and this provoke us to gratify what we usually judge to be insensible or be https://changing-sp.com/ 530 mitashree tripathy angry at actions that we deprecate as unfair or malicious, “it is when this conflict occurs that the desires are said to be irrational as impelling us to volitions opposed to our deliberate judgements” (sidgwick, 1884, p. 11). sometimes we give in, sometimes we do not—and that is when we strongly feel the impulsive force of such irrational desires. mostly, such irrational desires are common among animals for their actions are determined by their instincts resulting from the incapability to reflect. interestingly, plato (ca. 360–380 b.c.e./1888) had profound concern about defining different aspects of desires. in his book the republic (book iv), plato mentions that sometimes non-rational desires may be a cause of some definite behavior among mature human beings. plato describes that three parts of human soul that are the appetitive, the spirited, and the rational have their own desires consisting of urges towards pleasure like basic and bodily needs, emotions like sorrow, happiness, anger, and goodness like ones that are truly good respectively. the rational aspect based on logical reasoning decides whether the appetitive and intense desires are good for human life and living. while various philosophers interpret the three aspects of desires differently, socrates believes, all human desires are rational. plato claims some of the non-rational desires spring from the appetitive and spirited zones. ethics for socrates is rational as “it’s based on accurate knowledge that assists in making moral decisions, while for plato, it is more than rational as we need to shape and form our non-rational desires through training, education, and the development of good habits, dispositions, and attitude, while aristotle calls it intellectual virtue and character virtue” (devettere, 2002, p. 16). hence, virtue ethics focuses mainly on characteristics like justice, courage, honesty, love and the like. plato’s view within the tradition of work and commitment elucidates that “everyone born into this world has an innate predisposition for a particular kind of work. only by the finding and doing of this work can a person become who he or she truly is” (sworder, 2005, p. 184). only this predilection solely determines an individual’s personality, irrespective to any other comparisons with social conditioning, birth place, family background or any other factors that define the quest of human existence. the sole purpose of life is to carry out this work and make efforts to see that the task is completed. furthermore, plato strongly believes that every individual is naturally in-built for one specific kind of work only and is better served by doing just that since this is what complies with one’s intrinsic inclination. considering his tradition towards ethics, plato just like aristotle maintains a virtuebased eudemonistic conception of ethics which solely delves around the happiness or well-being of an individual. on this, plato preserves “the highest aim of moral thought and conduct and the virtues are the requisite skills and dispositions needed to attain it” (frede, 2017). for example, the requisite skills of a race horse are whatever that drives it towards the commitment of running well. similarly, the skill of an eye enables it to see well. this further ideates that anything that has excellence enables things to perform well and this is what plato embarked on to ascertain, “a truly satisfactory account of any virtue would identify what it is, show how possessing it enables to live well, and indicate how it is best acquired” (meinwald, n.d.). what is imperative therefore is the stringent and equivalent connection that keeps together work, ethics, and commitment and enabling and engaging rational emotional response towards stimuli. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 531 as an umbrella term, virtue ethics includes several of distinct theories and claims that provides distinguishing advances towards ethical and moral issues. these theories have originated in the works of plato, aristotle, hume and others, it would therefore be quite an impossible and exhaustive task to narrate all the diverse theories. however, this paper would attempt to provide a glimpse wherever apt, more from the unparalleled theories as prescribed by aristotle (ca. 350 b.c.e./1889) as it was here in his theories that reflected the development of ethics, moral psychology, and individual behavior. in the words of aristotle, “virtue is the law of our nature under which law we are born” (aristotle, ca. 350 b.c.e./1889, p. ix) and by that same law if we could attain any virtue we would be satisfied. this concept has also been backed by crisp and slote (1997) as they mention that “in his book nicomachean ethics, aristotle argued that the best life for a human being—eudaimonia—consists in the exercise of the virtues (or the ‘excellences’)” (p. 2). in other words, a life cannot be worth living without the exercise of virtue ethics. although such theories have been highly criticized by moore (1962) that “aristotle’s definition of virtue is not adequate and express a false ethical judgment considering it highly unsystematic and confused, owing to his attempt to base it on the naturalist fallacy” (pp. 176–177). some authors understand the concept of virtue ethics by distinguishing it from deontology and utilitarianism. they explicate that while a utilitarian chiefly emphasizes the consequences of doing an action that in ways make the most of well-being, a deontologist primarily underlines actions that deal duties so one acts in accordance with moral duties, virtue ethics emphasizes “motives and character of moral agents” (hursthouse, 1999, p. 2). both utilitarianism and deontology deal with ethics of actions and behavior, not the outcome or consequences. substantiating this claim, some studies reveal that both utilitarianism and deontology have severe limitations as they leave no space for motivation or cognition often leading to contradicting contexts as ethics “measure and compare the utilities of various people and reduce ethics to rules and leaving no place for conscious choice giving rise to conflicting rules” (storchevoy, 2018, p. 56). only virtue ethics strives to remain in a transitional position emphasizing exclusively the requisites of utilitarianism, deontology, and other ethics. virtue ethics is rich in norms of excellence of character and well-disposed in “reason, feelings, desires, motives, emotions, as well as actions” (swanton, 2001, p. 16218). virtue ethics is thus an amalgamation of all the exquisite inner states that construct and reflect an individual’s character. together, all these intrinsic qualities produce moral goods; however, “the combination of motivation and reason in specific contexts distinguishes virtue ethics from utilitarianism and deontology” (van staveren, 2007, p. 27). hence, while virtue ethics comprises all valued attributes, the character is reflected only on having good motivations and good reasons for actions. griffin (1998) further supports this, claiming that “the virtues are grounds, they provide reasons, for our decisions about right and wrong” (p. 57). in other words, virtues are plain and basic, giving judgements about the right and wrong actions. still, further studies identify virtue ethics with personality traits and describe it as “a disposition to act, desire, and feel that involves the exercise of judgment and leads to a recognizable human excellence or instance human flourishing” (yearley, 1990, p. 87). virtue ethics hypothesizes the https://changing-sp.com/ 532 mitashree tripathy distinctive states of an individual that persuades leading to an action considering those that induce morally good actions or more comprehensively socially acceptable actions. it is based on the principle that an individual with moral virtues is certainly ethical in comparison to others who solely follow rules or fulfil duties. hence, here the emphasis is upon the character of a person and not on the nature of their actions. essentially, the approach defends that people should act consistently, which is the crucial characteristic of ethical people. providing a detailed analysis on virtue ethics and workplace commitment, now the question arises in the concept of moral blindness and particularly, considering the context of workplaces, to what extent or not the concept of moral blindness is reflected. the concept of moral blindness is proposed by bernard stiegler in his book states of shock: stupidity and knowledge in the 21st century (2015), where he states that moral blindness is an act of stupidity. while he concludes that stupidity is human; however, the lack of thinking links to blindness. however, bird (1996) views that people in fact carry moral beliefs but somehow fail in articulation. bird expresses, “they remain silent out of deference to the judgements of others, out of fear that their comments will be ignored or out of an uncertainty that what they might have to say is really not that important” (p. 1). they may even fail to raise questions about happenings that might need investigation or further questioning. this makes them morally mute or silent. in other words, bird defines moral blindness as a state when “people fail to see or recognize moral concerns and expectations that bear upon their activities and involvements” (p. 85). interestingly, moral blindness takes place at all levels: personal, social, and more particularly at professional levels with extensive consequences. for instance, “unethical behavior may be deeply ingrained in an organization’s routine procedures, including its related artifacts like forms, standard operating procedures” (kump & scholz, 2022). these routine procedures may execute employees to carry out their roles and responsibilities in a way like things are often done, i.e. without questioning. in other words, such unethical practices are routinized without much critical thinking or questioning resulting in blind commitment. the virtue of workplace commitment workplaces are dynamic systems working for a mission. there are many factors that help run this system and affect its growth development. commitment is one of the many radical factors that affect the performance of a given workplace. it is also apparent to understand why employees remain committed to their work or organization. some studies claim that the shifting demands of the current markets and organizations, the increasing attachment of more and more people to the organization indeed gets critical “when innovation, continuous improvement, high-quality standards, and competitive prices are demanded of companies and employee discretionary effort comes to be an essential resource” (gonzález & guillén, 2007, p. 401). other expressions also suggest that the objective may be either intrinsic originating from within self like personal values, attributes, or extrinsic arising from external factors like norms and work experiences that keeps employees motivated to move forward. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 533 reasons behind an employee’s commitment towards organization are numerous, they vary from employees to employees. however, research reveals that it all depends on the compatibility between employees and organizations that occurs when “at least one entity provides what the other needs or they share similar fundamental characteristics or both’’ (kristof, 1996, p. 5). general fundamental characteristics may be common goals that both an organization and employees share. further studies disclose that commitment takes place mostly because of values (bar-haim, 2019, p. 16) found as a common feature in both employees and an organization. another reason that binds an employee with an organization is an employee’s sense of identification with the work that they do, so much that they are entirely absorbed into it. some may connect more with team spirit being the ideology and never letting it down. others do it for an organization as a whole and how it works for its employees and contributing to that effort is the driving factor behind commitment. hence, one may assume that each reason is specific and different from others and each reason indicates high levels of commitment. each reason further reveals some kind of characteristics traits like having values, sharing commonality, identification with work, not letting co-workers down, obligation towards an organization. these characteristic traits are morally good and are valued as fundamental principles on a morally good being. such virtues are comprehended to promote collective and individual greatness. virtue ethics has been regarded as an unremitting process where individuals evolve for good. workplace environment today has primarily focused on virtue ethics as it is virtue ethics, although not the only parameter, that contributes to the growth and expansion of an ethical mindset. some research states that the ethics approximated by aristotle often “diverges from his predecessors as he believed that individual character was at the heart of ethical behavior rather than compliance with rules or duty” (meglich, 2015, p. 2). according to aristotle (ca. 350 b.c.e./1889), the theory of virtue ethics has its own strengths comprising that “the more involved are people in virtuous acts, the happier they would be as happiness is the chief good and as an energy of the soul according to the best virtue in a perfect life” (p. xvi). however, taking happiness as the sole purpose of life, a question arises: can the pursuit of happiness be relied on the act of commitment? as one study professes, “a commitment involves two components. one is an act: the summoning up of a resolve. the other is the content: whatever is the object of the resolve” (cahn & vitrano, 2007, p. 1888). from the said perspective, it may be suggested that unless an employee intentionally and willingly attempts to resolve something he may not be involved in the virtuous act of commitment. one has to learn and practice virtues to be virtuous consistently. perhaps that is why when employees at the workplace involve themselves more into commitment willingly and persistently, they tend to remain happy and thereby be liable to still remain more committed. it acts like a cyclic process. workplace commitment is largely driven by employees’ motivation. studies believe that “commitment can serve as a particularly powerful source of motivation and can often lead to persistence in the course of action even in the face of opposing forces, such as outcome contingencies or fairness concerns” (gagné, https://changing-sp.com/ 534 mitashree tripathy 2014, p. 37). many theories and research compare motivation and commitment revealing some similarities. although both motivation and commitment are the forces mostly implicated for behavior, however, motivation is a broader concept than commitment and “commitment is one among a set of energizing forces that contributes to motivated behavior” (meyer et al., 2004, p. 994). most importantly, commitment is generally allocated and is confined to major decisions and long-term implications such as commitment to continue the work in an organization even in trying times or commitment to continue the work with a client, whereas motivation is reserved with minor or short-term implications such as motivation to continue with a team or a project or simply to organize one’s workstation. aristotle virtue ethics reflects moral questions like what kind of person do i want to be? instead of what should i do in these circumstances? (waluchow, 2003, p. 216). in other words, virtue ethics is a character-based ethics fostering individuals to develop good character and motives. according to aristotle, the significance of motivation plays a vital role in the moral assessment of actions and people. studies rightly claim that “the ethical assessment of a person’s character is determined only by the motives that determine his actions” (gaut, 2018, p. 249). however, ethically irrelevant actions that get motivation through any feelings or thoughts may not be considered entirely ethically wrong. this suggests that “the character traits arise from the basis of virtue that is expressed behaviorally because of conflicts with emotional or cognitive traits” (fleming, 2003, p. 60). many times, at the workplace, employees may be driven towards wrong actions or dealings for instant gains or shortcuts to success. they may have inappropriate thoughts but can be ethically good as they may have the capability to resist any influence of such thoughts and feelings on their will. thus, it may be assumed that thoughts and feelings that do not motivate insignificant or unethical actions are equally crucial. commitment as a virtue is deeply rooted with motivation, embedded and infixed, difficult to remove. aristotle claims that “virtue can be either natural or acquired by habit, teaches to think rightly respecting the principle” (aristotle, ca. 350 b.c.e./1889, p. 197). does it mean that commitment is a natural tendency and it comes effortlessly to the employees? virtuous character evolves through recurrent practice as one study asserts “by building, we become builders, by playing the lyre, lyre players and so too we become just by doing just actions and temperate by doing temperate actions” (rhode, 2019, p. 5). to be precise, much of character is produced through repeated activities so many times that this becomes an individual’s second nature thereby establishing a virtuous disposition of character. thus, the situations compel people to shape their characters either by bringing something to the situations or taking something away from them. this something is character generally interpreted as positive traits. furthermore, character interpreted as positive traits explain us ways to lead a good life reflecting stability with choice and will. natural virtues promote morally good actions and arise from “virtues as the core characteristics like wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence that are universal, perhaps grounded in biology through an evolutionary process” (peterson & seligman, 2004, p. 11). however, virtue as a rational nature is highly unstable because while changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 535 the inherent traits may drive towards a courageous action, willingness and need may still drive into a conflicting direction which is why habituation is required. as one study explains, “habituation in humans can produce contrary dispositions and the directions in which these dispositions take shape are determined by desire and choice” (leunissen, 2017, p. 37). this study claims and confronts that virtue traits cannot be permanent and steady; habituation causes an immense impact. still, more studies claim that natural inclinations may be shaped by some kind of training or education, “the authentic character virtue does not arise until a person does not take charge of his or her life and freely decides what when and how to perform the actions that develop the character” (yuen, 2020, p. 100). it is evident that commitment as a virtuous act also comes to employees only when they have the freedom to perform their duties that develop their character. the above section focused mostly on the philosophical analysis of the reasons behind employee’s commitment at the workplace. however, the section below studies the three component model (allen & meyer, 1990) that focuses on the psychological reasons behind employees’ commitment at workplaces. the model determines primarily on three factors that are affective commitment (emotional connection), continuance commitment (fear of losing) and normative commitment (obligation) that emphasizes the “want to, need to and ought to” (matusitz, 2013, p. 234) perspective of commitment. however, it is important to comprehend that “affective, continuance and normative commitment are considered to be components rather than separate types of organization commitment” (goffin & helmes, 2000, p. 291). one should not be mistaken that the employees are categorized under these three components; rather, these three components describe how each employee’s feels for the organization at varying degrees. let us understand the concept in detail and in connection with aristotle’s philosophical distinction of virtues as a reference that would provide a robust explanation of commitment at workplace. aristotle (ca. 350 b.c.e./1889) in his nicomachean ethics describes that there are many virtues that humans seek through actions and relationships and these virtues can be deterministically ordered according to the relationships. aristotle further describes the three ends in a relationship that dwell on friendship, namely “friendship for utility, friendship for pleasure and friendship of good people” and this concept clearly solidarizes with the concept of organizational commitment with the three-component model of psychological mindset that are affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment. aristotle’s friendship for pleasure is connected to the areas of feelings and desires which can be identified with affective commitment where emotions play a pivotal role and explain one’s attachment towards an action. similarly, friendship for utility is like continuance commitment where people pursue reward or utility and further make the decision of leaving or staying in an organization after an analysis of cost-benefit principle. and lastly, friendship of good people is compliant with normative commitment where employees stay committed with the organization to pursue the objective of personal distinction or fulfilment. the subsequent sections study in details each of the commitment as prescribed by the three-component model (allen & meyer, 1990). https://changing-sp.com/ 536 mitashree tripathy affective commitment affective commitment is the psychological state of employees where emotions play a vital role. it refers to “the emotional attachment, identification with and involvement” (allen & meyer, 1990, p. 2) at a workplace. there is a genuine desire to be part of the organization as an employee receives job satisfaction. many authors also tend to claim that “affective commitment develops when involvement in an occupation proved to be a satisfying experience” (coetzee & roythorne-jacobs, 2007, p. 63). in other words, when the employees are provided with ample freedom and opportunities to learn, grow, and develop their skills there will originate a sense of emotional attachment towards the organization. studies clearly mention that “employees who had greater freedom to accept their job expressed significantly stronger affective commitment to the organization they chose than did those with less freedom” (meyer & allen, 1997, p. 50). furthermore, the development of affective commitment also occurs when an organization understands and is committed to the employee’s personal fulfilment. in return, employees are likely to contribute significantly in bringing more productivity to the organization thereby improving their competence, and resulting in a happier, healthier staff and possible reducing employee turnover (clausen et al., 2015). it is a psychological give-and-take process of positive emotions. thus, the development of affective commitment vastly augments when personal values and organization values and goals align fostering “coordination and communication that facilitate job performance and bring desired rewards” (edwards & shipp, 2007, pp. 240–241) continuance commitment continuance commitment occurs when employees evaluate the pros and cons of quitting an organization. employees tend to weigh the loss and gains of staying in the company where the loss they would experience by leaving may be greater than the gains they might achieve in a new position or company. continuance commitment is described as “the extent to which employees feel committed to their organizations by virtue of the costs that they feel are associate with leaving” (meyer & allen, 1984, p. 375). this suggests employees do not have the emotional attachment to their work or organization, they rather feel the need to continue there because it would be too expensive to quit. studies claim that “this reluctance to quit may be due to the risk of losing a large bonus by leaving early or because they are well established in the community where they work” (mcshane & von glinow, 2000, p. 136). also, other studies indicate that “continuance commitment develops as a result of lack of alternative employment opportunities and an accumulation of side bets, that is investment that increase the costs associated with leaving the organization” (cohen, 2003, p. 121). however, organizations are often responsible for creating continuance commitment among the employees. certain company practices bind them through golden handcuffs encouraging them to stick with the organization instead of moving out. although the organizations stay successful in reducing turnover, they fail to originate emotional attachment thereby leading to low or less engagement in the organization’s behaviors rebating the sense of belonging. in addition, continuance commitment is more likely to promote formal grievances instead of solving interpersonal issues. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 537 normative commitment in addition to the “want to” and “need to” perspectives of commitment, the third perception is “ought to” or a sense of obligation that associates an employee with an organization because “remaining a member is the morally right thing to do” (jex, 2002, p. 134). morally committed employees engage in activities driven by a sense of duty. their sense of duty may arise from various reasons, one of which may be “a consequence of socialization experiences and investments made by the organization in the individual” (dipboye, 2018, p. 217). thus, employees understand the feel and need of obligation and demonstrate loyalty at their workplaces. at certain levels, the loyalty demonstrated by the employees is based on the fact and their belief that there exists a rational point of view in achieving a goal. studies discuss that normative commitment perfectly aligns personal identity with rationality. this indicates that employees are bound to achieve this goal considering it as a prescriptive force of ought or, in other words, it means “they think that overall rational is something that they ought to achieve and, in that sense, they have a normative commitment to achieving such unity” (rovane, 2019, p. 23). hence, normative commitment is carrying out rational activities out of consideration that essentially springs from a certain rational point of view. after an analysis of the three components of commitment, it can now be assumed that one common factor in all three of them is the motivation behind remaining committed at the workplaces. for example, in affective commitment there is emotional motivation, in continuance commitment, motivation to continue exists as there are no better options, and in normative commitment motivation entails because of morals and values. this motivation becomes a character trait of an employee that let the employee to be involved in the decision-making process like whether to stay or quit an organization. such tendencies in ethical decision making “allow a person to decide how to behave in any particular situation” (oko, 2011, p. 56) in terms of motive rather than the consequences. amalgamating the concepts as contributed by the authors and researchers, philosophers and psychologists, commitment at workplaces can be comprehended as a multifaceted construct and one can better understand why employees become committed to an organization only by being aware of this versatility instead of choosing one definition over the other. commitment can be influenced by several factors like motivation or can be achieved through practice, making it a habit through training and education. the quality of the commitment is largely dependent on the mindset of the individual. for example, if the mindset of the individual is committed more out of willingness than out of fear, the bond is expected to be stronger and last longer. many employees remain committed to their jobs because of their passion or love for what they do, or sometimes they find their personal goals aligning with those of the organization. at times, many employees stick to their job out of fear of losing what they have. furthermore, a feeling of obligation to their organization or to their senior may also make them committed to the organization. however, the ultimate fact relies on the notion that when the individuals are provided with the freedom to contribute in a certain assignment or pursue a career, they are more likely to be efficient and productive. https://changing-sp.com/ 538 mitashree tripathy hence, commitment can be understood as an internal force that unites an individual to an objective. likewise, organizations are also expected to be responsible towards the employee’s growth and development by providing them ample opportunities to do challenging and significant work. such opportunities would motivate the employees to develop a sense of belonging towards the workplaces crafting a kind of commitment among the employees. as a dynamic process, commitment reflects the tendency to “bind an employee to the organization; thereby reducing the likelihood of turnover” (young, 2006, p. 45). this points out that, on the whole, the predisposition of commitment is binding an employee with the organization for equal or mutual benefit. the objective of the mutual benefits fosters the development of an attitude for which both the organization and the employee manifest a commitment mindset. hence, commitment in itself is a reflection of the actions and the consequences and produces a recurring process, a continuous one, a consistent one. however, revising all said about commitment and comprehending commitment as an ethical perspective, the point that needs attention here is the following: having its strengths, commitment has limitations as well. by mentioning this, the section below discusses about blind commitment or the downside of commitment emphasizing mainly the disadvantages of commitment. blind commitment literature on the concept of moral blindness suggests that a lack of integration of moral thinking in making decisions is defined as moral blindness. mostly, when employees focus too much on simple following the orders as part of organizational criteria without inquiring the moral radicals of any activity or action, they tend to practice moral blindness. in other words, there is a general pantomime of obedience towards the manager or the authority or towards a functional role in the business organization. this suggests employees who follow moral blindness are incapable of using their thought process and are blindly committed towards the instructions of the administration. the underlying causes of such a behavior pattern can be that due to the lack of moral thinking the employees fail to see an ethical dilemma in their actions. and even if they do, they tend to ignore this ethical dilemma in order to return the favor of their duty as a part of organizational mandate. somehow the employees are strongly attached to the ideologies of the organization that they cannot see beyond it. rendtorff (2020) finds “this attachment as an abstraction from concrete human needs and concerns in the business organization” (p. 93). he further elucidates moral blindness as “the dark side of action in organizational systems, and it manifests the need to move towards ethical principles, judgement and ethical recognition in management and administration” (rendtorff, 2017, p. 6). based on an organization’s perspective, it is an obvious fact that every organization would want their employees to be committed. it is because a committed workforce appears to positively affect the growth and development of an organization. however, the employees’ perspective of being too committed is generally overlooked. every organization has its hierarchical structure hence, although employees work changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 539 under an organization but there is always an immediate superior whose orders and instructions they are committed to. those who hold authoritative positions but at the same time lose their own motivation or are suffocated by their own roles and responsibilities may significantly abuse or misguide the commitment of the employees. this may be one of the many reasons behind the existence of blind commitment. blind commitment (randall, 1987) to an organization means that employees accept an organization as it is with all its strengths and weaknesses, faults and flaws, and success and failures. however, can the act of blind commitment be necessarily the act of virtue? one study argues that “a strong commitment to retaining and acting on one’s commitments even through testing circumstances, however is not necessarily virtuous, because such a commitment could equally well be involved in vices of excess” (rees & webber, 2013, p. 399). decoding this, one may assume that vice is anything that “counts against having a good moral character or virtue” (adams, 2008, p. 36). in other words, vice is anything that contains negative traits in an individual’s character. as already explained in the above sections, virtue is powerful, however, powers sometimes are predisposed to run to excess or, at times, to paucity. this excess of virtue creates vices. studies determined that “vice is simply an excess of virtue” (bierbower, 1888, p. 216). for example, too much of courage is rashness, too much of discretion is spinelessness, too much of kindness is assumption, too much of liberty is extravagance, and too much of loyalty is drudgery. in a similar context, the excess of commitment can be dangerous too as “this can lead to an environment where ethically dubious instructions are carried out without question” (dietz, 2014). blind commitment supersedes commitment to the extent that it often becomes a cult-like shaping the behavior of the employees. in other way, blind commitment like an excessive subservience to the authority, can largely hamper personal goals and attempts towards self-learning and knowledge gain. this is because the authorities would want their employees to remain glued to their work, group and other activities relevant or irrelevant to their group. on the other hand, employees fear to lose whatever they possess and constantly remain devoted. this further leads to “expenditure of time and energy that is therefore not available to invest elsewhere that is towards family or hobbies” (meyer & allen, 1997, p. 3). furthermore, an employee’s critical thinking gets dampened as in every other situation they have to follow orders and instructions believing it as a part of their duty and justifying their commitment to the workplaces. this attitude is a clear example of blind commitment. the employees believe that their sense of duty makes them committed little knowing that too much of acceptance and saying “yes” all the time is nothing but a slavery. this situation is totally compliant with continuance or normative commitment where employees stick to workplaces due to moral obligation or fear of losing something significant. hence, evaluating situations is a must. at workplaces, critical thinking is a must as this ability facilitates the evaluation of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions as well as employers, management, stakeholders and others at workplaces. while thinking is considered casual and effortless, “critical thinking calls for persistent effort to apply theoretical constructs to understanding the problem, consider evidence, and evaluate methods or techniques https://changing-sp.com/ 540 mitashree tripathy for forming a judgement” (seel, 2012, p. 635). the central notion of critical thinking is to question, assess reasons and go beyond single perspectives of things and situations. thus, commitment without critical thinking, or logical reasoning and questioning is ineffective. developing critical thinking is not impossible. through proper training and guidance employees can be made aware of viewing and thinking of things differently. to a certain extent, if not completely, such training can present to the trainees their ethical emotions that play a crucial role in the processes of ethical deliberations. for example, when certain things go wrong or right at the workplace, ethical emotions notify the employees of such things making them think, assess and question the situations instead of blindly following and saying “yes” to everything. hence, blind commitment is a vice and should not be promoted. evaluating both commitment and blind commitment, it is presumably clear that commitment has both its pros and cons. however, it is surely a difficult task to understand how much commitment is required at the workplace and when is the right time drawing a line between commitment and blind commitment. further, since critical reasoning is an aspect that differentiates between the two, it can be assumed that an individual should stick to critical reasoning every time before taking any orders and making any decisions. one study cites aristotle and claims that “natural character virtues without practical reason are blind while effective reasoning without the guidance by moral virtues is either mere cleverness or villainy” (besser-jones & slote, 2015, p. 27). this means that one cannot entirely disregard moral virtues over critical reasoning and vice versa since both the aspects stand clearly as the two extremes and virtue stands in between them. too much towards any of the extremes is too little towards the other one whereas virtue stands halfway from the two extremes. hence, while blind commitment at the workplace is one extreme, negligence of duties and responsibilities is another. the golden mean in such a case would be to remain committed towards the organization, superiors, colleagues, with a genuine motivation to stand by them and do things rightly whenever needed, specifically at the times of contingencies. it is an obvious fact that human nature would get attracted towards any of the extremes. at that moment, employees should restrain themselves from getting biased towards one of the extremes and try to be at the halfway from both extremes. although maintaining the balance between the two extremes is difficult to achieve, it may not be impossible. conclusion organizational commitment and its consequences indicate that values and virtues relate closely as competencies and their strong implementation should be considered as an integral feature in any organization. it is imperative to highlight the fact that employees at times are unable to see the ethical dimensions of situations which make them responsible for the consequences of the decisions they have made. after the review of some protuberant and recent research works in the field of organizational commitment this paper brought into limelight the three-dimensional framework that proceeds for a distinction between “continuance”, “affective”, and changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 524–546 541 “normative” dimensions of commitment and thereby distinguishes them from blind commitment that is a result of moral blindness. in an attempt to satisfy the primary purpose of this paper, the study explored the essence of moral theory and virtue ethics as its integral part. the paper attempted to unravel the rationale behind commitment at the workplace. commitment can mean a lot of things and can originate from desires, both rational and irrational, and motivation, both intrinsic or extrinsic. it can be related to a psychological state of mind like commitment out of attachment, commitment out of fear, and commitment out of obligation. similarly, commitment can also have philosophical connotations mostly as a virtue. based on the principles of aristotle, any virtue in excess is a vice. similarly, commitment in excess is blind commitment that lacks critical thinking and hampers personal goals and development. fortunately, the balance between commitment and blind commitment is, although difficult, but not impossible to achieve. escaping the extremes and focusing on the mean is a tactic. hence, a means or a balance between the two commitments creates a treasured work environment that provides a platform for long-term business. aristotle principles on virtue ethics specify that the greater emphasis should be put on developing personal virtues than building perfect systems. the importance of commitment as the appropriate paradigm of virtue ethics has been established and subsequently discriminated from blind commitment for long-term benefits at workplaces. references adams, r. m. 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(2020). solidarity and reciprocity with migrants in asia. religion and global migrations. palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03033365-2 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315712130 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315712130 https://doi.org/10.1024/1421-0185/a000068 https://doi.org/10.1080/09538250601080776 https://doi.org/10.1080/09538250601080776 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33365-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33365-2 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 182–196 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.169 received 16 june 2021 © 2022 svetlana v. ryazanova accepted 20 february 2022 svet-ryazanova@yandex.ru published online 11 april 2022 article talking to god: religion, para-science and disciplinary practices as consolidation tools svetlana v. ryazanova perm federal research centre of the ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, perm state agrotechnical university, perm, russia abstract the article examines social instruments used to consolidate small religious groups in modern society. such groups are viewed as a variation of the development of a local orthodox parish founded as a community of like-minded people. the research subject is closed religious community that has existed in the perm region (russia) for over thirty years. the community has evolved from a typical orthodox parish to a modern-type spiritual group that used non-orthodox sources of information and devotion, and was led by a woman. the study identifies most effective social instruments for the consolidation of those type of religious community. the research includes reconstruction of the history of the community and the analysis of the materials of spiritual seminars held there, reflecting gradual transformation of the teachings and change of the leader’s status. the research data were acquired from several sources: interviews and personal correspondence of the author with former members of the community, materials of journalistic investigations, etc. keywords contemporary religiosity, closed religious community, perm region, pokrovskaya obitel’ introduction in the 1990s, russia had witnessed not only the transformation of the political regime but also the proliferation of diverse religious groups, including completely new, as well as the old ones, which underwent significant changes in that period (akhmetova, 2010; dubin, 2006; filatov & strukova, 2003; kaariainen & furman, https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 182–196 183 2000; konacheva, 2001; mitrokhin, 2004; sinelina, 2014). in the 2000s and 2010s, the region of upper kama1 became a site of turbulent transformations in the sphere of religion, which had led to the emergence of new religious communities. one of those new forms was the closed community led by small group of religious activists, usually located in a single region or urban area. in this article, the term “closed religious community” is used to describe the specific way of religious community’s life in the urban environment. those communities are usually characterized by permanent membership, limited ties with the outside environment, and living within closed compounds. they also use consolidation methods that will be discussed below. the modern city inspires a new rhythm of religious life, new forms of piety, new the ways to consolidate a group of believers and to protect them from the outward influence. small religious groups, which exist in big cities (in this case—the city of perm), are often “invisible” for researchers. this is partly determined by the situation, in which such communities emerge and act. under state legislation, every group of believers regardless of its size has to be registered as a religious group and to constantly report local authorities about its activities. such a group has no chance to attract a sufficient number of neophytes, and to compete with other religious groups; its missionary work could only be conducted “indoors”, in its place of worship. usually, such “non-traditional” communities have no representation in inter-religious organizations like interconfessional advisory committee2. they do not participate in the official events on a par with the leaders of christian churches or the muslim ummah, and seldom attract media attention. a major part of the population views such communities as “sects”, harmful to their adherents and the adherents’ families. as a result, such groups are faced by a lot of complications in their religious and social life. nevertheless, in the religious history of russia, we have numerous examples of small religious groups, which are capable of be proud of both—a long, harrowed history and an impressive story of survival. among them are different communities of old believers (especially, so-called bezpopovtsy, the “priestless” strain of the old believer movement), unregistered pentecostals, initsiativniki (unregisted baptists), krishna worshippers, etc. they all were under significant administrative pressure, yet strove to preserve their spirituality and lifestyle (about the persecution of the old believers, see, for example, zenkovskii, 2009, pp. 531–605; about unregistered pentecostals: beliakova & kliueva, 2017; kliueva, 2015, 2020; about initsiativniki: glushaev, 2011; glushaev, 2012; glushaev & glushaeva, 2016; about the vaishnavas: pudov, 1989, pp. 466–477). while those groups were open to new members, yet they continued to exist as “closed communities” mostly because of the hostile environment around them. those communities that were consolidated around the figure of a leader were interpreted 1 the european territory of the urals, which includes part of the basin of the river kama. the kama region is traditionally defined by historians as the upper kama region, whose administrative center is the city of perm. 2 interconfessional advisory committee—public organization, which includes 7 confessions of the perm region—was established in october 1998. the tasks of the committee is organization of interreligious dialogue and holding of joint non-confessional cultural events. https://changing-sp.com/ 184 svetlana v. ryazanova by the authorities and some researchers as “sects” (for a detailed review of the term, see: panchenko, 2004, pp. 45–54). most of these groups now function as religious communities and are transparent for an external observervation. in the article, i would like to analyze the case of the religious organization’s transformation into a closed community due to its leader’s activities, which resulted in obtaining the new status of the group, new elements in doctrine, and specific principles of religious management. as a result, such communities become isolated from the society and face conflicts between former and actual members. pokrovskaya obitel’ [the holy virgin intercession abode] as a research object in the city of perm, a striking case is the community of pokrovskaya obitel’ (the holy virgin intercession abode). for over 30 years, it existed as a community of the orthodox believers and has come a long way from a conventional orthodox parish to an independent religious community with its original doctrine and cult practices. the main research question is the following: what were the way of the community’s consolidation under the conditions of the religious diversity of the 1990s and the administrative pressure of the 2000–2010s? what were the methods to convince the believers to prefer a small closed group to the official orthodox church parish and vernacular doctrine? first of all, let us briefly examine the history of the community. pokrovskaya obitel’ [the intercession abode] was founded by four religious activists from the karelia republic (george pervushin, george andrievsky, alexander altmark, and olga budilova). they planned the revival of the orthodoxy in the urals (private correspondence with george andrievsky). they started to work as a team under the original name istok [the source], whose members trained their sponsees to solve so-called “inventive problems” according to the method of genrich altshuller (private correspondence with george andrievsky). altshuller (1926–1998) was a soviet engineer and inventor who tried to find patterns of solving engineering tasks and devised a set of mental techniques (altshuller, 2010; altshuller & shapiro, 1956). the emphasis on secular methodology was gradually substituted by the orthodox dogmatics. in 1990, four partners and their followers decided to organize an orthodox community. activists’ first actions included organization of home chapels for the residents of orphanages, male and female labor camps, and mental hospitals. meanwhile, the founders of the movement received the official ecclesiastic status: three men who were part of the original team became priests, while the only woman among them remained the mastermind of the movement with new adherents joining it. the main problem was to find affordable housing and headquarters for the community. the problem was solved thanks to one of the woman–adherent, who exchanged her flat to a wooden house that became the base for the community, which henceforth became known as pokrovskaya obitel’ [the intercession abode]. the title “abode” had to emphasize the communal cohabitation of its members (private correspondence with georgy andrievsky). the house was reconstructed and soon supplemented changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 182–196 185 with additional premises. the newly-ordained priests provided orthodox services for the intercession abode parish. the main focus of the religious group was charity. 2002–2011 period brought some major changes into the community’s life. all members who dwelt on the premises had to take part in religious services led by the priests and to work in the house, garden, or farm. meanwhile, olga budilova’s task was to teach the holy scripture and other sacred texts. she was in charge of the spiritual education for the faithful leading seminars devoted to the christian way of life and spiritual upbringing of the members of community. those educational activity attracted some orthodox christians from perm and other places (for example, exmembers of the george kochetkov’s orthodox fraternity). in the years 2002–2015, more than 100 people became members or temporary inhabitants of community of the intercession abode. about 40–50 of them became the core of the community, and budilova was able to consolidate believers as her followers. for some of them, she became incontestable authority even higher than the orthodox church clergy, and more important that their relatives. eventually, george pervushin and george andrievsky left the community (the former faced difficulties in his family life while the latter was accused in abuse by the local religious authorities). alexander altmark has lost his status as the head of the perm orthodox gymnasium and served at the parish as an ordinary priest. the exceptional position of budilova as a spiritual leader remained unchanged and unchallenged. it is worth noting that she never had any official status in the community. in november 2019, after the inspection from the diocesan commission and several lawsuits from a former member, the intercession abode community was excluded from the diocese and declared heretical. alexander altmark was stripped of his priesthood, and the community became legally independent. nevertheless, the expulsion from the local orthodox diocese did not hinder the community’s ongoing activities. below, i would analyze instruments and methods used by budilova in order to strengthen her control over the community in the situation when its leadership was partially disintegrated. my aim is to prove the eclectic character of the community, which leadership had used not only religious but also some mythological and secular methods in order to attain the obedience of its members. i have used various types of sources to gather information about community of the intercession abode and its doctrine. in recent years, the community has existed in complete isolation from the outside world, which made proper observations almost impossible. the community’s members unanimously rejected any contact with researchers or journalists. there were only two interviews conducted with the former followers of olga budilova; both were highly problematic and partisan. to compensate the lack of information, i have used private correspondence with one of the community’s founders (with the informant’s permission). thus, my research is based on anonymous personal communication with community members in 2008–2009, 2010–2011, and 2014–2015. from theoretical point of view, the main problem for researcher is to find the demarcation line between contemporary and traditional religiosity, new religious https://changing-sp.com/ 186 svetlana v. ryazanova movements and parishes, which belong to so-called “traditional” churches. in my opinion, such demarcation would help to determine the place of a newborn religious group in the confessional space, and to explain the features of its doctrine, cult practice, and management. basically, we have a ready-made classification toolkit in our hands. there are quite many publications about new religious movements (nrm) both domestically and internationally. contemporary researchers single out their basic features: exotic origin; new lifestyle; deep level of involvement into the movement; and charismatic leadership (barker, 1989, 2009, 2015; wilson, 2005). dianna stone and bruce a. campbell added to this list the following characteristics: new sacred power in the ordinary life of people; new structures of social cohesion (new communes); new task and means of spiritual healing; a gearing-up for the arrival of a new age, anti-institutionalism and decentralization; accept of the authority of science; pragmatic attitude; organizational openness (arweck, 2006; campbell, 1978; derek & hankins, 2003; stone, 1978; zeller, 2010). many russian researchers agree with these characteristics (gurevich, 2019; kanterov, 2018; mitrokhin, 1985), adding to this list active proselytism (astakhova, 2011; fedotov, 2018; pronina et al., 2018; tkacheva, 1991), and syncretism (balagushkin, 1999). however, in the case of community of the intercession abode it is problematic to identify it as nrm. the community lacks several characteristics related to the lifestyle, origin, and principles of relationship with society (proselytism, organizational openness). during the first half of the community’s history, its members were incorporated into the religious life of the orthodox parish. despite the exclusion of the community from the orthodox parishes and the suspension of its priests, the members consider themselves as orthodox christians. in 2020–2021, the community took an active part in various social events of patriotic character, and received grants from local authorities. in the autumn of 2020, the community received grant from the administration of the ordzhonikidzevsky district of the city of perm to organize series of patriotic celebrations. as a result, uchebno-prakticheskii tsentr russkogo boevogo iskusstva imeni generalmaiora iuriia ivanovicha drozdova [the training and practical centre for russian martial arts named in the honor of major general of foreign intelligence service yuri drozdov] was founded3. however, the community cannot be classified as a sect, since they have existed in isolation from the society (for a detailed analysis of the term see: panchenko, 2004, pp. 45–54). at the same time, the community has exhibited some clearly ”sectarian” features—specific interpretations of the holy scripture, as well as sacred plots and images; charismatic role of the eaders; social isolation. in the following section, i would analyze whether the community bears any characteristics of either new religious movement or historical sect. 3 https://vk.com/upcrbi https://vk.com/upcrbi changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 182–196 187 olga budilova and her interpretation of faith officially, community of the intercession abode was a part of the russian orthodox church of the moscow patriarchate until autumn 2019. the community’s website describes it as an “orthodox village” (ob obiteli pokrova presviatoi bogoroditsy, 2019). all members of the community were baptized, and for twenty years they visited orthodox services. in the seminars, olga budilova used various religious terms associated with christianity. she cited the holy fathers and called her followers to devote their lives to god, to conquer their arrogance, and to grow up spiritually (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015). the most popular idea of the seminars was to refrain from relying on one’s own abilities and to entrust one’s life to god: “spiritual affairs must be subordinated to jesus christ, our god” (anonymous source, personal communication, october 13, 2019; my translation—s. r.). at the same time, budilova offered a path to salvation that was different from the one offered by the traditional orthodox church. in the special seminar devoted to russian orthodoxy, budilova defined the latter categorically: “the church paves the way to hell. it is the beginning of apocalypse. the new church is found in the invisible sphere […] the church is the place where the word of god is killed” (anonymous source, personal communication, september 4, 2019; my translation—s. r.). the denial of the official church makes olga budilova’s ideas close to some teachings of old believers and so-called orthodox sects. unlike a significant part of new religious movements, budilova does not insist on the idea that all religions are the same or that they originate from a single source. her criticism of the orthodox church implied a hostile attitude to its members. instead of attending services, she suggested her followers to establish a personal contact with god through her mediation techniques. this accent becomes a central point of her interpretation of the christian doctrine (anonymous source, personal communication, february 25, 2015). budilova’s assertions that “god began to talk to us […], that he started a direct intimate interaction with us” (anonymous source, personal communication, february 21, 2015; my translation—s. r.) testifies strengthening mystical component of the religious faith. in the orthodox tradition, mystical experience is acceptable; but in this case, it has been interpreted specifically. the leader of the community becomes the primary translator and mediator of the mystical experience. on one hand, at every seminar, she talked about the communication and even some disputes with the almighty. on the other hand, requiring constant spiritual efforts from each member of the community, she influenced religious behavior of her followers, even in the smallest everyday things. this practice is similar to the role of the guru in so-called neo-orientalist doctrines (international society for krishna consciousness, transcendental meditation maharishi mahesh yogi, etc.). many researchers note the increasingly significant role of the leader in the community as a characteristical feature of the new religious movements in general (arweck, 2006; astakhova, 2011; balagushkin, 1999; barker, 1989, 2009). at the same time, it should be noted that historically many new religious groups were consolidated due to the authority of their leaders. https://changing-sp.com/ 188 svetlana v. ryazanova budilova has created a sense of belonging her followers to the chosen people destined for salvation through contact with the leader. the formation of an elitist consciousness is typical for the religious movements that arose in western culture in the second half of the 20th century and in russia after the 1990s. the case of olga budilova is interesting because she does not claim to create a new teaching and to revive any tradition. formally being within the boundaries of orthodoxy and using the format of training seminars, she broadcasts a specific worldview, and thereby formates the worldniew and behavior of her followers. perhaps, such interpretation of orthodoxy could be attractive to some representatives of the modern urban population, dissatisfied with everyday religiosity. in modern cities, the parish—as a basis of vernacular religiosity—is gradually melting away (ryazanova, 2018). if believers seek more intense spiritual life and cannot realize it independently, they may find satisfaction within communities like the intercession abode. such leaders as olga budilova promise to follow the traditional doctrine of faith. for those dissatisfied with the inconsistency of historical religion (as is is often the case in our time), it is proposed to adopt just some part of orthodoxy, which does not contradict modern cultural life. an adherent of such a leader simultaneously receives membership in a community of like-minded people and share their religious worldview, which helps to answer critical questions about the way of life and to obtain a sense of elitism. olga budilova’s disciples, as a rule, did not have either opportunity or desire to check how correct her interpretation of the orthodox doctrine and cult was. most of them had no experience of religious life before joining the community. psychological comfort and comfortable existance within a group replaces theological discussions and the inclination towards the pursuit of spirituality. eclecticism as a worldview and a way of management mystic ideas are not the only instrument that increases the cohesiveness of the community. it represents itself as a community of like-minded people. its main goal is to unite all adherents into a single movement. “the community is a place of deep learning where persons continually explore themselves and their relationship with the whole world and its creator; that’s why this community is in the permanent movement never staying at the same place or existing in the only one adopted form. the community is in continual development and search” (chto takoe obitel’? ee ideia ili glavnaia mysl’, 2019; my translation—s. r.). this fluidity of behavior and vision characterises mythological or secular worldview rather than religious consciousness, which implies following canonical norms. the members of the community had created sacred spaces, for example, training center, “which has an octagonal form and symbolizes the inner sense of russian martial art—the mystery of stone with eight sides” (ob obiteli pokrova presviatoi bogorodits, 2019; my translation—s. r.). they utilized cultural heritage of other countries (for example, performance of the el'fiiskaia pesn’ [elf song], composed in the community), old russian vowels, and different “magic things” (anonymous source, personal communication, february 21, 2015; interview with s. hvatkov). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 182–196 189 they not only prayed but also meditated and tryed to confront magically the enemies of the community, which is very typical for the mythological worldview. at the same time, the effectiveness and cohesiveness of the group was built up on several secular instruments. in my assumption, it was the teoriia resheniia izobretatel’skikh zadach (triz)4 [theory of inventive problem solving] and its principles, which became the theoretical and organizational basis for community seminars. by its nature, this theory is based on secular methods aimed at the development of creative thinking and contrivance. in budilova’s young years, when she worked in istok [the source], she had received necessary teaching experience. she regularly used a set of methods developed by altshuller, including the classic brainstorming methods like “yes and no” answers; the search for the primeval sense; devise of fantastic objects; getting the perception of an object as a part of larger one; uncovering contradictions; analysis of a phenomenon as if it existed in the past, present and future; creating imaginary situations and situations “what if”; heuristic questions; hyperbolization; and agglutination of images. undoubtely, the teaching method of the interactive seminars, which is typical for triz, can be used in teaching religion. budilova’s experience, in which she successfully used that method and was even able to unfluence the way of life of her adherents proves that she was quite skilled teacher. according to the witnesses, olga budilova’s seminars contained plenty examples of the triz methods and practices. her most popular method of explaining her ideas was creating the imaginary situations. sometimes, such situations were connected to religious services or practices: • “imagine that the holy gates have been opened, and you are the first who can come in” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.). quite often she used imaginary social situations: • “imagine that you have bought an agricultural area and one carbuncle was put up there” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.); • “you are a poor person standing in the street with a hand out” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.); • “when you join a battle in the war, you have no task to storm reichstag at once” (anonymous source, personal communication, february 16, 2007; my translation—s. r.); • “as if you are studying at the university and every day you have to pass an exam” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.). budilova had a rich imagination, and sometimes she offered her followers fantastic plots: • “if you were taken away from this planet […] where would you take a communion?” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.). 4 triz is a set of methods developed by g. s. altshuller for solving various types of problems, see kuznetsova (2018). https://changing-sp.com/ 190 svetlana v. ryazanova this way of explanation is completed by the so-called “what if” method. it looks like the way of “imaginative situations” but evokes deeper and clearer images: • “imagine that you have inner organs […]; imagine that they will not work” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.). the method of “hyperbolization of characteristics” gives us better understanding of budilova’s religious ideas. very often she used physical and chemical terms: • “this is each grain of time, a millisecond, a part of a second. we feel it to be overvalued” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.); • “there is a boundary, which, i say, is thinner than an angstrom” (anonymous source, personal communication, february 2, 2014; my translation—s. r.). the excessive use of scientific language is typical of some groups that identify themselves as orthodox (mitrofanova, 2021). at the same time, the use of scientific terms creates similarities between budilova’s texts and the eclectic doctrines of new religious movements. the difference between those methods and the use similar examples in the sermon was that the listeners took an active part in the process and offered their ideas of solving the problem. the method of “yes and no” answers and the analysis of the phenomenon as existing in the past, present, and future are very useful for the theory of inventive problem solving. the leader of the community applies them in the following way: • “each marriage exists between ‘yes’ and ‘no’” (anonymous source, personal communication, february 16, 2007; my translation—s. r.); • “the holy spirit has shown us some kind of future with great clarity. it is not our present time in which we are now but some kind of future” (anonymous source, personal communication, janiary 24, 2015; my translation—s. r.) the method of “uncovering contradictions” has the same effect, assisting disciples in evaluating all aspects of the phenomenon in question: • “it was transported to our world by satan. it is profitable for him […], but there is no such intension in the holy scripture” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.); • “she (‘virgin mary’—s. r.) has embedded what is not embedded” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.); • “in human life, it (marriage—s. r.) destroys incompatible contradictions” (anonymous source, personal communication, february 16, 2007; my translation—s. r.); • “each crystal […] stays on three pairs of contradictory categories” (anonymous source, personal communication, november 25, 2014; my translation—s. r.). the most important goal of these methods is to get used to the object of comprehension and to find “primary sense”. as a rule, budilova had only one such object—god. and only this term proves the religious character of these seminars: • “you must be concentrated on being directed to god” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.); changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 182–196 191 • “you need to grow together with god” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.); • “the attendance of god living between us” (anonymous source, personal communication, february 21, 2015; my translation—s. r.). according to budilova, this kind of comprehension gives one a possibility to be connected with the “primary sense” (anonymous source, personal communication, january 24, 2015; my translation—s. r.). the methods used in the seminars are secular by their nature5. their active use, in my opinion, indicates the desire of the leader to adapt the content of christian teaching to them. intensive learning not only influenced the way of followers’ thinking but also made them active advocates of the proposed lifestyle and social behavior. community regulation as a way to individual salvation one more instrument of influencing the followers is enforcing control over the group. first of all, it is the authority and control of the leader: • “you need all your ideas to be fixed and weekly come to the leader with this list of them” (anonymous source, personal communication, october 13, 2019; my translation—s. r.). • the “correct” assumption of the disciple usually leads to thoughts like “i am the worst”, “i deserve punishment for my sins” (anonymous source, personal communication, october 13, 2019; my translation—s. r.). • the members of the community are not able to analyze their ideas independently (anonymous source, personal communication, october 13, 2019). the community is recognized as the only way to salvation, as “a spiritual loupe”. it helps to recognize false things and correct them. if a person has been living in the community for a long time, they can understand everything and keep a “hawk eye” on the flock. all the punishments in the community, even corporal ones, are interpreted as useful and helpful for personal improvement (anonymous source, personal communication, october 13, 2019). that is why members should avoid to be by themselves. to be alone means to contrapose one’s own opinion to the opinion of the community guided by the holy spirit (anonymous source, personal communication, february 21, 2015). budilova urges to “part with everything that one has supported earlier because these are false anchorages” (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015; my translation—s. r.). the reverse side of such a directive is the strong criticism of the society and the external social environment. the leader insists: • “society is a monster, which forms artificial interactions between people. it is a form of suicide, created by people to stop their relations with god” (anonymous source, personal communication, december 4, 2016; my translation—s. r.). 5 in this case, by secular i mean an anthropocentric worldview, which is not based on religious views and prioritizes the scientific explanation of phenomena. https://changing-sp.com/ 192 svetlana v. ryazanova by that token, social marriage was considered a form of unfreedom; social unit like a city excluded the opportunity to pray to god (anonymous source, personal communication, may 11, 2015). those people who were disillusioned with the spiritual activity of the community were considered the enemies of the believers as their desire was to physically eliminate the holy community. every believer needs to minimize their social contacts through their membership in the community, the perception of the mystery of god’s love, and the integration of their nature with the nature of god. community of the intercession abode was interpreted as a non-social phenomenon that can save the follower from the terrible reality (anonymous source, personal communication, december 4, 2016). budilova called the neophytes to refuse from any form of travel (anonymous source, personal communication, january 24, 2015), to stay constantly in the community, and to stick to the recommendations of the spiritual leader. for the “chosen” members of the community she organized a special group voiny sveta (warriors of light), which purpose was to conquer enemies of the community and to provide spiritual grouth (anonymous source, personal communication, january 12, 2015). the status of a warrior becomes an additional attractor for those who have problems with the routine of social life. conclusion the characteristics of community of the intercession abode described above allows me to argue that it can be hardly attributed to the nrm. community members perceive themselves as orthodox believers who follow christian teaching. the leader does not declare the emergence of a completely new doctrine. the principles of the community’s organization and lifestyle could be better characterized as eclectical. the regulation of the lifestyle and social behavior is not typical for the majority of the orthodox parishes; using the idea of self-restraint and fulfillment of god’s will corresponds to the lifestyle of non-orthodox religious groups. in my opinion, this community is an attempt to institutionalize a modern interpretation of the orthodox doctrine. the leading role in the emergence of a community of such type undoubtedly belongs to the leader. budilova equally effectively uses her experience as a secular trainer and her religious authority as an elder. religious terms, mythological context, and secular methods have turned out to be very useful to organize a spiritual community and to keep control over it for a long time. a case of community of the intercession abode, i argue, shows the limitations of the terms “new religious movements“ and ”historical sects”. their application makes sense only when analyzing the phenomena localized in particular time and place. these terms do not reflect the specifics of contemporary religiosity. in modern religious life, there is an intensive development of various doctrines, cult practices, and communities of believers. the individual religiosity plays important role as a major factor of the development of religious life in the modern society. if the carriers of new ideas turn out to be able to lead people and transmit to them their changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 182–196 193 ideas about god, they become a centre of emerging of a new religious group. the educational qualification, gender, and competence of the group leader in the field of theology are much less significant. the success in the forming and functioning of the community of believers depends mainly on whether there is a demand for the religious product offered by the leader. if at the next stage of the group’s existence its leader can find effective methods of managing the followers, then the community of believers becomes highly resistant to external influences. such closed religious group may exist in an urban area, but they are not really popular among urban residents; rather, it enhances the unification of the worldview of its members and reduces the possibility of unwanted contacts. thus, a small group of like-minded people can turn out to be very tenacious in the face of competition between various religious trends. references akhmetova, m. 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(2009). russkoe staroobriadchestvo [russian old believers]. institut di-dik. https://doi.org/10.2307/3710212 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203299432-9 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203299432-9 https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814797204.001.0001 https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814797204.001.0001 4_2017.indd changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.4.023 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.4.023 article solidarity, religion, and the environment: challenges and promises in the 21st century mark s. cladis brown university, providence, usa abstract the relation among solidarity, religion, and the environment is a timely and pressing topic – or cluster of related topics. it has become clear that religion plays a salient role in forging social solidarity and, in the process, of shaping cultural perspectives that pertain to politics, education, the economy, and the environment. in this article, i do the following: (1) i argue that religion and solidarity should not be treated as anomalies in modernity, and that both religion and solidarity continue to play a significant role in local and global events; social solidarity in particular remains an essential condition for addressing many challenges that confront the globe today, including social justice and environmental degradation. (2) drawing mainly on the work of the social theorist, emile durkheim, i show the role solidarity plays in establishing freedom of conscience and individual rights (moral individualism), moral pluralism, moral education, economic justice, and political community; this broad discussion will constitute the greater part of this article. finally, (3) i discuss the relation among religion, solidarity, and environmental degradation; i argue that religion and solidarity can provide important cultural resources to combat global trends that threaten the environment. keywords durkheim; social solidarity; religion; freedom of conscience; environmentalism; moral pluralism 1. introduction: scope and qualifications the relation among solidarity, religion, and the environment is a timely and pressing topic – or cluster of related topics. many of today’s pressing political received 23 august 2017 © 2017 mark s. cladis accepted 23 october 2017 mark_cladis@brown.edu published online 27 december 2017 mark s. cladis354 and social concerns are illuminated by an understanding of the religious beliefs and practices that lie beneath and within the news headlines. whether one ventures into the religions of asia, the middle east, africa, the americas, and europe, one sees how the formation and transmission of beliefs, behaviors, values, rituals, texts, institutions, and forms of community have a considerable influence on global and local events. in particular, it has become clear that religion plays a salient role in forging social solidarity and, in the process, of shaping cultural perspectives that pertain to politics, education, the economy, and the environment. in this article, i will do the following: • i will argue that religion and solidarity should not be treated as anomalies in modernity, and that both religion and solidarity continue to play a significant role in local and global events; social solidarity in particular remains an essential condition for addressing many challenges that confront the globe today, including social justice and environmental degradation. • drawing mainly on the work of the social theorist, emile durkheim, i will show the role solidarity plays in establishing freedom of conscience and individual rights (moral individualism), moral pluralism, moral education, economic justice, and political community; this broad discussion will constitute the greater part of this article. • finally, i will discuss the relation among religion, solidarity, and environmental degradation; i will argue that religion and solidarity can provide important cultural resources to combat global trends that threaten the environment. before i turn to these sections, i wish to make a couple of qualifications. first, i need to make it clear that both religion and solidarity can act as double-edged swords. that is to say, religion can contribute to healthy social reform and wise environmental practices as well as to reactionary social oppression and rapacious environmental practices. and solidarity, for its part, can sustain efforts for peace, justice, and environmentalism, but it can also support militaristic agendas and oppressive social and environmental practices. in this article, i do not wish simply to celebrate religion and solidarity. religion and solidarity assume a variety of sociohistorical forms, some admirable, some deplorable. but in either case, religion and solidarity are worthy of our attention, and they are necessary topics for a better understanding of the state of the social and physical environment today. finally, i wish to say something about the scope of this article. although i will often allude to a variety of global developments, most of my references will be rooted in north atlantic democratic social and intellectual traditions. it is in these traditions that i have been trained; it is in these traditions that my own normative, social vision has been shaped. still, i hope and i believe that my claims in this article have broad implications for the world in which we all live. 2. religion and modernity it would be naïve and probably dangerous to fail to attend to the religious aspects of life together and life alone. the manner and language of religion – so familiar in changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 355 society, so alien in the academy – is gaining critical consideration. scholars in the social sciences and in political and legal theory are turning their attention to the relation among religion, law, and politics. if our attention was once diverted from this triad, it was in part, due to what are now largely discredited theories about the inevitable march of secularization. there was an assumption that the world would increasingly abandon religion that the actual state of the world would come to match an ideal of the european enlightenment, namely, an enlightened age free of strife, free of religion. the assumption was doubly flawed. first, it was based on an erroneous interpretation of the enlightenment as a monolithic force that discounted religion (as opposed, for example, to the enlightenment itself having religious origins and objectives). and second, it was based on the view that modernity would necessarily usher in secularism, that is, an age in which religion had no significant standing. yet sociologists and religious studies scholars, among others, have come to realize that religion as an intellectual, cultural, and political force is not, in fact, waning on the globe. today, this realization should be clear to anyone even vaguely familiar with current events. among the majority of the planet’s inhabitants, including those in north america, religion is thriving. and by religion i do not here mean a broad, durkheimian notion of religion – that is, religion as any set of beliefs and practices that forge moral community. don’t get me wrong: i like durkheim, and later in this article i will rely heavily on durkheim’s work. but here when i claim that religion is still very much alive, i mean religion as it is commonly understood, that is, such historical traditions as hinduism, buddhism, judaism, christianity, and islam. i would like to suggest that religion is alive not in spite of modernity, but rather because modernity and religion are not necessarily antagonistic. it is simply no longer useful to think of religion as an anomaly in the modern age. the same claim could be made of community, tradition, and solidarity. in other words, neither religion nor gemeinschaft should no longer be considered a relic of a by-gone era. 3. emile durkheim, solidarity, and twenty-first century democracy in a global age in this section, i consider the nature and place of solidarity in the work of durkheim, and what lessons that work may hold for pluralistic, democratic societies at the outset of the twenty-first century. in particular, i explore durkheim’s notion of solidarity in his work on moral individualism, democracy, pluralism, moral education, economic justice, and globalization. i look to durkheim because i believe he can help us think critically about the obstacles we face in achieving a genuinely multiracial, multicultural democracy. such an achievement, i believe, is the hope – but thus far, not the reality – of the democratic experiment that has been taking place in the u. s. this is an experiment that has global consequences, and hence it is worthy of our consideration. it is a worthy challenge to endeavor to fashion a democratic republic in which individual rights are protected and the public life is inclusive, lively, and just. mark s. cladis356 solidarity, i will soon argue, need not be construed as sameness or uniformity. rather, it can be akin to what cornel west has expressed using the metaphor of the jazz band. “the interplay of individuality and unanimity,” west declares, “is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. as with a soloist in a jazz... band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group – a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project.” (west, 2001, pp. 150–151) honoring both individual rights and common projects – these twin poles, with all the tension between them – mark durkheim’s work, his vision, his challenge. and this may capture a challenge of democracy in the twenty-first century. my fundamental question of durkheim, then, is this: how can he assist us in formulating a model of solidarity that includes and supports freedom of conscience and diversity? also, how can his work help us envision paradigms of co-operation on such shared projects as eradicating racism, protecting the environment, and achieving social justice? 3.1 durkheim and solidarity we associate the concept of social solidarity with the life and thought of durkheim, and for good reason. he was committed to it, both theoretically and practically. in the elementary forms of religious life ([1912] 2001), arguably his most important book, durkheim set himself the task of discovering an enduring source of human social identity and fellowship – solidarité. durkheim treated religion, broadly understood, as dynamic social ideals, beliefs, and practices that shape a shared perception of, and therefore life in, a society’s moral universe. one finds religion wherever public, normative concepts, symbols, or rites are employed. religion, in this view, is variously found in modern and in (what we once called) postmodern societies. the upshot of this, morally and epistemologically, is that human life is, in a significant sense, life together. this is durkheim’s response, and challenge, to a long tradition of cartesian and spencerian individualistic thought. elementary forms was durkheim’s last book, but from the start of his career, the task of solidarity can be found: the task of understanding its various sources and forms, and of evaluating its appropriate shape or type for a society in light of sociohistorical circumstances. durkheim’s own sociohistorical circumstances account, in part, for his life-long interest in and commitment to solidarity. as a french jew raised in the warmth and security of a tightly knit jewish community, david émile durkheim was early on exposed to the complex, often conflicting values of the third republic – liberty, equality, and solidarity. it is not much of an exaggeration to say that every major subject durkheim investigated became for him a lens through which to examine the nature and condition of solidarity in contemporary democratic society. in elementary forms, for example, durkheim claimed that totemism among the aborigines of australia was not in itself his principal object of study. rather, it was an avenue “to yield an understanding of the religious nature of man, by showing changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 357 us an essential and permanent aspect of humanity.” (durkheim, 2001, p. 3) this “permanent aspect of humanity,” as it turns out, is the human need and capacity to relate socially. another example: durkheim’s sophisticated epistemology, or what is sometimes known as his sociology of knowledge, provided a way for philosophers and others to let go of the idea that reason is a transcendent, ahistorical faculty, yet without having to jettison all notions of objectivity. in durkheim’s mind, his work on epistemology – socializing the idealists and the empiricists – was especially significant insofar as it contributed to the view that there can be no radically private human existence. to exist in a world is to understand that world, and understanding is comprised of shared, collective representations. this is not only an empirical description of human cognition, but is also a normative position, for it challenges the atomistic assumptions of a methodological individualism that durkheim found morally unacceptable. epistemology, then, permitted durkheim to feature once again the profoundly social nature of humankind. even durkheim’s investigations of modern individualism became a vehicle to explore social solidarity. durkheim made the surprising claim that there is a form of contemporary individualism, what he called moral individualism that emerges from the solidarity that marks north atlantic democracies. think of moral individualism as a cluster of dynamic beliefs and practices, symbols and institutions that support the dignity and rights of the individual. this modern cult of the individual has all the attributes of traditional religion. it possesses robust, sacred symbols that express collective sentiments; it reaffirms and protects itself by means of both positive and negative rites, for example, public celebrations of defenders of individual rights or the prosecution of those who would violate such rights. commitment to the rights and dignity of the individual is a principal thread, durkheim argued, in the moral fabric that weaves together the diverse citizens of a modern democracy. it provides the shared moral identity of “we, the people.” moral individualism – as opposed to atomistic or utilitarian individualism – became for durkheim an answer to the question: what can provide the basis of a common good in the democratic societies of his day? the important task before me is to consider whether durkheim’s work on solidarity is still germane for reflection on present-day democratic societies – especially democracies marked by pluralism, multiculturalism, and globalization. my challenge is not to defend durkheim’s work – i am not dedicated to him – but rather to investigate his relevance for what i am dedicated to: robust, just, and inclusive democracies in an age of diversity and globalization. 3.2 solidarity held in suspicion solidarity is a concept widely held in suspicion today and often for good reason. on epistemological grounds, many doubt that there is a shared, universal human nature that could provide common ground among diverse human communities and individuals. and when solidarity does seem to emerge, it is often interpreted as either a contingent confluence of individuals with a shared cultural or ethnic inheritance, or an enforced uniformity that merely gives the impression of solidarity. in this latter mark s. cladis358 view, solidarity is a form of imperialism or colonialism. alien norms, practices, and symbols of identity are imposed by the powerful on those lacking power. solidarity turns out to be hegemony. debates in the u.s. over multiculturalism, diversity, and what have come to be known as “cultural wars” have focused our attention on many insidious practices carried out in the name of solidarity. yet these debates also have had the unintended consequence of leading us to think, once again, about the social significance and merit of solidarity. as we wrestled with the importance of respecting “difference,” we also asked about the shared context in which these debates took place. who is the “we” engaged in these contests and disputes? focusing on difference led to discussions about the possibility of common ground or solidarity. moreover, as the language of human rights increasingly became something of a shared – though vague – global vocabulary, many social activists began speaking of a global or world solidarity centered on such goals as eradicating torture, hunger, racism, and the exploitation of women and children. solidarity, today, is a contested concept. but this much is clear: solidarity is not simply a quaint term unworthy of our consideration. for better for worse, it remains a powerful notion. to think otherwise borders on self-deception. recent debates over the role and significance of solidarity are not without precedent. when durkheim championed the need for solidarity and strategies to enhance it, he was addressing the entire french republic, but especially his fellow intellectuals, socialists, and other progressive peers. solidarity, in durkheim’s vision, was to embrace all citizens, but it was based on a particular – far from neutral – set of goals and ideals: the protection and extension of human rights; an economy accountable to human welfare (as opposed to the maximization of profit); the freedom of critical inquiry; and a secular state that respected yet was not based on religion. not long after durkheim’s death, however, his work was placed in a conservative canon of sociologists who, motivated by a nostalgic sense of by-gone days of community and uniformity, advanced solidarity for the sake of social control and order. it was durkheim’s commitment to solidarity, along with his historicist approach, that placed him in this conservative legacy. this regrettable placement continues to distort our view of durkheim’s fundamental commitments and goals. durkheim investigated the webs and patterns of social order for the sake of establishing social justice. many have attributed conservatism to durkheim because of his commitment to viewing humans and their moral principles and practices as ineluctably rooted in their social milieus. the logic here goes something like this: social theorists who begin and end with human situatedness can never rise above present or past social ideals, customs, and institutions. these allegedly conservative theorists are bound to the stagnant status quo. yet durkheim’s sensitivity to the historical, far from tying him to a status quo, exposed him to social change and diversity. that exposure helped him to envision progressive social change, and also to recognize the fragility of many cultural and legal accomplishments. the rights and dignity of the individual, for durkheim, are important pieces of moral, social progress. they are not, however, immutable. they are subject to immoral threats as well as to moral amelioration. durkheim maintained changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 359 that moral progress requires a social solidarity that is willing to wrestle with social problems and achieve social change. human rights, for example, cannot be realized by the law or the courts alone, but rather they require shared social beliefs and practices that support the legal system. the “fact of diversity,” then as durkheim and rawls roughly call it, need not entail moving beyond solidarity, as if solidarity and diversity were oppositional, or as if “justice for all” could be accomplished by leaving solidarity behind. the often-assumed incompatibility, then, between social diversity and social solidarity deserves to be examined. what is solidarity? what does it mean to live in a shared social and geographic setting? what are the basic requirements of social life? what are the social implications of our shared need for shelter, nutritious food, clean air and water, work, repose, and safety? what kind of social cooperation is needed for citizens to move about unencumbered, to have access to public transportation, to drive or walk in peace? what are the requirements for achieving such collective goals as economic justice, environmental practices, and the eradication of discrimination based on race, gender, or sexual orientation? why should pluralism or globalization negate the need for cooperation in achieving basic, daily, shared human goods and future collective aims? durkheim affirmed that solidarity, in some form or forms, is all but inevitable for any society. the question for us, then, is not: “solidarity – should we have it?” the question is, “what kind of solidarity – or solidarities – do we already have, and what kind should we have?” my own view is that an appropriate form of solidarity for democratic, political communities must not only tolerate diversity but also celebrate diversity as a precious public resource. solidarity, in durkheim’s account, embraced all citizens, but it was based on a particular – far from neutral – set of democratic ideals, beliefs, and practices, including: the protection and extension of human rights; an economy accountable to human welfare (as opposed to the maximization of profit); the freedom of critical inquiry and reform; and a secular state that respected yet did not privilege religion. 3.3 moral individualism, pluralism, and education in 1835 tocqueville wrote, “individualism is a word recently coined to express a new idea. our fathers only knew about egoism” (tocqueville, 1969, p. 506). this provocative claim about “a new idea” is not entirely correct (think of the celebration of “individualism” in montaigne’s essays or rousseau’s reveries of the solitary walker). moreover, it was not the case that everyone in tocqueville’s age would have agreed that there are forms of individualism that are not synonymous with egoism. even in durkheim’s age – and still today – some identified individualism with egoism. “individualism is the great sickness of the present time... each of us has confidence only in himself, sets himself up as the sovereign judge of everything...” this quotation is not from macintyre’s after virtue but from ferdinand brunetière’s “after the trial,” which appeared in the revue des deux mondes (brunetière, 1898, p. 445). brunetière, a catholic literary historian and critic, denounced individualism mark s. cladis360 and claimed that it was debilitating france’s moral foundation and solidarity. it is the “intellectuals” who carry this disease, and if they are not checked, he warned, traditional virtue and values will wither as moral relativism and hedonism spread. in the same year, durkheim published a response entitled “individualism and the intellectuals.” in it, durkheim discussed “the argument, always refuted and always renewed,” that “intellectual and moral anarchy would be the inevitable result of liberalism” (durkheim, 1973, p. 49). some varieties of liberalism, durkheim conceded, are egoistic and threaten the common good of societies by encouraging the individual to become excessively consumerist and preoccupied with narrow selfinterest. but there is a strand of liberalism, durkheim argued, which is moral and social. this strand, i noted, durkheim called moral individualism, and he claimed that “not only is [moral] individualism not anarchical, but it henceforth is the only system of beliefs which can ensure the moral unity of the country.” (ibid., p. 50) in liberal, democratic nations such as france, the people’s character and their solidarity are promoted by the liberal practices and ideals of moral individualism. this turns out to be a surprising and powerful defense of democratic liberalism. durkheim did not appeal to universal principles derived from natural reason or from any other tap into an “objective,” ahistorical moral reality. he situated his defense in history, specifically french history. france’s modern, moral traditions, durkheim argued, are largely constituted by liberal, pluralistic institutions and values that protect the rights and dignity of the individual. to neglect these traditions is to court moral anarchy. it is brunetière then, the conservative who speaks of “solidarity above all” who, according to durkheim, threatens the moral fabric of society. this argument, like most of durkheim’s work, belongs to a distinctive french narrative, a narrative of struggle and accomplishment, of the revolution and the constitution. his arguments are not for all societies, even if they can be applied to many – certainly to our own. mostly, however, his is an insider’s argument: written for the french, by a jewish frenchman. durkheim provided a distinctive reading of rousseau and kant, among others, attempting to locate them in a republican tradition that describes rights and duties as the result of a commitment to public, not only private, concerns. he worked to piece together his own account of his favorite varieties of liberalism (as well as offering complex criticisms of his least favorite forms of liberalism, for example, of what he called economic individualism and crass utilitarianism). this was no invention from scratch. a set of liberal, democratic traditions already existed. but durkheim was well aware of competing liberal traditions, such as those of the classical economists and utilitarians, as well as competing solidarity traditions, such as those of the royalists and the conservative roman catholics. durkheim wanted to establish the authority of moral individualism by arguing that it, in fact, represented france’s most morally progressive and legitimate traditions. we can think of moral individualism as having two components. moral individualism is characterized by (1) a set of social beliefs and practices that constitute a pervasive shared understanding, which supports the rights, and dignity of the individual; and (2) a plurality of social spheres that permits diversity and individual autonomy, and furnishes beliefs and practices, which morally associate changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 361 individuals occupying a particular sphere. the first component, briefly mentioned and then rejected in the division of labor (1893) was developed in the dreyfusard article, “individualism and the intellectuals,” after having been initially proposed in suicide ([1897] 1951) the preceding year. the second component was explored in the division of labor and later enhanced in suicide and especially in durkheim’s lectures published as professional ethics and civic morals ([first french edition, 1950, published posthumously] 1992) – lectures written around the same time as the dreyfusard article. a robust social defense of democratic liberalism requires both components. the first element ensures that a diverse citizenry cares for a common political community that is sustained by, among other things, beliefs pertaining to the sanctity of the individual. the second element ensures that as individuals pursue their rights, they reside within a multitude of relatively distinct and protected social spheres that provide shared meanings and identities. we can label this second component as durkheim’s understanding of moral pluralism and a plurality of morals, especially as described in professional ethics and civic morals. a plurality of morals refers to the diverse sets of goals and values, and the varying levels of homogeneity that characterize groups in the domestic, occupational, civic, and international spheres. moral pluralism, in contrast, pertains to the relation between the beliefs and practices of the political community and the beliefs and practices of such associations or groups as churches and synagogues, ethnic organizations and activist alliances. this can include associations that can be said to rest upon comprehensive religious, moral, or philosophical doctrines. the solidarity of the political community, in durkheim’s view, does not require broad agreement from these associations on every issue. social solidarity, in other words, does not require social homogeneity. on some issues, however, such as the protection of diversity, widespread agreement is desirable. moral pluralism, then, refers to a plurality of communities and associations that promote distinctive practices and beliefs, and yet also contribute to – or at least do not threaten – common public projects and goals. think of durkheim’s moral pluralism as standing in opposition to three models of society: society as (1) a group of disparate individuals; (2) a group of disparate, morally self-sustaining, homogeneous communities divorced from the larger political community; and (3) a single, national, homogeneous community. the moral pluralism that durkheim envisioned captures the merits and avoids the limits of the three models. it sustains a multitude of diverse communities (model two), all sharing a common, albeit limited, set of obligations and goals (model three), including individual and group rights and liberties (model one). durkheim would have agreed with progressive communitarians that human association is a social good that is necessary for well-being. with progressive liberals, however, he also would have agreed that no one community, including the political one, has a monopoly on virtue or the good life. happiness and an ethical life are not contingent on participation in any single, privileged community, but are procurable in a variety of spheres and groups. mark s. cladis362 nonetheless, moral pluralism, as durkheim conceived it, does support the solidarity of a shared political community, a community that encompasses all others. this social realm aims for inclusion and open critical reflection. at times, the most salient thing that needs to be agreed on may be what needs to be discussed. we can agree on the need to debate such pressing issues as how to pursue economic justice and environmental safeguards, balanced budgets and social services, citizens’ security and global peace. potential agreement rests on the fact that diverse citizens share a common history and future, and often care about the problems and promises that are germane, not only to a particular community, but to the broader community in which all participate. no secondary group should attempt to block its members from taking part in this wider life of common pursuits. one of the best – and most misunderstood – examples of durkheim’s capacity to connect social solidarity with pluralism and conflict is his work on moral education (durkheim, 1956–1961). its heterogeneous character, embracing critical thought and shared traditions, autonomy and community, human diversity and social solidarity, offers a nuanced description of and challenge to liberal, democratic institutions. durkheim championed various perspectives of society’s shared understanding as a means to cultivate students’ dispositions for critical thinking. critical thought and the stories a people tells about itself go hand in hand, in durkheim’s view, because social critics, faced with changing circumstances, draw deeply from their social inheritances as they forge new paths and criticize old ones. durkheim held that future citizens of democracies need to know about styles of belief and practices other than those of the family or local group. he emphasized the need to accustom students to the unfamiliar in order that they can appreciate otherness and to identify the stranger as a fellow human. the study of history and literature are especially helpful in developing democratic skills and virtues, according to durkheim. studying history, for example, enables students to have an appreciation for the rich complexity of social life, and to develop a critical understanding of their own society’s place in history. the study of history promotes critical thinking because it both discloses to students their society’s distinctive shared understandings and exposes them to unfamiliar ways of life. accustoming students to the unfamiliar enables them to value diversity and “the richness of life,” and to acquire novel ways to cope with suffering. history, then, plays a critical role in moral education: it is by learning to become familiar with other ideas, other customs, other manners, other political constitutions, other domestic organizations, other moralities and logics than those which he is used to that the student will gain a sense of the richness of life within the bounds of human nature. it is, therefore, only by history that we can give an account of the infinite diversity of the aspects which human nature can take on. (durkheim, 1938, pp. 208–209) awareness of such pluralism is an essential aspect of moral education, because it thwarts the desire to designate a parochial moral vision as universal and then changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 363 impose it on all humanity. literature also figured importantly in durkheim’s approach to moral education, and for many of the same reasons. general and abstract talk about the practices and hopes of a people will not make a vivid impression on students. thick descriptions are required, and literature can deliver these. the detail found in literature allows the student “to touch [the manners, ideas, and institutions of a people] with his own hands,” to “see them alive.” (durkheim, 1977, p. 332) moral education, then, in durkheim’s view, takes place at the junctures of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the past and the present. schools are to foster in students the capacity to evaluate contemporary practices in light of alternatives found in foreign or past cultures, in new developments taking place within contemporary society, and in longstanding ideals that need to be more fully realized in social practices. 3.4 economic justice, the political community, and globalization i have rehearsed durkheim’s notion of moral individualism and moral pluralism, for these concepts are foundational for grasping durkheim’s basic position on solidarity and diversity. further, i focused on his complex approach to moral education as an example of how he combined his commitment to both solidarity and diversity. i now wish to explore briefly how this pair of commitments informs his substantive positions on economic justice; the relation between secondary groups and the state; and globalization. my chief question of durkheim, however, remains the same: can he assist us in formulating a model of solidarity that acknowledges pluralism and globalization? durkheim’s commitment to enhancing social solidarity was fueled, perhaps above all, by his worry over a private economy that put the maximization of profit above human social welfare. his multifaceted study on professional and civic ethics was motivated by his belief that economic institutions should be accountable to a society’s civic life – at both the regional and national level. his worry was that as modern societies become increasingly individualistic, shared aims lack the strength to guide the economic life in light of prevailing conceptions of justice. so he imagined ways to broaden or extend democratic practices that could bring a moral influence to the economic life. this move is entirely consistent with durkheim’s belief that there are moral dimensions to our shared civic life. the economy, in his view, should not be understood as a discrete, amoral, private realm, but rather as an integral moral component of the public life. hence, in durkheim’s lectures on professional ethics and civic morals, he concentrated on the economic sphere, for he believed that “the greater part of its existence is passed divorced from any moral influence.” (durkheim, 1992, p. 12) the classical economists, durkheim claimed, failed to see that “economic functions are not an end in themselves but only a means to an end; that they are one of the organs of social life and that social life is above all a harmonious community of endeavors.” (durkheim, 1992, p. 16) to make matters worse, the ethos of the economic sphere, marked by individual and corporate egoism, threatened to dominate other social spheres: “this amoral mark s. cladis364 character of economic life amounts to a public danger.” (ibid., p. 12) durkheim’s fear was that, due to the prominence of the economic sphere in modern societies, its amoral character would spread to other spheres. how did durkheim account for this “moral vacuum” in the economic sphere? social institutions, given their historical character, change. “for two centuries,” durkheim claimed, “economic life has taken on an expansion it never knew before.” (ibid., p. 11) while this sphere grew and began to dominate society, a new “ethic” emerged that sought to deliver society from the traditional regulation of popes and monarchs and guilds. these old monitors were to be replaced by a new, impartial one: the guiding hand of the spontaneous market. durkheim, however, considered this spontaneous regulation as essentially no regulation. in suicide, for example, he stated that “for a whole century, economic progress has mainly consisted in freeing industrial relations from all regulation... and government, instead of regulating economic life, has become its tool and servant.” (durkheim, 1951, pp. 254–255) in his lectures on professional ethics and civic morals, while discussing the economic world, which seems to lie “outside the sphere of morals,” durkheim asked, is this state of affairs a normal one? it has had the support of famous doctrines. to start with, there is the classical economic theory according to which the free play of economic agreements should adjust itself and reach stability automatically, without it being necessary or even possible to submit it to any restraining forces. (durkheim, 1992, p. 10) yet durkheim went on to note that a stable and just economic sphere “cannot follow of itself from entirely material causes, from any blind mechanism, however scientific it may be. it is a moral task.” (ibid., p. 12) why a moral task? because we should not expect just economic social practices to emerge spontaneously from private contracts or “supply and demand” or from any other liberal market devices. a moral task is at hand because people must do something to bring peace and justice to the economic sphere. human effort and planning are required, but this in turn depends on some sense of shared purpose and common aims. i will not discuss at length the most famous of durkheim’s solutions to the moral bankruptcy of the economic sphere, namely, his call for the formation of occupational groups – a new democratic space located between private lives and large, civic institutions. i do want to comment on, however, the premise of durkheim’s hope for the establishment of occupational groups. his premise was that ethical practices are a product of human association; that practical moral reasoning emerges from working together, from shared practices. workers, isolated from each other and from the shared purposes of their work, cannot create for themselves a healthy working environment, for example, fashioning practices pertaining to workers’ dignity, treatment, and fair compensation. durkheim’s solution was to infuse the economic sphere with moral principles internal to the various, particular activities of the various occupations – whether they be farming, banking, or factory work. the role changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 365 of occupational groups, then, is to provide moral connections between vocational practices and the internal goods and external goods relevant to them. in order that external goods support – as opposed to vitiate – internal goods, various economic activities that a spencerian would call private would need to be viewed in a more public light. first, the workers involved in a particular occupation would have a greater voice concerning its just operations. second, the economic sphere in general would no longer been seen as a radically private one but as a realm subject to the political community. this is not necessarily a call for socialism. but it is durkheim’s warning that moral economic practices will not develop under the present conditions of a spencerian free market. from one perspective, occupational groups are centers of moral life, which, although bound together, are distinct and relatively autonomous. in order that moral principles internal to each group emerge, the groups should, as durkheim noted, “develop original characteristics.” together these groups form the economic sphere. from another perspective, however, these groups are tributaries fed by shared traditions and institutions, by common projects and interests, by social solidarity. this latter perspective needs mentioning lest we lose sight of durkheim’s conviction that the economic sphere needs to be accountable to the wider political community. without a sense of ourselves as a people with shared perspectives, problems, and goals, we will not be able to tackle such a pressing and massive problem as an economic sphere unaccountable to democratic institutions. durkheim himself was not sanguine about the emergence of morally sustaining spheres of economic justice. he often wrote as if liberal society is taking on the character of a hobbesian war of all against all. at such moments, he seemed to doubt the possibility of robust shared commitments and aims. this pessimism, however, did not lead to moral paralysis but to increased commitment to the tasks at hand. there is a social sphere, durkheim tells us, which is greater in scope than the various secondary groups. it is the political community. inquiry into the nature of this sphere and its relation to other social spheres and to the state is necessary for an intelligent reading of durkheim’s notion of a plurality of social spheres that are nourished by solidarity. if, for example, the domestic or the economic spheres are entirely independent of the political one, or even dominate it that might suggest a precarious laissez-faire pluralism that could lead to a society’s domination by a single sphere. on the other hand, if the other spheres are dominated by the political community or the state, that might suggest an open door to nationalism or fascism. the political community, according to durkheim’s normative understanding of it, encompasses a plurality of secondary groups without becoming one itself. it includes all without being dominated by any. in durkheim’s idiom, the political community and the state are not the same. the state refers to “the agents of the sovereign authority,” while the political community refers a shared public space which includes all secondary groups. far from being in radical opposition to the various secondary groups contained within the political sphere, durkheim contends that “the state presupposes their existence... no secondary groups, no political authority, at least no authority which can legitimately be called political.” (durkheim, 1992, p. 45) in his mark s. cladis366 lectures on professional ethics and civic morals, durkheim championed a model of the state that is neither laissez-faire liberal nor nationalistic. the state, if legitimately representing the ideals and goals of the democratic political community, supports moral individualism and pluralism. there is a dialectical relation between the state and its plural secondary groups. from this dialectic, in durkheim’s view, emerges the social solidarity of the political community, and such solidarity, in turn, sustains the dialectic. solidarity is not the result of state sponsored coercion, nor of a natural harmony among secondary groups. rather, it emerges from, and contributes to, the dialectical relation between the democratic state and its various secondary groups. solidarity of the political community, then, does not work against pluralism, but rather is constitutive of its very existence. and the health of the political community requires a rich variety of secondary groups. unlike rousseau who feared secondary groups, durkheim did not support the social contract model of the state in which diverse individuals have a direct relation to the state, but not to each other. not only did durkheim not fear secondary groups and the pluralism that they represent, but he defended their vital role in providing a variety of moral homes for individuals and in contributing diversity and dynamism to the political community. what is the relation between the solidarity of the democratic nation-state and what some call the global community or village? did durkheim have a position on globalization or on the possibility of a social sphere larger than the nation’s political community? durkheim maintained that there is an international sphere that, in a limited sense, encompasses the political community. the political community, according to durkheim, has no sovereign above it except that of the state. this sovereign, however, is relative and needs to be qualified. it is accountable to the political community, and durkheim also insisted that it is also accountable to the international community (durkheim, 1915). in elementary forms durkheim claimed that … there is no people, no state that is not involved with another society that is more or less unlimited and includes all peoples, or states with which they are directly or indirectly in contact. there is no national life that is not dominated by an inherently international collective life. as we go forward in history, these international groupings take on greater importance and scope. (durkheim, 2001, pp. 321–322) durkheim provided two different yet related accounts for the rise of what could be called global ethics. in one account, global ethics emerges from the recognition of duties that apply to all individuals, regardless of national boundaries. in his lectures on professional ethics and civic morals, he claimed that there are “duties independent of any particular grouping... this is the most general sphere in the whole of ethics, for it is independent of any local or ethnic conditions.” (durkheim, 1992, p. 110) these duties pertain to protecting the rights and dignity of humans – for example, protection from cruel humiliation, mutilation, murder, or theft. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 367 the second account is closely related to the first, for it is a sociohistorical explanation for the development of international human rights. he claimed that “the group no longer seems to have value in itself and for itself: it is only a means of fulfilling and developing human nature to the point demanded by the current ideals.” (ibid., p. 112) for example, increasingly nations justify their existence by their efforts to protect individuals from unnecessary suffering – “a hateful thing” – as opposed to in the past when the nation – a personification of god or the sacred – was the object of highest regard. durkheim claimed that increased pluralism accounts for this transfer of sacred regard from the pride of the individual nation to the dignity of the individual – wherever she or he lives. he wrote, “with the increase of diversity among the members of all societies, there is no essential characteristic in common except those derived from the basic quality of their human nature. it is this quality that quite naturally becomes the supreme object of collective sensibility.” (ibid., p. 112) we have already seen this logic in durkheim’s communitarian defense of moral individualism: our shared understanding is centered on the dignity and rights of the individual. now, however, durkheim has taken this logic from a national to a global level. given the high level of human diversity in the international realm, shared beliefs and practices are thin, except for the overlapping commitment to the global ethic of human rights. durkheim’s prediction is that as members of diverse nations associate and work on common issues, international ethics will become more substantive. increasingly, “national aims do not lie at the summit of the [moral] hierarchy – it is human aims that are destined to be supreme.” (ibid., p. 73) yet durkheim was not entirely sanguine about what we today call globalization. he feared anomie on an international scale as the global economy increasingly sought the maximization of profit above all else. he noted that what might look like a promising “world state” may in fact turn out to be but another form of “egoistic individualism.” (ibid., p. 74) his worry was that unregulated concentrations of power would subvert the sovereignty of citizens and their ability to work for normative domestic and global aims. durkheim, of course, knew nothing about the environmental costs of a global economy unleashed from normative beliefs and practices. yet he did anticipate the social harm and suffering that would flow from a global economy modeled on anomic, national economies. does durkheim’s suggestion for how democratic moral reasoning can govern national economies apply to today’s global economy? a durkheimian approach to economic globalization would require a modified version of durkheim’s complex normative account of the dialectical relation among the state, secondary groups, and individuals. the revised durkheimian model would entail an augmented dialectic that included the global realm more robustly. in this model, the democratic nation would attempt to foster within the nation-state a social order that properly arranges and regards the domains of local community, the wider civic community, and global institutions. durkheim held that if global justice is to be achieved, nation-states and local communities need to cultivate in their members a commitment to global, moral mark s. cladis368 issues. hence durkheim claimed that the way to avoid a clash between national and global perspectives is for “each state to have as its chief aim... to set its own house in order and to make the widest appeal to its members for a moral life on an ever higher level... if the state had no other purpose than making humans of its citizens, in the widest sense of the term, then civic duties would be only a particular form of the general obligations of humanity.” (ibid., p. 74) global justice, then, requires just states, and just states require sufficient solidarity to work jointly toward the common aims of justice at the local, national, and global level. the durkheimian lesson is that if we want to achieve social and economic justice, whether we are living among domestic or global diversity, we must remain committed to some form of solidarity. to neglect solidarity is to risk having our most cherished ideals, including the celebration of diversity, drained of their capacity to shape our lives, institutions, and communities. 4. religion, solidarity, and environmental degradation consider the following state of affairs: calculated conservatively, the extinction rate of mammals is now 1,000 times greater than during the last great age of extinction, the ice ages of the pleistocene epoch (ehrenfeld, 1993, p. 180); between 1900 and 1965, one half of the forests in developing countries was cleared for log export and for cattle grazing to supply the u.s. hamburger industry, and such logging is not slowing down (khor, 1996, p. 52); tropical forests are being destroyed at the rate of 168,000 square kilometers per year (goodland, 1996, p. 214). although there is disagreement on the exact numbers, few fail to concede that, due to contemporary economic and industrial practices, we are witnessing an unprecedented loss of wetlands, crop diversity, top soil, and fisheries. such catastrophic losses are matched by the inordinate pollution of the air, water, and land from the massive use of fossil fuels, ozone depleting gases, herbicides, pesticides, industrial chemicals, and heavy metals, among other toxicities. this is a short list of the material and tangible dangers that threaten those who, having forgotten about the basic sources of life, are cutting, polluting, and despoiling the frail ecological systems that sustain human existence. there is a clear correlation between accelerated environmental degradation and the increased power and wealth of transnational corporations. with little or no concern for the health of local areas but rather for maximizing profits, transnational corporations are usually indifferent to, and sometimes contemptuous of, environmental considerations. the entire food production and distribution system has become dependent on heavy usage of fossil fuels and agricultural chemicals – pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers – and such usage is devastating the planet’s ecosystems. few believe these practices are sustainable. yet the global agri-food industrial complex is increasingly operating without government supervision, without citizen consent, without assurances to protect the environment. these are some of the challenges that face the globe today. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 369 4.1 religion and solidarity: double-edged swords what do religion and solidarity have to do with environmental degradation? religion and social solidarity have both combated environmental degradation and have contributed to it. such world religions as hinduism, buddhism, judaism, christianity, and islam have fostered wise, sustainable environmental practices; but they have also at times (or even at “the same time”) undermined such wise practices. the relation between religion and the environment is a complicated topic. the relation between solidarity and environmental practices is equally complicated. social solidarity has been at the root of many strong and helpful environmental movements today. but forms of social solidarity have also brought much environmental destruction. the determination to build dams, develop and use chemical pesticides, construct coal-fire and nuclear power plants, build fleets of cars – such developments often require great collective resolve. although such developments are not necessarily socially irresponsible, they do often lead to problematic environmental outcomes. and in any case, these developments require much collective commitment – social solidarity – to be achieved. in many contemporary cases, social solidarity is not homogenous, and we find one segment of a population committed to environmentally sustainable practices and another segment working toward unbridled economic growth – the kind of growth that may raise the “standard of living” while simultaneously causing great environmental destruction. so once again, the relation between solidarity and environmental practices is a complex one. for the remainder of this essay, i will focus on religion and the environment. it should be kept in mind that, most of the time, religions generate strong solidarity, and hence much of what i have to say about religion and the environment could equally apply to a discussion about solidarity and the environment. in my research, i have found evidence that religious commitment that pertains to environmentalism can serve as an occasion for individuals to experience a deepened private life and a more participatory public life. i have analytically organized this evidence – based on social scientific studies, social and political theory, religious studies, and personal interviews – into four categories that represent public and private religious responses to the environmental crisis. the four categories are as follows: 1) environmentalism as religion. in many ways, contemporary environmental groups and ecological movements function as a form of religion. that is, sociologically speaking, much contemporary environmentalism exhibits characteristics of religion. there are, for example, a host of environmental groups, such as the sierra club, greenpeace, or earth first! that can be said to function (from a sociological point of view) as religions. these groups offer a robust vision or way of life that can transform their members’ lives. 2) theological perspectives on the environment. this second category pertains to the relation between a religious tradition’s beliefs and its perspectives on the natural world. christianity and buddhism, for example, have distinctive religious depictions of creation, nature, and the position of humans in the natural world. mark s. cladis370 3) organized religion and eco-activism. closely related to the second category, this third category pertains to the relation between religious belief and social practice. many traditional and new religious groups – churches and synagogues, mosques and temples, wiccan and other new religious movements – are actively engaged in environmental issues. from involvement in environmental justice to sustainable agriculture to active lobbying, many religious communities are evincing deep environmental commitments. this development has led to the creation of such new organizations as the north american coalition on religion and ecology, the national religious partnership on the environment, and the coalition on the environment and jewish life. it has also animated a wide range of existing religious organizations – from christian churches to jewish synagogues to buddhist retreat centers. 4) private spirituality and nature. in nature writers such as annie dillard and barry lopez, in religious authors such as thomas berry and terry tempest williams, and more generally in popular culture, there is a growing regard for what can be called the sacred sense of nature. this spirituality of nature tends not to be tied to particular religious traditions, although it is compatible with most of them. it may not be formulated in traditionally theological ways. but there is something traditional about the religious vocabulary that is employed to describe encounters with nature – concepts like healing, wonder, awe, enchantment, transcendence, reverence, immortal beauty, silence, bowing, witnessing, and mystery. there is often a connection between this spirituality of nature – the sacralization of the secular – and heightened civic participation at both local and national levels. these categories represent opportunities for enhanced commitment to, and affection for, joining together and fostering the social, economic, and natural landscapes that sustain us. however, as i have said, religion can also promote destructive environmental practices. 5. concluding comments “solidarity, religion and the environment” – these three separate yet related topics together form both a promise and a challenge. the challenge is how solidarity and religion can contribute to wise social, economic, and environmental practices for the planet. the promise is the collective strength and wisdom that solidarity and religion potentially offer us as we struggle with twenty-first century challenges. in this article, i have attempted to do several things: • i have argued that religion and solidarity should not be treated as anomalies in modernity, and that both religion and solidarity continue to play a significant role in local and global events; indeed, social solidarity remains an essential condition for addressing many problems that confront the globe today, including social justice and environmental degradation. • drawing mainly on the work of durkheim, i have attempted to show the role solidarity plays in establishing individual rights (moral individualism), moral pluralism, and moral education. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 371 • still drawing on durkheim, i illustrated the relation between solidarity and economic justice, political community, and globalization. • lastly, i attempted to outline the relation among religion, solidarity, and environmental degradation. envisioning alternatives to disturbing current global trends may appear to be an exercise in quixotic thought. yet i firmly believe that quixotic is the view that there are no ecological limits to an extractive economy that fuels exorbitant production and anomic consumption. fatalism, the belief that the worst aspects of globalization are inevitable, is not an especially reasonable position. hope is more sensible, if only because it is more likely to bring the needful changes that are becoming increasingly conspicuous. this logic of hope applies to the other concerns i have raised in this article pertaining to social and economic justice. more and more people are recognizing that social and ecological dangers will persist and grow if local populations and global organizations to not work for healthy change. but in order to begin the work of change, one must hope for change. those who care about a place will do much to protect it, and in the process they will experience the joy of working together with others, and their love of place and fellows will grow still more. my hope is that such affections are contagious. this is solidarity at its best. this is religion at its best. references brunetière, f. 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(ed. by bellah, r.; transl. by traugott, mark). chicago: university of chicago press. 43–57. mark s. cladis372 durkheim, é. (1977). the evolution of educational thought: lectures on the formation and development of secondary education in france. (transl. by collins, peter). london: routledge and kegan paul. durkheim, é. (1979). “introduction to ethics.” in émile durkheim: essays on morals and education. (ed. by pickering, w. s. f.; transl. by sutcliffe, h. l.). london: routledge and kegan paul. 77–96. durkheim, é. (1992). professional ethics and civic morals. (transl. by brookfield, c.) london: routledge. [i have slightly modified some of the translations from this edition]. durkheim, é. (2001). the elementary forms of religious life. (ed. by cladis, m.; transl. by cosman, c.). oxford: oxford university press. ehrenfeld, d. (1993). beginning again: people and nature in the new millennium. oxford: oxford university press. goodland, r. (1996). “growth has reached its limit.” in the case against the global economy. san francisco: sierra club. khor, m. (1996). “global economy and the third world.” in the case against the global economy. san francisco: sierra club. west, c. (2001). race matters. new york: vintage books. 4_2017.indd changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.4.024 article religion and the subaltern self: an exploration from the indian context gnana patrick university of madras, india abstract this paper explores the interface between religion and the contours of the subaltern self in the indian context. while the first part of the essay discusses some of the methodological themes of the academic study of the interface, the second part points out to some salient instances of the occurrences of the interface during the pre-modern and modern contexts of india. since the subaltern studies project (ssp) is one of the significant historiographical efforts that has emerged in the recent past to explore the agency of the subaltern self, the essay begins with critically observing the way the ssp introduced the debate on subaltern agency, and goes on to explore the interface, taking cue from the view of david arnold, one of the founding members of the ssp collective, that ssp, at the outset, ‘failed to take religion seriously enough.’ basing on independent initiatives of studying religion in relation to the subaltern self, the essay goes on to argue that religion needs be approached as a sui generis reality especially when exploring from subaltern perspective, which, according to the present author, is different even from the post-colonial perspective. the second part of the essay, then, cites examples from pre-modern and modern periods, wherein individuals as mystics and religious leaders or socio-religious movements emerged as typical examples of the interfacing between religion and the subaltern self. based on these examples, the essay concludes that religion has occurred as singular ‘experiences of the subaltern self to interpret itself into emancipatory existence.’ keywords subaltern studies project, sui generis approach to religion, subaltern religion and subaltern self, emancipatory interpretive existence received 3 december 2017 © 2017 gnana patrick accepted 18 december 2017 gnanapat@gmail.com published online 27 december 2017 gnana patrick374 i subaltern: the concept, the project and beyond from the year 1982 when a subaltern studies project (ssp) emerged with the initiatives taken by ranajit guha and his colleagues, the word ‘subaltern’ became widely known in the indian academic and civil spheres. as we know, the ssp itself did not invent the word, but took it from its earlier usages 1, especially by antonio gramsci who used it during the early part of the twentieth century. gramsci identified two layers of consciousness among the subaltern people: one, that which exists among them, on their own, giving direction or meaning to their spontaneous activity of transforming the world through their labour, and the other, that which they ‘take in’ (oftentimes through imposition) from those who exploit, oppress, and dominate over them. there is then a layer of native consciousness which is free, autonomous and emancipatory, and another a layer of alien consciousness, imposed from outside. this results in a ‘contradictory consciousness’ in the subaltern mind. as for example, the deterministic belief in fate (converging with karma in the indian context), widespread among the subaltern people, goes contrary to their own wellbeing! gramsci spoke of the possibility of the subaltern classes of people to emerge as ‘agents’ of their destiny only when they acquired ‘critical consciousness’, with the help of ‘organic intellectuals’ who shared the ‘common sense’ of the people but converted it into a ‘good sense’ characterised by critical historical thinking. having this gramscian insight as the backdrop, the ssp researched upon the subaltern consciousness as well as their agency, and published in volumes (12 until now) known under the generic title subaltern studies – writings on south asian history and society. in the very first volume, guha clarified the meaning of the term ‘subaltern’ as a “general attribute of subordination … whether it is expressed in terms of class, caste, age, gender and office or in any other way” (guha, 1982). contrasting it with the term ‘elite’, which, according to him, stood for the “dominant groups, foreign as well as indigenous” 2, guha used the term ‘subaltern’ interchangeably with the term ‘people’, which stood for “the total indian population” (ibid.) differentiating itself from the dominant elite. the ssp revisited the then-existing writings on south asian history to unearth aspects of subaltern agency that lay buried under the colonial, nationalist and marxist historiographies, which were then the major historiographical paradigms. it focussed, during its initial phase, primarily upon acts of insurgence or rebellion by peasants against empires of control, the colonial empire in particular. it searched 1 as david ludden points out, “[i]n late-medieval english, it (the word ‘subaltern’) applied to vassals and peasants. by 1700, it denoted lower ranks in the military, suggesting peasant origins. by 1800, authors writing ‘from a subaltern perspective’ published novels and histories about military campaigns in india and america; …” (ludden, 2001, p. 4) 2 guha identified the foreign dominant group consisting of sections like “british officials of the colonial state and foreign industrialists, merchants, financiers, planters, landlords and missionaries”, and the indigenous dominant ones at the national and regional levels, consisting of ‘biggest feudal magnates, the most important representatives of the industrial and mercantile bourgeoisie and native recruits to the uppermost levels of the bureaucracy’ and the like. (ibid., p. 8) changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 375 such documents as ‘police records’, ‘administrative reports’, ‘personal diaries’, and oral traditions to bring up the elements of peasants’ agency that informed their native autonomous consciousness. thus began a project of subaltern studies, which continues until this day with their publications to underscore the agency of the subaltern people. while this project has initiated discussion and debate on aspects of subalternity primarily in academic circles, we find several social movements, human rights activists, civil rights advocacy initiatives, and ‘organic intellectuals’, pre-existing or existing parallel to the project and contributing in manifold ways for the empowerment and emancipation of the subaltern people in india. the work of mahatma phule during the nineteenth century and the contributions of b. r. ambedkar during the twentieth century are two salient examples among the many. there are a good number of studies upon them, independent of the ssp. they have shed more light upon the category of subaltern, treating the latter more emphatically within the indian specific hierarchy of caste and the conditions of subalternity generated out of it. caste-hierarchy is perhaps the central problematic of subaltern studies in india. even the economic problem of poverty, the gender related problem of patriarchy, the marginality of tribal people and the multiple socio-political exclusions cannot be understood and eradicated without taking into account the way the caste-system works in the indian society. a plethora of studies have emerged today upon the continuing struggles of the people subordinated by the caste system, especially the most oppressed groups of people called by the generic name dalits whose life-world, with all its victimhood as well as agency, becomes the anchor of subaltern studies. subaltern studies and religion ‘how has the ssp treated religion?’ is a good question to begin our exploration of the interface between religion and the subaltern self in the indian context. gramsci, in the context of his thinking of the revolutionary action for socialist transformation, treated religion along with the ‘common sense’, both of which, according to him, could not produce the critical historical consciousness (individual and collective) necessary for the revolutionary praxis. religion could not be a critical and historical consciousness premised upon a coherent thinking, because, according to him, religion went with a ‘disconnect’ between ‘thought’ and ‘action’, as he found in the creedal / institutional religion (rather than in religion in its ‘confessional’ sense) 3. gramsci was much worried that the institutional religion, as he experienced catholicism in italy, would always endeavour to keep the masses under its control and not allow them to acquire the transformative critical consciousness. however, that he bracketed out the ‘confessional’ religion would mean that his preoccupation was more on the workings of the institutional religion and less on religion per se, leaving the question open. 3 in his own words: “… the problem of religion taken not in the confessional sense but in the secular sense of a unity of faith between a conception of the world and a corresponding norm of conduct” (hoare & smith, 1998, p. 326). gnana patrick376 the volumes of ssp carried a few essays, which had direct or indirect references to religion. in one of the pioneering essays, partha chatterjee, an important member of ssp, related the gramscian understanding of subaltern consciousness to the reality of caste in the indian context, touching upon the mediatory role played by religion (chatterjee, 1989). he wrote that, “subaltern consciousness in the specific cultural context of india cannot but contain caste as a central element in its constitution,” (ibid., p. 169) and that the centrality of caste in the subaltern consciousness worked in conjunction with religion. in order to explain this, he drew upon the arguments of louis dumont, as found in his well-known work, homo hierarchicus wherein dumont had spoken of the caste system as premised upon the triple principles of ‘hierarchy, separation and division of labour’, which were based on the ‘tensive unity’ continuously being forged between the opposite principles of purity and pollution. in dumont’s words: [t]he three ‘principles’ rest on one fundamental conception and are reducible to a single true principle, namely the opposition of the pure and the impure. this opposition underlies hierarchy, which is the superiority of the pure to the impure, underlies separation because the pure and the impure must be kept separate, and underlies the division of labour because pure and impure occupations must likewise be separate. the whole is founded on the necessary and hierarchical coexistence of the two opposites (dumont, 1980) while this co-existence was not easy, dumont observed that it was the legitimating role played by the indian dharma (universal religio-ethical code) that ensured its continuance. while relating this dumotian insight with the gramscian theme of the two layers of consciousness’, chatterjee opines that, religions which succeed in establishing a dominant and universalist moral code for society as a whole can then be looked at from two quite different standpoints. for the dominant groups it offers the necessary ideological justification for existing social divisions, makes those divisions appear nonantagonistic and holds together a potentially divided society into a single whole. for the subordinate masses, religion enters their common sense as the element, which affords them an access to a more powerful cultural order; the element of religion then coexists and intermingles in an apparently eclectic fashion with the original elements of common sense (chatterjee, 1989, p. 172) chatterjee, thus, sees “religion in class-divided society as the ideological unity of two opposed tendencies – on the one hand the assertion of a universal moral code for society as a whole and on the other the rejection of this dominant code by the subordinated.” (ibid.) he goes on to add that, “[i]t is the construct of dharma which assigns to each jati its place within the system and defines the relations between jatis as the simultaneous unity of mutual separateness and mutual dependence” (ibid., p. 180). for the subalterns, it could be religion that works to construct an alternate changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 377 dharma to overthrow the caste system; and we do find such instances of alternate religious traditions, operative among the people from the pre-modern through the modern to our contemporary era 4. our objective must be, as chatterjee opines, “to develop, make explicit and unify these fragmented oppositions in order to construct a critique of indian tradition…” of the dominant dharma (ibid., p. 185). chatterjee’s analysis of the place of religion in the subaltern consciousness could be treated as a good example of the few cases where ssp treated religion in its exploration (guha, 1986). however, david arnold, one of the seven founding members of the ssp collective, points out in a relatively recent essay published in a volume entitled new subaltern studies that “[s]ubaltern studies failed, at the outset, to take religion seriously enough.” (arnold, 2015) this was because, according to him, “[t]he initial subaltern studies’ view was instrumental in the sense that religion was seen as a means of gaining access to, and locating evidence for, subaltern consciousness and collectivity,” and not as a sui generis reality. taking cue from arnold’s criticism, aparna sundar, in her study of the catholic church among the mukkuvars of coastal tamilnadu, argues for the “primary mode of religious engagement” in cultivating such values as participation in public sphere, democracy, interrogating authority, etc. (sunder, 2014, p. 130) the church, in this case, becomes the arena for learning democratic values of participation, election, and democratic authority by which the people not merely enter into the wider public sphere, but continue to contest the lack of democracy and public sphere also within the church. religious engagement, on its own, becomes the way ‘secular’ ideals are nurtured. thus, we see the emergence of the ‘new subaltern studies’, which approach religion phenomenologically as a sui generis reality, without the modernist and instrumentalist biases. and this approach positions us in a meaningful way to study the relationship between the reality of subalternity and religion. exploring ‘subaltern religions’ on their own it is instructive at this juncture to get to know that a good number of activist-scholars who, though not enlisted among the subaltern studies collective, have studied and contributed to the understanding of subaltern religion. some selected examples are g. aloysius, religion as emancipatory identity – a buddhist movement among the tamils under colonialism (1998); saurabh dube, untouchable pasts – religion, identity and power among a central indian community 1780–1950 (1998); manu bhagavan and anne feldaus, speaking truth to power (2008); and, gail omvedt, seeking begumpura – the social vision of anticaste intellectuals (2008). these studies explore the emancipatory potentials of subaltern religions, on their own. the study by milind wakankar entitled, subalternity and religion – the prehistory of dalit empowerment in south asia, explores insightfully the saint-poet kabir’s verses as sites, which render the transfigurations of the holy in the lives of the subaltern people. observing the condition of violence wherein the dalits were / are “thrown into” by the operation of caste, he notes the “co-existence of the experience of divinity 4 starting with the charvakas, jainism, buddhism, ajivikas, the saktas, the tantrics, etc., the alternate religious traditions embodying dissent have continued to emerge in the indian context. gnana patrick378 and the experience of violence in daily life” of the dalits (wakankar, 2010, p. 8), who, however, refuse to submit themselves into “historically neutral and passive form of existence.” (ibid., p. 7) such a refusal finds expressions in poets like kabir in whose verses divinity and violence converge to construct a subaltern subjecthood. a mystical fountain gushing forth from the sangamam of islam and ‘hindu’ traditions brought forth a corpus of poems, which dwelt upon a transcendent formless god. such studies bear testimony to the positive relationship between religion and the emancipatory aspirations of the subaltern people. subaltern and post-colonial studies it is in place here to clarify the relationship between the subaltern studies and the postcolonial studies that has emerged prominently today. post-colonial studies, a kindred discipline to subaltern studies, has been developing in literary criticism, historiography, philosophy, cultural studies, religious studies, etc., for quite some time now 5. though thinkers like achebe, franz fanon, and du bois have been bringing out the voice of the colonized in their literatures, it was the set of writings by diaspora writers like edward said, gayatri spivak, and homi baba during the second half of the twentieth century, which came to be discussed in the academia as ‘post-colonial’ writings. the central issue being debated here is the nexus between power – colonial power to be precise, on the one hand, and, knowledge, culture, art, religion, etc., on the other. in his much debated work named orientalism, edward said problematized the way the colonial creators of knowledge produced the knowledge of the orient in such a way that they could instrumentalise it for their colonising agenda. orientalism, then, was part and parcel of colonialism, and it was this that post-colonial studies explored as one of its targets. the perspective, later on, was applied to fields of literature, culture, art, and religion to critically examine the invisible hands of empires operative behind the texts, which were produced in a given historical context. debates are on as to whether the very term ‘post-colonialism’ is an appropriate one. there are those who dispute the relevance of the chronological implications of the term. they point out to the fact that empire building with the instrumentality of culture, religion, and knowledge-systems have pre-existed the types of colonialism, which emerged from europe from sixteenth century onwards. there are others who argue that colonialism was not a monolithic category, experienced uniformly by the ‘colonized’ people; there were variants of colonialism, which were resisted, responded to, or even appropriated by the so-called ‘colonized’ people. moreover, the way post5 some of the important contributions to postcolonial studies include: the empire writes back: theory and practice in post-colonial literatures, by bill ashcroft, gareth griffiths, and helen tiffin; colonialism/ postcolonialism, by ania loomba; and colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: a reader, edited by patrick williams and laura chrisman. for more readings, cf. bill ashcroft, gareth griffith, and helen tiffin, the empire writes back: theory and practice in post-colonial literatures (london: routledge, 1989). other often quoted studies by the same authors are bill ashcroft, post-colonial transformation (london: routledge, 2001), bill ashcroft, gareth griffith, and helen tiffin, the postcolonial studies reader (london: routledge and kegan paul, 1995), and bill ashcroft, gareth griffith, and helen tiffin, post-colonial studies: the key concepts (london: routledge, 2002). changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 379 colonialism premised itself upon a commonality of the experience of colonisation starting with north america, canada, and australia, to the ‘third’ world countries from asia, africa and south america ‘homogenises’ the experience of colonisation without due consideration to the specifics of the varying contexts. for example, the indian experience of colonisation, in a context of the hegemony of the caste, can never be equated with north american or australian colonial experiences. and therefore, speaking of exploitation, oppression and domination, even in terms of the epistemic empires, need to be context-specific. there are several aspects of convergence between the post-colonial and the subaltern studies. both treat the subject as ‘dominated over’, and both discuss the subject’s conditions of subordination in terms of her / his consciousness. for example, gayatri spivak, one of the pioneering trio of the post-colonial studies in academic circles, treats the conditions of subalternity as part of the post-colonial critique of coloniality and its empire in her famous question, ‘can the subaltern speak?’. the voice of the subaltern as the colonized, according to her, is irretrievably lost for contemporary historiography, and the subaltern consciousness, buried under layers of external consciousness cannot stand up. despite the spivakian provocative pessimism, the general thrust of post-colonial and subaltern studies is to highlight aspects of agency found among the subordinated or colonized in conditions of subalternity or coloniality. however, the ‘universalizing’ tendency of post-colonial critique tends to leave context-specific power-dynamics like caste in india easily elided. accordingly the subaltern approach to religions and their texts, as they have emerged in the indian context, is unique and distinguishes itself from the post-colonial approach at least upon the following counts: (1) subaltern studies in the indian context deals with the question of subordination especially as it obtains in a hierarchical social condition characterised by the reality of caste, while post-colonialism looks at the universal reality of epistemic and cultural domination as they obtain globally in situations where empires are at work. (2) the reality of caste is more enduring across historical stages of life. the fact that the identity of caste is fixed by birth, and that one cannot wish for changing one’s caste, speaks for the truth of its non-negotiability. but, the situation of being colonised, despite the fact that it leaves traces of subordination which are relatively difficult to erase, goes with less ‘ascriptivity’ and systemic intransigence than caste. for example, identities based on race, colour, gender and caste are more ascriptive and less negotiable than those based on empires, coloniality, first-third worlds, poverty, north – south, etc. collapsing the subaltern discourse into that of the post-colonial can happen only at the peril of making the emancipatory subaltern discourse dampened. ii religion and the subaltern self in indian history the argument of this essay is that religion, considered on its own, could be an emancipatory experience for the subaltern self. the ‘dalit self’ is the typical example of a subordinated self in the indian context, and it would do well to explore the role of gnana patrick380 religion in the history of the dalit self. nothing can be more appropriate than taking a look at some of the occurrences of religion in the lives of dalit individuals and movements: 1. shankar deva (15th century) of assam was a good example of a subaltern religious self (fuchs, 1992) 6. some of his verses, whose translation is given below, make a point that a person, even if he / she eats ‘dog’s meat’ or not able to execute ritual sacrifices because of ritual exclusions, ‘purifies himself / herself by singing the name of god’: the mlechhas who eat dogs purify themselves by singing the name of god. the chandala who only sings the name of hari will properly execute the function of sacrifice… that chandala at the tip of whose tongue there is the message of hari is to be placed in the highest estimation… one is an ignorant boor who vilifies a chandala who has sung the name of hari (ibid.). shankar deva’s “creed consisted essentially in namkirtan, i. e., keeping the memory of god in mind and heart, and expressing one’s love and devotion to god externally by acts of praise and worship.” (ibid., p. 191) message of equality was an essential part of the religiosity of shankar deva. his followers “felt that they belonged to a community to which high and low were treated alike, where all treated each other as brothers and equals.” (ibid., p. 192) the brahmins complained against shankar deva to the king that he “did not sacrifice to the gods; he did not observe the caste rules; and he treated the brahmins with disrespect.” (ibid., p. 193) shankar deva withstood the persecutions, and finally became a wellcelebrated subaltern saint to be remembered even to this day by festivities and other religious activities. 2. ravidas was a pioneering saint-poet of the fifteenth century from the chamar community in north india to give leadership to the chamars to construct a new identity for them. he adopted the brahminic markers like the sacred thread, tilak, etc., even while continuing to do his job as a cobbler. his very appearance challenged the brahmins, and motivated the chamars to take on a new identity. he chose poetry and religion as vehicles of social protest. 3. a nineteenth century illiterate mystic, vaikuntasamy, religiously treated the bodily selves of the shanars, a subaltern community, for an experience of emancipatory identity. the mystic instituted rituals, which treated the people bodily, a ritual known as thuvayal thavasu (‘washing penance’) was a case in point. it was a context wherein the shanars were considered “untouchable, un-seeable, and un-approachable”, and were chased away from public places on account of these unmeaning restrictions. it was in this context that 6 cf. stephen fuchs, godmen on the warpath – a study of messianic movements in india (new delhi: munshiram manoharlal publishers pvt ltd, 1992), 187 ff. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 381 vaikundasamy required them to undertake this thavasu (penance). further, on, in the same context wherein these people were violently denied the right to wear cloths to cover their upper bosom, there arose in his religious assembly a practice of “worshipping” god in a mirror, with a headgear on. it treated the bodily self of the shanars with a poignant religiosity, which resulted in a liberated sense of the self. 4. pundit c. iyothee doss (1845–1914) is yet another inspiring dalit self that sought to interpret its existence into emancipation through its religiously oriented hermeneutical propensity. spurred by a “deep faith in god” (sanna, 2007, p. 25), he explored the advaitic vision not merely to satisfy his personal religiophilosophical quest, but also to find in it a remedy for the social discriminatory system. however, his struggle for a dignified social existence kept leading him to search for a more effectively transformative religion, and after reading a booklet given by a buddhist bhikku, he was drawn to buddhism, and that became his religious home for life. the pundit embarked upon the task of constructing a variant of buddhism known as the “tamil buddhism”, with the help of tamil classical literatures. he involved himself in a lifetime hermeneutical task of deconstructing the existing myths, puranic tales, and even popular religious practices in order to disclose their original buddhist character and content, which are liberative. the religious pursuit of the pundit went with a sense of enquiry and wisdom. he instructed his readers, or followers, to ‘inquire’ into everything – beliefs, practices, etc., until they got satisfactory answers to enquiry, experience and sight. he treated experience and vision as two epistemological criteria for the truthfulness of claims – religious or otherwise. he said, “buddha thanmam even if handed down by your great grandfather or grandfather, question it in your own enquiry and experience. if you realise its truth that it would lead to your descendant’s, co-villager’s and co-countrymen’s welfare then believe in it; but if found worthless in your enquiry and experience, leave it; that is why budhha thanmam is named as the true thanmam (meyyaram)” (ibid., p. 131) an enquiring religion. the pundit’s spirit of enquiry shined forth in “deconstructing” some of the ageold puranic role models, the role model of harichandra being the salient one among them. needless to state the height of normativity this character had obtained in the popular indian ethos for truthfulness. gandhi is said to have learned his lesson of truthfulness from listening to the story of harischandra. the pundit was quite incisive in deconstructing this ‘myth’ of the truthfulness of harichandra. he published an article with the title, “the story of harichandra’s truthfulness and the details of how he became a liar”. he found this role-model characterised with umpteen number of lies, disloyalty to people, anti-women stances, and cowardice even to the extent of not being able to protect his wife. the pundit was concerned about the concepts of ‘truthfulness’ and ‘lie’ that were being discussed in this puranic tale. he was agitated at the fact that harishchandra was extolled as truthful king because he, through trial and tribulations, kept his word to the brahmins, but, on the other hand, disgracefully gnana patrick382 denied the request of two women from the lowly community. this contradiction in the characterisation makes harishchandra a liar, and problematises the very neutrality of the concepts of truth and lie 7. he accuses the proponents of the story of lacking in discernment of truth and lie, and of propagating such lies in order to manipulate and cheat the gullible. the pundit followed a uniquely linguistic approach, aided by his amazing skill to alliteratively search for the semantics of a given linguistic code, and by his grammatically informed wide knowledge of the classical tamil literary corpus. it was laudable that he could trace out meanings from such classics as manimekalai, sudamani, pinkalai nikandu, veerasoliam, seevakasinthamani, tirukural, silapathikaram, gnanavetti, muthurai, korkaivendan, and many more. it was not only the knowledge of the literary sources that gave the uniqueness to his linguistic approach, but also a deep confidence in approaching reality through language. whether be it religious or social domain, he believed in the power of the language to work out transformations. perhaps, it was this core confidence, which spontaneously oriented him towards a religious solution to social problems, rather than social remedies on their own. he worked with the claim that the ‘genuine knowledge of the real and original meaning of the linguistic codes’ (words or phrases) would result in ethical behaviour and religious observances resulting in justice, peace and harmony to the wider society, and to the oppressed in particular. 5. ad dharm, emergent among the dalits during the early part of the twentieth century, was a “movement in north-western india that aimed at securing a respectable place for the dalits through cultural transformation, spiritual regeneration, and political assertion…” (ram, 2004, p. 900). this “movement aimed at securing a distinct identity for the dalits, independent of both the hindu and sikh religions. its central motif was that untouchables constituted a qaum (community), a distinct religious grouping similar to that of muslims, hindus, and sikhs, which had existed since time immemorial.” (ibid.) this “movement, led by mangoo ram, aimed at making dalits realize their communal pride (qaumiat), religion (mazhab), and capability for organization (majlis), which had hitherto laid buried under the burden of untouchability.” (ibid., p. 901) it “brought about cultural transformation in the lives of untouchables in punjab through its emphasis on moral principles. through promoting a moral code of conduct, the movement tried to bring a sense of self-respect to the state’s untouchables.” (ibid.) 6. another good example of the subaltern self, pursuing an interpretive religious avenue for egalitarianism was mahatma phule (1827–1890). phule believed in a creator god – a god who created everything, to whom, we in turn have to offer our gifts in gratitude in the form of ‘righteous conduct of treating one another with freedom, dignity and fraternity’. he wrote 33 akhandas 8 wherein he expounded 7 the pundit contends, “[i]t looks as if there are ‘brahmin truth and lies’ on the one hand, and ‘paraiyar truth and lies’ on the other hand.” (ibid., p. 95) 8 phule used the term ‘akanda’ instead of the existing word ‘abhanga’, which means a devotional poetry. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 383 the ethical conduct as a response to the creator’s gift of creation. in his sarvajanik satyadharma pustak 9, he presents these akhandas, which dwell upon the criteria for the practice of righteous conduct. some of the salient ones are: • those who admit that men and women have been born independent from birth and are capable of enjoying every right, can be said to practise righteous conduct; • those who do not worship the stars and stones, but have respect for the nirmik (creator) of the universe can be said to practise righteous conduct; • those who do not let other creatures enjoy all the things created by the creator, but offer them in worship to the nirmik, cannot be said to practise righteous conduct; • those who express gratitude to the creator, who has created all things, which we are using in this world, can be said to practise righteous conduct (malik-goure, 2013, p. 67). phule, thus, related faith in a creator god with the ethical duty of treating everyone as equal. 7. the early twentieth century satnami 10 movement of the chamar community in north india is yet another example of forging an emancipatory self through religion. they were worshippers of the “true name of god.” ghasi das, who claimed a “divine mission and authority” to fight for the human rights of the chamars, initiated this satnami movement, for, as in the words of stephen fuchs, … though the chamars of chattisgarh had abandoned their former dishonourable trade as tanners and leather-workers and taken to farming and at the same time strictly observed the traditional hindu food taboos and rules of behaviour, the higher castes continued to treat them as impure castes with whom they wanted to have no dealings. this social discrimination the chamars felt the more keenly since by hard work and frugal living they had become fairly prosperous and were in no way inferior to the other farming classes of chhattisgarh (fuches, 1992, pp. 218–219). in this context, ghasi das, an extraordinarily spiritual man, initiated the satnami movement by proclaiming seven precepts, which included “abstinence from liquor, meat, and certain red vegetables such as lentils, chillies and tomatoes, because they had the colour of blood; the abolition of idol worship; … the worship of one solitary and supreme god,” etc. “the satnamis were bidden to cast all idols from their homes, to dispense with temples and fixed prayers, but they were permitted to reverence the sun, as representing the deity… caste was abolished and all men were to be socially equal…” (ibid., pp. 220–221). as saurabh dube, one of the early scholars to study this movement, opines: 9 it was written by phule in marathi language, and its translation in english would be ‘book of the universally true religion’. 10 satnami literally means ‘the true name’. gnana patrick384 the close connection between divine, social and ritual hierarchies located the chamars at the margins of the caste order, and excluded them from hindu temples. ghasidas is believed to have thrown the idols of the gods and goddesses of the hindu pantheon onto a rubbish heap. the rejection of these deities and of the authority of brahman specialists of the sacred, of temples and the hindu puja (worship) offered in them was accompanied by the call to believe only in a formless god, satnam (true name). the new sect was called satnampath and its members, satnamis. (dube, 1998, p. 1) this religious movement contributed much to the emancipatory experience of the subaltern self in the chattisgarh region of north india. 8. b. r. ambedkar (1891–1956), the exemplary subaltern individual to play a vital role in the formation of the modern constitutional state of india, turned to religion in his search for freedom to the subalterns. his search for a transformative religion landed him in buddhism, which opened up a hermeneutical engagement for his self. in interpreting buddhism, he envisioned a dalit self, assertive, autonomous, free, and responsible. he took a conscious and bold decision to convert to buddhism. at the time of conversion, he rhetorically said: “if you want to gain self-respect, change your religion; if you want to create a co-operating society, change your religion; if you want power, change your religion; if you want equality, change your religion; if you want independence, change your religion; if you want to make the world in which you live happy, change your religion…” (ganguly, 2002, p. 334) ambedkar’s conversion brings to the fore certain questions. as debjani ganguly, a post-colonial writer has formulated: “how does one then read this paradox of a secular modem intellectual and political activist seeking recourse to rhetorical devices-genealogies, parables, tales-within-tales-that are the prerogative of men belonging to “archaic” societies?” (ibid., p. 335). ganguly herself attempts an answer: “ambedkar’s history-as-critique … transforms the given dominant historiographical mode (i. e., nationalist and rationalist) from an authoritative one to an internally persuasive one.” (ibid.) the power and need of persuasion can much be appreciated in our post-linguistic-turn ethos that values the cultural power for transformation. ambedkar intuitively took recourse to a source of cultural power with a transcendental reference (religion) that could propose a free self, capable of taking on the dominant self-projected by the traditional hindu religio-cultural system. 9. conversion to christianity and islam was the other option the dalit self explored in its saga of struggle for freedom. in spite of the adverse impact of casteism within christianity, one can still state that christianity did offer opportunities for the social dignity of the embodied dalit self. that christianity mediated a sense of “touchability” of the body is a case in point. the “touchability” christianity weaned it out from its confinement within an untouchable-touchable ritualised binary. its religiosity dwelt upon “healing” of the body (jesus’ touching of the changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 385 lepers and healing is typical); its theology dwelt upon the possibility of the redemption of the “flesh”; its religious calendar gave importance to the “passion” and bodily resurrection of jesus; the missionaries were meat-eaters, and therefore identified themselves with the meat-eating dalits in dietary system; and so on. these aspects of engagement with the body and the religious provision of redemption by divine grace could be said to resonate well with the aspirations for the “touchability” for the dalit self. it is in place to note here an observation made by mathew n. schumalz in his account of the transformation of a “dalit” christian (john masih) to become a charismatic catholic 11. in his words, “the most crucial aspect of charismatic catholicism was its denial of untouchability. when john moved through the audience at prayer meetings, he laid hands on all who came within his reach. once being of ‘something’ that defiled, john now became ‘someone’ who healed.” (schmalz, 2010, p. 194) bodily experience of the self, or of an embodied self, is part and parcel of the life-reality of the dalits. their person has been constructed, reinforced, and reproduced within a varna / caste scheme of reality in terms of their bodily self. their physic (raciality) has been essentialised through ritual, literary, religious, cultural and social behaviour to the extent of being identified with an unvarying constant of impurity resulting in chronic untouchability; their bodies have been relentlessly reproduced as ‘labouring bodies’ so as to be ready for rendering their physical labour to the maintainance of a society that is run by a “pure” bodied section of the people (chatterjee, 1989); their dignity has been affronted with ‘untouchability, unseeability and unapproachability’ because of the empirical experience of the materiality of their bodies; civil liberties and their freedom of movement have been denied on account primarily of their physicality of existence. it is then nothing but an existential fact that the experience of self for the dalit is singularly and more acutely embodied than for other classes of people in india. negativity in their living has got accumulated primarily in terms of their body, a thing that had / has become a predicament rather than a facility. a sense of being “imprisoned” in a world wherein the everyday aesthetics, ‘religiosity’, opportunities, and even ethics smacks of a scheme of varna-based casteism is inescapable for the dalits. 11 schmalz studies john masih’s (a dalit) religious vision, which “reflect and embody his struggle to undo the place of untouchability. in his effort, he moves through a succession of spaces in which he progressively assumes or deploys new identities for himself” (187–8). “john’s family and many catholics felt they had attained a different kind of place in which they could experience a relative autonomy in their distance from their identity as chamars.” (189) john became a healer and practised a kind of catholicism “that allowed him to use the power of words to effect the transformation of self. but john’s transformation of self was not a simple change in public persona. instead, it was an appropriation of an inspired and authoritative identity that could be deployed against the oppressive place of life as a chamar.” (190) “while john did not write poetry, he did have a large collection of aphorisms that he composed. many of the aphorisms had clear christian meanings: ‘if you become trapped “in a cobweb”, call out to the lord… what unified all of these disparate aphorisms was their focus on general notions of selfhood or identity. indeed, the sequentially numbered aphorisms constituted a record of john’s own spiritual epiphanies; they were flashes of self-knowledge arranged in a staccato testimony of insight.” (192–3) “these aphorisms were not just tools for memory and mediation; they were weapons for controversy and contestation.” (193) gnana patrick386 this pathos-filled condition of life generates a search among the dalits for different avenues to exist, to have a meaningful sense of one’s person, to strike respectful relationships, and so on. religion had been an intimate ally in this search. by way of concluding: subaltern self and religion in india above-mentioned subaltern individuals and movements are some typical examples of the resurgent dalit selves that manifested in the history of indian religions. during the pre-modern and the modern periods, religion had indeed been integrated as a resource for the emancipatory project of the dalit self. in the traditional context, against the school of jnana-marga, for example the advaitic philosophical systems, which presented a pursuit for an immutable universal ideal self (atman), a pursuit from which the subaltern people were excluded, the dalit saints took to bhakti religiosity, premised on a relationality between the bhakta and the deity, and through their religious poems and activities, expressed a possibility for the dalit self to present itself in history, or as per the gramscian insight, to emerge out of the ‘contradictory consciousness’ imposed upon them by the dominant. during the modern era, various features of the enlightenment got integrated with religion in the construction of the emancipatory dalit self. dr. ambedkar was a good example. enlightenment values of individual autonomy, equality, justice, liberty, etc., acquired through the western modern education, had matured in him to a level of inspiring radical protest against the ‘demeaning’ social conditions of the dalits. they made him a radical interrogator of the dominant religious myths, which reproduced a hierarchical society. while coming out against the dominating brahminic religion on the one hand, ambedkar experienced the positivity of religion, in its emanicpatory dimension. it was the latter that steered his person towards an interpretive experience of buddhism. religion could be found to be at its best when it inspires a person or a collective to be involved in an interpretive experience of existence. needless to say that most of the initiators of religions have been not ‘founders’ in any juridical sense, but interpreters of existing religions. ambedkar’s interpretive confidence cannot be subsumed under an instrumentalist reasoning of a modernist self; but it was a relentlessly searching self that came to religion, the wellspring of transcendence, to nurture the emancipatory identity of the dalits 12. ambedkar, thus, in converting to buddhism was fulfilling less a project of his modern self than entering into a decisive moment in his search for alternatives that could sustain the emancipatory selves of the dalits. ambedkar’s modernity, thus, was an open-ended, subaltern modernity, that had radical openness to life, and to all that it offers, including the religious experience 13. 12 it is in place to note that a contemporary dalit activist jignesh mevani quotes ambedkar precisely on this point of connection between religion and caste as “the root of the caste system is religion attached to varna and ashram; and the root of the varnashram is brahminical religion…” (rajasekaran, 2017, p. 46). 13 it is insightful to note the fact that in most of the cases of these subaltern leaders, saints, mystics, and movements, proclamation of faith in a supreme god went along with the ethical claim of equality between human beings. the one god becomes the source of a dialogically forged universality of an egalitarian self. and this faith went with the denunciation of idols, rituals, and priesthood, which stood as the pillars of the caste-based hierarchical society. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 4 387 religion appears to be an effective interpretive potential for the subaltern self to take on the caste system, which remains deeply entrenched into the collective consciousness, with its own archetypal binary of purity and pollution. the western enlightenment modernity empowered the dalit-self up to a point, as it occurred in ambedkar during his early development. however, it fell short of taking on the metaphysics of caste. religion, on the other hand, with its metaphysical depth and transcendental ideal, could give the strength for an emancipatory identity to be situated in its alternate cosmogony and utopia. in its linguistic as well as embodied dimensions, religion came into relief as the subaltern self-interpreted itself into emancipation. glossary ad dharm – original ethical religion. akandas – devotional poetry. atman – soul, self, the eternally immutable inner reality. advaita – ‘non-dualism’, one of the central doctrines of classical indian philosophical systems; advaitic is the adjective. bhakti – devotion, piety; bhakta – devotee. dharma – universal ethical religion. dhamma – the buddhist rendering of the sanskritic word dharma; thanmam is a tamil rendering of the same word; meyaram, a tamil word to mean ‘true ethics’. dalit – literally, the word ‘dalit’ means ‘the broken’; in the indian society, it stands for a conglomerate of a number of communities, which have suffered ‘caste’ oppression in historical past and continue to suffer, in subtler forms, until this day. karma – an indic belief which holds that actions of a previous birth accrue to a person in the succeeding birth in the form of ‘karma’; its implied beliefs are ‘rebirth’, or ‘cycles of rebirth’, and ‘transmigration of souls’. mlechas – a derogatory term for foreigners. chandalas – a ‘lower caste’ that deals with removal of corpuses. hari – god vishnu. jnana marga – path of knowledge / wisdom. purana – literally ‘ancient tradition’; however, it stands for major epics of ramayana and mahabharatha; puranic is the adjective. sangamam – confluence. gnana patrick388 thuvayal thavasu – it means literally “washing penance”; it was a ritual requiring the adherents to wash themselves, their cloths, etc., in a ritual ambience as a form of penance. thavasu – penance. tilak – a vermillion mark at the centre of the forehead. varna – literally means ‘colour’; stands for the archetypal division of caste. vaishnavism – one of the two major theistic religious traditions of india; worships vishnu as the supreme deity. vittobha / vitthala – a hindu god, considered as a manifestation of krishna, an avatar (incarnation) of vishnu. references aloysius, g. 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(2010). margins of faith: dalit and tribal christianity in india. new delhi: sage publications. sanna, g. (2007). ka. ayothidasa pandithar. new delhi: sahitya academy. schmalz, m. n. (2010). “the broken mirror: john masih’s journey from isai to dalit”. in robinson, r., & kujur, m. j. (eds.). margins of faith – dalit and tribal christianity in india. new delhi: sage publications. sunder, a. (2014). ‘can the subaltern be secular? negotiating catholic faith, identity, and authority in coastal tamil nadu’. in nilsen, a. g., & roy, s. (eds.). new subaltern politics – reconceptualizing hegemony and resistance in contemporary india. new delhi: oxford university press. wakankar, m. (2010). subalternity and religion: the prehistory of dalit empowerment in south asia. london: routledge. changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 695–699 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.159 book review reactualisation of triadology in polemics with postmetaphysics review of oleg davydov (2020). revelation of love: trinitarian truth of being. st. andrew’s biblical theological institute andrey v. lavrentiev institute of linguistics and intercultural communication of sechenov first moscow state medical university (sechenov university), russian orthodox university of st. john theologian, moscow, russia the book revelation of love: trinitarian truth of being is a monograph written by the russian thinker oleg davydov and published by st. andrew’s biblical theological institute in 2020. while working on the book, the author was engaged in research activities at the institutes in the far eastern russian cities khabarovsk and vladivostok; at the time of publication, he was a professor at the department of theology of the moscow theological academy. the monograph presents an original project, which is significant both for contemporary russian theology and christian philosophy generally. first and foremost, the scale of the project is impressive as the author sets out to develop a fundamental christian apologetics for the modern world, which ranges from the mediaeval metaphysics up to the contemporary postmodern philosophy. moreover, the author abandoned traditional style of theological discourse and produced a work of a synthetic genre, which combines a scientific monograph with a polemical treatise, a manifesto, and it also includes lengthy metaphoric digressions. in his attempt to justify the truth of the christian understanding of reality, the author compares a very wide range of theological and philosophical doctrines with modern and contemporary theories. his approach is mainly critical as the author aims to show the inconsistencies in the dominant philosophical paradigms of our time and reveal the flaws in various modern and postmodern theological projects. it is in in this polemical context that the monograph addresses the main issue of christian theology—the relation of god to the creation. consequently, it also discusses the nature of knowledge and the possibility of communication with god. received 30 july 2021 © 2021 andrey v. lavrentiev accepted 16 december 2021 lavrentyev.av@yandex.ru published online 30 december 2021 https://changing-sp.com/ 696 andrey v. lavrentiev davydov rebukes contemporary christian thinkers for having abandoned their “ontological responsibility”, which, in his opinion, resulted in the degradation of christian thought. christian theology turned into “all too human” historical and philological criticism, anthropological hermeneutics, and sentimental moralising (p. xv). although such a radical rejection of the “human” might resemble the theocentric turn in 20th century european protestant theology, davydov’s criticism has different motivations. the author is inspired by david bentley hart and hans urs von balthasar, but he also draws from gregory of nyssa and bonaventure. while the radical orthodoxy movement is considered separately, davydov traces its origins to the works of von balthasar, karl barth and others. although radical orthodoxy is not a new trend in theological thought, davydov’s presentation clarifies a number of significant issues and, more importantly, brings a truly fresh stream of thinking into contemporary russian theology. structurally, the book consists of an introduction and fourteen chapters. while admitting that his intention to follow “ the path of faith seeking understanding” (p. xxi) precludes systematic exposition, dav ydov unfolds his argument in a clearly visible logic. in the first chapters, the author lays down his principles and outlines structural framework for his entire book. here, along with the central theme —apologetics of trinitarian revelation, the analogy of being is set forth as a methodological principle. the subsequent chapters analyse the ways the trinity operates and manifests itself in the life of the created world with the help of such transcendentals as beauty, truth, and goodness. the last chapters— “variations on a common trinitarian theme” (p. xxi), in the author’s definition,— discuss christology, pneumatology, kenosis, and eschatology. while developing the central theme, these chapters can be read as independent pieces. the book in its entirety summarizes major christian themes and presents them from the critical perspective of postmodern metaphysics. in what follows, we will limit our consideration to the central ideas and main argument of the book. the first chapter “genesis and revelation” begins with a criticism of postmetaphysics. it is blamed by dav ydov for emasculating rational comprehension of reality because it eliminated such ideas as “god” and “truth”. in the same chapter, in order to explicate the main characteristics of the trinitarian revelation, the author distinguishes the revelatory knowledge of god the trinity from the emanative-metaphysical knowledge. triadological problems are illuminated in a rather multifaceted way, including the trinity’s relation to creation. the analogy between the unity of intra-trinitarian relations and the relations of divine persons to creation is highlighted as well as the perichoretic nature of the unity of persons and other important aspects of christian triadology are discussed. the analysis is structured around the arguments of major european thinkers such as hans urs von balthasar, joseph s. o’leary, william clark, conor cunningham as well as russian religious philosophers sergei bulgakov and paul evdokimov. it is the acceptance of the trinitarian revelation that, according to the author, is the only way to adequately comprehend reality, while (post-) modern epistemology leads away from the true state of affairs. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 695–699 697 a separate paragraph of the first chapter is devoted to the transcendentals— ontological predicates of being (truth, beauty and goodness) that reveal being in existence. for davydov, in reflecting properties of the divine in the created world, the transcendentals represent the connecting element between creation and creator. while describing the history of the doctrine of the transcendentals from its beginning in western scholasticism, the author claims that german idealistic philosophy distorted the objective nature of the transcendentals and traces back to this distortion much of the contemporary transcendentalist tendencies. the author provides a more detailed analysis of the individual transcendentals in the subsequent chapters (5–7). in the second chapter, the analogy of being is used to express the relationship of the creation to the creator. a detailed excursus into the development of the idea of analogia entis in the western mediaeval theology is followed by the description of its revival in modern theology. the analogy of being reappears in the works of such catholic theologians as erich przywara and von balthasar. davydov also expounds the history of the rejecting the analogia entis by both secular (heidegger, deleuze, derrida) and religious thinkers (barth). for davydov, the method of analogy combines both apophatic (negative) and cataphatic (positive) ways of knowing god, thus accounting for both mystical and rational-empirical capacities of human beings. the third chapter (‘being and creation’) discusses the creation of the world “ from nothing” (ex nihilo) and its centrality for the christian understanding of reality. thus, despite the apparent autonomy of world’s existence, it is inextricably linked with its creator. the author denounces heideggerian and other post-metaphysical projects, which deny “ontotheology” by positing being outside of god. instead, in discussing the relation of the creator to the creation, davydov emphasises both unity and difference: unity is the transmission of divine being to the creation, while difference is the inexpressibly different ontological modality of god and the world. in the following chapter, a detailed discussion of “post-metaphysical” and “ trinitarian” views of reality is presented. heidegger’s ontic-ontological model and other post-metaphysical constructions enforce a separation from god for the sake of autonomous existence, which ultimately lacks a substantive basis. according to a trinitarian view, conversely, a creature can experience his or her difference from god as peaceful and harmonious. the apologetics for the trinitarian nature of being (god and—similarly—the world) continues in chapter 6 where the author focuses on the historical context of reviving trinitarian problematique in the 20th century theology. it begins with identifying two (conditional) planes of the existence of god the trinity—immanent and economic. davydov discovers origins of this idea in dialectical theology (barth and eberhard jüngel), which were later explicated in catholic theology by von balthasar and karl rahner. although it has become a locus communis in western theology, it is necessary to distinguish interpretations of this idea in eastern and western theology. eastern theology presumably has lost the “functional” meaning of the trinity (especially in palamism). however, the consensus between the eastern and western traditions regarding the correspondence between immanent and economic trinity is possible, at least in the cognitive aspect. it is possible because https://changing-sp.com/ 698 andrey v. lavrentiev god the trinity can be known through his economic actions in relation to creation. however, this is only possible if the inner life of god is not determined by ad extra divine actions (see, for example: lavrentiev, 2014; vletsis, 2009). in addition, the monograph presents many other aspects of christian theology, which are comparatively laid out their interpretations in classical and modern philosophical thought. but for reasons of brevity, we now turn to the stylistic form of the book under review. first of all, a reader will notice the complex syntax of the work: the text is replete with many subordinate clauses and dangling attributes. at the lexical level, terminology is quite unconventional and text abounds in metaphorical phrases: “the immanent plan of possibilist theology” (p. 194), “nietzschean cadence” (p. 188), “persuasive force”, (p. 319), “postmodernists valorise the systole of apophatic theology, abstracting it from cataphatic diastole” (p. 147). although the meaning of such words and newly formed combinations is, in principle, comprehensible, it unduly burdens already lengthy and semantically complex text. some incorrect uses of terminology in russian need to be mentioned. for example, the notion of “economy” (in the original russian text ikonomia) and its adjective “economic” (ikonomisheskiy) refer in general to the providential and soteriological divine action towards the creation. instead of this term, which has long been established in russian theological discourses, the author uses—having in mind the theological meaning—the forms ekonomia, ekonomika (“economy”, pp. 357, 358, etc.), the phrase ekonomicheskaia troitsa (“economic trinity”) (see, for example, pp. 37, 59, 336 and etc.). it is not explained and causes confusion, since “economics”, “economy”, and “economic” do not have any theological connotations in the russian. despite these irregularities, the work is a worthy apology for the traditional christian view of reality, which demonstrates the failure of attempts on the part of modern theologians to switch to the modality of modern discourses (“irreligious christianity”, “death of god”, etc.). the author may well be identified as an adept—even a representative—of radical orthodoxy. however, his work does not only reproduce its main postulates or traces its development, it creatively re-interprets the movement in the context of russian theology and sets it within the framework of established orthodox patterns of thought. the non-confessional nature of the movement (despite its british-catholic origin) allows its integration into the orthodox paradigm, especially since it is traditional common christian truths that are being defended here. the confessionless—or overconfessional—nature of davydov’s monograph should also be noted: questions of interconfessional divergences, the search for a true position in some particular christian confession are left out of the book, which is essentially directed toward a christian worldview that is independent of historical collisions and misunderstandings1. 1 although the author clearly does not articulate his confession, nevertheless, by indirect indications, it can be assumed that it is precisely orthodox: the confession of the nicene-constantinople creed (p. xv) and his position of professor at a higher orthodox theological school. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 695–699 699 at the same time, it is possible to discern a critical attitude towards the conservative position of the eastern christian tradition and sympathy for certain intentions of western theology in davydov’s work2. however, this should be seen as testifying to an attempt to find the best in western and eastern christian thought with the aim of their fruitful synthesis. perhaps, the author’s project is vulnerable to certain narrowly confessional criticisms. for example, on the filioque, which is excellently problematised by davydov in the context of christian pneumatology: orthodox and non-orthodox theologians, of different historical periods and positions, are in the dialogue with each other. however, it is not our task to seek such vulnerabilities. in this regard, i would only like to note that theology involves not a thoughtless repetition of once accepted dogmatic formulations and their fanatical protection, but a living thought arising from personal spiritual experience, and a thinker, who, in daring to think about god and his actions, inevitably faces risks. nevertheless, without incurring such risks, living knowledge of god is hardly possible. references davydov, o. (2020). revelation of love: trinitarian truth of being. st. andrew’s biblical theological institute. lavrentiev, a. v. (2014). problema istorichnosti boga v rabotakh vol'fkharta pannenberga: filosofskie, dogmaticheskie i ekumenicheskie aspekty [the problem of god in history in the works of wolfhart pannenberg: its philosophical, dogmatic, and ecumenical aspects]. st. tikhon's university review, 2(52), 43–58. https://doi. org/10.15382/sturi201452.43-58 vletsis, a. (2009). die immanente trinität ist die „doxologische trinität“: die entsprechung von „theologia“ und „oikonomia“ als voraussetzung einer annäherung der trinitätsmodelle von ost und west [the immanent trinity is the “doxological trinity”: the correspondence of "theologia" and "oikonomia" as a prerequisite for a rapprochement between the of the trinity models of east and west]. una sancta, 64(1), 8–28. 2 see, for example, p. 139: “vostochno-hristianskaja tradicija, vozmozhno, chrezmerno uvlekshisʼ konfessionalizmom i apologetikoj” (“[...] the eastern christian tradition, perhaps overly carried away by confessionalism and apologetics” et seq.). https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.15382/sturi201452.43-58 https://doi.org/10.15382/sturi201452.43-58 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 252–266 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.2.132 received 2 april 2021 © 2021 andrey s. menshikov accepted 14 may 2021 asmenshikov@urfu.ru published online 9 july 2021 article time, moment, eternity: hieroglyphs and meditations in yakov druskin’s philosophy andrey s. menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract in this article, the author explores the interest of the interwar intellectuals in “time, death, god”. this focus on temporality as an existential problem engendered some major philosophical projects, which aimed at complete revision of how philosophy should be done, including henri bergson, edmund husserl, franz rosenzweig. the main part outlines a philosophical project of yakov druskin who addressed the problem of temporality in a highly original manner. druskin combined philosophical reflection on time in its existential meaning with the search for intellectual methods and linguistic techniques to transcend our ordinary reality. among these methods, in druskin’s works at least two major modes—meditation and “hieroglyphs”—can be identified. both methods, however, aim at “transforming rather than informing” and at enabling us to linger in a “certain equilibrium with a minor error”. keywords russian avant-garde, russian philosophy, oberiu, druskin, temporality, time, languages of time, existential meaning of time acknowledgement the work was supported by the russian science foundation (grant project no. 19-18-00342). https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 252–266 253 introduction a century ago, franz rosenzweig published his der stern der erlösung [the star of redemption] (1921), in which a prominent german jewish intellectual sought to address “various themes already familiar to a new generation tutored in kierkegaard, nietzsche, dilthey, and bergson” (gordon, 2007, p. 122). peter eli gordon enumerates among these themes further the primacy of poetic language, the bankruptcy of rationalist and idealist philosophy, the constitutive-existential function of temporality, the linguistic, spoken, and always intersubjective grounding of human meaning, the paradigmatic import of religious revelation, and, perhaps most of all, the turn from theoretical knowledge to ‘life’ itself as the chief field of hermeneutic inquiry (ibid.). these themes rosenzweig developed in his “new thinking” laid out in the star and, perhaps, they can be best summarised in a phrase, which aleksander vvedensky used: “i am interested in three themes—time, death, god” (see: druskin, 1998a, p. 47, my translation from russian—a. m.). this phrase was reported to us by yakov druskin, a russian philosopher, who, in another work zvezda bessmyslitsy [the star of meaninglessness] (druskin, 1998c), explicated vvedensky’s philosophical approach and literary method. the interest of the interwar intellectuals in “time, death, god” was spurred by the profound suspicion towards or outward rejection of established systematic philosophy in its idealist or materialist versions. systems of philosophy seemed too abstract and the laws of history, which had promised the progress of humanity, seemed too arid to validate the subjective existence of individual human beings who had to navigate through major transformations of the early twentieth century. a number of intellectuals focused on temporality, primarily in its existential and subjective function rather than on history in its majestic course because in the systems of philosophy, ironically, the explanation of the ongoing social transformations by the laws of history deprived the future of its novelty. as leonard lawlor notes, “continental philosophers are opposed to norms because norms stop thinking. norms allow us to deduce actions, and then we do not really struggle with the decision. norms stop thinking because they close off the new” (lawlor, 2012, p. 50). on the european continent, this focus on temporality as an existential problem engendered some major philosophical projects, which aimed at complete revision of how philosophy should be done, including henri bergson, edmund husserl, franz rosenzweig, to name just a few. however, in order to explore this personal significance of time, to initiate new ways of thinking about time, it was necessary to find new ways of speaking about time. thus, the philosophical reflection on time was interwoven with the search by philosophers, poets, artists, musicians for the new forms of conveying and expressing the experience of time. moreover, as lawlor aptly puts it, for these philosophers “the idea that thinking happens to you implies that https://changing-sp.com/ 254 andrey s. menshikov thinking is not a natural ability. it occurs under the pressure of extreme experiences and experimentation. because thinking happens in an experience, continental philosophy is always interested in the experience of death, madness, and blindness. all of these experiences concern disorientation in time” (lawlor, 2012, p. 47). thus, apart from new ways of thinking and of speaking about time, it is necessary to find ways, methods, techniques of “disorienting” us, of pushing us out of the ordinary and the everyday in order to create the conditions for experiencing time existentially. in the bergsonian approach, access to pure time is gained by means of intuition. however, the way bergson describes how intuition can actually work is mostly in negative terms and, as it were, in parables. in his lectures histoire de l’idée de temps [history of the idea of time] (bergson, 2016), bergson strives to direct us to the comprehension of time by a number of oppositions: internal–external, direct–intermediate, simple–complex/composed, relative–absolute. bergson outlines the distinction between internal (direct, simple, absolute, intuitive) and external (mediated, composed, relative, conceptual) knowledge of things by deconstructing our ordinary experiences of learning a foreign language, observing some movement, understanding a fictional character in a novel, grasping the notion of life in biology (bergson, 2016). he gives an ordinary example and shows how it actually misconstrues the experience of duration, although it is this duration that makes it at all possible. in all these cases, bergson proceeds in, what can be called, an apophatic fashion: we need to step out of our habitual ways of perception, use of concepts, reliance on analytical thinking, usage of language, and to replace it all with intuition, or direct knowledge of the absolute. in phenomenological philosophy, this process of transcending the ordinary and the everyday is described by the concept of epoche, or phenomenological reduction. but, in a way, this procedure of lifting us out of the ordinary is similar to what various thinkers described as ecstasis or rapture and is fraught with religious overtones. georgiy chernavin highlights the following observation made by druskin who berates husserl for insufficient courage to accept the religious function of the epoche: ambiguity of transcendental reduction, its madness is the same madness as the madness of religious conversion. husserl himself says that many phenomenologists pass off their purely psychological descriptions for a phenomenological investigation. but if we deny the religious foundation of transcendental reduction, any phenomenological reduction will be merely a psychological description. phenomenological reduction presupposes two states, or two orders, of mind. but there is only a natural state or an unnatural state, that is, a religious state, no third state of mind exists (...) husserl himself wished to come to god. but this is impossible, it is contradictory: it is i who runs away from god. if god does not drag me to himself, i can’t come to god (…) transcendental reduction is necessary. husserl is wrong in believing that it [transcendental reduction] is only theoretical, it is simultaneously practical. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 252–266 255 therefore, i can’t do it [reduction] myself, although i ought to do it. (druskin’s passage videnie nevideniya [the vision of the unseen], cited from chernavin, 2020, p. 75, my translation from russian—a. m.). transcendental reduction, therefore, can be regarded as a religious act, an act of meditation aimed at ecstasis. but this act introduces rupture into the way we experience the world and splits it into two—or potentially many—worlds. rosenzweig interprets this division of the totality of knowledge, so vigorously sought for by systematic philosophy, in the context of religion. he claims that it is the unity of reasoning, which here insists on its right over against the multiplicity of knowledge by asserting the totality of the world. the unity of the logos establishes the unity of the world-as-totality (...) thus a successful resistance against the totality of the world implies at the same time a denial of the unity of reasoning (rosenzweig, 1921/1971, p. 12). but for rosenzweig, this exit from false totality, which systematic philosophy tried to impose by its notion of “all”, or the “world”, can only be achieved in emancipating individuality through an otherworldly experience given to us in religion and, in particular, in revelation. as p. e. gordon explains, “through the encounter with divine love, we pass from abjection to reconciliation (…) because they [jews] remain open to the eternity of future redemption, they exhibit a profound indifference to history” (gordon, 2007, p. 135). thus, truly experiencing time presupposes actually stepping out of history. in other words, one has to establish a connection between one’s immediate moment and eternity. both bergson and husserl showcase duration, the internal continuous process of experiencing time, the process, in fact, of living as a conscious being. both philosophers try to lead us to this experience of time by affecting a rupture with the experience of the ordinary by means of intuition or reduction, that is, by reconceptualising traditional methods of philosophy. both philosophers try to reinvent how philosophy should be done, while franz rosenzweig aims at “new thinking”, which ought to be based on the old revelation. it is divine revelation alone, which can open our true selves and our actual place in the world to our reflection. in what follows i intend to offer a brief outline of another philosophical project, which addressed the problem of temporality in a highly original manner. it combined philosophical reflection on time and eternity in their existential, subjective meaning with the search for intellectual methods and linguistic techniques to transcend our ordinary and everyday attitude to reality. this project was developed over the decades by yakov druskin who traditionally is mentioned in relation with the russian avant-garde stars—aleksander vvedensky and daniil kharms whose archive druskin saved from the besieged and bombarded leningrad, and whose philosophical discussions he reported and whose literary oeuvre he explicated in his own texts. https://changing-sp.com/ 256 andrey s. menshikov “before belongings to anything”: yakov druskin in his circumstances yakov druskin was born in 1902 in yekaterinoslav, he was the first son to the druskins, a jewish family whose name probably stems from lithuanian “salt”, and who were involved in revolutionary activities, including participation in “bund” (“general jewish labour bund in lithuania, poland and russia”). the family were also blessed with two more children—mikhail, a famous soviet musicologist, and lidiya who preserved, helped publish and commented on yakov druskin’s archives. yakov attended lentovskaia gymnasium where he made acquaintance with leonid lipavsky and aleksander vvedensky, but their true intellectual friendship developed later. he graduated from the philosophy department of the petrograd state university and leningrad conservatory (the latter while working as a teacher at school). in the late 1920s, druskin takes part in the chinari group whose name refers to the slavonic equivalent of “order” or “rank” and, omitting the disputes about precise titulature, more known due to the activities of another grouping oberiu (“association of real art”). vvedensky and kharms perished in the early 1940s, druskin saved their archives and was evacuated to sverdlovsk, but in 1944, he returned to leningrad where he lived to the end of his days in 1980 (see dmitrenko & sazhin, 1998, for more details). druskin was fascinated by music and published a volume on bach and cooperated in translating bach studies, though later he was no less thrilled by webern and schoenberg (m. druskin, 1999). he also developed interest in painting due to his friendship with v. sterligov. but overall, to the external view, his life was utterly uneventful. druskin himself reports two events that deeply affected his personality in his diaries, which druskin named pered prinadlezhnostiami chego-libo [before belongings to anything] (druskin, 1999). the first event was what he describes as a call of god and a realisation of the fact of human mortality in 1911. in 1928, some episode of revelatory experience was recorded by druskin in a small piece under the title dushevniy prazdnik [spiritual festivity]: i have seen something simple, something so simple, clear, and evident that i can’t even understand how i could not see it before, how i could live without seeing it. this was simple, clear, and evident all the time, right before me, it was my soul. (...) this is so simple: think of your soul. again, “think of your soul”, but it is your soul, that is, when i think of my soul, i have my soul. thinking about the soul is thought. but the soul is not thought, neither thinking nor reflecting. soul is greater than thought, than thinking, because it is soul that thinks and has thought. still, when i think of my soul i have my soul, this thought, this thinking about my soul actually is my soul. so, this thought is greater than this thought, it exceeds the limits of thought: as it is [this thought about the soul] is greater than it is. i have seen something new, something simple, something joyous, i always had it but i have not seen it. no, i have always seen it, could not not see it and still did not see it, only now i see it (sazhin, 1998, p. 655, my translation from russian—a. m.). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 252–266 257 while highly important, it was not transformative unlike the second event, which occurred in 1932. it was a dream, in which his former teacher from lentovskaia gymnasium, l. georg appeared to him and “showed me death (...) but this was the death in relation with the fear of god: ‘i am not ready for the judgement, and death scares me’” (druskina, 1999a, p. 529, my translation from russian—a.m.). this prompted the decision to abandon philosophical system building in a traditional way and align thinking and living in his personal development. his subsequent life was the exercise in finding ways to extricate oneself from the world, to transcend the ordinary and the everyday: i never felt myself at home in this life (...) earlier i thought this was caused by personal circumstances, my school work, for instance, or the like. every spring i thought: something is going to happen; i will leave the school by the fall and start a new life. then i realised that nothing is going to happen, and even if it would have happened, i still will not feel at home in life (…) when georg came to me and showed me death, i thought: i was insincere, i wanted to build a system, but a system is impossible, every system has gaps and contradictions, i bridged the gaps as i could and i ignored the contradictions. before the face of death, we can’t write like that. i have rejected the system (druskina, 1999a, p. 529, my translation from russian—a. m.). since this personal revelation, druskin has decided to embark on the project of turning thinking into practice. he made himself and his thinking an object of experiment and investigation. he experimented both in his writing and in his thinking. his writing is extremely esoteric and, as it were, idiosyncratic. problems of interpretation several scholars attempted to approach his philosophy and find it an appropriate context. aleksey kozyrev (kozyrev, 1997) reviews druskin’s later work videnie nevideniya [the vision of the unseen] and compares druskin’s quest for sanctity to gregory skovoroda’s, while his philosophical methodology is described as phenomenological reduction and one of the ways husserl’s phenomenology was adopted in russia. georgiy chernavin (chernavin, 2020), on the other hand, suspects that druskin was playing at phenomenological reduction, whereas, in fact, he parodied the literary genre of philosophical text, quite in line with his oberiu friends, in order to create a poetic effect. chernavin wonders whether it would not be more accurate to assume that druskin actually aimed at producing “an applied psychedelic use of phenomenological methodology” (chernavin 2020, p. 80, my translation from russian—a. m.). to some extent, this conjecture echoes the analysis of evgeny pavlov who sees druskin in the context of literary experiments of other oberiu members (see roberts, 1997): thus surviving russian avant-gardists built literary machines of their own with which to critique and radically transform the commonly accepted notions of https://changing-sp.com/ 258 andrey s. menshikov time and history. kharms’ and vvedensky’s machines were of the extreme variety, each in his own way questioning the very core of what constitutes our temporal perception and any philosophical and social systems we construct on its foundation (pavlov, 2012, p. 298). it is hard to agree, though, that the interest in time, and, we should remember, in death and god, of the oberiu can be explained away as a competition with and a response to stalinism. particularly it is difficult to see the direct link between stalin’s “time machine” and oberiu’s “literary machines” when pavlov claims: yet the obsessive thinking about time that marks the entire oeuvre of both men is not a mere exercise in abstract speculation, but inevitably represents an engagement with the political in ways that are no less radical than an open confrontation with the regime (...) a certain time machine is at work during the years of high stalinism: it aims to conquer time by “petrifying the utopia” of the future and remaking history, as it ought to have happened (pavlov, 2012, p. 296). graham roberts discusses philosophy of oberiu (1997) in greater detail. while indicating the common aspiration of the chinari group “to construct a new, non-substantial existential ontology”, quoting from druskin’s remark (ibid., p. 126), roberts seems to overstate the common theoretical foundation and principles of their philosophies, as if it were a unified whole, and seems to ignore the substantial differences in philosophical orientations, methods, and achievements. druskin describes his own interest, his own twist of the group’s project in his essay chinari: thinking, by its own nature, contrasts what is thought with thinking itself, that is, it extracts from thinking, from the act of thinking its content and its object; and it opposes thinking to the content of thinking and then [it opposes] thought to the object of thought, which is independent from thinking. unlike animals, human beings think and thereby oppose themselves to society (...) i am interested in this last division. this is what i mean: i am left alone. i must correct myself: by saying i, i mean everyone, not just myself. everyone who thinks will say: i am alone, i am before god, i and god. again, i must correct myself: i meant exactly myself and not everyone, i don’t even know what everyone is, i don’t even know if there is any other. when i think, i do not see him. not some other, but exactly myself, and right now: i am alone. not because i do not have any acquaintances. i am alone because there is no external comprehension: i comprehend nothing. this, however, does not imply that there is no internal comprehension, that nobody can understand anyone else. but to have actual internal comprehension—rather than hypocrisy—a complete incomprehension must precede it; i must remain alone: i and god. but once i said this, i see that not i, but god: there is no i anymore. but how can i say that there is no i? i repeat: there is no i. the first part of the sentence negates the second, but both are correct. this is what i call the last division: i am divided, i observe my own absence and do not comprehend it. but changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 252–266 259 only through this incomprehension can one come to the internal comprehension, some incomprehension is comprehension, the rest is hypocrisy. most of all i dread internal hypocrisy, the lie to myself. only by dividing the incomprehension of others from myself and myself from the world will i be able to avoid internal lie. but this incomprehension is comprehension. then, i can see life. not the grid of relations and categories which reason imposes on life, but [i can see] actual life; [i can see] death and god, [i can see] mystery (druskin, 1998a, pp. 63–64, my translation from russian—a. m.). distinctly theological agenda of druskin and his specific methodology, of which later, sets him clearly apart from other members of the chinari and the oberiu groupings. while druskin’s name is rarely absent in the discussions about oberiu (ostashevsky, 2012), there are few scholars who analysed druskin’s philosophy in his own right. tat’iana rezvykh in explicating the antinomies of time in vvedensky’s writings (rezvykh, 2014) addresses some aspects of druskin’s philosophical reflections, but some major effort at research is needed to give due to this remarkable and profound philosopher. translation issues and beyond it should be noted that there is only one available translation of his texts published in english: some excerpts from the diaries (death and the end of the world) and his letter to kharms (see: ostashevsky, 2006). this lack of translations and the preference to abundantly quote rather than to analyse druskin’s writings can be explained, on the one hand, by the complexity of the task of translation. because druskin, firstly, uses a number of categories, which despite their apparent simplicity are hard to translate. two examples can be given here. his fundamental notion of pogreshnost’, particularly in the formula ravnovesie s nebol’shoi pogreshnost’yu, has both mathematical and religious connotations. thus, e. ostashevsky chooses to translate this formula as “a certain equilibrium with a slight peccadillo” (ostashevsky, 2006, p. 220): “its meaning is deliberately vague, but the peccadillo is, as it were, departure from dead symmetry by either aleatory or voluntary error that constitutes creation in both the cosmological and the artistic senses of the word” (ostashevsky, 2006, p. 252). on the other hand, g. roberts uses “minor error” for pogreshnost’ (roberts 1997, p. 26). a wider range of connotations, in my view, can be evoked by using “minor error”, the latter alluding to the “measurement error” and “margin of error” in mathematics as well as to moral sin and to cognitive lapse, but these remain crude approximations to the original. another example is his fundamental categories of “this” and “that”. despite his philosophical education at the best russian university at the time and his extensive philosophical erudition, druskin shuns from using traditional philosophical categories in his writings. one of the most remarkable things that a reader may notice in perusing https://changing-sp.com/ 260 andrey s. menshikov his texts is that there are practically no grecisms, latinisms or other philosophical terms of foreign origin. druskin’s vocabulary is astonishingly russian in the choice of philosophical terminology. yet, druskin does not create any artificially russian philosophical vocabulary; on the contrary, he relies primarily on the use of ordinary language such as, for instance, demonstrative pronouns this and that. druskin, though, endows these simple pronouns with conceptual significance. but that makes them very difficult to translate because so much hinges on the underlying ordinary usage. secondly, the lack of translations and the preference to extensively quote him can be explained, by the methods druskin uses in his philosophical work. most of his texts are not purported to inform the reader, they intend to transform, to reproduce in a reader the transformation that was exercised and perfected by the writer. the editors often deplore the fact that druskin did not date his texts and often returned to them and reworked them. the texts were, indeed, diligently honed instruments of meditation. commentators sometimes referred to the similarities of druskin’s methodology and docta ignorantia developed by nicholas of cusa and dating back to dionysius the areopagite’s corpus (rezvykh, 2014, p. 91). but it is important to keep in mind that this similarity does not lie in conceptual continuation. nicholas of cusa was a philosopher who tried to develop philosophical concepts, often drawing on mathematical notions and analogies, in building his late renaissance theology. unlike nicholas, dionysius, whoever might be hidden by this name, was a practicing mystic and in his mystical theology, the author was not trying to expound a theological doctrine per se, to argue and to convince a reader. he aimed at transforming the reader’s mind, at inducing through meditation the experience of the divine. but how can one express the ineffable divinity, which is beyond all and every being? dionysius relies on oxymoronic and paradoxical constructions such as “the rays of the divine darkness” (pseudodionysius, 1999, p. 212). these constructions are meaningless conceptually. but the semantic clash caused by “the most illustrious darkness”, “eyeless minds” and “ignorant knowledge” (or “learned ignorance”) in this mystical treatise is instrumental in achieving its practical purpose—to meditate out of the creation and into the state of ecstasis, that is, to achieve the union with the divine. in his reflection on the aspirations and methods of chinari group, druskin distinguishes two types of the meaninglessness (druskin, 1998a, pp. 47 ff.). situational meaninglessness refers to the breaking of conventions and expectations, of norms of behavior, and of rules of acting and being in the familiar reality. for instance, andersen’s tale (keiserens nye klæder [the emperor’s new clothes]) about the child who called off the bluff of the naked monarch. semantic meaninglessness entails the clash of meanings in an utterance, in a sentence or a phrase. to illustrate the consequences of such a semantic clash, druskin cites vvedensky: if we experience wild incomprehension, we will acknowledge that none can dispel this incomprehension with anything clear. woe to us who think of time. but then as this incomprehension grows, you and i realize that there is no woe, neither to us, nor to those who think, nor to time (druskin, 1998a, p. 47, my translation from russian—a. m.). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 252–266 261 semantic meaninglessness, thus, becomes a method of gaining access beyond the ordinary and the everyday, access to the other worlds. chinari used the notion of “neighboring worlds” to describe these alternative orders of reality, in which one or more of the familiar qualities might be reversed. for instance, “we live in the world of firm objects, we are surrounded by air, which we perceive as emptiness. how would a semiliquid jellyfish who dwells in the liquid water feel?” (druskin, 1998a, pp. 60–61, my translation from russian—a. m.). finally, could the inhabitants of those neighboring worlds communicate with us, and, if they could, what would be their message? chinari used the word “vestniki”— messengers, literally angels, to describe the inhabitants of the neighboring worlds. one of the most significant philosophical reflections written by yakov druskin are included in the groups of texts under the title razgovory vestnikov [conversations of messengers] (druskin, 1998b). the translation of a fragment from tret’e issledovanie ob etom i tom [the third investigation about this and that], part vi, in razgovory vestnikov [conversations of messengers] is attached in the appendix. but in this translation, i hope, it can be observed that unlike his partners in chinari group druskin deploys neither situational nor semantic meaninglessness. yet, i would concur with the hypothesis made by g. chernavin, though in a rather ironic manner, that druskin’s texts aim primarily at transforming rather than informing. what can take us beyond? when druskin was disappointed in his idea of building a new system, he continued his literary and philosophical experimentations. but now they were all directed at practical aims. his writing and thinking were ascetic exercises that were needed to transform his life, or rather, in his own words, to find his true home. instead of abstract reasoning and theoretical conceptualizations traditional for the european philosophy, in druskin’s works we can detect at least two major modes of “transforming rather than informing”: meditation and hieroglyphs. reportedly, the notion of hieroglyphs was suggested by lipavsky, but druskin adopted it, perfected it, and reflected on it in several texts. in zvezda bessmyslitsy [the star of meaninglessness], druskin elaborates on this notion in some detail: hieroglyph is a material phenomenon, which i can directly perceive, feel, apprehend and which tells me more than it can directly express as a material phenomenon. hieroglyph is ambivalent, it has its proper and additional meaning. the proper meaning of hieroglyph is its definition in its capacity of a material phenomenon—physical, biological, physiological, psychophysiological. its additional meaning can’t be defined precisely and unambiguously, it can be conveyed metaphorically, poetically, sometimes by joining logically incongruous notions, that is, by antinomy, contradiction, meaninglessness. hieroglyph can be understood as an indirect or mediated speech of the immaterial, that is, of spiritual or supersensible, by means of material and sensible when it is addressed to me” (druskin, 1998b, pp. 550–551, my translation from russian—a. m.). https://changing-sp.com/ 262 andrey s. menshikov one might wonder to what extent this interpretation of the hieroglyph is similar to the notion of symbol in the areopagite’s corpus whose function is described as “to reveal and to conceal at the same time”. but it is important to emphasize that hieroglyphs are much more diverse and poetic than theological symbols. examples of hieroglyphs include fall of the leaves, fire in a fireplace, and a series of literary and cinematographic images such as the road in the final episode of chaplin’s the pilgrim. moreover, while theological symbols all point in the same direction—towards god, hieroglyphs reveal the multiplicity of neighboring worlds. the other methodology, which i named meditation earlier, might seem a parody of philosophical treatise, as chernavin suggested. some of razgovory vestnikov [conversations of messengers], indeed, might seem repetitive, obscure, and uninformative. but i argue that this is precisely their point. they are not purported to report anything to us, to enlighten us or to educate us in any way. they work as music works by setting certain rhythm, and certain pitch, and certain mood, and by guiding our thinking in a very specific way. the ultimate purpose of these meditations is not to fall into any of the neighboring worlds, but to remain on the border between them, in the gap between different orders, different systems of logic and aloof from the norms, which subjugate into compliance our thinking, our living, our existing. druskin strives to enable us not to succumb to any definite order and to linger in a moment, to hang at the tip of the balance in a “certain equilibrium with a minor error”. in conclusion, i would emphasize again the originality and the ingenuity of the philosophical project developed by yakov druskin. l. lawlor claims that the experience of the moment being the experience of death implies that although all continental philosophy starts out being a relativism and a subjectivism, all continental philosophy ends up being an “absolutism” and an “objectivism.” death is what is outside of subjective experience; therefore, being non-subjective, death is “objective.” death is what i cannot relate to, since relating to it destroys my life; therefore, being non-relative, death is absolute (lawlor, 2012, p. 32), but i would caution against such a generalization. druskin’s philosophical practice of reflecting on “time, death, god” demonstrates that death is not “outside of subjective experience”, its deeply personal acknowledgment initiates the search for an exit from the temporal world and for the means—philosophical and poetic—to enter the moment, in which god meets its “thinking creature”. many intellectuals of the interwar period sought to make meaning of the historical transformations, which undermined the enlightenment’s expectations of progress. the latter was supposed to combine social, technical, and moral development of the humanity. but while technology and societies were becoming more and more complex, they were also growing more and more overbearing towards individual subjectivity. in this article, i outlined a number of ways that philosophers proposed to reconnect human existence with transcendent dimensions of reality and to renew the relation between philosophy and religion. while h. bergson leaned towards traditional changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 252–266 263 catholic christianity, f. rosenzweig offered a renewal of judaism, yakov druskin practiced his own sort of religion, though based on the gospels. in my view, the study of the religious aspects of the russian avant-garde will greatly enrich our understanding of the “continental philosophy” and will place yakov druskin on par with most prominent intellectuals of the interwar period bergson, husserl and rosenzweig. appendix razgovory vestnikov [conversations of messengers] tret’e issledovanie ob etom i tom [the third investigation about this and that] vi 1. watching trees in a garden during the rain, or watching fire in a fireplace, or the flow of a river you find some certainty and clarity. you say: i have achieved an equilibrium, i have seen the great moment, when there was no time, [i have seen that] something truly exists. but then you notice a minor error, and the equilibrium is disturbed. 2. when the great moment exists, something can be named. there will be an affirmation, but there is yet no reasoning. this is the way of messengers and trees to give names. if, however, you have noticed a minor error, the names are doubtful. 3. once i noticed a small error in some equilibrium, i began my investigation. i said something and said this. i noticed some duplication here: i supposed that something existed, but by naming it this, i gave it existence anew. and it exists as if for the first time: i have realised that it had not existed before it was named. 4. by saying this, i say it [is] different from that. if i could say this directly, i couldn’t doubt its existence. moreover, i would regard its second existence as the first and the only. but now i see a minor error: i didn’t say this, but this in contrast to that. i reverted the error to the beginning. i noticed some duplication and in recollecting how i said this by saying something i supposed that i had noticed it then. 5. by saying this in contrast to that, i simultaneously said that. i said that before actually saying that, simply by referring to this. now i say that before that and here a number of suppositions follow because even the first that was a supposition. these suppositions emerge at the first distinction, or division. when there is a series of suppositions, i can see nothing determinate and clear and remain in doubt. 6. i said this and that, and by saying this and that, i said one thing; one thing because it is no greater than this or than anything, thus, the doubt remains. if i join this and that, i say one and the other, i find some certainty. 7. i named something and i made a minor error in doing so. then i observe it. i observe it twice: first, i observed a minor error when i made it. some observation was a minor error. later, i observe it again, this second observation is the second error. thus, i observed some duplication here. https://changing-sp.com/ 264 andrey s. menshikov 8. comprehension is recollection of some certainty of a moment. i recollect now some certainty of a moment, i had it before. at that time i gave a name to something, i recollected then something that had not existed before naming. thus, in recollection there is also some duplication. 9. if there were only one error, who would notice it? by naming something i made a minor error, but noticed it later, by observing it and by recollecting it. this is the second error. 10. something exists and needs affirmation. naming something will be its affirmation; it will be [an affirmation] without reasoning, if i haven’t noticed the error; and it will be [an affirmation] with reasoning when i notice it. thus, here, too, some duplication exists. 11. if there is affirmation without reasoning, then might there be an equilibrium without error, too? – if there exists something that does not need affirmation, then there truly exists equilibrium without error. but any affirmation is some duplication and some error. thus, every equilibrium is equilibrium with a minor error. but to see that it is complete equilibrium, no affirmation is needed. 12. some wearisome waiting, impatience, boredom accompany observation of time. this is the feeling of reality. it is tiresome and gives no pleasure. the other feeling of reality is in the great moment, and it does not make us weary. 13. you can stop the flow of time for a moment. you can see the beginning of a moment, but it can’t be retained, its ending will be lost. the beginning of a moment is the beginning of some reality. this is the third feeling of reality. 14. you have named something this. you have noticed some certainty and said this or that. some sign – a turn of the head, an observation or a word – has by chance acquired certainty; it became this or that. in some interval, in the great moment, you have named something this. now, just now, you have uttered some word, perhaps, some word of no specific meaning, and thereby something got affirmation. this is the fourth feeling of reality. 15. in order to find some certainty, it is necessary to join one with the other. but for doing so there needs to be something irrelative. i have found the irrelative: some accidental token of time, the naming in the great moment, the beginning and the sign, which possibly has no specific meaning. these are the tokens of a minor error in some equilibrium: something that had not existed before naming was named because it needed affirmation (druskin, 1998c, pp. 805–807; my translation from 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(1998). “...sborische druzey, ostavlennyh sud’boyu”. a. vvedenskiy, l. lipavskiy, ya. druskin, d. harms, n. oleynikov. “chinari” v tekstah, dokumentah i issledovaniyah [“the company of friends abandoned by providence”. a. vvedenskiy, l. lipavskiy, ya. druskin, d. harms, n. oleynikov] (vol. 1). moscow: ladomir. changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.208 received 23 january 2022 © 2022 olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, accepted 20 december 2022 irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova published online 30 december 2022 o.v.zaharova@utmn.ru a.v.glazkova@utmn.ru i.n.pupysheva@utmn.ru n.v.kuznecova@utmn.ru article the importance of green practices to reduce consumption olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova university of tyumen, russia abstract in modern societies, growing consumption rates lead to the depletion of the planet’s resources and the waste generation. this paper studies green practices aimed at reducing consumption, which were published in social media communities covering separate waste collection. first, we selected nine green practices regarding separate waste collection and classified them as adaptive and transformative. adaptive practices enhance the adaptability of a society to the deteriorating environment without implying consumption reduction. transformative practices involve reducing substance and energy consumption due to changes in collective and individual actions. next, we collected 1987 textual posts of six communities of tyumen region, russia, published in social media platform vk, and found all mentions of the nine practices using content and hermeneutic analyses. finally, we identified transformative practices, such as the practices of exchanging, refusing from purchases, sharing, repairing, and promoting sustainable consumption. the obtained results might help some decision-makers create conditions to disseminate the described practices and to introduce new social practices targeting reducing consumption. we show the possibilities of grassroots initiatives in the greening of society. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 885 introduction the impact of the environmental crisis makes politicians, business people, public figures, and ordinary citizens revise the prevalent practices in a society (lamphere & shefner, 2017; lazaric et al., 2020). to date, some policies on managing the environment have already been adopted both at the level of the world community and at the level of individual regions (17 goals to transform our world, n.d.; a european green deal). however, many researchers are increasingly criticizing these policies by expressing doubts about the effectiveness of the ongoing changes (measuring progress, 2021), the society’s readiness to support political decisions (evans et al., 2017), the adequacy of the government support for grassroots initiatives (lazaric et al., 2020), the inconsistency of the national policy (lenzen et al., 2018), etc. criticism becomes especially harsh when it concerns the incessant growth of production and consumption. some researchers note that people cannot indefinitely increase the production and consumption of goods, services, and resources because of the existing growth limits (meadows et al., 2005) and the earth’s system threshold (steffen et al., 2018). therefore, the consumption growth can be considered the principal cause for modern environmental problems and climate change (kallis et al., 2018). since consumption is a driving force for modern capitalism, some researchers argue that a solution to environmental problems will be impossible without radical change in social practices (d’alisa et al., 2015; martin, 2016; raworth, 2017). in this context, practices positioned as environmental, or green, can differ regarding consumption. some green practices stimulate consumption by encouraging people to buy highly energy-efficient appliances. others suggest reducing consumption, for example, by exchanging things. for instance, green nudging aims to make small changes in daily practices that do not imply a refusal to buy things (exploring the use of green nudges, 2021). on the contrary, the sharing economy assumes the joint use of things that makes it possible to abandon purchases and further results in reduced production (martin, 2016). the same dualism regarding consumption exists in the systems of practices such as the concept of sustainable development and the concept of degrowth. the sustainable development goals (sdgs) include the practices of saving resources and protecting the environment. however, they do not imply rejecting the idea of keywords environmental problems, green practices, waste management and prevention, social media environmental communities, reducing consumption, degrowth acknowledgements the reported study was funded by rfbr and eisr according to the research project № 21-011-31463. we are grateful to valeria evdash, director of the center for academic writing “impulse” at university of tyumen, for english language assistance. we would like to thank the unknown reviewers for their critical feedback and valuable remarks. https://changing-sp.com/ 886 olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova economic growth. moreover, the sdgs contribute to the economic growth in poor, middle-income, and upper-middle-income countries with the total population of six billion people (world bank country and lending groups, n.d.). according to the un document 17 goals to transform our world, “ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth” (17 goals, n.d.), which will undoubtedly increase the resources and energy consumption several tens or hundreds of times (kallis, 2015; trantas, 2021). conversely, the degrowth theorists, who justify the possibility of well-being without increasing the matter and energy flow between society and nature, challenge the idea of economic growth as the main indicator of social development and argue that ecological collapse is inevitable even with zero growth. the criticism of economic growth provokes the criticism of capitalism, gdp, and commodification, which is the transformation of any social products, socioecological services, and relations into any object of economic value. therefore, the changes in social practices can affect not only resources saving or shifting to environmentally friendly technologies but also the social structure, as well as the speed and meaning of social processes. in other words, “the objective is not to make an elephant leaner, but to turn an elephant into a snail” (d’alisa et al., 2015, p. 4). a significant variety of ideas about green practices and visions of the future puts a person in a difficult situation to choose an acceptable lifestyle and environment and makes researchers provide justification for distinguishing shades of green practices. the consumption growth causes not only the depletion of the planet’s resources but also the waste growth. deciding what to do with different things after their use can be a difficult choice in daily practices. the responsible disposal of used things is becoming an integral element of resource-saving practices. thus, moving from the individual actions to the collective ones, society is placing increasingly high demands not only on the infrastructure for separate waste collection (shabanova, 2019) but also on the waste disposal and processing (ezhov, 2019), which the russian waste management system does not meet. for instance, due to the crisis in the implementation of the waste management reform and absence of consistent measures to prevent waste generation as necessary conditions for ensuring the citizens’ environmental rights, the special meeting of the presidential council for the development of civil society and human rights was held on march 20, 2019 (obzor smi, 2019). overall, the meeting agenda included two items: what to do with waste and how to prevent waste generation. given the continuous consumption growth, the problem of poor waste management is turning into a major social concern. some russian researchers have become engaged in discussing possible solutions to the waste management issues, including waste recycling (lopashenko, 2017; zolotarev, 2015), institutional developments for waste management (ermolaeva, 2019), rethinking waste as new sources for non-industrial economic growth (zemskova, 2017), and implementing the international experience (latypova, 2018). some researchers have studied the citizens’ involvement in functional public practices at the institutional level and the private sector (ermolaeva & rybakova, 2019), the factors and the conditions for russians’ engagement in separate waste collection practices (shabanova, 2019). however, the citizens’ practices attempting to solve these issues changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 887 have not been investigated in terms of the consumption growth and have not been seen as adaptive and transformative yet (balsiger et al., 2019). adaptive practices enhance the adaptability of society to the deteriorating environment and climate change without implying consumption reduction. transformative practices aim to reduce production and consumption of goods, services, and resources and the waste generation. the purpose of the article is to identify the green practices aimed at reducing consumption, which were published in social media platform vk1 communities covering separate waste collection. first, we selected nine green practices regarding the topic of separate waste collection and classified them as adaptive and transformative. next, we collected the textual posts of six regional vk communities that organise various waste management practices and found all mentions of the nine practices using content and hermeneutic analyses. finally, we identified transformative practices aimed at reducing consumption in the obtained data. thus, we focused on three research questions: (a) which practices regarding the separate waste collection are adaptive and transformative? (b) what practices are mentioned in the tyumen online communities covering separate waste collection? (c) how common are the citizens’ practices aimed at reducing consumption in the selected online communities? this study will contribute to the understanding of what social practices are promoted in the communities covering separate waste collection, and whether these practices can affect the incessant consumption growth, which is the principal cause for environmental problems. this study will explain how the society of one region, such as tyumen region, russia, has been transformed under the influence of the environmental agenda, including the concept of low carbon development (rasporiazhenie pravitel’stva, 2021). knowledge about the transformations of social practices and values of local societies, which put pressure on earth systems, competing with the geological forces in the anthropocene era, is a necessary condition for climate stabilization (steffen et al., 2018) and achieving climate neutrality. top-down reform projects are not radical enough to drive transformation processes, and they often limit public participation (trantas, 2021). this study will show the possibilities of grassroots initiatives in the greening of society. theoretical background this study was framed by the scientific discussion around the anthropocene as a term that asserts the importance of human activities for the future of our planet (blok & jensen, 2019; clark & carlisle, 2020). these activities are related not only to such significant actors as corporations, states, and institutions but also to ordinary people who make daily purchases, use transport and household appliances, and develop certain values and traditions in children. 1 vk (short for its original name vkontakte) is a russian online social media and social networking service. https://vk.com vk™ is a trademark of vk.com ltd. https://changing-sp.com/ https://vk.com 888 olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova to explain social phenomena occurring in the anthropocene epoch, this paper focuses on practice theory (bourdieu, 1990; de certeau, 1984; giddens, 1979; schatzki, 2002; volkov & kharkhordin, 2008). practices are organised sets of actions linked into broader complexes that form the “main field of study of the social sciences” (giddens, 1984, p. 2). many existing social practices, for example, waste management practices, have been reshaped in a new context due to the environmental agenda. the waste generation and the practice of dealing with waste disposal can be considered as a universal and historically permanent sphere of social activity (brednikova & tkach, 2008). some studies have covered the historical aspects of waste generation (barles, 2014; oldenziel & trischler, 2015). for example, for a long time, the consumption of secondary raw materials was perceived as a means of reducing the production cost and imports and improving the position of countries in the international market. additionally, this consumption acted as an incentive for the emergence of a new industry in cities, obtaining economic benefits for different countries (a history of waste management, 2013). however, the waste management problem was shifted from national to international by the end of the 1980s, affecting global aspects of soil, water, and air protection (zamiatina & fesenko, 2011). since then, social practices of waste management have been transformed, and the search for adequate solutions to the global problem of waste growth has begun. according to de certeau’s (1984) everyday life theory, the transformation process of social practices can be carried out both at the level of strategic practices and at the level of tactical practices. the examples of strategic practices are practices of the state and institutions attempting to solve some environmental problems. tactical practices are capable of escaping from regulatory prescriptions in different ways, making “innumerable and infinitesimal transformations of and within the dominant cultural economy in order to adapt it to their own interests and their own rules” (de certeau, 1984). therefore, at the tactical level of daily practices, emerging problems lead to nontrivial solutions, which are necessarily inconsistent with the prevailing socio-economic structure (buck, 2020; siragusa & arzyutov, 2020). today, the potential of tactical practices is used to overcome the contradictions between society and nature, which citizens and ngo are trying to eliminate through suggested practices. in this paper, the practices harmonizing the relations between nature and society are called green. daily green practices regarding waste management or prevention have received considerable researchers’ attention who see these practices as an important resource for the greening of society (lamphere & shefner, 2017; lazaric et al., 2020). one of these practices is separate waste collection to foster sustainable behavior (lazaric et al., 2020), which is legally fixed in many countries. separate waste collection influences a person’s decision to choose products in recyclable packaging or minimal packaging by studying the labeling and information on the packaging (hobson & lynch, 2016). the selection of products that can be recycled in the future is part of the zero-waste strategy, which also involves composting waste, reusing, and other recycling methods (hobson, 2020). another practice is collecting signatures for petitions intending to improve regulatory documents or existing social practices, which expresses people’s willingness changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 889 to change social practices in waste management. the practice of petitioning involves collective actions to affect actors, such as state or private companies (balsiger et al., 2019). citizens’ petitions and requests to the authorities often aim to reform existing legislation and regulatory frameworks. apart from reforming, it is essential to create new collective models of society including the promotion of a sustainable lifestyle. some researchers highlight the current insufficiency of existing collective actions to promote a sustainable lifestyle because they have not led to sustainable behavior (hobson & lynch, 2016; kallis et al., 2018). balsiger et al. (2019) emphasize the importance of shaping an idea about “the collective as an actor of change”. therefore, it is important to create new images or models to show how social changes can cause social transformations, and how a community can participate in actions to promote sustainable or responsible consumption (lamphere & shefner, 2017). one of these new models can be a circular economic model where waste is revalued as a resource through exchanging, sharing, repairing, reusing, and designing durability and maintainability of products from the moment of their manufacture (a european green deal, n.d.). a significant element of the circular economy is the involvement of people in exchange practices (belk, 2014), which allow things to be used repeatedly and create conditions for developing alternative social practices of exchanging goods, ideas, and experiences (for example, bookcrossing or food sharing). another important element of the circular economy is the practice of sharing when different people use the same things at different times. this practice stems from the observation that many things such as tools, washing machines, or cars are not constantly used. therefore, people can reduce the production of some things by using them more intensively and rationally, e.g., by borrowing some necessary tools. however, the sharing economy can also stimulate consumption in the long term (martin, 2016), thus these sharing practices should be evaluated in terms of environmental limits. the uncommon practice for the modern world is the practice of repair. people find it difficult to imagine that they can not only recycle a thing but also restore its functions to increase product longevity (hobson & lynch, 2016) because of a wide use of disposable products and availability of new things at any time of the day. therefore, implementing the practice of repair requires subtle social changes. for example, people might need repair training tutorials or repair manuals. people can open voluntary repair cafes where guests can have a good time and get advice and tools for repairing faulty things (hobson, 2020). another possible social change for developing the practice of repair can be slowing down social processes to find some free time for repairing by yourself, which is a time-consuming process (d’alisa et al., 2015). the next challenging practice to be implemented is the practice of reducing consumption that can be presented in two configurations of practices. the first configuration assumes the usage of this practice along with other practices. for example, the zero-waste strategy combines five practices: refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, and recover (5r). refusing and reducing consumption seem to be the most difficult of these practices since they involve changing people’s worldview, responsibility, and self-control. besides, their complexity also lies in their integrated https://changing-sp.com/ 890 olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova approach; each of these practices itself includes a set of practices that are not defined and legally prescribed, which makes people take a responsible choice of their behavior. in the second configuration, the practice of reducing consumption unites different practices. the example is degrowth, which means a process of political and social transformation aiming to reduce the energy and resources flow between nature and society while improving the quality of life (kallis et al., 2018). degrowth theorists believe that the capitalist growth paradigm cannot be changed in an instant. it is essential to update “basic monetary, fiscal, labor, and welfare institutions (working hours are reduced, new investment in clean sectors is offset by disinvestment in dirty sectors, debt interest is spent or socialized, redistribution of wealth is secured, and growth in relative goods compensates for the decline in material goods)” (kallis et al., 2018, p. 308). degrowthers emphasize that history contains many examples of societies flourishing without growth. in the modern society, some practices without growth can be individual downshifting, eco-initiatives, voluntary work, cooperative forms of production, and local currency. obviously, the promotion of practices without growth is a difficult path of systemic changes in social practices, united by the idea of reducing substances and energy consumption, meeting the needs associated with self-realization, responsibility, and communication. the idea of reducing consumption does not apply to all practices. some practices involve the adaptation of the existing social system to the ongoing changes and do not imply a reduction in consumption. others imply a reduction in the goods and services production and the matter and energy consumption. using the distinction between practices regarding consumption, balsiger et al. (2019) identified adaptive and transformative repertoires of environmental changes. the adaptive repertoire is reformist and corresponds to individualism and the paradigm of economic growth; the market continues to expand, offering people more eco-friendly products. one of these repertoires is the promotion of highly energy-efficient appliances. the transformative repertoire is a systemic change directed at reducing production and consumption. the implementation of these repertoires can be individual and collective. an adaptive individual repertoire can be demonstrated by turning off lights or buying energy-saving light bulbs, whereas the example of an adaptive collective repertoire is the recognition of the role of politics and legal regulation in achieving environmental goals and social change. personal efforts to reduce consumption are made within the framework of an individual transformative repertoire, and a collective transformative repertoire comprises collective actions to change production and consumption systems, the transition to new practices and non-capitalist values. embracing the idea of the distinction of the repertoires regarding consumption (balsiger et al., 2019), we applied this idea to the nine selected green practices classified into adaptive and transformative. adaptive practices aim at solving environmental problems without reducing consumption, such as the practices of separate waste collection, studying product labeling, waste recycling, and petitioning. transformative practices involve reducing the matter and energy consumption by changing collective and individual actions, such as the practices of exchanging, refusing from purchases, sharing, repairing, and promoting sustainable consumption. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 891 methods to identify the green practices aimed at reducing consumption in the social media (vk.com) communities covering separate waste collection, the study was conducted in three stages. at the first stage, having reviewed previous studies, we selected the nine green practices most often mentioned in connection with collecting, processing, and preventing waste and classified them as adaptive and transformative following balsiger et al. (2019). adaptive practices do not imply a reduction in consumption; therefore, waste sorting, studying the product labeling, waste recycling, and signing petitions can be considered adaptive. transformative practices involve a reduction in the matter and energy consumption due to the changes in collective and individual actions. transformative practices include consciously reducing consumption, such as rejecting purchases, exchanging, sharing, participating in actions to promote responsible consumption, and repairing. the second stage included collecting data from vk, a social media platform popular in eastern europe, especially in the post-soviet countries (bannykh & kostina, 2020). to select vk communities covering the topic of separate waste collection, we used the social graph constructed to cluster practices of vk green communities of tyumen region, russia, around some important topics for users such as animals, ecofood, eco-markets, and separate waste collection (zakharova et al., 2021). another essential selection factor was the availability of posts created from january 2021 to june 2021 when we were collecting data. thus, six vk communities with the following ids were selected: mirotvorets_tmn, vtor_service, ecoteo72, krugovorot_eco, sortstation, ecoworld72 (currently inaccessible). all these vk id correspond to the names of the organisations in russian: “miro tvorets” (mirotvorets_tmn) meaning “peacekeeper”, “gk vtorservis” (vtor_service) meaning “recyclable material”, “ecoteo” (ecoteo72) representing tyumen ecological organisation, “nol’ otkhodov v tiumeni. krugovorot” (krugovorot_eco) meaning “zero waste in tyumen. circulation”, “razdel’nyi sbor otkhodov v tiumeni. sortirovochnaia” (sortstation) meaning “separate waste collection in tyumen. sorting”, “ecoworld72” (ecoworld72), where 72 represents the regional code for tyumen. although a common issue of waste collection unites these six vk communities, their activities differ from each other. “miro tvorets” and “gk vtorservis” are both commercial organisations that buy recyclables and sell them to processing enterprises. however, while marketing recyclables is the main activity for “gk vtorservis”, it is the secondary activity for “miro tvorets” that is mainly engaged in charity, helping people in difficult life situations and promoting eco-lifestyle. “ecoteo” is the regional operator for solid municipal waste management providing waste collecting, processing, and disposal. besides, it organises the delivery of municipal waste to three regional waste sorting plants and waste disposal to three landfills. two voluntary organisations “sortirovochnaia” and “krugovorot”, headed by the same person, are interconnected with each other. “sortirovochnaia” aims to explain and show the process of separate waste collection through different training programs, https://changing-sp.com/ 892 olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova whereas “krugovorot” specifically informs people how to refuse to buy new things, reduce consumption, reuse things, recycle waste, and compost organic matter. the ecoworld72 community does not have clearly defined goals of its activities. it shows reposted content, pictures, videos thematically related to nature, environmental protection, and separate waste collection. the number of the communities’ subscribers varies from one to two and a half thousand people apart from “krugovorot” that consists of more than seven thousand subscribers. after having selected the six vk communities, we collected their textual posts by using the application programming interface (vk api) and the python programming language and then moved to the next stage of the research. the third stage included analyzing the texts contained mentions of the selected nine practices. to exclude texts that did not have content relevant to the purpose of this study, content analysis was used. then to identify references to nine practices, we read the collected texts independently using a hermeneutic analysis and discussed to reach agreement on the identified practices. results the dataset comprises of 1,987 textual posts (table 1) identified by the hermeneutic and the content analyses. more than two thirds of the posts in the studied communities contain at least one mention of one of the nine practices. table 1 shows the proportion of the posts containing any of the nine selected practices, which is calculated as the ratio of the number of the posts containing practice mentions to the total number of the posts in the community. table 1 distribution of posts in vk communities characteristic community mirotvorets_ tmn ecoteo72 ecoworld72 vtor_ service krugovorot_ eco sortstation total number of subscribers (june 2021) 2,463 998 2,496 1,072 7,252 2,748 17,029 number of posts 187 445 17 105 1067 166 1,987 posts containing mentions of the selected practices count 167 101 11 86 828 123 1,316 % within the total number of posts 89.3 22.7 64.7 81.9 77.6 74.1 66.2 note. source: authors. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 893 table 2 demonstrates the results of the quantitative and the qualitative analyses of the selected posts. relative frequency is the ratio of the quantity of mentions of a practice in a studied community to the quantity of all the posts containing mention of practices in a studied community. the number of the posts mentioning practices is the value taken from table 1. in all the communities, the mention of the practices of sorting and processing waste are prevalent while the practice of repair is the least frequently mentioned. table 2 distribution of practice mentions community practice mentions p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 p9 mirotvorets_tmn count relative frequency 99 0.593 0 0 137 0.82 0 0 2 0.012 0 0 0 0 13 0.078 0 0 ecoteo72 count relative frequency 16 0.158 4 0.04 32 0.317 0 0 17 0.168 3 0.03 0 0 29 0.287 2 0.02 ecoworld72 count relative frequency 9 0.818 0 0 1 0.091 0 0 1 0.091 0 0 0 0 1 0.091 0 0 vtor_service count relative frequency 68 0.791 1 0.012 14 0.163 0 0 12 0.14 8 0.093 0 0 10 0.116 0 0 krugovorot_eco count relative frequency 412 0.498 25 0.03 181 0.219 25 0.03 72 0.087 108 0.13 3 0.004 236 0.285 7 0.008 sortstation count relative frequency 36 0.293 20 0.163 111 0.902 0 0 3 0.024 8 0.065 0 0 11 0.089 2 0.016 note 1. waste sorting (p1), studying the product labeling (p2), waste recycling (p3), signing petitions (p4), refusing purchases (p5), exchanging (p6), sharing (p7), participating in actions to promote responsible consumption (p8), and repairing (p9). note 2. source: authors. figure 1 presents the distribution of the posts in the vk communities in the inner circle and the classification of the nine practices into adaptive and transformative in the outer circle. figure 1 shows that the content of the posts of krugovorot_eco is the most diversified in terms of the mentioned practices. only this community contains the practices of signing petitions and sharing. comparing to other communities, considerable attention is given to the topics of reducing consumption, exchanging, and participating in actions to promote responsible consumption. the least diverse content of the posts is contained in mirotvorets_tmn and ecoworld72 that mention four practices. the most prevalent topics of the posts are separate waste collection and recycling. these topics are also of special interest in sortstation, vtor_service but the number of mentioned practices are seven and six, respectively. like sortstation, the vk community ecoteo72 has also seven mentioned practices but apart from the https://changing-sp.com/ 894 olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova topic of recycling, the prevalent topic is participating in actions to promote responsible consumption. most of the practices mentioned in the communities are adaptive; the percentage of the posts containing mention of adaptive practices varies between 94.4% and 51.5%. the most common transformative practices can be seen in krugovorot_eco and ecoteo72. in krugovorot_eco, the mentions of the five transformative practices represent 39,9% of all practice mentions, and ecoteo72 contains four transformative practices representing 49,5%. transformative practices are not often mentioned, for example mirotvorets_tmn contains 5,6% of the total number of the posts, sortstation—12,6%, ecoworld72—16,6%, vtor_service—26,5%. figure 1 distribution of adaptive and transformative practices mirotvorets_tmn ecoteo72 ecoworld72 vtor_service krugovorot_eco sortstation adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive adaptive transformative transformative transformative transformative transformative transformative p1: 39.6% p3: 54.8% p5: 0.8% p8: 4.8% p1: 15.5% p2: 3.9% p3: 31.1% p5: 16.5% p6: 2.9% p8: 28.2% p9: 1.9% p1: 18.8% p2: 10.5% p3: 58.1% p5: 1.6% p6: 4.2% p8: 5.8% p9: 1% p1: 60.2% p2: 0.9% p3: 12.4% p5: 10.6% p6: 7.1% p8: 8.8% p1: 38.5% p2: 2.3% p3: 16.9% p4: 2.3% p5: 6.7% p6: 10.1% p7: 0.3% p8: 22.1% p9: 0.7% p1: 75% p3: 8.3% p5: 8.3% p8: 8.3% note. source: authors. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 895 discussion to identify the green practices aimed at reducing consumption in social media (vk.com) communities covering separate waste collection, we studied the posts of the six communities of tyumen region, russia, mentioning the nine green practices. given the approach of these practices to consumption, they were classified into adaptive, such as waste sorting, studying the product labeling, waste recycling, signing petitions, and transformative, such as refusing purchases, exchanging, sharing, participating in actions to promote responsible consumption, and repairing. the targeted six vk communities represent two commercial companies “gk vtorservis”, “miro tvorets”, the regional operator for solid municipal waste management “ecoteo”, two voluntary organisations “sortirovochnaia”, “krugovorot”, and “ecoworld72” with unclearly defined goals of its activities. the vk posts of all these organisations reflect the aims of their activities. the content of the vk community of “gk vtorservis” covers collecting and processing recyclables. the company buys waste paper, cardboard, plastic from organisations, offering transportation services of recyclables, and then sells recyclables to enterprises of tyumen region and other regions. thus, waste sorting as the adaptive practice is the key topic of the 68 posts out of 86. the transformative practices can be observed when the company emphasizes the advantages of its activities and declares their inclusion in a global context: “recycle the things you do not need. you may not only get monetary profit but also help the environment. by recycling waste paper, you save three trees in a year” (gk vtorservis, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.). however, in general, the company’s activities are commercial and unrelated to environment protection that is why the company’s attempts to create a positive environmental image look like greenwashing (raworth, 2017). k. hobson (2020) notes that modern entrepreneurs often use the concept of the circular economy as a “buzzword” to promote their services or products especially if eco slogans are not supported by changes in business models and activities. the transformative practices can be seen in the vk community reposts about environmental events and initiatives arranged by other companies and in other countries and recommendations for the transition to a sustainable lifestyle without referring to the original source of information. for example, “read a few facts, and you will immediately start sorting waste” (gk vtorservis, n.d.; trans. byo. z. et al.). interestingly, all posts end with a pitch to use the company services. alongside “gk vtorservis”, the commercial company “miro tvorets” also provides services for the purchase and transportation of recyclables, sold to processing companies. however, unlike “gk vtorservis”, the company does a lot of charity work. recently, the company has extended its social orientation targeting the field of waste sorting; the company actively works with the population, accepting waste paper, plastic, and glass. it helps neighborhood associations to organise separate waste collection in their yards, providing them with separate collection infrastructure and organising the recyclables transportation. despite the dominance of the adaptive practices in the company activities, their role is significant for the greening of the region. creating https://changing-sp.com/ 896 olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova a convenient infrastructure and using innovations in the building design are necessary to involve more participants in waste sorting, because the potential for an increase in the number of participants thanks to enthusiasts has been almost exhausted (shabanova, 2019). thus, the experience of such companies as “miro tvorets” is worth disseminating, and this company can be an experimental platform for piloting various environmental solutions. “miro tvorets” delivers recyclables to the place of their processing, which considerably increases the motivation to sort waste. besides, the company organises outreach events and activities aiming at environmental protection within the framework of the transformative practices, although the vk page does not demonstrate company’s real participation in the greening of social life. the company informs about its activities, upcoming events regarding waste sorting and recycling in the genre of announcements in the vk community. “ecoteo” contains vk posts describing the technological processes of waste collection, transportation, and operation of waste sorting plants built as part of the waste management reform (ermolaeva, 2019). “ecoteo” introduces a new set of citizens’ daily practices within the framework of legislation and governmental strategic documents (de certeau, 1984). the posts were created in the genre of news about the company’s activities, and they also give instructions on what kind of waste can be thrown into the company containers and on how to do it correctly. the activities of “ecoteo” are illustrated in the context of some events to foster a sustainable lifestyle. for example, the announcement of the opening of a new waste sorting plant in ishim, a town in tyumen region, is accompanied by the comment: “citizens of ishim and ishim district will work at the plant. this is an important event for cultivating waste management culture in the district” (tiumenskoe ekologicheskoe ob’edinenie, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.). this vk community contains the largest number of mentions of transformative practices (refusing purchases and participating in actions to promote responsible consumption), but this community only reposted some information as well as “gk vtorservis” did. to add an ecological touch to the activities of “ecoteo”, its vk page often informs about various environmental initiatives in different countries, though not in russia mostly. the company sometimes invites tyumen residents to participate in some environmental contests under a prerequisite of joining its vk community. the two voluntary organisations “sortirovochnaia” and “krugovorot” have a lot of common content in their vk posts. it can be explained that both organisations have the same leader, and “sortirovochnaia” separated from “krugovorot” in 2019. “sortirovochnaya” specializes in collecting recyclables from citizens, promoting the ideas of separate waste collecting and recycling, and training people to separate waste as a special set of practices (zemskova, 2017). the organisation holds diverse events, highlighted in its posts. for example, the event “eco-yard” includes several activities. the event “eco-yard” is going to the city center! we organise ecological activities in different areas of the city, so that many people will learn about separate waste collection and eco-friendly lifestyle… what are the new year’s “eco-yard” events? changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 897 (a) a workshop on creating a wish card. our volunteer will be waiting for you in the cafe “saw fish”. she will explain the design of a wish card. to select pictures, we will bring magazines from “sortirovochnaia”. (b) new year decorations exchange. do not buy christmas tree decorations. borrow them from other people. bring the things you do not use anymore, and choose the things suitable for you. if you bring any decorations, they should be in good condition. (c) the photo zone with costumes. the charity shop “laffka” will lend you costumes for the ecological carnival. dress up, pose with our banner and recyclables, upload new photos on your social media and promote an ecofriendly lifestyle. (d) recyclables accepted. find the attached file with a huge list of accepted recyclables. help your neighbors to learn about the “eco-yard”: share the posts in social media. (razdel’nyi sbor, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.) these announcements demonstrate different adaptive practices, such as waste sorting (lazaric, 2020), recycling (hobson & lynch, 2016), and transformative practices, such as exchanging (belk, 2014), sharing (martin, 2016), and promoting responsible consumption (lamphere & shefner, 2017). “sortirovochnaia” is not driven by motives of monetary profit, unlike “vtorservice”, and there is no pitch to join its online community, comparing to “ecoteo”. the “sortirovochnaia” online community also posts some reports and instructions for preparing recyclables. for example, “you decided to send your husband to give recyclables to the ‘sortirovochnaia’. if he does not sort waste at home, you should prepare recyclables in advance and instruct your husband” (razdel’nyi sbor, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.). detailed instructions are given to help avoid conflicts and misunderstandings because “the word ‘volunteer’ does not mean service personnel” (razdel’nyi sbor, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.). unlike the commercial companies that accept recyclables for a fee, “sortirovochnaia” accepts recyclables free of charge, including rare types of recyclables, which the commercial organisations do not usually accept, such as toothbrushes, shaving machines, foil, bank plastic cards, cds and dvds, etc. using the money received from the sale of recyclables, the organisation rents premises for collecting recyclables and organises delivery of rare types of recyclables to processors. its main motto is “to help the city and the planet become a little cleaner”. thus, the adaptive practices of this organisation are similar to “miro tvorets” aiming to develop the infrastructure for separate waste collection and involve citizens in environmental practices. the activities promoted in “sortirovochnaya” vk community have not only a diverse content but also multi-stage goals to develop new models of social life and business (balsiger et al., 2019, lamphere & shefner, 2017). for example, the event “let’s unpack tyumen goods” sparked public interest, which was associated with the well-known slogan in tyumen region “let’s buy tyumen goods” promoting local producers: https://changing-sp.com/ 898 olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova dear friends, we are holding the first anti-award in the field of packaging “let’s unpack tyumen goods” in 2021. let us see what producers, sellers, and cafes pack their goods into. we invite you to participate in the packaging audit. from february 17 to march 31, “sortirovochnaia” accepts packages of tyumen goods that meet all the following conditions: (a) clean; (b) the producer’s name and address are easy to read; (c) non-recyclable. from april 1, we will start analyzing the collected non-recyclable packaging and identify the main polluter among tyumen producers. using the results, we will inform these producers about the problem with their packaging and recommendations for its solution (razdel’nyi sbor, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.). thus, the event “let’s unpack tyumen goods” aimed at involving people in the adaptive practices, such as waste sorting (lamphere & shefner, 2017), careful studying the product labeling (hobson & lynch, 2016), and in the transformative practices, such as refusing from some goods (kallis et al., 2018). it also raised producers’ awareness of significance of more eco-friendly products (hobson, 2020). comparing to “sortirovochnaia”, the activities of “krugovorot” are even more consistent to foster a sustainable lifestyle. interestingly, 426 posts out of 828 refer to transformative practices, as follows: ● reducing consumption—“sorting recyclables allows identifying the problems; after the multiple recycling of a bag with plastic bags or a heap of plastic bottles, we become aware of using an eco-bag and a reusable bottle” (nol’ otkhodov v tiumeni, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.); ● exchanging—“the meaning of this event is not to get rid of unused things but to exchange and refuse to buy new toys” (nol’ otkhodov v tiumeni, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.); ● sharing—“friends, we have created a community that will help you refuse to buy things for one-time use. the community ‘things to borrow’ will help you find a carnival costume for a child or a drill for the evening. apart from borrowing, your things can work. for example, you can lend a ball gown sewn for one performance, a set of tools or board games” (nol’ otkhodov v tiumeni, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.); ● participating in events to promote responsible consumption—“delivering waste for recycling, helping nature and stopping increasing landfills are now easy because collecting recyclables is now held every week” (nol’ otkhodov v tiumeni, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.); ● repairing—“workshops: training how to make cosmetics by yourself, repairing clothes, small appliances, or shoes” (nol’ otkhodov v tiumeni, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.). “krugovorot” has made great efforts to boost adaptive practices. for example, its vk page contains many posts about the simplicity of separate waste collection: “do not complicate the process of separate waste collection”, “we invite you to participate in the ‘separate waste collection is simple’ contest”. the awareness-raising posts usually offer specific recommendations on what each person can do to solve environmental changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 899 problems (balsider et al., 2019; hobson & lynch, 2016). for instance, the post about the ecological footprint suggests an answer to the question how can we help the planet? and includes some recommendations concerning the diet, studying product labeling to choose more eco-friendly products, energy conservation, and separate waste collection. the post about organic waste includes criticism of the disposer and recommendations on composting waste in an urban environment. these posts tend to encourage people to adopt a sustainable lifestyle, emphasizing the high importance of green values and the influence of the immediate social environment on the use of green practices (lazaric et al., 2020). people, whose friends, peers, neighbors, colleagues support sustainable consumption regarding food, energy conservation, and waste recycling, are more likely to adopt such behavior and to join the group of the green consumers. lazaric et al. (2020) assume that new consumer practices and preferences are expected to spread through informal communication and instructions in small local networks, such as “sortirovochnaia” and “krugovorot”. “krugovorot” online community also contains critical posts about the government policy or greenwashing: “if you are an organiser of an environmental event, focus on projects that will strengthen your organisation’s position as the eco-company not as a greenwashing company” (nol’ otkhodov v tiumeni, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.). such posts often include constructive proposals encouraging people to do some actions. for example, “we put forward proposals at meetings organised by the government of tyumen region, prepare petitions, and communicate with the tyumen ecological organisation” (nol’ otkhodov v tiumeni, n.d.; trans. by o. z. et al.) the proposed activities are both individual and collective (balsiger et al., 2019), invariably emphasizing the role of ordinary citizens and their communities, commercial and non-commercial organisations (lamphere & shefner, 2017). the suggested recommendations often center on the zero-waste strategy, becoming a guide for introducing new social practices as “sets of actions” (giddens, 1984) that resist environmental challenges. in general, the content of the vk eco-communities reflects the regional situation with waste collection and processing, which has developed since the waste management reform started in russia in 2019 and can be described in terms of de certeau’s theory (1984). initially, strategic practices were focused on cancelling the existing system of separate waste collection in tyumen, organised by small enterprises for recycling and manufacturing products from recyclables. instead, a regional waste management scheme was introduced, which displaced grassroots initiatives and prevented citizens from participating in solving environmental problems. however, some tactical practices have been renewed and revitalized in the region, having all the features described by de certeau (1984): mobility, flexible organisation, identity manipulation, opportunism. the voluntary organisations for separate recyclables collection are constantly changing the form of their existence, remaining mobile and flexibly responding to changing conditions. for example, they establish mobile recycling collection points, rent a warehouse for the recyclables collection and storage, and organise eco-yards and eco-taxi. the same features are demonstrated by commercial organisations involved in separate waste collection. for example, https://changing-sp.com/ 900 olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, natalia v. kuznetsova the covid-19 pandemic made “miro tvorets” expand its activities by collecting recyclables from citizens, first using mobile collection points, and later installing ecoboxes in yards. due to these initiatives, citizens have regained the right to be active in determining their life positions and practices of dealing with waste (brednikova & tkach, 2008). the events promoted in voluntary communities often aim at creating new models of a sustainable lifestyle that have not been supported by official policies yet. for example, the topic of the circular economy model has been absent from the russian environmental agenda for a long time. however, this model has been efficiently promoted by some voluntary communities, which can be illustrated by the example “let’s unpack tyumen goods”. thus, the six vk communities demonstrate adaptive and transformative practices. adaptive practices are important for developing infrastructure for separate waste collection and promoting sustainable behavior by involving people in green everyday practices. transformative practices often inform about existing green initiatives around the world, but these communities seldom organise exchanging, sharing, repair and recycling practices. although the transformative practices are widespread in the voluntary communities, they are not regarded as a set of practices united by the idea of reducing production and consumption. conclusion in this paper, we studied separate waste collection as a set of the nine green practices classified as adaptive and transformative regarding consumption. adaptive practices do not imply a reduction in consumption; therefore, waste sorting, studying the product labeling, waste recycling, and signing petitions can be considered adaptive. transformative practices involve a reduction in substance and energy consumption due to the changes in collective and individual actions. transformative practices include consciously reducing consumption, such as refusing purchases, exchanging, sharing, participating in actions to promote responsible consumption, and repairing. we analyzed green practices on separate waste collection described in the six communities on vk social media platform. in total, 1,987 posts of the vk communities contained the mentions of the nine selected practices. most of the practices are adaptive; the percentage of the posts containing mentions of adaptive practices varies between 94.4% and 51.5%. transformative practices are less common although these practices aim to reduce consumption, which is necessary for harmonizing the relations between nature and society. it is important to note that the practice of reducing consumption is used along with other practices, but it is not the aim of these practices. in other words, the content of the studied communities does not demonstrate that the practice of reducing consumption has a unifying nature regarding other practices, and it can give meaning to other practices, as degrowthers perceive it. besides, the potential of reducing consumption as a requirement to change the entire social and economic system has not been unlocked yet. the transformative practices identified in the studied communities do not challenge the main value of the capitalist economy, the changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 884–905 901 incessant production and consumption growth, and the communities do not suggest alternative ways to organise social life. this study will contribute to the understanding of what green practices are promoted in the online communities covering separate waste collection, and whether these practices can affect the incessant consumption growth, which is the principal cause of environmental problems. we showed how the grassroots initiatives can change social practices to reduce the pressure on the environment. the obtained results might help some decision-makers create conditions to disseminate the described practices and to introduce new social practices targeting reducing consumption. regarding the limitations of this study, we analyzed only the regional online communities covering waste issues. thus, further study will focus on investigating a wide range of russian ecological communities. references 17 goals to transform our world. 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(2015). innovatsionnaia tekhnologiia obrashcheniia s tverdymi kommunal’nymi otkhodami [innovative technology of solid municipal waste management]. ekologicheskii vestnik rossii, 10, 46–48. https://changing-sp.com/ https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519 https://doi.org/10.31857/s013216250012084-5 https://doi.org/10.31857/s013216250012084-5 https://doi.org/%2010.15862/14rro417 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 245–253 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.2.173 editorial fluid entanglements: narratives of waterfronts in the city elena g. trubina ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract this introduction to the thematic issue connects the contributors’ arguments to the broader context of existing literature and to current epistemological predicaments. the notion of waterfront has endured for over 100 years within planning documents and policy discourses, shaping urban strategies and citizens’ preferences across the world. this thematic issue examines the current state of narratives and discourses on waterfronts. waterfronts are investigated to consider the conceptual work evoked to frame urban problems and build narratives that shape planning and policy action. it is asserted that narratives about waterfronts differ: while some define goals for city development relying on specific strands of expert knowledge to justify often questionable decisions, others capture the experiences and representations of waterfronts, including their subjective and autobiographical dimensions. keywords waterfronts, narratives, materialities, ambivalence, de-industrialization, urban improvement acknowledgements the research was supported by rsf, grant № 22-18-00679. https:// www.rscf.ru/project/22-18-00679/ many thanks to megan dixon for her generous help with editing a few pieces for this collection, to jane costlow and richard read for joining this project on short notice, and to all three for being good friends. received 18 may 2022 © 2022 elena g. trubina accepted 1 june 2022 elena.trubina@gmail.com published online 11 july 2022 https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.rscf.ru/project/22-18-00679/ https://www.rscf.ru/project/22-18-00679/ 246 elena g. trubina there is hardly anything more familiar than strolling along the waterfront. waterfronts comprise the parts of a city, town, etc. beside a river, lake, or harbor. whether it is an even pavement or a clay path, in nearly any city, the fluidity of water meets linear firm concrete or stone or soil framings—an assemblage of surfaces. one tends to get as close to water as possible and so do many other passersby. these gathering sites of urban community activity allow for encountering “the more-than-human life” of trees, grass, ducks, and insects, and in the process to enjoy, perhaps, the best parts and moments of urban materialities. yet, when attempting to grasp this common urban pleasure with the help of existing categories and available arguments, one realizes that this is quite an elusive experience. to give just one example, i, this thematic issue editor, used to often walk along the main river of my home city, yekaterinburg (one article of this issue is devoted to walks along this river). the name of this river is iset, part of it became a popular reservoir, named iset pond, in the city center. whenever we show friends and visitors around, we rehearse the well-worn narrative of the industrialization of the urals, the emergence of the city together with its metallurgical plant, and the construction of the dam which resulted in the pond’s appearance. this narrative is, of course, just a part of a wider story of industrialization and the role rivers played in it as sources of water for manufacturing and transportation routes. yet, every time i walk along the iset, i am made aware of at least two more narratives. one is about urban improvement and the popularity of renovating waterfronts to make iconic places. historically, waterfronts developed from being urban areas “for show” through becoming hard working ports to abandoned and derelict places. so, the story of waterfronts being reimagined and rebuilt into urban icons (think belgrade, szczecin, budapest, or dubrovnik), which are popular with tourists and locals alike and create lucrative urban assets, excites many. the other is an environmental narrative. urban rivers and the parts of seas close to cities are notorious for being, often, hopelessly polluted, so waterfronts, while making possible the interactions of citizens with beautiful views, confront them also with the changing materiality of water. so, when i walk along the iset, in a new and posh city area, called clever park, i can see how the signs and symptoms of both narratives collide there. on the one hand, one sees an impressive new development comprised from well-designed corporate and residential buildings. people who work and live here have a nice new waterfront at their disposal, with wooden lounge chairs to enjoy the sunset, wooden platforms to feed ducks and to be close to water, and lush lawns. the bottom of the river here was dredged to make it deeper. this is one of the few examples of how the recreational benefits of improved river quality in selected parts of the iset river is strongly linked to class. in these parts, nearly everything looks neat and appealing. yet knowing from environmentalist colleagues that the water in the iset river is nothing but a toxic soup complicates this idyllic picture, making it both more ambivalent and symptomatic of the larger tendencies, unfolding on different scales, that waterfronts “crystallize”. there are urban narratives and scholarly narratives. both kinds of narratives were tragically interrupted by the events that started on february 24, 2022. rivers in ukrainian cities (cybriwsky, 2016) acquired additional importance as they often separated the fighting armies. in russia, the word “toxicity” (which i used above changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 245–253 247 to refer to river water quality) has been often evoked metaphorically to explain why hundreds of thousands of people decided to flee their country. people flee, in part, from mental pollution. this situation might remind us of a memorial sign at leytenanta shmidta embankment in st. petersburg at the place where, in 1922, the “philosophical steamship,” embarked with prominent figures of russian science and culture on board. old classical depictions of waterfronts evoke unexpected associations. to give just one example, some critics see behind the fog of the new jersey hoboken shoreline “allegorical apologia for the informer” (smith, 2008, p. 87) in elia kazan’s (1954) film on the waterfront; this figure, the informer, has now acquired a new and appalling significance. scholars now try to find new ways to continue a meaningful professional existence while many international projects that began years ago have been stopped or indefinitely suspended. all the more important, then, to see this collection of articles, to which scholars from russia, usa, australia, philippines, serbia, turkey, and norway (some with double or even triple affiliations, including myself) have contributed their thoughts. taken together, these studies explore the under-researched intersections between the trajectories of waterfront property-led development, changing everyday walking practices, dreamscapes, and diverse links between places and spaces more generally. they take readers to localities which remain off-radar in mainstream academic production. and they do so with use of a wide range of methodologies and approaches. this collection of essays represents scholars of different disciplines (urban studies, art history, environmental studies, childhood studies, human geography, etc.). it also exemplifies different strategies towards academic guidelines and scholarly objectivity. while for some authors in this collection it is important to provide sociological or economic evidence, others present work which goes against the conventional canon. the pieces presented by richard read and jane costlow strike a reader with beauty of their ideas and language, refusal to hide their attachments, longings and desires and capacity not only to stay loyal to their very own water edges but to find enviably idiosyncratic styles of writing for achieving the greatest definiteness. their pieces have incited me to pause and to weigh in the mind the varieties of knowledge that we subconsciously or somatically possess but often stifle, mesmerized by the uniformity of academic writing formats. waterfronts are urban areas convenient for addressing many challenges that the humanities and social sciences face today. we have already had the benefit of a few authoritative books on this subject (dovey, 2005; hartig, 2019; kaya, 2020; macdonald, 2017; porfyriou & sepe, 2017), offering a refined understanding of the ways in which waterfront projects were included in neoliberal programs of urban development only to become sources of numerous and diverse conflicts (boland et al., 2017). in this vein, avni and teschner (2019; see this article also for a compelling typology of the existing literature on waterfronts) examine the following sides of the planning conflicts that have emerged in conjunction with the global redevelopment of waterfronts: (a) land ownership; (b) heritage and culture; (c) social and environmental justice; and (d) environment and resilience. waterfront redevelopment projects have been used to rehabilitate the now-obsolete industrial spaces, to give a boost to https://changing-sp.com/ 248 elena g. trubina localities, to attract affluent citizens, to claim global ambitions, and to attain prestige. simultaneously, the controversial aspects of these redevelopments are consistently highlighted by critics. they are seen as expressions of top-down decisions, exclusion, and increased privatization of space (gomes, 2019; hirt, 2012; porfyriou & sepe, 2016). yet, in recent years, waterfront redevelopment projects have also been increasingly recognized for their potential benefits. plans in various cities point to a different, and promising, approach to waterfront redevelopment; for instance, the chicago riverwalk has been featured as an equity-inspired project, which reframes the river—mostly rhetorically so far—as a public asset for all city residents (anzilotti, 2016). relatedly, in this issue natalya antonova and anna gurarii, drawing on fieldwork conducted in september–november 2021 in yekaterinburg, demonstrate the diversity of uses of embankments by young people, ranging from jogging to bird feeding. they also show that the central parts of embankments (the recently renovated ones) are pivotal for collective gatherings while more remote parts of the river shore allow for “marginal” activities. the proximity of waterfront projects to bodies of water with their specific ecosystems, and the overlapping of economic, social, cultural, and environmental forces in waterfronts’ changing existence, make such projects valuable cases for the investigation of the dialectic between centralization and recentralization. in the case of russia, citizen mobilization has often emerged in connection to water bodies. if in yekaterinburg in 2019 the citizens successfully defended a city park located on the shore of the local pond (nechepurenko, 2019), in vologda, in 2018–2019, conflicts stemmed from the sloppily implemented and problematically envisioned waterfront redevelopment. this ancient city (vologda is as old as stockholm), just like the swedish capital, boasts 750 years of uninterrupted existence. vera smirnova and ekaterina adrianova look at the collisions surrounding the vologda river embankment renovation project in vologda city implemented in 2018–2019 from the point of view of different levels of governance at play in the russian cities, paying particular attention to local experiences and responses. their article examines the production of socio-spatial inequalities from the perspective of the periphery and foregrounds the discursive practices by means of which various actors negotiate and contest the uses of centrally allocated funds. they examine legal and regulatory documents, project plans and other official documents as well as media posts generated by the local protesters. in vologda, tyumen, and yekaterinburg (the russian cases in this thematic issue) the municipalities lack political and economic autonomy and need to actively lobby their interests; once they succeed in securing a project, they need to quickly achieve impressive results so that they have something to report about. after allocation by the federal government, the substantial sums need to be promptly used. reports need to be made about the efficient use of money. the results need to be quick and visible. shore-strengthening reconstruction followed by the redevelopment of the waterfront can, in principle, be done in various ways, including use of sustainable methods. yet, in the eyes of the authorities, wrapping the shores in concrete hits the mark. it is not surprising that the short-termism of the local authorities periodically produces outrage on the part of educated urban changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 245–253 249 citizens, as happened in yekaterinburg (with success) and in vologda (to no avail). the activists in vologda started a public campaign to explain to their fellow citizens that the measures implemented by the authorities would destroy the unique landscape and prevent citizens from using the waterfront as a public good, but the authorities quickly appointed moscow experts who used their central authority to claim that the suggested strategies were the only ones possible. part of the vologda activists’ motivation to launch the campaign against the problematic embankment project was local pride; the controversies behind the workings of this complex affect are investigated in the issue’s third article based on russian material. vladimir bogomyakov and marina chistyakova analyze the links between hubris and pride in connection with the tyumen embankment. human and social hubris is often justifiably criticized, particularly in the context of climate change. for instance, sadler-smith and akstinaite (2021) posit that “collective human hubris has emerged out of the complex interactions between people, technology, goals, culture, processes, and context, which have led to behaviors that are overambitious and overconfident to the point of recklessness. humanity’s hubris has manifested in unsustainable increases in human population, gdp, energy consumption, and carbon emissions”. the tyumen-based authors, however, define hubris perceived in their fellow citizens as “creative boldness” (p. 3) and seek to understand the reasons behind the specific attractiveness of ambitious, large, spectacular projects. waterfronts as large-scale projects are also of interest to ana perić, marija maruna, and zorica nedović-budić. they look at the belgrade waterfront, popular with the authorities (and researchers), to consider it in the context of authoritarian entrepreneurialism in contemporary serbia. seen from the perspective “after february 24, 2022”, this country has been severely impacted by the ban imposed by the eu and usa on investment in yugoslavia as well as many other sanctions. the path of economic recovery followed in the 21st century was conducted rather unevenly: urban megaprojects, the authors posit, were used by the major political players to showcase their power and influence, often at the expense of the society at large. they demonstrate how nationalist narratives one-sidedly incorporated urban megaprojects to promote a vision of prosperity and to more confidently put belgrade as the country’s capital on the global map. waterfronts are both material and symbolic, static to an extent that they become urban landmarks but also undergoing continual refurbishment. in focusing on the different spaces where people, water and stones meet, this thematic issue is designed to uncover individual approaches to specific cases and, where possible, to further focus on the practical, political but also existential implications of these cases. waterfronts make possible the interactions of citizens with the beauty and materiality of water. polina golovatina-mora examines the nexus of the materiality of urban water in the context of the aftermath of medellin’s acclaimed program, “social urbanism”. in spite of the wide publicity received by numerous interventions in the existence of slums inhabitants, the city’s life in the last decade has been marked by numerous outbursts of unrest. the author asks whether the urban regeneration that medellin underwent could be understood as a more inclusive “social contract” between the city and its https://changing-sp.com/ 250 elena g. trubina communities, and uses the materiality of water as the lens with which to tackle this question. how can the limited transformative effects of urban regeneration can be linked to the uses and governance of water? p. golovatina-mora draws on more-thanhumanist ontologies to offer a utopian concept of the city as the “generation of the inclusive space that provides habitat and life for anyone who wants to live in, around, through and with the city”. justifiably thought about as “uncooperative” (bakker, 2003), unruly, and fluidly countering human will and design, water, perhaps, better exemplifies the roughness and unpredictability of nature than anything else. notably, many waterfronts are marked by lines of high-water level (think st. petersburg, florence, or alexandria). yet, the techniques and technologies of managing and embellishing water edges in cities have become more and more sophisticated. waterfronts often have a rich history stretching from industrial use to becoming busy leisure areas attracting large numbers of people, especially tourists, that have been produced as part of urban regeneration or gentrification schemes. waterfronts are also understood as “the intersection of maritime and urban space” (land, 2007, p. 731). they are often the most popular and visible parts of the cities. the authors of this thematic issue examine how specific waterfronts evolved over time and how this was conditioned on local circumstances. these include many material and symbolic factors including connections between cities via sea routes (in the case of port cities) and river routes (in the case of riverfronts). the authors show how waterfronts became emblematic for shifting urban conditions as well as for transformations in maritime technologies and the changes brought by globalization. proximity to water increases value of urban spaces and makes them popular among citizens—this is the main argument of rich work about waterfronts. the majority of those who write about these important spaces locate their studies in the urban context. indeed, urban life, from its emergence through the activities of producing and exchanging goods to those of accumulating wealth and satisfying needs, is related to water. this link is increasingly talked about as a consequence of climate change and a related realization that water is scarce resource that needs to be protected. several discourses interact with regard to the growing vulnerability of global water: instrumental and technocratic discourses of uses of water, including the urban ones; discourses on sustainable development; and environmental discourses. the development and management of waterfronts involves the engagement of practices, technologies, and stories, but ongoing environmental changes pose a challenge to the very understanding of human-water relations. megan dixon traces the history of the boise greenbelt and locates the emergence of this large area of open land meant to preserve farmland and forests from urban sprawl in the context of climate change. while greenbelts are capable of facilitating carbon storage, they are also profitable in the context of gentrification; dixon shows how in idaho, the city has joined the global process of “greenification” by creating its own version of a ubiquitous “park, café, riverwalk” model to cater to the recreational tastes of an affluent urban class while neglecting the ecological specificity of healthy river function. as water supply to the river system decreases under climate change, the widely applied greenbelt model faces new constraints. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 245–253 251 several pieces in this collection also address the place waterfronts occupy in the context of the dramatic transition from the industrial to post-industrial phase of the history of human settlements. formerly serving as gateways to cities, closely connected to urban communities (and often communities in themselves), these embankments or riverfronts, complemented by canals and quays, were enablers of industrial and trade activities which then became unused parcels of abandoned and often polluted land by the middle of the twentieth century (airas et al., 2015). while many of them underwent impressive renovation to accommodate a growing demand for urban land, some still remain only partially used. their partial abandonment and the range of associations they evoke prompt scholars to link them to powerful narratives of decay and conflict. in this vein, jane costlow writes, not without irony, about her “moving through a place that can be used as emblem for all kinds of claims and multiple monikers: post-industrial decay; urban revitalization; environmental cleanup; dirty lew, mighty androscoggin; hybrid, invisible, abject, home”. costlow also records the ambivalent experiences of climate change (it feels good when it is warm while living in harsh climate); but more important, she claims, is to raise one’s head, so to speak, from one’s mundane preoccupations and to try to see the bigger picture, i.e., the whole river, from the chance for salmon to thrive again to the consequences to river streamflow of decreased snowpack. istanbul is the other city that has invited reflections on the consequences of deindustrialization. esen gökçe özdamar describes the districts cibali, üsküdar, and kabataş, which to every visitor to istanbul signify areas beloved by tourists. sightseeing tours along the bosphorus strait depart from kabataş pier, and along the shore üsküdar one can walk toward maiden tower. cibaly is famous for its cibali gate, a part of the byzantine walls on the golden horn. yet, e. gökçe özdamar is focused on a little-known page of the history of industrial istanbul— its tobacco manufacturing. tobacco factories and warehouses were located in the above-mentioned coastal neighborhoods comprising an important part of the industrial heritage of the city. esen gökçe özdamar traces components of this heritage both tangible (as the possibility of employment) and intangible (the smell of these neighborhoods). the author places the prospect of these structures’ survival into the context of new development of creative industries, hoping that this will provide a renewed way for these buildings to interact with the coastline and citizens. two articles unravel the affective dynamics produced by waterfronts, seaside experiences, and their cultural representations while critically examining the links between autobiography and the researcher. researcher-initiated autobiographies (hanssen, 2019) allow the discovery of interconnections between the written, filmed, or depicted events and their effects on subjects. richard read, drawing on personal correspondence with current citizens of the welsh seaside resort borth where he spent his childhood holidays, wittily juxtaposes the partially successful interventions of the local university’s “hydrocitizenship studies” and the pressing and genuine “water issues” of borth locals: “urgent late-night emergency emails as colossal waves from the irish sea pound the backs of houses, spilling obstructive rubble through alleys between them onto the road”. read examines the film made about the bog behind https://changing-sp.com/ 252 elena g. trubina the village which runs along the shore along with his dreams filled with “jubilant, exploratory wonder at borth and its waters”. if in read’s essay it is mostly men who speak and ponder on their past and present experiences, aireen grace andal’s article is centered around childhood memories of viracnon women who spent their childhood along bodies of water on the coast of virac, catanduanes island, philippines. while trying to answer the question of how waterfronts are remembered and (re) constructed as gendered spaces, andal also addresses the connections between her informants’ “lived and fantasised childhoods with water”. water-related myths about sea mermaids and sea monsters, as opposed to everyday encounters in the port and coastlines, supplied her childhood memories with a mixed sense of both mystery and reality, which made feelings about water perplexing. the memories of the waterfront were also gendered: specific water-related places—the port, seaside market, and beach—produced reflections about contradicting gender roles, i.e., viewers of male bodies thought of themselves as both sexualized beings and family providers. the articles in this issue discuss ambitious renovation plans which ignore the rising sea level and climate change in general and propose to build impressive solid structures on top of derelict surfaces and next to urban waters. citizens have little control over the speculative investment frenzy combined with the politicians’ attempts to increase their visibility through spectacular large projects. yet, the resulting waterfronts still offer relief and relaxation to the citizens. most of citizens will have a difficult time finding a better place to enjoy the city. all of them build their own relations to the water edges and this issue’s authors offer us the ways to reflect on these and other incongruities. references airas, a., hall, p. v., & stern, p. (2015). asserting historical “distinctiveness” in industrial waterfront transformation. cities, 44, 86–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. cities.2015.02.002 anzilotti, e. (2016, october 18). a vision for a chicago unified by rivers. bloomberg us edition. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-18/how-chicago-srivers-will-unite-the-city avni, n., & teschner, n. (2019). urban waterfronts: contemporary streams of planning conflicts. journal of planning literature, 34(4), 408–420. https://doi. org/10.1177/0885412219850891 bakker, k. (2003). an uncooperative commodity: privatizing water in england and wales. oxford university press. boland, p., bronte, j., & muir, j. (2017). on the waterfront: neoliberal urbanism and the politics of public benefit. cities, 61, 117–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. cities.2016.08.012 cybriwsky, r. a. (2016) whose city? kyiv and its river after socialism. geografiska annaler: series b, human geography, 98(4), 367–379. https:// onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geob.12110 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.02.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.02.002 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-18/how-chicago-s-rivers-will-unite-the-city https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-18/how-chicago-s-rivers-will-unite-the-city https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412219850891 https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412219850891 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.08.012 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.08.012 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geob.12110 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geob.12110 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 245–253 253 dovey, k. (2005) fluid city: transforming melbourne’s urban waterfront. routledge. gomes, p. 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(2007) tidal waves: the new coastal history. journal of social history, 40(3), 731–43. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2007.0051 macdonald, e. (2017) urban waterfront promenades. routledge. https://doi. org/10.4324/9781315740836 nechepurenko, i. (2019, may 17) putin intervenes to halt cathedral project after popular protests. new york times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/world/ europe/russia-cathedral-yekaterinburg-protests.html porfyriou, h., & sepe, m. (eds.). (2016). waterfronts revisited: european ports in a historic and global perspective. routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315637815 sadler-smith, e., & akstinaite, v. (2021). human hubris, anthropogenic climate change, and an environmental ethic of humility. organization & environment. https://doi.org/10.1177/10860266211039000 smith, d. (2008). sur les quais des brumes: mist, mystification and demystification in the french reception of elia kazan’s on the waterfront. french cultural studies, 19(1), 85–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077727x07085719 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1177/0969776418823052 https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794118760748 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9668-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9668-7 https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh.2007.0051 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315740836 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315740836 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/world/europe/russia-cathedral-yekaterinburg-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/world/europe/russia-cathedral-yekaterinburg-protests.html https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315637815 https://doi.org/10.1177/10860266211039000 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077727x07085719 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.1.029 article confucianism as the axiological basis for china’s management model larisa piskunova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia lu jia jin ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the study of china’s management model is not only important in terms of its essential description but also in the context of the search for optimal management models. reflection on chinese management practice is informed by its uniqueness, which reflects national identity, especially as manifested in traditional texts from confucius, lao tzu, sun tzu until mao zedong. the relevance of this study is also connected with the interest of chinese people themselves in pragmatising the intellectual tradition in their search for axiological bases of rapid contemporary social and economic change. one of the most important ideological doctrines of the asian society underlying the practice of governance is confucianism. the article analyses its main theses and their transformation during the centuries‑old history of china. the phenomenon of neo‑ confucianism is separately understood as a source of spiritual traditions, socio‑political attitudes and psychological stereotypes of the chinese people. the purpose of the article is to describe the system of value categories of confucianism and neo‑confucianism that influence the folding and development of modern china’s management model. keywords chinese intellectual tradition and philosophy, management model in china, confucianism and neo‑confucianism received 11 march 2018 © 2018 larisa piskunova, lu jia jin accepted 28 march 2018 lppiskunova@gmail.com published online 3 april 2018 lujiajin@yandex.ru changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 33 introduction one of the first western thinkers to raise the question concerning the influence of spiritual life on economic practices and social structures was max weber. in the series of works entitled the economic ethics of world religions and their laws, weber attempted to link religious views with the economic behaviour of their followers. the section devoted to china, entitled confucianism and taoism, was written in 1913. however, weber’s primary interest in this study was not china or confucianism per se, but rather the phenomenon of world domination by western civilisation. therefore, for weber, china played the role of a radically different intellectual approach towards modernity than that taken in the west (yang, 1951). by the middle of the 20th century, in organisation and management theory, a keen interest was being taken in the problem of organisational culture. anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists adapted methods of their field to diagnose problem in organisational behaviours and solve practical problems in management. edward t. hall developed the concept of human behaviour in a group, based on cultural differences and psychological notions of a comfortable personal space (hall, 1977). fons trompenaars highlighted a variety of models of corporate cultures, in which national and cultural differences form the basis for the specification of intercultural communications in relation to general business and management activities (trompenaars & woolliams, 2004). geert hofstede’s research into the influence of cultural and national factors on governance placed a particular significance on internal communications and corporate culture of intellectual traditions. when applying these concepts to southeast asia, in addition to traditional markers – individualism and collectivism, masculinity and femininity, uncertainty avoidance and power distance – hofstede singled out another term, which he referred to as “confucian dynamism” or long term orientation (lto). the principles and values identified by hofstede as important for the activities of asian companies are rooted in confucian ideas. for example: • inequality in status leads to social stability. • the family is the prototype of all social organisations and relationships. • vital virtues – tireless efforts, the acquisition of useful skills and, if possible, higher education, avoiding extravagance, perseverance in the face of difficulties (hofstede, 1984). russian sinologists artem kobzev and vladimir malyavin argue that only a study of cultural traditions in all their diversity will help us to understand the current political and socio‑economic situation in china. malyavin examines the historical originality of the chinese management style in detail, with a particular emphasis on the assumptions supporting the distinct chinese worldview and differences in chinese management styles to those obtaining in neighbouring countries of the far east (malyavin, 2005). tu weiming and kobzev show that confucian and neo‑ confucian ideals and values are adequate approaches for solving basic problems in modern china. the main problem is seen to be related to how to adapt to the modern world without losing one’s own cultural continuity (kobzev, 2002; tu, 1979). larisa piskunova lu jia jin 34 both chinese and western management theorists actively explore the specificity of china’s management model in terms of its spiritual foundations, social order and traditional economic life. the studies carried out by yi zhongtian, wu yuxin, wei rongbin, ge rongjin present analyses of pragmatic and theoretical aspects of confucianism (yi, 2009; wu, 2004; wei, 2015; ge, 2000). confucianism and neo-confucianism – the bases of the chinese intellectual tradition, practice of thought and behavioural patterns in terms of influencing global history, confucius (551–479 bc) stands alongside the founders of major world religions: jesus christ, buddha and muhammad. following his death, his basic teachings were collected by his students into the classic confucianist text the analects. for many centuries, this book, which only has 20,000 words, has been required reading for any reasonably educated person in china. while, in its outward form, confucianism does not resemble a religion and lacks any church‑like institutions, in terms of its edification of the masses, formation of stereotypes and moral principles, it has successfully performed a role comparative to that of a religion. however, one fundamental difference between confucianism and judaism, christianity or islam is that the words of the prophets of these religions are perceived to be equivalent to the word of god; thus, they are seen as acting as mouthpieces of the divine. confucianism, on the other hand, is acknowledged to be the creation and word of a genuine human being. according to weber, confucianism is a “pure type” of asian political religion, as opposed to the european religions of salvation. as such, it consists in a practically‑ oriented, worldly rationalism, which lacks an ethic of salvation or concepts of sin, evil, but instead leads humans towards an adaptation to the world. the confucian spiritual tradition influences chinese workaholism, working efficiency and diligence. since a key principle of chinese culture consists in the different attitude taken towards the familiar and the unfamiliar, confucianism consists in an “ethics of external norms, not external beliefs” (yang, 1951). thus, confucianism comprises an ethical‑philosophical doctrine, shaped and developed by its disciples and followers, which may be variously defined in terms of a worldview, lifestyle, political ideology, scholarly tradition and philosophy. its interest, then, lies not merely in the ossified “words of confucius”, but also as a living tradition that continues to be developed by its adherents. in the history of chinese social and political thought, the development referred to as “neo‑confucianism”, which arose during the song dynasty (960–1279 ad), came to form the common traditional spiritual culture of china. since the period of “reform and opening up” during the late 1970s and associated search for appropriate ideological guidelines, the subject of neo‑confucianism has been the topic of particular research attention in the people’s republic of china. in his book humanity and self-cultivation, tu weiming, the most influential modern neo‑confucianist, explains the doctrine of neo‑confucianism from multiple perspectives, including in terms of its religious aspect and function as worldview changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 35 system. while admitting the negative consequences of confucianism, which have influenced both traditional and modern chinese conceptions of nationhood – above all, in terms of despotism and nepotism – through a discussion of the problem of complete self‑cultivation and human self‑actualisation, leading to responsibility for life, tu weiming seeks to identify the perennial humanistic essence (tu, 1979, p. 78). in tu weiming’s interpretation, confucianism posits human achievement not as an one‑time act, but rather as a process. for the confucian tradition, the idea of distinguishing “this” and “the other” life is entirely alien; therefore, everything is centred on life itself. unlike christianity, the original moral authority in confucianism isn’t god, but a person, without whose self‑development in terms of a continuous effort to realise one’s own humanity, biological growth becomes meaningless (tu, 1979, p. 35). for tu weiming, confucianism in general is based on dynamic spiritual self‑development, rather than static imitation. thus, personal maturation becomes of central importance in neo‑confucianism. in general, the philosophical meaning of neo‑confucianism cannot be conveyed by the traditional language of academic philosophy. to understand neo‑confucianism symbolically, therefore, it is sufficient and necessary to interpret it in terms of a lived lifestyle. in neo‑confucianism, tu weiming believes, the truly inherent property of a person is simultaneously a fixed structure and an endless process. in discussing the state of confucianism during the period of “cultural revolution” and subsequent events in the people’s republic of china, tu weiming concludes that confucian and neo‑confucian ideals and values are adequate means for solving the main problems facing modern china. by applying this approach, it is first necessary to search for a way to connect social modernisation, based on a fusion of tradition and the western intellectual tradition, then to return to an axiological approach to real life. in essence, maoism is hostile to confucianism; however, in failing to extricate the country from its “confucian jurisdiction”, the maoists themselves experienced fear when faced with confucian “ghosts and monsters” (niu gui she shen). although confucian symbolism is yet to be fully resurrected in china, confucianism as a social dogma continues to maintain both a “stubborn reality of the past and a viable alternative to the future” (tu, 1979, p. 285). introduction of confucius and confucianism life of confucius confucius lived during one of the discordant periods in chinese history, at a time when the country was being shaken by the constant internecine wars among the seven largest states – qin, chu, qi, han, zhao, wei and yan – with each seeking hegemony over the others. simultaneous, during this period, a fierce struggle was taking place between the heads of state (wang) and representatives of the hereditary aristocracies (perelomov, 2000, p. 170). born in the town of zou in the state of lu in the year 551 bc, confucius came from a noble but impoverished family. due to his exceptional intelligence and good health, he began an intensive period of self‑ education at 15 years old, hoping eventually to support himself with his knowledge larisa piskunova lu jia jin 36 and obtain social preference. at the age of 30, confucius began to teach and to acquire his first disciples. he recruited students according to the principle: “provide education for all people without discrimination” (you jiao wu lei). this was a new principle of recruiting students for chinese at a time when schools generally only accepted the children of aristocrats. confucius’ school in the state of lu was accessible to everyone, attracting 3,000 students, among which 72 were considered the most outstanding (perelomov, 2000, p. 171). confucius was a great ancient chinese ideologist, philosopher and enlightener. one chinese poet said: “if confucius had not been born, chinese culture would have been forever dark”. of course, these are flattering words for confucius; nevertheless, it is necessary to admit that confucius’ wide and comprehensive doctrine is of central importance to chinese thought and a valuable world heritage in its own right. heaven, earth, sovereign, parents, teachers – this is the hierarchy of respectability in the ancient china. as the the first person to propose that the natural future for scholars was to become an official, confucius became symbolic of the teaching profession (a good scholar will make an official [学而优则仕]) (yi, 2009). thus, confucius, who died in 479 bc at the ages of 73 and was buried in qufu, came to influence not only chinese and asian society but the rest of the world. the chinese proverb says: “to know half of the analects is to know the world”. it was during the han dynasty (206 bc – 220 ad) that the sovereign adopted confucianism as the official state ideology and began a period of ousting other doctrines and overwhelmingly replacing them with confucianism, which has continued more or less uninterrupted for over 2,000 years. it may be said without exaggeration that every chinese is a follower of confucianism. the master 1 said: the learning virtue without proper cultivation; the not thoroughly discussing what is learned; not being able to move towards righteousness of which a knowledge is gained; and not being able to change what is not good – these are the things which occasion me solicitude (子曰：德之不修，学之不讲，闻义不能徙，不 善不能改，是吾忧也 – 《论语述而篇》) (legge, 1861). when there are no conditions for moral behaviour in the country, confucius feels sorrow. throughout his life, confucius sought to propagate his political views in order to create a civilised state. the ethical-philosophical foundation of confucianism hierarchy and harmony “harmony‑in‑hierarchy”, which has been proposed as the key to understanding chinese social behaviour, is a value that can be traced back to the philosophy of confucius. from a confucianist perspective, an isolated individual is an unnatural and absurd abstraction, since an individual is essentially a social being, defined and constituted by the bundles of his or her social relationships in the world. thus social roles and responsibility are to be seen as something to fulfil rather than to breaking 1 confucius’ students called him “master”. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 37 free from (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 10). the confucian tradition stresses not only that man exists solely in and through his relationships to others but also that these relationships are necessarily hierarchical; most importantly, social harmony rests upon honouring necessary obligations (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 11). duke jing, of qi, asked confucius about government. confucius replied: there is government, when the prince is a prince, the minister is minister; when the father is a father and the son is a son (君君臣臣，父父子子 – 《论语颜渊 篇》) (legge, 1861). here confucius means that in order to run the country, the prince must be a good (right) prince, the minister – a good minister, the father – a good father, and the son a good son. we can understand it through another saying in “the analects”. the duke ding asked how a prince should employ his ministers, and how ministers should serve their prince. confucius replied: a prince should employ his minister according to according to the rules of propriety; ministers should serve their prince with faithfulness (定公问：君使臣，臣事君，如之何? 孔子对曰：君 使臣以礼，臣事君以忠。 – 《论语八佾篇》) (legge, 1861). confucianism considers that hierarchy and harmony always coexist between communication of prince and ministers. therefore, it is not a just in the west that chinese are considered always to be waiting for the “kind despot”. mencius2 said to the king xuan of qi: when the prince regards his ministers as his hands and feet, his ministers regard their prince as their belly and heart; when he regards them as his dogs and horses, they regard him as another man; when he regards them as the ground or as grass, they regard him as a robber and an enemy (孟子告齐宣王曰：君之视臣如手足，则臣视君如腹心；君之视臣如犬马，则臣视君如国 人；君之视臣如土芥，则臣视君如寇雠。 – 《孟子离娄下》) (legge, 1861). even mencius said: the people are the most important element in a nation; the spirits of the land and grain are the next; the sovereign is the lightest (民为贵 社稷次之，君为轻 – 《孟子尽心下篇》) (legge, 1861). this is a development of an idea inherent in confucianism. in order to explain this idea, we need to know the “five cardinal relationships” of confucianism – “wu lun” (emperor‑officials, father‑son, older brother‑younger brother, husband‑wife, and between friends). notably, they are both hierarchical and familial in nature (yu, 2006, p. 37). mencius explained: to teach the relations of humanity: how, between father and son, there should be affection; between sovereign and minister, righteousness; between husband and wife, attention to their separate functions; between old and young, a proper order; and between friends, fidelity (教以人伦，父子有亲，君 臣有义，夫妇有别，长幼有序，朋友有信 – 《孟子·滕文公上》) (legge, 1861). 2 mencius (372–289 bc or 385–303 or 302 bc) was a chinese philosopher who has often been described as the “second sage” – that is, after only confucius himself. larisa piskunova lu jia jin 38 to maintain true harmony, three prior conditions are required: a favourable climate, geographical position and support of the people. in confucian thought, harmony applies not just to humans, but also animals and the world as a whole. confucius said: i have heard that rulers of states and chiefs of families are not troubled lest their people should be few, but are troubled lest they should not keep their several places; that they are not troubled with fears of poverty, but are troubled with fears of a want of contented repose among the people in their several places. for when the people keep their several places, there will be no poverty; when harmony prevails, there will be no scarcity of people; and when there is such a contented repose, there will be no rebellious upsetting (丘也闻有国有家者，不患寡而患不均， 不患贫而患不安。盖均无贫，和无寡，安无倾。– 《论语季氏篇》) (legge, 1861). therefore, confucius believed that state should appreciate peace and harmony, but these should be based on the principle of hierarchy (wulun). benevolence and propriety (ren and li) ren, which is the central idea behind confucianism, is the capacity of compassion or benevolence for fellow humans. as such, it is essentially expressed through social relationships (po, 2009). now the benevolent, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge other (夫人者,己欲立而立人,己欲达而达人 – 《论 语雍也篇》) (legge, 1861). the perfection of one’s life cannot stop at perfecting one’s own self, but should involve perfecting the lives of others (po, 2009). yan yuan3 asked about benevolence. confucius said: to subdue one’s self and return to propriety is benevolence. if a man can for one day subdue himself and return to propriety, all under heaven will ascribe benevolence to him (克己复礼为 仁， 一日克己复礼，天下归仁焉 – 《论语颜渊篇》) (legge, 1861). zi gong4 asked: what do you pronounce concerning the poor man who yet does not flatter, and the rich man who is not proud? the master replied: they will do; but they are not equal to him, who, though poor, is yet cheerful, and to him, who, though rich, loves the rules of propriety (未若贫而乐，富而好礼者也. – 《论语学而篇》) (legge, 1861). confucius in all his life insisted on the idea, propriety is necessary for all of us. what’s the connection between benevolence and propriety? li – or propriety – represents the many etiquettes, norms and protocols in both personal and institutional lives (po, 2009). there are many principles that unpderpin 3 yan yuan: the student of confucius. 4 zi gong: the student of confucius. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 39 li; however, the first among these is that people should speak to others politely. in this context, we may understand the chinese proverb: “a kind word is remembered for a long time, but abusive language hurts the feelings immediately” (良言一句三冬暖，恶 语伤人六月寒). as well as speech, action should also proceed in accordance with li. in the analects, it is written: when the villagers were drinking together, upon those who carried staffs going out, confucius went out immediately after (乡人饮酒，杖者出， 斯出矣。– 《乡党篇》) (legge, 1861). when confucius saw any one in a mourning dress, though it might be an acquaintance, he would change countenance; when he saw any one wearing the cap of full dress, or a blind person, though he might be in his undress, he would salute him in a ceremonious manner. to any person in mourning he bowed forward to the crossbar of his carriage; he bowed in the same way to any one bearing the tables of population (见齐衰者，虽狎，必变。见冕者与瞽者，虽 亵，必以貌。凶服者式之。式负版者。– 《论语乡党篇》) (legge, 1861). not only in wider society, but also in the family, it is necessary to act in accordance with li. in ancient china, there was a rule – mourning for parents is observed for three years. confucius explained the reason: it is not till a child is three years old that it is allowed to leave the arms of its parents. and the three years’ mourning is universally observed throughout the empire (子生三年，然后 免于父母之怀，三年之丧，天下通丧也 – 《论语阳货篇》) (legge, 1861). confucius believed that learn from others is also a way to maintain li. the master said: when i walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers. i will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them (三 人行，必有我师焉。择其善者而从之，其不善者而改之 – 《论语述而篇》) (legge, 1861). reciprocity (shu) the duke of she informed confucius, saying: among us here there are those who may be styled upright in their conduct. if their father has stolen a sheep, they will bear witness to the fact. confucius said: among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are different from this. the father conceals the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals the misconduct of the father. uprightness is to be found in this (父为子隐子为父隐, 直在其中矣 – 《论语子路 篇》) (legge, 1861). why did confucius say this? did he really support the view that father and son should cover up each other’s errors? to understand his meaning, we need to research another idea of confucianism – reciprocity (shu). shu is an act and attitude of dealing with people. etymologically, the chinese word shu is made up of the words “to follow the feeling in the heart”. confucius believed that the love for close larisa piskunova lu jia jin 40 people (parents, children, brothers and sisters) is inherently ethical behaviour that does not need to be taught (yi, 2009, p. 54). of course, it is necessary to obey the law, but one cannot deal with everything exactly according to legislation and at the same time forget the function of reciprocity. when dealing with small conflicts with others, which can be solved immediately; or if someone makes a small mistake, which one can help him to correct quickly, it is not necessary to take the matter to court. as mentioned earlier, wu lun is very important to chinese traditional culture; accordingly, disregard for human relations is deemed to be cruel and unreasonable. according to confucianism, it is possible to appreciate reciprocity by just following the feeling of the heart. then, how is one to appreciate the reciprocity of people? confucius said: people should not do to others things that they do not want others to do to them (恕，己所不欲勿施于人 – 《论语颜渊篇》) (legge, 1861). to practice shu in the strong sense means that one is obligated to help others to develop morally in the process of developing their moral self, which is seen as a major life‑goal of a person. thus, shu required people to co‑develop their moral selves together with others, to morally co‑flourish (po, 2009). righteousness (yi) i like life and i also like righteousness. if i cannot keep the two together, i will let life go and choose righteousness (生，亦我所欲也;义， 亦我所欲也， 二者不可得 兼，舍生而取义者者 – 《孟子告子书上》) (legge, 1861). of equal importance in terms of moral status is yi, which is basically a sense of moral rightness, a capacity to discern appropriateness and the right direction in acts, relationships and other human matters (po, 2009). zi lu5 said: does the superior man6 esteem valour? the master said: the superior man holds righteousness to be of highest importance. a man in a superior situation, having valour without righteousness, will be guilty of insubordination; one of the lower people7 having valour without righteousness, will commit robbery (君子尚勇乎？子曰：”君子义以为上。君子有勇而无义为乱，小人有勇而无义为 盗。 – 《论语阳货篇》) (legge, 1861). confucianism believes that a truly brave person can remain calm, even when confronted by a critical situation. someone who is fond of fighting cannot be described as courageous. the superior man must be intelligent, firm, always gracious, even when being criticised. 5 zi lu: the student of confucius. 6 the superior man: (jun zi), the exemplary confucian moral person, is envisioned to possess all the cardinal virtues espoused in confucianism. 7 lower people: (xiaoren, small or petty person, the mean man) does not grasp the value of virtues and seeks only immediate gain. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 41 the master said: the mind of the superior man is conversant with righteousness; the mind of the mean man8 is conversant with gain (君子喻于义，小人喻于利 – 《论语里仁篇》) (legge, 1861). righteousness, for chinese, is very important. if someone paid for me, i will reward him handsomely for his efforts. if strangers love me, i will also love strangers. in confucianism, righteousness is always more important than self‑interest. rectification of name (zheng min) zi lu said: the ruler of wei has been waiting for you, in order with you to administer the government. what will you consider the first thing to be done? the master replied: what is necessary is to rectify names. a superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve. if names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. if language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. what the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect (名不正则言不顺，言不顺则事不成. 故君子名之必可言也，言之必可行也，君子于其言，无所苟而已矣。—《论语子路 篇》) (legge, 1861). we must also take into account the principle of zheng min (“rectification of name”), which requires the superior man to be absolutely correct in his words: language should in accordance with the truth of things. the master said: he who is not in any particular office has nothing to do with plans for the administration of its duties (when you don’t hold an office, you don’t need to consider the policies) (不在 其位不谋其政 – 《论语泰伯篇》) (legge, 1861). therefore, confucianism holds that in order to govern the state, the most important thing is to adjust to a suitable position. if the minister has a suitable position and a suitable name, he can start working in such a way that the subordinate will obey his orders. trustworthiness (xin) zi gong9 asked about government. the master said: the requisites of government are that there be sufficiency of food, sufficiency of military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler. zi gong said: if it cannot be helped, and one of these must be dispensed with, which of the three should be foregone first? the military equipment, – said the master. zi gong again asked: if it cannot be helped, and one of the remaining two must be dispensed with, which of them should be foregone? the master answered: part with the food. from of old, death has been the lot of all men; but if the 8 the mean man: the same as xiaoren (lower people). 9 zi gong: the student of confucius. larisa piskunova lu jia jin 42 people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state (子贡问 政。子曰：足食。足兵。民信之矣。子贡曰：必不得已而去，于斯三者何先？曰：去兵。子 贡曰：必不得已而去，于斯二者何先？曰：去食。自古皆有死，民无信不立。– 论语颜渊 篇》) (legge, 1861). confucius considered confidence of the people is most important for government. the country can be without weapons, it is possible without food, but it is impossible to give up trustworthiness. if the people trust the state, they can overcome all difficulties, become stronger and happier. his idea is supported by some committed scientists who think that gdp not the most important for the country, but rather gnh (gross national happiness), which can reflect the strength of the country. the master said: if a man in the morning hear the right way10, he may die in the evening without regret (朝闻道，夕可死矣 – 《论语里仁篇》) (legge, 1861). confucius believed that the superior man has his own dao (the right way – trustworthiness), he can sacrifice his life for it. implicit words (han xu) confucius stressed being cautious; this is a common characteristic to all chinese people. the master said: the superior man has a dignified ease without pride. the mean man has pride without a dignified ease (君子泰而不骄，小人骄而不泰 – 《论语子路 篇》) (legge, 1861). the master said: the firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue (刚毅、木讷，近仁 –《论语子路篇》) (legge, 1861). the master said: fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue (子曰： 巧言令色，鲜矣仁！ – 《论语学而篇》) (legge, 1861). confucius believed the superior man should be calm, cautious, talking little; such people are worthy of our trust. conversely, he thought that people who use beautiful words are not to be trusted. the master said: when a man may be spoken with, not to speak to him is to err in reference to the man. when a man may not be spoken with, to speak to him is to err in reference to our words. the wise err neither in regard to their man nor to their words (可与言而不与之言，失人；不可与言而与之言，失言。知者不失人，亦不 失言 – 《论语卫灵公》) (legge, 1861). 10 the right way, or dao, it represents the embodiment of the ethical way, correct from the point of view of confucianism; if a person has mastered the tao, he fulfilled his purpose. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 43 zi gong asked about friendship. the master said: faithfully admonish your friend, and skilfully lead him on. if you find him impracticable, stop. do not disgrace yourself (子贡问友。子曰：忠告而善道之，不可则止，无自辱焉。– 《论语颜 渊篇》) (legge, 1861). confucius also thought it was not neither necessary nor wise to waste time to talk to those who is not worth persuading. here is one chinese saying: when the conversation gets disagreeable, to say one word more is a waste of breath (话 不投机半句多). zi gong asked what constituted the superior man. the master said: he acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions (子贡问君子。 子曰：先行其言，而后从之。 – 《论语为政篇》) (legge, 1861). the master said: the superior man wishes to be slow in his speech and earnest in his conduct (子曰：君子欲讷于言，而敏于行。 – 《论语里仁篇》) (legge, 1861). the master said: the superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions (子曰：君子耻其言而过其行。 – 《论语宪问篇》) (legge, 1861). the master said: at first, my way with men was to hear their words, and give them credit for their conduct. now my way is to hear their words, and look at their conduct (听其言而观其行 – 《论语公冶长篇》) (legge, 1861). these phrases show the idea of confucius – people should seriously think first, then make a decision carefully, attentively and warily. speak cautiously (shen yan) zi zhang was learning with a view to official emolument. the master said: hear much and put aside the points of which you stand in doubt, while you speak cautiously at the same time of the others – then you will afford few occasions for blame. see much and put aside the things which seem perilous, while you are cautious at the same time in carrying the others into practice – then you will have few occasions for repentance. when one gives few occasions for blame in his words, and few occasions for repentance in his conduct, he is in the way to get emolument (子张学干禄。子曰：多闻阙疑， 慎言其馀，则寡尤；多见阙殆，慎行其馀，则寡悔。言寡尤，行寡悔，禄在其中矣。 – 《论语为政篇》) (legge, 1861). confucius felt people should speak carefully – a “tongue without bones” is considered a stupid behaviour. as the chinese saying: out of the mouth comes evil (calamity comes by means of mouth)”祸从口出; t – much, and err much. 言多必 失; they say that speech is silver but silence is golden (沉默是金; look before you leap (think twice before you do). 三思而后行). larisa piskunova lu jia jin 44 confucianism and the formation of the chinese management model the analects is not a book about management; nevertheless, after the passage of many centuries, the lifestyles, ways of thinking, habits, worldviews and communication modes of chinese are all influenced by confucian culture. in ancient times, chinese business culture was relatively stable in conformity with the ancient culture. on the marketplace, there were only public and private handicraft industry, small shops. public industry and commerce were the major category, but the status of merchants was considered lower than that of scholars, farmers and artisans. therefore, merchants had to find a way to join in the mainstream culture – to become confucian businessman. to do this, they must always do business in an ethical manner with the desire to achieve social benefit. some of the primary characteristics of confucian businessman are as follows: honesty (we are equally honest with elderly and youthful customers [童叟无欺]); to fulfil promises (promise is debt 一 诺千金); help your own country (donate money to own country or donate food to help natural disasters.) confucius stressed the responsibility for ordinary people to society. the analects explains about policy and administration so many times that the analects is sometimes thought of as a management hand book. since the han dynasty (156 bc), confucianism has been defined as a policy of governing the country, despite having been violated and criticised many times since this period. after 1919 and during the cultural revolution, confucianism gradually began to lose its position as the most important ideological doctrine, determining chinese traditional behaviour. however, after the adoption of the “reform period”, confucianism once again became a thread to connect the past, the present and the future. in the traditional texts of confucius, sun tzu and lao tzu, politicians, businessmen and scholars have found practical advice on how to run a business and how to manage the people. in studying management, business strategy, business communications and human resource management, they discovered the idealised spirit of confucianism, i. e. that the people is the most important element in a nation; the spirits of the land and grain are the next; while the sovereign is the lightest (民为重,社稷次之,君为轻 – 《孟子尽心 篇下》) (legge, 1861). the core of a country is its people and collective spirit. confucius thought that the policy of the country should be based on the culture of the state, manage (the people) should with mercy and conviction, should by re‑educating people by moral virtue and etiquette. all managers need to correct their mistakes, be strict with themselves and work to improve themselves before retraining employees. managers should love their employees like themselves. collectivism china has been a collectivist society for a long time. such societies are generally characterised by participation in intensive social interaction that affords little privacy, leading to a corresponding stress on the need to maintain harmony. open confrontation is considered impolite and flat refusal is replaced by delay or “yes”. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 45 central to the collectivist view of life is the distinction between those who belong to one’s group and those who do not: the former are trusted, the latter always suspect. this, of course, has important implications for business. companies are seen as ideally based on moral connections reminiscent of family, but not on cold contracts. thus, chinese people are less willing than americans to disagree with any positively formulated statement! they also tend to follow the traditional chinese virtues of modesty in all things in their tendency to favour the medium range (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 11). for chinese, entering into a serious business relationship to others, first requires the establishment of trust. all business should be based on relationships thus formed. in order to complete the analysis of china’s collectivism, we need to understand filial piety (xiao shun) and its implications for social relationships. whether in traditional chinese society or the chinese communities of today, the confucian virtue of filial piety is held in the highest regard. emperors, rationalising their legitimacy by the mythical “mandate of heaven”, ruled the state like a family (po, 2009). loving, helping, respecting employees the nation is the basis of the state, the country is stable only when the foundation is strong (民为邦本, 本固邦宁 – 《尚书五子之歌》) (legge, 1861). when the prince regards his ministers as his hands and feet, his ministers regard their prince as their belly and heart (君之视臣如手足，则臣视君如腹心 – 《孟子离娄下》) (legge, 1861). if employees feel respect and love in the company, think of the company like their own home and feel very comfortable working in the company, they will love their own company, owe a great deal to their company and willingly sacrifice their own interests. thus the company will form deep group cohesiveness (ou, 2016, p. 40). zi gong said: there is a beautiful gem here. should i lay it up in a case and keep it or should i seek for a good price and sell it?” the master said: sell it! sell it! but i would wait for one to offer the price (沽之哉！沽之哉！我待贾者也 – 《论语子罕篇》) (legge, 1861). this passage may seem hard to understand and rather strange. many commentators tend to interpret it metaphorically, interpreting the words “i would wait for one to offer the price” as “i would wait for the appearance of one perfect sovereign.” such a one will not enter a tottering state, nor dwell in a disorganised one. when right principles of government prevail in the kingdom, he will show himself; when they are prostrated, he will keep concealed (危邦不入，乱邦不居。天下有道 则见，无道则隐. – 《论语泰伯篇》) (legge, 1861). larisa piskunova lu jia jin 46 there is analogous phrase in russian: the russian poet joseph brodsky wrote in “letters to a roman friend” (“pis’ma rimskomu drugu”): it is better to live in a remote province by the sea. chinese proverb says: “good birds live in the selected wood; talented ministers work for the selected chief” (良禽择木而息，贤臣择主而事) (legge, 1861). chinese scholars think the monarch can choose ministers for themselves, but also the minister can choose monarch. who has the support of the people, he can unite the country. a good manager should love, help and respect employees to attract more and more asset and achieve support from employees. taking a long time to make decisions the chinese think a promise is a debt and that they should look before they leap, so they always take longer to make decisions. westerners believe in the value of making quick decisions and then taking action. in china, the decision‑making process is based on ensuring that the balance of all parties is taken into account. chinese people want to be sure that all points of view of the issue are considered first and all issues are thought out before coming to a conclusion. this process often involves returning to the beginning and starting to think and debate again. also, since the chinese people do not like to tell “no” in a direct manner, it is best to never assume a deal will be struck until you hear it clearly (wang, 2012). against being blunt (han xu) despite the stress on harmony in chinese society, tensions inevitably arise. where this happens, chinese strategies for resolution are still formed by the desire to avoid open conflicts. it is necessary to avoid open debate and direct confrontation (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 15). the chinese act as restrained, implicit and indirect. han xu will inhibit the direct expression of emotion, especially negative emotion. for chinese people, communication is about building relationships, while in the west, effective communication and prompt fulfilment of tasks are considered more important. silence does not mean that your message will not be transmitted. the wise confucian is supposed to listen in silence. china’s leaders always declare themselves much less than in the west. it’s not that the chinese do not want to share information; nevertheless, westerners will have to prompt their chinese colleagues if they want details. alternatively, it may be best to make contact privately in order to establish a one‑to‑one relationship (wang, 2012). communication should be calm with forbearance concerns about harmony and hierarchy inform styles of communication. the confucian ideals of the superior man encourage respect for those who maintain self‑control and who embody “perfect calm”. emotional outbreaks cause strong distrust and antipathy. in the context of intercultural negotiations, chinese prefer restrained, moderate behaviour (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 15). changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 47 showing respect for the elders in hofstede’s terms, china is a large power distance society: people take with them into adulthood not only a habit of external respect for their elders, but also a consolation from dependence on them. earlier, we introduced wu lun (the five cardinal relationships that bind emperor and subject, father and son, husband and wife, older brother and younger brother, and friend and friend), in hierarchical terms, with the senior permitted authority over the junior. for centuries, the practice of raising children has been aimed at preparing them for obedience, control of their impulses and acceptance of their social obligations. the attitudes to power developed in the family are reproduced in the school, with the pupil‑teacher relationship imitating the parent‑child relationship. even in kindergarten, special attention is paid to discipline and training rather than free play. thus, a formed attitude towards power is ready to be transferred to the workplace, where employees are accepting of the hierarchical, top‑down structure of the command economy and the care that needs to be taken with officials (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 14). trust in loyal employees the chinese saying: “a suspect character cannot be used – if you doubt a person, do not use him” (疑人不用，用人不疑). the chinese think that business is based on trustworthiness. when chinese business leaders choose their employees, they first of all test candidates’ characters. if the candidates are loyal and kind – even if not very capable – the leaders will be satisfied and choose these people. if someone is very talented, capable, but not devoted and kind, chinese leaders will not tend to choose them. this is very different from western leaders, who will tend to prefer capable employees. for chinese leaders there are 4 levels of workers: first, loyal and capable; second, loyal, but not capable; third, neither loyal, nor capable, the lowest, very capable, but not loyal. it’s very interesting to note that, when there are two employees, both of who are not loyal, chinese business leaders prefer the one with lower capability; however, if they are both loyal, chinese leaders prefer employees who are more capable. cultivating one’s moral character in confucianism thought, a superior man’s life involves several progressive phases: cultivating one’s moral character; taking care of the family, governing the state well and pacifying the world (修身齐家治国平天下). they emphasised that the moral accomplishment of politicians is the first step to administering the country. the superior man (jun zi) – the exemplary confucian moral person – is envisioned to possess all the cardinal virtues espoused in confucianism. jun zi is articulated in the analects by confucius as follows: righteousness, acting before saying, love of learning, broadmindedness and non‑partisanship, dignity but not pride, self‑ reflection, prudence in speech and words… someone said: what do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness? the master said: with what then will you larisa piskunova lu jia jin 48 recompense kindness? recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness (或曰：以德报怨，何如？子曰：何以报德？以直报怨，以德报 德。 – 《论语宪问篇》) (legge, 1861). therefore, the way of achieving humanity to embark on study that has no end, but which allows one to flexibly acquire intelligence. the master said: he who requires much from himself and little from others, will keep himself from being the object of resentment (子曰：躬自厚而薄责于 人，则远怨矣。 – 《论语卫灵公篇》) (legge, 1861). the superior man is always broadminded and loves others. in contrast, lower people (xiaoren, small or petty person, the mean man) do not grasp the value of virtues and seeks only immediate gain. the master said: the superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress (君子坦荡荡，小人长戚戚 – 《论语述而篇》) (legge, 1861). in confucian thought, the superior man is condescending but does not demean himself. the master said: the superior man is easy to serve and difficult to please. if you try to please him in any way which is not accordant with right, he will not be pleased. but in his employment of men, he uses them according to their capacity. the mean man is difficult to serve, and easy to please. if you try to please him, though it be in a way which is not accordant with right, he may be pleased. but in his employment of men, he wishes them to be equal to everything (子曰：君子易事而难说也：说之不以道，不说也；及其使人也，器之。小人 难事而易说也：说之虽不以道，说也；及其使人也，求备焉。 – 《论语子路篇》) (legge, 1861). confucius thought that work with jun zi (the superior man) easy, but it’s difficult to please him. jun zi has his own principles, always righteous, positive, conscientious but not exigent over others’ work. the master said: ‘the superior man is affable, but not adulatory; the mean man is adulatory, but not affable(君子和而不同，小人同而不和。 – 《论语子路 篇》) (legge, 1861). he thought jun zi friendly but not affable. the master said: the superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort. the superior man thinks of the sanctions of law; the small man thinks of favours which he may receive (君子怀德，小人怀土；君子怀刑，小人怀惠。 – 《论 语里仁篇》) (legge, 1861). the master said: he who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it (为政以德, 穆如北辰, 居其所, 而众星其之 – 《论语为政篇》) (legge, 1861). here all the stars mean the wise man or the talented person. leaders with morals provide a good example to the other stars. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 49 until now, in many chinese companies, morality is considered as the most important quality of employees. when leaders select employees, they will be certain to delete the names of those who have a bad reputation or are considered to be immoral. moral leaders are able to have a positive impact on employees, urging them to work effectively. neo-confucianism’s practicality in theory and in practice of china’s modern management over the years of reform, china implemented a market economy and built “socialism with chinese characteristics”. the country faces the challenge of moving to a new social and economic model, but, along with the modernisation of society, many negative problems also arose. such specific questions have caused wide public concern. it was necessary to strengthen the moral and responsibility of society. to provide this, confucianism was given a central place. collectivism and individualism although the centre of chinese cultural ethos lies well in the collectivist sphere, individualism is not completely absent and it is admired in some certain realms. referring to the values of managers in today’s china, we should pay attention to the diversity in their ranks. firstly, we should know that many chinese provinces are larger in both area and population size than many countries in europe. geographical barriers that led to a large number of mutually incomprehensible dialects split them. immigrants are limited by the registration system. the provinces also differ in terms of their history, specific economic resources and extent of modernisation. all of these factors are reflected on the differences in business ethics between areas. managers in the coastal cities (shanghai and guangzhou) are much more individualistic than in cities in the more remote and less developed interior. it is also necessary to consider the growing generation. the new generation of managers, those having lived through the reformn era, are more individualistic than their elders. life has changed a lot – from central planning and mentality of steel and rice production to market forces and the glorification of wealth (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 25). chinese relationship (guanxi) an old chinese proverb states: time isn’t as important as the terrain; but the terrain isn’t as important as unity with the people (天时不如地利，地利不如人和). the concept of “guanxi” is a much more complicated than the western concept of “network”. it is a platform for social and business activities in china and consists of ties determined by reciprocity, trust and mutual obligations. therefore, it is better to create your own guanxi and to be aware of the guanxi around you before you do anything. this is an unwritten rule of china: if someone doesn’t trust you and there is no guanxi between you, this means that you can’t do business with that person. chinese people always larisa piskunova lu jia jin 50 think that connections are the most important thing for business. the largest enterprises always have big fish supporting them (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 25). saving face (liu mian zi) the chinese were the first to recognise the influence of “face” in their lives; nevertheless, even they have difficulties in setting out how it works. face (mian zi) has a much deeper meaning in china than in the west. many chinese will endeavour either to save their own face or to save someone else’s face. face is about dignity and respect, and the social role of people. it’s not just about feelings, but also about the key part of social cohesiveness. someone may literally prefer to die rather than to lose face. people can lose face simply by refusing a gift or entering into open disagreement and conflict. under such conditions, it is necessary to pay attention to the avoidance of giving offence. saving the face of others is important, especially that of one’s superiors. conflict can and should always be avoided by using vague or moderate language. under such circumstances, the expression “no” will be interpreted in terms of excuses to avoid irritating someone. the requirement to saving the face of others has its negative side. among chinese, concern for the face mixed with fear of gossip (yu lun) increases pressure to conform (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 25). flexible management in most chinese enterprises, flexibility is a very important form of human resources management. this is usually implemented by spreading corporate culture. the main ideas here are a good leader figure, leading by example and working in the “milk of human kindness” (ren qing wei). the good leader figure (xing xiang) since, according to confucianism, the rule of virtue is the main measure for national administration, contemporary chinese management is profoundly shaped by confucian ideas of virtue. to run an enterprise virtuously, its leader should establish a good “image” (xing xiang). this requires not only a suitable position in the company, professional qualification and experience, but also good character, human emotions and morality. if the leader has a perfect “image”, he will project a fascinating personality. the employees will be able to trust the leader, admire him and feel they have a special kinship. therefore, a bond of sympathy will develop between members of the group, the leader will establish the core position of ethical cohesive affinity and all company employees will form the implementation of an enterprising spirit (ge, 2000). leading by example in confucianist thought, a superior man’s careers consist of: cultivating one’s moral character; regulating the family, managing state affairs, scoring the world. to manage employees, a leaders first needs to set a good example by correcting his mistakes consciously. zi gong said: the faults of the superior man are like changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 51 the eclipses of the sun and moon. he has his faults, and all men see them; he changes again, and all men look up to him (子贡曰：君子之过也，如日月之食焉：过 也，人皆见之；更也，人皆仰之。 – 《论语子张篇》) (legge, 1861). if the leader has a good “image” (reliable, friendly and close), he can set a perfect example to all the employees. through leading them by example, staff will trust and admire him, feeling a special kinship with their leader. this will inspire them to work independently without instructions. the master said: when a prince’s personal conduct is correct, his government is effective without the issuing of orders. if his personal conduct is not correct, he may issue orders, but they will not be followed (其身正，不令而行；其身不正， 虽令不从 – 《论语子路篇》). equally, a leader’s personal conduct can affect the that of the employees (legge, 1861). if a superior man loves propriety, the people will not dare to be irreverent. if he loves righteousness, the people will not fail to submit to his example. if he loves good faith, the people will not dare to be insincere (上好礼，则民莫敢不敬； 上好义，则民莫敢不服；上好信，则民莫敢不用情。 – 《论语子路篇》) (legge, 1861). similarly, if employees always want to please their leader, then the leader’s preferences will be what informs the employees. actually nowadays, many chinese leaders lack such character and don’t always want to correct their mistakes. because they don’t want to acknowledge their faults, this may lead to loss of face. in many chinese companies, especially in small private companies, the leader always has the greatest power; therefore, his orders and directives will be carried out promptly. since being a leader involves a certain type of status or honour, chinese leaders do always not admit mistakes in order to maintain their prestige (sean, 2014). working in the “milk of human kindness” (ren qing wei) the society of china is full of human relationship, so everyone needs to learn how to work in the “milk of human kindness”. emotional management has become one of the most valued models among china’s business circles in recent years. emotional management falls somewhere between moral management and legal management. leaders seldom treat workers as robots or economic units, but rather communicate with employees following the order “emotion – reason – law” to move people with emotion and convince people by reasoning (wu, 2004). therefore, in china’s enterprises, the concept of common values is always present. in order to satisfy people’s emotional needs, the relationship among employees is close and intimate and employees work in a company as if they were working in a “family business”. thus leaders need to work on their emotional investment, so that the staff will achieve a sense of belonging and security. for example, almost every chinese company has a project named larisa piskunova lu jia jin 52 “military training” for new employees. all the new employees need to live, eat and receive military training together in one month without mobile phones or entertainments. the companies believe that by this way, the staff can establish a strong relationship with each other and will treat others as members of this same family (wei, 2015). the entrepreneur leader of one factory in chengdu (a city in sichuan, china) so values emotional management that he made several rules for himself: take care of the children of co‑workers who are going on a business trip; solve the housing problems of employees; visit the family of an employee who became ill or died (ge, 2000). nepotism confucius believed that reciprocity (shu) is necessary for us; however, it has different levels: close reciprocity and distant reciprocity. there is big gap between how people treat actual family members and non‑family members. reciprocity between you and the members of your family is the closest; between you and your friends is less close; between you and other strangers – distant. leaders always think: “i trust my family absolutely; my confidence in friends and acquaintances has been established and invested; but about nobody else will you make assumptions concerning their goodwill. in china, relationship (guanxi) relies upon establishing trust, but this trust is specific, limited by personal obligations and not by the community of faith. this explains why this special view of trust and suspicion lead to the occurrence of nepotism and favouritism in most chinese private enterprises (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 22). return present for present chinese society uses gifts to establish feelings of trust and dependence. refusal without reason is thought of as “loss of face; if one accepts the “debt”, it means that one needs to reciprocate a strong duty (unspecified future repayment). any concessions that result will create a “debt” that must be repaid (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 22). close relationships in the chinese mind are associated with reliability and permanence. avoiding making individual decisions americans are always argumentative because they think learning always proceeds from critical thinking. chinese people, by contrast, the world’s oldest continuous civilisation, pay much more attention to the past. on the basis of traditional culture, learning proceeds from imitatation rather than critical debate. many chinese, therefore, avoid making individual choices when faced with new challenges. in dealing with the unexpected, they have a traditional learning from childhood as well as relying on superiors and groups to guide them (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 24). in the chinese management style, taking a critical attitude is a way to avoid responsibility. the proof of the importance lies precisely in the protection against changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 53 liability. this explains the absence of the most important players at the negotiating table, with the inevitable lengthening of the negotiations. staying behind the scenes allows important figures to change their position without losing face (jie & anthony, 2004, p. 24). despotism – ling dao the universal term in chinese for a leader, boss, or someone’s direct superior is “ling dao (领导)” can roughly be translated as “leader.” in many chinese companies, especially in small private ones, ling dao has the greatest power: his orders and directives must be conducted promptly, without questions. as ling dao confers a certain type of status or honour, chinese managers and executives sometimes do whatever they can to affirm prestige and save face, which includes issuing arbitrary commands, making employees work overtime and even dishing out abuse (sean, 2014). if ling dao makes a mistake, as often heard in familiar descriptions of official statements, there are very few who will admit and correct their mistake directly. there is a desire to shift responsibility and blame others. conclusion the analysis indicated that during its two‑thousand‑year history, confucianism and neo‑confucianism have provided valuable ideological cores, allowing society to adapt to challenges and changes. this flexible “ideological doctrine” ensures the construction of a person’s behaviour based on self‑cultivation, rather than following external patterns. this allows the external context us to be taken into account, which, in the modern management model, determines contractual obligations (deadline, conditions, price, quality). we see the managerial pragmatism of confucianism as follows: follow the rule “people oriented”; treat personnel not as robots or economic people; respect human dignity and attach importance to morality, human feelings. among employees, it is necessary to form a conscious attitude to work, the atmosphere of “home” and “family” in the company. confucian principles underlie “emotional management” (working “in the milk of human kindness”). the managers who take decisions must proceed from the median principle “to be between morality and law”. communicating with people according to the rule of “emotion – reason – law” convinces people “by reasoning”. it is very important to the entrepreneurs to give emotional investment to the staff, so that employees will have a sense of belonging and safety. the first prime minister of singapore lee kuan yew stressed that with singaporean success, singapore is indebted to its reliance on the value of “people’s confucianism”. he said: “as long as the leaders take care of the welfare of the people, the people will obey them. this kind of relationship is basic”. larisa piskunova lu jia jin 54 references ge, rongjin (2000). 儒家柔性管理与东亚经济发展 [confucian flexible management and development of the east asian economy]. journal of chinese culture research: autumn edition, 0 (2), 3–12. doi: 10.15990/j.cnki.cn11‑3306/g2.2000.03.002. hall, e. 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(2004). business across cultures. new york: john wiley & sons. tu, weiming (1979). humanity and self-cultivation: essays in confucian thought. boston, ma: cheng & tsui co. wang, barbara (2012). chinese leadership: 5 critical differences with the west. iedp developing leaders. retrieved from: https://www.iedp.com/articles/chinese‑ leadership‑5‑critical‑differences‑with‑the‑west/ wei, rongbin (2008). 儒学思想在现代企业管理中的应用[confucianism in modern management]. journal of heilongjiang science and technology information, 0 (3), 78–98. doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1673‑1328.2008.03.079. wu, yuxin (2004). 儒商与西方商人管理思想比较 [confucian management and western management]. journal of forward position, 0 (11), 78–80. doi: 10.3969/j. issn.1009‑8267.2004.11.023. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 55 yang, c. k. (1951) “introduction”, to max weber. religion of china: confucianism and taoism (pp. xiii–xliii). new york: macmillan. yi, zhongtian (2009). 先秦诸子百家争鸣 [pre‑qin scholars: contention of different schools of philosophy in ancient china]. shanghai: literature and art publishing house. yu, dan (2006). 于丹论语心得 [my experience with the “analects”]. beijing: zhonghua book company. changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.194 received 8 february 2022 © 2022 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny accepted 4 august 2022 e.i.lutjko@gmail.com published online 10 october 2022 lexschwarz@gmail.com article the concept of mladostarchestvo as a tool for criticizing religion in modern russia: an analysis of rhetorical strategies eugene lyutko, alexey cherny st. tikhon’s orthodox university, moscow, russia abstract this article analyzes the history of the term mladostarets/ mladostarchestvo [young elder/young eldership], and at the same time classifies strategies of critical rhetoric within which it is used. the notion in question established itself as a particular type of “clerical” pejorative in the 1970–1980s in church circles in the russian emigration. at the end of the 1990s, it gained popularity after patriarch aleksii ii began to use it. most worthy of note is the use of this term in the context of a pastoral rhetorical strategy, in which abuses in the practice of confession are exposed. nonetheless, in the 2000–2010s mladostarets/mladostarchestvo began to be used in a series of other rhetorical strategies. within the context of a socio-critical strategy in particular, this concept is used as a tool of criticism of post-soviet religiosity as a social fact. in its contemporary phase, the notion is also included in an anti-hierarchical strategy, within which it is applied in a parodic vein. as a result, on the one hand, a sort of “oversaturation” of the term with meanings takes place, and, on the other, there is an intricate interlacing of intentions according to which it is used. the latter may indicate a kind of exhaustion of the semantic resources of the term. keywords mladostarchestvo, young eldership, confession, religious leadership, rhetorical strategies, criticism of the clergy, anticlericalism acknowledgements this work was supported by the russian science foundation under grant no. 19-78-10143. https://changing-sp.com/ 656 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny the concept of mladostarets/mladostarchestvo [young elder/young eldership] is a rhetorical tool that is frequently employed in critical descriptions of various aspects of religious life within contemporary russian orthodoxy. the meaning of this term1 is vague: those who use it rarely give it a definition, and if they do give one, then this is as a rule entirely determined by the logic of the critical statement; that is to say that, in essence, it does not go any way towards clarifying the situation. the combination of these two circumstances—uncertainty of meaning and demand for use—means that an analysis of the use of the term mladostarets/mladostarchestvo makes the problem of the employment of the notion mladostarets/mladostarchestvo significant for understanding processes in the sphere of religion: the question remains unclear who or what exactly is the object of a critical utterance each time one author or another uses the term in question as a tool. on the one hand, the very fact of the popularity of such an “indefinite” critical term to an extent characterizes discussion in the sphere of religion (or at least the current state of methods of its description), and is therefore in need of interpretation. there are not many terms in the modern russian language that may be referred to as professional clerical pejoratives, that is elements of critical rhetoric applied exclusively (or almost exclusively) to the priesthood. the term mladostarets [young elder] is one of the most notable and widely used of such terms. rare is the public figure in contemporary russian orthodoxy who has not made statements using this word in one sense or another. mladostarchestvo is a term used not only in the context of spoken language, journalism, and discussions on the net. the turn of the millennium was the moment when mladostarchestvo became an official term in church discourse: a close connection was established between a series of contradictory phenomena in church life and this notion. at the same time, discussions on mladostarchestvo clearly reached their peak during the 2000s; by the 2010s, a gradual decrease in interest towards this critical tool takes place. here, an attempt will be made to explain the fall in “criticism of mladostartsy.” 1. a study of critical rhetoric—and the term mladostarets/mladostarchestvo constitutes precisely a critical statement, for which it is almost impossible to discover a concrete social referent (nowhere in our sources is there any sort of concrete example of a mladostarets)—is significant for the study of any sphere of social relations. it is here that points of maximum tension are revealed between different groups functioning within a single social arena. accordingly, a transformation of critical rhetoric—the emergence of new objects of criticism—testifies to a transformation of the boundaries of these groups or the appearance of new points of tension, which signals a development of the situation. this study is limited: it does not lay claim to being a general catalogue of critical tools that may be used to flag a situation of an unscrupulous attitude on the 1 as with the meaning of many other “professional” clerical pejoratives: pop [priest (pej.)], treboispolnitel’ [performer of religious rites], sistemnyi [a product of the clerical system], kuteinik [purveyor of kut’ia (a special dish commemorating the dead)], batek [little father], etc. to take a historical example see zapalsky, 2021. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 657 part of a priest towards his flock; on the contrary, its focus is on one particular term. in this regard, the article aims to reconstruct a history of this concept. the question of how to compile a history of this notion is solved by means of a classification of rhetorical strategies in which the term has been included at different stages. this paper will adopt a methodological approach based on the study of rhetoric2 and the functioning of concepts within it3. in the vast majority of cases, when using the term mladostarets/mladostarchestvo, our sources are expressing dissatisfaction with a certain situation that, in their opinion, is typical for one context or another. in connection with this, a methodological premise of this research paper is the assumption that the key “unit” for the definition of a mladostarets/mladostarchestvo as an element of critical rhetoric is not the archetypal image of a leader who has been unmasked as a mladostarets, but a rhetorical strategy whose analysis allows the author’s intention to be reconstructed—that is to say in fact the self-same thing against which the blade of criticism itself is directed. 2. in all probability, the term mladostarets was born as an element of spoken language, “slang”: the layer of language that is most rarely reflected in the sphere of the written word. it is an element of “church jargon” used in an unusual play on words with the term starets “elder,” which acquired special connotations in the russian language around the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. possibly the first written source in which we encounter the term mladostarets are the memoirs of metropolitan evlogii (georgievskii, 1868–1946), published shortly after his death: father sergeenko works with enthusiasm. he has the gift of influencing people, which through his youth and inexperience causes him to lay claim to the role of starets [elder] one of the parishioners from meudon calls him mladostarets[...] [young elder]. father andrei organizes meetings at his house, at which some of his female disciples are trained in meditation; they sit in silence, meditating on a subject that has been proposed to them, and do not dare move a muscle, “so as not to disturb father’s contemplation of the divine,” while he himself sits locked up in his office. (georgievskii, 1994, p. 438; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) 2 the research into critical rhetoric will draw on the work of the cambridge school, in particular k. skinner. this method of research into political language presumes behind every (serious) public utterance the potential for a political statement. a political statement, in its turn, presupposes a definite strategy; the question of which is decisive—the statement itself or the strategy—is secondary for this research. it is on this basis that the notion “rhetorical strategy” is introduced here, which exists on an intersubjective level. of lesser importance is the political or social ideal of any one particular public figure. on the contrary, what matters here is the fact that different people criticize similar church, political, or social realia. and, if they use the term mladostarchestvo in a similar sense, it is possible to say that this term has established itself firmly as part of a certain rhetorical strategy (see skinner, 2002). 3 the study of those contradictory phenomena of church life that became referents for the concept of mladostarchestvo in the 1990 –2000s is a task for another piece of research on a larger scale. nonetheless, it should be mentioned that approaches to the problem of mladostarchestvo as a social phenomenon do exist. for instance, i. paert (2014) talks about it in an article dedicated to a discussion of eldership in contemporary russia (see also rotach, 2011). https://changing-sp.com/ 658 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny the priest andrei sergeenko (1902–1973) served in meudon from 1929 to 1939. overall, metropolitan evlogii gives this priest a positive write-up: “this inclination to mysticism does not prevent father andrei from being an active laborer” (georgievskii, 1994, p. 438). “one of the parishioners from meudon”—that is clearly one of father andrei’s own parishioners—also does not find anything worthy of condemnation in his specific practices, and it would seem that the words “through youth and inexperience” have to do with the critical attitude of metropolitan evlogii himself, evaluating from a distance the ministry of a priest under his jurisdiction. the hypothesis that the term mladostarets did not initially carry any negative connotations is confirmed by another early reference, to be found in the golden age of patristic literature (1967) by archimandrite cyprian (kern, 1899–1960). discussing st. makarii of egypt, he remarks: “his asceticism was so great that the skete-dwellers gave him the name παιδαριογέρων “mladostarets,” because he had progressed in virtue beyond his years” (kern, 1967, p. 151). it is essential to note that the term παιδαριογέρων already had a tradition of translation into russian. for instance, in the same translation of the lausaic history quoted by archimandrite cyprian παιδαριογέρων is translated as “boy-elder”4. this translation is closer to the original, and is based on the latin tradition of translation παιδαριογέρων as puer-senex [child-old]5. notwithstanding, in the arsenal of archimandrite cyprian, who taught patristics at the saint serge theological institute in paris in the period from 1945 till his death in 1960, and who in all probability knew the above variation of the translation, the new, not entirely accurate, but nonetheless comprehensible word mladostarets was employed. archimandrite cyprian borrowed an already current expression from colloquial speech and used it to describe a situation with a specific source. lack of information makes it difficult to draw unequivocal conclusions on the existence of the term and the boundaries of its meaning up until the 1970s. it may be assumed that its original areal of diffusion was russian paris from the 1930–1950s. where the etymology of the term is concerned, we may suppose that it was formed by analogy with one of two linguistic models within which the prefix mladowas applied. firstly, in the interwar period, the prefix/notion “mlado-” became fashionable at a socio-political level. an ethnonym preceded by the prefix “mlado-” meant a group of the most progressive representatives of the nation: those who felt a responsibility 4 “first, i will tell of the virtues of makarii of egypt, who lived 90 years, of which he spent 60 in the desert. having come to the desert at the age of 30, although he was younger than others, over the course of ten years he undertook ascetic labours with such courage that he was deemed worthy of a special distinction: he was called the “boy-elder,” because he excelled in virtue beyond his years. at the age of 40, he received power over spirits, the gift of healing illness and the spirit of prophecy, and was also found worthy of the estimable rank of priest” (palladius of galatia, 2015, pp. 60–61). 5 оn the topos of παιδαριογέρων/puer senex in late classical patristics (see: giannarelli, 1988; rotman, 2017). it should be noted that a corresponding topos, dating back to antique models, also exists in other european languages: “knabengreis” in german, “enfant-vieillard” in french. it is noteworthy that in 19th century greek, the term παιδαριογέρων referred not to a young monk who had achieved great heights of spiritual life, but on the contrary to an elder who demonstrated infantile irrationality (korais, 1828–1835). in modern greek, the term functions in a similar way to modern russian, with the exception that it is not an exclusively ecclesiastical notion. see παιδαριογέρων, (2008). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 659 for the political self-determination of their people. mladodvizheniia [young movements] originated in the 19th century, but the first of them started to appear in the russian press only during the first world war—mladoturki [young turks], mladopoliaki [young poles], mladolatyshi [young latvians]. a “young national” movement also emerged in the emigration—the mladorossy [young russians]. it is possible that all of this gave rise to the formation and circulation of the neologism mladostarets in the émigré community, typically with a positive connotation: it corresponded to the meaning of “a young, ascetically inclined priest” seeking to revive, in the new context of the emigration, a specific format of spiritual nourishment. just as in the emigration the mladorossy breathe new life into the russian national idea, the mladostarets revives practices of pre-revolutionary spiritual eldership. this, however, is no more than a hypothetical reconstruction. 3. in spite of the above, it should be borne in mind that the term mladostarets also had the potential for development in a negative vein. in this regard, it is possible that the model that gave rise to this term was a word in which the prefix mladoinitially carried a negative connotation. the archaic concept of mladoumie was one such word. the notion mladoumie [young mindedness] may be encountered in russian ascetic literature with the meaning “immaturity of mind characteristic of youth,” and here the connotations are unambiguously negative (filin, 1982, p. 187; avanesov, 1991, p. 550). there is no doubt that in later interpretations of the terms mladostarets/ mladostarchestvo, the prefix mladowould have a similar semantic function. the concept of mladostarchestvo (the subject of discussion was clearly already a certain phenomenon, rather than an individual mladostarets) first appears in the introduction to i. v. kontsevich’s work optina pustyn’ and its time: let us note one more occurrence of pseudo-eldership that may also be observed in contemporary reality: modern spiritual guidance, as will shortly be seen, grew out of ancient monastic eldership and represents a secondary form of this. owing to the relationship between these two phenomena, spiritual guidance and eldership, inexperienced priests who are familiar with ascetic literature on a purely theoretical level may fall into the temptation of an “abuse of power”—of transgressing the boundary of spiritual guidance in order to play the spiritual elder [starchestvovat’]—without possessing even the faintest idea of the essence of true spiritual eldership [starchestvo]. this “mladostarchestvo” (according to one apt expression) introduces discord into the life that surrounds it. it also conceals within itself irreparable harm for the soul of the person receiving guidance. (i. m. kontsevich, 1970/2019, pp. 255–256; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) most probably i. m. kontsevich (1893–1965), a graduate of the saint serge institute in paris, wrote his research on optina pustyn’ and its time shortly before his death, when he was already living in the usa and working as a teacher of patristics at https://changing-sp.com/ 660 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny the holy trinity seminary in jordanville. one may surmise that the “apt expression” was coined by him in the usa, although it is not fully clear when kontsevich was working on the text of his introduction. confirmation that an explicitly negative connotation of the term mladostarets/mladostarchestvo established itself not in europe but in the usa may also be found in the fact that the next author to use it was protopresbyter alexander schmemann (1921–1983), who had also moved from paris to the usa. in a note on orthodoxy in alaska, written in 1977, the following words may be found referring to bishop georgii (afonskii, 1925–2008): it did not occur to him to show off or flaunt his tserkovnost’ [churchness]. for he had not read about it in books or learnt it by rote from some precocious mladostartsy, but it was in his “levitical” blood, inherited by him from generations of simple and humble russian pastors. (schmemann, 2009, p. 592; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) bishop georgii was a student of father alexander from the saint vladimir seminary. the opposition between “levitical blood” and the teaching of the mladostartsy that schmemann uses does not appear to offer a great deal in terms of clarifying the meaning of this term. what is being referred to is probably a sort of “studied” tserkovnost’ [churchness], the “pharisaical spirit” that schmemann frequently denounces in his diaries. it is highly likely that what endeared itself to father alexander was the experience of a traditional priestly family received by father georgii in pre-war kiev6, which could be juxtaposed to experience in the emigration and also to those who found their faith later on—neophytes. in any case, the term mladostarets here is not used in direct connection with abuse of priestly authority, that is not in that context in which the concept was subsequently to function. several years later, schmemann uses the term in question in his diary, but already in a fully modern sense: wednesday, 2 december 1981 […] the youth of today are above all unhappy. unhappy because they live in a world in which there is one criterion—success. a result of this is the incredible proliferation of all sorts of impostors, people posing as teachers or “leaders.” in the church this leads to ever increasing “mladostarchestvo”. […] a few days ago, i had the opportunity to read a letter from one such mladostarets. a student who had received it gave it to me, in doubt as to i don’t remember what “teaching” of this 32-year-old teacher of spirituality. what astonishing self-confidence, what absolutely total self-identification with the truth. (shmemann, 2005, pp. 602–603; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) here, for the first time, a coherent image arises corresponding to a series of stereotypical traits: youth, self-confidence, “self-identification with the truth.” it is noteworthy, nonetheless, that schmemann derives the genealogy of mladostarchestvo 6 bishop georgii’s maternal grandfather was the priest-martyr mikhail edlinskii, executed in 1937 (bozhko, 2021, p. 136). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 661 from a specifically modern situation: a striving for leadership, at the base of which lies the cult of success among contemporary youth. hence, with regard to the concept of mladostarets/mladostarchestvo, the period between 1930–1980 can be named the time of, (a) its emergence, (b) its gradual transition from the sphere of church jargon to the sphere of church literature, (c) its gradual establishment in a prevalently pejorative usage; (d) after the concept stabilizes as a pejorative term, it becomes part of a rhetorical strategy within which an inexperienced priest is criticized who abuses his authority and, under the influence of ascetic literature, exceeds a permissible norm of influence on others. this rhetorical strategy may be characterized as pastoral. all the other strategies that will be discussed below will be directly linked to it. 4. a point of direct contact of discourse on mladostarchestvo with the russian milieu that has been identified is a lecture by metropolitan antonii surozhskii (bloom, 1914–2003) on may 18, 1987 at the international church academic conference on “theology and spirituality,” held in the context of the preparations for the celebration of 1000 years since the baptism of rus’: a great danger run by a young inexperienced priest, full of enthusiasm and hope, consists in the fact that sometimes young people fresh out of theological schools imagine that ordination has endowed them both with brains, and experience, and “discernment of spirits,” and they become what in ascetic literature are called “mladostartsy”. (surozhskii, 2017, p. 207; our translation—e. l., & a. c.)7 it is difficult to understand what exactly metropolitan anthony means when he speaks of “ascetic literature.” possibly he is referring to kontsevich’s work, which, however, constituted research into the history of monasticism, rather than an example of “ascetic literature” in a literal sense. as has been stated above, in this work the term mladostarchestvo is placed right at the beginning and appears as a key “programmatic” concept. clearly, where metropolitan anthony’s lecture is concerned, a peculiar memory lapse has taken place: a term from the lexicon of a contemporary researcher has been attributed to the lexicon of his sources. be that as it may, the émigré neologism, which metropolitan anthony may have heard in paris (where he lived from 1923–1948), metamorphosed from kontsevich’s “apt expression” to a testimony of “ascetic literature.” these factors—the authority of metropolitan anthony, and the authority with which he endowed the concept in question—have probably determined the nature of its further development in the russian context. 7 the effect of this lecture on the listeners may be judged from the following statement of a member of the audience: “the listeners literally held their breath. from out of the multitude of to some degree interesting, but nonetheless purely academic propositions, far from the real problems of the church, suddenly a live and exceptionally honest word had been pronounced on a longstanding problem that had for some reason never been spoken out loud. with his typical fiery temperament, archpriest vitalii borovoi then suggested the church hierarchy immediately be asked to publish the lecture as a brochure to be handed out on a signed-for basis to all priests entrusted with confessing the laity” (balashov, 2006). https://changing-sp.com/ 662 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny 5. to all appearances, in the 1990s the concept of mladostarets/mladostarchestvo spread not only in exclusively church circles and not only in its “pastoral” interpretation. one of the earliest mentions was b. liubimov’s article, “there is no prophet…,” dedicated to the work of ion druţă and published in literaturnaia gazeta in 1996. ion druţă chose an inauspicious moment to write and publish a chronicle of early christianity […] the long-bearded mladostartsy, with no theological education and busy in their search for all sorts of heresies not only in works by people of equal rank to themselves, but even in the writings of hierarchs, will take umbrage at the very possibility that a layman might encroach on their own interpretation of sacred history. (liubimov, 1996, p. 4; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) apparently, the dissatisfaction present in this text is connected with public/printed statements by church figures which started appearing after 1991, directed not only against “non-orthodox” theological texts but also against a series of cultural and social phenomena. similar pathos may be found in a letter by iu. i. maletskii (1952–2018), also published in 1996 in another literary journal: in any case, it is not for our mladostartsy, in their call for a rejection of wilfulness, to wilfully and short-sightedly take from a person the freedom with which god has endowed him, and endlessly to blame the intelligentsia for everything, who, not in the slightest out of malicious whim or empty caprice, but by their very nature live by free thought. (maletskii, 1996, p. 377; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) both of the aforementioned sources postulate mladostarchestvo not as a pastoral, but rather as an ecclesial-societal problem. here, a principally new rhetorical strategy emerges: a particular church leader is criticized for making a public statement aimed at limiting freedom of expression in the context of the ecclesialpolitical, political, social, or cultural spheres. but this statement is understood as a pastoral action, which indeed is what allows the term mladostarets to be used. this corresponds not to a presence or absence of pastoral experience, but represents an attempt to teach people how to live on the basis of dilletante knowledge in the field of ascesis. the exceeding of pastoral prerogatives, the most important factor in the pastoral rhetorical strategy, is not excluded in this view of the problem, but retreats into the background. this rhetorical strategy may be called emancipatory, as what is central is an intention of liberation from the power of a pseudo-spiritual leader. the sources at our disposal do not present a clear conclusion on whether the above authors knew of metropolitan anthony’s lecture, or whether they drew their idea of mladostarchestvo from ecclesial or para-ecclesial jargon, which this concept became part of. an alternative genealogy may also have taken place; after all, the same kontsevich’s works may have been available in the ussr even before 1987. whatever the case, mladostarchestvo publicly condemning theological literature or changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 663 criticizing the intelligentsia became a new and creative reading of a notion which had previously had an exclusively pastoral character. the language of the 1990s was flexible: the emergence of a large quantity of new social and political phenomena called new concepts into being, as well as new readings of concepts whose meaning had not yet stabilized. 6. the moment when mladostarchestvo began to be spoken about at the highest level was in a speech by patriarch aleksii ii (1929–2008) on december 23, 1998 at the moscow diocesan assembly. here is how the patriarch introduces this concept: a true starets [spiritual elder], above all owing to his great spirituality, approaches each individual person with great care. in virtue of his experience and gift of grace, he reveals the image of god in a person by means that harmonize with their spiritual disposition and age. a number of modern “startsy” [spiritual elders] (or rather it would be more accurate to call them mladostartsy), without possessing spiritual discernment, place on those entering into the church burdens which they cannot bear (luke 11: 46), apply to their pastoral activity clichés destructive to spiritual life, unreasonably apply to members of the laity who have for the most part not yet attained spiritual maturity forms of spiritual guidance that are only appropriate in monasticism. (aleksii ii, 2000, p. 76; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) on the one hand, here is a clear example of the pastoral rhetorical strategy. patriarch aleksii ii definitely uses the term mladostarets exclusively in a parish context: at one point he even introduces a distinction between mladostartsy and “the monastic clergy” (aleksii ii, 2000, p. 80). on the other hand, the genre of a new year’s eve, summatory speech itself did not presuppose a focus on any one problem; what was important was to present a spectrum of deformations of church life, against which the forces of the church should be sent into battle. in this situation, the scope of critical statements using the concept of mladostarets widens. thus, the patriarch also has recourse to it when criticizing drawn-out confession: these days many so-called mladostartsy, not having a proper understanding of the sacrament of repentance, turn confession either into a torture of the penitent, or into a conversation sometimes lasting up to an hour with each person, regardless of the fact that there is a whole mass of people wanting to confess. consequently, as a rule the beginning of the divine liturgy is delayed, and many of the people who have come for confession leave without it. (aleksii ii, 2000, p. 79; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) another sad consequence of mladostarchestvo, in the opinion of the patriarch, is a distortion of ecclesiological perspective within the worldview of the congregation. “people go to church in order to meet with their batiushka [father, priest], and not with https://changing-sp.com/ 664 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny christ.” the self-isolation of such communities leads to their “left-wing” or “right-wing” political orientation, which is also a problem for the church (aleksii ii, 2000, p. 78; our translation—e. l., & a. c.). finally, the passages of the patriarch’s speech adjacent to those where the term mladostarets/mladostarchestvo is used are also significant. in particular, one excerpt is aimed at protecting the church hierarchy from inappropriate criticism from certain “startsy” [spiritual elders], who “criticizing the church hierarchy […], in contrast to the spirit-bearing fathers of the past and present, by their criticism attempt to attract attention and thus to create authority for themselves” (aleksii ii, 2000, p. 76; our translation—e. l., & a. c.). the term mladostarets appears in the speech a little later on in the context of a smooth transition to problems of the abuse of confession. nonetheless, the above quote seems very close to the emancipatory rhetorical strategy: the “startsy” [spiritual elders] attract attention to themselves (obviously as a result of public statements) through criticism. if, in the first examples above, what was at issue was criticism of cultural and social phenomena, then here it is the church hierarchy which is the subject of the same criticism. hence, although in the patriarch’s speech the concept of mladostarets/ mladostarchestvo is used within a basic pastoral rhetorical strategy, it was nevertheless projected onto a whole set of different church contexts. possibly this circumstance became a sort of “trampoline” which allowed this notion to “leap into” social discussion, where it would be employed for argumentation within different strategies of critical rhetoric. 7. the earliest reaction to the patriarch’s speech and the resolution of the synod that followed it was an interview with metropolitan anthony (of sourozh) conducted at the beginning of 1999 by hieromonk ilarion (alfeev)8. in this interview, metropolitan anthony elaborates the pastoral rhetorical strategy and makes an attempt at a rationalization of the phenomenon of mladostarchestvo, developing his own argument from 12 years previously. of course, it is not a question of distinguishing between young and old madmen. the point is, as far as possible, to assess the spiritual maturity of a person, his ability to be a leader for someone else […]. it seems to me that there are three degrees of confessorship. there is the parish priest, whose role is to perform the sacraments of the church […]. there is another degree. this is a more experienced or older priest who has greater knowledge and a vocation to give instruction on how to progress from earth to heaven […]. and there is a further third level. this is spiritual eldership [starchestvo], a level for people who, so to 8 on 29th december, literally six days after the patriarch’s speech, the holy synod passed a resolution on the of late increasingly frequent number of cases of abuse by some pastors of the authority entrusted to them by god “to bind and to loose” (mt. 18: 18) (opredelenie sviashchennogo sinoda, 1999). the concept that is the subject of this research does not figure in this ruling, however unofficially in church circles it was called the “mladostarchestvo resolution.” (see further: surozhskii, 2017, p. 219). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 665 speak, have almost completed the whole journey to the doors of the kingdom of heaven, perhaps, but have not entered, or maybe would have been allowed in, but were sent back to the earth, to us, in order to guide us to this kingdom. (surozhskii, 2017, pp. 219, 223, 225; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) the distinction proposed by metropolitan anthony had great significance for discussions on the orthodox clergy, as can be seen from the number of publications in the media referring to the 1999 interview9. the patriarch himself indirectly quotes metropolitan anthony in a report to the council of bishops in 2000, emphasizing the inherent impossibility of linking mladostarchestvo with age: the problem of so-called “mladostarchestvo” remains serious: a phenomenon not connected with the age of the clergyman, but with the absence in him of a sober and wise approach to spiritual practice. (sbornik dokumentov, 2001, p. 15; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) this highlighted indifference with regard to age was both a strength and a weakness of metropolitan anthony’s argument: in the past, age had been the only means of objectivizing a priest’s unreadiness to give confession. now, the situation could be solved only in a process of interaction between a priest and a lay person. the priest and lay person should themselves be able to adequately distinguish the threat of mladostarchestvo as the non-correspondence of a priest to his “pastoral function.” this final removal of objective markers, turning the problem of mladostarchestvo into an abstract theological schema, gave rise to an attempt at a “systemic solution” to the problem in question: “there is a root independent from our human sins and weaknesses—a root, so to speak, which is inherent in our very system itself” (ozolin, 2009, p. 246; our translation—e. l., & a. c.). this is how archpriest n. ozolin speaks about the problem of mladostarchestvo, in defence of young priests who are obliged to hear confession in accordance with an established, flawed tradition. taking his cue from the words of the patriarch, he proposes that the office of special “ordination as a confessor” be reinstated in russia: to be performed by a ruling bishop on a priest possessing the gift of grace-filled pastorship; a tradition which was generally accepted in rus’ in ancient times and is practised to this day in the orthodox east. (ozolin, 2009, p. 249; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) 9 according to a search on yandex, a minimum of 270 publications quote metropolitan anthony’s words “there are three degrees of confessorship.” such publications may be found on key portals devoted to orthodoxy: pravmir, foma, pravoslavie.ru, among others. one of moscow’s oldest priests, archpriest vladislav sveshnikov gave the following answer to the question, “what is a mladostarets?”: “i do not want to answer this question, only because this is wonderfully described by metropolitan anthony of sourozh in one of his brilliant lectures where he speaks about mladostarchestvo. i simply agree with every word he says.” (sveshnikova, 2020; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) https://changing-sp.com/ 666 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny the use of the term mladostarets/mladostarchestvo in the context in question was part of a different rhetorical strategy. to be precise, the author appears to combine two critical strategies within his statement: pastoral rhetoric against mladostarchestvo, and criticism of an ecclesial structure whose foundation went back to the synodal period. criticism of this structure began even before the revolution10. here, the object of criticism were the church authorities for permitting inexperienced priests to hear confession, and thereby giving rise to a situation where every priest became a “mladostarets by profession” (as follows from ozolin’s argumentation). this rhetorical strategy may be termed as anti-systemic. 8. in the 2000s, a whole stratum of literature emerges where, in one way or another, at the basis of a critical-rhetorical apparatus the notion of mladostarets/mladostarchestvo is to be found. one of the most prominent critics of this phenomenon was the priest vladimir sokolov. his text, “mladostarchestvo—a temptation typical of our time”11 defines mladostarchestvo (although this contradicts the title of the article) as an absolute: “the temptation of mladostarchestvo has existed in every age” (sokolov, 2005, p. 17; our translation—e. l., & a. c.). it is important to note that, starting from the middle of the 2000s, the term in question is ever less frequently placed in quotation marks, which appears to signal a new phase in the existence of the concept12. while pointing out the unoriginate nature of mladostarchestvo, sokolov does nevertheless give an account of its genealogy, explaining why especially modern russia is a fertile breeding ground for this phenomenon: it is not so long ago that the church was subject to persecution. her destruction was promised: churches were closed; the clergy were executed and exiled; the faithful were harassed in all sorts of ways; “godless five-year plans” were even carried out for the final destruction of religion […]. but today all this has changed: the front lines have become fluid, and in some places disappeared altogether. it has become impossible to tell where the rear-guard is and where the vanguard, who is an enemy and who a friend, because attacks have begun to come from all sides. it has even become impossible to tell whether to defend or attack: does one have an enemy or an ally in front of one? everything has become confused. a time of temptation is upon us. the enemy has changed his tactics; he has started to come in “sheep’s clothing” in the guise of a “good shepherd”. (sokolov, 2005, pp. 9–10; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) 10 see especially one work that ozolin refers to—smirnov (1913). 11 this material became a central element of two books: iskusheniia nashikh dnei. v zashchitu tserkovnogo edinstva [temptations of our time. in defence of church unity] (dobrosotskikh, 2003) and his own, which came out two years later (sokolov, 2005). 12 referred to here are specifically orthodox media and publications. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 667 mladostarchestvo is thus incorporated into a global history of the conflict between good and evil, itself representing a manifestation of the latter on the historical stage as part of a specific historical situation. sokolov does not appear to construct a new rhetorical strategy, taking to its most detailed a description of what is criticized within the pastoral strategy. nevertheless, in his wide-ranging analytical article an attempt is contained at examining the situation from another angle. taking as his starting point kontsevich’s argument, mentioned in passing above, on the responsibility of the pastorate for pastoral abuses, he develops this idea: the first reason for the emergence of such confessorship is the psychology of the pastorate. not wishing to change, we wish to transfer responsibility for everything that happens to us onto the pastor. such flight from freedom and responsibility is sometimes expressed in a readiness to do anything at all. (sokolov, 2005, pp. 22–23; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) in sokolov’s work, a new configuration of critical argument is set out, in which mladostarchestvo obtains a fundamentally different interpretation. to start with, this has a very general form, but as it progresses attempts are made to historicize mladostarchestvo, understood as a characteristic predisposition of the pastorate towards a faulty type of obedience, and to root it in the specific social experience of the soviet era. one of the first people to speak of this, a. agadzhanian, called mladostarchestvo a “psychological syndrome of homo sovieticus” (agadzhanian, 2011, p. 21)13. this argument is elaborated in an interview with a. desnitskii: it is no coincidence that all this mladostarchestvo flourished in such glorious technicolor specifically in the nineties. a huge number of people came to the church at this time who had never heard anything about the church before, and, most importantly, were used to the idea that the things that were most important would be “communicated” to them by the partorg [party worker, organizer] at a meeting. they rejected soviet ideology (or rather, as experience has shown, laid it aside for the time being), but they still held on to a soviet way of thinking and called this orthodox: we are surrounded by enemies; we are the bearers of the one true, progressive doctrine and so on. (desnitskii, 2015; our translation—e. l., & a. c.)14 hence, the concept of mladostarets/mladostarchestvo, to the degree of its infiltration into church discourse, becomes a tool for criticizing things that are different and even directly opposed to its direct referent—the priest/clergy. mladostarchestvo is 13 later on, the link between homo soveticus and mladostarchestvo was also articulated by b. filippov (2019, p. 39). 14 abbot petr (meshcherinov) adopts a similar position in a multitude of texts and lectures on this topic. later on, b knorre (2018, p. 10) was to examine mladostarchestvo in the same manner as an example of “a flight from freedom,” a concept e. fromm uses to describe the phenomenon of the passive reaction of the masses towards the rise of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. archpriest georgii belodurov (2019) states directly: “mladostarchestvo is an error of the laity” (p. 345; our translation—e. l., & a. c.). https://changing-sp.com/ 668 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny used as part of another rhetorical strategy that may be called socio-critical: the term itself leads us to a false piste that does not enable us to penetrate any deeper into the essence of the phenomenon. in actual fact, the above-mentioned trait of soviet social policy (or even the specific nature of the political culture of modernity, to use e. fromm’s argument) led to the degradation of the individual, who lost the ability to resolve his spiritual and practical problems independently, seeking a universal leader capable of giving an answer to all his questionings. within the framework of this rhetorical strategy, the notion of mladostarchestvo visibly leaves the realm of the specifically clerical and becomes part of the toolkit of critique of post-soviet religiosity as a broader phenomenon. 9. throughout the 2000s, patriarch aleksii ii mentioned mladostarchestvo on a number of occasions in public appearances15. this, among other things, contributed to the development of a certain “theory of mladostarchestvo” that may be found in the article of the priest v. sokolov, as well in both anthologies where this article was published during the 2000s. here, mladostarchestvo finally becomes a fundamental category for describing church reality in ultra-critical tones. in the absence of precise criteria for distinguishing between a spiritual elder, an ordinary priest, and a mladostarets, such an element of critical rhetoric could be “wielded like a bogeyman by saying that everything everywhere was mladostarchestvo” (kozlov, 2012, p. 491; our translation—e. l., & a. c.)16, as archpriest maksim kozlov remarked, who was perhaps the first to draw attention to this problem: mladostarchestvo is a term currently much in vogue and which, aside from its own meaning, is often used as a label. much as people have started to say “fascist” whenever they want to say something nasty about someone, in just the same way people have begun to say, “that is mladostarchestvo.” a terrifying portrait has been painted of some sort of crazy priest, chewing sunflower seeds and handing out sweets, hitting people on the head, pulling them by their pony tails, saying to one person, “you marry that chap,” and to another, “off with you tomorrow to a monastery.” (kozlov, 2012, p. 489; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) it is important to point out that archpriest maxim is describing abuses connected precisely with the use of the term in question. what he is after is an adequate vision of the problem, which, in his opinion, is distorted by a ubiquitous and inappropriate use of the pejorative mladostarchestvo. further on in his presentation, he embarks on an analysis of pastoral abuses, mistakes at confession, and so on, but without mentioning mladostarchestvo: that is, in essence, he removes the concept 15 starting with a report to the council of bishops in the year 2000 (see, for example: official website of the moscow patriarchate, 2007; the press office of the moscow patriarchate, 2006; v monastyr' ne ukhodiat, 2019). 16 included in father maxim’s presentation was in particular his earlier text (kozlov, 2008). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 669 being researched here from the pastoral rhetorical strategy. mladostarchestvo is removed from the argumentation because it impedes a “serious” consideration of the problem. judging from this strategy, at a certain point an ironic use of the term mladostarchestvo as something that it is obviously a clear exaggeration becomes part of the colloquial rhetoric of the white (non-monastic) clergy, who meet with accusations of exceeding their pastoral prerogatives with a certain degree of regularity. this colloquial rhetoric finds its way into the public sphere whenever there is an opportunity. here is how the priest dimitrii terekhin uses this rhetorical device, polemicizing at a distance with his diocesan administration: i know a great deal about our nizhni-novgorod “ecclesiastical courts.” the same courts that, in their view infallibly, decide which of our brethren “has a devil,” who has “got the wrong door,” who is an “idiot,” and who is “psychologically ill,” who is in a state of “prelest’” [spiritual delusion], who is a “mladostarets.” (terekhin, 2017; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) according to this logic, the “system” sees a mladostarets in every to some degree active parish priest. what is more, having the support of the parish is the most reliable sign of the truth of an accusation of mladostarchestvo: “these speculators on the system have long since learnt to pass off the voice of the people, crying to heaven, as a broadcast of the opinions of their “disgruntled pastormladostartsy” (terekhin, 2017; our translation—e. l., & a. c.). it is hard to say how widespread this type of critical rhetoric is, however one may make a judgement from the words of n. skuratovskaia, a psychologist who helps clergymen in difficult situations, especially in situations of a sudden transfer from a parish. speaking on potential conflictual developments, she remarks: in such cases it happens that a priest is accused of gathering a sect around himself, that he is a mladostarets, and on this basis he can be denied the right to serve until he shows repentance, which finds its expression in the fact that all his spiritual children are dispersed. (volianskaia, 2018; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) thus, one may speak of the incorporation of the concept in question into yet another rhetorical strategy, in which the blade of criticism is twisted in the very direction that earlier had acted as a conduit for the traditional pastoral strategy: the church hierarchy and officials, for reasons unrelated to the essence of the matter, place limits on the pastoral activity of a clergyman using the “bogeyman of mladostarchestvo.” this rhetorical strategy may be termed anti-hierarchical. as j. agamben remarks regarding the existence of monastic rules in early modern society, where they are subjected to parody by “secular” authors, “the complete comprehension of a phenomenon is its parody” (agamben, 2013, p. 18). to paraphrase this statement with relation to the anti-hierarchical rhetorical strategy, it https://changing-sp.com/ 670 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny may be said that parody of an element of criticism destroys its critical potential. in this situation, the concern of the church authorities and experienced pastors for priests and lay people who have fallen into the “trap of mladostarchestvo” is not so much parodied as “made fun of”: the category of mladostarchestvo itself is placed within an opposite rhetorical context of hierarchical arbitrariness. 10. before concluding this research paper, one more traditional usage of the notion mladostarets/mladostarchestvo should be mentioned that clearly differs from the rhetorical strategies described above. this particular tradition testifies to the extraordinary distance of the “horizon of expectation” relating to the term mladostarets after the patriarch’s speech in 1998, and how global the phenomena could be that were encompassed by this element of critical rhetoric. one of the earliest reactions to patriarch aleksii’s speech was an article by natalia babasian published in the russian journal in january 1999. it proposes an original connection between startsy [spiritual elders], who were the object of the patriarch’s criticism in the section of his speech preceding the use of the term mladostarets, and abuses in parish life (discussed further on, where the patriarch mentions mladostartsy): many startsy in the lavras keep in strict obedience—up to and including the complete deprival of their freewill—not just future monks, for whom such a trial is appropriate by virtue of their rank. the same principal is applied to ordinary believers, who for the purpose of the salvation of their souls are literally turned into slaves, carrying out any whim of their starets. moreover, the startsy have passed on this art to a whole generation of young priests, who have gone out into parishes and begun to integrate these principles into parochial practice, for which they have earned the nickname mladostartsy. (babasian, 1999; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) startsy and mladostartsy are thus presented as two elements of a single milieu, where the pastoral abuses of mladostartsy represent direct consequences of the activity of startsy. combined they constitute what may be termed a “political opposition movement”: “[…] in recent years startsy and ‘mladostartsy’ have gained in strength and become kinds of informal church leaders” (babasian, 1999; our translation—e. l., & a. c.). babasian’s line of argument was continued and developed by v. v. pribylovskii (1956–2016), who simultaneously introduced it into scholarly discourse: the patriarch came down on so-called “mladostarchestvo” with unexpected vehemence. aleksii ii spoke of the way the new startsy unjustifiably subjugate the wills of their spiritual children, place demands on lay people that are applicable only to monks, frequently politicize their activity, sharply oppose themselves to changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 671 the church authorities, form closed, almost sectarian communities. it was clear to everyone that what was at issue was a wave of fundamentalism in the church, but even in this case no names were named. (verkhovskii et al., 1999, p. 100; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) v. v. pribylovskii paints (or even “constructs,” as may be asserted based on the absence of any sort of references other than to n. babasian) a genuine ecclesialpolitical confrontation of different church groups: cut to the quick by the speech on “mladostartsy,” the leaders of the union of orthodox brotherhoods could not help approving the synod’s resolution, but immediately retaliated by accusing liberal journalists of attacking monasteries and demanded that, as a symmetrical response, measures be taken against “general confession,” baptism without immersion and other deviations from tradition. (verkhovskii et al., 1999, p. 100; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) n. mitrokhin develops the argument on the equivalence of startsy and mladostartsy. he reproduces babasian’s idea on the genesis of mladostartsy almost word for word: in the second half of the 1990s, the growing influence of startsy began to worry the hierarchy and parish priests. in imitation of well-known spiritual fathers, many priests, especially priest-monks, started setting up their own communities of disciples. (mitrokhin, 2004, p. 103; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) according to mitrokhin’s interpretation, mladostartsy are a peculiar type of agent of “eldership opposition”: by denouncing inexperienced pastors, the patriarch was in actual fact striking a covert blow at church fundamentalists: at the moscow diocesan assembly, the patriarch made a long programmatic speech against a phenomenon that he characterized as mladostarchestvo. he denounced young priests who were copying their teachers badly or had taken on a task that was not for them. notwithstanding, what was cast doubt on was essentially the entire activity of startsy. (mitrokhin, 2004, pp. 103–104; our translation—e. l., & a. c.) in all likelihood, what may be seen here is a development of the emancipatory strategy. nevertheless it is clear that, if the intention of the latter consisted in unmasking the obscurantism of pseudo-spiritual religious leaders, then here there is a different intention: before us is a desire to denounce a large, poorly controlled fundamentalist network that apparently exists within the russian church; it is coordinated from the monasteries, but its adherents are ordinary priests; it is not subordinate to the authority of the patriarch and practices total control in relation to its flock. this rhetorical strategy may thus be labelled denunciatory. https://changing-sp.com/ 672 eugene lyutko, alexey cherny incidentally, the authors who had recourse to this strategy were shortly afterwards to reject using the term mladostarets/mladostarchestvo altogether. this may be explained by the fact that the use of this notion as part of the pastoral strategy becomes routine and ceases to be of interest for a denunciatory strategy17. * * * the history of the concept of mladostarets/mladostarchestvo may be summed up as follows. it emerged in an émigré context. it was there that it became an element of a pastoral rhetorical strategy aimed at combatting abuses in the practice of confession. the specific religious situation in the 1990–2000s in russia gave rise to its adoption and introduction into active circulation. as an interesting neologism and a tool for criticizing undesirable ecclesial-social phenomena, it was espoused by part of the intelligentsia: the appearance of the notion in question as part of an emancipatory rhetorical strategy may be interpreted in this way. in the 2000s, in the process of a rapid growth in use of the term mladostarets/mladostarchestvo in public discussion, it was integrated into a series of other rhetorical strategies directed at criticism of problems in church life. these were, in the first instance, anti-systemic criticism of the practice of confession, which was entrusted to young priests, rather than to experienced clergymen. within the context of a socio-critical rhetorical strategy, criticism was transferred from the clergy to the pastorate, or more precisely to the nature of religiosity in post-soviet russia, which as a result of various factors created preconditions for flawed relations between the pastorate and the clergy. an anti-hierarchical rhetorical strategy resorted to parody of hierarchs, employing the pejorative mladostarets with the aim of limiting the independence of parish clerics. finally, at the beginning of the 2000s the term mladostarets was also used in a denunciatory strategy, whose aim was to expose internal struggles within the church organization. in the period from 1980–2010, a continuous “growth in demand” for use of the term mladostarets/mladostarchestvo may be observed, which was incorporated into ever more new strategies of critical rhetoric. furthermore, the role of the concept itself changed from one critical argument or another, depending on the context: authors tried to identify different objects of criticism that might either be hidden behind the phenomenon of so-called mladostarchestvo, or conceal the intention of those using this term. consequently, on the one hand, a sort of “oversaturation” of the term with different meanings takes place, and on the other, there is an intricate interlacing of intentions according to which this notion is used. the fact that, in its final stage, the term is used with parodic intention within an anti-hierarchical strategy may bear witness to a kind of exhaustion of its semantic resources. this problem is most relevant today to the basic pastoral rhetorical strategy, incessantly in search of ever more objects of criticism from the area of parish life, which 17 n. mitrokhin (2006) indirectly testifies to this in a later text: “general reflections on the inadmissibility of mladostarchestvo that have been heard in the last six years from part of the episcopate (especially permanent members of the holy synod) do not single out startsy (staritz) who are not priests as a separate phenomenon” (p. 127; our translation—e. l., & a. c.). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 655–676 673 itself grows ever more transparent and minutely scrutinized in public discussion. in all probability, it is precisely the inability of the concept of mladostarets/mladostarchestvo to reflect abuses in the parish context with its former force and urgency that has given rise to a new pejorative—dukhovnyi ab”iuz [spiritual abuse] (slovokhotova & shchedrin, 2021), which may be found with increasing frequency at the spearhead of critical rhetoric. references agadzhanian, a. 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accepted 3 july 2021 i.peshkov@wp.pl published online 9 july 2021 article b(ordering) utopia in birobidzhan: spatial aspects of jewish colonization in inner asia ivan peshkov adam mickiewicz university in poznan, poland abstract the borderline territory serves a double purpose, being simultaneously zones of cultural contact and cultural barriers—administrative and often civilizational. this ambivalence frequently affects borderline area inhabitants turning them into hostages of border management regimes and outside projections concerning their cultural and civilizational status, and the authenticity of forms of their culture representation. in the case of birobidzhan, we are dealing with an absolutely modern project of creating ethnic territoriality without reference to the historical context and far from the places of traditional settlement of the jewish population. the implementation of this project put the jewish settlers at the center of a complex process of border management and securitization of the border areas. the factors of border and “remoteness” are largely underestimated in birobidzhan studies. the article fills this niche, emphasizing the spatial aspects of the implementation of the “antizionist utopia” and its complex relationship with previous models of territoriality in the region and local inhabitants. keywords birobidzhan, settler state, inner asia, border studies acknowledgement the paper was prepared with the support of the national science center (poland) (grant number dec 2012/05/e/hs 3/03527) https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 220–232 221 birobidzhan is undoubtedly one of the most unusual cities in the far east of russia. a tourist visiting the jewish autonomous region1 will be surprised to see symbolic traces of the jewish presence, yiddish inscriptions and monuments to jewish writers. cultural policy in the region plays freely with its jewish past, often reinventing it and creating the appearance of an intense revival of jewish culture (maksimowska, 2009). over time, it will inevitably see the slightly phantom character of russia’s most jewish city. most residents have very conditional ties with jewish culture, do not use yiddish in their daily lives, and perceive jewish scenery as regional specifics. despite the mass exodus of jews after 1991, the region continues to reproduce its special status and preserve its unique history. in this perspective, the rare enthusiasm for birobidjan and the frequent criticism in the categories of inconsistency reflect the ambivalent nature of the place that could not become a fullfledged republic for jews, but cannot stop being one, constantly re-inventing its past. the vast literature devoted to the trajectories of the jewish resettlement project in the far east has left aside the spatial aspects of the project (dekel-chen, 2007; estraikh, 2019; gurevich, 2020; weinberg, 1998). by adopting the “empty territory” postulate, the researchers ignored the project’s border localization and its deep ties to the tsarist and soviet border regimes. studies of the borders of inner asia (peshkov, 2012) provide an opportunity to fill this gap by presenting the essential role of the border regime for all stages of the project’s existence. localization in the border zone has largely determined the main factors of its development. the securitization of the border areas turned the region into a semi-empty territory, the irrevocable closure of the border increased remoteness, and the culture of border mobilization2 made it possible to manifest state anti-semitism in the most aggressive form not found in other areas of the ussr. this perspective will help us to look at the creation of jewish settlements in the far east from an unexpected angle, showing the complex relationship of the new formation of immigrants with alternative models of territoriality in the region. an equally important task of the article is to de-colonize (tlostanova, 2008) the dominant perspective of the birobidzhan project research, in which the colonial categories of empty land, useless territory, natives, and comical distance from the center are accepted as legitimate descriptions of reality. all the classic features of the colonization project (the absence of historical roots, remoteness from places of compact residence, the desire to occupy empty space, the invisibility of local residents) (balandier, 2010) in the descriptions of birobidzhan appear as a heavy 1 the ambitious and world-known soviet project of jewish autonomous region (jar) in the far east was established in 1934. the main city and symbol of the project was birobidzhan, wich was founded in 1928 based on the railway station called tikhonkaya. birobidzhan was evenks’ name (бира бид(ж)енэ), and meant a nomad camp at the bira river. the project of jar resulted from searching a pattern of jewish autonomy in soviet union, which linked the elements of zionism, soviet model of national autonomy and socialist ideas of secular jewish settler state and secular jewish culture. the soviet propaganda used the slogan “to the jewish homeland” to inspire jewish workers from ussr, europe, south and north america to participate in development of new socialist jewish land. for many reasons (hard leaving conditions, repressions, bad logistics and paranoia against international supporters) mass migration was stopped. 2 special cultural policy aimed at permanent emotional inclusion the border population in the defense of the boundary. https://changing-sp.com/ 222 ivan peshkov challenge to fate or even as punishment from the state. this shows that the colonial roots of the project have never been questioned and are still automatically transferred to scientific discourses. the tragic history of the jewish migration (gessen, 2016) does not exclude birobidzhan from the colonial archive of the far east. the very situation when participants of the previous colonial project are destroyed or discriminated in the frame of a new model is typical for both russian and soviet models of frontier management. the role of the border management regime is key here: each change has led to the marginalization of some communities and the temporary ascent of others. the russian border in the region was largely based on cossack settlements; the soviet regime of border management leads to disappearance of the cossacks; the jewish population is rapidly dissolving in the flow of new immigrants; and the post-soviet model of the open border marginalizes the former residents of the border regions, leaving them without jobs and clear life priorities. moreover, a slight weakening of the exclusivity of the jewish project and its inclusion in the general logic of the cultural and administrative development of the region will allow a broader view on the problems of the past and present of the region. in this perspective, the inclusion of “colonialism of the weak” in the new imperial history of the region is a challenge both for historians of the region and for comparative studies of jewish migrations. the localization of the jewish project in the colonial archive of the far east will provide an opportunity to show the tragedy of birobidzhan in a broader perspective of the tension between the practices of national zoning, securitization of borders and the search for models for development of remote regions. border and colonialism: from russian to soviet version the assumption of the target ethnic, confession and political coherence of the borderland area is crucial for the russian (tsarist) and chinese (qing) colonial experience in asia, which based on agrarian use of nomadic frontier land and re-orientation of indigenous nomadic population towards colonial centers by controlling the transborder movement, the separation of religious institutions from the authorities outside borders, state support for migration and active militarization of indigenous population. but these policies included the nomadic communities in new forms of modernity. the railways, airplanes and motor vehicles not only connected areas remote from the centers with national geography of industrial development, but also manifested the state’s ability of modernization. the external modernity (in late imperial, nationalist and socialist versions) was manifested as complex of discourses and practices oriented toward the transition remoteness areas in coherent part of national body. the strong competition in inner asia between russia/ ussr, china and japan has a strong connection to spectacles of great logistic and industrial projects. this fighting with “backwardness” and “remoteness” created the new forms of temporality and spatiality, which transformed the today “remoteness and backwardness” into space of development strictly connected with national economy. in the far east case, the “coherence” in borderland was understood as a changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 220–232 223 russia-oriented agro-nomadic space with the essential role of military institutions (cossacks) and cultural domination of orthodox communities (peshkov, 2012). with the victory of the bolsheviks in the civil war, the situation changed in border areas to model of border-bastion. the center orientation and closed character of the soviet space turned borderline areas into half-empty places remaining in absolute readiness for confrontation. frontier forms of socialism were special not only because of the extremely intense implementation of soviet methods of modernization, but also because they reached a particularly high level of political and social sterility of frontier population (peshkov, 2014). according to the soviet outlook on the world, borders were viewed as a source of danger and an area of confrontation with the enemies. the fact that the neighboring countries were political opponents of the ussr legitimized militarization of borderline regions and limitlessly fueled the civil war atmosphere. the model of frontier socialism was characterized by closed-border policy, special attention from state authorities to the supervision of border communities (special rights, movement control, the propagandist idea of a border as a bastion, etc.), and a very strong connection between socialist modernization and militarization of the area (on the economic, cultural and social levels). mass migration from the centre together with the spread of primary education in socialist schools had the effect of marginalizing the hybrid culture of the border regions and sharply accentuating the cultural distance between the russian and chinese sides of the border. the incoming new populations began to dominate, bringing with them an absolutely different geographical imagination and gradually creating new forms of identity. the socialist conceptualization of a border (as a limitation of legal space and separation from the outside world) legitimized the military style of governing and the special attention paid to the governing of economic activity. the experience of the socialist border was in many ways re-formed, not only as regards its present but also as understandings of the past (peshkov, 2018). both theoretically and historically, borders have never been fixed categories and the ways of their conceptualization and location have varied depending on time and space. border conceptualization constitutes an integral part of society’s identity determining the processes and rituals of its integration to a considerable extent. state versions of history are also strongly determined by processes of borders defense and legitimization. in the far east case, the main categories of border imagination were “waste areas” (waiting for colonizers) and quasi-invisible indigenous population (waiting for gift of modernity). this led to amnesia and years of blindness to the region’s pre-colonial past. who is the owner of the “waste land”? production of the invisible a common feature of all settler states is the involuntary nature of relocation and the transformation of a new place into own territory (cooper, 2010). locals in this perspective become “victims of victims”, turning into an obstacle on the way of progress or becoming an exotic scenery for tourists. in this perspective, the case of birobidzhan is special, being a classic example of the settler formation (two waves of refugees https://changing-sp.com/ 224 ivan peshkov from anti-semitism); it simultaneously becomes a hostage of ethnic status and almost immediately turns into a subaltern settler formation. the specificity of this situation is the constant politicization of the jewish question (ties with foreign countries, zionism, cosmopolitanism, sympathy for israel), which turns birobidzhan into a trap for the remaining jews (gurevich, 2020). this type of formation (especially after the world war ii) creatively combines the colonial status of the owners of the territory with the “forbidden life”3. the irony of the situation is that the birobidzhan migrants practically did not enjoy privileges and, if possible, helped discriminated groups4. nevertheless, this “human-faced colonialism” had all the features of a colonial situation: the empty space waiting for jewish settlers long before they arrived was stripped of its past and the locals became the setting for a new project. this explains the situation that, despite the contradictory policy of the center towards jews, it is the jewish identity that is reproduced in the soviet conditions. other stories and identities were simply erased. the answer to the question who originally was the owner of the territory of today’s jewish autonomous region is quite complex. it should be noted that this place is a reservoir of failed colonization projects. as an integral part of the manchu lands, it was annexed under the treaty of aigun (1858) and the beijing convention (1860). this acquisition leads to a sharp outflow of the population and disruption of economic ties. most of the manchu and chinese leave the territory. only the evenki [evenks], who retain their cross-border status, stay. the place of the chinese and the manchus should be taken by the resettled parts of the transbaikalian cossacks, but weak organization and ill-conceived infrastructure leads to the failure of the project. the cossacks’ standard of living is rapidly falling; the area becomes a symbol of difficult life conditions and backwardness. at the same time, the flow of korean refugees reaches the region and the number of the koreans is rapidly increasing. together with the october revolution (1917), the question of the status of the territory becomes much more complicated. chinese leaders take both treaties as unequal, seeing the region as lost territories. significant part of the cossacks and koreans support the far eastern republic (1920–22) and see the future of the region in the framework of a moderate socialist project in alliance with russia (sablin, 2020). even more of the cossacks join ataman semyonov5 and hope for the inclusion of 3 after the world war ii, the ussr rapidly changed its policy towards jews. from a country where the jewish population enjoyed all rights and was even the object of an affirmative policy, the ussr is shifting towards state anti-semitism (hidden behind slogans about the friendship of peoples), reinforced in the 60s by anti-israeli policy. this situation turns the jar into a trap, the only jewish unit in the ussr must survive the full burden of responsibility for zionism. 4 the relations between former cossacks and jewish immigrants largely destroy the stereotype of a constant conflict between the two groups. after the negative and tragic experience of the civil war, jewish immigrants were surprised to discover the cossack subculture without anti-semitic agenda. mutual support and mixed marriages have led to the emergence of subcultures and biographies impossible for other regions. 5 grigory mikhailovich semyonov (b. september 13(26), 1896, d. august 30, 1946) was a leader and a controversial symbol of the anti-communist transbaikalian cossack uprising. after the collapse of the white movement, he was forced to abandon far east in september 1921. after the red army entered manchuria, he was captured and executed, following a long investigation. the soviet propaganda connected him to all forms of resistance against the communists in transbaikalia, mongolia and inner mongolia. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 220–232 225 the region in his political projects, and after emigration—in the japanese plans to create a frontier state under the japanese protectorate. due to the small number of indigenous people, they hardly participate in political processes, continuing to use the forest as a cross-border zone, where they have always been the masters. in this perspective, the history of the region is a cascade of exceptions, subject to changes in the border regime. each subsequent change leads to the crossing out of the previous state and the effect of an empty land, where everything starts over. except the evenks, all other participants of this process perceive the region as a place of potential development or preservation, without much regard for local conditions. the manchus see it as a protected area, preserving sacred places and real customs (di cosmo, 1998)—here the related evenks turn into guardians of the manchu power. for russian administration—it is as an empty space that needs to be populated by cossacks and peasants. for the government of the far eastern republic, it is a forlorn corner which needs rapid modernization. and for the far eastern atamans—these are the cossack lands in need of support. this combination of orientation towards future and the impossibility of fundamental changes in the present has largely determined the trajectory of projects in the region. in addition to objective factors (weak infrastructure, long distance from the centers, limited opportunities for international exchange and insufficient population), the peripheral nature of regional development projects for china and russia, and to a lesser extent for the ussr, played a huge role. in this perspective, the history of the region resembles the myth of the colonial sisyphus. endless efforts are drowned in new projects, participants of previous projects disappear, the memory of the past is very sparingly recorded by the local museum. this colonial present was created long before the october revolution by the joint efforts of the manchu and tsarist administrations. the main difference between the chinese and russian projects is the attitude towards the indigenous peoples of the region. the modern history of evenks is related directly to the sino-russian border management in inner asia. the russian conquest of the transbaikalian region resulted in a long-term migration of tungus tribes to the south (hulunbuir in china) or north (yakutiya in russia). the transborder character of the nation has resulted in the clash of two official versions of evenks culture and the dependence of official historical discourses about evenks’ origin on sino-russian relations. in this context, the evenks indigenousness has a very modern origin since it resulted from russian and chinese border management. imperial cultures see the history of a small transborder nation differently. from the chinese point of view, evenks are included in the state historical narrative by “evenkizing” the archaeological artifacts of the region and emphasizing the role of the evenks in the history of the northern china. the ambivalent nature of the nation’s image gives the possibility of a specific “division of labor”: the northern evenks symbolizes the authentic culture; the history of southern evenki symbolizes the nation’s contribution to defending china’s frontiers against russian expansion. the russian version defines the evenks as a people exposed to danger stemming from their backwardness and the resulting lack of preparation for living in the contemporary world. both the state and the society position themselves https://changing-sp.com/ 226 ivan peshkov paternalistically as guardians of confused and vanishing nomads. such perspective is deeply rooted in russian culture and has resulted in an interesting combination of sentimental sympathy over the poor tungus’ fate and absolute indifference as regards constant and prolonged practices of controlling evenks’ agency through territorial barriers, inconsistent state development policy and disintegration of week ethnopolitical institutions. the evenks stereotype in russian culture has been shaped by post-soviet museums and local cultural projects emphasizing permanent “traditionality” of indigenous cultures. museum exhibitions and generally available information show the evenks from an external viewpoint of an educated european viewer who is supposed to admire the legacy of old cultures. the sentimental image of the noble tungus in russian culture, which requires protection from modernity and chinese merchants, with all its warmth only strengthens the idea of “people of nature” who do not need to be asked for permission to use their land. any contact with civilization is a blessing in this perspective, and they should be grateful to visitors for a chance to be developed. this exotic image of a peripheral community completely excluded them from the political agenda and the status of the owners of the territory. since the birobidzhanians have already developed the de-evenkized territory, the evenks are perceived as a distant exotic. except for a few traditional costumes in the local museum and some statistics from pre-wwii reports, the region literally does not see the evenks past of the territory. if the former cossacks have become invisible to the state, but not to the jewish residents of birobidzhan, the evenks, while remaining a recognized subject of state policy, continued to be invisible to the community. when i asked about the indigenous inhabitants of the region, local historians replied that there were few natives and they did not know anything about them. people spoke warmly about evenks, but with protectionist notes (using the colonial term tuzemtsy [natives]), having no idea about their life and culture. the destructive effects of state modernistic strategies towards communities defined as backward were clearly showed in development studies (peshkov, 2004). the compulsory choice of the modernity instead of the autonomy allows the state to exclude the so-called “backward communities” from the legal boundaries in order to implement randomly established “absolute right” of communities to modern models of life (scott, 1998). this biopolitical perspective situated state in its ability to call for a state of exception and a temporary suspension of rights. the radical expansion of a legal boundaries connected with transition to modern models of economic activity can be combined with simultaneous turning of the economic, cultural and social rights within paternalistic logic of development. the possibility to stop the economic, social and cultural rights in order to fight against “backwardness” shows not only their contextual nature, but also the priority of the state’s right to biopolitical sovereignty. common for all forced modernization projects was the imperative of linear movement from backwardness to development. in this context, the traditional culture of the communities was perceived as an obstacle to development and the main source of economic backwardness. the idea of an empty space is not neutral and carries an unambiguous political declaration: only inclusion in modern life brings indigenous peoples out of the state changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 220–232 227 of savagery and gives them rights. until this happens, they are perceived as part of nature, not directly related to large processes. in addition, empty lands are designated as cleared of indigenous peoples. all participants in the modernization attempts (except the manchus) perceived and continue to perceive the indigenous people as wild people of the forest, related more to nature than to politics. the birobidzhan case is very important for colonial research. in this situation, the “invisibility” of local residents is not directly related to either mass migration or the urbanization of the region. this once again shows the strength of the cultural formations of colonialism and their ability to produce negative effects, even if the colonial project fails. the second group of “invisibles” is the “old settlers” communities of the region. the appearance of russians in inner asia resulted in the development of new forms of ethnic and cultural identity based on cultural syncretism and miscegenation of the members of the analyzed groups with the inhabitants of the region. these mixed communities need to keep the balance between russian culture and the elements of the indigenous one. the specificity of eastern transbaikalia as regards most part of its population was the overlapping of the quasi-indigenous status and the cossack estate. after 1858, transbaikalian cossacks was replaced to amur river. after the end of civil war, the hostile attitude of the communist authorities to the cossacks (raskazachivaniye [decossackization], raskulachivanie [dispossession] and deportations), and the new socialist border regime provoked radical ethnic and social changes in the area. in that context, active border cleansing policy finally isolated the new soviet far east from old social and cultural structures. the first three decades of the new system were particularly traumatic for the analyzed groups. their mass migration to china began in 1918 and initially it concerned only richer cossacks escaping to avoid decossackization practices. a large percentage of cossacks in the first immigration wave established the models for perceiving migrants to borderline territories for a long time (they were perceived according to their origin and political views). soviet propaganda for many years defined both countries of exile as places of refuge of politically active white cossack emigrants. we are dealing with a special situation here, i.e., mixed ethnic groups favored by the previous colonial system became the victims of both organized and unorganized violence despite the simultaneous activation of the new ethnic and racial order (peshkov, 2012). mixed communities that originated as a result of one colonial and modernizing project were consciously and systematically eliminated after the introduction of another. utopia and settler state: far eastern version the soviet proclamation of the jewish autonomous region in the far east was a historic event not only for the region, but also for the whole world (kuchenbecker, 2000). the young soviet state proclaimed the first jewish ethno-political structure with its own territory, its own administration and cultural policy (gitelman, 1988). this communist response to the zionists has stirred up the jews all over the world (kotlerman, 2009). despite its modest status as an “autonomous region about to https://changing-sp.com/ 228 ivan peshkov become a republic,” birobidzhan was an exclusive soviet project. from the point of view of external observers, it was a state within a state: its international status and the historical experiment in the transition of the jews to agriculture made it a real alternative to palestine and projects of non-territorial autonomy (patek, 2007). it is important to pay attention to the performative aspects of the proclamation—a remote area, not affected by urbanization, becomes a place of international effort and an important factor in international politics. creatively combining the national and the class (maksimowska, 2009), it was open to jewish youth from everywhere and for a surprisingly long time (by soviet standards) received technical and financial assistance from all over the world. the soviet project of jewish autonomy was to combine jewish dreams of their own land with the demands of a new society: jewish culture was to become modern, proletarian, and secular. the language of autonomy becomes yiddish (estraikh, 1999), the main branch of jewish agriculture, the station tikhonkaya turns into a town birobidzhan (1937) with a rich theatrical and literary life. the combination of two utopias (national and communist) from the very beginning determined the specifics of the new life. the absence of jewish history in the region freed up the imagination and possibilities for cultural experimentation. if the old life remains in the pale of settlement, then the new life can be represented in any way. hebrew was distrusted as the language of obscurantism and reaction, and religion was rejected as unnecessary for a new life. in this perspective, the paradoxes were written into the birobidzhan project from the very beginning (kotlerman & yavin, 2007). birobidzhan was anything but a shtetl. the mass fascination with agriculture, the absence of synagogues and jewish entrepreneurs became a way of new life and preparation for communism on their land. the two utopias listed above were in a complex relationship throughout the history of soviet birobidzhan, and at some point, the national one had to submit completely to the requirements of the party conjuncture. the disaster of the project was due not only to the lack of conditions to accept most of the jews of the ussr, but also to the growing suspicion towards jews from the government after 1945. birobidzhan suddenly becomes a place of persecution of jews: people are persecuted for using yiddish in teaching, literature or theater (gurevich, 2020). the culmination is the public burning of jewish books in the main square of the city— despite the holocaust, being a jew becomes suspicious for the soviet state and society. this transition from a state of affirmative action towards jews to a semiofficial state anti-semitism was matched by the evolution of the project from a soviet promised land to a territorial trap seized by a dangerous name and a wariness of everything jewish (gurevich, 2020). the influx of new jewish population stops, but the region retains part of the cultural infrastructure and constantly balances between the culture of working jewry and zionism. despite a very controversial policy, the postwwii years were a period of rapid growth of the quality of life. until the end of the soviet union, the state remained suspicious of jews, reinforced by the remoteness and dominance of military institutions. the region almost did not notice perestroika, continuing to catch the zionists and anxiously testing itself for loyalty to a large country. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 220–232 229 in this perspective, the proclamation of jewish autonomous region was an attempt to build its own territory within the ussr and permanently erase the history of jewish exile6. the failure of this project does not negate its role in the history of jewish colonization. consciously or unconsciously mixing zionist aesthetics with soviet optimism, the region had to create a new person capable of forcing the harsh taiga to retreat and conquering the earth for a new life (gurevich, 2020). unlike palestine, the far eastern project was not balanced by the idea of returning to native land. the land was given by the soviet state, which made the entire project defenseless against changes in the soviet political course. the gift of the soviet state demanded reciprocity and gradually turned the owners of the territory into semi-invisible beings. the example of birobidzhan can tell us a lot about the problems of the settler society with the justification of its presence as the owners of the land. when historical arguments do not work, and the places of compact settlement are thousands of kilometers away, the performative aspects of the act of proclamation become the main one. it can be assumed that, as in the case of other soviet ethno-political structures, the center and the region read the same declarations differently. the very localization in the “soviet brotherhood of nations” made any national project completely dependent on the will of the center and its changeable approaches to the national question. here the situation is complicated by the very position of the new formation—dependent on international aid, populated by a large number of foreigners and separated from cultural centers, the region was from the very beginning a foreign body in the system of managing national issues. the example of birobidzhan provides an opportunity to take a fresh look at the soviet national policy and its consequences. there are no final winners and losers, cultural dominance in the region does not mean security; any form of strengthening of ethno-political structures raises suspicions of disloyalty and nationalism. in this perspective, local nationalisms were subject to constant control and discipline, which gave rise to the effect of an unfulfilled desire in the republics. this largely explains the spread of affective forms of nationalism after the collapse of the ussr. no less important is the example of the jewish autonomous region in understanding the difficult combination of soviet forms of colonialism with the proclamation of the equality of nations and the renunciation of the “dark tsarist past”. all the communities that the migrants met became invisible or disenfranchised. the cossacks were repressed as white guards and spies, the chinese and koreans were deported, the evenks were practically not included in the process of developing the region. regardless of the status of “a former” or “invisible” person, the population of the border region was subjected to forced marginalization and deprivation of rights (feferman & epstein, 2010). we can talk here about the trap of a migrant in projects subordinated to external management: agreeing to the arbitral elimination of the rights to land of previous residents—he remains one-on-one with the state. the migrants themselves will quickly turn into phantom subjects, subjected to a severe test and to the expectation of atonement for the soviet society. 6 performative effects of declaration (see: derrida, 1984/1986). https://changing-sp.com/ 230 ivan peshkov conclusion studies of the past and present of the jewish autonomous region considered the project of resettlement of the jewish population to the far east in several overlapping perspectives: the reasons for the resettlement, its dynamics and scale, repression and the policy of state anti-semitism after 1945, the impact of the confrontation with israel and the problems of preserving and inventing jewish culture in the region. in addition, a fairly large archive of memories was collected, revealing to us all the contradictions of the “promised land” in the ussr. much less attention was paid to the spatial aspects of the jewish colonization project—its relation to previous models of colonization, the local population, the soviet security policy of border territories and relation to the imperial and soviet models of colonial development of the periphery. the proposed attempt to show a broader perspective of the resettlement project provides an opportunity to take a fresh look at the russian model of presence in inner asia. the experience of the jewish autonomous region shows that a colonial cultural formation can exist without the use of violence and even with a certain sympathy for the local population. the rejection of one-sided prospects for overcoming the backwardness of the region (where yesterday’s owners of the territory turn into an obstacle to development) can be a step towards the decolonization of consciousness and the revision of the colonial 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(2008). dekolonial’nyy proekt: ot politicheskoy dekolonizatsii k dekolonizatsii myshleniya i soznaniya (nachalo) [decolonial project: from political decolonization to decolonization of thought and conscience (begining)]. lichnost’. kul’tura. obshhestvo. mezhdunarodnyj zhurnal social’nyh i gumanitarnyh nauk, 10(5–6), 170–183. weinberg, r. (1998). stalin’s forgotten zion: birobidzhan and the making of a soviet jewish homeland: an illustrated history, 1928–1996. berkeley, ca: university of california press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1nq3vk http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1nq3vk changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.225 © 2023 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová petra.polievkova@ku.sk, terezia.roncakova@ku.sk hedwiga.tkacova@gmail.com received 24 march 2022 accepted 27 february 2023 published online 10 april 2023 article humorous portrayals of celebrities in the mass media during the 2021 papal visit to slovakia petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová catholic university in ružomberok, slovakia abstract this contribution presents the results of research focused on an analysis of humorous visual portrayals of visit of pope francis to slovakia in september 2021. the study presents a qualitative content analysis of 43 memes taken from the social media environment and eight caricatures from selected print media outlets. the aim of the analysis of the memes and caricatures was to identify the topics that framed the papal visit before shifting the focus to the question of how the memes and caricatures present pope francis and selected slovak political figures within this context. the study will identify the characteristics ascribed to the pope and to slovak politicians in the media and the tonalities (either positive, negative, or neutral) emphasized in the studied memes and caricatures in relation to the pope, politicians, slovak society, and the church. keywords meme, caricatures, pope, politicians, celebritisation acknowledgements this work was supported by the scientific grant agency of the ministry of education, science, research and sports of the slovak republic vega grant 1/0202/21. https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:petra.polievkova@ku.sk mailto:terezia.roncakova@ku.sk mailto:hedwiga.tkacova@gmail.com changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 189 introduction the visit of pope francis to slovakia in september 2021 took place in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, and several safety measures intended to ensure public safety were announced by both the state and ecclesiastical authorities. the most controversial of these was the requirement that anyone who wished to attend events with the pope should have received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine. although this rule was later rescinded, bureaucratic barriers remained in place, including the compulsory registration for attendance at papal events, a requirement that many saw as reducing the likelihood of the type of spontaneous encounters with believers and non-believers alike for which pope francis is famous. pope francis is widely seen as a figure who endeavours to connect people and communities regardless of their faiths or creeds, but while his visit was pastoral in character, it was intended to do more than just strengthen the faith of the catholic congregation and urge them to remain on the ecumenic path. as a meeting between the highest representatives of two sovereign states, the papal visit inevitably included a political aspect. the visit also took place amid a series of highly publicised arrests and prosecutions of political figures and high-ranking officials from the previous slovak administration, including the former minister of the interior róbert kaliňák. in 2021, then, slovakia found itself in a period of intense political and social tension with considerable polarisation on the political scene; political parties were uninclined to cooperate, and the rhetoric of many politicians was defined by mutual denigration. the invitation for the papal visit was made by the more liberally minded president of the slovak republic, zuzana čaputová, and the meetings between the two heads of state revealed their mutual respect and high esteem. an additional political aspect of the visit came from the fact that while the highest representative of the catholic church spent four days in slovakia, his stay in the neighbouring state of hungary lasted only a couple of hours, a decision which some political commentators interpreted as an expression of the pope’s disapproval of the politics of the hungarian prime minister viktor orbán. it is therefore clear that the importance of pope francis’ visit went far beyond the borders of slovakia itself and served as an important event in the wider region of central europe, with the event serving to emphasise the contemporary regional challenge of migration and the varying approaches taken to the issue by different states. given such a context, it is apparent that the study of celebrities in particular may offer a valuable contribution to a fuller understanding of the contemporary situation. in explaining the significance of celebrities in the current period, it might seem paradoxical to follow the approach of many authors (inglis, 2010; sámelová, 2021) and turn to the ancient cultures of ancient greece or rome, the cradles of our civilisation, but the comparison is surprisingly apt. in addition to their relative political sophistication, both cultures were also characterised by a respect for or even worship of outstanding representatives of political, cultural, military or athletic life. odes were composed in honour of ancient heroes and their deeds were regularly communicated to the populace through dramatic plays and works of art. the precise term “celebrity” is not https://changing-sp.com/ 190 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová present in ancient sources; it appears in the 15th century and is related to the concept of glory and celebration and also overlaps with the medieval ideals of adoration and piety. however, if we were to apply the term “celebrity” to the eminent personalities of the ancient past, it is important to note that these figures were invariably presented as positive role models who were worthy of imitation: figures of unimpeachable morality whose attitudes and deeds were intended to stand as a model for the conduct and behaviour of others. one common denominator of these “ancient celebrities” was the fact that their deeds were not oriented to their personal benefit but were instead intended to have a positive impact on the functioning and development of society as a whole. sámelová (2021) has highlighted the fact that the modern mass media of the press, cinema, film, radio, and television has created a dividing line between “being famous” and “being a celebrity”. she argues that celebritism is a form of fame which is mediated by media, with celebrities no longer required to act for the common good; similarly, their appearance and unorthodox behaviour are considered of greater importance, regardless of whether they act legally or morally. marshall (1997) traces the negative connotations of the term “celebrity” back to the 19th century, with many writers in that period ascribing a sense of vulgarity, omnipresence, and false value to the concept. as this brief historical overview suggests, the study of celebrities has a long history and justifiably so given the fact that celebrities are a mirror of their times, allowing us to trace the political, social, and economic changes that societies undergo. this is also true in terms of moral standards within societies, with the behavior of these highly visible individuals who actively seek out the public eye revealing what is deemed acceptable by society. as a result, the study of celebrities “can reveal what is becoming and what is being left behind; what is being aspired to and what is being forgotten of denied” (gaffney & holmes, 2007, p. 1), with the behavior of prominent members of a society illuminating its moral face against the backdrop of the more overt social and political events. as gaffney and holmes also note, celebrities represent a “natural gate” to the essence of a culture while simultaneously serving as “symbolic negations”; they offer something new arising from the old, a sense of lustre where there is none. therefore, our research focuses not only on the topics and tonality of the presentation of celebrities, but also on their specific characteristics as represented in the sources under review. an examination of what specific features determine the charm of a celebrity (i.e., the conditions of its production and the quality of their performance) and an analysis of the celebrity-making process may illuminate both the era and the phenomenon of the individual celebrity and their era as a whole (gaffney & holmes, 2007). the paper analyses popular mass media responses to the visit of the pope to slovakia as reflected in the viral humor of both in internet memes and in caricatures published in the most-read slovak daily newspapers in september 2021.1 the analysis of the content reveals a considerable overlap between the topic of the papal visit and 1 for the purposes of this study, a meme is considered to be a pictorial/visual message which is spread online, while a caricature is a drawn hyperbole of a phenomenon or of a character originally published in a print medium. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 191 contemporary political issues, and therefore a crucial element of the research was aimed at identifying the main features and differences in the depiction of the pope and that of selected slovak political celebrities. within the research sample, a widely acknowledged moral authority figure is confronted with local political personalities of varying levels of moral standing. nonetheless, in the medium of popular viral humor “[t]hey are all processed in the same mode of publicity and ‘glory-making’” (langer, 1998, p. 53), and it is this feature of the genre that may lead to interesting confrontations and observations. the fulfilment of the main research goal was dependent on the accomplishment of the following objectives: (a) the identification of thematic categories; (b) the identification of specific personal characteristics of the pope and selected slovak politicians emphasized in the memes; (c) the determination of the tonality (either positive, negative, or neutral) of the depictions in relation to the pope, politicians, slovak society, and the church. celebrities—famous regardless of their moral quality the modern process of celebritization has brought about a situation in which the public awareness of the general fame of a celebrity is of greater significance than an awareness of the deeds for which they are famous (turner, 2014), and it is for this reason that one of the most quoted, and even famous, definition of a celebrity is that provided by daniel boorstin: “a person who is well-known for his well-knownness” (1971, p. 58). a more academic definition provided by redmond (2014) integrates more recent studies of the phenomenon of the modern celebrity; “a person whose name, image, lifestyle, and attitudes have cultural and economic value and are mainly and above all idealized popular media constructs”. this definition is not limited to figures from the entertainment industries but “can be applied to individuals from various fields of public life, including politicians and intellectuals” (redmond, 2014, p. 5). since it is true that celebrities can be used to promote specific products, the celebrity effect is also of significance for politicians, intellectuals, and/or even religious authority figures, with their personal aura often being employed to legitimize political decisions or popularize intellectual movements (gaffney & holmes, 2007). chris rojek (2012) categorises celebrities into three types: the ascribed (those who are born into celebrity, such as the nobility), the achieved (those who win recognition in open competition in fields such as sport, art, science, or the entertainment industry), and the attributed (individuals such as tv presenters, pundits, or showmen who play an overtly visible role in society). however, one of the focuses of this research, pope francis, is an unconventional religious celebrity who could perhaps be labelled an ascribed celebrity, as a kind of “nobleman” who has become a celebrity without any effort on his own part or without expressing an interest in this status. he is certainly distinct from the accidental or ephemeral celebrities that rojek termed as “celetoids” (rojek, 2001), a phrase composed of the original word “celebrity” + the suffix -oid. the pope is also an interesting figure in the context of the “religious meaning of celebrities”, a concept which examines how the emotionally based worship of celebrities can establish https://changing-sp.com/ 192 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová the celebrity as a cult or religion (frow, 1998; rojek, 2001, 2012). developments in the modern era such as the growth of individualism, democratization, and mass communication and the collapse of systems of religious and political privileges have played a major role in inflating the importance of fame, and the (partial) non-existence of religious and political privileges is of particular importance in terms of the categories of the celebrities who are the subjects of our study. naturally, the formation of celebrity is largely dependent on the mass media that constitutes a key component in the machinery of the celebrity industry. mass media not only brought about the personalisation of public life but also transmuted political categories into psychological ones (sennett, 2002). in recent years, however, the development of online and social media outlets has transformed the celebrityforming processes, and academic discussion has focused considerable attention on the role of social media in this process. thomas and round (2014) used a narrative methodology to investigate the creation, propagation, and reception of stories about celebrities and ordinary people. in his concept of the attention economy, franck (2011) has written extensively on the attention economy and the opportunities that new media offer for generating income from attention; in this context, it is interesting to observe the rise of mediated “quasi-interaction” (thompson, 1995) when fans literally want to “touch” their idols through the media (rusnák, 2013). this has led to an increased demand for authenticity in celebrities or, at least, some semblance of this (mikuláš, 2016); regardless of the ever-present cameras, celebrities are always required to “be themselves” (tolson, 2001), and this is also the case for the personalities studied in our research. pope francis displays a kind of honesty and approachability that strikes even non-believers, and this sense of “ordinariness” is also ostensibly valued and actively promoted in slovak party politics; the largest party in the current coalition government is called obyčajní ľudia a nezávislé osobnosti [ordinary people and independent personalities] and the names of other two coalition parties, sme rodina [we are family] and za ľudí [for the people] similarly attempt to suggest a concern for the ordinary man on the street. while some celebrities cultivate the image of ordinariness and being down-toearth in order to reinforce their moral credibility, it is ultimately their “well-knownness” rather than their moral calibre that determines their celebrity status; as sámelová has argued, immorality and infamy are no obstacles to fame, and many slovak celebrities are renowned for their links to organised crime and convictions for crimes ranging from financial fraud to premeditated murder (sámelová, 2020, 2021). in a society increasingly marked by vanity, narcissism and possessive qualities, the coverage given by the media to such individuals is too alluring for many to resist (holmes & redmond, 2006). humor—the means of portraying (potential) conflicts memes and caricatures, the media genres which constitute the source material for this research, employ a softening hyperbole to pillory the actual shortcomings of their celebrity subjects. the humor used in these genres also acts to soften the unappealing reality of the events to which they refer. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 193 in academic terms, there are three basic theories of humor (andreanský, 2015, p. 38): (a) “incongruity theory that links humor with certain contrariness, expressed in the form of paradox, absurdity, unexpected situations, unfulfilled expectations, and the like; (b) superiority theory, according to which humor is about realizing the superiority of the recipient to the object of humor; (c) relief theory which finds the substance of humor in relieving psychological tension or releasing accumulated mental energy”. in general, incongruity theory appears to represent the basic theory of creating humorous depictions, while relief theory describes the assumed reaction of the recipient, and the caricatures and memes relating to the pope’s visit to slovakia also fall within this framework. a humorous point is also well-served by an element of surprise or by the transgression of social conventions (hoffmannová, 2003). memes and caricatures are produced along the lines of potential confrontation, and in the case of the memes and caricatures these take the form of conflicts of values and character and clashes between fictitious and factual realities unfolding against the background of contemporary socio-political changes and the covid-19 pandemic situation. however, these serious issues are not portrayed in an aggressive manner in the memes and caricatures but are instead downplayed or mitigated through humorous portrayals and jocular, even ironic messages; humor serves as an effective means of approaching negative or controversial subjects in a way which is palatable for audiences. the popularity of memes and caricatures can be explained analogically though the explanation offered by cohen (1999) which states that jokes operate through the human need for sharing and strengthening the sense of belonging. we would develop this idea by suggesting that by understanding and grasping of a meme or caricature individuals can identify with a specific opinion community or affirm their affinity with a certain group. memes and caricatures are not just source of entertainment but also of information about the state of a given society and its cultural aspects. in modern parlance, memes are typically discussed in relation to postmodern digital culture, either as its language code (petrova, 2021), its communication type (vitiuk et al., 2020), as elements of an emerging metalanguage (kostoglotov, 2022), or as cultural practices within the digital culture (piantavinha, 2022). these meanings all draw on the use of the term meme to represent a viral idea in society, a usage which was initially popularised by richard dawkins in his work the selfish gene (1976), but which gained greater relevance in the era of the internet. memes are now understood as suprasigns (rusnák, 2013) which serve as vehicles for and replicators of information, but rusnák also mentions a specific category of memes in relation to contemporary popular culture which function on the basis of emotions called emomemes that enable not only visual and auditory perception to communicators but also a form of “emotional contact”. like its genetic counterpart, the selfish meme must respond and adapt to its habitat, the human environment which has undergone a radical reorganisation under the impact of new media; however, to do so it requires a brain optimised for the environment of new media, i.e., the brain of the so-called generation mz (shin, 2022). https://changing-sp.com/ 194 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová given their often bizarre style and seemingly esoteric references, several authors have attempted to account for the popularity of memes (shifman, 2014). some have suggested that the modern symbolic production and exchange of memes help their audiences to navigate the chaos of the information-saturated media environment (vitiuk et al., 2020) or that memes provide simple readings of information and its reassuring replication which satisfy the expectations of their audiences through their familiarity (ivanova, 2022). as with much of digital culture, memes are notable for their semantic complexity (piantavinha, 2022); their meanings and original contexts should be taken into consideration when attempting to form a classification system of origin (thakur et al., 2022) and recent efforts to investigate them using computer analyses have revealed a surprising degree of complexity (sherratt, 2022). in the context of the papal visit to slovakia, the primary aim of memes and caricatures produced in connection to this event were intended to mediate humor, entertainment, and amusement on the topic, but they do offer a valuable insight into the state of slovak society. as a result, this research also touches upon academic discussions of the social and political aspects of humor and their potential to develop a discourse which counteracts the official narrative and pushes against the rigid boundaries of the political sphere (satir, 2022). in this vein, a study by fluri (2019) examined humor in the everyday life of afghan society, observing the counter-geopolitical tactic to resist or “make do” among civilians living in spaces of protracted precarity. fluri identified four tactical responses to the difficulties of life in modern afghanistan: survival, inclusion/ exclusion, resistance, and mockery. as the contemporary socio-political problems of pandemics, wars, and economic crises have shown, any society can be faced with challenges, pressures, or crises, and humor plays a valuable universal role of generating positive emotions and helping people to cope with difficult situations (muceldili, 2022). humor also has an important influence in the field of cultural politics; a recent study by schiwy (2016) on the discourse of decolonisation in latin america suggests that humor should be understood in this context as an event rather than an utterance, essentially a “comic transaction” that is constituted by the contextual aspects of shared or contested social norms and popular cultural texts. methodology during his four-day visit to slovakia in september 2021, pope francis visited the three largest cities in the country, bratislava, košice, and prešov, and the important pilgrimage site of šaštín where he held an open-air mass and delivered a homily. pope francis also met with the country‘s most senior political figures and representatives of the jewish and roma communities. all of these events provided a stimulus for the creation of memes and caricatures, and the creators of this content typically integrated other contemporary topics such as slovakia’s social and political situation, the competence of the police authorities in slovakia, the lack of public trust in the government, the covid-19 pandemic, rigidly conservative elements of slovak society, and the clash of liberal and conservative thinking as personified by president čaputová and pope francis. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 195 research methodology the approach of content analysis forms part a broader group of methods which are used to analyse cultural products which include media content such as the memes or caricatures which are the focus of this study. the research was conducted using qualitative content analysis due to the qualitative character of this research method (hornig priest, 1996; luo, 2022). qualitative content analysis has seen extensive use in analyses of media content in various scientific fields (neuendorf, 2020) as it provides a more complex and deeper understanding of the media content, including the interpretation of opinions or the behaviour of the recipients of the content (macnamara, 2005). content analysis is based on the examination of media content by means of a system of established categories (ferjenčík, 2000). this methodological approach draws on the hermeneutic approach and utilises literary critical interpretations of texts (poláková & spálová, 2009), allowing scholars to study not only the research of basic argumentative assumptions and categories but also the contexts of the media content under examination. content analysis is aptly suited for data analysis and for interpreting the semantics of source materials (schreier, 2012) and offers not only descriptions and quantifications of variables but also provides interpretations and clarifications of the social reality and broader social phenomena (ferjenčík, 2000; janoušek, 2007; plichtová, 2002). studies of media communication should always reflect social reality, and therefore content analysis is seen as an appropriate and useful research method in this field (fichnová & satková, 2009; scherer, 2011). qualitative data collection the research sample consisted of a series of 43 memes and 8 caricatures which were sourced from the facebook2 pages of the online media platforms of zomri.online and cynická obluda and the online versions of the three most influential slovak broadsheet newspapers, pravda, sme, and denník n. as viral media content, memes are rapidly disseminated across the vast space of social media, but our research revealed that memes tend to be aggregated on the facebook pages of zomri.online and cynická obluda, along with the three slovak opinion-forming online daily newspapers, and these outlets thus both compile the most popular memes and caricatures but also drive the viral communication of such content. in the case of individual memes, references are given based on the primary source from which the humoristic and satirical online media have acquired the content. at time of writing, the facebook page of the online platform zomri.online has a follower count of more than 375,000: “through viral memes, the satirically oriented facebook page has transformed into a commercial mainstream project” (hirtlová, 2019, p. 518). a key feature of the zomri.online platform is the fact that its content is generated by the fans themselves. the site has no restrictions concerning the targets of humorous or satirical depictions; politicians, celebrities, and public figures are the 2 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть facebook в россии признана экстремистской организацией и полностью заблокирована. https://changing-sp.com/ 196 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová predominant subjects of the memes showcased on the platform, but the behavior of ordinary people also appears in the form of, for example, messages that neighbours write on common noticeboards in blocks of flats or on lifts. with a facebook follower count of only 70,000, the cynická obluda online platform is less popular than zomri.online but its content is widely shared across all of the major social networks and it has even penetrated traditional media by providing a sub-page on the portal of the mainstream sme daily. it focuses mainly on political satire, preferring photo collages in which current political developments are depicted in a comic-strip-like format. the humor sections of the slovak broadsheet newspapers pravda, sme and denník n and their internet editions generally offer political caricatures. the bestknown slovak caricaturist is martin šútovec who works under the pseudonym of shooty; his caricatures feature on an individual sub-page in denník n, and collections of his works have also been published in book form. the tabloid newspapers nový čas and plus 1 deň—generally adopt memes taken from social networks, in particular memes which are popular on zomri.online. one specific feature of the slovak media environment is the fact that conservative media outlets do not publish memes or caricatures and therefore all of the media platforms described above, whether traditional or new media, have a liberal-progressive political leaning. while this study aimed to provide a general sample of available memes and caricatures from the selected online media platforms, this necessarily means that the overall sample is generally more liberal-progressive in nature. procedure the sample group was collected in september 2021 either during or immediately after the papal visit in order to obtain memes and caricatures which related directly to the event. the criterion of inclusion to the sample was the requirement of a thematic connection to the papal visit rather than a direct reference to the pope himself. a total of 43 memes and eight caricatures were identified which fulfilled these criteria. the three authors, who are all experienced researchers of the slovak media environment, established the coding categories and rules jointly. they then analysed the entire sample individually before unifying their results on the basis of a common consultation. the analysis of the sample material proceeded from the collection of the data to the formulation of conclusions in the form of a theory, and the research was inductive in character, adopting a text-driven approach. an outline of the full coding scheme is available upon request. results thematic scope of the memes and caricatures the results of the analysis show that the most numerous thematic category of the studied memes and caricatures was that which depicted the character traits of figures on the slovak political scene (26 depictions in total). given the partially political aspect of the papal visit in the form of the pope’s meetings with state representatives, we changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 197 had expected a higher frequency of depictions of the current president of the slovak republic in the memes and caricatures, but only one meme was identified which related directly to her, with president čaputová presented as youthful and energetic in contrast to the tired and aging pope francis (figure 1). however, this meme has also another satirical dimension, referring to the effect of heavy drinking over the weekend on work performance on monday, with the pope used to represent those suffering a hangover on their return to work. figure 1 meme 1. #4 začiatky týždňa sú ťažké [monday mornings are hard] note. source: https://zhumor.sk/zabavne-memecka-ktore-vznikli-v-suvislosti-s-navstevou-papeza-na-slovensku/ (for individual memes, the primary source from which the humoristic and satirical online medium took the meme is referenced) the lack of representations of president čaputová in the sample suggests that the creators of the memes and caricatures did not perceive her meeting with the pope as a confrontation between liberal and conservative attitudes, but this theme does appear in four of the memes through the depiction of prominent ultraconservative political figures. surprisingly, the memes did not feature perhaps the best-known representatives of this socio-political trend, the oľano mp and antiabortion campaigner anna záborská or the far-right nationalist and ľudová strana naše slovensko mp štefan kuffa, possibly suggesting that these figures are now perceived as symbols of a rigidly conservative element of society for which even the pope himself has lost sympathy. the creators of the memes and caricatures tend to perceive conservative attitudes as backward, not reflective of modern society https://changing-sp.com/ https://zhumor.sk/zabavne-memecka-ktore-vznikli-v-suvislosti-s-navstevou-papeza-na-slovensku/ 198 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová and even aggressively opposed to its mores. within the sample, a similar attitude is ascribed to the politician marián kotleba, the leader of the far right nationalist ľsns party. kotleba appears in four memes with the same message; he is seen as a hypocritical figure who is willing to twist reality to his advantage, claiming to represent christian values despite the fact that his infamous xenophobic stance is very much at odds with the christian maxim of “love thy neighbour” (figure 2). this approach to kotleba uses hyperbole in reference to his character traits, and this is a common feature of all of the depictions of political figures which feature in the memes and caricatures of the sample. figure 2 meme 2. čierny kresťan? [a black christian?] note. source: https://www.topky.sk/cl/10/2182101/papezov-prichod-prebudil-z-polospanku-aj-internetovychhumoristov--foto-otec-naroda--no-nie-je-to-tento-otecmemes and caricatures tend to target politicians who act as polarising forces in society or who attempt to gain attention through deliberately contrived behaviour. as a result, the bland and unassuming figure of the slovak prime minister eduard heger does not appear in the sample, but the erratic and antagonistic former prime minister igor matovič features much more frequently (figure 3). https://www.topky.sk/cl/10/2182101/papezov-prichod-prebudil-z-polospanku-aj-internetovych-humoristov--foto-otec-naroda--no-nie-je-to-tento-otechttps://www.topky.sk/cl/10/2182101/papezov-prichod-prebudil-z-polospanku-aj-internetovych-humoristov--foto-otec-naroda--no-nie-je-to-tento-otecchanging societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 199 figure 3 meme 3. #6 zjavne to už na slovensku nezvláda [being in slovakia is clearly too much for him] note. source: https://zhumor.sk/zabavne-memecka-ktore-vznikli-v-suvislosti-s-navstevou-papeza-na-slovensku/ the papal visit to slovakia coincided with another socio-political event which was used hyperbolically by creators of seven of the memes and caricatures, the escalating internecine conflict within the slovak police authorities. in july 2021, officers from the bureau of police inspection had detained several investigators from the national criminal agency including its acting head, an act which triggered a further series of ill-judged arrests. the memes make reference to the frequency of arrests, comically suggesting that even the pope himself was at risk of detention. an emphasis is also placed on the idea that slovak society is traumatized by the developments in the police forces and that this is leading to a further loss of trust in the slovak government, but it also appears to welcome the pope’s presence, overlayering this topic with one which bears witness to the social instability and governmental incompetence (figure 4). figure 4 caricature 1. namiesto toho zatkneme niekoho iného, ten františek ušiel [we’ll arrest someone else instead, that francis guy got away] note. source: https://nazory.pravda.sk/karikatura/clanok/600881-danglar-17-9-2021/ https://changing-sp.com/ https://zhumor.sk/zabavne-memecka-ktore-vznikli-v-suvislosti-s-navstevou-papeza-na-slovensku/ https://nazory.pravda.sk/karikatura/clanok/600881-danglar-17-9-2021/ 200 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová as with many high-profile events, the impending papal visit sparked off furious efforts by the authorities and organisers to improve the visual appearance of the destinations visited by the pope and to thereby present the country in a positive light. these activities were particularly apparent in the case of the luník ix neighbourhood in košice which is overwhelmingly inhabited by the roma community. pope francis had chosen to visit this area due to his longstanding interest in improving the well-being of marginalised social groups. although only a few of the memes and caricatures react to this event, they ironicize the attempts to improve the visual appearance of the pope’s destinations, hyperbolically suggesting that if the pope visits slovakia more regularly, the country will look even more futuristic (figure 5). figure 5 meme 4. papež vytaj už zajtra [pay question tomorrow] note. source: https://www.zomri.online/2021/09/11/papez-vytaj-uz-zajtra/ one of the most interesting findings of the research was the approach which the memes took to the connection of the papal visit with the covid-19 pandemic. this topic was remarkable less in terms of the frequency of references to it found in the sample but more on how the subject was addressed. as was mentioned above, only vaccinated persons were permitted to attend papal events, but this requirement lead to low levels of interest and as the visit drew closer, the church authorities became concerned about the possible optics of low attendance at papal events and reversed their rules, dividing the event venues into sectors for the vaccinated and other sectors for those who were not vaccinated but who had tested negative for covid-19. the memes and caricatures refer to the possibility of meeting the pope as a possible motivation for vaccination, in some cases suggesting that the papal visit had been misused to promote the vaccination campaign (figure 6). interestingly, twelve of the memes refer directly to the church’s u-turn on the vaccination rules, suggesting the hypocrisy of the church in making the decision, implying an anti-vaccination stance on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities and seeing the catholic congregation as overly faithful. other memes see the church as https://www.zomri.online/2021/09/11/papez-vytaj-uz-zajtra/ changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 201 overly conservative and obscurantist, implying that the visit of the progressive-minded pope could serve as a threat to the moribund institution. figure 6 meme 5. vakcína je stretnutie s pápežom. ze táto návšteva nebude pastoračná, ale vakcinačná [the vaccine is a meeting with the pope. this visit will be vaccinatory, not pastoral] note. source: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story _fbid=350752229871834&id=107752747505118&p=30 in many of the memes and caricatures, the pope is presented as merely a by-stander or as an individual whose presence only highlights the failings of slovak society and its political representatives, and therefore the pope is not shown as revealing his own emotions. this is particularly apparent in twelve examples in our sample, with the impression being transformed into a trait that the recipient is expected to associate with the pope (figure 7). figure 7 meme 6. v prípade nebezpčenstva je pápež pripraveny srtiekat‘ svätenú vodu až do vzdialenosti 5,5 m [in case of emergency, the pope can spray holy water for a distance of up to 5.5 m] note. source: https://zhumor.sk/zopar-memeciek-ktore-vznikli-aby-ti-sprijemnili-den-1093-slovenske-scifi-ostane-navzdy-sci-fi/ https://changing-sp.com/ c:\users\admin\downloads\https about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank https://zhumor.sk/zopar-memeciek-ktore-vznikli-aby-ti-sprijemnili-den-1093-slovenske-sci-fi-ostane-navzdy-sci-fi/ https://zhumor.sk/zopar-memeciek-ktore-vznikli-aby-ti-sprijemnili-den-1093-slovenske-sci-fi-ostane-navzdy-sci-fi/ 202 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová only two of the studied memes did not correspond to any of the topics under study. the first is an image of a mobile phone in a toilet bowl with the text: pá-pá mobil [bye-bye, mobile phone], an obvious pun on the slovak term for the popemobile [papamobil], while the second refers humorously to slovak monetary policy in slovakia where “after the euro, the strongest rate in our country is the vatican currency; may the lord repay you”. the categorisation of the memes and caricatures in terms of theme is shown in chart 1 (figure 8). figure 8 chart 1. thematic categories personality traits of political and ecclesiastical celebrities in order to determine which personality traits attracted the attention of the creators of memes in reference to individual celebrities, we categorised the specific characteristics attributed to the depicted personalities into two groups: • characteristics of the pope; • characteristics of politicians. a total of 28 specific personality traits were identified in the sample, and chart 2 (figure 9) shows the characteristics which were attributed to the pope. figure 9 chart 2. personality traits of the pope changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 203 the pope was presented in an overwhelmingly positive light in the sample. without doubt, the most frequently attributed trait was the pope’s “normality”, in the sense that he is an everyman figure, “one of us”; he is also shown to be down-toearth and suffers from tiredness, exhaustion and disappointment. the creators of the memes appear to have co-opted the pope as a partner with a similar view of slovak society; he shares their disappointment and frustration with the grim reality and is equally bewildered by what he is confronted with. the second most attributed trait was that of mercy; the pope was portrayed as understanding and kind, judging no one and expressing love even towards those who do not deserve it. the trait of progressiveness also featured regularly, with many memes considering pope francis to be a liberal, pioneering christian; this trait was used to contrast the pope with the more conservative ecclesiastical and christian political environment in slovakia. the memes ascribed relatively few negative traits to pope francis, but those which did appear included those of foolishness (reflected in the gaudy papal accoutrements and the perceived manipulation of his flock), charges of being power-hungry which has long been levelled at the church hierarchy and hypocrisy. interestingly, one meme portrayed the pope as “mature”, suggesting that francis was deserving of the position of pope and contrasting his dignified demeanour with the widely ridiculed former slovak president ivan gašparovič who many saw as being wholly unqualified for his position. a single meme from the sample portrayed the pope as a typical vacuous celebrity, someone who is famous simply for being famous (cf. boorstin, 1971). in sharp contrast to the portrayal of pope francis, the depictions of slovak politicians (figure 10) were overwhelmingly negative with the notable exception of the current president zuzana čaputová who was presented as energetic, hardworking and approachable. the trait of self-centeredness was used most often, especially in the case of the slovak politician most frequently targeted in the memes, the speaker of the slovak parliament, boris kollár. kollár is a notorious figure in slovak politics who claims to represent christian values despite being father to twelve children with ten different women. the memes regularly portrayed kollár as an aberrant, sex-obsessed egocentric, and allusions are regularly made to his dubious business activities in his past by depictions of him as a gangster or mafioso. the former prime minister igor matovič, leader of the strongest coalition party, was another common target of the memes, and was repeatedly portrayed as complacent and narcissistic. the second most frequently attributed trait in terms of politicians was hypocrisy, with many being seen as having entered politics for their own personal profit and not for the common good; other memes criticised their preference for pragmatism over principle or their falseness, servility and penchant for disinformation. closely following in third place was the trait “dilettante” to depict politicians who simply lack the dignity and professionalism required of statesmen; this was most commonly associated with igor matovič a figure whose behaviour and statements since achieving his undeniable electoral success in 2020 has rendered him a laughing stock and target of ridicule both within the community of creators and disseminators of memes and in the wider public. the “corruptibility” of politicians who steal and enrich themselves at the expense of the country which they are supposed to serve was also perceived critically, while two https://changing-sp.com/ 204 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová depictions applied the trait of “fanatics” to christian conservative politicians who were perceived as being borderline fundamentalists. figure 10 chart 3. personality traits of slovak politicians tonality of the depictions of the pope, politicians, society and the church the tonality of the depictions in the sample was examined in four categories: in relation to the pope, to politicians, to slovak society and to the church, with each being assessed as either positive, negative, or neutral (figure 11). tonality is understood as the sentiment contained within an individual image; this can be both the sentiment of the author who figure 11 chart 4. tonality of the depictions of the pope, politicians, society and the church creates the image with that sentiment and also the sentiment of the audience who decodes it. in this part of the analysis, the research team made use of the qualitative aspect of content analysis, more specifically the “close (or ethnographic) reading of mass-media texts” in which the emphasis is placed on profound examination of both the source material and also the impressions and internal reactions of the researchers changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 205 themselves who are considered as relevant representative of the norms, principles and customs of their culture (hornig priest, 1996). the authors first examined tonality in the sample individually before objectifying their preliminary findings in a collective discussion. tonality in depictions of the pope was identified in 35 memes and caricatures, the majority of which were positive in addition to several cases of neutral. in contrast, politicians were depicted with an overwhelmingly negative tonality, largely in the context of clash of values in reference to the above-mentioned far right mp marian kotleba or a prominent conspiracy theorist and vaccine opponent, the former supreme court judge and minister of justice štefan harabin. the positive tonality observed in depictions of the pope is also related to the sympathy with the pope’s perceived liberal attitudes on the part of the creators of the memes and their opposition to the more overtly conservative stances of christian politicians such as anna záborská. the neutral tonality in depictions of the pope was observed in the context of his official meetings with political leaders such as igor matovič or boris kollár in which the pope is depicted as tired, ill-at-ease or even frustrated. negative tonality in depictions of the pope was relatively infrequent and was mostly observed in the contexts of the church‘s lust for power and money or its hypocrisy, for example, in the depiction of the pope (or rather the actor jonathan pryce who bears a startling resemblance to pope francis) partying during the weekend and then back “at work”, clad in his white robes, on monday (figure 12). figure 12 meme 7. vikend—pondelok v praci [weekend – monday at work] note. source: https://www1.pluska.sk/spravy/z-domova/navsteva-svateho-otca-toto-su-najlepsie-memeckapapezovi-ktore-valcuju-internet/6 https://changing-sp.com/ https://www1.pluska.sk/spravy/z-domova/navsteva-svateho-otca-toto-su-najlepsie-memecka-papezovi-ktore-valcuju-internet/6 https://www1.pluska.sk/spravy/z-domova/navsteva-svateho-otca-toto-su-najlepsie-memecka-papezovi-ktore-valcuju-internet/6 206 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová perhaps the most interesting finding of the research was that the 32 memes and caricatures which displayed tonality in portrayals of politicians applied exclusively negative tonalities. slovak politicians are accused of failing to control the pandemic situation and are depicted as hypocritical, complacent, base, foolish, arrogant and acting in their own interests. it is possible to suggest that the tonality in the majority of depictions of slovak politicians was presented in the context of the clashes of values of between politicians and the pope and between the attitudes of politicians and those of the creators of the memes and caricatures and also in terms of the contrast between political leaders and slovak society. tonality was identified in 11 memes and caricatures depicting society, and this tonality was largely negative. slovak society was portrayed ironically by referencing long-standing problems that have been neglected by politicians for decades, such as endemic corruption, the overall “backwardness” of slovak politics or the marginalisation of the roma minority. a parallel image of society was its general level of ignorance and seemingly self-destructive urge as reflected in the failure to respect anti-pandemic measures or the rejection of the covid-19 vaccine by a large proportion of the population. a positive tonality in the depiction of society was found in the context of the joy which many slovaks felt at the pope’s arrival. lastly, tonality in depictions of the slovak church was identified in 12 memes and caricatures, and this tonality too was exclusively negative. the slovak church was presented primarily in relation to the pope. while the head of the catholic church was depicted as a progressive and liberal leader who is concerned with the fate of individuals and society as a whole, essentially as “one of us”, the slovak church was depicted by the creators of memes in the context of conservatism, backwardness, antivaccination attitudes and hypocrisy. the creators of the memes also refer to the overall unpreparedness of the country for the arrival of the pope, emphasizing that the poor organisation of the visit, like the mismanagement of the pandemic situation, the ongoing political scandals and the backwardness of the church (as opposed to the liberal attitudes of the pope), is fuelling discontent and negative emotions among slovak citizens. discussion and conclusion in the content analysis, the researchers examined the media presentation of pope francis and slovak politicians in the research sample of 43 memes and eight caricatures taken from the research period of september 2021. using three partial goals as a framework for the analysis, the authors focused more closely on identifying the thematic categories that stood out in the sample of the memes and caricatures under study, categorising the characteristics observed in the depictions of the pope and slovak politicians, and assessing the tonality of the depictions as emphasized in the memes and caricatures relating to the pope, slovak politicians, slovak society and the church. this study applied the methodology of qualitative content analysis, an approach which has been proven to be of use in the analysis of media contents in various scientific disciplines (neuendorf, 2020). one significant advantage of this research method is its capacity to develop more complex and profound understandings of changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 188–212 207 media content and more detailed overviews of the basic argumentation categories, images and symbols that are present in media communications (macnamara, 2005). nonetheless, this study also took the limitations of content analysis into consideration, including some methodological challenges related to, for example, the plausibility and authenticity of the results which it offers (graneheim et al., 2017) or the high level of flexibility in the research process (poláková & spálová, 2009). finally, the level of abstraction and interpretation used in establishing the categories based on which this method formulates the conclusions of the research in the form of a theory may also be problematic, since the research is inductive or text-driven in character. however, we remain certain that the limitations of the methodology are not detrimental to the timeliness, usefulness and importance of the research findings presented in this study. it is clear from the analysis that the memes and caricatures have little sympathy for the slovak catholic church and its congregation, emphasising instead the dogmatism and obstinacy of the institution and its adherents. within the context of slovak memes and caricatures, the pope is often considered a celebrity who has not directly chosen his status, but that his position has been attributed to him by the very nature of the post that he fills. although the sample under analysis is exclusively produced from a more liberal background, the pope himself is treated relatively sympathetically and is depicted as being more at odds than in accord with the backward slovak catholic church. the staunch conservatism and inflexibility in the reactions of church representatives to social, scientific and technological progress is emphasised by the creators of the memes by associating the slovak church and its congregation with the unscientific and socially irresponsible anti-vaccination movement; the references to the covid-19 pandemic in the studied memes and caricatures are reflected almost exclusively through this prism. given the overwhelmingly liberal origin of the analysed memes and caricatures, it comes as a slight surprise to the authors that the slovak president zuzana čaputová, a figure who is typically seen as representing the progressive element of slovak society, is depicted as a largely passive participant in the visit rather than an actively political actor in this meeting between two heads of state. the relative invisibility of president čaputová is also an indication that the creators of the memes and caricatures do not perceive her meeting with the pope as a clash between liberal and conservative worldviews, an attitude which can perhaps be explained by the possibility that many slovak liberals consider the pope as a somewhat progressive influence within the catholic church. also relevant in this context is the fact that the president has a less polarising effect on slovak society than many other leading politicians. this view is also corroborated by the results of the tonality assessments of depictions of the pope which were significantly positive, a finding in sharp contrast to the negative depictions of slovak politicians (with the notable exception of president čaputová herself). the hyperbolic treatment of slovak social problems and the traits of slovak politicians and the softening humorous mood adopted towards the pope allow the recipient of the memes and caricatures to view contemporary socio-political developments with a sense of detachment and irony. this approach fulfils another purpose of humor, one which is perhaps the primary function of humor in memes and https://changing-sp.com/ 208 petra polievková, terézia rončáková, hedviga tkáčová caricatures: the capacity to serve as a means of providing relief from the tension of the unpalatable factual reality. however, it is important to note a slight contradiction here in the form of the one-sided depiction of representatives of the catholic church and its congregation as “doubting thomases” through their kneejerk rejection of covid-19 vaccines, an approach which could conceivably be perceived as a point at which the recipient engages in polemics with the creator of the meme or caricature rather than merely accepting the humorous hyperbole. within the limits of their conviction, the recipient may perceive the church as an unconvincing authority figure which is willing to abandon its convictions for pragmatic reasons, as was demonstrated in the u-turn on the requirement that those attending papal events be vaccinated, or as an institution that is willing to risk the well-being of its congregation in order to ensure positive optics during the visit. this hypothesis is deserving of further research aimed at determining recipients‘ reception of memes and caricatures and examining whether memes and caricatures hyperbolising negative social phenomena serve as means of venting the recipient‘s tension or as a platform where the recipient‘s view of reality is placed into conflict with that presented through the media. the results of the study clearly corroborate the results of analogous studies and confirm that an understanding of the media portrayal of celebrities offers valuable insights into the specifics of the context of the times. 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(2021, september 15). zhumor. https:// zhumor.sk/zopar-memeciek-ktore-vznikli-aby-ti-sprijemnili-den-1093-slovenske-scifi-ostane-navzdy-sci-fi/ https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2212.05612 https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445601003004007 about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank https://www1.pluska.sk/spravy/z-domova/navsteva-svateho-otca-toto-su-najlepsie-memecka-papezovi-ktore-valcuju-internet/6 https://www1.pluska.sk/spravy/z-domova/navsteva-svateho-otca-toto-su-najlepsie-memecka-papezovi-ktore-valcuju-internet/6 https://doi.org/10.24234/wisdom.v15i2.361 https://doi.org/10.24234/wisdom.v15i2.361 https://zhumor.sk/zopar-memeciek-ktore-vznikli-aby-ti-sprijemnili-den-1093-slovenske-sci-fi-ostane-navzdy-sci-fi/ https://zhumor.sk/zopar-memeciek-ktore-vznikli-aby-ti-sprijemnili-den-1093-slovenske-sci-fi-ostane-navzdy-sci-fi/ https://zhumor.sk/zopar-memeciek-ktore-vznikli-aby-ti-sprijemnili-den-1093-slovenske-sci-fi-ostane-navzdy-sci-fi/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56–78 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.163 received 11 february 2022 © 2022 sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, accepted 15 march 2022 riccardo campa, natalia g. popova published online 11 april 2022 sofia_abramova@mail.ru n-tata@mail.ru riccardo.campa.02@gmail.com ngpopova@list.ru article digital fears experienced by young people in the age of technoscience sofya b. abramova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia natalya l. antonova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia riccardo campa institute of sociology, jagiellonian university, krakow, poland natalia g. popova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia abstract with the advance of technoscience, digital technologies have started to reshape the traditional array of social fears experienced by younger generations by triggering the appearance of new, digital fears. in this article, we undertake a sociological analysis to investigate the concept of digital fears both theoretically and empirically. our survey conducted among russian young people aged 18–30 in 2020 (n = 1050, sverdlovsk region, rf) showed that fear is a distinctive characteristic of the social well-being of this generation. moreover, fear tends to become more pronounced both quantitatively (i.e., the frequency of emergence) and qualitatively (i.e. the emergence of new types). the identified digital fears of young people allowed us to draw their typology. depending on the specifics of digital threat, the following types were distinguished: those associated with impact and control, crime and security, communication and activity, technology and innovation, and social inequality. we show that the expanding https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56–78 57 introduction fear is an emotion that accompanies almost every person throughout life. some fears become a source for mobilization and activity, while others may lead to isolation and frustration. modern fears are associated with the turbulence of modern society: political and economic uncertainty, insufficient protection against crime, new forms of deviation, expansion of various subcultural and countercultural practices, uncontrolled migration, information noise, etc. following the approach of russian sociologists, three basic levels of fear can be defined (see e.g., shliapentokh et al., 1999; zueva, 2013). macro-level fears are global fears associated with natural and man-made disasters. meso-level fears include social, nation-related fears arising from political and economic risks, inter-ethnic and religious relations, etc. micro-level fears are those experienced by individuals or small groups in response to health and personal safety concerns. social fears exert a negative impact on the well-being of a given society, deteriorating the emotional balance and adaptive potential of generations. fears reduce the quality of life of individuals, social groups, and entire communities. the advance of technoscience has changed the way people live and interact, to a point that quite a few authors talk of our times as “the age of technoscience” (reichle, 2009). the internet, being both an outcome of applied science and a propeller for scientific research, can be seen as the system’s cornerstone and the symbol of the age. on the one hand, the internet provides new opportunities for the development of relationships and preservation of social ties by facilitating communication between people regardless of their location. on the other, new technologies have become the reason for the emergence and reproduction of negative social processes and phenomena. modern researchers note an increase in addiction, especially among younger generations, to social networks, with such negative consequences as sleep deficit, emotional stress, anxiety, lack of control over emotions (altuwairiqi et al., 2019; cham et al., 2019; gonzález-lópez et al., 2021). in a digital society, individuals develop new types of fear, including fear of being excluded from the virtual community (deniz, 2021; elhai et al., 2020), fear of missing information (alutaybi et al., 2020; range of social fears leads to the formation of catastrophic thinking in young people, thereby affecting the level of social well-being and distorting the image of the future. keywords social fears, digital fears, digitalization, youth, social well-being acknowledgements the reported study was funded by rfbr and eisr according to the research project no. 20-011-31435. the authors express their appreciation to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. https://changing-sp.com/ 58 sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, riccardo campa, natalia g. popova franchina et al., 2018), fear of being microchipped (chipizatsiia, 2020; kirziuk, 2021), fear of total social control (keshet, 2020; mason et al., 2014). social fears and anxieties are a common problem among young people (alfano & beidel, 2011; walsh, 2002; yli-länttä, 2020). it is often difficult for specialists— psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists—to determine the specifics of anxiety-phobic disorders (alonso et al., 2018). social anxiety is a broad continuum of conditions, and young people with exacerbated symptoms are at risk of developing various mental disorders (hur et al., 2020). at the same time, as noted by p. jefferies and m. ungar, young people aged 18–24 are at the greatest risk of developing extreme social anxiety forms (jefferies & ungar, 2020). digital fears, being reflected in the minds of young people and refracted through the prism of uncertainty, indicate a state of social anomie. therefore, it seems highly relevant to study specific forms of digital fears and anxieties experienced by younger generations, as well as to outline approaches to their social diagnostics, prevention, and therapy. although it may seem that we treat fear as an absolute evil, it should be noted that fear is an inbuilt instinct that serve important survival functions. among them is, e.g., the activation of defensive responses (slobounov, 2008) that encourage an individual to overcome stress and accomplish goals. through experience, people learn to gain benefits and rewards from dangerous circumstances, which may explain the phenomenon of risk-taking behavior (bantinaki, 2012). fully acknowledging the idea that fear performs some positive social role, we consider it a promising venue for future investigations. in this article, we present a sociological analysis of fears of young people under the conditions of almost total digitalization of all spheres of social life. the current pandemic with its restriction and disruption of off-line interactions makes the problem of digital fears even more pressing. we chose to focus on the analysis of younger people because today’s youth, more than any other generation, is immersed in a digital reality, using technology to solve all everyday problems. this trend may have important implications for the future development of society. theoretical framework sociological conceptualization and interpretation of fear the phenomenon of fear in modern scientific discourse appears as an interdisciplinary subject of research. in order to analyze the concept of fear from a sociological perspective, fear should first be defined as a social phenomenon. the polish researcher a. kępiński distinguished the biological and social components of fear (kępiński, 1977). thus, biological fear is caused by life-threatening situations, with the threat coming both from the outside (social environment) and from within (violation of the internal balance in the individual’s body). the nature of biological fear, as a rule, is an instinctive response towards danger, which most often manifests itself in the desire to run away or hide. this type of fear, therefore, serves a protective function. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=cho+hm&cauthor_id=33987564 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56–78 59 unlike biological, social fear is a complex social phenomenon, which have cultural roots, according to r. watson (1995). following a review of more than 600 articles on anxiety disorders, s. hofmann et al. concluded that social fears have their own features in particular cultures. one and the same social behavior can be perceived as normal in one culture and unreasonable and excessive in another (hofmann et al., 2010). heinrichs et al. carried out a comparative analysis of the behavioral practices of representatives of individualistic and collectivist countries and revealed a higher social anxiety and refusal to interact in collectivist countries compared to individualist ones (heinrichs et al., 2006). social fear is an emotion that people experience when they expect any danger or threat. at the same time, as a sensory-emotional factor, fear affects social behavior and social life. p. sorokin defined fear as an instrument of struggle against fundamental human afflictions (death, disease, poverty, crime) to ensure a solidarized humanity (sorokin, 1954). as a universal human emotion, fear can become a basis for behavioral practices aimed at achieving the common good. the complication of social systems and social life expands the range of social fears experienced by people. according to d. sik, fear is constructed inter-subjectively (sik, 2020). the reality of everyday life is an inter-subjective world shared by people (berger & luckmann, 1966). following this logic, fears operate and replicate in social systems. their dissemination is based both on individuals’ personal experience of past events and on the experience of others communicating their fears and anxieties. this process is also supported by the phenomenon of growing conformity, which requires individuals to conform to socially accepted rules (popova et al., 2017). promotion of certain fears, primarily through the media, can lead to moral panic as a form of collective behavior (ungar, 2001). panic is presented as an extreme, ungrounded fear that spreads rapidly in crisis situations or as irrational behavior that entails serious implications for everyday life (johnson, 1985; satawedin, 2020). social fears embodied in collective perceptions can be perceived by the mass consciousness as a catastrophe. fear can be contagious, spreading across groups, communities, and society as a whole. catastrophic consciousness is a shift of human emotions towards fear, anxiety, and uncertainty, leading to a permanent emotionalsensory imbalance (shliapentokh et al., 1999). as a result, individuals come to perceive life as uncertain and anticipate looming disasters. people feel helpless and vulnerable when they think about a risky situation (terpstra, 2011). according to u. beck, risks are not a unique/exceptional special case; rather, risks are constantly reproduced by society (beck, 1986/1992). n. luhmann emphasized that there is no risk-free behavior (luhmann, 1991). since some risks and dangers have an objective basis, the total eradication of social fear is neither a plausible nor a desirable goal. at best, the reduction or elimination of unmotivated fears may be a goal. it should also be noted that, just as fears can be differently distributed in different groups, similarly the real dangers can be different for different groups. a threat may be more or less real depending on social class, gender, ethnic group, age, education, or other features of the individual. there are situations of false consciousness. groups that are actually in danger do not https://changing-sp.com/ 60 sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, riccardo campa, natalia g. popova perceive the risk, while other groups that are not in danger at all are prey to unmotivated fears. to further complicate the picture is the fact that we cannot know the future with certainty, and some fears concern the future. based on the available data, we can only decide if fears are grounded or groundless with respect to past or present situations. such fears are intertwined with the everyday life of individuals and groups, only their direction and scale may change. sociologists investigating emotions (tudor, 2003) argue for the existence of a special “culture of fear” in modern societies. thus, the american researcher v. glassner published a landmark work “the culture of fear: why americans are afraid of the wrong things” (glassner, 1999). following an analysis of more than 10,000 newspaper, radio and television reports on social problems, the author emphasized the destructive nature of inflated fears. some social groups may promote pseudo-fears, thereby sowing panic and mass hysteria, with the purpose of exploiting large communities and organizations. f. furedi also highlighted the importance of a more systematic theoretical analysis of fear in its social context (furedi, 1997). a. tudor developed a set of fear parameters in order to elucidate how fear is created, embodied, and overcome. this model can also be used to investigate those aspects of social life that are transformed by social fears and catastrophic consciousness. among them are processes associated with the modern trend of digitalization. in a broad sense, digitalization can be seen as a global trend in the development of society, which is based on the transformation of information into digital form. digitalization has replaced informatization, the period when computing technologies and computing machines were used to solve specific economic, military, or social problems. today, in the age of technoscience, with the emergence of industry 4.0, digitalization is forming integral technological environments (ecosystems, platforms, services), within which users can generate the friendly environment they need, and, in fact, design their own social reality (see e.g., przhilenskiy, 2021; sushpanova, 2018; till, 2021; veraksa et al, 2021). this allows social actors to solve entire classes of problems and build an alternative social structure of society, i.e., to structure the reality (giddens, 1991). thus, in 2015, the davos economic forum identified more than 20 events predicted until 2025 that could have a significant impact on the life of society (global agenda council, 2015). among the most significant anticipated events related to digitalization are the following: internet of things (clothes and glasses connected to the internet, smart homes and smart cities), cloud technologies (the possibility of unlimited free cloud storage, smartphones with constant internet access), sd-printing (human organs, cars, consumer goods, etc.), artificial intelligence. digitalization, on the one hand, acts as a unifying and integrating principle; on the other, it creates even greater social faults, generating new forms of inequality and discrimination. in this regard, a comprehensive examination of the processes and effects of digitalization is required. one aspect of this process is the formation of digital fears. by digital fear we mean a response to a real or perceived danger generated by the digitalization of various spheres of public life and threating the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being of the individual and social communities. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56–78 61 digital fears in a postmodern society we live in the age of technoscience. technoscience is a term crafted and used by postmodern thinkers such as gilbert hottois, bruno latour, and donna haraway to emphasize that current science and technology are mutually interacting at an unprecedented scale (kastenhofer & schwarz, 2011). several denominations have also been introduced to indicate the society in which we are living, such as “postmodern society” (lyotard, 1979/1984), “late modern society” (giddens, 1991), “liquid society” (bauman, 2000), “risk society” (beck, 1986/1992), and, more recently, “digital society” (delgado, 2016; third et al., 2019). we decided to use the term crafted by lyotard; namely “postmodern society”. however, a clarification is needed. “postmodern” is a polysemous adjective used in different contexts. it is used in art and literary criticism to indicate artworks based on the ironic play with different styles and narrative levels. it is used in the philosophy of science to indicate epistemologies that emphasize the socially constructed character and relative validity of any scientific theory and, therefore, dispense with the category of truth. it is used in sociology to indicate a specific stage of society in which skepticism and nihilism prevail, the “grand narratives” of western culture—such as enlightenment, marxism, liberalism, and christianity—have lost their persuasive power, technoscience has assumed a central role, and the virtual is often preferred at the expense of the real. these uses of the term, although different, are obviously related, as behind them there is always a fundamental questioning of the supposed boundaries between reality and virtuality. nonetheless, it is worth noting that, here, we use the adjective “postmodern” in its sociological meaning. there is no consensus about the beginning of postmodernity. it has been set at the end of the victorian era (1901), at the end of the second world war (late 1940s), in concomitance with the worldwide escalation of social conflicts comprised under the term “protest of 1968”, or in the late 20th century (especially the 1980s) with the spread of cable television and the diffusion of personal computers. this debate is however invariably focused on western europe and north america. in russia, the main features of the postmodern society are visible only after the transition from socialism to capitalism that is starting from the early 1990s. this means that in russia concepts such as “postmodern society” and “digital society” tend to overlap. still, if all “digital fears” are postmodern, not all “postmodern fears” are digital. some fears we encounter in the digital society are not detectable in previous societal stages. for example, the fear arising when a temporary network failure occurs or smartphone data runs out has no precedent. in this circumstance, we fear of being disconnected from the internet for a long time and, therefore, not being able to perform the tasks that are required of us by social institutions (school, work, family, etc.). new is also the fear of being connected for too long, becoming psychologically dependent on the internet, social networks, computers, and smartphones. there are also situations in which the two digital fears of “being disconnected” or “too much connected” arise confusedly in the same individuals, revealing a new form of schizophrenia. https://changing-sp.com/ 62 sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, riccardo campa, natalia g. popova then, there are old fears that in the postmodern society take on a new form, which we could define as “final”, because it represents the non plus ultra, the unsurpassable culmination of previous fears. we will give four examples. the fear of a jobless future. the fear of losing a job due to the increased productivity of technology is found in all stages of the industrial revolution. manufacturer workers in the eighteenth century feared mechanical looms, nineteenthcentury factory workers feared the steam engine, assembly line workers in the twentieth century feared robotization, and ever since computers appeared, service company employees fear computerization. technologies are different, while the fear—whether motivated or unmotivated—is the same. it is the fear of technological unemployment (campa, 2015, 2019). however, the “final” phase of this fear has specific determinations. since artificial intelligence can replace not only arms but also brains and perhaps creative work itself, the fear of a jobless future is emerging (brynjolfsson & mcafee, 2014; ford, 2015). that is, not only the disappearance of a category of workers is feared, but of work itself. john maynard keynes (1930/2010) assumed that the increase of productivity would eventually give birth to a leisure society in which the fruits of automated labor would be equally redistributed. alternative dystopian scenarios are gaining the scene today. when the prospect of a jobless society is accompanied by the distrust of the elites, “exterminism” is included among the possible outcomes of the process (frase, 2016, pp. 120–143). it is feared that, if workers become superfluous, the elites could consider exterminating a large part of the world’s population, or promote ways of life that make reproduction impossible. for example, the current pandemic has been interpreted by some as a conspiracy by the elite against the commoners. the fear is also fueled by continuous statements by experts who affirm that the world population is out of control and a reduction is urgently needed to remedy the problem of scarcity of resources, pollution, and global warming. the fear of extermination is of course not new, but, in the past, it was linked to the hostile actions of foreign nations. people have always feared being exploited but never exterminated by their own elites. exterminism is a new digital fear. the fear of deepfakes. identity theft has existed in the past as well, but it was a rare event that required an extraordinary coincidence of circumstances, such as an incredible physical resemblance, to occur. think of the identity of count alessandro cagliostro and giuseppe balsamo: it is still debated whether it was the same person or two different ones. however, in the digital society, identity theft takes on a final form, because anyone’s identity can be perfectly simulated. we refer to the fear of the so-called “deepfakes”, or the use of artificial intelligence to create synthetic images, videoclips, audio or voice recordings indistinguishable from the natural ones of an individual. the suspicious attitude towards this technology is not without foundation as deepfake videos or telephone calls have already actually been used in attempts at blackmail and fraud, or for personal revenge. for example, it happened that the ceo of a british energy company was deceived by a deepfake voice from the head of his parent company. the synthetic voice called for the transfer of an emergency fund of $243,000. the manager obeyed the order. subsequently, the real ceo asked for a fund transfer again and the manager realized he was being duped. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56–78 63 however, the money had already been transferred to a third party’s bank account and was no longer recoverable (stupp, 2019). the fear of deepfake is widespread, even if it is more motivated when felt by people who manage large assets or have great responsibilities, such as the ceos of large companies or politicians. but sometimes even people whom no one cares about are afraid of identity theft. in this case, a paranoid component plays a role. the fear of the matrix scenario. another fear typical of postmodern society is the fear of an unknown, unrecognizable, totally different, dystopian future. for a long stretch of human history, the dominant idea was that tomorrow would be more or less like today, just as the present world did not appear as radically different from yesterday’s world. nothing new under the sun, it was often said. with the industrial revolution, the world began to change at an increasing pace, causing adaptation problems such as the “cultural lag” already studied by william f. ogburn (1922). still, in ogburn’s time, adaptation problems notwithstanding, the common conviction was that tomorrow’s world would be better than today’s world. the idea of progress born with the enlightenment and positivism was still alive. a whole series of events, such as totalitarian regimes, the two world wars, the holocaust, the invention of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological), the cold war, pollution, global warming, global terrorism, economic crises, etc., has spread the belief that the future may be worse than the present. the aforementioned catastrophes and risks of the 20th century stimulated a dystopian imagination prefiguring new future catastrophes. among the apocalyptic scenarios typical of the digital society is the emergence of a malicious artificial intelligence capable of assuming total control over the life of human beings (bostrom, 2014). it is the scenario imagined in films such as the matrix or terminator. a malicious ai could enslave all humans, or eliminate them at will, by taking direct control of drones, combat robots, supercomputers, nuclear weapons, and other electronic devices that our lives depend on. people fear a future in which they do not have freedom of choice, personal objectives, meaningful lives. driven by machines, they would be reduced to living and thinking like machines. the fear of a digital panopticon. perhaps we need to go back to the paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies to find human groups in which there was no privacy and everyone knew everything about everyone else. with the neolithic revolution and the birth of stratified societies, the question of information control also arises. in stratified societies, the ruling classes have always exercised forms of control over the ruled classes. armed guards kept an eye on slaves in ancient societies or serfs in feudal societies. both government’s officers and conspirators against the established order have always feared the presence of spies, infiltrators, double agents, traitors. in short, the fear that our information could be ‘stolen’ and used against us is as old as complex societies. in the postmodern society, however, this fear reaches its final stage, once again. novels like george orwell’s 1984, aldous huxley’s brave new world, or ray bradbury’s fahrenheit 451 have foreshadowed societies in which an unscrupulous elite exerts total control over the population by using the most modern technological devices. afterwards, postmodern thinker michel foucault has brought to attention https://changing-sp.com/ 64 sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, riccardo campa, natalia g. popova jeremy bentham’s panopticon, by presenting it as a metaphor for the surveillance tendencies of disciplinarian societies (foucault, 1975/1977). the appearance of the internet, smartphones, video cameras placed everywhere, and pieces of software capable of reading conversations by detecting lip movements, or intentions and sexual orientations by means of facial recognition, has confirmed that certain fears are not entirely unmotivated. there are multinational corporations that systematically collect data on our movements, shopping, preferences, and conversations to create digital profiles that can be sold to other corporations or governments. big data is mainly used to elaborate targeted marketing strategies, but, in perspective, it can be used for any malicious intent, such as blackmailing dissidents or competitors. the censorship exercised by the silicon valley giants over some information or opinions of citizens not aligned with the dominant narrative has further spread this digital fear among ordinary people. the posts published on social networks are constantly scrutinized by teams of private observers and sometimes censored. the president of the united states of america himself has been censored in several situations, raising the question of what the real locus of power is in democratic nations. although the dominant narrative talks about “fact-checking” for the good of people, the social networks themselves have had to admit that censorship is often based on mere “opinions”. in the digital world, therefore, some opinions are worth more than others, in contrast with the basic rules of democracy and free speech. the establishment in some countries of digital passports that prove anticovid vaccination and make the possibility of working, attending public events, or making purchases dependent on the regularity of the qr code has only further fueled these fears. the fear that spreads is that the elite’s control finally arrives inside the human bodies themselves, through the installation of microchips. some companies have actually patented an implantable microchip that allows users to carry their covid-19 vaccine passport under the skin, instead of downloading the qr code on the smartphone (teh, 2021). especially in those countries in which the vaccine passport is mandatory also to work or do shopping, people start fearing a future in which humans are permanently microchipped like farm animals. a corollary of this fear, which only the future will tell us if motivated or unmotivated, is that the microchip will not only collect data on our state of health, communications, preferences, or movements, but also heterodirect human behavior to make it functional to the political and economic interests of the elites. already back in 1981, jean baudrillard noticed that postmodern society is moving beyond the panopticon model and the propaganda system, due to microprocessing, digitality, and cybernetic languages. these are his words: that is what inspires fear, and what is thrilling. the ‘thrill’ of advertising has been displaced onto computers and onto the miniaturization of everyday life by computer science. the anticipatory illustration of this transformation was philip k. dick’s papula—that transistorized advertising implant, a sort of broadcasting leech, an electronic parasite that attaches itself to the body and that is very hard to get rid of. (baudrillard, 1981/1994, p. 89) changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56–78 65 materials and methods in november–december, 2020, we conducted a sociological survey among young residents (aged 18–30) of the sverdlovsk region (sverdlovskaya oblast'), russia. the sverdlovsk region is a large federal subject of russia located in the ural federal district. as of january 2021, the population exceeds 4 million people, with its fourth represented by young people (18–30 years old)1. according to the statistical data (informatsionnoe obshchestvo, 2020), 75.8% of households in the sverdlovsk region have internet access, which level is comparable with the eu countries. out of all young people aged 15–24, 99% are internet users. following the analysis of literature sources presented above, as well as based on the surveys conducted the vserossiiskii tsentr izucheniia obshchestvennogo mneniia (vtsiom) [public opinion research center] (karta strakhov rossiian, 2019) and fond obshchestvennoe mnenie [public opinion foundation] (trevogi i opaseniia, 2019), we developed a typology of personal fears, which can be considered fundamental for modern social systems. this typology includes the following nine types: (a) fears of social rejection (condemnation, disapproval, loneliness, indifference); (b) fears of loss (work, friends, income, physical attractiveness); (c) fears of decision-making (taking responsibility, choosing a job, place of study, partner); (d) fears of publicity (showing feelings, declining other people’s requests, public speaking, conflicts); (e) organizational fears (lack of self-realization, failing to cope with a task/work, making mistakes at work, losing in a competition); (f) systemic fears (persecution for political or other beliefs, corruption, unemployment, lower living standards); (g) fears of various categories of people (criminals, terrorists); (h) fears for life and health (death, own illness or illness of close people, consequences of an illness, side effects of treatment or vaccination); (i) postmodern fears (uncertainty, unknown future, loss of purpose, lack of plans, meaninglessness, uncontrollable situations). the above classification covers postmodern fears formed during the pre-digital period, thus giving a general description of the postmodern society. however, this classification does not distinguish digitalization as a basis for the appearance of new types of fear. at the empirical level, for each type of personal fears, four indicators were proposed (a total of 36 indicators), each of which was assessed by the respondents on a 4-point scale (where 1—“i never experience this fear” and 4—“i am constantly afraid of this”). for the sake of elucidation, consider the following example. the category “systemic fears” includes four indicators: (a) fear of persecution for political 1 department of the federal statistical service for the sverdlovsk oblast and kurgan oblast https:// sverdl.gks.ru/storage/mediabank/bjos84l9/%d0%a7%d0%b8%d1%81%d0%bb._%d0%9f%d0%92%d0 %a1_2016-2021.xlsx https://changing-sp.com/ https://sverdl.gks.ru/storage/mediabank/bjos84l9/%d0%a7%d0%b8%d1%81%d0%bb._%d0%9f%d0%92%d0%a1_2016-2 https://sverdl.gks.ru/storage/mediabank/bjos84l9/%d0%a7%d0%b8%d1%81%d0%bb._%d0%9f%d0%92%d0%a1_2016-2 https://sverdl.gks.ru/storage/mediabank/bjos84l9/%d0%a7%d0%b8%d1%81%d0%bb._%d0%9f%d0%92%d0%a1_2016-2 66 sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, riccardo campa, natalia g. popova opinions; (b) fear of violation of civil rights, arbitrariness of law enforcement agencies, corruption, (c) fear of lower incomes, unemployment, decreasing family living standards, inability to sustain oneself or family, (d) fear of defenselessness before the authorities. after obtaining the respondents’ answers, we calculated an index for each indicator using the principle of arithmetic average. each indicator could take a value from 1 to 4 (4 points if all respondents indicated that they constantly experience this fear, 1 if no one ever experiences it). further, the indices for 4 indicators were added up, and the final score for this type of fear was obtained. the data was obtained by the method of formalized online survey. to this end, we developed a questionnaire consisting of 45 questions (closed, open, and semi-closed). the questionnaire was open for participant input from november 5 to december 31, 2020. the questionnaire was distributed through social networks, websites of educational institutions and urban communities, city portals, etc. in total, 1,050 questionnaires were collected after rejecting those failing to meet the survey’s requirements. the respondents were selected based on the following criteria: • city of residence. among the respondents, 650 (62%) were from yekaterinburg (a megapolis, the 4th largest russian city) and 450 (38%) were from small towns of the region; • gender. 60% were female, and 40% were male; • employment (approximately equal presence of students and working youth). about 37% of the respondents were students, 32% worked, 25% combined work and study, 6% had temporarily no occupation. • age. according to this parameter, the age distribution was as follows: 18–22 years old—57.7%, 23–26 years old—25.8%, 27–30 years old—16.5%. the average duration of completing the questionnaire was 20–30 minutes. the obtained primary data was processed using the ibm spss software, subjected to cross-tabulation and correlation analysis (calculation of percent, medians and correlation coefficients). it should be noted that our sample cannot be considered representative, because it included young people residing in only one russian region. the sverdlovsk region differs from other russian regions in terms of several economic and social indicators. therefore, our findings cannot be directly extended to all russian young people and may not agree well with other studies of the social fears of young people. results and discussion fear is experienced almost constantly by the majority of the study participants: 22% experience it almost every day, and 41.1%—several times a week. assessing the impact of fear on a person, young people emphasize the following negative consequences: 80% believe that fear reveals negative traits in a person, making him or her more aggressive, selfish, and distrustful. for 66.1%, fear is a factor that complicates life, since it makes a person’s behavior less conscious, more impulsive and emotional, and therefore, prevents a person from making reasonable choices. in a certain sense, fear limits the freedom of choice. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56–78 67 fully recognizing that the number of risks and dangers in modern societies is constantly growing, the respondents, however, assessed this process differently. about 26.4% see the growth of risks as an inevitable and natural payment for progress. conversely, 73.6% of the respondents believe that risks should be fought at all levels (institutional and personal). women and people with low income and low education are more likely to see an increase in the number of risks in the modern society as a disadvantage; this attitude becomes more pronounced with age and the advent of children. postmodern fears (excluding digital fears) were ranked the 2nd most frequent fears experienced by young people (9.79 points), yielding in importance only to systemic fears (10.26 points). the total indicator of postmodern fears includes the following: fear of the unknown and a lack of ability to make plans (2.53 points out of 4 possible); fear of losing a goal, meaninglessness of life (2.51); fear of the future (2.43); and fear of situations that cannot be controlled (2.32). a high proportion of postmodern fears among the younger generation can indicate a negative scenario of further social development, under which the younger generation will be neurotic and despaired. r. carleton believes that the fear of the unknown is the fundamental fear that drives all other anxieties, affecting somatic and eating disorders, causing depression and other mental/psychiatric illnesses (carleton, 2016). postmodern fears today are supplemented by new fears and anxieties. the covid-19 pandemic has extended the range of social fears by the emergence of “pandemic” fears. for example, young people began to experience the following communication difficulties: 26% are afraid to come into contact with a sick person; 22%—to commute by public transport; 14%—to be physically close to other people; 14%—to visit mass events; 7%—to go shopping. the emergence of new fears indicates changing social trends that require a deeper understanding. in turn, these pandemic fears make people use digital technologies more actively and broadly. as part of the survey, the respondents were asked to assess which digital threats they found more worrying. as a result, we divided all digital fears into the following five types (see table 1): а. impact and control. these fears are related to the problem of external interference with life privacy through the use of digital technologies. these fears affect the individual’s consciousness and behavior. this category of fears was found to be of the greatest importance for our respondents: 55.8% fear for total control by means of video surveillance, built-in tracking programs on mobile devices, etc.; 48.5% believe that they run the risk of wiretapping or being monitored on social networking sites, leading to the impossibility of maintaining the secrecy of correspondence. a high level of fears (45.8%) is associated with the manipulative influence of the media, an increase in the number of fake news, and ideological violence. similarly, having interviewed more than 3,000 students from the university of shanghai, y. jiang (2021) found evidence for a psychological negative impact of social networks on students during the pandemic. the respondents reported an increase in anxiety levels, deterioration in academic performance, and physical exhaustion. the technologies based on biological intervention raise a lesser concern: fear of microchipping was reported by https://changing-sp.com/ 68 sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, riccardo campa, natalia g. popova 27.8% of the respondents, and genetic hybridization (animals, plants, humans) worries about 18.1%. these technologies are likely to be perceived as controllable by both the person (through food and medical treatment choices, etc.) and governmental bodies. b. crime and security. this group of fears is related to the possibility of illegal action using digital technologies. one of the main fears among young people (56%) is associated with the security of personal data. no doubt, this trend is associated with an increase both in the volume of personal information posted publicly (social networks, messengers, advertisement portals, etc.), and the number of external threats (hacker attacks, virus programs, targeted advertising, etc.). about 42.9% of young city dwellers are afraid of internet scammers, with the spectrum of threats being extremely wide: from cyberbullying and death groups, to twin sites and the security of internet payments. the fear of victimization in the online communication environment (alam et al., 2021) can be defined as a fear of digital victimization. every fourth respondent fears for the loss of important information, which anxiety is frequently based on selfmistrust (fear of breaking the phone, not saving data, forgetting the password, etc.) and the distrust of electronic devices (their breaking down, running out of power, not connecting to the internet, etc.). therefore, it seems logical that personal information security is increasingly included in the range of basic competencies that a modern person should possess. c. communication and activity. these fears are based on technology-related changes in the way and pace of life, as well as human interaction. about 28.4% of our respondents indicated a constant lack of time and acceleration of communications, which give rise to the fear of failing to complete all the tasks and meet the deadlines. a quarter of young people are susceptible to the fear of being offline, being without a phone or being disconnected. these fears can be supplemented by the fear of missing out (fomo), which, according to n. bloemen and d. de coninck (2020), determines the need for young people to be constantly online to check social networks. this state generates new (including well-being-threatening) feelings and psychological problems in the period of the pandemic (hayran & anik, 2021). for example, k. sekscinska and d. jaworska, having interviewed 295 polish female users of social networks after the famous outage on october 4, 2021, concluded that women with low self-esteem might experience negative emotions in response to technological outages due to increased fear of missing out (fomo) (sekscinska & jaworska, 2022). a significant part of modern fears is associated with the growth of online communications (mediated by electronic devices) and communications with electronic systems that replace interpersonal communication (bots, answering machines, ordering systems for taxis, goods, etc.). as a result, the respondents (15.3%) mentioned problems associated with the growing social distrust against the background of an increasing dependence on electronic systems (on public transport, airplanes and elevators, medical intervention, etc.). d. technology and innovation. these anxieties are related to the unfolding discourse about the nature of artificial intelligence and its social implications. today, the threats of artificial intelligence have become a topic of discussion in serious scientific publications, business media, and yellow press. experts offer analytical forecasts with changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56–78 69 significantly different assessments. thus, according to ranepa specialists, half of the able-bodied citizens in russia can be excluded from active economic life as a result of robotization (zemtsov, 2017). however, d. a. medvedev (who was prime minister of the russian federation in 2018) claimed (polovine rossiian, 2018) that automation and robotization would not necessarily lead to unemployment. a lack of consensus, contradictory information, controversial concepts, unresolved ethical dilemmas, and uncertain prospects for professional life result in disorientation and confusion for ordinary people. about 22.2% of young citizens are afraid of robotization in the workplace and the displacement of humans by robots. about 14.6% speak directly about negative emotions connected with the expansion of artificial intelligence. a number of experts in russia predict a deterioration in the attitude of the population towards new technologies along with their active deployment (uskova & astrakhantsev, 2020). e. social inequality. these fears are associated with negative expectations about the growing inequality in access to information resources and technologies, the polarization of society and the exclusion of citizens from economic processes, depending on the level of their digital competencies and education, age, etc. as a result, there is a danger that economic benefits will be distributed more and more unevenly among people and countries. the “digital divide” as uneven and unequal access of countries, social groups, and individual users to network telecommunications infrastructure, digital devices, and digital services significantly limits people’s opportunities (vartanova & gladkova, 2021). today, 12.4% of young urban dwellers are worried about potential digital discrimination. in turn, a new type of personality possessing new types of competencies is being formed. it can be expected that individuals and groups being capable of producing and effectively using digital technologies will become more competitive than those lacking these skills. in this respect, an emergency transition to online learning undertaken in many countries during the pandemic seems to be beneficial from the standpoint of consolidating and developing digital skills. in our study conducted before the pandemic at the end of 2019, 37% of students considered involvement in the modern information and digital environment among the advantages of this form of education (antonova et al., 2021). it seems important to improve our understanding of the fear of digital divide by analyzing issues related to both the digital inclusion of young people and asymmetric distribution of power between those who collect data and those who are the objects of the data collection process. this process is commonly referred to as the “big data divide” and is associated with the issues of digital literacy education (pawluczuk, 2020). a number of differences can be distinguished between the perceptions of digital threats by different categories of respondents. in comparison with megapolis residents, residents of small towns fear the following phenomena more frequently: total control and tracking, microchipping, internet fraud, robotization of work, and the treat of a malicious artificial intelligence. conversely, small town residents showed lesser concern for the security of personal data, loss of information, loss of communication. women are more likely than men to experience digital fears in general; they have a wider personal range of digital fears. on average, a female respondent selected more answers than a male https://changing-sp.com/ 70 sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, riccardo campa, natalia g. popova respondent: 5.2 and 4.3, respectively. women are more worried about the threats of robotization, biotechnology, chipping, total control, lack of mobile communications, and internet fraud. our results agree with those obtained by swiss researchers, who found that young women experience more stress and anxiety in the face of pandemic uncertainty (mohler-kuo et al., 2021). despite the fact that only young people took part in the study, we found some distinctive trends within this group. thus, the older the survey participants, the fewer digital fears they report (the respondents aged 27–30 and 18–22 gave an average of 4.3 and 5.4 answers, respectively). older participants had fewer fears related to microchipping, security and loss of personal data, manipulation of consciousness, wiretapping, and internet surveillance. table 1 typology of digital fears experienced by young people type % impact and control total control over a person using electronic devices, video cameras, etc. 55.8 wiretapping, checking the content of messages and statements, internet surveillance 48.5 impact on the person’s consciousness and opinion using the media through manipulation, propaganda, fake news, etc. 45.8 microchipping people 27.8 biotechnology, human intervention in the genetics of humans, animals, plants 18.1 crime and security security of personal data 56.0 the rise in the number of internet scammers (twin websites, online payments, dating sites, death groups, etc.) 42.9 losing information stored on personal phones, tablets, etc. 25.8 communication and activity lack of time, fear of not being able to meet the deadline 28.4 fear of being left without communication, without a phone, out of range 25.6 the dependence of life and health on strangers (public transport drivers, pilots, builders, etc.) 15.3 replacing interaction between humans by interaction with electronic systems 12.0 shifting all interactions to online mode, difficulties of offline communication 11.7 being invisible on social networks (having few likes and subscribers, etc.) 6.1 technology and innovation robotization of processes, replacing humans with robots 22.2 distribution of artificial intelligence 14.6 creation of unmanned vehicles 4.6 technological progress, emergence of technological innovations that need to be constantly mastered 4.5 social inequality increasing polarization of people and countries in terms of access to resources 12.4 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56–78 71 conclusion today, more and more voices are heard that humanity is rapidly entering the so-called “new normality” (khodykin, 2020; tesar, 2020). habitual rules, familiar values, and everyday practices are undergoing drastic transformations, which makes people’s judgments and behavior extremely uncertain. the radical transformation of the way of life brings about the emergence of new attitudes, assessments, behaviors. the unpredictable consequences of this process make the stability of human beliefs, perceptions, and opinions highly uncertain. this process is inevitably changing the structure of fears experienced by younger generations. interestingly, the traditional range of social fears of young people undergoes both hierarchical changes, when some fears become more prominent, and those related to the appearance of new types of fears. the empirical part of our study conducted among russian young people aged 18–30 in 2020 (n = 1050, sverdlovsk region, rf) showed that today’s young people experience more fears connected with the uncertainty of the future, self-realization, and decision-making. in addition, digital fears are becoming more intense. the most pronounced among them are the fears of total social control, security of personal data, surveillance over telephone conversations and correspondence, as well as the impact on consciousness through the media. therefore, fear can be referred as a distinctive characteristic of the social well-being of this generation. consequently, digital fears not only substitute traditional anxieties, but complement and reinforce them, thereby significantly expanding the range of fears experienced by modern young people. the task of overcoming social fears, reducing the level of uncertainty, and mitigating possible negative consequences of digitalization requires new personal competences, including developed emotional intelligence (campa, 2020), creativity, collaboration readiness, etc. it should be noted that the digital fears of young people reflect the anticipated, perceived threats and worries about the future society. therefore, fears of the postmodern society have a principally different structure, due to a growing uncertainty, an increasing number of forces uncontrollable by humans, and changing attitudes towards the idea of progress. the fear of the future is capable of transforming, to the point of destruction, the socio-cultural foundations of society. this poses special challenges for governments in terms of regulation and management of social fears, as well as implementation of anti-crisis measures as a complex of political technologies for supporting the population during periods of crisis and instability. digital fears also raise such questions, as digital human rights, digital justice, digital education, as well as the limits of implementation of digital technologies. our empirical research revealing the presence of a social problem, such as the discomfort shown by our respondents towards certain technological trends, cannot but stimulate reflection on possible solutions. even if our research does not allow us to generalize, it is clear also from other research and theoretical literature that digital fears and worries about the future concern many nations. our final reflections https://changing-sp.com/ 72 sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, riccardo campa, natalia g. popova are therefore not specifically focused on russia, but extend to all technologically advanced countries. as we mentioned above, remedies to social fears can also come from public policies. political leaders can benefit the countries they govern by finding ways to manage fears of real threats and convincing citizens to get rid of unmotivated fears. we cannot, however, take this will for granted. this would be naïve. there is a vast literature pointing out that unmotivated fears are sometimes knowingly generated by the elites in order to maintain their rule over society (lupia & menning, 2009). the oceania imagined by george orwell, in which unscrupulous rulers control the subjects by terrorizing them with an imaginary war, is just a fictional extremization of situations that fill history books. the mechanism is well-known. if citizens are afraid of an external or internal, visible or invisible enemy, a government that protects them is necessary. if the “danger” is great, governments claim special powers to fight it. the state of emergency is accepted by citizens out of fear. a prolonged state of emergency may eventually turn into a permanent state of exception. it yet remains to be seen whether the current pandemic indeed threatened the existence of the mankind. our recommendation can therefore only be addressed to political representatives and civil society leaders who sincerely want to reassure citizens about the future. if this is the goal, the most effective solution is to put in place policies that have a concrete impact. reassuring words are not enough. those who fear technological unemployment can only get rid of their anxiety if they see governments doing everything possible to redistribute the benefits of digitization and robotization to the entire population, for example by reducing working hours or rapidly reabsorbing unemployment. if, on the other hand, they see that unemployment is on the rise and profits from increased productivity are flowing into the bank accounts of national or global economic oligarchies, the fear of the future can only grow. this also applies to data security, privacy, social control, deepfakes, etc. the only way to reassure citizens about these threats is to pass strict laws to protect private information and communications, even if such laws harm the interests of large corporations. in short, all the solutions that have been 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2, pp. 161–182 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.2.035 received 26 march 2018 © 2018 malek abduljaber accepted 29 may 2018 malikfayez@gmail.com published online 1 july 2018 article effects of modernization and globalization on values change in the arab world malek abduljaber saginaw valley state university, ann arbor, usa abstract this paper argues that social transformation processes generate shifts in public opinion among the public. more specifically, increasing rates of modernization and globalization in the arab world over the past half century have led to a moving away from religion, tradition, and ethnocentrism to embracing more secular, liberal, and egalitarian values. ordinary citizens in today’s arab world are more tolerant towards non-muslims, americans, and other westerners more than ever before. they support recognizing israel as a state at a rate previously unprecedented in the region. arabs are politically, socially, and culturally more liberal than they have been in the twentieth century. evidence from the world values survey and arab barometer clearly convey this observable value change in the region. underlying causes for this change are arguably due to macro, mezzo, and micro-level changes in peoples’ lives resulting from increased modernization and globalization compared to earlier periods. this confirms earlier findings from western europe and north america which propose that social transformation processes yield predictable changes in values among mass publics. keywords modernization, globalization, public opinion, arab world, survey research https://changing-sp.com/ 162 malek abduljaber introduction there are many questions about the arab world that have remained unanswered by political science (campante & chor, 2012; hamarneh, hollis, & shiqāqī, 1997; lynch, 2013; ryan & schwedler, 2004; tessler & jamal, 2006; tessler, et al., 2012; zogby, 2002; bayat, 2013). has there been an attitude shift from traditional to post-materialist issues in the middle east as has been the case in north america or western europe? are arabs exceptionally more religious compared to other populations around the world? do arabs feel the same about islam, its role in politics and society, and its meaning compared to half a century ago? has modernization, globalization, urbanization, and westernization altered ordinary citizens’ views on religion, economics, politics, and foreign affairs? most importantly, have arabs’ perceptions of the arab/israeli conflict changed over time? this paper endeavors to answer this set of related questions and shed light on citizens’ preference changes in an often-forgotten region in the empirical study of comparative politics: the middle east. the study of public opinion in the arab world suffers from several limitations (robbins & tessler, 2012; braizat, 2005; tessler, 2011a; nisbet & meyers, 2011; gause, 2011; stoll, 2004). first, most analyses and narratives on the region lack empirical, verifiable, evidence (telhami, 2006; gause, 2011; ciftci, 2012). analysts and experts on the middle east rely on sheer conjecture and speculation when describing, prescribing, or prognosing arab world political development (zogby, 2002; robbins & tessler, 2012). second, public opinion in the arab world is often cast as irrelevant by western political scientists, citing the lack of its coherent ideological structure, significance in determining political outcomes, and fluidity (robins & tessler, 2012; tessler, 2011b; nisbet & meyers, 2011). despite such charges, political science literature from the developing world has established robust links between political attitudes among citizens and electoral results, regime survival, and longevity (ryan & schwedler, 2004; tessler, 2011b; tessler & jamal, 2006; tessler et al., 2012; robbins & tessler, 2012). more recent dimensional analyses of political ideologies in eastern europe, china, india, and the arab world have established that arab political attitude structures exist and do not deviate significantly from their western counterparts (bayat, 2013; marinov, 2012). this research presents many contributions to the study of public opinion in the arab world. the first section provides an extensive listing of existing data sources on the attitudes of arab citizens on political, social, economic, and cultural matters across different time periods and geographic locales. this resource provides details on the type, breadth, and usefulness of available data on testing potentially interesting questions concerning important outcomes in the region. second, the paper provides a possible explanation for the observed attitude changes across the region in the past half century. this theoretical clarification relies on the fundamental hypothesis suggesting that social transformation processes such as modernization and globalization lead to changes in the composition of society where new groups rise and other groups lose ground, generating discernible shifts in public opinion. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 161–182 163 third, the paper provides evidence on the nature and type of attitude changes among citizens in the region by comparing ordinary citizens’ preferences in a number of countries including algeria, egypt, jordan, morocco, and other states where the data in two distinct periods is available. public opinion research in the arab world current literature on public opinion trends toward politics has largely focused on industrialized western countries (warwick, 2002; kitschelt, 1992; inglehart & welzel, 2005; bartolini & mair, 2001). this may be due to the assumption that public opinion is only relevant in consolidated democracies (robbins & tessler, 2012; nisbet & meyers, 2011). however, a number of studies have shown the link between voters and political actors, and its ameliorating effect on democratic governance in the developing world (levitsky & way, 2002; lindberg, 2006; ryan & schwedler, 2004). although dictators and monarchs attempt to manipulate electoral races for their benefit, holding elections opens a channel of communication between candidates and voters (gause, 2011; levitsky & way, 2002). political parties and independent candidates run campaigns on a number of issues relevant to the role of government in the economy and international affairs, appealing to their respective constituencies (malik & awadallah, 2013). the situation in algeria, jordan, lebanon, morocco, and yemen is no different from other hybrid regimes (robbins & tessler, 2012; ryan & schwedler, 2002). such countries have held regular, relatively free, elections where candidates and voters interacted in a competitive race to fill political offices (bolleyer & storm, 2010; langohr, 2002; marinov, 2012; robbins & tessler, 2012). this shows that ordinary citizens’ political attitudes count in the political process in hybrid regimes (bolleyer & storm, 2010; ryan & schwedler, 2004). this study focuses on the political space in the arab world, contributing to the larger literature on political space cross-nationally. one of the most active areas of research in the arab world concerns the attitudes and behavior of the so called “arab street” (bayat, 2011; acemoglu, hassan, & tahoun, 2017). this literature has generated empirical studies exploring the most important political factors defining the attitudes and behaviors of arab citizens (bayat, 2013; robbins & tessler, 2012; tessler, 2011). on the one hand, the empirical investigation of the arab political space is unsystematic (ciftci, 2012; harik, 1987). usually, researchers limit their focus to one dimension or two arbitrarily and report support patterns of different structural groups in the population (marinov, 2012; robbins & tessler, 2012). the research typically inspects citizens’ attitudes toward particular dimensions (usually support for democracy, political islam, and the arab/ israeli conflict) while leaving out possible defining factors such as trust in political institutions and political leadership (campante & chor, 2012; ciftci, 2012; malik & awadallah, 2013; tessler, 2011). despite this continuous effort, certainty of what concerns the arab street remains unclear. the empirical work is often limited to case studies and focuses on idiosyncratic relationships concerning particular countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 164 malek abduljaber on the other hand, the theoretical work is often too abstract and difficult to verify using available data. establishing a more robust link between the empirical world and the theoretical one is needed in order to better understand what the arab street wants, and how this influences its behavior. much of the theoretical research has been devoted to finding and explaining the single, most significant, political factor driving the organizational pattern of political attitudes in the arab world (bayat, 2013; dabashi, 2012). this one-dimensional research usually focuses on political islam or economic policies. it is hardly justifiable and largely dependent on historically rooted explanations. the lack of consensus and systematic investigation on the number, nature, and independence of defining political factors in the arab world poses the problem of accumulating unchecked arguments such as that of ascribing a onedimensional nature of the political space in the arab world. despite the paucity in public opinion survey research over the past half century, the last decade has recorded a surge in the growing number of cross-national surveys in the arab world. the numerous projects present new avenues for public opinion research in the arab world. prior to introducing such interesting enterprises, this section provides a brief background on survey research in the arab world. a quick glimpse at the political science literature on the arab world points to a dearth of public opinion studies prior to this burgeoning of studies. this phenomenon may be due to the long absence of systematic, nationally representative, samples of arab countries (tessler & jamal, 2006). an ancillary factor is the nature of authoritarian regimes in the region has made it difficult to conduct reliable survey research regarding sensitive political matters. nevertheless, some american and arab social scientists have taken the lead in producing public opinion studies on the arab world (tessler, 2003). however, such absence of information has limited the potential contribution of the arab world experience to just the theoretical and empirical development of the field of comparative politics (unlike in eastern europe and latin america where it was possible to develop, test, and examine various types of hypotheses linking political attitudes to democratic transitions). early scholars of arab politics noted the absence of public opinion research on the arab world (harik, 1987; hudson, 1995). unfortunately, such missing information has resulted in the proliferation of myths and stereotypes regarding arab citizens (tessler, 2003; zogby & foundation, 2002). a decade ago, a leading figure on public opinion research in the middle east, remarked that “in the arab world, there has been very little serious political attitude research until recently, which has made it difficult to challenge stereotypes about the arab street and the arab mind” (tessler, 2003, p. 23). three years later, the founders of the arab barometer have argued that a number of factors have led to “emerging opportunities for political attitude research in the arab world” (tessler & jamal, 2006, p. 17). this changing climate comes from several different factors. first, social scientists, as well as area specialists, are employing more rigorous techniques to questions regarding the arab world. second, the relative modernizing and liberalizing policies undertaken by several arab regimes made it possible to access and acquire reliable data on ordinary arab citizens. finally, the attacks of september 11 on the changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 161–182 165 u.s. sparked an interest in learning more about the attitudes of arabs and muslims across the globe, including the arab world. this has led to the emergence of a number of cross-national survey projects investigating the attitudes, beliefs, and values of ordinary arab citizens. the world values survey (wvs) constitutes one of the most extensive survey instruments, investigating citizens’ political attitudes toward government, democracy, and policy preferences in more than 50 countries in its sixth wave. the fourth and fifth waves of the survey included six arab countries: algeria, egypt, iraq, jordan, morocco, and saudi arabia. the survey questionnaire generally asks arab respondents questions regarding numerous political factors such as the role of religion in the state. further, it investigates attitudes toward emerging post-materialist political issues, including the role of women in politics and society, homosexual rights, and environmentalism since the wvs more generally solicits public opinion on issues more relevant to western politics (moreno, 1999). to make the instrument better suited for arab countries, the principal investigators of the wvs consulted with regional experts to add more relevant items in the questionnaires administered in the arab world (tessler & jamal, 2006). prompted by “the profound gap in understanding between the united states and the arab world that had become so painfully apparent following september 11, 2001”, the arab thought foundation in collaboration with zogby international launched a public opinion survey project in the arab world (zogby & foundation, 2002). the project covered seven arab countries: egypt, jordan, kuwait, lebanon, morocco, saudi arabia, and the united arab emirates. the survey instrument contains items investigating arab citizens’ attitudes, values, and beliefs regarding government and international affairs. the survey heavily focuses on arab attitudes toward american foreign policy, culture, and the west in general (lynch, 2013). the anwar sadat center at the university of maryland directed by professor shibley telhami in collaboration with zogby international survey research enterprise has conducted annual arab public opinion surveys since 2003. the project covers six countries in the arab world and investigates attitudes regarding government international affairs, american foreign policy, identity, and media (telhami, 2006). he notes that other surveys, including the arab barometer, are more comprehensive when covering political attitudes of ordinary arab men and women on domestic affairs (including the economy, institutional performance, and trust in political institutions). in addition to the annual polls, the worldpublicopinion.org project through the program on international policy attitudes has conducted several surveys across the middle east between 2005–2015 at the university of maryland. the information collected through such surveys were conducted with close collaboration of the staff working on the annual polls and producing similar information. other arab surveys have been conducted by the center for strategic studies at the university of jordan, who conducts regular public opinion surveys on the national and regional level arab attitudes toward the us and the west in addition to general demographic surveys. the arab center for research and policy studies, stationed in doha, qatar, has launched the public opinion index in the arab world, attempting https://changing-sp.com/ 166 malek abduljaber to investigate arab citizens’ attitudes in the aftermath of the arab spring. the arab opinion index investigates ordinary arab men and womens’ attitudes toward a wide range of issues such as general life satisfaction, economic, social, personal and national security, and satisfaction. moreover, they include questions regarding democracy, confidence on political institutions, and economic accountability. the center published a report documenting its findings for the 2011 wave. unfortunately, the data is not available for public use and analysis. the survey chosen for use in this research, the arab barometer, was selected because it is one of the most comprehensive survey research projects investigating the values, beliefs, and attitudes of ordinary arab men and women in a number of countries throughout the arab world. initially, the project started with a cross-national and collaborative research effort in six arab countries: algeria, jordan, lebanon, morocco, palestine, and yemen (tessler & jamal, 2006). soon, the project expanded, following its partnership with the arab reform initiative, to include five more countries. the objective of the arab barometer is to “produce scientifically reliable data on the politically-relevant attitudes of ordinary citizens, to disseminate and apply survey findings in order to contribute to political reform, and to strengthen institutional capacity for public opinion research” (tessler, 2011, p. 13; tessler, jamal, & robbins, 2012). the survey instrument was developed in consultation with other regional democracy barometers, collectively known as the global barometer. the arab barometer has conducted four waves in the arab world. the first took place in 2006–2007 in algeria, jordan, lebanon, morocco, palestine, kuwait, and yemen. after the expansion the second wave of the arab barometer took place in 2010-11 in algeria, egypt, iraq, jordan, lebanon, morocco, palestine, saudi arabia, sudan, tunisia, and yemen. the third wave of the arab barometer took place between 2012 and 2014, surveying algeria, egypt, iraq, jordan, kuwait, lebanon, libya, morocco, palestine, sudan, tunisia, and yemen. the fourth wave of the survey was conducted in seven arab nations: algeria, egypt, jordan, lebanon, morocco, palestine, tunisia, and yemen between 2016 and 2017. in addition to the aforementioned surveys, the pew research center and gallup have conducted several polls across the middle east and the islamic world. those surveys included several topics, including public opinions on international affairs, islam and politics, and relations with the united states and the west. despite the burgeoning nature of public opinion research in the middle east over the past two decades, many of the aforementioned surveys are difficult to obtain by analysts of middle eastern affairs given the arduous procedures put in place to obtaining the data from the original publishers. further, all such available surveys on middle eastern affairs are cross-sectional, making it difficult on researchers to conduct analysis of value changes over time in the region. more importantly, public opinion research in the form of surveys in the middle east is seldom available before the 1990s. this complicates the picture for anyone attempting to understand the underlying causes for public opinion change over the past half century in the region. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 161–182 167 public opinion change modernization theorists have suggested that economic development leads to systematic values change in societies (aratz, 1988). this thesis stems from the realization that increased rates of education across all levels, rising levels of industrialization, urbanization and division of labor, as well as the dismantling of traditional gender roles generates tangible social, political, and cultural changes that lead to shifts in public opinion. this transformation of attitudes is culminated in moving away from absolutist, traditional, and patriarchal norms, ideals, and beliefs to more relative, tolerant, and egalitarian views of the self, society, political order, and culture. while this prescription is said to be probabilistic rather than deterministic, modernization theory still holds that improvements in income, education, institutionalization, technological advancement, empowerment of females, and greater levels of industrialization, urbanization and population densities are associated with predictable political and cultural changes across societies (marsh, 2014; bordoloi & doss, 2017). at the core of modernization theory lays its basic principle: the replacement of traditional values with a set of modern values due to significant changes in the economy and society at a given time and place. lerner (1958), weiner (1966), tipps (1973), arat (1988), marsh (2014), and bordoloi and doss (2017) suggested that the lack of economic development, persistence of traditional cultural traits, existence of traditional institutions have led to the underdevelopment of many developing nations. such perspectives viewed western modes of capitalism as an inevitable way of achieving modernity; therefore, developing countries should reject their traditional systems and replace them with modern economic, social and cultural institutions if they desired to modernize. increased economic, cultural, and military development, as it occurred in western nations, was observed as the causal processes leading to modernization. this paradigm has undergone great criticism due to its victimization logic. it viewed underdeveloped countries as active agents that reject modern values and institutions, therefore suffering from underdevelopment (marsh, 2014). many social scientists have declared modernization as a moot model for cultural change since it neglects the significant influence of external forces such as colonialism, neo-colonialism, globalization, world hegemony and other forms of state international dominance (weiner, 1966; lerner, 1958). many political scientists viewed underdevelopment as an outcome of hegemonic influence exercised by world powers limiting the economic development of the developing world. this rejectionist view of modernization believed that the only way leading to the fulfilment of economic development is the liberation of the developing world economies from the developed world restraints (bordoloi & doss, 2017). despite the great criticisms levelled against modernization theory, its central claim that economic development generates predictable cultural, social, and political values changes still enjoys theoretical and empirical popularity across the social and behavioral sciences (marsh, 2014). cross-national studies indicate that economic development pushes societal change in a relatively unified prescribed manner. economic development is associated with increases in industrialization, https://changing-sp.com/ 168 malek abduljaber labor specialization, greater educational attainment and rising incomes. such structural changes lead to predictable cultural shifts, more tolerant views towards out-groups, more favorable views for gender equality, more challenge to religion and authority, greater political activism and more literate citizenry (aratz, 1988). more recent understandings of modernization theory propose that the shift from industrialization into post-industrialization marked with the movement of occupations from factories into the service sector has influenced cultural values change (marsh, 2014). this change from absolutist perceptions (concern for physical and spiritual survival, and emphasizes issues of religion, law, order, and economy) to postmaterialist values (concern for the environment, diversity, gender equality, etc., while emphasizing individual autonomy, relative perceptions, and lifestyles) is associated with the movement from industrialization to post-industrialization (bordoloi & doss, 2017). modern conceptions of modernization theory suggest that cultural changes due to economic development occur at two junctures. first, the move from agrarian to industrialized economies is associated with cultural shifts emphasizing issues of economic growth, law and order, and religion and state. second, the replacement of industrial complexes with the service sector moves the emphasis toward a new set of cultural issues: individual expression, autonomy, lifestyles, environment, and gender equality (aratz, 1988; marsh, 2014). the underlying mechanism by which modernization leads individuals to change their cultural values lies in the nature of the relationship between humans and their immediate environments (tipps, 1973). in pre-industrial societies, individuals grapple with nature directly and have minimal control over natural forces. this leads them into emphasizing the role of the divine, god, and family, since they spend most of their time interacting or thinking about such elements. once societies become industrialized, humans control of their environments and nature increases with technological advancement and rational choices. the relationship between them, god, nature, and the family dwindles due to an increase in their secular interpretation of their worlds and the relationships governing such interactions (weiner, 1966). in post-industrial societies, humans have more control over nature and deal less with machinery and production. they spend more time communicating with each other, processing information, and becoming better at making decisions, using technology to improve their lives, and spending more time socializing in the workplace, as well as outside of the workplace. this makes humans value themselves, the quality of their lifestyles, their immediate environments, sustainability of their livelihoods, and the well-being of themselves and their loved ones increasingly. individuals, therefore, move further away from materialist and spiritual perceptions and into self-driven concerns (lerner, 1958). globalization many social scientists have argued that social transformation processes, such as globalization, lead to predictable shifts in cultural values. while less developed across the behavioral and social science literatures, globalization is said to bring about tangible changes in societies and to lead citizens to abandon, espouse, or changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 161–182 169 modify existing or new preferences (inglehart & welzel, 2004). globalization gives rise to new forms of disparities, competition, and opposition. citizens around the world perceive such realities in terms of either victories or losses depending on their economic, social, and cultural positions within their own environments. globalization leads to the political articulation of such new forms of inequalities by formal political institutions such as parties, governments, or non-governmental actors. the evolution of citizens’ perceptions is largely informed by the new realities caused by the increase of economic, social, and cultural integration (hudson, 1995; inglehart & welzel, 2004). globalization hurts individuals and groups who are protected by nationalization and protectionist policies (tipps, 1973; gause 2011). the decrease of states’ controls over segments of their economy, society, and culture poses imminent threats to the social status and security of those enjoying the benefits of the state control. in other words, the economic, social, and cultural viability of such groups are increasingly jeopardized as globalization increases (gause, 2011). on the contrary, globalization creates opportunities for new individuals and groups whose lives are enriched due to the increase in market integrations, migration, and multiculturalism (malik & awadallah, 2013). to determine whether an individual or group is a winner or loser in globalization, the amount of exit options an individual or group possesses must be assessed. the more options available to an individual or group, the better chances they have of rendering themselves winners in the process. on the one hand, the more options one has the more socially mobile he or she becomes. converting possessed economic, human, and social capital into resources allows the individual to mitigate the negative externalities brought by globalization and places the demarcation line between the winners and losers in the process (marsh, 2014). globalization has led to structural changes in at least three discernable ways. first, globalization has resulted in an increase in economic deregulation which has led to the erosion of sheltered sectors of the economy. this change has initiated the emergence of a labor force cleavage between those advocating for lowering production costs by the slashing of employee benefits or outsourcing jobs and those who favor stateimposed protectionist economic securities that guarantee higher wages for workers in sheltered industries (malik & awadallah, 2013; aratz, 1988). second, globalization has resulted in a significant increase in human migration across countries. while many describe this movement by referencing only migration from the east to the west, recent developments across the world have led to massive waves of internal displacement within regions (such as the middle east’s refugee crises and the movement of large numbers of people within the eastern hemisphere) (lerner, 1958; bayat, 2013; acemoglu, hassan, & tahoun, 2017). many individuals feel culturally threatened by the large influx of immigrants into their own communities. this has resulted in a new global cleavage between proponents of multiculturalism and advocates for assimilation (stoll, 2004; tipps, 1973; kitschelt, 1997). third, globalization leads to the formation of new political alliances, arrangements, and competitions. many actors emerge as winners or losers depending on the amount of social status, prestige, resources, and leverage gained or lost due to such developments. individuals are likely to develop, modify, https://changing-sp.com/ 170 malek abduljaber and abandon preferences on many issues due to globalization (harik, 1987; jackman, 1998; stoll, 2004; tessler, 2003). data and methods the data sources for this research come from the first and fourth waves of the arab barometer, as well as the fourth and sixth waves of the world values survey. notice that data included in the analysis only covers the nations that were surveyed in both waves in order to maximize the comparative scope of the research. the arab barometer waves included data on five arab nations: algeria, jordan, lebanon, morocco, and palestine. both waves were conducted by arab researchers partnering with university of michigan and princeton university researchers in the united states. note that the interviews were held face-to-face with respondents and in arabic unless specified otherwise, as was the case of a few algerian citizens who preferred french. both waves were based on nationally representative samples prepared by the country’s partners in the arab barometer project. according to the methodological notes of the survey, the population of subjects included citizens of 18 years of age and above in all surveyed countries. this includes the entire population living in the surveyed countries, including urban and rural areas. clearly, this population does not include any inaccessible subjects such as those hospitalized, imprisoned, or on active duty. the sampling design followed by the researchers was a stratified multi-stage cluster sampling technique for each country. government or state was the most important stratifications so as to ensure geographic representation of populations living across each country. individuals who conducted the face-to-face interviews undertook rigorous training and were tested before their release to the field in order to ensure higher response rates and reliable answers. the world values surveys started to cover arab nations in the fourth wave, 1999–2004, by surveying algeria, morocco, jordan, iraq, egypt, and saudi arabia. the most recently available wave of surveys, the sixth, included data on algeria, egypt, jordan, morocco, and iraq. more nations were included in the two surveys; however, since earlier rounds did not include such nations. as discussed previously, data from such included nations is not available for the 1970s or 80s, thus limiting the availability of a sufficient time difference for detecting significant changes in values. notice that all items used in the analysis were the same for the two waves in each survey so as to reduce variability in responses and maximize the ability to generate comparable findings. this study utilizes a variety of numerical and graphical descriptive statistics tools for describing political attitudes in the arab world. frequencies, bar graphs, line charts, measures of central tendency, and variation are utilized to better explore ordinary citizens’ political attitudes in the region. comparisons of similar items, from the first wave of the arab barometer to the items from the fourth wave of the survey, are presented to detect any discernable changes. the use of such techniques is informed by the overall exploratory research design objective for this analysis. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 161–182 171 results the arab world has become more globalized today than ever before. kof index of globalization scores, a general metric of the extent to which nation-states are globalized, have steadily increased in algeria, egypt, jordan, lebanon, morocco, and tunisia over the past half century as indicated in figures 1 to 6. between 1970 and 2014, the kof scores have almost doubled in most arab countries, indicating more economic, social, and political integration into the world. arab nationstates have less economic restrictions on the flow of goods, services, and capital today compared to a few decades ago. they have increased their capabilities of collecting and sharing data on economic flows and have established many bodies to encourage, facilitate, and promote economic cooperation both regionally as well as internationally. cultural and social data collection efforts have also significantly increased and improved, thereby allowing governments and interested stakeholders to better assess the degree of cultural proximity, as well as personal contact, across the region and with the rest of the world. all in all, the arab world is more globalized than ever. 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 9 7 0 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 2 1 9 7 3 1 9 7 4 1 9 7 5 1 9 7 6 1 9 7 7 1 9 7 8 1 9 7 9 1 9 8 0 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 2 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 4 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 8 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 figure 1. kof index of globalization scores for algeria 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 9 7 0 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 2 1 9 7 3 1 9 7 4 1 9 7 5 1 9 7 6 1 9 7 7 1 9 7 8 1 9 7 9 1 9 8 0 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 2 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 4 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 8 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 figure 2. kof index of globalization scores for egypt https://changing-sp.com/ 172 malek abduljaber 80 70 60 50 30 40 20 10 0 1 9 7 0 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 2 1 9 7 3 1 9 7 4 1 9 7 5 1 9 7 6 1 9 7 7 1 9 7 8 1 9 7 9 1 9 8 0 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 2 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 4 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 8 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 figure 3. kof index of globalization scores for jordan 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 9 7 0 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 2 1 9 7 3 1 9 7 4 1 9 7 5 1 9 7 6 1 9 7 7 1 9 7 8 1 9 7 9 1 9 8 0 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 2 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 4 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 8 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 figure 4. kof index of globalization scores for lebanon 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 9 7 0 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 2 1 9 7 3 1 9 7 4 1 9 7 5 1 9 7 6 1 9 7 7 1 9 7 8 1 9 7 9 1 9 8 0 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 2 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 4 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 8 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 figure 5. kof index of globalization scores for morocco 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1 9 7 0 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 2 1 9 7 3 1 9 7 4 1 9 7 5 1 9 7 6 1 9 7 7 1 9 7 8 1 9 7 9 1 9 8 0 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 2 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 4 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 8 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 0 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 4 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 6 1 9 9 7 1 9 9 8 1 9 9 9 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 3 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 5 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 8 2 0 0 9 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 figure 6. kof index of globalization scores for tunisia changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 161–182 173 the arab world has also become more modernized than ever before. all arab countries generate higher gross domestic products (gdps) than they have previously been capable of in their short histories. while the contribution of agriculture to their economies is dwindling, the service sector has simultaneously been the single most productive sector of economic activity across many countries in the region. figure 7 shows the gdp in current $us for a selection of arab states (saudi arabia, the united arab emirates, bahrain, egypt, algeria, tunisia, morocco, jordan, lebanon, syria, and iraq). gdp across the region has increased significantly over the past half century. for instance, the gdp of saudi arabia arose almost three-fold between 2000 and 2014, rising from about $189 to $755 billion. similarly, jordan’s gdp rose from less than $10 billion in 2000 to about $30 billion in 2015. this increase in gdp is indicative of broader economic growth across the region, where more services, products, and business are being generated in such countries compared to a few decades ago. figure 8 represents the percentage of gdp derived from agricultural based value-added activity in the arab world. virtually, across all arab states, the percentage of agriculture-based economic contribution to the total gdp has decreased in the past few decades. this indicates that governments and people across the arab world are moving away from agriculture to industrial and service oriented economies. figure 9 indicates the percentage of gdp derived from service-based economic activity in the arab world. it demonstrates that lebanon, jordan, morocco, and tunisia rely heavily on the service sector with more than 60%. while it has increased at a slower pace, however, it has been steady in contributing to the oil rich economies of saudi arabia, the united arab emirates, and other gulf cooperation council member states. 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 saudi arabia unitad arab emirates arab republic of egypt iraq b ill io n jordan lebanon syrian republic algeria morocco tunisia bahrain figure 7. gdp in $us for saudi arabia, the uae, bahrain, egypt, algeria, tunisia, morocco, jordan, lebanon, syria, and iraq https://changing-sp.com/ 174 malek abduljaber 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 syrian arab republic morocco algeria % arab republic of egypt jordan lebanon saudi arabia unitad arab emirates figure 8. percentage of gdp from agricultural based value-added activity in the arab world 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 0 lebanon jordan bahrain % morocco syrian arab republic algeria arab republic of egypt saudi arabia figure 9. percentage of gdp from service-based economic activity in the arab world changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 161–182 175 the arab world has undergone major strides in fulfilling the promise of gender equality. while realizing the objective of gender equity has not been fully achieved and great barriers to accomplishing this noble normative state of affairs still exists, evidence points to a positive outlook for females today in the arab world. in all arab countries virtually all of the gender inequality index scores have decreased over the past half century as indicated by table 1. further, female participation in the labor force across the arab world is increasing at a steady pace. conservative gulf cooperation council states, such as saudi arabia and the united arab emirates, are leading the way in the region by putting more females behind desks, in government posts, and decision making pathways throughout various industries. females are also gaining university degrees at a faster rate than ever before across the region, subsequently becoming more active politically, socially, and culturally. today, the arab world has witnessed a qualitative change in gender equity, thus making noticeably positive strides toward gender egalitarianism. table 1 gender inequality index scores for algeria, iraq, egypt, morocco, jordan, saudi arabia country 1995 2005 2015 algeria .680 .561 .429 iraq .658 .536 .525 egypt .665 .581 – morocco .713 .580 .494 saudi arabia – .672 .257 values change in the arab world religiosity table 2 represents agreement levels of jordanian, palestinian, moroccan, lebanese, and algerian samples with the extent to which religious figures influence politics. results indicate that, across the board, arab citizens favor less religious interference with politics in the five nations. noticeable drops in agreement regarding the influence of religious leaders are observed in jordan, palestine, algeria, and morocco. lebanon seems to be stable with regard to its citizens’ perceptions of religion and politics. lebanese citizens favor less islam and christianity in their political arrangements favoring a more secular form of government. table 2 to what extent do you agree or strongly agree with the following statements? country year 2006 2016 religious people hold public office, % men of religion should influence politics, % religious people hold public office, % men of religion should influence politics, % jordan 44 34 43 31 palestine 59 45 45 40 lebanon 12 13 16 15 algeria 45 40 40 40 morocco 66 41 39 23 https://changing-sp.com/ 176 malek abduljaber figure 10 displays the percentage of ordinary citizens in lebanon, morocco, algeria, jordan, and palestine who self-identified with religion or ethnicity (arab or muslims for most respondents) in 2006 and 2016. results indicate a significant decrease in identifying as an arab or muslim in the decade separating the two surveys. about 70% to 80% of algerians, jordanians, and palestinians identified as arab or muslim in 2006, whereas only 30% to 45% of the same populations identified themselves with either a religion or ethnicity in 2016. by the same token, the moroccan sample exhibited a steady decrease in identification with religion or ethnicity from about 60% to 30%. lebanon seems to reflect a steady state where most of the population identify themselves as lebanese as opposed to muslim, christian or arab. all in all, self-identification with islam and arabism in the region decreased significantly over the past decade. lebanon morocco algeria palestine jordan c o u n tr y percentage of muslim and arab 0 20 40 60 80 figure 10. percentage who self-identified with religion or ethnicity in 2006 palestine morocco lebanon jordan algeria c o u n tr y percentage of muslim and arab 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 figure 11. percentage who self-identified with religion or ethnicity in 2016 trust table 3 displays ordinary arab citizens trust levels in their courts and police services in 2006 and 2016. trust in the courts has dramatically decreased in all five countries. for instance, in lebanon 45% of respondents in 2006 reported no trust at all or not very much trust in courts while 91% of the country’s sample reported the same answers in 2016. lebanon, algeria and palestine witnessed a significant decrease in trust in police services in those nations while jordan and morocco scored a moderate rise of trust in police services in the past decade. judging from this exclusionary look at arab citizens’ trust levels in their political institutions, one can changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 161–182 177 infer that, generally, arab citizens have lower levels of trust in their institutions today compared to a decade ago. table 3 percentages of no trust at all and not very much trust in courts and police country year 2006 2016 courts, % police, % courts, % police, % algeria 56 46 68 51 lebanon 45 38 91 51 jordan 17 9 46 5 palestine 38 40 64 53 morocco 58 50 56 31 tolerance figure 12 displays arab citizens’ perceptions towards ordinary american citizens. respondents were asked despite the negative consequences of american foreign policy in the region, do they believe that most americans are good people. results indicate that arab citizens’ image of american people improved significantly in the past decade. large percentage increases in jordan, palestine, and algeria have been observed since 2006, suggesting that more arabs believe that most americans are good people regardless of the country’s active policy in the region. lebanese citizens appear to have a stable view of americans, a favorable outlook exhibited in the large percentage agreeing with the statement that “americans are good people”. moroccans seem to have a favorable view towards americans exhibited by the large percentage, over 60%, which indicates their favorable attitude toward americans. lebanon algeria palestine jordan c o u n tr y most americans are good people 0 20 40 60 80 figure 12. arab citizens’ perceptions towards ordinary american citizens, 2006 palestine morocco lebanon jordan algeria c o u n tr y most americans are good people 0 20 40 60 80 figure 13. arab citizens’ perceptions towards ordinary american citizens, 2016 https://changing-sp.com/ 178 malek abduljaber on palestine, arab citizens today seem to be favorable towards a two-state solution for the ongoing conflict more so now than in the past. the arab barometer asked arab citizens whether arab states should accept israel as a jewish state in the middle east in 2006, and opposition to the idea was high in all surveyed nations. asked a similar question a decade later, arabs seem to be less opposed to the establishment of israel as a jewish state in the heart of the arab world. arabs seem to be in favor of more friendly relations toward israel than ever before in history. notice how egyptians, moroccans, and palestinians are almost divided on whether a two-state solution is an appropriate end to the conflict today whereas none of the arab polities seemed divided on this question in 2006. further, the number of people in each surveyed country who hold more favorable views towards brokering peace with israel through the acceptance of the jewish state or by installing two states, israel being one of them, increased across the board. jordan palestine algeria morocco 1,000 800 600 400 200 0 yes no c o u n t lebanon yemen bahrain figure 14. should arab countries accept israel, 2006 algeria egypt jordan lebanon 1,200 1,000 800 600 400 200 0 support oppose c o u n t morocco palestine tunisia figure 15. should arab countries accept israel, 2016 discussion and conclusions this research investigated whether social transformation processes such as modernization and globalization generate value shifts among ordinary citizens in the arab world. survey research evidence form the world values surveys and the arab barometer clearly indicate a discernable change in arabs’ political, social, and cultural perceptions from more conservative worldviews to more liberal preference schedules. arabs today are more liberal than they have ever been. while this research established the observational narrative of values change, using various indicators, the underlying mechanisms linking social transformation changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 161–182 179 processes and values shift are still unclear. it has been argued here that the environment surrounding the current generations qualitatively differs from that existing during previous generations. today the k-12 education system, working conditions, family relationships, and social interactions are not the same as those found in the arab world during say the 1970s. modernization and globalization have provided individuals with a higher selection of options, lifestyles, and choices at most levels and stages. further, people have been exposed to idiosyncratic, eclectic, and peculiar styles, tastes, ways of doing things, and lifestyles in general thus making them more tolerant. people today are increasingly aware of ethnic, religious, and national differences more now than ever, creating an active sense of acceptance and toleration for many around the region. political scientists have conceptualized liberalism and conservatism, or left versus right, to refer to the struggle between challenging the status quo and openness to change (liberalism or left) and supporting the status quo and resisting change (conservatism or right). this means that challenging forces of power in society such as religion and traditional values and extending tolerance towards others (such as those who are foreign in cultural mores) represent attributes of liberalism. for the twentieth century, islam, antagonism towards the west and israel, and vehement pride in local traditions have defined societies in the middle east and north africa, making them indicators of conservative values since such forces have defined the political, cultural, and social arrangements of the region for centuries. the evidence purported by this study clearly establishes that arabs are becoming less religious, more tolerant to foreigners (especially western citizens), and are more prone to peace-making with israel. such shifts in attitudes lead one to conclude that arabs are more liberal than they have ever been (conover & feldman, 1981; choma et al., 2012; jahn, 2011). one of the noteworthy shifts in the public opinion of arabs is their increased tolerance toward gender equity (kostenko, kuzmuchev, & ponarin, 2016). while structural economic indicators of female participation in the workforce, female’s attainment of higher education, and female political empowerment in the arab world point to significant improvements, individual-level attitudes toward gender participation in social, political, and cultural avenues are supportive of the structural changes (inglehart, 2017). arabs are more likely to vote for a female candidate than they have ever been previously. they are also more likely to approve of a new female chief executive officer for a public or private enterprise. such changes clearly mark a departure from status quo traditions (where females belong in the household) to a more liberal understanding of the role women can play in society (where she can achieve the economic, social, and cultural benefits of socialization similar to men) (metcalfe, 2008). this markedly underscores a shift in attitudes at the structural and individual levels, making the arab world more liberal today. this study carries many implications. first, it shatters current arguments supporting the suggestion that arabs are more conservative than they have ever been before. second, it opens new horizons for the systematic investigation of public opinion shifts in the region among researchers. third, this research confirms earlier findings from different regions, thus supporting the claim that modernization leads to values changes among the mass public. https://changing-sp.com/ 180 malek abduljaber to establish a more robust link between social transformation processes and values changes, archival data or retrospective research can help identify a multitude of attitudes in the arab world during different epochs across the past century. this data can assist in detecting the differences in values in a fashion comparable to existing research on western europe and north america. notice that this research is limited in its ability to recover comparable data on a larger set of items to establish robust comparisons between attitudes across the region. future research should utilize exploratory and confirmatory statistical techniques that could generate the dimensionality of values systems in the arab world at different temporal periods. this exercise allows researchers to detect the overall direction and magnitude of shifts in a more precise manner compared to simply identifying the shifts using many survey items as this research has done. dimensional analysis can inform researchers about the type and structuration of value systems and whether such patterns have changed over time. references 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(2002). what arabs think: values, beliefs and concerns. washington, dc: zogby international. acknowledgements i would like to thank mr. c., the chief editor at lighthouse academic services, llc, for his meticulous editorial work. this research would have not been completed without such precious help from him. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.11645653.0001.101 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.11645653.0001.101 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 405–421 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.3.142 received 11 june 2021 © 2021 irina m. kyshtymova, lidia v. matveeva, accepted 8 september 2021 anastasia a. deineko published online 11 october 2021 info@creativity.ru matweewa-com@yandex.ru vasilenko-nastia2011.1996irk@yandex.ru article cartoon image of the mother, its perception by elementary school students and correction in the process of media education irina m. kyshtymova irkutsk state university, irkutsk, russia lidia v. matveeva moscow state university, moscow, russia anastasia a. deineko irkutsk state university, irkutsk, russia abstract this article presents a psychological study of the mother image projected in cartoons and its perception by elementary school students. the research provides evidence for the importance of an integral approach to the analysis of media texts addressed to children, as well as for the necessity of considering their narrative, verbal, and descriptive components. a psychological analysis was conducted on the material of three cartoons: “chunya” (ussr), “barboskiny” [the barkers] (russia), and “peppa pig” (uk). hypotheses were formulated about the potential influence of the cartoons on the younger audience. 70 elementary school students ( χ = 9.5 years old) took part in the study. the research was conducted using the method of semantic differential; the data obtained were processed using factor analysis. the results show that the categorization of images follows the factors of “education”, “love”, “patience”, and “respect”. differences in the semantic assessment of the cartoons under study are presented. children perceive the events taking place in a cartoon directly, without reflection. artistic mediation—polysemy, metaphors, and the category of the comic—does not evoke an aesthetic reaction in children, as assumed by the authors. it was found that the semantic assessment of the word “mother” by elementary school students did not agree https://changing-sp.com/ 406 irina m. kyshtymova, lidia v. matveeva, anastasia a. deineko introduction media communications today penetrate all areas of human life. children are involuntary but active consumers of media content. since the modern living space is filled with various media forms, children are forced to listen and watch commercials, news programs, talk shows, and other information addressed to adults. in addition, children make up the target audience of children’s content—first of all, cartoons, which they start watching from a very young age. the increasing involvement of a modern child in media consumption makes the research into the psychological effects of media products on children highly important. effective algorithms for the psychological analysis of media content should be developed to investigate the role of media content in the formation of a child’s personality and their attitude toward significant others. thus, the image of the mother (as the most significant other) projected through cartoons should become the subject of psychological analysis. today, the attitude toward the mother, which will further determine all aspects of a person’s mental life, is formed not only via direct motherchild communication, but is also mediated by media narratives. this fact determined the aim of our research: to conduct a psychological analysis of cartoons displaying different images of the mother in order to theoretically substantiate and empirically test their influence on the perception of the mother by younger schoolchildren. research into the impact of television media products on consumers is becoming increasingly active. the results show that the possibilities of influencing children through cartoons are endless—they can provoke aggression, affect the intellectual and emotional spheres of their psyche (luo & kim, 2020). researchers note both negative and positive psychological consequences of media communications. when verifying the hypothesis that marginalization of certain groups of the population in children’s minds occurs due to the stereotypes broadcast in the media (rovner-lev & elias, 2020), the authors revealed that the images of older people, especially women, are extremely negative: they are weird, mean, and socially devalued. it was concluded that such images prevent the formation of a respectful with the traditional cultural status of a mother. thus, the respondents ranked such indicators as “understanding” and “prestige” at a low level. a developmental experiment was conducted to correct the mother image as perceived by elementary school students. during the experimental program (8 lessons in total), the schoolchildren watched and discussed the cartoons together with a psychologist. at the end of the experiment, the semantic assessment of the verbal stimulus “mom” by the respondents showed a statistically significantly increase (р ≤ 0.05) in the indicators of “understanding” and “prestige”. keywords cartoon, mother image, elementary school students, psychological analysis, narrative, semantic assessment, harmonic center changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 405–421 407 attitude toward the elderly. zurcher and robinson also confirmed a growing number of negative stereotypes about older people (zurcher & robinson, 2018). children are the most vulnerable group of media content consumers. a film character might become a significant other for the child, thereby influencing their view of the world: “a digital image [...] fills the inner world and becomes a condition for perception, a censor of the acceptable and unacceptable”1 (savchuk, 2014, p. 205). this is a rationale for analyzing the negative impact of cartoons with characters implementing destructive patterns of behavior on the screen; on the other hand, that implies that “good” cartoons can be used for educational purposes (attard & cremona, 2021). güneş et al. differentiated cartoons into useful, harmful, and neutral; children, who watch harmful films, can be characterized by emotional and behavioral problems, attention deficit and communication difficulties (güneş et al., 2020). the use cartoons for children’s development and correction of their behavior is currently attracting much research attention. thus, zhang et al., when studying the possibility of reducing the aggressiveness of preschoolers by watching cartoons, showed that cartoons demonstrating models of prosocial behavior reduce the manifestations of aggression in children’s behavior (zhang et al., 2020). assuming that a character’s behavior displayed in a cartoon is exemplary and motivating for children, maria esther del moral pérez and nerea lópez-bouzas assumed that cartoons with disabled characters are useful in forming a good attitude toward disabled people (del moral pérez & lópez-bouzas, 2021). the power of cartoons consists in reducing not only anxiety, but also physical pain during phlebotomy (i̇nangil et al., 2020). cartoons based on fairy tales are considered as a means for developing health-preserving competence in children with disabilities (kazachiner & tkachenko, 2020). in the same (educational) context, researchers propose using cartoons to form children’s healthy eating habits (hémar-nikolas et al., 2021). although the impact of media communication on children’s development is attracting wide research interest, the current literature lacks both effective algorithms for the psychological analysis of media products addressed to children and publications describing the mechanisms through which media narratives affect viewers. in addition, to the best of our knowledge, there are no correctional programs developed based on analytical work with media content. our research aims to fill this gap. we studied the correlation between a child’s perception of the mother image depending on its presentation in different cartoons. mother is the most important mediator in children’s development. however, psychologists, when studying the dependence of a child’s formation on the style of maternal communication, her age, attitude to pregnancy, and education, pay little attention to the appearance of a virtual, media-mediated image of the mother in a child’s world. at the same time, researchers state that traditional cultural models of motherhood have changed due to the media. jo littler found that the mother image in modern films conveys unproductive behavior condemned in traditional society, including an endless entertainment and a chaotic 1 hereinafter, all the quotes in english are translated by the authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 408 irina m. kyshtymova, lidia v. matveeva, anastasia a. deineko living style, which is more consistent with the behavioral model of adults with no children. the researcher believes that such a mutation of the mother image results from the neoliberal crisis, reflected in the value attitudes of the content producers (littler, 2019). oksana v. kazachenko and elena a. kartushina noted that modern cartoons frequently display fathers implementing maternal behavior, which indicates the value transformation of the traditional maternal image (kazachenko & kartushina, 2018). based on an analysis of contemporary feature films, tatyana l. shishova distinguished a number of nontraditional and negative images of the mother: “mother as a hysterical woman”, “foolish mother”, “killer-mother”, “debauchery mother” (shishova, n.d.). vladimir halilov also noted a trend toward transformation of the traditionally creative image of the mother in media products, evidencing destruction of the traditional family model in hollywood media products. using the cartoon “the incredibles” as an example, he shows the transformation of family relations and the reorientation toward parental self-realization attitudes outside the family (halilov, 2019). the deep archetypal meaning of the mother image is revealed by сarl jung, who sees it as part of the collective unconscious. according to him, these images are the “patterns of functioning”, which result in a child’s behavior (jung, 1969, р. 87). the qualities associated with the mother archetype “are maternal solicitude and sympathy; the magic authority of the female; the wisdom and spiritual exaltation [...]; all that is benign, all that cherishes and sustains, that fosters growth and fertility” (jung, 1969, р. 90). maternal influence, according to jung, is determined by her archetype, projected onto a real mother. at the same time, we believe that children’s fantasies about the mother, which form their attitude and behavior, can be determined by the following assumption: these fantasies “may not always be rooted in the unconscious archetype but may have been occasioned by fairytales or accidental remarks” (jung, 1969, р. 91). such “remarks” undoubtedly include children’s viewing experience and their encounters with the mother image on the screen. in this study, we examine the impact of the cartoon image of the mother on elementary school students. at the same time, the subject of the study includes cartoons, in which the maternal function is performed by anthropomorphic animals. this selection is determined by the emotional influence of animals’ images on children, which lev s. vygotsky explained by the ability of such images to create isolation from the reality, necessary for an aesthetical impression (vygotsky, 1987, р. 122). contemporary studies show that, when watching cartoons with anthropomorphic animals and objects, children assign human characteristics to them in the reality (li et al., 2019). the cartoon images of animals are organic to children’s perception of the world; a child perceives animals as carriers of typical cultural traits. we hypothetically assume that the media presentation of the mother image determines its perception by elementary school students, and this perception is not reflective. we also believe that cartoons that display a positive maternal image, corresponding to archetypal semantics, can be used to correct the image of the mother in the minds of elementary school students. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 405–421 409 during the research, the following objectives were formulated: (a) to develop an algorithm for psychological analysis of cartoons in order to determine their potential impact on children; (b) to carry out a psychological analysis of cartoons featuring mother images; (c) to analyze the specifics of perception of different cartoon mother images by younger schoolchildren; (d) to determine the correspondence between schoolchildren’s semantic assessment of cartoon mother images and the hypothetically assumed psychological potential of the cartoons; (e) to conduct a developmental experiment aimed at correcting the mother image in the minds of younger schoolchildren. materials and methods using the method of psychological analysis of media text (kyshtymova, 2018), we formed hypotheses on the potential impact of cartoons on viewers. this allowed us to reveal the semantic (meaningful) and syntactic (formal) indices of a media product, which determine specific features of the medium world, into which the viewers get immersed. a psychological analysis of speech statements of cartoon characters was processed using the software tool textanalyzer. the following cartoons containing the image of the mother were used as the evaluated stimuli: “sama nevinnost’ [innocence itself]—episode 48 of “barboskiny” [the barkers]2 (salabay et al, 2012); “mummy pig at work”—episode 7 of “peppa pig” (astley & baker, 2004) and “chunya” (prytkov, 1968). all the cartoons are very popular: the number of views on their youtube3 channels for 2014–2021 was 6,991,683, 1,810,391 and 78,773, respectively. there are 3,970,000 subscribers to the peppa channel in russia. the stimuli were evaluated using the method of semantic differential, which is composed of scales obtained using the method of free associations: “fond of children–not fond of children”; “credible–not credible”; “hardworking–lazy”; “honest– dishonest”, “successful–unsuccessful”, “full of energy–tired”, “charming–attractive”, “rich–poor”, “prestigious–not prestigious”, “friend–foe”, “friendly–hostile”, “kind–evil”, “reliable–unreliable”, “light–dark”, “level-headed–unstable”, “pleasant–unpleasant”, “tolerant–intolerant”, “understanding–not understanding”, “cheerful–sad”, “beloved– hated”, “smart–stupid”, “humble–vain”, “strict–not strict”, “just–unjust”, “modern– old-fashioned”, “educated–uneducated”, “competent–incompetent”, “experienced– inexperienced”, “responsible–irresponsible”, “sociable–unsociable”, “tactful–tactless”, “patient–impatient”, “calm–irritable”, “fashionable–unfashionable”, “cheerful–sad”, “warm–cold”, “heartful–heartless”, “contradictory–logical”, “cultured–uncultured”, “trusting–not trusting”, “changing–consistent”. using a developmental experiment, we aimed to correct the mother image in the minds of elementary school students and form their skills to understand and critically evaluate media content. the experimental program involved, in particular, analytical work with the cartoon “umka” (pekar and popov, 1969), which contains a positive image of the mother. in total, there were eight sessions of 45 minutes each (table 1). 2 also known as “barboskins”, a direct translation of the original russian title “barboskiny”. 3 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 410 irina m. kyshtymova, lidia v. matveeva, anastasia a. deineko table 1 lesson content section 1. my family 1.1. introduction to the topic. my family conversation on the topic “my family”, students’ stories about their family; presentation of pictures about the family, discussion. 1.2. mother is the first word [...] semantic evaluation of the word “mother”. students’ stories about their mothers. 1.3. the mother’s image in cartoons. discussing with the students the images of the family and mother from the cartoons “the barkers”, “peppa pig” and “chunya”. section 2. real mother 2.1. “mothers of all kinds are important” conversation about mother’s images in fiction 2.2. the real mother in cartoons watching the cartoon “umka”, discussing the mother’s image presented in it, highlighting its main characteristics — creating a mother’s portrait. section 3. media education 3.1. i choose a cartoon. discussing the criteria for a “good” cartoon. the fundamentals of the psychological safety concept. 3.2. a useful cartoon! creating a cartoon (drawing) with a mother’s image in small groups and their presentation. 3.3. cartoon and mother semantic evaluation of the word “mother”. coming up with a general plot for a good cartoon. the information obtained was processed using the methods of descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and mann–whitney–wilcoxon nonparametric tests. the study involved 70 elementary school students 9–10 years old (36 girls and 34 boys), who studied at secondary school no. 21 in irkutsk (russia). all parents provided their consent to the study. to implement the experimental part of the research, the students were differentiated into two groups, 35 people each. lessons were held in a classroom having special equipment for watching cartoons and drawing tools. the main form of interaction between a psychologist and schoolchildren was a polylogue. the experimental work was carried out in strict accordance with the ethical standards of the professional activity of a teacher-psychologist. results psychological analysis of the cartoons the first stage of the study involved an immanent psychological analysis (kyshtymova, 2018) of cartoons in order to form hypotheses about their potential impact on children. the cartoon “chunya” presents a story, the main idea of which is expressed by the words of the protagonist’s mother, addressed to him: “it doesn’t matter who you are, what matters is what you are!” anti-stigmatization as the key idea of this cartoon, created in 1968, is especially relevant today, at the time of increasing economic, political, educational, etc. differentiation of all societies. the plot is built according to a traditional fairytale model of travel: the protagonist leaves home and faces encounters, which test and manifest his changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 405–421 411 character. for example, chunya helps a lost chicken and then a hare. he faces a situation of undeserved resentment associated with his “species” affinity to pigs—carriers of the stigma of untidiness. but the protagonist solves all the problems under the guidance of his wise mother. the verbal means of presenting the ideological content of the cartoon correspond to the age characteristics of the target audience. an analysis conducted using textanalyzer showed that, out of 342 words uttered by the cartoon characters, only 98 are non-repetitive. therefore, children’s consciousness is not overloaded with verbal information; the lexical simplicity and laconicism of syntactic constructions allow children to adequately perceive the spoken word. the “harmonious center”, which marks the semantic dominant of the text and is determined according to the law of the “golden section” (kyshtymova, 2008), corresponds to the following statements: “everything in the world, i’m going to learn about everything in the world”; and “i’m not scared, i’m not scared at all”. repetition and music reinforce the value of these positive statements. another formal sign—a tempo-rhythm—also corresponds to the specifics of information processing in terms of age: in 10 minutes of the cartoon’s duration, 25 scenes follow each other, the events on the screen are logical, slow-paced and clear to children. the rhythmic clarity is supported by the melody: a simple and joyful musical intonation complements the visual images of the characters. the cartoon characters are depicted similar to children’s toys, which corresponds to children’s perception. at the same time, the characters (anthropomorphous animals) are the carriers of the following features: faithfulness and kindness, generosity and naiveté, strictness and readiness to help. the semantic load of the mother image as a conduit of moral truth, which the mother transfers to her child with great care and love, constitutes the educational value of the cartoon. the narrative centers around the protagonist leaving the space protected by his mother at home into the outside world, fraught with many surprises. this event entails important consequences for chunya and, of course, the audience of the cartoon, the understanding of the truth of maternal attitudes, the importance of kindness and mutual assistance, acceptance of one’s dissimilarity from others and making friends. it can be assumed that the film will be understood by children and will have a positive impact on their development. the episode “innocence itself” of “the barkers” involves an everyday story about gifts, which the elder children demand from their mom with no success. after some illogical actions (a present for the youngest and the elder children’s pretense act), the main characters receive their gifts, but considerably less valuable. there is no obvious educational idea in this cartoon. our analysis has shown that the temporythm is characterized by an increased dynamicity—in 5.6 minutes, 59 scenes follow, accompanied by color and sonic intensity. such a way of presenting information “exceeds the conscious resources” (pronina, 2003), which makes the official addressing of the cartoon “0+” (restriction “for children under 6 years” established by the legislation of the russian federation) illegitimate. https://changing-sp.com/ 412 irina m. kyshtymova, lidia v. matveeva, anastasia a. deineko the verbal component of the cartoon is characterized by its richness: the total number of non-repeating independent words spoken in the cartoon is 139. since a two-year-old child is considered to have a vocabulary of around 50 words, the official labeling of the film “0+” seems unreasonable. it is interesting that the place of the “harmonic center” of the text (which was calculated twice: from its beginning and from its end) corresponds to the statements of the barkers’ mother: “not getting any new things until school is out”, and “not [...] any new things”. the viewer’s attention is thus unconsciously fixed on a mirrored repeated statement, which (according to the narrative) is false. the mother of the barkers’ exhibits inconsistent behavior. refusing gifts to her children, she gives one for the youngest, which causes jealousy in the eldest and provokes them to cheating. in the end, she still buys presents to the rest of the children. the vagueness of the cause-and-effect relationships of the mother’s behavior expressed in the cartoon complicates the viewers’ understanding of the idea that deception is inadmissible. by punishing the children for cheating with the wrong gift they expected, the mother is cheating them herself. the cartoon centers around an event of violation of the ethical border, which both the barkers’ children and their mother cross. the consequences of this intersection, which have special importance for the viewer, are not obvious in the represented narrative, and sympathy with the main characters is not positive for the development of younger viewers. the events of the cartoon require critical reflection, which children lack at their young age. the episode “mummy pig at work” (“peppa pig” cartoon series) presents an event of children interfering with the work of their mother, crossing her professional space. the consequences for the main characters are positive—everyone is happy. the emotional background of the presented events is emphatically positive in all stages of the on-screen actions, which causes “the contagious effect” and viewers adopting the transmitted models of behavior. this is also facilitated by the use of the “exceeding the conscious resources” technique, which violates the psychological safety of the viewer: 42 scenes follow each other in the 4.8 minutes of the cartoon’s duration. the images of the parents present a model of transformed traditional family roles: daddy pig prepares food and does not make decisions on his own, appealing to his wife’s opinion, while mom works and her decisions are not challenged. at the same time, the cartoon realizes an example of broken communication—the mother is the dominant figure, who does not listen to others. when asked to fix the computer, dad hesitantly utters: “but i’m not very good at such things”. mom’s answer is illogical: “thank you, daddy pig”. the violation of the logic is also manifested in the scene where daddy pig, who is not good at technology and accidentally presses the necessary button, joyfully states: “yes, i am a bit of an expert at these things”. it is important to understand that the category of the comic is not yet accessible to the understanding of children, the on-screen events are perceived as an example of the “correct” reality. an analysis of the verbal component of the media text shows its lexical simplicity: out of 189 words, 145 are repeated. this makes the broadcast information changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 405–421 413 available to children. the “harmonic center” of the text contains the reference “daddy pig, can you mend the computer?” this phrase marks the episode with the transformation of the father’s role function, who, in this situation (a) cannot help; (b) cannot disobey mom; (c) deceives her and himself by saying that he “mended it” and now is “an expert”. the visual presentation of the characters in the cartoon is characterized by convention and graphic disproportionality, which does not correspond to the age characteristics of the target audience. it is despite the fact that the background of the action, reminiscent of a child’s drawing, leads children to trusting the on-screen events. the conducted analysis suggests that the cartoon can have a strong emotional impact on children and provoke unproductive behavior. its formal marking “0+” does not meet the criteria for the psychological safety of children. thus, our psychological analysis of the 3 media texts shows that only the cartoon “chunya” is characterized by developmental potential, while “innocence itself” and “mummy pig at work”, due to their formal and semantic features, can lead to negative mental changes in younger viewers. semantic assessment of the cartoons by elementary school students 70 elementary school students 9–10 years old (36 girls and 34 boys) took part in the study of perception of cartoon mother images. having watched each of the 3 cartoons, the participants evaluated the mother image as projected in these episodes according to the scales of semantic differential. the data obtained were subjected to factor analysis using the method of principal components with varimax rotation. the results generated 4 factors explaining 66.1% of the variable dispersion. the 1st factor, referred to as the “factor of education”, included the following scales: “educated–uneducated” (0.852), “responsible–irresponsible” (0.791), “competent–incompetent” (0.783), “experienced–inexperienced” (0.748), “cultured– uncultured” (0.706), “sociable–unsociable” (0.678). the 2nd “factor of love” constituted the scales “beloved–hated” (0.836), “cheerful–sad” (0.792), “fond of children–not fond of children” (0.751), “understanding–not understanding” (0.625). the 3rd “factor of patience” included the scales “calm–irritable” (0.929), “patient– impatient” (0.853), “tactful–tactless” (0.780). the 4th “factor of respect” involved the scales “prestigious–not prestigious” (0.771) and “friend–foe” (0.766). thus, the cartoons were categorized by younger students on the semantic grounds of “education”, “love”, “patience”, and “respect”. our analysis showed that the research participants perceived the mother in “chunya” as patient (f3 = 0.15) and showing respect for others (f4 = 0.11). at the same time, they saw her as “uneducated” (f1 = −0.07) and not loving enough (f2 = −0.01), compared to mummy pig from “peppa pig” (f1 = 0.04, f2 = 0.01) and mom of the barkers: f1 = 0.03, f2 = 0.01 (fig. 1). obviously, the children’s assessment was mediated by the simplest “external” stereotypes: was being engaged in housework and wearing an apron, chunya’s mother was categorized as “uneducated”, compared to mummy pig who “worked” on a computer. at the same time, more adequate criteria https://changing-sp.com/ 414 irina m. kyshtymova, lidia v. matveeva, anastasia a. deineko for assessing education—literacy, reasoning of speech, and motivation of actions— were not used by children and did not affect their assessment due to the lack of critical thinking at their age. the difference in the semantics of cartoon characters in terms of the “love” factor did not reach the level of statistical significance (p > 0.05), while all the values were small (fig. 1). it can be assumed that the children’s unconscious expectations were not satisfied. the media (virtual) image may generally have a weak potential for realizing the semantics of maternal love, or the artistic level of the media text addressed to children should be very high and take into account the peculiarities of children’s perception. the high semantic assessment of the image of chunya’s mother in terms of “patience” and “respect” shows that (a) younger schoolchildren understand adequately the meanings embedded in the cartoon “chunya”; (b) the fictional world of this media text corresponds to the peculiarities of children’s perception; and (c) this cartoon has a high educational potential. the low estimation of mummy pig in terms of “patience” and “respect”, indicates, on the one hand, the digestibility of the information broadcast by the cartoon “peppa pig” for children (which was hypothetically assumed based on the psychological analysis of the media text) and, on the other, the potential negative impact of this cartoon on a child’s personality due to the negative characteristics attributed to the mother. the data obtained demonstrate that children perceive the events of the media world as real, with their response being mediated emotionally rather than cognitively. metaphors, humor, and semantic ambiguity are not perceived by children and do not facilitate understanding. the children’s assessment of the verbal stimulus “mom” shows a smaller semantic differentiation. the conducted factor analysis revealed two factors— “understanding” and “prestige”—explaining 66.8% of the variable dispersion. figure 1 semantic assessment of the mother images in the cartoons “chunya”, “innocence itself” (the barkers) and “mummy pig at work” (peppa pig) by elementary school students in terms of the“education” (f1), “love” (f2), “patience” (f3), and “respect” (f4) factors –0.10 –0.05 0 0.05 0.10 0.15 f1 f2 f3 f4 chunya the barkers mom pig changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 405–421 415 the “understanding” factor, with a high load, included the scales, one pole of which is represented by the following epithets: “patient”, “understanding”, “sociable”, “just”, “kind”, “cheerful”, “fond of children”, “not strict”, “tactful”, “calm”, “tolerant”, “reliable”, “beloved”, “honest”, “experienced”, “modern”, “smart”, “hardworking”, “humble”, and “level-headed”. the “prestige” factor is represented by the words: “prestigious”, “successful”, “friendly”, “full of energy”, “rich”, “responsible”, “charming”, and “competent”. our analysis of the perception of the word “mom” by elementary school students revealed an unexpectedly low result: a negative value by the factor of “prestige” (f2 = −0.57) and a low value by the factor of “understanding” (f1 = 0.1). the obtained result can be considered reliable due to the validity of the diagnostic procedure; however, this finding contradicts the traditional belief about the value of the mother image for children. it seems likely that, at the elementary school age, the role of the significant other shifts from the mother to the teacher. this also evidences to an increasing role of media communications in the lives of both children and adults, leading to a decreased intensity of interpersonal communications and a shortage of maternal participation in the lives of children. results of the experimental study on the basis of the data obtained in the semantic study of the stimulus “mother”, we conducted a developmental experiment with the aim of correcting the mother image in the minds of elementary school students. we assumed that watching cartoons can have a positive effect provided that (a) it is accompanied by a joint critical discussion with a psychologist and (b) such viewing involves media texts that possess a developmental and educational potential. two groups of elementary school students (70 children in total) watched the cartoons under study and the cartoon “umka” (pekar & popov, 1969) followed by their discussion with a psychologist. having completed the developmental work, we conducted another round of semantic assessment. for both factors “understanding” and “prestige”, the wilcoxon test showed a statistically significant shift in values (p = 0.000): f1 = 0.54, f2 = 0.4 (fig. 2). figure 2 changes in the semantic assessment of the mother image by younger schoolchildren in terms of the “understanding” (f1) and “prestige” (f2) factors during the experiment –0.6 –0.4 –0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 f1 f2 before experiment after experiment https://changing-sp.com/ 416 irina m. kyshtymova, lidia v. matveeva, anastasia a. deineko our results show that the involvement of children in media communications can have both negative and positive effects on their development. the extent of this impact depends on the characteristics of the media content and the children’s readiness for its analytical and reflective perception. in this respect, watching cartoons and discussing their content with adults is a helpful developmental instrument. discussion researchers are unanimous in the opinion that cartoons can have a significant impact on the personality and behavior of younger viewers. at the same time, there are no strict scientific criteria for differentiating cartoons as potentially safe or dangerous for children. the same applies to algorithms for psychological analysis of children’s media content. cartoons, whose impact on children is the focus of our study, are a complex system of structural components and specific relationships between them. however, when studying their psychological effects, researchers frequently consider only particular aspects. thus, the psychological potential of a film can be assessed by identifying its main idea—what is this movie about? (güneş et al., 2020). there is an opinion that only educational programs can be useful for preschool children (hu et al., 2018). in another group of studies, the attention of psychologists was focused on the imaginative system of the content. according to the authors, it is the artistic image that determines the viewer’s involvement. this image, which is total, synesthetic, and involves all feelings (mcluhan, 1964), has a decisive effect on the emerging attitude toward the prototype. in this context, researchers analyzed the psychological impact of films with negative images of elderly characters (rovner-lev & elias, 2020; zurcher & robinson, 2018). it was shown that the media image of a disabled person can form a respectful attitude toward differently abled people (del moral pérez & lópez-bouzas, 2021). russian researchers discovered cases in which the image of the mother in media products was distorted (kazachenko & kartushina, 2018; shishova, n.d.). n. martins et al. were interested in the image of a film character as a decisive factor. when studying the viewers’ attitude toward aggressive actions in sitcoms, they found that adolescents evaluate aggression on the screen depending on their sympathy or antipathy for the characters, rather than on the nature and strength of the aggressive action. according to the theory of disposition, emotional disposition toward a character determines moral indifference to their aggressive behavior and provokes the imitation of the same actions in reality (martins et al., 2016). the duration of watching cartoons can also be considered a fundamental factor that determine their impact on the cognitive and social development of children (hu et al., 2018). researchers rarely focus on the psychological impact of film plots due to the complexity of their analysis in the disciplinary framework of psychology (kazachiner & tkachenko, 2020). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 405–421 417 we believe that a psychological analysis of any media product, aimed at revealing its transformational potential, should involve a comprehensive analysis of its diverse components and interconnections. the complexity of the fictional world of a film or cartoon cannot be reduced to the main idea or individual images. therefore, it seems unproductive to study media images out of the context of the entire narrative. it is the narrative that creates a media reality experienced by the viewers. an important criterion for the eventfulness of a narrative is its “consecutivity” manifested in the consequences for the thought and action of the affected subject (schmid, 2010, р. 11). these consequences form the “expectation of consequences” in viewers, determining their behavioral patterns (mayrhofer & naderer, 2019). the narrative determines the extent of influence of a media product on its consumers. this function of the narrative is embedded in the very principle of its organization, which implies “crossing of a prohibition boundary” or “a semantic field” (lotman, 1998) and violation of the rules that “preserve the order of this world” (schmid, 2010, р. 8). the centrality of the narrative on an “outof-bounds” event attracts the viewers’ attention and determines its acceptance or rejection as an appropriate model of behavior based on experiencing the consequences of crossing the border. with a particular force, this formative mechanism is actualized in media communications, which frequently involve children’s audience. cartoons are mimetic narrative texts. therefore, their psychological study should be based on an interdisciplinary approach that appeals to narratology offering feasible algorithms for text analysis. the fictional nature of a mimetic narrative presupposes an appeal to the life experience of the viewer. children lack such an experience and their perception is not mediated by the knowledge of the reality, whose distance from the virtual world becomes minimal in this case. therefore, any psychological analysis of a text should follow the assumption that perception is determined not by the subject matter of a narrative (which is secondary), but rather by its formal elements, which, devoid of any referential meaning in themselves, gain a semantic function (schmid, 2010). this assumption has determined our logic of analyzing cartoons, based on a consistent integration of methods applied in different disciplines and scientific paradigms for studying media texts. the data obtained allowed us to develop and test hypotheses about the potential impact of media products on children. our results, as expected, do not agree with those obtained by the studies that focused exclusively on the analysis of the content of media products. thus, o. v. kazachenko and e. a. kartushina categorized the series “the barkers” as productive for a child’s development, because it projects a positive and traditional image of the mother. their argumentation was that the mother of the barkers had many children and the family implemented a democratic style of communication (kazachenko & kartushina, 2018). however, our multi-aspect analysis of this cartoon, as well as the study of its perception by younger schoolchildren, revealed a significant destructive potential of this popular media text. https://changing-sp.com/ 418 irina m. kyshtymova, lidia v. matveeva, anastasia a. deineko conclusion the complexity of the problem of media influence on children’s development requires the coordination of different paradigmatic approaches and algorithms for psychological analysis of media texts. this research was conducted using the method of psychological analysis of a media text. this method is aimed at investigating specific features of the narrative, verbal presentation of the events taking place on the screen, as well as cartoon images, rhythmic, musical, and visual characteristics. we believe that only using a comprehensive analysis of a media work, one could understand the world it generates, the world in which viewers “have to lead their lives” (luhman, 2000, р. 115). this statement gains significant importance in the case of children. due the specifics of formation of cognitive and personal traits, children either lack or have minimal skills for distinguishing actual reality from a virtual reality and for reflecting on fictional media events. the influence of animated cartoon images on children is determined not only by their specific presentation, but also by the totality of the characteristics of a media product. the conducted psychological analysis of three cartoons containing the mother image showed that these products have a different impact on children. unfortunately, the formal labeling of these cartoons in terms of their psychological safety (followed by the parents) does not correspond to our conclusions. the empirical study conducted to test the formulated hypotheses about the effect of cartoons on children showed that the semantics of the image of a cartoon mother is determined by elementary school students based on the external characteristics of the media world, which children perceive as real. a child does not develop a complex aesthetic response when perceiving artistic ambiguity, paradoxical, or comic situations (as adults view them); the processes of critical comprehension of the on-screen events are not yet actualized. the importance of the mother image for the development of a child’s personality, as well as the influence of cartoon images with a different psychological potential, determined the importance of studying the semantics of the word “mother” in the minds of elementary school students. based on the data obtained, we conclude that children are dissatisfied with the maternal attention they receive. the low evaluation of the mother image according to the criteria of “understanding” and “prestige” was a rationale for conducting a developmental experiment aimed at correcting the mother image in the minds of younger children. the experiment confirmed that cartoons can be an effective means for forming and correcting a child’s personality provided that (a) these cartoons meet the criteria of psychological productivity and (b) children watch and analyze the cartoon together with a psychologically and media competent adult. the significance of the study lies in the development and testing of an algorithm for systemic psychological work with children’s media content, which includes (a) its psychological analysis in order to substantiate the potential impact of cartoons on the viewers; (b) identification of the peculiarities of children’s perception of the content addressed to them; (c) use of cartoons in the process of carrying out correctional work with children. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 405–421 419 references astley, n., & baker, m. 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(n.d.). obraz materi i novyi etalon [mother’s image and a new standard]. obrazovatel’nyi portal “slovo”, https://www.portal-slovo.ru/ pedagogy/43218.php vygotsky, l. s. (1987). psikhologiia iskusstva. analiz esteticheskoi reaktsii [psychology of art. analysis of the aesthetic response]. pedagogika. zhang, q., cao, y., tian, j., kim, e.-l., & gentile, d. a. (2020). effects of prosocial cartoon models on aggressive cognitions and aggressive behaviors. children and youth services review, 118, 105498. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. childyouth.2020.105498 zurcher, j. d., & robinson, t. (2018). from “bibbid-bobbidi-boo” to scrooge: an update and comparative analysis of the portrayal of older characters in recent disney animated films. journal of children and media, 12(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2017.1331176 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110226324 https://www.portal-slovo.ru/pedagogy/43218.php https://www.portal-slovo.ru/pedagogy/43218.php https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01907409 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01907409/118/supp/c https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105498 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105498 https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2017.1331176 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 221–223 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.172 book review bennett e., berndt g. m., esders st., sarti l. (eds.) (2021). early medieval militarisation. manchester university press. andrey d. nazarov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia acknowledgement the research was supported by the russian science foundation, project no. 20-18-00240. enormous political transformation in europe was catalyzed by the disintegration of the western roman empire. political instability and frequent military conflicts reshaped social relations in the germanic kingdoms. yet, a broader context which includes the developments in the eastern roman (byzantine) empire, whose borders were threatened by slavic and arabic invasions in the 7th century, is important for understanding the changes in early medieval europe. collected volume early medieval militarisation edited by ellora bennett, guido m. berndt, stefan esders, and laury sarti and published in 2021 showcases recent scholarship on social militarisation from the 7th to 10th century. it covers vast territorial expanse and a variety of topics ranging from the legal status of military classes in early medieval kingdoms, to the image of an ideal king in various narrative traditions, to the theories of “just war.” the papers work both with material evidence such as burials and settlement structure and with textual sources. in the editors’ view, the central notion of “militarised society” was best defined by one of the volume’s authors edward james: “by a militarised society i mean a society in which there is no clear distinction between soldier and civilian, nor between military officer and government official; where all adult free men have the right to carry weapons […] where the symbolism of warfare and weaponry is prominent in official and private life” (p. 10). in the early medieval period, there was hardly a widespread militarisation of societies. philip rance and kai grundmann show that a rigid demarcation between the military and the civilians persisted in the eastern roman empire received 26 march 2022 © 2022 andrey d. nazarov published online 11 april 2022 andrey.nazarov451@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 222 andrey d. nazarov and the ostrogothic kingdom (pp. 37–38, 52). in contrast with the barbarian polities, byzantium preserved most of its political structures. in the ostrogothic kingdom, there occurred a relatively painless power transfer from the “romans” to the “germans”. however, the byzantine-ostrogothic wars (535–554) and the lombardian migration (568) destabilized political situation in the apennine peninsula. guido m. berndt argued that lombardian army was manned by diverse militias commanded by kings, dukes or gastalds (pp. 69–70). ryan lavelle also showed that free male population was involved in the military campaigns of the anglo-saxon kingdom (pp. 84–86). the last two cases mark the growing permeability of boundaries between the military and the civilians. the authors analyzed laws that regulated the military or were relevant to military sphere. legal acts provide the best evidence for the attitudes of the ruling elites to warfare. upper classes were eager to strengthen their own power, therefore, they were interested in the effective functioning of the military system. construction of fortifications and maintenance of strongholds fell within the purview of emperors, kings, and nobles, but also allowed them to expand their influence. conor whately pointed out how important the system of fortifications was to ensure the byzantine presence in the province of palaestina tertia in the 6th century (pp. 100–103). luc bourgeois, in turn, demonstrated that during the carolingian period, roman fortresses were actively exploited, many of which were reconstructed. in addition, new strongholds were built, used not only to protect the settlements, but also as residences of the aristocracy (pp. 130–146). apart from wide range of approaches the volume offers, different voices are presented in its chapters as, for instance, we can see to what extent the views of clerics with respect to war and warfare varied in narrative sources. this diversity stems from the requirements of the genres, or the needs and expectations of the audiences, or from authors’ life experience. however, many early medieval authors interpret warfare by through the lenses of their christian identity. gregory of tours († 593/594) and notker the stammerer († 912) saw nothing but evil and destruction in wars, which by its very nature was contrary to christian values (chapters by edward james and thomas wittkamp). for bede the venerable († 735), faith divided people into friends and strangers, which was to some extent a manifestation of northumbrian patriotism (chapter by ellora bennett). the volume contributes to our knowledge of the commoners in the early middle ages, of those who often are described as “silent majority”. benjamin hamm highlights that in the 5th century the number of burials with weapons increased on the territory of the western roman empire. such burial practice allowed “to display the martial skills of the deceased, or to show that they belonged to a community of fighting men” (p. 245). this fact best demonstrates the nature of the socio-political changes in the early middle ages. looking at military laws or historical chronicles alone might be misleading in our assessment of militarisation. we ought to explore how the masses reacted to the changing circumstances. in general, hamm’s argument and conclusions are consistent with stefan esders’s chapter on the ripuarian franks, whose military organization was based on the militia of freemen. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 221–223 223 nevertheless, a reader might be puzzled, if not confused, by the structure and the choice of topics in the volume. perhaps, the book might have benefited from a clearer focus or from the editors’ spelling out its internal logic. while no author disputes the militarisation of early medieval societies, the collection gives no answer to the question of its extent or scope. giving the due to the contribution this volume makes to the scholarship of early medieval militarization we might conclude that there was no uniform way of socio-political development. the disappearance of the pax romana led to a significant increase in the number of centers of power. this could not but provoke clashes between them. such situation led to the involvement in warfare of a significantly larger number of individuals, whether active participants or victims. therefore, it is difficult to agree with guy halsall, who wrote in the final essay that early medieval militarisation was not so much a process as a discourse (pp. 340–341). it would be more accurate to talk of the influence of the political situation on a discourse. different social groups and individuals perceived the realities of the changing world in different ways. we can better understand these developments as creative adaptation to such changes based on the tradition, antiquity primarily. it is also important to take the specific historical background into account. the fall of the western roman empire and the rise of the arab caliphate led to the collapse of the pax romana. there was hardly ever the peace (pax) within its limits. the romans had to deal with civil wars, rebellions, enemy invasions of the frontier provinces. however, since the 5th century the intensity of hostilities in the mediterranean region has increased significantly. sicily is an excellent example as it lived in peace for almost 500 years: from the war between sextus pompeius and the second triumvirate in 42–36 bce to the conquest of the island by the vandals in 440 ce. afterwards, sicily was attacked by the ostrogoths, the byzantines, the arabs and even the vikings. thus, the book early medieval militarisation is an important contribution to the medieval studies. the authors convincingly demonstrated the impact of warfare on the various spheres of social and political life. it would be important to develop these studies and explore how the early medieval militarisation affected particular realms and regions with the help of all available sources. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 600–617 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.152 received 6 august 2021 © 2021 rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, prima naomi accepted 16 december 2021 rini.sudarmanti@paramadina.ac.id published online 30 december 2021 tri.wahyuti@paramadina.ac.id prima.naomi@paramadina.ac.id article surviving covid-19 pandemic: the role of social media and family social capital in promoting a healthy lifestyle in indonesia rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, prima naomi universitas paramadina, jakarta, indonesia abstract promotion of a healthy lifestyle amid the covid-19 pandemic in indonesia is an important part of disease prevention. public outreach via social media shapes the public perception of the government’s campaign to stop covid-19 spread. this study investigates the impact of social media and family social capital on the promotion of a healthy lifestyle. the study covered a sample of 165 women in indonesia; it was conducted during the covid-19 pandemic. female respondents were selected because of their essential role in the family. the results show that the awareness of a healthy lifestyle is most likely affected by family social capital rather than social media use. greater cohesion and interaction among family members, less family conflict, and better paternal control contributed to stronger family social capital. these findings contribute to a better understanding of how a healthy lifestyle can help families survive the pandemic. keywords promotion, healthy lifestyle, social media use, family social capital, covid-19 acknowledgements this research is funded by the paramadina women institute (point) and the ministry of education, culture, research and technology of republic indonesia through the program of merdeka belajar kampus merdeka (mbkm) https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 600–617 601 introduction in recent years, indonesia along with the rest of the world is struggling with the coronavirus pandemic. since its first appearance in wuhan, china, 2019, the virus has spread to almost every country. according to the world health organization (who), the coronavirus continued to spread with a 12% increase in mid-july 2021. globally, 180 countries reported the appearance of the alpha variant of sars-cov-2, while fewer countries reported other variants (beta, gamma, and delta). the global number of new cases was more than 3.4 million with almost 57,000 deaths as of july 2021 (world health organization, 2021). in indonesia, the number of patients with confirmed positive covid-19 test was increasing day by day, especially with the appearance of a highly infectious strain, the delta variant. the government of indonesia has made various efforts to curb the outbreaks. one of them is the policy of emergency public activity restrictions (ppkm)1. among regions severely affected by the coronavirus in indonesia, jakarta reported an upsetting spike of covid-19 infections and death rates in june 2021 (loasana, 2021). the ppkm policy is expected to improve the effectiveness of physical distancing measures. among other things, the ppkm policy urges government offices, schools, and private companies to shift their operations to the online mode. all companies are asked to comply with the government regulations so that they can carry out their activities from home. however, certain areas remain open to fulfil the basic needs of the community. for example, organizations in the health sector, food or basic needs sector, energy sector, financial services sector, and the payment system may continue operating from their offices (gorbiano et al., 2021). the work from home (wfh) policy has led to changes in the way people carry out their activities, introducing what is often called “ the new normality” in the community. people are now using online media, such as zoom2 or skype3 for meetings and education instead of conducting face-to-face meetings. the ppkm policy’s steps aimed at curbing the transmission of the virus, include 3ms: wearing masks (memakai masker), maintaining distance (menjaga jarak), and washing hands with running water and soap for 20 seconds (mencuci tangan). the 3ms are widely promoted by the indonesian government on all levels. although the campaign continues, its efficiency decreases (mufarida, 2020). the level of compliance in indonesia has only reached 59.20%, especially during the long holidays. there has also been a slackening in the discipline regarding the 3ms. given the pessimism among the communities regarding the government’s efforts to deal with the pandemic, promotion of a healthy lifestyle and hygienic rules should be high on the government’s agenda. the campaign promoting the 3ms 1 ppkm stands for pemberlakuan pembatasan kegiatan masyarakat, which means restrictions to community activities starting from july 3 to july 20, 2021. 2 zoom is a trademark of zoom video communications, inc. 3 skype is a registered trademark of the microsoft group of companies. https://changing-sp.com/ 602 rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, prima naomi involves mass media and social media channels, especially instagram4, facebook5, youtube6, and whatsapp7. in social media, the ppkm is referred to as a health protocol (prokes). social media have a great potential in getting the message across to the public, since the number of social media users in indonesia continues to grow. according to hootsuite data (digital 2021: indonesia, 2021), there are 160 million active social media users and 175.4 million internet users in the country. in 2021, the total population of indonesia is estimated to be 272 million. active social media users can undoubtedly help spread the messages more personally and more quickly. the implementation of wfh or online education activities also encourages more active social media use. people are still interacting with each other even though they stay at home. the number of whatsapp and instagram users has multiplied during the covid-19 pandemic from 64.8% in 2018 to 73.7% in 2020 (apjii, 2020). whatsapp is used most frequently for communication (91.5%). according to katadata.co.id, social media use such as whatsapp and instagram experienced a spike of up to 40% (burhan, 2020). this user upsurge happened because many people used social media to communicate with their colleagues, friends and relatives during the lockdowns. moreover, according to the survey for kantar, a consulting firm, its number of users is predicted to continue growing (covid-19 barometer, 2020). at the beginning of the pandemic, the global use of whatsapp soared to 27% and then to 40%. the increase in the use of whatsapp and instagram occurred because many countries implemented lockdowns and restrictions during the pandemic. the public used these platforms to share news and important information related to the coronavirus. the information shared also varies, from links to news sites to posters or videos about preventing infections through a healthy lifestyle (pola hidup bersih dan sehat, phbs—clean and healthy lifestyle). there are few studies considering the mediating role of social media and family social capital, especially those that focus on healthy lifestyles, during the covid-19 outbreaks. previous studies tend to emphasize the need to promote a healthy lifestyle among rural communities, especially farmers or animal breeders. ruyani and gnagey (2018) found that the community living on the slopes of wayang mountain typically disposes of the majority of household and cattle waste by dumping it directly into the ciliwung river, thus this waste is not being treated at the special wastewater treatment plant. this study has also highlighted other alarming facts: for example, the processing equipment for turning cattle waste into biogas is damaged the presence of a communal septic tank is still an option. the study outlines alternative solutions to these problems, including public health education through mass media and other popular culture approaches as the means for social change in building synergy among the stakeholders. another study of interest was carried out by habibi (2017), who focuses on the socio-cultural reality of hygienic and healthy living behavior practiced by the women 4 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 5 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 6 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 7 whatsapp™ is a trademark of whatsapp inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 600–617 603 of bhuana jaya village. using a descriptive qualitative approach, the results showed that the women of bhuana jaya village who follow the principles of a healthy lifestyle and hygiene procedures in their households enjoy a higher status in their families and communities. in addition, these women have internet access to obtain health information. there is also evidence of the impact of social media use on family life. for example, ellison et al. (2007) concluded that social media have successfully increased people’s self-confidence, especially among people with low self-esteem. the study reveals that interaction and strong ties with family members in social media boosts the user’s selfconfidence level. it thus reflects the high social capital. it should be noted, however, that the influence of social media on people’s well-being is not always positive. for example, kabasakal (2015) showed that social media use makes university students dissatisfied with life. the increasing predictors of problematic internet use is highly correlated with the poor family functioning. thus, the problematic internet use increased with the increasing life dissatisfaction of the university students. in our study, we are going to focus on the role of women in the promotion of a healthy lifestyle: in indonesia, mothers are responsible for the health and happiness of their families and they are also the ones who introduce new values and habits into family routines. information related to the covid-19 pandemic that reaches them will undoubtedly affect their choices when faced with uncertainties. we intend to investigate the relationship between the extent to which mothers in indonesian families use social media, family social capital, and these women’s awareness of the principles of healthy living. for our sample, we selected 156 married female respondents through the snowball sampling method. the survey was conducted in the second half of 2020 during covid-19 pandemic. we asked the female respondents whose age was between 21 to 60 years old to complete the questionnaires, which were sent to them in an electronic form. among 156 respondents, 46% of them are private employees. others are entrepreneurs (13%) and civil servants (10%). 30% of the respondents chose not to reveal their profession. this paper is structured as follows: the first section presents the theoretical background on communication, social media use, family social capital, and the creation of awareness through social media. the methodology of the study will be explained in the following section. then we will describe our model followed by the results of the empirical simulation using ordinary least squares (ols) regression. finally, the discussion and conclusion will be presented along with the possible research avenues. theoretical background social media communication communication is a process of delivering messages from the sender of the message (sender) to the recipient of the message (receiver) with the aim to change attitudes or behavior. messages are conveyed by using symbols both orally and in writing. generally, communication is conducted face-to-face or through media, which allow senders to distribute messages to a broader audience and produce specific effects. https://changing-sp.com/ 604 rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, prima naomi this definition does not consider communication process related to special cases, i.e., for people with disabilities. in the context of media, there are various means to convey messages. they can be delivered through printed mass media such as books, magazines, and electronic media such as television, radio, and computer/internet-based media. currently, the use of internet-based social media is in high demand since they help maintain interconnectedness, access to individual audiences as recipients and senders of messages; in addition, they are interactive and ubiquitous (mcquail, 2011), practical, cheap and convenient. the characteristics of social media are related not only to the users (targeted audiences) but also to the technological features such as “likes”, “shares”, and “retweets”. social share buttons can stimulate people to spread the news they received. the use of trending hashtags on twitter8 and facebook can invite people to find the latest news easily and identify news topics, which are currently being discussed by searching them by region, country, and city (parr, 2010). social media have become a widely used means of disseminating information, which changes the way people communicate. setiadi (2016) demonstrated that, as a result of the development of information and communication technologies (icts), social media have changed the ways of communicating in indonesian communities. despite the obvious advantages of social media use, however, they also have a negative side: subramanian (2017) proved that young people exposed to social media are more isolated and show less respect towards the elders in their circle. the use of social media to disseminate health information is also a common practice. aptindika et al. (2019) conducted a study in situbondo regency that social media, such as facebook, influence the dissemination of health information. they observed that the number of medical visits and visits to public health centers (puskesmas) increased with more exposure to social media. an important observation was made by rakhmat: exposure to impressions is defined as the use of media by the audience which includes the amount of time spent in various media, types of media, types of media content, media consumed and various relationships between audiences and media content consumed or with the media as a whole. (rakhmat, 2004, p. 66) social media use can be measured in three ways: frequency, duration, and intensity. the frequency shows how routinely an individual accesses social media (ardianto et al., 2004). the duration is related to the length of time individuals spend using social media. this parameter was used in a number of studies such as duffet (2017), gezgin (2018), natalia & agustina (2021). the intensity of social media use is the extent to which a person receives information from social media, reads information, reacts, and disseminates the information obtained through social media. 8 twitter® is a trademark of twitter inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 600–617 605 social media and family social capital the term “social capital” refers to relationships created through a series of networks and people who share values. by building relationships on an ongoing basis, people can work together to achieve goals that cannot be reached alone (prayitno et al., 2019). social capital is a set of values, norms, rules that are shared by members of a group involved in the process of social interaction. in a family context, social capital becomes a necessity that must be owned to support harmony in a family. an empirical study in china shows that family social capital has a positive association with self-rated health at an older age in a rural chinese community (lu et al., 2021). even in the absence of promotion of health-related behavior, support from the family is a significant determinant of self-rated health among older rural adults. geraee et al. (2019) found that there are four aspects that can be used as a reference in looking at family social capital: family cohesion, family interaction, lack of family conflict, and family control. family cohesion is defined as a form of closeness of family members to one another such as doing family activities together. family interaction is a communication climate that is created within a family, such as openness, discussion, and interactions that occur in family relationships. the lack of family conflict becomes social capital in a family relationship, which can be characterized by the ability of the family to resolve conflicts. family control is related to how family members have the ability to control other family members, such as a mother having control over family activities at home or a father having control over his role as head of the household. there have been few studies related to social media and family social capital. geraee et al. (2019) found that social media, which is very popular with the community of high schools in isfahan iran and is even perceived to reduce interactions in the family, actually only affects a part of family social capital and life satisfaction. family factors, especially mothers, provide support for family members to develop and have life satisfaction (chong & baharudin, 2017). khotimah et al. (2020) found that the factors of family social capital and cooperation with neighbours are needed to control the spread of covid-19. health awareness and social media use in communication, awareness is a result or effect of certain activities or sensations. awareness is therefore regarded as the attitudes towards the stimulants that hit individuals. alteration in cognitive awareness is often observed in consumer behavior studies, such as the studies determining the effectiveness of a marketing message. studies in marketing show that social media can spread messages and influence individuals (sander & lee teh, 2019; voramontri & klieb, 2019). it includes both trustable messages and hoaxes. research that measures changes in attitudes, awareness, and behavior can be found in the context of political campaigns through social media (gibson, 2015; kahne & bowyer, 2018; stier et al., 2018). these studies concluded that messages disseminated through social media can alter the awareness of the target audience. https://changing-sp.com/ 606 rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, prima naomi change in attitude and awareness goes through the stages of changing the cognitive, affective, and conative components (azwar, 2010). the cognitive component corresponds to changes in the individual’s beliefs based on their perceptions—seeing, hearing, or feeling (sassenberg et al., 2005). the affective component is a change related to the individual’s feelings about the received message. feelings such as like and dislike, happy or not happy will determine the success of the following conative process. the conative perception is an individual’s behavioral response to the received message. a change in behavior can occur when a person accepts the message as a result of logical reasoning. an understandable message leads to a sense of trust. based on the above, it can be concluded that messages conveyed through social media will alter the awareness of the target audience through the cognitive, affective, and conative components. the same principle applies to behavior changes in the face of the covid-19 pandemic. it is likely that the awareness of the coronavirus will lead individuals to choose a healthier lifestyle. patrão et al. (2017) found that different factors affect the choice of healthy lifestyles among men and women. roy et al. (2020) and salman et al. (2020) suggested that covid-19 worries and behavior stemming from cognitive, affective and conative processes on the individual level are important factors for the dynamics of the pandemic. the success of a message conveyed through social media can be assessed by measuring the achievement of cognitive, affective, and conative processes in the audiences. methodology this study uses a quantitative survey. the respondents are mostly married women (70%) who live in the greater jakarta area. others reside outside the greater jakarta area. women were the target of this study because they play a prominent role in the family and may reinforce certain values, habits or behavior patterns of family members. these women voluntarily participated in this study and were willing to express their opinion. the sample was obtained by using the principle of non-probability sampling considering the number of unknowns. the taro yamane formula is used to determine the number of respondents for an infinite population and the precision level of 10% is 100 people. this study uses a non-probability sampling technique, the snowball technique. the researcher distributed a google form questionnaire to several respondents who were working mothers and agreed to participate in this study. they are referred to as the first-level respondents. then, the first-level respondents passed the questionnaires on to others whom they also know and who meet the same criteria until the number reaches 100 people within a month. during this time, the number of returned questionnaires exceeded the expected number. in total, we received 169 responses. however, there were four incomplete responses, which were not included in the study. the analysis covered 165 responses. this study uses a 5-point scale for each question ranging from “strongly disagree” (a), “disagree” (b), “neither agree nor disagree” (c), “agree” (d), and “strongly agree” (e). changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 600–617 607 figure 1 model specification of awareness of healthy lifestyle social media use  frequency of use  duration of use  intensity of use family social capital  family cohesion  family interaction  family conflict  family control awareness of healthy lifestyle  cognition  affection  behavioral we used three main variables: social media use, family social capital, and awareness of a healthy lifestyle and hygienic principles. social media use (x1) measures the frequency of use, duration of use, and intensity of use, such as reading, commenting, and liking other people’s posts, sending or receiving pictures, text, videos, or music; checking other people’s profile pictures, pages, posts, and stories. the studies performed by ardianto et al. (2004), brusilovskiy et al. (2016), and rachmat (2004) used the same definition in the survey. the family social capital (x2) is a development of the scale explored in the previous study by geraee et al. (2019) covering aspects of family cohesion, family interaction, lack of family conflict, and family control. the awareness of a healthy lifestyle and hygienic principles (y) is intended to measure family members’ level of cognition, affection, and behavioral tendencies that may affect the spread of the coronavirus. table 1 shows the breakdown components of the primary variables from the survey. since all components use the same likert 5-point scale, the main variables are calculated from the average of each corresponding breakdown component. table 1 components of studied variables social media use x1 family social capital x2 awareness of a healthy lifestyle y frequency of use x1,a family cohesion x2,a cognition tendency ya duration of use x1,b family interaction x2,b affection tendency yb intensity of use x1,c lack of family conflict x2,c behavioral tendency yc family control x2,d https://changing-sp.com/ 608 rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, prima naomi the descriptive statistics for the three main variables in this survey are shown in table 2. the mean value of x1 is slightly higher than the mean value of x2, by 0.192. on average, the respondents engage with social media in moderation (within reasonable limits using the social media). from the responses on social media use, we found that the effectiveness of the dissemination of the message through social media tends not to depend on the number of times the message is distributed. the magnitude of information exposure to the audiences most likely affects the effectiveness of the dissemination of the message. we also found that the respondents are likely to have a high family social capital. table 2 descriptive statistics variable number of observations mean standard deviation min. max. x1 165 2.727 0.323 1 3.62 x2 165 2.535 0.274 1.45 3.12 y 165 2.632 0.299 1.83 3 model specification this study aimed to investigate the relationship between the awareness of a healthy lifestyle and hygienic principles, social media use, and family social capital. the awareness is modeled as a relationship between social media use and family social capital. another study in the same discipline uses the same model specification hypothesizing that life satisfaction among adolescents is influenced by social media use and family social capital (geraee et al., 2019). this study specifies two models: the first model represents a linear relationship with the independent variables “social media use” and “family social capital”, and the second model is similar to the first model, but includes the relationship between social media use and family social capital. the model specifications can be written as follows: 0 1 1, 2 2, i i iy x x= β + β + β … (1) 0 1 1, 2 2, 3 1, 2, ( )i i i i iy x x x x= β + β + β + β × … (2) where yi is the dependent variable measuring the count of the respondent’s family i with the level of awareness of a healthy lifestyle and hygienic principles, xi is the use of social model in family i, and x2 is the level of family social capital. results and discussion correlation matrix table 3 summarizes the correlation matrix for x1, x2, and y. family social capital is positively correlated with awareness of a healthy lifestyle and hygienic principles with the coefficient of 0.7253 (p < 0.005). social media use shows a similar correlation with the coefficient of 0.2032 (p < 0.05). a stronger family social capital tends to influence changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 600–617 609 awareness at a greater magnitude than the frequent use of social media. the high and low frequency of use, the duration of accessing social media, and the number of messages read do not significantly impact the level of awareness. thus, social media only plays a role in delivering the information. it does not affect the individual’s awareness of the coronavirus. mukherjee et al. (2019) mention that digitalization creates the need to comprehend how social media affects people’s beliefs and behaviors in relation to health. asril et al. (2020) found that health beliefs have a significant and positive correlation with a healthy lifestyle. the effectiveness of the delivered information depends on how the users (audiences) use the social media. table 3 correlation matrix x1 x2 y x1 1.0000 x2 0.2006 0.0098 1.0000 y 0.20320.0089 0.7253 0.0000 1.0000 social media use is positively correlated with the awareness of a healthy lifestyle and hygienic principles with the coefficient of 0.2006 (p < 0.05). the frequency, duration, and intensity of using social media was significantly correlated with the strength of family social capital. this study, therefore, suggests that social media use can significantly enhance the family social capital. there is no evidence that social media use reduces the family social capital. the idea that social media use may disrupt the stability of the family social capital is not supported. in other words, family members who are active users of social media will not alienate themselves from their families. regression results regression result model 1, where there is no relationship between the use of social model (x1) and the family social capital (x2), yielded an r-squared value of 52.96%. the test showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between the level of awareness and family social capital (β = 0.7801, p < 0.005). family social capital plays a role in determining the level of awareness. the coefficient of determination of this relationship is about 0.7801, which indicates that the influence of social capital on the level of awareness is quite strong. there is no conclusion regarding the interaction between the level of awareness and use of social media (β = 0.0557, p > 0.05). certain aspects of family social capital such as cohesiveness, lack of conflict, family control, and harmony seem to contribute to the level of awareness of a healthy lifestyle and hygienic principles. these findings show that the role of family social capital components cannot be neglected because they have equally important roles. it should be noted that the definition of family in indonesia might not be only limited to blood and in-law relationships. the cultural aspect should be carefully considered so that it will not be mistaken with neighbourhood social capital (alvarez et al., 2017). https://changing-sp.com/ 610 rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, prima naomi table 4 ordinary least-square regressions awareness of a healthy lifestyle (y) model 1 model 2 with interaction x1 and x2 use of social media (x1) 0.0557326 0.0509921 0.276 0.3182074 0.426754 0.457 family social capital (x2) 0.7801448 0.601592 0.000 1.061997 0.4589382 0.222 interaction use of social media and family social capital (x1 * x2) – – 0.1025049 0.1654646 0.536 constant 0.5023016 0.1853198 0.007 – 0.2175454 1.176713 0.854 number of observations 165 165 r-squared 0.5296 0.5307 adj. r-squared 0.5328 0.5220 note. regression coefficients are in the first row, standard errors are in the second row, and p-values are in the third row. table 5 correlation matrix for family social capital and awareness of a healthy lifestyle x2,a x2,b x2,c x2,d ya yb yc x2,a 1.0000 x2,b 0.7002 0.0000 1.0000 x2,c 0.5727 0.0000 0.6568 0.0000 1.0000 x2,d 0.5451 0.0000 0.5589 0.0000 0.5627 0.0000 1.0000 ya 0.5399 0.0000 0.5986 0.0000 0.5990 0.0000 0.5233 0.0000 1.0000 yc 0.5087 0.0000 0.5440 0.0000 0.5639 0.0000 0.5639 0.0000 0.7475 0.0000 1.0000 yc 0.5451 0.0000 0.5489 0.0000 0.5038 0.0000 0.5869 0.0000 0.6795 0.0000 0.7813 0.0000 1.0000 even so, it is suggested that social media are still influential as a medium for disseminating and delivering information about a healthy lifestyle and hygienic principles. in exploring a deeper correlation between family social capital and the awareness of a healthy lifestyle, this study found that that these components are significant (p < 0.001) and positively correlated. this finding is consistent with the study conducted by alvarez at al. (2017), who found that family social capital has changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 600–617 611 a distinct effect on family health. the awareness and positive perception living amid covid-19 can undoubtedly promote better family health. regression result model 2, showing the relationship between social media use (x1) and family social capital (x2), yielded a better r-squared value than model 1, accordingly 53.07% and 52.96%. however, no conclusion can be made because of the absence of a significant correlation (p < 0.01). it may be explained by the fact that the level of awareness of the respondents may have already been high when the questionnaire was distributed, as a result, the relationship between social media use and family social capital was negligible. conclusion as the number of cases of covid-19 continues to increase, especially with the emergence of new variants, the importance of health protocols and their promotion is growing. this study focuses on the impact of social media use and family social capital on indonesian people’s awareness of the need to choose a healthy lifestyle and follow hygiene and sanitation principles. one of the ways of getting this message across to people may be the social media. however, the effectiveness of this information channel depends on how people use social media. the role of the mother in the family is very important since she can influence the choices other members of the family make regarding their lifestyles and adherence to the principles of hygiene. moreover, such aspects of the family as care, cohesiveness, and cooperation are also important aspects of behavior change. family social capital is a medium for catalyzing the changes in daily family behavior. using the snowball survey, this study observes that the level of family social capital is significantly correlated with a better awareness of living amid the coronavirus. families with strong bond are more likely to have healthy lifestyle in stopping covid-19 spread. the care from the family members helps other family members to cope in uncertain situations. they share useful information among their members to maintain the wellbeing. thus, they tend to follow government campaigns such as 3m campaign (wearing masks, maintaining distance, and washing hand) and pbhs (clean and healthy lifestyle). through family control, mothers ensure that other family members follow these routines. any choices made in the family during pandemic are taken by considering the principle of hygiene. on the other side, no statistical evidence is found in this study between the social media use and the awareness toward healthy lifestyle during covid-19 pandemic. our research findings may of interest to policymakers seeking to devise measures and solutions to survive in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. future research in this area may examine other factors affecting people’s awareness of the principles of hygiene or the ways of promoting such principles on the state level. moreover, since the notion of family social capital is multifaceted and multidimensional, there are still many opportunities for researchers to interpret and measure family social capital. https://changing-sp.com/ 612 rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, prima naomi references alvarez, e. c., kawachi, i., & romani, j. r. 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(2021, july 20). weekly epidemiological update on covid-19 (ed. 49). who team emergency response. https://www.who.int/ publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiological-update-on-covid-19---20-july-2021 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102083 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40267-020-00737-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40267-020-00737-7 https://doi.org/10.33422/ntss.2019.08.488 https://doi.org/10.33422/ntss.2019.08.488 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.254 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.254 https://doi.org/10.31294/jc.v16i2.1283 https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2017.1334728 https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2017.1334728 https://doi.org/10.1504/ijids.2019.101994 https://doi.org/10.1504/ijids.2019.101994 https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiological-update-on-covid-19---20-july-2021 https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiological-update-on-covid-19---20-july-2021 616 rini sudarmani, tri wahyuti, prima naomi appendix questionnaire demography (1) where do you live? (2) how old are you? (3) how much money do you spend monthly? (4) what is your marital status? (5) how long have you been married? (6) what is your current occupation? (7) how many children do you have? social media use (1) how often do you use whatsapp during covid-19 pandemic? (2) how often do you use facebook during covid-19 pandemic? (3) how often do you use instagram during covid-19 pandemic? (4) how often do you use youtube during covid-19 pandemic? (5) how often do you use twitter during covid-19 pandemic? (6) how often do you use line during covid-19 pandemic? (7) how long (in hours) do you use social media daily? (8) i use social media daily (9) i rarely use social media daily (10) i never use social media daily (11) i spend most time in a day to surf social media (12) i do not spend most time in a day to surf social media (13) i use social media daily for a short time (14) i actively received information, i.e., in text and video, about covid-19 pandemic (15) i read information from my acquittances about covid-19 pandemic when using social media (16) i give like for all information in any form, i.e., photos, pictures, and video, about covid-19 pandemic when using social media (17) i actively send information or comment on the posting about covid-19 pandemic (18) i forward information about covid-19 pandemic family social capital (1) i appreciate every family member that i feel “closer” (2) my family does all household works together (3) family gathering or reunion is our favourite activity (4) my family always go for leisure together (5) every family member has his or her own tasks for the household works (6) my family often discuss or talk together (7) i appreciate the transparency from other family members to strengthen the quality of our interaction changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 600–617 617 (8) my family always spend time together during covid-19 pandemic (9) i appreciate the communication with other family members directly and indirectly (i.e., using social media) (10) whenever we discuss about private affairs, we do not discuss it openly (11) if there is a disagreement, every family member is free to say his or her opinion (12) any family dispute can be resolved peacefully in our family (13) difference is normal even though it can lead to family dispute (14) i observe that there is trust among family members (15) i perceive that every family member knows other members’ schedule (16) as a mother, i have full control for arranging family activities at home (17) i observe that every family member obeys to father (18) i observe that every member greets each other to show concern (19) every family member reminds other family members to complete the activities awareness of healthy lifestyle (1) i understand health protocol during covid-19 pandemic (2) i understand how to maintain a good health condition (3) i understand how to use hand sanitizer after touching surfaces in public space (4) i understand that viruses, bacteria, and germs can be found every where (5) i understand the benefit of using mask to prevent covid-19 transmission (6) i like healthy living (7) i do healthy living even though it is not practical (8) i like reminding other family members to follow health protocol (9) i feel unhappy if i observe other family members do not use mask when going outside (10) i am happy if my family keep healthy lifestyle (11) i tend to remind continuously other family members to keep healthy lifestyle (12) i provide mask for other family members (13) i provide hand sanitizer for other family members (14) i provide hand wash facility in my premise (15) i make it a habit for every family member to wash their hands frequently (16) every family member follows the rules of social distancing by keeping a distance from other people when outside the house (17) every family member follows the rules of social distancing by avoiding crowds (18) every family member throws away the bag or packaging before being brought into the house (19) after leaving the house, family member immediately takes shower and changes clothes (20) when bringing or receiving items from outside the house, family members firstly clean it with soap (21) when bringing or receiving goods from outside the house, family members firstly spray it with disinfectant https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.193 received 31 december 2021 © 2022 eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, accepted 28 september 2022 larasati nur putri, fariza, zufrufin saputra, published online 10 october 2022 andera wiyakintra, muhammad ulul albab eleiliyanti@unj.ac.id dhauranaad@gmail.com larasatinurputri8@gmail.com nasutionfariza@gmail.com zufrufinsaputra_9916818008@mhs.unj.ac.id anderawiyakintra_9916818006@mhs.unj.ac.id muhammadululalbab_9916818006@mhs.unj.ac.id article patriarchal language evaluation of muslim women’s body, sexuality, and domestication discourse on indonesian male clerics preaching eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, larasati nur putri, fariza, zufrufin saputra, andera wiyakintra, muhammad ulul albab state university of jakarta, jakarta, indonesia abstract this nested case study (multiyear research critical discourse analysis—in this case, the first year) aims to provide support in the form of linguistic recommendations to the law reform, particularly on the issues of muslim women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication based on the textual analysis of the patriarchal language used by different islamic strands: muhammadiyah’s, nahdlatul ulama’s and salafi’s clerics in their preaching in indonesia. this is significant because such a study is relatively limited in indonesian cases. however, it also shed light on how discrepant linguistic manners of these male clerics were deployed to voice their noblesse oblige about muslim women’s body, sexuality, and domestication as regulatory https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 635 discourse. the data—six videos of the respective clerics’ preaching— were taken from youtube1 using purposeful stratified sampling. it is found that muhammadiyah’s cleric delineated this discourse based on the segregation of dubious religiously correct and incorrect propriety, whereas nahdlatul ulama’s cleric, the apparent religious normality, and salafi’s cleric, the plausible religious propriety. keywords appraisal and transitivity system, women’s body, sexuality, domestication, muhammdiyah, nahdlatul ulama, salafi introduction research contributed to the scope of the text-oriented discourse analysis on islamic clerics’ patriarchal language to the existing laws about muslim women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication in indonesia remains scarce. one was found pertinent to a similar issue, such as leiliyanti and larasati (2019), who discussed the patriarchal language of the two salafi clerics in two one-to-three-minute videos posted on instagram2. they found that these clerics negatively judged propriety on their litmus test of muslim women’s body, sexuality, and domestication. relevant issues in these discourses arguably lie in the research on hijab, sharia law on women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication, islamic feminism, women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication (beta, 2014; bhowon & bundhoo, 2016; yulikhah, 2016; zempi, 2020), examines how young computer savvy muslim women community (hijabers community, n.d.) in urban indonesia through the use of fashion hijab and promote them on the blog, and social networking sites (sns) successfully challenges western media representation of muslim women, i.e., “domesticated and silenced” in a patriarchal society and the academic divide between “islam versus western capitalist”. referring back to the laws pertinent to the discourse of muslim women’s bodies, in this case, from the issue of the hijab in indonesia, this muslim majority country implements three intersected laws—the roman-dutch law, islamic law, and customary law—at the same time. islamic law, which is only applicable to indonesian muslims, in boellstorff’s (2006) lens, is domesticated as it deals only with marriage, legacy, and kinship. islamic law itself has its two divides: sharia (the religious precept based on the qur’an and hadith) and fiqh (islamic jurisprudence based on the understanding and practices of sharia). however, the implementation of islamic law in indonesia should also consider the national law’s perspective to avoid discontentment. although no specific law regulates how to dress according to islam, especially the use of the hijab, article 28e section 2 of the 1945 constitution3 stipulates that the state guarantees the freedom of religion and expressions according to one’s faith/religion. 1 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. 2 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram, llc, registered in the u.s. and other countries. in the russian federation, it is recognised as an extremist organisation and its activity is prohibited. 3 the constitution of the republic of indonesia of 1945. (n.d.). asian human rights commission. http://www.humanrights.asia/indonesian-constitution-1945-consolidated/ https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.humanrights.asia/indonesian-constitution-1945-consolidated/ 636 eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, ... muhammad ulul albab this disciplining act in the form of hijab donning is considered a personal and religious right, as it is based on a women’s choice whether or not she is willing to abide by this religious ruling. however, these laws’ enforcement fails to avert or minimize discrimination against muslim women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication. language is a storehouse of cultural ideas to describe a particular outside group. these ideas and the language in which they are encoded reflect power inequalities and related discrimination, such as sexism, racism, and age. language can be manipulated to produce linguistic coverings coupled with verb choice to influence causality attributions, offering tools to apply discrimination while masking reality and reducing perceived conflicts of interest. language normalizes discrimination by turning discriminatory scripts and practices into an accepted part of everyday discourse (ng, 2007). within these intersected laws, women still face discrimination, i.e., the prohibition of wearing a hijab in indonesia. hijab was seen as an act of resistance under soeharto’s administration, the symbol of transformation and selfsecurity, and ownership (smith-hefner, 2007), and of symbolic negotiation that reflects the glocalization of islamic pop culture vis-à-vis piety, global western influence, islamic middle east influence and the local everyday cultural practices (nef-saluz, 2007). hijab was also forbidden in the university and school settings. however, most indonesian muslim women’s inclination to use the hijab managed to lift the ban. hijab in indonesia is not always about expressing devotion to islam and a lifestyle that is no longer confined to circumstances (beta, 2014). suardi (1995) also notes that the hijab plays as a “camouflage” that masks muslim women’s true identity. this masking continues suardi and underpins how the muslim women in indonesia attempt to comply, conform and abide by this religious ruling. the scrutiny of a similar phenomenon outside indonesia, for instance, in malaysia, has been conducted by concentrating on hijab to its relation to media and modernity (grine & saeed, 2017; hassim et al., 2015; sunesti, 2016). hassim et al. (2015) discuss the importance of hijab culture in media and how it has become a media commodity and an integral element for malaysian muslims. the presence of fashion in malaysia has modernized hijab and made hijab more visible in public places (hochel, 2013). however, this modernization does not affect how muslim women see hijab in malaysia. for them, hijab still represents religiosity and a religious tool (grine & saeed, 2017), albeit some groups contradict these perspectives. in contrast with indonesian and malaysian cases, selby (2014) examined the conundrum of muslim women wearing niqab and burqa in france and québec, canada, i.e., their act of donning niqab and burqa is perceived as public exigency as it violates the rule and regulation pertinent to religious practice in the public domain. deploying foucault’s biopolitics and governmentality, selby further found that this dialectical religious praxis’s failure derives from how the donning act complies with islamic prescriptive sexual politic representation and challenges the public regulation in accessing the muslim women’s body in the public sphere. research on the notion of the hijab has widely been conducted (grine & saeed, 2017; hamzeh, 2011; jackson & monk-turner, 2015). neglecting the “spatial” and “ethical” hijab, mernissi (1991) examines how the visual hijab becomes comme il faut changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 637 to muslim women, thus posing the subjective implication of patriarchal surveillance underlying the hijab discourse (hamzeh, 2011). although the definitions assigned to hijab vary in geographical, socio-cultural, and socio-political contexts, the widely shared interpretation is that the hijab covers, hides, protects and, connotes corporal piety and modesty (gökariksel, 2009). hijab thus means reverence, moral authority, honor, morality, femininity, and social status (jackson & monk-turner, 2015). on the contrary, in a culture where visibility is the privileged means of awareness (zelizer, 2001), the hijab is viewed by feminists and postfeminists as a symbol of patriarchal suppression (alloula, 1986). muslim woman with hijab is often problematically contested by the patriarchy. the degree to which “normal” bodies are revealed in western culture and the emphasis on explicitly veiling the female body in islam suggest that apart from dictating how the body should appear when visible to the males, the male gaze controls the body’s visibility. however, such visibility is contested in the case of the hijaber above community (beta, 2014). in this discourse, the male gaze, as a metaphor, plays a pivotal role in harnessing women’s subjectivity and corpora (glapka, 2018). these discourses delineated the inferiority of women (physical and symbolic) and entailed that the “normalized corporeity” is characterized by the androcentric conceptions of gender, sexuality, and appearance in conjunction with the cultural construction of thinness and health (ponterotto, 2016). this normality is then ossified in corporeality and sexual desire (ponterotto, 2016). in this sense, women are not given space to express their sexuality, let alone the freedom to convey their desires, as they were positioned as seducers while men as predators. the debate about the discourse on women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication in islam indonesia cannot be isolated from its male-dominated religious leaders’ preaching (in this case, the clerics of muhammadiyah, nahdlatul ulama, and salafi). in the islamic mainstream discourse, the female body discourse operates in a congruent manner, i.e., the body at all times “covered” to avert the male gaze, especially in the public sphere. this polysemous framework is closely related to the foucauldian principles of knowledge and power, i.e., the female body is governed by patriarchal standards regulating women’s morality and roles (in this case, in conjunction with fitrah and aurat). such regulation on woman’s corporeality is exercised by inculcating islamic religious rules, laws, and teachings in their everyday praxis and institutionalizing these as the code of conduct and practice (foucault, 1977). as part of multiyear research (in this case, the first year), the study aims to provide input in the forms of linguistic recommendation to the law reform regarding linguistic and religious regulatory discourse in indonesia, especially on the issues of (muslim) women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication based on the text-oriented discourse analysis of the scope of the patriarchal language used by muhammadiyah’s, nahdlatul ulama’s and salafi’s clerics in their preaching posted on youtube (assalamualaikum channel, 2017; audio dakwah, 2018; ceramah pendek, 2018; gus muwafiq channel, 2018; ngaji anak indonesia, 2019; santri remu’an, 2020). this paper aims to compare and evaluate the scope of the patriarchal language of these clerics regarding these women’s discourses deploying the transitivity system https://changing-sp.com/ 638 eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, ... muhammad ulul albab postulated by halliday (2004) and the language evaluation theory developed by j. r. martin and p. r. r. white (2005). this paper is organized by discussing muslim women’s bodies, sexuality, domestication, islamic feminism, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. body, sexuality, and women domestication the normalized domination of men in society legitimizes imposition in the forms of actions or restrictions on women. this then results in the form of women’s domestication. due to the notion of state power, foucault (1990) contends that power is closely related to the body. power over the body is divided into two entities: internal power in the form of desires and desires with power over the body that regulates individual attitudes and behavior through norms and rules. the relationship between power and body relates to foucault’s concept of governmentality, where the government has normalized power over the population for the state’s benefit. the debate overpowering the body arises when the norms or rules are forged in training, torture, and coercion, thus narrowing the space for movement and the will over the body. the body acts as an object and subject worth more than a mere material entity, as the body determines the position of one individual in society. in this sense, the body is the departure point of signification in womanhood that cannot be detached from its social and cultural context (benedicta, 2011). in the indonesian religious and cultural context, the patriarchal standards generate a hierarchy of corporeal significance: ideal and non-ideal, beautiful and not beautiful body (prabasmoro, 2006). islamic feminism the genealogy of feminism is closely linked to “european intellectual and religious traditions” and its association with european modernity. islamic feminism is part of muslim women’s assertion of equality (chakrabarty, 2000). moghadam’s research on integrating islam and feminism in iran shows its benefits to muslim women (afsaruddin & ameri, 1999). in 2008, amina wadud demonstrated this utility by using feminist tactics and distancing herself from feminist political hegemony. on the contrary, marie-aimée hélie-lucas (1999) investigated the intersections between islam and feminism in a secular way and found echoing afsaruddin and ameri’s confusion as cited by wadud (2008) and her argument that muslim women “need islamic feminism.” this indicates the imperative of the amalgamation of islam and feminism and its various uses in the studies of muslim women, which politically demonstrate muslim women’s unique identities. islamic feminism is more inclined to promulgate islamic modernism to secular feminism and asserted equality. it preserved a fair representation of women and men in the public or private sphere. without acknowledging total gender equality, its social justice praxis highlights the socio-political phenomena in which muslim women are to be faithful and pious adherents to islam which mirror their religious morality in their everyday religious praxis (kahf, 1999). in this sense, women’s integrity and reverence for their men and family are linked to women’s adherence to islamic moral principles. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 639 methodology this text-oriented discourse analysis deployed a transitivity system by m. a. k. halliday and three interacting domains of appraisal—attitude, engagement, and graduation— by j. r. martin and p. r. r. white in investigating six transcriptions of preaching recorded on youtube: • adi hidayat, merias wajah apakah termasuk tabarruj? [does face makeup represent the display of (muslim) women’s beauty?] (ceramah pendek, 2018); • adi hidayat, mengukur keimanan perempuan dari hijabnya [measuring a woman’s faith from her hijab] (audio dakwah, 2018); • gus muwafiq, tips menghadapi istri yang cerewet [tips for dealing with a fussy wife] (gus muwafiq channel, 2018); • gus muwafiq, membangun rumah tangga dengan cinta [building a household with love] (santri remu’an, 2020); • khalid basalamah, cara berhias untuk suami [how to dress up for husband] (ngaji anak indonesia, 2019); • khalid basalamah, adab suami dan istri [adab husband and wife] (assalamualaikum channel, 2017). they were deployed to construe how the male clerics’ discrepant linguistic manner employed their language on muslim women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication in their preaching. the data (words, phrases, clauses, and sentences) were taken from the transcripts of these clerics’ preaching and coded based on a transitivity-based coding matrix (halliday, 2004) which would later be classified based on the issues of muslim women’s body, sexuality, and domestication. the preaching was selected based on stratified purposeful sampling. they were then identified to reveal the dominant topics and transcribed into six separate transcriptions. the data were then analyzed using appraisal theory by j. r. martin and p. r. r. white (2005). this was conducted to evaluate how the clerics evaluate, grade, and examine their alternative stances and voices towards the discourse on women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication in their preaching. the data were then compared to point out, contrast, and synthesize the differences and similarities in the employment of patriarchal language on the regulatory discourse of muslim women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication. results this section provides findings and discussion of the patriarchal language on women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication represented by adi hidayat (audio dakwah, 2018; ceramah pendek, 2018), gus muwafiq (gus muwafiq channel, 2018; santri remu’an, 2020), and khalid basalamah (assalamualaikum channel, 2017; ngaji anak indonesia, 2019). focusing on the transitivity system of systemic functional linguistic and appraisal theory and the concept of knowledge and power, the findings are divided https://changing-sp.com/ 640 eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, ... muhammad ulul albab into two sections, i.e., ideational analysis and interpersonal analysis. in comparison, the discussion is divided into three sections, i.e., lexico-grammatical features, logical structures, and social functions. table 1 demonstrates that the dominant process type of hidayat’s, muwafiq’s, and basalamah’s preachings are relational processes (respectively, 57%, 65%, and 45%). the relational process serves to identify (relational identifying) and characterize (relational attributive) entities (halliday, 2004). in these six preachings, relational identifying is predominantly used to identify the moral principles of women. in contrast, relational attributive is employed to characterize women’s physical appearance and the clerics’ stances towards muslim women’s behaviors. table 1 percentage of process types in the six preaching videos process types adi hidayat gus muwafiq khalid basalamah merias wajah: apakah termasuk tabarruj? mengukur keimanan perempuan dari hijabnya tips menghadapi istri yang cerewet membangun rumah tangga dengan cinta cara berhisas untuk suami adab suami dan istri behavioral – – – 5(1%) – – existential 4(4%) 22 (10%) 14 (4%) 26 (4%) 27 (7%) 61 (5%) material 24(22%) 53 (25%) 78 (23%) 102 (14%) 94 (26%) 400 (29%) mental 14(13%) 34 (16%) 42 (12%) 74 (10%) 58 (16%) 213 (16%) relational 62(57%) 94 (44%) 168 (49%) 474 (65%) 166 (45%) 554 (40%) verbal 4(4%) 10 (5%) 40 (12%) 43 (6%) 24 (6%) 141 (10%) clause 108(100%) 213 (100%) 342 (100%) 724 (100%) 369 (100%) 1369 (100%) the second dominant process type of preaching is the material process (respectively 25%, 23%, and 29%). the use of the material process in this preaching represents the action of either complying or violating the moral principles of muslim women as well as the clerics’ dispositions. based on the interpersonal analysis, it is also found that the clerics evaluate women’s behaviors and physical appearance by deploying patriarchal language. table 2 indicates that the three clerics focus similarly on appraising women. from the attitude domain, adi hidayat (audio dakwah, 2018; ceramah pendek, 2018) and khalid basalamah (assalamualaikum channel, 2017; ngaji anak indonesia, 2019) dominantly used negative judgments to evaluate women’s behaviors and physical appearances, whereas gus muwafiq (gus muwafiq channel, 2018; santri remu’an, 2020) used positive ones. as for the engagement, the clerics generally delivered their changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 641 preaching in the form of heteroglossia utterances. this demonstrates the reliability of their opinions, i.e., not predominantly focusing on their sole perspectives. these are also reinforced by the intensification of quality in the aspect of graduation. the following tables below are the results of each three interacting domains of appraisal. table 3 demonstrates that the aspect of judgment dominates the attitude branches. the clerics used favorable judgment of social esteem at 37%, whereas the negative judgment of propriety (social sanction) was 40%. according to islamic regulation, the latter is directed at women’s actions in violating islamic morality. for instance, hanya karena malas [merely due to her laziness—also read: selfish], merasa tidak penting [unfair], and tidak peka [insensitive] are the few judgments of propriety that are employed to appraise them. table 2 total of appraising items three interacting domains of appraisal clerics adi hidayat gus muwafiq khalid basalamah attitude affect (+) 1 50 36 (–) 10 30 61 judgement (+) 53 258 282 (–) 95 206 340 appreciation (+) 2 59 40 (–) 4 47 40 engagement monogloss 17 62 82 heterogloss 157 576 697 graduation focus 5 34 19 force 146 527 704 total 490 1849 2301 4640 appraising items table 3 classification of attitude classification of attitude frequency percentage affect positive 87 5% 11% negative 101 6% judgement positive 593 37% 77% negative 641 40% appreciation positive 101 6% 12% negative 91 6% 1614 appraising items 100% https://changing-sp.com/ 642 eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, ... muhammad ulul albab table 4 classification of engagement classification of engagement frequency percentage monogloss 161 10% 10% heterogloss contract 1084 68% 90% expand 346 22% 1591 appraising items 100% referring back to the notion of the cleric’s reliable stances, this can be overtly seen in table 4. surpassing monoglots with the total percentage of 90%, heteroglossia dominates the engagement branches. the result demonstrates the gap between the two sub-branches, i.e., the heteroglossia points out that the clerics tend to limit the scope of alternative positions and voices regarding to how frequent the heteroglossia contract appears. it can be seen from affirmation ini memang alamnya wanita [this is the nature of women indeed] and kalau laki-laki berbeda tentunya [as for men, it is different of course] (clauses 2–3, ngaji anak indonesia, 2019), as well as pronouncement jadi persoalan pertama tabarruj yang paling utama ada pada bagian wajah [so, the first main issue in tabarruj is the face] (clause 70, ceramah pendek, 2018) and maka nilainya orang hamil itu kalau pagi dihitung puasa, kalau malam dihitung tahajjud [so, the value of pregnant women is counted as fasting in the morning and as tahajjud (night prayer) in the night] (clause 332, santri remu’an, 2020). table 4 also demonstrates the deployment of monoglots utterances (the preaching was delivered only based on the clerics’ “bare declaration”, i.e., their perspective with lack of references). however, the lack of references occurred intermittently since the hadiths and quran’s religious quotations were utilized in their preaching. these results clarify that adi hidayat, gus muwafiq, and khalid basalamah used patriarchal language in delivering their preaching. they are the professionals who arguably attempted to seek balanced evaluation. based on table 5, the force has wholly exceeded the focus with a percentage of 96% in graduation analysis. this result reinforces that the three clerics generate their religious teachings to convey the degree either for positive or negative assessments of, for instance, social sanction—ini umumnya menampakan bagian yang tampak terlihat indah [this is generally to reveal parts that look beautiful] (clause 48, ceramah pendek, 2018); yang penting orangnya baik,…[the important thing is the person has good character] (clause 53, ngaji anak indonesia, 2019), and social esteem—[...] yang penting dompetnya tebel [the important thing is his wallet is full of money] (clause 54, ngaji anak indonesia, 2019), as well as valuation—apalagi mahabbah itu bakal hilang pelan-pelan [moreover, mahabbah (love or affection) will slowly disappear] (clause 414, santri remu’an, 2020). since most of the graduation presence in the preaching is found in force-intensification, the clerics tend to intensify the quality in forming their opinions of the statements mentioned earlier (martin & white, 2005). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 643 table 5 classification of graduation classification of graduation frequency percentage focus 58 4% 4% force intensification 1151 80% 96% quantification 226 16% 1435 appraising items 100% discussion muslim woman’s body in merias wajah: apakah termasuk tabarruj? adi hidayat (ceramah pendek, 2018) presented this religious teaching about tabarruj (display of [female] beauty), which leads to how this muhammadiyah’s cleric positions the women’s bodies under the (islamic) cultural cleavage of jahiliyyah (the era of ignorance prior to the advent of islam; this notion is also closely attached with the creed of stupidity) and non-jahiliyyah. from a total of 108 clauses, 62 relational processes dominated the preaching. it was employed to identify and characterize the actions of women and the cleric’s stance. the followings exemplify this: hidayat opens his preaching by posing this question: salah atau tidak? oh, belum tentu [is it (tabarruj) right or wrong? oh, it depends] (clauses 3–4, ceramah pendek, 2018). the pronoun itu [it] on the above relational clause is used to represents the tabarruj functions as the carrier of attribute salah atau tidak [right or wrong]. the attribute operates as a statement that leads to the judgment of propriety, i.e., assessing the (muslim) women’s ethics. hidayat continued to argue that if the woman enhanced herself to fulfill her husband’s sexual desire, she would be considered virtuous. however, if it is intended for the woman’s narcissistic end, i.e., becoming the center of the look, she will be considered mischievous. in this sense, hidayat endeavors to propose this subject by debating the righteousness of women in adorning themselves while disclosing the outcome responses. this then continues with his following argument: [ j]adi persoalan pertama tabarruj yang paling utama ada pada bagian wajah [so, the first main issue in tabarruj is the face] (clause 70, ceramah pendek, 2018). by this, hidayat aimed to point out the leading concern of tabarruj, i.e., the woman’s face in a linguistic relational manner. here, not only did hidayat intensify the quality of his utterance by using the adjectives of pertama [first] and yang paling utama [central] to grade the phenomenon’ (tabarruj), but this statement also implies that he tends to position women’s face as the ultimate entity in woman’s visuality the man cannot avert from looking. the following statement seems to be used to justify the teaching: [...] sehingga banyak kebiasaan orang-orang jahiliyyah ketika tampil membuka bagian atasnya [… so that the jahiliyyah people used to open the upper part of their bodies in public places] (clauses 71–72, ceramah pendek, 2018). https://changing-sp.com/ 644 eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, ... muhammad ulul albab these material clauses (represented by the vocal group used to open) indicate the propensity for jahiliyyah people. this vocal group exhibits the violation of islamic moral principles, i.e., uncovering the woman’s upper area. not only is this addressed to the women who do not wear hijab, yet that it additionally manifests the pronouncement that doing such action will be viewed as committing tabarruj (hidayat perceived tabarruj as one of the islamic laws, while wati and saputra (2018) contended that it connotes an islamic concept which regulates woman’s body). at this point, it can be argued that the cleric endeavored to attach an indirect pejorative label towards women who chose not to wear hijab. by so doing, women are seen as enticing men, yet simultaneously demonstrating the control over men’s speech to standardize women’s bodies. if women do not comply with these, they are deemed jahiliyyah. similarly, in his second preaching, entitled mengukur keimanan perempuan dari hijabnya, hidayat (audio dakwah, 2018) presented how to measure muslim women’s faith through their hijab donning. he built this argument by justifying the necessity of muslim women to cover their upper body as such an act determines the degree of muslim woman’s spirituality. a woman does not wear hijab can be seen as god’s faithless servant. in this sense, unlike muslim men, women are overtly placed in a disciplined human condition in which they cannot be conformed to their desires, yet they are ostensibly rewarded with the “obedient” religious label. however, when one chooses to align with this reward (also read: this regulation), this arguably “male-based” conditioning and corporeal normalization will not be an issue, and vice versa. from a total of 213 clauses, 94 relational processes dominated the preaching. this means that the cleric frequently attempts to identify and characterize women’s actions as his basis in delineating this corporeal ruling. however, like janus’s face, such regulation has its other side, i.e., glorifying the “hijabed” muslim women: dalam islam, setiap perempuan beriman dialah ratu yang sesungguhnya [in islam, every woman of faith is the real queen] (clause 57, audio dakwah, 2018). this relational clause indicates that not only does the cleric measure the degree of muslim women’s faith from their daily practices—their daily physical public appearance is included in this praxis,—but that he also gives additional reward by attaching the attribute ratu yang sesungguhnya [the absolute queen]. in this sense, he tended to label this type of women as “the real queen” in order to show the religious honor they gained. however, at the same time, this also demonstrates his attempt to normalize such regulation. kalau sendirian tutup jangan kelebihan, jangan dibuka semua kalau di hadapan orang yang banyak [do not over cover your body in private spaces; do not over reveal your body in public spaces] (clauses 149–150, audio dakwah, 2018). the material clauses above indicate that this corporeal teaching applies only in public places. muslim women have freedom over their bodies in the private spheres, but the attempt to cover is not as strictly off-limit as in public. the cleric then narrates the history of such regulation (derived from the era of prophet muhammad) as follows: jadi mereka kemudian pakai itu untuk menutup bagian kepala sampai changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 645 ke bagian lehernya [so, they then wear it to cover their head down to their neck] (clauses 214, audio dakwah, 2018). this material clause indicates that when muslim women at that time were initially given transcendent orders to cover up their upper bodies, they competed to find fabrics to cover their upper bodies. by this, hidayat asserted that the fabrics are a mere symbolic entity, and the muslim women’s attempts to prove their faith become the cardinal signifier. this means he continues that these standards are inviolable and intolerable for muslim women to gain a “pious” label. muslim woman’s sexuality in discrepant linguistic tone with adi hidayat, khalid basalamah’s cara merias wajah ala suami preaching (ngaji anak indonesia, 2019) presents the religious teaching about muslim women’s sexuality that they should comply with their husband’s standard on women as well as their woman’s adornment. in this preaching, the mechanism of how muslim women should fulfill their husband’s satisfaction is apparent by standardizing and normalizing this regulatory discourse. this can be overtly seen from the total of 369 clauses. one hundred sixty-six relational processes dominated the preaching. they are as follows: ini memang alamnya wanita [this is the nature of women indeed] (clause 2). kalau laki-laki berbeda tentunya [as for men, it is different, of course] (clause 3). basalamah (ngaji anak indonesia, 2019) opens his argument by justifying the distinction between men and women, i.e., they share different realms. this can be seen from clause 2. the determiner ini [this], which alludes to the activity of women adorning themselves, is identified with the identifier alamnya wanita [the nature of women]. adorning is professed to be women’s world, while men possess berbeda [different] realm (see clause3). the intensifier tentunya [of course] in clause 3 demonstrates this cleric’s initial yet ultimate stance on the muslim woman’s sexuality discourse. not only does this clause affirm basalamah’s perspectives on woman’s nature, but it also articulates his endeavor to regulate woman’s body. women cannot preen themselves following their desires and happiness, as it operates based on putting their marital partners as a social institution that should be complied with. basalamah articulates this as signifying the wife’s “good deed”. yang penting orangnya baik (clause 53), yang penting dompetnya tebel (clause 54). [the important thing is the person has good character; the important thing is the wallet is full of money] (ngaji anak indonesia, 2019). fisik itu luar biasa bagi dia [physical appearance is remarkable for him] (clause 56, ngaji anak indonesia, 2019). the two sentences above indicate that basalamah tended to distinguish the essential priority between men and women. in the first sentence (clauses 53, 54, ngaji anak indonesia, 2019), the elliptic carrier follows suit with the attribute yang penting [the important thing]. this is deployed to represent women’s temptation/priority in choosing their marital partner, i.e., orangnya baik [the person has good character] and his wallet full of money. meanwhile, in the second sentence, the noun fisik [physical appearance] represents men’s priority in choosing their spouses. the attribute luar https://changing-sp.com/ 646 eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, ... muhammad ulul albab biasa [remarkable] and the circumstance bagi dia [for him] indicate that women are only interested in their future husband’s financial condition and their moral virtues, while men tend to glorify the physical appearances of their future wife. this indirectly leads to the position of men as mere sexual predators of women. this salafi’s cleric continues: pelacur jalanan itu tidak ada yang laku itu bu, kalau istrinya melayani benar suaminya. [those street prostitutes will have nothing to sell, ma’am, if the wives serve their husbands properly] (clauses 133–135, ngaji anak indonesia, 2019). the above statement was articulated when he discussed a contextual investigation of his friend’s divorce because his wife refused to satisfy his friend’s sexual desire. not only do these two clauses (relational clause 133 and material clause 135) represent basalamah’s male-centric defense that the social phenomenon of street prostitutes was due to the women’s reluctance to comply with their husband’s sexual demands, but that they also signify the act of placing women as the catalyst behind the mushrooming of prostitution. material process melayani [serve] with the intensifier of way benar [appropriately] as well as the conjunction kalau [if] represent the situation where women are expected to act depending on their shared qualities, i.e., conceiving an offspring and managing a household (nisa, 2019). simultaneously, this support implies the cleric’s endeavor to control the woman’s body (anwar, 2008). basalamah’s following statement that men’s basic instinct is their biology reinforces such regulation and justification. this demonstrates not only the power relation between man and woman or the cleric and his target audiences but also this figurative declaration discredits while reducing women as disobedient beings. similarly, in his second preaching, entitled adab suami dan istri, basalamah (assalamualaikum channel, 2017) presented the religious teaching about the etiquettes of managing a household. he conveyed the topic by drawing a firm demarcation line of husbands’ and wives’ rights, yet they should comply with and fulfill this line. from the total of 1369 clauses, 554 relational processes dominate the preaching. the example of the relational process (in bold) are as follow: maka salah satu karakter wanita yang saya bilang adalah pendendam [so, one of the women’s characters that i argue is vengeful] (clause 385, assalamualaikum channel, 2017). the above clause indicates basalamah’s stance on a marital problem that the husbands should not vilify their wives as it will scar their souls. the phrase salah satu karakter wanita yang saya bilang [one of the women’s characters that i argue] is identified with the identifier pendendam [vengeful]. this identifier also operates as a judgment of propriety. at this stage, basalamah aimed to condemn women as resentful beings as he argued that they tend to remember their husbands’ mistakes, and will easily recall them once the same mistake reappears. ibu-ibu, kalau mau suaminya tenang di rumah, penuhi tiga hal: tatapan matanya, perutnya, dan kemaluannya. [ma’am, if you want your husband to be comfortable at home, fulfill these three things: his gaze, his stomach and his genital] (clauses 331–332, assalamualaikum channel, 2017). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 647 the above statement was articulated when he continued to discuss the rights of wives in the household. the circumstance of kalau mau suaminya tenang di rumah [if you want your husband to be comfortable at home] can be interpreted as a condition where the wives can claim their rights once they have satisfied their husbands. it can be seen from the material process penuhi [fulfill] and the goal tiga hal: tatapan matanya, perutnya, dan kemaluannya [these three things: his gaze, his stomach, and his genital]. at this stage, the goal is closely related to “his gaze” (read: the husband’s), which leads to the sexual visual demand over his wives’ appearances; “his stomach” indicates that the wives have cooked for them; and “his genital” suggests the wives should please their husbands’ sexual desire. basalamah then continues proclaiming that wives’ rights will be realized after properly addressing these desires. biologis laki-laki nggak bisa ditunda [men’s biology cannot be delayed] (clause 924, assalamualaikum channel, 2017). bapak buat kejutan sesuatu apa ya yang membuat akhirnya dia gembira, sehingga biologis bisa terpenuhi [you (the married muslim men) should surprise (your wife/wives) or do something that will make them happy. this will lead to the fulfilment of your biological desires] (clauses 1073–1074, assalamualaikum channel, 2017). these clauses indicate basalamah’s highlight of the distinction between men’s and women’s sexual tolerance. the phrase biologis laki-laki [men’s biology] represents men’s sexual demand functions as the carrier of attribute ditunda [delayed]. simultaneously, the relational process (cannot be) is used to characterize this preserved delay. the phrase “cannot be delayed” also operates as a tenacity judgment. at this stage, basalamah (assalamualaikum channel, 2017) labels men as “sexual predators”, yet he argues that it is their basic instinct. on the other hand, women are positioned as passive, patient, and submissive beings when dealing with their sexual desires. following this distinction, basalamah attempted to suggest the actions the husbands can do to win their wives’ hearts. this can overtly be seen from the above statement (clause 1073–1074, assalamualaikum channel, 2017). the material process buat [make and do] with the goal kejutan atau sesuatu yang membuat akhirnya dia gembira [surprises your wife or do something that will make them happy] represent the action of husbands fulfilling the material needs of their wives. however, this, at the same time, can be perceived as positioning women as materialist beings whose sexuality can be bought. woman’s domestication tips menghadapi istri yang cerewet by gus muwafiq (gus muwafiq channel, 2018) presented the religious teaching about the attitude to face some household difficulties. muwafiq conveyed the topic of his preaching by evaluating women’s duties as wives. from the total of 342 clauses, 168 relational processes dominate the preaching. the example of the relational process (in bold) are as follows: itu besok cerewet, sudah pasti [she will undoubtedly be naggy] (clause 7, gus muwafiq channel, 2018). https://changing-sp.com/ 648 eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, ... muhammad ulul albab the determiner itu (which refers to “she”—the wife—the carrier) is used to represent wives’ behavior, while cerewet [chatty/naggy] functions as the attribute. at the same time, the relational process (will be) characterizes the nature of the women as naggy/chatty persons. referring to the preaching title, the intensifier sudah pasti [indeed] is used to affirm such behavior and reflect this n.u. cleric’s stance over the roles, duties, and functions of wives and husbands reduces married woman’s nature to being chatty/naggy. notwithstanding this, muwafiq continues that this is due to: perempuan itu kerjanya berat [woman has a tough job] (clause 79, gus muwafiq channel, 2018). the above statement was articulated when muwafiq discussed his experience of trying to be in his wife’s position for one day. this, he later claimed, was unbearable. the noun perempuan [woman] represents the wives’ functions as the carrier of attribute kerjanya berat [tough job] in this relational clause. the so-called “tough job” is described as the domestic duty of wives to take care of their children and household. at this point, muwafiq demonstrates respect toward the “domesticated” women. this cleric then attempts to praise the woman further by suggesting to men the following: kalian pada posisi genting, laki-laki tidak boleh emosi [men should not be emotional in the precarious condition] (clause 205, gus muwafiq channel, 2018). this relational clause deploys the noun “men” to represent husbands’ functions as the carrier of the attribute emosi [emotional], while the verbal, relational group tidak boleh [should not be] characterize the suggestion. at this stage, muwafiq suggests that men be calm while arguing with their wives in any “precarious” condition. however, this plausible feminist stance is arguably unstable as it derives from the perspective that men/husband’s position is the “controller” of their family. similarly, in his second preaching, membangun rumah tangga dengan cinta, muwafiq (santri remu’an, 2020) presented religious teaching about affection-based marriage values. he conveyed this subject by portraying women’s devotion to complying with their responsibilities as wives by deploying a total of 724 clauses—447 relational processes dominate this preaching. the following exemplifies the values in conjunction with the different physiological and psychological nature between men and women: laki-laki kasar, perempuan lembut [men are rough, women are gentle] (clauses 67–68, santri remu’an, 2020). muwafiq began his preaching by stating that marriage is a strange phenomenon that can unify two different individuals—men are labeled as kasar [rough], while women lembut [gentle]. this characterization becomes the fundamental principle in distinguishing the husbands’ and wives’ responsibilities. at this point, he also attempted to add that it is more suitable for wives to stay at home and take care of their children than for husbands who comply with such situations. in this sense, domesticating women is arguably normalized. the following material clause represents the parallelism between the reward given to the “domesticated” pregnant wife and their actions doing their proper domestic works: changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 649 maka nilainya orang hamil itu kalau pagi dihitung puasa, kalau malam dihitung tahajjud [so, the value of pregnant women is counted as fasting in the day and tahajjud in the night] (clause 332, santri remu’an, 2020). muwafiq (santri remu’an, 2020) claimed that there would be an exclusive reward from god for pregnant women. at this stage, muwafiq aimed to pronounce that the value of such devotion is equal to fasting during the daytime and tahajjud [night prayer]. however, this pronouncement suggests muwafiq’s attempt to encourage women to remain devoted to their husbands. logical structure all of the six preaching used analytical exposition as its genre. the orientation, arguments, and reiteration parts of the preaching are dominantly represented by employing relational and material processes and the negative judgment of propriety. merias wajah: apakah termasuk tabarruj? by adi hidayat (ceramah pendek, 2018) sums up an islamic concept called tabbarruj, which leads to the employment of patriarchal language on a woman’s body. in the orientation part, he suggested that it is all right for a woman to adorn herself as long as it is for her husband. however, if this act is intentionally conducted to expose her sexual desires, this will be seen as committing tabarruj. he contended that (a) the main feature of a woman’s attractiveness lies on the face; (b) a woman wears jewelry to boost her appearance and to draw people’s attention. as for the reiteration, hidayat convinced his audience that women who do not wear hijab yet wear revealing garments and jewelry generate tabarruj. hidayat (ceramah pendek, 2018) portrays these dubious incorrect religious women’s behaviors firmly, which are closely related to the notion of jahiliyyah, while non-jahiliyyah represents the opposite. similarly, in his second preaching, entitled mengukur keimanan perempuan dari hijabnya, hidayat (audio dakwah, 2018) presented religious teaching pertinent to the dubious religious perception of woman’s faith measured, in this case, through her appearance. in the orientation part, he stated that the information was quoting the quranic verses, which begin with the word iman [faith] as an indicator of the degree of muslim women’s faith. he argued that (a) women are only allowed to see and publicize good things/deeds; (b) women have to cover their upper body—from the head down to the chest—to keep them away from bad things; (c) the more women make efforts to cover up their body, the stronger their faith will be. as for the reiteration, hidayat (audio dakwah, 2018) declared that there are no reasons for women nowadays to choose not to wear hijab due to any condition. unlike to hidayat’s preaching, khalid basalamah summarises his primary propositions of adornment that women must abide by adequately (assalamualaikum channel, 2017; ngaji anak indonesia, 2019). in the orientation part, basalamah argued that men and women share different spheres and that adornment merely belongs to women’s sphere (ngaji anak indonesia, 2019). he contended that (a) women are quickly intrigued by men’s stable financial condition as well as their excellent ethics, while men the women’s physical appearance; (b) it is the women’s essential characteristics to satisfy men’s biological needs; (c) it will be woman’s responsibility https://changing-sp.com/ 650 eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, ... muhammad ulul albab if their husband has an affair. basalamah reiterated the importance of women taking care of their bodies. the women’s off-limit territories are the bosom and genital parts. he also argued that a woman’s endeavor to care for her own body would obtain god’s reward. it is also an absolute necessity for women to conform to the corporeal version of their husband’s desires (ngaji anak indonesia, 2019). similarly, in his second preaching, basalamah (assalamualaikum channel, 2017) proposed plausible religious teaching about the etiquettes of managing a household. in the orientation part, basalamah stated that it is crucial to establish a household based on islamic principles to avert domestic saturation. he argued that (a) husbands and wives are allowed to ask for their rights each other politely; (b) the wives have the right to obtain appropriate treatment from their husbands; (c) in order to get these rights, the wives are required to satisfy their husbands’ gaze, physical hunger (for food and sexual demands); (d) the husbands are allowed to act boldly towards their wives, yet hitting and vilifying the wives are forbidden; (e) as the imam of the house, the husbands are responsible for their wives’ mistakes. as for the reiteration, basalamah (assalamualaikum channel, 2017) emphasized that it is essential that husbands and wives fulfill each other’s rights to avoid collisions. on the other hand, gus muwafiq (gus muwafiq channel, 2018; santri remu’an, 2020) sums up religious teaching about the typical religious attitude in dealing with household difficulties—focusing on women’s domestic duties as wives. in the orientation part, muwafiq (gus muwafiq channel, 2018) positions the routine nature of married women as naggy/chatty. he contended that (a) the wives must take care of children a harsh/heavy-handed; (b) and the men should stay calm when dealing with their wives’ arguments; and (c) men are the “controllers” of their family. muwafiq reiterated that marriage is a part of worship, yet the principles in managing it are contingent upon the husband and wife who undergo the process (gus muwafiq channel, 2018). similarly, muwafiq proposed religious teaching about affection-based marriage values in the second of his preaching (santri remu’an, 2020). in the orientation part, muwafiq contended that marriage is strange due to its capability to unify two different individuals. he argued that (a) marriage is one of the ways for muslims to worship god; (b) men are rough, while women are gentle; (c) the value of pregnant women is counted as fasting in the daytime and tahajjud at night-time; (d) the domestic chores wives did for their husbands are considered as the realization of worshipping god and observance. as for the reiteration, muwafiq reminded his target audiences of the importance of women caring for their children so that they become well-mannered (santri remu’an, 2020). these three clerics’ preaching is meant to regulate women’s behaviors and ethics. they are aligned with their male-dominated cultural characteristics, i.e., women are biologically responsible for giving birth to offspring and maintaining a household according to islamic law, especially in the domestic sphere. thus, women’s freedom to adorn themselves is only allowed to follow the principle of their husbands’ pleasures. in this sense, women, their bodies, sexualities, and domestications are controlled and voiced by these male-centric religious regulations. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 634–654 651 conclusion the study of hijab in islamic discourse is the starting point for discursive studies evaluating this patriarchal language. feminists and postfeminists view the hijab as the symbol of patriarchal suppression, as the veiled woman contradicts the normative non-islamic patriarchal standards. in the lens of western feminists, the hijab is not taken by invitation but by coercion, while the muslims signify the hijab as the representation of fundamental security for women’s corporeality and safety. these can overtly be seen from how the three clerics voiced their religious stances on women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication discourse. the sampled data demonstrate the scope of the discrepant linguistic manners the three male clerics deployed to regulate the discourse on the muslim women’s adornments, devotion, and obedience. muhammadiyah cleric adi hidayat evaluated women’s behaviors through their adornments’ initial purpose (audio dakwah, 2018; ceramah pendek, 2018), whereas nahdlatul ulama cleric gus muwafiq focused on the devotion to engaging a household (gus muwafiq channel, 2018; santri remu’an, 2020), and salafi cleric khalid basalamah discussed the obedience towards their husband (assalamualaikum channel, 2017; ngaji anak indonesia, 2019). hidayat delineated the muslim women’s body discourse based on the segregation of dubious religiously correct and incorrect propriety, whereas muwafiq, the apparent religiously normality, and basalamah, the plausible religiously propriety. the patriarchal language on women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication in their preaching as their litmus test dominantly employed relational processes along with the negative judgment of propriety within intensified heteroglossia utterances to condemn women as mischievous, selfish, and unfair as religious cultural-based punishment when violating the teachings. paralleling these stances with the so-called general islamic discourse on the position of women is arguably closely related to syed’s (2004) finding that the exalted position muslim women had in 610 and 632 a.d. (as the result of islamic reforms) was then resisted by patriarchal muslim jurists/conservative framers in the 8th century a.d., as they attempted to preserve the tradition of muslim patriarchal society that put women inferior to men. in the lens of stowasser (1994), this was conducted through ijma [community consensus]. these patriarchal religious acts put the muslim woman’s body as the patriarchal male muslim’s machine of desire. they were disciplined and attached to religious attributes loaded with male-dominated female moral obligations. references afsaruddin, a., & ameri, a. (1999). hermeneutics of honor: negotiating female “public” space in islamic/ate societies. harvard university press. (originally published in french 1981) alloula, m. (1986). the colonial harem (m. godzich & w. godzich, trans.). university of minnesota press. anwar, z. 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(2020). veiled muslim women’s responses to experiences of gendered islamophobia in the uk. international review of victimology, 26(1), 96–111. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269758019872902 https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2019.1632796 https://youtu.be/z7qswibmp9i https://doi.org/10.1177/0008429814526150 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021911807000575 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021911807000575 https://doi.org/10.14421/musawa.v15i2.1302 http://www.humanrights.asia/indonesian-constitution-1945-consolidated/ https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740802393858 https://doi.org/10.29240/ajis.v3i2.577 https://doi.org/10.21580/jid.36.1.1627 https://doi.org/10.1177/0269758019872902 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.192 received 28 may 2022 © 2022 elena v. bazueva accepted 27 august 2022 bazueva.l@mail.ru published online 10 october 2022 article social and economic factors of violence against women in the south of moldova: identification, estimation, and mechanisms of elimination elena v. bazueva perm state university, perm, russia vologda research center of the russian academy of sciences, vologda, russia abstract a surge in violence against women requires a better understanding of its causes and factors, which is the problem that this study seeks to address. this study aims to identify mechanisms through which these factors are reproduced on all levels of the gender system (individual, family, social milieu, professional milieu, state institutions). the focus is made on the case of the autonomous territorial unit gagauzia in moldova. the study relies on systems analysis methods and approaches based on the institutional economic theory, systems theory, and gender economics to assess the impact of socio-economic factors on the likelihood of intimate partner violence (ipv) in this region. in gagauzia, there is a decline in women’s opportunities to realize their economic rights and ensure their financial independence. while the incomes of households are falling, gender discrimination, including physical violence, is perceived as justified by more and more people. another contributing factor is the lack of effective mechanisms for ipv prevention. the factors contributing to ipv are related to the system of specialized institutions, which impose sanctions for violating the rules of gender stereotypical behavior. the study proposes a set of projects to promote more egalitarian norms on all levels of the gender system. keywords women’s human capital, gender system, gender stereotypes, factors, violence against women, systematic approach, institutions, sanctions, codes of behavior, gender education https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 611 introduction international organizations, researchers and representatives of public communities are increasingly drawing attention to violence against women as an obstacle to sustainable development due to its high economic, social, and political costs (duvvury et al., 2013). the growing rates of violence are another cause for concern: according to the survey conducted by the world health organization (who), as of 2018, approximately every third woman in the world had experienced some form of intimate partner violence (ipv) in their life (violence against women prevalence estimates, 2021). the prevalence of violence against women in the eu countries is slightly lower. according to the fundamental rights agency (fra), in 2014, 22% of women reported that they had been subjected to violence or abuse by an intimate partner (european union agency for fundamental rights, 2015). as far as moldova is concerned, the rate of violence against women increased almost by 13% in 2010–2018, reaching 73% in 2019 (organization for security and co-operation in europe, 2019; statistica moldovei & unpd, 2011). importantly, in that period, the country extensively implemented a set of laws and national strategies, including those aimed at preventing domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual and physical violence, and ensuring marital gender equality in general. in this regard, it is important to identify a system of factors that influence the level of violence against women in the country. currently, the research literature identifies a wide range of factors that influence the level of violence against women. there is still, however, much uncertainty surrounding the relationships between these factor variables. there is evidence of the importance of women’s economic independence (sanders, 2015) and employment status on the labor market, the level and the form of wages (chin, 2016), the stability of employment (adams et al., 2012), the availability of housing (johnson, 1992), and the level of education of women (sanders, 2015; scaricabarozzi, 2017; shiraz, 2016). all these factors are considered to reduce the likelihood of violence and its severity. the significance of the above-mentioned social and economic factors that reduce the likelihood of ipv has also been confirmed by the surveys on violence against women in one of the settlements of autonomous territorial unit gagauzia (atu gagauzia)—chirsova village—and in moldova1 in general. these factors should 1 for more information on the methodology of these qualitative studies, see description of data for the study. acknowledgement this research was supported by undp russia as part of the project addressing violence against women in the republic of moldova: exploring and learning from local solutions, implemented by undp moldova. the content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent undp’s views. https://changing-sp.com/ 612 elena v. bazueva be taken into account when developing tools to reduce violence against women in a particular region. interestingly, there is also evidence of the increased possibility of ipv in the case of women’s employment (terrazas-carrillo & mcwhirter, 2015), their increased income, higher professional status or level of education in comparison to their partners (bott et al., 2005; koenig et al., 2003). e. c. terrazas-carrillo and p. t. mcwhirter explain the connection between violence and female employment by the fact that a woman’s employment status is “embedded within the multiple contexts of her life, including individual factors, the influence of family, peer groups, culture, and local and global economic conditions” (terrazas-carrillo & mcwhirter, 2015, p. 1144). m. l. connerley and j. wu, when systematizing the results of various studies on the relationship between various characteristics of women’s employment and the level of violence, point out the need to take into account the entire range of data of unobservable variables in order to enhance the reliability of the results and the possibility of interpreting cause-and-effect relationships (connerley & wu, 2016). a number of studies have shown that women who receive microfinance assistance experience spousal violence much more often than those who do not participate in such programs (dalal et al., 2013; hughes et al., 2015; sinha & kumar, 2020). focusing on the case of bangladesh, p. k. de and a. christian have demonstrated that the dependence is influenced by the types of microfinance programs, the ability to control the use of the received financial resources, women’s status and level of education, and the level of prevalence of traditional gender norms that justify the possibility of violence against women (de & christian, 2020). thus, violence is more likely to occur in families with strictly defined gender roles and less likely in relationships based on the principles of gender equality (for more detail, see hughes et al., 2015). the impact of social acceptance of violence against women on its level and degree was also confirmed in the case study of some indian regions (sabarwal et al., 2014) and some regions in sub-saharan africa (cools & kotsadam, 2017). in this regard, researchers are increasingly emphasizing the importance of considering social environment as a factor that influences the level of violence against women. in addition, the role of the macro-environment that determines the likelihood of violence against women is emphasized. for example, l. l. heise and a. kotsadam (2015) used linear and quantile regression methods to identify the direction and strength of the impact of the country’s socio-economic development indicators on the prevalence of violence against women. for example, partner violence is less common in countries with a high proportion of women in the labor force, and, in contrast, the risk of violence against women increases in countries with low rates of women’s employment. for our investigation it is significant that l. l. heise and a. kotsadam (2015) point out women’s ability to implement de jure or de facto economic rights as factor variables. these rights include women’s access to land, property and other productive resources. the ability to access these resources reduces the level of violence against women. the researchers, however, also changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 613 highlight the importance of social environment—this factor is prevalent over macrolevel factors, for example, the female employment rate in the country (heise & kotsadam, 2015). it should be noted that, in the countries with a high rate of gender equality, the possibility of discrimination cases is limited including those sanctioned by the state. these conclusions were also confirmed by s. nevala (2017), who used the data of the agency for fundamental rights (2012) to show that the level of gender equality in a country is one of the factors that determines the possibility of forced control over women (various forms of violence against women). s. nevala stresses that gender equality helps to increase the level of disclosure of information about violence through the ability to practice frank conversation with other people (nevala, 2017). it appears that each of the above-described socio-economic factors is important because in one way or another they contribute to the increased ipv levels in society and, therefore, must be targeted in order to change the situation. in this study, these factors are systematized and analyzed from the perspective of institutional economic theory, systems theory, and gender economics. in our opinion, this, on the one hand, may bring more clarity into our understanding of how these factors influence ipv levels and how these factors interact with each other. on the other, this may give us a larger picture of the mechanisms of ipv risk reproduction at all levels of the gender system: the individual, family, social and professional milieu, state institutions (for more on the gender system levels see ridgeway & correll, 2004). the following sections outlines the proposed methodological framework. methodological framework according to institutional economic theory, the establishment of power relations between economic agents, when, in the language of gender economics, one (man) discriminates against another (woman), is possible only when certain codes of behavior for each of these sides are established through a system of institutions. these codes are realized in the process of interaction at different levels of the gender system (for more on this see bazueva, 2015). the institutional system comprises the following elements: informal institutions that determine the codes of behavior in society through a system of “social control”; formal institutions in the form of a system of laws and economic contracts, officially enshrined in the rules of law and binding on all citizens and organizations (north, 1990). as shown in bazueva (2015), in social development, this system of institutions supports the permanent reproduction of gender stereotypes and the system of gender inequality in general, which are the basis for the permanent reproduction of discrimination against women, including such extreme forms as violence. table 1 generalizes the socio-economic factors that influence the likelihood of violence against women, depending on the type of institution and the nature of the sanctions applied in the case of violations of the codes of behavior established by each institution. https://changing-sp.com/ 614 elena v. bazueva table 1 institutions that support the reproduction of ipv risks subjects of gender system institutions functions of institutions socio-economic factors of gender inequality mechanism of enforcement (types of sanctions) state laws and regulations establishing fundamental rules of socioeconomic behavior enforcement of socioeconomic and civil rights enshrining of formal gender equality in law regulation of domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual and physical abuse, and marital rape priority state funding for “male” sectors of economy women’s status of primary beneficiary of social services and workers ‘with caregiving responsibilities’ makes employers resistant to hiring or promoting them state system of coercion (imprisonment, fines, community service, etc.) organisations contracts ethics code defining the forms of organization of business activities influencing directly the behavior of employees and candidates restrictions on women’s ability to exercise their social and economic rights (gender pay gaps, limited access to advanced training, career progression, etc.) employers’ reluctance to hire women due to gender stereotypes the possibility of sexual harassment against women as a condition for their career promotion. the system of coercion adopted in the organization (prejudice against women, cancellation of bonus, coercion, targeted commands, etc.) social environment code of conduct in society control over the behavior of group members reproduction of gender stereotypes that regulate standards of behavior for men and women public stigmatization family (represented by the head) code of conduct in the family men’s use of women’s resources to maximize their own benefit reproduction of gender stereotypes gender-based division of household responsibilities alienation of resources (goods) restriction of access to goods control over behavior (decisionmaking), interests and motivation sanctions in the form of physical violence, psychological coercion, targeted commands, etc. women code of personal conduct internal control of one’s own behavior compliance of one’s own behavior with gender stereotypes gender gap in housework, childcare and family care, which affects women’s career opportunities in the public sector women’s underestimation of their business qualities internal sanctions that depend on moral norms (remorse, guilt) changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 615 the current situation of gender-based violence and the contributing institutional factors (for more on this see north, 1990) can be summarized as follows: while the current legislation formally guarantees women their economic and social rights and punishes the perpetrators of such violence, the current system of informal rules determines the conditions and opportunities for women to exercise their rights in the real world, establishes the permissibility and justification of violence against women at the level of their social environment, employers, and family. in addition, it is important to take into account women’s acceptance of such violence and their acceptance of various forms of gender discrimination in general, because the degree of such acceptance determines women’s internal control over their own behavior, modifying the structure of their goals and motivations (for more on this, see bazueva, 2015). the above-mentioned methodological principles will be applied further to assess the risk of socio-economic factors and to propose a set of measures to reduce the likelihood of violence against women in one of the southern regions of moldova—the atu gagauzia. description of research data the assessment of women’s ability to exercise their economic rights and its influence on the level of ipv in gagauzia includes the following: (a) analysis of the legislative documents of the republic of moldova regulating the issues of sustainable development, achievement of gender equality and manifestation of various forms of violence; (b) analysis of the results of the world bank’s women, business and the law 2020 study, which covers the laws and regulations that affect women’s ability to get jobs, earn income, set up and run businesses in 190 countries around the world; (c) analysis of the structure and values of the gender social norms index (gsni), which reflects the level of gender stereotypes in the country, calculated by the un on the basis of questions from the world values survey; (d) analysis of the data of the national bureau of statistics of the republic of moldova, characterizing the dynamics of the main indicators of the regional labor market and income; (e) analysis of the results of qualitative research on the prevalence of violence against women well-being and safety of women: osce-led survey on violence against women (moldova) and addressing violence against women in the republic of moldova: exploring and learning from local solutions in chirsova village. let us consider in more detail the methodology applied by these qualitative studies. the osce-led survey was implemented in spring/summer 2018 and involved 15 expert interviews, providing an overview of the issues related to violence against women and conflict-related acts of violence. it also included a survey of https://changing-sp.com/ 616 elena v. bazueva a representative sample of 1,802 women aged 18–74 living in moldova to establish the prevalence and consequences of violence through the multistage, stratified, random probability sample design. eight focus groups with women from various backgrounds on their attitudes towards violence against women were conducted. these were followed by four in-depth interviews with women to review the impact of the violence they have experienced in more detail (european union agency for fundamental rights, 2015). to meet the basic requirements for collecting qualitative, reliable, and comparable data, the survey used probability sampling techniques, which are based on the methodology used by the european union agency for fundamental rights (fra) for its 2012 survey on violence against women in 28 european union member states (for more on this, see european union agency for fundamental rights, 2013). the second study was conducted from august 15th to september 13th, 2018 by the undp team as part of the project addressing violence against women in the republic of moldova: exploring and learning from local solutions (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018). to ensure the representativeness of the sample, we selected respondents according to the following criteria: gender and education; occupational status; and family status. the categories of interviewed persons were established in cooperation with the undp team, local and international experts. the snowball method was used for respondent selection. local authorities of chirsova village assisted with respondent recruiting. focus groups and individual interviews with ipv victims were organized by the cbs-axa sociological agency from moldova. semi-structured individual interviews with 23 local government stakeholders and npo leaders were conducted by using a thematic questionnaire (see addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018; appendix 1). the guide for conducting focus groups was based on the social vignette approach. the topics for discussion included gender norms and roles, attitudes toward victims of violence, socially acceptable/desirable behavior in situations of domestic violence, examination of victims’ needs and reactions to domestic violence, awareness of legislation regulating violence, services available for victims, and possible recommendations for improving the response to violence against women in the region. in total, 59 people representing different categories of the population participated in the focus groups. focus groups with men were moderated by a male researcher, with women—by a female researcher. the duration of each focus group averaged two hours (see addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018; appendix 2). individual interviews were conducted with eight female survivors of intimate partner violence using a semi-structured questionnaire to learn about their opinions and perceptions of gender-specific behaviors, to assess the quality of available services and forms of support, factors that prevent and facilitate referral to services that support victims of intimate partner violence (see addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018; appendix 3). respondents participated in the qualitative research on a voluntary basis and gave their informed consent. discussions took place in a comfortable and changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 617 confidential environment. all fgds and individual interviews with the victims were audio-recorded, conducted and transcribed in russian. the transcripts of the fgds in english are available upon request (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018). risk assessment of the social and economic factors contributing to the increase in violence against women in the atu gagauzia according to the logic of the study presented in the methodological section of the article, the task of prime importance is to determine women’s ability to exercise their economic and social rights and to identify the regulated types of punishment for violence against women enshrined in the system of national legislation. analysis of the legislation of the republic of moldova regulating gender discrimination as far as the legislative framework is concerned, the republic of moldova has ratified the main international documents aimed at achieving gender equality in the main spheres of life. in 2015, the country adopted the un’s sustainable development goals. in addition, a set of national strategies and laws were adopted, including those aimed at the prevention of domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual and physical violence. the legislation also guarantees equal opportunities for women and men in the realization of their human capital on the national labor market, which refers both to the ability to engage in entrepreneurship and to the entitlement to equal pay for equal work (women, business and the law, 2020). as part of the general recommendations of the un committee on the elimination of discrimination against women and the beijing platform for action, law no. 5-xvi of february 9th, 2006 “cu privire la asigurarea egalităţii de şanse între femei şi bărbaţi” [on ensuring equal opportunities for women and men] and the national strategy for ensuring equality between women and men (2017–2021) were developed and approved. as part of the soros foundation project development of civil society in the atu gagauzia, a working group was created to develop a gender equality strategy in this region (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018, p. 18). in general, according to the world bank’s study women, business and the law 2020, formally the country’s legislation provides gender equality in the main spheres of human activity with the exception of the retirement legislation due to the differences in the retirement age of men and women. there is also a perceived gap in the labor legislation, which does not require employers to pay men and women equally for doing the same work and does not explicitly prohibit sexual harassment at work or specify any penalties for such acts. however, in real life, women are facing a much wider range of problems when realizing their economic rights. these problems are reflected in the negative dynamics in the main indicators of the national and regional labor market as well as in the level and structure of household income. we will focus further on these factors since they, as was noted above, may contribute to violence against women. https://changing-sp.com/ 618 elena v. bazueva analysis of the efficiency of the current legislation from the perspective of women’s economic rights and opportunities in the regional labor market 2 one of the main indicators that reflect the degree of participation in labor activity and employment opportunities enjoyed by women and men is the level of their economic activity table 2). table 2 changes in the level of economic activity of men and women activity rate 2007 2013 2019 2021 men women men women men women men women age groups—total 41,6 37,1 34,6 32,9 36,5 30,3 34,8 28,6 15–24 18,1 13,8 17,5 14,1 15,5 9,1 13,0 9,4 25–34 43,5 42,7 33,8 33,9 45,2 36,5 41,8 37,8 35–44 53,8 60,5 44,6 57,6 45,2 56,4 53,6 48,5 45–54 62,9 63,3 50,6 56,7 54,4 58,6 49,5 55,1 55–64 61,6 34,0 47,5 26,5 42,5 26,8 44,3 28,4 65+ 12,4 5,1 6,0 4,5 5,9 2,1 2,0 2,1 note. the data describing labor market and population income dynamics are monitored by the national bureau of statistics of the republic of moldova for enlarged statistical groups. due to the lack of data on the atu gagauzia, we use the data provided for the statistical region of the south, which gagauzia is part of (national bureau of statistics, 2022). if we evaluate the general level of economic activity for all age groups, it should be noted that it is significantly lower than in the eu countries. for example, in the eu countries the level of economic activity of women increased by 14.8% and was 78.5% from 2010 to 2021. iceland (86.3%), sweden (87.5%) and switzerland (76.8%) had the highest values in this indicator (eurostat, 2022). these countries are the leaders in terms of gender equality achievement (united nations development programme, 2020). the level of economic activity of women and men during the period under investigation is decreasing and corresponds to the fluctuations in the economic environment. the greatest negative changes are typical of the age groups that provide the maximum return on the implementation of human capital. this fact indicates the imperfection of regional labor market. overall, men’s level of economic activity is higher than that of women. similar trends are also typical of the dynamics of employment of men and women (table 3). table 3 shows that the employment rate of women is lower than that of men. this is a consequence of the reduction in the number of working women, primarily in traditional sectors of female employment: wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants; public administration, education, health care and social work. in the period from 2011 to 2020, the number of employed women in the region decreased by 192 people, while the number of employed men increased by 2,853 (national bureau of statistics, 2022), which might be a consequence of discrimination against women in the labor market. 2 there is a lack of detailed information about female victims of violence, which is why these trends are described for women in general. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 619 table 3 structure of employment of men and women by the level of education 2007 2013 2019 2021 men women men women men women men women level of education—total 39.5 36.3 32.3 31.3 33.7 29.1 33.5 28.0 higher 66.4 67.7 48.5 54.2 45.2 55.8 56.2 61.9 secondary specialized 50.1 57.4 43.4 46.9 38.4 39.8 33.5 31.6 secondary professional 52.3 52.0 38.5 34.1 43.7 38.8 40.3 31.7 secondary school 33.1 32.9 24.1 26.7 28.5 25.5 27.8 25.1 gymnasium 31.3 27.3 26.0 21.7 26.1 17.1 27.3 17.9 primary or no education 11.3 5.6 10.6 3.8 9.1 0.8 4.0 0.4 moreover, gagauzia is primarily an agricultural region, which means that the possibility to realize high quality human capital here is limited. the share of r&d enterprises in the region is lower than the national average (national bureau of statistics, 2022). the industrial park in comrat is seen as one of the opportunities for economic development of the region. the park currently comprises companies specializing in growing and processing fruit products, a photovoltaic park for the production of solar energy, companies producing meat products and paper disposable cups. it is estimated that the park is capable of creating more than 2.5 thousand jobs. unfortunately, there are reasons to believe that most of these workplaces will be occupied by men. the higher levels of education among women (table 3) may be explained by the differences in the educational paths chosen by men and women under the influence of gender stereotypes. men’s professional choices are largely guided by their salary expectations, the prestige of the profession in society, and the payback period of investments in education. women are guided primarily by their own preferences and the need to balance work with family interests (for more on this, see bazueva, 2015; rapoport & thibout, 2018). in addition, the so-called socially useful career breaks connected to the birth of children and family care as well as limited opportunities for continuing education resulting from gender discrimination in the labor market lead women to invest more effort than men into obtaining higher education before starting a family. men, on the other hand, are initially more interested in obtaining a primary or secondary vocational education in order to enter the labor market more quickly. moreover, if necessary, employers are more willing to give men an opportunity to improve their professional skills regardless of their marital status and the number of children (bazueva, 2015)3. these negative trends and gender segregation in the regional labor market determine the need for projects such as the one provided by ngo “association of 3 these gender strategies of human capital formation in men are gradually beginning to transform under the influence of the modern economic conditions. however, as a result of the time lag between education and labour market entry as well as the agro-industrial specialization of the region, these changes have not yet had an impact on the structure of employment by education level. https://changing-sp.com/ 620 elena v. bazueva women of gagauzia”, which offers career counselling as well as individual support for employment. in the period under investigation, this organization paid almost 400 beneficiaries for training in the following professional spheres: driver, computer user, accountant, hairdresser, masseur, manicurist. as a result, 217 people managed to find employment. this ngo mainly offered training in the so-called traditional female professions (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018, p. 52). meanwhile, special attention is paid to women from socially vulnerable groups, including the victims of violence. for example, as part of the project ending gender-based violence and achieving the sustainable development goals, grants were provided to create or expand the activities of the existing organizations to enhance social and economic reintegration of women affected by violence, increase their economic freedom and financial independence from their partners. the projects are mainly aimed at providing various services in chirsova village in gagauzia. the services include computer maintenance, photo and video studio shooting, beauty services, and motorcycle repair. none of the projects is scienceintensive and or involves high-quality human capital, i.e., they are focused on meeting the current, rather than strategic needs of the region’s economy. we found that it is typical of many projects aimed at helping ipv victims open their start-ups. such projects are mainly implemented in the b2c (business-to-consumer) sector, since they are focused on the existing professional skills of women. in future, it may become an additional restriction for the economy focused on the high quality of human capital. it also increases women’s risk of becoming victims of domestic violence. thus, according to the results of the osce-led survey on violence against women in moldova conducted in 2018, university-educated women are less likely to be physically or sexually abused by a partner (22%) than those who have not completed higher education (36%) (organization for security and co-operation in europe, 2019). third, the above-mentioned negative processes that reduce women’s opportunities to realize their human capital on regional labor markets are accompanied by an increase in the gender pay gap (table 4).4 table 4 dynamics of the average salary in 2011–2020 regions 2011 2020 gross average salary, lei gender pay gap5, % gross average salary, lei gender pay gap, %women men women men whole country 2,856.6 3,252.9 87.8 7,387.2 8,558.5 86.3 tau gagauzia 2,313.6 2,303.4 100.4 6,180.9 6,118.5 101.0 note. compiled by the author by using the data from the national statistical office of the republic of moldova. 4 gender pay gap is the ratio of women's salary to men's salary (calculated by the author by using the data from: national bureau of statistics, 2022). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 621 larger gender equality in men’s and women’s wages in gagauzia can be described as “equality in poverty”, since the average salary in the region is significantly lower than in the country as a whole. besides, the average salary does not provide any positive dynamics in the structure of consumer spending. in 2021, food and basic necessities accounted for 80% of consumer spending (national bureau of statistics, 2022). thus, it can be concluded that there is a variety of factors that contribute to the increasing violence against women in gagauzia. therefore, further in this article, the extent and level of prevalence of the certain types of gender stereotypes in relation to women in moldova will be considered. as was mentioned above, these stereotypes influence women’s ability to realize their rights in real life and reinforce the acceptance and justification of violence against women. gender stereotypes as a factor of violence against women according to the 2020 un report (united nations development program, 2020), in the republic of moldova, 90.6% of respondents indicated the presence of at least one prejudice against women, and 67.21% of responders indicated at least two prejudices. only less than 10% of the country’s population support gender equality, which is almost 2% below the global average. it is a matter of concern that 65.2% of respondents believe that physical violence against women is justified. the negative attitudes towards women’s economic and political empowerment are a significant factor since men enjoy the privileges if the number of vacancies is limited: 58.33% of respondents think that preference should be given to men and 60.33% believe that women are less capable than men in doing business it should be noted that the percentage of men who support gender-based discrimination is higher than that of women in moldova. the majority of men and women believe that physical domestic violence against women can be justified (61.16% of women and 69.70% of men). in addition, every sixth respondent thinks that higher education is more important for boys than for girls (united nations development program, 2020). the survey findings may be explained by the high level of patriarchalization in moldovan society. according to the osce-led survey on violence against women in moldova conducted in 2018, almost half of women (45%) believe that their friends would agree that “violence against women is often provoked by the victim” whereas only 15% of women in the eu share this opinion. similarly, two out of the five (40%) women believe their friends would agree that “women who say they have been abused often make up or exaggerate claims of violence or rape” compared to 20% in the eu. half of women believe that their friends would agree that “a good wife should listen to her husband, even if she doesn’t agree with him” (organization for security and co-operation in europe, 2019). under these circumstances, people who constitute the social environment of the family often prefer not to interfere in the situations of violence, considering it a private matter. thus, women are left to deal with these issues on their own. the prevalence of this attitude among women in moldova is almost four times higher (55%) than in the eu countries (organization for security and co-operation in europe, 2019). https://changing-sp.com/ 622 elena v. bazueva it should be noted that these patriarchal attitudes are less common among young women. this fact brings us to the conclusion that there are some positive shifts towards the egalitarization of the gender behavior norms in the family. this agrees with the findings of the study conducted in chirsova village in gagauzia in 2018 (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018). a number of projects have been implemented in moldova to reduce the level of patriarchalization. for example, the ngo “la strada” organizes the annual campaign “16 days of active struggle against gender-based violence” to raise awareness of violence against women and change the perception of gender roles (organization for security and co-operation in europe, 2019). interestingly, according to the results of the above-mentioned survey of employers in chirsova village, they are ready to provide jobs to victims of domestic violence (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018, p. 21). however, the analysis demonstrates that despite the specialized projects aimed at changing traditional gender norms, the justification of discriminatory practices against women, including the extreme forms of physical violence, is still widely spread in moldova. it stems from the high level of persistent gender inequality, which, among other things, is caused by the lack of effective legal sanctions for gender-based discrimination. based on the above-discussed findings, the following preliminary conclusions can be drawn. in general, it should be noted that the current national legislation in moldova is not conducive to the creation of an effective mechanism for promoting gender equality, including gender equality in the labour market5. there is evidence that many women in moldova remain largely unaware of their rights, of men’s responsibility for their actions, and of the available assistance in the cases of gender-based violence. only “around four in ten women feel very well or well informed about what to do if they experience domestic violence themselves (39%), and a further 28% feel somewhat informed, while 26% do not feel well informed or do not know what to do at all” (organization for security and co-operation in europe, 2019). in our opinion, this is due to the lack of consistency and low coverage of public awareness-raising activities. there is a lack of coordination between different ministries and governmental agencies in implementing gender equality policies. the persons authorized by the national legislation to provide support to victims of violence are subject to different levels of government. for example, most of the specialists working in gagauzia are subordinate to local authorities, while the social assistants and police officers are subordinate to the region’s department of social assistance and the police inspectorate located in the city of comrat, the region’s administrative centre (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018, p. 8). moreover, the gender approach has not been integrated into the activities of all governmental agencies. local authorities, including the administration of chirsova 5 for more information on the principles of effective national legislation to prevent discrimination and violence against women, see: beijing declaration and platform for action: beijing+5 political declaration and outcome, 2015 (strategic aim d.1; iss. 19; iss. 201); un cedaw, 1988; committee of ministers, 2002. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 623 village, have not been informed about the policy in the field of gender equality and countering gender-based violence. thus, according to the study addressing genderbased violence in chirsova village, none of the 23 respondents from the local public administration and ngos, except for one police officer, took part in any specialized trainings dealing with the domestic violence legislation, gender equality legislation, or regulations to prevent human trafficking (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018, p. 17). the government of the republic of moldova does not have a ministry or special experts responsible for ensuring gender equality in the country. gagauzia, however, has a specialized commission to combat violence against women established in 2018 (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018, p. 8). however, so far, the commission has failed to deliver any real action. the national legislation specifies only the penalties for physical violence while other discriminatory practices, including psychological abuse and sexual harassment, are not covered by any legal norms. furthermore, the labour inspectorate has not been legally assigned the function of monitoring the employer’s compliance with the principle of gender equality. moreover, the level of development of forensic medicine in gagauzia and in moldova in general is insufficient and makes it difficult to prove the fact of psychological violence in court (addressing gender-based violence in chirsova village, 2018, p. 21). under these circumstances it is difficult for victims to prove gender-based violence and/or discrimination. to address this problem, in many countries, the burden of proving gender discrimination is shifted from the victim to the perpetrator. according to the osce-led survey on violence against women in moldova, ipv victims reported the low level of effectiveness of perpetrator punishment. the key points made by the victims include the following considerations: (a) when fines are issued, they are paid from the family budget; (b) community service sentences for a minimum number of days does not protect the victim from the abuser; and (c) the attendance rates of the mandatory rehabilitation course are low (organization for security and co-operation in europe, 2019). in view of the above, for more effective enforcement of legislation on violence against women, it is necessary to create conditions for women’s socio-economic empowerment and for ipv risk minimization. measures to reduce violence against women in the atu gagauzia the experience of developed countries demonstrates that the efficiency of the existing national legislation that ensures gender equality in all spheres of life depends on the strength of traditional gender-inequitable attitudes and beliefs that justify the use of discriminatory practices against women, including their most extreme forms. to this end, it is necessary to create a system of “gender equality education” on different levels, encompassing government employees, businesses and entrepreneurs, families and their social environment. from the perspective of the institutional economic theory, only in this case it is possible to establish and https://changing-sp.com/ 624 elena v. bazueva promote new norms of behavior. moreover, if interactions on the basis of egalitarian norms of gender behavior are practiced by a large number of people, then, according to the coordination effect6, the number of those willing to interact on the basis of patriarchal norms of behavior will be minimal. in this case, adherence to alternative norms of behavior that support gender discrimination would be made too costly by the sanctions system and, therefore, not advisable. however, our analysis shows that the range of proposed measures does not involve all economic actors in the system of “gender education”. the focus is made primarily on ipv victims (ahmed, 2005; mcwhirter, 2006); small population groups (buller et al., 2018), or women’s partners (hughes et al., 2015; kim et al., 2007). consequently, at least two actors in the institutions that support the reproduction of ipv risks (see table 1) are completely excluded from the process of building new norms of behavior. others are involved only fragmentarily. the excluded categories usually comprise people who are the most capable of adopting egalitarian norms of behaviour. this, in turn, impedes the diffusion of the new norms in society and thus prevents the transformation of the existing system of sanctions maintaining the patriarchal norms (table 1). the following sections will describe the design of the system of gender equality education for all economic actors (representatives of state and local government, business, friends and acquaintances, family members). this system is based on the integration of effective legal mechanisms for achieving gender equality and the use of individual practices to strengthen the effectiveness of these mechanisms by eliminating the identified gaps in the compliance with the determinants of the institutional system’s quality (bazueva, 2015). the success of the proposed measures depends on the level of the country’s socio-economic development and the possibility of their incorporation into the existing system of institutions in the region. development of the gender equality education system according to the recommendations for gender mainstreaming developed by the committee on gender equality in sweden7, it is necessary to provide gender equality training for regional and local government employees. such training programs, among other things, should focus on the correspondence of gender equality education to the state development goals – the regulatory framework of the state, the ineffectiveness of the current dichotomy, possible results of work and the basics of gender analysis (swedish gender mainstreaming support committee, 2007a, 2007b). it is possible to organize specialized training to enable government officials to work more effectively with ipv victims as part of programs for violence detection, rehabilitation, social assistance and support. in gagauzia, specialized courses dealing with men’s violence 6 the effect of coordination means that the more consistently the norm is enforced in society, the more damage each particular individual suffers when he or she deviates from it. the design of the negative feedback mechanism in this case contains positive feedback: the more people follow the norm, the less expedient it is to deviate from it, the more people follow the norm (polterovich, 1999, p.9). 7 it should be noted that according to the comparative studies in the eu, the system of institutions for ensuring gender equality established in sweden is one of the most effective. see, for example, european institute for gender equality, 2013; rubery, 2002. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 625 against women and domestic violence could be included in higher education programs at the comrat state university (comrat). a productive approach could be to involve business into combating discrimination against women. this makes particular sense, since in the economic sphere, it is business that discriminates against women by underestimating the return on their human capital through the gender wage gap. in this case, interactive trainings for employers and employees could be organized to show how to apply the integrated gender approach more effectively. the international labor organization (ilo) has devised a gender audit methodology, which has proven to be efficient in tackling the problem of gender inequality at work (for more on this, see international labour organization, 2012). following the example described in (adams et al., 2012), it would be useful to develop a separate project aimed at creating and implementing specialized training courses for employers to encourage them to create a more sensitive workplace policy for ipv victims, to eliminate stereotyping and misguided preconceptions about women’s lower productivity, and to prevent the dismissal of women during the rehabilitation period. less men and women would follow the patriarchal norms of behavior if an efficient system of institutions for gender equality education was developed. awareness raising programs promote a more critical attitude to the existing patriarchal norms and values. the most successful forms of gender equality education include the following: (a) introduction of gender equality courses throughout the system of education from pre-school to university; (b) social advertising aimed at eliminating gender illiteracy; (c) development of special manuals explaining the main forms of gender discrimination and the mechanism for filing complaints; (d) production of demonstration films teaching the basics of gender equality in accessible and exciting forms; (e) introduction of sex education courses for schools. promotion of more egalitarian gender norms is impossible without gender education of media professionals since media influence social norms8. at present, in moldova, gender-biased representations are common in the mass media. it would, therefore, make sense to launch a specialized project, which would include gender equity certification programs for journalists. this measure, however, is likely to have a short-term effect. to ensure a more long-term effect, media outreach activities must be systematic. to this end, the frequency of these activities should be specified in the corresponding regulatory documents, e.g., the gender equality strategy. the system of gender equality education in the region should be supported by specialized programs aimed at encouraging women from socially vulnerable groups to maintain and develop their human capital, to enhance their business skills and competencies, to challenge their self-limiting beliefs and boost their self-esteem. only in this case it will be possible to eliminate the internal control orientation, which is one of the factors contributing to the persistence of the patriarchal system of values (table 1). 8 this aspect was also discussed in hidrobo et al., 2016. however, the authors only declared the need to encourage negative attitudes toward violence and to raise awareness of the unacceptability of discriminatory life-behavior practices in the media. https://changing-sp.com/ 626 elena v. bazueva development of ipv victims’ personal potential and business skills the analysis has revealed that women from socially vulnerable categories, especially ipv victims, often do not get the chance to develop their own competitive human capital as they have limited access to educational services. on the other hand, they tend to underestimate their personal potential and business qualities (e.g., behaviour stereotypes). this problem could be tackled through a system of specialized training for ipv victims. the trainings will contribute to the identification and promotion of their personal and economic interests, strengthening of their capacity and realization of their human capital to achieve financial stability and independence. in this case the education technology “i—corporation” implemented by business managers can also be used (bazueva, 2015). it involves the situations when a person describes him/herself as a corporation assessing their strengths and weaknesses, including their external environment. on the one hand, it would reduce the influence of gender stereotypes on women’s choice of areas for the application of their human capital. on the other hand, it would help determine the trajectory of their training. to this end, it would be productive to use the innovative tools of the we go (women economic independence and growth opportunity) project financed by the eu (we go 2 against violence, 2018). these tools include the elaboration of individual plans for the development of ipv victims’ social ties, regular monitoring of their needs and employment opportunities, development of individual career programs, job placement assistance, and trainings for potential employers (we go 2 against violence, 2018). it would also make sense to launch a financial literacy project for those women who would like to open a startup. the aim of the project is to enhance ipv victims’ financial security, to train them in implementing effective technologies of managing their personal finances, help them obtain the skills of economic and financial planning to achieve their goals. the project can be also expanded to include low-income women who have a permanent source of income. this could be a separate project aimed at helping women develop individual savings programs similar to the мap program. unlike the project for stimulating startups, such project could accomplish the following: (a) help women achieve a wider range of financial goals; (b) encourage them to build their skills for wiser management of their family budgets, choosing a savings strategy to reach financial goals; and (c) help women accumulate personal savings. participants of the ida (individual development accounts) or matched savings program open accounts in a certain financial institution and make regular contributions for a specified period of time. a certain proportion (depending on the state and program) of the resulting sum can be spent to achieve a financial goal, e.g., to buy a house, to start a business, etc. in this case, it is important to help low-income women discover their personal potential and become independent by providing them financial assistance in the form of a grant or social benefit (sanders et al., 2007). the impact of such microfinance projects on the prevention of violence against women in the region should be monitored (for more on this, see hughes et al., 2015). unfortunately, the project ending gender-based violence and achieving the changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 627 sustainable development goals, which is currently being implemented in gagauzia, does not involve such monitoring and assessment. in gagauzia, as our analysis has shown, the share of employed women with higher education is decreasing. the region’s labor market is gender segregated. in the long term such situation may exacerbate women’s discrimination in the labour market because the quality of their human capital in the emerging knowledge economy will be uncompetitive. in this regard, one of the projects aimed at helping women enhance their human capital is to offer them career guidance and encourage them to obtain higher education. the project can be implemented in schools among the students of grades 8 and 9. in addition, the project can also solve the problem of reducing the influence of gender stereotypes on women’s choices of profession and career, encouraging their interest in stem. thus, this project can contribute to reducing gender segregation in education and, subsequently, in the labor market of the region. the project can be supplemented with a program for the creation of innovative enterprises by a team of educated women from socially vulnerable groups. such enterprises can become part of the industrial park in comrat and offer competitive salaries to highly qualified specialists, thus preventing the latter’s labour migration to other countries or regions. graduates of the industrial college, which is being opened in the atu gagauzia with the support of the turkish government, and graduates of the comrat state university can be involved in training personnel for this enterprise. girls participating in a career guidance project can get practical training or internships at this enterprise with the opportunity to be employed there after completing their higher education. the operation of the enterprise should result in the production of high-tech products with high added value. there is a need for a project to develop an effective mechanism for coordinating the efforts of various departments, institutions, agencies, employers, and the public to provide various forms of assistance and services to ipv victims. it should be based on the ‘single window’ principle, which increases the effectiveness of rehabilitation measures by minimizing transaction costs. furthermore, this principle can be used to create methodological tools for more effective prevention of violence against women. the synergistic effects of the project can also result in promoting the gender-equality approach in public administration and in the creation of an institutional environment in the region that promotes egalitarian gender norms in the family and society as a whole. the potential projects outlined above aimed at women’s economic empowerment may be integrated into a single comprehensive project to prevent violence against women in gagauzia. conclusion this study outlined and classified the social and economic factors that influence violence against women. statistical analysis of the data from undp moldova results and qualitative studies was used to estimate the likelihood of violence against women in one of the southern regions of moldova—the atu gagauzia. it was found that violence against women stems from a wide range of factors, including the following. https://changing-sp.com/ 628 elena v. bazueva first, on the regional labour market there are limited opportunities for women to realize their economic rights. in general, women in gagauzia are less economically active than men. women’s employment rate is also lower, including the traditionally female sectors of economy. there is also a decrease in the employment rate of women with higher education and a growing gender pay gap. this picture fits well into the overall socio-economic situation in the region where the income levels of households are falling and the problem of poverty is exacerbated. secondly, there is a high level of patriarchalization of the population’s consciousness as people tend to justify discriminatory practices against women, including extreme forms of violence. thirdly, there is no effective mechanism for ensuring gender equality in the region. as a result, women are not informed about gender equality policies and responses to gender-based violence, about their rights and opportunities to receive assistance in cases of violence, as well as about men’s responsibility for these actions. there is a lack of coordination between the ministries and state departments responsible for the implementation of the gender equality policy. similarly, local authorities have not been informed about the policy in the field of gender equality and measures to counter gender-based violence, no experts or officials have been appointed on the national or regional level to oversee the realization of the gender equality policy. while there are relevant legal provisions and legislation on physical violence, other forms of discriminatory practices, including psychological violence, are not regulated by law, and there are no penalties for sexual harassment at work. we have shown that these factors, which increase the risks of ipv, is supported by the system of specialized institutions, each of which applies its own system of sanctions for the violation of its rules of gender stereotypical behavior. promotion of egalitarian norms of interaction and adaptation of economic agents to them is possible only if the existing mechanisms of enforcement are eliminated. for this purpose, in the light of the recommendations given by the un and the eu as well as the successful experience of developed countries, the following set of projects is proposed: ● development of the system of gender equality education of economic entities on different levels of the gender system (state and local authorities, business, social milieu, family and individuals), development of an institutional environment in the region that will be conducive to the establishment of egalitarian gender norms in the family and society as a whole and to the elimination of discrimination practices against women, including physical violence; ● implementation of a system of specialized programs to stimulate women to enhance their human capital and realize their personal and professional potential; ● development of an effective mechanism for coordinating the efforts of various departments, institutions, business, and the public to ensure the provision of various forms of assistance and services to ipv victims. the project should rely on the single window implementation principle of a “single window” for enhanced cooperation of all the authorities involved in the process. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 610–633 629 in the future, the proposed set of projects will create conditions for promoting the norms of egalitarian interactions between economic agents at different levels of the gender system. this will help prevent gender-based discriminatory practices, including the extreme forms of violence against women, through the formation of a self-sustaining system of gender equality institutions. references adams, a. e., tolman, r. m., bybee, d., sullivan, c. m., & kennedy, a. c. 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(2020). the world bank. https://doi. org/10.1596/978-1-4648-1532-4 https://changing-sp.com/ https://morethanprojects.actionaid.it/en/projects/wego2-economic-empowerment/ https://morethanprojects.actionaid.it/en/projects/wego2-economic-empowerment/ https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-1532-4 https://doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-1532-4 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.1.002 interview “there is a crucial need for competent social scientists”… ronald inglehart university of michigan, ann arbor, usa we decided to conduct our journal’s first interview with ronald f. inglehart – lowenstein professor of political science at the university of michigan (usa), academic supervisor of the laboratory for comparative social research at national research university higher school of economics (russia) and founding president of the world values survey association. we asked him about challenges to contemporary social sciences and trends in their development. professor inglehart is interviewed by olga iakimova, the executive editor of cs&p. o.  i. professor, what do you think are the main challenges contemporary societies will face in the near future? how can social sciences help and do they have or can provide relevant tools to cope with these challenges? r. i. those are big questions. i think that the two biggest problems facing the world are (1) conflict between countries and (2) poverty and rising inequality within countries. war between countries has been occurring throughout history, but things have changed in one really important way. once upon a time, war between countries made sense. once upon a time, when land was the only basis of income, the only way to get rich was by seizing somebody’s land and enslaving or decimating the population. since the development of industrial society, this is no longer true. already before world war i, the noted social scientist norman angell argued that received 20 december 2016 © 2017 ronald inglehart accepted 17 march 2017 rfi@umich.edu published online 15 april 2017 13changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 war is obsolete: it had become irrational and was no longer profitable, because industrialization had made it possible to get rich in much safer and more productive ways without war. this theory seemed to have been disastrously disproven by world war i and then by world war ii. actually, social scientists have done a large amount of research on this topic, and it confirms the basic idea that war is irrational: in terms of costbenefit analysis it is a heavily losing proposition – in any war between two highly developed countries, the costs tend to heavily outweigh the gains. the problem is that political actors do not always act rationally – in fact, quite often they do not. for example, world war i was a catastrophe for all sides – the losses far outweighed the gains. and again, in world war ii hitler went to war thinking that seizing the land of the soviet union, depopulating the slavic population, and replacing them with german peasants was the best way to make germany prosperous and strong. it was a disastrous mistake – disastrous for russia, disastrous for germany, disastrous for everyone involved. ironically, stripped of its empire and stripped of almost half of its territory after world war ii, west germany became far more prosperous than it had ever been before, through industrial production. this illustrates the simple but crucial point that political leaders do not always make rational decisions – in fact, quite often they make irrational ones. social scientists can help with this. social scientists often serve as advisors to political leaders, providing feedback on public opinion, and providing analyses of potential conflicts. this particular field, “the costbenefit ratio of war,” is something that political leaders need to absorb. a large body of research points to the conclusion that war between developed countries no longer makes sense: for advanced industrial societies, the costs of war far outweigh the gains – and this becomes increasingly true as the technology of war advances. in so far social scientists are able to convey this message to political decision-makers and to the publics of these societies, it will be enormously beneficial. everything invested in social science throughout history will be more than repaid if it results in avoiding just one significant war. another big problem is that of poverty and growing income inequality. poverty is rapidly diminishing. the world as a whole is ronald inglehart14 experiencing the most rapid economic growth in history. almost half of the world’s population, living in china, india, indonesia, bangladesh and thailand, has been escaping subsistence-level poverty during the past 30 years. but at the same time, practically all high-income societies are facing problems of growing income inequality. for most of the 20th century, the rise of organized labor and working-class-based political parties, elected governments that redistributed income and installed welfarestate policies. as a result, the dominant trend for most of the 20th century was a move from very high levels of inequality around 1900, toward much lower levels of inequality. this is true for the us, great britain, russia, china, and most other industrialized societies. but since about 1970, this trend has reversed itself. the structure of the work forces has changed. there are no longer large numbers of industrial workers – in fact, in the us the industrial work force has fallen to less than 9 percent of the population. it is no longer the base of a winning coalition. the coalition that once pushed successfully for economic redistribution, for policies that benefited the entire population, no longer exists. this change in the structure of the work force is one factor. another factor is that these countries have become knowledge societies – which inherently tend to have winner-takes-all economies. in an industrial society, there are many niches. they produce very cheap automobiles, slightly more expensive ones, mid-sized vehicles, more expensive ones and luxury automobiles and they compete on cost. the market has room for scores of different products. in the knowledge society there is a huge change. the cost of reproduction becomes almost zero. in the knowledge society, it may take a big investment to produce something – microsoft software, for example. but once you have developed it, it costs almost nothing to make and distribute additional copies, so, there is no need to buy anything but the top product and one product tends to dominate the world. if you invent microsoft, you can be a billionaire before you reach the age of 40, like bill gates. if you invent facebook, you can be a billionaire before you are 30, as did mark zuckerberg. enormous rewards go to the very top. but since the top product tends to dominate the market, the rewards changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 15 go almost entirely to those at the top. this is an inherent feature of the knowledge society that only government can offset. this problem is not yet well understood, it needs to be analyzed and explained by social scientists. today the key basis of political polarization is between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent. for the past few four decades, most people’s incomes and job security have been diminishing, and this is becoming an increasingly serious problem. political leaders and political movements need to emerge that represent the needs of the electorate as a whole. in democracies, the masses can elect governments that represent their interests. the problem is that, so far, there is no political coalition representing the new basis of political conflict. for the past thirty years, there has been a lot of economic growth, but the rewards have gone almost entirely to the top 10 percent, mostly to the top 1 percent. as bernie sanders argued in his surprisingly strong electoral campaign in the 2016 us presidential elections, the key struggle is no longer between the working class and the middle class, but between the vast majority of the work force and a tiny minority of extremely rich people at the very top. this is something that social science can aid in understanding. it reflects a structural problem inherent in the nature of knowledge societies. it would not go away if we rely on market forces, which are strongly pushing toward rising inequality. the only actor that can offset this force is government. in democracies, if the 99 percent or even a large part of the 99 percent form a coalition, it can win power and install governments that reallocate resources. the problem today is not a lack of resources – they are abundant. the problem is that they are badly allocated, going overwhelmingly to a narrow stratum at the very top. this could be reallocated in ways that could be immensely beneficial for society. the government could develop programs to create jobs, having human beings doing useful things in early childhood education, in healthcare, environmental protection, infrastructure, research, development and in the arts and humanities. instead of blindly following market forces, governments could be installed that would use the tremendous resources of advanced industrial society to benefit the population as a whole, to raise quality of life for the entire population. ronald inglehart16 this is a new problem. war has been around throughout history and social scientists have been trying to analyze its causes and consequences for quite a long time. this fact that income inequality has been rising sharply throughout developed industrialized societies has only recently has been recognized and we are still in the early stages of designing effective ways for the government to reallocate abundant resources for the benefit society as a whole, and not just for the one percent. there is a crucial need for competent social scientists to develop programs to do this efficiently. it seems clear that the solution is not a state-run economy. that option was tried for many decades and mountains of empirical evidence indicate that it does not work. one major alternative would be to have governments provide grants to programs that would create jobs for humans doing valuable things. in the us, the national science foundation and the national institutes of health have been effective in providing peer-reviewed grants for large programs that have been successful in developing the internet, eradicating disease, furthering environmental protection and supporting basic research in many other fields. this is an agenda for future research. we need people to develop good programs that will create useful jobs that will benefit society. o. i. how do you see the role of artificial intelligence in society – in your point of view, is it rather a threat or advantage? r. i. it is both. artificial intelligence is a tremendously valuable tool. i am immensely impressed by its potential. it can do wonderful things. artificial intelligence can improve people’s quality of life, can solve health problems, can make people much more efficient. it also presents an underestimated danger. for the past thirty years, the working class of developed countries has experienced stagnant or declining real income because automation and outsourcing has displaced unskilled labour. this has been true for decades. more recently, artificial intelligence is being used to perform the jobs of highly educated people – lawyers, doctors, educators, scientists, engineers, journalists. their fields are being taken over by artificial intelligence. so, artificial intelligence present both a threat and a changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 17 potential. it means that we have the power to do things we could not do before. but if we continue to blindly follow market forces the income and job security of the entire work force will be squeezed. the vast majority of the population – not just the less educated – are losing their bargaining power, leaving them at the mercy of a thin stratum who control large corporations. this is a pervasive process that has been going on for the last few decades in all industrial societies. for example, young lawyers are being replaced by computers that can read and interpret and classify the information from millions of pages of documents much more quickly than people. so, there is now considerable unemployment in the legal profession – which used to be a relatively secure and lucrative field. this is invading all fields – education, medicine, and journalism are being taken over by artificial intelligence. there is a huge positive potential – for artificial intelligence offers huge resources. the question is, do we blindly follow market forces in which the people at the very top squeeze the work force, making enormous profits for those at the top, or do we use these resources for the benefit of society as a whole? the political system can cope with this, but it needs intelligent and well-informed guidance. the government needs to play an active role in reallocating resources. donald trump has been elected president of the us with the goal of reducing taxes on the very rich, stripping back regulation of the economy and cutting government expenditures on health, education, welfare, research and development in order to increase military spending. this is exact opposite of what is needed. we need to reallocate resources for the benefit of society as a whole, and this cannot be done blindly. it will require social scientists (among others) to analyze the problems, and propose appropriate programs to solve. some of the programs will probably work well, while others will not – but social science can help evaluate and improve the programs. o. i. in the case when government and state play an active role in reallocating resources – how they will interact with market? what socio-economic model of society it will be? ronald inglehart18 r.  i. we need a combination of government and market forces. i think market forces should guide the economy, but since the 1970s – particularly in the us and great britain under reagan and thatcher – we have had reduced government regulation, reduced reallocation, and greatly reduced tax rates on the top incomes, in the belief that this will provide prosperity for all. it has not. in fact, the real income of the working class has had declining, and in the us, it has even had declining life expectancy. the belief that maximizing the income of those at the very top would lead to strong economic growth and jobs for all did not work. we need an economy based on market forces but tempered with appropriate state regulation and reallocation. politics has always has been a balancing act. it is possible to get too much government – it is quite clear. the totalitarian systems of hitler and stalin were disasters. one can get too much government, but one can also get too little government. we are now in a phase of having too little government. this was true earlier. in the 19th century, we had too little regulation, with extreme exploitation of workers, dangerous working conditions, low wages, low benefits. one of the big advances of the 20th century was the development of working class movements, including communist movements and social democratic or labour-oriented political parties in the west that reallocated resources for the benefit of the society as a whole. you clearly can get too little government. a basic problem is that advantages tend to be cumulative. those who happen to be born into prosperous families usually get better pre-natal care, better nutrition, more intellectual stimulation and medical care as children, and better education and more influential social contacts as young adults – and subsequently tend to make higher incomes. those born into poorer families tend to fall behind on all of these measures. without countervailing government policies, the more privileged tend to accumulate wealth and political power, which they use to further their own interests in a snowballing process. unless the government plays a balancing role, wealth tends to accumulate while the mass of the population is exploited. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 19 this may sound like a marxist analysis. obviously, marx was wrong on many points, but the notion that there is a need for reallocation of resources strikes me as perfectly true. this is not a purely marxist concept, of course – all societies have always had cultural norms or government policies to reallocate resources to some extant – for example, christianity, judaism, islam and buddhism all emphasize charity and the duty to give alms, and tribal societies emphasize sharing, in recognition of the fact that resources tend to be cumulative – a tendency that needs to be offset for the sake of solidarity. o. i. let us get back to artificial intelligence. in your opinion, how and to what extent it will participate in human’s life in future? r. i. you are thinking far ahead but it is a very important question. in the long run – but probably sooner than we think – artificial intelligence will transform society profoundly. it is developing rapidly, and it is already playing a very important role. when i want to know anything – anything in the world – i do a google search, and it scans millions of documents and within a few seconds tells me what i want to know. when my students and i are discussing something in class, if a question comes up, someone pulls out a smartphone or an i-pad and in a second we have the answer instead of going to the library and spending an afternoon looking through the shelves until we find the answer. we have wonderful, almost unlimited access to information. we are smarter, we know more, and we can do more. this has many advantages – in terms of healthcare for example. our ability to analyze and solve problems is increasing immensely. our ability to cope with diseases is increasing. artificial intelligence combined with nanotechnology is capable producing nanobots – tiny robots, invisible to the eye that can be injected into the blood stream. they can go to the cancer site and specifically attack only the cancer cells. they can do operations that once were complex and dangerous. they can improve the quality of life and increase life expectancy. artificial intelligence can provide huge resources! used intelligently, it can make us powerful, healthy and wise. ronald inglehart20 but artificial intelligence already is getting smart enough to replace lawyers and doctors, and university professors. will humans be able stay in control? artificial intelligence could conceivably rise to the top of the food chain. would it treat humans any better than we now treat the other animals on this planet? artificial intelligence is growing in power at a geometric rate, much faster than humans are developing. artificial intelligence has, for some time, been able to beat the best human chess-players. in the not too distant future, they will be beating us in many far more complex fields than chess. unless we take precautions, artificial intelligence could wind up ruling the world. if we are lucky, artificial intelligence may treat us as kindly as we treat cute little puppies and kittens, but i cannot guarantee it. in any case, human intelligence will be greatly surpassed. this is a serious problem. human intelligence is capable solving it but it should not be neglected and we need to begin acting now. your question has major long-term implications. o. i. reasoning about trends in social sciences, could you emphasize a particular area that will be highly significant in the near future? r. i. using artificial intelligence to develop models of society that enable us to experiment with social change to develop and test alternative ways of doing things could be immensely valuable. mistakes in social and political can be enormously expensive in terms of money and human lives, as world war ii and the failure of china’s great leap forward demonstrated. developing models of society that are so realistic that the models themselves can be tested and used to experiment with social change, with policies that provide a specific treatment to the society and to examine their implications, could be extremely valuable. so, i am a big fan of artificial intelligence – but at the same time i view it as something that could conceivably take over and replace humanity. o.  i. nowadays, there is variety of conflicts in societies which is, unfortunately, only increasing. in this context, what can be the basis for social cohesion and solidarity? what will be this basis in the future? changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 21 r. i. it would be ridiculous to claim that there is a simple solution. but social science can give some general guidance. ethnic conflicts, religious conflicts, racial conflicts, and xenophobia are huge problems. a large body of research indicates that the amount of xenophobia – and the amount of conflict between peoples – varies systematically. xenophobia tends to be highest under conditions of extreme insecurity. for example, under conditions where just enough land to support one tribe, and another tribe comes along, it may literally be a question of one tribe or the other surviving. under these conditions, xenophobia is realistic. but evidence from countries containing most of the world’s population, indicates that xenophobia declines systematically as people become more secure. with rising levels of security, people become less xenophobic, and they become more tolerant of people with other values, other religions, other races. consequently, over time, the people of advanced industrial societies have become more tolerant of diversity and less violent toward others. the higher level of security, the less realistic xenophobia becomes. with high levels of economic and physical security, people actually value cultural diversity, they go out their way to eat exotic food, travel to foreign countries, and experience what life is like there. it is interesting and stimulating. so, at the high end of spectrum diversity is actually valued and respected. in general, as more the world gets more secure, the lower the level of conflict and xenophobia is likely to be. thus, the fact that china and india are currently experiencing 6 to 7 percent economic growth per year is a huge plus. some observers view it as threatening that china is becoming the world’s largest economic power, but it has some highly positive implications. the fact that china and india, with 40 percent of the world’s population are rapidly escaping subsistence-level poverty tends to make the world a safer, more tolerant place in a long run. nothing is inevitable, but this seems to be a strong tendency: secure people are less defensive, less xenophobic, less hostile than insecure people. o. i. contemporary societies have been shaped, in general, by two waves of global transformations: one is the global flow of capital, ronald inglehart22 information and risks, another – the implementation of a pluralistic paradigm of structural and value systems. but why are the trajectories of societies’ development so different? what are the forces that lead the transformations and what values do populations share? is it possible to predict some potential outcomes of current social transformations? r.  i. globalization has brought major economic changes that are transforming the world’s value systems. large amounts of capital and technology have moved from western countries to asian countries, making them increasingly the world’s center of manufacturing. this has brought a decline of manufacturing in western countries and a huge boom in india, china, indonesia, bangladesh and other asian countries containing half of the world’s population. this is transforming their value system but they are currently moving from agrarian values to industrial values. india and china are going through the phase of rising materialism, and emphasis on economic development is the top goal. this has made beijing and shanghai some of the world’s most polluted cities. theoretically, in the long run, china, india and the other rapidly developing countries will begin to move on the trajectory toward rising emphasis on post materialist values that occurred in western countries and japan in the post-world war ii era, but for now they are experiencing rising materialism. different regions of the world have been moving in different ways in recent decades. there has been a huge growth and rising prosperity for the populations of india, china, bangladesh, etc. along with a stagnation and even a decline in real income for a large share of the population of high-income countries. these countries are not becoming poor – the us, and germany, and france, and sweden are still experiencing economic growth. but for last few decades almost all of the economic gains have gone to the top 10 percent, mainly the top 1 percent, which means that there has been cultural regression in these advanced industrial societies. they continue to move ahead in rising gender equality, rising tolerance of gays, rising emphasis on environmental protection but also with rising xenophobia. this phenomenon is wide spread. it manifests itself in british exit from the eu and in election of donald trump as president in the us, and changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 23 the rise of the national front in france. a large share of population in the us and other western countries has experienced declining real income, and in the us even declining life expectancy. this segment of the population is angry, they do not trust their leaders, they feel that they have been going nowhere in recent decades, and they are angry. one standard response to insecurity is to blame the problems on foreigners. insecurity triggers a tendency to rally behind a strong leader, seeking strong in-group solidarity, and closing ranks against dangerous outsiders. this tendency is deeply rooted in the human psyche. today there is more than enough food to go around. but the gains in recent decades have gone almost entirely to the top. most of the population has gone nowhere in terms of security, even in terms of health and life expectancy. they are angry and blaming it on outsiders, in a classic reaction. in the us, we see quite an alarming trend in this direction. though clinton won 2.8 million more votes than trump, trump won the elections through a fluke of the us electoral college. he has taken office on a platform that emphasizes xenophobia, blaming the country’s troubles on immigrants and foreigners. he plans to build a huge and expensive wall to keep out mexican criminals and rapists. he claims that if the chinese do not shape up and accept his terms, they are going to be in big trouble. i think he will find the chinese much more difficult to push around than he expects. this rising xenophobia in much of the world is an alarming phenomenon. it resembles the rise of fascism in the 1930s; abut fortunately the insecurity driving it now is much less severe than that of the great depression. which is another reason why i think that the rising prosperity of china, india and much of the world is a very good thing. in the long run, it makes the world a safer place. insecure people tend to be hostile, xenophobic, and ready to fight. secure people are more tolerant of others, they behave generally better. trump’s proposals are false solutions – building a wall to keep all mexicans out (unless they are clever enough to get ladders or dig tunnels), viewing them all as criminals, banning muslims from the us only fans support among unsecure people. it does not really solve the problem. turning power over to a billionaire who pays no income taxes ronald inglehart24 is not the solution to their problem. what is needed a government that taxes billionaires who now pay far less than their share, and redistributes resources to create jobs. o. i. modern societies are marked by the fact that religious beliefs – both historical and new ones – as well as atheism, agnosticism and nonreligious lifestyles are equally viable options. this raises the question of how two main principles of secularism – equal respect to all beliefs, and freedom of conscience – and its two operative modes – separation of religious institutions and state, and state neutrality towards religions – are challenged by post-secularism? r. i. i think religion is very important. i have to confess that when i was a graduate student, i paid no attention to religion, because my mentors and i thought that religion was disappearing and that it would drop dead within a few decades. this assumption was profoundly wrong. it reflects the 19th century version of secularization theory, proposed by some very brilliant social theorists, which held that the spread of scientific knowledge would show religion to be an outdated myth, one that would disappear with the spread of knowledge. it did not happen. my mentors and i were wrong. one major function of religion has been to give a sense of predictability and security in a face of an uncertain and frightening, dangerous universe. religion played a crucial role in agrarian society where people were just above the starvation level. they lived in uncertainty whether they and their children might starve next year. religion did two things – it insisted on a curtain degree of reallocation in the form of charity, alms, and public feasts sponsored by the rich, which helped ward off starvation. but even bigger function of religion was that it provided a sense of assurance that although we do not know what the future holds, it is in the hands of higher power who will provide for us. things will work out for the best. so, instead of giving up in despair people, did their best to cope with their situation. this is tremendously positive function of religion in uncertain societies. 25changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 economic development and the emergence of advanced social welfare networks in the decades after world war ii greatly increased the existential security of the people of highly developed societies, and secularization has taken place in rich secure societies. as societies become more developed, the need for the reassurance in the face of existential uncertainty that religion provided, has diminished. evidence from the world value survey demonstrates that during last forty years the role of religion has shrunk markedly. with one big exception: in ex-communist societies religion has been growing rapidly, to fill the ideological vacuum left by the disappearance of a marxist belief system that once gave a sense of meaning and purpose to millions of people. for reassurance in the face of insecurity is not religion’s only function. people need something to believe in. they need a sense of what is right, what is wrong, of where are we going and where should we go, and religion has provided this function. marxism for quite a long time provided an alternative sense of meaning; a sense that we are building a good society, that communism is the wave of the future. for a long time, communism had true believers who believed that they were building a good and meaningful society, that they were improving the lot of people. communism actually did improve education, healthcare, and provided jobs for almost everyone (though some of them were jobs as slave laborers). but in the long run, state-run economies societies do not work well. the people who were the party elite became a new self-serving ruling class by the 1970s and by the1980s, belief in communism was rapidly eroding. by the 1990s, hardly anyone believed any longer in the communist myth. this opened intellectual vacuum, which is being filled now by religion, and by nationalism. for the past three decades, the top eight countries in which religion is growing most rapidly are all former communist countries – including russia, china, ukraine, belarus, other ex-communist countries. they started with very low levels of religiosity but it is growing rapidly. in china, religion has started from an almost non-existent base but is expanding rapidly. russia also had low levels of religiosity during the soviet era but today, russia is a more religious country than france. ronald inglehart26 religion did not disappear, contrary to what many enlightened people used to think. for people need a belief system. many kinds of ideology can serve this purpose but religion is the most widespread institution that provides a sense of predictability, of right and wrong, a sense that universe is orderly. this seems to be a basic human need. humans evolved searching for patterns, looking for purpose, trying to predict what would happen, and those who could make a connection between a snapping twig or the fluttering of birds and the presence of predator were more likely to survive. the search for meaning is part of human make up. we need an explanation and if we do not have one people tend to be insecure and function poorly. religion is not the only thing that can serve that function – marxism once did so and ideologies based on ecology, gender equality, human rights are wide spread in the west. but people have a deep-rooted tendency to seek some belief system to explain what is good and what is bad and what is just and what is unjust. the role of religion has declined dramatically in highly developed societies. it once declined almost to extinction in the soviet union but now is coming back. as people become more secure they have less need for an absolute believe system that lays down rules that claim to be infallible and eternally unchanging. they become open to more flexible belief systems that accept new idea like gender equality and tolerance of gays and lesbians. note from the interviewer: the views presented in this interview are discussed in detail, along with supporting evidence, in inglehart’s forthcoming book cultural evolution: how human motivations are changing, and how this is changing the world. a russian translation of this book, with a preface by evgeny yasin, is forthcoming from the higher school of economics, moscow and st. petersburg. changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.207 received 15 june 2022 © 2022 polina o. ermolaeva, accepted 23 december 2022 yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko published online 30 december 2022 polina.ermolaeva@gmail.com ermolaevayulia1990@gmail.com efdv2015@mail.ru article metabolic transformations in the area of municipal solid waste management in russian megalopolises: the city of moscow case polina o. ermolaeva center of advanced economic research, academy of sciences of the republic of tatarstan, kazan federal university, kazan, russia yulia v. ermolaeva center of advanced economic research, academy of sciences of the republic of tatarstan, kazan federal university, kazan, russia dmitry v. efremenko institute of scientific information for social sciences, russian academy of sciences (inion ran), moscow, russia abstract based on secondary data analysis and semi-structured expert interviews (n = 90), the study analyses metabolic transformations in the area of municipal solid waste (msw) management in russian megalopolises using the city of moscow as a case study. the findings suggest that the key node that triggered numerous interdependent processes involved the changes introduced in the legislation on msw management and the decision to shut down several large msw landfills without the simultaneous implementation of other landfills. these actions affected the health of the population and contributed to environmental inequality. the authors provide recommendations for the mitigation of risks associated with msw generation, recycling, and storage in large russian cities. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 859 introduction according to united nations (un) estimates, the volume of municipal solid waste (msw) is increasing annually, and by 2025 will be five times higher than in 1990 (united nations environment programme, 2015). this issue is exacerbated in megalopolises. russian megalopolises are no exception here. in the russian federation, over 60 million tons of msw are produced annually, which is approximately 400 kg per person (zadera, 2022). according to the poll conducted by the leading russian sociological service, russian public opinion research center (vciom), russians considered the following to be the most pressing environmental issues: air pollution (22%), landfill sites (16%), and untimely waste collection and disposal (11%) (samyi bol’shoi vred, 2021). all of this leads to the deterioration of citizens’ health and living standards while also limiting opportunities for the further development of russian cities. it should be noted that the problems of msw storage and management are also considered to be one of the most important societal issues provoking the growth of protest activity in russia in the past few years. there are many worldwide studies of solid waste management in megalopolises from interdisciplinary perspectives considering the interconnections among economic, social, environmental, and political dimensions. notable examples are the study of solid waste management and environmental equity in barcelona (fragkou et al., 2014); the examination of the conceptual and comprehensive sustainability framework of european cities to support decision-making in waste management (taelman et al., 2018); and, the study of waste planning and resource management in “metabolic thinking” (longato et al., 2019), among many. however, in modern russian science, there is a notable imbalance in favor of the socio-economic and environmental research of waste in cities, such as studies devoted to the analysis of territorial waste management schemes, msw processing technologies, designing of econometric models, etc. (bobylev & zakharov, 2009). such studies do not facilitate the exploration of the complex interdependent qualitative processes that occur in different systems of waste generation and disposal in russian megalopolises. consequently, to fill this knowledge gap, our research is aimed at analysing the causal relationships in the area of msw disposal in russian megalopolises with a focus on the reciprocity and interplay of social, informational, technological, economic, and environmental processes, as well as their metabolic transformations. keywords socio-ecological metabolism, metabolic transformations, municipal solid waste, waste management, environmental justice, russian megalopolis acknowledgments the research was supported by the russian science foundation under grant no. 22-28-00392 “waste production and disposal in the megalopolises of russia: multisectoral and interdisciplinary analysis”. https://changing-sp.com/ 860 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko we will review these reciprocal relations and interdependent transformations within the scope of socio-ecological metabolism (sem) (efremenko et al., 2019; ermolaeva, 2015). complex metabolic processes continuously occur in cities and tend to bifurcate sooner or later, creating qualitatively new forms of the reciprocal relations between social life and the environment. the sem approach is suitable for the research of msw management as it features the examination of complex metabolic processes between the urban systems, the transition of some processes and substances into others and their interinfluence, as well as the analysis and registration of the invisible consequences of such transitions and transformations for the different groups of stakeholders. in addition, we should consider the constantly increasing value of the information factor that can have a significant impact on the dynamics and modality of the processes of the sem. thus, the goal of this research is to analyse the metabolic transformations in the area of msw management in russian megalopolises with a focus on the reciprocal changes in the environmental, social, informational, and technological processes. to analyse the changes, we will use the following parameters: (a) determination of the main sem “nodes” in the area of msw management; (b) determination of the causal relationships and metabolic transformations (both positive and negative); (c) determination of the points of metabolic transformations that impose the greatest risks on the citizens’ health and wellbeing; (d) provision of recommendations for risk mitigation. the hypothesis of our research is based on the fact that in russian cities, dynamic processes in the area of msw management occur in association with the rapid growth of the volume of both material and informational waste, a shutdown of landfill sites, an increase in the number of unauthorized dumping grounds, construction of waste incineration plants, aggravation and politicization of the environmental protests related to the problems of waste management, and the criminalization of waste management business. these processes served as accelerators for the metabolic transformations occurring in the material, discursive, informational, and technogenic urban environment. today, we witness how old biochemical and social exchange chains are disintegrating and new ones are shaping under the influence of these processes. at the same time, we can observe and determine the changes in the attitudes and behaviors of the social groups that are sometimes overlooked by the researchers who analyse the socio-political dynamics in modern-day russia. theoretical and methodological research coordinates “socio-ecological metabolism” as a term applied to the area of msw has different connotations in the english language literature depending on the methodological positions and disciplinary boundaries of the researchers. new conceptual ideas of the urban hybridity by bruno latour (1990), erik swyngedouw (1996), and others address the physical entities (water, air, etc.) that act as active agents (alongside humans) in the production of spaces. this perspective is very different from the linear models of urban space associated with such concepts changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 861 as the “industrial metabolism” (ayres & simonis, 1994), “ecological footprints” (wackernagel et al., 2019), and other functionalist urban space concepts (ermolaeva, 2015). the notion of urban metabolism is often symmetrical to the notion of metabolism in living organisms since cities are viewed as ecosystems. cities, like natural organisms, consume resources and produce waste. “cities transform raw materials, fuel, and water into the urban built environment, human biomass, and waste” (decker et al., 2000, p. 25). the sem concept encapsulates several approaches that transformed into the concept of analysing the life cycle and socio-biotechnological systems (efremenko et al., 2019), zero-waste approaches (murray, 2002), the theory of mobility networks and flows (urry, 2003), and others. the evaluation of a life cycle within the scope of sem is revised with due regard to the encompassing notion of resource efficiency: the more effective the social community is in using various types of raw natural materials and transforming of energy, distributing the final product, the higher its cultural, technological, and economical capacity. thus, the greater part waste takes in the transformation chains of production and consumption, the greater is the welfare of the society and the more sustainable is the use of environmental resources. urry (2003) pays considerable attention to the reverse links featuring non-linear reciprocation. he noted the shift towards the creation of the institutes of reflexive modernization in society, distinguished static communities, and substantiated the changes in the understanding of societies towards networks and flows of dynamic groups that are deprived of precise spatial-temporal parameters. according to the zero-waste approach (hannon & zaman, 2018), secondary flows (waste) should be returned into the cycle, while the unrecyclable residue should be burnt and reclaimed in areas distant from residential use. the logistics of secondary materials are covered by nonmaterial flows, such as communication lines and regulating institutions that ensure a certain connection between the different stages of a life cycle and demonstrate the level of development of the waste management culture. to explain different processes, metabolic relations, and transformations, we will employ the capabilities of interdisciplinary approaches and private sociological theories. out of the numerous approaches to defining sem (odum, 1983; wolman, 1965), we will rely on the approach of matthew gandy (2004). he defines sem as flows that depend directly on external factors, such as energy, materials, and information. talking about cities in terms of metabolic processes inevitably leads to considering the matter of balance between the social and biophysical in the urban space. discarding the functionalist perception of this concept, authors regard it dialectically as the interaction of nature and culture in an urban environment. in this sense, this approach conveniently diverts us from the popular sem tendency to calculate the material flows in the form of the reinterpretation of social relations in cities, such as the division of labor, the configuration of relations of power, and the particular qualities of the alignment of political forces (martinez-alier & walter, 2016). in this work, we will focus on reviewing qualitatively interconnected and interdependent causal relationships and metabolic processes in a city as in an open system in the field of msw management. we would understand these processes as metabolic transformations—the life cycle of waste https://changing-sp.com/ 862 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko implies further transitions into many substances that produce invisible consequences for the different groups of stakeholders. waste disposal requires production capacities and, consequently, additional energy, natural, informational, and social resources. in this regard, we employ the concept of metabolic “nodes” as a network process that overlap and impede; each node of the kind spawns numerous visible and invisible interdependent metabolic transformations that can be viewed as socially and environmentally friendly or harmful, with visible or yet unknown nodes. later in the study, we would apply this approach to visualize interdependent relationships between and among various nodes that produce either positive or negative effects in the society and environment. in our opinion, the sem approach is advantageous for the understanding of causal relationships between subsystems; nevertheless, we will also employ middlerange theories to explain the processes occurring inside them. in particular, we will use the environmental inequality approach (gonzalez, 2018; pellow, 2002). we concluded that there is a confrontation between the environmentally unprotected groups of the population, enterprises, and pollution-monitoring structures in the most polluted urban districts. they also determined the positions of such a confrontation. the notion of a world-system by wallerstein (2001) is applied to megalopolises, where the inequality in the supply of resources between the center and the periphery becomes a global issue, and is projected on the model of the confrontation between the center and the surrounding territories of cities and megalopolises regarding the provision of equal access to clean residential territories. the infrastructure of builtup cities is hard and slow to change, and such cities are often closely connected with the surrounding territories, which is why the waste streams are taken away from the center and to the surrounding territories if there is no recycling infrastructure, such as sorting stations and well-equipped landfills. degrading waste, self-ignition of dumping sites, and new incineration plants built within the city boundaries are risk points for the citizens. it raises questions related to the principles of environmental justice, where all citizens, regardless of their race, skin color, national background, and income take equal part in the development of, implementation, and compliance with environmental protection legislation, rules, and policies. the asymmetry in the legislative and politico-economic status of megalopolises, and the territories where msw emitted by such megalopolises is stored and reclaimed, is an acute problem in the national context of individual countries (in the russian context, in particular) (ermolaeva et al., 2019). methodology this research, in the form of an exploratory case study, used a mixed methods approach. the selection of the city of moscow and its agglomeration as a test bed for the sem approach is rationalized, first of all, by the bulk of activities undertaken in its territory under the federal project chistaia srana [clean country], a mass recycling campaign, including the building of an incineration plant, etc. secondly, following the environmental inequality approach, we will reflect on moscow and its border territories changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 863 in the context of a system of flows of substances which are distributed with different degrees of concentration in its territory and in the surrounding environments. in the first stage, we employed secondary data analysis (public opinion polls, media discourse analysis, federal and regional programs, etc.) to study the existing discourse in the field of education and management of msw, regional characteristics, as well as determining a pool of experts for interviews. in the second stage, semistructured expert interviews (n = 90) were conducted with researchers from academia (30) and environmental organizations (30), leaders of environmental and civic initiatives (20), and “garbage” operators (10). informants were selected based on the snowball sample with the following criteria: wide knowledge of the subject; availability of fundamental knowledge in the field of expertise; the presence of their original ideas and concepts; and, ability to take a clear research position. in the first stage, narrative analysis is performed, to convert the discontinuous, illogical raw material to coherent and ordered text. in the second stage, the meanings were consolidated— the informants’ judgments were reduced to short formulations, a set of conclusions. the study was conducted in the spring of 2018. we would like to state certain limitations associated with the case study approach that could be acknowledged and overcome in future research on the topic. while the desk research highlighted the general state of msw that is true to all megalopolises in russia, in the empirical data we analysed sem based on the city of moscow and its agglomeration to capture the causal relationship and make sem conceptualization more precise and region-specific. results trigger node. the new legislation regulating socio-economic tools in the field of msw management in russian megalopolises and the political decisions related to the shutdown of individual landfill sites the issue of managing waste in russia became especially urgent at the time of the radical reforms of the 1990s and further restructuring of the industrial sector when the elements of the cyclical production and processing of materials, ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, and plastics that were available in the soviet system ceased to exist; only individual initiatives for oil product refining remained, and glass and paper recycling plants became disengaged from direct logistics (zaytsev, 2012). discussion and ratification of the procedures and remit of the new institution regulating the collection and reclamation of waste were delayed for two decades. while the infrastructure of the recycling industry was “paused”, the citizens’ consumption speed, resource extraction, production of goods, citizens’ purchasing power, and the variety of goods started to rapidly increase at the beginning of the 2000s, after a sharp decrease in the 1990s. nevertheless, even during the crisis of the 1990s, megalopolises were growing (moscow and its urban agglomeration were growing at the fastest pace) at the expense of a migrant influx coming from other regions of russia and post-soviet countries. against this backdrop, the production of municipal waste was rapidly multiplying. https://changing-sp.com/ 864 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko figure 1 model of metabolic transformations in the area of municipal solid waste management: the city of moscow case trigger nodes metabolic transformations that impose the greatest risks the new legislation regulating socio-economic tools in the field of msw the political decisions related to the shut down landfill sites “harmful” metabolic transformations “positive metabolic” transformations node 1. the transformations of the infrastructure in the area of msw disposal fostering tech-innovations (smart containers, etc.) lack of regional operators node 2. the socio-ecological consequences of the msw changes introduction of new workplaces introduction of the legitimised initiatives on waste sorting lack of recycling capacities introduction of recycling practices no changes in the economic flows (lack of raw materials for recycling, etc.)accelerated new infrastructure in the area of waste reclamation lack of coherent awareness campaign in recycling recycling is not implemented in citizens’ routine misuse of garbage containers or their “standstills” no increase in the volume of useful waste sorting into different fractions (with the dynamics of approximately 1–2%) increase of paternalism and fatigue of citizens as the result of the continuation of msw construction contamination of all environments with msw decomposition substances expansion of landfills environmental inequity increase negative impact on health territorial schemes were changed by the local authorities environmental conflicts and tensions fostering the zero-waste movements strengthening of citizens’ ecoactivism note. source: authors. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 865 at the legislative level, the regulation of different sectors of waste production and management lost its internal connection, and the metabolic chains of waste management became disjointed, which was an aggravating factor. in other words, the main responsibility for waste collection and disposal was assumed by municipal governments and private waste management companies whose responsibility was to export msw to landfill sites and waste incineration plants (wips). only a small portion of the enterprises (4%) were responsible for the reclamation and were forced to independently provide themselves with raw materials. since the beginning of the 1990s, the sector of msw disposal and storage has become highly criminalized; a considerable proportion of this business was occupied by “unscrupulous” actors, which led to the exponential growth of unauthorized disposal sites around moscow. a statement made by russian president vladimir putin in november 2016 attests to the dominance of the shadowed waste management business: i must admit. as for the moscow region, i had to address certain issues personally. it was impossible to get things moving, there is criminal activity, and certain businesses flourishing. citizens were simply unable to solve these issues. even local authorities were unable to do anything until i personally commanded internal military forces to intervene. (putin rasskazal, 2016; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) as a result, 31.1 billion tons of waste were accumulated in russia, 20% of which came from moscow and the moscow region, while the annual increase of msw amounts to 2.5% (ermolaeva et al., 2019). the deficit of economic, legislative, and technological tools, as well as a high degree of corruption and the presence of criminal structures, brought russia to be entrapped in the niche of a “linear” economy. stage 1. the new approach to waste management was introduced in 2014 when the new version of the federal law no. 89-fz ob otkhodakh proizvodstva i potrebleniia [on industrial and household waste] (1998) was passed. the amendments included new terminology, and such terms as waste “reclamation”, “recycling”, “regeneration”, or “recuperation” were introduced, which did not affect the development of the infrastructure in this sector but were required for the international standardization of terms (o vnesenii izmenenii, 2014). new principles of waste management were also defined to determine the line of development of this sector (the priority was given to reclamation over waste incineration and landfilling); new regulatory mechanisms were introduced (a ban on the disposal of wastes containing useful components, extended producer responsibility, an institute of regional operators); the powers of the authorities were adjusted (the mission to solve the waste issue was transferred from the municipal level to the regional one); the parameters for calculating and paying environmental charges were defined, as well as the expenditure terms for the environmental charges received in the federal budget. then, enterprises had to report in and maintain a public record of the extent of waste, which allowed the creation of a base of registered and recorded waste for further processing. however, departments and ministries were still responsible for individual production and consumption sectors, while not being united into a single functional system with a single waste tracking and liability scheme. https://changing-sp.com/ 866 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko stage 2. this stage is associated with the appearance of regional operators and a whole single tracking system that synchronized different chains of the msw recycling and reclamation cycle. the regional operators chosen by each region of the russian federation to coordinate the process of msw management were supposed to create a single metabolic cycle. the regional operators have to agree with the political region on domestic waste collection, disposal, and reclamation. regional operators accumulate all financial flows coming from the population, business, governmental companies, and other domestic waste generators and make agreements on actual waste handling with other market actors or do it on their own, given the opportunity, for the minimum term of 10–15 years (ermolaeva et al., 2019). the new institute regulates the relationships between all stakeholders in the waste management system in each region by the creation of an infrastructure for waste disposal collection, as well as the development of the necessary sorting capacities. as of the end of 2017–2018, territorial waste management schemes were developed in 85 subjects of the russian federation, and regional waste management schemes were developed in 52 subjects (ermolaeva, 2021). on january 1, 2018, a new federal law was passed (o vnesenii izmenenii, 2017), according to which russia began to transition to the new msw management system. the payment for msw management is moved from communal expenses to the list of payments for utility services, which increases the cost of msw disposal and creates an economic resource for the recycling sector. this reorganization of the legislation generates new nodes of metabolic transformations that did not exist before. we suggest reviewing them individually below. node 1. the transformations of the infrastructure in the area of msw disposal in russian megalopolises (see fig. 1) municipal waste constitutes 82%, and its dynamics have not changed (tulokhonova & ulanova, 2013). regarding the observations of the morphological composition of the citizens’ waste over 16 years from 1991 to 2013, tulokhonova and ulanova’s (2013) came to the following conclusions: polymeric materials show the highest increase from 3% to 13.8%, whose amount doubled over a decade; the segment of glass nearly tripled in size (from 4.2% to 11.4%); the share of metal waste dropped significantly (from 8.1% to 2.8%); the segment of organic waste remained at 30% of the total waste generation rate. although consumption and the amount of waste continue to grow1, the level of the beneficial use of waste also increased from 40% in 2006 to 60% in 2016 (ermolaeva et al., 2019). the new infrastructure represented by governmental and private enterprises2 specializing in waste management began to appear along with new workplaces, forming the seeds of the circular economy. in comparison with 1 according to the federal service for supervision of natural resource, by 2018, 38 billion 73 million tons of industrial and domestic waste have been accumulated in russia. at the same time, 6 billion 220.6 million tons were generated in 2017 (which is 12.5% more than in 2016). two billion 53.9 million tons of waste were recycled in 2018. (riumin, 2019) 2 within the scope of the transition to the best technologies available. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 867 the municipal sector where recycling contains only 7–10% of total waste, in industrial waste sectors, the rate of waste reusability is over 60% (ermolaeva & rybakova, 2019). new infrastructural transformations were also associated with the appearance of an initiative on the separate sorting of msw, as required by legislation. this initiative implies the technological process of waste sorting into small components by hand or using automated conveyors with the collection of the most valuable elements for further recycling. in this regard, the number of material recovery facilities (mrf) in russia has grown to 60 units since 2010 (nepomiashchaia, 2018). at the same time, the number of small material recovery businesses employing only manual labor to sort different types of waste increased many times and is not subject to official registration. since january 1, 2018, waste sorting was implemented in several russian regions (the moscow region, the republic of tatarstan, nizhny novgorod region, belgorod region, and others)3. changes were also introduced to the technological amenities of the waste management sector in large russian cities: online software and applications devoted to waste disposal were developed, as well as systems of waste collection synchronization with municipal authorities and private companies; “smart” containers equipped with the function of alerting the people responsible when the container is full were introduced; navigation control over garbage trucks was implemented (ermolaeva, 2021). regional operators and non-profit organizations have organized waste sorting in small and middle-sized towns, such as vladimir, izhevsk, kyshtym, the village of lisii nos, mytishchi, novokuznetsk, ozersk, perm, saransk, cheliabinsk, and in most districts of moscow and saint petersburg (approximately 70–80%) (rukov, 2018). as one expert commented on this situation: operators are prescribed the task of developing waste sorting in their territories. they try to do this to the best of their personal interests. there are citizens who keep close tabs on the installation of containers in their districts, on the people responsible for that; they check whether everything works the way it should. it gives rise to the public control that makes annual checks of all the issues related to separate waste collection, which allows companies to be more conscientious when it comes to this part of their contract and to develop public collection structures. (the representative of a non-profit organization, personal communication, march 15, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) these initiatives triggered the appearance of new waste sorting practices among the population in megacities, yet the major changes will be observed only “after 10–15 years, because people in megacities need time and became more ecofriendly” (the representative of a non-profit organization, personal communication, march 15, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.). public polls conducted in russia showed that by 2019, the dynamics of waste disposal had not changed, and only 7% of the russian population sorted their waste, the same as in 2012 (ermolaeva et al., 2019). the respondents stated that they refused to separate their waste due to external factors: 69% pointed at the “absence of the 3 most often, recyclable elements (glass, plastic, metal) and non-recyclable waste. https://changing-sp.com/ 868 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko infrastructure for the separate waste collection at the place of residence”, 20% of the surveyed people did not know how to separate waste, and 11% alluded to the lack of time (ermolaeva et al., 2019). a study published by the researchers (volkova, 2018) showed that the group of people intending to get involved in waste sorting (potential participants) amounted to 19%, along with citizens intending to continue separate waste collection and sorting amounting to 29%. the majority of russians (68%) have never started sorting waste in recent years (indifferent citizens). compared to 2014, the number of people participating in waste sorting increased, in a scientists’ opinion: operators had to cover 20% of the population in two years, 40% of the population in the following two years, and so on. the population was supposed to become involved in waste sorting. as we can see, only about 10% of the population is currently involved, but the situation is changing, and we hope that in 15–20 years, people will be more involved in these processes, and everything will be great. (the representative of the public administration, personal communication, april 1, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) a representative of a non-profit organization observed: in 2013, the implementation of government contracts on waste management began, and waste sorting became one of the terms of such contracts. target values specified in these government contracts are very unimposing. the requirements stipulated in these government contracts for such a megalopolis as moscow only imply the presence of one waste collection station for every 11,000 citizens. for such an infrastructure, it’s a vestige […] government contracts do not make any provisions for awareness-rising. if we were to put waste sorting containers all across the city, but didn’t work with the population and didn’t explain how and why they should handle their waste, the situation would not improve. (the representative of a non-profit organization, personal communication, april 5, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) statistically, even after the waste is sorted, 80–90% of it goes to landfills. the state register of waste disposal sites documented 849 landfills, disposal sites, dumps, and different types of storage facilities, 170 of which are designated msw landfills (pasport natsionalnogo proekta, n.d.). all of this, in turn, puts a strain on the environment through spontaneous combustion of landfills, air and groundwater pollution, etc. among all russian regions, the moscow region remains the most loaded with municipal waste, and became the point with high-level protest activity among the citizens (skipor, 2020). the environmental inequality between the center and the periphery in terms of waste disposal offers new criteria for social stratification and redefines the established social distance and roles of russian megalopolises and neighboring territories (for example, iadrovo and malinki landfills), which we will discuss in detail below (see node 2). the reciprocal relations and mutual influence of natural, social, and technological components of waste management that impact changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 869 the safety of the population require study. this is vividly illustrated by the case of the emergency landing of ural’skie avialinii [ural airlines] plane in moscow region caused by a bird strike originating from an unauthorized landfill nearby that attracted the birds (passazhirskii a-321, 2019). the national project ekologiia [ecology] includes nine federal projects (e.g., chistaia strana [clean country], chistyi vozdukh [clean air], etc.). the work is undertaken in five areas: waste, water, air, biodiversity, technology. the federal projects are aimed at the reclamation of the most dangerous objects of accumulated environmental damage: the elimination of unauthorized dumps within the boundaries of cities. it is assumed that following the results of the projects, the demographic situation in the country and the quality of life of the population will significantly improve. the deadline for the implementation of the national project is december 31, 2024 (pasport natsionalnogo proekta, n.d.). according to these projects, by 2025, five wips should be built (four of them in moscow region, and one in the republic of tatarstan). it is intended that 1–2% of the msw generated in large russian urban zones will be delivered there. for example, in the city of moscow, in contrast to other regions, several regional operators perform within the city, removing waste from each administrative district. collection is mixed and separate. in general, moscow is overloaded with waste, and its citizens do not recycle carefully enough. according to rossiiskii ekologicheskii operator [russian environmental operator], by the end of 2022, ten waste treatment complexes will operate in the moscow region, two of which will be a part of the ecoline group. the company, in turn, exports 42% of the waste from moscow and 17% from the moscow region for processing. the waste sorting complex vostok (currently the largest in europe) is recycling 1.2 million tons per year for 8% of the mixed waste and more than 35% of the separately collected waste. at the beginning of 2022, the most technologically advanced neva complex in russia, with a capacity of 500,000 tons per year, started operating. moscow already has an impressive processing infrastructure for waste at the processing stage, but it is not properly loaded with raw materials. currently, in moscow there are five waste transfer facilities, four waste sorting complexes, two pet recycling complexes, a complex for the processing of electrical waste, and 134 stationary recycling points. there are more than 2,000 machines for receiving cans, and 2,300 containers for separate waste collection. at the last stage of the life cycle of waste generation, four wips operate dealing with 770,000 tons per year; fractions that cannot be processed at the moment are burned here. an increase in the depth of processing is possible if a larger percentage of the population is involved in separate collection. a reduction in the production of nonrecyclable fractions can be achieved through direct work with the population and the introduction of economically positive incentives (chernyshev, 2022). wips do not require preliminary waste sorting, which is why, according to the program, they were considered to be an alternative to landfills and an opportunity to prevent further accumulation of waste in the vicinity of residential areas. however, the construction of wips did not discontinue the increase in the number of landfills. this is how one of the experts commented on the given situation: https://changing-sp.com/ 870 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko currently, it is suggested that four waste incineration plants will be built in moscow region to handle the waste generated in moscow. even though it does not fit into the public policy. it is a high risk for the environment [...] will we believe that recycling is something impossible for us, that our citizens will be unable to sort their waste? then, with time, we will have more environmental disaster areas in moscow region. if we manage to turn this situation to support the processing facilities and establish the infrastructure for the collection of recyclable materials, we will be able to transition to good recycling rates and lesser environmental pollution. (the representative of a non-profit organization, personal communication, april 23, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) new generation technologies allow the minimization of the negative influence of wips on the environment but leave behind up to 0.99% of hazardous emissions in the form of ash, which leads to economic losses and social clashes (zaytsev, 2012). a separate issue concerns the implementation of the thermal methods of waste decomposition resulting in the production of fuel or chemical raw materials (for example, pyrolysis) that allow plants to function autonomously and give away a small part of the residue for public heating, but cannot compete with the sector of recycling in terms of supplying secondary raw materials. thus, despite the priorities stipulated in the legislation, the main waste disposal schemes remain to be landfills and wips, while waste sorting is developing slowly (from 5% to 7%) and the recycling sector is progressing even slower—does not exceed 10% by 2018, according to different sources (ermolaeva, 2021). all of this continues to aggravate the imbalance in support of the linear economy because the main sector of waste sorting and recycling is not progressing. the compilation of territorial schemes under the project “clean country” is a significant advance in the issue of standardization of the process, where the main positive force is the coordination of stakeholders, as it allowed the collection of a list of pain points of regions that were previously unknown. however, the principles of the project themselves are not resource efficient in comparison with the zero-waste policy, as confirmed by an expert survey and content analysis of the project. nevertheless, there was a need to reconsider the power of local solutions on the ground, which can be implemented in russian conditions. if priorities in the field of creation and infrastructure are redistributed recycling, there is a necessity to pay more attention to the principles of scrupulous waste collection, as well as the creation of complex metabolic systems of ecological and industrial parks. the reform was not fully implemented due to a number of internal shortcomings: some regional operators were not environmentally responsible; the separate collection infrastructure was not convenient for citizens in some regions; tariffs for the population and extended producer responsibility schemes were not developed, including a project to tax companies for packaging; the waste recycling targets laid down in the industrial development strategy turned out to be inconsistent with the content and implementation of the waste management hierarchy; and there was excessive bureaucratization, as a result of which the already implemented recycling schemes with the help of small waste collection companies in small towns could not compete with the newly arrived regional operator. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 871 as one academic interviewee stated: we need a waste incineration plant. waste sorting lines are only suitable for the “fresh stuff,” the waste that has just been collected and is being taken to a sorting station at once. the thing is, if waste spends half a year lying in a landfill while the seasons change, it is no longer suitable for sorting. this is why we need a waste incineration plant to simply get rid of the solid domestic waste landfill. though this is not a solution for the newly generated waste. (the representative of academia, personal communication, may 13, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) although currently there are 14,000 companies with a license for waste disposal, only about 200 enterprises specialize in waste reclamation and the acquisition of secondary raw materials. the necessity of implementing waste sorting to 100% for the replenishment of the raw materials base is a major challenge. the amendments to the legislation did not trigger any internal changes in the economic flows in 2014–2019, including the stagnant demand for the final product (derivative products), lack of raw materials for recycling (inability to ensure a stable supply is a result of not having an effective system of waste collection and the lack of sorting capacities), and others. compared to 2010, the cost of environmental protection almost doubled in 2015 and continues to grow, while the beneficial use of waste remains at an unjustifiably low level. while the financial flows are directed at the remediation of the landfills and construction of wips, the imbalance in the distribution of waste flows will also persist. investments into the main capital intended for the protection of the environment from the harmful effects of the waste comprised 8.423 billion rubles in 2016 according to the russian federal state statistics service, which is 33% less compared to 2015 (krasnoshchekov & olgarenko, 2019). the major portion of these investments is still used for the construction and remediation of msw landfills. in the course of establishing a single system and registry of the regional waste management schemes, internal communication mismatches surfaced in the constituent elements of the consumption and recycling node, such as the lack of recycling capacities, and lack of regional operators in several regions and the expansion of landfills, etc. this leads to a further environmental imbalance that begets new socio-ecological conflicts (node 3). stagnant demand for the final product (derivative products) continues. despite the escalating environmental issues, the last link in the metabolic chain (recycling) has slowly become bigger, and over the past ten years, the overall percentage of recycling of different elements of waste increased by 3–5%. the recycled paper market is the leader of the russian reclamation sector with 2.9 million tons of secondary raw materials employed with a recovery efficiency of 27%. in 2017, 11% of the recycled pulp collected in russia was shipped for export. the recovery efficiency of plastic and rubber-containing waste is significantly lower (10–15%), which is associated with the fact that the biggest part of such waste is generated by the population (volkova, 2018). https://changing-sp.com/ 872 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko by 2024, the ministry of industry and trade of the russian federation in cooperation with the ministry of natural resources and the environment is supposed to launch a new msw management system employing some kind of a public-private partnership where the government can cover up to 30% of the expenses on the establishment of the sector, which is meant to connect the metabolic chains of the technological infrastructure and businesses (volkova, 2018). node 2. socio-environmental consequences of the changes in the area of msw disposal in russian megalopolises (see fig. 1) russian dumping sites release 1.5 million tons of methane and 21.5 million tons of co2 into the atmosphere every year (ferapontov, 2018). the environmental load is indicated in table 1. table 1 environmental waste impact impact on soil and water residues resulting from the incineration of household waste classified as hazardous. infiltrates and ash from incinerated wastes of the following elements, which in excess can be harmful to the environment and humans: mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, some heavy metals, asbestos, radioactive elements including medicines (ob utverzhdenii sanitarnykh pravil, 2021) impact on atmosphere waste incineration is one source of dioxins and furans, the most toxic of all persistent organic pollutants (pops), and include polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (dioxins and furans or pcdd/df), but are not limited to them. in emissions msw also contains other dioxin-like compounds, for example, polychlorinated naphthalene. dioxins and furans are defined in the stockholm convention on persistent organic pollutants as unintentional pops. also, depending on the quality and degree of purification in waste, solid particles can form from sulfur dioxide. landfills without special equipment and uncontrolled landfills may generate excess landfill gases—methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs) (stockholm convention, n.d.) costs of operating landfills and incinerators that are close to residential areas smell, visual impact, parasites (insects, rats), heavy transport traffic, noise (eldesbaev et al., 2015) social aspects related conflicts with unfair distribution. environment and competition for land (between different social classes and households) land use land use sites designated for landfills and other waste treatment, as well as waste disposal sites, are unsuitable for agriculture, construction and recreation possible long-term effects loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services (regulating services, cultural, supply services, and in cases of dishonest operation of landfills emergency situations are possible—fires due to possible spontaneous combustion of landfills) (bobylev & zakharov, 2009) changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 873 municipal waste can contain significant amounts of toxic chemicals. according to the literature, the average concentrations of heavy metals (zinc, manganese, copper, chromium, lead, mercury, etc.) in msw have increased by 1.6–3 times over the past four decades (cherniaeva, 2013). in the 80–90s of the last century, it was found that compost made from household waste significantly exceeds the content in soils in terms of the presence of a number of toxic elements (the content of lead, zinc, copper, molybdenum, silver and ten times greater—mercury) (shcherbo, 2002). currently, more than 100 substances defined as hazardous are used in everyday life. first of all, heavy metals are emitted (cadmium and nickel contained in batteries, consumer electronics, plastics, paints; lead—in paint, electrical wiring, batteries; mercury—in fluorescent lamps, etc.), various types of pesticides, as well as substances contained in cleaning products, varnishes, etc. the combustion of polymers, the content of which in msw reaches 40%, leads to the formation of highly hazardous toxicants, specifically polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins, benzofurans, cadmium and zinc (onishchenko, 2003). the consequences of the impact of waste on the human body are set out in table 2. table 2 the burden of waste on the body, inherent in working landfills and living close to unequipped landfills and incinerators 1. central nervous system the main target organ is the brain, especially the harmful effects rendered by lead, beryllium, arsenic, antimony, polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs) 2. digestive and urinary systems the main target organs are the liver and kidneys. the impact is caused by lead, cadmium, antimony, dioxins and furans, brominecontaining fire retardants, vinyl chloride (from pvc), pcb 3. reproductive and endocrine systems main target organs are the reproductive glands, but none of the effects are most harmful. impacts are rendered by lead, brominated flame retardants, dioxins and furans, and types of microplastics containing xenoestrogens 4. circulatory system especially harmful effects, impacted by lead and mercury 5. skeleton especially harmful effect, impacted by cadmium 6. respiratory system target organ: lungs. increased releases of methane, oxygen, carbon dioxide, in excess, can cause human suffocation 7. total toxin load it can be expressed as a moderate or strong systemic load on the body. a toxic load can provoke cancer, provoke both reduced immunity and autoimmune diseases, skin diseases, general weakness, oxide stress, premature aging, weakness and depression the problem of environmental security is especially pressing for the territories neighboring megalopolises that have become the destination of waste export for large cities (statistically, 15,000 tons of waste are being exported daily from moscow to the neighbouring regions) (ferapontov, 2018). in the end, the disposal https://changing-sp.com/ 874 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko of moscow’s waste outside the city limits resulted in conflicts as it did not solve the original problem (to establish a waste recycling and disposal system within the framework of the ecology and clean country projects). one supporter of the current arrangements for waste disposal asserted: they [wips] are absolutely safe. what is the safety criterion for waste incineration plants? only one thing, the temperature inside waste combustion chambers must be maintained at 1200 degrees. in this case, everything burns to carbon dioxide, water, and hydrogen chloride in the worst case (if it’s organochloride). (the representative of academia, personal communication, april 16, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) the media played a great part in the dynamics of waste-related conflicts and strengthened the support of civil interests. citizens living in the vicinity of the intended waste disposal facilities decisively promoted and combined different forms of activism (picketing approved by the authorities, demonstrations, hunger strikes), digital activism (petitions and pollution-tracking mobile platforms). wide media coverage supplemented with photo and video reports made it possible to attract numerous participants, namely, 4,000 citizens and activists. the tone of the publications related to waste in the russian media changed drastically after the traditional annual priamaia liniia s vladimirom putinym [direct line with vladimir putin] in 2017, which featured the question of a resident of balashikha, moscow region, where the kuchino landfill is located holding over 50 years of accumulated waste. in the context of the russian political and media reality, it meant that the federal authorities did not find it advantageous to ignore this problem and were ready to discuss it with the public. it was most likely that regional middle-ranking officials would be held responsible for the aggravation of the environmental situation there. however, the russian president’s immediate decision to shut down the kuchino landfill in response to the question led to a chain of systematic consequences because the load on other landfills surrounding moscow increased sharply, which resulted in a series of protests across the moscow region. the decision to shut down the kuchino landfill and the introduction of changes into the legislative base forced the sem associated with the generation, reclamation, and storage of msw around moscow to transition from the regular mode to the emergency mode that can potentially lead to a crisis. currently, waste-related issues are stemming from the fact that the population is motivated; they collected signatures and conducted surveys proving that the people are ready, while the authorities aren’t. it’s not enough to install separate waste collection containers to solve the issue, it’s necessary to establish an infrastructure. the first line of battery recycling was founded by a private business, not the government. a 10–15% increase in the utility rates is justified here. (the representative of industry, personal communication, april 17, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 875 according to the presidential council for human rights of the russian federation, at the beginning of 2019, protests associated with waste-related issues took place in 30 regions of russia. the most hotspots appeared in different communities of moscow region, volokolamsk's iadrovo, voskresensk, odintsovo, kolomna, krasnoarmeisk, serpukhov, klin, balashikha, and dmitrov, where protests were registered. the authorities of tver region refused to accept the waste coming from moscow since it was considered to be an issue of the “environmental safety of the region”; the same happened in kolomna in december 2018. a waste-related conflict directly linked to moscow even took place a thousand kilometers away from the russian capital, in arkhangelsk region, near shies railway station, where the construction of a landfill was launched to store moscow’s msw. importantly, these protests were characterized by the absence of an outspoken leader, unification of participants on a nonideological basis with a focus on a specific environmental issue, and their network structure. representatives of the environmental non-governmental organizations had been founded long before the aggravation of the “waste crisis” and did not focus exclusively on this issue, but undoubtedly, contributed to the protest activity and, on several occasions, helped to define the specific demands of the protesters. one of the main demands frequently articulated by the participants of the protests is that waste should have an owner and must be processed in the territory where it was generated (putin rasskazal, 2016). the situation associated with the expansion of landfills received widespread publicity, motivated the population to establish new movements, “stopvybros” and “dushegubka.rf”, and rendered active the non-government groups that have been participating in the organization of waste sorting for a long time (ermolaeva & rybakova, 2019). in november 2017, alexander kogan, minister of ecology of the moscow region, announced that the authorities were changing the “territorial scheme” because of the local protests. these conflicts gave rise to numerous direct and indirect processes that had an impact on the environmental, social, and political landscape of russian cities. in 2018–2019, the protest activity associated with the issues of landfills and waste processing plants was comparable in scale to the political protests and even exceeded them in relative terms. thus, 7,000 people took part in the largest “waste” protest in volokolamsk, while the total population of the town amounts to 19,000 people; on august 10, 2019, the largest protest associated with the non-admission of independent candidates to the elections in moscow took place, attracting from 20,000 to 60,000 people according to different estimates, while the total population of the russian capital amounts to 12.69 million people (ermolaeva et al., 2021). on the one hand, waste-related conflicts united various social groups (environmentalists, the academic community, residents, young people, etc.) into a single powerful movement resisting the decisions of the federal and regional elites. regional movements supporting waste sorting have been the most active new projects (“eco taxi”, “sobirator”, etc) and appear to ensure the local support of eco-friendly companies specializing in msw sorting and recycling. https://changing-sp.com/ 876 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko professional growth inevitably led to the strengthening of the personal civic stance. the more you realize the damage done by waste incineration, the more certain you are about being right, and the easier it is to persuade others on the necessity of waste sorting and the development of the waste recycling sector. (the representative of a non-profit organization, personal communication, march 25, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) the central headquarters of the strongest npos promoting a zero-waste policy were established, for example, tsentr resursosberezheniia [resource saving center], otpor [rebuff], razdel’nyi sbor [separate collection], musora.bol’she.net [garbage.no.more], dvizhenie eka [eka movement] and others (ermolaeva, 2019). network structuring allows public organizations and action groups to enhance each other’s potential while facilitating the organization of joint events. considering the spread of the data transparency policy (online platforms tracking dumping sites where anyone can enter data associated with improper disposal of waste and mark the spots of unauthorized dumping sites), it becomes easier for municipal establishments, companies, and citizens to solidarize locally: local solutions are becoming more transparent and legitimate. most large enterprises are introducing technologies that can reduce the negative impact on the environment. this includes tatneft and taneko as examples. when through the introduction of new technologies, we get the effect of more rational use of water, we get the effect in the form of a decrease in emissions into the air. also, work has been established in the republic to monitor the state of the environment. (the representative of a non-profit organization, personal communication, may 01, 2018; trans. by p. e., yu. e., & d. e.) on the other hand, the preponderance of political, economic, and social capitals in the hands of the resource groups provoked a certain apathy among the originators of civic initiatives, which could cause their erosion and the strengthening of the paternalistic position. despite the protests, the construction of wips continued. the informational policy of governmental and numerous non-governmental media promoted the initiation of a regular and systematic discussion between the representatives of the government and civic activists. the problem of combating landfills in russia is similar to those in the united states, latin america, and india, and touches on issues of environmental justice. in a number of urban areas where there is not a sufficient level of waste processing, both landfills and incinerators are the main means of disposal, moreover, they are located on the outskirts of city districts (on the periphery). in such areas, a greater number of diseases that are related to the environmental situation are recorded, living standards are falling, social tension is growing, and, ultimately, people have less access to ecosystem services, which provokes an exacerbation of environmental inequality. in combination with the environmental burden, inequality is exacerbated (pellow, 2002). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 858–883 877 conclusions and discussion the health and living standards of russians are being directly influenced by a variety of interdependent processes. heightened processes of globalization and urbanization and the expansion of consumerist values have led to a rapid increase in the amount of waste with a consequent growth of unauthorized dumping sites, the construction of waste incineration plants, and the aggravation and politicization of the environmental protests associated with waste disposal. most of the current studies on msw in russia are conducted via specific disciplines—sociology, environmental studies, economics, and political science which limit the exploration and discussion of msw as a holistic phenomenon with interconnected processes that occur in different systems and dimensions. our key objective that allows our research to stand out from other respective works is to show this interconnectedness in msw beyond the disciplinary boundaries. thus, we made the first attempt to research the processes of waste disposal in russian megalopolises through the case study of the city of moscow from the perspective of the concept of sem, according to which the life of waste discarded into the environment by humans leads to further metabolic transformations. following the tradition established by m. gandy (2004), we focused on the comprehension of qualitative interconnected and interdependent processes and causal relationships in the area of msw management in russian megalopolises. when reflecting on the nature of environmental conflicts triggered by the export of waste from the capital of russia to its neighbouring territories, we extensively employed the approach of environmental inequality. we concluded that the sem node that triggered numerous interdependent processes involved the changes introduced in the legislation on msw management and the decision to shut down several large msw landfills without the simultaneous implementation of other landfills or wips. as a consequence, the new infrastructure represented by governmental and private waste processing enterprises began to appear, forming the makings of the circular economy and new workplaces. new infrastructural transformations were also associated with the appearance of a legally secured initiative on waste sorting that accelerated the development of the infrastructure in the area of waste reclamation. it gave rise to the formation of new practices among the citizens of russia and augmented their environmental awareness. nevertheless, infrastructural shortcomings and the lack of a largescale systematic information campaign in the area of waste sorting prevent these practices from becoming routine and, on the contrary, cause a lot of trouble by triggering a series of negative metabolic processes (for example, the misuse of garbage containers or their “standstills”, etc.) while there was no significant increase in the volume of useful waste sorting into different fractions (with the dynamics of approximately 1–2%). the socio-ecological consequences of the changes in the area of waste management in russian megalopolises were represented by such processes as the systematic contamination of all environments with msw decomposition substances, https://changing-sp.com/ 878 polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, dmitry v. efremenko resulting in them directly affecting the health of the population and contributing to environmental inequality among different groups of citizens (those who live near msw storage sites and those who reside in relatively safe districts), which aggravates social conflicts and tension. this is exemplified by the protests that took place in the towns of moscow oblast where the waste from moscow is exported. the aforementioned environmental conflicts and protests and the public concern with the construction of wips led to radical changes in the sem of the russian capital, its urban agglomeration, and some large russian cities, and became the major risk-genic issues for the urban space. even though in 2017–2019, the synergy of waste-related conflicts and protests associated with purely political reasons was avoided, this dangerous prospect persists in the future as the systematic problems of msw generation, recycling, and storage have not been resolved. we believe that the proposed analysis confirms the original hypothesis. paradoxically, the metabolic transformations in the area of msw management, that were largely disseminated by the political elite in the media as environmentally significant in the area of msw, brought little temporary change into the sem of the city (for example, the appearance of a new waste sorting infrastructure did not have any significant impact on the number of people sorting msw) while the environmental conflicts and tension had much more substantial and irreversible effects on the sem of cities. undoubtedly, the general problem of modern-day russia that cannot be solved when applied exclusively to the environmental challenges is the sustainable interaction of different levels of the political and administrative hierarchy and the public. at the same time, based on the expert interviews, it is possible to articulate recommendations for the mitigation of risks associated with msw generation, recycling, and storage in large russian cities: a. establishment of federal standards concerning the industrial specifics of individual cities that ensure the priority of the development of a recycling infrastructure to create self-contained metabolic chains in the area of msw management. b. development of economic tools for the support of “green” enterprises and increase of the penalties for the major contaminators; introduction of economic incentives for the population, such as lower communal charges for sorted waste or differentiation of tariffs according to the types of waste, etc. c. establishment of a convenient waste sorting infrastructure with responsible regional operators. the opportunities to address the shortage of raw materials in the metabolic chain of waste reclamation are found in the development of sorting capacities and the stimulation of msw sorting (both commercial and domestic). businesses, citizens, and the government should have mutual obligations, whose development and acceptance should be realized based on the extensive and inclusive participation of the stakeholders. the metabolism and waste management scheme should be established starting at the regional 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berzin, aleksey v. maltsev, accepted 20 march 2022 natalia a. zavyalova published online 11 april 2022 berzinandrey@gmail.com a.v.maltcev@urfu.ru n.a.zavialova@urfu.ru article conceptual framework of teacher prestige and well-being: regional aspects andrey b. berzin ural institute of management, branch of ranepa, yekaterinburg, russia aleksey v. maltsev ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia natalia a. zavyalova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the paper presents a comparative analysis of sociological data concerning teachers working in the sverdlovsk region (russian federation). the data were collected in 1989, 2016, and 2021. the surveys investigated social ideas and stereotypes reflecting public attitudes towards teachers in russia and teaching communities. the research is based on a hybrid multi-paradigm methodology comprising systemic, structural, functional, generalized, temporal, and procedural descriptions. we used the data obtained from questionnaires surveying teachers in 1989 (n = 1183 participants), 2016 (n = 529 participants), 2021 (n = 412 participants). data processing was carried out with the help of the vortex software application. the comparative data analysis demonstrated that, while the proportion of female teachers and teachers of older age groups has increased over three decades, this has been accompanied by an increase in the education level. it is significant that the motivation for selecting the teaching profession and overall levels of satisfaction remained the same. however, at the same time, assessments of the possibility to advance through a teaching career and professional well-being have noticeably deteriorated. among key factors affecting https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 164–181 165 introduction recent changes in russian education practices relate directly to the transformation of all aspects of life in the country. changes in the economic, political, and legal spheres, as well as the wider culture, have radically affected russian schools. under more traditional social conditions, school education was the main—sometimes the only—channel for the transmission of knowledge about the world, its traditions and customs, as well as a means of reinforcing codes of conduct. self-evidently, the education system was responsible for all the information that a young person needed for a problem-free life during this specific period. today, however, the role of mass media and especially the internet has significantly increased, including the direction of educational and leisure practices. although school remains an important factor in the primary socialization of children under contemporary conditions during the transition to a post-industrial society, it is no longer by any means the only one. since official authorities must take such ongoing changes into account, the russian school system has been in a state of continuous reform for several decades already. russian society also imposes an increasing number of new requirements for education in connection with the ongoing scientific and technological innovations. however, the main educational challenge consists in achieving potential social development. since the educational system is expected to play a leading role in delivering these requirements, it becomes necessary to adapt schools to the new conditions. thus, as comprising a social and professional community, teachers are viewed as the primary agents of this ambitious goal. the role of the teacher in the contemporary world is changing. no longer can a teacher be expected to be the only source of information, the bearer of the highest wisdom or someone whose ideas are not subject to criticism. along with the widespread availability of information, the ability to check facts in electronic media and the development of consumer society, teachers around the world find themselves working in a credibility-crisis environment. moreover, since teachers do not have ready-made recipes for self-enrichment, their role as social drivers of development has diminished. in addition to the credibility crisis, the modern teaching profession faces additional challenges in terms of job satisfaction, professional well-being, and teachers’ satisfaction are physical conditions, low wages, lack of time for private life and the stress of endless school reforms. all of this has led to a decline in the prestige of the teaching profession along with the formation of a negative image. the paper describes efforts required to ensure the enhancement of the teaching profession in the russian federation. keywords social representations, teacher, career, professional and social wellbeing, secondary education, status https://changing-sp.com/ 166 andrey b. berzin, aleksey v. maltsev, natalia a. zavyalova career development. by successfully overcoming such challenges, professional instructional functions can be more effectively performed. in demonstrating the global character of these contradictions, chinese researchers qu and shao assume that the living space and choice space of teachers as special professionals are in transition (qu & shao, 2020). their systematic study provided ample evidence that teaching is an emotional profession in which it is becoming harder to achieve a sense of job satisfaction. this idea may be explained by the fact that emotional jobs require several factors to be united in order to reach a desirable level of satisfaction. in their influential study, the american social experts maslach and jackson (1981) found that younger teachers are more inclined to have higher expectations and suffer from concomitant burnout than their senior colleagues. consequently, problems facing teachers relate directly to individual features of instructors, including their age group. a year later, schwab and iwanicki (1982) presented a portrait of the typical burnedout teacher. their major finding demonstrates that low teaching performance is a complex factor, since each case is unique and must be carefully examined according to the criteria of teachers’ individual backgrounds (education), individual personality (age, sex, the number of children in teacher’s own family), and organizational factors (work environment, workload). friedman and farber (1992) explained teachers’ fatigue in terms of class sizes and the high number of challenging adolescents. among the contradictions identified by professional researchers, the following should be noted: the growing contradiction between the creative nature of teaching and the ever-increasing regulation of the teacher’s actions; the need to improve professionalism and competence levels given a lack of time resources; the gap between declarations of a high purpose of teaching and low social status; the increased contradiction within the teaching community between highly motivated professional teachers and those who only go through the motions of fulfilling their duties. in addition, there are contradictions between the measures required by the state and the possibilities for their implementation, as well as the readiness or otherwise of the professional community to implement them. all these contradictions undoubtedly affect the prestige of the profession and the social well-being of teaching, ultimately leading to a decrease in the effectiveness of instructional work. teachers as a community comprise a generalized figure endowed with a certain set of characteristics that are more or less adequate to the existing reality. in professional literature, this generalized figure appears as an image or representation that symbolizes the particular professional community. each of these concepts reflects the most significant features of the community from a certain angle by focusing on certain properties and qualities. consequently, while accepting the limits of the terms vision and image to analyze the perceived characteristics of the professional teaching community, it is more expedient to use the term representation, which includes the object-matter of vision and image. obviously, if a study of a community’s characteristics focuses on the social nature of representations, then social influence on the understanding of the figure of the teacher will be seen as more significant. such an emphasis includes certain distortions, deformations in consciousness, artificially created characteristics and traits. social ideas changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 164–181 167 include historical facts representing the memory of certain events and processes. all these factors are determined by their ideological interpretation, as well as the characteristics of the national mentality and culture. social representations as a specific way of understanding and comprehending the surrounding reality is based on emile durkheim’s concept of collective representations (durkheim, 1982) and the works by serge moskovici, in which social representations act as a certain set of various statements generated in the process of communication representing a kind of everyday knowledge based on “common sense”, with this knowledge existing independently of the subject as a kind of objective property inherent in one or another object (moscovici, 1988/1993). representations are one of the forms of mass consciousness, often appearing as metaphors and associations that form a flexible combination of images that change over time. thus, the source of representations consists in the everyday individual human experience including experience of other people, which is accepted by the individual in the course of interpersonal interactions (bovina, 2010). in considering the perceived positions of other people, social representations manifest themselves in assessments and opinions about certain events, people, professions, and communities. in combining elements of social and individual cognition, scientific and everyday thinking, such representations thereby serve as a reference point in the surrounding reality. through social ideas, the surrounding reality can be interpreted in the space of standardizing associations, which comprise mental constructs that arise in the process of human interaction. proceeding from the concept of peter berger and thomas luckman set out in the work social construction of reality, the social structure as a whole, as well as the structures of its various communities, represents a set of standardizing and routine models of behavior (berger & luckman, 1966/1991, p. 323). according to the concept of social representations, the professional teaching community appears as a set of the most typical patterns of interaction between teachers and other people, in particular students and their parents, as well as a set of typical features that generalize the personality of the teacher. the weight of scientific evidence produces a specific set of the characteristic features of teachers, combining the most significant qualities, both personal and professional. data from several studies suggest that the pivotal role of stereotypes in the perception of communities is formed primarily by educational and special theoretical literature. teachers are also responsible for public perceptions of their actual professional role as children’s instructors, who act in a particular situation (kuzmenkova, 2005). internationally, the public images of teachers are relatively consistent. concerning the chinese experience, lijun and xiangshu point out: “in both traditional and modern chinese politics, the portrayal of teachers and their roles as spiritual guiders have been both nourished and restricted, according to a broader political agenda” (lijun & xiangshu, 2020, p. 179). developing the concept of an ideal teacher, the researchers state: “the ideal teacher is someone who helps children to grow not only academically but also personally. their ideal teacher is responsible, selfless, and particularly happy. if a teacher is not happy in the classroom, their students will not be happy, and they will not want to or be able to learn from that teacher. the ideal https://changing-sp.com/ 168 andrey b. berzin, aleksey v. maltsev, natalia a. zavyalova teacher is also kind, caring, encouraging, supportive and patient” (p. 191). wang chen’s study further supported the idea that teachers are traditionally viewed as selfless social workers, susceptible to continuous burnout, which negatively affects their job performance (wang, 2020, p. 126). regarding russian social reality, the role of the teacher can be seen to change with the advent of the classical education system (class-lesson), while maintaining its central position in the education process. the development of novel information technologies in the 20th–21st centuries led to fundamental changes in the role of the teacher in children’s education and upbringing. unfortunately, the prestige of the teaching profession and professional community has begun to decline noticeably in the present context. the general view of education as a sphere of service provision has become more and more widespread. such changes have not only affected the social status of teachers but also their well-being. there is a growing body of literature featuring the problems concerning the social and professional well-being of russian teachers at the end of the 20th century. important research includes the works carried out by the institute for philosophy and law of the russian academy of sciences (ural branch) in the 1990s (bodnar et al., 1990), the ural sociologist l. rubina (1996), and the moscow sociologist l. orlova (1998). the main challenges of the teaching profession include dissatisfaction with various aspects of professional life, including endless reforms and the attitude of society towards education. in research on well-being, two main underlying paradigms can be identified: sociological and psychological. however, medical and economic perspectives are also seen to make significant contributions. the psychological approach is based on the understanding of well-being as a generalizing indicator of the emotional-value state of a person, depending on the impact of social factors and responding to changes in the living conditions of an individual (rusalinova, 1994). here, the main emphasis is on subjective activity. well-being becomes in itself a factor influencing other aspects of human life. the psychological approach also features the concept of social well-being, which is based on western european and north american traditions. although the term well-being has become widespread in psychological research, it seems to us that it cannot fully reflect all the diversity of relationships and interactions that arise in mass consciousness. in addition, in the russian culture well-being implies among other things success, prosperity, and security, which contributes to a one-sided view of this social phenomenon. the sociological approach to the study of social well-being is expressed in an understanding of the emotional and value attitudes of the population, social groups and communities to social reality. this approach reflects the degree of social stability reflected in terms of a state of satisfaction with various aspects of social life and the individual in it. the sociological approach has become more widespread since the publication of zh. toshchenko and s. kharchenko’s book sotsial’noe nastroenie [social mood], in which social well-being is defined as the main and initial component of the social mood (toshchenko & kharchenko, 1996, p. 195). here, social well-being functions on two levels: on the one hand, it is the result, outcome or consequence of changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 164–181 169 certain transformations or reforms, while on the other, it comprises the starting point, factor, and criterion for assessing social changes. having both dynamic and static characteristics, well-being is characterized by the accumulation or concentration of certain states of consciousness on the part of communities, socio-demographic groups or society as a whole. in addition, individual concepts of well-being are of particular importance. whether comprising a sociodemographic group or a professional community, each group or community has its own well-being paradigm. along with the conditions for its implementation and the totality of knowledge and changes, general activity creates a specific attitude towards a professional community (gang, 2021). such an attitude has a more or less pronounced emotional and evaluative coloring, for example, that which characterizes a profession. that is, professional well-being is formed as a kind of derivative that can be considered both as a consequence and justification for certain actions (green et al., 2016). professional well-being can be considered as a concretization of the well-being of a social community that is based on the typical characteristics of a particular profession. therefore, we can consider successful professional communities, which are in great demand under specific socio-economic conditions and surviving professional communities, which only maintain their existence with some difficulty. for the sake of greater differentiation, it is worth highlighting an intermediate option, i.e., adapted, and the most extreme option, i.e., vanishing. in our opinion, based on various studies, the professional community of russian teachers should be attributed to the axis with the extreme points stretching between adapted and surviving. as already mentioned, the first studies of professional well-being can be traced to the 1990s. there is still interest in this issue at the moment (szentes et al., 2020). the attention of researchers to issues of teachers’ well-being has significantly increased in the past decade. this should include various monitoring studies (carried out in russian cities such as moscow, yekaterinburg, tyumen, surgut, etc.), as well as episodic measurements of teachers’ social attitudes in other regions of the country. f. ziyatdinova reported on a decline in the prestige of the profession alongside a deterioration in the financial situation of teachers and a decline in the quality of education. the problem of the unpopularity of this profession among the children of teachers was formulated (ziyatdinova, 2010). a study among moscow teachers showed that the decrease in professional well-being is associated with the introduction of the unified state exam (ege), the financing of schools according to the number of students, which involves a noticeable increase in the teaching load, as well as with a deterioration in the material situation of teachers (gasparishvili et al., 2013). various surveys carried out over the past decade confirm that salaries are the main reason for the deteriorating professional health of teachers. the changes in wages did not improve the situation: a 2015 survey of 457 teachers in vologda region showed that only every third respondent was financially incentivized to work efficiently, while 64.5% answered this question negatively (solovieva, 2016). similar figures (63% of teachers dissatisfied with the salary) were received by sociologists in the tyumen region (shafranov-kutsev, 2016). questionnaire data of a study carried out almost annually over the last three decades by a group headed by v. sobkin and https://changing-sp.com/ 170 andrey b. berzin, aleksey v. maltsev, natalia a. zavyalova d. adamchuk (2016) to analyze the well-being of moscow teachers shows an increase in positive assessments of creativity in teachers’ work, its intellectual satisfaction and the presence of conditions for the development of professional abilities. satisfaction with work and conditions of communication remained at comparable levels along with assessments related to labor content and professional complexity. researchers also recorded retained dissatisfaction with wages and career opportunities (sobkin & adamchuk, 2016). an interesting study was conducted on the professional well-being and prestige of teachers from public and private educational institutions by a group of researchers from kaliningrad and nizhny novgorod (fedorov et al., 2020). as analysis shows, all these factors contribute to three most obvious consequences: the first consisting in a decrease in the effectiveness of the educational process itself, the second—in the growth of protest moods and social discontent, while the third leads to professional burnout, increased fatigue and morbidity. however, despite the sense of negative social well-being, teachers as a community are not ready for collective action taking forms of social protest. according to the questionnaire surveys, which were conducted almost annually, the number of positive assessments of the creative potential, intellectual satisfaction, and the conditions for developing one’s abilities in teaching jobs have increased in the last 30 years. assessments of job satisfaction with work and professional communication conditions remained at the same level, along with those related to the job content and professional complexity. the surveys were conducted in different regions of the russian federation. drawing upon the critical issues stated above, the present study attempts to identify the changes that have occurred in the professional teaching community related to a significant period of more than 30 years in the middle urals region. the following research objectives emerged: a. to identify the attitudes of teachers, students and parents of students towards the teaching profession in the russian federation. b. to demonstrate prevailing ideas about the teaching community in the russian federation. c. to identify factors that affect the well-being of teachers and their status in the russian federation. research methodology and methods the theoretical and methodological basis of the study comprised systemic, structuralfunctional and activity approaches, as well as an analysis of social facts from the standpoint of community and spatial perspectives. empirical data were collected during a questionnaire survey. in 1989 and 2016, we generated a handout questionnaire (paper and pencil). however, in 2021, we conducted an online survey (using the google forms application). the questionnaire presented a large number of questions (from 77 to 85 in different versions), mostly in closed form, with the possibility of choosing one or more answers. the questions were structured into sections which are as follows: (a) opinions about the prospects of the teaching profession; (b) social and professional well-being of teachers; (c) ideas about teachers and their prestige (see figure 1). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 164–181 171 figure 1 three-point analysis model of teachers’ social representation teaching as a career teacher’s personality well-being factors social representations of “teaching” community at three time points: 1989, 2016, and 2021 teacher’s self-assessment assessment by teachers, students’ parents and school graduates ca re er o pp or tu ni tie s ch oi ce m ot iv es jo b sa tis fa ct io n pe rs on al ity fe at ur es th e im ag e of a te ac he r (m et ap ho rs ) he al th sa la ry w or k re la tio ns hi p ed uc at io na l r ef or m s the processing of the obtained information was carried out using ibm spss and vortex software, including the calculation of frequencies and percentages, correlation coefficients for nominal and ordinal variables (chi-square, cramer’s v, goodman and kruskal’s gamma). the processing of psychological methods was carried out according to their keys. the study was based on a questionnaire survey of teachers carried out in the sverdlovsk region in 1989. the survey was conducted by the institute for philosophy and law of the ural branch of the russian academy of sciences (n = 1183 people). the survey was presented under the title sotsial’nopsikhologicheskoe samochuvstvie uchitelia: vremia peremen [socio-psychological well-being of the teacher: time for change] (1990). this allowed a comparative analysis of the answers received on coinciding questions to be carried out with a sufficient time lag. in 2016 and 2021, questionnaires’ surveys were conducted among teachers in two cities of the sverdlovsk region: the regional center of yekaterinburg and novouralsk (2016: n = 529 people; 2021: n = 412 people). when compiling the samples, we considered territorial division, type of school, subjects taught, and sociodemographic characteristics. given the degree of urbanization in the area, the urban community of teachers was the dominant group of respondents. if the number of respondents in a territorial entity was less than 1,000, a continuous sample was taken. when characterizing the respondents, the indicators that served as the basis for organizing the sample were as follows: gender, age, work experience, education, type of school, level of education of students, the subject taught, marital status, wages, and living conditions. according to the website geogoroda.ru, there are 47 cities in the sverdlovsk region, where more than 80% of the region’s population lives (sverdlovskaia oblast’. spisok gorodov, n.d.). https://changing-sp.com/ 172 andrey b. berzin, aleksey v. maltsev, natalia a. zavyalova in the sverdlovsk region in the 1987–1988 academic year, 31,700 teachers worked in the education system, of which more than 70% were in cities (bodnar et al., 1990, p. 5) according to the ministry of general and vocational education of the sverdlovsk region (the ministry of education and youth policy of the sverdlovsk region since may 20, 2019) in 2016, there were 68,147 teachers in the sverdlovsk region, most of whom worked in the general education system (60.7%). 29,367 people worked as teachers, 98.5% with vocational education. 23.5% were under the age of 35, 79% had work experience of more than 10 years, while 22.4% had already reached retirement age. over 90% of teachers were women (ministerstvo obshchego i professional’nogo obrazovaniia sverdlovskoi oblasti, 2017). the ministry of education of the russian federation provides the following information: in the 2021–2022 academic year, 36,380 staff worked in the general education system of the sverdlovsk region, of which 30,922 were teachers. (ministry of education of the russian federation, 2021). results and discussion as the subject of comparative analysis of teaching in 1989–2021, the following criteria were selected: the socio-demographic portrait of the teacher, attitudes to the profession, professional well-being and psychological state, the image of the teacher in the perception of the professional community and public opinion, as well as the system of dominant values. in addition, we compared the attitude of teachers to the reforms carried out in the general education system based on the survey results in 2016 and 2021. the socio-demographic portrait of the respondents is characterized by the significant predominance of women (1989—94%; 2016—91%; 2021—89%), as well as an increase in the proportion of people over 55 years old (1990—6.5%; 2016— 16%; 2021—23%). the length of service in the general education system has also increased. for example, the percentages of teachers who had worked in school over 19 years were as follows: in 1989—41%; in 2016—57%; in 2021—68%. the level of education increased over the period covered by the study (74% with higher education in 1989; 94% in 2016; 91% in 2021); overall, more than 70 percent of the respondents had graduated from the teachers’ training university. an improvement in housing conditions was noted: in 1989, 60% lived in separate comfortable apartments; in 2016—77%; in 2021—93%. the number of single teachers has increased. the percentage of married teachers declined from 70% in 1989 to 57% in 2016, increasingly slightly to 60% in 2021. opinions about the prospects of the teaching profession the motivation for choosing the teaching profession over the past three decades has not changed: firstly, a passion for the subject that is being taught; secondly, the vocation of a teacher itself, i.e., to constitute an example of a beloved teacher. these reasons for choosing the profession were indicated by more than a third of the respondents in each survey. out of a total of 9 offered options, the distribution of answers by year is almost identical. moreover, few significant changes in satisfaction with the profession were changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 164–181 173 noted. the number of teachers satisfied with the profession is stable, i.e., fluctuating between 85% and 86% respectively. however, when answering the question “would you like any of your children to become a teacher?”, teachers revealed a certain trend: the number of those wishing their offspring to continue the family tradition has decreased over the years (1989—30.7%; 2016—18.1%; 2021—17.2%). in order to explain their dissatisfaction 45.8% of the respondents in 2021 used the following terms: lack of personal life, disrespect for the teacher’s work, insecurity, high responsibility, low salaries, etc. here is one of the complete answers: today the school does not have enough time for children, there are continuous checks, the teacher has to accept a heavy workload in order to survive; this workload load represents a conveyor belt offering little creativity and a lack of communication with children. for me, being a teacher is a creative profession, which creativity i cannot realize at the moment. again, teachers are assessed according to the results of the unified state exam (ege) and the basic state exam (oge). since textbooks do not contain tasks for preparation, you have to train, not teach. a contemporary school does not resemble the school i wanted to work in when i was choosing the profession. the teacher today is a defenseless hostage, sandwiched between uneducated parents, impudent children and insatiable school administration” (female physics teacher at a gymnasium with 38 years of teaching experience). a change, albeit not very noticeable, in attitudes towards the profession was also recorded in response to the question of readiness to change jobs in the immediate future: a desire to change the field of professional activity was expressed by 7% in 1989; in 2016—by 12%; in 2021—19%. there is much evidence that the assessment of opportunities offered by the teaching profession may be sufficient to explain the emerging trend. interestingly, the assessment of the profession’s pluses and minuses in all the surveys was similar, e.g., pluses included (a) the rich variety of professional situations; (b) the demonstration of competencies, creativity; (c) the ability to communicate with interesting people. however, the quantitative expression was surprisingly different, especially in the assessment of minuses (see table 1). table 1 options decline in teachers’ professional field in comparison with other professions (% of respondents by year; ± sampling error) options year 1989 (n* = 1183) 2016 (n = 529) 2021 (n = 412) free time 88 ± 3 72 ± 4 70 ± 4 personal life 48 ± 1 62 ± 3 57 ± 3 financial security 46 ± 1 69 ± 3 44 ± 2 service promotion, career-building 57 ± 2 37 ± 2 36 ± 2 opportunity to be upwardly mobile in society 35 ± 1 22 ± 1 20 ± 1 note. * n is a number of respondents. https://changing-sp.com/ 174 andrey b. berzin, aleksey v. maltsev, natalia a. zavyalova it is now understood that career dissatisfaction plays an important role in the emerging trend. dissatisfaction with the possibilities of the profession found its expression in the teachers’ answers to a hypothetical situation, i.e., what kind of job they would prefer to choose. the number of those wishing to choose a profession that allows them to earn more has tripled, while half as many stated the desire to find a job where no one orders they around, they decide everything themselves, success depends only on them (1989—17%; 2016—49%; 2021—43%). while paying much attention and respect to all these alarming signals, it would be fair to assume that career dissatisfaction is not a uniquely russian trend. in his study, the australian scholar dorman (2003) maintained that continuous stress on teachers in his country makes educators less tolerant of their students, resulting in their reduced commitment to work, e.g., failure to prepare for classes. cheek et al. (2003) showed that most teachers suffer from frustration in teaching at some point in their professional development. teachers’ social and professional well-being as already noted, the respondents rated the teaching profession very poorly regarding financial opportunities, arrangement of personal life, etc. this concern found its expression in the issues of greatest importance to the respondents. closer inspection of the data shows that the most prominently cited factor of physical condition is not directly related to the teaching profession (the importance of health factors mentioned in the surveys was as follows: 1989—42%; 2016—48%; 2021—65%). however, if we analyze the socio-demographic portrait of teachers regarding age parameters, a noticeable aging of teaching staff over the years becomes evident. among the factors directly related to work, financial difficulties came out on top (1989—19%, 2016—47%, 2021—46%). thus, financial factors are significantly determining of professional well-being and relationships affecting the educational process. when analyzing the respondents’ assessments of existing relationships, interactions with students’ parents and school administration are stated by teachers to be the most problematic. here, a significant outcome can be noted: over the past years, the assessment has improved (see table 2). we used a 4-point scale where 4 represents complete mutual understanding, while 1 denotes misunderstanding or alienation. table 2 relationships: good, complete mutual understanding (% of respondents by year ± sampling error): relationship type year 1989 (n* = 1183) 2016 (n = 529) 2021 (n = 412) with students 28 ± 1 54 ± 3 62 ± 3 with students’ parents 22 ± 1 33 ± 2 37 ± 2 with colleagues 41 ± 1 55 ± 3 68 ± 3 with school administrators 30 ± 1 43 ± 2 45 ± 2 note. * n is a number of respondents. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 164–181 175 the majority of the respondents assessed relationships in terms of a desire to achieve mutual understanding (3 points). one of the key findings is the opinion that the most difficult relationship type involves interaction with parents and school administration. the improving trend in assessments of these relationships over the years is very likely due to the extensive experience of interaction and dissemination of the ideology of tolerance and patience. as an example, let us note two poles representing positions taken by teachers: (a) tolerant, and (b) countering the maximalist views of students. according to the assessment of colleagues, tolerant teachers are significantly more successful. however, the professional well-being of teachers is negatively influenced by continuous reforms and the ongoing transformation of general education. as the studies carried out in 2016 and 2021 show, the majority of teachers are inclined to the idea of a partial change in the content of the educational process (2016—74%; 2021—67%). only the minority of teachers react positively to radical changes (2016—22%; 2021—32%). among the factors that negatively affect the level of educational outcomes, respondents cited a weak interest on the part of parents in the quality of their children’s education (66% of respondents for both 2016 and 2021), a low level of abilities or interest on the part of students (2016—56%, 2021—58%), ineffective management on the part of the educational system (33% and 34%, respectively). teachers have formed a negative attitude towards reporting requirements: in their opinion, it needs to be reduced. more than a half of the respondents reacted positively to proposals to limit the reporting requirement (2016—66%; 2021—54%). teachers reacted differently to the introduction of the unified state exam (ege) (6% of respondents in both samples fully support it; 2016—18%, 2021—12%). with respect to distance learning, while teachers believe that it is suitable for use in emergencies, 94% suppose that it necessarily results in decreased education quality. 33% of teachers in 2021 (the covid-19 pandemic year) assessed the degree of self-organization of students at 3 points out of 10, while 24% put it at 1–2 points. the retention of educational materials was assessed similarly. in considering financial aspects, we proceed to a description of teachers’ wages. at the time of the study in 2016, the average monthly nominal accrued wages of teachers in schools in the city of yekaterinburg amounted to 35,943 rubles, while the average salary in the city was 43,910 rubles. the wage gap is quite large (iakob et al., 2017). at the same time, the average monthly wages of the respondents in 2016 was distributed as follows: up to 15,000 rubles—8%; 15,000–25,000 rubles—49%; 25,000–35,000 rubles—33%; over 35,000 rubles—10%. social opinions about teachers and their status the final stage of the study comprised the description of social ideas about the role of teachers in terms of their social significance, prestige, and image. these variables were studied with the help of an associative test and a questionnaire. the respondents were asked to choose from 15 images of a teacher, which represented metaphors that would best express the profession of a teacher, i.e., carrying out a certain differentiation https://changing-sp.com/ 176 andrey b. berzin, aleksey v. maltsev, natalia a. zavyalova and categorization (placing the image in one or another community). surprisingly, the largest support in each survey (50% and 60%) was given to the image of the hamster in the spinning wheel, then—actor, friend, mentor. it should be noted that the teaching community thus highlighted the important features and functions of the teacher’s personality, i.e., the necessity to assist, to save face in any circumstances, and a rather low coefficient of efficiency despite all the efforts being made. the perception of the teacher’s image via such metaphors was supplemented with assessments of qualities that hamper effective work. the largest number of votes for each group of respondents received the opinion that the teacher with a compliant character suffers most in school (1989—46%; 2016—53%; 2021—38%). teachers who actively oppose maximalist, immature views of students, prefer to stay independent, self-motivated, proactive, as well as use well-established methods of work received an average percentage of 12%. these characteristics of the teacher’s image are complemented by the respondents’ assessments of how certain features of professional image are perceived by the teaching community and how a teacher appears in terms of public opinion from the point of view of the respondents. teachers characterize themselves primarily as people having a creative attitude to work (1989—44%; 2016—63%), possessing a sense of their own dignity (1989—36%; 2016—44%; 2021—64%), while the third position was given to a sense of defenselessness (1989—35%, 2016—40%). the teaching community considers the perceptions of the teacher’s image in public opinion to be negative, i.e., dominant positions were given to such characteristics as “defenseless” (1989—18%; 2016—28%), “indifferent to children” (1989—28%; 2016—27%). mass media representations support the formation of such an opinion (see table 3). table 3 role of the media in shaping the influence of the teacher (% of respondents by year ± sampling error) meaning year 1989 (n * = 1183) 2016 (n = 529) 2021 (n = 412) actively promotes credibility of teachers 12 ± 0 10 ± 1 12 ± 1 does not promote; moreover, discredits the activities of teachers 43 ± 1 72 ± 4 70 ± 4 virtually does not influence the perception of teachers 46 ± 1 18 ± 1 19 ± 1 note. * n is a number of respondents. it is important to stress that negative media attitudes towards the teaching profession are not an entirely typical russian feature. as the saudi researcher alghamdi (2021) demonstrated in his research, media everywhere tend to attribute negative connotations to teaching: “findings affirm the imperative that teacher education programs intentionally sensitize to the benefits of critically deconstructing media images. this will help stave off negative connotations of teachers and make teaching become part of future teachers’ professional identities”. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 164–181 177 more than a half of the respondents, i.e., 56–57% in the 21st century (in 1989 there were only 42%) think that the values structuring the world of russian teachers have not changed significantly over the past decades. priority is still given to family matters, i.e., love for one’s children and partners, as well as a good education. an important finding is that the value accorded to life wisdom has also increased. the average age of the community of teachers has increased over the years, the number of respondents for whom this terminal value has become significant has also increased: 1989—13%; 2016—23%; 2021—24%. among instrumental values, teachers particularly distinguish responsibility (1989—38%; 2016—59%; 2021—62%). more than half significantly prioritized good manners, closely followed by education, breadth of knowledge and high general culture. conclusion the aim of the present study was to inspect the social image of teachers in russia. the comparative analysis of survey results (1989, 2016, and 2021) showed a number of negative trends compared to the 1990s. in this regard, there is a need to deepen research on this issue, as well as to analyze the reasons that prevent the transformation of the teaching community into a more organized integral body, involving the formation of those qualities and properties that contribute to the successful activities of the socio-professional community. this change may lead to a higher level of development or already be part of a transition to a higher quality of education. the analysis of the obtained statistical data and the results of the survey show that teachers in the middle urals region face similar problems to those of the professional community in the country as a whole, including the predominance of women in the profession and increasing number of older age groups. along with their life strategies, the main trends in the development of the value world of teachers were identified on the basis of the study results. a significant decline in the prestige, status, and role of teaching in modern russian society was shown both in the professional community and general public opinion. the decrease in the well-being of teachers is influenced by a deterioration of their financial situation, a perceived decline in the level of education and factors affecting quality of life. changes in the system of values and priorities affecting the established system of relations between the teacher and schoolchildren, as well as with their parents, is also of key importance. with respect to the social well-being of teachers, the analysis showed that well-being and perceptions of the importance of the teaching profession are influenced by the continuous reform of the russian education system. according to the analyzed data, only a small number of teachers actively support the reforms, while the majority prefer to take a wait-and-see attitude. another alarming trend identified by the study consisted in an increasing lack of interest in studying among school students, which is confirmed by teachers, parents, and school graduates. their criticism is mainly aimed at the ineffective management of the education system, including organization of the educational process, as well https://changing-sp.com/ 178 andrey b. berzin, aleksey v. maltsev, natalia a. zavyalova as its material and technical support. significant dissatisfaction arises from the introduction of the unified state exam (ege), the quality of distance learning, as well as the willingness of students to participate in distance learning. the research revealed the prerequisite for new study methods aimed at describing the structure of communities. new types of community emerge from the interaction of teachers with other professional networks or social subjects. the applied methodology of active survey and interviews related to teachers showed the need to use a wider arsenal of methods, including qualitative data collection methods. significance evidence supports the idea that it is only by identifying the most diverse methods and resolving existing contradictions that the efficiency of the professional teaching community may be improved. references alghamdi, k. a. 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(2020). research on the effect of humanized management and selfefficacy on teachers’ job burnout. heilongjiang science, 11(17), 126–127. ziyatdinova, f. g. (2010). sotsial’noe polozhenie uchitelei: ozhidaniia i realii [teachers’ social position: expectations and realities]. sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [sociological studies], 10, 100–107. https://changing-sp.com/ https://geogoroda.ru/region/sverdlovskaya-oblast https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2020-0014 https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2020-0014 changing societies & personalities, 2021 vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 581–599 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2021.5.4.151 received 8 august 2021 © 2021 konstantin v. barannikov, accepted 16 december 2021 fayruza s. ismagilova, published online 30 december 2021 zijun li, oleg b. kolpashchikov kb@integra-ural.com f.s.ismagilova@urfu.ru liziijunn@gmail.com ok.urals@gmail.com article changing the paradigm of inclusion: how blind people could help people without disabilities to acquire new competences konstantin v. barannikov, consulting company llc “institute of management design and competitive strategies”, yekaterinburg, russia fayruza s. ismagilova, ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia zijun li, ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia oleg b. kolpashchikov “white cane”, yekaterinburg, russia abstract people with disabilities have been increasingly regarded as the most powerful and overlooked workforce in the labor market, although frequently confronted with ineffectiveness in cooperation with colleagues without disabilities. the traditional paradigm of inclusion considers blind people as dependents needing help. inclusive society is highly aimed at effective interactions between the workforce with and without disabilities. the present article regards people with disabilities as those having diverse potentials, which stem from different cultural backgrounds, and behaving differently during intercultural interactions with individuals without disabilities. this article proposes a new disability inclusion paradigm involving successful blind professionals in mentoring activities, to share their experience with top managers and experts in russian organizations. through focus groups and in-depth interviews, this article finds specific differences in explicit and implicit interactive behaviors between individuals with and without blindness. https://changing-sp.com/ 582 konstantin v. barannikov, fayruza s. ismagilova, zijun li, oleg b. kolpashchikov introduction in an unstable social and market environment, diversity management in an organization has become one of the most pressing problems. in particular, the question arises of how to ensure the effective functioning of organizations where the workforce is diverse in terms of language, well-being level, and work experience. in turn, these differences can lead to misunderstandings and even conflicts in interactions between employees, managers and subordinates. one of the manifestations of diversity is inclusion as a way of involving people with disabilities in a work team (alexandra et al., 2021; sherbin & rashid, 2017). diversity equals representation, while inclusion integrates diverse potentials, encourages their participation, and fosters the competitive edge of diversity (sherbin & rashid, 2017). inclusion involves group members’ high-level sense of belonging and own value of uniqueness in the organization (afsar et al., 2021; shore et al., 2011). yet, as a nascent issue, an inclusion paradigm of social minorities in the workplace has been scarcely pictured (brimhall et al., 2017). inclusion of disability in the workplace has been growingly addressed by government policies and organizational initiatives in the last decade (swain et al., 2013). it has become a vigorous imperative for organizations to initiate effective disability inclusion programs to realize a win-win solution. not only could organizations fulfill productive and competitive diversity, but also people with disabilities (pwds) become equally recognized and appreciated for their potentials. according to the world report on disability (2011), over 15% of global populations live with disability. working-age persons with disabilities are an untapped workforce. for the last decade, pwds have been treated as dependents needing assistance (bualar, 2014). the traditional practice of including people with disabilities is based on a paternalistic paradigm. we understand the paternalistic paradigm as a model of attitude towards a person who is incapable of independent existence and selfdevelopment and therefore needs protection, care, and control. however, pwds possess unique potentials. adjustment to disabilities is not a mysterious or trouble-free process; it demands extraordinary adaptive and interactive abilities for pwds to obtain a significant level of success. extant studies have highlighted that pwds facilitate improved productivity and economic benefits furthermore, the present article highlights the positive effect of a disability inclusion paradigm on cultural intelligence development of organizational managers and experts. keywords blind person’s competence, paradigm of disability inclusion, mentoring and mentorship, cultural intelligence, intercultural interaction acknowledgements this work was supported by abroad phd studying scholarship, the china scholarship council, and a supplementary grant from the ural federal university. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 581–599 583 in organizations despite the expense of accommodation (solovieva et al., 2011). managers without related experience feel hard to recognize specific potentials of pwds and establish the compelling strategies for disability inclusion in workplaces (baldridge et al., 2015; bonaccio et al., 2020). one of the ways to effectively include employees with disabilities is to involve them in mentoring activities. this new role of a mentor will allow an employee with disabilities to get out of the relationship of paternalism and become a leader and role model for their colleagues. because of differentiated experience, education and norms, pwds and people without disabilities could be recognized as two social groups that possess respective cultural traits (wilson et al., 2017). the group of pwds co-constructs their commonly shared social knowledge, cultural identities, and group affiliation. in addition, these two groups structure their own in-group favoritism and stay stable to a certain degree (efferson et al., 2008). disability inclusion may lead to adjustment issues for both pwds and individuals without disabilities, which is similar with what expatriates face in cross-cultural contexts. therefore, disability inclusion in workplaces requires from employees the use of cultural intelligence (cultural quotient or cq); this refers to the competence to function and interact successfully in culturally diverse contexts (earley & ang, 2003), and is cited as a vital competitive element of top managers (dogra & dixit, 2019). a recent study has highlighted that benign inclusion and intercultural interactions are related to individuals’ cq development (alexandra et al., 2021). our idea is to abandon the paradigm of paternalistic attitudes towards inclusion. this study aims to describe the phenomenon of inclusion as a constructive intercultural interaction between people with blindness and people without disabilities. as participants of such interaction, people with disabilities: a) carry differ cultural traits; b) behave differently when interacting with non-disabled colleagues; c) enhance organization’s competitive advantages by their activities; and d) help employees and managers learn new competencies, such as attention to weak signals, openness to new experiences, and the ability to interact with people from a different culture. thus, this article proposes a new role for people with disabilities in russian organizations. successful blind people act as mentors and share their unique knowledge with top managers and the talent pool. specifically, blind mentors train non-blind peers to acquire the practices used by blind people, and therefore to identify cross-cultural differences in interactive behavior between blind people and their non-disabled colleagues. in this article, we show that mentors with disabilities help leaders and experts to develop managerial competences more successfully. disability inclusion strategy: involving pwds in mentoring activity building on existing literature, disability is interpreted more as a social and cultural phenomenon than purely an individual pathological phenomenon. the world report on disability (2011) defines disability as the impairments, limitations and restrictions that a person faces in the course of interacting with their environment—physical, social, or attitudinal. the social model towards disability, which developed in the early 1970s, https://changing-sp.com/ 584 konstantin v. barannikov, fayruza s. ismagilova, zijun li, oleg b. kolpashchikov has posited disability as a socially-created product rather than individual failings (barnes, 2019; harpur, 2012). in view of the social model, a social-oppression model underlined that disability is socially-construed unfair treatment towards people with disabilities (swain et al., 2013). disability inclusion has been advocated there from (vornholt et al., 2018). accordingly, there had been an increase in the employment of pwds in the workplace. nevertheless, the improved employment quota is not sufficient to reap the benefit of well-qualified disability inclusion. as it has already been indicated, disability inclusion should consist of three elements: (a) involvement in activities, (b) maintaining reciprocal relationships, and (c) sense of belonging (hall, 2009). the majority of disability inclusion paradigms applied by organizations only expect the involvement of pwds in the organizations. scarce attention has been paid to establishing reciprocal relationships, raising the sense of belonging for pwds, and involving pwds in managerial decision-making. furthermore, unique competences of pwds as well as the effective collaboration between pwds with colleagues without disabilities, have been underestimated in the traditional paternalistic disability inclusion paradigm. to go further, it demands a transformative disability inclusion paradigm. there are several issues of the traditional disability inclusion paradigm, which have been increasingly addressed in the last five years. on the one hand, pwds barely perceive their own sense of belonging and uniqueness (purc-stephenson et al., 2017). it is ubiquitous that in spite of being employed, pwds still confront stigma and distrust of their competences (baldridge et al., 2015). the image of pwds as constant dependents has somehow been the norm (bualar, 2014). what is worse, occasionally pwds have been employed only for special human resource quota, but not expected to perform productively and benefit the organization. pwds are struggling to prove they are a competent and reliable workforce (purc-stephenson et al., 2017). in addition, few extant studies reveal the phenomenon of “false admiration”, which refers to the condition that disabled professionals are praised for the routine tasks of their jobs, just because they live with disabilities (dorfman, 2016). these explicit and implicit unfair treatments towards pwds served as unspoken barriers, which countered the effective disability inclusion. accordingly, it is vital for the transformative disability inclusion paradigm to exert uniqueness of pwds, weighing squarely with the contribution of pwds to organizations, and discover competitive performance from productive intercultural cooperation between pwds and their colleagues without disabilities (romani et al., 2019). in particular, for blind people, extraordinary abilities have been developed to successfully adjust to blindness physically, attitudinally, and socially. this uniqueness of a blind workforce and its effect on an organization are encouraged and need to be highlighted in a disability inclusion paradigm. though the majority of top managers hold prospective attitudes to the inclusion of blind people, above half (54.5%) of managers and experts in organizations are lacking the specific knowledge of a workforce with disabilities and the interactive experience with this group of employees (onabolu et al., 2018). without previous knowledge and interactive experience, managers and professionals find it hard to changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 581–599 585 value the competence of pwds and fail to set effective inclusion strategies. pertaining to difficulties confronted by managers and professionals, this article shows that they could be realized by involving successful pwds in a mentoring role. few studies have involved successful blind people in managerial activity and highlighted the significant role of successful blind mentors for career development of youths with disabilities (silverman & bell, 2020). successful blind people should be allowed and encouraged to assist top managers and professionals with developing a productive disability inclusion paradigm. what’s more, the extraordinary talent of mentors may enable managers to acquire competitive managerial abilities through this effective interaction. based on these theoretical assumptions, we propose to consider how successful blind people can be involved in mentoring activities in organizations, and to investigate the positive impact of such mentoring on the cross-cultural communication skills of top managers and professionals. extraordinary competences and interactive behaviors of pwds in order to interconnect with their environment, blind people need adaptive and interactive skills and competences. firstly, it is necessary but complicated for blind people to embrace the external environment (hehir et al., 2015; zaborowski, 1997). through this struggle, blind people gradually form their own sets of strategies to accept differences and adapt to dynamic contexts. blind individuals have an ability to adapt to differences and variations, which is an ability that is essential for top managers who are open to diversity and ready for change management (richard et al., 2019). secondly, numerous studies have highlighted that people with blindness possess extraordinary tactile and auditory perception skills and cognitive capacities including memory and language as a result of functional sensory rehabilitation and adaptive neuroplastic changes of the brain (föcker et al., 2012). simultaneously, extant studies show that blind people have an increased social awareness in order to interact properly with individuals around them (halperin et al., 2016; oleszkiewicz, 2021). given the dynamic environment, acute sensor y sensitivity towards weak external informative signals is critical for top managers and professionals, which contributes to their managerial activities such as adapting to changing conditions, interacting with a diverse number of employees, situational awareness processing, and structural planning (petrie & swanson, 2018). hence, it is reasonable to envisage that the involvement of successful blind people in mentoring activities will facilitate new interactive behaviors, all of which will inevitably benefit diversity management skills. thirdly, successful blind people have a high level of ambiguity tolerance. ambiguity tolerance refers to the way an individual or group perceives and processes information about ambiguous situations or stimuli when confronted with an array of unfamiliar, complex, or incongruent messages. ambiguity tolerance has been cited as a crucial quality for leadership, business planning and managerial skills (mclain et al., 2015; pathak et al., 2009). in particular, ambiguity tolerance is positively related to performance in the global workplace and cross-cultural settings (herman et al., 2010). https://changing-sp.com/ 586 konstantin v. barannikov, fayruza s. ismagilova, zijun li, oleg b. kolpashchikov based on these extraordinary competences, people with blindness are believed to use different interaction modes compared to colleagues without blindness during any cooperation. extant literature has pointed out that individual differences could shape the specific cooperation signals (lepine & van dyne, 2001). hence, the response to signals received by individuals with and without blindness to any current situation will differ during their cooperation. thus, the first hypothesis that this study is going to address is as follows. • h1: there exist distinct interactive behaviors during cooperation between individuals with blindness and individuals without disabilities. it is reasonable to believe that individuals with blindness are more sensitive to weak interactive signals than individuals without blindness and establish implicit interactive frameworks with considerable differences. this leads us to our second hypothesis, which is as follows. • h2: there is a qualitative difference in the response to weak interactive signals between individuals with blindness and individuals without disabilities during any cooperation. inclusion paradigm and cultural intelligence development cultural intelligence (cq) enables the capability to identify and appreciate cultural differences, to function and interact successfully in culturally diverse contexts (earley & mosakowski, 2004). it allows a person to open up to diversity and helps them improve their intercultural communication skills (kadam et al., 2021; min et al., 2020). cq has been considered as an indispensable quality of managers and experts in the current environment (dogra & dixit, 2019). thomas and colleagues (2012) defined that cq consists of three aspects such as cultural knowledge, cross-cultural skills, and meta-cognition cq. this article adopts its most popular multidimensional structure comprising four aspects of cq: (a) metacognitive cq (awareness and understanding of cultural diversity and regulation of cultural knowledge); (b) cognitive cq (cultural knowledge); (c) motivational cq (drive and efficacy to engagement in culturally diverse contexts); and (d) behavioral cq (appropriate verbal and non-verbal behaviors in culturally diverse contexts) (ang et al., 2007; earley & ang, 2003; earley & mosakowski, 2004). it has been postulated that metacognitive cq as well as behavioral cq are crucial for intercultural competency (rose et al., 2010; van der horst & albertyn, 2018). moreover, evidence shows that meta-cognitive and motivational cq shape behavioral cq (gooden et al., 2017). it has been identified that individual cq could be enriched by involving participants from different cultures in collaborative activities (alexandra et al., 2021). apart from it, improved cq from one cross-cultural context is going to be consistent with other intercultural situations. as it has been described in this article, interactions between pwds and people without disabilities resemble intercultural interactivity. thus, blind mentors’ interactions with sighted mentees, may mentees’ cq. building on it, this article poses hypothesis h3. • h3: the inclusion paradigm to involve successful blind individuals as mentors in organizations, which encourages the development of managers’ and experts’ cq. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 581–599 587 method qualitative research design in order to examine the hypotheses, this study attempts to inquire into and compare interactive signals respectively applied by the workforce with and without blindness when engaged in productive cooperation. the qualitative research design was selected because it allows studying complex objects and approaching it from different angles (rahman, 2017), and therefore in our study it has an advantage over the quantitative method. the study also includes various in-depth vignettes such as individuals’ feelings, views, experiences, and related behaviors. for those reasons, focus groups and in-depth interviews have been elected as means of verification. focus groups have several advantages. firstly, they enable participants to discuss perceptions, thoughts, opinions and feelings (krueger & casey, 2000). secondly, they involve interactions which yield more open and honest views (morgan, 1997; tharbe et al., 2020; wilkinson, 1998). thirdly, focus groups serve as a suitable method to explore newly emerging research questions (wilkinson, 1998). thereby, in order to reach our target groups and collect as much information and details as possible, this study methodologically relies on the methods of focus groups and in-depth interviews with both mentors and mentees. participants and procedures focus groups are typically formed of eight to ten participants so as to achieve productive feedback (wilkinson, 1998). in this study, the first focus group was conducted among 10 employees with visual deficits (5 female, 5 male) from russian organizations, such as schools, institutes, companies, and social organizations. they were aged from 35 to 52 years old. these participants included russians and kazakhs; all were russian speakers. all of them had a higher education and had more than 5 years of experience of working with colleagues without disabilities. the second focus group was carried out among 8 managers and experts (4 female, 4 male) from russian organizations, which hire employees both with and without blindness. these organizations included companies, institutes, and social enterprises such as libraries, art galleries and factories, travel agencies and institutes. the proportion of employees with and without disabilities in their organizations equaled 1:1. managers and experts were from 38 to 56 years old. all of them were russian with a higher education and had more than 5 years of managerial experience with a blind workforce. all of these directors have directly interacted with their subordinates with visual impairments. the in-depth interviews have been conducted with 5 highly competent blind experts (3 male, 2 female) as mentors and their 8 mentees (4 male, 4 female) without disabilities. all mentors and mentees were from 35to 57-year-old. all of them have higher education. all blind mentors work in social enterprises or government offices as directors or consultants in handling inclusion of disabilities. they are equipped with sufficient inclusion work experience. and 8 mentees work at russian public or private companies as managers. they had more than 10 years of work experience https://changing-sp.com/ 588 konstantin v. barannikov, fayruza s. ismagilova, zijun li, oleg b. kolpashchikov and work as middle or senior managers. thus, each of them has an experience to be either a blind mentor or a mentee of a blind mentor. blind mentors delivered several workshops to teach mentees to focus on non-visual environmental signals and to interact with blind colleagues more effectively. besides, all mentees are interested in disability inclusion and participation in the mentoring. all focus groups and interviews were conducted in russian via zoom1. first, the host explained to participants the objective of the focus group. then, to motivate participants to be more open, the host briefly outlined the successful work experience of participants at their companies and invited them to share their opinions concerning inclusive interaction. participants were asked to answer the host’s questions one by one. they were invited to be open and honest also adding to other participant’s opinion what they might like to add. at the same time, they were asked not to correct other participants and argue with them. all these mandates were needed to provide a comfortable environment, on the one hand, and focus on details, on the other hand. these three online meetings were conducted separately and with three nonoverlapping groups of participants. the focus groups were carried out in december, 2020 and with 15-day intervals between them. each focus group lasted around 2 hours. the first focus group with a blind workforce covered 2 questions: remember the situations when you started to cooperate with a co-worker without a disability. maybe, you interacted with him/her to solve a common task or to accomplish projects together. to do this, you should build productive cooperation. please, finish the following statements: a) “to support productive interaction with a co-worker without disabilities, i behave as follows.” b) “to support productive interaction with me, my co-worker without disabilities usually behaves as follows.” the second focus group with organizational managers and exports involved 3 structural questions. a) “characterize the behaviors demonstrated by employees in their interactions with their blind colleagues during their cooperation in your organizations.” b) “name the criteria of effective intercultural cooperation between blind employees and employees without disabilities.” c) “describe the benefits obtained from the cooperation with blind individuals in your organization.” each in-depth interview with mentors or mentees lasted around 1 hour. the same 2 questions were addressed to participants of the first focus group and to blind mentors during the in-depth interviews to analyze their managerial and mentoring experiences with mentees. in-depth interviews were conducted in may, 2021. moreover, 2 additional questions are asked to mentored managers and experts in the course of in-depth interviews. a) “characterize interactive behaviors during mentoring activities with blind mentors.” 1 zoom is a trademark of zoom video communications, inc. changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 581–599 589 b) “describe benefits which were obtained from the mentoring activities with blind mentors.” all focus groups and in-depth interviews data were recorded, then collected and analyzed. results the information collected from two focus groups and in-depth interviews has been analyzed. we gathered all the participant’s responses given by employees with and without disabilities, in order to facilitate effective intercultural interaction. according to the differences in visual and verbal explicitness of signals during the interaction, individual interactive behaviors have been labeled in two separate categories, such as strong signals and weak signals. the strong-signal interactive behaviors use interactive strategies which are more interpersonal, and visual or verbally recognized, while weak-signal interactive behaviors are more implicit. in addition, based on the three-factor model of intercultural effectiveness posed by hammer, gudykunst, and wiseman (1978), both strong interactive signals and weak interactive signals are categorized into three aspects: a) related to mental adjustment or emotion; b) related to communication; and c) related to interpersonal relationships. finally, three categories of interactive behaviors are respectively listed as strong-signal and weak-signal interactions, such as emotion and mental aspects (2 items), interpersonal relation (2 items), and communication (4 items). for example, pertaining to strong-signal emotional and mental facets during intercultural interaction, blind employees mostly do not correct their partner’s error explicitly, while employees without disabilities prefer to mention it immediately to improve the effectiveness of intercultural interaction. and, both groups of employees express positive emotions such as friendliness and warmth, with smiles and so on, to promote effective interaction. when it comes to strong-signal interpersonal relations, blind employees would rely on their co-workers to complete the task more efficiently. while employees without disabilities hardly ever depend on their employees with disabilities and got used to the paternalistic interaction in daily work. as for weak-signal interactive facets, compared with employees without disabilities, blind employees were afraid to show their weakness all the time and had higher stress or weakness during handling tasks. blind employees prefer to feel their uniqueness rather than pwds inclusion in comparison to employees without disabilities. the data were then estimated by applying the content-analysis approach. the analysis of interactive behaviors’ results is presented in tables 1 and 2, and comparisons are presented in table 3 and 4. table 1 shows similarities and differences in explicit interactive behaviors of workforce, with and without blindness, during intercultural cooperation. both the workforce with blindness and without disabilities manifested positive emotions to facilitate productive intercultural cooperation. furthermore, the both groups have https://changing-sp.com/ 590 konstantin v. barannikov, fayruza s. ismagilova, zijun li, oleg b. kolpashchikov explicit communication skills to use clear statements for issues, well-structured explanations, and active voice behaviors during the cooperation. employee voice behavior is defined as promotive behavior that emphasizes expression of constructive challenges in order to improve and recommend modifications to standard procedures even when others disagree, which is an extra-role behavior of interpersonal communication (lepine & van dyne, 2001; van dyne & lepine, 1998). whereas, differences also have been underlined. individuals with blindness use implicit reactions to point out colleagues’ mistakes and give feedback to colleagues’ performance more often than people without disabilities during the intercultural cooperation. people without disabilities try to avoid dependence on and support from individuals with blindness during their cooperation. to a certain extent, these distinct interactive behaviors reflect not completely an equal disability inclusion paradigm in organizations. consciously and unconsciously, both individuals with blindness and without disabilities were shaped and got used to former disability dependent inclusion. if individuals with blindness directly point out the colleague’s mistakes or giving him negative feedback felt, they feel uncomfortable, guilty and stressed. table 1 content-units “strong signals of behavior” categories no. content-units used by non-blind person used by blind person difference emotion and mental facets 1 explicit emotional reactions positive positive no 2 attitude towards partner’s error react immediately implicit yes inter-personal relation 3 balancing dependence and independence rigidity in role identification during cooperation flexible role change between dependence to independence yes 4 support not ready to receive help from pwds mutual support yes communication 5 statement explicit and clear explicit and clear no 6 explanation well-structured and expanded well-structured and expanded no 7 feedback positive or negative non-judgemental yes 8 voice behavior explicit expression explicit expression no table 2 shows similarities and differences in implicit interactive behaviors during cooperation between individuals with blindness and without disabilities. generally, it is evident that individuals with blindness behave differently using implicit interactions more often than individuals without disabilities. thus, h2 is confirmed. in particular, individuals with blindness feel more stressed feeling themselves weak or wrong during the cooperation. moreover, individuals with blindness appreciate if their uniqueness is recognized, while individuals without disabilities favor the sense of belonging to organizations. these differences still reflect the worries about “false changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 581–599 591 inclusion” of blind individuals. communication behaviors vary a lot, individuals with blindness show a competitive capacity for information processing, its holistic perception and attention to details. this differentiation may be explained by the typical information processing strategies of individuals with blindness. for instance, when hearing lots of instructions, many individuals without disabilities customarily write down the key points to aid information processing while blind individuals are used to memorizing and absorbing information on the spot. additionally, individuals with blindness are more sensitive to intonation and voice strength during interactions. compared with individuals without disabilities, blind individuals could keep listening for a long while maintaining high effectiveness and higher tolerance of ambiguity during intercultural communication. table 2 content-units “weak signals of behavior” categories no. content-units used by non-blind person used by blind person difference emotion and mental facets 1 stress for selfweakness accepting mistakes high stress for self-error and avoid powerlessness yes 2 awareness of inclusion sense of belonging preference for own uniqueness yes inter-personal relation 3 attachment pursuing safe attachment pursuing safe attachment no 4 personal lasting bonds expectation for social lasting bonds expectation for social lasting bonds no communication 5 information processing perceive information with aids absorb information attentively yes 6 intonation and voice strength normally more sensitive yes 7 listening difficulties to keep attention for long while more carefully yes 8 tolerance of ambiguity normally higher tolerance yes comparisons of explicit and implicit interactive behaviors, differences versus similarities between individuals with blindness and individuals without disabilities have been laid out in table 3 and table 4. table 3 results of content-units calculation n of signals used by non-blind person n of signals used by blind person differences strong signals 8 8 4 weak signals 8 8 6 total 16 16 10 https://changing-sp.com/ 592 konstantin v. barannikov, fayruza s. ismagilova, zijun li, oleg b. kolpashchikov table 4 frequency of differences in interactive behaviors differences similarities sum frequency of differences strong signals 4 4 8 50% weak signals 6 2 8 75% sum 10 6 16 62.5% thus, during intercultural cooperation, implicit interactive modes used more frequently by individuals with blindness. hence, h1 and h2 are both confirmed. considering the small sample (10 participants for the first focus group, 8 participants for the second group, and 5 mentors, 8 mentees for the interview, in total 31 participants) and methods applied, we only used descriptive statistics. the information about the effect of the inclusion paradigm on managers’ and exports’ cq development was collected through the second focus group as well as in-depth interviews with mentored managers and experts. responses have been analyzed by four facets of cq conceptualization such as meta-cognition, cognition, motivation and behaviors according to proportion. we follow criteria from selfreport cq scale by ang, van dyne and rockstuhl (2015), and the short form for cq by thomas et al. (2015). if one respondent mentions more than one facet of cq, all facets mentioned have been calculated. the share of each description is measured in relation to the total number of responses (see table 5). table 5 cq development through inclusion paradigm cq facets no. descriptions count frequency metacognition 1 “i tried to learn and consciously expanded my knowledge about blind individuals when i was mentored by outstanding blind individuals.” 4 16% 2 “i aimed to check and consciously examined the accuracy of my knowledge about blind workforce when i was mentored by blind mentors.” 3 12% cognition 3 “i learned new rules for non-visual expression when interacting with blind individuals, for example, how to introduce myself in a blindness-friendly way.” 1 4% 4 “i realized the importance of intonation and proper voice strength during mentoring activities with blind mentors.” 1 4% motivation 5 “i feel more confident when socializing with individuals from a different cultural background.” 4 16% 6 “i gradually start to enjoy interacting with pwds and individuals from other cultures.” 3 12% 7 “i believe i could also deal with stress of adjusting to other cultures after the cooperation with blind individuals.” 4 16% behavior 8 “i changed my verbal behaviors during interactions with blind individuals, for example, i adjusted my intonation, i increased my voice strength.” 3 12% 9 “i adapted the rate of my speaking during interactions with blind individuals.” 2 8% changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 581–599 593 table 5 reveals the managers’ and experts’ cq development mentioned during the focus group discussion and in-depth interviews. during the focus groups and interviews, the participants were not asked directly about the development of cq. we gathered their answers about the “effectiveness of intercultural cooperation” as well as the answers about the “benefits from disability inclusion and the new inclusion paradigm to be mentored by successful blind individuals”. based on these answers, we selected answers related to cq development according to the items of cq scales (ang et al., 2007, 2015; thomas et al., 2015). in sum, 28% of the responses involved the development of meta-cognitive cq, 8% of the responses involved the development of cognitive cq, 44% of the responses involved the development of motivational cq, and the remaining 20% of the responses involved the development of behavioral cq in interactions with blind individuals. therefore, hypothesis h3 is supported, which proves that interactions and mentoring activities with blind individuals encourage the cq development of organizational managers and experts. moreover, motivational cq and meta-cognitive cq increased more than behavioral and cognitive cq, which is highly consistent with the existing evidence. discussion this article highlights the uniqueness of pwds and puts forward the transformative disability inclusion paradigm to involve successful pwds into organizational mentoring activities, thus achieving win-win outcomes. the study of extraordinary competences of individuals with blindness mentioned by this article shed light on exploration and recognition of pwds’ competitive advantages in workplaces. firstly, the article describes interactive behaviors by blind individuals and co-workers without disabilities during their intercultural interaction. differences in interactive modes represent cultural diversity, which could bring about knowledge sharing, skill transmission and innovation. it draws attention to specific distinct interactions and strategies for utilizing diversity. on the contrary, differences may lead to misunderstandings in culturally diverse workplaces. our findings explicate the efficiency of cooperation between people with and without disabilities from a new perspective. building on extant literature, obstacles that hinder the effective cooperation between people with and without disabilities multidimensionally consist of lacking in motivation, cognitive biases, as well as emotional discomfort toward another social group (baldridge & kulkami, 2017; beatty et al., 2019). this article adds to the information concerning differences as the obstacles to productive disability inclusion. especially, more differences were revealed in implicit interactions rather than explicit interactions. secondly, as it has been revealed, during intercultural cooperation, blind employees often use different implicit emotion-related and communicative interactive modes of behavior, which were neglected by much of the previous research. thirdly, this article underlines the opportunity to develop managerial competences, and especially cq, involving blind persons as mentors and encouraging them to share their knowledge and experience with mentees. https://changing-sp.com/ 594 konstantin v. barannikov, fayruza s. ismagilova, zijun li, oleg b. kolpashchikov developed cq of managers and experts enhances their managerial skills in other unfamiliar intercultural cases. application of our findings not only could improve programs of cq development, but also enhance the effect of pwds on organizational performance. limitations and directions for future research as with any research, limitations present avenues for further research. considering the changing disability inclusion paradigm, as a newly arrived issue, this article adopts focus groups and in-depth interviews with targeted groups to listen to their feelings and attitudes. the small sample size limits the representativeness of our findings about broader interactive differences and their effect on cq development. it calls for further quantitative investigations with larger samples to reinforce our findings. simultaneously, the results of this article partly subjective due to semi-structured discussions and self-reported views. further research if potentially conducted with well-structured scales and more objective criteria will be beneficial. this study only explored how individuals with blindness are involved in mentoring activities with organizational managers and exports. future research may expand the parameters with wider disability types and investigate in more detail the features of inclusion of people with disabilities. ultimately, the findings of this study may have regional or cultural limitations since involved organizations and most participants are from russia. more studies are encouraged across other nations and regions in the future. implications firstly, the new disability inclusion paradigm provided by this study emphasizes the need for changing inclusion practices in organizations. it displays a win-win inclusion practice of involving successful pwds into mentoring activities to share their experience and optimize organizational inclusion strategies and the diversity of managerial skills. secondly, cq development of organizational managers and experts is vital in the current competitive business environment. affirmative impact of the proposed inclusion paradigm brings to light the new directions in cq development programs. conclusion the current inclusive society is aimed at productive cooperation between people with and without disabilities. this article proposes a new inclusion paradigm for workforce with disabilities in workplace and reveals the uniqueness of the workforce with blindness. according to this new paradigm, firstly, inclusion appears as an intercultural interaction between people with and without disabilities. secondly, as participants in these interactions, people with disabilities behave differently from colleagues without disabilities and demonstrate potential that enriches organizational diversity, and brings different cultural characteristics to organizational culture. thirdly, people with disabilities enhance the competitive intercultural advantage for organizations through their activities. finally, this disability inclusion changing societies & personalities, 2021, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 581–599 595 helps employees and managers without disabilities acquire new competencies, such as attention to weak signals, openness to new experiences, and the ability to interact with people from a different culture. our research shows that the changing paradigm of disability inclusion, on the one hand, allows people with disabilities to avoid excessive paternalism in the workplace, and on the other hand, opens new horizons for the professional culturally competent training of personnel for the modern organization. references afsar, b., al-ghazali, b. m., cheema, s., & javed, f. 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bogomyakov marina g. chistyakova university of tyumen, tyumen, russia abstract the article discusses the problem of place affecting urban identity formation. the granite-lined embankment of the tura river becomes a factor in reassembling urban identity and forming new urban sensuousness for the residents of tyumen. the identity of tyumen has long oscillated between the provinciality of the “village capital” and the nomadism of the “hub city”, serving as a transit point to service the oil and gas industry. nowadays, city residents perceive the embankment not only as a sign of tyumen’s integration into a modern urban context, but also as a metaphor for the escape from the boggy swamp of uncertainty to the terra firma of solid granite. the technological characteristics of the four-tier embankment (its height and length) mark it as an outstanding engineering structure. the visual excessiveness of the embankment, framing the banks of a small river, makes it a source of pride for the citizens. to clarify the process of urban identity formation, the authors introduce the term “urban hubris”. there are multiple connotations of the hubris concept, ranging from “pride” to “transgression of one’s own destiny”. in this article, urban hubris refers not only to specific traits of people initiating megaprojects but to transgressive change in urban identity. this change can be triggered by fundamentally new strategies in city design or, as in this case, by a large-scale urban development project, conveying new city images, creating new public spaces, changing citizens’ daily practices, and, ultimately, transforming their urban identity. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 334–349 335 over the last few decades, the problem of urban identity has drawn considerable attention due to increased interest of researchers to urbanism. a multitude of factors, such as social, cultural, historical, territorial, and others, affect citizens’ identity formation. one of them is “place”, a part of the city space which carries specific meanings. a place’s identity establishes the link between its connotations, its significance for citizens, and their self-concept. the concept of place can be addressed not only as individual but also as collective identity, because this identity inspires the formation of urban communities. normally, this role is attributed to some public space, equally available for all. when a “place” grows emblematic for citizens, it is perceived as a landmark, the symbol of the city where it is located, and it becomes associated with it. in some cases, such places are not just aesthetically attractive. citizens look at them with pride. the article discusses the tyumen embankment’s function as a local landmark and how it affects the urban identity of its citizens. for a long time, tyumen developed apart from modern urban trends. its embankment can be regarded, on the one hand, as an attempt to measure up, by means of creating an up-to-date public space. on the other hand, it is a megaproject, which is unique and so disproportionate both in size, human scale, and in regard to the small river it frames, that it is associated with hubris. by developing the idea of hubris in connection with urban megaprojects, the authors introduce the term “urban hubris”, which is later utilised to examine the transformation of urban identity. hubris, in this respect, is seen not so much as arrogance and conceit, but as creative boldness, enabling authors to design and complete megaprojects in the urban environment. the conceptual framework of the study is supported by the theories of place identity, social identity, and new urbanism in public space design. the results of an opinion poll on the citizens’ attitude to the embankment, conducted in social media, were used as empirical material. embankment: the ambiguous landmark of tyumen historically, building cities on riverbanks offered a number of decisive advantages, mainly practical ones. grigory revzin (2021) identifies the following ones: firstly, fortification, which complicated any attempt to conquer the city. secondly, logistics, as the river provided the cheapest way to transport freight. and finally, “hygiene”: the river was often used as a reservoir for waste dumping (p. 112). tyumen is no exception in this regard: since the time of its founding, the tura river has served similar functions. the city was founded on the high river bank for safety reasons. in the second half of keywords urban identity, place identity, embankment, public space, urban hubris acknowledgements this work was supported by the rfbr and tyumen region under grant №20–411–720007. the authors express their appreciation to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. https://changing-sp.com/ 336 vladimir g. bogomyakov, marina g. chistyakova the 19th century, the river became a crucial component of the city economy. all goods exchange between the european part of the country and siberia was affected by means of the tura transport hub with harbour facilities linked to the railway station. the first embankment was constructed there in 1893. it was narrow, made of wood but equipped with electric street lights. in time, this part of the city fell into disrepair and its revitalisation was linked to a major large-scale city project, embankment construction. the construction of embankments as complex architectural infrastructure dates back to the xviii–xix centuries, at a point when the aesthetic function of the river joined the utilitarian one. water became an object of contemplation. a stroll along the waterfront was one of the favourite pastimes at the time, especially in metropolises. the granite-clad embankment in st. petersburg is viewed as one of the symbols of the capital and the empire. moreover, it became one of the first european embankments. thereafter, city planners start viewing the waterfront as public space. the omnipresent integration of water into the city environment is a crucial element of contemporary urban planning. without the benefit of this opportunity, a city can create an impression of “urban understatement”, failing to fulfil its potential. until recently, tyumen was a city of this kind. despite the fact that the tura river, flowing through the entire city, divides it into two parts—its right and left banks— post-revolutionary tyumen lacked an embankment. the idea to build an embankment was first discussed back in the 1980s, but for various reasons (mostly financial ones) the execution of the project was constantly postponed. construction work on the riverfront started in 2008. several contractors have worked on the project over the years. llc ist architecture and engineering group (llc ist) accomplished a major part of the project (naberezhnaia reki tury, n.d.). the tura embankment is a remarkable hydraulic engineering structure not only because of its length but more so due to its height. challenging terrain is its distinctive feature: the elevation difference between the apex point of the right bank and the water level reaches 22 metres. the right bank, where construction began, is steep and rugged at some stretches and had been eroded by the river, especially in spring flood. high flood marks were an additional hindrance to choosing easy solutions. water rises by 4 or 5 metres on average, reaching over 9 metres at peak levels. the right bank was embedded in concrete and secured with reinforced concrete piles to prevent further erosion. the embankment in tyumen, unique in russia, comprises 4 tiers. the two lower levels are covered by water until june, when the river’s flow subsides. this was a decisive factor in choosing cladding material. granite was selected to cover the embankment for its entire length. on the one hand, it is a practical decision; on the other, it evokes pleasant associations with metropolitan waterfronts. the completed embankment has a stretch of 3.1 km but it has been decided to extend it along the entire riverfront. even though the current length of the embankment is quite modest, it appears massive and seems obviously exaggerated for such a small river. in recent years the tura has grown shallow, while in some places water has receded from the bank by several metres. a tall and imposing construction clad in granite does nothing but exacerbate this imbalance. the situation is similar in terms of the human scale. the changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 334–349 337 embankment does look excessive in this respect. the monotonous, granite-clad embankment stretching for several kilometres appears almost gargantuan. according to the architect and urbanist jan gehl (2012), city design should consider the human scale and use it as its core concept. urban planning should be done in the following order: life, space, buildings (p. 198). in the case of the tyumen embankment, it happens to be exactly the opposite. the buildings became established priorities, and technical problems were solved first, leaving other objectives behind. this error is quite frequent in modernist urban planning, where buildings are prioritized. however, it appears out-of-date by the logic of modern urban development. the paradox of the tyumen embankment is that on the one hand, it is much liked by city dwellers and is perceived as a landmark and the heart of the city (naberezhnaia reki tura, tiumen’, n.d.), one of the key sights and an essential feature of the city brand. on the other hand, even its proponents agree that the riverfront has a long way to go before contextually and functionally it meets our expectations for a modern recreational space (oldenburg, 1989). this turns the embankment into an object of criticism, no less than an object of admiration. that said, most people are of the same mind that presently this imposing and ambitious construction is an important symbol of tyumen. the embankment’s construction has taken over a decade but it has failed to feature a variety of leisure opportunities or comfortable recreational zones. there are no cosy benches or playgrounds on the waterfront, yet there is an abundance of bronze images in bas-relief, and sculptures representing tyumen’s milestones and its heroes. in its central part historical context prevails over the contemporary reality. available activities lack variety. these are jogging, nordic walking, roller skating, cycling, strolling, or sitting on the benches. the part of the waterfront adjoining maslovsky vzvoz is more up-to-date. it is a historic road which in the 19th century connected the railway station and the wharves, integrating it into a transport hub. the renovated building of the steam navigation office hosts a multifunctional centre bearing the same name, which is aimed at a host of creative initiatives. it offers more opportunities to spend leisure time by holding street festivals, flash mobs, organising dancing parties, or gymnastics classes; there is an outdoor cinema. the building features exhibition rooms, a coffeeshop, and a lecture hall. a serious drawback in landscaping on the riverfront is the disregard for climatic conditions in tyumen. the designers seem to have made allowances only for the spring flood. it is very windy by the river in winter but no windshield or sunshade has been implemented. there is no shade for the whole stretch of the riverfront, which means that most benches on a hot summer day are in full sun. the only artificial source of refreshing coolness is a fountain. further, there is little chance of spontaneous communication here due to the lack of infrastructure, mainly street furniture. originally benches without backrest were sited here, making it difficult to sit on them for long. they were later replaced with more comfortable ones, equipped with backrests. even so, they are stationary, equidistant, and fixed in their places. greenery is restricted to lawns, where no walking on the grass is allowed. the borderline zone of the riverfront is a bit of an eyesore, at least at its very beginning, next to the bridge of lovers. it neighbours a parking lot, a pavilion with https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.tripadvisor.ru/ https://www.tripadvisor.ru/ 338 vladimir g. bogomyakov, marina g. chistyakova a police sign and several kiosks with loud generators. points of descent to the water are located far away from each other and are equipped with “inhospitably” long stairs (142 steps) and ramps. a panoramic lift planned here has not been constructed so far. there are no cycling lanes and no zoning available. the main drawback is that there is no access to the water’s edge along the entire waterfront. the city dwellers are sympathetic and even explain the reasons for this, with river pollution being the first, and safety (so that no one falls into the water) coming second. a prospective city beach is yet to be designed, while at present the water is simply out of reach. the embankment is conceived, among other things, as a place to contemplate the opposite river bank. by and large, that left bank does not look so presentable in tyumen, which prompted the city authorities to start its redevelopment by means of gentrification and new housing styled on the merchant mansions of the early 20th century. in 2019, efforts to landscape the left bank of the tura were initiated. the bank was also stabilised, and provided with a skating park, cafeteria, playground, several hardscape elements of unknown function, and a promenade. it was open to public in the spring of 2021 and immediately attracted much criticism. the designers tried to squeeze a host of amenities into a relatively small area, as if making up for their lack of them on the right bank. this resulted in congested space. what is more, a tall solid railing blocks the river view and people are unable to see the water, basically what they come to the waterfront for. sitting next to the railing, all one can see is grey concrete, and only by coming close to it is the water visible. the authors of the project seem to have ignored all the principles of embankment renovation (or construction, in our case) listed by soviet architect grigory golts (1936) in his article referring to moscow embankments the architecture of embankments: (a) the overall architectural image of moscow is conceived as a city complex constructed according to the picturesque principle, based on active articulation and elements’ lightness; (b) the second principle is respecting the scale of the moskva river and its embankments; (c) the third principle is specific thematic differentiation of embankments on the basis of district division. (golts, 1936; our translation—v. b., & m. ch.) in tyumen’s embankment there are neither light details nor zoning, and the river is disproportionately small in comparison to the grand embankment. the authors of the project focused not so much on the variety of opportunities to utilise public space, but on its design, markedly grandiose and imposing. this decision was supposed to give the city a new status, having instantly upgraded it on the urban design scale. as any urban space much exceeding the human scale, the embankment aims to create an image that would impress viewers not by its attractiveness, but rather by its imposing size. it comes as no surprise that the public has come up with the initiative to give the embankment a name. the most frequent proposal is to name it after the romanov dynasty, who stayed in tyumen in 1917 on the way to tobolsk as they had to change from a train to a ship. the imperial theme arises in the media changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 334–349 339 with predictable regularity. such allusions derive not only from historical context, but from the archaic, imperial, and imposing image that the embankment creates, and its disproportionate size compared to the river and an individual. what is the reason for this inordinate image? perhaps such a design solution should symbolize the new status of the city, which, thanks to the embankment, suddenly moved several steps at once on the “scale of urbanism” (petrova, 2021; our translation—v. b., & m. ch.). we believe the reason lies in hubris. urban hubris the tyumen embankment has managed to revolutionise its urban identity. it has now become part of the city sightseeing list, a “must-visit”. this is the main tourist attraction which is proudly presented by residents to city guests. the very fact of the embankment’s appearance enhances the city’s “urban status”, its standard of life, and ultimately, citizens’ self-esteem. while the embankment is among the most complex, unrivalled and visually inordinate projects of its kind (at least among those constructed in russia), tyumen’s urban identity gains new growth potential, namely pride. the notion of “hubris” is here utilised in order to conceptualise urban identity transformation in the context of megaprojects. the term “hubris” (origin: ancient greek ὕβρις—audaciousness) had a multitude of connotations in ancient greece. it was consonant with the name of hybris, the goddess personifying excessive, reckless pride and associated with such human features as pride, haughtiness, insolence, arrogance, overconfidence, and inflated ego. aristotle (trans. 1998) links hubris primarily to verbal insult. a person inflicting it on the other shows disrespect and asserts their own superiority. however, even in ancient tradition, hubris is not only interpreted as a morally reprehensible trait of character. it has a much broader meaning, for instance, referring to a human striving to transgress the boundaries of his destiny, as a challenge to the gods. homer and hesiod define hubris as the insolent behaviour of humans willing to surpass themselves. pindar regards hubris as a desire to push the boundaries of the human lot, to confront mortality (shevtsov, 2014, p. 412). gods do not leave the arrogant thoughts of men without notice. it is not surprising that hubris can be defined as one of the central components of ancient tragedy. the action of a character provoked by hubris resulted in folly (até), inevitably followed by divine retribution (nemesis). at all events, by its extreme nature, hubris challenged conventional assumptions of norms in several contexts: religious, ethical, and legal. even if aristotle first regarded hubris as arrogance, cheek, insolence, and rudeness, he considerably broadened the word’s definition over time. hence, hubris refers not only to human traits, but actions often linked to pride and superciliousness, illogical by nature, unpredictable, aimed at transgression. arnold toynbee wrote about the hubris of civilisations, whose golden age is followed by reckoning and collapse (nemesis), linking this circumstance to the fate of dominant military powers. michel foucault examines the unbridled sexuality of man, reflecting his nature, through the prism of hubris, which can be restrained by means of various practices in selfhttps://changing-sp.com/ 340 vladimir g. bogomyakov, marina g. chistyakova discipline (mamonova, 2020, pp. 13–16). in modern philosophy hubris is perceived primarily as a refusal of extrinsic determination in favour of a spontaneous intrinsic impulse. hubris implies an alteration of the normal state of consciousness, a loss of stability and control. it is associated with intemperance and transgression. hubris does not match the virtues of social frugality. consequently, we are unable to predict all the implications of a performed action characterised by immanent creativity. nowadays the term “hubris” is used in a variety of fields: from business to politics, and from ecology to information technology. hubris can be used in both negative and positive meanings. for instance, the term “hubris syndrome” (sadler-smith et al., 2018) was coined to refer to the negative implications of professional deformation for political leaders, and leaders in general. this syndrome may manifest itself in people holding leading positions in any sphere: military, economic, academic, etc. (owen, 2008). hubris is present in research on geoengineering (meyer & uhle, 2015), as well as on the anthropogenic impact on the environment and ways to combat it, including by way of architecture (nugent, 2020). currently the term “hubris” is seen more and more frequently in the context of architecture and urbanism. hubris can be traced to both individual architectural works and urban development projects alike, completed in different cultures at different points in history. one common criterion uniting them all is a defiant transgression of the human scale. it is the case of global projects and of excessive buildings, primarily in terms of dimensions. as a rule, they are of gigantic size, surpassing the boundaries of all common sense. the basis of urban hubris is, in our view, not pride as such but the audaciousness of the author, transgressing banality. architect rem koolhaas (1995) links the problem of gigantism to american architecture of the previous century. according to r. koolhaas, gigantism was inspired by an avalanche of technical innovations (the elevator, electricity, steel, etc.). it needs no manifestos—the size of the building can play the role of an ideological programme per se, irrespective of the architect’s intentions (p. 4). the abovementioned statement appears quite convincing in terms of contemporary large-scale buildings. they are obviously self-sufficient and rarely carry symbolic meaning. they are what they are: gigantic structures, badly fitted into the urban space, while each of them is a kind of a city within the city (koolhaas, 1978). nevertheless, historically, a predominant majority of mega-buildings were erected not so much for people in order to meet their daily needs, but with the intent to manifest a certain idea, either a religious or a political one. this undoubtedly indicates an intent to demonstrate superiority, either in terms of a religious confession or a corporate identity. the idea to embody the sublime in quantitative form is far from being novel—it has been long used to establish power. most megaprojects of the past, such as the wonders of the world and the colosseum in antiquity, medieval temple architecture, and the eiffel tower—all fall into the same category. the work of their creators is quite logically associated with hubris. the term is also used to analyse the architecture of totalitarian germany (tewari, 2021) and the concrete architecture of boston (pasnik et al., 2015), along with politicians of resurgent cities (cheshire, 2006, p. 1231). every kind of megalomania is linked to hubris, as it always confronts existing aesthetic, changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 334–349 341 ethical, technological and other norms. even though only a handful out of a plethora of similar projects have been completed, their ambition still impresses us today. it is sufficient to address the projects of the french megalomaniacs of enlightenment, for instance, isaac newton’s cenotaph (by etienne-louis boullée), or post-revolutionary constructivist and post-constructivist projects, conceived for completion in our country: the monument to the third international (by vladimir tatlin), the people’s commissariat of heavy industry (by ivan leonidov), and many others. hubris may inspire grand projects of urban development linked both to the founding of new cities and their redevelopment, bringing radical change for their residents (for instance, haussmann’s paris renovation in 1853–1870). the results of such activity often arouse controversy. indeed, baron haussmann is criticised to this day for the drastic measures he employed by destroying entire districts as part of his renovation process. yet, the intensity of criticism gradually diminished as parisians got accustomed to the new image of the capital; and today it is impossible to imagine the city without the parks and gardens, boulevards and avenues laid out by haussmann. contemporary megaprojects can be exemplified by “smart cities”. take songdo, the first smart city in south korea, designated for research and business, or the “green” masdar city in abu dhabi designed by foster and partners. contemporary megaprojects comprise skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels, airports, artificial rivers, etc. even though their cost reaches dozens of billions of dollars, contenders for the tallest, the longest, the most expensive, the most spacious projects continue to come and go. that said, architectural megalomania does not mean that the affected place instantly becomes a source of pride for the citizens. more often than not, it is the citizens who criticise the authors of the projects for huge budgets, aesthetic inconsistency and mindless gigantism. the governments supporting such projects have passed into history, while their architects, ever since the construction of the tower of babel, have made a name for themselves. the architect and urbanist dhiru a. thadani (2021) developed a formula for the author’s renown based on hubris. it can be presented as a sum of hubris and form minus common sense. in terms of architecture and urbanism, hubris identifies primarily the creative ambition of the project’s author and their team, comprising engineers, contractors, politicians and others. it is hubris that characterises john rockefeller’s engagement in new york development (bleecker, 1981). the buildings constructed in the city due to the ideas and investment of this renowned philanthropist and patron are “hubristic”, that is, they are associated with hubris as a bold impetus to find new urbanist solutions. “hubristicity” is the hallmark of the author’s hubris in its creation, a feature which makes the author’s hubris evident for all. a project’s hubristic nature is bound to provoke recipients’ response. a grand edifice to be erected elicits intense emotions, and as mentioned earlier, these emotions are often far from positive. the project may be shocking or irritating, but it cannot go unnoticed. as the scope of work to construct such an object is quite impressive, its hubristic nature is undeniable even for its detractors. in this case, if the construction is positively evaluated, the author’s hubris in the minds of recipients receives a positive connotation—it becomes pride, not conceit. while conceit implies https://changing-sp.com/ 342 vladimir g. bogomyakov, marina g. chistyakova excessive and overblown arrogance connected to recklessness and haughtiness, pride can be perceived in a positive way as it is associated with the sense of self-worth and self-respect. with reference to hubristic projects, it is the sense of pride that becomes a basis for the sense of community shared by people living in the same city. by transforming identity, pride forms a new attitude both to the particular place, and to the city itself. hubris and pride in the context of place identity one of the sources of urban identity formation is place. elizabeth halpenny (2010), a researcher in environmental psychology, defines “place” as a spatial location that appropriates meanings and values held by society and individuals. “place identity”, “place attachment” and “sense of place” are all terms describing the impact of environment on identity and self-concept, regarding relations between an individual and a place as primarily affective. however, they do not only comprise emotions and affects. leila scannell and robert gifford (2010) also include cognitive (knowledge, meaning, memory, schemas) and behavioural factors (proximitymaintaining, reconstruction of place). there are no strict definitions of these terms and their meaning is often vague. having analysed three identity theories (place identity theory, social identity theory, and identity process theory) åshild hauge (2007) concludes that the term “place identity” may be seen as a part of other identity categories. identity manifests itself on many levels, one of which is place. bruce hull et al. (1994) regard place identity as the contribution of place to one’s identity through the meanings and values symbolised by place features. the term is linked to a particular place and refers to it as a distinct space fragment. the uniqueness of a place is a result of the interaction between its physical features and its users (kaymaz, 2013). place identity refers to an essential component of both personal and urban identity. living in the same space creates a communal feeling of belonging (blackshaw, 2010). “place attachment” is often viewed as part of “place identity”. place attachment stems from the positive experience a person acquires in the process of interacting with a particular place. place identity, for its part, is derived from the assumptions, meanings, emotions, ideas and attitudes attributed to a place (hauge, 2007). it can be formed both on the individual and group level. a sense of place and place attachment can strengthen not only personal identity but also the bonds within a community (anguelovski, 2014). in this regard, sense of place and place identity form an important social phenomenon that structures and develops social space and forms communities (kyle & chick, 2007). we consider the identity of a place in the context of the interaction of its personal, social and physical components (raymond et al., 2010, p. 434). a distinctive feature of hubris-inspired places is their scale. this property, firstly, does not let places stay unnoticed, and secondly, is a factor enabling residents to express their attitude towards megaprojects. for a variety of reasons, these projects do not earn unanimous approval. more often than not, they are criticised https://www.researchgate.net/profile/ashild-hauge-2 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 334–349 343 because they do not fit in the urban fabric. for instance, they can drastically change the familiar cityscape, affecting the entire city or one of its districts. however, in spite of a broad range of opinions, the problem of a negative attitude to a controversial construction is easily resolved. if the place is frequently visited, despite the controversy, it becomes a landmark, and joins the list of key local sights. as a result, not only do city dwellers still take pride in this particular place, but it also spills over into their attitude to the city itself. the reasons for feeling affection towards a place are as diverse as those triggering criticism of it. it is essential that people feel the desire to linger, and later keep returning to this place. in time, citizens develop the sense of place attachment. the longer a large number of people spend their time there, the more successful the place is in terms of public space. in this respect, public spaces have much better chances of turning into a landmark in comparison with constructed objects with limited access (hotel, business centre, residential high-rises). therefore, when creating a “place” conceived as public space, it is crucial to do research and conduct public polls. if the project initiators are planning to create a popular, much-frequented place, they need to collaborate with local communities and discuss the project together. this form of planning has been termed “placemaking”. the concept of placemaking as a vehicle to improve urban environment refers to the idea of turning city spaces into places. the process of placemaking implies advisory planning, where not only professionals but ordinary city dwellers participate. thus, placemaking aims to create a popular place, which would not only evoke positive emotions but also create the sense of attachment. it starts to be associated with this specific city, thus becoming a landmark. the very fact of introducing the principle of urban space transformation, where professionals collaborate with local residents, brings to the foreground the concept of place not only for the urban environment but also for city dwellers. according to jan gehl (2010), first we create cities, then they create us (p. 13). while designing the embankment in tyumen, attempts to use placemaking were made, but obviously they were insufficient. a competition to design the embankment was held and the winning project was selected with regard to citizens’ preferences. in addition, designers held multiple meetings with the public. but judging by the results, the preliminary work required by placemaking was not consistent. in any case, even now the public continues to negotiate over the faults of the riverfront with designers and officials, suggesting ways to further improve the amenities. on the other hand, the construction is ongoing and there is a chance that citizens’ requirements will be taken into consideration. meanwhile, contrary to one of the key principles of placemaking which reads: “a place should be created, not designed”, the imposing image of the embankment dominates the interests of city dwellers. nevertheless, despite all its shortcomings, the citizens of tyumen perceive the embankment as an iconic place, their pride and joy. it has boosted the self-esteem of a considerable number of residents, thus affecting new urban identity formation. how exactly can the sense of pride trigger identity transformation, both on the personal and urban levels? https://changing-sp.com/ 344 vladimir g. bogomyakov, marina g. chistyakova to answer this question, let us address david hume’s a treatise of human nature (hume, 1998). one part of the book is devoted to pride, which hume analyses in regard to identity. pride for him is a passion whose object is the self. “in order to excite pride, there are always two objects we must contemplate, viz. the cause or that object which produces pleasure; and self, which is the real object of the passion” (hume, p. 344). he distinguishes between pride stemming from extrinsic factors, and pride as a sense of self, a source of affirming oneself as a worthy subject. according to olga zubets (2012), who researches pride in hume’s interpretation, the philosopher’s reasoning “starts with the analysis of pride as an extrinsic object but later comes to relevance of the self as a condition and requisite of the former” (p. 186 ; our translation—v. b., & m. ch.). being a passion, pride in something is evoked by an agreeable object by means of associations between ideas and impressions. this statement needs to be clarified. hume formulates several limitations in its connection. not every agreeable object results in the sense of pride. firstly, it has to be associated with us, be close to us—in other words, not be casual. secondly, it has to be peculiar and unique; and if it is shared with somebody else, it has to belong to just a few people. thirdly, the object has to be discernible and obvious but not just to ourselves, but to others too. fourthly, as the cause of these passions is casual, inconstant, and brief, they give us little pride, which means the cause of pride should be durable. finally, one has to consider the influence of general rules upon pride. hume’s key point is that a genuine source of pride is not so much an external source, but it is within the individual. even if pride has an external cause, it should be relevant to self. by the same token, an extrinsic evaluation, how we are judged by other people, is determined by the significance of these people for the self and how relevant their evaluation is to my own. pride then is determined by the immediacy of self over the world’s impact on the individual, and it is pride that represents a form of self-discovery and self-constitution (zubets, 2012, p. 187). in this regard, pride becomes a source of identity for an individual. if the same object or the same place is a source of pride for many people, it refers to collective identity. the embankment in tyumen, viewed in this context, presents an object agreeable for many people since it provides new sensuous experiences. in this respect, the riverfront evokes pleasant associations for the majority. at the same time, it is a unique construction. it is one of a kind—not only because it is part of the cityscape of this specific city, but also due to its technical features. it cannot go unnoticed either on the part of citizens or visitors, as evidenced by broad coverage of the topic on tyumen local sites and social media. thus, pride becomes a source of place identity, resulting in urban identity. how exactly does the embankment affect urban identity? urbanists who have visited tyumen have been ambivalent in their evaluation of its urban identity. for instance, svyat murunov, founder of the centre for applied urbanism, remarks that “in terms of macro processes, such as population growth, ambition, numerous focal projects and densely scheduled city events, tyumen is perceived as a capital, but regarding its residents’ self-concept, it is still a provincial town” (neradovskaia, 2017). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 334–349 345 the background of tyumen’s contradictory identity comprises real cultural and historical events, as well as urban myths and legends, some of which are derogatory. according to one of them, the thriving merchant town was so muddy that, quoting the siberian merchant newspaper, on april 14, 1826 a horse drowned in its central street. in the soviet era the town was pejoratively nicknamed the village capital tyumen. the annexation of some areas from omsk district to tyumen municipality in 1944 can probably account for the name. another likely reason is the incorporation of nearby villages. on similar grounds, even london could not escape the big village sobriquet in its day. the discovery of rich oil and gas deposits in tyumen district earned it another nickname—tyuxas (prompted by texas). tyumen, previously a provincial citygarden, was transformed into a city-hub, a transfer junction and a transport centre to cater for the oil and gas sector, which resulted in “nomadic” identity development in some citizens. all this time, urban environment demonstrated no concern for its residents but rather reflected a set of statist attitudes. hence, a convenient city with all the desirable urban features was a long-held dream for tyumen residents. the situation has changed now and the public, supported by the authorities, not only actively discusses urban problems with experts from moscow, yekaterinburg, kazan, and other cities, but plays an active part in public space planning. that said, tyumen still remains a city prioritizing automobiles, not pedestrians. the city has high-quality roads and interchanges, but it obviously lacks public spaces. the riverfront development has become a major project capable of making a breakthrough in this field. according to urbanist and blogger ilya varlamov (2018), a co-founder of urban projects fund, the only human place in tyumen now is its new embankment, but it was made in a way that’s “costly and inexpert”. currently, there is no strategy to exploit either the river (which is the greatest natural asset), or the embankment. they seem like a burden, and the authors of the project are trying to distance themselves as much as they can. when you walk along the bank, you don’t even realise there’s water somewhere. overall, the embankment resembles a gigantic memorial complex. (varlamov, 2018; our translation—v. b., & m. ch.) the riverfront is also criticised by svyat murunov: when they were making the embankment, most likely it was the city authorities who commissioned work. there was a large budget and they wanted to do everything in a massively expensive way. but it is much more complicated to do it in relation to people because that would require formulating an idea if what kind of people live in their city—with their emotions, social connections, dreams and objectives [...] you have to understand this person, but our cities certainly cannot do it yet. they are trying to produce wealth instead—see, we have a luxurious embankment! good for you, but the embankment could be more functional. (gut & gaisina, 2016; our translation—v. b., & m. ch.) https://changing-sp.com/ 346 vladimir g. bogomyakov, marina g. chistyakova most city dwellers agree with this criticism but at the same time, it does not negate their attitude to the embankment. they perceive the latter as a project that brings an air of “metropolis” to the city’s identity. in any case, “it used to be worse”. one of the authors come to this conclusion after analyzing the interviews of the townspeople about their attitude to the embankment. in the opinion poll asking respondents “what is your attitude to the embankment?” a more critical attitude was held by the cohort of city dwellers with higher educational qualifications, professionally linked to creative arts, journalism, or education. nevertheless, the riverfront has become one of the favourite spots for taking selfies; there are groups on different sites where people write enthusiastic reviews, with visitors to the city among them (naberezhnaya reki tura, n.d.). figuratively speaking, the embankment refers to an escape by city dwellers from the swamp of uncertainty to the terra firma of granite. the metaphor of the swamp in culture has many negative connotations: it is something stagnant, unsteady, rigid, boggy, sleepy, like quicksand, etc. (leontyeva & mokienko, 2021), while stone is associated with stability, solidness and reliability. conclusion urban space is made up of specific places. citizens develop emotional bonds with them, which can be termed place attachment or a sense of place (low, 2000). such places become part of a person’s biography and a factor in identity formation—both on individual and collective levels. the concepts of new urbanism prescribe the creation of public spaces and places based on the principle of human scale. at the same time, a persistent stereotype has it that the extravagance of a project’s in size can secure its role as a local landmark, later to be associated with this specific place and perceived as its emblem or symbol. a mega place, unlike smaller and human-scaled places, affects urban identity in a particular way, hence the term “urban hubris”. urban hubris refers to various aspects of megaproject creation and perception, linked by transgression of the norm. both the developers’ boldness and the intensity of citizens’ reaction affect urban identity, leading to its transgressive transformation. residents perceive the project authors’ hubris in a milder form and interpret it not as conceit but pride, which is inspired by the mega place and spills over into the city itself. this article has studied the link between pride and identity within the frameworks of david hume’s theory, who examined this problem in one of the parts of a treatise of human nature. thus, if city dwellers approve of the new place, it is regarded as a source of pride for the city, and a new dimension is added to their identity. if the place is rejected, their identity is also transformed. residents who harbour doubts and irritation about the project get involved in discussions and public debates; they start reflecting on what an ideal modern city should be like, and what the project should have achieved. their attitude towards the city also changes: it loses its indifference and passivity. the city dwellers gain agency. consequently, urban hubris triggers urban identity transformation. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 334–349 347 urban hubris has been explored in the article with the tyumen embankment presented as a case study. it is a controversial structure, imposing in terms of its technical features, but disproportionate in regard to the river, or to the human scale, and yet popularly accepted as the symbol of the city. despite its ambivalence, this example has demonstrated the identity transformation of tyumen residents as a transgressive breakthrough to blend the city with the contemporary urban context. for some city dwellers it is an accomplished fact, while the others regard it rather as a process, not the result. references anguelovski, i. 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https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/columnists/080521/manish-tewari-the-architecture-of-hubris.html https://www.cnu.org/node/5282 https://doi.org/10.51303/jtbau.vi2.513 https://doi.org/10.51303/jtbau.vi2.513 https://varlamov.ru/3048792.html https://et.iphras.ru/article/view/2601 https://et.iphras.ru/article/view/2601 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.1.030 article decanonized reading: intellectual humility and mindfulness in reading canonical philosophical writings aireen grace t. andal ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract a serious concern faced by many scholars and readers of philosophy is how to proceed after reading the canonical texts; this may include the question – “why are they canons, anyway?” of course, developing a passing knowledge of the works of mainstream philosophers remains an inevitable burden for students of philosophy. however, any specific written work is a product of particular vantage points and contexts, and thus cannot escape from showing partiality towards some perspectives. this work revisits the taken‑for‑granted assumptions involved in the selection of canonical texts and argues for a critical readership and re‑imagination of their canonical status and pre‑eminence. the necessity of a de‑canonized reading of canonical texts is asserted; that is, a repositioning of these texts vis‑à‑vis the wide availability of non‑canonical philosophical works, which permits a nuanced account of their reading and interpretation. here, the goal is to examine the potential of an approach that prompts readers of philosophical texts to navigate the richness of different contexts and perspectives without being dependent on the western agenda as the central frame of inquiry. it is hoped that this mode of rethinking may, at the very least, promote epistemic modesty. keywords canon, philosophy, philosophical traditions, western philosophers, non‑western philosophy received 22 february 2018 © 2018 aireen grace t. andal accepted 29 march 2018 aireengrace.andal@gmail.com published online 3 april 2018 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 57 introduction the canonization of philosophical thinkers along with their ideologies is a pertinent factor in the dynamics of current political affairs. philosophical thinkers that gained a position in the spectrum of political ideologies play a vital role in sustaining this tradition. undeniably, the citation and use of keywords of dominant philosophers has become an assumed responsibility in the community of scholars and students of philosophy. this comes at the expense of understanding the canonical texts not so much as a collection of required reading materials as non‑negotiable duties in studying philosophy. their overrated and underrated paradigms lead to the loss of potential discourses that could have participated in the dominant platform and likewise be politicized in their own rights. through an a priori classification of philosophers into a spectrum of canonic‑to‑non‑canonic, accounts of exploring their paradigms are limited. the inclination to focus the spotlight on the spectrum of political ideologies where political thinkers are thought to “belong” is consequential to how the thoughts of these thinkers are processed. in this paper, a red flag is raised concerning the dangers of careless reading of the work of dominant political thinkers. by “careless”, it meant a type of reading that is already tainted with assumptions and floodlit by the (in)famous image(s) of the thinker under investigation. however, this article does not imply an approach such as that of strauss (1952) in detailing “how to read” the materials of political thinkers. rather, this work takes the approach of a humble recognition of the symptoms that a reader might face when too much swayed by what is popular about the material and/ or the thinker. at the same time, it explores the idea of critically playing with thoughts by situating them in the multidimensional context of the political construction of knowledge rather than reading the materials as canonized scripts that must be mandatorily recognized by scholars and students of political philosophy. this raises the question as to how the canons (fail to) account for the enduring categorizations and labels that seem inappropriate and insensitive to various individual identities and sensibilities. further, given that they were written mostly by western european males, how should readers from different backgrounds renegotiate and locate their own identities relative to those of the canonical texts? this paper presents alternative perspectives regarding this issue with identity. it proposes a de-canonized reading approach, with an attitude of multiple reservations proposed as one way to immediately address this concern. the canonical texts by canonical texts, this work refers to western philosophical writings (leiter, 2013). a canon has a status of automatic reverence as a set of texts “whose interpretation and reinterpretation defines a field” (connell, 1997, p. 1512). canonical philosophical writings obtain substantial status through taught philosophy simply on account of their being labeled as “canons”. it is routine for philosophy degree programs to have a required subject that focuses on the writings of canonical thinkers. in the aireen grace t. andal58 presentation of such a series of courses, it is assumed that a historical introductory course is a foundational necessity to higher political and philosophical knowledge. the canonical philosophical texts pass on to their successors some jargon and frames of analyses (lyotard, 1984) such as rights, freedom and governance. these ways of thinking have not only become a common ground for discussion and writing, but have also served as the benchmarks for critique and further theorizing that have triggered developments in successive philosophical thoughts. for example, the thoughts concerning rights of hobbes, locke and rousseau, as developed in terms of their own social contract theories, have been a theme of analysis by later generations of political philosophers, with some applying them to questions of e. g. constitutional law, taxation, geopolitics and health rights. thus, by providing the language for investigating freedom, equality and governance, they have become the subject of theoretical and empirical research. the canons have also served to establish the mode of thinking of philosophical exploration. while contemporary theorists have provided rejoinders to unaddressed questions in the canons, overall lines of continuity derived from the canons remain undisturbed. the commonly used term “happiness”, for instance, can be seen as a continuation of the relentless expansion of discussions of plato’s idea of a perfect society. students of philosophy are easily able to embrace the canons due to the fact that, for the most part, their ideas continue to linger in the world. the impossible identities the western canonical texts have been the subject of a massive quantity of interpretative effort on the part of their readers for over many years now. for this reason, the danger of a simplified reading of versions of the canonical texts may lead to an uncritical readership, which could have missed an opportunity to participate in some groundbreaking discussions. that the readers of philosophical texts might be centering their approaches around the “canonical” tag is not to be taken lightly. there may be unchartered spaces for instruction and critical analysis involving humans and nature that may be more provocative, comprehensive and nuanced. in relation to the issue of careless reading, this work calls for a consideration as to whether readers and scholars have to be skeptical about and/or radical in their approach towards the canonical texts. this paper settles with a restructured and repurposed approach to reading as, at the very least, a sound critical response. the transgression: losing fluid identities the canons face the reproach of being eurocentric and androcentric, with an objectifying attention from the west coming at the expense of the non‑european “others” (said, 1978). since marginalized philosophical traditions (i. e. africa and asia) have been excluded from the philosophical canon (park, 2013), the western canons continue to enjoy a substantive attention. even the major debates between the analytical tradition of the english‑speaking sphere, guided by science, logic and mathematics, and the more synthetic philosophical tradition of continental europe, continue to be centered on the west. however, it is precisely in terms of this changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 59 centralizing attention that they are most vulnerable to be criticized. in recent times, increasing criticism has been aimed at the universalizing tendencies of the thoughts of “white”, heterosexual male scholars (duchesne, 2011). this non‑western point of view could be taken further in butler’s concept of citationality (1993), which refers to the reproduction of the current status quo: canonical undertakings involve a repetition and a ritual that reproduces their privileged status. hence, referring to the canonical texts all the more yields to “this process of materialization that stabilizes over time to produce the effect of boundary, fixity” (ibid., p. 9). this reproduction of the western paradigm also involves the reproduction of the canonical biases and consequent non‑reproduction of a range of identities that remain unrepresented. additionally, with the gesturing towards internationalization in the academic community, the grand narratives of the canons encounter another phase of scrutiny in their ability to account for a diversity of emerging social and political issues, which were non‑concerns during their times (i. e. advances in technology, environment, health etc.). this leads to the rise of pluralistic perspectives that underscore the shift that the discipline of philosophy experienced over centuries. the inescapable tendencies: identities seen as impossibilities to a greater extent than with the rest of philosophical texts, the canonical writings struggle with a crucial pressure within their very label. the non‑negotiability of studying the canonical works fosters conceptual limitations by drawing lines of demarcation (classical versus modern versus postmodern; western versus non‑ western) rather than seeing their interconnections as mutually constitutive “specie” of philosophy or as equal members of the community of philosophy readers (omotsho, 2014, p. 1). this puts the canons into forced categories, which are for the most part limiting in the sense that there are already various expectations together with the labels and image attached to them. this attitude is, however, far from merely taking offense at canonical intellectual elitism since elites are also prey to historical contingencies. merely questioning their privileged status is not sufficient to make any useful point. the issue concerns the neglect of the subjects whose identities were ignored in history, whose characteristics are fluid or irreducible (žižek, 1996). hence, while ignoring non‑ western perspectives will not necessarily destroy the internal logic of canonical texts, the question remains why they hold the privileged status of being canonized as foundations of philosophical thought in the context of discussions of sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability and colonial peripheries, which are thus consigned as annexes of philosophical inquiry. below is a list for examination of those assumptions that are taken for granted as part of our lifeworld, but which are highly in need of reexamination at this time in our history. on virtues the virtues in philosophy are the virtues of the canon, which established hegemonic “othering” and social hierarchies. first, the history of philosophy is the canonical history in which philosophical binaries are also derived from the aireen grace t. andal60 canonical binaries. happiness and just societies were thought of as being the highest of virtues, but the question remains as to how long the values of the canonical thinkers will remain as virtues, given the multiplicity of competing ideologies and emerging belief systems such as moral relativism and postmodernism. nevertheless, the continuing prominence of canon‑derived assumptions of “white superiority” results in the effective “silencing” of non‑ caucasians (park, 2013). while there is an incentive towards categorization, the risk of arriving at false binaries is dangerous. for instance, the concept of “primitive”, which remains salient, can be used to justify colonialism and slavery. plato’s pioneering classification of people into the “enlightened” ones, who are able to get out of his metaphorical cave and those that remain, only capable of seeing shadows, informed (western) enlightenment notions of rationality. aristotle straightforwardly stated that human beings are by no means “naturally” born equal, but that some are born for slavery and others for dominion. locke even deemed it a duty to colonize and enslave, since there are populations that cannot arrive to maturity. machiavelli’s view is more than telling when he claimed that it is the prince’s glory and greatness to which everyone is subject. the “common good” is the canonical “common good”; consequently, offenders against the law are seen as uni‑dimensional transgressors, without any reference being made to restorative justice. on space and culture cultural and geographical diversity is taken lightly, if not entirely absent. the eurocentric legacy continues due to the canonical philosophers imagining their respective perfect societies with europe as the center of social and political affairs. for instance, when machiavelli describes the necessity of being both a “fox” and a “lion”, his choice of animal is very western‑centric. there is no sensitivity to the possibility that these animals may not thrive in other lands or may symbolize different characters for various cultures. aristotle privileges the land‑locked polis or city‑state as a conceptual category, while ignoring other topographies. in the canon based on his thought, therefore, there is no imaginative effort to consider other geographies that may have struggles in maintaining central power such as the small pacific islands or the population in the mountainous lands and icy areas. when kant envisions global citizenship at the end of history, he was not grasping the difficulty in grasping the concept of cosmopolitanism among very collective societies such as tribes and clans. kant even states that he detests chinese philosophy (park, 2013). the canons only cite one another, excluding the rest and unable to gaze at a diversity of ideologies outside their sphere. on gender and sexuality the canons settle by default on a heteronormative society thereby naturalizing the family as composed of a husband, wife and children. queer identities remain unimagined. even when locke attacked patriarchy as less absolute than god‑ man relationship, he still categorized the differentiation of human relationships into changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 61 husband – wife, father – child, master – slave. the binary of husband‑wife is still present rather than a more nuanced example of coupledom. moreover, rulers are assumed males, with machiavelli entitling his work the prince and plato advancing the notion of “philosopher kings”. not only does this perpetuate gender binaries, but also it simultaneously excludes queer identities involving various intersectionalities of gender and sexuality that are left behind like the ambi‑gender, transgender, asexual, demi‑sexual etc. on age diversity at equal issue is an ostensive ageism in terms of how the canons disremember the young and old subpopulation. it is as if every human being capable of being a good member of society is always at his or her prime age. this liquefies the identity of both children and the elderly as participants in social and political affairs. there is a potential insensitivity to the rights of the unborn and children in general. children are generally seen as “mini‑adults”, not yet equipped as members of society (aries, 1962). for instance, while hobbes clarifies that being equal means being able to destroy one another, by virtue of opportunity, not of capacity, there is little qualification in hobbes that human beings have different age‑specific capacities. on intellectual prowess they address the able-minded. to be a good member of society and participate in civil life, the canons assume many similar capabilities among people. the canonical texts are for the literate and educated. obviously, philosophers write to be read – with the possible exception of machiavelli, who is clear in his particular purpose. as such, the canonical texts were written in scholarly manner, which could be challenging to the general masses such as laborers and farmers. aristotle’s scholarly background led him to acquire the academic know‑how to qualify him to train powerful personalities such as alexander the great. the spread of the scholarship of the canonical philosophers is thus limited to the limited group of people having access to their manuscripts. on disabilities they also address the able-bodied. persons with disabilities (pwds) are largely absent from the canonical discussions. locke was clearly being insensitive to disabilities when he talks about incorporating labor to acquire private property. plato, by emphasizing his “world of ideas”, was insensitive towards the pragmatic struggles of those who cannot see, hear or walk. when machiavelli mentions that a ruler must have charisma, he is not mindful that having physical defects may beget little charm for a ruler. while it can be argued that disability can be used to foster charisma, the peril is that of a charisma derived from pity, which produces a different affection in terms of power relations. aristotle is guilty of contemporary politically incorrectness when treating people with mental disabilities as incomplete human beings. kant’s discussion on cosmopolitan citizenship assumes the “normality” of individuals participating in social and political affairs. aireen grace t. andal62 on ecology finally, the canonical texts hold an anthropocentric view of the world, which places humans at the middle of history and the source of meaning. this view assumes that “human consciousness is the original subject of all historical development and all action” (foucault, 1969). even though kant devotes effort to discussing the central importance of nature in the life of human beings, he still takes an apparently anthropocentric approach towards his discussions of a cosmopolitan world. his discussions on territoriality involve ownership by people of the things that will anyway outlive mankind. even the concept of citizenship is anthropocentric such that is an invention of modernity that does not exist prior to bureaucratic societies. locke is extractive in his view of dominating natural resources. hobbes claims that in the state of nature each keeps guard over his or her own property. the consequences while there is no text that can represent every sub‑population, the devotion to categorization validates a deprivation and objectification of a large portion of individuals. an uncritical reading of canonical texts and the system used to reproduce them in schoolbooks, scholarly journals and lectures may facilitate the propagation of hegemonic epistemological hierarchies. with these, a concern arises that the readers fall prey to a barren romanticism and generalization along with “vindicating [the] conclusions which the philosophers already find morally attractive” (leiter, 2013, p. 4). for these reasons, the canons may be reduced as at best partial, as archeological exhibits in their examinations of the world, rather than seeing their dynamic position vis‑à‑vis the global interconnections. moreover, the desire to be more critical in analyzing philosophical texts raises several practical difficulties. scholars’ skills the demand of having adequate language skills in dealing with the non‑western philosophy may hamper a focus on non‑western texts. while a legitimate reason for dropping non‑western philosophical texts from the course requirements is not provided, the effective result of the canon is the need to walk an extra mile to study non‑canonic philosophy, since one has to first understand the discourses that gave birth to thoughts and words/terms of the non‑western texts (e. g. the meaning of “existence” in the upanishads or confucian texts). one practical difficulty here is that translations may be limited. for instance, while wang yangming’s (1472–1529 bce) teachings were introduced and partially translated in the english vernacular during late 19th and early 20th centuries, a complete english translation of his work remains unavailable. finally, in studying philosophy apart from the western canon, the student must become acquainted with some less familiar key philosophical concepts to grasp the meaning of untranslatable terms within a semantic discourse much larger than that of its english [or latin, or greek] counterparts. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 63 academe’s structure the structure of the philosophy departments in the academe may be unfriendly to individuals specializing in non‑western philosophies. beyond ritual claims of being diversity‑embracing and politically correct in appreciating non‑western philosophical texts, many still automatically dismiss asian and african philosophy (park, 2013) as comprising materials of inferior philosophical interest. with no intention to generalize, the composition of faculty members and graduate students in philosophy departments suggests that such a minority (if not absence) of specialists in non‑ western philosophy is to be anticipated. it certainly cannot be claimed that there is an absence of specialists in philosophy developed from the western or anglophone traditions. economic value the market demand outside the academe conflates with student interests. there is a high post‑graduate research interest in western philosophical specialist topics. any attempt to increase the weighting given to non‑western philosophy in the overall rankings therefore constitutes a challenge. even though there is interest in non‑western texts, it is not surprising that there is hesitancy involved in considering this path of specialization. few, if any, graduate students in top programs develop interests in neglected areas because of a perceived unpromising career. this then continues the vicious cycle. it may also be the case that ignoring some philosophical texts is expressed in terms of being “already interested” in some more popular texts rather than about being “uninterested” in marginalized materials. search for the reasonable “why” if there is a lack of insight behind the urgency to address the non‑representation of non‑western philosophical texts, misguided diagnoses may be made. in the absence of a clear and accurate handle of why it is a problem in the first place, the situation may be exacerbated by unreflexively attempting to resolve the issue by simply adding more texts. conversely, however, another tendency is to ignore the problem and continue assuming that there is no need to articulate the cultural diversity of philosophical accounts within the ideological and material legacies of various cultural pasts. thus, as much as it is a question of what is to be done, it is also a question as to why it must be done. more than a pressure to create an impression of being unbiased, a clear vision of why there is such an urgency to be inclusive requires thorough reflection. these sentiments on representation might be affected by the notion about the unacceptability of bias. however, western bias alone may be a necessary but not sufficient reason to rethink the canonical privilege and prestige. all mainstream cultures have biases to begin with. bias is a given; nevertheless, it can be countered by sensitivity. in the quest to find a balance when introducing philosophical texts, adding philosophical works considered to be marginalized simply based on the intention to include non‑western philosophy may be a weak approach. the inclusion of aireen grace t. andal64 non‑western philosophical texts may be a valuable first step to more nuanced philosophical discussions; however, it does not solve the dilemmas involved in providing balanced reading, nor does this action taken in isolation automatically make mainstream philosophy unbiased. it may even turn out to be a hasty solution to a complex issue. these considerations lead to the emergence of several paradoxes. unnecessary dichotomies the danger is that the discussions also end up involving a new binary of western versus non‑western texts. whilst there is an effort to be critical, the tendency to fall into restrictive dichotomies may be so ingrained that there is no room to question this approach towards categorization. this divide might imply setting aside alternative approaches for more democratic discussions of philosophical texts. these dichotomies can distort the complexities and diversity of philosophical thoughts (ryan and louie, 2007). assumptions of mutual exclusivity: the most common tendency here is to pigeonhole a rigid east-west binary. a drawback of this approach is that forcing strict classifications highlights the differences over the similarities. while there are differences, the similarities are stark. one example is how the confucian thought balances two key democratic ideals – liberty and community. this approach may seem to resemble rousseau’s version of the social contract, in which he showed that liberty is compatible with social regulation. the confucian notion of li (ritual) served as an anchoring element used to achieve harmony “without sacrificing reflective experience and personal fulfillment”; thus making li a pillar to the “moral empowerment of free individuals in community” (tan, 2004). this overlaps with rousseau’s notion of the general will, which serves as the social glue that binds the community. this east‑west dichotomy also places philosophical thoughts in an either-or situation, leaving a diversity of teachings (e. g., african and islamic philosophy, even theravada buddhism) at the periphery. this is evident especially that the popular culture envisages growing attempts to engage the wider public into philosophical studies. since the east‑west dichotomy is contentious, it marginalizes other philosophical thoughts through seeming intersections with popular traditions. for instance, avicenna’s kitãb al-burhãn illustrates that knowledge of causes ensures necessary, eternal certainty (marmura, 1975). this overlaps with western thinkers’ search for true knowledge and its cause. however, it is the african philosophy that suffers the most from this dichotomy due to the lack of african writings considered as “philosophical”. african philosophical texts are rather embodied in proverbs, aphorisms and pithy sayings in that “in his [african thinker] use of natural resources, he demonstrates his own epistemology” (busia, 1963, p. 148). comparing apples and oranges: dichotomies imply a futile competition, which views different philosophical thoughts as counterparts fit for comparison. this changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 65 assumes that there is a benchmark upon which philosophical thoughts are weighed and compared. consequently, it ignores the different yet equal set of inquiries that occupy thinkers. philosophical schools of thought set up different, sometimes opposing but equally valuable core questions, which set their writings into their respective directions. to compare them as if they are essentially the same is to neglect a multiplicity of framings of thoughts. one peril inherent in comparison manifests when there is an assumption that philosophies are compatible for comparison. for instance, while the african tribe yoruba philosophical thought sense of mo, may roughly mean to “know”; however, this form of “knowing” requires having an eyewitness acquaintance (hallen & sodipo, 1997). hence, it has implications for how such knowledge would interpreted and how this relates to the inner workings of the mind. moreover, the various ways to view the concept of “fate” – the greek term moira, the south asian karma, and the chinese ming in the ancient world to the modern concept of “destiny” (solomon, 2003) – may involve different assumptions that are not attuned for comparison. thus, although these terms may involve tangential similarities, they may at the same refer to quite different levels of knowing, and, while they may be discussed in terms of “counterparts”, they also stand alone as concepts that are intricately intertwined with the philosophical thoughts associated with their origins. mainstreaming without being inclusive simply tacking on non‑western philosophical texts to the mainstream tradition may be more about outwardly conforming to the humanitarian agenda than a genuine response to the popular call to embrace diversity and inclusivity. such a bandwagon comprises, at best, a band‑aid solution to this long‑standing crisis. if unchecked, it may just consist in actions that shift attention away from the misrecognition issue of the untapped richness of non‑western discourses. this may even result in awkward placement of non‑western texts in the absence of departmental competency to recognize them. to begin with, the word “philosophy” is itself a western construct. even the very use of the term “non‑western” implies the tendency to analyze these texts in reference to an origin deemed “foreign” or else still with a western frame. this leads to an over simplification of non‑western cultures and perpetuation of the inherent bias favoring western culture. here, the peculiarities of each non‑western philosophy may be uncritically reduced into one category characterized by merely being divergent from western thinking. this does not reflect an inclusive theorizing but a sense of referencing the western texts as a template. this may result in a deployment of non‑western texts as part of the agenda set by and within western discourses, undermining the underlying conventions and tensions. even the present paper may even be overlaid with western internal logic. a universal mode of thinking: while there is ongoing effort to engage in a diversity of philosophical traditions, such traditions are still analyzed under the purview of the western gaze. however, the prominence of this western frame is seen as aireen grace t. andal66 undeserved in arabic philosophical traditions given that the latter reached an advanced level of comprehensive philosophical and scientific work such as that of avicenna’s philosophy (bäck, 1994). this becomes an issue when the true diversity of ontological and epistemological assumptions remains unexplored, limiting one’s thinking to some existing ontologies and epistemic views. for instance, while the concept of time may be little discussed in classical european philosophy, it is a core element in ancient chinese philosophy, to which their logicians anchor most of their thoughts. as yuan (2006) notes, “chinese logic is structured in the time of the now”, adding that chinese logicians think in terms of more than one “possible world”. as such, far from representing any universal truth, the aim is to arrive at the “harmony of relations among particulars in a particular field at a single moment”. therefore, chinese philosophy may invalidate the lack of simultaneity of european thought. for example, the divide between plato’s world of ideas and physical world is viewed as flawed since it is possible to see harmony between the two worlds. moreover, kant’s cosmopolitanism involves a possibly invalid logical construct because of its view of history as linear, when, in actuality, the cosmopolitan world may already be happening at present. another mode of thinking is that offered by ancient egyptian philosophy. in the teachings during pharaonic egypt, thinkers taught through graphic and concrete symbolism because they think in terms of symbols (gillings, 1972). since hieroglyphs comprised the complete knowledge of reality, it was impossible for the egyptians to conceive the idea of “non‑existence” in the sense of the absence of the “existent” because the hieroglyphs present the complete knowledge of reality (ibid.). this has implications for how philosophical thought can proceed and be passed down to the next generations of thinkers. for instance, the hypothetical hobbesian account of the social contract may be seen not as an imagined event but very real even in the absence of any historical and physical manifestation. the universal set of inquiries: reading non-western texts as part of a western philosophical agenda assumes that there are “right” philosophical directions. this leads to philosophical concerns being viewed in a hierarchical manner. to adopt this mindset is to rank philosophical thoughts, validate some and dismiss others, as if there is an innate inequality between philosophical claims. for instance, the very notion of an “inquiry” is already foreign to african thought, for whose thinkers it is not the primary concern due to the very idea of “african philosophy” being a heritage of identity collapsing in the face of western bias (uduigwomen, 1995). as such, the development of african thought and african thinkers is tainted by its history of being deemed sub‑human (ibid.), hence enquiring about a “virtuous life” is considered to be out of line. indeed, as jinadu (2014) emphasized, african philosophy “is not culture‑bound as it is being studied in other continents of the world”. in the same vein, maximizing happiness (or pleasure) and minimizing (if not eradicating) pain are fundamental values that have framed western philosophical modes of thinking. however, of no lesser value is how the confucian school of thought (in the analects) recognizes grief and vulnerability as virtues, i. e. ethically changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 67 valuable experiences that are fundamental to life (olberding, 2004). further, while the pursuit of the universal “truth” is a main direction of discussion in western philosophy, reproduced in public spaces and popular sources such as dictionaries, a brief glance at how philosophy is variously defined in well‑known dictionaries can provide glimpses of the underlying western agenda. for instance, the definitions of philosophy in the merriam‑webster dictionary include “pursuit of wisdom [and] a search for a general understanding of values and reality” 1. contrastingly, for britannica, it is “the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole” 2. however, an intersectional, more integrative set of considerations were evident in the ancient chinese philosophical inquiries. for instance, when dong zhongshu (179–104 bce) attempted to integrate yin-yang theory into confucianism, the agenda was not to arrive at a universal “truth” but to demonstrate that the yin‑ yang must not be seen as fixed categories such as gender, but rather as together forming a transformative dynamic harmony (wang, 2005). thus, chinese philosophy may be seen as more process‑oriented rather than aiming to arrive at a certain virtuous destination. what is left is a lacuna, a void in the realm of understanding. for this reason, a new way of reading the canonical texts is required. this new approach implies a mindset that would connect our thinking to a broader perspective. a question that arises here is whether there is a need to completely overturn the existing canons. however, there is reason to believe otherwise. that the canons require to be read with contextual sensitivity is a very popular notion, pleading that “contextualization” be understood with caution. galison (2008) noted: “[w]hen philosophers talk about the context of an argument… they often mean bringing into the argument not only the text in question but also the texts of surrounding philosophers… when historians speak about context, they often have in view the non‑textual environment”. the standards of “contextualizing” also vary in meaning and interpretation. a different way of reading might see context as that which situates why such paradigms were created, not just a leeway for dismissing perceived canonical deficiencies. thus, the weaknesses of the canons may be viewed as their very strengths, which resulted in their standing the test of time. seeing the context does not necessarily imply finding an immediate justification for what are viewed as shortcomings. rather, the point where the canons fall short may fuel further discussion, which may serve to vindicate the texts’ canonical status. the rejoinder: a de-canonized gaze for epistemic modesty in the view of this author, we cannot afford simply to unfollow the canonical texts. to begin with, the canons cannot be entirely decanonized because to do so would be to repeat the “error” that resulted in their canonization in the first place. we should recall that the canonical thinkers arrived at their status partly as a consequence 1 see https://www.merriam‑webster.com/dictionary/philosophy 2 see https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy aireen grace t. andal68 of the various controversies their works have spawned, which continued to gain in prominence over the centuries following their deaths. moreover, the canonical thinkers were also part and parcel of the canonization of each other. for instance, aristotle made plato and socrates even more celebrated than their already well‑ known status. by being compared with each other, hobbes, locke and rousseau were clustered as social contract theorists. also, the ones who canonized them were individuals already established in the field of philosophy. for instance, whitehead is very much known to have been a prominent thinker of his time; thus, his devotion to plato gained both criticism and applause, to the benefit of plato’s enduring status. moreover, even those theorists who were critical of the canons, such as nietzsche, in fact ended up achieving center stage in these canons based upon these very critiques. therefore, any concerted effort to decanonize such texts and thinkers is likely to be in vain. seeing the biases of the canons is no reason to cut them out of one’s reading collection. rather, the issue here the danger of being insensitive to a whole range of philosophical texts at the expense of lost valuable discussions. the point is to establish a dialogue, to see the contradictions that become salient in the clashing of thoughts from different traditions (park, 2013). then, if what motivates a call for the inclusion of the neglected philosophical materials is an assertion of its relevance for richer discussion, the principal agenda would not be to antagonize western philosophy but rather to routinely intersect these mainstream texts with those marginalized materials. as gress notes, “[t]he west was not a single story, but several stories, most of which neither began with plato nor ended with nato” (1998, p. 16). what is to be practiced instead, in this author’s view, is a decanonized gaze. to have a decanonized gaze is not to antagonize the canons but to reflect back at their thoughts in a fragmented and decentered way. neither is the aim to trivialize, but rather to differently frame one’s view of the canons. these are not new suggestions but a synthesized “borrowing” of concepts from successors of the canonical philosophical thinkers as a means of coming up with a decanonized gaze and reinventing ways to read the canonical texts. it is an exercise that recognizes them as canons but at the same time consciously questions their canonized status, in the hope of arriving at alternative ways of reading that may have been currently overlooked. it continually engages and disengages the various intersectionalities among different groups and subgroups of people. it contextualizes, indigenizes, sexualizes and orientalizes any perspective away from the canonical gaze. it de‑naturalizes the canonical texts by always comparing and evaluating the place of the canonical texts particularly in non‑western contexts. this implies consciously and perpetually questioning the reasons for the texts’ canonical status in philosophy. it also comprises an examination of the scholarly consensus, which rendered the canons as non‑negotiable set of manuscripts, especially for new scholars of philosophy. it re‑evaluates the standing of the canons within the comprehensive discipline of philosophy. conversely, this reading may additionally argue that the changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 69 meaning of canonical texts is a cultural construct and subject to change and various performances of different readers with their competing ideologies. a decanonized gaze does not assume that any text is equally valid and legitimate as philosophical material as the established ones; to do this would simply cheapen the discipline of philosophy itself. however, nor does a de‑canonized reading assume that people who spend years working on specific subjects are automatically authorities on these subjects, to whom deference is necessarily owed. moreover, a de‑canonized reading does not demand that one leave his or her own philosophical biases to engage in a nuance reading. indeed, a de‑canonized reading can be practiced even if one subscribes to a particular philosophical school of thought. the point is just to keep one’s own perspective regardless of his or her philosophical commitment and to prevent one’s own ideological commitments from crowding out the ability to evaluate philosophical texts that may deepen and cultivate higher executive cognition. counter-bias evidence from selected philosophy course syllabi it is indeed fortuitous to be able to identify strategic approaches for engaging in richer discussions of philosophical texts. some examples of philosophy course syllabi downloadable online indicate how a decanonized reading can be practiced. for instance, the american philosophical association sets up a section in their website called “diversity and inclusiveness syllabus collection” 3. this is a collection of a range of philosophy course syllabi, including those “completely devoted to an underrepresented area of philosophy”. while this gives an impression of admitting and validating the superiority of the western thought, it is an important step towards shaking the taken‑for‑granted assumptions. inclusive and intentional syllabi the simplest and most direct way to emphasize the need for engaging with the non‑canonical texts is to explicitly mention it in the syllabus. as such, amherst college’s philosophy and cultural diversity 4 syllabus is very direct in stipulating that the canons of philosophy “all lived in what is today europe, and they were all male” (scheman, 2014, p. 1). this is followed by the aims of the course “to broaden the disciplined conversation by bringing into it voices that have been ‘disciplined out’” (ibid). moreover, the university of wisconsin‑superior’s course syllabus in introduction to philosophy 5 mentions that the class will “emphasize traditional canonical philosophy, non‑canonical philosophy, including feminist and non‑ european philosophy” (adams, 2014). 3 see http://www.apaonline.org/members/group_content_view.asp?group=110430&id=380970 4 amherst college (spring, 2014) phil 1006 philosophy and cultural diversity. amherst, massachusetts. retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/inclusiveness_syllabi/ introduction_to_philosophy_&.pdf 5 university of wisconsin‑superior (spring, 2014) phil 151: introduction to philosophy. superior, wisconsin. retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/inclusiveness_ syllabi/introductiontophilosophy_lac.pdf aireen grace t. andal70 critical engagement of canons-only syllabi a critical reading is conceivable even if only dominant texts are outlined in the syllabus. for instance, while devoted to focus on aristotle, the tulane university specifically offers aristotle in new orleans course 6, which syllabus “combines service‑learning with philosophical reflection and rhetorical analysis” (mcbride, n. d.). here, learners will be critical of aristotle’s views as they may see the discord between aristotelian thought and their own lived experiences. another reasonable approach than merely including non‑western texts in a syllabus is to have a comparative method. for instance, the syllabus for medieval philosophy 7 of bucknell university (pennsylvania, usa) is explicit in being “a comparative one, focusing on various intellectual crosspollinations that were then taking place between the three major philosophical traditions in the medieval period: christian, islamic and jewish” (groff, 2014 p. 1). however, the content of course syllabi alone does not necessarily determine whether or not there will be a reflexive discussion of the philosophical texts. different approaches to reading the materials may be what makes the difference. for instance, the indiana university’s introduction to philosophy 8 syllabus, “reconstruct[s] the ancient philosophical system … and then examine[s] in detail the ways that system was dismantled and the alternatives that were put in its place” (woodward, 2013). in the same vein, while the course syllabus in the history of political philosophy at the ural federal university only includes mainstream philosophical texts, the course requirements include essays and a problematique that allow reflective spaces for students to critically revisit and assess the texts they discussed in class. this paves way for an introspective evaluation of philosophical texts. specialized course offerings finally, another approach is for philosophy programs to devote a whole course in non‑western philosophical traditions. the amherst college (massachusetts) has a course on black existentialism 9 that “examines the critical transformation of european existentialist ideas through close readings of black existentialists … [and] consider[s] the matter of how and why existentialism continues to function so centrally in contemporary africana philosophy” (drabinksi, 2010). similarly, the university of massachusetts lowell offers “philosophy 373: arabic and islamic 6 tulane university (n. d.). aristotle in new orleans. new orleans, louisiana. retrieved from http://c. ymcdn.com/sites/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/inclusiveness_syllabi/aristotle_in_new_orleans_ mcb.pdf 7 bucknell university (spring, 2014). medieval philosophy course guide: pennsylvania, usa. retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/inclusiveness_syllabi/ medievalphilosophy_groff.pdf 8 indiana university (spring, 2013). p100 introduction to philosophy. bloomington, indiana. retrieved from http://www.philwoodward.org/wp‑content/uploads/2014/10/syllabus‑introduction‑to‑philosophy.pdf 9 amherst university (fall, 2010). black existentialism. amherst, massachusetts. retrieved f r o m h t t p : // c.y m c d n .c o m / s i te s / w w w. a p a o n l i n e .o r g / r e s o u r c e / r e s m g r / i n c l u s i ve n e s s _ s y l l a b i / blackexistentialism_drabinsk.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 71 philosophy” 10 (bassam, 2012). however, this may just be a seasonal course offering. a regular course offering of this would be supportive of the attempt to achieve a nuanced and critical understanding of philosophy. a reinvented reading after examining a pluralistic view of approaching the canonical thinkers, one may be able to re‑read the canonical texts and challenge these texts from within. this is to use these views back on reading them for a more nuanced and contextualized reading. for instance, the canons’ cultural insensitivity can serve as a warning to readers. one can be more thoughtful on the changes in meanings of the concepts used to understand the emerging issues in different cultures and contexts (chakrabarty, 2000). the linguistic platform of the canonical thinkers may be applied with sensitivity to other writings even if, initially, the canons’ terminologies may be suggestive of their apparent oblivion to the topics of gender distinctions, sexuality, cultural appropriation, moral relativism as well as disability and their relationship to social political affairs. the canonical bias is a gentle reminder for the reader that these canonical thinkers did not produce a set of texts from only one period of their lives. these authors might have changes in perspectives from being young to becoming a more learned thinker. immediately accusing the canonical authors of being unable to address current concerns may be futile. by looking beyond the canonical texts as “theories in themselves”, one may fail to see the flexibility the canonical texts can offer in the current world. the canons have been held suspect of universalizing too much since they assume, by and large, universal truths as applying to societies. however, without understanding the context of their writing, this is an empty allegation. indeed, there is reason to maintain intellectual piety towards the canons. this does not mean however that they must be read as holy, infallible texts. rather, it is important to practice sensitivity as to why the conventional benchmarks for intellectual development and progress are traced from the european model. so, what may constitute a popular attack against these thinkers, does not necessarily place these thinkers in a compromising position. though the canonical texts are not invincible, they are canons as they have stood the test of time and offer answers to basic questions of human life. conclusion: a reimagined approach to canonical philosophical texts seeing the biases of any philosophical text fosters intellectual humility and maintains an independent perspective. while there is a danger in having too much epistemic attachment to a particular school of thought, this does not mean that the enterprise of committing to the canonical texts is futile and needs to be expressed as excessive antipathy. rather, the promise of a decanonized reading is to ensure that we interact 10 university of massachusetts lowell (fall, 2012). philosophy 373: arabic and islamic philosophy. massachusetts. retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.apaonline.org/resource/resmgr/ inclusiveness_syllabi/arabicandislamicphilosophy_r.pdf aireen grace t. andal72 with texts that have both agreement and objections to our own assumptions, lest we decay into mere dogma. it reminds us of why we are inclined to one side over the other and stimulates our thinking. embracing various ways of reading may diversify one’s approach to reading canonical texts. on the one hand, a practical approach in reading the canonical texts is to look upon and acknowledge the texts as devices to help one make sense of political affairs and general philosophical concerns. on the other hand, it is also helpful to remain mindful of the context in which they were canonized in order to have a better way of interpreting them. the cumulative worship and criticism of these texts is a measure of their very substance. things that seem common sense and obvious for us now would not be so obvious had the canonical political thinkers not raised these concerns centuries ago. thus, the seeming confirmation of the obvious may indeed result in non‑confirmation or confirmation of the unthinkable or not so obvious. texts are canonical due to both their own intellectual greatness and the historical contingencies that surround them. these texts may not be labeled as canonic by virtue of perfection but rather by virtue of influence or even controversy. centering on either the most flawless or most erroneous idea as the axis of understanding the material might be dangerous. also, while it is very important to look for the positive and negative highlights, this may also hinder one from appreciating the much less discussed ideas of the author. the best discussions may not necessarily arise upon reading the most famous idea of the thinker, though this may be the case for the majority. it is noteworthy to remember that philosophers come from a diversity of dispositions thereby their questions and philosophical concerns vary. in the end, these texts matter because we can map out game‑changing thoughts in a particular time, which shaped those thoughts we have at present. it remains important for a nuanced system of reading to give voice and visibility to marginalized philosophical texts written by a variety of thinkers that have been at the peripheries of philosophical discourse. this not only legitimizes their status as authors of ideas worthy of discussion but also builds the confidence and capacities of present scholars to invest more in studying these texts and bring richer discussions in the academic, as well as – hopefully – public spaces. it may be a disservice to both the thinkers and us, readers, if we reduce their writings to mere archeological thought exhibits through a sort of forensic historical analysis of matters of purely historical interest. references aries, p. 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(1996) “i hear you through my eyes”: or, the invisible master. in r. salecl & s. žižek (eds.) gaze and voice as love objects, 90–126. durham, nc: duke university press. changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 254–270 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.2.174 received 10 march 2022 © 2022 jane costlow accepted 20 may 2022 jcostlow@bates.edu published online 11 july 2022 essay words, river, changes: writing lewiston, maine jane costlow bates college, lewiston, maine, usa abstract this essay describes and reflects on the central river of a small postindustrial city in maine (usa), interweaving the author’s experience of place with the voices of three local poets, as a way of considering how the city and its river have been represented—as pastoral, abject, beautiful, and hybrid. keywords androscoggin river, lewiston maine, marsden hartley, robert chute, susann pelletier, hybrid, abject, pastoral there is something unfathomably essential about continually perceiving things anew [...] an elegy for forgetting. a map of erasure. ground we must dig to find the root of our current being. the inexplicable joy and irreducible complexity that accompanies simply standing in place. —ross gay & richard wehrenberg, “river” lewiston–auburn (also known as l–a) is a community of 60,000, made up of two separate municipalities which sit on either side of the androscoggin river in maine (usa). once a center of the textile and shoe industries, that industry is now gone; the cities are economically challenged, and include the poorest census tracts in the state1. the androscoggin river, once severely polluted, is now clean enough to support aquatic life and recreation. as the river has been transformed, so the cities have sought to transform themselves through efforts by municipal governments, local ngos, and river enthusiasts. city projects that focus on the river and its banks are sometimes articulated in terms of “turning toward the river”; fifty years ago, the river was so badly polluted that communities 1 downtown lewiston includes three of the state’s four poorest census tracts; the fourth is in auburn (ferguson & keefe, 2019). https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 254–270 255 turned away from it, both literally and figuratively. for most of its history the community was—like the state where it is situated—almost entirely white. that began to change dramatically in the early 2000’s, when somali families began arriving and making the cities their home. according to 2021 data from the us census bureau (united states census bureau, n.d.), lewiston is now approximately 15% non-white. my reflections here are presented in essayistic form, combining my own engagement with this landscape with reflections on those who have spoken about the cities and their river—the words of poets, storytellers and city planners as well as “street terms” that are both degrading and laudatory. these reflections are informed by living in a mixed-income neighborhood near the river, by teaching that has focused on the river and often involved community-engaged projects, and by ongoing participation in local conservation groups. i draw inspiration from the work of cultural critic lucy lippard, who asks us to reflect on our need for place and how places are always already hybrid; from the american essayist wendell berry, whose essays are models of how to take place seriously; and from contemporary poet ross gay, whose chapbook river reminds us that even “effaced” places deserve to be written about. walking changes the androscoggin changes nothing/of its flowing… — edmund marsden hartley, “the bend of the androscoggin” on a bitter morning in late january, nothing about the androscoggin seems to be flowing. i know, of course, that water is moving beneath the ice, but what is visible is as solid and cold as stone. beneath the railroad bridge and in the broads between the auburn riverwalk and simard-payne park, ice covers the whole expanse of water; south of the green bridge ice reaches up river from downstream rapids. the battered wooden houses of laurel hill on the auburn side look brittle in the cold, plumes of smoke chasing out from chimneys in a stiff north wind. the three brick arches of the canal outflow under continental mill; the hulk of the empty mill itself; the chain-linkencircled lot with the future home of museum l–a: all are immobile and deserted. “the androscoggin changes nothing of its flowing […]”(hartley, 1987a, p. 261). i let hartley’s line hum inside me as i make the loop along the river. other than those plumes of smoke and a stray crow, i’m the only thing moving. i convert his statement into a question, what changes? and keep moving through a place that can be used as emblem for all kinds of claims and multiple monikers: post-industrial decay; urban revitalization; environmental cleanup; dirty lew, mighty androscoggin; hybrid, invisible, abject, home. a month later we are in the middle of record warmth, over 60 degrees f and sunny. this is climate change, i think—but it feels great. what has changed is more than just the temperature: the river is almost completely unfettered of ice, my body is loose, my jacket unzipped, and where i was the only person out in january, now there are scores of people: mothers and kids, office workers on lunchbreak, homeless people hanging out with all their belongings. a somali guy on a bike says hello and asks me how i am doing; a woman coming out of place ste. marie sees me looking at yard ornaments and https://changing-sp.com/ 256 jane costlow greets me with a comment about how her christmas decorations are still up… a man with a shopping cart heads into the woods behind bonney park, looking like he just wandered in from a cormac mccarthy dystopia. and finally, as i head up toward west pitch park, there’s a middle-aged woman with seven girls (i count them: seven), and they are all wearing matching black-checked dresses and light pink winter coats. most of them have taken the pink coats off. they’re taking cell-phone pictures of runoff gushing into the river, and i wonder if they are part of a religious cult or just coming home from dance lessons. when the painter marsden hartley returned to lewiston in the 1930’s, he wrote a series of poems devoted to both the city and the river. hartley had been born in 1877 in lewiston and called it his “native city,” but he left after a difficult childhood for new york and europe, where he encountered the work of artists from picasso and kandinsky to franz marc. after a sojourn in the american southwest he came back to maine. in lewiston is a pleasant place (hartley, 1987b) he tells us he admired the city “because/it is part of the secret sacred rite/of love of place” 2 (p. 254). in the poem the bend of the androscoggin he proclaims that the river “changes nothing of its flowing” (p. 261), but then discovers alteration (“but here is a change”) at great falls— the massive rock formation that gave the city’s mills their power—where sea birds sit waiting for fish. what changes, hartley insists, is not really the river, it is us: “nothing is changed, nothing is different but ourselves/who note the change that brings us back/to nothing changed” (p. 261). a strange thing to claim of a river, since change is precisely what rivers usually symbolize. and a strange place, for many, to claim as beloved or sacred: “the secret sacred rite” of love for a place regarded by many as unlovable. poets have not written much about lewiston: it is not a “poetic” city. it’s a onceindustrial, once-working class, once-horribly polluted city whose identity is strung out somewhere between all those “once” modifiers and an uncertain sense of just what it is becoming. still, it can, as hartley insisted, be a very pleasant place; and the androscoggin has a particular beauty of its own, not just in its wild, upriver reaches, but here, at the point where it is most constrained by human construction. even on a day when rapid melt leaves dirty snow and heaps of no-longer-hidden trash, i can find it beautiful. places, names, stories the poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. —ralph waldo emerson, “the poet” “every place name is a story”, says the cultural critic lucy lippard (1997), “an outcropping of the shared tales that form the bedrock of community” (p. 46). but who does the naming, and how do we read the names? the places we know as lewiston and auburn arose and thrived because of water power afforded by the androscoggin and the means humans devised to use it. the wabanaki people, who were the original inhabitants of what is now the northeastern us and maritime canada, had called the place amitgonpontook, “a place where you smoke meat or fish” (hall, 2015). the 2 all poems cited can be found in hartley (1987a, 1987b, 1987c). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 254–270 257 name of the river itself is likely a contamination of earlier wabanaki or penobscot names; scholars’ conjecture that the name comes either from an eastern abenaki term meaning “river of cliff rock shelters” (literally “thus-deep-dwelling-river”) or a penobscot word signifying “river of rock shelters”. “the anglicization of the abenaki term is likely an analogical contamination with the colonial governor edmund andros” (androscoggin river, n.d.). european settlers in this river valley replaced wabanaki names with names of their own, memorializing places they’d left behind in england (auburn, n.d.) or celebrating a european male (hodgkin, n.d.). it’s easy to see why environmental and religious thinkers have seen the act of naming as an assertion of power and dominion, the power “to name or rename oneself and one’s place [...], an aspect of ownership” (lippard, 1997, p. 47). but there may be other ways to see it: a friend recently suggested that the act of naming is a gesture of enormous responsibility: the story of adam naming animals suggests to him something primal and parental. to name means to take on a responsibility that is absolute, the eternal and irrevocable responsibility of the one who loves for that which is loved. but have these names—either the city names themselves, or more recent ones—been attached with any kind of responsibility, of the kind my friend mentions? when european settlers moved inland from the atlantic coast in search of timber in the late 18th century, the androscoggin proved a powerful enticement to human desire and remaking. great log runs were floated down river to be sawed into boards; among other things they were made into ships that connected new england with the atlantic trade in both goods and people (cotton town, 2022). in the first half of the 19th century the androscoggin, like new england’s other rivers, powered the manufacture of textiles and, with the advent of kraft technology, the making of paper from the vast forests of maine’s northwoods (hillard, 2021). by the late 19th century thousands of quebecois made their way south to the mills of lewiston and other maine river towns. the urban infrastructure of lewiston was laid out by boston industrialists, who brought in irish laborers to build the canals that put river power to use in a series of massive brick mills. the tree-lined canals and city park at the center of an industrial grid were meant to evoke the compatibility of city and country, not with any environmental concerns in mind but to reassure the families of farm girls who came to lewiston to work—the small hands of women and children being highly prized in the delicate but difficult work of overseeing thousands of spindles and bobbins. the cold-water tenements where many of the quebecois newcomers lived were nicknamed “little canada”. built downstream from the city’s textile mills (and from the paper mills farther upriver), the tenements looked out on a river that by the 1920’s bore the brunt of industrialization. when i interviewed an elderly local resident about his experience of floods on the river, his comment was telling: “the real disaster wasn’t the flood, it was the river”. the word disaster is borne out by environmental historian richard judd’s account (1990), not merely of the androscoggin but of the state’s two other major rivers: by the 1920s the state’s thirty-seven pulp and paper mills, eighty textile mills, and eleven tanneries were dumping thousands of tons of tanning liquors, sulfite, bleach, dye, and wool, cotton, and wood fiber into the state’s rivers daily, placing enormous demands on the dissolved oxygen content of the waters. hydroelectric https://changing-sp.com/ 258 jane costlow power dams created large bodies of stagnant water that compounded the pollution problem. slabs of wood, bark, edgings, sawdust, and other errant materials drifting down from sawmills and log drives became trapped in extensive estuarian sections of the rivers, creating sawdust and sewage islands up to thirty feet thick and massive floating “plugs” trapped in the ebb and flow of the tides. (judd, 1990, p. 53) the runs of salmon, shad, alewives, and other fish that had led the wabanaki to give the falls its name were long gone; fish were essentially asphyxiated in summer water when the percentage of dissolved oxygen fell to zero. residents complained of summertime stench so powerful it induced nausea; one lewiston jeweler found he could not keep his silver from tarnishing in the noxious air. by the 1970’s the androscoggin was one of the ten most polluted rivers in the u.s., winning it a reference in newsweek magazine’s dire cover story “the ravaged environment” (auchincloss, 1970). it would be senator edmund muskie—a son of the androscoggin, born in the milltown of rumford and educated at bates college in lewiston—who spearheaded passage of the clean water act in 1972, landmark legislation that began the slow but steady process of cleaning up rivers and waterways. dams and the whole we of the place have often seen the river swell, rise to the bridge, almost carry it away, as it in times past already has done, between lewiston and lovely auburn. —edmund marsden hartley, “west pitch at the falls” like so many modern rivers, the androscoggin is tightly controlled. its flow is held back by over a dozen electricity-producing dams, many of them owned by brookfield energy, a canadian company. the dams prevent upstream passage of the anadromous species that once teemed in these waters, including atlantic salmon, now listed federally as an endangered species. the impoundment above lewiston— gulf island pond—is also implicated in water quality issues, because of how stagnant the water is behind it. but the dams also produce carbon-neutral power—a particularly acute problem in light of climate change—and they regulate flood waters. the power of androscoggin floods to transform the landscape is breathtaking. in the spring of 1987, my first year in maine, flood water reached high enough to close the longley bridge. there are pictures from a 1936 flood that show railcars loaded with boulders on the trestle above the falls. all those tons of rock to keep the bridge from being ripped loose. the flood of 2012 was not as destructive, but when i walked along the riverwalk that year, i had a visceral sense of the power and fundamental wildness of this carefully controlled waterway. a reminder that in this landscape seemingly shaped by restraint and control, there is always the possibility of sudden destruction. the force of the river at flood is extraordinary: great explosions of water over rock, thundering turbid sweeps of brown that crash and pour and throw up mist that’s higher than my head from where i stand watching on high ground. on the third day of rain in changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 254–270 259 early june i head out early with my camera, making my way slowly upstream, from where the little andy falls into the androscoggin, swamping back yards and parking lots with swashing, stick-strewn water, up along the riverwalk, waves lapping over the curb behind senior housing, over the pathway where the ducks congregate in summer. i go as far as i can beneath longley bridge, where the water main shoots a great funnel of rainwater into the underpass, the way blocked by a back eddy of river. from farther up on the bluff above the falls i watch a whole tree sail majestically downstream, like a venetian gondola that’s lost its oarsman. standing at the very height of the falls, out on the small observation platform with its chain-link barrier between me and the thousands of pounds of racing water crashing against glacial boulders, i think this is why lewiston is here. this great pounding cascade of water in motion, this seemingly endless traverse from mountains to sea, this sheer and tantalizing drop from narrows to great swirling lakes of foam. not hard at all to imagine benjamin bates and his brethren standing here wild-eyed like cortez, seeing in their minds’ eye the turning wheels and flashing threads, the great machines of industry powered by what they thought god had given them, for free3. the water that sometimes surges but more often trickles over the falls has made its way from the lakes of western maine, from mooselookmeguntic and umbagog and then down the 150 or so miles to where we live. hartley (1987a) imagined “fish that have played in black waters/among the mountains” making their way downstream to lewiston; his androscoggin pays no mind to lewiston’s mills and its “solemn canals”—“because it has business with the sea” (p. 264). the birds—the sea birds— someone says they wait for fish to fall with the turmoil of the waters, fish that have played in black waters among the mountains. (p. 264) but who are these fish? not salmon, since the androscoggin’s salmon were gone by the early 19th century. creating the possibility for them to thrive again depends on establishing fish passage ladders (usually ineffective) or completely removing dams. but efforts to remove dams are fiercely resisted by municipalities and industry. and the obstacles facing restoration of salmon fisheries aren’t just dams; there is increasing evidence that warming ocean waters are impacting salmon as well… seeing the river “whole” is at least part of what hartley tried to do with his bird’s eye view, but seeing the river whole now means seeing all the different ways in which it is used, as well as the ways in which climate change is impacting just how much water is in the river. a 2020 state-commissioned report on climate change notes 3 “seeing the potential for cotton fabric production of lewiston’s location at the great falls of the androscoggin river, a syndicate of boston investors including thomas hill, lyman nichols, george ward, alexander dewitt, and, most importantly, benjamin bates, formed and chartered the lewiston water power company around 1850, which became bates manufacturing two years later. astute and perspicacious enough to anticipate the civil war, the syndicate stockpiled cotton during the 1850s, ensuring the company’s wartime profit was enormous” (bauman, 2012). https://changing-sp.com/ 260 jane costlow decreased snowpack and earlier “ice-out” dates, but says it is still unclear just how all of this will impact streamflow (fernandez & marvinney, 2020, p. 10). in early fall my husband and i drive north to go hiking, and on our way home we stop at a place called height of land, just south of mooselookmeguntic lake. there is a pull-off on the highway where you can look out across deeply forested hillsides toward the lake and its two small islands. a guy in a pickup truck with a canoe in the bed has also pulled off to enjoy the view; when i ask him how the paddling was, he says he cannot believe how low the lake is. he points out toward toothaker island and says he could have walked most of the way there. the late afternoon light is lovely, and we linger for a while; i read through the informational panels with images of thoreau—his sojourns in the maine wilderness—a map that shows where the appalachian trail crosses less than 500 yards away, and finally, how these lakes are the birthplace of the whole androscoggin river watershed. i think about the trickle of water over our falls, the salmon that no longer make their way upstream, the men and women who work at the two remaining paper mills, the electricity generated by all the dams between here and the ocean. pastoral lewiston fresh painted green bridge girders, lace of steel, light with sun and shadow… —robert maurice chute, “crossing to the other side: new auburn” 4 if you want to walk along the androscoggin river in central lewiston and auburn, start in new auburn and set out across the lown bridge, also known as the green bridge, a traditional truss structure built in 1937 and recently repainted kelly green (bernard lown peace bridge, n.d.), make your way through an empty parking lot outside the continental mill, and then head down oxford street by place ste. marie—brick blocks built in the 1860’s as workers’ housing. then turn left across the canal. this brings you to simard-payne park, a reclaimed brownfield that now features a broad meadow with the remains of a railyard loading platform and clusters of trees along the river. follow the walking path until you cross another sluice, water pouring from a spillway that once generated power, and then head up to longley bridge and great falls. to get to west pitch park above the falls you will have to cross the bridge and take a right—past a bank and hotel—until you come to the observation deck that brookfield has constructed over the falls. signs remind you how dangerous it is to step beyond the chain-link-fenced platform: when brookfield releases water it can rise fast. electricity transformers hum in the background. look out over the waterscape of lewiston and auburn: mill no. 5, designed by the great industrial architect albert kahn, lifts its signature saw-tooth roof above the traffic. behind it is the vast hulk of bates mill, once famous for bedspreads. in the foreground, the mammoth boulders, the granite faces and puzzle of the falls, might help you understand why the penobscot (chute, 1997) knew the river as a place of “rock shelters”. boston industrialists arrived and built their own shelters out of brick. 4 all poems cited can be found in chute (1997). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 254–270 261 marsden hartley’s vision of lewiston and the androscoggin is deeply pastoral. he steps back from the banks of the river, away from what he remembers in the opening lines of “lewiston is a pleasant place” (hartley, 1987b) as “the harsh grinding of the mills” (p. 251) and heads instead for franklin pasture (now site of lewiston high school) and a walk with his father in the woods there (“[…] a cool clear stream, gathering water cresses/trilliums, dogtooth violets, and in/the fall—at times—mushrooms” [p. 251]). in “the bend of the androscoggin” (hartley, 1987a) he imagines the down-stream town of topsham as a “picture world/like a yankee breughel” with “french canuck, salt yankee skating,” skating that will “smooth away/ the progress of a testy day” (p. 264). at the beginning of “west pitch at the falls” (hartley, 1987c), he registers a gnawing sense that he might be mis-remembering, that he is allowing “imaginations” of the past to displace what is in front of him. the hill he is looking at—which he had “imagined [...] thickly strewn with pines” (p. 232)—is not in fact particularly wooded. he wonders if spray from “spring freshets” tricked him into thinking there were more trees there. but rather than using that moment of awareness to bring attention to the present, he shifts back into more images of times past, nostalgic genre scenes that could be lifted from currier and ives: a boy skating on the frozen river; men “cutting cakes of ice eighteen inches thick”; tales of girls drowned (suicides?) in “the tossing foam” (p. 234). the mills that come into the beginning of “lewiston is a pleasant place” (hartley, 1987b) with their “harsh grinding” have receded by its end. the mills and factories that were once gigantic in the vision of a child, monstrous, terrifying, prison-like, are now mere objects on the horizon, just as the garages and the filling stations have become. the androscoggin flows by them all, giving them power through the solemn canals, minding none of them, going onward because it has business with the sea. (p. 255) the poems give us a chance to follow this native son trying desperately to find in present-day lewiston something of his childhood, of the wild-ish nature of franklin pasture. it is a picture that largely elides the industrial, just as it ignores the kinds of social conflict the city was renowned for: his “canucks” and “salt yankees” skate together, but lewiston had a long history of brawling among immigrant groups, and in the 1920’s lewiston—like all of maine—saw a spike in ku klux klan activity directed against catholic francos (frenette, 1986, pp. 206–207). there was in fact a pastoral impulse in the way that lewiston was laid out. by the time benjamin bates and his colleagues eyed the androscoggin as a source of power, the great textile cities of massachusetts had already been built. architectural historians have detailed the ways in which lewiston’s planning was informed by cities like lowell, massachusetts, where “utopian social principles and industrialist pragmatics” informed factory layout and the provision of everything from boarding houses to lending libraries, aiming for a level of “refinement and amenity” but also wanting to reassure the families of those young farm https://changing-sp.com/ 262 jane costlow girls (langenbach, 1981). this would not be dickensian london5. the initial architecture was strictly utilitarian, but became more “expressive and fashionable” as the owners’ ambitions evolved. at least some of the plans for lowell became lost in “a tangle of diagonally intersecting streets. […] only in the later cities did a single plan encompass the entire city, and only in the case of lewiston, maine, one of the last cities to follow lowell’s model, does the original city plan show an overall, urban design unity” (langenbach, 1981). an 1851 plan for lewiston lays a symmetrical grid over the curve and bulge of the river’s traverse; parallel streets lead from the river—where the mills would be built to take advantage of the river’s power—toward a central city park. a photograph from 1870 “shows the intentional order of the canal, the mills, and the boarding houses— all landscaped with elm trees by the developing company” (langenbach, 1981). the canals, the elms, the park; the gracious italianate cupolas of the mills themselves (now decapitated by an owner who got tired of repairing the roof): these were dreams that imagined the possibility of holding onto “nature” even as you exploited it. at least some of lewiston’s riverfront is now remarkably pastoral. simardpayne park was until the late 1990’s an industrial brownfield, cleared in 2000 by the environmental protection agency (epa) to be safe for use as parkland (epa, 2002). its broad open meadow becomes the staging area for a late-summer balloon festival, a beer fest (since part of the old bates mill is now a brewery) and occasional somali soccer games (bass, 2018). it is the place i once volunteered with people teaching somali and other inner-city kids to fish. a local land trust and folks from the national park service brought rods and reels, and the boys and girls—the latter in colorful hijabs and sneakers—were taught how to cast (without hooks) in the big open meadow, before they got a chance to head down to the water. there is a picture from the afternoon of me and a young girl; i am wearing a pink shirt and have my arm around her shoulder; she is in a purple headscarf and shirt over a pink and purple skirt. we are both smiling broadly. we stand in the shelter of an oak tree, with the river just visible behind us. it is a pastoral place, humane, and healthy, and hopeful, for however short a time. it is as though the boston industrialists’ and lowell city planners’ dreams have been realized, in ways wilder and stranger than their wildest dreams. the names attached to these places, however, do not yet reflect that picture— whether it is new americans playing soccer or their children learning to fish. the men for whom simard-payne is now named were police officers who died in the line of duty. bernard lown, whose name now graces the green bridge, came to lewiston from his native lithuania when he was 14. he became a cardiologist (and developed the defibrillator) and in 1980 founded international physicians for the prevention of nuclear war together with the soviet physician dr. evgenii chazov. bonney park— across the river from simard-payne—is also named for a police officer; and longley bridge, which crosses the river near the falls and joins the two cities’ downtowns, is named for james longley, born in lewiston and elected governor of maine in the 1970’s. the other names you see as you walk the river are commercial (gladu roofing; yvonne’s carwash; baxter brewing) or veterans’ names inscribed on dark-grey panels 5 dickens visited lowell as part of his 1842 tour of the u.s., and praised both the factory system and the girls employed there. see archibald & brattin (2015), chapters 1 and 2. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 254–270 263 at memorial park, close to the falls. graffiti beneath the monty hydro generating station shouts hope and love to anyone looking. the more expansively we think about names, the more inclusive, and more interesting, the story becomes. it is not just poets who are “namers” and “sayers”, as emerson puts it, even if their naming has traditionally had particular resonance and power. over the past two decades groups within downtown lewiston have worked hard to elevate the voices of those actually living within reach of the river, in those poorest-in-maine census tracts. redevelopment in downtown lewiston began, however, with erasure and conflict. in 2004 lewiston officials announced the heritage initiative, which would have created a highway corridor through residential neighborhoods, razing the homes of 850 residents. then-mayor lionel guay promoted the project as celebrating “wonderful heritage”, suggesting a nostalgic vision of the city’s working-class francos, a demographic that had already begun to shift significantly (belluck, 2002; wright, 2009). the project immediately elicited pushback from downtown residents and their supporters, who repudiated the idea that there was no “real” community there. the city withdrew the heritage initiative under protest, and a group which came to call itself the visible community proceeded to do some city planning of their own. in 2008 they submitted the people’s downtown master plan (visible community, 2008), which they described as “not just a plan for the future […] but a process of empowerment” (p. 4), a process that would nurture and inspire leaders from within the downtown. the authors of the plan were clear that those outside their neighborhood “often have a very different view [of it] than residents do” (p. 5). to the negative myths that had taken hold they responded: “we see downtown as home—a place that holds our hopes and dreams for a better future and a better quality of life” (p. 5). the final report carefully summarized a deliberate and inclusive process, how issues had been identified, and what the top four goals were (better transportation, improved housing, a community center and increased employment opportunities). but the legacy of the visible community was not just a planning document. the neighborhood found a historian/poet in craig saddlemire, a community activist turned film maker whose documentaries about downtown lewiston both chronicle the work of the visible community and hand cameras to inner-city kids to tell their own stories (saddlemire, 2009, 2011). organizing in the wake of the failed heritage initiative led to the strengthening of various alliances among downtown residents and others from both lewiston and auburn. in 2019 a group of organizations from downtown lewiston submitted a bid for $30 million in federal funding (through the choice neighborhoods program of the us department of housing and urban development) that would allow for dramatically increased spending on affordable housing. the grant was awarded to the city in 2021, the first ever to be given to a city as small as lewiston (lewiston wins $30 million, 2021). the 250-page plan was “developed over a year and a half, with input from 400 residents speaking eight different languages,” evidence of a communityfocused process and a commitment to hearing different voices, in different languages6 (ferguson & keefe, 2021). 6 one current member of the healthy neighborhoods board remembers french, somali, arabic, lingala, and portuguese being among those languages for which interpretation was provided. https://changing-sp.com/ 264 jane costlow the dirty lew: lewiston and the abject …jesus, can you save us from despair? the river’s banks are both a spew of trash. the factory where your banner’s nailed seems boarded, blind, abandoned. the good hope mission offers a bed and bread to frustrate hope’s mortician. our courage at the river’s crossing now is hailed: jesus greatly to be praise—advertisement and vision cries from the bridge’s end as from a prison. —robert maurice chute, “crossing to the other side: new auburn” it’s not just former mayor guay who sees present-day lewiston in negative terms. bob chute’s poem from his 1997 collection describes a bleak urban landscape, with trashed riverbanks and a soup kitchen offering “hope” that conjures up a prison. rivers go somewhere, but chute’s is a bridge to nowhere. lewiston’s reputation throughout maine is as a hard-luck, grimy place, a place that stands in sharp contrast to the rugged, wild maine of tourist brochures. this vision of lewiston doesn’t just come from other parts of maine. many locals—including residents of the very tree streets that the visible community sought to lift up—see downtown lewiston in terms that are abject. my dictionary defines abject as “completely without pride or dignity; self-abasing”. as a theoretical term used in visual studies, it refers to “artworks which explore themes that transgress and threaten our sense of cleanliness and propriety particularly referencing the body and bodily functions” (abject art, n.d.). lewiston’s vernacular nickname is “the dirty lew,” a term that plays on the homonym lew/loo (british informal term for toilet), and which the urban dictionary suggests refers to “someone who is a complete douchebag” (foreal, 2005). both loo and lew as douchebag refer to bodily functions, the evacuation of bodily waste or the cleaning of the (female) body cavities. rivers for most of history have, of course, been places where human waste—both bodily waste and the leavings of everyday life—were disposed of. but in these descriptions, it’s as if the whole community has become refuse, an unsightly, stinking body that needs to be flushed away as quickly as possible. while craig saddlemire has celebrated the dignity and diversity of downtown community, another “historian/poet” of lewiston, the local journalist mark laflamme, styles himself a connoisseur of precisely this “dirty lew”, flamboyantly displaying his street cred in columns that regularly emphasize the grimy street life of the city (laflamme, 2014). prostitution, drug deals, shady police, violence, and rumors of violence. and while it is tempting to see laflamme’s writing as simply a last-ditch appeal by the local newspaper for a particular kind of disgruntled reader, we might also read him as someone who does not want to let go of the city’s working-class identity, its rough-and-tumble past and present. in his own way, it is possible that laflamme as much as the visible community does not want to see lewiston gentrified. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 254–270 265 the mighty androscoggin can be so beautiful workers sweating as wheels creak and grind might not agree, but i, overpowered, as emerson was by rhodora’s flower, evils of both natures set aside, find this beauty is its own excuse, and mine. —robert maurice chute, “the great bowdoin mill” in late january a woman named jennifer warriner posts a photograph of lewiston and the river on a local social media site. taken from auburn, the image shows an intense orange-and-yellow sunset that is reflected in glassy open water between snowy banks and near-shore ice. there are silhouettes of bare trees in the foreground, and in the distance the skyline of lewiston: churches, city hall, the stack at bates mill with a whisp of smoke blowing north. her caption assumes her readers know exactly where this is, so instead of giving us a place name, she simply states “the mighty androscoggin river can be so beautiful”. bob chute’s (1997) poem about the bowdoin mill (downstream from lewiston, in topsham) quotes the american transcendentalist ralph waldo emerson, whose poem “the rhodora” proclaims that “beauty is its own excuse for being”—and that both poet and flower find their origins in “the self-same power” (emerson, 1899). chute’s poem proclaims that the brick mill above the river also has a beauty that “is its own excuse, and mine” (chute, 1997). the city that warriner has captured in her photograph (which attracted lots of approval on line, and lead others to share their photographs of the river) is the same one that is known as “the dirty lew”. but here it is not a place of grime and abjection, it is beautiful. it is not clear when the term “the mighty androscoggin” was first used, although it clearly has its origin in the industrial power of the river. it is a kind of might we rarely see any more, given dams and diminished water levels, but the moniker has stuck. warriner’s mighty androscoggin is in any case a river in deep repose, an image that makes one think of wordsworth’s thames, his “holy time [...] quiet with adoration” (wordsworth, 1994, p. 135). maine is known nationwide—even internationally—as a place of extraordinary natural beauty. a sparsely-populated state in the northeastern-most corner of the usa, maine’s reputation is based on imagery of wilderness that has been cultivated by an array of major artists and writers, including hartley, but also the writers thoreau and longfellow, and artists like winslow homer and andrew wyeth. the iconography of their work focuses on maine’s atlantic coast, with its rocky promontories, lighthouses, and dramatic seascape—and on its thickly-forested inlands, a region that thoreau first celebrated (for boston readers) in his 1864 the maine woods7. now successfully commodified, these artistic images help to fuel a multi-billion-dollar tourist industry that is of enormous importance to the state’s economy. the image of maine as a place offering retreat from the complexities of the modern world goes back at least into the late 19th century, spurred 7 famous maine poets and writers include harriet beecher stowe, henry longfellow, sarah orne jewett, winslow homer and andrew wyeth. marsden hartley’s 1939 “mount katahdin autumn, no. 2” is a particularly well-known image of the maine wilds. he never painted lewiston. https://changing-sp.com/ 266 jane costlow in part by the development of modern tourism and by cultural anxieties spurred by the “end” of the american frontier and increasing numbers of working-class immigrants from eastern and southern europe. the cultural historian john lewis (1993) documents how the state became a vacationland for tourists looking to escape to the state’s camps and grand hotels. the realities of rural poverty were glossed over or transformed into virtues; mainers themselves were cast as figures of rectitude and stoicism, fitting inhabitants for a place characterized by long winters and challenging conditions. as lewis puts it, what is reflected in this myth of maine and her people is not nature, as the myth suggests, nor the real past to which it supposedly refers. rather, what is reflected is a constructed image that both validates and consoles those who believe in it. myths, as roland barthes observed, deprive the objects of which they speak of their history. “all that is left to do is enjoy this beautiful object without wondering where it came from”. (p. 151) but if rural poverty was transformed in this vision into picturesque, quaint lobster shacks and backroads, the mills of a place like lewiston were harder to convert. in the mythos of maine as idyll of wild nature and virtue, there was no place for somewhere like lewiston. to echo barthes, lewiston was a place that “spoke” its history in brick and foam, grit and stench. the city told a story of factory and labor, reminding anyone who looked that the state’s waters and woods were being intensively used for the stuff of everyday life—from paper and bedspreads to shoes. the constructed maine, a place that supposedly allowed travel backwards into a simpler, more natural life, forswore precisely the kinds of complexity a place like lewiston embodied—pollution and tenements and the tradeoffs between industry, livelihood and public health. lewiston still frustrates that myth of maine, so much so that the city can provoke in visitors a perverse resentment. in the late 1980’s friends of my colleague arrived for a summer visit, and could barely contain their anger that lewiston wasn’t “maine”. no rocky coast, no picturesque lighthouses, no virtuous flannel-clad lumberjacks. but it is at least arguable that a place like lewiston is in fact vastly more interesting than the mythic, nostalgic maine—precisely for the ways in which it is changing. hybrid place, for chorus and solo voice place is latitudinal and longitudinal within the map of a person’s life. it is temporal and spatial, personal and political. a layered location replete with human histories and memories… it is about connections, what surrounds it, what formed it, what happened there, what will happen there. —lucy r. lippard, “the lure of the local: senses of place in a multicentered society” lucy lippard (1997) insists that all places are hybrid, and that “each time we enter a new place, we become one of the ingredients of an existing hybridity, which is really what all ‘local places’ consist of. by entering that hybrid, we change it” (p. 6). attuned changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 254–270 267 to what she sees as enormous contemporary hunger for senses of place and belonging, she urges us to see place as “lived-in”, informed by intimacy and the sensory, not just viewed at a distance through painterly conventions of landscape (p. 6). among other things it is a plea to hear voices, to listen to stories, to see culture and history braided together in vernacular landscapes. any place is an amalagam—a mosaic—a roughshod chorus of voices, some human, some more-than-human, held together within grids shaped by natural features and human making. an infrastructure of brick and granite, streets and mills, but also of river, stone, gully, hillside. many voices make up the chorus-in-place that is lewiston (and auburn). and that great array of voices, along with the silences of past and present, is still speaking and being heard. nancy lecompte, who has labored for years to assemble stories of the wabanki in western maine, once responded to a question i sent her about whether there were native middens in auburn: “there is no question the banks of the androscoggin above and below the great falls and on both sides is the site of an ancient abenaki community. it has likely been an important location for thousands of years [...] but the area is just too industrialized in modern times and everything has already been too disturbed to be of value or interest. i participated in a dig on the lewiston side many years ago. it seems like we dug to china in many locations and only found industrial era fill”. underneath the voices of all who have named the androscoggin lies the silence of those who were here first, who were here for so long. but we still keep digging, even in “industrial fill,” and many people keep speaking and working to allow new (and old) voices to speak—whether those are poets, or people’s plan participants, or film makers, or kids with cameras. the best way to know a place, lucy lippard argues, is from the inside. to susann pelletier (1989), a contemporary lewiston poet, lewiston is a place of makers: it is not a landscape to be contemplated, but a place that people have come to and made home. she remembers the lewiston of her childhood as a place that “gave little comfort/it shook me with the clatter of looms/and night machines/ blinded me with that immigrant dream/burning…” (p. 5). what pelletier sees is not a conventionally beautiful city, but a city filled with workers who have traded a world of beauty (rural quebec, france) for “the weight of a dream” (p. 5), men and women streaming into factories to mass produce bedspreads. to pelletier, francophone lewistonians (“lamontagne, deblois, thibault”) were from a “people who built cathedrals” (p. 5), heirs of those who had woven great tapestries. her poem concludes with an encomium to her father: […] my father is a maker of whole things (houses, fences and gates, tables and chairs cupboards and counters) and when his saw sang through the board and his hammer drove the nail https://changing-sp.com/ 268 jane costlow the din of those mill machines was stilled i heard the sweetest strains of labor i saw how a world is crafted by two steadfast hands. (p. 6) this encomium celebrates the way in which the city was a place of making— often mass-produced goods that offered immigrants a modest way of life, but little chance for larger shaping of the world. still the city is a place that holds the possibility of creativity—pelletier’s vision of “how a world is crafted” (p. 7), chute’s hybrid beauty—mill and river—that “is its own excuse.” people continue to come to this city of immigrants not for its conventional beauty, but because it is a place they can make a life. they speak languages that no one ever imagined speaking here. hartley said of the canadians that they had given lewiston “new/life, new fervors, new charms, new vivacities” (hartley, 1987b, p. 251). the same could be said of somali bantu and congolese, who re-shape the hybrid place that is lewiston. the place itself responds, re-made by new vision and voices. for all these newcomers, too, perhaps lewiston will be “part of the secret sacred rite/of love of place” (p.251). references abject art. 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(2009, december 23). like a good neighbor. bates magazine. https:// www.bates.edu/news/2009/12/23/16173/ https://www.sunjournal.com/2010/07/14/dirty-lew/ https://www.sunjournal.com/2010/07/14/dirty-lew/ https://www.conservationtech.com/rl%27s%20resume&%20pub%27s/rl-publications/milltowns/1981-lowell(harv-arch-rev).htm https://www.conservationtech.com/rl%27s%20resume&%20pub%27s/rl-publications/milltowns/1981-lowell(harv-arch-rev).htm https://www.conservationtech.com/rl%27s%20resume&%20pub%27s/rl-publications/milltowns/1981-lowell(harv-arch-rev).htm https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734x.1993.00091.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734x.1993.00091.x https://www.growingourtreestreets.com/blog-posts/2021/5/25/lewiston-wins-30-million-choice-neighborhoods-grant https://www.growingourtreestreets.com/blog-posts/2021/5/25/lewiston-wins-30-million-choice-neighborhoods-grant https://vimeo.com/39576889 https://vimeo.com/34272306 https://vimeo.com/34272306 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/lewistoncitymaine http://www.lewistonmaine.gov/documentcenter/view/802/2008---the-peoples-downtown-master-plan---the-vis?bidid= http://www.lewistonmaine.gov/documentcenter/view/802/2008---the-peoples-downtown-master-plan---the-vis?bidid= http://www.lewistonmaine.gov/documentcenter/view/802/2008---the-peoples-downtown-master-plan---the-vis?bidid= http://androscoggin.bates.edu/home/culture-history/wabanki-place-names-of-western-maine--introductio http://androscoggin.bates.edu/home/culture-history/wabanki-place-names-of-western-maine--introductio https://www.bates.edu/news/2009/12/23/16173/ https://www.bates.edu/news/2009/12/23/16173/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 5–9 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.1.160 editorial the mole of history burrows his way ever forward and upward elena stepanova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia transformations and transitions inevitably accompany the history of humankind. looking backward at different periods of this course, we come to recognize those initially invisible symptoms that gradually merge together and eventually lead to tectonic shifts; as a result, a new social reality emerges. but do we think at such moments about how these subtle and seemingly unimportant marks could affect people’s daily lives? do we understand how changing circumstances make people first to convince themselves that nothing special is happening, but then gradually force them to radically change their beliefs and habits? the world today is undergoing the period of widening uncertainty due to the conflicts, which we all are witnessing; in any case, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the world will not return to its previous state. no one knows what the relations between countries, peoples, and individuals will look like in the future. we can only observe and try to trace the direction of “the old mole” that burrows deep into the soil of history, digging ever forward and upward—a metaphor of the spirit of history used by hegel and marx. in other words, although the logic of historical transformations remains obscure, changes are gradually accumulating, eventually revealing their essence to individuals and societies as a whole. the articles in this issue of changing societies & personalities shed some light on the internal causes of these transformations, considering their inevitable effect on the lives of a wide variety of people. in the essay ordoliberalism revisited, thomas f. remington undertakes two tasks: first, to clarify the concept of ordoliberalism—a legal and economic theory originated in the 1930s at the university of freiburg, germany, which still remains relatively unknown outside a few scholarly circles. second, to consider what influence this concept had on german policies and institutions following world war ii, presuming that a better understanding of ordoliberalism can be helpful in the contemporary debates about the crisis of liberal democracy and received 25 march 2022 © 2022 elena a. stepanova published online 11 april 2022 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 6 elena a. stepanova capitalism. remington argues that “for the ordoliberals […], a market economy where the state protected individual freedom by ensuring competition and preventing the rise of concentrated market power was the only guarantee both of economic prosperity and elementary social justice”. consequently, the ordoliberals emphasized that the market economy must serve not only efficiency, but also social justice and society as a whole, not the other way around; for them, the basis of morality was freedom. remington stresses: “it is regrettable that the architects of market liberalization in russia and other post-communist countries never took germany’s postwar reconstruction as a source of usable ideas”, and the state is responsible for forming and enforcing a competitive order, which is a basis for economic and political freedom. konstantin f. zavershinskiy and alexander i. koryushkin in the article political socialization in a changing society: a crisis of value orientations or asynchronization of national memories? address the need to analyze the emerging qualitative changes of societal cohesion and civic identification. according to them, “the rapid destruction of hierarchical distinctions between the world of ‘the youth’ and the world of ‘the adults’ further complicates intergenerational relations and increases the degree of their variability and arbitrariness”. today, the development of digital technologies, which signify the emergence of a new economic and political order, forces younger generations to “fluctuate between apolitical consumerist survival strategies and occasional flares of violent anarchical protests”. the authors explore the reasons for the differences in value-normative positioning of the “younger” and “older” generations, which are substantively novel and need to be theoretically and methodologically explicated. they focus on young citizens from mid-teens to mid-twenties, and formulate the following research questions: what theoretical and methodological models of youth socialization are in use by contemporary researchers? what are the strategies for dealing with them? what is the role of symbolic structures of contemporary political memory, especially of the national memory legitimation profiles, in youth socialization? the article digital fears experienced by young people in the age of technoscience, by sofya b. abramova, natalya l. antonova, riccardo campa, and natalia g. popova is focused on digital fears and anxieties. the authors substantiate the relevance of studying their specific forms reflected in the minds of young people, as well as of outlining approaches to their social diagnostics, prevention, and therapy. in the article, a sociological analysis of fears of young people under the conditions of digitalization of all spheres of social life is presented. fear is defined as a complex social phenomenon, which has cultural roots and affects social behavior and social life: “fear is an inbuilt instinct that serve important survival functions […], e.g., the activation of defensive responses […] that encourage an individual to overcome stress and accomplish goals”. the analysis is based on a sociological survey among young residents (in total, 1,050 aged 18–30) of the sverdlovsk region, russia, conducted in november–december, 2020. the typology includes the following types: fears of social rejection; of loss; of decision-making; of publicity; of various categories of people; postmodern fears; etc. the authors conclude that fear can be referred to as a distinctive characteristic of the social well-being of the youth, and address their recommendations to political representatives and civil society leaders. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 5–9 7 in the article from uncertainty to trust: covid-19 pandemic responses of south korea and sweden, andrey v. rezaev, natalia d. tregubova, and anastasia a. ivanova argue that such epidemiological situations as the pandemic of covid-19 pose a significant threat to the manageability of the population in modern states (regardless of their degree of democracy or authoritarianism). that is why “the widespread introduction of lockdowns as a regulatory method during this pandemic could be associated with the need to preserve an understandable and quantifiable management object”. based on an analysis of the data provided by national governments and international organizations, and using the approach of swedish sociologist apostolis papakostas, who regards trust/distrust as an organizational and relational phenomenon, the authors consider, analyze, and compare two different cases of lockdown policies: those implemented in south korea and sweden. the main focus in the article is on the following two questions: (a) how do south korea and sweden construct their populations as a quantifiable and predictable object of regulation in the times of covid-19 by using online technologies to control the population? (b) have south korea and sweden managed to establish trust in their relations with their populations and other states in coping with the pandemic? the concept of sustainable development has been at the forefront of global discussions for over 30 years. in the article sharing economy and social entrepreneurship for sustainable development, evgeny v. popov, anna yu. veretennikova, and kseniya m. kozinskaya outline various directions for achieving and maintaining a certain level of sustainable development: direct investment in social initiatives, responsible business conduct, corporate social responsibility, quality management of goods and services produced according to modern standards. the authors examine some models “in terms of their similarity and suitability for stimulating sustainable development”. two hypotheses are put forward: (a) sharing economy and social entrepreneurship can be used as alternative socio-economic models for sustainable development of a society; (b) the use of digital technologies in projects of the sharing economy and social entrepreneurship stimulates sustainable development. based on a semantic analysis of websites of 20 sharing organizations and 20 social entrepreneurs, the authors verify whether these models may form a basis for sustainable development in the future. the article factors determining child labor: empirical evidence from khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan, by sikandar, sanaullah panezai, shahab e. saqib, said muhammad, bilal, and imran khan argue that the primary determinants for child labor are poverty, income level, migration, education level, and family size. the authors focus on the situation in pakistan and stress that, due to the geographical and cultural differences among its provinces, the determinants of child labor differ from one region to another. the specificity of the study is based on ranking the factors responsible for child labor. the developed conceptual framework considers (1) demographic factors (parents’ age, education, family size, the number of dependent family members); and (2) economic factors (family income, father’s occupation, and household assets) of child labor. the study was conducted in two pakistan districts: mardan (2.3 million inhabitants) and nowshera (1.5 million) situated in the central https://changing-sp.com/ 8 elena a. stepanova zone of khyber pakhtunkhwa. the respondents represented 200 households, in which children were involved in child labor. in recent years, there has been a proliferation of writing on the meaning of home within the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology, human geography, history, architecture, and philosophy. mojtaba valibeigi, sakineh maroofi, and sara danay in the article forgotten territories in the iranian home: issues of segregation, note that “critical studies into the material realm of this concept indicate that home is created by numerous cultural, economic, and social factors”. the authors formulate the research question as follows: how the traditional culture of the iranian home, including the concepts of sanctity and privacy, may lead to segregation and gender discrimination? they respond to that question using space syntax criteria as a way to analyze spatial configurations and the organization of spaces in buildings and settlements. the authors consider the syntax of home in relation to three factors: (a) activities, values, and goals (the pattern of daily activities); (b) physical characteristics (dividing of spaces, separations, sizes and positions, decorations, etc.); (c) communication (level of relationships in different spaces of the house, which includes a range of semi-public, semi-private, and private spaces in the house). andrey b. berzin, aleksey v. maltsev, and natalia a. zavyalova in the article conceptual framework of teacher prestige and well-being: regional aspects study the challenges faced by teachers in the contemporary world: job satisfaction, professional well-being, career development, and, in particular, credibility crisis. according to the authors, “no longer can a teacher be expected to be the only source of information, the bearer of the highest wisdom or someone whose ideas are not subject to criticism”. they note the growing contradictions between the creative nature of teaching and the ever-increasing regulation of the teacher’s actions; the need to improve professionalism and competence levels given a lack of time resources; the gap between declarations of a high vocation of teaching and low social status; the increased contradiction within the teaching community between highly motivated professional teachers and those who only go through the motions of fulfilling their duties. the authors seek to identify the attitudes of teachers, students, and students’ parents toward the teaching profession, as well as the factors that affect the wellbeing of teachers and their status in the russian federation, through surveys among teachers conducted in 1989, 2016, and 2021. in the 2000–2010s, a number of new religious communities emerged in the perm region. svetlana v. ryazanova in the article talking to god: religion, parascience, and disciplinary practices as consolidation tools, sets out to explore closed communities that are commonly characterized by permanent membership, limited connections with outside communities, and living within closed compounds. such small religious groups, which exist in large cities like perm, are often “invisible” for researchers due to their almost complete isolation from the outside world. the research object in the article is pokrovskaya obitel’ [the holy virgin intercession abode], which has existed as a community of orthodox believers for over 30 years and undertaken a long way from a conventional orthodox parish to an independent religious community with an original doctrine and cult practices. ryazanova uses changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 5–9 9 private correspondence with one of the community’s founders. her research is based on specific sources (anonymous personal communication with community members in 2008–2009, 2010–2011, and 2014–2015). tigran s. simyan in the article “guilty of being free”: an intellectual vs. soviet penal system (prison letters and drawings of sergei parajanov), seeks to address the following questions: how was the trauma of parajanov’s prison experience (he was imprisoned three times) “reflected in his texts (letters), pen and pencil drawings and collages? what role did the prison period play in parajanov’s evolution as an artist?” simyan argues that parajanov turned the penal cology into a creative laboratory; his prison letters are imbued with terror and desperation. at the same time, these sources also provide valuable insights into what life was like in soviet penal colonies. simyan emphasizes that there is little literature concerned with this problem in russian and english, since parajanov’s prison letters have been published in russian relatively recently. the book reviews section contains two reviews. the first is of dhingra, p. (2021), hyper education. why good schools, good grades, and good behavior are not enough, by louie giray and jelomil edem. according to them, the author of the book under review shows how asian american parents make their children improve academically through hyper education, referring to the practice of extending education through privatized, extracurricular learning. andrey d. nazarov in the review of bennett e., berndt g. m., esders st., sarti l., (eds.). (2021), early medieval militarisation, observes how the authors convincingly demonstrate the impact of warfare on the various spheres of social and political life. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 945–964 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.211 article dreams in the bible and in modern english discourse: a shift in perspective alexandra yu. smirnova ali lounici university of blida 2, el affroun, algeria igor v. tolochin saint petersburg state university, russia abstract this paper investigates the linguistic aspect of the phenomenon of secularisation, using as example the english word “dream.” comparative analysis of the linguistic structure of the dream narratives in the bible and in modern english texts allowed us to discern two major secularisation trends—humanizing the divine and mystifying the human. in the bible, entering into contact with the divine while asleep is always evaluated ambivalently: one is fascinated by the great favour and fears for one’s life. in modern religious discourse, the growing number of dream narratives manifest the positive evaluation of the contact with the divine as comforting. the second tendency consists in the transfer of transcendental experiences from the religious sphere into the sphere of narratives describing human mind and emotions. here, the ambivalent experience springs up from the mysterious depths of the subconscious. at the lexical level, both tendencies result in new senses of the word “dream” as well as in important changes in the narrative structure of texts relating dream experiences. in the end, we provide a dictionary entry for the english noun “dream”. keywords dream narratives, the bible, religious discourse, secularisation, lexicography received 15 may 2022 © alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin accepted 10 december 2022 sandy.86@inbox.ru published online 30 december 2022 itfipe@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 946 alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin introduction the mysterious phenomenon of dreaming has always fascinated human beings giving rise to numerous popular beliefs. many ancient cultures regarded dreams as a means of contact with supernatural powers (beskova, 2005; bulkeley, 2008; szpakowska, 2001). dream narratives play an important role in holy texts belonging to different religious traditions. according to bulkeley, this fact suggests that dreaming might be “a primal wellspring of religious experience” (bulkeley, 2008, p. 6). therefore, by studying contexts in which the noun “dream” occurs regularly in a variety of text genres, we may get an important insight into human nature with its aspirations for spiritual growth and access to transcendental experiences, as well as into cultural phenomena reflected in the process of dream interpretation. this article presents a comparative study of dream narratives in the bible and in modern english texts. we focus our attention on the meaning of the noun “dream” as it can be reconstructed from its context. our approach to word meaning is grounded in the semiotic tradition laid down by l. wittgenstein (1953/1986). it is based on the understanding of word meaning as its potential to be used in the language in a specific way. this general prinicple has been substantiated by modern corpus linguistics, which we will discuss below. by comparing the linguistic structure of the narratives describing experiences referred to as dreams, we can trace important contextual shifts for the english word “dream” that have taken place in contemporary english speaking world. we shall argue that these shifts are indicative of the growing processes of secularisation in modern religious discourse. they also reveal gradual transfer of transcendental experiences into the secular sphere of narratives concerning human psyche. at the end of this paper, we provide a dictionary entry for the word “dream” that represents the description of the typical contextual patterns for this word in different speech genres. secularisation: decline vs. transformation the term secularisation was introduced by the german sociologist max weber (1905/2001) to describe the process of religious decline in the era of industrialisation and science. according to weber’s predictions, religion was doomed to disappear in the modern world giving way to rational scientific thinking. the idea of secularisation as decline in religious beliefs has been further developed by many prominent sociologists (baar, 2021; bruce, 2002; ertit, 2018; haynes, 1997; riesebrodt, 2014; wilson, 1966). jeff haynes (1997), for example, defines secularisation as “a trend whereby societies gradually move away from being focused around the sacred and a concern with the divine, leading to a diminution of religious power and authority” (p. 713). for steve bruce (2002), this term means “a decline in the extent to which people engage in religious practices […] and conduct other aspects of their lives in a manner informed by beliefs” (p. 3). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 945–964 947 our post-modern era, however, has seen the resurgence of different religious movements (riesebrodt, 2014), as well as a new tendency to embrace atheistic spirituality as a deep wonderment at the awesome universe which “will always remain at least partly opaque to understanding” (shapiro, 2018, p. 199; see also coleman et al., 2013). industrialisation and modernisation, therefore, have not brought with them the predicted decline, but rather engendered new forms of experiencing transcendence. in our opinion, this fact suggests that the secularisation thesis as it was forwarded by weber and his followers should be reconsidered in favour of a more flexible approach. this understanding of secularisation as decline was contested long ago by david martin who insisted that secularisation was not “necessarily antireligious”, but rather presented “christian attempts to come to terms with the advent of the supremacy of science and reason” (as cited in künkler, 2019, p. 906). this approach is radically different as it presupposes that secularisation has been taking place within the system of religious beliefs and practices themselves as a means of adaptation to new social conditions. as such, it leads to the gradual transformation of traditional religious beliefs, rather than their decline and disappearance. for example, martin (2014) considers pentecostalism—an influential current in modern christianity, whose members speak in tongues and believe in miracles—an example of these “alternative modes of secularisation and alternative modes of modernisation” (p. 2). today, martin’s views are supported by many scholars (arthur, 2006; casanova, 2007; islam, 2020; maciak, 2019; taylor, 2007; uggla, 2017). for didarul islam (2020), for example, secularisation is “a process of religious change [emphasis added] instead of hard separation between religion and politics” (p. 140) and “should be understood as establishment of ‘active freedom’ of religion” (p. 135). bengt uggla (2017), on the other hand, speaks about “internal christian secularisation” [emphasis added] that began in the reform movements of the late middle ages and “had consciously ‘made spiritual’ the worldly, as well as having brought religious life out of the monasteries into the secular world” (p. 59). writing about secularisation, jose casanova (2007) also refers to “diverse patterns of differentiation and fusion of the religious and the secular” (p. 104). in the post-modern era, when different forms of spirituality still flourish in social and private lives, it seems to be more appropriate to consider secularisation a multidirectional process of the transformation of religious beliefs and practices under the influence of modern humanistic values. this process opens up new possibilities to experience transcendence by erasing the limits between the sacred and the secular and creating new patterns of their interaction in different types of discourse. the process of secularisation has a significant impact at the level of linguistic structures. on the one hand, it creates new patterns of evaluation in the religious discourse, producing contextual shifts and, therefore, shifts in word meanings. on the other hand, older patterns of the verbal representation of transcendental experiences are transformed and transferred into non-religious genres. all this results in changes in the sense structure of certain words, as well as in the redistribution of the senses across different speech genres. https://changing-sp.com/ 948 alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin in this article, we are going to explore certain aspects of this process. as an example, we are using the case study of the english word “dream”. by comparing dream narratives in the english bible with modern dream accounts in the religious and secular discourse, we will be able to establish shifts that have taken place in the sense structure of this word over time. this, in turn, will help us to pin down the main directions of the secularisation process as it is reflected in the english language. theoretical framework and method with the advent of corpus linguistics, the idea that the meaning of a word is constructed through context rather than exists in isolation has been gaining in popularity (rundell, 2018; see also harris & hutton, 2007). vaclav brezina (2018), for example, suggests that “word meanings can best be investigated through the analysis of repeated linguistic patterns in corpora”. it means that word senses can be distinguished by establishing typical collocational patterns of the word in context. unfortunately, this important theoretical premise has not contributed much to the improvement of the quality of dictionary entries in practice. they still lack in systematicity and often provide controversial examples (for a more detailed discussion see smirnova, 2016a, 2021). this might be due to the lack of coherent methodology that allows to classify contextual patterns in a systematic way. a possible solution to this problem might be taking into account evaluation as the core constituent of verbal meaning (tolochin, 2014). the idea that the meaning of a sign results from the interaction of a living organism with its environment was initially introduced by thure von uexküll (1986). according to the author, meaning is determined by the needs of the organism that are projected onto the outer world, indicating possibility/impossibility of their satisfaction. jordan zlatev (2003) develops this idea further. for him, meaning as a relation between the organism and its environment is determined by the value of the environment for the organism. therefore, language as a sign system that conveys meaning represents a means of need satisfaction for human beings and is intrinsically evaluative in nature (tolochin, 2012, 2014). each word has its evaluative potential that is represented by the basic features of human experience associated with this particular linguistic form. it is evaluation that determines the way words function in texts, creating stable collocational patterns that refer to similar categories of experience (lukianova, 2004). by analysing the evaluative characteristics of lexical markers, i.e., lexical items that frequently co-occur with the given word in a particular type of context, we can distinguish stable evaluative patterns of the word usage that provide a reliable basis for sense distinction. also, the novelty of our method consists in the broad understanding of the term context. we believe that the function of the word is fully revealed only in the narrative as a structurally and functionally coherent unit and cannot be studied at the level of a single sentence. therefore, the elaboration of the word’s sense structure implies the classification of narratives that contain the word in question based on the type of problem these texts deal with. the word “dream” presents a very convenient object changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 945–964 949 of study in this respect because dream narratives are usually short and can be easily analyzed in their integrity. this approach has been successfully applied to a number of lexical items (smirnova, 2016a, 2016b, 2021; smirnova & tolochin, 2018; tkalich & tolochin, 2018; vlasova & tolochin, 2019). one of the main advantages of our method, as we shall try to demonstrate further in this paper, is that not only does it allow to create a systematic representation of the word’s sense structure, but it also reveals certain cultural phenomena as they are encoded in language. the linguistic sign as a vehicle of cultural information is sensitive to major shifts in value judgements. new evaluative patterns create new word senses, whereas the deconstruction of older evaluative patterns brings forth changes in the status of already existing ones. in the present study, we have analyzed all the contexts for the word “dream” in the king james version of the bible1 (112 tokens—89 nouns, 23 verbs), as well as 615 uses of the word “dream” in contemporary texts (540 nouns, 40 verbs, 35 adjectives)2. a 100 random sample containing 148 tokens was extracted from the corpus of contemporary american english3 (davies, 2008–); 141 additional texts containing 467 tokens were extracted in a more targeted way, using key words from different websites and forums, mainly trusting-in-jesus4 (a christian website that “does not promote the opinions or beliefs of any particular christian denomination”), dream forum5 and google books, a digital database of books and magazines. dreams in the bible dream narratives in the bible have been thoroughly studied by historians of religion, mainly in the context of source criticism as a means of dating the texts and establishing their authorship (gnuse, 2000; grossman, 2016; richter, 1963). it is generally agreed that such narratives function as a literary technique in the bible rather than factual accounts of real psychological experiences (ehrlich, 1953; husser, 1999; flannery-dailey, 2004). be that as it may, biblical dream reports offer an important insight into the significance of dreaming in the christian religious tradition. therefore, by studying the word “dream” in the bible we can discern major interpretative models which were embedded in the christian culture long ago and were traditionally used as scripts for text production in the english religious discourse. attempts have been made to create a classification of dream narratives in ancient religious texts. a widely accepted typology was proposed by leo oppenheim (1956). he divided such narratives into two groups: message dreams and symbolic 1 https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org 2 for reasons of space, we provide a dictionary entry only for the noun “dream”. however, most of the senses have a corresponding homonymous verb and adjective. 3 https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/ 4 https://www.trusting-in-jesus.com 5 https://dreamforum.net https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/ https://www.trusting-in-jesus.com https://dreamforum.net 950 alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin dreams. according to the author, message dreams are vocal communications from god containing direct instructions, whereas symbolic dreams represent sophisticated visual imagery that requires competent interpretation. this distinction was applied to the analysis of biblical dream accounts by robert gnuse (2000) and frances flannery-dailey (2004). flannery-dailey points out that there is only one dream that does not fit neatly into oppenheim’s categories—jacob’s dream of the ladder (king james bible, 1769/2017, gen. 28:10–18), for it is both vocal and visual. she attributes it to both categories. laura quick (2018), on the contrary, argues that it is a typical message dream. this is not the only problem with this classification, however. symbolic dreams also convey messages. pharaoh’s dreams (king james bible, 1769/2017, gen. 41), for example, that are considered symbolic “are a message [emphasis added] from god, informing him of events about to unfold” (grossman, 2016, p. 726). from the functional point of view, therefore, this classification seems tautological and does not work. the analysis of key lexical markers that accompany the word “dream” in the king james bible suggests that there exist three patterns of this word’s usage in the holy scripture. these patterns differ by their evaluative characteristics and, therefore, represent three different senses of the word “dream”. archetypal dreams the first contextual pattern (6 tokens—5 nouns, 1 verb—in 4 extracts) manifests itself in the following verses of the king james bible (1769/2017): abimelech’s dream (gen. 20:1–8), jacob’s dream about the ladder (gen. 28:10–18), laban’s dream (gen. 31:24, 29) and solomon’s dream (1 kings 3:5–15). all these narratives have two important features in common. first of all, the dreamer enters into direct contact with god: god came to abimelech in a dream by night (gen. 20:3); he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven […] the lord stood above it (gen. 28:12–13); god came to laban the syrian in a dream by night (gen. 31:24); the lord appeared to solomon in a dream by night (1 kings 3:5). second, entering into contact with god while asleep is perceived as an ambivalent experience. on the one hand, it raises fear for one’s life which is expressed in the text either through the words referencing extreme fear: the men were sore afraid (gen. 20:8); he was afraid, and said, how dreadful is this place! (gen. 28:17) or through the description of a ritual as an act of propitiation: jacob […] took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it (gen. 28:18); solomon […] stood before the ark of the covenant of the lord, and offered up burnt offerings, and offered peace offerings, and made a feast to all his servants (1 kings 3:15). on the other hand, god’s appearance in a dream is a sign of great favour to the dreamer: i know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for i also withheld thee from sinning against me (gen. 20:6); in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed (gen. 28:14); god said, ask what i shall give thee (1 kings 3:5). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 945–964 951 only laban’s dream does not contain any explicit lexical markers indicating ambivalence. however, it can be deduced from the way the events unfold that the dream must have been a powerful experience for laban. (a) it is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the god of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, take thou heed that thou speak not to jacob either good or bad. (king james bible, 1769/2017, gen. 31:29) the god that communicates to laban is not his god, but belongs to another religious tradition—that of jacob’s father (a). nevertheless, laban refrains from vengeance and lets jacob go with his daughters and the cattle definitely fearing for his life if he does not respect the warning. the evaluative pattern present in these extracts corresponds to the category of word senses that we defined in our previous articles as the archetype 6: “a separate word sense common to words with an ambivalent integral category that manifests itself in texts describing irresolvable psychological conflicts related to the experience of interaction with inconceivable supernatural forces” (smirnova & tolochin, 2018, p. 160; see also smirnova, 2021). this type of word sense represents the legacy of the primordial human mind with its low levels of analyticity and non-differentiation of certain contexts. the world of dream was perceived by the ancients as another mode of reality. dreaming in this respect was regarded as a borderline experience that allowed entering into contact with the supernatural forces (bulkeley, 2008). as we can see, this ancient narrative pattern found its way to the bible where the word “dream” in a number of cases is used to describe a means of direct contact with god while asleep, which is simultaneously desirable and terrifying for the dreamer. it must be no coincidence that the archetypal “dream” appears only in the oldest books of the bible. prophetic dreams the second contextual pattern (96 tokens—77 nouns, 19 verbs—in 24 extracts) manifests itself in jacob’s dream (king james bible, 1769/2017, gen. 31:10–11), joseph’s dreams (gen. 37:5–11; 42:8–9), the butler and baker’s dream (gen. 40:5–11), pharaoh’s dreams (gen. 41), the dream of gideon’s victory (judg. 7:13–15), nebuchadnezzar’s dreams (dan. 2:1–9, 26–47; 4:4–9, 19), daniel’s dream (dan. 7:1–28), joseph’s dreams (matt. 1:19–20; 2:12–14; 2:19–22), the dream of pilate’s wife (matt. 27:19–24), as well as general mentions of dreams (num. 12:5–8; deut. 13:1–1; 1 sam. 1:28–6; job 7:13–14; 33:14-20; dan. 1:17; 5:12; joel 3:28–31; jer. 23:25–32; zech. 10:2; acts 2:16–17). in these contexts the word “dream” stands for a mediated message from god received while asleep and containing specific instructions. the message might 6 for a detailed discussion of this term and its relation to analytical psychology developed by c. g. jung and his followers see smirnova & tolochin, 2018. https://changing-sp.com/ 952 alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin be visual (gen. 40:5–11), vocal (matt. 2:12), or both (matt. 1:20). what is important is the absence of direct contact with god, which results in a less intense experience than the archetypal “dream”. (b) and the king said unto them, i have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream (dan. 2:3). then the king nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him. (king james bible, 1769/2017, dan. 2:46) such dream narratives are often introduced by the verbal sequence i dreamed a dream (b), in contrast to god came/appeared to […] in a dream in the archetypal contexts. the divine source of this experience is not explicitly mentioned in the beginning and is revealed in the process of interpretation by the elligible person. fear for one’s life gives way to confusion at the impossibility of making sense of the experience: compare my spirit was troubled (b) vs. sore afraid (gen. 20:8) or dreadful (gen. 28:17). the ritualized behaviour—worshipped, offer an oblation and sweet odours (b)—is directed at the interpreter of the dream who solves the king’s problem. therefore, it is not indicative of the ambivalent transcendental feeling of contact with the divine, but rather parallels the mundane sense of the word “awe” as high esteem and fear of the supreme authority (smirnova, 2021). all the supernatural dreams in the bible fall into two major categories (archetypal vs. prophetic) based on the type of contact with god (direct vs. mediated), which creates a specific evaluative pattern (intense transcendental ambivalence vs. moderate mundane ambivalence). secular dreams the last type of context for the word “dream” (10 tokens—7 nouns, 3 verbs—in 7 extracts) is represented in the following verses: ps. 73:16–20, ps. 126:1–3, job 20:4–8, eccles. 5:2–3, eccles.5:5–7, isa. 29:7–8, jer. 29:8–9 (king james bible, 1769/2017). we call these dreams secular because the source of the experience defined by the word “dream” in these contexts is not supernatural. in the bible, these are mostly general mentions of dreams in a simile. (c) that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment […] he shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night. (king james bible, 1769/2017, job 20:5, 8) here, the word “dream” stands for a fleeting illusory moment, a deceptive image produced by one’s imagination. in the bible, this type of dream is considered negative as a symbol of self-deception and is opposed to both types of supernatural dreams that are regarded as a source of truthful knowledge. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/daniel-2-3/ https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/daniel-2-3/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 945–964 953 dreams in modern english culture and language according to russian psychologists d. g. trunov and m. a. vodenikova (2012), the process of dream interpretation in modern culture is conducted within one of the three major contextual frameworks: metaphysical, scientific, and psychological. in the scientific model, the word “dream” is used as a term to define specific type of brain activity while asleep. it is not normally used by lay people in this sense with respect to their own personal experiences, therefore, we are not going to discuss this model here. the metaphysical model of dream interpretation goes back to ancient religious practices. within this framework, dreams are considered a means of communication with transcendental powers. the psychological model of dream interpretation, on the other hand, is rooted in various psychoanalytic practices that regard dreams as purely psychic entities revealing information about the unconscious mind of the dreamer. in this article we are going to adopt the same distinction, however, using slightly different terms. metaphysics is usually defined as “the study of what is outside objective experience” (merriam-webster, n.d.). this term is too general, in our opinion, and may englobe certain types of experience that are transcendental and, therefore, incomprehensible and mysterious without, at the same time, being attributed to an otherworldly source (see, for example, the discussion of atheistic spirituality in shapiro, 2018). the word “psychological”, on the other hand, is too narrow and might misleadingly create an impression that this model of dream interpretation is relevant only to the psychological and psychoanalytical discourse, whereas it can be found in the religious texts as well. taking into account these considerations, we suggest distinguishing between the supernatural and the symbolic interpretative models. the word “supernatural” reflects more precisely the origin of the experience, which in this model results from the interaction with the otherworldly supernatural powers. as for the word “symbolic”, it underlines the fact that whinin this model elements of the dream are considered to be symbols created by the psyche. it should be kept in mind that these models do not correspond exactly to a particular type of discourse. nowadays, the supernatural model of interpretation is still widely present in religious texts, whereas symbolic interpretative model is more common in secular speech genres. both of them can be found in fiction. this distinction in the overall attitude to dream interpretation leads to significantly different evaluative patterns established by the word “dream” in these two types of interpretive models. therefore, we suggest considering this functional difference a basis for differentiation between two main senses of the word “dream”. the word ‘‘dream’’ in the supernatural interpretative model. sense 1 and its derivatives as already mentioned, dreams are often interpreted in modern religious texts as transcendental experiences of entering into contact with the supernatural. four typical evaluative patterns can be distinguished within this major interpretative https://changing-sp.com/ 954 alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin framework. they are determined by two factors: the nature of contact (direct vs. mediated) and the general disposition of the force in question towards human beings (benevolent vs. malevolent). archetypal dreams (sense 1) (d) i’ve had dreams where i encounter god. the dreams never are the same. all encounters serve different functions. in one dream god appears as a bright light, like entering the surface of the sun. he is unapproachable, only witnessed from a distance. in the dream i have a strong desire to draw closer, but there is also fear, and awe. in the end i simply collapse and declare that i am not worthy. (what happens, n.d.) we have already discussed archetypal dreams in the bible. in example (d), we find the same contextual pattern: direct encounter with the supernatural agent7 triggers intense ambivalent emotional reaction. “a strong desire to draw closer” is counterbalanced by “unapproachability” and “fear”. the divine power is perceived as both beneficial (at a certain distance) and destructive (if the safe distance is violated). this transcendental experience is so intense that it is almost unbearable for the dreamer (“i simply collapse”). as we can see, the ancient archetypal model has survived throughout the centuries. the evaluative potential of the word “dream” manifests itself to the full extent here. therefore, we suggest considering this type of use the first main sense of the word in question (31 tokens—26 nouns, 5 verbs, 0 adjectives—in 16 texts8). comforting supernatural dreams (sense 1a) (e) i had the following dream about god […] i was praying for guidance [...] the next morning i had this dream that god and i were sitting on a spot under a familiar tree [...] he was sitting closest to the tree, in a kneeling position wearing a white robe. i was sitting right next to him […] i could feel the warmth of the sunlight softly kissing my skin. i’ve never felt so peaceful, calm, and joyful and happy! god was busy telling me what i should write down, while making jokes and giggling in between […] i have never had any dream like this where god was present and talking to me, let alone the calm and happiness within me in my dream. i’m not sure what this means for me or what message i need to understand, but i know that god heard my prayers, and this was his way of getting close to me. (dreams about god, n.d.) 7 the supernatural agent in the christian tradition is mostly represented by god, jesus or an angel. the words “god”, “jesus”, and “angel” are ambivalent in the bible. therefore, they are still used in modern religious discourse as key elements of narratives that describe ambivalent archetypal experiences (for the detailed discussion of the word “angel” and its use in the bible and in modern english discourse, see smirnova & tolochin, 2018). 8 certain texts feature several different senses of the word “dream”. therefore, the total number of texts (241) is slightly inferiour to the sum of the texts mentioned for each particular sense (251). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 945–964 955 (f) i have been having dreams of the end times in the same sequence every night [...] in the dreams, i feel as if i must be hush hush, but an angel did come to me back when i was 19 when i was not doing so well. i was told, «be ready we are coming back for you and your family» and to «be ready when the times come»; this angel took the form of my friend’s voice so i would not be alarmed [...]. (prophetic dreams and visions, n.d.) here again, the dream is perceived as a means of entering into direct contact with the supernatural agent. in (e), the dreamer “prays for guidance” and god answers by coming to him/ her in the dream—“this was his way of getting close to me”. in (f), the dreamer receives angelic visitations—“an angel did come to me back”. the emotional reaction to the encounter with the supernatural force is radically different, however. god is represented as a fatherly figure (sitting next to the dreamer “under a familiar tree”, “wearing a white robe”, “making jokes and giggling”) that emanates peace and joy; whereas the angel takes the form of a friend’s voice. the experience is very intense—“i’ve never felt so peaceful, calm, and joyful and happy!”—but, instead of disturbing the dreamer, it provides a sense of comfort and security. this usage pattern has not been found in the bible. in contrast, it is much more frequent in modern religious texts than the ambivalent archetypal dream a. this tendency of representing the divine as humane, approachable, and easily comprehensible (god as loving and caring father, angel as a protective friend) might be one of the directions that secularisation processes take in modern english speaking world. we consider this type of use a metonymical extension of sense 1 for the reason that only positive aspects of the evaluative potential of the word “dream” reveal themselves in this type of context (44 tokens—40 nouns, 4 verbs, 0 adjectives—in 22 texts). dreams as demon attacks (sense 1b) (g) false dreams are sent to create fear and distrust. dreams of losing a job or of your spouse kissing your boss could be sent from the enemy. dreams are an effective way for unclean spirits to get into your head […] here are some ways to identify the interaction of demons in your environment, and indicators of false dreams created by demons. this is not about false dreams of the mind. we are talking about supernatural dreams sent by demons [...] (avila, 2013, p. 1) the direct contact with the supernatural (dream as an “effective way for unclean spirits to get into your head”) is described here in purely negative terms. it creates “fear”, “distrust” and is “sent from the enemy”. dreaming is perceived as a vulnerable state of mind that subjects one to demon attacks. interestingly, the author attributes seemingly ordinary dreams (dreams of losing a job, for example) to this category and not only those that are typically regarded as nightmares. the distinction is https://changing-sp.com/ 956 alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin not based solely on the dream contents (these are not dreams about demons), but rather on their function—evil interference in human psyche. we consider this type of usage another metonymical extension (sense 1b) where the word “dream” reveals only negative aspects of human experience (80 tokens—70 nouns, 1 verb, 9 adjectives—in 28 texts). prophetic dreams (sense 1c) (h) i had a vision dream. jesus showed me a barren land. jesus showed me a land that was sprouting with green plants. the message communicated, and i had an understanding of the dream: disease, famine, war, and death is on its way, but those who have a higher purpose in their life […] will be saved. (prophetic dreams and visions, n.d.) in example (h), there is no direct contact with the divine. the dream is perceived as a mediated message from god (here, from jesus—“jesus showed me”) that requires interpretation. as we remember, in the bible the interpretation of such dreams is always made by the elligible person (a prophet). here, the meaning of the dream is communicated directly to the dreamer (“i had an understanding of the dream”). this important difference in the narrative structure might also be rooted in the secularisation tendency. the divine is perceived to be more accessible to ordinary people. prophetic dreams as messages from god may retain a certain ambivalence. it is less intense, however, which allows us to conclude that this type of usage represents another evaluative pattern. we consider it sense 1c (207 tokens—186 nouns, 13 verbs, 8 adjectives—in 51 texts). the word ‘‘dream’’ in the symbolic interpretative model. sense 2 and its derivatives in the secular symbolic framework, dreams are regarded as products of human psyche. therefore, they are either dismissed as insignificant or interpreted as revealing the hidden potential of the human subconscious. sense 2 (i) oh! it was a dream. darn it. i, uh, had a great time. (coca, 2000, mov 102 dalmatians) (j) thank god! thank, god! it was just a dream! it’s just a dream! what’s going on? a nightmare, but it was so real... so, so vivid. (coca, 2014, mov a bit of bad luck) (k) in the dream i am standing on the rim of a volcano crater and i can see… some kind of writing but i can’t read it however i sense that the firey light changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 945–964 957 cast by the volcano when it erupts is going to illuminate the letters/words. in the dream the volcano is about to erupt... now all day i have been feeling quite weird. is this […] a message from my unconscious/higher self […]? (dream forum, n.d.) in examples (i)–(k), the word “dream” is used to refer to an uncontrollable imaginary experience one has while asleep. it produces a strong emotinal impact on the dreamer, which is either positive (“i had a great time” [i]) or negative (“thank, god! it was just a dream!” [j]). in most cases, dream narratives of this type can be easily attributed to one of the two evaluative categories (positive or negative). we suggest calling this phenomenon the split ambivalence: the ambivalent evaluative potential of the word reveals its different aspects in different texts alternating between positive and negative evaluative patterns within the scope of one word sense (93 tokens—87 nouns, 3 verbs, 3 adjectivess—in 53 texts). we have found, however, a few examples of ambivalent secular dream narratives. in (k), the dreamer faces a mighty natural phenomenon—a volcano eruption. in the bible, such natural phenomena are always associated with god’s power; they terrify and fascinate. in this text, however, there are no religious attributes. the writing on the rim of the volcano might evoke the writing on the wall (king james bible, 1769/2017, dan. 5:25); but the dreamer makes no explicit connection to the bible text. the dream itself is interpreted within the symbolic framework as a “message from my unconscious/higher self”. cases of secular ambivalent dreams are rare (30 tokens—30 nouns, 0 verbs, 0 adjectives—in 6 texts). therefore, we do not consider this type of usage a separate sense of the word “dream”. nevertheless, these are interesting examples because they might mark another secularisation tendency: a shift of ambivalent transcendental experience from the religious to the secular discourse. here, the transcendental experience is not rooted in the contact with the divine, but springs up from the depths of the human subconscious mind. intuitive dreams (sense 2a) (l) this dream can also be prophetic.—it may be that in your dream state you are putting together clues of the infidelity that may have slipped by your conscious mind. your partner may indeed be cheating. (coca iweb, n.d., marriage dream meaning and interpretations) another secularisation tendency manifests itself in what we call intuitive dreams. such dreams reveal important information about the present or the future and are often called “prophetic” (i). in contrast to the supernatural framework, this revelatory experience is attributed to the mysterious functioning of the subconscious mind (“you are putting together clues […] that may have slipped by your conscious mind”) and not to the supernatural interference. this type of dream narrative might have originated https://changing-sp.com/ 958 alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin under the influence of scientific theories of dream interpretation as an attempt to reconcile the spiritual and the material approaches (70 tokens—59 nouns, 10 verbs, 1 adjective—in 27 texts). social dreams (sense 2b) (m) lorena came to the u.s. at the age of 18 to fulfill a dream. (coca, 1993, spok abc_20/20) example (m) provides a metonymical extension of the word “dream” in the social sphere. here, it is not related to the experience one has while asleep, but rather designates a highly desired goal to be attained. the meaning shifts, therefore, from the pleasant uncontrollable state (sense 2 positive) to the consciously defined desirable goal (60 tokens—42 nouns, 4 verbs, 14 ajectives—in 48 texts). discussion the comparative analysis of dream narratives in the bible and in english allows us to discern two major secularisation trends in how members of the english speaking world use this word in discourse—humanizing the divine and mystifying the human. they are produced by changes in the value of one of the following variables in the context—source (supernatural vs. subconscious) and evaluation (ambivalent vs. positive/negative). as we have seen, dreams in the bible, when not divinely inspired, are perceived to be worthless and illusory; such contexts are less frequent than the contexts in which dreams convey an archetypal or a prophetic experience. modern contexts demonstrate significant changes in the structure of the senses and their relative frequency. humanizing the divine (supernatural positive). in such contexts, the source of the experience is supernatural—dreaming is regarded as a means of entering into contact with the divine. the nature of this contact, however, is evaluated positively as peaceful and comforting. this shift in evaluation might have been caused by the necessity for the religious discourse to adapt to the humanistic values of modern society. as a result, the divine is perceived to be more humane and approachable by ordinary people (god as a loving father, angel as a protective friend). at the lexical level, this tendency can be traced through the metonymical shift (ambivalent → positive) which results in a new sense of the word “dream” in the supernatural interpretative model (2a). it also manifests itself in the new narrative structure for prophetic dreams—the interpretation is given directly to the dreamer without recourse to the elligible interpreter. mystifying the human (subconscious ambivalent). this tendency is marked by the transfer of transcendental experiences from the religious discourse into texts that deal with human mind and emotions. in such contexts, transcendental experiences are no longer perceived as resulting from the contact with the divine, but rather as revealing changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 945–964 959 the unfathomable potential of the human subconscious mind. the dreamer is terrified and fascinated by the emotional power that their subconscious mind wields. however, secular ambivalent dreams are scarce in our sample. therefore, we do not consider such cases as representing a separate sense of the word “dream”. this pattern of word usage needs further investigation. the overall tendency to mystify the human mind also manifests itself in the shift from prophetic to intuitive dreams. the fact that certain dreams reveal important information about the present or the future is no longer regarded as the result of the divine communication. such dreams are attributed to the mysterious capacity of the human mind to process information subconsciously. this shift might have occurred under the influence of the scientific reasoning which tries to explain different mysterious phenomena without recourse to the supernatural. we have also observed that in modern contexts dreams are not treated as worthless experiences that are self-deceptive because they are not divinely inspired, the usage which we have idnetified in the bible. this study opens up new possibilities for further research. first of all, modern religious discourse should be further studied in order to discern new linguistic patterns that underlie the secularisation process affecting how different languages construct contexts addressing the relation to the divine. the scope of the lexical items in the english language that are undergoing shifts in their meanings is to be established. second, the phenomenon of the secularisation of the archetypal experience, consisiting in its transfer from the supernatural realm to the natural sphere of narratives about the human mind and emotions, is to be studied further. it should be clarified what speech genres are typical for such narratives and what linguistic mechanisms underlie this transfer. conclusion the study of typical collocational patterns for the word “dream” has revealed a number of important contextual shifts that have been taking place in modern english speaking world under the influence of humanistic values and scientific thinking. these shifts are indicative of two major secularisation trends—the humanisation of the religious discourse and the transfer of the typically religious transcendental experience into the secular sphere of narratives concerning human psyche. it is important to underline that religious discourse is still alive and flourishing in modern english culture. therefore, speaking of secularisation, it is more productive to consider this process as a transformation, rather than extinction, which manifests itself in the mutual penetration of the religious and the secular. “humanising the divine” and “mystifying the human” are two distinct vectors of influence that religious and non-religious types of discourse exert on one another. these findings demonstrate that the study of linguistic phenomena may shed new light on different social processes as they are encoded in language. secularisation manifests itself not only at the macro level of the narrative structure, but goes deeper into the semantic level of word senses. therefore, a further study of this process, using linguistic tools of analysis seems promising. https://changing-sp.com/ 960 alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin references arthur, j. 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(n.d.). quora. https://www.quora. com/what-happens-if-we-see-god-in-our-dreams zlatev, j. (2003). meaning = life (+ culture): an outline of a unified biological theory of meaning. evolution of communication, 4(2), 253–296. https://doi.org/10.1075/ eoc.4.2.07zla https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu09.2019.405 https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu09.2019.405 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315063645 https://www.quora.com/what-happens-if-we-see-god-in-our-dreams https://www.quora.com/what-happens-if-we-see-god-in-our-dreams https://doi.org/10.1075/eoc.4.2.07zla https://doi.org/10.1075/eoc.4.2.07zla 964 alexandra yu. smirnova, igor v. tolochin appendix sense structure of the noun ‘’dream’’ in modern english dream 1 (archetypal): entering into direct contact with the divine while asleep which fills one simultaneously with the sense of overwhelming joy and terror; 1a (positive): a comforting encounter with the divine while aslee producing a sense of peace and total tranquillity; 1b (negative): a vulnerable state of mind occurring while asleep that subjects one to the evil supernatural presence; 1c (prophetic): a divine message with specific instructions received while being asleep; dream 2 (secular): an imaginary experience one has while asleep and over which one has no control; it captivates the senses and produces a strong emotional impact; 2a (intuitive): an imaginary experience one has while asleep revealing something important about real life; 2b (social): a highly desired goal requiring a lot of effort to achieve it. changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 213–223 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.226 research note alfred adler’s individual psychology in light of classical persian literature fayruza s. ismagilova tashkent state pedagogical university named after nizami, tashkent, uzbekistan nazyar khamenehei ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract this paper aims to present a tentative analysis of the possible commonalities and differences between adlerian individual psychology and classical persian literary texts of the pre-modern period written by mystics abu saeed abu al-khair, jami, saadi, and rumi. the authors put forward the suggestion that modern psychological approaches, especially those dealing with education of children, might be rooted in the teachings of iranian mystics. in mysticism and classical iranian literature, like in adlerian psychology, much attention is given to human nature in its entirety and personality development. the analysis focuses on such core aspects of adler’s theory as the feeling of inferiority and the striving for recognition, the influence of family and social environment on personality development and lifestyle. it is shown that, like adler’s individual psychology, classical persian texts stress the importance of the social aspect in the child’s development but while adler believed in the freedom of choice and people’s creative power to change their personality structure (lifestyle), the classical iranian authors emphasized the existence of a certain “true nature” that cannot be influenced by education or social environment. these findings can inspire future research into the possible connections between the holistic personality theories in modern psychology and the philosophical thought in classical persian literature. received 25 july 2022 © fayruza s. ismagilova, nazyar khamenehei accepted 18 march 2023 ismagilova.f@gmail.com published online 10 april 2023 nazyrkh@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:ismagilova.f@gmail.com mailto:nazyrkh@gmail.com 214 fayruza s. ismagilova, nazyar khamenehei introduction in this study, we explore the teachings of iranian mystics, in particular the texts that deal with personality development and upbringing of children, in light of individual psychology of the austrian psychotherapist alfred adler. methodologically, the study relies on the descriptive-analytical framework applied to examine the anthropological foundations in adler’s theory (e.g., described in his seminal work understanding human nature, 1927) and compare his ideas and concepts with those discussed in classical iranian literature, more specifically, in the writings by abu saeed abu al-khair, jami, saadi, and rumi. since, according to adler, the most important period of the child’s development is before the age of six or seven (adler, 1927/2000), we selected the poems and anecdotes of these authors that focused on the same age range. alfred adler was among the first to develop a holistic approach to human personality, and his methods of psychotherapy were inextricably connected to a humanistic philosophy of living. despite the widely criticized drawbacks of adlerian theory such as the lack of empirical evidence, we cannot deny the fact that his work pioneered attention to mental health, community life, and prevention of mental illnesses, “bringing people together with its emphasis on the healing power of connection” (mccluskey, 2022). moreover, adler’s work offered some valuable insights into the reasons behind people’s discouragement in life, the feelings of inferiority and disconnection. his theory sheds light on how a child may form what he referred to as a “mistaken” lifestyle because of abuse and neglect and poor family guidance they face (mccluskey, 2022). like adler, classical iranian authors offer a holistic understanding of moral and spiritual growth and personality development. persian literature is a treasure of narratives seeking to engage their readers with a variety of ethical and philosophical questions such as destiny and human effort, the objectives of human life, guilt, virtue, justice, striving for perfection, and so on. in a condensed, sometimes allegoric form, these didactic tales, anecdotes, and poems convey the most important concepts of persian moral thought. this paper is structured as follows. in the following section the general theoretical background is outlined, providing the overview of adler’s individual psychology and the writings of pre-modern persian mystics. the results and discussion section analyzes specific examples of their texts and draws parallels with the key principles and concepts of adlerian psychology. the conclusion section summarizes our findings and highlights avenues for further research. keywords adlerian psychology, mysticism, alfred adler, childhood, education, individual psychology, lifestyle changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 213–223 215 theoretical background in adler’s view, each person is a unique, indivisible, and complete entity endowed with a creative power to shape their own destiny (hashemlou, 2017). adler’s concept of human nature does not portray individuals as victims of instincts and conflicts, doomed to serve as a playground of biological forces and childhood experiences (schultz, 2012). adler’s approach is based on a social perspective on human nature: in his opinion, a person’s fundamental motivation is social in character and stems from a strong desire to be part of human society. in other words, human behavior is developed within a certain social context, which should be taken into account in psychotherapy. since the basic desire of every person is to belong, people can fulfil themselves and become significant only within a social context. in adlerian philosophy, a person is seen primarily as a being having the capacity for cooperation and collaboration as well as the ability for self-improvement, growth, self-realization, and meaningful participation in social life. adler used the concept of “social interest” or “community feeling” (gemeinschaftsgefühl) to denote a complex process involving empathy and cognitive processes: it is a developmental process which starts when a person first needs “the aptitude for social living and cooperation with others”, after a while this aptitude evolves into the person’s ability to “comprehend and show empathy for others”, and, finally, it turns into a “subjective, evaluative attitude determining choices and the interactions the person has with others” (ansbacher, 1991). the development of social interest is the ultimate expression of striving for superiority (carducci, 2009). lifestyle or style of life (lebensstil) is another important concept in adlerian psychology. it refers to a collection of convictions, beliefs, and behavioral patterns that a person develops in their childhood and uses to navigate their further life. in adlerian psychology, a person’s lifestyle is expected to be formed by the age of six or seven— lifestyle is constructed depending on the person’s social interactions, the order of birth in the family, and the nature of the parent–child relationship (schultz, 2012). the key factor in the formation of a lifestyle is the child’s early interactions within their initial social environment (parents, siblings, and other family members). adler identified four basic types: the social useful type, the ruling type, the getting type, and the avoiding type lifestyles (adler, 1929). in this classification scheme, only the social useful type is a constructive type, the other three types are destructive (ryckman, 2004). the avoiding type, for example, lacks the confidence for solving problems and thus, instead of dealing with the problem, prefers to sidestep, avoiding defeat (ryckman, 2004). the conflict between a person’s lifestyle and reality leads to abnormal, self-defeating behavior that manifests itself in the form of neurosis and psychosis. adler was among the first to put forward the idea that the birth order has a significant impact on the formation of a given person’s lifestyle. he believed that it correlates with positive or negative life outcomes (eckstein et al., 2010). adler explained that, of course, it is not the child’s number in the order of successive births which influences the character, but the situation, into which the child is born and the https://changing-sp.com/ 216 fayruza s. ismagilova, nazyar khamenehei way of its interpretation (adler, 1929/2006). this means that adlerians are not so much interested in the ordinal birth position but in psychological birth order or the role which the child adopts in their interactions with others (eckstein et al., 2010). in adlerian psychology, all human behavior is goal-orientated and motivated by striving for superiority. individuals may differ in their goals and in the ways of achieving them. striving for superiority is the natural human desire to move from a perceived negative position to a perceived positive one (watts, 2012). it stems from the feelings of inferiority (minderwertigkeitsgefühl) or the feelings of disempowerment and insignificance that the child experiences, because at the beginning of every psychological life there is a more or less deep inferiority feeling (ansbacher & ansbacher, 1956). a natural and healthy reaction to inferiority is compensation, that is, efforts to overcome real or imaged inferiority by developing one’s own abilities. unlike the normal feelings of inferiority, however, inferiority complexes result from a person being unable to compensate for their inferiority. thus, an inferiority complex tends to paralyze people instead of motivating them to seek self-improvement. the overarching goal of adlerian psychotherapy is, therefore, to help the patient develop healthy ways of overcoming their feelings of inferiority through what adlerians call “encouragement” or the therapeutic modeling of social interest (hoffman, 2022; watts, 2012). texts written by iranian mystics place much emphasis on the cultivation of moral virtues, philosophical and religious values, the perfection of beauty and knowledge. these authors attached great importance to literature’s function as a medium of education and enlightenment (sarfi & esfandiari, 2012). the genre of educational poetry is a perfect illustration of the belief that the poet’s main goal should be to teach wisdom and ethics as well as to dissect and explain religious issues and ideas, philosophical and educational themes (yalameha, 2011). mystical literature includes a diversity of forms and genres, both in prose and poetry. a large part of persian literature deals with sufism, mysticism, and the basics of conduct. the emergence and evolution of mystical literature coincided with the rule of the ghaznavid, seljuk, and mongol turks in iran. the verses attributed to abu saeed abu al-khair, which are mostly quatrains, the poems of khwaja abdullah ansari (1006–1088) and the couplets of baba tahir (947–1032) are among the most famous sufi and mystical poems of the 11th century, which are in fact the introduction to the great mystical poems of sana’i ghaznavi (1080–1141) of the 12th century and the following works. in the 12th century, sana’i mixed mysticism and sufism with persian poetry, brought about a great transformation, and the mystical poetry literature was officially founded. fariduddin abu hamid mohammad attar neishabouri (1146–1221), a famous mystic and poet, continued this tradition, and in the 13th century, mystical literature reached its perfection and glory in the poetry of rumi and other authors. in the 13th century, ibn arabi (1165–1240) combined mysticism and enlightenment wisdom to impart a scientific attitude and gave sufism and mysticism an aspect and reasoning. in the 14th century, systematic scientific sufism was taught; sufism and shi’ism became close to each other, and found their perfect embodiment in the writings of hafez shirazi (1326–1389) (sajjadi, 1997). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 213–223 217 in mystical literature, there is a distinct type of poetry that is of special relevance to this study: it is didactic poetry (or educational poems). while lyrical poems are intended primarily to express the poet’s feelings and emotions, didactic poems were created for the purpose of education (shafii kadkani, 2007), these texts could be used to teach disciples and people who were attracted to sufi teachings. the great iranian reformers and mystics included in this analysis are abu sa’id fazlullah ibn abu al-khair ahmad ibn muhammad ibn ibrahim known as “sheikh abu saeed abu al-khair” (967–1049), sage abu muhammad elias ibn yusuf ibn zaki ibn muayyid “nizami” (1141–1209), musharraf al-din mosleh ibn abdullah shirazi alias “saadi” (1209–1291), maulana jalaluddin mohammad balkhi known as “rumi” (1207– 1273), nooruddin abdul rahman ibn nizamuddin ahmad ibn mohammad alias “jami” (1414–1492) (sarfi & esfandiari, 2011). results and discussion in our analysis, we are going to concentrate on the following three ideas in adler’s writings that most resonate with moral and educational philosophy found in classical persian literary texts: (a) the feeling of inferiority and the striving for recognition; (b) the influence of the social environment on the child’s early development; (c) the origin of human personality, parental influence and the influence of education. let us now look at each of these aspects in greater detail. the feeling of inferiority and the striving for recognition in the story about the childhood of sheikh abu saeed abu al-khair (967–1049), we find the following: one night babu abu al-khair went to their dervishes at their invitation, and the sheikh’s mother begged him to take abu saeed with him so that the opinion of his loved ones and dervishes would fall on him; baba abolkhair took the sheikh with him. when they were preoccupied with sama, the singer sang the anthem of this verse. (monavvar, ca. 1174 b.c./1992; transl. by nazyar khamenehei [n. k.]) the manner of treatment of a child in the family, by parents and other adults affects the process in which their feelings of inferiority are formed, thus also affecting their future adult life. this story describes the child’s experience of visiting the dervishes with his father, which contributed to his development and resulted in sheikh abu saeed abu al-khair becoming one of the greatest iranian mystics and thinkers. another story worthy of interest is found in the writings of sheikh jalaluddin mohammad rumi nicknamed “rumi” (1207–1273): https://changing-sp.com/ 218 fayruza s. ismagilova, nazyar khamenehei the child’s name was mohammad, but at home they respectfully and lovingly called him jalal-al-din, mawlana. his father, baha’-al-din valad, who was a great orator at balkh and a renowned preacher and religious teacher there, called his son “khodavandgar1”, out of love and great esteem for him. (zarrinkoub, 2009) this text is reminiscent of the following part of adler’s text: because every child has to grow up in an adult environment, he sees himself as a weak, small person, unable to live alone, and not even self-confident in doing small and insignificant things. mistakes in education also results from this concept. thus, some other children are treated as property and valuables that must be carefully cared for, and some children are treated in a way that makes them feel like useless creatures. (adler, 1927, p. 30) the influence of the social environment on the child’s early development the book makhzan al-asrar (1173) written by “nizami” ganjavi contains the following story: the child of a nobleman went out with some others of his own age. as he was running, he fell down, his happiness was destroyed, and his backbone was broken. the distress of his companions was greater than the calamity which had befallen him. he who was his best friend said: “we must hide him in the bottom of a well, so that the secret may not be as manifest as the sun; and so that we should not be ashamed before his father”. the wisest child among them was his enemy. he said: “surely the matter will not be kept a secret by his company. since they consider me to be his enemy, they will lay the blame for this misfortune upon me”. he went to his father and informed him of the accident, so that the father could resolve the matter. he who possesses the jewel of wisdom is able to do everything. (nizami, 1173/1945; transl. by gh. h. darab) this story may be seen as an illustration of how social interactions (in this case collective and individual decision-making) shape the child’s personality as the child seeks to obtain love and respect from those they interacts with (adler, 1927). this story also correlates with the following part of adler’s theory: the child, like adults, wants to overtake their rivals. the child’s objective is to attain the level of supremacy that will both ensure their safety and help them achieve their chosen purpose. the child has an optimistic belief that they can solve their difficulties quickly. solving tasks and overcoming difficulties is an important part of personality development as the child gains confidence in the process. another interesting example to be considered here is the verses from bustan saadi (1257) written by saa’di shirazi: 1 the word khodavandgar means “creator” and “lord” in the persian language and is used as an address of respect (ferdowsi, 1957). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 213–223 219 if thou desire that thy name should remain, train thy son in knowledge and wisdom, for if he possesses not these, thou deist obscure, with no one to commemorate thy name. teach him a handicraft, though thou be as rich as korah. place no hope in the power that thou hast—riches may go from thee. a bag of silver and gold is emptied; the purse of an artisan remains filled. dost thou not know how sadi attained to rank? he journeyed not over the plains, nor crossed the seas. in his youth he served under the yoke of the learned: god granted him distinction in after-life. it is not long before he who serves obtains command. a boy who suffers not at the hands of his teacher suffers at the hands of time. make thy son good and independent, so that he may not be beholden to any man. protect him from evil associates; and pity him not if he brings ruin and destruction upon himself, for it is better that a vicious son should die before his father. (saa’di shirazi, 1257 b. c./1911; transl. by a. h. edwards) all children, slowly, from an early age, realize that some people can fully satisfy their desires and are better prepared for life. if the parents’ love for their children is not adequate, it may cause problems in the child’s development and they may be facing serious psychological difficulties in adult life. due to the lack of flourishing desire to love in the child, their point of view is so proven that they cannot know love or affection and use it properly. the basis of educability is that the child tries to compensate for their weaknesses in this way, when a feeling of inadequacy arises in the child, hundreds of talents and abilities appear in them. education that is accompanied by excessive love is as dangerous as education under pressure and coercion. a child who is a mollycoddle, just like a child who was hated by their parents, is facing huge problems. the classification of children begins from childhood. while some children seek the power to choose a bold approach that leads to their recognition, other children seem to meditate on their weaknesses and try to express them in different ways. obstacles that the child faces in their mental development usually leads to deviation and hinder the development of feelings of cooperation. these barriers are divided into two categories, one that arises due to the shortcomings of their physical environment, such as those that are rooted in the child’s abnormal relationships in socio-racial or familial economic situations. the second category is the barriers that result from the disability of the individual limbs (adler, 1927). the origin of human personality, parental influence, and the influence of education in masnawi haft awrang (written in 1468) by “jami” (1390–1466), we can read the following “story of the little boy who was holding big bread, eating and crying that this bread is small and i have a big appetite”: the clever speed messenger went to baghdad; he saw a child. the child’s face was rounder than the moon, and he held a loaf of bread, which was round like his https://changing-sp.com/ 220 fayruza s. ismagilova, nazyar khamenehei own face. he was eating bread and crying. the man said to him: “why are you crying?” the child said: “i am a lonely child who has only one hungry stomach from the table of the world. i’m very hungry and this is small bread. how can i get rid of my hunger with this bread? i cry for this because i know this bread will be gone soon. i will be without food again, i will neither have bread in my hand nor a full stomach”. (jami, 1468 b.c./1997; transl. by n. k.) looking at adler’s theory, the above story can be analyzed as follows: the exact opposite of optimistic people are pessimistic people. these are the people with whom we have the biggest educational problems. this pessimistic philosophy of childhood abuse always looks at the dark side of life. he also makes the following points when it comes to adapting to untamed instincts: there are people who show a trait that we can call rudeness or lack of culture. people who chew their fingernails or put their fingers in their noses all the time, and people who throw themselves on food as if they have no choice but to eat, belong to this group. these symbols are clear, and when we look at such a person, we see that they attack food like a hungry wolf, and because they know that no one can stop them, they are not ashamed to show their hunger. how loudly they eat; what morsels that it is not clear where it fits in the stomach; how fast they eat; how many times have you seen people get upset if their mouth doesn’t move constantly? overall, child savagery and bad habits of children are commonly used to attract the attention of adults. children who want to have a bigger plan or show their adults how weak and helpless they are will resort to these things. the common denominator of all of them is that they mistreat when they see a stranger, and these abuses have only one similar meaning (adler, 1927). the following verses from “rumi” in the book koliyat shams-e tabrizi illustrate the influence of the family and upbringing on the child’s development. they compare the wrath of the prophets of god to mother’s anger towards her child, which contributes to the latter’s development and goes hand in hand with compassion and kindness: the wrath of the prophets is like the wrath of a mother, a wrath full of patience for her beautiful child. this anger is like lightning that strikes the ground and causes the flowers of nasrin, lily, and the hundred-leafed and fragrant flower to grow. (rumi, ca. 1260 b.c./1996; transl. by n. k.) the same view and emphasis on the role of the mother in the family and society in educating and shaping the child’s lifestyle at an early age and choosing their future path is evident in adler’s theory: he pointed out the importance of the mother as the first person the child has a relationship with and as the person who teaches the child the skills of cooperation and association. only if children feel related to others can they boldly cope with life’s problems. rumi writes about the mother raising her child: even if she shows anger towards the child in the process of upbringing, this anger, like the wrath of the prophets of god, goes hand in hand with compassion and kindness and thus can be compared to a garden where the gardener hoes the earth so that beautiful flowers could grow. a comparable idea finds reflection changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 213–223 221 in the swiss pedagogue johann heinrich pestalozzi’s views on the mother-child relationship, which is considered “fundamental for the healthy development of the child” (brühlmeier, n.d.). the mother, shaping the child’s attitude to the future world, is close to her child in all kinds of activities. another interesting fragment is the following anecdote from gulistan written by saadi: one of the ministers had a foolish son. he sent him to a scientist and said, “train my son so that he may be wise”. the scientist taught the child for a while but it was not effective, so he sent someone to his father and said: “your son will not be wise and he drives me crazy”. when a nature is originally receptive, instruction will take effect afterwards. no kind of polishing will improve iron whose essence is originally bad. wash a dog in the seven oceans, it will be only dirtier when it gets wet. if the ass of jesus be taken to mekkah, on its return it will still be an ass. (saa’di shirazi, 1257 b.c./2010) in contrast to saadi’s idea about the underlying reality or the “true nature” of a child that cannot be changed, adler’s psychology centers around the idea of freedom of choice and personal responsibility for the choices we make. according to adler, we have control over our destiny and we are not its victims. lifestyle, though formed in early childhood and affected by heredity and environment, can be modified through “creative power” or “striving power”, which is a major intervening variable (edgar, 1985). as adler explains, “this creative power, the foundation of a striving life, must be considered as much more important than our capacities, what we inherit, or the impressions we receive” (adler, 1929/2006, p. 29). it is the way people interpret the external influences that forms the basis of the creative structure of their attitude toward life (schultz, 2012). adler places creative power in the center of human personality development, seeing it as the ability of individuals to shape their own lives and destinies, and it is this idea that was later used in abraham maslow’s theory (jones-smith, 2016). as the above-described examples have shown, the texts of classical persian literature have some remarkable common points with adlerian psychology. in mysticism and classical iranian literature, like in adlerian psychology, much attention is given to human nature in its entirety and to the methods of educating human beings. it should be noted, however, that since this research note focuses on persian poems and prose that have roots in sufism and islam, caution should be exercised when extrapolating the findings to a wider field and further in-depth research should be carried out. there is, however, one important difference between adlerian understanding of human psyche and that of classical iranian authors: while adler believed in the freedom of choice and people’s power to change their personality structure (lifestyle), iranian authors emphasized the existence of a certain core of the personality or the person’s “true nature” that is manifested in childhood and cannot be influenced by education or social environment. https://changing-sp.com/ 222 fayruza s. ismagilova, nazyar khamenehei conclusion in this paper our aim was to put forward the suggestion that modern psychological approaches, especially those dealing with education of children, have parallels in the teachings of iranian mystics. mysticism and classical persian literature, like adlerian psychology, considers matters of personality development and in particular the influence of education and family upbringing. our analysis of the key points of adlerian psychology has shown that many of his ideas about the role that family, relationships with parents and other family members, and the immediate social environment play in the child’s development were given equal attention by the iranian mystics. we believe that our findings may stimulate further discussion on these questions and thus bring new insights into the roots of modern psychology. references adler, a. (1929). the science of living. greenberg. adler, a. (2000). understanding human nature (t. javansaz., trans.). roshd publications. (original work published in german 1927) adler, a. (2006). education for prevention: individual psychology in the schools. (g. l. liebenau, trans.). in h. t. stein (ed.), the collected clinical works of alfred adler (vol. 11). the classical adlerian translation project. (originally published in german 1929) ansbacher, h. l. (1991). anomie: the sociologist’s conception of lack of social interest. individual psychology: journal of adlerian theory, research & practice, 47(1), 22–25. ansbacher, h. l., & andbacher, r. r. (eds.). (1956). the individual psychology of alfred adler: a systematic presentation in selections from his writings. basic books. brühlmeier, a. (n.d.). upbringing and formative education. heinrich pestalozzi. https://en.heinrich-pestalozzi.de/fundamental-ideas/education carducci, b. (2009). the psychology of personality: viewpoints, research, and applications. wiley-blackwell. eckstein, d., aycock, k. j., sperber, m. a., mcdonald, j., van wiesner, v., watts, r. e., & ginsburg, p. (2010). a review of 200 birth-order studies: lifestyle characteristics. the journal of individual psychology, 66(4), 408–434. edgar, t. e. (1985). the creative self in adlerian psychology. individual psychology: journal of adlerian theory, research & practice, 41(3), 336–339. ferdowsi, a. (1957). shakhname [shahnameh] (vol. 1). akademiia nauk sssr. hashemlou, j. (2017, april 26). nzrah shkhsat alfred adler (rwanshnasa frd ngur) [alfred adler’s personality theory (individualistic psychology)]. rwanshnasa hashmlow. http://jafarhashemlou.blogfa.com/post/172 https://en.heinrich-pestalozzi.de/fundamental-ideas/education http://jafarhashemlou.blogfa.com/post/172 changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 213–223 223 hoffman, r. (2023, february 8). alfred adler’s theories of individual psychology and adlerian therapy. simply psychology. www.simplypsychology.org/alfred-adler.html jami, a. r. (1997). masnavi haft awrang [seven thrones] (a. afsahzad & h.a. tarbiat, eds.). written heritage publishing centre. (originally published ca. 1468 b.c.) jones-smith, e. (2016). theories of counselling and psychotherapy. an integrative approach. sage. mccluskey, m. c. (2022). revitalizing alfred adler: an echo for equality. clinical social work journal, 50(4), 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-021-00793-0 monavvar, m. (1992). israr ul tauheed fi maqamat ul sheikh abi saeed [the secrets of monotheism in the shrines of sheikh abu saeed abi al-khair] (m. shafiei kadkani, ed.). agah. (originally published ca. 1174 b.c.) nizami, j. (1945). makhzanolasrar (gh. h. darab, trans.). arthur probsthain. (originally published ca. 1173 b.c.) rumi, j. m. (1996). koliyat shams-e tabrizi [generalities of shams tabrizi] (b. forouzanfar, ed.). rad publication. (originally published ca. 1260 b.c.) ryckman, r. m. (2004). theories of personality (8th ed.). wadsworth/thomson learning. saa’di shirazi, m. (1911). the bustan of sa’di (a. h. edwards, trans.). global grey. (originally published ca. 1257 b.c.). saa’di shirazi, m. (2010). gulistan [rose garden] (e. rehatsek, trans.). omphaloskepsis. (originally published ca. 1257 b.c.) sajjadi, s. z. (1997). introduction to the foundations of mysticism and sufism (6th ed.). samat. sarfi, m. r., & esfandiari, m. (2012). shere talimi dar manzumehaye attar [didactic poetry in the long poems of attar] (scientific information database). didactic literature review (persian language and literature review), 3(12), 103–126. https://www.sid.ir/ paper/165285/fa schultz, d. p. (2012). alfred adler: individual psychology. in d. p. schultz & s. e. schultz (eds.), theories of personality (10th ed.) (pp. 108–134). cengage learning. shafii kadkani, m. r. (2007). zmanh ajtma’ea sh’er farsa [the social context of persian poetry]. akhtran. watts, r. (2012). on the origin of striving for superiority and social interest. in j. carlson & m. maniacci (eds.), alfred adler revisited (pp. 41–46). routledge. yalameha, m. (2011). barresie tatbighi ash-aare taalimi ferdowsi va hafiz [a comparative study of didactic poetry of ferdowsi and hafiz]. didactic literature review, 3(11), 153–175. zarrinkoub, a. (2009). step by step up to union with god. life, thought and spiritual journey of jalal-al-din rumi (m. keyvani, trans.). mazda publishers. https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.simplypsychology.org/alfred-adler.html https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-021-00793-0 https://www.sid.ir/paper/165285/fa https://www.sid.ir/paper/165285/fa changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 696–699 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.197 book review v. v. lapin, a. i. miller (eds.). (2021). simvolicheskie aspekty politiki pamiati v sovremennoi rossii i vostochnoi evrope [symbolic aspects of the politics of memory in modern russia and eastern europe]. eusp press1 olga f. rusakova, ekaterina g. gribovod, yan yu. moiseenko institute for philosophy and law of the ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia acknowledgements this work was supported by the russian foundation for basic research under grant no. 21-011-43023 “the official discourse of russian politics of memory concerning the soviet past: interpretation strategies, actors and commemorative practices.” memory studies are increasingly attracting research interest as an effective strategy for interpreting the past. following this global trend, several russian research centers have focused on producing the public discourse of the politics of memory, including the russian military historical society (rmhs), the russian historical society (rhs), the center for the study of cultural memory and symbolic politics at the european university in st. petersburg (eusp.org) and others. furthermore, russian researches with diverse affiliations and provenance 1 this review is an abridged and revised version of rusakova o. f., gribovod e. g., & moiseenko y. yu. (2022). diskurs politiki pamiati: issledovaniia simvolicheskikh aspektov [discourse on the politics of memory: studies of symbolic aspects]. discourse-p, 19(2), pp. 154–171. https://doi.org/10.17506/18179568_2022_19_2_154 received 25 august 2022 © 2022 olga f. rusakova, published online 10 october 2022 ekaterina g. gribovod, yan yu. moiseenko rusakova_mail@mail.ru gribovod_kate@mail.ru yan.moiseenko@mail.ru https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.17506/18179568_2022_19_2_154 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 696–699 697 have started to address commemorative practices with the purpose of unraveling manifestations of the politics of memory in different contexts (e.g., kovba & gribovod, 2020; miller & efremenko, 2020; rusakova & rusakov, 2019). nevertheless, symbolic aspects of the politics of memory still remain for the most part on the periphery of contemporary academic discussions, which is the reason why our major concern has become to identify those prominent works revealing symbolic aspects in the structure of memory studies as a discipline. that is why we undertake a brief analytical review of the collection of scientific papers entitled symbolic aspects of the politics of memory in modern russia and eastern europe, published in st. petersburg in 2021, edited by v. v. lapin and a. i. miller. the “introduction: symbolic politics and the politics of memory” to the collection written by o. iu. malinova and a. i. miller, both acknowledged authorities in memory studies, continues debates on a methodological dilemma that has been plaguing researchers in the field of the politics of memory for decades. this dilemma is generally presented in terms of an enduring speculation on the hierarchy between politics of memory and symbolic politics; the issue of distinction between these two concepts has been repeatedly raised in previous publications (e.g., malinova, 2015, 2018). in particular, a correlation scheme for such categories as historical politics, politics of memory, and symbolic politics was previously proposed by o. iu. malinova (for further details, see malinova, 2018). according to the presented hierarchy, the broadest concept here appears to be symbolic politics. both o. iu. malinova and a. i. miller claim symbolic politics to be a public activity aimed predominantly at producing different ways of interpreting social phenomena. it is important to highlight that both authors associate symbolic politics with an activity of competing to interpret reality in one particular way (malinova & miller, 2021, p. 11), i.e., there is a symbolic battlefield taking place where different mnemonic actors struggle against each other using different symbolic weapons to establish their dominance in the order of things. however, if anyone conducting research adheres to such a definition of symbolic politics, the question naturally arises: how does the concept of symbolic politics differ from the concept of political discourse? after all, if researchers are guided by malinova’s interpretation, then they are bound to attribute the characteristics of symbolic politics to the political discourse as well. in this situation, it may be relevant to mention j. torfing’s work, where a number of similar statements relate political discourse, rather than symbolic politics, to a certain way of producing interpretations of reality, with a competition emerging between these interpretations (torfing, 2005, pp. 10–17). similar features of political discourse may be discovered in works of russian researchers (e.g., rusakova & rusakov, 2011, pp. 98–99). it turns out to be rather unclear how to delimitate political usage of the past, politics of memory, and historical politics. according to o. iu. malinova, the former of the three concepts seems to be wider than the others and includes politics of memory. at the same time, historical politics should be treated as a particular case of politics of memory. defining the concept in greater detail, o. iu. malinova and a. i. miller suggest that politics of memory be perceived as a “governmental (non-governmental) activity aimed at asserting ideas about the collective past and forming the cultural https://changing-sp.com/ 698 olga f. rusakova, ekaterina g. gribovod, yan yu. moiseenko infrastructure to support these ideas, educational policy and sometimes legislative regulation” (p. 15). from our perspective, any conceptual distinguishing here seems rather irrelevant, since traditional historiography uses these concepts interchangeably (achkasov, 2012, p. 137; nelina, 2020, p. 249). at the same time, we consider that politics of memory should be characterized mainly by its general focus on managing the collective memory. whether it is by the state or by non-governmental mnemonic actors, the produced interpretations of the past aim to construct images, meanings, symbols, myths, or narratives, which are significant for a given society in terms of political values. this is why the national identity is established predominantly through commemorative practices, whereas social and cultural resources provide an infrastructure for governmental legitimacy. it can be reasonably argued that politics of memory should be understood as a complexity of managing collective ideas about the past, which bears those specific elements of symbolic politics in its internal structure, and not vice versa. in this regard, we believe that the title of the collection of papers under review is entirely justified, since only politics of memory provides a background for any discussion of symbolism, including its entire repertoire of ideas, images, narratives, monuments, rituals, etc. it is quite remarkable that a number of articles in this collection confirm the antagonistic trend established in some post-soviet countries towards russian politics of memory. unfortunately, this governmental trend appears to monopolize the official political discourse in eastern europe, with any other interpretation of the historical past being perceived as an ideological sabotage of unity and national security. miserable consequences of this trend include legislative activity, which has been intensified in many post-soviet states, imposing legal limitations on any attempts to challenge the governmental politics of memory. due to such governmental policy, the destiny of post-soviet nations has been deliberately victimized in reference to their experience of the soviet past, with myth-making of the holodomor being one of the most illustrative examples. this toxic discourse of victimization, which appears to be invulnerable to any constructive criticism, works simultaneously for ensuring the national security of a state (miller & efremenko, 2020, pp. 13–14). references achkasov, v. a. (2012). rol’ politicheskikh i intellektual’nykh elit postkommunisticheskikh gosudarstv v proizvodstve “politiki pamiati” [the role of political and intellectual elites of post-communist states in production of “politics of memory”]. in o. iu. malinova (ed.), simvolicheskaia politika (pp. 126–148). inion ran. kovba, d. m., gribovod, e. g. (2020). osobennosti formirovaniia i realizatsii politiki pamiati o velikoi otechestvennoi voine na postsovetskom prostranstve [features of the formation and implementation of the memory politics of the great patriotic war in the post-soviet space]. discourse-p, 2(39), 59–77. https://doi. org/10.24411/1817-9568-2020-10204 https://doi.org/10.24411/1817-9568-2020-10204 https://doi.org/10.24411/1817-9568-2020-10204 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 696–699 699 malinova, o. iu. (2015). aktual’noe proshloe: simvolicheskaia politika vlastvuiushchei elity i dilemmy rossiiskoi identichnosti [relevant past: symbolic politics of the ruling elite and the dilemmas of russian identity]. rossiiskaia politicheskaia entsiklopediia. malinova, o. iu. (2018). politika pamiati kak oblast’ simvolicheskoi politiki [the politics of memory as a field of symbolic politics]. in a. i. miller & d. v. efremenko (eds.), metodologicheskie voprosy izucheniia politiki pamiati (pp. 27–53). nestor–istoriia. miller, a. i., & efremenko, d. v. (eds.). (2020). politika pamiati v sovremennoi rossii i stranakh vostochnoi evropy. aktory, instituty, narrativy [the politics of memory in contemporary russia and in countries of eastern europe. actors, insitutes, narratives.]. eusp press. nelina, l. p. (2020). podkhody k opredeleniiu kontseptov memory studies v rossiiskoi istoriografii [approaches to defining the concepts of memory studies in russian historiography]. vestnik of the mari state university. chapter “history. law”, 6(3), 244–253. https://doi.org/10.30914/2411-3522-2020-6-3-244-253 rusakova, o. f., & rusakov, v. m. (2011). pr-diskurs: teoretiko-metodologicheskij analiz. [pr-discourse: theoretical and methodological analysis]. diskurs-p. rusakova, o. f., rusakov, v. m. (2019). diskurs postpravdy kak mediatekhnologiia politiki postpamiati [post-truth discourse as a media technology of the politics of postmemory]. discourse-p, 2(35), 10–27. https://doi.org/10.17506/dipi.2019.35.2.1027 torfing, j. (2005). discourse theory: achievements, arguments, and challenges. in d. howard & j. torfing (eds.), discourse theory in european politics: identity, policy and governance (pp. 1–32). palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523364_1 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.30914/2411-3522-2020-6-3-244-253 https://doi.org/10.17506/dipi.2019.35.2.1027 https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523364_1 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 841–857 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.206 received 25 june 2022 © 2022 elena n. volkova, anna yu. akimova, accepted 16 november 2022 oksana m. isaeva published online 30 december 2022 envolkova@yandex.ru anna_ak@rambler.ru oisaeva@hse.ru article assessment of the psychological well-being of russian youth with the perma-profiler elena n. volkova psychological institute of the russian academy of education, moscow, russia anna yu. akimova national research university higher school of economics, russia lobachevsky state university of nizhny novgorod, russia, minin nizhny novgorod state pedagogical university, russia oksana m. isaeva national research university higher school of economics, russia abstract this article presents the results of a survey of the psychological well-being of russian youth based on the russian version of the perma-profiler. the survey was conducted at the beginning of 2021 and covered 11,811 respondents (males = 29.2%, females = 70.8%) aged 18–35 (49.2%, aged 18–22; 22.3%, aged 23–30; and 28.5%, aged 31–35) living in the central part of russia. the survey’s results indicate that the country perform properly in terms of youth well-being. the scores of russian respondents are significantly higher than the results reported by butler and kern for the uk, greece, korea, italy, and the usa in their study of 2016 (this sample is referred to as a total sample). the russian respondents scored higher compared to the total sample in the scales of positive emotions and relationships. the research data show different indicators of well-being in groups differing by gender, age, education, social, marital and parental status, living conditions, and income level. we also found some peculiar ageand gender-related differences regarding well-being in the russian sample, which also distinguishes it from the total sample. the research results can be used in programs intended to improve the psychological well-being of russian youth. https://changing-sp.com/ 842 elena n. volkova, anna yu. akimova, oksana m. isaeva introduction well-being, happiness, and prosperity are closely interrelated phenomena associated with the most positive experiences of young people. these phenomena have recently attracted increased scholarly attention in such fields as psychology, pedagogy, and social studies. the russian government has considered young people’s well-being as an important factor contributing to the country’s innovation performance and invested funds in the creation of comfortable living and working conditions, as well as in opportunities for socialization and self-realization. these tasks were identified as the key priorities in most federal programs and projects for young people. there is evidence that a high level of human well-being and its main components ensure the positive functioning of an individual and promote personal self-realization (bradburn, 1977/2019; seligman, 2011; sheldon et al., 2017). well-being is defined both as an objective indicator, e.g., assessment of the quality of the external living conditions in a city, district, country, etc. and as a subjective indicator, “an assessment made by the subjects themselves of how close their life as a whole is to the most desirable state” (osin & leontiev, 2020). attempts were made to systematize the main methodological approaches to the study of the well-being of adolescents and youth (see, for example, antonova et al., 2018; byzova & perikova, 2018; galazhinsky et al., 2019; karapetyan & glotova, 2018). there are several approaches to defining well-being. for instance, adherents of the subjective (hedonistic) approach believe that the main goal of human existence is the pursuit of positive emotions and pleasures (diener et al., 2010). in hedonistic terms, well-being is understood as achievement of pleasure and avoidance of dissatisfaction. subjective well-being is also influenced by interpersonal comparisons. positive emotions have a direct impact on the degree of individual psychological stability, which, in turn, leads to an increase in the level of life satisfaction. the generalized characteristic of well-being in the logic of this approach is life satisfaction as achievement of pleasure and the feeling of happiness. within this approach, the abovecited studies examine various aspects of young people’s well-being: for example, the impact of the modernization of russian society on the social well-being of young people, keywords well-being, psychological well-being, perma, perma-profiler, russian youth acknowledgements this work was supported by the russian scientific foundation (rsf), project no 22-28-20262. the authors are grateful for assistance in data collection ministry of education, science and youth policy of the nizhny novgorod region and personally to natalya alexandrovna polyashova and svetlana olegovna anufrieva. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 841–857 843 the relationship between the subjective quality of life and the perception of happiness in young people, young people’s vision of their future in terms of subjective well-being, as well as the characteristics of emotional well-being, happiness, and life satisfaction, including gender-specific aspects of well-being, etc. (antonova et al., 2018; byzova & perikova, 2018; galazhinsky et al., 2019; karapetyan & glotova, 2018). another approach that can be described as psychological (or eudemonistic) considers well-being as the development of individuality and sense of agency, acquisition of a personal identity, and self-realization. proponents of this approach assess well-being by looking at personal predictors of happiness and associate wellbeing with living a rich, full, and meaningful life (ryan et al., 2019; seligman, 2011). this approach highlights the ideas prevailing among modern young people about personal psychological well-being and strategies for achieving it. in this vein, particular consideration is given to the relationship between moral aspects and psychological well-being as well as the dependence of psychological well-being on social status. some aspects of emotional and personal well-being of students are also analyzed (ryan et al., 2019; ryff, 2019; seligman, 2011). one of the most common models used in this approach is the perma model of well-being developed and presented by m. seligman in his book flourishing: a new understanding of happiness and well-being—and how to achieve them (2011). well-being theory, or perma model, proposes five pillars of well-being: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. to qualify as an element of well-being, each component must meet the following three criteria: first, it should contribute to well-being; second, it should be pursued for its own sake; and, third, it should be defined and measured independently from other components (seligman, 2011). let us consider each of these components in more detail. ● positive emotion refers to the affective component or feeling well, in combination with positive appraisal. ● engagement refers to a deep psychological connection to a particular activity, organization or cause. it is the psychological state where individuals are absorbed in a task implying interest, intense involvement, effort, and immersion. ● relationships refers to the perception of the quantity and quality of social connections. it implies the belief that one is cared for, loved, and valued. social relationships have been considered the core element of well-being, and their impact on optimized functioning has been extensively studied. ● meaning, which is closely linked to the sense of purpose, has been defined as the “ontological significance of life from the point of view of the individual”, or the feeling of belonging and serving something larger than the self (seligman, 2011). meaning provides a sense that one’s life matters. it has been associated with better physical health, reduced mortality risk, and higher life satisfaction. ● accomplishment is the last component of perma model and refers to success and mastery. accomplishment encompasses both external indicators and internal goals. although accomplishment can be defined in objective terms, this model places the main emphasis on the way people perceive their accomplishments. https://changing-sp.com/ 844 elena n. volkova, anna yu. akimova, oksana m. isaeva in 2016, australian researchers j. butler and m. l. kern (2016) developed a diagnostic tool (perma-profiler) based on m. seligman’s perma model and demonstrated its high reliability and validity. these authors, following in seligman’s footsteps, discussed the concept of “flourishing” as a state of stable balance manifested in a high level of emotional, psychological, and social well-being. this questionnaire was adapted for various countries, including england, greece, korea, italy, and the usa (ascenso et al., 2018; choi et al., 2019; giangrasso, 2021; pezirkianidis et al., 2021; ryan et al., 2019; umucu et al., 2020). in 2021, a russian version of this questionnaire was developed by o. m. isaeva, a. yu. akimova, and e. n. volkova (isaeva et al., 2022). all of the above-cited studies have demonstrated the advantages of the questionnaire’s structure, its reliability and validity (butler & kern, 2016). this article presents the results of a survey of the psychological well-being of russian young people conducted at the beginning of 2021 and based on the application of the perma-profiler questionnaire. method the perma-profiler questionnaire includes 23 statements, 15 of which are related to the five elements of psychological well-being: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. the rest of the statements are additional indicators (negative emotions, health, loneliness, and happiness) needed to gain a fuller picture of well-being (butler & kern, 2016). each statement was rated by the respondents on an 11-point likert scale from 0 (“never”, or “minimum”) to 10 (“always”, or “maximum”). the data obtained were processed in accordance with the questionnaire key. to make data collection more convenient and to build a larger sample, a google form was developed and subsequently disseminated through the internet (social media vk1, e-mail, etc.) among young people in central russia. the study was anonymous and it was carried out on a voluntary gratuitous basis. the potential respondents were informed about the purpose of the study and they agreed to participate in the survey in exchange for receiving feedback about the survey results. in addition to the questions of the perma-profiler questionnaire, the google form included questions about the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents: age, gender, social status, education, marital status, and income level. it took the respondents 10–15 minutes to fill in the google form. the results were processed by using descriptive statistics, frequency analysis and difference analysis. the statistical analysis was carried out with the help of microsoft office excel 2010 and ibm spss statistics 26. 1 vk (short for its original name vkontakte) is a russian online social media and social networking service. https://vk.com vk™ is a trademark of vk.com ltd. https://vk.com changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 841–857 845 sample the sample comprised young people aged 18–35. this age group was chosen to gather more information about the psychological well-being of young people of active age, i.e., able to make independent career choices, to take decisions concerning additional education, starting a family, etc. the google forms that were left incomplete or contained obviously inaccurate answers were excluded from further analysis. as a result, 11,811 google forms were filled by young people aged 18–35 from central russia. the representativeness of the study sample was ensured by the random selection method. information on the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents is presented in table 1. table 1 socio-demographic characteristics of the sample indicator name indicator value abs. % total sample size 11,811 100.0 gender males 3,444 29.2 females 8,367 70.8 age groups 18–22 5,811 49.2 23–30 2,631 22.3 31–35 3,369 28.5 social status student 5,637 47.7 employed 6,174 52.3 education student 3,468 29.4 secondary 2,721 23.0 secondary vocational 1,506 12.8 higher 4,116 34.8 marital status married (legally or civilly) 4,958 42.0 unmarried 6,853 58.0 having children none 7,294 61.8 one child 2,006 17.0 two or more children 2,511 21.2 https://changing-sp.com/ 846 elena n. volkova, anna yu. akimova, oksana m. isaeva indicator name indicator value abs. % living conditions alone 1,767 15.0 with a family (spouse, children) 4,842 41.0 with relatives 4,538 38.4 other options 664 5.6 income level non, unemployed 4,036 34.2 up to 20 thousand rubles 3,829 32.4 20–40 thousand rubles 3,123 26.4 more than 40 thousand rubles 823 7.0 results the data from the perma-profiler questionnaire were processed according to the key. then we determined the descriptive statistical indicators of general psychological well-being, values of the main scales (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment), and additional scales (negative emotion, health, loneliness, and happiness). mean values, standard deviations, confidence intervals for each of the listed indicators are shown in table 2. table 2 descriptive statistics of the perma-profiler (n = 11,811) scale name m sd 95% confidence interval min max general well-being 7.16 1.52 7.13 7.19 positive emotion 7.31 1.79 7.27 7.34 relationships 7.14 1.98 7.10 7.18 engagement 7.05 1.61 7.02 7.08 meaning 7.08 1.85 7.04 7.11 accomplishment 7.15 1.56 7.12 7.18 negative emotion 5.77 1.86 5.73 5.80 health 6.71 1.95 6.67 6.74 loneliness 4.47 2.77 4.42 4.52 health 7.40 2.11 7.36 7.44 note: m = mean value; sd = standard deviation table 1 continued changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 841–857 847 the mean values of the main scales of the questionnaire are within the range of 7.05–7.31. the highest mean value (7.40) and the lowest mean value (4.47) were determined on the happiness and loneliness scales, respectively. the respondents presented their assessments on all the scales by assigning them values from 0 to 10. figure 1 shows the survey’s results in comparison with the results of the total sample (for more on the total sample, see butler & kern, 2016). j. butler and m. l. kern (2016) provide descriptive characteristics of the scales of positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment, negative emotions, health, and general well-being. the total sample included people aged 18–65, from different countries of the world (the uk, greece, korea, italy, and the usa), with different levels of education and social status (n = 31,966). the level of general well-being shown by our research sample was significantly higher than in the total sample (t-test = 10.10; confidence level p = .00). in addition, the values of the scales positive emotions, relationships and negative emotions in the research sample were also significantly higher than in the total sample (for all the scales, the differences are significant at p = .00 according to the t-test criterion). the values of the scales engagement, accomplishment, and health in the research sample were lower than in the total sample (on these scales, the differences are significant at p = .00 according to the t-test criterion). on the scale meaning, no differences were found between the research sample and the total sample (t-test = 1.02, p = .31). statistically significant differences were determined in the values of the perma-profiler scales among the respondents with different socio-demographic characteristics. the results of the comparison of the mean values and statistical significance of differences are shown in table 3. figure 1 mean values with standard deviation of the perma-profiler scales in the research sample and the total sample 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 p os iti ve e m ot io n r el at io ns hi ps e ng ag em en t m ea ni ng a cc om pl is hm en t n eg at iv e em ot io n p hy si ca l h ea lth o ve ra ll w el l-b ei ng research sample total sample https://changing-sp.com/ 8 4 8 e lena n . volkova, a nna yu. a kim ova, o ksana m . isaeva table 3 comparison of the mean values of the perma-profiler scales among the groups of the respondents with different socio-demographic characteristics (n = 11,811) characteristics general well-being positive emotion relationships engagement meaning accomplishment negative emotion health loneliness happiness gender male 7.01 7.07 6.90 7.12 6.92 7.04 5.32 6.93 4.65 7.02 female 7.22 7.40 7.24 7.03 7.14 7.19 5.95 6.61 4.40 7.56 t 6.94 9.04 8.64 2.80 5.92 4.88 16.92 8.23 4.51 12.60 p .00*** .00*** .00*** .01** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** age groups 18–22 7.08 7.26 7.04 7.07 6.93 7.05 5.75 6.75 4.72 7.23 23–30 7.22 7.37 7.25 7.00 7.17 7.21 5.82 6.69 4.33 7.53 31–35 7.25 7.33 7.23 7.05 7.25 7.27 5.75 6.63 4.14 7.61 f 15.98 3.78 14.84 1.64 36.11 23.97 1.14 4.11 51.88 40.18 p .00*** .02* .00*** .19 .00*** .00*** .32 .02* .00*** .00*** social status student 7.06 7.25 7.02 7.06 6.91 7.03 5.75 6.75 4.74 7.21 employed 7.25 7.36 7.25 7.04 7.23 7.26 5.78 6.66 4.22 7.58 t 6.72 3.52 6.33 0.57 9.16 8.17 .76 2.38 10.32 9.70 p .00*** .00*** .00*** .57 .00*** .00*** .45 .02** .00*** .00*** education student 7.03 7.24 6.97 7.06 6.88 6.95 5.74 6.75 4.73 7.20 secondary 7.11 7.26 7.10 7.03 6.99 7.15 5.76 6.73 4.69 7.25 secondary vocational 7.16 7.37 7.22 6.88 7.12 7.06 5.70 6.68 4.34 7.63 higher 7.30 7.37 7.28 7.12 7.29 7.35 5.83 6.67 4.15 7.59 f 21.17 4.79 16.60 8.09 33.55 44.84 2.51 1.28 35.33 33.06 p .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .06 .28 .00*** .00*** c hanging s ocieties & p ersonalities, 2022, vol. 6, n o. 4, pp. 841–857 8 4 9 characteristics general well-being positive emotion relationships engagement meaning accomplishment negative emotion health loneliness happiness marital status married 7.36 7.47 7.53 7.05 7.31 7.28 5.81 6.64 3.96 7.79 unmarried 7.02 7.19 6.85 7.05 6.91 7.05 5.74 6.75 4.84 7.13 t 12.06 8.52 18.70 0.01 11.64 7.80 2.13 2.90 17.31 16.9 p .00*** .00*** .00*** .99 .00*** .00*** .03* .00*** .00*** .00*** children none 7.07 7.22 7.01 7.06 6.94 7.07 5.74 6.72 4.72 7.19 one child 7.28 7.40 7.30 7.06 7.26 7.26 5.75 6.67 4.17 7.66 two or more children 7.34 7.49 7.39 7.02 7.33 7.30 5.86 6.69 3.98 7.83 f 37.88 23.91 42.75 0.57 53.91 28.34 4.08 .62 82.22 104.98 p .00*** .00*** .00*** .57 .00*** .00*** .02* .54 .00*** .00*** living conditions alone 6.93 7.02 6.71 6.96 6.90 7.03 5.73 6.64 5.08 6.98 with a family 7.39 7.51 7.50 7.08 7.35 7.34 5.79 6.65 3.90 7.82 with relatives 7.04 7.22 6.94 7.07 6.89 7.02 5.74 6.80 4.79 7.17 f 63.09 41.32 101.29 3.55 61.34 40.24 2.41 5.72 122.55 116.71 p .00*** .00*** .00*** .01** .00*** .00*** .06 .00*** .00*** .00*** income level none/unemployed 7.00 7.20 6.97 7.01 6.82 6.95 5.76 6.69 4.69 7.17 up to 20 thous. rubles 7.06 7.21 7.08 6.90 6.99 7.02 5.91 6.53 4.48 7.40 20–40 thous. rubles 7.35 7.44 7.32 7.16 7.34 7.39 5.68 6.77 4.19 7.60 more than 40 thous. rubles 7.71 7.77 7.59 7.56 7.75 7.83 5.48 7.36 4.36 7.82 f 72.86 32.64 34.02 45.67 87.38 112.52 16.22 42.71 19.12 36.39 p .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** .00*** note: t = t-test for independent samples; f = fisher’s test (anova); p = difference confidence level; * р ≤ .05; ** р ≤ .01; *** р ≤ .001. table 3 continued https://changing-sp.com/ 850 elena n. volkova, anna yu. akimova, oksana m. isaeva comparison of the perma-profiler scores in the groups of respondents (see table 3) showed the following results: ● female respondents had higher scores of general well-being in comparison with male respondents; ● respondents aged 23–30 and 31–35 had higher scores than those aged 18–22; ● the employed versus students; ● respondents with higher education versus all the others; ● the respondents who are officially or civilly married versus those who are not married; ● the respondents with one, two or more children versus childless respondents; ● the respondents living with their families (spouse, children) versus all the others; ● the respondents with an income above 40 thousand rubles versus all the others. some interesting results were also found for the rest of the scales of the permaprofiler questionnaire: (a) in the group of male respondents, higher scores were observed on the scales engagement, health, and loneliness. on the other scales, female respondents showed significantly higher values. (b) among the respondents of different age groups, there were no significant differences in the scales engagement and negative emotions. among the other age groups, the respondents aged 18–22 had the highest scores on the scales health and loneliness and the lowest scores on all the other scales not listed above. (c) respondents with higher and secondary vocational education scored the highest on the scales of positive emotion, relationships, and happiness. on the scales negative emotions and health, the scores in the groups with different levels of education did not vary statistically. (d) married respondents had higher scores on all the scales, except for health and loneliness. on the engagement scale, there was no difference between married and unmarried respondents. (e) respondents with two or more children had the highest scores on all the scales, except for loneliness. on the scales engagement and health, no differences were found between the groups of childless respondents and respondents with children. (f) respondents living with a spouse and children scored the highest on all the scales, excluding loneliness and negative emotions. on the scale loneliness, this group of respondents scored the lowest among all the survey participants. (g) respondents with an income above 40 thousand rubles had the highest values on all the scales, excluding loneliness and negative emotions. on the scale negative emotions, this group showed the minimum value in comparison with all the others. on the scale loneliness, the maximum value was observed in the group of respondents without their own income, and the minimum value, in the changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 841–857 851 group of respondents with an income of 20–40 thousand rubles. interestingly, participants with an income above 40 thousand rubles accounted for only 7% of the total sample. to determine the influence of sociodemographic characteristics on the psychological well-being of young people, a multiple regression analysis was carried out (table 4). table 4 values of standardized regression coefficients in the model of the relationship of psychological well-being of youth with socio-demographic characteristics characteristics β p r2adj f pf age –0.099 0.000 0.029 45.120 0.000 gender 0.056 0.000 social status –0.090 0.000 education 0.046 0.011 marital status 0.101 0.000 children 0.037 0.014 living conditions 0.019 0.061 income level 0.156 0.000 note: β – standardized coefficient; p = difference confidence level for β; r2adj – corrected multiple determination coefficient; f = fisher’s test (anova); pf is the level of statistical significance of the model. although the value of the multiple determination coefficient is small (r2 adj = 0.029), the constructed variable relationship model is valid (f = 45.120; pf = 0.000). the resulting regression model showed the role played by such characteristics as gender, age, social status, education, marital status, children, and income level (r ≤ 0.05 for the standardized β coefficients corresponding to these characteristics) as elements of the empirical model of the psychological well-being of russian youth. discussion in the study, all the scores fell within the average range, which signifies the achievements of russia in terms of youth well-being. if we compare these results with those of butler & kern’s survey (2016), we will see that russian respondents have scored higher in the scales of positive emotions and relationships. we found that, in comparison with the total sample, young russian people to a greater extent have a positive attitude towards their life, are optimistic about the future, and strive to create and maintain trusting relationships with others. relationships and positive emotions are prioritized by russian respondents in their sense of well-being. it should be noted that these components of psychological well-being are conducive to active https://changing-sp.com/ 852 elena n. volkova, anna yu. akimova, oksana m. isaeva and positive functioning of a person. the dominance of certain indicators (experience of joy and pleasure on a daily basis, feeling of self-worth, and support of close people) in the structure of psychological well-being correlates with higher self-esteem and self-efficacy. higher levels in these indicators are associated with better professional performance, a more developed sense of autonomy and ability to take responsibility for one’s choices and actions (leontiev, 2000; ryan & deci, 2017). positive emotions, acceptance, and recognition on the part of other people are crucial for the development of independence, one’s ability to cope with difficult situations and consider emerging problems as challenges and opportunities for growth (fredrickson, 2001; meyer & maltin, 2010; seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). our research sample showed higher values in negative emotions in comparison with the total sample, which can be explained by the importance of the emotional component in the well-being of russian youth in general, i.e., in the entire range of negative and positive values. this is consistent with the opinion of j. butler and m. l. kern (2016) who pointed out that it is necessary to take into account both positive and negative elements of the spectrum of mental health. in the light of the above, we can explain the lower, in comparison with the total sample, values in the scales engagement and accomplishment by the lesser importance of goal-setting and goal achievement as well as the satisfaction from goal achievement in the respondents’ sense of well-being. in addition, our respondents showed lower values in the scale health, which means that they attach less importance to health. the latter may be explained by their young age or by specific characteristics of the russian sample. this assumption requires further consideration in future studies. the sense of meaning in life, the feeling of life’s importance and fullness are equally significant for russian youth and respondents from butler & kern’s sample (2016). the scores in the russian sample in engagement and accomplishment were lower than in the total sample. this set of characteristics—engagement in activities, striving for achievements, finding meaningful pursuits—reflects the introjected nature of psychological well-being determined by the processes that are similar to those that determine the intrinsic motivation for this or that activity. it can be supposed that having interest in a particular activity, a desire to achieve certain goals and the satisfaction derived from their achievement have a weaker impact on the psychological well-being of russian youth than positive emotions and relationship satisfaction. our respondents’ lower scores in health might signify that they attach less significance to health as a source of psychological well-being. this tendency is confirmed by other studies performed on russian samples (antonova et al., 2018; tsvetkova & antonova, 2010). our study has demonstrated that respondents with different socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, social status, education, marital and parental status, living conditions, income) tend to have different indicators of well-being. all of these characteristics are important factors shaping the well-being of russian youth. the respondents aged 23–30 and 31–35, with a higher education, employed, married, with changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 841–857 853 children and a monthly income above 40 thousand rubles tend to enjoy higher levels of well-being than the others. the lowest levels of well-being were observed for the groups of respondents aged 18–22, with secondary education or lower, unmarried, childless, and with a low income (20 thousand rubles or less). it should be noted that the ageand gender-related differences in well-being among russian respondents agree with the data provided by j. butler and m. l. kern (2016): in their study, in the group of male respondents in the total sample, the general indicator of well-being (7.11) was higher than among the female respondents (6.91). in the age group 18–24, the indicator of well-being (7.12) was higher than in the age group 25–34 (6.94). in our research sample, female respondents showed higher levels of wellbeing than male respondents. similarly, respondents in the age groups 23–30 and 31–35 had higher levels of well-being compared with the age group 18–22. such correlations may be associated with the peculiarities of the mentality of russian youth, their life-meaning orientations, their satisfaction with activities in various spheres, attitudes to the present and future. regression analysis has brought to light different effects of sociodemographic characteristics on the psychological well-being of russian youth. we found that the most important factors are income (β = 0.156; p = 0.000), marital status (β = 0.101; p = 0.000), age (β= –0.099; p = 0.000), and social status (β= –0.090; p = 0.000). these characteristics can be considered as predictors of the psychological well-being of russian youth. in an ideal model, a fulfilled person in russia is young (aged 23–30), married, and has a well-paying job. the fact that russian respondents attach higher significance to positive emotions and support of close people and give less significance to engagement and achievement signifies the prevalence of the social and adaptive personality type over the active and independent type. these characteristics should be seen as a response to the progressive trend of social development rather than as a response to the demands of today’s increasingly accelerated and globalized world. on the other hand, although to a lesser extent, the psychological well-being of russian youth is determined by gender (β = 0.056; p = 0.000), education (β = 0.046; p = 0.011), having children and their number (β = 0.037; p = 0.014). it should be noted that having children and a certain level of education are the characteristics that result from one’s life choices and the ability to take responsibility for them. the theory of self-determination considers freedom of choice and responsibility as signs of internal motivation of activity (ryan & deci, 2000). from this perspective, the strength of the characteristics corresponding to one’s readiness to make choices and take responsibility for them will not only serve as predictors of psychological well-being but also as indicators of intrinsic motivation. the psychological well-being of a young person can be achieved in different ways. for some, what matters the most is to establish positive, fulfilling relationships with other people, to have the ability to receive feedback from close people and use it for self-improvement. for others, access to education, their professional activity, and the satisfaction from goal achievement are more important. https://changing-sp.com/ 854 elena n. volkova, anna yu. akimova, oksana m. isaeva it can be assumed that constructive and positive communication, on the one hand, and internal motivation to engage in a certain activity, on the other, are the essential conditions for the psychological well-being of young people. in each case, these mechanisms will coexist in the general field of meaningful and dynamic parameters. however, each person has their own formula of well-being with a unique ratio of elements and their hierarchy. this finding confirms the self-determination theory’s postulate about the diversity of positive opportunities for personal growth and fulfillment. in the psychological sense, well-being can be seen as an integral indicator that corresponds to each individual’s positive psychological functioning and ability to experience happiness and life satisfaction. well-being manifests itself through the satisfaction with one’s life and the availability/awareness of the resources necessary to achieve happiness and life satisfaction. we found that modern russian youth tend to achieve well-being primarily through communication rather than through engagement in activities (professional development, education). conclusion this study assesses the well-being of russian youth aged 18–35 by using the adapted perma-profiler, based on seligman’s perma model. the results are generally consistent with the data on psychological well-being for different countries. however, some interesting peculiarities were detected: for example, young russian adults have shown a higher level of general well-being and its components (positive emotion and relationships) in comparison with the total sample. the research data show different indicators of well-being for different groups of respondents (age, gender, education, social, marital and parental status, living conditions, and income). we also found some peculiar ageand gender-related differences regarding well-being in the russian sample, which distinguishes it from the total sample. by applying regression analysis methods, we built a model of psychological wellbeing of russian youth and identified the following predictors: a high level of income, having one’s own family with one or more children, age of 18–22, employment, and educational attainment. in their pursuit of well-being, young russian adults tend to prioritize communication over activity. our findings can be used in programs intended to improve the psychological wellbeing of russian youth. the limitation of this study is that the data were collected only in central russia. in order to generalize the results, it would be desirable to collect the data from other russian regions as well. comparative analysis of indicators of psychological well-being in other age groups may be one of the avenues for further research. other promising areas might include the study of well-being in persons belonging to different professional and social groups, with different psychological characteristics, etc. more research on these characteristics is necessary to gain a more detailed understanding of the factors and determinants of psychological well-being of russian youth. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 841–857 855 references antonova, n. a., eritsian, k. iu., & tsvetkova, l. a. 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(2017). evaluating the dimensionality of self-determination theory’s relative autonomy continuum. personality and social psychology bulletin, 43(9), 1215–1238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217711915 tsvetkova, l. a., & antonova, n. a. (2010). rasprostranennost’ riskovannykh form povedeniia v sfere zdorov’ia sredi studentov mladshikh kursov [prevalence of health risk behaviours in students]. vestnik of saint petersburg university. psychology, sociology. pedagogy, 4, 83–93. umucu, e., wu, j.-r., sanchez, j., brooks, j. m., chiu, c.-y., tu, w.-m., & chan, f. (2020). psychometric validation of the perma-profiler as a well-being measure for student veterans. journal of american college health, 68(3), 271–277. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/07448481.2018.1546182 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.5 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.5 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217711915 https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2018.1546182 https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2018.1546182 changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 113–129 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.221 received 15 june 2022 © 2023 yuan kefeng, zhang xiaoxia, accepted 28 march 2023 olga p. nedospasova published online 10 april 2023 ykfzxx@foxmail.com, 282596452@qq.com, olgaeconomy@mail.ru article the impact of digital divide on household participation in risky financial investments: evidence from china yuan kefeng tomsk state university, tomsk, russia ningde normal university, ningde, china zhang xiaoxia tomsk state university, tomsk, russia ningde normal university, ningde, china olga p. nedospasova tomsk state university, tomsk, russia abstract the digital divide has now become a worldwide problem and has the potential to lead to greater inequality. this paper empirically analyses the impact of the “digital access divide”, “digital use divide” and “digital inequality divide” on household participation in risky financial investments using micro data from china. the results show that all three digital divides have a positive and significant impact on the probability of households participating in risky financial investments; in addition, the digital divide between urban and rural areas and between households is also significant. finally, the authors propose strategies for bridging the digital divide based on china’s national context, such as building a national cultivation and evaluation system of digital literacy, reducing the family’s parenting burden, improving the investment environment for residents, developing the power resources of the younger elderly, and promoting intergenerational digital feedbacks. keywords digital divide, financial investment, household asset allocation, internet finance, digital inequality https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:ykfzxx@foxmail.com mailto:282596452@qq.com mailto:olgaeconomy%40mail.ru?subject= 114 yuan kefeng, zhang xiaoxia, olga p. nedospasova introduction with the rapid development of china’s economy, the per capita disposable income of chinese residents has increased from 14,511 yuan in 2011 to 32,189 yuan in 2020, an increase of 2.22 times, but less than 110% of gdp growth. the per capita consumption expenditure increased from 10,820 yuan in 2011 to 21,210 yuan in 2020 (figure 1). in 2020, due to the impact of the epidemic, the growth rate of disposable income decreased significantly. secondly, the median and average proportions of residents’ disposable income increased from 85.37% in 2013 to 87.78% in 2015, and then began to decline continuously until 85.56% in 2020. although the ratio declined significantly in 2020 due to the impact of the epidemic, it has been declining year by year since 2015 (china national bureau of statistics, 2021). this data shows that the divide between the rich and the poor has gradually widened since 2015, a trend exacerbated by the epidemic. figure 1 change trend of per capita disposable income of chinese residents (unit: rmb yuan) note. data source: national bureau of statistics of china. acknowledgement this work was supported by grant from the national social science foundation of china (no. 22bjy045) and by the russian science foundation project no. 19–18–00300–п «institutions to unlock the untapped resource potential of the older generation in an aging economy». changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 113–129 115 however, according to the wealth trend of chinese families under the epidemic: a survey report on chinese family wealth index (southwestern university of finance and economics, 2020) released in june 2021, the overall wealth income of chinese families in 2020 was in good condition, with wealth growing faster than income growth and job stability recovery. there are four main factors influencing the change of chinese household wealth: housing assets, financial investment, industrial and commercial operation, and disposable cash. among them, real estate and financial investment are the main factors leading to the increase of household wealth, contributing 69.9% and 21.2% respectively, while other—disposable cash and industrial and commercial operations—contribute less than 10%. at the same time, the online investment intention of chinese households increased quarter by quarter, with young households having the highest online investment intention, though the online investment index of the elderly also increased significantly (southwestern university of finance and economics, 2020). considering the chinese government’s policy background of “housing not speculation” and the implementation of longterm adjustment mechanisms such as the comprehensive pilot of real estate tax, it is obvious that chinese residents should change their investment mode. so, which investment method should chinese residents choose? according to the experience of developed countries and the current situation of increasing household wealth in china, an effective way is to reduce the proportion of housing investment and increase the proportion of financial investment. in the rapid development of digital economy today, it is obvious that online financial investment is the general trend. according to the 47th statistical report on china’s internet development released by the china internet network information center, the number of internet users in china increased from 688 million at the end of 2015 to 989 million at the end of 2020, and the internet penetration rate increased from 50.3% to 70.4%. average rates for fixed broadband and mobile phone data dropped by more than 95% from 2015, and average internet speeds increased by more than seven times (china internet network, 2021). however, there is still a large digital divide between urban and rural areas, digital infrastructure construction between different groups, internet access rate and internet usage frequency. then, what is the impact of digital divide on the wealth income of chinese households? in view of this, this paper empirically studies the impact of digital divide on the participation probability of chinese households in risky financial investment. literature review with the rapid development of digital economy in the world, internet information technology has penetrated into all walks of life, changing our way of life, production, and consumption, and also bringing a huge impact on the financial industry. with the help of internet coupling, traditional financial investment is upgraded to a new financial model—internet finance (lin et al., 2001). internet finance is a new financial business model in which traditional financial institutions and internet enterprises use internet technology and information and communication technology to realize https://changing-sp.com/ 116 yuan kefeng, zhang xiaoxia, olga p. nedospasova capital financing, payment, investment and information intermediary services (xie et al., 2015). it breaks through the breadth, depth, and regional scope of coverage of traditional financial implementation carriers (merton & bodie, 1993) and reshapes the global financial structure (claessens et al., 2002). it breaks the monopoly position of traditional financial operation mode (shahrokhi, 2008) and greatly reduces transaction costs of enterprises, which facilitates financing for enterprises (jiang et al., 2022). it also provides convenient conditions for daily consumption and financial investment of ordinary people (mao, 2021). in essence, internet platform and financial function are the two most important elements of internet finance (wang et al., 2016). in order to give full play to the financial function of internet finance, access and use of the internet are its basic conditions. however, un survey data show that almost half of the world’s population (about 3.7 billion people) is still “offline” and will largely evolve into new global inequalities (guillén & suarez, 2005). therefore, digital divide has also aroused the concern of scholars and policy makers. some scholars have taken a global macro view, they considered computer popularization (chinn & fairlie, 2004), per capita income (baliamoune-lutz, 2003), urbanization process (wong, 2002), social system (zhao et al., 2007), and democratization level (nam, 2010; norris, 2001), gini coefficient (fuchs, 2008), foreign investment and level of science and technology (pick & azari, 2008) are important factors influencing the widening of digital divide. it is also divided into three levels according to the evolution sequence. the first level of digital divide is “digital access divide”, the demographic group difference between telephone, personal computer, and internet owners and those who do not own (ntia, 1999). the second level is “digital usage divide” indicating that with the rapid popularization of computer hardware technology and information software technology, digital divide gradually transforms into group differences in the use degree, content and skills of digital resources (attewell, 2001). third-level digital divide is “digital inequality divide”. that is, the inequality of benefits caused by the difference in digital dividend brought by the application of information and communication technology (dimaggio & hargittai, 2001; scheerder et al., 2017). while internet information technology has brought great changes to the develop ment of financial market, it also has a certain impact on household asset allocation. on the one hand, the changes in the way of financial transactions brought by the internet weaken the time and space restrictions of transactions and lower the threshold of investment in the financial market (bogan, 2008; yin et al., 2015), which enables more families to participate in financial asset investment (du et al., 2018; xu & jiang, 2017; zhang & lu,2021). moreover, as a carrier of information dissemination, the internet is characterized by fast and large dissemination of information, which has a certain impact on residents’ financial literacy and “information asymmetry” in venture capital (dong et al., 2017; yin et al., 2014), which can then influence the proportion of household financial risk assets investment (wang et al., 2019; yin & zhang, 2017). on the other hand, under the influence of the three digital divide, some families are excluded from the digital financial system due to the difference in internet access, internet use frequency, internet knowledge, and information resource utilization efficiency of different families changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 113–129 117 (liu & luo, 2019). and the possibility of further widening the divide between the rich and the poor has emerged (luo & cha, 2018; su & han, 2021). in summary, scholars have shown that the widespread use of digital technologies has led to the rapid development of the digital economy and the rapid transformation of the global economy, which in turn has changed the way households live, produce, consume, and invest. however, the significant differences in internet usage among different groups of people (or households) have led to a three-tiered digital divide, which has exacerbated social inequalities. while some scholars have studied the impact of the digital divide on households’ economic development, most of these results have examined one or two dimensions of the digital divide alone, and there is very little research that progressively discriminates between the three layers of the digital divide on households’ risky financial investment participation. therefore, this paper selects china, a developing country with a significant digital divide, as the subject of this study and uses its micro-survey data to empirically investigate the impact of household participation in risky financial investments in a hierarchical manner. mechanism analysis and hypothesis proposal at a time when digital transformation is in full swing in all industries, few investors sit in the lobby of a financial exchange and look at the investment information rolling on the big screen, and make their own rational investment. the vast majority of investors rely on internet-connected computers or smartphones to access a wealth of investment information and make sound investment judgments. however, access to the internet is the primary condition for residents to participate in internet financial activities. from the reality of the situation at home and abroad, there are still a large number of families do not access the internet, the use of the internet to obtain investment information and income is out of the question. therefore, the authors put forward hypothesis 1 of this paper. hypothesis 1: digital access divide significantly affects households’ participation in risky financial investment. after internet access, on the one hand, residents can carry out financial investment activities with the help of the internet without having to spend a lot of transaction costs. on the other hand, residents can search for desirable financial products with reasonable returns in the vast internet world to enhance financial availability. moreover, the use of internet instant messaging software can strengthen the connection between residents and relatives and friends and promote the stability (or growth) of social capital. therefore, the authors put forward hypothesis 2 of this paper. hypothesis 2: digital use divide significantly affects households’ participation in risky financial investments. in the chinese and russian universities where the authors teach, some students often use the internet to play games, watch movies, listen to music, read novels, browse short videos and other recreational activities. while some college students often use the internet to watch current events to broaden their horizons, learn cultural knowledge to improve their ability. over the course of a few years, it is obvious which college students addicted to online entertainment will become better than those https://changing-sp.com/ 118 yuan kefeng, zhang xiaoxia, olga p. nedospasova who keep improving themselves. similarly, if one family often uses the internet for entertainment and another for business, it is obvious which family can realize the increase of family wealth through the internet. therefore, the direction and frequency of internet use by different families will affect the investment decisions of risky finance of families to a certain extent, thus widening the divide of financial returns. therefore, the authors put forward hypothesis 3. hypothesis 3: digital inequality divide significantly affects households’ participation in risky financial investments. in the process of china’s urbanization, a large number of people flood into cities, and a large amount of infrastructure and capital are invested in urban construction, while the rural areas have relatively little change. as a result, urban and rural areas cannot be compared in terms of hardware or software, and digital divide is becoming increasingly significant. accordingly, the authors put forward hypothesis 4 of this paper. hypothesis 4: digital divide between urban and rural areas leads to the difference in probability of urban and rural households participating in risky financial investment. in china, raising children and supporting the elderly are major financial burdens for families. in recent years, the consumption structure of chinese households has also undergone significant changes under the influence of the digital economy, with an overall upward trend in spending on education, healthcare, housing, and retirement. this change has not only squeezed the scope for household financial investment, but has also had a negative impact on household fertility intentions (figure 2). it can be seen that household burden will seriously affect household investment behavior. accordingly, the authors propose hypothesis 5 of this paper. hypothesis 5: family burden difference significantly affects family participation in risky financial investment. data processing and empirical analysis data sources to study the impact of digital divide on household risky financial investment requires comprehensive micro-survey data. the authors select the micro databases in china, and finally select the database of the chinese general social survey of renmin university of china (cgss) in 2017 as the data source of this paper (cgss, 2017). cgss2017 database for residents of china’s 31 provinces (municipalities directly under the central government) the usage of internet has carried on the detailed investigation, the data collected from the micro level to a more intuitive reflect the status of investigation object is the risk of financial investment, individual, social, and economic characteristics, effective data samples for a total of 12,582 copies. according to the needs of the study, the authors selected the related dependent, independent, and control variables, and eliminated the missing values and invalid samples of the selected variables. a total of 3,110 groups of samples were obtained. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 113–129 119 variable selection the core of this paper is to verify the impact of digital divide on risky financial investment participation. we learned from the variable selection experience of existing research results and selected dependent variables, independent variables and control variables respectively in cgss2017 database based on china’s national conditions (see table 1). figure 2 trends in china’s household consumption structure and population birth rate, 2012–2021 note. data source: national bureau of statistics of china. (a) dependent variable. the authors found “is your family currently engaged in the following investment activities?” in cgss2017 database. the survey includes data on risky investments such as stocks, funds, bonds, futures, warrants, and foreign exchange. by comparing the data, the authors find that stock is the most popular risky investment item among chinese residents, and the relevant questionnaire is relatively complete. finally, the risky financial investment is determined as the core dependent variable of this paper and named as “stock investment”, whose value rule is: the nonparticipating financial investment = 0, the participating financial investment = 1. (b) independent variables. according to the previous literature review, there is still no consensus on the three digital divide in academic circles. the authors summarize the three digital divides according to the existing literature: “digital access divide”, “digital use divide” and “digital inequality divide”. on this basis, the authors selected “is your home connected to the internet?” in the database of cgss2017. survey item data measured the impact of household digital access on risky financial investment https://changing-sp.com/ 120 yuan kefeng, zhang xiaoxia, olga p. nedospasova participation, named “access divide”. next, the authors selected “how often have you used the internet in the past year?” named “use divide”, the survey item data measured the influence of number use on risky financial investment participation, and, finally, selected “how often have you used the internet for business transactions in the past year?” the survey item data measured the influence of household digital transaction status on risky financial investment participation, named as the “inequality divide”. (c) control variables. this paper refers to the research results of other scholars on family risky financial investment, and combines the demographic characteristics of the respondents: gender, age and age2 (used together with the variable “age” to judge whether there is a “u” trend or an inverted “u” trend with increasing age), health status and marital status, and education level. family economic status is an important factor affecting family financial investment. so, the authors select “what is your annual personal income?” the data item "income" is also used as a control variable in this analysis. for the convenience of statistical analysis, we take logarithm of it. in a family, it costs a lot of money to raise children, so the number of children will affect the family’s expenditure and investment decisions. therefore, we take “number of children” as a control variable. the family enjoys a certain amount of social security policy is an important backing of family investment, which can provide basic security for them. therefore, the authors select the question “do you participate in the public medical insurance?”, “whether to participate in the public pension insurance?”— medical insurance and pension, respectively. in addition, china has been urbanizing very fast in recent years, with an average urbanization rate of more than 60%. a large number of people live in cities with large concentrations of enterprises, hospitals, financial institutions, education and training institutions, and internet services. in order to verify the difference between urban and rural areas in household risky financial investment, the authors also take “living in a city” as a control variable and names it “living place”. model setting the core of this paper is to study the impact of three digital divides on households’ participation in risky financial investment. since the dependent variable “stock investment” is a dummy variable selected by the binary value (non-participation = 0, participation =1), probit model is selected for regression analysis. its basic function is expressed in (1). in equation (1), riski denotes household risky assets and is the explanatory variable, dividei is the explanatory variable, xi is the control variable, εi denotes the disturbance term, β1 and β2 are the parameters to be estimated, and i denotes the respondent household. after substituting the control variables into the equation, the function is expressed as equation (2). (1))1210 ,n,iiixidivideirisk =+++= （εβββ ）（ 21,..., n) (i =+++++ +++++++= iεiisurbanβipensionβiinsurancemed-βiincomeβ ihealthβimβieduβi2ageβiageβigender2ββirisk 111098 7arital6543idivide1β0 , (1))1210 ,n,iiixidivideirisk =+++= （εβββ ）（ 21,..., n) (i =+++++ +++++++= iεiisurbanβipensionβiinsurancemed-βiincomeβ ihealthβimβieduβi2ageβiageβigender2ββirisk 111098 7arital6543idivide1β0 , changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 113–129 121 empirical analysis first, we perform a descriptive statistical analysis of all selected data variables. the specific results are shown in table 1. table 1 descriptive statistics of variables variable type variable name obs mean std. dev. min max dependent variable stock investment 3110 0.083 0.275 0 1 independent variables access divide 3110 0.744 0.436 0 1 use divide 3110 2.965 1.700 1 5 inequality divide 3110 2.173 1.389 1 5 control variables gender 3110 0.494 0.500 0 1 age 3110 47.068 13.971 18 70 age2 3110 24.106 12.875 3.24 49 health status 3110 3.509 1.088 1 5 marital status 3110 0.803 0.398 0 1 education level 3110 5.300 3.176 1 13 income 3110 9.995 1.259 4.605 16.111 medical insurance 3110 0.718 0.450 0 1 pension 3110 0.922 0.269 0 1 living place 3110 0.633 0.482 0 1 number of children 3110 1.540 1.031 0 10 then, the probit model was used for regression analysis of digital access divide, and the results were shown in model (1) in table 2, p = .001, with a marginal effect of 0.110. after controlling the digital access variables as access status (value 1), the probit model was continued to be used for regression analysis of the digital use divide. the results showed that in model (2) in table 2, p = .000 and its marginal effect was 0.024. finally, after controlling the use of digital variables in the use state (value > 1), the probit model was continued to be used to regression the digital inequality divide, and the results showed that in model (3) of table 2, p = .000, and its marginal effect was 0.027. on the whole, the three digital divide has a significant positive correlation with household participation in risky financial investment. that is, the first three hypotheses proposed by the author are all valid. from the marginal effect of model (1), for every 1-unit improvement in digital access, the probability of households participating in risky financial investments increases by 11%. from the marginal effect of model (2), the probability of households’ https://changing-sp.com/ 122 yuan kefeng, zhang xiaoxia, olga p. nedospasova participation in risky financial investment increases by 2.4% for every 1 unit increase in the frequency of number use. from the marginal effect of model (3), if the frequency of business activities using the internet increases by 1 unit, the inequality probability of households’ participation in risky financial investment increases by 2.7%. by comparing model (1) to model (3), it is found that whether digital access has the greatest influence on the probability of household participation in risky financial investment. also, age and age2 showed positive correlation and negative correlation in the three models, that is, with the growth of residents’ age, the possibility of participating in risky financial investment showed an inverted “u” shape trend of increasing first and then decreasing. the higher the education level and income of the respondents, the higher the probability of their households participating in risky financial investments. having health insurance increases the probability that households will participate in risky financial investments, which may be related to the immediate reimbursement of health insurance. urban residents are more likely to participate in risky financial investment than rural residents, which indicates that digital divide between urban and rural areas in china leads to a large divide between urban and rural households in the field of risky financial investment, and also proves the validity of the authors’ hypothesis 4. the more children there are in a family, the lower the probability that the family will participate in risky financial investment. this proves that the authors’ hypothesis 5 is established, and also proves the reason why there is no baby boom after the chinese government liberalizes the “two-child” and “three-child” policy. table 2 household risky financial asset investment participation variable model (1) model (2) model (3) model (4) p > |z| marginal effect p > |z| marginal effect p > |z| marginal effect p > |z| marginal effect access divide 0.001 0.110 use divide 0.000 0.024 inequality divide 0.000 0.027 proportion of working with computer 0.001 0.001 gender 0.110 0.017 0.073 0.025 0.089 0.027 0.108 0.026 age 0.001 0.010 0.002 0.012 0.001 0.015 0.001 0.016 age2 0.022 0.007 0.037 0.009 0.037 0.010 0.033 0.000 health status 0.119 0.009 0.089 0.013 0.170 0.012 0.080 0.016 marital status 0.489 0.011 0.673 0.009 0.601 0.013 0.893 0.003 education level 0.000 0.009 0.000 0.009 0.001 0.010 0.001 0.010 income 0.000 0.051 0.000 0.066 0.000 0.071 0.000 0.075 medical insurance 0.028 0.041 0.025 0.055 0.061 0.051 0.046 0.059 changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 113–129 123 variable model (1) model (2) model (3) model (4) p > |z| marginal effect p > |z| marginal effect p > |z| marginal effect p > |z| marginal effect pension 0.692 0.011 0.818 0.009 0.981 0.001 0.751 0.014 living place 0.002 0.077 0.005 0.097 0.007 0.104 0.013 0.101 number of children 0.000 0.035 0.002 0.039 0.003 0.044 0.002 0.045 in order to verify the robustness of the model, the authors selected the question “what percentage of work per week do you use a computer?” in the cgss2017 database, named “proportion of working with computer”, and conducted regression analysis based on model (3). the results are shown in table 2, model (4). both independent variables and control variables maintain the same significant correlation with the previous three models. this shows that the model set in this paper is very robust. according to the regression results of the four models in table 2, under the influence of digital divide, chinese urban residents have a higher probability of participating in risky financial investment than rural residents. in order to verify the heterogeneity of the two, we control the variable of “living place” and conduct regression analysis on the basis of model (3). the regression results of the survey objects living in cities and rural areas are respectively output in model (5) and model (6) in table 3. the results show that the digital inequality divide has a significant positive correlation with the probability of urban residents participating in risky financial investment, but not with rural residents. the probability of urban residents participating in risky financial investment increases by 3.2% when the frequency of urban residents using the internet to carry out business activities increases by one unit. this shows that the huge digital divide between urban and rural residents in china has led to unequal investment returns. since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus at the end of 2019, the rapid development of “internet plus education” in the deep integration of internet technology and education has promoted revolutionary changes in the education system, making it more flexible and effective. and judging from the present, “internet + education” is based on the internet infrastructure and innovation factors, constructs the new education ecology and service mode, the new education ecological across the boundaries of the school and class, constructing open education service system, can satisfy the social knowledge and learners’ demand for education of new information age. in this context, the authors multiplied the variable of “inequality divide” and the variable of “education level” to obtain the interaction term “internet + education”, and conducted regression analysis based on model (3), the results of which are output in model (7) in table 3. the results show that “internet + education” has a significant positive impact on the probability of family participation in risky financial investment, and the probability of family participation in risky financial investment increases by 0.3% when the frequency of learning knowledge through internet increases by one unit. table 2 continued https://changing-sp.com/ 124 yuan kefeng, zhang xiaoxia, olga p. nedospasova table 3 robust and heterogeneous regression results variable model (5) model (6) model (7) p > |z| marginal effect p > |z| marginal effect p > |z| marginal effect inequality divide 0.000 0.032 0.098 0.003 internet + education 0.001 0.003 gender 0.111 0.025 0.827 0.001 0.106 0.026 age 0.002 0.014 0.442 0.002 0.001 0.017 age2 0.041 0.010 0.634 0.001 0.022 0.000 health status 0.186 0.011 0.006 0.004 0.079 0.017 marital status 0.475 0.017 0.222 0.008 0.715 0.009 education level 0.000 0.010 0.028 0.002 0.967 0.000 income 0.000 0.073 0.197 0.004 0.000 0.074 medical insurance 0.018 0.071 0.643 0.003 0.050 0.057 pension 0.696 0.017 0.704 0.003 0.893 0.006 living place (omitted) 0.000 (omitted) 0.000 0.010 0.105 number of children 0.005 0.040 0.095 0.006 0.003 0.046 conclusions and recommendations the regression results of the seven models above show that digital divide has a significant impact on the participation probability of household risky financial investment, which will lead to more income inequality and widen the wealth divide of residents. the difference of digital divide between the young and the old is reflected in the participation probability of household risky financial investment, showing the difference of investment income caused by digital divide between the generations of residents. in the era of digital economy, residents with a certain level of education will be more easily access to more information resources through the internet, and thus obtain more benefits. the multiple digital divides formed by the divide in economy, education, infrastructure, social security and other aspects between urban and rural areas in china has seriously severed the equal opportunities for urban and rural residents to benefit from the internet, thus seriously affecting the living standards of urban and rural residents, and even bringing about a greater crisis. today, the aging of china’s population continues to deepen, the government’s fertility policy has failed to show the incentive effect, and many families are unable to carry out more investment activities in the face of heavy pressure of child-rearing. using micro-survey data from china, this study empirically analyses the impact of the digital divide on household financial investment behavior at three levels: digital access, digital use, and digital inequality, respectively. to a certain extent, this thesis fills a gap in research in the related field, and thus provides a research perspective changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 113–129 125 and theoretical methodological reference for subsequent researchers. however, the micro-survey data for china is country specific and does not correspond to all countries. it is suggested that other scholars can use data from different countries to further validate the findings of this paper. in addition, given the dual pressures of china’s digital economy and an ageing population, the authors make the following recommendations. (a) bridge digital divide between urban and rural areas. facing the information divide between urban and rural areas in china, we should first increase infrastructure construction and accelerate the informatization of rural areas. then, it is necessary to break the bottleneck of blocked information, scattered resources, and poor communication in rural areas, integrate all kinds of scattered resources with the help of the internet, and then accelerate the interconnection of technical and human resources between urban and rural areas. online life skills and production skills training should also be carried out for farmers (such as e-commerce training, online agricultural technology training, etc.). (b) to build a nationwide digital literacy cultivation and evaluation system. drawing on foreign experience and combining with china’s national conditions, the cultivation system of improving the digital literacy of the whole chinese people is constructed by adopting sections (teenagers, adults, and the elderly), grading (general application, technical promotion, innovation, and creation), and classification (normal group, special group). in addition, an evaluation system of national digital literacy is constructed from the aspects of digital acquisition, use, security, ethics, evaluation, interaction, sharing, production, and innovation. (c) reduce the burden of family rearing. on the one hand, the government should formulate more favorable individual income tax payment policies for families. on the other hand, to provide families with more gsp child care institutions. in addition, there will be more incentive maternity leave and financial subsidies to encourage people to have two or three children. (d) improving the investment environment for residents. the government should formulate more scientific financial market supervision policies to create a good market environment for residents’ financial investment, and guide residents to carry out financial investment reasonably through public opinion. enterprises should also use the internet to develop more new products and services and expand financial investment channels for residents. (e) developing human resources for the young and the elderly. first, actively promote the professional and hierarchical development of education for the elderly, improve the education level of the elderly group, and enhance the digital quality of the elderly group with the help of the internet. second, the construction of the elderly human resources big data information database, the establishment of the elderly group re-employment platform integrating employment consulting, job introduction, employment training, employment tracking services, and other functions, to provide data support for the elderly group re-employment. third, we will improve supporting policies and measures to encourage enterprises to hire retired young people. https://changing-sp.com/ 126 yuan kefeng, zhang xiaoxia, olga p. nedospasova (f) promote intergenerational digital feedback. on the one hand, we can learn from the community volunteer service mechanism to encourage college students to go into the community and teach the elderly how to use digital products. on the other hand, children should patiently help their parents to learn digital skills and get familiar with digital security knowledge, so as to speed up their parents’ adaptation to the pace of life and production in the digital economy era. references attewell, p. 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discriminatory treatment, but developing effective policies to cope with discrimination requires a clear understanding of the factors that trigger xenophobia. despite a substantial body of crossnational research on the subject, the causes continue to be debated. the article reviews the relevant evidence in an effort to move closer to a clear understanding of causes of xenophobia, particularly in reference to the nordic countries. social identity theories, group threat theories, theories of nationalism and value theories all provide us with potentially useful cognitive explanations of xenophobia. to explain the perceived increase of xenophobic sentiments requires a dynamic theory of value change. the article draws on all these approaches, concluding that relatively secure people tend to be more tolerant than less secure once. summing them up, i conclude that existential security/insecurity is the major cause of non-xenophobic/ xenophobic attitudes. to test this hypothesis i utilize the data of the world value survey project, which covers all the nordic countries over fifteen years. first, i compare the results of elections to the received 20 february 2018 © 2018 olga iakimova accepted 29 march 2018 yakimova.ola@gmail.com published online 3 april 2018 1 the work was funded by russian science foundation (rsf). grant number 17–18–01194. olga iakimova18 national parliaments with the dynamics of xenophobic and nonxenophobic (tolerant) attitudes in these countries. second, i perform a correlation between a society’s gdp per capita at various times in the past and attitudes toward ethnic immigrants in sweden, denmark, norway, and finland. based on the resulting findings, the article concludes that the massive surge of votes for xenophobic parties in the nordic countries might seem to imply that it reflected an equally massive surge of xenophobic attitudes but this was not the case. xenophobic attitudes showed the opposite trend. xenophobic attitudes are more heavily shaped by the levels of insecurity one experience during one’s formative years, which occurred several decades before the survey. keywords xenophobia, tolerance, international migration, ethnic immigrants, the nordic countries, the theory of value change why worry about xenophobia? the people of western societies generally claim to favor equality and opportunity for all. but since the 1990s, xenophobic, deeply conservative and extreme right-wing political movements have emerged as increasingly strong electoral forces in much of europe. the 2014 elections to the european parliament saw a dramatic surge of support for xenophobic, authoritarian and anti-europe political parties: these parties gaining a record-breaking 52 seats, a major gain over the 37 seats that they won in the 2009 elections (european parliament, 2014). the nordic countries have long been viewed as among the most tolerant countries in the world, with exemplary protection of minorities. nevertheless in denmark (danish people’s party), norway (the progress party), sweden (sweden democrats), and finland (the finns party), xenophobic and anti-european parties also moved into first place, winning a large share of the vote than the major parties that have governed these countries for decades. because of xenophobic attitudes held by individuals in strategic positions, immigrants are widely perceived as an “outgroup” and discriminated against in the labour or housing markets (rydgren, 2004). the expansion of xenophobic beliefs threatens the democratic structures of western countries and may lead to their political destabilization. moreover, increasing xenophobia is undermining support for the european union. as a complex social phenomenon, xenophobia exists at two levels. at its “private-domain” level, xenophobia is an excessive fear of those who are different from oneself. this level is essential; therefore, generally xenophobia has been defined as a fear of “others”. at the “public-domain” level, fears manifest themselves as a dislike or hatred of a particular group of people, such as foreign immigrants. these changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 19 fears often are given some plausible rationalization. thus, van der veer, yakusko, ommundsen, and higler (2011) identify five kinds of rationalization that people use to explain their fear of foreign migrants. for instance, people may say that they dislike them because they fear migrants’ “political disloyalty” or they do not want to “lose their cultural identity.” from an objective point of view, these xenophobic beliefs are often irrational, because of their incongruence with reality. in the distant past, in hunting and gathering societies or early agrarian societies, “xenophobia could be realistic under conditions where it literally was a question of one tribe or other surviving. for example, under conditions where there was just enough land to support one tribe, and another tribe comes along” (inglehart, 2017, p. 21). today, xenophobia departs from the behavioral norms of civilized society, in which people are expected to relate with one another with respect and dignity. xenophobia can have severe negative consequences. on the individual level, it brings psychological trauma to its victims. on the societal level, xenophobic attitudes may lead to increasing crimes rates and intensification of intergroup and intercultural conflicts that threaten social stability. on the economic level, it may bring destruction of property and can scare away potential foreign investors. finally, in international politics level xenophobia tends to produce a negative image of the offending group or country. given these undesirable consequences of xenophobia, the question arises: why do people engage in xenophobic behavior even in the world’s richest countries in times largely free of armed conflicts, natural disasters and poverty? interpretations of xenophobia in contemporary social theories to answer this question we need to understand the causal chain that leads to prejudice and overt xenophobia. various theories scrutinize the issue of international migration, such as theories of nation and nationalism, group threat/competition theories, theories of social identity, theories of value and value change. a review of these theoretical approaches provides us with an insight that xenophobic attitudes usually (1) have objective sources and triggers; (2) are spread among particular groups of people and (3) can be observed in particular periods of time (appendix, table a. 1). most scholars agree that people’s attitude toward immigrants is closely linked with the presence of ethnically different newcomers in their immediate environment. this happens because xenophobia is a phenomenon of interpersonal and intergroup interaction and thus, links with the issue of ingroup/outgroup demarcation where perceiving immigrants as an outgroup means perceiving them as a threat. given that most developed contemporary societies are multiethnic, xenophobia can be interpreted as tensions induced by multi-ethnic society where ethnically different newcomers are visible, making it possible for them to be perceived as an outgroup and consequently, as a threat. according to theories of nation and nationalism, xenophobia is considered as an expression of the nationalist ideology. in this theoretical approach, the nation-state olga iakimova20 can be interpreted as being conducive to xenophobia toward foreigners because its very idea presupposes a constitutive intergroup division between “us” and “others”. consequently, ingroup/outgroup demarcation is natural for the nation-state and its institutional order is a form of social closure (anderson, 1983; brubaker, 1992). the belief that the state with its territory and culture belongs to the people who have been united into a nation develops a nationalistic ideology with a xenophobic worldview, where ethnic migrants are perceived as competitors for collective goods of indigenous population such as real rights of political participation and social support (wimmer, 1997). this statement resonates with a key idea of blumer’s (1958) the group threat/ competition theory, which claims that within a society there is always a resource stress. as a result, access to desired resources is limited and cannot be available to all groups. in these circumstances if an outgroup exists, it is perceived as a competitor for scarce economic resources and, consequently, as a threat. however, the physical presence of an ethnically different group is only the first step in the causal chain to overt xenophobia. hjerm and nagayoshi (2011) argue that the size of the minority group per se does not trigger it. what really matters is the composition of immigrant population in terms of their cultural origin and religious belonging. accordingly, a large proportion of culturally very distinct muslim immigrants strengthens xenophobia among the majority population of european countries, because they are viewed as a threat to values cherished by western peoples. taking into account all the above, at this point of analyses one can ask: does the existence of the nation state make xenophobia inevitable? is it possible to cope with the problem of ethnic ingroup/outgroup demarcation? the role of nation-state in supporting xenophobic attitudes toward foreigners among its citizens examined in studies on national identity and national pride. following the commonly proposed division between ethnic and civic components of society, researchers who work in this realm of social science argue that different forms of national identity and pride influence people’s attitudes towards “others” in different ways. for example, smith (1991) suggests dividing national identity into two salient patterns: (1) the civic national identity and (2) the ethnic national identity where civic identification is assumed to be better than ethnic one because in the first case people living in a society can unite under common political rules and values in the name of democracy. hjerm (1998) goes further and introduces two more types of national identity: (3) the multiple national identity, when individuals base their national identity on both civic and ethnic factors at the same time, and (4) the pluralistic national identity when people have only a weak sense of national identity. hjerm concludes that having an ethnic national identity, together with a multiple national identity is associated with an increased risk of being xenophobic, while having a civic national identity or, being a pluralist, decreases that risk. the same is true for national pride. hjerm divides an individual sense of pride into political (civic changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 21 dimension) and natio-cultural (ethnic dimension)2 and demonstrates that the political dimension of national pride shows a negative correlation with xenophobia, while the natio-cultural dimension positively correlates with it (hjerm, 1998, pp. 341, 344). on the whole, researches on national identity and national pride give empirical support to the assumption that to decrease the risk of xenophobia, the separation of civic and ethnic in nation-state is desirable. apart from a way of one’s self-identification and the dimension of national pride they have, people’s attitudes toward outgroups are influenced by their values. researches on people’s values linked with their attitudes toward ethnic groups provide us with knowledge about some important features of those who hold either tolerant or xenophobic attitudes toward immigrants. thus, leong and ward (2006) demonstrate that only certain cultural values are really conducive to xenophobia. according to their findings, these values are uncertainty avoidance, power distance, mastery and masculinity. conversely, individualism and harmony can be considered as desirable for a society if it aims to prevent xenophobic sentiments among its members. one more important aspect that theories emphasize is the fact that xenophobic discourse receives varying amounts of support over time. overall, the majority of scholars have agreed on two points. firstly, there are specific periods of time when a surge of xenophobia can be easily observed: times of economic crises or recession almost always provide a breeding ground for socially detrimental outcomes. secondly, a xenophobic interpretation of social crisis does not appeal equally to all members of society. wimmer (1997) argues that such an interpretation is common among downwardly mobile groups, which members are dependent on a state support and are most threatened by a loss of their social status in times of crisis. aydin, kruger, frey, and fisher (2013) show that economic uncertainties and fear of social and financial decline make particular groups of individuals feel social exclusion that, in turn, leads them to displaced aggression manifested in intolerance towards minority groups. taking ideas like these into account, esses, dovido, jackson, and armstrong (2001) developed the instrumental model of group conflict, which demonstrates that xenophobia towards foreign migrants is not a general ethnic prejudice but a distinct kind of prejudice based on zero-sum beliefs concerning competition. in other words, xenophobia, as a fear of “others”, has a rational nature. in view of the above, xenophobia can be considered as a kind of a coping strategy in times of crisis for particular groups of people. to summarize, theoretical and empirical studies reviewed above claim that anti-immigrant attitudes have objective sources and that even though people are not averse to immigrants, they may become more or less xenophobic under some specific conditions. this manifests itself, for instance, in the so-called “immigration 2 political pride hjerm interprets as pride in things that constitute civic national identity (political institutions of the society, its economy and social security system) and natio-cultural pride – as part of ethnic understanding of the nation-state (history, culture, different achievements of people within a certain society) (hjerm, 1998, p. 343). olga iakimova22 dilemma” which means that in hard times of crises members of majority population perceive immigrants negatively regardless of whether the newcomers do well in the society or not. in the former case, their success may be explained as coming at the expense of natives; and in the latter case, immigrants are seen as detrimental to national well-being system (esses et al., 2001). nevertheless, regardless of whether these studies interpret xenophobia as an element in a political struggle for collective goods of a nation-state or a coping strategy of those who feel socially excluded in times of economic crises, and whether scholars see xenophobia as a function of national identity based on ethnicity or a function of particular values shared by individuals in the state, they do not offer any clear explanation of how these values and identities are shaped, what changes them, and why such changes occur. as a result, the theories provide us with static, cognitive explanations of factors underlying xenophobic sentiments among public. however, if we want to explain the dramatic surge in support of xenophobic parties and the perceived increase of xenophobic sentiments in western countries requires a dynamic theory of value change. almost 50 years ago, inglehart proposed a theory of value change, which holds that relatively secure people tend to be more tolerant than less secure ones (inglehart, 1971). if people grow up experiencing high levels of existential security (that is, taking survival for granted) they tend to hold postmaterialist and self-expression values that make them relatively open to change and tolerant of outgroups. on the contrary, if people are shaped by existential insecurity during their pre-adult years, they tend to develop materialist and survival values that encourage an authoritarian xenophobic outlook, strong in-group solidarity, and rejection of outsiders (inglehart & welzel, 2005; inglehart & norris, 2004). confirming this interpretation, inglehart and welzel (2005) find that high levels of existential security during one’s formative years leads to an intergenerational shift toward self-expression values, and thus to higher levels of tolerance. this means, that at every time point, the younger generations are more postmaterialist than the older ones. nevertheless, tolerance levels do not change overnight. in keeping with this hypothesis, we would expect to find a time lag between economic development and a society’s level of xenophobia. a society’s current level of xenophobia will be more accurately predicted by its level of economic development several decades before the survey (during the pre-adult years of the median respondent) than by its level of economic security at the time of the survey. inglehart and welzel’s theory of value change also demonstrates the presence of clear period effects in response to current economic and social conditions: in time of existential insecurity people tend to shift toward more materialist (survival) and xenophobic views – and with economic recovery, they shift back toward their longterm baseline (inglehart 1990; inglehart & welzel 2005). accordingly, i hypothesize that existential insecurity is the major cause of xenophobic attitudes. this article tests this hypothesis in the nordic countries that simultaneously (1) are among the prosperous in the world, (2) have experienced changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 23 substantial flows of migrants, and (3) have experienced the rise in support of rite-wing political movements over last decades. all these criteria meet sweden, denmark, norway, and finland (in slightly different terms in the context of richness). the issue of immigration and the rise of right-wing populism in the nordics the nordic countries are among the world’s richest. they are renowned for their gender and economic equality, high levels of trust, social cohesion, extensive welfare programs, powerful unions, relatively low unemployment rates, and so on (mulvand & stahl, 2015; booth, 2014). the nordics sustainably continue to flourish, regularly lead the global rankings, be it in education, happiness or quality of life, and appear to be centers of innovation. the “nordic model” of welfare state is an exemplary model of society for many across the world. for decades, public has seen these countries as the “quintessential tolerance and human rightbased” (armback, 2015). recently, however, the international media have reported on the racism and hate crimes in scandinavia that seem to be linked with the rise of right-wing political movements in the region. the danish progress party, the sweden democrats, the finns party and norway’s progress party have all seen their support trend upwards in election after election over the past two decades (appendix, table a. 2). thus, the results of elections to the national parliaments show an increase in the ratings of support of the danish people’s party (a 9-point increase over the last 14 years), finns (+17 percentage points since 1999), and sweden democrats (+13 over the last 16 years). norway’s progress party has a relatively large number of supporters and has won from 15 to 23 percent of votes over the past two decades. the same goes with the elections to the european parliament. the result of the danish people’s party in 2014 was improved by 21 percentage points in comparison with 1999, the finns demonstrated a 12-point increase and sweden democrats – a 9-point increase. increasingly, the political climate in the nordics has been dominated by rightwing populist parties that propagate anti-immigrant and anti-muslim rhetoric, and ethnically intolerant and violently charged language creeping gradually into the mainstream. thus, hege ulstein – the chief political writer of the oslo newspaper dagsavisen – says: “the way people talk about islam and muslims here has slowly, inch by inch over the years, moved so that things that would have caused total outrage 10 years ago only cause mild annoyance today – things like ‘there is something in the muslim culture that threatens us and we have to send them away’. you couldn’t say then, and you hear it in the parliament and in the newspapers now” (saunders, 2011). owing to ander breivik atrocities against an “islamic colonization” in 2011, the norwegian progress party came under fire since their strong stance against immigration fed xenophobia and might have influenced the terrorist. norwegian politicians at large agreed to tone down in the debates on immigration then, but on the eve of scheduled elections, they all shifted back to their common practice olga iakimova24 of populist rhetoric (ladegaard, 2013). thus, a study of wiggen (2013) based on content analyses of academic literature, mainstream media and online discussions in norway before and after 2011 shows that the public debate on immigration is fundamentally negative in the country, and xenophobia toward muslim immigrants is visible in the media and everyday life. although sweden remains the only european country where the majority has a positive attitude toward non-eu immigration (european social survey, 2017), the rise in the popularity of the right-wing populism fuels xenophobia there as well. during 2014, about three hundred attacks on beggars and in roma camps were reported, which is 23 percent higher than a year before. a un report published in 2015 highlighted the rise of afrophobic hate crimes in the country – 1,075 in 2015 versus 980 in 2014 (armback, 2015). the issue of immigration, populist rhetoric and stance against ethnic migrants are three factors that unite the four above mentioned right-wing parties. their growing influence has moved in parallel with the four nordic countries’ changing population composition and their electorates’ attitudes to immigration (nardelli & arnett, 2015). according to eurobarometer’s results (european commission & eurobarometer, 2015) immigration is currently seen by europeans as the most important issue facing the eu (38 %). this item is mentioned by half of the population of denmark (50 %) and sweden (48 %), and the finns mentioned it as the third most important issue facing the eu (24 %). at the same time, immigration remains the most important concern at national level only for denmark, mentioned by 35 % of danes. it is the fourth main nation concern for swedes (28 %) and only the sixth – for finns (6 %). to summarize, the extraordinary wealthy nordic countries today all have sizable right-wing populist movements dominated by xenophobic sentiments. taking this into account as an example of welfare chauvinism, currently, the attempts are made to tie the relative success of the scandinavian welfare states with their cultural and ethnic homogeneity, and therefore, to demonstrate that the “nordic model” is inherently racist (mulvand & stahl, 2015). for example, national review’s kevin williamson, attacking bernie sanders for his usage in the political campaign ideas of nordic social democracy, argues that white homogeneity accounts for the scandinavian welfare state and that to save and protect the homogeneity and, consequently, the welfare state, the population of these countries has been overtly xenophobic toward ethnic migrants: “the nastier of europe’s anti-immigrant and ethno-nationalist movements argue that ethnic solidarity is necessary to preserve the welfare state…”, or “nations of northern europe were until recently ethnically homogenous, overwhelmingly white, hostile to immigration, nationalistic, and frankly racist in much of their domestic policy” (williamson, 2015). to some extent, it is possible to agree that “welfare chauvinism” is a sort of contemporary malaise in the nordic political climate but the causes of this phenomenon cannot be traced to any inherent xenophobia of scandinavians. as is evident from the theoretical analyses presented at the beginning of this article, populist and overtly xenophobic parties draw their support from groups of people who have become uprooted from relatively secure lives as a consequence of changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 25 deindustrialization and welfare retrenchment. moreover, as the preliminary results of my study demonstrate, the people of the nordic countries are not getting more xenophobic toward foreign migrants in the course of time. on the contrary, they have become more tolerant. the dynamic of xenophobic and non-xenophobic attitudes toward immigrants in the nordic countries let us measure whether there has actually been an increase in xenophobic attitudes in sweden, denmark, norway and finland by comparing surveys carried out over 15 years using the data of world value survey (wvs). to do so, i combine two wvs’s attitudinal indicators that measure xenophobia3 into a scale where “0” means tolerant (non-xenophobic) attitude toward immigrants and “2” means strongly xenophobic attitude. according to the empirical data, the population of the nordic countries can be characterized as relatively tolerant/non-xenophobic in comparison with other european countries. at the same time, depending on the country, from 30 to 80 per cent of the respondents express a score equal to or higher than “1” (at least one xenophobic answer). moreover, the data distribution in table a. 3 exhibits a clear overall trend. in all nordic countries, non-xenophobic categories showed noticeable increases, whereas xenophobic ones – decreased. in this context, it is interesting to look at national distribution of xenophobic/nonxenophobic answers (appendix, table a. 3). the most tolerant country seems to be sweden – with about 74 percent of non-xenophobic answers and only 2 percent of xenophobic in survey 2010–2012. very close to sweden are two other nordic countries – denmark and norway, that in the end of the 21st century’s first decade not only had very small xenophobic populations (4 percent respectively) but also have been demonstrating a trend toward decreasing numbers of intolerant citizens during the past twenty years. finland is on the relatively negative side with increasing level of xenophobic attitudes from 4 to 14 percent over the last decade. this brief description shows that xenophobic/non-xenophobic attitudes toward immigrants are dynamic, and differ from each other even in geographically close and economically similar countries; secondly, these attitudes have variated during the last decade. the reasons require further in-depth analysis. the hypothesis that a society’s current level of xenophobia will be more accurately predicted by its level of economic development several decades before the survey than by its level of development at the time of the survey is counter-intuitive. normally, the strongest predictor of a phenomenon at time x is an independent variable measured shortly before time x; earlier measures will tend to show less impact. because xenophobic attitudes partly reflect deep-rooted orientations 3 1) would not like to have immigrants/foreign workers as neighbors: 1 – mentioned, 2 – not mentioned; 2) when jobs are scarce, employers should give priority to people of this country over immigrants: 1 – agree, 2 – neither, 3 – disagree. table 1. correlations between a society’s gdp/capita at various times in the past and responses to questions about jobs for one’s own nationality and about having immigrants/foreign workers as neighbors in the nordic countries (sweden, denmark, norway, finland) i would not like to have immigrants/ foreign workers as neighbors when jobs are scarce, employers should give priority to people of this country over immigrants attitudes toward immigrants (xenophobic/nonxenophobic) 2000 gdp/capita –.002 .112** –.080** 1990 gdp/capita –.001 .117** –.085** 1980 gdp/capita .004 .155** –.114** survival/self-expression values at the time of survey .217** .353** .367** ** p < 0,01 source: wvs 2008–2009; penn world tables 7.1 olga iakimova26 based on the level of security or insecurity that one experiences during one’s preadult years, these attitudes show sizeable intergenerational differences that reflect a country’s conditions several decades before the survey. preliminary analyses tend to support this hypothesis. the data in table 1 suggests that people’s attitudes are sensitive to the conditions they experienced during their pre-adult years, producing a time-lag of several decades between society’s attaining high level of economic security, and accepting foreigners as neighbors who have equal rights to jobs. table 1 also demonstrates that a society’s level of self-expression values at the time of the survey is the strongest predictor of its current level of tolerance; a massive body of research demonstrates that self-expression values themselves reflect the extent, to which people are shaped by high level of economic, physical, and social security during their formative years – from one to five decades before the survey (inglehart, 1997; inglehart & welzel, 2005; inglehart, 2018). to sum up, the massive surge of votes for xenophobic parties in the nordic countries might seem to imply that it reflects an equally massive surge of xenophobic attitudes, but this is not the case. xenophobic attitudes show the opposite trend. on the contrary, the surge of xenophobic votes are to a great extent a protest vote motivated by the economic decline and unemployment linked with the great recession, reaction to euro crises, and crumbling of the welfare state, which coincides with unprecedented levels of immigration. in past decades, a large share of the population of developed countries, including scandinavia, has experienced a decline of real income and the rise of income inequality. the great recession of 2008–2012 led to heightened insecurity and further contributed to a rising sense of xenophobia especially in the countries changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 1 27 that experienced large flows of immigration in recent years. in this context, the rising support for xenophobic parties in contemporary nordic politics does not reflect increasingly xenophobic mass attitudes. it reflects two analytically distinct, but causally related consequences of neoliberal globalization – mass immigration and deterioration of welfare services. references anderson, b. 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(1997). explaining racism and xenophobia. a critical review of current research approaches. ethnic and racial studies, 20 (1), 17–41. doi: 10.1080/01419870.1997.9993946 table a. 1. interpretation of xenophobia in some contemporary social theories characteristics related to xenophobia theoretical approaches group threat theories theories of nation and nationalism social identity theories value theories the theory of value change general understanding xenophobia as an expression of tensions induced by a multi-ethnic society causes – resource stress – cultural dominant position of majority – nation state as such – ingroup/outgroup demarcation – nationalist ideology the ethnic dimension of individual selfdefinition as a member of a larger community certain cultural values (uncertainty avoidance, power distance, mastery and masculinity) existential insecurity triggers – size and – composition of the minority group visibility of ethnically different newcomers physical presence of ethnic-minority groups times of existential insecurity times of economic crises/recession perceived image of minority groups – competitor for scarce resources – threat to the cultural dominant position threat to collective goods “others”/threat risk groups groups that compete for scarce resources downwardly mobile groups socially excluded members of society people who share certain cultural values people who experience the feeling of existential insecurity appendix table a. 2. elections results of far-right parties in the nordic countries name of party national parliament elections year % european parliament elections % 1999 2004 2009 2014 danish people’s party 2001 12.0 2005 13.2 2007 13.8 2011 12.3 2015 21.1 5.8 6.8 15.3 26.6 the finns party 1999 1.0 2003 1.6 2007 4.1 2011 19.1 2015 17.7 0.8 0.5 9.8 12.9 sweden democrats 1998 0.4 2002 1.4 2006 2.9 2010 5.7 2014 12.9 0.3 1.1 3.3 9.7 the progress party (norway) 2001 14.6 2005 22.1 2009 22.9 2013 16.3 2017 15.3 – – – – source: national elections (1998-2017) table a. 3. the dynamics of attitudes toward immigrants in the nordic countries country/ wave*: non-xenophobic % country/ wave*: mixed % country/ wave*: xenophobic % (n) i ii iii iv v vi i ii iii iv v vi i ii iii iv v vi denmark 37 – 51 – 61 – denmark 53 – 41 – 34 – denmark 11 – 8 – 4 – 4495 finland 16 17 27 27 24 – finland 80 71 63 60 62 – finland 4 12 11 12 14 – 5709 norway 35 49 – 56 60 – norway 51 43 – 40 35 – norway 14 8 – 4 4 – 5517 sweden 53 68 76 79 69 74 sweden 41 30 22 20 27 24 sweden 8 2 2 1 5 2 7421 source: world value survey (1989-2012) * wave: i: 1989-1993; ii: 1994-1999; iii: 1999-2004; iv: 2005-2007; v: 2008-2009; vi: 2010-2012 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 906–926 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.209 received 21 july 2022 © 2022 khaled ghazy, alena e. fedorova accepted 31 october 2022 ghazyfth@gmail.com published online 30 december 2022 a.e.fedorova@urfu.ru article hotel employees’ attitude and acceptance toward human-robot co-working based on the industry 5.0 concept khaled ghazy ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia helwan university, cairo, egypt alena e. fedorova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the emergence of ai-powered machines and robotics technology has strongly influenced the service industry, especially the hotel business. the effects of their introduction to the work environment on the human workforce have been a subject of much debate. however, practical studies in this regard are relatively limited. therefore, this study investigates the employees’ attitude and acceptance toward working alongside robots in a sample of employees working in luxury hotels in yekaterinburg, russia. this study employed a self-administered questionnaire as the data collection instrument. two hundred questionnaire forms were distributed. among them, 167 forms were completed and valid for analysis. data were analyzed descriptively using ibm spss (version 28). the findings revealed that, although the employees agreed to interact with robots and indicated that robots are helpful, enjoyable, and productive, they also pointed out that robots would control jobs. besides, the extensive introduction of robots will lead to social issues such as losing contact with humans. the study conclusion has practical implications for hotel managers and can guide further research for academics. keywords industry 5.0, hotel 5.0, employee-robot co-working, artificial intelligence agents, employees’ attitude and acceptance https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 906–926 907 introduction keeping a position at the top is becoming more challenging and complex due to the rapid development of information technology and artificial intelligence-based solutions. mass customization and sophisticated production are experiencing a significant transformation in the technological world. industrial revolutions are often regarded as the driving force behind many of the world’s most essential innovations, developments, and modernity (longo et al., 2020; nahavandi, 2019). there are several perspectives around industry 5.0. some studies declare that industry 4.0 is about smart manufacturing and connecting devices together, while industry 5.0 is about collaboration between humans and robots in the workplace. as a result, the cooperation of humans and robots will lead to many benefits and boost the unique human touch on functions instead of the similar automation production (demir & cicibas, 2017; skobelev & borovik, 2017). in addition, industry 5.0 reshapes human jobs to benefit employees. it maximizes efficiency by using human intelligence, artificial intelligence (ai), and creativity. industry 5.0 may enrich the workforce by transitioning workers from physical to cognitive jobs, achieving value-added duties in the workplace alongside collaborating robots that are sensitive and aware of human desires (longo et al., 2020; özdemir & hekim 2018). moreover, industry 5.0 places a high value on personalized consumer services (pillai et al., 2021). there is a switch from mass customization to mass personalization, which is particularly important for meeting the needs of individual customers. thus, industry 5.0 may decrease work-related injuries and address valueadded activities through human brainpower. humans will concentrate on critical thinking, decision-making, innovation, and creativity, leading to increased personalized services, while robots will perform repetitive, tedious, and labor-intensive work (alcácer & cruz-machado, 2019; sarfraz et al., 2021; verevka, 2019). implementing new technology such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and service automation (raisa) results in remarkable changes to how hotels serve their customers. the function of raisa is vital since technology, service automation, and personalized services are all fundamental components of the hotel industry. raisa presents a significant opportunity for hotel corporations to increase productivity, enhance operations, and maintain a constant level of quality (kim et al., 2022; lukanova & ilieva, 2019). service robots designed to operate in the service sectors have emerged in hotels, catering, and entertainment enterprises to assist customers and provide information on different services. hence, high competition, a labor shortage, the need for greater efficiency and productivity, and increasing customer expectations have contributed to the rising usage of service robots (ivanov & webster, 2019a; manthiou et al., 2021). acknowledgements the researcher (khaled ghazy) is funded by a scholarship under the joint (executive program between the arab republic of egypt and russia) https://changing-sp.com/ 908 khaled ghazy, alena e. fedorova service robots work as robot guides at museums and bag-drop robots at airports (ivanov et al., 2017). such service robots that are now being used in hotels perform several functions such as greeting customers, preparing meals, room service, taking orders, check-in and check-out operations, providing information about the destination, cleaning rooms, pools and public areas, as well as cutting grass, carrying baggage, and delivering food and other goods. robots can work 24/7, much longer than human workers’ standard 40-hour workweek. moreover, robots can serve many clients simultaneously and conduct this activity countless times without tiring or complaining (zhong et al., 2021). the pace at which automation enters our lives is primarily determined by the degree of technology and people’s acceptance of robots. since robots have a significant influence on society, it is vital to investigate the interactions between people and robots and their consequences for society as a whole (demir et al., 2019; lu et al., 2019). if the majority of the workforce in an organization have a negative attitude to robots, transferring to human–robot co-working arrangements will be difficult, if not impossible. moreover, there are many positive cases regarding robots supporting human partners, even though not everyone has a positive attitude toward robots. it is vital to identify the workers’ attitudes to robots and working with them in the hotel business since the success of robot employment depends on the employees’ acceptance. most of the studies concentrated on guests’ perceptions and examined human–robot collaboration from customers’ perspectives (rosete et al., 2020; tussyadiah, 2020). the studies around employee–robot interaction are relatively limited (chi et al., 2020; demir et al., 2019; xu et al., 2020). therefore, this study explores the employees’ attitude and acceptance toward robot co-working in the hotel business. literature review from industry 5.0 to hospitality 5.0 industry 5.0 consists of several components, including the human-cyber-physical system (hcps), internet of service (ios), and internet of things (iot). the first component, hcps, combines human, artificial intelligence, and the enterprise system under a high-speed internet framework. in order to access work objects and activities, various sensory devices are widely used, such as light sensors, touch screens, and smart devices (zhou et al., 2019). in addition, hcps contributes to a high level of customer service by integrating human intelligence with artificial intelligence. the hotel industry is one of the economic sectors that hcps has a high impact on—it affects many of its aspects. the second element, ios, focuses on cross-organizational services provided and used by supply chain members and enabled by cloud computing and big data (alvarez-aros & bernal-torres, 2021). the ios’s core concept systematically utilizes the internet to create new value in the service industry. ios is known as guest service-oriented architecture in the hotel business and links it with customer service (pillai et al., 2021). customer bills, room availability, and restaurant services have always been controlled at the changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 906–926 909 organizational level. ios offers companies the flexibility and efficiency to serve consumers better and transfer data via its channels. the systems collect information about customer needs from databases in order to use them to provide services that meet these needs and give a better customer experience. the third element, iot, is a system of several electronic and digital components linked together to exchange information and data within a single network. iot is utilized in the hospitality industry to keep track of clients’ comfort preferences and room settings, such as lighting, tv channels, temperature, and music, and automatically prepare the room for their next visit (ghazy & fedorova, 2021; rosete et al., 2020). for the hospitality industry, the concept of industry 5.0 is incredibly significant. personalized service, adaptability, creative work conditions, lower costs via completely customized facilities, and accurate information on customer preferences through big data technologies and digital advancements could affect guest satisfaction, experience, loyalty, and quality of service (shamim et al., 2017). the primary concept of industry 5.0, including interoperability, virtualization, modularity, decentralization, and real-time functions, can be transferred to the hospitality business, leading to hospitality 5.0 (pillai et al., 2021). artificial intelligence agents in the hotel business presence and embodiment are considered the two dimensions of artificial intelligence agents that can be categorized into three kinds (li, 2015). smart devices smartness relates to the interconnection of intelligent components within a single network to receive and process data and add value to the user’s system. in addition, smart devices can change their functions automatically according to external conditions (buhalis & leung, 2018). there are a variety of smart devices, such as thermostats, lighting, security cameras, and speakers. customers could easily adjust the settings inside the room, such as selecting a desired temperature and lighting level, using an intelligent hub, tablet device, or other central control points. the heating, lighting, air conditioning, and other facilities can automatically adapt and maintain those settings, offering a delightful guest experience (tung & law, 2017). chatbots another kind of ai is the chatbot, which can simulate human interaction and actively communicate with customers (chi et al., 2020). in addition, chatbots are virtual, disembodied, technological, and autonomous conversational agents that can understand and communicate via human language through natural language processing (nlp) in voice or text connections (tussyadiah, 2020). thus, chatbots have been employed in various service sectors, including tourist recommendations, medical consultations, and hotel reservations (parmar et al., 2019; ukpabi et al., 2019). virtual assistants siri (apple), alexa (amazon), and edward (edwardian hotels) are forms of ai-driven chatbots. edward can lead travelers over their whole trip adventure in a standard, ordinary conversation, and it develops and learns from each contact https://changing-sp.com/ 910 khaled ghazy, alena e. fedorova (buhalis, & leung, 2018; castillo et al., 2020). edward handled 69% of all visitor inquiries in 2019, succeeding in greater efficiency and reallocating employees from routine activities to more significant inquiries. consequently, because of the developed machine learning, clients may be unaware that they are communicating with an ai service device in a virtual condition (tussyadiah, 2020). on the one hand, chatbots have some benefits versus human service representatives, including the capacity to conduct virtually enormous numbers of orders simultaneously, save massive amounts of data, and are less vulnerable to mistakes, stress, or emotional fluctuation (chi et al., 2020). chatbots, on the other hand, have two main weaknesses. firstly, an ethical concern arises when individuals think they are communicating with a real person when they are actually speaking with software. secondly, when companies use chatbot-based customer service instead of real staff, clients may feel that they are being devalued by the firm which they are doing business with (blut et al., 2021). cobots (collaborative robots) as a result of the rapid development of ai and innovation, it is now apparent that all devices equipped with computing capability have become more competent and have launched a new technology known as cobots. cobots, or collaborative robots, are designed for direct human–robot interaction in a shared environment or when robots and people are in close contact (maddikunta et al., 2022). cobot applications encourage human engagement with robots, unlike traditional industrial robotic uses that keep robots isolated. cobots’ safety may depend on soft edges, lightweight materials, speed and force limitations, or software and sensors that maintain safe behavior. cobots are very sensitive to unexpected impacts, allowing them to stop on their own when human employees identify any misplaced items on their route. in most cases, this makes them much more reliable than traditional industrial robots (bender et al., 2016; simões et al., 2020). generally, two major categories of robots are recognized by the international federation of robotics (ifr), which are industrial robots performing a wide range of industrial processes and service robots for personal and professional purposes. service robots are cobots because they are designed to operate alongside humans (haegele, 2016). in addition, service robots are intended to assist humans with functional tasks by interacting with them physically and socially. service robots are classified into two categories: personal used by individuals for non-commercial activities, such as domestic servant robots, automated wheelchairs, pet exercise robots, and personal mobility aid robots and professional used by businesses for commercial purposes, such as delivery robots in offices, cleaning robots for public areas, fire-fighting robots, rehabilitation robots, and surgery robots (ivanov et al., 2017). robotic technology and service automation activities have impacted several aspects of hotel operations. self-service terminals have been launched in hotels to minimize the need for front-desk staff and allow guests to perform check-in and check-out processes without help (ivanov et al., 2017). check-in/out procedures have been accessible through smartphones for increasing speed and convenience. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 906–926 911 robots are increasingly being used in the hotels and travel sectors to perform various functions, including delivering food and other items, cleaning purposes, carrying luggage, and providing support and information (yadav, 2020). several hotel companies have recently utilized service robots to offer dependable, convenient, entertaining, and efficient service, creating unique guest experiences. for instance, at the japanese henn na hotel, founded in 2015, robots were hired as staff members and hotel porters carrying the human staff functions (alexis, 2017). bilingual robots can greet tourists, assist them, and collect guest complaints, demands, and requests. as the first hotel to employ robots, it was awarded a guinness world record for having employed a total of 186 robots (mende et al., 2019). similarly, connie, a robot, worked at the hilton mclean tysons corner. it served guests with helpful information at reception. aloft hotel cupertino hired a servant robot to deliver soap, towels, shampoo, and linens to rooms and bring the dirty bed sheets to the laundry. in addition, the housekeeping robot, created by peanut robotics in collaboration with rlh corporation, assists a human housekeeper with additional housekeeping tasks such as collecting linens and cleaning bathrooms (choi et al., 2020). the housekeeper may use the cleaning robot’s mobile application to start the room cleaning procedure from anywhere, allowing it to vacuum one room while they clean another (wirtz, 2018). the startup dishcraft company focuses on designing dishwasher robotics for restaurant kitchens. other robots do not communicate with guests but are used to perform repetitive duties. for example, the caliburger robot, which prepares hamburgers and sets food on dishes, and the robot arm that works as a bartender at royal caribbean (tussyadiah, 2020). the rapid evolution and use of digital technology, particularly robots, is a priority for the russian government. in 2017, the russian government launched the “digital economy of the russian federation” program, which includes various robotics-related projects. for instance, the russian ministry of trade and industries is assisting the russian association of robotics (rar) in developing a plan for the growth of the russian robotics industry. besides, the government aims to introduce the legal aspects of robotics to stimulate this industry’s progress by reducing legal issues. meanwhile, russia has about 100 service robot organizations. in 2018, the top ten companies had 30% workforce growth and doubled annual revenue (khalimon et al., 2018; konuikhovskaia, 2019). during the pandemic, the robotics firm promobot, located in the ural town of perm, invented various important robots, such as a remote temperature measurement robot, which can test temperature and other essential indications in less than 5 seconds. the company also created the scorpion remote-controlled sanitizing robot, which can navigate obstacles, including stairs and corners, by integrating gps/glonass and ultrasonic sensors. the robot has a spray device, and a container holds a disinfecting liquid (five handy robots, 2020). russia is also starting to use drones and robotic technologies in the hospitality industry. at the cosmos group hotel chain in the emerald forest, located near moscow, yandex began testing drones and rovers. the hotel occupies an enclosed area of 220 hectares and is a good platform for testing modern technologies. drones take guests https://changing-sp.com/ 912 khaled ghazy, alena e. fedorova around the territory, and rovers deliver food to the room (maslenko, 2021). kravt invest, an it and high-tech company, launched the first robotic hotel on the territory of the scientific town of innopolis near kazan. hotel devices can use ai to identify the guest’s feelings through images, sounds, or videos, assess his tiredness, and make assumptions about his mood. based on this, the system adjusts the temperature and light in the room and offers tea or coffee and snacks. in addition, it is planned to transfer cleaning, delivery of luggage, and cooking to robotic solutions (malakhova, 2020). in 2019, the promobot russian robot, mikhalych, became an employee of the park hotel in dobrograd. its responsibilities include greeting guests, assisting with check-in and check-out procedures, and issuing room key cards. in addition to providing guests with information, the robot can arrange transportation for them. mikhalych serves as an extra marketing tool, and it reminds guests of any events hosted in the restaurants and invites them to reserve a table. mikhalych makes the registration process easier and faster while significantly decreasing the hotel staff’s workload. promobot operates not just in russia but also across 36 countries worldwide. it works as a promoter, administrator, guide, and concierge (kak rabotaet pervyi v rossii, 2020). although automation and robotics are becoming increasingly widespread in the hospitality industry, the employment of service robots to perform human tasks may be resisted by society. studies indicate that the reasons for this are the loss of human contact, in addition to fears of an increase in the unemployment rate in society and the dominance of machines in the labor market (hou et al., 2021; meidute-kavaliauskiene et al., 2021). service robots that replace human employees might add a psychological issue to the standard concept of service. for example, human interaction with a robot may be avoided if it causes anxiety. in the context of the hotel business that depends primarily on personal contact, replacing human employees with robots would change the style of the experience by adding human–robot interactions and affecting the user’s attitudes and behaviors. besides, technological anxiety is regarded as a significant psychological factor influencing the adoption of new technologies (huang et al., 2021; li et al., 2019). even though there are many positive cases regarding robots supporting human partners, not everyone has a positive attitude toward robots. robots are less likely to be used if people have negative views about them. attitude is recognized as an individual’s acquired judgment of a positive or negative emotion regarding service robots, which influences the individual’s intentions and behavior. attitudes develop due to complex psychological processes and act as motives to behavioral responses. they are crucial considerations in determining if robots are adopted (cha, 2020; pozharliev et al., 2021; tussyadiah et al., 2020). as a result of his study, yu (2020) found that potential consumers’ attitudes regarding human-like robots are likely to be unfavorable. conversely, tung and au (2018) explored consumer evaluations provided on the websites tripadvisor, yelp, agoda, and booking.com in order to evaluate user experiences of robotic hotels. the findings highlighted the impact of automated service on customer experience, and changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 906–926 913 customers were proactively seeking chances to communicate and interact with robots to create a relationship with them. similarly, ivanov and webster (2019b) performed another study to investigate users’ perceived effectiveness and feelings about using robots in tourism. the findings indicated that housekeeping, handling inquires, reservations, and payment services are the best-suited duties and operations for robot employment. using a mixed-methodology approach, ivanov et al. (2020) examined the opinions of bulgarian hotel managers on the strengths and weaknesses of service robots, as well as the effects of service robots on the different departments of the hotel. the study indicated that repetitive, tedious, and risky duties would be better suited for robots. in contrast, managers prefer to use humans for jobs requiring emotional intelligence and social skills (ivanov et al., 2020). as previously mentioned, most of the studies concentrated on guests’ perceptions and examined human–robot collaboration from customers’ perspectives. the studies around employee–robot interaction are relatively limited (chi et al., 2020; ivkov et al., 2020; li et al., 2019). thus, employing ai robots as service agents requires essential consideration of not only cost, technology, or quality of service but also of the attitudes and acceptance by human employees. attitudes and demographics previous research has demonstrated that socio-demographic and individual variables such as gender, age, and level of education have a significant role in service robot acceptability. in a study examining gender differences, nomura et al. (2006) revealed that men and women had different levels of negative opinions about robots. the results showed that female participants reported fewer negative opinions regarding robots than male participants. however, de graaf and ben alouch (2013) discovered the opposite behavior, concluding that females experience more nervousness than males while engaging in conversation with robots. furthermore, de graaf and ben alouch (2013) found that females’ negative opinions increased after interacting with a robot, while males’ opinions remained the same. according to loffredo and tavakkoli (2016), men and youth respondents were more interested in the concept of robots than women and older participants. besides, hudson et al. (2017) analyzed eurobarometer statistics on around 1000 individuals in each european country to examine public views toward robots utilized in elderly care. according to the results, age, gender, and educational level are significant independent factors connected with people’s views on using robots to care for the elderly. the study reveals that males, younger, and higher-educated people are more supportive of including robots to assist the elderly. therefore, the following hypotheses have been developed: hypothesis 1 (h1): there is a significant difference between employees’ men and women regarding their attitudes toward robots. hypothesis 2 (h2): there is a significant difference between employees’ age groups regarding their attitudes toward robots. hypothesis 3 (h3): there is a significant difference between employees’ educational levels regarding their attitudes toward robots. https://changing-sp.com/ 914 khaled ghazy, alena e. fedorova methodology sample and data collection a self-administered questionnaire was distributed between employees of the luxury hotels in yekaterinburg, russia, to investigate their perspectives regarding the topic of the study. the study sample consists of 20 hotels determined by the convenience sampling approach. a convenience sample is a collection of people chosen based on their accessibility. the minimal sample size required should be 7 to 10 times the number of scale items analyzed (floyd & widaman, 1995; tantawy et al., 2016). accordingly, there were 200 questionnaire forms distributed between employees of these hotels. among them, 167 forms were valid for analysis, representing 83.5%. the questionnaire distribution took two months (august and september 2021). besides, the study concentrated on fiveand four-star hotels because innovation and modern technologies are implemented first in luxury hotels. the researchers explained the concept of robots to the employees, and then they were able to answer the questionnaire. the questionnaire was translated into russian because some staff members do not speak english. measures and pretest the instrument used in the current study was divided into three groups of questions; the first group contained items regarding the changes that occurred in the workplace. in the second group, there were questions to examine the study variables—psychological attitude (pa), social attitude (sa). the third group addressed demographic categories, including gender, age, and educational level. the questionnaire was adopted from previous research (bröhl et al., 2016; nomura et al., 2004; weiss et al., 2008), which has been validated. the participants were questioned to indicate their level of agreement with the statements according to the likert scale with five points ranging from “1 = strongly disagree” to “5 = strongly agree”. the questionnaire was pretested using data obtained from ten employees through the convenience sampling technique. participants were specifically asked to identify any misunderstandings in the questionnaire’s phrasing. the feedback received from these participants was used to further improve the tool. the adjusted instrument contained 22 elements. data analysis the data analysis was processed as follows. first, cronbach’s alpha coefficients were applied to test the internal reliability of these varied likert-type scales and questions. second, a descriptive data analysis was conducted to explore the attitude and acceptance of hotel employees toward human-robot co-working. in addition, the mann–whitney u test was used to check the differences in employees’ gender regarding their attitude toward robots. the kruskal–wallis χ2-test was used to check the differences in employees’ age groups and educational levels regarding their attitude toward robots. the results obtained from the valid questionnaire forms were statistically analyzed whenever needed using ibm spss (version 28). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 906–926 915 results table 1 represents the demographic variables of the respondents. table 2 shows the employees’ responses to the changes in their workplaces due to robotics. as displayed in table 2, a notable percentage of the answers indicated reducing the number of employees (69.4%), followed by transferring part of jobs to distance work (28.1%) and using temporary workers provided by other companies (23.3%). in contrast, the lowest percentage indicated the complete dismissal of workers (10.8%), and no changes (8.3%). employees added that among the changes in the workplace are the continuous adjustments of work tasks and responsibilities. table 1 participants’ demographic characteristics demographic data freq. % gender male 65 38.9 female 102 61.1 age 25 years or younger 81 48.5 from 26 up to 35 53 31.7 from 36 up to 50 24 14.4 over 50 9 5.4 education secondary school education 28 16.8 university or higher institute degree 135 80.8 postgraduate degrees (masters or phd) 4 2.4 other – – note. source: developed by authors. table 2 responses to the question: what changes have occurred in your organization due to the introduction of collaborative robots? answer alternatives freq. % the introduction of collaborative robots involved the dismissal of employees 18 10.8 partial reduction of the number of employees 116 69.4 transferring some of the employees to distance work 47 28.1 the use of temporary or seasonal workers provided by other companies 39 23.3 hiring new employees only on a short-term basis (from 1 to 6 months) 24 14.4 there were no changes 14 8.3 other 28 16.7 note. source: developed by authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 916 khaled ghazy, alena e. fedorova table 3 illustrates the results of the descriptive analysis of the psychological and social variables. first, cronbach’s alpha coefficients were applied to test the internal reliability of the varied likert-type scales and questions. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient results all passed the acceptable recommended value of 0.7. the findings show that the scores of psychological variables ranged from 2.00 to 3.92 on a five-point scale. the items with the highest average were “i think that in the future, society will be dominated by robots” and “if robots had feelings, i would be able to make friends with them”; while the lowest average item was “i feel nervous operating a robot in front of other people.” in addition, scores of social variables ranged from 2.87 to 3.98 on a five-point scale. the items with the highest average were “i fear that i may lose my work due to the robot” and “i fear that i lose contact with my colleagues because of the robot.” while the lowest-mean item was “i have no objection if the robot stores my personal information.” table 3 analysis results scale item mean standard deviation cronbach’s alpha psychological attitude 0.752 i feel uneasy if robots really have emotions 2.23 0.588 something terrible might happen if robots developed into living beings 3.33 0.575 i feel relaxed dealing with robots. 3.77 0.744 if robots had feelings, i would be able to make friends with them 3.88 0.631 i would feel comforted being with robots that have emotions 3.66 0.578 i feel nervous operating a robot in front of other people 2.00 0.329 i feel nervous just standing in front of a robot 2.08 0.538 i think that if i depend on robots too much, something terrible might happen 3.75 0.644 i feel paranoid talking with a robot 2.09 0.605 i think that in the future, society will be dominated by robots 3.92 0.634 social attitude 0.781 in general, my organization supports the use of robots 3.83 0.736 people in my hotel who use robots have more prestige than those who do not 3.86 0.491 the use of the robot is appropriate to my various job-related tasks 3.92 0.396 the robot’s output is of excellent quality 3.90 0.428 i find using a robot enjoyable 3.81 0.431 i fear that i will lose contact with my colleagues because of the robot 3.93 0.655 i have no objection to sharing a workstation with a robot 3.80 0.428 i have no objection if the robot stores my personal information 2.87 0.447 i fear that i may lose my work due to the robot 3.98 0.394 i feel safe while using the robot 3.03 0.354 i can operate the robot if someone teaches me how to use it first 3.76 0.379 operating the robot enhances my job performance 3.89 0.431 note. source: developed by authors. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 906–926 917 to evaluate the difference between employees’ men and women regarding their attitude toward robots, the mann–whitney u test was utilized. table 4 shows no statistically significant difference between men and women regarding psychological attitude (p-value = 0.547) and social attitude (p-value = 0.942). hence, h1 is not supported. in addition, the kruskal–wallis test was used to evaluate the differences among the employees’ age groups. table 5 reveals a statistically significant difference between employees’ age groups regarding psychological attitude (p-value = 0.045) and social attitude (p-value = 0.027). hence, h2 is supported. the results showed that employees aged 25 or under had the least negative attitude toward robots (m = 54.20) regarding their psychological attitude considering that the psychological scale is negative. besides, the results showed that employees over 50 had the least positive attitude toward robots (m = 40.11) regarding their social attitude (table 5). furthermore, the kruskal–wallis test was used to evaluate the differences among the employees’ educational levels regarding their attitudes toward robots. table 6 shows no statistically significant difference between employees’ educational levels regarding psychological attitude (p-value = 0.666) and social attitude (p-value = 0.529). hence, h3 is not supported. table 4 the difference analysis between men and women no. construct gender n mean rank mann–whitney u z asymp. sig. (2-tailed) 1. psychological male 65 81.22 3134.000 –.602 .547 female 102 85.77 2. social male 65 83.68 3294.000 –.072 .942 female 102 84.21 * significant (p ≤ .05) note. source: developed by authors. table 5 the difference analysis between employees’ age groups no. construct employees age n mean rank chi–square df asymp. sig. 1. psychological 25 years or under 81 54.20 4.092 3 .045* from 26 up to 35 years 53 80.16 from 36 up to 50 years 24 94.19 over 50 years 9 98.67 2. social 25 years or under 81 90.21 9.219 3 .027* from 26 up to 35 years 53 85.05 from 36 up to 50 years 24 83.21 over 50 years 9 40.11 * significant (p ≤ .05) note. source: developed by authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 918 khaled ghazy, alena e. fedorova table 6 the difference analysis between employees’ educational levels no. construct level of education n mean rank chi–square df asymp. sig. 1. psychological secondary school 28 78.73 8.763 2 .666university degree 135 84.32 postgraduate degrees (masters or phd) 4 70.13 2. social secondary school 28 81.00 5.207 2 .529university degree 135 89.12 postgraduate degrees (masters or phd) 4 79.25 * significant (p ≤ .05) note. source: developed by authors. discussion and conclusions this study aimed to explore hotel employees’ psychological and social attitudes toward working side by side with robots. service robots have joined our lives as a result of technological advancement and industrial revolutions. among their applications are augmented reality and intelligent devices working with ai, which significantly affect economic and social life. consequently, companies are working to keep pace with the external environment’s development to obtain a competitive advantage and provide a unique service that receives customer satisfaction. in addition, the hotel business is one of the industries affected by technological developments. the success and effectiveness of implementing new technology in companies depend on employee acceptance and involvement. the adoption of service robots in business, especially in service sectors, is still in its preliminary stages and is considered a significant innovation in literature. therefore, studies into this topic need to be conducted from different perspectives. the study results showed a partial reduction in the number of hotel workers due to the introduction of collaborative robots. this finding agreed with manyika et al., (2017), who indicated that one of the most significant points in the literature is the prediction that robots will replace people or decrease the number of jobs and employees. according to the study results, employees feel threatened and worry about the future of their work and about losing jobs due to automation and digitalization process. many studies estimated that by 2030, between 400 and 800 million of today’s occupations would be automated (bowen & morosan, 2018). robotic technology and service automation have impacted several aspects of hotel operations. self-service terminals have been launched in hotels to minimize the need for front-desk staff and allow guests to perform check-in and check-out processes without help (ivanov et al., 2017). check-in/out procedures have been accessible through smartphones for increasing speed and convenience. robots are increasingly being used in hotel and travel sectors changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 906–926 919 to perform various functions, including delivering food and other items, cleaning purposes, carrying luggage, and providing support and information (yadav, 2020). the demographic analysis revealed no statistically significant difference between employees’ men and women regarding their attitude toward robots. this result differs from previous studies that indicated gender differences toward robots. according to de graaf and ben alouch (2013), female respondents are more anxious regarding robots than male respondents. a possible explanation for this finding is that the covid-19 pandemic has changed people’s attitudes toward technology and innovation (barrutia & echebarria, 2021; zhong et al., 2022). in addition, the finding represented a statistically significant difference between the employees’ age groups. the results showed that employees aged 25 or under had a less negative attitude toward robots, whereas employees over 50 had a less positive attitude toward robots than other age groups. this finding agreed with loffredo and tavakkoli (2016), who indicated that young people are more interested in the concept of robots than older people. moreover, the study showed no statistically significant difference between employees’ educational levels. this result is consistent with the previous research (ivanov et al., 2018), which showed that respondents’ level of education had no impact on their attitudes toward robots. this research contributed to the current literature by providing supportive results from the russian staff perspectives. on the one hand, employees agreed to interact with robots and indicated that they are helpful, enjoyable, and productive; robot employment would save time by taking over routine tasks and workload. on the other hand, employees fear that robots will control jobs, and the extensive introduction of robots will lead to social issues such as losing contact with humans. we recommend that hotel managers create new roles for employees, which require new skills and competencies in order to make human labor more valuable than that of robots and keep pace with the continuous development in the work environment. on the other hand, courses on technology advancements and artificial intelligence must be included in the curriculum across all education levels, where future leaders and workers are trained and developed. these courses will prepare students to join the new work environment and effectively deal with future challenges. moreover, since service robots are helpful for the hotel business, hotel managers must provide incentives to older employees to motivate them to engage with robots. this study has some limitations that might serve as a guide for further research. firstly, since the field data were collected from a particular geographic region of one country, future research should incorporate data from other countries with various economic and social backgrounds to increase the generalizability of the results. secondly, this study collected empirical data using a questionnaire method. future research might consider other methodological methods such as interviews or observation of daily human–robot interaction in order to go in-depth and identify different themes around the topic. finally, artificial intelligence research is still in the primary stage, especially in the service sector. hence, future research is urgently required to expand the understanding of the influence of ai on various social groups and how other users perceive ai technology. https://changing-sp.com/ 920 khaled ghazy, alena e. fedorova references alcácer, v., & cruz-machado, v. 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(2019). human–cyber–physical systems (hcpss) in the context of new-generation intelligent manufacturing. engineering, 5(4), 624–636. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2019.07.015 https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm-05-2019-0505 https://doi.org/10.1108/ijchm-05-2019-0505 https://doi.org/10.1080/19368623.2019.1592733 https://doi.org/10.1108/tr-06-2021-0276 https://doi.org/10.1108/imds-11-2019-0603 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2019.07.015 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 823–840 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.205 received 28 march 2022 © 2022 marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, accepted 31 october 2022 svetlana m. gertsen published online 30 december 2022 m.n.kicherova@utmn.ru g.z.efimova@utmn.ru s.m.gercen@utmn.ru article non-formal education as a resource of social inclusion: intergenerational approach marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, svetlana m. gertsen university of tyumen, russia abstract this article contributes to a better understanding of theoretical models and empirical evidence revealing the impact of social inclusion of non-formal education on professional and personal development in the context of five generations. based on the typology of peculiar generations in the non-formal education market, including their interest and motivation, we have identified the differences between the benefits and the barriers to social inclusion in order to overcome social inequalities and digital inequities. due to the fact that all generations use non-formal education, but its contribution to social inclusion differs from generation to generation, our research questions are as following: what is the impact of non-formal education on social inclusion? how do non-formal education practices differ across generations? the article critically engages with non-formal education as a resource of social inclusion highlighting the low level of inclusion of five generations. to show the specificity of five generations’ social inclusion we develop a data collection method including a questionnaire survey of the population based on the typology of generations. as such, the research shows that today inclusion through non-formal education, mobility in the labor market due to retraining, as well as inclusion in new social ties, study groups, adaptation to new challenges do have generational characteristics. keywords intergenerational approach, lifelong learning, non-formal education, social inclusion, typology of generations https://changing-sp.com/ 824 marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, svetlana m. gertsen 1. introduction unesco defines non-formal education as institutionalized, intentional, and planned by an education provider. the defining characteristic of non-formal education is that it is an addition, alternative, and/or a complement to formal education within the process of the lifelong learning of individuals. it is often provided to guarantee the right of access to education for all. according to unesco’s 4th global report on adult learning and education (unesco, 2019), in almost one-third of countries, fewer than 5% of adults aged 15 and above participate in education and learning programs. however, despite extensive research into non-formal education since the beginning of the 19th century (dewey, 1897; knowles, 1950), followed by research papers directly on informal education (coombs & ahmed, 1974), by the end of the 1990s, the infrastructure of non-formal education was created in the usa, which includes organizations that make successful business in these types of education. in europe, this system is approached through the introduction of the paradigm of education throughout life. in 2000, after the lisbon eu summit, a memorandum on lifelong learning was adopted during the lisbon summit of european council, which postulated, “the continuum of lifelong learning makes non-formal and informal education equal participants in the learning process.” in the same place, a vector was proclaimed for the development of a highquality system of “accreditation of previous and non-formal education” (commission of the european communities, 2000). in comparison with the plethora of publications that are available on analyzing social inclusion of different generations in non-formal education, the study presents factors that determine its degree and the peculiarities of non-formal education, identifying its features throughout different generations. this article contributes to a better identification of factors that determine social inclusion, studying the barriers that cause difficulties in accessing non-formal education. the problem under consideration is undoubtedly international, but we nuance that for russia it is of particular relevance. different social groups have unequal access to education, which affects the overall level of social inclusion and integration into society. the research problem is to find the optimal resources for the social inclusion of different generations and to identify the role of non-formal education in the process of inclusion of different generations. the key research question is how non-formal education promotes social inclusion of different generations, what barriers and restrictions in this process exist, what skills are acquired as a result of non-formal education and how this helps the social inclusion of representatives of different generations in different spheres of life. in the study for the first time, theoretical models and empirical evidence reveal the social inclusion of non-formal education on professional and personal development in the context of five generations. a typological picture of peculiar generations in the non-formal education market is presented, including their interest and motivation. our research questions are as following: what is the impact of non-formal education on social inclusion? how do non-formal education practices differ across generations? the rest of the article is structured as follows: in section 2 we critically engage with non-formal education as a resource of social inclusion. we highlight the low changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 823–840 825 level of inclusion of five generations. in section 3 we develop a data collection method including a questionnaire survey of the population based on the typology of five generations. in section 4 we reflect on case studies from russia throughout the intergenerational approach while making a contribution to the understanding and enhancement of social inclusion worldwide. 2. towards a more socially inclusive society the concept of lifelong education has been developing in the world for a long time, non-formal education is a significant part of it. therefore, a large number of works have been accumulated, which reveal both analytical reviews and cases from different countries, where projects of groups with special needs (emigrants, refugees) are implemented through non-formal education. although there is a large body of research that has examined social inclusion in non-formal learning and digital inequities, those countries, communities, and individuals digitally left behind or disadvantaged. whereas we agree with the authors that we know quite a lot about what is lacking and for whom, there is less focus on what works to alleviate these inequalities and divides in a variety of cultural contexts. foreign authors, linking this concept with informal communication of people through communication, define it as communicative learning (habermas, 1987). these can be clubs and libraries, cultural and leisure institutions, museums and entertainment centers, joint civic, religious, or sports activities (mezirow, 1995, 2000). this theme was explored regarding being brought together scholarship on digital inclusion initiatives and research from over 20 countries and in the context of numerous aspects, including different types of initiatives as well as different types of target audiences for these initiatives (reisdorf & rhinesmith, 2020). one important finding can be taken from the issue that the breadth and depth of articles presented will be useful not just for academic audiences seeking to broaden their understanding of digital inclusion and “what can be done” rather than focusing on “what is amiss,” but also for policymakers and digital inclusion initiatives who are eager to expand and advance their digital inclusion work within their communities. accordingly, social inclusion based on non-formal education can be viewed as inclusion in various subsystems of society, namely socio-political (the ability to express one’s citizenship, participate in elections, local initiatives), socio-economic (position on the labor market, paid work, the possibility of professional development), socio-cultural (self-development, leisure, broadening one’s horizons), symbolic subsystem (identity, social status, self-esteem and self-respect, interests and motivation, opportunities and prospects). best practices of leading countries the persistence of inequality in education is a key issue for both research and policy in russia. why do unwanted patterns of social grading and disadvantage in education prove so enduring despite decades of research, debate and reform? this thematic issue of social inclusion aims to deepen our understanding of the factors and mechanisms that underlie this persistence by focusing on the multiple interweaving of politics, inequality and social research. one point of view explores various aspects of this interaction, https://changing-sp.com/ 826 marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, svetlana m. gertsen from the history and politics of statistical quantification of educational disparities to the political implementation of everyday pedagogical practice. two strategic anchor points emerge from the collection of articles for studying and analyzing existing mechanisms of educational inequality: (a) political and pedagogical epistemological orders, and (b) educational mechanisms that structure educational processes and situations. the ongoing social and political transformations, including the digitization and transfer of data in education and changing forms of governance, highlight the urgent need for further research in this direction (horvath & leemann, 2021). however, not less important is to determine how the level of social inclusion can be estimated. while reisdorf & rhinesmith investigation (2020) provides unique insights into what does and does not work in various communities, making recommendations on what could be done to improve the examined initiatives, benkova & mareva (2019) compared the average values of three generations. the level of social inclusion index through age divisions was analyzed in the studies of bulgaria, which is seen as a set of activities, based on the implementation of inclusive practices, the introduction of inclusive policies and the formation of inclusive values. validation of non-formal and informal education has the potential to contribute to achieving the goals set by the europe 2020 strategy, as it can contribute to matching skills supply and demand, supporting mobility across sectors and countries and fighting social exclusion (european centre, 2019). validation is a common practice when it contributes to the performance metrics of formal education institutions. the pervasiveness of validation practices in formal education suggests that validation in formal education is not so much characterised by rejection or disregard as it is by selectivity and instrumentality (souto-otero, 2021). the others observe that countries are increasingly providing opportunities for the validation of non-formal and informal learning in europe, addressing it as a tool to combat social exclusion and help those unemployed or at risk of unemployment (villalba-garcía, 2021). focusing on the spanish case, the researchers (e.g., caparros-ruiz, 2019) are exerting a positive influence on workers’ careers since doctorate holders have a privileged situation in the labor market. moreover, contribution to adults’ participation in different political activities when formal educational background and other socioeconomic factors are controlled is also discussed by busse et al. (2019). the results underline the importance of differentiated analyses of political participation and non-formal and informal adult education. the benefits of adult learning on labor market effects are examined by ruhose et al. (2019). thus, a review of studies of non-formal education shows that it is the basis for active citizenship, it alleviates unemployment problems, and allows to update skills and competencies, promotes employment, which is actually a necessary condition and basis for full-fledged social activity and social inclusion. a critical overview of modern classifications of generations the specificity of age typology is revealed in terms of different generations demonstrating involvement in non-formal education. they are based on three life stages such as 18–30 years old, 31–50 years old, 51–70 years old (asmar et al., 2020). the studies of zhang & acs (2019) focus on four u.s. generations: traditionalists, changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 823–840 827 boomers, gen-xers, and millennials. there are views (au, 2020) that articulate how digital media and social networking sites (sns) shape social life through cultural transformations in the generation. therefore, we contend how non-formal education is implemented in russia where this system is still being established. at the stage of formation, it is underfunded and not valid. in foreign analytical reports, age cohorts are considered from different points—some authors analyze them through social, cultural, and economic factors. obviously, the theory of generations has a number of critical assessments (dimock, 2019; parry & urwin, 2011), where it is noted that within the same generation people demonstrate different personal strategies. theories relating generations to history and change are few in number (lambert, 1972). despite the in-depth american and european researches of the past century (eisenstadt, 1956; feuer, 1969; jencks & reisman, 1968; mannheim, 1952; ortega y gasset, 1960), a few works of modern authors (karashchuk et al., 2020; strauss & howe, 1997;) follow the tradition. the malaysian scientists ting et al. (2018) identify five generations for their country in the 20th century, including battling-lifers, idealistic-strugglers, socialstrivers, prospective-pursuers, and neoteric-inheritors. thus, there is experience in studying non-formal education for representatives of different social groups and generations, but the trends of learning, the inclusion of five generations in non-formal education and the potential for social inclusion due to non-formal education are not sufficiently disclosed. considering non-formal education as a part of social inclusion our study focuses on generational inclusion, the peculiarities of non-formal learning of different generations and their differences. the methodological framework of our study reveals through the intergenerational approach. this approach identifies the factors of inclusion in non-formal education, barriers and limitations that are associated with the characteristics of different generations. this time frame allows us to see the possibilities of inclusion of five generations as levels of social inclusion (see table 1). generational change occurs approximately once every 25 years. generations differ in their values, features of socialization, attitude to work and education. in accordance with the objectives of the study, we relied on the typology of american researchers w. strauss & n. howe, while analyzing the data, we used the age limits and generation names proposed by them. table 1 the key theories of the generations’ typology w. strauss & n. howe m. prensky v. v. radaev generation z/centennials (2005 and until now) digital natives generation z/centennials (2001 and until now) generation y or millennial generation (1982–2004) digital immigrants millennials (1982–2000) generation x (1961–1981) reform generation (1968–1981) baby boomers (1943–1960) generation of stagnation (1947–1967) silent generation (1925–1942) digital outsiders mobilization generation (1938 and earlier) note. source: developed by the authors based on source analysis (prensky, 2001; radaev, 2018; strauss & howe, 1997). https://changing-sp.com/ 828 marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, svetlana m. gertsen 3. methodology the research allows us to generate new insights regarding a typological picture of peculiar generations in the non-formal education market, including their interest and motivation. throughout the research, we apply data collection method— questionnaire survey of the population of the tyumen region of russia aged 18 to 82 years. the data analysis methodology was based on identifying the specifics, key features of the educational practices of the population of the indicated age cohorts/generations. a quota sample was used, with representation by gender and age. the sample reflects the structure of the population. theories of generations, in particular, presented in the works by prensky (2001), strauss & howe (1997), and radaev (2018), were used as a methodological framework for the study. based on the analysis of generational typologies, we propose the author’s gradation of generations, which was used in the empirical study when constructing the sample. when conducting an empirical study, we relied on the theory of generations, so a quota sample was 150–200 people from each generation, a total of 944 people took part in the survey. when constructing the sample, we relied on the age structure of the population, interviewing 150–200 people for each generation in order to identify the characteristics of non-formal education practices in each age cohort. interviews were conducted in russia in may 2020. the case of the tyumen region was selected as a region of russia, which is characterized by a high quality of life, the population structure reflects russian specifics (the south of the tyumen region is represented by rural areas dominated by elderly citizens). key characteristics captured by the data include gender, family structure, race/ethnicity, parental education, parental occupation and previous educational attainment (see table 2). table 2 characteristics of the empirical study sample age group sample number (people) sample characteristics generation z (centennials) 220 men—45%; women—55% secondary vocational and below—80% generation y (millennials) 200 men—45%; women—55% secondary professional and below—32%; higher education, academic degree—68% generation x 192 men—43%; women—57% secondary professional and below—35%; higher education, academic degree—65% baby boomers 180 men—42%; women—58% secondary professional and below—45% silent generation 152 men—40%; women—60% secondary professional and below—62%; higher education, academic degree—38% note. source: developed by the authors. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 823–840 829 the indicators of social inclusion can be the subsystems of society, in which individuals can be included. various vital parameters that characterize each of the subsystems can be identified as specific ones. the indicators of the political subsystem are political literacy, knowledge of laws, rights and obligations, social and political activity (astoiants et al., 2009). therefore, the codebook was developed in order to reveal the reasons for turning to non-formal education, the intensity of educational practices, thematic needs and interests in the field of non-formal education, the willingness to pay for one’s own education (financial investment in non-formal education). it was also aimed at the characteristics of the skills acquired in non-formal education, the choice of providers of nonformal education, features of training in the workplace, advantages and barriers to obtaining non-formal education. the socio-demographic block of questions included the characteristics of gender, age, level of education, field of activity, professional status, financial situation. to survey older respondents, especially the silent generation, a combined data collection method was used—with the help of interviewers who, according to respondents, entered data into a google form, which was caused by physical difficulties associated with age-related changes, vision, as well as an insufficient level of digital data obtained made it possible to analyze the involvement of the silent generation, focusing on the features of this generation. for the concept of digital skills, we distinguish between the areas people plan to expand their skills and knowledge in the next year. it is important to understand whether non-formal education was taken into account in employment, how the results of non-formal education are demonstrated, how the employer reacted to the presence of non-formal education, how non-formal practices have changed during the period of self-isolation caused by the pandemic. non-formal education provides social inclusion for those who are faced with social risks—age transition associated with job loss, status change, retirement. in this case, education at the place of residence, training in peer-to-peer groups becomes for them the dominant resource of social inclusion. for younger generations, non-formal education facilitates entry into the labor market, integration into the social and professional sphere, for older generations, non-formal education contributes to maximum involvement and full adaptation in modern society. the peculiarity of social inclusion is noted in the fact that modern forms of education blur the lines between study and leisure pastime. the orientation of education to market demands leads to the casting of new forms of study and knowledge, including experimental and implicit everyday mundane knowledge in the private sphere of leisure. at the same time, goods and services of different quality may appear on the market, which their consumer should be aware of (gorshkov & kliucharev, 2017). that is the reason that majority of students are adults who have faced risks. as a rule, this is education at the place of residence, organized for that part of the marginalized and socially vulnerable low-resource population, which shares the generally accepted goals and objectives and is ready to take an active part in their joint solution. the change in educational practices due to the increased use of non-formal education can be traced across all generations. https://changing-sp.com/ 830 marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, svetlana m. gertsen 4. case studies from russia throughout intergenerational approach when interpreting the results of the study, we relied on the characteristics of generations in russia, which reflect the characteristics of growing up, values, including the attitude towards learning. generation z or centennials were born since 2001. they actively use gadgets for leisure, work and education, purchase goods online and through mobile applications. modern technologies allow them to supplement the educational process with electronic materials or completely transfer them to the digital plane. generation y or millennials, were born at the end of the 20th century from 1982 to 2000, grew up during the formation of a new russia, the formation of new social institutions. the generation is distinguished by mobility, the desire for hedonism, pleasure, follow trends and brands, communicate on social networks, are confident that they are able to achieve what they want, take care of their health. they are interested in technology, know several foreign languages, value freedom and the absence of restrictions in work and daily life. generation x is from 1961 to 1981. the formation took place during the reform period preceding the collapse of the ussr with subsequent adaptation to social changes in the conditions of anomie. during their growing up and professional development, information technologies were just beginning to take shape in the country. they had to master digital competencies on their own, within the framework of state programs to improve computer literacy. the baby boomers generation were born after the second world war, are distinguished by a team spirit, a desire to consolidate efforts to achieve goals. they try to stay active, prefer natural products, take care of their health, focus on quality and status. silent generation were born shortly before or during the second world war. people of this age are leaving the category of the economically active population, while their social activity remains quite high. a change in social status leads to a transformation in lifestyle. they possess a low level of digital skills. the greatest inclusion in the practice of non-formal education was demonstrated by young people belonging to generation z (86%) and millennials (86%). among older generations, there are about three-quarters of generation x (79%), baby boomers (70%) and the silent generation (71 %). the highest intensity of non-formal education turned out to be characteristic of generation z (39%), in comparison with other generations, they use non-formal education to the maximum to find a job and demonstrate acquired skills to the employer. at the same time, the youngest generation z and the elderly silent generation are characterized by a high intensity of non-formal education usage with a frequency of weekly or more often. it is noteworthy that this trend was observed both before the period of forced self-isolation (49% and 62%, respectively), provoked by the coronavirus pandemic, and during it (81% and 80%), when the involvement of the population in the digital space increased throughout the world. the indicated generations are united by low involvement in labor practices. generation z is mainly on the way to entering the professional activity, and the silent generation has already completed its labor activity, being retired. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 823–840 831 acquired skills and the scope of their application the specificity of our research shows that nfe allows adults to acquire a wide range of useful skills and valuable experience, thematic coverage of which is extensive: from the development of basic skills to the deepening of professional competencies. it is important to emphasize that generation x and baby boomers, who are actively developing their careers, predominantly choose the skills necessary for the workplace. non-formal education resources provide these generations with the maximum renewal of predominantly professional skills. for younger generations, on the contrary, personal skills are most important for self-development. table 3 shows the distribution of respondents’ answers to the question, “in your opinion, what skills have you developed to the greatest extent as a result of the non-formal training you have completed” depending on the generation in percentage of the number of respondents. in the last few years, online educational practices have become very popular. as expected, young people are the most active in this area (generation z—48% and millennials—42%), also due to the formed modern digital skills and the desire to permanently update them. among the older generations, online educational practices are much less common (millennials—42%, generation x—23%, baby boomers—14%). among the respondents belonging to the silent generation, there was an absolute lack of inclusion in online education, caused, in our opinion, by digital incompetence. table 3 skills that generations have developed to the greatest extent as a result of the non-formal training skills, competencies, and practical experience generation z millennials generation x baby boomers silent generation full sample personal skills (ability to set and achieve goals, negotiate, etc.) 50 33 24 17 82 38 physical skills (driving a car, knitting, embroidery, etc.) 8 3 5 6 3 6 social skills (video blogging) 6 6 3 2 2 5 professional skills that are in demand at your workplace 16 32 46 57 0 28 professional, which can be applied in another area 20 24 22 17 6 22 other 0 2 1 1 0 1 total 100 100 101 100 93 100 https://changing-sp.com/ 832 marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, svetlana m. gertsen barriers to non-formal education obstacles to non-formal education are felt by every fifth respondent (22%). let us consider the barriers to non-formal education most acutely felt by respondents from different generational cohorts. generation z: lack of time due to work activities (26%); high cost (23%); lack of training certificates, acquired skills are difficult to confirm to the employer (23%); there is no confidence in the quality and reliability of the provided information (19%); lack of a control procedure, assessment of acquired competencies (16%). millennials: lack of time due to work activity (36%); high cost (24%); lack of training certificates, acquired skills are difficult to confirm (23%); such training is not recognized by the employer (17%), the price does not match the quality (16%). generation x: lack of time due to work (48%); lack of time due to family obligations (27%), high cost (20%); such training is not recognized by the employer (15%), lack of training certificates, acquired skills are difficult to confirm (15%). baby boomers: lack of time due to work (44%); lack of time due to family obligations (16%), such training is not recognized by the employer (11%); high cost (10%); there is no confidence in the quality and reliability of the information provided (10%). silent generation: high cost (35%); lack of verification of learning outcomes which reduces the value of education (31%); inconvenient time/place for classes (28%); price does not match the quality, sometimes or often (15%); lack of time due to work (14%). analyzing in the context of employment, according to our study, young people have more opportunities to attend online courses; for them the main obstacles are lack of time, unlike the older generation, for whom the main limitation is the high cost of educational resources. from the point of view of social inclusion, it is important to note that the financial availability of educational resources still remains a significant obstacle, which allows us to conclude that educational resources are accessible. the high cost of courses as an obstacle was noted by almost a quarter of respondents from generation z and x, and about a third from the silent generation with 35%. it is important at the policy and community level to recognize these barriers in which online learning can flourish: the government and learning communities support. it is possible that investments from the state, the introduction of tools for targeted financing of non-formal education. an educational account, a voucher, which are used in some countries could provide a solution to this problem. benefits of non-formal education for different generations the value that respondents see in non-formal education and the benefits it provides differ across generations. this is largely due to age, the level of formal education, personal characteristics, but generational characteristics also appear (see table 4). the analysis made it possible to identify the advantages of non-formal education from the point of view of different generations. self-development is a priority for almost all generations, especially for the youngest of the considered in 75% of generation z and the oldest in 83% of the silent generation. two-thirds of each generation highlighted the opportunity to gain up-to-date knowledge and changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 823–840 833 necessary competencies, learning at a convenient time and format of classes as advantages. generation z values the opportunity to study in a comfortable environment more (45%). for older generations, non-formal education allows them to master modern technologies. a significant advantage is the interest in professional activities, the possibility of deepening professional skills, for each generation this turned out to be a priority: 43% in the silent generation and up to 65% of generation z. the ability to quickly gain practical skills is observed by 35% of generation x, other generations of 20 –26%. non-formal education allows to navigate in related areas of activity was noted by 7% of the silent generation and 30% of the baby boomers generation. considering the practice of using nonformal education by representatives of different generations, let us pay attention to the specifics inherent in each of them, comparing their answers with the average value for the sample. young people representing generation z, as well as the silent generation, are not interested in using non-formal education in order to master new professional competencies: 45% against 56% on average in the sample. to this end, this age group prefers formal educational practices. however, for them, non-formal education becomes a priority as an opportunity to receive education remotely/via the internet: 34%, with an average value of 27%. also, it is the youngest generation that, when choosing non-formal education, is guided by the example and recommendation of friends and acquaintances, 14% with an average value of 6%, appreciates an individual approach 33% with an average value of 22%, independence from someone else’s schedule and the opportunity to study in a comfortable environment is 47% and with an average value of 34%. at the same time, for generation z, it is significant in non-formal education to have the opportunity to work remotely and increase the amount of earnings (15% with an average value of 8%). for generation z and millennials, it is more important than for other generations to learn at a convenient time (67% and 64% with an average value of 57%) and the desire to master new technologies (21% and 29% with an average value of 35%). while for the older generations (generation x and baby boomers) the development of technology is a higher priority (42% each, with an average value of 35%). also, for the two named generations, an exciting learning format, an interesting and accessible presentation of material (24% each with an average value of 34%) has a low significance. millennials’ estimates do not differ significantly from the sample averages. for them, in the first place among the priorities of nonformal education are self-development (72%), the opportunity to receive education remotely (28%), the prospect of obtaining an additional source of income after graduation (20%). for generation x, the key priority of non-formal education, in comparison with other age groups, is the interest in professional activities and the deepening of competencies (65% with 56% on average in the sample) and the opportunity to quickly gain practical skills (35% and 26% on average in the sample). self-development becomes less significant (66% versus 73% on average for the sample). such a distribution of priorities is quite logical, given that this generation is at the peak of its career. https://changing-sp.com/ 834 marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, svetlana m. gertsen table 4 benefits of non-formal education for different generations (in percentage of the number of respondents) intensive courses (up to 16 hours) generation z millennials generation x baby boomers silent generation self-development 75 72 66 72 83 training at a convenient time 67 64 51 48 55 the opportunity to acquire relevant knowledge and necessary competencies 51 51 54 64 62 interest in professional activities, deepening competencies 45 58 65 69 43 to learn new technologies 22 29 42 42 38 there is an independence from your schedule and the opportunity to study in a comfortable environment 47 40 32 33 20 it is fun, interesting and accessible 38 31 24 24 52 meaningful courses are really, there is nothing superfluous in them 24 26 26 21 43 receiving education without leaving home (remotely/via the internet) 34 28 33 17 23 i can quickly get practical skills 20 24 35 25 26 it will later provide an additional source of income 28 20 22 13 30 it allows you to navigate in related areas of activity 19 22 26 30 7 there is an opportunity to learn a new profession without leaving home 28 28 15 10 20 there is a lack of tight control 20 21 22 9 14 i plan to learn a related activity 15 16 13 18 3 baby boomers also indicated a high priority for improving competencies in their professional activities (69%, with an average value of 56%). less significant for them (compared to other generations) were the opportunity to receive education remotely (17% against 27% on average in the sample) and receiving an additional source of income after completing the course of non-formal education (13% against 23% on average in the sample), learning in free time (48% with 57% on average for the sample) and the lack of strict control of the learning process and the knowledge gained (9% with 17% on average). for them, the possibility of non-formal education is important, allowing them to navigate in related fields of activity (30% with 21% on average for the sample). the interest of the representatives of the silent generation changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 823–840 835 in non-formal education is mainly due to the lack of formal courses/training programs in the chosen field of activity (25% compared to 10% on average in the sample), the opportunity for self-development provided by non-formal education (83% compared to 74% in sample average), as well as the lack of opportunities to get formal education due to lack of money or time (17% vs. 7% sample average). respondents belonging to the silent generation appreciate the convenient format of classes in non-formal education more than other generations. since the paper is devoted to the case of russia, we refer to sociological studies of russian scale in the practice of continuing education as a background data for the regional study. the data shows that adults are willing to learn new skills. at the same time, people of mature age do not want to feel like students, they are more comfortable learning at the workplace, under the guidance of experienced mentors. it is desirable that non-formal learning takes place under the patronage of academic institutions, which greatly increases the value of the program for adult learners. such training contributes to social inclusion as much as possible—inclusion in the educational group, team, labor activity and social activity. subject to these conditions, up to 84% of mature employees are ready to participate in educational programs of continuous education with the continuation of labor activity (korshunov et al., 2019). 5. conclusions as mentioned in section 4, in which we have generations’ inclusion in non-formal education described, we have constantly reflected on and confronted our findings with existing academics. finally, in this section we explore the broader theoretical implications of our work and point to the specifics of different generations, which manifests itself in the features of social inclusion based on non-formal education: what are the advantages and limitations of non-formal education for representatives of different generations, where and how they apply the acquired skills. however, we contend that regular features associated with biological age and life cycle stages contradict with generational specificity. considering professional development through the prism of different ages, our research shows that today inclusion through non-formal education, mobility in the labor market due to retraining, inclusion in new social ties, study groups, adaptation to new challenges have generational characteristics. the limitation of the study is the consideration of the practices of non-formal education on the example of one area as a regional case. the use of only quantitative methods, however, the material obtained made it possible to answer the key research question, to identify the specifics of non-formal education of each generation which are as following. generation z. its representatives actively use modern technologies for learning, which ensures the speed in mastering new skills including mobile learning, the main advantages for them are in the free choice of training programs, mentors, practical tasks, and real skills. for them, non-formal education fills the gaps in formal education when studying at colleges and universities, compensates for the lack of practical skills, helps to gain first work experience, and facilitates entry into the labor market. https://changing-sp.com/ 836 marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, svetlana m. gertsen thanks to non-formal education, social inclusion in the professional sphere, economic relations is ensured, and entry into the labor market is facilitated. millennials. for them, non-formal education is a source of professional development, learning skills for a future profession and/or current job, career advancement, professional mobility. social inclusion is ensured through involvement in labor relations. among the reasons given is the opportunity to have additional income through non-formal education. the risk zone for them is that it is not always possible to confirm the acquired skills to the employer for certification or skills validation. generation x. the priority for them is the development of modern digital technologies, they have a wide range of interests in the field of non-formal learning from hobbies, raising their children, healthy eating to professional interests, among the barriers they name primarily are the lack of time and cost, and the ability to confirm skills, received in non-formal education. baby boomers. social inclusion meets their need to update professional competencies. due to the possibility of advanced training and retraining is important, to navigate in related areas of professional activity, and psychology, their full social inclusion is guaranteed avoiding professional risks. silent generation. leaders in the priority for self-development, entertainment courses which should be interesting and exciting, the form of presentation and organization of classes is important: the desire to study in groups, involvement in new social connections, do not seek formal confirmation of skills. the key obstacle to obtaining non-formal education is considered to be the high cost and inconsistency between the price and quality of the courses. at the same time, informal training in digital skills with the help of children and grandchildren ensures social inclusion in the market of goods and services, and the purchase of goods on the internet. the low level of digital literacy limits access to their social inclusion. it is non-formal education that will help them to be included in social processes, to feel important and significant. thus, the training and education of older citizens contributes to their social inclusion and improves their well-being. a new model of educational trajectory is coming based on the principle of lifelong learning, when secondary, higher and additional vocational education together create opportunities for long-term competitiveness in the labor market (korshunov et al., 2019). it is clear by now that for all generations, an important barrier is the cost of courses, its affordability, recognition of the results of non-formal education, certification of skills, and qualifications. representatives of generation x and baby boomers who are at the stage of career advancement in their active professional growth are ready to invest in their education. older generations prefer free courses and programs organized with the support of the state and organizations. thus, in modern generations, there are differences in motivation to receive non-formal education, a difference in benefits and barriers. concerning the specificity of age typology in terms of different generations demonstrating inclusion in non-formal education we agree with the previous researchers (asmar et al., 2020; maliszewski, 2003; rogers, 2019; zhang & acs, 2019) hat non-formal education has seen a remarkable revival of interest across both developing countries and the more highly developed countries. among the factors changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 823–840 837 causing this revival is the search for alternative educations to meet the needs of different groups in society. moreover, our findings agree that the adult learning targets contained in every one of the sustainable development goals cannot be met by formal learning programmes alone and require a much-expanded non-formal education program. thus, current redefinitions are observed of non-formal education and at where such a system might fit into the governmental architecture of educational planning. intergenerational approach towards social inclusion is evident in two ways: ● a similar trend noted in studies based on data from other countries (maliszewski, 2003; rogers, 2019) shows the role of education as a factor of inclusion, improvement of communication skills, involvement in social networks. it requires a significant expansion of non-formal education programs, which will contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals. ● unesco-supported research illustrates that those countries where nonformal education resources are used to develop human capital demonstrate a higher rate of adaptation to technological changes, active citizenship, a rapid pace of socio-economic transformation and innovation (maliszewski, 2003). further prospects for research in the field of non-formal education can be the study of its possibilities for competency management policy, the evaluation of the effectiveness of best practices and technologies, the development of national models for the integration of formal and non-formal education, the recognition of its results (skills certification), and the expansion of social partnership. as such, it is important at the government policy and community 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(2021). m. khaidegger i russkaia filosofskaia mysl’ [m. heidegger and russian philosophical thought]. izdatel’stvo russkoi khristianskoi gumanitarnoi akademii. ekaterina s. lebed surgut state university, surgut, russia ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia martin heidegger remains one of the most popular philosophers among russian intellectuals. the collection under review seeks to suggest some answers to the question as to why it is so. this volume showcases the range of russian specialists in heidegger’s philosophy who reflect on heidegger’s reception in russia and his influence on contemporary russian thought. the volume is divided into three major parts: historical reception, current interpretations, prospective venues. the first chapters discuss the interrelations between heidegger and his contemporaries among russian philosophers. in proekt germenevticheskoi fenomenologii: g. shpet i m. khaidegger [project of hermeneutical phenomenology: g. shpet and m. heidegger], n. artemenko engages in comparative analysis of two projects of hermeneutical phenomenology. on the one hand, artemenko discusses gustav shpet’s hermeneutics, which was expounded in his iavlenie i smysl [appearance and sense] (1914) and germenevtika i ee problemy [hermeneutics and its problems] (1918). shpet’s hermeneutical phenomenology is juxtaposed with heidegger’s early works such as ontologie (hermeneutik der faktizität) [ontology. hermeneutics of facticity] (1923). in his narrative, artemenko demonstrates heidegger’s philosophical trajectory. in artemenko’s account, heidegger began his phenomenological studies with an unconventional reading of aristotle in his works of 1916–1923. these studies culminated in his hermeneutics of facticity. artemenko then shows how hermeneutics was replaced with phenomenology and heidegger developed his own phenomenological project. finally, as artemenko demonstrates, heidegger put forward his original approach to the question of being. shpet’s philosophical project was akin to heidegger’s. received 18 december 2022 © 2022 ekaterina s. lebed published online 30 december 2022 kkovaleva2@yandex.ru https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 980–983 981 their philosophical approaches both originated in edmund husserl’s phenomenology: “to be conscious is to make sense” (p. 7). yet, while husserl was mostly concerned with transcendental subjectivity, shpet focused on language consciousness, which, in his view, was embedded in concepts, and on logos, which was socially determined. later heidegger, on the other hand, advanced the notion of being-in-the-world (dasein) and posited language as a basis for making sense of the world. in his later works, heidegger glorified poets as makers of the language. s. konacheva highlights the transformative nature of heidegger’s philosophical project and compares it with v. lossky’s mystical search for the divine in her chapter filosofskaia mistika kak transformativnaia filosofiia: martin khaidegger i vladimir losskii [philosophical mysticism as transformative philosophy: martin heidegger and vladimir lossky]. beginning with philosophical mysticism as an alternative to traditional philosophical methods of cognition (с. 35), konacheva shows the importance of medieval philosophy for lossky. lossky believed that medieval philosophy and mysticism shared the principle of “absolute loyalty”, and both these approaches valued “affective immersion into knowledge” (p. 38) rather than abstract and formal cognition. as konacheva explains, medieval mysticism, in lossky’s view, is a path to “complete experience” and the supreme orientation toward the transcendence (polnotoi opyta i orientatsiei na transtsendentnost, p. 39). but lossky is mostly concerned with the interpretation of religious experience itself rather than with the analysis of the religious mind or religious subjectivity (p. 42). thus, konacheva concludes, despite certain similarities with philosophical mysticism, heidegger’s approach can be better described as a mysticism of the experience of time. in the chapter khaidegger, lukach, lenin i sovetskii marksizm [heidegger, lukacs, lenin, and soviet marxism], a. savin focuses on the interpretations and criticism of heidegger’s philosophy in the soviet period. savin divides the soviet reception of heidegger’s ideas into three markedly different periods. in the first period, boris bychowsky highlighted existentialist motives of heidegger’s philosophy such as “being-toward-death”, and anxiety and thrownness (die geworfenheit) of the human existence (dasein). the second period was marked by the interpretation of györgy lukács who claimed that heidegger’s philosophy reinforced anxiety and homelessness, and thus contributed to the development of nazism in german society. during the “thaw” period, however, and in later soviet philosophy—the final third period—for the soviet philosophers, heidegger represented the philosophical concern with creativity. the latter was regarded as central to human personality and to genuine culture of human societies (p. 78). savin concludes that while at first the soviet philosophy was highly critical of heidegger’s philosophical provenance and approach, in the course of its gradual reception by the soviet philosophers trained in marxism, heidegger’s philosophy was selectively adapted and some of its essential elements, which were relevant for the marxian perspective, were adopted. in diskussii o filosofii m. khaideggera v ontologicheskom obshchestve sanktpeterburga [discussions on m. heidegger’s philosophy in ontological society of saint petersburg], a. patkul offers a rich account of intense philosophical discussions of heidegger’s ontology among intellectual circles of saint petersburg. patkul https://changing-sp.com/ 982 ekaterina s. lebed demonstrates how these discussions were reflected in various publications such as articles, collected volumes, and—no less importantly—in dissertations of the academic community of saint petersburg. the second part of the collection entitled aktual’nye interpretatsii [current interpretations] includes several chapters that explicate heidegger’s relations with philosophical legacy and philosophical traditions. in greki i istina iskusstva u khaideggera [the greeks and the truth of art in heidegger], a. krioukov discusses heidegger’s reception of greek philosophy and his interpretation of the notion of truth—alêtheia (unconcealment, unverborgenheit). this notion is instrumental in heidegger’s ontological approach to the art and the artwork (p. 157). in the chapter apofaticheskie momenty v filosofii khaideggera: temporal’nost’ i negativnost’ [apophatic elements in heidegger’s philosophy: temporality and negativity], d. lebedev begins with a brief survey of apophatic thought and then analyses apophatic elements in heidegger’s philosophy. lebedev’s argument highlights the ontological distinction between being and existence and demonstrates that it is apophatic methodology that is deployed by heidegger in his analysis of being. in the chapter filosofskaia pozitsiia m. khaideggera i uroki politicheskikh transformatsii xx veka [philosophical attitude of m. heidegger and lessons of political transformations of the 20th century], d. goncharko focuses on a more poignant question—that of heidegger’s political views. the author argues that heidegger did not intend to spell out a full-fledged political ontology or political philosophy, but his “politics of silence” and abstention from public expression of his opinions were grounded in his philosophy. goncharko places heidegger’s political views in juxtaposition with a wide range of political theories such as i. kant’s critical philosophy, h. arendt’s political ideals, p. bourdieu’s philosophical sublimation, and a. badiou’s ontology of event. the author concludes that poetry becomes a secularized political discourse in later heidegger (p. 205). the last chapter khaidegger v prostranstve analiticheskoi filosofii: pro et contra [heidegger in the territory of analytical philosophy: pro et contra], s. nikonenko analyses various interpretations of heidegger’s philosophy in the analytical tradition beginning with bertrand russell’s and rudolf carnap’s reactions to heidegger’s project. while heidegger’s method and the way of doing philosophy were largely rejected by the analytical philosophers, there were two strands of interest in heidegger’s philosophy. the first is related to the comparative analysis of heidegger’s and wittgenstein’s philosophical approaches. the second refers to the selective reception of heidegger’s ideas by american philosopher richard rorty (p. 251). the third part of the collection perspektivnye voproshaniia [prospective venues] begins with a. durnev’s sobytiinoe vremia v filosofii martina khaideggera: kontekst i osnovnye idei [time of the event in martin heidegger’s philosophy: context and key ideas], which offers an extensive analysis of the notion of event in heidegger’s philosophy. drawing on phenomenology of claude romano and hermeneutics of vladimir bibikhin, the author traces the development and reception of this notion and “ontology of event” in post-heideggerian philosophical thought. durnev describes how heidegger in his later works showcases the notion of the changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 980–983 983 event (p. 264), which he already used in his earlier sein und zeit, but endowed it with a different meaning and function. in the next chapter ontologicheskaia tematizatsiia voobrazheniia v uchenii m. khaideggera i ee filosofskie implikatsii [ontological thematization of imagination in m. heidegger’s doctrine and its philosophical implications], yu. romanenko discusses the complex and tense relations between ontology and epistemology, beginning with kant and culminating in heidegger. romanenko claims that the notions of imagination and the imaginary fell victim to the revolutionary discourses, in which revolution was regarded as a certain imaginary. this approach to revolution as an imaginary leads the author to an extensive exploration of the various interpretations of the notion of revolution and its imaginaries. a. vavilov analyses dylan trigg’s phenomenology of horror from the perspective of heidegger’s fundamental ontology in the chapter aktual’nost’ khaideggerovskoi germenevtiki zhutkogo v sovremennoi filosofii [heideggerian hermeneutics of the uncanny and its reception in contemporary philosophy]. while trigg addresses heidegger’s philosophy tangentially and mostly in a critical manner, vavilov demonstrates the allusions and the borrowings in trigg’s arguments. the final chapter martin khaidegger i budushchee: pochemu u tekhniki netekhnicheskaia sushchnost’ i zachem nuzhna poeziia v xxi veke? [martin heidegger and the future: why does the technic have non-technical essence and why do we need poetry in the 21st century?] relates the conversation of a. mikhailovsky and n. piliavskii on heidegger’s attitude to the technic and technical revolution along with the technic’s origins, limits, and its conditions of possibility (p. 365). on the one hand, heidegger sees grave danger in the development of the technic and technical progress, but on the other hand, the technic is indispensable element of the art and is integral to human creativity (p. 372). this volume presents a wide variety of views on heidegger’s philosophy in russia and shows the gradual reception of his ideas as new translations appeared over the decades and as the interpretations by “banned” russian philosophers became available (g. shpet, v. lossky, etc.) to a wide russian public. it offers new insights into the relations between heidegger’s methodology and philosophical project, on the one hand, and contemporary strains of philosophy such as hermeneutics, phenomenology, and analytical philosophy. it also provides an excellent foundation for further reflection on heidegger’s thought and its adaptation to russian philosophical tradition. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 785–803 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.203 received 9 june 2022 © 2022 chulpan i. ildarhanova, vera a. gnevasheva accepted 22 december 2022 ildarhanova.chulpan@tatar.ru published online 30 december 2022 vera_cos@rambler.ru article socio-demographic construct of social loneliness in modern russia chulpan i. ildarhanova family and demography center, tatarstan academy of sciences, kazan, russia kazan institute (branch), all-russian state university of justice (rla of ministry of justice of russia), kazan, russia vera a. gnevasheva family and demography center, tatarstan academy of sciences, kazan, russia abstract the article examines the theory and methodology behind social loneliness in the family context, as well as empirically assessing the socio-demographic manifestation of this phenomenon in modern russia. several factors exacerbating and minimizing social loneliness are presented. a strong emphasis is placed on the importance of families in alleviating social loneliness and on family construct preservation. using the cluster method, the authors analyze criteriadefined groups from the general sample of an empirical study that was held by the family and demography center of tatarstan academy of sciences (tas) in 2022. as a result, a conclusion is drawn about factors that the respondents consider to be the most significant in minimizing social loneliness. in this connection, the authors find it important to define the family as a synergistic mechanism for reducing such social risks and assess the risks of transforming the traditional family construct. in addition, the study uses the female subsample to examine the role of gender in the severity of social loneliness. determining the role of women in the creation of family relations and the transfer of social valuebased attitudes, the authors assess the family construct stability and the likely features of its transformation to develop a preventive sociodemographic policy for reducing social deviation and maintaining stable social value-based relationships. https://changing-sp.com/ 786 chulpan i. ildarhanova, vera a. gnevasheva introduction loneliness constitutes one of those concepts whose actual meaning is seemingly clear to the ordinary consciousness. however, such clarity is deceptive since it hides a complex, largely contradictory socio-philosophical content, which is often hard to construct using rational analysis. recent years have seen a surge of interest among psychologists in the concept of loneliness. this concept has been associated with both physical (lynch, 1976) and a range of serious mental illnesses, including alcoholism (bell, 1956), suicidal ideation (wenz, 1977), and depression (bragg, 1979; cutrona, 1981; peplau et al., 1979; weeks et al., 1980). laboratory studies into the social behavior of lonely people revealed social skill deficits (jones, 1982), i.e., negative attitudes towards self and others (jones et al., 1981), unresponsiveness to others in social interactions (jones et al., 1982), and inappropriate patterns of self-disclosure (chelune et al., 1980; solano et al., 1982). these and other studies (peplau & perlman, 1982) suggest that loneliness constitutes a significant psychological construct. the empirical clarification of social loneliness in the family context differs in various countries due to cultural, economic, and housing reasons, which became relevant during and after the pandemic. for example, japan has produced a number of wellknown loneliness researchers. in fact, the scale of the loneliness problem there and its negative impact on the nation’s well-being prompted the japanese government to recommend distant employment as a way to restore work-life balance (fujii et al., 2021). cross-national research (17 participant countries) conducted in order to discover the effect of family ties on loneliness helped to refute some myths: e.g., it is marriage rather than parenthood that alleviates loneliness; however, when occurring simultaneously, these demographic events make people twice less lonely (stack, 1998). an analysis of contemporary research reveals several areas of social loneliness studies in the family context: (a) loneliness in parenthood (nowland et al., 2021); (b) loneliness during pregnancy (kent-marvick et al., 2022); (c) loneliness in an intergenerational family (heshmati et al., 2021). a large number of researchers agree that as a socio-philosophical phenomenon, loneliness is generally associated with the degree to which people are involved in a community of people, their family life, social reality, and macro-social environment (alwin et al., 1985; klinenberg, 2012; putnam, 2000). in this connection, it is vital to understand, evaluate, describe, and analyze this degree of involvement, whose cessation leads to behavioral deviation caused by an increased self-inflicted sense of social loneliness, as well as to the inner (in exceptional cases outward) urge to keywords social loneliness, traditional family construct, behavioral deviation, social risks, gender, happiness index acknowledgments this study was funded by grant 22-28-01980 from the russian science foundation. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4 pp. 785–803 787 enter into social and personal dissonance with the social environment or personal self-organization. in the modern world, physical isolation does not always coexist with a feeling of loneliness. most acutely, people can experience loneliness in situations of intense, sometimes forced communication in a city crowd, in a family circle, and among friends. introduced in the 1950s by the american sociologist david riesman, the term “lonely crowd” has become symbolic of our time (riesman et al., 1961/2020). in contrast to the objective isolation of a person, which can be voluntary and full of inner meaning, loneliness reflects a painful personality discord, prevailing disharmony, suffering, and an identity crisis. painted in tragic colors, the entire world is perceived as insignificant. the assembly line fashion in which socio-psychological stereotypes (habits, customs, tastes, assessments, and types of perception behavior) emerge deprives people of their individual differences while providing an outward unification of the social environment, which essentially dissolves the community into largely contrasting social atoms. as people started to realize their connection with the human race, they also discovered pain associated with losing such a connection or even weakening it (parkes, 2006). this phenomenon has not always been called “loneliness.” having existed for centuries, the full depth of its general philosophical meaning was not always considered, though invariably woven into the spiritual development of humankind. as a small social group, the family undoubtedly plays a decisive role in personal development, determining the marital and reproductive behavior of each individual. an empirical study conducted by the family and demography center of tatarstan academy of sciences (tas) revealed that in the modern russian society, parents discourage their children from early marriages, as well as early pregnancies. in this way, they intend to take a break (also economically) from raising their children while directing their attention to securing stable positions in the labor market. for a large number of individuals, this results in the choice of employment over family formation. thus, delay of important demographic events can lead to loneliness (abdul’zianov et al., 2022), while kinship serves as a base for expectations, support, and identity (mason, 2008). traditionally family ties, as well as parent and spouse statuses, have been associated in the public consciousness with social roles that help to alleviate loneliness; however, the contemporary thesaurus of personal development and success is connected with psychic, physical, and financial safety, resulting in the choice of single life. having a partner and a child is viewed as a challenge and a risk to a person whose primary life goals include a stable, well-paid job, personal life full of hobbies, self-development, etc. thus, the social role of an individual in traditional society is very often considered in the family context. in public perception, such a social group a priori provides tools for minimizing the risks of social loneliness, predetermining an opposite feeling—happiness. in this article, we examine the relationship between the social constructs of family and children in society and their sense of self in the context of social loneliness. the article aims to assess the degree of happiness as a counterbalance to social https://changing-sp.com/ 788 chulpan i. ildarhanova, vera a. gnevasheva loneliness. to this end, the following objectives are set: to determine factors of loneliness; to study age differences in perception of loneliness; to examine how marital and parental statuses affect the identification of family members as the inner circle; to identify loneliness risk groups; to ascertain the degree of fulfillment in social value-based spheres according to the self-assessment of female respondents. theoretical framework loneliness researchers have generally concluded that the experience of loneliness can be characterized in two ways (peplau & perlman, 1982). on the one hand, loneliness constitutes an aversive experience that is similar to other negative affective states such as depression or anxiety (hawkley & cacioppo, 2010). on the other hand, current studies reveal loneliness to be distinct from social isolation and reflect an individual’s subjective perception of flaws in their social relationships (cacioppo & patrick, 2008; chudacoff, 1999). these shortcomings can be quantitative (e.g., not enough friends) or qualitative (e.g., lack of closeness with others). some studies indicate that “loneliness” is represented by a common core of experiences (hughes & gove, 1981). thus, it is essential to determine what common experiences form the construct of loneliness. an alternative view (primarily sociological) holds that loneliness can be divided into two or more qualitatively different types (hortulanus et al., 2005; yang, 2019). according to this theoretical point of view, the construct of loneliness is exclusively subjective, i.e., the subjective experiences of loneliness differ from person to person. social loneliness studies adopt a large number of approaches. for example, existential psychology (moustakas & moustakas, 2004; yalom, 2014) believes loneliness to be inherent in human nature. the existentialist moustakas defines the “vanity of loneliness” as a system of defense mechanisms, stating that “true loneliness” arises from the awareness of the “reality of a lonely existence.” another representative of the existential approach, irvin yalom, emphasizes that lonely existence is preceded by some borderline life situations, such as death, life shocks, and tragedies experienced by an individual alone. in existential philosophy, the concept of conflict is adopted to define an individual’s relationship with the objective world, with existentialists focusing on the underlying causes of loneliness in the context of an individual’s existence (berdyaev, 1949/2021; dahlberg, 2007; sartre, 1946/2007). according to the psychoanalytic approach within the neo-freudian paradigm, certain childhood events and experiences can lead to loneliness (fromm-reichman, 1990; smirnova, 2010; sullivan, 2001; zilboorg, 1938). proceeding from this idea, gregory zilboorg distinguishes between the concepts of loneliness and solitude, considering the former as inescapable, with its causes arising from the personality, and the latter to be a normal state. humanistic sociology (person-centered approach) views loneliness as a consequence of some external impact on the personality (hjelle & ziegler, 1992; rogers, 1942/2007); according to carl rogers, loneliness manifests itself as poor adaptability of the personality. according to the socio-psychological approach (riesman et al., 1961/2020), society causes loneliness, specifically, by weakening changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4 pp. 785–803 789 ties in the primary group, which in turn exacerbates this feeling. it is emphasized, however, that one of the key causes of loneliness lies in the tendency to focus on others: striving to be liked by others, people adapt to circumstances while losing their identity, to which david riesman refers as a “lonely crowd.” the cognitive approach focuses on the discrepancy between the social and individual experience of the individual (peplau & perlman, 1982; perlman & peplau, 1980). some approaches consider loneliness as a part of a broader concept: e.g., erich fromm (1956) identified consumer society as a cause of loneliness. karen horney (1994) developed a psychosocial doctrine of loneliness to comprise multiple factors, including the problems of modern families. using an integrative model of loneliness, w. sandler and t. johnson (1980) examined this phenomenon in the context of relationships and human connections, considering the inner world of a person to be a dynamic process determined by certain experiences. having a certain potential, people must realize it by determining their place in the world at all levels and establishing the number of connections it requires in each case. the problem of loneliness comes down to determining the characteristics of interpersonal relationships, specifically in the family as a small group. changes in such a phenomenon as social loneliness lead to the transformation of interactions, including within small social groups, as well as to the transformed understanding of the family as a social unit. several theories consider loneliness as part of a broader social problem (e.g., perlman & peplau, 1980); however, minor factors are found to be essential in exacerbating social loneliness in society (e.g., fromm, 1956). a large number of researchers turn to the family level to identify the origins of this social deviation. according to karen horney (1994), social autonomy at the family level, furthers the development of social autonomy among the members of society. loneliness is a recurring theme in modern philosophical, psychological, and sociological literature. as the “plague of the 21st century,” loneliness calls for serious reflection from the perspective of various social science disciplines, which must correlate with the general interpretation of loneliness in history and culture. in contrast to social loneliness and associated exacerbating factors, researchers study the phenomenon of happiness as subjective well-being. for example, r. shamionov (2008) defines subjective well-being as an individual’s attitude to his personality, life, and processes, i.e., the degree of satisfaction, while all the concepts of psychological well-being that are similar in meaning are defined as “happiness”. all this characterizes the feeling of satisfaction. the concepts of psychological well-being that are similar in meaning include the concepts of “optimism,” “happiness,” and “life satisfaction.” most studies treat subjective well-being as synonymous with happiness (bartram, 2012; cieslik, 2017). as iu. povarenkov (2005) maintains, professional happiness is the highest expression of professional identity. in this connection, the well-being of women and the sense of fulfillment can be defined as “happiness,” yet another question to be explored here is what determines a person’s degree of “good life,” sense of fulfillment, as well as social and personal well-being. https://changing-sp.com/ 790 chulpan i. ildarhanova, vera a. gnevasheva in this connection, the methodological objectives of this study are as follows: to examine the theory behind social loneliness; to identify the social factors of an individual’s involvement in small and large communities; to evaluate self-identification with community involvement; to establish the system of individual’s social interactions; to identify the empirical features of self-identity formation in the context of an assessment trend within the range of social loneliness to happiness. methodology of empirical research ideologically and conceptually, this 2022 study was inspired by the involvement of the present authors (as staff at the family and demography center of tas) in a scientific study of the family and demographic problems at the levels of the region and the volga federal district, as well as in all-russian scientific and practical social work with various social categories (married couples with and without children, social groups who have never been married and have no children, parents deprived of parental rights, divorced with or without children, young people considering whether to start a family of their own). as the pilot pool for studying opinions about loneliness, we used round table discussions held by the civic chamber of the russian federation in conjunction with specialized non-profit public organizations dealing with the social problems of families, such as pod krylom sem’i [under the wing of the family], soiuz ottsov [union of fathers], etc. in terms of methodology, the focus was on identifying the social component, context, and prerequisites of the individual’s self-identification. since the goal was to find the common characteristics of loneliness for different social groups, as opposed to some specific aspects that are the focus of psychological research, a conventional social survey was chosen as a method for data collection. all participants were informed about the purpose of the study and gave their consent to the impersonal generalized processing of the obtained data. the present researchers assured the survey participants that they would be informed about the study results. the analytical processing of these materials became the basis for the development of thematic sections comprising a questionnaire. implemented using an online google form, the questionnaire survey was conducted with the support of designated ngos, other organizations keeping close ties with the family and demography center of tas, and volunteers by sending a link to complete the survey online. the analysis of obtained results revealed a 20% rejection rate, which is attributed to the failure to answer openended questions asking the respondents to define loneliness. the obtained results were processed in excel with the construction of one-/two-dimensional and cluster tables. the selected empirical research tool (questionnaire) was presented in electronic form (yandex forms); it included 20 questions comprising multiple choices with the opportunity to supplement the answer with their own ideas. the study included answers from 1,350 respondents aged 18–60 years. geographically, this sample was represented by almost all federal districts of the russian federation, primarily determined by the territories of big cities: moscow, st. petersburg, volgograd, arkhangelsk, yekaterinburg, novosibirsk, tomsk, irkutsk, khabarovsk, etc. with the changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4 pp. 785–803 791 general population amounting to 91,448,000 people, the sample is representative at a 95% confidence interval (384 people). the obtained sample is continuously random in nature, defined as nested at the last stage according to the age criterion. an empirical clarification of social loneliness and happiness relies on both the network graphs of interpersonal communication and the index method, proposed in the present authors’ interpretation as a tool for numerically comparing different social situations of an individual’s involvement in social groups. the following primary methods were used in the empirical data analysis: econometric methods of sociological analysis; determination method; factor analysis; methods for building paired and multiple linear regressions having normal and lognormal distribution drawing on panel data with the assessment of descriptive statistics; principal component method. results one thousand and fifty people participated in the study, with slightly more than half represented by the male population. in terms of age distribution, the modal group comprises people aged 36–45 years (37.5%). every second respondent has a higher education, with the study participants mostly considering their income level to be average (43.3%). when asked about their inner circle, 35.9% chose the option “my husband (wife), children, and i,” while a large share selected the option “my parents and i” (30.1%). the respondents consider the creation of a family to be the primary goal of marriage (65%). overall, 45.6% of the participants maintain that they never feel lonely. an analysis of the survey results revealed four factors of loneliness, three of which will be categorized as social: unfulfillment in terms of the family and children, unfulfillment in the professional sphere, and most importantly, lack of self-realization defined by an individual predisposition to this state, which is primarily sociopsychological in nature (see fig. 1). figure 1 factors of loneliness factors of loneliness caused by family • lack of family • lack of children caused by self-realization • lack of favourite work (a) caused by family → family-related (b) lack of family → no family (c) lack of children → no children (d) caused by self-realization → lack of self-realization (e) lack of favourite work → no favorite occupation note. source: authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 792 chulpan i. ildarhanova, vera a. gnevasheva differentiation of the sample into criteria-based groups according to the differentiation criterion, the answers to the question: “why are people lonely?” (see fig. 2) revealed four dominant groups in accordance with the selected options: “personal predisposition” (43% of the total sample); “no children” (11%); “no favorite occupation” (20%); “no family” (12%). figure 2 why are people lonely? (%) it is impossible to be lonely bad relations with children bad relations with parents material difficulties absence of children absence of friends absence of family nothing to do absence of favorite activity the reason is in the person 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 2.9 3.9 4.9 9.7 10.7 21.4 25.1 25.2 26.2 41.7 (a) material difficulties → financial difficulties (b) absence of children → no children (c) absence of friends → no friends (d) absence of family → no family (e) absence of favorite activity → no favorite occupation (f) the reason is in the person → personal predisposition note. source: authors. the first group, which determined that the causes of loneliness should be sought in the person himself, is the most numerous, 51% of which are men, 30% are people at the age of “26–35 years” and another 23% are at the age of “36–45 years”, slightly less than half of this group have higher education (44%), every fourth representative of this group defines their level of income as “enough for me” (24%), another 21% define their income as “below average”, every third of describes the groups as “me, my husband (wife), children” (27%), another 16% defined their inner circle as “me and my husband (wife)”, that is, half of the representatives of this group do not define family as their inner circle, children, while these are usually people of active reproductive age, both men and women equally. 56% of the representatives of this group define the purpose of marriage as “creating a family”, 53% of the respondents in this group never feel lonely, 27% noted that “sometimes” they still feel loneliness, 44% of the representatives of this group consider material security as a criterion of well-being. the first group represented by 42% of the total sample comprises people who consider loneliness to be a personality characteristic unrelated to the surroundings and social ties, i.e., a self-inflicted state, to which the person is predisposed. this group does not exhibit any gender peculiarities (51%—men, 49%—women). however, the survey statistics reveal a steady trend for young adults (30% are 26–35 years old) and middle-aged people (23% are 36–45 years old) to find reasons for loneliness in changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4 pp. 785–803 793 themselves. slightly less than half of this group have higher education (44%). every fourth representative defines their level of income as “enough for me” (24%), while 21% consider it to be “below average.” every third respondent describes their inner circle as “my husband (wife), children, and i” (27%), while 16% define it as “my husband (wife) and i.” also, 56% of this group representatives consider the “creation of a family” to be the primary goal of marriage. these are usually people of active reproductive age (both men and women; the paradox is, however, that despite being married and having children, half of this group representatives do not define the family as their inner circle (fig. 3). in addition, 44% of this group representatives consider material security to be a criterion of well-being. of note is that the respondents generally do not perceive loneliness negatively, treating it as a temporary part of life. figure 3 loneliness in married couples due to individual predisposition loneliness as a personal predisposition me, my husband (wife) and children 27% me and my husband (wife) 16% (a) me, my husband (wife), and children 27% → my husband (wife), children, and i—27% (b) me and my husband (wife) 16% → my husband (wife) and i—16% note. source: authors. thus, the question is whether marriage can save people who created their own family units from feeling lonely. while 27% of respondents note that they still feel loneliness “sometimes,” 53% of this group representatives never feel lonely. it is not our intention to make judgments and conclusions about the general benefits and drawbacks for society. however, noteworthy is that having a family is a lot like running a company—every member has to contribute in order to work as a team. a hefty 75% of marriages arise from the desire to avoid loneliness and to be with the loved one (81%—women vs. 64%—men). when the needs of one of the marriage partners are not satisfied, the feeling of loneliness appears, which can lead to divorce. in this situation, 42% of respondents would not keep the family together for the sake of their children. that is how the concept “to be lonely in a family” emerges. the second group primarily aged 36–45 years comprises representatives who selected “no children” as a loneliness factor (only one in ten of the total sample). these adults mostly have a higher education (73%) and consider their income to be “average” (54%). in 27% of cases, respondents chose the “children and i” option as their inner https://changing-sp.com/ 794 chulpan i. ildarhanova, vera a. gnevasheva circle. when asked about the goal of marriage, 26% of people say that they see no point in getting married. while 45% of them feel lonely sometimes, the majority of this group (64%) consider material well-being to be their life goal. the third group (20%) consists of respondents who chose “no favorite occupation” as a probable reason for loneliness in society. these are primarily the representatives of two age groups: 26–35 years old (30%) and 36–45 years old (35%). in 55% of cases, the respondents have a higher education, while 45% have a secondary vocational education. every second representative of this group considers their income to be average (45%). although they believe that the creation of a family is the primary goal of marriage (50%), 65% of this group representatives note that they feel lonely “sometimes.” the fourth group (12%) comprises those who chose the “no family” option as the probable cause of loneliness in society. these are predominantly male respondents (67%) aged 36–45 years (42%) that have a secondary vocational education (67%). every third of these adults consider their income level to be below average (34%) and their inner circle to be “my parents and i” (35%). while clearly being aware of the fact that marriage is meant for creating a family (67%) and often (30%) feeling lonely, in contrast to the above groups, they seldom consider the level of material security as a significant well-being criterion (17%). according to the presented distribution, three groups are at risk of social loneliness (fig. 4): married couples aged 36–45 years without children; unmarried men aged 36–45 years having a secondary vocational education; unmarried women aged 36–45 years with children. figure 4 loneliness risk groups “loneliness” risk groups (all at ahe group 36–45) married couples without children unmarried men with a secondary vocational education unmarried women with children (a) married couples without children (b) unmarried men with a secondary vocational education (c) unmarried women with children note. source: authors. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4 pp. 785–803 795 despite a general public perception of significance underlying the traditional family construct, stable social trends indicating the personal criteria-based unawareness of what well-being implies emerge through marriage, family, and childbearing, with the role of childbearing being particularly under-recognized. in many cases, a frequent feeling of loneliness is noted; however, in the absence of a clear message about social reproductive and marital behavior, the personal reasons for such loneliness are attributed to entirely different factors or may not be apparent in one’s life attitudes, obscured by other life criteria. loneliness in the construct of women’s social environment as part of the study, we will identify the features of the female thesaurus according to the criteria of family and reproductive behavior. the obtained results will help to ascertain the key factors in the formation of the family and female reproductive behavior, as well as to determine how the family is reflected in the structure of valuebased attitudes adopted by modern women. at the time of the survey, almost half of the women were married (46%), 37% had never been married, 11% were divorced, and 4% were in a cohabiting relationship. in the presented sample, two marital statuses are predominant among women: “married” and “never married.” a stable family thesaurus can be ascertained only for half of the women: the rest develop their family values outside of marriage, within a single-life context. of those who were not married at the time of the survey, about 55% are still going to get married, 26% have no such intention, and 20% found it difficult to answer. thus, using the focus on family values as a criterion, the following three groups can be distinguished: “family-oriented” “singletons,” and “those in doubt.” marriage registration does not constitute an integral part of entering into a relationship; rather, premarital cohabitation is considered to be an important step prior to marriage registration, which enables the couple to determine whether they are compatible (47%). for a mere 5% of respondents, the birth of a child can also be a reason for marriage registration. most women note the desire to be with someone they love and not to feel lonely as their main reason for getting married. the correlation estimates of three factors studied in the survey regarding the process of forming a family thesaurus (namely, marital status, factor of marriage, and marriage registration) allow the following conclusions to be drawn. a stable positive correlation is observed between the decision to marry and registration (0.63), as well as an extremely weak negative correlation between the existing marital status and the factor of marriage registration, for the reason that the decision to register a marriage is associated with the very fact of marriage. also, a weak, yet positive, correlation is noted between the marital status factor and the factor of matrimony. despite the fact that about 37% of respondents were unmarried at the time of the survey, it is possible to assume that they have no strong desire to get married. general estimates on the topic of childbirth indicate that the reproductive behavior of women is highly dependent on material wealth primarily acquired through labor. https://changing-sp.com/ 796 chulpan i. ildarhanova, vera a. gnevasheva the level of material pressure associated with the need to contribute to the family’s budget prevents women from focusing on higher (including social) motives in their reproductive efforts. in accordance with the answers to the question “do you feel lonely?” and general socio-economic characteristics, it is possible to identify several groups. in the sample, 29.2% note that they never feel lonely (“no, never” option). these respondents are women aged 26–35 years who live with their husbands and children and chose “creation of a family” as their goal in marriage. according to the criterion of “social loneliness,” two social risk groups can be identified in the presented sample: ● those who define “children” as the goal of marriage; ● those who define “creation of a family” as the goal of marriage, yet for some reason lived only with children (without a husband) at the time of the survey. when asked about feeling lonely at the time of the survey, both group representatives chose the “often” option; however, in terms of the entire sample, this is just 7.3% of respondents. nevertheless, such social markers point to the fact that social dissonance between what is expected and what happens is a contributing factor in the social destruction of women (specifically, the increased social loneliness). women do not tend to see loneliness as a matter of social dissonance related to marital or reproductive behavior. every third respondent (36.5%) attributed loneliness to personal characteristics, while 26.8% noted “no favorite occupation” as the reason for loneliness. these data emphasize the importance of both the social identification of women in the social sphere and their social inclusion, but according to the criterion of social significance rather than the family or reproductive role of women. for women, the criteria defining a “good life” include health (70.7%), family (56%), material security (53.6%), and children (26.8%). arranged in decreasing order of importance in the respondents’ answers, the indicated responses nevertheless reveal that women value the material side of their lives, the family, their health, and, to a lesser extent, children. nearly every second person is optimistic about the future, i.e., views it “with hope and optimism” (48.7%). when determining prerequisites for the formation of social perception and selfidentification in women, it is also imperative to consider their families. approximately half of the respondents noted that they have normal relations with their parents (48.8%). recalling their childhood, respondents noted that they spent most of their free time with “friends,” “siblings,” “parents,” and “grandparents.” the respondents also mention their childhood while recalling the time when they did not feel lonely: “with the parents” (31.7%), followed by the options “in a family circle with a husband and/or children” (29.2%) and “among friends” (26.8%). when determining the success criteria for their current life and noting what they have already achieved, the respondents chose the following options (in order of decreasing importance): ● i have a family (53.6%); ● i have people who understand me (51.2%); changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4 pp. 785–803 797 ● i have a trusting relationship with my children (41.4%); ● i am healthy (38.5%); ● i have a good relationship with my parents (39%); ● i have many friends (14.6%). according to the respondents, they lack: ● material well-being (51.2%); ● health (31.7%); ● faithful friend (14.6%); ● housing (14%); ● children (7.3%). the respondents were also asked to select an option best reflecting their state at the time of the survey. among those selected, the most popular include ● i need support from my children (51.2%); ● i consider myself self-sufficient (26.8%). as reported by the respondents, the distribution of loneliness estimates on a fivepoint assessment scale is as follows (where 5 points—feeling of maximum loneliness and 1 point—absence of loneliness): 1 point—34.1%; 2 points—19.5%; 3 points—29.2%; 4 points—2.4%; 5 points—7.3%. thus, the answers are predominantly distributed from 1 to 3 points (in particular, 1 and 3). over half of the respondents (53.6%) noted that they sometimes turn to others for help, while 26.8% reported that they prefer not to rely on others. defining loneliness, the respondents give the following characteristics and definitions: “sad;” a state when there is “no support;” a state of emptiness; the absence of loved ones; when no one is around; when you are rarely remembered; when there is no one to confide in; etc. when defining the concept of happiness, respondents identify it with a state of self-sufficiency, health, time spent with your family, and situations when everything is going well. happiness index considering social loneliness in the context of women’s marital and reproductive behavior, significant factors can be identified that provide us with avenues to reduce such a social and personal deviation. in general, the factor system for minimizing social loneliness in women is expressed through their fulfillment (both personal and social) in three main social value-based spheres: professional (public), marital (family), and reproductive (children). in self-assessments, the significance and consistency of involvement are distributed from the professional through marital to reproductive spheres. in this connection, women define social loneliness as the lack or absence of fulfillment in one (or several) of the presented spheres. in contrast to this definition, the concept of happiness, as a state of satisfaction in relation to the research categories, https://changing-sp.com/ 798 chulpan i. ildarhanova, vera a. gnevasheva is a state of complete fulfillment in the presented social value-based spheres. all the categories are socially valuable and, therefore, subjective. according to the study results, the term “women’s happiness” can be interpreted as the fulfillment of women in a system of interrelated social value-based spheres: professional, marital, and reproductive. in this connection, in addition to trying to assess the degree of happiness as a counterbalance to social loneliness, it is proposed to use the happiness index defined as the degree of fulfillment in the specified spheres as per women’s selfassessments. this index is evaluated by means of a three-step measurement scale, where 0 means absolute social loneliness and 3 denotes absolute happiness (table 1). each point corresponds to the degree of fulfillment in women in the corresponding social value-based sphere on a 100 percent scale. table 1 three-step measurement scale of the happiness index degree of reproductive fulfillment 0.34 degree of marital fulfillment 0.54 degree of professional fulfillment 0.56 total 1.44 note. source: authors. for the subsample, the general happiness index is estimated at 1.44, which, according to self-assessments, is largely determined by insufficient reproductive fulfillment (0.34), family and marital fulfillment (0.54), as well as professional fulfillment (0.56). however, while the pressure of fulfilling one’s potential remains high in the professional sphere, it is much less significant in the marital and reproductive spheres of the social value-based system under consideration. of note is that the index should be considered in dynamics (not as an absolute indicator) as a means of estimating trend changes over time or for comparing age, social, and regional groups. when differentiating between the social value-based spheres under consideration, it is essential to introduce socially accepted criteria as a way to ascertain the inclusion of women in these spheres, including to ensure the comparability of assessments, e.g., over time or for a priori culturally or religiously diverse societies where the traditionally transmitted values of women’s social roles have a given degree of significance. discussion the study provides an insight into the emerging family and reproductive behavior preferences, which are characterized by increased social autonomy both for men and women. as evidenced by the desire of individuals to marry and have children, the problem of social loneliness is clearly reflected in the thesauri of both sexes; yet, with the significantly delayed age of marriage, social autonomy is characterized by a certain level of adaptation. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4 pp. 785–803 799 loneliness can be viewed as a consequence of external influence on the personality, manifesting itself as poor adaptability of the individual. partially defining the external social construct, this study determines the mechanisms of interaction between the individual and society in the context of social autonomy. psychosocial doctrines on loneliness comprise multiple factors, including problems of the modern family, with regard to which the conclusions of the study are primarily drawn and the typical constructs of families in the gender context are formed. future work could attempt to define an integrated model of loneliness, drawing on the main findings of the study. conclusion the study reveals no direct correlation between the respondents’ social involvement, inner social fulfillment, as well as family and reproductive fulfillment. the answers indicate no strong focus on the social role of women as wives and mothers. also, the respondents expressed general concern about their financial situation, which, according to the respondents, constitutes a significant factor in the formation of families and the birth of children. in addition to their own health, women are also concerned about the health of their loved ones. in accordance with the general motivation system, such a distribution of answers may indicate the insufficient satisfaction of such basic needs in women as material well-being, life stability, and health. this fact does not allow women to rationally move up the motivational pyramid while defining the social component (family, marriage, and children) as the dominant motivation in their future life. the noted high expectations of women in relation to their children, as well as the strong desire to have their support, underlie the problem of intergenerational misunderstanding and/or the fear of its onset. in relation to their own parents, the respondents note the preservation of normal relations, which also prevents women from perceiving family-related factors, marriage and childbearing, as dominant motivation in their current lives. as a result of the basic motivational inadequacy to fulfill the social role of the wife and the mother, as well as the threat of motivational dissonance from the husband and particularly children, women are further demotivated to accept these social roles as significant. using the pareto principle, it is possible to demonstrate the significant role of material well-being and health in reproductive behavior formation. in 80% of cases, the trend characteristics of female reproductive behavior are predetermined by the factors of material security and health. noteworthy is that material security also comprises a social component of women’s fulfillment, but within the context of a working community (team, colleagues, and friends). in 10% of cases, the dominant factor is the internal rejection of the social roles of the wife and the mother as a stable position in life. conversely, the remaining 10% reflect social and internal readiness, contrary to external social prerequisites, to accept and fulfill these roles primarily due to inner desire and intrinsic motivation. https://changing-sp.com/ 800 chulpan i. ildarhanova, vera a. gnevasheva the findings can be used for assessing social loneliness in the context of marital and reproductive behavior in order to develop social mechanisms for increasing motivation in these spheres; 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(1938). loneliness. atlantic monthly, 161(1), 45–54. https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.43.3.524 https://doi.org/10.2307/1389484 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0077709 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0077709 https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1977.40.3.807 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315148410 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315148410 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 677–691 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.195 received 12 february 2022 © 2022 bhasker malu, santhosh kareepadath rajan, accepted 26 september 2022 nikhita jindal, aishwarya thakur, tanvi raghuram published online 10 october 2022 bhasker.malu@res.christuniversity.in santhosh.kr@christuniversity.in nikhita.jindal@res.christuniversity.in athakur@paloaltou.edu tanvi.raghuram@arts.christuniversity.in research note perceived discrimination of old settlers in sikkim bhasker malu christ (deemed to be university), bangalore, india o. p. jindal global university, sonipat, india santhosh kareepadath rajan christ (deemed to be university), bangalore, india nikhita jindal christ (deemed to be university), bangalore, india aishwarya thakur palo alto university, california, usa tanvi raghuram christ (deemed to be university), bangalore, india abstract the old settlers in sikkim are a community of mainland indians whose ancestors had settled at least 15 years before the merger with india in 1975. at present, the total population of the community is less than three thousand individuals, comprising various ethnicities. this qualitative study focuses on the perceived discrimination of the old settlers, who form a demographic minority in the state. data was collected using telephonic interviews from a sample of 11 old settlers. thematic analysis indicated racial differences between the northeasterner indigenous community and mainland indian old settlers as a major reason for perceived discrimination. the participants expressed the experience of negative emotional reactions, such as anger and disappointment, when they faced discrimination. the participants also felt betrayed by the government of india because they did not https://changing-sp.com/ 678 bhasker malu, santhosh kareepadath rajan, ... tanvi raghuram introduction the rajya sabha (upper house of parliament in india) committee on petitions in 2013 acknowledged that the government of sikkim had passed multiple laws that discriminated against a community known as the old settlers (committee on petitions, 2013). the rajya sabha committee suggested the state government take affirmative action and protect the old settlers as they are the racial minority in the state (committee on petitions, 2013; thatal, 2015). the committee mentioned that the old settlers in sikkim are treated as “second class citizens in their own state” (committee on petitions, 2013). this acknowledgement of discrimination against the old settlers is important in providing validation to the feelings of the disenfranchised group. however, the perspective of the old settlers and attribution made by them concerning their discrimination experience requires deeper analysis. since the merger of sikkim with india in 1975, many welfare schemes, such as exemptions from paying income tax, scholarship funds, land purchasing regulation, and healthcare facilities have been provided to the domiciles of the state (income tax department, 1961; land revenue & disaster management, 2011; law department of the government of sikkim, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c; malu, 2019). domicile status in sikkim is provided only to the former subjects of the king per the sikkim subject regulation, 1961 (home department of the government of sikkim, 1995). however, before the merger, 400 indian families, known as old settlers, had lived in sikkim but did not become sikkim subjects. since these individuals are not registered as sikkim subjects they are not considered to be domiciles of the state. at present, these families have had a settlement history of more than 75 years in sikkim (thatal, 2015). despite their length of settlement, the old settlers are not considered domiciles and are ostracized from availing many of the aforementioned welfare facilities. their status in sikkim is that of outsiders since they are not part of the indigenous ethnic groups and belong to various mainland indian communities such as biharis, marwaris, bengalis, punjabis, and malayalis. in the indian context, race-based discrimination is considered a phenomenon that occurs against northeasterners when they migrate to the mainland cities of india (sohi & singh, 2015). several studies have attributed this experience to different racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic systems (hutchison et al., 2007; sitlhou & punathil, 2017;). further, the northeasterners in mainland india are a minority with limited socio-economic or political power and experience discrimination. receive adequate protection for their rights when their identity in sikkim changed from foreigners to citizens. reactions to discrimination included migrating out of the state, experiencing negative emotions such as anger, disappointment and fear, and learned helplessness. keywords discrimination, sikkim, race, old settlers, perceived discrimination, northeasterners changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 677–691 679 in sikkim, however, the demographic situation is reversed where the northeasterners form the majority and the mainlanders comprise the minority (mcduie-ra, 2015). as such, the mainlanders in sikkim, and the northeasterners in mainland india, are discriminated due to similar reasons such as being the demographic minority, and having different racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic systems. further, based on the conclusions drawn by the rajya sabha committee on petitions, the mainlanders are treated as second class citizens in the state (committee on petitions, 2013). several theories of intergroup conflict support this conclusion. the social identity theory states that intergroup conflict can result from the minimal group paradigm where the separation of people into groups is enough for in-group preferential treatment to occur (tajfel & turner, 1979). the creation of identity differences such as locals vs old settlers or northeasterners vs mainlanders would result in such conflict. further, the realistic group conflict theory states that if groups compete for resources such as land, labour, or gold, then intergroup conflict would also occur (sherif, 1966). the old settlers, and the locals in sikkim, are competing for resources. based on these theories and the position of the old settlers as a minority or non-dominant group, it can be discerned that discrimination occurs against the old settlers in sikkim. however, the perception of such discrimination and the reasons they attribute to it requires deeper analysis. perceived discrimination is considered as a psychosocial stressor, linked with many negative effects such as higher stress levels, anxiety, depression, hostility, psychoticism, and higher dropout rates (okazaki, 2009; ong et al., 2013; see, dion & kawakami, 1996; ramiah et al., 2010). experiences of discrimination can lead individuals to appraise themselves as targets leading to higher threat perception. stress is further compounded as discrimination experiences are unpredictable, leading to greater adaptation costs. further, discrimination may not always result from belonging to oppressed groups and any arbitrary characteristic, when used to perpetuate discrimination, can lead to higher stress levels. similar conclusions have been found in the studies among visible minorities such as the chinese in canada, african americans, hispanics, and asians in the usa (crocker & major, 1989; dion, 2002). according to the attribution viewpoint, individuals experiencing discrimination are in a dilemma in ascribing the reasons for their negative experiences. to explain the experience, they either decide that the source is prejudiced against them due to their group membership or the experience was due to a personal failing. these evaluations affect their understanding of the self and can cause negative self-assessment and decreased self-esteem (jiloha, 2010; kardiner & ovesey, 1951; panchanadeswaran & dawson, 2011). these self-evaluations can also lead to positive buffering effects on the victim when they attribute it to their group membership. for instance, an experiment by dion (1975) on women in canada showed that participants who thought they were competing against men felt higher levels of prejudice and identified more with female stereotypes than those who believed they were competing with women. results indicated that individuals show increased identification with existing in-group stereotypes while perceiving discrimination from an out-group, attempting to buffer https://changing-sp.com/ 680 bhasker malu, santhosh kareepadath rajan, ... tanvi raghuram negative effects on self-esteem. the strength of these positive buffering effects varies across groups. considering the paucity of literature around race-based discrimination occurring within northeast india and the importance of understanding the discrimination experiences of visible minorities, we sought to understand the perceived discrimination of old settlers in sikkim. old settlers in sikkim were focused on due to the acceptance of discrimination by the upper house of parliament and the unique citizenship situation in sikkim. the study findings would also create an understanding of racial discrimination in india in a bi-directional manner, where demographic and political strength are important variables to consider while understanding discrimination. method sample the sample included eight men and three women, old settlers from sikkim. the total number of old settlers in sikkim is less than 3000. among the participants, six were senior citizens (above 65), four were in their early adulthood (20–40), and one was in their middle adulthood (40–60). according to the prevailing demographic situation of the old settlers, the number from each community was proportioned, where eight participants belonged to the marwari community, two from the bihari community, and one from the punjabi community. six participants were business owners, two were salaried employees, two were retired workers, and one was a homemaker. data collection the data used in this study was a part of doctoral research work on racial discrimination in sikkim. the institutional review board approved this study. data was collected using telephonic semi-structured interviews. before the interview, the investigator informed each participant about their rights and gave a brief overview of the study and its implications. the interview started after obtaining verbal consent to collect data. interview guides in english and hindi were developed and validated by three experts from the field. questions posed included queries on their understanding of discrimination, perception of being discriminated and probable causes. seven participants gave the interview in hindi and four in english. each interview lasted 30–50 minutes and was transcribed by the first author. the transcribed interviews were sent back to the participants for their perusal. these were considered for the analysis only after their confirmation of the content. before the analysis, the first author translated the interviews from hindi into english. analysis thematic analysis was employed as the study required the development of previously unexplored aspects. three authors independently coded the transcribed interviews. basic, organizing and global themes emerged after assessing similarities between the codes (braun & clark, 2006). the second author functioned as an objective assessor of analysis, and only after consensus amongst all the authors the themes were finalized. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 677–691 681 trustworthiness in studies with sensitive populations, trustworthiness is essential (lincoln & guba, 1985; nelson, 2008). keeping this in mind, audit trails of the study methods and procedures were continually conducted by subject matter experts to ensure the confirmability of the research. independent coding and construction of the themes by the authors were done to enhance the trustworthiness further and ensure investigator triangulation (denzin, 1978). confirmability, dependability, and credibility of the research were maintained by triangulation. the member check strengthened the confirmability and credibility. the first author is a part of the old settlers and continually engaged in reflexivity that helped avoid the biases. results the results revealed 13 basic themes, two organizing themes, and one global theme. perceived reasons included insecurity and threat, racial differences, prejudice and outsider status, revenge, democracy and minority politics, divided community, fear, and locals and politics. racial differences the racial division between the old settlers and the locals formed a major reason for discrimination. the old settlers claimed that all northeasterner featured individuals are considered locals, even though many individuals from that group are not sikkim subject holders. when i say about old settlers, there are marwari, bihari families also and there are few people from nepalese origin also who have been staying in sikkim for the past, maybe 30-40-50 years also and they are not the subjects. but what happens is that they mingle around easily because of their face cutting however, we are segregated because of our face cutting. (sn, personal communication, april 10, 2020) insecurity, jealously & perceived threat participants claimed that the locals felt insecurity and threat in the presence of old settlers. this insecurity stemmed from the fact that the old settlers are economically competent. threat perception resulted from the racial similarity between old settlers and mainland indian politicians. “when you engage in business activities and are successful and earn money […] some people feel jealous. they say that these people (mainlanders) have come from outside and captured our trading and business opportunities” (ab, personal communication, may 21, 2020). prejudices and outsider status the participants believed that the state’s indigenous population did not accept them. irrespective of the length of settlement, they were considered outsiders. https://changing-sp.com/ 682 bhasker malu, santhosh kareepadath rajan, ... tanvi raghuram there is this big prejudice against our community that we were outsiders and that we came from outside, and we came here to rob the people or something like that [...] they feel that we guys are robbing them or we’ve been robbing them for years. (aa, personal communication, august 9, 2020) revenge many locals who migrate to other parts of india for education or employment purposes face discrimination. when they return to sikkim, they discriminate against the old settlers as revenge. when these people go down to the plains, they do face discrimination. so, when they come back, they also have that feeling that when we are in the plains, we face all these things, so they try to give it back. (bb, personal communication, june 25, 2020) the participants also acknowledged that not all locals who return have revenge on their minds and become more sensitive after returning from the mainland with better education. democracy, politics & minority status participants also acknowledged that the merger of sikkim with india and the introduction of democracy created more problems for the old settlers. as a minority with less than three thousand votes, the old settlers make no difference in the political landscape. “democracy is a numbers game, and our numbers here are very less. we are settled here but our numbers are less and therefore, discrimination is taking place against us” (ab, personal communication, may 21, 2020). divided community all the participants commonly agreed that old settlers were not united. they were weak in supporting each other when a need arose. “we have not yet learned how to stay together as a community. in fact, if we did stay together as a community, we could have procured for ourselves some sort of decent rights and all of that” (aa, personal communication, august 9, 2020). fear the participants stated that they fear taking a stand against discrimination experienced as they have led to unfortunate consequences in the past. “we are scared also. even if we want to, we can’t go and fight. they are in such high numbers and we are so small. we can’t do it” (bu, personal communication, april 1, 2021). locals and politics the participants held that the people of sikkim were not prejudiced, but the politics of polarization created this situation. “the people of sikkim are with us. they did not do this. nor did the king. it was the government and their people for political gains” (pt, personal communication, april 11, 2020). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 677–691 683 reactions to discrimination when faced with discrimination, the participants reacted in multiple ways. they included feeling negative emotions, feeling of statelessness, betrayal from the central government, learned helplessness and out-migration. negative emotions participants felt negative emotional reactions such as anger and disappointment due to discrimination. the impact lasts for a long time and is not easily forgotten. “we feel like we have been here for so many years and still the state is not ours. even our kids, who are growing up here, feel negatively and keep feeling like what is the future prospect here” (bb, personal communication, june 25, 2020). feeling of statelessness the participants felt they do not belong to any state because they do not have access to the state welfare facilities. “i had cousins who were brilliant and wanted to utilize the quota seats for medical from the state through merit, but because of discrimination they couldn’t, even though they were meritorious. we have no state welfare for these things” (sa, personal communication, february 11, 2021). betrayal the participants felt betrayed by the central government. they felt that the government of india had failed to take care of their rights since the merger. “we were weak. the indian government was not with us. they betrayed us” (pt, personal communication, april 11, 2020). learned helplessness some of the participants accepted discrimination as part of their lived reality. an element of learned helplessness was noticeable. “in sikkim, discrimination still exists. but the law itself is discriminatory. if you have made the law in such a manner, what can one do?” (ab, personal communication, may 21, 2020). out-migration an increasing number of emerging adults among the old settlers leave sikkim because they do not want to live in a discriminatory environment. the younger generation of our community do not come back to sikkim because of the number of restrictions that are put here. you are a young person, the world today is open for you. why would you come and live in such a place? anywhere else if you put the same hard work you will soar. (pt, personal communication, april 11, 2020) https://changing-sp.com/ 684 bhasker malu, santhosh kareepadath rajan, ... tanvi raghuram discussion perceived discrimination findings indicated that old settlers attributed perceived discrimination to the racial difference between themselves and the locals. this attribution is based on racial differences between mainlanders and northeasterners and the issue of sikkim subject citizenship. for the old settlers, groups exist on two levels—one, based on the citizenry issue where the in-group comprises of the old settlers, and the out-group comprises sikkim subject holders. two, based on the issue of race where the in-group is comprised of the mainlanders and the out-group is formed by the northeasterners. in both cases of group-based identity conceptualization, the old settlers are part of the minority and non-dominant group, creating a double jeopardy situation, which leads to discrimination (sherif, 1966; tajfel & turner, 1979). irrespective of their varying ethnicities, the old settlers consider themselves as one group and find commonality in their identity conceptualization based on their history of settlement in sikkim and their membership in the business community. the attribution of discrimination in the case of old settlers can therefore be considered a result of their group identity over personal traits, as suggested by the personal/ group discrimination discrepancy phenomena (dion, 2001). an interesting aspect that emerged during the analysis was that five participants were not involved in business-related work and yet considered themselves as a part of the business community. this stereotyping of their identity could buffer the negative effects of perceived discrimination (dion, 2002). in the indian context, non-conforming religious or tribal groups that are settled within states have often been considered as outsiders (oommen, 1982). the creation of the outsider identity is due to the transition in the policy of the government of india for state creation. initially, states were created based on linguistic commonality. however, over time the policy transitioned towards creating states based on religious or tribal status. thereby shifting the conceptualization of in-groups and out-groups from linguistic commonality to religious or tribal group membership (oommen, 1982). this categorization ignores the duration of settlement of the minority and their positive impact on the region (ramiah et al., 2010). as a result, old settlers in sikkim are considered outsiders, although their families have settled in sikkim for more than a century. in line with the social identity theory, the passing of resolutions such as article 371f (legislative department, n.d.) and the finance bill of 2008 (income tax department, 2008), whilst attempting to protect the in-group, led to the formulation of the old settlers as outsiders, even though linguistic commonality was present (amin, 2012). the privileging of the in-group can also be seen in the following example. in 1988, the government of sikkim claimed to the indian parliament via their member of parliament, that there were individuals residing in sikkim who were stateless since they did not have sikkim subject or indian citizenship. the state government claimed that these were genuine omissions since these individuals lived in remote areas of sikkim were not informed about the sikkim subject regulation and therefore remained without the sikkim subject (home department of the government of sikkim, 1989b). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 677–691 685 a request was made to the government of india to convert these individuals to sikkim subjects as they were settled in sikkim for many years. converting to sikkim subjects would automatically make them indian citizens based on sikkim citizenship order, 1975 (home department of the government of sikkim, 1989a). the conversion, first to sikkim subjects and then to indian citizens was astute, as to be a domicile of sikkim, an individual would need to have a sikkim subject. the conversion of these stateless citizens to sikkim subjects first would then also allow them to be domiciles. however, a curious criterion was inserted into the regulation stating that registration as a stateless citizen would not be applicable for individuals living in the notified bazar areas of sikkim. the bazar areas mostly comprised of the old settlers and due to this clause, they were excluded from registering as stateless citizens and claiming that they too did not know about the sikkim subject regulation of 1961 (home department of the government of sikkim, 1989a). this was an important event that showcased the in-group favouritism towards the indigenous community. seventy-seven thousand people became sikkim subjects, 14 years after the merger. understanding the legality of retrospectively granting sikkim subject without the existence of a monarchy by a democratic nation such as india is beyond the scope of this paper but should be focused on by future studies. the geopolitical changes in sikkim would affect the identity conceptualization of the locals, as they had to adjust to the new normal of being citizens rather than subjects (todd, 2018). this transition could lead to higher levels of threat perception and insecurity (rousseau & garcia-retamero, 2007). according to the participants, locals perceive that the racial commonality of mainlanders with the politicians of the central government puts them in a more advantageous position and their social links in mainland india help them conduct business, showcasing higher threat perception. the success of the petition to the rajya sabha also proved to be counterproductive for the old settlers as the locals perceived the conclusion reached was a result of partiality. this finding is interesting as it brings to light that threat perception based on race-based identity differences remains high in sikkim after 45 years of merger (sheriff, 1966). a reason cited by the participants for perceived discrimination was the jealously felt by the locals by the economic success of the old settlers. according to the participants, the locals did not have knowledge about conducting business or have networks in mainland india to assist them in the process. therefore, they discriminated against the old settlers by curtailing other aspects of their lives, such as restricting domicile status, reservations, and other benefits. according to the realistic group conflict theory, dominant groups discriminate against non-dominant groups when there is completion for material resources (sherif, 1966). further, in line with the social identity theory, the in-group members attempted to protect their members by providing exclusive control on state government jobs, land ownership, and other welfare programs (tajfel & turner, 1986). similar examples of discrimination can be noted in the northeastern state of assam during the early 1980s, where the locals, threatened by the economic success of punjabis, marwaris, and bengalis formed a movement to remove these “outsiders” from the state (oommen, 1982; singh, 2021). https://changing-sp.com/ 686 bhasker malu, santhosh kareepadath rajan, ... tanvi raghuram an interesting theme that emerged was the participants’ claim that the locals did not tend to discriminate. they stated that politics of polarization as a means to garner votes was the major reason for discrimination. studies have shown that polarization between communities and creating the “us vs them” mentality feeds vote-based, antiminority politics (liu, 2012; thatal, 2015). according to ramiah et al. (2010), voting for anti-immigration parties is a form of expressing passive discrimination by the majority group. therefore, the claim of the participants that the locals do not discriminate but discrimination is an outcome of politics is valid in so far as active discrimination is concerned (ramiah et al., 2010). the existence of anti-immigration and discriminatory laws against the old settlers showcases that the locals might be passively discriminating since political parties that discriminate based on group differences win elections and pass the above-mentioned resolutions. the participants felt that their contribution to improving the state’s economy was not acknowledged. the old settlers helped establish modern economic systems of taxation and banking in the kingdom. chogyal (king) and the british political officers invited them for this purpose (kharel & bhutia, 2013). a participant elaborated on the hardships of trade in the kingdom in the early years to make the point that the old settlers suffered similarly to the locals and deserved equal treatment. the participants claimed that the old settlers were easy targets for discrimination as they were not united. for instance, the petition filed in the rajya sabha committee on petitions (2013) was the work of a single individual and not the entire community. trust issues due to ethnic differences in caste, religion, language, and culture affect their ability to act collectively. similar to the northeasterners in delhi, collective action suffers due to their heterogeneity (sohi & singh, 2014). further, their migration experience, prejudice, minority status, and lack of role models in the socio-political scene negatively affect their ability to take collective action (sohi & singh, 2014). literature on conformity further explains how group cohesion can be affected by even one non-conforming member (parida & gupta, 2017). reactions anger, disappointment, and fear were the predominant negative feelings associated with the experience of discrimination (matheson & anisman, 2009). the participants could not express this anger as they were fearful of the consequences due to their minority status. previous incidents of standing up against discrimination resulted in violence from the locals, thwarting new efforts. one of the participants shared an incident where an old settler was harassed on social media and threatened with lawsuits after arguing with the police. the incident was perceived from a racial lens rather than a common issue between citizens and police. locals expressed racial slurs, including calls for expulsion of the old setters and other mainlanders from the state. the participants felt betrayed by the central government for not taking care of their interests or providing protection to them. the old settlers claim that they chose to continue as indian citizens, rejecting the offer to become sikkim subjects, and now they are facing discrimination due to the same reason. they referenced the parity system, where reservations were provided to the tribal community in the state legislature due changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 677–691 687 to their minority status to provide security and representation to them (kazi, 2009). they claimed that none of these benefits were given to the old settlers, who were also a minority in the state. this decision still causes disappointment as the state uses the sikkim subject certificate (ssc) to discriminate. state-sponsored welfare facilities and domicile status are only available to individuals with ssc (land revenue & disaster management, 2011; law department of the government of sikkim, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c). due to these circumstances, the old settlers feel stateless even though they are voters in sikkim. passive acceptance and learned helplessness result from feelings of uncontrollability to create change (green, 1982). the development of self-defeating attitudes and passive acceptance are the consequences of long-term discrimination (uomoto, 1986). a participant claimed that the majority dictates democratic functioning, and in sikkim, this has resulted in the creation of discriminatory laws. since old settlers are a minority, they can never get a representation in the state legislature, and hence there is no solution apart from the passive acceptance of the current status. out-migration is another coping strategy adopted when an individual feels targeted (sitlhou & punathil, 2017). the younger population of old settlers widely used this strategy. they claimed that they did not want to lead restricted lives in sikkim. the recent reverse migration of the northeasterners from major cities in india results from similar circumstances (sitlhou & punathil, 2017). conclusion a double jeopardy situation exists for the old settlers in sikkim as they are in the minority and racially different. the phenomenon of out-migration due to discrimination is a cause of significant concern as it highlights a form of subtle ethnic cleansing. future studies could follow the quantitative method in assessing the levels of distress felt by the old settlers. they could focus on assessing the negative effects of discrimination regarding healthcare, employment, and dropout rates. a limitation of the present study was that females were lesser in number. further studies are recommended focusing on the experiences of females and other genders from the old settler community as they are often in triple jeopardy situations where discrimination could be worse. this study helps to understand the regional nature of discrimination where policymakers can focus on demography and political strength when creating laws for affirmative action. references amin, j. 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(1986). examination of psychological distress in ethnic minorities from a learned helplessness framework. professional psychology: research and practice, 17(5), 448–453. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.17.5.448 https://changing-sp.com/ http://dspace.cus.ac.in/jspui/handle/1/3121?mode=full https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395717715857 https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.17.5.448 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 727–732 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.199 editorial beliefs, opinions, and expectations as a resource of re-shaping societies elena a. stepanova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia in accordance with our aims and scope, changing societies & personalities is particularly concerned with “how rapid societal-level changes are reshaping individual-level beliefs, motivations, and values—and how these individual-level changes in turn are reshaping societies.” this subject is obviously related to an old philosophical problem of the primacy of being over consciousness or vice versa, which basically determines quite a number of social research concepts. we prefer to consider this correlation as highly ambiguous, when social changes, on the one hand, and people’s opinions, moods, and expectations, on the other, continue to co-exist in the state of complex mutual influence and interdependence. in this vein, religious faith is influenced by secular values shaped by people’s way of life; people’s beliefs that rule their daily behavior are unconsciously borrowed from the norms common in the social environment; personal psychological characteristics determine political choices; attitudes toward nature and environmental issues directly affect everyday habits; the strive for continuous improvement of the educational level affects the level of social acceptance; personal development and professional success form a certain type of family relationships, etc. these and many other related topics are discussed in the current issue of changing societies & personalities. the opening essay moral choice and the concept of evil in military narratives of orthodox christians by andrey s. menshikov examines the attitude of orthodox christians to war. the essay is based on personal accounts and documents concerning the appropriate orthodox christian behavior in the wartime collected in two volumes: bog i pobeda: veruiushchie v velikikh voinakh za rossiiu [god and victory: believers in the great wars for russia] and iz smerti v zhizn’. svidetel’stva voinov o pomoshchi bozh’ei [from death to life. soldiers’ account of god’s help]. as menshikov notes, his main research focus “is the construction of narratives about the religious experiences of the witnesses received 1 december 2022 © 2022 elena a. stepanova published online 30 december 2022 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 728 elena a. stepanova and participants of war in all their complexity and controversiality.” the research methodology involves critical discourse analysis (cda), which was adapted for the study of religion, namely, the “lived religion” approach. the author demonstrates that patriotism was considered an important element of orthodox identity during the great patriotic war of 1941–1945. francesco rigoli in the article belief formation in the social context: a bayesian decision account raises a fundamental question, which amalgamates the main topic of the present issue: what social dynamics is responsible for the formation of beliefs? to address this question, rigoli explores two research perspectives: one examines the individual level of belief formation, the other analyzes social dynamics, aiming “to integrate the individual and social levels of analysis by developing a broad theoretical framework describing how beliefs emerge within the social environment.” the method developed by the author and focused on the mechanisms of arbitrating among alternative hypotheses in order to explain life and reality, relies on a bayesian decision framework, and is referred in the article as the bayesian decision model of beliefs (bdmb). according to bdmb, three factors underpin belief formation. the first factor is represented by prior beliefs, or general views, about the world and society already available before reasoning. the second factor is represented by novel evidence, “which can be experienced in two ways: directly, when evidence is conveyed by one’s own perception, or socially, when social sources, such as another person or the media, provide indirect information.” the third factor is utility, in terms of reward or punishment, expected if any hypothesis is accepted or rejected. according to rigoli, “bdmb assumes that people are largely unaware of the factors shaping their beliefs, and simply perceive these beliefs as being true.” employing bdmb as a framework, he proposes an explanation for how beliefs emerge in the interaction of individuals with one another and with their environment, as well as why beliefs vary among people. in the article narcissism and political left-right orientation in view of basic human values: a sample of faculty of management students from turkey, fatma ülkü selçuk and nil demet güngör explore such a personality trait as narcissism, which in recent decades has been deemed an epidemic especially in western cultures. the authors consider narcissism as a significant factor in forming political orientations. the research sample included 257 university students from a foundation university in anatolia (turkey), which is largely attended by children from upper middle-class families. such students are commonly exposed to western culture and media at the same time as having diverse cultural backgrounds. as the authors underline, students “predominantly receive a pro-modernization education in turkey where capitalism has been the dominant mode of production almost from the first few decades of the 20th century.” thus, the authors expect “both similarities and differences with research studies that used western samples in terms of the relation of political orientation to narcissism, its diverse facets and the underlying values.” the results for the sample described in the article displayed similarity with those from western countries, at least partly. chulpan i. ildarhanova and vera a. gnevasheva in their article sociodemographic construct of social loneliness in modern russia investigate loneliness changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 727–732 729 as a socio-philosophical phenomenon, which is generally associated with the degree to which people are involved in a community of people, family life, social reality, and macro-social environment. the authors intend to understand, evaluate, describe, and analyze the “degree of involvement, whose cessation leads to behavioral deviation caused by an increased self-inflicted sense of social loneliness.” they show the difference between the social role of an individual in a traditional society, which is frequently considered in the family context, and “contemporary thesaurus of personal development and success connected with psychic, physical, and financial safety, resulting in the choice of single life.” the article aims to assess the degree of happiness as a counterbalance to social loneliness setting the following objectives: to determine factors of loneliness; to study age differences in perception of loneliness; to identify loneliness risk groups, etc. the study is based on a digital questionnaire completed by 1350 respondents aged 18–60; the sample represents such large cities, as moscow, st. petersburg, volgograd, arkhangelsk, yekaterinburg, novosibirsk, tomsk, irkutsk, khabarovsk, etc. in the article between career and motherhood: factors affecting women’s career trajectories after childbirth in russia, elena n. gasiukova addresses a woman’s orientation toward career development and motherhood after childbirth, a problem having received little research attention. she seeks to answer the questions of “whether childbirth actually causes a woman to drop out of the labor market for a long time, which mothers are more oriented toward returning soon, and which mothers prefer to devote themselves exclusively to maternal duties after having a child.” among other research questions are those related to career and life trajectory choices after childbirth, their connection with the previous professional positions, as well as identification of values affecting the choice between motherhood and career. the study is based on data from the russian longitudinal monitoring survey of the higher school of economics (rlms–hse) from 2001 to 2021. marina n. kicherova, galina z. efimova, and svetlana m. gertsen in the article non-formal education as a resource of social inclusion: intergenerational approach argue that different social groups have unequal access to education, which affects the overall level of social inclusion and integration into society. therefore, nonformal education as an addition, alternative, and/or a complement to formal education could contribute to social inclusion of different generations in different spheres of life. the authors present a typological picture of peculiar generations in the non-formal education market including their interest and motivation, and set up the following research questions: “what is the impact of non-formal education on social inclusion? how do non-formal education practices differ across generations?” the survey involved 944 people from the tyumen region of russia aged 18 to 82 years. in the article assessment of the psychological well-being of russian youth with the perma-profiler, elena n. volkova, anna yu. akimova, and oksana m. isaeva define well-being “as an integral indicator that corresponds to each individual’s positive psychological functioning and ability to experience happiness and life satisfaction.” they stress the role of positive emotions, which have a direct impact on the degree of individual psychological stability and the level of life satisfaction. the research was https://changing-sp.com/ 730 elena a. stepanova carried out using the perma model with five pillars of well-being: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. the authors present the results of a survey of the psychological well-being of russian young people conducted at the beginning of 2021 and based on the authors’ own adaptation of the permaprofiler questionnaire for russia. a google form of the questionnaire addressed to young people aged 18–35 was developed and subsequently disseminated through the internet; 11,811 forms were completed by young people from central russia. the article metabolic transformations in the area of municipal solid waste management in russian megalopolises: the city of moscow case by polina o. ermolaeva, yulia v. ermolaeva, and dmitry v. efremenko analyzes causal relationships in the area of municipal solid waste (msw) disposal in russian megalopolises, and moscow in particular, “with a focus on the reciprocity and interplay of social, informational, technological, economic, and environmental processes, as well as their metabolic transformations.” the authors’ hypothesis takes into account the controversial processes of msw management in russian cities, which occur in association with the rapid growth of material and informational waste, construction of waste incineration plants, politicization of environmental protests related to poor waste management, criminalization of waste management businesses, etc. at the same time, as the authors note, one can observe and determine changes in the attitudes and behaviors of social groups that are sometimes overlooked. the research was carried out in two stages: in the first stage, the existing discourse in the field of education and management of msw and regional characteristics were employed through an analysis of public opinion, media, federal and regional programs, etc. in the second stage, 90 semi-structured interviews with experts including academicians, representatives of environmental organizations, and “garbage” operators were conducted. in the article the importance of green practices to reduce consumption, olga v. zakharova, anna v. glazkova, irina n. pupysheva, and natalia v. kuznetsova argue that a solution to environmental problems is not possible without radical change in social practices, including consumption as a driving force for modern way of production. the authors identify green practices aimed at reducing consumption, which are discussed in the tyumen regional communities on social media platform vk. the dataset comprises 1987 textual posts, which deal with separate waste collection. as the authors underline, their “study was framed by the scientific discussion around the anthropocene as a term that asserts the importance of human activities for the future of our planet,” especially among ordinary people who make daily purchases, use transport and household appliances, and develop certain values and traditions. in the article hotel employees’ attitude and acceptance toward humanrobot co-working based on the industry 5.0 concept, khaled ghazy and alena e. fedorova explore employees’ psychological and social attitudes toward robot co-working in the hotel business. the authors describe industry 5.0 collaboration between humans and robots in the workplaces, which maximizes efficiency by using human intelligence, artificial intelligence, and creativity enriching the workforce by transitioning workers from physical to cognitive jobs, switching from mass customization to mass personalization, and placing a high value on personalized changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 727–732 731 consumer services. as a result, “humans will concentrate on critical thinking, decisionmaking, innovation, and creativity, leading to increased personalized services, while robots will perform repetitive, tedious, and labor-intensive work.” implementing new technologies, such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and service automation, brings remarkable changes to how hotels serve their customers. at the same time, despite many positive cases regarding robots supporting human partners, not everyone has a positive attitude toward robots. the authors seek to study if there is a significant difference regarding attitudes toward robots between employees’ males and females, age groups, and educational levels. the study sample consisted of 67 questionaries completed by employees from 20 hotels in yekaterinburg, russia. the article the role of managers’ cultural intelligence and demographic variables in building trust in business relations by eva boštjančič, fayruza s. ismagilova, and sara pavlović milijašević investigates cultural intelligence as related to the emergence of multicultural environments. according to the authors, the goals of partners in business partnerships could be achieved only as a result of their joint work. this implies that each party is ready to avoid taking excessive advantage of the others. cultural intelligence as the capability to function effectively in an intercultural context plays an important role in business relationships and in the formation of trust. thus, “studying the differences between national cultures, organizational cultures, forms of leadership, and their consequences can help not only in understanding business partners with another cultural identity, but also in establishing and developing productive cooperation.” the research sample involved a total of 560 leaders and managers in mutual business relationships: 115 croatians, 114 russians, and 331 slovenians. the authors posed the research questions concerning the possibility to predict the level of trust based on the participants’ gender, age, country, and level of cultural intelligence, and expected certain differences to emerge despite the relatively similar cultural backgrounds of these nations. alexandra yu. smirnova and igor v. tolochin in the article dreams in the bible and in modern english discourse: a shift in perspective argue that research into the contexts that contain the word “dream” can contribute to getting “an important insight into human nature with its aspirations for spiritual growth and access to transcendental experiences, as well as into cultural phenomena reflected in the process of dream interpretation.” the article presents a comparative study of dream narratives in the bible and in modern english texts. the authors reconstruct the meaning of the noun “dream” from its context based on the semiotic tradition laid down by ludwig wittgenstein and argue that the process of secularization among other things has a significant impact at the level of linguistic structures: “on the one hand, it creates new patterns of evaluation in the religious discourse, producing contextual shifts and, therefore, shifts in word meanings. on the other, older patterns of the verbal representation of transcendental experiences are transformed and transferred into non-religious genres.” their presumption is that “the linguistic sign as a vehicle of cultural information is sensitive to major shifts in value judgements. new evaluative patterns create new word senses, whereas the deconstruction of older evaluative patterns brings forth changes in the status of already existing ones.” the case study of https://changing-sp.com/ 732 elena a. stepanova biblical texts about various types of dreams seeks to prove the novelty of the authors’ method, which presupposes the broad understanding of the term “context”. in the research note section, the study at the crossroads of marriage: experiences of young urban middle-class women negotiating family and sexuality within heterosexual intimate relationships in north india by tanya lamba is presented. the study is inspired by the personal experience of the author. she states that the practice of arranged marriage is still the most prevalent form of marriage in the country. arranged marriage restricts personal choice where individual ambitions are suppressed. however, urban educated middle-class women are experiencing a new trend of arranged marriages, where their choice is given some consideration. lamba addresses the following questions: “how do young middle-class professional women negotiate marriage within urban contexts relationships? what are the various ways women negotiating with their partners, family, and society at large? how does the transition from personal relationships to marriage take place? why do women have to struggle for this transition?” to find answers to these questions, lamba conducted a number of in-depth interviews with unmarried urban middleclass women in delhi in the age group of 25–30 years who are in a heterosexual intimate relationship. they work in a development sector and have completed their post-graduation in social sciences. the book reviews section includes two reviews. the first one by ekaterina s. lebed is entitled “heidegger in russian philosophical thought: history of reception and current interpretations.” the review observes the collection edited by yury m. romanenko, which represents the variety of m. heidegger’s philosophy by modern russian authors. lebed underlines that martin heidegger remains one of the most popular philosophers among russian intellectuals and seeks to offer some answers to the question as to why it is so. the second review of duncan mcduie-ra “debating race in contemporary india” is written by bhasker malu and santhosh kareepadath rajan. they point out that the book aims to explain how the indian government’s stance on racism moved from its complete denial to acceptance and the development of policy formulation to protect the racial minority. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections, or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 55–71 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.218 received 9 september 2022 © 2023 natalia d. blednova, anna p. bagirova accepted 1 march 2023 n.d.blednova@urfu.ru published online 10 april 2023 a.p.bagirova@urfu.ru article leave policy system in russia: is it time to change? natalia d. blednova, anna p. bagirova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract as a demographic and family policy measure, the parental leave system is flexible in many countries. for example, parents can take full or partial leave, choose shorter leave with higher payments or vice versa; leave can be taken by other relatives of the child. in russia, the labor legislation regulates only one of such flexible parameters—taking full or partial parental leave by not only the mother, but also the father or other relatives of the child. to study social attitudes towards the existing system of parental leave in russia, we surveyed 506 male and 265 female employees of different organizations with and without children. to explore barriers in the system of the parental leave regulation, we carried out a content analysis of employees’ complaints published on the онлайнинспекция.рф website and analysed five cases of breaching parental leave regulations extracted from popular russian mass media. our results demonstrate discrepancies between the existing system of parental leave and respondents’ attitudes to its legal regulation. to address the problem, the system should be transformed to embrace flexibility. to foster the transformation, the government may promote conscious and responsible fatherhood and integrate the social institute of the labor market in the demographic policy. keywords parental leave, paternity leave, parental leave policy, leave-takers, leave policy legislation acknowledgment this work is supported by the russian science foundation under grant no. 22-28-01847, https://rscf.ru/project/22-28-01847/ https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:n.d.blednova@urfu.ru mailto:a.p.bagirova%40urfu.ru?subject= http://онлайнинспекция.рф https://rscf.ru/project/22-28-01847/ 56 natalia d. blednova, anna p. bagirova introduction in recent decades, parental leave—similar to economic support measures—has become one of the most important instruments of many countries’ demographic policies. by parental leave, we imply those periods when a mother (or other relatives of the child) focuses on parental functions. in world practice, there are 3 types of leave—maternity leave, which is usually given to a woman before and after the childbirth; paternity leave, which can be taken only by fathers (e.g., it is provided in austria, bulgaria, estonia, france, latvia, spain, etc.); and parental leave, a gender-neutral type, which can be used by both parents (or other relatives of the child as provided by some countries). historically, the formation of the leave system was accompanied with the intense involvement of women in the economy (canaan et al., 2022). in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, women worked for industrial facilities on equal terms with men. in order to protect the mother’s and future child’s health, some governments initiated measures for the pregnant women’s security. the first country that in 1877 restricted the recruitment of pregnant women was switzerland. employers were not allowed to recruit women 2 weeks prior and 6 weeks after the childbirth. over the following 30 years, similar laws were adopted in germany, hungary, austria, the netherlands, norway, sweden, and denmark (wikander et al., 1995). still, the term “maternity leave” (or “pregnancy and delivery leave”) appeared in legislation much later. initially, 168-day pregnancy and delivery leave was introduced in the russian soviet federative socialist republic in 1917. in europe, maternity leave acquired normative status 2 years later, when the international labour organization approved the maternity protection convention (o’neill & johns, 2009). over time, there was initiated the so-called parental leave. unlike maternity leave, its key aim was to secure labor rights of employees who had to be absent from work to take care of the child or children. parental leave was considered an employment guarantee, as the employee’s position and salary level were secured whereas the risk of job loss or labor discrimination was reduced (valentova, 2019). finally, at the end of the last century, there appeared paternity leave and paternity quotas. european governments introduced paternity quotas to encourage fathers’ involvement in the child rearing. the first country to pilot paternity quotas in 1993 was norway. later, other countries—for example, sweden, iceland, and spain—followed suit (canaan et al., 2022). at present, the parental leave system exists in all oecd countries, excluding the usa. parental leave policy is an essential element in the family policy structure in many developing countries (ilo, 2012). it is closely related to employment policy (protecting employees on the labor market), gender equality policy (involving fathers in the child rearing), and demographic policy. many researchers point out a positive influence of parental leave on increasing the birth rate in the country (ekberg et al., 2013; kotila et al., 2014). firstly, when fathers take leave, the burden traditionally borne by women decreases. the reduced level of mothers’ anxiety and stress positively impacts reproductive intentions of women, who will most likely decide to have the changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 55–71 57 second and subsequent child. secondly, employment security allows women not to postpone the childbirth, as parental leave almost eliminates the risk of a job loss in case of pregnancy or having children. the fact that parental leave is interrelated with other policies determines a special research interest in leave; in recent years, the topic has been increasingly studied by foreign researchers (koslowski, 2019; kurowska, 2019; meil et al., 2019; moss & o’brien, 2019). particular attention is paid to maternity leave and how it affects women’s professional development (bartoš & pertold-gebicka, 2018; wood & neels, 2019); however, fatherhood and paternity leave also attract increasing interest (duvander & johansson, 2012; duvander & lammi-taskula, 2011; lappegård, 2008; rostgaard & lausten, 2015). some researchers study how parental leave (jou et al., 2020) and leave to care for sick children are granted to single parents. traditionally, parental leave has been considered an instrument to close the gender gap by fostering women’s engagement in professional labor and men’s contribution to parental labor simultaneously. at the same time, a parental leave policy, where at least some types of leave are paid, is a critical element of a comprehensive family support policy. the year of 2004 saw the establishment of the international network on leave policies and research (lp&r), which studies parental leave in participating countries. the organization involves 60 experts in employment, family, and gender policies from 47 countries; it provides annual reviews on parental leave policies in these countries. the review covers maternity, paternity, parental leave, and some other types of leave (e.g., to care for a sick family member). according to the data presented in the 2021 annual review (koslowski et al., 2021), we can identify several criteria which determine specificities and differences in parental leave policies of various countries. these are such criteria as, for example, the following: 1. availability/lack of a certain type of leave. for example, popular maternity leave is not available in sweden, norway, portugal, and new zealand. paternity leave as a separate type of leave is not regulated in germany, iceland, serbia, and slovakia. russia provides two types of leave—pregnancy and delivery leave (known as maternity leave in other countries) and childcare leave (in the academic literature, it is also referred to as parental leave). paternity leave as such is not available in russia, but fathers are eligible for the full childcare leave or its part. 2. duration of leave. the duration of leave may significantly vary in different countries. the international and european legislation establishes the minimum leave duration. for example, according to the ilo maternity protection convention (no. 183), the minimum maternity leave period is 14 weeks (international labour organization, 2000); however, not all countries follow these recommendations. in european countries, the duration of leave must be at least 4 months, which is stipulated in the directive 2019/1158 of the european parliament and of the european council (european parliament & council of the european union, 2019). the leave duration in the uk is 4.2 months, which is the shortest out of all european countries. the longest leave duration is recorded in germany, where parents are eligible for 72 months of parental leave (only 28 of them are paid). in russia, the childcare leave duration is 36 months, but only half of this period is paid. https://changing-sp.com/ 58 natalia d. blednova, anna p. bagirova 3. payment. the amount of parental leave benefits is established by each country individually. in most of the countries, it depends on the salary level of the employee with children. there are two types of payments—“paid” and “well-paid”. in the former case, the level of benefit accounts for less than 66% of the employee’s income level; in the latter case, 66% and more. however, there are countries where parental leave is completely non-paid. these are, particularly, the uk, spain, the netherlands, and israel. 4. flexibility elements. by flexibility elements, we imply specific parental leave points, which make it more convenient to use. in particular, these are the following: • opportunity to take leave fully or partially to keep working part-time; • opportunity to choose a shorter leave with a higher payment and vice versa; • opportunity to take leave by other relatives of the child; • opportunity to adjust leave duration depending on the number of children born; • opportunity to choose periods of leave to use at some particular age of the child, and so on. these flexibility elements are integrated in parental leave policies of different countries. for example, in spain, poland, and the czech republic, maternity leave may be also used by the father; in the great britain, latvia, and new zealand, parental leave may be granted to two parents simultaneously. some countries provide so-called “maternity and paternity quotas”, which divide parental leave between parents—some particular periods are allotted to the mother only and then to the father; the time left may be used by either of parents. for example, maternity and paternity quotas in sweden are 90 days each (out of 480 leave days). similar quotas are provided in norway, where both parents are allotted from 15 to 19 weeks of parental leave. in russia, in turn, the labor legislation provides for only one flexibility element— childcare leave (analogous to parental leave in other countries) may be used fully or partially by not only the mother, but also the father or other relative of the child. other elements of flexibility—for example, choosing a shorter leave with a higher payment or using leave by both parents simultaneously—are not stipulated. today, when women are more economically proactive, the lack of these elements may trigger a conflict between work and family and negatively affect the future potential of the demographic situation in the country. our study aims to evaluate the state regulation of the parental leave policy in russia and public attitudes to the policy pursued. as the parental leave system is a multi-faceted phenomenon related to different spheres of social and economic reality, we attempt to explore the problem in our research from different perspectives taking into consideration ideas of three key stakeholders of the leave system. the status of the first two stakeholders we attribute to the representatives of the family subsystem—mothers (including potential), who are the major leave-takers in russia, and fathers (including potential), who are eligible for parental leave on an equal basis with mothers. the third key element is the representatives of the professional labor sphere—employers, whose interests are directly influenced by the parental leave system, as employers allow working parents to “leave” the sphere of professional labor to have time for parental labor. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 55–71 59 data and methods the study can be divided into three stages (figure 1). to study the problem comprehensively, we used the mixed-method research; the approach presupposes using both quantitative and qualitative research methods simultaneously, which not only complement, but also reinforce each other (johnson et al., 2007). in the academic literature, the use of several approaches together is referred to as methodological triangulation (denzin, 1970). researchers argue that it contributes to increasing the validity of empirical research results and allows gaining a systematic understanding of the problem explored (kosharnaya & kosharnyy, 2016). figure 1 logical structure of studying regulation of the parental leave policy in russia to clarify, we would describe each stage in more detail. stage 1. we analysed russian men’s willingness for the future paternity labor, parental functions. we also identified their opinion on taking parental leave when the child is born. the survey was carried out in the spring of 2019; we surveyed 506 men aged 18 to 49 with and without children. we chose this age category because in russia it is considered a period of potentially becoming a father. for the further analysis, we chose 2 questions which deal with young people’s attitudes towards parental leave and childcare: “what would you think of the opportunity to take leave?” and “are you planning to take care of your children right after they are born?” (for men without children). additionally, we found out whether respondents were aware of the opportunity to take leave by the father and men’s attitude towards leave taken by fathers (to that end, we asked the following question: “how would you feel if your relative/ friend/someone you know decided to take childcare leave or its part after becoming онлайнинспекция.рф https://changing-sp.com/ http://онлайнинспекция.рф 60 natalia d. blednova, anna p. bagirova a father?”). for the subsequent analysis, we determined subgroups of fathers with and without children. it was important to observe the strength of stereotypes about the use of parental leave among those men who were not fathers yet. we proceeded from the fact that they lacked experience as fathers, and thus their parental strategies were not fully developed yet and could change under the influence of a policy aimed at promoting proactive fatherhood. stage 2. to evaluate public opinion on the flexibility of the russian parental leave system, in march–june 2020, we surveyed women working for different companies in the sverdlovsk region (n = 265). the sverdlovsk region is an industrial region of russia with a population of 4.264 million people. we surveyed women aged 18 to 49 with children (n = 191) and without them (n = 74). to measure the sample, we used data on the employment in the region provided by the federal state statistics service (the sverdlovsk region branch). and importantly, the survey stage took place in the coronavirus pandemic and the global self-isolation period. the online format of the survey caused some discrepancies between the structure of respondents and the previously determined sample. the share of working women with children proved to be considerably higher than that in the sample. deviations in the age structure of women did not exceed 10 percentage points. subsequently, we selected answers of women with children as they already had experience of taking childcare leave. we chose questions aimed at studying working women’s opinions on paternity leave. particularly, we asked respondents whether it is necessary to legally regulate paternity leave in russia: “many european countries adopted the so-called ‘paternity leave’—a childcare period, which is granted to fathers only and cannot be taken by mothers. do you think this type of leave should be stipulated in the russian legislation?” the second question was formulated in the following manner: “if paternity leave was legally provided in our country, do you think your family would use it?” stage 3. to analyse barriers in the parental leave state regulation, in december 2021, we analysed 2012–2021 cases of breaching parental leave regulations extracted from popular russian mass media. additionally, in august 2022, we carried out a content analysis of employees’ complaints published on the website онлайнинспекция.рф. this e-service is a part of a large-scale russian project otkrytaia inspektsiia truda [public labor inspection] pursued by the federal service for labor and employment. it is designed to collect complaints of citizens, whose rights on the labor market were violated. as part of our research, we analysed 25 working fathers’ complaints (the entire data set) from different regions of russia about the violation of their rights in terms of the parental leave usage in 2014–2022. results russian men aged 18 to 49 have opposing views to paternity leave. their opinions divide almost in half—both about being aware of paternity leave as such and about its usage by the man himself or other people. as many as 52.8% of men are aware that russia provides childcare leave to fathers (table 1). of the respondents, http://онлайнинспекция.рф changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 55–71 61 41.7% are to some extent positive about taking paternity leave by their relatives/ friends/people they know. curiously, the share of those willing to take paternity leave themselves is higher than that of those who are positive about others taking paternity leave—54.3% versus 41.7%. at the same time, less than a half of the respondents without children at the moment of the study—43.4% of men—are planning to take care and raise their child since they are born. it should be noted that the awareness of the opportunity to take leave and the men’s attitude to leave taken by a father, as shown in table 1, is quite sustained and has nothing to do with the presence or absence of children. additionally, there is not any relationship between these ideas and the number of children and the family’s income. a positive attitude towards taking leave themselves is most evident in extreme groups based on the income self-evaluation. table 1 awareness of the opportunity to take leave by fathers and male respondents’ attitudes to it variables groups and subgroups of men aged 18–49 options share of answers, % statistical significance of differences between subgroups of respondents (chi-square test of significance) awareness of the opportunity to use childcare leave with and without children/subgroups based on the income self-evaluation are aware 52.8 0.392/0.944 are not aware 47.2 attitude to parental leave taken by a relative, friend, etc. with and without children/subgroups based on the income self-evaluation rather positive 41.7 0.575/0.305neutral 19.8 rather negative 38.5 attitude to taking parental leave himself with and without children/subgroups based on the income self-evaluation positive 54.3 0.558/0.011 negative 45.7 plans on contributing to child-rearing since birth without children yes 29.4 — rather yes 14.0 not sure 15.4 rather no 20.6 no 20.6 according to the survey of working women, the overwhelming majority of mothers surveyed (83.1%) is aware that childcare leave may be taken by the father or other relatives of the child. more than a half of mothers surveyed advocate for legislating paternity leave (table 2). https://changing-sp.com/ 62 natalia d. blednova, anna p. bagirova table 2 respondents’ answers on whether paternity leave should be legislated, % options share of answers yes 58.2 no 35.2 not sure 6.6 total 100.0 more than a third of mothers surveyed claim that their family would use paternity leave if it existed in russia (figure 2), which, in turn, may implicitly testify to the fact that the parental leave policy in russia should be reformed. figure 2 mothers’ answers on taking paternity leave if it existed in russia, % we analysed 25 complaints of working fathers published on the онлайнинспекция.рф website (table 3). in 20 cases, fathers were denied the right for childcare leave. most notably, employers either did not specify the reason for the denial or ignored employees’ applications for childcare leave. among the reasons for rejecting was a lack of blood relationship between the worker and their child, mother’s unemployment, and gender assumptions (leave has to be taken by women, not men). we would like to highlight that all these reasons do not comply with the russian legislation. fathers also mentioned other violations of their labor rights, which they faced on childcare leave; these are the employer’s rejection to grant the right to work part-time while they are on leave, dismissal or a threat of dismissal, disciplinary http://онлайнинспекция.рф changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 55–71 63 sanctions for those who applied for parental leave. among those who were denied the right to use childcare leave are also fathers who faced further infringement of their labor rights (dismissal, penalties, etc.). table 3 reasons for denying working fathers’ right to take childcare leave and other violations of their labor rights no. year of case region of russia where the violation took place reason for denying childcare leave other violations of rights 1. 2014 moscow — denied the right to work part-time while on childcare leave 2. 2016 saint petersburg employer did not specify the reason — 3. astrakhan region employer did not specify the reason — 4. saint petersburg employer did not specify the reason further dismissal 5. kemerovo region employer did not specify the reason — 6. 2017 moscow lack of evidence that the father actually took care of the child further dismissal 7. penza region employer did not specify the reason further dismissal 8. sverdlovsk region employer did not specify the reason further official review of the worker’s performance 9. stavropol region employer did not specify the reason — 10. 2018 moscow — denied the right to work part-time while on childcare leave 11. kaluga region — denied the right to work part-time while on childcare leave; forced dismissal 12. moscow region employer did not specify the reason — 13. moscow region did not provide the document from the employment centre proving that the spouse was not receiving the unemployment benefit — 14. 2019 tver region employer did not specify the reason — 15. moscow — denied the right to work part-time while on childcare leave https://changing-sp.com/ 64 natalia d. blednova, anna p. bagirova no. year of case region of russia where the violation took place reason for denying childcare leave other violations of rights 16. 2020 moscow lack of blood relationship with the child. lack of documents proving kinship — 17. moscow denied the right to work part-time while on childcare leave 18. republic of buryatia different addresses of registration with the child 19. moscow region mother is unemployed disciplinary sanction for being absent from work while on childcare leave 20. khanty-mansiysk autonomous region employer did not specify the reason 21. 2021 chuvash republic— chuvashia employer did not specify the reason further dismissal 22. tyumen region childcare is not a man’s duty threat of dismissal in case of further applications for leave 23. voronezh region lack of blood relationship with the child further dismissal 24. republic of buryatia lack of blood relationship with the child 25. 2022 moscow mother is unemployed on analysing cases of breaching parental leave regulations, we conclude that russian employers are still sceptical of men taking parental leave. in july 2021, there were made public 4 cases of violating employees’ rights. in 2009–2010, lower courts in saint petersburg, yekaterinburg, syktyvkar, and nizhniy novgorod received 4 lawsuits from male workers of the ministry of internal affairs of the russian federation who had been denied their right to take childcare leave. even though these 4 cases occurred in different cities and at different periods, they are almost similar. men applied for parental leave, and the administration denied their request claiming that men were entitled to parental leave only if children had lost their mother. lower courts also rejected their lawsuits and took the side of the employer. only after 12 years, these judgments were appealed against in the european court of human rights, which considered the parental leave refusal an outright discrimination against male workers (gordeev & poryvaeva, 2021). the similar case occurred in saint petersburg in 2012 when a male worker tried to apply for childcare leave and was subsequently dismissed from his job for unauthorised absence. this time, the court took plaintiff’s side, and he was reinstated in his position (ermakov, 2012). table 3 continued changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 55–71 65 discussion our results show that generally men do not dismiss the opportunity of taking parental leave themselves. however, according to the social insurance fund of the russian federation, in 2019, this right was exercised by 684,000 people, and only 14,000 (approximately 2%) out of them were men. with the opportunity to take parental leave by men being stipulated in the legislation, major reasons for the discrepancy are economic (men, as a rule, have higher wages as compared to women), popular gender stereotypes, a traditional family model, which does not treat an unequal distribution of household responsibilities in russia as a problem. additionally, some fear that men risk their professional development (there may also arise another stereotype, and employers may be more favourable to those men who decide to take childcare leave, as this decision may prove their responsible and decent nature and their ability to make a right choice for themselves). our findings also demonstrate that only half of men are aware of the opportunity to use parental leave when the child is born. such a low level of awareness can possibly be explained by the fact that some respondents do not have children yet. meanwhile, researchers argue that paternity leave is a crucial instrument in the parental leave structure (bacheron, 2021). in today’s context, when gender stereotypes are gradually becoming a thing of the past and there arises a need for a more even distribution of responsibilities within the family, paternity leave serves as a regulator of family and parental relationships. paternity leave contributes to a more proactive involvement of men into the child rearing. by taking care of children, men take a part of the parental burden, which is traditionally shouldered on women; they help mothers morally and physically after the childbirth (o’brien & wall, 2017; petts & knoester, 2018). researchers claim that paternity leave positively impacts not only women, but also other subjects—fathers themselves, children, and even employers (table 4). table 4 effects from paternity leave usage subjects effects fathers − improving parental competence − having positive influence on men’s emotional well-being mothers − facilitating adaptation after the childbirth − reducing level of emotional and physical tension − closing the gender gap on the labor market children − better physical and emotional health − lesser exposure to depression and mental disorders employers − increasing corporate loyalty − reducing employee turnover and dismissals of workers with children family − improving intrafamily relations − more even distribution of household responsibilities https://changing-sp.com/ 66 natalia d. blednova, anna p. bagirova results of our study reveal a discrepancy between the existing parental leave policy in russia and people’s attitude to its state regulation. the study shows that the population needs more flexibility in the parental leave system, including the legislative stipulation of paternity leave as an instrument of the state demographic policy and gender equality policy. the legislation in russia allows fathers to use childcare leave fully or partially. the increasing number of fathers’ complaints about the violation of their rights in recent years proves that more and more working men are willing to take childcare leave. most often, this is due to the big number of children in the family and a desire to mitigate the mothers’ burden. however, employers still take a negative stand on those male workers who decide to apply for parental leave. most notably, employers very commonly do not specify the reason for rejecting the right for leave. moreover, our content analysis results demonstrate that some men even face further pressure from the administration, including wrongful dismissals at the employer’s initiative. thus, a desire to take leave (i.e., to exercise a right) may become a reason for the outright discrimination against workers. apart from that, lower courts often rule in favour of employers, which make employees appeal to higher authorities. we described only some cases of violating employees’ rights; there might be even more of them because they are not always made public or challenged in the court. in the last 8 years, only 25 fathers claimed a violation of their rights on the онлайнинспекция.рф website, which is not so many for such a long period. however, not all workers strive to assert their labor rights. researchers argue that the level of legal awareness in russia is low. according to the study conducted by the nafi research center and amulex national legal service, which involved 1,600 people from 52 regions of russia, the index of russians’ legal awareness in 2019 accounted for 47 percentage points (the maximum value being 100). a total of 22% of those surveyed claimed they had never encountered a violation of their rights (rossiiane okhotnee otstaivaiut, 2020). every fourth respondent did not take any action to protect their interests in case of a legal dispute. the major reason for that is the belief that the struggle for rights either results in nothing or even deteriorates the situation. we can only suppose that there are much more cases of denying the father’s right to take leave. in russia, the practice of asserting rights in this sphere is not popular, and if employers issue a denial, the decision is made within the family. moreover, as potential employers’ denials are strongly supported by popular stereotypes, even the process of fathers applying for leave may be to some point regarded abnormal by the family, not even mentioning the protection of the right for leave when denied. therefore, we can argue that the only flexibility element of the parental leave system stipulated in the legislation of russia and some post-soviet countries does not, in fact, provide any flexibility. in practice, the right for taking parental leave by the father or other relative of the child may be restricted by both the employer and the state. accordingly, we argue that to address the problem, the attitude of the state and employers to the parental leave system and its regulation should be changed. in doing so, there may be used such instruments as the information policy, which would clarify parents’ and other relatives’ rights for leave, the image of the conscious and responsible fatherhood promoted in the society, and the integration of the labor market social institute into the state demographic policy. http://онлайнинспекция.рф changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 55–71 67 according to the international experience in this sphere, starting from the late 20th century, there have been growing expectations by different cultures and societies that fathers will be more involved in their children’s lives, whereas scientists have been increasingly studying the phenomenon of proactive paternity. there are certain political tendencies related to the phenomenon—northern european countries pursue the policy of engaging fathers in the family life. based on the idea of gender equality and family pluralism, the policy in these countries is built on the “use of lose” principle, when parental leave is taken by the mother and the father (ellingsaeter, 2020; kvande & brandth, 2020). rush (2011) opposes these neoliberal tendencies of de-patriarchisation to neo-patriarchal tendencies in the usa, where, on the contrary, patriarchal family is being protected against social and demographic changes. according to the sociologist, we can suppose that there emerge varieties of worlds of fatherhood policies. russia, too, has different models of paternity today. in our country, there are still marked tendencies for the “traditional paternity” (chikalova, 2014); however, as russian sociologists argue, recently there has emerged a new type of male parents, the so-called “new fathers”, who not only support the family financially, but also actively involve in childcare, express interest in their needs and the child rearing in general. for “new fathers”, family, children, and family relationship become increasingly valuable in their life (ildarhanova & gabdrakhmanova, 2019). it should be noted that the russian demographic policy has recently saw serious progress. apart from increasing the amounts of benefits and new payments, the number of categories of citizens who the state support is targeted at has seriously expanded; it now includes families with children aged 3 to 7 (ukaz prezidenta, 2020), single mothers (postanovlenie pravitel’stva, 2021), mothers with 10 or more children (ukaz prezidenta, 2022). the civic chamber of the russian federation regularly introduces new initiatives aimed at improving the socio-demographic policy—these initiatives are not only financial, but also organisational. for example, on july 1, 2022, the chamber held a round table entitled “dekretnyi otpusk kak mekhanizm podderzhki rozhdaemosti i rabotaiushchikh roditelei [childcare leave as a support mechanism for birth rate and working parents]”, where experts claimed that the introduction of the flexible childcare leave mechanism would ensure that parents with children under the age of 1.5 years are eligible to choose the period of paid childcare leave while their benefit would be increased or reduced according to the duration of the benefit period as compared to that stipulated in the legislation (v op rf predlozhili, 2022). therefore, the initiative suggests that parents will have a choice between longer leave and smaller benefit and shorter leave and bigger benefit. another possible measure, which is discussed between demographers, is the modernisation of the childcare leave system by introducing non-transferrable paternity leave (vinogradova & poryvaeva, 2022). both these measures have been available in european countries for a long time; however, in russia, the question of their regulation has arisen only now, when the demographic crisis has deepened. as our results show, the russian society is mostly ready for the legal regulation of new measures and for using them in their families. https://changing-sp.com/ 68 natalia d. blednova, anna p. bagirova conclusion on the one hand, our study shows that three different stakeholders of the parental leave policy seem to share a generally positive attitude towards fathers using their legally provided right for parental leave. in particular, men in russia are quite positive about childcare leave—regardless of whether they have children or not, they are aware of the opportunity to take parental leave, and almost half of them are positive about it. additionally, women are much more aware of the opportunity to take leave by the father than men. a little more than half of women believe that paternity leave should be stipulated in the russian legislation as an obligation—and not only as an opportunity. more than a third of women claim that their families would use paternity leave. according to survey data compared between men and women, a substantial part of russian families (both mothers and fathers) would use paternity leave if they could obtain a paternity quota. a small number of complaints against employers made by male workers may also be interpreted as the absence of the social conflict of interest in the parental leave sphere. on the other hand, in fact, men take only 2% of parental leave in russia. the content analysis of working fathers’ complaints published on the онлайнинспекция.рф website demonstrated that there are instances when fathers do struggle with the infringement of their labor rights—employers often refuse to grant them childcare leave. most often, employers omit the reason for the denial. moreover, some workers may face further pressure from the management and be either dismissed or threatened to be dismissed if they request leave. the analysis of cases extracted from the russian legislation and mass media showed that the existing opportunity for fathers to take childcare leave is thwarted by employers’ sanctions or misunderstanding. thus, there arise an institutional conflict between social institutes of family and labor market. the way this conflict will be addressed will predetermine the possibility to transform the parental leave system in russia. to further our research, we intend to reveal the attitude of parents entitled for parental leave to the existing distribution of parental functions during the period of leave, to identify factors of potential inclusion of fathers into the parental leave system, and to evaluate how the existing parental leave system may potentially affect reproductive intentions of the population in russia. references bacheron, j. 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(2019). does mothers’ parental leave uptake stimulate continued employment and family formation? evidence for belgium. social sciences, 8(10), article 292. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8100292 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12494 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/view/0001202107010004 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/view/0001202107010004 https://nafi.ru/analytics/rossiyane-okhotnee-otstaivayut-svoi-prava-v-teorii-chem-na-praktike-en-rus https://nafi.ru/analytics/rossiyane-okhotnee-otstaivayut-svoi-prava-v-teorii-chem-na-praktike-en-rus https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447310471.003.0013 https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447310471.003.0013 https://doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.42.1.37 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/view/0001202003200014 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/view/0001202003200014 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/view/0001202208150021 http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/view/0001202208150021 http://opsmol.ru/8944-v-op-rf-predlozhili-vvesti-mexanizm-gibkogo-otpuska-po-uxodu-za-rebenkom/ http://opsmol.ru/8944-v-op-rf-predlozhili-vvesti-mexanizm-gibkogo-otpuska-po-uxodu-za-rebenkom/ https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928718776826 https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928718776826 https://www.rbc.ru/economics/10/08/2022/62f223af9a7947341b75ec3e https://www.rbc.ru/economics/10/08/2022/62f223af9a7947341b75ec3e https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8100292 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 433–454 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.2.183 received 1 september 2021 © 2022 vera smirnova, ekaterina adrianova accepted 20 may 2022 verasmirnova@ksu.edu published online 11 july 2022 adrianovaeg@gmail.com article from systemic underdevelopment to basic urban maintenance: national priority projects in the russian periphery vera smirnova kansas state university, manhattan ks, usa ekaterina adrianova itmo university, saint petersburg, russia abstract the case of urban development in the russian periphery is often overlooked in the scholarly efforts to theorize the center-periphery dynamics characteristic of the post-socialist contexts, not least in the case of russia. consequently, the analysis of urban development initiatives in the regions and provinces defies the logic of large-scale urban projects with characteristic subdominant relations between the state and the private sector, since the latter and the former are tied in competition for limited federal resources. we delve into the particularities of the center-periphery dynamics through the case of the vologda river embankment renovation project, paying particular attention to the decision-making processes, lack of transparency, and bureaucratic hustle in response to the civil protest—all characteristic of a distinctive, though common across russia’s peripheral towns, dilemma of systemic underdevelopment vs basic urban maintenance. we rely on discourse analysis of legal and regulatory documents, project plans, meetings proceedings and official correspondence between departmental agencies, and media posts created by the local protest groups during the period of 2018–2019. through this analysis, we showcase not only the asymmetries of power relations in the postsocialist periphery, but also bureaucratic constraints and uncertainties that often amount to a standstill situation with uncertain prospects for future improvement. https://changing-sp.com/ 434 vera smirnova, ekaterina adrianova introduction the nature of the post-socialist transition left urban planners wondering about how to explain its dramatically divergent regional outcomes. much has been written on the logic of post-socialist urban planning in large cities across central and eastern europe, contributing greatly to the global debates in comparative urban studies (hirt et al, 2016; müller & trubina, 2020; tuvikene, 2016). while focusing on the neoliberal nature of post-soviet urban governance, local stories from the peripheries were often left behind the scenes. as common urban development trajectories tend to result in the mass privatization of public resources, extraction and concentration of the wealth in the hands of the few, the commodification of urban space within the major urban centers, or prevalence of urban mega-projects and mega-events that prioritize largescale private investments over democratic processes (büdenbender & zupan, 2017; grubbauer & čamprag, 2019; kinossian & morgan, 2014; müller & pickles, 2015), peripheral regions and smaller towns are seen to lag behind, without the prospect of even reaching such “high developmental” outcomes (zubarevich, 2013). this contrast between the center and periphery is particularly characteristic of contemporary russia. regions and municipalities lose some authority over decision making in urban development due to a lack of an independent budget base as a result of the centralized taxation system. the setting of priority tasks and agendas, within such a scheme, is formed centrally and remotely, which inevitably leads to the overinflation of design objectives and puts regions in front of the choice between “volume” or “quality”. driven by the need to fulfill social demands within the context of economic and political constraints, the dependence of regions on the center is deepening (zubarevich, 2018). due to a lack of independent resource revenues and erosion of the political mechanisms for self-governance, they are left with a dilemma—to fall into the path of systemic underdevelopment or to seek minimal resources for basic urban maintenance, instead of undertaking long-term and forward-looking developmental trajectories. this dilemma illustrates some of the typical cases outside of the country’s capital and large metropolitan areas (trubina, 2015), often characteristic of the keywords underdevelopment, urban renewal, urban conflict, center-periphery relations, russia acknowledgements we would like to thank konstantin kiyanenko, andrey golovin, and yana golubeva for their insightful comments on the early version of this paper. we are also grateful for being a part of the social movement for the preservation of the vologda river embankment, the vologda state university faculty of architecture from which we are alumni, and the community of vologda activists and friends that continue the struggle for the protection of the old provincial architecture in the city. acknowledgements are also due to the thematic issue editor elena trubina and others for their time and work putting this collection together. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 433–454 435 systematic drying out of local budgets, reliance on the federal programs for acquiring financial and political support, inability to recast corrupt market mechanisms for the implementation of the programs, and erosion of public support throughout this process (chirikova, 2015). in this situation, federal target initiatives, national priority projects, and other country-wide schemes emerge as the unproven panacea to both, crumbling infrastructure in the regions and weathering political support and allegiance towards the center. competing in the federal programs to obtain means for basic urban services highlights a partial return to the somewhat modernized soviet methods of management (gun’ko & batunova, 2019a; gun’ko & batunova, 2019b; zupan & gunko, 2019). with the looming economic crisis, inflation, and political instabilities, financial benefits from these programs become insufficient, hence requiring symbolic resources for maintaining the established power relations (zupan et al., 2021). in such constrained conditions, urban initiatives have to adapt to the situation. hence, they often form a set of tight-knit governance networks made of local politicians, administrators, professionals, business, and civil society, ready to maintain and deliver urban projects with federal support. this creates a situation, where participation in federal programs is not necessarily mandatory, but unavoidable. it is this setting of political processes surrounding national priority projects that we review in the paper. we study the particularities of the center-periphery dynamics through the case of the vologda river embankment renovation project, paying particular attention to the bureaucratic procedures that created a distinctive, though common across russia’s regions, situation. the analyzed case illuminates a complex dynamic— between the lack of local resource revenues and the inability to manage federal funding, between the authority of the country’s capital in the decision making, and yet a lack of oversight and regulation from both sides. the project and its implementation show not only the asymmetries of power relations in urban development of the postsocialist periphery but also bureaucratic constraints and uncertainties that mounted to a standstill situation today. we turn to qualitative analysis from a situated position, since both authors took part in mediating the urban conflict that emerged around the project. this involves discourse analysis of legal and regulatory documents, project plans, meetings proceedings, and official correspondence between departmental agencies, media posts created by the local protest groups, and participant observation during the period of 2018–2019. we explore the federal and municipal legislative mechanisms, project oversight, and local and federal decision-making strategies related to the issues with the project’s objectification and delivery. this leaves us with two insights. first, though the national government plays a key role in the proposal of the federal programs, it presents no flexibility in accommodating the contingency issues around the delivery of the project, leaving local governments with a dilemma of “deliver the project or perish.” second, it shows how the local coalitions of state and private actors engage in non-transparent and contradictory measures required to tap into the multiple national funding schema, meanwhile presenting a lack of cooperation and oversight in the delivery of the project, not counting the erosion of civic democratic institutions through the process. https://changing-sp.com/ 436 vera smirnova, ekaterina adrianova navigating bureaucratic uncertainty between the center and the periphery the nature of uneven resource redistribution between the center of policy making (moscow) and the receiving peripheries is also a result of the long legacy of political centralization that took place in russia since the 2000s (gel’man, 2015). with vladimir putin taking the first term as the president, gubernatorial elections, introduced by russia’s first president boris yeltsin as part of the democratization in 1996, were successfully eliminated in 2004 in exchange for the new model of selective appointments (gel’man & ryzhenkov, 2011). in this scenario the center started to rely on various stimuli to engage the regions, while the latter were offered minimal space for political maneuver in decision making if their place in the power vertical was secured (sel’tser, 2014). in addition to the reformation of the federal council, local governors lost not only the membership at the council, but also immunity from criminal persecution, which, though at a first glance a democratic measure, resulted in a reinforcement of the mutually beneficial relations between the center and the periphery. all in all, the new centralization of regional and municipal powers in the hands of the federal state was chosen as a russian path. within the constraints of the system, “the centre’s goals included the preservation of a stable economic and social order, in which the ruling group was unchallenged”, while “subordinated local actors could pursue a broad range of their self-interests, especially given the poor protection of property rights in russian regions and cities” (gel’man & ryzhenkov, 2011, p. 454). with the recentralization of regional funding structures and taxation systems, which also reinforced verticality in economic relations (zubarevich, 2018), regions are now in need to compete for financial resources in order to fulfill basic provisioning of public services such as housing, infrastructure, ecosystem management, and the rest. this leaves no room for the emergence of alternative mechanisms of self-governance, instead turning to the top-down systems of “manual control” and “hole patching” (zubarevich, 2018). moreover, recent uncertainty in russia’s political and economic trajectory, coupled with the continuous change and reshuffling of cadres in managerial systems resulted in a situation, where regions are compelled to seek federal funding on a shortterm basis (chirikova, 2015). hence, focus on “short aims,” rather than long term modernization trajectories becomes the goal of this power structure. hence, the motivation to take on risks and find new prospects is weaker than the motivation of political survival, which remains a powerful internal incentive for the daily managerial activities of regional elites (chirikova, 2015). since the early 2000s, various national projects of strategic development have become one of the mechanisms for centralized decision making. the socalled “federal target programs” were proposed as the first tool for the integrated solution to the centralized tasks, adopted and developed in 1995, followed by their reorganization again in 2002 (panikarova, 2007). the center started gradually gaining back its leverage over the regions, since the “share of federal funds in the overall budget of the country increased from just over 40 percent in 1998 to 66 percent in 2006, where the proceeds from the most significant tax revenues were [...] only partially changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 433–454 437 returned to the municipalities” (gel’man, 2007, p. 9; our translation—v. s., & e. a.). while the federal target programs focused on social politics in a fragmented and targeted manner, recent iteration of the strategic development goals produced a socalled “national priority project”—a temporary fix to the imbalances between central and municipal budgets (government of the russian federation, 2019). the national priority projects often emphasized “oversized prestige” initiatives with their top-down oversight and often a lack of established mechanisms for project delivery (wengle, 2015). the idea first appeared in the period of 2005–2009, but its recent iteration in the presidential decree of 2018 (ukaz prezidenta rossiiskoi federatsii, 2018) has gained a greater scope, more specific, detailed goal-setting, and more attention to the management and control over the implementation (ivanov & bukhvald, 2019). national priority projects immediately became the darling of russia’s presidential administration, as they were first reformulated in a new form in the presidential address to the federal government, parliament, and regional leaders to denote their strategic national character (sharafutdinova & turovsky, 2017; wengle, 2015). yet, the absence of a clear legal definition of this instrument of public administration, horizontal and vertical correlations between different programs, and the lack of methodology over the implementation and oversight left room for error and maneuver, despite massive scale of federal spending of up to 70% of the country’s federal budget expenditures (azhluni & sharygina, 2019; ivanov & bukhvald, 2019). a new project-oriented governance approach, often characteristic of business management practices, was introduced at the federal level to develop key parameters, step by step directions, and a system of checks and balances to ensure that the goals of the federal programs were achieved and the federal resources were spent rationally (charkina, 2017; kozhevnikov, 2016). supported through the newly established department for strategic management of state programs and investment projects and a set of regional project management offices, project-oriented approach is applied to improve and regulate everyday spheres of social politics, from health, education, and housing, to agrarian development and the environment. moreover, new project-oriented management tools are proposed to further political persuasion and accountability. the kpi of regional governors is one such technology tied primarily to the implementation of the federal priority programs. all fifteen indicators of the kpi are directly correlated with the last presidential decree of 2018 (the series of the so-called “may decrees”) and are a reflection of the national development goals set by the president himself. under the conditions of dysfunctional democratic institutions, when governors are viewed as managers who are assigned certain tasks, the introduction of a mechanism for evaluating their effectiveness is not devoid of objectivity (butrin, 2019). however, the list of these criteria changes practically every two years, depending on the specific priority projects being implemented and the indicators of these criteria are difficult to calculate (butrin, 2019). rather it is the political manageability, accomplishment of the major infrastructure projects, and steady relations with federal agencies that tacitly serve as a decisive factor for evaluation of gubernatorial productivity. this is supported by a fact that the list of criteria starts with one political measure framed as the “confidence in the government” (or doverie k vlasti), implying https://changing-sp.com/ 438 vera smirnova, ekaterina adrianova the confidence in the president of the russian federation, the highest officials of the subjects of the russian federation, the level of which is determined, inter alia, by assessing public opinion regarding the achievement in the subjects of the russian federation of national development goals (ukaz prezidenta rossiiskoi federatsii, 2021). this political indicator is intended to verify the other fourteen, since if the quality of education, the environment, the quality of healthcare, and quality of the labor market is improving, then the political indicator is also expected to improve; but if their dynamics are at odds, it means that something is not right (butrin, 2019). in accordance with the kpi based evaluations, the state prepares proposals for the distribution of grants, financially incentivizing the work of governors (gatinsky, 2019; trunina, 2019). the trajectory of project-oriented governance, via which specific resources are allocated on a competitive basis, not only balances the relations of power on multiple scales, but adversely affects the development of the long-term trajectories for self-management in the regions. horizontal connections between the regions are therefore eroded as they compete against one another prioritising federal transfers (golubchikov et al., 2014; kinossian, 2013). in fact, in 2011 merely six of russia’s 83 regions received 40 percent of the federal investment (golubchikov & makhrova, 2013). the system of checks and balances is also left on the regional shoulders to create visibility of decentralization, hence opening room for corruption and deceit. this leads to an unsustainable situation, where regional actors have no choice but to take part in the process for the sake of their own career, federal support, and delivery of public works in the regions (lazareva, 2018). our case of the vologda river embankment renovation project lies in the middle of this entanglement over decision making. with the reliance on a number of different federal schemas, the large-scale urban redevelopment initiative found itself in a standstill situation resulting from the inconsistency of objectives between the programs and their structural inflexibility in the course of project delivery. this led to the inability of actors to navigate the system, subsequent violations of laws, spread of undemocratic procedures, and unfortunate outcomes—all of which we review in the following sections. the vologda embankment project vologda is a provincial city with economic and cultural functions, its input in the development of the surrounding territories is indisputable. the city claims an unspoken role as the “capital of the russian north”, due to the ancient history of its foundation and an array of events related to the development of the region and the history of the russian state as a whole (shul’gin, 2011). occupying an advantageous geographical position, vologda was one of the main actors in mastering the wealth of zavoloch’e—a historical region formed in the basin of the northern dvina river and onega lake in 10th–14th centuries. the first mention of the city is associated with the year of 1147 as the fortified detinets-kremlin was formed on the site of a previously existing settlement named after the vologda river. in the pre-industrial period, the river primarily carried a defensive and trade function, being the main transportation changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 433–454 439 artery of the city. natural green banks grew alongside it, with five churches, eleven merchant and tenement houses, doss-house and the building of the former diocesan women’s school (turned into a military hospital in the soviet period) built on top. unique views of the river banks became a key feature of the city for generations of vologda residents and tourists. the central location of the river made it the main urban artery and determined the early soviet and even pre-revolutionary planning structure. historically and today the river serves as the main public space, with lindens, maples and birches planted along the entire embankment, creating a peculiar and inimitable look. until recently, green shores with architectural monuments and ensembles of the 17th–19th centuries were the cultural hallmark of the entire region. the prehistory of the vologda river renovation project begins with the proposal for the tourist and recreational cluster “nason city” developed and delivered within the framework of the federal target program razvitie vnutrennego i v”ezdnogo turizma v rossiiskoi federatsii (2011–2018) [development of domestic and inbound tourism in the russian federation in 2011–2018] supervised by the federal agency for tourism (vologda state duma, 2014). the purpose of the project was to combine the sights, monuments of stone and wooden architecture, parks, and embankments located along the vologda river in the historical part of the city, into a convenient network of tourist routes and create a major recreational area in the center of vologda for its residents and visitors. the initiative served as the basis for the development of a new strategy for tourism on the territory of the municipality of the city of vologda for the period of up to 2025, adopted at that time by the former city mayor (vologda state duma, 2014). this first step served as the official prerequisite for the proposal of a largescale river bank protection project first initiated in 2011.the 2.8-kilometer-long section of the left river bank was originally announced under the same federal program, but after completing bank protection procedures on a small fragment of the embankment on the right side of the river, the funding for the continuation of the full project was refused, resulting in the need to search for alternatives. the authorities explained the necessity of transforming the banks of the river in its frequent flooding, as well as the systemic neglect of the banks’ greenery overgrown with shrubby vegetation that has attracted “homeless people, ticks, and trash” (kruglikov, 2019; our translation—v. s., & e. a.). the project of the embankment renovation developed by a local organization specializing in the design of road infrastructure facilities without architects, landscape designers, and restorers in their staff received a positive conclusion from the state expertise commitee on september 16, 2013. the project entered into the implementation stage through participation in a different federal target program razvitie vodokhoziaistvennogo kompleksa rossiiskoi federatsii v 2012–2020 godakh [development of the water management complex of the russian federation in 2012–2020] run by the ministry of natural resources and the environment, with state contractors in the ministry of agriculture, federal agency for water resources, federal service for hydrometeorology and environmental monitoring, and the federal agency for fishery. the activities carried out within the framework of this program were subject to co-financing from the regional and federal budgets. the total amount of the contract required 265,181,410 rubles, of https://changing-sp.com/ 440 vera smirnova, ekaterina adrianova which the municipality received 62 million rubles from the regional budget, while the rest came from federal transfers. the work, launched earlier in the spring of 2017, was to be completed by november 2019, with the full allocation of funds after the contract was signed. after the successful entrance into the federal target program, an auction was announced on the state procurement portal to determine the general contractor for the construction work. the winner of the auction became a local company that is the largest executor of governmental contracts related to road infrastructure in the region. it is worth noting that the company has never performed the work on the protection of river banks and the project itself was initially designed through another company affiliated with the contractor, which contradicts the state anti-monopoly legislation. initially proposed under one federal program, and launched under another, the targets of which were significantly different, the project went into the implementation unannounced to the public. as vologda residents soon discovered, the project intended the complete elimination of natural landscaping covering the banks with a concrete slab reaching its width of up to 30 meters and the length of 2.8 kilometers in total (figure 1). with the help of the community of architects, city rights activists, and historical heritage preservation movements that rallied on the basis of the unfolding construction project, many citizens soon learned about the planned changes. as a result of the correspondence with federal officials and a number of meetings between the activists and the city mayor with representatives of the municipal departments, the authorities agreed with the erroneousness of the project and stated the need for a compromise solution to the situation. however, soon after the local administration closed the doors for further discussion, not intending any changes in the project and beginning an aggressive and manipulative communication with the activists in the information space, which caused a strong resentment among local residents and leading federal experts. figure 1 vologda river embankment before the renovation process note. source: (sazonov, 2019). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 433–454 441 figure 2 vologda river embankment during the renovation process note. source: varlamov, i. (2019). the urban conflict in vologda acquired the scale of a national precedent, where representatives of the russian professional communities spoke publicly about the project. leaders of the russian urban protection and heritage preservation societies, renowned restorers, historians, the director of the moscow architectural schools and their employees, architects and artists working with different regions of russia, hydrogeologists, and popular urban bloggers—all contributed to the nation-wide outcry about the sudden elimination of vologda’s cultural heritage with an easy approval or a blunt oversight from the federal authorities (blagoustroennaia naberezhnaia, 2018; kazankina, 2019; kruglikov, 2019; tarabarina, 2019; zhiteli vologdy, 2019). undemocratic decision making, violations, and public outcry in the course of a year since the city began decisively clearing out the river bank from trees and shrubs, several urban communities discussed and condemned the process based on guesswork. there was no objective basis for the discussion, since no information about the plans of work on the embankment were available either on the official website of the city administration or in other information outlets. criticism of the design solution began from the moment when in the fall of 2018 one of the https://changing-sp.com/ 442 vera smirnova, ekaterina adrianova vologda architects discovered design plans and legal documentation on the public procurement portal in a format only accessible to professionals using specialized architectural programs (edinaia informatsionnaia sistema v sfere zakupok, 2017). turning this information into an accessible and visual format for the general public, with an explanation of the design decisions contained in the document, gave the public reasons to worry. the public became aware of the project when it was already in the first stage of the implementation—after acquiring a positive conclusion from the state expertise, the first tranche of funding from the federal target program was received, a tender for the implementation of the project was drawn, and a contract with the main contractor was already signed. the reasons for the public outrage and the causes of thorough investigation on the state and municipal levels can be divided into several groupings that highlight discrepancies between the objectives of the national funding schemes and their delivery in the regions. inconsistency in the project and programs objectives the technology of a monolithic concrete slab with a cobblestone coating was chosen as the bank fortification method—for many, the decision was unexpected and unreasonable, since there were no data from hydrological and hydrogeological studies substantiating the need for bank protection, as well as the chosen technology itself. first, there was no apparent bank destruction on site, as there were practically no natural landslide processes within the city, which confirms the absence of changes in the configuration of the river bed over the past 200 years, according to an independent analysis conducted by the licensed hydrogeologist, which also concluded that isolation of large areas by concrete and asphalting can lead to the accumulation of groundwater that will increase the threat of flooding of nearby buildings and the destruction of cultural heritage sites (adrianova, 2019). secondly, the complete inconsistency of the ongoing project with the objectives of the originally declared federal program aimed at developing tourist attractiveness of the city were in plain sight. according to the city administration, the “strengthening” of the banks was supposed to facilitate their maintenance, since there were basically no budgetary funds for regular maintenance of the vegetation along the river banks. zelenstroy municipal agency that used to maintain urban landscapes in the city was abolished due to the replacement of the mayor and, hence, the redistribution of power in 2016. yet, the real difference in the cost of maintaining the natural banks and the price for building a continuous concrete slab was never calculated. despite this, experts from the state expertise issued a positive conclusion for the project. at the same time, the city administration, represented by the head of the department of architecture and urban planning tried to assure the public that the work on the embankment renovation will be carried out in two stages: first, reinforcing the natural banks with concrete, and second, creating a multi-functional public space on top. discourse about the two-stage process was picked up by the regional media, but was, however, misleading, since the project entered the federal target program in line with the “protection and reinforcement of the banks” and not landscaping or improvement of the tourist potential of the place, which was the goal of the previous changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 433–454 443 program that municipality used for project proposal. the complete inconsistency with the objectives of the federal initiatives, caused by the necessity to enter multiple programs at once in order to accomplish a full spectrum of works, shows that regions are not able to deliver comprehensive development trajectories, but rather are forced to look for piecemeal solutions. legislative violations violations of the law were detected at all stages of the process, from the incompleteness of the design documentation, lack of compliance with the officially adopted project plan, the organization of the construction work, to the acceptance of works with violations by the representatives of the responsible departments. for completeness of argumentation, we reveal in more detail the essence of violations, each carrying different measures of responsibility. first of all, the project documentation did not take into account and did not assess the possible negative consequences for the safety of the objects of architectural heritage of regional and federal significance: from vibration loads from pile driving or traffic and from changes in the hydrogeological regime of the groundwater. the activists submitted an application for the recognition of the embankment ensemble as an object of cultural heritage to the regional committee for the protection of cultural heritage in order to assign a single protection status to this section of the river and the architectural monuments located on it. according to the law, construction work should have been suspended during the term of the consideration of the application, but this did not happen. moreover, the project violated the urban regulation in accordance with ob”ekt okhrany istoricheskogo poseleniia regional’nogo znacheniia, gorod vologda [subject of protection of the historical settlement of regional significance, the city of vologda], distorting the most valuable panoramas of the central part of the historical settlement. the subject of the protection of the historical settlement, as mentioned in the document, was exactly “the space of the river” and “natural terrain of the banks,” meaning that it was “prohibited to cut down the greenery, except for the sanitary cuttings, to construct new buildings or permanent structures, to disturb the river banks, and to organize the garbage and soil dumps or other land works without accompanying archaeological support and the later reclamation of the soil” (official website of the government of the vologda region, 2018; our translation—v. s., & e. a.). secondly, the implementation of the project deviated from the approved plan. in fact, the work performed did not comply with the design decisions and the conclusion of the state expertise. where the project provided for landscaping fragments, it turned out that the solution implied a monolithic concrete slab. the actual elevations of the supporting structures also turned out to be higher than designed. the working group with a geodesic engineer carried out instrumental measurements showing that the height of the structural grillage was exceeded, significantly changing the contour of the banks and reducing the area of landscaping provided for by the project. this significant and unreasonable increase in the volume of work exceeded the maximum permissible by the public procurement legislation. also, in the course of the work, environmental legislation was seriously violated, which, among other things, https://changing-sp.com/ 444 vera smirnova, ekaterina adrianova came into conflict with certain target indicators of the federal program itself, since soil was removed from the river bed in order to build a monolithic grillage with mortars discharged directly into the ground in the middle of the winter affecting soils and their dynamics already in the spring. last but not least, when studying the paper documentation, it was found that some lines were smeared and corrected by hand in the consolidated estimate, which is considered a gross violation of law and is under the control of the state prosecutor’s office1. at the same time, there were two positive conclusions from the state expertise, received separately for the estimate and for the project itself. as a result of the identified deviations from the original project, the city administration had to re-pass the state expertise. however, the state expertise refused to accept the updated project plans for consideration, which indicates the deliberate arbitrariness of decisions taken during construction. despite the obvious violations during the implementation and the refusal of changes by the state expertise, the acceptance certificates for several start-up complexes of the embankment renovation were signed by the head of the department of city services. in the public sphere, this was broadcast as the absence of the need to repeat the procedure of the state expertise hence the legality of deviations from the project, which, in fact, was a free interpretation of the section 3.8 of the article 49 of gradostroitel’nyi kodeks rossiiskoi federatsii [town planning code of the russian federation]. undemocratic decision-making procedures the fact of the “behind the wall” decision-making process regarding the key public space of the city was no less important and caused great resentment within the community. the residents became aware of the plans when the contract with the general contractor had already been signed. as one of the local professors of architecture concluded, the issue of designing the embankment, like any other urban planning issue, is, first of all, the issue of power and distribution of very expensive and scarce resources, [...] therefore, if the community does not make special efforts, including those that often require energy, and even a conflict, in defending the interests of the city as a whole, we won’t accomplish anything”. (kiyanenko, 2019; our translation—v. s., & e. a.) the closed and non-transparent decision-making processes were not limited to the stage of the development of the project. already during the full course of construction and the unfolding urban protest, the regional and municipal authorities demonstrated exclusivity in the choice of the public opinion related to the issue. the wave of critical statements by the expert society representing various professional communities was provoked by the refusal of the regional administration to modify the project, calling the representatives of the public and the experts who had spoken earlier “couch 1 available at request from the department of city services (http://vologda-portal.ru/oficialnaya_ vologda/adm_structure/index_v.php?section_id=5277) http://vologda-portal.ru/oficialnaya_vologda/adm_structure/index_v.php?section_id=5277 http://vologda-portal.ru/oficialnaya_vologda/adm_structure/index_v.php?section_id=5277 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 433–454 445 critics” (kruglikov, 2019). the problem around the embankment renovation project was highlighted not only at the federal round tables and conferences, but also in the regional and national media. strong contradictions sparked when representatives of the city administration, trying to create the appearance of the involvement of interested parties after the fact, turned to the help of mock-up social media accounts and loyal civil servants to control the situation, as well as using other forms of soft power to undermine the protest movement (smoleva, 2020). it is worth noting that the situation was unfolding against the backdrop of another powerful and popular national priority project on the formirovanie komfortnoi gorodskoi sredy [formation of the сomfortable urban environment] (ministry of urban development of the moscow region, 2021), actively implemented throughout the country, promoting the values of democratic and participatory planning and involving the citizens in the process of urban redevelopment, so that the share of the active population was at least 30%. despite this, the recent turn towards participatory urban planning in russia is gaining traction, not without help of being included in the measures of governor’s productivity, since many are starting to realize that “the environment works better if the people who depend on its change are actively involved in its creation and management, rather than perceived as passive consumers” (sanoff, 2000, p. 306). the case of vologda is paradoxical in its own nature, where due to the presence of mature and historically developed bottomup activist communities, any forms of participatory planning, in the eyes of the local government, looks like a marginal protest movement (smoleva, 2020). systemic underdevelopment vs basic urban maintenance the project-oriented management of national initiatives in the regions allowed for anchoring the main priorities of strategic development of the russian federation through a system of singular and target-oriented programs, but also resulted in straightening of the vertical logics of power. on the one hand, it reinforced already established relations between the federal authorities, regional and municipal actors, incentivising their work with symbolic resources and measures of productivity derived from the business community, thus creating a situation of constant reappointments and political precariousness (sel’tser, 2014). while on the other, it engineered and reinforced a strict system of rules oriented on an end product, unable to adapt to regional challenges throughout the long process of planning (glaz’yev, 2007; panikarova, 2007). this leaves regions in a situation of uncertainty—delivery of the final project “as is” primarily affects regional political stability and strengthens future prospects to secure more funding for other initiatives, disincentivizing any motivation or interest in the long-term development trajectories. the case of the vologda river embankment appeared at the crossroads of this situation. drawing from a number of federal programs to patch up a piecemeal solution to the problem of neglected river banks, which resulted from the erosion of the municipal self-governance systems in the first place, the city found itself in a messy situation. vologda, here, is not a unique case but rather a norm. recently, the cities of ufa, penza, and ioshkar-ola also faced a similar situation during the reconstruction of the respective river embankments, while https://changing-sp.com/ 446 vera smirnova, ekaterina adrianova the city of velikii ustiug became a precedent in itself after covering a four kilometer stretch of the historical sukhona river, carrying the wealth of cultural heritage on its banks, with perforated concrete panels (kruglikov, 2019). first of all, the misalignment of the activities of specialized agencies that form and oversee federal programs and the lack of vertical and horizontal interaction between the federal programs themselves, and, more so, between the federal and regional initiatives, is one such caveat. a vast array of specific initiatives that target specific issues have not provided for the co-positioning of goals and objectives, often leading to the duplication of program activities and confusion in accountability and oversight (batievskaia, 2007). moreover, federal initiatives are deliberately poorly coordinated with regional programs of socio-economic development, they do not take into account the specifics and priorities of the formation of the regional economy, based on the advantages of a particular region, hence resulting in the disagreements between the program host agencies and regional actors (panikarova, 2007). the first iterations of the federal programs in the early 2000’s particularly resembled a “grouping of ordinary, routine budgetary measures masterfully arranged with the help of administrative resources” instead of a programmatic approach where federal and regional initiatives would become parts of the whole (glaz’yev, 2007, p. 32; our translation—v. s., & e. a.). though much improvement has been made since national projects’ iteration in 2018, they are still to integrate into a unified system synched with local networks of decision-making. instigated and promoted as a holistic approach, federal projects address piecemeal issues compelling regional and municipal actors to tap into multiple federal schemes in order to implement more comprehensive plans and complete a full spectrum of projects. secondly, federal priority programs are unidirectional, that is, the funding is distributed from above, without particular checks and balances related to the compliance of the project with the goals and the criteria of the programs. moreover, mechanisms for reversal and adaptation of the project to changing local conditions are also lacking (panikarova, 2007). changing the terms of the contract during its execution is allowed only in exceptional cases, but the exceptions given in the law are not uncommon. the range of possible changes falls under a narrow margin of error, as the article 95 of the federal law no. 44 o kontraktnoi sisteme v sfere zakupok tovarov, rabot, uslug dlia obespecheniia gosudarstvennykh i munitsipal’nykh nuzhd [on the contract system in the field of procurement of goods, works and services for state and municipal needs]states that the project can be modified only if the contract price is reduced without changing the contracted scope of work, or if the contracted scope of work is increased or decreased by no more than 10% (federal law no. 44-fz, 2013). at the same time, the authorities do not want to take too much risk, especially when the money is received and withdrawn from the specialized account of the central bank. the letter received by the vologda activists from the federal agency for water resources, in which it was reported that at that time no requests for project adjustment were made by the regional government, is a clear confirmation. as a result, regions have no interest and motivation to redo and revise project objectives and solutions “as they go” since this would question earlier approved decision, which changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 433–454 447 can lead to political consequences and possibly criminal trials. these and other rules are laid out in the federal law no. 44 o kontraktnoi sisteme v sfere zakupok tovarov, rabot, uslug dlia obespecheniia gosudarstvennykh i munitsipal’nykh nuzhd [on the contract system in the field of procurement of goods, works and services for state and municipal needs], which regulates the process of the execution of state contracts, from tendering procedures, selection of contractor, to control over the implementation and acceptance of works. the law is intended to regulate relations aimed at preventing corruption and other abuses, but in fact it often ensures the maintenance of monopoly within different types of public procurement (maraev, 2020). despite the fact that some of the indicators of the procurement efficiency written into the law are the final contract price and the transparency of the bidding process, there are still ways to circumvent them through the collusion between the customer and the contractor and participation of their shell companies in the auction (nevzorov, 2014). lastly, the search for federal funds for the regions becomes an end in itself, since the very algorithm of such a search does not imply a solution to real problems. with drying out of local budgets and an unprecedented lack of local revenues, municipalities enter federal programs to fulfill basic obligations to their constituents. since federal programs are initiated from above, the regions, in the hope of obtaining funding from the federal budget, pull their problems to those already identified at the federal level. this leads to various mishaps. or, as an example of vologda shows through a different case, entering competitive national priority project of the formation of the comfortable urban environment to merely pave the parking lot in the urban courtyards, instead of the comprehensive improvement of urban life in public space as the program implies, becomes a norm (varlamov, 2019). discussion: prospects for the peripheries? up to this point, the vologda embankment project has not been completed and, as a result, the contractor and the department of city services “amicably” terminated the contract almost two years from the date on which it was supposed to be closed. meanwhile, the regional department of construction has filed a lawsuit over an “unauthorized” departure from the planning documentation and, three court hearings resulted in three orders to the contractor to correct the violations at their own expense. as the civil protest didn’t settle down, the authorities came up with a new “calming maneuver” and entered another national priority project of the formation of the comfortable urban environment in order to “beautify” the concrete river banks. as a result, a new institution, the urban environment lab, was created at the city level to seemingly serve as a connecting channel between the regional needs and the federal programs and to undertake new projects for the renovation of urban space initiated by the city administration. analogous urban laboratories sprang up around the country and became one example of the mass influence of the capital on regional policy-making. borrowed from moscow through the broad educational programs for architects and public officials, specialists from all over the country learn and practice capital’s developmental agenda, initiating cross-regional competition over https://changing-sp.com/ 448 vera smirnova, ekaterina adrianova federal resources (zupan et al., 2021). the issue of the embankment renovation has disappeared from most discussions to date, as the established urban institution has calmed down the descent. although as became known now, it was possible to make changes in the design and planning documentation, and hence improve the original river embankment with more sensitive methods. the city authorities deliberately delayed negotiations through ordinances by the regional government until the moment when making changes could have had consequences with criminal liability for those responsible. learning from a narrow, although emblematic case of the vologda embankment renovation would allow us to tap into the whole complexity of the center-periphery relations in the field of resource provisioning in russia today. first of all, the vertical centralization of power, often seen in russia as a stable mechanism for effective and efficient delivery of centralized control, obstructs the development of the institutions of self-management by the curtailing the autonomy of local government in exchange for the loyalty of governors and regional elites (nechaev, 2005). this leads to an unsustainable situation where servicing and appeasing the center becomes an end in itself, as well as a method for attracting minimal resources for basic urban maintenance. secondly, it becomes questionable whether allocating certain priorities at the federal level, to which the regions have to fit and adapt, solves the problem of equalizing regional inequalities and delivering quality of the environment according to the needs of each place (glaz’yev, 2007; panikarova, 2007). vologda became a prisoner of circumstances, trapped between the systemic degrading of local institutions for urban maintenance and hence the necessity to enter federal programs, between the ability to acquire federal help and yet the inability to apply it for more progressive ends. this dilemma has been characteristic of russia’s center-periphery disparities in a long post-soviet period, but we see it potentially informing other theorizations of urban development in the 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(2021). governing through stolichnaya praktika: housing renovation from moscow to the regions. geoforum, 120, 155–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.01.008 https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139680479 https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139680479 https://strelkamag.com/ru/news/dvizhenie-chtoby-sozdat-novyi-proekt-naberezhnoi https://strelkamag.com/ru/news/dvizhenie-chtoby-sozdat-novyi-proekt-naberezhnoi https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137336910_4 https://www.ponarseurasia.org/wp-content/uploads/attachments/zubarevich_counterpoint11.pdf https://www.ponarseurasia.org/wp-content/uploads/attachments/zubarevich_counterpoint11.pdf https://doi.org/10.17323/usp4320197-22 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.01.008 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.1.003 article beyond the freakonomics of religious liberty ivan strenski university of california, riverside, usa abstract the paper critiques the prevailing liberal market economy models of religious liberty and religious encounter. in place of market models, this paper argues that values inscribed in gift exchange, hospitality, guest/host relations, in many cases, and to varying degrees, provide better alternative values to govern religious interaction than those of the market model. instead of conceiving religion as commodity for “sale” – adoption, conversion – and instead of conceiving missionaries as salespeople for their religions, i propose that the encounter of religions could be better conceived in terms of guest/host, gift giver/gift receiver relations. “freakonomics”, therefore, – whether in free market or monopoly form – does not, therefore, write the last page in the story of religious liberty. keywords armenia, freakonomics, guest/host, holy armenian apostolic church, liberty, market values, missionaries, religion. “religious liberty” as commodity in may of 2013, i was invited to lecture in armenia on religious liberty. instead of teaching, i was “taken to school” about how west and east clashed over religious liberty. for western governmental, religious and humanitarian groups, the values governing religious liberty or freedom were analogous to the values governing economic markets. the religious “marketplace” should be free and open to all competitors. religious people should be free to make a “rational choice” of a religion. they should not be regulated in received 15 january 2017 © 2017 ivan strenski accepted 22 february 2017 strenski@ucr.edu published online 15 april 2017 ivan strenski28 making their fundamental religious decisions. individual conscience should be their guide. for the east – the holy armenia apostolic church (haac, hereafter), economic values likewise governed the way it should be with religion. in their case, however, the religious “marketplace” should be tightly regulated, indeed made subject to their monopoly. what mattered most were the historic collective values of national identity and history. such values put the haac firmly in control of religious transactions in the religious marketplace in armenia. i want first of all to point out that both west and east assume a market model of religion. they differ only as to the degree of freedom in that market. both, in effect, would agree that the dominant values of the religious realm conform to what steven d. levitt and stephen j. dubner have written in their book, freakonomics. (levitt & dubner 2009). the discourse on international religious liberty is, thus, thought to play (and ought to play) by levitt and dubner’s “hidden” rules of economic exchange. but, should it? i shall argue that the standard “freakonomic” model may encounter intractable obstacles to successful application. the market model need not govern religious encounter and exchange any more than it needs to encompass all our other kinds of exchange. all the more applies with equal force to monopolists, like the haac. the values inherent in what we call “the economy,” the market, whether free or regulated, is a relatively late, though doubtless often overwhelming. religious folk should, for instance, choose the “best” religion – one that rationally maximized their religious “profit,” such as their opportunity for salvation. but, if we follow karl polanyi’s powerful sweeping arguments in his the great transformation, then we would recognize that profitmaximizing rationality was not always the dominant value in systems of human exchange. (polanyi 1944) without reciting polanyi’s entire arguments, we can glean from him the notion of the historicity of our values about exchange. while it is natural for us, who are dominated by the values of economic society, to regard our world with the market foremost in mind, other peoples, past and present, need not do so as well, or at least in as thoroughgoing a fashion as we do. with polanyi in mind, i want to argue, instead, that it might be better to think about religious liberty on models embodying other kinds changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 29 of values than those dominating our thinking as citizens of economic society. i suggest that the values inscribed in gift exchange, of hospitality – of guest/host, not economic exchange – provide alternative values governing religious interaction to those of the market model. “freakonomics” – whether in free market or monopoly form – does not write the last page in the story of religious liberty. the market values of the venice commission report in armenia to set my thesis in a concrete context, i would point out how prominent official agencies in the west, such as the european union’s venice commission conceive the engagement of religions in the public square. for them, not surprisingly, a dominant liberal, rational choice – indeed, “freakonomic” – model rules. market values inform official thinking about how religions should get on in a liberal democratic nation-state. religions thus “sell” their wares (proselytize), “buy into” or “buy out” of a condition of membership (are converted or depart), “win over customers” (gain converts), satisfy their “consumers” (believers, adherents), and so on. in its report of 14-15 october 2011, the venice commission concluded its review of proposed revisions to the armenian constitution and the role of the haac. these revisions granted to the haac a “list of exclusive missions” (in freakonomic terms, “franchises”) such as ‘freely preaching and disseminating its religion’; ‘building new churches’; contributing to the spiritual education of the armenian people” and so on. critically, in paragraph 96, the venice commission report noted, “that other religious associations will not be allowed to engage in such activities” (in freakonomic terms, establish a cartel or monopoly). in effect, the haac sought to monopolize the field of religious choice in armenia, to “corner the market,” so to speak. “such a restriction,” the report goes on, “would violate international standards on freedom of religion or belief and on the prohibition of non-discrimination” (flanagan, et al. 2011)1 – because it violated the value of the autonomy of the “market.” 1 much the same principles have been enunciated in the us congress’ “international religious freedom act of 1998” (h. r. 2431), which, in turn, cites a list of international accords on religious freedom as its precedents – among them, prominently the european convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. ivan strenski30 for convenience sake, i shall call this a “market” model, because major western institutions, like the eu or the us government, like to say, or think, that religions are, or ought to be, “free,” in, at least, an analogous sense to that in which liberal economists imagine the market for goods and services is, or should be, “free.” but, as we may be learning, religious institutions, like all the institutions of civil society, are neither absolutely, autonomous, free or sovereign – even though they try mightily so to be. religious institutions depend as much upon political and economic institutions as another. few churches get built, and thus does the liberty to build them get exercised, as well, across aleppo-like war-torn landscapes. even under the normal conditions of life in a nation-state, as long as the state maintains its designated hold on the monopoly of the use of force in a society, it can always coerce any institution to submit to state influence, if not control. recent radical movements for will-o’-the-wisp church sovereignty in the united states seem to have taken this to heart, in dramatic ways. when liberty baptist university opened an on-campus shooting range, it attracted national media attention (shapiro 2016). so, as well, did the increased activity of an influential roman catholic group “churchmilitant” (http://www. churchmilitant.com/). but, at the moment, the eurasian state maintains “sovereignty,” not the churches. but even here, as far as the state is concerned, if one means by ”state,” the “nation-state,” we might want to reserve final judgment about the real extent of the sovereignty of today’s nation-states until we can better calculate how far globalized interdependence and multi-national corporations compromise their “freedom” or “sovereignty.” until quite recently, armenia, with its ancient established church, the holy apostolic armenian church, (haac) was facing the demands of the eu venice commission’s reforms of its public policy and practice in the area of “religious liberty,” so called. things changed in early september 2013, however, when further negotiations for full association of armenia with the eu were suspended, in favor of far weaker plans for relations. at that point, the armenian government may have, perhaps, realized just what the costs of actual association with the eu would be, as spelt out by the venice commission, especially in changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 31 light of what could be seen as geopolitically more natural association with russia’s eurasec customs union. after all, large numbers of otherwise unor under-employed armenians worked in russia. the euras ec customs union made no demands similar to those required by the venice commission’s rigorous “religious liberty” requirements. but, although the particular drama of armenia’s approach to the eu may be suspended, the lessons learned in the process of negotiation still apply. to wit, although pluralistic tolerance and “religious liberty” were affirmed in the constitution of the republic of armenia, the venice commission’s report found their official adherence to the letter and spirit of the constitution at odds with its noble aspirations. the commission claimed that minority churches suffered a range of restrictions, and sometimes even outright harassment. these range from the non-haac churches publically being declared “cults” to limitations being placed upon their ability to proselytize, mobilize, or even advertise their existence. some of the minority churches even complained of incidents threatening their physical well-being. against this background of intimidation and hostility, the government seemed to favor the haac in ways that exceeded its undisputed and well-earned recognition in the formation and preservation of armenian national identity (flanagan, et al. 2011). without my fully being aware of it at the time, armenia was shaping up as a remarkable case where the battle lines had been drawn – as perplexing as this may sound – between the opposed forces of religious freedom against those of freedom of religion. but, there was more. it also highlighted certain confusing and contrary things about the international religious liberty agenda’s campaign for “religious liberty,” (whatever that means?) itself. nowhere more thoroughly does the council of europe reveal what values animate it than the venice commission report. this document, and indeed the policies of the council of europe as a whole, regarding religious liberty, make liberal values of free choice primary. these values permeate, and are officially inscribed into, western society in all, if not most, of its domains – including everything from free choice of beliefs, ideas and values to those of association and companionship, as well as to the market place for goods and services. to cite but one ivan strenski32 of many examples that might be mentions, the venice commission report states in paragraph 93, while reiterating the judgments of earlier documents, that “individuals and groups should be free to practice their religion without registration if they so desire – regardless of how small or large their group may be”(flanagan, et al. 2011). the venice commission even singles out the cardinal value of being free to “proselytize” – in effect, to publicize, in effect, offer for sale, adopt or acquire – particular religious association.2 in paragraph 44, the report states that the government must take into account that any limitation on proselytism or the manifestation of religion, which is a fundamental right, requires careful assessment. there is a thin line between the right to manifest one’s religion and change one’s beliefs and the right to religious expression, the right to impart and receive even offensive ideas that shock and disturb – yet these are the demands of pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there is no “democratic society.” another way to look at this assertion of liberal values in regards to religion is to see them freakonomically – as the same as the values of the free market. the venice commission thus imagines a world shaped by the values of the market, free and rational choice, a venue in which made up of willing buyers and willing sellers. paragraph 56 accordingly states that “most democratic legal systems do not regulate proselytism per se… special laws targeting religious persuasion are likely to lead to discrimination and may result in unjust curtailment of legitimate manifestations of religion…” the council of europe has, in effect, declared – or at the very least assumes – a world in which there ideally exists what is, in effect, an open, free “market” in religious beliefs. in such a construction of the values governing religious social reality, they, likewise, assume neutrality among religious beliefs. no religion deserves being privileged save by its ability to attract adherents. and, not even those religions, such as the national churches of the east or the established churches of the west, that may actually be privileged (monopolies) should feel entitled to their privileges. again, the values 2 see especially paragraphs 42–59. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 33 of there being willing buyers and willing sellers, so to speak, should prevail, not the controlled “market” preferred by the national churches of the east. in western liberal eyes, to revert again to an economic metaphor, no one is permitted to “have their thumbs on the scale,” so to speak, to gain or deserve an advantage over any other buyer or seller. in the eyes of the venice commission, all religions ought to expect to compete equally and “fairly” (sic) for adherents. ideally, the market will not favor any participant, and thus each enters the market as an equal. in the same way candidates for office appeal for votes or, say, automobile, appliance, dry-cleaning, baguette, or computer sales-folk appeal for potential buyers of their goods and services, so also do the religions compete for “consumers.” the religions offer their potential “consumers” a commodity – here, religious belief – and the religious marketplace decides how to value it. the venice commission thus affirms values common to those of the liberal economic market as those that will govern interaction among religions. not so, as we will see, in the monopoly-minded east. when a free market of religions is not really free it is not hard to understand why the haac seems determined to resist the venice commission’s open market model of religious relations. any free market of religions would presume an equally endowed array of willing sellers and willing buyers. but, the haac does not believe present-day armenia fits the model of being an equal player. it has been greatly disadvantaged by the vicissitudes of modern history. markets need those willing sellers and willing buyers, of which i have already spoken. even if it did want to compete in a free market, seventy years of systematic soviet efforts to destroy the haac, and all remnants of religion in armenia have depleted the apostolic church’s resources of a mature clergy and healthy institutional basis. the apostolic church feels that it deserves some consideration for preserving both armenian nationality and local christianity through the soviet period of active oppression of religion. that consideration may well be a permanent monopoly of the religious marketplace for the haac. witness, perhaps to the insensitivity of the arrogant west in appreciating the haac’s ivan strenski34 weakened condition, she is being asked to compete in a “market” rigged against her – a market that is not really “free.” instead of equally endowed willing buyers and willing sellers, the haac faces well-funded and energized religious competitors from abroad. on the side of the new protestant missionizing churches, the view differs considerably. these small, sometime struggling communities, such as the jehovah witnesses, for instance, see themselves disadvantaged in comparison to the larger and historically more deeply rooted haac. to them, it represents a stifling, traditionalist monopoly religion that wants to maintain its hegemony, and restrict the religious choices of armenians. the apostolic church thereby seeks to deny armenians their religious freedom, their inalienable human right to religious liberty, and thus to free exercise of their religions. it is the past, and they represent the future. from documents like the usa’s international rfra or the eu’s venice commission report, the west is seen as agreeing with the new missionizing churches. one example that illustrates what sparked such anxiety for the haac in the post-soviet world was the power of such outside groups like the church of the latter-day saints (lds, hereafter). notable here were the innocent-seeming, indeed generous, philanthropic activities of jon huntsman, sr., father of the gop presidential candidate, jon huntsman, jr. after the 1988 earthquake in northern armenia, he capped a 25-year effort of philanthropy in armenia by funding massive rebuilding projects, founding schools and health care facilities, providing for scholarships for armenian students to study at utah state university, and so on. up against one of the world’s richest persons, and a conspicuous adherent to the lds, it is small wonder that the relatively threadbare haac felt outclassed! reasonable or not, the apostolic church sees itself and its position in armenia threatened by well-meaning, international forces.3 the haac sees the power of a 3 we need not slight the genuine good huntsman’s resources have done for armenia. nor, do we need to slip into an easy cynicism about the ulterior religious motives in huntsman’s gifts. of course, huntsman’s gift is not “free.” as a long-time student of marcel mauss, i accept that obligation rules the world of gift giving. all gifts are given under obligation – i must give gifts are also accepted under obligation – i must accept the gift. and, what is more, they are repaid with a force of obligation – i must repay the gift. but, facing the reality changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 35 globalized network of religions, mostly based in the us, and funded by american congregations, such as the lds, as threats to the haac’s historical monopoly in the religious world of armenian homeland. and, make no mistake, the term “monopoly” fits the armenian situation well, even as the haac’s perfection of that sort of regime has never been complete and has lately been slipping. learning from armenia about religious liberty, or lack of it? assuming liberal or market values when it comes to religion might seem like an obvious and unremarkable place to begin thinking about the engagement of religions in the public square. but, for liberal advocates of religious liberty, armenia and other nations with state churches, deal out unexpected lessons. here, polarization rules. combatants on either side are as entrenched as first world war armies facing each other across the front lines. as far as my visit to armenia went, doors had been slammed shut even before i had tried to walk in. unlike the world of a liberal market of religions, presumed by the venice commission (and in theory, the armenian constitution, at least as the eu wished it to become), armenia represents an entirely different, and hostile territory. it is one thing to think about such matters, but really another one to live through them. what was remarkable was the pre-emptive nature of the collision with those who saw me an opponent from my very first day there. the audiences i was scheduled to address showed promise – students at a teachers’ college or the american university of armenia, seminarians of the haac, representatives of local ngos and leaders from local protestant communities, such as evangelicals, and us affiliated protestant missionary congregations, such as the lds – even a national tv audience in prime time. but, no matter how varied these venues, the same entrenched positions stifled serious questioning of any kind from the get-go. these considerations might then be thought a tad theoretical, since the very structure of opposition worked to make of gift giving as interested doesn’t condemn us to cynicism. it only forces us to face reality of living in a world of relationships. and, that reality – even huntsman – can be good, however, motivated, or however not “optimal” from a given point of view. ivan strenski36 it even impossible to explore, much less entertain, value options, much less to promote a certain values. besides the “schooling” armenia’s polarized religious situation gave me, recent criticisms of the international religious liberty agenda by the likes of elizabeth shakman hurd have also given many of us reason to rethink the entire issue (hurd 2008; hurd 2014). is it always in the best interests of people to assert their right to religious liberty? are other interests, such as maintaining the social peace of a convivium with other peoples of different religions, more desirable? would the assertion by one religious group of their religious liberty only provoke endless destructive conflict, and so on? would not human welfare, hurd, in effect suggests, be better served by letting thing be – even if this meant inequality, and even monopolies on the religious scene? armenia provides us with a concrete context in which to consider these and other criticisms of the international religious freedom agenda. on the one side, how could one not respect the heroic situation of the haac, just emerging from stalinist oppression – a fact to which the venice commission report gave scant recognition (paragraph 43). (and, what form would that take, short of complying with the will of the haac in all things religious in armenia?) and, given the massive majority of those who identified with the haac in the country, wasn’t it a bit artificial, in effect, to consider it just one of another set of competing religions, all equal in the sight of god and the global market of religions? (but, how could religious liberty for the missionaries be assured short of that?) on the other side, the whole range of (mostly) protestant evangelicals and the lds, with their ample funding from abroad, their powerful mass media, their competitive insurgent’s energy, were not to be denied. (but, whose country were they seeing operate?) the protestant missionaries also brought a modern sense openness coupled with a winning desire to do good for armenia. how and why should this be resisted? but, maybe, these dilemmas, naturally provoked by the market model, signaled the limit to that model’s utility? what is more, this conclusion would be not only apply to armenia, but to all the nations of the former ussr, including greece and turkey – wherever either, changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 37 officially or not, a national religion was in place. in some quarters, the idea of markets in religions may seem uncontroversial, even morally imperative. but, being “on the ground” in armenia confronts one with the fact of the actual feasibility of the market model. hegemony, monopoly, or whatever one wants to call them, are real. the armenian market in religions seemed hopelessly fixed from every angle, certainly from the viewpoint of the haac and its local hegemony. but, also it was fixed, or at least unbalanced, from the perspective of the missionary religions, with the material advantages they brought to the market. while it may be easier to understand the advantages accruing to missionary competitiveness, the ways the haac’s local position gave it market power are far less obvious. an unwelcome opportunity to discover the subtleties of market manipulation by the haac came with visit to the teachers’ college at gyumri. i share it at this point to flesh out the idea of how markets can be manipulated, here, worse than that, how markets can be undermined even before they have had a chance to set up shop. the point is, of course, not to let a potential competitor set up shop at all. that is, in effect, what happened at the state teacher’s college in gyumri. subverting the marketplace of ideas about religious liberty at the gyumri anyone who wishes to understand the myriad ways states repress religions, and thus restrict religious liberty should consult ani sarkissian’s, the varieties of religious repression (sarkissian 2016). she gives us the first relentlessly thorough account of the devices, policies, techniques, strategies and such used by modern nationstates to manipulate religion within their borders. in fact, sarkissian details so many, that it would be impossible to begin doing her itemization justice. here, nevertheless are some examples. states may begin by preventing individuals from participating in religious services, or restricting certain groups from participating in religious services, then move on to restricting the location of, or architecture of, places of worship. not enough, limiting the hours that religious gathering places may be open to the public helps repressive policies, as does coercing conversion, restricting proselytizing directly, or the ivan strenski38 formation of religious communities through discriminatory registration or monitoring requirements. then, there is always the control over clerical appointments, restricting religious speech, banning religious political parties, and so on and so on (sarkissian 2016:27ff). less noticed by sarkissian, however, are how attempts to defeat, repress, subvert, or undermine a free market of ideas aid the efforts to undermine a free market in religious liberty. in gyumri, i discovered that it did so by blocking the application of the methods of modern religious studies – by preventing religion itself from becoming an object of academic or scientific study. at its most elementary, these efforts are aimed at stifling any talk about religion in the public square that purports to be neutral, or disinterested with respect to the doctrinal or other positions under discussion. in effect, this attack upon open discourse is part and parcel of the way repressive states seek to control civil society, in all its diversity. by “neutral,” i do not mean some absolute objectivity, disinterestedness, or neutrality, with respect to any and all values, but only a “relative” neutrality – one with respect to dogmatic positions in the contested religious field of inquiry. in a field represented by catholics and protestants, an investigator committed to buddhist, confucian, hindu, jewish or muslim values might be deemed interested with respect to those values. however, they could claim such prima facie “relative neutrality” with respect to the protestants and catholics contestants. but, in the case i want to illuminate, agents of market manipulation, here, friendly to the haac, sought to defeat, undermine, subvert, stifle, and so on, neutral inquiry. they sought to discredit the values of open and disinterested inquiry – here, involving the scientific study of, religion, itself. i have discovered that such a strategy of the repression of inquiry may involve at least three elements. i would be surprised if my list of three broad kinds of techniques of undermining open, disinterested discussion is exhaustive, so readers may want to contribute their own to those i have spelt out here. the occasion in question was a talk held before a group of about 40 youthful, future teachers at the gyumri teachers’ college. i prepared for the seminar, ready with a brief, 15-minute powerpoint presentation – changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 39 really, no more than “fish food” to encourage discussion about religious liberty. i really did not offer my own thinking about how to solve the various conundrums connected to this subject – frankly, because i had no solution to these thorny problems! instead, i would have been pleased just to listen to and learn about the concerns and opinions of what looked to be a keen group of about 40 young students. as people started taking their seats, i noticed a group of older men, curiously situating themselves, as if by assignment, about the room. when question time began, i soon learned why. before a single student could speak, however, instead of some light-hearted give and take, those strategically seated older men began peppering me with questions, so much so that they, in effect, monopolized questioning. in gyumri, they not only turned up in force, arrayed strategically around the room, but they echoed and reinforced each other. who were they? i thought, perhaps, they were teachers, or mature students, returning for further credentialing. i never really learned who they were, but they succeeded in their purpose. i thought nothing of it at the time, but in retrospect, now i realize what had happened. in effect, i got caught in a carefully concocted ambush conducted that attempted to undermine discussion with provocations, attempts to bait or distract me as a primary discussant, by tempting me to pursue tangential issues. it was obvious that my tormenters were practiced in the art of undermining open discourse by a combination of monopolizing discussion or diverting it. second, silencing discussion. the antics of these older men succeeded in effectively silencing other members of the assembly from effectively speaking. students seemed to recognize them for what they were, and feared them. their mere presence effectively intimidated the others in the assembly into silence. in gyumri, the students took note. they knew who they were, even though i did not. they had seen this movie before, and kept their heads down. third, entrapment. finally, and subtlest of all, these agents of repression might try to trap a speaker into veering from neutrality. they might do this by challenging a speaker to declare their “where they stand,” typically by challenging the candor of a speaker for withholding their own commitments. but, were one to surrender and accept being ivan strenski40 the bearer of a “message,” a speaker would lose their credentials as an honest broker, as neutral, in a given discussion. in armenia, for instance, i truly wanted to orient myself to the local situation by scrupulously seeking to listen to all sides in the dispute over religious liberty. at one point, apparently exasperated by my passive stance, i was asked by one of the agents of repression, “but what is your message?” i was briefly stunned, since delivery a message was really far from my mind. if i had a hidden agenda, which i ironically did not have, it would have been that i had no agenda, no message! but, despite lacking a message, when asked such a question, i do admit having felt tempted to retort with a reply as requested. yet, had i done so, rather than stammer, as i did, something about not having a message, i would have trapped myself into being seen as just another dogmatist, just another messenger. i would have been tricked into defeating my own purposes of seeking open, disinterested, neutral discussion. in armenia, agents of repression were ready with an ample armory of weapons ready to defeat serious engagement in questions about religious liberty by first undercutting the possibility of discussing religion at all in neutral, or non-dogmatic, ways. i was truly thus caught in a verbal “ambush.” but, though i may have been left for dead, i was far from it. if not markets, what? in gyumri, then, i experienced, first-hand, how a marketplace of religious can be frustrated from forming at all. a symptom of armenia’s religious polarization, it, nonetheless, did offer food for thought. one way i had thought to tease out some views was in fact, objectively and frankly, to present an alternative model to the religious liberty market model. for starters, one might try to recognize the concerns of the haac, and argue that we should query the idea of a truly free-for-all, open market, where religions duked it out against one another. this was nothing but an attempt to provoke a discussion of how we could we better conceive the relationship between the haac and both the new protestant missionary churches? the same goes as well for the local, resident protestant (also some roman catholic and orthodox) churches of relative longstanding? changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 41 what model would enshrine the values that would best prescribe how these communities should look on each other? first, just to shake up things a bit, a little thought adventure. when situations seem so dire, we tend to focus more and more on the details of our immediate slice of history, here, in armenia in the 21st century. but, why not reset our perspective first and assume a grander purview? imagine a vantage point 50,000 feet above armenia and 50,00 years into the past. from there, armenia, much like israel/palestine, sits squarely on a land bridge between larger continental masses. human migrations out of africa had traipsed across this “armenia” for tens of thousands of years. contrary to the way, armenians may feel in fortress armenia, the space occupied by today’s armenia has always swarmed with peoples on the move. understandably, both the trauma of the genocide and its newly acquired independence has made armenians more conscious of their vulnerability, finitude and isolation. but, especially when we add the stunning reality of the armenian diaspora to my imaginative reflection on armenia’s place in the prehistoric movement of peoples, the present fixation upon the present-day republic of armenia might begin to seem disproportionate. if the ancient history of armenia challenges beliefs about armenian uniqueness and insulation from the flows of history, what does it mean to armenian self-consciousness that three times the number of armenians live in the diaspora than in the republic – 10 million there, and only 3.5 million in armenia, proper. let me suggest that these historic and demographic facts might offer reasons to reconsider the stalemate endgame that the market vs. monopoly model of religious relationship in armenia has produced? i find it hard to believe that the only way to think about religions in relation is either as competing commodities in an ideal-type market or as alienated subjects of a religious monopoly. this is not to say that another model, such as i shall now suggest, will be flawless, or indeed that any model for thinking about this matter will be. but, what harm can come from entertaining different ways of conceiving situation – especially those that seem at loggerheads? ivan strenski42 the values of being good hosts and guests accordingly, to challenge the ubiquitous model of market vs. monopoly values, one might consider another possible alternative model of values regulating religious interaction – the values of being good hosts/guests. in particular, as i shall now elaborate, one might regard the non-haac churches seeking access to armenia as potential “guests.” if such a substitution sounds softheaded or sentimental, or both, i would strongly object. indeed, the guest/host model has particularly apt application to armenia. consider the particularity of armenia’s wellknown and often celebrated diaspora communities. armenians have been welcome “guests” the whole world over, however, familiar, even if painfully so, this may be. were i an armenian, i would be distinctly proud that armenian “guests” (i.e., migrants) have a history of being so welcomed in so many different parts of the world. (i, of course, exclude the genocide.) today armenians are, in effect, one of the world’s more prominent and successfully integrated “guest” communities. indeed, the vitality, growth, deployment and success of the international armenian migrant diaspora ought to be recognized as a great success story of international social integration. but, the very success of the diaspora, the very warmth of the welcome accorded armenians in diaspora, puts armenia in debt to the world. is not something owed in return? thus, far from being soft and sentimental, proposing this guest/ host model recognizes the reciprocal debt armenia has incurred to be a host nation itself. in armenia, complaints of suppression by protestant missionary groups have, in effect, made religious liberty an issue in armenia. they feel aggrieved by feeling frozen out of the armenian marketplace of religions by the monopoly power of the haac. they claim that the haac or its agents have sought to restrict their ability to “sell” their version of religion in the armenian marketplace. put in the alternative mode that i am proposing, why would not we say as well that the haac does not wish to “host” the protestant missionaries, it does not want to extend to them the honor of being “guests” in armenia. (i need to say immediately, however, that several of the non-haac churches changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 43 are well-established in armenia, and not “new” in the sense that the post-1989 mission churches are, and hence do not exactly qualify a “guests.” the armenian evangelical church, for example, dates from 1846 in armenia. small numbers of roman catholics and russian orthodox, but notably evangelicals (1%) balance to over 92% who claim allegiance to the aac) might, then, this alternative perspective of religious contact as conforming more to the host/guest model than the liberal market model, at least, make us stop and think, even if we rushed back to our old positions thereafter? i have no solution for this puzzle, but cannot help but perhaps elaborating it according to the guest/host model may induce some fresh thinking. i have already said why it might be argued that armenians find themselves in an awkward position with respect to others, wishing to come to armenia, since their own kind have been so welcomed abroad. how would one counter the argument that the very existence of such a large diaspora – about 4 times the population of armenia proper – may place a moral burden upon armenians to be good “hosts” of these new stranger religions? next, of course, a lack of hospitality towards the new missionary groups could be said to offend longstanding cultural norms. a glance at armenia’s location on the caucasian land bridge between the middle east and northeastern europe and central asia, and its 50,000 year history as a conduit for migrant human populations for bespeak a people who have learned how to engage the stranger. despite its present-day look of isolation, armenia has always been a crossroads of world’s populations. does any of this suggest new policies towards the new “visitors”? up to this point, i have been showing how the values expressed in the guest/host model of relations suggest other modes of behavior that the haac “hosts” might have otherwise not considered. but thinking about the relation of say, the new missionaries and the haac, cuts both ways. replacing the market model with the host/guest model has value implications the new protestant missionaries. a “guest” is not the same as a “consumer” or “salesperson.” if the protestant missionaries think of themselves more as guests than as salespeople do, i believe they would have to entertain different sorts of values in regulating their ivan strenski44 behavior. a “guest” in armenia, say, should conceive of themselves, first, as having been given the gift of, at least, provisional acceptance. guests, unlike, salespeople or consumers, are not free of the logic of gift and obligation. the entire point of replacing gift with commodity is precisely to eliminate moral considerations. caveat emptor. as a guest, however, one would be expected to behave as if one were welcomed into the armenian “house,” so to speak. as such, guests are expected to restrain themselves in certain ways, even as they enjoy corresponding privileges. the best silverware is put out for the guest, but correspondingly, the guest is trusted not to run off with the silverware, as it were! or, guests are expected to educate themselves about their hosts, so that they can, again, behave accordingly. for instance, it would seem to be both seemly good manners and decent historical awareness that the new missionary religions in armenia recognize what the haac is and has been. one might, also, frankly admit the oddity of christians seeking to missionize the first officially christian nation! why would not that be a little like a case of “bringing coals to newcastle”? further, putting such encounters into a broader and deeper historical context, we might all be reminded of the ignorant disrespect latin christians have meted out to eastern christians over a very long history, whether in protestant or roman catholic form. for these reasons alone, more systematic acknowledgment, respect and admiration on the part of latin christians for their poorer eastern cousins might be in order. i am not sure what form that should take, or what will, should or could happen once it did. perhaps host/ guest reciprocity could if those foreign, american, say, missionary groups took the lead in receiving armenian immigrants into their new homes in the diaspora? are the foreign christian missionaries being good ‘christians’ at home by offering real hospitality to armenian migrants to the united states? doing so might start a “virtuous cycle” of guest/host reciprocity, perhaps even educating would-be protestant christian missionary churches about the place of haac in the history of christianity? but, until the sometimes-perceived zeal of the new foreign missionaries is tempered by some humility for the historic communities of eastern christianity, the new missionaries risk being changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 45 seen as barbarians who offend all the ancient and sacred rules of hospitality. without the realization of a theology of mutual respect and recognition, both sides will continue to be estranged from each other. that is work for theologians on all sides of this issue. the challenge remains great for those who want to foster open discussions of central values about the optimal relation of religions in post-soviet states, like armenia, with its historic national churches. perhaps, too much is invested in the outcomes of such discussions for principal participants? as a result, really open conversation about key values becomes difficult, whether by nature or by deliberate resistance. i can say this with some authority, because not only my gyumri conference and talk systematically subverted, but also immediately thereafter the haac authorities canceled my much-anticipated meeting with their seminarians. whether this was in anticipation of my merely trotting out the familiar position of the us religious liberty agenda or not, i shall never know. but, if the haac seminary authorities felt every visitor was going to “sing” from the rfra (the religious freedom restoration act), irfa (international religious freedom act) and the venice commission report’s “hymnals,” they could easily have justified the cancelation to themselves. “who are these people to preach to, the haac, about religion in our own country?!” what need armenia for a new batch of christian missionaries, when it was already a nation of christians, indeed an officially christian nation – the first – since 303 ce? but, other visitors might have loved to have had a chance to listen and learn from them about their perspective on the entire religious liberty question. ironically, the authorities often do not realize that even visiting american academics could have deep sympathies for their doubts about the western, neo-liberal, market model of religions proposed for armenia by the eu and the us. for instance, the often-triumphal arrogance of today’s reformed latin christians rehearses the historic disrespect for coptic and orthodox christianity that saba mahmood so well explored recently. (danchin, et al. 2015) such deep-seated or deeply designed suspicions, alas, can successfully prevent reaching some level of mutual recognition and respect. so, leaders of the ivan strenski46 historic eastern churches might want at least to listen to what the next roving academic has to say. some of us academics value openness. we seek to learn from others by listening by virtue of the very vocation we have chosen to pursue. some western academics do respect the historic churches of the east, as much as they feel sympathy for the sometimes struggling, sometimes well-financed missionaries from the west. i have tried to argue here that both sides might better exploit the situation of contact and exchange by seeing each other as hosts and guests, rather than as buyer and sellers of religion. references danchin, p. g. sullivan, w. f., hurd, e. s. & mahmood, s. (eds.). (2015). politics of religious freedom. chicago: university of chicago press. fanagan, f., thoreirsdottir, h. & osce/odihr advisory council on freedom of religion and belief (2011). joint opinion on the draft law on freedoms of conscience and religion and of the laws making amendments and supplements to the criminal code, the administrative offences code and the law on the relations between the republic of armenia and the holy armenian apostolic church of the republic of armenia. in european commission for democracy through law (venice commission). t.v.c.a.t. osce/odhir, ed. pp. 22, vol. cdlad (2011) 028. strasbourg: council of europe. hurd, e. s. (2008). the politics of secularism in international relations. princeton: princeton university press. hurd, e. s. (2014) international “religious freedom” agenda will only ebolden isis. in religion dispatches. los angeles: usc annenburg school of journalism. retrieved from http://religiondispatches.org/ international-religious-freedom-agenda-will-only-embolden-isis/ levitt, s. d., and dubner, s. j. (2009). freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything. new york: wiliam morrow. polanyi, k. (1944). the great transformation. new york city: farrar and rinehart. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 47 sarkissian, a. (2016). the varieties of religious repression. new york: oxford university press. shapiro, t. r. (2016) gun-friendly liberty university to open oncampus shooting range. in the washington post, december 15. retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/gradepoint/wp/2016/12/15/gun-friendly-liberty-university-to-open-oncampus-shooting-range/?utm_term=.ae1914644d9a changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 700–705 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.198 book review a theology of history: in search of a method review of the book by priest m. v. legeyev (2021). bogoslovie istorii kak nauka. metod. [theology of history as a science. method]. sankt-peterburgskaia dukhovnaia akademiia. andrey v. lavrentiev sechenov first moscow state medical university, moscow, russia the monograph theology of history as a science. method (2021) is the result of the meticulous work of priest mikhail legeyev, an associate professor of the department of theology at st. petersburg theological academy. the author is already quite well-known to the russian reader for his writings focusing on the problems of the theology of history (the book under review is the last in the research triptych1) as well as for his publications on patristics and ecclesiology. in the monograph under consideration, m. v. legeyev continues to realize the objective he set in the previous works. namely, his task is “to form a new direction of scientific and theological thought” (p. 7), which, in his opinion, is the theology of history. the book consists of four chapters. the first two chapters are the programmatic basis of the highlighted problems. chapters three and four are rather more supplementary in nature although they are closely related to the subject matter of the monograph, which will be discussed later. chapter 1 “what is theology of history today?” emphasizes the role of the church as “the connecting link between all historical processes” and defines the theology of history itself as a kind of self-reflection of the church. thus, theology of history enters the disciplinary boundaries of ecclesiology, or, in the author’s words, is a “satellite” of ecclesiology (p. 13). it should be immediately noted that m. v. legeyev follows the traditional orthodox understanding of the church, which is based on the patristic heritage, the provisions of the first seven ecumenical councils as well as the later eastern christian tradition. he sees signs of deviation from the foundations of the true tradition in the historical divisions of christianity. at the same time, this study does not offer an explicit opposition 1 in addition to the work under consideration, the following monographs of the author came out: legeyev m. v. (2018); legeyev m. v. (2019). received 8 august 2022 © 2022 andrey v. lavrentiev published online 10 october 2022 lavrentyev.av@yandex.ru https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 700–705 701 between eastern and western ecclesiologies, and the author’s task is obviously not the apologetics for the eastern christian ecclesiasticism against alternative concepts of the church (except the intra-orthodox discussion presented in chapter 3). the author discriminates between the field of the theology of history and historical knowledge with its methodology. according to m. v. legeyev, theology of history belongs to systematic, not historical theology. dissimilar to historical science, theology of history is focused on comprehending the matrix of total, or universal history, and not on studying individual historical processes or even “the entire totality of events” (p. 14). its subject matter is, according to the author, “the pivotal points of history”, which have a transcendent source. in this regard, theology of history uses “globally general concepts” […] it can even discourse on what does not yet exist [...], considering and analyzing the general meanings of historical processes” (p. 17). the author admits that at present there is no developed methodology of the theology of history, but he believes that it should belong to the field of dogmatic theology. i would like to remind the reader that the problem of opposing the historical method to the dogmatic method in academic theology has existed for over a century. the famous german thinker e. troeltsch analyzed it most clearly in his short essay on the historical and dogmatic method in theology (troeltsch, 1913) in 1898. in this work troeltsch, on the one hand, carefully analyzed the difficulties in applying the historical method to theology (relativism and so on). on the other hand, he pointed out the decline in the interest in the “old dogmatic method”2. the reason for the latter process, according to troeltsch, was the rooting of the dogmatic method in beginnings completely disengaged from history. the problem of the correlation and coexistence of these two methods seems truly fundamental since it is included in the antinomic sphere of the basic problems of theology, namely the correlation of the transcendent and the immanent, the temporal and the eternal, the divine and the human. first of all, the author of the monograph sets himself the objective of defining the key aspects of the theology of history. these, in his opinion, should be the acting forces (subjects) and the scale of historical processes as well as a range of issues related to identifying the patterns of these processes and their systematization. drawing on the biblical and patristic thought, the author proposes a classification of the subjects of history. each subject is a dichotomous unit divided into two antipodes: (a) the church and the world, (b) secular (worldly) society and church community, (c) secular and church individuals. m. v. legeyev calls this a “mirror-ternary” classification since there are three different-scale acting subjects of history contrasted at each level (p. 21). the study emphasizes that the emergence of historical patterns from the earliest stage of christian thought to the xxth–xxist centuries was supposed by theologians to depend on “an inner-trinitarian arrangement, in the life of god himself” (p. 26). in this regard, the author identifies two key trajectories in history: (a) the revelation of god 2 “ist für den historisch empfindenden die alte dogmatische methode ungangbar” (the old dogmatic method turns out to be unsuitable for a person with a sense of history) (troeltsch, 2013, p. 737). an analysis of the historical and dogmatic methods e. troeltsch discussed in his essay can be found in the paper by lavrentiev (2012). additionally, the same publication provides a further rethinking and elaboration of the methods performed by another major german theologian and a theorist of the modern theology of history. https://changing-sp.com/ 702 andrey v. lavrentiev in history and (b) “the reflection of this image of the trinitarian revelation in the life of man and the church” (p. 26). it also raises the question about the relationship between the laws of history and man’s free will, which, in m. legeyev’s opinion, is resolved in the theology of maximus the confessor (vii century) with the help of the logoi doctrine. based on the model of revelation in history and its reception in the world, the author defines the following key principles of the patterns of historical processes: trinitarian, christological, ecclesiological, and cosmological. in the conclusion of the first chapter, the author speaks of the “scientific and theological models of history.” the researcher himself mainly develops a three-stage model (the shadow of the image, the image, the mystery) in his work. nevertheless, he also schematically outlines a sevenfold model (based on the text of the book of revelation of john the apostle) which, in his view, remains an “unsurpassed paradigm” of scientific and theological history modeling (p. 40). chapter 2 of the publication (“typology of history”) is central in terms of content since it is here that the methodological principle of the theology of history is proposed. as noted previously, the trinitarian and christological modes of god’s action constitute its basis. m. v. legeyev believes that grasping god’s modus operandi makes it possible to understand the logic of historical processes and as a result to model universal history. it should be noted that modeling the history of creation in the image of innertrinitarian life is a rather difficult task since the compared ontological dimensions are fundamentally different3. nevertheless, since the creator is the source of creation, it is still possible to speak of their connection. from this perspective, the point at issue is, in the first place, the mode of god’s revelation and god’s mode of action in the world (for the author of the monograph, this concept – τρόπος τής ενέργιας – is one of the core ideas, p. 54). the revelation of the one god in the old testament era, the prophecy of christ and his soteriological action within history, the promised action of the holy spirit in the world—all these stages can be traced both in the biblical and in subsequent christian discourses. it goes without saying the ecclesiastical aspect of history is also relevant here since it is the church that is the main bearer of the divinely revealed revelation and the guardian of tradition. therefore, it is not surprising that the author of the monograph considers the church to be the central subject of history. it is particularly remarkable that to m. v. legeyev both the modern idea of development (“the process of the development of church dogmatic thought”, p. 32) and the idea of static character inherent in classical theism are equally relevant. according to the latter, history moves along already given transcendental patterns. the researcher combines these ideas defining the “progress of the church” as a change of epochs, “characterizing its internal maturation” (p. 33). this progress is based on transcendental principles which are prototypes of mundane reality (above all, the reality of the church, but also, to a certain extent, the reality of the world). 3 implicitly, the work touches upon the problems of immanent and economic triadology which the author interprets drawing on ancient sources. nevertheless, he does not demonstrate familiarity with modern discussions on this issue. see, for example, the papers by olson (1983) and lavrentiev (2014). ’ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 700–705 703 actually, these ideas set the agenda of the study, namely the search for the patterns of history revealed while correlating the historical stages of the church formation with divine ontological predicates. m. v. legeyev calls this method of correlation (correspondence) typological (derived from ancient greek τύπος – image). based on the knowledge obtained from revelation (the holy scriptures and sacred tradition), the author believes it is possible to model the course of history. at the same time, the dialectic of the transcendent (the sacred prototype) and its embodiment in the earthly reality (the image), which the researcher calls the “two-trajectory model”, is supplemented by the internal dialectic of the opposition within the framework of the historical process itself, i. e. the opposition of the world to god. the author’s line of thought regarding the implementation of history modeling (and in this regard, in a sense, forecasting the future) resembles the logic of already well-established historiosophical conceptions. this is classical christian providentialism, according to which the action of divine providence predetermines the course of history. one can also see similarities to the secular concepts of historical determinism which implies rigid causation of the ongoing world processes (from global to individual). as a result, the course of history turns out to be predetermined, regular and, in principle, computable. in both cases, the problem of an individual’s freedom and unpredictability remains unresolved, which destroys the harmony of both theistic and secular historiosophical models of predestination. i consider this issue to be also problematic for the model proposed in the work under review. according to the researcher, the law-making principles of history are logoi, i. e. “the meanings of everything that exists”. they are associated with the hypostatic wills of god (more precisely, the second divine person of the holy trinity) with which “god the son[...] organizes history” (p. 62). however, the main difficulty lies in the reconciliation of divine wills with the free wills of particular individuals. basically, m. v. legeyev (following augustine of hippo) names two possible options: either there is an agreement between the human and the divine wills (synergism) or opposition of the former to the latter. in any case, however, the outcome of history is predetermined by its eschatological completion which will summarize the historical existence of mankind in general and of each individual in particular. the bottom line is that two entities are of interest: god and man. in this context, according to the conception provided in the book, the mode of human existence is realized at different levels, namely individual, social, and universal. this mode can be synergistic (consistent with divine will). in the work reviewed it is also called ecclesiological since its implementation takes place in the church (the image of the holy trinity). on the other hand, it can be “ecclesiofugal”, i. e. occurring outside the church and opposed to divine teleology. in general, the typological paradigm of history created by the author really fits into the framework of traditional christian dogmatic theology (soteriology, asceticism, ecclesiology, and eschatology) while demonstrating a specific systematic elaboration chapter 3 (“ecclesiological issues of modernity and the theology of history”) is an excellently developed and engrossing, but at the same time quite autonomous study focusing on the issues of the existence of the church and its self-reflection. https://changing-sp.com/ 704 andrey v. lavrentiev nevertheless, it is undoubtedly related to the problems of the theology of history and in a sense is a further elaboration of one of its aspects, namely the historical nature of churchness. chapter 4 (“the methodological significance of tradition in the xxist century”) does not focus on the problems of the theology of history directly, but again it rather refers to developments in ecclesiology. according to m. v. legeyev, “ecclesiology itself will act here [...] to a greater extent as a historical example illustrating the laws of functioning of tradition as the driving force of history” (p. 204). the scientific nature of the theology of history, according to the provisions of the reviewed work, consists in finding the laws, or consistent patterns of history. in the light of revealing and viewing such patterns through the prism of theological perception of reality, it is indeed possible to speak of an attempt at developing a scientific (albeit purely theoretical) approach to history. however, whether this is sufficient to create a separate discipline within systematic theology (truly systematic, not historical, according to m. v. legeyev) remains an open question. i believe the emergence of the theology of history as a separate discipline is unlikely on account of the already established architecture of theological knowledge. it is also worth noting that the theology of history can hardly be called a “new development in scientific and theological thought” as the monograph argues. moreover, this is true even in the context of the modern theology era. the point is that in western academic theology this approach has been developed for about two centuries. strictly speaking, it dates back to f. c. von baur’s writings. moreover, it experienced something of a renaissance in the second half of the xxth century in the works by w. pannenberg, j. moltmann, j. daniélou, h. u. von balthasar and many others. however, this research direction can indeed be considered a new trend in the context of scientific theology in modern russia. its relevance and novelty lie, perhaps, not so much in the explication of such already known problematic oppositions as history and dogma, time and eternity, god and creation, transcendence and immanence, but in new perspectives of understanding historicity, i. e. through the prism of the patristic tradition, in the contexts of both the specific features of eastern ecclesiology and the russian philosophical and theological tradition. references lavrentev, a. v. (2012). istorizm i istoriko-kriticheskīĭ metod v teologii v. pannenberga [historicism and historical and critical method in wolfhart pannenberg’s theology]. st. tikhon’s university review. series i: theology. philosophy. religious studies, 3(41), 7–18. lavrentiev, a. v. (2014). problema istorichnosti boga v rabotakh vol‘fkharta pannenberga: filosofskie, dogmaticheskie i ekumenicheskie aspekty [the problem of god in history in the works of wolfhart pannenberg: its philosophical, dogmatic, and ecumenical aspects]. vestnik pravoslavnogo sviato-tikhonovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, seria i. bogoslovie, filosofia, religiovedenie, 2(52), 43–58. https://doi. org/10.15382/sturi201452.43-58 https://www.multitran.com/m.exe?s=renaissance&l1=1&l2=2 https://doi.org/10.15382/sturi201452.43-58 https://doi.org/10.15382/sturi201452.43-58 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 700–705 705 legeev, m. v. (2018). bogoslovie istorii i actual’nye problem ekkleziologii [theology of history and relevant problems of ecclesiology]. sankt-peterburgskaia dukhovnaia akademiia. legeev, m. v. (2019). bogoslovie istorii kak nauka. opyt issledovaniia [theology of history. attempt of research]. sankt-peterburgskaia dukhovnaia akademiia. olson, r. e. (1983). trinity and eschatology: the historical being of god in jürgen moltmann and wolfhart pannenberg. scottish journal of theology, 36(2), 213–227. troeltsch, e. (1913). ueber die historische und dogmatische methode in der theologie [about historical and dogmatic method in the theology]. in troeltsch, e. gesammelte schriften. bd. 2. zur religiösen lage, religionsphilosophie und ethik [collected works. vol. 2. on the religious situation, philosophy of religion and ethics]. paul siebeck. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 764–784 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.202 received 11 february 2022 © 2022 fatma ülkü selçuk, nil demet güngör accepted 10 december 2022 fatmaulku.selcuk@asbu.edu.tr published online 30 december 2022 nil.gungor@atilim.edu.tr article narcissism and political left-right orientation in view of basic human values: a sample of faculty of management students from turkey fatma ülkü selçuk social sciences university of ankara, turkey nil demet güngör atılım university, ankara, turkey abstract a growing number of studies investigate the relationship between narcissism and political orientation. this study uses an undergraduate sample from turkey to explore this relation for a relatively understudied population. given findings that link basic human values to narcissism and to political orientation, we also investigate the possibility of a mediating role for human values in this relation. leftwing orientation is weakly and negatively correlated with narcissism and with narcissism’s self-sufficiency dimension. in multinomial logistic regression, we find that the odds of placing oneself in the extreme right position verses moderate left position increases as narcissism increases. the effect of narcissism on political orientation appears fragile, however, when this relation is controlled for self-esteem, sex, and human values. among schwartz’s basic human values, tradition turns out to be a stronger predictor of political orientation than narcissism and mediation is supported only for the values tradition and universalism. we find a positive indirect effect of narcissism on leftwing orientation through the value tradition and a negative indirect effect on leftwing orientation through the value universalism. keywords narcissism, political orientation, basic human values, mediation, turkey https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 764–784 765 introduction personality as the relatively enduring composition of individual level traits or qualities that influence how we feel, think, act/behave is known to interact with political and economic structures. findings associating particular personality traits with political orientation (bardeen & michel, 2019; carney et al., 2008; furnham & fenton-o’creevy, 2018; gerber et al., 2010; jonason, 2014) are accompanied more recently by a growing number of studies investigating the relationship between narcissism and political orientation (cichocka et al., 2017; hatemi & fazekas, 2018; lichter & rothman, 1982; marchlewska et al., 2019; mayer et al., 2020; rosenthal & pittinsky, 2006; van hiel & brebels, 2011; zeigler-hill et al., 2021). in the meta-analysis by sibley et al. (2012), openness to experience and conscientiousness were the only personality traits among the big five to be reliably associated with political orientation, albeit weakly. the cultural and historical-political contexts have also been reported to be significant factors in the relation of political orientation to personality traits (fatke, 2017; roets et al., 2014), and to narcissism (cichocka et al., 2017; marchlewska et al., 2019). among maladaptive personality traits, narcissism has been deemed an epidemic especially in western cultures (twenge & campbell, 2009). in western cultures where narcissism seems to be boosted by competitive individualism (twenge & campbell, 2009), the rightwing is associated with the relatively anti-social entitlement and rivalry dimensions of narcissism rather than the prosocial exhibitionistic and admirationseeking dimensions (hatemi & fazekas, 2018; mayer et al., 2020). critics have argued that western samples still dominate much of the research in behavioral sciences leading to skewed results that may not be informative of other populations (henrich et al., 2010). turkey, geographically and culturally being in the middle between west and east, embodies an amalgam. in spite of being more collectivist than the west (marcus et al., 2017), individualism and self-enhancement values have gained support among younger generations. since the relation between narcissism and political orientation has been little studied for turkey (şen, 2019), this study investigates whether and how narcissism and its dimensions are associated with political orientation in relation to basic human values for the faculty of management students from a turkish university who are commonly exposed to western culture and media while at the same time having diverse cultural backgrounds. the construct of political orientation and the turkish context rather than being a stable construct, political orientation reflects fluid combinations of numerous micro and macro level factors. since the french revolution, ideas promoting freedom and equality have spread across the world. at the same time, history has witnessed the clash of communitarian and individualistic values regardless of the discourse adopted, whether traditionalistic or (post)modern. disputes over the credit to be given to the sources of knowledge and power remain a source of conflict while competing views on the principles, means, and practices of the distribution of economic, administrative, and cultural resources continue to give rise to political https://changing-sp.com/ 766 fatma ülkü selçuk, nil demet güngör clashes. priorities of individuals and communities as well as the political discourse and practices sometimes diverge, sometimes converge. according to jost et al. (2008), the meaning attributed to the political left-right or the liberal-conservative orientations mainly refers to “(a) advocating versus resisting social change and (b) accepting versus rejecting inequality” (p. 128), although depending on the issue considered, both liberals and conservatives might accept or reject social change (proch et al., 2019). for turkey, the distinguishing feature of the left is an emphasis on secularism, which in the turkish context is associated with ensuring that civic and state affairs are not governed by religion. the center right, on the other hand, by embracing a mixture of conservative and liberal worldviews along with a paternalistic attitude towards those with low socio-economic status, has attracted the majority of the votes in multi-party politics (özbudun, 2006). notwithstanding the unique characteristics of turkish politics and the impact of varying perspectives on international questions, including the blurring of left-right cleavages on the issue of globalism versus nationalism (öniş, 2007, 2009), there appear to be similarities with western contexts. dirilen-gumus et al. (2019), for example, found system justification and social dominance orientation to be associated with voting for rightwing political parties. in addition, the research by çarkoğlu (2007) suggests that while the rightwing is associated with a preference for state authoritarianism and status quo, the leftwing is “characterized by progressive, tolerant, democratic attitudes with low levels of religiosity and critical evaluations of the economic policy performance of the government” (p. 268). the author claims it is education along with sectarian and ethnic cleavages that predicts political ideology rather than economic deprivation (p. 267). still, the political landscape of turkey is quite volatile. turkey ranks lower in perceived political stability and absence of politically-motivated violence scores than a wide range of countries including the uk, us; canada, austria, netherlands, singapore, japan, australia, qatar, and malta; it is in the lowest quartile among all countries for these scores except for a few years between 1996 and 2018 (worldwide governance indicators, 2019). a further complication is that it is quite difficult to associate particular parties in turkish politics with fixed political positions across a wide range of issues including economic liberalism versus protectionism, pro-migrant versus anti-migrant policies, religious versus secular arrangements, and centralization versus dispersion of power, among others. indeed, subject to varying degrees of change in their discourse, practices, and influence over time, a multiplicity of political parties has entered, exited, and re-entered the political stage, while between 1990 and 2011, as esmer (2012) indicates, a shift from the center to the rightwing occurred (p. 53). irrespective of the varying meanings attributed to political concepts such as political ideology, rightwing, leftwing, liberalism, conservatism, fascism, communism, and anarchism, for decades, the relationship between personality and political orientation has been investigated mainly with reference to the authoritarian personality and maladaptive personality traits, with roots in psychoanalytic theory. the fascism scale, developed by adorno and his colleagues (1950), provided the chief impetus and inspiration to this line of research. studies investigating the link of politics with changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 764–784 767 individual narcissism (cichocka et al., 2017; hatemi & fazekas, 2018; lichter & rothman, 1982; marchlewska et al., 2019; mayer et al., 2020; rosenthal & pittinsky, 2006; van hiel & brebels, 2011; zeigler-hill et al., 2021) and with collective narcissism (de zavala et al., 2009; marchlewska et al., 2018) can be considered as part of this tradition. yet, the relationship between narcissism and political orientation has been little studied for turkey (şen, 2019). narcissism and political orientation as for narcissism, the conceptualization of narcissistic personality disorder varies from one approach to another (e. g., alternative schools in psychodynamic approach, cognitive-behavioral approach), while it is defined with reference to a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy” along with at least five criteria listed in dsm-iv that have been kept fundamentally the same in dsm-v (american psychiatric association, 2012). although the ideal self-image of those with high narcissism might even be one of being tolerant, flexible, and peaceful; low empathy along with high intolerance, rigidity, and aggression may also accompany this self-image. intolerance, rigidity, and aggression remind one of authoritarianism, since “authoritarians are characterized by a propensity for cognitive rigidity, intolerance, and aggression” (mchoskey, 1996, p. 709). owing to the studies implying a proximity between authoritarian personality and rightwing extremism, one can expect that the political orientation of those with an authoritarian personality and those with high narcissism might be similar. indeed, echoing a positive relation between narcissism and rightwing politics, zitek and jordan (2016) found that the higher narcissism is the more likely one is to support income inequality and the hierarchy between groups, in organizations and business. however, they also found that the correlation between narcissism and support for hierarchy is positive if it is possible to rise in rank and negative if it is not possible to rise in rank. while it is possible that having central political positions might provide a greater opportunity to rise in rank, it might be also possible that those with higher narcissism might adopt any political position in line with their expectations of having more power, respect, admiration, and status in a particular segment of society, and develop a boosted selfimage accordingly. this again implies a diversification of the paths across the political spectrum. it is also possible to move towards the extremes through challenging the established political, economic, and social order at the local, national or global level, for that might satisfy the grandiose feelings of certain narcissists, enabling them to feel more superior than the ruling elites and their supporters. there are findings relating narcissism positively with conservatism (jonason, 2014; van hiel & brebels, 2011); with rightwing nationalism (mayer et al., 2020; şen, 2019); and with social dominance orientation (cichocka et al., 2017, controlling for self-esteem in western samples). these may bear certain similarities with those studies associating extreme rightwing with authoritarian personality (adorno et al., 1950; tetlock, 1983), with the caveat that neither rightwing and extreme rightwing nor narcissism and authoritarian personality are the same. again with the caveat that, at least during the last few decades, the extreme leftwing has encompassed https://changing-sp.com/ 768 fatma ülkü selçuk, nil demet güngör not only those against multi-party democratic procedures but also those in support of participatory and radical forms of democracy, the research relating narcissism negatively with democracy (marchlewska et al., 2019) seems also to have parallels with those studies stressing the psychological similarities of the leftwing and rightwing extremists (de regt et al., 2011; eysenck, 1954, 1975; eysenck & coulter, 1972; greenberg & jonas, 2003; taylor, 1960). lichter and rothman (1982) found that “narcissism and phallic-assertive orientation each significantly increases the variance explained in radicalism” (p. 222) and zeigler-hill et al. (2021) found a positive correlation between leftwing authoritarianism and the extraverted, antagonistic and neurotic aspects of narcissism. still, several studies (cichocka et al., 2017; marchlewska et al., 2019) indicate that the results for the relation of narcissism to political orientation through western samples are only in part replicated in postcommunist eastern europe where the relation of narcissistic self-evaluation to social dominance orientation or democracy is reported to be weaker with polish samples, which might be in part on account of diverse political histories. in addition to the abovementioned disparities for the relation between narcissism and political orientation, diverse dimensions of narcissism are also reported to be associated with diverse political positions in the west (hatemi & fazekas, 2018; mayer et al., 2020). for a us sample, while entitlement is higher among those in conservative positions, exhibitionism is higher among those with liberal values. these seem to outweigh each other given that as a higher construct narcissism is equally distributed across the political spectrum (hatemi & fazekas, 2018). for a german sample, narcissistic admiration is negatively and narcissistic rivalry is positively related to the support for radical right (mayer et al., 2020). while the exhibitionism and admiration dimensions call to mind an aspiration for the recognition and validation of one’s self by means of feeding a self-image through the gaze of others, the entitlement and rivalry dimensions evoke a more aggressive style of meeting one’s needs at the expense of others. therefore, the underlying factors that those with higher narcissism are drawn to diverse political positions might vary. in addition, given the findings that link basic human values to narcissism (güngör et al., 2012; kajonius et al., 2015; rogoza et al., 2016) and to political orientation (caprara et al., 2017; duckitt & sibley, 2010), as well as those studies that suggest a mediation role of the worldview of individuals in the relation between personality and political orientation (hodson et al., 2009; van hiel et al., 2007; zeigler-hill et al., 2021), it is possible for the human values to mediate the effect of narcissism on political orientation. a review by duckitt and sibley (2010), for example, reported that rightwing authoritarianism (rwa) is positively correlated with security, conformity, and tradition; and negatively correlated with stimulation and self-direction while a social dominance orientation is positively correlated with achievement, power, and hedonism; and negatively correlated with egalitarian values, specifically with universalism and benevolence (pp. 1866–1867). caprara et al. (2017) compared a wide range of countries that included turkey and found that basic values are good predictors of political ideology except for post-communist countries, while left-right (liberal-conservative) self-placement predicts voting except for ukraine. in general, a preference for right/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 764–784 769 conservative ideology is predicted to a great extent by security, conformity, and tradition and to a lesser extent by power and stimulation, while universalism and hedonism appear to predict a preference for left/liberal ideology. according to the authors, the general pattern highlights “that the critical trade-off underlying ideology is between values concerned with tolerance and protection for the welfare of all people (universalism) versus values concerned with preserving the social order and status quo (security)” (p. 402). yet, for turkey, only tradition and universalism revealed statistical significance (p. 400). since our sample is composed of those students with diverse cultural backgrounds who predominantly receive a pro-modernization education in turkey where capitalism has been the dominant mode of production almost from the first few decades of the 20th century, we expect both similarities and differences with research using western samples in terms of the relation of political orientation to narcissism, its diverse facets and the underlying values. given the characteristics of our sample and given that politics in turkey has been marked by those cleavages triggered by a promodernization project with three basic pillars—secularism, capitalism, and nationbuilding based mainly on language—the underlying values providing those with higher narcissism a convenient medium for grandiosity might be mainly on account of looking down on religion on the leftwing, and the support for ethnic and class inequalities on the rightwing. since the nationalist and religious extremes together make the main body of the extreme rightwing, compared to especially moderate political positions, we expect the extreme rightwing to be more appealing for those with higher narcissism scores. at the same time, we thought, this would lead to a positive association of the rightwing with narcissistic superiority, entitlement, and authority. with these suppositions, our study examines how narcissism and its dimensions are related to political positions as measured by a left-right self-placement scale and the possibility of a mediating role for human values for the faculty of management students in a turkish university. method participants the sample consisted of 257 students (123 female; 134 male) enrolled in various undergraduate programs in the faculty of management at a foundation university in turkey, to which mostly the children of the upper middle-class families from anatolia attend. the data was collected via an in-class questionnaire form administered in may 2014. the purpose of the study was clearly stated at the beginning and students were ensured of anonymity. participation was on a voluntary basis. the participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 32 years (m = 22.5; sd = 2.31). measures narcissistic personality inventory (npi-16). npi-16 is the 16-item short version (ames et al., 2006) of the 40-item forced-choice npi-40 developed by raskin and hall (1979, as cited in raskin & terry, 1988). the short version includes items that measure the authority, self-sufficiency, superiority, exhibitionism, exploitativeness, and https://changing-sp.com/ 770 fatma ülkü selçuk, nil demet güngör entitlement dimensions of narcissism, while no items are included for measuring the vanity dimension. scores for the turkish version of npi-16 used in this study (güngör & selçuk, 2015) ranged from 0 to 15 (m = 7.1; sd = 3.44; α = .74). convergent and discriminant validities were tested with rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (tukuş, 2010, p. 53) and the general belief in a just world scale (yalçın, 2006, p. 109) respectively, in parallel with the english version (ames et al., 2006). as expected, npi-16 scores were found to be positively correlated with rosenberg’s self-esteem scale scores (r = .31, n = 234, p < .01) and uncorrelated with the general belief in a just world scale (α = .77) scores (r = –.10, n = 233, p = .13). rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (rses). we use the turkish adaptation of rses (tukuş, 2010, p. 53) to measure self-esteem. the scale consists of five positively and five negatively worded items, coded on a 4-point scale (3 = strongly agree; 0 = strongly disagree). the negatively worded items are reverse coded, and the total score is found by adding up the score for each item. a higher total score indicates a higher level of self-esteem. scores range from 8 to 30 (m = 22.45; sd = 4.69; α = .84). nine-point left-right self-placement scale for political orientation. the scale relies on the self-report of participants’ perceptions of where they see themselves on the left-right political spectrum. scores range from 1 to 9 where 9 represents extreme left; 1 represents extreme right; and 5 represents center. we treated political orientation as a continuous variable in linear regression and as a categorical variable in multinomial logistic regression. when used as a categorical variable, the categories are right4stars (n = 18), right3stars (n = 13), right2stars (n = 21), right1star (n = 15), center (n = 73), left1star (n = 23), left2stars (n = 25), left3stars (n = 20), and left4stars (n = 19). as van hiel (2012) argues, “the self-placement scale is not a measure of ideology”, but a measure of an individual’s “general political orientation. some people may attach high importance to social-cultural issues when placing themselves on the left-right scale, whereas others might consider economichierarchical issues” (p. 181). political self-placement is further complicated by the fact that perceptions of particular attitudes as “extreme” or “moderate” are subject to change over time and across contexts (pp. 166–167). moreover, even where two individuals vote for the same political party, share similar attitudes and have a similar level of intensity of those attitudes, they may still perceive and report a different political position with respect to each other. lastly, the turkish context should be interpreted with caution because, as yılmaz et al. (2016) suggest, “the one-item political orientation scale commonly used in western contexts has the power to predict moral foundations even though the turkish ideological landscape appears more complex and social democracy in turkey, unlike europe, emphasizes binding foundations” (p. 560). schwartz’s basic human values scale (bhvs). the bhvs comprises 21 items covering 10 basic values. the turkish version of the bhvs was obtained from the european social survey (2004). we reverse coded the items so that 1 corresponds to “not like me at all” and 6 to “very much like me”. in our analyses, we used centered scores for each value as suggested by schwartz (n.d.) and for all of the bhvs items. the item labels for the facets of 10 basic values are revised from changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 764–784 771 van herk et al. (2018): benevolence (helping others, loyalty); universalism (equality, understanding others, care for nature); self-direction (independence, creativeness); stimulation (looking for new things, excitement); hedonism (having a good time, having fun); achievement (being admired, being successful); power (being rich, getting respect); security (safety, strong government); conformity (following rules, behaving properly); and tradition (familial-religious customs, modesty). schwartz (2001) subsumed the 10 basic values under two orthogonal dimensions: selfenhancement (power, achievement, partially hedonism) versus self-transcendence (universalism, benevolence) dimension; and openness to change (self-direction, stimulation partially hedonism) versus conservatism (security, conformity, tradition) dimension. self-enhancement and openness to change “emphasize independent action, thought and feeling and readiness for new experience” while selftranscendence and conservatism “emphasize self-restriction, order and resistance to change” (p. 269). striving for justice measures. we included two items to measure a person’s desire to struggle in the face of perceived injustice. one of the items measures the eagerness to seek justice for oneself: “i do not want to struggle against the injustices against me”. the other measures the eagerness to seek justice for others: “i do not want to struggle against injustices against the other”. we labelled these justice for self and justice for others. 6 indicates the strongest and 1 indicates the weakest desire to strive for justice. statistical procedures statistical analyses were mainly carried out with the ibm spss and stata software packages. to overcome the shortcomings arising from a small sample size at least partially, the mediation analyses were carried out using jasp software with 1000 replications (delta method standard errors, bias-corrected percentile bootstrap confidence intervals). after evaluating the descriptive statistics and sex differences (table 1), we present zero-order correlations for our main variables (table 2) and for the relation between political orientation and the six dimensions of narcissism (table 3). using the bhvs items, we also test the association of each human value facet with political orientation and narcissism. multinomial and binary logistic regressions covering several combinations were carried out to check the relationship between narcissism and political orientation for various positions. for these regressions, the reference categories include individual positions (right4stars, right3stars, right2stars, right1star, center, left1star, left2stars, left3stars, left4stars) or combined positions: rightwing (merging right 1-2-3-4 stars); leftwing (merging left 1-2-3-4 stars); left-right extremes (merging right4stars and left4stars); moderate right (merging right 1-2-3 stars); moderate left (merging left 1-2-3 stars); and moderates (merging all categories except right4stars and left4stars). in addition, hierarchical regression analysis was used to control for the overlaps among the predictors (table 4). in mediation analysis, we treat narcissism as the predictor and political orientation as the outcome variable, while human values and their facets are tested for possible mediation (table 5). https://changing-sp.com/ 772 fatma ülkü selçuk, nil demet güngör results table 1 indicates that females are more leftwing oriented than males in our sample. on the other hand, males and females do not differ significantly in terms of narcissism [similar to the findings of jonason et al. (2019) for turkey; cf. torgersen (2012) reporting higher scores for males] and in terms of human values except for two. males have higher scores for the value tradition, while females have higher scores for the value security (cf. dirilen-gumus & buyuksahin-sunal, 2012). females also score higher in terms of striving for justice for others. tables 2 and 3 suggest that leftwing orientation is negatively and weakly correlated with narcissism and its self-sufficiency dimension. as might be expected, leftwing orientation correlates positively with universalism and negatively with tradition. narcissism has a positive association with the values of self-direction, power, achievement, stimulation, and hedonism; and has a negative association with the values of universalism, security, conformity, tradition, and benevolence. being positively correlated with narcissism, self-esteem is also associated positively with self-direction, achievement, stimulation, hedonism and negatively with security and tradition. universalism is positively associated with striving for justice for both self and others. striving for justice for others is negatively correlated with power and positively correlated with leftwing orientation and striving for justice for self. yet, no association appeared between striving for justice and narcissism. table 1 descriptive statistics and sex differences for our main variables mean (sd) t g overall male female political orientation 5.24 (2.205) 4.87 (2.183) 5.62 (2.171) 2.688** 0.344 narcissism 7.10 (3.444) 7.10 (3.220) 7.10 (3.683) –0.004 –0.001 self-esteem 22.45 (4.692) 22.74 (4.383) 22.14 (5.001) –1.018 –0.128 self-direction 0.31 (0.692) 0.34 (0.643) 0.28 (0.743) –0.706 –0.089 power –0.49 (0.932) –0.43 (0.949) –0.55 (0.912) –1.069 –0.134 universalism 0.20 (0.670) 0.15 (0.646) 0.25 (0.694) 1.179 0.148 achievement –0.16 (0.909) –0.19 (0.902) –0.13 (0.919) 0.557 0.070 security 0.17 (0.755) 0.05 (0.836) 0.30 (0.631) 2.735** 0.338 stimulation –0.21 (0.926) –0.27 (0.931) –0.14 (0.919) 1.153 0.144 conformity –0.45 (1.005) –0.35 (0.902) –0.56 (1.102) –1.608 –0.204 tradition –0.13 (0.914) –0.02 (0.888) –0.26 (0.929) –2.118* –0.266 hedonism 0.26 (0.678) 0.27 (0.709) 0.25 (0.646) –.0173 –0.022 benevolence 0.38 (0.672) 0.36 (0.729) 0.41 (0.605) 0.566 0.071 justice for self 5.47 (1.146) 5.48 (1.037) 5.46 (1.256) –0.153 –0.019 justice for others 5.09 (1.258) 4.94 (1.347) 5.26 (1.137) 2.061* 0.255 note. g is hedges’ g for effect size. * p < .05. ** p < .01. source: authors. c hanging s ocieties & p ersonalities, 2022, vol. 6, n o. 4, pp. 764–784 7 7 3 table 2 zero-order correlations for our main variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1. political orientation – 2. narcissism –.133* – 3. self-esteem –.064 .305** – 4. self-direction .044 .188** .183** – 5. power –.076 .349** –.119 –.138* – 6. universalism .200** –.383** –.072 –.043 –.419** – 7. achievement –.017 .425** .178** –.027 .223** –.329** – 8. security –.023 –.179** –.143* –.262** –.052 –.039 –.029 – 9. stimulation .082 .204** .166** .085 .044 –.175** .030 –.330** – 10. conformity –.059 –.181** –.094 –.286** –.179** –.019 –.264** –.040 –.323** – 11. tradition –.248** –.292** –.200** –.215** –.246** –.044 –.307** .000 –.390** .238** – 12. hedonism .112 .158* .236** .208** –.037 –.146* –.051 –.206** .215** –.298** –.246** – 13. benevolence .010 –.253** –.048 –.050 –.283** .096 –.286** .039 –.137* –.100 .112 –.168** – 14. justice for self .070 .021 .061 –.040 –.108 .169** –.042 –.010 .061 .014 –.023 –.017 –.051 – 15. justice for others .136* .026 .071 –.010 –.161* .205** .006 –.081 –.078 .053 .014 –.033 .052 .373** – note. * p < .05, ** p < .01 source: authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 774 fatma ülkü selçuk, nil demet güngör table 3 correlations between political orientation and the dimensions of narcissism 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. political orientation – 2. authority –.088 – 3. self-sufficiency –.134* .300** – 4. superiority –.076 .268** .397** – 5. exhibitionism –.100 .343** .303** .447** – 6. exploitativeness –.096 .344** .333** .360** .310** – 7. entitlement .080 .061 .050 .065 .083 .174** – note. * p < .05, ** p < .01. source: authors. logistic regression analyses suggest that only extreme right (right4stars) versus moderate left (b = –.192, se = .080, p = .016, odds ratio = .825), versus left2stars (b = –.217, se = .094, p = .021, odds ratio = .805), and versus left3stars (b = –.228, se = .099, p = .021, odds ratio = .796) showed statistical significance. for a unit increase in the narcissism score, the odds of locating oneself in left2stars, left3stars or the merged moderate left positions is approximately 20% lower or .8 times the odds of locating oneself in the extreme right position. as for the associations with bhvs items, there is a positive correlation between narcissism and “creativeness” facet of self-direction (r = .19, p < .01); “excitement” facet of stimulation (r = .23, p < .01); “having fun” facet of hedonism (r = .16, p < .05); “being admired”(r = .43, p < .01) and “being successful” facets of achievement (r = .22, p < .01); and “being rich” (r = .30, p < .01) and “getting respect” facets of power (r = .21, p < .01). there is a negative correlation between narcissism and the “helping others” (r = –.18, p < .01) and “loyalty” facets of benevolence (r = –.22, p < .01); the “equality” (r = –.31, p < .01), “understanding others” (r = –.15, p < .05), and “care for nature” facets of universalism (r = –.22, p < .01); the “safety” facet of security (r = –.18, p < .01); the “behaving properly” facet of conformity (r = –.18, p < .01); and the “modesty” facet of tradition (r = –.25, p < .01). leftwing orientation is positively correlated with the “equality” facet of universalism (r = .30, p < .01); the “independence” facet of self-direction (r = .13, p < .05); the “looking for new things” facet of stimulation (r = .15, p < .05) and the “having fun” facet of hedonism (r = .15, p < .05), while it is negatively correlated with the “familial-religious customs” facet of tradition (r = –.30, p < .01). in the hierarchical regression (table 4), the predictor variables are narcissism alone in model 1; plus self-esteem in model 2; plus sex in model 3; plus the values universalism and tradition in model 4; plus striving for justice for others in model 5. there is a significant increase in the predictive power from model 2 to model 3 when sex is accounted for; and from model 3 to model 4 when the values universalism and tradition are added. the significant predictors are narcissism in models 1, 4, and 5; the value tradition in models 4 and 5; and sex alone in model 3. these results point to the fragility of the relation of narcissism to political orientation. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 764–784 775 table 4 ordinary least squares hierarchical regression predicting political orientation predictors unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients r2 r2adj r2 change f change p b se β p 1. .021 .016 .021 4.623 .033* narcissism –.092 .043 –.144 .033* 2. .021 .012 .001 .148 .701 narcissism –.087 .045 –.136 .054 self-esteem –.013 .033 –.027 .701 3. .051 .038 .030 6.873 .009** narcissism –.085 .044 –.133 .057 self-esteem –.009 .032 –.020 .778 male –.767 .292 –.174 .009** 4. .156 .137 .105 13.380 .000** narcissism –.106 .048 –.166 .029* self-esteem –.034 .031 –.072 .277 male –.545 .281 –.123 .054 universalism .361 .228 .112 .115 tradition –.729 .160 –.309 .000** 5. .164 .140 .007 1.891 .171 narcissism –.114 .049 –.178 .020* self-esteem –.037 .031 –.079 .238 male –.497 .283 –.113 .080 universalism .284 .234 .088 .227 tradition –.746 .160 –.316 .000** justice for others .153 .111 .090 .171 note. * p < .05, ** p < .01 source: authors. the mediation analyses found support for the possible mediation of only two values. as table 5 suggests, when the analysis was done for each human value and their facets individually, we found that the indirect effect of narcissism on leftwing orientation is negative through the value universalism; negative through the equality facet of the value universalism; and positive through the value tradition. however, when universalism and tradition are placed simultaneously as mediators in the model, the indirect effect of narcissism occurs not through the value universalism, but through the value tradition, with partial mediation: the direct effect suggests that narcissism predicts leftwing orientation negatively; the indirect effect suggests that narcissism predicts leftwing orientation positively through attributing less value to tradition (figure 1). https://changing-sp.com/ 7 7 6 fatm a ü lkü s elçuk, n il d em et g üngör table 5 mediation analyses for universalism, tradition, and their facets (bootstrap analyses with 1000 replications; non-standardized estimates) direct effect lower bc 95% ci upper bc 95% ci predictor → mediator mediator → outcome mediator variables indirect effect lower bc 95% ci upper bc 95% ci narcissism → modesty facet of tradition (mod-tr) → political orientation (leftwing) –.085 –.171 –.011 + 0 mod-tr 5.507e-4 –.033 .020 narcissism → familial-religious customs facet of tradition (cus-tr) → political orientation (leftwing) –.085 –.159 .017 + 0 cus-tr 1.888e-4 –.015 .020 narcissism → equality facet of universalism (equ-un) → political orientation (leftwing) –.048 –.132 .037 – + equ-un –.034 –.073 –.004 narcissism → understanding others facet of universalism (und-un) → political orientation (leftwing) –.086 –.183 2.28e-4 + 0 und-un 7.69e-4 –.018 .008 narcissism → care for nature facet of universalism facet of universalism (car-un) → political orientation (leftwing) –.086 –.175 –.003 + 0 car-un 6.78e-4 –.021 .015 narcissism → tradition (tr) → political orientation (leftwing) –.147 –.235 –.065 – – tr .061 .029 .106 narcissism → universalism (un) → political orientation (leftwing) –.039 –.130 .059 – + un –.043 –.087 –.008 narcissism → tradition (tr); universalism (un) → political orientation (leftwing) –.114 –.209 –.021 – – tr .057 .026 .099 – + un –.028 –.067 .006 note: bc denotes bias-corrected. source: authors. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 764–784 777 figure 1 mediation analyses for universalism and tradition u n n n t t u l l l – 0.08 0.58 – 0.04 – 0.05 – 0.08 – 0.77 – 0.08 – 0.08 – 0.72 0.37 – 0.11 0.09 0.39 0.77 4.31.24.61.2 1.2 4.2 0.39 0.77 note. u = universalism; t = tradition; n = narcissism; l = leftwing. source: authors. discussion and conclusion while the relation of personality to politics has a longer history than the emergence of capitalism and modern state forms, studies investigating this relationship in terms of maladaptive personality structures gained momentum with the rise of fascism in western europe. the support given to mono-party politics by communist political parties led some authors to suspect the presence of shared personality attributes among those backing extreme rightwing and extreme leftwing politics. subsequent investigations attempted to distinguish leftwing and rightwing politics in terms of personality characteristics. the exploration of the relation of narcissism to political orientation may be considered a further offshoot of this line of enquiry. in western cultures where narcissism seems to be boosted by competitive individualism (twenge & campbell, 2009), the rightwing is associated with the relatively anti-social entitlement and rivalry dimensions of narcissism rather than the prosocial exhibitionistic and admiration-seeking dimensions (hatemi & fazekas, 2018; mayer et al., 2020). our study explored the narcissism-political orientation link for a non-western sample of https://changing-sp.com/ 778 fatma ülkü selçuk, nil demet güngör undergraduate management students from a private foundation university in turkey who, being trained for the administrative ranks of a capitalist society, are nevertheless highly exposed to western culture. although our study could not support an association between narcissism and the combined political extremes category vis-à-vis moderate positions (cf. eysenck, 1954, 1975; eysenck & coulter, 1972), there are some similarities with mainstream arguments highlighting the uniqueness of the extreme rightwing in its relation to narcissism. indeed, with the caveat that our multinomial logistic regression results have limited power due to the relatively small number of participants in each category when the political scale is divided into nine categories, the finding that narcissism is higher for those placing themselves in extreme right positions compared to moderate left positions parallels the findings of research that suggest an association between rightwing extremism and the authoritarian personality (adorno et al., 1950; tetlock, 1983). unlike western samples associating the relatively anti-social dimensions of narcissism with rightwing positions, only the self-sufficiency dimension of narcissism showed a statistically significant positive association with political orientation (cf. hatemi & fazekas, 2018; mayer et al., 2020; zeigler-hill et al., 2021). thus in our sample, those on the rightwing are slightly more likely to view themselves to be self-sufficient, where self-sufficiency is characterized by the belief that they will be a great person, that they always know what they are doing, and that they are more capable than others. the close relevance of self-sufficiency dimension with selfesteem might be the main factor for the disappearance of the statistical significance of narcissism as a higher construct when controlled for self-esteem in predicting political orientation. indeed, for our sample, the hierarchical regression results indicate that the positive relation of narcissism with rightwing orientation appears to be quite weak and fragile (cf. cichocka et al., 2017; jonason, 2014; mayer et al., 2020; şen, 2019; van hiel & brebels, 2011) and the value tradition is a stronger predictor of political orientation than narcissism. in terms of the relation between human values and political orientation, our results are compatible with caprara et al. (2017) in that we found statistical significance only for universalism and tradition as predictors of political orientation in turkey, a result that is not congruent with the findings from western samples. in addition, we found the “looking for new things” facet of stimulation to be positively correlated with a leftwing orientation, similar to studies relating the personality trait openness with liberal/leftwing orientation (bardeen & michel, 2019; carney et al., 2008; furnham & fenton-o’creevy, 2018; gerber et al., 2010; jonason, 2014). however, unlike studies reporting a positive relation between the rightwing and a need for security (as summarized in cichocka & dhont, 2018), there was no statistically significant association between a rightwing orientation and security, neither for its strong government nor for its safety facets. individual mediation analyses for the human values and their facets indicate that as narcissism increases, one might be oriented towards both rightwing and leftwing through lower universalism (specifically lower equality) and through lower tradition values respectively. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 764–784 779 in brief, the results for our sample displayed similarity with previous studies at least in part. the similarities are attributable to the rightwing and specifically extreme rightwing orientations, being characterized by higher narcissism. the difference is mainly on account of the associated dimension of narcissism: for our sample, it is not the relatively anti-social aspects, but instead the self-sufficiency dimension that seems to be relevant. not finding an association unique to narcissism’s highly antisocial facets might be on account of the unique characteristics of the rightwing in turkey, still having relatively collectivist values backed by the turkish traditions and moderate islamic culture of anatolia, when compared to the individualistic rivalry that characterizes especially the rightwing of protestant samples. our sample mainly consists of those coming from upper middle-class families. this means that most participants would have an opportunity to rise in rank through their family network. since napier and jost (2008) demonstrated that the reasons for why those with lower socio-economic status are attracted to rightwing ideology might be different than for others, investigating the influence of socio-economic status would be informative in the future. while we acknowledge that the results that we present has limited generalizability and call for caution in comparing the results with data from other socio-political contexts, we hope it has some explanatory power for a segment of turkish culture embodying both traditional and pro-modernization values. references adorno, t. w., frenkel-brunswik, e., levinson, d. j., & sanford, r. n. 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vuković-ćalasan accepted 16 february 2023 danijelacalasan@ucg.ac.me published online 10 april 2023 article ethnocultural pluralism and multiculturalism in contemporary montenegro: lessons to learn danijela vuković-ćalasan university of montenegro, podgorica, montenegro abstract the paper discusses successful management of ethnocultural pluralism in the context of montenegro, viewed from the perspective of multiculturalism as a normative-legal model that this state adopted in relation to ethnic and national communities that inhabit its territory. particular emphasis is placed on three different levels at which ethnocultural pluralism can be discussed, and the paper elaborates the issue of successful management at each of those levels. on the basis of available data, obtained by conducting relevant research and analysis of the applied model of multiculturalism, the paper delves into the key challenges of the process of transformation of montenegrin society in the context of dominance of ethnonationalism. keywords ethnocultural pluralism, multiculturalism, montenegro, ethnic relations, identity introduction successful management of ethnocultural pluralism in modern democratic societies is among the key challenges that these societies face. ethnocultural pluralism varies in degrees and forms, depending on the type of ethnocultural communities that exist in particular countries. modern migrations and globalisation processes render the issue of pluralism even more important. the united nations estimates that the number of immigrants leaving their countries of origin for various reasons will only continue to grow (international organiza tion for migration, 2021). therefore, an increase in the degree of ethnocultural https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:danijelacalasan@ucg.ac.me 34 danijela vuković-ćalasan pluralism in modern democracies can also be expected. simultaneously, in the sphere of developing international standards in the field of collective rights of minority national and ethnic communities, the process of globalisation seems to assert the dominance of the model of multiculturalism in modern democracies, given that these modern democracies are comprised of different ethnocultural communities. of course, some countries are officially multicultural and the obligation to implement measures and mechanisms of this model is imposed by the constitution or laws. other countries, although officially non-multicultural in the normative-political sense, still envisage legal and political solutions that enable ethnocultural communities to preserve their identity specifics and achieve full integration without assimilation. in that sense, they are also multicultural to a certain extent. immigration is not the only challenge that multiculturalism has been facing; rather, there is also the issue of governing ethnocultural pluralism, which is based on existence of the so-called national minorities that are territorially concentrated and historically present on the territory of a certain country (eriksen, 2002; kymlicka, 2007, pp. 68–71; mesić, 2006, p. 82). the problem of successful management of ethnocultural pluralism from the perspective of needs of ethnocultural communities, as well as the interests of the social community as a whole, is mainly the subject of reflection and analysis at the state level. more precisely, theorists and researchers focus, to a great degree, on legal-political measures and mechanisms that the state envisages and introduces for ethnocultural communities and their members, in accordance with the unique characteristics of their position. additionally, the balkans and montenegro are still dominated by the ideology of ethnonationalism (danopoulos & messas, 1997; dyrstad, 2012). the reasons for the above are numerous and include a specific process of nation formation as well as the legacy of the authoritarian socialist order, which slowed down the process of individualisation and maturing of the society, while enabling the primacy of the collective principle1. in determining the basic elements of the ideology of ethnonationalism, we start from the definition provided by dušan kecmanović (2014), one of the most relevant authors and researchers of ethnonationalism in the balkans. he singles out the following most important characteristics of this ideology: simplification, dichotomisation, rigidity, demarcation, uniformity, degradation of the rational, anti-individualism (pp. 117–133). in short, according to kecmanović, the ideology of ethnonationalism is based first on the simplification of a reality that is always complex, and then on the dichotomisation which 1 on the formation of nations in the balkans in the process of so-called vernacular mobilisation or etatization of a nation that resulted in the creation of nations in an imperial, hostile environment without the help of the state, see (smith, 1991). this type of national identity is historically much closer to the ethnic than the civic model of the national identity, more related to the assumed common origin, cultural elements, myths and religion than to the territory, state and legal-political components. as such, it is more introverted and emotionally rooted compared to the territorial, civic variant of national identity and it is much more susceptible to instrumentalisation and politicisation by political actors (smith, 1991, 1995). as a result of their different origin, i.e., their emergence in completely different and specific circumstances, these two types of national-state identities kept those differences in later periods of development. the ethnonational form of national identity remained dominant in the balkan region, which is a very significant circumstance when it comes to attitude towards national minorities. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 33–54 35 implies exclusive division into two sides, us and them, in which we cannot and must not be neutral, undecided. achieving compromise, rapprochement and the search for a minimum common denominator that could connect us is considered a weakness and is contrary to the ethnonationalist view of the world. furthermore, ethnonationalists insist on the notion of immutability of them as individuals but also of the communities to which they belong, as well as on the necessity of clear demarcation of identity, but also in every other sense. kecmanović explains the degradation of rationality by the fact that ethnonationalist messages are intended more for the heart and emotions than the head (connor, 1994, p. 85; janjić, 2009, p. 21; kecmanović, 2006, pp. 123–124, 2014, pp. 117–133). in the context of management of ethnocultural pluralism in montenegro and the rest of the balkans, both in theory and the field of public policy, we note a lack of appreciation of the fact that ethnocultural pluralism can and should not just be the subject of attention at the state level. there were very few researchers who dealt with this topic in the montenegrin context, and they mostly focused on the aforementioned level (see vukićević, 2004). the fact that successful management of ethnocultural pluralism in democratic contexts depends on two additional levels, the level of ethnocultural communities and the level of individual identities of their members, is often overlooked. for the purpose of this paper, we distinguish between the three levels in a theoretical sense, fully aware of the fact that in practice they do not exist in the form of three separate strata. thus, the distinction is made for theoretical and analytical purposes and aims to underline certain tendencies that are critical for successful management of ethnocultural pluralism in the montenegrin context. additionally, it is important to provide a couple of terminological clarifications at the very beginning. the term multiculturalism is rather inconsistent and is used inconsistently in various scientific disciplines and by public actors, policy makers and members of political elites. it is most often used in a demographic sense, referring to the fact that several ethnic and national communities live in the same state2 (horton, 1993, p. 2). another possible meaning of the term is normative-political, which offers a definition of multiculturalism as a political-legal model that a certain state adopts in order to enable legal-political and institutional solutions for full integration of ethnocultural communities into social and political life, while preserving their identity specifics (nye, 2007, p. 111; rex, 1996, p. 16; silj, 2020, p. 2; young, 2001, p. 116). in a broad sense, it is a part of the so-called politics of recognition (parekh, 2004, p. 199). we argue that imprecise use of the term, whereby it is being used to convey both meanings, should be avoided. the ambiguity often occurs not only in literature 2 there is no uniform agreement on the denotation of terms ethnic and national community. some authors separate the notion of ethnic group from the notion of nations, considering the latter a modern phenomenon formed by the emergence of modern states, while others define national communities as those dominated by ethnic elements that have been reworked in the new circumstances of modern society, but continue to form the very core of national communities and provide them with emotional roots, a sense of historical continuity and a common collective destiny shared by all members of the community (hobsbawm, 1992, p. 4; jenkins 1997/2001, p. 250; llobera, 1994, p. 214; tadić, 1999, pp. 8–15). without intending to go into more detail in the analysis of differences and similarities between ethnic and national, we intend to use the term ethnocultural community for both aforementioned types of communities, considering it broad enough to include these types of communities and what they have in common. https://changing-sp.com/ 36 danijela vuković-ćalasan but also in the aforementioned use of the concept by public officials and members of the political elite. one possible solution to this problem is the proposal that the term multiculturalism should be used exclusively in the normative-political sense to denote the model of management of ethnocultural pluralism, which is accepted in different national contexts to different degrees, and involves the application of a range of legal and institutional solutions, measures and mechanisms that enable integration without assimilation. to denote the demographic plurality of modern states in the ethnic and national sense, we suggest the use of terms such as ethnocultural pluralism or multiethnicity. accordingly, in this paper, the term ethnocultural pluralism denotes ethnic and national pluralism in the demographic sense, the context of the state level. simultaneously, we acknowledge the complexity of ethnic and national identities on the other two levels that will be discussed in the paper. ethno-cultural pluralism in montenegro the balkans is usually referred to as a region rich in ethnocultural pluralism in demographic terms, and a region that has historically been marked by a highly pronounced dynamic in terms of identity stratification and politics. given its position at the crossroads between the east and the west, the balkans were ruled by various invaders who stayed in this area for shorter or extended periods of time, bringing with them new identity contents that were incorporated within the balkan peoples in different ways. montenegro, as one of the oldest balkans states, which gained its statehood at the berlin congress in 1878, had a very turbulent history. having developed in stages ranging from a tribal organisation over a theocracy, a modern state was slowly formed at the beginning of the 20th century, which included territories that were under the rule of the ottoman empire (andrijašević & rastoder, 2006; dašić, 2000; gopčević, 2008; jovanović, 2001). during the 20th century, the national and ethnic structure changed and, with the restoration of statehood in 2006, montenegro entered a new phase of consolidation of its national-state and political identity (vuković-ćalasan, 2013, pp. 80–84) the foundations of the model of multiculturalism as a model of managing ethnocultural pluralism in montenegro were created within the constitution, adopted in 2007. this constitution defines the state as civic and founded in mutliculturalism (ustav crne gore, 2007, § 1). the combination of the principles of citizenship and the model of multiculturalism was a significant step forward for montenegrin society and its democratisation and emancipation. in order to emphasise the reality of ethnocultural pluralism of montenegro and its preservation, the drafter of the constitution dedicated a complete chapter of the constitution to collective minority rights, although this is not a regular practice for the constitution as the highest legal act (ustav crne gore, 2007, § 79). additionally, the constitution places a ban on assimilation in all its forms (ustav crne gore, 2007, § 80). thereby, the importance of preserving the ethnocultural and plural character of the state was recognised, which is a solution that follows the model of multiculturalism. in the demographic sense, montenegro belongs to the changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 33–54 37 so-called multinational states, if we use kymlicka’s terminology, which assumes that in a multicultural (ethnoculturally plural— author’s note) state, its members “either belong to different nations (multinational state) or they immigrated from different nations (polyethnic state)” (kymlicka, 1995). according to the latest population census from 2011, there are 278,865 or 44.89% of montenegrins living in montenegro; 175,110 or 28.73% of serbs; 53,605 or 8.65% of bosniaks; 30,439 or 4.91% of albanians; 20,537 or 3.31% of muslims; 6,251 or 1.01% of roma people; 6,021 or 0.97% of croats. a total of 30,170 or 4.87% of the population remain undeclared (uprava za statistiku, 2011). having in mind the structure in the ethnocultural sense of the word, it is clear that montenegro is a country with a pronounced degree of ethnocultural pluralism (see raduški, 2003). montenegro is the only country in the region and in europe in which the majority ethnocultural community makes for less than 50% of the population (bešić, 2019, p. 2). therefore, the issue of successful management of this type of pluralism becomes even more pronounced, since in such circumstances it is more challenging to provide communities and their members with the necessary space for freedom to develop their identities, while strengthening the components that they have in common with others, which provides for identification with a shared political identity, and preservation of social cohesion. consequently, and in light of increasingly complicated and complex global and regional circumstances and challenges, it is necessary to pay attention to this issue on a theoretical level as well. all the more so as research shows a growing concern about challenges related to achieving social cohesion in many countries. for example, an ipsos survey from october 2020 shows that 41% of people perceive social cohesion in their country as weak (social cohesion in the pandemic age, 2020, p. 9). therefore, considering the levels of possible treatment of ethnocultural pluralism, it is necessary to briefly draw attention to the nature of ethnocultural pluralism in montenegro or, more precisely, to the types of ethnocultural communities that inhabit its territory. in montenegro, the dominant type of ethnocultural communities are national minorities, i.e., communities that have lived on the territory of montenegro for a historically long period, and communities that perceive montenegro as their homeland. some of the ethnocultural communities in montenegro are territorially concentrated in one or more self-administrations (municipalities) (see vukoviććalasan, 2018, pp. 155–156). in the most general sense, successful management of ethnocultural pluralism would entail the adoption and implementation of legal and political solutions, measures and mechanisms that would result in equal possibilities to reach more successful integration for all ethnocultural communities. in addition, it would mean greater equality between these communities, reduced ethnic distance, good quality of relations between communities that would be characterised by acceptance, understanding, strong social ties and developed relations of exchange and interaction, elimination of various forms of discrimination and marginalisation of communities, as well as expansion of freedoms of their individual members. such effects would contribute to the process of democratisation of society and would have a positive impact on the social cohesion of the community. https://changing-sp.com/ 38 danijela vuković-ćalasan national-state level: the first level of managing of ethnocultural pluralism it is clear that the issue of managing ethnocultural pluralism is mostly related to the most general, national-state level, primarily as a result of the nature of the model of multiculturalism, the essence of which is embodied by the legal-political and institutional solutions adopted and applied at the state level. in that sense, it can be argued that montenegro has adopted certain legal and institutional solutions in line with the model of multiculturalism, especially with the adoption of the constitution in 2007, which laid a solid foundation for further improvement of the solution within the framework of the aforementioned model (vuković-ćalasan, 2018, pp. 161–172). the 2007 constitution finally laid the foundations for the model of multiculturalism in montenegro, and treated this matter through an entire chapter dedicated to the protection of identity and collective rights that can be enjoyed by ethno-cultural communities (ustav crne gore, 2007). prior to the adoption of the constitution, zakon o manjinskim pravima i slobodama [law on minority rights and freedoms], adopted in 2006, was the model used to treat the above issue. this law foresaw three key pillars of the model of multiculturalism in montenegro: the minority policy strategy, national councils, and the minorities fund (zakon o manjinskim pravima i slobodama, 2006). what would successful management of ethnocultural pluralism mean at this level, in the context of montenegrin society, but also in the context of any society that is democratic, regardless of the degree of its democratisation? first of all, it would mean the existence of normative preconditions, in the legal-institutional and political sense, which should enable all ethnocultural communities to enjoy full integration into the social and political life of the community, on equal terms. can we say that the aforementioned normative preconditions have been fully implemented in the context of montenegro? although significant improvements have, undoubtedly, been made in terms of normative and legal solutions along the lines of the model of multiculturalism, attention should be drawn to the most visible shortcomings that call into question the basic principles on which the model is based, and which pertain to the obligation of equal treatment of ethnocultural communities that share a similar position—the foundation of equality and uniformity in defining and implementing key solutions. in that sense, we note that the roma ethnic community is exposed to what its representatives define as systemic political discrimination (beriša, 2017). in line with the need to ensure participation in political decision-making of minority ethnocultural communities in a manner that will ensure their authentic representation and representation in the parliament, measures of affirmative action in the field of electoral legislation have been envisaged (zakon o izmjenama, 2014)3. the standard electoral threshold of 3% of the total number of valid votes was reduced to 0.75% of the total number of valid votes for national parties and lists representing the interests of individual ethnocultural communities. in order not to leave the croatian national community without authentic representation, for the electoral lists 3 regarding the actualisation of the right to political participation as a necessary precondition of the process of integration of ethno-cultural communities, see the chapter “effective participation as the key to integration” (đorđević, 2016, pp. 199–201). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 33–54 39 and parties of this national community, the electoral threshold was further reduced to 0.35% of the total number of valid votes (zakon o izmjenama i dopunama zakona o izboru odbornika i poslanika, 2014, §62). what is problematic, however, and is in the zone of normative discrimination, is the fact that a similar solution has not been provided for the roma ethnic community, which is represented to approximately the same extent as the croatian national community in the total population, but suffers a worse social position in all dimensions of integration. the above results in members of the roma community being unable to have their own authentic representatives in the parliament of montenegro. in addition, lack of affirmative action that would enable their political representation is reflected in the degree of their political participation in general. without the possibility to cross the electoral threshold, the roma did not have a motive for political engagement or party formation, so montenegro remains the last former yugoslav state in which the roma formed a political party, the democratic party of roma, in december 2019. representatives of the roma population in montenegro, as well as relevant institutions, such as the ombudsman, consider this circumstance as unacceptable discrimination and hope to see changes in the legislation that would create normative prerequisites for the realisation of equality of this community in montenegrin society, without which successful management of ethno-cultural pluralism is impossible (for more details see damjanović, 2022; mina, 2022; vlahović, 2022; zaštitnik ljudskih prava i sloboda, 2022). such discrimination becomes even more pronounced if we bear in mind that the roma are in the most difficult position in terms of integration into montenegrin society, in almost all areas of socio-economic and political life (ministry of justice, 2021). their position and the obstacles they face in the process of integration into montenegrin society are incomparable with any ethnocultural community living in montenegro. trapped in a vicious circle of poverty, ethnic distance, and the refusal of the rest of the population to accept them as equal citizens, unemployment, and often unresolved basic legal status are all circumstances that prevent members of this ethnic group from finally having a better quality of life in montenegrin society. roma are the most exposed to hate speech in montenegro and this is clearly perceived by 55.2% of montenegrin citizens in the latest study on the patterns and degree of discrimination in montenegro, from december 2022 (see cedem, 2022a, p. 54). although this treatment of roma in the field of electoral legislation has been criticised by relevant european institutions monitoring the process of montenegro’s accession to the european union, there has been no indication of a change in the direction of political will to eliminate this normative shortcoming. the 2022 european commission progress report on montenegro, clearly states that “roma and egyptians are still the most vulnerable and discriminated minority group” adding that “in january 2022, the roma council submitted an initiative to parliament to reduce the threshold for political representation of roma in the law on the election of councillors and mps. this issue falls under the jurisdiction of the parliamentary committee on comprehensive electoral legislation. there were no developments in this regard” (european neighbourhood policy, 2022, p. 43). thus, successful management of ethnocultural pluralism at the level of institutional and legal-political solutions should include elimination of this and https://changing-sp.com/ 40 danijela vuković-ćalasan similar shortcomings that have deep and far-reaching consequences not only for the position of the discriminated community, but also in the context of interethnic relations, thereby creating a sense of injustice and exclusion. even though national communities in montenegro do not have territorial autonomy, even when they are territorially concentrated to a certain extent, the model of multiculturalism implies the so-called non-territorial minority autonomy embodied in the existence of the so-called national councils. territorial autonomy, as a form of governing minority nationalisms, has never taken root in the balkans and has always been viewed through the prism of security and lack of trust in minority communities in terms of their attitude towards potential secession (for more details see harris, 1993, pp. 307–308; kymlicka, 2004, pp. 148–150). it has been mentioned that article 79 of the 2007 constitution of montenegro specifies, inter alia, that members of minority peoples and other minority national communities have the right to establish a council for the protection and promotion of special rights. article 33 of the 2006 zakon o manjinskim pravima i slobodama [law on minority rights and freedoms] provides that members of minority peoples in order to preserve their identity and promote their rights and freedoms, may establish a council representing the given minority people. in october 2019, the author of the paper conducted research on the functioning of national councils, as a form of non-territorial minority self-government in montenegro. the research showed that the councils of different ethno-cultural minority communities face different challenges, but that the roma national council is definitely in the most complex position, which reflects the complexity of the situation in which the roma community finds itself.4 for example, representatives of the roma council point out the problematic composition of the council. according to the legal framework, the council consists of members appointed by function, or more precisely automatic members, in addition to those who are elected by delegates at the electoral assembly (zakon o manjinskim pravima i slobodama, 2006). the roma national council has no members appointed by function due to the lack of authentic representatives in parliament, the lack of representation of members of this community in state institutions, public administration bodies, courts, the prosecution and other 4 the research included in-depth interviews with representatives of national councils who were asked to answer the following questions: 1. how do you evaluate the regulated position of national councils in terms of the election of members, their composition and prescribed competences? 2. what problems do you see in the functioning of your council in the current legal and political context? 3. how do you rate the quality of communication with institutions that decide on matters of relevance for minority peoples and other minority national communities? 4. what would you change, and how would you make the change to improve the work of your council and the institution of national councils in general? of the six national councils that exist in montenegro, representatives of four national councils provided answers—the respective presidents of the national councils of roma, serbs, and croats, while representatives of the national councils of bosniaks and albanians were not available for an interview. the research was conducted for the purpose of participating in two international conferences held in 2019 and 2021. the former was held in october 2019, under the name “cultural autonomy and minority self-government“, institute of social sciences, belgrade; academic network for cooperation in southeast europe. (conference paper: “minority self-government in montenegro—possibilities and challenges“). the latter was held in 2021, under the name “monitoring and evaluation of performance of national minority councils”, the european centre for minority issues (ecmi), flensburg, germany (presentation: “national minority councils in montenegro”). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 33–54 41 institutions working on creation and implementation of public policies, and protection of freedoms and rights. representatives of roma council consider the fact that they do not have members appointed by function a great shortcoming, because their existence would strengthen the position of the council itself and its influence in the efforts for integration and equality of the members of this community. the roma council considers the fact that they do not have a backing through political party particularly problematic. without a political party supporting them, they assess the work of the council as very difficult, in terms of exerting any real influence. in their opinion, political support is necessary in order to achieve the desired goals. the quality of cooperation and communication with institutions dealing with this issue is another shortcoming in the process of integration of this community. institutions either do not consult the council at all, or fail to consult it sufficiently in decisionmaking processes of importance and relevance to the roma people. for example, in the case of the appointment of mediators intended for school-age children of the roma community—the roma council was not consulted at all by the ministry of education in the appointment process. in the end, mediators who did not speak the romani language were appointed. the council also pointed out the problem of irrational spending of funding, for example for teaching roma children the romani language, sending roma children on separate school trips and the like. another significant element of successful management of ethnocultural pluralism at this first level concerns the way in which a common political, national-state identity is constituted. although all states are, to a greater or lesser degree, involved in the process of nation-building the challenges they face in this regard are specific in each individual context. the type of political culture, historical background, degree of ethnocultural pluralism, legal-political solutions and the like, differ from country to country, from region to region. we previously underlined that a particular challenge is faced by countries that have a high degree of demographic ethnocultural pluralism in the sense that there is no single ethnocultural community that makes for the majority of the total population. in terms of the established common political identity, montenegro is defined as a civic state (constitution of montenegro, 2007, §1). from the aspect of successful management of ethnocultural pluralism, we consider the above a good solution. certainly, a civic state does not function as a post-national one in practice. it retains the ethnocultural component of national identity but seeks to make it as inclusive as possible for different ethnocultural communities. therefore, we believe that it is unrealistic to expect that the civic state can be completely devoid of the ethnocultural component and rely exclusively on the political and legal components. nor does it need to be such. the constitution of a political identity in the framework of civic nationalism implies an important element on which successful management of ethnocultural pluralism largely depends. the element can be outlined as reducing the degree of instrumentalisation of ethnic and national affiliations and their politicisation in a negative sense. in fact, pacifying ethnic and national divisions and their politicisation for daily political purposes would be very useful in the context of the process of building a common political identity, since the ethnocultural component would not be in the forefront, which happens when the degree of politicisation is high. https://changing-sp.com/ 42 danijela vuković-ćalasan building a civic society based on developing a culture of dialogue, reducing the use of hate speech motivated by ethnic and national differences, building capacity for compromise on identity policies and ways to build a common identity are essential for successful management of ethnocultural pluralism. successful application of the model of multiculturalism and further democratisation of society depends, inter alia, on the development of a society based on public, inclusive dialogue and the reduction of the instrumentalisation of ethnic and national differences. the previously mentioned research on patterns and degree of discrimination in montenegro, from december 2022, confirms our thesis: political parties and politicians, as the most significant political actors in montenegro, are perceived as actors who make the least contribution to the fight against discrimination and actors who mostly use hate speech that is directed towards communities that differ by the colour of their skin and national or ethnic affiliation (bešić, 2022, pp. 43, 50, 52). in our view, further investment in building a civic state, and development of a civic society in all the elements that strengthen the process of individualisation, expand the space of individual freedom and pacify ethnocultural divisions, which can only strengthen social cohesion and facilitate successful management of ethnocultural differences. a common political identity must remain as open and inclusive as possible. the degree of identification of the muslim national community with the state of montenegro shows that the construction of a common political identity on civic grounds is one of the critical components of successful management of ethno-cultural pluralism. this form of identification is much more pronounced in montenegro compared to the rest of the region, which is why the degree of acceptance of the national designation “bošnjak” (which binds muslims to bosnia as their motherland) is lower (see đečević et al., 2017). the level of ethnocultural communities: the illusion of homogeneity the model of multiculturalism has a twofold relationship with the category of ethnocultural communities. on the one hand, the measures and mechanisms of this model are aimed at improving the position of communities and preserving their identity specifics. thereby, their identities continue to be profiled and the politicisation of ethnocultural identities of communities in this sense has a positive impact on their survival. on the other hand, the elite of ethnocultural communities, which consists primarily of political subjects and intellectuals, i.e. the scientific elite, interprets and profiles the identity of the community in a certain way and strives to make it accepted to the highest possible degree by the members of the community. in this sense, each community, i.e., its elite, is interested in increasing the degree of homogeneity within the community, which can be quite a challenge for its individual members. in contexts dominated by ethnonationalism, the pressure from the community elite on its members to accept the “dominant” view of its identity can be very pronounced. the political elite of the community seeks to present the community as a single, homogeneous entity. however, it should be noted that ethnocultural communities are never really homogeneous. these are heterogeneous entities within which individual members have different views on identity, its position in a particular context as well as changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 33–54 43 different views of the best direction of the development of the community in the future (baumann, 1999, p. 140). certainly, in regions where ethnonationalism is traditionally dominant, such as the balkan region, this homogeneity is further insisted upon. thus, successful management of ethnocultural pluralism in a democratic context and in line with a democratic political culture, must include taking into account that these are heterogeneous entities that are themselves plural and complex (žagar, 2010, p. 387) another important issue that is often in the background, but concerns this level of our discussion, relates to the quality of links and relations between ethnocultural communities in a particular context. policies of multiculturalism focus mainly on the rights of communities and their position, but very often neglect the relationships between communities, i.e., what happens between them. if policies of multiculturalism were implemented in an uneven and one-sided way, it could lead to negative consequences. for example, in montenegro, there is a constitutionally guaranteed right to proportional representation of members of minority peoples and other minority national communities in public administration, state administration bodies, courts, prosecutor’s offices, etc. in accordance with their share in the total population (constitution of montenegro, 2007, § 79). if this right were implemented in such a way that the bodies in charge of its implementation employed members of one or more ethnocultural communities at a pace that was not aligned with employment of members of other ethnocultural communities, despite the fact that it would not be against the law, it would ultimately lead to negative consequences. it is very easy to trigger a feeling of injustice and exclusion among those who are not part of this process, which directly affects the quality of relations between ethnocultural communities. therefore, implementation of these measures must be carried out in a way that will not jeopardise the purpose of the envisaged legal and other solutions, if successful management of ethnocultural pluralism is desired. additionally, at this level, it is important to monitor trends in inter-community relations. is there an increase in the level of interest of members of a community in the culture and identity specifics of others with whom the same political space is shared, as well as interest in understanding the position of other communities and specific challenges they face in the integration process? or, do we have a pronounced ethnic distance at work, with self-closure and a certain degree of self-isolationism of ethnocultural communities, as well as a focus exclusively on their own ethno-national interests? this is a significant issue that is very topical in the montenegrin context. research on ethnic distance in montenegro shows that it is increasing rather than decreasing, and that it is quite pronounced. in the period from 2013 to 2018, the level of interethnic distancing increased in almost all aspects, as well as the level of overall ethnic distancing in montenegro. simultaneously, the total ethnic distance in this five-year period increased by four percent (bešić, 2019, pp. 2, 6). this further indicates that there are problems with the effects of the model of multiculturalism on ethnic relations and the quality of relations between different ethnic and national communities in montenegro. the high degree of politicisation and instrumentalisation of ethnic and national identities by political actors certainly contributes to this. the abuse of these affiliations for political purposes and for the interests of political parties is reflected in interethnic and interhttps://changing-sp.com/ 44 danijela vuković-ćalasan national relations. this is amplified by one of the characteristics of the authoritarian political culture that prevails in montenegro, “the confinement of individuals to the group and the confinement of the group to externalities” (čupić, 2020, p. 80). due to the fact that it is a very powerful mobilising resource in the political sense, and one that mostly produces an emotional reaction, political parties are most inclined to use it as a means of achieving political objectives. in that sense, it is very interesting to analyse the degree and forms of political participation of citizens in montenegrin society. montenegro traditionally has a high degree of political participation in parliamentary elections, with generally high turnout. however, other forms of political participation, such as participation in public debates, civic activism in various areas, and the like, are scarce in the period between elections. one of the explanations for this tendency lies in the high degree of instrumentalisation of ethnic and national elements by political actors, primarily political parties. by generating internal enemies embodied in members of certain ethnic and national communities who are allegedly a threat to the survival of their own community, and making extensive use of recent and not so recent history, political parties contribute to the horizontal level of trust declining and individuals becoming very prone to perceiving members of other ethnic and national communities through the prism of fear and mistrust. according to the european social survey conducted in montenegro in 2019, approximately half of respondents do not trust people of another religion or nationality (european social survey, 2021). only 11.4% of respondents have complete trust in people of another nationality, while only 9.5% have complete trust in people of other religious affiliations (european social survey, 2021). we consider this to be a direct consequence of the politicisation of ethnic and national affiliations by political parties. ethnicisation of politics and the politicisation of ethnicity (in the sense of its instrumentalisation) occur, which makes it difficult to successfully manage ethnocultural pluralism. bearing the above in mind, and considering the process of ethnicisation of politics in the post-socialist context of balkan societies, vučina vasović (2013) states the following: part of the reason for the strong tendencies of ethnicisation of politics should be sought in the authoritarian inclinations among a significant part of the political elite, regardless of whether it is the ruling majority or the opposition. rather than democratisation, the elite chose hyper-ethnification or nationalisation of politics. that process ran parallel to the process of politicisation of ethnicity. (p. 163) in addition to the above, vasović refers to inadequate political representation of ethno-cultural communities as one of the most significant reasons for the emergence of a negative tendency of ethnicisation of politics, which was discussed in the previous chapter (vasović, 2013, p. 163). this represents a challenge and danger for social cohesion of montenegrin society. the country’s social cohesion is based on the need to strengthen trust not only in the vertical but also in the horizontal dimension, as well as the need to strengthen social ties and activate the so-called linking social capital (szreter, 2002). successful management of ethnocultural pluralism at this level implies raising awareness of political actors in the direction of their greater understanding of changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 33–54 45 the consequences of instrumentalisation of ethnic and national elements, especially from the perspective of achieving and strengthening social cohesion. individual party interest must not endanger social cohesion, and yet we believe that montenegro is exposed to that risk. in a sense, citizens recognise the often-irresponsible actions of political parties, which are reflected in both interethnic and inter-national relations. this is further illustrated by the fact that in public opinion polls that are conducted continuously, trust in political parties is traditionally at the very bottom of the scale of trust that citizens have in institutions and social organisations (cedem, 2022b, p. 11; for 2021, 2020, 2019, see cedem, n.d.). political actors must be aware that their actions primarily determine whether the level of exchange, interaction and understanding between different ethnic and national communities will increase, or whether their inaction or misconduct will erode trust between community members and reduce the model of multiculturalism to creating an environment in which members of different ethnic and national communities do not live with each other in a common social space but next to each other. level of personal identity: the right to a plural identity? it is also possible to discuss ethnocultural pluralism at the level of personal identities of individuals. this level is mostly neglected and ignored. societies dominated by the ideology of ethnonationalism do not sustain an environment that affirms and respects the fact that the ethnocultural identities of individuals are often complex and plural. in the conditions of dominance of ethno-nationalism, it is easy to activate the authoritarian-collectivist type of ethno-cultural (national) identity within the two previously mentioned levels, which is inevitably reflected on the level of personal identity. in the context of montenegro and the balkans in general, this translates to hate speech towards members of other ethno-cultural communities, non-affirmation of plural identities of individuals, as well as primacy of the collective over the individual (golubović, 2007, p. 344; marković, 2010, p. 18; vuković-ćalasan, 2014, pp. 126–128). montenegro is among the 25 percent of the most authoritarian countries, according to the european values survey, and is characterised by a subservient-participative political culture that is authoritarian by nature (knežević, 2012, p. 398; komar, 2013, pp. 112, 173). it is clear from the above that the environment for expanding the space of personal freedom in terms of identity in montenegro is not particularly affirmative. one of the basic characteristics of authoritarian political culture concerns the primacy of collective identity in the sense that “in a culture of a community dominated by authoritarianism, we is more important than i” (čupić, 2020, p. 79). an important factor to consider is the often-neglected circumstance of identity duality in montenegro in the historical sense. there is a so-called montenegrin homo duplex in terms of simultaneous existence of categories of serb and montenegrin that are not mutually exclusive in ethnocultural sense (darmanović, 1992, as cited in džankić, 2015, p. 137). furthermore, to the extent that the state succeeds in building a civic political identity that is inclusive in character, it can be expected that members of minority ethnocultural communities will also adopt the identity determinant montenegrin, and thus build a https://changing-sp.com/ 46 danijela vuković-ćalasan complex identity in the national sense. the fact that the identities of individuals are often complex is recognised in the ljubljana guidelines for the integration of diverse societies, which clearly underlines that individual identities can be and in fact increasingly are multiple (a sense of having several horizontal identities; for instance, belonging to more than one ethnicity), multi-layered (various identities coexist and overlap in the same person, such as ethnic, religious, linguistic, gender, professional and the like), contextual (the context might determine which identity is more prominent at a given moment) and dynamic (the content of each identity and the attachment of individuals to it is changing over time). (the ljubljana guidelines, 2012, p. 14) however, if there is a visible presence of a high degree of politicisation and the instrumentalisation of ethnic and national elements, political elites seek to deepen ethnic and national divisions, insisting on clear boundaries and pure identity positions. this situation is a precondition for political profit, which is much easier to build if individuals who inherit plural and complex identities in the ethnocultural sense are discouraged from nurturing and strengthening that pluralism. pluralism is viewed with suspicion and distrust as it disrupts the black and white image of the world that the ideology of ethnonationalism is founded upon. if the environment is favourable and plural identities are affirmed by those who possess them, and individuals are encouraged to not give up on their different affiliations in ethnocultural terms, as a result we could see strengthened social networks, interaction and understanding between ethnic and national communities, which runs against the in intentions of ethnonationalists. ethnonationalism as an ideology is based on simplification of reality, clear identity boundaries and profiling of differences, very often to the point of exclusivity. therefore, we believe that successful management of ethnocultural pluralism in modern circumstances must take into account the level of the individual and personal identity. the space of personal identity is a space of individual freedom and, in that sense, it is inseparable from democracy (davis & marin, 2009). dominance of ethno-nationalism and the reduction of multiculturalism primarily to particular identities of ethno-cultural communities are fertile ground for the emergence of the so-called essentialisation of identity (parekh, 2008, p. 34). it leads to development of authoritarianism at the level of ethnocultural communities towards individual members who are under pressure from the community to preserve its homogeneity and dominant view of identity (crespi, 2006, p. 162). having in mind the above, one of the challenges faced by montenegrin society is to recognise the importance of individualisation in the sphere of identity in the process of further maturation and democratisation. this would translate into resistance to the enslavement of this area by political actors in the first place. each individual must be free to build their ethnocultural identity in a way they think they should by nurturing their ethnic and national affiliations, if there are more than one, without facing pressure, rejection, suspicion, and mistrust. although the model of multiculturalism is more focused on ethnocultural communities and less changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 33–54 47 on their individual members and the space of their freedom, we are of the view that certain negative tendencies resulting from the dominance of ethnonationalism must be recognised at the level of individual identity. any insistence on differences, the point of exclusivity, even where there is much in common between communities and their identities, potentially erodes the social networks that are prerequisite for preserving social cohesion. however, the step that precedes this moment occurs at the level of personal identities of individuals who, under the pressure of the ideology of ethnonationalism, must set clear boundaries even with those with whom they share much in common in terms of identity. concluding remarks since 2007, montenegro has adopted legal-institutional solutions based on the model of multiculturalism. despite significant improvements in terms of equality of ethnocultural communities, a factor that significantly reduces the rates of success in managing ethnocultural pluralism at this first, state level is the normative discrimination of the roma ethnic community members and uneven application of measures and mechanisms of this model to all ethnic and national communities in montenegro. at the second level, which refers to the ethnocultural communities themselves, i.e., the quality of interethnic relations, rates of success of implementation of multicultural policies show significant shortcomings, especially in the context of ethnic distance, which has been growing since montenegro regained independence the above shows that at the level of communities and relations between them, we have a case of more self-closure, distancing and self-isolationism than interaction. at the third level, the level of individual identities, creation of a legal and political environment that will deter the detected negative tendencies is very important. they are reflected in the high degree of instrumentalisation of ethnic and national identities, which results in a tighter space for expressing and nurturing plural identities among the citizens who possess them. in the context of montenegro, insufficient attention is paid to the different levels of ethnocultural pluralism, i.e., the tendencies that can be observed at these levels, and which have a negative impact on the process of democratisation. the issue of successful management of ethnocultural pluralism is indeed one of the most significant for modern societies. tendencies to pluralise contemporary national-state contexts, at different levels, complicate old challenges and give rise to new ones that states must face. states with varying degrees of democratic consolidation in the management of ethnocultural diversity accept, officially or unofficially, the measures and mechanisms of model of multiculturalism to varying degrees. they do this by guaranteeing different collective rights, envisaging measures of affirmative action in different areas of integration—from education to electoral legislation, and ensuring political participation of members of all ethnic and national communities. in the post-communist countries of the balkans, as well as in montenegro, elements of the model of multiculturalism slowly began to be introduced and implemented at the very end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. a decade https://changing-sp.com/ 48 danijela vuković-ćalasan and a half into implementation, we can acknowledge a partial success of legalinstitutional solutions that have provided a greater degree of equality for minority national communities. the acquired rights as well as the possibility of political participation enabled minority ethnocultural communities to better integrate into the wider social community. however, attention must be drawn to several tendencies that exist in montenegro, which we perceive as negative, and which cannot be associated with successful management of ethnocultural pluralism. firstly, at the first level that we referred to, there should be no formal-legal discrimination against any ethno-cultural community, as is currently the case with the roma community. any such unequal treatment ultimately produces a feeling of injustice, exclusion, and affects both the position of the ethno-cultural community and the quality of interethnic relations and social cohesion. at this first level, it is also important to continue the process of building a common political identity in civic terms, making it as inclusive as possible in relation to different ethno-cultural communities. montenegrin society, as distinctly plural in the ethno-cultural sense, and a society characterised by the absence of single community that constitutes a dominant majority, requires additional attention in this sense. on the second level that was discussed, constant evaluation and monitoring of the impact of the measures and mechanisms of the model of multiculturalism are required, on the social community and especially on relations between ethnocultural communities. apart from sporadic research on ethnic distance, very little has been done in this area. insufficient attention is paid to raising the level of community interest in each other, overcoming self-closure and ethnic distance, connecting communities that would help strengthen social cohesion and reduce the experience of others through the prism of fear and mistrust. if we want to successfully manage ethno-cultural pluralism at this level, political and social actors must find a way to encourage building relationships between communities. the latter is particularly important for the balkan region, which is characterised by traumatic events and conflicts in the not-so-distant past that have severely damaged relations between communities and triggered a new vicious cycle of mistrust that was already strong following world war ii. this is an additional reason to focus theory and research on the level of ethnocultural communities and the effects that solutions in the framework of models of multiculturalism produce in relations between communities. successful management of ethnoculturalism at this level would include a mandatory reduction of ethnic distance, which is currently very pronounced in montenegro, especially towards the roma population. if the level of exchange and understanding between communities is not improved, and if the level of politicisation and abuse of ethnic and national differences for political purposes by political parties is not reduced, further closure of these communities and increase in level of distrust can be expected. in the long run, this can jeopardise social cohesion. successful management of ethnocultural pluralism in a democratic context is not possible without a careful analysis of tendencies that emerge at the level of personal identities of individuals who, very often, belong to two or more ethnocultural communities and inherit complex identities. the dominance of the ideology of ethnonationalism in montenegro is still present today and, in the balkans, overall. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 33–54 49 low levels of individualisation, authoritarian political culture and a high degree of instrumentalisation of ethnic and national identities by political actors are a suitable environment for embracing the ideology of ethnonationalism. this results in a type of pressure on individual members of society to fit, in terms of their identity, into predefined identity matrices that are promoted as the only authentic forms of identity by political and social actors. individuals who see their national or ethnic identity differently in terms of the content and status they hold in an individual’s personal identity are marginalised and labelled as less authentic members of the community. an environment that is not affirmative of plural and complex identities and where individuals who inherit them face pressure from the community or political actors to accept the dominant version of identity is not favourable from the perspective of increasing the level of democratisation and building a society of free citizens. if the space for freedom is narrowing for individuals and if they suffer negative consequences due to the 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received 26 october 2022 accepted 21 february 2023 published online 10 april 2023 article the dark triad and non-normative collective action in the save kpk movement in indonesia: the mediation effect of contempt ahmad helmi nugraha, raehan kautsar julian, rudy adiguna, veronica lioni hartono, donna kusuma, muhammad abdan shadiqi, rusdi rusli universitas lambung mangkurat, banjarbaru, indonesia abstract this study aimed to examine the role of group-based contempt and the dark triad of personality traits (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) in the intention to participate in non-normative collective action in the save kpk (save the indonesian corruption eradication commission) movement. the data was collected via the distribution of an online questionnaire and on-campus recruitment of university students. a total of 409 students were involved as the participants through a purposive sampling strategy. the multiple regression tests found that only the variables group-based contempt and psychopathy significantly could predict non-normative collective action, albeit partially; the other dark triad variables (machiavellianism and narcissism), in this case, were found to be insignificant. a path analysis model showed that machiavellianism and psychopathy could significantly predict non-normative collective action under the mediation of group-based contempt. narcissism was found to have https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:helminugraha146@gmail.com mailto:raehankautsarjulian@gmail.com mailto:raehankautsarjulian@gmail.com mailto:rudyadiguna93@gmail.com mailto:lionivero@gmail.com mailto:lionivero@gmail.com mailto:donnaku999@gmail.com mailto:abdan.shadiqi@ulm.ac.id mailto:abdan.shadiqi@ulm.ac.id mailto:r.rusli@ulm.ac.id changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 130–148 131 introduction demonstrations or protests can be carried out either peacefully or violently (shadiqi et al., 2018). non-normative collective action refers to behaviors that harm others and their rights (wright et al., 1990). this study would focus on cases of violent collective action that occurred in indonesia in relation to the save kpk movement. in order to eliminate corruption, komisi pemberantasan korupsi [corruption eradication commission, kpk] was established in 2002 by the government of the republic of indonesia based on indonesian law number 30 of 2002 concerning the corruption eradication commission (sosiawan, 2019). as a state institution, it has executive power in performing its functions and authorities and is independent and free from the influence of any power (sosiawan, 2019). ironically, many efforts were made, especially by the two main state institutions, namely dewan perwakilan rakyat [people’s legislative council] and the indonesian national police, to thwart the kpk (pruwanto, 2021). in 2009, the term “cicak vs buaya” (“lizard vs crocodile”) emerged among the public, describing the fierce feud between the kpk and the indonesian police. such case triggered a civil society movement in sumatra barat to support the kpk against those attempting to weaken it (pruwanto, 2021). another conflict between the kpk and the police occurred in 2012 when police commissioner novel baswedan, a former kpk officer, was arrested in 2012 after committing a crime in bengkulu in 2004 (margianto, 2012). this case raised social tension within society during that period (juditha, 2014). additionally, it also encouraged society to support the kpk by occupying the kpk’s building and no significance. this study results, by considering the dark triad and emotional factors, help people understand why and how individuals or groups of students commit violence. keywords non-normative collective action, group-based contempt, dark triad, indonesia acknowledgment the authors are grateful to students, communities, union student organizations in indonesia, and the directorate general of learning and student affairs of the ministry of research, technology, and higher education of indonesia for funding and giving grants to the undergraduate student creativity program. the authors would also thank universitas lambung mangkurat for its financial support and the social and environmental behavior laboratory (sneblab) of the department of psychology of faculty of medicine of universitas lambung mangkurat for its technical support. https://changing-sp.com/ 132 ahmad helmi nugraha, raehan kautsar julian, rudy adiguna, veronica lioni hartono, donna kusuma, muhammad abdan shadiqi, rusdi rusli establishing social media forums to freely give their opinion about “the criminalization of the kpk,” namely, the weakening of the kpk by arresting its officers based on fabricated criminal cases (juditha, 2014). through this initiation, the save kpk movement in 2014 was created as a form of societal support for the kpk. the main supporters of the save kpk movement were students who joined workers and civil society activists (gelombang demo mahasiswa, 2019). then, in 2015, another conflict occurred. one of the kpk officers was named as suspect by the police criminal investigation unit of the republic of indonesia. this case gained public attention because of the violation of the operational procedure standards committed in the arresting process (prasetia, 2021). the conflict occurred again in 2019. sometimes, the save kpk movement in indonesia was done violently. in 2019, in sumatra utara, indonesia, some students destructed and burned police cars and other vehicles (noris, 2019). in the same year, in bandung, 92 indonesian students were injured due to clashes with the police (dinillah, 2019). the most recent one occurred in 2021, in kalimantan selatan, a physical contact between indonesian students and the police sparked a riot and left four people injured (hadi, 2021). in 2022, no similar events to weaken the kpk were noted. juditha (2014) stated that corruption is the most crucial issue or case to eradicate in indonesia. since the kpk was formed to perform such eradication, the indonesian people are always trying to support it and protect it from being weakened by other institutions or parties. they express their support in any way, either through peaceful or violent actions. collective actions are divided into two categories, namely normative (peacefully without violence) and non-normative (non-peacefully with violence) (tausch et al., 2011; thomas & louis, 2014; wright, 2009). non-normative actions include demonstrations and protests accompanied by violence such as terrorism, riots, and group fights (shadiqi, 2021). most of the actions in the save kpk movements were non-normative, such as those that just happened in 2019 and 2021. on the other hand, some actions were done normatively. a collective action that was initially done peacefully can turn into anarchy when mediation does not work, bringing the protesting individuals or groups to commit violence (hogg & abrams, 2007). many factors can predict collective action, such as emotion, which was one of the focuses of this study. apart from emotion, interesting factors to observe was personality traits. for this reason, this study specifically examined the role of the dark triad of personality traits that is more related to acts of violence. this study would show the respective role of machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and group-based contempt in nonnormative collective action in the save kpk movement. the literature review section would show the clarification of arguments, reasons for choosing the variables, and the hypothesis statements. group-based contempt and non-normative collective action emotions in predicting collective action can be divided into two types, namely selfbased and group-based emotions (shadiqi et al., 2018). the theory of group-based emotion originates in intergroup emotion theory (iet) (mackie et al., 2000). this study focused on group-based contempt, which is a series of emotional experiences of a changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 130–148 133 person or group to demean another person or group as a process of social grouping. this emotion makes a person or group not want to understand others (becker et al., 2011; fischer & roseman, 2007). therefore, group-based contempt can predict the occurrence of non-normative action (becker et al., 2011; shadiqi et al., 2018; tausch et al., 2011). shadiqi et al. (2018) conducted research on muslim students in indonesia to prove that emotions, such as group-based negative (contempt) emotions, can predict non-normative collective action. shadiqi et al. (2018) also conducted research on collective action in indonesia by collecting data through online surveys and self-reports and found that group-based contempt could significantly predict non-normative collective action on the issue of palestinian solidarity action. tel (2012) who conducted an online survey in the netherlands and germany obtained inconsistent results: no significant relationship between contempt and acts of violence in the context of injustice and structural disadvantages experienced by kurds living in european countries. the inconsistencies found interested us to re-examine the effect of group-based contempt. our hypothesis with respect to this was as follows: hypothesis 1: group-based contempt plays a role in non-normative collective action. the dark triad of personality on non-normative collective action the term “dark triad” was originally coined by paulhus and williams (2002). it refers to three social hostility personalities that seem similar to social “bad characters” with tendency of self-promotion, emotional coldness, two-facedness, and aggression. comprehensively, machiavellianism means amoral manipulative manner, narcissism means self-glorification, and psychopathy can be interpreted as a personality of an individual with no empathy, impulsive, and willingly taking risks to achieve personal goals (glenn & sellbom, 2015). in addition, as time went by, jones and paulhus (2014) developed those three components to be the short dark triad (sd3). machiavellianism the concept of machiavellianism was first explained by christie and geis (1970) and named after italian diplomat niccolò machiavelli whose treatise talked about a political approach that later was known as the orientation of “aim justifies all means.” machiavellianism has different features, yet strategic manipulation, lack of conventional morality, and cynical view toward the world are the most specific characters (christie & geis, 1970). one of the dark triad of personality traits, machiavellianism, can be identified through three facets: (a) machiavellians are characterized by their manipulation skills in their interaction with others, (b) they have a negative view of other people, and (c) they have moral outlook that puts expediency above principle (o’boyle et al., 2012). in an online study by pailing et al. (2014) involving 159 adults, machiavellianism functioned as a predictor of self-reported violence. duspara and greitemeyer (2017) who performed an online survey in austria by inviting participants through social media found that extreme political action with machiavellianism had a negative association with the issues of political orientation and extremism during the presidential election, with low level correlation coefficient. https://changing-sp.com/ 134 ahmad helmi nugraha, raehan kautsar julian, rudy adiguna, veronica lioni hartono, donna kusuma, muhammad abdan shadiqi, rusdi rusli narcissism the concept of narcissism varies among writers and originally refers in greek mythology to narcissus, a young hunter who was obsessed with his beauty and majesty until he arrogantly underestimated concern and love from others (muris et al., 2017). a person with a narcissistic personality often exaggerates achievements, blocks criticism, refuses to cooperate, and only seeks interpersonal and romantic relationships with individuals who admire them (o’boyle et al., 2012). according to kernberg (1989), morf and rhodewalt (2001), the second type of the dark triad, narcissism, is an excessive self-assessment that is characterized by fantasizing about success, admiration, and the desire to get noticed and loved by others. pavlović and wertag (2021), who performed an online survey in croatia, explained that narcissism was a strong predictor of support for extremism mediated by proviolence in men but is insignificant in women. a meta-analysis by jahnke et al. (2021) found no significant effect of narcissism on political violence among adolescents and young adults. individuals who have a high level of narcissism will choose to be involved in politics but for self-improvement only (rogoza et al., 2022). psychopathy in 1941, psychopathy was introduced by cleckley as a clinical construction that later indicated the purpose as a subclinical personality (ray & ray, 1982). the last dark triad of personality traits, psychopathy, is a much broader construct and is often described as a “constellation” of interpersonal, affective, and behavioral traits (glenn & sellbom, 2015). it is characterized by a lack of concern for oneself and others, as well as social regulatory mechanisms, impulsivity, and a lack of shame when harming others (o’boyle et al., 2012). as the two other elements of the dark triad, it also reflects antagonistic behavior toward others (trahair et al., 2020). it can be a strong predictor of extremism, terrorism, and radicalism (chabrol et al., 2020; pavlović & franc, 2021). among the three dark personality traits, psychopathy was found to be strongly associated with non-normative collective action in online studies in poland (study 1) and britain (study 2) (rogoza et al., 2022) because it is the darkest or most violent trait of personality. gøtzsche-astrup (2021) performed an online study in the u.s. and found that the dark triad of personality traits could strongly predict the intention to engage in political violence. the inconsistent findings of previous studies did not fully explain the role of the dark triad in non-normative collective action in particular. this created strong motivation in this study to re-examine the relationship of the dark triad of personality traits with non-normative collective action. the hypotheses proposed were: hypothesis 2: machiavellianism is positively related to non-normative collective action. hypothesis 3: narcissism is positively related to non-normative collective action. hypothesis 4: psychopathy is positively related to non-normative collective action. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 130–148 135 the self-reported study by horan et al. (2015) showed the involvement of contempt within the dark triad of personality traits in the communication during a conflict. moreover, pavlović and franc (2021) explained that emotions can interact with the dark triad. roșca et al. (2021) who conducted a survey in romania showed that emotions could mediate the relationship between dark personality traits and risktaking behavior at work. in this study, we combined four predicting variables in multiple linear regression and path analysis models for the mediating effect of group-based contempt among machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy on non-normative collective action in the save kpk movement. the following hypotheses were proposed: hypothesis 5: there is a simultaneous role of group-based contempt, machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy in non-normative collective action. hypothesis 6: there is a role of machiavellianism in non-normative collective action mediated by group-based contempt. hypothesis 7: there is a role of narcissism in non-normative collective action mediated by group-based contempt. hypothesis 8: there is a role of psychopathy in non-normative collective action mediated by group-based contempt. the main research question in this study was: how are the dynamic of correlation between group-based contempt and the dark triad of personality traits (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) and the mediating effect of groupbased contempt in predicting intention of non-normative collective action in the save kpk movement-related issues? thus, this research aimed to explain the involvement of group-based contempt and the dark triad of personality traits (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) in predicting intention of non-normative collective action in the save kpk movement-related issues. method this study used a quantitative approach through a cross-sectional survey that was conducted using questionnaires distributed online and on-campus to collect the main data. the online data collection was carried out using surveymonkey, which was distributed through social media platforms to the indonesian college students. we added the main data with the paper-and-pencil administered questionnaires, which were distributed to the students of department of psychology of faculty of medicine of universitas lambung mangkurat. ethical approval was obtained from the faculty of medicine of universitas lambung mangkurat [667-668-669/kepk-fk ulm/ec/iv/2022]. participants the purposive sampling technique was used for selecting the participants. in this study, we involved students as the research sample because many actions in the save kpk movement were carried out by indonesian students. the pilot study took place on june 4–5, 2022, where data from 55 college students were https://changing-sp.com/ 136 ahmad helmi nugraha, raehan kautsar julian, rudy adiguna, veronica lioni hartono, donna kusuma, muhammad abdan shadiqi, rusdi rusli collected to determine the quality of the measurements. the data of 409 students as the participants were collected from june 6 to 12, 2021. from both online and paper-and-pencil-based questionnaires, we could collect the sample from 17 of 38 provinces and 70 of 3,107 universities in indonesia. initially, the sample number was 905; however, 496 of them were then exluded from the analysis because of their incomplete data fulfillment, outliers, duplicate cases, missing values, and theirnoncareful answers (through attention check questions). in detail, the sample comprised 327 and 82 online and offline respondents, respectively. the mean age was 20.11 years (sd = 1.336), ranging from 17 to 28 years. by gender, they were 83 (20.3%) male and 326 (79.7%) female. measurement in this study, a cross-cultural adaptation process for the dark triad scale was carried out referring to beaton et al. (2000). meanwhile, the other two instruments (nonnormative collective action and group-based contempt) already had the indonesian version, thus requiring no adaptation process. content validity was also conducted using face and logical validity by the research team, and there was a legibility test stage with a small representative sample (n = 10). this measurement included an attention check question to see the concentration and seriousness of the participants in answering the questionnaire. at the beginning of the survey, after the participants read the information and agreed to informed consent, we added 1 narrative paragraph about the information on the save kpk movement, aiming to make all participants understand the research context. non-normative collective action the non-normative collective action scale was used to measure the intention of violence in the context of the save kpk movement. this study used the scale proposed by tausch et al. (2001) that consists of 6 items adapted to indonesian by shadiqi et al. (2018). this scale had satisfactory reliability with a likert-scale response (α = .741, 7 points, 1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). the examples of the items included “burning used tires”, “blocking highway”, “throwing stones or bottles when protesting”, “attacking police officers”, “attacking the party deemed responsible”, “doing vandalism and burning symbols of the parties who created problems with the kpk”. group-based contempt the group-based contempt scale in this study was intended to measure individual emotions and refers to contempt against any other group. this measurement was developed by tausch et al. (2011) and becker et al. (2011) and then adapted by shadiqi et al. (2018) into indonesian language and culture with a reliability value of α = .854. this instrument consisted of 12 items with a 7-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). an example of the items was “as part of a group, i hate those who try to destruct the kpk institution”. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 130–148 137 machiavellianism the machiavellianism scale was used to reveal an individual’s tendency to manipulate others for personal benefits. this scale used the short dark triad of personality scale (sd3) by jones and paulhus (2014). the response scale used in this instrument had a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree). this scale had a reliability value of .615, the remaining 4 and 5 items were eliminated. an example of the items was “i manipulate cleverly so that i get what i want”. narcissism the narcissism scale was used to assess an individual’s behavioral tendency in pursuit of satisfaction for pride or selfish admiration for their attributes. this instrument used sd3 by jones and paulhus (2014) that had a reliability value .669, and the remaining 6 and 3 items were dropped. the response measurement had a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree). an example of the items was “i insist on getting the respect i deserve”. psychopathy the psychopathy scale was used to reveal an individual’s tendency to respond impulsively, lack remorse when making mistakes, and tend to harm others. this scale used sd3 by jones and paulhus (2014). the response scale used in this instrument had a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree). furthermore, the scale had a cronbach’s reliability value of .534. the remaining 4 items were used for this study and 5 items were dropped. an example of the items was “i like to take revenge on those in power”. data analysis the data were analyzed using the statistical software ibm spss and an add-on module amos. after all the instruments were tested for reliability, the variable scores were calculated from the average. the statistical analysis started with the assumption tests (residual normality, linearity, multicollinearity, and heteroscedasticity), followed by descriptive and pearson correlation tests. in addition, hypothesis testing was carried out using multiple linear regression and path model analysis tests. to evaluate the significance level of the hypothesis analysis, we used the p-value score and the confidence interval for β. the path model analysis used 5,000 bootstrap samples. results preliminary analysis initially, a z-test was applied for normality test using skewness and kurtosis. it was found that the data were normally distributed. in other assumption tests, the data met the criteria for the linearity test between the predicting and mediating variables and the criteria. all the predicting variables were not found to have multicollinearity. other assumption tests also did not find any indication of heteroscedasticity problems. https://changing-sp.com/ 138 ahmad helmi nugraha, raehan kautsar julian, rudy adiguna, veronica lioni hartono, donna kusuma, muhammad abdan shadiqi, rusdi rusli table 1 pearson correlation and descriptive statistics α scale mean sd 1 2 3 4 5 non-normative collective action .741 1–7 1.885 .708 — .309*** .211*** .060 .314*** group-based contempt .854 1–7 3.366 .816 — .264 *** –.008 .261*** machiavellianism .615 1–5 2.674 .641 — .049 .466*** narcissism .669 1–5 2.783 .529 — 0,097 psychopathy .534 1–5 2.306 .538 — note: *** p < .001 before testing the hypotheses, a bivariate correlation test was conducted to determine the initial description of the relationships between the variables (see table 1). the results showed a significant relationship between group-based contempt (r = .309, p < .001), machiavellianism (r = .211, p<.001), and psychopathy (r = .314, p < .001) with non-normative collective action. furthermore, it was found that there was a significant relationship between machiavellianism (r = .264, p < .001) and psychopathy (r = .261, p < .001) with group-based contempt. other results showed different findings, such as that narcissism was not significantly related to group-based contempt (r = –.008, p = .869) and non-normative collective action (r = .060, p = .227). likewise, table 1 shows that the average score for intensity of non-normative collective action in our research sample tended to be low. in the meantime, the average score of other variables tended to be moderate. hypothesis testing hypothesis testing in this study used two analytical techniques, including multiple linear regression analysis and path analysis model. the results of the multiple linear regression test (see table 2) partially showed that (h1) group-based contempt significantly predicted non-normative collective action (b = .207, β = .239, se = .042, t = 4.966, p < .01); hypothesis 1, therefore, was accepted. psychopathy significantly predicted non-normative collective action (b = .302, β = .230, se = .069, t = 4.371, p < .01); hence, (h4), was accepted. furthermore, the analysis results said that groupbased contempt, machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (simultaneously) significantly predicted non-normative collective action (f (4,404) = 18.709, p < .001); hypothesis 5, therefore, was accepted. the results of other partial multiple linear regression analysis showed that (h2) machiavellianism (b = .043, β = .039, se = .058, t = .749, p = .455) and (h3) narcissism (b = .050, β = .038, se = .062, t = .819, p = .413) partially did not significantly predict non-normative collective action; hypotheses 2 and 3, therefore, were rejected. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 130–148 139 table 2 multiple linear regression test results predictor unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t p 95% confidence interval for b b se β lower bound upper bound (constant) .235 .246 .957 .339 –.248 .718 group-based contempt .207 .042 .239 4.966 .000 .125 .289 machiavellianism .043 .058 .039 .749 .455 –.070 .157 narcissism .050 .062 .038 .819 .413 –.071 .171 psychopathy .302 .069 .230 4.371 .000 .166 .438 r = .395, r 2= .156, adjusted r2 = .148, f(4, 404) = 18.709, p < .001 in the path analysis model, based on figure 1, the model fits well on the criteria x2/df = .627, cfi = 1.000; tli = 1.018, rmsea = .000, nfi = .994. additionally, machiavellianism (b = .231, β = .182, se = .068, t = 3.411, p < .01) and psychopathy (b = .273, β = .180, se = .081, t = 3.373, p < .01) significantly predicted group-based contempt. machiavellianism and narcissism did not have a direct effect on non-normative collective action. the path model analysis confirmed hypothesis 1 that group-based contempt significantly predicted non-normative collective action (b = .211, β = .243, se = .041, t = 5.154, p < .001). based on these results, it was found that h6 said that the indirect effect of group-based contempt signifiqcantly mediated the relationship between machiavellianism and non-normative collective action (indirect effect = .049, bootse = .020, ci 95% of b = [.015, .093], p < .01); hypothesis 6, therefore, was accepted. also, h8 expressed that group-based contempt significantly mediated the relationship between psychopathy and non-normative collective action (indirect effect = .058, bootse = .019 , ci 95% of b = [.022, .097], p < .01); therefore, hypothesis 8 was accepted. the group-based contempt mediating effect was not significant on the relationship between narcissism and non-normative collective action (indirect effect = –.011, bootse = .016 , ci 95% of b = [–.043, .019], p = .468); so, hypothesis 7 was rejected. table 3 mediation analysis results of intention to do non-normative collective action (y) path coeffiecents (β) indirect effect path a (x→m) path b (m→y) path c (total eff.) path c` (direct eff.) estimates (β) confidence interval 95% of β (bootstrapping) path 1 machiavellianism (x1) .182** .044 .000 contempt (m) .243*** x1→m→y .049** .015, .093 https://changing-sp.com/ 140 ahmad helmi nugraha, raehan kautsar julian, rudy adiguna, veronica lioni hartono, donna kusuma, muhammad abdan shadiqi, rusdi rusli path coeffiecents (β) indirect effect path a (x→m) path b (m→y) path c (total eff.) path c` (direct eff.) estimates (β) confidence interval 95% of β (bootstrapping) path 2 narcissism (x2) –.035 –.008 .000 contempt (m) .243*** x2→m→y –.011 –.043, .019 path 3 psychopathy (x3) 0.180** .294*** .250*** contempt (m) .243*** x3→m→y .058** .022, .097 note: *** p < .001, ** p < .01 figure 1 path analysis results discussion the multiple linear regression test found a significant association between groupbased contempt and non-normative collective action (hypothesis 1 was accepted). it means that someone who scores high in group-based contempt tends to engage in non-normative collective action. this finding was in line with those found by becker et al. (2011), tausch et al. (2011), and shadiqi et al. (2018) who emphasized that groups involving group-based contempt can trigger non-normative collective action. in the study by koomen and van der pligt (2016), contempt was more closely related to a lack of desire to reconcile. also, becker et al. (2011) explained that groups that do contempt tend to be involved in radical actions. both studies explained how contempt against outside groups can lead people to engage in violence. p < .001 p = .456 β = .243 β = –.035 machiavellianism (x1) narcissism (x2) group-based contempt (m) non-normative collective action (y) psychopathy (x3) cmin = 1.255; df = 2; p = .534; cmin/df = .627 nfi = .994; cfi = 1.000; tli = 1.018; gfi = .999; rmsea = .000 changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 130–148 141 the results showed that machiavellianism does not have a direct role in nonnormative collective action (hypothesis 2 was rejected). our results aligned with what rogoza et al. (2022) found: machiavellianism is not significantly related to nonnormative collective action. individuals who tend to be machiavellian prefer not to engage in non-normative collective action because they do not believe that doing so will provide them with real benefits (rogoza et al., 2022). dahling et al. (2009) also found that a machiavellian does not have trust in other people but has a strong desire for having power to manipulate things immorally to achieve personal goals. machiavellians can maintain their reputations by avoiding conflicts that harm them and focusing on what is beneficial to them and useful in the future (jones & paulhus, 2009). machiavellianism only plays a cognitive role or, in other words, does not directly contribute to violent action (chabrol et al., 2020). previous studies also expressed that students who tend to be machiavellian choose not to be involved in violence in actions related to the save kpk movement. however, machiavellianism is only involved in manipulating others to commit violence in demonstrations. furthermore, the results showed that narcissism does not have a significant role in non-normative collective action (hypothesis 3 was rejected). according to baldwin et al. (2018), collective action emerges as a result of a group decision in solving a common problem, thus contrary to the characteristics of the narcissistic personality, namely feeling excessively impressed with oneself and not considering others (rizal & handayani, 2021). furthermore, the meta-analysis made by jahnke et al. (2021) found no significant effect of narcissism on ideology-based political violence in adolescents and young adults. narcissism, indeed, plays a role in non-normative collective action in politics. however, it is supported by ego-boosting (rogoza et al., 2022). in this study, students with a narcissistic personality tended to take collective action not because of a common goal but, rather, for their interests. this is one of the reasons why narcissism has no significant role in non-normative collective action. there have been very few studies on the relationship between psychopathy and non-normative collective action. the studies by chabrol et al. (2020), pavlović and franc (2021), and duspara and greitemeyer (2017) that discussed non-normative collective action explained that psychopathy is one of the strong predictors for political acts of extremism, terrorism, and radicalism. our study (with the accepted hypothesis 4) found that individuals with psychopathy tended to act impulsively and had no shame and regret when harming others. in this study, psychopathy was found to have a strong influence both through mediation and direct effects. individuals with high psychopathy scores seemed to lack social regulation and tend to be impulsive when they wanted to harm others (o’boyle et al., 2012). besta et al. (2021) also found that those with high psychopathy scores tended to group with people with norms that justify violence. that way, individuals who commit group-based contempt and have high psychopathic scores will be more likely to create chaos when taking collective action. rogoza et al. (2022) and besta et al. (2021) also explained that individuals who are severely psychopathic are more willing to engage in collective action and provide empirical confirmation that they do it to express their anti-social worldview. moreover, it is the darkest personality trait and the most sadistic among machiavellianism and narcissism. https://changing-sp.com/ 142 ahmad helmi nugraha, raehan kautsar julian, rudy adiguna, veronica lioni hartono, donna kusuma, muhammad abdan shadiqi, rusdi rusli the multiple regression analysis simultaneously, we found that group-based contempt and the dark triad (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) have a significant role in collective violence action (hypothesis 5 was accepted). this finding was supported by gøtzsche-astrup’s (2021) research that found that the dark triad— machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—could predict political violence. shadiqi et al. (2018) also explained that group-based contempt can predict nonnormative collective action. to put it another way, when an individual has high scores in group-based contempt and the three elements of the dark triad simultaneously, then they have an enormous tendency to conduct collective violence action. however, no empirical explanation is found about that group-based contempt and the three elements of the dark triad can simultaneously predict collective violence action; most of research only explained their roles partially. for this reason, this research added another alternative of findings that demonstrated the collective role of group-based contempt and the dark triad (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) in nonnormative collective action in the save kpk movement-related issues. the path analysis model showed that group-based contempt could mediate the relationship between machiavellianism (hypothesis 6 was accepted) and psychopathy (hypothesis 8 was accepted) with non-normative collective action. on the other hand, group-based contempt did not (hypothesis 7 was rejected) mediate the relationship between narcissism and non-normative collective action. in line with the study by schriber et al. (2017), contempt can be associated with machiavellianism and psychopathy as well. this is why individuals with machiavellianism or psychopathy do not feel remorse when they cause harm to others such as insulting other people. this finding was supported by pavlović and franc (2021) who found that individuals with high scores in dark personalities can experience a mixture of emotions like anger, condescension, and disgust, which can encourage them to commit violence to achieve their goals. furthermore, narcissism (hypothesis 7 was rejected) cannot predict nonnormative collective action through group-based contempt mediation. individuals with narcissism are self-focused and oriented, in contrast those with group-based contempt and non-normative collective action that always move in groups. campbell et al. (2010), kernberg (1989), and morf and rhodewalt (2001) expressed that individuals with narcissism are categorized as self-focused, having an egocentric admiration toward themselves, and having the desire to be cared and loved by others, which negatively affect their relationships with others. rogoza et al. (2022) also suggested that narcissism actually plays a role in political non-normative collective action (violence), yet mediated by ego-boosting. in contrast, our research used group-based contempt to mediate narcissism toward non-normative collective action. in other words, groupbased contempt cannot drive an individual with narcissism to conduct violation while ego-boosting can support them to do so. since this study focused only on students and the majority gender was female, further research needs to expand the scope to a wider population. this study, also, was limited to correlational explanations. subsequent research, therefore, needs to consider several approaches, such as longitudinal and experimental studies. this research also had weakness in its measurement quality (sd3) because cronbach’s alpha was changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 130–148 143 below .70. hasanati and istiqomah’s (2019) research in indonesia found several factor loading items from low sd3 measurement results, which made it possible for sd3 measurements to be sensitive and made respondents faking good when answering the scale-based questions. the structure of the sd3 measurement model needed to be evaluated further using factor analysis. siddiqi et al. (2020) offered a two-factor model of sd3 by combining machiavellianism and psychopathy in one factor and narcissism in another. future researchers need to carefully observe the application of measurement and evaluate the instruments used (e.g. analysis factor). we conducted the cross-cultural adaptation process in measuring sd3 in bahasa indonesia through the instrument adaptation procedure introduced by beaton et al. (2000). we also recommended that other researchers adapting cross-cultural instruments select other alternatives for instrument adaptation procedures, such as the international test commission (itc). conclusion partial multiple regression analysis found that only group-based contempt and psychopathy significantly predicted non-normative collective action; narcissism and machiavellianism did not do so significantly. however, collectively, group-based contempt and the dark triad (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) could predict collective violence action. furthermore, the results of the path analysis model found that machiavellianism and psychopathy were significantly related to non-normative collective action under the mediation of group-based contempt. the implication of this research is that the government needs to undertake counseling (anidar & ikhwani, 2017) and psychoeducation programs (pilet, 2002) for university students or colleges regarding emotional management, namely shifting to a more positive emotion, and personality development by changing personal habits and having a sustainable performance to decrease violent action (langer & laurence, 2010). in addition, future surveys should use different data collection techniques and contemporary methods and broaden the scope of the study. references anidar, j., & ikhwani, f. r. 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(1990). responding to membership in a disadvantaged group: from acceptance to collective protest. journal of personality and social psychology, 58(6), 994–1003. https://doi.org/10.1037/00223514.58.6.994 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022728 https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/63345 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213510525 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110265 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2009.01628.x https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.6.994 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.6.994 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 271–274 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.044 received 8 august 2018 © 2018 tlou russell choshi accepted 20 september 2018 choshitlou043@gmail.com published online 30 september 2018 conference paper religion education and critical education: the case of barnato park high school in south africa tlou russell choshi barnato park high school, johannesburg, south africa abstract this paper uses a case of a south african public school, barnato park high, to reflect on if there is a space for religion education and, more specifically, a critical pedagogical approach to teaching the subject at a school that promotes a christian ethos. i will first define the concepts of critical education and religion education in south africa, and then move onto providing a brief historical background of the school. the paper will reveal that with the school promoting a christian character, it may be challenging for it to create an open and inclusive educational environment that exposes learners to religious diversity. keywords religion education, critical education, christian ethos, learners, barnato park high school introduction the question on if there is a space for religion education and, more specifically, a critical pedagogical approach to teaching the subject in a public school that promotes a religious character is important to reflect on considering the current context of a post-apartheid south african government that aims to build an open and inclusive diverse nation. before this paper will use the case of a south african public school, barnato park high, to grapple with this question, it will first define the concepts of critical education and religion education in south africa, and then move onto providing a brief historical background of the school. the paper will https://changing-sp.com/ 272 tlou russell choshi show that with the school promoting a christian ethos, it may be confronted with the challenge of creating an open and inclusive educational environment in teaching and learning about diverse religions that constitute south africa and the world. defining critical education and religion education it is important to understand that there is no single definition of critical education. in other words, critical education is a contested term that is constructed in different ways, at different times and in different places. as such, it has been discussed at length by scholars and educators such as paolo freire, henry giroux, ivan illich, bell hooks, michael apple, and peter mclaren. nevertheless, camina (n.d.) provides a valuable definition of critical education by describing it as “striving towards transformation: challenging existing social structures and helping us to build greater equality, social justice, environmental sustainability and collective capacity”. here, critical education can be understood as inspiring an attitude of social change from the grassroots level. this means creating safe and supportive schools that encourage learners to develop critical thinking in order to be critically engaged citizens (griffin, brown & warren 2012, p. 160). however, it is important to note that critical education has its own challenges. while it aims to accommodate diversity, such as religion, race and culture, it seems to not address the ways in which educators can think about how to grapple with, for example, the existence of non-cooperative, difficult or one-sided school code of conducts or constitutions. critical education also places more emphasis on negotiation than on implementation, which can be problematic in addressing the existence of traditional, non-progressive school leadership and management. this context makes it very challenging for the practice of critical education to take place (portelli, 1994). in view of some of these challenges, critical education should be regarded as a valuable pedagogical approach to countries like south africa that promote the spirit of working together between individuals from different socioeconomic and political backgrounds. it is, therefore, possible to infer that critical education formed part of the process of the post-apartheid south african government’s re-evaluation of the meaning of education in general, and religion education in particular. as such, with the national policy on religion and education adopted in 2003, the government defined religion education (re) as a non-confessional educational programme for teaching and learning about religious diversity (par. 19). re was also identified as a subject that aims to cultivate democratic and critically engaged citizens. with critical education and religion education defined, we can now turn to exploring the historical background of barnato park high school. a brief history of barnato park high school barnato park high school is a co-educational public school located in berea, johannesburg, south africa. it was first a 1897 stone mansion that was built for the changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 271–274 273 british diamond and gold mining entrepreneur barney barnato (barnato park high school, n.d.). however, the construction of it was only completed after barnato’s death under the supervision of his nephew solly joel. during the second anglo-boer war (1899–1902), the establishment was used as a british officers’ convalescent home (barnato park high school, n.d.). joel later donated the mansion and its grounds to the transvaal department of education (of the then government of the union of south africa) for a girls’ school that was named johannesburg high school for girls. after being opened for 102 years, unfortunately the school was condemned, and finally closed in december 1989 (barnato park high school, n.d.). yet in january 1990, barnato park high school opened as a co-educational school that welcomed learners and staff members from various racial backgrounds in an attempt to fight against the apartheid (education) system (barnato park high schoo, n.d.). gradually, the school became a multicultural environment. post-apartheid barnato park high school when south africa abolished the apartheid regime and became a democratic country in 1994, the government no longer promoted a state religion. as shown in the religion and education policy (2003, par. 1), the post-apartheid government demanded public schools to teach about religious diversity, and not to nurture a single religious ethos like the apartheid regime had enforced. however, this is not the case with barnato park high since it promotes a christian ethos. as a deputy principal of this school, i noticed that this was particularly shown in the following christian prayer that is said at school assemblies, dear god, we open the doors wide of our school and invite you in. please be in our lessons and help us to concentrate and learn. fill us with happiness as we discover more about the world. guide our creativity to express ourselves in the process of learning and teaching. help us to share, care for and love one another. fill us with spirit of respect as we interact with each other. watch over us and protect us as we run and play within our school premises. come and be a part of everything we do today and beyond. in the name of jesus christ we pray. amen. although barnato park high has a multicultural environment, the example of this prayer suggests that the school is not as inclusive when it comes to recognising and observing religions other than christianity. yet, as a way to address this challenge, the school is interested in introducing re to the curriculum, especially considering that life orientation plays a minimal role in teaching learners about religious diversity. this raises the question on if there is a space for re and, more specifically, a critical pedagogical approach to teaching the subject in this school that promotes a christian ethos. however, with barnato park high still in the process of researching how to introduce re in a school that promotes a single religion, this can point to an early https://changing-sp.com/ 274 tlou russell choshi indication of the school attempting to create a space to expose learners to other religions. this can, therefore, be viewed as the school recognising the value of inclusivity and the role re can play in nurturing this. conclusion this paper looked at the case of barnato park high school to reflect on the question if there is a space for a critical pedagogical approach to teaching religion education at a school that promotes a christian ethos. it discussed that critical education and religion education both aim to nurture learners to be critically engaged citizens. however, with the example of christian prayers forming an integral part of school assemblies, this indicated that barnato park high was promoting a christian ethos. this suggests an issue in the school creating an open and inclusive environment for teaching and learning about religious diversity that constitute south africa and the world. yet, the school’s interest in adding re to the curriculum can be regarded as it recognising that the subject can play a valuable role in creating an inclusive, multicultural and multi-religious teaching and learning environment. references barnato park high school. (n.d.). in wikipedia. retrieved from https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/barnato_park_high_school camina. (n.d.). what do we mean by “critical education”? retrieved from http://caminaproject.weebly.com/what-do-we-mean-by-critical-education.html griffins, s. r., brown, m., & warren, n. m. (2012). critical education in high schools: the promise and challenges of intergroup dialogue. equity and excellence in education, 45(1), 159–180. portelli, j. p. (1994). the challenges of teaching for critical thinking. mcgill journal of education, 29(2), 137–152. republic of south africa. department of education. (2003). national policy on religion and education. pretoria: department of education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/barnato_park_high_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/barnato_park_high_school http://caminaproject.weebly.com/what-do-we-mean-by-critical-education.html changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 5–10 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.215 editorial the order of concepts and/or the order of things as triggers for social transformations elena a. stepanova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia in his famous book les mots et les choses: une archéologie des sciences humaines [the order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences] (1966), french philosopher michel foucault argued that, in every historical period, knowledge is based on underlying conceptual assumptions or specific ways of thinking (epistemes) that determine an acceptable discourse about a particular subject and affirm what is supposed to be true. such a discourse is constantly evolving, which requires social researchers not only to develop concepts, which somehow reflect the order of things, but also to recognize the origin of these concepts and to duly reflect their transformations. michel foucault distinguished between the renaissance, classical era, and modern era epistemes. however, today’s epistemes are changing at an unprecedented rate; as a result, social researchers face the problem of replacing the existing, but yet developing, way of thinking with a new one. the current issue of changing societies & personalities provides a number of evidences that justify the evolution of epistemes in close conjunction with social reality. the authors search for ways of conceptualizing such ambivalent cases, as anti-vaxxer’s referring to sacrifice for the sake of personal freedom; the validity and types of social support for young families and their reproductive behavior; the danger of becoming a “lost” media generation due to digital divide; the influence of self-based and group-based emotions on collective actions; the counteraction of humor and official narrative in the political sphere; and—last but not least—echoing the ideas of cooperation and collaboration, ability for self-improvement, and meaningful participation in social life between classical persian literature and european philosophy of the 20th century. the opening essay the american anti-vaxxer covid dead: a dynamic chronicle of failed sacrifices by ivan strenski aims to analyze the usage of the idea of “sacrifice” by anti-vaxxers (especially those who support the republican received 30 march 2022 © 2023 elena a. stepanova published online 10 april 2023 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:stepanova.elena.a%40gmail.com?subject= 6 elena a. stepanova party) during the covid-19 pandemic in the usa. such a usage may seem paradoxical, since sacrificing is normally referred to public good, in this case, to healthcare. as strenski admits, his intention to analyze sacrificial rhetoric in anti-vaxxer refusal to be vaccinated was caused by its conjunction with the idea of personal liberty. nevertheless, “just because someone says they ‘sacrificed’ does not make that claim meaningful or true”. in interpreting the anti-vaxxer concept of “sacrifice”, strenski compared it with popular theories like rené girard’s theory of sacrifice as scapegoating, or marcel detienne and jean-pierre vernant’s focus on sacrificial “cuisine”, and concludes that it fits none of them. the author concludes that the question whether vaccine resistance leading to red-covid deaths does, in fact, enhance personal liberty for americans, is neither answered nor even addressed. on the contrary, some redcovid deaths should be better classified as “social murders”, which have resulted “from culpable neglect or even deliberate exploitation” of victims by powerful elites. danijela vuković-ćalasan in the article ethnocultural pluralism and multiculturalism in contemporary montenegro: lessons to learn, notes that montenegro, as one of the oldest balkans states that gained its statehood in 1878, has had a highly turbulent history due to its location at the crossroads between the east and the west. historically, various invaders in the balkans brought along new identities, that were further incorporated within the balkan peoples in different ways. this is why “the balkans is usually referred to as a region rich in ethnocultural pluralism in demographic terms, and a region that has historically been marked by a highly pronounced dynamic in terms of identity stratification and politics”. montenegro belongs to the so-called multinational states where the dominant type of ethnocultural communities are national minorities, and ethnocultural pluralism varies in degrees and forms. therefore, the issue of successful management of ethnocultural pluralism is indeed one of the most significant. danijela vuković-ćalasan stresses that “theorists and researchers focus, to a great degree, on legal-political measures and mechanisms that the state envisages and introduces for ethnocultural communities and their members, in accordance with the unique characteristics of their position”. in the article, she analyzes not just the nation-state level of management in montenegro, but also two additional levels which are often overlooked by theorists: the level of ethnocultural communities, and the level of individual identities. the author is fully aware that these three levels could not be separated in practice. as natalia d. blednova and anna p. bagirova argue in the article leave policy system in russia: is it time to change?, childcare leave in russia (analogous to parental leave in other countries) needs more flexibility in order to positively affect the demographic situation in the country. their study “aims to evaluate the state regulation of the parental leave policy in russia and public attitudes to the policy pursued”. the authors consider the parental leave system as a multi-faceted phenomenon related to different spheres of social and economic reality, and figure out different perspectives for the three key stakeholders of the leave system: mothers (including potential), fathers (including potential), and employers, whose interests are directly influenced by the parental leave system. at the first stage of the study, the authors investigated men’s opinion concerning taking parental leave (506 men aged 18 to 49 changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 5–10 7 with and without children were surveyed). at the second stage, the authors evaluated public opinion on the flexibility of the russian parental leave system (265 women were surveyed in the sverdlovsk region). at the third stage, barriers in the parental leave state regulation were analyzed (for which purpose, 2012–2021 cases of breaching parental leave regulations were extracted from popular russian mass media). the results show opposing views on various aspects of the leave system in russia. in the article factors shaping the reproductive behavior of young families in russia: data triangulation, tamara k. rostovskaya, ekaterina n. vasilieva, and veronika n. kholina seek to address the following question: “how does social support for young families affect their reproductive behavior, and which policy responses and interventions can be used to stimulate childbearing more effectively?” this problem is particularly relevant to russia because of the low fertility level. the authors consider several factors that influence the reproductive behavior of young two-person families with and without children: marital behavior; marital and reproductive attitudes of young spouses’ parents; material, psychological, and legal support for young families. the data for the research was collected in 10 regions in the european part of russia. at the first stage, a survey of 893 members of young families under the age of 35 years in their first registered marriage was conducted. at the second stage, 50 respondents from young families were interviewed (20 childless and 30 with children). during indepth interviews, the following questions were asked: how did the decision to register marriage was made? how did the future couple meet? did the future couple live together before getting married? the conducted study identified a number of problems in the russian social support system for young families that future research should address. anna s. sumskaya in the article “lost” russian media generations in a changing social and digital environment studies a fairly new phenomenon—the digital personality, which has emerged as a result of the growing amount of online personal data reflecting internet users’ individual traits and habits. the digital lifestyle of young people “means not only digitalized media behavior, globalized streaming media use, interactive cultural digital practices, and symbols of communication, but also new vulnerabilities, traumatic communication experiences, and exposure to potentially traumatic media content, all of which can affect the subjective well-being of internet users”. apparently, in the author’s opinion, the disruption of sustainable generational media patterns and further exacerbation of the digital divide for “digital natives”—the generations of people whose formative period coincided with the development of the internet and digitalization—may result in becoming “lost” media generations. in the article the impact of digital divide on household participation in risky financial investments: evidence from china, yuan kefeng, zhang xiaoxia and olga p. nedospasova examine the impact of internet information technologies on the financial industry in china. the authors note that despite the rapid increase in the number of internet users in china in recent years, there is still a large digital divide between urban and rural areas associated with different access to digital infrastructure, internet access rate, and internet usage frequency. the authors apply empirical instruments to elucidate the impact of digital divide on the participation probability of chinese households in risky schemes of financial investment. the authors formulate the following research https://changing-sp.com/ 8 elena a. stepanova hypotheses: the digital access, use, and inequality divides significantly affect households’ participation in risky financial investment schemes; the digital divide between urban and rural areas, as well as family burden differences, leads to a different probability of households participating in such investments. the authors turned to the database of the chinese general social survey, renmin university of china, in order to gain access to comprehensive micro-survey data. ahmad helmi nugraha, raehan kautsar julian, rudy adiguna, veronica lioni hartono, donna kusuma, muhammad abdan shadiqi, and rusdi rusli in the article the dark triad and non-normative collective action in the save kpk movement in indonesia: the mediation effect of contempt focus on the cases of violent collective action that occurred in relation to the save kpk movement (komisi pemberantasan korupsi [corruption eradication commission]), which was stirring social tension within the society for a number of years. the authors are particularly interested in self-based and group-based emotions in collective actions, which they differentiate into two categories: normative (peaceful, without violence) and non-normative (non-peaceful, with violence). another important factor to observe are personality traits, namely those forming the dark triad (machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy) and related to acts of violence. the article is aimed at explaining the involvement of group-based contempt and the dark triad of personality traits in predicting the intention of non-normative collective action in the save kpk movement-related issues. the authors suppose that group-based contempt plays a role in non-normative collective action, and that some dark triad traits are mediated by group-based contempt. in the article markers of sensory well-being in the learning environment for children with autism spectrum disorders, lyudmila v. tokarskaya and tatyana yu. bystrova underline that the environment can have a strong influence on people with autism spectrum disorders (asd). this influence can be either positive or negative, because such people may exhibit a variety of atypical sensory characteristics. hence, the hypothesis that the authors seek to test is as follows: “in order to create a more autism-friendly environment or in order to assess the 'autism-friendliness' of the already existing environment, it is necessary to apply a system of markers that measure its potential effects on asd individuals’ sensory well-being”. the study of sensory issues is based on an interdisciplinary approach, namely the synthesis of psychological and architectural discourses. the authors critically analyze the key technical requirements regarding the sensory parameters of the educational environment, which are reflected in the official governmental documents in russia, and promote “a more holistic approach to this problem, based on the understanding that the human body and psyche are not only interconnected, but also dynamic”. for the purpose of developing a personalized set of markers, lyudmila tokarskaya and tatyana bystrova analyze the learning environment in a russian school catering for children with asd and mental retardation, as well as an expert assessment of the sensory profile of a 14-year-old asd student. tatiana g. skorokhodova in the article “discovery of hinduism” in religious thought of the bengal renaissance mentions three challenges of the religious life in india in the early 19th century: firstly, christian missionaries’ criticism of indian indigenous religious beliefs and practices; secondly, their designation by the term changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 5–10 9 “hinduism”; and, thirdly, european theologians and orientalists’ attempts to study indian religions. those challenges required a creative response from educated intellectuals. the bengal renaissance was the epoch of national-cultural awakening in the most developed province of india, which had become a meeting space for indian and western dialogue of cultures. tatiana skorokhodova stresses that the significant part of that dialogue was the comprehension of the native indian religious tradition, and proposes a term “discovery of hinduism” by analogy with jawaharlal nehru’s famous term “discovery of india”. for indian intellectuals, “discovery of hinduism” could be seen as an integral part of their own self-understanding in dialogue with the west, its society and culture. the author divides “discovery of hinduism” in bengal religious thought into two phases and analyzes the views of rammohun roy, bankimchandra chattopadhyay (chatterjee), bhudeb mukhopadhyay, swami vivekananda, aurobindo ghose, and others. in the article humorous portrayals of celebrities in the mass media during the 2021 papal visit to slovakia, petra polievková, terézia rončáková, and hedviga tkáčová note that the significance of the papal visit in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic “went far beyond the borders of slovakia itself and served as an important event in the wider region of central europe, with the event serving to emphasize the contemporary regional challenge of migration and the varying approaches taken to the issue by different states”. the authors pay particular attention to the study of celebrities and analyze popular mass media responses to the visit of the pope to slovakia as reflected in the viral humor in both internet memes and caricatures published in the most-read slovak daily newspapers. the research aimed to identify the main features and differences in the depiction of the pope and that of selected slovak political celebrities emphasized in the memes, as well as to contribute to the academic discussion “of the social and political aspects of humor and their potential to develop a discourse which counteracts the official narrative and pushes against the rigid boundaries of the political sphere”. the research sample consisted of a series of 43 memes and eight caricatures, which were sourced from social networking sites and online media platforms. as a result, the authors discoverd a considerable overlap between the topic of the papal visit and contemporary political issues. in the research note alfred adler’s individual psychology in light of classical persian literature, fayruza s. ismagilova and nazyar khamenehei compare alfred adler’s humanistic philosophy of living and his holistic approach to human personality with questions discussed in classical persian literature, more specifically, in the writings by abu saeed abu al-khair, jami, saadi, and rumi. according to adler, the most important period in the child’s development is before the age of six or seven; that is why the authors of the article selected the abovementioned writers’ poems and anecdotes focused on the same age range. in adlerian philosophy, a human being has the capacity for cooperation and collaboration, as well as the ability for selfimprovement, growth, self-realization, and meaningful participation in social life. at the same time, as fayruza ismagilova and nazyar khamenehei stress, “persian literature is a treasure of narratives seeking to engage their readers with a variety of ethical and philosophical questions such as destiny and human effort, the objectives of https://changing-sp.com/ 10 elena a. stepanova human life, guilt, virtue, justice, striving for perfection, and so on”. in addition, persian authors attached great importance to literature’s function as a medium of education and enlightenment. the authors are particularly interested in adler’s three ideas that most resonate with moral and educational philosophy found in the classical persian texts: the feeling of inferiority and striving for recognition; the influence of the social environment on the child’s early development; and the parental influence and the influence of education. the book review section consists of a review by swapna gopinath of amitav ghosh’s book “the nutmeg’s curse: parables for a planet in crisis”, 2021. the author characterizes the book under review as “a tale of the hegemonic human agency seeking control over nature, where violence, aggression, greed, and the desire for power define the trajectory of colonialism, capitalism, and western modernity”. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections, or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.223 © 2023 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova liydmil@mail.ru taby27@yandex.ru received 18 august 2022 accepted 10 march 2023 published online 10 april 2023 article markers of sensory well-being in the learning environment for children with autism spectrum disorders lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the article describes the results of interdisciplinary research focusing on the concept of sensory well-being and its application to construct sensory-friendly learning environments. the article analyzes the relationship between sensory characteristics of a learning environment and its impact on children’s well-being and progress. it is shown that the current standards for learning environments in russian schools fail to meet the sensory needs of children with autism spectrum disorders (asd). the study relies on the case study method to compare the sensory needs a student with asd and the characteristics of the classroom environment where she studies. the assessment encompasses auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile, vestibular, and proprioceptive modalities. based on the data obtained, the authors formulate a set of markers that can be used to build a sensory-friendly learning environment. these markers can be used by specialists when designing new or renovating the already existing environments at schools and other educational institutions. keywords sensory well-being, learning environment, educational environment, markers, autism spectrum disorders, hypersensitivity, design-technology https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:liydmil%40mail.ru?subject= mailto:taby27@yandex.ru 150 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova introduction people with autism spectrum disorders (asd) may face challenges in communication and social interactions and experience behavior problems, which may vary significantly from one individual to another. moreover, these individuals frequently have sensory hypersensitivity (happé, 1994; morozov, 2014). as f. happé (1994) puts it, these children reacted very violently to certain sounds such as the sound of the vacuum cleaner, noise of the elevator, and even wind blowing. what is more, some of them had difficulty with food intake or unusual food preferences. in addition, there is something that parents and specialists pay less attention to—asd children’s hypersensitivity to external factors, to the emotional structure and physical characteristics of their environment. the existing disorders of sensory processing and higher integrative functions in children with asd should be considered when analyzing their sensory profile, including the information obtained from parents and teachers (fernándezandrés et al., 2015). there is evidence that the most affected sensory modalities in children with asd are auditory and tactile (fernández-andrés et al., 2015). for people with asd, the external environment comprises not only their physical surroundings but also other people. the environment can have a strong influence on them, and this influence can be either positive or negative. they, however, may have trouble communicating the emotions induced by the environment. autistic people may exhibit a variety of atypical sensory characteristics, for example, they may be intolerant to certain sounds, or they may display heightened sensitivity to contact with a particular surface or have unusual smell sensitivity. these characteristics should be given due consideration when designing physical environment for people with asd, first and foremost, their physical learning environment. what makes this task especially pertinent is the increasing incidence of autism spectrum disorders, with some evidence suggesting that an estimated 1 in 68 school-aged children have been identified with asd (kim et al., 2011). the fact that we are dealing with two dynamic and highly individualized systems— an individual with asd and their environment—hampers the study of the already existing environments and the construction of new ones. it may be tempting to apply a reductionist approach, especially since classical science, including psychology, tends to gravitate towards typification (rather than individualization). the same approach is found in the works written by scholars of architecture and design—their methods often follow the modernist paradigm with its preference for solutions based on standardization and economies of scale (salingaros, 2014). therefore, an autistic person finds themselves in a situation where their rapidly changing mood and emotional state is in conflict with the qualities of the learning environment determined by a set of formal guidelines and principles. the latter, in their turn, are based on the understanding that the learning environment should have certain obligatory parameters and that these parameters should remain unchanged as well as the reactions of those who occupy this environment. this contradiction impedes the learning progress of children with asd. it also partially explains the active controversy surrounding the effects of digitalized sociocultural environments that emerged in the 2010s and 2020s on people with asd. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 151 hence, the hypothesis that this article seeks to test is as follows: in order to create a more autism-friendly environment or in order to assess the “autism-friendliness” of the already existing environment, it is necessary to apply a system of markers that measure its potential effects on asd individuals’ sensory well-being. “sets” of markers used by a designer or an expert can help create a new positive environment or modify an old environment in such a way that it would have a positive influence on the sensory wellness of a child with asd. thus, taking the concept of sensory well-being as a point of departure, in this paper we aim to identify and describe the test markers that could be used to promote the creation of environments that would be conducive to asd children’s learning and thriving. methodology the study of sensory issues necessitates an interdisciplinary approach based on the synthesis of psychological and architectural discourses (alisov, 2009). in research literature, one of the key concepts in the discussion of learning environments is “enabling physical environment”, understood as an environment providing a rich and varied space conducive to exploration (novoselova, 2001). in her discussion of what constitutes enabling physical environment for children, novoselova describes different types of “enrichment activities” and identifies those components of such environment that make it conducive to learning (novoselova, 2001, p. 25). the ideas of holism, that is, the priority of the whole as opposed to its parts taken separately, is essential to the analysis and expert assessment of the sensory environment of educational establishments. thus, we adopt a cognitive approach that sees an individual as an integral element of the learning environment: this perspective stresses the environment’s influence on people’s mental state and thinking rather than the types and results of activities. this study draws from the ideas of sensory integration of a. j. ayres, who studied the connection between sensory information processing and behavior and education of different categories of children (ayres, 2005; bundy & lane, 2020; kranowitz, 2005). the above-described theoretical framework determined the research design, strategies and questions of this study: we analyzed the sensory characteristics of a girl with asd; we built a sensory “profile” of a typical classroom in a russian school implementing the so-called adjusted basic education program (abep), which makes it suitable for children with asd. positive influence of the environment on children’s mental activity speaking about the environment as a whole, experts often consider it in a rather narrow sense, e.g., by focusing on social relations or psychological atmosphere (symaniuk, 2005). to analyze a sensory (un)friendly environment, however, it is necessary to adopt a more comprehensive perspective, considering a diversity of factors. in the early 19th century, german scholar f. froebel (1782–1852) developed the concept of kindergarten (literally “children’s garden”), which was a novel institution https://changing-sp.com/ 152 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova at that time, and formulated the idea of a connection between the characteristics of the physical environment and children’s development. froebel likened educators to gardeners, seeing their role not only in upbringing but also in creating a good “soil” for children’s development. following the traditions of german humanitarian knowledge, froebel prioritized the role of the intellectual component in children’s development. the “garden” metaphor he uses also accentuates dynamism as a key feature of the learning environment. the inconsistency inherent in froebel’s approach lies in the fact that he, on the one hand, postulated that the physical properties and elements of the environment should encourage free play and creativity (e.g., “froebel gifts”—a set of six geometrical 3d toys which can be interacted with), and, on the other hand, he believed that the learning environment should be static—it should be carefully designed and prepared. froebel’s ideas gave rise to many theories and methods, including the methods of m. montessori (2009), whose classes supported all kinds of children, including children with disabilities. montessori’s idea—to organize the environment which corresponds to the needs of an active child—is still relevant today as it connects the processes of perception and learning. r. steiner (1861–1925), who was not only an educator but also an architect, came closest to the understanding of the environment as dynamic and, at the same time, structured. he emphasized the psychological comfort of a child that was determined by, first and foremost, the sensory characteristics of the environment. in particular, he designed the goetheanum, the world centre for the anthroposophical movement (he actually created two buildings—the first goetheanum, which was destroyed by fire in 1923, and the second goetheanum). steiner’s goetheanum was conceived as a space which activates human thought. commenting on this building, steiner highlighted the direct connection between the environment and the human sensory system, indicating that as a creator he did not employ any symbols or other conventional elements but calculated the direct impact of the interior of the building on the human condition. in the 20th and 21st centuries, the idea of learning environments was developed by representatives of organic architecture (from f. l. wright to i. makowitz, m. budzinski, t. alberts, s. calatrava), adaptive architecture (a. duany, m. mehaffi, etc.), adherents of the ecological approach (f. hundertwasser), universal and inclusive design, and sustainable design. some of them pay more attention to the calculation of desired forms (fibonacci numbers, “golden ratio”, the sierpiński triangle), others—to their impact on the human condition. it is worth mentioning an interesting and influential idea of the japanese music teacher s. suzuki (1898–1998), who raised a whole generation of performers and who believed that the integrity of the environment is a necessary condition for a balanced and versatile development of a human being. an outstanding project that is worthy of a separate discussion is the 1300-squarefoot sensory arts garden that was opened in 2017, in jupiter, florida, usa, at the els center for excellence by els for autism foundation, hosting programs and services for people with asd, their parents and therapists (wagenfeld et al., 2019). the center is aimed at helping people with asd realize their potential so that they could lead positive, productive, and satisfying lives. the design of the garden is based on the changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 153 interdisciplinary research of designers, educators, psychologists, and musical therapists. in this garden, every detail, the location of plants, materials, furniture, and spaces are carefully considered; its environment balances stimulating and soothing sensory experiences, helping relieve stress and anxiety as well as support all human senses. another unique feature of the sensory arts garden is its planting strategy based on the fusion of salutogenic design principles which are health-promoting and indicative of the deep understanding of the needs of people with asd. the trees were selected based on the structure of branches, the form of the shadow, and visual, olfactory, and tactile characteristics. the planting pattern meets the need for consistency, which is extremely important for people with asd. careful plant selection and their location not only ensure security and minimize negative sensory reactions but also allow the staff and family members to discretely observe the children. safety and security are the core principles of design, details, and choice of materials for the garden. importantly, while keeping the balance of the elements in line with the needs of children with asd, the garden’s creators also made it appealing to the general public. the garden gives children an opportunity to feel safe and at the same time to experience being a part of something bigger without getting overwhelmed. children have an opportunity to find their favorite places in the garden and go back there every day to interact with these spaces, studying their subtle changes. moreover, the garden is a place for outdoor education and thus it meets the needs even of those children who find it difficult to interact with their peers or teachers within the classroom environment. children can study on their own by using laptops or can do their classwork with a teacher’s assistance, including music, yoga, and reading classes. the garden allows everybody to interact with nature on their own terms and at their own pace. it gives various opportunities for participation; everybody can find something of interest in the garden. thus, as of today, there has been accumulated sufficient amount of evidence that can be used to build a positive environment for people with different needs, including people with disabilities. there is a general consensus that a specially tailored environment can have a positive impact on asd people’s emotional and cognitive development. there is, however, still a perceived lack of specific markers to measure the effects of such environments on sensory well-being. environmental approach to creating sensory-friendly environments the environmental approach of the second half of the 20th and the early 21st centuries may offer us some valuable insights into the environment as a dynamic phenomenon that does not exist outside human perception. in pedagogy and psychology, environment is understood as a natural or social context or surroundings in which a person operates. its pedagogical potential is often taken as a given rather than something that needs to be questioned or proven; for example, rubtsova (2013) mentions “environment as a factor of education”. therefore, for the purpose of our study, we need to turn to the theory of architecture and design, https://changing-sp.com/ 154 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova more specifically, to the environmental approach, which emerged in the early 1970s, at the same time as the study of “atmospherics” (the discipline of designing commercial spaces). in the russian research literature (gutnov & glazychev, 1990; ikonnikov, 1979; kaganov, 1999; zabel’shanskii et al., 1985), the environmental approach is often associated with urban dynamics, that is, the study of the changing elements constituting urban environment. this approach was not implemented in architectural practices (tatarchenko, 2018, p. 2). the environmental approach has brought to the fore the flexibility, integrity, and dynamism of the environment. the comprehensive approach proposed by russian designer and urbanist vyacheslav glazychev (1940–2012) is of special interest here: he believed that urban planning should be integrated with the process of active communication with urban communities and specific groups of citizens, resulting in roadmaps, programs, and strategies (gutnov & glazychev, 1990). in other words, the core of urban environment is the complex, multi-faceted relationship between the physical environment, its elements, and various groups of citizens. the comprehensive approach developed by glazychev enabled urban scholars to transcend the oversimplified interpretations of the environment as a substance or space; the environment came to be understood as “the surroundings mastered by man, transformed by his consciousness and becoming an integral whole with him” (tatarchenko, 2018, p. 10). the key aspects of the environment that are important for our study are physical, social, psychological, sensory; emotional-psychological, esthetic, and rational properties, which can be targeted separately to achieve the desired pedagogical effects. while simplistic generalization and reductionism are still the prevalent approaches to the environment, in our view, it would be more productive to see it not as a filled space or substance, but instead to zoom in on those characteristics of the environment that are important for making it autism-friendly. learning environment requirements in russia any learning environment is a synthesis of the parameters set by formal policies and guidelines, with individual characteristics, often resulting from spontaneous efforts of the participants in the educational process. therefore, in order to set the markers of a positive, autism-friendly learning environment, we are going to start with the formal requirements applied to school learning environments in russia. the key technical requirements regarding the sensory parameters of the educational environment are reflected in the official document entitled sanitarnoepidemiologicheskie trebovaniia k organizatsiiam vospitaniia i obucheniia, otdykha i ozdorovleniia detei i molodezhi [sanitary-epidemiological rules and regulations for organizations of education, recreation and wellness for children and youth; hereinafter—sanitary rules and regulations] (postanovlenie, 2020). since humans are inseparable from their environment and the physical parameters of the environment affect people’s mental state, the fulfillment of these requirements creates a universal material foundation of any sensory environment. among other changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 155 things, this document specifies the space standards, that is, floor space per child, to prevent cramped classrooms or corridors. these standards, however, do not address those characteristics of school environment that can make it visually overwhelming, fractional, or aggressive (these characteristics are reflected in the markers we are going to describe further in the article). the requirements regarding school furniture in the sanitary rules and regulations are not entirely consistent and deal with different aspects of furniture. for example, it is possible to use multi-functional (transformable) furniture, depending on the size and height of children, their physical development, and whether they have any respiratory, hearing, and visual impairments. the usage of stools and benches instead of chairs is prohibited. the use of color markings on the side exterior surface to indicate the size of furniture is recommended. color cues can be used to enhance the learning environment, e.g., to designate specific zones, to aid way-findings, etc. the characteristics of surfaces (walls, floors, ceilings, furniture surface materials) are outlined, taking into account the interrelation of the various components of the environment. for example, it is recommended to use finishes which create a matt surface in light shades with strictly defined reflection coefficients from the surfaces. the area of decorative elements with a bright color palette must not exceed 25% of the total wall surface area of the room—but the brightness parameters and specialization of the room are not stipulated. the sanitary rules and regulations also contain requirements regarding natural and artificial lighting: it is required that there should be natural lateral, overhead or two-way lighting, and artificial lighting levels of at least 300 lux in classrooms and 400 lux in workshops. light fixtures should be equipped with diffusers with the possibility of using fluorescent lamps. in general, like any instructions or regulations, the sanitary rules and regulations focus on the health and safety of children in an educational setting and provide averaged indicators. they do not take into account the individual sensory characteristics of students, which may to some extent be explained by the modernist methodology and its reductionist approach underpinning these documents. the absence of explanations or references to any scientific sources makes documents of this kind hard to remember. despite their importance and necessity, they cannot serve as a basis for quick, practical adjustments that would allow an educational institution to create and maintain a healthy sensory environment. similar issues apply to the main educational programs. for example, the primer naia adaptirovannaia osnovnaia obshcheobrazovatel’naia programma nachal’nogo obshchego obrazovaniia obuchaiushchikhsia s rasstroistvami autisticheskogo spektra [adapted basic education program—abep] (primernaia adaptirovannaia, 2015) approaches a learning environment from the didactic perspective, ignoring the technical requirements. this results in certain contradictions between these two documents, making it difficult for schools to develop a consistent strategy of building an environment conducive to children’s sensory well-being. the abep requires that schools should create an environment that would enable asd learners to perceive the maximum amount of information from audio-visual sources, which means that there https://changing-sp.com/ 156 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova should be conveniently located and accessible stands with visual materials about inschool rules of conduct, safety rules, timetable, event announcements, etc. there is, however, no requirements concerning the quality of design of these materials, such as fonts and sizes, the proportions and colors used, and so on. the workspace requirements described in the abep also specify that asd students should be able to choose their own desk and partner. according to the abep, asd children can use special supplements, didactic materials, and workbooks, printed or electronic, contributing to the correction of deficiencies in students’ psycho-physical development and helping them make a better general progress. the program provides a long list of games, manuals, objects, and equipment, but no information about their sensory characteristics is provided. it should be noted, however, that such things as “stuffed animals”, “accessible musical instruments”, and even “a washbasin” can be both neutral for a child with asd or can have a negative effect on them, if they make the environment incomprehensible and create sensory overloads. the abep itself does not contain any guidelines or restrictions of this kind, which in practice leads to the environment becoming cluttered and messy. paradoxically, things meant to harmonize the learning process may have a negative impact on the learners if these things are not properly organized. the abep does not mention such characteristics as systematicity and coherence of the environment, which can hardly be surprising, since they are not directly related to the program’s objectives. on the practical level, however, it is essential that these characteristics should be ensured, at least, it makes sense to keep out of sight those objects that are not used in the learning process. these items should be kept in containers or drawers in a strictly defined place. it is desirable that these containers should have labels, containing visual and verbal information as to what is inside. the same applies to the walls, which need to be kept free of any visual distractors to avoid bombarding learners with unnecessary information. if the environment is fractional or chaotic, the child’s brain finds itself in a state of multitasking, having to process lots of new (sometimes almost useless) information about all the configurations around it, to decide on the necessary actions: how to avoid an obstacle, how to avoid an unpleasant experience, what to choose as the most preferable option, etc. the effort of rapidly switching from one task to another leads to an increase in dopamine, a biologically active substance that is a neurotransmitter responsible for transmitting signals from the brain to the central nervous system. the body do this through self-regulation (uchenye vyiasnili, 2022). distracting items in the classroom may disrupt learning, making it hard for students to maintain their attention. in other words, in such classroom environment, a child is able to pay only superficial attention to things and phenomena. a good illustration is provided by figure 1, showing a fragment of a wall in a music classroom with a disparate collection of postcards, some of them overlapping, which disrupts the rhythm in the design and creates a sense of chaos. for children with asd and intellectual disabilities, the abep recommends to use special textbooks, copy-books, printed workbooks, literacy kits, audio recordings, slides, desktop theater, etc.; however, their sensory characteristics are not specified. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 157 students with asd and severe multiple developmental disabilities must be provided with unhindered access to the infrastructure of the general education organization (o sotsial’noi zashchite, 1995) in accordance with the requirements of a barrier-free environment. it is necessary to use special aids and technologies for children with different disabilities, such as individual technical means of movement (wheelchairs, walkers, stand aids, etc.). these objects are never designed as a coherent system. each of them is usually designed in its own style, color, etc., their proportions and configurations contrast with each other, creating an extra sensory burden. figure 1 decoration of a music classroom in a school in yekaterinburg, russia note. source: t. yu. bystrova (2020). https://changing-sp.com/ 158 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova special areas are created in the classroom, including areas for recreation and free time. the abep specifies that recreation areas should contain the following items: a carpet and/or magnetic boards, flannelgraphs, tactile materials, etc.; there is no mention of the type and sensory characteristics of the objects and materials. areas for self-care, hygiene procedures should be provided. the classroom may contain aids for non-verbal (alternative) communication; graphic/printed pictures (thematic sets of photographs, drawings, icons, etc.; these visual materials can be used to create individual communication albums); alphabet boards (tables of letters, cards with printed words for practicing “global reading” comprehension); electronic aids (magnetic-tape recording devices, electronic communicators, a tablet or a personal computer with appropriate software). no specific requirements are set regarding graphics, tactile characteristics, level and features of sound design etc. among the courses offered by schools to children with multiple disabilities, there is the course “human being”, which is aimed to create a general understanding of the human body and behavior. this course, among other things, includes the information about the senses. it is considered particularly important since it helps enrich the life experience of asd students, stimulating their positive reactions to the surrounding world. there is a general consensus among researchers and practitioners working with asd children about the importance of educational environment: adaptation to the consistently changing environment leads to the improvement of social interaction skills, communication, and adaptability in children with asd (khaustov, 2009, p. 1). khaustov argues that learning space should be adjusted for the functional purpose of the rooms and the nature of specific activities. it is necessary that orientation, communicative and social-behavioral cues and means of communication should be provided. daily routines should be organized with the help of visual cues; children should always have access to psychological support. peeters explains how to make not only space but also time more “visual” for asd children through the use of visual cues, which helps them get answers to the questions about the time of certain events, their duration, ways to perform this or that task, etc. (peeters, 1997). kranowitz describes a strategy for organizing classroom activities to take account of asd children's sensory characteristics and needs. the author writes about the need to reduce sensory overload (tactile, visual, auditory), but she also suggests using intuition to feel what kind of sensory stimulation disturbs the child (kranowitz, 2005) and not rely entirely on the results of psycho-diagnostic tests. she also points out the need for comfortable furniture, clean sheets of paper, and a blackboard to improve visual perception of what is written. kranowitz stresses the importance of having a schedule, prescribed order in the classroom, requirements for organizing the movement of children, and planning breaks in the middle of the lesson and between them. the “formula” of a sensory-friendly learning environment can be derived by looking at the partial (and rather insignificant) overlap between the requirements found in different normative documents (figure 2). for example, the sanitary changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 159 rules and regulations and the proposed markers have a common technical foundation, but the former document prioritizes the technical aspect while our methodology focuses on the impacts that technical and material objects have on children’s sensory well-being. the above-mentioned school course “human being” expands children’s horizons but the course program provides no flexible methods of evaluating the learning environment (e.g., sets of markets) and has to be supplemented with hands-on guidelines, possibly partially algorithmized. the abep provides a general outline of the characteristics of materials and objects and only hint at the possible direction(s) that analysis of a particular educational environment may take. all material and technical support requirements must be focused not only on the child but also on other participants of the educational process in order to make the process more individualized. our analysis shows that the legal and regulatory documents recommend the creation of a safe learning environment for children without providing any specific guidelines regarding the sensory aspect of such environment. an important concept in this respect is sensory well-being, which is underexplored in the russian segment of the research literature on this topic. in international literature, however, this term is mentioned more frequently but is not always clearly defined (see, for example, gentil-gutiérrez et al., 2021; haigh & mytton, 2016; nanda et al., 2019). in this paper, sensory well-being is understood as an aggregate indicator of the optimal physical, emotional and psychological condition of an individual. the term “sensory well-being”, in our view, can be applied to shed light on the particulars of the six-factor model of psychological well-being (ryff, 1996). sensory well-being can be considered within the framework of k. ryff’s environmental mastery. in addition, sensory wellbeing, like well-being in general, is not a static phenomenon but a dynamic system that tends to change over time. figure 2 sensory well-being requirements in legal and regulatory documents https://changing-sp.com/ 160 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova markers of sensory well-being: overview unlike the more stable “properties”, “qualities”, or “characteristics” of environment, “markers” are understood here as dynamic elements of the environment. a marker is defined as a sign, an indicator of something (neliubin, 2003). in medicine and psychology, marker is a substance or measurable parameter used to diagnose a particular disorder or condition. a marker is also defined not as a quality but as a signal which identifies (that is, marks) a function or a quality (marker, n.d.). thus, markers can be also viewed from the semiotic perspective, for instance, a marker is defined as a “sign that serves as a symptom of something” (zhmurov, 2012). since this paper focuses on the relationship between an asd individual and their environment, we consider it productive to use the term “markers of sensory well-being” to promote a more holistic approach to this problem, based on the understanding that the human body and psyche are not only interconnected but also dynamic (freud, 1990). the latter is determined by the connection between the components of the human body and mind with the external environment. the possibility of such an interpretation is indirectly supported by the concept “atmospherics” of the environment, introduced in the early 1970s by f. kotler. this term was initially used in marketing texts to denote one of the factors shaping consumer behavior (turley & milliman, 2000). the results of consumer behavior research were considered in later studies on the sensory parameters of design that contribute to people’s well-being and productivity (keeling et al., 2012, p. 8). among other things, a more comprehensive view of an autism-friendly learning environment and its characteristics is necessary because of the very nature of autistic spectrum disorders, which have unique manifestations in each particular case. to date, there is no methodological framework that would encompass the multitude of interconnected individual reactions to the environment. what we can do, however, is to stop looking at the environment as a static and abstract construct. in this light, a marker of sensory well-being corresponds to those elements of the environment that contribute to its positive influence on the individual and can be used by experts (but also educators and parents) to evaluate the environment. the flexibility of the proposed methodology stems from the fact that the set of markers can be adjusted for the individual needs of each subject. we believe that in order to evaluate all combinations of all the elements, the use of specialized software and applications is required, which constitutes an avenue for further research. when designing a sensory safe environment, it is important to take into account universal characteristics such as proportion, scale, and symmetry (alexander, 1979; mehaffi, 2022). the role of these characteristics has been discussed in our previous research (see, for example, bystrova et al., 2019; bystrova & tokarskaya, 2022). therefore, we are going to provide only a brief overview of these parameters. it should be noted that these characteristics can be found not only in artificially created environments but also in any living objects and structures, which is why they have a positive effect on people’s mental well-being. these parameters include not only technical and stylistic patterns but may also include features determined by local traditions and culture, landscape, the availability of certain materials, and so on. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 161 the living world and the “living” architectural environment have a complex multilevel structure, where the proportions of objects are arranged in certain numerical sequences (fibonacci sequence, the “golden ratio”) and follow the laws of tectonics. elements are variable and symmetries lack absolute precision. perceiving these elements and the relationships between them, the human brain works actively, while cluttered or monotonous environments, on the contrary, drain our cognitive resources. the human sensory system has evolved by tuning itself to connect with other life forms, which means that natural geometry optimizes the state of the body and emotions. consequently, the system of markers of sensory well-being includes both general and more specific parameters, that is, those related to the characteristics of a specific person or group of people. this means it is important to personalize and individualize the environment. in other words, each classroom should have its own individual design. specialists working on the construction of a sensory friendly learning environment should be ready to adjust it to the individual needs of its occupants while keeping the minimum of the basic characteristics required for this type of environment. in this case, it may be concluded that formal requirements and actual markers of a sensory-friendly environment are interconnected and may be used together to create an environment conducive to learning, socialization, communication, etc. as stated above, however, the formal guidelines and requirements do not specify measures of ensuring the consistency of a learning environment, do not set the priorities in the organization of a learning environment, and, finally, they do not take into account the individual characteristics of the environment itself or its components. in order to identify the markers of sensory well-being for asd children, we suggest the following principles: • keep in mind that markers do not provide a one-size-fits-all, universal solutions. what can be good for a short-term stay can be destabilizing when a student stays in the environment for a long time. • there are no rigid rules regarding the use of markers; a marker can be chosen or adjusted depending on specific goals, purposes and characteristics of the environment. • a marker is a part of a system, it cannot be considered in isolation from other parameters and markers. • а considerable role in the assessment is played not by the qualitative values of markers per se but by their ratios, proportions and relationships with each other. since repetitive actions, disruptions of social interaction, sensory perception, and communication are characteristic of all children and teenagers with asd, we can say that the dominant feature of the educational environment for a child with asd is its stability. this means that repeatability, stability, and consistency are its most significant characteristics. one of the possible avenues for future research could be the development of a set of qualitative indicators to measure those parameters of the learning environment that are crucial for its sensory friendliness. to this end, coordinated work of a multidisciplinary team of specialists will be required. there are seven main components of the sensory sphere—visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory sensations, vestibular sense of balance, and proprioception (the https://changing-sp.com/ 162 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova body’s ability to sense action, movement and location) (heath et al., 2021). for each of them recommendations may be formulated regarding the improvement of the learning environment. let us look at each of them in more detail. the visual aspect corresponds to the presence of at least three sizes of objects in the environment—large, medium, and small. through visual perception, humans can also distinguish biomorphic forms, color zoning, rhythmically organized elements and patters. since fluorescent colors can strain the eyes and be distracting, it is recommended to give preference to natural colors. it also makes sense to use colors and lines to designate specific areas with the classroom space, e.g., the individual study spot for a child with asd (figure 3), their space when working at a communal table, etc. visual contact with nature, for example, in nature corners organized in classrooms is also beneficial for the emotional state of most people (frumkin, 2003). figure 3 use of color in a classroom to designate an individual spot for each student note. source: https://educationandbehavior.com/how-to-set-up-the-classroom-for-students-with-autism/ the auditory aspect means the absence of objects which make harsh, loud, or scary noises, constantly rustling or humming objects. it is also recommended to wear noise-canceling headphones or listen to music through headphones. the overall level of noise should be reduced and it may also make sense to create a soundproof space (or a room) for privacy. curtains on the windows can be considered positive markers as long as the children do not manifest any negative reactions to them. the tactile aspect implies that there should be different surfaces and textures in the classroom, including some natural surfaces. it may also be helpful for students to https://educationandbehavior.com/how-to-set-up-the-classroom-for-students-with-autism/ changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 163 wear comfortable clothes made of fabric that is non-irritating to the skin. children can also use weighed sensory aids during classes (knee pads, belts, collars, blankets). measures should be taken to exclude or reduce the possibility of unwanted tactile contact. when working with children individually, the teacher should avoid towering above students but instead sit or squat to be at the eye-level with them. it is also recommended that children with asd should be wearing hoodies to prevent sensory overstimulation. the olfactory aspect may include keeping the air fresh, free from any technogenic odors or intense smells. taste sensations mean that it is important to take into account the child's taste preferences not only in the organization of meals but also in choosing foods to be used as classroom rewards. a sense of balance means the need to create an ergonomically organized, userfriendly workplace: it should be comfortable and encourage a child to keep a good posture and stay focused. proprioception means that there should be approximately 1-meter distance between classroom occupants. another positive marker is having vertically oriented images, furniture items, etc. in a classroom. educational establishments may also use objects containing water (for example, small pools), access to which will be regulated. sensory rooms with special equipment and sensory zones in the classroom, such as dry pools, trampolines, and swings, can be used. creating natural zones with plants which are pleasant to touch (lemon verbena, clerodendrum, soft cacti, etc.) and an opportunity to interact with animals is also beneficial. in addition, to promote inclusion in school, it is important that school counselors, teachers and other staff should provide opportunities for students to meet and get to know each other better. it should be noted that many children with asd struggle to filter the sensory input. they can suffer from a “sensory overload”, which makes some types of sensory information unbearable. sensory overload has both emotional and physical consequences. it can cause anxiety, fear, panic, and the feeling of helplessness, which often lead to disengagement or hysteria. physically, there may be sensations ranging from a child feeling mildly ill to experiencing unbearable pain. there may be digestive problems, excessive sleepiness, insomnia, and fever. signs of sensory overload include nervousness, rapid fatigue, crying, shouting, quick mood swings, trying to “shut off” the overloaded channel (avoidance, turning away, covering ears with hands, etc.), sudden “switching off”, falling asleep. in such cases, it may be necessary to use the so-called “sensory diet”. this term, proposed by patricia wilbarger, means a meticulously structured individual plan of activities and procedures which ensure the introduction of sensory stimuli which are necessary for a particular child in order to stay organized during the day taking into account his unique set of needs (wilbarger & wilbarger, 2002). on the whole, it is important to modify the environment in such a way so as to eliminate or weaken the triggers (traumatizing stimuli) for people who are in it. https://changing-sp.com/ 164 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova discussion analysis of the learning environment at a russian school and its sensory characteristics for our analysis, we chose the learning environment in one of the russian schools catering for children with asd and mental retardation. this school is attended by olga v., whose sensory characteristics are described below. the class may include children aged 12–14. such difference in age in the same class is due to the fact that parents often delay their children’s starting age for school because they believe that extra preparation is necessary. looking at the classroom in figure 4 and its markers, it is impossible to identify the age and condition of those school children who study in it. not only is the environment unlikely to contribute to their learning progress, but it also probably interferes with their mental activity, especially if we assume that the class includes not only neurotypical children but also children with special needs. figure 4 fragments of the classroom for children with asd note. source: authors. let us take a closer look at those aspects of this learning environment that need correction. visual impressions in this learning environment would in all likelihood be fractional and chaotic as the environment looks overloaded with disparate elements, changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 165 some of which are completely unnecessary. in addition, there is no intermediary level between the large and small elements (tokarev, 2020), which can derail students from concentrating on the tasks at hand. the majority of the objects have matte surfaces, which is good. however, the color combinations are random and far too numerous (e.g., pink walls–orange chairs). perhaps, the teacher tried subconsciously to compensate for the monotony of the beige interior, which consists predominantly of square and rectangular elements, but did not realize that the excess of color can be overwhelming for her students. no colour cues are used to designate specific zones in the classroom, which makes orientation difficult. as far as lighting is concerned, there is an overlap of natural and artificial light. as for the auditory aspect, the objects in the classroom muffle noises and reduce the volume of the speaker’s voice, which should have a positive emotional impact on the learners. however, the noises and rustles of the plastic blinds can be tiring for children. the tactile aspect of the classroom environment also requires some adjustments: there is a lack of natural materials and excess of synthetic materials and surfaces. unlike synthetic materials such as plastic, natural materials with diverse textures encourage children to observe more closely and stimulate creativity; they are ideal for sensory play. moreover, a large number of plastic and metal objects create an atmosphere which can be called technogenic and may have undesirable effects on children’s olfactory systems. on the other hand, the class is regularly aired and there are plants, which partially compensate for the abundance of artificial materials. no comments can be made regarding the taste sensations associated with this classroom. children’s sense of balance may be disturbed by the presence of a big exercise ball on top of the bookshelf (see figure 4). moreover, the space has no stable horizontal or vertical lines. the constantly moving vanes of the window blinds may cause a feeling of dizziness in a child. proprioception can be hindered by many protruding corners (e.g., a cabinet standing next to the blackboard, desks pulled together, etc.). when the teacher and children move around the classroom, for example, during a recess, their routes may overlap, which is not conducive to tactile comfort (heath et al., 2021, p. 42). an overview of the key features of the classroom environment shows that the current standards regulating the design of classrooms do not take into account the constantly changing needs of asd children. in contrast to real-life situations, these standards are underpinned by the idea that the features of the environment and the reactions of its occupants should remain virtually unchanged. thus, in order to adapt the classroom environment to the needs of asd learners, the teacher might be inclined to bring in some new elements and change the configuration of the classroom space but if they lack the necessary expertise to construct a sensory-friendly environment, their efforts might bring some dubious results, e.g., overwhelming or cluttered environment (koolhaas, 1995). therefore, it is necessary to create the standards that would make the teacher (or another professional) entitled to change the environment and create markers of sensory well-being for specific category of students or for individual students. https://changing-sp.com/ 166 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova the case of an asd student in a learning environment in order to build a comprehensive understanding of the sensory impacts of the learning environment, we need to keep in mind the integral nature of human perception where all the aspects are inextricably connected with each other. it should, therefore, be emphasized at these point that the proposed division of the environment’s properties into seven modalities is tentative and is made for the purposes of this analysis. in the last decades, there have been some dramatic changes in our understanding of the processes of sensory perception and processing caused by a variety of factors, such as the accelerated pace of life, urbanization, standardization, the spread of mass culture, and the corresponding pragmatic shift in aesthetics. it should be noted that there are different methodologies to study people’s sensory characteristics such as the sensory profile (short sensory profile, w. dunn), sensory processing measure (spm-2), sensorimotor history questionnaire for parents of young children (kermack), sipt (sensory integration praxis test), and some others (see, for example, bundy & lane, 2020; kranowitz, 2005). this study includes an expert assessment of the sensory profile of a 14-year-old asd student olga v. the assessment covered seven modalities and was conducted through the application of the short sensory profile questionnaire developed by w. dunn. our goal was to examine the influence of the classroom environment on the student’s sensory well-being. we also interviewed the student’s parents and educators who worked with her. olga v. date of birth: 01.12.2009. visual system: the child turns lights on and off, likes commercials and brightly colored cartoons with lots of action. auditory system: the child likes toys that make certain sounds. tactile system: the child constantly fidgets with something (sticky materials, sand, soft toys, a high pile carpet, brushes); she likes the sensation of being rubbed with hands. olfactory system: the child sniffs everything she comes across. taste system: the child adores food with a pronounced taste. vestibular system: the child is constantly in motion, seeking constant “excitement”, she rides on swings, merry-go-rounds, jumps on the trampoline for a very long time. proprioceptive system: the child stomps frequently, likes to be hugged tightly, massaged, squeezed forcefully; likes to be in confined spaces. it should be noted that the girl demonstrates hypersensitivity, she is always in “search of sensations” and needs constant stimulation. marker-based assessment of the learning environment by combining the results of our classroom analysis with the girl’s data, we developed a personalized set of markers that could be applied to assess how well this environment is suited for this child’s individual needs, her learning and leisure activities. in order to make the environment more positive for her, the following adjustments should be made. first, more muted, calming colors should be used, especially for desks and chairs. it is necessary to get rid of the visual clutter, such as the excessive objects on the teacher’s desk or the unnecessary visual materials on the blackboard wall. closed changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 149–172 167 blinds (preferably ordinary curtains) are needed for the lesson. the materials used for the lesson can be sufficiently bright to act as stimuli, but they should not contrast with other elements. natural light or homogeneous warm artificial light should be used, the two types of light should not be mixed because it causes additional sensory stress. when relaxing, olga v. is more mobile, she likes moving around the classroom. therefore, she should be provided with more diverse visual experiences, e.g., at the far wall of the classroom there may be placed toys or books in brighter colors, of different textures and sizes. classroom zones can be designated with different shades of color (less saturated—more saturated). the tactile properties of surfaces and objects can echo their visual characteristics. what should be avoided is the use of plants with prickly sharp leaves and the excess of artificial materials with uniform smooth surfaces. as for the auditory aspect of the environment, we would recommend to eliminate the monotonous rustling sound of blinds. proprioceptive and vestibular system. the arbitrary positioning of the teacher’s desk and other pieces of furniture means that the classroom lacks a clearly defined structure, which may be disorienting for the asd child’s proprioceptive and vestibular system. thus, it can be concluded that the girl’s sensory needs are not fully met by the learning environment and that some serious adjustments are needed to make this environment for autism-friendly. results there is now a growing awareness of the need for a more personalized, flexible learning environment to foster each individual child’s interests and strengths. such environments can be approached from a variety of perspectives—medical, architectural, engineering, pedagogical, ergonomic and so on. as today’s schools are becoming more inclusive and there is a diversity of forms of learning to choose from, learning environments are becoming more complex. the situation is even more challenging if we are dealing with the needs of a child with autism spectrum disorder, for whom certain sounds, textures, smells and types of light can be overwhelming. digitalization makes the problem even harder. augmented reality tools or constant switching between online and offline modes of learning make schools and parents practically incapable of considering all the characteristics of objects and environments used in the process of education. to address this problem, we need not only to create new objects but also, more importantly, to rethink, reconfigure and adjust the characteristics of the already existing ones. the principles of systemic design, which were developed over half a century ago and are still relevant today, can help make learning environments more sensory-friendly. in our analysis of the theory and practice of creating sensory-friendly environ ments, we have shown that the necessary balance of all elements can be achieved only if there is a comprehensive, rational and dynamic vision of such an environment. creation of a more individualized learning environment requires the adaptation of the current sanitary rules and regulations to encompass learners’ sensory needs. https://changing-sp.com/ 168 lyudmila v. tokarskaya, tatyana yu. bystrova due to the absence of a comprehensive study on this topic, we used the data provided by the vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut tekhnicheskoi estetiki (all-russian scientific research institute of industrial design—vniite)—the chief russian design research institute—and the massachusetts institute of technology (mit). we also used the evidence provided by specialists involved in designing sensory-safe environments in museums (hoskin et al., 2020; magkafa, 2022; steinberg et al., 2022); by the russian design company art.lebedev studio. their findings were adapted to the reality of modern russian schools, which allowed us to formulate a set of recommendations for making learning environments more sensory friendly. the concept of sensory well-being and its markers may provide some valuable insights into what constitutes sensory friendly learning environment and ways to adjust a learning environment to the specific needs of students and groups of students. conclusion this article raises the question of how a learning environment contributing to asd children’s sensory well-being (that is, a sensory safe environment) can be organized. asd learners have specific sensory needs, which often hinder not only effective learning but also their social adaptation in general. the effectiveness of education for this category of children will be higher in a sensory safe environment. such environment can be seen as part of an autism-friendly environment (autizm. druzheliubnaia sreda, 2016) and will help improve their motivation to learn. the proposed marker method can be used for an individualized assessment of the sensory characteristics of a learning environment, its autism-friendliness, and the possibility of adjusting a learning environment to asd students’ sensory needs. the sensory characteristics of a learning environment should not be seen as a given but rather as something that is continuously changing and can be altered if necessary. it is also important that people responsible for constructing and maintaining the learning environment should have enough expertise to adjust it to the individual needs of students and to the goals of the learning process. this, in its turn, creates the need to raise the awareness of this problem among the educators and other specialists, but, unfortunately, so far, no such efforts have been undertaken. a promising avenue for further research could be to develop a model that could be used by architects, designers and educators to create a sensory safe educational space based on the proposed set of markers. the proposed approach can be relevant not only for learning environments for children with asd but also for normatively developing children as well as for constructing sensory safe environments for more general purposes. references alexander, ch. 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(1985). arkhitektura i emotsional’nyi mir cheloveka [architecture and the emotional world of man]. stroiizdat. zhmurov, v. a. (2012). bol’shaia entsiklopediia po psikhiatrii [great encyclopedia of psychiatry] (2nd ed.). dzhangar. https://prorus.ru/interviews/arhitektura-pryamogo-dejstviya/ https://doi.org/10.1016/s0148-2963(99)00010-7 https://ria.ru/20210406/dofamin-1727063233.html changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 232–241 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.039 received 19 august 2018 © 2018 l. philip barnes accepted 10 september 2018 philip.barnes@kcl.ac.uk published online 30 september 2018 conference paper english religious education: developments, identity, and diversity l. philip barnes king’s college london, united kingdom abstract the aim of this paper is to review the post-confessional history of english religious education. the intention is to be descriptive rather than polemical. attention is given to the transition of confessional to multi-faith religious education and to subsequent developments. the strengths and weaknesses of phenomenological approaches are considered, and how the focus upon experience that is central to phenomenology was preserved in later educational attempts to further moral and spiritual development through religious education. finally, attention is given to the reasons for the emergence of citizenship as an important theme in religious education and to more recent issues. keywords confessionalism, experiential approach, john hull, indoctrination, multi-faith religious education, phenomenological religious education, spiritual development introduction the aim of this paper is to review the post-confessional history of english religious education. this is a controversial and contested subject, for there is no archimedean point or god’s eye perspective from which to gain a fully objective and disinterested analysis and interpretation. for some commentators the historical narrative of modern english religious education is one of untrammelled success and rational progress, a perception that gives little encouragement to retrospective reflection. for others, the historical narrative is a simple recitation of events, debates and personalities, each event completely explicable in terms of its immediate cause or causes. both approaches are insufficiently critical, for neither is attentive to the influence of historically extended and deeper intellectual movements or to the beliefs https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 232–241 233 that have shaped and continue to shape contemporary theory and practice. an attempt is made to identify and to interact critically with the beliefs, commitments and values that have determined the form and content of post-confessional religious education in england. the transition from confessional to non-confessional religious education the most important development in relation to the history of religious education in britain, and the development that distinguishes modern religious education from earlier periods, is the transition from confessional to non-confessional forms of religious education in state-maintained (now referred to as “community”) schools – that is, schools that are intended to be inclusive of all pupils, of any religious persuasion or none. up until the late 1960s, religious education was christian in terms of both content and of commitment. the purpose of religious education was to nurture christian faith and values on behalf of what was believed to be a christian society. this orientation was undermined by a range of developments. economic, social and intellectual influences contributed to create a new cultural situation where traditional authorities and institutions were challenged, including the role and authority of the churches, particularly the established church, the church of england. there was a radical reassessment of the aims of education in general and of the aims of religious education in particular. in the latter case this reassessment proceeded against the background of diminishing numerical support for institutional religion, widespread questioning of traditional christian beliefs and values (both of which are properly regarded as aspects of the secularisation of society), and, chiefly as a result of post-war immigration from former colonies, a growing awareness of the multi-faith nature of modern britain. influential voices were raised against the prevailing orthodoxy. research had already indicated that the staple diet of bible study and church history, so central to the religious education curriculum, was meeting with limited success in terms of both capturing pupils’ interest in christianity and advancing their understanding and comprehension of basic christian beliefs (ice, 1957; loukes, 1961). a new non-confessional direction for religious education was suggested in 1971 by a “working paper”, aptly entitled working paper 36: religious education in the secondary school, that was produced under the direction of professor ninian smart for the schools council (a government funded body charged with the aim of exploring and developing new curricular ideas) and inspired by the emergence of religious studies as a separate subject from theology at university level. this publication initiated a revolution in british religious education and marked the beginning of the end of christian nurture in all state and (fully funded) voluntary schools and heralded the advent of multi-faith religious education. the main ideas of working paper 36 can be summarised in the following points: 1. the confessional or, what the document terms, the “dogmatic” approach to religious education is equated with “intellectual and cultic indoctrination”. confessional religious education is presented as necessarily indoctrinatory. christian nurture should be abandoned in all schools as nurture is incompatible with “educational principles”. 2. moral education should be distinguished from religious education and the former should be studied in its own right independently of religious education. working https://changing-sp.com/ 234 l. philip barnes paper 36 followed the philosophical fashion of the time and maintained that religion cannot provide a foundation for morality; consequently, moral education should be taught independently of religion. 3. the view is expressed that a multi-faith, “non-dogmatic, phenomenological approach”, which draws inspiration from the phenomenology of religion should be adopted. it is commended for its “openness” and for its promotion of “empathic understanding” – by virtue of imagination and empathy, human beings are able to transcend their own situations and enter creatively into the subjectivity of others. by developing this form of religious understanding, religious education is believed to promote religious tolerance and to contribute positively to preparing pupils for life in a multi-cultural, multi-racial society. the descriptive nature of the phenomenological approach and its (purported) neutral stance toward the truth of religion were believed to distance teachers from the charge of indoctrination, while simultaneously securing an educational foundation for the subject. the phenomenological approach to religious education working paper 36 provided only an impressionistic account of a phenomenological approach to religion, though its endorsement gave encouragement to scholars of religion and religious educators alike (for example, eric sharpe, michael grimmitt, robin minney, and john marvell) to explain its distinctive methodology and terminology and to show its relevance in adapting it for classroom use. the fact that the phenomenology of religion had already established its academic credentials at university level, no doubt contributed to its favourable reception by teachers, as did the perception that its approach was the only viable alternative to confessionalism. the vocabulary and procedures of the phenomenology of religion became the currency of religious education and its principles came to be enshrined in numerous textbooks, agreed syllabuses and local education authority handbooks. the intellectual roots of the phenomenology of religion can be traced to liberal protestant attempts in the late nineteenth century to develop a methodology for the study of religion that was descriptive and broad ranging, less driven by christian polemics against other religions and more conscious of the divisive legacy of religion in the modern world. the professed aim of the phenomenology of religion is to provide an objective account of religious phenomena that is free from bias and distortion. religious knowledge gives way to religious understanding, for as one learns about religion and enters into the situation of the religious believer, so one comes to understand the universal nature and character of religion. religious understanding is gained by two hermeneutical steps (or what some call “reductions”). first, attention is given to the religious phenomenon under discussion, with all prior beliefs and assumptions suspended (epoché), then in this focussed state, the observer enters into the thought world of religion and intuits (through eidetic vision) the meaning of the experience for the believer. characteristically, in phenomenology, the essential nature of religion is interpreted as experience of the holy or the sacred (both words translate the same german term, das heilige): religion is regarded as a unique (sui generis) changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 232–241 235 category of interpretation and knowing. through empathy and intuition, the essence of the holy is grasped, and the inner meaning and motivation of religion is grasped. in this way, phenomenologists of religion believed that the “objective” experiential character of religion is laid bare. in broad terms this interpretation (which is sufficiently broad ranging to be regarded as a theory) of religion, was developed and formalised by phenomenologists of religion such as gerardus van der leeuw, friedrich heiler, mircea eliade and others in the early to mid-twentieth century. the attractiveness of a phenomenological approach to teachers should be obvious. phenomenological religious education claims to be multi-faith, inclusive, neutral and “objective” – no religion is privileged over another. formally, the critical evaluation of religious beliefs and practices can be set aside, bracketed out as the phenomenology of religion’s methodology demands, yet informally the truth of religion is assumed. through empathy, insight is gained into the religious world of “the other”; and true to the liberal protestant foundations of the phenomenology of religion, the religious world of “the other” is found to be centred on and expressive of the transcendent mystery that lies at the heart of all religion. as marvell (1982, p. 74) maintained, every religion evokes the “the numinous”. on this basis, one of the most controversial issues in relation to religion is overlooked: that of evaluating religious claims to truth and adjudicating between rival doctrinal beliefs. furthermore, following the demise of christian confessionalism in education, there was a certain embarrassment with the doctrinal element of religion, and the phenomenological approach provided a welcome justification for diminishing the role of doctrine in religion, and consequently the role of doctrine and beliefs in religious education. religious education is thus freed from challenge and possible controversy. this endorsement of religion was important against a background in education and in society where the relevance and significance of religion was often overlooked. many of the intellectual elite of the time viewed religion as an epiphenomenon that reflected more fundamental economic or psychological realities; in any case commitment to the secularisation thesis predicted that religion was in terminal decline. against this intellectual background many religious educators in the 1970s and 80s regarded themselves as witnesses to the importance of religion and its positive contribution to society. in a situation where religion was culturally despised, it was natural to underline the similarities between religions and thus present them as collectively opposed to secularism and the cultural disparagement of religion. over the next two decades, british religious education became synonymous with a multi-faith, phenomenological approach in which religions were typically studied thematically, with the content of religion organised and classified under generic themes such as founders, sacred buildings, sacred scriptures, and festivals. pupils were encouraged to set aside their presuppositions, and to enter imaginatively into the religious experience of others. this was the ideal of course, but for many pupils religious education became an uninvolving and superficial journey through a range of different religions and diverse religious phenomena. the influence of phenomenological religious education in england reached its peak in 1985 when an official british inquiry into the education of children from ethnic minority groups, chaired by lord swann, concluded that a non-dogmatic, non-denominational, https://changing-sp.com/ 236 l. philip barnes phenomenological approach to religious education provided the “best and only means of enabling all pupils, from whatever religious background, to understand the nature of religious belief, the religious dimension of human experience and the plurality of faiths in contemporary britain” (swann, 1985, p. 518). even at the time of swann’s report, criticisms of phenomenological religious education were widely discussed by religious educators. teachers reported disinterest amongst pupils in a thematically ordered, multi-faith religious curriculum that failed to relate to their “life world” (lebenswelt) and their concerns and interests. acquaintance with the beliefs and values of minority groups by itself will considerably reduce religious prejudice also enjoyed little support from experience. furthermore, questions were raised about the capability of pupils to enter into the experience of others and to develop a positive attitude to them on the basis of the phenomenological technique of “bracketing out” their own convictions and commitments. a psychological perspective on children’s cognitive development suggests that the method of bracketing one’s own beliefs and entering into the mindstate and experience of others to gain an appreciation of their beliefs is compromised by the psychological and imaginative limitations of many pupils – limitations that in some case last well into the years of secondary education. there was also the complaint that by setting aside one’s own values and commitments and attempting to place oneself in the situation of the experiencing subject tacit support was given to moral and religious relativism; this is because from the perspective of the “insider” everything that is experienced in religion is valid and true. should religious education not also be developing critical perspectives on religion and religious phenomena? if classroom experience revealed that phenomenological religious education was less effective in challenging racism and religious intolerance than its first advocates had anticipated, this did not lead religious educators, for the most part, to question either the potential of religious education in this area or phenomenology’s underlying liberal protestant philosophical and theological commitments. it was conceded that the phenomenological technique for acquiring a positive attitude to religious diversity may be deficient, but ongoing research that identified a link between notions of superiority and prejudice was interpreted by religious educators as confirming their commitment to the experiential truth of the different religions. by challenging religious claims to uniqueness and superiority, religious educators believed themselves to be simultaneously challenging racism and religious intolerance. a straightforward and influential proponent of this position is provided by professor john hull, then of birmingham university and one of the most internationally influential religious educators. in 1992 hull introduced the word “religionism”, in an editorial in the british journal of religious education to refer both to the view that one religion is true to a degree denied to other religions and to the attitude of superiority that expresses itself as intolerance towards adherents of other religions (hull, 1992, p. 70). religionism, he affirmed, is rather like racism – there is the racist belief that one’s own race is better than others, and there are racist attitudes that show themselves in acts of discrimination against individuals from other races. belief and attitudes are linked, though strictly speaking, in his view, it is the belief that has priority. with regard to religion, it is the denial of the truth of other religious traditions than one’s own that is the cause of religious changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 232–241 237 bigotry and intolerance. hull is quite insistent that “[i]t is not enough for religious education to encourage a tolerant attitude towards other religions” (hull, 1992, p. 71, my emphasis). he proposes that, within the educational context, pupils should be taught that all religions are authentic and valid – no one religion should consider itself or be presented in education as regarding itself as true in any sense that is denied to other religions. according to hull (1992), schools should teach that the different religions are not in competition with each other, but rather complement each other. this interpretation should become part of the self-identity and self-understanding of the different religious communities themselves. in a series of influential public lectures, articles and essays, he developed this interpretation of religionism and expounded the positive contribution, he believes, religious education can make to religious and social harmony (hull, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1999). other religious educators could be cited that illustrate the same view: a group of prominent religious educators supported hull’s position in a declaration that was widely circulated at the time and was posted on the studyoverseas.com (www.studyoverseas.com) website on 23 october 2001. religious experience and spiritual development the term “phenomenological religious education” gradually fell into disuse in the late 1980s, to be replaced by “multi-faith religious education”. the theological commitments, however, remained the same, as can be briefly illustrated. a number of educators championed what they described as “the experiential approach” to religious education that focussed on the cultivation of the “inner, spiritual experiences of pupils”, which they regarded as foundational both for an appreciation of the nature of religion and for later religious commitment, while in part acknowledging that the phenomenological approach had come to amount to little more than a catalogue of religious phenomena without any insight or focus on the experiences that give force and meaning to religious rituals, practices and beliefs (see hay et al., 1990). in short, the criticism was that phenomenological religious education (originally conceived as a suspension of critical judgement while attending to religious phenomena, followed by an act of intuitive awareness) had confined itself solely to the first procedural step and failed to move beyond external description. the experiential approach aimed to correct this weakness by exposing pupils to the experiential heart of religion and religious life through a range of meditations, guided exercises. the focus on experience in religious education received further support from the 1988 education reform act, which requires (for this legislation is still in force) schools to promote “the spiritual ... development of pupils and of society” (1988, p. 1). in a multicultural society, it is problematic for governments and legislators (though this does not mean that they preserve moral neutrality about their own chosen “moral” causes) to endorse one religion over others, or even religion over non-religious beliefs and worldviews. it is at this point that the notions of “spirituality” and “spiritual development” become relevant. one important advantage of the language of spirituality over traditional religious language is that the former admits a degree of ambiguity of usage and application that is denied to the latter. spirituality can be regarded as something https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.studyoverseas.com 238 l. philip barnes that is shared by adherents of different religions and even shared by non-religious people who are committed to positive liberal values. the first semi-official statement of what was envisaged by the reference to spiritual development in the act was given in a paper entitled moral and spiritual education, which was published in 1993 by the national curriculum council. at the outset, it is maintained that “[t]he potential for spiritual development is open to everyone and is not confined to the development of religious beliefs or conversion to a particular faith” (ncc, 1993, p. 2). the spiritual has to do with the universal search for individual identity – with our responses to challenging experiences, such as death, suffering, beauty, and encounters with good and evil. it is to do with the search for meaning and purpose in life and for values by which to live (ncc, 1993, p. 2). beliefs, a sense of awe, feelings of transcendence, the search for meaning and purpose, self-knowledge, relationships, creativity along with feelings and emotions are then listed as aspects of spiritual education. the framers of the document clearly wanted to distinguish spiritual development from religious development. spirituality is regarded as something wider and more inclusive than religion, the former focusing on experience, creative awareness and human values, the latter on formal or institutional patterns of religious belief and practice. a number of religious educators had already endorsed the view that spirituality provides the foundation for a broadly progressive, holistic education that focuses upon the child and his or her creative powers (over against a traditional knowledge-based education). spiritual intuition is believed to lie at the heart of not just religious commitment but of all authentic moral, aesthetic and educational commitments. moreover, these same writers presumed spirituality to possess an impartial and neutral quality denied to the different religions. accordingly, it is believed to provide a vantage point from which the different religions can be assessed, while accepted that all religions to some extent expedite spiritual sensibility. the document also effected a kind of reconciliation between morality and religion in education by placing both within a wider framework of human values which schools were obligated to uphold and to exhibit – i say a kind of reconciliation, and i will return to this point below. spiritual and moral development are probably linked in the document because it is believed that developing spirituality furthers moral development by seeking to enhance the dispositions of love, sympathy and responsibility that are presumed to provide the mainspring for moral action, while simultaneously refusing to elevate any particular morality or any particular moral stance over others. there is evidence which seems to suggest that at a personal level there is a close relationship between spiritual maturity and perceptions of personal well-being, expressed in terms of mental health, self-fulfilment, perceived contentment and happiness. at a social level, evidence again suggests that the spiritually mature are more likely to make a positive contribution to the community and less likely to engage in anti-social and criminal activities. thus, by fostering spiritual development religious education can contribute to the moral development of the individual and society. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 232–241 239 as said above, this is a reconciliation of sorts between religious education and moral education; yet this reconciliation does not concede much to religion, for a careful reading of the document shows that moral and spiritual values are not believed to need religion for their expression or justification. the view of the document is that both spiritual and moral values are a sub-set of human values and that the latter can be expressed and encouraged in different ways, in religious ways and in non-religious ways. the identification of spirituality with the “inner life” and with one’s feelings, however, opens the door to a subjective and reductionist reading of religion and may in fact undermine the cognitive significance of both spiritual and religious experiences. this refusal to consider deeper religious and philosophical issues is probably prompted by the fear that controversy will be aroused. the tacit assumption is that controversial religious matters are best ignored in the classroom, an assumption, as already noted, that runs back to the emergence of non-confessional religious education. a similar attitude still lies behind contemporary religious educators’ refusal to engage pupils in the quest for religious truth or to address the issue of how judgements of truth or untruth in religion are to be assessed and evaluated. the emergence of citizenship as an important theme in religious education the linking of religious education with spiritual and moral development in the late 1980s and early 1990s is not unrelated to the growing importance of the social aims of education, which were beginning to coalesce around the modern political discourse on the ideas of citizenship and rights. the ratification of the 1950 european convention on human rights into british law in the 1998 human rights act consolidated the connection between citizenship and human rights and pushed both to the forefront of the educational agenda. a growing perception of the reality of moral and religious pluralism in society convinced some educators that schools did not have the authority to adjudicate on matters of personal lifestyle and morality; instead schools should concentrate on social behaviour. in other words, the view that public education should be concerned with social responsibility and not with the private lives and behaviour of individuals became increasingly influential. one can appreciate how a focus on citizenship and rights served this new interest in social morality: public education should be concerned with the creation of good citizens. a “good” citizen obeys the laws of the land and respects the rights of others. (i have argued elsewhere that there are inherent limitations to what a rights-orientated form of religious education can contribute to the realisation of liberal educational aims.) a number of religious educators, including mark chater (2000), were quick to state that religious education provides an ideal vehicle for furthering the citizenship agenda. in fact, support for the role of religious education in advancing citizenship education illustrates the increasing trend for religious educators in britain to seek extrinsic or instrumental reasons for the inclusion of religious education in the curriculum. religious education ought to be studied for the contribution it makes to civil society or as some have argued more recently for the contribution that it makes to challenging religious extremism. ed pawson, the then chairperson of the national https://changing-sp.com/ 240 l. philip barnes association of teachers of religious education, for example, stated at a conference in january 2015 that “developing young people’s religious literacy could help to make them less vulnerable to religious radicalisation”1. recent developments the topics of religious education in schools and state funded religious schools continue to be the subject of heated debate. the last two decades have seen a gradual expansion in the number of religions to be covered, and more recently many locally agreed syllabuses have begun to include non-religious worldviews in their provision. in 2013, the religious education council of england and wales recommended that altogether over twelve religious and non-religious worldviews should be studied by all pupils. others view this development with dismay and oppose this expansion of content as educationally unsupportable, as it will lead to truncated teaching and superficial learning. it could be contended that this continual expansion of what has to be studied provides evidence to critics of current provision that religious education’s efforts to challenge religious bigotry and to gain the interest of pupils are simply failing, for why otherwise is the curriculum subject to constant change. allied to this expansion, is an increasing focus on the diversity within religions. influential in this regard has been robert jackson’s interpretive approach which explicitly challenges the idea that religions are “coherent wholes”, and instead focuses on personal appropriations of religious traditions (for discussion and criticism, see barnes, 2014, pp. 180–217). other debates have focussed on the need for a nationally legislated curriculum and for the parental right of withdrawal of children from religious education to be removed. both measures have been interpreted by liberal groups as imposing further restrictions by the state on personal freedom. schools with a religious character, which are commonly referred to as “faith schools”, also continue to attract discussion and legislation. in some cases, arguments against faith schools are proxy for arguments against muslim schools, which are regarded as inimical to “liberal” values. in saying this, there is a long tradition in english education of secular and secular humanist opposition to faith schools of any kind; such opposition has more recently espoused the language and concepts of equality and inclusion to make the case against faith schools. all this is against the background of considerable disinterest by pupils and the identification by the office for standards in education (ofsted)2 of major areas of concern, including low standards of attainment and weak teaching. conclusion a brief overview of post-confessional developments of religious education in england has been provided. the context requires that much has had to be overlooked, for example, the developing legislation that governs the practice of religious education, 1 as reported by the bbs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30989933. 2 the office for standards in education is a non-ministerial department of the uk government concerned with inspecting and regulating services providing education. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30989933 changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 232–241 241 and the work of particularly significant religious educators apart from ninian smart and john hull. developments have been presented and considered in historical order with some attention given to the beliefs, commitments and forces that have determined or directed debates and how one development connects to another. it has been noted how the phenomenological religious education’s emphasis upon religious experience was continued through the experiential approach and then through recent interest in spiritual development, which is then linked to moral development. at the outset, i acknowledged that there is no god’s eye perspective on religious education in england. in keeping with this, it is admitted that my interpretation on the developments presented differs from more positive or conventional accounts. yet, while all interpretations are personal and partial, it is not admitted that all interpretations and representations of the modern history of religious education in england are equally true and reliable. references barnes, l. p. (2014). education, religion and diversity: developing a new model of religious education. london: routledge. chater, m. (2000). to teach is to set free: liberation theology and the democratisation of the citizenship agenda. british journal of religious education, 23(1), 5–14. department for education and science. (1985). education for all (final report of the committee of enquiry into the education of children from ethnic minority groups, under the chairmanship of lord swann). london: hmso. education reform act. (1988). vol. 1, part 2. london: her majesty’s stationary office. hay, d., hammond, j., moxon, j. netto, b., robson, k., & straughier, g. (1990). new methods in religious education teaching: an experimental approach. harlow: oliver & boyd. hull, j. m. (1992). the transmission of religious prejudice. british journal of religious education, 14(2), 69–72. institute of christian education. (1957). religious education in schools. london: spck. loukes, h. (1961). teenage religion. london: scm press. marvell, j. (1982). phenomenology and the future of religious education. in j. hull (ed.) new directions in religious education (pp. 69–76). lewes: falmer press. national curriculum council. (1993). spiritual and moral development (discussion paper). new york: ncc. schools council. (1971). religious education in secondary schools (working paper no. 36). london: evans/methuen. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 594–609 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.191 received 9 june 2022 © 2022 irina g. polyakova, dmitry o. mazurov, accepted 23 september 2022 elvira e. symanyuk, aleksandra yu. khramtsova published online 10 october 2022 irinapolykova@yandex.ru mazurovdo@ugmk-clinic.ru e.e.symaniuk@urfu.ru aleksaxr@mail.ru article the influence of socio-cultural factors on oocyte donors’ motivations and disclosure decisions irina g. polyakova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia dmitry o. mazurov european medical center “ummc-health, yekaterinburg, russia elvira e. symanyuk ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia aleksandra yu. khramtsova urals scientific research institute for maternal and child care, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the study focuses on the motivations of russian oocyte donors and the socio-cultural factors affecting these motivations. we conducted 16 semi-structured interviews with actual or prospective oocyte donors. all of them were patients of two fertility clinics located in the city of yekaterinburg (russia) planning to become oocyte donors within the period from 2 weeks to 3 months. we built a profile of a russian oocyte donor: it is a 26-year-old married woman with at least one child, she has a secondary vocational education and a low income. all the women in our study displayed multiple motivations: apart from the interest in a financial reward and purely altruistic motivations, for many women the decisive factor is their desire to help their friends or relatives struggling with infertility. interestingly, almost all of our respondents described their decision to donate as an attempt to move past a traumatic situation they once endured and to achieve closure by doing something really important and good. for many women, oocyte donation becomes a way to boost their self-esteem, to feel more significant and to promote their personal autonomy. as for barriers to donation, one of the most https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 594–609 595 introduction ivf treatment with donor eggs is considered one of the most efficient assisted reproductive technologies (barri et al., 2014; hogan et al., 2020). due to the liberal approaches to assisted conception and ivf popularization in many countries, there is a growing demand for donated gametes, including oocytes (álvarez plaza, 2015). in russian fertility clinics there is a high demand for mentally and physically healthy oocyte donors ready for repeated donations and able to objectively estimate the risks and benefits of the procedure. in this light, it becomes crucial to study the motivations of donors and the barriers to donation as well as the key socio-cultural factors influencing their decision-making. as international studies have shown, oocyte donors’ motivations can be altruistic or pro-social (gürtin et al., 2012) as well as pragmatic, financial (parames et al., 2014). altruistic motivations may include empathy with other women, the desire to be generous to others and to help them. the reasons behind a woman’s decision to donate may be the desire to help others, especially if she has relatives or friends suffering from infertility (bakker et al., 2017; bracewell-milnes et al., 2016; kurlenkova, 2016). it should be noted that although altruism can be the donor’s primary motivation, after she discovers how many complications oocyte donation is fraught with, she may change her mind and welcome the prospect of a financial reward (orobitg & salazar, 2005). in the countries where commercial oocyte donation is prohibited (brazil, canada, finland, australia), the donors’ declared motivations are purely altruistic (parames et al., 2014). since sister-to-sister oocyte donation is the most widely spread and socially approved kind of reproductive donation (the american society for reproductive medicine, 2017), intrafamilial donors are not legally bound in any way and are not subject to public pressure that would affect their level of autonomy in the face of a situation where one of their family members needs an oocyte (jadva et al., 2011, p. 2777). in the case of egg donation between friends or family members, “the donors’ personal relationship with their recipient played an influential role in their donation important is associated with the donors’ unwillingness to make their identity known and to share this information even with their close circle of friends and relatives. for the majority of donors, anonymity is crucial. the disclosure of this information, in their view, will cause controversy in the donor’s family and immediate circle of friends at present and will threaten their privacy in the future. the prospective donors are also concerned about the negative public attitudes or lack of understanding. keywords oocyte donations, oocyte donors’ motivations, barriers to oocyte donation, anonymity of oocyte donors acknowledgement the study was conducted within the framework of the rsf grant no. 22-28-01694 dated december 20, 2021 https://changing-sp.com/ 596 irina g. polyakova, dmitry o. mazurov, ... aleksandra yu. khramtsova decision” (yee et al., 2011, p. 407). donors consider egg sharing as a way to help their recipients achieve motherhood (blyth et al., 2011, p. 1138). another motivation behind intrafamilial oocyte donation is the desire for the reproductive material to “remain in the family” (kurlenkova, 2016). some donors reported that they preferred to donate their oocyte rather than waste them and that donation was a way to put behind painful experiences of their past and to cope with the feeling of guilt (pennings et al., 2014). a recent study (martin et al., 2020), involving interviews with oocyte donors and recipients, identified four main topics: the desire to “do something”, stemming from the already existing donorrecipient relationship; the “feeling of duty” (the donors explained that they felt it was their “duty” to help their infertile friend or relative); the “woman-to-woman” topic, which placed the main accent on female solidarity; and the topic of “going through this together”, which foregrounded the history of the donor-recipient relationship. for commercial donors, the level of the reward’s significance varies depending on the age. while some donors consider the financial reward less important, others, such as students or repeat donors, attach high importance to money (klock et al., 2003). in the netherlands, many donors are willing to donate only on the condition that they receive a financial compensation (bakker et al., 2017). moreover, some donors emphasize that “financial gain alone cannot compensate for the difficulties endured during the donation process” (kenney & mcgowan, 2010, p. 463). even if there is one dominant motivating factor, the donors also often claim that there are several different reasons why they have decided to donate. while some donors’ motivations can be described as “pure altruism” or a “purely financial” interest, in general the researchers point to the existence of a diverse mix of motivations, combining both altruistic and financial motivating factors (pennings et al., 2014). in other words, even those donors who cited being mostly interested in a financial reward also highlighted a certain degree of altruism as a motivating influence in their decision-making (bracewell-milnes et al., 2016., p. 461). there is divergent evidence regarding the role that the donors’ partners play in the former’s decision-making. the opinion of the potential donors’ partners is very important for these women’s decision to donate their oocytes (winter & daniluk, 2004). there is also research evidence that it is not only the male partner’s attitude towards donation but also his support that matters for the success of the donation process (yee et al., 2011). in 2014, in 11 european countries, a large-scale survey of oocyte donors was conducted by pennings et al. (2014). their study focused on the socio-demographic characteristics and motivations of donors in such countries as belgium, the czech republic, finland, france, greece, poland, portugal, russia, spain, the uk, and ukraine (n = 1,423; mean age 27.4 years; occupation: about 49% of donors were fully employed, 16% unemployed and 15% students). “the motivation in the total group of donors was 47.8% pure altruism, 33.9% altruism and financial, 10.8% purely financial, 5.9% altruism and own treatment and finally 2% own treatment only” (pennings et al., 2014, p. 1076). a recent russian study, which included expert interviews with people working in the sphere of assisted reproduction, found that “single women and women on changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 594–609 597 maternity leave prevail among egg donors; for these women their participation in the program [...] is a source of financial support, and for women on maternity leave it is easier to go to the doctor regularly” (larkina, 2020, p. 79). the same study showed that most of the donors had mixed motivations: their desire for a financial compensation went hand in hand with the desire to perform a good deed (larkina, 2020). professionals in reproductive medicine emphasized that in the case of sperm donors, one donor as a rule can donate his gametes not more than 3–10 times although in fact the actual number of times is unlimited because if a donor wishes, he may participate in different programs and donate in different clinics (larkina, 2020) as for oocyte donors, they may face external as well as internal barriers. a donor may or may not know who has become the recipient of her gametes and what the result of donation is. the donation decision-making may be further complicated by the prospective donor’s abstract moral obligations (blyth et al., 2011; sydsjö et al., 2014): the donors may wish to obtain more information about the recipients appraising the recipient couple’s resources for child rearing (yee et al., 2011) in order to feel secure in abdicating their responsibility for the resulting child’s future. if the recipient is unknown, donors may be concerned about the existence of unknown genetically related offspring (blyth et al., 2011). on the other hand, some donors said they did not want to know anything about the recipients and the results of their donation (gürtin et al., 2012). the awareness of the physical and mental risks of egg sharing can affect potential donors’ decision to donate, especially when they are considering the impacts of the procedure on their own reproductive health in the future (yee et al., 2011). an australian study has shown that one of the barriers to oocyte donation could be the lack of reliable and easily accessible information on all the aspects of the donation procedure and the lack of public awareness about the need for donor eggs (hogan et al., 2021). another significant negative factor is the insufficient clinic followup care, including post-donation counselling (hogan et al., 2021). institutional frameworks can affect the situation since in some jurisdictions certain limitations are established regarding the number of offspring born from one donor or the number of families the donor can assist in order to control for the risk of inadvertent consanguinity. for instance, the american society for reproductive medicine (asmr) sets the limit of six cycles per donor (practice committee of the american society for reproductive medicine, & practice committee of the society for assisted reproductive technology, 2020). according to the guidelines of the asmr, the age minimum should be set for donors “to ensure that the donor is mature enough to understand and provide true informed consent” (the american society for reproductive medicine, 2017, p. 5). in canada, it is illegal to purchase sperm or eggs from a donor (the official website of the government of canada, 2020). institutional frameworks can encourage altruistic donations because such motivations are considered more appropriate for female donors than financial interest (kenney & mcgowan, 2010, p. 463). donors may be driven by various motives, depending on the country and the legislation surrounding egg donation such as the regulations concerning donor anonymity and compensatory payments (bracewell-milnes et al., 2016, p. 461). https://changing-sp.com/ 598 irina g. polyakova, dmitry o. mazurov, ... aleksandra yu. khramtsova the purpose of this study is to examine the motivations of russian oocyte donors and the barriers to donation as well as the key socio-cultural factors that affect the potential donors’ decision to donate or not. the above-described aim of the study has determined the following research tasks: first, to describe the socio-economic characteristics of russian oocyte donors; second, to survey the donors’ preferences regarding anonymity or openness in donation, their willingness to inform their friends and relatives about their decision, and their perceptions regarding public attitudes to oocyte donation; third, to investigate the socially approved motivations for oocyte donation and the actual ones; and, finally, to identify the main barriers to oocyte donation. materials and methods the study was conducted from december 20, 2021 to february 28, 2022. in total, we had 16 semi-structured interviews with prospective or actual oocyte donors. all of them were patients of two fertility clinics located in the city of yekaterinburg (russian federation). the respondents were planning to become oocyte donors within the period from 2 weeks to 3 months. in one of the clinics, donor counselling was obligatory and was included into the donation program while in the other participation in the interviewing was voluntary. the rationale of respondent selection and sampling design corresponded to the purpose of this study and was typical of the majority of qualitative studies. using m. n. marshall’s terminology, our sample strategy can be described as “convenience sampling” (marshall, 1996). nevertheless, our results not only shed light on the practices of oocyte donation in russia but can also provide a theoretical framework for further studies, both qualitative and quantitative. the main method of data analysis in this study is categorization. the main task at this stage of the research project was to identify, describe, and categorize the sociocultural factors that determine the motives of oocyte donation and the barriers to it. the interview guide was developed in accordance with the qualitative research guidelines for health care (cohen & crabtree, 2006). we also relied on the international research evidence, in particular that of (pennings et al., 2014) and the systematic review investigating attitudes towards oocyte donation amongst potential donors and the general population (platts et al., 2021), which included 39 studies published in english peer-reviewed journals. our main focus was the psycho-social aspects of oocyte donation, including the actual and potential donors’ attitudes to this procedure and their motivations as well as the questions related to donors’ preferences regarding the disclosure of their identity or anonymity. we developed three variants of the interview guide: for potential donors with no prior experience of donation, for donors with a onetime experience of donation; and for those who have already donated their eggs two or more times. the guide comprised five sets of questions covering the respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics; family background and current family status; barriers to donation; motivation; and socio-cultural factors influencing the donors’ motivation. all interviews were recorded with the prior consent of the participants, the interview data were anonymized and transcribed verbatim. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 594–609 599 socio-demographic profile of oocyte donors the mean age of oocyte donors was 26.6 years, ranging from 19 to 34. four respondents had a complete higher education degree; five, incomplete higher education; the seven remaining women had a secondary vocational education. it should be noted that out of the five women with incomplete higher education, only two were pursuing a university degree at the moment of the interview and were planning to obtain a diploma of higher education. the rest have dropped out of the university for various reasons (“did not have enough money to pay the tuition fees”, “realized that my major was the wrong choice”, etc.). a half of the respondents (8) were formally married (including 3 women who were in their second marriages) and 3 respondents were in a cohabiting relationship. 3 women were in a relationship but were not living with their partners and one respondent was a single mother. 11 women had children and 5 of them had two children, including 3 respondents who had children from different marriages. all of the 16 women denied having any bad habits, claiming that they don’t smoke and hardly ever drink alcohol. all of them described themselves as healthy, assessing their health at 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. interestingly, only two of them did exercise on a regular basis. as for professional occupations, only two of the respondents are qualified specialists (a lawyer and a schoolteacher), while the rest are mostly employed in the services sphere, occupying the positions that do not require high qualifications: a bakery assistant, shop assistant, administrator, office manager and so on. two respondents are working in a junior and middle medical position as a surgical nurse and a nurse. one of the women is on a formal maternity leave, another is temporarily unemployed, and one is a student of a medical academy. two respondents stand out: one of them is a beauty blogger and the other makes her living by investing in real estate. the former is passionate about her job although her job does not provide enough money to make ends meet while the latter considers herself a successful investor admitting that her main source of income is unstable and risky. only 5 out of 16 respondents said that their families were middle-income, the rest consider their income level to be low or extremely low. most of the donors (10 out of 16) are atheists. five said that they believe in god but do not attend church services and do not observe any rituals. one of the respondents said that she “believes in cosmos and general harmony”. 4 out of 16 women have a prior experience of oocyte donation: 2 of them had a one-time experience and other 2—a two-time experience. one of the women who had a repeated experience of oocyte donation has also been a surrogate mother twice: she gave birth to two pairs of twins, all girls. one of the women with no experience of oocyte donation had an experience of surrogate motherhood—she gave birth to twins. donor anonymity and disclosure intentions only 4 out of 16 respondents were willing to be open identity donors—they were ready to meet the recipients and if the recipients desired or agreed, to maintain contact with the resulting offspring. the reasons why respondents prefer not to know anything about the recipients of their donated material range from “what if i don’t like them” to https://changing-sp.com/ 600 irina g. polyakova, dmitry o. mazurov, ... aleksandra yu. khramtsova “if i know who they are, i might not be able to keep myself from searching for them in social media to check how my child is doing”. the majority subscribe to the view that once they have donated their eggs, the recipients will bear the full responsibility for the resulting child and that too much information about the recipient family may create problems in the donor’s personal life. all of the respondents adhere to the view that the real mother of the child is the one who bore it, gave birth to it and raised it rather than the one whose biological material was used for conception. 14 women out of 16 had a husband or a partner and all the 14 women told their male partners about their intention to donate. in general, the men’s reaction was either indifferent or neutral. only one of the respondents reported being upset by this while the rest thought it was normal. 14 out of 16 women would like to receive a financial compensation for their donation. a more detailed discussion of this situation with the respondents has shown that even though all of the male partners were aware of the women’s financial motivation, none of them offered to earn the amount of money equal to the donor compensation to spare her the health risks associated with the procedure. all of the women took this fact calmly. moreover, they also said that even if their partners had suggested this, they would still go on with the donation. only two women said that they would give up on the idea of donation if their male partners were against. 9 out of 16 respondents also informed their parents about their intention to become an oocyte donor. the rest have decided to conceal this fact from their families because they feared disapproval. the respondents’ parents tend to have different, sometimes even opposite opinions regarding the question of donation. the parents mostly objected to their daughters’ becoming egg donors because of the health risks involved in the procedure. nevertheless, the majority of the parents who knew about their daughters’ decisions (in 6 cases out of 9) have approved of the latter’s decision to donate. mothers tended to be more supportive than fathers, who reacted either negatively or neutrally. none of our respondents, however, has changed their minds because of the lack of understanding or support on the part of their relatives. other relatives or friends, when the respondents informed them about their decision, in general were quite understanding and supportive, especially in the case when they have faced fertility problems themselves. the most interesting was the respondents’ concerns about the public attitudes toward oocyte donation. in respondents’ own accounts, none of them has actually faced any disapproval of donation or lack of tolerance towards it. nevertheless, the majority of respondents chose not to disclose their intentions to anyone except for their partners, parents, and friends from whom they had initially received the information about oocyte donation. the reasons why they prefer to keep silent are described the following way: “i don’t think it is necessary to share this information with anyone, why would i do that?”; “there is a lot of negative stuff being written about donation, especially in social media—how can you give away your children and things like that”; “i have no clue who i could be discussing this with”. remarkably, out of the four women with prior experience of donation, three have never told anyone about it, except for their male partners. the remaining seven respondents discussed oocyte donation in their close circle of friends and relatives or with their colleagues at work. they have changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 594–609 601 received some mixed reactions, but most of them were positive. in professional medical communities, donation is encouraged by high-level health practitioners, which was a very significant fact for the respondents. two respondents discussed their decision to donate with their colleagues, who approved of it as a way of solving financial problems during the pandemic. in two other cases, among the respondents’ colleagues, there were women struggling with infertility who ardently advocated the reproductive use of donor material. the beauty blogger said: “in our crowd it is a trend, everybody’s talking about it, and everybody supports me.” oocyte donor motivations: socially approved and actual motivations almost all of the respondents claimed that they wanted to help others: “help other people become parents”, “help women who cannot get pregnant with their own eggs”, “help give birth to a new life”. only two respondents said, however, that they are willing to donate for free. both of them are very young (aged 19 and 20) and are related to the sphere of health care—one of them is working as a nurse at a department of assisted reproductive technologies while the other is a 3rd-year student of a medical university majoring in pediatrics. interestingly, neither of these women has a male partner. three women reported that financial compensation is their primary motivation. apart from the obvious motivations (financial compensation and altruism), respondents also mentioned other reasons: the full medical checkup (3 respondents); an opportunity to engage in a new activity transcending everyday routines (3 respondents); an opportunity for self-development and improvement of their family’s quality of life (3 respondents); the desire to pass along their genes in the absence of financial resources to have more children of their own (1 respondent). a significant motivating factor was the respondents’ own experience of infertility (2 respondents) or having friends or relatives with such issues (7 respondents): “we were trying to conceive our first baby for about a year and i was really worried that we were both healthy but still i couldn’t get pregnant”; “my only close friend had ovarian cancer and she now really wants a baby and they have already done ivf several times, [...] she’s hoping for the best”; “my aunt, she is still young, is struggling to conceive her second baby, she’s now thinking of doing ivf”. another important factor was the experience of friends and acquaintances who either already had an experience of oocyte donation (in 5 cases) or were planning to do so but had to give up on the idea for medical reasons or because of their age (2 cases). 3 respondents related to the sphere of health care (a nurse in an assisted reproduction department, a surgical nurse in a maternity hospital, and a student majoring in pediatrics) described their motivations the following way: “i heard from the chief physician in my department that oocyte donors were needed and started asking questions and he was so glad i would like to be a donor”; “in the maternity hospital i started noticing women who gave birth through ivf and i realized that this technology is actually working [...] they were so happy, these women”. many women reported that the opinion of their consulting gynecologist was significant: “i started thinking about it (donation) in earnest when my doctor told me that i had an excellent ovarian reserve”; “the doctor who examined me said that i was very good for donation and praised me for having so many follicles.” https://changing-sp.com/ 602 irina g. polyakova, dmitry o. mazurov, ... aleksandra yu. khramtsova the majority of women (14 out of 16) in response to the question about their childhood and about the way their childhood experience and experience of their own families have affected their decision described various traumatising factors. these can be roughly divided into several categories. adverse childhood experiences include being raised in a single-parent family because of the divorce of parents (5 respondents) or death of one of the parents (2 respondents). this category also includes such situations as mother having multiple partners, being raised by a grandmother while her mother was working away from home and eventually got ill and died; alcohol addiction or suicide of one of the parents. one of the respondents described her childhood as “lonely”—her parents worked a lot and could not devote to her enough time and attention. another kind of trauma was associated with physical violence or the partner’s betrayal in the respondents’ own relationships: “i had to spend a month in hospital after my baby was born, our son was hanging between life and death while our dad spent nights out partying—he was celebrating”; “i was 17 and when i got pregnant, he said the baby was not his although i suggested dna paternity testing”; “when my husband returned from the army, he was a drug addict—he beat me, tried to suffocate me with a pillow, drew a knife at my father”; “my stepfather used to beat me since i was eleven, and my sister, and my mother”. the next type of trauma is associated with the loss of loved ones: “one after the other i lost my mother and elder brother, they were both very young, our family’s line is deteriorating”. undoubtedly, a significant traumatizing factor is abortion: 4 out of 16 respondents had to terminate their pregnancy because they were struggling financially. one of the patients found out about egg donation while being pregnant—she enjoyed being pregnant but shortly before that her mother had had a hysterectomy due to a late-term pregnancy loss. as a result, the respondent started thinking about the women who, like her mother, would like to have children but were having fertility issues. a recurring motif in the rhetoric of many respondents is oocyte donation as a way to “rehabilitate” their family history, to get over the feeling of guilt after an abortion, and “to do something good and important”. one of the respondents, who lost her loved ones, clearly articulates the following reason behind her decision to donate: “to rehabilitate the family history, one needs to do a good deed—help others to become parents and transfer one’s genes—the genes of one’s family”. two respondents pointed out that after their parents’ divorce, it became important for them to “be useful and needed”, “to make themselves useful”. discussion there is sufficient international research on the socio-demographic characteristics of oocyte donors. some interesting results have been brought by a dutch study of the donors’ socio-economic autonomy and self-esteem. the study involved an analysis of the demographic characteristics and donation motivations of 92 potential oocyte donors in utrecht. the researchers came to the conclusion that “the typical oocyte donor at the umc utrecht is a well-educated, employed, 31-year-old woman living with changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 594–609 603 her partner in a completed family with two children, and donating on altruistic grounds” (bakker et al., 2017). the donors showed higher autonomy-connectedness scores than the average female dutch population. according to a study of argentinian and spanish oocyte donors, on average they are 25 years old, and their main motivation is financial (lima et al., 2019). the majority of argentinian donors have a secondary education, 38% of them are housewifes, the rest work part-time or do odd jobs. the majority of spanish donors are, on the contrary, stably employed (over 70%), are childless (74%), and their general education level is slightly higher (lima et al., 2019). american researchers have built the following oocyte donor profile for their country: a 27-year-old unmarried woman with a higher education and middle income who has experienced at least one pregnancy (klock et al., 2003). in russia, as of 2014, a typical oocyte donor is a woman who is already a mother, she’s also on average younger that her counterparts from other european countries, she has a secondary vocational (technical) education (45.8%) and in over a half of the cases she has already had an abortion (53.1%) (pennings et al., 2014, p. 1076). in our study, the profile of a russian oocyte donor is as follows: she is on average 26 years old, married and has at least one child, she has a secondary vocational education and low income, she is most likely to be employed in the services sphere and is doing a low qualified job, she has no bad habits, but she also does not exercise regularly, she is an atheist. there is vast research evidence pointing to the fact that the leading motivation of oocyte donors is altruism (bakker et al., 2017; gezinski et al., 2016; pennings et al., 2014, p. 1076). in the uk, altruism has the main motivating influence on oocyte donors, who claim that their aim is to help infertile couples, and some of them even subscribe to the view that the prospect of remuneration can attract “the wrong kind of women” (byrd et al., 2002, p. 175). the language of altruism has become quite pervasive in the international practices of reproductive donation (cherro, 2018; lafuente funes, 2017), the russian context being no exception. for instance, russian reproductive clinics formulate the information for potential donors the following way: “egg donation is a demanding and noble mission. by becoming a donor, you can make happy a couple who have been dreaming of having a baby”1; “the use of donated eggs (oocytes) gives a long-waited chance, desired more than anything in the world to the families where women for one reason or another cannot use their own ovarian reserve or have experienced a failed ivf cycle”2. in the light of the above, it can be supposed that the respondents have voiced the socially approved and expected motivations—in our case 100% of women spoke of their desire to help infertile people become parents. a study conducted in barcelona (spain) has shown that “most ova donors emphasized simultaneously the altruistic nature of their action and the sort of symbolic motherhood that they wished to achieve by helping other women to be real (legal) mothers” (pareja et al., 2003). the situation, however, is not that simple since it may be supposed that donors feel obliged to define donation as a primarily altruistic act due to the social 1 stat' donorom ootsitov [become an oocyte donor]. (n.d.). tsentr semeinoi meditsiny. https://www. cfm.ru/donorstvo-spermy-i-jaicekletok/stat-donorom-oocitov-jaicekletok 2 donorstvo ootsitov [oocyte donation]. (n.d.). mat' i ditia. https://tyumen.mamadeti.ru/services/ eko/donorskie-programmy-i-surrogatnoe-materinstvo/egg-donation/ https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.cfm.ru/donorstvo-spermy-i-jaicekletok/stat-donorom-oocitov-jaicekletok https://www.cfm.ru/donorstvo-spermy-i-jaicekletok/stat-donorom-oocitov-jaicekletok https://tyumen.mamadeti.ru/services/eko/donorskie-programmy-i-surrogatnoe-materinstvo/egg-donation/ https://tyumen.mamadeti.ru/services/eko/donorskie-programmy-i-surrogatnoe-materinstvo/egg-donation/ 604 irina g. polyakova, dmitry o. mazurov, ... aleksandra yu. khramtsova pressure while in fact, they may be very interested in the remuneration they are going to receive in exchange for what is presented as a “gift” of egg donation (pareja et al., 2003). another study has shown that most oocyte donors are young women that are socially and/or economically vulnerable. in other circumstances, they might not have agreed to go through this procedure (lima et al., 2019). these findings agree with the results of our study: the majority of our respondents considered the income of their families low or extremely low and said that they are in need of extra money not only to invest in their personal development but also to meet their basic needs. a significant motivating influence is the infertility problems faced by someone in the donor’s family or their friends (bakker et al., 2017; bracewell-milnes et al., 2016; kurlenkova, 2016; purewal & van den akker, 2009). this evidence was confirmed by our study: over a half of the women we interviewed reported having decided to donate because of the fertility problems encountered by their family members or friends. an important role in oocyte donation is played by the donor’s partner, who can provide the woman with a psychological, physical and social support during the process of donation. the russian legislation does not require that the donor’s partner should give their consent to donation even if the woman is formally married. nevertheless, as our study has shown, all of the women who had male partners informed the latter about the procedure. the men’s reaction, however, was either indifferent or neutral. by our respondents’ accounts, their parents were much more supportive and genuinely concerned about their daughters’ health. the question would you become an oocyte donor if your partner strongly opposed this prospect? was answered positively by all of the women. in this context, it would also make sense to consider the role of gender as one of the main categories of meaning-making surrounding gamete donation. erica haimes (1993) discusses the assumptions about gender and reproduction seen as a set of “ideas about the ways in which men and women are thought to behave more generally in relation to reproduction and the family” (haimes, 1993, p. 85). she shows that these assumptions are different, and these differences lead to oocyte donation frequently being seen as an altruistic act in a familial, clinical, and asexual context. some of our respondents considered oocyte donation as a way to boost their self-esteem to a certain extent, an opportunity to look at themselves from a different perspective. oocyte donation as an opportunity for the donor to assert her individual agency is also discussed by rhonda shaw in her study of new zealand women taking part in donation and surrogate motherhood programs. one of her interviewees said: “i really felt the need to do something defining […] and important”, adding that she wanted “to look back at my life and know i’ve done something good”. another respondent stated that “she wanted to redefine herself through egg donation after her fiancé virtually left her waiting at the altar” (shaw, 2008, p. 20). to a great extent, our respondents have articulated the same experiences as the ones described by our spanish colleagues (orobitg & salazar, 2005): for example, one of the russian donors was forced by her family to terminate her pregnancy and she now perceives oocyte donation as a way to take an important decision on her own terms and to resist her family’s pressure. four respondents also had to seek abortion because of the external circumstances. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 594–609 605 as an international study of oocyte donors in spain and argentina has shown (lima et al., 2019), 74% of argentinian donors and 84% of spanish donors were ready to open their identities. in addition, a similar study conducted in the us has demonstrated that 88% of american donors told other people about their experience despite the fact that the procedure was conducted anonymously (klock et al., 2002). only 25% of women participating in our study, however, were willing to be open identity rather than anonymous donors. for the rest it was essential to remain anonymous. many women feel uneasy about discussing their participation in donation programs because they are afraid of facing negative comments, criticisms and the lack of public understanding in general. the paradox lies in the fact that in reality none of our respondents by their own accounts has ever faced any public disapproval or criticism, which agrees with the evidence from the previous research (symanyuk et al., 2021): 61% of yekaterinburg residents have expressed a positive attitude toward oocyte donation and 22% describe their attitude as “neutral”. our findings confirm the results of a british study which has shown that 21% of the oocyte donors surveyed were medical professionals (byrd et al., 2002). 19% of our respondents also work in the sphere of health care and two of them are willing to share their ovarian eggs for free. conclusions ovarian egg donation is a complex phenomenon fraught with ethical concerns and still largely underexplored in research literature. on the one hand, the women who have decided to donate their oocytes are driven by the desire to help infertile people to experience parenthood and, on the other, donors themselves can be struggling both financially and mentally, which underlies their motivations for taking part in a such a complicated procedure. we found that a typical russian oocyte donor is a 26-year-old married woman with at least one child. she has a secondary vocational education and a low income. in most of the cases she is employed in the services sphere and has a low qualified job. she does not have any bad habits, but she also does not exercise regularly. she is not religious and at least once she has faced neglect or abuse in her own family or in her parental family. the majority of such women would like to help others become parents, but they are also interested in receiving a financial compensation, which is very important to them. in other words, the women we interviewed displayed a diversity of motivations. each woman had on average at least three main motivations. apart from their interest in a financial reward and altruistic motivations, for many women the decisive factor is their desire to help their friends or relatives struggling with infertility. another important factor is these women’s own experience of fertility problems. having friends or relatives who engaged in oocyte donation and gave positive feedback about this procedure is also a significant factor. interestingly, almost all of our respondents described their decision to donate as an attempt to move past a traumatic situation they once endured and to achieve some kind of closure by doing something really important and good. a recurring motif in the https://changing-sp.com/ 606 irina g. polyakova, dmitry o. mazurov, ... aleksandra yu. khramtsova rhetoric of many respondents is oocyte donation as a way to “rehabilitate” their family history, to get over the feeling of guilt after an abortion, and “to do a good deed”. when interviewed in greater detail, women who intend to become oocyte donors reveal their personal situations. despite having a partner, these women “can and wish” to rely only on their own abilities and resources. for many women, oocyte donation becomes a way to boost their self-esteem, to feel more significant and to promote their personal autonomy. as for barriers to donation, one of the most important is associated with the donors’ unwillingness to make their identity known and to share this information even with their close circle of friends and relatives. for the majority of donors, anonymity is crucial while the disclosure of this information is perceived as a source of problems in the donor’s family and immediate circle of friends at present and privacy risks in the future. moreover, some of the women are afraid of their emotions towards the offspring resulting from their donation and believe that anonymity can protect them from this risk. some of the respondents prefer to conceal the fact of donation even from their parents and close friends. a significant factor in the donors’ decision-making is the perceived public reaction to oocyte donation. on the one hand, the respondent women consider donation as “a way of helping others”, “as a good and useful deed” and, on the other, they prefer to remain anonymous because they are not sure of the public approval of donation or at least that the reaction of the people in their community will be adequate. references álvarez plaza, c. 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(2011). oocyte donors’ experiences of altruistic known donation: a qualitative study. journal of reproductive and infant psychology, 29(4), 404–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646838.2011.611938 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1080/14647273.2019.1602736 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2020.03.030 https://doi.org/10.1093/humupd/dmp018 https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038507084823 https://www.cfm.ru/donorstvo-spermy-i-jaicekletok/stat-donorom-oocitov-jaicekletok https://www.cfm.ru/donorstvo-spermy-i-jaicekletok/stat-donorom-oocitov-jaicekletok https://doi.org/10.1111/aogs.12395 https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2021.2.1813 https://www.reproductivefacts.org/news-and-publications/patient-fact-sheets-and-booklets/documents/f https://www.reproductivefacts.org/news-and-publications/patient-fact-sheets-and-booklets/documents/f https://www.reproductivefacts.org/news-and-publications/patient-fact-sheets-and-booklets/documents/f https://www.reproductivefacts.org/news-and-publications/patient-fact-sheets-and-booklets/documents/f https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health-products/biologics-radiopharmaceuticals-genetic-therapies/legislation-guidelines/assisted-human-reproduction/prohibitions-purchasing-reproductive-material-selling-vitro-embryos.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health-products/biologics-radiopharmaceuticals-genetic-therapies/legislation-guidelines/assisted-human-reproduction/prohibitions-purchasing-reproductive-material-selling-vitro-embryos.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health-products/biologics-radiopharmaceuticals-genetic-therapies/legislation-guidelines/assisted-human-reproduction/prohibitions-purchasing-reproductive-material-selling-vitro-embryos.html https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2004.tb00337.x https://doi.org/10.1080/02646838.2011.611938 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 242–248 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.040 received 14 august 2018 © 2018 nelly mwale accepted 13 september 2018 nelmwa@gmail.com published online 30 september 2018 conference paper religious education syllabuses for secondary school teachers in zambia: catholic missionaries’ contributions nelly mwale the university of zambia, lusaka, zambia abstract though widely acknowledged that the role of teacher training institutions remains crucial in providing an understanding of the educational basis for religious education (re) and in improving the overall quality of provision in schools, both theoretical and empirical exploration of the syllabuses prepared for teachers in zambian higher education is scanty. informed by an interpretative case study on the re syllabus prepared for teachers at zambia catholic university (zcu), the paper argues that by embracing and revising the syllabus from nkrumah college of education, zcu exemplified the stakeholder interest and missionary contributions in safeguarding that which had been envisioned in teacher education. keywords religious education, syllabus, teacher education, policies, catholic education introduction though widely acknowledged that the role of teacher training institutions remains crucial in providing an understanding of the educational basis for religious education (re) and in improving the overall quality of provision in schools through the production of well trained, competent and enthusiastic teachers (grimmit, 2010, p. 9), both theoretical and empirical exploration of the syllabuses prepared for teachers in higher education in zambia is scanty. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 242–248 243 this is because the discourse on re syllabuses in zambia has been engrossed with the subject at the primary and secondary levels of the education system resulting in a neglect of what was obtained in teacher education. for example, while the re primary and secondary school syllabuses have been critiqued (see mudalitsa, 1995; simuchimba, 2004), little has been done to explore the syllabuses in teacher education. this paper, therefore, investigated the re syllabuses in teacher education to mirror how teachers were being prepared to teach the subject, and in turn draw lessons for present and future opportunities for re in zambia using the contributions of the catholic missionaries to the subject. this inquiry is deemed significant to those involved in re teacher education as the study was an indirect response to the 2013 curriculum reforms which called for study areas in the teacher education curriculum to be linked to school curriculum by providing an understanding of how re teachers were being trained (curriculum development centre, 2012, p. 50). the paper also indirectly mirrors how stakeholders like missionaries and institutions have safeguarded the place of re through the re syllabus in teacher education. methodologically, the paper was informed by insights from an interpretive case study based on document analysis and interviews with purposively selected missionaries who contributed to the development of the re syllabus for secondary school teachers in zambia. the institution and syllabus were also purposively selected based on some peculiar attributes. for example, unlike other colleges and universities, zambia catholic university (zcu) taught the syllabus as religious education and not religious studies and was developed by missionary teachers who had contributed to the development of re in zambia in numerous ways. the syllabus was first used at nkrumah and later revised and adapted by ben henze and john mudalitsa for zcu where they retired. henze taught re for over 15 years in primary teacher colleges and later became the re advisor to the inspectorate in the ministry of education (henze, 2000, p. 1). mudalitsa whose special interests are educational evaluation and religious discernment not only taught re in secondary schools, but was also a lecturer at nkrumah, the birthplace of secondary school re in teacher education in zambia, for 11 years before moving to zcu where he contributed to the development of the syllabus under review until his retirement in 2016. hence, this paper might reflect what some missionaries and educationists involved in the development of zambian re envisioned for re in teacher education and in turn manifest the stakeholders’ interest in the subject. the key research question was centred on establishing what constituted the re syllabus and what informed the inclusion of the content. the paper argues that the development of the re syllabus at zcu was informed by the missionary teacher’s quest to synthesise religion and education in a context specific and relevant style that promoted learning about religions and learning from religions. by embracing the syllabus that was once considered as a model in teacher education at a time when all other institutions were transforming to teach religious studies, zcu was a custodian of that which the missionary enterprise had envisioned for re. https://changing-sp.com/ 244 nelly mwale context of religious education in teacher education the birthplace of re in teacher education is the christian missionary enterprise (mwale et al., 2014). re in teacher education for primary and secondary school teachers is taught in both public and private colleges and universities. it was first taught in the secondary school programme at kwame nkrumah teachers college in the 1970s, which was the first college to offer the re programme for secondary school teachers (carmody, 2004, p. vii). at the request of the senior inspector of re to begin a re department to facilitate the teaching of the re syllabus in schools, bro. george poirier of the brothers of the sacred heart who taught at nkrumah from 1957–78 initiated the re teacher education programme. the educational reforms which translated in the introduction of multi-faith re syllabuses in zambia and the 1996 educational policy pointed to the need for a more educational approach to re (mudalitsa, 2002). hence the initial syllabus which was more christian orientated, was revised in 2000 through a consultative process that the religious education consultative group was instrumental in. the revised syllabus was applauded and to be used as a model for other affiliate colleges (simuchimba, personal communication to nkrumah teachers college, 20th may 2002). however, over time, nkrumah migrated to teaching religious studies in the place of religious education, a trend noticeable in most institutions. zcu was therefore of interest because in a context where institutions were moving towards religious studies as opposed to re, the institution had retained and adapted re as a programme in teacher education. conceptualisation of religious education in teacher education re in teacher education is spoken as a curriculum subject with the educational aims of promoting religious literacy or a critical understanding of different religious traditions in zambia (and the world) and helping to impart important life skills – for instance, critical and analytical thinking, logical argumentation, innovativeness, and respect and tolerance for other people’s views, beliefs and values (simuchimba, 2005, p. 7). this understanding relates to learning about religion and learning from religion when related to grimmit’s (1987) conceptualisation of learning about religions and learning from religions. learning about religions is a type of re where teaching and learning have a non-confessional foundation and are based on the academic discipline of religious studies, while learning from religions highlights the potential for personal development through re touching upon life issues of an existential character and provides opportunities for students to reflect on their views in relation to the various answers religions provide to these questions (grimmit, 1987; teece, 2010). the paper sought to show how the re syllabus at zcu reflected the quest to promote learning about and learning from religions in teacher education. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 242–248 245 the re syllabus for teachers at zambia catholic university as alluded to earlier, the re syllabus at zambia catholic university was developed and adapted on the premise of the synthesis between religion and education. mudalitsa (2000, p. 10) opines that re is neither a study of the bible nor a study of world religions. he advocates for fusing the best of religion and the best of education to produce re that is capable of contributing towards the integral development of each individual learner and zambia’s brighter future. mudalitsa (2002) argues that re needed to be in line with the latest national education policy and related to the context in order to promote the aims and content of the educational policies. mudalitsa recalls that the courses included in the zcu re syllabus were started at nkrumah in order to enable students to get the best of re. the courses were developed further at zcu through the encouragement of ben henze (personal communication, november, 2017). in terms of content, the syllabus developed by the catholic missionaries at zcu had three major components. the first component was on foundations of re and covered introduction to re; psychology of re; sociology of re; science and religion; and ecumenism and re (science and religion; and ecumenism and re were new additions to the old nkrumah syllabus). introduction to re was designed to enable student teachers to understand re in theory and practice by exposing them to what was deemed as re at its best in the world today. the course also explored the history of re in zambia, its strengths and weaknesses, and its vast potential for improvement. psychology of re was focussed on helping student teachers to link how re promoted the full development of the human personality. it addressed aspects such as the complexities of human growth, factors of human flourishing in psychology, religion and tradition, stages of human development in psychology, and religion’s transformative power using personality examples from different religious traditions such as desmond tutu and jesus of nazareth. sociology of re was concerned with enabling student teachers to think wisely about social issues and make re a powerful instrument for social transformation. this was addressed by exploring the overview of social issues in zambia and africa, and uncovering ways that fostered positive thinking, fight against corruption, disease and other societal ills and sound interpersonal relationships including leadership skills. science and religion was aimed at showing how the relationship between the world of science and the “quality of life” challenged re to update itself critically and creatively (moe, 1996, p. 5). this was achieved by assessing the world of science and technology, analysing scientific theories and religious beliefs, and discussing intelligently if, for example, the universe came by accident or design, or the life on earth was a product of evolution or creation. ecumenism and re was focussed on enabling student teachers to make a dynamic synthesis of all they had learnt in re and in turn use re to promote ecumenism and fight fundamentalism. this was achieved by showing the similarities and differences between religions, and distinguishing “good” and “bad” religion to promote the spirit of dialogue and ecumenism, and fight fundamentalism. https://changing-sp.com/ 246 nelly mwale other than these foundational courses, the syllabus also covered four of the religions found in zambia, unlike the old nkrumah syllabus which addressed other world religions. these were christianity, african traditional religion (atr), islam and hinduism. the decision to include these religions was informed by the 1977 educational national reforms and the secondary school syllabuses themselves (moe, 1977). the topics covered under each religion included its history, scriptures and contemporary issues. re teacher education syllabus as a mirror of stakeholders’ interest in the subject the choice of the content and justification for the content manifest not only the developers’ interests and perspectives for the subject, but also institutional support for what was deemed as re that would produce competent teachers. it was also an example of what the missionary enterprise had envisioned for re in teacher education in recent times. to begin with, the syllabus reflects the quest for re to be in line with national education policies because of the understanding that re is a synthesis of religion and education (hull, 1991). as such, the syllabus was informed by both international and local education policies, including the principles governing catholic universities (1965 declaration on christian education, the 1990 encyclical on catholic universities: ex corde ecclesiae among others). for example, with the 1996 educating our future policy document in place, henze believed that re needed to progress within that framework (henze, white fathers archives, unpublished manuscript). henze and others saw an opportunity in the policy’s emphasis on life skills for re to enable learners to grow to maturity through the development of a more life skills-based syllabus and textbooks, and the formulation of a deeper way of examining the subject. the choice of content was also informed by what was prevailing in the secondary school re and teacher education. the observations of student re teachers on teaching practice and surveys of learners’ experiences over time manifested concerns linked to the student teachers’ inability to teach in a contextualised manner (mudalitsa, 2002, pp. 13–16). the content itself was also in need of radical change (mudalitsa, 2002, pp. 23–26). hence, other than zcu exposing students to the religions in the school syllabuses, the syllabus was critical of secondary school re syllabuses in present day zambia. furthermore, the content of the re secondary school syllabuses influenced the choice of the content. the two syllabuses covered four religions (atr, christianity, islam and hinduism) based on the 1977 reforms. mudalitsa affirmed that re syllabuses being used in zambian schools and colleges today are products of the educational reforms of 1977 when zambia saw a fundamental reform of the education system in conformity with zambian humanism (mudalitsa, 2002, p. 24). this was an attempt to adopt a multi-faith (although more would have been done to introduce students to many other religions) approach not only in terms of covering the four religions, but also the approach taken to study the religions that promoted religious literacy and changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 242–248 247 discernment in zambia’s pluralistic society. in addition, the state of re in teacher education was a factor in developing, adapting and retaining the syllabus at zcu. even our higher institutions of learning have contributed to the current state of re in the country. until early 2000, nkrumah religious education syllabus consisted mainly of biblical studies... re for nkrumah graduates meant a study of the bible. …university of zambia (unza) does not offer religious education but religious studies only; as a result, re for unza graduates means a study of world religions. (mudalitsa, 2000, p. 10) the stakeholder’s interest in supporting the re they envisioned for teacher education did not only end at developing and adapting the syllabus, but in securing teaching and learning materials. publications by fr. henze and fr. mujdrica (mudalitsa) have proven useful to students studying re owing to a dearth of literature on the subject in the country. fr. carmody’s books on religion and education meant for colleges and universities have constituted required reading for students. conclusion the paper explored the re syllabus in teacher education developed by the catholic missionary enterprise in zambia to demonstrate their interest as stakeholders both at individual and institutional levels with reference to zambia catholic university. at the inception of zcu teacher education programme, the old nkrumah re syllabus was revised and adapted in pursuit of synthesising religion and education. by this, the syllabus manifested the quest to move from learning about religions to learning from religions as re not only provided religious literacy, but also provided opportunities for students to reflect on their views in relation to the various religions’ answers to the ultimate questions. by embracing and revising the syllabus from nkrumah, zcu exemplified the stakeholder interest and missionary contributions in safeguarding that which they had envisioned for re in teacher education. references carmody, b. 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(2010). iis it learning about and from religions, religion or religious education? and is it any wonder some teachers don’t get it? british journal of religious education, 32(2), 93–103. changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 488–503 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.186 received 26 april 2022 © 2022 tatiana n. tikhomirova, accepted 17 august 2022 artem s. malykh, sergey b. malykh published online 10 october 2022 tikho@mail.ru malykhartem86@gmail.com malykhsb@mail.ru article fluid intelligence test scores across the schooling: evidence of nonlinear changes in girls and boys tatiana n. tikhomirova lomonosov moscow state university, psychological institute, russian academy of education, moscow, russia artem s. malykh psychological institute, russian academy of education, centre of interdisciplinary research in education, russian academy of education, moscow, russia sergey b. malykh lomonosov moscow state university psychological institute, russian academy of education, moscow, russia abstract the results of the analyses of the changes of fluid intelligence scores measured by the standard progressive matrices test across all school years were presented. sex differences in fluid intelligence scores for each year of schooling as well as in fluid intelligence changes across schooling were analyzed. a total of 1581 participants (51.1% boys) aged 6.8 to 19.1 years from one public school were involved in this cross-sectional study, of whom 871 were primary schoolchildren (mean age = 9.23; range 6.8–11.6), 507 were secondary schoolchildren (mean age = 14.06; range 10.8–18.0), and 203 were high schoolchildren (mean age = 17.25; range 15.3–19.1). to examine the changes in fluid intelligence both correlation analysis and polynomial regression of the total, boys’ and girls’ samples were performed. linear, quadratic, and cubic regression models were fitted to the data. to explore sex differences in fluid intelligence in each year of schooling, the series https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 488–503 489 introduction numerous studies show that intelligence underlies current and future individual achievements in education and professional success and is closely related to mental and physical well-being throughout life (aichele et al., 2019; brouwers et al., 2009; deary et al., 2007; nisbett et al., 2012; tikhomirova et al., 2019a; tikhomirova et al., 2020). meta-analyses revealed that intelligence is a significant predictor of educational achievement in all school subjects (brouwers et al., 2009; deary et al., 2007). the results of large-scale longitudinal studies investigating the causal relationships between intelligence and academic success support this hypothesis (deary et al., 2007). certain works report that the more a person learns, the higher his level of intelligence is (baltes & reinert, 1969). moreover, intelligence is sensitive to characteristics of the sociocultural environment and first to the educational conditions of a particular class, school, region, or national education system (nisbett et al., 2012; tikhomirova et al., 2019a). for example, studies of schoolchildren from countries with different educational conditions have shown a decrease in cross-cultural differences in intelligence with school attendance, which is explained by the influence of the learning process on the cognitive development of students (tikhomirova et al., 2019a; tucker-drob & briley, 2014; von stumm & plomin, 2015). this sensitivity requires the study of patterns of change in intelligence occurring throughout the course of schooling in certain educational conditions. despite the fact that numerous studies have shown a relationship between intelligence and academic achievement, some differences in approaches to measuring intelligence can be found in these studies. most of these studies are based on the cattell-horn model of fluid and crystallized intelligence (cattell, 1963; horn & cattell, 1966). in accordance with this model, crystallized intelligence is defined as of anova were carried out. the results revealed that the school-age change in fluid intelligence is nonlinear for both girls and boys. the changes for girls during the schooling are best described by a quadratic relationship while those for boys are best reflected by a cubic relationship. keywords fluid intelligence, school-age years, education, development, crosssectional study, sex differences, polynomial regression acknowledgments this work was supported by the russian science foundation under grant number 17-78-30028. we are incredibly grateful for all participants for their contribution to the study. we thank tatiana bykovskaya and olga kashubina for their technical support. https://changing-sp.com/ 490 tatiana n. tikhomirova, artem s. malykh, sergey b. malykh the ability to solve problems that are directly related to knowledge acquired during the learning process, from personal experiences and from previously formed skills. fluid intelligence is defined as the ability to think abstractly and solve problems unrelated to previous experiences, personal knowledge or learning. nevertheless, the development of fluid intelligence determines the effectiveness of new knowledge and skill acquisition during schooling (barbey, 2018; brown, 2016). fluid intelligence is measured by tests with nonverbal stimuli not related to the sociocultural context. in the school setting, fluid intelligence is often measured using the standard progressive matrices test, which lacks a specific cultural context in that it does not give one social group an advantage over another (raven, 2003). age-related changes in fluid intelligence raise questions surrounding the role of the biological age of respondents and the number of years of schooling in these changes (brinch & galloway, 2012; cahan & cohen, 1989; nisbett et al., 2012; ritchie et al., 2015; etc.). studies of children starting formal schooling at different ages (cahan & cohen, 1989), studies of groups of children not attending school in certain periods of life or receiving an additional year of schooling (brinch & galloway, 2012; nisbett et al., 2012), and studies of older people with biological and educational ages correlated with current cognitive indicators (schneeweis et al., 2014) allow us to assess the effects of these two factors. in these studies, it is concluded that education, school age in particular, has a more significant effect on the growth of intelligence test values throughout a person’s life. nevertheless, both biological and educational age are equally considered in the analysis of cognitive changes, and either the specificity of their influence on certain cognitive traits is taken into account or they are treated as factors identical in meaning. the comparison of effects of biological age and years of schooling is especially relevant for studies of schoolchildren from russia, where children can enter the first grade of school starting from 6.6 and to 8 years of age. this is due to the federal law no. 273-fz ob obrazovanii v rossiiskoi federatsii [on education in the russian federation], which defines the age interval (6.6–8 years) from which parents can determine when children should start school (ob obrazovanii v rossiiskoi federatsii, 2012). thus, in one study of russian primary school students, the range of age variability for grade 1 is 2.4 years—from 6.4 to 8.8 years of age (tikhomirova et al., 2019a). such a wide range of variability in the biological age of students in one year of schooling creates an opportunity to analyze the joint and independent influences of this factor on the development of intelligence during schooling. fluid intelligence scores change over time. this has been demonstrated by cross-sectional studies reporting changes in mean values (desjardins & warnke, 2012; hartshorne & germine, 2015; kievit et al., 2016) and by longitudinal studies that calculate developmental trajectories over a certain time interval (ghisletta et al., 2012; tikhomirova et al., 2019a; tikhomirova et al., 2019b; von stumm & plomin, 2015). these studies show that life-long changes in fluid intelligence are characterized by rapid growth during childhood and adolescence, reaching a peak in early adulthood (30–40 years) and a gradual decline in old age. this pattern of changes in fluid intelligence confirms its role in age-sensitive cognitive ability (hartshorne & changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 488–503 491 germine, 2015). fluid intelligence develops unevenly from infancy to adolescence at a significant rate for some children and a less intensive rate for others (tuckerdrob & briley, 2014; von stumm & plomin, 2015;). it has been reported that individual differences in the development of intelligence in childhood are associated, among other factors, with the socioeconomic characteristics of the microenvironment— familial development experiences (von stumm & plomin, 2015). the significance of the socioeconomic conditions of one’s family is shown both for the “starting” level of intelligence at 2 years of age and for the growth of intelligence from 2 to 16 years of age (von stumm & plomin, 2015). according to the results of a longitudinal study, in the primary school age period from 7 to 11 years, there is an increase in fluid intelligence scores (tikhomirova et al., 2019a; tikhomirova et al., 2019b). at the same time, the most intensive growth occurs between ages 7 and 8 (grades 1–2 of primary school), and then up to age 10 (grades 2–4 of primary school), their scores on the standard progressive matrices test statistically significantly improve. in general, most researchers agree that the school aged period is characterized, on the one hand, by the most intensive growth of fluid intelligence and, on the other hand, increased sensitivity to sociocultural conditions, primarily educational (brouwers et al., 2009; tikhomirova et al., 2019a; von stumm & plomin, 2015). this duality is reflected in the problem of the causal relationship between intelligence and education, which leads to a need to control various characteristics of the educational environment when studying temporal changes in intelligence (deary & johnson, 2010). at the same time, the question of the nature of changes in test scores of fluid intelligence throughout the entire period of formal schooling, a time interval of 11 years, including childhood, adolescence and early youth, remains unaddressed. studies report both the existence of sex differences in intelligence and their absence (e.g., flynn & rossi-casé, 2011). these contradictions are explained by differences in methods used to measured fluid intelligence, the age characteristics of study participants, and macroenvironmental conditions (see nisbett et al., 2012). however, most researchers agree that sex differences in intelligence are observed before the age of 16, when the growth rates of girls and boys differ (von stumm & plomin, 2015). according to the theory of sex differences in the development of intelligence, this pattern is based in differences in the rates of maturation found between girls and boys: in girls, intensive development begins at the age of approximately 9 years and remains more intense than in boys up to 14–15 years. at 15–16 years of age, growth in girls slows while boys continue to develop. one study of intellectual development found that at the age of 16, intelligence scores do not differ in girls and boys, but at the same time, there are sex differences in the development of intelligence from infancy to adolescence, confirming the hypothesis of a relationship between uneven maturation and individual indicators of intelligence tests (von stumm & plomin, 2015). studies have demonstrated the age specificity of differences in intelligence between girls and boys during schooling (colom & lynn, 2004). in particular, it has been shown that at 12–13 years of age, girls perform better on intellectual test https://changing-sp.com/ 492 tatiana n. tikhomirova, artem s. malykh, sergey b. malykh tasks than boys of 12–13 years and girls of 14–15 years. girls of 14–15 years show better results on intelligence tests than boys of 14–15 years and girls of 16–18 years (colom & lynn, 2004). at the same time, at the age of 18, the test results of boys are superior to those of girls, and the effect of sex on iq depends on the type of test task considered. as a rule, sex differences in intelligence, as for other cognitive functions, are explained using sociocultural (gender specificity of education) and neurophysiological (postnatal hormones) paradigms (frenken et al., 2016; miller & halpern, 2014; shangguan & shi, 2009; zilles et al., 2016). this specificity in the cognitive development of girls and boys can determine differences in changes in fluid intelligence throughout school age. in addition, the results of studies on the sex characteristics of changes in fluid intelligence show different, sometimes diametrically opposing results due to, among other factors, the short time intervals of particular studies (for example, studies examining only adolescents or primary school students). the use of longer study periods covering various periods of life in the analysis of changes in fluid intelligence will make it possible to identify periods of growth, assess their intensity levels, and determine stages of stabilization in boys and girls. the present study this cross-sectional study aimed to examine changes in fluid intelligence test scores over all years of schooling from grades 1 to 11. additionally, sex differences in fluid intelligence test scores for each year of schooling as well as in fluid intelligence changes across schooling were analyzed. finally, relationships between the year of schooling and schoolchildren’s ages and corresponding independent and joint influences on changes in fluid intelligence were investigated. school education in the russian federation covers the periods of childhood, adolescence and youth, creating an opportunity to examine changes in fluid intelligence over a long time interval covering those 6.6 to 19.1 years of age. additionally, studying schoolchildren from a single public school affords us more control over the educational environment. materials and methods participants a total of 1581 participants aged 6.8 to 19.1 years from one public school were involved in the study, 51.1% boys. the primary school-age sample (grades 1–4) included 871 schoolchildren with a mean age of 9.23 (range 6.8–11.6), 51.5% boys. the secondary school-age sample (grades 5–9) included 507 schoolchildren with a mean age of 14.06 (range 10.8–18.0), 55.5% boys. the high school-age sample (grades 10–11) included 203 schoolchildren with a mean age 17.25 (range 15.3–19.1), 40.2% boys. table 1 provides a description of the sample by year of schooling, covering grades 1–11. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 488–503 493 the study was conducted in accordance with the declaration of helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the psychological institute of the russian academy of education (project identification code 2016/2–12). prior to data collection, all subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion to the study. written parental informed consent was obtained for all participants. data collection was carried out at the school in strict accordance with the developed protocols and under the supervision of the researcher. measures the fluid intelligence was measured using the paper-and-pencil version of the standard progressive matrices test (raven, 2003). the test consists of 5 sets with 12 items within each set. the item is a matrix, where the participant must select one missing element from 6 or 8 proposed options. the matrices become progressively more difficult with each consecutive set and test. no discontinuity rules were applied, and the participants performed all of the tasks. the sum of correct responds was calculated. statistical approach in the first phase, the variability in the participants’ ages for each year of schooling was analyzed. a correlation analysis of the participants’ ages and years of schooling was carried out. then, to compare the performance of age and grade as predictors for fluid intelligence, a multiple linear regression was used. in the second phase, the means and ranges of fluid intelligence test scores for the samples of girls and boys for each year of schooling were calculated. to examine the sex differences and their effect sizes for fluid intelligence for each year of schooling, a one-way analysis of variance (anova) was performed. in the third phase, to examine changes in fluid intelligence, a correlation analysis of grade and fluid intelligence test scores and polynomial regression of the total, male, and female samples were performed. various regression models, both linear and nonlinear (quadratic and cubic), were fitted to the data. a polynomial regression was carried out on a total sample and on the female and male samples to analyze sex differences in age-related changes in fluid intelligence. parameter estimation was performed with the least squares estimator. results in this study, the age-related changes of fluid intelligence measured as standard progressive matrices test scores were analyzed for the whole schooling period. age, grade, and their impact on fluid intelligence scores changes in the first phase variability in the participants’ age for each year of schooling was examined. the mean and range of the participants’ ages, sample sizes, and the number of boys in each grade are presented in table 1. https://changing-sp.com/ 494 tatiana n. tikhomirova, artem s. malykh, sergey b. malykh table 1 sample description level grade n average age(min – max) n boys (%) primary 1 146 7.86 (6.8–9.0) 51.4 2 297 8.89 (7.6–10.3) 55.0 3 333 9.83 (7.7–10.9) 52.5 4 95 10.85 (10.1–11.6) 46.9 secondary 5 102 11.82 (10.8–13.0) 63.7 6 114 12.81 (11.7–14.2) 55.8 7 98 13.78 (12.7–15.2) 53.4 8 99 14.81 (13.6–16.2) 59.4 9 94 15.77 (14.3–18.0) 45.3 high 10 100 16.72 (15.3–17.8) 35.6 11 103 17.77 (16.3–19.1) 44.7 total 1–11 1581 12.31 (6.8–19.1) 51.1 table 1 demonstrates the average age for students in each school grade. according to the data, students’ average age increases with school education by one year from 7.86 in grade 1 to 17.77 in grade 11. in other words, the difference in average age between school grades is one year. at the same time, a wide range of age variability within one year of schooling was obtained. therefore, with one year of schooling, the range of students’ age may be more than two years. for example, in grade 1, 6.8 years as a minimum and 9.0 as a maximum were observed. for the final year of schooling, grade 11, these values are even higher: with an average age of 17.77 years, both sixteenand nineteen-yearold students can study in this grade. such a wide range of students’ ages in a single grade is first associated with the early or late admission of children to school based on their parents’ decisions (6.5 or 7.5 years old). additionally, a significant overlap in students’ age throughout years of schooling was found. therefore, according to table 1, students aged 7.7 can be enrolled in grade 1, 2, or 3. given the considerable variance in the ages of students in each year of schooling, the interaction between ages and grades and their independent effects on fluid intelligence scores were examined. first, a correlation analysis of students’ ages and years of schooling was carried out. then, a multiple linear regression with age and years of schooling as predictors of fluid intelligence to the data was fit. the correlation analysis reveals very strong interrelationships between students’ ages and their grades (r = 0.98; p < 0.01). however, despite such a strong correlation, age and years of schooling can have unique effects on a child’s cognitive development (nisbett et al., 2012; pica et al., 2004; schneeweis et al., 2014; tikhomirova et al., 2019a). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 488–503 495 according to the multiple regression analysis, 31% of the variance in fluid intelligence scores is explained by years of schooling (adj. r2 = 0.305, f = 649.01, p = 0.000) and 24% is explored by age (adj. r2 = 0.242, f = 400.2, p = 0.000). when both predictors are fitted into one regression model, years of schooling are a statistically significant predictor of fluid intelligence (β = 0.77; p = 0.000), but student age ceases to be a statistically significant predictor (p > 0.05). this finding points towards school education being a more important factor than age in the development of intelligence and falls in line with published results (nisbett et al., 2012; pica et al., 2004; schneeweis et al., 2014). we thus decided to proceed in using the grade level as the single predictor for fluid intelligence test scores. sex differences in fluid intelligence scores across the schooling table 2 presents the mean and range of values (in parentheses) of fluid intelligence for each grade. table 2 demonstrates the mean values and the range of fluid intelligence test scores for the samples of boys and girls for each year of school education. the maximum score of the standard progressive matrices test is 60, and the minimum score is 0. as shown in table 2, at the primary and secondary levels of school education (from grade 1 to grade 9), slightly higher mean values of fluid intelligence are observed for girls than for boys. on the other hand, for high school education (grades 10 & 11), the mean values of fluid intelligence for the group of boys are slightly higher than those for the group of girls. to examine these sex differences and their effects on fluid intelligence in each year of schooling, a one-way analysis of variance (anova) was performed. statistically significant sex differences in fluid intelligence scores, with girls scoring higher, were obtained for grade 9 only (f = 12.2; p < 0.001; ŋ2 = 0.16). table 2 descriptive statistics for fluid intelligence scores for grades 1–11 level grade girls boys primary 1 32.34 (9–48) 30.99 (9–50) 2 37.32 (10–52) 36.93 (13–56) 3 40.75 (18–53) 40.36 (11–56) 4 43.67 (26–54) 42.70 (8–58) secondary 5 45.65 (29–53) 43.69 (22–56) 6 46.02 (34–57) 43.08 (22–57) 7 48.56 (33–56) 46.26 (13–58) 8 47.57 (36–59) 46.27 (28–60) 9 51.43 (29–60) 48.07 (32–58) high 10 49.18 (40–57) 51.17 (32–59) 11 52.42 (44–60) 53.68 (47–59) total 1–11 42.36 (9–60) 41.32 (8–60) https://changing-sp.com/ 496 tatiana n. tikhomirova, artem s. malykh, sergey b. malykh the observed changes in mean values of fluid intelligence test scores differ for the male and female samples. particularly, for the female sample, a stronger improvement was observed from grade 1 to grade 5, and then a slight improvement in fluid intelligence was found up to grade 11. for the male sample, grades 1 to 5 were also marked by intensive improvements in mean values of fluid intelligence, but from grades 6 to 9, a stabilization of fluid intelligence was found, and then from grades 10 to 11, intensive improvement was observed again. changes of fluid intelligence scores across the schooling correlation analysis between the year of schooling and fluid intelligence on the both total and boys’ and girls’ samples was performed. spearman’s correlation coefficient was recorded as 0.58 (p < 0.01) for the total sample. this result suggests the not too close interrelationships between the year of schooling and fluid intelligence scores. sex differences were also found. thus, higher correlation coefficient was found for girls’ sample (r = 0.63; p < 0.01) than for boys’ sample (r = 0.49; p < 0.01). this result may be associated with sex differences in changes in fluid intelligence during the schooling period. in addition, not a very high correlation coefficient may be a consequence of the nonlinear relationship between grade and fluid intelligence for this period (e.g., von stumm & plomin, 2015). to examine linear and nonlinear relationships, a polynomial regression of the total sample and of samples of girls and boys was performed. linear, quadratic, and cubic regression models were fitted to the data. the sum of correct responses of the standard progressive matrices test was used as a dependent variable. parameter estimation was performed with the least squares estimator. table 3 presents the results of the series of polynomial regressions of the total sample (t) and of the samples of girls (f) and boys (m). as shown in table 3, all regression models had acceptable fit to the data. table 3 results of polynomial regression of fluid intelligence test scores type of regression model model summary parameter estimates r2 f df1 df2 p const. b1 b2 b3 linear t 0.31 649.0 1 1477 0.00 33.39 1.86 f 0.36 397.7 1 690 0.00 33.62 1.89 м 0.26 273.3 1 785 0.00 33.24 1.81 quadratic t 0.32 345.3 2 1476 0.00 30.16 3.53 –0.15 f 0.39 220.4 2 689 0.00 29.37 4.09 –0.19 м 0.27 141.9 2 784 0.00 30.74 3.11 –0.12 cubic t 0.33 240.7 3 1475 0.00 25.66 7.21 –0.92 0.05 f 0.39 148.2 3 688 0.00 27.31 5.79 –0.55 0.05 м 0.29 104.5 3 783 0.00 24.07 8.54 –1.25 0.07 note. the indices of the models that best fit the data are highlighted in bold. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 488–503 497 the linear model explained no more than 31% of the variance in fluid intelligence scores for the total sample, 36% of the variance for the sample of girls, and 26% of the variance for the sample of boys. the results reveal that the nonlinear regression models explain more of the variance in the fluid intelligence scores than the linear model for all groups of schoolchildren (see table 3). thus, for the total sample, both the quadratic and cubic models better fit the data (r2 = 0.32 and r2 = 0.33 respectively, p < 0.001), which suggests that the relationships are nonlinear rather than cubic. for the group of girls, both the quadratic and cubic models explain 39% of the variance in fluid intelligence scores, but the quadratic model uses the fewest parameters. therefore, the quadratic model shows the best fit to the data for the school-aged girls. for the male sample, the largest percentage of the variance in fluid intelligence is explained by the cubic model (r2 = 0.29, p < 0.001). therefore, of the three tested regression models, this model shows the best fit to the data for the school-aged boys. thus, the changes in fluid intelligence with years of schooling are nonlinear for both girls and boys. at the same time, quadratic relationships are best applicable to changes in fluid intelligence found for the school-aged girls, and cubic relationships best describe the changes found for the male sample. in particular, the most intensive improvements in fluid intelligence scores were found for grades 1 to 5, and a slight improvement up to grade 11 was observed for the group of school-aged girls. for the sample of boys, the most intensive improvements in fluid intelligence scores were observed twice from grades 1 to 5 and from grade 10 to 11. between grades 6 and 9, the stabilization of fluid intelligence was fixed in boys. these different patterns of school-age changes in fluid intelligence are presented in figure 1. in figure 1, grades 1 to 11 are measured on the x axis and standard progressive matrices test scores of 0 to 60 are measured on the y axis. fluid intelligence scores for each grade obtained from the linear regression (solid line), quadratic model (dashed line), and cubic model (dash-dot line) are illustrated. figure 1 fluid intelligence test scores for each grade across the schooling. the distribution of fluid intelligence for girls (a) and (b) boys 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1a – girls 1b – boys note. source: authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 498 tatiana n. tikhomirova, artem s. malykh, sergey b. malykh figure 1 demonstrates that a nonlinear graph fits the distribution of fluid intelligence quite well for both girls (figure 1a) and boys (figure 1b). for the sample of girls, the quadratic model and cubic model explain the most variance in fluid intelligence scores; however, the quadratic model uses the fewest parameters. therefore, the quadratic model best fits the data for the female sample. as shown in figure 1a, a great improvement in fluid intelligence was found from grades 1 to 5 followed by a slight gradual improvement to grade 11 for the group of school-aged girls. these changes are best described by a quadratic function, a parabola. for the sample of boys, the cubic model explains the most variance and shows the best fit to the data. figure 1b shows two significant improvements in fluid intelligence test scores in boys from grades 1 to 5 and from grades 10 to 11 with stabilization occurring between grades 6 and 9. this pattern of change is best described by a cubic function, a cubic parabola. discussion this cross-sectional study aimed to estimate the changes of fluid intelligence scores measured by the standard progressive matrices test for girls and boys throughout the schooling period. moreover, sex differences in fluid intelligence scores at each year of schooling were analyzed. the analysis reveals that despite a strong correlation between grade and schoolchildren age, grade is a more important factor in shaping changes in fluid intelligence during schooling. therefore, when both predictors were fitted into a single regression model, grade was found to be a statistically significant predictor of fluid intelligence, whereas age was not. this finding points towards the significant importance of school education for children’s cognitive development (brinch & galloway, 2012; nisbett et al., 2012; schneeweis et al., 2014). moreover, formal education is very important for further cognitive functioning (ritchie et al., 2015). in particular, the association between the duration of formal education and cognitive abilities measured at age 70 has a direct relationship after controlling for general intelligence factor g. the present analysis was carried out with school grade used as a single predictor for fluid intelligence test score changes. this study shows that girls perform better than boys on fluid intelligence test tasks in each grade throughout primary and secondary school (from grades 1 to 9). in contrast, during high school (grades 10 and 11), the mean values of fluid intelligence test scores for the sample of boys were slightly higher than those of the sample of girls. however, statistically significant sex differences in fluid intelligence scores were obtained for grade 9 only and age 15.7 with the girls having an advantage. an effect size of 16% was found, which is in line with colom and lynn (2004) who found that girls aged 12–15 achieve higher scores on intelligence test tasks than their male peers. in general, it was shown that there are no statistically significant sex differences in fluid intelligence test scores from grades 1 to 8 and from grades 10 to 11. this result corresponds with data on the lifelong absence of sex differences in fluid intelligence (e.g., flynn & rossi-casé, 2011; irwing & lynn, 2005). according to a meta-analysis, changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 488–503 499 there are no sex differences in means of fluid intelligence, but the range of test scores is wider for males than for females (irwing & lynn, 2005). sex differences in relationships between grade and fluid intelligence test scores were also revealed. a stronger correlation was observed in the sample of girls than in boys’ sample. these results may be associated with nonlinear changes in fluid intelligence during school years as well as with sex differences (e.g., von stumm & plomin, 2015). it was shown that for girls, intensive development in intelligence begins at 9 years of age and continues up to 15 years of age. then, after age 15, intensive development of intelligence in girls is slows, whereas boys demonstrate more intensive growth in intelligence than girls (von stumm & plomin, 2015). thus, improvements in intelligence test scores show nonlinear patterns across childhood and adolescence. indeed, the results of polynomial regression reveal that nonlinear regression models explain more variance in fluid intelligence scores than a linear model for both girls and boys. nevertheless, different nonlinear models fit to the data of our samples of school-aged girls and boys. the quadratic relationship was found to be the best fit to the pattern of change in fluid intelligence for our female sample. according to the results found for our female sample, the most intensive improvements in fluid intelligence test scores were observed from grades 1 to 5 with slight improvements occurring up to grade 11. changes observed in the sample of boys are best described by cubic dependency. for the male sample, the most intensive improvements in fluid intelligence test scores were observed twice from grades 1 to 5 and from grade 10 to 11 with stabilization occurring between grades 6 and 9. these different changes in fluid intelligence are best described by a parabolic function for girls and by a cubic function for boys. these results are consistent with findings of previous studies (e.g., colom & lynn, 2004; shangguan & shi, 2009). in particular, it was shown that only for 10-year-old boys is there a positive correlation between levels of testosterone and success on fluid intelligence tests; at 12 years of age, there is a negative correlation, and at 8 years of age, there are no statistically significant relationships at all (shangguan & shi, 2009). these fluctuations in the influence of sex hormones on cognitive functioning may lead to a relative stabilization (“plateau”) of fluid intelligence in boys from 6 to 9 years of schooling (aged 12 to 15) as shown in this study. at the same time, the second intensive increase in fluid intelligence found for our sample of boys aged 16–17 may be related to the selection for continued school education grades 10 and 11. in the russian educational system, schooling from grades 1 to 9 is compulsory, after which a student can continue academic studies at school or attend college for vocational training. as a rule, schooling in grades 10–11 is chosen by students with good or excellent academic performance. according to the latest data, sex differences are found during schooling in grades 10–11: the majority of girls continue to the senior grades as do boys, who have higher academic test results (jackson et al., 2020). therefore, the improvement in fluid intelligence test scores recorded in our study can be explained by a stronger “filter” for continuing education in high school for the sample of boys. https://changing-sp.com/ 500 tatiana n. tikhomirova, artem s. malykh, sergey b. malykh nevertheless, some studies have suggested the age-related specificity in fluid intelligence between girls and boys at school years periods (e.g., colom & lynn, 2004). in particular, sex differences in intelligence were found only from 12 to 15 years of age, with girls having an advantage in performance on intelligence tests (colom & lynn, 2004). at the same time, it was shown that at the age of 18, the test results of boys are superior to those of girls. in the present study, no statistically significant sex differences were found for senior school ages, although mean fluid intelligence test values were found to be slightly higher in boys. to sum up, performance on fluid intelligence test scores improves nonlinearly with grade level, demonstrating sex differences after grade 5. sex differences in the results of polynomial regression are also associated with a large percentage of the variance in fluid intelligence of girls explained by the number of years of schooling relative to boys. within the frameworks of both linear and nonlinear models, the value of the coefficient of multiple determination r2 for girls varies from 0.36 to 0.39 while that for boys ranges from 0.26–0.29 (p < 0.001). these data indicate more dependence of changes in fluid intelligence on the year of schooling for girls than for boys, confirming the relationship between behavioral levels and the specificities of sexual maturation (miller & halpern, 2014; shangguan & shi, 2009). at the same time, the larger percentage of the explained dispersion in the variability of intelligence found in girls by “educational” age can also be explained within the context of the sociocultural paradigm (frenken et al., 2016; miller & halpern, 2014; von stumm & plomin, 2015). previously, it was shown that socialization processes, such as the sex specificity of education and parental stereotypes in the upbringing and education of boys and girls, can affect success on cognitive test tasks (frenken et al., 2016; miller & halpern, 2014). it is generally accepted that girls, in demonstrating socially desirable behavior to teachers, complete tasks more thoroughly and accurately, study harder and, as a result, have more experience in training and operating with educational material, including nonverbal material. the gradual improvement in fluid intelligence indicators found in this study from 6 to 11 years of schooling for a group of girls may indicate a greater sensitivity to the effects of formal education. however, more research is needed to test biological and sociocultural effects on sex differences in the cognitive functioning of schoolchildren. conclusion the results revealed that the school-age change in fluid intelligence is nonlinear for both girls and boys. at the same time quadratic relationships are most applicable to change in fluid intelligence for school-age girls, 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revisited thomas f. remington emory university, atlanta, ga, usa harvard university, cambridge, ma, usa abstract the recent publication of kenneth dyson’s book conservative liberalism, liberalism, ordo-liberalism, and the state offers an occasion to reconsider the body of ideas known as ordoliberalism. the books reviewed here represent much of the most recent scholarship in english on the subject. in this essay, i undertake two tasks: first, to clarify what the term properly refers to and in particular how it is related to “neoliberalism,” and, second, to consider its influence on postwar german policies and institutions. i argue that much of the recent discussion of ordoliberalism and neoliberalism overlooks important differences between early ordoliberal thinking and the ideas associated with neoliberalism. over time, as neoliberalism evolved and particularly as it became an ideological justification for policies and institutions justifying the accumulation of concentrated market power, these differences have become wider even as they have been obscured by misreadings of ordoliberalism. a better understanding of ordoliberalism can also provide insights relevant to the contemporary debates about the crisis of liberal democracy and capitalism. is it in fact a “third way” for ordering an economy, an alternative to neoliberalism and socialism? keywords ordoliberalism, liberalism, neoliberalism, democracy, capitalism i. introduction the publication earlier last year of kenneth dyson’s book conservative liberalism, liberalism, ordo-liberalism, and the state (2021) offers a welcome occasion to reconsider the body of ideas known as ordoliberalism. the books reviewed here represent much of the most recent scholarship in english on the subject. in this essay, i undertake two tasks: first, to clarify what the term https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 11 properly refers to and in particular how it is related to “neoliberalism,” and, second, to consider how much influence it had on postwar german policies and institutions. a better understanding of ordoliberalism can also provide insights relevant to the contemporary debates about the crisis of liberal democracy and capitalism. is it in fact a “third way” for ordering an economy besides neoliberalism and socialism? ordoliberalism is little known outside a few scholarly circles. some american students of antitrust theory, such as daniel crane and herbert hovenkamp, have discussed it and related it to other branches of thinking about antimonopoly law (crane, 2013). historians of postwar german economic reconstruction treat it as a source of some intellectual guidance for the architects of the “social market economy,” of which it formed an integral element (abelshauser, 2004; haley, 2001; murach-brand, 2004; nicholls, 1994; streeck, 1997, 2010). students of european competition law continue to debate its ideas and the degree to which they have influenced the competition enforcement regime in the european union (akman, 2012; gerber, 2001; quack & djelic, 2005). during the eurozone debt crisis following the great recession, ordoliberalism again aroused furor when many blamed germany’s resistance to easing the terms of restructuring southern european debt on its ordoliberal heritage. the latter issue is the major impetus for the edited volume ordoliberalism, law and the rule of economics of hien and joerges (2017). unfortunately, relatively little of the ordoliberalism literature has been translated into english. to the extent the term is used in scholarly literature, it is usually conflated with, or subsumed as a german variant of, a larger neoliberal current of thought associated with figures such as friedrich hayek and chicago school economists1. i believe this seriously mischaracterizes ordoliberalism and obscures its relevance. ii. the origins of ordoliberalism ordoliberalism originated in the 1930s at the university of freiburg, germany. ordoliberalism was a legal and economic theory to defend competition—and all its benefits to society—against the threats posed by state socialism or by the consolidation of market power in cartels and monopolies. ordoliberalism’s core comprised a group of legal and economic scholars—walter eucken, franz böhm, and others—reacting against the spread of cartels and trusts throughout the capitalist world, the establishment of state socialism in russia, and the anti-democratic impulses that accompanied both (fear, 2006; nicholls, 1994). at the time, germany was completely dominated by cartels, more even than other capitalist countries. german cartels controlled 100% of coal production, 90% of steel, and exerted similar levels of control over many other branches of industry. cartels’ defenders claimed that they stabilized capitalism against the threat of ruinous overproduction leading to crashes, but their opponents saw them as harmful both to political and economic freedom for raising barriers to entry for small businesses, for example, and wielding 1 peacock and willgerodt (1989) is a useful compendium of several ordoliberal essays. a concise summary of some of eucken’s thinking in english is eucken (1951). https://changing-sp.com/ 12 thomas f. remington power over government. the triumph of cartels continued into the nazi period, when hitler forced all big businesses to join cartels (schweitzer, 1964). eucken took a position as professor of economics at the university of freiburg in 1927 and remained there until he died in 1950. at freiburg eucken met böhm, who was then working in the weimar government ministry that dealt with the regulation of cartels. the two shared an antipathy against the power of cartels and concentrations of market power generally. an economist devoted to grounding economic theory in historical evidence, eucken grasped how hard it was for governments to check the abuses of monopolists. as he noted, “abuse” was itself a vague term (a problem that bedevils antitrust litigation to this day), and corporate entities always acquire substantial political influence. therefore, the state must act to prevent the rise of entities with market power, not fight them after the fact: it is not in the first instance against abuses of existing power bodies that economic policy should be applied, but rather against the rise of power bodies altogether. otherwise, it will have no chance to solve the problem (eucken, 2004, p. 172). his colleague, franz böhm, declared that society must not put the principles of the freedom of contract and rights of property ahead of the freedom to compete: “jus publicum privatorum pactis mutari non potest” [a public law cannot be changed by private agreements] (böhm, 1928/1960, 1933). the ordoliberals fought the refusal by many economists to look squarely at factual data. they recognized that economic theories were powerful tools, but they did not accept that theories worked independently of their social setting. eucken insisted that economists take account of historical circumstances in which economic forces play out. this required that economists lift the curtain to recognize the constant struggle of power interests, masked by ideology, often brutal, among concentrated centers of market power (eucken, 2004). economic history, eucken wrote in 1947, is a history of the abuse of power. and power, he wrote, is power, whether in private or state hands. power is the antithesis of freedom, which—following kant—he argued should be the moral foundation of the society; freedom is not a goal in itself but a means to serve “eigenverantwortliche menschen” [free self-responsible people] (eucken, 2004, p. 178). eucken always insisted that economic and political power were inextricably tied together. over history, state rulers fought to dominate the economies of their countries. guilds fought against outsiders, consumers, and landowners. the history of economics is a history of the abuse of power, he wrote, although to varying degrees in different economic orders. the key question was who was abusing whom, and how (eucken, 2004). eucken and böhm founded the journal ordo after the war, continuing to propound ordoliberal ideas. the “ordo” element referred to the idea that the legal framework ensuring market competition and market freedom should be embedded in a constitutional order to protect market competition and prevent concentrated economic power from encroaching on freedom. the state had an obligation, böhm insisted, to interfere with the freedom of contract and rights of property when they infringed on the freedom of individual producers and consumers. to protect property in the name of efficiency would “etablierung des rechtes des stärkeren, eines kommerziellen faustrechts” [establish the power of the mightier, a commercial right of changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 13 the fist]. such a right of the fist of course was precisely what appealed to communists, fascists, and radical libertarians alike. such thinking repulsed the ordoliberals, who had watched as the russian bolsheviks imposed a totalitarian economy on their subjects and as hitler imposed a mandatory cartel system on germany (schweitzer, 1964). whether under the nazis or the soviets, such monopolistic organizational forms denied freedom both in the economic and the political realms. and while they succeeded in preventing crises of overproduction and mass unemployment, they failed to foster either social justice or technical innovation (müller-armack, 1947/1982). for the ordoliberals, therefore, a market economy where the state protected individual freedom by ensuring competition and preventing the rise of concentrated market power was the only guarantee of both economic prosperity and elementary social justice. the ordoliberals were influenced by american progressive doctrines that giant concentrations of economic power threatened both political and economic freedom, as a 1928 essay by böhm on private power concentrations makes clear (böhm, 1928/1960, 1933). but whereas in the united states, where the pro-competition doctrine’s influence faded after the 1970s under the influence of the chicago antitrust school, which insisted on efficiency as the sole criterion of social well-being, ordoliberal ideas became a major influence on the design of german economic institutions following world war ii. iii. ordoliberalism’s core precepts how ordoliberalism is related to neoliberalism is contentious. to some degree confusion over this point is understandable. the freiburg school ordoliberals had close relations to the group of economic thinkers associated with the mont pèlerin society that formed in 1947 2. eucken was an original member of the group. moreover, hayek himself moved to the university of freiburg in 1962, taking the chair formerly held by eucken; the ordo yearbook became almost entirely a creature of hayekian neoliberal thought; and the walter eucken institute at freiburg became part of the mont pèlerin’s “institutional machinery,” as angela wigger puts it in the hien and joerges volume (wigger in hien & joerges, 2017, p. 170). confusion therefore between the stream of thought identified as neoliberalism and the body of ordoliberal thinking reflected in the freiburg school and the designers of germany’s “social market economy” in the 1950s and 1960s is understandable. it is also the case, as the studies reviewed here show, that both streams of thought were themselves highly diverse and often self-contradictory, and both underwent continuous evolution as new generations of thinkers and issues arose. certainly, it is fair to say that the bodies of thought termed neoliberalism and ordoliberalism did and do overlap. however, the ordoliberals did not consider themselves to be neoliberals3. as eucken put it, “the term ‘liberalism’ or ‘neoliberalism’ is sometimes applied to my 2 the mont pèlerin society originated as a group of thinkers dedicated to advancing free-market liberal principles in the face of widespread support for collectivist and keynesian ideas. the group continues to exist. among its notable figures have been friedrich hayek, george stigler and james buchanan. 3 in addition to dyson, an authoritative german-language study on the ordoliberal philosophy persuasively making this case as well is föste (2006). https://changing-sp.com/ 14 thomas f. remington ideas, but it is a poor fit” (eucken, 2004, pp. 374–375). although they had strong ties to the laissez-faire liberals (whom they called “paleoliberals” or “stone age liberals”), the ordoliberals insisted on treating capitalism as embedded in the social and political environment in which it operates (föste, 2006, p. 346). it generates power inequalities that can threaten both political and economic freedom. for this reason, the ordoliberals insisted that laissez-faire is not the same as full competition4. they did not elevate economic freedom above political freedom. rather, the ordoliberals advocated firm government protection of market competition. rent-seeking would be inevitable if market agents thought they could win government administrative support for restricting market rivals. fairness and freedom, not efficiency, were ordoliberalism’s basic principles. thus, there are significant differences between ordoliberalism and neoliberalism. over time, especially as the neoliberal philosophy associated with hayek, friedman and stigler developed, these differences became wider, yet they were almost entirely obscured. today, as neoliberalism has been used as the doctrinal justification for pressures to dismantle government controls over trade, labor relations, finance, market regulation, public goods, redistribution and social protection policies in all spheres, and blamed for the surging economic inequality witnessed in the united states and many other countries, it is useful to reconsider ordoliberalism. ordoliberalism’s early instincts have significant implications for us today as we confront the crises of market capitalism and liberal democracy. for this reason, to bury ordoliberalism under the broad mantle of neoliberalism is to ignore the points that the early ordoliberals considered most important. briefly, these can be summarized as follows: a. an economy consists of a set of closely interrelated elements. to isolate one issue—trade policy, for example, or social policy—and deal with it separately from its interaction with all other elements will never succeed in solving that problem. more likely it will create more problems, leading to still more interventions. under some conditions, a keynesian full employment policy is justified, but it would have been better to have avoided the mistakes (such as a deflationary policy) that led to a spiral of deflation and mass unemployment, because a full employment policy can lead to inflationary pressure, and then to price controls that expand and distort the ability of prices as a system to enable rational decision-making by economic actors. consequently, it is necessary to think of the economy as a system, or a comprehensive order, and to set in place the rules that will govern that order. rather than intervening on an ad hoc basis each time a crisis arose, the state’s role is to establish and enforce basic principles. the core issue, eucken wrote, is not the “quantity” of state intervention, but rather the “quality” of the intervention (eucken, 1951, p. 95). from the very beginning, the ordoliberals emphasized the importance of a constitutional legal framework for the economic order; they chose the term “ordo” from roman law to reflect that crucial point (böhm et al., 1937/1989, 1937). 4 eucken (1938, p. 57): “teils sehnt man die frühere zeit zurück, verwechselt laisser faire und wettbewerb und sieht nicht, daß das laisser faire oft gerade zur beseitigung der wettbewerbsordnung und zum emporwuchern monopolitischer gebilde führte.” [in part one longs for the former time, confuses laisser faire and competition, and does not see that the laisser faire often led to the elimination of the competitive order and to the proliferation of monopolistic entities.] changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 15 they recognized that government may be called upon to correct market failures, but argued that an order set up to prevent such failures was better than a sequence of ad hoc policy measures that create new problems requiring yet more ad hoc interventions. these rules need to be set in constitutional law so that the state can enforce them as part of the orderly functioning of the market system. b. market competition is the only way to protect the freedom of individuals as economic and political agents. it is preferable to forfeit the (purely apparent) efficiency gains of monopolies, trusts, and cartels before they form rather than to risk allowing them to acquire stifling market power. in direct contrast to the chicago antitrust school, therefore, the ordoliberals believed that competition itself must be the objective of economic policy. the strong state must act to enforce the rules of competition and to block the formation of large concentrations of market power before they arise, not afterward. c. the market economy must serve not only efficiency, but also social justice. as eucken himself put it repeatedly: “how can a modern industrialized economy and society be organized in a humane and efficient way?” (eucken, 1951). unlike the neoliberals, the ordoliberals always insisted on the normative foundations of the market economy. their emphasis on the importance of establishing an explicit constitutional foundation for the market economy derived from their conviction that the economy must serve society, not the other way around. freedom for ordoliberals was the basis of morality. d. perhaps most importantly, they held that throughout history, concentrations of market power always ally with concentrated political power to suppress both economic and political freedom. these freedoms in the economic sphere extend not only to would-be entrepreneurs who are squeezed out of a market, but to workers as well as their freedom to choose the place and conditions of their employment is constrained, and of consumers, whose range of choice is narrowed. in the political sphere, they lead to totalitarianism; for the ordoliberals in the postwar federal republic, the establishment of a soviet-type planned economy next door in east germany provided a close-hand example of the difference between a state socialist planned economy and a market economy in the west. concentrated economic power always seeks ideological justifications, so we must always look behind the curtain of ideology to identify the power interests deploying them5. therefore, while some government power is required to enforce the rules of a competitive order, excessive government power is just as oppressive as a laissezfaire policy. laissez-faire as a policy had failed no less than the centrally planned nazi or soviet economic models in solving basic questions of freedom and order; both ended up suppressing freedom in favor of market power (eucken, 2004). laissez-faire, eucken wrote, “permits misuses of freedom of contract to destroy freedom” (eucken, 1951, p. 37). such words, needless to say, would never be uttered by a neoliberal. 5 “auch wir nationalökonomen müssen den vorhang lüften, welchen die interessenten-ideologien vor die wirtschaftlichen machtballungen und machtkämpfe ziehen” [we economists too must lift the curtain that the ideologies of interested parties draw in front of the economic concentrations of power and power struggles] (eucken, 1947, p. 306). https://changing-sp.com/ 16 thomas f. remington for eucken and böhm, in short, the question of the distribution of power was central to their analysis. like the framers of the american constitution, they recognized that state power must be sufficient to check the abuses of power by private interests, but not so great as to infringe on the freedom of private interests and citizens to act in such a way as to further socially desirable objectives, such as prosperity and justice. “the problem of economic power,” wrote eucken, “can never be solved by further concentrations of power” (eucken, 1951, p. 36). it is but a few steps removed to the american pluralist school of the mid-20th century, which saw in the competition of organized interests a “dispersion of inequalities” that resisted such concentration of either private or state power as to infringe on individual rights (cf. dahl, 1961, 1982). the question of power—the inevitable pursuit of state power by powerful private interests—was recognized in early writings of such chicago economists as george stigler and the early public choice school writers. over time, however, the neoliberals only saw the abuse of government power by rent-seeking interests as arising from the poor, the minorities, the labor unions, and democrats; never were they willing to defy their corporate sponsors by suggesting that as corporate power grew larger, more concentrated, and more politically adept, it was the “winners” of market competition that would seize government power to protect monopoly rents, not the losers6. iv. perspectives on neoliberalism vail, blyth, and slobodian each offers a distinctive perspective on neoliberal doctrine. mark vail’s book argues that liberalizing national policies in france, germany and italy in recent decades were not in fact applications of neoliberal theory. this is the basis for his characterization of their economies as “illiberal.” he ascribes these deviations to the influence of national intellectual traditions on elites. he offers shorthand descriptions of each—“french statism, german neocorporatism, and italian clientelism” (vail, 2018, p. 5 and passim). vail is strongest on france. he is less knowledgeable about germany, and his treatment of italy is somewhat cursory. most of the book is based on interviews, although he has conducted some research into original, secondary, and journalistic sources as well. vail believes in the power of ideas to influence policy through their effect in guiding the outlooks of policymakers. therefore, in his framework, when the simple, universalistic doctrines of neoliberalism were understood and applied in particular national settings, it was the intellectual traditions of those countries’ national elites that adapted neoliberalism to their own national circumstances. slobodian also emphasizes the global outlook of neoliberalism but makes a different point. for slobodian, neoliberalism has always had a global perspective, and has always aimed at establishing a political order conducive to its free-market, 6 this insight, articulated in respect of the post-communist economic reform experience of russia and other east european systems by joel hellman in 1998 (hellman, 1998), would have been consistent with the ordoliberals’ view of history but was entirely alien to the neoliberals. i will return to this point below. in her book democracy in chains, nancy maclean shows that james buchanan justified denying equal access to education for blacks on the grounds of the primacy of private property rights and states’ rights, effectively joining public choice theory to southern segregationism (maclean, 2017). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 17 laissez-faire ideology. its major proponents, from the very start, toyed with various notions of world government or at any rate world free trade regimes, with varying levels of success. slobodian illuminates a particular center for the global outlook in the neoliberal tradition, which he calls the “geneva school,” a rival to freiburg or chicago as a home to this strand of neoliberalism. their objective effectively was to make the world safe for capital. slobodian skillfully traces the continuity of the global framing of the neoliberal doctrine from its origins to the present day. he treats ordoliberalism as part of this project: “i argue that we can understand the proposal of the geneva school as a rethinking of ordoliberalism at the scale of the world. we might call it ordoglobalism” (slobodian, 2018, p. 11). however, i believe this represents a serious misreading of ordoliberalism. blyth pursues a different line of argument. blyth treats the doctrine that economic austerity is necessary to squeeze out inflationary forces and restore healthy economic exchange as a malign and “dangerous idea.” he characterizes it as generally unworkable, anti-democratic, and punitive toward those least able to bear the burden of fiscal and financial austerity, while benefiting banking interests and others. often it has a strong moralistic dimension as well. while blyth is undoubtedly correct that austerity policies have distributional effects, he overlooks the point that any fiscal and regulatory policy does as well. if neoliberalism’s simplistic faith that government is bad, the market good, that as property rights are established, the rule of law will follow along with productive investment and broadly shared prosperity, is flawed, likewise so is the notion that any alternative to austerity will automatically benefit both economy and society. blyth maintains a singular focus on the history of the idea of austerity, but slights the political and economic contexts in which it is applied. economists who imagine that their theories give them ready-made policy solutions to a crisis of hyper-inflation wherever it occurs are obviously vulnerable to the empirical evidence that their remedies fail more often than not. but by the same logic, we must be wary of equally simplistic faith in the virtues of public spending. if a government is in bed with its cronies, public spending is likely to make both the cronies and the politicians richer without raising the standard of living of the rest of the society. under conditions of high inequality in the polity and the economy, any simple policy formula will be applied so as to benefit those with economic and political power. unlike vail or slobodian, mark blyth (2013) deals in detail with ordoliberalism. he even pays it a backhanded compliment: “by way of summing up so far, germany provided a postwar home for austerity arguments in the form of ordoliberalism, the instruction sheet for how to run a late-developer, high-savings, high-technology, export-driven economy. it’s a great instruction sheet—so long as you are indeed the late-developing, high-savings, high-technology, and export-driven economy in question. if you are not, as the periphery of the eurozone is finding out, then it’s a one-way ticket to permanent austerity” (blyth, 2013, p. 151). this is too pat. netherlands, denmark, sweden, and switzerland all have higher shares of foreign trade in gdp than germany without having ordoliberal traditions, and all have more strongly positive trade balances. meantime, us foreign trade as a share of gdp is https://changing-sp.com/ 18 thomas f. remington far lower than any of them, and is negative, although neoliberalism has had a much greater impact in the united states. therefore, it is inaccurate to claim that germany’s ordoliberalism’s tradition works only in germany because it is germany. because history shapes both the creation and operation of institutions, it is extremely difficult to separate the effects of institutional arrangements from the conditions under which they arose. if this applies to ordoliberalism and neoliberalism, it applies with equal validity to state socialism and keynesianism. vail’s treatment of ordoliberalism and of germany is one-sided. he emphasizes the importance of the corporate organizations of labor and employers but makes no reference to the social partnership principle or the ways in which it has facilitated price and wage restraint, joint investment in skill, and the embodiment of balanced representation by labor and business in institutions such as labor courts and enterprise governance. he overstates the dominance of big business and understates the importance of the mittelstand, the sector of smalland mediumsized firms, often specializing in niche products for export markets, which has been important both to germany’s economic success and to its social stability. vail’s survey of german economic and social institutions overlooks a number of crucial features, such as the social insurance system and its important link to institutions of coordinated investment in skill. the treatment of ordoliberalism lacks important detail, such as its relationship to the principle of the social market economy. although vail emphasizes the dualism between labor market insiders and outsiders, he makes no effort to explore ways in which germany has sought to incorporate outsiders into the system of social partnership. the absence of any comparative metrics for assessing the levels of poverty, unemployment, and inequality in germany relative to levels elsewhere leaves an inaccurate impression of germany’s economic system. although vail is interested in the “institutional and ideational manifestations” of ideas (vail, 2018, p. 5), he has not actually explored the primary sources. at the same time, like blyth and slobodian and other authors reviewed here, his emphasis on the power of ideas leaves him unequipped to consider how neoliberal doctrines in many countries—the united states and russia, among others—are used as instruments for rent-capture by powerful corporate interests. v. ordoliberalism and neoliberalism the two edited books differ somewhat in scope. the subject of mirowski and plehwe’s book the road from mont pèlerin: the making of the neoliberal thought collective (2015) is neoliberalism. the editors frame ordoliberalism as neoliberalism’s german version. dieter plehwe’s introduction argues that the neoliberalism originating with the mont pèlerin society should be seen as a “thought collective,” rather than a coherently bounded philosophy (mirowski & plehwe, 2015, p. 4). this is a similar approach to kenneth dyson (2021), who also sees ordoliberalism as an open-ended, evolving tradition rather than a defined school of thought, and as part of a larger movement that he terms “conservative liberalism.” both stress the ways in which germany’s ordoliberals parted company from the mps neoliberals and, as plehwe changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 19 puts it, “succeeded in developing an alternative third way to the keynesian welfare and planning state right after world war ii—the social market economy” (dyson, 2021, p. 27). therefore, although the mirowski and plehwe volume tends to treat ordoliberalism as part of a larger stream of neoliberal thought, it is a distinct variant of it, and one which became increasingly distinct as the chicago school of thinking gained ground from the 1950s. of the essays in the mirowski and plehwe volume, the one most specifically devoted to ordoliberalism is by a scholar based in germany who wrote his dissertation on ordoliberalism, ralph ptak. ptak’s view is largely negative. he associates the ordoliberals with german traditions of patriarchy and authoritarianism. he attempts to argue that their belief in a strong state was “akin” to nazi ideology and to carl schmitt, the nazis’ legal apologist. they held, in ptak’s view, a “fundamental skepticism toward democracy” (mirowski & plehwe, 2015, pp. 125). such influence as they had was thanks to american occupation as well as “massive neoliberal propaganda” disseminated through “veiled multilayer networks” (mirowski & plehwe, 2015, pp. 121–122). since the early days, moreover, it has tended to evolve into an anglo-saxon version of neoliberalism. ptak has studied ordoliberal texts and archival documents but dyson’s much more extensive research in the primary sources and archives refutes much of ptak’s critique. despite the frequent charge that the ordoliberals drew their belief in the strong state from carl schmitt’s doctrines (this charge recurs in werner bonefeld’s chapter in the hien and joerges volume, and in writing by michel foucault, among others), this is in fact an error. the ordoliberals, like most other european intellectuals, observed the failure of the parliamentary system of the weimar republic, and concluded that a stronger executive institution was needed to stabilize a parliamentary democracy. charles de gaulle drew the same conclusions in his 1946 bayeux proposal for a new constitution, which underlay the successful mixed constitutional forms of the fifth republic. germany adopted a “constructive vote of no confidence” into the constitution of the federal republic, hardly an anti-democratic provision, and one which has successfully prevented the constant fall of weak coalition governments characteristic of some other european democracies. likewise, ordoliberals were hardly alone among intellectuals—hannah arendt is a good example—who feared the potential that a “mass society” lacking the fabric of a civil society would succumb to totalitarianism. likewise, the damning charge that the ordoliberals were tainted by nazi associations breaks down upon closer examination. it is the case that a number of ordoliberals had ties to the nazi party at an early stage, before the 1930s. a later ordoliberal, wolfgang müller-armack (who coined the term “social market economy” after the war) was a nazi party member from 1933. another early figure in the freiburg group, hans großmann-doerth, remained a nazi party member through the war. this led eucken and böhm to cut off relations with him. krystallnacht in 1938 shocked eucken and böhm. both refused to serve the nazi regime; böhm was stripped of his teaching duties at freiburg, and both https://changing-sp.com/ 20 thomas f. remington joined a resistance circle in freiburg and helped in the drafting of the bonhoeffer memorandum. wilhelm röpke was dismissed from his university position and forced to leave the country; likewise, alexander rüstow fled the country. eucken resisted rector martin heidegger’s efforts to impose a “führerprinzip” at the university, and, at a time of intense political pressure, spoke out against celebrations of irrationalism and moral relativism (dyson, 2021, pp. 56–66, 425–432). as early as 1932, eucken wrote against a dictatorship that imposes a “total” state serving as a “substitute for religion”. it was precisely against such a regime that state power is needed to protect individual freedom against oppression by governing elites (dyson, 2021, p. 36). three of the freiburg ordoliberals were arrested for anti-nazi activity. in his private papers, eucken compared the ordoliberals to the tradition of galileo, cicero, and socrates, who put up heroic intellectual resistance to tyranny. in 1944, eucken joined with another colleague from the resistance circle and drafted a study to serve as a blueprint for rebuilding the economy after the war. it was in this atmosphere that eucken turned to a deeper study of kant, schiller and tocqueville, seeking a conception of individual freedom that could counter the temptations of romantic nationalism. much of the criticism of ordoliberalism presented in the vail, slobodian and blyth books lacks adequate historical context. the authors tend to apply present-day standards of judgment without sufficient appreciation of the collapse of liberalism in europe in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. the appropriation of militant nationalism by totalitarian fascists and nazis and of collectivism by communists, the fall of weak democracies, and the loss of social bearings all led to a wide-ranging search for new foundations for a viable liberalism. slobodian’s understates how powerfully nationalism had fueled antidemocratic and antimarket movements throughout europe, favoring fascist forms of corporatism and cartels. for example, wilhelm röpke—whom slobodian reveals to be viciously racist in later decades—defended free trade in the immediate post-war period as the most effective constraint on the reemergence of german nationalism and monopoly capitalism (dyson, 2021, p. 36). the ordoliberals’ defense of free trade represented a direct response to the ruinous nationalism that resulted in world war ii. we must remember that the ordoliberals were engaging with their times, not with ours7. ordoliberals were not alone in the mid-20th century in seeking principles for an international order that could protect peace, justice, equality, and freedom. for that matter, immanuel kant had looked to an international federation of republics, even a form of “world cititzenship,” guaranteeing basic individual freedom in his essay “eternal peace” of 1795. the internationalist perspectives of the mid-20th century can hardly be reduced to the conspiratorial working of a neoliberal technocratic elite. if this soil nurtured the seeds of contemporary globalization, as slobodian argues, it also fostered the contemporary international human rights, anti-colonial, and democratization movements. although we no longer consider soviet-style central planning a viable alternative to the crises of capitalism, for many in the 1930s, it offered a vividly 7 walter eucken quoted schiller: “live with your century, but do not be its creature; serve your contemporaries but given them what they need, not what they praise” (dyson, 2021, p. 64). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 21 present model, debated vigorously throughout the world. the british aristocratic socialists sidney and beatrice webb wrote a much-discussed book presenting the soviet system as a new civilization (webb & webb, 1936). our memory of that time has faded. we are preoccupied with the failures of the capitalist system in the face of multiple financial crises and recessions, and its apparently inability to cope with the existential threat of climate change. but political support today for a communist revolution to deal with these and other crises has disappeared. we are therefore apt to underestimate the attractions of the planned economy for western intellectuals in the 1930s and wonder at the large amount of attention the ordoliberals paid to it as they developed a model of capitalism that was neither laissez-faire, nor cartel-dominated, or overtaken by state central planning. to fail to appreciate these historical circumstances is therefore to miss the real contribution that the ordoliberals made. the mirowski and plehwe volume includes two useful accounts of the relationship of the chicago school to neoliberalism, one by rob van horn and philip mirowski and another by rob van horn. rob van horn contrasts the worries of the early generation of chicago economists, such as frank knight and henry simons, about the dangers that monopolies and corporate power more generally posed to market economies and political democracies. in a little pamphlet published in 1934, simons—who studied with eucken—wrote that the great enemy of democracy is monopoly, in all its forms […] the representation of laissez faire as a merely do-nothing policy is unfortunate and misleading. it is an obvious responsibility of the state under this policy to maintain the kind of legal and institutional framework within which competition can function effectively as an agency of control. thus, the state is charged, under this ‘division of labor’, with heavy responsibilities and large ‘control’ functions: the maintenance of competitive conditions in industry. (simons, 1934, pp. 3–4) latter-day chicagoans, of course, rejected this view. they held that no matter how damaging monopoly power might be to social welfare, any effort by government to curb it would produce even worse effects. they regarded the older progressive view that only government power could curb the concentrated influence of trusts, monopolies and cartels as outdated, even pernicious. van horn shows that the shift in chicago school thinking about corporate power occurred between the late 1940s and late 1950s. these economists persuaded themselves that competitive forces are always at work—based on the deductive logic that if monopoly power to extract rents in a market is available, a competitor will always enter that market to claim a share of those rents. as friedman put it, the “workings of competition are devious and hidden” (cited in van horn, mirowski & plehwe, p. 219). forgotten were the analyses of public choice scholars about the ways in which those with monopoly power will expend resources to capture government administrative power in order to preserve those rents, if doing so is less costly than investing in risky efforts to improve productivity. https://changing-sp.com/ 22 thomas f. remington vi. ordoliberalism and the eurozone debt crisis the hien and joerges (2017) volume provides more background on ordoliberalism itself, but its contributions are rather cursory. their main focus is the influence of ordoliberal thinking on german responses to the eurozone debt crisis. the impetus for the volume is the widely held view that ordoliberalism was the intellectual ground for germany’s resistance to more generous terms for restructuring the debt of southern european countries. most of the contributors to the volume, however, have relatively little to say about ordoliberalism itself. essays by bruno amable and by arnaud lechevalier discuss french intellectuals’ interpretations of ordoliberalism; stefano solari discusses the italian reception of ordoliberalism; william callison discusses the view taken by the united states, including by timothy geithner, who attributed germany’s “old testament” rigidity and moralism to its religious and ordoliberal tradition. a chapter by kenneth dyson presents a balanced treatment of ordoliberalism as a tradition, which he expounds at much greater length in the recent book. a few essays—notably by angela wigger, who treats ordoliberalism as nothing more than a “foundational myth” for germany’s social market economy, with little actual impact on german policy; by philip manow, for whom germany’s welfare state is directly contradictory to ordoliberal principles; and by brigitte young, who argues that germany’s policies had little to do with ordoliberalism and a great deal with german national self-interest—dismiss its influence as marginal at most. other writers ascribe more influence to ordoliberal thought. josef hien writes that the “deep grammar” of ordoliberalism is “crypto-protestant values” (hien & joerges, 2017, p. 262). hien does acknowledge, to be sure, the more generally recognized influence of catholic social thought on the “social” ordoliberals, notably alfred müeller-armack, who saw “social market economy” as a deliberate effort to marry the liberalism of the freiburg school with a theoretical and practical commitment to the principle that the economy must serve to raise living standards and opportunity for all sections of society. this emphasis created a constant dynamic tension in the evolution of ordoliberal thinking and in its impact on policy between the “liberal” and “social” wings of the movement. they disagreed, however, more over emphasis than fundamental principles. as dyson again points out, this divergence also reflects the gap between general economic principle and their application to specific policy issues. like other political and intellectual movements, the ordoliberals had their purist and pragmatic wings (something like the tension between the “fundis” and the “realos” among the green party in the 1980s). eucken was never particularly adept at addressing specific policy issues, whereas others in the movement, such as alfred müller-armack welcomed engagement in them in order to apply general principles to the extent circumstances permitted8. 8 alfred müller-armack was an economist who strongly argued that an economy should serve social justice; he therefore rejected the laissez-faire conceptions of most neoliberals. during the war, he advised the german government but fell out with the regime and began turning his attention to the principles of a postwar economy. it was he who coined the term “social market economy,” reflecting his conviction that a market-oriented competitive economy must serve the larger good of society. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 23 the contribution by stephan pühringer in the hien and joerges volume argues that ordoliberalism became an important “guiding principle” for german policymakers at a number of turning points in the postwar period. therefore, in his view, after the debt crisis erupted, the german response reflected not so much the return of ordoliberalism as its application to new problems. ordoliberal thinking had remained strong in a number of policymaking centers, such as think tanks and economics departments and key media outlets such as the frankfurter allgemeine zeitung, and embedded in a broader international network of neoliberal thinkers (pühringer, in hien and joerges, 2017, pp. 144–158). in this respect, his position is akin to that of other writers reviewed here who tend to downplay the specific theoretical points of the ordoliberals in favor of their membership in the larger international movement of liberals. to some degree, this position therefore understates both the specific contributions of ordoliberal ideas to early german postwar reconstruction and to its institutional legacy. nonetheless, pühringer is surely right in demonstrating the continuing relevance of ordoliberalism, which, as dyson and other authors observe, is part of the “operational code” of german economic thinking (dyson, 2021, p. 89). other contributors declare that ordoliberalism’s influence on german institutions was minimal, a matter of myth-making and propaganda. albert weale rejects the notion that ordoliberalism influenced the social market economy, or indeed that the social market economy shaped germany’s economic miracle. whatever successes germany enjoyed, he claims, owed to allied pressure for the currency reform, for the cdu’s decision to adopt a comprehensive employment-based old-age pension system in 1957, and to collective bargaining between organized labor and organized employers (weale in jien & joerges, 2017, pp. 237–239). running through the hien and joerges book, the mirowski and plehwe volume as well as the books by vail, blyth and especially slobodian, is the persistent claim that ordoliberalism was antidemocratic. like ptak, some of the authors attribute ordoliberals’ call for a strong state to carl schmitt’s nazi-inflected “political theology” (bonefeld in hien & joerges, 2017, pp. 273–288). others note that ordoliberals feared the potential that mass democracy could assume authoritarian or totalitarian forms. still others claim that ordoliberalism was anti-pluralist because of its concern that strong interest groups sought to capture the state to advance their purposes. thomas biebricher claims that the ordoliberals wanted to “de-pluralize” democracy and replace it with “technocracy” (biebricher in hien & joerges, 2017, p. 113). michel foucault, cited by several of the authors in the hien and joerges volume, interpreted ordoliberalism as statist and technocratic. for maurizio ferrera, the ordoliberals were “obsessed” by anxiety about pressure from “special interests,” that needed to be “caged” through market institutions (ferrara in hien & joerges, 2017, p. 116). albert weale argues that ordoliberalism stressed, “in a partial form, a few elementary, but essential, economic truths.” however, while frugality and productivity are important to advancing prosperity, by themselves, they cannot solve europe’s larger problems. for these, “europe needs the true democrat to marry the schwabian housewife” 9. here again is the premise that 9 weale in hien and joerges (2017, p. 244). the swipe at the “swabian housewife” is a reference to a stereotype that angela merkel liked to use at the height of the crisis, referring to the virtues of frugality. https://changing-sp.com/ 24 thomas f. remington ordoliberalism offers only the discipline of the marketplace and the strong hand of a paternalistic, elitist, and technocratic state as its political theory. the same critique underpins slobodian’s book, which argues that neoliberalism represents an effort to “encase” and “inoculate” market capitalism against democracy. the accusation that ordoliberalism is antidemocratic does not hold up to closer scrutiny. for one thing, it elides any distinctions among mass democracy, pluralism, interest group politics, parliamentary democracy, and the likelihood of state capture by oligarchs in a liberalizing state. it is hardly anti-democratic to point out that those groups amassing immense market power will use it politically to suppress any threats to their position either politically economically. no more vivid example of this phenomenon exists than in the deployment of the accumulating power of immensely wealthy conservative and corporate interests in the united states to suppress the voting rights of african-americans, to block any movement to protect workers’ interests or enforce environmental protection laws, to expand the provision of public goods, and to weaken the enforce of market regulation of financial markets. under these conditions—described and foreseen by the ordoliberals—is it antidemocratic to argue that only robust market competition can prevent the amassing of great market power and thus lead to the suppression of both political and economic freedom? yet this point, that concentrated market power will always join with political power to suppress freedom, was fundamental to eucken and böhm’s writings and runs through them from the beginning. this was the premise on which they based their consistent position that a comprehensive constitutional order to protect competition is requisite both to prosperity and to social justice. likewise, to believe that policymaking should be based on facts and reason is hardly to cede power to “technocrats.” in fact, one of the consistent themes of the ordoliberals is that economics has to look squarely at empirical data, and not rely only on pure deductive axioms; in this they differed from hayek or the later chicago school economists. they also argued against the “historical school” in german economics, which held that as conditions changed, so did basic principles of economics. using this reasoning, many of the historical school argued that the rise of large-scale industrial and financial power, deploying all the resources of modern technology—such as railroads and telegraphy—were an inevitable stage in the evolution of capitalism. these views, shared both on the right and left by figures such as rockefeller, morgan, debs and lenin, were roundly rejected by the ordoliberals (as they had been by louis brandeis in the united states). there was no historical inevitably for the rise of giant trusts, monopolies, and state capitalist structures, eucken and böhm insisted. even the seeming efficiency gains realized by larger economies of scale were nugatory in view of the inevitable tendency of the monopolist to claim rents by suppressing rivals and risk rather than to raise efficiency. only competition could ensure a continuous stream of pressure for innovation, they held10. most of the books reviewed here ignore this argument. 10 likewise, louis brandeis argued in 1913 that when a monopoly is efficient, it will absorb the benefit, not the society. for the same reason, if we observe higher earnings on the part of a monopolistic firm, we should not interpret it as a sign of greater efficiency (brandeis, 1913). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 25 vii. ordoliberalism and conservative liberalism kenneth dyson has studied ordoliberalism for many years. he seeks neither to praise nor to bury it. he has no particular ideological ax to grind and does not seek to interpret ordoliberalism in such a way as to support an argument about the impact of neoliberalism. his study is (to my knowledge) the most authoritative available in english11. dyson places ordoliberalism in the historical context of the “conservative liberal” tradition, which includes such figures as louis brandeis in the united states. he seeks to refute the idea that ordoliberalism is a peculiarly german phenomenon, reflecting german traditions and applied largely to specific german conditions. dyson certainly shows that ordoliberalism plays a key role in the myth-making of german postwar history. separating myth and memory from actual history is difficult. both ordoliberalism’s champions and enemies position themselves on this issue. some skeptics believe that its role was mainly myth and pr, as do some of its critics; some of its champions consider it a real force, far more than a myth, while others sympathetic to it consider its effects relatively marginal or limited in time to few early years in the postwar period. dyson takes a middle ground on both points. he takes pains to show the limits of ordoliberalism’s actual influence on policy. he points out, for example, that for all their emphasis on the necessity of a sound currency and price stability to enable all agents in the economic process to make rational decisions about the use of resources, the ordoliberals had surprisingly little to say about the role of a central bank. the establishment of a strong, independent central bank in 1948 owed little to ordoliberal influence (dyson, 2021, p. 377). they offered little guidance regarding monetary policy, or even fiscal policy. they “lacked a theory of public goods” (dyson, 2021, p. 400). many of the difficult policy choices german faced were influenced by ordoliberalism, if at all, only when figures associated with ordoliberal thinking accepted pragmatic compromises to their principles, generally by accepting a larger degree of autonomy for the collective bargaining institutions of labor and employers, a more comprehensive system of social insurance, more government intervention to stabilize employment and the balance of payments, and political compromises as the price of european integration. often the purists in the movement opposed them. however, both in the early years and later, the fundamentalist and pragmatic wings of ordoliberals agreed on basic principles and values (dyson, 2021, p. 400). dyson sees the importance of ordoliberalism above all in its insistence on moral values as the foundation of the market order, that a market economy must serve a larger good than private gain. one dimension of that normative position was based in kantian universalism, another in catholic social thinking about the just society. these strands of moral philosophy found their expression in the notion of the “social market economy,” which has proven to be much more workable than most observers thought 11 wilga föste’s book (2006) grundwerte in der ordnungskonzeption der sozialen marktwirtschaft, offers a comprehensive review of the basic theories underpinning the social market economy concept. it therefore covers ordoliberalism in depth. it gives little attention, however, to the relationship of ordoliberalism to german or european policies and institutions, focusing rather on an exhaustive description of the values of freedom, equality, and justice as they are reflected in the social market economy philosophy. https://changing-sp.com/ 26 thomas f. remington possible at the time. note that this means that if ordoliberals can be criticized for reflecting the social conservatism of the mittelstand, with the priority it gives to social attachments to family and community, they cannot be simultaneously be criticized for treating individual self-interest as the highest good. dyson admires their moral integrity but shows dispassionately that they were silent or self-contradictory on many points, and that their actual influence as a result was relatively limited. he acknowledges that ordoliberalism has been surrounded by a somewhat self-congratulatory mythology, but he does not for that reason dismiss the myth as false or unjustified. as he notes, many of the latter-day decisions made by germany’s policymakers have been more influenced by american institutional economics than by older ordoliberal theory, and he points out that many of the great problems facing germany—and other countries— today must find answers from other sources. these include problems such as global climate change, economic inequality, corporate governance, and the quality of public life. yet he concurs that whatever the defects of ordoliberalism may be, laissez-faire liberalism is far more vulnerable to criticism, given the fact that it has served as ideological justification for a massive “accumulation of privileges of wealth, income, and access to office” that characterize the united states and some other capitalist democracies (dyson, 2021, p. 442). as thorough as dyson’s study is, it tends not to emphasize sufficiently the importance the ordoliberals assigned to competition as the best way to prevent accumulations of market power that would invariably become threats to both economic and political freedom. they treated competition as the antithesis of compulsion through public or private monopoly, and as a precondition of freedom12. in direct contrast to hayek, for example, or the chicago school, they argued that the rules of a market order do not emerge organically or spontaneously; they are the products of human institutional choice. economic order emerges through market coordination, but the rules ensuring fair and free competition themselves must be established and enforced by government. these basic propositions are not discussed in most of the works reviewed here, but were fundamental to all their writings from the start (for example, böhm et al., 1937). moreover, these principles influenced german and european antimonopoly enforcement bodies, such as germany’s monopolkommission and bundeskartellamt and the european commission’s competition authority. many interpretations treat germany’s postwar institutional order as dominated by corporate business interests (angela wigger, for example, writes that germany has taken “a permissive approach to economic concentration to sustain fordist accumulation structures by means of large corporations”) (wigger in hien & joerges, 2017, p. 177). certainly, in the immediate postwar years, the iron and steel and coal cartels were extremely powerful, deriving their power not only from their control over industrial resources critically needed for rebuilding but also by the corporatist ties with the centralized labor unions in their sectors. the ordoliberals, and erhard, fought hard to minimize their influence, both in germany, and then at the european level (abelshauser 2004, p. 166 and passim). it is more than a little ironic that the american occupation 12 cf. böhm et al. (1937), and in eucken’s many writings. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 27 authorities, who had ardently backed most of erhard’s market-oriented policies, turned in the opposite direction once the korean war broke out. a memorandum from john mccloy on march 6, 1951, demanded “a significant modification of the free market economy” and direct government intervention into production, prices, and currency in order to serve western war needs, making further us assistance conditional on german’s compliance with its demands. erhard made minimal concessions to appease the united states, confining cartel arrangements to the mining and metallurgy industries. in recent decades, industrial concentration has in fact declined, in contrast to the united states13. meantime, the mittelstand of small and medium-scale firms, which contribute over half of german value-added and over one third of total turnover, continuous to remain crucial. germany’s principle of social partnership is an element of the social market economy ideal, which contains ordoliberal ideas as well as an elite consensus that social peace is required to avert polarization and extremism as well as to achieve the collective commitment to high productivity that enables germany to succeed in a globally competitive economy. ordoliberalism is not the source of the social partnership model, but it influenced some of its major institutions. viii. ordoliberalism and german postwar institutions the federal republic’s first economic minister, ludwig erhard, was strongly influenced by ordoliberal thinking and brought both eucken and böhm into his government. however, erhard drew on ordoliberal thinking selectively, basing his decisions on his own judgment about how and when to apply principles to immediate problems. a practical thinker rather than a theoretician, erhard combined a firm set of doctrinal inclinations with a forceful personality, a gift at articulating his thinking publicly, and a politician’s pragmatic instinct about when to compromise and when to stand firm. in contrast, ordoliberal theoreticians such as eucken and böhm tended to view policy issues in a more abstract philosophical light. it was under erhard that the ordoliberal philosophy had its maximum impact on government policy, although eucken, böhm, and other ordoliberals frequently opposed him on particular issues. erhard remained in power through 1966, serving as chancellor in the last three years of the period. in 1966, the government changed hands and a new social democratic government entered government. although the new government retained many of the initial institutional choices made by the cdu government, they introduced a number of policies drawn from keynesian theory. they saw their program as building on, not overturning, the paradigm established in the first two decades. as the spd leader karl schiller put it, their vision was a “synthesis of freiburg imperative and keynesian message” or a “magic triangle” that “incorporated concepts of the keynesian model, the freiburg school, and the neoclassical synthesis 13 see monopolkommission (2018); heidorn and weche (2021); wambach and weche (2018). note that as in the united states, markups have risen across all industries, although they have risen more for firms in more concentrated branches and those with higher market power. however, profit margins are not rising when weighted by revenue shares. https://changing-sp.com/ 28 thomas f. remington for economic policy decisions”14. consequently, it is not the case that germany adopted a keynesian program at any point. germany has selectively employed policy measures aimed at boosting productivity, growth and employment without greatly expanding public sector employment or redistributive fiscal and social policy measures. its system of social insurance remains firmly based in employment, but over the decades has expanded both coverage and financing to include more state budget subsidies and, most recently, a growing element of private provision (such as the “riester pensions”). the change in german institutions has been continuous and adaptive, very different from the perspective presented by some analysts who believe that there was an initial equilibrium that subsequently broke down under the strain of inflation in the 1970s, globalizing pressures for liberalization or reunification (cf. streeck, 2010; thelen, 2014). crucial elements of the social partnership principle are institutionally embedded. one is germany’s apprenticeship system, called “dual education”, under which schools and firms share responsibility for providing technical and vocational education under a system of relations balancing cooperation and competition between business and labor (remington, 2018). other features of industrial relations also work to realize the broad principle of “social partnership” between labor and capital, which is embedded in multiple institutions. over time it has evolved incrementally, loosening in some respects as corporatist elements have given way to more flexible labor markets, and tightening in others as the courts have defined the rights of employees and employers more concretely. one of the most distinctive forms of the principle is germany’s co-determination system, under which workers are guaranteed representation on the governing boards—both the management board and supervisory board—of firms, as well as the enterpriselevel works councils. co-determination has been regularly modified and extended (streeck & hassel, 2004, p. 103). workers’ right to participate in the selection of the director of a firm, granted by federal law, was upheld by the constitutional court over strong objections by business. the system of labor courts, which adjudicate labor disputes and are composed of representatives of business, labor and government, constitute another element of the social partnership principle (streeck, 1984). because collective bargaining has been relatively successful in balancing wage and price restraint, the ordoliberals’ insistence on price stability has been realized for the most part without imposing fiscal or monetary austerity. austerity has never been an instrument or goal of german economic policy15. the objective of the social market economy is to ensure that sacrifices and gains are shared widely. moreover, so far at least, social partnership has not produced stasis or declining productivity. rather, as abelshauser argues, it encourages the sharing of the gains of productivity growth among workers and employers (abelshauser 2004, pp. 431–433). 14 “synthese von freiburger imperativ und keynesianischen botschaft.” (quoted in abelshauser, 2004, p. 413; cf. katzenstein, 1987, p. 112). 15 a point erhard often made. see, for example, ludwig erhard (2020, p. 331). to be sure, following the maastricht treaty, germany adopted a constitutional limit on national debt (the so-called “debt brake”). this has not required policies of austerity, however, because economic growth has enabled the budget to avoid running a structural deficit since 2012 and to reduce the state debt. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 29 although the social partnership concept is not based in ordoliberalism, it is part of the broader social market economy philosophy, and in practice has worked to constrain wage-price pressure and thus to maintain price stability. because it has constrained competition between labor and business within a cooperative framework, it has helped to preserve the constitutional protections for equality of political rights. establishment of the new postwar policy paradigm in the late 1940s represented a sharp break from past systems, although the new system certainly adapted some older elements of germany’s political economy while introducing new features grounded in ordoliberal theory. since then, germany has not adopted a new policy paradigm16. germany’s liberalization in the late 1940s laid the foundations for a system that retained fundamental features of the original postwar system while adjusting it to new demands. 70 years later, germany’s postwar performance compares favorably to any other advanced capitalist democracy with respect to concrete outcomes such as the growth and distribution of incomes, employment and labor force trends, the quality of public goods, the extent of poverty and deep poverty, the vigor of electoral democracy, and the protection of political rights. germany has not sacrificed equity to efficiency under the pressure of european integration, globalization, automation, social change, or unification or succumbed to polarization and extremism. polarization and extremism are present in germany, as they are elsewhere in europe, but are nowhere near american levels. growth has generated widely shared prosperity, as the ordoliberals hoped, reinforcing the stability of the original democratic compact. ix. “early winners” one final point. it is regrettable that the architects of market liberalization in russia and other post-communist countries never took germany’s postwar reconstruction as a source of usable ideas. to be sure, germany’s wartime economy differed from that of the soviet-type communist systems; the hitler regime had imposed high centralization of control but not full nationalization of property relations. on the other hand, the suppression of workers’ rights, consumption, entrepreneurship and market exchange under a totalitarian mobilization regime might have been considered at least somewhat relevant as a comparison. moreover, the ordoliberal doctrine that economic and political freedom must rest in a competitive order that is formed and enforced by the state could have been considered useful guidance. in the event, however, the post-soviet architects of reform and their western advisors never referred to ordoliberal theory. their theory rested rather on simple neoliberal dichotomies—private property rights must replace state ownership; market exchange must replace central planning; politicians serve special interests, never the public good, therefore government’s role must be minimized (for example, boycko et al., 1995). the concern of the reformers lay in preventing inflationary spending pressure, not in creating or protecting competition among producers. 16 i use the term policy paradigm in the sense in which peter hall defines the term: a major change of course entailing not only a shift in the policy instruments and operating procedures of government, but a significant alteration in the basic hierarchy of policy goals as well (hall, 1993). https://changing-sp.com/ 30 thomas f. remington although they recognized the immense concentrations of market power held by soviet industrial enterprises, most reformers believed that a greater threat to reform than monopoly power was the large monetary overhang and repressed demand that would drive up prices. therefore, tightening monetary and fiscal policy coupled with deregulation of prices would cure the harms done by monopoly (kroll, 1991). moreover, some believed, giant enterprises were potentially more efficient than their daughter enterprises and would be attractive targets for private investment. market competition would follow of its own accord so long as privatization and the emergence of a new, private sector proceeded unimpaired (broadman, 2000; johnson & kroll, 1991; joskow et al., 1994; leitzel, 1994). as james leitzel put it, “industrial concentration is not an important reform issue, irrespective of its detrimental impact on the russian economy” (leitzel, 1994, p. 46). this position was justified by the faith that “with free enterprise, barriers to entry will largely disappear.” market reform would do “much of this work automatically” (leitzel, 1994, p. 49). although major firms might seek protection from being forced to privatize, they were more likely to be seeking “better terms for privatization.” the possibility that monopolistic firms might prefer to invest in seeking protection from competition by allying with sympathetic political forces to taking entrepreneurial risk was ignored. rather, reformers simply assumed that once property rights were established, competition would spontaneously arise and dissipate monopoly rents. that corporate managers and politicians would prefer to share rents by blocking competition seems not to have occurred to the reformers. in fact, from the very beginning, liberalization was fatally compromised by manipulation on the part of insiders. spontaneous privatization of state assets began well before shock therapy. numerous small firms sprang up, often using the premises, materials, and labor of state enterprises. large state enterprises and even entire ministries began to reorganize themselves into corporate forms such as “concerns” and “associations” to be able to engage in profit-seeking activity without risk of failure (johnson & kroll, 1991, pp. 289 ff.). the notorious loans-for-shares scheme and the dominant influence of the yeltsin-era oligarchs, continuing into the era of putin’s “silovarchs,” vividly demonstrate the continuing validity of hellman’s insight (aslund, 2019; dawisha, 2014; treisman, 2007). observing the tendency for the “early winners” of reform to become the real obstacles to liberalization, joel hellman published a prescient article in 1998 showing that it was not the initial “losers” from market reform—industrial workers and urban consumers—who were the greatest threat to liberalization, but rather the “early winners” who most profited from arbitrage opportunities in the market and used their privileged positions to shut out competitors (hellman, 1998). by ignoring the theories and experience of establishing market economies in post-world war ii germany, the post-soviet reformers failed to recognize that, given the enormous distributional implications of entering a globally competitive marketplace, it was far more advantageous for those who acquired ownership and control rights to use their market power to ally with those in government who could protect their streams of rents than to restructure their enterprises. they had no incentive to create a rule-of-law regime so long as they could use their power to extract rents and to share a portion of changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 10–34 31 them with their allies in government. some awareness of ordoliberal theory might have awakened the reformers to the fact that power relations always shape the operation of a market economy. by itself, liberalization does not create a level playing field for market participants. ordoliberal principles do offer a third way to pure laissez-faire neoliberalism as well as to state socialism. as the ordoliberals themselves emphasized, behind ideologies stand power interests. therefore, just as neoliberalism has been placed in the service of predatory rent-seeking by corporate interests in the united states and elsewhere, ordoliberalism in practice would need to be backed by a set of interests whose power resources were evenly enough balanced that they shared a stake in an order that encouraged competition under an agreed set of rules. however, far from implying the suppression of pluralism by a strong state, a market order based on the dispersion of power across society would be the strongest guarantee against the threat posed by concentrated market and political power. a government in such a system would treat the market economy as an instrument for serving the public good rather than as an end in itself. references abelshauser, w. 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bhasker malu christ (deemed to be university), bangalore, india o. p. jindal global university, sonipat, india santhosh kareepadath rajan christ (deemed to be university), bangalore, india the work debating race in contemporary india by duncan mcduie-ra, is predominantly concerned with the discrimination faced by people from northeast india, in both the mainland and within the northeastern region. published a few years ago, it has not lost its relevance today. over the course of the book, the author uses multiple case studies such as portrayals of northeast indian people in media—movies, news, and books, and incidents of violence—that have taken place against them in multiple metropolitan cities in mainland india to highlight the stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination that is a common experience for this racial group. the narrative is constructed to explain how the indian government’s stance on racism moved from its complete denial to acceptance, due to the repeated incidents of violence. this change in stance was accompanied by the development of policy formulation to protect the racial minority. the author examines and explains the suggestions of the policy committee. he, however, maintains that india has multiple racial groups and focusing policy on the experiences of only the northeasterners privileges their experience at the exclusion of other racial groups. in conclusion, the author states that the present view on discrimination remains incomplete as racism is looked at as an experience that occurs within the mainland and not the northeast, even when ample evidence suggests the opposite. four incidents of discrimination between 2012 and 2014 are used to explain the change in the indian government’s stance on racism. the author then, contrasts the differences in the narratives around racism in metropolitan india and its ignorance in the militarised northeastern region. the book does not attempt to theorise causality or the effects of racism but does a remarkable job of providing a context to debates around racism against northeast indians. received 22 september 2022 © 2022 bhasker malu, santhosh kareepadath rajan published online 30 december 2022 bhasker.malu@res.christuniversity.in santhosh.kr@christuniversity.in https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 984–987 985 the author acknowledges that the categorisation of northeast indians into one homogeneous group is problematic. however, he justifies the usage of the term by claiming that northeasterners ascribe to these racial identities, stating, “race debates concerning northeast communities have been driven by their treatment in metropolitan india, far from the intricate dynamics of localised linguistic, ethnic and tribal identities” (p. 6). thereby, contesting that the understanding of racism in the indian context is conflicted between the emic and etic conceptualizations. the emic idea conceptualizes that physical and cultural differences change over time and are more fluid for the society in question. the author contends that the etic concepts of universality of race and racism are being used to understand the emic ideas when it comes to the northeasterners experiences. this conflicted conceptualization makes it easy to deny the existence of discrimination as the northeasterners traditionally conceptualize race difference in emic ways. the book consists of 5 chapters. chapter 1 introduces discrimination in india against northeasterners in metropolitan india and the northeastern region. the author uses elizabeth kolsky’s conceptualisation, referring to the northeast as the mongoloid fringe—based on their physical characteristics and location. numerous examples from movies, media portrayals, and news debates are used to elucidate the conversations surrounding racism in india—“the casting of northeast actors in roles that depict their communities and homelands is limited to supporting roles” (p. 16) the author argues that the northeast is seen as the “other” even though there have been attempts to make the northeastern region feel like a part of india. in chapter 2, the author assesses two incidents of racial discrimination in 2012 in bangalore. the choice of bangalore as a case study is important as the author wants to assert that discrimination against the northeast indians is not limited to delhi, as is often assumed. while discussing the two incidents, the author points out the ignorance of the police and the politicians toward the issues faced by the northeast indians. following this, he assesses the mass exodus that occurred within the same year. the exodus was a result of multiple incidents of violence that occurred against northeast indians. the author’s evaluation of the phenomenon is that the exodus was a major reason that marked a shift in the indian government’s behaviour towards northeast indians, as these cases of racism hurt the “global city” image of the metropolitan areas and led to a reduction in the labour force. however, in debates conducted by news agencies, there was still a general denial of racism, “politicians and high-ranking police were also quick to dismiss race from the scenario” (p. 42). chapter 3 analyses two incidents that occurred in delhi in 2013 and 2014. the author contends that the murder of a female, reingamphi awungshi represented similar failings of the police and political brass. they explain how the stereotype of northeast women being sexually promiscuous negatively affected a thorough investigation pointing out that “gender complicates race debates for a society fixated with morality” (p. 56). according to the author, the most significant shift in race debates started after the death of nido tania, who was beaten up twice in broad daylight, leading to his death. the reaction of the police was unfortunate once again and fit their general https://changing-sp.com/ 986 bhasker malu, santhosh kareepadath rajan tendency to ignore the pleas of the northeast indians. however, this incident provoked protests on the streets, on social media, electronic and print media at a scale not seen earlier. the author claims that the case of nido tania received more attention due to many factors. first, the victim was the son of a member of the legislative assembly (mla) from arunachal pradesh, meaning that there was a higher level of political power associated with this incident. second, a national election campaign was ongoing, and posturing from the politicians was necessary, which meant that they used this incident. third, nido tania belonged to arunachal pradesh, which demanded intervention from the political heavyweights as the state is considered the best-integrated state compared to any other northeastern state. the claim that it is best integrated is based on the fact that the primary language spoken in the state is hindi, and the most followed religion is hinduism. therefore, the incident against nido tania from arunachal pradesh represented the failure in state-building because it showed that discriminatory tendencies held by indians living in the mainland are race-based even when the individual belonged to a higher political class and was from a highly integrated state. the debate around racism shifted after the incident, from denial to acceptance—“politicians and police publically admitted to racism and prepared to ‘fix’ it, competing to be the harbingers of tolerance and national unity” (p. 42). at this point, a reason cited for discrimination in news media was the infrastructural underdevelopment of the northeastern region. chapter 4 examined the new policy proposed to fix racism by the bezbaruah committee. the committee suggested multiple reformations such as hotline numbers, fast track courts, a northeast special police unit, promoting northeast history in education, and using racist terms as criminal offences under the indian penal code. the author is largely supportive of the suggestions, stating that, “the report is nuanced in its understanding of how race is experienced and in showing awareness of counter arguments likely to be raised. it goes beyond simplistic integration and mutual recognition narratives and makes several surprisingly pointed criticisms of indian society, governance, and law enforcement” (p. 85). however, the author also argues that this attempt to fix racism is to protect the image of indian cities as “global spaces”. the author claims that this law privileges the discrimination faced by the northeasterners but does not explain which other groups may require similar interventions or what they mean by privilege in this context. while accepting that the promotion of the northeast and building awareness of its present and history is essential, the author raises pertinent questions concerning “what” parts of history will be promoted and who will make these decisions as the northeastern region has had its fair share of anti-india insurgencies. chapter 5 is an overview of the changes in the discussion around racial discrimination in india. the author points out two essential themes that have emerged from the measures taken by the government of india. one, racism is considered a phenomenon that needs to be fixed in metropolitan india and marginalises the borderland. two, these attempts to fix racism have been made as the government of india wants the “idea of india to remain inviolable” (p. 108). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 984–987 987 however, with the present measures that have been undertaken, fixing racism is possible only in the metropolitan areas and not the borderland. to elucidate this idea, the author highlights the example of an insurgent-ridden area called ukhrul, nagaland. individuals from the district leave due to its unruly condition and migrate to the metropolitan cities for their livelihood. the author contends that the present attempt to fix racism will only impact their lives in the cities and ignore the issues faced in their homes, stating: ukhrul illustrates the dramatic contrast between life in the borderland and life for many northeast migrants living in metropolitan india. a significant proportion of the population leaves the town for years at a time to live in india [...] many of them likely face racist taunts, discrimination in housing and at work, and few prospects of any traction with the police. the measures designed to fix racism will address some of these things, but only in the parts of their lives lived in metropolitan cities, and only if the laws are actually enforced […] the state-making project in the borderland is not complete and that the idea of india is contested—even in the context of a large outflow of migrants to indian cities, and their return. (p. 109) the book is an essential text in bringing out the transformations that have taken place in the debates surrounding racism in india. it brings forth the positive changes in view of the policymakers concerning the northeasterners negative experiences while also criticising the lack of focus on discrimination occurring within the northeastern region. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 804–822 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.204 received 13 october 2022 © 2022 elena n. gasiukova accepted 17 december 2022 egasyukova@hse.ru published online 30 december 2022 article between career and motherhood: factors affecting women’s career trajectories after childbirth in russia elena n. gasiukova national research university higher school of economics, moscow, russia abstract the paper puts forward the idea that a woman’s class (occupational position) contributes to the formation of certain orientations and values, which further determine a woman’s choice in favor of particular labor and life trajectory after the childbirth. the authors follow the career trajectory of women after the childbirth in russia to determine which women are more career-oriented and which are more family-oriented. for this, “russian longitudinal monitoring survey–higher school of economics” (rlms—hse) panel data from 2001–2021 are employed. drawing on a six-year period—the year before the birth and four years after the childbirth—the authors construct the sequences of various status changes (employed, unemployed, parental leave) and identify the featured patterns of mothers’ career trajectories. the authors also analyze the number of years it took for women to return to the labor market after the childbirth. it is assumed that a later entry into the labor market suggests that women are less career-oriented, and vice versa. additionally, the factors affecting the decision to return to the labor market earlier or later are evaluated. the results of the implemented analysis (an ordinal logistic regression and a multinomial regression) show that women from the higher class tend to return to the labor market quickly, while women from the middle and working class delay entry into the workforce or refuse to develop a career. keywords career trajectories, attitudes to motherhood, class, profession, childbirth, women, rlms—hse https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 804–822 805 introduction in the modern gender literature, issues such as gender inequality (including “the second shift”), work-life balance, and barriers to motherhood have received the most attention (atencio & posadas, 2015; attwood & isupova, 2018; chernova, 2012b; savinskaia, 2013; tarakanovskaia, 2021). the problem of combining both the roles of a mother and an employee was also raised but mostly in qualitative studies (abramov et al., 2019; bagirova & blednova, 2021; tartakovskaia, 2019). evaluations of the motherhood penalty have also been implemented well (e.g., karabchuk & pankratova, 2013). however, to date, the problem of a woman’s orientation towards career development after the childbirth and towards motherhood have not been addressed. we do not find works in the literature that would provide an explanation about what happens to a woman’s work trajectory after the childbirth, or clarify the factors that condition the choice of that trajectory. an exception is the panel study by ermolina et al. (2016), which examined the employment of women after the childbirth, but the authors analyzed only aggregated indicators and did not identify factors of women’s choice of a particular work trajectory. there didn't seem to be answers to the questions of whether the childbirth actually causes a woman to drop out of the labor market for a long time, which mothers are more oriented towards returning soon, and which mothers prefer to devote themselves exclusively to maternal duties after having a child. this study seeks to answer these questions. according to the literature, an occupation or class largely determines an individual’s social surroundings, sets standards of living and mold values (fagan et al., 2008; hall, 2005; xiao, 2000). we put forward the idea that a woman’s occupational position contributes to the formation of certain orientations and values, which subsequently, after the childbirth, determine a woman’s choice in favor of the particular labor and life trajectory. that is, for example, a professional job that requires a high level of skills may incline women towards career tracks and encourage them to return to the labor market as early as possible after the childbirth. thereby we make an attempt to test the relationship between class, which is measured through occupational position, and a woman’s employment path after the childbirth. this analysis contributes to answering the question of why some mothers choose careeroriented trajectories, while others focus primarily on the role of the mother. the childbirth as a stage in life’s trajectory russian research demonstrates the prevalence of traditional gender roles in the russian society and the desire of women to create a full-fledged family, while the commitment to the idea of a child-free is not so widespread in russia (tyndik, 2012). the high value of motherhood is also evidenced by the fact that russian women acknowledgements the research was supported by the russian science foundation (project no. 22-28-20426). https://changing-sp.com/ 806 elena n. gasiukova are ready to give birth and raise a child even without being married. for many, the absence of a husband or male breadwinner is not a barrier to parenthood (rotkirch & kesseli, 2012), and women often combine the roles of breadwinner and mother (khasieva, 2021)1. in russia, for most, childbirth is not a spontaneous event, but a conscious one that requires a special preparation. usually, women make a joint decision with a partner to have children (chernova & shpakovskaia, 2010), which generally increases the age of birth (makarentseva, 2022; tyndik, 2012; zhuravleva & gavrilova, 2017). for example, in 2001, the highest fertility rates were for women aged 20–24 years, and in 2020—for women aged 25–29 years. the fertility rate (live births per 1,000 women at a certain age) of women aged 35–39 years also increased (even among the rural population) more than three times, and the average age of the mothers giving birth was almost 29 years old in 2020 (federal state statistics service, n.d.). at the same time the share of children born outside of a registered marriage decreased from 30% to 21% in the period from 2001 to 2020. the shift in the age of birth is primarily explained by the fact that women decide firstly to become well-educated workers and gain work experience, and then to give birth (chernova, 2012a; zhuravleva & gavrilova, 2017). thus, the expectations of future “falling out” from labor market and fears of future inability to compete in the labor market shift the age of birth (for example, archangelskiy et al., 2020; blednova & bagirova, 2021; chernova & shpakovskaia, 2010; ipatova & tyndik, 2015; isupova & utkina, 2016). at the moment, russian women with higher education are more oriented than others to have a child, but they postpone it more frequently and some of them, according to the study by zhuravleva & gavrilova (2017), eventually do not have time to implement their reproductive intentions. the study of the life trajectories by ermolina and colleagues (2016) showed that women with higher education usually stay out of the labor market longer, having the opportunity to be officially on leave with children. women also tend to be officially employed before the childbirth to be able to receive child care benefits and not interrupt their work experience (ermolina et al., 2016). considering the high opportunity costs and the fact that women do not receive state child care benefits after a child achieves 1.5 years old, many women return to the labor market before the end of paid parental leave (karabchuk et al., 2012; karabchuk & pankratova, 2013)2. according to the studies (biriukova & makarentseva, 2017; karabchuk et al., 2012)3, after parental leave the growth rates of earnings of many women who gave a birth are aligned with the earnings of those who did not give birth during this time. 1 the education, position and income of a husband, in contrast to similar characteristics of a woman, are insignificant for the probability of having a child in the family (zhuravleva & gavrilova, 2017). 2 while the availability of grandmothers in a household weakly correlates with the mother's earnings (nivorozhkina et al., 2008), the help of relatives facilitates the entry into the workforce. zhuravleva and gavrilova (2017) also show that the presence of relatives facilitates a woman's decision to have a child. 3 these findings are aggregated. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 804–822 807 in russia, the level of remuneration of a woman is largely determined by the certain professional field (roshchin & emelina, 2021)4. the authors have repeatedly attempted to evaluate the contribution of gender segregation to income inequality between men and women. for example, oshchepkov (2021) showed that occupation impacts the income gap, but the earnings of highly skilled women contribute to narrowing this gap. that is, the incomes of such women can be comparable to men’s incomes. consequently, the costs of staying out of the labor market for highly skilled mothers are higher than for low-skilled ones. this suggests that women of higher-status are more likely to quickly return to the labor market. it is important for women to have a partner who would be willing to take on the responsibility of a parent (siniavskaia et al. 2015; zhuravleva & gavrilova, 2017)5. it is a registered marriage with a man prevails as a preliminary life stage (chernova & shpakovskaya, 2010), followed by the expected birth of children. the difficulties of raising a child alone are highlighted in the article by lytkina and iaroshenko (2021). therefore, marriage may also serve as a factor in choosing a certain career trajectory and act as another determinant in the combination of life paths after the birth of a child. in the modern world the normative expectations towards mothers are also changing. for example, today we can claim that education is a valuable resource not only in the labor market, but also in the family sphere. in particular, qualified women may invest their educational capital in their children, i.e., homeschooling and bringing them up by an educated mother becomes a certain standard of education in russia (dorofeeva, 2020). a new norm of motherhood as intensive work is emerging (isupova, 2015, 2018). however, this does not mean that a woman is oriented to devote herself only to children: a successful woman is expected to combine two roles, a good mother and a professional (gurko, 2008; isupova & utkina, 2016; magun, 2009)6. child benefits social policy is an important factor of a mother’s behavior in the labor market. in this section, we address the legal framework regulating the payment of various child benefits and the peculiarities of state assistance that women can rely on after the childbirth. in russia, women can receive different benefits connected to the childbirth and its further upbringing. this aid can be divided into those that is paid to all pregnant and birth-giving women, and those that is paid to women who need additional financial assistance (women whose income level is below the cost of living and whose property status is not excessive). separately, we can distinguish assistance from the regional subjects of the russian federation, which additionally finance 4 the authors also revealed a decrease in the impact of gender segregation on the wage gap. 5 a partner's reluctance to have children can also lead to the abandonment of the idea of motherhood to preserve relationships (duprat-kushtanina & lutoshkina, 2014). 6 women with children also show higher rates of life satisfaction than women without children, while the parental leave stage is perceived as the most favorable for women (karabchuk et al., 2012). https://changing-sp.com/ 808 elena n. gasiukova young families7. a low-income family can receive both lump-sum and monthly monetary payments, established in the regions of russia, as well as assistance in the form of free services, benefits, discounts and in-kind assistance (the latter is more often provided to single mothers). the mandatory payments include pregnancy and maternity benefits; a lump sum childbirth payment (in 2022 it is 20,472 rubles; for women in the far north the payment is increased by the regional coefficient) (posobie pri rozhdenii, 2022); a monthly child care benefit up to 1.5 years for non-working citizens; a monthly benefit for a child under 3 years (50 rubles; from january 1, 2020 this payment was canceled, but 50 rubles can be paid to parents whose children were born before january 1, 2020). the pregnancy and maternity benefits are paid for 140 days of pregnancy (ob obiazatel’nom sotsial’nom strakhovanii, 2006). its amount ranges from 63,932 rubles to 360,164 rubles in 2022 (for childbirth without complications). the sum depends on the woman’s work history. if a woman’s work history is less than six months, she cannot be paid more than the minimum wage a month; working women receive a benefit of 100% of their average earnings (o gosudarstvennykh posobiiakh, 1995). the child care benefits are paid to both unemployed and employed women with children up to the age of 1.5 years, only the amount of payments differs. these benefits make up 40% of the average earnings, starting from a minimum of 7,677 rubles and not exceeding the established maximum of 31,282 rubles in 2022 (pension fund, n.d.). however, if a woman wishes to go to work during her parental leave and retain her right to receive the benefit of 40% of her salary, she may take up part-time employment with a maximum payment of 60% of the full salary. if a woman is entitled to receive child care and pregnancy benefits simultaneously, she must choose only one of them (o gosudarstvennykh posobiiakh, 1995). the parental leave until 1.5 years is included in the working experience (however, if a woman decides to take parental leave until 3 years, it is also regarded as working experience, but not as labor insurance period for further pension counting). a study by kolosnitsyna and philippova (2017) found that child care benefits were volatile: there was a sharp increase in 2007 and a drop in 2015. generally, 2007 marked a new stage in family policy: benefits for children were increased, maternity capital was introduced, additional benefits for low-income and large families, housing assistance programmes were developed (gurko, 2008; siniavskaia & golovlianitsina, 2010). in addition to mandatory payments, financial assistance is provided for pregnant women and families with low income. households are entitled to a monthly payment (50% of the minimum living cost in the region) only if a future mother has registration in a maternity hospital. monthly benefits for families with children (o ezhemesiachnykh vyplatakh, 2017), or “putin payments”, are provided for the first or second child up to the age of 3 years, its size makes up one regional living cost per child per month. they are assigned for 7 for example, there is the compensation for the purchase of children’s goods and food (gosudarstvennye i munitsipal’nye uslugi, n.d.) in st. petersburg. as determined by the government of moscow, young families with a newborn child in moscow shall be paid an additional lump-sum benefit. the amount of this benefit is equal to five subsistence minimums established in moscow per capita (o molodezhi, 2009). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 804–822 809 one year and can be renewed8. these payments are entitled to parents whose first or second child was born after january 1, 2018 and whose average family income per capita is no more than two regional subsistence minimums for the year. if a third child is born, the family becomes named a large family and it is entitled to additional benefits (subsidies for utility service, compensation for payment of kindergarten and school expenses, compensation for transportation costs, a tax deduction). in addition to the described benefits, in 2007, a new type of birth support was introduced (o dopolnitel’nykh merakh, 2006), maternity capital, which was addressed to families that had a second child or subsequent children; from 2020 it started to be paid to families with one child. it is a targeted support (“in hands” money is not given; it is kind of a certificate) and it can be spent for certain purposes (since 2011 maternity capital can be also spent on improving living conditions). maternity capital can be received only once, in some cases, a woman may receive an additional payment due to the birth of the second or subsequent children. based on this information, we can conclude that state child support mostly contributes to the well-being of lowand middle-income groups. similarly, kolosnitsyna and philippova’s (2017) empirical analysis showed that the share of child benefits in the total family budget had fallen among precisely affluent families. as well, the relative losses in earnings after childbirth are higher for women with a higher level of human capital (arzhenovskii & artamonova, 2007; nivorozhkina e al., 2008). thus, the incomes of highly skilled women usually drop significantly because of parental leave. therefore, the social policy designed to increase childbearing rather stimulates the transition to parenthood in lower educated families with scarce economic resources (siniavskaia & golovlianitsina, 2010); wealthy women prefer to rely on their own family resources (popova, 2009). for low-income groups, child benefits are more likely to be a significant aid and it is often a buffer against sliding into extreme poverty. while well-to-do families focus more on the birth of one child (and their income per family member is higher due to this), the recipients of benefits are often families with more than one child (kolosnitsyna & philippova, 2017). methodology database the study is based on data from the russian longitudinal monitoring survey–hse (rlms–hse) from 2001 to 2021 (30th round rlms–hse, 2021). since the data has a panel structure, we could reveal the dynamics of women’s employment status at different stages—before and after the childbirth. since not all survey waves included a question about the childbirth (“please tell me, have you given birth in the last 12 months?”), in some cases we took a similar question from the data of the module on female reproductive health, or used a question about the year in which the respondent 8 according to the analysis by karabchuk and colleagues (2012), the most financially vulnerable persons are women with children aged 1.5 to 3 years, this is a life stage when women can be on official parental leave but do not receive benefits. https://changing-sp.com/ 810 elena n. gasiukova expected to give birth (for example, if in 2008 she expected to give birth in 2008, we considered it the year she gave birth). because the panel component of the sample tends to deplete, we tried to cover as many female respondents as possible and used full samples for each year and then bound them9. we did not restrict the pooled sample by a certain age, but checked the age when the women gave birth. it varied from the earliest birth at age 15 to the latest one at age 52 (see also rotkirch & kesseli, 2012), which satisfies reasonable assumptions about birth age (but these borderlines were also marginal for the entire 20-year period covered). 2,205 respondents had given birth at least once between 2001 and 2021, this sample was analyzed. since we are interested in the career trajectories of women, women with more than three children were excluded from the consideration, as such mothers with many children are rather already orientated towards family values and their life trajectories are not relevant for the questions posed. to reconstruct a woman’s career trajectory over several neighboring years, we had to select cases without missing values for several years at once. for 239 of 2205 respondents their employment statuses were unknown for four years after the childbirth, and in the construction of career trajectories these cases were regarded as missing ones. therefore, the career trajectory after the childbirth was determined for 1966 respondents. an additional check was made because of the potential bias conditioned by a large number of missing data. the cases of women for whom there were missing data for four years after the birth of their child were considered cases with missing data. this test involved constructing a regression with the dependent variable “missing value” and the independent variables “employment/class status in the year of birth”. the analysis showed that there was no significant relationship between the variable fixing “missing value” and the independent variables. thus, evaluated coefficients should be asymptotically unbiased. to assess the number of years it took to return to the labor market, the sample was restricted by the respondents who had been employed before giving birth. this analysis was done for 798 respondents. also, the dynamics of labor activity was investigated: for this we addressed the total sample (2205 observations) and carved out from it those respondents who had data information about employment activity before and after the childbirth. 1104 women had such information. table 1 shows all the samples under study. table 1 the number of respondents depending on the task under study total sample career trajectories number of years it took to return to the labor market dynamics of employment activity 2205 1966 798 1104 note. source: author. 9 in different years the number of respondents changed, in 2014 the representative sample size was significantly reduced, which also resulted in the depletion of the panel sample. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 804–822 811 class the class or occupational variable was constructed using the european socioeconomic groups classification (eseg) algorithm (final report, 2014). according to eseg, class membership is determined by position in working life and the type of employment relationship. eseg is an evolutionary development of the earlier european socio-economic classification (esec). eseg is based on isco-08 data and variables for employment status (in rlms these are j1 and j11 to define the self-employed). eseg categories make up a 7-group scheme: (a) managers; (b) professionals; (c) technicians and associated professionals employees; (d) small entrepreneurs; (e) clerks and skilled service employees; (f) skilled industrial employees; (g) lower status employees. these categories can be divided into three classes: higher class (1 + 2), middle class (3 + 4) and working class (5 + 6 + 7). this aggregated grouping was used in our analysis. in the case of the year when woman had no occupational data or was unemployed, her class position was assigned an occupational code of the previous or the year before, which allowed us to significantly increase the number of data under study. career trajectories career trajectories were considered as a change or stability of employment statuses over a period of time. career trajectories were constructed on six years of data: the year before the childbirth; the year of the childbirth; and the following four years. the year before the childbirth and the year of the childbirth could take three values: a woman is (a) employed; (b) unemployed; and (c) on parental leave. the fourth option “gives birth to another child” was also added to the four subsequent years. for each year a class position was also determined if it was available. the final table for the 6-year data (may be delivered online on request) with employment status for each year and cases with missing data in some years includes 504 all possible trajectories. table 2 shows the three most frequent trajectories. the most frequent trajectory (128 observations) assumes the employment of a woman with a breakaway for the childbirth and parental leave for a maximum of two years, then the woman returns to the labor market. a similar trajectory (111 observations) is featured by a longer parental leave of three years, which corresponds to the official tenure of possible parental leave. another common trajectory, but rather lagging behind the leading ones in terms of the number of women (88 observations), is the prevailing status of the unemployed, when a woman is unemployed before the childbirth, and after it she remains unemployed. table 2 three most frequent trajectories previous1 status0 status1 status2 status3 status4 n employed leave leave employed employed employed 128 employed leave leave leave employed employed 111 unemployed unemployed unemployed unemployed unemployed unemployed 88 note. source: author. https://changing-sp.com/ 812 elena n. gasiukova since the identified trajectories constitute multiple heterogeneous sequences of different statuses similar career trajectories were merged into four patterns. inside each pattern employment statuses primarily in the early years after the childbirth are similar. for example, if employment statuses predominated during the years under study, then this respondent’s case belonged to a career-oriented trajectory. as a result, four career trajectories were obtained (in the cases of missing data, imputation of the most likely value allowed to make a trajectory classification, for example, if it is known that a respondent worked before the childbirth and one year after it, she also worked—we belonged this case to “career-oriented” one). the trajectories are: ● “career-oriented”10 —this trajectory is characterized by staying in the labor market, women with this trajectory interrupt their employment for the childbirth for a maximum of two years, some of them return to the labor market in the same year that they gave birth (758 observations); ● “propensity to child care”—the trajectory characterized by a woman’s long stay in parental leave (three years or more) or the birth of another child (331 observations); ● “unemployed”—this trajectory is characterized by a woman’s being unemployed for several years (393 observations); ● “other”—the remaining cases not included in the first trajectories (484 observations). the highlighted trajectories do not intersect with each other; they are mutually exclusive. who come back earlier? as can be seen from the trajectories obtained, most women come back to the labor market, but they can have different inclinations to develop careers and different desires to realize themselves as mothers. to evaluate the impact of childbearing on the careers it was decided to assess the quickness of coming back to the labor market after the childbirth. for this analysis, the sample was limited by those who had been employed in the year before the childbirth. there were 798 of them in our sample. of these women: ● 189 women returned in the first year; ● 219 in the second year; ● 224 in the third or fourth year after the childbirth; ● 98 did not enter the labor market during the four years analyzed. the latter category referred to women with prevalent statuses of parental leave or unemployment, or women whose statuses of leave/unemployment alternated with missing data. we proceed from the assumption that a later entry into the labor market suggests that women are less career-oriented, and vice versa. to assess the factors that affect the decision to return to the labor market earlier or later, two models—an ordinal logistic regression and a multinomial regression—were constructed with the same set of independent variables: class (higher class—reference group) for the year of the childbirth, marriage status for the first year after the childbirth. 10 the assigned titles of trajectories do not impose any subjective motivation of women but simply fix the most typical pattern of trajectory. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 804–822 813 the marriage status in the first year after the childbirth was employed as the childbirth could be the reason for divorce or conversely for the decision to legalize the relationship, so that the first year could correct possible adjustments in marital status. thus, 72 women were single in the year of birth, and 80 of 798 were single in the first year. ordered logistic regression is used to model a categorical variable with more than two categories and is based on a fairly strong assumption about proportional odds. it is assumed that the y-category is proportionally ordered and the odds ratio on independent variables is constant across y-categories. if p(y ≤ yj) is the cumulative probability of y to be less than or equal to yj-category, then the odds of being less than or equal to a particular category yj or log odds (also known as the logit) is parameterized as the following: ≤ = − > ∑ ( ) log ( ) j j i i j p y y x p y y ηβ , where x1, … xn —independent variables, βj, η1, … ηn —evaluated parameters, where n is the number of independent variables. since the model assumes that the odds are equal for each yj-categories, this increases the statistical power of the model and simplifies the interpretation of the results. multinomial logistic regression is used in the analysis of nominal outcome variables, in which the log odds of the outcomes are modelled as a linear combination of the predictor variables. multinomial logistic regression can be written as follows: = = − = ∑ ( ) log ( ) a a ia i j p y y x p y y ηβ , where x1, … xi —independent variables, βa, η1a, … ηna —evaluated parameters, yj— reference category, ya —the category for which the probability of event occurrence is estimated, p(y = ya)—the probability that the dependent variable takes a value ya, in the relation to probability р(y = yj). therefore, с – 1 coefficients correspond to each independent variable, where с is the number of categories. in our analysis the categories are different numbers of years of coming back to the labor market, and for each number of years the different odds ratios at independent parameters are estimated. the results of ordered logistic regression are shown in table 3. the odds ratios for the middle and working classes are greater than 1, which means that for women from both classes the odds of delayed return to the labor market are higher compared to the higher class. women from the higher class come back to the labor market earlier. at the same time the odds of entry into the labor market for 2nd and 3rd class women are indistinguishable, i.e., the probabilities of late coming back for the middle and the working class women are about the same. the odds ratio at husband variable (> 1) suggests that married women are more likely to stay at home with their children and enter the labor market later. in ordered logistic regression each independent variable has an identical effect at each cumulative split of dependent variable. in other words, the interpretation https://changing-sp.com/ 814 elena n. gasiukova for ordered logistic regression results is that for a one unit change in independent parameters, the odds of moving from “come back in 1 year” to “come back in 2 years” and from “come back in 2 years” to “come back in 3 years” are the same. but in reality, this assumption can be implausible. for example, the choice between one year and two years is more common for women who are focused on career trajectory, but the choice between two years and three/four years is not the same, it is more common for women with strong maternal orientations. women start working in two years because the state support period is coming to an end, but entering the labor market in three/four years is the implementation of child care strategy. therefore, we decided to conduct the analysis with the same variables, but using multinomial regression as well. multinomial regression estimates separate odds ratio for each category: early come back (up to one year), come back (in the second year), late comeback (in the third and fourth years), and cases of non-entry into the labor market (early come back—is the reference category). table 4 shows that there is no difference in the odds of the return within one year or two years for women from the higher and middle and working classes. that is, women entering the labor market after one year are similar in terms of class and marital status to women entering the labor market in the second year. we assume that much of the lack of difference is due to the period of 1.5 years when women stop receiving child benefits and start to prepare for employment. some women come back immediately and some ones enter the labor market with a slight delay, but before the end of parental leave of three years. table 3 results of ordered logistic regression or 2.5% 97.5% middle class* 1.64 1.13 2.38 working class* 1.59 1.13 2.23 husband (+) 2.53 1.57 4.10 * higher class is a reference group note. source: author. table 4 results of multinomial regression come back in 2 years¹ come back in 3–4 years¹ do not come back¹ middle class² 0.23 0.68** 0.74* working class² 0.22 0.27 1.03** husband (+) 0.34 1.09** 1.67** ¹ “come back in 1 year” is a reference group, ² higher class is a reference group , * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05. note. source: author. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 804–822 815 the multinomial model also reveals that belonging to the higher class disinclines late entry into the labor market. compared to the middle class, the upper class is less likely to delay entry into the workforce; compared to the working class, the upper class is less likely to refuse from the employment path. in other words, the odds to prolong parental leave are higher for women from the middle class and odds not to return to the working path are higher for women from the middle and working class. but if a woman has a husband, she can stay at home longer or even does not come back to the labor market at all as odds of later return and non-return are significant and positive. the dynamics of employment activity was also examined for cases when the data on hours worked per week before and after the childbirth were known (if a woman gave birth more than once, data from the first birth were considered). for this purpose, twotime cutoffs were considered: “before” (t – 1) and “after” (t + 3 or t + 4) years (where t is the first available year of the first childbirth). the employment activity was divided into three groups: (a) full-time employment (30 to 40 hours per week); (b) part-time employment (less than 30 hours per week); and (c) over-employment (more than 40 hours per week). table 5 shows that most women (36%) worked a full-time job before the childbirth and continued to work in the same format after the childbirth. there was also a high proportion of women who were overemployed (18%) and part-time employed (18%), and continued to maintain the same format of labor participation. the trajectories involving a compromise to work part-time after the childbirth were scarce and covered 2% women. based on these numbers, the share of women who switched from full-time employment to a more labor-intensive employment already seemed relatively high—13% women started to work more. 11% of women had reduced their work schedule and decreased the working activity till the working standard hours. table 5 dynamics of employment activity after childbirth over→over 197 (18%) over→full 121 (11%) over→part 4 (0%) full→over 145 (13%) full→full 392 (36%) full→part 19 (2%) part→over 11 (1%) part→full 18 (2%) part→part 197 (18%) total 1104 note. source: author. https://changing-sp.com/ 816 elena n. gasiukova to visually demonstrate the employment interchanges, we plotted the dynamics of labor activity before and after the childbirth. figure 1 clearly shows that most women had maintained their employment full-time format after the childbirth and the overflows were mostly the transitions from full-time employment to over-employment, and vice versa. according to the data, we can state that women a few years after the childbirth maintained their labor activity at the same level, moreover a large proportion of women moved from full employment to over-employment. thus the visual analysis proves that for most women the childbirth is not an obstacle for further career development. figure 1 employment activity 1 year before and 3–4 years after the childbirth pa rt pa rt fu ll fu ll ov er ov er work before work after 1000 800 600 400 200 0 n note. source: author. discussion and conclusion this paper focuses on the career trajectories of women after the childbirth and the related choices between career and motherhood. the main purpose of the paper is to understand what career and life trajectories women choose after the childbirth, and to what extent this choice is determined by their previous professional position in the labor market. the initial assumption of the analysis was that class (occupational group) contributes to the formation of certain values, which afterwards appears as a significant factor in the choice between motherhood and career. indeed, the empirical analysis showed that career-oriented women are more likely to be from the upper class. that is, although they are young mothers, these women strive to realize themselves in the career field. nevertheless, it is important to note that in general, most women in the analyzed sample entered the labor market after giving birth, and changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 804–822 817 a large share of them worked hard, more than 40 hours a week, after giving birth. to a large extent this trend towards overwork may be due to the forced need to work overtime. the data show that predominantly women from the working class tend to overwork, while higherand middle-class women are more likely to have standard working hours. but the results should also be interpreted with caution, as the analysis has a number of limitations and assumptions. firstly, class was measured exploiting the aggregated grouping eseg, which resulted in a dominance of women from the working class in the sample. the used occupational classes included rather heterogeneous categories of workers with different labor practices, by reason of data limitations we had to resort to such a coarsening. secondly, four obtained career trajectories to some extent subjectively imposed by the author, a different logic and a different order of building trajectories would have led to a different palette of trajectories. in the highlighted trajectories only, the strongest patterns were taken into account. as a result, some potential interruption in the employment and its depth were not reflected in the trajectories. therefore, it was decided to turn to the analysis of the number of years it took for a woman to come back to the labor market. this strategy of analysis has greater objectivity and resolves the problem of blurring the boundaries between statuses of parental leave and unemployment. in addition, it is crucial to take into account factors not considered in our analysis, such as the level of household income and the share of a woman’s earnings in the total budget. for example, our analysis showed that married women were less orientated to quickly return to the labor market, which can largely be explained by the financial support of the husband. but this relationship requires further empirical verification, which allows us to consider it in a more detailed way. neither we did control the employment format (except for employment activity) but as the literature demonstrates many young mothers address occasional and informal work (burkhanova et al., 2018) or work with a flexible schedule. we also looked at the employment status of women in the year before the childbirth and focused on those women who were working at that time. presumably, a prior 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the imperial system of religious instruction ended up with the bolshevik revolution, and the subsequent soviet decree of january 1918 that separated church from state and school from church. in soviet times, religion had no place in the moral education of children. the fall of the soviet union, including its socialist ideals and educational prerogatives, led to uncertainty and confusion in the educational sector. today, however, religious education is becoming increasingly important. by introducing foundations of religious cultures and secular ethics in public schools and theology in higher education institutions, the russian federation has asserted the state’s vested interest in ensuring the moral and spiritual development of its citizens. keywords school curriculum, religious studies, religious education, moral education, “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics” 1 the work was supported by the russian science foundation (rsf), grant number 18-18-00216. received 1 august 2018 © 2018 elena a. stepanova accepted 3 september 2018 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com published online 30 september 2018 https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 260–266 261 introduction: religious education in imperial russia and soviet union religious education is a fairly new enterprise in russia. prior to the bolshevik revolution of 1917, moral and religious instruction was an essential part of the primary school curriculum in the russian empire despite the state having never instituted a system of universal public education. most primary schooling was in the hands of religious communities, from buddhist monasteries (datsans) near lake baikal, and muslim maktabs on the middle volga to the russian orthodox church-parish schools across the empire. although the orthodox church was the established one, the empire recognised a number of religious minorities, and every imperial citizen had to have a religion, which was usually determined by birth and recorded in one’s passport (clay, 2015). the imperial system of religious instruction ended with the bolshevik revolution and the subsequent soviet decree of january 1918 that separated church from state and, consequently, school from church. in the 1920s, the soviet union introduced compulsory universal, militantly secular, public primary education that was part of the broader marxist-leninist project to create a new civilisation and a new kind of human being, the “new soviet man”. in 1929, a new law on religious associations, which remained in effect for the next six decades, drastically curtailed freedom of conscience and placed strict state controls on religious life. in the same year, the constitution was amended in order to deprive believers of the right to conduct religious propaganda while assuring all citizens the right to engage in anti-religious propaganda. for soviet authorities, religion had no place in the moral education of children, and their brutal, state-sponsored destruction of believers and religious institutions had a deep and long-lasting impact on those religious communities that survived the soviet period (clay, 2015). in 1961, the new program of the communist party of the soviet union was adopted with the “moral code of the builder of communism” as its integral part. the “moral code” was aimed at the moral improvement of the soviet people; it included the values of the devotion to the cause of communism; love of the socialist motherland; conscientious labour; high sense of public duty; collectivism and comradely mutual assistance; humane relations and mutual respect; honesty and truthfulness; moral purity; unpretentiousness and modesty in social and private life; mutual respect in the family; irreconcilability toward injustice; and friendship and brotherhood among peoples. because of the ideological needs of the time, late soviet ethical theory was supposed to prove the ultimate truth of the communist morality as the highest form achieved through historical stages of the development of morality, and to elaborate the normative ethical programme based on the “moral code”. interestingly, today there is a general discourse, reproduced by both believers and non-believers, that russia has always been orthodox, and “the moral code of the builder of communism” is nothing else but a disguised ten commandments. one of the consequences of the introduction of the “moral code” was the shift from former “militant” atheism to “scientific” one, which served the purpose of not only criticising religion but also stressing the positive aspects of atheism as part of https://changing-sp.com/ 262 elena a. stepanova the materialist worldview and the source of the elaboration of everyday values. since 1964, scientific atheism as a part of the state’s system of “moral upbringing” became a compulsory course in the departments of humanities and social sciences at higher educational institutions in the soviet union. post-soviet changes after the breakdown of the soviet union, the religious situation in russia changed dramatically. today, the importance of the cultural-historical and ethical role of religion, especially russian orthodoxy, is highly acknowledged by the state. the 1994 constitution declared russia as a secular state; nevertheless, in 1997, the influence of the russian orthodox church (roc) in various spheres of social life, including education, further increased with the adoption of the federal law on freedom of conscience and religious associations. although this law reinforced the secular character of education, it also contained a specific regulation on church-state relations in its preamble. the law recognises the special role of the roc in “the history of russia, the formation and development of its spirituality and culture”, as well as the importance of other religions like islam, buddhism or judaism in russian history. as a result, these four religions, with christianity limited to the orthodox denomination, were officially recognised as so-called “traditional” religions of russia that later shaped the system of religious education in state schools (blinkova & vermeer, 2018). russian orthodoxy recently experienced its “rebirth” as some 70% of ethnic russians claim orthodoxy as their religion (religious belief and national belonging in central and eastern europe, 2017). however, these figures should be considered with caution, as they include people with extremely diverse degrees of religious knowledge and commitment (ładykowska, 2012). religious education in higher education institutions since the mid-1990s, religious studies (rs) in one form or another gradually replaced scientific atheism in higher education institutions. rs is no longer a compulsory subject in the humanities and social sciences; rather, it is a specialty aimed at preparing teachers, researches, and pr specialists among others. presently, the 30 higher educational institutions offer bachelor’s degree programmes in rs, while 5 of them also offer master’s degrees specialising in rs. the curriculum for both the bachelor’s and master’s programmes includes philosophy of religion; sociology of religion; phenomenology of religion; science and religion; religious arts; new religious movements; religious ethics; anthropology of religion; psychology of religion; history of religion; freedom of conscience; and history of freethinking and atheism. today, rs is an institutionalised scholarly discipline that has become an integral part of the russian higher education structure. it is represented by a number of research centers, professional associations, and specialised periodicals. at the same time, the russian rs community is highly fragmented and poorly integrated changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 260–266 263 into the global scholarly community. the origins of rs in russia is disputed by researchers; some trace the tradition to scientific atheism, while others adopt a critical stance towards the soviet legacy, citing its high susceptibility to ideological bias and the lack of a developed methodological basis. apart from the history of rs, the meta-theoretical discourse also focuses on at least three contiguous areas, namely, (1) the issue of demarcation from other disciplines, primarily theology and philosophy, (2) the issues of the subject matter of rs, as well as the number and interrelations of the sub-disciplines, and (3) the question of a specificity of the rs methodology (karpov & malevich, 2015). besides the introduction of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in religious studies, 39 higher educational institutions also offer bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theology. some of them are departments at state universities while others are sponsored by religious institutions (mostly by the roc). theology as an optional discipline is taught in 51 higher educational institutions. in 2015, issuing of the academic degrees (candidate and doctor of science) in theological studies by state educational and research institutions was approved by the state authorities upon the initiative of the russian orthodox church and strong public intervention by patriarch of moscow and all russia kirill. theology was legalised by the ministry of education not as a branch of history or philosophy, but as a specific discipline. olga vasil’eva, the head of the ministry, stressed that there was a need to “make every effort to prepare specialists” in the theological field (rozanskij, 2017). many secular academics and rs teachers estimate the implementation of theology (which in reality is the russian orthodox one) as an attempt to replace methodologically neutral rs with a confessional subject. they see the reform as the desire of the roc to indoctrinate and ideologically mould the country. on the contrary, the roc representatives refer to theology as “a church science” and consider “spiritual experience” as a precondition for the study of theology. religious education in the state school curriculum the implementation of religious education in state school curriculum has passed several stages. in 1992, a new law on education was passed claiming that “the activity of religious movements and organisations (unions) in state schools is prohibited”, thus, strengthening the secular character of education. at the same time, there was a great deal of societal interest in religion and considerable interest by different religious communities, especially the roc, which wanted to be involved in state schools. nevertheless, setting the agenda on the curriculum of religious education was not an easy task for a long time, and the roc’s calls for the introduction of a compulsory religion education (re) class were not heard on the federal level. few regions introduced compulsory classes on orthodox christianity in state schools in 2006; in some other regions, it was introduced as an optional subject. this gave rise to considerable protest by religious minority groups, atheists and intellectuals complaining about the “clericalization of education” (köllner, 2016). https://changing-sp.com/ 264 elena a. stepanova eventually in 2012, a one-year course called “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics” (frcse) was introduced in state schools as a compulsory subject. schoolchildren and their parents have to select one of six modules – fundamentals of islam, judaism, buddhism, orthodox christianity, world religious cultures, or secular ethics, – that the learners would study in their fourth and fifth years of school (10–11 year olds). the purpose of frcse, as stated in official documents, was to understand the significance of moral norms and values and to behave in accordance with these principles; to strive for moral perfection and spiritual development; to develop primary knowledge about traditional religions of the russian population (orthodoxy, islam, buddhism, and judaism), its roles in culture, history and the contemporary world as well as in the formation of the russian state and russian secular ethics and with regard to the questions of moral choice, to act according to one’s conscience (poop, 2015). according to 2016–17 statistics, foundations of secular ethics was chosen by 40.5% of students; orthodox culture 38.5%; foundations of the world religious cultures 16.5%; islam 4%; and buddhism and judaism less than 1% (orkse, 2016–17). the course remains a rather controversial issue in public perception. on the one hand, russian officials explain that it would help children to develop their ethnic identity, moral sense and tolerance. sceptics, on the other hand, point out that the choice of subjects is incompatible with tolerance from the beginning, particularly since the study of christianity includes only one branch, namely, russian orthodoxy; as well as the content of “secular ethics” remains obscure. in general, the introduction of frcse was a compromise between the state and the roc. the state wanted to introduce a non-confessional re course for all students without dividing them into “groups of interest”, but such a course was rejected by the roc authorities since they surmised that it might educate children into moral relativism and indifference. however, confessional re provided and funded by the state is against the law and the constitution. therefore, the state and the roc reached the compromise that re, that is, frcse, consists of six optional modules (blinkova & vermeer, 2016). the frcse should also be seen not only as a source of re, but in the broader sense as a part of the moral upbringing of citizens through the system of public education, which remains the subject of special concern for the state. substantial evidence of the continuity between the soviet and post-soviet concepts of moral upbringing can be found in the document titled koncepcija dukhovno-nravstvennogo razvitija i vospitanija lichnosti grazdanina rossii (conception of the spiritual-moral upbringing and education of the personality of the russian citizen), adopted by the russian ministry of education as a key standard for public schools (daniljuk et al., 2009). the document negatively characterises the 1990s as a period of damage toward the spiritual unity of the nation, the appraisal of the type of individual alien to national traditions and values, and uncritically copying the western style of life. this document regarded religion as the main agent of the spiritual-moral upbringing in russia prior to the october revolution of 1917. in soviet times, the state eliminated the church’s influence over public and private life, and pretended to be a “new ecumenical church”, reducing the meaning of life to the belief in communism (daniljuk et al., changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 260–266 265 2009). at the same time, the soviet state created a supreme pedagogical ideal – the upbringing of “all-round personality” – which maintained its significance in post-soviet times as well (zwahlen, 2015). the document formulated the overall aim of the moral education as the formation of morality through personal recognition of behaviour based on the socially accepted notion of good and evil, exercising of the moral selfcontrol, and accepting national moral values derived from the multinational people of russia, civil society, labour, art, science, religion, nature, and humankind. the basic national moral values included patriotism, social solidarity, justice, dignity, freedom of conscience, loyalty to family, care of elderly and youth, creativity, tolerance, peace, social progress, respect to traditional russian religions, scientific knowledge, art and literature, ecology, diversity of cultures and nations, and so on (daniljuk et al., 2009). conclusion after the breakdown of the soviet system and collapse of socialist ideals, education, which under socialism was highly respected and intended for the creation of the “new socialist human being”, had lost most of its previous prestige. the fall of the soviet union, including its socialist ideals and educational prerogatives, led to uncertainty and confusion in the educational sector. the formerly coherent curriculum gave way to a plethora of different and sometimes conflicting approaches. today, however, religious education is becoming increasingly important, with its widespread introduction in state schools and new efforts to re-ideologise it by drawing on socalled traditional religions in russia, namely, orthodox christianity, islam, buddhism, and judaism. religious education in state schools has the potential to reinforce the importance of education in general and to bring back the prominent position, which it had under socialism (ładykowska, 2016). by introducing frcse in public schools and theology in higher education institutions, the russian federation has asserted the state’s vested interest in ensuring the moral and spiritual development of its citizens. the paradox though is that, at the official level, the state declares its devotion to the freedom of conscience as a fundamental principle of human rights. references blinkova, a., & vermeer, p. 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(2015). the lack of moral autonomy in the russian concept of personality: a case of continuity across the pre-revolutionary, soviet and postsoviet periods? state, religion and church, 2(1), 19–43. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-014-9211-4 http://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2016.1246852 http://orkce.apkpro.ru/doc/vybor%20modulia%20orkse%20v%202017-2018%20gg.pdf http://orkce.apkpro.ru/doc/vybor%20modulia%20orkse%20v%202017-2018%20gg.pdf http://www.pewforum.org/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-national-belonging-in-central-and-eastern-eu http://www.pewforum.org/2017/05/10/religious-belief-and-national-belonging-in-central-and-eastern-eu http://www.asianews.it/news-en/theology-returns-to-russian-universities-41022.html http://www.asianews.it/news-en/theology-returns-to-russian-universities-41022.html changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.220 received 12 september 2022 © 2023 anna s. sumskaya accepted 14 february 2023 anna.sumskaia@urfu.ru published online 10 april 2023 article “lost” russian media generations in a changing social and digital environment anna s. sumskaya ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract this study investigates the concept of “digital” media generations, their formation, and the phenomenon of “lost” generations from the perspective of media-focused and anthropological approaches. the restrictions on social media and some media access following the beginning of russia’s special military operation in ukraine in 2022 has resulted in a turbulent media environment detrimental to the subjective well-being of russian “digital” media generations, especially young adults. analysis of the reasons behind the emergence of “lost” generations in the history of russia and other countries allows us to conclude that geopolitical factors such as wars, economic shocks, and major epidemics can lead to generational “loss”. from the perspective of digital divide theory, it may be said that we are now dealing with a new kind of digital inequality. the discreteness of the media flow, whose continuity is crucial primarily for “digital” media generations and their media identity, has created a unique combination of factors contributing to further exacerbation of the digital divide. to minimize the destructive consequences of emerging media transformations, it is important to ensure comprehensive media and information support for russian “digital natives”, along with socio-political and psychological assistance. keywords media generation, “digital” media generation, formative years, “lost” generation, digital divide, behavioral patterns, traumatic events https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 89 introduction the pervasive effects of digitalization and digital technology involve transformations in the practices of information transfer and media content use. in her study of communication processes in the digital age, a. gureeva (2016) argues that global mediatization and technologization have led to the creation of a unified media social space, allowing society to have a continuous information and communication experience (p. 203). in 2021, a research team led by the russian psychologist e. zeer demonstrated that the digital information field imposes on people a new lifestyle that is uncharacteristic of the previous industrial civilization (zeer et al., 2021). the internet has now become not only one of the main agents of socialization, but has also engendered a new phenomenon—the digital personality or persona. the digital personality, reflecting internet users’ individual traits and habits, has emerged as a result of more and more personal data being found online. thus, the internet has acquired the characteristics of a cultural tool used to create new cultural practices, phenomena, and meanings, all of which requires reflection in interdisciplinary research (ershova, 2019, p. 51). as digital media are increasingly woven into the fabric of young people’s lives, they are laying the foundation for what can be referred to as their digital lifestyle (delgado, 2016; dunas & vartanov, 2020; third et al., 2019). a digital lifestyle means not only digitalized media behavior, globalized streaming media use, interactive cultural digital practices, and symbols of communication, but also new vulnerabilities, traumatic communication experiences, and exposure to potentially traumatic media content, all of which can affect the subjective well-being of internet users. well-being is considered a significant indicator of mental health and an important factor of individual adaptation to changing external environments. in general, it is one of the key indicators of social stability and progress. the deterioration of wellbeing caused by the traumatic experiences of “digital natives”, such as lifestyle loss in relation to the disruption of sustainable generational media patterns, may result in these generations’ becoming “lost” media generations. generational media losses, which have both social and value dimensions, acquire new meaning and saliency in situations characterized by limited media access. the example of such a situation is the blocked access to some digital media in russia following the beginning of the special military operation in ukraine in february 2022. in this regard, it is important to examine the destructive influence of digital media transformation on the well-being of russian “digital” media generations and to search for means and ways to minimize this influence. this study meets the priorities of the program of fundamental research in the russian federation for the long-term period for 2021–2030; more specifically, it addresses social research reflecting the socio-cultural transformation of russian society in the digital age and factors shaping the exploration, transformation, (re) production, and symbolization of the spatial and environmental conditions of peopleʼs lives in the digital age. https://changing-sp.com/ 90 anna s. sumskaya theoretical framework media generations in the digital age: conceptualization of “digital” media generations to describe a media audience in generational terms conceptually, this study relies on a media-focused approach that foregrounds the media–audience relationship and related issues. in this case, a point of departure for conceptualizing media generations is provided by the seminal works of the canadian philologist and media culture expert marshall mcluhan, who wrote extensively on the role of media in life, media’s centripetal effect on the development of communications, and their role in civilizational transformations that lead to the emergence of technogenic civilizations. mcluhan believed that media (or communication media) are technological extensions of human being and that the form of a medium is more important than the content it communicates—or as his famous phrase goes, “the medium is the message”. what mcluhan means is that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message and determines the impact of media exposure on people’s consciousness; the media through which we choose to communicate becomes a message in itself (mcluhan, 1962, 2003, p. 25). the german media theorist n. bolz has developed mcluhan’s ideas and points to how generational differences are determined by the impact of media. in his view, the generation a person belongs to is now largely dependent on their belonging to a certain information culture. “there are no ‘common’ media anymore; instead, there are different media corresponding to different value systems. people separated by demographic, political, and cultural boundaries also inhabit different information worlds” [trans. by ekaterina purgina—e. p.] (bolz, 2011, p. 15). the australian social researcher mark mccrindle, who developed a theory of generation change caused by rapid technological advances, remarks: “while people of various ages are living through the same events, the age at which one is exposed to a political shift, technological change or social marker determines how embedded it becomes in one’s psyche and worldview ” (mccrindle, 2014, p. 3). these changes during the sensitive period of a person’s adulthood influence the formation of life values, and ultimately their life path. events connected with technological advances and the ensuing transformations of people’s lives and worldviews feature prominently in biographical accounts. media have proven to be a powerful force changing the basic structure of daily life. they enter daily routines and reformat them in accordance with their own agenda (altheide, 1985, p. 105). this is one of the reasons to consider a media generation as a subject sui generis. the ways and purposes of media use may differ, and these differences largely stem from differences in the newly emerged media platforms themselves. therefore, it may be concluded that what distinguishes one media generation from another is the preference people give to this or that medium in a certain historical period. the essential nature of a media generation is manifested in the priority and sustained use of technologically defined media. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 91 a media generation can thus be defined as the entirety of media audiences sharing a similar information communication environment and similar media preferences and practices. the development of a media generation and its behavioral patterns are determined by formative experiences (socialization in adolescence) that result in age cohorts sharing a common generational fate in a specific sociocultural environment. it is quite clear that generation and media generation are not interchangeable concepts. however, they do have a number of significant features in common, including the role of the formative period, generation entelechy, and others. what distinguishes the concept of media generation from that of generation is that at the core of a media generation is people’s enduring preferences in media use. the most famous study of media generations is the large-scale international research project “global media generations 2000”, based on qualitative cross-cultural research on media memories in twelve countries. the starting point was the memory of media usage during childhood in the experiment’s age cohorts. the researchers were particularly interested in all the media relevant to the respondents’ individual media biography. the study identified three media generations: the “print-media generation”, the “black-and-white-tv generation”, and the “multi-media generation” (project global media generations, 2000). russia, however, was not included in this survey. the project founder ingrid volkmer (2003) argues that each generation perceives and constructs its own media world: media events are stored away in our brain along with all the other events happening in our lives and years later our memories of them are only selective and merged with personal-life experiences. apparently, the mass media form mutual worlds of knowledge for generations of people. (p. 302) this can be explained by the fact that each generation has its own preferences regarding media types and their attributes, and these media determine the consciousness of their audiences by creating the largest emotional appeal (bolin, 2014, p. 111). following mcluhan’s logic, we can also conclude that digitalization has again changed communication media, including mass media. in comparison with analogue media, digital media present information in a more compressed form. as a result of digitalization, information can be used in non-linear ways, as everything is always instantly available and data are easy to copy and spread. digitalization has expanded our opportunities and led to the emergence of a new digital lifestyle, where virtual and real worlds not only co-exist but also interact and impact people’s behavioral patterns. l. manovich (2012) shrewdly observes that there are more differences than similarities between traditional and digital media. from the perspective of technological determinism, it can be said that in the age of digitalization, software determines the communication and content users create and share (manovich, 2014). https://changing-sp.com/ 92 anna s. sumskaya as volkmer (2003) puts it, in the youngest generation the media shape “worldviews”, not only locally and globally, but also in terms of “analog” and “digital” knowledge. whereas the oldest generations revealed “analog” knowledge, defined their worldviews according to national and cultural specifics, and described media-related memories in great details. the youngest generation shares a great variety of superficial mediarelated knowledge, when asked to describe this in-depth, they hardly know contexts and facts and use a somewhat “universal” code. (p. 16) in light of the considerable differences between the pre-digital and digital periods in the development of media, it makes sense to conceptualize and identify specific media audience groups, such as the “analogue” and “digital” media generations, as well as a transitional (“digital borderline”) generation sandwiched between them (sumskaya & solomeina, 2022). h. becker (2000) has referred to such transitional generations as “borderline generations”. g. codrington (2008) proposed another term—cusp, “the group of people who fall into the overlap between two generations” (p. 8). he also remarks that “most cuspers tend combine the main characteristics of neighbouring generations, but do not resemble their typical representatives” (p. 8). of particular relevance to this study is the concept of a “digital” media generation, as opposed to “analogue” or “digital borderline” generations. the generations of people whose formative period coincided with the development of the internet and digitalization are commonly referred to as “digital natives” (prensky, 2001). h. becker’s “pattern of generational emergence” is pivotal to this study. according to becker (1992), the specificity of a generation is determined by the events that happened during its formative period, the state of the media, prevailing patterns of socialization, and systemic and biographical characteristics. according to the international project “global digital”, russia’s internet penetration rate stood at 85% (124 million people) as of january 2021. the number of social media users in russia was equivalent to 67.8% of the total population, with young people (under 44) accounting for over 90%. the average russian had over 7 social media accounts. youtube1 ranked at the top of the list of the most popular social media platforms by user number. young users prefer to consume all their information from the internet, primarily social media (kemp, 2021). all of the above gives us reason to believe that russia has its own “digital natives” and “digital” media generations. a detailed analysis of digitalization processes in the russian media industry and people’s media practices has shown that due to the accelerated generation change caused by sweeping technological advances, there have been at least three “digital” media generations so far. the first “digital” media generation consists of people born between 1983 and 1997 (this partially overlaps with millennials in the american generational conception), the second generation are people born between 1998 and 2006 (partially overlapping with the zoomers), and representatives of the third russian “digital” media generation are now pursuing 1 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the us and other countries. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 93 secondary education and are going through the most active phase in their formative period (sumskaya, 2023). one of the characteristic features of modern russian youth is their selfidentification as a digitally-savvy, innovation-oriented generation. for young people who have grown up surrounded by technology, it is natural to live a life immersed in a continuous digital flow; they are living in a fast-paced world where the moment is the main unit of time and events are recorded in the form of short reel chronicles. “digital natives” have their own preferred practices, strategies, and channels of communication. one of the distinctive features of communication in the digital age is that subjectivity is tied to the technologies a person uses, i. e., “computer programs transform the forms of communication and perception of any symbolic production, including information about events and news” (drozdova, 2017, p. 159, trans. by e. p.). another remarkable feature stems from the network nature of digital media communication, which is profoundly different from traditional mass media (lavrenchuk, 2010, p. 69). such communication as a type of social interaction is decentralized, as it has no central point of control. individual participants use social media platforms to unite and form online communities based on common interests and shared values. theoretical insights into the lives of “digital natives” in the information stream are supported by the author’s own research. in-depth interviews conducted with a sample of 40 respondents (from november 2021 to january 2022) showed that absolutely all the respondents were registered in various social media. the ranking of the most popular social media platforms is as follows: instagram2 38 people, vk3 36 people, telegram4 32 people, facebook5 eight people, and тiktok6 eight people (sumskaya, 2023). all of the interviewees use messaging services, primarily vk, whatsapp7, telegram, and instagram. the main source of national and international news is the internet: to get their news, 25 respondents use social media, 12 respondents read online versions of newspapers and information agencies, and three respondents watch youtube. meanwhile, all 40 respondents watch videos on youtube for personal and professional purposes (sumskaya, 2023). the youngest representatives of the “digital” media generations (especially the second and third) have influencers of their own, some of whom are barely known 2 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the us and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть instagram полностью заблокирована в россии как экстремистская организация. 3 vk (short for its original name vkontakte) is a russian online social media and social networking service. https://vk.com vk™ is a trademark of vk.com ltd. 4 telegram™ is a trademark of telegram group inc., its operational center is based in dubai, the united arab emirates. 5 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть facebook полностью заблокирована в россии как экстремистская организация. 6 тiktok is a trademark of bytedance, registered in china and other countries. tiktok has suspended all new posting and live-streaming for users in the russian federation. 7 whatsapp is a trademark of whatsapp inc., registered in the us and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 94 anna s. sumskaya outside their online communities. the “digital” media generations are prone to prosumerism: they are ready to create their own media content and share their views in their group, “here and now”: they prioritize values of personalization, self-realization, and the right to self-identification. “digital” media generations are accustomed to random, non-linear, and decentralized communication. they use social media for self-expression, as well as to synchronously build multiple horizontal intraand, if they wish so, intergenerational connections. in other words, social media promote extensive social engagement. the influence of social media, together with the major events and experiences that shape people’s worldviews, form the foundation of generational entelechy. it is important to note that the priority media consumption of “digital” media generations is, of course, media created in the digital age and in hd quality. for example, in 2021, russia’s own studies of media consumption by russian “digital” media generations showed a demand for such online media as rna novosti, rna ura.ru, lenta.ru, e1.ru, gazeta.ru, znak.com, the village8, meduza9, and others. “digital” media generations also prefer to consume these media in the personal news feeds of their social networks. among print media, glossy magazines are the most popular among russian digital natives. in terms of television content, foreign tv channels operating in the russian market in cable and satellite packages (such as discovery, national geographic, euronews, and others) are of interest to “digital natives”. of russian tv channels, pyatnitsa [friday], tnt, and the dozhd10 [rain] online tv channel were the most popular (sumskaya, 2023). the cognitive and sensuous sphere in the life of “digital” media generations also has its own peculiarities. the digital media environment is an extension and development of the electronic environment, which, according to mcluhan, has become yet another technological extension of the human organism, as it gives humans an immersion of the senses and changes our cognitive processes. this strengthens the need for emotional and sensuous experiences and makes people more prone to empathy. this happens because the digital environment prioritizes our response to the representation of an action rather than the representation itself: it triggers emotional reactions, inducing total involvement in all-inclusive nowness (mcluhan, 1964). r. williams (1965) argues that each new generation has its own structure of feeling that does not come “from” anywhere: in other words, it does not result from intergenerational transmission, but “the new generation responds in its own ways to the unique world it is inheriting … feeling its whole life in certain ways differently” (p. 65). even political content in social media targeted at “digital” media generations is now permeated by sensory imagery (zavershinskiy & koryushkin, 2022, p. 50). 8 по решению роскомнадзора, издание «the village» полностью заблокировано в россии. 9 по решению роскомнадзора, издание «медуза» полностью заблокировано в россии как средство массовой информации, выполняющее функции иностранного агента и как нежелательная организация. 10 по решению роскомнадзора, телеканал «дождь» полностью заблокирован в россии как средство массовой информации, выполняющее функции иностранного агента. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 95 russian “digital” media generations are characterized by a high level of impulsivity and the prevalence of visual thinking. the cognitive sphere of such media generations is shaped by the so-called google effect, denoting the tendency to forget the information that is readily available online—in other words, what is remembered is largely not the information itself, but the place where it can be found (e.g., online). this might be the reason why ivan krastev (2016) describes contemporary young adults as “a generation that ‘google’ history for facts, but it cannot reconnect with the experience of the previous generations” (pp. 58–59). these two media generations have two distinctive characteristics. on the one hand, happiness is higher on the agenda of these generations in comparison with their predecessors. these people grew up in a relatively trouble-free period in russia’s development, when digital media and technological advances evolved at a rapid pace and became quickly engrained in their daily lives. these generations have not had the need to resort to survival strategies and, in r. inglehartʼs terms, can thus be described as “postmodernist”, with the corresponding goals and values. their distinctive feature is a high level of life satisfaction and adherence to the motto “live in the moment and be happy”. before february 2022, instagram11 was one of the platforms that essentially told an optimistic narrative, portraying the world in the best possible light. instagram is commonly described as a “happiness platform”, intended to capture and share life’s happy moments—over 90% of the content posted on instagram is meant to emphasize positive emotions. instagram users construct their virtual biographies as visual projects of a “happy life”. a. drozdova (2017) comments: “such basic anthropological foundations as ‘live beautifully’, ‘live with pleasure’, ‘be happy’ turn into manifestations of the aspiration for aesthetic pleasure as a sensual perception of the world” (p. 194; trans. by e. p.). instagram gives people ways to pursue this aspiration in their daily lives. another important feature of “digital” media generations is their high levels of anxiety stemming from increased dependence on digitally mediated communication. a large-scale survey of young russian adults has found that fear is a distinctive characteristic of this generation, threatening its social well-being: the digital fears of young people reflect the anticipated, perceived threats and anxieties concerning the future of society. therefore, the fears that drive postmodernist society have a radically different structure determined by growing uncertainty, increase in the number of forces out of human control, and changes in the attitudes to the idea of progress. fear of the future can transform the sociocultural foundations of society, even to the point of destroying them. (abramova et al., 2022, p. 71) the list of post-modernist fears includes fear of the unknown and an inability to make plans, fear of losing a sense of purpose in life, and fear of the future and 11 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the us and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть instagram полностью заблокирована в россии как экстремистская организация. https://changing-sp.com/ 96 anna s. sumskaya situations beyond one’s control. so-called digital fears include the fear of being offline, the fear of missing out, associated with the desire to stay continually connected, and the fear of being uninformed or the feeling of apprehension that one is not in the know, which causes dependence on digital systems. last but not least is the fear of digital discrimination, perceived as inequality of access to information sources and technologies and anxiety about falling behind on technology and thus losing the competitive edge. such digital inequality is commonly referred to as the “digital divide” or “digital gap” (norris, 2001; ragnedda & ruiu, 2017; vartanova, 2018). the high level of anxiety among young people “may point to the negative scenario of further social development in which the upcoming generation may turn out to be neurotic and despondent” (abramova et al., 2022, p. 68; trans. by e. p.). russian “digital” media generations are heavily influenced by technological change and innovation, which is still largely driven by western countries. in this regard, a. pletnev (2020) makes the following observation: “generation z, whose online presence led to their socialization under the constant influence of the western continent, more than any other generation resembles their western peers” (p. 116; trans. by e. p.). v. radaev (2019) uses data from population-based studies from 1994 to 2016 to show that young russian people demonstrate significant similarities in their behavior models with their western peers: they get married later in comparison with previous generations, they are more interested in sport, they consume less alcohol, and are oriented towards maintaining a good work-life balance (p. 167). they are also more prone to downshifting their careers and exploring the diversity of paths to self-realization. they value their individuality and uniqueness and are oriented at building self-awareness to develop their potential. they are used to being exposed to a continuous flow of digital information and thus feel a lot freer and more flexible than previous generations. the latest results of the world values survey (haerpfer et al., 2022) show that young russian adults (aged 18–29), like their western peers, value freedom more than equality; the significance of freedom for young people is much higher than for older generations. young russian people, like their western peers, also adhere to such values as environmental awareness, tolerance, and a healthy lifestyle. interestingly, russian respondents, comparing their living standards with those of their parents when they were their age, point out that their well-being is much higher than that of their parents in the same period of life. this is yet another sign that russian youth is an integral part of post-modernist society. some of the respondents’ values were obviously determined by their culture and their country’s economic circumstances. for example, 41% of russian respondents attach a great significance to having a good job, which is true only of 11.4% of their american peers. 60.6% of young russian adults reported having a strong fear of job loss, while for their american peers this figure is significantly lower, at 43.3%. as many as 70.1% of young russian adults are ready to fight for their country, while only 39.6% of their peers in the usa and the netherlands are ready to do so. despite the significant differences between young people across the world, there is one thing that they have in common: their news experience is dominated by digital changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 97 media and social media. until recently, they have all been using transnational media (haerpfer et al., 2022). the way “digital” media generations construct their network communications is different from more linear methods of information dissemination in the “pre-digital” age. another important difference lies in new generations’ attitudes to the cultural values of the older generations. in russia, members of older generations, especially those living in rural areas, tend to support patriarchal values more strongly: these values include the dominant vertical communication model (the family type, father– son confrontation), which is also adopted by traditional russian media (makhovskaya, 2019, p. 108). taking this point a bit further, it may be supposed that russian institutional media, especially those that established their editorial policy in the “linear”, pre-digital period, continue adhering to this vertical communication model, claiming the authority of the father figure to instruct their audiences on what they should or should not do. these communication principles, means, and values differ quite obviously from those that determine the communications of russian “digital” media generations, especially the youngest ones, almost entirely integrated into global digital network communications. it can be concluded that the effects of “post-24 february” events in russia, when viewed from the perspectives of technological determinism and cultural anthropology, first, have dramatically disrupted the russian digital media environment and, second, brought about some major transformations in the cultural value system. in the future, these factors may be conducive to the emergence of “lost” generations, as they influence young people’s sense of self, well-being, and media habits and engender a feeling of the loss of normalcy. conceptualization and interpretation of the “lost” generation the anthropological approach to generations defines them not only as “a kinship term referring to discrete stages in the natural line of descent from a common ancestor” (alwin & mccammon, 2003, p. 25), but also showcases their humancentered characteristics, emphasizes their biography-forming events (which greatly influence generational self-fulfillment in a transitional society), and their ability to achieve their destiny in a situation of large-scale multifarious informational pressure (izotova et al., 2017, p. 55). the term “lost generation” (génération perdue) was coined by the american writer and poet gertrude stein to denote the trauma endured by the people who reached adulthood during world war i. this term was later popularized by the american writer and war correspondent ernest hemingway in his autobiographical novel the sun also rises and the german writer erich maria remarque in his anti-war autobiographical novel im westen nichts neues [all quiet on the western front], and other american and european writers. they lived through the shock of the first world war at a young age and reflected this in their writings. during the war, members of the lost generation endured a deep moral and physical suffering for which they had been totally unprepared. traumatized by war, https://changing-sp.com/ 98 anna s. sumskaya disillusioned and bitter, they developed similar life views, sealing their generational fate. they failed to reintegrate into civilian life and identified themselves as the “unaccounted-for victims of war”. upon their return to civilian life, they found that they had lost their former ideals and understanding of normalcy. quite interesting in this regard is the seminal essay by the austrian sociologist karl mannheim (1928/1952) the problem of generations, written almost a century ago but still remaining a ubiquitous reference in scholarly work on generations. this essay summarized mannheim’s reflections about the consequences of world war i, including the downfall of the austro-hungarian empire. this historical context sheds light on mannheim’s idea that the “early impressions” and experiences one is exposed to in adolescence—the period of maximum social sensitivity— contribute to the crystallization of one’s basic personality structure and coalesce into a “natural view of the world” that remains relatively stable throughout a person’s life, reflecting the “stratified” consciousness of each particular generation (p. 179). mannheim argued that the formative experience of the adolescence period provides the foundation for each generation’s unique world view, which may become a major driving force in people’s lives and determines generational unity—the “spirit of a generation”. this unity, however, is not monolithic: despite an identical experience and thought patterns shared by representatives of the same generations, these patterns may manifest themselves differently in people’s practical activities and thus form intragenerational fractions. in other words, each generation has a “layered consciousness”, “subjective centers of life orientation”, or “generational nodes” that circumscribe generational experience and determine the types of actions that are historically relevant. “the spirit of a generation”, or generational “entelechies”, finds its most articulate expression in the generation’s elite, which implies that not everyone who formally belongs to a generation shares in its spiritual dimension (mannheim, 1928/1952). mannheim called himself a typical representative of the lost generation. in the aftermath of world war ii, the problem of lost generations again gained urgency in western countries for obvious reasons. in different countries, these generations in relation to their world view came to be known under different names: for example, in the uk they were called the “angry young men”, in the usa the “broken generation”, and in germany the “generation of the returned” (gilenson, 1975). the devastation left by world war ii, its enormous human and material coasts, led the renowned american political and social scientist ronald inglehart (1977) to develop a model of generational change based on the scarcity hypothesis and socialization hypothesis. r. inglehart highlighted the massive intergenerational shift from materialist to post-materialist priorities that occurred from 1970 to 1988, distinguishing between the older “materialist” (those born before the end of world war ii) and younger “postmaterialist” birth cohorts (born at the end of the war or in the post-war years). the dutch sociologist henk becker (1992), relying on inglehartʼs findings, proposed his own generation typology, which has a supranational character and is applicable to all western european countries. he defined the generation of people born between 1955 and the 1970s as the lost generation, pointing out that the changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 99 trauma this generation endured was not connected to the war but to other factors. in his view, the formative period of the lost generation coincided with the global economic recession of the seventies and mass youth unemployment, which strongly affected the subjective well-being of its representatives (pp. 221–222). the aforementioned generations were lost not because of their traumatic war experience but due to a different kind of trauma. as prager (2003) puts it, “the traumatic moment yields thoughts and actions that continually re-create in mind the experience of danger and helplessness” (p. 177). this feeling of inescapable helplessness can trigger the feeling of being lost. the french anthropologist françois héran (2014) argues that not only wars, but also, for example, epidemics lead to missing births and irreparable losses, creating “depleted cohorts” (pp. 3–4), and are thus significant factors in the emergence of lost generations. american scholars have demonstrated that the consequences of economic recession, including economic shocks caused by the covid-19 pandemic (von wachter, 2020), include long-term financial uncertainty, reduced job prospects, and lower subjective well-being, thus contributing to the emergence of lost generations (steuerle et al., 2013). the most vulnerable social groups in this case are thought to include young people who have just entered the labor market and (or) lost their income. there is evidence that in the usa, covid-19 containment measures led to “staggering increases in unemployment” (von wachter, 2020, p. 588). by experts’ estimates, it may take over ten years to overcome the consequences of the world crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic, which undoubtedly has taken its toll on the mental and physical health of individuals, on their subjective well-being. all the above gives scholars sufficient grounds to identify this generation as a lost one. the results show that young adults (18–35) have been most severely hit by the pandemic, manifesting deteriorating mental health, increasing pessimism, hostility, and worries about unemployment and the economy (lampert et al., 2021, p. 4). the british scholars k. pritchard and r. whiting (2014) demonstrate that for the lost generation, struggling to find well-paid jobs and facing the risks of unemployment, the notion of being lost translates to an individual and group position of hopelessness with negative consequences. in russia, the problem of lost generations has attracted the attention of researchers in different fields, namely, social, culture, political studies, and pedagogy. for instance, kh. sadykova (2015) defines a lost generation as a group of individuals who have failed to realize their abilities for a number of objective reasons. the psychosociolinguist e. shamis believes that the main reason behind the emergence of such lost generations is the “incomprehensibility of the future” (poletaeva, 2019). a. n. petrov (2008) argues that an intense traumatic experience can cause intrusive thoughts, persistent feelings of helplessness and insecurity. dramatic economic, institutional, social, and cultural changes, the resulting economic downturn, increasing uncertainty about the future, social and economic marginalization, and growing unemployment disrupt social well-being and produce lost generations (pp. 285–287). https://changing-sp.com/ 100 anna s. sumskaya russian scholars have identified the anthropological phenomenon of lost generations either by following participants’ subjective self-descriptions or by presenting an interpretation from a detached point of view. table 1 presents a summary of the evidence collected through qualitative studies (in-depth interviews) and quantitative studies (large-scale sociological surveys) in russia. the data comprises generation time spans, the unique factors that affected these generations, and the causes of generational trauma they may have suffered. table 1 “lost” generations in russia (based on russian evidence) generation (birth years) determining factors result in-depth interview elite prerevolutionary generation (born in the 1900s) members of this generation received their “school certificates with the imperial eagle” (semenova, 2001, p. 264) but were “crippled in the turmoil of the revolution” after 1917 unable to adjust to the new social order and interiorize the values of soviet russia mass generation of the “socialist project” (born in the 1950s) their formative years were spent in the soviet union while their middle adulthood years coincided with perestroika (semenova, 2001, p. 264) unable to accept materialist values and the “struggle for survival” imperative generation of “superfluous people” (born in the 1970s) their adolescence coincided with the late soviet period and the beginning of professionalization, with perestroika (anipkin, 2018, p. 294) struggled to adapt to new social conditions, interiorize the values of a market society, and are facing meager career prospects sociological survey cold war generations (born in the 1950–1970s) the policy of isolationism and censorship of the soviet period (levada, 2001, p. 8) struggle to adapt to life in an open society, devoid of ideologically charged propaganda first non-soviet generation (“generation of fast buttons”) (born in the 1980s and 1990s). an outmoded system of education, which was meant to provide labor for industrialization (miroshkina, 2017, p. 14) the system of education inherited from the soviet period impeded the development of independent learning skills in members of this generation, putting them at a disadvantage in the era of digital technologies and the network society first post-soviet generation (born in 1985–2000s) members of this generation tend to remain apathetic and unengaged in political and social issues members of this generation prefer to conform and go with the flow rather than take an active stand. even though members of this generation tend to build successful administrative careers, they are often described as the “generation of the infantile and the aggressive” (pastukhov, 2015) changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 101 generation (birth years) determining factors result “disappointed” generation (born in 1982–2000s) this generation has difficulties with self-identification, as its formative years coincided with the period of the country’s relative economic prosperity. the introduction of the unified state exam discouraged the development of critical thinking skills in children, which is why the search for the answer to the “who we are” question took longer than for other generations (radaev, 2019, p. 183) diminished resilience and stress resistance, immaturity, difficulties with self-identification as the cited studies show, at least four russian generations in the 20th century can qualify as lost. the largest amount of data deal with the youngest generation, whose formative period coincided with the turn of the millennium. this scholarly focus is justified because young people act as the drivers of change in any country. the russian sociologist v. v. semenova (2005) adopts the perspective of cultural anthropology to discuss the self-representations of people from different generations, pointing out that, first, generations associate themselves with a particular social time (historical and individual) and, second, each of them positions themselves in society as “victims of social processes” (p. 90; trans. by e. p.). she found that respondents of all the age groups in question manifest a “state of expressive suffering”: for example, “war victims” among the representatives of older generations, “perestroika victims” and “the abandoned and deceived” in middle-age groups, and those “ hung out to dry” and “ forgotten by their country” in younger groups. semenova comes to the conclusion that the willingness to sacrifice oneself appears to be one of the core characteristics of the archetype of russian people. in this archetype, patience, suffering, and humility are both a means and an outcome of inner ascetism, resulting from “one’s ordering of soul. it is inherent in russian culture and without it no subjectivity, no respect, and no esteem exist (semenova, 2005, p. 90; trans. by e. p.). in our previous studies we have demonstrated that the willingness to self-sacrifice and humanist values constitute the core of the “spiritual staples” of russian people (sumskoy & sumskaya, 2019). thus, following semenova‘s findings published almost 20 years ago, the generations that are lost, in fact, reproduce the archetypal qualities of self-sacrifice and appreciation of suffering. hence, recurrent symbolic stimuli—traumatic events— enable russian citizens to enjoy viable self-actualization and claim their experience of suffering to be a “unique destiny”. on the other hand, the american scholar jeffrey prager (2003) argues that traumatic experiences may be transmitted from one generation to another. citing robert pynoosʼs work, prager explains that the children of parents who suffered “inassimilable life experiences” may have greater difficulty feeling secure in the world or establishing “an assertive stance or independence” because their parents have transmitted their anxiety and insecurity “verbally, through unusual anxious https://changing-sp.com/ 102 anna s. sumskaya behavior, and by means of imposed behavioral avoidance that limits developmental opportunities” (p. 178). following this logic, it may be assumed that victimhood is transmitted to each russian generation through the recreation of negative memories and the feeling of helplessness. from this perspective, victimhood is considered not as an archetypal quality of russians, but rather as a continuously reproduced tragic twist of events, which turns almost every generation into a lost one. as the reasons behind the emergence of each lost russian generation are different (see table 1), the situation is best described with the russian proverb “you never know whether you will gain or lose”. in any case, the result is fairly similar, at least judging by the results of the cited studies. in sum, long-lasting uncertainty and the unpredictability of events, drastic negative change, and traumatic experiences are detrimental to people’s subjective wellbeing because the latter implies independence, confidence, and self-actualization, i.e., the realization of a person’s full potential (pushina, 2012, p. 184). r. inglehart highlights that subjective well-being starts to prevail among other components in the value system due to increased economic and physical security and the sense of order, stability, and predictability (inglehart, 1997, p. 9). in this case, the key markers of subjective well-being are satisfaction with life and work, pay satisfaction, economic optimism, and happiness (radaev, 2019, p. 110) and a sense of purpose and meaning to life (steptoe et al., 2015). consequently, a long period of ill-being leads to ressentiment, a feeling of inadequacy and of being deprived of any prospects in life (karapetyan & glotova, 2018; zotova & karapetyan, 2018), social and political alienation, and the feeling of not fitting in. the digital age has added one more factor to this list the level of perceived knowledge. the uncertainty and lack of reliable information has a negative impact on people’s well-being: lower perceived knowledge is associated with a weaker sense of control, which means that people start seeing the situation as more dangerous (yang & ma, 2020). thus, geopolitical factors such as wars, economic upheavals, and major epidemics can lead to generational loss, as they adversely affect people included in these events with negative consequences. in todayʼs developed media society, a factor such as abrupt and prolonged restriction of audience groups in media use, subject to their previously stable media patterns, can lead to lost media generations. this is true at least for the elite part of the media generation, i.e., the most advanced users in the digital media environment. discussion and conclusions russian “digital” media generations have thrived in virtual environments. this abandonment of traditional mass media of the pre-digital age in favor of the digital media environment once again confirms mcluhan’s famous aphorism that “a new medium is never an addition to an old one, nor does it leave the old one in peace. it never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds new shapes and positions for them” (2003, p. 197). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 103 one of the key features shared by representatives of “digital” media generations in this context is that they give clear preference to horizontal over vertical communication, as well as prioritizing freedom of choice in selecting sources of information and freedom of communication over restrictions and censorship. in the spring of 2022, after the start of the special military operation in ukraine some social networks were blocked for russian users. afterwards, information began to emerge that many of the glossy magazines (cosmopolitan, elle, harper’s bazaar, men’s health, vogue, gq, glamour, esquire, tatler and others) so important to the postmodern “digital” media generations were leaving the russian market. this was followed by the blocking of the russian tv channel dozhd [rain], the radio station ekho moskvy [echo of moscow], and significant changes to the program content of the popular russian “digital” media generation tv channel pyatnitsa [friday]. some online digital media, including the village, meduza, etc., were blocked. colta.ru12 and znak. com, popular with “digital” media generations, along with yuri dud13, alexey pivovarov, and a number of other generationally significant opinion leaders were put on the list of foreign agents. at present, the european and american rights holders of discovery, animal planet, national geographic, viasat history, viasat nature, disney, euronews, and other tv channels have ended cooperation with russian cable and satellite tv operators. the departure of western media from the russian media market can be seen as a result of propaganda. however, it is important to note that these media have been evaluated by the “digital” media generations as being in demand. so, these measures have had a traumatic effect on “digital natives”, who are accustomed to the integrity and continuity of information flow, which is in a certain sense the symbolic capital of these generations. the negative emotions regarding the social media crackdown were frequently expressed online by the representatives of “digital” media generations. many of the people troubled by the social media bans were employed in the internet sphere. moreover, the content propagated by the western media (simons, 2022a, 2022b) has influenced the value-based meaning-making process and subjective well-being of younger russian “digital” media generations. quite illustrative in this respect are the creative manifestos issued after 24 february, 2022 that show very strong, varied, and often contradictory responses to these events. for example, little big14, a self-described russian “punk-pop-rave band”, released a video called “generation cancellation”. the russian rock band nogu svelo15 made the video “generation z”. the opposing view was expressed by russian composer and singer oleg shaumarov, who released the patriotic songs ia russkii [i am russian] and moia strana [my country] about the world of russian people. the singer-songwriter shaman (jaroslav dronov) launched a video challenge on social media with his patriotic 12 по решению роскомнадзора, издание «colta.ru» полностью заблокировано в россии. 13 признан иностранным агентом министерством юстиции рф. 14 основатель группы little big илья прусикин министерством юстиции рф признан иностранным агентом. 15 основатель группы "ногу свело" максим покровский министерством юстиции рф признан иностранным агентом. https://changing-sp.com/ 104 anna s. sumskaya hit ia russkii [i am russian]. this video appealed to the target audience (young adults included) with a tempo-rhythmic structure and expressivity (in stanislavski’s system) that has come to represent national identity, thus epitomizing the current aspirations of the russian people, connecting projections of the past and future, and fitting successfully into the ideological campaign built around the heroic narrative (zavershinskiy & koryushkin, 2022, p. 51). it should be noted that as the world values survey showed, 72.1% of russians in the 18–29 age group reported the possibility of war involving russia among their biggest fears. a similar attitude was expressed in relation to terrorist attacks and the possibility of a civil war (haerpfer et al., 2022). the above-described digital fears and anxiety about the possibility of war came true in the spring of 2022. the results of the first mass interview-based survey encompassing a nationwide representative sample give us some idea about russian people’s attitudes to the blockage of some social media platforms and news outlets. the results have shown that most respondents from the 18–24 age group reported having regular trouble with accessing digital media content (internet, sotsial’nye seti i vpn, 2022), in relation to which they express not nostalgic reminiscences about their past media experience or bitter sweet memories of their past media habits (bolin, 2014, p. 109), but distinct anger and indignation at being unable to pursue their old life style (enjoying free access to social media platforms and online communication) and at the loss of normalcy. however, according to the russian public opinion research center (vciom), only 11% of their respondents are ready to advocate for a free and open internet (without censorship or content blocking), while 82% believe that internet censorship is necessary to block violent content or content that incites hate. every second russian believes that it is necessary to develop a digital environment connecting different countries of the world (internet: vozmozhnosti ili ugrozy, 2021). the same survey conducted in 2022 showed that 79% of young people report feeling stressed—this figure is much higher than for older age groups (stress— i kak s nim borot’sia, 2022). a month after the launch of the special military operation in february 2022, political experts on russian federal tv channels described the situation unfolding in the global media space as the first world information war. four months later, this topic was picked up by many western leaders, who started speaking of a global media war. there is some truth to this. the cognitive skills of russian “digital” media generations make them unable to fully and objectively reflect upon these events, especially since, as was discussed above, their socialization involved close interaction with their western peers within an integrated digital environment. from the perspective of digital divide theory, it may be said that we are now dealing with a new kind of digital inequality. the discreteness of the media flow, whose continuity is crucial primarily for “digital” media generations and their media identity, has created a unique combination of factors contributing to further exacerbation of the digital divide. digital communication requires a high degree of computer competence; the absence of access to generationally familiar social media and digital media changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 88–112 105 provokes anxiety and a feeling of vulnerability in members of media generations. restrictions on social media and digital media access produce a perceived inequality of opportunity, as none of the previous generations were so fully integrated into the digital media environment as young russian “digital natives”. moreover, it should be noted that previous media generations had already gained some experience of responding to major stress-inducing events. for instance, people from the “analogue” media generation, born in the soviet period, still adhere to the “ordinary soviet person” anthropological model: they choose tv news or other tv programs as their main news sources. the “digital borderline” media generation, which lived through the reforms of the 1990s and the early “naïve” period of the publicly available internet, can use both traditional and digital media, which is why they slide easily into the established behavior model of looking for ways around the restrictions. “digital” media generations do not yet have readymade strategies or models for responding to such situations. for them, the soviet era and perestroika belong to an imaginary past, which puts them in the most vulnerable position. this complex process was described by r. inglehart (1997), who pointed out that normally, culture changes slowly; but it does eventually respond to a changing environment. changes in the socioeconomic environment help reshape individuallevel beliefs, attitudes, and values through their impact on the life experience of individuals. cultures do not change overnight. once they have matured, people tend to retain whatever worldview they have learned. consequently, the impact of major changes in the environment tends to be the most significant on those generations that spent their formative years under the new conditions. (p. 16) it is now crucial to support the “digital” media generations by compensating for shrinking opportunities of generational media communication and creating alternative digital media platforms, which can be used for self-fulfillment and to help these people strengthen their civilizational identity in the ongoing ideological global confrontation. the events of recent months show that attempts to create russian clones of popular platforms such as instagram16—rossgram, now, grustnogram, musicgram— though interesting, have so far remained rather unconvincing. another actively promoted project is the social media platform яrus, which is supposed to become an alternative to the banned platforms and youtube. this application has been downloaded from the google play store over 1 million times. during 2022, the telegram messenger’s audience almost doubled from 2021 to around 40 million russian users (keffer, 2023). however, it is important to note that telegram still lacks the sought-after visualization features that instagram had. although many instabloggers and tiktokers continue to move their audience to telegram, they have not been able to replenish previous audience volumes. 16 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the us and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть instagram полностью заблокирована в россии как экстремистская организация. https://changing-sp.com/ 106 anna s. sumskaya the top russian media platform vk provides a viable alternative to facebook and other banned social media: in march 2022, 300,000 new e-commerce entrepreneurs moved to vk and started experimenting with the platform’s tools for relaunching their business. throughout the spring and summer of 2022, vk has been working on expanding the platform’s capabilities and functionality. in march, the company launched a vk video app for smart tv. in april 2022, the number of daily active users of vk was 47.2 million in russia alone and over 100 million across the world (vkontakte podvela itogi, 2022). in the summer of 2022, some replacement for foreign glossy magazines appeared on the russian media market. this is how the russian glossy magazines voice, symbol, men today, and several others came into being. russian traveler tv channel has been launched. perhaps soon we will hear about new initiatives in these areas. the government has launched several large-scale state initiatives such as the federal law no. 261-fz o rossiiskom dvizhenii detei i molodezh [on the russian movement of children and youth] (approved by the federation council on 8 july 2022) aimed at propagating patriotic values among the youth. it is, however, still unclear how these initiatives will be perceived by the oldest “digital” media generations, whose behavioral models may be less flexible. these measures are expected to provide the necessary support for russian “digital natives”, help them preserve their right to personal sovereignty, and restore generational daily media rituals. they also have the potential to mitigate the negative effects of the already visible cultural intraand intergenerational value gap, contribute to these people’s self-actualization and self-realization, and ensure these generations’ capacity to live in a comfortable, sustainable, and contiguous digital environment. it can be supposed that the absence or inefficiency of such measures, along with the continued ban on news sources and media platforms that leave “digital natives” without any viable alternatives or objective conditions for self-fulfillment may result in the emergence of a new lost media generation. but there is still a chance to prevent this. references abramova, s. b., antonova, n. l., campa, r., & popova, n. g. 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one highly influential perspective—organismic valuing process (ovp) theory— was formulated by carl rogers, who believed in people’s innate inclination toward personal growth, both physical and psychological (rogers, 1961). initially, personal growth implies a deeper understanding and connection with the self. gradually, individuals learn to communicate with themselves, thereby attaining a higher degree of inner security. this process inevitably involves a great deal of comparison with others. rogers’ idea of a fully functioning person as a central term in the person-centered theory of personality was further developed by humanistic and existential theories. their brightest representatives are abraham maslow with his concept of self-transcendence as the ultimate need of a person (maslow, 1971), and victor frankl with his principle of responsibility toward others and life itself as the essence of human existence (frankl, 1966). deep and thoughtful reflection on the process of personal transformation is one of the most relevant topics for changing societies & personalities. unfortuna tely, the contemporary reality seems to challenge the optimistic views on human nature shared by the abovementioned authors. the scholars, driven by the post-war enthusiasm, gave insufficient credence to not only the complexity of sociocultural processes, but also the reality of evil in our world. several articles presented in the current issue of changing societies & personalities seek to argue that personal growth can be based on false goals, and that people may not always value the freedom of choice. at the same time, some emerging research paradigms are capable of capturing “minor” ordinary events, including their seemingly insignificant peculiarities, as factors that change the order of things. eventually, the finitude of our life should not allow us to forget that, as the authors of the current issue note “we are part of a larger universe, and that human life does not stand alone but is closely connected to nature and its environment”. received 15 may 2023 © 2023 elena a. stepanova published online 3 july 2023 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:stepanova.elena.a%40gmail.com?subject= 6 elena a. stepanova the article personality and society in the theory of self-organized criticality by dmitry s. zhukov is devoted to the theory of self-organized criticality (soc), which appeared in the late 1980s and gradually became a new scientific paradigm to address a wide range of problems in various disciplines. the author challenges the widespread notion of an impenetrable barrier separating the mathematized natural sciences, on one side, and the social sciences and humanities, on the other. according to soc, this difference does not matter anymore. considering the heuristic capabilities of the soc theory in social sciences and the humanities, namely the place and role of a person and a human act in society and history, especially in times of social cataclysms, dmitry zhukov stresses that “the soc theory demonstrated the connection of low-level processes with global events. it also described the mechanisms by which systemwide regularities can be generated by a vast array of decentralized and uncoordinated ‘minor’ ordinary events”. he discusses three research questions, which sounds rather fundamental: is soc really a ubiquitous property of social reality, or are these claims overly optimistic due to the rapid expansion of the theory? does the soc theory substantiate the fundamental unpredictability and inevitability of social catastrophes? what contribution can the soc theory make to clarifying the fundamental problem of the relationships between chance and regularity and between human will and historical necessity? answering these questions, the author concludes that “the soc theory makes it possible to diagnose—not only after the fact, but also in advance— the transformational potential of a social system, from an online community to a social group and the whole of society”. andrei a. linchenko and bella v. gartwig in the article rediscovering identity: autobiographical memory and media discourses of russian-germans in germany and russia states the specificity of russian-german migration and cultural transfer among other ethnic groups: “what makes their case particularly interesting, at the same time as difficult to study, is that they represent a kind of ‘double migrants’”. the ancestors of this group moved to russia during the reign of catherine ii in the 18th century. in the soviet time, the volga german autonomous republic was established in 1924, followed by the stalinist repressions of the late 1930s, and mass deportation to kazakhstan in 1941. since 1988, after the collapse of the ussr, about 2.5 million migrants of german origin have moved to the federal republic of germany from post-soviet countries for permanent residence. at the same time, many russian-germans remained in russia and founded themselves in a situation of rediscovering their ethnic identity in the 1990s. thus, the authors refer to rogers brubaker’s notion of the russian-germans as a transnational group with a specific “hybrid identity”, whose identification varies depending on the cultural project they are involved in. the article contains a comparative analysis of the narratives of russian-germans in russia and germany about rediscovering their identity based on the autobiographical memory, personal experience, and the variety of discourses of this ethnic group. the research is based on narrative interviews with people of different ages and in different locations in germany and russia, using the methods of narrative psychology and biographical analysis of fritz schütze. the article origins of ethno-religious profiling: the jewish question and police surveillance in the russian empire in the 19th century of kseniya s. grigor’eva presents changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 5–9 7 the results of a thematic study of the issue. the author stresses that the russian empire of the 19th century could be described as a “confessional” state, where religious identification served as the most important mechanism for maintaining discipline and obedience among the authorities. at the same time, relations between population groups were increasingly understood in terms of nationalities and classes; thus, the perception of jews was also highly ambiguous. the author explores the emergence and development of anti-jewish legislation, and the resulting surveillance practices, and argues that “they were the first and, most likely, the main target of persistent, systemic, and legally recorded social engineering, entailing a particularly ‘nitpicky’ brand of regulation, which birthed a myriad of surveillance techniques that affected a broad variety of activities in daily jewish life”. the article is based on an analysis of russian imperial laws on jews, reviews of the 19th century legal practice, memoirs, and archival documents. kseniya s. grigor’eva also makes parallels with the 16th and the 18th centuries european models of surveillance of the jewish population, and its roots in the philosophies of cameralism and mercantilism. svetlana n. kostromina and maria v. makarova in the article quasi-development as an illusion of personal growth discuss a widely acknowledged opinion that global civilizational changes require individuals to transform their ways of interacting with the world in order to maintain personal sustainability. the authors define the current context as the “change of changes,” in which “traditional processes of adapting and maintaining stability (homeostasis preservation) are becoming less relevant. instead, pre-adaptive processes that encourage diversity, universal readiness for change, and generate new forms of life… are becoming more important in responding to these changes”. they view development as active transformation of oneself and the surrounding world characterized by internal orderliness and connectedness, as well as a persistent drive to move forward despite external influences and personal limitations. opposed to that, quasi-development is a phenomenon observed in adults where change is pursued without a clear purpose or direction. this phenomenon is also characterized by a lack of correlation between a person’s life experiences and their life history. the conclusions of the article are drawn from semi-structured interviews with representatives of two distinct groups, one comprising individuals with psychological education, and the other without. in the article exploring anchor personality and true meaning in indonesian young adults, annisa ardi ayuningtyas and bagus riyono put forward an original concept of true meaning, which tries to endue it with the status of objectivity. according to the authors, the theory of true meaning includes some characteristics that limits subjectivity, motivating individuals never to give up. they argue that “the main element that allows humans to reach true meaning is the freedom to choose”, which is based on human nature, and oppose their approach to previous theories of meaning, which emphasizes subjectivity, especially concerning advantages for individuals and communities. the authors believe that the implication of human nature in the true meaning theory makes it applicable to everyone. the second important term proposed by the authors in the article is anchor personality. the anchor, which is something that individuals rely on when dealing with problems, includes four dimensions: “materials (material objects such as money or technology), self, others (other parties, both individuals and groups), https://changing-sp.com/ 8 elena a. stepanova and virtues (universal principles of life)”. the subjects of study are indonesian citizens (212 in total), males (30.66%) and females (69.34%) aged 18–34 years, obtained by non-probability sampling using a snowball sampling approach. the true meaning scale constructed by bagus riyono was used as a research instrument. natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, and viktoria v. polyakova in the article reframing bodies: new coordinates of the body image stresses that the question about changing attitudes to the body during the pandemic remains largely underexplored despite such attitudes were highly affected by the imposed restrictions. the authors note that contemporary social studies of the body image tend to view the body from the perspective of its correspondence to cultural norms. the authors’ analysis has two main vectors, which also determines the methodology of the empirical study: the body as an aesthetic object with such qualities as sexual attractiveness; the body as a process seen in the light of its functional characteristics. the study aims to investigate the perceptions of the body and its representations shared by inhabitants of large cities in the sverdlovsk region. based on the data from their sociological survey, the authors analyze the perceptions of the desired body type (both male and female) and the factors that affect those perception. the sample comprised 1077 completed responses in the electronic database. the survey was conducted in 2022 and covered workingage people from 18 to 60 years old living in the sverdlovsk region. in the article where am i now: symbols used in manggarai funeral rite, indonesia, hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, and stanislaus guna stress the increasing recognition of the value of local knowledge concerning human behavior and relationships with god, others, and nature, which have a crucial role in determining how people live their daily lives. local wisdom has different ways to express itself in symbols, which are culturally defined in accordance with the beliefs of the people to whom they belong. the authors “seek to elucidate the significance and moral lessons found in one of the indigenous traditions of the manggarai ethnic in indonesia, particularly the death rites”, and underline that while previous studies have described the funeral rite and its cultural significance, little attention has been paid to the use of symbols, their meanings and values. they argue that “as an effort to maintain the existence and sustainability of the role and function of local culture, this study is very important to provide new perspective to the existing literature of local community in today’s interconnected world”. the authors study the pre-, during, and post stages of the manggarai ethnic’s burial ceremony, which has social (an attempt to maintain a sense of kinship and family unity), religious (manggarai ethnic belief in the human soul), philosophical (the view that human life does not stop after death), and cosmological (humans as part of a larger universe) meanings. in the research, three different methods were used: observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. the major informants were three spokespersons and three senior villagers who were more knowledgeable about the manggarai culture. the book reviews section includes a review by natalia a. chernyaeva of christina weis’s book “surrogacy in russia: an ethnography of reproductive labour, stratification and migration”, 2021. the book under review, as the author notes, is the first monograph devoted to the institute of surrogacy in russia in its complexity and breadth. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 5–9 9 discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections, or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ references frankl, v. (1966). self-transcendence as a human phenomenon. journal of humanistic psychology, 6(2), 97–106. https://doi.org/10.1177/002216786600600201 maslow, a. h. (1971). the farther reaches of human nature. penguin books. rogers, c. r. (1961). on becoming a person: a therapist’s view of psychotherapy. constable. https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 350–363 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.2.179 received 7 november 2021 © 2022 megan l. dixon accepted 20 may 2022 mdixon@collegeofidaho.edu published online 11 july 2022 article seeking ecology and equity along the boise greenbelt megan l. dixon the college of idaho, caldwell, idaho, usa abstract as a pedestrian-friendly green landscape that has become popular in the us and around the world in the past fifty years, the boise greenbelt seems to present an ideal example of how to create a waterfront that can promote economic growth along with high recreational use. however, there are two aspects to interrogate as we ponder an effective model for such landscapes going into a future affected by climate change: first, like many such landscapes which focus on an esthetic leisure experience for the user, the boise greenbelt does not fully attend to the ecology of the river along which it lies; second, also as a feature of esthetic leisure experience, the boise greenbelt falls into a category of “park, café, riverwalk” which potentially reduces equity in use of urban space. analysis of this landscape and its successes can help to shape a model that will be responsive to future climate conditions and enhance social equity. keywords waterfront, greenbelt, ecology, green gentrification, rivers, access, displacement the contemporary popularity of landscapes along water is undeniable. in boise, idaho, the linear park along the boise river that includes a biking/walking path is termed the boise greenbelt. in its focus on placing a pedestrian route along a river, the boise greenbelt is like similar landscapes in many other cities around the us and the world. in this essay, the term “greenbelt” will be used to indicate this kind of landscape, even though in urban planning “green belt” more often refers to a band of open or green space around a city to limit or manage its growth, and some sources prefer the term “greenway” for a linear park. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 350–363 351 the chief assertion of this essay will be that a renewed conception of riverfront greenbelts is necessary under the changing conditions of climate change and increased residential pressure on remaining water-rich landscapes. along the boise greenbelt, conventional environmental conservation has struggled with development impulses, both shaping aspects of public sentiment. as bishop (2020) asserts about traditional green belts in the uk, “perhaps the most important legacy of [such landscapes] is that a legacy of open land has been passed down to us from previous generations” (p. 157). it remains important to figure out how this concept of public open space should interact with pressure for increased housing units, development profit, wildlife habitat, and recreation. above all, it is important to remember that a river, even an urban river, is not just a backdrop to human activities: it has its own set of functions that connect to a broader system of hydrology. how to build greater education about biosphere processes into a managed urban and periurban environment remains a challenge for planners, practitioners, and advocates. everyone loves a greenbelt. a specific type of waterfront amenity that aims to provide pleasant public space and more ecologically sensitive riparian landscaping, greenbelts have been executed in some form in many cities where a river flows through developed areas, often the downtown area of a city. a more urban, less ecological model called a “riverwalk” transformed the confined waterways in downtown san antonio, texas, several decades ago. taking advantage of the growing interest in and time for outdoor recreation, especially walking, running, and biking, many other cities have turned their attention to formerly neglected waterways and made them into attractive amenities right in the downtown core. an example of this is the transformation in denver, colorado, of cherry creek and other tributaries of the south platte from polluted wasteways to clear(er) streams with miles of running trails; as the old textile mills have been increasingly reclaimed for pubs, upscale boutiques, and housing, the history of the factory effluent has been erased. a city with a similar bent to outdoor recreation but a different economic history, eugene, oregon, has the willamette river dividing its older developed area from the newer area to the north; created enough decades before more growth, the eugene greenbelt features a band of green riparian area with large stretches of public park, including a bike/running path, as in denver, but also hosting playgrounds and wide sweeps of turfgrass lawns. on temperate days in any season, all of these greenbelts are crowded with users, proving that greenbelts are indeed a popular type of urban landscape and typically worth a city’s investment. greenbelts provide public space that is green and accessible, favoring healthy outdoor recreation. in the united states, greenbelts reflect the coincidence of two developments that complemented each other. first, a growing desire arose for a cleaner environment in the late 1960s and early 1970s. after the publication of silent spring by rachel carson and the growing movement for environment-oriented legislation, urban waterways could benefit from a new, more attentive environmental vision and the passage of the clean water act in 1970. while an accurate understanding https://changing-sp.com/ 352 megan l. dixon of water in the hydrologic system is still a horizon in many places (witness the misunderstanding of surface-groundwater interaction that persists in california), residents began to pay more attention to the water in their immediate environments and clamored for reform. second, this closer attention to the environment and interest in hygiene also built on the economic trend towards deindustrialization that accelerated in the same period. off-shoring of polluting industries (such as steel from pittsburgh to cities in south korea) or the failure of such industries to compete with newer ones in countries with newer equipment, cheaper labor, or fewer environmental regulations (as with textiles) meant that urban managers did not feel pressured to defend the waste that accompanied industrial processes. along with an interest in hygiene, the onset of less-materials-based post-industrial economic activity brought a new kind of white-collar leisure time which could be spent outdoors. the coincidence in this vision of cleaner water and more leisure time leading to certain kinds of evening and weekend recreation leads to the need for green space which a “greenbelt” along a river can provide. this may be related to the increased interest in “nature” connected to both developments described above; as some scholars of the 1964 united states wilderness act point out, for example, the reduced need to depend on “natural resources” made people feel more affectionate towards “nature” and more interested in spending time in it (nash, 1967/2001); bringing “nature” back into cities follows this interest. indeed, the impetus to increase urban health by adding open green space goes back to the late nineteenth century and found expression in urban movements such as the garden city and public housing initiatives in cities like new york and chicago (zipp, 2010). the greenbelt, as a public space for leisure and new kinds of recreation, can be seen as following along from movements that created central parks (such as new york’s famous one or portland’s park blocks, courtesy of the olmsteds) but encompassing waterways more actively. the final criterion which emerges from examining these factors together is how ecological a greenbelt is. simply cleaning up the banks of a waterway with a path on either side does not make a greenbelt into a true riparian zone. indeed, part of the misunderstanding of hydrology that developed in the period of active industrial and agriculture use of united states waterways was a failure to understand the need for stabilizing and filtering vegetation in a buffer strip along the edge of streams, especially those around which humans typically build their settlements. along with failing to understand groundwater and other processes, most settlers along the euro-american model were committed to using all available space, including up to the edge of a riverbank. understanding those riverbanks as malleable and fragile has come with sometimes bitter experience. even when a greenbelt focuses on providing a “natural” or parklike space for the public, the resulting landscape may not be recognizably riparian in most ways except for the presence of the water. for example, san antonio’s riverwalk has trees, but its development arguably did not include any kind of restoration of the riparian zone. many rivers have also been channelized (i.e., straightened) through the urban areas which now treat them as an changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 350–363 353 amenity, producing challenges for nearby humans and not bringing all of the benefits of a natural riparian zone. a final preliminary example that highlights an important aim of greenbelts is the caldwell indian creek walkway, just about thirty miles away from boise in a smaller city. the shorter length of this greenbelt (so far) reduces its usefulness for vigorous outdoor recreation through the caldwell downtown, but it brings many strollers in all seasons, including in the winter when the city hangs an elaborate array of lights for the christmas and new year holidays. since the extreme pollution by industry and livestock agriculture had prompted city fathers to pave it over, the creek had to be “daylighted” in 2006; the resulting open water flow is definitely an attractive addition to the downtown landscape. above all, though, examination of the documents prepared by the city for the daylighting of the creek show that—more than a healthy riparian zone or even the promotion of public outdoors activity—the caldwell greenbelt was intended to reinvigorate the downtown economy, using the visual attraction of the waterway and the economic assumptions of that greenbelt model to bring new businesses to further promote the economy of leisure such as restaurants and shops. city residents genuinely enjoy the open space, green lawns, festival events, and flowing water, but importantly all these are associated with a successful model of economic activity which has definitely benefited the formerly farm town of caldwell. considering these examples, we can see that the relative mix of ecology, economy, and health in the greenbelt model can be evaluated. as will become clear, in boise as elsewhere, it is clear that the economic motivator can trump the ecological one and can have unexpected implications for social equity in public space. popular and successful as greenbelts are, it is important to assess the model and consider whether it is time to retool it for the sake of future use and coexistence with climatic trends. among other possible reframings, in spite of all the positive effects of greenbelts and their popularity with urban users, it has long been clear that the “greenbelt model” is not necessarily an environmental one; continuous human use of spaces that are cleared for trails and picnic space often contradict the conditions that wildlife need for habitat or the conditions that water needs for filtration, spring flow, and promoting ecological disturbance for vegetation health. greenbelts were an important step beyond the landscapes of industrialization, but now urban planners have the opportunity to develop something more specific than the generalized greenbelt model which (below) can also bring gentrification processes that are destructive to social equity and true public access. this might bring greater public education about the need to accommodate biosphere processes in the form of seasonal patterns of permitted use rather than an abstracted use of generalized “greenbelt space” for physical exercise and purely visual enjoyment. boise, idaho, is a city with a well-used and extensive greenbelt along the boise river. it illustrates these points and, as a city in the high desert which depends heavily on snowmelt-fed runoff for both groundwater and surface water in the river, provides an opportunity to consider the greenbelt model as a mode of coexistence with that river water in a warming and drying climate. https://changing-sp.com/ 354 megan l. dixon boise greenbelt history this section of the essay will consider the history of the boise greenbelt’s development related to hygiene, deindustrialization, green space, and ecology. for the details before 1990, i have drawn heavily from susan stacy’s book when the river rises: flood control on the boise river, 1943–1985 (1993). the greenbelt came to be, stacy (1993) notes, because boise residents began to find the river attractive after a series of events made it look less dirty; we can note that changes in the river’s flow and appearance came at a time when general awareness of “nature” was on the rise. before the lucky peak dam was installed and began operating in 1955, the river’s natural flow regime—its yearly fluctuation in flow level dependent on melting snow and rain—caused annual pulses in water volume every spring, which scoured the river bed and did not allow vegetation to accumulate. stacy notes that the river became more visually attractive to human eyes after the dam began to control that flow volume. she quotes an observer who mentioned that the river acquired “significant heavily wooded sandbars” which made it more “scenic” (1993, p. 68). this change in appearance, along with a generally higher average water level, made the river more attractive for favored recreational activities: floating on small craft or walking along its banks. however, the water in the river at this point in time was not yet clean enough for humans to swim in. by the 1960s, while the boise river seemed to meander freely through its flood plain, with considerable open space around it, it received many kinds of industrial and agricultural effluent, just as other us rivers had long done. agricultural runoff entered the river mostly downstream, where drains reentered the river after flowing over farm fields. in and near the city of boise, as stacy records, a sewage treatment plant discharged warm and chlorine-laced water while food processing plants and dairy operators released “grease, potato peelings, beet pulp, paunch manure [offal], blood, dissolved sugars” (1993, p. 70). the late industrial impulse towards hygiene had not yet affected the quality of the water itself. residents’ desire to be near the river and engage in recreation pressured the city to conduct cleanup, moving the riparian areas further from a more industrial type of use to an amenity for a post-industrial economy with leisure time. indeed, the 1963 report to the city by a planning firm noted that since “boise was the capital city of the state with an economy based on trade and commerce, it ‘has more than the usual need and opportunity for parks and green areas’” (stacy, 1993, p. 73). deindustrialization and desire for hygiene here combine to produce a desire for green space in which to exercise the accompanying leisure. it is worth providing a longer version of this passage: […] because the economy of the area is based largely on trade and commerce attracted from a wide area, and its economic future is partially dependent upon tourist travel and retirement living, boise city’s physical enhancement is a particularly worthwhile community goal. (as cited in tuck, 2014, p. 4) changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 350–363 355 ecology itself, while it definitely animated some advocates, was not necessarily the primary goal. the fundamentally healthful impulses involved in this river cleanup must not obscure the fact that planning of such parks initially set out to create visually generalized green spaces for human use—not native habitat for a functioning river. of landscaping in ann morrison park, dedicated in 1959 as interest in the river was growing, stacy notes that “most of the natural vegetation was cleared and replaced with turf and new trees” (1993, p. 73); it was perceived as problematic that “the park lands were overgrown with willows and cottonwoods, laced with sloughs and other soggy places” (p. 71). still, initially there was little competition from other uses for the land along the river and it was possible to envision a wide greenbelt that would allow for both riparian areas and human recreation, primarily in the form of the bike/walking path. in 1971, the greenbelt committee established “a minimum setback from the river of 70 feet for all structures and parking areas” (tuck, 2014, p. 5), something which sounds extravagant now. recreation and hygiene considerations were uppermost, but ecology found a de facto place in the absence of other pressures. meanwhile, while ecological concerns might not always have been uppermost, a certain kind of concern for social equity remained key. an extremely important element in the early plan for the boise greenbelt were statements in early documents that “the public would have ‘in perpetuity unrestricted access to the river’” (stacy, 1993, p. 74). even though the initial design might have lacked some ecological sensitivity, the focus on public access is arguably key to the long-term survival of the greenbelt. along with expectations of public access, the role of public investment, in the form of funds committed and time spent, is critical. the desire for public space with “natural” features along with the political will to commit public funds created the conditions for attractiveness to private investors. after setting the goal of a usable greenbelt along an attractive, clean river, the city of boise was for several years able to acquire land parcels which allowed extension of the greenbelt’s length. then, pressure for development began to increase. as stacy notes, once the river cleanup and public investment in the greenbelt had transformed the river into a sparking urban amenity, property owners who had been content with agricultural or industrial uses of their riverfront acreages took another look. if so many people wanted to be along the river, then surely they would enjoy having offices and homes along the river. […] [still] developers could not always get their buildings as close to the river as they would have liked, but had to compete with the public for access. (1993, p. 80) developers, of course, rely on stable spaces with minimal ecological variation (including outright damage but also simply rising and falling water levels) in order to construct buildings and create income. development might not have been so willing to move forward had there not been a federal program in place to reduce their financial risks and, in effect, redefine or reshape flood plain area as not floodable or not https://changing-sp.com/ 356 megan l. dixon vulnerable. stacy notes the introduction of the national flood insurance program as the catalyst for developers to propose projects and urban infrastructure in what had been a fairly open flood plain. the federal program, which had been passed by the us congress in 1968, began to affect boise in 1975 (stacy, 1993, p. 81); its system of assessing the vulnerability of land to flooding, specifying mitigation approaches to avoid paying flood insurance, and its provision of post-disaster payments gave would-be developers and city boosters a way to rationalize building in the flood plain, making ecologically variable space into reliably open geometry. this shift made acquisition of land parcels more competitive and set the stage for conflicts between recreational use, development, and any notion of healthy river function. private developer projects sought to minimize both the public and the ecological aspects of the greenbelt model by changing the calculations of floodable area and edging construction as close as possible to the riverbank. in a notable project proposal from 1982–83 that was denied, we can see the conflicts between the notion of the public, ecology, and private financial interest in reducing the size of the flood plain and capitalizing on the amenity of the riverfront greenbelt. after years of watching the city accommodate developers’ projects based on questionable measurements of the flood plain, a group of stakeholders combined forces to oppose the so-called crandlemire project and to “promote the protection of natural and wildlife values on the river” (stacy, 1993, p. 96). in stacy’s description of the reaction of the greenbelt committee, we can see these tensions between multiple values: alarmed at an upsurge of sentiment that seemed to endow wildlife habitat with such a high priority, the greenbelt committee began to feel that the most basic principle of the greenbelt—public access to the river—might be compromised. [...] the riverbank should not be removed from the public domain on the premise of designating it as a wildlife preserve. (1993, p. 96) somewhat ironically in light of this concern, it was not wildlife values but private development values which tended to reduce public access outright. plans for the river run residential area southeast of boise on the south shore of the river went forward in 1978; calculations were made to redefine the area, previously assessed in the flood plain, as acceptable for construction. notably, while the publicly accessible greenbelt had played a significant role in making riverside living attractive, the river run developers did their best to limit public access to the riverbank (stacy, 1993, pp. 89–91); in the end, the city was able to keep a public portion along the river for pedestrians while bikes were detoured around the complex on a major arterial road (city of boise, 2019). similarly, but with even more dramatic consequences for public access, the riverside village residential development in the urban jurisdiction of garden city went forward in 1980; these developers saw public access as a detriment to property values for the “estate homes” it aimed to market. for a period of time, in spite of negotiations, the riverside village posted signs at either end of the greenbelt stretch which declared it to be “private property.” at a minimum, the homeowners association insisted that bicyclists must get off their bikes and walk through this stretch of path. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 350–363 357 private development also took little account of the natural river function on and around sites of planned development, dispensing with a holistic vision for the sake of delineated parcels. adjustments were made to suit the construction needs at a site, not the broader needs of water or wildlife. for example, riverside village builders “haul[ed] fill onto all of the flood fringe up to the edge of the greenbelt path […] custom homes were built next to the river on lots for sale at premium prices” (stacy, 1993, p. 102). the plantation project near eagle suffered a setback in the dramatic 1983 flood because the clearing of shoreline for building and the dredging of a side stream permitted extreme erosion by the scouring floodwaters, reducing the size of the riverbank in that spot (p. 101). building levees, the typical approach to avoid flood insurance, calculated how to protect a single building or project but did not factor in the effect of river flow on the opposite shore or surrounding buildings. during planning for the river run project, it became clear that “calculations done earlier by the corps [for an earlier project] had indicated that the levee along river run and a controlled loggers creek would shift part of the flood to the other side of the river” (p. 89). development, given its parameters and goals, always aimed to expand buildable area and reduce the friction of ecological variability; it also sought to reduce public access as a negative effect on privacy and profit. while the word “gentrification” does not appear in discussions of the greenbelt’s history, it is clear that the combination of hygiene, visually attractive green space, and leisure options created by the greenbelt tended to raise property values and decrease equitable access unless the urban jurisdiction chose to resist this force. the value of stable, buildable space along a waterway derives in part from the now globally attractive “park, café, riverwalk” model, which tends to attract an affluent urban class without taking account of ecological variability or, in this case, the needs of healthy river function. a brief foray into river function rivers have different flow regimes and different morphology in different topographies. the shape of a river and its topography determines how the water which flows in it will interact with the surrounding landscapes. for example, a river that has a wide, level flood plain will naturally meander, changing course from year to year depending on the volume of spring runoff; the height and angle of riverbanks will affect whether the land along the banks will experience flood. generally, rivers in valleys where humans prefer to settle will flood in spring when the melting of snow produces a higher level of water; the water with its load of sediment tends to overflow existing banks to spread that sediment around the plain, redistributing nutrients that promote plant growth. vegetation in such landscapes must adapt to these cycles, and sometimes require these “disturbances” to sustain healthy growth. many rivers which flow through urban areas have been modified either along their course or upstream of the cities in order to control the annual spring flows which produce flooding in human settlements. in the case of the boise river, a dam system upstream (particularly lucky peak dam) as well as channelization through the city https://changing-sp.com/ 358 megan l. dixon stabilize the river’s flow; the shape of the river and infrastructure around it aim to prevent or reduce the flooding caused by spring runoff. as a first part of an answer about the ecological qualifications of the boise greenbelt, then, we can see that by minimizing flooding, a greenbelt tends to deny this fundamental dynamic aspect of a river’s natural existence. the boise greenbelt does not entirely avoid flooding. in recent years, for example in spring 2017 after a very deep snowpack year or even in spring 2021 when rapid warming caused earlier runoff, the boise river has run high in march and april and sometimes has flooded parts of the surrounding banks, including lower-lying portions of the greenbelt, damaging stretches of the bike/walk path or making them impassable. if a greenbelt were to take the natural life of a river completely seriously, humans would accept the cost and trouble of rebuilding the bike/walk path each year after partial flooding; humans would agree to leave the riparian areas to the river for the time during spring flood and regard it as “theirs” only during the months of lower water flow. the very act of stabilizing the banks for human use—including making sure that spaces “owned” will reliably remain in existence and not erode away—means a drastic step away from ecology in many cases. a second, related part of this answer concerns appropriate vegetation. turfgrass has drawbacks but has become familiar and common as the most resilient ground cover for heavy use by human activities in parks. arguably, city residents associate grass with a park’s self-respecting appearance and would be troubled by alternatives. natural riparian vegetation might offer far less space for picnic blankets and would not look as fitting. for most of its length the boise greenbelt has at least a strip of more native riparian vegetation; in some places it is very narrow, perhaps ten or a dozen yards; in other places, the formation of small near-shore islands has occurred and remains undisturbed. if the nearby land is publicly owned, these strips or buffers are likely to be wider; in one area further east of the city, called barber park, a vegetated area from 150–300 yards wide lies on the south bank of the river between its edge and the nearest development or parking lot. yet native vegetation, such as cottonwood trees, has been found to respond and regenerate thanks to flood disturbance and will not germinate new individuals without such disturbance; thus, stabilized paths and vegetation at this level, too, are a step away from strict ecology. the boise greenbelt today in 2016, the boise greenbelt was considered complete when a final short portion of path was built just southwest of downtown (kboi, 2016).it stretches for over 25 miles, east to a park at the dam that made it possible and west into neighboring urban settlements; towns further west, downriver, have plans eventually to link up with the boise greenbelt and are preserving riparian area accordingly. as the visit idaho webpage states (boise river greenbelt, n.d.), the greenbelt “links over 850 acres of parks and natural areas along the boise river,” including a few large city parks and a county park where recreationalists typically start their “float” of the river in rafts or tubes (large tires). a walk along the greenbelt south of downtown could take you changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 350–363 359 past a nature center, the zoo, office buildings, park space, and small apartments with patios facing the path and the nearby river. along some stretches, a fully vegetated riparian buffer separates the path from the water, while in some others or at access points, the river is fully visible and within several feet of the path. by plan, the warm springs golf course occupies an area north of the river, east of boise; the boise state university campus occupies a large area south of the river, opposite julia davis park. further east, you pass more homes and even come to the idaho shakespeare festival, an outdoor theater facility. the greenbelt truly incorporates many uses and has managed to keep something of a pathway open along its entire length, in spite of occasional efforts to reduce public access. having marked its 50-year anniversary in 2019, it has become “one of the most widely used amenities in the treasure valley” (boise river greenbelt, n.d.). interestingly, the issue of public access increasingly is tied to mobility between urban destinations. there is heavy use of the greenbelt as a bikeway for commuters or bicyclists seeking exercise. a 2014 boise state university study of data from a survey of greenbelt users in september 2012 found that respondents were 44% pedestrians and 56% bicyclists, but “[itd] traffic counts show that the actual numbers are probably closer to 35 percent pedestrians and 65 percent bicycles” (tuck, 2014, p. 7; see also boise river resource, 2014, pp.26–27). in this situation we see a further stage of post-industrial development, where environmental concerns about fossil fuel use in cars prompt cities to develop systems of bike lanes (as boise has done) and inspire individuals to travel by bicycle. while laudable environmentally, this value is not strictly ecological in terms of river function; separately, it can also come into conflict with viewing the greenbelt through the lens of property values. thus, bicycle use, while technically less expensive than car ownership and technically “environmentalist,” also may be a sign of gentrification rather than sustained affordability. there are groups in the city which actively seek to make the urban experience more equitable, such as the boise bicycle project, but their heroic work is a sign of the difficulty and need for investment in creating social equity in space: assuring bicycle ownership cannot ensure access to housing for a wider “public” or assure healthy river function. even as genuine incorporation of ecology remains elusive, market pressures remain. today, as tensions may have decreased in development inside the city of boise’s portion of the greenbelt, contradictions in philosophy are seen more between boise, which pursues a more conservationist, ecology-oriented approach, and garden city, a small city with a heretofore smaller tax base just to boise’s west, which has taken a much more pro-development and less ecologically sensitive approach to developing its own stretches of the greenbelt. what happens along the greenbelt on that few-mile stretch is determined in some ways by overall trends in the district. the trend in garden city, along the south shore of the boise river to the west of boise’s downtown, has been to increase the tax base and gentrify previously more affordable areas, which typically include older housing, mobile home parks, and warehouse areas. the type of development which replaces it tends to value the river and its banks as an attractive visual backdrop to the https://changing-sp.com/ 360 megan l. dixon accumulation of financial equity; river function is not primary and public access may be acknowledged but not always embraced. already in the late 1970s, the town had more than its share of transients and poor residents; most of the housing consisted of mobile homes, and the property tax yield was too low to do very much about the town’s problems. in the 1970s new municipal leaders determined… to annex new land and let developers build high-quality residential developments. garden city would be able to improve its tax revenues. (stacy, 1993, p. 100) garden city remained relatively low-cost well into the 2010s until facing more gentrification pressure. in the early 2020s, caught in the rise in housing costs that has affected the treasure valley as well as the entire us, garden city has seen the pressure on previously affordable areas produce more development projects that upgrade residential options but also increase rents. assessing the difference in approach of the boise greenbelt, a boisedev journalist wrote that boise’s greenbelt is a more natural, secluded experience. there are occasional buildings and residences backing up to the pathway, but the city has left the dense vegetation between the greenbelt and the river largely untouched. it feels nothing like a riverside boardwalk and there’s very little commerce right on the greenbelt. with a few exceptions, you must venture hundreds of feet off the walkway to grab a beer or find a place to eat. (carmel, 2021) while the phrase “dense vegetation” exaggerates the quality of some of the riparian area within the city limits of boise, this passage signals the contrast. the boardwalk project located on the garden city stretch of greenbelt is a good example of the way that this smaller municipality is seeking to bring the more standard “park, café, riverwalk” model to bear, leaning away from ecology and towards gentrification. the developer michael talbott set out to replicate in some way the beach boardwalk in laguna beach, ca, that he says his mother reminisced about when he was growing up. news coverage in 2019 stated that talbott hoped to provide assistance to displaced tenants in finding new locations for mobile trailers or new residences, but the reporter noted that “to make the project a reality, about a dozen cottage homes and 16 mobile homes on the property will have to be torn down or moved” (day, 2019). we can see that local ecology is neglected for an attractive vision derived from another place (in a different climatic regime) and that displacement is necessary in order to create this new residential space: that is, gentrification here generates a process of generalization, producing a differently hygienic, cleaned-out space of commonly attractive amenities. based on sketches and plans, the project will surely produce a pleasant landscape that many people will enjoy if they can afford it and gain access to it (day, 2021), but another population will find itself displaced along with the native ecology. the developer states laudable motives, but the project functions within a set of values that may or may not produce a project which will adapt to future climate changes or serve the river’s needs. it would be wrong to generalize that such projects will occupy the river’s length, and this changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 350–363 361 one seems to accept the premise of public access in the generic sense (that is, without considering financial ability to enter that “public space”), but it still participates in a model that allows the individual developer to consider isolated plans above the needs of the river. advocacy at some locations along the river do reflect awareness of the needs of the river and wildlife habitat, which is a good sign for the ecology but presages further struggle over a vision for the greenbelt. the 2014 boise state study cites an unpublished history of boise’s development which noted that downstream from garden city, the greenbelt ran into a snag—the protection of wildlife habitat. as the river approaches eagle island, it runs through lush wildlife habitat supporting eagles, foxes, deer and more. greenbelt advocates tended to dismiss concerns as wealthy property owners wishing to bar the public from their land. but wildlife advocates pushed for a plan to relocate the path next to the state street bypass to avoid disturbing wildlife. (j.m. neil, city limits [unpublished manuscript], as cited in tuck, p. 8) leaving spaces where biosphere processes are prioritized over human activity at some level contradicts the idea of unfettered “public” access; “additional amenities, including more restrooms, drinking fountains and trash cans” (tuck, 2014, p. 8) reduce rather than support the ecology. if a greenbelt is to truly favor ecological processes and reflect education about and awareness of the needs of the river under changing conditions, human activity has to give way to reserved ecological space; certainly, this may be more acceptable to some than private homeowners forbidding entry to stretches of the riverbank, but it might be hard to accept for many. this inflection point reveals that, while post-industrial economies may be, at least at a local level, less materials-based than their industrial predecessors, they are not necessarily any more ecological unless they prioritize ecological function. piecemeal jurisdiction along the banks of any river can make holistic approaches difficult, but there are definitely stretches of the river where groups plan efforts to prioritize ecology and healthy river function. in july, the boise city open space and clean water advisory committee approved a proposal by the golden eagle audubon society to spend $48,000 along the boise river east of the city, primarily through removal of invasive species and planting of native vegetation that would support processes which conserve water quality, particularly by reducing erosion (charan, 2021). some aspects of the project would also divert human traffic away from vulnerable riparian areas. according to the meeting of the boise city open space and clean water advisory committee, “the improvement project would conduct habitat restoration, create focused river access points, and provide educational opportunities throughout 1,028 acres of the boise river riparian area extending from the boise river diversion dam to the east parkcenter bridge” (boise city open space, n.d.). implying the need for greater awareness of how human activities affect biosphere processes, a spokesman for the golden eagle project noted that “a lot of the citizens of boise don’t recognize that they may be damaging [the river] […] as the treasure valley’s population grows, ‘the potential for the river quality to decline is quite high’” (charan, 2021). https://changing-sp.com/ 362 megan l. dixon this type of project, incorporating education about river function into an existing, popular space that was initially catalyzed by desire for green space recreation, seems like the horizon for urban amenities like the boise greenbelt. the river is not a static visual backdrop for human relaxation; for sustainment of its capacity to offer clean water and a restorative setting, humans will need to understand its needs and adjust their expectations. an intriguing and critical parallel to this notion of compromise with wildlife habitat and biosphere processes lies in analyses of the displacement caused by more affluent users and projects taking over space along any new green space amenity, particularly one including water such as riverbanks. the garden city cases illustrate starkly that the process of land turnover for more affluent uses presumes that more hygienic, green, post-industrial spaces are intended for a certain class of people and will always end up that way. another horizon for urban development in the coming decades is making clean, green spaces for lower class people that do not automatically gentrify. along these lines, several scholars criticize the “park, café, riverwalk” model as a culprit and advise making spaces “just green enough” for ecological function and benefits, but not so green and gentrified that these spaces become financially unavailable to less affluent residents (wolch et al., 2014). as curran and hamilton (2012) note, “environmental remediation in older neighborhoods and the creation of new green spaces can … literally ‘naturalize’ the disappearance of working-class communities, as such improved neighborhoods became targets for new and more upscale development” (p. 1028). along these lines, an imaginative horizon might be to reconceptualize more “industrial” spaces as also allowing the presence of healthy biosphere processes, so that such landscapes do not necessarily require upscale post-industrial inhabitants (and thus unaffordability). a greenbelt that supports a variety of class imaginations of landscape while also prioritizing the healthy function of the river in its ecosystem could provide a new and more climatically flexible model of the sort that cities need as they sustain their waterfronts. references bishop, p. (2020). conclusions: the green belt—a legacy for the 22nd century. in p. bishop, a. martinez perez, r. roggema, & l. williams (eds.), repurposing the green belt in the 21st century (pp. 156–163). university college london press. boise city open space and clean water advisory committee. (n.d.). city of boise. https://www.cityofboise.org/departments/parks-and-recreation/open-space/ boise-city-open-space-and-clean-water-advisory-committee/ boise river greenbelt. (n.d.). visit idaho. https://visitidaho.org/things-to-do/railto-trail/boise-greenbelt/ boise river resource management and master plan. (2014). city of boise. https://www.cityofboise.org/media /6890/boise-river-resource-management-andmaster-plan_final-12-29-14.pdf https://www.cityofboise.org/departments/parks-and-recreation/open-space/boise-city-open-space-and-cl https://www.cityofboise.org/departments/parks-and-recreation/open-space/boise-city-open-space-and-cl https://visitidaho.org/things-to-do/rail-to-trail/boise-greenbelt/ https://visitidaho.org/things-to-do/rail-to-trail/boise-greenbelt/ https://www.cityofboise.org/media/6890/boise-river-resource-management-and-master-plan_final-12-29-14.pdf https://www.cityofboise.org/media/6890/boise-river-resource-management-and-master-plan_final-12-29-14.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 350–363 363 carmel, m. (2021, december 30). icymi 2021: the boise river: nature, development, and water quality shape its future. boisedev. https://boisedev.com/2021/12/22/icymi2021-the-boise-river-nature-development-and-water-quality-shape-its-future/ charan, s. (2021, july 12). this plan would improve habitat along boise river, redirect some users to prevent damage. idaho statesman. https://www. idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article252649728.html curran, w., & hamilton, t. (2012). just green enough: contesting environmental gentrification in greenpoint brooklyn. the international journal of justice and sustainability, 17(9), 1027–1042. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2012.729569 day, d. (2019, october 1). proposal would bring garden city’s tallest buildings: riverfront hotel, apartments, rooftop bar, and a greenbelt “boardwalk”. boisedev. https://boisedev.com/news/2019/10/01/the-boardwalk-garden-city/ day, d. (2021, april 7). work begins on river-front apartments, restaurant, retail, and future hotel along boise river. boisedev. https://boisedev.com/news/2019/10/01/ the-boardwalk-garden-city/ kboi web staff. (2016, september 17). greenbelt now complete inside boise city limits. idahonews. idahonews.com/news/local/greenbelt-now-complete-insideboise-city-limits nash, r. f. (1967/2001). wilderness and the american mind (4th ed.). yale university press. stacy, s. m. (1993). when the river rises. flood control on the boise river, 1943–1985. program on environment and behavior. university of colorado. tuck, k. (ed.). (2014). the boise river greenbelt: polishing a community gem (urban research: occasional papers of the college of social sciences and public affairs at boise state university). boise state university publications office. https:// dgunderblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/urban-research_may-2014_final.pdf wolch, j., byrne, j., & newell, j. (2014). urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: the challenge of making cities “just green enough”. landscape and urban planning, 125, 234–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2014.01.017 zipp, s. (2010). manhattan projects: the rise and fall of urban renewal in cold war new york. oxford university press. https://changing-sp.com/ https://boisedev.com/2021/12/22/icymi-2021-the-boise-river-nature-development-and-water-quality-shape-its-future/ https://boisedev.com/2021/12/22/icymi-2021-the-boise-river-nature-development-and-water-quality-shape-its-future/ https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article252649728.html https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article252649728.html https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2012.729569 https://boisedev.com/news/2019/10/01/the-boardwalk-garden-city/ https://boisedev.com/news/2019/10/01/the-boardwalk-garden-city/ https://boisedev.com/news/2019/10/01/the-boardwalk-garden-city/ https://idahonews.com/news/local/greenbelt-now-complete-inside-boise-city-limits https://idahonews.com/news/local/greenbelt-now-complete-inside-boise-city-limits https://dgunderblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/urban-research_may-2014_final.pdf https://dgunderblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/urban-research_may-2014_final.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2014.01.017 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 750–763 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.201 received 31 july 2022 © 2022 francesco rigoli accepted 16 december 2022 francesco.rigoli@city.ac.uk published online 30 december 2022 article belief formation in the social context: a bayesian decision account francesco rigoli city, university of london, uk abstract a recent computational model argues that people’s beliefs arise from two basic sources: a motivation to be accurate plus other forms of motivation such as pursuing economic interests. yet, this previous proposal has focused exclusively on the individual level of analysis, neglecting the question of how social contexts shape belief formation. the present paper addresses this by examining how group dynamics underpin the formation of beliefs. the argument is that different social groups vary in their beliefs because, at least to some degree, each group acquires different life experiences and is motivated by different incentives. at the same time, the proposal is that each group can influence other groups’ beliefs in three ways: by expressing opinions to other groups, by affecting the experiences acquired by other groups, and by setting incentives for other groups. this picture suggests that, within a community, three types of groups can often be identified: (a) the dominant groups, defined as those particularly capable of affecting other groups’ experiences and incentives; (b) the intellectual groups, regarded as those whose opinions are particularly influential; and (c) the subaltern groups, encompassing people with minimal power to affect beliefs of others. by examining influence dynamics among these groups, the paper investigates how consensus or disagreement emerge within a community. altogether, the paper offers insight on the interaction between social dynamics and psychological mechanisms that contribute to shape people’s beliefs. keywords bayesian decision, belief, influence, persuasion, dominant group, intellectual https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 750–763 751 introduction beliefs can be defined as perceptions about whether a state of affair is true or false (e.g., “i believe that it is raining”). research on the nature of beliefs is at the crucible of different social science disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and political science (converse, 1964; harris et al., 2008; hutto & ravenscroft, 2021; jackson & pettit, 1990; james, 1889). this research has raised several fundamental questions: what are the mechanisms underlaying the formation of beliefs? why do some people hold some beliefs and other people embrace other beliefs? what are the social dynamics responsible for the formation of beliefs? to address these questions, two separate research perspectives have been developed. focusing on the mental processes at play, one perspective (common in psychology and neuroscience) examines the individual level (harris et al., 2008; james, 1889; shermer, 2012), while the other perspective (common in sociology and political science) analyses social dynamics (converse, 1964; spillman, 2020; swidler & arditi, 1994). individual and social approaches have each offered insight about the nature of beliefs. yet, although individual approaches provide a fine-grained description of the psychological mechanisms, they typically disregard how these mechanisms arise in social contexts. conversely, social perspectives explore social dynamics in detail, but often remain vague about the underlying psychological mechanisms. accounts integrating both approaches are rare (boudon, 1989; goldthorpe, 1998; opp, 2012); as a consequence, the interaction between the individual and social levels of analysis remains poorly understood. this paper aims to integrate the individual and social levels of analysis by developing a broad theoretical framework describing how beliefs emerge within the social environment. the argument builds upon a recent computational model about the psychological processes underpinning belief formation (rigoli, 2021a, 2021b, 2022; rigoli et al., 2021). while this previous model focuses exclusively on the individual level of analysis, the goal here is to broaden the perspective and embed the model within a general framework where the psychological processes shape, and are simultaneously shaped by, social dynamics. let us start by introducing the above-mentioned model in the next section. psychological processes the number of accounts examining the psychological mechanisms underpinning belief formation is enormous. although an exhaustive overview of these accounts is beyond the scope of this paper, i propose to group these in two broad families. on the one hand, explanation theories presuppose that beliefs emerge from an attempt to describe reality accurately. examples of these include the philosophical proposals of plato, aristotle, and kant (edwards, 1967), contemporary cognitive models claiming that bayesian inference underpins mental processes (friston, 2005; knill & pouget, 2004; oaksford & chater, 2007), and rational-choice theory (boudon, 1989; goldthorpe, 1998; opp, 2012). many of these accounts acknowledge the limits and biases of the human mind (often attributed to the restricted computational https://changing-sp.com/ 752 francesco rigoli capacity of the brain), but nonetheless maintain that, despite these mental constrains, beliefs ultimately reflect humans’ effort to explain reality as accurately as possible (gigerenzer & selten, 2001). contrary to explanation theories, motivation theories argue that beliefs arise from motives other than accuracy seeking. examples are the philosophies of marx, nietzsche, and freud (edwards, 1967), as well as contemporary perspectives in social psychology such as cognitive dissonance theory (festinger, 1962; harmon-jones & mills, 2019) and social identity theory (abrams & hogg, 1990; tajfel, 1982). for example, marx famously argued that, far from being grounded upon a disinterested analysis of reality, the beliefs advocated by the dominant class conceal its economic interests (marx & engels, 1970). does empirical evidence lend more support to epistemic or to motivation theories? the picture emerging from empirical research suggests that each family of theories captures some, but not all, aspects of reality (bartels, 2016; jost & banaji, 1994; jost et al., 2009; kunda, 1990). thus, the emerging picture is one where epistemic and nonepistemic motives coexist and both contribute to the formation of beliefs. this means that a sound theory of belief formation should acknowledge both epistemic and non-epistemic drives. however, how these two kinds of drives interact has been rarely explored. a recent computational model developed by the author of the present paper has offered a possible answer to this question (rigoli, 2021a, 2021b, 2022; rigoli et al., 2021). the model relies on a bayesian decision framework, and hence it is referred here to as the bayesian decision model of beliefs (bdmb). the bdmb focuses on the mechanisms through which individuals arbitrate among alternative hypotheses for explaining aspects of life and reality. to illustrate how the model works, consider the example of landowners operating within the slave system in the usa south before the civil war erupted in that country (rigoli, 2021b). imagine that these individuals formed their opinions about races by arbitrating between two hypotheses, one—a racist hypothesis—claiming that blacks are genetically more violent and less intelligent than whites, and the other—an antiracist hypothesis—claiming that blacks are not different from whites in any respect. the first hypothesis implies that, by providing slaves with a regulated existence under the landowner’s paternalistic eye, the slave system benefits landowners and slaves alike. conversely, the second hypothesis implies that the slave system is detrimental for slaves, inasmuch as they are exploited at the advantage of whites. according to the bdmb, three factors establish which hypothesis will be endorsed by a landowner. the first factor is represented by prior beliefs, namely, by relevant assumptions already available before reasoning. prior beliefs capture various aspects such as general views about the world or about society. for example, one prior belief might be the conviction that human races are genetically different; the alternative view might be that all races are characterized by an equal genetic endowment. a landowner who entertains the former prior belief, the argument goes, will be more likely to accept the racist hypothesis. the second factor envisaged by the bdmb as being central to belief formation is represented by novel evidence, which can be experienced in two ways: directly, when evidence is conveyed by one’s own perception, or socially, when social sources such as another person or the media provide indirect information (rigoli, 2021b). in our example, spending time working with blacks is an instance of direct evidence, changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 750–763 753 whereas listening to the opinions expressed by other landowners is an example of social evidence. the third critical factor for belief formation proposed by the bdmb is represented by the utility, in terms of reward or punishment, expected if any hypothesis is accepted or rejected (rigoli, 2021b). in our example, the landowner assesses the utility expected to occur (a) if the racist hypothesis is true and is accepted (and slavery is supported), (b) if the antiracist hypothesis is true and is accepted (and slavery is opposed), (c) if the racist hypothesis is false but is accepted (and slavery is supported), (d) if the antiracist hypothesis is false but is accepted (and slavery is opposed). to understand the influence of expected utility, compare two landowners, one who owns slaves and the other who does not. for the first landowner, accepting the racist hypothesis (and supporting racism) is obviously conducive to higher utility, in terms of economic incentives, compared to accepting the antiracist hypothesis (and fighting racism); the opposite is true of the second landowner. therefore, the bdmb implies that the first landowner will be more likely to believe in the racist hypothesis compared to the second landowner1. in summary, according to the bdmb, three factors contribute to belief formation: prior beliefs, novel evidence (either direct or social), and expected utility. note that, because of the influence of expected utility, a hypothesis might be selected because it is the costliest to reject even though it is not the best supported by evidence and by prior beliefs (i.e., even though it is not the most accurate). however, prior beliefs and novel evidence remain fundamental because a hypothesis will be less likely to be accepted if it is poorly supported by them. in this way, the bdmb integrates epistemic and non-epistemic motives, the former captured by the role assigned to prior beliefs and to novel evidence, the latter embodied by the expected utility component. the bdmb assumes that people are largely unaware of the factors shaping their beliefs, and simply perceive these beliefs as being true: in our example, a landowner might be staunchly convinced about the validity of the racist hypothesis, without realizing that this conviction does not stem from a disinterested analysis of reality. in a nutshell, by integrating both epistemic and non-epistemic factors, the bdmb offers a systematic description of the various psychological processes responsible for belief formation. the implications of the bdmb have been examined in several domains, including the domain of political reasoning (rigoli, 2021b), the domain of religious beliefs (rigoli, 2021a), the domain of conspiracy theories (rigoli, 2022), and the domain of delusional beliefs (rigoli et al., 2021). yet, all these domains pertain to the individual level of analysis. it remains to be assessed whether the bdmb can offer any insight about how the individual and social levels of analysis interact. in other words, can the bdmb elucidate how beliefs emerge during social interactions? the aim of the present paper is to employ the bdmb to explore how social dynamics shape belief formation. 1 although, in this example, expected consequences reflect economic interest, more generally the bdmb adopts a broad definition of expected consequences, encompassing any sort of value such as fostering social bonds, exerting power, realising bodily pleasures, or avoiding other people’s suffering (e.g., schwartz, 1992). https://changing-sp.com/ 754 francesco rigoli social context beliefs are not the result of an individual mind interacting with the environment, but of multiple minds interacting among themselves and with the environment. along this line, scholars have argued that, in an evolutionary perspective, humans have developed a remarkable ability to share beliefs that has enabled them to cooperate effectively (adolphs, 2009; balliet & van lange, 2013; castelfranchi & falcone, 2010; dunbar, 2003). following this argument, evolution is deemed to be responsible for humans’ predisposition to influence other people’s opinions and, at the same time, to be influenced by other people’s opinions (friedkin & johnsen, 1990; turner, 1991). employing the bdmb as a framework, here i propose an explanation of how beliefs emerge when individuals interact with one another and with their environment. the argument starts by asking two apparently trivial, but in fact fundamental, questions. first, why do people vary in their beliefs? second, how can a person influence other people’s beliefs? this section addresses the first question, while the second question will be explored later. following the bdmb, an obvious reason why beliefs vary among people is that everyday activity, and thus the everyday experience one gains, varies greatly among people. consider the european medieval society as an example. this was arranged in three orders: the nobility, the clergy, and all other people who were collectively grouped in the third estate (duby, 1982). the third estate, the clergy, and the nobility were engaged in working, praying, and fighting, respectively. obviously, these different tasks imply that very different everyday experiences were acquired by the different orders: for example, a life spent cultivating the fields had little in common with a life spent praying or with a life spent fighting. adopting the bdmb as a framework, different everyday experience implies different direct evidence—one of the key factors which, as explained above, shape beliefs according to the model. thus, within the bdmb, differences in direct evidence among groups are one reason explaining why people vary in their beliefs. however, according to the bdmb, differences in direct evidence are not the whole story: expected utility is also another critical factor. remember that the bdmb posits that, beyond any role played by prior beliefs and by novel evidence, beliefs are shaped by expected utility. regarding the latter, let us assume that any individual of a community is motivated by two types of values (schwartz, 1992): community values, aiming at the well-being of the whole community, and self-interest values, aiming at one’s own well-being or at the well-being of one’s own specific group. distinguishing community versus self-interest values is useful to understand why beliefs vary among people: although community values are typically shared by everyone, self-interest values are specific for each group. consider again the example of the nobility, the clergy, and the third estate in the middle ages (duby, 1982). it is safe to assume that all orders shared certain community values such as fostering agricultural productivity and protecting the community from invaders. yet, it is also reasonable to imagine that self-interest values varied widely among the orders. for instance, the tolls destined to the church were probably evaluated very differently by the nobles and by the clergy. given divergent changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 750–763 755 self-interest values, the bdmb implies that each group embraces beliefs that are not shared by other groups. in the example of medieval society, it is reasonable to imagine that, more than the nobility and the third estate, the clergy was convinced that the tolls destined to the church were necessary for ensuring god’s grace. in summary, following the bdmb, two factors are proposed to explain why beliefs vary among people: differences in direct evidence and differences in selfinterest values. yet, as argued above, humans do not live in isolation, but they live in social environments. this means that each person’s beliefs are constantly under the influence exerted by other people (friedkin & johnsen, 1990; turner, 1991). can the bdmb offer any insight on how such social influence works? the next section addresses this question. social influence we can employ the bdmb to interpret how a group can influence beliefs embraced by other groups. following the bdmb, the proposal is that beliefs can be influenced in three ways (fig. 1): (a) by novel information experienced via one’s own perception (direct evidence), (b) by opinions expressed by others (social evidence), and (c) by changes in expected utility (note that prior beliefs cannot be influenced directly, but via direct or social evidence). social influence can target any of these aspects. moreover, it is reasonable to assume that groups vary in their ability to target each aspect. some groups appear to be particularly capable to shape the direct evidence experienced by other groups. in the middle ages, an example of this is the nobility, with its power to determine, among other things, serfs’ labour schedule. moreover, there are groups who are especially influential upon the utility experienced by other groups. again, medieval nobles are an example of this, as evident from their power to request tolls from serfs. as the example of the medieval nobility suggests, the groups capable of affecting direct evidence have often also great power to impact upon utility. these can be referred to as the dominant groups (gramsci, 1948–1951/2011). however, groups with power regarding direct evidence and utility are often not as powerful in terms of affecting social evidence. this is because, in many complex societies, some groups emerge who, despite being unable to influence direct evidence and utility, have specialized in acquiring knowledge. the opinions expressed by these groups are therefore typically judged as highly trustworthy, endowing these groups with a special power to affect social evidence. in the middle ages, an example of this is the clergy, a group with poor influence upon direct evidence and upon utility but, at the same time, a highly powerful group in terms of affecting social evidence. groups in this category, encompassing roles such as priests, academics, artists, and journalists, can be referred to as the intellectual groups (gramsci, 1948–1951/2011). in summary, the bdmb offers an interpretation about the nature of social influence processes. the model identifies three potential targets of influence: direct evidence, social evidence, and utility. groups can be classified based on their power to influence each target. this classification highlights three broad categories of groups: (a) the dominant group, influential upon direct evidence and utility, (b) the https://changing-sp.com/ 756 francesco rigoli intellectual group, influential upon social evidence, and (c) the subaltern group, characterised by a minimal ability to influence the beliefs of other groups. armed with this model of social influence, the next section enquires about how influence dynamics can lead to consensus or to disagreement within a community. figure 1 role played by social influence according to the bdmb prior beliefs beliefs social evidencedirect evidenceutility social influence note. source: developed by author. consensus versus disagreement let us focus on a simple scenario where the three groups identified above interact within a community: the dominant group shaping direct evidence and utility, the intellectuals influential upon social evidence, and the subaltern group encompassing people with little or no power in shaping beliefs (gramsci, 1948–1951/2011). this scenario is obviously simplistic: in real communities, more than three groups can be identified, and, even more fundamentally, it is debatable how groups should be defined (e.g., based on class, gender, or ethnicity). however, as we shall see below, this simple scenario highlights interesting aspects emerging from the bdmb. a community can be assessed based on whether the three groups identified above share their beliefs or not. adopting this criterion, a community can manifest either consensus or disagreement, the former occurring when beliefs are shared, the latter when beliefs are not shared. here, i aim to describe the characteristics of consensus and disagreement as interpreted by the bdmb. let us start by examining consensus. i propose to distinguish between two possible cases: spontaneous consensus versus manipulated consensus. the former occurs when the dominant group abstains from influencing the subaltern group (i.e., it abstains from affecting the latter’s beliefs), and yet all groups share the same beliefs. during spontaneous consensus, the shared beliefs are grounded upon community values, rather than upon the self-interest values specific to the dominant group. conversely, manipulated consensus occurs when beliefs are shared because the dominant group has actively modified the subaltern group’s beliefs. when consensus changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 750–763 757 is manipulated, the shared beliefs are not grounded on community values, but on the self-interest values of the dominant group. manipulated consensus occurs when the dominant group has successfully targeted the direct evidence or the utility of the subaltern group: as a consequence, the subaltern group is now convinced that, although the shared beliefs might not be palatable, they are nevertheless true. as an example of manipulated consensus, consider a dispute between employers and workers. imagine that, despite poor supporting evidence, employers claim that a salary cut is necessary for the economy to remain aloft, and threat to fire workers if they protest against this measure. threatened workers might end up accepting the argument that the salary cut is in fact necessary to protect the economy from unravelling. this is an example of manipulated consensus: both the dominant group (the employers) and the subaltern group (the workers) share the same belief, that is, they both believe that salary cuts are necessary; thus, we can talk about consensus. however, consensus is not spontaneous, but manipulated, because it is not grounded on evidence; rather, it arises from an attempt of the dominant group to pursue its own self-interest by targeting the utility of the subaltern group (by threatening to fire workers). the idea of manipulated consensus can explain why subaltern groups sometimes accept stereotypes against themselves, such as when ethnic minorities embrace racist stereotypes (jost & banaji, 1994; sagar & schofield, 1980). the argument is that this occurs because, by targeting direct evidence or utility, the dominant group succeeds in persuading subaltern groups that the stereotypes are true. for example, the dominant group can arrange society in such a way that a subaltern group receives less education and thus performs worse in the future (e.g., people in this group obtain worse jobs, have poorer health, exhibit more criminal behaviour, etc.); in other words, this represents an instance in which the dominant group succeeds in affecting the direct evidence experienced by the subaltern group. rather than being interpreted as due to environmental factors, the poorer performance of the subaltern group can in turn be interpreted as evidence consistent with a stereotype claiming that the subaltern group is congenitally inferior. as another means to realise manipulated consensus, the dominant group can co-opt the intellectual group (gramsci, 1948–1951/2011): for instance, the dominant group can reward intellectuals (e.g., in terms of economic wealth) if they sponsor the beliefs promoted by the dominant group. given the trust typically attributed to intellectuals, this strategy is often highly effective in persuading the subaltern group. historical examples of this are many, such as when, at the start of the 19th century, european church hierarchies claimed that the ancient regime, and not liberal regimes, conformed to god’s will, encouraging the bulk of the peasantry to resist political change (hitchcock, 2012; vidmar, 2014)—the interpretation being that church hierarchies took this position in order to protect the interests of the ruling class in exchange of protection. now that we have examined the notion of consensus, let us focus on disagreement, which arises when groups do not share beliefs. this typically occurs when the dominant group, driven by self-interest values and neglecting community values, attempts to persuade the subaltern group but fails to do so. here, there is a struggle to https://changing-sp.com/ 758 francesco rigoli persuade (from the perspective of the dominant group) and to resist persuasion (from the perspective of the subaltern group). as above, the dominant group’s effort can target the direct evidence or the utility experienced by the subaltern group. examples where the dominant group intervenes upon the direct evidence experienced by the subaltern groups are when employers rearrange the workplace with the aim to discourage interactions among workers, and when governments drift towards war as a way to distract the population from domestic concerns. sometimes these attempts fail and leave the subaltern groups unconvinced about the claims of the dominant group, producing a condition of disagreement. the role of intellectuals is critical here too. during disagreement, intellectuals are sometimes co-opted by the dominant group— thus supporting the latter’s beliefs—thanks to the rewards they receive in exchange. other times, especially when they perceive that the rewards offered to them by the dominant group are inadequate, intellectuals support the subaltern group’s beliefs. in summary, the bdmd offers a framework to explain how influence dynamics can result in a state of consensus or in a state of disagreement among groups. whether a community is characterised by consensus or by disagreement is important because, while disagreement spurs conflict, consensus allows cooperation to be established, and cooperation in turn is necessary to allow a community to mobilize all its available resources. yet, the reasoning outlined above suggests that cooperation is not always beneficial for everyone: all can benefit from cooperating only when consensus is spontaneous, that is, when consensus is grounded on fostering community values. on the contrary, when consensus is the product of manipulation, that is, when it is instrumental to protecting the self-interest of the dominant group, cooperation benefits the dominant group alone while damaging the subaltern group. discussion previous literature has introduced the bdmb to examine the psychological processes at play when beliefs are formed (rigoli, 2021a, 2021b, 2022; rigoli et al., 2021). yet, this literature has so far neglected the question of how social processes contribute to the formation of beliefs. can the bdmd offer any insight on this question? the paper addresses this by proposing that, following the bdmd, different groups within a community are characterised by specific direct evidence and utility, and thus end up entertaining divergent beliefs. at the same time, groups are predicted to influence other groups’ direct evidence, social evidence, and utility, thus impacting on the beliefs embraced by other groups. dominant groups are defined as those particularly capable to affect other groups’ direct evidence and utility, while intellectual groups are regarded as those who are powerful in shaping other groups’ social evidence. based on this, the bdmb offers a perspective to interpret the notion of consensus and disagreement among the different groups of a community. although the bdmb shares characteristics with many previous works, i highlight gramsci’s theory of ideology as particularly relevant (gramsci, 1948–1951/2011). this is based on a marxist outlook concerning the structure of society, grounded on the notion that classes, defined by their economic position, compete with one another in changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 750–763 759 the social arena. gramsci’s analysis focuses on the social superstructure, namely on the set of values and beliefs embraced by the different classes. the argument is that the dominant class (e.g., the bourgeoisie in the age of capitalism) builds an ideology which justifies the current social structure: although the dominant class exploits the dominated class (e.g., the workers), the argument is that the dominant class conceals this exploitation, or at least depicts it as just and unavoidable. the concept of hegemony is adopted by gramsci to describe circumstances when the dominant class succeeds in persuading the dominated class: when the dominant class is hegemonic, it has no need to exert coercion, because the dominated class does not resist exploitation. conversely, when the dominated class is not persuaded, class conflict ensues: in this scenario, the dominant class can preserve the status quo only through coercion. if coercion fails, the dominated class can revolt and overthrow the dominant class. the similarities between gramsci’s perspective and the bdmb are numerous. in both accounts, different groups tend to develop their own specific beliefs. the psychological mechanisms underlying this remain unspecified in gramsci’s writings, while the bdmb interprets these mechanisms in terms of experiencing different direct evidence and utility. moreover, both accounts postulate that groups influence and are influenced by other groups, with some groups being more influential than others; again, while the nature of this influence is not fully specified in gramsci’s writings, the bdmb offers an explicit analysis by identifying influences upon direct evidence, social evidence, and utility. another similarity is between the idea of hegemony and the idea of consensus or, more precisely, between the idea of hegemony and the idea of manipulated (but not spontaneous) consensus. finally, both theories highlight the key role played by intellectuals in shaping the beliefs embraced by other groups. notwithstanding many similarities, gramsci’s view and the bdmb have also important differences. while the former is firmly grounded on a marxist notion of social structure, the latter is more flexible and independent of whether a marxist social structure is postulated or not. in addition, consistent with a marxist outlook, gramsci presupposes that self-interest is the driver of belief formation, while the bdmb argues that both self-interest and community values can be important. finally, the psychological processes driving belief formation remain poorly specified in gramsci’s writings: it remains obscure to what extent beliefs reflect an attempt to be accurate or to fulfil other motives (in the terminology of this paper, it is not clear whether gramsci’s proposal can be classified as an explanation or as a motivation theory). the bdmb offers an explicit description of this aspect, clarifying the specific contribution of epistemic motives captured by evidence and prior beliefs and non-epistemic drives captured by utility. limitations the argument proposed here relies on simplifications that should be carefully reconsidered by future research. for example, when discussing the notion of consensus and disagreement, i assumed the existence of three social groups only (the dominant, intellectual, and dominated group). this is obviously simplistic. for example, the dominant group is rarely monolithic, encompassing subgroups such as political, military, or economic elites, each with its own self-interest values and its own life experience. https://changing-sp.com/ 760 francesco rigoli the same applies to the dominated and intellectual groups, often including subgroups based on region, age, gender, and class. moreover, in realistic cases, it is debatable if a clear-cut distinction between dominant and dominated group, with only the former affecting beliefs of the latter, is meaningful; adopting a more fine-grained approach where, to some degree, all groups influence other groups is likely to be preferrable in most cases. likewise, the idea that social evidence is affected only by intellectuals is dubious: one can even debate whether intellectuals should be considered as a separate group, especially in recent times where social media allow everyone to play the role of intellectuals to some degree. the notions of consensus and disagreement appear simplistic as well: with numerous groups at play, consensus can rarely be total, and spontaneous consensus might emerge for some groups but not for others. despite these shortcomings, simplifications are helpful to highlight the key points raised by the bdmb. a promising research avenue is nonetheless to progressively add complexity to the problem and explore the theory in more elaborated settings. future directions the framework articulated in the paper opens up a set of potential avenues for future research. first, the bdmb can inspire empirical research on social influence processes. so far, research on this has focused primarily on which features of a message are most effective in changing the beliefs embraced by a target person (turner, 1991). in the context of the bdmb, this prior research can be interpreted as being focused on social evidence alone, which is only one component of the picture offered by the theory. indeed, the bdmb not only identifies social evidence, but it also stresses the role of direct evidence and utility as potential targets of social influence. these two targets have been largely neglected by research so far. the bdmb encourages empirical investigation to address this by exploring how social influence can affect direct evidence and utility. the bdmb can inspire further research also by providing a conceptual framework to interpret dynamics characterising society in the present or in the past, and to examine how these dynamics shape people’s beliefs. above, i have offered a sketch of how this analysis may look like in the context of european medieval society. a possibility is to extend this analysis further by exploring in detail the historical circumstances in which the actions performed by one group affected the direct evidence, social evidence, or utility of other groups, and how this had an impact on the beliefs embraced by the other groups. of course, this type of analysis can be applied to medieval societies as well as to any other form of social organization in the past or in the present. conclusion to summarize, the paper develops a theory describing how social processes underpin the formation of beliefs. the aim of this theory is to bridge perspectives focusing on the individual domain 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(2014). the catholic church through the ages: a history (2nd ed). paulist press. https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12274 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-022-00657-7 https://doi.org/10.1080/13546805.2021.1982686 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.39.4.590 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60281-6 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.so.20.080194.001513 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.33.020182.000245 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 504–523 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.187 received 8 june 2022 © 2022 israel kibirige accepted 27 august 2022 israel.kibirige@ul.ac.za published online 10 october 2022 article short learning programmes for skills development beyond covid-19 israel kibirige university of limpopo, sovenga, south africa abstract the covid-19 pandemic set a new normal (nn) and altered the modalities of performing different activities. several activities came to a standstill, resulting in job loss and school closure. new dynamics in the labour market emerged, such as working-from-home (wfh), virtual meetings (vm), social distancing (sd), and downsizing (ds). these dynamics altered employer–employee relationships, which espoused new skills. the strategy was to change policies to work from home and use information communication technology (ict). however, many people were not adequately skilled to face the new challenges. this paper aims to describe what short learning programmes (slps) are, why institutions offer them and examine why individuals participate in slps. the author uses the capability theory (cat) and the critical reality theory (crt) to explain why slps are crucial to face employment challenges beyond covid-19. the main findings are that slps are necessary for everyone to be re-schooled and attain new skills needed at a specific time. hence, many institutions offer slps to various learners. the contribution of this paper is the advocacy of slps to increase individuals’ employability. hence, slps are depicted as a means for skills development beyond covid-19. keywords knowledge, capability, unemployment, skills, development, short learning programs https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 504–523 505 introduction as the world attempted to come to terms with globalization and the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) changes, covid-19 interrupted all activities, including education (schleicher, 2020). covid-19 affected schools’ time, employment, and the quality and quantity of education. amidst all this pandemonium, it is incumbent upon the education system to produce adept individuals to meet the unprecedented changes. this situation is comparable to the united states of america economic depression between 1929 and 1941, where the new deal was introduced to save the education system (fass, 1982). the new deal outlined the responsibilities of federal institutions to manage education affairs in their local environments for the less fortunate. the deal powered teachers from the less fortunate groups to benefit from the educational funds. likewise, individuals must have the knowledge and skills to live, work, and thrive during unexpected changes. it is no wonder that society and personality change are needed to survive beyond covid-19 and meet the challenges of the 4ir and other industrial revolutions (irs). in our situation, slps contribute to society and personality change to equip individuals with the proficiencies they need to face new challenges. everyone needs skills to enhance personalities and provide societal changes in these changing times. the changes from globalisation, 4ir, and the covid-19 pandemic (beraza, 2018; schwab, 2016) have drastically altered the workplace environment towards increased use of technology (beraza, 2018) and created the new normal (nn). therefore, information communication technology (ict) studies through slps would be recommended to meet 21st century needs. background globally, during covid-19, institutions changed from contact to virtual learning (georgiadou et al., 2020), and governments like russia provided funds for ict infrastructure (nie et al., 2020; revinova & lazanyuk, 2021) and many others for sustainable development. in south african education after 1994 (the year of the end of apartheid), a lifelong learning framework using slps was adopted to redress the ills in education and attain social justice for everyone (walters & daniels, 2009). slps are used in continuing professional development (cpd) in education institutions to learn specific skills (melesse & gulie, 2019; thwala, 2021) and may attract monetary remunerations (woessmann & ludger, 2016) and enhance job satisfaction. theoretical framework to fit in the nn in society, the author uses the capability approach theory (cat) and critical realist theory (crt) as theoretical frameworks to clarify several issues regarding slps. cat is a normative framework for human life quality and development (robeyns, 2006) and was used to explain individuals’ lived experiences in choosing https://changing-sp.com/ 506 israel kibirige courses. it depicts what individuals are doing and their being (nussbaum, 2000). it also deals with what individuals achieve. individuals embrace human development in two folds: the ends and the means of development. the latter is vital, and individuals are directly or indirectly integral to all economic production to live and sustain others in society (sen, 1989). individuals need skills to be employable; hence, slps can upskill them in job opportunities and get better working conditions that improve their quantity and quality of life. sen (1992) presents two concepts of the cat: functionings and capabilities. functionings are the various roles an individual may undertake. functionings are diverse and complex given that they range from individual to community-based and material to mental-based (terzi, 2005). functionings make up of intrinsic factors such as curiosity and desire to succeed. community-based values like attaining education or skills command respect in any community (gaskel, 2020). capabilities recognise human diversity (sen, 1992) in three aspects: individual characteristics, external environment, and capacity to transform the available resources (terzi, 2005). also, linking diversity to human justice is integral to human development. therefore, to manage human development, one needs to manage the diversity of individuals regarding their functionings (achievements of a person) and capabilities (ability to achieve functionings) (hinchcliffe & terzi, 2009). l. terzi (2014) argues that justice in institutions should be assessed according to individuals’ diversity and let individuals benefit equally. thus, this paper focuses on using slps to increase individuals’ capability sets (sen, 1989) and improve humans’ ability and freedom to choose what to do and to why do it. hence, slps can be a panacea to society and personality development. the researcher used cat to understand persons as “agents”. these agents make up diverse goals for the community: motivations, habits, and sympathy of the individuals and the community (sen, 1997). hence, cat has implications for the financial liberation of individuals related to the model of homo economicus since employment guarantees specific earnings. the robust and user-friendly model incorporates social norms, learning and cooperation, and interactive choices (ng & tseng, 2008). these interactive choices relate to individual behaviours in sociology, despite the criticism labelled against the model for being monolithic, which suggests enriching one person. this monolithic view can affect others as one person can be a resource to other people. dealing with an individual can yield good dividends when everyone collaborates with another, making a chain reaction and benefitting many individuals. therefore, the author argues that an individual is both a homo economicus (individual) and homo sociologicus (group of individuals–the society) (ng & tseng, 2008), given that all depend on one’s self-interests. considering the social view of norms (weale, 1992), eight tenets are added to the social component that cannot be ignored as they are integral to the agent’s decisions. these tenets include motivation for acting, rationality, freedom, morality and responsibility, action learning, human relations and social bonds, emotions, and preferences (weale, 1992). all these tenets contribute to the individuals’ decisions to take courses in formal schooling or through slps. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 504–523 507 the author theorises that the slps dynamics’ functionings and agents can be between the host institutions and the slps learners with the above social issues. cat, as a normative theory dealing with functionings and agents in four specific contexts: companies, academic institutions, individual volunteers, and nongovernmental organisations (ngos), should sponsor slps to cater for all individuals in society. unfortunately, no attention has been given to those four contexts. the author advocates for raising funds from such sources to support slps to cater for the less fortunate in society. cat describes what the object (slps) is about, but it does not explain why students and institutions engage in slps. neither does it explain why the less fortunate are not included in spls. thus, there is a knowledge gap about slps. this gap can be addressed using the critical realist theory (crt) to explain why slps are offered and why all individuals, irrespective of their education and financial status, should engage in slps. crt focuses on the structure and its organisation. learning should be fun and interesting to prepare all individuals for future life because the acquired knowledge and skills are needed in all areas. in slps, learners attain knowledge and skills to function in a novel format to bring societal change and meet life’s novelties (figure 1). the aim was to investigate slps’ roles beyond covid-19. therefore, the objectives are to (a) explain the concept of slps, (b) examine why institutions offer slps, and (c) examine why individuals participate in slps. what are slps? slps are offered in many institutions worldwide and are significant for lifelong learning (melai et al., 2020). slps have different names, such as short professional course in spain (sampaio et al., 2022) or short courses in the usa (williamson & heinz, 2021), france (theodossopoulos & calderon, 2021), the united kingdom (melai et al., 2020), south korea (kumar et al., 2022), australia (sokoloff, 2021), and russia (guzal, 2021). in south africa, slps have been recognised as an important educational component. the south african qualifications authority (saqa) defines slps as short courses and skills programs within short learning programs (south african qualifications authority, 2004, p. 14), formal or informal. the courses offered are less than 120 credit hours, which can be competence-based, where credits are awarded according to the specific assessment criteria or attendance-based with no credits awarded. coombs and ahmed (1974) define formal learning as taking place in an “institutionalised, chronologically graded and hierarchically structured educational system” (p. 8). formal learning programs require applicants to exhibit basic attainment before enrolling for a course that culminates in certified qualification (la belle, 1982). conversely, coombs and ahmed (1974, p. 8) contend that informal learning is a “lifelong” procedure to gain knowledge, skills, and attitudes in different settings. this type of learning occurs in different settings (brookfield, 1986), including informal settings. https://changing-sp.com/ 508 israel kibirige why individuals participate in slps the organisation for economic co-operation and development study (oecd, 2018) shows that 32% of the jobs will change how they are enacted, while 14% will be automated. increased use of technology demands that people be trained before using technology. something more dramatic is that only 41% of adult graduates may find work leaving the majority, 59%, with no employment (oecd, 2018). it requires innovation to find how to absorb these graduates. one approach is to re-skill them through slps. for example, 66% of unemployed youths (statistics south africa, 2019) can be re-skilled through slps and take up or create employment. similarly, teachers who graduated from universities a few decades ago (20 years) may not have used computer simulations. slps should equip such teachers with technology to foster learning. ict use in schools have reported positive gains in new zealand even before covid-19 (brown et al., 2018). recent studies shed the light on the current state in brazil (tomczyk et al., 2020), russia (coutts et al., 2020; guzal, 2021), india (ilo & oecd, 2020; kanwar & carr, 2020), china (fang et al., 2022) and south africa (brics) (kibirige & bodirwa, 2021). slps will remain an indispensable tool for education beyond the pandemic. why institutions offer slps? why do institutions offer slps? why are slps necessary for everyone in the 4ir and beyond? the author argues that current job market uncertainties during the 4ir, especially during the onset of covid-19, need to be addressed. covid-19 has ushered in and amplified concepts such as nn and working-from-home (wfh), reducing human resource duties as everyone worked from home. virtual meetings (vm) minimised jobs for contact meeting logistics, social distancing (sd), and downsizing (ds) (bartik et al., 2020) created challenges. these and many other dynamics have altered employer–employee relationships and created uncertainty about what skills will be needed tomorrow. it has set in job instability (béland et al., 2020) and no one can tell who will be jobless with the next dynamic change. today, universities and companies offer slps to students or employees to improve production quality. it means anyone can be a candidate for slps in the ever-changing environment: teachers, doctors, et cetera. lifelong learning is in line with the andragogy theory, which postulates that there is no end to learning as long as one lives. thus, the theory explains the role of slps in educating individuals to attain knowledge and skills to succeed in the ever-changing environment. the author agrees with albert einstein in this context: “once you stop learning, you start dying” (as cited in kafle, 2019, p. 5). unfortunately, according to oecd (2018), only 14% of the adult population engage in upskilling courses, slps, in the south african setting, suggesting that more needs to be done. in this paper, the author argues that individuals must be re-schooled and equipped with knowledge and skills. also, the author contends that slps can be the panacea to position individuals ahead of the dynamic changes. such dynamic changes point to the effects of covid-19 on schooling and the notable changes caused by ir4 and other irs. therefore, spls can assist governments in reducing unemployment by re-skilling or upskilling individuals to meet the current context (belsky & mills, 2020). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 504–523 509 notwithstanding the need for higher education, many with less educational attainment do not get employed. for instance, 6.7% of people with degrees were unemployed in 2018 compared to 28% with only matric attainment and 16% for technical vocational education and training (tvet) qualifications (oecd, 2018). it suggests that the more one is educated, the more chances of employment. it is more interesting considering we live in a knowledge-based economy, which makes adopting a lifelong learning approach crucial. slps have not been inclusive while slps have been used in the past, their use has not been inclusive, and there is a dearth of literature about their effectiveness (hanbury et al., 2008). this dearth may be attributed to the long period it may take to see the impact, and results from such impact studies can better be gathered in longitudinal studies. for instance, slps were employed to build the capacities of teachers in introducing the outcomes based education (obe) curriculum. however, studies indicate they were ineffective in improving teachers’ professional competencies to roll out the effective implementation of the new curriculum (jansen & taylor, 2003). the teachers were not oriented on what to teach in obe, so many clerical and administrative tasks took teachers’ time for preparation and teaching. during the workshops, they were given limited time to get a paradigm shift to implement the curriculum. also, there were several changes in the curricula: outcomes based education (obe), national curriculum statement (ncs), and finally, curriculum assessment policy statement (caps), which rendered mastering the teaching difficult. targets of slps the purpose of the slps is to address individuals’ capacity gaps arising from the ever-changing environment. the question is: who are the clients of slps? it is those who have money to pay for slps fees while denying people living in poverty, as they cannot afford the fees. thus, the current slps model favours the elites and the haves and is not for the have-nots (kirsch & beernaert, 2011). this lopsided access to slps by the less educated communities is a “ticking-time-bomb” for escalating unemployment, vulnerability to poverty, and crime. something must be done urgently. who should start it where it is most needed? can slps be felt in the deep rural areas where unemployment is as clear as daylight? can slps be developed to benefit the millions of unemployed individuals? the author believes slps should be tailored for these less-educated communities more than it has been recently, providing opportunities for social mobility. the author posits that slps can be the panacea for producing empowered individuals to respond to unequivocal employment demands. this deficiency in employability skills is not only a south african problem. while africa has 20% of the world’s population under 25, there is limited preparation to succeed in the 4ir. for instance, south africa’s unemployment is 30% to 40%, which is increasing (statistics south africa, 2020). there is a need to engage these unemployed people in slps to gain the skills and knowledge needed by employers. https://changing-sp.com/ 510 israel kibirige covid-19 effects on education globally, education institutions had to close at one time (li & lalani, 2020), and over 90% of children were out of school because of closures (guidance note, 2020). while studies may not have quantified the overall impact of missing school, school closure effects on learning outcomes cannot be discreet. learners lost time in schooling because of shutdowns, exacerbated by inequities for learners already lagging in education access. schools adopted online learning as a stopgap measure in different countries during school closures (schleicher, 2020). unfortunately, many children from rural areas in low-and-middle-income countries (lmics) do not benefit from online learning because of limited technology and internet access (bhula & floretta, 2020). to salvage the situation, change the modus operandi and policies (oecd policy responses, 2020a) to allow new notions, such as working from home or online learning (oecd policy responses, 2020b). hence, many education systems worldwide have re-opened in a hybrid format: online/ virtual and alternate class attendance (hargittai & micheli, 2019) as nn. however, many children face challenges in adopting virtual learning in south africa and other countries in brics (anwar et al., 2020). as the covid-19 waves come and go, the confusion continues, with schools shutting down and re-opening irregularly to cater for educational needs that include the safety of learners, teachers, and families (meinck et al., 2022). it implies that all stakeholders in education should play new roles in supporting students’ learning in this state of mutability. in the south african context, schools closed for a few months and continued learning rotationally, where learners would attend school on alternate days. this rotational learning challenged the teacher and the learner to cover the required content in reduced time. this quick-fix method in education can result in producing individuals with knowledge gaps. also, because of socio-economic challenges arising from the pandemic, some children did not attend school because their parents either lost jobs or their salaries were reduced, thus becoming financially vulnerable. to attain the job as a quantity factor and find the quality of working conditions (sen, 1989) will remain a challenge now and in the future. therefore, programs must equip individuals with basic knowledge and skills for survival in the 4ir and beyond. slps can provide individuals with skills to deal with knowledge gaps just-in-time in everchanging contexts. the competence of schooling is determined by the consistency between the quality of education and job market needs. before the covid-19 pandemic in december 2019, global discrepancies were identified between the graduates produced and the labour market demands (verma et al., 2018). for instance, the world bank’s (guidance note, 2020) metric of “learning poverty,” which refers to children who cannot read and understand a simple text by age 10, was a staggering 80% in low-income countries. this challenge was also exhibited in the low secondary education completion rate of only 35% (brown, 2020). there is low proficiency in reading science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem), and a low proportion of university students per population in the school system. a study by van zyl et al. (2012) acknowledged that changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 504–523 511 south africa’s school system did not prepare learners adequately for higher education. the study indicated that many learners who joined universities lacked basic skills, such as reading and writing. these identified gaps in reading and writing can be addressed through slps. the deplorable situation of the world education system through education, individuals are equipped with technical and non-technical skills necessary for productivity. knowledge and skills are dynamic; thus, the labour market demands unique skills in different settings. it is no wonder that the global human capital report (2017) emphasized the significance of lifelong learning. if one lives, there will be new knowledge and skills to learn to keep abreast with change. lifelong learning can occur through further education: formal, informal, long, or short duration since our focus is to reduce unemployment and increase efficacy for the employee through slps. crucial issues at hand capability approach theory (cat) is a theoretical framework for conceptualising human capabilities and functionings (sen, 1980). cat emphasises the quality of life individuals can attain and achieve. this framework is underpinned by three key concepts: functionings, capabilities, and freedom and agency. functionings are about what an individual can do. capabilities include an individual’s achievements, which reflect what one can achieve (functionings). the last one includes an individual’s freedom to choose what to do or become (sen, 1985). functionings are achievements, while capabilities are the abilities to achieve. for instance, functionings constitute abilities to study and achieve knowledge and skills in higher education. thus, the capability approach has been used to conceptualise the role of slps in improving people’s “capability sets”, particularly what they choose and achieve to meet the changing market demands. thus, sen’s cat provides a lens to understand the potential efficacy of slps in increasing individuals’ capability to choose and achieve during covid-19, the 4ir, and beyond. the author argues that slps can equip individuals with the required competencies. the covid-19 pandemic is like a wake-up call to be ready for any unexpected change. while we have always known that change is the most permanent phenomenon in the world, no one ever imagined the changes that have occurred because of covid-19. it can be likened to the great depression in the usa, where the education reform system adopted a new deal to enhance skills for everyone. similarly, it can be compared to the 1967 reform in ireland, where education policy changed to remove inequality (raftery & hout, 1993). conversely, high-level education attainment resulted in inequality and altered parent-child relationships (lucas, 2001). in this discourse, the author contends that keeping abreast with ever-changing contexts requires the acquisition of new knowledge and new skills (leblue, 2020). change causes rehttps://changing-sp.com/ 512 israel kibirige schooling, and the author believes slps can be the new deal to prepare people to face new challenges. re-schooling is about up-skilling and re-skilling. thus, people need to embrace lifelong learning to be a re-schooled society, especially in technology education (rahmatullah et al., 2022). no one is so qualified in any field that there is no need for capacity building. slps are the panacea for capacity development to address personal and professional development challenges. new knowledge and skills gained from targeted slps can address capacity gaps, unemployment, and job dissatisfaction. it is envisaged that the 4ir will affect employment at all levels. thus, the different sectors need to upgrade skilled people and infrastructure that promotes job opportunities in the 4ir and beyond. discussion and conclusion this section deals with the main findings or the big picture regarding slps and discusses what slps are, why participate in slps, why offer slps, slps have not inclusive, targets of slps, and effects of covid-19 on education. the main discourse the author advances is that slps are necessary for everyone to improve the modus operandi [the way of doing things] now and tomorrow beyond covid-19. it is what one can achieve (sen, 1985), and it is re-schooling and choosing what will meet the job market (béland et al., 2020). the author, on what slps are, used the south african qualifications authority (saqa) definition of slps. they are short courses to enhance skills (melai et al., 2020; south african qualifications authority, 2004), and they can be formal or informal. currently, slps are offered in many institutions in south africa (table 1). again, the author hypothesises that the more slps are offered, the more popular they will be. hence, the need for this discourse regarding what slps in higher education now and beyond covid-19. considering individuals participating in slps, one wonders who needs slps. the author shows that everyone wants to (a) do better in his current job and (b) be guaranteed a job tomorrow. hence, teachers, doctors, lawyers, artisans, nurses, et cetera, will be re-schooled to meet the changes in the workplace. as shown in the section regarding why slps are offered, the researcher contends that institutions of higher learning and companies in south africa offer slps to a diverse group of individuals (table 1). these slps should narrow the gap between the working class due to changes in working environments. for example, institutions that offer ict contribute to narrowing the digital divide. the need for institutions to offer slps is global, as shown during covid-19, where virtual communication and learning were encouraged to keep abreast with duties in various countries (coronavirus research, 2020). before covid-19 slps were not inclusive because they were considered a luxury, but during the pandemic, it became necessary to learn the nn to meet the demand of the workplace. currently, slps offered at unisa on what it terms a “just in time” and yet enough to keep individuals in employment. it was evidenced during lockdown; after that, workers learnt to communicate through zoom1, conferencing, 1 zoom® is a registered trademark of zoom video communications, inc. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 504–523 513 table 1 a few samples of slps offered by various institution in south africa group institution course sample(total courses offered) target duration institutions of higher learning university of south africa academic skills for different groups (20) professionals and students varies university of witwatersrand ict in education for practitioners and policy implementers (5) professionals and students semester university of cape town data handling for primary teachers—edn2015ce (55) professionals and students 6 hours north west university designing environmental education materials (40) professionals and students varies cape peninsula university of technology writing development programme (5) professionals and students ≤ week stellenbosch university data handling (28) professionals and students varies university of johannesburg ict solutions in education (34) professionals and students varies university of pretoria assessor training (36) professionals and students 3 days rhodes university isea integrated literacy workshop (5) professionals and students varies walter sisulu universitu information technology essentials (6) professionals and students varies university of limpopo certificate in inclusive education (2) professionals and students 6 months/ block sessions university of free state different courses (16) professionals and students varies nelson mandela university educational courses (83) professionals and students varies companies/ others commerce and computer college of south africa (pty)ltd ict certification (not specified) professionals and students varies afri-training institute various certification (not specified) professionals and student varies damelin online short courses various courses (not specified) professionals and students varies https://changing-sp.com/ 514 israel kibirige and submit reports from colleagues (hargittai & micheli, 2019; hunsaker et al., 2019). what covid-19 did was accelerate the need to use available for day-to-day duties. thus, the need to learn technology links with the ca about what to learn (sen, 1985) and why to learn it. this link is a knowledge gap that can be addressed using the critical realist theory (crt) (archer, 1995) to explain why slps are offered and why all individuals, irrespective of their levels of education, should engage in slps. crt focuses on the structure and its organisation. for slps to succeed, we need to link the structure and agency. crt links what to why by providing the cause (figure 1). it also addresses the seven ontological developments of critical realism broadly divided into three categories: basic, dialectical, and philosophy of metareality (bhaskar, 2020). basic critical realism is level one, dialectical extends to level four, and the last three are dealt with as the philosophy of metareality (archer, 1995). these developmental ontologies are enacted in structure and agency (booker, 2021), and they can safeguard against unemployment beyond covid-19 and in eminent irs. hence a motivation for individuals’ engagement in slps. as stated in the section regarding the crucial issues at hand, engagement in slps enhances new knowledge and skills. in this way, a re-schooled society is created. also, the re-schooled society will solicit sponsors of slps to enable the less fortunate to improve their skills. thus, in this discourse, capability approach theory (cat) (sen, 1985) was used as a lens to conceptualise what slps improve people’s capabilities. in contrast, crt provided the reasons for the enactment to avert unemployment beyond covid-19. the author’s discourse explored the current changes brought about by covid-19 and the working conditions during and beyond covid-19. the outcome of the discourses is that institutions offer slps considering sen’s capability approach theory (cat) (sen, 1985) to explain the “what” concept, while the critical realist theory (crt) explains why individuals engage in slps. for example, the author used cat as a lens to understand slps issues regarding workplace changes arising from globalisation, the 4ir and the covid-19 pandemic. besides cat, the author used crt to understand why institutions offer slps and why individuals choose to take available alternatives of upskilling through slps. after upskilling, one can do new jobs in a different context (agha, 2022). while previous education emphasised technical expertise, there is an inevitable shift in employability skills to more social and soft skills (kahn, 2017) and the use of ict and internet of things (iot) despite the fears raised by youths (abramova et al., 2022). the 4ir, for instance, demands communication, teamwork; ethics and professionalism; lifelong learning; problem-solving, management, technology, decision making, critical thinking, and leadership (clarke, 2016; jameson et al., 2016). many of these skills are hard to automate because they are associated with human interactions in different contexts. acquiring such skills from slps would make individuals more versatile, thus increasing their survival options. it calls for a deliberate effort to re-school individuals to empower them to meet the new market demands. the various capacity gaps must be identified, and customised slps should equip people with such skills, thus narrowing the capabilities gaps in different contexts. slps provisioning will have both short-term and long-term benefits. it will create jobs, as individuals use their newly changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 504–523 515 gained skills to improve their functionings. it is no wonder university of south africa (unisa) and others have well-established slp programmes for various individuals’ needs. in addition, the university of johannesburg (uj) has already established short online courses: artificial intelligence in the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) and african insights, slps—massive open online courses (moocs), which are limited in the country. to offer such programmes is a big endeavour and would require all stakeholders to work together as a team. as the african axiom goes, “it takes a village to raise a child” and “one ant cannot build an anthill” (semali & stambach, 1997, p. 15), suggesting that by working as a team, people achieve more. the participants need to be consulted on their passion to identify market needs and aspirations. to date, universities and companies offer slp to students or employers to improve production quality. anyone, such as teachers and doctors, can engage in slps. figure 1 below illustrates a model for conceptualising slps for a re-schooled society. the model highlights the issues that influence individuals’ decisions to consider capacity development through slps, and why institutions and students engage in slps. figure 1 a model to understand what and why institutions as well as students engage in slps personal capability critical realist theory (why) alternatives (what) alternative combinations (what & how) freedom of choice (what) values (what) although slps have been around for decades and have been used as remedial programs, there is a paucity of literature on their impact on improving human capital. higher education institutions should work closely with different employers to establish the apparent capacity gaps in the short term. it will generate those skills needed in the community and must be communicated to society. also, there should be an evaluation of the quality and quantity of the slps. in this evaluation, the focus should be on how slps meet the communities needs. when considering the deficiencies, we need to consider the need for society capacity enhancement from a wide range of fields. there is a need to create inclusive slp opportunities to include the low-skilled and less educated individuals to avoid further vulnerabilities. thus, in this paper, there are two contributions: (a) this discourse motivates everyone to get re-schooled through slps to meet the ever-changing employment market; (b) there is a theoretical contribution regarding the use and the explanations of critical realist theory (crt) https://changing-sp.com/ 516 israel kibirige besides capability approach theory (cat) to generate a novel understanding of what and why slps are offered to all individuals (students) (figure 1). the author borrows the words of siry et al. (2012), who contend that society will attain a blend of doing and causative discourses. it suggests that society can access all forms of slps to advance skills development for their good. in the long term, the key to unlocking africa’s prospects is to produce a skilled workforce. therefore, there is a need for systemic changes in the education system, from the early childhood development (ecd) level onwards, to give prominence to ict and innovation and infuse social and soft skills in education curricular and co-curricular activities programming. lobby for slps funding to also cater for the less fortunate in society. establish quality assurance for slps in all sectors by appointing monitoring and evaluation officers to ensure quality. also, blending humanity and technology for everyone on the globe to obtain security and boldness to face the future (volini et al., 2021). it is envisaged that many slps graduates will gain knowledge and skills for their present and future work, especially as the world economy changes from a commodity economy to a knowledge economy. similarly, the knowledge holders should get loans from the bank to establish slps. considering the covid-19 pandemic, globalisation, and 4ir, chances for employment have shifted dramatically to favour technology-literate individuals. this paper highlights the need for a re-schooled society through slps to improve individuals’ employability. individuals without such skills will soon become irrelevant and thus be destined for a life of economic vulnerability. this paper highlights slps in providing re-schooling opportunities for all to meet the 4ir demands. since people have different capability sets (nussbaum & sen, 1993), slps should cater for their different needs. if they do not choose from the available resources, it will be “the tragedy of goodwill” (floridi, 2006, p. 255). re-schooling is a goodwill one can take from slps offered at various institutions. thus, goodwill probably displays a readiness to participate in what is of interest in this discourse, which is getting everyone involved in slps to avert unemployment now and in the future. re-schooling is a goodwill one can take from slps offered at various institutions. failure to take that opportunity is a tragedy where there is a lack of power to act on the available information. it implies that individuals are pressured to act on issues, and yet they have neither skills nor the resources to deal with the issues at hand. in that case, outsiders, like companies and ngos, should promote and sponsor slps as a step in the right direction. final thoughts suppose there are opportunities to improve the functionings of less fortunate people with low socioeconomic status through re-schooling; there will be a community that will not function and limit national growth. the covid-19 pandemic, globalization, and 4ir demands are likely to exacerbate the suffering of the less fortunate. this paper described slps as a building block for individuals’ capacities to respond to labour market demands. the author used cat and crt to advocate for formal slps. many changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 504–523 517 informal slps are not documented and need further studies. the author contends slps can be a panacea for unemployment in the ever-changing world. considering the formal schooling attained by individuals and the informal setups at the workplace, everyone needs slps to catch up with the recent developments in life. hence, slps can be a panacea for everyone. references abramova, s. b., antonova, n. l., campa, r., & popova, n. g. 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translation and careful revision of the work. the research boom in the field of memory studies, which began about thirty years ago, eventually reached russia and, in some ways, absorbed the minds of russian social scientists. today in russia, memory studies is one of the most fashionable areas of humanities. every year, dozens of conferences are held, and hundreds of books and articles are published, in which the memory of the past is the main focus of attention. curiously, historians are not the leaders in this field. anthropologists, sociologists, and experts in other fields have taken up the lead, for it has become clear that historical science is only one of many forms of knowledge about the past and is more of an intellectual exercise whose goal is to recreate a consistent and comprehensive picture of the past. memory, on the other hand, if we discuss it not just as a psychological process but as a social phenomenon, is a sociocultural practice with its own—sometimes highly selective, inconsistent, or even controversial—ways of perceiving the past. simply put, the watershed between historical studies and memory of the past is not how, when, and why events occurred or how they were connected, but what, how and why we remember them, retain some of them in our collective memory and forget others. the book battle for the past: how politics changes history by ivan kurilla, a professor at the european university at st. petersburg, was published by alpina publisher in 2022, and immediately attracted attention of the russian memory studies community. this is a very unusual book; truth be told, it is nothing like i have ever read before. to begin with, it is not so easy to define its genre. written received 4 may 2022 © 2022 sergey v. moshkin accepted 20 june 2022 osa-sv@yandex.ru published online 11 july 2022 https://changing-sp.com/ 456 sergey v. moshkin by an academic, the book is not a traditional scientific research, filled with hard-tounderstand paragraphs and whole chapters dedicated to nuances of terminology, reading which you catch yourself thinking that the author wants to show off his erudition rather than tackle the essence of the problem. conversely, ivan kurilla’s book is a true scientific page-turner. the author provides no methodological framework for the research but, instead, from page one he sweeps you away into an intricate maze of “cultural wars” and “memory wars” that have erupted all around the world. this makes the book somewhat eclectic, but such a “non-academic” approach works fine. using lots of examples, dr. kurilla shows how in different countries—in different ways, but invariably—the past intrudes into the present because people need the past to rely on and do not accept the history that has been created without their participation (p. 6). the essence of conflicts over memory is exposed immediately and in its entirety, and therefore the usual argument about the accuracy of definitions simply becomes redundant. at the same time, the book does not fall into the category of popular science. unlike popular science literature, the book does not simplify complex issues. ivan kurilla just tells stories—and tells them masterfully and with ease. a kaleidoscope of stories, and the author’s outstanding erudition and impeccable style capture and hold the reader’s attention to the last page. the structure of the book is also somewhat unusual. the book consists of an introduction (called prehistory), a conclusion (the end of stories), and four large parts, each of which, in turn, includes a prologue as an independent narrative, three “memory wars” stories, and an epilogue—again as a separate story. in total, there are twenty-two independent stories. the research extends from japan and korea to south africa, and from russia and ukraine to france and the usa. there are especially many american stories, which is not surprising since ivan kurilla is a well-known in russia specialist in american history. apparently, the author wanted to convey the idea that the russia is not unique in terms of how it handles “memory wars” and that many other countries have gone through or are going through similar processes. the book has one important feature that distinguishes it from similar researches— an “enlightenment dimension.” the past has long ceased to be the domain of historians and is now a tool of politics. history is becoming a testing ground for the struggle for the minds of people, but the forces are not equal here. as a rule, the power elites and the government have the upper hand. to solve the urgent problems of the day, politicians exploit history in their own interests, dissecting it, experimenting with it, offering society the “only correct interpretation,” and making it the basis for decisions that are binding on everyone. this is where the ideas of a single school history textbook, the fight against “falsification of history,” imposed commemorative practices, and many other things that make up government historical policy are born. however, the government does not and cannot have a monopoly on historical memory, and therefore dealing with our past is not so much the task of the government, but the task of the entire society, of all the people and groups that make it up. ivan kurilla’s book is just about that. on more than two hundred pages, he shows how this happens in other countries, what contributes and what does not contribute to the reconciliation of the parties in the “wars of memory,” and what lessons we can and should learn from other countries’ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 455–461 457 experience. civic education through the prism of memory politics seems to be the overarching goal of the book. it is no surprise that ivan kurilla begins his research with discussions about teaching history in school, for historical education serves as the most important socializing force, establishing an interpretation of the past that makes children real citizens (p. 28). the seemingly simple question of what kind of history should be taught in school? is, in fact, incredibly difficult but fundamentally important. many countries have gone through battles over school textbooks. kurilla discusses the experience of chile, great britain, and the usa, and recalls the plans to create a unified textbook for russian schools. any government will have an interest here, which is quite understandable: it seeks to present history and explain the past from the perspective of the ruling political class. civil society, by contrast, believes that if we accept that society is heterogeneous and that there are different groups with their own interests and value systems, we must also accept that each of these groups has the right to its own interpretation of the past. therefore, the question of the content of the school history course should be a matter of public discussion and consensus reached, where representatives of the government, historical science, teachers, and the parent community should participate on an equal footing. naturally, for the vast majority of people, acquaintance with history is not limited to reading a school textbook. no less important for the preservation of collective memory are museums and historical exhibitions, which always offer their own interpretation of events, and therefore become the subject of political attention and are often used as a tool of manipulation (p. 39). the author provides examples of how identity politics influence the narrative of the past in the united states, where the museum of native american history, the national museum of african american history and culture, and the national museum of the american latino offer their own narratives. in other words, we see fragmentation of narratives about the past based on identity of origin. in russia, the perception of the past is split along ideological lines and the opposition of the government narrative to the narrative of freedom is most pronounced (p. 41). the government overtly dominates: numerous conservative exhibitions like “russia. my history” are opposed by few alternative projects such as the st. petersburg museum of the political history of russia or the yeltsin center in yekaterinburg. the situation is similar in russian cinematography, except that the dictate of the state is almost absolute here. back in 2009, the cinema fund was created in russia to finance the films that the government wanted, the films which were devoted mostly to historical or “military-patriotic” narratives. kurilla points out that in the historical films produced before that year, russia’s past was viewed quite critically, and the government was often seen as a source of violence. the films released after 2009 are more focused on the government’s struggle with internal and external enemies. according to kurilla, many will agree that contemporary russian cinema uses the past to assert the narrative about the strong power of the government and weakness of society” (p. 58). after all, cinematography is an art and does not necessarily need or care about historical authenticity. a historical movie is always a kind of fiction, a man-made myth, which could be used to tell an unsophisticated audience in simple https://changing-sp.com/ 458 sergey v. moshkin language about the past, to explain the present, and to plant ideological seeds for the future. powers-that-be are well aware of this and therefore use cinema for propaganda purposes. kurilla is particularly concerned with the memorial landscape of cities and, above all, with monuments. by erecting monuments and other memorial objects, the ruling elite enshrines in society the historical narrative it needs and shapes public perception of the heroes and heroic events of the past. if interpretations do not change over the course of several generations, kurilla writes, then a large part of the monuments begins to serve as a reminder of people and events whose significance society no longer feels (p. 77). they become a kind of “imposed memory,” and the ruling elite determines what society should or should not remember. in this case, memorial objects to a certain extent stabilize the dominant historical narrative and the value system associated with it. however, with a change of regime, and even more so during the years of social upheavals (wars, revolutions), a reassessment of the past inevitably takes place in society, followed by a change in value orientations. a new historical narrative begins to dominate, which materializes in a new symbolic politics and a new memorial landscape. we need not go far to find examples: the mass toppling of lenin statues in ukraine known as leninopad (lininfall), the dismantling of the monument to dzerzhinsky at moscow’s lubyanka square in 1991 and the heated discussion of its restoration thirty years later, in 2021. depending on the degree of radicalism, the new elite either tears down monuments and erects new ones— alternatively, it may restore monuments demolished by the previous regime—or erects new monuments right next to the old ones (p. 78), ivan kurilla concludes. similar things happened with proper names of places (how can we forget renaming of streets, squares, and cities) and, especially, with the holiday dates of the national calendar. before the early modern period, the church had a monopoly on space and time, establishing a religious picture of the world in proper names of places (toponyms) and the calendar. later, politicians began to use power to put space and time at their service, and for this they reform the calendar and the calculation of time, introduce new secular holidays, change names of cities and streets, and erect monuments to the heroes in the central squares of cities (p. 105). this is especially evident in the examples of, say, the french revolution, the russian revolution of 1917, and partly in russia in the 2000s, when politicians introduced new public holidays, changed the time zones, and first introduced and then abolished daylight saving time. public holidays play a special role in commemorative practices. first, they are celebrated every year, and such an annual cycle not only reminds us of past events, but also reinforces cultural traditions. celebration of public holidays is a crucial element of commemoration. second, every holiday should be markedly different from an ordinary day. to attain this goal, each public holiday must have its own festive rituals, festive rhetoric, visual symbols, and special values. it is important that the values be understood and accepted by people. ivan kurilla gives examples of attempts to add new holidays in russia, such as russia day on june 12 and national unity day on november 4, which turned out to be unsuccessful because no common changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 455–461 459 rituals have been developed (p. 110). society did not accept the new holidays created by the authorities, and russians still do not understand what they are supposed to be celebrating on these days. however, there are also opposite examples, when a significant part of society would not mind celebrating a historical date, but the ruling elite, for one reason or another, refrains from any celebrations. this is what happened with november 7, the day of the bolshevik revolution, the centenary of which in 2017 the authorities simply ignored. ivan kurilla explains it this way: on the one hand, for the current russian government, any revolution is an obvious evil (p. 113); on the other hand, the presentday russia inherited a lot from the ussr, the brainchild of the bolshevik revolution, and therefore sees in the events of a century ago a positive start. as for russian society, it is split over the issue of the bolshevik revolution and its legacy. as a result of the controversy, the russian authorities could not solemnly celebrate the anniversary of the revolution, nor could they publicly condemn those events. it was the inability to say anything unambiguous about the revolution of 1917 that led the government and politicians to remain remarkably silent throughout the centenary year (p. 112). in a situation of ambiguity, silence was the best way out for them. ivan kurilla devoted a significant part of the book to the “wars of memory” surrounding world war ii. these “wars” over that war are particularly painful, since not much time has passed since its end, and its eyewitnesses, the bearers of memories, are still alive. the matter is exacerbated by the fact that each country, affected by ww ii, in recent decades has formed its own historical narrative about the causes, the course of the war, and its results, and most importantly, the role and responsibility of this or that nation in the war. and here we see amazing transformations: the generally recognized aggressor country is trying to appear as a victim. according to ivan kurilla, in china and south korea, many believe that japan is using the atomic bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki to portray the japanese as victims of world war ii rather than the aggressors responsible for war crimes (p. 125). conversely, a country that was attacked by hitler and then defeated nazism is suddenly referred to as an aggressor. the concept of “two totalitarianisms” emerges, which holds not only nazi germany responsible for starting the war, but the soviet union too. this reassessment of ww ii spread to virtually all of eastern europe after the collapse of the soviet union and caused, among other things, the russian-polish conflict, which had serious political consequences and led to cooling in relations between the two countries. the russian government made statements about the “falsification of history” and about “belittling the role of the ussr in the defeat of fascism.” however, according to kurilla, in this dispute, talking about the past is a manifestation of the contemporary conflict in which russia found itself by the end of the second decade of the 21st century (p. 135). having lost political control over eastern europe, russia faced the threat of withdrawing from europe and the crisis of russia’s european identity. the former socialist allies no longer share the historical version of the outcome of ww ii, asserted by the ussr and retained by russia, but, on the contrary, while building their new non-socialist identity, they oppose it in every possible way, shutting themselves off from russia. they feel that they are part of a european home, in which russia has no place. https://changing-sp.com/ 460 sergey v. moshkin in russia, ww ii—we prefer to call it the “great patriotic war”—occupies a special place in the collective memory. no other event in the recent past of russian history has had such a striking effect on contemporary russian identity as the great patriotic war. the ruling political elite of russia is aware of this and uses it to its advantage. since 2000,” kurilla writes, “the kremlin has used the memory of the great patriotic war as the major resource for ‘gluing’ society together and for maintaining its own legitimacy as the main custodian of that memory (p. 156). moreover, with the departure of a generation of war participants, the russian government becomes not only the main custodian, but also the main “manager” of the memory of the war, suppressing any attempts at undesirable interpretations of military events. since the political and moral assessments of ww ii are shared by the majority of the population, and since for many generations the war still remains an emotional part of personal and family history, the russians easily accepted the leading role of the government in keeping the memory of the war, even though the government has exploited this memory in foreign policy and propaganda, or has used it against domestic political opponents. as a result, a peculiar “governmentalized canon” of memory about the great patriotic war has developed in contemporary russia, which is mandatory for all. in those cases, when public initiatives give rise to new commemorative practices pertaining to ww ii, the russian government rather quickly takes them under its control, making them an almost obligatory official ritual. ivan kurilla demonstrates this, using the immortal regiment campaign as an example. the movement of military reenactors, immortal regiment was started in the siberian city of tomsk by local journalists. at first, the initiative was opposed by the authorities of various levels, but was quickly picked up by civil activists throughout russia and became extremely popular. kurilla sees it as an attempt by people to express themselves in the only language left to them by the authorities, the language of conversation about the great patriotic war (p. 207). in turn, the kremlin simply could not suppress a mass initiative that used the same language and appealed to the same legacy as the country’s leadership (p. 208). since the movement could not be stopped, it was logical for the government to lead it. therefore, the authorities chose to seize the popular initiative, effectively removing its activists, and made the immortal regiment one of the most important and spectacular official rituals of the v-day celebration. it is worth recalling here, although the author himself does not write about it, that exactly the same story happened with the “st. george ribbon” movement. produced by a group of enthusiasts, the movement quickly gained popularity, but was soon taken over by the authorities and placed under government patronage, while the st. george ribbon was used almost on a par with the official state symbols. however, the “nationalization” of commemorative public initiatives led to a twofold result. on the one hand, officials managed to channel the energy of the masses into the official discourse of festive events and use it to strengthen the legitimacy of power. on the other hand, this partly has led to the emasculation of the original meaning of the people’s initiative and official profanation of historical memory. kurilla’s book ends with an afterword called the end of stories. this is a clear allusion to francis fukuyama’s viral article the end of history, the conclusions of changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 455–461 461 which the american philosopher himself later rejected, for history does not end, just as wars for history never end. ivan kurilla ends his book with these words: disputes about the past will not disappear because their cause is in the present moment. history merely provides the material and language for current political conflicts. it is possible, however, to negotiate the boundaries of ‘historical’ conflicts we must accept the fact that the multiplicity of the past is now with us forever and learn to live with it (pp. 230–231). however, the question who shapes the memory of the past? is still with us. throughout the book, kurilla repeatedly shows that national, religious, and ideological claims to ‘own’ the correct interpretation of history have long roots (p. 225). the author does not add historians to the list of those who want to “own history”, although that seems to be within their professional domain. only twice in the text do we encounter references to the role of professional historians in the unfolding “wars of memory”, and then only in the context of their relationship with the authorities. the first mention pertains to the freedom of history manifesto of french historians, who demanded the abolition of all restrictions on the freedom of scientific research. the second mention pertains to the memorial laws adopted in russia, which made studying ww ii extremely difficult for russian historians. however, unfortunately, ivan kurilla does not provide an answer to the following question: what should the professional historical community do in a situation where the russian government has unambiguously asserted the right to control the historical narrative (p. 166)? the answer, it seems, lies on the surface: we should focus on civic education on the basis of historical knowledge. actually, the stories told by ivan kurilla in his book serve this task—civic education through the prism of the politics of memory. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 483–487 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.185 editorial values under the influence of various contexts: cross-cultural reflections elena a. stepanova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia how are food preferences related to the moral imperatives of everyday behavior? how does schoolgirls’ and schoolboys’ intelligence differ, and what determines these differences? why are the virtues described by aristotle relevant to employers in india? what does the obligatory wearing of a hijab tell us about the position of women in a society? what are the socio-cultural motivations of women to become oocyte donors? in all honesty, i would probably never be thinking about these and many other issues if they were not the subjects of articles selected for publication in our journal. in today’s world, as always in human history, our everyday behavior and perception of reality are determined, perhaps unconsciously, by numerous socio-cultural contexts. what is acceptable in one location may be completely unacceptable in another one. the failure to understand each other may stem from the influence of contexts, which fact eludes human perception. however, it is reflection upon reality that is the main purpose of scientific search, since it aims to elucidate the causes and origins of contextual peculiarities. critical reflection makes it possible to penetrate into the nature of different cultures, become aware of their values and traditions and, if not share, then accept them. the possibility of such acceptance is raising many debates, which our journal seeks to promote. the articles in the current issue of changing societies & personalities reflect upon various shifts in educational policies, managerial strategies, moral choices, etc., as well as the growing intricacy of contextual influences. the main subject of the article fluid intelligence test scores across the schooling: evidence of nonlinear changes in girls and boys by tatiana n. tikhomirova, artem s. malykh, and sergey b. malykh (russia) is intelligence as a significant predictor of educational achievement in all school subjects. the research is based on a cross-sectional study of more than 1500 primary, secondary, and high public school students (boys and girls in received 1 october 2022 © 2022 elena a. stepanova published online 10 october 2022 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 484 elena a. stepanova equal proportion). the authors’ aim was (a) to examine changes in fluid intelligence test scores through all years of schooling from grades 1 to 11; (b) to analyze sex differences in fluid intelligence test scores for each year of schooling, as well as in fluid intelligence changes across schooling; (c) to investigate relationships between the year of schooling and schoolchildren’s ages, and corresponding independent and joint influences on changes in fluid intelligence. according to the authors, “the analysis reveals that, despite a strong correlation between grade and schoolchildren age, grade is a more important factor in shaping changes in fluid intelligence during schooling”. in addition, the authors make a lot of interesting and fruitful conclusions about differences between boys and girls in the terms of intelligence development at different ages. israel kibirige (south africa) in the article short learning programmes for skills development beyond covid-19 elaborates on the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, as well as of globalization and the fourth industrial revolution, on the quality and quantity of all levels of education. today, the education system is faced by the demand to produce adept individuals capable of meeting unprecedented changes. moreover, such individuals are expected to have sufficient knowledge and skills in the field of information communication technologies (ict). short learning programmes (slps), which have been recognized in south africa and other countries as an important educational component, could be a “panacea for producing empowered individuals to respond to unequivocal employment demands”. the author uses the capability approach theory (cat) and critical realist theory (crt) as theoretical frameworks to clarify several issues regarding slps. in the article representing the powerful principle of virtue ethics: commitment at workplaces, mitashree tripathy (india) analyzes the concept of virtue ethics, which, unlike other moral theories that primarily focus on the morality of action, “chiefly emphasizes the morality of character” or, in simple words, is focused “on being good or bad”. such traits of character as loyalty, trust, kindness, courage, honesty, patience, etc., encourage individuals to act morally, and are usually urged by the society to be practiced. however, the concept of virtue varies from one context to another depending on cultural traditions, social practices, professional requirements, gender, age, and the like. according to the author, the commitment at a workplace can be considered as a virtue, which improves interpersonal connection and social bonding, and thus stands equal along with other moral features, including honesty, sincerity, civility, dedication, competence, courtesy, tolerance, etc. mitashree tripathy poses the question: “does there exist a drawback of commitment, or in other words are there any limitations to commitment?”, and, after observing various forms of commitment (continuance, affective, normative, and blind), concludes that this phenomemon has both pros and cons. wajeeha brar ghias and syed zaheer abbas kazmi (pakistan) in the article in the eyes of the beholder: leaders’ personality and courageous followership observe that pakistan is ranked low in terms of institutional performance due to the high level of corruption and a lack of transparency. therefore, “courageous followership is a type of behavior that develops the capacity of a manager to speak changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 483–487 485 up against unethical practices and make them partners with leaders”, which “not only challenges unethical practices, but also makes individuals support their leaders by assuming responsibility, serving the leader, and taking part in the transformation”. in order to answer the research question “what type of the personality of a leader encourages proactive courageous followership behavior”, the authors use a sample of 190 pakistani private school leaders working in 30 top private schools as regular employees. the authors hope that courageous followership as a proactive form of followership with dimensions of assuming responsibility, taking part in organizational transformation, challenging the wrongdoings of leaders, etc., could enhance the overall culture of transparency in pakistani institutions. in the article moral foundations of dietary behavior and its linkage to sustainability and feminism by benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, and ulrich weger (germany), ethical reasons (e.g., animal welfare, environmental concerns, world hunger) as the main motivations for becoming a vegetarian or a vegan are discussed. the authors underline that “in general, it becomes obvious that vegetarians, vegans, and meat eaters differ significantly in their attitudes towards animals and their moral consideration”, and pose the overarching question: what are the moral foundations for ethical diet change? in the study, two surveys are presented. in the first survey (511 participants from social networks and internet forums in germany), moralfoundations-profiles (mfp) of vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters, and the score of their individualization are investigated; in addition, the authors aim to determine the impact of diet type on other areas of everyday life and consumption (e.g., sustainable behavior, fair trade buying, donations). the second survey (159 participants from social networks and internet forums in germany) explores to which degree vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters support feminism as an ideology that aims for social justice. irina g. polyakova, dmitry o. mazurov, elvira e. symanyuk, and aleksandra yu. khramtsova (russia) in the article the influence of sociocultural factors on oocyte donors’ motivations and disclosure decisions, draw attention to the growing demand for mentally and physically healthy oocyte donors in russian fertility clinics. in russia, similarly to many other countries, in vitro fertilization (ivf) treatment with donor eggs is considered one of the most efficient assisted reproductive technologies. at the same time, egg donation as a complex phenomenon fraught with ethical concerns remains largely underexplored in research literature. the study aims to examine the motivations of russian oocyte donors and existing barriers to donation, as well as the key socio-cultural factors that affect the potential donors’ decision to donate or not. the research is based on 16 semistructured interviews, in which women displayed a diversity of motivations. in the article social and economic factors of violence against women in the south of moldova: identification, estimation, and mechanisms of elimination, elena v. bazueva (russia) points out the high rate of violence against women in moldova using the data from one of the settlements in autonomous territorial unit gagauzia. in the article, social and economic factors that influence violence against women are outlined and classified, namely: limited opportunities for women to realize their https://changing-sp.com/ 486 elena a. stepanova economic rights in the regional labor market; a high level of patriarchalization of the population’s consciousness; a lack of effective mechanisms for ensuring gender equality in the region, as well as a lack of coordination between the ministries and state departments responsible for the implementation of a gender equality policy. in the light of the recommendations given by the un and eu, elena proposes several projects that might be useful for preventing gender-based discriminatory practices. the article patriarchal language evaluation of muslim women’s body, sexuality, and domestication discourse on indonesian male clerics preaching by eva leiliyanti, dhaurana atikah dewi, larasati nur putri, fariza, zufrufin saputra, andera wiyakintra, and muhammad ulul albab (indonesia) is based on the assumption that language is a storehouse of cultural ideas. consequently, power inequalities and related discrimination in islamic clerics’ patriarchal language about muslim women’s bodies, sexuality, and domestication in indonesia could be revealed by text-oriented discourse analysis. according to the authors, “language can be manipulated to produce linguistic coverings coupled with verb choice to influence causality attributions, offering tools to apply discrimination while masking reality and reducing perceived conflicts of interest”. the study aims to compare and evaluate the scope of the patriarchal language of muhammadiyah’s, nahdlatul ulama’s, and salafi’s clerics in their preachings posted on youtube regarding these women’s discourses. in particular, the authors discuss the role of hijab in islamic discourse in indonesia. in the article the concept of mladostarchestvo as a tool for criticizing religion in modern russia: an analysis of rhetorical strategies, eugene i. lyutko and alexey i. cherny (russia) note that the term mladostarchestvo [the concept refering to young elders] is one of the most notable and widely used concepts “in the context of spoken language, journalism, and discussions on the net”. moreover, this term could also be placed among quite rare “elements of critical rhetoric applied exclusively (or almost exclusively) to the priesthood” in the russian orthodox church. the relevance of a critical interpretation of the term is proved by the very fact of its popularity in today’s discussions in the sphere of religion. the authors aim to reconstruct a history of this concept; their methodological approach is based on the study of rhetoric strategies and functioning of such a concept as mladostarchestvo. the research notes section contains the study perceived discrimination of old settlers in sikkim by bhasker malu, santhosh kareepadath rajan, nikhita jindal, aishwarya thakur, and tanvi raghuram (india). the article explores the racial minority of old settlers in sikkim, a northeastern state merged with india in 1975. the main problem with the old settlers is their status of outsiders in sikkim, “since they are not part of the indigenous ethnic groups and belong to various mainland indian communities”. consequently, despite the long history of settlement, they still are not considered domiciles and are ostracized from availing many of the welfare facilities. the authors argue that old settlers in sikkim are discriminated as a minority or a nondominant group, and stress the need for a deeper analysis of the perception of such discrimination and its reasons. the research is based on a sample of eight men and three women out of old settlers’ total number of less than 3000. the authors reveal 13 basic themes, two organizing themes, and one global theme of discrimination. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 483–487 487 the book reviews section contains three reviews. the first is of ivan strenski (2022). muslims, islams, and occidental anxieties: conversations about islamophobia by elena a. stepanova. she pays particular attention to strenski’s concern about the possibility of tolerating contradictory opinions, when the opposing sides are convinced of their own truth, which is surely applied not only to the possibility of a mutual understanding between islam and western cultures, but also to many other cases. second, olga f. rusakova, ekaterina g. gribovod, and yan yu. moiseenko in the review of v. v. lapin, a. i. miller (eds.). (2021). simvolicheskie aspekty politiki pamiati v sovremennoi rossii i vostochnoi evrope [symbolic aspects of the politics of memory in modern russia and eastern europe] note that several russian research centers have focused on producing the public discourse of the politics of memory following the global trend in viewing memory studies as an increasingly interesting research field and an effective strategy for interpreting the past. in the third review of the priest m. v. legeyev (2021), bogoslovie istorii kak nauka. metod. [theology of history as a science. method], andrey v. lavrentiev argues that the author’s intention is to form a new direction of scientific and theological thought, which, in his opinion, is the theology of history. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections, or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.190 received 23 february 2022 © 2022 benedikt hackert, accepted 13 september 2022 lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger published online 10 october 2022 benedikt.hackert@uni-wh.de lilith.voeth@uni-wh.de ulrich.weger@uni-wh.de article moral foundations of dietary behavior and its linkage to sustainability and feminism benedikt hackert lilith c. voeth ulrich weger university of witten-herdecke, witten, germany abstract in the current article, we explore and compare the moral-foundationsprofile of vegetarians, vegans, and meat eaters and investigate how it is related to real-world behavior. results of two surveys demonstrate a link between eating behavior, moral foundations, environmental behavior, and feminist ideals. we demonstrate that vegans place greater value on individualizing foundations (i.e., harm and fairness) and meat eaters on binding foundations (i.e., authority and loyalty), while vegetarians fall in between these poles. in addition, we observed that in other behavioral domains requiring moral assessment (e.g., sustainable behavior, fair trade shopping), people act in accordance with the moral foundations matching their dietary choice as well. we propose that the psychological basis of diet choice is embedded in the broader framework of moral foundations theory and that eating behavior is not a psychologically encapsulated domain but intertwined with other domains of moral behavior. keywords moral foundations theory, dietary behavior, vegans, meat eaters, sustainable behavior, ethical behavior, feminism https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 565 a moral system valid for all is basically immoral. —friedrich nietzsche introduction development of vegetarianism and veganism throughout history, animals have played a significant role for human food production. with a rising population and an increasing demand for meat and other animal products, animal agriculture has changed significantly in the last decades. nowadays, industrial livestock farming has become common practice to meet the demands that come with a rising population, that is, to produce more and cheaper meat and other animal products (godfray et al., 2010). as a result, more than 70 billion land animals are raised, kept, and eventually killed for human food production annually (strategic plan 2013–2017, n.d.). the conditions under which these animals have to live in confined spaces, suffering from diseases and mental distress, have raised severe animal welfare issues of public interest (steinfeld et al., 2006). with an increasing awareness of animal suffering related to food production, diet choice is no longer merely a matter of taste, but increasingly also a question of morality. modern factory farming is a hardly justifiable practice for a growing number of individuals from an ethical point of view. accordingly, over the past decades, an increasing number of people have adopted a vegetarian or vegan diet and lifestyle, defined as abstaining from meat and fish, or from all animal products, respectively (definition of veganism, n.d.; what is a vegetarian?, n.d.). these growing numbers point to the importance of investigating the exact motivations and mental processes that underlie the adoption of a vegetarian or vegan diet and, also, on the other hand, what prevents individuals from endorsing this approach. so far, research has consistently demonstrated that ethical reasons (e.g., animal welfare, environmental concerns, world hunger) are indeed the main motivations for becoming vegetarian or vegan (beck & ladwig, 2021; coelho, 2019; fox & ward, 2008). of course, non-ethical motives are also existent. however, fox and ward (2008) found that even when people start a vegan diet with only one motive (e.g., health), they tend to adopt a wider range of motives (e.g., environmental concerns) as they continue following the diet. hence, it is likely that even vegans or vegetarians who start their diet with non-ethical motives adopt ethical motives over time. in line with this, janssen et al. (2016) explicitly investigated the motives for adopting a vegan diet in germany and revealed that 89% of vegans mention animal-welfare as a motive, whereas 69% mention health as a motive, and 46% mention environmental concerns. though janssen et al. also found that most vegans mention at least two different motives for their diet, it still becomes clear that animal-welfare is the most prevalent motive for a plant-based diet. of course, it has to be noted that these motives might only be true for western nations and can differ significantly across cultures (rosenfeld, 2018; ruby et al., 2013). nevertheless, it becomes evident that a large number of vegans and vegetarians reject meat consumption to prevent animal suffering and exploitation. a crucial aspect in this regard is the notion of animal sentience that stands in for the position that animals experience not only physical https://changing-sp.com/ 566 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger states, but also emotional ones such as joy or fear (low, 2012; proctor et al., 2013). research could demonstrate that “the extent to which an entity is considered to possess mental capacities, it is also considered to be morally relevant and therefore worthy of protection from harm” (bastian & loughnan, 2017, p. 4). as a result, when animals are considered as not being able to suffer physically or mentally, people are generally less concerned about the animal’s wellbeing—which again facilitates meat consumption (bastian & loughnan, 2017). both vegetarians and vegans acknowledge animals’ capacity for mental suffering, but vegans go even further and reject the use of animals as resources per se (e.g., for food, clothing, etc.; see turner, 2019). accordingly, with the founding of the vegan society in 1944, veganism distanced itself from vegetarianism because a vegetarian lifestyle still tolerates a certain amount of animal cruelty for food production, which veganism objects to (kalte, 2021). according to this position, animals deserve equal moral consideration as humans (that is, questions of life, freedom, and physical and psychological integrity). moreover, from an animal rights movement’s perspective, animals should not only be protected from suffering, but should not be used for production at all and should not be treated as property, since the concept of a natural hierarchy in which humans are superior to animals is rejected (singer, 2015). in general, it becomes obvious that vegetarians, vegans, and meat eaters differ significantly in their attitudes towards animals and their moral consideration. it seems plausible that these differences in attitudes also become apparent when looking at underlying moral principles in the different diet groups. these moral foundations associated with a change of diet and lifestyle will be clarified in detail in the present work with the overarching question: what are the moral foundations for ethical diet change? or, to put it more precisely: are there interindividual differences concerning those foundations that can explain why some perceive a vegetarian or vegan diet change as necessary, while others don’t? eating behavior and moral foundations a general classification of moral principles that include interindividual differences between different moral foundations has been brought forward by moral foundations theory (graham et al., 2011). it acknowledges that five foundations are relevant in moral judgment: harm avoidance/care; fairness/reciprocity; loyalty/ingroup favoritism; authority/respect; and purity/sanctity. harm avoidance and fairness are also termed individualizing foundations since those emphasize individual rights, whereas authority, loyalty and purity are also termed binding foundations, as those emphasize group ties. additionally, a score of moral progressivism can be derived: high scores on moral progressivism are characterized by higher scores on harm avoidance and fairness and lower scores on authority, loyalty, and purity, whereas low scores on moral progressivism are characterized by lower scores on harm avoidance and fairness and higher scores on authority, loyalty, and purity (yilmaz & saribay, 2017). when taking a closer look at carnism, vegetarianism, and veganism, it becomes clear that each of these diets involve a certain ideology with central aspects of morality changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 567 (definition of veganism, n.d.; weitzenfeld & joy, 2014; what is a vegetarian?, n.d.). even though, in everyday-life a large number of other factors (e.g., taste, social norms, etc.) determine what we actually eat as well (see marcone et al., 2020; renner et al., 2012; steptoe et al., 1995; van strien et al., 1986), the decision to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet can involve moral evaluation. thus, it can be assumed that different diet groups (e.g., vegetarians, vegans, meat eaters) differ from each other in the relative importance they place on different moral foundations. as stated above, a common ethical motivation for becoming vegetarian is to minimize harm to animals. therefore, it is plausible that vegetarians place great importance on harm avoidance when confronted with situations that call for moral assessment. in line with this, de backer and hudders (2015) found that the pattern of endorsement regarding different moral foundations differs between meat eaters, flexitarians— “one whose normally meatless diet occasionally includes meat or fish” (merriam-webster, n.d.-a), —and vegetarians in such a way that vegetarians show more endorsement for individualizing moral foundations (i.e., harm avoidance, fairness). further, de backer and hudders (2015) also found that meat eaters place more importance on binding moral foundations (i.e., loyalty, authority/respect) than vegetarians. also, it has been suggested that omnivorous eating patterns are linked to social dominance orientation and also partly to authoritarianism (becker, et al., 2019; dhont et al., 2016; dhont & hodson, 2014; graça et al., 2018; hamilton, 2006; veser et al., 2015). more specifically, social dominance orientation is associated with legitimizing meat eating via human supremacy beliefs (becker et al., 2019), which implies an increased emphasis on the legitimacy of natural hierarchies. this also implies an affinity for authority, which is in line with research results that show a correlation between conservative political attitudes and also traditional views (kalof et al., 1999; ruby, 2012) with binding moral foundations (i.e., authority, loyalty). therefore, it seems likely that meat eaters also value authority and loyalty when assessing moral situations. we aim to extend these findings by including a vegan sample in our analysis, since vegans’ attitudes towards animal use differ in principle from those of vegetarians, as only vegans reject animal usage completely (kalte, 2021). also, in contrast to de backer and hudders (2015), we did not include a flexitarian sample because we did not aim to conduct a comprehensive replication of de backer and hudders (2015), but rather to extend their findings by including a vegan sample. hence, the focus is on the vegan sample and the expected differences between the diet groups. furthermore, the difference between flexitarians and meat eaters is a purely quantitative one, since there is no type of animal product that flexitarians generally reject but meat eaters do not. in contrast, the boundaries between meat eaters, vegetarians, and vegans are rather clear cut. whereas vegetarians still tolerate a certain amount of animal suffering (e.g., separating cows from their calves, killing of male chicken), vegans reject any kind of animal suffering for food production. therefore, it seems plausible that vegans place even greater importance on harm avoidance than vegetarians. furthermore, in contrast to vegetarianism, animal rights ideology, which demands a vegan lifestyle, rejects animal use per se and objects to human superiority. hence, veganism can pursue an ideal of fairness https://changing-sp.com/ 568 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger and, as a consequence, vegans should attach greater importance to fairness when assessing moral situations compared to vegetarians. in addition, veganism opposes social dominance orientation more strongly than vegetarianism, since human superiority over animals is not supported (ulusoy, 2015). as a result, vegans can be expected to show less binding moral foundations than vegetarians. eating behavior and consumption behavior in mainstream literature, veganism typically refers to abstaining from the consumption of any animal products, such as meat, dairy, eggs, and so on. whereas this definition is sufficient for drawing a satisfying distinction between vegetarianism—defined as an abstinence from meat and fish—and veganism, it is not much more than a mere description of consumption behavior. what is not included is the philosophy and the moral conviction that precede these distinct behaviors, which is the idea of extending empathy and morality from humans to animals—a concept that is seen by philosophers as an ultimate form of social justice and the next stage in human evolution, that abandons human supremacy and aims for co-existence of humans and nature at eye level (ulusoy, 2015). as a consequence, veganism as a cultural movement can be interpreted as an overarching ideology that does not only include a certain type of diet, but “work as a catalyst to make the connections among various stances revolving around ethics, environmental sustainability [...]”, as ulusoy states (2015, p. 419). in line with this, research has already demonstrated close associations between veganism and other movements such as environmentalism movements (cherry, 2006). for instance, the global environmental movement fridays for future, whose goal it is to pressure policymakers into taking severe actions against the progressive global warming (who we are, n.d.), is also supportive of a vegan lifestyle. for fridays for future participants, following a vegan diet is considered another climate action, since the carbon footprint can be reduced significantly simply by pursuing a plantbased diet (kokkonen, 2020). furthermore, many vegan food or clothing companies produce organically and sustainably (for a list of such companies, see trademarked products—a., n.d.). also, on the other hand, traditional organic labels in europe cover aspects of sustainability and animal welfare (e.g., demeter, naturland1; directorategeneral for agriculture and rural development, n.d.). in line with this, research has shown that vegans’ aims are, in addition to advocating animal rights, also to protect the environment and to reduce world hunger (macnair, 2001; ulusoy, 2015). the intertwining of both movements of veganism and environmental activism can be explained from a psychological point of view; an extension of vegan ideology into other areas of life besides eating behavior seems plausible: de backer and hudders’ findings (2015) clearly demonstrated that endorsement patterns regarding moral foundations differ between vegetarians and meat eaters—hence it can be assumed that those differing attitudes can also come to the surface in situations other than eating behavior; to be more specific, it can be expected that vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters exhibit distinct behaviors in situations that involve moral assessments and ensuing forms of behavior or decision making. specifically, assuming that vegans, 1 https://www.gemuesekiste.com https://www.gemuesekiste.com changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 569 vegetarians and meat eaters have different psychological moral foundations (e.g., harm avoidance, fairness) underlying their diet choice, it is plausible that they also morally evaluate other behaviors for which the respective moral foundations play a role, differently. for instance, such behavioral domains are concerned with climate change, exploitation of the earth’s natural resources, and social justice in general (see, for example, jackson et al., 2021; jansson & dorrepaal, 2015; koszałkowska & wróbel, 2019). prominent examples of associated situations that call for moral behavior can be considered, for instance, the amount of consumption behavior in everyday-life, sustainable shopping, social commitment, and means of transport. based on the differences in moral foundations between the diet groups, it can be assumed that vegans, and to a lesser degree also vegetarians place more importance on sustainability and social justice due to higher importance of harm avoidance and fairness than meat eaters. in the present study, we aim to determine areas of everyday life and consumption (apart from animal products) in which the differing endorsement patterns of moral foundations regarding the three diet groups might show an impact. in other words, we aim at creating a more comprehensive picture of what other everyday behaviors are implied by the endorsement of different moral foundations and how they are linked to vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous eating behavior. eating behavior and feminism as hypothesized above, meat eaters, and both vegetarians and vegans should act in accordance with their respective endorsement pattern of moral foundations in different domains. the moral foundations endorsed by vegans and vegetarians also reflect moral values that are central to feminism: pertaining to the objection to authority and the valuing of fairness, central to feminism is the analysis of subordination (of women, but also of intersecting oppressions like racism, heterosexism, or class oppression; see allen, 2016). pertaining to the emphasis on harm avoidance, some feminists focused on an ethic of care and a principle of non-violence (aristarkhova, 2012). interestingly, a link between these two approaches (veganism and feminism) has already been worked out as part of what is called ecofeminsism. ecofeminsism is the idea that discrimination against women based on their gender on the one hand, and human destruction of nature on the other are intertwined and that both forms of oppression have similar underlying mechanisms. seeing animals as part of nature, ecofeminism is “the explication of relations of power that intersect gender and species” (twine, 2010, p. 400). hence, exploitation of animals is specifically addressed by vegan ecofeminists. for instance, in her book ecofeminist philosophy: a western perspective on what it is and why it matters, warren (2000) advocates justice and caring and criticizes (unjustified) domination (see cuomo, 2002). we can thus say that egalitarian values like non-harming and fairness are immanent to feminist ideologies—and that the same is true for an animal rights standpoint, from which animals are seen as deserving equal moral consideration as humans when it comes to the question of life, freedom, and physical and psychological wellbeing. thus, as a third question we wanted to know whether vegans and to a lesser degree https://changing-sp.com/ 570 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger vegetarians also support other ideologies that have a goal of social justice (i.e., feminism) more strongly. in addition, since there is a lack of empirical research on the relationship of moral foundations of feminists vs. non-feminists, we aim to generate some insights about this matter as well. this study this study consists of two surveys that were conducted consecutively. survey 1 investigated whether vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters show different moralfoundations-profiles (mfp), that is, specific patterns of endorsement regarding the different moral foundations. based on previous research as cited above, we developed the following hypotheses: h1. vegans score highest on individualizing foundations, vegetarians score lower than vegans but higher than meat eaters on individualizing foundations, and meat eaters score lowest on individualizing foundations. h2. meat eaters score highest on binding foundations, vegetarians score lower than meat eaters but higher than vegans on binding foundations, and vegans score lowest on binding foundations. in addition, we aimed to determine other areas of everyday-life and consumption (e.g., sustainable behavior, fair trade buying, donations) in which the differing mfps of the three diet groups might show an impact. we hypothesized the following: h3. in terms of restrictive consumption behavior, sustainable shopping, use of sustainable means of transport, and social commitment the following rank order of diet groups is expected: vegans > vegetarians > meat eaters. survey 2 was conducted to explore whether vegans and to a lesser degree also vegetarians support feminism as an ideology that also aims for social justice more strongly than meat eaters. we hypothesized the following: h4. the following rank order concerning the endorsement of feminist ideals is expected: vegans > vegetarians > flexitarians > meat eaters. survey 1 introduction and methods survey 1 was conducted to investigate whether vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters display a different mfp. participants participants were recruited online via different facebook2 groups and internet forums (e.g., groups for vegans and vegetarians, groups for students) in germany. no paid platforms were included. additionally, participants were recruited at the [blinded] and took part for course credit. in order to avoid any form of bias, participants were only given general information about the study, namely that the study was concerned with eating behavior. no incentives were offered. following data cleansing (i.e., survey 2 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. in the russian federation, it is recognised as an extremist organisation and its activity is prohibited. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 571 not completed, age under 18 years, diet group not clear), data of 511 participants could be used for analysis. of these, 376 were female, 123 were male, and 12 did not indicate their gender. age had a median of 29 years and a range from 18 to 82 years. there was no difference in age between the diet groups (welch’s f = .249, p = .78). 217 participants were vegan, 85 vegetarian and 183 meat eaters (the remaining 10 could not be classified). additionally, participants’ political orientation was obtained. materials the survey was in german; when describing items, we gave the english translation. individuals indicated their socio-demographic data, diet choice, consumption behaviors, their attitude towards animals, and the value placed on different moral foundations. diet choice and motivational basis. to begin with, participants indicated their diet choice as “vegetarian”, “vegan”, “lactose-free”, “gluten-free”, “omnivore”, “no meat”, “no fish”, or “other”. as a second step, the variables were recoded, in order to only include the groups vegan, vegetarian, and omnivore. to do so, all indicated diet choices that include either meat or fish, or both (i.e., gluten-free, omnivore, etc.) were aggregated as omnivore, whereas the diet choices vegan and vegetarian remained unchanged. in order to assess the actual eating behavior more directly, participants were asked to indicate their actual meat and dairy consumption frequency using an ordinal scale ranging from never to daily. moreover, the motivational bases for an individual’s diet choice, namely “animal welfare,” “environmental protection,” and “health” were assessed in three respective 5-point likert scales (1 = not at all important, 5 = very important), indicating the relative importance of each motivational base with higher scores pointing to higher importance. everyday life. to get a clear, and more comprehensive picture of individuals’ regular behavior in everyday-life related to environmental protection, a questionnaire to assess self-reported behavior designed explicitly for this study was included. the first part of the questionnaire was concerned with making donations, namely whether participants have donated in general (“yes”, “no”), and if so, in what frequency these donations have taken place (“once”, “several times”, “monthly”, “weekly”, “daily”). the second part of the questionnaire was concerned with social commitment. the first item was binary and asked “do you show social commitment?”. if so, participants indicated which kind of social commitment they showed by selecting their answer from a pre-defined list with eleven options (see next sentence; “other” was also a possible answer) and by stating their commitment in their own words. answers from those who showed social commitment were recoded later on as either “social commitment on an ethical base” (i.e., those who indicated “environment/nature”, “animal welfare”, “human rights”, or “integration work”) or “social commitment with focus on the community” (i.e., “those who indicated “politics”, “culture”, “children/pedagogy”, “education”, “religion”, “civilian service”). for those who selected “other” we categorized their open answers accordingly in a qualitative deductive way using the same categories. unfortunately, 29 participants could not be categorized in this manner because of a technical error their open answers were not saved correctly. the third part of the questionnaire https://changing-sp.com/ 572 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger contained five items concerning everyday consumption including items such as “i buy only as much as i need,” or “i wear my clothes until they are worn out.” the fourth part of the questionnaire contained five items concerned with environmental protection in everyday life, for example “i try to avoid plastic packaging,” or “consistent waste separation is part of my everyday life.” both measures were answered on a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree); all items are given in appendix a and b. internal consistency of both the third and the fourth part were acceptable (α = .605, α = .664, respectively; field, 2018; wirtz, 2020). additionally, several single items that addressed “looking for certifications when doing groceries”, “frequency of wasting food”, “frequency of travelling by plane”, “buying clothes from big companies”, “frequency of buying plastic bags”, “frequency of shopping at amazon”, and “buying second hand clothing” were included. responses for the single items were given on 5-point ordinal frequency scales (e.g., 1 = hardly ever, 5 = very frequently). finally, participants were also asked to indicate the means of transport they are primarily using, choosing from “car”, “plane”, “bus”, “train”, “bicycle”, “walking”, and “other”. their responses were recoded as a binary variable, with the options environment-friendly (i.e., “bus”, “train”, “bicycle”, “walking”) vs. environmentunfriendly (i.e., “car”, “plane”). animal attitude scale (aas). individuals’ attitudes towards animals were assessed with the aas (herzog et al., 1991). the questionnaire includes 20 statements concerning attitudes towards animals, such as “the use of animals in rodeos and circuses is cruel,” or “wild animals should not be trapped and their skins made into fur coats.” responses were given on a 5-point likert-scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). high scores indicate pro-animal welfare attitudes. cronbach’s α = .930 in our sample. moral foundations questionnaire (mfq). moral foundations were assessed with the mfq-30 (graham et al., 2011), which can be subdivided into five dimensions. the subscale harm is concerned with avoiding and relieving suffering and is associated with compassion; the subscale fairness refers to motives of justice and reciprocity (these two foundations being individualizing foundations); loyalty builds on the protection that is possible in larger social groups, authority stresses the recognition and respect for status (these being binding foundations), and purity (which is of no relevance for our study). out of these subscales, a score of moral progressivism (clark et al., 2017) can be computed out of harm, fairness, authority, and loyalty (high scores on harm and fairness and low scores on authority and loyalty result in higher scores of moral progressivism). in the first part of the questionnaire, the respondents have to rate how important several statements associated with the different moral foundations are for the decision whether something is wrong or right (e.g., whether or not someone suffered emotionally). in the second part, respondents have to indicate to what extent they agree with different moral judgements (e.g., compassion for those who are suffering as a crucial virtue). responses are given on a likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree). cronbach’s α = .805 for the whole scale3. 3 for the german version of the questionnaire and a comprehensive list of items, see: https:// moralfoundations.org/questionnaires/ https://moralfoundations.org/questionnaires/ https://moralfoundations.org/questionnaires/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 573 procedure prior to the survey, participants were informed that they could cancel the survey at any time, their anonymity was ensured, and they gave their informed consent to collecting and publishing these data. participants filled out the questionnaire online. first, they answered items concerning demographical data. in order to reduce the risk of social desirability, participants first answered the moral foundations questionnaire before giving diet information. next, they answered the questions pertaining to everyday life and at last they filled out the animal attitude scale. data analysis we performed a welch-test for all comparisons of means (i.e., vegans vs. vegetarians vs. meat eaters) as a more suitable alternative to classic f-tests). in our data, neither homoskedasticity, nor normal distribution was given for all cases, and the negative effects of which increase when group sizes are unequal—as it is in our sample. therefore, it is recommended to use the welch-test, as it has only few disadvantages compared to the standard anova, but can control for the error rates much better (delacre et al., 2019). for cases in which homoskedasticity was given, we used hochberg’s gt2 as a correction for post-hoc tests as sample sizes were markedly different. for cases in which heteroscedasticity was given, we used games-howell for correction (field, 2018). we performed pearson correlations for all correlations involving metric or likert-type variables. this was warranted, since likert-type data can be regarded as continuous, graphical inspection with scatterplots indicated a linear relationship between the variables, normality was given based on the central limit theorem, and outliers are theoretically not present in likert-type data. for correlations involving ordinal variables we performed spearman rank correlations as they require a nonparametric testing. for all correlations, we performed bonferroni corrections of the p-values to minimize the chance of type 1 error. the p-values presented in the next section are the corrected values. to test for relationships between categorical variables we computed chi square statistics. for significant chi-square tests, we identified which cells contribute to the relationship between the variables using a post hoc procedure based on standard residuals and bonferroni corrections (beasley & schumacker, 1995; garcía-pérez & núñez-antón, 2003). results and discussion moral foundations questionnaire and eating behavior. means on all mfq variables (harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and moral progressivism) differed for vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters based on self-categorization (i.e., actual eating behavior; welch’s f(2, 240.54) = 20.97, welch’s f(2, 237.00) = 9.26, welch’s f(2, 237.25) = 9.17, welch’s f(2, 238.97) = 27.72, welch’s f(2, 230.13) = 40.68, all p < 0.01). post-hoc testing revealed the following pattern. vegans (m = 5.16) and vegetarians (m = 5.12) rate harm as more important than meat eaters (m = 4.68; both p < .001). vegans (m = 5.00) and vegetarians (m = 5.02) rate fairness as more important than meat eaters (m = 4.73; p < .001 and p = .003, respectively). meat eaters (m = 3.58) and https://changing-sp.com/ 574 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger vegetarians (m = 3.50) rate loyalty as more important than vegans (m = 3.28, p < .001 and p = .048, respectively). meat eaters (m = 3.57) rate authority as more important than vegans (m = 2.92) and vegetarians (m = 3.18, p < .001 and p = .002, respectively). in general, vegans (m = 2.07) show higher moral progressivism than vegetarians (m = 1.77; p = .023) and meat eaters (m = 1.27; p < .001). vegetarians score higher than meat eaters (p < .001). small positive correlations between meat consumption and mfq were found for the subscales authority (rs= .32, p < .001) and loyalty (rs = .17, p < .001). small negative correlations between meat consumption and mfq were found for harm (rs = –.36, p < .001), fairness (rs = –.19, p < .001), and for moral progressivism (rs = –.40, p < .001). there were small positive correlations between dairy consumption and mfq found for loyalty (rs= .17, p < .001), and authority (rs= .27, p < .001). negative small correlations between dairy consumption and mfq existed for harm (rs = –.24, p < .001), fairness (rs = –.15, p = .002), and for moral progressivism (rs = –.40, p < 001). moral foundations questionnaire and attitudes towards animals. positive small to medium correlations between aas and mfq existed for harm (rp = .60, p < .001), fairness (rp = .43, p < .001), and moral progressivism (rp = .53, p < .001). negative small correlations between aas and mfq existed for loyalty (rp = –.13, p =.017) and authority (rp = –.33, p < .001). mfq and diet motivation. there were small to medium positive correlations between animal welfare as motivation for a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle and mfq found for harm (rp = .49, p < .001), fairness (rp = .33, p < .001), and also for moral progressivism (rp = .34, p < .001). no correlations existed for loyalty (p > .79) and authority (rp = –.12, p > .05). also, small positive correlations between environment protection as motivation for a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle and mfq were found for harm (rp = .22, p < .001), fairness (rp = .23, p < .001), and moral progressivism (rp = .18, p = .005). no correlations were found for loyalty (p > .97), and authority (p > .19). no correlations were found for health as motivation for a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle and harm (rp = .14, p > .05), authority (rp = .14, p > .05), moral progressivism (rp = –.12, p > .05), fairness (p > .65), or loyalty (p > .11). when comparing the correlation coefficients of the vegetarian sample with those of the vegan sample, it is noteworthy that, although not significantly, positive correlations between animal welfare as motivation for vegan/vegetarian lifestyle and harm as well as moral progressivism tend to be stronger in the vegan sample than in the vegetarian sample. in line with this, positive correlations between animal welfare as motivation for vegan/vegetarian lifestyle and fairness become significant for the vegan sample only. furthermore, the correlations between animal welfare as motivation for vegan/ vegetarian lifestyle and harm as well as moral progressivism were significantly stronger than the correlation between environmental protection as motivation for vegan/vegetarian lifestyle and harm as well as moral progressivism (p < .001, p < .05). diet and everyday life. a welch test revealed a significant difference between groups for everyday consumption (welch’s f(2, 315.94) = 10.95, p < .001). post hoc tests revealed that vegans reported a more restricted consumption behavior than changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 575 meat eaters (p < .001). in addition, there was a small positive correlation between everyday consumption and the aas (rp = .21, p < .001). also, significant differences between groups were found for everyday environmental protection (welch’s f(2, 229.51) = 20.62, p < .001). post hoc tests revealed that vegans as well as vegetarians reported to lay more emphasis on environmental protection in their everyday life than meat eaters (p < .001, p < .001). also, there was a significant positive correlation between aas and everyday environmental protection (rp = .44, p < .001). kruskal-wallis tests showed group differences for the variables clothes from big companies (h(2) = 20.228, p < .001), second-hand clothing (h(2) = 30.525, p < 001), plastic bags (h(2) = 32.309, p < .001), certifications (e.g., organic labels; (h(2) = 48.619, p < .001). in contrast, kruskal-wallis tests showed no group differences for frequency of traveling by plane, frequency of shopping at amazon, and frequency of wasting food, (all p > .05). bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons showed that vegans and vegetarians buy more second-hand clothing (p < .001, p = .001) and look for certifications more often (p < .001) than meat eaters, and vegans buy fewer plastic bags (p < .001) and buy less often clothes from big companies (p < .001) than meat eaters. the pattern, that positive attitudes towards animals are connected to other moral domains is reflected by correlations between the aas and the above-mentioned variables of moral behavior: there were positive small to medium correlations between the aas and certifications (rs = .36, p < .001), second-hand clothing (rs = .27, p < .001), plastic bags (rs = .29, p < .001), and frequency of shopping at amazon (rs = .13, p = .004). in line with this, a small negative correlation was found for clothes from big companies (rs = –.16, p < .001). no correlations were found for frequency of traveling by plane, and frequency of wasting food, and (all p > .05 or p = .05). there was also a significant connection found between diet and environment-friendly vs. environment-unfriendly means of transport (χ2 (2) = 13.580, p = 0.001). post hoc testing showed that vegans used more often environment-friendly means of transport than expected (p = .020), whereas meat eaters used less often environment-friendly means of transport than expected (p = .047). in addition, there was a connection found between diet and social commitment based on ethics vs. social commitment based without ethical focus (e.g., cultural work; χ2 (2) = 12.525, p = .002). post hoc testing showed that vegans did more often social commitment based on ethics than expected (p = .018), whereas meat eaters did less often social commitment based on ethics than expected (p = .03). also, there was a connection found between diet and donations (χ2 (2) = 11.150, p = .004). post hoc testing showed that vegans donated more often than expected (p = .0245). however, when comparing only those participants that made donations, no connection between diet group and frequency of donations were found (p > .05). as shown in tables 1 and 2, vegans value individualizing moral foundations (harm avoidance, fairness) more strongly than meat eaters, which, in turn, place greater importance on binding moral foundations (authority, loyalty) than vegans, with vegetarians roughly falling in between. thus, the results support hypotheses h1 and h2, pointing to a distinct mfp for each diet group. in addition, vegans show higher scores of moral progressivism than meat eaters, while vegetarians fall in between. https://changing-sp.com/ 576 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger table 1 comparison of diet groups concerning their moral foundations dependent variable comparison between diet groups harm mmeat = 4.68; mvegetarian = 5.12; mvegan = 5.16 meat vs. vegetarian: p < .001 meat vs. vegan: p < .001 fairness mmeat = 4.73; mvegetarian = 5.02; mvegan = 5.00 meat vs. vegetarian: p = .003 meat vs. vegan: p < .001 loyalty mmeat = 3.58; mvegetarian = 3.50; mvegan = 3.28 meat vs. vegetarian: p = .048 meat vs. vegan: p < .001 vegan vs. vegetarian: p = .048 authority mmeat = 3.57; mvegetarian = 3.18; mvegan = 2.92 meat vs. vegetarian: p = .002 meat vs. vegan: p < .001 moral progressivism mmeat = 1.27; mvegetarian = 1.77; mvegan = 2.07 meat vs. vegetarian: p = .023 meat vs. vegan: p < .001 vegan vs. vegetarian: p = .023 note. meat = meat eater; vegetarian = vegetarian; vegan = vegan. only significant results were reported. table 2 correlations between mfq variables, everyday consumption, and environmental protection and aas, meat consumption, and dairy consumption aas meat consumption dairy consumption harm rp = .60 p < .001 rs = –.36 p < .001 rs = –.24 p < .001 fairness rp = .43 p < .001 rs = –.19 p < .001 rs = –.15 p = .002 loyalty rp = –.13 p = .017 rs = .17 p < .001 rs = .17 p < .001 authority rp = –.33 p < .001 rs = .32 p < .001 rs = .27 p < .001 moral progressivism rp = .53 p < .001 rs = –.40 p < .001 rs = –.40 p < .001 everyday consumption rp = .21 p < .001 not calculated not calculated environmental protection rp = .44 p < .001 not calculated not calculated note. rp = pearson correlation, rs = spearman correlation. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 577 table 3 comparisons of diet groups concerning different moral behaviors dependent variable significant post hoc comparisons big companies (kruskal-wallis) meat eaters > vegans (p < .001); no differences to vegetarians second-hand clothing (kruskal-wallis) vegans and vegetarians > meat eaters (p < .001 and p = .001, respectively) plastic bags (kruskal-wallis) meat eaters > vegans (p < .001); no differences to vegetarians certifications (kruskal-wallis) vegans and vegetarians > meat eaters (both p < .001) traveling by plane (kruskal-wallis) no differences amazon.com (kruskal-wallis) no differences wasting food (kruskal-wallis) no differences donation (chi-square) vegans > expected (p = .024) social commitment based on ethics (chi-square) vegans > expected (p = .018) meat eaters < expected (p = .030) environmental-friendly means of transport (chi-square) vegans > expected (p = .020) meat eaters < expected (p = .047) note. post hoc comparisons were calculated only for significant kruskal-wallis or significant chi-square tests in addition, we found negative correlations between individualizing moral foundations (harm avoidance, fairness) and meat and dairy consumption, and, in turn, positive correlations between binding moral foundations (authority, loyalty) and meat and dairy consumption. in line with this, we found positive correlations between individualizing moral foundations and the aas, and negative correlations between binding moral foundations and the aas. these results provide further support for hypotheses h1–h2. as evident from table 2 and 3, concerning moral behavior in other domains, we generally found support for hypothesis h3: vegans reported lower consumerism and more conscious shopping than meat eaters, and vegans as well as vegetarians reported stronger environmental protection than meat eaters. further, vegans rather reported to have made donations than meat eaters. also, vegans reported social commitment in ethical domains more often, whereas meat eaters reported social commitment in rather traditional domains more often. survey 2 introduction and methods survey 2 further investigated the possible linkage between diet choice and behavior in other moral domains, that is, correlations between meat consumption and attitudes to disposables. in addition, to investigate links to other ideologies advocating social justice, we also examined correlations between diet choice and attitudes towards feminist ideals. the survey was in german; when describing items, we give the english translation. https://changing-sp.com/ 578 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger participants participants were recruited online via internet forums (e.g., for students, for feminists) in germany. additionally, participants were recruited at the university [blinded] and took part for course credit. as the feminist identity composite (fic, see below) was designed for women, only female participants were included in survey 2. data of 159 women were analyzed. age had a median of 24 years and a range from 18 to 69 years. there was no difference in age between the diet groups (welch’s f = .604, p = .54). 12 participants were vegan, 39 participants were vegetarian, 46 flexitarian, and 57 omnivorous (5 of the remaining could not be classified). in order to avoid any form of bias, the participants were only given general information about the study, namely that it is concerned with women, animals, and personality traits. no incentives were offered. materials. waste disposal behavior individual’s waste disposal behavior was assessed with a 24-item questionnaire (mielke, 1985) that covers attitudes towards waste disposal behavior in different areas of life, such as packaging, buying bottles and cans, detergents and cleaners, waste disposal on the way, and disposal of dangerous materials. sample items are: “when doing groceries, people should avoid products with fancy packaging,” or “when having a picnic, people should use the next waste bin for waste disposal.” responses are given on a 5-point likert scale (1 = completely disagree, 5 = completely agree), with higher scores indicating more sustainable waste disposal behavior. the questionnaire shows good internal consistency (α = .887). feminist identity composite. the feminist identity composite is a widely used (deblaere et al., 2017) 33-item scale to measure 5 stages of feminist identity development as outlined by downing and roush (1985, as cited in fischer et al., 2000). passive acceptance is marked by an acceptance of traditional gender roles. a sample item is “i think that most women will feel most fulfilled by being a wife and a mother.” revelation is a stage of questioning such gender roles and having a negative attitude towards men. a sample item is “gradually, i am beginning to see just how sexist society really is.” embeddedness–emanation has a focus on the felt connection women have with other women. a sample item is “i am very interested in women writers.” synthesis means women have non-traditional but flexible views of gender roles which are based on an individual assessment. a sample item is “i have incorporated what is female and feminine into my own unique personality.” active commitment “is characterized by a deep commitment to social change and the belief that men are equal to, but not the same as, women” (fischer et al., 2000, p. 16). a sample item is “i care very deeply about men and women having equal opportunities in all respects.” responses are given on a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). internal consistency of the fic is good (α = .856) and strong convergent and discriminant validity has been demonstrated (deblaere et al., 2017). we translated the fic into german using the technique of back-translation. self-assessed feminism. additionally, we included one item to assess participants’ self-perception as feminist: “to what degree do you consider yourself as feminist?” responses were given on a 5-point likert scale (1 = not at all, 5 = very much). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 579 composite respect for animals scale (cras-s). the composite respect for animals scale (randler et al., 2019) is a 20-item scale that covers attitudes towards animals in a broad way. it is composed of ten subscales: use of animals in research, use of animals for food, farm animal husbandry, animals as companions, animals use for recreation, human as superior, conservation of animals, animal use for clothing, hunting/angling, commitment (emotional affection), containing items such as “it is wrong to kill crocodiles to make shoes and handbags from their skin.” or “i think it is perfectly acceptable for animals to be raised for human consumption.” responses are given on a 5-point likert scale (1 = fully agree, 5 = fully disagree). internal consistency is good (α = .825). procedure prior to the survey, participants were informed that they could cancel the survey at any time, their anonymity was ensured, and they gave their informed consent to collecting and publishing these data. participants filled out the questionnaire online. first, they answered items concerning demographical data. the order of the different scales was as following: saarbrückener persönlichkeitsfragebogen [saarbrücken personality questionnaire] (as part of another study), waste–disposal behavior, feminist identity composite, and composite respect for animals scale. data analysis data analysis was done following the same steps as in the analysis of survey 1. due to the small sample size of vegans, we will also report marginal significant results concerning the vegan sample. results and discussion feminism (fic). means on the fic variables active commitment, revelation, embeddedness–emanation, and passive acceptance differed significantly between the diet groups (welch’s f(2, 85.945) = 9.944, p < .001, welch’s f(2, 87.394) = 3.829, p = .025, welch’s f(2, 89.312) = 6.151, p = .003, welch’s f(2, 87.944) = 3.949, p = .023). no difference was found for synthesis (p = .183). post hoc tests revealed that vegetarians and vegans scored significantly higher on active commitment (m = 3.78, p < .001; m = 3.72, p = .056), revelation (m = 2.48, p = .019; m = 2.65, p = .054), and embeddedness–emanation (m = 3.59, p = .002) than meat eaters (m = 3.13, m = 2.21, m = 2.91), whereas meat eaters scored significantly higher on passive acceptance (m = 1.99) than vegetarians and vegans (m = 1.71, p = .019; m = 1.54, p = .003). no differences were found for flexitarians. there were small positive correlations found for cras with active commitment (rp = .35, p < 001), synthesis (rp = .24, p = .007), revelation (rp = .28, p = .002), embeddedness–emanation (rp = .27, p = .002). a small negative correlation existed for cras with passive acceptance (rp = –.17, p = .02). in addition, there were also small negative correlations found between meat consumption frequency and active commitment (rs = –.36, p < .001), and embeddedness–emanation (rs = –.28, p = .001). a small positive correlation was found for passive acceptance (rs = .22, p = .02). no correlations https://changing-sp.com/ 580 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger were found for synthesis (p = .29) and revelation (p = .05). for dairy consumption frequency there were small negative correlations found with embeddedness–emanation (rs = –.21, p = .04). no correlations were found for synthesis (p = .37), active commitment (p = .01), revelation (p = .05) or passive acceptance (p = .35). waste–disposal behavior. waste–disposal behavior differed significantly between diet groups (welch’s f(2, 91.962) = 16.981, p < .001). post hoc tests revealed that vegans (m = 4.34) and vegetarians (m = 4.26) scored higher on waste–disposal behavior than meat eaters (m = 3.74, both p < .001). also, flexitarians scored higher than meat eaters (p = .005). there were small to medium negative correlations found for waste–disposal behavior with meat consumption frequency (rs = –.45, p < .001), as well as with dairy consumption frequency (rs = –.20, p = .01). additionally, a positive small to medium correlation existed for waste-disposal behavior and cras (rp = .48, p < .001). self-assessed feminism. self-assessed feminism differed significantly between the diet groups (welch’s f(2, 87.190) = 6.681, p = .002). post hoc tests could show that vegans (m = 7.42, p = .01) and vegetarians scored higher on selfassessed feminism (m = 6.90) than meat eaters (m = 5.16, p = .001). a small positive correlation between cras and self-assessed feminism (rp = .24, p = .002) was found. also, a small negative correlation between meat consumption frequency and self-assessed feminism (rs = –.28, p < .001) existed. no correlation existed for dairy consumption frequency (p = .07). table 4 comparison of diet groups concerning feminism and waste–disposal behavior dependent variable comparison between diet groups active commitment mmeat = 3.13; mvegetarian = 3.78; mvegan = 3.72 meat vs. vegetarian: p = .019 meat vs. vegan: p = .056 revelation mmeat = 2.21; mvegetarian = 2.48; mvegan = 2.65 meat vs. vegetarian: p = .002 meat vs. vegan: p = .054 embeddedness–emanation mmeat = 2.91; mvegetarian = 3.59; mvegan = 2.65 meat vs. vegetarian: p = .002 passive acceptance mmeat = 1.99; mvegetarian = 1.71; mvegan = 1.54 meat vs. vegetarian: p = .019 meat vs. vegan: p = .003 self-assessed feminism mmeat = 5.16; mvegetarian = 6.90; mvegan = 7.42 meat vs. vegetarian: p = .001 meat vs. vegan: p = .01 waste–disposal behavior mmeat = 3.74 ; mflexi = 4.03; mvegetarian = 4.26 ; mvegan = 4.34 meat vs. vegetarian: p < .001 meat vs. vegan: p < .001 meat vs. flexi: p = .005 vegetarian vs. flexi: p = .009 vegan vs. flexi: p = .006 note. meat = meat eater; flexi = flexitarian; vegetarian = vegetarian; vegan = vegan. only significant differences were reported. results relating to the vegan sample were also reported when marginally significant, since the sample size was small (n = 12). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 581 table 5 correlations between fic variables, self-assessed feminism, and waste–disposal behavior and cras, meat consumption, dairy consumption cras meat consumption dairy consumption active commitment rp = .35 p < .001 rs = –.36 p < .001 n.s. synthesis rp = .24 p = .007 n.s. n.s. revelation rp = .28 p = .002 n.s. n.s. embeddedness–emanation rp = .27 p = .002 rs = –.28 p = .001 rs = –.21 p = .04 passive acceptance rp = –.17 p = .02 rs = .22 p = .02 n.s. self-assessed feminism rp = .24 p = .002 rs = –.28 p < .001 n.s. waste–disposal behavior rp = .48 p < .001 rs = –.45 p < .001 rs = –.20 p = .01 note. rp = pearson correlation, rs = spearman correlation. as evident from table 4 and 5, vegans and vegetarians score higher than meat eaters on fic subscales that indicate rather feminist ideals (i.e., active commitment, revelation, embeddedness–emanation), whereas meat eaters score higher on the subscale that indicates acceptance of traditional gender roles (i.e., passive acceptance). further, vegetarians exhibit higher scores of self-assessed feminism than meat eaters. correlations between fic subscales and meat and dairy consumption showed the same pattern. in general, these results support hypothesis h4, indicating that a distinct mfp can become evident in several conceptually similar ideologies. also, vegetarians exhibited a more sustainability-oriented attitude towards waste disposal compared to meat eaters, with flexitarians falling in between. this pattern is supported by correlations between meat consumption, dairy consumption, cras, and waste disposal. these results provide further support for hypothesis h3 and point to the sustainability orientation of vegetarians not only on a behavioral level, but also in terms of attitudes. general discussion prior research (de backer & hudders, 2015) investigated the relation between eating behavior, the respective moral foundations and other morally relevant behaviors (i.e., donating) between meat eaters, flexitarians, and vegetarians. we took these initial findings as a starting point and extended the research by including a vegan sample and by covering a markedly broader range of moral behaviors (i.e., means of transport, sustainable/fair trade consumerism, social commitment, donations) in our study. in addition, we looked at the endorsement of feminist ideals to see whether those are connected to specific eating behavior (i.e., vegans and vegetarians), as both are based https://changing-sp.com/ 582 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger on similar moral foundations. overall, we found support for our hypotheses h1–h2 concerning differing mfps between the diet groups, for hypothesis h3 concerning different diet groups showing moral behavior according to their mfp apart from diet choice, and also for hypothesis h4 concerning vegans and vegetarians’ stronger endorsement of feminist ideas. moral-foundations-profile survey 1 demonstrated that vegans have a mfp emphasizing individualizing foundations, and meat eaters have a mfp emphasizing binding foundations, while vegetarians fall in between. consistently, vegans, as well as vegetarians, put more emphasis on harm avoidance and fairness when evaluating moral situations compared to meat eaters. vegetarians and meat eaters value loyalty more than vegans, and meat eaters put more emphasis on loyalty compared to vegetarians and vegans. hence, hypotheses h1–h2 could be confirmed. interestingly, such moral differentiation cannot only be detected in terms of distinct mfps between diet groups, but even within groups of vegetarians or meat eaters, as indicated by negative correlations between meat or dairy consumption and individualizing foundations (i.e., harm avoidance, fairness). our results are in line with earlier research (de backer & hudders, 2015), demonstrating that two moral foundations are predictive for diet choice, namely, harm avoidance for vegetarians and authority for meat eaters. our study confirmed these initial findings and further found that not only harm avoidance is connected to a vegetarian diet, but also fairness— pointing to the great importance of individualizing foundations for vegetarians. in addition, our study included a vegan sample in the diet group comparison, yielding an even clearer tendency towards moral progressivism (high moral progressivism is indicated by a single score computed out of higher scores on harm avoidance and fairness and lower scores on authority and loyalty) as a result. vegans differ even more than vegetarians from meat eaters in terms of their mfp, showing a strong emphasis on harm avoidance and fairness. also, vegans displayed rejection of both binding foundations (i.e., authority, loyalty), whereas vegetarians only show an objection to authority. hence, vegetarians’ mfp, though also showing a tendency towards individualizing foundations, shows a slightly different pattern than vegans’ mfp, and can be placed between meat eaters’ mfp and vegans’ mfp. a theoretical explanation for the deviating mfps of the different diet group is given by de backer and hudders (2015, p.73): “if the norm is to eat meat, then consciously reducing meat intake automatically implies not following the norm or not obeying general rules. this may explain the significant difference in moral attitudes between flexitarians and meat eaters.” this should hold for vegans even more strongly, since their eating behavior deviates even more from meat eaters’, flexitarians’, and also vegetarians’ eating behavior. these differences in following eating norms, or deviating from eating norms can be explained by differences in affinity towards authority. in line with this, meat eaters follow eating norms and show support for authority, whereas vegans deviate most from eating norms and show least support for authority, while vegetarians fall in between. in line with this, we found that meat eaters hold views changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 583 of the political right significantly more often than vegans, which has already been demonstrated in previous research (dhont & hodson, 2014; veser et al., 2015). a relevant underlying mechanism in this regard is social dominance orientation which refers in this respect to the belief that humans are superior to animals (dhont & hodson, 2014), which, again, is positively associated with attitudes of speciesism (i.e., discrimination based on species due to human supremacy assumption; dhont et al., 2016; merriam-webster, n.d.-b). this might function as a possible explanation for the fact that meat eaters place great value on authority—but is still to be tested empirically in future research. furthermore, positive correlations between the aas and individualizing moral foundations, and negative ones with binding moral foundations emphasize the linkage between mfp and attitudes towards animals, showing that the typical vegans’ mfp correlates with positive attitudes towards animals. also, significant correlations between animal product consumption and moral foundations within the group of meat eaters or vegetarians demonstrate important intersubjective variability: the larger the consumed amount of animal products, the greater the value attached to binding foundations, and, on the other hand, the smaller the consumed amount of animal products, the greater the value attached to individualizing foundations— regardless of diet group. single-issue vs. general ethical behavior survey 1 showed that vegans act in line with their mfp, that is, they place more emphasis on individualizing foundations, and less on binding foundations. accordingly, vegans hold more restrictive consumption habits than meat eaters (e.g., meaning they consume less and hereby support sustainability). second, their everyday behaviors are more sustainable (e.g., use eco-friendly means of transport). third, they show a more conscious shopping behavior (e.g., buy clothes less often from big companies). fourth, vegans show social commitment more often in domains with explicit ethical focus than in traditional domains without such focus (e.g., refugee relief vs. cultural activities). also, vegans rather reported to have made donations than meat eaters. hence, hypothesis h3 could be confirmed. furthermore, positive correlations between the aas and individualizing moral foundations, and negative ones with binding moral foundations emphasize the linkage between mfps and attitudes towards animals, showing that the typical vegans’ mfp correlates with positive attitudes towards animals. all of the measured behaviors cover significant aspects of sustainability and social justice. since both sustainability and social justice can be brought forward by avoiding harm (to humans, animals, and the environment) and acting fair (on an individual as well as on a societal level), vegans have a mfp which is displayed also in several domains apart from diet. in line with this, vegans that indicate environmental protection as the main motivation for their diet show nearly the same mfp as those that indicate animal welfare as the main motivation, pointing to intertwined goals of vegan ideology and vegan moral foundations. in contrast, vegans that chose their diet out of health motivations show a different mfp, which emphasizes that distinct mfps are rather linked to certain motives for a vegan diet, and not to the diet itself. nonetheless, differences between diet groups https://changing-sp.com/ 584 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger were not found on all measures. vegans order as often as meat eaters from amazon or waste food to the same degree as meat eaters (but see below). for vegetarians, only measures of environmental protection differed from those of meat eaters. survey 2 further supports the pattern described above. concerning waste disposal, vegans and vegetarians indicated a more sustainability-oriented attitude than meat eaters. persons who categorized themselves as flexitarian fell in between. in line with this, negative correlations between meat or dairy consumption and sustainability-oriented attitudes towards waste disposal were found. it seems plausible that moral foundations serve as underlying bases for corresponding attitudes and behaviors in different behavioral domains. that is, abstract moral foundations realize specific attitudes in a way that is consistent with the respective mfp. for instance, valuing care finds an expression in concern over disadvantaged groups, animal welfare, and environmental protection. therefore, vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters act according to their mfp in all domains that involve moral evaluation and are of importance to their respective mfp. our results are in line with research about climate change indicating that foundations of harm avoidance/care, and authority are linked to personal climate change norms (jansson & dorrepaal, 2015) and with results demonstrating moral foundations to be predictive of sustainable consumption behaviors and political involvement in sustainability issues (watkins et al., 2016). in turn, our findings point to the improbability of a single-issue focus (e.g., only being vegan but not acting sustainable), which is consistent with empirical research. furthermore, vegans who chose that type of diet based on health or sustainability motivations are likely to incorporate compassion for animals later on, whereas those who were motivated by animal concerns will adopt health reasons later on (fox & ward, 2008; macnair, 2001). hence, it appears that motivations expand over time, and becoming vegan can serve as a starting point for further ethical commitment in associated domains. in line with this, among others, important goals of vegans are also reducing world hunger or pursuing antibig-business concerns (kalte, 2021; macnair, 2001). moral foundations and their support for different ideological frameworks as predicted, we found a correlation between veganism and vegetarianism and support for feminist ideals. hence, hypothesis h4 could be confirmed. this finding is likely due to the emphasis on individualizing foundations which is the core of different ideologies seeking social justice; in this case, veganism and feminism. it seems likely that moral foundations are internalized early on and that they work as a kind of guiding compass to identify with broader ideologies, but also in order to direct moral behavior in different domains. such a correlation lends psychological support to a conceptualization that places animals in an intersectional approach next to gender (and other categories; deckha, 2008). “[s]pecies as a locus of hierarchy resembled, in its structure and effect, other hierarchical markers of differences, such as gender […]” (deckha, 2008, p. 250). as pointed out in the introduction, an individualizing mfp should be in accordance with individualizing foundations and a rejection of authority, which is spelled out in the idea of equality concerning both, gender and animals. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 564–593 585 in addition, it is plausible that vegan and vegetarian women have stronger feminist identities than meat-eating women, as meat-eating is connected with higher sdo, which, in turn, is linked to sexism (schmitt & wirth, 2009). further, adams established a theoretical link between meat and patriarchy in her book the sexual politics of meat (2010). unsurprisingly, and in line with former research, our sample also found fewer men to be vegan (e.g., kerschke-risch, 2015). it has to be noted though, that our vegan sample was quite small (though statistically sufficient) and that future research might benefit from replicating our survey 2 study with a larger vegan sample to ensure the results. future research and the question of cause and effect can a personal mfp be altered and thereby create a change in attitudes towards animals or even diet change? since our study is correlational in nature, questions about causality remain unanswered. thus, causality in terms of mfp, diet choice, and associated behavior is an important research question, which has to be approached in future studies on the topic. up to now, there is still inconclusive evidence about the causality and malleability of moral foundations (alper & yilmaz, 2020; day et al., 2014; napier & luguri, 2013), but from our results it seems reasonable to infer that mfps are not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. as evident from the mfq mean scores, most people value all foundations to a certain degree. for instance, vegans also attach importance to authority and meat eaters to harm avoidance, but to a much lesser degree than the other diet group, respectively. hence, pertaining to causality, future research could investigate whether making certain foundations more salient can change attitudes to animals or perceptions of different diets or dieters, which we are currently planning to do in a consecutive experiment. on the other hand, the opposite causal direction might function, too: since specific moral foundations are embedded in different eating ideologies (e.g., non-harm in veganism or hierarchy in meat eating) people should also emphasize such moral foundations even more strongly after adopting a specific diet. for instance, priming a vegan versus meat eating mindset might change situational importance of certain moral foundations. furthermore, it might change the perception of different diet groups (e.g., stigmatization of vegans). also, it has to be noted that our results might only hold true for western nations, since diet motivations appear to vary across cultures (see, for example, rosenfeld, 2018). thus, future research could explore cross-cultural differences in mfp for different diet groups. next to the question of causality, it might be fruitful to identify further behaviors that belong in the investigated cluster, in other words, which other social behaviors are linked to diet via mfps or moral foundations in general. most likely, behaviors that involve aspects of authority or harm should fall in this cluster. for instance, implicit behaviors concerning racism like microaggressions or performance in an implicit association task targeting marginalized populations could be of relevance but also perceptions of social dangers (see leeuwen & park, 2009), homophobia (see barnett et al., 2018), and ambivalent sexism (see vecina & piñuela, 2017). more broadly, research could investigate whether diet groups differ in terms of obedience https://changing-sp.com/ 586 benedikt hackert, lilith c. voeth, ulrich weger or conformity; for example, concerning vaccine use or compliance with covid-19 measures (see chan, 2021). another research question could be whether diet groups differ in how they show consideration or socially exclude others (e.g., diet groups with a specified food intolerance). next to this, behaviors of different diet groups that are not primarily related to morality could be investigated. diverse topics such as selfcontrol (see mooijman et al., 2018), identity in groups, or cognitive dissonance could be worthwhile to look at. furthermore, demonstrated differences between meat eaters and vegetarians or vegans could be related to moral foundations, for example differences in empathy (see dawson et al., 2021; holler et al., 2021). apart from that, another prospect is focusing on social and moral aspects of food (production) and whether those are also related to mfps. of interest could be for instance anticonsumption (see culiberg et al., 2022) or attitudes towards livestock production systems and antibiotic use therein (see goddard et al., 2019), genetically modified organisms (see hielscher et al., 2016), or fast food (see martinelli, 2013). conclusion to conclude, we could demonstrate differences in mfps between meat eaters, vegetarians, and vegans. more specifically, meat eaters and vegans differ on all moral foundations and also most strongly from each other, whereas vegetarians fall somewhat in between. concerning moral behavior apart from diet choice, the different diet groups acted in accordance with their mfp, thereby rejecting the idea that vegans are only concerned about a vegan lifestyle. more likely, a mfp serves as a basis for general ethical behavior. this idea is further supported by the empirical linkage between eating behavior and feminism, as these ideologies have similar underlying moral foundations. statements the authors declare no conflict of interest. this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. electronic informed consent was obtained from each student prior to their participation. references adams, c. j. 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3, pp. 564–593 593 appendix a: everyday consumption scale 1. i trash food with expired best before dates (reverse coded) 2. i buy only as much as i need 3. i own only clothes i actually put on 4. i wear my clothes until they are worn out 5. i have too much clothes (reverse coded) 6. when buying clothes, i pay attention to sustainable and social responsible production. appendix b: environmental protection in everyday life scale 1. i would never take the plane if my destination is accessible by train/ car even if it takes longer. 2. i would not take the care if my destination is accessible by train even of it takes longer. 3. while doing groceries i try to avoid packages. 4. i carefully pay attention to waste separation. 5. i think it is justified that you have to pay for plastic bags in the supermarket. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 102–104 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.2.032 editorial the current issue continious the discussion on the main theme of the journal – namely, the value implications of interactions between socio-political transformations and personal self-identity, as well as changes in value orientations. in the paper socio-cultural differences in social exclusion, juan díeznicolás and ana maria lópez-narbona reflects upon the very sharp and controversial issue – social exclusion, which without exaggeration should be considered as a main concern worldwide. the aim of the paper is to analyse social exclusion at the level of the neighbourhood – the place where different people come to live together. the authors argue that “cities and neighbourhoods provide the opportunity to analyse micro-social processes (social relationships), the results of which can be extrapolated to macro-social processes that take place in larger urban spaces and societies”, and pose three main questions: “who is subject of social exclusion in neighbourhoods? who is the actor of social exclusion in neighbourhoods? what are the factors that explain social exclusion in neighbourhoods?” to answer these questions, they undertake the observation of existing concepts and theories on social exclusion from social relations, as well as provide empirical analysis of social exclusion in neighbourhoods. the paper contains detailed review of the recent literature not only on the concept of social exclusion, but also on related concepts such as stigma, prejudice, discrimination, poverty, deprivation, and inequality. in the empirical part of the paper, the authors use the data from european values survey (evs) and world values survey (wvs), which altogether cover more than thirty years and almost all regions in the world. in particular, the paper has been based on the world values survey data file of the 6th wave, conducted in 59 countries with a total of more than 85,000 personal interviews. they suggest four main explanatory variables – social position, information, post-materialist values and perception of security – and explain their correlation with social exclusion. in analyzing various data, the authors make special focus on russia, which among other things defines the scientific novelty of the paper. victor martianov in the paper revolution and modernity analyses the idea of revolution as an “initiating event for the political order” of modernity. in particular, he reveals the metaphoric meaning of revolution as an “instant transfiguration”, chiliastic dream, or rational plan for the implementation of published online 1 july 2018 © 2018 elena stepanova stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 102–104 103 the properly ordered society, and stresses that revolution never achieves its initial goals. martianov underlines controversial perception of revolution, which could be seen as both initiating event transforming socio-political order, as well as political extremism. he himself interprets modernity as a specific form of revolution – a lowintensity one, which “counterposes the new morality of change to the customary morality of tradition”. in the paper, the reflection upon the essence of revolution then moves to the level of individuals – political subjects, “the kantian adult citizens who dare to be guided by their own minds and to act without external permits and approvals, without power of attorney and without guarantors”, thus comprising the revolutionary political core of modernity. martianov goes deeply into paradoxes of modernity, where persons as politically active subjects play important role in social changes, and at the same time are seen by the state as a threat to political powers, and pays special attention to the spread of the “schizophrenic type of social subject, which loses its ability to effectively organise its interests over the course of history”. based on the assumptions concerning the nature of the revolutions in late modernity, martianov then presents his vision of the possibility of a new revolution, referring, among other things, to the example of contemporary russia. has modernization, globalization, urbanization, and westernization altered arab ordinary citizens’ views on religion, economics, politics, and foreign affairs? malek abduljaber in the paper effects of modernization and globalization on values change in the arab world endeavors to answer those and other related questions, and criticizes the assumption that public opinion is only relevant in consolidated democracies of western type. he studies public opinion in the region through the analysis of various data sources, mainly, the arab barometer, which is selected “because it is one of the most comprehensive survey research projects investigating the values, beliefs, and attitudes of ordinary arab men and women in a number of countries throughout the arab world”. the arab barometer has conducted four waves in 2006–2017 and took place in algeria, jordan, lebanon, morocco, palestine, kuwait, yemen, egypt, iraq, jordan, saudi arabia, sudan, tunisia, and libya. the data from fourth and sixth waves of the world values survey (wvs), which included algeria, egypt, iraq, jordan, morocco, and saudi arabia, is used as well. abduljaber argues that social transformation processes such as modernization and globalization generate a discernable change in arabs’ political, social, and cultural perceptions, and provides explanation for the reasons and trends of the values changes, thus opening “new horizons for the systematic investigation of public opinion shifts in the region among researchers”. vladimir bogomyakov marina chistyakova’s paper interactivity as a vector of the socialization of art stresses the specific feature of the contemporary art, which “actively draw potential recipients into its orbit, provoking them to participate in unfamiliar activities and providing them with many new (often nontrivial) opportunities for self-expression”. they describe the history of interactivity traced back to the last decades of the nineteenth century, as well as its conceptualization, and argue that interactivity radically changes the role of viewer in artistic communication. even https://changing-sp.com/ 104 elena stepanova more, it effects the art itself, opening it to interpretations and making its meanings a subject to variation. the authors ties interactivity in art with the same process in social relations; they conclude that “in the full sense of the word, interactivity only becomes possible when representational art makes the transition to the presentational form. in this situation, art no longer reflects reality, but becomes it”. in part, the paper describes interactivity’s correlation with the type of media, and stresses that today’s world is a post-media world, thus, in art, any combination of intermediators is allowed. the current issue of cs&p also contains the review of ronald inglehart’s recent book cultural evolution, people’s motivations are changing, and reshaping the world (cambridge university press, 2018) presented by ana maria lópez narbona. ronald inglehart, the world-famous political scientist and founding president of the world values survey (http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp). as it indicated in the review, in his book inglehart develops a new theoretical framework for modernization theory, which is called the evolutionary one and is based on the analysis of value changes and consequent people’s motivations in contemporary world. discussions on the topics raised in the current issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal, and new themes will be introduces. we welcome suggestions for thematic issues, debate sections, book reviews and other formats from readers and prospective authors and invite you to send us your reflections and ideas! for more information, please visit the journal web-site: https://changing-sp. com/ elena stepanova, editor-in-chief http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 275–278 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.045 conference paper the use of media in a south african school: a case study of khabazela high school in kwazulu-natal, south africa sibusiso s. mgenge khabazela high school, kwazulu-natal, south africa abstract media can be a valuable resource in the teaching and learning of religion studies in south african schools. however, many religion studies teachers do not have the proper training on how to use media responsibly as an educational resource to make the subject relevant to the learners. this paper investigates what forms of media are used in the teaching and learning of religion studies in a south african secondary school. a case study research of four teachers and twenty learners was conducted at khabazela high school in the province of kwazulu-natal. the study reveals that various media in the form of magazines, newspapers, films, youtube1 and facebook2 were used in religion studies classrooms. it also shows that the teachers at the school particularly relied on media as a teaching resource since they had minimal or no training in the subject. i conclude that while the inclusion of media is a valuable resource for both learners and teachers in the religion studies classroom, teachers still require more training for the subject especially on how to effectively use media as a teaching tool. keywords religion studies, educators, learners, media material, khabazela high school 1 youtube™ and its logo are trademarks of google, inc. in the united states and/or other countries. 2 facebook® and its logo are trademarks of facebook, inc., registered in the united states and other countries. received 23 august 2018 © 2018 sibusiso s. mgenge accepted 3 september 2018 mlondoss@gmail.com published online 30 september 2018 https://changing-sp.com/ 276 sibusiso s. mgenge introduction the importance of using media as a resource in the classroom has been discussed at length by various scholars. some contend that media can be used to achieve educational objectives and increases learners’ understanding of the subject matter (mckeachie, 1986; clark & starr, 1986; ayot, 1984). others argue that being exposed to various media increases learners’ motivation and interest in a subject (mirvan, 2013, p. 62; brown, lewis, & harcleroad, 1973). brown et al. (1973), therefore, aptly point out that schools should strive to have their own media resource centres that best suits their contexts. in light of this debate, it is important to think about media as a useful resource that can assist educators with teaching the subject religion studies in south african schools. however, many religion studies teachers do not have the proper training on how to use media responsibly as an educational resource to make the subject relevant to the learners. this paper investigates what forms of media are used in the teaching and learning of religion studies in a south african public high school. a case study research of four teachers and twenty learners was conducted at khabazela high school in the kwazulu-natal province. the study reveals that various media in the form of magazines, newspapers, films, youtube and facebook were used in religion studies classrooms. it also shows that the teachers at the school particularly relied on using media as a teaching resource since they had minimal or no training in the subject. i conclude that while the inclusion of media is a valuable resource for both learners and teachers in the religion studies classroom, teachers still require more training for the subject especially on how to effectively use media as a teaching tool. research methodology i employed a case study approach to gain a sense of the teachers and learners experiences of using media in the classroom. according to koul (1997), researchers using the case study approach should investigate an individual or unit in more depth in order to get relevant information. i, therefore, interviewed four educators and twenty learners at khabazela high school in kwazulu-natal, south africa. khabazela high is a public school that offers the elective subject religion studies for learners who are in the further and education training (fet) phase (grades 10–12). it is important to note that i am a senior educator at this school and hold the positions of head of the department of social sciences and religion studies teacher. research findings the study reveals that the teachers and learners used the prescribed textbook shuters top class religion studies as a resource material in their classes. this textbook is based on the 2003 national policy on religion and education and the 2010 religion studies curriculum and assessment policy statement (caps) changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 275–278 277 document, and provides a detailed guide on how to achieve the policies aims for the subject. it provides details on what topics to cover every week, how to start a religion studies lesson, and what to prepare for assignments, tests, and examination papers. both learners and teachers regard this textbook as a valuable resource to understand the subject material and content. the teachers, in particular, considered the textbook as providing needed curriculum support since they were not qualified in teaching the subject and had minimal to no training on the content material. the textbooks were purchased by the school, however, at the time of conducting the study, not all of the learners were provided with one due to limited funding. besides the lack of textbooks, the school did not have a library for teachers and learners. they had to use libraries that were in the surrounding areas of the school – namely, in the suburbs of hillcrest and pinetown. despite the challenges that faced the teachers (and learners) at khabazela high, they were creative in finding alternative resource materials for the subject. various forms of media were used in the teaching and learning of religion studies. for one, local magazines and newspapers were used especially for the topic religion and media in the grade 12 syllabus. for instance, the christian magazine joy! magazine and zulu language newspaper isolezwe were found as the most popular resources used by the teachers. furthermore, dvds, films, and television programmes were used in the classrooms. for example, the teachers found the dvd in your face helpful in teaching about hiv/aids. the jesus film was regarded by teachers and learners as good film material that explains jesus christ as the central figure in the foundational beliefs and practices of christianity. the local multi-faith children’s television programme siyakholwa – we believe was another resource that teachers found valuable for teaching about religious diversity in south africa. finally, technology and online sources were considered as useful materials for teaching the subject. the majority of educators and learners used their personal mobile phones to access online material since personal computers were not available at the school. youtube and facebook were examples teachers and learners gave as popular resources that were used. in fact, teachers highlighted that professor jonathan jansen’s (a lecturer in the faculty of education at the university of stellenbosch in cape town, south africa) facebook post about the funeral of the former south african minister of education (1999–2004) kader asmal was used by the examinational panel in setting the 2016 religion studies examination paper. although the use of various media certainly played a vital role in the religion studies classrooms, teachers still need more training to improve their content-knowledge and methods of the subject, particularly on how to effectively use media resources that are accessible to learners. conclusion in conclusion, this paper is based on a case study that explored what media were used in the teaching and learning of the subject religion studies in a south african public school. the study revealed that religion studies educators were not qualified to teach the subject, and they had depended on the prescribed textbook as a central https://changing-sp.com/ 278 sibusiso s. mgenge teaching tool and resource in the classroom. while the textbook was regarded as a valuable resource, not all of the learners had access to the textbook due to the school’s limited funds. nevertheless, various media resources in the form of local newspapers and magazines, dvds, films, television programmes, and online sources were used as alternative materials in the teaching and learning of the subject. clearly, the inclusion of media in the religion studies classroom provided needed curriculum support, however i recommend that teachers still need more training for the subject, especially on how to make various media resources learner-friendly. references ayot, h. o. (1984). language learning methodology: a book for english language in secondary schools. nairobi: macmillan. brown, j. w., lewis, r. b., & harcleroad, f. f. (1973). av instruction: technology, media and methods. new york: mcgraw-hill. clark, l. h., & starr, i. s. (1986). secondary and middle school teaching methods. new york: macmillan. koul, l. (1997). methodology of educational research (3rd ed.). new dehli: vikas publishing house. mckeachie, w. j. (1986). teaching tips: a guide book for the beginning college teacher. lexington: d.c. health and company. mirvan, x. (2013). the advantages of using films to enhance student’s reading skills in the efl classroom. journal of education & practice, 4(13), 62–66. changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 692–695 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.3.196 book review ivan strenski (2022). muslims, islams and occidental anxieties: conversations about islamophobia. ethics international press ltd. elena a. stepanova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia ivan strenski, distinguished emeritus professor, university of california, riverside (usa) has organized his recent book muslims, islams and occidental anxieties: conversations about islamophobia, in the form of a dialogue between two imaginary people. one of them is yannick, a recently retired lycée professor living in meudon-bellevue, france. the other is malou, a french-born retired lycée professor of economics in brussels. strenski characterizes yannick as a cosmopolitan person cherishing fidelity to the traditions of renaissance christian humanism and interested in a comparative study of religions. unlike yannick, malou “counts herself a faithful roman catholic, enthusiastic francophone nationalist and moderately conservative in her politics” (p. ii). certainly, the mindset and background of the disputants forms a context for their attitude towards islam. the imaginary conversation seeks to engage the readers into the presumptions, complexities, and concerns associated with islamophobia in the usa, european union, and france, in particular, where islamophobia is much more acute than in any eu member state. france has been the most recent site for isis murders, such as those of 17 charlie hebdo journalists, 86 riviera vacationers in the 2016 nice truck attack, and 90 concert-goers in the bataclan music hall incident. however, the book is not an introductory survey on islam across the globe, although containing numerous facts and reflections upon the history and present status of various islamic countries. as strenski notes, the book is written for common readers and students, rather than for islamicists or other sorts of professional specialists. at the same time, the level of expertise demonstrated received 8 september 2022 © 2022 elena a. stepanova published online 10 october 2022 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 692–695 693 by both disputants is much higher than that of the average western citizen. in order to understand the widespread anxieties about islam and to guarantee authenticity, strenski bases the disputants’ arguments on materials on islam collected from the press, various expert commentaries, islamic scholars, etc. the main point of the conversation in first chapters is essentialism—namely, an essential set of muslim fundamental beliefs and practices that have always been found in islam and among muslims. according to common fears (shared by malou), islam is “patriarchal, misogynist, warlike, violence-prone, intolerant of other religions, given to barbaric practices like honor-killing and cliterodectomy and so on” (p. 13). moreover, islam is not just a system of beliefs—it is implemented by muslims into everyday practice. in turn, yannick calls into question such essentializing generalizations, due to their tendency to eliminate the complexity and diversity of islam communities, to make simplifying generalizations about complex things, and to pretend to know the fundamental nature of muslims. however, yannick insists that his personal experience of communicating with muslim friends and students in several muslim countries where he travelled has taught him “to be careful about making hard and fast judgments about people and the ways we think they live— especially religious people” (p. 8). in reality, he continues, there is no uniformity for 1.5 billion of the world’s muslims, as well as for the two billion of christians living worldwide. in christianity, protestants and catholics in the west, copts in egypt and ethiopia, st. thomas christians of kerala (india), bulgarian, georgian, serbian, greek, russian, ukrainian orthodox christians, among others, the armenian apostolic church, etc.,—all believe to have captured essential christianity. in the same vein, the salafis and especially saudi wahhabis have dominant ideas about the essence of sexes, good “society”, and so on. anyway, they “do not have an objective monopoly on anything that could pass as the one, true and good—essential—islam. their saying so, doesn’t make it so, either” (p. 23). yannick concludes that it is also hard to speak of some essential or archetypal muslim—either good or bad—because, in people’s real lives, their religion beliefs differ, perhaps radically, from those proclaimed in books and scriptures. moreover, religions, like other actors in human history, are equally open to criticism despite being commonly thought of as necessarily good things. it is better “to be more modest about thinking that we can capture the unchanging kernel of islam’s true identity. the reason we cannot, is because religions are works-in-progress. because they are historical entities, we cannot absolutely know islam invariably and constantly really is” (p. 15). in the next part of the book, the issue of islam in the context of politics, religion, and civil society is discussed. strenski, through yannick, tries to overcome labeling differences between islam and the west as good versus bad. in comparing western and muslim values, he refers to the concept of anthropologist talal asad who opposes western individualism and the muslim preference of a life defined by a stronger communal good, or, in other words, the ideal of the “self-owning” individual versus the self as belonging to another. according to asad, “for muslims, the self has value because it belongs proximately to the ummah and ultimately to allah” (p. 46). reflecting on the understanding of equality and liberty in the western world and https://changing-sp.com/ 694 elena a. stepanova islam, strenski notes that the muslim commitment to equality of all male believers is fundamental to islam where “race, age, wealth or poverty, national origins mean relatively less than they do in many other social arrangements” (p. 92). equality comes with the powerful reality of “belonging to a community that loves and supports you—the ummah. muslims see causing alienation from one’s relationships the most grievous moral and religious offense. one expects to have one’s liberty lived out within a set of rules that apply to all—equally” (p. 97). conversely, westerners are supposed to be autonomous, free-standing individuals, suspicious about groups and mass discipline. and they pay a great cultural price in terms of the epidemics of loneliness and alienation for their preference for individual freedom over communal responsibility. thus, strenski concludes, even though islam and the west differ with respect to communal versus individual values, these differences need not lead to a hostile opposition of good and evil. instead, these differences introduce diversity into the world of goods. according to this logic, islam is seen as a locus of goods that offers a world of alternate goods to the individual liberty: “because we hold to the truth of the individual as self-owning, doesn’t mean that the muslim truth of the individual as belonging-to-another is false” (p. 45). an interesting supplement to the discussion on the compatibility of western and muslim values is the reference to tariq ramadan, a swiss muslim theologian and oxford professor, the author of to be a european muslim (2013). ramadan argues that “being a muslim is not the same as ‘dressing up muslim,’ so to speak” (p. 119); in other words, muslims can be culturally european, while being faithful muslims at the same time. moreover, for ramadan, islam can contribute constructively to the moral betterment of the christian west presenting another kind of “good” that europeans might come to respect. beneficial muslim moral influences imply that “our selfish, acquisitive, consumer capitalist society could use an injection of those muslim values of modesty, self-restraint, social justice or serving the poor!” (p. 129). a significant part of the book is devoted to the islam and women issue. yannick and malou elaborate on the question of sexual equality versus complementarity, the meaning of “covering” or veiling, the practice of fgm (female genital mutilation or clitoridectomy) in different muslim countries, and the way in which honor-killing may be or may be not sanctioned by islam. here again, yannick warns about the discrepancy of essentialism in a sense that there could be no single explanation for all these topics due to the variety of real cases in the muslim world both domestically and in diaspora. both disputants agree that islam presents a rather different approach from the liberal west to such matters as sex/gender relations, the nature of marriage and family and, therefore, some muslim values might be incompatible with the essential western ones. the question consists in whether the approaches could be reconciled. in any case, as yannick argues, in actual practice, even in an egalitarian society, males and females do not live as equals, and “we in the egalitarian west can benefit from the insights of muslim cultures about the ‘good’ of complementarity” (p. 203). not to say that women are not always treated as equals in the west, and there is a lot of hypocrisy among westerners on sexual equality: “male chauvinism is as much a muslim illness as a western one” (p. 178). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 692–695 695 in their conversation, yannick and malou have discussed the sharpest problems of the perception of islam in the western world. however, the overall purpose of the book seems to go beyond this particular subject. in the foreword, ivan strenski (on his own behalf) expresses his main concern for the possibility of tolerating contradictory opinions, when the opposing sides are convinced of their own truth. surely, this applies not only to the possibility of a mutual understanding between islam and western cultures. strenski strives to demonstrate not just a “tolerant” dialogue, which is built around a common search and discovery of a single truth. his concept is a “pluralist” dialogue, resting on the co-existence of plentiful and diverse truths: “pluralism means that rather than one option excluding the other, both may sometimes be true. when they [disputants—e. s.] cannot resolve differences, they note their differences and move on. they agree to disagree and draw the conclusions appropriate to each incident of disagreement” (p. xvii). at present, such a dialogue seems to be acquiring a greater significance in terms of ensuring a peaceful future for the humankind. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 81–101 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.2.232 received 19 january 2023 © 2023 svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova accepted 5 june 2023 s.kostromina@spbu.ru published online 3 july 2023 m.v.makarova@spbu.ru article quasi-development as an illusion of personal growth svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova st. petersburg state university, st. petersburg, russia abstract this article explores the concept of quasi-development from theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives. the study consists of two parts, examining the components and functional manifestations of quasi-development. a theoretical definition of the phenomenon of quasi-development is proposed. in study 1, the perceptions of quasi-development in two groups of respondents were analyzed by using content analysis: one group consisted of 30 individuals without psychological education and the other of 10 individuals with a psychological background. the study revealed several features of quasi-development, including an attitude towards development where change occurs for the sake of change, an illusion of infinity of options and intensity of development induced by external influence, a desire to obtain a ready-made “recipe” instead of taking responsibility, a lack of correlation between life experience and emotional history, and a lack of a meaning regulator. in study 2, key components of quasidevelopment and its connection with magical thinking were assessed by using data from 33 respondents without psychological education, but with experience of seeking psychological help and striving for self-development. the study also explored the correlations of quasidevelopment markers with the revised paranormal belief scale proposed by j. tobacyk. the peculiarities of the social context of modern individuals and the ways of constructing identity were also considered. finally, the article raises questions about the need for further research on the phenomenon of quasi-development. keywords personality development, self-development, quasi-development, magical thinking, sustainability, self-changes, neoliberal form of subjectivity https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:s.kostromina@spbu.ru mailto:m.v.makarova@spbu.ru 82 svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova introduction the concept of quasi-development is generally viewed as a construct of ordinary consciousness, which describes the tendency to become overly fixated on psychological practices that give the illusion of personal growth within a social context. although it is not always explicitly acknowledged, this phenomenon is present in counseling and psychotherapeutic discourse. its inclusion into the discourse of personality psychology considerably broadens our understanding of the mechanisms and phenomenology of self-development and personality change, expanding on classical ideas (adams et al., 2019). amidst the high uncertainty of ongoing social transformations, growing emotional tension and stress, individuals’ subjective sense of control over events can foster confidence in the future. in many cases, people turn to various parapsychological practices, including magical thinking, as a psychological defense to reinforce their sense of control (escolà-gascón et al., 2020). in an unpredictable future and disrupted way of life, the challenge of personal stability and variability (bleidorn et al., 2021) transforms into a problem of personal sustainability, which requires individuals to identify the most effective coping strategies for their life plan (kostromina et al., 2022). our study explores how the pursuit of personal growth, coupled with magical thinking, helps individuals create the illusion of self-change in response to the need to construct a new identity in changing times. personal development and sustainability today, it is widely acknowledged by researchers from different fields that there are global civilizational changes taking place that require individuals to transform their ways of interacting with the world (rubinshtein, 1973) in order to maintain personal sustainability (topal et al., 2021). in the current context of “change of changes,” traditional processes of adapting and maintaining stability (homeostasis preservation) are becoming less relevant. instead, pre-adaptive processes that encourage diversity, universal readiness for change, and generate new forms of life (asmolov, 2010) are becoming more important in responding to these changes. these processes promote diversity, pre-specialization, universal readiness for change, and generate new forms of life (asmolov et al., 2017). selfdetermination processes are also becoming increasingly crucial, with a growing tendency to prioritize meaningful and variable possibilities over necessity (leontiev, 2011). the ongoing global social changes have led to a shift in people’s behavioral goals, from external achievements to internal self-development. the traditional question of “how to get what i want” has been replaced by a more pressing one, “what do i really want?” (suvalko, 2013). consequently, cognitive knowledge is being replaced by a spiritual aspiration to transcend the limitations of everyday life and navigate morally challenging ethical conflicts. researchers often view spirituality as a fundamental acknowledgment this work is supported by the russian science foundation under grant no. 22-18-00140 https://rscf.ru/project/22-18-00140/ https://rscf.ru/project/22-18-00140/ changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 81–101 83 principle of human self-development, which enables individuals to appeal to higher value instances in the construction of their personalities (znakov, 2021). the ways individuals resolve existential contradictions become a measure of their individuality and subjectivity. as v. v. znakov (2021) notes, at such moments of personal knowledge, when an individual experiences selfdevelopment, something more than a “down-to-earth” image or model of external events emerges. the inner meaning of these experiences becomes the psychological basis for the formation of the spiritual essence of what has become the subject of the individual’s intellectual and moral reflection. (p. 136, trans. by ekaterina purgina [e. p.]) according to a. v. brushlinsky (2003), spirituality represents the goals, aspirations, and meanings realized in human life. a. v. brushlinsky stresses that spirituality is not a super-psychic phenomenon, but rather a set of different qualities of the psyche that are the most crucial attribute of an individual (p. 49). it is a deeper level of activity that represents an ontological way of mental existence. spirituality entails establishing a correlation between personal, subjective experiences that may change over time and collective, stable perceptions, with meaning as the underlying source of this correlation (grishina, 2019). the concept of meaning guides the activity of the subject, allowing for the differentiation of various qualities of the same events and the inclusion of these events in different systems of connections and relations. this process occurs as a continuous dynamic of variables and their meanings (asmolov, 2015). activity is a defining characteristic of personality, which manifests in various forms, including super-situational, supra-role activity within an individual’s context, social acts within interpersonal relationships, and “deeds” in the meta-individual plan (petrovsky & petrovsky, 2014, p. 71). however, expanding activity beyond its limits requires overcoming the attitudes developed in preceding conditions, and it does not happen automatically (asmolov & petrovsky, 1978). when individuals engage productively in societal development, even at the cost of their own well-being, society as a whole becomes qualitatively dynamic, leading to evolvement. nonetheless, v. a. petrovsky (2010) highlights the concept of impersonality, whereby an individual’s presence or absence does not influence others’ behavior, rendering them devoid of personality. therefore, personality activity is a synthesis of personalization, suprasituational activity, and creative communication, defining an individual path. personality development is closely tied to determinant processes, as individuals progress steadily through each age period and solve specific psychophysiological tasks. prominent psychologists such as l. s. vygotsky, j. piaget, and e. erikson provided ample evidence for this phenomenon. as personogenesis unfolds, biological factors play a decreasing role in controlling the development of personality, while higher-value and meaning-based factors increase in importance. the formation of the spiritual sphere is accompanied by the emergence of personal meaning, which contributes to semantic and reflexive self-regulation. this level of self-determination is associated with the phenomenon of transcendence and self-transcendence, which involves the readiness and ability to move beyond the current level of development and advance to the desired personal level (frizen, 2013). https://changing-sp.com/ 84 svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova according to f. nietzsche (1883–1885/2005), the phenomenon of self-trans cendence involves overcoming one’s actual givenness and entering into the realm of the possible: “freedom from” and “freedom for”. e. fromm (1955/2013) posits that a healthy individual is a person who can provide answers to existential questions, overcome passive existence, and become a creator of their life. in the works of v. frankl (1946/1962), self-transcendence is described as the intentionality of life itself, a focus on something outside oneself: “to become oneself” means to realize oneself without paying attention to oneself. the scope of self-transcendence and self-determination of an individual is characterized by openness to new experiences and tolerance of uncertainty. a “closed” meaning sphere is associated with adaptive functions, which prioritize clear goals and actions that align with established requirements. in contrast, an “open” meaning sphere corresponds to “nonadaptive activity” (asmolov & petrovsky, 1978, trans. by e. p.). the more open an individual’s semantic sphere is to new experiences for the assimilation of infinite meanings, the more it is realized as individuality, self-transcends, and subsequently develops. personal development and quasi-development according to v. v. znakov (2021), the presence of a special need for the unusual in the psyche of modern individuals, which he calls “the need for the transcendent”. as znakov puts it, the border between the imaginary and the real is not absolute, and the coexistence of the possible and admissible with the impossible, such as beliefs in witchcraft, ufos, and intelligent extraterrestrial life, is consistent with physical laws (p. 228). psychologists have found that paranormal and superstitious beliefs share a psychological foundation with the belief in extraterrestrial life (swami et al., 2011). this “transcendental hunger” is often satisfied by an increased interest in fairy tales, myths, and fantasy (subbotsky, 2007). coping with fear and providing a sense of control over the uncontrollable are some of the functions of these coping strategies, especially when rational explanations are not available (vyse, 1997). therefore, non-rational cognitive phenomena can be meaningful and useful in the inner world of individuals. e. v. subbotsky (2015) puts forward a hypothesis that consciousness is the ability of a person to exist simultaneously in two distinct realities: the visible, ordinary reality and the invisible, magical reality. according to him, this dual structure of consciousness endows individuals with the abilities of reflection, creativity, and spontaneity. however, it also creates fundamental challenges for human existence, the primary one being the constant need to maintain a clear boundary between ordinary and magical realities (p. 14). magical thinking refers to the belief that there is a causal coherence between unrelated events, despite the absence of any plausible causal connection between them, and is explained as the result of supernatural influence (sternberg et al., 2007). s. freud first described magical thinking as the basis of animism, religion, and superstition, which are characteristics of primitive communities (freud, 1913/2001). the oxford dictionary of psychology defines magical thinking as the belief that “thoughts themselves can cause effects in the world, or that thoughts about something are tantamount to actions” (colman, 2009). b. malinowski links magical thinking with a low level of education and unwillingness to understand the essence of phenomena, as well as low self-esteem (rational thinking and success); he also describes a connection changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 81–101 85 with religiosity of uneducated people (as opposed to educated and religious) for whom magic and religion lie in the same area (malinowski, 1922/2014). magical thinking is natural and peculiar to preschool children, and over time, it should be lost naturally (zhmurov, 2012). high rates of magical thinking in a personality (immersion into esoteric doctrines and reorganization of life according to them) in psychiatry are indicators of the adaptation disorder (koroleva, 2009), magiphrenic syndrome (zhmurov, 2012), and a symptom of schizotypal disorder (american psychiatric association, 2013). there is a relationship between new age practices and beliefs and schizotypal personality traits, particularly those concerning magical ideation (farias et al., 2005). not only is there a natural and evolutionarily understandable mechanism for magical thinking in individuals (norenzayan, 2016), but there is also evidence of an increase in magical beliefs due to socio-cultural influences. culturally specific traditions are transmitted through intergenerational communication (superstitions, for example), as well as supported by the media (astrological predictions, psychics), which convinces people of the existence of supernatural forces (subbotsky, 2015). thus, magical thinking appears to connect the real and the unreal, what is and what we want to believe. it is a kind of door that provides a mental transition between the real and the desired. its strength lies in the ease of transition, providing movement toward “sacred knowledge” that reduces uncertainty and gives the possessor of this knowledge a transition to the next stage of development. however, it remains unclear whether personal development, which many people identify with the concept of personal growth, genuinely takes place in this case. the concept of personal growth, introduced by c. rogers, lacks a strict definition and unambiguous interpretation (rogers, 1961/2012). personal growth is closely related to the concept of a mature personality, characterized by dynamism, intentionality, autonomy, individuality, integrity, and constructiveness. personal growth has a positive meaning, such as “gaining of knowledge or activity, an active position, mastering of an ideal image,” but it can also be a kind of “turning away from oneself” because personal growth is substituted with the formation of necessary qualities (bratchenko & mironova, 1997; trans. by e. p.). personal growth is fundamentally about freeing oneself to create a unique life path. it involves seeking to improve areas of weakness and continually evolving through new experiences and changes. nevertheless, a relevant question arises: to what extent can the described changes be regarded as personal development? it is easy to determine the willingness of people to change and develop through external motivation, such as the desire to adjust to the situation or accept the challenge. they largely manifest themselves in the form of actions, which, nevertheless, can be initiated by internal needs. internal needs arise when a person has an understanding of some deficit of personal resource, for the replenishment of which they can ask for specific help (a psychologist, a coach, a trainer), and then they become a source of their own changes. this appears to be development. at what moment does the desire for development, self-evolvement, and change become an illusion of development? it is likely that the phenomenon of “quasi-development” is connected with the absence of this semantic regulator or its insufficient level. that is, in the focus, there is a desire to develop and change, but the person cannot answer the https://changing-sp.com/ 86 svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova question “why?” changes caused only by external circumstances cannot be qualified as development because the source should be in the developing individual, and this source is supplemented and actualized by external influence (sergienko, 2009). we define development as the process of an individual developing a unique intentionality through active transformation of oneself and the surrounding world. this process is characterized by internal orderliness and connectedness, as well as a persistent drive to move forward despite external influences and personal limitations. quasi-development, on the other hand, is a phenomenon observed in adults where change is pursued without a clear purpose or direction. this illusion of necessity and infinite self-development options is often determined by external factors, such as social pressures to be successful or to constantly move forward. individuals who engage in quasi-development often seek a “recipe” or easy solution, and avoid taking responsibility for their personal growth. this phenomenon is also characterized by a lack of correlation between a person’s life experiences and their life history. research design since the concept of quasi-development is based on commonly held beliefs and ideas, the first step in our research was to confirm its viability, i.e., its actual existence in society. in order to validate this phenomenon both theoretically and empirically, we conducted two studies on two different samples. study 1 compared the author’s interpretation of quasi-development with the ideas about this phenomenon in two groups of respondents, followed by a content analysis of the data. to accomplish this objective, a survey was administered and data from two distinct groups were analyzed, one comprising individuals with psychological education and the other without. this division allowed us to explore quasi-development from two perspectives, that are ordinary people and professional psychologists. the primary goal of this study was to identify whether people had encountered this phenomenon, which we defined as quasi-development, and to determine its primary features. study 2 aimed to operationalize the phenomenological empirical referents of quasi-development and involved respondents without psychological education who had experience participating in psychological practices. in both studies, we used the semi-structured interview method. in study 2, we also administered the revised paranormal belief scale by j. tobacyk (adapted for russia by d. s. grigoryev, 2015) alongside the semi-structured interview. study 1: theoretical and empirical validation of the phenomenon of quasi-development study sample. we conducted interviews with 40 respondents aged 34–55 (m = 46.3, sd = 9.07). the sample was divided into two groups based on their level of psychological knowledge and professional experience. group 1 consisted of 30 respondents aged 34–55 who had no professional knowledge of psychology, but had higher education. group 2 included 10 experts with psychological education and professional experience in various fields of psychology aged 38–50. independent sampling was employed to changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 81–101 87 allow for external validation of the concept, collection of phenomenological data, identification of semantic components, and interpretation of the content. research methods. the main research methods employed were semi-structured interviews and content analysis. six open-ended questions were developed, with three questions designated for each group. these questions are presented in table 1. table 1 questions for the two groups of respondents questions for non-psychologists (group 1) questions for psychologists (group 2) 1. to what extent do you agree or disagree that there is a concept of quasi-development? 1. do you believe that quasi-development is a phenomenon that exists? 2. in your opinion, what are some ways in which quasi-development manifests itself in life? 2. what are some charac ter isti c s that distinguish quasi-development from personality development? how can you recognize that someone is experiencing quasi-development? 3. how do you differentiate between development and quasi-development? 3. have you ever encountered examples of quasi-development in your professional life? to minimize the subjective and negative nature of responses and foster constructive discussion, questions about quasi-development were formulated as an opposition to the concept of development for both layman and professional understanding. we included a reference to the respondents’ idea of personal development in the questions to understand how they formulated their ideas about development or lack thereof, and how this relates to quasi-development. this approach was designed to explore the nuances of respondents’ perceptions and provide a comprehensive view of the phenomenon. we employed a phenomenological analysis (kvale, 1996; smith & fieldsend, 2021), in which we grouped semantically similar responses, and counted and identified the number of responses and meaning groups. study results the results of the phenomenological validation of the “quasi-development” construct of personality are presented in table 2, which outlines the generalized perceptions of quasi-development in the two groups of respondents. table 2 results of the comparative analysis of responses to the questions about quasi-development in the two respondent groups attributes of the concept group 1 group 2 acknowledging the existence of the phenomenon of quasi-development 55% of the participants expressed full confidence in the existence of quasi-development, while 33.3% assumed its existence all participants, based on their own understanding of the concept of quasi-development, were able to confirm the existence of individuals exhibiting quasi-development whom they had encountered in their professional activities https://changing-sp.com/ 88 svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova attributes of the concept group 1 group 2 subjective feeling of the lack of development 10% are unable to identify any general patterns of quasidevelopment, as they perceive it as a purely subjective evaluation of human activity. 30% associate quasi-development with the feeling of frustration resulting from the failure to achieve desired outcomes in their pursuits 65% of respondents observe a clear contradiction between the concepts of development and quasi-development, and therefore suggest defining the characteristics of quasidevelopment as those that are fundamentally opposed to the attributes of human development inability to apply the skills learned through deliberate personal development in practical situations 7% of the participants acknowledged the practical application of acquired skills and observed changes in their personal growth journey 25% emphasize the possibility of activity and compensation that may not result in actual change lack of purpose and meaning 10% identified goal-setting and meaning-making factors as relevant to quasi-development 10% associate quasi-development with the pursuit of solutions to irrelevant life problems unwillingness to take responsibility 50% of respondents associated quasi-development with a strong interest in esoterics, spiritual practices, and sects that can lead to a loss of control over one’s life 50% compare quasi-development to development, emphasizing the subjectivity and personal responsibility of individuals in finding solutions to their life tasks the results of the phenomenological analysis of the related constructs of development and quasi-development indicate that, in both layman and professional understanding, quasi-development is perceived as: (a) a personality’s desire to develop, often driven by compensation, dissatisfaction with current circumstances, or an insatiable thirst for change, fueled by a belief in the necessity of spiritual improvement; (b) the concept of unlimited possibilities and intensity of personal growth, often linked to a reluctance to take responsibility and a preference for receiving a ready-made recipe from a mentor; (c) a lack of connection between life experiences and emotional states, as well as an inability to explain the use of psychological practices for personal growth. based on the data obtained, we can conclude that the phenomenon of quasidevelopment is recognized by both professional psychologists and individuals without psychological education. furthermore, the interpretation of quasi-development closely aligns with the one we propose, which supports the empirical validation of the quasi-development phenomenon. study 2. empirical verification of the phenomenon of quasi-development study sample. we conducted interviews with 33 participants, consisting of 14 men and 19 women aged 30–49 (m = 38.6, sd = 5.02). participation was voluntary and 87% of the participants had a higher education. of the participants, 51% reported being married or in a relationship. the primary requirement for participants was the absence of psychiatric disorders, prior experience with psychotherapy, personal growth trainings, and psychological education. table 2 continued changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 81–101 89 research methods. to investigate the level of engagement of research participants without psychological education in personal growth and self-development activities available on the market, and to understand their subjective experiences, we conducted a semi-structured interview consisting of four open-ended questions. these questions were designed to elicit the respondents’ views on personal and spiritual growth, as well as their understanding of changes that occur throughout life. the questions were as follows: “do people change over the course of their lives?”, “can these changes be considered growth or development?”, “what is personal growth and how do you understand it?”, and “what is spiritual growth or spirituality?” by analyzing the respondents’ responses to these questions, we were able to link the theoretical markers of quasi-development to perceptions in everyday consciousness, as well as to the characteristics described by experts and empirical referents. after completing the semi-structured interview, the respondents were asked to complete the revised paranormal belief scale, which was adapted for use in russia by d. s. grigoryev in 2015. this scale measures people’s inclination towards irrational and pseudoscientific beliefs, which are often considered as paranormal phenomena that contradict the fundamental principles of science. we correlated high scores on this scale, which are indicative of magical thinking, with the components of personality quasi-development. on the one hand, this type of thinking allows the individual to evade responsibility for their actions and life events, but on the other hand, it also restricts their ability to take proactive measures. study results. the results of the interview regarding participants’ involvement in personal growth and development showed the following: – over 60% of the respondents expressed confidence in the possibility of human change throughout their lives, while only 15% completely denied this possibility; – half of the interviewees of the interviewees (50%) perceived growth and development as changes that occur in their lives, regardless of whether the changes were positive or negative; – approximately 40% of the participants believed that personal growth is a natural process, while 45% maintained that it requires conscious and directed effort. of the respondents, 15% denied the existence of personal growth as a process; – in defining the concepts of spiritual growth and spirituality, the participants were divided into three almost equal groups: 31% connected these concepts with religion, 37% associated them with psychology, and 31% gave these concepts their own meaning. we conducted a phenomenological analysis to identify markers of quasidevelopment, which included “change for the sake of change,” “lack of a meaning regulator,” “lack of personal responsibility,” “lack of connection between life experience and emotional history,” and “external influence.” we conducted intersubjective testing to confirm these markers (almaev, 2012). an independent expert was interviewed using the phenomenological approach to identify categories that aligned with the research objectives. the markers identified by the expert were then compared to those identified by the author. as a result, 86% of the markers and categories matched (see table 3). https://changing-sp.com/ 90 svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova table 3 list of markers identified in the interview analysis marker description examples from the interviews change for the sake of change in their interviews, the respondents noted changes that they associate with the practices “but i really feel that there are a lot of changes waiting ahead. i don’t mean changes in my life circumstances, but changes in my personality.” “i had the feeling that he wasn’t talking about me, he was talking from inside of me. it was as if i were the one telling the story” lack of a meaning (semantic) regulator causality is attributed to unrelated objects and events; random events are perceived as significant, with extra meanings attached to them “but i believe something led me there for a reason”. “2013, on december 13 i’m taking my first course with guruji. and guruji was born on may, 13 [emphasis added].” “… there were many coincidences, which, as it turned out later, were not accidental” lack of personal responsibility personal responsibility is shifted to events, people, and objects by attributing the outcome of a situation to external forces rather than to one’s own actions or decisions (“everyone in my family experienced this,” unprocessed trauma, astrology, numerology, tarot, palm reading, etc.) “how could i learn anything different if i grew up with my mother. 90% of my attitude to the world is my parents.” “i had a good experience … in chiromancy, palm reading”. “and the shaman works with the souls of grandfathers ... she said there was some woman behind me …” “… the magician watched me on instagram1 and saw a dark channel next to me” lack of connection between life experience and emotional history despite the active declaration of the goal of self-development, no specific actions are being taken to address the problem(s) at hand. “and i realized that the work that i’ve done now—it’s going to bring change in my life.” “i realized everything, if there’s the right mindset, the money can come in unknown ways” external influence the respondent’s choice of development is influenced by authoritative figures, leading to an unfounded degree of trust in them. the person lacks fundamental knowledge within the chosen direction of development. “i have a high degree of trust in her and i listened.” “he said that i had some kind of teacher’s arcana sewn into my numerology there, that i really need to teach … and that’s what i’m going for.” “we have our pluses and minuses, our frequencies, in each finger. we’re all antennae, conductors, 6–7–8–12 volt. i have that voltage increasing right now. or in hertz … however it is measured [laughs]” 1 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the us and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть instagram полностью заблокирована в россии как экстремистская организация. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 81–101 91 to evaluate the psychotherapeutic activity of our respondents, we identified categories that differentiate the experience of seeking psychological help and developed a system to weigh each parameter. table 4 presents the points (1 or 2) assigned to certain types of “psychological” activity. the “activities to enhance personal growth and psychological competencies” category includes motivational online marathons and art therapy, which were scored 1 point due to their low degree of immersion and casual nature of participation. personal growth trainings and mentology, on the other hand, are considered events of higher organizational order that require involvement and intensive attendance, so they were assigned 2 points. the “general psychological trainings” category covers a variety of specializations, such as corporate and professional trainings aimed at improving competencies and skills. we gave them a score of 1 due to their social orientation, together with coaching, metaphorical maps, and transformational games, which respondents found entertaining and satisfying their curiosity. however, specific areas such as mindfulness trainings were given a score of 2 because they involve deep immersion and require active participation. based on the interviews, we identified a separate category called “quasipsychological trends”, which includes all techniques that have no scientific evidence base, are not recognized by the professional community, but are still popular. all the indicated techniques in table 4 are assigned 2 points. lastly, we highlighted the “self-help” category, which largely refers to passive acceptance of psychological information and literature on personal growth. this category includes areas related to the free time of respondents who are interested in such knowledge and were assigned 1 point. table 4 data on psychotherapeutic activity of respondents general category activity frequency of occurrence seeking psychological help personal request 27 psychotherapy lasting for one year or more 22 family counseling 10 children counseling 13 consulting a clinical psychologist 3 group psychotherapy 8 school psychologist 3 activities to improve personal growth, psychological competence personal growth training 14 motivational marathons 17 art therapy 2 mentology 3 general psychological trainings corporate, professional 12 personal, specific competencies (e.g., communicative) 12 raising awareness 6 coaching 6 metaphorical maps 4 transformational game (psychological) 3 https://changing-sp.com/ 92 svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova general category activity frequency of occurrence quasi-psychological trends guruji art of living dsn personal growth 2 zhong yuan qigong 3 women’s energy 3 sat nam rasayan healing 2 nlp 3 quantum psychology 3 osho dynamic meditation 2 human design 4 feid (a system of skills for further energyinformational development of a person) 2 cleansing practices 5 establishing financial channels 3 transformation game (esoteric) 5 energy therapy 5 reiki, palm healing 3 cholotropic breathing 2 astrology, numerology 9 self-help reading psychological literature 24 subscriptions to groups, blogs, channels 27 interacting with psychologist friends to resolve an implicit request 30 meditation, mantras 15 during the interview, the highlighted markers for all respondents totaled 238 points, with an average of 7.2 points per respondent (mode = 2, median = 3, σ = 11.4) indicating active involvement in psychological activities. the responses from the semi-structured interview were analyzed to compare activity types and quasi-development markers. the results indicate an uneven distribution, with a significant number of quasi-development markers present in some interviews and none in others. while all interviews had indicators characterizing signs of quasi-development, a third of respondents had more than the average number of quasi-development markers. for the majority of respondents, the number of quasi-development markers did not exceed the average for the sample. the marker “lack of personal responsibility” had the highest number of points at 71 (30%), followed by “lack of a meaning regulator” with 66 points (28%). “lack of connection between life experience and emotional history” had 36 points (15%), “change for the sake of change” had 33 points (14%), and “external influence” had 32 points (13%) of the sample. thus, the marker “lack of personal responsibility” prevails in the quasi-development phenomenology, representing the number of causal connections (“everyone in my family experiences this”; “my parents did this”; “unworked past trauma”) and the number of “magics” used (numerology, astrology, tarot, immersion into past lives, etc.). table 4 continued changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 81–101 93 believing in the existence of various external forces that actively influence a person’s life can indicate a lack of control over their life and a deficiency in critical thinking skills. excessive self-reflection can result, and this may lead to a mismatch between the development sphere and external and internal factors of life activity. to support this claim, we will present the results obtained through the “belief in the paranormal” technique, which are shown in figure 1. figure 1 mean scores of participants on j. tobacyk’s paranormal belief scale in the sample, all subscale indicators have values higher than the normative ones. for 98% of the respondents, the traditional religious beliefs indicator is higher than the normative (m = 5.26, sd = 1.35), indicating that they have stable religious attitudes that they rely on in their lives. 45% of the sample demonstrated scores on the superstition subscale above normative values (m = 2.27, sd = 1.22). average scores on the precognition subscale are also above normative and are presented by 75% of respondents (m = 3.59, sd = 1.32). witchcraft is represented in 73% of respondents (m = 4.72, sd = 1.57). the results for the subscales psi-powers (m = 3.93, sd = 1.72) and spiritualism (m = 3.99, sd = 1.58) are fairly similar, with 97% and 78% of the respondents demonstrating these characteristics, respectively. extraordinary life forms are less vividly represented in respondents’ answers, above the normative index (m = 3.44, sd = 1.40) values are recorded in 69% of respondents. the results of the analysis of the methodology reveal that research participants rely on various forms of magical thinking to explain different situations they encounter in life. apart from having a stable religious faith and belief in superstitions, the respondents have a positive attitude towards the possibility of controlling other people’s thoughts and affecting surrounding material objects by their cognitive https://changing-sp.com/ 94 svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova activity. they also believe in the existence of magical forms of life and the possibility of communicating with the souls of other people and transient states of mind. thus, the presented sample of respondents is characterized by the manifestation of components of quasi-development and magical thinking. to confirm the connection between the markers of quasi-development and magical thinking, a pearson correlation analysis was performed using the ibm spss statistics 23 application package. table 5 results of correlation analysis change for the sake of change lack of a meaning regulator lack of personal responsibility external influences personal and psychotherapeutic activity traditional religious beliefs – – – .491** .349* psi-powers .482** .444** .452** .651** .507** witchcraft .390* .366* .358* .480** .547** spiritualism .450** .364* .400* .529** .484** precognition .358* – – .454** .546** note: ** p ≤ .01; * p ≤ .05. the results of the correlation analysis show significant connections between the “belief in the paranormal” study data and quasi-developmental markers. specifically, the psi-powers subscale correlates positively with almost all the main quasidevelopmental characteristics, including “change for the sake of change” ( .482), “lack of a meaning regulator” ( .444), “no personal responsibility” ( .452), “external influence” ( .651), as well as with the “personal and psychotherapy activity” scores ( .507). this suggests that respondents believe in the possibility of manipulating objects and people for their own purposes through personal change and are willing to attend events that will bring them closer to this goal (grigoryev, 2015). in our sample, 66% respondents identified themselves as adhering to traditional religions (with 9% identifying as buddhists). occasional participation in ritual culture and religious events influenced their experiences. as expected, indicators of personal and psychotherapeutic activity did not show a significant correlation with this subscale. however, the “external influence” marker showed a positive correlation with the traditional religious belief subscale (p ≤ .01). significant positive correlations were found between the witchcraft and precognition subscales and the indices of “external influence” and “personal and psychotherapeutic activity” ( .547 and .546 respectively), indicating that the more a person believes in witchcraft, magic rites, and the effectiveness of predictions changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 81–101 95 such as horoscopes, the more they are susceptible to external influence and seek psychotherapeutic support. in the phenomenology of the respondents, these two aspects often do not simply overlap but mutually reinforce each other. those who are believed to have “magical abilities” convincingly “predict” events and guide our respondents towards “working through” certain aspects of their development. the spiritualism subscale also positively correlates with the above markers of quasidevelopment, “external influence” ( .529) and “personal and psychotherapeutic activity” ( .484). this correlation reflects not only a person’s belief in the possibility of interaction with the soul but also a direct influence on the reconstruction of their past experiences (e.g., in a previous life) in light of predictions and with the aim of forming the image of a desired future. it should be noted that the marker “external influence” has the strongest connection with the scale “belief in the paranormal”, underscoring the importance of external stimuli in shaping and maintaining magical thinking. such information, presented in appealing marketing offers, has an affordance for any person experiencing difficult life situations. discussion of results: social and psychological contextualization of quasidevelopment paradoxically, mythological thinking, esoterics, and magic are important for the selfdetermination of modern individuals who are equipped with high technology and scientific data. there is evidence that humans may be biologically predisposed to such beliefs (norenzayan, 2016). quasi-development is not only a personal psychological phenomenon marked by carelessness, susceptibility to influence, and a desire for constant change, but also a cultural practice for constructing identity (campbell, 2000). this practice is congruent with the image of those living in “fluid modernity” (bauman, 2000), whose existence is characterized by a process of renewing potential identities (khoroshilov, 2022). the mass culture and media of late modernity establish normative scenarios for personal development, which in turn give rise to the phenomenon of quasidevelopment. this can be seen as one of the significant psychological effects of teo’s neoliberal form of subjectivity. according to teo (2018), neoliberalism serves as an undifferentiated spiritual-practical content that acts as a precondition for the formation of a new type of subjectivity. as a result, the neoliberal form of subjectivity becomes psychologically dominant, subordinating all other variants of personality formation that are seen as an aggregate of individual characteristics. in a world where business and commercialization dominate interpersonal relationships, globalization, and the transformation of the self into a type of “life entrepreneur,” the prevailing mode of thinking is one of rational choice. the main content of the neoliberal self is the continuous monitoring of life success in its material expression. teo (2017) argues that psychological disciplines serve to support all tendencies of the neoliberal form of subjectivity, including self-control, rigid discipline, and the pursuit of success. https://changing-sp.com/ 96 svetlana n. kostromina, maria v. makarova in addition, societal ideals of perfectionism, a highly competitive culture, and the increasing individualization of responsibility for failing to meet standards of personal success can make it appealing to adopt a quasi-developmental approach. however, the excessive emphasis placed on achieving success can turn a healthy desire for accomplishment into perfectionism, resulting in frustration, neuroticism, and maladaptation. psychologists actively study perfectionism (excessive striving for perfection) as a dysfunctional personality trait (stoeber, 2018). garanian et al. (2018) identify several parameters in the structure of perfectionism, including “standards of performance and aspirations that are exaggerated in comparison with individual capa bilities,” “excessive demands placed on others and exaggerated expectations of them,” “constant comparison of oneself with the most successful individuals,” and “dichotomous evaluation of activity results and planning based on the ‘all or nothing’ principle.” when considering the existential implications of quasi-development, it is worth reflecting on rollo may’s “myth of proteus” as a symbol of the idea of constant change and the personality type of “proteans” (lifton, 1993) who are continually in a state of flux (may, 1991). while the search for novelty and transformation can provide an escape from anxiety, it can also lead to superficiality and a lack of depth. as may (1991) noted, “playing any role in any situation makes it impossible to hear the inner voice that comes from deep within ourselves,” and avoiding this inner voice can result in profound loneliness and isolation. however, the negative consequences of the proteus myth extend beyond personal well-being; in a world that is constantly changing, adapting to new circumstances is a necessity. conclusions the convergence of dynamic aspects of an individual’s life path and their endeavors to affirm their being entail the interplay between “higher” and “lower” levels of their personality. transformational and situational changes differ from typical adaptive changes and reflect the emergence of a new subjective quality, that is authorship in relation to life. the personality becomes a factor in its own changes. the context of daily life and routine for modern individuals embodies the strategic practices that support the maintenance of identity and connection to life’s path, while also reducing uncertainty and coping with life’s transience (martsinkovskaya, 2017). in today’s transitory world, maintaining and preserving stability requires specific strategies, primarily through constant change (kostromina, 2021). however, this type of change is not merely adaptive but rather pre-adaptive, relying on personal self processes such as self-knowledge, self-understanding, self-development, selfactualization, and self-modification. self-change is driven by internal needs traditionally linked to self-determined behavior, such as autonomy, competence, and relatedness (ryan & deci, 2019). it is expressed in the individual’s sense of freedom regarding external and internal forces and their conscious development, which is the semantic dominant. on the other hand, quasi-development entails an illusion of the infinity of options and the intensity of development induced by external influences, leading to change for the sake of change. its phenomenological markers are as follows: changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 81–101 97 “change for the sake of change”, “lack of a meaning regulator”, “lack of personal responsibility”, “lack of connection between life experience and emotional history”, and “external influence”. our assumption that quasi-development is associated with a high degree of magical thinking was validated in this study. however, the findings have certain limitations, such as the lack of prior research on the topic, insufficient sample size for statistical measurements (rendering regression analysis and u-mannwhitney test unreliable and statistically insignificant), and potential biases in evaluating the phenomenon. further investigation into the phenomenon of quasi-development necessitates the identification of additional factors that influence its process, immersion into the phenomenological field, and the expansion and reinforcement of the empirical base of research. our study represents an initial exploratory stage and requires additional clarification of hypotheses and the implementation of new research designs. therefore, the analysis of the theoretical, methodological, and empirical aspects of the quasi-development concept presented in this article enables us not only to establish its existence but also affirm its phenomenological and empirical validity. consequently, it is possible to advance towards a more in-depth investigation of this construct and the development of diagnostic tools that can accurately differentiate between genuine personality development and quasi-development with a high degree of reliability. references adams, g., estrada-villalta, s., sullivan, d., & markus, h. r. 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(2021). psikhologiia vozmozhnogo: novoe napravlenie issledovanii ponimaniia [the psychology of the possible: a new direction for research on understanding] (2nd ed.). institut psikhologii rossiiskoi akademii nauk. https://doi. org/10.38098/mng.2021.12.48.001 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000132 https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354318794899 https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031139 https://doi.org/10.38098/mng.2021.12.48.001 https://doi.org/10.38098/mng.2021.12.48.001 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 409–411 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.4.055 received 28 november 2018 © 2018 daniil i. kokin published online 15 december 2018 d.kokin@icloud.com book review jonathan floyd (2017). is political philosophy impossible? thoughts and behavior in normative political theory. cambridge: cambridge university press daniil i. kokin ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia jonathan floyd holds a position of senior lecturer in political theory at the university of bristol. in 2011, he co-edited (in collaboration with marc stears) a book political philosophy versus history. in this book, floyd first proposed his original approach called normative behaviorism. the reviewed book in its turn is his first monograph and the most comprehensive statement of the approach. it is worth attention and careful reading for two reasons. first, it considers the deepest question of the discipline. second, it is an exemplary work in analytic political philosophy. in this review, i will try to summarize main ideas presented in the book and explain, why, despite all its merits, it did not make a breakthrough in the field. the main purpose of the book is to introduce a new way of doing political philosophy. thus, floyd claims that it is about (and of) political philosophy, particularly its deepest foundational principles. in the first part, symptom, the author argues that debates in contemporary political philosophy are rationally interminable. he explains it by the fact that the discipline must be understood in terms of organizing question (oq) – how should we live? examining contemporary political philosophers’ works and ideas, floyd realizes that they “have failed to provide a convincing and meaningful answer to this question” (p. 98). besides this, floyd distinguishes two more questions: foundational question (why should we live that way and not another?) and guiding question (is it possible to provide a convincing and meaningful answer to oq?). he comes to the ambiguous conclusion that political philosophy is impossible to do and impossible to avoid doing. it is impossible to do because we cannot provide a decisive answer to the oq. it is impossible to avoid doing just because people anyway live within certain political system based on the existing principles and answers. this is what floyd calls the impossibility thesis. it is the first of his main ideas presented in the book. https://changing-sp.com/ 410 daniil i. kokin the part diagnosis is devoted to the idea of mentalism, the second main idea of the book. in his effort to find the cause of political philosophy’s interminability, floyd states that it is mentalist paradigm. it means that “political philosophers attempt to discover and then apply whatever set of normative political principles is already implicitly expressed within our existing normative thought” (p. 100). the author argues that it is the dominant method of political philosophy. surprisingly, the author claims that these normative principles derived from our vision of how the world should be are inconsistent and thus impossible. thus, floyd identifies six mentalist techniques. it brings him to the conclusion that there are no comprehensive normative positions in contemporary political philosophy. the third and the most important idea, normative behaviorism, is developed in the third part cure. floyd claims that this is a new model of political philosophy that is able to give a convincing and meaningful answer to oq and solve the dilemma of interminability. the author claims that the idea of normative behaviorism holds “hat rather than trying to convert patterns in human thought into convincing and meaningful political principles, we should try to do the same with patterns in human behavior” (p. 3). this approach focuses mostly on two phenomena: crime and insurrection. thus, the most suitable political system is the one that produces less of this behavior. and the best developed so far, according to normative behaviorism, is social liberal democracy. as was already noted, this is an exemplary book of analytic political philosophy. it is comprehensible and easy to read. moreover, the way of developing ideas in this book is like doctor’s activity, where floyd assesses the symptoms, determines a diagnosis and recommends a cure for ailing political philosophy. it is worth mentioning that this cure is elaborated by floyd himself. these steps are reflected in the book structure. the author uses simple language and employs clear structure without any intrigue or sophisticated tricks. moreover, floyd often tries to keep in touch with a reader by asking, explaining and clarifying his arguments. in spite of its merits, floyd’s book did not make a breakthrough within the discipline. moreover, it raises more questions than it succeeds in answering. the problem arises already at the starting point. why exactly this question defines the essence of political philosophy? isn’t it more suitable for ethics? the organizing question of political philosophy floyd proposes seems both too broad and too specific. it seems too broad because political philosophy is unable to tell people how they should live in general. it touches only upon political aspect of their existence. it seems too specific because political philosophy tries to answer a number of other questions, which are not related to human way of life. the size of the book is traditional for the discipline, but makes the reader to wonder why a large part of it is given to reiterations and re-phrasings of what was already said. i believe the argument could be more concise. even floyd himself in the introduction points out that one can skip some parts depending on the reasons one reads it for. finally, does normative behaviorism really solve the problem? fighting against pluralism of universalist approaches, floyd comes to the same dead-end: floyd changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 409–411 411 repudiates the existing approaches while the only one deemed correct is his own. this conclusion seems yet another variant of existing criticisms of preceding political thought, it emphasizing particular aspects such as political realism and diagnostic practice. but leaves these aspects insufficiently justified, for one could ask if all people behave in the same way? although trying to change rules of the game by reinventing the ground for establishing political principles, floyd arrives to the homely widespread conclusion: the best way of living is social liberal democracy. this seems highly ideological. regardless of these observations, this book is an important contribution to the discipline because there are too few works that examine the foundations of political philosophy. it is relevant to the current debates as well, for political philosophers today are mostly concerned with methodological issues of the field. it also encourages us to look at the current political situation and study political behavior, which is to be oriented to the current state of affairs. however, this book needs a professional reader with a serious background and critical attitude. if one needs another argument for social liberal democracy as the best political system one can live in, one can try to struggle through this reading. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 143–160 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.2.034 received 16 april 2018 © 2018 victor martianov accepted 5 june 2018 martianovy@rambler.ru published online 1 july 2018 article revolution and modernity1 victor martianov institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of russian academy of sciences abstract revolution simultaneously legitimises and denies the coordinate centre of the political order of modernity. it is difficult to describe the historical evolution from the early industrial, class-national forms of political organisation to late or global modernity other than in terms of a low-intensity revolution in the rate of social change. on the other hand, this permanent modernisation is not revolutionary in the sense that the periodic splits of elites, colour revolutions, coups and national liberation movements do not in and of themselves make demands for fundamental change in the value-institutional core of the political order of modernity. the potential for a new revolution can be consequent only on a repudiation of modernity in favour of an alternative political project having a greater capability for universalisation and totalisation. if, in legitimising its liberal consensus and nation-state models as the dominant political format of their synthesis, capitalism is the value-institutional quintessence of the political order of modernity, it is precisely in challenges to capitalism, the liberal consensus and nationalism that provide the most obvious means for crystallising revolutionary movements. from such a perspective, capitalism increasingly comes up against the global limits of its expansion, with class ideologies degenerating into a fragmented, technologically-intermediated populism, and nationstates experiencing increasing pressure from alternative political formats (city networks, multinational corporations, etc.) as they attempt to preserve the model of the social state. while various discourses and social groups profess to play the role of revolutionary utopias 1 the article is prepared with the support of rfbr grant no. 18-011-00211 “social consensus in russia: mechanisms for ideological and institutional regulation”. https://changing-sp.com/ 144 victor martianov and subjects, in essence, their ability to present a totalising alternative to late modernity remains an open question. a utopian systemic challenge to modernity, connected with a morally more justified configuration and associated hierarchy of legitimate violence, is yet to emerge, whether from within modernity or some source external to it. it is demonstrated that in the long term a serious (and possibly revolutionary) correction of the political order of modern societies will be capable of producing a rental transformation of capitalism and an expansion of the rent-class stratification mechanisms associated with precarisation, along with a reduction of social mobility trajectories and the prospects of active social groups. keywords revolution, violence, political order, legitimacy, modernity, late modernity, centre-periphery, global economics, political subject, consensus, rental society, precariat the political project of modernity as a permanent revolution? since all the ideological coordinates of the basic liberal consensus (immanuel wallerstein) are by definition reducible to it, revolution can be seen to form a sacred reference point in the political project of modernity, a kind of event analogue of the nativity of christ in christian chronology. in this constructed history, revolution appears freed from all references to divine prescriptions in the guise of the common will of the people regarding their common destiny. therefore, as ortega y gasset aptly notes, “…referring to the uprisings of medieval peasants and burghers as the precursors of the revolutions of modern times testifies to a complete absence of historical intuition. between them there is almost nothing in common. in rising up against his feudal masters, a medieval man was rebelling against the abuses of those masters. the revolutionary, conversely, does not rebel against abuses, but against the order of things” (ortega y gasset, 2016, p. 133). a revolution may create a heterarchy in which alternative sources of power are the condition for meaningful social changes but it is unable to maintain a stable political order associated with the daily regulation of the conflictual space of individual and collective freedom. as a result, “…the entire history of modernity as the story of different societies faced with the ‘absolute independence’ of the individual can be represented as a series of successful and unsuccessful attempts to achieve and maintain public order” (kapustin, 2010, p. 587). revolution is an initiating event for the political order of the new and newest times. however, it cannot provide final answers to the question of how the modern political order may be subsequently maintained. this order is one in which the initial principles of maximising both collective and individual autonomy entail endless contradictions and engender a mass of conflicts whose resolution can only be achieved with the institutional support of a hierarchy of values and interests in society. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 143–160 145 a study of the history of the political order of modernity reveals a constant revision and re-creation of social hierarchies along with associated compromises. as a metaphor, revolution refers to an instant transfiguration, transmutation, resurrection and a new life; it appears as a chiliastic dream of a collective and instantaneous transition to an earthly paradise, or, in later ideological forms, a rational plan for the realisation of a utopia. however, revolution never definitively establishes anything in the constant movement and renewal of generations, social groups, technological structures, and the dominant configurations of values and interests. therefore, the revolution never reaches its final goals, which are ostensibly connected with a total change in relations between man, society and state. the stratification of revolutionary agents in the course of revolution leads to the attainment of the most radical goals being determined by terror, purges and mutual annihilation of the revolutionaries, who seek to monopolise the revolutionary ideology as the new basis of power. if the monopolistic claim of the revolutionary subject is successful, the new political order will become totalitarian; however, a compromise is more typically established between the outgoing and rising classes, with any social contradiction entailed by the former tending to be replaced by another inherent to the latter. in any case, the temporal unfolding of the revolution invariably involves the instrumental incorporation of the revolution by the revolutionary political subject into new structures of political hegemony. in their attempts to fix and routinise the achievements of the revolution, the subjects of revolution seize the coercive apparatus of the state; however, in so doing, the revolutionaries are themselves inevitably overtaken by the logic of the reproduction of the political order, transforming them into a new bureaucracy. if the usual political order is based on the legitimisation of violence, then the revolution appears both as the foundation of modernity and as an ineliminable challenge to it. the revolution confirms in practical terms the primary liberal thesis that the social order is not eternal but is the work of human hands. however, this is also why, being divided between finite and imperfect people, it cannot become finalised or its laws remain absolute and unchanged. for this, people would have to live forever, without the succession of generations or the movement of history. the revolution generates a modern political order, which offers alternative and morally more convincing grounds for violence than those operated by the estate-monarchical ancien régime. exemplary, classical revolutions concerned the demolition of the ancien régime, which did not possess the internal conditions and mechanisms for reform in the course of growing systemic contradictions of the changing social structure and background in which christian values were being eroded by new practices introduced by capitalism: “the policy of the medieval ‘petit bourgeois’ was to counterpose the privileges of the nobility with exactly the same privileges. city guilds and communes were famous for their narrow, suspicious and selfish spirit – even more so than feudal lords” (ortega y gasset, 2016, p. 138). in other words, the revolution is inevitably rethought during the process of the institutionalisation of modernity. from the initiating event, it is more confidently interpreted from the position of the new liberal consensus as political extremism, which threatens the modern political order. in this way, modernity is simultaneously https://changing-sp.com/ 146 victor martianov constituted by a legitimisation and a denial of the revolution, which, in destroying the ancien régime, brought it into existence. institutional modernity, then, is wholly derived from the revolutionary event that engendered it. revolution appears as the transcendental centre of modernity, to which, however, it does not belong completely, and therefore eludes attempts at complete control. however, at the same time, the above-noted centre legitimises this order from a sacred-symbolic space in which everyday and routine legitimation procedures lose their power. moreover, the question of a destructive/creative incursion or a return of this sacrosanct centre to the political order of modernity always remains open. in connection with this, the political order of modernism, as an epiphenomenon of the revolution, constantly strives to gain independence from it with the help of all kinds of institutions and procedures that aim to ensure its repeatability, its immutability and its self-identity outside of historical time. with a more detailed examination of contemporary political ontology, it can be noted that the ineradicable contradiction between the modern political order and revolution is not necessarily fatal. it can be said that, following the establishment of the revolution-event, modernity represents the same revolution, but a low-intensity revolution, unfolding across a long period of historical time. this is the undulatory or wave-like revolution that continues after the big bang that caused it and is associated with the endless changes and reconfigurations of the value-institutional core of the emergent society. however, if the basic legitimacy of the political order of modernity always refers to the revolution, to the fact that we continue to live within this unfolding historical event mediated by many years and generations, then an obvious question arises: in what can a revolutionary change consist here and now against the background the fact that modern society is based on the tradition of progress – of constant improving changes – as a social norm? modern societies may no longer require total revolutions. more important is the search for subtler socio-cultural adjustments that determine the effectiveness of the progress of each particular society. in such a system of coordinates, the absolute can only consist in change itself as a value. modernity counterposes the new morality of change to the customary morality of tradition, while at the same time strongly defending itself against any other radical changes that could undermine the new world. according to the thought of jean baudrillard, modernity “gives rise to a crisis of values and moral contradictions. thus, as an idea in which a whole civilisation recognises itself, modernity assumes a regulatory cultural function and thereby surreptitiously rejoins tradition.” (baudrillard, 1985, p. 424). here arises the image of modernity as a new tradition of controlled changes in the turbulent social order. in such a context, the true revolution will consist in a total rejection of the political project of modernity. since it is only revolution that can become a new absolute event (filippov, 2006, p. 108), superseding modernity in favour of a totalised alternative, an event that rejuvenates the very system of modern ideological coordinates that is substantiated by the liberal consensus. in the meantime, in place of total rejection, it is possible to observe predominantly limited utopias caused by the internal contradictions of modernity, which are, however, changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 143–160 147 unlikely to consist in its potential alternatives. these include, for example, the logic of postmodernism, acting as a method of intellectual self-criticism and self-correction of late modernity (martianov, 2012). the only revolution became a possibility within the new linear timeframe of modernity, in which there exists a utopian discourse concerning a possible alternative future capable of being realised in the space of collective freedom. this contradicts previous cyclical concepts of time, in which the future is predicated by the present, and the recurrence of historical cycles does not entail significant differences that would allow the past to be distinguished from the present and the future as fundamentally different states of society. at the political centre of the ancien régime was the pre-ordained divine tradition; this is essentially what was refuted by rationally utilitarian and liberal modernity. all the subsequent revolutions within modernity were naturally limited in character, since either comprising the victories of nations in the struggle for sovereignty and independence; or were presented as counter-revolutions in the form of partial kickbacks to the ancien régime; or they only led to a rotation of the elites and an upgrade of the existing version of modernity in the given society. this is the case irrespective of whether we are discussing the version of late modernity, ideas about multiple modernities or the alternative project of soviet modernity. in all cases, we are dealing with invariants within the self-referential system of modernism, which draws its legitimacy from the original act of its creation. this even applies, for example, in the case of the ussr, when the rational interpretation of the revolution as a whole still fits into the logic of liberal consensus in terms of its radical socialist invariant. moreover, the currently observed colour revolutions taking place under the conditions of late modernity do not assume an analogous level of system development of the alternative political project, being essentially a discourse of cultural reconstruction, whether involving the logic of optimisation, reform or correction of the liberal consensus and capitalist ontology, but never implying a direct repudiation of the latter. therefore, neither the struggle for sovereignty and periodic collapse of empires nor political upheavals or transition to different version/model of modernity can properly be referred to in terms of revolution, any more than the dozens of other cases of political convulsion taking place in specific modern societies. this is true even if the results of the latter, thanks to symbolic politics and the construction of another collective memory, become a palliative reference point in the chronology of the new political regime. thus, in fact, humanity has not yet experienced any new revolutions since the pulling down of the ancien régime. significant transformations of individual societies were associated primarily with a global transition to modernity and then to its late value-institutional versions. against this background, the historical transformation of the project of modernity is yet to lead to its revolutionary displacement of the alternative political project, despite all the fundamental differences between earlyindustrial, class and national modernity variants and its later versions taking the form of second, global, radical, fluid or singular modernity. in abandoning reliance on tradition, the value centre of the political order of modernity acquires a multifaceted character, which becomes the subject of https://changing-sp.com/ 148 victor martianov permanent coordination and recognition by key social groups. institutionally, it is constantly adjusted under the influence of parties, regions, ideologies, classes, states and endless co-ordination procedures: the activities of bodies of different branches of government, elections, referendums, public-political and trade union activities, mass communications, international interactions, etc. all these subjects of influence are in themselves ambivalent: they can support, change and/or destroy the basic liberal consensus that lies at the foundation of modernity. moreover, all these particular entities themselves claim ideological representation of the whole. therefore, in modern nations, the centre is always divided and implicit, being the subject of constant discussion or bargaining. however, any danger, catastrophe or external threat leads to a mobilisation of society, during the course of which the value centre is manifested and consolidated. the post-revolutionary stabilisation of a modern society is achieved by means of a consistent differentiation and empowerment of the subsystems of society in terms of the private conflicts that arise within them. here, it is necessary to ensure that the latter are solved at the lower and middle levels, not generalising and not ultimately covering the entire social system (luhmann, 2006). the paradox consists in the fact that the constant accumulation of internal contradictions never reaches a critical level. in every subsystem of society – politics, economics, law, art, etc. – special mechanisms for coordinating interests and facilitating partial, gradual changes that prevent revolutionary scenarios are being elaborated. on the basis of this modern political order, feudal political power was divided into autonomous spheres, in which private ownership, for the first time, became relatively independent of power (i.e. power ceased to be directly equivalent to ownership). as a result, politics as a zero-sum game, in which the winner takes all, became a means of permanently reconciling social interests within a preestablished time period (ankersmit, 2002). complicated procedures for instrumental, day-to-day legitimation of the political order of modernity, e.g., elections, referendums, rotation of elites, reconciliation of class and/or civil interests, turn the revolution into a ritual political reference point. the possibility of revising the conditions of social consensus through the political participation of citizens and the rotation of elites significantly reduces the severity of conflicts and limits the possibilities for their totalisation. an important role in smoothing political contradictions is played by the division of modernity into elective and functional bureaucratic elites, which allows the day-to-day, rational-functional goals of the state apparatus to be combined with the setting of strategic goals related to a reconciliation of the interests of the dominant social groups. the processes of systemic differentiation naturally lead to modern citizens being increasingly unwilling to place high hopes in the revolution under the conditions of a growing autonomy within private life and the structurally autonomous subsystems of modern society that limit the political sphere. nevertheless, the modern political order always contains the seeds of future revolution. appeals to the revolution in the context of legitimising and rhetorical power (in the case of its opponents, critical and practical) reveals the utopian space of the political order of modernity, proving that it is still capable of further improvement in public laboratories and unpredictable social experiments – and changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 143–160 149 therefore, in principle, a candidate for early abolishment in favour of an alternative project. therefore, the revolutionary challenges – whether cultural, economic, political – simply cannot accumulate in a sufficient volume for their own revolutionary resolution. a flexible political order either eliminates the initial causes of social unrest or actively incorporates new social forces. if it fails in this, a general reconfiguration takes place, during which meaningful social groups achieve recognition and places at the common table, thus establishing a new equilibrium. from this perspective, if the revolution consists in a disruption of the state, then it is only natural if the political logic of the state and the revolution are embroiled in insoluble conflict. according to the latest theories of the revolutionary process, it is not so much the historical class struggle as an elementary crisis of legal competency or a default on obligations to the population on the part of the government that in most cases becomes the mechanism by which broad social movements and revolutions uncontrolled by the elites are launched (goldstone, 2012; skocpol, 1979). in the first instance, the triggering factors tend to be default, malfunction, disintegration and delegitimisation of the state (political order). the revolution appears in the form of the establishment of a total self-organisation of society in the transition to a new social equilibrium by means of collective practices and institutions. a space of collective freedom for the realisation of various political utopias arises together with a new state assembly. here, an appeal to preservation of the political order (constitution, law, tradition) as a basic, unconditional value is directly comparable in terms of conferring political legitimacy with revolutionary calls for overthrowing this order. moreover, values associated with maintaining order prevail in the eyes of citizens under conditions of stability and the competency of the state; that is, during the overwhelming majority of history, except in situations of crisis and the collapse of states. in this context, locking in the results of the revolution is always connected with compromises, with the collapse and/or betrayal of utopias in favour of reaction and various conservative kickbacks. trade-off solutions, in principle, do not suit any of the social forces; however, they eventually allow them to be reconciled with them in exchange for ending the debilitating struggle between asserting a new utopia or maintaining the old order. sooner or later the state is once again recognised as an indispensable public good and a kind big brother. in the context of the interconnected world economy of late modernity, substantial doubts concerning the possibility of a classical revolution at the scale of individual states are raised due to their growing global interdependence. national communities are increasingly becoming only private moments in the movement of more general background processes associated with an accumulation of the contradictions inherent in capitalism as well as demographic, technological and institutional transformations entailed by late-modern societies. in this situation, it makes little difference what kinds of social forces in a particular society invoke and uphold the mechanisms of social change, whether these be counter-elite, marginalised, precarious, working class, middle class, liberation movements, different minorities, etc. from this perspective, a given state can be considered as merely an initial platform for the permanent global revolution. this key idea was carried by the political https://changing-sp.com/ 150 victor martianov thought of the left throughout the entire twentieth century. actually, the problem is of a rather different nature, viz. whether it is possible to initiate a revolution under conditions when the elites and the majority of citizens are as close in terms of their human qualities, their initial rights, education, morals and opportunities as never before in history? accordingly, the revolution, both as a concept and as an event, is increasingly seen in metaphorical terms. as such, it is subject to constant deferment, which becomes comparable to eternity. at the same time, mechanisms for procedural legitimisation of changes within the tradition of modernity are strengthened in the form of a permanent reconfiguration of the value-institutional core of late-modern society for the purposes of self-preservation and the prevention of constantly arising conflicts, challenges and threats. the crisis of late-modern subjectivity: from class-consciousness to the schizophrenic subject the spectre of the revolution, always hovering over the political order of modernity, draws its strength from the fact that any citizen can potentially exercise his or her inalienable right as a member of a political society to represent his interests in his personal capacity, take actions and make attempts to change the political order. for the most part, this allows the hegemonic disciplinary mechanisms to be effectively ignored or bypassed along with the regulatory procedures of political representation designed to control the political energy of the masses, which, strictly speaking, also constitute the routine institutional framework of the political order of modernity. active citizens and social groups that represent themselves and do not need intermediaries or representatives thus comprise the revolutionary political core of modernity. these are the kantian adult citizens who dare to be guided by their own minds and to act without external permits and approvals, without power of attorney and without guarantors. this individual and collective political action, proceeding according to the logic of the revolutionary rupture with approved actions and procedures, perforce reveals the constructed and conventional nature of the political order that presented itself as monolithic and unchanging in its tautological discourse. of course, on the part of the beneficiaries of a particular political order, uncontrolled political activity and/or mobilisation of the population by non-system actors is traditionally represented as rioting teenagers, freaks, office plankton or fifth columnists, i.e. as the actions of those who reject political maturity and/or expose their conscious or unconscious dependence on foreign interests. on the other hand, the logic of street democracy is structurally analogous to the logic of a given present government, when it is shown by new leaders of public opinion that the official representatives of the people, by acting in their own, particular – not popular – interests, have lost legitimacy. thus, it is obvious that direct democracy cannot ensure the effective functioning of complex and geographically dispersed political communities of modernity, in which representative mechanisms of expression and the harmonisation of collective interests predominate. however, the latent changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 143–160 151 mechanisms of direct democracy come to the fore in a situation in which a political order based on representation is faced by a revolutionary crisis (bikbov, 2012). the revolution assumes as its key feature the emergence of alternative sources of political order (heterarchy) as a result of the rise and subsequent fall of mass political subjectivity (kapustin, 2015, p. 7). alternative subjects are directly connected with the permanent threat of revolution in the course of expanding and intensifying conflicts already present in society. therefore, the dominant elite seeks to discredit any non-systemic political subject by describing it with the help of a variety of marginal and peripheral non-norm codes, whereby other actors appear as terrorists, extremists, cynics, agents of influence, youth manipulated by such agents, as lacking the necessary competencies, etc. however, even when proclaiming the pathology or death of a revolutionary political subject, the state cannot stop the movement of history. the disciplinary logic of desubjectivisation and depersonalisation, as an attempt to build a total biopolitics of power, will only lead to a growth in the accursed share of things (baudrillard), which attracts to itself all that is excluded from the discourse of power as an indispensable element of the antinomy of power. as a result, the emergence of a revolutionary situation, in which “the revolution can be understood not as a reversal of the top and bottom, when the subordinate group or ‘lower classes’ suddenly intercept power or become ‘the elite’, but as an uprising of those segments of the population who are convinced that they are bearers of the idea of the state or ‘raison d’état’” (hestanov, 2012, p. 58). the current pessimism in assessing the possibility of a future revolution is closely connected with the problem of the disintegration of effective collective action, the political subject and the capacity of states themselves under the conditions of late modernity (rossiya v poiskakh ..., 2016, pp. 78–104). the paradoxical consequences of a state strategy that seeks to monopolise political subjectivity, thus creating new actors in the revolutionary logic of heterarchy (martianov, 2009), coexist with a number of other processes leading to an overall weakening of political subjectivity in late-modern societies. socio-political, economic and cultural forms are increasingly breaking away from the everyday experience of individuals. this gap between the individual and society, leading to an increasing inaccessibility and unknowability of the latter, is compensated by ideology and mythology, whose significance as a connecting link of individual preferences and collective prescriptions can only increase. as a result of the revolution, society came to accept experimental social practices and concepts that previously took place at its periphery and were the object of ridicule, its carriers ignored, suppressed or persecuted. however, in the situation of the reconfiguration of the social structure, these excessive, heretical, marginal and even criminal notions turn out to be in demand by a new political order (lobovikov, 2015). the revolution realises the structural possibilities into which the society has already matured, but at the same time it continues to think of itself in terms of the relations and hierarchies of social interests and groups, whose configurations and relationships experience ever greater deformations. on the one hand, a stalemate situation arises when modernity fails to accumulate sufficient contradictions for the political order to be disturbed by revolution https://changing-sp.com/ 152 victor martianov despite the many individual conflicts by which the society may be permeated at local, national and global levels. on the other hand, when differentiation and complication occur in contemporary societies, the disintegration of public spaces makes it difficult to maintain the usual hierarchies and instead promotes revolutionary heterarchies. simultaneously, alternative axiological grounds for the political order and common good arise and a search for new ways of assembling sociality and principles of stratification is set into motion. small groups and groups with weak social ties begin to have more effective identities and cultural codes than blurred economic macroclasses deprived of their former political subjectivity. the natural result of these transformations is the spread of the schizophrenic type of social subject, which loses its ability to effectively organise its interests over the course of history. the schizophrenic postmodern subject loses the ability to perceive time and think historically. accordingly, it cannot deliver utopia, because it lacks desires or hopes that underpin collective action according to the utopian impulse (jameson, 2004). the space of history is entirely obscured by the space of culture that simulates history. accordingly, the actions of schizophrenic subjects (consumer class, creative class, middle class, etc.), taking place within a culturally coded space that cannot be taken for reality itself, turn out to be the actions of a predominantly symbolic order that do not – and cannot – lead to changes in the socio-political reality. as a result, they lose the ability to capture social changes in time or create revolutionary utopias oriented towards the future as an alternative to the present. however, from the standpoint of preserving the political order, the insensitivity of such a subject to the past or the future is interpreted positively, as a sign of its freedom in the present, despite occluding the entire chronological horizon of possibilities. summarising the interim result, we can say that revolutions do not create the political, economic and cultural order of modernity directly. formulating more precisely, we can remark that revolutions create new individual and social subjects, which, by virtue of their extrinsic nature relative to the ancien régime, are able to create a different order. however, the formation and strengthening of the new political order will inevitably be associated with the transformation and extinction of revolutionary actors. the ability to create utopias is the historical mission of a kind of political demiurge, who, by virtue of their extrinsicality to the old and new orders – their intermediacy – feel themselves to be all-powerful within that specific historical moment. but the revolution in its deployment instantly corrects and dismisses its creators, as, for example, the democraticallyand republicanistically-inclined french aristocracy of the second echelon: “in the terror of 1793–94, the internal horror of the jacobins was externally manifested: they saw their terrible mistake and wanted to correct it with the guillotine, but, no matter how many heads they chopped off, they still bowed their own to the strength of the ascending social stratum. everyone bowed to that which overpowered the revolution and reaction, which flooded the old forms and filled them with itself, because it was the only active and modern majority; sieyès was speaking more accurately than he knew when he said that the third estate was ‘everything’. the third estate – or commoners – were not born in the revolution, but were ready with their own traditions and customs, which were alien to changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 143–160 153 the other tune of the revolutionary idea. they were treated roughly by the aristocracy and kept in third place; liberated, they trampled the dead bodies of their liberators to introduce their own order” (herzen, 1946, p. 410). accordingly, the ability of the political order of late modernity to prevent revolution is straightforward, not least due to the rapid erosion of the former social classes of the demiurge. the extrinsic – whether to pre-modernity or to modernity – political subject disappeared; the present domineering subjects consist wholly within modernity. and for as long as the unpredictable revolution fails to wrest some people from modernity, they will lack a sufficiently strong collective subjectivity, since this only arises during a revolution. until then, political utopias will not appear, because utopias do not precede revolutions, but are formulated during their process by new actors. undoubtedly, prior to the outbreak of a revolution, there are political change discourses as, for example, the work of rousseau, voltaire and the encyclopaedists; however, these can serve only as preliminary material for revolutionary utopias. nevertheless, the landmark “sketch for a historical picture of the progress of the human mind” was only written by nicolas de condorcet at a time when the french revolution was in full swing; in general, key modern ideologies took shape only as a result of subsequent reflection on the revolutionary transition to a new social state. thus, the prospect of a revolutionary alternative to modernity is closely related to the possibilities for continuing the reproduction of ideologies and utopias that totalise social reality within the structures of group experience. totalisation generates an image of society that is oriented towards the re-creation of its integrity. this is true even if the received cognitive coordinates of society are recognised by other interpreters as subjective, vulnerable and ideological. the creation of ideologies and utopias as a means of cognitive mapping, allows the subjectivity and identity of a particular social class to be recreated, including through the construction of its social coordinates relative to other classes. conversely, the logic of preventing revolution is manifested in the form of attempts to remove conflict and class content from politics, replacing them with various palliatives in the form of homo economicus, metaphors of the natural market and various theories of modernisation. this tendency involves the introduction of universal standards into all areas of life, releasing them from historical traditions and cultural contexts. however, a closer look proves that, on the one hand, the theory of modernisation and democratic/market transition, and, on the other hand, civilisational discourses on the insurmountability of cultural differences and ruts of tradition, are merely forced palliatives of class ideologies in the situation of the weakening and schizophrenisation of the established political subjects of modernity. these discourses do not exist as a means to understand the particular societies in respect of which they are applied, but rather in order to make them more similar to other societies acting as a target sample. or, alternatively, they serve to justify the unavoidable differences from the target societies, which by virtue of their uniqueness also free themselves from an understanding of their society from a comparative-historical perspective. thus, the idea of modernity presented in a neutral form as modernisation, i.e. the permanent achievement of an increasingly modern state of affairs, is analogous to an endless https://changing-sp.com/ 154 victor martianov cul-de-sac for a society entirely lacking in utopias that go beyond economic (capitalism) or cultural (civilisation) determinism. however, if (a) capitalism in (b) legitimising its liberal consensus and nation-state as the dominant political format of their synthesis, comprises the value-institutional quintessence of the political order of modernity, it is precisely in challenges to (a) capitalism and (b) the liberal consensus and nationalism that the most obvious means for crystallising revolutionary movements are presented. it seems that in late-modern societies, these challenges and the corresponding ideological/utopian formats under the conditions of stagnation are increasingly likely to be determined by economic means. the geographic and technological expansion of the capitalist world system during a particular historical period (the glorious thirty from 1945– 1975) made it possible to smooth out internal class contradictions through extramarket regulation and compensation for the costs of capitalism in the form of the welfare state and an expanding middle class. however, under the conditions of suspended economic growth, robotisation and a decline in the status of working people, such stabilisers cease to compensate for the growing costs and noneconomic challenges to capitalism associated with the growth of the unemployed and the precariat, as well as a decrease in the ability of states to perform protective functions for these sectors of citizens. in his influential book one-dimensional man, herbert marcuse concluded that “underneath the conservative popular base is the substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, the exploited and persecuted of other races and other colours, the unemployed and the unemployable. they exist outside the democratic process; their life is immediate and the most real need for ending intolerable conditions and institutions. thus, their opposition is revolutionary even if their consciousness is not.” (marcuse, 1964, pp. 260–261). over half a century after these words were written, social forces that are ostensibly trying to torpedo it in the name of these or those alternatives continue to mature within global modernity. these social forces comprise a wide range of radical movements (fundamentalists, alternative globalists, anarchists, new luddites, environmentalists, different minorities, etc.), usually constructing their ideological niches in the form of private utopias aimed at solving private challenges, problems and contradictions in modern society. it seems that in the context of this process there will be an increasingly diverse cultural determination of group interests and collective actions as well as the value of the social status and social capital of its participants. however, the particular nature of the criticism of modernity becomes the chief problem of the global revolutionary movement. political ultra-projects do not permit the possibility of a total alternative to modernity, to all intents and purposes replacing it with a discourse of justice, restoration of a balance of interests, or discourses related to the repair of modernity, but ultimately only strengthen the political order that constantly incorporates those movements into the mainstream and periodically satisfies protest demands. this problem is not resolved by the efforts of leftist forces against the backdrop of global challenges to resuscitate familiar ideological coordinates and class struggle from the times of national-industrial modernity (kagarlitsky, 2017, p. 264–265). if changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 143–160 155 the lives of the majority are ipso facto significantly affected by the consequences of revolution, the field within such potential changes may take effect is becoming less and less directly related to politics. under the conditions of late modernity, the revolutionary potential of social change is increasingly fuelled by the possible consequences of the implementation of non-political, private utopias. this occurs, for example, when biomedical or technological progress replaces human workers in production processes, resulting in capability for work no longer comprising the basic usefulness resource of the majority of the population in the sense of providing automatic access to various benefits. technological progress, a sharp increase in life expectancy (and consequently, in the number of disabled and old people), universal basic income, unlimited sources of energy and the management of biological mutations can have unexpected political consequences comparable to the class revolution in terms of transforming the political order and the principles of its stratification. the new revolution as the problem of a political alternative to late modernity revolution feeds on utopia as the energy of the future. thus, revolutions are caused by utopian discourses associated with social forces, whose constituents would like to expand their rights and opportunities by gaining control over their own destiny. however, under the conditions of late modernity, the utopian dimension is experiencing increasing difficulties in comparison with those alternatives that make their appeal to the past and the present. the future, in common with the metanarratives associated with its justification, is increasingly being viewed as something vague, suspicious and unconvincing. as a result, it turns out that “a revolution in the usual sense is no longer possible, since there are no intentions for a break with the past and associated breakthrough into the future, dynamism is suspicious, and violence is unacceptable” (puchkov, 2017). the problem of the possibility of a new revolution is not only that the value of order/stability is almost always perceived to be more fundamental than the value of change. it consists in the search for an alternative that would be attractive to active social forces, which would lead to a conscious rejection of the liberal consensus of modernity that, in one version or another, continues to dominate. alternatives to this consensus at the present time are generally limited to partial utopias in which, instead of recognising and discussing real social and economic problems, conflicts and interests, a process of continuing mythologisation takes place. for example, this may be seen in the (conservative) form of reasoning based on the concept spiritual bonds or (liberal) calls for the redistribution of social hierarchies and resources in favour of some minority or other. alternatively, it may be seen in the form of calls for the destruction of the social order, which often emanate from peripheral social forces or requirements that actually become ends in themselves under conditions vaguely referred to in terms of some alternative future. this leads not so much to an overcoming of modernity as to various kickbacks from modernity, conceded in favour of the archaising and strengthening of pre-modern and anti-modern values, https://changing-sp.com/ 156 victor martianov practices and institutions, especially in societies drifting from the centre of the capitalist world-economy towards its margins and periphery. here, the question of the global subject of the revolutionary changes of late modernity and its moral advantages with respect to the hegemons also remains unclear. negation of the political order results in a transcendence of the act of cultural disavowal or revolutionary breakdown itself. despite the growing social base from which revolutionary demands are being issued, those ideological options for the liberation of human nature from the normative order of late modernity not related to a return to the ancien régime are yet to acquire a systemic character. the ability of ultra-movements to organise systemic collective action in the context of a crisis of class subjectivity and a general decline in political subjectivity in the consumer society raises multiple questions. the repudiation of ideological meta-narratives, whether from class struggle – or even from the more blurred cultural hegemony – in favour of agonistic democracy (mouffe, 2000, pp. 80–107), actually dissolves the political subject in cultural discourses, depriving him of the necessary initial political ontology. here another question naturally arises concerning the social regulators of a possible post-modern society, since, in the field of mechanisms of cultural domination, late modernity is permeated with an effective mixture and eclecticisation of its entire previous ideological heritage. it turns out that late capitalism is rather successful at commodifying and expanding into fields of non-economic regulators, such as morality, law, art and politics, which are potentially capable of producing alternative non-capitalist hierarchies and orders of social life. finally, in favour of the political order of late modernity against the backdrop of weak alternatives, there is a strong practical argument: never before in history have such a large proportion of the population had such opportunities to exercise individual freedom as in the present. consequently, contemporary revolutionaries lose the struggle for the interpretation of human nature and the generation of normative ideas concerning the desires and purposes of human existence (jameson, 1983, pp. 1–14). thus, it is becoming increasingly difficult for new utopias entering the field of political imagination to challenge the capitalist order underpinned by the developed mass consumer culture with a call for collective political action. therefore, the growing stagnation of global capitalism paradoxically leads to demands for a disciplinary and regulatory strengthening of the political order of nation-states. this is due to the latter being seen as counterbalances to growing discontent with the transformation of the capitalist global economy associated with rising unemployment, a precarious labour market and the intensification of various forms of geographical and social inequality. it can be observed that the most significant threats to the political order of modernity are generated for and by itself: “western modernity – first the european manifestation, then the american – has for centuries maintained the conviction that it is nothing more than contemporaneity in action and that its goal is not the effective mobilisation of resources, but rather the replacement of traditions with reason.” (touraine, 2014, p. 99) indeed, universal reason in politics proved impossible, disintegrating into its various conflicting and class-based variants. against the backdrop of the crisis between economic classes and within instrumental reason, ideas concerning the guaranteeing changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 143–160 157 of commonality, universality, justice and progress on a new round of globalisation are once again returning to political nations; meanwhile, global modernity is facing ever more insoluble challenges. as a result, a future revolution may ensue from the exhaustion of the communication and dialogue opportunities for key social actors: “a revolution begins with the negation of the other and ends with the disintegration or destruction of the negating actor; only chaos or absolute power can follow it” (touraine, 2014, p. 112). the possibility of an active, including revolutionary, return of peoples to direct participation in their common history and collective destiny under the conditions of late modernity remains an open and debatable political issue. however, when the mass apathy of a schizophrenic consumer subject is combined with endless modernisation as a mode of living under the conditions of modernity, the revolutionary utopia disappears over the event horizon. a global crisis having the potential to envelop many modern societies and launch uncontrolled events seems extremely unlikely; its genesis from the contradictions of capitalism, which have already existed for 500 years, is also rather doubtful, although the corresponding forecasts are issued with enviable consistency (wallerstein et al., 2013). it is suggested that the possibility of a new revolution can be realised only on the basis of a putative repudiation of modernity in favour of an alternative political project having a greater capability for universalisation and totalisation. if, in legitimising the liberal consensus and nation-state as the dominant political format of its synthesis, capitalism is the value-institutional quintessence of the political order of modernity, it is precisely in challenges to capitalism, the liberal consensus and nationalism that provide the most obvious means for crystallising revolutionary movements. at present, despite postmodernist criticisms, the crisis of the market model of capitalism and mass democracies, the weakening of the social state and other challenges to the political order of late modernity all relate to internal transformations or the archaisation of modern societies rather than any real alternative. finally, the global scale of late modernity also requires another scale to be achieved by its potential revolutionary subjects. if the modern revolution was initiated in key european polities, then revolution, as an alternative to late modernity, presupposes a transnational rise in political subjectivity together with a corresponding coordination and institutionalisation that transcends territorial states. this presupposes the emergence of an effective counterbalance to the current global economy in the form of a future global policy, which, being subordinated to the interests of the leading national states, is still very much in its infancy. while various discourses and social groups profess to play the role of revolutionary utopias and subjects, in essence, their ability to present an alternative to modernity remains an open question. thus, a utopian systemic challenge to modernity, connected with a morally more justified configuration and associated hierarchy of legitimate violence, is yet to emerge. in the long term, a serious (and possibly revolutionary) negative correction of the political order of modern societies will be capable of producing a rental transformation of capitalism and an expansion of the rent-class stratification mechanisms associated with precarisation, along with a reduction in the social mobility trajectories and other prospects of active social groups. the present global exhaustion of the market-based https://changing-sp.com/ 158 victor martianov development model, which is oriented towards the infinite expansion of profit, reveals the contours of a future society without economic growth (policy challenges, 2015). robotisation has in no way compensated for the costs of technological progress in terms of filling society with superfluous people, while simultaneously turning them into increasingly dangerous classes: the precarious, the unemployed and the various minorities concealed in public policy blind spots or openly ignored by the state (ford, 2015). the discovery of resource limits applying to free, self-regulating markets leads to an increase in protectionism and nationalism, leading to the tendency to replace market competition mechanisms with the forceful redistribution of markets and resource chains. in an increasingly entrenched society without mass labour, mass taxpayers or profitable capital, the resource crisis affecting the social state model is exacerbated. the depletion of its resource base is accompanied by a growth in statedependent social groupings. as a result, a rental political order is formed, in which market communications are replaced by hierarchical models of distributive exchanges, which are increasingly controlled by the state. social stratification increasingly depends not on market-based class formation, but on the access of citizens and social groups to the distribution of rental resources as regulated by the state. these trends lead to the dominance of rent-seeking economic behaviour (davydov & fishman, 2015). mass behaviour associated with the search for rents that have a guaranteed status is increasingly becoming a more profitable strategy than risky entrepreneurial activity or the desire to take advantageous positions within a shrinking and increasingly unreliable labour market. paradoxically, the most urgent challenge faced by existing mechanisms for coordinating collective interests is the archaisation or simulation of modernity, in which neo-patristic, neo-patrimonial models of political order unite power, law and property. a potentially revolutionary situation arises when modernity turns into a new non-modernity that is incapable of transforming itself or effectively responding to the constantly arising challenges and threats of the volatile contemporary society. this situation becomes especially clear at the periphery of global capitalism. here, the beneficiaries of peripheral capitalism strive to preserve the established political order, in which the radicalisation of various contradictions is intensified by their nonsolubility. to this end, political elites may attempt to freeze fluid contemporaneity (z. bauman), something that is impossible by definition. such rigid and non-modular institutional states can, as a rule, only be reversed by revolutionary means. therefore, the likelihood of a revolution is higher on the periphery of the global system, where, as a consequence of a variety of subtle sociocultural configurations, contemporary societies lack the flexibility demonstrated by the countries of the centre. finally, in the course of its development, the revolution always goes beyond the framework of any previous theoretical justification. collective praxis outpaces outdated social ontologies and categorical descriptive apparatuses in favour of the imaginary establishment of society (cornelius castoriadis), which is gradually overgrown with a new institutional framework and legitimating self-descriptions. therefore, in order for revolution to take place, policy must necessarily take centre stage in public life at a time when political issues have become questions of life and death. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 143–160 159 references ankersmit, f. 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(1985). modernité [modernity]. encyclopaedia universalis. paris: encyclopaedia universalis, vol. 12, 424–426. http://www.oecd.org/economy/policy-challenges-for-the-next-fifty-years.pdf http://www.oecd.org/economy/policy-challenges-for-the-next-fifty-years.pdf http://gefter.ru/archive/21809#anchor1 http://gefter.ru/archive/21809#anchor1 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 267–270 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.043 conference paper inter-religious cooperation and its challenges in schools and public life in south africa ahmed bhayat kwazulu-natal department of education, south africa abstract after the collapse of apartheid, south africa adopted a new political regime in 1994 that promoted democratic values to build a socially cohesive nation out of a fractured past. the post-apartheid state changed its education policies to reflect this democratic framework that recognised, appreciated, and accommodated the diverse reality of the country’s population. more specifically, religion education was incorporated into the school curriculum that focussed on teaching and learning about “religion, religions, and religious diversity” (chidester, 2003, p. 262). religion studies was a specialised subject for senior learners that formed part of the religion education curriculum. this paper will explore how the post-apartheid south african education policies recognise the value of religion studies and its role in creating inter-religious cooperation in the country’s schools and communities. i will explain the south african schools act and national policy of religion and education as two key education policies that underpin the subject religion studies. however, while religion studies will be shown as aiming to build inter-religious cooperation, i will discuss that this is a challenging process considering that a strong christian ethos is still promoted by some public schools in the country. i argue that religion studies has a transformative role in the south african classroom since it promotes the importance of values in transforming (inter-religious) relationships within schools and outside of them. keywords inter-religious cooperation, policies, post-apartheid, social cohesion, diversity received 27 august 2018 © 2018 ahmed bhayat accepted 10 september 2018 ahmedbhayat72@yahoo.com published online 30 september 2018 https://changing-sp.com/ 268 ahmed bhayat introduction under the apartheid regime, south african schools and communities were segregated along various signs of differences, including race and religion. with the apartheid government declaring christianity as the state religion, it ensured that the education system promoted an afrikaner calvinist christian national ethos in the country’s schools. this means that regardless of their own religious or non-religious orientations, learners and teachers were obligated to study no other religions other than christianity. as a result, many south africans knew very little about other religions. in addition to the lack of knowledge of various religions, the interaction between religious communities was minimal. both, therefore, contributed towards viewing religions other than christianity with suspicion and being stereotyped. african traditional religion is one example of a religion that many south africans viewed as paganism, and was in fact not even regarded as a religion, but denounced as a cultural practice. after the end of apartheid, south africa adopted a new political regime in 1994 that promoted democratic values to build a socially cohesive nation out of a fractured past. the post-apartheid state changed its education policies to reflect this democratic framework that recognised, appreciated, and accommodated the diverse reality of the country’s population. more specifically, religion education was incorporated into the school curriculum that focussed on teaching and learning about “religion, religions, and religious diversity” (chidester, 2003, p. 262). religion studies was a specialised subject for senior learners that formed part of the religion education curriculum. it was introduced in 2008, and offered as an elective subject to learners in the further education and training (fet) phase (grades 10–12). it should be noted that in 2015, the subject was also offered to adults (older than 21 years of age) who wanted to complete grade 12. this paper will explore how the post-apartheid south african education policies recognise the value of religion studies and its role in creating inter-religious cooperation in the country’s schools and communities. it will explain the south african schools act and national policy of religion and education as two key education policies that underpin the subject religion studies. however, while religion studies will be shown as aiming to build inter-religious cooperation, i will discuss that this is a challenging process considering that a strong christian ethos is still promoted by some public schools. i argue that religion studies has a transformative role in the south african classroom since it promotes the importance of values in transforming (inter-religious) relationships within schools and outside of them. understanding key policies it is important to understand the south african schools act (act 84 of 1996) and the 2003 national policy of religion and education as two key education policies that underpin the subject religion studies. both policies promote the constitutional freedom of conscience and religion at public schools. the south african schools changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 267–270 269 act stipulates that provisions for religious observances can be made at public schools on the condition that attendance by learners and staff members are free and voluntary. the national policy on religion and education promotes the teaching and learning of various religions in south africa and the world. the national policy introduces religion education as an educational programme that aims to mould learners into democratic citizens who recognise, understand, appreciate, and engage with different religious beliefs and practices (par. 18, 19). it stipulates that religion education is different from religious instruction as the former is a nonconfessional approach to studying religions and is the responsibility of the school, whereas the latter takes on a confessional approach to teaching a particular religion and is the “responsibility of the home, the family and the religious community” (par. 19, 55). this means that religion education neither promotes nor undermines any religion. instead, it teaches about diverse religions as a social phenomenon, including “the common values that all religions promote, such as the human search for meaning and the ethic of service to others” (par. 18). religion education also aims at promoting the “[c]onstitutional values of citizenship, human rights, equality, freedom from discrimination, and freedom for conscience, religion, thought, belief, and opinion” that encourages learners to be participating citizens in an open, inclusive and democratic nation (par. 11). one may, therefore, conclude that religion education, including religion studies, can be regarded as playing a vital and transformative role in promoting the importance of values of dignity and respect, which can contribute towards creating a space for inter-religious cooperation to take place in a diverse nation like south africa. interreligious cooperation and its challenges indeed, the south african schools act and national policy on religion and education ensures that public schools establish an open and inclusive environment that nurtures inter-religious cooperation amongst learners and teachers. some schools, for example, make provisions for teachers to take two days of leave per year for religious observances. another example is that learners who are african traditional religion practitioners are permitted to observe initiation ceremonies during the school year. while the role of religion studies is transformative as it aims to build interreligious cooperation, this is a challenging process considering that a strong christian ethos is still promoted by some public schools. in rural and township areas, for instance, christian prayers in public school assemblies are still carried out. interestingly, christian prayers are also part of state official district and provincial functions. nevertheless, teaching about religious diversity in rural and township schools can be quite challenging given that many individuals had little to no social interaction with persons of other faiths. the example of the 2017 “ogod” court case also points to the challenging process of building inter-religious cooperation in schools. the organisasie vir godsdienste-onderrig en demokrasie [organisation for religious education and democracy] (ogod) is an association that addresses constitutional violations of religion and public schools, and brought a case against https://changing-sp.com/ 270 ahmed bhayat six public schools in gauteng and the western cape that promoted a christian ethos (schools should not adopt one religion, 2017). the organisation stated that with these schools promoting only one religion and requiring learners to reveal their adherence to a specific religion, they were in breach of the national policy on religion and education. the presiding judge willem van der linde handed down his ruling that public schools cannot promote one religion, which was a victory for the organisation. conclusion this paper discussed the post-apartheid south african education policies as recognising the value of religion studies and its role in creating inter-religious cooperation in the country’s schools. the introduction of religion studies is a step in the right direction since it aims to build a socially cohesive society that respects and tolerates religious and cultural diversity. this shows that religion studies has a transformative role in the south african classroom since it promotes the importance of values in transforming (inter-religious) relationships within schools and outside of them. yet, while religion studies plays an integral role in building religious cooperation, there are still certain challenges, such as public schools promoting a christian character, that disrupt this process of collaboration. despite national government adopting policies to create a united nation, proper implementation of them still needs to take place at provincial, district and municipal levels. references chidester, d. (2003). religion education in south africa: teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity. british journal of religious education, 25(4), 261–278. national policy on religion and education (2003). retrieved august, 1, 2018, from https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/religion_0.pdf the south african schools act. (1996). retrieved from https://www. gdeadmissions.gov.za/content/files/schoolsact.pdf schools should not adopt one religion to the exclusion of others – judge. (2017, june 28). news24. retrieved from https://www.news24.com/southafrica/news/ schools-should-not-adopt-one-religion-to-the-exclusion-of-others-judge-20170628 https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/religion_0.pdf https://www.gdeadmissions.gov.za/content/files/schoolsact.pdf https://www.gdeadmissions.gov.za/content/files/schoolsact.pdf https://www.news24.com/southafrica/news/schools-should-not-adopt-one-religion-to-the-exclusion-of-others-judge-20170628 https://www.news24.com/southafrica/news/schools-should-not-adopt-one-religion-to-the-exclusion-of-others-judge-20170628 changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.2.233 received 17 november 2022 © 2023 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono accepted 30 may 2023 annisa.ardi.a@mail.ugm.ac.id published online 3 july 2023 bagus@ugm.ac.id article exploring anchor personality and true meaning in indonesian young adults annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono universitas gadjah mada, yogyakarta, indonesia abstract theories of meaning that emphasize only subjectivity can disadvantage individuals and societies. the theory of true meaning attempts to answer these problems by considering human nature. to attain true meaning, an interactive personality theory, such as anchor personality theory, is needed. this study aims to understand the relationship between anchor personality dimensions, namely, materials, self, others, and virtues, and true meaning. this study’s subjects are 212 young adults aged 18–34 from different educational and marital backgrounds. this study used a quantitative survey method with regression analysis. the instruments used are the true meaning scale and the anchor personality inventory. results show that virtue anchors positively correlate with true meaning, whereas materials and self-anchors correlate negatively with true meaning. in addition, anchor stability contributes to a significant increase in true meaning. limitations and suggestions from this research are discussed. keywords anchor personality dimension, anchor stability, regression, true meaning, young adult introduction in order for individuals to be able to adapt to and deal with life successfully, they must experience the existence of meaning, which signifies a healthy psychological state. meaning is a mental representation of the relationship between objects, human relations, and events (mackenzie & baumeister, 2014). meaning helps individuals understand experiences and human behavior and develop plans for https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:annisa.ardi.a@mail.ugm.ac.id mailto:bagus@ugm.ac.id changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 103 achieving goals (park & george, 2013; steger, 2012). failure to achieve meaning, called meaninglessness, frustrates humans, making them incapable of doing something worthwhile or rendering something valuable (frankl, 1946/1992). in other words, the concept of understanding life facilitates how individuals accomplish valuable experiences. widely researched theories of meaning in psychology refer to how an individual subjectively understands life. people construct their understanding of life to enable themselves to accept, even disadvantageous meanings. in the meaning in life questionnaire (naghiyaee et al., 2020), it can be interpreted that people can have meanings based on their experience and understanding to achieve their goals, without considering consequences of their meanings. another view of meaning theory is the meaning of life. researchers have found that the meaning of life is an objective reality; it is not widely researched in psychology because it assumes that meaning cannot be viewed from a philosophical point of view and it is difficult to research what is wrong or right in psychology (battista & almond, 1973). the assumption of battista and almond (1973) about the meaning of life is based on their secular background: they assume that there is no authentic meaning of life. nevertheless, studies from the last decade show the importance of an individual’s values or belief systems in the meaning of life (hanson & vanderweele, 2021; mackenzie & baumeister, 2014; newton & mcintosh, 2013). thus, values or belief systems are still essential in discussing life’s meaning. risk of subjectivity in meaning individual life meaning in previous studies shows that subjectivity alone can be detrimental to one’s life if not recognized, meaning that as individuals rationalize their actions, a detrimental life may result. arum (2018) found that extortionists interpreted their own behavior as helping the community with bureaucratic needs. kinnier et al. (2003) detected a similar meaning: that prominent figures in certain cultures employ several meanings, including “life is meaningless” or “life is a joke”. furthermore, this understanding can have implications for a pessimistic attitude toward life because life is meaningless and a risk factor for psychological well-being (cnen et al., 2020). true meaning the gap between meaning theories and previous findings shows the importance of theory that can minimize merely subjectivity. ayuningtyas (2022) puts forward the concept of true meaning, which tries to define meaning so that it is not excessively subjective. the theory of true meaning is an individual’s subjective understanding of life that leads to action and includes some characteristics that limit that subjectivity. the nature of true meaning is long-term and motivates never to give up, and at the end of the journey, it involves various emotions and creates a deep impression (ayuningtyas, 2022). in addition, the true meaning is meaning that is sound for the individual themselves and others. that is to say, true meaning prevents individuals from experiencing a state of meaninglessness, namely the failure to achieve usefulness in life that prevents them from doing something valuable (frankl, 1946/1992). https://changing-sp.com/ 104 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono in riyono’s (2020b) meaning theory, the main element that allows humans to reach true meaning is the freedom to choose, which humans naturally have. this freedom to choose has an essential role in controlling urges so that humans can act appropriately in life situations. if an individual fails to control this urge, the resulting meaning is false (called “false meaning”). in other words, it is a meaning that the individual considers correct (ayuningtyas, 2022), while it is incorrect. false meaning is short-term, self-centered, illusory, triggered by hurts, and shallow (ayuningtyas, 2022). extortionists exemplify this false meaning in research conducted by arum (2018). “meaning” in other theories true meaning is a concept responsive to the subjectivity problem of previous meaning theories because it is based on human nature. the implication of human nature in the true meaning theory is that it applies to everyone. according to razak et al. (2017), human nature means having the potential to provide advantages and to do so responsibly. in addition, the freedom of choice in acting and responding to life situations is also human nature (frankl, 1946/1992; riyono, 2011). freedom to choose can also encourage individuals to choose meanings that can provide benefits. meaning in life emphasizes subjectivity; it is less focused on human nature, especially concerning advantages for individuals and communities. on the other hand, when the freedom to choose is not associated with a benefit, there is a risk of false meaning. therefore, it is essential to research the concept of true meaning. in other theories, “meaning” is discussed in the “meaning in life” theory. there are limitations to the concept of meaning as meaning in life in previous studies. these studies generally refer to “meaning” as a subjective aspect of individuals. this can be seen in the measurement tools used, for example, several items from the meaning in life questionnaire, namely “i have a clear purpose in life” or “i am looking for a purpose or mission in my life” (naghiyaee et al., 2020). these points have not provided clarity about what meaning of life the individual has or what purpose the individual intends. this lack of clarity on the meaning of life is supported by arum study (2018), as mentioned before. this extortion behavior is also preceded by other factors, namely pressure and opportunity from the environment so that the meaning obtained refers to a meaning that is not based on the truthfulness. unlike the meaning that directs individuals at risk to face difficult times (bahari, 2019; janitra, 2021; tiilikainen et al., 2021), this meaning which is based on a wrong understanding is at risk of harmful or unethical behavior. another finding about individual meaning that shows the vulnerability of individual subjectivity without regard to the boundaries of that subjectivity is from kinnier et al. (2003). the research seeks to identify the meaning of individuals who are considered influential in certain cultures. the meaning obtained includes “life is meaningless” or “life is a joke” (kinnier et al., 2003). these findings indicate that the meaning understood by individuals can be pessimistic. furthermore, pessimism itself is a risk factor for individual psychological well-being (cnen et al., 2020). on the other hand, optimism supports psychological well-being and adaptive coping strategies (cnen et al., 2020; rezaei et al., 2015). thus, the identification of the meaning content that leads to usefulness is important to know because this has implications for the psychological health of individuals. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 105 factors contributing to true meaning: anchor personality both external and internal factors contribute to true meaning. external factors include marital status, parental care, and demographic conditions such as education and occupation (glaw et al., 2020; shek et al., 2021; yoon & cho, 2011). internal factors include age (delle fave et al., 2013), life satisfaction, self-esteem, level of depression, stress, emotional stability, career stability, tolerance for uncertainty, personality, and anxious character (garrison & lee, 2017; jung, 2011; thomsen et al., 2016; yoon & cho, 2011), as well as coping strategies, self-adjustment, self-control, and activities that are considered necessary by individuals (iwasaki et al., 2018; jung, 2011; yoon & cho, 2011). among other factors, personality is a vital contributor to meaning. personality is the expression of individual differences in behavior patterns, feelings, and thoughts, so personality impacts many areas of human life (american psychological association, 2022). existing personality theories are generally not interactive; for example, in the big five personality (costa & mccrae, 1988), the implication is that humans are limited in how much they can improve their personal qualities. on the other hand, recent research has shown that personality can change at various ages, even though it dominates early adulthood, mainly due to changes in life situations (ardelt, 2000; bleidorn et al., 2021; boyce et al., 2013; harris et al., 2016; roberts & mroczek, 2008). riyono et al. (2012) proposed interactive personality theory, that is, anchor personality theory. this assuming that individual personality can develop along with a learning process because personality results from repetitive behavior (riyono, 2020b). the anchor is something individuals rely on to deal with problems or as a life guide, which can be divided into four dimensions (riyono, 2011). these dimensions are materials (material objects such as money or technology), self (self), others (other parties, both individuals and groups), and virtues (universal principles of life). people with “materials” anchor heavily rely on the materials such as money, wealth, or technologies that are not stable and not always available. people with “self” anchor believe that they can do anything and feel no need for help. this anchor also can not be held by individuals because ourself is vulnerable, physically or mentally. people with “others” anchor rely heavily on other parties, despite other parties not always available. people with “virtues” materials rely on the life principles that are universal and always there. the four anchor personality dimensions form an abstract layer that indicates the priority level. the highest priority is ideally applied to humans to achieve psychological health (riyono, 2020b). thus, the ideal priority is virtues, while anchors of materials, self, and others are not ideal because they are in the lower layer. in anchor theory, the highest layer is god. however, humans must go through the principle of virtue to “reach” god (figure 1); they cannot reach him directly. compared to other anchors, god is the perfect support for humans because other anchors such as materials, self, and others are changing in nature. relying on god provides an unchanging way that can help humans face their lives (riyono, 2020a). https://changing-sp.com/ 106 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono figure 1 anchor structure note. source: riyono et al., 2012. each individual still has an anchor of materials, self, and others, but can still be effective even when they are not the priority (riyono, 2020b). for example, individuals need social support but must also be aware that social support does not always exist. it is “anchor stability,” a condition whereby individuals make virtues a guide for life and are therefore liberated from the influence of other anchors, that represents the priority of individual anchors. anchor stability describes a condition where individuals rely on god in their lives. this stability is based on psychological stability, rather than referring to personality persistence. history of anchor personality theory anchor personality theory was first published around 2011 in the dissertation of bagus riyono. this theory is about human motivation that is still conflicting in explanations from each researchers, such as motivation theory from skinner, maslow, lewin, and mcclelland (riyono et al., 2012). the anchor theory is based on the point of view that personality is the result of repeated behavioral dynamics (riyono, 2020a). riyono et al. (2012) suggest that the overall dynamics of human behavior based on the anchor theory are as follows: humans as god’s creatures are given the freedom to choose in their lives in the dynamics of the human motivational model. this human freedom is a clear and natural psychological characteristic of each individual. however, there is changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 107 another side to human nature regarding the existence of the future, which is characterized by risk, uncertainty, and hope. this invisible character in humans shows that humans are helpless creatures. consciously or not, individuals are aware of the paradox within themselves. this paradox forms an instability in the human psyche that feeds the urge to compensate. in order to compensate for the instability of his creation, man has always sought a guide that guides his daily behavior. happiness or suffering is determined by how individuals choose and build their hold. (pp. 242–247) from the explanation of riyono et al. (2012), anchor theory involves an under standing of human nature and godhead. this understanding includes the existence and greatness of god, human nature, the nature of life, and how to obtain happiness. in addition, riyono (2020a) suggests that in anchor theory, there is an “in search” component which refers to human freedom to act. the anchor components have also been described and refer to how individuals respond to situations (riyono, 2020a). regarding individual development, it is possible to shift anchors, although they are not certain. riyono (2020b) suggests that a child may have other anchors due to their limited abilities. furthermore, the anchor can shift to self when the individual has reached a period of focusing on themseives (self-centered) which is generally identical in adolescence. the more mature the human intellectual level is, the stronger the tendency to dominate anchor virtues will be. even so, it does not mean that children or youth cannot achieve virtues. this group can have anchor virtues when they have an understanding of the priorities of anchor materials, self, and others. individuals need to have a stable anchor so that they can adaptively face their lives. individuals with stable anchors are those who place virtue as the mainstay in their life. this is due to the fact that virtues are long-term and more universal, compared to self, other people, and material things (van oudenhoven et al., 2014). for example, the virtue of caring for fellow human beings is believed the same in some cultures as it is in others. anchor stability which refers to reliance on virtues does not mean that individuals leave other anchors. pratiwi and riyono (2017) state that individuals with stable anchors also need material things, but these are not priorities and goals. thus, it can be concluded that anchor personality stability is a condition when individuals make virtue values (virtues) a guide in life while still paying attention to the components of themselves, others, and material things but not as priorities and goals. the term “stability” in anchor personality theory does not refer to personality persistence over time, but refers to psychological stability. in other personality theories that are deterministic in nature, for example the big five personality (costa & mccrae, 1988) or those based on psychoanalysis, it can be said that the term “stability” refers to personality persistence. this is also a criticism of these deterministic personality theories because it seems as if humans have limits to be better. new research also show that personality can change at various ages, although it predominates in early adulthood (harris et al., 2016; roberts & mroczek, 2008). on the other hand, in anchor personality theory, anchor dominance can change according to an individual’s understanding of the ideal priorities of the anchor dimensions. thus, it can be https://changing-sp.com/ 108 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono concluded that the stability perspective on anchor personality theory is different from deterministic personality theory. according to anchor personality theory, four dimensions that measure anchor materials, self, others, and virtues comprise anchor personality (riyono, 2020a). each dimension consists of five aspects, which are explained as follows: 1. mainstay to choose and decide that support for individuals which can be material, self, others, or virtue in the process of choosing and deciding in certain situations in their lives or around them. 2. attribution of success that suppose the individual’s perception of the source of his success, the individual can interpret their success as a function of materials, self, others, or virtues. 3. attribution of happiness that describes the source of individual happiness, which means that individuals can feel happiness because of materials, self, others, or virtues. 4. mainstay to hang on to hope that explains how individuals entrust something in their daily lives, which can be in the form of entrusting materials, self, others, or virtues. 5. mainstay for interpreting phenomena that clarifies how individuals interpret an event in life or around themselves. individuals can interpret events because they are related to materials, self, others, or virtues. relationship between anchor personality and true meaning although not explicitly, previous studies have shown that a relationship exists between virtue and meaning. according to krause et al. (2019), individuals who apply principles of life, such as caring for others, forgiving, and helping others, experience a higher sense of meaning in life. conversely, the behavior of helping others may not stem from anchor virtues when the individual aims to gain recognition from others (anchor others), demonstrate self-ability (anchor self), or obtain material compensation (anchor materials). the value in action theory and morality studies also help to explain the relation ship between anchor virtues and true meaning. one of the virtues in value in action (via) theory, namely, courage, consists of characteristics that facilitate how individuals train themselves to achieve valuable goals (ruch et al., 2021). furthermore, valuable purposes are part of true meaning. in the study of morality, virtue is a disposition that helps individuals maintain good life patterns and goals because virtue helps people face difficulties, dangers, temptations, and disturbances and increases selfknowledge and knowledge of good things (values) (macintyre, 1984). thus, anchor virtues contribute positively to true meaning. the study of materialism shows a link between anchor materials and true meaning. a reliance on material anchors can be described as materialism. burroughs and rindfleisch (2002) found that materialism is more concerned with material objects than people because objects can give people power and control over others. duh (2015) argues that materialism risks ignoring public interest because it emphasizes personal satisfaction. there is also a negative relationship between the anchor self and true meaning because a self-centered attitude is related to the perception that one has no meaning (khatami & khodabakhshi-koolaee, 2021). in the anchor of others, the relationship with true meaning forms a negative relationship because the changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 109 dominance of the anchor of others potentially makes individuals try to meet social demands (akhtar & firmanto, 2021). the true meaning theory, which tries to answer the ambiguity of the theory of meaning, has not been examined much. previous findings mainly utilized meaning in life theory without exploring how research participants experienced the meaning. on the other hand, the psychological implications of the existing concept of meaning indicate the need for a concept limiting individual subjectivity. in addition, interactive personality theory has not been widely used to achieve true meaning. therefore, this study will empirically focus on understanding the relationship between anchor personality and true meaning. this research was conducted in the early adult group. this group is assumed to be experiencing early maturity as individuals and has undergone a transition period, such that orientation, worldview, and self-stability have already begun to form (arnett, 2000; icenogle et al., 2019). in addition, the early adult group has generally already experienced significant life events. it stimulates the formation of meaning, for example, in work, forming a new family (marriage), or independent processes from parents (winpenny et al., 2020). forming meaning successfully during early adulthood is also essential because it becomes a protective factor for the later life development process. on the other hand, the experience of existential problems during this period also has the potential for individuals to experience periods of “bottomless darkness” (lundvall et al., 2020). based on a theoretical review of the relationship between anchor dimensions and true meaning, this study has several hypotheses. material, self, and other anchors are hypothesized to negatively predict true meaning. on the other hand, virtue anchors positively predict true meaning. furthermore, anchor stability also has a significant positive role in true meaning. method subject the subjects of this study were indonesian citizens, male and female, aged 18–34 years. early adulthood generally starts from 18–34 years (cunningham et al., 2020; franssen et al., 2020). nonetheless, this study focuses on individuals who have at least entered college because those who have completed schooling, as a demographic, are an important market, among others in early adulthood (schulenberg & schoon, 2012). subjects were obtained by non-probability sampling using a snowball sampling approach (creswell, 2012). snowball sampling was used because it allows the acquisition of many subjects even though generalization of research results cannot be made (creswell, 2012). firstly, the authors shared an online poster through the social media and colleagues. secondly, the authors ask their colleagues to share the poster to each of their colleagues or societies that met the requirements. responses from the participants were collected in the google1 spreadsheet. this research received ethical approval from the faculty of psychology, universitas gadjah mada, with the number 6717/un1/fpsi.1/3/sd/pt.01.04/2021 on november 12, 2021. 1 google™ and the google logo are trademarks of google inc. in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 110 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono the number of subjects for this study amounted to 212, with an age range from 18 to 34 years, with a mean age of 22.38 years. of the total, 65 people (30.66%) were male and 147 subjects were female (69.34%). a total of 198 people (93.4%) were not married; two people were married but did not have children (0.94%), and 12 people were married and had children (5.66%). in terms of education, 104 people (49.05%) graduated from high school; four people (1.89%) graduated with a diploma; 94 people (44.34%) graduated with a bachelor’s degree; and ten people (4.72%) graduated with a master’s degree. research instrument true meaning scale. the true meaning scale was used to measure true meaning, as constructed by riyono (2021a, 2021b). this scale consists of 10 items (each aspect of purpose and value has five items) with four answer choices, and one answer indicates true meaning. what i consider the most important in my life is …” (purpose aspect) and “in my opinion, the essence of pancasila (indonesia national principles) is …” (value aspect). the correct answer was given a score of 1, whereas the wrong answer was given a score of 0. in this study, the true meaning scale has reliability with a cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.614. the reliability of the true meaning scale in the previous studies was 0.711 and 0.793, respectively, when administered to subjects aged 18–68 (riyono, 2021a, 2021b). anchor personality inventory (api). the api scale was used to measure anchor personality (riyono, 2020a), which consists of four dimensions that measure anchor materials, self, others, and virtues. each dimension consists of four aspects: the reliance on choosing and deciding, the attribution of success and happiness, the reliance on hoping, and interpreting phenomena. each dimension consists of 10 items, and the assessment is in the form of a likert with five answer options, namely, 1 = very not appropriate, 2 = not appropriate, 3 = quite appropriate, 4 = appropriate, and 5 = very appropriate. in this study, the reliability coefficient of cronbach’s alpha was .791 for material anchors; .751 for anchors of self; .723 for other anchors; and .740 for anchor virtues. previous research shows the reliability of each dimension in a range from .737 to .852 in the employee group (dwatra, 2016) and the range from .836 to .919 in the education staff group (nugrahany, 2017). the construct validity of the api was measured by confirmatory factor analysis (cfa). the cfa results show that each anchor dimension has five items that strongly represent each aspect. cfa with five items produces a model with the majority loading factor above 0.4, but there are two items with a loading factor on the self dimension of 0.368 and 0.399. the model’s fit is also indicated by rmsea .0572 (model fit if < .06) and srmr .073 (model fit if < .08). this study used a standardized score for anchor personality dimensions to form a composite variable for anchor stability. this calculation is a correction for the stability of the anchor composite variable formula from previous research that did not use a standardized score (ashari, 2019; rohma, 2019; triatmojo, 2019). akhtar and firmanto (2021) mention that mathematical formulas are unsuitable for finding anchor stability because anchor stability is a complex inter-anchor psychological dynamic changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 111 in individuals. nonetheless, song et al. (2013) stated that standardized scores are usable in forming composite variables included in the averaging type. using the anchor stability formula with a standardized score can also represent the dynamics of individual anchors, namely, when anchor virtues have been cleaned of the effects of anchor materials, self, and others. data analysis the analysis utilized in this research is multiple regression and simple linear regression performed with jasp software. before testing the hypothesis, assumption tests were performed for each analysis. multiple regression analysis was performed on true meaning as the dependent variable and on anchor dimensions as an independent variable. furthermore, simple linear regression analysis was conducted to observe the role of anchor stability on true meaning. anchor stability is obtained from the following formula: 𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏 = 𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍 − 𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑎𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍 − |𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑏𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍 − 𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑆𝑆𝑆𝑆ℎ𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑍𝑍𝑍𝑍| (1) results descriptive data based on descriptive analysis, we can see that on average, the subjects answered incorrectly on the aspects of true meaning, thus indicating low true meaning (table 1). the results of these anchor dimensions indicate that subjects have higher virtue anchors than materials, self, and other anchors. overall, these results can be seen in table 1. table 1 descriptive data variable xmin xmax total average item score average sd true meaning purpose 0 5 2.41 0.48 1.13 value 0 5 1.73 0.35 1.22 anchor materials 6 25 17.58 3.52 4.08 self 7 25 17.53 3.51 3.48 others 6 24 16.40 3.28 3.61 virtues 11 25 21.43 4.29 2.91 data categorization the data categorization used in this study is based on a hypothetical score (table 2). we can see that, in the true meaning variable, a majority of subjects fall under the low category. in anchor self and others, most subjects are in the medium group. on the other hand, in anchor materials and virtues, most subjects are in the high group (table 3). https://changing-sp.com/ 112 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono table 2 data categorization variable n low(x < mean – 1sd) n middle (mean – 1sd ≤ x < mean + 1sd) n high (mean + 1sd ≤ x) true meaning x < 3.4 3.4 ≤ x < 6.7 6.7 ≤ x materials, self, others, and virtues anchors x < 11.7 11.7 ≤ x < 18.3 18.3 ≤ x table 3 results of data categorization variable n low n middle n high true meaning 100 (47.2%) 80 (37.7%) 32 (15.1%) materials anchors 18 (8.5%) 93 (43.9%) 101 (47.6%) self-anchors 13 (6.1%) 116 (54.7%) 83 (39.2%) others anchors 21 (9.9%) 121 (57.1%) 70 (33.0%) virtues anchors 1 (0.5%) 37 (17.5%) 174 (82.1%) assumption test linearity and homoscedasticity. the data in this study are linear, and there is no heteroscedasticity. it is viewed from the spread of the plots, showing relatively evenly distributed residual data. this linearity and homoscedasticity occur in the data on the relationship between the four dimensions of anchor and true meaning (figure 2) and on anchor stability and true meaning (figure 3). figure 2 scatterplot for anchor dimensions and true meaning changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 113 figure 3 scatterplot for anchor stability and true meaning multicollinearity. there is no multicollinearity between the anchor dimensions and true meaning. this can be seen from the variance inflation factor (vif) value of all anchor dimensions between 1 and 10 and the multicollinearity test tolerance value above 0.01 (table 4). although not all vif and tolerance results are close to 1, the data of this study do not show multicollinearity because factor analysis results show that the anchor model with four dimensions shows the fit of the model. table 4 results of the multicollinearity test dependent variable: true meaning tolerance vif materials anchors .685 1.460 self-anchors .728 1.373 others anchors .957 1.044 virtues anchors .954 1.048 residual normality. the residual normality test can be seen in the histogram and normal q–q plot. the standardized residual histogram from the anchor dimensions and the true meaning data, as well as the stability of the anchor and the true meaning data, indicates normality. this is indicated by a bell shape, although there is a slight positive slope (figure 4 and figure 6). furthermore, based on the q–q plot, the residual data on the relationship of the anchor dimensions and anchor stability to the true meaning tend to match the predicted values (figures 5 and figure 7). thus, overall, this study met all the assumptions required in the regression analysis. https://changing-sp.com/ 114 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono figure 4 standardized residuals histogram of the anchor dimensions and true meaning figure 6 standardized residuals histogram of the anchor stability and true meaning hypothesis testing the relationship between the four anchor dimensions and anchor stability is shown on table 5. virtue anchors positively predict true meaning among the four anchor dimensions, whereas other anchors have a negative relationship, except for other anchors that have no significant relationship in this regression analysis. in addition, the anchor dimensions computed in anchor stability also have a significant positive relationship with true meaning. the correlation between anchor dimensions can be seen in table 5. based on multiple regression analysis using the forward method, we can see an increase in anchor virtues and a decrease in anchor materials, and a significant increase is self-predicted in true meaning (model 3). this model is also the best model figure 5 q–q plot of standardized residuals from the anchor dimensions and true meaning figure 7 q–q plot of standardized residuals from the anchor stability and true meaning changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 115 for predicting the increase in true meaning compared to the other models; this can be seen in the increase in r2 (table 6). the simple linear regression analysis reports show an increase in anchor stability as predicting a significant increase in true meaning. table 5 correlation matrix variable 1 2 3 4 5 1. true meaning 2. materials – .497*** 3. self – .460*** .516*** 4. others – .094 .178** .024 5. virtue .396*** – .202** – .125 .030 6. anchor stability .488*** – .605*** – .307*** – .022 .710*** note. * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001. table 6 regression analysis results variables b se b β t r2 model 1 0.247constant 3.905 0.483 8.093*** material anchors –0.222 0.027 –0.497 –8.307*** model 2 0.339 constant –1.227 1.516 –0.810* material anchors –0.125 0.017 –0.479 –7.151*** virtue anchors 0.124 0.030 0.278 4.150*** model 3 0.391 constant –0.406 1.489 –0.273* materials anchors –0.079 0.022 –0.305 –3.639*** virtues anchors 0.128 0.029 0.287 4.413*** self-anchors –0.076 0.023 –0.272 –0.272** model 4 constant 0.559 0.146 3.821 0.251 anchor stability 0.529 0.075 0.501 7.096 note. * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001. models 1, 2, and 3 were obtained from multiple regression, whereas model 4 was obtained from simple linear regression. https://changing-sp.com/ 116 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono discussion this study aims to determine the role of anchor personality dimensions (materials, self, others, and virtues) and the composite form of anchor dimensions, such as anchor stability, on true meaning. results indicate that virtue anchors and anchor stability play a significant role in increasing true meaning. on the other hand, self and material anchors contribute to a significant decline in true meaning. in contrast, anchors of others do not contribute to a significant decrease in true meaning. contradictions are found in the data, namely, high virtues but also high materials accompanied by low true meaning. the relationship between anchor materials and true meaning is theoretically negative, while anchor virtues and true meaning ideally have a positive relationship. this contradiction can occur because the items in these anchor virtues contain universal values, so individuals are prone to social desirability. on the other hand, items in the dimensions of materials, self, and others tend to be neutral. item characteristics and measurement results can help to identify items with social desirability potential. items with evaluative values, namely, good or bad according to individuals, can encourage individuals to give high ratings (konstabel et al., 2006). furthermore, this evaluative value is identifiable from the average rating above the median value of the scale used (bäckström & björklund, 2013). for example, if the scale used is likert (1–5), then items with high social desirability tend to average above 3. the potential for social desirability on the virtues dimension in the anchor personality inventory has been anticipated by composite variables and variations within the item context. the composite variable obtained by reducing the virtues anchor score with materials, self, and other anchors produces virtues that have been “cleansed” of the three dimensions. it is necessary to clean the virtues anchor because, within the individual, there are also anchor materials, self, and others. the resulting anchor stability shows the strength or weakness of individual virtues because the resulting score goes from a negative to a positive score range. however, this composite variable in the anchor personality inventory requires evaluation by conducting further research, especially regarding the suitability of the formula used with the measurement principles and theory used (mckenna & heaney, 2020). the subsequent anticipation is related to the variation of item context. bäckström and björklund (2013) suggest that a high average rating is essential to identifying critical personality dimensions. furthermore, bäckström and björklund (2013) also explain that compared to using items with variations in the average rating, it is better to use context or behavior variations on the same personality dimension. aspects in the anchor personality inventory themselves take various forms in individual contexts in dealing with everyday situations. these aspects include reliance on choosing and deciding, attribution of success and happiness, reliance on hoping, and interpreting phenomena. the low true meaning score is attributable to the characteristics of most of the subjects in this study. for example, most of them have not married yet. social relationships such as marriage can be one way for individuals to achieve meaning because in marriage, some experiences are stressful (frankl, 1946/1992; park & george, 2013). in the meaning-making model, stressful situations motivate individuals to changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 117 find meaning (park & george, 2013). however, marital status is not a certainty by which individuals achieve true meaning because true meaning can also be achieved through individuals making active efforts such as reflective thinking (czyżowska & gurba, 2021). virtues are individual characteristics that can apply values within various contexts (kristjánsson, 2010). the thinking process is a component of virtues that contributes to true meaning. the tendency to act on virtues requires understanding the appropriate context in which to apply them in terms of time and place (root luna et al., 2017). this understanding can then encourage the formation of mature decisions (kristjánsson et al., 2021). this decision is formed because of substantive moral aspirations and cognitively guided moral emotions (kristjánsson et  al.,  2021). therefore,  in  general,  actions based on virtues can provide benefits to individuals. virtues  can  manifest  in  various  forms,  including  those  related  to  the  process  of  personal  understanding,  namely,  intellectual  humility,  which  is  related  to  acquiring  knowledge,  including  reflective  thinking,  the  need  for  knowledge,  involvement  in  intellectual activities, curiosity, open-mindedness, and knowledge (krumrei-mancuso  et al., 2020). this idea is supported by al-attas, who argues that personal knowledge is a  sign that he has achieved meaning (wan daud, 1998). thus, virtues’ contribution to true meaning is based on how virtues encourage individuals to attempt a comprehensive understanding of their life situations. the existence of science encourages individuals to choose and decide, to attribute success and happiness, and to hope and interpret phenomena based on knowledge so that individuals can have ideals and values that are essential to be lived and believed. the knowledge component in these virtues is essential in every other aspect of the other anchor dimensions, namely materials, self, and others. previous research has also shown that reflection on life, especially about oneself and the future, facilitates individuals to find their purpose in life (schippers & ziegler, 2019). on the other hand, relying on materials, self, and others indicates that individuals do not maximize their potential to seek essential knowledge and direct their actions based on knowledge. the role of virtues anchor on true meaning has not been found in previous research, but other findings represent it. meaning, which leads to true meaning, was found more within the group of subjects who believe in god than it did within the group of non-believers (duggal & basu, 2012). the meaning found by groups who believe in god includes self-understanding and serenity, pro-social attitudes and responsibility, and higher life goals (cranney, 2013). on the other hand, the meaning found by nonbelievers includes believing that events in the world are coincidences and that there is no real purpose in life. that is, reliance on god, which marks an individual's anchor  virtues, encourages individuals to find true meaning. worldview implies a belief in god which is internalized in life (hackney & sanders,  2003).  with  worldview,  individuals  follow  patterns  in  how  they  respond  to  life,  which  can  lead  to  true  or  false  meaning,  depending  on  the  individual’s  level  of  reliance  on  god. reliance on god can encourage the formation of true meaning because of one’s  worldview. worldview contains life’s basic philosophy and principles (ng & tay, 2020), but the general public is unfamiliar with this concept (gulliford et al., 2021). this shows https://changing-sp.com/ 118 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono how the learning process is essential to individuals’ gaining knowledge about life and its meaning (wan daud, 1998), especially those that lead to true meaning. the relationship between material anchors and true meaning can be discerned from the representative concept of materialism. material anchors are individuals’ reliance on material objects such as money or other property in the manner they deal with life (riyono, 2020b). materialism is values and goals that focus on wealth, possessions, self-image, and social status (kasser, 2016). individuals with material anchors tend to be oriented toward materialism because of the manner they rely on the material objects they get in life. however, no studies have empirically tested the relationship between these two concepts, so further studies are needed. as a theoretical concept related to material anchors, materialism is negatively related to meaning in the form of meaning in life (kashdan & breen, 2007). parker and ivtzan (2016) also found that individuals with high material aspirations tend to have lower eudaimonic well-being. eudaimonic well-being describes the presence of personal and social abilities, including meaning in life, which contribute optimally to psychosocial functioning (ryff, 2018). thus, the results of this study indirectly support that material anchors contribute negatively to the true meaning. the relationship between the anchor of others and true meaning differs from the role of social relations contributing to the formation of meaning. according to frankl (1946/1992), social relationships are one factor in forming meaning in life. however, not just social relations form meaning, especially true meaning but more so the processes that occur within them. social relations are aspects that individuals generally own, but how individuals place their social relations needs to be explored further to form meaning. therefore, in reviewing social relations in the context of anchors, the thing that needs to be the focus is how individuals rely on other people for their lives. in anchor of others, social relations or other parties are very reliable in dealing with life, for example, relying on happiness or success in others. this is illustrated by emotional dependence on others, characterized by excessive emotional demands, narrow, unbalanced interpersonal relationships, or excessive need for others (petruccelli et al., 2014). another study found that anticipated and social support were associated with more profound meaning in life (krause, 2007). machell et al. (2014) also found that positive everyday events in one’s social environment were associated with increased meaning. however, in the results of these studies, meaning is not within the scope of the concept of true meaning, and the dynamics of social relations are not explored much, so the level of social dependence cannot be known. in other studies, the relationship between the anchor of self and true meaning can be represented in self-determination theory (sdt) components autonomy and competence (ryan & deci, 2017). autonomy is the feeling that action can be done by dint of self-reliance. competence is a feeling that one can do something, complete work, and achieve goals. kukita et al. (2022) found that autonomy contributed to meaningfulness in a quadratic relationship. the meaning is higher at low to moderate autonomy, but at a high level, there is no increase. it also confirms the importance of placing priority on anchor dimensions. in this case, the anchor self is not suitable as the main priority to form meaning because it will cause a decrease in meaning. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 102–128 119 the three anchor personality dimensions not contributing to the increase in true meaning can be explained in terms of their relationships. individuals with low wellbeing tend to be self-centered and motivated only to fulfill their needs and pleasures (wissing et al., 2021). on the other hand, individuals with high levels of well-being tend to focus on benefits for others and the greater good (wissing et al., 2021). other research shows an increase in materialism in the young generation aged 18–25 years, which is influenced by several factors, including self-centeredness and the development of a false personality to be accepted by the social environment (masood et al., 2016). thus, individuals who prioritize anchor materials tend to have a high level of self and other anchors but not virtues anchor. results of multiple regression analysis show that other anchors do not contribute significantly. however, this does not affect the use of the formation of composite anchor stability variables. previous studies on measuring wellbeing have found different interpretations of composite variables when their components are separated. the well-being instrument, compas-w, consists of six components; from these components, the overall well-being of individuals can be formed (gatt et al., 2014). in this study, measurements were also made based on composite variables and well-being components, namely, composure (calm), own-worth (self-esteem), mastery, positivity (positive attitude), achievement, and satisfaction. the interpretation of anchor stability and separated anchor dimensions is also different. this research contributes to a new understanding of the relationship between true meaning and anchor personality. however, some limitations can be used as improvements in future research. first, the distribution of subjects is not balanced. it occurs in the unbalanced proportion of gender, age, last education, and marital status. according to frankl (1946/1992), marital status is essential in forming meaning. it can be explored further by comparing statuses were there to be a more even distribution of subjects. second, the instrument for measuring true meaning is relatively new and needs improvement. in this study, the reliability of the true meaning scale is quite good for an instrument still under development as indicated by its cronbach’s alpha coefficient of around .6 (ursachi et al., 2015). on the other hand, in general, a cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .7 is considered quite applicable (taber, 2018). improvement of this item also makes it possible to conduct a validity test involving a group of experts. third, this study uses the concept of adulthood, which is still influenced by cultural bias, namely, the concept of early adulthood from scales et al. (2016) and emerging adulthood from arnett (2000). early adulthood still refers to the condition of western society, where social norms are different from those in indonesia. for example, the culture of leaving home as an assessment of maturity or living together between women and men is not always in the form of marriage (cohabiting). thus, further research is expected to be able to use the true meaning scale after going through psychometric testing and selecting subjects that represent the intended community. https://changing-sp.com/ 120 annisa ardi ayuningtyas, bagus riyono conclusion this study shows that an increase in anchor virtues, a decrease in self, and a decrease in materials contribute to an increase in true meaning. anchor personality in the form of anchor stability also predicts an increase in true meaning. in addition, this study’s results indicate that for individuals to achieve true meaning, they can glean in depth the principles of life (virtues) from the learning process not limited to education. on the other hand, by failing to apply the principles of life, individuals risk being led to false meaning. implications this research has implications for developing the concept of meaning directed at the individual’s advantage. the theory of meaning, which explains true meaning, can be used by mental health practitioners to determine an individual’s freedom to choose to achieve true meaning. in addition, mental health practitioners can also see the psychological stability of individuals in terms of their anchors. furthermore, strengthening the freedom to choose and anchor virtues is accomplished by encouraging clients to be involved in the learning process, which can be conducted in various settings, formally or informally, and at any time. references akhtar, h., & firmanto, a. 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(2011). 청소년의 생의 의미에 영향을 미치는 요인 [factors influencing meaning of life in adolescents]. journal of korean academy of child health nursing, 17(1), 31–38. https://doi.org/10.4094/jkachn.2011.17.1.31 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-020-01024-4 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-020-01024-4 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-019-09771-8 https://doi.org/10.4094/jkachn.2011.17.1.31 changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 224–226 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.227 © 2023 swapna gopinath swapna.gopinath@fulbrightmail.org received 17 september 2022 published online 10 april 2023 book review re-reading the tales of colonisation: an ecological perspective amitav ghosh (2021). the nutmeg’s curse: parables for a planet in crisis. university of chicago press. swapna gopinath symbiosis institute of media and communication, pune, india when a writer narrates the tale of human society and their journey into modernity in its totality, it will be ridden with instances of violent erasure along with moments of resistance and tales of survival. amitav ghosh’s elaborately researched work, the nutmeg’s curse: parables for a planet in crisis, published in 2021, during the times of the pandemic, traces this journey of humankind, in a fascinating manner, into the age of the anthropocene. the nutmeg’s curse begins with the description of a monument in ternate, indonesia, which has the sculpture of a clove. this “acknowledgement of the role of botanical products” (p. 112) in the memory and history of geographical regions around indian ocean becomes a symbol of the violence, the genocide, of the stories of extermination that define the acts of colonization. beginning with the story of the nutmeg, ghosh compels us to revisit the history of exploitation of natural resources to an earlier age when european travellers began their exploration of the global south. in the age of decolonizing knowledge, ghosh’ work is a timely one since it traces the history of colonization through the erasure of indigenous population and indigenous knowledge. the work, though non-fiction, reads like a prose narrative, the story telling often providing the reader a pleasurable reading experience, all the while reminding the reader of the history of human progress, the story of acts of othering in the march towards civilization. the author of this work on human society and its intricate relationship with nature, amitav ghosh hails from india, and writes both fiction and non-fiction. as a novelist, he enthralls the reader with tales from south asia, and as a writer of non-fiction, he writes about the ecological concerns of his times. his latest work titled the nutmeg’s curse: parables for a planet in crisis analyzes the impact of western normative structures, that are embedded in the values of modernity, on the globe. it is informative as well as imaginative, thereby providing a pleasurable https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:swapna.gopinath@fulbrightmail.org changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 224–226 225 yet thought provoking reading experience. nutmeg’s curse is a tale of the hegemonic human agency seeking control over nature, where violence, aggression, greed and the desire for power define the trajectory of colonialism, capitalism and western modernity. the text dismantles the once-revered discourses of modernization and “myth-making of modernity” (p. 19) through his story of the nutmeg. as ghosh says: “humanity is being so closely entangled with the products of the earth that the past cannot be remembered without them” (p. 91). amitav ghosh weaves his narrative around the structural violence of colonization by foregrounding the tale of the nutmeg, that acts as a trope symbolizing the vicious trajectory of capitalism over centuries, which was once a priceless spice, “a fetish, primordial forms of the commodity” (p. 9) and later, as it lost its value as a commodity, nutmeg trees were cut down, making it costlier by reducing the supply in the market. climate change, according to ghosh, is a multidimensional threat to the planet and its geopolitical dimension cannot be ignored. genocides, refugee migrations, erasing cultures and communities and above all, the systemic violence that validates the destruction of the planet—remain significant milestones in their journey towards civilization and modernity. nutmeg’s curse tells a melancholic story, recounted in a poignant fashion, liberally interspersed with quotes from memoirs, testimonies and narratives of travelers, giving the work credibility yet maintaining its narrative quality. ghosh’s earlier work of non-fiction, on the age of the anthropocene, titled the great derangement: climate change and the unthinkable (2016) was about the agency of nature and non-human species and the canonical literary texts from the global north that failed to envision such perspectives. but his later work, nutmeg’s curse attempts a more comprehensive analysis of climate change, discusses the historical contexts in which geological changes have been happening over time, and proceeds to explain its contemporaneityas a global phenomenon of immense magnitude. the text invites the reader to reimagine the place of the human on the planet by re-reading modernity’s fundamental normative structures and decolonizing histories from the west. he cites from sir francis bacon to lord tennyson and to the latest texts on human social experiences and their interactions with the natural world, to clarify his position on modernity. ghosh further cites the “intensely chauvinistic nature of english literature” (p. 44) that perpetrates the myth of civilizing the native “barbarian”. furthering his arguments on human centrality and ecological interventions, ghosh uses the concept of “terra-forming” (p. 53) to explain “biopolitical conflicts” through five centuries from the spice wars to the latest social movements involving climate activist greta thunberg (p. 55). he explains this process further: “where bolsonaro is right is that a large part of brazil has so far escaped the fate of the interior of north america: it has not yet been terraformed into a neo-europe like, say, the american midwest. but this is exactly what bolsonaro’s government intends to change; the goal is to complete the project of colonial terraforming by replacing vast swathes of the rain forest with cattle ranches, mines, and soya and sugarcane monocultures” (p. 213). ghosh perceives history and politics as not merely human engagements with territories and populace, but they are seen enmeshed in environmental factors, and cites examples from the americas. colonization was not only about occupying https://changing-sp.com/ 226 swapna gopinath and owning territories but also about emerging as forces of irreversible change in the ecology of the land as well, ranging from the introduction of domestic animals to construction of dams. it was consolidated by a “belief in human exceptionalism” (p. 81), resulting in the misconception of an inert planet. he speaks of the “process of subjugating, and reducing to muteness, an entire universe of beings that was once thought of as having agency, powers of communication, and the ability to make meaning—animals, trees, volcanoes, nutmegs” (p. 190). the book goes on to successfully incorporate the concept of a “living earth—gaia” (p. 84), adopted from james lovelock’s gaia hypothesis, along with the concept of vitalism as an antidote to the rationale of modernity that normalizes human interventions and the abusive, exploitative character of human-nature encounters. ghosh explains the multiple dimensions of this planetary crisis, resulting from the destruction of the environment, by looking beyond the economic determinants and attempts to pinpoint the reason for the significance of fossil fuels even in the new millennium. he explains the manner in which these forces “reinforce structures of power” (p. 102), and, therefore, this energy transition can also lead to paradigm shifts in geopolitical dynamics. with largescale acceptance of renewable energy sources, ghosh envisages a power shift from the west. another dimension to the planetary crisis is the humanitarian issue of climate refugees. ghosh, like a storyteller that he is, begins this discussion from a survivor’s tale and leads the reader towards the systemic violence that seeks to erase the oppressed and othered class from the collective memory of the populace. ghosh elucidates it further with the example of the pandemic thereby breaking the illusion that economic backwardness aggravates a crisis that is related to the natural world. it is inequity of all forms that worsens the condition of life forms, and it is concern not only for the marginalized sections of society, but for the whole planet. he identifies normative discourses around the “valorization of personal pursuits” and the glorification of the “ideology of morbid individualism” in contemporary societies, that is present in literature and other cultural artefacts and philosophies, as contributing significantly to this mindset that results in turning “crises into tragedies” (p. 177). ghosh concludes his work around the concept of ecofascism that is prominent in the west, where ecological movements are suspiciously viewed even by the lesser privileged. he finds “vitalist ideas and politics” (p. 233) waning in importance even in a country like india with its spiritual tradition and pantheistic practices. yet he is optimistic, and believes that “global connectivity” will help build collectives who will participate, perform and gather “to find a common idiom and shared story” (p. 242). the nutmeg’s curse is exceptional for its display of ghosh’ scholarship. extensive notes and bibliography that is a significant part of the text reveals the research that has gone into the work, which is truly interdisciplinary in nature. the work at times falters in building an argument, sometimes it rambles around several ideas, yet it keeps the reader mesmerized in the reading experience. ghosh succeeds in moving through time, from the ancient past to the present, and his scholarship which leads the reader through the ideas from around the world keeps us captivated. being a storyteller, ghosh successfully presents facts in the format of stories, the human and the world in the text, appealing to the empathetic reader, thereby ensuring that the work is a critique of the anthropocene. changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 173–177 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.236 © 2023 natalia a. chernyaeva chernyaeva@kunstkamera.ru received 2 may 2023 accepted 15 may 2023 published online 3 july 2023 book review christina weis (2021). surrogacy in russia: an ethnography of reproductive labour, stratification and migration. emerald natalia a. chernyaeva museum of anthropology and ethnography of the russian academy of sciences, st. petersburg, russia despite the increased use of surrogacy as a fertility treatment method in russia, this technology continues to generate controversies and heated public debates. russian and international scholars examine legal, medical, and media discourses on surrogate motherhood in russia, as well as online representations of surrogacy on the internet forums and in social media (nartova, 2009; rivkin-fish, 2013; siegl, 2018). however, academic literature has so far analyzed surrogate motherhood in russia in a limited scope and format, such as book chapters and articles on particular aspects of this phenomenon. the book under review is the first monograph devoted to the institute of surrogacy in russia in its complexity and breadth. the book’s author, christina weis, is a social and cultural anthropologist and a lecturer at de montfort university (leicester, uk). she based her book on extensive ethnographic research conducted from 2011 to 2021 among surrogate mothers, commissioning parents, fertility clinics, and surrogacy agencies in st. petersburg, moscow, karelia, and minsk. the book explores “the social organization and cultural framing of commercial gestational surrogacy in russia” (p. 3) in the context of global surrogacy practices and institutions. the book opens with a prologue, in which the reader meets gabriela, a woman from moldova who came to st. petersburg to offer her services as a surrogate mother to a russian couple. the author describes how she first met gabriela in person on a cold evening in a working-class neighborhood of st. petersburg. having agreed to talk about her experience, gabriela, to the author’s surprise, declined her invitation to sit in a warm café, preferring walking on icy streets. as it turns out, her contract with a surrogate agency, which she resorted to after failed attempts to find client parents on her own, forbade her to talk about https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:chernyaeva@kunstkamera.ru 174 natalia a. chernyaeva her circumstances. “i don’t have any rights. the parents have all the advantages, and i have none,” gabriela explains to the author. thus begins weis’ observant and thoughtful exploration of surrogate motherhood in russia. weis uses gabriela’s story as a device to move along her analysis of social and cultural practices and institutions underlying commercial surrogacy in russia. the book has five chapters, which are “introduction: surrogacy in russia,” “becoming a surrogacy worker,” “making the relationship work,” “reproductive migrations,” “disruptions and reconfigurations”, in addition to a conclusion, “at crossroads,” and four appendixes. chapter 1 situates surrogacy in russia within the larger context of surrogacy practices worldwide. after a brief survey of the legal frameworks in which the surrogacy market operates in russia and the body of international scholarship on surrogacy, the author argues that the common tropes of transnational surrogacy, “such as the north–south exploitation and brown bodies carrying white babies,” or “the framing of surrogacy as a labour of love” (p. 16) in western countries do not capture how surrogate motherhood is seen and conceptualized in russia and other former soviet countries. weis’ central argument in the book is that “in russia, surrogacy is unapologetically seen as an economic transaction, or in the words of the surrogates, a ‘business arrangement’” (pp. 16–17). indicating that gestational surrogacy mothers regard themselves as “workers,” weis introduces the terms “surrogacy worker” to refer to women undertaking the role of surrogate mothers and “surrogacy work” to designate all types of labor involved in surrogacy. the chapter describes the author’s research methodology, sampling, and specifics of recruiting informants for the study. the volume of collected data is impressive: weis interviewed dozens of surrogate mothers, bio-parents, agency employees, and medical specialists conducting participant observation in “fertility clinics, maternity wards, gynaecological units, surrogacy agencies’ premises and in surrogacy workers’ homes and provided accommodation” (p. 17). the author is remarkably open about the difficulties she encountered when entering the field: the limitations imposed by the language barrier, the situational and time constraints, etc., and the way her position in the field influenced the data she acquired. chapter 2 describes how women enter the surrogacy market in russia and outlines the social, economic, and educational characteristics of a typical surrogacy worker. financial insecurity and the lack of well-paid employment constitute the key motivation for women to become a surrogate. “none of the women in my research sample would have opted for surrogacy work if their material situation had been better” (p. 30). the chapter also discusses the selection process of potential surrogates based on “various expectations and racialised imaginaries of the agencies and client parents: besides being healthy, a desirable surrogacy was expected to display docility, a certain amount of financial need and monetary rather than altruistic inclinations” (p. 53). the author explains that prospective surrogates are not recruited from the poorest social class since their lifestyle, eating, and sanitary habits have to meet the criteria of middleclass client parents. the way weis describes “surrogate work” falls into a broad framework of the neoliberal economy based on the exchange of various types of capital. weis introduces changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 173–177 175 the notion of “reproductive capital” to describe the business transactions taking place in surrogacy: “by engaging in surrogacy work and providing their uterus for surrogacy gestation, they [surrogate mothers] are able to convert their reproductive capital into economic capital” (p. 30). she further explores the neoliberal strategies of managing one’s self when discussing the necessity for surrogate workers to perform “emotion work,” i.e., “to continuously manage one’s own emotions” during the pregnancy, to justify their choice from the moral point of view and to maintain emotional detachment from the child they carry (p. 36). weis shows that the intensive medicalization of surrogate pregnancies reinforces the emotional distance between the women and the babies they carry. since surrogate pregnancy requires considerable medical intervention, many surrogate workers perceive their pregnancies as “entirely artificial” (p. 33). chapter 3 addresses the topic of the relationship between client parents and surrogacy workers. depending on whether the parties enter into a direct agreement or choose to contact via a mediating surrogacy agency, they may meet or not meet in person during the surrogacy program. however, regardless of the arrangement, “surrogacy workers and client parents conceptualise their relationship in terms of a hierarchical ‘employee–employer’ relationship” (p. 57). the author acknowledges that the absolute majority of surrogate contracts do not grant surrogate workers the legal status, rights, and protection as “employees.” nevertheless, framing surrogacy in terms of temporary employment is the choice of words by surrogate mothers and reflects their sense of identity and moral understanding of their roles. a corollary to the hierarchical relationship between the client parents and the surrogate worker is that the latter considers it her duty to establish and maintain a smooth relationship that satisfies her employers. weis calls this type of work “relational work” (p. 65), which continues until the child is born. after childbirth, any relationship between the parties ends, in contrast to surrogacy arrangements in north america and some other western countries, where surrogacy is framed as a “gift” and “labor of love.” us surrogacy workers “value a good personal relationship with their client parents during the pregnancy and expect a lasting bond thereafter” (p. 73). in russia, surrogacy is ultimately understood “as a temporary, contractual arrangement and not as an opportunity to create life-long bonds” (p. 76). geographical and geopolitical stratification constitutes an essential aspect of commercial surrogacy in russia. chapter 4 examines “reproductive flows” from the country’s peripheral regions and former soviet union republics to russia’s “repro-hubs,” moscow and st. petersburg. the book analyzes two forms of reproductive mobility: commuting and migration. the former is practiced by surrogate workers living not too far from the repro-hubs and involves visits to the cities for appointments and, eventually, for delivery. women from remote places and other countries migrate to russia’s capitals and stay there for the entire duration of the surrogacy program. weis examines the stark disparities in financial compensation among women from st. petersburg and moscow, women from russia’s periphery, and women arriving from outside russia. racialized imaginaries play a significant role in the geographically-stratified surrogacy market: led by stereotypes, most clients in russia avoid hiring “ethnic” women. as a result, “women from central asian republics, who live in russia and want to become surrogacy workers, tend to significantly lower their financial expectations to compete with slavic women” (p. 49). https://changing-sp.com/ 176 natalia a. chernyaeva chapter 5 addresses the impact of the covid-19 epidemics and the increasingly conservative political climate in the country on the practice of surrogacy in russia, as well as the latest developments in the legislation on surrogate motherhood. the situation, in which, during the covid lockdown, hundreds of children born to surrogates for international couples got stuck within the country’s borders with the parents unable to pick them, was not uniquely russian. in russia, however, the covid surrogacy crisis coincided with the shifting political and public attitudes toward surrogacy, as evidenced by the high-profile criminal case following the death, in january 2020, of an infant born to a surrogate mother for a filipino couple. during the investigation, the authorities arrested employees of a surrogacy agency and a reproductive clinic, including three medical doctors. drawing on the media coverage of the story, which, in my opinion, was sensationalistic rather than accurate, the author interprets this case as a “clampdown” on the current liberal surrogacy policy implemented by “conservative and homophobic politicians” (p. 111). unfortunately, weis overlooked the published comments by expert lawyers who, after a careful investigation into the case, concluded that the human trafficking charges filed against the surrogate agencies were not entirely unfounded and had little to do with the state homophobia.1 in her “conclusion: at crossroads”, weis analyzes the draft bill introduced by the state duma in 2021 that limited access to surrogacy to russian citizens only, and wonders if russia will follow the path already taken by india and mexico toward prohibiting foreign nationals from entering commercial surrogacy agreements. after the book’s publication, in december 2022, the state duma passed a law that restricts access to this technology for foreigners and bans the use of donor oocytes and surrogacy in one procedure, thus eliminating a legal uncertainty, which surfaced in the criminal case of 2020. although this latest development considerably narrows the path of surrogate motherhood in russia, the main trends of the institution of surrogacy highlighted by the author such as conceptualizing surrogacy as a business arrangement and temporary employment for surrogacy workers, geographical and geopolitical stratification of surrogacy market resulting in commuting and migrant surrogacy will most probably continue in the coming years. appendixes 1–4 provide the readers with glimpses of the fieldwork behind the scenes: the list of research participants, fieldnotes on the scholar’s relationship with the informants, a self-reflective piece about the emotional work embedded in doing anthropology, and a sketch of an agency-provided accommodation for surrogates on the outskirts of st. petersburg. the author’s devotion to the empirical data is the book’s strong suit, yet, it does her a disservice at times. given the speed of economic and social change, the author should have relinquished some of her data from 2014–2015 and made updates. for example, the amount of compensation for surrogacy pregnancy had doubled compared to what she cites in the note on conversion table on the first pages. moreover, lawyer svitnev’s 2011 expert assessment of russia as a “reproductive paradise” for foreigners (p. 8), cited in the opening pages of the book, sounds problematic 1 olga zinovieva, a medical lawyer and a member of russian association of human reproduction, provided a detailed examination of 11 episodes of the case that took place from 2014 to 2020 (for more details, see granina, 2020). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 173–177 177 in 2021, when the author of the quote has been charged with human trafficking and is fleeing arrest in another country. the book cites the russian public opinion research center (vciom) survey on surrogacy from 2013, but it fails to mention that the vciom repeated its study in 2021, and the latter showed the public’s increased awareness and acceptance of surrogacy. fortunately, such discrepancies between the realities of surrogacy circa 2015 and those in the year of the book’s publication are not numerous, and they do not undermine the author’s innovative and profound analysis. references granina, n. (2020, july 21). “ia byla potriasena, uvidev ikh za reshetkoi”: trekh rossiiskikh vrachei obvinili v torgovle det’mi. kollegi uvereny v ikh nevinovnosti [“i was shocked to see them behind bars”: three russian doctors were accused of child trafficking. colleagues are convinced of their innocence]. lenta.ru. https://lenta.ru/ articles/2020/07/21/torgovl_deti/ nartova, o. (2009). surrogate motherhood and sperm donorship in the russian media: normalizing the body. in w. de jong & o. tkach (eds.), making bodies, persons and families: normalizing reproductive technologies in russia, switzerland and germany (pp. 75–94). lit. rivkin-fish, m. (2013). conceptualizing feminist strategies for russian reproductive politics: abortion, surrogate motherhood, and family support after socialism. signs, 38(3), 569–593. https://doi.org/10.1086/668606 siegl, v. (2018). aligning the affective body: commercial surrogacy in moscow and the emotional labour of nastraivatsya. swiss journal of sociocultural anthropology, 23, 63–72. weis, c. (2021). surrogacy in russia: an ethnography of reproductive labour, stratification and migration. emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/9781839828966 https://changing-sp.com/ https://lenta.ru/articles/2020/07/21/torgovl_deti/ https://lenta.ru/articles/2020/07/21/torgovl_deti/ https://doi.org/10.1086/668606 https://doi.org/10.1108/9781839828966 changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 150–172 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.2.235 received 4 march 2023 © 2023 hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, accepted 30 may 2023 stanislaus guna published online 3 july 2023 hieronimusdarong@gmail.com, ernaniman79@gmail.com gunastanislaus@gmail.com article where am i now: symbols used in manggarai funeral rite, indonesia hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, stanislaus guna universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus, ruteng, indonesia abstract a symbol has a specific meaning and represents the user’s conception, way of thinking, and interpretation. this study aimed to analyze the symbolic interactions of the manggarai ethnic funeral rite. data were collected through observation, interviews, and documents. the results of the analysis showed that the symbols are employed as a spiritual and social tool to aid understanding of the outside world as well as to describe and learn the transcendent secret world, such as the “truth of being”. therefore, the symbols used reflect the interpersonal relations with others, ancestors, and god, called socio-theological relations, and profound philosophy of existence, as they are extremely vulnerable and totally reliant on their predecessors and god. keywords funeral rite, interaction, manggarai, meaning, symbol introduction local knowledge is increasingly recognized and valued in human existence. the existence in question concerns human behavior and relationships with god, others, and nature. numerous studies of local knowledge conducted by researchers provide evidence for this. local community beliefs that are codified as customs, rituals, and norms can sustainably govern their way of life. local values and culture have a crucial role in determining how people live their lives (cocks et al., 2018; mungmachon, 2012; tahir et al., 2020; wenzel et al., 2020). additionally, the local wisdom of local communities and their traditional knowledge are essential to a sustainable way of life and are able to prevent improper https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:hieronimusdarong@gmail.com mailto:ernaniman79@gmail.com mailto:gunastanislaus@gmail.com changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 150–172 151 relationships with the environment, god, and other people (bauto, 2013; darong et al., 2021) and spur life-sustaining behavior (sen, 2018). other studies have demonstrated the usefulness of a community’s traditional knowledge in maintaining and preserving the environment (aruda & krutkowski, 2017; chennells, 2013; dahliani et al., 2015; eriksen, 2007). in this respect, people’s awareness of the norms, laws, and prohibitions contained in traditional systems and philosophies that govern human interaction with nature is directly related to the way they behave in the natural environment management. in line with the aforementioned findings, antoni & fadillah (2021), pesurnay (2018), and setyono & widodo (2019) emphasized the importance of local wisdom as the cornerstone and source of community ethics in their interactions with the environment. furthermore, the local wisdom has soft skills and ethical principles that regulate the behavior and obligations of individuals and groups in sustaining the natural environment as confirmed by bauto (2013), mungmachon (2012), and tanui & chepkuto (2015). however, it is important to remember that there must be a way or a means to express local values. the means in question undoubtedly have something to do with language. everything can be expressed in terms of both units and aspects through language. people may be able to understand the local message if they pay attention to the language used. thus, how it is said is part of what is said (boroditsky & gaby, 2010; darong & menggo, 2021; long & he, 2021; peeters, 2015). in other words, language and culture are two interrelated concepts. language is employed within the framework of culture. people can use language effectively when they interact with the users of the language (brown, 2001; byram, 1993; couper et al., 2016; tin, 2014). in the meantime, a crucial aspect of language is that it is culturally transferable. this characteristic makes it worthwhile to learn. thus, the cultural context is of considerable importance in the way language is used. further, a symbol can be a thing, word, or action that stands for something. it is culturally defined in accordance with the beliefs of the people to whom it belongs. the symbol can be understood through knowledge of the culture of the people who use it; otherwise, it does not have any significance. such a relationship has three aspects. the first is culture building. in this sense, culture is the use of symbols to represent both spiritual and material qualities, while the symbols themselves are the carriers of culture. the second is culture extension. in this context, the symbol is seen as a tool for engagement. the third is culture reformulation. as a community grows, its culture does indeed change to reflect new developments in life, norms, and conceptions. language evolves as its users do, and the resulting culture is then reformulated (dongxiang, 2018). thus, the relationship between symbols, people, and culture is a key aspect of symbolic interactionism. symbols play a crucial role in shaping social interactions and meanings, and are an important tool for the construction and transmission of cultural practices and beliefs. in this respect, recent studies have used symbolic interactionism to shed light on the complex and dynamic relationship between symbols, values, identity, and culture, highlighting the ongoing process of negotiation and interpretation among individuals (cocks et al., 2018; nguyen et al., 2020; tengberg et al., 2012). the aforementioned research has generally shown that each region has, in essence, its own traditional knowledge. it is upheld as a value that, in turn, develops into https://changing-sp.com/ 152 hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, stanislaus guna a way of life that guides people’s conduct. local wisdom and nature have a vital inter action that has helped to save and preserve social and theological relationships. additionally, the research examined common local rituals, with values, norms, and ethics serving as the key organizing principles. as such, the construct was concerned with the thing-symbol along with its implications resulting from their cultural experiences. despite the positive results of the studies in question, there is a need to expand the research on the local wisdom to include symbols that have particular ideologies. in other words, there has never been a study on the significance of the symbols used in the cultural practices. in order to establish such a construct in the local culture, it is advantageous to investigate a new construct that takes the symbols into account. this study aimed to further the importance of local wisdom in efforts to preserve the local’s life, based on the theory of symbolic interaction. the theory in question claims that humans are symbol-producing or symbol-making beings. the german neo-kantian philosopher ernst cassirer (1944/1992) proposed the notion that humans are “animal symbolicum”. every object that a person owns has a symbolic significance. these connotations are offered, accepted, and then used as symbols; they do not just exist in themselves. in this context, a symbol is understood as a sign with a common meaning. therefore, both as an individual and as a society, human behavior is built upon the symbolic meanings of the object. in connection with this, the researchers seek to elucidate the significance and moral lessons found in one of the indigenous traditions of the manggarai ethnic in indonesia, particularly the death rites. this rite is an important cultural and religious practice that involves a series of complex rituals and ceremonies. it typically begins with close family members washing and dressing the body of the deceased. after that, the body is placed in a coffin and taken to the central area of the village, where the community gathers for the wake. the wake may last for several days, during which time friends and relatives come to pay their respects and participate in the mourning rituals, which involve singing, chanting, and the offering of food, drink, and other items to the deceased. furthermore, on the day of burial, a procession is held and the coffin is carried to the cemetery, accompanied by mourners. the burial itself involves several ritualized acts, including placing rice and other offerings around the grave, burning incense, and sprinkling holy water. after the burial, the family of the deceased performs a series of rituals, including the offering of prayers, the distribution of food to guests, and the burning of offerings. all of these rituals employ symbols that have long been rooted in their culture. recent studies have explored different aspects of the manggarai funeral rite, including its cultural and religious significance and its impact on social relations within the community. a study by lon & widyawati (2021a) found that funeral rituals play a crucial role in maintaining the cultural identity of the manggarai ethnic and strengthening social ties within the community. another recent study by jebadu et al. (2021) examined the role of the church in the manggarai ethnic funeral rituals, highlighting how theological aspects of roman catholics influence the ritual in question. meanwhile, a study by lon & widyawati (2021b) explored the impact of covid-19 on manggarai ethnic funeral rituals, revealing how changing social and health changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 150–172 153 conditions are affecting the practice of traditional mourning rituals. to date, the studies in question investigated the relationship between the manggarai ethnic’s funeral rite and the natural environment, displaying how the practice reflects the community’s deep spiritual connection to the god, land, and the natural world. in summary, the manggarai ethnic’s funeral rite is a complex and highly symbolic cultural practice that reflects the beliefs and values of the community. recent studies have clarified various aspects of this practice, accentuating its cultural and religious significance, its impact on social relations, and its connection to the natural environment. moreover, these studies emphasize the importance of recognizing and preserving the unique cultural heritage of the manggarai ethnic, including their funeral traditions, for future generations. the purpose of this study is to explore the use of symbols in the manggarai funeral rite focusing on meanings and values. while previous studies have described the funeral rite and its cultural significance, little attention has been paid to the use of symbols, their meanings and values. by filling in this research gap, the present study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the manggarai funeral rite and the cultural significance of the symbols within it. in addition, as an effort to maintain the existence and sustainability of the role and function of local culture, this study is very important to provide new perspective to the existing literature of local community in in today’s interconnected world. local wisdom and symbol every community has its own unique local wisdom. in principle, local wisdom seeks to uphold a community’s sense of cohesiveness, integrity, dignity, and identity (koentjaraningrat, 1979/2009). local knowledge is developed and transformed into the abilities and character of a community, which must be put into practice and upheld as a principle, norm, or value. local wisdom is important in defining human civilization since it influences not only ritual dynamics but also ethics, norms, actions, and behavior. as a result, it functions as a spiritual guide for how to behave and act in daily life (fraenkel et al., 2012; richards et al., 2013). in other words, the presence of the unique wisdom of a particular community brings spirituality and intimacy together (lon & widyawati, 2018, 2021a; niman, 2022b). local wisdom is also explicit local knowledge that has developed over time and has been passed down from predecessors. the wisdom under discussion has evolved within a local framework that changes and grows with the community, its surroundings, and the larger and more modern setting. the values ingrained in society have not been diminished by the protracted evolutionary process. local wisdom, as a potential source of energy from society’s collective knowledge system, coexists peacefully and actively in the face of ongoing global struggles that destroy and displace it. therefore, it is important to properly retain and preserve local knowledge. in the field, there have been research studies on local wisdom (döring & nerlich, 2022; gibbs, 2020; okonski, 2021; pesurnay, 2018; sopa, 2018; tahir et al., 2020; zhirenov et al., 2016). the studies have confirmed that local wisdoms are social and communicative systems constructing a form of self-organization (autopoesis) of cultural systems. these systems are used in human interactions. https://changing-sp.com/ 154 hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, stanislaus guna local knowledge can be preserved by incorporating it into learning activities (darong & menggo, 2021; darong et al., 2021). the learning process must be authentic, contextualized, and consider social wisdom in addition to theories and concepts (conceptual approach). they also emphasized the importance of incorporating local cultural values into the learning environment in order to develop character. learning about and reintroducing local knowledge is an important step in establishing the foundation of one’s own cultural values. it also serves as a means of fostering national identity and a means of identifying harmful foreign cultural influences. a strategic role for the development of a country’s character and identity that can be played in the educational process is the promotion of the values found in the local wisdom of a particular indigenous community. furthermore, it is impossible to separate language, culture, and communication. when someone discusses culture, they inevitably discuss language and communi cation as well. in general, culture can be observed; artifacts and man-made products are all tangible examples of culture, while the human mind is the example of the intangible culture. obviously, a tool is needed to communicate thoughts and coordinate the completion of quality work. in this regard, language is the required tool. therefore, the language of a nation plays a crucial part in its civilization. local knowledge becomes valuable when culture, language, and communication are all distinct and relevant to the particular group (duranti, 1997). symbols can be words, actions, and objects. they are used to convey meaning in communication. the symbols in question are used in a way that reflects people culture. a symbol may have a specific meaning and reflect the user’s conception, way of thinking, and interpretation. its meaning is primarily according to the communicational goals of the speaker. since a symbol is a language, it is unquestionably considered as a means of communication through which its meaning can be understood (darong et al., 2022; hashash et al., 2018; hendro, 2020; loza, 2022; setiawan et al., 2021). according to this idea, culture and symbol—which is truly a language—cannot be separated. the meanings of the things, words, or actions that are employed in diverse cultural contexts reflect something and are interpreted within the cultural framework of the community to which they belong. when this is not the case, meanings change and possibly even misunderstandings happen (green, 1996; grice, 1975; levinson, 1983; yule, 1996). as a result, the meaning of symbols is influenced by the cultural background of the user. arguing along this line, symbolic interactionism has been used to analyze the role of symbols and meanings in the construction and transmission of cultural practices and beliefs. according to this perspective, culture is not a fixed entity but rather an ongoing process of negotiation and interpretation among individuals. a study by niman (2022a) used symbolic interactionism to examine how natural spatial and social aspects are constructed and reproduced in the context of ethnic rituals. the author argues that ethnic rituals serve as a space for the negotiation and construction of cultural identities, where individuals use symbols and meanings to assert their cultural heritage and negotiate their relationship to the nature. the author also notes that ethnic rituals can facilitate intercultural communication and understanding, as individuals from different cultural backgrounds come together to celebrate their diversity. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 150–172 155 another study of niman (2022b) used symbolic interactionism to analyze how cultural values are transmitted from parents to children. the author argues that parents use symbols and meanings to convey cultural values to their children and that the meaning of cultural values can be shaped by the social context in which they are transmitted. the author also argues that cultural values can change over time as individuals reinterpret and negotiate the meaning of symbols and practices in response to changing social and cultural contexts. the values can serve as a site of cultural resistance and negotiation. thus, symbolic interactionism provides a valuable perspective for analyzing the role of symbols and meanings in the construction and transmission of cultural practices and beliefs. by emphasizing the ongoing process of negotiation and interpretation among individuals, symbolic interactionism highlights the dynamic and contested nature of culture, and the important role of symbols and meanings in shaping cultural identities and practices. the manggarai ethnic much like any other ethnic groups, has their own language. it features unique forms, norms, and linguistic components in the linguistic subfields of semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology, among others. a study by mangga (2020), who analyzed the manggarai language, found that the language features unique grammatical structures, particularly in the areas of morphological constructions. in this respect, mangga (2020) explored the morphology of the manggarai language, identifying distinctive phonemes and morphemes that are characteristic of the language. these studies highlight the importance of recognizing the linguistic diversity and richness of the manggarai ethnic and the need for language preservation efforts to safeguard this unique linguistic heritage. nevertheless, the manggarai language is fascinating to study semiotically. in this respect, manggarai ethnic uses a wide range of symbols to convey meaning. every word, whether spoken or written, and every concept implied by the symbols has significance. this reveals the reality that learning a language involves combining agreed-upon meaning units, smaller meaningful units, into larger portions through its socio-construction (briones, 2016; eggins, 1994; halliday, 1985; hasan, 2014). additionally, symbols are the best way to understand the meaning of some languages. therefore, language, particularly the manggarai language, is essentially a set of symbols in this context. furthermore, the manggarai ethnic has a distinctive culture and take on many different forms during rituals. different symbols are used in each customary rite. these symbols are used to express their vertical and horizontal relationships (lon & widyawati, 2021b; menggo et al., 2021). the former deals with their relationship with god and their ancestors. the manggarai people, who are very reliant on god as the highest supreme creator, see their ancestors as their mediators. horizontal relations, meanwhile, focus on how they manage their interactions with others and the natural environment. as a result, the context of living and cultural experience is extremely closely tied to the existence of a symbol for them. the manggarai ethnic has also adapted to their surroundings by carefully analyzing the circumstances and creating their own adaptation patterns. the local knowledge that is embodied in their cultural symbols is beneficial to their way of life. this is because all forms of the manggarai traditional knowledge are performed, taught, and passed on from one generation to the next by considering their behavioral patterns https://changing-sp.com/ 156 hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, stanislaus guna and way of life. this is consistent with the assertions of mungmachon (2012), thondlana et al. (2012), and vranić et al. (2018) that symbolic meanings, knowledge systems, and values serve as a mirror of a community’s way of life. by and large, the progress reports from the field have largely seen the local culture, along with its wisdom and ideals, in the context of an effort to protect life. in this sense, the studies are directly related to the existence of the local people and their efforts to live a sustainable life. however, studies of local culture focusing on the symbols are few and far between. the inclusion of symbols in the study of the practice of local culture helps to strengthen the locality of a particular community. thus, this study was conducted in such a way that the researchers was able to examine the philosophy and ideology of the used symbols. methodology data for this descriptive qualitative approach were organically collected from the emic and etic perspectives of the manggarai ethnic. in this context, the perspectives of the manggarai ethnic in describing cultural phenomena are of interest according to emic perspective. meanwhile, etic perspective examines the manggarai ethnic from the perspective of outsiders, which, in this study, were the researchers. in order to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data, triangulation was performed (farmer et al., 2006; farquhar et al., 2020; stake, 1995), meaning that three different methods were used to collect the data for this study: observations, interviews, and document analysis. the researchers actively participated as observers and provided a recorder, an anecdotal record, and an observation sheet. semi-structured interviews were conducted using an interview guide containing 10 questions related to the main concern of the study. the major informants were three spokespersons and three senior villagers who were more knowledgeable about the manggarai culture. three one-on-one interviews were conducted with every respondent, each lasting approximately one hour. seven questions were asked during the first and second interviews, and three additional questions were asked during the last session. the interviews were conducted in the manggarai language to reduce the participants’ anxiety and enhance their capacity to comfortably comment on the required information. the interviews were digitally recorded by the researchers using a mobile phone recording app and then transcribed verbatim. participants received transcriptions to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data. the researchers also conducted a documentation study to learn more about the facts relevant to the study’s topic. in this study, the documentation was useful in bolstering and complementing interview and observation data. the documentation in question took the form of a video document (on youtube1) that helped the researchers to gather information about the symbols (kondo randang channel, 2020). the researchers processed and evaluated the data based on mey’s (1993) semiotics and pragmatics theory of wording. as outlined by creswell & poth (2017), this study used the data analysis spiral for the interview, in which the researchers entered with text or video materials and left with an account or a narrative. in this sense, data 1 youtube™ is a trademark of google inc., registered in the us and other countries. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 150–172 157 analysis involved six stages: managing and organizing the data, reading and observing emergent concepts, characterizing and grouping codes into themes, establishing and assessing interpretations, displaying and visualizing the data, and reporting the results. the first phase of the researchers’ work involved assembling all of the supporting documents, including transcripts of the interviews and other records relevant to the use of symbols, and translating all of the interviews from the manggarai language into english. in the second phase, the researchers continued to read the transcripts and take notes on new ideas. in the third phase, the researchers used a content analysis technique according to krippendorff (2004), which refers to the analysis of participants’ narratives gathered from the interview transcriptions. to confirm the analysis, a methodological triangulation was used in fourth step to compare particular individual notes and codes. to address the issue of potential coder bias, the researchers individually coded the data and compared the results. the second researcher worked with the first researcher to reach agreement while serving as an objective reviewer of the coding. second researcher had not participated in the period of data gathering. this action was taken to create an auditable decision trail and increase the reliability of the analysis, and was consistent with the requirements of validity and reliability in quantitative research as recommended by nowell et al. (2017). finally, three emerging themes were identified. in the fifth phase, relevant quotes were selected to support the participants’ narratives. examples of the participants’ experiences had during the last phase, when this manuscript was created, are provided in the findings and discussion section below. findings and discussion findings this study examined the significance of the symbols used during the manggarai ethnic’s funeral ritual. the results of the interview are summarized in the table below. the researchers obtained 41 excerpts, nine codes, and three themes. table 1 theme, code, and excerpts theme(s) code(s) sample of the excerpt(s) macro power “… what i have done is to communicate and explain the wish, love, and care to our ancestor. we make offerings for the sake of eternal life” (r. d., january 9, 2023, trans. by hieronimus canggung darong [h. c. d.]) “… as a spokesperson, i have to be careful in maintaining commodity exchanges with the ancestor. once i made mistake in offering the symbols, i could be the next victim” (f. a., january 11, 2023, trans. by h. c. d.) dominance and inequality “the symbol used is very adaptable. although it is different from one village to another, or from one clan to another, the essence is similar. a very prestigious clan might use prestige symbols as they have been ruled for far too long by their ancestors. however, it is still a prayer” (t. g., january 15, 2023, trans. by hieronimus canggung darong [h. c. d.]) https://changing-sp.com/ 158 hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, stanislaus guna theme(s) code(s) sample of the excerpt(s) meso introduction “we mainly use some forewords. the words are uttered by the spokesperson who leads to the core event. it is just an opening session. we never go directly to the main event. the consideration is about the social relationship, both with the ancestor and the participants attending the event” (g. g., february 11, 2023, trans. by h. c. d.) content/body “… everyone who is joining the event should be there. hopes, prayers, loves are united in the symbol being offered. this is a very essential moment. i am talking to them (ancestors)” (l. w., february 19, 2023, trans. by h. c. d.) closing “… after offering the symbol, i usually end with a closing statement emphasizing the hopes. in this regard, there is an expectation that the ancestors and god will accept the offerings. there are no tears falling, no life burden, no sorrow and no disaster in the family” (r. d., february 21, 2023, trans. by h. c. d.) micro semantics “overall, i prepared the symbols according to the discourse of the event. in this case, a symbol cannot be used in all traditional rites. this occurs in such a way that the meaning is different according to the setting and the scene. furthermore, the codes and channels through which the symbol is employed are different as well” (t. g., february 21, 2023, trans. by h. c. d.) syntax “… in addition to meaning adaptation, i also consider the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of my language. for example, i should structure my sentence so that meaning of symbols is elegantly offered” (f. a., february 24, 2023, trans. by h. c. d.) stylistic “… i should pay great attention to the choice and use of words, the style or manner of my utterances (diction), the power of intonation, the distribution of sentence lengths, and the use of certain language registers” (l. w., january 29, 2023, trans. by h. c. d.) rhetorical “… the art of using language to communicate effectively and persuasively is very important. in this case, i use metaphor and allegory to offer the symbols” (g. g., february 5, 2023, trans. by h. c. d.) the data above confirm the setting and scene, participants, outcomes, acts and sequences, key instruments, norms, and genre of the manggarai ethnic funeral ceremony discourse. such discourse emphasizes the time and place of a speech act, the physical circumstances, as well as formality, power, and seriousness features in terms of setting and scene. meanwhile, the participants play the roles of speakers and listeners, or more generally of addressers and addressees embracing their ethnicity, social standing, relationships, and duties. outcomes are about how offers are accepted. acts and sequences focus on utterances. the words of the spokesperson, as such, were in the form of rhetorical statements, persuasive and full of symbolic meanings. the key is reflected in the sincere ways of the funeral discourse. instrumentalities refer to the type of language that was primarily used in verbal communication. this table 1 continued http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sentence_%28linguistics%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/register_%28linguistics%29 changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 150–172 159 component is strongly tied to the social norm, which in this case was the standard for how the spokesman’s sentences should be constructed when presenting symbols. ultimately, the genre of this ceremony is entirely regarded as a prayer of the family and relatives to the supreme, the almighty god, through the messengers of the ancestors. in order to confirm the interview data, the researchers conducted observations, with the results presented in table 2. table 2 funeral ceremony symbols stages symbols types lexical meaning contextual meaning meaning category pre wero, pande bo action to notify notifying relatives or villagers of a death social and religious meanings haeng nai action to get the soul deep condolences of the relatives social meaning ela thing (animal) pig offering (prayer of the relatives) religious meaning poe woja/ latung action corps request to give the wealth (corps) of the deceased to the family left (not to bring along with) social, religious, and cosmological meanings manuk thing (animal) roaster offering for the request of wealth social and religious meanings ancem peti action to close the coffin to say goodbye religious and philosophical meanings tokong bakok action to stay over late at night to comfort the bereaved social and religious meanings teru wae cor action to spread the water departure and purification; the soul is ready for departure religious and cosmological meanings waca lime action to wash hand to prevent the soul of deceased from following the people who bury the body religious and cosmological meanings during tura wakas action to put the sugar cane to ask permission before putting the corps in a hole. someone might be down there. religious and cosmological meanings panggol thing cross religion identity religious meaning wae thing water purifier philosophical meaning post reis gu depa lime action to greet and shake hands to tell the family that the corps has already been buried social and philosophical meanings ceki telu/ lima or saung ta’a/ action three or five days of grieving period prayer for a death memorial (see figure 2) social and religious meanings https://changing-sp.com/ 160 hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, stanislaus guna stages symbols types lexical meaning contextual meaning meaning category wentar buing lulung loce action to clean the bed a prayer for a healthy life for the bereaved; an expectation that there will be no more deaths religious meaning kelas/ pedeng bokong action to equip a prayer. the world of the dead is totally different from the world of the living (to start a new life for both the deceased and the family) social, religious, and philosophical meanings kaba/ela thing (animal) buffalo/pig an offering social and religious meanings teing hang action to give some food a prayer for the deceased to protect the family (see figure 1) social, religious, and philosophical meanings figure 1 kelas, prayer for start of a new life for both the deceased and the family note. source: authors. table 2 continued changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 150–172 161 figure 2 ceki telu, prayer for a death memorial note. source: authors. figure 3 teing hang, the offering of a rooster note. source: authors. https://changing-sp.com/ 162 hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, stanislaus guna figure 4 wada ruha, the offering of an egg note. source: authors. with respect to the data (see table 2), the pre, during, and post stages of the manggarai ethnic’s burial ceremony have social, religious, philosophical, and cosmological meanings. the action and object symbols both allude to these meanings. in this sense, the social meaning was an attempt to maintain a sense of kinship and family unity. the religious meaning, on the other hand, is strongly tied to the manggarai ethnic belief in the human soul, which has existed in the manggarai culture for far too long. the philosophical meaning contained in these symbols is the view that human life does not stop after death, but continues into another life in another world or realm. symbols such as water, rice, and other offerings indicate that the journey of the soul after death requires proper and pure preparation for it to go smoothly and peacefully (see figures 3 and 4). the cosmological values contained in these symbols are the view that humans are part of a larger universe, and that human life does not stand alone but is closely connected to nature and its environment. symbols such as po’e woja/latung [to request the corps], teru wae cor [to spread the water], depa lime [to greet and shake hands] and tura wakas [to put the sugar cane] indicate that human life must always adapt and work together with nature and the environment to achieve progress and success. overall, the symbols used in the funeral ceremony of manggarai ethnic not only have ritualistic values, but also carry deep social, religious, philosophical, and cosmological meanings and values, reflecting the worldview and beliefs related to human life and death. discussion this study examines the use of symbols used in manggarai ethnic’s funeral ceremony. the ceremony is not only about the use of symbols, but also about the practice of social and individual life. this is supported by the idea that a symbol is changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 150–172 163 actually a personal, social act and knowledge of the users (carassa & colombetti, 2015; dongxiang, 2018; niman, 2022a). as a result, the use of symbols is strongly linked to the cultural setting in which they are used. according to the results of the interviews (table 1), the funeral ceremony employs a variety of symbols, including actions and objects. the manggarai ethnic interact with their natural surroundings either directly or indirectly through the symbols they use. the meanings of the symbols are closely related to the cosmological perspective and interpretation of the universe. this is consistent with previous research showing that societal symbols and languages are determined by the way people think and believe (menggo et al., 2021; sopa, 2018; tahir et al., 2020). in support of this claim, the researchers discovered a number of significant aspects of the symbols. first, the symbols are used in such a way that they have the power to convey the message. they served to repair and preserve the relationship between the manggarai people, their ancestors, and the supreme god. this religious interpretation is defined as an effort and prayer to maintain the life management, care, love, and affection of the family and relatives towards the corpse that begins to reside in a new space. manggarai ethnic’s cosmological perspective has the potential to use symbols in expressing the feelings in question. there should be offerings (symbols) in order for life to exist. regardless of the differences among clans, the substance is similar in terms of the goals of what is called a prayer. therefore, a prayer to the deceased is the main focus of the manggarai ethnic’s funeral service. second, when expressing symbols, the spokesperson must adhere to the discourse norm, which requires an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. the greetings and honors to the participants “here (living people) and there (ancestors and god)” are addressed in the introduction. the major core of the offering symbols is referred to as the body. in this section, the prayer to god and the ancestors is offered. the conclusion, meanwhile, is a high expectation for the acceptance of the offered symbols. as of now, the introduction, body, and conclusion of the funeral discourse are comparable to those of other genres. third, the symbols used were articulated with a strong focus on the local meaning of a discourse, in addition to the macro and micro levels. such local meaning can be deduced from the semantic, syntactic, stylistic, and rhetorical elements of the spokespeople’s statements. the semantic element is concerned with lexical, phrasal, and sentence meaning and the principles that govern the relationship between sentences or words. thus, the symbols used in the funeral discourse are closely related to meaning as a definition, meaning as an intention, and meaning as a reference. these meanings may also occur in other traditional manggarai rites. however, the spokesperson of the manggarai funeral discourse expressed the symbols in context, which in turn conveyed the meanings in question. meanwhile, the rule governing the spokesperson’s utterances in expressing symbols mostly followed the pattern of s → np vp. the uttered sentence (s) consists of a noun phrase (np) and a verb phrase (vp) (syntactic element), with a great attention paid to the power of intonations (tones) and sentence length (stylistic element) as well as the use of figurative language (rhetorical aspect). https://changing-sp.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sentence_%28linguistics%29 164 hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, stanislaus guna the manggarai ethnic’s funeral rite is an output of a product, which means that it is not just a discourse. it is important to consider the manggarai social structures, systems of dominance, power, and how these factors affect the discourse in question. thus, text, social cognition, language, and social context are all interrelated. as a result, the symbols used pay as much or more attention to language use in relation to social, political, and cultural factors than to “purely” linguistic facts. integral to the interview data, symbols used in the funeral discourse is a means to build the manggarai ethnic interpersonal relationships (table 2). the symbols hold the relationship between the family and others and their environment, ancestors, and god. in this respect, symbols (things and actions) are employed as a means of communication and have specific meanings. this is consistent with mead’s theory that symbolic interactions between people provide a pearl of meaningful local wisdom (baker et al., 2018; iswandono et al., 2016; niman, 2022b; zhirenov et al., 2016). through symbols, symbolic interactions become the subject of how to understand other people’s thoughts, and patterns of action (loza, 2022; tahir et al., 2020). in addition, the symbol is frequently used to describe and learn the transcendent secret world, such as the “truth of being,” through implicit images to shield oneself from the blinding rays of truth, as well as a spiritual tool to help understand the outside world (firth, 1973/2011; cassirer, 1944/1992). furthermore, the symbols have a societal significance. the use of action symbols, which represent a societal concept for the manggarai ethnic, makes this meaning very evident. the social platforms that bring people together and foster fraternity and togetherness are employed as symbols. this is consistent with the findings of previous research that each traditional ritual is a way for communities to express their interconnectedness by reading environmental cues and creating local knowledge patterns that are embodied in knowledge or ideas, customary norms, and values in the cultural rituals (baker et al., 2018; bauto, 2013; borchi, 2018; byram, 1993; mungmachon, 2012; suswandari, 2017). in the manggarai funeral discourse, the meanings indicated above (social, religious, philosophical, and cosmological meanings) are unified with distinctive principles for each. the principles serve as guidelines for how they should conduct themselves and engage with others, ancestors, environments, and god. this suggests that the funeral rites of the manggarai ethnic uphold noble principles that are extremely precious to them. the point is supported by the studies performed by duranti (1997), koentjaraningrat (1979/2009), miska et al. (2017), and niman (2022b) who said that the concepts of things in the community’s mind (mentalistic aspect) that they value serve as a guide for action and interaction both now and in the afterlife. the stages of the funeral ceremony also represent a cosmic unity that is unbroken and holds honorable qualities for the manggarai ethnic. the patterns and modes of communication as well as the ideals expressed in each stage suggest a symbolic exchange and a profound philosophy of existence as extremely vulnerable human beings who are totally reliant on their predecessors and on god. these principles are upheld and serve as ways of life. this is consistent with previous studies, which changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 150–172 165 showed that local wisdom has the power of values and norms that the community must uphold as a result of the symbolic interactions (gibbs, 2020; saharudin, 2019). the symbols of the manggarai ethnic’s funeral ceremony are more of the hidden meaning than the concept, although the symbol mediates the artistic image and the concept of hidden meaning (firth, 1973/2011). they have factual meanings as opposed to artistic images. additionally, the current study discovered that symbols did not directly represent an object or phenomenon, but rather gave it a misleading impression of a similar object or phenomenon. symbols do not directly express a thought, but use figurative language such as allegory and metaphor. each person interprets the symbol according to their own level of understanding and chooses a meaning that best suits their capabilities, since it frequently has a metaphorical meaning. to this day, the manggarai ethnic’s funeral ceremony still uses symbols as a way to communicate with family members, the environment, ancestors, and god. therefore, the idea of symbols in the manggarai culture cannot be isolated from its conceptualization, relationships with other people, and the supreme being (socio-theological relations). the position of the soul of the deceased is believed to be in another realm where the souls of the deceased continue their journey into the afterlife. based on the meanings and values of the symbols used in the manggarai ethnic’s funeral rite, the position of the soul of the dead body is believed to be in the afterlife. the symbols used in the funeral rite are intended to guide the spirit of the deceased to the afterlife and ensure a smooth transition to the next world. for example, the use of offerings may be intended to comfort and support the soul of the deceased on its journey. overall, the manggarai ethnic’s funeral rite is intended to honor the deceased and ensure that their spirit is able to find its way to the afterlife, where it can continue to exist in a new form. however, there is still a belief that the spirit of the deceased remains with the family for a period of time after death. this is known as the “souling” period, and it is believed to last for up to forty days. during this time, the spirit of the deceased is believed to remain close to the family and may even visit them in dreams or visions. although the deceased person is no longer physically present, their soul continues to exist and live with the family and other loved ones. the soul exists outside of this world, but through the prayers expressed in the symbols provided, the soul interacts psychologically with living human beings. in other words, the dead person is still living together with their family and relatives. after the period of souling, the spirit is believed to move on to the afterlife and no longer stay with the family. more importantly, since they are based on constant mobility and are connected to any phenomenon, it is significant to note that manggarai ethnic’s symbols do not exist in their symbolic domains. over time, the symbolic units incorporate additional symbolic elements that indicate the categories of modern manggarai cultural and cognitive existence. additionally, the character of the symbol in linguistic communication is shaped by communicative necessity. manggarai ethnic’s symbols are thus born out of necessity. this means that the verbal representation of the universe and the symbolization process are different from the representation of scientific reality. following cultural developments, units that became a component of the symbolic representation of the human worldview should be viewed as a complicated phenomenon. https://changing-sp.com/ 166 hieronimus canggung darong, erna mena niman, stanislaus guna conclusion it is not enough to study the nature of language symbols solely from a linguistic perspective. when symbols are linked to the cultural context, it is possible to comprehend their nature; it is also possible to discover the essence of a symbol by studying how it interacts with that context. individual expressions of local wisdom come to characterize and play a vital part in the cultural life of a community. as such, a culture is a form of self-expression and the creator of communal identity. the manggarai ethnic use symbols in their traditional funeral rites for several reasons. symbols serve as a form of communication, representing complex ideas, values, and emotions beyond words. they reinforce cultural identity and heritage, connecting individuals to their roots and ancestors. symbols hold sacred or ritualistic meanings, facilitating religious or spiritual practices and connecting with divine forces. in funeral rites, symbols foster manggarai ethnic cohesion, strengthening social bonds and a shared sense of identity. they also serve as teaching tools, transmitting cultural knowledge, history, and wisdom to younger generations. the manggarai ethnic are keen to demonstrate their transparency, closeness, humility, respect, duty, and courtesy towards others, their ancestors, and god. thus, the use of symbols in manggarai ethnic’s funeral ceremony reflects their anthropological, sociological, cosmological, and psychological relational principles, which are called socio-theological relations. through the use of symbols, these relations make the dead person still alive in this world. however, it is important to note that the specific reasons for using symbols in traditional rites can vary widely across cultures, with their meaning and significance deeply embedded in cultural and historical contexts. understanding symbols requires studying and engaging with specific cultures. this study had several limitations. first, the focus of the study was on the funeral ceremony. since the manggarai ethnic is rich in symbols, further researchers need to extend the studies to other traditional discourses. second, there were only six participants in the study. in order to have rich data, it might be more challenging to involve more participants. references antoni, n., & fadillah, s. 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(2016). the cognitive content of the world of symbols in a language. international journal of environmental & science education, 11(9), 2841–2849. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2012.07.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2012.07.006 https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2012.708908 https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2012.708908 https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168813510387 https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168813510387 https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2017.1420144 https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670x.2019.1641428 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 279–284 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.046 received 1 august 2018 © 2018 lee scharnick-udemans accepted 18 september 2018 lscharnickudemans@uwc.ac.za published online 30 september 2018 conference paper siyakholwa – we believe : a case study on the mediatisation of religion education and religious pluralism lee scharnick-udemans university of the western cape, cape town, south africa abstract siyakholwa is the first children’s multi-faith programme series to be screened on south african television. the programme foregrounds teaching about “religion, religions, and religious diversity” (chidester, 2008, p. 278). this paper conceptualises siyakholwa as a product of the 2003 religion in education policy, and consequently examines the extent to which the constitutional ideal of religious pluralism is mediated through the content of the programme. this paper argues that the example of siyakholwa presents an opportunity to understand the ways in which religion in public education has been defined and redefined through the constitutional, cultural, and transformational aspirations of the post-apartheid state. keywords religion education, diversity, pluralism, mediatisation, television introduction siyakholwa – we believe offers children between the ages of five and twelve years old an introduction to the religions of south africa, their institutions, myths, festivals, observances, practices, and people. for the past eleven years the programme has been screened once a week on the public broadcast television in south africa. a programme such as siyakholwa finds a space on public broadcast television in large part as a result of the democratic reformation of public broadcasting in post 1994 south africa, https://changing-sp.com/ 280 lee scharnick-udemans and reflects a series of wide scale national efforts to include religion in education in schools and other public and commercial spaces (chidester, 2008; scharnickudemans, 2017). it is widely accepted that education is not limited to curriculum and assessment criteria that are based on purely intellectual outcomes. on the contrary education in general, in this case religion education in particular, whether it takes place in the formal classroom setting or not, is required to respond to national priorities especially with regard to the dissemination of values. according to the religion and education policy of 2003, these values include a constitutional commitment to “citizenship, human rights, equality, freedom from discrimination, and freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, and opinion” (department of education, 2003, p. 6). furthermore, there are constitutional values in education that are highlighted as national priorities and this includes, “equity, tolerance, diversity/multilingualism, openness, accountability, and social honour” (department of education, 2003, p. 7). social development has been earmarked as an outcome of religion education. the prospect that religion education could result in socially beneficial consequences such as the reduction of prejudice, an increase in toleration, expanded understanding, and an appreciation and respect for difference, although noted as an immense demand from education, form a part of the goals of the national policy (department of education, 2003, p. 28; chidester, 2006, p. 68). it is self-evident that education is not limited to the school, the classroom, or the interaction between teacher and learner. education, the act, and process of teaching and learning, both formally and informally, takes place at a number of various sites. the south african broadcasting corporation (sabc) is one such site of “public pedagogy”, a site for education that is located outside of the institutionalised structures of the school and situated in the institutionalised structures of public broadcasting policy and practice (giroux, 2004; chidester, 2008). mandated, through national policy derived from the 1996 constitution, the public broadcaster has an obligation to provide educational programming about religion. viewed in light of a constitutional commitment to religious pluralism and a national recognition of the educational and social value of religion education, the sabc through programmes such as siyakholwa has been at the forefront of the mediatisation of religious pluralism in the post 1994 state. firstly, this paper will offer a short description of siyakholwa’s content and format. secondly, a brief description of the mediatisation of religion and religious plurality will be provided. finally, the ways in which siyakholwa mediatises and affirms the constitutional commitment to religious pluralism that is promulgated as a core constituent of religion education will be discussed. siyakholwa – we believe : religion education on television when the sabc commissioned for the production of a children’s multi-faith programme it envisioned a programme that would focus on: 1) teaching about different religions; changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 279–284 281 2) religious diversity and appreciation for this; 3) multi-religion rights; 4) building positive religious and national pride; 5) creating an attitude of tolerance and understanding between children of different religious backgrounds; 6) facilitating communication between children and peers, parents, and friends regarding topics related to religion. (sabc call for proposals, 2006) siyakholwa is a studio and live action-based programme, which consists of four segments that together address a different topic every week. the series is filmed both inside a studio environment and outside of the studio in various public places. each episode consists of three studio-based segments that include interactions between the presenter thandi and a group of children in studio, a puppet skit where two puppets engage in a discussion about a topic based on religion or a related theme, and story time. the show is anchored by one female presenter, thandi, and two puppets, musa and dudu. thandi is a young woman who although a church-going christian has many friends from different religions, she is always interested in learning more about her friends’ faiths on siyakholwa. musa is a librarian and a wise old sage who has a wealth of knowledge on world religions and culture. dudu is a seven year old girl who spends a great deal of time in the library that musa runs. she is scripted as having an exceptionally enquiring mind and with her incessant questioning seems to ask all the questions that the child at home might have. the producers of siyakholwa use both the religious and secular south african calendar in order to determine the content and transmission date of each episode. at the time that my research was conducted, 140 episodes of siyakholwa had been produced and screened by the sabc. based on the content of each episode and informed by policy provisions, i was able to develop three categories for analysis. the categories are the following: multi-faith, faith-specific, and life orientation episodes. multi-faith episodes are categorised as episodes that deal with more than one religious tradition. in faith-specific episodes, one religious tradition is explored in detail. however, it is important to emphasise that even in the faith-specific episodes the content is meant to be presented in an educational manner. drawn directly from the 2003 policy i found the category of life orientation useful for identifying the episodes that did not have a specific religious orientation. under the category of faith-specific episodes, siyakholwa has featured judaism, christianity, the baha’i faith, islam, hinduism, sikhism, pagan religions, african religions, rastafarianism, and chinese religions through basic introductory episodes and more topic specific episodes such as prayer in african traditional religion, water in islam, women in christianity, and companions in hinduism. under the multi-faith category topics such as holy books, sacred space, and rites of passage have been presented. life orientation episodes much like the school subject, showcase an eclectic assortment of topics such as justice and fairness, managing money, pets, hello winter, my body, and role models. https://changing-sp.com/ 282 lee scharnick-udemans mediatised religious pluralism the mediatisation of religion as a concept and theory that is concerned with the multiple ways in which the relationships between religion and media have resulted in an arrangement wherein religion has to some extent become dependent on the logic of the media to ensure its continued presence and relevance in society, has been explored in great detail by a number of scholars working particularly in north american and northern european contexts (hjarvard, 2011; lovhiem & lynch, 2011; morgan, 2011; lynch, mitchell & strhan, 2012; lovheim, 2013; morgan, 2013). due to time constraints i am unable to provide an in-depth discussion however, i propose that one of the main weaknesses of the mediatisation of religion theory, which diminishes much of its relevance to the south african context is an over-emphasis on the sociocultural processes that place media in a position of power over religion, and an implicit dismissal of the politics that play a critical role in regulating the ways both religion and media, interact and operate within the public milieu. i propose that the particularities of the south african context determine a definition of the mediatisation of religion that is cognisant of the manner in which religion and media have both been reconfigured by the post 1994 nation building efforts. this includes, but is not limited to, the adoption of the 1996 constitution with its progressive bill of rights, the democratic overhaul of the sabc, the establishment of a number of auxiliary state bodies in support of freedom of religion and freedom of expression, and the implementation of regulatory policies. in this view, the mediatisation of religion in south africa at least as it relates to the most accessible and pervasive form of media, public broadcasting is a profoundly political concept, process, and project. consequently, religion’s presence in public broadcasting is secured not only through its dependence of media and technological “logic” but also through an extensive network of regulatory policies and practices. given the close ties between broadcast media and nation building endeavours, the mediatisation of religious pluralism on sabc programming is a constitutional and educational imperative. while religious diversity is a social fact with which, religious pluralism on the other hand is contested in terms of policy and practices, in both politics and the broader public sphere. according to beckford (2003, p. 81): …religious pluralism is best considered as a term denoting a normative or ideological view holding that the diversity of religious outlooks and collectivities is, within limits, beneficial and that peaceful co-existence between religious collectivities is desirable. but even as a positive value, pluralism is complex and variable. it can be politically contentious, especially is the focus on diversity for its own sake distracts attention from the reality of gross imbalances between faith communities in power and access to justice. siyakholwa adopts and affirms the state’s commitment to both religion education and religious pluralism. in order to shed some light on the ways in which siyakholwa changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 279–284 283 mediatises religious pluralism, the following section discusses how the notion of equity and tolerance as conditions of religious plurality is enacted through the programme material. from a cursory glance of a list of the 140 episodes that were screened over four years, it is clear that much effort has been made firstly, to ensure that religious diversity is depicted, and secondly that it is depicted in an almost entirely positive light. while the programme has certainly covered the breadth of religions in south africa, it has also done much work on exploring various topics within religious groups as standalone issues. for instance, while the programme has produced a generic, introductory episode about islam, it has also produced a number of other episodes about islam. including water in islam, ramadan, and identity in islam as well as incorporating islam specific content into multi-faith episodes. of course, the extent to which the programme effectively meets the educational outcomes set out in the 2003 policy warrants extensive testing; however, it appears that attempts at providing representational equity in terms of content about, among and within religions have been made. furthermore, it should be noted that this approach shows great potential for advancing the socially beneficial consequences, such as the reduction of prejudice, an increase in toleration, expanded understanding, and an appreciation and respect for difference that the 2003 policy and broadcasting policy envision. multi-faith and life orientation episodes, in particular, tend to offer a platform for harnessing the social benefits of religion education effectively. similar to the position of the 2003 religion in education policy, tolerance is highlighted as an important outcome of programming according to religious broadcasting policy. in both policies, tolerance is not considered in a superficial manner. instead, it is seen as a state of acceptance based on the understanding and appreciation of the differences of other people. south africans are not asked to be tolerant because the constitution mandates them to be, but because they have come to understand and appreciate religions, values and cultures of the “others”. the multi-faith episodes deliberatively place religions in conversation with each other, usually about an uncontroversial topic, that there may be divergent opinions on, but that eventually through dialoguing and exploration are found to share more commonalities than differences. this raises concerns about the manufacturing of uniformity in the pursuit of building national unity and the fulfilment of broadcasting and educational policy. conclusion it has been suggested that public broadcasting constitutes a site for public pedagogy for religion education and that the mediatisation of religion education and religious pluralism as illustrated by the example of siyakholwa, is related to the same project of religion in public education in which the 2003 policy is involved. in doing so, this paper has hoped to raise questions about the potential and limitations of projects in mediatised religious pluralism when thinking about the state and future of religion education. https://changing-sp.com/ 284 lee scharnick-udemans references beckford, j. a. (2003). social theory and religion. new york: cambridge university press. chidester, d. (2006). religion education and the transformational state in south africa. social analysis, 50(3), 61–83. chidester, d. (2008). unity in diversity: religion education and public pedagogy in south africa. numen, 55(2), 271–299. department of education. (1996). educational broadcasting plan: proposal for a partnership between the department of education and the sabc. pretoria: department of education. department of education. (2003). religion in education policy. pretoria: department of education. giroux, h. (2004). public pedagogy and the politics of neo-liberalism: making the political more pedagogical. policy futures in education, 2(3&4), 494–503. hjarvard, s. (2011). the mediatisation of religion: theorising religion, media, and social change. culture and religion, 12(2), 119–135. lovheim, m., & lynch, g. 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(2017). a historical and critical overview of religion and public broadcasting in south africa. journal for the study of religion, 30(2), 246–269. http://doi.org/10.1177/2050303213506476 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 183–197 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.2.036 article interactivity as a vector of the socialization of art vladimir bogomyakov tyumen state university, russia marina chistyakova tyumen state university, russia abstract the article presents research into the role of interactive practices in the development of contemporary art. by “interactive” is meant a creative work based on a two-way interaction with the viewer. such a creative work is capable of responding to the recipient’s actions as well as changing under their influence. interactive work is process-based, variable and open to interpretations. the history of the establishment of interactive contemporary art practices, which may be traced back to the historical avant-garde, punctuated by such important stages for contemporary art as the performative and social turns, is considered alongside ruptured art conventions associated with their advent. it is assumed that the various possibilities for interactivity are correlated with different media types (old/new/post). interactivity is considered in terms of an important socialization factor in the various modifications of interactive art, including participatory art, as well as collaborative and collective artistic practices. keywords installation, interactivity, interactive art, media, participatory art, performance received 7 may 2018 © 2018 vladimir bogomyakov, marina chistyakova accepted 14 june 2018 boga2010@yandex.ru published online 1 july 2018 mgtch@yandex.ru https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:boga2010@yandex.ru mailto:mgtch@yandex.ru 184 vladimir bogomyakov marina chistyakova introduction accusations of dehumanisation roundly levelled against art of the modernist/avantgarde period during the first decades of the twentieth century nowadays look like an anachronism. no one can accuse contemporary art of autism, of a fixation on solving internal problems or ignoring the interests of the public. on the contrary, it actively demonstrates its interest in the viewer in every possible way. to this end, gameor show-related elements are actively used and creative work often presented in the format of an entertainment attraction. the interactive works of carsten höller, for example, may be seen to function in this way. his installation test site (2006, tate modern gallery) is comprised of slides of dizzying heights and steepness, by which means visitors to the gallery could descend from its upper floors, bypassing the elevator. or his double carousel with zöllner stripes (2011), consisting of two roundabouts, slowly revolving in opposite directions in a hall whose walls are decorated with optical zöllner illusions depicted with black and white stripes. while such installations are the subject of mixed critical responses, at the same time, for obvious reasons, they prove very popular with the public. simultaneously amusing and fascinating, they allow the art-viewing public to undergo a new, unique experience, one that is unlikely to be possible under any other circumstances. at the same time, these works are conceptually much deeper than they might at first glance seem. for example, the primary task höller set himself was not to facilitate fairground rides, but rather to create a situation that overturns the usual forms of perception, establishing new conditions for the development of his audience’s self-knowledge. an additionally attractive aspect to such works is connected to their site-specificity, i.e. the fact that they are created in the context of a particular exhibition area; as a consequence, the same project looks and feels a little different each time. thus, according to höller’s current plans, a neurobiological project will be undertaken in florence during the summer of 2018 involving a twenty-metre artificial hill twisted into a double helix of dna. today, art must actively draw potential recipients into its orbit, provoking them to participate in unfamiliar activities and providing them with many new (often nontrivial) opportunities for self-expression. viewers can become both a part of the creative work as well as its co-artists; they can feel themselves to form an integral part of large-scale art projects that last for years as well as members of the microsociety formed by such projects. following the initiation of a wide variety of public projects, art then consists in the implementation of such projects with the direct participation of a loyal public. the loyalty of mass aesthetic consciousness towards contemporary art today is located in the confluence of several intersecting lines of its development. these include where art appears as instigating the emancipation of a particular member of the public, group and/or society as a whole; as a factor in the formation of new social practices; or as a media laboratory (old/new/post-). no less important is the artist’s repudiation of monologue in favour of dialogue with the public, which is supported by the interactivity of the creative work. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 183–197 185 the interactivity of a work of art today consists in a routing into a mass aesthetic consciousness. modern art actively deploys interactivity in installation, environmental, in various types of actionism and manifestations of digital/hybrid art. interactivity in contemporary art interactivity is one of the most effective tools for involving audiences in the field of art. however, in the context of contemporary art, the concept of “interactivity” is characterised by ambiguity. initially, interactivity was understood in the sense of interacting with someone using various technological devices. the appearance of “interactive art” as such, at around the turn of the 1980s and 90s, is associated with the emergence of the internet and art projects that started to appear online. in this context, “interactive art” is a digital art form that interacts directly with the user or viewer. however, from the point of view of lev manovich, a researcher into “soft culture”, such an interpretation of the concept of “interactive art” is tautological, since “the modern human-computer interface is interactive by definition. as soon as an object is presented on a computer screen, it automatically becomes interactive.” (manovich, 2017, p. 38). reflecting on the problem of producing an adequate description of post-digital culture, manovich argues for the creation of a new conceptual system, which, in his opinion, can be borrowed from digital culture. from his point of view, they can be used both literally – in the case of computer-mediated communication – and metaphorically – with reference to pre-digital culture (manovich, 2017, p. 39). in accordance with this logic, interactivity can be interpreted in this context as having an expansive-metaphorical sense. thus, art can be defined in terms of the active interaction of the viewer with the work and the two-way communication that arises between them. this permits the use of this concept to describe the specific manifestations of both digital and non-digital art. irrespective of whether it is old or new media that are used by the artist of the work, by “interactive” we refer to a creative work capable of responding to the recipient’s action and changing under her influence. in what follows, the concept will be used precisely in this sense. interactivity generates a new type of artistic communication, characterised by a change in the role of the viewer in the process of perceiving a work of art. here the role of the artist is to provide the viewer with a part of his or her functionality. as a consequence, instead of a passive contemplator, whose participation in the process of perception of a work of art had traditionally been limited to the mental sphere, the viewer becomes an active participant in the creative process, a co-artist, who, by his or her actions supplements the original artist’s intention, giving the latter integrity and completeness. at the same time, despite the proclaimed emancipation of the recipient, it would be a mistake to believe that the artist gives the audience member absolute freedom of action. his or her powers in this respect are by no means limitless. as a participant in the assembly of the work, the viewer turns out to be intrinsic to the work, although realising the schema of the initiator rather than his or her own intention. the actions https://changing-sp.com/ 186 vladimir bogomyakov marina chistyakova of the viewer in this situation can be compared to those of a character in a computer game: on the one hand, it seems that within the context of the creative work he is free and unrestricted to act at his own discretion. nevertheless, this or that choice can be realised exactly within the limits envisioned by the game developer (or, in the situation with the creative work of art, its originating artist). by and large, it consists in an upgrade of the viewer’s capabilities, rather than necessarily granting her rights commensurate with those of the artist. nevertheless, it is the viewer who confers completeness on the interactive creative work. félix gonzález-torres – the famous representative of the “art of complicity”, some of whose installations the viewer could take away with her (for example, sweets, sheets of paper, etc.) – acknowledged that without its public, his work had no meaning. for him, it is precisely the public, who, in becoming part of the work, allows him to consider it to be complete. of course, in this case, the boundaries between the artist and the work, the viewer and the work, cannot be completely removed, but rather become maximally permeable. as a consequence, an interactive work is much more open to interpretation, its meanings less rigidly defined and more subject to variation. in general, works based on the principle of interactivity are characterised by processuality (for the creators of such works, the process is more important than the result), variability, lack of pre-specified meanings and openness to interpretations. among the reasons for the wide dissemination of interactive art, it is necessary to mention those purely artistic reasons connected with: the exploration of artistic boundaries by artists, the subsequent democratisation of the creative process as well as the replacement of direct representation with a presentational form that occurs within the framework of a performative turn and entails the active introduction of reality into the creative process. another set of reasons concerns the development of media: artists were not slow to seize the novel opportunities that appeared in connection with new media. as a result, creativity was subject to a rapidly growing democratisation, ultimately depriving artists of their former monopoly. from a sociocultural point of view, in a certain sense, interactivity, which has become widespread not only in art, but also in social relations, correlates with the new social phenomena described by alvin toffler. among other reasons given for the popularity of the diy (do it yourself) movement, which arose and became widespread during the 1950–60’s, toffler lists inflation in the cost of manual labour as a side-effect of the automation of production (toffler, 1999, p. 441). in toffler’s account, this movement contributed to the growth of activity and initiatives across diverse social groups. the 1970s and 1980s saw the rise of a new social phenomenon – prosumerism. in embodying a shift from a passive consumer to an active producer for herself (toffler, 1999, p. 441), the prosumer becomes the bearer of a new identity characterised by activity and initiative. within the concept of prosumerism, toffler connects the emergence of a multitude of diverse social groups with the common idea of helping people to solve their problems independently. while generally critical of the penetration of new media into art, claire bishop nevertheless acknowledges that contemporary social relations are mediated not by changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 183–197 187 one-way media images (the principle position of guy debord’s theory) but rather via an interactive screen. today, art increasingly uses the same language as the web 2.0 protocol, introduced in 2002: both speak of platforms, collaboration and the involvement of viewers and prosumers, who not only consume the information provided, but also participate in the creation of content (bishop, 2015). according to researchers into contemporary digital culture (for example, oksana moroz), today’s prosumer is primarily an active internet user, creating and consuming content across different social networks. the contemporary prosumer is thus both a potential coproducer as well as a consumer of interactive art. the establishment of interactive practices in the arts despite the view of researchers that experiments with the “viewer/creative work interface” only began to take place in the middle of the 20th century, examples of interactive art can be seen as having taken place much earlier. the origins of interactivity, metaphorically interpreted as an active two-way interaction between the viewer and the creative work, date back to the last few decades of the 19th century, i.e. at the time of the rise of modernism. the consistent democratisation of the creative process, which began with the paris salons, inspired the scrapping of many historically established conventions in the field of art, including those relating to the sphere of artistic communication [thierry de duve]. the line of demarcation, which previously clearly delineated the roles (and functions) of the artist, the creative work and the recipient, disappears, resulting in their joint involvement in the creative process. strictly speaking, it is only the absence of bilateral involvement that prevents many of the earlier works of art, in the course of perception of which the viewer was forced to take certain actions, from being considered as interactive. for example, from the time of the renaissance onwards, works created using the laws of linear perspective required the viewer to occupy a certain – central – position in front of the plane of the canvas. a similar interactive effect took place with respect to the anamorphosis that had spread in the art of the 16th and 17th centuries, in which a “hidden image” was created by the artist by distorting of the rules of perspective. in order to find anamorphosis in a picturesque work, the viewer had to make an effort to locate the single point in front of the work of art from which it would be possible to see this hidden image and thus obtain a complete picture of the artist’s conception. one of the most famous examples of this kind is the painting the ambassadors by hans holbein the younger – only by observing the picture from a certain angle is the distorted object in the foreground transformed into an image of a skull. in both cases, the works seem to induce the viewer to perform actions by bodily means, e.g. adjustment of vision, etc. however, due to the fact that this activity is onesided, it does not change anything in the state of the work itself, which is unaltered regardless of whether the viewer achieves the desired result or not. other examples of the same kind include the paintings of the impressionists. in this connection it was asserted by camille pisarro that an adequate perception of a work of art requires https://changing-sp.com/ 188 vladimir bogomyakov marina chistyakova that the viewer and the work be separated by a distance equal to three diagonals of the work in question. here again, contemplation of the work could change according to the viewer’s level of mentation, but in no way influenced the work itself. elements of future interactive art practices, in particular, performance or interactive installation, would start to reveal themselves in the art of the historical avant-garde. among works of this kind can also be included the optical-kinetic sculptures of marcel duchamp, consisting of discs painted by the artist and driven by electric motors, as well as the kinetic sculptures of naum gabo and the mobiles of alexander calder. here, however, it would be an exaggeration to talk about the freedom of the viewer since the role played is not significant. it may be thought of in terms of a walk-on-part, a mechanical gesture by which means an art object is brought into motion, but in whose motivating gesture their function is exhausted. at around the same time, numerous artistic events were taking place, which, in retrospect, can be seen as comprising a kind of proto-performance. despite the fact that, chronologically, performance art only occurs for the first time during the 1960s, rube goldberg traces its origins in futuristic theatre, in which conceptual work involving the public became an indispensable component of artistic communication. for the italian futurists, any public appearance – whether in a cafe or a theatre, at a concert, etc. – necessarily involved a negative reaction on the part of the public. in his manifesto the pleasure of being booed, filippo tommaso marinetti lists a number of approaches to bringing the public into a state of extreme irritation, including ridiculous suggestions such as ‘selling twice as many tickets for the performance as seats in the hall or “covering the seats with glue” (goldberg, 2015, p. 20). frequently, in order to provoke the public into a state of panic, futurists used plants, who issued loud cries when wrenched from their seats in the midst of the performance. as regards russian futurism, here too proto-performance elements could be seen accompanying futuristic poetry evenings, as well as lectures and debates about contemporary art, which were often accompanied by fights with the public and police arrests. such phenomena also include futurists walking along the streets of moscow with painted faces and wearing extravagant costumes, often accentuated with bizarre accessories such as a red wooden spoon inserted into a buttonhole. in terms of the proto-performative attractions of russian futurism, one can also consider the performances of the budetlyanin theatre: vladimir mayakovsky: a tragedy and the opera victory over the sun. boris groys interprets this desire of artists to activate the public, to rouse it from its state of ‘contemplative passivity’, in the context of the utopian project of avantgarde art. for groys, actions of this kind are conditioned by the desire to involve the broad masses in art practice and “turn the country of victorious communism into a single, total work of art, one in which the process of permanent dissolution of the individual in the collective takes place” (groys, 2008). in all cases in which interactivity is considered at this stage in the development of contemporary art, artists also examined the problem of the boundaries of art, gradually shaking them, pushing them aside, facilitating their removal and, thereby, increasing the democratisation of the creative process. however, in the full sense changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 183–197 189 of the word, interactivity only becomes possible when representational art makes the transition to the presentational form. in this situation, art no longer reflects reality, but becomes it. this process, which spans several decades, begins with the historical avant-garde: from abstract art, suprematism, dadaism, etc., in which figurative and narrative elements are progressively discarded. according to peter weibel, “the art of the 20th century developed the most radical art of reality, introducing real objects, real bodies, real movement, real actions, real people, real animals, real landscapes into the art system. this break with representation, this transition […] from picture to action, is also responsible for […] the new role of the audience in art.” (weibel, 2011, p. 278). the break with representation not only radically removed the problem of professionalism, but also provided opportunities for artistic self-expression to all comers. interactivity in the context of old/new media the specificities of artistic practices that involve interactivity as a means of creating/ perceiving the work and thus influencing how it functions are directly correlated with the specific media features used by the artist in the creation of the work. indeed, the degree of interactivity of the work depends largely on the choice of media. today, the available media are divided into old (pre-digital) and new (digital). old media, in turn, are divided into non-technological and technological. when applied to art, old media includes traditional arts – painting, sculpture, drawing, etc. to the class of old technological/analogue media belong pre-digital photography and cinematography, whereas new technological media are those for the production and consumption of which a computer or handheld computing device is required. according to lev manovich, the criterion for distinguishing between types of media is simple: “if you want to understand whether there is something new in the media or not, just ask the question: do you need a computer in order to perceive it? if so, then we are dealing with new media.” (manovich, 2017, p. 80). the principal novelty of new media relative to old media lies in their digitality. the specifics of old non-technological media limited the possibilities for active interaction between the viewer and the work. manovich explains this situation as follows: “the traditional understanding of a medium emphasises the physical properties of a certain material and its representational capabilities, that is, the relationship between sign and referent. like all traditional aesthetics, this concept assumes a focus on the intent of the artist, as well as the content and form of the work, but not on the user.” (manovich, 2017, p. 40). here, the lack of any reaction on the part of the second component of artistic communication (i.e. the creative work) detracts from the issue of interactivity. under the situation of non-technological media, the interaction of artists with their public took place (for the most part) in accordance with well-established procedures. shared meanings consisted in the reaction of the public being included in the artist’s intention, as a result of which the course of the proposed scenario could only vary to an extremely limited degree, and for which the media requirement was not very https://changing-sp.com/ 190 vladimir bogomyakov marina chistyakova significant. in the case of the already-mentioned example of the proto-performance, staged altercations, which broke out at different times and places than those envisaged by the originators of the action, were typically used to achieve this effect. the question then arose as to what possibilities existed for working with the public’s emotions on a subtler level. at that time, the answer was most likely – not many. the speeches of the dadaists in the cabaret voltaire and dada gallery were sustained in the same vein of scandal and outrageous behaviour as the proto-performances of the surrealists. as a conceptually important means of representation for many artistic trends within modernism, especially the avant-garde, scandal becomes the primary means of promoting new artistic ideas. implicitly, it was present in any work. here, the use of interactive elements by artists had a very specific purpose – to attract attention to the new art at any cost, pre-empting opponents and attracting supporters. the further development of interactive art is associated with the spread of technological media, used by artists both during the process of creating a work (as a new means of artistic expression), as well as for the purpose of subsequently documenting the process. the latter is due to the process-orientation of interactive art, which only exists in the here and now: in the absence of any documentation, it remains only in the memory of the participants. in this context, media such as photography and video have in many ways contributed to the spread of interactive art. equally relevant is the fact that the appearance of photography deprived artists of their former monopoly on the production of images, forcing them to seek new ways of developing art. the development of technological media in art began with their use as a means of artistic expressiveness. for example, when designing a scene in erik satie’s ballet relâche [the performance is cancelled], electric bulbs were used and the composer exited the stage in a car; during the intermission, rené clair’s provocative – and, in full accordance with dada’s covenants, senseless – film entr’acte was shown. in the theatrical performances of the bauhaus (projection-light plays), as well as for pictures from an exhibition, staged in dessau by wassily kandinsky to the music of modest mussorgsky, light projections were used as means of expression. the general interest in renewing the means of artistic expressiveness, connected with the approach to the latest achievements of science and technology, was reflected in another essay theatre, circus, variety (1924) by another representative of the bauhaus lászló moholy-nagy: “nothing prevents us from using sophisticated technique: cinema, car, elevator, airplane, other mechanisms as well as optical instruments, reflecting instruments and so on.” and further: “it’s time to begin to engage in stage activities of a kind that will not allow the masses to remain mute spectators, that […] will allow them to merge with the action on the stage (goldberg, 2015, pp. 145–146). moholy-nagy’s dreams about the viewer’s interaction with the work up to and including complete dissolution in it would only be realised several decades later, when art took a performative turn, resulting in a full validation of public participation in the creation of a work of art. art’s repudiation of the principle of mimesis, its transformation from representation to presentation, makes the work inseparable from reality. according to weibel, “this changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 183–197 191 transition from picture to action is responsible for the performative turn, and, for the new role of the audience in art […], we live in the age of the performative turn. all kinds of art, from music to sculpture, are highly dependent on the participation and performative acts of the public.” (weibel, 2011, pp. 279–280). contemporary art not only works with real space (as often as not, as in the case of public art outside the “white cube”), but also time (this art is process-oriented), movement, objects, landscapes. it also works with people’s bodies, whether using them as part of the work, as does santiago sierra, for example, whose installation heroes are without subjectivity, part of the installation, nothing more. or, in becoming an active part of the work, the audience acquires subjectivity, primarily as a consequence of interactivity. for a long time, it was the medium that was considered as the basis for the typologisation of art. however, during the last few decades of the 20th century, the situation changed. according to manovich: “the previous criteria for distinguishing art, based on materials used, have lost their relevance. new art practices – installation, performance, happening, etc. – unpredictably and haphazardly incorporate various materials.” (manovic, 2017, p. 35). in the performances and happenings of the 1950s and 1960s, interactivity becomes for the viewer a source of new, often nontrivial, absurd, far-from-everyday experiences. thus, during one of the performances of the japanese group gutai, who typically work very aggressively with the public in the spirit of the dadaists, viewers were invited to paint a large format canvas on which anyone could depict anything. thus, a situation was created in which any of its participants could turn out to be equal to the artist. such spontaneity and unpredictability also characterised the performance-festivals of the fluxus international art movement (among whose participants included yoko ono, joseph beuys, ben vautier, nam june paik), in full accordance with the statement of george maciunas, one of the founders of the movement: “everything can become a work of art and everyone can create it.” his concept of ‘expanded art’ could not but inspire the public, although, with regard to its direct participation in the events of fluxus, it is fair to say that initially only the presence of the latter was required. much more detailed audience participation requirements were described in the performances of allan kaprow. in 1959, kaprow carried out the performance entitled 18 happenings in six parts. visitors were given programmes, which contained a set of instructions: a procedural script detailing the actions of certain groups of viewers. this was the first documented case of direct participation of the public as a component of the artistic work – in the programme, it was listed as part of the performing staff. and although the participation of the public was mainly limited to a transition from one zone of space to another, the absence of any barriers between it and the performers created a completely new situation. during the 1960s, there was a return to collective ways of organising artistic activity, involving such forms as performance and happening: fluxus, situationist international, grav (groupe de recherche d’art visuel) took aesthetic approaches to levelling critiques against institutions of power, against the society of the spectacle, against consumerism. it is during these years that art goes beyond the white cube, https://changing-sp.com/ 192 vladimir bogomyakov marina chistyakova and, in so doing, establishes new formats by means of which the public may encounter works of art (vali exports, peter weibel, grav, etc.). the role of viewers in artistic communication is strengthened, although their actions remain at times destructive or hostile. here, artistic communication can become more complicated since including such new components as: the viewer-as-artist (since in the first performances the artist often was his own performer); the viewer-as-another-viewer; the viewer-as-work. since the 1960s, performances have been characterised by an appeal to an ever-wider range of topics, including those that were formerly considered taboo in culture: among them politics, sex, violence, death, narcissism, and so on. at the same time, the public was liberated; on the one hand, becoming increasingly active; in other cases, also aggressive. thus, yoko ono’s 1964 performance cut piece, during which the audience was invited to cut off pieces from the artist’s dress with a pair of scissors, made a dispiriting impression on critics – primarily, in terms of the willingness of some members of the public to perform actions bordering on violence. the subsequent performance by marina abramović entitled rhythm 0 had to be interrupted due to threats to the life of the artist, who invited the public to perform any actions on her using various items laid out on the table. the art of the 1960s works enthusiastically with all media, including video, film, television – both as a means of documenting events and as a means of artistic expressiveness. however, with the advent of new digital technologies, their capabilities in this respect have become almost limitless. high technologies have now penetrated almost all spheres of human existence: they mediate labour, leisure, communication, as well as art in many of its manifestations. for several decades, the experiments of artists with new technologies were transformed into that component of visual arts referred to today as ‘digital art’. this art form has already undergone many name changes during its relatively short existence. it has been referred to, for example, in terms of computer-, multimedia-, cyberspace(paul, 2017, p. 7), etc. whatever it is called, it is undeniable that new technologies are claimed by art, according to claire bishop, “at least at one stage of their production, distribution and consumption” (bishop, 2015). even in those cases where artists do not use new media directly in their work (which, as, bishop observes, applies to almost the whole artistic mainstream), they are nevertheless forced to take into account new circumstances related to the digitalisation of reality. already in the 1960s, in order to realise their projects, artists were entering into collaborations with programmers, engineers, etc. many adherents of high technology continue to believe that the future lies in a hybrid art that unites science, art, biotechnology and other elements. artists working with new media can place their projects directly on the network, where they are available for user input. for example, a user could participate in b. seaman’s project “prokhodnye nabory/tyanut’ za ruchku na konchike yazyka (passages sets/one pulls pivots at the tip of the tongue)”, creating a multimedia poem from words, images and media clips (paul, 2017, p. 93). artists can create installations or environments in which high technologies are used in one way or another: computers, interfaces, all kinds of sensors that react to human presence changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 183–197 193 or to some parameters of the human body or even the weather, e.g. wind speed, etc. in this sense, the viewer becomes part of the installation when, by her actions, she activates it. an example of this is a. ballock’s drawing machine, a work which hung on the wall and began to draw straight lines in response to the sounds of human presence (or some other human actions that were not announced in advance). the viewer can also consciously interact with an installation: using a gadget, she can change the patterns of projections and colours on three giant screens that represent masato tutsui’s audio-visual installation functional organics. projects of this kind are typically not only interactive, but also kinaesthetic and immersive; that is, they totally immerse the recipient in an artificial environment created by the artist. thus, philip beasley creates an interactive environment consisting in a kind of forest that affects all the sensory organs of the recipient as well as being sensitive to her touch (installation hylozoic series: stoa). today we live in a post-media world, a situation in which no particular medium has priority; meanwhile, in art, any combination of them is allowed. nevertheless, it is digital media that exerts the greatest influence on contemporary art. just as the appearance of photography at one time deprived artists of their monopoly on creating images, which resulted in the performative turn in art, so the appearance of new media, according to weibel, deprived artists of their monopoly on creativity. “the new 21st century art paradigm consists in a worldwide network, especially following the web 2.0 revolution: now access to all media open is to everyone at any time […] with the arrival of the mass media network, the monopoly on distribution was also lost. creativity is everywhere […] everyone can be creative with the help of technology; however, in addition to this, she can also distribute products of her creativity with the help of technology” (weibel, 2011, pp. 276–277). in this way, new media create a situation of extreme democratisation of creativity. hence the increase in activity on the part of the public, who are waiting for the co-creatorship invitation from the artist. hence also the corresponding proposal on the part of artists. researchers note the emergence of a kind of ‘interactive dependency’ in modern culture (adashevskaya, 2011). the reasons for this dependency are quite understandable: interactive work not only entertains and empowers the viewer, provoking her to perform certain actions, but also gives her something more – new sensations and new experiences. on the one hand, this art undoubtedly arouses genuine interest among the public; on the other, it creates a situation of proximity to the market, for which it is often reproached by critics. in this respect, interactive art fits into the “experience economy”, the business concept based on people’s desire for a variety of impressions. the product here is the obtaining of a new experience, the possibility of experiencing interesting new emotions. interactive art in the context of social practices new media has turned the viewer into a user, whose ever-increasing activity over time produces the ability to go beyond the boundaries of the work, to form new social ties and on this basis create a micro-society. https://changing-sp.com/ 194 vladimir bogomyakov marina chistyakova the curator mary jane jacob defines art as a kind of social practice. in her opinion, art always creates social interaction, regardless of whether it is a picture, conventional subjects, or multiple varieties of socially-engaged art (jacob, 2013). thus, in the context of interactive art, various types of the art of complicity become of interest. during the 1990s, a period characterised by an unstable socio-political situation, social issues were to the fore in contemporary art. in a situation in which a dominant force in the political arena is absent, art acquires the ability to express itself more vividly. “when the dominant political narratives lose their legitimacy, the space is released for new ideas about the future. it is this sense of opportunity that determines the current proliferation of contemporary art practices associated with collective action and civic participation.” (kester, 2013, p. 48). this circle of problems was updated in relational aesthetics, a collection of essays by nicolas bourriaud, which became one of the most discussed (and criticised) books devoted to contemporary art. at the centre of bourriaud’s attention is ‘relational art’, defined as art that takes as its theoretical foundation “the sphere of human relationships and its social context” (bourriaud, 2016, p. 15). in other words, on the one hand, while the work of art does not cease to be objective and material, on the other, bourriaud’s primary attention is emphatically on the human relationships arising within the performance or other event proposed by the artist. bourriaud’s reflections were inspired by the works of artists who actively work with their public, including philippe parreno, félix gonzález-torres, carsten höller, rirkrit tiravanija and pierre huyghe. this kind of relational art takes the interactivity of the work to a new level. previously, the artist either used viewers as extras, a means of setting the work into motion; or as part of the installation, simultaneously complementing and changing it with their actions. in either case, the viewer acted within the framework of the script created by the artist. most of the performances of previous decades assumed either merely the presence of the viewer – where she acted as an entourage, or, in other words, was used as a medium – or permitted her a modicum of participation. unlike most examples of this kind (for example, the events of joseph beuys and bruce nauman), the art of relationships creates a fundamentally different situation, since it gives the viewer a subjectivity, taking into account not only her body, but also experience, sensations, etc. in this sense, works of this kind are much more variative and open to (two-way) communication. bourriaud uses the potential of art to try to find exclusively peaceful means of overcoming the fragmentation of the consumer society and alienation inherent therein. in his opinion, one should not create new utopias or make plans for improving the world through revolutionary change (as, for example, the situationists did). rather, one should learn to live in the world as it is, making it better, friendlier and more harmonious through the establishment of new social ties, the emergence of which in other circumstances, outside art, would be difficult or impossible. the art of relationships should become a source of alternative forms of sociality, its projects oases of good will and mutual understanding. in the opinion of bourriaud, this art changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 183–197 195 is “a pore, a notch in alienation everywhere” (bourriaud, 2016, p. 96). sometimes he understood the space of human relationships as is, on the one hand, inscribed in the global system; on the other hand, he admits “alternative [spaces], not accepted in this system of exchange opportunities” (bourriaud, 2016, p. 18). although bourriaud objects to a definition of relational work in social terms, this can be seen as an attempt to organise fragmented reality into a positive social project. quite quickly, relational art becomes supplemented by the large number of practices associated with the general idea of establishing social ties through interactive artistic approaches. these include socially engaged art, dialogic art, the art of social practices, the art of experimental communities, the aesthetics of communication, etc. they are united by the absence of a border between art and life: actions take place in real time and space, requiring the simultaneous presence of both artist and public. for the designation of art of this kind, art critic claire bishop uses the term “participatory art” or the art of participation. a consistent critic of bourriaud, bishop tries to reveal art in areas where there is a much more obvious social and ethical dimension, in connection with which the problem of the criteria to be used for evaluating such creative works from an aesthetic point of view remains unresolved. in striving to avoid the terminological uncertainty inherent in art of this kind, bishop distinguishes between the concepts of “participation” and “interactivity”. by interactivity is implied the work of the 1960s and 1970s, based on a one-to-one relationship between the viewer and a technological device or interface (for example, the viewer can click a button). for bishop, “participation” implies that a work is created by several people, each of which also acts as a medium, a communicative means within this work (bishop, 2010). in the digital age, such an idea of interactivity is already inherent. in the case of participative art, interaction is made more complicated, but never abrogated. its structure becomes more complicated, in this case including not only the viewer and the work, but also the viewer and the artist, the viewer and other viewers. in the case of collaborative and collective art practices, the structure of interaction becomes even more complex. these are large-scale projects that unite many artists with different social groups, who interact for long time periods often measured in years. as an example of how art creates micro-societies, united by common goals and values, art critic and art historian grant kester led the project park fiction in hamburg (kester, 2013, p. 47). due to the efforts of artists and local residents, a river bank area intended for gentrification was not only defended against the city authorities but also turned into a fantasy public park. during the process of project implementation, alternative platforms for community communication (cafes, bars, schools, etc.) were created and local opinion leaders (musicians, priests, school principals, etc.) were invited. naturally, the most active local residents took part in the discussion and implementation of the project. in this case, additional interactive structures were associated with the interaction not only of individual viewers, but also of individual social groups. critics of interactive art (and all its modifications) often doubt its ability to do anything to radically change society through such “baby steps”; clearly, it does not https://changing-sp.com/ 196 vladimir bogomyakov marina chistyakova constitute a magic wand for solving all social problems. nevertheless, projects of this kind continue to be implemented and can be seen to contribute to positive social change. the success of the curator charles esche is explained by the combination of artistic imagination with the original realism of the task: at the base of such projects are “modest proposals”, seeking to use existing objects, conditions and situations with the aim of their due transformation. esche is convinced that collective creativity not only opens up new opportunities, but also becomes a “method of research and analysis of objective conditions” (esche, 2005, p. 8). another important factor is the increasing impossibility of experiencing collective creativity in other spheres of contemporary society, making its realisation even more attractive both for artists and for the public. in this regard, the curator m. lindt notes that in recent times, culture and art have become an effective force for provoking artistic activism. for her, collaboration is “a way to create a space that would allow us to escape the instrumentalising impact of the art market and state-funded art” (lindt, 2013, p. 115). conclusion despite its clear role in determining the development of art since the time of the historical avant-garde, the importance of interactivity to the emergence of contemporary art has, in our opinion, been underestimated. it is no exaggeration to say that today’s state of art is due, inter alia, to the interactivity that made the process of artistic communication bilateral and active, resulting in the emancipation of both individual audience members and society as a whole. if it hadn’t been for interactivity, many of the former boundaries between art and reality, between the artist and recipient, would still remain in place. the active deployment of interactivity allows contemporary artists to not only entertain the public, but also involve them in the social projects initiated by the artists, thus contributing to the socialisation of art. references adashevskaia, l. (2011). interaktivnaia zavisimost’ [interactive addiction]. dialog iskusstv, 6, 96–101. bishop, k. (2010). sotsial’no angazhirovannoe iskusstvo nado otsenivat’ tol’ko esteticheski (interv’iu) [socially engaged art should be evaluated only aesthetically (interview)]. retrieved from: http://os.colta.ru/art/events/details/16799/ bishop, k. (2015). tsifrovoi raskol [digital split]. khudozhestvennyi zhurnal, 96. retrieved from: http://moscowartmagazine.com/issue/18/article/255 bourriaud, n. (2016). reliatsionnaia estetika. postproduktsiia [relation aesthetics. postproduction]. moscow: ad marginem press. esche, ch. (2005). sovremennye predlozheniia i bezrassudnyi optimism [contemporary suggestions and thoughtless optimism]. khudozhestvennyi zhurnal, 58/59, 6–8. http://os.colta.ru/art/events/details/16799/ http://moscowartmagazine.com/issue/18/article/255 changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 183–197 197 goldberg, r. (2015). iskusstvo perfomansa. ot futurisma do nashih dnei [the art of performance. from futurism till nowadays]. moscow: ad marginem press. groys, b. (2018). v potoke [in the flow]. moscow: ad marginem press. weibel, p. (2015). mediaiskusstvo: ot simuliatsii k stimuliatsii [media art. from simulation to stimulation]. logos, 25(4), 135–162. jacob, m. (2013). iskusstvo – eto sotsialnaia praktika [art is a social practice]. retrieved from: https://theoryandpractice.ru/posts/7451-mary-jane-jacob kester, g. (2013). kollaboratsiia, iskusstvo i subkultury [collaboration, art and sub-cultures]. hudozhestvennyi zhurnal, 89, 38–53. kravagna, ch. (2014). rabota v soobshestve [work in a community]. retrieved from: https://art1.ru/2014/09/02/rabota-v-soobshhestve-2-42598 lindt, m. (2013). povorot k sotrudnichestvu [turn to collaboration]. logos, 25(4), 88–121. manovich, l. (2017). torii soft-kultury [theories of soft-culture]. nizhnii novgorod: krasnaya lastochka. paul, k. (2017). tsifrovoe iskusstvo [digital art]. moscow: ad marginem press. toffler, a. (1999). tretya volna [the third wave]. moscow: ast. virno, p. (2013). grammatika mnozhestva. k analizu form sovremennoy zhizni [gramma of variety. toward the analysis of forms of contemporary life]. moscow: ad marginem press. weibel, p. (2011). perepisyvaia miry. iskusstvo i deiatel’nost’ [rewriting worlds. art and activity]. in: 10++ programmnyh tekstov dlia vozmozhnyh mirov (ctr. 271– 301). moscow: izdatelstvo logos. https://changing-sp.com/ https://theoryandpractice.ru/posts/7451-mary-jane-jacob https://art1.ru/2014/09/02/rabota-v-soobshhestve-2-42598 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.2.033 article socio-cultural differences in social exclusion juan díez-nicolás análisis sociológicos, económicos y políticos and university of almeria, spain ana maria lópez-narbona university of michigan, usa university of malaga, spain abstract the main object of this research is to describe social exclusion in a comparative world perspective. social exclusion is a main concern worldwide. non-desirable social groups as neighbours are used as a proxy measure to answer three questions: who are the most excluded social groups, who are the excluders, and what are the main explanatory variables of social exclusion. social exclusion, as a multidimensional phenomenon, is defined in relation to concepts such as stigma, discrimination, and prejudice. social, economic, political and ideological-religious attitudes are used to construct the profile of the excluder. social exclusion has been measured through three indexes of social exclusion, personal, group and total exclusion, since a main component analysis demonstrated that the degree of social exclusion varied depending on whether the excluded group was more or less based on personal decisions on one’s behaviour taken by the individual. based on theory and previous research, four main variables have been tested to explain social exclusion: social position, exposure to information, post-materialist values and perception of security. but other explanatory variables were also added to the analysis. evs and wvs databases (from 1981 to 2014) have been used, though most of the analysis has been based on the last wvs6th wave on 59 countries with a total of more than 85,000 interviews. keywords social exclusion, social relations, neighbourhood, indexes, social position, information, post-materialism, security received 28 april 2018 © 2018 juan díez-nicolás, ana maria lópez-narbona accepted 30 may 2018 juandieznicolas@gmail.com published online 1 july 2018 alopeznarbona@uma.es https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:juandieznicolas@gmail.com mailto:alopeznarbona@uma.es 106 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona introduction1 social exclusion has long been a concern for scholars, politicians and citizens. new forms of social exclusion are occurring in the city and at the level of the neighbourhoods such as gentrification, a social process that was detected in the 60s (glass, 1964), but which has very recently intensified and produced the “displacement from home and neighbourhood” (marcuse, 1985). according to sassen (2005), “the exclusion of groups of city residents from access to all the city has to offer can be made on the basis of: race, class, religion, income, gender, national origin, sexual orientation or some other characteristic… the restructuring of cities and societies… have led to concerns for the fragmentation of the social world, where some members of society are excluded in the’mainstream’ and where this exclusion is painful for the excluded and harmful for society as a whole”. however, as suggests mandanipour (2016), “exclusionary processes per se are not the source of social fragmentation and disintegration. it is the absence of social integration, which causes social exclusion, as individuals do not find the possibility and channels of participating in the mainstream society”. in the realm of the neighbourhood, macy & van de rijt (2006) “proposes that institutional discrimination is not sufficient to explain the persistence of high segregation without the additional assumption that households have a preference for in-group neighbours”. understanding the causes and conditions of social exclusion in cities and neighbourhoods is critical, as the un has reckoned that “today, 54 per cent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 66 per cent by 2050”. social relations and social exclusion are mostly produced in urban areas. segregation, disintegration, marginalization, poverty and criminality produce and are reproduced by social exclusion provoking a breakdown of social order. the aim of this paper is to analyse social exclusion at the level of the neighbourhood as “it is important to know what are the forces, which tend to break up the tensions, interests, and sentiments which give neighbourhoods their individual character” (park, 1984). three main questions are posed to address this issue: who is subject of social exclusion in neighbourhoods? who is the actor of social exclusion in neighbourhoods? what are the factors that explain social exclusion in neighbourhoods? there are independent intra and extra-neighbourhood effects on individuals’ behaviours that should be further analysed in order to properly understand the process of social exclusion in neighbourhoods. neighbourhoods are privileged places to research social exclusion. life develops mostly in neighbourhoods where people meet, disagree, and reunite in contiguity, intimacy and vicinity. “proximity and neighbourly contact are the basis for the simplest and most elementary form of association with which we have to do in the organization of city life” (parks, 1984). neighbourhoods are poles of attraction for groups of people with differential characteristics. society may be divided into smaller 1 a first version of this paper was presented at the wapor annual conference, lisbon, portugal, 15–17 july 2017. similar versions have also been presented at the university of almeria 19–20 october 2017 and the university of granada 20 february 2018. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 107 units until reaching the level of the neighbourhood without losing the essence of society as “the neighbourhood is a social unit which, by its clear definition of outline, its inner organic completeness, its hair-trigger reactions, may be fairly considered as functioning like a social mind” (woods, 1913). individuals in society can only be understood as processes in the confluence of time, space and place. in the same sense, neighbourhoods are spatially and timely based. perception of the neighbourhood boundaries is variable and their design is arbitrarily drawn. for glaster (2001), “certain topographical features are permanent. sewer infrastructures and buildings last typically generations. others, such as tax/public service packages and demographic and status profiles of an area, can change over a year. the area’s social interrelationships can be altered even more rapidly”. moreover, as burgess (1984) suggests “boundaries of local areas determined ecologically, culturally, and politically seldom, if ever, exactly coincide”. cities and neighbourhoods provide the opportunity to analyse micro-social processes (social relationships), the results of which can be extrapolated to macro-social processes that take place in larger urban spaces and societies. sassen (2005) suggests that “the city has long been a site for the exploration of major subjects confronting society and the social sciences. in the mid 1990s, it lost that heuristic capability. today the city is once again emerging as a strategic lens for producing critical knowledge, not only about the urban condition but also about major social, economic, and cultural refiguring in our societies”. we understand neighbourhoods as concrete space, time and places where social exclusion occurs. therefore, connecting social exclusion with cities and neighbourhoods may contribute to identify divisions in order to look for cohesion, to give new sense to long defended rights such as social citizenship and social justice, and to cope with social processes that are pressing problems in worldwide cities such as gentrification, parochialism, segregation, marginalization and purification. social exclusion has many dimensions like impoverishment, labour market exclusion, service exclusion, and exclusion from social relations, among others. the present study, however, is specifically designed to measure social exclusion from social relations using the world values survey2 (hereinafter wvs) variables 36 to 44 (which pose the questions: “would not like to have as neighbours…”) as a proxy measure. in the context of residential segregation, clark (1986, 2006) suggests that prejudice is equated to “would not like...” groups proposed in wvs questions refer to social exclusion from social relations (social avoidance and social distance) in neighbourhoods. the present analysis is structured in six sections. section 2 focuses on the main concepts and theories in which the research developed in this paper is based. we address the concept of social exclusion and the concepts closely related to it. the specialised literature has developed different models to explain different categories of social exclusion from social relations. models of prejudice mostly focus on issues of race, ethnicity and immigration. models of stigma relate to deviant behaviour and identities, and disease and disabilities. social 2 most of the analysis has been based on the data set of the wvs-6th wave, 2010–2014, which includes 59 countries with a total of more than 85,000 personal interviews, mostly face-to-face. but some analysis have used the combined data set evs-wvs 1981–2014, which includes six waves (1981, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010), 110 countries and a total of 506,487 personal interviews. https://changing-sp.com/ 108 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona exclusion, stigma, prejudice and discrimination are concepts closely interrelated. more recently some scholars have developed ethnic preferences models which propose the hypothesis that social distance and preference dynamics could generate and sustain significant levels of segregation in the absence of discrimination (clark, 2006; fosset, 2006, 2011). in order to understand what generates social exclusion in neighbourhoods, we carry out a literature review. sections 3 to 6 are directed to the empirical analysis of social exclusion in neighbourhoods using the already mentioned question as to persons or groups that would not be accepted as neighbours. to address the statistical analysis, some questions are posed: a) who is the subject of social exclusion in neighbourhoods? (sections 3: describing who are the excluded social groups, and section 4: construction of social exclusion indexes); b) who is the actor of social exclusion in neighbourhoods? (section 5: describing the excluders); c) what are the main factors that explain social exclusion in neighbourhoods? which are the causes and conditions of social exclusion? (section 6: explaining social exclusion). the first question tries to determine the main characteristics of the persons subject to social exclusion. we consider that the excluded is objectified, commoditised, standardized, homogenized, equalized, and grouped; in sum, people who suffer social exclusion lose their private and own characteristics as individual persons and become part of a category that elicits social exclusion. the second question addresses the socio-demographic profile of the excluder. although there are important methodological differences in measuring attitudes, opinions and behaviours, the questions posed by the wvs concerning neighbours will help us to design an image of the person who manifests his or her exclusion to others. with the third question, we look for causes and conditions of social exclusion. many reflections arise on this point. first, can we sustain that there is a globalization of attitudes? second, as allport (1954) and others suggest, it is very likely that the person or group that shows prejudice or discrimination against one group, also shows discrimination or prejudice against more groups. can we apply this conclusion to our statistical analysis? third, can we extrapolate the meso-social level analysis (neighbourhoods) to the macro-social level (society), or the manifestations of prejudice, discrimination and social exclusion are different at different levels of analysis? how can the bogardus social distance scale be applied in our statistical analysis? fourth, we have divided the wvs variables used in this research into two groups, personal exclusion (mainly referred to voluntary generally nonaccepted social behaviours of individual persons like heavy drinkers, drug-addicts, homosexuals…) and group exclusion (referred to social exclusion based on racism and xenophobia which implies exclusion based on the belonging to racial, ethnic and foreign groups), which of the two groups of variables attract the more prejudice, stigma and discrimination, in sum, social exclusion? in the case that it is personal exclusion, do people blame individual persons for these behaviours? do excluders changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 109 consider that excluded’s behaviour is voluntary and could and should be controlled? in the case of group exclusion, is blaming out of the question? what would be the main reasons for this kind of social exclusion? the last section, section 7, contains the main conclusions and discussions on the topics analysed. the process of social exclusion social exclusion is closely related to, but should be distinguished from, concepts such as stigma, prejudice, discrimination, poverty, deprivation, and inequality, although the conceptual distinction is not an easy task. in the following lines, we expose different definitions and conceptualisations of the main terms above mentioned and their relation to social exclusion. stigma, prejudice and discrimination models have been used to explain social exclusion. further to these models, scholars after schelling (1971) are focusing their interest in the preferences and social distance models posing the following question: is social exclusion always based on any kind of rejection of the other, be it stigma, prejudice, stereotyping or discrimination? this question is addressed from a theoretical perspective. we finish with a literature review on the concept of social exclusion and its connections to social relations, social distance and neighbourhood. stigma the concepts of social exclusion and stigma are interrelated. goffman (1963) suggested that people who possess a characteristic defined as socially undesirable acquire a spoiled identity, which then leads to social devaluation and discrimination. however, according to deacon, stephney & prosalendis (2005), social stigma does not always produce discrimination. stigma is a mark or sign of disgrace usually eliciting negative attitudes to its bearer. if attached to a person with a mental disorder (heavy-drinkers or drugaddicts) it can lead to negative discrimination. it is sometimes but not always related to a lack of knowledge about the condition that led to stigmatisation. stigma can therefore be seen as an overarching term that contains three elements: problems of knowledge (ignorance), problems of attitudes (prejudice), and problems of behaviour (discrimination). stigma is then related not only to social exclusion but also to ignorance, prejudice and discrimination. prejudice prejudice is also a concept intimately related to social exclusion. allport (1954) argued that prejudice is an “antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization”. therefore, according to allport, prejudices are negative attitudes towards groups and individuals based solely on their group membership. allport (1954) also suggested that “one of the facts of which we are most certain is that people who reject one out-group will tend to reject other out-groups. if a person is anti-jewish, he is likely to be anti-catholic, anti-negro, anti any out-group”. adorno https://changing-sp.com/ 110 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona et al. (1950) demonstrated that authoritarianism is associated with prejudices against many different groups. according to elliot et al. (1982), once a person has been classified (through stigma or prejudice) as illegitimate for participation in an interaction, he or she is beyond the protection of social norms and, as such, may be excluded or ignored altogether. for joffe (1999), stigma and prejudice would be fundamental emotional responses to danger that help people feel safer by projecting controllable risk, and therefore blame, onto out groups. these socially constructed representations only result in discrimination and the reproduction of structural inequalities when other enabling circumstances (such as power and opportunity to discriminate) come into play. phelan, link, and dovidio (2008) explored commonalities and possible distinctions between prejudice and stigma, concluding that most differences are a matter of focus and emphasis. one important distinction is in the type of human characteristics that are the primary focus of models of prejudice (race) and stigma (deviant behaviour and identities, and disease and disabilities) which allowed them to develop a typology of three functions of stigma and prejudice: exploitation and domination (keeping people down); norm enforcement (keeping people in); and disease avoidance (keeping people away). discrimination parker and aggleton (2003) consider that stigma and discrimination should be understood as part of the political economy of social exclusion present in the contemporary world. the three concepts then are closely interrelated and cannot be conceptualised independently. discrimination can be seen as the behavioural consequence of stigma, which acts to the disadvantage of people who are stigmatised (sayce, 2000). the rejecting behaviour of others may bring greater disadvantage than the primary condition itself. conceptualisations of the terms referring to rejection of the other have their foundation on the point of view of the actor, i.e., the person or group of persons who stigmatise, discriminate and exclude. for zick et al (2011), “individuals are looked down upon not on the basis of their personal characteristics but through nothing other than their categorization as a member of an out-group. it is utterly irrelevant whether they see themselves as a member of this group or whether their group membership can be determined objectively. what matters is solely the categorization by the person holding or expressing the prejudice”. there are many scholars who advocate for definitions that take into account the point of view of the stigmatised because the way they respond to stigma can materially affect the impact of stigma in society, whatever the extent of actual discrimination based on stigma (deacon, stephney & prosalendis, 2005). social exclusion the concept of social exclusion was developed in france in 1974 to refer to groups, “les exclus”, with no access to the labour market and with limited or not recognized changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 111 rights to social citizenship. however, rejection or social exclusion has existed along human history. in the ancient greece, ostracism was used to eliminate men seen as a threat to the state (figueira, 1987). according to forsdyke (2000), the creation of the institution of ostracism, whereby the people decided collectively whether to banish a single citizen for ten years, provided not only a mechanism for the symbolic expression of democratic power, but also a means for the practical and ideological distinction between oligarchic and democratic rule. the infrequent and moderate use of exile as a means of resolving political conflict helps to explain the extraordinary stability of the athenian democracy. from a durkheimian point of view, social exclusion is functional for society as it helps to establish moral, legal and cultural limits of society and to give stability to the status quo. christianity applies a similar institution called ex-communion (eliade, 1961; de la garza & valdes, 1998). sen (1992) highlights the lack of capabilities as the key component of the exclusion process. socially excluded individuals are denied access to the resources (material, cultural, emotional) that enable them to acquire capabilities related to cognitive development and educational success, but also extend to the broader spheres of health and social participation. according to rodgers (1995), “exclusion is an evolving pattern that encompasses all facets of an individual’s life”. for room (1992, 1995), the main aspects of the concept of social exclusion are “multidimensionality, dynamicity and relationality”. multidimensionality refers to different dimensions of social exclusion (social, economic, cultural, political) and different levels (micro, i.e., individual, household; meso, i.e., neighbourhoods; and macro, i.e., nation state and global regions) along a social exclusion/inclusion continuum; dynamicity implies that social exclusion impacts in different ways to differing degrees at different social levels over time; and relationality (room, 1995) because it focuses on exclusion as the rupture (or inequality) of relationships between people and society resulting in a lack (or differential) of social participation, social protection, social integration and power. levitas (2005) defines social exclusion as “the dynamic process of being shut out, fully or partially, from any of the social, economic, political, cultural systems, which determine the social integration of a person in society”. social exclusion used in this research is conceptualised as the process of rejection of a group or a person, in any degree, that keep the rejected group or person out from the social system based on stigma, prejudice, stereotyping and/or discrimination. the main foundations of rejection would be fear, ignorance, blaming, social control, and avoidance of risk. ethnic preferences and social distance attitude and social distance surveys usually ask what they would do in imaginary situations or what they think most people would do, for example, when faced with a neighbour or work colleague with mental illness. this work has emphasised what normal people say without exploring the actual experiences of people with mental illness themselves about the behaviour of normal people toward them. further, it has been assumed that such statements (usually on knowledge, attitudes or behavioural intentions) are congruent with actual behaviour, without assessing such behaviour https://changing-sp.com/ 112 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona directly. such research has generally focused on hypothetical rather than real situations, neglecting emotions and the social context, thus producing very little guidance about interventions that could reduce social rejection. bogardus’ social distance scale scores ranged from one to seven along a choice continuum in which there is a category regarding neighbours. its influence is still high despite discrepancies between expressed attitudes and actions. a reverse social distance scale (guttman’s coefficient of reproducibility) was created to measure minority groups’ perceptions of the social distance. schelling (1971) analysed why groups cluster together in residential neighbourhoods. small differences in the preference of an individual to be with others of a similar type (ethnicity, e.g.), could lead to quite distinct patterns of separation in the population. for schelling, microlevel voluntary choices and economic competition can create or maintain macro-level patterns of residential segregation along ethnic and socio-economic dimensions. urban-ecological studies of residential segregation try to understand the “urban mosaic”, i.e., the complex differentiation of residential neighbourhoods that stands as a fundamental fact of urban life (fosset, 2011). segregation occurs along many axes, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic position, age, stage of family life cycle, nativity, and life style producing a highly variegated urban spatial fabric. according to fosset (2006) many factors contribute to ethnic segregation such as discrimination. however, as past forms of discrimination slowly fade, it is compulsory to direct special attention to the role of ethnic preferences and social distance dynamics associated with in-group attraction and out-group avoidance. discrimination alone is insufficient to account for the extent and continuing nature of residential separation and segregation, as the explanation is multidimensional (clark, 1986, 2006). social preferences (ethnocentrism or in-group preferences) appear as a factor to take into account together with economic status (affordability), urban structure, and discrimination. in the following lines, we address the three main questions proposed to analytically unravel the process of social exclusion in neighbourhoods. first, who is the person subject to social exclusion, i.e., who is the excluded? second, who is the actor of social exclusion, i.e., who is the excluder? in the model proposed in this work, the actor of social exclusion cannot be understood without the person subject to social exclusion. third, why and how is there social exclusion, i.e., which are the causes and conditions of social exclusion? the point of view exposed in this work is the point of view of the actor, i.e., of the person who answers to the question posed in the wvs: “would not like to have as neighbours…” the analysis of social exclusion is then inferred indirectly through the answers to questions posed in a negative form (“would not like to have as neighbours…”). although there are some limitations of applying a concept (social exclusion) developed in the industrialised countries with welfare systems, to nation states with weak governance, minimal welfare provision, and a majority of the population living in extreme poverty, in this research we will do some inferences to the main world cultural regions using data from the wvs. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 113 measuring social exclusion in a comparative frame. who are the excluded groups? social exclusion, as measured by the proxy indicator already mentioned, social groups not wanted as neighbours, depends obviously on the social groups listed and presented to the respondents. values surveys have included this question since the first evs-wvs wave in 1981, and have continued to include it in all wvs waves in 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010, but the target groups of the question have varied in time. in table 1 we have listed the social groups that have been included in the last completed wvs wave (2010–2014) in order to compare with previous waves. in the first column the aggregate summary for all waves is presented, but in the other columns social groups mentioned in each wave as “not wanted as neighbours” are listed. table 1 percentage that would not like different social groups as neighbours, wvs-evs 1981–2014, by wave social groups all waves 1981–2014 1981 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 drug addicts 65.1 – 62 67 66 73 79 heavy drinkers 58.4 48 56 59 55 60 65 homosexuals 41.0 – 44 43 42 43 47 people with aids 36.3 – 40 38 39 35 41 unmarried couples 7.5 – – – – 19 25 immigrants 18.6 6 16 15 21 19 25 different religion 8.0 – – 3 6 15 19 different race 15.3 8 15 12 18 15 19 different language 4.9 – – – – 12 17 no. of data sets 331 24 43 67 79 58 60 no. of respondents (506,487) (29,685) (62,769) (118,253) (125,531) (83,975) (86,274) in the evs-wvs 1981 wave only three groups of those included in the last wvs wave (2010) were also included. it must be underlined the high stability of proportions of the total population that reject the same social groups. it is also a surprising finding that there seems to be a certain tendency to higher rather than lower proportions of rejection of the same social groups. thus, the proportion that would not want as neighbours each of these nine social groups in the last wave, 2010–2014, is in all cases the highest of the total period. the larger increases in absolute terms correspond to the rejection of immigrants and foreign workers, drug addicts and heavy drinkers, and to a lesser degree, people of a different race. we think that every social fact must be interpreted in space and time, and in this case it must be taken into account that the last wvs wave was conducted in the period when the financial and economic crisis that began in 2007 was at its very peak. fears and worries of populations around the world might explain the growth of social exclusion of all social groups. another factor might be that in the last wave there have been a few more developed countries and an increase of less developed countries, and also an increase of mena region countries. https://changing-sp.com/ table 2 percentage that would not like different social groups as neighbours, by geo-cultural regions and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) all countries anglo-saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america sub-sahara russia drug addicts 78.5 drug addicts 89.6 drug addicts 77.1 drug addicts 93.9 drug addicts 75.7 drug addicts 70.4 drug addicts 72.4 drug addicts 82.2 drug addicts 93.2 drinkers 65.0 drinkers 70.0 drinkers 68.3 drinkers 85.1 drinkers 66.4 drinkers 57.6 drinkers 51.3 homosexuals 66.0 drinkers 84.3 homosexuals 46.6 homosexuals 17.1 homosexuals 27.0 homosexuals 73.2 homosexuals 57.7 aids 49.0 homosexuals 27.1 drinkers 59.7 homosexuals 66.2 aids 40.4 aids 14.6 aids 25.2 aids 67.0 aids 55.5 homosexuals 39.6 aids 17.4 immigrants 24.3 aids 54.3 couples 25.2 immigrants 11.2 immigrants 19.4 immigrants 27.0 couples 54.1 immigrants 33.7 language 10.4 aids 23.0 immigrants 32.2 immigrants 24.8 language 10.5 race 13.8 couples 25.0 immigrants 32.3 couples 28.1 religion 10.0 couples 20.0 language 18.9 religion 19.2 race 4.9 religion 11.0 race 22.8 religion 30.4 religion 23.6 immigrants 9.4 religion 15.8 race 17.2 race 18.7 couples 4.2 language 10.9 religion 22.7 race 28.1 race 22.3 race 7.9 race 15.5 religion 14.3 language 17.3 religion 3.2 couples 7.4 language 16.7 language 25.1 language 21.8 couples 7.8 language 15.3 couples 7.8 changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 115 since there seems to be a high stability of exclusionist attitudes, especially regarding the rank order of groups (it has been the same in all six waves, without a single exception), we have focused on the data of the last wvs wave, 2010–20143. to that effect we have grouped the 59 countries in only seven geo-cultural regions4. throughout this article, we have always considered russia as a separate unit of analysis for comparative purposes. drug addicts are unanimously the most rejected social group as neighbours, with no exceptions. the second most rejected social group is heavy drinkers, with the only exception of sub-saharan countries. the reason is that homosexuals are much more excluded in those countries, being the second most rejected social group in that world region. the rejection of heavy drinkers is lowest in latin america (51%) and highest in east europe and the balkans (85%), and not in mena countries (66%), as one might have expected because of religious norms. the third most rejected social group is that of homosexuals, but with two exceptions, sub-sahara, where they are the second most rejected group, and asia, where they are less rejected than people with aids. rejection of homosexuals as neighbours shows a very high variation, so that the least exclusion is observed in anglo-saxon countries (17%) and the highest in east europe and the balkans (73%). other findings that deserve some underlining are the higher exclusion of people with aids in east europe and the balkans and in mena region countries (67% and 56% respectively), the higher rejection of unmarried couples in mena region (54%), the higher exclusion of immigrants and foreign workers in asia and mena regions (34% and 32% respectively), and the higher exclusion of people of a different religion, a different race and a different language in mena region countries (30%, 28% and 25% respectively). social groups that seem to be more rejected in general are those based on some personal, rather than group, characteristic. does it mean that people are more tolerant with individuals who are different because they belong to a group regardless of their choice (i.e., different race) than with those who apparently belong because having made a personal choice (i.e., heavy drinkers)? 3 data sets are usually equivalent to countries, but not always, because in some cases there are two or more data sets for a country (i.e., east and west germany). besides, while wvs has conducted surveys in all six waves, evs has conducted its waves only in 1981, 1990, 1999 and 2008. these data sets have been included in the nearest wvs wave date. furthermore, some countries have participated in the wvs and the evs with the same or different teams, as is the case for spain, sweden, turkey and other countries. that is why datasets and countries not always are the same. in the last wvs wave there were 59 countries but 61 datasets. 4 the distribution of countries by geo-cultural regions is as follows: anglo-saxon (australia, new zealand, and united states), european union (cyprus, estonia, germany, netherlands, poland, romania, slovenia, spain, and sweden), east europe and the balkans (armenia, azerbaijan, belarus, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, russia, ukraine, and uzbekistan), mena (algeria, bahrain, egypt, iraq, jordan, kuwait, lebanon, libya, morocco, palestine, qatar, tunisia, turkey, and yemen), asia (china, hong kong, india, japan, malaysia, pakistan, philippines, singapore, south korea, taiwan, and thailand), latin america (argentina, brazil, chile, colombia, ecuador, mexico, peru, trinidad and tobago, and uruguay), subsaharan africa (ghana, nigeria, rwanda, south africa, and zimbabwe). https://changing-sp.com/ 116 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona table 3 percentage that would not like different social groups as neighbours, russia 1990–2010, by wave social groups 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 drug addicts 86 86 85 94 93 heavy drinkers 82 76 78 89 84 homosexuals 81 64 61 66 66 aids 68 54 55 58 54 immigrants 12 11 31 32 32 race 11 8 16 17 17 religion – – – 16 14 language – – – 14 19 couples – – – 4 8 in general, drug addicts, heavy drinkers, homosexuals, and people with aids seem to be more rejected than unmarried couples or people who are immigrants, or of a different religion, race or language. in general, east europe and the balkans, together with mena countries, are usually the regions where almost all mentioned social groups seem to be more undesired as neighbours. regarding russia, drug addicts and heavy drinkers are certainly not desired as neighbours by almost unanimity of respondents, and rejection has increased in the past two waves. homosexuals are excluded by almost two thirds of respondents since 1995, though a little less than they were in 1990. social exclusion of people with aids has decreased, but rejection of immigrants, people of a different race, of a different language and of unmarried couples, has increased, though their social exclusion is still very low, as that of people of a different religion. the general pattern of social exclusion in russia, according to last wave results, is very similar to the group of countries in east europe and the balkans, with the only exception of the social exclusion of people of a different language, relatively much higher in russia than in east europe and the balkans. as mentioned, persons who discriminate some social groups are more likely to discriminate others. for that reason, and with the objective of constructing an index of social exclusion, some models of principal component analysis have been calculated. this analysis, allowing for the free selection of components, shows that there are two principal components, one composed of five items and another one composed of four items. in the first component we find four items with saturations above .650 and one with a lower saturation of .573 (unmarried couples living together). it seemed advisable to eliminate this item, since it does not seem to belong to either component. the second component also includes four items. thus, the four items in the first component seem to imply that respondents consider that the individual belongs to each of the four social groups (people of a different race, religion, language and immigrants) because of its belonging to it is not dependent of a specific behaviour, while the four items included in the second component (drug addicts, heavy drinkers, people with aids and homosexuals) seem to depend, at least partially, on personal decisions and/or behaviours. this, at least, seems to be changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 117 the perspective that respondents may have, whether or not it is correct. in any case, we have computed a second principal component analysis with free selection of components but excluding unmarried couples living together. table 4 main component analysis with items regarding social exclusion (excluding unmarried couples living together) (free number of components), full sample wvs-6 (2010–2014) social groups rotated component matrixa component 1 2 drug addicts –.209 .751 people of a different race .776 .037 people who have aids .392 .595 immigrants/foreign workers .672 .155 homosexuals .269 .631 people of a different religion .753 .035 heavy drinkers –.052 .743 people who speak a different language .743 –.046 extraction method: principal component analysis. rotation method: varimax with kaiser normalization. a. rotation converged in 3 iterations. similar principal component analyses have been calculated for the seven regions, producing similar but no exactly equal distribution of items in two components. the first component is clearly found with the same items and high saturations in five regions (and in russia), but not in the mena region or in asia. in these two regions the same four items, with high saturations, are found in the second component. but the other four items (drug addicts, heavy drinkers, homosexuals and people with aids), whether in the first or the second component, show a more irregular pattern. thus, in anglo-saxon countries two items (people with aids and homosexuals) make the second component, but drug addicts and heavy drinkers are part of a third component, all with very high saturations. in the mena region and asia the four items make the first component, with high saturations. in east europe and the balkans the four items are part of the second component, with high saturations, like in the total sample of 59 countries. in latin america and sub-saharan africa the second component has only three items (drug addicts, heavy drinkers and homosexuals), but people with aids shows a low saturation and is not part of any component. in the european union only two items are part of the second component, drug addicts and heavy drinkers, but both homosexuals and people with aids are not part of any component because of low saturations. and in russia the second component includes drug addicts, as well as heavy drinkers, people with aids and homosexuals. a final principal component analysis has been produced, asking for only one component, so that all eight items would rank themselves according to their saturation. results mean that a person that wouldn’t like people of a different race as neighbours is very likely to dislike other social groups too, while those who reject drug addicts may or may not reject members of other social groups. https://changing-sp.com/ 118 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona table 5 main component analysis with items regarding social exclusion (excluding unmarried couples living together) (one component required), full sample wvs-6 (2010–2014) social groups component 1 people of a different race .718 people of a different religion .696 immigrants/foreign workers .674 people who speak a different language .653 people who have aids .608 homosexuals .512 heavy drinkers .270 drug addicts .131 extraction method: principal component analysis. a. 1 component extracted as this analysis demonstrates once more, all four of the more “personal” items show the lowest saturations, while all four of the more “group” items show the highest saturations. the same analysis for russia is very similar, the items with the highest saturation are race, immigrants and language, while the two with the lowest saturation are drug addicts and heavy drinkers, in that order. construction of social exclusion indexes on the basis of these eight items, therefore, we have constructed three social exclusion indexes: a personal exclusion index, a group exclusion index and a total exclusion index. total exclusion index has been constructed by adding the number of social groups that each respondent mentioned as not wanted neighbours. consequently, since there were eight social groups for which the question was posed, the index could vary from 0 (no social group was mentioned at all as not wanted), to 8 (all social groups were mentioned as not wanted as neighbours). only 9% of the total sample did not mention any social group as undesired neighbours, and less than half that proportion (4%) answered that they did not want as neighbours people belonging to each one of the eight social groups for which the question was posed. the mean number of undesired social groups for the total sample was 3.11, with a standard deviation a little over half the mean. the highest number of social groups excluded is found in east europe and balkan countries, and also in the mena region countries, while the lowest index is found in latin america, anglo-saxon and european union countries. but the highest dispersion of social exclusion is found in latin america and in the european union countries, while the lowest coefficient of variation is found in east european and balkan countries5. 5 the coefficient of variation (cv) is the ratio between the standard deviation over the mean, as a percentage to standardize the measure. the higher the cv the greater seems to be the variation in the number of social groups excluded by the respondents in the population, while a lower cv means that there is a high agreement among respondents in the number of social groups undesired as neighbours. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 119 table 6 mean and standard deviation in total social exclusion index by geo-cultural regions and russia (mean number of social groups excluded as neighbours), wvs-6 (2010–2014) mean and standard deviation total social exclusion index all countries anglosaxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsahara russia  3.11 2.11 2.53 4.08 3.71 3.18 2.06 3.02 3.81 σ 1.96 1.27 1.80 1.73 2.22 1.99 1.58 1.42 1.72 cv in % 63.00 60.20 71.20 42.40 59.80 62.60 76.70 47.00 45.10 in sum, people in east european and balkan countries and in mena region countries seem to exclude more social groups as neighbours, and they show the highest consensus on their populations regarding that measure of social exclusion, while people in latin america and european union countries show the lowest total social exclusion but with the highest variation in the number of excluded social groups in their populations. and, coherent with the data already examined above, russia shows a very high index of total social exclusion (only lower than in the east europe and balkan region), but with a low coefficient of variation (small differences among those who exclude many social groups and those who exclude very few, meaning a high consensus in the population). we will examine later what factors explain the great variation in total social exclusion in latin american and european union countries, though they are the countries with the lowest total social exclusion as measured by the question about undesired neighbours used as proxy. we have constructed two more social exclusion indexes, taking into consideration the findings from the principal component analysis mentioned before. principal component analysis showed, not only for the total sample of 59 countries, but also for most of the seven geo-cultural regions, that there were two main components, one grouping four of the social groups in a component that seemed to measure group social exclusion, and another grouping the other four social groups that seemed to measure personal exclusion. table 7 number of groups excluded labelled personal or group, full sample wvs-6 (2010–2014) number of groups excluded personal exclusion group exclusion no group excluded 13.8 59.3 one excluded 13.6 19.3 two excluded 25.8 9.5 three excluded 22.3 5.9 four excluded 24.6 6.0 total 100.0 100.0 https://changing-sp.com/ 120 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona the construction of the two indexes has followed a similar pattern than the one used to construct the total social exclusion index. it is evident at first glance that, for the total sample of more than 85,000 respondents in the world social exclusion seems to be based more on personal or more individual characteristics (drug addicts, heavy drinkers, homosexuals and people with aids) than in group characteristics (different race, religion or language, and immigrants and foreign workers). table 8 mean personal and group social exclusion index by geo-cultural regions and russia (number of social groups excluded as neighbours), wvs-6 (2010–2014) index mean social exclusion all countries anglosaxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsahara russia personal 2.30 1.91 1.98 3.19 2.55 2.17 1.68 2.31 2.98 group .80 .30 .55 .89 1.16 1.01 .38 .71 0.83 the mean number of social groups based on personal characteristics rejected is much higher than the mean for those based on group characteristics. and once again mena countries show one of the highest means in personal and group exclusion, though east european countries have even a higher personal exclusion index, and asian countries rank second in terms of group exclusion. latin american and anglo-saxon countries are the ones with lowest personal and group exclusion. russia, once more, shows the second highest personal and group exclusion indexes (only lower than those in east europe and balkan region). describing who are the excluders following our objectives, we have described who the excluded social groups in present societies are, and then we have constructed three indexes to measure social exclusion. now we must try to find out who the excluders are. table 9 correlation coefficients among the three indexes of social exclusion, full sample wvs-6 (2010–2014) index personal exclusion group exclusion total social exclusion personal exclusion 1 .190** .801** group exclusion .190** 1 .740** total social exclusion .801** .740** 1 ** correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). the three correlation coefficients are high and statistically significant, but the stronger is between personal exclusion and total exclusion, and the weakest is between personal and group social exclusion. similar results are found in russia, the three coefficients being statistically significant and in two cases even stronger changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 121 than for the total sample: r total vs. personal = .769, r total vs. group = .790 and r personal vs. group = .216. traditionally one would look for differences in the mean values of social exclusion among different segments of the population, usually demographic characteristics, in order to find out who are the groups of people who are more likely to socially exclude other groups, measured through the proxy question used in wvs surveys, and more specifically through the indexes just described. thus total social exclusion seems to be a little higher among males than among females, it is usually higher among the young ones than among the elderly, and it seems to be negatively related to education, income and employment status, with some minor exceptions. and it is certainly confirmed that in all segments of the population personal exclusion is higher than group exclusion. but interesting as that may be, it seems more appropriate to use theoretical assumptions and try to formulate hypothesis about certain explanatory relationships. in fact, centre-periphery theory combines in a single index many of the demographic variables (galtung, 1964, 1976; díez-nicolás, 1966, 2009, 2013) to measure social position of individuals in society. table 10 mean value of the three indexes of social exclusion, by some demographic variables, full sample wvs-6 (2010–2014) demographic variables indexes of social exclusion personal group total total 2.30 0.80 3.11 sex female 2.31 0.78 3.09 male 2.30 0.82 3.12 age groups 18–29 2.31 0.83 3.14 30–49 2.32 0.79 3.12 50–64 2.28 0.79 3.07 65+ 2.27 0.76 3.03 education less than primary 2.41 0.93 3.35 primary 2.27 0.91 3.18 secondary 2.31 0.78 3.09 university 2.28 0.69 2.97 income low 2.20 0.91 3.11 middle low 2.37 0.78 3.15 middle high 2.33 0.77 3.10 high 2.26 0.84 3.10 employment status not employed 2.36 0.85 3.20 partial job or self employed 2.32 0.89 3.21 full time job 2.28 0.70 2.98 https://changing-sp.com/ 122 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona according to this theory some social positions are more central than others (they have more information, as well as more opinions and they generate or support new attitudes and social values earlier than the social periphery). accordingly, individuals in the social centre should be less socially excluders than those in the social periphery. we also know that individuals in the social centre are more exposed to information than those in the social periphery, so that more individuals more exposed to information should be less socially excluders than the less exposed. for similar reasons, since the social centre is more supportive of new values (post-materialistic, more oriented towards self expression values than the social periphery, more oriented towards materialistic, survival values), we should also expect a negative relationship between post-materialist values and social exclusion (inglehart, 1971, 1977, 1990, 1997; díez-nicolás, 2013). and finally, taking into account that security (in all kinds of different aspects) is becoming one of the more important values in present societies, one should expect that people who feel less secure would be more likely to be more socially excluder than those who feel more secure (díez-nicolás, 2015). therefore, we can summarize our main hypotheses as follows: social exclusion (as measured by the proxy indexes of social exclusion) is negatively related to social position, to information, to post-materialist values and to perception of security. we have measurements for all five main groups of variables through different indexes. thus, we have three measures of social exclusion, two of social position, three of exposure to information, one of post-materialist values and four of security. we have proceeded to examine these relationships before including other potential explanatory variables of social exclusion in a comparative world perspective and with a special focus in russia. the construction of the social position index has followed the modification already established by díez-nicolás in 2009, with full agreement by galtung6. the distribution of the sp-5 index in three categories (social centre, middle and social periphery is the following). table 11 distribution of the population in three categories of social position, by geo-cultural region and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) categories of social position geo-cultural regions all countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsahara russia social periphery 22.7 3.5 13.8 11.9 34.4 15.1 19.5 51.1 13.4 middle 54.5 45.2 51.5 65.0 52.8 58.5 56.6 43.9 59.8 social centre 16.7 37.2 28.3 21.5 8.0 19.0 12.2 3.6 22.4 6 the index is based on sex (male = 1, female = 0); age (–18 and +75 years = 0; 18–25 and 65–74 = 1; 26–35 and 55–64 = 2; 36–54 = 3); educational level (less than primary = 0; primary completed = 1; secondary or technical completed = 2; university = 3); income level (low = 0; middle low = 1; middle high = 2; high = 3); centrality of place of residence (low = 0; middle low = 1; middle high = 2; high = 3); and employment status (not employed = 0; partial job or self employed = 1; full time job = 2). the complexity of measuring these six demographic characteristics is very high, so that some variable, like occupation or urban-rural habitat, has not been included because of lack of information or because of lack of comparability among countries. since the correlation between the two indexes of social position is r= .95 for all countries (r =.98 for spain), and in order to lose as little information as possible, we decided to have income for as many countries and individuals as possible, and therefore have used social position-6. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 123 as expected, the social centre is higher than the social periphery in the populations of anglo-saxon and european union countries, in east european and balkan countries and in asia and russia. only in mena and sub-sahara regions the social periphery is larger than the social centre. nevertheless, the middle category is more than half the population in the total sample and all regions except anglo-saxon countries and sub-sahara. this finding is important because if social position is negatively related to social exclusion, as has been stated as hypothesis, then we should expect more exclusionism among the populations of mena and sub-saharan regions, and less in anglo-saxon and european union countries. first, we have analyzed the relationship between social position and social exclusion. the correlation matrix between the two indexes of social position and the three indexes of social exclusion shows that social position and social exclusion are negatively and statistically significantly related in all six correlation coefficients. but the three coefficients of social position-5 are a little stronger than with social position-6. and the correlation coefficients with group exclusion are higher than with personal exclusion, but negative as said before. in the case of russia the six coefficients are negative, as expected, but the relationships are weaker, especially with sp-5. nevertheless, for the total sample, the three correlation coefficients between sp-5 and the three social exclusion indexes are statistically significant at the .05 levels and negative, as indicated and expected, while they are significant at the .01 level for sp-6. for all these reasons we have used social position-6 as the independent explanatory variable. table 12 correlation coefficients between social position-6 index and three indexes of social exclusion, by geo-cultural region and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) indexes of social exclusion social position-6 index total sample 59 countries anglosaxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsaharan africa russia personal exclusion –.065** –.089** –.123** –.027** –.018* –.081** –.040** –.071** –.049* group exclusion –.087** –.088** –.100** –.039** –.027** –.142** –.018 .007 –.029 total exclusion –.098** –.117** –.140** –.043** –.028** –.151** –.040** –.048** –.050* * correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed). **correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). it may be observed that the relationship of social position-6 with the three social exclusion indexes is negative in all geo-cultural regions and russia, like in the total sample, with the only exceptions of the relationship with group exclusion in latin america and sub-saharan countries. and all relationships are statistically significant at the .05 level and most at the .01 level, with the previous exceptions plus the relationship with group exclusion in russia. people in the https://changing-sp.com/ 124 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona social periphery are therefore more likely to be social exclusionists, especially personal exclusionists, than people in the social centre, a finding that is coherent with centre-periphery theory. the second hypothesis refers to exposure to information. in this case we have constructed four indexes. the wvs survey had information about recent exposure to daily newspapers, printed magazines, tv news, radio news, mobile phone, e-mail, internet and talk with friends, a total of eight sources of information. we constructed a first general index of information by adding one point for each source to which the respondent had been exposed recently. but then we decided to construct two separate indexes, one for traditional information sources (daily newspapers, printed magazines, tv news and radio news), and a second one for new social media (mobile phone, e-mail, internet and talk with friends). furthermore, we constructed an additional traditional information index excluding exposure to tv. most respondents all over the world use regularly between three and five media, in a distribution that looks very much as a “normal” distribution, with only 2% who admit they don’t use any media at all, and 7% who declare using the eight media regularly. but there are significant differences on the use of media in different geocultural regions of the world. table 13 mean and standard deviation in information indexes by geo-cultural regions and russia (number of media used last week), wvs-6 (2010–2014) mean and standard deviation all countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsahara russia information index 3  4.29 4.88 5.17 4.12 3.99 4.21 4.22 3.82 4.37 σ 2.03 1.92 1.95 1.83 2.08 2.11 1.91 1.95 1.88 social networks use index  2.03 2.49 2.45 1.86 2.11 1.92 1.92 1.67 2.05 σ 1.38 1.35 1.40 1.25 1.42 1.40 1.40 1.22 1.35 traditional media use index  2.26 2.40 2.72 2.26 1.88 2.28 2.30 2.15 2.32 σ 1.10 1.10 1.08 1.06 1.06 1.12 1.01 1.10 1.05 traditional media use index (excluding tv)  1.37 1.55 1.79 1.32 1.02 1.38 1.37 1.41 1.39 σ .99 0.92 .99 1.01 0.94 1.03 0.93 0.85 0.98 as expected, use of all types of media, new social networks or traditional media, is higher in the more developed world, that is, european union and anglo-saxon countries, and lower in mena region and sub-saharan countries. it must be observed that the use of new social networks is lower in latin american and asian countries than in mena region countries, while the opposite is true regarding traditional media (even if one takes out use of tv). probably this indicates that new social networks or media had a very significant role in mena region countries in recent years (since 2010 onwards), because their index of use is higher than in all other regions and russia, apart changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 125 from anglo-saxon and european union countries. russians use media very regularly, since their information index is only lower than in anglo-saxon and european union countries, its use of new social media is only lower than those two regions plus mena region, and it ranks third after anglo-saxon and european union countries regarding the use of traditional media, even if tv is not taken into consideration. all correlation coefficients among the four indexes of information are statistically significant at the .01 level, not only for the total sample of 59 countries, but also for the seven geo-cultural regions and russia. the relationships are rather strong, especially between the general information index-3 and the index of use of new social networks media. table 14 correlation coefficients between information indexes and social exclusion indexes, full sample wvs-6 (2010–2014) index information index-3 new social media use index traditional media use index total social exclusion index –.062** –.043** –.063** personal exclusion index –.055** –.033** –.060** group exclusion index –.041** –.033** –.037** ** correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). the initial hypothesis on the relationship between information and social exclusion is confirmed, in the sense that it is negative, so that respondents more informed are less likely to be socially exclusionists and vice versa. we have decided to use information index-3 to measure the total exposure to information. table 15 correlation coefficients between information index-3 and three indexes of social exclusion, by geo-cultural region and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) exclusion information index-3 total sample 59 countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsaharan africa russia personal social exclusion –.055** .000 –.090** –.063** .067** –.098** .006 –.008 –.031 group social exclusion –.041** –.016 –.027** –.069** –.012 –.008 –.006 .047** .000 total social exclusion –.062** –.009 –.076** –.085** .038** –.077** .001 .030** –.020 **correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). but the relationship does not hold for anglo-saxon and latin american countries, neither for russia, in any of the three indexes of social exclusion. it doesn’t hold either for group exclusion in mena region and asia, or for personal exclusion in sub-sahara. and more surprisingly, the relationship is positive and not negative, but statistically significant for group and total social exclusion in sub-saharan countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 126 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona the lack of full confirmation of the relationship between exposure to information and social exclusion deserves more analysis in the future regarding the regions involved, but the relationship is confirmed in most regions and for the three indexes of social exclusion. however, and according to the theory, the relationship between social position and information is strongly positive and statistically significant at the 0.01 level, implying that the social centre uses much more than the social periphery all types of media, traditional or new social networks. the relationship is positive, strong and statistically significant at the .01 level in the nine coefficients, in all seven regions and also in russia. the third hypothesis refers to the values system. according to the theory new post-materialistic values are positively related with social position and with information, and therefore should be negatively related to social exclusion. that is, people oriented towards new post-materialistic, self-expression values, should be less exclusionist of any social groups than people oriented towards the more survival, conservative and traditional values. inglehart developed two indexes, one with 12 items and another one with only four items (two measuring materialism and two measuring post-materialist attitudes). the four items index has proven to be much better predictor in all countries, and it is the one we use here (díez-nicolás, 2000). table 16 percent distribution of the population by values, by geo-cultural regions and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) values all countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsaharan africa russia materialist 34.2 19.1 25.3 49.0 38.9 34.0 23.9 37.4 52.7 mixed 52.0 56.3 58.4 45.3 44.4 52.1 57.3 57.4 41.8 post-materialist 8.2 16.9 12.7 2.8 5.1 7.0 14.8 5.0 2.1 total 94.3 92.3 96.4 97.1 88.4 93.2 96.0 99.8 96.6 missing; unknown 5.7 7.7 3.6 2.9 11.6 6.8 4.0 .2 3.4 usually more than half the population in each territory shows mixed values, materialist and post-materialist, and the proportion of materialists is generally higher than the proportion of post-materialists. as may be observed, all distributions are very similar (a very frequent finding when using this scale), but the proportion of the population oriented towards the new post-materialist values is a little higher in anglo-saxon and european union countries, as well as in latin america. and it is extremely low in east europe and the balkans, and even lower in russia. table 17 correlation coefficients between post-materialist values and social exclusion, full sample wvs-6 (2010–2014) index post-materialist index (4-item) personal exclusion index –.134** group exclusion index –.036** total social exclusion index –.113** ** correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 127 the relationship between post-materialist values and social exclusion is negative and statistically significant at .01 level, as expected from the theory. new post-materialistic values include tolerance and social acceptance of people who are different. therefore, those with post-materialistic values are expected not to be social excluders. table 18 correlation coefficients between post-materialism-4 and three indexes of social exclusion, by geo-cultural region and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) exclusion post-materialism-4 total sample 59 countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsaharan africa russia personal –.134** –.065** –139** –.040** –.018* –.116** –.053** –.029** –.018 group –.036** –.040** –.093** .038** .055** –.003 .013 .048** .050* total –.113** –.070** –.147** .002 .020* –.086** –.030** .015 .021 * correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed). ** correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). the three coefficients are generally negative and statistically significant in most regions, with only two a few exceptions on the significance, usually regarding the relationship with group or total exclusion. there are also some exceptions regarding the sign of the relationship in east europe and the balkans, in mena region, in latin america, in sub-sahara and in russia. confirming also the theory, there is a positive and statistically significant relationship of social position and information with post-materialist values, implying that people in the social centre and those very much exposed to information tend to be more oriented towards the new post-materialistic values, while the less informed and in the social periphery are more oriented towards survival and traditional values. and this is true in all regions and in russia, with only one exception: anglo-saxon countries and only regarding the relationship between social position and post-materialism. the fourth and final hypothesis regards the relationship of perception of security and social exclusion. in previous research we have explained why security has become one of the most important values (díez-nicolás, 2011, 2015). perception of security has been measured at four levels, personal (that includes family), community and national or external, plus total that summarizes the first three. table 19 mean perception of total perceived security (scale 1 to 4) by geo-cultural regions and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) perceived security all countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsaharan africa russia personal 2.08 2.80 2.60 2.10 2.03 1.96 1.84 1.73 2.33 community 3.16 3.28 3.46 3.26 3.21 3.37 2.64 2.86 2.69 national 2.18 2.81 2.80 2.02 1.83 2.15 2.14 1.92 2.06 total 2.52 2.98 2.99 2.50 2.36 2.56 2.25 2.24 2.36 https://changing-sp.com/ 128 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona perception of community security seems to be higher than personal and national security in all regions and also in russia. perception of all kinds of security is higher in anglo-saxon and european union countries than in any other region. perception of security in russia is lower than in those two regions, but higher than in any other region with respect to personal security. but, regarding community security russia scores lower than any region except latin america. national security in russia is only higher than in east europe and balkans, mena region and sub-saharan countries. and total security in russia is only higher than in latin america and sub-saharan countries. the lowest perception of personal security and total security is found in sub-saharan countries, but the lowest perception of community security is found in latin america, probably due to organized crime in some countries like mexico and some other countries, but countries in mena region are the ones that show the lowest perception of national or external security, an expected finding given the conflictive situation of the region because of violence in syria, iraq, afghanistan, etc. all correlation coefficients of the four indexes of security among themselves are high and statistically significant, implying that the four aspects seem to be overlapping. but total perception of security shows the strongest relationships with the other three indexes. this is also true in each of the seven regions, and in russia. table 20 correlation coefficients among the four indexes of perceived security and social exclusion, full sample wvs-6 (2010–2014) exclusion standardized total security index standardized personal security index standardized community security index standardized external security index personal social exclusion –.048** –.058** .087** –.101** group social exclusion –.064** –.035** .020** –.090** total social exclusion –.072** –.061** .071** –.124** ** correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). our initial hypothesis about a negative relationship between perception of security and social exclusion is confirmed. people who feel secure do not fear other different peoples. all the correlation coefficients are negative and statistically significant at the .01 level, with the only exceptions of perceived community security, which shows a positive correlation with all three indexes of social exclusion. we decided to use perceived total security as a predictor, since it includes the other three indicators. table 21 correlation coefficients between total perceived security and three indexes of social exclusion, by geo-cultural region and russia, wvs-6 (2010-14) exclusion total perceived security total sample 59 countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsaharan africa russia personal –.048** –.051** –.080** .000 .057** –.037** –.058** –.046** –.011 group –.064** –.079** –.076** –.004 .092** –.109** –.111** –.007 –.056 total –.072** –.084** –.097** –.002 .093** –.099** –.109** –.040** –.044 ** correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 129 in general, the relationships are negative and significant, with only a few exceptions. for example, total perception of security does not seem to be significantly related to any of the three measures of social exclusion in east european and balkan countries and coherently in russia. there seems to be no relationship either between total perceived group exclusion in sub-saharan countries. but it must be pointed out that even in those cases the relationship between perceived security and social exclusion is generally negative. we may then summarize our main findings, and especially the results of our main hypotheses about how social position, exposure to information, values and perception of security may affect social exclusion. for each of the four predictors we have selected the index that seems to give a more global measurement of each concept. table 22 correlation coefficients between total social exclusion and social position-6, information-3, post-materialist values-4, and total perception of security, by geo-cultural region and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) index total social exclusion index all countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsaharan africa russia social position index-6 –.098** –.117** –.140** –.043** –.028** –.151** –.040** –.048** –.050* information index-3 –.062** –.009 –.076** –.085** .038** –.077** .001 .030** –.020 postmaterialist-4 index –.113** –.070** –.147** .002 .020* –.086** –.030** .015 .021 total security index –.072** –.084** –.097** –.002 .093** –.099** –.109** –.040** –.044 * correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed). ** correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). we have supplied enough evidence to confirm our initial hypotheses, in the sense that social position, information, post-materialist values, and perception of security are negatively related to social exclusion. most correlation coefficients adjust to the described pattern, that is, they are negative and statistically significant. but the data for mena region and sub-saharan countries seem not to support entirely these hypotheses, and partially that is also true in east europe and the balkans, in russia and in latin america. however, data from anglo-saxon, european union and asian countries support fully our hypotheses. more analysis is needed to find out why some relationships are a little different in some regions. explaining social exclusion the four independent, explanatory variables, that have been analyzed, probably contribute to the explanation of social exclusion in different societies around the world, more in some countries than in others. it seems now the time to establish https://changing-sp.com/ 130 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona how much they explain, and whether or not there are other variables that may contribute to expand the degree that social exclusion can be explained. from the analysis of correlation coefficients one might conclude that values, that is, postmaterialist values, would be the variable that contributes more to the explanation of social exclusion. but we also know that the four variables analyzed as explanatory variables are quite related among themselves. therefore, it seems necessary first to establish how much the four of them together can explain, and how much each one of them contributes to the explanation. table 23 regression model for explaining total social exclusion on the basis of social position, information-3, post-materialism-4 and total perceived security, by geo-cultural region and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) variables total social exclusion all countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsahara russia r2 adjusted = .022** .023** .041** .015** .020** .035** .005** .007** .005 standardized beta coefficients social position-6 –.074** –.110** –.119** –.040** –.011 –.116** –.025* –.067** –.061 information-3 –.028** .019 –.004 –.110** .082** –.025* .024 .065** .001 postmaterialism-4 –.089** –.062** –.117** .009 .066** –.079** –.025* .017 .047 total security –.051** –.082** –.085** –.016 .104** –.119** –.068** –.035** –.051 * correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed). ** correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). the model explains only 2% of the total variance in total social exclusion for the total sample of 59 countries and more than 85,000 respondents, and the relationship is significant at the .01 level. as may be seen, all four indexes are negatively related to social exclusion, confirming our initial hypotheses that the higher the social position, the higher the exposure to information, the higher the post-materialism and the higher the perception of security, the lower would be the number of social groups not wanted as neighbours. when the model is calculated for the seven regions, it is observed that the adjusted total regression coefficient (r2 adjusted) is higher in european union countries and asia, and lower in latin american and sub-saharan countries. it is also very low and statistically not significant in russia. nevertheless, most adjusted regression coefficients (beta) are negative and statistically significant, as expected. but there are two types of results that do not follow the general expected pattern. some relationships are positive instead of negative, and some coefficients, regardless of their direction, are not statistically significant. the first type of deviation is found mainly in mena region countries, and the second type is in most cases related to the relationship of information with social exclusion. in the case of russia none of the four coefficients is statistically significant. post-materialism and social position seem to be the two variables that contribute more to the explanation of total social exclusion in the total sample. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 131 but there are many differences when looking at the regression coefficients in each region. social position and post-materialism are the two variables that explain more in european union countries. social position is the best predictor in anglo-saxon and sub-saharan countries, information is the best in east europe and the balkans, total perceived security and social position are the best in asia, and total perceived security is the explanatory variable that contributes more to the explanation of total social exclusion in latin america. as we said, a great variety and not one single pattern, which means that the region, and even more, the country, continues to be the most useful unit of analysis. in any case, these results suggest that it would be appropriate to look for additional variables that, according to previous research, and especially, according to the variables available in the combined data set of european and world values research, and to the potential capacity to explain that they have shown in other pieces of research on values, are expected to increase the percent of the variance explained by the model. table 24 regression model for explaining total social exclusion on the basis of a group of explanatory variables, by geo-cultural region and russia, wvs-6 (2010–2014) explanatory variables total social exclusion all countries anglo saxon european union east europe & balkans mena asia latin america subsahara russia r2 adjusted = .052** .056** .068** .055** .026** .052** .030** .014** .018 standardized beta coefficients social position-6 –.040** –.087** –.077** –.025 –.004 –.142** –.004 –.065** –.057 information-3 –.018** .023 .028 * –.080** –.043** –.005 .043** .054** .050 postmaterialism-4 –.089** –.038* –.102** .004 .063** –.101** –.011 .020 .045 total perception of security –.040** –.031 –.051** .023 –.002 –.113** –.040** –.044** –.053 feeling of happiness –.029** –.011 –.053** .001 .003 –.046** –.010 –.010 –.004 self-evaluation of health –.015** –.016 -.031* .019 .011 .057** –.052** .020 –.059 satisfaction with life –.085** –.093** –.051** –.117** –.004 –.009 -.049** .007 –.032 ideology .056** .159** .062** .015 .040** .004 .030 * –.033** –.021 importance of democracy –.061** –.045** –.057** –.038** –.079** .008 –.065** -.038** –.091 religious person –.014* .065** .040* –.112** .053** .000 .075** .029** .096 importance of god in life .091** –.007 .073** .156** .001 –.021 –.017 .069** –.120** national pride –.033** .008 .011 –.069** –.111** –.061** –.107** .028* .373 * correlation is significant at the .05 level (2-tailed). ** correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). https://changing-sp.com/ 132 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona we have therefore constructed a regression model to explain total social exclusion with the same four independent variables and eight additional ones7. this model explains 5% of the variance in total social exclusion, more than twice what was explained by the model with the four explanatory variables. but there is a high degree of variation regarding the proportion of the variance explained in the different regions. we may observe that the model explains more in european union countries (7%) and very little in sub-saharan and mena countries (1% and 3% respectively). the model explains almost 2% of the variance in total social exclusion in russia, even much less than in the east europe and balkans region. the important finding is that, in spite of the possible relationships between each variable and the other eleven, all the variables contribute to the explanation of total social exclusion in a statistically significant manner in the total sample. the variables that seem to contribute more to the explanation of total social exclusion, in the total sample, are the importance of god in their life (positively), post-materialism and satisfaction with life, (both of them negatively related). those who say that god is not important in their life, the post-materialists and the satisfied with their life are less likely to be exclusionists. in anglo-saxon countries, the variable that contributes the most is ideology, but the relationship is not negative but positive, which means that individuals who consider themselves in the right are more likely to be exclusionists. the same would apply to self-evaluation as a religious person; those who consider themselves religious are more likely to be exclusionists. however, social position and satisfaction with life do contribute negatively and significantly to explain total social exclusion (those in the social centre and those who are satisfied are likely not to be exclusionists). in european union countries post-materialism and social position are the best predictors of total social exclusion, and in a lesser degree also importance of democracy, feeling of happiness, perceived security and satisfaction with life, all of them negatively related to total social exclusion. but importance of god in their life and ideology are positively and significantly related to the dependent variable. in east europe and the balkans satisfaction with life and being a religious person are the variables that contribute the most to the explanation of total social exclusion, and less but always in a negative and significant manner, information, national pride and importance of democracy. but importance of god in their life is related positively to total social exclusion, so that those for whom god is more important tend to be exclusionists. in mena region countries only six variables contribute the most to explain total social exclusion, in order from more to less, national pride, importance of democracy and information (negatively) and post-materialism, being a religious person and ideology (positively). in asia, social position, perceived security and post-materialism are the best predictors of total social exclusion, but also national pride, self-evaluation of health 7 feeling of happiness (4 categories), self-evaluation of health (4 categories), satisfaction with life (10 categories), the self positioning in the ideological scale (7 categories), importance of democracy (10 categories), self-evaluation of religiosity (3 categories), importance of god in one’s life (10 categories), and national pride (4 categories). changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 133 and feeling of happiness. all of them are negatively related to the dependent variable except self-evaluation of health, which means that those who think they are in good health are more likely to be exclusionists. in latin america, national pride is the best predictor of total social exclusion, so that those who are very proud of being nationals of their country are likely to be less exclusionists. other significant negative relationships are importance of democracy, self-evaluation of health, satisfaction with life and total perceived security. but those who consider themselves to be religious and who are very exposed to information tend to be more likely to be exclusionists. social position, perceived security, importance of democracy and ideology are the variables that in sub-saharan countries contribute more to the explanation of total social exclusion, all of them in a negative direction. but importance of god in their life, being a religious person and information contribute positively to that explanation. finally, only one variable contributes significantly to explain total social exclusion in russia: importance of god in their life, meaning that russians who answer that god is important in their life tend to be less exclusionist8. we have constructed a second regression model to explain personal social exclusion with the same twelve independent variables. this model explains also 5% of the variance in personal social exclusion. the model explains more in asian countries and in european union countries (6%) and very little in latin america and mena countries (2% and 3% respectively), and even less in russia. the variation among regions is therefore quite less than regarding total social exclusion. all of the twelve variables contribute to the explanation of personal social exclusion in a statistically significant manner in the total sample, except the self evaluation as a religious person. the variables that contribute most to the explanation of the variance in personal social exclusion, in the total sample, are the importance of god in their life, and post-materialism, but with different directions, positively in the first case and negatively in the second. this finding is basically the same than was found regarding total social exclusion. when examining the relationships of the independent variables with the dependent one, personal social exclusion, it is evident that most are similar to what was found with respect to total social exclusion. in order not to repeat the same comments, we only comment which are the variables that contribute more to the explanation of the variance of the dependent variable. thus, in anglo-saxon countries that variable is ideology (positively related with personal social exclusion), but in sub-saharan countries the same variable is the best predictor, though the relationship is negative. in european union countries the best predictor is postmaterialism, negatively related to the dependent variable. in east europe and the 8 the fact that a variable does not contribute to the explanation of social exclusion does not mean that it is not related to the dependent variable, it only means that it does not add anything to the explanation over what other variables have already explained, probably due to its relationships with these other variables. we want to insist on this issue because too frequently some analysts will come to the conclusion that the specific independent variable is not related to the dependent variable. the fact is that it doesn’t add anything to what other variables explain, but we don’t know really what would be the case if the said variables were not present. https://changing-sp.com/ 134 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona balkans, and in asia, importance of god in life is the variable that contributes more to the explanation of the variance in personal social exclusion, in the sense that those for whom god is very important are likely to be exclusionists. national pride and information are negatively related to personal social exclusion as the best predictors of its variance in mena region countries. being a religious person is positively related to personal social exclusion in latin america, and is the variable that contributes more to explaining its variance. and finally, none of the independent variables seem to contribute significantly to the explanation of personal exclusion in russia. the third regression model includes the same twelve independent variables to explain the variance in group social exclusion. this model only explains a 3% of that variance, that is, a little more than half what the previous two models explain. the variation among regions is therefore less than regarding total or personal social exclusion, from 3% in latin america and sub-saharan africa to 7% in asia. however, the model explains 4% of the variance in group exclusion in russia, and in this case this finding is highly statistically significant (at the .01 level). eight of the twelve variables contribute to the explanation of group social exclusion in a statistically significant manner in the total sample. the variable that contributes most to the explanation of the variance in group social exclusion, in the total sample, is importance of democracy. this finding is quite different to what was found in the previous two models. it implies that those who don’t consider democracy important tend to be more exclusionists. when examining the relationships of the independent variables with the dependent one, group social exclusion, it is evident that most are similar to what was found with respect to total and to personal social exclusion. in order not to repeat the same comments, we will only comment which are the variables that contribute more to the explanation of the variance of the dependent variable. thus, in anglo-saxon countries that variable is again ideology (positively related with group social exclusion). in european union and asian countries the best predictor is social position, negatively related to the dependent variable. in east europe and the balkans three variables contribute more to the explanation of the variance in group social exclusion, two negatively (importance of democracy and religiosity), and one positively related (importance of god in their life). but in russia religiosity is the best predictor of group exclusion, in the sense that those who consider themselves more religious tend to be also more exclusionist. importance of democracy is negatively related to group social exclusion as the best predictor of its variance in mena region countries. importance of god in one’s life (plus social position mentioned above) is negatively related to group social exclusion in asia, and they are the variables that contribute more to explaining its variance. national pride is negatively related to group social exclusion as its best predictor. conclusions and discussion of results this research paper has been based almost exclusively on the world values survey data file of the 6th wave, conducted in 59 countries with a total of more than 85,000 changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 135 personal interviews collected almost entirely through face-to-face interviews at the home of the respondent9. based on the evidence presented here we can conclude that drug addicts, heavy drinkers, homosexuals and people with aids are the four more undesired social groups as neighbours worldwide. the only exceptions are that immigrants are more undesired than people with aids in sub-saharan countries. two main reasons could explain why drug-addicts score first in all geo-cultural regions. on the one hand, excluders manifest fear of them linking drug-addiction with crime and poverty. on the other hand, people tend to blame drug-addicts, heavydrinkers, people with aids for an allegedly voluntary behaviour. march, oviedojoekes, and romero (2006) conclude that, despite the diversity of characteristics between countries, socially excluded drug users showed high scores in specific exclusion indicators, such as incarceration, illegal drug use, housing problems, poor health status, lack of employment, and engagement in criminal activities. according to seddon (2006), santana (2002), and foster (2000), the problem of drug-related crime is inextricably linked with issues of socio-economic disadvantage and social exclusion. the association of drugs with criminality and poverty has come to be seen as natural rather than historically novel. pearson (1989) suggests that this is part of a wider process of the social construction of drug problems, which, as observes, has tended historically to focus on the drug consumption of socially disadvantaged groups. mathiesen (1990), bauman (1998), and wacquant (2001) consider that there is a “criminalization of the poor” as criminal law and penal responses tend to focus most on the activities of the socially and economically disadvantaged. for foucault (1991), healy (2001), and voruz (2005), this relation has come to be an objective and unquestionable truth that invariably begins as a response to a concrete situation which is “real” but that also offers scope for a more radical critical account that can destabilise the present. alcoholism is a severely stigmatized condition, which is heavily associated with a notion of blame and enforcement of social norms. furthermore, alcohol-dependent persons are seen as unpredictable and dangerous and alcoholism is seen as a voluntary condition. negative stereotypes like being dangerous or unpredictable cannot simply be rejected as being wrong, as drunken driving and alcohol-related domestic violence are societal problems. phelan et al. (2008) argue that in those diseases presenting as a deviant but voluntary behaviour, the purpose of stigmatization could be enforcement of social norms. the function of stigma and prejudice may be to make the deviant conform and rejoin the in-group, or it may be to clarify for other group members the boundaries for acceptable behaviour and identity and the consequences for nonconformity. schomerus, lucht, holzinger, matschinger, carta, and angermeyer (2011) concluded that compared with people suffering from other, substance-unrelated mental disorders, alcohol-dependent persons are less frequently regarded as mentally ill, are held much more responsible for their condition, provoke more social rejection and more negative emotions, and are at particular risk for structural discrimination. their conclusion is that alcoholism is a particularly severely stigmatized mental disorder. 9 retrieved from: www.worldvaluessurvey.org https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org 136 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona bayer (2008) and burris (2008) think that, seen from a perspective of purpose, the question arises whether stigmatization of alcoholism could not simply represent a rational, successful strategy to improve public health, forcing people to cut down their drinking to avoid stigmatization. drinking per se, however, is not stigmatized. on the contrary, drinking alcohol is a social behaviour that is often associated with inclusion in a social grouping; it may even be a signal of power and status (room, 2005), and often, even heavy drinking is socially accepted behaviour, examples are wedding receptions, business meetings and parties. thus, when a person’s drinking behaviour violates these norms and evokes stigmatization, the drinking problem has presumably become quite severe. taken together with the results from ethiopia, a country with a low per capita alcohol consumption (rehm et al., 2009), which depict alcoholism as a comparatively less exclusionary condition there, the question arises whether alcoholism may be generally less stigmatized in societies with lower alcohol consumption like many islamic countries or india (rehm et al., 2009), or to what extent the stigma of alcoholism depends on cultural belief systems about health and illness in general (mulatu, 1999). for santana (2002), alcohol has been shown to be responsible for a substantial burden of disease in europe and other established market economies, especially in the area of morbidity and disability, as well as in terms of substantial social costs. for de toledo, piza peluso, and blay (2008) individuals with alcohol dependence are perceived as violent and capable of arising negative reactions among members of the community, such as negative ideas and reactions of avoidance and distancing. scott (1998) observed that attitudes towards homosexuality were becoming slowly more tolerant, especially among women, but condemnation of extramarital sex remained high. she concluded that religion played an important role in explaining within and cross-national variations in attitudes and that provided a powerful counterbalance to permissiveness trends. changing attitudes to sexual morality were not as revolutionary as claimed and the demise of traditional values was over-stated. simmons (2008) has developed an analysis on the ways in which immigration and homosexuality are jointly produced and regulated by the state through immigration policy. cross-national surveys suggest that negative attitudes toward homosexuality are more prevalent in the new europe (štulhofer & sandfort, 2005; inglehart & welzel, 2005). among the new members of the eu and the other post-communist countries, the eastern orthodox countries were found higher in homo negativity than the roman catholic. a similar finding was reported by inglehart and welzel (2005), who used the wvs database. in comparison to the protestant and catholic religion, eastern orthodoxy increases social distance toward homosexuals, regardless of the level of modernization. exposure to a diversity of ideas and people that is typically associated with university education encourages people to be more open-minded and liberal (inglehart, 1977). as economic prosperity increases through modernization, a change in citizens’ value systems also occurs. according to inglehart and his collaborators (inglehart, 1971, 1977, 1990, 1997; inglehart & norris, 2003; inglehart & welzel, 2003, 2004), a shift from materialist to post-materialist values, or self-expression values, takes changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 105–142 137 place when chances to satisfy material needs increase. materialist values include the following: satisfying economic living conditions, security, national identity and the exclusion of outsiders. post-materialist or self-expression values, in contrast, are characterized by the desire for self-fulfilment, an emphasis on freedom, participation and the tolerance of diversity (inglehart, 2006). inglehart interprets discrimination against homosexuals as one type of social exclusion. he shows that existential security tends to make all out-groups, including homosexuals, more acceptable. main results for russia show that drug addicts and heavy drinkers are not desired as neighbours, their rejection has increased in the last two waves. attitudinal studies in russia have highlighted pervasive stigma directed toward both people with hiv and people who inject drugs (balanova et al., 2006; lioznov & nikolaenko, 2011). additionally, according to a policy briefing by who european centre for environment and health (2006), there is considerable evidence which supports links between drinking and violent behavior. in the russian federation, alcohol consumption has been noted to be involved in the perpetration of violence generally as well as in specific types of violence. homosexuals are excluded by almost two thirds of russian respondents since 1995, though a little less than they were in 1990. this is coherent with conclusions by gulevich et al. (2016) who suggest that negative attitudes toward homosexuals include a perception of threat originating from homosexuals viewed as an active group. individuals with high levels of prejudice see homosexuality as a deviation from a natural and moral norm that may threaten social morals, unless it is contained. homosexuality is seen as a fashion, based on western influence, which threatens russian values. homosexuals are perceived as a source of threat to individuals (as they are believed to be inclined to molest children and “convert” “normal” heterosexual adults to homosexual ways) and to the russian society as a whole. summary of main results the first main finding is that social exclusion of the same groups seems to be very stable across time and space, with very few changes between 1981 and 2010, and very few differences comparing seven geo-cultural world regions. through principal component analysis it was found that apparently people all over the world, with very few exceptions, perceive two different types of social groups, those to which individuals belong regardless of their own personal decision (immigrants and foreign workers, different race, religion or language), and those who apparently have at least partially done something to belong to (drug addicts, heavy drinkers, people with aids and homosexuals). results have been analyzed through seven geo-cultural regions in which the 59 countries have been distributed. russia has been analyzed also separately. it has been found that social groups based on more individual choice are more excluded than those to which individuals belonged not because of their choice. an index of total social exclusion has been constructed based on the number of social groups mentioned by respondents as undesired neighbours, ranging from 0 to 8 points. this total exclusion index has been disaggregated into two components, the personal exclusion index and the group exclusion index, each based on the exclusion https://changing-sp.com/ 138 juan díez-nicolás ana maria lópez-narbona of four social groups respectively. all the indexes have been calculated for the total sample of 59 countries, the 7 geo-cultural regions and russia. on the basis of these three indexes we have identified what categories of persons are more or less likely to be excluders. for that purpose different statistical tools have been used, mainly descriptive. finally, an attempt to explain the main factors that lead to social exclusion has been implemented, mainly through correlation and regression analysis. thus, it was confirmed that the four main explanatory variables: social position, information, post-materialist values and perception of security are negatively related to social exclusion because of existing theory and previous research. other explanatory variables were added, measuring social, economic, political and religious attitudes and behaviours, which increased the power to explain social exclusion. but results show that social position, post-materialist values and some religious indicators seem to be the variables that contribute more to the explanation of social exclusion, though there are important specifications in these relationships in the different geo-cultural regions. main findings are coherent with existing theory and research in this topic. references adorno, t. w., frenkel-brunswik, e., levinson, d. j., & sanford, r. n. 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corporations owe for burdening individual civil rights compares two terms: individual “religious freedom” and corporate “freedom of religion”; he argues that they are often confused with one another. strenski examines the relationship between corporate religious bodies and the state and stresses the craven collapse in religious resistance to leviathan, which is a very regrettable circumstance in modern political and religious history. in addition, religion is not always really seeking freedom from the state control. strenski emphasizes that in the west it has become commonplace to identify religious freedom with the right to believe whatever one chooses; however, the two concepts under consideration in the article are quite different from each other. the true measure of the depth of this difference can be assessed by the frequency, with which the rights of individual religious freedom conflict with the rights of corporate religious institutions. to reinforce his conclusions, strenski cites relevant historical and contemporary examples. in the article weber’s nationalism vs. weberian methodological individualism: implications for contemporary social theory, marharyta fabrykant notes that “there is no comprehensive theory of nationalism unlike other key concepts, such as democracy, political culture, or even society itself, but a multitude of theoretical approaches dedicated to specific aspects of the issue, primarily to the origins of nations and nationalism”. considering max weber’s understanding of nationalism is especially important in the light of continuing debates on the nature of his concept. fabrykant analyzes the scholarly discussion on the topic whether weber himself was a nationalist, and underlines that there is a considerable variety of opinions about weber’s nationalism and its historical context. she compares the ideas of sociological classics – simmel, durkheim, and sombart – with weber’s ideas and concludes that he “does not attempt to tie the emergence of nations to a specific received 15 june 2019 © 2019 elena a. stepanova published online 1 july 2019 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 98–100 99 historical period with its specific macrolevel context. instead he relies upon what he believes to be universals of human nature – the tendency to produce personal and emotionally charged meanings for the initially purely pragmatic events, as long as the latter are not universally shared”. at the same time, fabrykant argues that there is a significant difference between weber’s views on nationalism in his earlier and mature texts. nelly a. romanovich in the article dichotomy of the basic aspects of the image of power in russia: traditional and modern models writes that there is the system of perceptions about power within a given society, which includes both basic (concept, functions, form, duties, etc.), and contextual (expectation of specific socio-political actions from a particular government) aspects. she argues that the historical developmental paths of eastern and western cultures have led to differences in the system of power relations. these differences were manifested in the political cultures of western countries and russia, and affected the people’s attitude towards the concept of power. as a result, the image of power has obtained its own sociocultural specifics in each society. romanovich compares traditional and modern models of power and argues that characteristics of the former are based on a special loyalty of people to their sovereigns; this model is traditional for russia since it originated and was formed along with the birth and foundation of the country where “power” is something, to which one needs to serve and should serve. in russia, people did not endow the autocrat with authority, but rather recognized his/her authority. in its turn, the modern model of the image of power suggests the opposite direction of serving: “the highest representative elected by the people serves the people, and never vice versa. therefore, the attitude towards the authorities and its supreme representative is calm, without any admixture of mysticism”. romanovich considers personification, which includes a set of logical consequences such as autocracy, centralization and hierarchy, as the main characteristic of the russian model of the image of power. she concludes that the modern model of the image of power conflicts with the original russian model, and notes that in spite of proclaiming the modern model in the current russian constitution, the traditional model still dominates public opinion. in the essay section, olga potap’s power of memory (in commemoration of elie wiesel, 1928–2016) is published. the essay is dedicated to elie wiesel’s ninety-yearold birthday anniversary, and since this publication coincides with the third anniversary of his death, the article aims to commemorate him. olga potap had a privilege to be a student of elie wiesel from 2003–2005; she describes his teaching carrier at different universities of the usa, outlines the themes of wiesel’s lectures and seminars, and depicts the method of his teaching. the current issue of cs&p includes two book reviews. the first one is on michael ignatieff’s the ordinary virtues: moral order in a divided world (harvard university press, 2017). in the review, i’ve focused on the analysis of ordinary virtues against moral universalism. the second review is on michael goodhart’s injustice: political theory for the real world (oxford university press, 2018) written by daniil kokin. the reviewer notes that the book “raises a serious problem of contemporary https://changing-sp.com/ 100 elena a. stepanova political theory by showing its one-sided character and inability to address the realworld political issues”. discussions on the topics raised in the current issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal, and new themes will be introduced. we welcome suggestions for thematic issues, debate sections, book reviews and other formats from readers and prospective authors, and invite them to send us their reflections and ideas! for more information, please visit the journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ elena a. stepanova, editor-in-chief https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 160–163 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.2.069 book review michael goodhart (2018). injustice: political theory for the real world. oxford university press daniil i. kokin ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia it is ubiquitous today for political theorists and philosophers to challenge traditional and dominant methods of the discipline. the book written by michael goodhart, professor of political science at the university of pittsburgh, offers an original, radical and provocative approach to the problem of injustice. it has already received a review by marcus arvan, who indicated many problems there, although acknowledging its virtues. while considering the two problematic premises, which goodhart purports to identify, as wrong, he supports what goodhart calls three pathologies of ideal moral theory (the meaning of terms is to be explained below). however, arvan criticizes goodhart’s alternative bifocal approach and accuses him of relativism. eventually, arvan does not pay due attention to the rest of the book, which “suffers as a result” (arvan, 2019). i will try to show the general picture of the book without focusing only on a single part while keeping as impartial as possible. the main problem the book deals with is that so called ideal moral theory (imt), the dominant approach to political theory that cannot adequately address the problem of injustice in the real world. following from that, the primary aim of the book, as goodhart puts it, “is to do better with respect to injustice – to do better in making sense of it and in bringing theory to bear on it in ways that might help to advance the work of people struggling against injustices of all kinds” (р. 8). the book comprises three parts and seven chapters, where each part can be thought as a stage of critical reflection process. first, there is an attempt to “unthink” imt by showing that it does not help to understand what injustice is. the alternative called the bifocal approach is presented in the second part. finally, it is shown how the new approach can be adopted to combat injustice. the first part of the book (unthinking ideal moral theory) is aimed to show that imt is mistaken in its assumptions and premises, which are the received 12 june 2019 © 2019 daniil i. kokin published online 1 july 2019 d.kokin@icloud.com https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 160–163 161 reason why it is unhelpful to address injustice. in the first chapter (the trouble with justice), goodhart applies the procedure of estrangement or defamiliarization to look at imt as at something less obvious or necessary. he explains that imt is ideal for it depicts “justice in its pure or perfect form, uncontaminated by specific considerations of context and circumstance” (р. 25) and moral for it is “conceived as having categorical normative force – that is, as engendering or entailing binding duties and responsibilities” (рр. 25–26). he notes two troubling assumptions of imt: “the first is that injustice can only be conceived as the absence or opposite of justice” (р. 27). to prove this position, goodhart relies on judith shklar’s ideas. the second assumption is that it is supposed “to provide ‘ideal guidance’, by which is meant something like using ideal moral principles of justice to criticize existing social arrangements, to evaluate (normatively and comparatively) the status quo and possible alternatives to it, and to recommend reforms (policies, institutional changes) intended to make society more just (more like the ideal)” (р. 29). the three pathologies “can be traced back to the two troubling assumptions at the heart of imt” (р. 31). the first is theoretical paralysis, the inability to go beyond the debates about “which conception of justice should be adopted” (р. 32). the second pathology is subordination of politics to morality. the final pathology is distortional thinking that reveals that justice might function ideologically. the second chapter (barking up the wrong trees) uses questions “about selection of principles of justice, about the scope of justice, and about the effects of the global order on the poor” (р. 47) to show that claims about justice and injustice are subjected to the pathologies that make justice claims inevitably ideological. goodhart criticizes constructivist approaches on global normative theory, taking gillian brock’s initial choice situation (ics) as an example. then he analyzes various approaches justice, such as statist, cosmopolitan, hybrid and pluralist. finally, he throws opposing views against each other regarding global poverty by taking accounts of pogge and risse. in the second part (reconceptualizing the problem), goodhart proposes the bifocal approach, a radical alternative to imt for addressing injustice. the third chapter (getting real?) reflects alternative approaches to imt elaborated within realist political theory, particularly sen’s realism-lite or nonideal realism (criticized for the similarity of the procedures he relies on with those of imt), williams’ liberal realism (criticized for conservatism), and geuss’ critical realism. the approach goodhart develops is realistic although not realist. he distances himself from realist political theory. in this sense, it seems closer to the approach david miller applies in his book “strangers in our midst” (miller, 2016). eventually, goodhart criticizes realism for the wanting conception of normativity. the fourth chapter (the bifocal approach) shows how realistic and normative frameworks can be combined into a single theoretical framework. the essence of the bifocal approach is the following: “it differentiates between but integrates two distinct tasks or functions of political theory: explanation and critique/ prescription” (р. 116). for this, goodhart employs two lenses, namely, analytical and “partisan”. using these lenses, all justice claims are viewed as ideological claims. he insists https://changing-sp.com/ 162 daniil i. kokin on the bifocal approach “because it accommodates normative and prescriptive theorizing from inside an ideological perspective without confusing that work with an exercise in ideal moral theory” (р. 117). as a result, we can see the two-dimensional politics of injustice, which requires a special account of normativity irreducible to morality. goodhart considers philippa foot’s conception of normativity as the valid one. he differentiates between the widespread categorical normativity and hypothetical normativity that is the basis of bifocal approach. in the fifth chapter (a democratic account on injustice), goodhart applies the lenses of the bifocal approach to explain core democratic values and commitments (freedom and equality). he analyzes different types of power, democratic methods and knowledge, feminist epistemology, dialectical thinking and critical theory. injustice is characterized as a “deformity in social relations where power creates or perpetuates subjection” (р. 154). goodhart distinguishes three overlapping categories of injustice: domination, oppression, and exploitation. he also stands against a fixed definition of injustice in a diverse society because it can become a source of epistemic domination. after depicting his democratic account, the author differentiates himself from critical theorists. the third part is focused on the practical differences bifocal approach makes, particularly on how political theorists can combat injustice and how we think of responsibility for injustice. in the sixth chapter (political theory and the politics of injustice), goodhart holds that doing political theory is necessarily taking sides because “claims about justice and injustice are ideological claims” (р. 174). he holds that politics of injustice is a counterhegemonic politics, which means “struggles over injustice frequently require recontesting key elements of a hegemonic ideology, challenging the dominant meanings and interpretations that naturalize or normalize those injustices” (р. 180), and “politics that recognizes and acts on the realization that struggles over injustice are in large part struggles over values, ideas, and interpretations” (р. 181). then goodhart reflects upon collective political action, discursive politics, difference between articulation and justification and its relation to translation. in the final chapter (taking responsibility for injustice), goodhart describes various ideas to consider the problem of systemic injustice “like hunger, poverty, and sweatshops – injustices originating in complex social systems, structures, and processes” (р. 206) and responsibility for it. by criticizing iris marion young’s idea of structural injustice, he aims to show that philosophical (or moral) understanding of responsibility is misleading. to combat injustice, we need to think of responsibility as a political problem, which is shown by the bifocal approach. the author is inclined to understand taking responsibility as “to assume responsibility when one has no obligation to do so”, because “it provides us with a useful way to make sense of an important aspect of many people’s engagement in struggles against systemic injustice” (р. 222). in other words, goodhart understands responsibility for injustice as a political problem in virtue of the contingency of our judgements and constant ideological contestation. to conclude, this book raises a serious problem of contemporary political theory by showing its one-sided character and inability to address the real-world political changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 160–163 163 issues. goodhart’s idea creates more problems than solves and generates more questions than it is supposed to. eventually, it is up to the reader to consider it either as merit or weakness. if someone is interested in the problem of injustice, this book can be a great companion to delve deeper into the problem. the work will be useful for those interested in imt generally as well because it allows to look at its downsides. however, the reader is supposed to be properly prepared, for both the criticism and the argument of the book are built on colliding rival views and approaches. references arvan, m. (2019). book review: injustice: political theory for the real world. political theory. doi: 10.1177/0090591719836186 miller, d. (2016). strangers in our midst: the political philosophy of immigration. harvard university press. https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591719836186 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 68–70 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.1.061 received 10 march 2019 © 2019 andrey s. menshikov published online 1 april 2019 asmenshikov@urfu.ru book review hate, politics, law: critical perspectives on combating hate (2018). thomas brudholm & birgitte schepelern johansen, eds. oxford university press1 andrey s. menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia this volume comprises the essays, which provide critical perspectives on hate. the habitual usage in public discourse places hate in the context of all that opposes the good and links it to violence. the assumption is that violence is caused by hate and, therefore, if we wish to prevent violence it is our duty to counter hate. in turn, this idea justified the extension of state power by limiting freedom of speech and by letting the state to punish not only for criminal actions but also for views and attitudes behind those actions. thus, the authors claim, combating hate has itself become an ambivalent endeavor. this seemingly provocative thesis is, however, thoroughly substantiated by a wealth of historical and conceptual research on how hate was integrated into modern public discourse and legal system. the more attenuated picture emerges from the very beginning when the stages and national variation are described. hate’s first appearance in law is traced to the international convention on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (1965), which decries “racial superiority or hatred”, and to the international covenant on civil and political rights (1966), which calls to penalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence”. the international concern with racism across the globe in this period of decolonization, on the one hand, and apartheid, on the other, exerted significant pressure on national legal systems to condemn racial discrimination. in europe, uk, germany, and france introduced penalties for “hate speech”, “although each of these three 1 the work on this text was supported by the grant of the russian science foundation (№ 17-18-01194) https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 68–70 69 countries responded to international pressures” to act against anti-semitism and racism, “domestic differences” also affected the timing and precise wording of their laws” (p. 20). these differences in national contexts stemmed from respective agendas: the growing numbers of immigrants in the uk and the recurrence of anti-semitism in germany and france. in the us, in the aftermath of the civil rights movement, it was hate crimes that draw the attention of the public and legislature rather than hate speech. unlike europe, the drive towards making “bias-motivation” an aggravating circumstance in the crime was mostly spearheaded by social activists in the us. as the editors put it hate discourse in the us was “the result of a political strategy by activists as a means to encourage media coverage and public sympathy” (pp. 3–4). thus, although hate was an umbrella term for a number of different concerns and policies on it varied, hate has become an “organizing principle for understanding” certain kind of evil. this notion flourishes in public use and was expanded to refer to new groups, which could be the object of hate (religion, gender identity, disability, etc.); new forms of expressing hate (genocide or holocaust denial, etc.) and new venues to do so (internet). nevertheless, “hate is more a public construction than a formal legal term” (p. 33). subsequent chapters discuss alternative ways of looking at what hate might mean in diverse cultural contexts such as ancient greece and rome; how it can be conceptualized on the basis of psychological knowledge; and in which ways art can contribute to mitigating hate through self-scrutiny. nevertheless, i would focus on further analysis of legal and political implications of the critical approach to hate. one important point the authors make is that in talking about hatred we might better use other terms such as group defamation and bias crime. emotional and irrational connotations contained in the concept of hate tend to disguise what is at stake in fighting against hatred and hostility motivated by biased attitudes. with the development of history and sociology of emotions, we learn ever more about the interplay between innermost feelings and social arrangements. thus, instead of suppressing or punishing individual emotional dispositions we should highlight their basis in “structures of prejudice, illegitimate power hierarchies, and discrimination”. if the public agenda will continue to revolve around hate and measures against it rather than “structural embedding” of hate speech and hate crimes, we are probably fighting a losing battle. another reason to be suspicious about reducing discriminatory attitudes and bias-motivated violence to “hate” is, in my view, that punishing hate tips the shaky balance between material crime and “thoughtcrime” more towards the latter. it is clear that notions that refer to the mental state of individuals such as criminal intent or heat of passion exist in law. it is also obvious that hate attitude is surmised on the basis of observable expressions or actions, that is, on the basis of demonstrable evidence. furthermore, it is not hate per se, not the emotion that is punished, but its presence in the deed, its enactment, which constitutes an aggravating offence. yet, if an individual has the right to love s/he has equal right to hate. as max scheler once explained it, hate is just the other side of love: if you love something you necessarily https://changing-sp.com/ 70 andrey s. menshikov hate its opposite. unconditional absolute love is a divine attribute and not human. m. thorup specifically discusses “democratic hatreds” in his chapter, and shows that even democracies create their own “hateful enemies”. by presenting democracy as our salvation from violence we are thus obliged to oppose all forms of violence and, simply put, to “hate the haters”. finally, if hate is irrational it can’t be eradicated by repressive measures. if it is rational and relies on certain moral choice, punishment again is hardly the most effective way to deal with. perhaps, a broader view that ascribes some positive value to hate, as in n. yanay’s chapter, who argues that “love and hate are not simply opposites but also nested in each other” (p. 6), or the other means of dealing with hate crimes such as restorative rather than punitive measures, as proposed by m. a. walters, could help us approach the dangers of hate in society more reasonably. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 292–304 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.048 received 21 august 2018 © 2018 maitumeleng a. nthontho accepted 20 september 2018 maitumeleng.nthontho@up.ac.za published online 30 september 2018 conference paper school management and leadership education for multi-religious schools maitumeleng a. nthontho university of pretoria, south africa abstract contradictions and contestations with regard to the implementation of religion-in-education policy have become a worldwide phenomenon. an increasing number of costly and protracted court and legislative battles between schools and parents over religion in schools has been reported. in this article, i aim to highlight some of the school management issues surrounding the implementation of religion-in-education policy in some selected south african schools. based on mediation theory, the study uses individual interviews to gather data from twelve purposively selected school principals to investigate how they implemented the religion-ineducation policy in their respective schools. the findings show that despite the implementation challenges of the religion-in-education policy, the majority of the selected school principals displayed the qualities of a transformative mediator. i, therefore, recommend that school leadership programmes for school leaders offer mediation, and transformative mediation in particular, as a leadership and management course. that is, south african universities should consider training school principals on the use of transformative mediation as a strategy they can use to resolve conflicts and handle disputes in schools as it holds potential benefits for fields such as education. keywords conflict resolution, mediation, policy implementation, religion in education, religious diversity, schools as legal persons https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 292–304 293 introduction in post-apartheid south african schools, the implementation of democratic policies poses serious challenges for school principals, especially in terms of their leadership roles (hallinger, 2010). key amongst these is the challenge of interpreting and translating national and provincial policies into school policies. section 15(1) of the constitution provides that “[e]veryone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion”. section 15(2) of the constitution points out that religious observances may be conducted at state or state-aided institutions, provided that (a) those observances follow rules made by the appropriate public authorities; (b) they are conducted in an equitable manner; and (c) the attendance at them is free and voluntary (rsa, 1996a). section 16(2)(c) of the constitution further extends respect and protection of the right to freedom of religion, reassuring everyone that they have “the right to freedom of expression”, although indicating that such a right may be “limited” if it extends to advocacy of hatred based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion. the religious freedom guaranteed by the constitution is reaffirmed in the south african schools act (act 84 of 1996) and is further refined in specific policies and regulations. section 7 of the act clearly stipulates, “religious observances may be conducted at a public school under rules issued by the governing body if such observances are conducted on an equitable basis and attendance at them by learners and members of staff is free and voluntary”. the act, however, also mandates the establishment of democratically elected school governing bodies, indicating the roles, functions and responsibilities they are to perform. paragraph 58 of the national policy on religion and education (2003) specifies that, in accordance with the constitution, section 22(1) of the schools act and relevant rules made by the appropriate authorities, the governing bodies of public schools may make their facilities available for religious observances in the context of free and voluntary association provided that such facilities are made available on an equitable basis (doe, 2003). it also stipulates that school governing bodies (sgbs) have to determine the nature and content of religious observances for educators and learners. for example, religious observances may form part of a school assembly, but if it becomes an official part of the day, it must be on an equitable basis. it is worth noting that schools as organs of the post-apartheid state are in no way excluded from the above obligations. thus, public schools as legal persons become institutions to fulfil the mandate of equipping learners with knowledge of religion, morality, values and diversity. in other words, schools automatically become “legal persons”. however, given the different interests of relevant stakeholder groupings, interpretations and translations are bound to differ and, without proper leadership, conflicts generated by these differences end up in courts of law. the case of the religion-in-education policy for schools in south africa is evidence of this reality. the question then remains: do schools through their governing bodies of which the school principal is the member interpret and understand their roles as legal persons and implementers of legislations and policies discussed above? the next section attempts to answer this question https://changing-sp.com/ 294 maitumeleng a. nthontho by first explaining the methodology and methods that were used in investigating this phenomenon. i will then present and discuss the findings on how school principals in this study led the implementation of the religion-in-education policy and the strategies they used to manage conflict and lead the implementation process. research methodology research design the study followed a qualitative research approach that focussed on exploring the ways in which principals mediate religion education in their schools. i had conducted individual interviews to solicit information from the school principals regarding their experiences in implementing the religion-in-education policy in their schools (saldaña, 2015). due to the limited work done on the phenomenon described above, the study employed a phenomenological research design because of its seldom use in studying the experiences that shape principals’ thoughts, actions and choices of strategies when implementing democratic policies such as that of religion (grey, 2014). sampling for the study, i purposefully selected twelve school principals as the sample in order to avoid generalised findings. while this sample size may seem small, it is important to note that in a qualitative research approach, the focus is generally not on sample size but rather on sample adequacy. hence, the adequacy of my sample was justified by my reaching the sampling saturation (fargher & dooley, 2012). the qualitative researchers regard that as an indication of quality (guest, 2006). that is, one occurrence of a piece of data, or a code, is all that is necessary to ensure that it becomes part of the analysis framework. frequencies are rarely important in qualitative research, as one occurrence of the data is potentially as useful as many in understanding the process behind a topic (ritchie, lewis & elam, 2003). moreover, qualitative research is concerned with meaning and not making generalised hypothesis statements (crouch & mckenzie, 2006). the principals were postgraduate students at the university of pretoria, whom participated in their private capacity, and not as spokespersons of specific schools (mcmillan & schumacher, 2014). that is, they narrated their stories as they had experienced the implementation of religion-in-education policy, not as per the expectations of their departments of education. the principals were a) engaged in leadership and management training at postgraduate level; b) had served in the department of education for at least fifteen years; c) exposed to various religion-ineducation policies prior to 1994, post 1994 and post 2003; and d) were from various religious orientations, language and cultural groupings. although their schools and school administration were not the focus of this study, it transpired during the same study that the principals worked in public and independent schools that were located in the north-western region of south africa, namely, gauteng, limpopo, mpumalanga, and kwazulu-natal. although the sample is from one region of the country and may appear as a limitation of the study, it provided a detailed perspective into the principals’ distinct leadership backgrounds changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 292–304 295 and experiences. the study was gender, racial and religiously represented. three religions were represented, namely, hinduism, islam and christianity, and the participants comprised of nine males and three females. however, it must be clear that the participants’ gender, province, historical origin and the type of school (secondary or primary) was not central to the selection criterion. ethical considerations i obtained approval to involve the principals/postgraduate students in the study from the faculty of education at the university of pretoria. in my position as the research assistant in the department of education management and policy studies, i had access to the database of postgraduate students, and was able to send invitations to those who were school principals and deputy principals. i considered deputy principals worthy to participate since they carry quite a similar mandate as that of principals. this was a two-week call that was followed by a one-week follow-up. i then directed invitations to ten school principals who indicated their willingness and availability to participate. realising that e-mail could not produce quite a reasonable number, i had to contact those that i knew, and two more agreed to participate in the study. data collection over a period of four to five months in 2012, i used narrative interviews to collect data, with the principals’ stories being recorded, transcribed, analysed and interpreted. religious issues are usually debated and discussed at a sentimental level or are elevated to litigation through the courts, as stated in the introduction. thus, the subject is rarely explored scientifically. in contrast to this, i made use of narrative inquiry to examine and understand the principals’ experiences of religion that were not clouded by emotion or sentiment. understanding previous religious experiences of school principals in this study allowed me an “insider view” that enabled the illumination of real people in real settings through the “painting” of their stories (haydon, browne & van der riet, 2018; wang & geale, 2015). i was able to further probe the principals’ acceptance and/or rejection of the religion-in-education policy (farrell, 2012). data analysis and trustworthiness of the results i transcribed the tape-recorded interviews and analysed the transcriptions in terms of the categories initially identified, namely, the principals’ understandings of their mediating role in the implementation of the religion-in-education policy (babbie, 2014). from this, themes such as policy development, learner admissions and educator appointment, teaching about religion, and religious observances emerged. the raw data (tape-recorded interviews), interview transcripts, interview guides, list of participants and their profiles, as well as my field notes, were audited throughout the study period to validate their accuracy and authenticity-using peer debriefing. in addition, i sent transcriptions to participants, asking them to correct errors of fact. this ensured that i represented them and their ideas accurately (major & savin-baden, 2010). finally, the study went through the programme called ‘turnitin’, as per the university’s requirements, to ensure its originality. https://changing-sp.com/ 296 maitumeleng a. nthontho findings the school principals employed diverse strategies to implement the religionin-education policy in their schools. some resisted or ignored the policy, some sub-contracted it while others relied on the services of a mediator. resistance to policy change in this study refers to the act at which change agents may passively demonstrate their resistance to proposed education policy change by either delaying or ignoring it, claiming that schools lack the requisite information on policy reform. sub-contracting as viewed in this study refers to a phenomenon where the school principal implements the intended educational change according to the wishes of a particular interest group or the department of education. in this study mediation implies that the principal negotiates with various interest groups to try and reconcile differences and to find a way in which implementation acknowledges the interests of various stakeholders. the narratives in this study revealed that in most cases school principals did not implement the religion policy as they should have, either because they did not know how to or because the training they received from both the department of education and the university did not equip them with the skills to do so. their narratives uncovered the lack of skills to be another reason for this challenge, as suggested by one of the participating principals who claimed, “the policies just come and there are no people to unpack them” (participant 2). indications from the narratives of other participants suggest that they were trained, that is, they were told what was required of them and how to go about doing what they were expected to but they chose to ignore it. the same principal (participant 2) stressed that the facilitators of the courses they attended told them “everyone has the right to freedom of religion, but practically, when we come to the school, we would want learners to practice christianity”. another principal stated, “one of the completely strange things to me was the request by parents that we had to release 35 muslim children to leave for mosque at 12:00 on fridays” (participant 1). while allowing learners to leave school early to attend mosque on fridays was a challenge for some principals, others did not find this troublesome since all they needed was a confirmation letter from the parent that the learner was “a committed muslim” (participant 3). this practice seems to not accommodate islam, but also appears to protect the religion. however, a principal pointed out that “releasing learners early on fridays to attend mosque became a problem in terms of teaching and learning because there was no cover up time in terms of the activities that took place during their absence” (participant 3). in this way, this principal protects and promotes learners’ right to education. i mentioned earlier that tolerance is one of the values religion education aims to promote. this was, to some extent, found to be the case with most school principals in this study. for instance, they allocated a classroom for learners to observe their religions (participant 6), allowed muslim learners to go to mosque on fridays, and admitted learners and appointed educators with religious orientations other than christianity (participant 4). they also worked harmoniously with sgb members from changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 292–304 297 other religions, thereby demonstrating their tolerance of diversity. this is evident in the following statement by participant 5, my previous chairman of the governing body was a hindu and his wife was a muslim. he was very happy with the way we dealt with religious matters at school. at the ceremony we would be signing christian hymns, chorus, bible reading and prayer. he did not have a problem with that. all he would ask was recognition that was there. he did not insist on anything. the fact that we were sensitive towards different religions, i think that was for him the most important aspect. however, even though school assemblies observed christian devotions, learners still had to attend them. one of the school principals admitted, “[w]e would emphasise the point of assembly attendance” (participant 8). another principal emphasised that “[u]nless there are cases where a parent would tell us that his child must be excused from the assembly, all learners had to attend” (participant 10). contrary to this open policy, this study discovered that some principals did not make allowances for learners to observe religions other than christianity. for instance, muslim learners were not allowed to observe their religions by means of the dress code. one principal said that “if learners would come wearing muslim hats, we would call and tell them to stop wearing such hats with the aim of discouraging them from influencing others” (participant 7). this quote clearly shows that the principal did not uphold the constitutional laws that promote the freedom of religion and conducting religious observances in an equitable manner. it became evident, however, that conflict occurred between the sgbs and the principals who supported the religion-in-education policy’s position on making allowances for religious observances in schools. one of them, for instance, advised the sgb that they had to indicate in (the) policy that religious observances should be free and attendance should be voluntary. yet, the sgb’s responded, “no, no, no, wait, what are you actually saying? in terms of our school code of conduct, all learners must attend the assembly regardless of what they and their parents believe in” (participant 9). this quote pointed to some of the difficulties that principals faced when they attempted to negotiate the process of acknowledging the interests of various stakeholders that did not align with the policy’s position on religious observances in schools. when conflicts occurred, the school principals demonstrated their willingness and ability to resolve them in diverse ways ensuring that they do not compromise the smooth running of the school. one of the principals, for example, mentioned, “i have never seen the sgb calling parents for religion policy discussion. the sgb does not mention anything in relation to religion to parents” (participant 10). “the application form does not require religious status of the child” (participant 11). other schools excused educators from attending and/or conducting morning assembly. one of the principals pointed out that “educators are told when they are appointed at the school that they are welcome to arrive at school five minutes later if they are uncomfortable with the way morning assemblies are dealt with” (participant 7). similarly, another principal indicated, “[i]f an educator is not comfortable with the conducting of the https://changing-sp.com/ 298 maitumeleng a. nthontho assembly, he/she must report. although his/her name will remain on the duty roster, one smt member will stand in for him/her” (participant 12). this demonstrates the school principal is able to resolve conflicts by negotiating with various interest groups to try and reconcile differences. in another principal’s school, if they see that the preferred mode of dealing with religious observances has hiccups or bring conflicts, “ we bring the matter back in a forum. we re-assess, we amend and then we continue. that is why the policies are not constant but, evolving depending on what is happening to the school” (principal 6). the other principal reiterated this approach, “[w]e once gave the muslim committee member an opportunity to conduct religious observances at the assembly on the argument that there are also muslim children in our school, but it was not appreciated by both learners and members of staff. you could just see from their response that they do not enjoy it as they do with christianity. we then had to discontinue” (principal 10). in so doing, these principals negotiate with various interest groups to try and reconcile differences and to find a way in which implementation acknowledges the interests of various stakeholders. that demonstrates their ability to resolve conflicts. based on the preceding discussions, i infer that most of the principals understood and interpreted (a) the aim behind the religion-in-education policy; (b) their mediation role in the implementation process and, more importantly, (c) that as managers and leaders in multi-faith schools, they are obligated to fulfil the rights and freedoms as stipulated in legislation and educational policies. however, more often than not, their previous experiences, and not their theoretical knowledge of policy acquired through training, informed their decisions and practices. discussion it is important to reiterate that the south african schools act does not deal with religion in education, religion education or religious instruction in proper detail. for instance, the act does not specify how schools should respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights contemplated in sections 15(1) and 31(1) of the constitution. nor does it define “religious observances”, thus leaving the door open to schools (legal persons) and their sgbs (their brains) to give meaningful content to the standards entrenched in national legislation, the constitution and international human rights instruments. in discussing the findings of the study, i will map the different ways in which principals conceptualised and approached the implementation of the religion-ineducation policies of their schools by paying particular attention to two strategies, namely, sub-contracting and mediation. sub-contracting, in the context of this study, refers to a strategy in which the school principal implements the intended policy changes according to the wishes of either the department of education or any of the stakeholder groupings (that is, parents, educators, and/or learners). the principal as a sub-contractor, therefore, merely forms one more link in a chain that connects policy developers with the educators who have to implement it and the learners who have to “consume” it (day, 2005). changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 292–304 299 mediation, and transformative mediation in particular, refers to a process in which conflict itself is transformed from a negative and destructive interaction to a positive and constructive one (bush & folger, 2005). from an education management perspective, this implies that the principal being “an insider” negotiates with various interest groups by trying to reconcile differences and finding ways in which implementation of school reform acknowledges the interests of various stakeholders (fullan, 2007). the findings presented above indicate that although most of the principals in this study claim not to have received adequate training from the department of education or institutions of higher learning, they performed their roles in such a way that conflict is either eliminated or minimised. in other words, they were able to interpret or understand that as school managers and leaders they have obligations to respect, protect, and promote the freedoms and rights of their followers to a certain extent. their interpretation and understanding manifested in areas such as policy development, learner admissions, educator appointments, teaching religion, as well as religious observances that will be discussed below. policy development one of the functions of the sgb, as stated in section 20 of the schools act, is to develop and adopt school policies, including those pertaining to religion (rsa, 1996b). in describing the ways in which policies are developed and implemented in their schools, it is clear that while some principals sub-contracted into the national policy, others mediated the policy during their schools’ policy development processes. as subcontractors, these principals became the appropriate authorities that drafted the religionin-education policy of the schools. they drafted the policy either with the chairperson of the sgb or with the school management teams – smt (naidoo, 2005). here, they used the “majority” principle to decide on religions that must form part of the religious observances policy of the school. in other words, priority goes to religious orientations of parents or learners in majority. for instance, since the majority of the parents and learners are muslim, the school ultimately decided to subscribe to an islamic ethos. in most of the cases, the principals justified their approach by stating that most parents who are sgb members are not educated, and that those who are educated do not have the time or necessary skills to carry out their functions (xaba, 2011). despite facing the challenge of sgb members’ lack of the necessary skills to execute the mandate of the department of education, some school principals were successful as transformative mediators of the policy (mncube, 2009). some of them would do everything to ensure that the conduct of the sgb and provincial education department is lawful, fair and reasonable (joubert & prinsloo, 2009). in fact, one of the principals took the initiative to find the right representation (that is, members from diverse religious backgrounds) in the candidates coming through for sgb portfolios regardless of religion while others would adopt some of the clauses from the country’s constitution, the schools act and the religion-in-education policy into their school policies. in doing so, such principals demonstrate their readiness and ability to face the complex, ambiguous and uncertain situation they found themselves in, not for their own sakes but for the sake of their schools (simić, 1998). https://changing-sp.com/ 300 maitumeleng a. nthontho learner admission and educator appointment the school principals were aware of the religious changes that came about with the country’s 1996 constitution. some of the changes they mentioned were that schools may not refuse learners’ admission and/or educators’ appointment on religious grounds (rsa, 1996a, 1996b). based on these changes, schools with a religious ethos appointed educators and admitted learners despite their faiths. the narratives indicate that those schools that have a christian character allowed appointees and learners from other religions to excuse themselves from morning assemblies (van der walt, 2011). muslim learners were also permitted to leave school early to attend mosque on fridays. it is imperative to note that the principals in this study did not cite religion as the deciding factor on who could play a role in the sgb. it is for this reason that this study revealed that the majority of the governing bodies of schools were religiously represented with diverse religious representatives in leadership portfolios of the sgb (i.e., chairperson) (naidoo, 2005). based on these insights, i can argue that the schools led by the majority of principals in this study demonstrated a commendable level of religious accommodation. they played the role of transformative mediators, and as agents of change, they appointed sgb members from diverse religious backgrounds to reflect and reinforce the accommodating nature of their schools (bush & folger, 1994). teaching about religion the principals’ narratives indicate that educators in their schools did not give religion education the attention it required. one reason for this was their lack of knowledge of religions other than christianity. ferguson and roux (2003) reminds us that the majority of public schools officially-based religion education programmes on bible education (mono-religious christianity) until 1997. this leaves no doubt that the majority of educators and parents who are members in the governing bodies in public schools are products of schools that exposed them to either one religion only or to no religion at all, with some schools having eliminated religion education from the school’s curriculum (ferguson & roux, 2003). it seems that with exposure to either one religion or none at all, educators’ would find it very difficult to change their perceptions of and attitudes towards people of other religions. this is true for any person, not only educators, who comes from a predominantly mono-religious and/or mono-cultural background (roux, 2005). it is, however, pertinent to note that there are principals in this study who admitted that in every religion there is something good, meaning that they can also promote values such as respect (sulaiman, 2016; fatima, 2014). even so, challenges remain. for instance, christian educators may struggle to teach about religions other than christianity considering the fact that some of them received their training under the apartheid education system. thus, although these principals had a positive outlook on differences, they would not be able to help transform the teaching and learning of religion education in their schools because they also lacked knowledge about religions other than their own (roux, 2005). changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 292–304 301 some participants also admitted that each religion is worth learning about. where their educators lacked skills and knowledge, some principals would either secure supporting material and resources and/or staff development opportunities. as if it was not enough, one of these principals used the sub-contracted clauses to challenge the status quo (franey, 2002). he protected a learner whom the sgb wanted to remove from school because she fell pregnant. personal values such as respect for others, fairness and equality, caring for the well-being and the holistic development of learners and of staff, integrity and honesty are evident in this principal’s vision and practices (harris, 2010; bush & folger, 2005). his transformative leadership values and vision are primarily moral (that is, dedicated to the welfare of staff and learners, with the latter at the centre) and underpin not only his relationships with staff, learners, parents and governors, but also his day-to-day actions (day, 2005). however, another group of principals ignored the behaviour of educators towards the teaching of religion education. they admitted that they were having difficulties in imagining the teaching of religions that were different from their own. this correlates with the research by ferguson and roux (2003) that discusses exposure to either one religion or none would influence one to find it very difficult to change his/her perception of and attitude towards other religions. research suggests that such attitudes might lead to a denunciation of some of the religious beliefs and practices and by so doing destroy even the good that prevails in south africa and the world (frankema, 2012). the views and reactions of these school principals indicate the need for a careful and proper approach to the implementation of religion-in-education policy in schools. otherwise, it would be difficult for principals to lead the way to accommodating diverse religions in schools as required by legislation. religious observances the country’s religion-in-education policy defines religious observances as activities and behaviours that recognise and express the views, beliefs and commitments of a particular religion, and may include gatherings of adherents, prayer times, dress and diets (doe, 2003). the constitutional and the policy provide that religious observances may be conducted at state or state-aided institutions, provided that (a) those observances follow rules made by the appropriate public authorities; (b) they are conducted in an equitable manner; and (c) the attendance at them is free and voluntary (rsa, 1996a, 1996b, 2003). however, the narratives in this study revealed that the performance of morning devotions (religious observances such as prayer) in some of the schools continued in the christian way while other minority religions like islam were marginalised (van der walt, 2011). in the former, the schools did not allow learners and educators who subscribed to minority religions to observe their religions, either in terms of dress code or in terms of worship (alston, van staden & pretorius, 2003). in the latter, schools provided classrooms for learners and staff who subscribed to minority religions to use, and they occasionally permitted muslims to leave school early to attend mosque on fridays. they also excused educators from attending or conducting morning assemblies where christian religious orientations, for https://changing-sp.com/ 302 maitumeleng a. nthontho instance, were observed. it is important to point out that in fulfilling the role of transformative mediators, the principals acknowledged the diversity that exists among learners in terms of religious and cultural backgrounds (tam, 2010). as such, these principals chart a direction that convinces stakeholder groupings that it is time to change (moloi, 2005). conclusion despite the practical challenges that school principals encountered in the implementation of religion-in-education policy, they demonstrated confidence, openness and generosity in developing the identity of their schools as legal persons. in striving to maintain this status, they displayed the reasonable amount of integrity, ability or potential to use their past religious experiences to transform the quality and nature of interaction in their schools. some of the principals portrayed themselves as transformative mediators by becoming spiritual beings having a human experience rather than human beings who may be having a spiritual experience. the danger of this stance, however, lies in the possibility that the interests of the principal might supersede those of the school. if different stakeholders pursue markedly different interests, the main purpose and function of sgbs will be defeated. i recommend proper and adequate training for school principals in order to assist the south african government’s attempt to facilitate the implementation of policies fraught with tensions. these policies are meant to bring harmony and promote good working relationships rather than conflict and division. a mutual understanding of policies is therefore of paramount importance. i further recommend that universities offer a course on mediation, transformative mediation in particular, as a leadership strategy for handling disputes and solving problems in schools as it holds potential benefits for fields such as education. references alston, k. g., van staden, j. g., & pretorius, j. l. 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(2011). religion in education in south africa: was social justice served? south african journal of education, 31, 381–393. wang, c. c., & geale, s. k. (2015). the power of story: narrative inquiry as a methodology in nursing research. international journal of nursing science, 2(2), 195–198. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2015.04.014 xaba, m. i. (2011). the possible cause of school governance challenges in south africa. south african journal of education, 31(2), 201–211. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnss.2015.04.014 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 733–749 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.200 received 9 december 2022 © 2022 andrey s. menshikov accepted 19 december 2022 andreimenchikov@gmail.com published online 30 december 2022 essay moral choice and the concept of evil in military narratives of orthodox christians andrey s. menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the article contributes critically to the current discussion of militant piety in russian orthodox christianity. it argues for a more historically informed use of the notion of militant piety, which can benefit from critical discourse analysis of personal narratives and the focus on lived experience and lived religion of orthodox christians who were involved in wars. the article analyses ego-documents collected in two recent volumes: the first showcases the stories of orthodox clergy and believers in wwii; the second volume gives voice to army officers of late soviet wars. both volumes mold personal accounts into a larger narrative with the view to provide orthodox believers with discursive means for reflection upon wars and to offer an exemplary orthodox christian attitude to war. in these narratives, beliefs and principles were understood by religious people not abstractly but in the context of their individual and collective experience. the first narrative reveals how the course of the great patriotic war changed the orthodox christians’ attitudes from initial self-sacrificial service in defense of the motherland to waging the sacred war against the antichrist forces of evil and later to ensuring the retribution for nazi criminals who were interpretatively exempt from christian commandment of love. the second narrative does not present a normative ideal of an orthodox warrior but rather it sheds light on real “militant piety”, on practical religiosity of soldiers and officers, who built their relationship with god and religion in the context of their professional activity, regularly described as “work”. christian doctrine of love and forgiveness in its abstract form would be inapplicable in this “work”. in personal accounts, however, orthodox christian ethics is adapted to the circumstances of the military service and is transformed into the lived religion based on the principles of self-sacrifice, loyalty, and duty. https://changing-sp.com/ 734 andrey s. menshikov introduction among a vast body of literature on orthodoxy in the wars that russia was involved in, in my further discussion, i will focus on the following two volumes: bog i pobeda: veruiushchie v velikikh voinakh za rossiiu [god and victory: believers in the great wars for russia] (2014) edited by v. zobern and iz smerti v zhizn’. svidetel’stva voinov o pomoshchi bozh’ei [from death to life. soldiers’ accounts of god's help] (2011) edited by s. galitskii. unlike the publications of archival documents1 aiming to give an objective picture of the activities of the russian orthodox church, or the publications of oral histories conveying a broad spectrum of subjective emotions and memories2, these two books mold personal accounts and documents into an exemplary model of the orthodox christian attitude to war and weave them into a narrative of appropriate orthodox christian behaviour in the wartime. these volumes provide orthodox believers with discursive means for reflection upon the war’s tragic events as well as practical examples to emulate in time of war. the first book, bog i pobeda [god and victory], mainly contains the war accounts of orthodox believers, especially those of the higher clergy and parish priests, while the second book, iz smerti v zhizn’ [from death to life], gives voice to soviet army officers—participants of the military conflicts in afghanistan and in the caucasus. in the latter case, the narrators’ social or professional background would suggest that they shunned any religiosity, but the narratives show how army officers discovered religious faith and what it meant to them. currently, scholars approach the orthodox perspective on violence and war by analyzing “the theoretical premises of the militarist discourse in contemporary russian orthodoxy” (knorre, 2015, p. 559; trans. by ekaterina purgina [e. p.]) or “legitimation of real wars, social conflicts” (zygmont & knorre, 2019, p. 11; trans. by e. p.). these studies aim to describe “socio-cultural attitudes inherent in orthodox tradition, forming a type of militant religiosity called ‘militant piety’” (knorre & zygmont, 2020, p. 1). the theoretical framework for knorre and zygmont’s studies draws on the 1 for example, vasil’eva et al., 2009. 2 numerous publications on this topic include, for example, ot soldata do generala: vospominaniia o voine [from soldier to general: memories of the war] (vols. 1–18) (2003–2016). keywords orthodox christianity, russian orthodox church, personal narratives, lived religion, militant piety, notion of evil, evil and violence, orthodox christian ethics, orthodox christian attitude to war, sacred war, cosmic war, christian ethical principles of love and forgiveness acknowledgements the research is supported by the grant of the russian science foundation (project no. 20-18-00240). the author would like to thank ekaterina purgina for her generous help with preparing this text in english. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 733–749 735 idea of “cosmic war” introduced by mark juergensmeyer. to illustrate this point, they select examples from canonical, theological texts and opinion pieces supporting the “socio-cultural orientation” of orthodoxy towards the legitimation of violence. the bewildering denunciatory tone prevalent in these studies seem to imply that the church should always oppose violence and condemn all military action. i would try to add some historical nuance to their main conclusion that in the church environment, a consistent tradition of war justification is being actively formed, that is, what can be called theology of war with a certain system of axioms, priorities, inferences, and aesthetically-tinged formulae. there is an obvious trend to use stylistic and sociomorphic metaphorization of the army implying that the church is a military institution or a part of it. (knorre, 2015, p. 577; trans. by e. p.) as i will try to show further, the russian orthodox church (roc), following its tradition and pursuing its mission in the world, did not deem it necessary in the past to condemn violence per se, nor did the church see it appropriate to oppose itself to the russian army as an institution. on the contrary, the church never refused to provide spiritual guidance to the military servicemen, to recognize warrior saints and honor those who laid down their lives for faith and country. moreover, if we look at the messages, addresses, and sermons of the roc leaders or the numerous letters, accounts, and memoirs written by orthodox believers, we will see that patriotism was considered an important element of orthodox identity long before this idea was aired by present-day “militant pietists”. if religion is considered not as a set of theoretical premises, socio-cultural practices and abstract norms expressed in the public discourse but is approached through the analysis of materials that show la religion vécue [lived religion] (ammerman, 2007, 2021), then we observe a different picture of the orthodox attitude to violence and war. what seems especially valuable to me in this approach is that it aims to reveal the connection people build between their faith and their everyday life, including their experience of violence and war. the believers connect their tradition and the new circumstances; they connect their fluid emotional attitudes and their solid ethical principles in the actual behavior. these connections can be examined by looking at narratives of personal experience rather than public discourse. personal accounts reveal how people reconcile their ethical principles with their actual experiences of war, suffering, hatred, and loss; how they justify their moral choices. this analysis does not deal with normative documents3, which has become a widespread practice in the studies of the ethics of war. nor does it use quantitative methods such as the search for orthodox categories and biblical allusions, calculating their relative frequencies. the main research focus in this paper is the construction of narratives about the religious experiences of the witnesses and participants of war in all their complexity and controversiality. methodologically, this study relies on the 3 see, for example, the official document on military chaplaincy (polozhenie, 2013). https://changing-sp.com/ 736 andrey s. menshikov revised version of critical discourse analysis (cda) which was adapted for the study of religion. cda places a special emphasis on the construction of social identities, social relations, systems of beliefs, and systems of knowledge in narratives (hjelm, 2016, p. 20), thus enabling us to connect the analysis of narratives with the “lived religion” approach, that is, to examine personal accounts as a form of individual reflection within the system of the narrator’s views, beliefs, and values, which are, in their turn, determined by the orthodox faith. sacred war: from self-sacrifice to retribution in bog i pobeda [god and victory], v. zobern starts with the bolshevik repression of the roc after the revolution. he provides accounts of the fierce persecutions of priests and believers, of churches being damaged and destroyed, and religious sites vandalized. thus, he leads us to the idea that these years were a cruel and harsh school of suffering and cultivating within oneself courage and resilience in the shadow of the oncoming great patriotic war. it is not for nothing that during the war many priests, upon their return from the exile, took up weapons and went off to the front to defend their motherland. (zobern, 2014, p. 46; trans. by e. p.) examples of such moral fortitude include the stories of saint elders (startsy) and believers: their influence is said to be “outwardly indiscernible but strong and vast” (zobern, 2014, p. 46; trans. by e. p.). quite illustrative in this respect is the case of seraphim vyritsky: people strove to protect him from arrest and execution and ensuring his survival was a source of comfort for them: “in this mayhem and in the whirlwind of violent events there was a refuge of strong faith, calm hope, and unhypocritical christ’s love” (zobern, 2014, pp. 46–47; trans. by e. p.). whence zobern comes to more general philosophical and historical conclusion: for centuries, christian faith fostered in russian people resilience and ability to sacrifice themselves for the higher good and for the sacred. faith, which in recent years has demanded a lot of courage from believers, did not allow true christians to betray their motherland. forgetting the grave insults, humiliations, and abuse they suffered, forgetting about the danger of being executed by the authorities, believers, together with all the people, joined the struggle against the horrendous destructive force of fascism [...] persecutions had failed to make christians bitter. examples set by martyrs and confessors inspired those who survived and taught them that there are sacred things worth giving their life for. (zobern, 2014, p. 52; trans. by e. p.) even though orthodox believers shared patriotic feelings with the majority of the citizens, it should be noted that for many believers the crucial factor in their decision-making was the call of the higher clergy to defend motherland. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 733–749 737 among people’s recollections of how they found out about the beginning of the war, the central role is played by the address to the pastors and their flock of christ’s orthodox church of 22 june 1941 issued by sergius (stragorodsky), the patriarchal locum tenens, metropolitan bishop of moscow and kolomna. in his address, sergius calls the believers to stand for their motherland4. he compares hitler’s invasion to other foreign invasions and expresses hope that with god’s help, this time, they [russian people] will turn to dust the invasive fascist force. our ancestors [...] disregarded risks to their persons and set aside their interests, they heeded their sacred duty to their motherland and faith and this is why they emerged victorious. (vasil’eva et al., 2009, p. 38; trans. by e. p.) the “sacred duty” of defending motherland, however, is associated not so much with soviet citizenship and ussr’s civic identity but with such figures as alexander nevsky and dmitry donskoy, “saint russian monks, interceding before god on behalf of the russian motherland, great russian warriors” (zobern, 2014, p. 55; trans. by e. p.). this duty is exemplified by the following biblical quote: “greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (english standard version bible, 2001, john 15:13). the metropolitan bishop goes on to explain that “the person who lays his soul is not only the one who will die on the battlefield for his people and for the good of his people, but also each and every one who sacrifices himself, his health and interests for the sake of the motherland” (zobern, 2014, p. 39; trans. by e. p.). by invoking the values of self-sacrifice and examples of self-sacrifice for the sake of the motherland and orthodox tradition, the metropolitan bishop connects christianity with the concept of patriotic duty: through self-dedication countless thousands of our orthodox warriors, laying their lives for the motherland and faith, in all times went to fight against the enemy invasion. when they were dying, their last thoughts were not about glory, they thought that their motherland needed their sacrifice and so they humbly sacrificed everything they had and their life itself. (zobern, 2014, p. 40; trans. by e. p.) zobern reminds his reader of the fact that the war started on the day of all russian saints (22 june 1941), many of whom were martyrs for the faith. he also mentions the orthodox service of a. alexandrov, author of the song sviashchennaia voina [sacred war]. zobern’s narrative comprises not only stories of believers’ selfsacrifice during the war but also talks about their participation in various initiatives, for example, fundraising for the tank column named after dimitry donskoy5, civil defense, medical service, and volunteer corps. zobern emphasizes that “the church’s patriotic 4 in zobern’s collection this document is referred to as the address (zobern, 2014, p. 55). 5 apart from the accounts presented by zobern, there is documentary evidence about the donations made by dioceses, cathedrals, and parishioners. for more details, see vasil’eva et al., 2009, pp. 46, 62, 81, 82. there were also fund-raising events for the defense fund (p. 57) and the red cross (p. 59). https://changing-sp.com/ 738 andrey s. menshikov activities won the recognition and respect not only among the believers but also atheists” (zobern, 2014, p. 103; trans. by e. p.). thus, self-sacrifice was not limited to service in its civilian forms but also included donations to weapons manufacturing. among the private and public prayers relevant to the war efforts, not only prayers for peace or prayers commemorating those who laid down their lives were sung but also prayers for victory in the war became widespread. for this purpose, as the author explains, the prayer podazhd’ voinstvu nashemu o imeni tvoem pobediti [give our army victory in your name] was written by archbishop avgustin (vinogradovsky) in 1812 (zobern, 2014, p. 74; trans. by e. p.). another example is moleben o nashestvii supostatov, pevaemyi v russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi v dni otechestvennoi voiny [prayer about the invasion of foes sung in the russian orthodox church in the days of the patriotic war]. both prayers evoked strong emotions in the believers. in his easter address of 1942, metropolitan bishop sergius puts forward the analogy between christ’s victory over death/ satan and the victory over fascism, as sergius puts it, “by celebrating christ’s victory over hell and death forever and in temporary earthly life—the victory of christ’s cross over the swastika” (zobern, 2014, p. 77; trans. by e. p.). at the first stage of the war, church leaders clearly formulated their attitude to the enemy as an anti-christian, anti-orthodox force: metropolitan bishop sergius condemned and excommunicated those orthodox priests who collaborated with the occupying forces either because they were seduced by nazis’ calls for struggle against bolshevist atheism or out of fear. either way, orthodox hierarchs made it crystal clear which side all orthodox believers should be on. the church leaders were perfectly aware of the fact that the army’s effectiveness depends significantly on the public support, which is why they placed particular emphasis on the importance of self-sacrifice of the people behind the front lines. in my view, quite significant in this respect is the speech of metropolitan bishop alexius, describing people’s desire to be active participants in the struggle against the enemy: yet, to acknowledge only these reasons and conditions would mean to present all the people, except for those in the army, as doomed to inaction during the war, reduce them to the state of passive spectators of the unfolding events. no, there are moral conditions for victory, much broader and much superior, it seems fair to say, much more powerful than the number and effectiveness of modern weapons. these moral conditions invigorate a victorious army that needs inspiration, strength to withstand all kinds of tribulations, suffering, wounds and death itself; these moral conditions are no less necessary for the people behind the front lines, the people who fostered the army before the war and who provisions the army and nurtures the souls of soldiers during the war. such moral factors that contribute to the army’s success include the strong faith in god, who gives his blessing to the just war; spiritual uplift; combatants’ certainty that they are defending the just cause; awareness of their duty to god and motherland. (doklad mitropolita aleksiia, 1943; trans. by e. p.) changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 733–749 739 even though civilians did not participate directly in military action, they didn’t remain mere spectators. in other words, they did not stay passive in their anticipation of the battle’s outcome but invested all their spiritual powers into supporting their army. a vivid example illustrating the recognition of the fact that what seems to be passivity—the act of waiting—may in fact be active participation in the national struggle is the poem zhdi menia [wait for me] by konstantin simonov (1941)6. at first, the war was declared just, the enemy was named an antichrist and the cross was pitted against swastika, hence the church called to self-sacrificial action as well as to armed struggle against the enemy. but as the enemy troops were advancing and civilians were forced to flee their homes, as they were captured, tortured and killed, the official discourse of the church changed. after the meeting of the church hierarchs with stalin and molotov in 1943, when the latter offered state support to the orthodox church, brochures such as russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’ i velikaia otechestvennaia voina [russian orthodox church and the great patriotic war], and renewed periodical zhurnal moskovskoi patriarkhii [journal of the moscow patriarchate] were published. they contained accounts of priests and believers, telling the stories of the heinous crimes committed by the nazis, of their false promises to support orthodoxy. in one of such accounts, the author quotes the letter of alexius, the archbishop of ufa, dated 27 march 1942, relating the retreat from orel, [the believers] were able to find inner strength, [...] resist panic and bring hope to those who were left behind and convey their confidence that the time would come when they all could re-unite and the hateful enemy would be ousted with shame and disgrace from orel land; they told those who stayed that god would not let the strangers’ dirty boots tread on the sacred russian soil. we believe deeply that god will hear their prayers. the russian land will belong only to russians. our confidence rests upon the incorruptible loyalty of russian people to the russian orthodox church, its saints, the strong, unbending love to the russian soil which nurtured and fostered them. russian people sacrifice whatever they can to defend their motherland! everything in russian people is imbued and blessed with the prayer and faith in christ, and this faith will incinerate those who dare to step on our sacred land. (zobern, 2014, pp. 112–113; trans. by e. p.) in this letter, readiness to self-sacrifice is intertwined with the pain of loss and hatred for the enemy. similarly, orthodoxy is identified with the national (russian) identity through the traditional trope of “sacred russian land” and its derivatives, which means not so much the land itself but the country abundant in saints. thus, all russian people come to be perceived as “blessed with the prayer and faith” and the russian land itself, as “sacred”. such broad interpretation of sacredness leads the author to assert the sacred nature of the war. thus, faith becomes militant because it can “incinerate” those who dare to desecrate holy places. self-sacrifice, summed up by the maxim “lay down his life for his friends”, becomes the core of the sacred 6 two translations of this poem are available at: https://simonov.co.uk /waitforme https://www.inyourpocket.com/st-petersburg-en/russian-poetry-konstantin-simonov-wait-for-me_75228f https://changing-sp.com/ https://simonov.co.uk/waitforme https://www.inyourpocket.com/st-petersburg-en/russian-poetry-konstantin-simonov-wait-for-me_75228f 740 andrey s. menshikov war with the anti-christian force, which is fought not by the holy lamb of redemption but by the angel of retribution seeking to exterminate evil. instead of constructing the narrative in accordance with the chronological order of events, zobern follows his own logic. for example, after describing the beatings and abuse of believers by the nazis, he quotes metropolitan sergius’s address dated 24 november 1941: orthodox believers who had managed to escape from the fascists told us about the desecrations of churches [...] not only does vicious enemy hitler organize persecutions of christians but he also wants to exterminate the slavic peoples [...] this is why the progressive mankind has declared a sacred war on hitler, a war for the christian civilization, for the freedom of conscience and faith. (zobern, 2014, p. 151; trans. by e. p.) the war is not only just but also sacred, prayers for victory are accompanied by the belief that “the wrath of god will exterminate the fascist pack, for the blood of innocent wives and children cries out to the heavens for vengeance” (zobern, 2014, p. 162; trans. by e. p.). the sacred war is driven by sacred hatred, to which zobern devotes a separate passage of the same name. to prove his point, he quotes the texts by metropolitan nicolas (iarushevich), metropolitan alexius (simanskii), priest nicolas (khar’iuzov), arranging them in a non-chronological order. zobern starts by claiming that “god blesses the just war in the name of the triumph of good over evil” (zobern, 2014, p. 169; trans. by e. p.); then he goes on to point out the heavenly protection that the russian army obviously enjoyed after 1943. this, in turn, leads him to the question of retribution. in his discussion of the article mozhno li prostit’ fashistov? [can the fascists be forgiven?] written by nicolas khar’iuzov (1945), zobern first quotes directly from the article: from the perspective of the correctly understood christian doctrine, the fascists undoubtedly have to be justly punished for all their atrocities, retribution for them is inescapable. the saviour’s teaching to love our enemies, to forgive past wrongs cannot be applied to fascism, its ideologists and followers. (zobern, 2014, pp. 170–171; trans. by e. p.) zobern then argues that victory alone is not enough, that what is necessary is the “ultimate victory”, “complete and perfect”, which means that “even the memory of the inhumane fascist doctrine will be wiped out” (zobern, 2014, p. 171; trans. by e. p.). in his own reflections, the author states that in relation to the fascists one cannot talk about revenge. revenge is not always just; it is not immune to blinding passion. what awaits the fascists is retribution, that is, impartial justice for what they have done [...] fascists will face the trial, they will stand before all the humanity, and this trial will be the true “voice of god”, “trumpet of doom”, the punishment will be severe and just. (zobern, 2014, pp. 171–172; trans. by e. p.) changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 733–749 741 punishment in this case exceeds the scope of mercy, as “it is not appropriate to invoke christian mercy for judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy’” (zobern, 2014, p. 173; trans. by e. p.). the community of believers is thus extended to all russian people while russian people are identified with orthodox believers, with orthodox christianity itself. in this case orthodox values—the saints, holy sites, orthodox faith—become the shared russian heritage and a common source of the “will to win”, which has been frequently mentioned in the narratives in relation to priests’ efforts to boost the morale of the military and civilians or in the context of the church’s information policy. in regard to the latter, the roc appealed to the international community and to the christian churches all over the world, urging them to take a more active part in the war (open the second front, provide economic and other aid to the ussr, etc.)7. in contrast to this community building both on national and international level, the church, in zobern’s account, due to the evidence of the hideous crimes committed by the fascists, instructs its believers that christian morality and in particular the responsibility to love and forgive should not take them so far as to forgive the enemy. in this context, of special interest are zobern’s theological and political arguments in the part of the book where he discusses and quotes the article pravednyi sud naroda [just tribunal of the people] written by archbishop luke (voyno-iasenetsky) (1944). archbishop luke starts with the condemnation of the nazis’ crimes from the point of view of universal human values, emphasizing that it is the collective will all nations rather than solely russian people that punishment be done because the moral feeling of all the humankind had been trampled upon. the trial over the nazi leaders was greeted by stormy approval and their execution was considered an event worthy of celebration by all the mankind: and christ’s church, the pillar of the law of truth, will not stand aside from this holiday as this will be the victory over the forces of hell that shocked all the mankind, the punishment of the antichrists who have defied the law of brotherhood and love. (zobern, 2014, p. 174; trans. by e. p.) this praise of death and capital punishment, this celebratory tone are particularly noteworthy. zobern further justifies it by the following biblical examples: in “the divinely inspired law of moses”, capital punishment was meted out to those whose “deeds threatened the spiritual and religious integrity of israeli people, their moral purity, obligatory for god’s chosen people” (zobern, 2014, p. 175; trans. by e. p.). the reign of the judges as an important period in israel’s history shows that god did not just tolerate the punishment but ordained the judges to uphold his law and actively eliminate evil. this interpretation is confirmed by the statement “vengeance is mine, saith the lord, i will repay” (berean standard bible, 2021, deuteronomy 32:35). moreover, in the new testament, “paul the apostle associates the punitive function of the judge with serving god, ‘for the one in authority is god’s servant for your good. but if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword 7 for example, obrashchenie sobora episkopov russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi ko vsem khristianam mira [address of the council of the russian orthodox church to all christians of the world]. (1943). https://changing-sp.com/ 742 andrey s. menshikov for no reason. they are god’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer’ (romans 13:4)”8 (zobern, 2014, p. 177; trans. by e. p.). the most interesting is the interpretation given by archbishop luke to the words and representation of christ himself. i think it is best to quote luke’s words as they are related by zobern: lord jesus christ rejected the sanction of capital punishment in the famous story of a woman taken in adultery (john 8). the light of the new law of god’s grace, which rose above judgement, took precedence over the severity of the old testament law. how could christ, the reader of the human heart, accept the truth of the execution of a weak woman for a sin of which her judges—the legalists—were also guilty? compare the guilt of this poor woman, which is so common, with the satanic crimes of the germans who buried babies alive or threw them into fire and it will become evident that the holy answer of god’s son about the punishment to the woman taken in adultery cannot be used as an argument against the execution of these butchers, exterminating thousands of innocent people in their diabolical gas chambers. can we, speaking of the nazi monsters, invoke christ’s command to love your enemies? no, absolutely not! we cannot do this because it is totally impossible to love them and it is impossible to love them neither the people nor the angels nor even god of love himself could love them. because god hates evil and extinguishes the evildoers. not only are the nazi monsters our enemies but they are also god’s enemies and who can or who dares to speak of love in relation to god’s enemies! (zobern, 2014, pp. 177–178; trans. by e. p.) thus, for their crimes it is not only obligatory that the german nazis should face human and divine justice, but they should also be excluded from the commandments to love thy neighbour and to love thy enemy. the final chapter encompasses the narratives about the celebration of the victory day, reflections about the significance of the victory in the great patriotic war and the price paid for it. one of the key analogies that are drawn in this regard between the war and the calvary: the road taken by the orthodox church and by every christian who saves himself or herself is the same road as the one taken by christ. it is known that the church grew and became stronger on the blood of martyrs and men of faith and christ said to his followers, “you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (john 16:20)9. (zobern, 2014, p. 527; trans. by e. p.) the motives of russian patriotism and of russian people’s heroism are inseparably linked with the orthodox faith. while isaiah’s triumphal exclamation 8 new international version bible, 2011. 9 english standard version bible, 2001. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 733–749 743 “speak a word, but it will not stand, for god is with us” (english standard version bible, 2001, isaiah 8:10) the orthodox tradition is interpreted, for example, by basil the great as a prefiguration of god’s incarnation in jesus christ, zobern’s narrative opts for a more militant interpretation and alludes to constantine’s vision of the cross and cry, “in this sign thou shalt conquer” (zobern, 2014, p. 532; trans. by e. p.). the search for divine providence, for providential signs in the development of the war (retreat, losses, then victories, recapturing of occupied territories, advance into europe, and ultimately victory) are major drivers in zobern’s narrative. the logic of his narration, sometimes defying chronology, moves from glorifying self-sacrifice and patriotism of the orthodox believers to the revelation that this war is sacred, and it is the war of good and evil, in which the cross is triumphant. the russian people were called to execute the universal mission to eradicate the evil of nazism. the victory will bring peace not only for russia but the “peace for the peoples of the world”. the historical future of the mankind depends on whether the evildoers will be brought to divine justice rather than to human justice alone. thus, zobern, while relying on personal accounts and stories, constructs a narrative of the cosmic struggle against evil which was won by the russian people motivated by their orthodox faith. the official atheism, bolshevik ideology, multiethnic soviet army, contributions of the allies to the war—all these factors are practically eliminated from this account of the wwii. moreover, the conventional teachings of the orthodox christian ethics are adapted to the official soviet history of the wwii: initial self-sacrifice in the defensive war is replaced by all sorts of mobilization—from voluntary conscription to spiritual support— in the sacred war and subsequent retribution is justified by rejection of the christian supreme command of love and charity. “there are no atheists in the war” a somewhat different logic can be traced in the narrative or, to be more precise, in a series of narratives compiled into the book iz smerti v zhizn’. svidetel’stva voinov o pomoshchi bozh’ei [from death to life. soldiers’ accounts of god’s help]. s. galitskii undertakes this mission: in the army, stories of immediate participants of the warfare are spreading by word of mouth, they talk about the miraculous salvation in the situations which, from the perspective of the warfare science, were absolutely hopeless. the time has come to gather these priceless stories of god’s protection so that they could reach those who need them most of all. (galitskii, 2011, p. 5; trans. by e. p.) out of the ten accounts of the soviet and russian officers who took part in the armed conflicts in afghanistan, chechnya, and ossetia, only two convey the narrators’ interest in the russian orthodox church, its teachings, canons, and sacraments. for the rest, their faith in god fits into the category of “ad hoc religiosity”. https://changing-sp.com/ 744 andrey s. menshikov apart from the casual expressions such as “thank god” or “with god’s help”, the divine is represented in these accounts not in the dogmatic form of a personal deity but rather in the form of a miracle personally experienced by the narrator, e.g., a radio set miraculously coming back to life (galitskii, 2011, p. 34). this might the miracle of surviving a life-or-death situation10 or the miracle of performing a seemingly impossible military task, of completing a military operation11 successfully despite insurmountable obstacles or utter despair and hopelessness of the troops12. in the foreword, s. galitskii observes that there is no war without casualties. but we must always remember, first and foremost, those paratrooper officers for whom in the most violent battles the life of every soldier was as valuable as their own. these commanders were the first to get into the thick of the battle, they were the last to board the helicopters to be evacuated, with a sinking heart, they counted their soldiers before the takeoff: is everyone here? [...] and they refused to leave if they found somebody missing. they searched for the missing soldiers and found them—dead or alive [...] for these officers, the success of their military operation always fitted into the same formula: “i have performed the task and my soldiers have come back alive”. (galitskii, 2011, p. 7; trans. by e. p.) this ideal does not so much correspond to the idea of christian ethics but it does reflect the ethics of solidarity—of military brotherhood and the commander’s responsibility. although all the narratives in galitskii’s book foreground the examples of heroism and courage on the part of soldiers and officers, they also make clear that the motives behind these people’s appeals to god were largely grounded in selfinterest and in practical considerations: to survive, to save your comrades-in-arms, 10 “and i hear the munching sound of the bullets biting into the mudbrick wall 10–20 centimeters from me! and i am still alive after that! sometimes a thought flashed through my brain: “at least one bullet has been bound to hit my ‘dome’ to put an end to all of this for me”. and then a calmness came over me. god exists. he will save me because in these circumstances he is the only one who can do it!” (galitskii, 2011, p. 136; trans. by e. p.). 11 “now imagine: all my subordinates boarded [the helicopter], and i, the newly appointed squad commander, was the only one who didn’t. i was going back to kunduz with the landing force commander on board. at this point i realized that if i can’t leave now, i simply won’t be able to survive this. i would have to shoot myself in the head out of shame right here, in front of the helicopter on the airfield. i also realized that i cannot board [the helicopter] and at this moment i remembered my grandmother. i grabbed the collar in which a small icon was sewn and said: “saint nicholas, god’s helper, save me and help me!” it was my fourth or fifth mission (i actually wondered how come they had not shot down my helicopter yet!). suddenly it seemed like the helicopter had acquired some extra aerodynamic force—the divine force. i landed the helicopter, the assault troops exited and the mission was accomplished. it was then that i came to believe in god. i suddenly realized one simple truth: among those who have been to war, there are no atheists” (galitskii, 2011, p. 63; trans. by e. p.). 12 “then they got quiet but it was even worse—the flies swarmed all over me. i tried to cover my face with my hands but it didn’t help much. at that moment i thought that this is what hell possibly looks like. it was in this abominable pit that i came to believe in god. i prayed fervently to him!” (galitskii 2011, p. 126; trans. by e. p.). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 733–749 745 to fulfill the mission. in this context, god is equivalent to fortune or good luck or any other mystical force: for twelve years i was in command of a helicopter regiment. for all of these twelve years, when i was teaching aerodynamics to young pilots, i told them: “there are laws of aerodynamics. but there are also the supreme, divine laws, believe it or not. only the existence of god’s law explains the situations that were completely hopeless from the perspective of physical laws, but one still managed to get out”. (galitskii, 2011, p. 66; trans. by e. p.) only one officer-narrator demonstrates a truly orthodox attitude, describing his decision to become a practicing christian: looking back on how baptism had changed my life, i strongly wanted him to get baptized as well. i myself got baptized rather late. when i came back from that nightmarish trip. the country had collapsed. and so had my family. i had no idea what to do next. i found myself in some sort of a deadlock [...] i have a clear memory of how after the baptism a sense of calmness came over my soul, everything fell into place, i finally understood how i was going to live my life. afterwards, when i served in kronstadt, on several occasions i sent sailors to help the dean of the kronstadt cathedral. (galitskii, 2011, p. 226; trans. by e. p.) the situations of a person turning towards religion because he or she sees it as a safe haven amid life’s tragedy and horror were a recurring motive in the first book bog i podeda as well. in these accounts, the losses, horrors, and moral suffering the narrator endured became the main motive behind his decision to come to church. this decision helped the troubled soul find peace and ultimate meaning in life. in such cases one specific person—the priest—becomes particularly important: the priest is the first to meet the seeker’s soul. if the priest had some warfare experience, then he could find the right words: at that time the priest there was father sviatoslav, an afghan war veteran. i said, “i want to have my baby baptized. i am not a believer, though, i don’t know any prayers [...]” i remember what he said to me word for word, “sergey, have you ever been under water? have you been to war? then you believe in god. you can go now!” this was the decisive moment for me and i turned towards the church once and for all. (galitskii, 2011, p. 227; trans. by e. p.) even in this case, however, neither the teachings of the orthodox church nor the christian way of life play a significant role in the narrative. orthodox christianity becomes a part of the narrator’s identity, it provides psychological and moral resources to the person who suffered and whose ethical views were based on other foundations—the army ethic. https://changing-sp.com/ 746 andrey s. menshikov the reflections about the moral aspects of orthodox christianity and the clash of different ethical principles, in particular the military duty and the medical duty of care, are in more detail described in the account written by “doc”, a colonel of the medical service. in his reflections about what he was taught and what he had to go through, “doc” writes the following: when i was a student in the military medical academy, i noticed a direct contradiction between what i had to do during the war and what we were taught. respectable professors told us that one cannot become a good surgeon without being a good person. but during the war, i had to do many appalling things which i am still scared to think about [...] and i realized that the solution to this problem should come naturally. if after all the events in afghanistan i would have rejected any morality and ethics, or if i had developed some pathological inclinations, then it would mean that i had become a moral monster. if thinking about the past disturbs me, it means that i still have my conscience. even though i am well aware of the fact that i will answer for my deeds before the supreme judgement. (galitskii, 2011, pp. 143–144; trans. by e. p.) the orthodox moral ideal, which supposedly conflicts with the military duty of the soldier, can still become the foundation for evaluating soldiers’ behavior, especially the behavior of those soldiers who perform heroic deeds or acts of bravery in saving their comrades: we were really lucky to have such a man as misha rumiantsev. otherwise, we would all have been dead by noon. he and his soldiers brought us some ammo. at the cost of his own life, he kept the commandment in the new testament, “greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. (galitskii, 2011, p. 142; trans. by e. p.) the very possibility of self-sacrifice and active love shown by soldiers provides their comrades with evidence for divine providence and divine protection: by all laws of war, we were bound to get killed in this battle, every last one of us. we were far outnumbered by the enemy! the enemy also had a tactical advantage, the enemy knew the terrain better. we were encircled by the enemy forces and we were fighting for twelve hours, on top of that, we were fighting on two fronts. i still don’t understand how i managed to survive there. (galitskii, 2011, p. 144; trans. by e. p.) thus, the accounts collected in galitskii’s volume iz smerti v zhizn’ does not present a normative ideal of an orthodox warrior but rather it sheds light on real “militant piety”, that is, practical religiosity of soldiers and officers, who built their relationship with god and religion in the context of their professional activity (commonly described as “work”). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 733–749 747 conclusion in zobern’s narrative, a mosaic of personal accounts and observations creates a tapestry of the collective experience of orthodox believers during the greatest war russia knew. at the first stage of the war, the orthodox christians shared the patriotic feelings with the majority of soviet people and, despite the preceding persecutions, considered what was happening a defensive and, therefore, just war, which required true self-sacrifice in order to prevail over the german nazi invaders. the orthodox christians felt compelled to go beyond civilian—non-combatant—activities in defending the motherland such as fund raising, civil defense, medical and nursing service, when they labored at the factories manufacturing weapons or enlisted in military service and took part in military action. they felt no contradictions with their faith in doing so. the orthodox christians prayed for peace, they prayed for the fallen, but they also prayed for the victory and for the utter destruction of the enemy. after the believers learned more and more about the atrocities of the german troops, however, their patriotism and desire to protect the motherland gave way to visceral hatred towards the enemy. thus, hitlerism came to be seen not just a national enemy and invasion force but rather as an absolute evil. this hatred culminated in the notion of the sacred war: this cosmic war was fought by the russian people, “blessed with prayer and faith”, with the antichrist. the aim of this sacred war, therefore, came to be associated not only with defense but also with the eradication of this evil from the history of the mankind. finally, in ensuring the just retribution for the crimes committed by the nazis, the orthodox christians excluded the nazi criminals from the jurisdiction of christ’s commandments about love and forgiveness. beliefs and principles were understood by religious people not abstractly but in the context of their individual and collective experience, as part of their daily life on the front lines or at home. moreover, even though most of the personal accounts belong to ordinary believers and priests, zobern leaves no place for doubt that the higher clergy (especially metropolitans sergius, alexius, and nicolas) determined the moral choices and the course of action for the orthodox community. these three hierarchs were the ones to meet stalin in 1943 and to obtain the permission from the soviet government to conduct propaganda both inside and outside the country. condemnation of collaborates in the first months of the war, dissemination of the information about the nazis’ crimes in church periodicals as well as the information on decisions taken in the aftermath of the hierarchs’ meeting with stalin had a great influence on the moral evaluation of events and morale of believers in the ussr and abroad. the questions of identity of the orthodox christian community were inseparable from the questions of power and of the choice made by the leaders, thus setting the limits for the moral choices of their flock. nevertheless, it should be noted that the call for self-sacrifice, for the proof of true faith (that is, martyrdom), justified by the maxim “greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (english standard version bible, 2001, john 15:13), by no means solves the problem of “laying down’ others” lives, that is, of killing enemies and/or giving orders to do so. on the practical level, however, we see https://changing-sp.com/ 748 andrey s. menshikov that the narratives we looked at avoid the direct question about the permissibility of killing an enemy soldier. while discussing the categories of the sacred war—of the cosmic war with the forces of the antichrist—and attempting to justify the limits to the supreme christian commandment of love, the text of bog i pobeda purporting to offer an exemplary model for being an orthodox christian at war leaves this moral problem of killing others unanswered on the theological level. for officers’ accounts in iz smerti v zhizn’, their everyday “work” implies participation in military action involving the risks of being killed or suffering casualties among the soldiers in their charge but it also entails the inescapable destruction of other lives—killing the enemy and commanding others to do so. the christian doctrine of love and forgiveness in its abstract form would be inapplicable here. it, however, is adapted to the circumstances of the military service and is transformed into the lived religion based on the principles self-sacrifice for the salvation of the lives of comrades and civilians; into the principles of military loyalty and esprit de corps; into the recognition of officers’ responsibility for the lives of their subordinates; into the hope for god’s help in the struggle for the just cause. even though self-sacrifice, loyalty, hope, and mercy acquire a specific context, they remain dominant value orientations in orthodox “militant piety”. references ammerman, n. t. (ed.). (2007). everyday religion: observing modern religious lives. oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:o so/9780195305418.001.0001 ammerman, n. t. (2021). studying lived religion: contexts and practices. new york university press. berean standard bible. (2021). https://berean.bible/index.html doklad mitropolita aleksiia [report of metropolitan alexius]. (1943, january). zhurnal moskovskoi patriarkhii, 9 –13. http://www.jmp.ru/ya43. php?ys=43&my=01&rm=&sr=430105 english standard version bible. (2001). esv online. https://esv.literalword.com/ galitskii, s. g. (ed.). (2011). iz smerti v zhizn’... svidetel’stva voinov o pomoshchi bozh’ei [from death to life... soldiers’ accounts of god’s help]. grad dukhovnyi. hjelm, t. (2016). theory and method in critical discursive study of religion: an outline. in f. wijsen & k. von stuckrad (eds.), making religion: theory and practice in the discursive study of religion (pp. 15–34). brill. https://doi. org/10.1163/9789004309180_003 khar’iuzov, n. (1945, may). mozhno li prostit’ fashistov? [can the fascists be forgiven?]. zhurnal moskovskoi patriarkhii, 44–47. http://www.jmp.ru/ya43.php?ys= 45&my=05&rm=stat&sr=450516 https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305418.001.0001 https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305418.001.0001 https://berean.bible/index.html http://www.jmp.ru/ya43.php?ys=43&my=01&rm=&sr=430105 http://www.jmp.ru/ya43.php?ys=43&my=01&rm=&sr=430105 https://esv.literalword.com/ https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004309180_003 https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004309180_003 http://www.jmp.ru/ya43.php?ys=45&my=05&rm=stat&sr=450516 http://www.jmp.ru/ya43.php?ys=45&my=05&rm=stat&sr=450516 changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 733–749 749 knorre, b. (2015). “bogoslovie voiny” v postsovetskom rossiiskom pravoslavii [“theology of war” in post-soviet russian orthodoxy]. stranitsy: bogoslovie. kul’tura. obrazovanie, 19(4), 559–578. knorre, b., & zygmont, a. (2020). “militant piety” in 21st-century orthodox christianity: return to classical traditions or formation of a new theology of war? religions, 11(2), article 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11010002 new international version bible. (2011). biblica. https://www.biblica.com/ online-bible/ obrashchenie sobora episkopov russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi ko vsem khristianam mira [address of the council of the russian orthodox church to all christians of the world]. (1943). zhurnal moskovskoi patriarkhii, 1, 14–16. http://www. jmp.ru/ya43.php?ys=43&my=01&rm=&sr=430107 ot soldata do generala: vospominaniia o voine [from soldier to general: memories of the war] (vols. 1–18). (2003–2016). akademiia istoricheskikh nauk. http://www.ainros. ru/toma.htm?ser_id=1 polozhenie o voennom dukhovenstve russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi v rossiiskoi federatsii [regulations on the military clergy of the russian orthodox church in the russian federation]. (2013, december 26). official website of the moscow patriarchate. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3481010.html vasil’eva, o. iu., kudriavtsev, i. i., & lykova, l. a. (eds.). (2009). russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’ v gody velikoi otechestvennoi voiny 1941–1945 gg. sbornik dokumentov [russian orthodox church in the years of the great patriotic war of 1941–1945. collection of documents]. izdatel’stvo krutitskogo podvor’ia. voyno-iasenetsky, l. (1944, february). pravednyi sud naroda [just tribunal of the people]. zhurnal moskovskoi patriarkhii, 26–28. zobern, v. (ed.). (2014). bog i pobeda: veruiushchie v velikikh voinakh za rossiiu [god and victory: believers in the great wars for russia]. eksmo. zygmont, a. i., & knorre, b. k. (2019). voiny, mstiteli, mucheniki: agiologiia militantnogo diskursa v sovremennom rossiiskom pravoslavii [warriors, avengers, martyrs: hagiology of the militant discourse in contemporary russian orthodoxy]. studia religiosa rossica: russian journal of religion, 2, 11–35. https://doi. org/10.28995/2658-4158-2019-2-11-35 https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11010002 https://www.biblica.com/online-bible/ https://www.biblica.com/online-bible/ http://www.jmp.ru/ya43.php?ys=43&my=01&rm=&sr=430107 http://www.jmp.ru/ya43.php?ys=43&my=01&rm=&sr=430107 http://www.ainros.ru/toma.htm?ser_id=1 http://www.ainros.ru/toma.htm?ser_id=1 http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/3481010.html https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-4158-2019-2-11-35 https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-4158-2019-2-11-35 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.1.005 article the formation of national identity in contemporary russia* nikolay skvortsov st. petersburg state university, russia abstract this article examines the relationship between ethnicity and nationality in forming the national identity of the russian people, emphasizing the danger of relying on the “ethnic” model of the nation developed in soviet social science. analyzing the fundamental documents of the soviet state from the 1917 declaration of the rights of peoples of russia to the last soviet constitution of 1977, the author points out: (1) the significant contradiction between the proclaimed right of nations to self-determination and the principle of territorial integrity and, (2) evidence that a national policy based on the ethnic nationalist model created a peculiar “hierarchy of peoples” (so-called “titular” and “not-titular” nationalities). the challenges to the soviet union’s national policy that took place during the 1990th and its consequences – the disappearance of the soviet union from the world map and subsequent movements toward breaking apart the russian federation (the sovereignty claims of chechnya and some of the volga republics) – indicate that the tasks of a multi-ethnic state, such as solving national problems and harmonizing interethnic relations, require rejecting the ideology of ethnic nationalism, and moving toward the “de-ethnicisation” of nationality and the formation of a unified civil nation. understanding that the transition to the paradigm of russian national identity derived from civic nationhood is a complex and lengthy process, the author develops a multi-level model of the formation of russian national identity comprised of (1) the basic level of cultural diversity, (2) the middle level of solidarity in the overcoming of cultural differences on the basis *the version of this article in russian under the title “formirovanie nacional’noj identichnosti v sovremennoj rossii [formation of national identity in contemporary russia] (2016) has appeared in the journal gumanitarii yuga rossii [humanitarian of the south of russia], 4, 53-60. thanks to the editors for their permission to publish the translation of the article. received 22 january 2017 © 2017 nikolay skvortsov accepted 1 march 2017 n.skvortsov@spbu.ru published online 15 april 2017 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 75 of an awareness of “shared values,” and (3) the highest level of civic consciousness – the awareness of being a citizen of russia and an understanding of the civic responsibilities this entails. finally, the author translation of the article. outlines the role the social sciences play in the process of the formation of the national identity, pointing out the need to establish the theoretical basics of national policy, and to develop models for its implementation. keywords nation, right of nations to self-determination, ethnic nationalism, civic model of nation, national identity. this article primarily concerns those aspects of the problem of national identity that are linked to the relationship between ethnicity and nationality in the context of an analysis of russian national identity. a wider and more multifaceted approach to the study of the phenomenon of national identity can be found in a number of works of russian authors (kortunov, 2008–2009). discussion around the topic of “nation-building” in contemporary russia, along with the related issue of national identity, seems almost paradoxical: we are not discussing the 19th century (referred to as “the century of nationalism”, i.e. the period of the formation of nations and nation-states), but the 21st. furthermore, let us recall that the former soviet union, as was repeated more than once, comprised “more than 100 nations and nationalities”, and that the so-called “national question” was proclaimed as “solved once and for all”. then why do the problems of nation and national identity arise now? why does the president often talk about it; why is it the topic of heated discussions between so many politicians, experts and scientists? evidently, it is connected with the internal and external challenges faced by contemporary russia, as well as the need to strengthen the multiethnic russian state, mitigate negative developments in the sphere of international relations and prevent ethnic conflicts. in order to more clearly understand the situation, we should remember the model of the nation that was developed as part of soviet social science and on the basis of which the theory, ideology and practice of nation-building was developed. at its foundation was the well-known definition of i.v. stalin, 76 nikolay skvortsov set out in his work marxism and the national question (1913): “a nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture” (stalin, 1946, p. 296). this definition of the nation formed the theoretical basis for the researches of soviet social scientists involved in national and ethnic studies. one of the most influential figures in these studies was the soviet academician yulian bromley, whose “theory of ethnos” was one of the key approaches to the national question. bromley proceeds from the assumption that humanity, as a single entity in the biological sense, developed general social laws; meanwhile, many distinct historical communities were formed, among which a special place is occupied by the community, referred to as “ethnos”. according to bromley, ethnicity is a form of human group integration with special characteristics, representing a “stable set of people who historically developed in a particular area having in common relatively stable features in terms of language, culture and mentality, as well as consciousness of its unity and differences from other similar entities (self-awareness), attached to an endonym (ethnonym)” (bromley, 1987, p.14). ethnicity evolves historically. according to the “theory of ethnos”, the stages of development of an ethnic group are: family, tribe (tribal union), nationality and nation (capitalist and subsequently also socialist). in the context of the ussr, the crown of this ethnic chain – “the soviet people” – was hailed as a new supra-ethnic and supranational historical community. thus, the domestic tradition is based on the understanding of the nation as a form or stage of development of an ethnic group or ethnic community. the nation, then, is ethnicity at the highest stage of its development. from this point of view, the soviet model of the nation on which the theory of nation building is based consists in ethnic nationalism, i.e., the conception of a nation as the natural development of the ethnic communities that historically constitute it. according to this scenario, a nation is constructed on existing ethnic relationships and patterns. meanwhile, it is well known that the ethnic model of the nation, i.e. ethnic nationalism, lies in contradistinction to an alternative understanding of the nation as a political, territorial-national entity changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 77 conceived in terms of civic education. in contrast to the ethnic interpretation of the nation focusing on a single history, customs, cultural elements, ethnic mobilisation and the like, the so-called “civic” model of the nation is based on the concepts of general laws, human rights and territorial citizenship. historically, it was in the west that the first civic-territorial model of the nation predominated; in the east – in russia, eastern europe, the middle east, most countries of south and east asia – the ethnic model tended to prevail. here, ethnic nationalism has played a pivotal role in the creation of nations on the basis of pre-existing ethnic communities and groups. the word ‘nation’, according to ernst tugendhat, currently has two meanings: the first refers to ethnic groups [...], the second to the people of whom the state is comprised. the second concept of the nation [...] is essentially the first. it is also the first historically. in article iii of the french declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen (1789) appears the following formulation: “the principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the nation.” here the word “nation” bears no relation to ethnicity, but simply refers to all people living in the territory that formerly pertained to the king (tugendhat, 2001, p. 43). in the russian tradition, for a period of many decades, the nation was, of course, interpreted in ethnic terms. (the conflict between the ethnic and political grounds for the interpretation of the nature of the nation sometimes even led to misunderstandings in communication between soviet scientists and their western colleagues1). however, 1 this situation is described by the well-known french-swiss researcher patrick serio. in february 1984, the french communist newspaper "l'humanité" published an open letter written by the then general secretary of the communist party of france, jacques marchais, in which he addressed the central committee to express his "lively outrage" concerning the book by the famous soviet ethnographer solomon brook entitled "world population", published in 1983 in france and containing a description of the french nation from an "ethnodemographic" point of view. the secretary general, accusing the author of insulting french national identity and even racism, declared that "france is not a multi-national state, this is one country, one people, the fruit of a long history." however, in fact, the reason for such a dramatic perception of the work of brook was simply to do with the difference in approaches to the understanding of the nature and essence of the nation, when one approaches it from the ethnic paradigm and the other from the civil-territorial (seriot, 1995, pp. 51–52). 78 nikolay skvortsov due to the multi-national, multi-ethnic composition of the population of the russian empire, then the soviet union – and now the russian federation – the reliance on an ethnic understanding of the nation in nation-building discourses is fraught with a serious danger. the most significant of these is the contradiction between the proclaimed “right of nations to self-determination” and the principle of territorial integrity. the idea of the right of nations (peoples) to self-determination, which permeated all the fundamental documents of the soviet state in relation to nation-building, was drawn from the 1917 declaration of the rights of peoples of russia (article 2: “the right of the peoples of russia to self-determination, including secession and the formation of a nation-state”) to the last soviet constitution of 1977 (article 72: “each union republic shall retain the right to freely secede from the ussr”). at the same time as forming the basis for a national policy, the ethnic nationalist model has created a very peculiar “hierarchy of peoples”, which impacts strongly upon national consciousness. so-called “titular” nationalities in the population of the union republics were conferred the status of nations, while others, including the “titular” nationalities of the autonomous republics, were defined as “nations” or “peoples”. if we remember that the nation was treated as the highest form of ethnic development, a confused picture emerges: for example, estonians, kyrgyz, tajiks, uzbeks and moldovans appeared “more advanced” than, for example, ossetians, chechens, karels, mordvins etc. due to their higher level of ethnic classification. this was acutely perceived in the national self-consciousness of the respective peoples considered not “ripened” to the status of nation. incidentally, in trying to figure out how many of the peoples of the ussr had the status of a nation (a common cliché was that “in the soviet union there are more than one hundred nations and nationalities”), it becomes clear that the nations, excepting the abovementioned “titular” nationalities of the 15 union republics, also included the tatars and bashkirs – apparently due to their large numbers. in this connection, it stands to reason that nation status was something received by people changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 79 living in territories having external borders with other countries, who, in the case of exercising their right to self-determination (i.e. secession from the soviet union and the formation of their own state), would do less harm to the unitary state than people living in internal formations. of course, the secession of a republic from the “single and indivisible” union was at the time envisaged solely in terms of an abstract possibility. however, this seemingly insignificant probability also had to take into account the necessity of maintaining the inviolability of the “right of nations to self-determination.” a great challenge to the national policy constructed on a model of ethnicity took place during the 1990s when the overall integrity of the russian state came under serious threat. at its mature stage, when a multi-ethnic country with an extremely high level of ethnic and cultural diversity had been successfully developed, the soviet approach to nation building resolved the national question according to the concept of “the soviet people as a new historical, social and international community of people”. in t he opinion of the creators of this ideological structure, the soviet people as the “multinational group of workers of town and country, the community united under the socialist system [and] marxist-leninist ideology, the communist ideals of the working class and the principles of internationalism” (the soviet encyclopedic dictionary, 1987), on the one hand, accumulated in all the diversity of cultures of nations and ethnic groups, and on the other, synthesised or “melted down”2 nations and nationalities into the new quality. if it were not characteristic of soviet social representation of the nation as the highest form of ethnic development and the absolute predominance of the “ethnic discourse”, it would be possible to call this phenomenon the “soviet nation” and describe the unified national residents of the country as the “soviet people”. (it is said that in the second half of the 70s in the ussr an attempt was even made to unify the column of “nationality” in the passports of soviet citizens: instead of “russian”, “tatar”, “georgian”, “estonian”, etc. the record offered – “soviet”). 2 some researchers have used the metaphor of the "melting pot" borrowed from the chicago school of sociology to describe the phenomenon of the "soviet people". 80 nikolay skvortsov the attempt to impose a soviet identity was not accidental. indeed, every nation in isolation has its own ethnic roots (territory, language, religion, culture, patterns of behaviour, etc.), on which basis a unique ethnic identity is formed. however, in a multi-ethnic state with the highest degree of ethnic and cultural diversity, as was the case with the soviet union, appeals to ethnicity in solving the national question carried a heavy freight of potential risks, including threatening the integrity of the state. despite the policy of suppression of national identity and its substitution with class, the approach to solving the “national question” in the soviet union was a form of ethnic nationalism. this became evident, in particular, in the principles of the national state apparatus of the russian federation. along with those areas (initially, frontier provinces) posited on a territorial basis, were formed national-territorial entities, which, for the majority population living in them were based on ethnicity. at the period from the end of the 80s to the beginning of the 90s, russia was faced by the challenge of finding such forms of national government as would ensure the preservation of the multi-ethnic state. however, salvation from the threat of national disintegration was initially envisaged in a strange and contradictory model: a federal structure binding national republics that possessed unlimited sovereignty. confirmation may be seen in the words of boris yeltsin, then chairman of the supreme soviet and soon to become first president of russia, which were pronounced in august 1990 just before the collapse of the ussr: “take as much sovereignty as you can swallow. i do not want… to be a hindrance in the development of the national consciousness of each republic.” as a consequence of the “parade of sovereignties” that engulfed first the soviet union and then the autonomous republics within the russian federation, which was largely based on the “the right of nations to self-determination” being the slogan of the day, first the soviet union disappeared from the world map and then the russian federation started to literally break apart (here we recall chechnya and the sovereignty claims on the part of the volga republics, etc.). the tasks of countering ethnic conflicts, solving national problems and harmonising interethnic relations require different approaches to changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 81 the understanding of the nation, national consciousness and national identity. in theoretical terms, this entails, first of all, a rejection of the traditional ethnic interpretation of the nation and of the ideology of ethnic nationalism. the fate of the soviet union showed that a necessary condition for the long-term and sustainable existence of a multi-ethnic state is the formation of a unified civil nation. however, russia is not france. the transition to the paradigm of russian national identity derived from civic nationhood is a complex and lengthy process, one of the components of which is, so to speak, the “de-ethnicisation” of nationality. nations do have actual ethnic origins, ethnic roots. however, the rejection of appeals to ethnicity in the practice of formation of the national identity of russians is a necessary condition for the preservation and development of a multi-ethnic state. the modern concept of the formation of russian national identity, as articulated by vladimir putin, comes from the fact that “identity, i.e. the national idea, cannot be imposed from above, nor can it be built on the basis of an ideological monopoly.” the president offers a view of national identity as a design with a very complex structure. “... identity derived exclusively through ethnicity or religion in the largest state having a multi-ethnic population”, was, he said, “certainly not possible.” “the formation of a civic identity based precisely on common values, patriotic consciousness, civic responsibility and solidarity, respect for the law, complicity in the fate of the motherland without losing touch with their ethnic and religious roots is a necessary condition for preserving the unity of the country” (putin, 2013). thus, national identity is a complex formation, taking place at multiple levels. the primary, basic level consists of ethnic characteristics: language, religion, behavioural stereotypes, etc. this is the level of cultural diversity. it is an expression of a rich cultural heritage resulting from the interaction and mutual influence of the different cultures of the peoples living on the territory of a unified state. but within it is also concealed a significant conflict potential associated with the religious, linguistic and behavioural differences; this is expressed in the form of the ethnic dichotomy of “us” and “them”. the next level up is the 82 nikolay skvortsov formation of unity and solidarity in the overcoming of such differences. this is the awareness of “shared values”, of which the most important is patriotism or patriotic consciousness (the president has repeatedly referred to patriotism in terms of a “national idea”), i.e. complicity in the fate of the motherland. at this level, limitations in the ethnic nationalist worldview are overcome. in more philosophical terms, it consists in the necessity of dealing with the transition from ethnic particularism to civic national universalism. finally, the highest level in the structure of the national identity of russians consists in the awareness of being a citizen of russia and an understanding of the civic responsibilities thus entailed. “russian citizens should feel themselves responsible masters of their country, their region, their hometown, their property, their possessions and their lives,” (putin, 2013). this is the level of freedom, responsibility, cooperation, professionalism, self-organisation and self-management. the integrated, multi-level structure of the russian national identity determines the complexity of its formation in people’s minds. in solving this task, it is necessary for various social institutions to be involved – family, government, educational, mass media and others. here the social sciences play an important role in taking responsibility for the establishment of the theoretical foundations of contemporary national policy, as well as developing models and strategies for its implementation in practice. references kortunov, s. v. 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(1995). jetnos i demos: diskursivnoe postroenie kollektivnoj identichnosti (per. s frants.). v v. dressler-holohan, n.g. skvorcov (nauchnye red.), jetnichnost’. nacional’nye dvizhenija. social’naja praktika (s. 51–59) [ethnicity and demos: discursive construction of collective identity (transl. from french). in w. dresslerholohan, n. skvortsov (ed.), ethnicity. national movements. social practice (pp. 51–59)]. st. petersburg: petropolis. sovetskij jenciklopedicheskij slovar’ (izd. 4-e.). (1987). [the soviet encyclopedic dictionary (4th ed.)]. moscow: sovetskaja jenciklopedija. putin, v.v. (2013). vystuplenie na zasedanii mezhdunarodnogo diskussionnogo kluba «valdaj», 19 sentjabrja [speech at the meeting of the international discussion club “valdai”, september 19]. retrieved from http://www.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/19243 changing societies & personalities, 2022 vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.2.175 received 2 may 2022 © 2022 richard read accepted 20 may 2022 richard.read@uwa.edu.au published online 11 july 2022 essay borth waters and the coastal dreaming of a midlander richard read university of western australia abstract after a critique of top-down colonizing attributes of water projects in the arts and humanities, the essay dwells on the communitarian, environmental, and aesthetic value of a short creative documentary about the raised marshland mire behind the ancient seaside village of borth on the mid-west welsh coast. in a mode of theorized autobiography, it then divagates upon the metaphor of water in the author’s recurring dreams about this childhood holiday resort and its complex relations with his home in the english midlands, an area supplied by welsh water and that supplies many of borth’s holiday-makers. keywords borth, wolverhampton, wetlands, sea defence, place, space, creative documentary, aesthetic philosophy, environmentalism, hydrology, myth, dreams in north fremantle, the port city of perth in western australia where i live, i watched a seagull swoop to the top of a streetlight where it alighted, settled, and froze for a while. full and complete, like a painting in a gallery before another one draws us forward, that movement seemed to stand for a universal transition between place and space, for when it shuffled a little on its temporary perch my attention spread to the banal setting of the coastal suburb where i live and, as emotion morphed into thought, its relation to the rest of the world. if a place is a space with a distinct character, had i not just experienced a visceral and transition from space to place and back again? https://changing-sp.com/ 272 richard read place and space the seagull’s trajectory from some unknown space to the lamp post had given way to an awareness of the seaboard region on the indian ocean within the wider world where we both have our being. but because i was also doing something to what i saw, perhaps that is putting it too passively. yes, it “caught” my attention, but i also invested its arrested journey with feeling and meaning and that localized its landing into a place. when the seagull shuffled in readiness for its next flight, i lost interest, the observed was detached from the observer, who switched to another “frame of mind” where conceptually constructed, personal, local, national, and supranational scales of space subliminally, mixed within individual consciousness, were “serially disaggregated and pondered” (saar & palang, 2009, p. 7). i could then move on to related topics of thought, such as the less portentous realization that i had just been editing video lectures that might have prompted me to divide my experience and endow it with significance in this way. but then a transition took place to a larger frame of memory in which i considered the fact that i had always wanted to live near the ocean but having grown up in the midlands of another country, i had discovered an unexpected downside to living on the coast if you were not, as i was not, a mariner. the possible directions of exploration are cut down by one hundred and eighty degrees f if you live on the coast, whereas in the midlands of england you could roam in any direction on the compass. not that we did. my hometown of wolverhampton was on the western edge of the west midlands industrial conurbation that extends forty miles east towards coventry and encompasses birmingham, britain’s second largest city. our journeys in this placeless direction were largely practical, such as keeping my father company on deliveries of car components to factories in the area—jaguar, daimler, reliant—in his role as sales manager of a light engineering company. but for holidays we always drove west to the ancient village and seaside resort of borth, built on a long shingle bank which divides the sea from a saltwater marsh. the 2011 census (nomis, n.d.) recorded a population of 1,399. it was where my parents met and where, along with many midlanders after the cambrian railway was opened in 1862 and the roads tarmacked, my grandparents escaped to its “nine miles of golden sand,” as used to be advertised, now advertised as five for some reason. “he promised me the world and showed me borth,” my mother quipped of my father. we spent almost every holiday there, except winter, and many, many weekends from when i was two or three, when my father towed the 22 foot, green and white “penarth typhoon” caravan—its over-tall chimney knocked off by the first railway bridge out of wolverhampton—and installed it at the top of the hill of y-fron caravan park at upper borth, which afforded a magnificent view down the one mile village built on a pebble spit stretching due north towards the estuary of ynyslas, bounded by the irish sea on one side and hills a vast bog on the other. the hills on the other side of the dovey (welsh: dyfi) estuary and to the south around this vast plain served as a funnel for “bad” weather, as sunseekers saw it, including days of interminable rain spent trapped inside the van with elder siblings. after newtown succeeded welshpool and shrewsbury on the typical changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 273 three and a quarter hour journey (there were other routes), the road began to follow bounding streams and rivers down mountainous valleys before the estuary began at machynlleth. when motorcycle patrol men travelling in the opposite direction saluted us while keeping one hand on their handlebars if the insignia affixed to your bumper bars matched their company (we were aa, the other was rac), the romance of car journeys in the 1950s was subliminally connected with the movement of water, and the golden summers spent six weeks at a time with our mother were punctuated on friday nights by the excitement of watching out for—and finding—my father’s headlights slowly crawling along the horizontal dovey estuary miles away, then turning sharply with the railway line towards us, and gradually looming larger and brighter as they lit the straight beach road through the golf course and lost themselves for a few minutes of suspense—could it be someone else?—amongst the houses of borth high street, before pulling up triumphantly beside the caravan for the weekend. there was not much traffic on the roads in those days. though the stasis and flow, containment and escape of water is a primary metaphor of the axis between place and space, in my mind at least, it is impossible to disentangle it entirely from the mechanical realm. i fancy it is different for anthony morris, native resident and sometimes “philosopher of borth,” who wrote to me at the beginning of the pandemic: it is strange how significant physical transformations of one’s daily life create different modes of conscious apprehension. one of the over-riding features of the last two to three weeks has been how silent the world has become, to the point where the lone car travelling through the village becomes an oddly intrusive and unwelcome event. i have been hearing things of late that i haven’t heard for decades—the ticking of the quietest clocks, the distant hiss of the calmest sea. memory is a powerful force; it quickly slides in to help fill any present-tense void. hence my involuntary trip back to winter afternoons in carless borth. (a. morris, personal communication, april 10, 2020) i wish to thank him here for writing like an angel, friendship over decades, much information, and allowing me to quote from his emails in what follows. indeed, i can barely resist holding him responsible for the many errors he may find i have made. “a language-transformer with an obvious intonation of sarcasm” if any citizens of borth read what i am about to write, they might call it “science,” not in its usual lofty sense, but in the sense of a nickname given to a borth mariner who walked in an exaggerated manner: “the term ‘science’ was used when describing an over-elaboration of manner or behaviour” (davies, 2004, p. 81). before i reminisce, and despite my dislike of negative demonstrations, i think it may be salutary for students of hydrology to discover themselves as “unconscious instruments for values they would strenuously reject on a conscious level” (didion, 1969, p. 113) if they treat the citizens of remote waterfronts as indigenes in need of civilizing instruction from cosmopolitan culture hq. we do not like to think that our https://changing-sp.com/ 274 richard read philanthropic attention to the dire consequences of the anthropocene might oppress those most threatened by it. in the case of borth it could amount to an othering, a welsh orientalism, in which an outreach programme alienates some of its intended beneficiaries, even if they are sympathetic towards young people trying to establish a living in the arts and humanities. from 2014 to 2017, the british arts and humanities research council funded “towards hydrocitizenship. connecting communities with and through responses to interdependent, multiple water issues”, a project that investigated and contributed to ways in which communities live with each other and their environment in relation to water in a range of uk neighbourhoods. one such neighbourhood was borth and the nearby town of taly-y-bont in mid-wales. under community, the online vision statement declared: in relation to communities we ask, what does it do to the ways in which we imagine communities, and to the ways in which they imagine themselves, if local water-related environmental issues (both assets and conflicts) are brought more fully into local public consciousness [...] can narratives of past and current relationships between people, and people and water, help generate new narratives—new relationships? (connected communities, 2014) this quickly brought the tags “patronizing, entitlement, colonialism, condescension, incomprehension” to anthony’s mind. in the second of three events in autumn 2015, arranged by a group of artists from nearby universities, a series of films on the theme of flooding, migration, cultural heritage, and the future were projected onto the facades of the terraced houses that line the straight main street of borth village. the films included ice melting in greenland, inverted footage of the construction of the new sea defences designed to protect borth from the waves over the estimated fifty years of its remaining lifetime, and footage from an earlier event at which people were questioned on the lugubrious topic of “how they imagine borth to be different from now in 100 years’ time when the sea defences have stopped working” (tew, 2015). at a true tales evening in the friendship inn within hydrocitizenship’s span of years, anthony imputed a faux-naive attitude of witless gullibility to his role at that event: some years ago, i had occasion to walk a gauntlet of an influx of people from machynlleth, peppered here and there with local faces, who were milling around on the east side of the road between the butcher’s shop and the victoria inn. i had seen a couple of flyers advertising “dwr ymhobman tafluniad fideo nos ar hyd stryd fawr borth, water everywhere night-time video projection along borth high street 10th october 8–9.30 pm to be followed by story gathering in the friendship inn.” it was sponsored by bath spa university, bangor university, arts and humanities research council, hydrocitizenship and cymerau. the millers were now concentrating on images of melting ice sheets projected on to some of the elevations of the buildings opposite, these being accompanied by changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 275 a deafening soundtrack urging us to be aware of imminent catastrophe. as i was already familiar with this bleak scenario, i sought sanctuary in the vic1 whereupon i was immediately accosted by 3 or 4 locals, the foremost of whom fixed me with his eye and arrowed me with his tongue—“right morris, you know most things about this village—what the fuck’s going on out there?” “do you want the long or the short answer?” i replied, with such vague intonation as to be simultaneously suggestive of an all-embracing familiarity with or complete ignorance of events outside. the follow-up from my interlocutor implied that no evasion was acceptable so i had to explain how water everywhere was representative of a much wider project, the vision of which, in part, was to understand how we imagine communities and the ways in which communities imagine themselves if water-related environmental issues (both assets and conflicts) are brought more fully into local public consciousness and can we help generate new narratives, based on past and current relationships between people and people and water. my answer required such intense mental effort that my eyes were quite screwed up, but on opening them i came out with what i thought to be a fitting, concluding remark—“what’s going on out there is for you, for me, for this community!” by the time the sentence ended i noticed that my audience had moved on and were speaking to others in friendly and engaged conversation. (a. morris, personal communication, 27 march, 2022) if that applied to narratives of aqueous “conflicts,” then for narratives of continuity with the past (“assets”), anthony obliged by lapsing into eroticized nostalgia: do you remember those long hot summers when the sun dried the sand above high water until it had the consistency of gritty wholemeal flour? and the sound of distant children’s voices floating on the murmur of a mirror sea with maybe a hint of a breeze teasing the sunburnt flesh on your back? or the times when we used to hold our breath under water to impress the girls staying in arfor? do you? do you remember those times when our world was fishing, swimming, sailing, paddling, sitting, standing, walking, running, playing by, under, in and on water? on it goes—day by day, month by month, year by year, generation by generation. (a. morris, personal communication, 27 march, 2022) there is something of macbeth’s weariness in the second paragraph. as a matter of fact, i remember something like that myself, as does anthony in another mood, but to dispel my naivety he explained that it “needs to be read out loud to a languagetransformer with an obvious intonation of sarcasm thereby (hopefully) demonstrating the existence of a linguistic structure that demonstrates a relationship with water that is organic, historic, adequate, aesthetic, relevant and self-sustaining. but it nonetheless remains a deeply reminiscent substrate” (a. morris, personal communication, 27 march, 2022). 1 the victoria inn, borth high street. https://changing-sp.com/ 276 richard read what he most objects to is the way in which the transformation hydrocitizenship wants from narratives about the role the interface of land and water plays in all local lives is conducted in an imperious bureaucratese that sidesteps the experience and expectations enshrined in the shared language of their community. it’s hectoring, incurious and alienating. this could well apply to the promotion of a dance performance that accompanied the immersion of a sculpture called urchin on the beach behind the victoria inn on 10 october 2015. billed as “bodies in the water with the extended corporeality of the biosphere, drifting in tune with the primordial elements” (as cited in payne et al., 2017, p. 122), one supporter’s response to the many possible meanings of the performance was written up in an academic article by tom payne, one of the organizers and participants in the west-wales project: they may be refugee citizens of a post-apocalyptic world displaced by people or a climate not allowed settlers anymore. they may be on a migratory route. they are intrinsically involved with the revolving lament of the tide—to be forever passing, dwelling in nothing other than a succession of movements that complement the landscape, sharpening its contrast, deepening it contours. are they a herald call to adventure, coming from nowhere and—here now? (p. 122) this in turn drew breathless acclamation from yet another supporter: ‘“amazing evocative description. beautiful writing…” (p. 122). payne begins his essay by claiming to be “weaving together the voices of artists, academics, and community partners with my own, as a way of [...] revealing some of the water-related concerns in borth,” but exonerates as “productive failure” (p. 103) a later shift “away from collaborative writing, towards exploring the ways in which various contributions of members of hydrocitizens might act as a resource for my own thinking and writing about the cymerau launch” (p. 125), which plausibly would earn him academic brownie points. borth’s patchy wi-fi reception was apparently a greater threat to community participation than any defects in the entertainment level of the performance or indeed rising sea levels. due to the wonky internet, “discussions such as those from which this writing has been composed are potentially inaccessible to many, counter to the intentions of this participatory exercise and transdisciplinary research more broadly” (p. 125). for borth locals, by comparison, “water issues” are more likely to be voiced in urgent late-night emergency emails as colossal waves from the irish sea pound the backs of houses, spilling obstructive rubble through alleys between them onto the road. these are snippets from exchanges with neighbours when anthony was coordinating the flood wardens in his block of houses during storms barra and eunice respectively in december 2021 and january 2022: “ben, give fred a ring and tell him to be available from 8.00 pm onwards. his stretch is from bel-air to the vic. get him to call in on diane—i think we’re all in for a hard night.” changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 277 “john! get back. get back for fuck’s sake!! let it go! it’s not worth saving!”2 “look out! -----christ! none of us saw that coming! jac, ray. let’s move as much rubble off the road as we can before the next one hits!” “were you out last night?” “no, i stayed in and hoped for the best. i hear hafan was badly hit—punched a hole through the back—the ground floor’s a write-off they say.”3 “the county council must shoulder some of the blame for this. they haven’t reprofiled the shingle for a few years and now look what’s happened. it’s going to affect our premiums if they claim on the insurance.” “yeah, but what’s the point [of] insuring anyway. they say we shouldn’t be here in the first place, and we’ve only got fifty years left.” well, some say twenty-five. fairbourne’s a goner. (a. morris, personal communication, march 27, 2022) many of the hydrocitizenship performances at borth in 2015 ended with the provision of drawing and painting materials for locals to express the emotions raised by the day’s attempts to transform their relationship with water. given the urgency of the environmental perils confronting the community, this struck anthony as a bit late: “please say that the time for felt-pens and blank sheets of a4, many of which drifted like giant drunken butterflies along the shingle, has long gone” (a. morris, personal communication, 24 april, 2022). anthony’s criticisms are a salient example of the difficulty that owain jones, a chief instigator of the entire hydocitizenship project, had anticipated: “we readily admit to something of a tension in the approach between top-down intellectual ambitions about developing senses of ecological citizenship, and more bottom up, emergent themes which arise from local conversations” (as cited in hydrocitizenship, 2015). y gors/the bog (2016) a happier outcome for the borth local community was another project funded by hydrocitizenship. this was the experimental documentary y gors/the bog (2016) by anne marie carty, dafydd sills-jones and nick jones, which i shall discuss in some detail and which readers can watch in full4. jones is an internationally recognized composer and the choir master of borth village choir, côr y gors (“choir of the bog”), who are heard and seen throughout the film and who live on the edge of cors fochno, 2 this refers to heavy-duty pub furniture and a canoe that was being ripped from backyards, smashed to smithereens and flung as detritus along the storm-tide strand line. 3 hafan is a house of that name. 4 see carty et al. (2018), duration: 17’ 45”. numbers in brackets in main text indicate the number of minutes into the film a scene or sound is located at. the film was also funded by coleg cenedlaethol cymru (national college of wales) strategic development fund. https://changing-sp.com/ 278 richard read the largest raised peat bog in western europe, located on the landward side of the shale spit on which borth enjoys its precarious existence. the subject of the film is the conservation and history of the bog as presented through a variety of community views and opinions. the research question it addressed in its grant application was this: in consideration of “the impact of farming activities and land drainage on an ancient, raised peat bog, to what extent can processes of music composition enable narrative structures to explore and reflect on the connections between communities and their environments” (carty et al., 2018). though the film is informational, it takes the evocative form of a self-sufficient work of art. take the unbroken opening sequence, the longest in the film. a long slow pan swivels over the marshland for a full minute and a half from borth hills on the south over to st. michael’s anglican church on otter’s island (welsh: ynys fergi), a rocky knoll hard by the leri river on the edge of the bog. at one point the camera’s leftward sweep is challenged by the swifter passage of a bird to the right and underscored by continuous telephone or power lines towards the base of the screen. this grand, encompassing panorama is not 360-degree, but it nevertheless generates an impression of completeness that is both complemented and contradicted by the polyphonic soundtrack, comprising zen chimes, metal clinking, electronic warbling and conversational hubbub from which overlapping recollections of the bog are kept just on the edge of intelligibility before introducing the gently resigned, female voice of the personified bog, who speaks in welsh with english subtitles: “i wasn’t always this way, and i won’t stay this way, but for the time being this is what i am” (carty et al., 2018). she repeats this sentence at the end of the film, encircling it in a mesmerizing present, despite many narrative excursions into the long history of these fens. this accentuates our sensuous awareness of local waters, their natural relations, and human associations. i have suggested that these two bids for completeness, the panorama, and the polyphonic soundtrack, complement and contradict each other. the camera establishes a tenor of observational realism, while the overtly confected soundscape releases the imagination into memory and myth in a hypnogogic, dream-like fashion. at a metalevel, the discrepancy between the two is mimetic of the bog’s dynamic structure by producing a split consciousness akin to the sphagnum moss floating on the waters, moss forming the matrix of the bog as levels of it die to form layers of peat that reach a depth of twenty feet or so above the clay base. later, the waters of the bog are defined as a place-made centre, independent of human usage and isolated from the water systems that flow around and through it, since its waters are not fed by rivers or ocean but only by rain that makes it swell instead of breaking its normal boundaries as the nearby rivers, estuary and sea do (carty et al., 2018, 9:32). swelling and sinking, reinforced by the voices of the choir rising and falling in roundels of male and female sound that alternate and merge is another mimetic feature of the film. they emphasize stress localizing vertical dimension of pluvial accumulation and loss within the horizontal dimension of marshland extent, and this is reinforced again at various points in the film when human bipeds bob like meerkats (02:50, 02:51) or jump up and down on the spongey, elasticated surface (10:00), and when a close-up segment of the salt marsh hypnotically undulates on its own undulates (12:25). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 279 the sense of how the marshland is cut off from surrounding space both by its own homeostatic structure and by the camera is demonstrated when the opening pan comes to a halt on st. matthews’s church. this succeeds to still footage of the church and its cemetery shot from a higher, transcendental angle (carty et al., 2018, 2:07), which endows a node of religious community embedded in the deep past of its cemetery with a universal significance that at the same time is independent of the nation at large5. such effects reflect the benign spiritual idealism that the german polymath alexander von humboldt (1849) saw in nineteenth-century panoramic displays, which he approved of because he thought they fostered the public’s “conception of the natural unity and the feeling of the harmonious accord pervading the universe” (p. 457). yet, it also stirs associations of a secular history in which panoramic drawing was taught as a potent instrument of colonial control in military academies from the eighteenth-century onwards. stimulated by the needs of british forces for topographic information and strategic assessments of landscape during a century of intermittent wars with france, panoramic drawing was introduced into naval and military academies to increase the technical proficiency of officers. in particular, between 1768 and 1796 the well-known watercolourist paul sandby was drawing master at the military academy at woolwich, where he established a tradition of field sketch that enabled soldiers to delineate coastal features, battlefields, artillery sites and other strategic landscape features. in the same way that military mapping helped to “neutralize the dangers of the terrain and eventually assure mastery over it.” landscape sketching provided a key to understanding and asserting authority over the scene. unlike a detailed military map, the panoramic sketch did not require special skills to interpret and was therefore a highly useful complementary tool. (gooding, 2007, p. 69) this hardly reflects the film’s conscious intentions, yet inadvertently applies to the distinctive, black-topped white tower seen in the middle of the opening sweep (carty et al., 2018, 1:05) filmed from the cliffs below the war memorial at the summit of cliffs, whose prominent position overlooking borth is certainly pervaded by sentiments of national security and achievement6. locals and visitors would recognize this tower as the nisa local convenience store for everyday groceries, a monument to consumerism whose circular frontage defines an important turn off to aberystwyth, the capital of ceredigion. as currently the only postmodernist building in borth, it is a cause of pride to some who like anthony see in its overall bulk a reference to a nesting gull and of distaste to those who stigmatize it as “the 5 in bygone times, however, it was not independent of its anglican congregation’s benign contempt for the non-conformist congregations in chapels in the village and vice-versa. all the chapels have gone, but it may be that the villagers’ choice of congregation reflected social divisions between seafarers, land workers, and business owners, with the rest identifying with annibynwyr, the union of welsh independents (a. morris, personal communication, 12 may, 2022). 6 somewhere i have seen a photograph of concorde flying over it. https://changing-sp.com/ 280 richard read toilet roll” as suggested by one of its commodities. since the tower top is circular as well as central, it subliminally, and no doubt inadvertently, echoes the pivot on which the camera turns. as such it suggests the circulation between borth and the farflung commercial networks that supply it. later, the film will show industrially packed hay bales in black plastic wrappings awaiting collection from fields that encroach the bog7. we will hear the voices of the farmers who own these fields extolling the practical ideology of commercial land improvement and land reclamation—dry against wet—that puts them in opposition to the conservationist policies that the local authorities have implemented to preserve the bog. yet these reclaimed fields are supplying raw materials to the circulating food chains that feed the choir, the villagers, and national markets. meanwhile, the camera tracks telephone or power lines at the base of the screen. they are like the base lines of a musical score for the sounds heard on the soundtrack. the electronic components of that soundtrack, together with inaudible human hubbub, hint at collective voices or electrical hum along those wires as they reach beyond local place into the infinite space of international communications or power grids, just as, in its different way, does the bird flying along them in the opposite direction into unbounded natural space outside the frame. these features are merely foreground to the unspoilt marshlands in the middle distance, which are arguably the central subject of a different, colonizing scopic regime. voice-overs throughout the film stress the raised mire’s age-old resistance to human usage or affect. you can’t go there. it doesn’t look dramatic or precious. it doesn’t impinge on humans. its salt waters cannot be used to drink from or swim, wash or grow things in. it owes its very survival to human indifference. perceived from on high as by david caspar friedrich’s painting of the wanderer, the marshlands are prime subjects for the kantian aesthetic attitude: the distantiated and disinterested appreciation of strictly purposeless objects and vistas. but after the pan and the higher view, we are arrested by multiple close-ups of the sphagnum moss that forms the substratum of the bog (carty et al., 2018, 02:05). a closer framing of reality is neither more nor less artificial than a wider or more distant one (minha-ha, 1993, p. 100), but these effects invite interpretations from a very different kind of aesthetic theory. we are no longer distant observers but are in and of the bog. impersonal distance is further shattered when in close-hand footage of choir members carrying equipment into the bog, one of their number briefly waves at the camera. we are amongst friends. throughout the rest of the film, camera work keeps us in the bog, which consequently expands into a world. everything is partial, transient, and surprising: little shocks to the system more familiar to us from urban life were it not for their natural content. though one can never escape the rectangular boundaries of screen images cutting place from space at every frame, the virtuoso medley of different shots at different focal ranges, angles, directions, movements, stops and durations on static and moving subjects of every scale and texture under all weather conditions creates an illusion of freedom from frames and fixed points of view 7 these are likely to be the farms of carreg trannau, ynys capel, llwyn glas and maybe pen y wern at the foot of the southern hills (a. morris, personal communication, 12 may, 2022). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 281 that ronald hepburn (1966), in a ground-breaking essay of ecological aesthetics well known in borth, associates with the enjoyment of nature rather than art. the plethora of jump cuts creates such an unmasterable superfluity of framings that it evokes our freedom to move through unframed nature itself, unanchored from a pictorial viewing point. instead of standing over and against nature like a painting on a wall, this apparent repudiation of artistic control (for it is only apparent) lets nature envelop and involve us on all sides to enhance spectacles that seem all the more wondrous for the lack of human intentionality to explain them. apparent framelessness stimulates interpretative creativity, expands the imagination, alerts us to restlessness and change and a wider range of deeper emotions than art does: loneliness, enlargement of the soul, delicacy, frailty, flexibility and resilience, and, according to the qualities peculiar to water, containment and escape within a special litany of movements and sounds beyond the poetic negations of the sound track: “not a drop, not a drip, not a drip, not a ripple, not a ripple, not a trickle, nor a trickle, no flow” (carty et al., 2018, 12:34). and although its (single voice) damp, (collective voice) although it’s (single) sodden (collective) and utterly (single voice with double voices answering) drenched, and completely soaked, there’s no trickling there’s no running, and there’s no cascading. (carty et al., 2018, 12:52) later we do see and hear sensuous trickling, running, and cascading from pipes, weirs and rivers immediately bordering the bog. if these chants sound partly educational, then so do the alternating single or collective voices of adults and children in welsh and english reciting the species of plants and wildflowers that grow in the waters of the bog (carty et al., 2018, 09:09, 12:08). they enact a mnemonic ritual of teaching and learning that potentially spans the generations. for just as serious appreciation of art requires knowledge of art history and theory, so aesthetic appreciation of nature requires knowledge of natural history. this “natural environmental model” of aesthetic philosophy especially applies to relatively featureless tracts of wetlands that are not accommodated in the traditional aesthetic categories of the sublime, the beautiful and the picturesque (carlson, 2020). thus, we hear an expert’s articulate comprehensive scientific narrative about the geological formation of the bog (carty et al., 2018, 03:23), and a sympathetic history of the economic reasons why struggling farmers on its edge would want to reclaim it https://changing-sp.com/ 282 richard read (06:12)8. even the mythical voice of the personified bog is given scientific vocabulary such as “greenhouse gasses” (08:53) to explain the environmental benefits of her capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and contain water. at one point, however, the film seems to enact a parting of the ways between lay people’s appreciation of natural beauty and their tolerance of boring scientific facts. the voices of scientists standing beside a perspex pod of scientific implements in the middle of the bog suddenly descend into overlapping snatches of gobbledygook, which seems to mimic our failing attention: “heating it passively [. . .] water table […] temperatures at different depths […] composition rates […] methane production […] lack of transpiration” (carty et al., 2018, 10:43). but from these esoteric snippets there soon arises a coherent voice offering the general explanation that measurements help to determine the long history of climate change. in this way natural history unites us in a shared sense of natural origins preceding our existence9. conceptually, meanwhile, these scientific narratives pull the film away from its central focus on place to enlist larger scales of geographical and administrative space. we learn that the bog is “important nationally and internationally” due to its status as a ramsar site, a special area of conservation within europe10. however scientifically informed, the films procedures are quite different from those used in simon reeve’s tv series on the english lake district (bagnall, 2021), which makes similar points about the value of conserving britain’s rapidly deteriorating wetlands. reeve employs cogent visual argument in which a drone-mounted camera rises above talking heads entering the marsh as they speak of returning species of plants (close-ups) and birds (soaring shots) leading to generalizations about progress in rewilding the lake district as a whole (higher shots of the surroundings). the camerawork carves out a lucid path for the argument. as a creative rather than an informational documentary, by contrast, the oneiric effects y gors/the bog make it harder to remember but encourage second viewings. constant reflexive effects never allow us to forget how nature is mediated by film. twinkling refractions in the lens, glimpses of sound and camera equipment within the frame, the unrolling of a hose like 8 in 1689, john locke anticipated these views in his conception of wilderness as waste in the second treatise on government (locke, 2005): “for i ask, whether in the wild wood and uncultivated waste of america, left to nature, without any improvement, tillage, or husbandry, a thousand acres yield the needy and wretched inhabitants as many conveniencies [sic] of life as ten acres equally fertile land do in devonshire, where they are well cultivated” (p. 14). it is echoed in the verdict on the borth reclamation project in 1878 offered by an english schoolmaster when his school was exiled to the village during the scarlet fever epidemic in the east midlands when he writes: “you may listen to the puff of a farmer’s steam-engine planted in the swamp, and see the glitter of the steel ropes, with which it draws its ploughshares, resistless as fate, through the oozy fallows. well, it is come to this, the farmers and their engines will soon civilize away the beauty of this romantic wild. but shall we complain? if they have begun to drain these intractable marshes, there is a chance for other places, where the interest on the cost of drainage will be less problematical than here” (skrine, 1878, p. 77). the phrase “resistless fate” espouses the doctrine of manifest destiny wherein barbarism inevitably cedes to civilization. 9 the film does not mention that evidence of ancient copper and lead mining has been discovered in the soil beneath the bog before its formation 7,000 years ago (mighall et al., 2009). 10 i understand, however, that the dyfi biosphere of which cors forchno is a part gets no funding apart from small local authority grants to maintain a basic secretariat. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 283 a reel of film, and occasional punctuations by black screens and sudden silences all remind us of the camera, the soundtrack and intensive editing. paradoxically, the suturing of the natural and the technological only amplifies water’s vitalism. far from estranging us from the illusions, the pairing of electrical and natural sounds, including birds, insects, the distant clatter of trains, electronic warbling, plucked strings, piano notes and chords, orchestral music, and choral voices—sometimes departing from, sometimes merging with the visuals—turns the film into a hybrid organism that carries the spirit of the bog into the lenses and microphones of those who have built its registrations in our mind. measured outcomes of screenings at academic venues across europe drew a mixed reception. british academic voices were less convinced by its vagueness and ambiguity than european commentators (carty et al., 2018). an american friend harshly dismissed it when i sent him a link: “i watched the bog and thought it a very twee jumble that made me think of monty python, which is its antidote” (a. michelson, personal communication, 17 may, 2020)11. this is alan michelson, a mohawk filmmaker resident in new york. though his work is capable of generous diplomacy when the context requires it, the polemical nature of his opposition to the exploitation of native americans and their land rights more often requires polarising stridency in which “jumble” would be catastrophic12. the welsh filmmakers faced quite different political problems. some form of “jumble” was necessary to avoid polarised political attitudes towards the anthropocene. through close attention to the semiotic structure of several contemporary documentaries13, they sought to avoid “problem moment narrative structures” whose disadvantage is the production of binary oppositions between the “good” and “bad’” voices of divided groups—in our case farmers and environmentalists—whose independent agencies would otherwise be subordinated to authorial intentions. the alternative was a creative documentary that employed “semiotic ‘suspension’, where the music refused to let any specific voice dominate the ‘choir’ of perspectives in the whole film” (carty et al., 2018). specifically, this entailed the placement of music over the voice of the farmer complaining about the preservation of the bog “so his views are drawn into the texture of the film and act as an introduction to the next scene” (carty et al., 2018). i do not think this balm on troubled waters would convince many viewers that the film is free from bias. while eliding dissonant points of view (such as the farmers’), the makers are almost certainly aware of their film’s overall approval of conservationist, scientific, aesthetic, 11 monty python and the flying circus was a wildly popular british surreal comedy series that ran on bbc 1 television from 1969 to 1973. 12 in his 13:05-minute video installation, tworow ii (michelson, 2005), for example, he juxtaposed panoramas of each bank of the grand river dividing the six nations reserve from non-native townships in ontario and set the tour guide’s narrative against an indigenous commentary on contending soundtracks to call out the devastating pollution of once pristine waterfronts rested from native american protection by broken treatise. the approach is necessarily polarised and adversarial. 13 for example: the end of the line (murray, 2009), the cove (psihoyos, 2009), suite habana (perez, 2003), blackfish (cowperthwaite, 2013), leviathan (castaing-taylor, 2015), kotona kylässä (luostarinen, 2012) and into eternity: a film for the future (madsen, 2013). https://changing-sp.com/ 284 richard read and multi-culturalist points of view. overall, i share these biases, so would hardly object to them, however aware i am of my dependency on industrial farming. that the filmic representation of the bog is a man-made unity containing different frames of reference within itself, and not simply a tract of untouched nature, is already evident from the welsh/english split in the title y gors/the bog. alternating languages, genders and ages are carried into the soundtrack and into the english subtitles translated from the welsh. the cultural positions of all the recorded voices are mostly in harmony but sometimes in tension. the biases i have mentioned are most subtly reinforced by gendering, however. the exclusively elderly, male, welsh farmers speak of the need to control nature (carty et al., 2018, 11:40). according to george lackoff’s linguistic theories about the way language frames our ideas, both conservative and progressive thought about the environment is informed by metaphors of family structure. conservatives tend to idealize a traditionally strict father organized by clear hierarchy, obedience, and discipline—the ascendancy of the dry over the wet in our case. progressives, including environmentalists, tend to value an egalitarian, nurturant parent, stressing empathy, cooperation, and a sense of interconnectedness (lackoff, 2001). it is therefore not surprising that the bog is personified in the film as a timeless, gentle female, and equally significant that the film downplays more misogynist personifications of the bog available from borth folklore. one such is yr hen wrach, “the old hag of borth bog” that haunted villagers up to the early 1900s when land reclamation had sufficiently reduced the area of the bog to rid the area of malarial miasmas that came at night to afflict local victim with “the shakes” (stevenson, 2014). for the film this was an inconvenient case of land reclamation improving the lives of villagers! only in the very earliest voices of the film is the bog dimly remembered as a site of old-fashioned superstition, a fearful place with something of the aura of grimpen mire in conan doyle’s the hounds of the baskervilles (1902), where one false step led man or beast to death: “‘the bog has a lot of secrets, and i don’t want to be one of them…’ ‘scary. i’ve always heard stories as a kid of animals being lost’” (carty et al., 2018, 01:33). in the final segment of the film, we are awoken from the hallucinogenic objectivity of solitary nature, already shorn of malignant superstition. i find it the most puzzling and perhaps the least satisfactory sequence—perhaps. just before it we are given a sequence of intensely hypnogogic distraction in which the lens is turned so far out of focus that the myriad reflections of light on rippling water are distended into abstract blobs shimmering on the screen whose flattening the modernist art critic clement greenberg would have approved of (carty et al., 2018, 15:07). daydreaming trumps observation. then reality cuts in as a naiad is personalized. we see a close-up of a handsome woman spinning her hair around as she looks around next to a man in a white shirt (15:26). for the first time the choir is individuated as a group of unselfconscious friends enjoying the bog in slanting, evening light. their co-presence is real enough, after the choir meeting (if this is not a separate occasion), yet there is still a ritual quality about their sometimes-unaccountable actions, which seem to contradict prior claims about the bog’s uselessness. we have been told you cannot wash in it, but the man undoes his shirt to do so; that you cannot grow anything changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 285 in it, but plants and bushes are inserted, watered, and measured. as anthony writes inscrutable notes on a clipboard, it is difficult to know why others pour water through a funnel into moss already saturated in its own waters. the erection of a folding table to celebrate a toast is probably more convivial than sacramental, despite the christian pairing of wine and water, but it risks appropriating the bog as a recreational area when its mystique formerly depended on human inaccessibility: “it’s foreign to us […] there’s just places where you can’t go” (03:04)14. the diversity of these activities is clearly designed to defeat a single interpretation. they might equally symbolize a return to a primordial eden or a premonition of future invasion. on enquiry i discovered that the film’s conclusion was not supposed to resolve tensions but was intended as a lightly theatrical counterpart to natural scenes of a world that should remain uncorrupted (a. morris, personal communication, 24 april, 2022). but i prefer to think of it also as a consummation of the film’s well-established reflexive consciousness. it admits that for the whole film to attend to nature is already to impinge upon it. henry thoreau explained the wisdom of such admissions in that founding text of environmentalism, walden (1854): “it may be that even to think of nature, let alone act on it, is to make it a joint product of human and natural activity, so that to come to the pond is already to profane it. but profanation is simply the condition of the world, which is redeemed, if at all, by our deeper apprehension of that condition” (as cited in purdy, 2015, p. 151). water between wales and england my focus broadens. it is perhaps ironic that the preservation of nature on one side of borth is matched by the massive mechanical transformation of its seaward side in millions of pounds worth of new sea defences and artificial islands to combat that other man-made phenomenon: rising sea-levels. it is obviously beyond the remit of a single film focused on cors fochno to do justice to the multiplicity of relations between land and water that shape a coastal community over centuries: its distant origins as a seasonal haven for heron fishing, the daily walks of twenty miles or so by cockle ladies from ynyslas sands to aberystwyth and back to exchange their wares for bread, its disproportionate number of cosmopolitan sea captains whose vessels give their names to many of the houses, and the tensions as well as financial interactions between mariners and farmers, who generally enjoyed lower wealth and status but could still invest in local shipping opportunities. these stories are told in the invaluable borth: a seaborn village by terry davies (2004), from which most of my social history is taken. davies illustrates the social divide between seafarers and farming families with a telling anecdote about will scissors, so called because of his sharp tongue. one report from the 1890s has it that this sea captain was in chapel on a warm sunday, totally relaxed, with his eyes closed. a popular young firebrand of a preacher was pontificating about being close to god. seeing an apparently sleeping member of the congregation, he decided to bridge the 14 these are views that do not reflect its former uses as peat for home fires before coal arrived in the village, for bee-keeping and other practical activities. https://changing-sp.com/ 286 richard read recalcitrant by denouncing those who, even in the house of the lord, were not paying attention or knowing the nearness of him. as the congregation followed the preacher’s stern gaze, will suddenly opened his eyes. he looked around and instantly understood the situation and, staring straight back into the preacher’s eyes, he said “pah! i have been nearer the lord than you will ever be in your pulpit. i have seen his great works and how he manifests himself in the wilds of the vast atlantic. he has always been with me, guiding me through storms you couldn’t imagine in your worst nightmares. whilst i have felt his great comforting presence, you and your ilk hereabouts have merely sheltered under a hedge”. (p. 77) but since technology changes places, the viability of the shipping industry from the ports of aberdovey (welsh: aberdyfi) and aberystwyth from which borth mariners sailed was ultimately destroyed by the arrival of the railways that shifted borth’s economy towards tourism, so that by comparison with other coastal towns it is now untypically anglicized, serving also as a dormer suburb for students at aberystwyth university. still, in the 2011 census (nomis, n.d.), 43% of the residents of borth were largely welsh speaking, and locals of all kinds harbour dislike of thoughtless midlanders making nuisances of themselves through inconsiderate use of noisy jet skis on borth waters. because of their midlands accents, they are sometimes known as “yow-yows”, as when on first arrival one says to another: “yow unload the jet ski and oy’ll boy an oyce cream!” (“you unload the jet ski and i’ll buy an icecream”). wulfrunians (natives of wolverhampton) can even laugh at themselves on holiday at borth. “if you talk to anyone local, tell them your great grandma was born in caernarvon. i’m not having anyone overcharged for curly wurlys”15. “this is going to be awesome, like a nature documentary.” “‘it’s nice here, isn’t it?’ ‘yes, if you like midges, costcutters [the nisa store again], and not being able to pronounce place names.” these are lines from the episode “dead man’s caravan” in the british television sitcom raised by wolves (moran et al., 2016) inspired by caitlin and caroline moran’s memories of their childhood on a wolverhampton council estate. it stars a dysfunctional family whose heavy accents are the medium of improbable eloquence that doesn’t save them from the breadline. in this episode they stay in a caravan at ynyslas inherited from their grandfather. rainclouds loom, but do not break and the family blissfully reunites over a campfire on the beach. it was not just shipping but farming that gave ground to tourism. we were one of the first caravans on y-fron. i have a dim memory of a scene when it was still predominantly a farm run by mr. morris, a wiry man with a kindly attitude of slight uncertainty and mild retreat, standing in tall gumboots near a barbed-wired fence and an ancient, rusty trough. he was ever the farmer, ministering to sheep rather than holiday-makers. my compassion for his departing way of life took no account of my family’s presence as caravan owners, and we, as much as anyone, abhorred the garish, polychrome blight of vans that spread across the contours of other rolling green fields in coastal wales. 15 this refers to a two-tier price system for tourists and locals, which my mother used sometimes to dodge by shopping in aberystwyth supermarkets. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 287 despite our contribution to the local economy, i was always reminded on visits in the 1950s and 60s of my status as an outsider due to the gloom of what i now know realize were older and more serious tensions between england and wales weighing on borth from afar. at about the age of ten, near the railway crossing on the road that ties the church to the village, i plucked up courage to ask the time of a very tall, erect, slow-moving, elderly man dressed from head to toe in black, including a curiously rounded, wide-brimmed hat and a flash of white from a dog collar. i think he was a methodist minister. with sombre dignity, he unbuttoned a pocket in his waistcoat and slowly withdrew a gold watch on a chain from which he read the time—in welsh! he certainly knew i was english, for after a suitably agonising interval he reluctantly recited it in english. i felt he was making a point. he probably grew up at a time when nineteenth century children were still made to wear the “welsh not,” a wooden or slate board, as a punishment for speaking the native language at school. i well remember the strangeness of overhearing the son of the headmaster of the school on borth hill talking to his mother in perfect english and receiving replies in fluent welsh as i passed the gate of the high-walled playground on my way up to the caravan. yet my shock at alan michelson’s analogy between y gors/the bog and monty python is that my social barriers with borth locals of my age were most fully dissolved as i was watching the shipwrecked mariner staggering up the beach in the very first episode of that series sitting with anthony and his father aran in bel-air, his parents’ house, and grocery store. i thought it must be an odd kind of religious programme before the penny dropped, and anthony and i began roaring with laughter at the same instant, while aran looked on in an indignant state of bewildered disapproval16. a cosmopolitan bond was sweeping the younger generations together across the whole country. around this time pink dinosaur prints appeared on borth pavements, leading to some houses but not others. it’s likely that the perpetrators, whose identities have never been discovered, thought the chosen owners were dinosaurs of one kind or another, and worthy of a shock. there are rumours of an 8 mm film in an aberystwyth bank vault of jimmy hendrix, the supremo of american rock guitarists, walking barefoot on borth beach, carrying his fender stratocaster. i possess a fake poster of the concert dated 22 october that he certainly did not give in the cabin bar of the friendship inn, the pulsating heart of borth counterculture, where those with dandruff on their jacket collars or white bras beneath their tops lived in fear of exposure from its flashing ultra-violet lights. but hendrix did tour mid-wales in 1967, allegedly driven by johnny morris, a musical promoter and son of the proprietors of our very own caravan site (shrubsole, 2011). fame by association! in a fantasy appended to this account, hendrix, who did compose tracks inspired by elemental waters17, is listening to the waves on his way back to borth, and imagines he hears the bells of aberdovey that are described in a popular song based on the legend of the bells of a sunken lost kingdom called cantre’r gwaelod (the hendrix hundreds, 2012), 16 aran’s own showmanship was more practically demonstrated as captain of borth lifeboat when, in preparation for sending up a flare to bring in the crew from whatever they were doing in the village for the next seaor cliff-rescue, he would dramatically hold back a gaggle of onlookers, including myself, with a theatrical sweep of his arm and cry: “stand back! stand back!!” in the richest and most vibrant of voices, then “woosh,” up and off it went, “bang!” 17 for example, “castles made of sand” (1967) and “1983 (a merman should i turn to be)” (1968). https://changing-sp.com/ 288 richard read the “welsh atlantis”, that can sometimes be heard ringing beneath the waves near the actual remains of a petrified forest that regularly surfaces on borth beach. what a clash with that earlier invasion of beach missionaries, the children’s special service mission, an evangelical christian group who sacrificed their holidays to teach us hymns we bellowed out against the wind to the accompaniment of a peddle organ. we made suitable hand gestures: do you want a pilot? (point) signal unto jesus (beckon) do you want a pilot (point) bid him come on board (beckon) for he will safely guide (steer) across the ocean wide (sweep) until at last we reach the heavenly harbour (crook elbow) why should the devil have all the good tunes? this was before borth became one of many places in mid wales subject to an influx of english hippies in the 1970s, where they were generally warmly welcomed (danks, 2015). yet the weight of older grievances persisted. conquered by england in the thirteenth century, wales has sometimes been called england’s first colony. deprived of legal rights and subject to summary dispossession for aeons, its citizens mounted many rebellions that were brutally suppressed by english overlords (davies, 2007, pp. 158–217). after the cultural recalibration of a distinctive welsh national identity in the nineteenth century, abiding resentment of this fractious past in the twentieth was focused on the obligatory supply of plentiful welsh water to the densely populated cities of northern england and the midlands. to this day an average of 300 million litres a day is extracted from the caban cock reservoir along the elam valley aqueduct to supply the city of birmingham with domestic water after an act of parliament passed the birmingham corporation water act of 1892 for the compulsory purchase of the total catchment area of the elam and claerwen valleys. a hundred people lost their homes as a result. leaving cultural sensitivities out of account, it made perfect engineering sense for a country with a sparse population, high rainfall, and a mountainous topography of deep valleys to supply high volumes of clean water for domestic use in the growing industrial cities of a generally flatter, more densely populated country. i was dimly aware of these issues as a child, and on one occasion was implicated personally. my mother was an inveterate bargain-hunter because of having lived through two world wars. by now she had her own car. one day i set off with her on an interminable car journey from borth in a direction we had never ventured on before in search of a cheap welsh dresser which was to proudly adorn the kitchen of our wolverhampton home for ever more. at that time the second-hand dealers of brighton—a city said at the time to be collectively “helping the police with their enquiries”—were buying up a glut of cheap dressers from wales and on-selling them at huge profit. cutting out the middleman, mother took me on a long drive to an isolated changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 289 rural welsh hamlet where furniture was going cheap because its valley was about to be flooded to supply england with water. i remember the eeriness of observing a cluster of houses around a church whose spire would soon be underwater, and the poverty of a community where a smiling young farm worker with an abnormally large head had already sold his brains to the medical department of the university of aberystwyth for £20.00. could this really have been capel celyn, the community in the tryweryn valley, where 48 people were displaced in 1965 to flood a valley that would supply water to heavy industry in liverpool and the wirral? not only was the private bill sponsored by liverpool city council designed to overrule welsh local authorities, it was vehemently opposed by all but one of the thirty-six welsh members of parliament (the other one abstained). according to contemporary photographs the chapel did not have a spire, but both the year of the flooding and the length of the journey from borth seem right. how the precious, honey-coloured dresser was delivered to wolverhampton i do not know, but it would not have fitted in my mother’s morris minor 1000. this flooding was the catalyst for the growth of the welsh nationalist party, plaid cymru, and for various attempts at sabotage around the reservoir. it eventually spread to the terrorist use of another of the four elements: fire, for between 1979 and 1994, over a similar period to the troubles in ireland, meibon glyndŵr (sons of glyndŵr) and other welsh militant groups firebombed three hundred english-owned holiday homes in wales, fortunately without loss of life. the fires lent savage irony to a contemporary coal market campaign spoofed in a bbc tv comedy sketch: “come home to a real fire: buy a cottage in wales” (welsh not british, 2015). in 1977 the welsh rugby player phil bennet raised the hackles of his team before a cup-tie with england with a speech in which he urged: “look what these bastards have done to wales. they’ve taken our coal, our water, our steel. they buy our homes and only live in them for a fortnight every year. what have they given us? absolutely nothing. we’ve been exploited, raped, controlled, and punished by the english—and that’s who you are playing this afternoon,” though in later accounts he put a comical slant on his motives (bennett, 1977). disregard for the hydrological, social, cultural, and linguistic impacts of english domination of wales contributed to pressures for the devolution of the legislature and the establishment of the welsh parliament in 1999, for which support has only strengthened during the pandemic. coastal dreaming of a midlander i confess to shameful pride in an imaginary pecking order amongst midlanders who spent childhood holidays in borth. i smile when i think of them waxing lyrical about old borth as a timeless idyll, asking myself if they are old enough to remember all that had gone before their time? the ferry station at ynyslas for crossing the estuary to aberdovey? the lumpy tar on the beach from passing ships that stuck to your clothes and skin? the pantyfedwen hotel, that stuccoed white elephant adorned the skyline near the station, whose demolition in 1976 rid borth of its most prominent landmark? pairs of cartwheels on the beach whose spokes were used to manhandle heavy wooden fishing boats in and out of the sea? the guns stationed at towyn (welsh: https://changing-sp.com/ 290 richard read tywyn) firing shells at targets towed by military aircraft out at sea? the concrete railway bridge over the tracks at the station with its lonely view of the fors cochno at the top where i would grip the railings as the cambrian coast express approached to see if i was brave enough to stand my ground when it enveloped me in acrid-smelling clouds of steam before it thundered to a halt? steam. steam power and the chemical composition of h2o were discovered in my neck of the woods during the so-called midlands renaissance in the late eighteenth century. they went along with the canalization of britain (uglow, 2002) and the mindset that straightened the leri river from its former winding course into a gash across the bog that emptied into dovey estuary instead of formerly at borth beach (carty et al., 2018, 08:12). the kinds of hydrological relations imposed on wales by england evolved from the scientific conception of water that ivan illich (1986) contended has transformed it from the material basis of myth, poetry, and dreams into a utilitarian commodity of metered and recycled cleaning fluid that deprives our dreams of “a stable, dense, slow, and fertile water stuff that obscurely vegetates within us” (p. 7)18. in all pre-modern societies: what the rivers or beaches wash from those who cross them [in death] is not destroyed. all mythic sources feed a source that is not destroyed. all mythic water feed a source that is located on the other side. the streams carry the memories that lethe has washed from the feet of the dead [...] this well of remembrance the greeks called “mnemosyne.” in her clear waters, the residue of lived-out lives float like the specks of fine sand at the bottom of a bubbling spirit [...] in this way the world of the living is constantly nourished by the flow from mnemosyne’s lap through which dream water ferries to the living those deeds that the shadows no longer need. (illich, 1986, p. 31) fear not, reader: i am not about to claim to be in communication with the dead! but i do claim that the waters of borth sustain me because of the peculiarities of my dream life. if i hesitate to explain this, it is not because of squeamish concerns about personal privacy, but because i fear erasing an invaluable psychic resource by drawing it too far into the light of consciousness and writing about something of slender public significance or interest. it is very common to have recurring dreams about certain feelings, actions, or themes, but apparently much rarer to dream for decade after decade about a particular place19. i dream about borth much more often than my hometown of wolverhampton—the real cauldron of my family dynamic—or of australia where 18 of course, borth itself is now supplied from a dammed reservoir at craigypistyll abstracted from a water treatment works at bont-goch. the whole village was plumbed into a mainline sewage system the late ‘60s or early ‘70s, of which the treatment system is at the eastern side of otter’s island, whereas before all the houses on the seafront had their waste drain into the shingle (a. morris, personal communication, 15 may, 2022). 19 andrew relph, perth psychotherapist, whom i would like to thank for long friendship and fascinating discussions of typical dream patterns. changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 291 i have lived for more than thirty years, while a run of dreams about new zealand abruptly sank into the dark swamp of the undreamable as soon as i had visited it! since childhood, borth has served my psyche as a pliable, archaeological layer of living dreamscape in which any real or imaginary point within a roughly triangular area bounded by the estuary, the coast, and the hills behind our caravan site, may suddenly be activated as a “magic spot” for dreaming, even if i’ve never physically visited it. neither does it include momentously memorable places just outside that area, such as family cliff walks from aberystwyth or down the lovely valley to wallog for picnics near the mysterious lime kilns and distinctive spit on the beach. undoubtedly, this privileged dream region is distinct from a “bro” (short for brogarwch), the welsh term for the physical area to which you and your community belong. anthony defines his bro as what he can see in all directions from the church cemetery on the rocky knoll near the leri, unless it is too far away to be physically accessible, like hills in the distance (a. morris, personal communication, 27 april, 2022). terry davies’ bro is the twenty square miles of hinterland “between the dyfi estuary and through the village of borth southwards to the clarach estuary” (terry davies ceramics, n.d.), far beyond my own limit of aberwhenal, the next bay up from borth cliffs. i can hardly match these citizens’ depth of emotional attachment to these places, nor do i imagine that their dreaming is any less robust. i speak no welsh and am not immersed in welsh culture nearly as much as i would like to be, but then my dreamscape is not a place in the same way. it is a moving feast in a double sense. it moves with me to whichever country i go to and is itself in movement as a living creature, throwing up what seems an inexhaustible wealth of real or imaginary locations for its quixotic enterprises within its precinct, though it may occasionally form a capriccio that incorporates somewhere else such as the plumb pudding mound of castle hill from my cambridge days, as if it had always risen next to the amusement arcade at the north end of the village. and except for our caravan, that predictable scenario of family romance, where dream flowers have grown through holes in the floor since its destruction many years ago and the deaths one by one of all the immediate members of my family who stayed in it (figure 1)—all my dream locations are new. one of them places its focus on an unreachable spot twenty yards or so into the bog from the road beyond the station, or in a damp and unalluring field enclosed by hedges on the crown of a hill behind y-fron: places i’ve never been to in waking life but mean to! or they may be expansively apocalyptic. i was on the beach under a slate grey sky. suddenly, out of the water, there rose to a height of fifty feet a gigantic rectangular gantry about two hundred feet long by thirty feet high, festooned with sets of twin lamps and other, more obscure apparatus. it shed shining water as it rose under no visible source of propulsion. the suddenness of its rise and arrest in the sky were striking. the next moment it leapt the roofs of borth high street and through a paradox of scale installed itself within the dilapidated shell of the long-gone lerry garage, where a vintage, 16-cylinder isotta fraschini luxury saloon, “big enough to raise a family in,” had stood rotting for many years. how the metal framework got over the roof and shrank its proportions to fit within the walls, i don’t know, but there it was, visible https://changing-sp.com/ 292 richard read enough through the broad, wooden doors, shedding its remaining water, pregnant with menace, and possessively guarded by smartly dressed, unfazed soldiers in boots and gaiters. they looked british, but the apparatus had the feeling of an alien invasion, though not in any faddish way. it was intrinsically mysterious. what would it do, apart from turn its lights on? no one knew, but the attention it was receiving made it certain that another, potentially catastrophic event would soon follow. figure 1 author's family caravan and father's car at borth, wales note. school drawing, crayon. late 1950s. source: in possession of the author. not every dream combines industrial equipment, automobiles, and water 20. i chose this dream rather than another one about enthusiastically swimming down the high street where the waves of cardigan bay had reached the rooftops, because although my psychical “gift” attracts me to the oneiric qualities of y gors/the bog, i do not think they reflect any of the film’s environmental and social messages. i have heard what seems to me the trivial interpretations that recurrent dreams of single places reflect either buried traumas or sanctuaries from them. rather, i think, mine represents the structure of my subconscious, but not my adult subconscious. so far, they have shunned recent developments such as the multi-purpose reefs or the anglicization of the village and, like children, do not take much responsibility for anything. i think this is because the dreamscape represents the structure of my childhood subconscious. perhaps one can only know a place by living there, though another view is that it is only in the interval between first arrival, when nothing is 20 for the classic text on the mutual entanglements of technology and the pastoral ideal since shakespeare, see leo marx (1964). changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 293 clear, and settling in, when everything becomes habitual, that you really start to see, if not to know, a place (anderson, 2016). as a holiday-making child i started this process over and again. borth became always both familiar and newly strange. thus, although my dreams of borth are often frightening, and sometimes reassuring, if i were to nominate a dominant feeling-tone in which these feelings of terror or safety are couched, i would say it is one of jubilant, exploratory wonder at borth and its waters, and for that i’m really grateful. references anderson, b. (2016, january 21). frameworks of comparison. london review of books, 38(2), 15–18. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n02/benedict-anderson/ frameworks-of-comparison bagnall, b. (executive producer). (2021). the lakes with simon reeve [tv series]. the garden productions. bennett, p. (1977, march 5). "look what these bastards have done to wales", pregame wales v england—1977 [speech audio recording]. speakola: all speeches great and small. https://speakola.com/sports/phil-bennett-wales-england-1977 carlson, a. (2020). environmental aesthetics. in e. n. zalta (ed.), the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (winter 2020 ed.). metaphysics research lab. https:// plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/environmental-aesthetics/ carty, a. m., jones, n., & sills-jones, d. (2018, june). y gors/the bog [video]. screenworks, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.37186/swrks/8.2/4 castaing-taylor, l., & paravel, v. 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(1993). the totalizing quest for meaning. in m. renov (ed.), theorizing documentary (pp. 90 –107). routledge. https://doi. org/10.4324/9780203873083 moran, c. [caitlin] (writer), moran, c. [caroline] (writer), & fitzgibbon, i. (director). (2016, april 6). dead man’s caravan (series 2, episode 6) [tv series episode]. in k. allen & c. leddy (executive producers), raised by wolves. big talk productions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq8toyynpmq murray, r. (2009). the end of the line [film]. arcane pictures; calm productions; dartmouth films; the fish film. https://freshwaterblog.net/2015/03/15/hydrocitizenship/ https://www.alanmichelson.com/tworow-ii/2019/1/5/tworow-ii-excerpt https://www.alanmichelson.com/tworow-ii/2019/1/5/tworow-ii-excerpt https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2009.03.005 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2009.03.005 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203873083 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203873083 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq8toyynpmq changing societies & personalities, 2022, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 271–295 295 nomis. official census and labour market statistics. (n.d.). borth parish. local area report for areas in england and wales. https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/ localarea?compare=w04000362 payne, t., jones, o., rowland, a., hourahane, sh., plows, a., roe, m., morusbaird, g., lloyd francis, j., hall, j., jordao, a., penrhyn jones, s., gunn, t., biggs, i., jones, n., lyons, a., & hywel griffiths, a. (2017). dramatizing the anthropocene through social media: the spatiotemporal coordinates of hydrocitizens. resilience: a journal of the environmental humanities, 5(1), 100–134. https://doi.org/10.5250/ resilience.5.1.0100 perez, f. (2003). suite habana [film]. wanda visión s.a.; instituto cubano del arte e industrias cinematográficos (icaic). psihoyos, l. (2009). the cove [film]. diamond docs, fish films, oceanic preservation society, participant media, quickfire films. purdy, j. (2015). after nature: a politics for the anthropocene. harvard university press. saar, m., & palang, h. (2009). the dimensions of place meanings. living reviews in landscape research, 3(3), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.12942/lrlr-2009-3 shrubsole, g. (2011, january 30). jimi hendrix’s welsh experience. after the end of history: how can the past inform the future. https://guyshrubsole.wordpress. com/2011/01/30/jimi-hendrixs-welsh-experience/ skrine, j. h. (1878). uppingham by the sea: a narrative of the year at borth. macmillan. stevenson, p. (2014). ceredigion folk tales. the history press. terry davies ceramics. (n.d.). statement. http://terrydaviesceramics.com/ statement.html tew, e. (2015, february 20). water water everywhere (part 2). esther tew. https:// esthertew.com/exhibitions-installations/ the hendrix hundreds. (2012, march 1). no good boyo. http://alfanalf.blogspot. com/2012/03/hendrix-hundreds.html uglow, j. (2002). the lunar men: the friends who made the future, 1730–1810. faber and faber. von humboldt, a. (1849). cosmos: a sketch of a physical description of the universe (e. c. ott, trans.). (vol. 2). henry g. bohn. welsh not british. (2015, december 13). come home to a real fire: buy a cottage in wales. not the nine o’clock news [video]. facebook21. https://facebook.com/ watch/?v=966889406716055&_rdr 21 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. in the russian federation, it is recognised as an extremist organisation and its activity is prohibited. https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/localarea?compare=w04000362 https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/localarea?compare=w04000362 https://doi.org/10.5250/resilience.5.1.0100 https://doi.org/10.5250/resilience.5.1.0100 https://doi.org/10.12942/lrlr-2009-3 https://guyshrubsole.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/jimi-hendrixs-welsh-experience/ https://guyshrubsole.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/jimi-hendrixs-welsh-experience/ http://terrydaviesceramics.com/statement.html http://terrydaviesceramics.com/statement.html https://esthertew.com/exhibitions-installations/ https://esthertew.com/exhibitions-installations/ http://alfanalf.blogspot.com/2012/03/hendrix-hundreds.html http://alfanalf.blogspot.com/2012/03/hendrix-hundreds.html https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=966889406716055&_rdr https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=966889406716055&_rdr changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.1.007 book review the unhappy divorce of sociology and psychoanalysis: diverse perspectives on the psychosocial. (2014). eds. lynn chancer, john andrews. springer. elena trubina ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia interdisciplinary conflicts as a way to understanding changing societies and personalities sociological conceptualization of the individual has often been marked by behaviorism and generalizations about the impact of society and social groups on individual identity and life strategies. however, psychoanalytical and, more broadly, psychological and psychiatric concepts and projects, have been employed in the past by some sociologists. this often involved critical reflection on of both disciplines. erving goffman, for example, was critical both of psychiatrists’ understanding of mental illness and of sociologists’ tendency to characterize mental illness as simply being a label that society attaches to certain individuals. this led to their conclusion that mental illness is merely a socially constructed notion rather than being a genuine medical condition. goffman wrote “asylums and the social situation of mental patients” (1961) in an effort to counter the tendency of many sociologists to ignore the disturbing consequences of psychiatric illness on the individual and on society. goffman’s fieldwork on institutional psychiatry (he conducted a participant observational study in st. elizabeth’s hospital, washington, d.c.) resulted in thennovative use of the total institution model and the development received 8 march, 2017 © 2017 elena trubina published online 15 april 2017 elena.trubina@gmail.com changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 93 of the interesting concept of a “moral career” of the mental patient, looking both at the social situation and the individual. however, the prevailing understanding of the common use of the two disciplines’ potential is marked by many biases. in fact, the classics of both psychoanalysis and sociology openly expressed these biases themselves. if, on the one hand, freud believed that sociology ‘cannot be anything but applied psychology’, on the other hand, parsons reduced psychoanalysis to an applied theory and concluded that freud’s most important result was the conception of “the human person as a psychological entity operating as a self-regulating system”. it is fair to say that the predominant trajectory of the two disciplines relations in the twentieth century has been one of increased alienation. fortunately, twenty first century researchers have produced a book, in which they reflect on the failure of two disciplines to engage in a productive dialogue and express, in particular, concerns about the development of mainstream american sociology towards becoming a science that fails to see individual people and is reluctant to admit to what extent social behavior is connected to unconscious desires and irrational motives. the sociological concepts, whether these are ‘nationalism” or “xenophobia”, are employed to explain violence, murder and rape while the irrational, controversial motives of the individuals who commit these crimes are ignored as causative factors for their actions. the authors of eighteen essays have compiled cases drawn from an impressive variety of social situations in an attempt to demonstrate the misfortune that, within american sociology from the 1940s through the present, the psychosocial and, in particular, psychoanalytic perspectives became relatively marginalized. before their divorce, since the inception of two disciplines, their mutual engagement was gradually unfolding, and in the foreword to the book, craig calhoun charts the remarkable similarities between the ways in which sociology and psychoanalysis have developed (both fields having benefited from the wealth of classical european intellectual traditions). he also points out a number of fruitful connections between the two fields, i.e. the psychosocial interest towards ‘character” which resulted in a whole 94 elena trubina new sub-discipline in sociology, namely, the studies of personality and socialization. jeffrey alexander begins his preface to the book by eulogizing freud as “one of the most original and compelling social thinkers of the twentieth century” who “opened up the emotional dynamic and cultural strains of modern life as brilliantly as max weber, explored symbolism and solidarity as indigenously as emile durkheim and in his capacity for conceptual elaboration and theoretical complexity surpassed them” (p. хiii). in the introduction to the book, the editors lynn chancer and john andrews delineate the reasons behind the on-going marginalization of these ideas. the first factor was, ironically, the growth of social movements of 1960s and 1970s, which made freudian ideas increasingly unpopular. the second and third factors were the increasing positivist influence in the mainstream american sociology in 1980 and 1990s, as well as the growth of right-wing predilections among academics. the positivist influence resulted in part from the popularity of using quantitative methods in sociology and, since it was impossible to measure and observe things such as, say, defense mechanisms, many freudian ideas were rejected. the links between conservatism and institutional harassment are investigated by catherine b. silver in the chapter “paranoid and institutional responses to psychoanalysis among early sociologists”. she comes up with the concept of positivistic “epistemological unconscious” in order to demonstrate that the paranoid thinking of a number of conservative early american sociologists, who attacked individuals and marginalized psychoanalysis, was connected to the establishment of sociology as a separate social science discipline and subsequent struggle for legitimacy and careers. the reorganization and consolidation of the american sociology was marked by “the marginalization of interpretive, introspective and other qualitative and essayist methods – all stylistic approaches that implicitly reference the personhood of the writer” (p. 75). in the first chapter of the book “opening/closing the sociological mind to psychoanalysis”, george cavalletto and catherine silve, using statistical and thematic analysis of the articles published in major sociological journals in usa, demonstrate the central role of department of sociology at columbia changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 95 university and talkott parsons in ensuring that psychological ideas were acknowledged and used in sociology in 1940s and 1950s. sociology’s disengagement from psychoanalysis has closed off important pathways for understanding social life. the book seeks to understand the causes and tendencies of this disengagement and to further psychosocial perspectives. the work is a collection of fine essays written by new york based academics who wished to discuss “the social/sociological and psychic/ psychoanalytical dimensions of diverse topics” (p. хv). the book is composed of four parts. in part one of the book titled “the history of sociology and psychoanalysis in the united states: diverse perspective on a longstanding relationship” the contributors summarize the controversial historic links between the two disciplines which eventually led to what a prominent sociologist jeffrey alexander calls in the preface “a grievous mistake” (p. хiii) part two of the book “are psychosocial/socioanalytic syntheses possible” includes great essays by neil smelser and nancy chodorow. if smelser investigates the impact of the academe on his uneasy relationships to psychoanalysis, chodorow describes the predicaments of combining sociological, psychoanalytic and feminist perspectives and the baffled reception of to her work in psychoanalytic circles. chodorov claims that, although the psychoanalytic conceptualization of subjectivity can be very fruitful to sociology, a complex set of professional interests of sociologists have led to an unfortunate dismissal of psychoanalysis as being “a-sociological”. part three of the book “the unfulfilled promise of psychoanalysis and sociological theory” is about the ways in which three renowned social theorists erich fromm, c. wright mills and pierre bourdieu – use psychoanalytic concepts (or have avoid such use). part four of the book “the psychosocial (analytic) in research and practice” contains essays that seek to show that psychoanalytic concepts can be productively utilized to interpret otherwise incomprehensible sociological phenomena. arlene stein’s chapter stands out where she demonstrates how the notion of ‘‘mutual recognition’’ can be drawn on 96 elena trubina to make sense of the extraordinary feelings of shame that survivors of the holocaust have. she goes on to point out that since many survivors moved to the united states after the war, they were not able to find a group whose members would be willing to express sympathy with their suffering and were thus deprived of ‘‘mutual recognition’’ needed to overcome shame. this book is an attempt to rectify the “contemporary sociological resistance” (p.10) to psychoanalytic approaches. it contains reflections on the reasons and consequences of the dominance of the particular paradigm of sociological research which favors massive surveys and the processing of statistics. the deficiencies in quantitative sociological methodologies are mentioned in the book while such concepts as the unconscious, anxiety and defense mechanism are repeatedly mentioned with expressions of regret that their potential was not fully realized in sociology. however, the benefits of the psychoanalytic paradigm are left for the reader to hold as a matter of mere belief. this book does a better job of explaining how the “divorce” between the two disciplines happened than explaining how exactly their “marriage” can now be achieved. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 1 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.1.006 book review carlo invernizzi accetti (2015). relativism and religion: why democratic societies do not need moral absolutes. columbia university press. andrey menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia this study revolves around two interrelated topics, either of which would actually merit its own book. the first deals with the discourse of anti-relativism as it is present in official statements of the catholic church. it is often said that political philosophy, which ian shapiro called “narcissistic”, has nowadays become encapsulated in its own canon and self-commentaries [shapiro, ian. problems, methods, and theories in the study of politics, or what is wrong with political science and what to do about it. in political theory 30:4 (august 2002), 596-619; 596]. the project that brings our attention to the body of texts criticizing liberal democracy from an intellectually elaborate point of view opens up our political philosophical discussion to the voices which are labeled “traditionalist” and thus are left unheeded. historical analysis of how the concept of relativism has become so prominent in catholic political theory is, however, only a foundation for the second part of the book, which is an analytical study of “the challenge represented for democratic theory by the idea that democratic regimes need to be complemented by the reference to a set of absolute moral or political truths in order to avoid degenerating into a form of tyranny or totalitarianism” (p. 6). the focus on the catholic doctrine is explained by the facts that, on the one hand, it is in catholic teaching that we find the most sophisticated formulations of anti-relativism received 9 march 2017 © 2017 andrey menshikov published online 15 april 2017 asmenshikov@urfu.ru changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 85 discourse, and, on the other hand, there emerged “a sort of interdenominational division of labor whereby catholic apologists provide the intellectual foundations, while protestant organizations supply the grassroots support, for a set of essentially convergent positions. thus, the vatican’s formulations of the discourse of antirelativism can be considered exemplary of a much broader range of arguments raised from a variety of religious standpoints” (p. 8). the first part of the book offers us penetrating insights into the historical dynamic of the notion of relativism. the original use of this concept is traced back to the encyclical letter humanum genus promulgated by pope leo xiii in 1884. pope leo xiii attacked freemasonry’s “endeavor to obtain equality and community of all goods by the destruction of every distinction of rank and property” (p. 35). the dissolution of the church’s authority and actual separation of church and state, in his opinion, will inevitably result in moral decline and anarchy, culminating in tyranny. the standard criticism of democracy’s susceptibility to tyranny, which dates back to plato, is linked here with the views of the intransigentist reaction to the french revolution. rejection of rank and authority in society, disregard for the transcendent in religion, and the elevation of human beings to being the sole measure of the true and the good are all subsumed under the introduced concept of relativism and detected in the political form of liberal democracy. instead of the intransigentist “blanket rejection of modernity,” however, “by focusing the church’s critical attention on a single term, ultimately traceable to an expression of the active impulse of the city of man in human history, leo xiii was able to implicitly carve out space for the recognition that there also exist other aspects of the modern world that are not tied to relativism or the freemasonry, with which the church can come to terms. hence, paradoxically, the focalization on the notion of relativism succeeded in opening up the conceptual space for the possibility of a compromise with the aspects of modernity that had been left out from this critique” (p. 39). during the next stage between the first world war and the end of the cold war the main assault was directed at communism, later renamed totalitarianism, which “almost completely overshadowed the discourse of anti-relativism” (p. 43), and, in a way, allowed the church first to come 86 andrey menshikov to terms with fascist regimes and later to side with liberal democracies. “hence the discourse of anti-relativism was effectively silenced throughout the duration of the cold war in order to avoid any ambiguity over the side that the church had chosen to endorse” (p. 47). the criticism of relativism, however, “began to be employed as a conceptual weapon for dealing with internal dissidence within the catholic church itself” (p. 49); first and foremost, “as a strategy for reasserting the principle of authority within the catholic church against the perceived destructive effects of the second vatican council” (pp. 53–54). after the collapse of the soviet block, the threat of militant atheism disappeared and the discourse of anti-relativism re-emerges. since the political form of liberal democracy stands now unchallenged by any alternative power, its criticism has been re-focused by the church leaders – popes john paul ii and benedict xvi – and is now emphatically limited to the domain of morality. the new targets are false freedom, tolerance and “knowledge through dialogue” (p. 66). the ancient argument against democracy, that cited its vulnerability to demagogues and hence to tyranny, is now rephrased by reference to new evils. in these documents it is now claimed that democracy without moral foundation in absolute truth will degenerate into totalitarianism. “one of the most important functions of the catholic discourse of antirelativism had historically been to mediate the church’s relation with the political form of democracy. here, however, the link becomes explicit: the central claim is that, like freedom, democracy requires “guidance,” because if it is grounded merely in a form of philosophical relativism, it is deprived of any sense of the necessary moral limits that must be imposed on the people’s exercise of power over themselves and therefore runs the risk of converting into its opposite” (p. 62). cardinal ratzinger (later pope benedict xvi), in his debate with habermas, stresses the necessity to subordinate the exercise of power to the requirements of the law and recognizes that now democracy is the sole form for legitimate political authority, yet, it is not capable of being the sole source of norms. democracy has in itself no a priori limits to power and can be corrupted easily, unless its legislature is subject to external criterion, which, as cardinal argues, is the notion changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 87 of human rights. the notion of human rights replaces the traditional category of natural law, because “the idea of natural law presupposed a conception of ‘nature’ in which nature and reason interlock. the victory of the theory of evolution has meant the end of this view of nature” (cited on p. 74). therefore, we must look for those forces within nature, which represent rationality, that is human beings, and if rationality is the essence of humankind, their rights are the last rational foundation for just law and legitimate power. the fight against relativism is continued by popes benedict xvi and francis i with the same vigor and targets ‘unlimited freedom’, ‘hostile tolerance or distrust of truth’. in sum, we observe that criticism of relativism by the catholic leaders entails criticism of democracy not founded on absolute moral truth, we, then, have to conclude that “religion is not incompatible with democracy but actually required by it” (p. 85). the second chapter offers a conceptual analysis of the notions upon which the church’s discourse of anti-relativism hinges: relativism, absolute truth, authority, freedom, and totalitarianism. it is clear that relativism is often confused by its critics – whether intentionally or not – with nihilism or with indifferentism and it is presented as a dogmatic postulation of absolute relativity. relativism may not imply an actual rejection of or indifference to all values; and it does not require the exclusion of the truth from our moral reasoning. “while not renouncing taking a stand and formulating moral judgments, therefore, the relativist is conscious that, from a second-order perspective, his stand and judgment remain relative to the specific cultural and discursive framework from which they emerge” (pp. 93-94). the claim that without absolute moral truth political society will degenerate into tyranny or totalitarianism does not actually give us an answer to the questions whether the absolute moral truth exists, whether it can be known, and whether it can be grasped uniformly and unanimously. moreover this argument implies that religion is, in fact, instrumental in maintaining political community regardless of its actual relation to truth, that is, as a civic religion. this implication may be offensive to true believers and seems rather machiavellian. on the other hand, once we accept the fact that there are many believers who 88 andrey menshikov claim knowledge of the absolute truth and are unlikely to compromise on it, the violent conflict between these ‘truth communities’ becomes inevitable. the legitimate exercise of power presupposes the notion of authority. the interpretations of this notion stem from at least two separate but sometimes intermingling traditions. the first tradition, inherited from platonism, derives all legitimacy of rule from the privileged access to truth, while whilst the second – a roman juridical tradition – sees legitimacy as being grounded in contract relations, in which “two individuals can agree to sign a contract whereby one counts as the author of the actions of the other, and the latter can accordingly be said to act with authority of the former” (p. 106). yet, social contract theories normally compound two elements: “pactum unionis, whereby isolated individuals reciprocally contract with one another to form a social unit” and “pactum subiectionis whereby an already constituted political entity agrees to submit to the authority of the government” (p. 108). for true democratic authority the “idea of pactum unionis constituted horizontally through reciprocal agreements among human beings is sustainable on its own and does not need to be tied to the idea of pactum subiectionis introducing the vertical dimension of the distinction between rulers and ruled” (p. 109). thus, a certain similarity of presuppositions is present in catholic discourse of anti-relativism and in many social contract theories. the presupposition that stability and order can be based only on subjection to higher authority is undermined if we rely on “a properly democratic conception of authority.” no external pole to legitimate and to regulate the workings of democracy is conceptually needed, because social contract retains its internal dynamic, that is, “an iterated practice, constantly renewed through an ongoing process of negotiation among the members of a social order” (p. 112), and “does not work top-down but bottom-up” (p. 109). while it is clear that the church advocates the principle of authority and criticizes freedom, it should be taken into account that the church operates on its own notion of freedom. unlike ‘relativist’ freedom which has no content and, in fact, implies that human beings can do whatever they want, christian notion of freedom relies on the acceptance of changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 89 man’s creation in the image of god and, therefore, “when human beings obey the commandments of god they are not really submitting to an extraneous authority, but rather complying with the highest part of their own intrinsic nature” (p. 117). obeying god thus means not being unfree, but being free in its true meaning, being properly autonomous. invernizzi acetti here claims that “while recognizing its astuteness, i nonetheless judge this argument to amount to a form of conceptual manipulation, because it effectively inverts the meaning traditionally ascribed to the concept of freedom” (p. 117) and “effectively deprives the enemies of the catholic church of the terms to formulate their own position” (p. 118). the idea that freedom should be a part of the hierarchical system of values which alone can lend it substantive content is developed by pope john paul ii in the encyclical veritatis splendor and by cardinal ratzinger in his “what is truth? the significance of ethical and religious values in a pluralist society”, in which the latter defines the content of freedom as safeguarding human rights, that is, social peace and harmony. here i believe the criticism of the church’s discourse is the weakest as invernizzi acetti argues that this conception of freedom does not stem from the internal logic of the principle of freedom, it does not have to be consistent with other values or even with itself. consequently, “it is not freedom that requires a content, but the church’s project of inscribing it within its own hierarchical system of values, which introduces this necessity from outside. the paradox involved in the idea that the content of a free action can be determined logically a priori therefore proves to be not a consequence of the meaning traditionally ascribed to the concept of freedom itself, but rather the result of the church’s own contradictory goals with respect to it” (p. 120). leaving aside the ulterior motives of the church’s argument alluded to by invernizzi acetti, it should be noted that freedom is never disentangled from other values. in liberal discourse, it is inseparable from the value of equality, these are twin values of modern polities, each supporting and limiting another, as the author recognizes in his own argument, and adds tolerance (pp. 176-177). if freedom is not a bare capacity to act without interference, which is merely the absence of 90 andrey menshikov physical obstacles, then the notion of freedom implies acting in relation to and in communication with other human beings, it will necessarily be entwined with other values and often be subordinate to them. in the third chapter, the interpretations of rawls and habermas, who provide us with an alternative to grounding democracy in absolute moral truths, demonstrate that both are inadequate for “developing a fully convincing response to catholic discourse of anti-relativism”. the cultural relativism is taken into account, but invernizzi acetti’s aspiration is “to explore whether a theory of democracy can do away with the orientation to an idea of moral truth altogether” (p. 161). the last chapter deals with an original defense of a relativist conception of democracy based on an interpretation and extrapolation of hans kelsen’s connection between democracy and relativism. generally, the argument can be summarized as follows: “the absence of any absolute ground for political justification can itself function as the ground for a specific conception of democracy. ... this absence implies that all exercises of coercive power and attempts at discrimination between different substantive conceptions of the good or the right must be considered illegitimate, unless they are consented to by the individuals to whom they apply. since democracy can be understood as a political regime based on the principle of consent among equals, it follows that a form of philosophical relativism implying the unavailability of any absolute grounds for political justification constitutes a sufficient philosophical ground for justifying such a form of democracy” (pp. 212–213). moreover, invernizzi acetti claims “that it is not only possible but necessary to be a relativist about one’s own relativism which implies that positing such a form of relativism as the philosophical foundation for the legitimacy of democratic institutions amounts to a way of grounding their legitimacy not in a figure of the absolute, but in something that is inherently relative; that is, relativism itself” (p. 213). now if we recollect the criticism of conceptual inversion and manipulation that invernizzi acetti directed at catholic intellectuals for their interpretation of the notion of freedom, this summary seems to be doing the same. are we to infer that to be a democrat one has to be a relativist? we claim that this conception of democracy is inclusive and safe from extremes changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 91 of both secularism, which excludes religion from public discourse, and post-secularism, which privileges religion, but this ‘middle path’ conception of democracy no less suppresses the aspiration of religions to be what they are –belief in the absolute and in universally valid morality. on the last pages of his book, invernizzi acetti recognizes this objection, but brushes it away: “this objection misses the point of the overall conception of democracy i have sought to articulate and defend in this book. for the latter has never aimed to be absolutely ‘neutral’ between all possible religious views and opinions, but rather to give expression to a specific set of substantive values that are assumed to follow logically from the assumption of a form of philosophical relativism” (p. 219). finally, the actual response to the concern that democracy is amenable to tyranny is rather homely, but nevertheless strictly to the point: there are no risk-free polities. if democracy votes itself into another political form, it may be a tragedy to a committed democrat, but it in no way de-legitimizes democracy. changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 406–408 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.4.054 received 1 december 2018 © 2018 andrey s. menshikov published online 15 december 2018 asmenshikov@urfu.ru book review victoria smolkin (2018). a sacred space is never empty. a history of soviet atheism. princeton & oxford: princeton university press1 andrey s. menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia since the turn of the century, a reappraisal of secularization thesis in social sciences of religion resulted in a growing body of research on diversity of secularism, or rather secularisms. in recent years, we have seen an expanding interest in atheism, or again rather atheisms. atheism traditionally understood as either an ideological stance in the enlightenment or militant repression of religion in the soviet union is now studied as a spiritual phenomenon and as historical experience. victoria smolkin book – the monumental exposition of the history of soviet atheism – analyzes it in its complexity and multidimensionality tracing its development from an ideological precept of marxism-leninism to the state policy of expunging russian orthodoxy from the soviet public life, to social science methodology in the study of religion, to philosophical inquiry into the nature of spirituality and moral commitment. smolkin generally structures the argument around the “three sets of oppositions: the political opposition between the party’s commitment to ideological purity and state’s pursuit of effective governance; the ideological opposition between religion, superstition, and backwardness and science, reason, and progress; and the spiritual opposition between emptiness and indifference and fullness and conviction” (p. 5). as she supposes, these sets of oppositions could be usefully reformulated into three questions that puzzled the soviet authorities in their efforts to deal with religion: “what kind of state soviet communism should produce” (p. 5); “what kind of society soviet communism should produce” (p. 5); and “what kind of person soviet communism should produce” (p. 5). although the ideological view on religion hardly changed in the course of soviet history, atheism had to be “reimagined in fundamental ways” (p. 3), which reflected the soviet government’s self-reinvention and reinterpretation of its goals. thus, these oppositions and questions, in fact, conform to the stages of 1 the work was supported by the russian science foundation (rsf) grant number 17-18-01194. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 406–408 407 soviet history. the respective problems the soviet government faced in achieving these purposes on each of these stages also varied and required different approaches and tools, which smolkin consequently observes. she shows that in the early soviet period, bolshevik leaders regarded the russian orthodox church as a fundamentally counterrevolutionary force. therefore, despite the initial promise of secularization and certain support for religious minorities, bolsheviks launched a devastating attack on the russian orthodox church in order to eliminate its economic and political potential. apart from confiscations and evictions, militant atheism was unleashed on religious believers and clergy through state sponsored propaganda. after 1929, legislation was enacted, religions were practically forced out of the public space with “prohibition of performing any form of charity or social work, as well as religious education” (p. 239). since stalin’s sudden change of policy in 1943, all who survived the purges of the 1920–30s were co-opted to serve – willingly or not – to the goals of the soviet government at home and abroad. religious organizations were effectively controlled by the state apparatus, although the veneer of separation of the state and church was put in place. antireligious propaganda was practically hushed. after the denunciation of stalin’s personality cult, in order to legitimize his leadership, khrushchev tried to revive revolutionary ideals and with them the hope of a society freed from religion. thus, smolkin stresses, religion was “reconstituted as an ideological problem” (p. 239) rather than as a political threat. khrushchev invested heavily in mass education and propaganda “to inculcate a scientific materialist worldview” (p. 15), which was supposed to eradicate the ideological grasp of religion over presumably still ignorant, backward and politically inconsistent people. the alien and corrupting influence of religious beliefs and practices was construed as one of the causes which hindered further progress of soviet society on its way to communism. scientific atheism was, therefore, to replace militant atheism of the early soviet period. scientific atheism relied on enlightenment of the masses and investigation into the factors that could explain the persistence of religion in soviet society. at the same time, the state did not hesitate to resume its repression by closing religious spaces, disbanding religious communities and enforcing legal and financial restrictions on religious institutions and clergy. yet, the campaigns had limited success. as smolkin rightly indicates, “for soviet atheists, the lesson of khrushchev’s antireligious campaign was that many soviet people had little trouble reconciling science and religion, or (un) belief with (religious) practice. many continued to rely on religion for moral norms, traditions, and rites of passage. religion, then, continued to shape communities, families, and individuals” (p. 240). thus, the challenge of intractable religious beliefs and practices along with the developing academic study of religions forced the soviet ideologues to reconsider their very understanding of the nature of religion and to rethink their strategy of eliminating religion. in their struggle against religion, imagined as a bunch of false beliefs and superstitions, on which venal clergy feeds and which barely survive in the new world of socialism, the atheists and antireligious campaigners encountered religion that was lived. and, in smolkin’s words, “the problem with lived religion was precisely that it was a world distinct, if not apart, from religious dogma and institutions. rather than being https://changing-sp.com/ 408 andrey s. menshikov confined to specific spaces and texts (which could be regulated and disciplined by church and state authorities), lived religion was domesticated, dispersed, and therefore often beyond the party’s reach” (p. 163). therefore, the new strategy of the struggle against religion should aim at substituting soviet rituals and emotional experiences for religious practices. instead of simply repressing or repudiating religion, the atheists should engage in promoting the “socialist way of life” (p. 198). smolkin summarizes another stage of atheism’s re-invention: “finding themselves in the unexpected role of spiritual caretakers, soviet atheists shifted their attention inward, to the interior worlds of ordinary soviet people” (p. 240). but, smolkin continues, the challenge of persisting religions was more dangerous, marxist laws of historical development postulated the gradual disappearance of religion in a society on its way to communism. the continued presence of religion could upon reflection lead to the conclusion that the soviet society was not actually on its way to communism. thus, as smolkin underlines, religion at first regarded as a political threat, and then as an ideological opponent, has now become an existential challenge. moreover, the advances in the empirical study of religion as it existed in the soviet union uncovered a phenomenon which shocked the soviet authorities and ideologues: “for soviet atheists, the fact of indifference came to be more unsettling than the fact of the continued existence of religion...whereas believers could be engaged and converted, those who were indifferent had no interest in the questions at the heart of religion or atheism. they were disengaged from religious or ideological truth claims, and were unconcerned if their actions did not accord with their convictions, since they lacked firm convictions” (p. 240). according to smolkin, in late soviet period the true nature of soviet atheism was revealed. it did not seek merely the disappearance of religion, it aspired to effect the conversion to the communist values. because indifference was primarily widespread among soviet youth, the future of the soviet system was endangered. the struggle of the soviet regime with religion’s political, ideological and spiritual authority exposed atheism’s inability to offer a positive program of its own for existential problems people had to face. by demolishing the sacred in the public space and failing to fill the cleared space with new values, adequate for a modernizing society, which just discovered the pleasures of individualization and consumerism, atheism contributed to the emergence and growth of indifference, which soviet social scientists diagnosed in the late soviet period. in the 1980s, however, soviet people turned “to alternative spiritual, ideological, and even political commitments” (p. 241), which “again made religion into a political problem” (p. 241). smolkin concludes: if earlier religion could be described as a survival and – subject to the laws of historical development – destined to disappear, the spiritual revival under brezhnev, glasnost that opened mass media for religious voices and the official celebration of the orthodoxy’s millennium in 1988 “disrupted the internal logic of the soviet communism” (p. 244). smolkin’s book is a panoramic study, which describes stages of the soviet atheism’s development and its specific features in the context of raise and fall of the soviet state. her book is a must-read for those who specialize in the soviet history, as well as for those who work in religious studies. changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 186–188 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.3.070 editorial editor’s note the present issue of changing societies & personalities is devoted to such significant topics as changing values of higher education in various social contexts; a symbolic dialogue between the past and the present on the example of socialist urban spaces; novel museum practices; and popular media myths. in his article the anatomy of a moral panic: western mainstream media’s russia scapegoat, greg simons reflects upon a phenomenon defined as “moral panic” in covering the news about russia in western mainstream media. the author intends to separate myths from reality in journalism, mainly the myth of the “fourth estate”, in which journalism is widely defined as “a defender of public interests and a watchdog on the workings of government” possessing power over people, political actors and institutions. instead, the social role of journalism is viewed through ethical terms. using the concept of “moral panic” as a means of social and political control, simons reviews dozens of media texts that interpret the news from russia as the evidence of “threat”, as well as those that “are pushing back against the moral panic of the russia threat narrative through deconstructing its logic, argumentation and evidence”. in general, simons considers the “moral panic” concept to be part of a multi-levelled crisis of liberal democracy in the contemporary world. in their article religion in public life: rethinking the visibility and role of religion as an ethical resource in the transformation of the higher education landscape in post-1990 zambia, nelly mwale and melvin simuchimba explore the growing public role of religion in post-1990 zambia by analysing the recent engagement of the roman catholic church in zambia university education. prior to gaining independence in 1964, zambia featured neither public, nor private universities. in the 1990s, changes in the legislation provided new possibilities for various entities, including religious bodies, to establish educational institutions. therefore, catholic universities and seminary are a relatively new enterprise in the country. according to the authors, despite the present visibility of religion both in public life and higher education, the case of zambia attracts little scholarly interest in comparison with other african contexts, e.g. nigeria or south africa. the received 22 september 2019 © 2019 elena a. stepanova published online 5 october 2019 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 186–188 187 authors express hope that the insights gained during their research could be useful for “providing a window through which religion’s visibility in public life could be understood in post-1990 zambia”. the study is based on interviews with representatives of the catholic church and zambia catholic university education. the impact of christian higher education on students’ knowledge acquisition and moral formation is analysed, along with its role in building the nation. marina volkova, jol stoffers, dmitry kochetkov, in their article education projects for sustainable development: evidence from ural federal university, argue that the concept of sustainable development should be part of mentality developed starting from a child’s early age; therefore, the role of school as a way of improving the general culture of people in the sphere of sustainable development should not be underestimated. unfortunately, the topic of sustainable development is yet to be properly developed in russia. according to the authors, “sustainable development requires not only skills and competencies but formation of stable patterns of thinking. it is the point where secondary education comes to the forefront since the establishment of mental models at an early age is much more effective”. using the case study methodology as a research basis, the authors analyse the experience of the ural federal university in creating partnership with secondary schools in yekaterinburg and demonstrate the potential of schoolchildren’s and college students’ teamwork aimed at developing the skills of proactive thinking in solving environmental problems. mikhail ilchenko’s article discourse of modernist heritage and new ways of thinking about socialist urban areas in eastern europe, addresses the issue of controversial attitudes towards socialist urban heritage. ilchenko finds such attitudes both in today’s russia and some east european cities in some east european cities alarming, because socialist buildings and neighbourhoods remain to be essential elements of the urban space. ilchenko observes an increasing scholarly interest to the urban modernist heritage of the former soviet republics and former east european socialist countries, and concludes that the modernist architecture is viewed as “an embodiment of critical historical periods – periods of social experimentation and radical cultural change, which still largely determine the appearance and identity of post-socialist cities”, thus involved into a symbolic dialogue with the past. the article provides valuable information about the construction of so-called sotsgorod (socialist city) and its former meaning in the context of global trends in town-planning and art, using the examples of the uralmash district in yekaterinburg (russia), sotsgorod(s) in kharkiv (ukraine), katowice, and krakow (poland). ilchenko concludes that the discourse of modernist heritage offers a renewed vision for socialist urban legacy, and thus “stimulates symbolic re-discovering of the socialist urban areas in public mind and allows them to acquire new ways of representation as well as the new possible functional roles in the urban space”. elena kochukhova investigates new museum practices, such as art mediation, in her article transformation of museum communication through art mediation: the case of the 4th ural industrial biennial of contemporary art. she views art mediation as a practice, which radically changes forms and methods of museum https://changing-sp.com/ 188 elena a. stepanova communication. as kochuhova points out, “traditional museum communication formats are hierarchical while new formats, on the contrary, should be horizontal. the basic principle of art mediation is to make the viewers’ voices be heard”; thus, new understanding of museum communication enables the visitors to get involved in the work of museums as equal partners. art mediation is widely discussed not only among the professional museum community, but also among academic circles in russia and other european countries. kochuhova explores the experience of the 4th ural industrial biennial of contemporary art, which took place in the fall of 2017 in the city of yekaterinburg. she analyses several interviews with art mediators and make conclusions on the factors that define the process of transformation of museum practices from being a description of art objects towards their interpretation, thus producing new meanings. in the book review on j. w. scott, sex and secularism (princeton university press, 2018) andrey menshikov stresses that the book could be useful for those who are interested in the origins of secularist discourse, particularly in the sphere of gender. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ elena a. stepanova, editor-in-chief https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 173–187 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.224 © 2023 tatiana g. skorokhodova skorokhod71@mail.ru received 17 august 2022 accepted 14 february 2023 published online 10 april 2023 article “discovery of hinduism” in religious thought of the bengal renaissance tatiana g. skorokhodova penza state university, penza, russia abstract the aim of the article is to represent “discovery of hinduism” as a specific phenomenon of religious thought in the bengal renaissance of modern india. the phenomenon is a part of “discovery of india” (jawaharlal nehru’s term) by indian intellectuals, who thought on their country, society, civilization, history, and its future. the term “hinduism” borrowed from the british missionaries and orientalists became convenient for the bengal renaissance intellectuals to think and comprehend their own native religious tradition. based on the works by the bengal renaissance thinkers, the paper presents their role in creating the notion “hinduism” as the term for all group of indian religions, as well as in interpretation of it as one whole religion. the discovery of hinduism began from the works by rammohun roy, who presented its image—tracing its origins back to monotheistic ideal of the vedas. the discovery of hinduism process can be divided into two phases: (a) invention of “monotheistic” image by the brahmo samaj, 1815–1857; (b) the perception and understanding of hinduism at the second half of 19th century as “unity in diversity” and constructing of its concept by neo-hindu thinkers (bankimchandra chattopaddhyay, swami vivekananda, etc.). they created an image of hinduism as a system of universal meanings and values and the core of social life and culture as well as the foundation cultural and political identity. the discovery of hinduism by all bengal intellectuals had many important consequences, one of which is positive and humanistic concept of hinduism not only for their co-religionists and compatriots, but also for the outer world, primarily for the west. discovery of hinduism is an integral part of the history of thought, the kind of attempt “to gather india” in religious, social, and cultural spheres for public consciousness and mind. https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:skorokhod71@mail.ru 174 tatiana g. skorokhodova introduction: “discovery of hinduism” as a phenomenon in the early 19th century, religious life in india encountered three challenges: firstly, christian missionaries’ activity and their criticism of indian indigenous religious beliefs and practices; secondly, the fact that these beliefs and practices were designated by the term “hinduism”; and, thirdly, attempts to study indian religions by european theologians and orientalists. the first challenge was intended to question heathens’ beliefs and to convert them into true faith. the second was the challenge in religious consciousness and affiliation sphere, as in indian subcontinent there existed a multitude of heterogeneous religious traditions, beliefs, and cults with no integral doctrines and common practices, and, consequently, there was no general religious identity. the third challenge was that the scientific analysis of indian religions’ origins was understood as “vedic”, which did not correspond with contemporary religious practices of indian natives. in different regions of india among local elite strata two responses appeared in that period: orthodox brahmanic and creative. owing to british colonial rule the influence of brahmins in society was restored after a serious decline in pre-colonial period, and the brahmin elite proposed their own interpretation of hindu society, law, and religion to british rulers (bayly, 1988, pp. 156–158). the brahmins’ response was orthodox in the sense of advancement of brahmanism as exemplary religion and cultural system united by brahmins in the whole. the brahmanic interpretation of indian religious traditions was accepted by british government as true and actual, and was used for social, administrative, and, later, political purposes. essentially, such interpretation equated hinduism and brahmanism. new stratum of educated intellectuals who were included into indian-western dialogue of cultures began to give their creative response to the west-generated religious challenge in slowly modernizing societies of three regions—bengal, maharashtra, and tamilnadu. in the sphere of religious thought the intellectuals started answering the three aforesaid challenges in different forms. the earliest and very significant were the works by religious thinkers of the bengal renaissance in the 19th and early 20th century, who literally “discovered” hinduism for their own co-religionists and created many-sided image of the native religious tradition. the bengal renaissance was the epoch of national-cultural awakening in the most developed province of india—the region, which had become a meeting-space for indian and western dialogue of cultures (for more details see dasgupta, 2007, 2011; justyński, 1985). began by bengal intellectuals and reformers, the renaissance process embraced religious, social, political, and cultural spheres and was the attempt to understand india in juxtaposition with the west and to propose the ways of society’s integration in keywords hinduism, bengal renaissance, discovery of india, discovery of hinduism, rammohun roy, brahmo samaj, neo-hindu thinkers, history of religious thought changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 173–187 175 modern world as well as cultural development. subrata dasgupta (2007) offers a cogent interpretation of the bengal renaissance as “a genuine cognitive revolution” by “small but remarkable community of individuals” (p. 2)—in creation of new cognitive identity, shaping the indian mind in its own time and beyond (pp. 235–245). the significant part of that cognition—revolutionary in its own way—was the comprehension of native indian religious tradition. for a more accurate description of the process and results of the one, a term “discovery of hinduism” can be proposed—by analogy with jawaharlal nehru’s famous term “discovery of india”. discovery of hinduism is conventional designation for the way how bengal religious thinkers respond to spiritual and intellectual challenge in the face of their tradition. in a broad sense, for intellectuals the religious life as well as religious thought and studies were parts of aspect in their own self-understanding in dialogue with the west, its society and culture, in determination of their own cultural self in interaction with the other. the religious aspect of self-understanding was so important that the whole bengal renaissance epoch began from religious thought with social, cultural, and political spheres being included in the thought and practice a little bit later. generally, the discovery of hinduism began from a philosopher, reformer, and “father of modern india” rammohun roy (1772–1833), who responded to all three challenges. first of all, he appropriated and assimilated from europeans the comfortable and general term “hinduism”. according to the research of russian indologists sergey v. pakhomov and matvey m. fialko (2013), the term “hinduism” was first used in a personal letter by charles grant, a scotland missionary of evangelical church in 1787. another missionary c. buchanan used the term in his book christian researches in asia, with notices of the translation of the scriptures into the oriental language (1811). in serampore baptist mission the term was actively used by william ward. it is interesting that w. ward was happened to be in the group of missionaries interacted from 1815 with rammohun roy and, possibly, he appropriated the term “hinduism” from them. he applied the term actively in his works, calling his own religion “hinduism” (roy, 1982, vol. i, pp. 73, 90, 179; vol. iv, pp. 901–904), “hindu religion” (vol. i, pp. 3, 4, 90, 179; vol. iv, pp. 905–908), and “hindu faith” (vol. i, p. 74), and also introduced and used derivative terms, such as “hindu theism”, “hindu worship”, “hindu mythology” (vol. i, p. 66, 68), “hindu theology, law, literature” (vol. i, pp. 3, 36, 45, 89), “hindu idolatry” (vol. i, pp. 5, 66), “the hindu sacred texts” (vol. i, pp. 35, 90), and “hindu community” (vol. i, p. 21). before rammohun’s time the native religions in india had no terms for marking their faiths and beliefs as well as for naming their identity. from rammohun roy and on, the term began to be applied to whole complex of indian religions and to be filled by meanings and enriched in its content. besides, it was rammohun who initiated a dialogue and the controversy with christian baptist missionaries and developed the vindication of his religious tradition and having proposed the first interpretation of hinduism—not only for missionaries, but for his coreligionists and british orientalists (as for h. h. wilson, consulted with him on religious tradition) (robertson, 1995, pp. 59–60). also, rammohun started the tradition of thinking on native religion and its interpretation for indians, westerners, and all humankind. https://changing-sp.com/ 176 tatiana g. skorokhodova thus, discovery of hinduism in bengal religious thought could be divided into two phases: the first one embraces the creation of “monotheistic” image of hinduism by rammohun roy and the brahmo samaj followers; during the second phase a many-sided and all-embracing image of hinduism is developed by neo-hindu thinkers such as bankimchandra chattopadhyay (chatterjee), bhudeb mukhopadhyay, swami vivekananda, aurobindo ghose. rammohun roy and monotheistic image of hinduism the first phase began from religious thought and reformatory activity of rammohun roy. a genesis of his conception of hinduism was determined by his idea of true religion as spiritual and ethical monotheism, presented firstly in his tract a gift for monotheists (1804), as well as by a number of religious influences—islam, zoroastrianism, sikhism, and christianity (zaidi, 1999). a dialogue of religions in his personal consciousness along with an exegesis of vedic texts allowed him to invent an “ideal” hinduism, presented as “forgotten” and even rejected by his co-religionists—in comparison with popular religions and cults of many deities in india. r. roy (1982) considered the latter declined and amoral form of faith burdened by ritual and social prescriptions and superstitions. he believed that such rites as sati (burning widows alive at funeral pyre of husbands), infanticide, and the like, are serious symptoms of hindu community illness: the ones are social evils “under the cloak of religion” (vol. ii., p. 372). rammohun roy’s approach to hinduism based on strict distinction of a spirit (faith as inner life of a person) and outer forms and symbolism of practice in any religion. consequently, he turned to sacred texts of brahmanic traditions—the vedas, especially the upanishads, to discover monotheism as primordial and essential faith in hinduism. starting from primordial monotheism position, he believes that the monotheism is historically native in his religion: “the doctrines of the unity of god are real hinduism, as that religion was practiced by our ancestors, and as it is well-known even at the present age to many learned brahmins” (roy, 1982, vol. i, p. 90). turning to the vedas authority, rammohun consciously contrasts “the spiritual part of the vedas” (monotheistic faith and way to salvation) and “allegorical representations of the attributes of the supreme being” (vol. i, pp. 36, 131)—“for the sake of those whose limited understandings rendered them incapable of comprehending and adoring the invisible supreme being” (vol. i, p. 36). thus, hinduism had been discovered by rammohun as religion of one god inculcated by the vedas. according to his interpretation, the upanishads describe brahman as supreme ruler and creator, but the genesis of monotheism can be traced to sāṃhitās,, hymns of “the most ancient and sacred oracles of his faith, the inspired vedas, which have been revered from generation to generation, for time immemorial” (vol. i, p. 179). the spirit of the sacred texts dominated peripheral and utilitarian ideas on worship divine attributes and rituals in the upanishads. in rammohun’s interpretation, vedanta is the theology of hinduism; it declares the unity of god, spiritual worship without number of ceremonies. sages manu, yajnavalkya, and others, as well as philosophers (especially shankara) affirm, substantiate, and develop the spiritual doctrines of hinduism (roy, 1982, vol. i, pp. 96, 99, 110–117). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 173–187 177 moreover, vedanta is in the core of rammohun’s image of hinduism: it grounds unity and universalism of the brahman (supreme being) (vol 1. pp. 182–183), highest moral principles, and love for human in a society. especially he proved ethical spirit of hinduism, which deals with all difficulties of peoples’ moral life: “the vedanta does not confine the reward or punishment of good or evil works to the state after death, much less to a particular day of judgment; but it reveals positively, that a man suffers or enjoys, according to his evil or good deeds, frequently even in this world” (p. 185). deduced from the vedas and the vedanta, the hinduism without rituals and caste norms is some “ideal type” (max weber) by rammohun; but it is simultaneously a pattern for a juxtaposition of modern condition of his own religion. he had historically described its evolution as a primordial monotheism’s degradation to polytheism. according to rammohun, ancient vedic doctrines had disappeared under a number of religious rites, ceremonies, customs connected with image-worship to a multitude of deities (“idolatry”, in rammohun’s term). the condition generated a multiplicity of superstitions, prejudices, inhuman practices, and moral self-destruction of the majority of hindu people. the polytheistic decline of hinduism rammohun interprets as a result of societal need to prevent “persons of feeble intellect unable to comprehend god as not subject to the senses and without form, should either pass their life without any religious duties whatsoever or should engage in evil work” (p. 161). the representation of god in human forms as well as other living creatures firstly appeared in puranas and tantras; then the polytheism developed to threatening scale with direct help of brahmins who created the modern religious system for their own comfort and power in community. rammohun states that in india of early 19th century hindus “are, with a few exceptions, immersed into gross idolatry, and in belief of the most extravagant description respecting futurity, antiquity, and the miracles of their deities and saints, as handed down to them and recorded in their ancient book” (vol. iii, p. 559). but rammohun rejected the christian missionaries’ allegations of polytheism against hindus, because each hindu “confesses the unity of the godhead” and “only advance a plausible excuse for their polytheism” (vol. iii, pp. 582–583). thus, rammohun laid a certain foundation for perception of hinduism as whole system based on three components: faith in god (brahman of the upanishads and the vedanta), the vedas’ authority, and philosophical/theological knowledge in the vedanta. he added to ones the ethics to substantiate hinduism’s resemblance with other world religions—islam and christianity. in many facets of the native religion rammohun saw a result of degradation of tradition, but “ideal hinduism” of the reformer is a challenge for understanding of bright and multicolour real hinduism. rammohun refused to accept the condition of hinduism as normal, that is why he connected hinduism’s future perspectives with the recovery of true spiritual faith and rejection of polytheism and faith in rituals—“for comfort and happiness of hindus” (roy, 1982, vol. i., p. 116). for this goal he founded the religious society “the brahmo samaj” (“the society of [worship to] brahman”) in 1828, with intention to “the worship and adoration of the eternal unsearchable and immutable being who is the author and preserver of the universe but not under or by any other name designation or title peculiarly used for and applied to https://changing-sp.com/ 178 tatiana g. skorokhodova any particular being or beings” (roy, 1982, vol. i, p. 216). rammohun’s interpretation of hinduism was laid down in creed of brahmoists. after rammohun roy’s death reflections on “discovered” hinduism were continued by the young leader of the brahmo samaj devendranath tagore (1817–1905) along with the group of calcutta’s intellectuals. he came to the brahmoism after his religious experience and spiritual crisis in searching for knowledge of true god and rejection of ritualism and idolatry in hinduism. in his reflections on his own religion, devendranath paid a special attention to evolution of hinduism from vedic period to present condition. his personal religious experience had begun from discovery of “the knowledge of brahma and a system of his worship in the upanishads” (tagore, 1909, p. 40), and he was firmly convinced, that it is true essence of hinduism. therefore, devendranath wished to preach the brahmo religion as based on vedanta for “all india would have one religion, all dissensions would come to an end, all would be united in a common brotherhood, her former valour and power would be revived” (p. 40). he saw in reality of religious life that the vedas are “the sealed book to us”, in bengal its texts are “virtually extinct”, but smritishastras “studied in every tol” and pundits totally ignore the vedas and well-versed in these shastras. brahmins “did not even know the meaning of their daily prayers” (pp. 40– 41). the next years devendranath studied and juxtaposed the tradition and multiplicity of real religious practices in india. on the one hand, he scrupulously read the sacred texts and religious doctrines, on the other hand, the thinker observed different practices of popular hinduism, taking journeys to northern and eastern india. firstly, devendranath did not follow rammohun’s pra-monotheistic representation of the vedas and discovered in sāṃhitās polytheistic content of primordial religion, though he remarked that “it was not the actual moon, sun, wind, and fire alone that the sages of old worshipped. it was that one great god whom they worshipped under the forms of agni, vayu, and many others” (tagore, 1909, p. 76). he stressed the “idolatry” in vedic age and the great role of rituals: “agni, vayu, indra, and surya are worshipped as gods in the vedas. kali, durga, rama, krishna, are all modern divinities of the tantras and puranas. agni, vayu, indra, and surya, these are the ancient vedic gods, and the pomp and circumstance of sacrifice concern them alone” (p. 60). later only sages of ancient india gave up sacrificial ceremonies of worshiping material gods and, being desirous for salvation and brahman, they became forest sannyasis. and the upanishads appeared where the knowledge of brahman was proclaimed as the highest in opposite to inferior branches of knowledge (sāṃhitās). then puranic and tantric, vaishnava and shaiva gods and texts appeared and the knowledge of one god-brahman was forgotten, the common hindu people “believe that the worship of kali and durga is inculcated in the vedas” (p. 68). moreover, devendranath discovered the evolution of hinduism in its history and its need in revival—in the brahmo samaj’s form. secondly, observing in varanasi the quarrels of brahmins on the vedas reciting, and in the matter of sacrifice (yājna), bloody sacrifices, and religious melas (festivals), parasitic lifestyle of temple’s pandas, devendranath perceives the condition of hindus’ spiritual life as decline and stagnation (tagore, 1909, pp. 54–57). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 173–187 179 generally, based on the discovery of traditional texts, in which the spiritual revelation of monotheism is presented (brahman as absolute, creator of the universe and human beings), the brahmo samaj’s image of hinduism describes it as originated from the vedas and historically existed religion with its own ups and downs. the vedic tradition was considered and presented as uniting foundation for all hindus, but its “ideal image” was opposed to real present condition of hinduism with its multitude of beliefs, sampradayas (faith-teaching traditions), and cults. neo-hindu discovery of native religion the second phase in discovery of hinduism by bengal intellectuals of 19th century in the period of so-called cultural nationalism is characterized by the holistic perception and understanding of all-embracing native religious “unity in diversity”. traditional bengal saint ramakrishna paramahamsa (born gadadhar chatterjee, 1836–1886) can be called the forerunner of the holistic interpretation of hinduism. ramakrishna’s model understanding of hinduism ramakrishna was a poor brahmin of goddess kali temple in dakshineshvar near calcutta with deep and many-sided religious experience of god-vision in samādhi (mystic ecstasy). he had a number of contemplation of goddess kali, gods krishna, shiva, and so on as well as number of religious practices (sādhanas) of tantra, bhakti, advaitavedanta, etc. moreover, he experienced the meanings and spirit of other religions— islam, christianity, and buddhism. the peak of his religious searching became the ability to see god in all that exists in the world. the unique religious experience by ramakrishna was combined with heterodox thinking and intuition along with rejection of caste differentiation. from 1870, his preaching attracted the broad circle of listeners and admirers; among them, there were prominent intellectuals of calcutta. from 1879, a group of talented disciples was formed around ramakrishna; afterwards narendranath dutta became the head of one in future known as swami vivekananda (1863–1902). ramakrishna’s influence on the perception and understanding of hinduism could be estimated as genuine, because he rediscovered hinduism for his intellectual audience and explained its opposite parts and ways as components of whole native religion. the image of hinduism appears from teachings and parables by ramakrishna as all-embracing and harmonic religion, which unites all paths of god and all worship forms. he said: “it’s enough to have faith in either aspect. you believe in god without form; that is quite all right. but never for a moment think that this alone is true and all else is false. remember that god with form is just as true as god without form” (bhuteshananda, 2006–2007, vol. i, p. 55). the saint taught his disciples to follow their own native religion which is one of different ways to the same object—god: “all doctrines are all so many paths, but a path is by no means god himself” (vol. ii, p. 308). hence, all beliefs and faith, worships and cults in hinduism are united by general aspiration to god. ramakrishna’s samadhi of advaita-vedanta allowed him to assert that one god is worshipped in hinduism in impersonal (brahman) and personal (iśwara) image. eternal and infinite god was worshipped by ancient sages—“the rishis of olden times renounced https://changing-sp.com/ 180 tatiana g. skorokhodova everything and then contemplated satchidānanda, the indivisible brahman” (vol. i, p. 254). but it is the highest phase of god-contemplation; according to ramakrishna, for a vast majority of believers, god appears in different forms and ways, “the universe is his glory” (vol. i, p. 464; vol. ii, p. 27). that is why, “god himself has provided different forms of worship. he, who is the lord of the universe, has arranged all these forms to suit different stages of knowledge” (vol. i, p. 65). therefore, people move their spiritual path from a simple phase of knowledge of god to higher ones, from image-worship to personal lord worship and then can become brahmojnāni—to know the identity of their own souls’ ( jīva) identity with brahman (“i am he”, “i am the self”). in his teaching, ramakrishna reconciled all opposites and variants of ceremonies, as well as traditional spiritual practices and ways. ramakrishna called to choose ways of bhakti (love and devotion), jnāna (intellectual study) or karma (work without care of result) suitable for a personal character of each man. bhakti is the best way for himself as well as for general majority of believers who worship divine avatars and gods—krishna, rama, kali, shiva, etc. “the bliss of worship and communion with god is the true wine, the wine of ecstatic love. the goal of human life is to love god. bhakti is the one essential thing. to know god through jnāna and reasoning is extremely difficult”, he said (vol. ii, p. 21). bhakti is the most natural way of faith, with rich and bright emotions; jnāna is difficult, but the “middle path” is karma—follow dharma (religious duty) in worldly life for god’s glory. the latest path is available even for agnostics and atheists. karma for ramakrishna first of all is the social service and making good to fellows. as for the sacred scriptures, ramakrishna was not an orthodox scholar of brahmanic knowledge, and was even skeptic to its authority, preferring the spirit of religion. “do you know my attitude? books, scriptures, and things like that only point out the way to reach god. after finding the way, what more need is there of books and scriptures? then comes the time for the action”, he said to his disciples (bhuteshananda, 2006–2007, vol. i, p. 392). he criticized both orthodox brahmins, whose mind fixed on “woman and gold”, “on creature comforts and money” (p. 394), and modern pandits who tried to revive ancient rituals and scripture teachings. lex hixon (2011) presents his position on revivalism: “o pandit, if you really insist on re-creating the sacred ceremonies of past ages—as if complexity or ancientness were somehow more pleasing to god—than at least do not require this exercise from everyone. offer a direct, simple, powerful path for those who a sincere in their longing to reach the goal of human evolution in this very lifetime” (p. 197). ramakrishna outlined some model for understanding and interpretation of hinduism by intellectuals: to embrace the diversity of its gods, cults and religious forms and to see their general high meanings, first of all mystical-spiritual one. ramakrishna’s image of hinduism was created owing to his universalistic approach to bringing together really differentiated practices of indigenous religions by general goal (god) and spirit of mystic relations with divine reality. the rightness of all various hindu practices in meanings does not exclude their limitedness and even dangers, according to him. moreover, ramakrishna taught not to revive ancient/historical forms and not to create rationalist religious faith (as the brahmo samaj or swami dayananda in northern india did), but he rather inspired to study real hinduism. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 173–187 181 neo-hindu intellectuals’ discovery consideration and study of real hinduism began in the last two decades of 19th century by so-called neo-hindu intellectuals; first of them were a writer and social thinker bankimchandra chattopadhyay (chatterjee, 1838–1894), social scientist and a writer bhudeb mukhopaddhyay (1827–1894), and ramakrishna’s favourite disciple swami vivekananda (1863–1902). it is necessary to note the circumstances of their work. the first was that a wave of cultural nationalism rose, the movement against imitation of the western culture and for taking care of indian cultural forms and way of life. the second circumstance was that the theosophical society preached the superiority of the “aryan” (“hindu”) civilization to all civilizations and the third one was hindu revivalism (raychaudhuri, 1988, pp. 31–34; sen, 1993). revivalism was presented by orthodox pandit shashadhar tarkachudamani (1851–1928), “hindu missionary” krishnaprasanna sen (1849–1902), and some others, who tried to use western methods of substantiation for hindu religions and traditions. three forenamed thinkers presented their vision of hinduism in critical polemics with orthodox revivalist and life positions; their “discovery of hinduism” included conservative aspects of vindication and defense of native religions along with their conscious of necessity to transform actual religious practices according to the new times. the most conservative of them was bhudeb mukhopaddhyay, who talked about hinduism as a great and superior religion: “i shall never say that hinduism is in a fallen state. in truth, if the himalayan mountains were to fall, you could not bolster them up with reeds” (as cited in raychaudhuri, 1988, p. 35). the thinker was strong defender of brahmanic culture and values in the core and ground of hinduism. bhudeb connects the origin of native religion with ancient aryans; the latest and modern hindus are their inheritors. created by great rishis, the religion of hinduism “has saved … from the contamination of sins for thousands of years, preserved in every hindu throughout this vast land of india some sense of national unity by actions as steps towards firm social cohesion, introduced the happy and pure family system of the hindus, achieved in effect the knowledge of god, the ultimate end of all spiritual quest and rendered the hindus more selfless god-fearing and convinced of a live hereafter” (p. 36). bhudeb’s hinduism was first and foremost brahmanism which included both high knowledge of god and high faith and “popular practices”; it was brahmanism that united all indian peoples by its social institution and traditions. the thinker rationally explained all traditional norms, institutions, and practices suitable for indians in their civilization—from child marriage and joint family to caste system (for the analysis of bhudeb’s works see raychaudhuri, 1988, ch. 2). ideal “conservative” and “brahmanic” image of hinduism by bhudeb emphasized the role of brahmin’s culture in integration of variety in people’s religious practices and made an impression of their unity under aegis of one authority—sacred and high. being a brahmin, bhudeb continued efforts of his own social stratum to represent “brahmanic” image of hinduism. bankimchandra chattopadhyay: tree of hinduism bankimchandra chattopadhyay discovered hinduism in its entirety in his latest creative period, after long period of “secular” social activity as a civil officer, editor, publicist, https://changing-sp.com/ 182 tatiana g. skorokhodova author of many novels and social-philosophical works. he began to write intensively on hinduism in 1880s, indubitable under the influence of meeting with ramakrishna (hixon, 2011, pp. 70–79; sen, 2011, pp. 211–216) along with western influences of utilitarianism and positivism (flora, 1993). bankimchandra presented the concept of hinduism as allembracing religion of dharma, which develops in history. like rammohun roy before him, bankimchandra reckoned hinduism based on universal monotheism: “the root of religion, in particular of hindu religion, is one god. god is in all things; therefore, it is our dharma to seek the welfare of all things” (chatterjee, 1986, p. 191). in his letters on hinduism, bankimchandra answers the question “what is hinduism?” revealing a number of stereotypes and controversies hidden by words “hinduism” and “hindu”. these terms have foreign origin, because the religion of natives in india “had no name”, and for them the “whole life was religion”. “to the hindu, his relations to god and his relations to man, his spiritual life and his temporal life are incapable of being … distinguished. they form one compact and harmonious whole, to separate which into its component parts is to break the entire fabric” (sen, 2011, p. 299)1. along with manifold errors, the name “hinduism” has “a good deal of truth”, as “all the various religions to which the name is appeared have at least two general features— firstly, they are all sprung from a common source, and therefore hold many doctrines in common; secondly, they are all supported by sacred scriptures in sanskrit” (sen, 2011, p. 301). intending to reject or correct the erroneous interpretations of hinduism, bankimchandra creates his own image of it. hinduism for him is natural and historical religion, that developed from primitive elementary forms to its perfect form. bankimchandra uses the tree metaphor to describe the origin of hinduism and its development stages. they are the seed and root of the tree in early primitive society, in vedic age, when people worshipped gods “symbolized one of the other natural elements like the sky, the sun, fire, or the river” (sen, 2011, p. 64). origin of hinduism was connected with a faith of ancient aryans, who had conquered non-aryan races of india; the later embraced the religion of conquerors. being the product of nature, with no founder, religion “sprang out of the necessities of primitive life and grew with the growth of culture” (p. 313). the tree of hinduism grows from vedic religion, where the source of eternal dharma has been formed. the writer says, “vedic hinduism lies at the root of hinduism but it is not the tree. the tree is a separate entity by itself. this tree has crisscrossing branches, rich foliage, flowers, and fruits, none of which may be bound in the roots. however, so long as we lack familiarity with the roots, a proper understanding of the tree may elude us” (p. 63). the tree metaphor aids to represent historical evolution of hinduism; bankimchandra speaks about five stages. the four of them belong to vedic hinduism; firstly, primitive man formed his first religious beliefs; secondly, a will and consciousness was ascribed to material objects; thirdly, early human communities began to worship natural elements (sun, moon, wind, storm, etc.), and then “the vedic hindus were quick to arrive at a true knowledge oh god ... later vedic religion was fairly advanced, with 1 soon after, in 1896, swami vivekananda would repeat the same affirmations: “in india religion is the one and only occupation of life” (1998–2002, vol. iii, p. 107. see also pp. 146, 152, 177, 220). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 173–187 183 the adoration of one supreme god as its central principle” (sen, 2011, pp. 71–72). it was upanishadic brahman. that monotheism is a result of evolution of natural religion; and later, at the fifth stage, puranic hinduism with religious history appeared and arrived to perfect state. discovered by ancient hindus, impersonal god could not be an ideal for human, because “worship of him … is fruitless; worship of him whom i call the personal god is fruitful” (chatterjee, 1986, p. 165). he connected the state of perfection in hinduism with knowledge of absolute’s essence and pious devotion to a personal god. heroes of mahabharata and ramayana (janaka, vasishtha, yudhishthira, krishna), as well as puranic gods, became the ideals of a virtuous man or a god in human form (pp. 166–167). this perfect hinduism for bankimchandra is the best of world religion and national religion. comparing hinduism to other religions, before all christianity and islam, bankimchandra concluded, that the former in many aspects was “superior to other religion” and “the best religion in the world” (p. 176). he believed hinduism united all high values and best aspects of religion as such. bankimchandra understood hinduism as “protean in its form”: there are monotheistic and polytheistic, pantheistic, dualistic, and even atheistic (buddhism) hinduism, as well as ritualistic and non-ritualistic, ascetic, and sensual, human one of vaishnavas and cruel and blood-thirsty of shaivas and saktas, liberal and illiberal one, etc. the entire hinduism integrates all its forms of them on some basis—“certain fundamental principles which all accept, and which … alone is hindu religion” (sen, 2011, pp. 307–308). these principles are dharma (its essence bankimchandra defines as culture), philosophical essence (tattwajnāna – knowledge of supreme god and human soul), devotion to god, and moral life. based on the fundamentals, every form of worship is accepted in hinduism because god “can accept worship offered in every form” (p. 197). the morals of hinduism were explained first of all in bhagavadgita by krishna: therefore, bankimchandra described the essence of religion as chittashuddhi—moral purification of human soul through control of the senses, charity, good will, and adoration of god (pp. 176–178). thus, hinduism was postulated as ethical religion, comparable in this aspect with christianity. the image of hinduism by bankimchandra presents the native religion as a historically constituted religion with common base and grounds, all-embracing and allencompassing spiritual wholeness with strong ethical and monotheistic vectors in the core and colourful variety at its periphery with peaceful co-existence and “all-happiness producing” for native peoples and even tribes (chatterjee, 1986, p. 170). swami vivekananda: discovery of vedantic hinduism similar way of interpretation was continued by swami vivekananda with some peculiarities; to him the essence of hinduism was the vedanta. but it was his conception of hinduism that gained the broad world resonance and meaning for its perception and interpretation, because the thinker addressed to both indians and foreign audience, including scientists. for western public (in europe and the usa) vivekananda created a “presentational” image with strong vindication component of religion and culture tradition, whereas for indians the philosopher delivered critics of real hindu inhuman and restricting practices along with the stress on highest truths of native religion. https://changing-sp.com/ 184 tatiana g. skorokhodova like bankimchandra chattopadhyay, vivekananda calls the term “hinduism” “fashionable” but loan word, it does not express the essence of native religion. therefore, he offers another term “vaidikas” or, the better “vedantists”, because this one marks the essence of religion in the vedas, delivered in the upanishads (vivekananda, 1998–2002, vol. iii, p. 120)—eternal relations between man and god. vivekananda says, “we want to use the word ‘vedantist’ instead of ‘hindu’ ” (vol. iii, pp. 118–121, 173), but he himself continues to use terms “hindu” and “hinduism” in speeches and writings. vivekananda also calls hinduism “religion of a book” like judaism, christianity, and islam—“the oldest are the vedas of the hindus” (p. 118). first of all, hinduism has general ground—the essential principles: faith in brahman (god); the law of karma which is understood as human responsibility for all causes and own fate to reach freedom and god; and the possibility of knowing the highest through the human soul (pp. 123–126). the goal of hinduism is to attain freedom (mukti), to overcome death and suffering, and attain eternal bliss. moreover, hinduism understands and accepts in itself different ways to god, if all and everyone acknowledges the upanishad of vedas (p. 120), its eternal spiritual principles. in the same manner as bankimchandra, vivekananda speaks about impersonal and personal god, and connects the first one with ethics (“it makes human strong”), and second one with love (bhakti) (p. 130). impersonal god is very difficult for common believers, that is why ancient rishis revealed to all indian people the way to worship as great personages as incarnations, or incarnation of personal god. from this follows the worship to krishna, rama, sita as well as philosophers shankara, ramanuja, etc. (pp. 251, 257, 263–264, 267). consequently, all multiplicity of traditions, cults, and sects—from brahmanic and puranic faiths to a number of local cults (“folk hinduism”) are united by vivekananda in great “vedantic” hinduism. he said about all-pervaded influence of the vedanta and urged hindus to “think the vedanta, … live in the vedanta, … breath the vedanta and … die in the vedanta” (p. 323),—even unconsciously and even quarreling each other. he compared hinduism with “mighty banyan” (the tree metaphor!), growing from the upanishads: whatever system in india does not obey the upanishads cannot be called orthodox, and even the systems of the jains and the buddhists have been rejected from the soil of india only because they did not bear allegiance to the upanishads. thus the vedanta, whether we know it or not, has penetrated all the sects in india, and what we call hinduism … has been throughout interpenetrated by the influence of the vedanta. (p. 323) in comparison with eternal and unchangeable principles of vedanta, various religious practices, customs, institutions, and even the texts (smritis, puranas, tantras, etc.) changed and must be changed from time to time and—if contradict with the vedanta authority—must be rejected (vivekananda, 1998–2002, vol. iii, pp. 120–121). also vivekananda repeatedly says that hinduism is based on the eternal principle and has no person as a founder. but there are a multitude “startling, gigantic, impressive, worldmoving persons”, “almost innumerable”, who again and again open eternal truth of the vedas and appear in the world to save good, to destroy immorality and evil. these are rishis and modern sages, as well as so-called incarnations of god (pp. 248, 249); they changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 173–187 185 define the specificity of “living religion”. these were persons who developed hinduism as religion of love, renunciation, rejection of egotism, “work against evil”, and serving for all creatures in the world (pp. 133–134, 142–143). the image of hinduism created by vivekananda is built around some key ideas: • the vedanta has theoretically taken the place of brahmanism (or “the great tradition”) in hinduism, and priority of its spiritual meanings allows to integrate any of possible religious ways and forms. • hinduism as based on the vedanta is true religion, because “it teaches that god alone is true, that this world is false and fleeting” and “it teaches renunciation and stands up with the wisdom of ages” (p. 180). verity of religion along with its eternity and universality allow to represent hinduism as one of the world religions, as well as religion of love: its adepts demonstrated to all peoples that “love alone is the fittest thing to survive and not hatred, that it is gentleness that has the strength to live on and to fructify, and not mere brutality and physical force” (vivekananda, 1998–2002, vol. iii, p. 188). • in opposition to the traits of other religions—with theirs proselytism and missionary—hinduism is outlined by the philosopher as tolerant and peaceful religion of peoples who never aspired to conquer other countries and political greatness, but show sympathy for different religions and “have built and are still building churches for christians and mosques for mohammedans” (pp. 114–115, 186–187, 274). vivekananda’s interpretation of hinduism is theoretical and “ideal” one, but he also was a strong and impartial critic of real traditional hindu religion, especially in its social aspects—caste system, customs, superstitions, and prejudices, such as untouchability, ritual pureness, gender inequality, etc. however, his interpretation integrates in general terms all diversity of modern hinduism and presents practical and formal differences as tolerable and acceptable for the unity of indian peoples. at the same time, other bengal intellectuals thought and researched different aspects of indian civilization in connection with hindu traditions. for example, surendranath banerjea, who delivered a lecture the study of indian history, substantiated that “hindu has a most glorious past” (banerjee, 1970, p. 235). his friend and colleague rameshchundra dutt wrote a lot of books on indian ancient history, where he tried to represent historical development of hinduism. and that was his special contributions to bengal discovery of hinduism and creation of its image as a system of universal meanings and values, the core of social life and culture as well as the foundation of religious and cultural identity. conclusion the results of discovery of hinduism by bengal intellectuals could be summed up as follows. the first result is an intellectual “gathering” of native religion under the name “hinduism” around high and deep faith in both impersonal and personal god and along with sacred knowledge of ancient vedas. different traditions were gathered together in the general spirit of aspiration to highest reality and are thought as the unity in diversity. https://changing-sp.com/ 186 tatiana g. skorokhodova the second result is the representation of knowledge of hinduism by its different followers from chiefly heterodox positions (those of reformers, neo-hindu, neovedantic, etc.). the knowledge includes the vedas and other scriptures as source and origin of religion, the interpretation of its historical evolution and diversity of faiths as well as the description of philosophy and religious ways and practices. moreover, the knowledge is the systematization of indian religions under the idea of general spiritual tradition (vedic, brahmanic, vedantic, etc.). the third result is creating of image of hinduism—well-balanced, all-embracing, tolerant, accepting all faiths and beliefs in a sort of original harmony. the image greatly affected the hindu community; for western researchers it became one of the approaches to study the religions of india. the fourth result is generated by the created image of hinduism; in consciousness and thought certain specific “imaginary community” (benedict anderson) has been constructed—the religious “hindu community”, notwithstanding real—local and regional, practical and theoretical, elitist and popular—differentiation of religion in the subcontinent. “imaginary hindu community” had the potential to be affiliated and identified as “hindu” for vast number of people in india, and also to be distinguished from another large community of indian muslims. discovery of hinduism in bengal thought represents the history of thought which tries “to gather” india in religious, social, and cultural spheres for public consciousness and mind. there are a lot of consequences of the discovery. first, it was a presentation—chiefly positive and vindicating—of hinduism for compatriots and the outer world, especially for the west. secondly, the image became an artificial base for religious and cultural identity as “hindu” for individuals, groups, communities of india. thirdly, the “bengal image” of hinduism became influential in philosophical (in neovedantism by sarvepalli radhakrishnan and surendranath dasgupta) and religious (aurobindo ghose, m. k. gandhi) thought, addressing to its high meanings. fourthly, it is possible to trace the influence of the conception on the idea of “hindu nation” and the later development of religious nationalism in india. fifthly, the positive perception and impression of hinduism as a tolerant, harmonic, and all-embracing religion is largely the merit of bengal religious thinkers from rammohun roy to swami vivekananda, who from the inside have discovered, gathered, and explained their native religion to indians themselves and to the rest of the world. references banerjee, s. (1970). the study of indian history. in e. kedourie (ed.), nationalism in asia and africa (pp. 225–244). world publishing co. bayly, c. a. (1988). indian society and the making of the british empire. cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/chol9780521250924 bhuteshananda, s. (2006–2007). sri ramakrishna and his gospel (d. k. das gupta, trans., vols. 1–2). advaita ashrama. https://doi.org/10.1017/chol9780521250924 changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 173–187 187 chatterjee, b. ch. (1986). sociological essays: utilitarianism and positivism in bengal (s. n. mukherjee & m. maddern, trans. & ed.). wild peony. dasgupta, s. (2007). the bengal renaissance: identity and creativity from rammohun roy to rabindranath tagore. permanent black. dasgupta, s. (2011). awakening: the story of the bengal renaissance. random house india. flora, g. (1993). the evolution of positivism in bengal: jogendra chandra ghosh, bankimchandra chattopaddhyay, benoy kumar sarkar. istituto universitario orientale. hixon, l. (2011). great swan: meetings with ramakrishna. motilal banarasidass. (originally published 1992) justyński, j. (1985). mysl społeczna i politiczna renesansu indyiskiego, od rama mohana raya do rabindranata tagora [social and political thought of the indian renaissance from rammohun roy to rabindranath tagore]. państwowe wydawnictwo naukowe. pakhomov, s. v., & fialko, m. m. (2013, may 15–17). indologicheskii mif: k voprosu o proiskhozhdenii termina “induizm” [indological myth: on the question of the origin of the term "hinduism"] (conference presentation). xxxiv zograf readings “problems of an interpretation of indian traditional text”, st. petersburg. raychaudhuri, t. (1988). europe reconsidered: perceptions of the west in the nineteenth century bengal. oxford university press. robertson, b. c. (1995). raja rammohan ray: the father of modern india. oxford university press. roy, r. r. (1982). the english works of raja rammohun roy, with an english translation of tuhfatul muwahhiddin (j. c. ghose, ed., vols. 1–4). cosmo. sen, a. p. (1993). hindu revivalism in bengal, 1872–1905: some essays and interpretation. oxford university press. sen, a. p. (ed.). (2011). bankim’s hinduism: an anthology of writing by bankimchandra chattopaddhyay. permanent black. tagore, d. (1909). the autobiography of maharshi devendranath tagore (s. tagore & i. devi, trans.). s.c. lahiri & co. vivekananda, s. (1998–2002). the complete works of swami vivekananda (vols. 1–4). advaita ashrama. zaidi, z. (1999). currents of thought in tuhfat-ul-muwahiddin. granthana: indian journal of library studies, 4(1–2), 43–56. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 72–87 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.219 received 19 august 2022 © 2023 tamara k. rostovskaya, ekaterina n. vasilieva, accepted 3 march 2023 veronika n.kholina published online 10 april 2023 rostovskaya.tamara@mail.ru vasilevaen@yandex.ru kholina-vn@rudn.ru article factors shaping the reproductive behavior of young families in russia: data triangulation tamara k. rostovskaya, institute for demographic research of the federal center of theoretical and applied sociology of the russian academy of sciences; peoples friendship university of russia (rudn university), moscow, russia ekaterina n. vasilieva institute for demographic research of the federal center of theoretical and applied sociology of the russian academy of sciences, moscow, russia veronika n.kholina peoples friendship university of russia (rudn university), moscow, russia abstract the purpose of the study is to identify the factors that influence the reproductive behavior of young russian families (heterosexual families consisting of two persons below the age of 35 with or without children). the analysis relies on the results of a mass questionnaire survey of young first-time married people (n = 893) conducted in 10 russian regions in 2019–2020, in-depth interviews with young married people (n = 50) and an expert survey of managers and specialists working for social non-profits (n = 10), both conducted in 2021. based on the data of the mass survey, we found that there are differences in the values of young families with children and without children. moreover, young couples may choose to postpone childbearing not only for financial reasons but also because of their marital attitudes and reproductive strategies formed in the process of socialization. marital behavior has a great influence on reproductive behavior. the differences in the respondents’ attitudes to parenthood are determined by their gender roles, experience of having and raising children or absence https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:rostovskaya.tamara@mail.ru mailto:vasilevaen@yandex.ru mailto:kholina-vn%40rudn.ru?subject= changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 72–87 73 introduction the demographic decline that russia is now facing is seen by the government as a challenge to national security. the alarming demographic trends are reflected in a number of indicators, including the average number of children per woman, which has been falling since 1960. it should be noted, however, that similar trends are characteristic of many other countries (aries, 1980). states with shrinking populations are adopting a range of policies and measures to tackle this problem. there is a vast body of research literature on state measures to promote fertility (see, for example: bergsvik et al., 2021; bognar, 2019; buttner & lutz, 1990; hoem, 2008; tan et al., 2016). the main question that this study seeks to address is as follows: how does social support for young families affect their reproductive behavior and which policy responses and interventions can be used to stimulate childbearing more effectively? this issue is particularly relevant to russia because in order to achieve the goals of state policy (to stimulate population growth and human development), it is necessary to raise the fertility level. other questions this study addresses are the value orientations of childless families and families with children and the factors that determine the reproductive strategies of young russian families. the latter is especially important due to the fact that the majority of russian children are born in marriage. theoretical framework in the research literature, various factors affecting the fertility rate are discussed: for example, an increase in the educational level and employment of women (van der lippe & van dijk, 2002); an increase in the age of marriage and the birth of a woman’s first child (rindfuss et al., 2020); family and demographic policy (feng et al., 2013); the socio-economic living conditions of the family (bagirova & ilyshev, 2009). the variety of concepts explaining the change in reproductive attitudes is determined by the complexity of the process of their formation and the difference in the values and cultural codes underlying the decision to procreate. of such experience. we found that state social support does not have a significant impact on the reproductive behavior of young families in russia. expert assessments show that the current measures of social support for young families do not cover all the needs of these families and that there is a perceived need for a more comprehensive assistance model. keywords young family, demographics, reproductive behavior, marital behavior, average number of children born, social support for young families, thriving young families https://changing-sp.com/ 74 tamara k. rostovskaya, ekaterina n. vasilieva, veronika n. kholina our understanding of young families is determined by the official documents of the russian federation, in particular federal law no. 489-fz o molodezhnoi politike v rossiiskoi federatsii [on youth policy in the russian federation] (2020), which identifies three types of young families—a full young family without children, a full young family with children, and a young single-parent family with children1. measures of state support are targeted primarily at the families whose members are below the age of 35 (subsidies for the purchase of housing, lump-sum payments to women under 24 at the birth of a child, etc.). despite these measures, however, the total fertility rate continues to decline (osipov & ryazantsev, 2014; vishnevsky, 2019, p. 114). in this study, the following factors that influence reproductive behavior will be considered: marital behavior (delayed marriage leads to delayed parenthood), marital and reproductive attitudes of young spouses’ parents, material, psychological, and legal support for young families. conceptually, this study is based on the interpretive sociology of max weber. research methodology in this paper, we are going to focus on the two types of young families specified in the federal law cited above: two-person families with and without children. based on the theoretical concept of a thriving family (for more details see rostovskaya & kumchaeva, 2020), we have selected young families who are in their first registered marriage. a thriving family is understood as meeting the following criteria: demographic (full family with children, both spouses having functional relationships with their parents and other relatives), material (comfortable housing, access to quality health care, recreation and leisure opportunities, access to education for children, etc.), and psychological (healthy family relationships based on trust, open communication, shared interests, etc.). leaving aside the demographic and psychological criteria, we focus on the material criterion, more specifically, on the state’s efforts to improve housing affordability for young families and to offer them sufficient financial support. the study uses triangulation mass survey data obtained as part of the first stage of the national monitoring survey demograficheskoe samochuvstvie regionov rossii [demographic well-being of the population in russian regions] (from late 2019 to early 2020). it also uses the data obtained through in-depth interviews and an expert survey (2021, february–may), which comprised the second stage of the national monitoring survey. both stages of data collection were carried out in ten regions in the european part of russia (the central federal district, the volga federal district, the southern federal district, the north caucasus federal district, the northwestern federal district, and the ural federal district). the regions were selected according to the rating of the socioeconomic situation of the russian regions in 2019: moscow (1st place), ivanovo region (61st place), volgograd region (29th place), vologda region (28th place), moscow 1 see also letter from the ministry of education and science of the russian federation af-163/06 o kontseptsii gosudarstvennoi politiki v otnoshenii molodoi sem’i [on the concept of the state policy in relation to young family] (2007). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 72–87 75 region (4th place), nizhny novgorod region (14th place), sverdlovsk region (7th place), the republic of bashkortostan (13th place), the republic of tatarstan (5th place), and stavropol region (30th place). thus, the sample includes regions with different levels of economic development and the regions with diverse ethnic and religious makeup2. the study comprised two main stages. at the first stage, the data from the mass survey of people in the chosen regions were collected and processed. those respondents selected from the available database were members of young families under the age of 35 years inclusive and in their first registered marriage (n = 893) (for more details see rostovskaya, zolotareva, & vasilieva, 2022). at the second stage, 50 respondents from young families under the age of 35 were interviewed: 20 of them were childless and the other 30 were those with children. afterwards, an expert survey was conducted, with one expert being chosen for each region (in total, 10 experts). respondents for the sample of qualitative research were purposefully selected from first-time married young people. the data we thus obtained have provided us with some valuable insights into the marital and reproductive behavior of young russian families. for an expert survey, we selected managers and specialists from sociallyoriented non-profit organizations whose main focus is on supporting families, women, and children in difficult life situations. reproductive intentions, deferred parenthood, and values of young families this study tested the relationship between the couple’s intention to enter a registered marriage and their childbearing intention. this hypothesis was confirmed. the influence of the attitudes towards marriage was also tested with the help of the following inverse question: on a 5-point scale, the respondents were asked to assess the significance of different factors affecting people’s decision to enter into a marriage. “the desire to have a child in a registered marriage” was rated at 4.19 by childless young couples; by couples with children, at 4.36. the answer “marriage registration ensures the rights of a parent staying with children in case of divorce” scored 3.60 and 3.61, respectively. according to the results of the mass survey, compliance with the moral and social norms got lower scores, 3.21 and 2.27, respectively. similarly, getting married in order to ensure that the relationship will be more long lasting got a low score that is 2.84 and 2.74. it was revealed that the reproductive plans of young families (the desired and expected number of children) vary significantly depending on the age of the prospective parents, their socio-economic status, and parenting experience, etc. as many as 27.8% of young families have not yet decided whether they are going to have a child (first or second). the birth of the first or subsequent children is postponed by 27.7% of young families. for 45.8% put off having their first or subsequent children by two years; 31.1% by three years; 11.3% by four years; and 9.2% by five years. the proportion of men and women planning to have a child in 5 years’ time differs significantly—4.5% and 13.4%, respectively. 2 for more on the project demograficheskoe samochuvstvie regionov rossii [demographic wellbeing of the population in russian regions], see https://www.fnisc.ru/index.php?page_id=1198&id=10111 https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.fnisc.ru/index.php?page_id=1198&id=10111 76 tamara k. rostovskaya, ekaterina n. vasilieva, veronika n. kholina table 1 assessment of the desired and expected number of children, % number of children “how many children in total (including the ones you already have) would you like to have if the conditions were right?” “how many children in total (including the ones you already have) are you going to have?” gender role total gender role total woman man woman man none 0.8 2.8 1.7 1.1 3.0 2.0 1 5.6 6.5 6.0 11.6 15.3 13.3 2 48.1 44.9 46.7 54.4 47.0 51.0 3 31.9 27.8 30.0 18.5 17.3 18.0 4 2.7 2.3 2.5 1.7 1.8 1.7 5 or more 4.7 5.3 4.9 0.9 1.8 1.3 don’t know 6.3 10.4 8.3 11.8 13.8 12.7 total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 our study has highlighted the main reproductive intentions of young families (see table 1). the orientation toward a twoand three-child family is higher for women than for men. this can be explained by the fact that a man’s desire to have a child (children) directly depends on his confidence in the material well-being of the family, in other words, for men there is a direct correlation between the family’s income and the number of children. women’s attitudes are also related to the family’s income but not so rigidly. women are more focused on maintaining their health and the main factor that determines childbearing timing decisions is their physical and emotional state. as a result, in both gender groups we observe that the desire to have three or more children in practice is transformed into the expectation of two children and the desire of two children is transformed into the expectation of one child. the proportion of undecided people among men is higher. it was found that the older men are, the more prone they are to desire more children. the significance of the factors determining the difference between the desired and expected number of children is somewhat different in young families who already have children and are just planning the birth of a child. the experience of parenthood determines people’s attitudes towards childbearing. there is a growing proportion of respondents who consider themselves less hindered or not hindered by the lack of employment or career opportunities, large workloads and the inability to combine career with household work, the desire to make a career, the opinion of relatives, difficulties in accessing childcare (see table 2). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 72–87 77 table 2 assessment of hindrances to having the desired number of children, % “if you would like to have more children than you are going to, what and to what extent prevents you personally from having the desired number of children?” average number of children born no yes greatly hinders hinders does not hinder greatly hinders hinders does not hinder difficult relationships in the family (with spouse, parents or in-laws) 3.4 6.8 57.3 6.0 8.0 56.8 no job 18.9 20.4 31.6 10.8 16.7 42.2 large work load 14.6 24.3 28.2 8.9 25.8 36.8 i work far from home, i spend a lot of time commuting 8.3 16.5 48.5 6.7 8.9 54.6 desire to make a career 9.2 12.6 49.0 3.5 15.0 53.0 financial difficulties 29.1 27.2 18.0 23.3 29.1 21.5 uncertainty about the future 24.3 26.2 24.8 18.6 31.1 21.5 desire to spend more interesting leisure time 7.8 11.2 54.9 3.9 9.2 56.8 desire to properly raise and educate the child (children) one already has 6.3 17.0 42.7 9.8 20.8 41.8 health problems 7.8 17.0 39.8 5.7 17.0 46.1 husband (or wife) having health problems 2.4 14.1 42.7 4.7 11.5 50.9 housing difficulties 14.1 31.1 28.6 18.6 23.0 30.3 fear that the birth of another child will infringe on the interests of the child (children) one already has 3.4 8.7 51.5 3.6 17.5 50.5 the husband (wife) doesn’t want to have children (or more children). 6.3 13.1 42.7 4.4 12.1 49.6 it is difficult to arrange childcare, it is hard to get a place in a nearby kindergarten 6.8 19.9 33.0 7.3 18.2 44.4 inflexible work schedule 8.3 16.5 44.2 6.7 18.2 45.6 it is difficult (for the wife) to combine work and household chores 8.7 25.2 29.6 6.3 20.8 43.2 there will be no one to leave the child with when i start (my wife will start) working 9.7 25.7 31.1 10.3 27.8 34.5 relatives are still against the birth of another child (children) 2.4 4.4 57.8 1.7 4.7 63.3 note. the percentages of those who answered “i don’t know” or gave no answer are not given. https://changing-sp.com/ 78 tamara k. rostovskaya, ekaterina n. vasilieva, veronika n. kholina there are gender-related differences in the reasons people give for deferred parenthood, they are especially pronounced in the barriers that respondents choose as “greatly hindering” their decision-making process regarding childbearing. for instance, in the option “we don’t have a place of our own to raise the child in”, the average score is 32.8%, with 25.8% women and 40.2% men. similarly, in the option “i need to find a better-paid job” with the average score 29.3%, the distribution is 25.4% women and 33.6% men. other examples of gender-related differences include the following: the option “i am not financially prepared for this yet” 26.7% (19.2% women and 34.8% men); “the youngest child is still too small” 20.3% (22.5% women and 18.0% men); “i need to pay loans” 18.8% (13.0% women and 25.2% men); “raising a child is a difficult task, which requires a lot of effort and time” 18.4% (22.2% women and 14.2% men). these data lead us to the conclusion that a large proportion of young families reproduce the traditional family model where the husband is responsible for material well-being of the family and the wife is responsible for the child’s upbringing. such situation is especially typical of families that already have a preschool child. as many as 9.9% of young families postpone parenthood because they have not completed their education and 9.4% delay childbirth because they want to “enjoy time for themselves”. the reasons behind the decision to have a child also differ depending on the gender of the respondent: “married life is going well, you can have a child” 20.8% (16.1% women and 27.4% men); “we are now in a registered marriage” 19.5% (20.7% women and 17.7% men); “it is impossible to postpone further because of the age” 19.5% (20.7% women and 17.7% men); “we have enjoyed the no-kids lifestyle, now it is time to have a child” 17.4% (14.9% women and 21.0% men). comparing the reasons for deferred parenthood and the reasons for deciding to have a child, it is clear that if the young family is not struggling financially and does not have a housing problem, then mutual understanding of spouses, registered marriage (it is especially important for women as a guarantee of their legal rights), psychological comfort in marriage (especially for men) become the most critical factors as well as their reproductive age. measures of state support that may have an impact on the birth of a child (see table 3) received different assessments depending on young couples’ experience of parenthood: for families with children, the quality of medical care is more important; for families without children—the availability of child benefits. traditionally, measures to assist young families in obtaining housing were rated highly (4.23). table 3 assessment of the importance of family support measures on a five-point scale, % “to increase the average number of children born, additional measures of family support should include the following”: average number of children born total no yes housing assistance 4.35 4.19 4.23 improvement of the quality of health care 3.48 4.12 4.18 raising child benefits (for children under 3) 4.20 4.16 4.17 raising child benefits (for children under 1.5) 4.21 4.02 4.07 changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 72–87 79 “to increase the average number of children born, additional measures of family support should include the following”: average number of children born total no yes raising maternity allowance (paid after the birth of a child) 4.10 4.02 4.04 preferential mortgages for families with several children 4.03 4.0 4.01 fostering access to high-quality preschool education 3.99 3.88 3.91 lowering the retirement age for women with children 3.75 3.86 3.83 improvement of the quality of consumer service 4.04 3.72 3.79 promoting flexible work schedules for working parents 3.98 3.70 3.76 child care assistance to families provided on a contractual basis 3.94 3.68 3.74 more leisure opportunities for families with children 3.88 3.67 3.72 expanding remote employment opportunities for parents 3.83 3.56 3.62 preferential loans depending on the number of children 3.55 3.57 3.56 no changes to the amount of child benefits but their extension until the school-going age 3.54 3.50 3.51 the life goals of young families with children are the material well-being (4.76), raising a child (4.76), good health (4.72), the opportunity to give children good education (4.70), possession of a good house (4.69), and being in a loving relationship (4.63). for childless couples, the order of importance is as follows: good health, good house, being in a loving relationship, and education for future children. young people’s answers to the question “what, in your opinion, is necessary to succeed in life?” have shown that their top priorities are good health and flexible skills— the ability to build relationships with other people, to adapt to change, to have talent, and to be able to work well and conscientiously. the value of family and children on the path to success is higher among the respondents with parenthood experience (4.07) than among the respondents without children (3.68). similarly, the ability to work hard is evaluated higher by couples with children than by childless respondents (4.23 and 4.02 respectively). of the respondents, 67.3% agreed with the statement “a family is, above all, a lot of work and tolerance for each other”; 46.6%, “it’s not worth staying in a loveless relationship, even for the sake of children”; 38.3%, “a man should share household chores and childrearing responsibilities with a woman”; 31.4%, “a family without children is not a real family”; 30.6%, “marriage must be registered; otherwise it is not a real family”; 30.4%, “a single person cannot be happy, the meaning of life is in the family.” not surprisingly, young first-time married couples place a high value on the family. the experience of parenthood has a significant impact on the respondents’ answers and changes their life goals. some goals score higher because the respondents’ experience of parenthood makes them more meaningful: for example, “to have grandchildren”, 4.17 and 4.64, respectively; “to raise two children”, 4.01 and 4.26; and “gain respect from others”, 3.72 and 3.93. table 3 continued https://changing-sp.com/ 80 tamara k. rostovskaya, ekaterina n. vasilieva, veronika n. kholina reproductive strategies of young families: the results of in-depth interviews as the mass survey has shown, marriage is a significant factor in couples’ decision to have a child. during our in-depth interviews with young spouses planning parenthood or already having children, we asked the following questions: how did you take the decision to register your marriage? how did you meet? did you live together before getting married? our survey has shed some light on the reasons behind young couples’ choice of one of the possible strategies (short-term premarital cohabitation, long-term premarital cohabitation, and no premarital cohabitation) and their satisfaction with the results of this choice. we detected a certain change in the respondents’ assessment of cohabitation practices while they were preparing for the birth of a child: “yes, we lived together for a short period [that is, before the official marriage]. i don’t quite approve of it, i wouldn’t want them to do it [their future children]” (man, 22 y.o., married, no children but is expecting a child, two children in the parent family, university student, ivanovo region; trans. by tamara rostovskaya, ekaterina vasilieva, & veronika kholina—t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) the length of premarital cohabitation is determined by the (dis)approval of and/or support for such a practice on the part of the couple’s inner circle: we got married in 2018, so it’s been three years already and we have been together for five years. we started living together almost immediately. before getting married, we lived with my parents for four years. (man, 25 y.o., married, no children, two children in the parent family, higher education, nizhny novgorod region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) i have got married recently; it was a little over six months ago … we dated for six months, then i invited her to live with me, then we were still living with my parents. we lived with my parents for 1.5 years, and then we moved out and lived separately for six months, and then decided to formalize our relationship. we lived in a civil marriage for a long time, then decided to formalize it. (man, 32 y.o., married, no children, two children in the parent family, unfinished higher education, tatarstan; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) those of our respondents whose parents strongly disapprove of premarital cohabitation tended to avoid this practice: no, we had not lived together before marriage because since childhood we have been told that life together should begin only after marriage. we discussed this with my future spouse and decided that only after getting married, we would start a life together. (woman, 21 y.o., married, no children, two children in the parent family, university student, ivanovo region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) it is necessary to highlight the role of religious attitudes as a factor that influences marital behavior. the choice to live together before marriage largely changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 72–87 81 depends on the religion the respondent was born into (e.g., in muslim families it is possible to conduct the nikah ceremony—the rite of marriage in the muslim tradition, which allows a young couple to start marital relations before the state registration): we are representatives of the islamic religion. according to tradition, first we concluded a muslim marriage. this is the equivalent of an orthodox wedding and after that we signed the marriage document at the registry office and began to live together. (woman, 30 y.o., married, no children, the only child in the parent family, higher education, vologda region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) in some cases, a young couple cannot start living together for objective rather than moral reasons: my husband and i both conscientiously approached the issue of creating a family. we discussed this repeatedly while we were living separately. still, we believed that there was no need to get married at that time because we lived in different cities and so on and when the question of living together arose, we got married. (woman, 22 y.o., married, one child, two children in the parent family, higher education, stavropol region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) we found some gender differences in the way our respondents answered the question: “which of the following views on the family do you agree with?”. 24.8% of women and 18.2% of men strongly agreed with the statement “nowadays divorce is normal, it is nothing terrible”. we also asked the respondents the following questions: “have you dreamt of marriage?” and “what are your plans regarding marriage/children/their number?” some informants believe that parenthood has a higher value than marriage: i did not dream of marriage as such. i didn’t have such a direct specific goal to get married sooner … since childhood, i have had a very respectful attitude towards children. i’ve always been very touched by the kids. i’ve nursed nephews, brothers, sisters, and anyone i could. i’ve always wanted a big family for myself. my husband and i are planning to have three children, at least. (woman, 22 y.o., married, one child, two children in the parent family, higher education, stavropol region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) in fact, i didn’t dream of a white dress from an early age, of a prince charming. no, there was no such thing … well, of course, i really want children. you can’t predict it but i would like three children. i believe that every woman should become a mother and continue her family line. i have a very positive attitude to this, and i consider it everyone’s duty. (woman, 24 y.o., married, no children, two children in the parent family, higher education, volgograd region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) https://changing-sp.com/ 82 tamara k. rostovskaya, ekaterina n. vasilieva, veronika n. kholina respondents who dreamed of a family (marriage, children) note that they are not going to postpone parenthood: well, like all little girls, i dreamed that i would have a good family ... we’ll see how it goes, of course, but we’d like to have two or three children. (woman, 21 y.o., married, no children, three children in the parent family (stepbrother and stepsister), university student, bashkortostan; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) and we would like a big family, too. at about the age of 16, we thought that we’d like to have six children ... my older brother had a son when he was 28 years old. it’s a little late for us. (man, 20 years old, married, no children, two children in the parent family, university student, bashkortostan; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) yes, since childhood i have dreamed of getting married in a beautiful white dress ... as for children, we plan two or three depending on the situation with work, the earnings and financial situation … i love children very much. i want to have a lot of children, and i hope i will. (woman, 21 y.o., married, no children, two children in the parent family, university student, ivanovo region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) during the in-depth interviews, we sought to clarify the factors that influence the couples’ decision about childbearing as well as the importance of state support measures for such decision-making. respondents willing to have many children are ready to plan the birth of another child if the conditions are right. in each individual case, the desired conditions are different depending on the couple’s situation (health, well-being, etc.): we are planning two children. however, if things go well, we want more children if there are no contraindications to pregnancy. i don’t think we’ll have only one, otherwise he may grow up selfish. (man, 22 y.o., married, no children (but is expecting a child), two children in the parent family, university student, ivanovo region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) the ideal and optimal number of children in the family is two. if we had everything we needed, we would like to have no more than three children. (man, 22 y.o., married, no children, two children in the parent family, higher education, moscow region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) well, i would like two, of course. we want more than one child but we’ll see. three children, yes, i wouldn’t mind having three children [that is, if they earned more and had a three-room apartment]. (man, 32 y.o., married, no children, two children in the parent family, incomplete higher education, tatarstan; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) some informants do not believe that all the necessary conditions are achievable, so they deliberately limit the desired number of children to one or two: changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 72–87 83 if we had everything we need, we would like to have at least two children. we want to give our children everything, they shouldn’t be deprived of anything they need in order to thrive, two children would be an ideal solution. (woman, 30 y.o., married, no children, the only child in the parent family, higher education, vologda region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) well, again, it seems to me that you need to give birth to at least one and see how you feel ... in general, whether you have enough strength for one child. if you are healthy enough to give birth to more than one, then why not? and the image of an ideal family, like, you know, in this tv commercial of a juice—a boy, a girl and everything. (woman, 26 y.o., married, no children, the only child in the parent family, higher education, nizhny novgorod region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) the data obtained through in-depth interviews show that state support measures do not significantly affect couples’ decision-making regarding the birth of their first child. however, there is a potential impact of state benefit schemes and programs on the birth of the third child, e.g., the effect of the so-called maternity capital benefit that applies to families that have had or adopted their second child (third, fourth, or any other subsequent child) since 2007. there are also baby-bonus schemes for families who have had their first child since 2020, january 1 and regional incentive programs stimulating families to have more than two children: we have received the maternity capital benefit but we have not used it yet. the state support for families with three or more children significantly affects our desire to give birth to a third child. in the case of the first two children, measures of state/regional support did not affect our decision-making in any way. (man, 35 y.o., married, two children, two children in the parent family, higher education, moscow region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) yes, we’ve received the maternity capital benefit. our decision to have children was not affected by state/regional support measures. in moscow region you are not entitled to social support benefits if you just have many children. there is a category “low-income with many children”. since we have many children but we are not low-income, we can’t get these payments. we have maternity capital, but we need money for a mortgage or to build a house, which we don’t have yet. therefore, this certificate is not applicable yet. we do not understand how it can be applied in our case. we are on the waiting list to receive a certificate for a land plot. we are 2000+ in the queue; land plots are given to 10 large families in our area each year. (woman, 32 y.o., married, three children, the only child in the parent family, vocational education, moscow region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) first, the more children there are in the family, the more state assistance is required, and the more problems families are facing that they cannot solve on their own. second, the more expensive housing is in the region where a young family lives https://changing-sp.com/ 84 tamara k. rostovskaya, ekaterina n. vasilieva, veronika n. kholina or the lower is the average wage level in the region, the fewer opportunities this family has to use the most effective family support—the maternity certificate. to claim the maternity capital benefit, you don’t have to be a low-income parent. state support for russian families is largely focused on helping low-income families, which means that higher-income young families are left with an option of applying to socially-oriented non-profit organizations (so npos). the main areas of activity of non-profits working with young families the state system of support for young families is focused primarily on helping them solve their housing problems and thus on enhancing their well-being. the question we were interested in was as follows: do family-oriented non-profits work with young families from categories other than low-income families? the russian government actively supports so npos, including those focused on family and childhood support. these organizations’ work focuses on helping families in difficult life situations, large families, and single parents, and female victims of violence. there is no specific work done for “young families” but specialists working in the social services market undertake to develop projects to promote family values among young people: these include awareness raising activities, creation of a favourable environment, work should be started from kindergarten—there is a mom, a dad, children, a family. in kindergartens this work is conducted, it is included in the educational standard. there are no such standards for school education yet, so it will be more difficult to organize such work. we have started working with grades 10–11 and 1–2 years of colleges; we have an interactive exhibition “pro birth”. we are talking about responsible parenting, about the moral portfolio of an individual. (expert, volgograd region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) the second area is aimed at strengthening marriage and preventing divorces: why do most young people get divorced? because they are faced with the fact that they have to fight for happiness, that they need to work with problems, and family problems. we need to go through them somehow. everything can’t be going smoothly forever. and a happy family is characterized not by the absence of difficult moments, but by the number of difficult moments that you manage to successfully overcome. (expert, stavropol region; trans. by t. r., e. v. & v. kh.) as our expert survey has shown, the activities carried out by russian so npos to support young families are as follows: • support for families in difficult life situations, including young families (financial problems, divorce, complicated pregnancy, abortion prevention, etc.); • assistance in organizing children's leisure activities; • legal advice on obtaining the required state assistance; changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 72–87 85 • raising awareness of available support; • psychological counselling. in addition to the above-described areas of work, non-profits also campaign for the legislative initiatives aimed at abolishing the “low income” criterion for receiving child benefits, optimizing the system of land plot allocation for large families, and introducing additional family tax benefits. experts believe that taken together, these initiatives will form a comprehensive model of support for young families. educational projects are being implemented to promote a positive image of large successful families. experts negatively assess the effectiveness of those state measures that stimulate the practice of “fake divorces” when people arrange for a divorce to apply for single-parent benefits, because they see this practice as a threat to the model of a thriving family (mintrud predstavil pravila, 2021). thus, non-profits can take up some of the work aimed at supporting young families. the main barrier to effective support on the part of the non-profits, however, is that young families are generally unwilling to reach out to these organizations for help or that they are unaware of this opportunity. as experts put it, in their practice, young families make just a few isolated cases. conclusion the results of the mass survey, in-depth interviews of young married people, and expert survey have demonstrated that the support system in russia is focused on helping only low-income families and does not significantly improve the quality of life of young families with larger incomes. therefore, the availability of such benefits does not have a significant effect on the fertility rate. today’s young families either decide against having a second child or having more than two children or choose to postpone childbirth. their behavioral strategies are not affected by the available family support programs implemented by the government. strategies of reproductive behavior of young families can be linked to the types of social action described by m. weber: goal rational social action, value-rational social action, affective social action, and traditional social action. thus, we can identify the strategy of rational reproductive behavior, the strategy of value-rational reproductive behavior, and traditional reproductive behavior. the strategy of rational reproductive behavior is determined by the family's financial situation and health. it may also correlate with the fact that the couple has registered their marriage. if the couple attach a high value to family values and children, then they are more likely to choose the strategy of value-rational reproductive behavior. in this case, material considerations play a secondary role in their decision-making regarding childbearing. finally, there is traditional reproductive behavior, which means that families tend to follow the tradition of having many children inherited from the parental family (or families). a hypothetical assumption can be made about affective reproductive behavior, which was left beyond the scope of this study. in this case, we may be talking about dysfunctional families. we found that following the birth of the first and subsequent children, families’ behavioral strategies change. as a rule, the birth of the first child correlates with the https://changing-sp.com/ 86 tamara k. rostovskaya, ekaterina n. vasilieva, veronika n. kholina strategy of value-rational reproductive behavior; the birth of the second child, with the strategy of rational reproductive behavior. the conscious choice of having many children is linked either to value-rational reproductive behavior or traditional reproductive behavior. these strategies, in their turn, also correlate with the types of marital behavior: after marriage is officially registered, the mechanisms of behavior rationalization are activated. the main factors shaping the reproductive behavior of young people are gender, age, marital attitudes, children, influence of parental families. our study has also brought to light the relationship between marital and reproductive behavior in young families as well as the models of marital and reproductive behavior determined by the attitudes rooted in the parental families of the young spouses. there are resources to increase the fertility rate: for example, to offer young families expanded social support by abolishing the “low income” criterion. in this case, young families may be more motivated to have the desired number of children. there will possibly be shifts in the timing of childbearing, especially for couples planning their first pregnancy. we have also found some gender-related differences in young people’s decisionmaking regarding childbearing: since men are generally more concerned about the family’s finances, it would make sense to offer systematic support to young families so that fathers could feel more confident that they would be able to maintain the family’s quality of life if the couple decides to have more children. references aries, p. 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http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.1.004 article religious education: meeting and countering changes, – changing and standing still* tim jensen university of southern denmark abstract i shall venture to map and discuss how (certain) states in the western part of europe have responded to the challenges of increased religious pluralism and individualism, in particular, new muslim presence and new islamophobia. the main focus will be on the changes as regards the re offered and supported by the state in public school. the conclusion reached by my analysis is that there have been some changes to re as a reflection of and response to the changes taking place in society and in the world at large as regards religion, but some of the responses and changes to re seem to be changes and responses meant to counter, if not stop, the changes that have to do with religion, the role of religion in society at large and the meaning (or not) of religion for individuals. one can witness a strange mixture of responses: on the one hand, an opening up of the contents and approaches of the re to the increasingly multi-religious society, and, on the other hand, an effort to use re to protect and boost the national religio-cultural situation of the past, e.g. by way of promoting the traditional majority religion of the state, and by, inter alia, insisting on its key role for the (unchanging) national identity. the core aims, thus, of the re often remain unchanged even if certain terms and aims do reflect that times have changed. * this article is of course based upon much of what i have been reflecting upon and written about in relation with the subject matter for decades. parts of the data, analysis and reflections thus also have appeared in earlier articles, inter alia in “asr and re", an article written in honor of prof. brian bocking and published in the journal of the irish society for the academic study of religions 3 (2016), 59-83. thanks to the editors for their permission to recycle parts of that article here. received 28 december 2016 © 2017 tim jensen accepted 12 february 2017 t.jensen@sdu.dk published online 15 april 2017 changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 49 keywords religious pluralism; western europe; religious education; national identity; majority religion; confessional education. introduction french sociologist of religion, j.-p. willaime, former director of the (french) institute européen en sciences des religions (iesr), an institute set up by the french government in order to stimulate and strengthen teaching about religion as a dimension within other school subjects (e.g. by way of producing qualified textbooks as well as offering in-service teacher-training) in an overview of re in europe wrote (willaime 2007, 57 f) that all kinds of religious education (re) in europe were facing the same kind of challenges caused by the same kind of change, namely, an increased religious pluralism and individualism. though i would add and stress that ‘religious pluralism and individualism’ include an increase in many countries of so-called nones as well as of outright atheists, and though, as regards challenges, i find it unavoidable to emphasize the importance – for all kinds of thinking about re, religion and religious pluralism – of the new muslim presence and (not least) the various kinds of old and new islamophobia. i cannot but agree with willaime.1 also today, in 2016. in what follows, i shall venture to map and discuss how and to what a degree (certain) states in the western part of europe have actually responded to the mentioned challenges and changes as regards the re offered and supported by the state in public school. though many countries have highly developed privateschool system and though allowing supporting, funding and establishing (and controlling, inspecting and sometimes closing) e.g. muslim private schools, and though developments within the private religious schools system can 1 for discussions on definitions of ’islamophobia’ as well as references, see inter alia otterbeck, j. and p. bevelander 2006. i use the term to refer to hostile and fearful (at times also dicriminatory and neo-racist) attitudes, actions, and discourses on islam and muslims based primarily on prejudice, generalisations and stereotypes. for an islamophobia in denmark, see jensen 2012. tim jensen50 also be seen as a response (also a state response) to change and the religious pluralisation, i have not included this in the following. amongst the conclusions reached by my description and analysis mention may be made of a few overall ones: there have been some changes to re as a reflection of and response to the changes taking place in society and in the world at large as regards religion, but, as it will be clear, some of the responses and changes to re seem to be changes and responses meant to counter, if not stop, the changes that have to do with religion, the role of religion in society at large and the meaning (or not) of religion for individuals. likewise, one can witness a strange mixture of responses: on the one hand, an opening up, in various ways, of the contents and approaches of the re in question to the increasingly multi-religious society, and, on the other hand, and, at the same time, an effort to use re to protect and boost the national religio-cultural situation of the past, e.g. by way of promoting the traditional majority religion of the state, and by, inter alia, insisting on its key role for the (unchanging) national identity. the core aims, thus, of the re in question, quite often remain unchanged even if certain terms and aims do reflect that times have changed. even as regards the introduction of an alternative subject to the traditional confessional re offered, it often turns out that the alternative is no ‘real’ alternative but rather a substitute for a (confessional) re, a confessional re traditionally thought to be a provider of not least the moral supposed to be the foundation of the good society. mapping out re – and changes to re reflecting societal and religious changes mapping out and ever so briefly discussing responses to changes necessitates mapping out the various kinds and modalities of re. “religious education” (re) is a (highly) generic term that can (and actually does) include all kinds and often very different kinds of teaching religion. re, and here i only look at religious education in public schools, comes in many shapes, and each shape, besides, comes in many shades. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 51 maps and models are supposed to be less complex than the empirical complexities they try to map, overview, reduce and handle. but re, in its various shapes and shades, is mapped and classified in so many ways—and the classifications are based on such a variety of criteria – that readers who are not well read in the relevant literature are likely to get lost. here follows my classification and overview, – and i can only hope that the reader does not get lost and refer her to some of the many other overviews.2 confessional re re in public state-run (otherwise) secular education and public schools, be it elementary or upper-secondary school, may be a timetabled confessional re, state supported (in various ways) and (as in germany) taught by teachers educated, not in the normal state institutions for teacher training, but in institutions run by the ‘confession’ (majority or minority religion, denomination etc.) in question. though confessional re comes in various shapes and shades (finland for example having its own special kind, maybe more correctly termed ‘separative’ rather than ‘confessional’ re),3 it normally takes as its starting point the religious teachings of the religion/confession/ denomination in question, and it has, one way or the other, the aim of making those religious teachings religiously and morally relevant to the pupils. pupils, who are normally, though not exclusively, children of parents who ‘adhere’ or ‘belong’ to the religion/confession in question. confessional re is always a kind of learning religion or learning from religion, especially or exclusively learning from ‘one’s own’ religion, and it aims at making the pupils religiously competent, as it is sometimes expressed. it is teaching into the religion or denomination in question. ‘religious instruction’, ‘religious upbringing’ or ‘religious 2 many of the books and articles on re listed in the references to this article have some kind of account of the various terms and kinds of re. however, from my studyof-religions perspective specific mention may be made of: alberts 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009; jensen 2005; willaime 2007. byrne 2014 also has useful overviews and discussions. for more recent overviews and discussions from other perspectives that a study-of-religions perspective, cf. e.g. jackson 2014, and schreiner 2015. 3 for inland, see sakaranaho 2013. tim jensen52 nurture’ are terms that may therefore at times be applied too, despite the fact that these terms may also be used for religious education taking place within the religious institution itself (or in the home) rather than in the public school. one may also speak more broadly about ‘religious’ re as well as of ‘interreligious’ re, – over against ‘non-religious’ or ‘secular’ re, – a terminology that may be preferred in order to e.g. avoid that ‘confessional re’ is used only when the kind of re in question is identical to a kind of catechism and exclusively based upon and aimed at a formulated ‘confession’ or creed. as a consequence of an increase in certain kinds of religious pluralization and/or pluralism(s), e.g. an increased presence, in a nation or region, of parents and pupils with various kinds of religious or denominational backgrounds, systems of confessional re, e.g. in various ‘länder’ in germany, tend to become systems of multiconfessional re, with each religion or denomination (islamic, jewish, apostolic etc) establishing and running, with the support of the state, its own confessional re in the public school.4 apart from the development into a system of multi-confessionalism in places with confessional re mention must, of course, also be made of the necessity to have an opt-out possibility and to offer an alternative subject, non-confessional, to confessional re. the human rights ‘regime’ is evidently in place most places and it has necessitated changes also as regards re in school, and the increase in religious pluralisation implies an increase in non-religion, also amongst parents and pupils formally belonging to one religion or denomination. the opt-out option sometimes also exists even if the re in question is, in accordance with the laws of the land, in principle non-confessional. this is, for example, the case in elementary school in denmark as well as in norway, and in both countries this is to make sure that the state is not taken to court by some stakeholders (e.g. minority religions or denominations, humanist associations, and parents) who think (correctly or not) that that the re in question does not qualify as ‘objective, critical, and pluralistic’, 4 see e.g. with regard to bavaria in germany jensen & kjeldsen 2014d. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 53 the criteria staked out for a compulsory re by the european court of human rights (echr) as well with as by us supreme court.5 likewise, most confessional re nowadays includes some teaching of and about ‘other’ religions.6 a critical look at the inclusion of other religions in the curriculum in confessional re, however, reveals that quite often this teaching does not comply with basic study-of-religions standards for a series of reasons: though the teachers teaching about other religions within the framework of confessional re may have had some kind of education qualifying them for this, most confessional re-teachers have not been educated at something comparable to study-of-religions departments and thus have not acquired the cross-cultural, critical, comparative and historical knowledge and competences, knowledge and competences necessary also in order to minimize the risk that teaching about the other religion(s) takes place on the basis of and from the viewpoint of the teacher’s own religion and insider-notion of religion. linked to the inclusion of teaching about (other) religions in confessional re is a widespread ecumenical aim, or, as it is more often called, interreligious or interfaith inspiration and aspiration. teaching of one’s own religion and the religion(s) of others (also sometimes the others sitting in the classroom) aims at providing the pupils with not just religious but interreligious competence. the so-called hamburg way of doing things, with protestant theologian wolfram weisse as a 5 see jensen 2005 for a discussion with reference to human rights norms, and andreassen 2013 on the problems for norwegian re to meet the human rights standards. the norwegian case, in an exemplary way, indicates how hard it is for an, in principle, non-confessional re to comply with not just human rights but also with study-of-religions standards. it may be added that the opt-out possibility is only partial in norway: the pupils can only be exempted from those parts of the re teaching (and those parts, actually, of all teaching in school, which they (or their parents) deem to be religious or religious-like practice. in denmark, they can be totally exempted, but only from re. in both countries there is no alternative offered, but in denmark the parents are supposed to educate their child in their own religion. there is, in both countries, no opt-out possibility in upper-secondary school, no doubt because the re in question is more (or totally) study-of-religions based. 6 examples may be found in the so-called baseline studies on re in spain, italy and germany produced by jensen & kjeldsen 2014bcd. tim jensen54 leading figure, is a good example of this combination of confessional and interreligious (or: ‘inter-faith’ or ‘inter-confessional’) re.7 interreligious (or intercultural or multicultural) re though there are instances of confessional re that turns into some kind of inter-confessional or interreligious re, one might also argue that this kind of re or more ‘full-blown’ kinds explicitly interreligious re must be mapped as a special kind of response to the changes in or towards new kinds of religious pluralism. in what follows i shall therefore take a brief look at this class of re. ‘intercultural education’ (ice), ‘multicultural education’ (mce), ‘interreligious education’ (ire) (not to be mistaken for ire = ‘islamic religious education’), ‘interfaith education’, and ‘intercultural religious education’ are all terms flourishing on the ‘market’. and, like re, they are all far from self-explanatory. what they are or what they intend to be can only be determined from case to case following an elucidation and analysis of the relevant source material. they may also be taught in schools in various ways: as imor explicit dimensions of other specific time tabled school subjects (e.g. history or a timetabled re), as imor explicit dimensions and practices of the school and education system as a whole, or as specific time tabled school subjects in their own right so to say. both intercultural and multicultural education often imply a kind of education, teaching and learning that is aimed at supporting and strengthening identities, (equal) rights and social/cultural inclusion of various cultural and religious groups and the individuals pertaining to those groups. a support and an inclusion seen as essential to the well-being of the groups and individuals in question and to the larger multicultural society and world. it is therefore quite often an imor explicit part also of what is called ‘citizenship education’, and it is thus also often linked to education 7 for one of many brief introductions to the “hamburger weg”, see doedens & weisse 2007. for a brief critical overview with references to further study-of-religions based critical analysis, inter alia by christoph bochinger, of this kind of confessionalinterreligious re, see frank 2010, 27-29. linked to this kind of confessional re in hamburg is the so-called akademie der weltreligionen at the university of hamburg. see http://www.awr.uni-hamburg.de (last accessed february 20, 2016). changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 55 aimed at promoting democracy and human rights. only a case -bycase study, however, may reveal to what a degree the stipulated or factual education or teaching does not only recognize, respect and tolerate diversity, especially cultural or religious diversity, but does also ‘celebrate’ it and move beyond recognition to dialogical (inter-)action with a possibility of promoting and generating shared cross-cultural or cross-religious notions and practices. in most cases, it is learning about others in the presence of each other, and in some cases it is learning from the others in the presence of each other. the last mentioned possibility often is implied in the term ‘dialogue’ as well as in what is sometimes called ‘interreligious education’. since religion is often (considered) an important element in culture and identity (construction), intercultural as well as multicultural education is not rarely paying attention to religion, and it thus also often linked to interreligious or interfaith education. transnational (recommendations) for re recommendations from the much advertised and influential redco (religion in education. a contribution to dialogue or a factor of conflict in transforming societies of european countries)8 project, as well as the aims and policy of the equally influential enreca network (the european network for religious education through contextual approaches),9 in various ways show clear signs of the characteristics 8 the project, financed for three years, 2006-2009, by the research department of the european commission, included projects linked to eight countries. the project has resulted in several books published by waxman, münster, and in even more articles. the us journal religion & education devoted a special issue (vol. 37, number 3, 2010) to the project. with an introduction by w. weisse, ibid. 187-202, and ”responses” from invited scholars, including my own critical one (jensen 2010). 9 the policy statement of enreca, written by siebren miedema, peter schreiner, geir skeie, and robert jackson may be downloaded from several urls. one is the comenius platform at http://www.comenius.de/pdfs/themen/europa-enreca.pdf (last accessed februay 20,2016). the comenius-institut, by the way, represented by its former director as well as by its present director (peter schreiner) has been prominent and very influential in the field of european re for decennia, an indication of a characteristic mixture of scholarly as well as religious interests and affiliations to be found on the european re scene. schreiner, has, it must be emphasized, time and again produced solid and helpful research based overviews of re in europe. tim jensen56 of interreligious education: religions are seen as spiritual and moral resources for the pupils and for society, teaching about is combined with teaching from the insider’s perspectives, learning about is also learning from, and re is seen as having much more to accomplish than providing knowledge and analytical skills. if not there to save the world, it (re) is there to, at the least, play a key role in paving the way for tolerance, social cohesion, peaceful coexistence, human rights, and freedom of religion, and it is supposed to function as an anti-dote to what is seen as a growing fragmentation, lack of spiritual and moral orientation, and gross materialism. in brief: important cultural and societal changes, conceived of states and certain stakeholders to influence societies and individual in negative ways. the re in question, recommended or ‘for real’, is thus aiming at contributing to the formation of what has been called ‘the whole child’, as well as of what is thought to be a ‘wholesome’ society. with reference to the famous uk based ‘gift to the child’-project and-pedagogy (cf. inter alia alberts 2007, 120-130 for an overview and references) one can say that this kind of interreligious re sees itself as a gift to the child as well to society at large, the cohesion of which it contributes to while functioning also to develop interpersonal (moral) values and interreligious competences. several other of the transnational recommendations and projects, projects which have received at least some publicity beyond the ranks of re-linked scholars and policy makers, at a first glance seem to recommend a study-of-religions approach, teaching about religion. yet, quite a few, e.g. the council of europe’s project(s) on intercultural nevertheless, it must also be noticed that (cf. the comenius-institut website) this key re-player is at the same time director of the comenius-institut (muenster, germany), a protestant centre for research and development in education. consequently, it must be noted that a key player like schreiner who has also been central in the eftre, the european forum for re-teachers, and who is moderator of the coordinating group for religious education in europe (cogree), at the same time is also president of the inter-european commission on church and school (iccs), a non-governmental organization with participatory status at the council of europe and an associated member organization of the conference of european churches. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 57 education, actually stress that learning about is not enough.10 this is true also for the recent 2014 publication edited by robert jackson (jackson 2014), beyond a doubt the most influential contemporary re-scholar and policy maker. the publication (chapter 2) inter alia stresses that religion cannot be reduced to a cultural fact, that understanding must include the understanding of the insider’s perspective, and that it takes imagination and empathy to understand religion. this, as well as the explicit recommendation of e.g. a dialogical approach, is not in line with a study-of-religions approach, even if the publication at various places speaks of the kind of re recommended for schools in terms of ‘study of religions’ (‘studying religions’) in school. the same can be said about another response, the toledo guiding principles issued by the osce, to the changes and ‘challenges’, especially religion-related changes and challenges conceived of as a threat to the security of the osce member states. the toledo guiding principles is a thorough recommendation to member states to implement a non-confessional kind of re in public schools, and time and again, the the toledo guiding principles refers to the study of religions as the academic basis for re (and the educational background of re-teachers), and time and again it stresses that it is teaching about that is recommended. yet, at the same time it displays, as pointed out by the present writer (jensen 2008, 132-133), several clear examples of an approach to religion and re not specifically characteristic of an academic study of religion. nevertheless, some responses, e.g. the toledo guiding principles, to changes and challenges, do, i think, also constitute a step in the direction of a study-of-religions non-confessional re, another response to the challenges of course, and a response looked at closer ahead. it does so even if it does so in a ‘flawed’ way. the same, of course, goes for the many conferences and discussions, not least in french-speaking and catholic countries, also those that have looked for inspiration in canadian quebec and its recent introduction of the so-called ethics and religious culture (erc) program. 10 see the critical overview with references in jensen & kjeldsen 2014a. tim jensen58 though i cannot go into details, the erc, however, just like e.g. the abovementioned toledo guiding principles at a closer look is evidently not fully emancipated from a confessional approach. it is not a regular study-of-religions based re, neither as regards its explicit intercultural and interreligious dialogue aims nor as regards its contents. scholars of religion and re-specialists bengt-ove andreassen (norway) and satoko fujiwara (japan) in their critical contributions to a special issue of religion education (andreassen 2011; fujiwara 2011) both agree that ‘deconfessionalisation’ has not been fully completed with the erc. alternatives to confessional re: ethics, ethics and values, philosophy, et al as indicated above: religious pluralism(s), including non-religion and atheism, individualism, secularisation and the human rights regime all have made it necessary for states having and supporting a confessional re-system to include into the system an opt-out possibility, a possibility at times limited or supplemented by the offering of a voluntary or compulsory alternative to confessional re. though this might be – and in spain at a time has been – a non-confessional study-of-religions based re – the general picture shows that states in general prefer to offer an alternative which, at least in its name, does not signal any teaching about religion. the many alternative subjects offered to pupils opting-out of a confessional re have many names (ethics, philosophy or a combination), and a few actually do offer some teaching about religion. it is impossible to go into any kind of detailed overview of these responses to societal changes and religious pluralisms but a closer look at one particular case may illustrate that the alternative offered at least at times are not real alternatives but rather substitutes to confesssional re. my case is werte und normen in lower saxony, germany: according to the 2009 ”kerncurriculum” (p. 7) issued by the ”kultusministerium”, werte und normen is said to be the school subject which in particular (my emphasis) contributes to the general aims for the public school, namely to support the development of ”die persönlichkeit der schülerinnen und schüler auf der grundlage des changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 59 christentums, des europäischen humanismus und der ideen der liberalen, demokratischen und sozialen freiheitsbewegungen”(§2). though the wording of § 2 tends to indicate that the values and norms linked to or implied in christianity, humanism, and the mentioned ”freiheitsbewegungen”, are, if not eternal, then at least sufficiently stabile to constitute a foundation (’grundlage’), the text, nevertheless, at the same time addresses the dynamic changes and plurality of values and norms (supposedly also those implied in the abovementioned ’grundlage’), as well as what is considered a result thereof, namely ’orientierungsprobleme’ – for the modern human being and not least for the pupils. kant’s (normative) question “was soll ich tun?”is considered key to the identity of the school subject, something that becomes evident also from the listing (p. 11) of the contents related areas of competence (’inhaltsbezogene kompetenzbereiche’): ’fragen nach dem ich’, ’fragen nach der zukunft’, ’fragen nach moral und ethik’, ’fragen nach der wirklichkeit’, and ’fragen nach religionen und weltanschaungen’. being able to reflect on one’s own as well as other’s positions, values and norms, and thus by way of such (self-)reflection developing the ’persönlichkeit’ of the pupils, includes a stipulated capability to be able to enter into a dialogue and discuss with each other in the classroom and in society at large, – on a basis of nuanced knowledge and in a reasoned and qualified manner. the developed ’persönlichkeit’, thus, is not an isolated individual moral being but also a competent social being, a ’mündig’ citizen. as regards religion(s): the core curriculum expresses a notion of religion as essentially ’about’ so-called existential questions, i.e. questions postulated to be posed by all human beings, questions about life and death, meaning, identity, etc. teaching about and learning about religion(s) thus also becomes learning from religion(s). on this background, it is difficult not to see werte und normen as a school subject in which the teaching is not just about morals (from, say, a philosophical or sociological point of view). aims and contents reveal that this subject also aims at providing morals, or as said above, werte und normen seems to be more of a substitute for than a real alternative tim jensen60 to confessional re. it is the school subject particularly tailored to taking care of that moral and societal upbringing that used to be the business of confessional re. werte und normen, thus, may very well be compared to and seen as an example of (frank) ‘life world-related re’, maybe also as a (jensen & kjeldsen) kind of ‘small-c confessional re’. kinds of re that may be found within formally non-confessional re, – to which we turn in the next section. before doing so, however, it must be mentioned, that, werte und normen, just like e.g. toledo guiding principles, arguably may also be said to, after all, constitute a step in the direction of nonconfessional re, and there is clear evidence of efforts to strike a balance between the normative and informative when the text explicitly mentions that teaching werte und normen, in contrast to confessional re (religionsunterricht), must be neutral in regard to religion and worldviews. normative (’binding’) ’answers’ to the fact of a plurality of truths and the fundamental moral questions can be given, it is furthermore stated, only with reference to the [german] constitution and the educational aims in general, not with reference to religious or ’weltanschaulicher’ premises (p. 8, note 1). moreover, the academic basis of the subject is clearly demarcated from a theological and confessional religious base, since the three ”bezugswissenschaften” are (applied) philosophy, the study of religions (”religionswssenschaft”), and (various) social sciences (p. 9). werte und normen – teachers, moreover, are educated accordingly. citizenship education mention must also be made, and more explicitly than done above, of another ‘response’ to the common challenges mentioned, namely the introduction or development of so-called ‘citizenship education.’ in recent citizenship education in france, according to sociologist of religion, valentine zuber (zuber 2016), the “moral code taught is [...] more of a tool that provides an upbringing than one for education.” while french citizenship education may have a special tenor to it due to the french notion of laïcite, citizenship, and nation, including a claim that the ‘morale laïque’ is a universal moral code, a tenor also changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 61 reflecting shades of a notion of the sacredness of the republic ‘as such’, other kinds of citizenship education more or less explicitly refer to the importance of the christian ‘roots’ and tradition for the present (postulated) democratic and civic values. citizenship education (and re) for that reason enters into several kinds of ‘alliances’ or combinations, some of which include the teaching about a growing number of other religions than christianity in order to pave the way for tolerance, societal harmony, and sometimes, of course, interreligious or intercultural understanding and competences. a combination of, on the one hand, a neo-nationalist promotion and knowledge of ‘our’ values and the good citizen as humanist and christian, and, on the other, of a more cosmopolitan citizen and multi-cultural or religious plural world and society can also be found. an example maybe of what has been termed ‘glocalization’. the neo-nationalist, pro-christian aspect and agenda most certainly played a significant role when citizenship education in 2007 was linked in a most conspicuous manner to an existing compulsory re subject (to be read by all future teachers in the danish elementary school, not just those teaching re). the then new compulsory subject was called by the somewhat hybrid name klm (kristendomskundskab, livsoplysning, medborgerskab = knowledge of christianity/enlightenment of life/ citizenship). the equally hybrid subject, to be taught not by social scientists but by teachers a large part of whom were educated as theologians, consisted of three knowledge areas: religion and culture, the history of philosophy, and democracy and citizenship. besides christianity, islam and judaism as minority religions in europe were obligatory. two paragraphs of the 2007 curriculum deserve particular attention (and they were also publicly discussed). one of them deals with the general objectives, saying that the students should gain competences in order to “[...] relate to the impact of christianity and other world-views (‘livsanskuelser’) on the foundational values in a european and danish cultural context” (undervisningsministeriet 2007, 2.2). the other one was listed as contents under “religion and culture”. it read: “the impact (‘betydning’) of evangelical-lutheran christianity on democracy, the tim jensen62 welfare state and the school in denmark” (undervisningsministeriet 2007,2.3.1). a report made after the first year of implementation found that many students seemed to have acquired a highly simplified ‘understanding’ of democracy, the welfare state and human rights as a direct heritage of christianity – something they, moreover, had learnt to see as being in opposition to islam not least. the students, according to the report, also expressed a “secularized culture-christian” perspective, with no critical look at all at the historical impact of christianity and on the church as a powerful and dominating institution (brandt & böwadt 2009). a 2012 research project by karna kjeldsen, analyzing inter alia local syllabi, reached a less critical conclusion as regarded the actual implementation of the national curriculum. however, it also documented that a majority of classes had primarily read literature with a positive version of evangelical-lutheran christianity and its impact on danish culture, the welfare state and democratic values (kjeldsen 2012). furthermore, it must be added that in a recent (2013) revised version of the national curriculum for klm the neo-nationalist (cultural-christian discourse has been played-down, and the paragraphs on the direct impact of christianity (evangelical-lutheran especially) on european and danish democracy and values have been totally deleted (ministeriet for forskning, innovation og videregående uddannelse 2013). non-confessional re another kind of reaction to the development towards more (or: other kinds of) religious plurality as well as to developments like secularization and individualization, are of course efforts, mostly in vain, e.g. in spain and italy (cf. jensen & kjeldsen 2015 with references), as well as in germany and belgium (cf. alberts 2007 and franken 2016) towards the establishment of (some kind of) non-religious or non-confessional re. and, in places where (at least in principle) non-religious, nonconfessional re has been in place for years or even decades, (then) coming into being of such non-religious re may, of course, be seen as a response to changes and challenges mentioned: secularization, (another kind of) religious pluralism, individualism etc. changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 63 non-confessional re, however, may be a lot of ‘things’. it is, in principle at least, a kind of re that, legally as well in practice, and contrary to confessional re, is not, legally and formally, based upon or intimately linked to the (explicit) teachings of one specific religion. and non-confessional re teachers are, normally, not educated by religious institutions but at normal teacher-training institutions, including, in some countries, universities and university departments e.g. departments for the scientific, historical and comparative study of religions. in non-confessional re, in principle, the religions taught about are to be approached on equal terms; theories and methods applied are, in principle, the same no matter what religion is taught. it is teaching and learning about religion(s), and it is not rarely explicitly claimed that it is so in ways in line with the academic study-of-religions perspectives. it could be added that it is often thought to be, in principle, this kind of re that can comply with the above mentioned criteria put forward by the european court of human rights (echr) as well with as by us supreme court for a compulsory re, an re that does not violate the rights of the parents as regards (religious) education, because it is ‘objective, critical, and pluralistic’, and it is not infrequently said to be this kind of re that may be found in england and scotland, as well as in the scandinavian countries. before a more critical look at certain kinds of this kind of re, it may be useful to introduce a few more analytical categories developed by study-of-religions scholars: the first useful typology has been developed by katharina frank on the basis of research on re in switzerland. based on various empirical (re-)sources, classroom observation included, frank distinguishes between (a) ‘religiöse’ and (b) ‘kulturkundliche’ framings of religion in re. the two kind of framings are then subdivided into, on the one hand, (a) narrative re, dogma-related re, and life world-related re, and, on the other hand (b) historical re, sociological re, and systematiccomparative re.11 with reference to frank’s analysis and classification of ‘life-world-related re’ as a kind of religious re, a closer look at nonconfessional re from the point of view of a study-of-religions scholar 11 see, inter alia, frank 2010, and 2015; frank & bochinger 2008. tim jensen64 clearly shows that many a so-called non-confessional kind of re actually is ‘life-world-related’ and thus religious, or religiously framed, re. another classification and category, ‘developed’ by this author together with karna kjeldsen, is based upon the one proposed by donald wiebe (wiebe 1984) for theology and theology-like (or religious) studies of religion. with reference to wiebe, we proposed to operate with, respectively, ‘capital-c confessional re’ and ‘small-c confessional re’. while the latter is formally and maybe also in realiter dissociated from a specific religious confession (or a specific religious tradition), it continues to be based on a religious understanding of religion, and to have the exor implicit aim of promoting (some kind of) religion, religiosity, or religion-based values in general. wiebe wrote: all uncritical thinking about gods or the gods that rests on revelation and authority or on the “presumption of theism”, and that therefore refuses to countenance the possible non-existence of god or the gods, is “confessional theology”. such theology constitutes a species of what i prefer to think of as “religious thought” which operates entirely within the framework of general religious assumptions, or within a particular religious tradition, and is, therefore, incompatible with what will be referred to below as the basic minimum presuppositions for the academic study of religion (wiebe1984, 405). analyses of many kinds of so-called non-confessional and nonreligious re reveal many traces of such ‘religious thinking’, whether it operates within the framework of general religious assumptions or a particular religious tradition, and i consider such cases to be a kind of ‘small-c confessional’ re, sharing many characteristics with frank’s ‘life world related re’. turning more directly to established educational systems with a declared non-confessional re, a look at the situation in e.g. england taken by wanda alberts in her 2006 dissertation (alberts 2007, 86 ff, and (a brief exposé) alberts 2010, 277f) shows with crystal clarity that a lot of re in england cannot even with the best will be seen as in line with an study-of-religions approach. there is a lot of re that may described as much more in line with e.g. the already mentioned changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 65 ‘a gift for the child’ approach,12 and thus not just multi-faith but rather interfaith re. a more recent report (by the uk religious education council) of the purpose, aims and content of re in the united kingdom, summarized by the editor to the british journal of religious education, speaks its own clear and honest language as regards the messy situation: is religious education an academic study of the beliefs and values of others, or more a form of personal development in which pupils work out their own important beliefs, values and identity? [...] is it a non-confessional activity or is there a place for faith development? what is the place of philosophy and ethics? can religious education contribute to social and political goals such as community cohesion, global citizenship or saving the planet, or is this ridiculously overambitious and distracting from the core purpose? (editorial, british journal of religious education, vol. 35, no 3, 2013) moving from england and the uk to scandinavia, not rarely considered a stronghold of non-confessional re, with sweden and norway introducing it as early as in 1969, and denmark, (elementary school) 1975, the situation, especially as regards re in elementary school, is also somewhat ambiguous. as scholars of religion, jenny berglund (2013), bengt-ove andreassen (2013) and tim jensen & karna kjeldsen (2013), have demonstrated, re, not least in elementary school in each of these three countries, may be said, as indicated in the title of the 2013 article by berglund, to be ‘marinated in’ lutheran-protestant christianity. in each of the three countries re is linked to a (neo-) nationalist culturalist agenda of inculcating (a notion of) so-called christian values and christian (cultural) heritage in the pupils and future citizens via re. in denmark, furthermore, such a (neo-)nationalist agenda as regards re and the promotion of christianity as foundational for the past and present danish society and culture, is coupled with a pro-religious agenda promoting some postulated ‘religious dimension’ (clearly some sort of tillich-inspired theological notion) said to constitute a universal 12 for the “gift to the child” approach and project with references, see alberts 2007, 120–130. tim jensen66 human and ontological fact that, strangely enough, is totally in line with danish theological-existentialist life-philosophy. despite some recent attention to providing more solid knowledge, this re primarily aims at having children realize that the postulated religious dimension is important, to them and everybody, since every religion at its basis has this ‘religious dimension’ and a quest for ‘meaning’. at a closer look, the ‘religious dimension’ as well as the key thematic and pedagogical unit, the philosophy-of-life, is, as first formulated by pia rose böwadt, nothing but ‘christianity in new clothes’. the teaching supposed to be teaching about is in fact ‘preaching the gospel of this ‘religious dimension’ and of danish culture as christian culture (cf. jensen & kjeldsen 2013, 195 ff). unfortunately, this crypto-confessional or ‘small-c confessional re’ can be seen elsewhere too, for instance in switzerland, as shown by e.g. andrea rota (rota 2013). also on the basis of research on re in switzerland, religion scholar katharina frank (at times with christoph bochinger) has, as mentioned above, developed another highly useful classification of re. the discussion of the category ‘life world related re’ and the demonstration, with reference to the analysis of the relevant empirical material, why this pertains to the larger class of religious re, is particularly useful: in ‘life world-related re’ the aim is to link the objects of the teaching, i.e., religious figures, narratives, dogmas, rituals etc. to the life world and experience of the pupils and thus to make the pupils familiar with what is considered universal human themes and experiences: the aim is to develop the personality, spirituality, and ‘humanity’ of the pupils. when pupils in many a re classroom are imagined to develop respect and understanding for other religions and for those (other) pupils and persons who ‘adhere’ to these religions, the ‘otherness’ of the other religion(s) may be stressed.13 it may, however, also be 13 in denmark, for instance, by way of seeing ’our” (way of having) religion as compatible with a secular democratic state, with secularization, human rights, and gender equality, at the same time as it is seen as a challenge to the other religions (islam not least, of course). another ’strategy’ is to describe and see the religions of the others as ’religion’ while our religion is primarily ’morals’ and ’faith’ or ’culture’ or ’cultural heritage’. furthermore, the religions of the others are religions with e.g. divine changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol.1, no. 1 67 evaded or belied: the majority religion (‘our’ religion) and the other(‘s) religions all translate into universal existential themes and general human experiences. we and they can thus meet (in the re classroom and in the hoped for better world) as humans, and ‘we’ can all see all religions as valuable resources for human development, mutual understanding etc. religion, though specially the christian one, or if religion ‘in general’, religion seen through some kind of christiantheological lens, is seen as a resource for positive values, including positive moral values. a kind of re that cannot properly be classified as study-of religions based but the kind that has taken over in many a place when confessional re had to go. concluding remarks many, if not most, european states seem to prefer, no matter some growing interest in some kind of teaching about more religions than the majority religion, to continue to have and to prefer to have confessional re, with opt-out options and a so-called alternative subject like e.g. werte und normen. an increased religious pluralism, an increased focus on the role of religion in local and global politics, the role of religion in regard to socalled clash of cultures, social conflicts and terrorism, show in various ways: religions or denominations differing from the majority religion are included in the re-teaching and a system of multi-confessionalism developed. it is still, though, ‘capital c confessional re’, and the other religions are still seen in comparison to and from the point of view of the ‘confession’ or religion in power. added to the aims of religious and moral upbringing in line with the dominant religion in question, we now find aims linked to the needs for social cohesion in a world and society considered prone for conflict linked to a plurality of religions and cultures and to the new muslim presence not least. re-teaching now is therefore not just religious but interreligious ‘preaching’, with religions, not least the local kind of commandments, rituals, and outmoded rules regarding childish notions of e.g. pure and impure. cf. jensen & kjeldsen 2013, 195–197, and andreassen 2014. tim jensen68 christianity, as a resource which, rightly understood, of course, at the same time matches and adds to human rights and humanist values. an evident, though at times thinly veiled, aim, of course, is to use the new kind of more interreligious confessional re to save the world from conflict, save the children from postulated evils of materialism or neo-liberalism, and to save the religion (and religions) taught from a possible future in a feared for total oblivion. secularization understood as less religion on the societal and individual level is countered by re. most states with a (in principle) non-confessional re seem to prefer to make sure that this re not only accommodates the changes and challenges but also counter and oppose them, by way of using re to inculcate postulated cultural-religious (christian) values 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(2016) “teaching the secular moral code in french state schools. the debate between providing an upbringing and providing an education from the french revolution to our time”, in antes, p, geertz, ar.w. & m. rothstein (eds.) contemporary views on contemporary religion, in celebration of tim jensen’s 65th birthday, sheffield/bristol, equinox, 283–296. changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.2.230 received 19 september 2022 © 2023 andrei a. linchenko, bella v. gartwig accepted 25 march 2023 linchenko1@mail.ru published online 3 july 2023 rotwind@mail.ru article rediscovering identity: autobiographical memory and media discourses of russiangermans in germany and russia andrei a. linchenko financial university under the government of the russian federation (lipetsk branch); lipetsk state technical university, lipetsk, russia bella v. gartwig povolzhskiy state university of telecommunications and informatics, samara, russia ngo "german national-cultural autonomy of samara", samara, russia abstract this paper compares the processes of rediscovering identity in autobiographical memory and media discourses of russian-germans living in germany and in russia. according to r. brubaker, the russiangermans are viewed as a transnational group with a specific “hybrid identity”, whose identification varies depending on the cultural project, which they are involved in. in germany and russia, the boundaries of this identification are the politics of memory of the host society and the dominant narratives regarding this group as repatriates (germany) and as a diaspora with its own culture (russia). our analysis, which was based on the methodology of the critical discourse analysis by s. jäger, revealed that such a dominant narrative in germany is the “narrative of return”. in russia, however, there are two discursive threads: the image of russian-germans as a repressed group and the narrative about the outstanding role of russian-germans in the history of russia. the curves of autobiographical and family narratives of the three generations of russian-germans in russia and germany were analyzed and compared according to the biographical method of f. schütze. people aged 30–50 were the most open to the influence of collective “standardized” narratives both in germany and in russia. despite the fact of living in russia, those respondents who were preparing to repatriate to germany actively reproduced the “return narrative” and used international mnemonic frameworks to structure https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:linchenko1@mail.ru mailto:rotwind@mail.ru changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 35 their autobiographical and family story. our study showed that the influence of the discursive media environment on the autobiographical and family memory of russian-germans living in germany and russia depends on the respondent’s individual life experience (the curve of their biography), age, and some peculiarities of their family history. keywords russian-germans, autobiographical memory, media discourse, critical discourse analysis, biographical method, return narrative, ethnic minority, hybrid identity acknowledgement this work was supported by the russian science foundation, under grant no. 22-28-00503 “transformation of the collective memory of migratory communities in modern russia: intergenerational dynamics, family values and commemorative practices”. introduction in the past decade, processes of ethnicization and construction of ethnic identity have attracted much scholarly attention. among other ethnic groups, russian-germans represent a specific case of migration and cultural transfer. what makes their case particularly interesting, at the same time as difficult to study, is that they represent a kind of “double migrants”. the ancestors of this group moved to russia during the reign of catherine ii and, until the collapse of the ussr, they retained their cultural memory of resettlement and german culture. then, they moved back to germany in the 1980s and 1990s. since 1988, about 2.5 million migrants of german origin have moved to the federal republic of germany from post-soviet countries for permanent residence. in total, more than 4 million migrants from the former ussr live in germany, which is about 4% of the country’s population (dietz, 2000; laitin, 1998; rock & wolff, 2002). no less interesting is the fate of those russian-germans who remained in russia and found themselves in a situation of rediscovering their ethnic identity in the 1990s, when an active revival of ethnic traditions and ethnic self-consciousness began (mamattah, 2012; mukhina, 2007; münz & ohliger, 2003). in modern studies, russian-germans are considered as a special transnational group whose identification varies depending on the project in which the participants are involved. the boundaries of such an identity are “fuzzy” and defined situationally. the priority here is not their ethnic roots as such but rather the networks of connections (boyd, 1989; brown, 2005; kurilo, 2015; sanders, 2016, savoskul, 2006). this thesis, substantiated by v. d. popkov (2016), is relevant both for the studies of russiangermans in germany and for the studies of russian-germans in russia. after the 1990s, there have been significant differences in the processes of ethnicization among russian-germans in these two countries, which determines the need for https://changing-sp.com/ 36 andrei a. linchenko, bella v. gartwig a comparative analysis of these processes. this research gap has not been filled yet since the studies of russian-germans in russia and germany mostly focus either on the german (brown, 2005; kurilo, 2015; rosenthal et al., 2011; savoskul, 2006; zeveleva, 2014a, 2019) or on the russian (mamattah, 2012; mukhina, 2007; vedernikova & kravchenko, 2021) contexts. this article aims at carrying out a comparative analysis of the narratives of russian-germans in russia and germany about rediscovering of their identity. these narratives encompass the autobiographical memory of the three generations of russian-germans and the media discourses of this ethnic group. the following three hypotheses are tested: – the first hypothesis is that the narratives of the autobiographical memory of russian-germans are strongly influenced by this group’s media discourses reflecting their cultural memory; – the second hypothesis is that there are significant differences in the media discourses of russian-germans in russia and germany associated with the differences in the status of this ethnic group; – the third hypothesis is that russian-germans in germany and russia use the media discourses differently to construct their autobiographical memory, with these differences largely depending on the age and personal migration experience. theoretical framework the starting point for our study is the constructivist idea of rogers brubaker (2004) about the need to separate ethnicity from the groups themselves, which was expressed in the concept of ethnicization. he associated this concept with a sense of joint belonging, which, like an event, happens or does not happen (brubaker, 2004, pp. 22–23). viacheslav popkov advanced brubaker’s ideas further and argued that combining with any cultural practices, ethnicity becomes part of the social reality of individuals, and is perceived as something natural, primordial, self-evident by them (popkov, 2016, p. 121). for russian-speaking groups, the defining characteristic is not ethnicity or citizenship but the soviet cultural practices. therefore, we are dealing with the transnational russian-speaking space in modern germany. the basic criterion that is applied to identify russian-germans as a separate ethnic group is, therefore, the russian language (popkov, 2016, p. 147). the next step is to describe the russian-speaking residents of germany as a peculiar transnational group, whose identification varies depending on the project in which the participants are involved. from popkov’s view, the boundaries of such an identity are “fuzzy” and are defined situationally. the priority here is not ethnic roots but the networks of connections (boyd, 1989; pattie, 1999; popkov, 2016). the above-described understanding of cultural boundaries clearly correlates with contemporary research on collective identity and social memory. for example, renowned sociologist of culture, stuart hall (1996), notes that the term “identity” can be understood as a “temporary attachment to the subjective positions that discursive practices construct for us” (p. 6). he also wrote: changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 37 i use “identity” to refer to the meeting point, the point of suture, between on the one hand the discourses and practices which attempt to “interpellate”, speak to us or hail us into place as the social subjects of particular discourses, and on the other hand, the processes which produce subjectivities, which construct us as subjects which can be “spoken”. (hall, 1996, pp. 5–6) in our case, these are the discourses of the cultural memory of russian-germans. the mobility of this “suture” of identity in the commemorative aspect was analyzed by jeffrey olick (2007), who proposed a relational approach to social memory. he proposes to consider collective memory as a certain combination of various social forms, spaces, and practices: from ordinary memories to general forms of maintaining a pattern. memory is a social activity, a process, not a static object: “the analytical goal of research on collective memory should be to understand figurations of memory— developng relations between past and present—where images, contexts, traditions, and interests come together in fluid, though not necessarily harmonious, ways ...” (p. 91). we must understand, however, that the thesis about the constructability of cultural memory also has its limitations, since the construction of images of the past cannot but rely on elements of autobiographical and family narratives, which very often persist despite the influence of social discourses (sietz, 2004). “the past, in some respects and under certain circumstances, stubbornly resists attempts to reshape it” (schudson, 1989, p. 107). in our article, we will try to confirm this thesis by looking at the autobiographical narratives of the russian-germans, which, among other things, reflect the strategies these people use to adapt their cultural memory to the current reality of life in a specific country. autobiographical and family memory are two closely connected concepts, nevertheless, there are some important differences between them. v. v. nurkova (2000) defines autobiographical memory as a subjective reflection of a segment of a person’s life path, which consists in fixing, preserving, interpreting, and updating autobiographically significant events and states that determine the self-identity of a person as a unique, self-identical psychological subject (p. 19). one of the significant cultural frameworks for constructing autobiographical memory is family memory, which, as a. erll aptly puts it, “serve as a kind of switchboard between individual memory and larger frames of collective remembrance” (erll, 2011, p. 315). c. lenz and h. welzer (2007) see the family as a relay between personal, autobiographical remembering on the one hand and public remembrance and official images of history on the other (p. 15). we believe that family memory is one of the environments where images and practices of historical culture are circulated. historical culture, in its turn, is understood here as the social production of knowledge about the past and its manifestation in a community’s life. the relational approach outlined above has already been applied in the study of russian-germans as communities of memory in the federal republic of germany (frg) by olga zeveleva (2014a, 2019). based on the collected biographical interviews and analysis of the discourses of the cultural memory of russian-germans in the frg, she showed that https://changing-sp.com/ 38 andrei a. linchenko, bella v. gartwig the dominant discourse of the history of russian-germans is formed by the system of “filters” in the german host society, and these filters, in turn, were formed from the elements of individual histories. … this understanding is reproduced as an averaged “collective history” of russian-germans in germany. (zeveleva, 2014a, p. 124, trans. by andrei linchenko & bella gartwig [a. l. & b. g.]) comparing the official narratives shared by integration organizations and the german media, she was able to show the direct dependence of the autobiographical and family stories of russian-germans on these narratives: in the case of repatriation, the host state plays a leading role even in the individual understanding of family history, as well as in the migrants’ understanding of their place in society through this history. this may lead to a collective sense of the history of the group as the history of victims. (zeveleva, 2014a, p. 125, trans. by a. l. & b. g.) in the case of russian-germans as repatriates to the frg, it is not only the narrative of suffering throughout soviet history that comes to the fore but also the narrative of return, which creates mythological grounds for perceiving the history of an ethnic group. in our article, we would like to confirm these findings for the specific age group of respondents and to compare the role of the german and russian contexts in the construction of autobiographical memory by the media discourses of russian-germans. sources and methods in the spring of 2018, we conducted 12 narrative interviews in bochum, dortmund, and siegen, with the support of the german academic exchange service (daad) and the ruhr university in bochum. four interviews were conducted with people aged 20–30, five interviews with people aged 30–50, and three interviews with people aged 50–70. at the time of the interview, all the respondents were german citizens and had lived in germany for at least three years. all of them were russian-germans. when forming our sample, we took into account the fact that russian-speaking migrants could face different adaptation conditions in different cities. the federal state of north rhine-westphalia was chosen because there was a large number of russianspeaking migrants in comparison with other lands (ministerium für arbeit, integration und soziales des landes nordrhein-westfalen, 2013; worbs et al., 2013), which could contribute to the formation of a special transnational russian-speaking space. in the winter of 2022, we conducted 12 interviews in the cities that were previously part of the volga german republic (saratov and samara) and in lipetsk. four interviews were conducted with people aged 20–30, four interviews with people aged 30–50, and four more interviews with people aged 50–70. the collected interviews revealed a number of similar tendencies in narrative descriptions. this article will provide quotes from the interview, reflecting the most typical and recurring opinions. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 39 in our study, the methods of narrative psychology and biographical analysis described in the works of fritz schütze were used. this methodology is well known to researchers and has been repeatedly used to study the life histories of migrants (treichel & schwelling, 2006; zeveleva, 2014a). fritz schütze (1984) proposes to consider a biographical story recorded in the course of a narrative interview as a conceptually unified one. the interviewer does not interrupt the narrator, allowing them to build the plot of the story in a free form. only at the end of the interview, the narrators answer a series of clarifying questions, which in the language of the theory of schütze is referred to as the phase of narrative questions (p. 80). according to schütze (1983), the history of life is a sequentially ordered layering of large and small sequentially ordered procedural structures (p. 284). with the change of dominant procedural structures over time, the corresponding general interpretation of the life history of the bearer of the biography also changes. the most important goal of schütze’s methodology is to correlate the informant’s life history with their subjective interpretations. this is achieved through a comparison of such procedural structures as intentional processes (life goals of the biography bearer, actions taken by them in the process of overcoming difficult life situations), institutional patterns (prescribed rules of behavior on the part of the family, educational system, professional circle) and flow curves (general identity dynamics). in schütze’s analysis, flow curves can have both positive and negative meanings. positive meaning signifies the curves that are ascending in progression, they open up new spatial opportunities for action and development of the narrator’s personality as they become able to establish new social positions. negative meaning, on the contrary, stands for the curves that are descending in progression, thus the narrator’s space of opportunities for future action and development becomes limited by “layers” of previous biographical experience. the direction of life curves can be determined not only by looking at the characteristics of the autobiography. as olga zeveleva (2014b) has shown, the discourses of the host society are an important source for migrants’ meaning-making around their autobiographical and family memory. in her research, she relied on a wide range of sources: the newsletter volk auf dem weg [people on the way], posters and texts of exhibitions dedicated to the history of russian-germans in berlin, websites of integration houses in berlin and hamburg, and the official website of the friedland border transit camps. in this study, we have sought to evaluate her findings by applying the methodology of critical discourse analysis developed by siegfried jäger (2001) for the analysis of the media discourse of russian-germans in germany and russia. jäger’s approach focuses on the origin and transformation of valid knowledge and its function in the constitution of subjects and in the shaping of society (jäger, 2001, p. 32). jäger defines knowledge as “all kinds of contents which make up a consciousness and/or all kinds of meanings used by respective historical persons to interpret and shape the surrounding reality” (p. 33). in defining the discourse concept, jäger follows jürgen link, who sees it as an institutionally consolidated concept of speech since it determines and consolidates action and thus already exercises power (link, 1983, p. 60). jäger’s model is well-known and has already been repeatedly applied to the https://changing-sp.com/ 40 andrei a. linchenko, bella v. gartwig analysis of printed publications. the research procedure includes the general review of the publication and the selection of specific fragments of discourse, the study of the context (visual elements, the structure of the presentation, the topics covered), description of rhetorical techniques (the form of argumentation, symbols, tropes), the isolation of the ideological component and the general intention of the text. the resulting in-depth analysis deals with the specific discourse fragments and the discourse strand. the “discourse strand” is an analytical construct that jäger defines as the sum of text fragments (discourse fragments) on one topic (jäger, 2001, p. 47). to study the german context of the discourse of russian-germans, we turned to the volk auf dem weg newsletter for 2015–20211 and museum für russlanddeutsche kulturgeschichte [the museum of russian-german cultural history] in detmold2. this way we were able to supplement zeveleva’s findings. for the study of the narratives produced and reproduced by russian-germans living in russia, we analyzed the materials of rusdeutsch portal3 and illustrated reference books dedicated to russiangermans (cherkaz’ianova, 2016; smirnova & tishkov, 2021), the newspapers sibiricshe zeitung plus [siberian newspaper plus]4, moskauer deutsche zeitung [moscow german newspaper]5, and the electronic book of memory of russian-germans (gedenkbuch, n.d.). the important source for us was the documentary russkie nemtsy [russian-germans] (2014) that was shown on tv channel kultura [culture] with the financial support of the ministry of culture of the russian federation (eisner, 2014). our task was to analyze and compare the main discursive strands that can act as meaningful patterns for the autobiographical memory narratives of russian-germans in russia and germany. the repatriation narrative in media discourse of russian-germans in germany the main milestones in the history of russian-germans, reflected in their family narratives and cultural memory, could be as follows: the resettlement to russia in the 18th century, the establishment of the volga german autonomous republic in 1924, the stalinist repressions of the late 1930s and mass deportation to kazakhstan in 1941, repatriation to germany in the late 20th century (mukhina, 2007; smirnova & tishkov, 2021). as zeveleva’s research showed, in all the interviews she collected in 2013–2014, the autobiographical dynamics unfolded within the framework of a specific family memory formula: we were invited by catherine ii to the volga region, where we lived and worked before the persecutions under stalin. we were deported to siberia and central asia, where our ancestors worked in the labor army. after the end of the war, we were discriminated against in the ussr. then helmut kohl invited us to germany, and we left because of the nationalist sentiments of the late 1980s and 1990s. (zeveleva, 2014a, p. 118, trans. by a. l. & b. g.) 1 https://lmdr.de/vadw/ 2 https://www.russlanddeutsche.de/en/ 3 https://rusdeutsch.ru/ � https://bibliothek.rusdeutsch.ru/periodika/gazeti/6625 5 https://bibliothek.rusdeutsch.ru/periodika/gazeti/1058 https://lmdr.de/vadw/ https://www.russlanddeutsche.de/en/ https://rusdeutsch.ru/ https://bibliothek.rusdeutsch.ru/periodika/gazeti/6625 https://bibliothek.rusdeutsch.ru/periodika/gazeti/1058 changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 41 it is important to emphasize that the standardized narrative as a “narrative of return” (narrative of repatriation) was relevant for all the generations of repatriates with different levels of education, which leads zeveleva to the conclusion about the “standartisation of stories as a way of explaining the link between personal storytelling and state discourses” (zeveleva, 2019, pp. 640–642). in our study, we will try to confirm this idea and further elaborate on it. we analyzed the issues of the volk auf dem weg newsletter for 2015–2020 as well as the main exhibition of the museum of russian-german cultural history in detmold, germany. since the discursive space of the newsletter and the museum is organized in accordance with multiple semantic strategies, we have selected the materials directly related to the representation of the history of russian-germans through the stories of individual families. the newsletter volk auf dem weg has a permanent section where narratives of the family memory of russian-germans are published. these include the stories about childhood memories shared by their parents and the stories dealing with the main stages of their lives. the critical discourse analysis of family histories presented in the newsletter confirmed the conclusions of olga zeveleva about the presence of a standardized narrative (narrative of repatriation), which acts as a frame for family memory. as an example, let us look at the discursive strands identified in the narratives of the häussler and bender families. the story about the benders was published in four issues of the newsletter in 2015 (no. 6–10). rudolf bender told the story of his mother, ida bender, as well as her family history. the analysis of the context, rhetorical devices, styles of argumentation, and ideological components allowed us to identify several discursive strands in his narrative. the first and main discursive strand is presented as a narrative of the suffering of one family, through which one can see the fate of the entire people. the story emphasizes the uniqueness of the suffering of russian-germans, which is incomparable with anything else in the world history (gossen-giesbrecht, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2015d). the second discursive strand of the story is presented as the story of ida’s struggle for the rights of the russian-germans in the ussr and their rehabilitation. in this context, the image of the first motherland arises, that is, the republic of the volga germans, which the characters of the story seek to revive. the third discursive strand is the peculiar “fate” of russian-germans who return to germany and find another motherland. as a result, ida bender wrote a book about her family’s history, which can be seen as an act of completion of her family’s long and winding road. the narrative of repatriation stands out in the autobiographical and family memory of ida häussler. the main discursive strand of her story was the resistance to russification and the desire to preserve german culture through generations. the collective metaphor here is “life in a german cocoon” (paulsen, 2020, p. 20, trans. by a. l. & b. g.). her desire to write a family history as an autobiography is clearly visible in a number of sequences and can be seen as the second discursive strand. the third discursive strand is identified only after the interviewee was asked a series of questions about their family’s dreams of moving to germany (der traum von deutschland). and here the narrative comes closest to the typical german media narrative of repatriation https://changing-sp.com/ 42 andrei a. linchenko, bella v. gartwig as ida points out that from her early childhood, she heard her family members talking about returning to their historical homeland, germany (paulsen, 2020, p. 21). we found a similar discursive strand in the expositions of the museum of russiangerman cultural history. the critical discourse analysis of the main exposition entitled ausgepackt [unpacked] showed that the narrative of repatriation is an important final part of the reconstruction of the 250-year history of the russian-germans. the entire historical path of the ethnic group is presented as a process of emigration to russia and their subsequent return to their homeland, with the image of an unpacked suitcase symbolizing the end of this journey. thus, the museum fully fits into the discursive space created by the integration institutions of russian-germans in germany. based on the works of olga zeveleva (2014a, 2014b, 2019) and our own research, we can conclude that the main discursive strand of this space is the narrative of repatriation, centred around the idea of a “fateful return” cultivated in several generations of russian-germans. the repatriation narrative in the autobiographical memory of russian-germans in germany the analysis of the autobiographical narratives of russian-germans living in the federal state of north rhine-westphalia has given us a dual picture. on the one hand, it confirmed the conclusions of olga zeveleva about the presence of a standardized narrative of repatriation in most interviews (in 10 out of 12 interviews). on the other hand, the analysis of the historical experience of migration in autobiographical memory as a factor in the ascending biography curve shows that the influence of the repatriation narrative significantly depends on the age of the respondents. the autobiographical narratives of people aged 18–30 have only a few elements of this discourse, since for young russian-germans the experience of repatriation is mostly a childhood experience. remarkably, all the interviews contain the images of germany as a transit country, while the greatest preference is given to the countries of the mediterranean and, first of all, spain. a vivid example in this case is the upward curve of marianne’s biography (18 years old), whose whole life is presented as a process of constant overcoming of institutional restrictions, where the experience of integration only strengthens her motivation for self-growth and development: i have lived in germany for seven years. i studied in spain for a year at the university. when i came back, i realized how much people here are dissatisfied with their life, although they have everything they need. they have both financial and state security, insurance. in spain it’s not like that. there everyone will say hello to you, wish you a nice day, no matter whether you are beautiful or not. people tell you what they think. they are not afraid to tell you their thoughts. why should you be afraid? (marianna, 18 years old) the representatives of this age group consider their family past as an insignificant stage of their autobiography, demonstrating full acceptance of this narrative without changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 43 any critical reflection. for them, it is a given, since they cannot remember any other experience, except for the experience of repatriation. in their autobiographical narratives, the people aged 30–50 were the most prone to interpreting their memory in line with the views on the russian-germans’ past that are prevalent in the western european discursive space. for example, they seemed more at ease talking about gulag as a negative event and its impact than the other age groups. we found the largest number of elements of the repatriates’ official narrative for the presentation of their family and autobiographical memory in the structure of the interviews of this age group. since migration was a turning point for them, the level of openness to repatriation narratives was higher. remarkably, they tend to view their family history and their own repatriation in line with the generalized family history in media, that is, as the story of their return to germany. the example of an ascending biography curve is found in the narrative of michael, for whom repatriation was not only about getting more opportunities but also about the fulfilment of an old family dream: during my childhood it was always somehow emphasized that we were germans. my relatives have been living here for 35 years. my mother’s parents left a long time ago and when they came to us, they said that you would go there anyway, and somehow it was already implanted in the children’s minds that we should leave as soon as possible. we only had to submit documents. (michael, 40 years old) a different situation is found in the case of a biography as a descending curve. for elena (aged 36), migration marks the before/after watershed in her life. she perceives her emigration to germany as forced because this decision was taken by her mother, who took part in the resettlement program. the main hypertext that frames the interview and runs as its leitmotif can be summed up by the phrase “i’m still looking for myself.” this hypertext is found in almost all the sequences and is mainly represented by the arguments and dense descriptions. furthermore, we found an internal text that can be summarized as “i am a russian in germany” in some descriptions and, to a greater extent, in a series of arguments at the end of the first part of the interview and in some answers to our questions. despite the fact that the narrator puts some effort into constructing a chronologically sequential narrative, the rhythm of her story is broken in the sequences dedicated to her repatriation to germany and the difficulties of the first years of life there. elena’s case testifies to the dominance of the cognitive figure called by f. schütze “verlaufskurven” (life curve). schütze (1983) illustrates his idea of life curve by discussing an autobiographical narrative of a seriously ill person, who tells how their illness began and progressed, how their place in the social space and their identity gradually changed. retrospectively, the narrator strings all the events they reproduce into one thread—the formation and unfolding of the experience of the patient’s suffering. in such a story, there is always a key moment that is a turning point for the narrator’s life and biography: the memory of the starting point of the trajectory, of how the narrator felt sick or learned about their illness. in the case of elena, such a turning point is her repatriation to germany, which tore her life into two parts, “before” and “after”. in this regard, the interpretive efforts made by elena to present https://changing-sp.com/ 44 andrei a. linchenko, bella v. gartwig her personal history only partially coincide with the biographical processes. her intentional processes are insufficient to overcome the institutional restrictions, which creates the need for a constant reassessment of all the life’s main stages. migration and repatriation to germany is interpreted and presented as a downward process, leaving unresolved the question of the biographer’s further life strategy. during the subsequent inquiries, elena said that she was caught between the two worlds and that she no longer thought of returning to russia for good. as for the people over 50, the situation was contradictory. this age group bears the family memory of the soviet period, of deportation and discrimination. therefore, we might have expected them to be the most ardent supporters of the use of the international narrative of repatriation as a mnemonic framework. however, only in half of their narratives did we find a connection with the official discourse of russiangermans similar to the one conveyed by volk auf dem weg. their autobiographical experience after the repatriation sounds like the idea of returning to the land of their ancestors, as a result of the preservation of the german language and culture, as a positive result of the torments endured by the older family members in soviet times. in this case, therefore, the elements of family and autobiographical memory are constructed precisely on the basis of the return narrative. the other half of the interview demonstrated the persistence of the identity of russian-germans as “ordinary soviet people”, even though, by being subjected to discrimination, they were constantly reminded of their german origins. for them, repatriation was largely seen as a forced measure for economic reasons, and the experience of migration did not divide their life into before and after. their accounts of their family history do not contradict the repatriation narrative, but rather provide a different perspective on it. an interesting example of such an interpretation of the topic of repatriation can be found in the autobiographical narrative of eugenia (69 years old). in eugenia’s biographical narrative, we found two intertwining textualities. the main hypertext, which is the leitmotif, can be indicated by the phrase “i am a soviet person and everything has always been fine with me.” this hypertext is found in all the sequences and is mainly represented by the arguments. furthermore, there is an inner text “i am a german, what can i do about it?” here, ethnic identification is practically inseparable from her identification as a soviet person. telling about various life situations from her past and how she dealt with them, eugenia always identifies herself as a soviet person. importantly, she makes a point of explaining who the russian-germans are and emphasizes that this ethnic identity does not contradict the soviet identity. concluding her story, eugenia notes that she and her family came to germany to “be germans”. identity rediscovery in the media discourse of the russian-germans living in russia in russia, russian-germans use collective images of memory differently because they no longer act as repatriates but as a diaspora. it is important to note that after 1991, all the restrictions on the presentation of russian-germans as an ethnic group were lifted, which led them to rediscover their ethnic identity. in the summer of 1991, the soiuz v changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 45 podderzhku kul'tury nemtsev sssr [the union in support of the culture of the germans from the ussr], whose goal was to restore the good name of the soviet germans, to conduct cultural and educational work, to support scientific research, announced some important transformations: it sought to unite the already existing german meeting centers and centers of german culture from all over russia6. the first major project of the union was the all-union festival of the culture of soviet germans in moscow. in september 1995, in anapa (krasnodar krai, russia), the union initiated the creation of the mezhdunarodnaia assotsiatsiia issledovatelei istorii i kul'tury rossiiskikh nemtsev [international association of researchers on the history and culture of russiangermans] uniting experts specializing on this topic. the association’s goal was to study and preserve the historical and cultural heritage of the ethnic group. since then, the union has regularly held conferences on the history of russian-germans, published scientific and popular science books and magazines, and conducted ethnographic expeditions. despite the fact that many people moved to germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s, russia still has an established diaspora of russian-germans. we are talking about the institutionalization of the cultural experience of russian-germans in russia. these processes are supported by a large number of organizations and cultural centers. for instance, in recent years, online portal rusdeutsch7 has turned into an integrative media center for russian-germans, providing information about all the main social and cultural events. for a more detailed analysis we chose the following rubrics of this website: the virtual museum of russian-germans, the electronic book of the memory of russian-germans, the history of the germans in russia, urban stories about the germans in russia, and the online exhibition “sovetskie nemtsy v gody velikoi otechestvennoi voiny: tragediia i podvig” [“soviet germans during the great patriotic war: tragedy and feat”]. we also analyzed the newspapers sibiricshe zeitung plus [siberian newspaper plus] and moskauer deutsche zeitung [moscow german newspaper] for 2015–2021. we analyzed the fragments of their publications as well as illustrations containing references to family history. the discourse analysis of the texts from rusdeutsch portal and from the newspapers of russian-germans shows us two main discursive strands: first, of russian-germans as repressed people and, second, of their outstanding role in the history of russia. let us look at each of them in more detail. 1. repressed people. in this discursive strand, russian-germans are presented as one of the repressed peoples of the ussr. they are a nation that has been persecuted. the tragic stories of russian-germans are among the most important pages in the international history of the victims of political repressions. the stories of lives interrupted present the stalinist repressions as an apotheosis of meaningless suffering. in other words, here we are dealing with the collective trauma caused by the mass persecutions and deportation of the 1940s. importantly, this collective trauma involves elements of family memory as well as elements of the global memory of stalinism and stalinist repressions. in the last three decades, a substantial contribution to the construction of this global memory has been made by the international organization “memorial”8 (in today’s russia it is recognized as a “foreign agent”). 6 https://30.ivdk.ru/ 7 https://rusdeutsch.ru 8 признан иностранным агентом министерством юстиции рф. https://changing-sp.com/ https://30.ivdk.ru/ https://rusdeutsch.ru 46 andrei a. linchenko, bella v. gartwig the international organization “memorial” was created in the late 1980s as an attempt to use the memorial frame of the holocaust in relation to the victims of stalin’s political repressions and mass deportation of peoples. the discourse of russiangermans as “repressed people” fully fits into this pattern. unlike the commemorative projects of “memorial”1, which actualize the theme of historical responsibility, the “repressed people” discourse of russian-germans avoids this topic and focuses entirely on the victimhood of this ethnic group. this gives the discourse an irrational dimension, pointing to the tragic fate of russian-germans in the era of persecutions. this topic is associated with empty spaces and silences in the narratives. some vivid examples can be found in the online project of the book of memory of russian-germans (gedenkbuch, n.d.), in the materials of the newspaper moskauer deutsche zeitung [moscow german newspaper] (larina, 2017), and in the documentary film russkie nemtsy [russian-germans] (2014). the film describes the history of two families, eisner and sieben, who survived the deportation and are still living in the altai territory. the history of these families appears as part of the history of the repressed people. it is significant that the questions asked to the members of the eisner and sieben families are exclusively related to the description of the hardships and difficulties of the war and post-war periods, their everyday grievances and problems with neighbors. the film, however, does not contain a single critical remark regarding the policies of the government and the communist party. it clearly illustrates the departure from the theme of historical responsibility (eisner, 2014). 2. the outstanding role of the russian-germans in the history of russia. the second discourse describes russian-germans as the people who have played a huge role in the technological and cultural development of russia. this idea is conveyed through the description of the diligence and unity of the russian-germans living in the volga region, siberia, and near st. petersburg. significant attention is given to the big role of traditions in preserving the identity of russian-germans in their centuries-long history (cherkaz’ianova, 2016; smirnova & tishkov, 2021). it should be noted that this semantic line can be traced in the publications devoted to the history of russian-germans in russia (cherkaz’ianova, 2016; smirnova & tishkov, 2021). an important component of this discourse is the memory about soviet germans’ participation in the great patriotic war of 1941–1945, which presents them as a group that suffered persecutions but remained loyal to their country (sovetskie nemtsy, n.d.). in this regard, a good example is the story of margarete schulmeister that describes the history of suffering and the history of life of an ordinary soviet person, who is helped not by the faceless state but by the good people around. in the interview for moskauer deutsche zeitung [moscow german newspaper], she says: at 96, i don’t have much time left for me today. with everything i’ve been through, it’s a miracle i’m still alive. i’ve seen a lot of inhuman things. but on my way, i have always met people who were like angels to me. the village school director livshits, teacher kogan, principal mozhayev, the widow in kokchetav—so many years have passed, but i often think of them. (künzel, 2021) changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 47 identity rediscovery in the autobiographical memory of the russian-germans living in russia as was shown above, the autobiographical narratives of russian-germans in germany reproduce the narratives of repatriation (“narrative of return”) in their media discourse. however, speaking of the influence of media discourse on autobiographical memory, it is important to take into account the specifics of the host society itself as well as the tendency of the autobiographical and family memory to “resist” the discourse imposed by society. therefore, after analyzing the discursive space constructed by russiangermans living in russia, we are going to focus on the narratives of autobiographical and family memory. the analysis of biographical interviews with russian-germans in russia showed the need to identify not only age groups, but also to consider their willingness/unwillingness to repatriate to germany. in our interviews with those russian-germans who are not planning to emigrate, we noticed the unequivocal dominance of the discourse about the outstanding role of germans in the history of russia. the narratives of suffering are least frequently observed in the interviews with people aged 18–30: for them, the german past itself is practically not articulated. in autobiographies, people of this age group demonstrate adherence to the same life values as ordinary young russians. the family past is presented as a set of memories constituted by the stories of older relatives, but our respondents showed no desire to critically evaluate these stories. these respondents largely see their german origin as a circumstance that mattered in specific life situations: my grandparents were going to leave for germany. but they didn’t succeed. they told me later that the german embassy recognized them and their children as german citizens but the soviet government refused to give permission for their children to leave. they didn’t return to this issue. but i didn’t ask either. (elena, student, 19 years old) as a rule, the narrative about the outstanding history of russian-germans in russia mostly deals with the achievements or the cultural role of grandparents or great-grandparents. the pages of the family history are presented as inseparable from the history of the country, the events in the story unfold against this background. among the 30–50-year-olds, we found three narrative strategies. the first narrative strategy was to describe the autobiographical and family history, where the most important driver is not the interviewee’s ethnic origin, but the family life of the respondents and their satisfaction with their life in russia. in this case, the narrative contains only fragmentary information about the tragic pages of the family’s history and it does not directly affect the ascending curves of their stories. a vivid example is inga’s autobiography, whose main hypertext can be summarized as “i do what i love in this life.” as a subject of her life path, inga makes interpretive efforts in presenting her life story in such a way as to be able to overcome the institutional limitations. the difficult family past appears here as a distant background which the narrator accepts with sadness but neither tries to analyze nor considers relevant to her present life. this https://changing-sp.com/ 48 andrei a. linchenko, bella v. gartwig is clearly shown by the analysis of the internal text that can be summarized as “i am german, but i love russia”: it so happened that i have never been to germany. i really want to go there. of course, i need to see my closest relatives. my grandfather’s brother corresponded with them for a long time. but in general, i am such a patriot of russia ... despite all our stories that make life here uncomfortable and with all my admiration for europe, i am convinced that i will not leave. i love to come back. i know there are all sorts of citizenship programs. and it would be nice to be there. i would not be able to live there permanently because i was born here. i love russia very much and i love samara very much … for me, being a german is not something rational, something that can be broken into separate parts—one, two, three. for me, this is more of an emotional component. (inga, journalist, 30 years old) this trend is quite common among russian-germans: “discovering” new dimensions of their identity, our respondents did not associate it with the need to repatriate, instead pointing out the material and spiritual reasons to stay (mamattah, 2012, p. 1927; vedernikova & kravchenko, 2021, p. 22). the second narrative strategy is to keep silent about the repressions and deportation. the respondents deliberately talk about the positive pages of family history and their autobiography. in two interviews, as soon as the story touched on the issues of deportation and stalinist repressions, the narrator immediately changed the subject: mother is a native citizen of saratov region. my father’s nationality is russian, my mother is german. naturally, grandparents from that side were also germans. my father’s parents were russian. my grandfather was the director of the trubechensky sugar factory, both under the capitalists and under the communists. grandfather was married several times. my father is from his third marriage. at the age of 96, he went to the forest to get some mushrooms and never returned. on the mother’s side, the story is very complicated: the repressions in 1942, 58th article, krasnoyarsk region, the village of turukhansk. (valery, retired pilot, 44 years old) further, the narrator abruptly changes the subject of the story and begins the story of the important role of stalin and beria in the career of his father, a military pilot. thus, traumatic memories are supplanted by the “positive” history of the family, which, according to the narrator, is an inseparable part of the history of the country. the third narrative strategy comes closest to those evaluations of the russiangermans’ past that are given in international research literature on the crimes of the stalinist regime. international memory images are used as a framework for selfpresentation and reconstruction of autobiographical, family, and cultural memory and for reformatting the narrator’s identity. we encountered the narratives of people preparing the documents for moving to germany, which involved the reconstruction of family history in order to prove their german origin. unlike other narrative strategies, in changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 49 this case, the experience of suffering of their family members turned out to be paramount. the mnemonic frame for them was not the memory of the repressed people but the narrative of the holocaust. one of the narrators (nadezda, 62 years old) has shown us a prepared video material about the history of her family and its tragic pages. during the presentation of the video, we saw that she used music and footage belonging to the memory of the holocaust (soviet songs about buchenwald, footage of the prisoners in auschwitz) as a background. it is significant that the entire personal history of the respondents is described as a continuation of family suffering, which will be ended by moving to germany. the narrative of suffering is linked with the narrative of return. since the main hypertext of nadezhda’s biographical story is constituted by her involvement in the relationships with her relatives in germany and by her dreams of repatriation, we may conclude that here we are dealing with an ascending biographical curve. the “german” side of her identity becomes a kind of a mirror in which her current life is reflected (mamattah, 2012, p. 1934). against this background, the efforts of the narrator to reconnect with the “german” side of her identity look completely understandable. to this end, she resorts to specific material practices: changing her russian surname to her grandmother’s surname, celebrating german holidays, restoring the recipe for baking “grandmother’s” buns. in the age group over 50, we are dealing with the biographies of “ordinary soviet people”. therefore, the tragedy of the russian-germans is interpreted as a personal tragedy that affected the closest relatives. however, here we find the dominant factor, which is the need to move to germany. in the cases where the respondent demonstrated a decision to leave for the frg, the narrative strategy of returning dominated the autobiographical memory. interestingly, it was not so much about returning to the land of their ancestors but about reuniting with the relatives who had left earlier. thus, the german repatriation narrative was reproduced in a form that is specific to the autobiographical story: family should be there. as we all used to live, so we must live now. my brothers are all already in germany. and i’m waiting for the permission. it turns out to be my second homeland. but the motherland is where the native people are. (anna, pensioner, 68 years old) when the respondents do not intend to move to germany, their autobiographical and family history elements are constructed around the two discourses at once— russian-germans as a repressed people and the role of the relatives in the formation and development of the country. they ask me—why didn’t you leave? i say, i can’t answer the question openly. mom and dad are here. they worked here, they raised the country. because you were born here. our language is russian. there were various facts that kept me here. and soviet society too … we read books on russian-germans, history. we talk about holidays when we meet. it is hard to keep everything together without https://changing-sp.com/ 50 andrei a. linchenko, bella v. gartwig a homeland. everything seems to blur. you have to come to your historical homeland. (erika, pensioner, 65 years old) the use of the discursive framework of the outstanding role of russian-germans in the history of russia acted as a kind of compensation for the losses and tragedies of the repressed people. this allowed us to reveal the upward curves of autobiographical stories in all the interviews of this age group. conclusion the paper shows the potential of the synthesis of the biographical method and critical discourse analysis to shed light on how social discourses are adapted and transformed in the narratives of autobiographical and family memory. the russian-germans living in germany and in russia are a peculiar transnational group whose identification varies depending on the project in which its members are involved. the boundaries of their identity are “fuzzy” and defined situationally, which, as we have shown, is connected to the differences in the processes of ethnicization of this group. for the german case, the processes of repatriation were of prime importance, while in russia, this group has become a full-fledged diaspora over the past thirty years. our article confirms the evidence of the previous research showing the strong influence of the host society and its discursive environment on the autobiographical and family memory narratives of russian-germans. we have also found, however, significant differences in the discourses themselves. in the media discourse of the russiangermans in germany, the main discursive strand is the “return narrative” (repatriation narrative), which places the tragic history of russian-germans between the two waves of migration, from germany to the russian empire and from the countries of the former ussr back to germany. in the media discourse of the russian-germans in russia, we found two main discursive strands: the former centres around the image of the repressed people without touching upon the problem of historical responsibility while the latter focuses on the outstanding role played by the russian-germans in the history of russia. our study showed that the influence of the discursive media environment on the autobiographical and family memory of russian-germans living in germany and russia depends on the respondent’s individual life experience (the curve of their biography), age, and some peculiarities of their family history. media discourse not only constructs but also in a certain sense “brings together” the elements of an autobiographical and family story, structuring and giving them a certain semantic orientation. people aged 30–50 were the most open to the influence of collective “standardized” narratives both in germany and in russia. this can be explained by the high level of their mobility, the need to integrate into the host society (in the case of germany), and to pursue an active career (in the case of russia and germany). it was found that despite the fact of living in russia, those respondents who were preparing to move to germany demonstrated acceptance and active reproduction of the “return narrative”. they used international mnemonic frameworks to restructure their autobiographical and family story. the group of 18–30-year-olds in both countries used only certain elements of the media discourse of russian-germans, while for changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 34–54 51 those over 50, soviet cultural practices and the perception of themselves as “ordinary soviet people” were significant. at the same time, we found that for the older group, the german “return narrative” acquired a special significance for those respondents who intended to repatriate to germany. references boyd, m. 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(2019). states and standartisation: constructing the co-ethnic migrant story in germany. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 45(4), 636–655. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2017.1409175 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839402481 https://erinnerungskultur.rusdeutsch.ru/ https://erinnerungskultur.rusdeutsch.ru/ https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.31.2006.3.127-150 https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.31.2006.3.127-150 https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-67912-4 https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2014.06.09 https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2014.06.09 https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2017.1409175 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 225–231 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.038 editorial the politics and pedagogy of religion education: policies, syllabi and future prospects1 abdulkader tayob university of cape town, south africa the articles in this special issue emerged from a conference organised at the university of cape town in march 2018, through the generous support of the national research foundation of south africa. the initial aim of the conference was to further develop the understanding of religion education (re) in south africa since it was promulgated in a policy published in 2003. re has been introduced into the curriculum in two ways. in a general sense, the teaching about religion was integrated in compulsory subjects called life skills and life orientation. here, learners were appropriately introduced to the diversity of religions in the country and the world. secondly, a special subject was developed at the senior level called religion studies. this subject was an elective and devoted to the study of religions in history and contemporary societies, using the methods and theories developed in the modern study of religions. in recent years, more and more schools were offering this subject for senior learners in the most populous provinces in the country: gauteng, kwazulu-natal and the western cape. the conference was designed to bring together researchers in southern africa to discuss on what had been achieved so far, and how to further develop the subject. as a special feature of the conference, teachers and subject advisers were also invited to present their experiences of introducing the subject into schools. the conference and the papers assembled here demonstrate a model of partnership between teachers and researchers. but re cannot be appreciated in south africa without a good understanding of what other countries have done with the subject and the kind of opportunities and challenges that they were facing. it was decided to specifically invite researchers from countries in the 1 this article is based on the research supported in part by the national research foundation of south africa (reference number (uid) 85397). the opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed are that of the author, and the nrf accepts no liability whatsoever in this regard. received 2 september 2018 © 2018 abdulkader tayob published online 30 september 2018 abdulkader.tayob@uct.ac.za https://changing-sp.com/ 226 abdulkader tayob south to promote a south – south discussion and dialogue on re. but this discussion would not completely ignore developments in europe and america, so the meeting was also open to some reflection on re taking place there as well (jackson et al., 2007). the conference and the proceedings are a testimony to a global discussion on re, even though it does not lose its focus on the subject and its future in south africa. from the second half of the 20th century, re has become a norm in many different regions and countries. a few examples illustrate the trend. sweden, norway, denmark and the united kingdom (england in particular) witnessed early developments in re in the 1950s. the teaching of religions beyond confessionalism was contemplated in the context of greater democratisation and secularisation. while the dominance of one religion has not completely disappeared in these countries, its teaching as exclusive dogma has progressively waned. as a result of secularisation, religion was no longer considered the main source of identity and values. moreover, the pluralisation of western societies from the 1970s by way of immigration further confirmed the need for re that was not focussed on one religion. in the united states, a court decision in 1963 paved the way for teaching religions in schools and universities in a non-confessional way (moore, 2007, p. 4). but re was introduced in policies much later: england (1988), ontario, canada (1990), sweden (1994), and norway (1997) (skeie, 2015; berglund, 2014; jackson and o’grady, 2007; van arragon, 2015). since the events of 9/11, many western countries have renewed their commitment to re for what are perceived as present and future culture wars (wright, 2004; jackson, 2010). diversity in society and school seems to be the main driver for re. it is not surprising, therefore, to see several experiments in africa after decolonisation. zambia attempted to introduce such a policy in 1977, while zimbabwe has considered introducing re in schools in the 21st century (ndlovu, 2014; mwale and chita, 2017). nigeria and kenya have addressed religious diversity in the classroom by introducing separate programmes for christians and muslims (hackett, 1999). researchers were invited to present papers on re interventions and programmes in various countries. papers in this volume offer reflections on re policies and syllabuses prepared for teachers, focussing on their histories, challenges and implementation. the papers and discussions covered south africa, zambia, india, russia and england. four themes appear repeatedly in the conference and in these papers: values; the politics of re; the definition of religion; and methods through which religion may be introduced in schools. the themes are closely related, but they may be analysed separately for greater clarity and ideas for further research. the importance of values flow through all the papers in this volume. more specifically, ahmed bhayat has focussed on its transformative role in schools in south africa. where schools and societies were segregated in the past, re now offers lessons and insights on all religions in one classroom. i would like to identify at least three ways that values are manifested in these papers in particular, and the field of re in general. the most elementary value that is promoted by re as a subject qua subject is greater inclusivity in a school district, region or country. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 225–231 227 inclusivity is probably one of the key motivations for introducing re in countries. in whatever form re is introduced or hotly debated, it usually aims to replace monoreligious education as in south africa, or to re-introduce religion in education as a fundamental aspect of social life once ignored as in russia (this volume, stepanova). this gesture, which is often initiated through a public or policy discussion, manifests the value of recognising diversity in every society and its schools. sensitive and conscientious teachers find it untenable and unacceptable to teach one religion in a classroom with learners from diverse backgrounds. confessional or dogmatic education becomes even more problematic when the laws and constitutions declare that learners have a right to religious freedom. the persistence of religion in public life provides another opportunity for developing and manifesting values. re plays an equally important role in promoting the values of respect and mutual dignity among adherents of different religious groups. such respect might not necessarily need the development of a special curriculum, but re offers a deeper foundation for such social and civic values. it exposes learners to the beliefs, practices and narratives that inspire fellow learners and future national and global co-citizens. this deep knowledge and familiarity of religious traditions that share a social space offer a firm ground for living in peace and harmony in a world of diversity and distinction. there is a third dimension of values that pertains to re which is often overlooked. in a world in which relations among religious groups are dominated by perceptions of conflict and mutual hostility, it is often forgotten that religions may also be studied for the resources they offer on how to live by values, and which values are important for social and individual well-being. the history of religions offers detailed accounts of how, when and where, and which values are founded, debated and embodied. the pursuit of the good life, in its many different permutations, represents one of the key dimensions of religious life. there are, then, three ways in which values are central to re: the value of inclusivity that inspires the introduction of re; the values that support inter-religious relations based on knowledge of the other; and the values that are embraced by religions. i began with the theme of values because i believe that they are the prime motivation for scholars and teachers working in re. but values and religions are located in political societies, which are inevitability messier in practice than on paper or in the hearts of learners, teachers and researchers. the histories of re reveal the politics of introducing the subject in various countries. the papers of manisha sethi and elena stepanova in this volume show this phenomenon most clearly in india and russia respectively. they offer valuable case studies on debates about which religions are emphasised, which included and which exclude in re. there are currently two theoretical models that are helpful for thinking about the politics of re. at the state level, talal asad has put forward a compelling thesis that the secular and religious are like siamese twins tied at the hip. in his view, modern states engage in a process of religion making through secularisation policies (asad, 2003). according to asad’s theory, the state would see re as an ideal opportunity through which to regulate religion. the state does not only make it possible to believe and practice religions, but https://changing-sp.com/ 228 abdulkader tayob also judiciously guides such beliefs and practices. from this perspective, then, which religions are emphasised, included or excluded stand at the centre of state interests. asad presents an alternative model to the one that emphasises the separation of religion and politics. here religion and secular states occupy different spheres, and are bound to oppose each other as they compete over the same interests. both state and religion want to control and guide populations to the good life. religions in recent times, according to lincoln, thrive in the face of weakening states (lincoln, 1998). according to this model, re guarantees freedom of religion and also from religious domination. lincoln’s model may inform the state to be wary of any religion becoming dominant, and jeopardise its political and social projects. whichever theory one finds more appropriate, both suggest that a transformation of re in a country would lead to competition or conflict between religions, and between states and religions. a discussion of the politics of re cannot ignore the role of religion in public life. re is located in schools but prepares learners and students for public life. lee scharnick-udemans’ paper on the representation of religion in state media brings attention to this question. following asad’s thesis, scharnick-udemans shows that the teaching of religion on public television is not innocent of the goals of the state. but one may take a different approach to religion in public life by paying attention to the work of josé casanova (casanova, 1994). against asad, casanova argues that religion may offer valuable insights and values for public and political life. his model is deeply rooted in the european history of religions, but may be an inspiration for thinking about religion in public life in general. following casanova, we may recognise an independent or critical role for religion in public life in general, and re in particular. maitumeleng nthontho’s paper in this volume calls for mediation skills for teachers and principals to negotiate this difficult terrain in schools. the third related theme in re concerns the nature and definition of religion. the study of religions finds itself between an earlier theological and confessional approach which it rejects, and a postmodernist attack that challenges its foundations. re, like the study of religions in general, rejects a theological approach that would describe its “religion” as “truth”, while others as “false”, “heresies”, “satanism” or “witchcraft”. from an inside theological perspective, there is nothing to compare between the true and the false. in contrast, re uses the category of religion to distance itself from this position, arguing that religions are comparable, and that they have as many common elements and functions as they have differences. postmodernists in the study of religions have questioned this assumption, and argued that the category of religion is not as coherent and stable as it appears. the teaching of multiple religions in a classroom makes a fundamental assumption that is often overlooked. re assumes that one may compare and contrast the beliefs, practices and values of african traditional religions, judaism, christianity, islam, hinduism, buddhism, and new religious movements. it is said that these very different traditions with divergent histories are forced into comparative analysis (for a discussion of postmodern in re, see wright, 2004; raschke, 2012). against this postmodernist criticism, re must take the responsibility to identify what religions are in general and how they may be studied. this has not been easy, but there is changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 225–231 229 a significant intellectual legacy in the study of religions that offers some answers. l. philip barnes’ paper in this volume puts the issue into perspective, showing how the history of re in england has engaged with this legacy. re in schools seems to work best when it adopts clear models for thinking about religions so that they can be studied together. if religion is regarded as a social value, then religions would be studied from the perspective of how communities are formed around sacred events, how some are excluded and others included, and how new challenges are mediated. this model is derived from the work of emile durkheim who laid the theoretical foundations for studying religions in the 19th century (pickering, 1975). developing durkheim’s ideas, mircea eliade focussed on the experience of the divine that he considered central to the meaning of religions. like durkheim, he also worked with the sacred and profane as the building blocks for all religions, but focussed on the special religious experience that was produced in relation to the sacred (eliade, 1959). another approach has been promoted by talal asad in arguing that religions work like languages which provide adherents the means to think, talk and debate about values and society, but also about power and ideas of the past and the future (asad, 1993). this is only a glimpse of how the study of religions offers useful insights on how religion works with symbols, practices and narratives. a working model may offer a useful platform for teachers entering the field, caught between the variety of religions on the one hand, and the multiple theories competing for space in universities, colleges and training centres. the fourth theme at the conference and in these papers concerns practical methods for presenting re in the classroom and school. we heard several contributions from teachers at the conference who were working with textbooks and various media. the papers of sibusiso mgenge and lee scharnick-udemans in this collection offer a glimpse of the opportunities available for teachers, and also the challenges that they face. media in the form of posters, films and documentaries can bring the subject closer to learners. they can represent religions in a tangible and accessible way. one important way of thinking about media is to recognise its role in the practice of religion. media are not merely a means to represent religions, but very much part of religions. the materials of religion, from the clothes worn every day or on special occasions, to the food consumed, occupy a central place in religions. in re, they offer opportunities to discuss and interact with the subject at a concrete level. where possible, learners may be encouraged to share personal materials that they have at home. a visit to a nearby religious site may open rich opportunities to get close to religions for further reflection and study. in my discussions with teachers, good textbooks and media remain a challenge for making the subject accessible and learner-friendly in south africa. in this area, we hope that the conference and these proceedings will offer further opportunities for collaboration. the following papers, then, offer a glimpse into the deep discussion at the conference in 2018 in cape town. in this introduction, i have identified four themes that emerged at the meeting and in these papers. and these themes are present in local and global debates on re. values occupy an important foundational role for re, and might be further discussed and debated in specific contexts. the politics of re https://changing-sp.com/ 230 abdulkader tayob cannot be ignored, as it often occupies a large space in public and political debates that confront the implementation of re. the politics of re threatens to dominate, and suppress the fundamental values that may be developed through the subject. the definition or model of religion might seem like a highly theoretical subject left to specialists, but it can provide an anchor for textbooks, classrooms and projects. and finally, in our highly saturated mediascapes, re may offer an opportunity to appreciate how media works in religions and in life in general. references asad, t. (1993). genealogies of religion: discipline and reasons of power in christianity and islam. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. asad, t. (2003). formations of the secular: christianity, islam, modernity. stanford: stanford university press. berglund, j. (2014). swedish religion education: objective but marinated in lutheran protestantism. temenos, 49(2), 165–184. retrieved from http://www.ojs.tsv. fi/index.php/temenos/article/download/9545/13974 casanova, j. (1994). public religions in the modern world. chicago & london: the university of chicago press. eliade, m. (1959). the sacred and the profane: the nature of religion. (w. r. trask, trans.). new york: harcourt brace & world inc. hackett, r. i. j. (1999). conflict in the classroom: educational institutions as sites of religious tolerance/intolerance in nigeria. brigham young university law review, 1999(2), 537–560. retrieved from http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=1966&context=lawreview jackson, r. (2010). religious diversity and education for democratic citizenship: the contribution of the council of europe. in k. engebretson, m. souza, g. durka, & l. gearon (eds.). international handbook of inter-religious education (pp. 1121–1151). dordrecht: springer netherlands. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9260-2 jackson, r., miedema, s., weisse, w., & willaime, j. p. (eds.). (2007). religion and education in europe: developments, contexts and debates (vol. 3). muenster: waxmann. lincoln, b. (1998). conflict. in m. c. taylor (ed.), critical terms for religious studies (pp. 269–283). chicago: the university of chicago press. moore, d. (2007). overcoming religious illiteracy: a cultural studies approach to the study of religion in secondary education. new york: palgrave macmillan. mwale, n., & chita, j. (2017). trailing a missionary teacher’s position and contributions in zambian religious education. religion & education, 44(1), 22–38. doi: 10.1080/15507394.2016.1271221 http://www.ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/temenos/article/download/9545/13974 http://www.ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/temenos/article/download/9545/13974 http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1966&context=lawreview http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1966&context=lawreview http://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9260-2 http://doi.org/10.1080/15507394.2016.1271221 changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 225–231 231 national policy on religion and education (npre). (2003). retrieved from http://www.dhet.gov.za /legal%20and%20legislative%20services/national%20 policy %20on%20religion%20in%20education%20(gg25459,%20notice%20 1307)%20amended.pdf ndlovu, l. (2013). religion education teaching in zimbabwe secondary schools: the search for an authentic values-oriented multi-faith religion education pedagogical model. british journal of religious education, 36(2), 174–201. doi: 10.1080/01416200.2013.781500 pickering, w. s. f. (1975). durkheim on religion: a selection of readings with bibliographies. london: routledge & kegan. raschke, c. (2012). postmodernism and the revolution in religious theory: toward a semiotics of the event. charlottesville: university of virginia press. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wrjmt.5 skeie, g. (2015). what does conceptualisation of religion have to do with religion in education? in l. g. beaman, & l. van arragon (eds.) issues in religion and education. whose religion (vol. 25 series international studies in religion and society)(pp. 126–155). leiden: brill. van arragon, l. (2015). religion and education in ontario public education: contested borders and uneasy truces. in l. g. beaman, & l. van arragon (eds.) issues in religion and education. whose religion (vol. 25 series international studies in religion and society) (pp. 34–58). leiden: brill. wright, a. (2004). religion, education and post-modernity. london: routledgefalmer. acknowledgements we wish to thank all the participants for taking the time to join our meeting in cape town, and then those who contributed with revised papers. a special word of appreciation and gratitude is due to danika driesen who helped enormously with the collection, collation and copy-editing of this special issue. https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.dhet.gov.za/legal%20and%20legislative%20services/national%20policy%20on%20religion%20in%2 http://www.dhet.gov.za/legal%20and%20legislative%20services/national%20policy%20on%20religion%20in%2 http://www.dhet.gov.za/legal%20and%20legislative%20services/national%20policy%20on%20religion%20in%2 http://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2013.781500 http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wrjmt.5 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 4–5 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.1.056 received 6 march 2019 © 2019 elena a. stepanova published online 1 april 2019 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com editorial editor’s note the articles in the current volume of changing societies & personalities explore the main theme of the journal – value changes – from different perspectives. aurea mota and peter wagner in the rhino, the amazon and the blue sky over the ruhr: ecology and politics in the current global context consider the rise of ecological issues as a global concern. they state that the tremendous socio-political transformations of last fifty years, which gave born to a notion of “multi-polar” globe, did not change the depletion of the earth resources, and concentrate the analysis on the political and social aspects of the ecological crisis in a global context. the article draws examples from different regions in the world, namely, the threats to amazon rainforest, rhino poaching in rsa, on one hand, and improvement of air and water in europe, on the other hand, and discuss ecological issues in the light of “de-industrialization” of so-called “advanced industrial societies”, which in practice was the industrial relocation from there to other regions all over the globe. the main concern of the authors is asymmetric externalization of environmental damage, especially in climate change; they assume that it “imposes an interpretation that recognizes that the instrumental transformation of the earth is strongly related to past domination and appropriation”, and interpret the paris agreement of 2015 as the recognition of historical injustice done by developed countries to developing countries. the article raises an important question concerning the ways of the shift towards post-material values including ecology in “developing” countries. ekaterina purgina’s paper spatial imaginary in “western” travelogues about russia analyses three travel narratives about russia, which are focused on specific aspects of the life in the country and its background. purgina describes the features of travelogue as personal account of a journey, which expresses the individual vision, as well as her/his context, providing the picture of an alien place through the lens of another culture, thus making it perceptive by the native audience of the writer (narrator). she underlines that spatial imaginary of the travelogue is unique due to the use of “vivid images, gripping stories that are told by those who have the first-hand experience” in the described realities. purgina is particularly interested in revealing the image of russia’s type of modernity as it is presented in travelogues. through the analyses of the centre/periphery, past/present, and political/personal dichotomies, she demonstrates both the peculiarities of the picture given in travelogues and the reality behind them, thus provoking the reader of the paper to justify or judge the controversial image of russia from her/his own perspective. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 4–5 5 in her provocative paper self-shooting uterus-owners: examining the selfies of pregnant transmen within the politics of human reproduction, aireen grace t. andal analyses transpregnancy from philosophical point of view. she stresses that in spite of the fact that transpregnancy is seen by many as a deviation, in the age of digital media it becomes public and requires adequate interpretation. examining transpregnancy through selfie as new visual genre, andal argues for the need to analyze its character and raises the question of its place “in the struggle for trans-identity expression in the context of a constant digital public scrutiny”. she reviews various discourses on transbody and transpregnancy and underlines that they are usually seen as “problematic relationship between trans-identity and health”. in the course of the paper, andal makes interesting conclusions concerning the nature and goals of transmen selfies as digital images, and proves that they go beyond the issue of trans-identity and recognition being the way of self-reflection of modernity’s individuals. the research note section presents neža prelog, fayruza s. ismagilova, and eva boštjančič with the paper which employees are most motivated to share knowledge – the role of age-based differentiation in knowledge-sharing motivation. the authors explore the problem of age diversity in the workplace in the light of intergenerational knowledge sharing. based on interviews with the employees of several slovenian companies, the authors review different knowledge-sharing mechanisms and models and explain the reasons of choosing cognitive model as the foundation for the empirical part of the research, which is aimed at studying “the correlation between intergenerational differentiation and knowledge-sharing motivation, that is, the willingness of employees of different age groups to share their knowledge”. this is a pioneer approach since there are no studies based on correlation of these two concepts. the results prove significant differences between age groups in their motivation of knowledge-sharing, and explain the reasons for them. the current issue of cs&p also includes two book reviews. the first one is of hate, politics, law: critical perspectives on combating hate (2018), by andrey menshikov. the reviewer questions the reduction of discriminatory attitudes and bias-motivated violence to “hate”, and strengthens the need to approach the dangers of hate in contemporary society more reasonably. the second review is of kelly, mark g. e. (2018) for foucault: against normative political theory by daniil kokin. the reviewer makes some critical remarks on the book and recommend it to those who are interested in foucault’s political thought, as well as in normative political theory and its alternatives. discussions on the topics raised in the current issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal, and new themes will be introduced. we welcome suggestions for thematic issues, debate sections, book reviews and other formats from readers and prospective authors, and invite them to send us their reflections and ideas! for more information, please visit the journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ elena a. stepanova, editor-in-chief https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 326–328 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.4.049 received 3 december 2018 © 2018 elena a. stepanova published online 15 december 2018 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com editorial editor’s note the global south is a research concept, which gained currency fast and which tends to replace previously wide-spread notions of the third world and developing countries. the global south today is analyzed from a variety of perspectives. it refers to geographical grouping of countries with emerging economic and growing political impact. on the one hand, countries included in the global south are actively asserting themselves in the international arena, and, on the other hand, are troubled with many issues that significantly differ from those “developed” global north faces. it is important to note that many of these issues stem from the colonial past of the countries of the global south. brics as the most advanced of the international organizations of the global south begins to play increasingly important role in the development of higher education. the evidence for the positive impact it has is the brics network university, the brics ministers of education’s cooperation efforts, and the interest of the global academia in the new models of south-south university collaboration. this special issue involves scholars and practitioners in discussing how higher education influences the situation in the global south and whether it can spur its development. should it focus, for example, on internal problems of the south, such as human development and struggle against poverty, or it must be oriented towards international standards of the research university? should the governments invest in the excellence programmes to establish world-class universities, or should they create conditions for equal education opportunities and for enhancing inclusive nature of the higher education? is higher education capable of boosting development in the countries with high unemployment and illiteracy rates? in maxim b. khomyakov’s paper, brics and global south: towards multilateral educational collaboration, he notices that brics as an international grouping has always been an odd phenomenon. brics countries still have very different opinions on many issues; nevertheless, what they have in common is their vision for a new global order, in which education would play the most important role. the situation, however, is very complex, since education (especially, higher education) both has very important national tasks, and is an element of the nation’s global performance. that is why higher education is https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 326–328 327 mostly ridden with contradictions between its functions in developing imaginaries and its role in competition on the global educational market. in the article, he reflects upon the discussion of the contradiction between global orientation of the universities, and the necessity for them to play important role in domestic affairs through addressing local problems and developing valuable imaginaries. this tension among other things is expressed in contradiction between various global excellence projects, on the one hand, and horizontally structured university networks and associations, on the other. in addition, he analyzes the role of brics countries in the light of articulating the interests of global south. dr. david monyae in the paper us, russia, china and africa in the evolving global order rises the complex issue of the post-world war ii global order, which is in deep crisis now due to changing roles of such powers as usa, russia, and china. dr. monyae’s main concern is the african states, which are disregarded by this new order, and are “no longer seen to be of any importance, as they had been during the cold war”. however, as he mentions, there is an emerging “intra-west” competition over gaining favour with african countries, and developing countries can take advantage of this. in addition, dr. monyae stresses the importance for african scholars to study intensively the historical and present intentions of the foreign policy of the above-mentioned countries. he concludes that african states should not “pick sides” in global struggle for dominance, but follow their own agenda based on longterm goals and prospects seeking cooperation with these powers “only insofar as there can be an africa-centred outcome”. in the paper higher education, development, and inequality in brazil and south africa maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, and tom dwyer undertake the comprehensive analysis of the higher education in brazil and south africa taking into consideration both countries’ controversial history of inequality, as well as the expansion of the role and scale of universities in last 25 years. the authors pose the question if the growth of the number of higher educational institutions and enrollments creates high quality or “world-class universities” in these countries; in answering this question, they provide deliberative report on the quality and problems of education there. among other issues, they reflect upon the international ranking as popular method for evaluating educational institutions, which presently is under sharp debates all over the world. the authors conclude that in spite of important steps towards greater democratization of higher education in both countries, still it is not sufficiently inclusive, and remains relatively closed, particularly in courses that give access to more prestigious and well-paid careers. yuyun li in the paper development of cooperation in higher education in brics countries stresses the fact that the brics countries see the collaboration in higher education as being extremely important; at the same time, she strives to distinguish existing difficulties and problems in current cooperation such as the shortage of funds and the lack of publicity. she believes that five countries can learn from each other, and explore solutions in the area of education: “when higher education in one country accepts and adopts ideas, curriculum, languages, cultures, traditions and even talent training from other countries’ education systems, the https://changing-sp.com/ 328 elena a. stepanova collaboration between education systems leads to amplified results and guaranteed intelligence, and forms the basis for long-term and stable cooperation”. li yuyun suggests enhancing of multi-disciplinary and multi-form educational exchanges and cooperation projects with mutual participation, which creates an open and diverse partnership network in educational development. the current issue of cs&p also contains two book reviews. the first one is of victoria smolkin’s (2018) a sacred space is never empty: a history of soviet atheism, presented by andrey s. menshikov. as it is argued in the review, smolkin’s book as a “panoramic study is a must-read for those who specialize in the soviet history as well as for those who work in religious studies”. the second review is of jonathan floyd’s book (2017) is political philosophy impossible? thoughts and behaviour in normative political theory, presented by daniil i. kokin. the reviewer makes some critical remarks on the book and concludes that generally it is an important contribution to the foundations of political philosophy. discussions on the topics raised in the current issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal, and new themes will be introduces. we welcome suggestions for thematic issues, debate sections, book reviews and other formats from readers and prospective authors and invite you to send us your reflections and ideas! for more information, please visit the journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ elena a. stepanova, editor-in-chief acknowledgements a special word of gratitude is due to maxim b. khomyakov who helped with the collection and copy-editing papers of this special issue. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 156–159 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.2.068 book review michael ignatieff (2017). the ordinary virtues: moral order in a divided world. harvard university press elena a. stepanova institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia more than hundred years ago andrew carnegie established church peace union aimed at fostering world peace by promoting dialogue among the world’s faiths. later, the union was transformed into the carnegie council for ethics in international affairs. michael ignatieff’s book the ordinary virtues: moral order in a divided world initially was conceived as part of the celebration of the centennial of carnegie’s project. the idea of the book was “to commemorate the illusions about moral progress that gave rise to carnegie’s bequest in 1914, as well as to investigate what moral globalization looks like in the twenty-first century”; and “to take ethics out of the seminar room and study how it shapes people’s judgments and actions close to the ground where conflicts start” (р. 3). in june 2013, ignatieff accompanied by a small research team started a journey of moral discovery that was to take it, over the next three years, to bosnia and south africa, myanmar and japan, usa and brazil. each place forms a separate chapter in the book and illuminates a specific aspect of ordinary virtues, ranging from corruption and public trust to reconciliation after periods of intense conflict. the team was commissioned by the council to hold global ethical dialogues with experts, academics, jurists, and journalists on the questions: is globalization drawing people together morally? in spite of all differences, what virtues, principles, and rules of conduct are humans sharing? how does moral reasoning manifest itself in real life? the methodology of the project was to evaluate through dialogues on moral themes the idea that, as economies, lifestyles, technologies, and attitudes globalize, ethical reasoning also globalizes (р. 5). in other words, sharing the same goods, markets, lifestyles, and life chances, people might share similar patterns of moral reasoning. the belief in human rights, along with humanitarian law, environmentalism, and the religious languages of received 2 june 2019 © 2019 elena a. stepanova published online 1 july 2019 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 156–159 157 global solidarity, was presupposed to be a possible candidate for a new global ethic, but critical questions remain: how far and how deeply had this ethic spread? had it really displaced or challenged local moral codes? how did the battle between the local and the universal, the contextual and the global, play out in the moral lives of ordinary people? (р. 5) and how people can create shared moral operating systems from hundreds of different origins, histories, and religions? these were the questions the research team had started with in conversations with people in different settings. the first chapter summarizes conversations with community organizers, local politicians, police officers, urban theorists, and local passers – by in queens (newyork) – the place of more different racial, ethnic, and religious groups living together than in any other county in the united states. people there are living side by side, as opposed to living together; and for them, tolerance is not a universal value, just a workaday social practice (р. 15). in the second chapter, the readers found themselves in los angeles where whites and african americans are now a declining percentage of the population, while latinos and asians make up more than a half. altogether, there are people from 115 foreign countries speaking 224 different languages (р. 52). therefore, the central ethical problem there is how to generate collaboration among strangers who do not share a common origin, religion, or ethnicity. as michael ignatieff notes, “in a diverse city everyone balances primary and secondary affiliations as a matter of course. they may live their most meaningful hours ‘inside’ their own communities of language, race, or origin, but they also live ‘outside’ because work leaves them no choice or because they like spending time with people different from themselves” (р. 60). in the third chapter, the conversations in rio de janeiro favelas are analyzed with the aim to examine what rapid economic growth has done to the moral and political relations between enriched and empowered middle classes and poor people left behind. the fourth chapter is about today’s bosnia – the place of afterwar important exercise in “moral globalization where outsiders, trained in the moral disciplines of universalism and the techniques of reconciliation and forgiveness, trying to persuade battered insiders to adopt their moral codes” (р. 93). the fifth chapter brings the readers to the buddhist monastery in mandalay (myanmar) where through the talks about ethnic and religious relations the conclusion was made that for the first time, burmese society have to ask itself what a democratic country means and who it belongs to – the buddhist majority or the hundreds of minorities, especially muslim, who make it their home (р. 117). the sixth chapter examines the attitudes of people in japan after fukushima explosion. for ignatieff, they seek to do their best in impossible situations, and such a regard for the safety of others is firmly rooted in their “hope in the future of such a community”, and “depends on some shared belief in a collective future worth fighting for” (р. 165). finally, the seventh chapter describes the fragmentation of the initial alliance of actors after the battle against apartheid in south africa was won. ignatieff examines what he calls the “fantasy of the rainbow nation”, and stresses that transition to a liberal democracy is not a redemption story, but “a tough struggle between elites https://changing-sp.com/ 158 elena a. stepanova determined to use power for their own purposes and a populace struggling to get their hands on at least some of the fruits of democracy” (р. 190). in each location, ignatieff finds a common emphasis on what he describes as “ordinary virtues” – the collection of habits and intuitions such as trust, tolerance, forgiveness and reconciliation. these are not the result of abstract moral reasoning, but are rather “unreflexive and unthinking”. in all locations, as ignatieff underlines, the individuals they talked to never separated their own private dilemmas from the wider social context of conflict in which they lived: “generalities about human obligation and moral reasoning [mean] little”; instead, “context was all” (рр. 26–27). while philosophers might think in terms of “the human race, some abstract standard, beyond the veil of ignorance” (р. 208), ordinary people think through moral situations in terms of concrete human relations with their family and friends. it means that instead of dialogues on values themselves, which risked becoming too abstract, the research group decided to focus on the common practical problems of people. the researchers wanted to find out whether people in different settings speak the same ethical language when they confront such issues as corruption and public trust, tolerance in multicultural cities, reconciliation after war and conflict, and resilience in times of uncertainty and danger. ignatieff insists that “virtue was local”, meaning that “we are always in a particular situation, a context, a moment […] and we are always with others, with people whose opinion shapes us and whose views we wish to shape” (р. 209). it is worth mentioning that the title of ignatieff’s book draws on michel de montaigne’s essay “of cruelty” where five hundred years ago he described acts like “greed, lust, envy, and hatred” as “our ordinary vices,” and spoke of vice and virtue as often coexisting and competing with one another. the book shows that in view of the actions of individuals within a local community, the language of human rights is ambiguous. as ignatieff argues, the human rights revolution has changed what many of us believe about the duty of states; but he doubts it has changed us (р. 216). at the same time, the spread of democracy and of the idea of human rights universalized the notion that citizens have a right to be heard. the research team wanted to understand how global norms like human rights work within everyday moral assumptions. for most of the people they talked to, human rights entered their moral perspective chiefly as an inchoate belief that all human beings, as individuals, are equal: by this, the interlocutors, often very poor people, meant equality of voice. so, ignatieff writes, “we are in a new moral era in which the struggle for equality has produced a clamor, sometimes violent, for recognition and acknowledgment” (р. 28). ignatieff concludes that equality of voice and moral choice as an individual responsibility were the two new expectations observed everywhere. a further conclusion drawn from the conversations is that “the reaction against the forces of globalization is not a passing discontent, but an enduring element in ordinary people’s defense of their identities” (р. 204). thus, the most striking feature of the ordinary virtue perspective is how rarely any of the participants evoked universal principles of any kind – that is, ideas of general obligation to human beings as such – and how frequently they reasoned in terms of the local, the contingent, the here and now, what they owed changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 156–159 159 those near to them and what they owed themselves. tolerance as an ordinary virtue is “a discipline of moral individualism, a decision formed by life experience, to suspend prior judgment, to take people as they come, to judge them on their merits, to bat away stereotypes and focus on the distinct reality of the person with whom you are dealing in a moral situation” (р. 212). as james traub points out in the new-york times, one of the chief merits of ignatieff’s book is that he discovered in the course of his research that the question he had asked – “is globalization drawing us together morally?”, – was the wrong one. the right question is: “how can we hang on to decency in a world where old patterns, good and bad, have been disrupted?” in addressing that challenge, ignatieff’s book represents a triumph of execution over conception1. ordinary virtues, ignatieff repeats, do not generalize. they do not ignore difference, and are not interested in ethical consistency; they are anti-theoretical and anti-ideological. in the conflict situation, they are easily exploited for a politics of fear and exclusion. at the same time, they are also the key to healing, reconciliation, and solidarity on both a local and a global scale. the book is thus an analysis of virtues at work in an unjust, dangerous, and uncertain world, a study of how people reproduce virtue and moral order in complex circumstances. 1 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/books/review/ordinary-virtues-michael-ignatieff.html https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/books/review/ordinary-virtues-michael-ignatieff.html changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 71–75 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.1.062 received 10 march 2019 © 2019 daniil i. kokin published online 1 april 2019 d.kokin@icloud.com book review kelly, mark g. e. (2018). for foucault: against normative political theory. albany: suny press. daniil i. kokin ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia the most recent book written by mark g. e. kelly, associate professor at western sydney university in australia, has already received two distinct reviews (see choat, 2018; vogelmann, 2018). to justify this new review, i would like to make as comprehensive vision of the book as possible by considering the points made in the previous reviews and enriching them with my comments where necessary. however, according to the rules of the genre, i am obliged to reiterate some elements and considerations that were already mentioned in these reviews. thus, i will start with the book’s outline and its purpose, then i will move to the interpretation of the problem the author raises, his overall thesis and arguments defending his position. further, i will explore the content of the book taking in consideration other reviewers’ comments. after that, i will summarize points of praise and critique, which kelly’s book faced. finally, i will give my own analysis and evaluation of the work. in the very beginning, kelly tells his readers that the book “is for and not about foucault” and “against and not about normative political theory” (kelly, 2018, p. 1). it means that the author’s focus is neither foucault’s thought itself (there are previous kelly’s books primarily devoted to it), nor normative political theory, but a defence of the view interpreting foucault as a non-normative thinker, which actually is the main purpose of the book. thus, kelly raises two questions: why it is necessary to oppose normativity and how it is possible. he gives three arguments to the first question (see kelly, 2018, pp. 7–8). we need to oppose normativity because, first, it limits the field of influence to those who adhere to these norms. the second argument is that normativity has unintended consequences. finally, normativity is inherently dangerous. to answer the second question and to prove his thesis, kelly interprets selected authors through the lens of his approach. he tries to show that foucault, even late, 72 daniil i. kokin was an anti-normative thinker, and that his critique is superior to other approaches opposing normativity. he rejects the wider notion of normativity claiming that it has nothing in particular to do with norms (which is arguable), and chooses the stricter definition used in ethics, that is “ought”. kelly interprets foucault’s alternative to normative political theory as threefold, for normative, “political, and theoretic aspects are closely interconnected” (kelly, 2018, p. 11). first, it is anti-normative in the way that it does not have a normative ground in opposing and criticizing things. second, it is a-theoretical because it eschews systematization and does not try to “produce a totalizing explanation of everything” (kelly, 2018, p. 11). third, it is non-political in the sense of “party politics” (kelly, 2018, p. 11) or, in other words, not being a part of politics as such. shortly, foucault’s method is a critique aimed to undermine things through its analysis. the book comprises introduction, where kelly determines the purpose of his work and sets up the methodological and conceptual framework: seven chapters each devoted to a single thinker one way or another related to foucault – these are marx, lenin, althusser, deleuze, rorty, honneth, and geuss, – the last chapter dedicated to foucault’s scholarship, and conclusion. on the whole, the book is indeed “something of an anthology” (kelly, 2018, p. 13), therefore, the order of reading the book can be arbitrary. in the first chapter devoted to marx, kelly tries to show from foucauldian perspective that marx was almost anti-normative thinker and in some sense precursor to foucault. he calls marx a “pivotal figure” (kelly, 2018, p. 17) in the history of political thought. kelly criticizes attempts made in 1970–80s anglophone philosophy to rehabilitate marx as a normative political philosopher, for his attitude towards capitalism was rather an analysis of how it works as a system rather than a moral condemnation. he analyzes marx’s method and his core concepts, such as alienation, exploitation, slavery, and theft to prove that they are purely descriptive rather than normative. however, the author holds that marx failed to promote a nonnormative alternative because he puts forward a political theory of communism, which according to kelly inevitably relies on normative premises and becomes political utopian. moreover, although marx reached antinormativity, he was held back by hegelianism. the second chapter is devoted to lenin. kelly holds that through the comparative analysis of russian revolution and lenin’s work “state and revolution” it becomes clear that lenin failed to realize his theory in practice, that is, incorporate it in real politics, and thus had to substitute it. as the result, there was the time of terror and totalitarianism. as regards to foucault, kelly holds that although lenin invoked to “smash politics, and dispense with morality” (kelly, 2018, p. 58), he was committed to marx’s philosophical ideals. in chapter three, kelly criticizes althusser for being not close enough to foucault’s position because of being detached by his commitments to marxism and leninism. moreover, althusser’s adherence to french communist party and state-oriented politics makes him politically engaged thinker. he also uses some kind of theoretical tools in his thought. in kelly’s words, “althusser commits changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 71–75 73 to a kind of normativity, which resides in his being theoretical and political” (kelly, 2018, p. 72). chapter four is meant to show fundamental differences between foucault’s and gilles deleuze’s philosophies: “the former aims to demolish existing strategies of power through critical analysis of their operation, whereas the latter aims to build up a new positive account of reality in order to free constrained creative forces” (kelly, 2018, p. 76). for this, kelly mostly deals with deleuze’s work “postscript on control societies”. he criticizes deleuze for so-called “normative theoreticism” and his attempt to include foucault’s approach in his thought. in other words, kelly claims that deleuze’s thought is incompatible with foucault’s genuine critical analysis. as kelly puts it, “deleuze’s political philosophy is based in the assertion of a metaphysics, in which forces try to free themselves from evil reconfigurations of them” (kelly, 2018, p. 91). in the fifth chapter, kelly criticizes the way richard rorty reads foucault: although rorty was sympathetic to him, he adhered to normativity by looking for a “realistic utopia” (kelly, 2018, p. 101). kelly claims that foucault’s ideas rather challenge rorty’s pragmatic liberalism than support it. the same thing happens with rorty’s idea of ethnocentric relativism, which “elevates his normative preferences to the status of inarguable political truths” (kelly, 2018, p. 107). the sixth chapter is devoted to contemporary critical thinker axel honneth. kelly holds that honneth, as well as rorty, fails to understand foucault’s position properly. kelly labels honneth’s thought as normative critical theory, and states that foucault is a challenge for him rather than support. however, the main point of criticism is that honneth considers foucault in line with frankfurt school theorists, thus blurring the differences between the thinkers and failing to combine foucault and habermas in his work. in chapter seven, kelly deals with recent works of raymond geuss. he criticizes the movement of political realism geuss belongs to for the view that it is necessary to produce values (political, not moral) and engage in public policy, although the author is sympathetic to the realist critique of the “ethic-first” approach. kelly concludes that normativity, politics, and theory need to be stamped out on the basis of their failure to account for social complexity. in his final chapter, kelly directly aims to defend foucault from normativity by referring to works of paul patton in several steps: he analyzes patton’s original interpretation of foucault as an anti-normative thinker. then kelly answers to the criticism holding that political thought is inevitably based on normative ground, which means that foucault either incoherent or eventually normative. then he examines patton’s defence of foucault against charles taylor’s criticism. finally, kelly criticizes patton’s later work on foucault, human rights and neoliberalism and his claim that late foucault became a normative thinker claiming that referring to the problem of rights is merely “a call for rights only qua limitations on power” (kelly, 2018, p. 156). in conclusion, kelly explains that he sees his work as an attempt of “catching up with foucault” (kelly, 2018, p. 169) because he is considered as the last thinker 74 daniil i. kokin of anti-normative thought. kelly contends that even other french thinkers, such as rancierre, badiou and balibar, were sub-foucauldian because different kinds of commitments to normativity, politics, and/or theory can be found in their ideas. as for badiou, kelly argues about political character of his thought. rancierre, in his turn, is the closest to foucault’s position, as kelly claims, however, his theoretization makes him in some sense normative thinker. and balibar falls for politics more than other two in terms of attempts to “positively determine the goals of politics” (kelly, 2018, p. 171). kelly comes to conclusion that we need to admit the urgency of our “ability to think, act, and live differently” (kelly, 2018, p. 172). kelly admits that we are probably “still caught in the old enlightenment problematic” (kelly, 2018, p. 172). as its outcome, kelly shows trump’s triumph as an example and normative political theory’s inability to resist it. for kelly, this demonstrates that foucault’s anti-normative critique is highly relevant also because today “action urgently needs a new strategic analysis of power relations to inform it” (kelly, 2018, p. 173). to conclude, i would like to summarize both merits and shortcoming noted by other reviewers. simon choat acknowledges the book’s style that makes the argument clear and consistent, although it relates to the continental tradition characterized by “the pretension and needless obscurity” (choat, 2018, p. 1). however, he considers some of kelly’s arguments against normative political theory unconvincing, and doubts on the demarcation line between theory and critique. he claims that “overzealous” (choat, 2018, p. 4) defence and interpretation of foucault’s approach as flawless weakens the book. сhoat finishes his review with a statement, which is absolutely out of place, that it is not acceptable in 2018 “to write eight chapters on political thinkers and to fail to include any women or nonwhite thinkers” (choat, 2018, p. 4). moreover, almost nothing is mentioned about the book’s content. in his turn, frieder vogelmann assesses the book as threefold: (1) original for kelly’s “overall thesis that political thinking should follow foucault’s model of nonnormative critique” (vogelmann, 2018); (2) provoking for combination of author’s thesis and criticism against both analytic and continental normative political thinking; and most importantly (3), infuriating for kelly’s deliberate refutation for his far-reaching claims. vogelmann is dissatisfied with insufficient outline of foucault’s conceptual apparatus claiming that “it weakens the book’s persuasive power” (vogelmann, 2018). he analyses each chapter in detail and also challenges kelly’s approach and its three core elements: normativity, theory, and politics. however, vogelmann does not give proper attention to the final chapter and conclusion, which i think are no less important parts of the book. throughout the book’s outline and other reviewers’ assessment, it has become clear that it is not perfect and has some shortcomings. nevertheless, it does not belittle the book’s importance. i would recommend this book to those, first, who are interested in foucault’s scholarship, particularly in his political thought. second, this book can be useful for scholars concerned with normative political theory and its alternatives, for the view of continental tradition presented here challenges the analytic paradigm changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 71–75 75 dominating within the field. finally, this book might be useful for scholars who are interested at least in one of the thinkers presented in chapters, for it can give a great opportunity to look at them from the other side. references kelly, m. g. e. (2018). for foucault: against normative political theory. albany: suny press. choat, s. (2018). m. g. e. kelly, for foucault: against normative political theory. albany: suny press, 2018. in contemporary political theory, september 2018, (pp. 1–4). doi: 10.1057/s41296-018-0266-8 vogelmann, f. (2018). for foucault: against normative political theory [notredamme philosophy review]. retrieved from: https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/for-foucaultagainst-normative-political-theory changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 101–112 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.2.064 essay power of memory (in commemoration of elie wiesel, 1928–2016) olga potap boston university, boston (ma), usa abstract this essay portrays famous writer and human rights activist, nobel prize winner, elie wiesel (1928–2016) in the role of teacher. wiesel valued this role more than his other achievements. the author’s personal memoir and the archival documents make a core of this writing. the essay is dedicated to wiesel ninety-year-old birthday anniversary. keywords wiesel, elie (1928–2016), commemoration, biography, teaching method, “a socratic method”, holocaust education, appeal to humanity, memory introduction this essay is dedicated to elie wiesel’s ninety-year-old birthday anniversary, and since this publication coincides with the third anniversary of his death, the essay aims to commemorate him. the author had the privilege to be a student of elie wiesel from 2003–2005. this essay is just a quiet tune in a multi-voiced chorus of commemorative speeches, reports, and publications bestowed to the great humanist, writer, and teacher. a word “commemoration” is coined from two latin roots “com”, meaning “altogether “and “memorate” meanings “to remind”. elie wiesel believes in the mystical power of memory and emphasized it in his nobel prize lecture entitled, “hope, despair and memory”, saying that “without memory, our existence would be barred and opaque” (wiesel & aarvik, 1986). to remember a teacher is to hear the voices of his students. altogether, we remember, that is, commemorate him. received 25 april 2019 © 2019 olga potap accepted 31 may 2019 opotap@bu.edu published online 1 july 2019 102 olga potap elie wiesel biography elie wiesel (september 30, 1928 – july 2, 2016) was a well-known writer, journalist, political activist, philosopher, a jewish scholar, intellectual and a great teacher. he was a holocaust survivor. as a teenage boy, he passed through the hell of a ghetto and the concentration camps. he lost his father, mother and younger sister there. wiesel depicted his journey through auschwitz and buchenwald in his first novel night published in 1958. since the first publication, the book has been translated into 30 languages. besides night, wiesel is the author of 57 books. elie wiesel was honored with many awards, including the commander in the french legion of honor (1984), the nobel peace prize (1986) and u.s. congressional gold medal (1984). a significant public figure, “a messenger to mankind1”, “the arbiter of morality in the twenties century” (abramowitz, 1994), wiesel had a passion for learning and teaching. this work outlines both aspects of his love. the first part of the essay describes sources of wiesel’s religious and secular education and portrays his great teachers – shoushani and professor and rabbi saul liberman. the second part of this essay is dedicated to his teaching career at different universities of the usa. the essay outlines the themes of wiesel’s lectures and seminars and depicts the method of his teaching. special attention is given to wiesel’s relationship with his students. the conclusion attempts to sum up the meaning of his lessons of memory in the contest of its humanistic approach. schooling honorable professor of many famous universities, he saw himself as an apprentice, “a yeshivah bucher from sighet”. being a professor, he remained a student who never stopped learning, even in auschwitz. wiesel says that his daily study of jewish texts was essential for him. he says, “i love to study. it gives you a good sense of proportion. after all, what rambam says maybe is more important than the article i write for the new york times” (abramowitz, 1994). in his yeshiva in sighet, a little town in transylvania, he “learned to examine the text from all angles, to penetrate beneath all appearances, to the substance, to the original meaning, but not straight away. the superimposed structures, too, had to be learned. above all, we learned to question the text, and that attitude has remained with me” (wiesel & abrahamson, 1985, vol. 1, p. 343). “what we learned then was to give timelessness to the timely subject in the torah. all the events of the torah were alive; they were a part of my life, and of the 1 egil aarvick, chairman of the norwegian nobel prize committee, called him as “a messenger to mankind – not with a message of hate and revenge but with one of brotherhood and atonement”. elie wiesel, andrew w. mellon professor in the humanities and professor of philosophy and religion changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 101–112 103 existence we celebrated. but that, of course, in judaism: to celebrate every event as though it involves us personally” (wiesel & rothschild, 1995, p. 131). in 1947, wiesel became a student of shushani, “the mysterious talmudic scholar” (wiesel & rothschild, 1995, p. 131). “no one knew his real name, his origin, or his age. …where did he learn all of those ancient and modern languages?... he knew the babylonian and jerusalem talmud by heart; also maimonides, nahmanides, and gresas, not to mention yehuda halevi, the poems of ibn gabirol, and the greek and latin classics as well” (wiesel & rothschild, 1995, p. 124). during the occupation shushani was arrested by an officer of the gestapo. in perfect german, he declared that he was alsatian, aryan, and university professor to boot. the officer guffawed at the sigh of thus vagabond. “you, a professor?” “yes, me.” “and what do you teach?” “higher mathematics.” “no luck. it just so happens that i myself am a professor of higher mathematics in civilian life.” shushani was unfazed, “well”, he replied, “you can, of course, test my knowledge if you like. but i have a better idea. let me pose a problem to you. if you can solve it, shoot me. if not, let me go”. released, shushani slipped into switzerland, where the chief rabbi became one of his most devoted admirers (wiesel & rothschild, 1995, p. 127). wiesel recollects: “for two or three years he taught me unforgettable lessons about the limit of language and reason, about the behavior of sages and madmen, about the obscure paths of thought as it wends its way across countries and cultures” (wiesel & rothschild, 1995, p. 121). “shushani was probably the decisive teacher in my postwar year. he taught me talmud again, and he taught me philosophy. he taught me secular sciences and prepared me for the sorbonne. whatever i knew i got from him” (wiesel & abrahamson, 1985, vol. 2, p. 21). at age twenty, wiesel was enrolled at the sorbonne, where he studied literature, philosophy, and psychology. from 1968 until 1983, wiesel was a student of “the greatest jewish scholar in many generations” (wiesel & abrahamson, 1985, vol. 2, p. 43), a professor and rabbi saul liberman, who was also known under the name of gaon rabbeinu shaul. the death of liberman in 1983 in an airplane heading to the holy land had stopped their study. wiesel (wiesel & abrahamson, 1985, vol. 2, p. 43) wrote about his teacher: professor saul liberman, or rabbi saul lieberman, was the master of talmud. for the last fifteen years, i was his student and friend. twice a week i would come to study with him – alone. each session would last three hours, and it is thanks to him that i can share with others whatever i know now. 104 olga potap he was an extraordinary man. his knowledge was all encompassing. it was both secular and religious. there was no word in the talmud which he could not locate. there was no commentary which he could not quote by heart. the greek influence, the latin influence on the talmud: he gave us the keys to open gates to the enchanted universe of ideas, stories, laws, dreams, and memories. for elie wiesel, the daily study of jewish texts was a ritual. never-ending learning was the style of his life. for more than three decades as a professor of boston university, he was accustomed to the daily routine of studying talmud with his friend, rabbi polak, a director of hillel house at boston university. “during the several decades we spent together at boston university, we fell into the practice of devoting several hours every day delving deeply into a page of talmud, into the ancient debates between the sages, teasing out, as well, their meaning for today” (polak, 2014, p. 9). a chapter “on learning and teaching” in elie wiesel’s book and the sea is never full opens with the statement: “to quote a talmudic sage (rabbi hanina, according to the tractate of taanin, or rabbi yehuda ha-nasi, according to the tractate of malkot): ‘i have learned a great deal from my masters, but i have learned much more from my colleagues, and above all i have learned from my pupils’. this statement reflects my own feeling about teaching”. in wiesel’s case, his desire to learn embodies to desire to teach and vice versa. in his life, there is no straight transformation from a student to a teacher. on the contrary, he was always a student and teacher at the same time. teaching elie wiesel wrote: “as an adolescent, i dreamed of becoming a writer and a teacher. today, i am both” (wiesel, 1999, p. 101). teaching at the yale university elie wiesel’s academic career began in the mid-’60s. he was invited to teach at one of the most prestigious ivy league’s universities, yale. the yale offer sounded very attractive to him: “two courses per semester – one on literature, one on hasidic thoughts” (wiesel, 1999, p. 101). elie wiesel took his responsibilities very seriously – “every hour of lecturing takes four hours of preparations. never had i studied so much” (wiesel, 1999, p. 102). his attitude toward the students was exceptional – “i am very close to all my students; my door is always open to them. i try to make them my friends even though at first they intimidate me, as i probably intimidate them” (wiesel, 1999, p. 102). however, very soon, elie wiesel realized his unique role in the relationship with his students. in the mid-1960s, almost all of these students were children of survivors. wiesel recollects: “it takes me awhile to understand that for them i am a substitute for their fathers. since their fathers were unable or unwilling to share their past with them, they turn to me and take an interest in mine… i thus become a human bridge between two worlds” (wiesel, 1999, p. 102). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 101–112 105 wiesel had to find a tune, a word, a language to communicate with his students “about those years of darkness without shifting the burden to them” (wiesel, 1999). he had to find a way “to convince them that in spite of everything, mankind deserves our faith” (wiesel, 1999). it was a tough task for wiesel and his students. boys and girls came to his office privately, and almost every visitor started and ended their conversation with elie wiesel by sobbing or crying. one boy came crying about his father and mother, auschwitz survivors, who lost their husband and wife and their children in the concentrations camps. they met and remarried after the liberation. they have one son from this marriage. he is wiesel’s student. this boy expressed a sad feeling about his parents’ attitude toward him. whenever they looked at their son or talked to him, they didn’t see him at all. his parents still saw their dead children. another girl came to wiesel to express her anger toward her mother: “how come, my mother, who survived a ghetto and the concentration camp, she, who knew and experiences all of the horrors. how dare she let me born and live in this horrible world?” (wiesel, 1999). wiesel recollects that sometimes the discussion in the class was too intense and emotional that his students were not able to leave his classroom. they “remain seated, heads buried in their hands” (wiesel, 1999). wiesel told his students: “what are we about to learn here? to read, to weep, to dream the end of the dream. and later, to fall down, but also to rise again, to take one step and then another” (wiesel, 1999). elie wiesel decided never to teach the history and literature of the holocaust after his first yale experience. he explained his choice: “i too feel the weight and destructive force of the theme, i sleep poorly. even though i know how to share, there are limits. i feel that i cannot and should not be completely open. in speaking of the victims, how elie wiesel among his friends and students, circa 1989. photo from the private archive of professor hillel levine 106 olga potap can i prevent a student from identifying me with them?” (wiesel, 1999). wiesel broke his promise do not teach history and literature of the holocaust at the university only once when boston university cannot find another professor to teach this subject. although he stopped teaching holocaust studies at the universities, wiesel never stopped talking about oppressors, victims, observers, and survivors relevant to the holocaust or other forms of genocide. he taught his students to appeal to humanity. he pleaded to humanism through the literature and memory; more precisely through literature of memory. that was the primary subject of his classes at boston university. elie wiesel believed in “the mystical power of memory”. in his nobel lecture, he emphasized: “…it is a memory that will save humanity. for me, hope without memory is like memory without hope” (wiesel & aarvik, 1986). teaching at boston university since 1976 until 2013, elie wiesel was appointed as a university professor of the humanities at boston university. he was a faculty member of the department of philosophy and the department of religion. during his tenure at boston university, for three and a half decades, elie wiesel taught two courses per semester, both with the same title: “literature of memory”. one of these courses was always dedicated to a topic of religion, while the second one was concentrated on the subject of comparative literature. even though the title of his courses never changed, the subtitles, as well as the topics of the study, were changed every semester. what did elie wiesel teach at boston university? here are a few examples of his courses2. • literature of memory: hidden literature and banned books – “this course explored writing that were hidden in times of oppression as well as writing that was banned due to controversy. this course investigated themes such as the limits of language, the obligation to witnesses, the persecution of words and the value of recording”. • literature of memory: hasidic portraits: rebbe nachman of bratslav – “this course dedicated to inspiring master, unique storyteller and enigmatic wanderer, the 18th century. hasidic teacher rebbe nachman of bratslav is the guide in a journey through madness and laughter, imagination and interpretation. through biographical reading and tales, we will seek to approach this elusive personality and the secrets he spent his life hiding and revealing”. • literature of memory: literary perspectives: from first novel to masterpiece – “this course will explore the evolution of the novelist’s world view, literature technique, and imagination within the parameters of the author’s first published novel and acclaimed masterpiece. this type of literature comparison invokes and illuminates issue of continuity and perspective as well as the development of other human concerns in the oeuvre of the novelist. reading will include works by ernest hemingway, thomas mann, virginia woolf, f. m. dostoevsky and others”. • literature of memory: the world of the shtetl – “jewish life and literature carry within then an image of the shtetl, that lost world of the small jewish town, where 2 howard gotlieb archival research center at boston university, box 81, folder 19. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 101–112 107 society, religion, myth, and spirituality were intertwined in all aspects of life. this course will try to open the doors of memory to recapture the enchantment, depth, fear and beauty of that lost world, through writings created from within the shtetl, or from within longing for time and place are gone. authors will include: sholom aleichem, y. l. peretz, singer brothers and others”. • literature of memory: reconciliation: promise, challenge, utopia? – “moment of crisis, injustice, and enigma disclose the historical events regarding us to consider the question of reconciliation. this course will explore the dimensions of reconciliation encountered in literature addressing times of discord or crisis including the spanish inquisition, mccarthyism, the vietnam conflict and more. reading will include works by karl jaspers, franz werfel and others”. the followings are the titles of a few other courses that professor wiesel taught at boston university. every title is provocative, intriguing, and controversial: – literature in respond of oppression; – the literature of madness and hope; – faith and revelation in literature; – suicide and literature; – hassidic renaissance. howard gotlieb archival research center at boston university preserves a significant part of elie wiesel’s archives. a syllabus of the course literature of memory: philosophy and literature of friendship is a part of the collection of wiesel’s papers. the text of the curriculum gives an idea of professor wiesel’s requirements for his class and his expectation from his students. syllabus3 this course is an examination of friendship in philosophical, literature and religious texts of the ancient, classical, and medieval worlds and its subsequent understanding and representation in selected periods of western culture. the focus will be given to friendship that might variously be called ideal, philosophical, spiritual, and even romantic. 1. what is friendship? what is the nature of friendship? what is the necessary and sufficient condition for friendship? 2. what are different kinds of friendship there? in what ways are they different? are these differences significant and distinct, or ambiguous and irrelevant? 3. what type of love is friendship? is it preferential love only, and therefore partly unjust? is it strictly philla? how does it relate to eros and to agape? 4. is there a tradition of friendship? is there one tradition that applies to different times and culture, or are there several distinct traditions? what significance did friendship have for the various societies in which it existed? what relevance does it have for contemporary society? 5. is there etic of friendship? are there principles that constitute the making and maintaining of a friendship? is there a logical or necessary relationship between 3 howard gotlieb archival research center at boston university, box 81, folder 22. 108 olga potap friendship and virtue? what is the role of friendship in creating and developing character? the followed is an example of the text selection for the course literature of memory: philosophy and literature of friendship. 1. homer’s “iliad”. 2. euripides “iphigenia in tauris”. 3. plato “symposium”. 4. the tanakh. 5. al-ghazali “on the duty of brotherhood”. 6. jalal al-din rumi’s mystical poems. 7. w. shakespeare sonnets. 8. alfred. lord tennyson “in memoriam”. 9. walt whitman “leaves of grass”. 10. d.h. lawrence “women in love”. 11. kant “lecture of friendship”. 12. the tanakh “david and jonathan story”. 13. plutarch “parallel lives”. 14. cicero “on friendship”. 15. seneca “epistles ix and lxiii”. 16. the gospel of john 13, 15, 19. the diversity of the selected texts approaches to examine the topic of friendship from literature, religion, and philosophical perspectives. “socratic method” of teaching a former student of elie wiesel, rabbi dan ehrenkrantz called wiesel’s approach of teaching “a socratic method”. brilliant speechmaker and storyteller, in his classroom wiesel preferred to listen to his students, asking them open-ended questions and initiated the discussions. he never stood up on a podium giving his lectures. there was no podium in his classroom. as for lectures, wiesel delegated this duty to his students. at the beginning of every class, a student-volunteer made an eight minutes presentation on a particular topic. although these presentations were not evenly excellent and well-thought-out, wiesel listened to them with remarkable attention and addressed questions to the speaker with a healthy respect. his teaching manner was a freestyle conversation. he taught his students the art of listening and the art of asking questions. both skills are crucial for mastering the art of critical thinking. as a jewish scholar, wiesel valued questions much more than the answers. rabbi abraham joshua heschel said: “we are closer to god when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers”. wiesel echoed: “in hebrew, the word for changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 101–112 109 ‘question’ is she’elah, and the alef lamen of god’s name are part of the fabric of that word. therefore god is in the question” (wiesel & abrahamson, 1985, vol. 3, p. 297). wiesel wrote: “in the beginning my students do not understand the arrogance of answers. the professor is supposed to have answers. after a while they realize there is beauty in questions, more than in answers. there is truth in questions. questions never provoked a war” (wiesel & abrahamson, 1985, vol. 3, p. 297). questions and answers it was wiesel’s tradition to dedicate the last class of a semester to question-answer dialogue. students can ask wiesel any questions they wanted, and he responded. what did they ask? • student: what is your greatest achieving in the life? • wiesel: my son. • student: what is your favorite book? • wiesel: life and fate by vasily grossman is one of my favorite books4. • student: why has so much persecution been directed against the jews? when i read jewish history, almost every chapter is about the jews as victims. my question is: why us? • wiesel: we are a strange people… we are everywhere. we defy all systems, so we defy all people. we are not understood, so we are good scapegoats. to cosmopolitans, we are a provincial people. to provincial people, we are cosmopolitans. to the communists, we are the capitalists. to the capitalists, we are the communists. to the nationalists, we are internationalists. to the internationalists, we are nationalists. to the religious, we are heretics. to the heretics, we are religious. no one understands us, so they hate us. do 4 these two questions and answers were recorded by the author of this essay in 2003. tribute to elie wiesel at boston university, sculptor mark melon сlassroom of elie wiesel located at 147 bay state rd., boston, ma 110 olga potap you think people understood abraham? here was a man who lived in a world where idols were worshiped. one day he began talking about one god, an invisible god. abraham was a troublemaker. or moses. do you think people understood moses? his people were slaves, and moses wanted them to be free. people lived by stealing, and he said that you should not steal. why us? the easiest thing is to kill what you do not understand (wiesel & abrahamson, 1985, vol. 3, p. 297). fifteen minutes audience another of wiesel’s traditions was a meeting with every student individually. professor wiesel wanted to know each of them, and he scheduled a time to sit down privately with his students and talk with them about their concerns. an audience with elie wiesel lasted no longer than 15 minutes. what can people tell each other in 15 minutes? was it a long or short appointment? in my case, it was not long or short. a different category, non-time classification, should be applied. after i briefly introduced myself and answered to the standard questions, such as: where did i come from; where do i work; where do i live, wiesel asked me an unexpected question: “olga, are you happy?” i replied without hesitation: “yes” and immediately reflected, why i so confidently answered “yes”. the answer suddenly came by itself, and i confirmed, responding no longer to elie wiesel, but myself: “yes, i am happy because my mom is still alive”. later, i read wiesel’s interview with golda meir (“golda at 75”). among other questions, all of a sudden, he asked her: “madame prime minister, are you happy?” so she replied: “of course”. (for a different reason than mine, indeed). at the end of our meeting, i asked wiesel to sign his book for my friend. he asked my friend’s name and wrote: “to olga’s friend, g. n. elie wiesel”. it was wiesel’s style – to show respect to his students in a gentle manner. he just put my name at the same level as his name. students who were wiesel’s students? wiesel’s courses were a free elective for the undergraduate seniors with different majors of study, graduated students, as well as ph.d. candidates. however, not only boston university affiliates attended his classes. i remember a government lawyer who came from washington, d.c. to boston every week just for wiesel’s classes. i recollect a professor at boston university’s dental school, a surgeon-periodontist, who adjusted his clinical schedule to participate in wiesel’s classes. there was an old lady who attended wiesel’s courses for a few years. she introduced herself as an “auschwitz graduate”. if at the beginning of wiesel’s teaching career at the yale university, the majority of his students were children of the holocaust survivors, then at the end of his tenure, he had many students from germany. they were grandchildren of the enemies. so they come to wiesel seeking for truth and remedy. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 101–112 111 birthday anniversary although he never celebrated his birthdays saying that he had the more important dates in his life, one of his anniversaries i will always remember. it was september 30, 2003. he turned 75 years old. we had a morning class that started at 9:00 am. the students brought some juice and cookies. when he appeared at the door, they shouted, “happy birthday.” wiesel thanked everybody, drank some orange juice and joked that according to hassidic tradition he had to start this day with a shot of vodka… that class he told us about the fate of simon dubnov, a jewish historian, killed in riga ghetto on december 8, 1941. he said as he had witnessed the last days of dubnov. he told about his former student from the university of heidelberg, johann siebert, who killed dubnov. he reproduced the conversation of siebert with dubnov, if he, and not dubnov, answered questions of the murderer. siebert: professor, you have spent a long time talking to your students about the triumph of humanism in 20th century. do you still believe in your ideas of the victory of humanism? dubnow: yes, i do. siebert: yesterday, according to my order, 480 jews were killed in bikernieki forest. dubnow: how many, did you said? 480? thank you for the information. it is essential for my chronicles. wiesel told that dubnov appealed to the jews of riga’s ghetto until the moment of his death, demanding: “yidden, shreibt un fersheibt” (jews, write it all down). wiesel told that dubnov and his primary opponent in the religious disputes, rabbi zak, were shot by siebert; and the blood of these irreconcilable antagonists mingled saturating the snow. having finished his story, wiesel paused and then said: “i know that dubnov wrote a chronicle. and this chronicle is not found yet”. then, the eyes of 75 years old man sparkled like a young man’s eyes, and he stated: “i will find his records!” elie wiesel died three years ago, and he did not find dubnov’s chronicles. however, he gave a hint to his students to learn his lessons of memory. to be a student of elie wiesel in his letter addressed to elie wiesel, one of his students wrote that he would never forged wiesel’s words that he felt the responsibility of each of his students. then, the student said that he feels a great responsibility to wiesel as his teacher as well. then, he concluded: “one of the most vivid feelings i feel toward you is gratitude. as a teacher, you gave me much more than notes and assignments. you gave me a part of yourself5”. ariel burger, the former student and teaching assistant of elie wiesel, answers to the question, what does it mean to be a student of elie wiesel, saying, “it means always learning, thinking higher and feeling deeper, always challenging yourself to 5 howard gotlieb archival research center at boston university, box 81, folder 19. 112 olga potap dive into the great text, stories, and ideas in search of wisdom… most of all, it means remembering the past and understanding the link between past and future. it means choosing to care about other’s lives, their suffering and their joy” (burger, 2018, p. 254). hillel levine, the well-known rabbi, scholar, and activist says that wiesel’s direct dialog with his pupils so dignified them with his high expectations of them much as evoking the great teachers and universalists, like maimonides was his way of bringing the spirit of the yeshiva, its non-hierarchical environment to the highest platforms of academies and polities to which he was invited. levine’s friendship with wiesel began in the 60s. levine was nineteen years old when he first met wiesel. following wiesel’s lecture that levine heard that left him shaking with inspiration, hillel had the fearlessness to ask wiesel if he could walk him home. they walked out into the night. levine says that that walk will continue throughout his life. in 1967, elie told him that after breaking the silence on the suffering of soviet jews publishing a book the jews of silence, it would be dangerous for wiesel to revisit ussr. however, he expected hillel, his friend and pupil, to go and that he would help make the arrangements. levine still wonders about the great lessons that this brought to his “pupil”. conclusion what subjects did elie wiesel teach during his long tenure in academic institutions? was it literature, philosophy, or theology? how to classify his lessons of memory according to the academic standards? it seems to be an open question the same like his lessons, which never ended with the answer but started with another query. the teacher, he remains a scholar who never ends the search for truth and remedy and struggling with his quests. an open question is a bridge between him and his students. an open question is a bridge between past and future. references abramowitz, y. (1994). is elie wiesel happy? moment, 19(1), 32. burger, a. (2018). witness: lessons from elie wiesel’s classroom. boston, new york: houghton miffin harcourt. polak, j. (2014). after the holocaust the bells still ring (1st ed.). jerusalem: urim publications. wiesel, e. (1999). and the sea is never full: memoirs 1969. new york: alfred knopf. wiesel, e., & aarvik, e. (1986). elie wiesel: the nobel peace prize, 1986. new york: summit books. wiesel, e., & abrahamson, i. (1985). against silence: the voice and vision of elie wiesel (vols. 1–3). new york: holocaust library. wiesel, e., & rothschild, j. (1995). all rivers run to the sea: memoirs. new york: knopf. changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 36–51 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.1.059 received 27 february 2019 © 2019 aireen grace t. andal accepted 22 march 2019 aireengrace.andal@gmail.com published online 1 april 2019 article self-shooting uterus-owners: examining the selfies of pregnant transmen within the politics of human reproduction aireen grace t. andal ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract this work examines how transmen pregnancy is found within the discourse of moralizing and pathologizing reproductive health. moralization criticizes the “artificial” character of transpregnancy, and pathologization sees transpregnancy as rather “abnormal”. this work analyses these discursive contentions with case of the increasing public visibility of pregnant transmen through selfies. a commonplace reading of these transpregnant selfies can be, on the one hand, extended forms of othering or, on the other hand, emancipation from moralization and pathologization. however, this work argues that the visual display of transpregnant bodies is neither a form of othering nor gaining recognition but rather a suspension to moralization and pathologization of trans-identities. transmen pregnancy has the character of both disrupting the concept of pregnancy-as-usual and at the same time evokes a very familiar experience of human reproduction. this thus gives transpregnant selfies their liminal character of both abnormal and normal at the same time. given that transpregnancy is still a new subject for philosophical inquiry, this work hopes to contribute to the literature by surfacing some of transpregnancy’s ethical dimensions when juxtaposed in the cyberspace. keywords transpregnancy, transman, selfie, moralization, pathologization, transbody https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 36–51 37 human reproduction in the digital public spectacle a pregnant body is found under the public’s constant monitoring, and is “by no means a private matter” (hanson, 2004). with the gaze of the public eye, the pregnant body serves as a “text of culture… [and] practical, direct locus of social control” (bordo, 1989), with a temporary identity that co-exists with a multiplicity of other identities in a single person, which are experienced simultaneously and are jointly constitutive. as such, while pregnancy is a biological process that is ascribed to the female sex and even to a gender role and performance (kang, 1997), deviations from this expectation is evident such as in the case of transpregnancy. pregnant trans people1 are under special gaze of the public because they are considered as a transgressor of nature who deviate from reproductive norms such as “natural” female pregnancy (lindner et al., 2012). in the age of the digital media, transpregnancy has even become more public than it has ever been. for one, the digital media is of particular interest for transpregnancy as they are both criticized for being “unreal”; the former being filtered/edited, and the latter being a modification of natural biological features. but more importantly, unlike the limited discussions in lgbt community forums, the academe, or non-government organizations, transpregnancy as content has expanded through social media sites, which has implications on how the body operates in a wider range of public. however, little attention has been given to the examination of the link between transbodies in the cyberspace. this work examines transpregnancy under a specific form of digital media – the selfie. within the online realm, the selfie “ha[s] changed… public behavior. it’s become a new visual genre” (saltz, 2014). with the pervasive use of smartphones with cameras, “extensive taking of self-portrait photographs has become a global phenomenon” (duggan, 2015), which “has shifted from third person professional authors and editors towards the first-person authors of the selfie” (čuš babič et. al., 2018, p. 2). while not as many as photos compared to online news, selfies from pregnant transmen2 are surfacing in social media such as instagram, pinterest, twitter and tumblr with #transpregnancy or #pregnancy for all as the main hashtags for such posts. taking a selfie as one of the main means of sharing images online has become popular in pregnancy documentations, mommy blogging and other social media activities including transpregnancies. it is within this context that this work investigates on how transpregnant selfies reveal how the body can be “known, understood and experienced through images” (coleman, 2008, p. 168). this work also sees the relevance of analyzing transpregnancies as manifested in selfies for this dynamic it offers a window to see the connection 1 the use of the term “trans” both refer to trans sexual and transgender people; the former refers to those that had undergone sexual reassignment surgery and the latter are those that practice gender-based transitions (skidmore, 2011). 2 individuals who identify as men but were assigned female sex at birth. https://changing-sp.com/ 38 aireen grace t. andal between two ventures that seem to be under tension, though not necessarily incompatible – (1) self-expression and recognition, and (2) extended objectification. posting transpregnant selfies can serve as an emancipatory activity of expressing one’s identity (kozinets et al., 2017; marwick, 2010; schwarz, 2015) but at the same time it may also mean placing oneself under the objectifying gaze of the digital public (lindner et al., 2012). what complicates selfies as means of either self-expression or objectification is its personal character. note that unlike images from news shot by professionals, selfies are taken by the transpregnant persons themselves, which is a personal and voluntary act. a selfie is not just an ordinary “self-portrait photograph of oneself (or of oneself and other people)”; it has a personal effort of being “taken with a camera or a camera phone held at arm’s length or pointed at a mirror, which is usually shared through social media” (sorokowski et al., 2015, p. 124). since selfies involve “control over the final look of portrait photographs, at least on social media” (čuš babič et. al., 2018, p. 2), it raises the question whether or not this seeming “control” is a sign of empowerment or further self-policing. as a response to the gap in the literature that frames transpregnancy as falling into the category of either only objectification or only emancipation, this study argues for the need to analyze the dynamics of the selfie’s double-edged character. an analysis of either only the objectifying or emancipating character of selfies is rather limited since selfies operate under the dynamic culture of sharing, following, reacting and commenting as facilitated by the online environment. this work therefore asks what is the selfie’s place in the struggle for trans-identity expression in the context of a constant digital public scrutiny. in theoretical terms, the contribution of this analysis rests on its attempt to regard the transbody as a venue of the interplay between the transbody and the digital media. the text is structured in such manner: (1) classic moralizing and pathologizing tendencies to objectify the transbody; (2) objectifying and emancipatory potentials of transpregnancy through selfies; (3) synthesizing the two interpretations through analyzing the implications of the presence of pregnant transmen selfies on social media. unnatural and abnormal: classic discourses on transbody reproductive health is not new to moral and pathological imperatives, the former pertains to viewing actions into the categories of good and evil rather than merely unpleasant, impractical or senseless (skitka et al., 2018; rozin, 1999), and the latter being a process of viewing subjects as psychological issues (stritzke & scaramuzza, 2016). morality and pathology are interconnected such that both feed discourse of seeing natural processes as being an exceptionally wellsuited domain for everyone to adhere to. as such, framing “natural” as desirable makes the case for both moral and pathologization of any condition that deviates from what is deemed as natural. for instance, pregnancy out of wedlock is moralized as ethically undesirable and pathologized as mental health problems to maintain monogamy. another example is the age of getting pregnant, which changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 36–51 39 has a set of moral acceptability, and when someone failed to comply can be seen as aggression. who gets pregnant by whom is also taken as a moral and pathological issue especially in the context of incest and professionalism (i.e. teacher-student issue). in the case of transpregnancy, the concept of the “natural” is very pertinent as trans people are usually described as “[a]nything that disrupts, denaturalizes, rearticulates, and makes visible the normative linkages… between the biological specificity of the sexually differentiated human body, the social roles and statuses that a particular form of body is expected to occupy” (stryker, 2018, p. 3). with this comes a combined implication of moralization and pathologization to transpregnancy is when it is seen as both wrong and deviant. while moralization and pathologization of transsexualism and transgenderism have not escaped criticisms (i.e. oppressive and controlling), most of these criticisms were raised before the medical field started to talk about the possibility of pregnancy for the trans community. so, while there is greater degree, to which gender diverse people experience social inclusion, in terms of pregnancy, transsexualism and transgenderism has not gone far. understanding these patterns allows for seeing how emerging social practices can offer insights and contribute to understanding of identities, and their relation to societal constructions of reproduction and gender (cockerham, 2012). critical findings in this study will hopefully provide a measure of the magnitude of what has been achieved thus far by surfacing out the oftenmarginalized voices in the socio-political arena. against the artificial: moralization of the transbody activities of trans people are of particular interest to moralization because some of trans people’s affairs are ambiguously morally contentious such as changing names and sex identification in their documents. however, when it comes to bodily alterations such as sexual reassignment surgery and taking up hormones, trans people activities can be seen as controversial enough to enter the moralization discourse. this moralization is contained within one side of a natural/unnatural and familiar/strange binary opposition, seeing the natural and familiar as “good” and seeing the unnatural and strange as harmful as with the “invalids,” “defectives,” and “mutants”. this artificiality is not a new issue deeply ingrained in the reproductive health domain. from using contraceptives to fetal surgery and gene editing or “designer babies,” embarking on the artificial sparks ethical concerns. it is therefore not surprising to expect moralization of transpregnancy. as such, being thought of as only possible among females, transpregnancy carries with it an embedded controversy in taking part on something artificial. the literature has not been silent on the issue on artificiality, albeit scarce. the most common research found concerning transsexualism and transgenderism and pregnancy is on surrogacy. in the past decade, the literature has paid attention on the experiences of pregnant transmen. indeed, the most salient discussions are linked to the artificiality of trans people in themselves, followed by the artificiality of being parents. https://changing-sp.com/ 40 aireen grace t. andal given that trans people have not “permanently changed their social genders without permanently altering their genitals” (stryker, 2018, p. 123), the issue lies in its “incompatibility” to foster an offspring. this incompatibility can be deemed as undesirable under the discourse that what is unnatural is likely to be threatening and ugly as opposed to what is deemed as natural. transpregnancy is unnatural not in the sense of not existing, but by being too different and something other than pregnancy-as-usial, therefore a possible harmful situation. indeed, one of the issues that usually attract moral discourse is related to activities considered as harmful to be not moral (schein & gray, 2016). for instance, smoking is a case that had been moralized from being seen as an individual choice to being morally debatable (rozin, 1999). much of the moralization of transpregnancy rests on this issue on conflating the unfamiliar as harmful. this also touches the (presumed) issue on some “unnecessary dangers” that trans people practice (i.e. hormones replacement). put differently, the associated artificiality to the lifestyles of trans people frames trans-identity as unpleasant thereby legitimizing any moral judgment against it. framing artificiality in terms of incurring risks renders “naturalness” as a well-deserved standard for moralization, which subjects trans-identity against moral norms. consequently, being viewed as antagonistic to nature comes together with trans people’s “symbolic annihilation” or their lack of representation within the larger public (gerbner, 1972, p. 43). through moralization, transpregnancy fulfils a role for the “normal” in confirming themselves as put together and appropriate. when viewed in this context, transpregnancy functions to reinforce categories of normality, in which types of pregnancy seem to be either excluded from or included. that is to say, it facilitates the “othering” of the transpregnant person, as establishing social processes that identify certain categories of people in society as less “normal” than others. abnormal body and desire: pathologized transpregnancy transpregnancy is pathologized in terms of being seen as an abnormal fertility situation and desire arising from expectations that trans people cannot reproduce. observing abnormalitiies has also been a common sex and gender issue. for instance, wherever possible, surgeries are made available to “correct” cases that are outside the binary norms (e.g. intersexuality) as soon after birth as possible. trans people who desire to desire and/or become pregnant then are pathologized because their situations are seemingly incompatible with the usual pregnancy processes even though “[n]ew reproductive technologies have particularly challenged our ways of thinking about human reproduction” (cranny-francis et al., p. 192 cited in stritzke & scaramuzza, 2016). for instance, desiring pregnancy for non-parent transwomen is seen as encounters of “non-innate concepts” or a nondefault for transwomen. framing the non-innate discourse against trans people establishes the norm of an exclusive desire for pregnancy among those who were assigned as females at birth. it normalizes the concept of modifying the body as a legitimate pathological issue. transpregnancy is not only desired by transwomen, changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 36–51 41 transmen also decide to retain their uterus, get pregnant, and give birth but their case is also seen as problematic eve to the point of “threatening or attempting to remove their children from their care” (hoffkling, obedin-maliver & sevelius, 2017, p. 12). this relies on pathologizing desires of trans people to be pregnant as deviations from what is ‘‘normal’’. as much as transpregnancy is pathologized as an abnormal desire, it is also linked to disability, which has not yet achieved that cultural recognition comparable to other gender-related issues (garland-thomson, 1997). hence, pathologizing transpregnancy promotes a portrayal of trans people as both physically and psychologically inferior. this type of pathologizing can conflict with the goal of psychiatry itself, that is, to foster healthy mental states, as it may appear to do the exact opposite. according to stp, international campaign stop trans pathologization3, an international activist initiative working for trans depathologization, the practice of pathologizing activities of trans people increases the sources of anxiety or insecurity that the trans-community might have with their identity. moreover, this framing also comes with pressuring those who have female bodies (reproductive organs and hormones) to have the responsibility of bearing children. so, as it transgresses biological normativity, transpregnancy remains outside the boundaries of moral and mental comfort and expectations. this type of rhetoric, connecting desire and disability, sees transpregnancy as a problematic relationship between trans-identity and health. transpregnancy then is framed as a health risk, which situates the transbody as unfit to carry out the process of pregnancy compared to a “healthier” female pregnancy. the pathologization gains legitimacy especially when expressed in the form of medical diagnosis. amateur self-shooters: transpregnancy enters the online world in bringing the moralizing and pathologizing discourses of transpregnancy to the space of digital media, two main trajectories immediately surface (1) a continued moralization and pathologization take place in a cyber platform; or (2) the digital media offers a means to lessen, if not eradicate, objectification by being a space of self-expression. indeed, there is reasonable grounds to both claims. on the one hand, studies show that selfie postings and viewings encourage body policing and selfregulation (jeffreys, 2014), which create higher levels of self-objectification (lindner, tantleff-dunn & jentsch, 2012), body dissatisfaction, and feeling the need for positive comments (mclean, paxton, wertheim & masters, 2015; chua & chang, 2016). but on the other hand, recent research has suggested that posting selfies serves more communicative purposes of self-expression (schwarz, 2010) or self-embellishment (marwick, 2015), than mere reifying the neoliberal pathos of narcissism. for instance, kozinets et al., (2017) suggest that selfie postings are not necessarily self-referential acts of vanity, but rather an innovative means of communicating one’s inner state. moreover, feeling in control of one’s image is found to be the key for those who take 3 https://www.stp2012.info/old/en https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.stp2012.info/old/en 42 aireen grace t. andal selfies feel as though they are in control of their own images. for instance, women posting sexualized selfies on tumblr felt liberated as they were able to express themselves (tiidenberg & cruz, 2015). however, this work considers the case of transpregnant selfies a manifestation of trans-identity agency that veers away from the binary interpretation of being either othering or empowering. this work argues that selfies of transcend this dichotomy by having a unifying character of both normal and abnormal at the same time. within a digital space that sets a range of what is “normal, natural and inevitable” (gill, 2007, p. 114), the selfies of transpregnant bodies serve as a pinch point where personal meanings converge with both the normative and deviant. because of a personal and amateur character, the transpregnant’s images reflect what barthes (1981) call the “punctum” or the subtle properties of an image that are provoking, vexing and “piercing” on both the normal and abnormal character of transpregnancy. beyond othering as experience due to the popularity of activism and advocacy in the cyberspace, it is no wonder to read a compilation of analytical clichés about the objectification of the unreflective pregnant transmen. critics of displaying transbodies also bring out the issue of ableism and the concept of freakery wherein transbodies participate in an exhibition of human abnormality (bogdan, 1996), appealing directly to “our most fundamental categories of self-definition and boundaries dividing self from otherness” (grosz, 1996). while it can be argued that the transbodies are en-freakened and objectified due to their unorthodox corporealities, this work argues that the tendency of transpregnancy to be spectacularized as freakish is not merely a form of “othering” but rather an “affirmative freakery” (fancy, 2018), that is, an affirmation of difference and freakiness outside of discourses of “non-normativity” and pathology (fancy, 2018, p. 159). note that the transpregnant body is different from bodies with inborn or congenital abnormality. having an inborn body abnormality is seen with “authenticity” while having a trans-identity is rather “self-made”, choosing to forgo a normal status (stulman-dennett, 1997). moreover, to interpret the transpregnant selfies as further objectification is to assume pregnant transmen as passive narrators rather than active participants in the digital public sphere who are capable of reflection. these immediate reading of pregnant transmen selfies as a form of objectification, while has its own merits, nullify preceding practice of agency by pregnant transmen. these antecedent forms of agency have at least two levels. first, the transition towards manhood is a form of agency to defy the moralized and pathologized view against trans-identities. second, being pregnant takes transmen identities to another level of agency by transgressing another set of expectations of manhood, allowing for a more complex understanding of trans-identities. thus, visually displaying the transpregnant body, the products of transmen agency, cannot be interpreted as passivity because to do so is to ignore the antecedents from where this public display of their transpregnant bodies took off. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 36–51 43 beyond recognition as goal just because transmen pregnancies sidestep “othering”, does not mean that it is a form of gaining recognition either. these selfies are not new ways to defy the moralized and pathologized trans-identities. on the contrary, these selfies emphasize the similarities among uterus-owning bodies, thus transcending issues of recognition. the visual display of the transpregnant body focuses on how being pregnant is a shared experience by those who share similar biological prerequisite for human reproduction. given that visibility does not necessarily equate to social power (phelan, 1993), the selfies of pregnant transmen have more to do with transcending the natural-artificial dichotomy than with seeking recognition of the artificial transbody. the pregnant transmen’s presentation of their bodies is an example of how letting go of a “normal” status does not preclude them from utilizing their female organs, just like any other person with a womb. whereas transmen’s visible physical transformation can seem excessive, shocking, and socially “out of place”, the ways, in which transpregnancy intersects with freakery occurs with an amount of security and not offered up to “the voyeuristic property of the non-disabled gaze” (hevey, 1992, p. 72). this raises the question: what kind of connection does this practice forge to the moralizing and pathologizing tendencies of transpregnancy? there are at least three aspects of transpregnancy that do not signify any trans-identity-seeking recognition among the transmen selfies: 1) beyond trans-identity issue 2) beyond enhancement-related procedure and 3) beyond issues of victimhood. first, just because transmen have public displays of transpregnancy does not mean that transpregnancy is only an issue of trans-identities. this practice extends to all uterus-owning bodies that do not satisfy bodily conventions such as, but by no means limited to, agender, bigender, demiboy/girl, genderfluid, genderfuck, genderqueer, and intergender. the language, under which transpregnancy thrives is the language of a maternal organism with terms such as “maternity”, “birth”, “offspring” among others, which are definitely not restricted to trans people. it is in this shared sense of reality with other womb owners that transpregnancy does not fall into simple trans-identity issues. additionally, the accumulation of selfie uploads among pregnant transmen take place in the context of a relatively high level of advocates of “body-positive” online where the issue is about pregnancy shaming in general rather than gender politics. this highlights that as much as gender is politically-charged, transpregnancy is not exclusively grounded on gender struggles. second, while selfies cannot be completely isolated from aesthetic recognition, the transformation of the transpregnant body itself is not primarily about enhancement. unlike documenting enhancement bodily transformations for trans people such as plastic surgery, moralizing and pathologizing norms do not have strong penetrative power over the photos of transpregnancy. as kozinets et al., (2017) emphasize, selfies are more than mere narcissistic displays of the self, making it beyond moral and pathological discourses on trans-identity, which are https://changing-sp.com/ 44 aireen grace t. andal usually concerned with issues of authenticity. since transmen are uterus-owners, there is little, if any, to moralize and pathologize about their transpregnancy selfies. and hence, there is nothing to gain recognition about. the selfies of pregnant transmen come with impulses to observe one’s corporeal transformation beyond retaliation. finally, these selfies are rather displaying the similarities among bodies that share the same reproductive features than it is about highlighting the need to recognize diversity in gender and sexuality. by taking selfies, the transpregnant body expresses its connection to other bodies rather than presenting the struggles of an “interiorized” body (bartky, 1990). while transpregnant selfies can be forms of advocacy and activism, these images do not come as suffering, pain or anything unpleasant. rather, transpregnancy demonstrates that gender categorization does not justify disparate treatment among uterus-owning bodies. by presupposing a normative difference and not a hierarchy, transmen pregnancy exposes the political nature of that difference and counter its devaluation. note that that some online interactions are potentially victimizing against pregnant transmen such as discriminating comments and trolls. however, these tendencies are much less about cis-pregnancy normativity than it is about the culture of feedback-giving and feedback-seeking on the online community (leibold & schwarz, 2015). suspending the politics of uterus-owners this work argues that, as an affirmative freakery, transmen pregnancy is rather a suspension of moralization and pathologization of transsexualism and transgenderism. it espouses a momentary dismissal of a gendered take of the body by serving as a reminder that pregnancy is not only women’s concerns but a “uterus-owner’s issue” (stoffer, cited in burkett, 2015). the pregnant transman’s body, in its presumed state of a maternal organism, deviates in a way that the other transbodies cannot (i.e. transwomen, intersex), that is, it “arouses the contradictory responses of denial and recognition, disgust and empathy, exclusion and identification” (shildrick, 2002, p. 17). transmen pregnancy has the character of both disrupting the concept pregnancy-as-usual but at the same time demonstrates a very familiar experience of human reproduction that in itself “breaks with the conventions of desirability at any historical moment garners an unseemly attention for itself as the very product of its deviance” (mitchell & snyder, 2000). compared to other trans people bodily alterations such as surgeries and hormone replacements, transpregnancy gains the most empathy because it as much as it can be strange, pregnancy is not treated as “simply exotic outliers to be sought for thrill, thrall, and titillation” (fancy, 2018, p. 156). trans-identity bodily alterations may indeed justify normative gender performance by subscribing to some binary categories, but it does not mean that transbodies are always subject to this categorization. whilst not without criticism and doubt about transmen’s sense of agency, pregnant transmen’s public images are neither subscription to cis-normativity nor what foucault would call “voluntary changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 36–51 45 inservitude, of reflective indocility” (foucault, 1996, p. 386). rather, these images are representations of an active engagement of one’s transbody to an audience wherein the transpregnant body “not an object, but a full-fledged participant of the dialogue with the viewer. she is turned to us and looks active” (kress and theo van leeuwen, 2001 cited in orekh & bogomiagkova, 2017). hence, the transpregnant self-shooting reflects the experiences of transmen, which cannot be easily reduced to either “othering” or to gaining recognition, but which exceeds the possibilities of what are constituted as normative corporeality of pregnant bodies in contemporary societies. transmen’s conscious “self-made” freakery is coupled with the given knowledge that uterus-owners can be pregnant. transmen pregnancy resists the constraining and contorting role that moralizing and pathologizing discourses on reproduction; and through selfies, it enforce upon bodies an agency through “renarrativization... and shifting to different narratives than ones of victimhood“ (fancy, 2018, p. 158). through this “renarrativized” identities, transpregnant body defers the fetishized categorizations of corporealities, outside of morally and pathologically restricting reproductive embodiment and self-definition. the transpregnant body continues to interrupt the normative character of cis-pregnant bodies’ privileged status among the reproductive health discourses thereby the “process of exotification, channeled anxiety and projection are challenged” (fancy, 2018, p. 159). transpregnant selfies leaves away the binary opposition of bodies and images as subjects and objects “because the practice merges the subject and the object already on the material level” (tiidenberg & cruz, 2015). by taking selfies of their pregnant transbodies, the transmen self-shooters initiate a selfnarration and affirmation of their transformation. further issues on reproductive freedom(s) beyond the issues of the objectifying nature of moralization and pathologization, or the potentials of gaining empowerment via selfies, the entire activity of transpregnant self-shooting, posting and sharing might fall into the same trap that oppressed and marginalized the trans community. transpregnant selfies may have suspended layers of dichotomous view on reproduction norms but it may also contain oppressive elements towards the other end of uterus-owners-the childfree by choice. if there is something to be vigilant of transpregnant selfies, it is its potential to place pronatalism on the pedestal and idealize pregnancy as a desirable end for all womb owners (e.g. #pregnancyforall campaign). voluntary childlessness, or an active choice, commitment, and permanence regarding the decision not to parent (houseknecht, 1987; park, 2002), has been stigmatized by the same rhetoric of reproductive norms that marginalized the practice of transpregnancy. this takes the same normal vs abnormal argument whereby the decision to be childless is “deviant” or abnormal while choosing to be a parent is “normal” (gillespie, 2000; graham et al., 2013). indeed, childfree individuals have been subjected into various constructions outside of the normal realm, https://changing-sp.com/ 46 aireen grace t. andal such as (1) deficient or meaningless people; (2) psychologically unstable; or (3) selfish individuals (morison & macleod, 2015). the moralizing and pathologizing tendencies towards voluntary childlessness take effect through applying the same normative expectation of parenthood to those who opt not to bear children (moore, 2014). moreover, not all trans people have the desire to experience transpregnancy. and if they expressed even a little hostility against transpregnancy, they will be labelled not only as against transpregnancy but against trans-identities themselves. it is in this sense of embracing the norm of pronatalism that the digital visibility of transpregnancy becomes rather oppressive of others. the real potential violence of the self-taken photo sharing online is that it can further displace some uterusowners control over their own desires and bodies. fortunately, the same space of the digital media has become hospitable for uterus-owners, to construct their identities through childfree communities. these online communities have become a venue for disrupting the governing constructions of female identity, to which pregnancy is central (shapiro, 2014). what this suggests then is the importance of vigilance in seeing how images in the online world create forcible framings of the trans-identity for self-presentation and idealization in an economy of attention and rating (i.e. “likes” and 5-stars). the selfie as a visual code shapes and reshapes our ideas of what is worth sharing, what is worth looking at, and what should garner our attention to notice and comment on. the selfies have created a particular grammar and, even more importantly, criteria of seeing. for the pregnant transmen, the most grandiose result of the selfie enterprise is to give them the sense that they can somehow hold and choose their own realities as a compendium of digital images. conclusion transpregnancy has the potential to provide a levelling discourse to neutralize worshipping the natural, as supported by technological innovations in the medical field, and the rising popularity of de-pathologization of disability. from an ideological standpoint, however, the selfies will continue to be scrutinized. when looking for signs of agency and emancipation, a selfie may not be the most useful kind of frame of references. however, with a focus upon the dynamic between the self-shooter and cultural context, and with an interest in how pregnant transmen establish trans-identity, the selfie’s function takes on more complex dimensions, and the idea of valuing a typical selfie is more tenable. rather than defining the pregnant transmen’s selfies as just another trite expression, we might define the transpregnant selfie as a commonplace figurative expression that displays an immediate interaction of two polarized entities: (1) the unusual transbody, and (2) the ordinary discourse of the online culture. such an interpretation does not applaud the selfies, but at the same time, it does not instantly assign limited expectations to the function of the selfie. the selfies from those who stand outside the sphere of society’s definition of acceptable childbearers forged in the crucible of difference are reflective of the various ways the body could be different and the same, in various levels, all at once. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 36–51 47 giddens (1991) notes that individuals of modernity tend to be “self-reflexive” in resolving who they are and who they should be. this in turn makes the trans self to be “project” that individuals have to build thereby creating a biographical “narrative” that allows them to understand themselves, and hence sustain a coherent and consistent identity. the selfies add layers to this project by allowing the pregnant transmen to leave behind the moralized and pathologized take on trans-identities. the selfies prove to show that “bodies are involved more actively, more intimately, and more intricately in social processes than theory has usually allowed. bodies participate in social action by delineating courses of social conduct – the body is a participant in generating social practice” nagoshi (2010). whilst images can reify gender biases through ways of participating in pregnancy, and therefore, help propagate unyielding limits placed on maternal and paternal roles, nevertheless, images, especially selfies also transcend normativity of the body. finally, the selfies of transpregnant bodies also demonstrate that identity as constructed and changing rather than fixed (giddens, 1991). not all trans people may have strong political interest in the transidentity struggle or not see gender as a political identity but what the selfies reflect is the “lived experience” of the trans body as it is constructed into the digital world. references barthes, r. 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(2012). transgender bodies and male pregnancy: the ethics of radical self-refashioning. in m. m. hampf & m. a. snyder (eds.), machine: bodies, gender, technologies (pp. 107–136). heidelberg: universitätsverlag winter. https://changing-sp.com/ http://doi.org/10.1177/1357034x15592465 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 249–259 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.041 received 7 august 2018 © 2018 manisha sethi accepted 17 september 2018 manisha.sethy@gmail.com published online 30 september 2018 conference paper religious education in india: debates and experiences manisha sethi jamia millia islamia, new delhi, india abstract religious education has remained largely absent from school and university curricula in india though its significance has been underlined by a plethora of government committees on education. its absence can be traced to the imperatives of rule, both in the colonial period, and in post independent india, and the need to balance competing claims and pressures. this paper shows how, on the one hand, the policy of religious neutrality – and later avowed secularism – and on the other, a desire for inculcation of moral, “spiritual” and “indian” values tended to favour a natural religion approach. this idea of natural religion though comes to be inflected with a majoritarian bias. keywords macaulay, religious neutrality, missionaries, spiritual values, natural religion introduction in this paper, i attempt to chart out a tentative history of religious education in india focusing broadly on debates and policies on religious instruction in schools. there are two reasons for this: firstly, i realise that a large number of panellists and participants at this conference were engaged with either teaching, or studying religious education (henceforth re) in schools, whether its curricula or pedagogy; and secondly, how the universities understood or incorporated – or even expelled – re in india could not be disentangled from the policies affecting re in schools. indeed, it is difficult to distinguish the two, and difficult to understand the experience of re in indian universities without the broader background. this broader background consists of many questions about the https://changing-sp.com/ 250 manisha sethi nature, content and purpose of education. these were questions being framed and thrashed out first in the context of colonial rule, and then in terms of the vision of a newly independent postcolonial state. central to this was the distinctive trajectory that secularism took in india. the experience of partition and the bloody communal violence that accompanied it, also informed it. re is expressly absent from indian school and university curricula. why was this so? religious education in the colonial period the early years of colonial rule in india – especially till 1830s – were marked by the dominance of orientalists, with a decided interest in eastern religions and their sacred texts. the british established their own madrasa aliyah in calcutta in 1792 (which has recently been converted into a university) and a sanskrit college in benaras in 1780. these were two of the three educational institutions endowed out of indian revenues (lelyveld, 1984, p. 86; chatterjee, 2011, p. 26). the encouragement to sanskrit and arabic was premised partly on the principle that the sacred books of hindus and muslims were the sources of law by which the british would govern the subjects. however in 1835, the notorious minute of macaulay – lord thomas babington macaulay, son of a missionary, and law member of governor general’s council – reflected the increasing impatience with the east india company’s policy of orientalism. in advocating a choking of patronage to the study of oriental languages and literatures of “hindus and mohammadens”, macaulay conjoined both the utilitarian critique led by james mills that these studies served no purpose, and the anglicist demand for a more vigorous christian policy in the colony. macaulay’s grounds for putting an end to this were manifold: the uselessness of learning these languages which did not prepare the pupils for a career, or even a bare sustenance; the drag on company funds in publishing arabic and sanskrit books (which he called “waste paper” reflecting his prejudice against eastern learning); the near completion of the project of codification of law which would render unnecessary the aid of pandits (brahmin scholars) and maulvis (learned doctors or teachers of islamic law) to interpret the hindu sacred texts shastras and hedayas; and of course the falsity of these religions. the following paragraph from the minute brings to us in essence what appeared to macaulay to be innately wrong with the encouragement of “hindu and muslim languages”: it is said that the sanscrit and the arabic are the languages in which the sacred books of a hundred millions of people are written, and that they are on that account entitled to peculiar encouragement. assuredly it is the duty of the british government in india to be not only tolerant but neutral on all religious questions. but to encourage the study of a literature, admitted to be of small intrinsic value, only because that literature inculcated the most serious errors on the most important subjects, is a course hardly reconcilable with reason, with morality, or even with that very neutrality which ought, as we all agree, to be sacredly preserved. it is confined that a language is barren of useful knowledge. we are changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 249–259 251 to teach it because it is fruitful of monstrous superstitions. we are to teach false history, false astronomy, false medicine, because we find them in company with a false religion. (macaulay, 1835) the emphasis on english literature, western philosophy and sciences and its validation as the most valuable knowledge perforce placed christian mission-run schools in an advantageous position. however, the english were at the same time wary of identifying their government too closely with christianity. thus, we see that macaulay advised abstention from encouraging “those who are engaged in the work of converting the natives to christianity” (macaulay, 1835). following him, the despatch of 1854 authored by wood, provided the company’s blue print of education of natives, and established the grant in aid system. it underlined that “good and secular education” would be the criteria for providing aid to schools and not instruction in bible. the policy of religious neutrality was laid out in the following terms: the masters of government schools were not precluded from giving instruction out of school hours in the facts and doctrines of the christian religion to any pupils who might apply for such instruction; and in the aided schools, the government would abstain from religious instruction conveyed in the schools, and the inspectors were to take no notice whatsoever of the religious doctrines which may be taught in schools (wood’s despatch, 1854, par. 54). though macaulay insisted that sanskrit and arabic could not claim british support either as “the languages of law” or as “the languages of religion”, the consequence of this was not simply an efflorescence of missionary educational initiatives. in many regions such as the punjab, support for what has been called vernacular orientalism continued. elsewhere, as in madras, the grant support for mission schools and institutions was uneven. in fact, a complaint about the government’s parsimony in this regard elicited a 50-page long letter from the director of public instruction recounting the natives’ fears about the proselytisation in mission school and the importance of state neutrality in matters of religion. col. macdonald also cited a meeting of over 6–7 thousand hindus and muslims in madras in april 1859 who had appealed to the government to stop aid to mission schools and sought protection from religious instruction. the missions on the other hand interpreted the 1854 despatch to have provided for “the establishment of local boards of education and board schools financed from local property rates…, purely secular teaching, and grants-in-aid to voluntary societies whether they be christian, moslem or hindu” (whitehead, 2004, p. 126). the debates reached a head by the time the indian education commission was instituted in 1882 to review the progress in the field of education since wood’s despatch of 1854. the question of religious instruction was an issue that exercised many witnesses who deposed before the commission. a proposal was placed before the commission that arrangements for religious instruction be permitted provided that a) parents may be enabled to withdraw children from it if they so wished; b) that the inspector and other departmental officer not interfere or examine such subjects; and c) that if there be sufficient numbers of dissenters, separate classes should be established for them. the majority in the commission rejected this proposal because “religious feeling was so inflammable, and sectarianism so prevalent in india, that it https://changing-sp.com/ 252 manisha sethi was not safe to depart from the earlier policy” despite the admission of the value of re on all sides (indian education commission, 1883, p. 129; emphasis added). but two innovations from earlier policy were made. in the field of primary education, the commission felt a real threat of retardation of the spread of education because parents loathed to send their wards to schools where religious instruction was compulsory. such an exigency necessitated a departure from the policy of absolute abstention from interfering in a school’s programme of religious instruction. thus, a recommendation was made that: “it shall be open to parents to withdraw their children from attendance of such instruction without forfeiting any of the benefits of the institution” (indian education commission, 1883, p. 512). the second innovation was the recommendation to introduce moral education at the college level. but ever mindful of the difficulties of producing a curriculum which might be acceptable to all sides, the commission urged for the preparation of a “moral textbook based upon the fundamental principles of natural religion” (indian education commission, 1883, p. 307). this, as we shall see, was to become the model later too. three caveats were added: that there should be no complaints about interference in religious beliefs; the candidates should not be called upon to declare religious beliefs; and no answer be objected on the grounds of it expressing any peculiarity of religious belief (indian education commission, 1883, p. 308). in a way, both of these departures could be seen as responses to two divergent demands, which played out in the commission. the first was possibly a concession to the demands for a conscience clause by indian witnesses, namely, kashinath telang, who wrote a detailed dissent note explicating the same. the missionaries and those disposed towards the expansion of missionary education stressed that the government policy of neutrality (or of not encouraging mission schools alone) had been decidedly “injurious from a moral and religious point of view” (indian education commission, 1883, p. 610). the recommendation on moral training in colleges had resulted from the pressure of this lobby. telang, though unsuccessful in his bid for something akin to section 7 of the british education act of 1870, insisted that there was no way of satisfying the demand for religious instruction. the only tow models, he argued, were either the teaching of common principles under the name of natural religion, or instruction in the principles of all creeds, but the practical difficulties in pursuing either of these paths offered secular education as the only “remote haven of refuge for the educationists” (indian education commission, 1883, p. 610). telang’s dissent suggests that the indian national opinion – or at least a part of it – was on the side of complete severing of any religious training or teaching from secular education. the dilemma that re presented to policy makers was this: recognition of the value of religious instruction as a force of morality and virtue; the demands of missions to be given preferential treatment, native fears about widespread proselytisation, the governmental expediency of maintaining communal peace, alongside the aim of massification of primary education. the compromise that resulted from these opposing pulls and pushes was the expulsion of re from government prescribed curricula, and a sort of laissez-faire to private initiatives of various hues as long as they maintained a certain standard of secular education. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 249–259 253 towards independence as the government of india act 1919, and then of 1935 paved the way for greater autonomy formation of provincial governments led by indians, especially the congress. with the introduction of diarchy which transferred the education departments to indian ministers, a more nationalist vision of education was put forth. in 1937, gandhi convened a committee of educationists headed by the then principal of jamia millia islamia, dr. zakir hussain, to prepare a future primary education scheme. called the wardha scheme, it advocated a free, compulsory and universal education for all children. a progressive document, it was adopted by the congress in its session in 1938 as a resolution on national education, and its provincial governments began to implement it (with little success though) (oesterheld, 2007, p. 4). re remained an unresolved issue in the wardha scheme. of all the national leaders, gandhi’s politics has been spoken of as having a spiritual basis. in 1928, writing in young india, he had said: a curriculum of religious instruction should include a study of the tenets of faiths other than one’s own. for this purpose the students should be trained to cultivate the habit of understanding and appreciating the doctrines of various great religions of the world in a spirit of reverence and broad-minded tolerance. this if properly done would help to give them a spiritual assurance and a better appreciation of their own religion. there is one rule, however, which should always be kept in mind while studying all great religions, and that is that one should study them only through the writings of known votaries of the respective religions. (gandhi, 1928) nonetheless, the wardha scheme made no provision for re. in fact, gandhi justified the exclusion “because we are afraid that religions, as they are taught and practised today, lead to conflict rather than unity” (in: oesterheld, 2007, p. 7). at a later stage too, in 1947, he rebuffed the idea that re could be a state concern, emphasising that it must remain the sole concern of religious associations. he did however underline that fundamental ethics being common to all religions, its teaching was “undoubtedly a function of the state” (sethi, 2010, p. 10). meanwhile two parallel processes were at play. the first was the appointment by the government central advisory board of education (cabe) of a committee to examine the wardha scheme in 1938, and a separate committee in 1946 devoted exclusively to study the possibility of re. while no consensus emerged in the first committee, the second cabe committee of 1946, in its interim report, recommended “as in britain, an agreed syllabus, expert teachers, the use of prime hours of instruction and the provision for a conscience clause” (chatterjee, 2011, p. 197). its final report, however, deemed re to be the responsibility of the homes and the religious community to which the pupil belonged – a result, which a disappointed sargent contemptuously called “a small mouse” (sargent report, 1948, pp. 12, 226). the second process focussed on what was happening in the provinces. many of the ministers in charge of provincial educational ministries, though avowed congressmen, were cultural https://changing-sp.com/ 254 manisha sethi conservatives, or positively majoritarian, subscribing to a hindi/hindu/hindustan model. this deemed india to be a land of hindus, who spoke a chaste and heavily sanskritised hindi shorn of all persian influences. an illustration of this hegemonic model was the vidya mandir scheme [quite literally translated as temples of learning] introduced by the central provinces, which was seen widely as a crusade to efface islamic culture and religious heritage (oesterheld, 2007, p. 10). legislative debates the question of re came up once again when the constitution was being drafted (29 aug 1947 – 26 nov 1949). article 28(1) of the constitution, expressly forbids the provision of religious instruction in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds. at the same time, however, different articles, namely, 28(2), 29 and 30(1), allow the setting up and functioning of schools and institutions of higher education by religious minorities, and even the receipt of grant in aid from the government, as long as these do not discriminate on the basis of religion in admissions. it is interesting to trace the route through which the drafters arrived at these articles. article 28 was originally clause 16 of the report of the advisory committee on fundamental rights, which was placed before the constituent assembly in august 1947. it read: no person attending any school maintained or receiving aid out of public funds shall be compelled to take part in any religious instruction that may be given in the school or to attend religious workshop held in the school or in premises attached thereto. clearly, in its original form, it did not envision expelling religion from schools, whether aided or government, only that no one would be compelled to participate in such instructions. there were two sorts of objections to this. the first amendment moved by purnima banerjee rued that there were a large number of educational institutions run on religious lines (maktabs and pathshalas, corresponding to islamic and hindu institutions respectively) who impart to students “fanaticism and religious bigotry”, which could only be allayed a governmental control of the curriculum. a state which hoped to stay united (remember the background of partition) – no matter how secular – required that its children must learn to appreciate the religion of another. only a syllabus of such a type may be the bulwark against exclusivism (constituent assembly debates (cad), 5.67). she therefore proposed the addition of this paragraph as explanation, “[a]ll religious education given in educational institutions receiving statewide will be in the nature of the elementary philosophy of comparative religions calculated to broaden the pupils’ mind rather than such as will foster sectarian exclusiveness” (cad, 5.46.66). renuka ray, on the other hand, sought to bring unequivocal exclusion of re with her amendment, “[n]o denominational religious instruction shall be provided in schools maintained by the state. no person attending any school or educational institution recognised or aided by the state shall be compelled to attend any such changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 249–259 255 religious instruction” (cad, 5.46.70). ray’s proposal received a greater reception and approval from the members whilst purnima banerjee’s proposal was deemed controversial. what would be the contours of such a comparative religion – questions raised by members mahboob ali baig sahib bahadur – and what would it mean for rights being promised to the minorities to run their educational institutions, and further, what would be the implications of the proposed “unification of all religions” for the constitutional rights of minorities were all questions that were raised (cad, 5.46.77-80). another member, k. m. munshi, also warned that disputes over the precise content and nature of elementary philosophy of comparative religions would lead to litigation, with the courts expected to pronounce whether the syllabus was of comparative kind, or belonged to one specific religion; and further, if such a syllabus would broaden or narrow the outlook of students. therefore, munshi cautioned that the adoption of comparative religions as a dictum could never become justiciable, but would only lead to considerable confusion and legal imbroglio (cad, 5.46.83,86-87). the second amendment, though more popular, was referred to a subcommittee which would report to the drafting committee. when the article suitably amended finally appeared for discussion in the constituent assembly, there were several amendments of different shades. on the one hand were those like shiban lal saksena who resented the exclusion of religion on account of protection afforded to minorities. while minorities should not be compelled to have religious instruction against their wishes, the district education boards should not be barred from teaching the children of the majority community gita and ramayana, he felt. on the other hand were members like k. t. shah who thought the provisions against teaching of religion to be too loosely worded and sought them to be made more stringent. b. r. ambedkar’s response to these was threefold: first that the monies generated from general taxation could not be used to provide any particular re; the second factor militating against the provision of re was the preponderance of religions and sects in india, and finally, he reminded the house that “unfortunately the religions which prevail in this country are not merely non-social; so far as their mutual relations are concerned, they are antisocial”. thus, he concluded that in “laying down in article 22(1) that in state institutions there shall be no religious instruction, we have in my judgment travelled the path of complete safety” (cad, 7.68.159-163). [i am not going here into the discussions about aided schools run by religious communities covered under 28(2) now]. in the course of the discussion, ambedkar distinguished between religious instruction and study of religions, and stressed that it was only the former, which was prohibited. nonetheless, the issue of re refused to disappear. immediately after the cad took place, a committee to look into university education was appointed. headed by s. radhakrishnan, spalding professor of eastern religions and ethics at the university of oxford, it devoted considerable time on discussing re. the radhakrishnan commission set out the agenda of re in the following poetic terms: we teach religious dogmas not to provoke doubts of questions but to give comfort to the human spirit. to introduce these studies in a university is to make a sharp https://changing-sp.com/ 256 manisha sethi break with the critical methods of inquiry followed in other disciplines of the curriculum. to prescribe dogmatic religions in a community of many different faiths is to revive the religious controversies of the past. to turn the students over to theologians of different denominations for instruction in the conflicting systems of salvation is to undermine that fellowship of learning which defines a college or a university. (p. 256) and yet, to “exclude spiritual training” would be being “untrue to our whole historical development” and to negate “the beauty and mystery of the universe, the meaning of life and death, the aspirations of the inner soul, that sad feeling of the wistful minded that beyond the world of positive knowledge there is a realm of forces unseen which we can feel but never know completely (radhakrishnan commission, 1963, pp. 260–261). it thus recommended that: (1) all educational institutions start work with a few minutes for silent meditation; (2) in the first year of the degree course lives of the great religious leaders like gautama the buddha, confucius, zoroaster, socrates, jesus, somkara, ramanuja, madhava, mohammad, kabir, nanak, gandhi, be taught; (3) in the second year some selections of a universalist, character from the scriptures of the world be studied; (4) in the third year, the central problems of the philosophy of religion be considered. (radhakrishnan commission, 1963, p. 265) the issue of religious instruction in schools was first dealt with in detail in the report of the committee on religious and moral instruction (also known as the sri prakasa committee) submitted to the ministry of education as early as in 1960. it advocated an “objective, comparative and sympathetic study of all the important religions of india” (extracted in biswas and agrawal, 1986, p. 612). the imperative of the sri prakasa committee in making such a recommendation – as indeed of the other committees and their recommendations such as the kothari commission in 1966 – was the task of “nationbuilding” and the forging of a “national consciousness”. the task of re could not be left to the home and community alone, the sri prakasa committee argued, as this would result in limited understanding of one’s own faith, ignorance of other faiths and blind prejudice towards others. report of the kothari commission (1966), mulling over the nature of education that a secular state in a multi-religious democracy may impart, distinguished between “religious education” and “education about religions”. it lamented that: ...owing to the ban placed on religious instruction in schools and the weakening of the home influences which, in the past, often provided such instruction, children are now growing up without any clear idea of their own religion and with no chance of learning about others”. it thus recommended that a “period or two a week should be allotted to education in moral and spiritual values in an organized attempt to develop the character of the pupils and inculcate in them a respect for religions other than their own”. (cited in ayyar, 2017, pp. 299–300) changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 249–259 257 none of these recommendations were followed. the 81st report on value based education (also called the sb chavan committee) submitted its report to the parliament in 1999. “values” was the locus of the sb chavan committee report. value education was of supremely civic importance, as it would foster national integration and make students aware that the basic concept behind every religion is common. it would repel the overwhelming influence of western culture. but what precisely would these values be: they were indigenous and national values but seen deriving from “ultimate reality supreme power or self-consciousness to which man orients himself” (the 81st report on value based education, 1999). ancient gurukuls (traditional hindu educational institutions) were invoked as models of a value based educational system. the idea of religion perhaps because the multiplicity of religions and creeds in the country, and the pragmatic need to keep peace, most policymakers gravitated towards the idea of a universal or natural religion. if committees instituted by colonial government identified ethics and morals derived from the common core of religions as the subject worthy of study (though never enforced), we see purnima banerjee’s proposal not very different. the radhakrishnan commission spoke of an “indian” outlook on religions, which in their view was not inconsistent with constitutional principles. it held that religion is neither creed, nor emotion nor a ceremony, but a realisation which can be apprehended not by beliefs but “by their fruits”. and if religion was a matter of realisation, then its vehicles were to be training, discipline and sadhna (spiritual practices). this received its most cogent form in a judicial pronouncement in 2002. in 2000, the right-wing bjp (bharatiya janata party or indian peoples’ party) government had proposed a new curriculum framework (ncf) which sought to give prominent place to re. again, the terminology was not new – students were to be made aware that the essence of all religions was common. it also proposed a new “spiritual quotient” and placed a premium on the learning of sanskrit. a group of civil society activists approached the supreme court expressing the apprehension that the ncf would pave the way for “saffronisation of education” (a term commonly used by secular and left academics and activists to denote exclusivist communalisation), and that it fundamentally militated against the settled principle inhering in article 28 (shah, 2002). the supreme court dismissed the petition holding that ncf did not violate the principle of secularism (shah, 2002; all citations below from it). what interests me most here is also the definition of religion that emerges from this judgment. justice shah approvingly quoted a judgment ([1960] 9 scc 548), to demonstrate a distinction between religion and dharma, “143. our dharma is said to be ‘sanatana’ i.e. one which has eternal values; one which is neither time-bound nor space-bound. it is because of this that rig veda has referred to the existence ‘sanatan dharmani’. ‘it is crystal clear’, he concluded, ‘that the word’ ‘religion’ has different shades and colours. important shade is dharma (duty). that is to say, duty towards the society and the soul”. here again we find the belief that there is an indian sense of religion, which is compatible with secularism. https://changing-sp.com/ 258 manisha sethi his brother judge, j. dharmadhikari, insists on distinguishing religious instruction from re. it is the former, which is prohibited in a secular state – the latter that should introduce pupils to religious philosophies without indoctrinating them, or curbing their independent thinking is to be encouraged. it is an experiment which needs caution and vigil. though he leaves it to the educationists to frame such a curriculum, its contours are not entirely absent in his judgment. re would be the “teaching of philosophies of religions with more emphasis on study of essential moral and spiritual thoughts contained in various religions” and would have no place for the “teaching of rituals, observances, customs and traditions and other non-essential observances or modes of worship” (emphasis added). the identification of morality, philosophy and nebulous spirituality as essential cores of religion and observances as non-essential or peripheral; or the primacy of doctrine over practice, has been a dominant mode of judicial thinking on religion, and we see it being repeated here. the imprint of phenomenology of religions in his fervent hope that re be premised on religious pluralism is obvious. in this conception of religious pluralism, world religions are viewed as embodying “different perceptions and conceptions of and correspondingly different responses to, the real or ultimate”. nonetheless as for j. shah, for him too, the english word “religion” is inadequate in fully conveying “the indian concept of religion”, which is dharma. he writes: “hindus believe in vedas. the word ‘dharma’ has a very wide meaning.” note how quickly the indian concept of religion elides into a hindu, vedic one, and how sanatan dharma comes to stand in for natural religion: “dharma or righteousness is elemental and fundamental in all nations, periods and times. for example truth, love, compassion are human virtues. this is what hindu call sanatan dharma meaning religion which is immutable, constant, living permanent and ever in existence”. conclusion thus, the model of re in post independent india remained this: the official banishment of re from the curriculum; lack of any discussion among educationists on what might constitute a proper re curriculum, and deriving from it a moral frame tending towards natural religion; and finally, despite the exclusion of re, the cementing and naturalisation of a majoritarian idea of religion, culture and indian-ness. references chavan, s. b., das gupta, b., bairagi, b., zahidi, k. g., singh ‘surya’, r. & rajagopal, o. 81st report on value-based education (called the s. b. chavan committee). presented to the rajya sabha on 19.04.1999. retrieved from http://164.100.47.5/rs/book2/reports/hrd/81reportvbe.html ayyar, r. v. v. (2017). history of education policymaking in india, 1947–2016. delhi: oxford university press. biswas, a., & agrawal, s. p. (1986). development of education in india: a historical survey of educational documents before and after independence. delhi: concept publishing house. http://164.100.47.5/rs/book2/reports/hrd/81reportvbe.html changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 249–259 259 central bureau of education, ministry of education. (1948). progress of education in india (1937–1947), decennial review, vol. 1. (also called the sargent report). retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/progressofeducat031833mbp/ progressofeducat031833mbp_djvu.txt chatterjee, n. (2011). the making of indian secularism: empire, law and christianity, 1830–1960. new york: palgrave macmillan. constituent assembly debates, vol. 5. (1947, august). retrieved from https:// cadindia.clpr.org.in/constitution_assembly_debates/volume/5/1947-08-28 constituent assembly debates, vol. 7. (1948, november). retrieved from https://cadindia.clpr.org.in/constitution_assembly_debates/volume/7/1948-11-18 gandhi, m. k. (1928). religious education. young india. retrieved from www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/towards-new-education/religious-education.php government of india. (1883). report of the indian education commission. retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/reportoftheindianeducationcommissi on/99999990316603-reportoftheindianeducationcommission_djvu.txt lelyveld, d. (1982). disenchantment at aligarh: islam and the realm of the secular in late nineteenth century india. die welt des islams, new series, 22(1/4), 85–102. macaulay, t. b. (1835). minute on education. retrieved from http://www.columbia. edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html ministry of education, government of india. (1962). the report of the university education commission, dec 1948 – august 1949, vol. 1. (also called the radhakrishnan commission) (first published 1950). shah, m. b. (2002). ms. aruna roy and others vs union of india. 7 scc 368. retrieved from https://indiankanoon.org/doc/509065/ oesterheld, j. (2007). education, cultural diversity and citizenship in late colonial india. (emigra working papers, no. 58). retrieved from https://ddd.uab. cat/pub/emigrawp/emigrawp_a2007n58/emigrawp_a2007n58p1.pdf sethi, a. (2010). education for life, through life: a gandhian paradigm. in j. das (ed.). ncert memorial lecture series (pp. 3–10). delhi: national council of educational research and training. whitehead, c. (2004). the christian missions and the origins of the indian education mission 1882–83. education research and perspectives, 31(2), 120–136. wood, c. (1854 [1895]). comprehensive despatch of the court of directors to the government of india, dated 19th july 1854. (also known as wood’s despatch). in syed mahmood (ed.). history of english education in india: its rise, development, progress, present condition and prospects (1781–1893). calcutta: baptist mission press. https://changing-sp.com/ https://archive.org/stream/progressofeducat031833mbp/progressofeducat031833mbp_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/progressofeducat031833mbp/progressofeducat031833mbp_djvu.txt https://cadindia.clpr.org.in/constitution_assembly_debates/volume/5/1947-08-28 https://cadindia.clpr.org.in/constitution_assembly_debates/volume/5/1947-08-28 https://cadindia.clpr.org.in/constitution_assembly_debates/volume/7/1948-11-18 http://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/towards-new-education/religious-education.php https://archive.org/stream/reportoftheindianeducationcommission/99999990316603-reportoftheindianeducationcommission_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/reportoftheindianeducationcommission/99999990316603-reportoftheindianeducationcommission_djvu.txt http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html https://indiankanoon.org/doc/509065/ https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/emigrawp/emigrawp_a2007n58/emigrawp_a2007n58p1.pdf https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/emigrawp/emigrawp_a2007n58/emigrawp_a2007n58p1.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 6–21 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.1.057 received 6 october 2018 © 2019 aurea mota, peter wagner accepted 11 january 2019 aureamotta@gmail.com published online 1 april 2019 peter.wagner@ub.edu article the rhino, the amazon and the blue sky over the ruhr: ecology and politics in the current global context1 aurea mota centre for the study of culture, politics and society at the university of barcelona, spain peter wagner catalan institute for research and advanced studies; university of barcelona, spain ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the past half century has witnessed major socio-political transformations across the globe. the end of formal european colonialism, basically achieved except for small pockets in the aftermath of the carnation revolution in portugal in 1974, was followed by the demise of the soviet union in 1991 in parallel to the one of keynesian organized capitalism in the northwest and of “state-led development” in much of the south, but also the rise of asian economies, starting with japan and now featuring china. the subsequent era of globalization and individualization was short-lived and has given way to the notion of a “multi-polar” globe marked by the at best half-intended withdrawal of the us from hegemony and the loose association of brazil, russia, india, china and south africa under the name of brics. what has not changed across this half century is the depletion of the earth’s resources and the pollution of the environment. this article retraces the rise of ecological issues to become a global concern, and it does so by relating shifting 1 work on this article has received funding from the european research council (erc) for the project “trajectories of modernity: comparing non-european and european varieties” (tramod), based at the university of barcelona as erc advanced grant no. 249438; from the consortium humanities in the european research area (hera) for the project “the debt: historicizing europe’s relations to the ‘south’” (hera joint research programme “uses of the past”); and from the russian science foundation (rsf) for the project “varieties of modernity in the current global constellation: the role of the brics countries and the global south” (grant no. 18-18-00236), based at ural federal university in yekaterinburg. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 6–21 7 introduction the past half century has witnessed major socio-political transformations across the globe. the end of formal european colonialism, basically achieved except for small pockets in the aftermath of the carnation revolution in portugal in 1974, was followed by the demise of the soviet union in 1991 in parallel to the one of keynesian organized capitalism in the northwest and of “state-led development” in much of the south, but also by the rise of asian economies, starting with japan and now featuring china. the subsequent era of globalization and individualization, associated with the “washington consensus” and neo-liberalism in politico-economic terms, was short-lived and has given way to the notion of a “multi-polar” globe – a counterintuitive image that will need to be rethought – marked by the at best half-intended withdrawal of the us from hegemony and the loose association of brazil, russia, india, china and south africa under the name of brics. what has not changed across this half century is the depletion of the earth’s resources and the pollution of the environment. this article retraces the rise of ecological issues to become a global concern, and it does so by relating shifting interpretations of the issue to assignments of political responsibility. taking a global perspective and focusing on asymmetries, the article is situated in the context of the debate about “ecological debt”, exploring the notion that the early industrializing countries are indebted to those countries, from which they drew their natural – and also human – resources and on whom they imposed the negative external effects of industrialization (for a recent overview, see warlenius et al., 2015). the concept of “ecological debt” arose from within environmentalist social movements from the 1980s onwards, including at major global environmental debates such as the rio earth summit in 1992. to some extent, it has also been taken up in academic debate, mostly either in economic and financial terms, trying to calculate the debt, or in legal and moral terms, trying to assess responsibilities and needs for remedy. beyond these terms, the focus is here on political and social aspects of the ecological crisis in a global context, in which interconnectedness has considerably increased, thus also ecological relations with their specific asymmetries have become more dense, interpretations of the issue to assignments of political responsibility in the changing global context. emerging from a comparative research project on brazil, south africa and europe, it draws its examples from these regions, but aims at developing a more general argument about the current impact of historical power asymmetries on ways of dealing with the ecological crisis. keywords brazil, climate change, ecology, europe, industrialism, responsibility, south africa https://changing-sp.com/ 8 aurea mota, peter wagner but in which states remain the key actors and the only ones potentially able to assign responsibilities. to assign responsibilities, one needs to provide an interpretation of the problem that is both adequate and convincing. to resort to remedial action, actors have to be capable of acting according to such interpretation. in the current global constellation, the consequences of resource depletion and environment destruction keep being experienced to highly different degrees across world-regions, even though the threats to living conditions on the planet have become global. however, any plausible interpretation will identify a large discrepancy between the sites of causes and the sites of consequences, making effective action difficult to achieve. one of the paradoxes of the current situation is that this discrepancy at the core of the current ecological crisis tends to become more problematic the more accountable state governments are to the domestic citizenry, as we will try to show. emerging from a comparative research project on latin america, southern africa and europe, this article draws its examples mostly from these regions (for more detail, see mota & wagner, 2019, on which this article builds), but it aims at developing a more general argument about the current impact of historical power asymmetries on ways of dealing with the ecological crisis. let us add immediately that, for want of better terms, we will sometimes use the expressions “global south” and “global north” to identify spaces and actors, even though they do not neatly describe the current global divide (for reflections on locations in global space, see wagner, 2016). considering the brics members brazil and south africa, for instance, one needs to add, first, that these countries are the base of companies in the areas of agriculture and mining that operate in rather the same way as those with a base in the north; and, second, that these relatively powerful members of brics have themselves acquired some capacity to displace conflicts elsewhere in the south, a move otherwise more characteristic for northern societies. a truly global issue what we now call environmental concerns used to be very local issues. industrial factories and urban agglomerations were sites of high emissions of pollutants. these pollutants usually stayed close to the sources of emission and caused environmental impact there, mostly endangering human health. the air pollution in london in 1952, called the great smog, using the neologism coined by combining “smoke” with “fog” in the early twentieth century, was among the first events that both caused a public outcry and triggered quick and rather effective action. obviously, it was not the first one to cause major health effects. air and water had increasingly been used to dilute pollutants, but in many cases the pollutants only become less easily perceived, but not necessarily less poisonous, especially over the longand medium-term. furthermore, when the people whose health was affected were from the lower classes, such as mineworkers or agricultural workers, their situation used to cause little concern and even much less action. thus, the reason why the london event stood out in terms of publicness and action was that it took place in a capital city of metropolitan europe. as changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 6–21 9 such, it also was an important event in terms of emerging discrepancies in perception and interpretation that would persistently haunt the environmental debate. after the great smog, environmental issues rose quickly to become an important part of public debate in europe. in 1960, the social democrat candidate for head of government in west germany, willy brandt, included into the national election campaign the slogan about “the blue sky over the ruhr”, a river in the main coal and steel region of the country, referring to the ambition to reduce air pollution. thus, he made environmental concerns a key issue of the national policy agenda (we return to this campaign below)2. in 1962, rachel carson published her book silent spring in the us, pointing to the large-scale consequences of the use of pesticides, even far away from the source. in 1972, the club of rome published its report limits to growth, emphasizing the risk of depleting the natural resources of the planet earth, thus developing a fully global perspective on the consequences of industrialization. these two last-mentioned books are often referred to as turning environmental issues global, the one in terms of large-scale damaging impact on the environment, the other in terms of resource extraction. in 1986, the accident in the nuclear power station at chernobyl (soviet union, now ukraine) had radioactive fall-out that stretched far beyond given state borders. from the 1990s onwards, and increasingly so, the effects of emitting so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere have moved into the centre of attention. by now, climate scientists largely agree that there is a long-term change of the planetary climate due to humanmade emissions. current environmental phenomena like the increasing number and strength of hurricanes, or the steady rise of average temperatures in some world-regions are attributed to humanmade climate change. with this debate, a point has been reached where a diffuse global phenomenon, not traceable to a single source like a nuclear power station, has a diffuse global impact. thus, the identification of causes and the assigning of responsibilities has become as complex an issue as the assessment of damages. at the same time, there has been a drastic increase in the significance of the problem, namely the risk of making large areas of the planet uninhabitable together with the long-term nature of the process and the difficulty of halting it, not to speak of partially reversing it. climate change has become a prime example for demonstrating the high degree of interconnectedness of world-regions today. shifting responsibility: the rhino and the amazon it is peculiar, though, that the apparently recent “globalization” of ecological issues along the main lines of debate was preceded by a specific north-south discourse. after 150 years of industrialization in the north and domestication of northern flora and fauna, well-intended northern observers recognized that nature was at risk in the south. an early example is the engagement of the german veterinarian and zoo 2 the social democrats lost this election, but brandt remained their candidate and was successful in 1969. during his period of office, the government adopted a comprehensive environmental programme, passed several laws for the protection of the environment, and created a federal agency for the environment. https://changing-sp.com/ 10 aurea mota, peter wagner director bernhard grzimek and his son who focused on the serengeti region in what is now tansania. they did not deny the marvels of civilization, including industrial civilization, but underlined that everything humanmade could be reproduced whereas natural wildlife, once extinct, could not3. their film “serengeti shall not die” from 1959 was a great public success and won the us academy award for documentary feature in that year. it had the form of a documentary and an appeal, suggesting the need for outside intervention, thus implying that the local authorities – both colonial and post-colonial – would neither have the intention nor the capacity to do so. this kind of northern ecological discourse that focuses on southern regions that require intervention for reasons of environmental protection has since then become very common. two of its more recent examples, addressing latin america and southern africa, are the amazon rainforest and the rhinoceros. the amazon region contains the largest contiguous area of rainforest on the globe. it is inhabited by a great diversity of fauna and flora, with many species being unique to the area. furthermore, it acts as the “lung” of the planet by reducing the carbon-dioxide content of the atmosphere. thus, there are good reasons to see the region as of global interest, and not of interest for brazil and neighbouring countries alone. at the same time, the forest is threatened by deforestation and dispossession of small land-holdings to allow for large-scale agricultural use and for mining. in the course of these acts, the livelihood of indigenous communities is also threatened. it is common to see reports about the threats to the rainforest and their global impact in northern media. often it is accompanied by the observation that the national authorities – with brazil at the centre – are unable or unwilling to stop the destruction. however, it is less often added that much of the invasive production is oriented towards exportation to the north, the incentive thus being provided by northern economic “pull”. nor has the fact been much observed that the close connection of the brazilian environmental movement with the governments led by the workers’ party (pt) under president luiz inácio lula da silva (2003–2011) and, to a somewhat lesser extent, his successor dilma rousseff (2011–2016), resulted in a considerable slowing down of deforestation. something similar can be said about rhino poaching in south africa, in which there has been a sharp spike over the past years. eighty percent of the 80,000 rhinocerosses in the world live on south african territory. while in 2007 thirteen of them were killed, the number rose to 1,214 in 2014 and has not fallen below 1,000 since. the spike is connected to rising demand for rhino horn, in particular in asia where it is believed to have aphrodisiac and medicinal qualities. the demand is driven, in turn, by rising incomes in asia and by the fact that, with greater market integration across the globe, such demand is relatively easy to meet in today’s world. while the rise in killings has been associated with corruption of government officials, south africa did intervene quite forcefully in suppressing poaching and has been able to stabilize the rhino population (bale, 2018). 3 in some way, they may be proven wrong at some point: human hubris has started entertaining the idea of “de-extinction”, that is reproducing extinct animal species based on retrievable dna information. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 6–21 11 if we look at northern discourse on these topics, we recognize that brazil and south africa are seen as being responsible for key aspects of global sustainability. at the same time, especially the left-leaning governments of pt in post-military dictatorship brazil and the african national congress (anc) in post-apartheid south africa have been critically observed with regard to their capacity of enhancing economic activities. in the latter regard, the material, substantive core of naturalresource extraction and land dispossession disappears behind the numerical, statistical contribution of these processes to economic growth. thus, these governments are placed under the dual prerogative of protecting nature for the whole globe’s sake, on the one hand, and enhancing economic performance, on the other. they risk being criticized of neither doing the one nor the other to the required degree. to paraphrase what former president dilma rousseff, then still in office, once said to the spanish newspaper el país: here ”they detain you for having a dog and for not having a dog” (jiménez barca, 2016). northern complacency: the blue sky over the ruhr in these discourses, europe holds multiple positions. first of all, its voice is the one of the guardian of the common good. europe recognizes the peril of environmental destruction and urges for action. this voice is often not free of paternalistic, neo-colonial overtones: it is europe that recognizes the necessity, and it is the south that does not fully recognize it and/or fails to efficiently act according to this insight. secondly, europe may contribute to solving the issue, but it would do so voluntarily, since this is not within its responsibility. this is so for two reasons. first, both the right and the responsibility for environmental protection action resides with the sovereign powers over the respective territory. and even in global terms, secondly, the responsibility to act lies elsewhere because europe has already done its duty (for the general shift in discourse within european development policy, see karagiannis, 2004). the london air is relatively clean because effective action was taken in the clean air act of 1956 and its followers. the sky over the ruhr is blue again, and one can even swim again in the river after 46 years of bathing prohibition (iww water centre, 2017). generally, air and water quality has considerably improved in europe since the beginnings of explicit environmental policies. materials are more and more recycled for re-use; and energy production is increasingly based on renewable sources. statements like the above can be found abundantly in official publications from the local level of municipalities to the supranational one of the european commission. and they are largely true. they allow european governments at all levels to present themselves “at the forefront”4 of all action to save the planet and to improve human living conditions on it. however, this discourse is also extremely complacent. it seems to say, true, we have created the problem due to industrialization, but we 4 see, for instance, the european commission on the paris agreement to combat climate change: “the eu has been at the forefront of international efforts towards a global climate deal”. retrieved from https:// ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/international/negotiations/paris_en https://changing-sp.com/ https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/international/negotiations/paris_en https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/international/negotiations/paris_en 12 aurea mota, peter wagner have also recognized it in time and, there where we are responsible, have largely resolved it. at the same time, the discourse ignores – or claims to ignore, since the knowledge is not lacking at all, – that the reasoning only holds if the results of environmental policies are attributed to individual world-regions and their state actors and, at the same time, the chains of action that cause environmental damage are ignored. if we look again at the case of the ruhr river, the first successes were reached by using so-called end-of-pipe technologies, such as filters placed on the chimneys of coal-fired power stations and steel production plants, but they were very limited. breakthroughs in the improvement of environmental quality were achieved when the german iron and steel industry was largely closed down. in public and scholarly debate, such closing down of plants was seen as part of a general tendency towards “de-industrialization”, a radicalization of the earlier theme on the transition towards “post-industrial society”5. within germany, de-industrialization and the concomitant improvement of environmental quality were accelerated with the dismantling of industry in the former german democratic republic from 1990 onwards. globally, though, there is no evidence of de-industrialization at all. global industrial output has been steadily rising over the past decades, with the only exception of a rather minor dip in 2009, namely with the onset of what is now called, with western bias, the great recession after the default of lehman brothers in the us. however, the sites of industrial production have changed radically, being almost stagnant in europe after a steep decline in 2010, at only slightly higher levels in the united states after three years of decline from 2007 to 2009, and uninterrupted growth at high rates in china6. thus, rather than “de-industrialization” what happened was industrial relocation from sites in the formerly so-called “advanced industrial societies” towards other regions, predominantly in asia (in a way, already starting with japan much earlier), but increasingly also elsewhere. the observation of these shifts has given rise to the term “emerging economies” and also to the acronym brics, followed by the creation of an association between those five countries, indicating a possible shift in economic power relations. our concern here, though, is that the industrial relocation also entails an externalization of environmental damage. at a closer look, namely, the improvement of environmental quality in europe, is directly related to the deterioration of environmental quality elsewhere. while producing less, europe remains a high consumer of industrial products, and they are produced elsewhere with most of the environmental charge arising at the site of production or earlier at the site of extraction of raw materials. the sky over the ruhr is blue because iron and steel for industrial products used in germany are no 5 the “post-industrial society” theorem already arose during the 1960s, but it was then seen as a relative shift from employment in the industrial sector towards the third, or service sector. under assumptions of high general growth rates, typical of the 1960s, the advent of “post-industrial society” did not necessarily mean less industrial employment in absolute terms. in contrast, “de-industrialization” is at least partly a crisis discourse, as it requires adaptive measures often not welcomed by those concerned (for a recent discussion see pichierri & pacetti, 2016). 6 south africa had high growth until 2009, but considerable lower ones since then. brazil had moderate growth rates before 2009, and faced a second recession in 2016. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 6–21 13 longer produced in germany. such externalization occurs across the whole chain of production and consumption7. thus, europe uses an enormous amount of global soil for the production of foodstuffs required to feed animals for european consumption of meat. decades after the end of formal colonialism, it keeps “occupying” space outside its own territory for its needs and purposes. at the other end, china used to accept a large part of european recyclable waste materials since the early 1990s, mostly paper and plastic. but it has recently refused to continue to do so, taking european policy-makers by surprise and without any effective response. it is an indication that relations of power have started to change to such extent that externalization becomes more difficult. climate change and historical injustice the problematic of asymmetric externalization becomes particularly clear when one looks at the debate about climate change and policy action with regard to it. this is so because the global dimension is immediately central with regard to the contemporary consequences of the instrumental transformation of the earth. let us briefly summarize the argument introduced earlier. industrialism in all its aspects – mass production, mass consumption, transport infrastructure – is the main cause for climate change and its likely consequences in terms of deteriorating living conditions on the earth. it was developed by the early industrial powers in northwestern europe and later north america for their own benefit, but dependent on the creation of an atlantic division of labour involving african labour and american soil in the european “take-off” of industrialism (this is a broad debate, see recently stråth & wagner, 2017; mota & wagner, 2019). when the environmental effects of industrialism were recognized from the 1960s onwards, they were seen as health risks caused by pollution in the vicinity of industrial production and consumption. remedial action through environmental policies was effective, but it stayed close to these sites. in addition, the emerging new global division of labour from the 1970s onwards entailed the dislocation of heavily polluting industries as well as naturetransforming extractive industries to other parts of the world. this is the constellation that we have outlined. for a long time, it was largely assumed that it could be analysed in politico-economic terms, underlining not least that the industrial dislocations were an important cause for economic growth in the so-called “emerging” societies and the dangers to the environment a “price to pay” for this growth. then, “externalization” would be nothing else then the application of market logics. the “comparative advantage” of many societies of the south would then be the fact that they have the soil available to provide the north with raw materials and foodstuff, as well as to dump the garbage of the north. the earnings from these activities might lead these societies to “emerge” in the future and then deal on a par with the earlier industrialized societies. once climate change comes into the picture, 7 stephan lessenich (2016) coined the term “externalization society” for a constellation, in which one type of society systematically shifts the negative consequence of its production and life-style onto other societies. https://changing-sp.com/ 14 aurea mota, peter wagner however, that interpretation, doubtful as it always was, can clearly no longer be sustained. climate change radically alters the perspectives for the future. as such, it imposes an interpretation that recognizes that the instrumental transformation of the earth is strongly related to past domination and appropriation. therefore, the interpretation of the issue as temporal is what is new in the present. “modernist” and colonial discourse had relegated the colonized societies to a “not yet”, had denied them coevalness in the present, as anthropological and postcolonial scholarship has long critically pointed out (e.g., fabian, 1983; chakrabarty, 2000). the argument had been displayed in a variety of forms – reaching from immaturity to be overcome by education to the missing institutional preconditions for an industrial take-off. it did not normally include the notion that the “backwardness” was induced by the relation of domination between colonizers and colonized (as dependency theory would underline). whatever the past had been, the discourse of the “not yet” suggested an exit from this situation in the future. but the climate change debate has altered this situation: because of the urgency, so the argument goes, emissions in the south cannot be allowed to rise to northern levels. apparently, the benefits of industrialism that were historically reaped by the “advanced” societies need to be denied to the “emerging” societies for the sake of keeping the earth inhabitable. thus, societies that had been confined to the “not yet” during colonization and the hegemony of modernization discourse are now condemned to a “never”. if so, in this respect, historical injustice could no longer be remedied in the future. as of today, the debate on climate change has two official points of reference. the state of knowledge on the phenomenon is monitored and summarized by the international panel on climate change (ipcc), which by now brings together the common assessment of the overwhelming majority of competent scientists in the field, opposed only by a small number of persons who deny the existence of climate change or at least of its humanmade nature. and the state of action has been formulated in the so-called paris agreement of december 2015, by now signed by almost all states on the globe and in effect since november 2016. the paris agreement is in many respects an amazing achievement. it brings together the almost entire global political community to agree on a complex scientific diagnosis, itself operating with considerable degrees of uncertainty and indeterminacy, and to accept the urgency of acting in common by radically limiting the so-called greenhouse emissions, and thus avoiding significant future increases in global temperatures. all signatories of the agreement, furthermore, commit themselves to quantitatively specified targets for emission reduction. the agreement does not foresee any mechanism to enforce these targets, but it includes not only a monitoring process, but also further steps to be taken to increase the target levels and to concretize them in line with future observations and estimates on climate development by the ipcc. next to praise, the agreement has also received criticism, mostly because of setting the targets too low and lacking enforcement mechanisms. while both of these critical observations are pertinent, emphasizing them risks losing out of sight the enormous change in discourse brought about by the contract. with this document, changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 6–21 15 the international political community moves away from the assumption that all states are equal and are equally called upon to act in this highly urgent matter. rather, it is recognized that “developing countries” need to take longer in reaching the moment when emissions will fall, and it commits “developed countries” to provide resources for developing countries to protect themselves from, or compensate, damage due to climate change. even though the agreement avoids being explicit, this is de facto a recognition of historical injustice done by developed countries to developing countries8. a sense of this may have provoked the fury of us president donald trump, his announcement of the withdrawal of the us from the agreement, and the insistence that a better deal for “america” was needed. the problems with the agreement reside less in its quantitative insufficiency and its non-binding nature, because both of these are recognized within the agreement itself. germany, for instance, which prided itself to be “at the forefront” even within europe, is falling behind in reaching its self-set target objectives for 2030, and there are calls by politicians to be more “realistic”. but this falling behind has triggered a wide critical debate with reference to the paris agreement. the fact that the commitment for 2050 has been explicitly made within a formal international agreement makes it discursively difficult to just renounce fulfilling it. thus, this implementation hesitancy was expected and is part of the explicit monitoring and adjustment process set in motion by the agreement. the more crucial problems reside rather in that which is significant yet not formally recognized. three such elements are rather easily identifiable at a closer look. first, the paris agreement counts emissions according to the territorial site where they occur. this seems reasonable in light of the fact that governments can control more easily what occures on their territory. however, this way of accounting attributes the emissions for products always at the site of their production, not of their consumption. this means, as hinted at above, that the commodities exported from china for use in europe are “counted” in the environmental balance sheet of china, whereas it would be more appropriate to count them there where the realization of their value occurs (using sadian’s 2018 terminology). in the externalizing “consumer societies” of the north, the difference between “consumption emissions” and “territorial emissions” is considerable (mcmanus, 2015). secondly, there is a rather great reliance on voluntary action in the agreement, certainly due to the fact that the explicit and specified commitments fall short of what is considered necessary. however, voluntary action by unspecified volunteers is difficult to achieve, in particular in situations, in which the advantages and disadvantages fall to different actors. we can give one example that also goes back to a theme addressed earlier. globally, it should not be too difficult to renounce the exploitation of some oil reserves, given that oil is at the moment rather abundant and that the climate objectives foresee an exit from the use of fossil sources of energy. it is a much more difficult question to decide, which reserves are to be exploited and 8 the wording is “common but differentiated responsibilities”, paris agreement, preamble and article 2.2, 4.19, 4.3. the notion goes back to debates at the stockholm and rio de janeiro environmental summits of 1972 and 1992 respectively. https://changing-sp.com/ 16 aurea mota, peter wagner which not, given that they are found in states of very different forms of government and levels of wealth and inequality. reasonably, one should aim at renouncing the exploitation there where important counter arguments to it exist. this is the case in ecuador, where considerable exploitable oil reserves were discovered in a territory that is both an important natural reserve – a rainforest area of very high biodiversity – and the area, in which two indigenous “isolated” societies live, the yasuní national park. the government of ecuador headed by then president rafael correa proposed in 2007 that the area would be left untouched if the international community provided half the income that the state would renounce. the proposal was active until 2013 when correa withdrew it after only a tiny fraction of the requested money had been promised (murmis & lorrea, 2015; see also encyclopaedia britannica, 2018). the reserves are currently exploited by the ecuadorean national oil company petroecuador. hardly any northern volunteer felt a sense of responsibility for contributing to reach this sensible and rather feasible objective. thirdly, quite understandably given its nature, the agreement underestimates the possibilities of displacing the issue. once signed, and even before, many of those concerned by it started considering what can and needs to be done to continue doing the same and living the same way. a case in point is the german motor industry. cars built by nominally german manufacturers are predominantly up-market products, which contain numerous special features. they are rather heavy and expensive, but are successfully sold on world-markets to more well-to-do customers. it had been known for a long time that it would be difficult to make these cars meet more strict emission standards. successive german governments intervened at the european commission to avoid standards getting too tough, but this was apparently not successful enough. in 2015, the us environmental protection agency detected devices to manipulate emissions under test conditions and started investigating the cases. at the current moment, numerous legal cases are still ongoing in various countries. considerable fines have already been imposed. however, little attention has been given to the increased number of casualties and illnesses due to air pollution and the contribution of millions of cars to climate-change emissions. all of this was happening while the international negotiations that would lead to the paris agreement were ongoing. environmental action under adverse circumstances thus, as we see, environmental crime in europe is very much “white-collar” crime. it happens in the managerial offices of the large companies, and the intention is to secure sales and profits despite existing regulations that aim to protect the environment. as the car emission scandal shows, some of this activity is truly criminal, and once discovered, it is being prosecuted by the competent judicial institutions. while some executive officers violate environmental laws, others merely ignore or neglect the rising environmental concerns. they pursue projects of resource extraction or of environmentally and/or socially detrimental agricultural production, often on large scale and with high impact. much of this activity is planned in the changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 6–21 17 north but executed in the south. thus, the politics of externalization operates by a territorial displacement of conflicts. environmental protection laws in brazil and south africa are today very similar to those in europe. the high degree of global interconnectedness has given many environmental threats a global significance, as argued at the outset of this article, and it has also facilitated the rise of global environmental consciousness. the – relative and temporary – success in slowing down deforestation in the amazon region and protecting the rhino in southern africa is testimony of the strength of environmental action in the south. but such success is achieved under highly adverse circumstances. illegal deforestation and illegal killing of rhinos happen every day. these are not whitecollar crimes; they are committed by local people, often in need of the resources being made available through those deeds. as a consequence, a picture emerges, in which the combination of poverty and social inequality with the inability of southern states to enforce their laws, in particular in more remote regions, are seen as the cause of uncontrollable anti-ecological activity. put like this, the issue is firmly placed in the south, and the north is nothing but a concerned onlooker. however, this is a highly distorted picture. true, in some cases deforestation and poaching are driven by local interests. in many more, however, a global chain of responsibility is attached to them. this is particularly clear in the cases of assassinations of environmental activists, an increasingly frequent phenomenon, of which knowledge and awareness have risen not least thanks to the systematic reporting of the uk-based daily newspaper the guardian. in most of these cases, the killers acted not on their own behalf but for the interest of companies, often with a base in the north, developing large-scale agricultural or mining projects (watts, 2018). thus, the picture above, while not false, needs to be placed into a larger frame, in which two elements of the global context become visible: the capacity of northern societies to displace environmental damage to the south while maintaining corporate profits and general way of life, and by and large the incapacity of southern societies to effect a similar displacement, because very often there is no space in reach, towards which the conflicts could be displaced. little innovation on the path to “social progress” as hinted at above, the ptand anc-led governments after the end of dictatorship in brazil and of apartheid in south africa embarked on rather ambitious programmes of social transformation (for detail, see mota & wagner, 2019). in particular, the socialpolicy programmes have reduced poverty and – to a minor extent – social inequality and have created a new “middle class” among the formerly poor and excluded. at the same time, these programmes showed social limits due to the lack of addressing the entrenched structures of inequality that date from the long historical periods of formal hierarchy and exclusion. for our purposes here, we underline further limitations inherent to the projects of political transformation as designed by these actors. one pillar of the transformative programme in both countries was economic growth. such growth was meant to increase tax revenue, and a part of this revenue https://changing-sp.com/ 18 aurea mota, peter wagner was to be redistributed with a view to alleviate poverty and enhance the income of the lower classes more generally. given the world-market conditions in the early twenty-first century, economic growth in brazil and south africa could mostly be achieved through the intensification of ecologically “heavy” production in the primary and, to some extent only, secondary sectors. in brazil, one even talks about a “re-primarization” of the economy after the relatively successful industrialization through import substitution policies earlier in the twentieth century (paulani, 2016). this observation concerns the production side, and another problematic feature emerges from the consumption side. a considerable part of the social-policy programmes consisted in increasing the amount of money in the hands of the lower classes. this emphasis has some sound reasons. on the one side, handing out monetary benefits is relatively easy. it does not place high demands on public administration. on the other side, it is immediately positively perceived by the beneficiaries. thus, it is likely to enhance “mass loyalty” towards the government, according to a widespread theorem in political science (see already narr & offe, 1975, for an overview). however, the increased availability of money leads to an increasing demand for consumer goods, especially durable consumer goods. both in brazil and in south africa, private cars have come to be seen as a sign of upward social mobilty, enhancing life satisfaction and serving as a status symbol, the latter particularly in south africa. in production and even more so in use, though, cars are a significant contributor to environmental damage. this aspect of the political transformation, therefore, has generated negative ecological side-effects. the alternative would have been to achieve social progress by placing the emphasis on the improvement of public infrastructure. this objective could as well have been financed by the revenues from economic growth, but it would have required the development of the relevant administrative capacity, and not all of it would possibly have been as immediately recognizable as a benefit as the increasing availability of money. we need to underline that both the ptand the anc-led governments have invested considerably in public infrastructure, thus we talk about an imbalance rather than an absence. and this imbalance is more pronounced in brazil than in south africa, where significant effort has been made to improve the infrastructure in the residential areas of the black african population, systematically disadvantaged by the prior apartheid governments. nevertheless, the imbalance is telling for the overall design of the political transformation. we want to illustrate this in the form of an anecdote, of which, though, we have good reasons to believe that it is true. the first large demonstrations against the pt-led governments in brazil were the protests against the rise of the fare in urban public transport in june 2013. these protests became significant because they were the beginning of a larger series of protests that ended breaking the hegemony that the pt programme of political transformation had acquired over more than a decade. known as movimento passe livre (free fare movement), the protests started out as a clear single-issue contestation, and as such they could have been addressed rather easily. even before the rise of these protests, a proposal had been made by a leading member of the pt to keep the fares stable by subsidizing the cost of public transport through raising the changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 6–21 19 gasoline tax. the proposal came fully budgeted, demonstrating its feasibility and even calculating the effect on the official inflation rate, of constant concern for governments, to be minimal. nevertheless, it met full and immediate rejection by the pt presidency, even refusal to discuss it. an unholy alliance from the late 1970s onwards, sociological value research suggested that material values would give way to post-material values once material needs are largely satisfied (inglehart, 1977 and elsewhere). this has been seen as another step of “modernization” and was congruent with the ecological debate, assuming a linear trend towards greater ecological consciousness. like for other general aspects of global social change, there is considerable validity to this insight. at the same time, the picture gets distorted owing to the fact that the survey research findings, on which the theorem is based, work with data from individual societies that are treated as if they were moving separately across global history9. as we have shown throughout this article, though, this is not at all the case. to again provide a larger picture, we need to, on the one hand, read the findings on the move to post-materialism as something that has indeed to some extent – which should not be exaggerated either10 – taken place among the global rich, who live predominantly, but not exclusively, in the north. and they live there with the “false consciousness” of having changed their societies and ways of life by having improved the quality of the environment and decreased their burden on the planet, while as a matter of fact they continue to live over the means the planet can sustainably provide and have displaced the immediate effects of this way of life on the global poor. framed as an evolutionary theory of modernization, on the other hand, the findings, without intending to do so explicitly, also sustain the expectation of the global poor that they would first reach the level of material satisfaction that the rich have now to later move to post-material values. in south africa, for instance, where the benefits of material affluence had formally been denied to the majority of the population for a long time, any suggestion of “jumping over” the material phase is easily denounced as a new form of neo-colonial imposition. in a very implicit way, such evolutionary staging is expressed in the assumption of the paris agreement that the peak of greenhouse emissions will occur later in the “developing” countries than in the “developed” ones. it is difficult to object to such assumption, since it marks a recognition of historical injustice, as argued above. but at the same time, it shies away from any attempt of a more profound rethinking of the ways, in which material needs can be met, a rethinking that is urgently needed. the capacity of the north to displace its ecological impact to other regions of the globe combines with the incapacity of the south, until now, to develop a different 9 such methodological nationalism, it needs to be underlined, is not a conceptual assumption in this approach, but an effect of data and methodology. 10 the average per capita use of resources and impact on the environment remains considerably higher in europe than in most other parts of the world, with the main exception of the united states. https://changing-sp.com/ 20 aurea mota, peter wagner path to social progress than the one regionally taken in the north earlier to an unholy alliance that endangers the living conditions on the planet earth. the 1972 report on limits to growth did not lead to reduced consumption of resources, but to intensified search for extractable raw materials. the current risk is that the climate change debate will not do so either, but that instead technical solutions will be searched for that, on the one side, protect those who can afford to install them but not others, and on the other, that mark another step in the combination of technological hubris and economic expansion for expansion’s sake. references bale, r. 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(2018, 2 february). almost four environmental defenders killed each week in 2017. the guardian. retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/ environment /2018/feb/02 /almost-four-environmental-defenders-a-week-killedin-2017 https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2015/feb/09/we-can-start-leaving-the-oil-in-the-ground-right-now-heres-how https://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2015/feb/09/we-can-start-leaving-the-oil-in-the-ground-right-now-heres-how https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement http://doi.org/10.1177/1368431015600018 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/02/almost-four-environmental-defenders-a-week-killed-in-2017 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/02/almost-four-environmental-defenders-a-week-killed-in-2017 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/02/almost-four-environmental-defenders-a-week-killed-in-2017 changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.2.229 received 19 september 2022 © 2023 dmitry s. zhukov accepted 3 june 2023 ineternatum@mail.ru published online 3 july 2023 article personality and society in the theory of self-organized criticality dmitry s. zhukov g. r. derzhavin tambov state university, tambov, russia abstract emerged in the domain of natural science, the theory of selforganized criticality (soc) has spread to various fields over the past decades, achieving the status of an interdisciplinary paradigm. this article aims to answer three questions: is soc really a ubiquitous property of social reality? does the soc theory really substantiate the fundamental unpredictability and inevitability of social catastrophes? what contribution can the soc theory make to clarifying the fundamental mystery of the relationship between human will and historical necessity? i performed a meta-analysis of the latest literature and summarized the results of my own case studies. so far, there is not enough empirical data to confirm that soc is ubiquitous, although it has been proven that soc is characteristic of many social systems—especially those in a borderline, transitional state. the soc theory supports the idea that in some social systems for a fairly long time (even by historical standards), human will, act, and opinion can have a fundamental impact on the development of the whole of a system. keywords punctuated equilibrium, self-organized criticality, pink noise, history, society, politics, social transformations acknowledgement the work was supported by the russian science foundation under grant no. 18-18-00187. https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:ineternatum@mail.ru changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 11 object, aim, and questions the theory of self-organized criticality (soc) was developed in the late 1980s (bak et al., 1988) in the domain of the natural sciences and almost immediately demonstrated its expansionist character. it originally emerged as an emphatically interdisciplinary concept, but soon it became a new scientific paradigm addressing a wide range of the most difficult, promising, and, in a sense, trendy research problems in various disciplines. such claims are justified by the fact that the soc theory has offered an explanation for punctuated equilibrium, a phenomenon that is very widespread in nature and society and determines the most intriguing and paradoxical properties and events (podlazov, 2001; zhukov, 2022). this study considers the heuristic capabilities of the soc theory in the social sciences and humanities (economic applications were not touched upon due to some peculiarities of soc theory regarding economics). first of all, i sought to understand the contribution of the soc theory to the development of ideas about the place and role of a person and a human act in society and history, especially in times of social cataclysms. over the past two decades, a number of works have accumulated in which the soc theory has been successfully applied to solve research problems in the social sciences and humanities. these are the publications that formed an empirical foundation for my meta-analysis. my aim in this article is to propose answers to three questions: 1. is soc really a ubiquitous property of social reality as some promoters of the soc theory have claimed, or are these claims overly optimistic due to the theory’s rapid expansion? 2. does the soc theory really substantiate the fundamental unpredictability and inevitability of social catastrophes? 3. what contribution can the soc theory make to clarifying the fundamental problem of the relationships between chance and regularity and between human will and historical necessity? however, before proceeding with these questions, i explain what soc is and review the literature on which my judgments are based. what is soc? in a state of criticality, causal chains, even if they are triggered by weak local events, do not fade out too quickly and, in the end, can spread across the entire system. selforganized critical systems can, over a relatively long time, self-adjust, or self-organize into a critical state. the assertion that such systems are, firstly, possible and, secondly, abundant in physical and social reality is perhaps the most surprising point of the soc theory. after all, criticality is like a bifurcation point extended in time, a classic illustration of which is shown in figure 1. as long as the stone is on top of the hill, the choice of its trajectory can be determined by minute (even random) events. thus, a nonlinear effect arises: the usual proportionality of causes and effects is disturbed. however, if the stone is already rolling down the slope after the bifurcation point has been passed, it takes significant effort to change its trajectory. https://changing-sp.com/ 12 dmitry s. zhukov for a long time, it was believed as a matter of course that a system passes bifurcation points rather quickly. after all, if a weak, random impulse can push a system out of the bifurcation point, then it will not take long for such an impulse to appear. real systems are constantly affected by a huge number of minor random events generated by internal and external circumstances. criticality, once again, is like a bifurcation point extended in time; as long as a system is in a state of criticality, it may at any moment break loose, transform, and survive a cataclysm, or “avalanche” in the terms of the soc theory. a system in the soc state is a stone that has managed to climb to the top of the hill by itself and somehow stays there, perhaps not in perpetuity, but still for quite a long time. the behavior of the soc system is strongly influenced by nonlinear effects such as the aforementioned disproportions of causes and effects. moreover, these nonlinear effects occur within such a system in a natural manner, under the influence of quite ordinary, that is, subjectively insignificant or routine events. the mechanisms that provide such a fine self-adjustment of the system are the combination of fast relaxation and the slow growth of stress (podlazov, 2001, pp. 16–17). the apparent stability in this case is one side of the system, while a catastrophe is the other. such a catastrophe does not require any extraordinary, strong or new factor, whether external (e.g., a falling meteorite) or internal (e.g., the hardships of war and class struggle). so-called avalanches sometimes occur in self-organized critical systems. avalanches are very fast and large-scale jumps in system parameters. representatives of various sciences focus their attention on this phenomenon: in subject-specific research, avalanches are usually identified with abrupt qualitative transformations and even catastrophes: strong earthquakes and large floods, mass extinctions of biological species, huge traffic jams, etc. it should be emphasized that ordinary—even routine—micro-level processes can lead to avalanches. because such processes have not caused any catastrophic consequences for a long time in the past, observers tend to consider them figure 1 a stone on top of a hill is an example of a system at a bifurcation point (b), where/when there is a choice between patterns leading to different final states (attractors а1 and а2 ) note. drawing by the author. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 13 harmless and even insignificant. therefore, an avalanche for an observer may seem unexpected, causeless, coming from nothing. of course, for extraordinary large-scale events, historians might come up with extraordinary large-scale causes ex post facto, while contemporary observers quite often assign responsibility for an avalanche to foreign agents, supernatural forces, conspirators, secret organizations, and so on. an avalanche, however, is a legitimate immanent product of a self-organized critical system. (zhukov, 2022, pp. 164–165) only systems that have the necessary properties and structure are suitable for the emergence of soc. such specific systems must be comprised of a vast array of components, and a distinct possibility of feedback loops is required. the system itself must be on the verge of integrity; in other words, its components should have both autonomy and the ability to establish numerous connections to behave as a whole. such requirements for candidates for critical systems might seem unusual for representatives of some natural sciences, but not for humanities scholars. after all, most social systems, that is, systems created by people and consisting of people are exactly as described above. the key model of the soc theory is a sandpile, as seen in figure 2. yet, it must be noted that a real sandpile on the beach will most likely not demonstrate the intended behavior due to, for example, humidity. for the experimental demonstration of the theory, it is better to use a pile of polished rice in a laboratory than sand on the beach (bak, 1996), though a sandpile has already become a trademark of the soc theory. figure 2 the sandpile is a central heuristic metaphor of the soc theory note. drawing by e. wiesenfeld. source: bak, 1996, p. 2. https://changing-sp.com/ 14 dmitry s. zhukov under the conditions of the experiment, a few grains of sand are constantly added to the center of the pile. however, not all of the grains will immediately roll down to the foot of the pile, since the slope of some sections is not steep enough, i.e., not critical. a slight but regular trickle of sand grains that are poured onto the top, meaning a build-up of tension causes landslides, or relaxations, of various sizes, during which the slope of the sections of the pile becomes once again not steep enough. landslides come in all sizes, including the smallest shifts, medium-sized events, and revolutionary avalanches that involve large sections of slopes. the size distribution of landslides—the number of grains of sand involved—is determined by a power law. in one of my works, i tried to show the similarity between the human act and the fall of a grain of sand: an avalanche … is triggered by a single grain of sand, which can cause a minor collapse of the slope in a local, highly-inclined, area. this collapse causes the sand to slip in adjacent areas if they also slope too much. this self-reinforcing process develops rapidly. of course, there was nothing special about that particular grain of sand. it played a historical role only insofar as the system as a whole was in a critical state: the minimally stable areas (i.e., the areas with a large local slope) almost constituted a coupled cluster. one grain of sand—a single weak impact—was enough to make the system (slope) act (collapse) as a whole. (zhukov, 2022, pp. 165–166). systems generate various signals, such as time series—for example, a record of how the main parameters change over time. within soc systems, many microand macro-events trigger causal chains that combine, weakening and strengthening one another. such combinations form a specific signal called pink noise (1/f noise), which is an attribute of soc. it is important that pink noise can be detected (figure 3). figure 3 specimen (а) and spectrogram (b) of pink noise note. source: zhukov et al., 2020. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 15 one of the founders of the soc theory, per bak, wrote the following: a phenomenon called 1/f (one-over-f) noise has been observed in systems as diverse as the flow of the river nile, light from quasars … and highway traffic. … there are features of all sizes: rapid variations over minutes, and slow variations over years. ... the signal can be seen as a superposition of bumps of all sizes; it looks like a mountain landscape in time, rather than space. the signal can, equivalently, be seen as a superposition of periodic signals of all frequencies. this is another way of stating that there are features at all time scales. just as norway has fjords of all sizes, a 1/f signal has bumps of all durations. (bak, 1996, pp. 21–22) increasingly, researchers are coming to the conclusion that punctuated equilibrium is, as a rule, pink noise. furthermore, the explanation of this phenomenon can and should have a universal, interdisciplinary character (podlazov, 2001, pp. 7–8). this is how malinetskii describes the phenomenon: punctuated equilibrium, which is observed in the process of biological evolution, in the functioning of social and technical systems. a typical situation is when nothing noticeable happens for a very long time, and then rapid changes radically change the shape of the system, the time of revolutions comes, which, of course, does not negate many small events that we simply do not notice. (malinetskii, 2013, p. 39, transl. by dmitry zhukov [d. zh.]) as mentioned above, the rapid expansion of the soc theory in various disciplines was precisely due to the fact that it provided the satisfaction of an acute heuristic need to interpret punctuated equilibrium that raises a large number of intriguing and significant research questions. in previous works, i have outlined some of these questions: “jerks” and “jams” in the course of forced modernization in history, modern protest movements, bursts of terrorist and extremist activity, mass hysteria, and mass infatuation—these and many similar changes can proceed rather quickly and can, in many cases, be non-linear. at first glance, socio-political activity in a number of cases increases spontaneously: insignificant causes grow quickly in the information sphere to become “sufficient reasons” to overthrow political regimes. some revolutions in recent years did not have a clearly defined preparatory stage or well-observed socio-economic prerequisites. even institutional transformations can be multivariate and contain phase transitions, and in some circumstances, they depend on weak and even random influences. of course, this is not a complete list of the oddities that can be viewed as manifestations of punctuated equilibrium in social systems. (zhukov, 2022, p. 164). the soc theory demonstrated the connection of low-level processes with global events. it also described the mechanisms by which system-wide regularities can https://changing-sp.com/ 16 dmitry s. zhukov be generated by a vast array of decentralized and uncoordinated “minor” ordinary events, that is, interactions between micro-communities and minuscule, fundamental elements of the system. as regards a social system, people should be considered such elements. this means that social macro-dynamics, from the point of view of the soc theory, is brought about by the actions and behaviors of individuals. an important advantage of the soc theory is that it defines clear numerical criteria for identifying those systems that are in a state of soc. at the moment, one of the works that have set a benchmark for, among other things, the methodology for identifying soc in social processes is a study by a. dmitriev and v. dmitriev published in the journal complexity (dmitriev & dmitriev, 2021). to identify soc, several steps are required, including examining the time series generated by a system for the presence of pink noise. there are some other criteria, such as autocorrelations in the mentioned time series and power laws (with a certain exponent) in the distribution of results or system properties. the problem with the social sciences and humanities is quite often that the amount of data suitable for identifying soc is limited. however, this does not make research futile, as some methods are also available for relatively small amounts of data. at the same time, it is important to understand the extent to which such an analysis can be categorical. the common research design used in most of the works on soc in the social sciences and humanities can be described as follows. first of all, similar data are tested for the presence of soc indicators. this is a purely mathematical part of research, as signs of soc are identified or not as a result of formal computational processes. for example, when looking for pink noise, it is best to subject the original time series to spectral analysis and to calculate the power law exponent in power spectral density if a power law is found there. an indicator in a certain range around 1 makes it possible to identify the series under examination as pink noise. then, the nature of the system, its state, and regularities in its development are interpreted by referring to the universal explanatory schemes of the soc theory or to models that, as it is known from computational experiments, are capable of simulating soc, for example, the sandpile model, the bak–sneppen model, the forest fire model, or the interface growth model (bak, 1996; biggs, 2005; cederman, 2003; podlazov, 2001; roberts & turcotte, 1998). qualitative interpretation involves linking the known properties of the system with abstract notions and concepts of the soc theory. in many cases, the discovery and recognition of the fact that at least, in some periods soc can be inherent in the system under examination makes it possible to answer many intriguing questions related to effects that previously seemed anomalous. literature review in the late 1980s, a classic paper on the soc theory was published (bak et al., 1988). bak’s book, quoted many times in this article, was firstly published in 1996 and had the effect of a spark in a dry steppe (bak, 1996). in the works of the founders of the soc theory, the application of the new conception in the public sphere was conceived of as inevitable. however, such confidence was not immediately confirmed by case changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 17 studies in the social sciences and humanities. in the late 1990s, roberts and turcotte (1998) were finally able to prove the presence of soc in social reality, namely, in the system of international relations that generates military conflicts. roberts and turcotte demonstrated that the new approach gives rise to proper social knowledge and leads to some very important—perhaps even strange—conclusions. later on, power laws, that is, signs of soc were found in some social phenomena, such as wars and internal conflicts (biggs, 2005; cederman, 2003). in 2001, podlazov, a disciple of g. malinetskii, successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in mathematics titled novye matematicheskie modeli, metody i kharakteristiki v teorii samoorganizovannoi kritichnostii [new mathematical models, methods and characteristics in the theory of self-organized criticality] (podlazov, 2001). in this dissertation, he made many elegant observations regarding the applications of the ideas of soc to the clarification of social research problems, though that was not his main objective. however, case studies were still quite rare. in the early 2000s, theoretical thought continued to develop, despite the fact that it did not have a solid empirical foundation. conviction in the heuristic value of the soc theory and its interdisciplinary potential was fueled by large-scale successes in the natural sciences, which partially compensated for the lack of evidence in the social sciences. among the theoretical works of the 2000s on soc in social reality, a series of publications by brunk (2000, 2001, 2002a, 2002b), occupies a special place. mention should also be made of an article by kron and grund (2009), who, despite not having presented specific calculations, supported the idea that many sociopolitical processes, such as the arms race, are manifestations of soc. the situation fundamentally changed in the 2010s when the accumulation of empirical data—namely, proven effects of soc in social reality—and their interpretations accelerated many times over. the works of malinetskii (2013), a supporter of the interdisciplinary applications of synergetics, were of great importance for the start of this new stage of soc expansion. the scientific community of the social sciences and humanities also heard borodkin’s call to pay attention to the heuristic potential of soc for historical research in particular (borodkin, 2005, 2019). one of the most extensive multidisciplinary research programs aimed at detecting and interpreting soc in various sociopolitical, including historical processes was carried out at the center for fractal modeling (barabash & zhukov, 2018, 2020; zhukov et al., 2016, 2017, 2020). the studies by a. dmitriev and v. dmitriev (2021) were already mentioned above. significant and spectacular results were obtained in the research by picoli and colleagues (2014), shimada & koyama (2015), and thietart (2016). one breakthrough was the publication of fundamental research by tadić and colleagues (tadić et al., 2017; tadić & melnik, 2021), who were able to demonstrate that knowledge generation by human communities can be carried out in the soc mode. furthermore, several works were published in the late 2010s and early 2020s (açıkalın & artun, 2019; gromov & migrina, 2017; krafta & bortoluzzi da silva, 2020; leydesdorff et al., 2018; lu et al., 2021; malkov et al., 2018), which indicates that this research line is gaining supporters rather than fading. itemizing the domains of knowledge in which soc has been found in the presented works provides a very extensive list that includes rebellions and civil https://changing-sp.com/ 18 dmitry s. zhukov unrest (historical and modern), protest movements and social conflicts, activity (including political) of users of social networks, wars and other international conflicts, extremism and terrorism, criminal activity, demographic processes, corporate governance and corporate evolution, electoral behavior, urban development dynamics, and even citations of scientific articles. this list, while incomplete, corresponds to the spirit of the soc theory, which, according to one of its founders, bak, is applicable to many subjects, from the intensity of the luminosity of stars to the activity of the human brain (bak, 1996). of course, while not all of the areas listed above are entirely under the effect of soc, it is possible to know for sure that criticality is indeed there, and this fact can greatly affect the classical explanatory schemes. perhaps the main conclusion that this brief review of the literature should lead to is that soc has won the right to be an important part of social reality. question one is soc really a ubiquitous property of social reality? the founders of the soc theory insisted that it is a widespread, but not unique, phenomenon found in everyday life. this conviction stemmed from the natural idea that physical, technical, biological, social, and any other systems are identical in their fundamentals. laws of nature, if they are the most fundamental laws, are the same for everyone. at the same time, the scope of any theory has limitations, and, therefore, an object, before being interpreted in the spirit of the soc theory, must be tested for the presence of criticality markers by means of well-defined, formal methods. what is the situation like in the social sciences and humanities with the search for the limitations of the soc theory? brunk (2000, 2001, 2002a, 2002b) seemed to express the most optimistic view on these limitations, and his thinking was bold and inspirational. his contribution to the propagation and legalization of the soc theory in the social sciences and humanities is obvious. this, of course, does not change the fact that some of his statements are polemical in nature. it should be noted that at the time that brunk wrote his famous series of works, empirical data existed only in a few publications, and it was hardly possible to judge the breadth of soc’s distribution on the basis of facts. most importantly, brunk stated that all human societies have a tendency toward soc, that soc is the engine of history, and that all major social cataclysms (revolutions, crises, and so on) should be considered precisely as avalanches in line with the soc theory. here is an extensive quote that shows the logic and power of brunk’s arguments: our common sense tells us that the most important things should be the easiest to predict, but wars, market collapses, revolutions, cabinet dissolutions, and many other important events frequently occur without warning … what has become clear in the last decade is the reason that our standard models do not predict historical events of great consequence is that our traditional notion of causation is incorrect. in a linear world, the magnitude of a cause is always changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 19 proportional to the magnitude of its effect, and so the big events of history “must have had” big causes. in a nonlinear world, the smallest of triggers can produce large effects, and so the relationship between cause and effect is no longer what we have assumed … it is far more likely that all human interactions are generated in part by the only other sort of nonlinear dynamic yet discovered: self-organized criticality. self-organized criticality is such a simple process that it probably is ubiquitous in human affairs, and is what produces fractal time series of historical data. (brunk, 2002a, pp. 25–27) this is the source of “outliers” in historical data. if the world is a soc environment, then our assumptions about how to deal with these “outliers” have been wrong. instead of the bulk of the data being produced by one process and the “outliers” by another, all events—both the minuscule and the historically monumental— are produced by the same process in a soc environment. (brunk, 2002a, p. 31) statistical “outliers” are now seen as the great events of history that will appear in all samples of soc data, and self-organized criticality becomes the “engine of history” that generates its most important events. (brunk, 2002a, p. 36) realizing that it is not possible to detect signs of soc in all historical processes, brunk argued that, in many cases, a state of criticality is not in its pure form. instead, it is rather vague and, as he put it, weak (brunk, 2002a). indeed, as emphasized above, human communities are a very favorable environment for soc. communities consist of people who more or less freely communicate with each other and create, among other things, feedback loops. communities usually experience problems associated with the accumulation of contradictions that require resolution, that is, relaxation. in addition, it is worth noting that many social cataclysms do not have a marked preparatory period and, in this regard, are similar to avalanches in line with the soc theory. however, by and large, the available data does not confirm that soc is integral to human society and history. soc is not necessarily always identified, as in the case of some historical and modern time series (barabash & zhukov, 2018, 2020; zhukov et al., 2017, 2020). furthermore, an attempt to circumvent this fact by referring to the existence of “weak” and, therefore, poorly detectable soc systems run into occam’s razor. if some systems do not manifest themselves clearly enough as soc systems, maybe these are something other than “weak” soc systems. on the other hand, the available evidence is not sufficient to reject brunk’s claims. as a matter of fact, it has been well established that many historical processes, including those in the preindustrial era, fit into the soc theory. for example, the work of lu et al. (2021) seems to cover the longest time span and deal with the basic dynamics of society and the state in chinese history: the rising and falling of empires follow the self-organized criticality rule … the more sand particles added may lead to large-scale collapse or even a series https://changing-sp.com/ 20 dmitry s. zhukov of chain reactions, which is similar to the chaotic falling of empires. when the social problems accumulated to certain degrees, a small crisis may result in the collapse of the existing empires … the solid life cycle pattern of empires in history is persistent and stable, which, therefore, can be explained by the self organized criticality and investigated by the sandpile modeling and simulations. (lu et al., 2021, pp. 12–13) here are some examples from my works. in collaboration with fellow historians, i discovered criticality in the dynamics of peasant revolts in some governorates from the second half of the 19th century until the first russian revolution. i assumed that in those communities that demonstrated criticality, there had been some internal potential for large-scale uprisings. this means that inside, at the micro level, these communities had a certain source of constant tension, which from time to time was relieved through separate local protests and which, eventually, could generate an avalanche, or, in other words, a major riot. i found that not all governorates demonstrated soc. that is, some regions had not reached this state, while others, on the contrary, had passed beyond it (zhukov et al., 2017). similar results were obtained for rebellious activity in russian cities in 1917–1918 during the february and october revolutions and in the subsequent period. the capital cities of moscow and petrograd generated soc. at the same time, urban communities in many other regions exhibited chaotic behavior (zhukov et al., 2017). in the research, performed jointly with fellow historians including myself, kanishchev interpreted the emergence of pink noise in the demographic dynamics of peasant communities in the 20th century as a manifestation of the transition to partial regulation of demographic indicators (zhukov et al., 2016). it is impossible not to notice how diverse the manifestations of punctuated equilibrium, pink noise, are in the dynamics of social systems. it is fair to assume that soc is an essential characteristic of societies that, for some reason, are in a borderline state, that is, on the verge of transformation. moreover, since modern societies are characterized by a higher density of communication and speed of interaction, it is reasonable to expect that the effects of soc will grow stronger as the world enters modernity and then postmodernity. in addition, many social and political processes in the modern world take place in virtual reality (volodenkov & fedorchenko, 2021), which, by definition, has a very strong tendency toward soc. indeed, soc markers are found in abundance in modern processes, even those that seem “normal” and do not have transformational potential. in several works, i considered the emergence of soc in politicized online communities as a reliable indicator of their political mobilization. people in such communities are connected by numerous channels of reflexivity, and they are involved in common activities and discussions. in a state of criticality, a community can generate information avalanches, or bursts of information, that an outside observer does not expect (for example, figure 4). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 21 figure 4 information avalanche in the vk-communities that supported the political movement known as "electric yerevan" note. source: zhukov et al., 2020. such information avalanches not only initiate a change in virtual opinions, but also incite violence. in this vein, i explored the activity of a number of communities on vk1 and facebook2 during the impeachment of brazilian president dilma rousseff (figures 5 and 6), in armenia during the energy maidan and the velvet revolution, in russia during the navalny rallies in early 2021, and in germany and france during the yellow vest protests (barabash & zhukov, 2020; zhukov et al., 2020). in the cited work by a. dmitriev and v. dmitriev (2021), a state of soc was also considered a sign of a highly mobilized community. in particular, the researchers studied twitter3 activity during the us presidential debates and revealed the periods and mechanisms of criticality formation. despite the high prevalence of soc effects on the web, many works have shown that virtual communities, as well as real groups, organizations, institutions, and countries, are not always in a state of soc. thietart (2016) studied the reform activity of danone corporation, dividing the period under examination into several subperiods and only finding soc in some of them. thietart concluded that the accumulation of experience and demands for transformation probably needs to happen, after which the system should enter a state of soc, a state in which system has a tendency toward transformations of all scales. 1 vk (short for its original name vkontakte) is a russian online social media and social networking service. https://vk.com vk™ is a trademark of vk.com ltd. 2 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть facebook в россии признана экстремистской организацией и заблокирована. 3 twitter® is a trademark of twitter inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть twitter полностью заблокирована в россии. https://changing-sp.com/ https://vk.com 22 dmitry s. zhukov figure 5 the number of participants in the protests against dilma rousseff and michel temer (according to the police) note. source: zhukov et al., 2020. figure 6 pink noise in the network during subperiods iv (october 28, 2015 to february 4, 2016) and v (february 5, 2016 to may 14, 2016) (brazil, facebook4, communities protesting against dilma rousseff) note. source: zhukov et al., 2020. 4 facebook™ is a trademark of facebook inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть facebook в россии признана экстремистской организацией и заблокирована. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 23 i also studied time series suggesting terrorist activity over the past few decades in 20 countries around the world. pink noise was only found in some series and countries and for some time intervals (figure 7): “‘pink’ societies have inherent system potential for a significant rise in the number of terrorism events … any reduction in law enforcement may lead to a rapid upsurge in terrorism” (barabash & zhukov, 2018, p. 9). figure 7 α-based clusters from the 1970s to the 1990s (period i) and from 2008 to 2014 (period iii) note: α is the power law exponent. some countries were added (+) or removed (–) following the rise or disappearance of terrorism as system-wide phenomenon or changes in statistics. source: barabash & zhukov, 2018. https://changing-sp.com/ 24 dmitry s. zhukov brunk’s hypothesis that all social cataclysms are avalanches in line with the soc theory is especially noteworthy. indeed, the great advantage of this theory is that it does not make the researcher search for some powerful, extraordinary factors to explain large-scale events. the theory derives both everyday incidents and global upheavals from micro-level processes and states. this is a very productive approach, but only if it is possible to identify the presence of soc clearly. moreover, the theory itself in no way denies the presence of some powerful, extraordinary factors in nature; rather, it only makes them optional. for example, in july 1601, in moscow, there were frosts, and in september of the same year, it snowed. something similar happened over the next two years. it was one of the manifestations of the little ice age in europe. the time of troubles coincided with the period of crop failures and, consequently, famine. occam’s razor forces one not to interpret the russian state as a weak soc system, but to admit that the climate factor, coupled with political and social contradictions, initiated a systemic crisis of society and the state. however, such traditional schemes cannot explain some revolutions, uprisings, dissolutions of states, wars, and other social cataclysms that occur without a visible period of preparation. in this case, the soc theory is certainly an excellent tool, as it forces the researcher to refocus their attention from searching for “strong” reasons to diagnosing the state of a system as a whole—that is, they must consider a system’s structure and principles of functioning, the processes of stress accumulation, and “bursts” of relaxation. in summary, brunk’s concept of history has not yet been confirmed or rejected over the past two decades. it has been found that soc plays a key role in the behavior of communities at key moments in their history. furthermore, soc has shown itself to be an important, yet not a ubiquitous (judging by the current state of research) property of social reality. at the same time, it seems that there is still a chance of obtaining ample confirmation of brunk’s statements, especially in relation to modern history. ignoring soc in social reality leads to a more serious distortion of the truth than an overzealous search for criticality where it may not exist. question two does the soc theory really substantiate the fundamental unpredictability and inevitability of social catastrophes? it is quite likely that such an opinion was formed as a result of an interdisciplinary misunderstanding, that is, insufficient knowledge of the empirical side of the social sciences and humanities. however, there is a good reason for this question to appear. the soc theory, indeed, cannot accurately predict the date and location of avalanches. large-scale fluctuations in time series represent a numerical sign of social cataclysms. in an avalanche, the quantitative indicators of a system always go beyond the scope of what is considered normal and, possibly, beyond the scope of viability. therefore, an avalanche, as a rule, is associated with the destruction and qualitative transformation of the system. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 25 since an avalanche, like any other landslide in the sandpile model, can be initiated by a single grain of sand (i.e., a minor triggering event), it is almost impossible to predict which grain of sand will play this role. this is not only due to the incompleteness of knowledge: the universe itself, perhaps, does not know, or is dimly aware of, which particular grain of sand is destined for a historical role. the beginning of an avalanche can vary significantly due to nonlinear effects. in a hypothetical world where soc reigns supreme, the cause of all major (and minor) disasters would be the very state of society, and all of the apparent causes— that is, the events preceding in causal chains—would, in fact, be triggers. the problem is that the universe, both hypothetical and real, creates many triggers “out of thin air.” after all, anything can be a trigger, and such an “anything” appears quite often. any snap of the fingers can grow into a universal catastrophe because this is a very fragile world, which bak calls “sandpile world”: once the pile has reached the stationary critical state, though, the situation is entirely different. a single grain of sand might cause an avalanche involving the entire pile. a small change in the configuration might cause what would otherwise be an insignificant event to become a catastrophe … parts of the critical system cannot be understood in isolation. the dynamics observed locally reflect the fact that it is part of an entire sandpile. … in the critical state, the sandpile is the functional unit, not the single grains of sand. no reductionist approach makes sense. the local units exist in their actual form, characterized for instance by the local slope, only because they are a part of a whole. (bak, 1996, pp. 59–60) however, human history, even contemporary history, only partly matches this exaggerated description. in social reality, there are islands and even, perhaps, continents of linearity and other “straightforward” regularities. soc does not emerge always and everywhere, yet where it does emerge, it fundamentally changes the behavior and development of systems. the problem is that people cannot see with the naked eye when events cease to be “usual,” and processes begin to be influenced by nonlinear effects. as brunk writes, “this example illustrates a common problem when investigating nonlinear historical and spatial processes. they often masquerade as something that they are not until a very great deal of data can be examined” (brunk, 2002a, p. 40). the potential for an avalanche is inherent to an soc system: it is hidden in plain sight from the observer. for a long time, such a potential does not produce any effect; routine events become the norm and are perceived as part of stability. but that kind of stability is an illusion. an avalanche can emerge all by itself from nothing. in other words, soc systems can react very strongly to insignificant triggers, even though they may have disregarded similar triggers for a long time. it is vital that the causes of cataclysms (provided that they are actually avalanches) be sought not in tremendous, abstract, controlling forces, but in the state and structure of the system itself, in the nature of routine interactions, including the everyday practices, needs, and opinions of people. https://changing-sp.com/ 26 dmitry s. zhukov however, researchers, including historians, have tended to rationalize major unexpected events after the fact, seeking and finding sound reasons, strong factors that have been previously hidden, and so on. since people mainly encounter linear dependencies on a daily basis, they intuitively attribute them to the entire universe. however, rather than being a reflection of the properties of the universe, this is a manifestation of the principle of economy behind the observer’s reasoning. major events, outliers in time series, are often dismissed by researchers as anomalies (i.e., instrumental errors or exceptional, unnatural events caused by forces not inherent in the system itself). the traditional view of social cataclysms is that when dealing with special events, one should search for special causes. the soc theory requires looking for trivial causes for special events if such special events took place in a critical environment. the tools of the soc theory are able to distinguish critical systems from noncritical ones and show exactly which system entered the avalanche-prone period and when. in particular, the appearance of pink noise in time series indicates an soc system, where power laws prevail. although the date and place of an avalanche or social cataclysm are unknown, the predictions of the soc theory are of high practical importance for the social sciences and humanities. such predictions, in essence, are no different from a body of predictions in natural science, which also have a probabilistic and variable character. thus, the soc theory makes it possible to diagnose—not only after the fact, but also in advance—the transformational potential of a social system, from an online community to a social group and the whole of society. such heuristic capabilities of the soc theory were confirmed by case studies (zhukov et al., 2017, 2020). however, somewhat earlier and, apparently, for the first time in the literature on the sociopolitical applications of soc, this idea was put forward by shimada and koyama (2015). using the materials of japanese electoral statistics for several decades, shimada and koyama indicated that the presence of power law distributions with an exponent of about 1 in the time series reflecting political life can be an indicator of the readiness of certain social groups for a qualitative (i.e., radical) political transformation. the latter part of question two concerns the inevitability of social cataclysms. indeed, the soc theory considers avalanches a natural manifestation of the laws of nature. this sometimes becomes a source of pessimism for researchers who see normal historical processes as exceptionally straightforward and progressive. on the other hand, many researchers view transformational leaps as necessary phenomena. so, shimada and koyama foresee an era of change in japan: as indicated by the fallout from the lehman collapse and the severe deflationary economic downturn in japan, the buildup of discrepancies in the basis of japanese society is reaching an extreme level. in order to break free from this stagnant era and open up future prospects, new strategy for social change is needed. currently, the country is approaching a dramatic transition from the state of social change that has existed up until now (exponent dm = 1.27) to a state of real criticality, the most probable for social change (dm = 1). the model suggests that a decrease changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 27 of the power exponent dm (1.27) changes the agonistic structure greatly, leading to an increase in the change output r. (shimada & koyama, 2015, p. 348) however, the fact that there have been dramatic social transformations of various scales occasionally called quantitative and qualitative leaps, or phase transitions, throughout history is old news. revolutions seem inevitable for almost all scholars of the social sciences and humanities, except maybe early positivists. is it possible to prevent a cataclysm provided it is an avalanche in line with the soc theory? if artificially preventing some section of the slope of the sandpile from collapsing, then this will make the slope in this section steeper. if repeating the same operation several times in different areas, the prospect of a superavalanche will arise sooner or later, since the slopes of the pile will become too steep. manual control will help delay the onset of the catastrophe but aggravate its course. thus, bak draws disappointing conclusions regarding an economy: our conclusion is that the large fluctuations observed in economics indicate an economy operating at the self-organized critical state, in which minor shocks can lead to avalanches of all sizes, just like earthquakes. the fluctuations are unavoidable. there is no way that one can stabilize the economy and get rid of the fluctuations through regulations of interest rates or other measures … if economics is indeed organizing itself to a critical state, it is not even in principle possible to suppress fluctuations … but maybe, as we shall argue next in a different context, the most efficient state of the economy is one with fluctuations of all sizes. (bak, 1996, pp. 191–192) apart from very large systems, such as an entire society, soc can be extinguished in a particular system by fragmentation or by the elimination of the source of activating impulses—that is, the source of tension. it is clear that it is virtually impossible to control soc systems by conventional methods because they have low sensitivity to traditional control measures (podlazov, 2001, p. 34). the historical causality of social transformations does not always mean that they must take on the form of social catastrophes in the literal sense of the word. in fact, historical necessity in many cases leaves a significant amount of room for people to choose the format of transformations. it is not so much the avoidance of cataclysms that is important, but their format—that is, the ratio of cost to benefit, as well as the formation of a new system thereafter. to control, at least partially, the results of radical transformations, it is necessary to understand their nature. question three what contribution can the soc theory make to clarifying the fundamental mystery of the relationships between chance and regularity and between human will and historical necessity? for quite a long time, there was (and, in a sense, still is) the notion that there is an impenetrable barrier separating the mathematized natural sciences on https://changing-sp.com/ 28 dmitry s. zhukov one side and the social sciences and humanities on the other. in most cases, it is allegedly impossible to extend the theories and methods of the natural sciences to the social sciences and humanities, and vice versa. the essence of this barrier lies in the distinctive nature of the subject matter of human sciences, which is fully derived from free will, that is, the capacity of a person to act in spite of the circumstances, with no regard to scientific laws. however, as it turned out, the objects of the natural sciences (for example, atoms) are also capable of “acting” rather arbitrarily. thus, the half-life of uranium-235 is approximately 700 million years: over this time, about half of the atoms from the initial amount of uranium will have decayed. still, a particular atom may decay in one second or in 10 billion years. of course, an atom does not make a decision, but the relationship between an “action” of an atom and the general evolution of uranium-235 can be described in the same way as the relationship between human action and historical regularity. moreover, it became clear that the objects of the natural sciences are capable of self-organizing, sometimes in the most paradoxical manner. it is unlikely that they negotiate like people, but the principles of self-organization turned out to be universal. finally, many systems, regardless of their nature, demonstrate purposeful behavior and persistently move toward some attractor, whereas people, inspired by dreams and ideas, pursue their goals. one unique attribute of the social sciences and humanities now lies in the fact that principles of ethics and morality can be applied to the subject of these disciplines: people. at the level of explanatory schemes, there are no differences anymore. as i discuss later, this dramatic convergence of different branches of knowledge happened not because man was “mathematized,” but because, in order to explain nature, natural science and mathematics had to develop concepts that were progressively more “humanized”, that is, progressively more suitable to explain not only inanimate matter, but also social phenomena. of course, such an evolution of the paradigms of natural science was not inspired by the desire to claim the domain of the social sciences and humanities. since around the end of the 19th century, the evolution of the exact and natural sciences has been strongly influenced by the problem of the relationship between regularity and chance. the soc theory has become an important, logical, and now final link in this evolution. manifestations of free will, such as an act, opinion, or decision, in interdisciplinary explanatory schemes can be interpreted precisely as an accident, an essentially unpredictable event. what is more, such an accident is local in time and space and low energy. nonetheless, such accidents emerge in multitudes, always and everywhere. how does such a reality, both physical and social, function? the starting point of my brief review of this question is laplace’s determinism, which has dominated since the 18th century and argues that the entire universe is determined at all times by chains of cause and effect (laplace, 2007). causes and effects are unambiguously connected: each cause gives rise to a strictly defined effect, and each effect must have a strictly defined cause. the chains are unbreakable, and there are basically no coincidences. those phenomena that seem random are in fact determined by a regularity that has not yet been understood. all systems are changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 29 similar to clockwork mechanisms: the behavior of all elements is predetermined by the structure and rules. in such a picture of the world, the free will of a person could be present only as an exception to the rules—that is, as a reflection of the divine. consequently, social research, if it was focused on arbitrary human behavior, was doomed to marginalization into the nonrational sphere of art and religion. a huge breach in this picture of the world was made by scientists’ realization by the end of the 19th century that a significant part of the laws of the physical world are statistical laws. laws of this type determine the behavior of the entire system, but they are not binding to individual elements, which may behave randomly. an example of this kind was given above: the half-life law does not in any way determine the behavior of each particular atom, but it is strictly obeyed by the entire set of atoms. the development of ideas about statistical laws was associated with the emergence of concepts of probabilistic causality. within the framework of such ideas, the existence of chance was recognized, but the significance of chance—and, consequently, human decisions—was reduced to a minimum: chances and people did not influence the course of events, which was determined by an objective, “extrahuman” regularity. statistical laws were adopted by the sociologists of that time who recognized that a person is free to commit any act and have any opinion, while the overall group behavior, as well as the development of institutions, society, states, and so on is beyond the control of a particular person or even the entirety of people. it was synergetics, which has successfully gained the status of the general scientific paradigm since the 1960s, that made fundamental adjustments to such ideas. theoretical and empirical studies in natural science carried out within the framework of synergetics have shown that there are bifurcation points. i illustrated this concept above (figure 1) when i mentioned a stone, the fate of which (i.e., development trajectory) can be determined by a minor, local (i.e., random) event. thus, it was recognized that systems, both physical and social, can experience such short-term states in which the consequent regularity (i.e., choice of an attractor) is determined by random influence. this means that a human act, even the action of a single person, can affect the whole of a social system along with the outcome of its evolution, historical regularity. synergetics not only recognized the presence of chance and the ability of people to think and act arbitrarily, but also admitted that chance (a human act) can significantly affect the choice of regularity sometimes—that is, in the right place at the right time. however, such a choice is only possible when there are several attractors, options for further development. in addition, bifurcation points are quite fleeting, as i have already mentioned. finally, the soc theory has shown that some systems can be in a state similar to a bifurcation point extended in time for quite a long time (even from a historical point of view). in soc systems, every accident can lead to an avalanche, every human act can have historical significance. moreover, the soc theory postulates that events of different scales are generated by the same micro-level processes. in social systems, therefore, interests, ideals, actions, and interactions of individuals form historical regularities that include both tremendous revolutions and slight https://changing-sp.com/ 30 dmitry s. zhukov shifts. the soc theory not only allows for the existence of chance and its ability to determine regularity at some rare moments, but also puts chance on par with regularity and recognizes the equality of regularity and chance, which continuously influence each other. of course, not all systems operate in the soc mode, but—as i have tried to express in this article—in social reality, such systems are much more common than it might seem. conclusion the extension of the soc theory to the domain of the social sciences and humanities returns to the research agenda the longstanding attempts to understand, at least partially, the place of man in society and the role of the individual in history. we used an extensive set of case studies, theoretical studies regarding soc in the domain of the social sciences, humanities to clarify three questions that i think are important in assessing the heuristic capabilities of the soc theory, and its relationship to the problems mentioned. at the moment, the results published in the scientific literature indicate that soc is present in many social processes, modern and historical, and can impart these processes’ counterintuitive qualities, including disproportionate causes and effects, cascades of cataclysms of different scales, unexpected bursts of activity, “causeless” revolutions, and so on. soc is especially important for understanding systems in a borderline state—that is, between order and chaos or in a transitionary period. however, there is not yet the necessary amount of empirical data that unequivocally testify in favor of the assertion that soc is a ubiquitous and integral property of social reality. this is the answer to the first question about the limitations of the soc theory. the second question required verification of the assertion that the soc theory allegedly substantiates the fundamental unpredictability and inevitability of social catastrophes. although the soc theory states that it is impossible to predict the place and time of avalanches, i.e., major transformations, in critical systems accurately, it provides a convenient tool to identify avalanche-prone systems and periods. as for the inevitability of revolutionary upheavals, the soc theory is not alone in this view. furthermore, the theoretical inevitability of major events does not detract from the right and ability of people to influence their format and outcomes. it should be noted that the soc theory makes it unnecessary to have a major, extraordinary factor to explain major events. finally, the third question concerned the contribution of the soc theory to ideas about the relationship between chance and regularity, human will, and historical necessity. i have tried to show that the soc theory is the next logical step in the evolution of interdisciplinary paradigms that has been going on for more than three hundred years. the soc theory originally created as a mathematized concept of natural sciences essentially states that in some social systems for a rather long time, even by historical standards, human will, act, and opinion can have a fundamental impact on the development of the whole of a system. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 10–33 31 references açıkalın, ş. n., & artun, e. c. 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branch, the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia abstract current museum studies have attracted research attention to changes in communication between museums and viewers, which is increasingly acquiring a hierarchical character. a notable example of such transformation in russia was an art mediation project realized under the auspices of the ural industrial biennial of contemporary art. this article is focused on the experience of art mediation excursions at the 4th biennial, which took place in the fall of 2017 in the city of yekaterinburg. mediation is considered as a set of methods that allow the traditional viewer to be transformed into a certain form of involved audience. a new view on the museum audience is presented from the standpoint of current international and russian museology. it is shown that the institution of russian contemporary art is currently experiencing a surge of interest. aims and objectives of the art mediation project carried out during 4th biennial are analyzed. visitor practices during art mediation are reconstructed using both quantitative data (self-assessment after excursion) and qualitative data (17 in-depth interviews with mediators) collected during field research at the 4th biennial. three ways of visitors’ participation in mediation are revealed. the author suggests that the visitor’s influence on the experience of the mediator should be considered as the most significant evidence of changes in museum communication. keywords art mediation, museum communication, ural industrial biennial, viewers, involved audience received 25 july 2019 © 2019 elena s. kochukhova accepted 17 september 2019 elenascause@yandex.ru published online 5 october 2019 https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 258–272 259 art mediation and changes in visitor-museum communication art mediation is a new museum practice, which evolved in the last decades of the twentieth century and is now actively developing (camara et al., 2014; violett, 2014; malikova, 2015). the notion “mediation” comes from french museum practice, where a broader concept “la mediation culturelle”1 is used (caillet, 1995; liot, 2010; lafortune, 2012). according to the guidelines for museum mediators, mediation is “a process in which the central figure is the visitor according to a constructivist approach, based on the knowledge of the different kinds of visitors, of learning styles, of interpretative communities” (camara et al., 2014, p. 8). it applies to different types of museums such as historical, ethnological, technical, fine arts, and so on. the term “art mediation” refers to a set of mediation methods applied in visual arts2. this article explores art mediation as a phenomenon illustrating transformations in museum communication. such transformations are aimed at changing the relationship between the viewer and the institution with the purpose of reducing the distance between them. specialists in the field of museology are seeking answers to various questions, such as whether art mediation is capable of shortening this distance or what methods of interaction this form can offer to the viewer. in general, there is a perceivable lack of research on art mediation since this practice has appeared only recently. at the same time, questions related to mediation as a museum practice are widely discussed in the professional museum community. the most comprehensive research on this issue was conducted in 2012–2014 by ines camara and her team and was supported by the european commission. this study pursued a practical purpose – to design “the theoretical basis of the training course, which had a common part and another based on the national context” (camara et al., 2014, p. 11). the research identified and compared museum mediation practices in seven european countries. in other publications, mediation is explored as a new form of museum education. f. de backer et al. generalized existing approaches to art mediation, relying on classical works on museum pedagogy (de backer et al., 2014). m. villa described the experience of the bogota art mediation lab and concluded that the main challenge for mediators is to connect art with emotions, claims, and memories of visitors, regardless of their educational backgrounds (villa, 2015). m. györgyfova emphasized that talking about visitors’ perceptions is an important element in museum education (györgyfova, 2016). art mediation is also described as a way to create a museum community. for example, c. vasconcellos and m. da silva analyzed the case of a museum in san-paulo and represented art mediation as a tool to reduce the symbolic and real distances between the museum and its immediate neighborhood (vasconcellos & da silva, 2018). 1 that concept describes non-hierarchical communication between any cultural institutions and their audience. 2 however, it should be noted that the expression “art mediation” is often used to describe the capacity of art to act as an intermediary between the author and the viewer or the teacher and the student. seen in this way, an art object is a tool used to convey ideas. in this article, we are going to use the term “art mediation” to denote a set of methods that allow a museum to involve visitors into communication, rather than an attribute of art itself. https://changing-sp.com/ 260 elena s. kochukhova in russia, the emergence of interest in art mediation is related to the project “manifesta 10: the european biennial of contemporary art in st. petersburg” in 2014 (manifesta, 2014). sepake angiama, the head of education for manifesta 10, proposed the following understanding of mediation, which was later adopted by other russian projects: “in the context of contemporary art, the role of the mediator is to ensure a dialogue in a pluralistic situation of interaction between the viewer and art. we teach our mediators to stimulate dialogue and create conditions that learn visitors to articulate their perceptions through observation, discussion and creativity” (angiama, 2014). in 2015, the ural branch of the national centre for contemporary arts (ncca) launched an educational program “mediation in the field of art” (ncca, 2015), whose graduates then worked at the 3rd ural industrial biennial (the project was repeated as the 4th and 5th biennial). another example is a training course for art mediators carried out by the garage museum of contemporary art in 2015, and dedicated to the opening of a new museum building and a new exhibition (garage, 2015). in 2016, permm museum of contemporary art presented its own art mediation course in perm (permm, 2016). in 2017, in nizhny novgorod, the ncca branch started the school of art mediation (ncca, 2017). in summer of 2019 in yekaterinburg, the contemporary art gallery introduced an internship program for mediators (uralgallery, 2019). in their programs, the above-mentioned institutions described art mediation as a practice of involving visitors into the dialogue about art. the experience of large russian cities shows that in recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in mediation on the part of institutions of contemporary art. however, russia still has a long way to go in this respect, and this topic is largely underexplored in academic research. a pioneering work in this respect is daria malikova’s master thesis on methods of interaction with the audience of art museums. d. malikova defines art mediation as a method of educational work, she also describes its place in the system of educational activities of art museums, highlights the key characteristics of this method by comparing them with traditional practices of museum education (malikova, 2015). the general principles of mediation as an element of museum pedagogy are investigated by izmailova and kolokoltseva (2016). n. striga uses her own mediation experience to reflect upon the principles of mediator training and to describe the techniques of working with art objects at an exhibition (striga & pronin, 2017). however, art mediation as a phenomenon is not just a new museum education practice. it plays a crucial role in the transformation of museum communication. the questions that are interesting to consider in this respect are as follows: who are the agents of the transformation that museum communication is now undergoing? and what specific changes does this transformation encompass? russian museums need to accomplish an important task of improving the new formats of communication with their audiences (dukel’skij, 2010). traditional museum communication formats are hierarchical while the new formats, on the contrary, should be horizontal. the basic principle of art mediation is to make the viewers’ voices be heard. therefore, it is necessary to depart from the traditional hierarchy in museum communication, to change the museum’s attitude towards the audience, and to transform the audience behavior patterns. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 258–272 261 in her theoretical review of visitor studies, a. maksimova has outlined three concepts of museums in the twentieth century: a museum of the “temple of arts” type, a museum for experts, and a museum engaging visitors in its work (maksimova, 2014, p. 161). these three types of museums correspond to three types of visitors: “observer”; “expert”, and “partner”. the first and the second types are traditional: the museum exhibits its objects for the public to see while the public, in its turn, is divided into professionals, who understand museum infrastructure and can influence museum practices thanks to their expert position, and non-professionals, who can watch and get impressions. thus, traditional museum communication involves, on the one hand, experts, who determine the themes, objects, and ways of exhibiting, and, on the other hand, viewers, who can choose from the range of options that experts offer. there is, however, a new understanding of museum communication, which enables the viewer not only to watch and comment on what they see, but also to get involved in the work of the museum, solve the same tasks as professionals – determine the theme and concept of the exhibition, supervise it, communicate with artists, and interpret their ideas. it is a new type of visitor – the “partner”. in general, this new vision of the viewer underpins the interest in studying audience experience and, as a result, leads to transformations of museum practices (pekarik, doering, & karns, 1999; simon, 2010; falk & dierking, 2013; maksimova, 2014; nikitin, 2018). the view of the visitor as an equal partner contributes to the general shift in museum communication, which can be observed in russian art institutions. likewise, the visitors of the ural industrial biennial of contemporary art3 are not just viewers, art mediation is used as one of the museum communication strategies based on participation, it “draws attention to the moment of mutual exchange, coordination, which is so important in the new museology” (malikova, 2018, p. 182). as an example of this shift from the “viewer” to “involved audience”, let us look at the case of the art mediation project at the 4th ural industrial biennial of contemporary art, which took place in the fall of 2017 in the city of yekaterinburg. to describe the transformation of communication that happens during an excursion conducted by a mediator, i analyzed seventeen in-depth interviews with art mediators4. interviews were conducted during two weeks in november 20175, which were closing the 4th biennial event. by this time all the respondents had accumulated a diverse experience 3 the ural industrial biennial of contemporary art is a large regional art project held in yekaterinburg and other ural cities. the project seeks to integrate the region into the context of the international art scene. the biennial takes place at former industrial and non-exhibition sites, and thus the concept of industry is explored both as a heritage and as an actual practice. curators, artists, sociologists, and cultural theorists from around the world define the urals in all kinds of ways. the first biennial took place in 2010. in september 2019, the 5th biennial “immortality” opened in yekaterinburg (ural biennial, 2019) 4 interviewing was a part of the project “study of the audience of contemporary art sites in major russian cities”, realized in 7 large regional russian cities by the ural branch of the ncca in cooperation with yekaterinburg academy of contemporary art and research company “socium” in 2017–2018. the project included observation in institutions of contemporary art, surveys of visitors at exhibitions, in-depth interview with curators, art-directors, and artists. the project was supported by the vladimir potanin foundation. for more detail see: www.artauditoria.ru. 5 interviews are anonymized, a literary correction, which smooths out the features of oral speech is applied to the quotations used in the article. 17 out of 18 mediators worked at the 4th biennial are interviewed. https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.artauditoria.ru 262 elena s. kochukhova in art mediation. therefore, the survey was aimed at catching actual mediation practices, which could shed light on whether the main idea mediation, i.e. establishing a dialogue about art, could be realized, and whether the monological nature of the classical museum communication could be overcome. in order to investigate mediators’ experience, the interview guide covered three main blocks. the first was motivation to become an art mediator. questions in this block included: • why did you decide to take part in the mediation program? • what did you find attractive? • what were your expectations? the second block was aimed at assessing attitudes towards contemporary art before and after mediation work, and included such questions as: • what contemporary art exhibitions had you visited before participating in the mediation program? • what is contemporary art for you now? the third block of questions was focused on the participant’s mediation experience, including: • which excursions and visitors impressed you the most? • please, tell about the best and worst excursions in your opinion. • can you describe the types of biennial visitors? • did you meet cases of aversion to contemporary art? • how was your work group? • which mediation methods did you use during excursions? what was the result of your work? although the conducted in-depth interviews had their own features due to the specifics of the qualitative method, they were all linked by a common topic that could facilitate the analysis of the obtained data. initially, all answers describing mediation work were identified using open and axial coding according to the grounded theory (strauss, corbin, 1998). further, at the stage of selective coding, a particular attention was paid to the topic of communication between the art mediator and the visitor. based on our respondents’ descriptions of their mediation experience, i identified three types of visitor participation and the main agent (or agents) of the transformation. art mediation at the 4th ural industrial biennial: goal, participants, and practices at the 4th ural industrial biennial, one of the ways to involve the audience in the discussion about art was an excursion with an art mediator. the topic of the biennial – “new literacy” – is interpreted as “a tool to eliminate illiteracy, whether it is the actual verbal illiteracy or ignorance in any professional sphere (for example, the sphere of contemporary art or industrial production)” (ural biennial, 2017). in this context, art mediation was a necessary tool for ensuring the new literacy of the audience. art mediation means that a visitor would move from the position of a viewer to that of an involved person. similar to manifesta 10, mediation is defined as the “strategy work with the audience, based on involvement and complicity, transforming the exhibition into changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 258–272 263 a space for discussion” (malikova, 2018, p. 182). in contrast to the role of a traditional museum guide, who is expected to follow the script of an excursion, an art mediator is more flexible as he or she is oriented towards meeting the individual needs of the visitors and can adjust the tour to their specific interests. his or her task is to encourage the visitors to discuss what they see and to co-create the meaning of the work. at first glance, in such museum communication the viewer should be the main agent of the transformation since mediation is aimed at changing the patterns of perceiving art at an exhibition. according to the results of visitors’ self-assessment after the mediator excursion, the vast majority were interested in hearing the opinions of other members of the group and wanted to participate in the discussion themselves (malikova, 2018, p. 207). as for the types of their activity, the results were as follows: 89 percent “listened to the mediator”; 62 percent “answered the mediator’s questions”; 54 percent “discussed something with their companions”; 52 percent “if offered, interacted with the art objects”; 51 percent took photos and made selfies; 50 percent got separated from the group and independently examined objects; 32 percent asked questions; 31 percent read annotations to the exhibits; 23 percent found themselves to be deep in thought6 (malikova, 2018, p. 210). these data demonstrate the success of the mediation project as it is obvious that many visitors engaged in different kinds of activities outside the roles prescribed by traditional museum communication patterns, which is a sign of the deep transformation in the viewer’s experience. however, before we make any conclusions, we need to deal with the problem of re-observation: how would these viewers behave in a different situation? would they want to have a discussion if the format of their excursions did not include that possibility? moreover, the visitors’ self-assessment results did not always coincide with the mediators’ observations, who reported that only one third of all the groups they worked with were active and engaged in communication, which would be different from the traditional museum communication. in all likelihood, participants have a strong impact on art mediation, but we should not forget that there are art mediators too, not only viewers. the leader of the biennial mediation project clarifies the goals that mediators focus on: they help viewers to see what is important in the idea of the curator or the author, but the curator’s opinion or the author’s position does not become the ultimate truth. they act as an impetus for further visitors’ reasoning and interpretation, which has an equal right to exist. the mediator is not a storyteller, but a facilitator of the conversation: they involve visitors in an exchange of opinions on works of art [...] encourage participants to express their judgment based on their own life experience and knowledge” (malikova, 2018, p. 183). therefore, to analyze new museum communication patterns it is important to understand who were both the visitors and the mediators at the 4th ural industrial biennial. among the 4th industrial biennial visitors, the majority had rarely or almost never attended events related to contemporary art (burlutskaya, 2018, p. 121). according 6 205 self-assessment multiple-answer multiple choice questionnaires were analyzed. https://changing-sp.com/ 264 elena s. kochukhova to the results of the visitors input narrative analysis (a set of requests and attitudes, which determine the perception and evaluation of the experience gained at an art exhibition), 55 percent of the visitors expected to receive new emotions and expand their horizons; 17 percent were interested in the artistic content of the exhibition; 13 percent came for entertainment and distraction; and 13 percent did not select any of the options offered to them in the motivation survey7 (malikova, 2018, pp. 184–189). the analysis of additional data has shown that self-development, reflection on social transformations, and discussions on values are socially expected reasons for interest in contemporary art. however, the real reason for visitors’ participation in the biennial was mainly “mere curiosity” (malikova, 2018, p. 189). as for the art mediators, they were not professionals in the field of art or museum work. for the most part, they were part students majoring in the humanities, there were also economists, editors, a professor, a museologist, a stylist, and a bartender. all those who became art mediators at first were viewers of contemporary art. the main reasons why they decided to work as art mediators were that they perceived it as a personal challenge associated with the acquisition of new experience and internship in the field close to their major. some young people were also thinking about making a career in culture: “i can say that the work as a mediator will update and expand my expertise, my knowledge” (female, 22 years old). “this time i don’t want to be a volunteer anymore, i want to rise to a higher level in this hierarchy, and mediation seems to be the next one” (male, 21 years old) “for me, it has been a very important step in order to decide where to move on in the profession” (female, 25 years old). “i remember that a lot of mediators from the previous biennial got a job somewhere, in the same sphere of art, when the biennial ended. i do not know how much this attracts me, but i consider it as an option. to do some networking, to accumulate a cultural capital” (male, 24 years old). art mediation is a personal challenge for older persons and young people: “i’ve decided to take a chance, talked to daria [director of the mediation project], understood that this is what i need. therefore, the reason why i’ve become one of the mediators is that i wanted to learn how to understand modern art” (female, 60 years old). “i’ve been working at a high school for a long time, but somehow it seems to have taken all the pleasure out of it [...] and i’ve had a spontaneous but quite successful 7 the question was “why do you visit contemporary art exhibitions?” the questionnaire was designed to measure the respondents’ degree of agreement. 808 visitors were surveyed. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 258–272 265 experience of working as a curator [...] yes, and i thought i was wasting my talents here” (female, 55 years old). “i wanted some new impressions, and, perhaps, i was caught up in this mid-life crisis, when you have no idea what you need to do in life” (female, 40 years old) “it was a challenge because i have never thought about such activity for myself” (female, 30 years old). “[i wanted] to change the direction. it is the direction in which you choose to move that determines who you are at the moment […] that is, there were questions that you would not resolve without forcibly getting yourself out of the current situation. questions related to the future profession, what you study, your role in life” (female, 19 years old). nonetheless, apart from the above-mentioned motives, all respondents observed that they felt close to contemporary art. there is also one more reason: some respondents pointed out that participation in the biennial on a deeper level was very important for them as such: “i have an interest in contemporary art, i cannot miss such an event as the biennial. it’s great that i’ve managed to be a mediator” (female, 22 years old) “if you want to be in the thick of things, especially to be engaged in contemporary art, then you should try to be a part of some significant events” (female, 23 years old). “for me, it’s a pleasure. actually, i like talking about art.” (male, 22 years old) “i love art, and i really wanted to be in the project. two more reasons – it has given me a chance to explore the exhibition, and it is very interesting for me to see how people interact with art” (female, 21 years old). “i wanted to correct the mistakes i made at the 3rd biennial, secondly, last time i was ecstatic and this time i wanted to see it all again, but more soberly” (female, 30 years old). mediators were selected by open competition, announced by the ncca ural branch. the first stage of the competition included writing a motivation letter, at the second stage, there was an interview. afterwards, the selected candidates were trained, they observed how the exhibition was created, communicated with artists, passed the exam, and became the mediators at the biennial. they conducted excursions daily with large and small groups of visitors (accidentally assembled visitors or organized groups of schoolchildren, students, families, friends, etc.). https://changing-sp.com/ 266 elena s. kochukhova describing the experience of a viewer, mediators recall both typical and unique stories. all respondents faced a situation when the group was ready to listen and watch, but not to speak. this is the expected reaction of a traditional viewer and the mediators were trained to transform it. the shift from the traditional viewer to the involved participant was a personal story each time. however, putting these stories together, three main scenarios of art mediation can be identified. one of the most common indications of visitor involvement in mediation was the case when one of the group members became an expert for the rest of the participants: “here is today’s tour […] i like the moment with the plant, when an employee of this plant told us about all these devices, how they work” (female, 60 years old). “there were just about eight people, a micro-group. some of them were already 50 years old, some were about 30 years old (2 or 3 women). it was interesting, because those who were in their fifties, they [...] took the position that it [the exhibition] was not clear to them, but at the same time, they explained their position. and those who were in their thirties [...], one of them was very well informed in the cultural context. when she said ‘oh, i know that’, i asked her to tell something about it, and everyone listened to her. it was perfect. those who listened to her did not know this information and she provided it” (female, 26 years old). “someone is very eager to speak, someone is not, and if you are trying to stimulate them, it does work. usually, yes, they usually want to speak. it’s true. they are proud that they know” (female, 21 years old, about the viewers with some experience of perception of contemporary art). a rarer case is the involvement of all the group members in the discussion about the exhibition. according to the respondents’ experience, there is one objective impediment to such mediation, it is the group size. other significant limitations are subjective: they are primarily the mood of the group and the skills of the mediator. participants’ knowledge in the field of arts, at first glance, facilitates the dialogue about the exposition. indeed, for one mediator the professionalism of the audience is crucial for this exchange of knowledge and impressions to take place: “excursions for professionals, people engaged in intellectual activities, suit me best of all. usually, these are small groups. when you speak to them, they really need it, they understand, listen attentively, solve some of their professional tasks through my speech. i can give them maximum information […] and these people take it, and give me some knowledge in return” (female, 19 years old). however, for another mediator the opposite is true: “a tough room is the room full of art critics. they are well prepared. but they are keen on showing you that you are not needed here” (female, 47 years old). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 258–272 267 moreover, art mediation is designed primarily for the traditional audience and not for professionals who, by virtue of their expert position, are used to talking about art. therefore, more significant examples of the changing museum communication are the situations in which discussion and exchange of impressions appear in an “ordinary” group. for example, one of the mediators was impressed by the tour he conducted for employees of a technological company, who came to the biennial because they were specifically interested in its theme and content: “i can’t express it in words, because these were the feelings when i heard and saw this feedback from almost everyone. and in the course of our discussions, absolutely, completely new ideas were born, that, for example, had never occurred to me before. and that’s why i still love mediation: you always expand your idea, your way of looking at objects and art, because people, they are so awesome and they always bring something new, something of their own” (female, 21 years old). another respondent was surprised by the reaction of teenagers: “i did not expect that it would be comfortable for me to work with schoolchildren. i am absolutely delighted by them. most of them are really open to art, that is, they are ready to give their own interpretations rather than reproduce conventional ones” (female, 22 years old). the narratives of the art mediators about their experiences reflect the shift in their perception of the exhibition. one of the respondents considers that this transformation constitutes the core of art mediation: “this is a special approach […]; the mediator has a special approach to work which enriches not only the incoming group but also the mediators themselves. it just teaches us to look at works in a new, different way” (female, 22 years old). if the awareness of the art mediator changes, the excursion should also change since the mediator is one of its significant elements. taking it as a starting point that the mediator’s perception is influenced by the audience, we can distinguish the third way of visitor participation in mediation. this can be illustrated by the following observations of our respondent: “for example, i’ve never been to some room. and then the viewer goes there on their own. and we have a most interesting conversation there, which makes me think: ‘oh, why did we always pass by this room?’. and i set out with the next group and go to this room. i start a dialogue based on the previous conversation. it worked not because of me, but because someone was personally interested in it. yes, indeed [...] it is such a growing and genuine experience” (female, 32 years old). https://changing-sp.com/ 268 elena s. kochukhova this indirect influence on other members of the audience through the experience of an art mediator is the third way visitors can get involved into museum communication. in many interviews, respondents reflect on the fact that visitors have provided them with a new perspective on the exhibition. this inner transformation in the mediators’ thinking and feelings entails a change in the content and route of their excursions. from this point of view, the mediator is the prime agent of the transformation in museum communication as he or she initiates this transformation in relation to the audience. the biennial mediation project is one of the first steps towards a new museum communication. the advantages of this project involve a positive feedback from the audience, as well as relevant examples for further research confirming that museum practices are indeed undergoing transformations. according to the visitors’ feedback and the art mediators’ opinions, the audience was occasionally involved in a dialogue about art. however, some limitations concerned with this project should be mentioned, which does not allow us to talk about its complete success. firstly, any dialogue is only possible when the mediator and the audience speak “the same” language; however, the mediators in this research claimed to experience occasional rejection on the part of visitors. these situations made the mediators lose their emotional balance. thus, the respondents spoke of the feelings of desolation, bewilderment, grief or fear. similar emotional risks were described in professional works of french museum mediators (peyrin, 2010). in the future, a mechanism should be developed that could help to determine a suitable audience for every mediator, thus facilitating optimal allocation of workload. since the transition to a new museum communication is being carried out by the personal efforts of mediators, their personal comfort becomes as significant as their professional training. secondly, for viewers to enjoy the maximum freedom of judgment, the mediator should take a detached position towards the institution (malikova, 2015). for the 4th biennial, most of the mediators were recruited from regular visitors. as a result, they found occasional negative assessments concerning the biennial itself or contemporary art as a whole rather disappointing. although the process of moderator training did include the component of critical thinking development, not all mediators were capable of interpreting art industry critically. thirdly, the absence of a sustainable environment that could maintain the developed skills of non-hierarchical museum communication among the audience impedes the formation of its long-term patterns. it is highly likely that the audience having gained the experience of mediation and dialogue during the biennial would not be able to apply it in other cultural institutions. from the standpoint of the development of cultural industries, investments in the training of mediators seem to be prospective. skills developed in the field of museum communication can be applied in various cultural projects. it should be noted, however, that art mediation is a relatively new practice not only in russia, but also in the international context (camara et al., 2014; violet, 2014; malikova, 2015; villa, 2015; györgyfova, 2016; vasconcellos & da silva, 2018). therefore, the initiative of changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 258–272 269 the ural branch of the ncca can be considered as one of the first steps towards the development of art mediation both in russia and abroad. from classical to new museum communication: who is the agent of transformation? art mediation at the 4th ural industrial biennial of contemporary art was aimed at involving visitors into an exchange of knowledge and impressions. these goals are related to the new view on visitor-museum communication. in art mediation, many methods are used to change the model of museum communication from hierarchical to horizontal. the mediator uses their professional knowledge to start a discussion, prepare a transition from one object to another rather than to teach or enlighten the visitors. the case of the 4th ural industrial biennial shows that viewers sometimes make a transition from observers to involved participants during art mediation. this transition strongly depends on the combination of several factors, the main factors being the group size, the mediator’s skills, and the mood of the visitors. exhibition organizers can influence the intensity of the transformation in audience experience by improving the mediators’ skills and limiting the group size. all of the above does not mean, however, that in museums, which support traditional communication patterns, a situation when one visitor becomes an expert in front of other viewers or when an interesting discussion takes place within a small group of people is impossible. undoubtedly, the mediator facilitates and legitimates such cases. however, the visitor’s influence on the experience of the mediator is the most significant evidence of the changes in the patterns of museum communication: not only are new voices heard in the exhibition space, but they also influence the way the new visitors see this space. from this point of view, the mediator is a key agent of the transformation of museum communication. firstly, they rethink the experiences and attitudes towards the exhibition. secondly, they adjust the route of their excursions according to the visitors’ interests. in addition, in the case examined, the mediators themselves illustrated the shift from the position of a viewer to that of an involved person since they all began their acquaintance with contemporary art as viewers. furthermore, an art mediator occupies a transitional position between the new and traditional museum communication patterns, playing the two roles. from the perspective of the involved viewer, the mediator is a partner in museum communication; from the perspective of the traditional viewer, the mediator is an expert. the art mediation project at the 4th ural industrial biennial demonstrates that museums and other institutions of contemporary art are ready to rely on the experience of the audience and involve visitors in the production of meanings within the exhibition space. although a significant part of the audience come with a request for a traditional excursion, they are ready to interpret art objects. for the audience and the institution, this movement towards each other is the beginning of the transition to new museum communication. https://changing-sp.com/ 270 elena s. kochukhova references angiama, s. 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(2014). entre démocratisation culturelle et préservation d’une exigence de l’œuvre: construire une médiation de l’art contemporain [article]. retrieved from http://chmcc.hypotheses.org/543 http://fourth.uralbiennale.ru/en/o-biennale/novaya-gramotnost http://fourth.uralbiennale.ru/en/o-biennale/novaya-gramotnost https://fifth.uralbiennale.ru/en/about_the_biennial/ https://fifth.uralbiennale.ru/en/about_the_biennial/ http://www.uralgallery.ru/sobit.php?id=473 http://dx.doi.org/10.20396/etd.v20i3.8651713 http://chmcc.hypotheses.org/543 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.4.050 received 23 october 2018 © 2018 maxim b. khomyakov accepted 3 december 2018 maksim.khomyakov@urfu.ru published online 15 december 2018 article brics and global south: towards multilateral educational collaboration1 maxim b. khomyakov national research university higher school of economics, saint petersburg, russia ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the article is devoted to the discussion of the educational policies of the brics countries in the context of rising global south. the author argues that brics grouping is better understood not as a union of the countries based upon common identity or a set of the values, but as a group, which is held together by certain imaginaries. these imaginaries are a vision of alternative world order on the one hand and of the emerging global south on the other hand. education, then, pays a pivotal role in brics collaboration, because it helps to develop and to spread these imaginaries. the article analyses multilateral educational collaboration in brics in comparison with excellence programmes devoted to establishment of elite worldclass universities and oriented at indicators of the main international academic rankings. the author argues that such projects as brics network university are much more relevant to the tasks of southsouth collaboration than the excellence programmes such as russian 5/100 one. in conclusion, the author attracts readers’ attention to the multiple modernities theories as possible rationale for brics cooperation or south-south collaboration in general. keywords south-south cooperation, multiple modernities theories, brics collaboration, brics network university, education policies of the brics countries, excellence projects in higher education, russian 5/100 project, global south 1 the work was supported by the russian science foundation (rsf) grant number 18-18-00236. https://changing-sp.com/ 330 maxim b. khomyakov introduction brics as an international grouping has always been an odd phenomenon. its first summit in yekaterinburg has effectively been a result of the invitation of brazil to a traditional meeting of russia, india and china (stuenkel, 2015, p. 10); its second summit would probably not take place if brazilian president lula had not invited the leaders to meet together for the second time in the brazilian capital (stuenkel, 2015, p. 34). nothing seemed to unite these very different and distant countries except their resentment of the bretton woods institutions as well as of other elements of the global governance system. as president lula has famously noted after g8 summit in france, to which india, brazil and south africa had been invited as mere observers: “we do not want to participate only to eat the dessert; we want to eat the main course, dessert and then coffee” (kurtz, 2013). brics countries, however, had (and still have) very different opinions on free trade, security, role of existing global governance institutions etc. india and china still dispute territorial issues, and indian aspiration to become a permanent member of the un security council has been successfully blocked by a fellow brics country. it is not surprising then, that some experts have quite persuasively argued that these countries have basically nothing in common whatsoever, except that they are called brics and they are quite important. however, in all other respects, their interests and values, political systems, and objectives are substantially diverse. therefore, there’s no reason whatsoever to expect them to agree on anything substantive in the world, except that the existing dominating powers should cede some of their influence and power. that’s the one thing they have in common (alessi, 2012). this also explains the fact why brics gatherings were always looked upon quite skeptically by the overwhelming majority of the western commentators. over time, however, brics managed to develop a number of international forums and a complex system of negotiation between the governments, which, following joseph nye, could be called “trans-governmental” (nye, 2002, p. 106). every year different ministers keep meeting to discuss new (and sometimes very innovative) forms of collaboration. what does drive them if not commonalities between the countries? why for more than ten years does the brics grouping hold together and even manage to develop not only new forums, but also some new institutions (such as, for example, new development bank)? the answer seems to lie not in the present events, but in the horizon of the future, and not in what could be found in reality, but rather in what is imagined. the characteristic that made the brics countries identify with the concept and resulted in common action as a political and economic grouping was not a shared identity… instead, it was the realization that they share a common vision for a new global order, and that by combining forces in a small but strategic group that binds asia, africa and latin america together, they had a better chance of realizing that vision (de coning et al., 2015, p. 1). changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 331 in other words, it is the vision, the imaginary, which really matters in the case of brics collaboration. apparently, part of this imaginary is a vision of an alternative world order. it is this vision which seems to have brought about so-called “brics plus” format or the idea of expansion brics collaboration to other global south countries. this format, proposed by china and for the first time implemented at xiamen summit of 2017, has matured under south african presidency, who invited to johannesburg summit of 2018 not only important african countries, but also the countries, representing various regional communities of the global south, such as, for example, argentina, indonesia, egypt, jamaica and turkey. brics engagement with global south for promoting south-south cooperation seems to be another powerful imaginary, which holds brics countries together. of course, whether brics grouping is able to become a voice of the global south is still very unclear. what is obvious, however, is that the survival of brics very much depends upon its success in providing leadership to the emerging global south. development of these basic imaginaries of the alternative world ordering and of the south-south cooperation can help us to explain the fact why various “softer” types of collaboration like, for example, people-to-people exchanges play increasingly great role in brics “inter-governmentality”. arguably, the most important of these collaborations is educational one. social imaginaries are always developed through scholarship (mostly in humanities and social sciences), and are installed via education. this is how the imaginary, “idea” or “theory” usually sizes the masses, and, by the same token, becomes a material force (marx, 1970, p. 137). it is understandable, then, why south african minister of higher education, ms. naledi pandor in her opening speech at the third annual brics network university conference highlighted importance of the brics nu platform for educational collaboration as “deeply entrenched within brics”. she also emphasized its importance for global south: “in fact a lot is expected from it, not only by the brics leaders and countries, but by the entire developing world”. brics network university “can foster new dynamics in southsouth cooperation, while fostering intellectual bonds and exchanges among the brics academic community” (pandor, 2018). these considerations do explain importance of education in the context of brics and global south. the situation, however, is very complex, since education both has very important national tasks, and is an element of the nation’s global performance. international aspect applies, of course, mostly to the higher education. that is why it is higher education, which is mostly ridden with contradictions today: contradictions between national tasks and international performance or between its functions in developing imaginaries and its role in competition on the global educational market. these tensions are expressed among other things in the contradictions between domestically focused education and internationally oriented university research, or between university policy, oriented at supporting important publications in national language and the policy focused on international journals of high reputation. these contradictions, being rather moderate in the developed global north countries, naturally become extreme in global south. the universities of established https://changing-sp.com/ 332 maxim b. khomyakov reputations do not have to compromise their missions for the sake of international advancement, but the situation of the “emerging universities” is rather different. thus, any university of the developing world, which, following its mission, chooses to publish its research outputs in open access resources, available in national language, would seriously undermine its performance in world university rankings, and, thus, would weaken its position in global competition for the most talented (or just simply rich) international students. this article is devoted to the discussion of one of these numerous contradictions between global orientation of the universities, and the necessity for them to play important role in domestic affairs through addressing local problems and developing valuable imaginaries. this tension among other things is expressed in contradiction between various global excellence projects on the one hand, and horizontally structured university networks and associations. the article will discuss this tension in terms of its relevance to the development of educational collaboration of the brics and global south countries. does global south have a place in global academic revolution? higher education today is experiencing a period of most radical transformation, rapidly changing content and structure of education everywhere in the world. these changes are so drastic that some attentive observers have even coined the term academic revolution to describe what is happening in the sphere of higher education today. what is meant here are four main processes, which jointly determine radical changes in today’s university environment. the processes in question are massification, commercialization, globalization and internationalization (altbach et al., 2009). these four processes, however, are not separate ones. they are so tightly interconnected and entwined that they seem to be the aspects of a single global transformation, of one general trend. on the one hand, the growing middle class in a number of the global south countries is seeking access to tertiary education abroad, thus contributing to both internationalization and massification of the universities in the global north. on the other hand, internationalization almost inevitably leads to a higher degree of commercialization, simply because it seems to be very difficult to persuade national taxpayers to support international students. as in any transnational corporation, in the university today nationally defined common good comes into conflict with internationally attracted resources and worldwide activity. global presence, contributing to making world a global campus, as in the famous david lodge’s novel (small world: an academic romance, 1984), thus, also transforms the university into transnational commercial enterprise. the four elements of the academic revolution, thus, do intertwine, contributing together to the worldwide process of radical transformation. it follows that this transformation is neo-liberal in its essence (khomyakov, 2016, p. 396). namely, one of its obvious results is treating higher education not as an important public good, but rather as a product for international sale (hazelkorn, 2011, p. 11; rhoads et al., 2014; dill & soo 2005, p. 253). the logic of the public good has changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 333 been substituted with the logic of the private commercial brand and the humboldtian idea of individual development gave way to the educational services provided by the universities. the result is a phenomenon of educational capitalism, which threatens washing out non-commercial values (sandel, 2012, p. 114). as commercial enterprises, the universities stop performing some of their important social functions, such as, for example, enhancing social equality through inclusive comprehensive education or providing moral education to the future citizens (sandel, 2012, p. 203). internationalization is certainly one of the most prominent aspects of this global transformation. explosive growth of the young population in such countries as nigeria (median age 18.4 years), india (27.9), ethiopia (17.9), kenya (19.7), philippines (23.5), pakistan (23.8), angola (15.9) and nepal (24.1) make them potentially very attractive markets to recruit foreign students from. the shortage of the institutions of tertiary education combined with the gradual growth of the middle class leads to an increasing number of the young people from these countries seeking paid education abroad. it is very important to notice at this point that the academic neo-liberal revolution thus further reinforces the gap between the global south and the global north. the first is treated as a source of potential students, bringing money to the economies of europe and north america. this growing gap certainly exhibits neo-colonial nature of the global educational market structure. in the countries of global north itself, the resulting commercialization of the universities is increasingly blurring boundaries between public and private education. thus, in many public universities in the us, for example, only one fifth of the budget comes from different public sources (altbach et al., 2009, p. 14). this fact does make us wonder in which sense education in the “developed world” still could be called public. all these considerations mean that both internationalization and the academic revolution in general, not only bring with them putative or real openness, inclusiveness or equality. they also lead to the consolidation of the global educational market, to fierce competition among both universities and national educational systems, to the substitution of the nationally oriented approaches with transnational commercial education as well as to the gradual disappearance of the concept of education as a public good and, consequently to the aggravating struggle of the universities for the material and human resources both domestically and internationally. they also contribute to the ever-growing gap between south and north and, by the same token, to the condition of radical global inequality. in short, internationalization and globalization accompany processes of formation of the global educational capitalist system. it is not surprising then, that formation of the global educational market led to the emergence of the new private business of academic rankings. the big academic three, composed of academic ranking of world universities (arwu, also known as shanghai ranking), times higher education ranking and quacquarelli symonds (qs) world academic ranking seems to have monopolized this business globally. ostensibly meant to provide a reliable guide in the global landscape of the higher education, the rankings in reality led to the aggravation of global inequality, to creation of new neo-colonial disciplinary practice as well as to the unprecedented pressure on both the national governments and universities. this pressure led, among other https://changing-sp.com/ 334 maxim b. khomyakov things to the inclination of the university leaders to use the results of the rankings in the strategic planning even if they believe that the picture provided by the rankings distorts the reality gravely. thus, e. hazelkorn (2011) noted that while the majority of the leaders of the higher education institutions (heis) believe that the university rankings favor old universities (89%), establish hierarchy of heis (82%), are open to distortion and inaccuracies (81%), at the same time they are also inclined to use the results of the rankings in setting goals for strategic planning (63%) and to consider them as providing important comparative information (73%). only 40% of these leaders, however, believe that the rankings provide valid assessment of the higher education quality (hazelkorn, 2011, p. 94). the very logic of the world university rankings seems to imply favoring those institutions, which are already very powerful. indeed, the concept of world-class university (wcu) as it has been developed by a number of scholars, is based upon understanding a wcu as an institution, which attracts talents and resources globally and is effectively led towards this aim by a team of good professionals (salmi, 2009). this is clearly a circular way of defining world-class university, since, of course, only the universities of already existing high world reputation are able to attract talents and resources. in a way, this definition almost tautologically says to us that only those universities are world-class ones, which already have the reputation of those. in other words, world-class university is one, which is recognized as such globally. this, in its turn, directly implies that it is almost a tautology that harvard university, cambridge, yale and oxford represent world-class universities. this means that this vicious circle of the reputation in the rankings produces what robert merton has famously called a “matthew effect” – the situation, when those who already have the reputation gain everything, and those without established reputation continue to loose the resources (rigney, 2010; safón, 2013, p. 230; hazelkorn, 2011, pp. 19–20, 76). what rankings produce, then, is a greater inequality in reputation, and, therefore, in resources the universities are able to attract. rankings, thus, are usually biased to old, established, large traditional universities. inequality, fostered by these reputational gaps is twofold. on the global scale, there is obvious inequality between the nations: rankings do favour british and american model of research university more than, say, socially responsible highly autonomous institutions of some continental european countries (safón, 2013; saisana & d’hombres, 2008; jeremic et al., 2011, p. 595; altbach, 2006, p. 79; mei li et al., 2011). at the domestic level, the schools of inherited reputation usually perform better in all main league tables. international rankings seem to favor traditionally leading schools of particular nation, such as, say, moscow state university in russia or al-farabi national kazakh university in kazakhstan. their international reputation is very much inherited, while the other universities in the same country must build it sometimes from scratch. it certainly makes the task of building world-class universities even more formidable for the schools, which for the moment do not have the reputation of belonging to this rather elite club. after all, the majority of the rankings elevate institutions “with advanced reputation in both teaching and research, as historical bearers of state mission” (pusser & marginson, 2013, pp. 555–557). changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 335 thus, domestically international rankings reinforce inequality between elite and mass higher education institutions, while globally they widen the gaps between perceived educational metropolises and deeply provincial “periphery”. that is why b. pusser and s. marginson describe the project of the world academic rankings as “neo-imperial” and argue that “because the norms of ranking systems are mostly consistent with the world’s strongest higher education institutions located in the united states, this disciplinary effect is especially invidious in nation-states outside the united states. despite the global variations in resources, states of development, national histories, traditions, languages and cultures, institutions outside the united states are pressed into following the template of the globally dominant universities…” (pusser & marginson, 2013, p. 558). thus, “…the state project being pursued here is not simply national but also neo-imperial, being most closely tailored to the interests of the nations traditionally dominant in the higher education sector: the western nations and, above all, the english-speaking nations led by the united states and united kingdom” (pusser & marginson, 2013, p. 559). thus, the majority of the universities from the global south countries lose in this competition independently of their active participation in the race. those who abstain, lose from the very start; those who participate, find it impossible to compete with the established centres of academic power, and eventually lose anyway. the arrival of the new technologies resulting in the things like moocs (massive open online courses) does not really make this world more open and equal. in the condition of transnational educational capitalism, open courses lead to further exclusion and inequality. thus, zembylas and vrasidas (2005) claimed that instead of helping to create a culturally neutral “global village”, digital networks helped western countries to colonize the world again, to increase their opportunities and to expand their reach. s. a. rye (2014) demonstrated how seemingly “democratic” (meant to be inclusive, equality-based) norwegian online courses, which involved both norwegian and african students, produced in reality some new important inequalities and exclusions. african students, for example, had to deal with various cultural peculiarities, built in the very structure of the course, and, in result, were not always capable of demonstrating the same level of the performance as the students from norway. thus, with all their democratic potential and the millions of the on-line students taking courses in the best world-class universities, the moocs do not necessarily contribute to the narrowing the gap between global north and global south. the growing gap between global north and global south makes the universities in the emerging economy countries seek an effective strategy for overcoming most serious differences. arguably, there are two possible strategies here: the first one is an attempt to gain a proper share of the global educational market through active participation in the worldwide excellence race, while the second one is rather a quest for an alternative vision. in terms of the existing structure of academic power, the first one consists in active participation in educational neo-colonialism described above, while the second one tries to implement anti-colonial principles of a more or less radical nature. by the same token, the first one is about better integration to global academia, while the second one rather concerns creation of additional alternative networks and consortia. the best implementations of the first are various national https://changing-sp.com/ 336 maxim b. khomyakov excellence projects, whereas the second is the main focus of horizontal network programmes. quite naturally, then, the integration strategy is totally in agreement with current neo-liberal transformation of global education; the networks, however, represent an ambitious attempt to find an alternative to the transnational educational capitalism. finally, integration to the world academia today means orientation at creation of the elite world-class university, but the horizontal networks focus primarily on peculiar problems of the global south societies. many universities in the brics countries (especially in china and russia with their extensive excellence projects such as “project 985” in china and 5-100 project in russia) today seem to play both games simultaneously, thus trying not too consistently both to get their share of the neo-colonial pie and to find alternatives to the dominant power structure. this is very unsustainable situation, of course, because it does make one suspect masking neo-imperial fight for markets. in other words, it is still very unclear whether brics countries are able and willing to find an alternative for the existing power distribution or they are simply fighting for the bigger share of this power. in the context of neoliberal knowledge society discourse, education and science are directly connected to these power structures. now, it is too early to judge what in reality is going on in higher education systems of the brics countries and global south in general. on the one hand, in their attempts to build world-class universities many of these countries tend to reproduce external northern models and play old game of market competition in the global educational space. on the other hand, through forming horizontal university networks and enhancing south-south educational cooperation, brics countries do try to form an alternative vision of international education. the struggle between these two tendencies seems to reflect general contradiction of the brics policies between neo-colonial and inclusive models of the development. in any case, the future of the brics block seems to depend very much on which of these tendencies would finally win. in what follows i will briefly analyze these two opposite currents in educational development policies of the brics countries. excellence projects: paving the way for the transnational education the impact of the new transnational higher education upon national systems of higher education is especially strong in the countries, struggling for better representation in the global educational market. this struggle is most strongly intensified by the obsession with the academic rankings that can sometimes lead to compromising national goals and domestic traditions in higher education. there is, for instance, an example of japan, whose government has recently recommended to the universities not to spend precious resources for humanities and social sciences and to close the relevant departments (“japanese government asks universities to close social sciences and humanities faculties”, 2015). humanities are national in the essence, and they naturally lose their place in the new transnational order of higher education. this bias is only very natural for the rankings, which tend to favour hard sciences over humanities. humanities do not produce new technologies and are not considered changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 337 to be useful for generating revenues (amsler & bolsmann, 2012, p. 287). moreover, with their focus upon the development of national cultures, humanities’ research output cannot be properly measured by international citation indexes. finally, by both tradition and their nature, humanities are still very much booksrather than journalsoriented disciplines. this fact also adds to the difficulties of the “objective” measurement favoured by the world university rankings, since even world’s top historians or philosophers very often have comparatively low h-index. it does make sense, then, to agree with rauhvargers (2013), who describes the rankings as (1) focusing on elite universities; (2) relatively neglectful of the arts, humanities and social sciences, and (3) reliant upon such poor indicators as, for example, faculty/ students ratio in measuring teaching quality (rauhvargers, 2013, pp. 17–19). those who want to get quickly higher positions in the academic rankings, then, will have to support already rich universities, thus, contributing to further inequality growth as well as to sacrifice certain disciplines (especially those focused in human development, such as humanities) for the sake of the developing technology-oriented knowledge. in other words, those who decide to participate actively in the global academic race must be ready to invest heavily in few elite institutions. for one thing, “a worldclass university is a $1–1.5 b[illion]-a-year operation” (hazelkorn, 2007, p. 1), and, for another, building new reputation is even more expensive than maintaining existing one. that is why among brics countries, since 1999 china has been spending in total about us$6 billion for the programmes devoted to the creation of the worldclass universities (wcus). russia in 2012–2017 invested us$878.5 million in its well-known 5/100 project, which supports enhancing “international competitiveness” of 21 best russian institutions of higher education. despite some interesting results, the performance of the universities from the brics countries in the world academic rankings is still not too impressive. even mainland china with all its huge investments has only seven universities in top 200 of the 2019 times higher education (the) ranking and seven universities in top 200 of the 2019 qs world university ranking. russia and south africa had one university each in both rankings, india and brazil are not represented in top 200 of the. india has three universities, and brazil – only one university in top 200 of the qs wur. on the other hand, the uk is represented with 29 universities in top 200 of the both rankings. this is a good illustration of the huge gap in academic power and weight, which emerging economy countries are so desperately trying to bridge with their excellence projects. in the end, then, it would appear that the main goal of the excellence initiatives is better integration into the world academia rather than addressing most pressing domestic issues. in the russian case, the project is openly oriented at enhancing performance of russian universities on the global scale and has initially set the educational system an utterly unrealistic task to bring at least five universities to the top 100 of the world university rankings. in other cases the goals could be expressed in more subtle ways, but all of them invariably promote transnational technological education, which became a new educational normality of 21st century. thus, internationalization becomes one of the most important goals of higher education development. https://changing-sp.com/ 338 maxim b. khomyakov what is most important here is that in this quest for better integration to the world academia the universities are compelled to change according to the external standards. therefore, the negative impact of the rankings is far less “on institutions at the top of the global ranking tables that can determine their own identities” (amsler & bolsmann, 2012, p. 287). in the emerging countries, however, sometimes even elite national institutions have been “partly displaced” by the top global universities (marginson, 2007, p. 11). in the countries, which aspire for better positioning of their higher education systems in the main league tables, the impact of the rankings can become disastrous. the rankings, thus, become a powerful disciplinary tool because they define both external standards and the best performers, thus becoming an important instrument for the benchmarking (hazelkorn, 2011, p. 42; proulx, 2011). in the russian case the main benchmarks for the best 5/100 universities are set based on the rankings. thus, higher school of economics (moscow), for example, chose london school of economics and political science, erasmus university rotterdam, humboldt university of berlin, hong kong university of science and technology, and university of warwick as its benchmarks (programma hse, 2013, pp. 6–7). ural federal university (yekaterinburg), being a large technical school, focused on massive attracting foreign students from asia, compared itself with aalto university (finland), sungkyunkwan university and yonsei university (both in south korea), city university of hong kong and tsinhua university (both in china). interestingly, for ural federal university the main elements to compare were current position and historical dynamics of these universities in the and qs academic rankings (programma urfu, 2013, pp. 6–7). another obvious feature of the excellence programmes is their orientation at creating wcus, peculiar elite schools with distinct mission and purposes. through supporting elite schools, the governments further increase basic educational inequalities in their societies. those schools, recruiting best students from the best high schools, are thus getting additional support from the public sources. since the majority of the best high school’s alumni belong to upper middle class, the governments through the excellence initiatives indirectly subsidize those who by no means could be called the least advantaged members of the society. excellence programmes, thus, are indirectly reinforcing social inequality. it is not surprising, then, that the development programmes of the majority of the russian university participants of 5/100 project do exhibit neo-liberal orientation at enhancing competitiveness or developing national economy (for example, programma urfu, 2013, p. 4). integration to the academia is defined not so much in terms of joining old good republic of letters, but rather as entering fierce competition for material and human resources. internationalization, then, is used also as synonym for the market competitiveness (see also a powerful critique of the concept of international by paesi, 2005). the excellence projects have positive sides as well. they make the universities care about their reputation, set high standards and integrate research and education in global academia. the projects stimulate researchers to publish in respected journals and motivate professors to create educational programmes able to attract good students. the rankings become an interesting benchmarking instrument and changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 339 do provide university management with some useful metrics. undoubtedly, “rankings are here to stay. even if academics are aware that the results of rankings are biased … they also recognize that as impressive position in the rankings can be a key factor in securing additional resources…” (rauhvargers, 2013, p. 25). the quest for better integration to the market-driven world academia, however, should not lead to forgetting the most pressing problems at home and to compromising their own missions by the university. the difficulty, thus, lies in finding a proper balance between orientation to the international standards and national or regional commitment of the higher education institution. it is not an easy task, however. in his welcome address to the participants of the 7th qs-apple conference held on 16–18 november 2011 in manila, fr. rolando v. dela rosa, o. p. rector of the university of santo thomas, noted that his university would probably become one of the world leading ones if the rankings took in consideration the number of saints produced by particular institution (“which university has more saints?”, 2011). the seemingly joking nature of this remark should not obscure the obvious fact that many global south countries like philippines would probably need those aspiring to be the saints more than those who prepare for the career of the office manager. in any case, neoliberal world-class universities glorified by the world academic rankings do not seriously embody domestic social role of the university, the role, which is certainly important both for the global south countries in general, and for the brics countries in particular. there is no any evidence, moreover, that putative own brics academic rankings would anyhow help the situation. on the one hand, there already exist some brics and “emerging economies” academic rankings being issued by both times higher education and qs. these rankings, however, are almost identical to the world ones as far as the measurement and metrics are concerned. the only real difference seems to be artificial geographical limitations. on the other hand, even if brics does create its own new university ranking mechanism, it would inevitably keep the main drawbacks of the existing world academic rankings. the point is that the task of taking into account the needs of such different societies and educational systems with the aim of incorporating all of them into a unified ranking mechanism does not really make any sense. any unified ranking would necessarily be too abstract, and, thus, would not take into consideration different needs of the brics societies. one of the important things in this respect is that what is needed for the majority of the brics countries is an inclusive quality education, which is very difficult to measure internationally and which, therefore, is not really measured at all by the main rankings focused instead upon universities research performance. “horizontal” university networks: addressing common problems an answer to the misbalances of the obsession with the world academic rankings is given by the horizontal academic networks of the universities of the similar position and status, who share general approaches to the common problems of the similar societies. these networks could be seen as an emerging alternative model of the university collaboration and higher education development. https://changing-sp.com/ 340 maxim b. khomyakov the still dominating model of the university interaction is the model of “vertical” collaboration of the north and south, in which northern expertise and standards are exchanged for human (students) and material (funding) resources of the southern nations. s. a. rye (2014) discerns three main types of such collaboration for the development. the first one is providing free places for the global south students at the universities of the global north. it is, by the way, still the main practice of the “educational internationalization”, employed by the russian government. the second one is connected with establishing higher education institutions of high “international” (that is northern) quality standards in the global south countries (via either supporting local universities or through creating foreign campuses of the best universities). finally, the third type of the vertical collaboration is online education, which provides the students with opportunities of international mobility without actual physical moving. arguably, all these types of interactions involve certain transfer of the standards in direction of global south and transfer of the resources in predominantly northern direction. even when these collaborations are supported by international donors, they do promote further expansion of the northern standards and culture. that is why developing horizontal south-south university cooperation is both new and important, because it brings with itself a hope of overcoming dependence of the southern universities from the values, standards and cultures of the northern partners. in the overwhelming majority of the cases, however, this collaboration is still just a weak addition to the predominantly hierarchical development-driven north–south collaboration. brics is no exception from this rule. quite naturally, brics is a club, based rather upon pragmatic than normative consensus. the overall goals and immediate tasks of brics were always pragmatic: overcoming consequences of the global economic crisis, creating conditions for sustainable development, safeguarding security etc. that is why creation of a common educational area has never been a proper task of the brics interactions. as a result, collaboration in research and education among brics countries has never been very intensive. the number of co-publications between researchers of any pair of the five countries does not exceed 3% of the total number of publication of the particular brics nation (khomyakov, 2016a, p. 19). the exchange of international students is intense only with china; the double degree programmes between universities of different brics countries are also very rare. speaking about the number of the international degree-seeking students from the brics countries in the best russian universities, it differs greatly. in 2017 of 5498 students from the brics countries in 12 russian universities – participants of the brics network university, 5120 were from china, 191 from south africa, 136 from india and only 39 were from brazil. in many respects, thus, educational collaboration of the brics countries is still very much in the plans rather than in reality. one of the possible reasons is the difference between the educational systems of the brics nations (with the exception of china and russia), which simply cannot be meaningfully compared with each other. all these facts allowed ph. g. altbach and r. m. basset to claim that the concept of changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 341 the brics block “is actually of little relevance in understanding the complex higher education environment” (altbach & basset, 2014, p. 2). it can also be argued, however, that if brics is to develop and to provide a real alternative vision of the world-making, it is bound to have something to tell to the world not only in terms of sheer pragmatism, but also in terms of the values. to become sustainable, brics (and, generally, other members of the global south) should obtain a normative dimension. arguably, any real value-framework, however, does require a common educational and research area as well as rich cultural interactions between countries. thus, if the brics project is to be considered seriously as a viable alternative to the existing world-making model, it has to eventually include all these aspects. if brics countries are to become real leaders of the consolidated global south, they should find their own way in education and research. otherwise, brics club would not live up to its own promise and it will be more or less quickly substituted by another, more viable alternative. the most successful attempt to build international common educational and research area we can find is in the bologna process along with other important european initiatives, such as organizing erasmus academic mobility programme or establishing european university institute in florence. on the one hand, when they try to create joint educational projects, brics experts must certainly learn from these experiences. but, on the other hand, the possibilities of borrowing are very limited due to the fact that the links between brics countries simply cannot be so tight and their interrelations so intense as they are between european member-states. brics club naturally does not aspire for establishing political unity or common market, and, thus, it cannot aim at developing intensely common educational and research area. the normative framework for this collaboration is still to be developed, although i will briefly discuss some possible candidates for this role in the last section of this chapter. as for the general idea, the very concept of the global emerging south with inherent understanding of the horizontally structured collaboration could be seen as a basis for such collaboration. in such understanding, brics is not simply antiglobalist movement directed against the prevailing neo-liberal world-order, but is an important attempt to provide an alternative vision of development devoid of the remnants of imperialism and colonialism. the ideas of the global south, development and interpretations of modernity are then crucial for such collaboration. these ideas lie behind the most developed of the brics educational projects, the brics network university (nu). the network consists of 56 universities from all five brics countries, jointly implementing master and phd programmes in the six priority areas of the brics studies: economics, water resources, it, ecology, and energy. being established by the mou, signed by the ministers of education of the brics countries, the network university involves complex horizontal coordination mechanism, based upon the principles of what has been announced as a new concept of the development. in other words, all efforts were taken to ensure equality and autonomy of the participants in the project, which should eventually become a basis for the sustainable university collaboration of the brics countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 342 maxim b. khomyakov unlike european university institute, this brics initiative is a network without its own developed infrastructure that is without buildings, libraries and computers. unlike shanghai cooperation organization network university (another network initiated by russia), the brics nu does not imply existence of a permanent secretariat or rector’s office. unlike european erasmus programme, it does not have, at least at the initial stage, any consolidated budget, so that each country is supposed to finance independently the participating universities. the president of the brics nu is appointed on the annual basis by the current brics chair country, whereas it is the international governing board (igb), which collectively takes all strategic decisions. the board consists of 15 permanent members, representing universities and ministries of education of all five countries. following the rules of the other brics bodies, all decisions are taken on the consensus basis and do not imply a voting mechanism. on the national level, the activity of the brics nu is organized by certain national coordinating committees, composed by the representatives of the individual universities. finally, all substantial issues are discussed at the six international thematic groups, organized in accordance with the six priority areas. thus, the whole system of coordination is rather complex and consists of national and international, formal and substantial, ministerial and universitiesrelated bodies. the complexity of the system inevitably makes the decision-making process sometimes very long and always quite difficult; there is, however, a shared understanding that only such a system really corresponds to the principles of equality and autonomy of the horizontal brics collaboration. one of the most problematic and at the same time important issues in this context is of how the financial decisions are taken and through which mechanism the participating universities are supported. according to the mou on the establishment of the brics nu, the financial matters are domestic responsibility of each brics country. some of them (brazil in 2015, south africa in 2017) decided to allocate finance to individual institutions, russia is going to support incoming students through the mechanism of the subsidized places at the participant universities (starting at least from 2019, when the network is supposed to generate the first exchange students mobility), while india considers supporting the brics nu activity through the university grant commission, which provides funding for all universities in the country. china has not decided on the mechanism at the time of writing, probably because it would need first to define clearly relations between the brics network university on the one hand and china-financed project of the brics university league, on the other hand. the differences in funding procedures along with the absence of the consolidated budget do add difficulties to the project and reflect its complex nature. important aspects of the brics nu activity are internet presence of the project and annual general gatherings (not to mention regular meetings of the individual international thematic groups). the face-to-face meetings of all participants are important for the success of the project. that is why the new delhi declaration of the brics ministers of education (2016) envisages holding annual brics nu conferences. face-to-face interactions between researchers of the brics countries, changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 343 situated far away from each other, are thus considered to be of high importance for the brics nu activity. they are especially significant because individual researchers and professors there still have better knowledge of the relevant activity in the us or europe than in brics or other global south countries. since real interactions between individual professors and researchers are considered as the basis for the successful networking activity, brics nu envisages extensive face-to-face work. as for the internet presence, apart from the project web page (https://nu-brics.ru), several groups inside of the project are currently working upon on-line courses in the main brics nu priority areas. in total, international thematic groups for the moment are working on 22 joint master and phd programmes. of them 6 have already been opened for the students (4 in computer sciences and 2 in ecology and climate change), and other 18 are going to enroll the first students in 2018 and 2019. namely, there will be opened 1 additional programme in computer sciences, 4 programmes in the brics studies, 4 programmes in economics, 4 programmes in energy, 1 programme in water resources and pollution treatment, and 2 additional programmes in ecology and climate change. it is clear that with, all these programmes in place, the brics nu will become the largest, the most comprehensive and certainly the most ambitious project as far as south–south cooperation in education is concerned. that is why today brics nu is justly treated as a flagship project of educational collaboration among emerging countries. however, difficulties with funding, uneven participation in the project and complex mechanism of the decision-making do make development of these programs a difficult and rather long process. there is also another, quite different, initiative which is usually also mentioned in the context of educational collaboration of the brics nations. namely, the brics university league, a voluntary university association, is regularly referred to by various brics declarations and statements. being officially initiated by five russian and five chinese universities in 2013, it is coordinated now by beijing normal university (china). unlike the network university, the league is rather slow in developing its activities. it still lacks a signed charter, a developed plan of the activities and a clear organizational structure. in a way, this organization is still to be established. the main difference of the league compared to the brics network university project consists in its purely voluntary nature that is in its being formed independently from any official ministerial decision. the idea, thus, is that its activity would be complimentary to the work of the brics network university. conclusion as it has been argued in the previous sections, sustainable educational and research collaboration of the brics countries is impossible without a more comprehensive normative framework, justifying its ambitions. namely, if the brics club is just another neo-imperial gathering of the countries trying to enhance their international standing and to get their share of the post-colonial market, it cannot be expected to provide a viable alternative to the existing world-order. in this case, collaboration of these countries will remain purely pragmatic, which, in the absence of the strong https://changing-sp.com/ https://nu-brics.ru 344 maxim b. khomyakov common interest, will inevitably tear the club apart. we have already witnessed such processes in the conflict between india and china over construction of a road in bhutan; brazilian u-turn after dilma rouseff’s impeachment (and especially after recent election of jair bolsonaro) is another example of the looming dangers, which might threaten the very brics existence. after all, when established common institutions are absent, too much seems to depend upon the current political course and will of each of the brics countries. it is not very clear, however, what the normative framework, which can help to overcome such problems, could be. after all, as it has been already noted, the brics countries are so different and are situated so far away from each other, that it would be difficult to locate the long-standing interests and features they have in common. one thing, however, is very clear from the very beginning: the brics club is sustainable only as a leader of a consolidated global south. even if it contains russia with its arctic regions, northern ambitions and rich imperial past, the brics does make sense only as an articulation of the interests of global south. the idea is that through brics the global south will participate in the alternative global governance to a level they hitherto have not. only in this case is participation of such small countries as south africa justified: it takes part in brics projects as a leader of the whole african continent. similarly, brazil represents south america, russia leads central asia, china represents far east and south-east asia, while india expresses interests of southern asia. of course, one could ask if these countries are able to represent the regions they are supposed to lead, if they have necessary moral and material power and weather they are really credible and trustworthy. all these questions would not change, however, the fact that the only way for the brics to become sustainable is to inspire confidence and hope in the global south as a whole. the idea of global south makes sense, however, if there is a possibility for alternative vision of the social development. in other words, consolidation of the global south is possible if development or progress is not a straight way from one point to another. this means rejection of the modernization theory, at least in its classical post-second world war version. the problem is that “theories of modernization in the 1960s understood the combination of autonomy and rational control as realized solely and definitively in the institutions that emerged in europe and the us… as a result, modernization in newly developing countries was understood as an imitation of that which had occurred in more advanced countries” (larrain, 2007, p. 41). unlike theory of modernization as a single way to establishing a set of distinctly modern institutions, the new theory understands modernity as “experience and interpretation” of the modern condition. we are now talking, then, on plural modernities, rather than single modernization of different societies. now, how is this understanding possible? after johann arnason’s and peter wagner’s seminal works on modernity (arnason, 1989; wagner, 1994) it has become almost commonplace to refer to cornelius castoriadis’s characterization of modernity as based upon a certain “double imaginary signification”. namely, the modern period, according to castoriadis, “is best defined by the conflict, but also the mutual contamination and entanglement, of two imaginary significations: autonomy on the one hand, unlimited expansion of changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 345 ‘rational mastery’, on the other. they ambiguously coexisted under the common roof of ‘reason’” (castoriadis, 1997, pp. 37–38). arnason thinks of these two principles, or, rather, “significations” as having divergent, mutually irreducible logics so that “the pursuit of the unlimited power over nature does not necessarily enhance the capacity of human society to question and reshape its own institutions, and a coherent vision of the autonomous society excludes an unquestioning commitment to the more or less rationalized phantasm of total mastery” (arnason, 1989, p. 327). these logics, however, are not only divergent, but also “entangled”, and both are present in modernity from its very outset (carlenden, 2010, p. 57). in short, “modernity has two goals – to make man master and possessor of nature, and to make human freedom possible. the question that remains is whether these two are compatible with one another” (gillespie, 2008, p. 42). importantly, these two pillars of modernity are not definite principles; they are rather significations, in other words, “multiform complexes of meaning that give rise to more determinate patterns and at the same time remain open to other interpretations” (arnason, 1989, p. 334). the interpretations are given and the definite patters are formed, in their turn, in real historical situations by real people, and thus reflect complex interplay of different elements, including other imaginary significations, premodern traditions, popular sentiments or political considerations. the question of how these patterns are formulated against a particular socio-historical background is, then, one of the most important and interesting questions arising in the study of modernity. these patterns represent what could be called different trajectories of modernity. without going into further details of the plural modernity theory, it is worth emphasising that, being based on experiences and interpretations, particular modernity constellations or trajectories are formed by real people in real time and space and therefore do differ from place to place. this in its turn means that global south is not an “underdeveloped” region in need of modernization according to the external northern standards; it is not less “modern” than “developed” countries of the global north. however, it is alternatively modern. the plural modernity theory thus opens up interpretative space for understanding global south not simply as a competitor, but rather as an alternative to the global north. in education, the patterns of north–south collaboration as well as the activities of various excellence programmes most closely correspond to the classical idea of educational modernization, whereas horizontal networks make sense as alternative ways of organizing international collaboration in education only in the framework of the plural modernity theory. rejection of the classical modernization idea has, however, some important consequences. one of them is abandoning traditional development concept, based upon aid and involving complex mechanisms of discipline and control. this development has always been a form of colonial education of the underdeveloped barbarians. such approach is best expressed in the famous j. s. mill’s passage: “despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and be justified by actually effecting that end. liberty as a principle has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind https://changing-sp.com/ 346 maxim b. khomyakov have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion” (mill, 1977, p. 224). such development projects are quite justly questioned and criticized my many post-development scholars (escobar, 1995; rahnema & bawtree, 1997). however, as rejection of modernization does not imply abandoning the concept of modernity altogether, pitfalls of the classical development concept should not lead us to the rejection of the development theory as such. of course, in the framework of plural modernity theory, development could not be treated anymore as an effective transfer of good institutions from one place to another. as the experience of many former soviet union countries have recently demonstrated, such transfer in the majority of the cases is rather counter-productive. thus, almost in all countries of the former soviet union, the deficiencies of the “transferred” institutions are obvious (for democracy, for example, see rozin, 2017; fish, 2005). even if the exact causes of these deficiencies are not always completely clear, the efficiency of any institutional “transfer” is questionable. if one, however, recognizes each country’s possibility to be modern in its own way, the sought-after development can only be in growing its own institutions, based upon particular constellation of modernity. in other words to be effective the development has to fit the trajectory of the society in question. the new concept of the development as a basis for brics countries’ interactions has been recently (2015) proposed by the scholars of brics studies centre in fudan university (shanghai). the concept implies “non-zero sum game” win-win development based upon principles of autonomy (independence), equality, inclusiveness and sustainability (green development) (win-win cooperation, 2015; fan, 2016). autonomy in this concept means independent choice of the development path, while equality “refers to… equal treatment of all economic actors internally and to equal participation international economic competition externally” (fan, 2016, p. 5). both autonomy and equality are notoriously absent in traditional development instrument, where brics countries together have only 13% of votes in world bank and 14.29% in imf, while the us alone, for example, has 15% and 16.6% of the votes respectively. the inclusiveness means complimentary character of all instruments and channels of the development, so that brics new development bank, for example, does not substitute traditional instruments, but rather compliments their activity. in this sense, inclusiveness, according to yongming fan (2016), means inclusiveness both in cooperation and in competition, and guarantees against exclusivist approach of the global south. since in late modernity fast development almost always entails environmental issues, new concept of the development should be based upon the principle of the “harmonious coexistence between human beings and environment and between individuals and society in the progress of development” (fan, 2016, p. 6). in a way, new concept of the development is still a general idea only. however, it has to be further developed if brics is really going to offer a valuable alternative to the existing structures of power, including academic ones. collaboration of the brics countries, thus, normatively makes sense if it is going to promote for all countries of the global south a new concept of the development based upon plural understanding of modernity. this understanding of brics cooperation is rather thick, and, frankly speaking, is quite far from what this changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 329–350 347 collaboration looks like today. however to make this cooperation sustainable brics must seriously think of becoming a real leader of the global south, which, in its turn, is impossible without employing plural modernity theory and without elaborating a new concept of development. however, this is impossible without creating a common educational area. joint educational projects are capable of bringing normative dimension into the purely pragmatic brics bloc. through various excellence projects, brics countries participate in the life of global academia and compete in educational market according to the rules set by the dominating academic powers. to make the development sustainable they have, however, to support the horizontal networks, which would both further elaborate and implement the principles of the new theory of the development and incorporate real experiences and interpretations of the modernity condition. the most successful of these networks for the moment is brics network university, a unique and ambitious initiative of the brics ministries of education. the question is, however, to which extent brics is capable to become a speaker for the global south as a whole, since without this it would turn into another pragmatic international organization, pursuing its own particular egoistic interests. what is also important is that education plays a pivotal role in all attempts to answer the questions above. references alessi, c. 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https://siteresources.worldbank.org/education/resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099079956815/547670-1237305262556/wcu.pdf https://siteresources.worldbank.org/education/resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099079956815/547670-1237305262556/wcu.pdf https://siteresources.worldbank.org/education/resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099079956815/547670-1237305262556/wcu.pdf http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/world-university-rankings/which-university-has-most-saints http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/world-university-rankings/which-university-has-most-saints changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 11–32 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.1.216 received 6 february 2023 © 2023 ivan strenski accepted 25 march 2023 strenski@ucr.edu published online 10 april 2023 essay the american anti-vaxxer covid dead: a dynamic chronicle of failed sacrifices ivan strenski university of california, riverside, usa abstract unlike earlier pandemics, where a “politics of blame” was directed against those who spread infection, the covid pandemic in the united states has created occasions for the deployment of a “politics of commendation” for performing acts of sacrifice. frontline healthcare workers have been celebrated for sacrificing themselves in service to their patients, even as critics have charged their being hapless victims of “social murder” at the hands of irresponsible medical administrators. governmental officials, notably in texas, have also recommended the elderly to refuse covid care, die and thus sacrifice themselves selflessly for the benefit of the younger generation. lately, covid vaccine-refusal has been seen as an act of noble political sacrifice—typically to further individual liberty against the coercive power of the federal government’s promotion or mandating of vaccination. anti-vaxxers embracing the role of such political sacrifices, however, generally fail to realize this aspiration, insofar they are often just culpable of their own demise by neglecting public health advisories. furthermore, the partisan politicization of their deaths militates against the normal recognition of their being sacrifices. party political calculations have frequently demanded denial of the covid origins of the anti-vaxxer deaths, and also effectively eliminated any normal attendant rites of reciprocation, memorialization or sacralization of the victims, typical of sacrifices, proper. keywords sacrificial process, politicization, suicide, social murder, gift, henri hubert, marcel mauss, covid, donald trump, vaccine-refusal, texas, freedom https://changing-sp.com/ 12 ivan strenski death in a time of covid: scenes of contestation when the covid-19 pandemic began in 2019, few imagined covid-victims applauded as “sacrifices.” past pandemics, such as the spanish flu of 1918–1919, the egyptian h1n1 flu, the hiv/aids epidemic of the 1980s and others, typically yielded an ugly “politics of blame” where the afflicted were reviled as “typhoid marys,” or some such (farmer, 1992; leach & tadros, 2014). while there have been and still are moments of blaming the peoples’ republic of china for permitting the virus to emerge and spread beyond its borders, american partisan politics about vaccination soon rankled more americans than anything the chinese did. vaccine resistance became a marker of political affiliation for the right, symbolizing resistance to “big government” public health efforts to get the population vaccinated. the will to risk covid death by refusing vaccination was hailed by republicans as a commendable act of “sacrifice” on behalf of individual freedom. such sentiments did not go unnoticed by the likes democratic congressman, jamie raskin, who attacked gop1 campaigns of “anti-testing, antilockdown, anti-mask, nothing-to-worry-about orthodoxy” as “like a policy of mass human sacrifice” (andersen, 2022). i challenge the use of sacrificial rhetoric to characterize anti-vaxxer refusal to be vaccinated in several ways. first, why, on the face of it, aren’t anti-vaxxers better described as simply foolhardy and misguided, ignorantly courting their own deaths, in virtual suicides? second, by what standard meaning of sacrifice, do their claims to be “sacrifices”—for the sake of greater personal liberty—make sense of the idea of sacrifice? surely, everything is not a “sacrifice”?! what, then, makes anti-vaxxer refusal to vaccinate, and possibly die in the process, a “sacrifice”—and not something else, better named foolhardy, a simple death, a misfortune, a bad wager, an “act-ofgod,” and so on? i argue that, because of the context in which anti-vaxxers have the sincerest of intentions of being “sacrifices,” these anti-vaxxer attempts at sacrifice tend to fail. simple misconceptions about what distinguishes sacrifices from other acts, together with their generally unfinished or just botched performance, together account for the failure of anti-vaxxer sacrifices. when the notion of sacrifice is raised together with the covid pandemic, the anti-vaxxer politics of sacrifice does not probably come first to mind. very early in the pandemic reference was more often to healthcare and other frontline workers who sacrificed for the sake of the public good (carrillo & ipsen, 2021, p. 730). notably, while president, trump excitedly praised medical supply factory workers in sacrificial terms for staying on the job: “they’re running into death just like soldiers run into bullets, in a true sense … i really call them ‘warriors’” (white house office, 2020). trump here reflected admiration for the frontline workers who died from exposure to covid while fighting the virus or tending its victims. what trump did not voice in the process was concern of the possible exploitation of frontline workers by bosses eager to enhance their own situations. but awareness of such administrative misconduct let medical leaders like dr. joseph freer, professor of medical leadership and management at the university of london to indict the bosses of institutional healthcare 1 gop—grand old party, commonly used to indicate republicans. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 11–32 13 for mischaracterizing the covid deaths of front-line workers as “sacrifices.” “for those in power,” accused freer, appealing to “‘sacrifice’ conveniently retells the stories of premature death [of frontline workers] in a way that sublimates anger, grief and powerlessness into pride, bravery, and individual choice” (freer, 2021). confirming freer’s worst suspicions, ian r. carrillo and annabel ipsen, reported that “workers are coerced to stay in a sacrifice zone,” and consequently believe that they are “deemed an essential yet expendable asset” and, unceremoniously dumped (carrillo & ipsen, 2021, p. 730). talk of the “sacrifices” of these healthcare workers was thus fraudulent. the “nurses … would [not] have seen their own deaths … as sacrifice [emphasis added].” instead, adds freer, “they felt unsafe and afraid at work,” because they lacked means “to protect themselves” (freer, 2021). under such circumstances, the failures by public health administrators better to protect frontline workers ought to have been classified as something more akin to criminal negligence or murder. other leading medical professionals made just such accusations. rankin school of nursing’s professor elizabeth mcgibbon (2021) argued that the surge of frontline worker covid deaths recalled friedrich engels’ analysis of the “social murder” of similarly exploited 19th-century industrial workers. engels wrote, “when one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, or when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call this deed murder” (engels, 1845/2009). however, engels concludes, when an industrialist “places hundreds … in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death … [by forcing them] … to remain in such conditions until that death ensues … its deed is murder … social murder.” (engels, 1845/2009). professor kamran abbasi, imperial college (london), concurred, arguing that the moral responsibility of employers of front-line workers “cannot be ignored or spun away,” by disingenuous appeals to “sacrifices” (abbasi, 2021; mercola, 2022). kurt andersen’s “politics of blame”: the aztec elites and the gop in a heated, controversial article, the atlantic’s kurt andersen made it his personal mission to indict the irresponsibility of the trump administration elites for the covid deaths occurring under their careless watch (andersen, 2022). for andersen, sacrifice of all kind and its invocations, scarcely conceal how direct and straightforward murder was. andersen even thinks that covid pandemic deaths represent active and deliberate killings by social elites, not the merely “negligent” social murders of engels’ sort. massive covid deaths, “the real thing, comparable to the innumerable ghastly historical versions”— are just a “new and improved modern version of [aztec] mass human sacrifice.” to his mind, both are the same because both are deliberately exploitative and massive “ritual human [emphasis added] sacrifices.” (andersen, 2022). both represent the efforts of elites “to keep the hoi polloi subservient” (andersen, 2022). their hidden purpose, says andersen, was to terrorize aztec commoners into political submission, “to fortify [their] … political and economic power,” typically by employing nefarious “forms of ‘sacrificial trickery’” (andersen, 2022). as radical as andersen’s indictment is, he finds company with social critics like kitanya harrison. wall street elite for rushed to resume “business as usual” as soon as covid cases seemed to slacken, https://changing-sp.com/ 14 ivan strenski harrison noted. and why, just “in order to keep the stock market from crashing.” but this very act, says harrison, was to make “human sacrifices to moloch” (andersen, 2022). sacrificial populism and georges bataille commendable as andersen’s moral outrage at elite victimizations is, he falls prey to a romantic populism. this is important to grasp as we try to assess the motives and aims of the “sacrificing” anti-vaxxers we will meet later. aztec commoners also apparently eagerly volunteered for their sacrificial deaths. it is the same with those anti-vaxxers knowing courting covid. leonhardt’s study of disproportionately high covid deaths in ocean county, new jersey, confirms how ordinary party rank-and-file promote sacrificial vaccine-refusal without elite prompting (leonhardt, 2022). if leonhardt is right, populism might then be as salient among anti-vaxxer covid “sacrifices” as among andersen’s aztec sacrifices. indeed, the more we learn about the voluntary, populist nature of maga2 vaccine-resistance, the less gop political “trickery” of maga folk leads to their own demise. cases of anti-vaxxer covid deaths might then be as easily marked by populist willingness to be sacrificed, or personally-motivated self-sacrifices, as the distinguished by cynical elite political manipulation. confirming this thesis of populist origins of maga vaccine resistance, sungkyunkwan university economists, yeonha jung and seungduck lee contend that “covid-19 vaccine-hesitancy … is a phenomenon that arose from trumpism”— from a mass movement, not from trump himself (jung & lee, 2021). recently even trump’s latter-day promotion of vaccination was met with anger from the attendees of his 2022 florence, arizona rally. trump seems then to have contributed to the creation of a frankenstein monster of trumpist vaccine-refusal, only to have it turn on him. like the “fiend” of mary shelley’s novel, trumpist vaccine-refusal has slipped its creator’s bonds and marauds the countryside on its own power. its salience lies in its populist dynamics, not in elite direction, even though elites played a role. a classic in the literature on sacrifice confirms the unsettling popular appeal of what seems like a populist death-wish. in the 1930s, georges bataille, the 20th-century french social revolutionary, erotico-theorist, surrealist, and head librarian of paris’ bibliotèque nationale, was obsessed with transgressive behaviors such as incest, capital punishment, necrophilia, sadism, violence, war, and what he called “sacrifice.” bataille lamented the bland bourgeois mediocrity of conventional utilitarian life and sought to reanimate the creative energies of his world. durkheim, hubert, and mauss had argued that small-scale traditional societies had technologies to recharge their collective batteries. some of these involved performing violent, transgressive rites or launching wars to shatter the bland mentality dominating bourgeois society. bataille then set about experimenting with translating violent, “primitive” rites onto the contemporary urban french scene. if they had revived traditional societies, perhaps reinstituting them in the modern day would do likewise for modern society? bataille even formed a secret society, acéphale, symbolized by a decapitated head of a sacrificial 2 maga—make america great again, trump campaign slogan from 2016, now refers to trump supporters. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 11–32 15 victim, to realize his ambitions. acéphale advertised in paris’ widely in newspapers for volunteers for ritual immolation, with the explicit understanding of bataille plans for staging their extravagant deaths. nothing, however, materialized of bataille’s scheme— but “the main obstacle ... was not finding willing victims.” bataille later related that the difficulty lay in “finding an elite agent to perform the act” (pearce, 2003, p. 5). i conclude from bataille’s experience that a certain proportion of the population are ready to die, even in bizarre circumstances like bataille’s. andersen is wrong that elite prodding, manipulation or trickery are needed. how many more so, if we are to believe anti-vaxxer intentions to die for a lofty purpose like individual freedom? how the vaccines caused vaccine-refusal maga sacrificial populism aside, the exploitation of frontline workers by appeals to “sacrifice” continues. but thankfully, much of the immediate danger to frontline healthcare workers has diminished with the arrival of the mrna vaccines. ironically, far from stopping anti-vaxxer “sacrifice,” it made it conceivable! with the arrival of first mrna vaccine, pfizer-biontech, came online in the usa in august 2020, us healthcare professionals believed they understood the conditions of transmission and morbidity of the virus. hence, a us program of vaccination could begin. but with these policy decisions, agency also came into play. individuals could choose whether or not to vaccinate. in doing so, classic measures of agency, such as personal responsibility, credit or blame, and so on became part of the covid pandemic’s discourse. the arrival of the vaccines made contracting and/or dying from covid in large measure no longer an “act-of-god,” but a civic act, resulting in the transformation of the politics of blame and commendation. now, someone could be blamed for sacrificing their life by contracting covid— and likewise commended for minimizing the possibility of their contracting covid. or, perversely, some party might commend someone for refusing vaccination to assert personal liberty, and thus become a sacrifice for individual freedom. some antivaxxers were reported as having felt “[t]raitorous to cave and get the jab” (marcotte, 2021). among gop loyalists, it “became a badge of honor to remain unvaccinated,” since they were prepared to sacrifice their health, and possibly, their lives in support of a “politics of insurrection” (marcotte, 2021). once the government inaugurated public health policies, the politics of “blame” and “commendation” predictably hardened along american party lines. gop antivaxxers claimed that covid was either a “hoax” or that “sinister ingredients” in vaccines counseled vaccine refusal (leonhardt, 2022). other gop elites discouraged vaccination by slandering the motives of the healthcare professionals “to prevent the disease—even among children—as an attack on red-state america” (leonhardt, 2022). the new york times’s paul krugman said that “america’s bad pandemic reflects a wager by rightist notables,” who believed “that they can reap benefits by making basic public health precautions part of the culture war” (krugman, 2022). given the tendencies of american political culture, once freedom of choice, and its limitation became policy issues, an american covid politics was irresistible. whether https://changing-sp.com/ 16 ivan strenski to get vaccinated or not signified something elemental in one’s personal identity—as political party identification had lately become. getting covid and potentially dying— statistically-speaking—also became contingent upon one’s political preferences. the new yorker writer, benjamin wallace-wells notes how “the politics of covid are no longer about death and disease, but about public-health restrictions” (wallace-wells, 2022). david leonhardt’s study of covid deaths in “heavily republican” ocean county, new jersey showed that the “large number of unvaccinated residents in ocean county” corresponds to the “horrific amount of covid illness and death” there. ocean county’s toll was “worse than … in mississippi,” the state “with the largest amount of covid death per capita,” and “worse than in any country, except for peru” (leonhardt, 2022). leonhardt’s data clearly pointed to political affiliation. in ocean county, “donald trump won … by almost 30 percentage points in 2020, and many republicans—including those who are older than 65 and vulnerable to severe covid illness—are skeptical of the vaccines” (leonhardt, 2022). trump’s entry into the controversy on the side of the resisters only deepened the pandemic’s politicization primarily by a program of disinformation. a “recent study has identified [former president trump] as likely … the largest driver of the covid-19 misinformation infodemic … [and] the main influencer in the anti-vaccination web” (evanega et al., 2020; germani & biller-andorno, 2021, p. 9). leader of “a virtual community” of “anti-vaccination supporters” (evanega et al., 2020; germani & billerandorno, 2021, p. 7), trump has been accused of “willfully neglecting scientific advice, international and historical experience, and their alarming statistics”—all for the purpose of aiding his “political strategy or ideology” (abbasi, 2021). recognizing the politicization of the pandemic, leonhardt coined a term red-covid to refer to anti-vaxxer republicans who had risked contracting covid deliberately to affirm their gop political identity (leonhardt, 2022). with the culture wars on in earnest, the anti-vaxxers saw the redcovid dead as having made the ultimate sacrifice by their heroic defiance—“insurrection by other means”—more “resistance against democratic ‘tyranny’” (marcotte, 2021). progressives angered by presidential disinformation or encouragement of antivaxxer gullibility, predictably fought back (greenspan, 2021). a celebrated opinion piece, “the quiet rage of the responsible,” krugman captured this mood of resentment against anti-vaxxers for effectively breathing new life into the pandemic (krugman, 2021). “anti-vaxxers need to face penalties for their selfish choices, which threaten the lives of others” (green, 2022). although he never spelled out the consequences, president biden ominously said that “patience with the anti-vaxxers was ‘wearing thin’” (spiering, 2021). in a mood of bitter sarcasm, some progressives urged anti-vaxxers to even greater vaccine refusal—all the better to increase their morbidity, and lessen their electoral strength. progressive digital sites like the stephanie miller show and redbubble hawked “just hurry up and die” tee shirts and other similarly themed merchandise (just hurry up, 2022). giving as good as they got, rightwing organ, breitbart, charged that progressives had created a phony “partisan gap in vaccination rates … [as] part of a liberal plot” (leonhardt, 2021). in distracting from the truth about the pandemic, breitbart merely imitated the example trump sent his supporters and administration: changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 11–32 17 a content analysis of just over a month of white house briefing transcripts found that self-congratulations, often based on exaggerations or falsehoods, were the most common utterances of the president (about 600 times). he also blamed others more than 110 times. by comparison, he expressed empathy or appealed to national unity only about 160 times. (kapucu & moynihan, 2021, p. 603) reflecting trump’s policy of public denial, infowars’ alex jones piled on, accusing the left of lying that covid deaths had been “overcounted.” in fact, they had occurred primarily among the “co-morbid,” or because of “ventilator malpractice” (spiering, 2021). added to these charges, mercenary “hospital incentives” of their healthcare allies had deliberately driven up the toll of “covid deaths” to create the appearance of a pandemic (mercola, 2022). but just what is a sacrifice, anyway? skeptics of such a “politics of commendation” might be forgiven for thinking it paradoxical. if a red-covid death were a “sacrifice,” what gain was to be had from refusing vaccination, and consequently dying of covid? personal liberty? but for whom? the dead are not reported to care about personal liberty. we are left with only other alternative—the examples set by the red-covid dead as sacrificing for freedom are expected to inspire the whole community of anti-vaxxers. before submitting that proposition to testing, a host of legitimate questions need first to be raised about what qualifies red-covid deaths as “sacrifices”? were personal declarations enough? some critics might argue that failing to follow public health advisories only qualifies one as “self-destructive” or a “suicide.” or, even if the intention to sacrifice were genuine, maybe that intention was frustrated or unfulfilled in the process? perhaps anti-vaxxer deaths diminished society’s devotion to individual freedom? these questions do not even consider the red-covid dead who expressed no sacrificial intentions. could a third party declare them so to be ex post facto—say, in the way the deaths of soldiers are often officially declared “heroic,” even though nothing is known about their intentions? it is no simple matter, then, to decide whether red-covid deaths are “sacrifices.” as the proverb says, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. so, too, the road to sacrifice may be similarly paved with “good intentions,” but little more. sacrificial intentions, like proverbial “good intentions,” do not a sacrifice make. just because someone says they “sacrificed” does not make that claim meaningful or true. “sacrifice” is word tossed around in everyday discourse covering everything from the catholic eucharistic theology to the pillow guy’s announcing an annual sale where “everything must be sacrificed!” perhaps the anti-vaxxer actor claiming “sacrifice” just blundered negligently into death? perhaps, the anti-vaxxer simply had known enough of the science of covid infection—even while uttering “sacrifice” on their dying lips? needless to say, not every death constitutes a “sacrifice.” but which ones do? consider only one facet of the semantics of “sacrifice”—the relation of killing to sacrifice. https://changing-sp.com/ 18 ivan strenski a killing might be an execution, a stylized murder, or sadistic slaying done for this sheer pleasure of inflicting pain. but, for all that, the killing might not entail sacrifice. second, sacrifice may not entail any killing, either. in confucian china, even though sacrifices nourish the gods, “the victim’s slaughter does not mark a culminating moment of the rite” (wilson, 2002, p. 253). tracking the origins of ahimsā, herman w. tull (1996) tells us how ritual slaughter gradually became repulsive entirely. the mānavadharmaśāstra 5:53 teaches, moreover, that “the abjuration of sacrificial violence … leads to the same reward as that gained by performing the horse sacrifice every year for a 100 years” (tull, 1996, pp. 224–225). in the bible, many sacrifices involve no killing at all (levenson, 1993). in leviticus: 1–7, for instance, only one of the five basic sacrifices—burnt offering—requires killing. the other sacrifices, namely guilt, sin, and well-being, as well as the four kinds of grain sacrifices, involve none (dozeman, 2017, p. 376). even in the classic biblical example of abraham’s sacrifice of isaac, the “sacrifice” was not merely abraham’s proposed killing of isaac. cain didn’t sacrifice abel by murdering him anymore than abraham would have obeyed god’s command to “sacrifice” isaac just by killing him. much else was involved. abraham had to build an altar and, specifically, on mt. moriah (english standard version bible, 2001, genesis 22:6–9). he needed to prepare for the sacrifice by gathering fuel for the “burnt offering” isaac was to have become. abraham had, then, to bind isaac (english standard version bible, 2001, genesis 22:9). only then, would abraham have taken knife to isaac and killed him in preparation for making of him a “burnt offering.” presumably, after isaac’s body had been consumed in flames, abraham and his retinue would have eaten the burnt flesh—in a sacrificial meal shared with god. and, god, in return would have been somehow obligated to abraham, and so on. beyond rejecting the identity between killing and sacrifice, the abraham–isaac story helps us make a critical point about the semantics of sacrifice. unlike simple killing, sacrifice is not clearly a discrete act—“one and done,” although it may be spoken of in this way. instead, “sacrifice” names a process—as a sequence of acts as the abraham–isaac story reveals, constituting the complex process of making a successful “offering” (english standard version bible, 2001, genesis 22:2). in order to do the sacrifice properly, the person making the offering needs to be prepared, typically made “pure” and worthy to make the offering. once the offering is made, a whole sequence of responses is set in motion—sharing the offering in a communion meal, thanksgiving, reciprocation and so on. critically, as series of acts, the sacrificial process needs to adhere to certain rules in order to succeed. where the rules are neglected, the sacrifice can simply fail. sacrifice is fraught with contingencies. in leviticus, for instance, much is made of “accentuating the need for precise and correct performance” (dozeman, 2017, p. 376). all this means that sacrifice that can be done well or badly, perfectly or imperfectly, completely or incompletely, successfully or botched to the point of being something else altogether. in the case of putative anti-vaxxer covid sacrifices, they may, thus, better be regarded as suicides or “social murders.” about the process of sacrifice in the puranas, christopher z. minkowski, for instance, itemizes various ways that a “sacrifice can be interrupted … (destroyed, say, or disrupted, or intervened in) by various kinds changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 11–32 19 of interrupters … with various effects on the sacrificial victims (they might be released, or stolen, or sacrificed all the same)” (minkowski, 2001, p. 170). minkowski even notes how one recommended ancient indian way of getting a story started was, for instance, to interrupt a sacrifice! the possibilities for sacrificial failure are limitless. summing up thus far: saying that covid deaths are sacrifices must consider that they may be processes. as sacrificial processes, they differ from the discrete fact of just being dead, or in the discrete act of killing that may have led to a death. sacrificial offerings, purifications, preparations, killings, deaths, communion meals, reciprocations, and such are all parts of the whole sacrificial process. in a given sacrifice, omitting one of these parts, or not performing the same properly can render the sacrifice invalid, incomplete, aborted, or simply, failed. thus, as far as red-covid deaths as sacrifices goes, how well or not do they meet the requirements of performing the sacrifice well? covid deaths, “sacrifice”, and texas freedom we now know quite a lot about sacrifice. sacrifice is potentially as much a matter of elite imposition—even to the extent of looking like “social murder” (andersen, 2022; engels, 1845/2009)—as it is populist, grassroots phenomenon. next, we also know that red-covid “sacrifices” may look like “suicides” or “social murders,” but that their being “sacrifices” requires further specification. what do these preliminary conclusions then entail about evaluating whether critical cases of red-covid deaths, designated as “sacrifices,” succeed in being sacrifices? one prominent case of sacrificial language lately applied to the covid dead in public discourse has drawn considerable attention. it exhibits many, if not all, the salient features of red-covid claims about being sacrifices. i refer to public remarks linking covid deaths to sacrifice made in a 23 march 2020 nationally-televised interview with fox’s tucker carlson by gop texas lieutenant governor, dan patrick. patrick specifically urged “those of us who are 70 plus” to make a regular practice of “giving up” their desire to prolong their lives in face of the covid pandemic. patrick was thus recommending and “commending” the elderly to sacrifice their lives by ceasing to resist covid infection, so that they would vacate public space for youth. in more technical language, patrick encouraged “generational self-sacrifice” by declaring a policy known as “calculated ageism” (barrett et al., 2021, p. e201). explaining why he was recommending something essentially commendable, the texas lieutenant governor noted that “he and other [presumably red, gop] grandparents would be willing to risk their health and even lives”—“sacrifice” or giveup—“for the united states to ‘get back to work’ amid the coronavirus pandemic … but don’t sacrifice the country” (knodel, 2020). a month later on fox, patrick defended the high-mindedness of his original view: “there are more important things than living,” said patrick adding a note of nobility to his proposal, “and that’s saving this country for my children and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us” (samuels, 2020). bottom line: to promote the greater good of texas’s civic and economic health, the over-70s’ should “give-up” (“sacrifice”) their own attempts to avoid covid death. https://changing-sp.com/ 20 ivan strenski interestingly, patrick’s comments attracted nearly 32,000 retweets, expressing various points of view (barrett et al., 2021, p. e203). clearly, the linked subjects of the voluntary aspects of covid deaths and their relation to civic sacrifice struck a tender public note. although only 5% supported patrick’s views, and although his remark referred to the aged only, “opposition centered on moral critiques, political-economic critiques, assertions of older adults’ worth, and public health arguments. support centered on individual responsibility and patriotism” (barrett et al., 2021, p. e201). the question to be asked, however, is how well the sacrificial practice of covid death as imagined by patrick conforms to the sacrificial ideals patrick and others of his ideological persuasion enunciate? how can patrick assure us that the sacrifices ordered will be done well? or, will they instead look more like pathetic suicides, or cruel social murders than the grand sacrifices patrick seems to envision? what rules of “sacrifice” is patrick proposing, as well? patrick seems to misconceive sacrifice as “one-and-done”—a discrete act whose consequences don’t much matter. once dead, the old timers will be forgotten, plowed into the earth like so much compost, enriching the tilth of the texas soil so that the young generation can move on with the good life. what if sacrifice proceeds in steps, all or many of which needed to be completed—a process beginning perhaps with an individual act that, however, requires completion, follow-up and response? if sacrifice is such a social process, like all ritual processes, sacrifices can fail. they can fail to be completed, or botched, along the way. i suggest that one way to weigh the quality of red-covid sacrifices is by measuring the quality of performance. that, in part, means seeing how well or not red-covid sacrifices square with theories of sacrifice. what theory of sacrifice covers red-covid “sacrifices” best? theories of sacrifice are many. which would fit dan patrick’s data? would, for instance, they fit rené girard’s theory of sacrifice as scapegoating? on the face of it, no, since the deaths of patrick’s texas elderly do not incriminate anyone. “scapegoating” is just not an issue in dan patrick’s texas—not even the innocent elderly that patrick wishes to let die. nor, like andersen and girard, does patrick focus on how sacrifice becomes a vehicle for promoting the injustice of social victimization (girard, 1977). as theorized by andersen, girard and others, the sacrificial process entails blaming an innocent party for certain wrongs, then heaping the burden of guilt for those wrongs onto the victim—“scapegoating” them. but patrick’s elderly are blameless. that makes them an awkward fit for girard. similarly, jon d. levenson, martin bergmann, william beers and others fix on the hebrew bible’s mention of the violent practices of ritual killings of cherished, but helpless, first-born infants—“child-sacrifice” (beers, 1992; bergmann, 1992; levenson, 1993). but, again, to the extent that patrick imagines the elderly dying, it is not as the cherished, who are given-up in an act of self-abnegation. patrick’s elderly are the uncherished, the expendable. disposal of the elderly seems particularly unfitting then to the hebrew bible cases spelt out by levenson, bergmann, and beers. even less is patrick’s scenario conceivable within the theory of marcel changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 11–32 21 detienne and jean-pierre vernant’s focus on sacrificial “cuisine” (detienne & vernant, 1989). detienne and vernant conceive sacrifice from the viewpoint of the processes of arranging a sacrificial meal of the slaughtered victim to be shared with the gods. but it is immediately absurd to imagine patrick proposing texas retelling of “soylent green.” texans are not about to feast on the sacrificed elderly—or indeed even with them. indeed, what distinguishes patrick’s conception of the elderly in sacrifice is their exclusion from any texas common table. as disposable, the texas elderly are the garbage to be jettisoned to make way for new texans, not the stuff of some macabre barbecue. therefore, although dan patrick presents a recognizable—if monstrous— example of sacrifice involving covid, it fits no theories of sacrifice thus far canvassed. nor, as well, do they accommodate what matters to red-covid sacrificial deaths— acts done to promote individual freedom. in patrick’s case, as with the other red-covid sacrifices reviewed thus far, the salient acts are “offerings”, “contributions”, “pledges”, and so on—in short, gifts and social exchanges. patrick wants to exchange the deaths of covid-compromised texas elderly for economic benefit, for a future texas. he wants them to give-up their struggle to stay alive during the pandemic; resources that might be diverted to them would go elsewhere. given patrick’s conception of sacrifice, featuring gift, offering, and social exchange, henri hubert and marcel mauss’s theory of sacrifice offers a natural fit with patrick’s intended sacrifices (hubert & mauss, 1964). the red-covid dead constitute sacrifices because they are special, “sacred,” kinds of gifts, recalling the often-used soldier/warrior imagery frequently associated with death in the pandemic. what i then propose is pragmatic test of the extent to which red-covid “sacrifices” like patrick’s live up to their claims to be sacrifices—at least insofar as the elements of gift, offering, and social exchange are focal to what sacrifices are. crucially, in what ways do red-covid sacrifices succeed and, in what ways, do they fail at being sacrifices, as far as hubert and mauss have laid it out? to claim a red-covid death was indeed a commendable sacrifice, a given death would need successfully to complete the process of sacrifice being a gift, offering, social exchange, and so on. failure to complete the process would mean that such an act—whatever the intentions—would have to be judged a “failed” sacrifice, an “aborted” sacrifice, or some other term indicating its lack of success at completing the particulars of a sacrificial process defined by giving, offering, and social exchange. grading red-covid deaths presents us with some of the weighty scenarios. some people want to commend the deaths of anti-vaxxers as noble sacrifices made as gifts or offerings for advancing individual political freedom. in speaking of redcovid deaths as sacrifices, one suggests something more than a commonplace “giving-of.” one holds out the sometimes-chilling prospect of a total “giving-up,” an unconditional surrender, even to the extent of complete elimination, or erasure. i, thus, want to join those who argue that many “sacrifices” show that people like giving gifts, cooking and eating communally, or raising things from the profane to the sacred. others frown on the covid deaths of anti-vaxxers—as condemnable, claiming instead that what may seem like gifts or offerings are really suicides, social murders because https://changing-sp.com/ 22 ivan strenski they are heedless squandering—a giving away of precious life. even worse, refusing vaccinations steals from the larger community, rather than giving to it, by providing hosts for covid to mutate further. with these and other examples in mind, let me begin testing claims that some red-covid deaths ought to be commended for being sacrifices as hubert and mauss see it. the ambiguity of the sacred and gift in sacrifice: “making sacred” hubert and mauss (1964) proposed that the salience of sacrifices lay in their “making (something) sacred,” as its latin roots in “sacri-ficium” attest: “it is indeed certain that sacrifice always implies a consecration; in every sacrifice an object passes from the common into the religious domain; it is consecrated” (p. 9). therefore, as a process of “making sacred,” hubert and mauss tell us that sacrifice is an action that makes something experienced as qualitatively “holy”, “hallowed”, “heroic”, “treasured”, “sacred”—distinct from something that had been experienced as qualitatively mundane. thus, hubert and mauss observe that “the victim does not necessarily come to the sacrifice with a religious nature already perfected and clearly defined: it is the sacrifice itself that confers this upon it” (hubert & mauss, 1964, p. 97). the war dead ascend to the lofty status of “heroes,” or loftier still—transcendently—to being akin to “martyrs” or “saints”—“giving up” their lives as soldiers sanctifies them. in the covid pandemic, for example, everyday frontline care-givers sacrificed of themselves for the infected, and thus earned exalted, heroic, “warrior” or “sacred” designations. can the anti-vaxxer red-covid dead, however, be said to be “sacrifices” by this logic? according to hubert and mauss’s way of thinking, the red-covid dead might be seen as sacred because they had sacrificed their lives for gop goals by resisting governmental public health measures. but seeing the red-covid dead as sacred in this way also entails recognition by those promoting these “sacrificial” deaths. hubert and mauss note that “the sacrificed victim”—here the red-covid dead “were treated with a religious respect; honours were paid to them” (hubert & mauss, 1964, p. 35). the reason for recognition is, as hubert and mauss say, because sacrifice “has so frequently been conceived of as a form of contract” (hubert & mauss, 1964, p. 100). doing sacrifice well means, for instance, that those who “sacrificed” to support trump’s anti-vaccine policies and died as a result, oblige trumpers, at least, to revere, honor, recognize, remember, or memorialize them by whatever means seem appropriate. doing sacrifice well indeed requires that the sacrificing red-covid dead are so recognized as sacred. this does not, however, seem the case among the anti-vaxxer population and its elite sponsors. first, an air of profanity seems to have settled over attitudes toward the anti-vaxxer dead. dan patrick, in effect, confesses his entirely profane attitude to the matter in his 21 april 2020 fox news interview, saying “i don’t want to die, nobody wants to die, but man we’ve got to take some risks and get back in the game and get this country back up and running” (samuels, 2020). risks aplenty, but from patrick not a word about a sacred obligation to those taking the risks or solidarity with those who sacrifice in one’s behalf. “those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 11–32 23 ourselves,” said patrick to fox news, perhaps unaware of the bleak scenario of the lone elderly dying off in isolation, he broadcasts. patrick does not even need to add that the over-70s’ are expendable—and therefore their deaths do not register morally, nor could they trigger a moral reaction, such as obligation, much less spur sacred feelings of solidarity. as social “garbage,” the elderly have outlived their utility, and can be “dumped” along with all the other “garbage” that makes up profane reality (knodel, 2020). let me suggest along with carrillo and ipsen’s report on the neglect of workers in “meatpacking facilities … critical [to the national] infrastructure in the covid-19 pandemic.” they too were treated as “expendable” and unceremoniously “dumped”— in effect, “garbage,” profanity at its most profound (carrillo & ipsen, 2021, p. 730). what aborts interpretations of patrick’s red-covid deaths as sacrifices is the same profanity with which frontline workers in the early stages of the pandemic were treated. second, even when the dead are calculated for economic reasons, a deep wave of denial smothers recognition of the would-be moral gravity of red-covid sacrifices. for instance, in gop south dakota, dying gop loyalists even deny having covid! emergency room nurse, jodi doering, recently stated to the washington post that the “last dying words [of many red-covid anti-vaxxers] are, ‘this can’t be happening. it’s not real’”. doering added that “some patients prefer to believe that they have pneumonia or other diseases rather than covid-19 [sic], despite seeing their positive test results” (villegas, 2020). but statistics show how mistaken these feelings were. in a morbidity and mortality weekly report (mmwr) report, by the end of december 2021, unvaccinated persons were six times—more likely to contract covid than fully boosted vaccinated persons, and 10 times more likely to die from covid, as measured from early april through much of december 2021 (johnson et al., 2022). vanity fair’s caleb ecarma also reports how fox news effectively pursues the policy of red-covid denial: ever since the start of the coronavirus outbreak in the u.s., fox news has largely focused its coverage on downplaying its severity and the health risks … the network’s top talent found new ways to misinform their audience about the outbreak’s dangers around each new development and every updated death toll. (ecarma, 2020) a further wrinkle on denial about covid, has been how fox headliners, tucker carlson, laura ingraham, and sean hannity routinely played down the lethality of covid (davidson, 2021). the effect of this is, of course, to put populations at increased risk of infection (davidson, 2021; ecarma, 2020). treated in this way, gop media leaders regards red-covid deaths less as gifts or sacrifices than thefts. disguised forms of taking, red-covid deaths become opportunities to reduce the approval and power of gop political opponents. red-covid deaths are, thus, fake gifts and phony sacrifices in that they primarily seek to take political approval from gop opponents, rather than offering them to someone. to fox, since so few have died, in theory, even fewer have “sacrificed” anything for anyone. one, thus, seldom hears rightist media or personalities calling attention https://changing-sp.com/ 24 ivan strenski to the covid death-toll, since that would remind audiences of what the loyalists have given up. the guardian thus reported that “as donald trump agitates for the us to reopen, the american right appears to have found a novel way to deal with the rising coronavirus death toll: deny it altogether” (gabbatt, 2020). even conservative organs, like forbes have concluded that no one has given up anything for anyone: a growing number of conservatives (especially fringe sites like alex jones’ infowars) are embracing a conspiracy that government-approved death tolls are inflated for various political reasons—and some reports suggest president trump will soon endorse the murky theory as well. (perez, 2020) gop elites thus never really wanted to acknowledge the full extent of covid deaths, much less memorialize or celebrate their nobility as they would were redcovid dead felt to be the sacred gifts that real sacrifices are. red-covid deaths are not then acknowledged or remembered as they should were they real sacrifices. “at worst,” whether they die or not makes no difference, krugman argues. anti-vaxxers are “engaged in deliberate aggression to make a point,” which tragically may never get acknowledged (krugman, 2022). as a result of their program of denial, fox and other rightist media outlets undercut any sense of obligation and social solidarity that might develop were redcovid deaths really treated as sacrifices. mauss well captured the sense of obligation in gift-giving that seems so conspicuously missing in the lack of recognition by fox and other of red-covid sacrificial intentions. for mauss, gifts are given and repaid under obligation, even though they may seem to be voluntary. gift-giving generates its own social consequences. gifts elevate the status of the giver and, put the receiver in debt—to reciprocate. by analogy, this would mean that red-covid deaths should incur obligation in being sacrificial gifts. red-covid sacrificial victims should expect the process to play out, such that, for instance gop leaders would feel obliged to express recognition for their sacrifice. one might have expected acts of recognition, memorialization, or perhaps even celebration, like those for wartime soldiers who gave-up their lives in combat. but instead, the very politicians and media leaders who found it politically useful to advocate their red-covid constituents—in effect, to give-up their lives by refusing vaccination—often systematically discount, ignore or even deny the existence of those deaths entirely (ecarma, 2020; motta, 2021). witness what political scientists, naim kapucu and donald moynihan, observe about trump in this connection: while president trump sometimes acknowledged the cost of the disease, he did not make expressions of empathy or of loss central to his messaging. indeed, the white house never undertook an acknowledgements event or commemoration that acknowledged the scale of the loss even as the disease passed milestones such as 100,000 deaths. one of the most memorable statements from president trump was “i don’t take any responsibility at all”. (kapucu & moynihan, 2021, p. 602) changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 11–32 25 in consequence, although once hailed as defenders of liberty, the red-covid dead now only serve as examples of sacrifices done badly. their potential sacrality goes unheeded. the moral contract at the heart of sacrifice goes unhonored. no one of their cohort remembers, honors, reveres, memorializes, or mythologizes these sacrificed red-covid dead as the sacrificial occasion should dictate. leonhardt shows how maga culture warriors systematically suppressed recognizing the many “memorials to the dead … [that] pop up on a daily basis” on social media. or they refused to face the inconvenient facts of ocean county’s hospitals being “overwhelmed with covid-19 patients” (leonhardt, 2022). the anti-vaxxer maga performance of sacrifice would thus be unrecognizable to the likes of a confucius, who knew how to do sacrifice well because he followed the socio-logic of sacrifice, its rhythm of give and take, its dialectic of act and memory, and so on. “the superior man,” said confucius, “while his parents are alive, reverently nourishes them; and, when they are dead, reverently sacrifices to them. his thought to the end of his life is how not to disgrace them” (muller, 1885). and that is what hubert and mauss mean when they say that in sacrificing someone gives up something of himself … [but] if he gives, it is partly in order to receive. thus, sacrifice shows, itself in a dual light; it is a useful act, and it is an obligation. disinterestedness is mingled with self-interest. that is why it has so frequently been conceived of as a form of contract. fundamentally there is perhaps no sacrifice that has not some contractual element. (hubert & mauss, 1964, p. 100) from available evidence, we know then how the red-covid dead, their sacrifices have been done badly. truncated by how the sacrality of the sacrificial victim has been violated, or by the failure to memorialize the acts of the red-covid victim, their sacrifice has effectively been aborted. such “sacrifice done badly”—sacrificial processes begun but left incomplete—might arguably be said to be no sacrifices at all. this was not always the case with trump and others in his camp. he, for instance, hinted at appreciation of the contractual nature of sacrifice. he acknowledged the sacrality of those who worked at critical industries, in effect, sacrificing their labor to produce medical equipment for the nation. of workers at a plant manufacturing healthcare devices—owens and minor, allentown, pa—trump said that they were giving of themselves because “they’re running into death just like soldiers run into bullets, in a true sense … i really call them ‘warriors’” (white house office, 2020). company training coordinator, ms. carol timm likewise echoed trump’s soldierly sacrificial theme: “i know it well—the workers at this facility have answered the call in america’s hour of need … we all work. we’re all working hard … every incredible worker here today is part of the greatest mobilization of american society since world war two” (white house office, 2020). trump’s tone would have pleased hubert and mauss for its appreciation of the sacrality of “sacrificing” frontline workers. just as hubert and mauss would have wanted him so to do, trump exalted in the paradigmatic sacrificial acts frontline works, acting like soldiers “giving of” and even “giving up” their labor for the national interest in maintaining medical preparedness. https://changing-sp.com/ 26 ivan strenski but compare trump’s early words at the minor and owen plant to his later tweets. once the growing covid pandemic threatened him politically, andersen reminds us how trump changed his tune. now, trump, like andersen’s aztec elites, pushes “the nation”—not just the “warrior” factory workers at owen and minor—to court covid death, but without acknowledging a contract with the dying! speaking from his elite position as president, aztec-trump said that everyone will “just have to accept the idea that … there will be more deaths.” what commends our attention to hubert and mauss’s theory, then, is that according to its logic, trump qualifies as doing sacrifice—but doing it badly! in effectively exploiting the sacrificial dead for his own purposes, he has not honored the essentially contractual socio-logic of sacrifice. the red-covid dead and the aztec commoners, presuming andersen right, are apparently “dead to” both trump and the aztec elites, respectively. neither trump nor the aztec elites have acknowledged the relevant sacrifices of the victims’ gift of themselves by acknowledging or honoring the fact, much less reciprocating in kind. as a gift, sacrifice ought to entail a return of the gift. but both trump and the aztec elites shirk their obligations. they are just "takers." trump and the aztec elites owe debts to those who have sacrificed or given up, but neither trump nor the aztec elites honor their social debts. sacrificing for individual freedom but despite shortcomings in grasping the moral gravity of appeals to sacrifice, what of the possible claims of anti-vaxxers that in resisting what they take to be oppressive federal health measures, consequent red-covid deaths would be “sacrifices” intentionally made for the preservation and increase of personal liberty? kurt andersen cites rightist christian, joy pullmann’s grotesque view that “the christian faith makes it very clear that death, is now good for all who believe in christ” (andersen, 2022). is that what informs anti-vaxxer refusal of life-preserving vaccines? andersen suggests as much. lamenting the tragic consequences of the right’s politicizing of covid to the point of tolerating the covid deaths of its own constituents, andersen says whatever their reasons, millions of americans have been persuaded by the right to promote death, and potentially to sacrifice themselves and others, ostensibly for the sake of personal liberty but definitely as a means of increasing their tribal solidarity and inclination to vote republican. (andersen, 2022) the question, however, neither answered nor even addressed, remains: whether vaccine resistance leading to red-covid deaths does, in fact, enhance personal liberty for americans (cohen, 2021)? fear of “big government” motivated many “people on the right” to refuse vaccination. does that also mean personal freedom would be enhanced by the resistance entailed in red-covid deaths? if so, where is the empirical evidence supporting vaccine-refusal? where is the empirical evidence that the many anti-vaxxer red-covd deaths have increased or sustained personal freedom in the nation? surely some indication of increased liberty should have been changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 11–32 27 evident by this time? one can only conclude that since partisan media are seldom shy about broadcasting their successes, the silence on this question is rather deafening. lacking empirical evidence that red-covid deaths enhance individual liberty, perhaps empirical tests can be made of other claims of the efficacy of red-covd deaths? a classic sacrificial religious text, the hindu manusmriti 5:39 hints at just such an area of testing. it reads, “animals have been created by the self-born god himself for the purpose of sacrifice: sacrifice is conducive to the well-being of all this world; hence killing at a sacrifice is no killing [emphasis added] at all” (jha, 1920). is it, then, empirically true that society at-large has benefitted from red-covid sacrificial deaths? in places plagued by overpopulation, red-covid sacrificial deaths might, for instance, produce manusmriti-like social benefit. texas’s dan patrick sees just such potential social betterment from the sacrificial covid deaths of the elderly. “those of us who are 70 plus, we’ll take care of ourselves. but don’t sacrifice the country.” let the elderly hurry up and die as red-covid sacrifices, patrick implies—for the sake of manusmriti-like benefit of society at-large. while twitter3 reactions to patrick’s calculations of social good would hardly seem to constitute rigorous empirical proof, a study of patrick’s proposal at least tested whether it was widely persuasive. the methods statement outlined an impressive procedure that began by “using twitter’s advance search feature,” and concluded that 90% opposed patrick’s view (barrett et al., 2021, p. e202). any doubts about the rigor of using twitter material should be dismissed given the statement of the methods employed in reaching this result. the researchers “addressed patrick’s statement … posted the day he made it (march 23, 2020), included the name “dan patrick,” and were written in english.” further, the “dataset includes 188 deidentified tweets … each post’s retweet count between initial posting and data collection … 1 month later (april 24, 2020).” then a “thematic analysis, a qualitative method” identified “topics and ideas … revealing overarching patterns … using nvivo.” this “involved three steps. first, we read the tweets to develop initial coding categories ... second, we coded each tweet using these codes, along with others emerging … third, we examined the tweets associated with each code to identify justifications for positions of support versus opposition. justifications were not mutually exclusive” (barrett et al., 2021, p. e202). concluding remarks in conclusion, there are many reasons to be skeptical about claims that red-covid deaths are sacrifices, given the different conditions under which people have died of the virus. some deaths, better classified as “social murders,” have resulted from culpable neglect or even deliberate exploitation of victims by powerful elites. other red-covid deaths look increasingly more like “suicides,” to the extent that individuals have been culpably negligent. indeed, examining red-covid deaths carefully reveals that many red-covid anti-vaxxers seem to have acted by omission 3 twitter® is a trademark of twitter inc., registered in the u.s. and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть twitter полностью заблокирована в россии как организация, занимающаяся распространением запрещенного контента. https://changing-sp.com/ 28 ivan strenski and chosen—negatively, by their negligence—to hasten their own deaths. if true, responsibility for red-covid deaths shifts, correspondingly, from influencers like trump to the vaccine-hesitant cohort itself—the “red-covid” dead (leonhardt, 2022). this shift of responsibility contrasts to how early in the pandemic, elites may have been chiefly responsible for the “social murders,” described by abbasi, mcgibbon, and the others. but, once the new mrna vaccines came onto the scene in abundance, without cost to the citizens of the major industrial nations, responsibility for covid deaths (plus transmissions and further mutations of novel strains of covid) shifted to the popular level of vaccine resistance (leonhardt, 2022). if leonhardt is accurate about this self-inflicted aspect of red-covid deaths, these deaths look best to be classified as something— at least—approaching “suicides”? a measure of the intentional nature of these deaths would depend, say, upon how sincerely red-covid victims believed in the efficacy of their many so-called therapeutics—ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine sulphate, household bleach, various botanicals, or lately, chug-a-lugging one’s own urine. and to the extent, recourse to these “remedies” signals vincible ignorance or culpable negligence, the resultant deaths tend to favor classification as suicide. deep down inside, while red-covid anti-vaxxers know that drinking their own urine has symbolic value, equally well, they surely know it isn’t a therapeutic for anything. yet, some did so anyway. in other cases, both elites and commoners may share responsibility for redcovid deaths insofar as both elites and commoners conspire to further a common political strategy. but upon closer inspection, although superficially like sacrificial gifts, red-covid deaths fail as “sacrifices.” they both fail as gifts and for sanctifying public life. they are, thus, neither reciprocated, nor do they create obligations and social solidarity. second, they also fail as sacrifices because they fail to “make anything sacred.” red-covid deaths are routinely denied or suppressed by those who should being doing just the opposite. red-covid deaths thus do not stimulate recognition, inspire memorialization, or contribute to any form of sanctification. the red-covid dead are “dumped” and forgotten like so much garbage. they are drowned in denial and purged from mindful recognition. red-covid deaths are then the antitheses of gifts and sacralizing processes. they are quintessentially profane. references abbasi, k. 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https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-owens-minor-inc-distribution-center-allentown-pa/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-owens-minor-inc-distribution-center-allentown-pa/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-owens-minor-inc-distribution-center-allentown-pa/ https://doi.org/10.1086/463684 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 285–291 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.3.047 received 1 august 2018 © 2018 joseph chita accepted 18 september 2018 chonochitajoseph@gmail.com published online 30 september 2018 conference paper reflecting on the teaching of islam in religious education teacher education programme at the university of zambia joseph chita the university of zambia, lusaka, zambia abstract the research was aimed at establishing how islam was taught. a historical inquiry complemented by thematic analysis of the phenomena helped in drawing meanings and inferences. findings revealed that islam was descriptively taught (indefinite model) through lecture methods, alongside having (occasional) guest speakers. i argue that while the content introduced diverse aspects of islam, trainee teachers were not adequately equipped on how to deliver the subject content. this resulted in selective teaching of the content on islam. the question of who is qualified to teach islam in a public university remained unresolved. an explicit and responsive teaching model would do. keywords islam, religious education, teacher education, teaching model, university education introduction this paper reflects on how islam was taught in a public university as part of the teacher education programme for religious education (re) in zambia’s secondary schools. this is because since its inception, the teaching of islam in teacher education had not been evaluated despite concerns during student teacher observations that most of them had avoided covering topics on islam. mulando (2011) also confirmed the selective teaching of certain topics among teachers of re. this therefore called for the need to examine what was taught https://changing-sp.com/ 286 joseph chita on islam in teacher education and how it was taught so as to contribute to the quest of producing competent re teachers. reflecting on how islam was taught in a public university was important given the growing influence of islam as part of zambia’s contemporary religious history. in a historical overview of the religion in zambia, phiri (2008, p. 3) noted that despite “representing a small minority of the population… islam had become a significant component of both the religious and socio-political landscape of zambia … its impact on society has opened up new horizons for the understanding of contemporary islamic dynamism”. statistical reflections of the muslim population stood at 0.5% in the 2000 national census representing a minority group of the country’s population (zdhs, 2007, p. 34). the 2016 international religious freedom report on zambia (2016, p. 2) stipulated that of the estimated population of 15.5 million people in the country, the u.s. government estimated that “nearly 2% of the population is muslim with smaller numbers of hinduism, baha’is, buddhist, jews, and sikhs”. historically, muslims have made significant contributions in zambia. for instance, they have supported government’s work in areas such as education and health provision. in addition, muslims have been responsive to social problems in different communities by reaching out to orphans and the vulnerable, and initiating developmental projects (sinking of boreholes for water provision) (zambia news and information services, june 15, 2018). largely, muslims have been major players in commerce and trade. as traders, they were among the earlier migrants that entered zambia in the early 19th century succeeded by another group reported to have been of asian origin – gujaratis from north-western india arriving at the beginning of the 20th century. the latter had a dominant role in the economy of the country (phiri, 2008, p. 5). although islam came to be associated with indians and the yao traders, the statistics have come to embrace other groups that “include an everincreasing number of indigenous convert and immigrants communities from other african countries, especially from west africa and somalia” (phiri, 2008, p. 6; u.s. department of state report, 2016, p. 3). most importantly, other than the growing presence of islam in the public sphere, public schools also had a good representation of children or learners who were practicing islam. as such, the manner in which re teachers handled islam in their lessons was crucial; hence the inquiry into how the teachers were being prepared to teach the religion. the university of zambia (unza) was targeted for the inquiry because it was the first institution to offer a degree programme that included islam in its content for teacher education. the inquiry is based on document review and interviews with unza staff members who had been involved in the teaching of islam in the teacher education programme. the paper argues that what was taught on islam, how and why it was taught manifested intricacies for re and trainee teachers. while the content introduced teachers to diverse aspects of islam, the teaching approach of the subject did not adequately equip the trainee teachers on how to deliver the subject content in schools. this resulted in selective teaching of the content on islam by changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 285–291 287 re teachers. in addition, the guest speaker versus the members of staff handling the content on islam pointed to the unresolved question of who is qualified to teach islam in a public university like unza. the next segment provides a brief contextual background to the teaching of islam at the unza. context of teaching islam at unza as the first public university, unza was mandated to train teachers for the newly independent zambia. the need for teachers in re at graduate level prompted the school of education to rethink what the university could do to address the shortage of re teachers in the country. a 1978 situation analysis regarding the teaching staffing positions for re in 119 zambian schools revealed that out of the 348 teachers teaching re, only 40% (138) were zambians, while 60% (210) were expatriates. of the total number of teachers teaching re, only 165 were qualified re graduate teachers, broken down into 8% (13) zambians and 92% (152) expatriates. this background information was used by the committee on the provision of religious studies at unza to justify the introduction of religious studies as a minor programme for prospective secondary school teachers. other than the urgent need for re teachers in schools, the introduction of the new senior secondary syllabus entitled “christian religious education (2044)”, which had been approved by the examination council of zambia for implementation in schools pointed to the need for more teachers. since the focus of the approved senior secondary school syllabus focussed on christian teachings, comparative studies on islam, hinduism and traditional beliefs (u.s. department of state report, 2016, p. 3), islam needed to be part of the course content at unza. thus, religious studies as a minor and later as a major were introduced for secondary school re teachers. the programme has a four-year structure which enabled students to study aspects of religion from different perspectives. under this programme, a minor in religious studies offered courses like introduction to religious studies; religious change in africa; religion and values; religious studies methods; moral philosophy; philosophy of religion; and sociology of religion (flynn, 1997, p. 1). it must be noted that from the onset, re teacher education at the university was being approached from a religious studies standpoint. from the list of courses that were offered, islam featured as one of the world religions introduced to trainee teachers during their first year of studies, while in their second year, islam was referred to as one of two religions that brought about change in africa. in the third year, it was covered under religion and values. in the 1990s, the migration from offering a minor to a major after the senate’s approval of a proposal to upgrade the religious studies programme to a major in 1992 coincided with the revision of courses in the university to suit the change from term to semester system. the initial courses were split into two semester courses. the introduction to religious studies course gave a broad overview of christianity, hinduism, islam, judaism, and indigenous african religions. initially, the course https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/268954.pdf 288 joseph chita was designed to enable students to identify the function of religion, explain the historical development of selected belief systems, and illustrate contrasts of interactions between these systems in christianity and islam, taking into account changing social and political conditions. later on, after revision, its objective was to look at religion as a worldwide phenomenon so as to identify its personal and social dimensions in relation to the world today. under the revised programme, in the first year of undergraduate studies, islam was covered under the themes of basic concepts of islam, an account of the life of the prophet muhammad, the quran, and the history and structure of the religion. in the second year, islam was presented in a course on religion and ethics which adopted a descriptive approach of ethics in religions of the world. this course used examples from various religions to provide a comparative and critical analysis of personal and social ethics on topics such as family and marriage, community and work, justice and integrity. at third year level, islam featured in the course the impact of christianity and islam on africa. in this course, the impact of two major world religions in central and southern africa was assessed using the concepts of conversion and inculturation. over time, the course content on islam in the religious studies programme has not changed apart from the development and introduction of an elective course on history of islam in africa, which addresses the geographical and social setting of islam, the influence of islam on the idea of the supernatural, the nature and destiny of man, morality, the economic sphere and material culture, the juridical sphere and customary law, the social order, and the life cycle of islam (proposal for a minor programme in religious studies, paper se/80/07). there was satisfaction that islam was adequately covered as the introductory course as it provided full coverage of the religion alongside the additional courses in later years of study. reflections on the teaching of islam at unza while some participants were of the view that there were no specific pedagogies for teaching each religion’s content, the phenomenological and interpretive approaches were deemed favourable because it was thought that beyond these approaches, one would easily slide into the un-educational, confessional zone. for this reason, the lecture method was the dominant method of delivering the content. the lecture method was largely centred on descriptions of different aspects of islam. field visit or outings to specific places of interest were rarely used. this could be due to a number of reasons, such as large numbers of students, logistical challenges, and limited time to manoeuvre amidst tight timetabling. occasionally, guest speakers were invited to give talks on different topics. this approach was often used before 2005, but it has recently been sparingly employed. the following were some of the reflections from some members of the department on inviting guest speakers to talk to students about islamic topics, “[w]e have gone into changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 285–291 289 slumber, undoing what flynn and carmody started… carmody never minded that, it does not bother me as long as students learn stuff from the horse’s mouth… i and mr. chanda are not muslims” (interview, november, 2017), this statement highlights that the founders of the initial religious studies programme invited muslim guest speakers to class and used them as a teaching tool for students to learn about islam. however, with time and especially after the missionary lecturers left, there were some hesitation to continue engaging the guest speakers as demonstrated in the following comment: i invited two groups, one looked at islam while the other looked at baha’i faith, …i kept on interjecting him [former speaker], he wanted to start promoting the faith. the results were positive though. (personal communication with lecturer, 2017) another participant noted that “…muslims have been calling for a confessional approach claiming that teachers are misrepresenting islam… we do not teach from a commitment perspective but take an academic view point for all the religions…” (personal communication with lecturer, 2018). these perspectives that show the fear of indoctrination are not a preserve of islam, but cut across all other evangelising religion. it is for this reason that one participant noted that: the choice islam and all other religions had to make in modern pluralistic societies was whether they want their religious beliefs to be taught in a secular educational manner in public schools or to set up their own strictly private schools where they could teach their beliefs in a confessional manner. (personal communication, february 2018) though there were such fears of indoctrination, the majority of the participants in the study pointed to the need to reignite the involvement of muslim guest speakers as shown in the following statements: i think it is important to have guest speakers, we just need to guide them by specifying what we want to be covered in their talk… by specifying i mean limiting what they are going to talk about to what is in the course outline/content. (personal communication, 2017) you need the voice of a practicing faithful also, so i think… (personal communication, november 2017) if we argue that confessionalists can’t teach, then we are missing it. there should be debate on this… islam is submission to the will of allah. the teaching must be organized around that… within that submission is doing what is morally correct. so following the dictum of learning about and from religion, that is good source of morality for the learner i suppose… education indoctrinates, that is https://changing-sp.com/ 290 joseph chita the bottom line because it aims at changing something in humans… (personal communication, february 2018) it is suffice to note that the methods of teaching islam sparked off diverse views especially in relation to the involvement of guest speakers. this scenario mirrors the challenges islam has faced in the public sphere, which necessitated the muslimchristian dialogue. cheyeka (2012) notes that zambia is one of the best examples in southern africa of how well christians and muslims relate with one another, a good relationship that is not based on “tolerating” one another, but on ignorance to the point that to many ordinary zambians a mosque is “indian church” or church yaba chawa (yao chapel). conclusion the paper reflected on the teaching of islam in a public university in the teacher education programme. as part of the religious studies teacher education programme, the study established that islam was adequately covered in terms of content. the methods of teaching islam were, however, met with diverse views, which pointed to the big question of who should teach islam in a public university. this manifested in the divergent views on the involvement of guest speakers, by teaching staff (lecturers). while their hesitation were associated to indoctrination, the paper has argued that all religions that evangelise are vulnerable to this reality; hence the need for religions to rethink what can be taught and how it should be taught. this hesitation to openly approach religions was in turn reflected in student teachers’ selective teaching of re in schools as observed by other scholars. for this reason, the paper calls for continued muslim-christian dialogue in academia so as to foster sound relations based on knowledge and not ignorance. references carmody, b. p. 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(2018, june 16). zambia news and information services. retrieved from https://www.lusakatimes.com/2018/06/16/ president-lungu-applauds-the-muslim-community/ https://changing-sp.com/ http://dspace.unza.zm:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/2002 http://dspace.unza.zm:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/2002 http://dspace.unza.zm:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/2002 http://dspace.unza.zm:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/2002 https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/268954.pdf https://www.lusakatimes.com/2018/06/16/president-lungu-applauds-the-muslim-community/ https://www.lusakatimes.com/2018/06/16/president-lungu-applauds-the-muslim-community/ changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.4.052 received 12 september 2018 © 2018 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, accepted 3 december 2018 andré pires, tom dwyer published online 15 december 2018 mligia@ifcs.ufrj.br anpires@puc-campinas.edu.br tom@unicamp.br article higher education, development, and inequality in brazil and south africa maria lígia de oliveira barbosa federal university of rio de janeiro, brazil andré pires pontifical catholic university of campinas, brazil tom dwyer university of campinas, brazil abstract this article has the premise that south africa and brazil spaces share contextual and geopolitical characteristics with a history of great inequalities, racial and gender discrimination and these and other related factors serve as barriers constraining education. considering the remarkable expansion of higher education systems in both countries on the last 25 years, and its uneven effects, some questions are raised as a challenge in this article. does this growth in enrollments create high quality or “world-class universities” in these countries? is it possible to find south african or brazilian universities in the international rankings of institutional higher education? has such expansion produced a full democratization of educational opportunities? or, in other words, does any skilled and hardworking student, regardless of his/her social background, have equal chances of access to the best courses and universities? in order to try to answer these questions, we begin characterizing the expansion of higher education systems over the last two and a half decades in both countries. regarding policies of access by poor students to higher education system, we taking in account and compare some initiatives in both countries, such as reuni, fies and prouni in brazil, and national student financial aid scheme (nsfas), in south africa. our analysis, following the tradition of sociological research, understands that the mode of operation of higher education https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 367 introduction: higher education in brazil and south africa for two and a half decades the brazilian system of higher education (hes) has expanded and diversified. new courses and new school paths were offered as well as different types of diplomas. brazil went from 1.3 million students in 1980 to 8 million in 2015. hundreds of thousands from working and so-called “popular classes” entered the university. public policies such as quotas or scholarships ensured a significant expansion of access to tertiary education. in south africa, in 1993 – before the end of apartheid – there were 473,000 students he students enrolled, this grew to 683,000 in 1996 and reached 2,000,000 in 2016. south africa also moved to “promote equity of access and fair chances for success to all who are seeking to realize their potential through higher education, while eradicating all forms of unfair discrimination and advancing redress for past inequalities” (white paper, 1997, 1.14) does this growth in enrollments create high quality or “world-class universities” in these countries? is it possible to find south african or brazilian universities in the international rankings of institutional higher education? has such expansion produced a full democratization of educational opportunities? or, in other words, does any skilled and hardworking student, regardless of his/her social background, have equal chances of access to the best courses and universities? the last is the key question for the sociology of social inequality: does expansion “reduce inequality by providing more opportunities for persons from disadvantage strata, or magnify inequality by expanding opportunities disproportionately for those who are already privileged”? (arum et al., 2007, p. 1) the production of quality rankings includes, at least in countries like the usa, measures of social, gender and racial inequalities but it is mainly associated with scientific research and learning (goastellec, 2008). for analysts of most diverse hues, the proper functioning of institutions of higher education – their economic, social, and scientific efficiency – has become an important element in the assertion of democratic principles and equality of institutions stands out as one of the key factors in the mechanisms and social conflicts that increase or reduce inequalities. focusing on the basic distinction between public and private sector, for brazil, and the persistence of distinction between historically black and white institutions, in south africa, we try to show that both countries improved the access to higher education systems and managed to create some world-class institutions. even so, social and gender inequalities persist and there are too few such institutions, especially in brazil. keywords brazil, south africa, higher education, affirmative action, education inequalities https://changing-sp.com/ 368 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer opportunities in modern societies. this understanding seems to be present in brazilian and south african societies even if diverse social groups have different expectations and demands for higher education. these groups have political strategies and ways to lobby the state and society to try to embed the models they think suitable for themselves and for all in the education system. however, the common perception that some level of democratization is necessary in higher education emerges through the multiplication of public and institutional policies for the inclusion of previously excluded social groups. numerous student assistance policies have been developed in brazilian public universities to facilitate some kind of integration of previously excluded students (heringer & honorato, 2014, p. 323). some initiatives created in private institutions – scholarship programs and internships – can be considered as evidence of this increasingly widespread democratizing impetus (almeida neto, 2015, p. 23). several affirmative action policies have been developed in brazil since the 1990s, with some success in the inclusion of afro-descendants and poor youth. more recently, reuni (restructuring and expansion of federal universities program) promoted a significant increase in the number of federal institutions of higher education and the increased the offer of student vacancies outside of the populated coastal areas. in a continental country such as brazil, this program, despite its difficulties, greatly facilitates the access of young people with limited resources to go to good universities near their homes (vargas, 2014). similarly, the federal government’s prouni (university for all program) provided grants and scholarships for poor students to study in private universities (santos, 2012). the federal government also invested heavily in vocational centers at the tertiary level. this aimed to increase the alternatives to university education, thus differing from the two aforementioned policies (mont’alvão, 2015). in south africa, policies try to interweave economic development, a greater equality of opportunities and the overcoming of past inequalities. the increase of enrollments in south africa’s higher education system did not begin in 1994, but it was already present during the apartheid period. in fact, as shown by akoojee & nkomo (2008), the demand for skilled people in apartheid times produced a dual higher education system in the country. in the one hand, a university for the white population, focused on scientific knowledge to foster the ruling class. on the other hand, a university for indians and coloreds, focused on training for the labor market. even though a large mass of the population was denied access to higher education, “economic imperatives under apartheid left some room for selected black people to access institutions of higher education” (akoojee & nkomo, 2008, p. 389). some authors (patto, 2007) (libâneo, 2012) have argued that a similar dual education system was built in brazil, without such emphasis on racial and ethnic discrimination, but which stressed the separation between poor and rich students. in the south africa’s transition from apartheid, when the need to redress past inequalities became a priority, a political agenda that increased access for black and colored groups to the higher education system was developed. as pointed out by akoojee and nkomo: changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 369 transformation requires that the ethos that prevailed at higher education institutions (heis) in the past needs to be replaced with a new democratic culture directed at actively undoing race-based separation. in this regard, the issue of access to higher education institutions remains the key mechanism by which to forge a new order (akoojee & nkomo, 2008, p. 390). several changes in the political framework post-1994, such as the south africa constitution in 1996, the 1997 act and the publication of a white paper, produced deep alterations throughout the higher education system (badat, 2010). jansen (2007) sumarizes five major changes in the higher education landscape. first, a programme of government mergers in order to reduce the number of post-high school public institutions (numbering 306 these were radically reduced to 72 institutions). second, a “spectacular growth in private higher education” (jansen, 2007, p. 164) strengthened this segment in political and economic terms. the emergence of new models of delivering higher education was the third major change. so, according to (jansen, 2007, p. 164), “it is no longer possible to clearly distinguish contact and distance education institutions in south africa, as the former increasingly blurred the distinction in practice between these two forms of education delivery ”. the fourth change has been a decline in humanities enrollments. the last change was related to the nature of academic workplace, represented by the growth of a new managerialism characterized by “a growing emphasis on performance, measurement and accountability; the increasing ethos of competition; a changing language that recasts students as clients and departments as cost centres; the growing vulnerability of academic and administrative positions as ‘outsourcing’ and ‘efficiencies’ dominate the institutional strategy ” (jansen, 2007, p. 164). the shift in the core rules of higher education system produces some uneven effects. one was the expansion of students enrollments. in 25 years enrollment almost doubled, from 473,000 in 1993 to some 800,000 in 2008 (badat, 2010). by 2016, 2 milion1 students were enrolled in higher education, 78.3% of then in public institutions and 21.7% in private institutions (statistics south africa, 2017, p. 71). however, there are many discrepancies when taking into account ethnic and racial issues. in 2016, black and coloured people were expected to receive 1.7 years of schooling in higher education, whereas whites were expected to receive 7.5 years. since 1994, two kinds of policies of access for black students could be seen. first, “access as participation approach” (akoojee & nkomo, 2008, p. 390) when policies emphasize their increasing participation at universities that had previously denied them entry. because of these efforts, cloete and bunting (2000) and subotzky (2003) showed that the proportion of african students in white institutions increased, between 1993 and 2000, from 13% to 46%. despite favorable enrollment growth numbers, there is evidence that this process did not guarantee success for the black students. a report quoted by akoojee & nkomo (2008, p. 390) indicated that at least 25 per cent of south africa’s higher 1 see the methodological information bellow on statistics of higher education in south africa. https://changing-sp.com/ 370 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer education students fail to complete their studies. in addition, there is little black enrollment and success in high demand courses, such as science, engineering, and technology. after 1999, “access with success” approach, which gives emphasis to guaranteeing success for these students was developed (akoojee & nkomo, 2008). in other words, these policies aim to provide proper conditions for black /poor students to successfully complete higher education. national student financial aid scheme (nsfas), created in 1999, is an example of this kind of policy. the main purpose of the program is to enable young people from poor households to obtain a higher education. nsfas provides loan and bursaries for students “access to, and success in, higher and further education and training” (national student financial aid scheme, 2018). in some dimensions, nfas is quite similar to fies in brazil. both provide loans to student and it is expected that they will be repaid when the new graduates enter the labor market. but there are some important differences. first, the loans could be used not only for undergraduate courses but also in some selected postgraduate programs2. the second and most important difference is that up to 40% of the loan can be converted into a bursary in south africa, based on academic performance. a student led protest movement that began in 2015 called #feesmustfall, in response to an increase in fees at south african universities. as a result, the 2018 nsfas3 will no longer disburse loans to students, according to south african president jacob zuma’s december 2017 statement. it will only provide bursaries (department of higher education and training, 2018) nsfas became more similar to the brazilian prouni than to fies. up until 2017, allowances for books, food, private accommodation, transport, and the like are paid directly to students using a voucher system (government technical advisory centre, 2018). in this sense, nsfas faces a challenge that invisible in brazilian fies or prouni, which is to provide adequate conditions so as to allow people to complete their courses successfully. in 2014, loans and grants were disbursed to about 425,000 students, twice as many as in 2010 (government technical advisory centre, 2018). in 2016, the nsfas fund intended to support 405,000 first generation students in higher education and to continue to support those already in the system. (statistics south africa, 2017, p. 55). however, as we shall see below, some discrepancies surround south africa government data. based on information from department of higher education and training, 225,950 students were supported by nsfsas fund in 2016. the numbers in graph 1 show that, in a broader perspective, both programs have exhibited a tendency of increase over the past decade4. the size of both programs, regarding the total number of students, is quite similar as well. but, as noted before, 2 architecture/architectural technology; biokinetics/biomedical technology/biotechnology; postgraduate certificate in education; postgraduate diploma in accounting and llb (national student financial aid scheme, 2018). 3 the authors would like to thank pearl whittle and diane parker of the department of higher education and training, and gerrit coetzee from department of basic education, for the help in obtaining these statistics. 4 the period from 2005 to 2016 was choose because prouni was created in 2005. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 371 brazilian´s prouni is one of a number of programs, which include fies and reuni, that intend to increase the enrollment of poor students in higher education. besides, prouni is focused only on private education institutions. south africa’s nsfsa and the brazilian prouni have one other similarity, which is the goal to promote teaching as a qualified profession. part of the funds of nsfsa, for example, are addressed the funza lushaka bursary programme launched in 2007, which intends to improve the attractiveness of teaching as a career choice for south african students. the bursary provides fixed values per higher education institution which should cover: a) student tuition fees, including laboratory fees (where applicable); b) residence/accommodation fees including meals; c) annual grant for stationery and books (±r7,000 – r8,000); d) covers costs involved in teaching internships; and e) ±r 600 monthly stipend to cover basic living expenses. the brazilian prouni provides bursaries for any public sector teacher, from primary or secondary education, who has not a higher education degree. the range of undergraduate courses supported by program is limited to education, social sciences, history, biology, geography, mathematics, and physics. however, there is no requirement for a maximum per capita household income for the student to be eligible for prouni´s teacher bursaries. once again, south africa’s program for teaching focuses not only in access to high education level, but to promote allowances so that students can successfully complete their undergraduate courses, such a mechanism is absent in brazil´s prouni. the number of bursaries awarded in each program is very different. between 2007 and 2017, the funza lushaka bursary programme awarded 120,511 bursaries, whereas prouni for teaching awarded only 12,225 bursaries (from 2004 to 2014). considering the differences between the number of enrollments in higher education system in brazil and south africa (see graph 2), the relative importance of funza lushaka bursary programme is much higher than prouni. 95,337 106,852 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 300,000 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 prouni nsfsa 239,262 225,950 0 graph 1. distribution for prouni and nsfas (total number of students) between 2005 to 2016 https://changing-sp.com/ 372 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer 349,383 430,007 627,277 741,380 938,200 975,837 1,377,286 1,565,056 1,868,529 3,030,754 4,676,646 6,739,689 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016 south africa brazil 7,000,000 6,000,000 5,000,000 4,000,000 3,000,000 2,000,000 1,000,000 0 graph 2. enrollment in higher education sources: inep-mec. brazilian census of higher education; stats south africa & council on higher education. international rankings beside the expansion and inclusive policies implemented in both countries, many forms of assessing university quality became an important subject especially as international rankings became a popular method for evaluating these institutions. using diverse methodologies and criteria, there is still a lot of argument or debate about why and how to consider the rankings both for managing the institutions or choosing to enroll in one of them (clarke, 2002). most important, the debate highlighted the race in course to constitute “world-class universities” in each country and this is seen as an indicator of the development of a market for international higher education (martins, 2015). the times higher education ranking of universities in emerging countries for 2018 allows for some initial comparisons on this topic (table 1). table 1. distribution for brazilian and south african universities by selected international rankings emerging economies rank 2018 emerging economies rank 2017 world university rank 2018 university country/region 9 4 171 university of cape town south africa 12 8 251–300 university of the witwatersrand south africa 14 13 251–300 university of são paulo brazil 33 28 401–500 university of campinas brazil 38 42 351–400 stellenbosch university south africa =41 58 401–500 university of kwazulu-natal south africa =61 55 601–800 pontifical catholic university of rio de janeiro (puc-rio) brazil 66 74 601–800 university of pretoria south africa =92 =89 501–600 federal university of são paulo (unifesp) brazil =92 =141 601–800 university of johannesburg south africa 98 nr 601–800 federal university of itajubá brazil source: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2018/subject-ranking/education#!/ page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/scores (accessed june 25, 2018). https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2018/subject-ranking/education https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2018/subject-ranking/education changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 373 the rankings eventually raise a lot of debates, especially as they favor englishlanguage domination and institutions over others. anyway, they can be read as indicators of the level of success of each country in creating institutions that could be defined as being “world-class universities”. therefore, considering this framework of great enrollment increase together with several policies to open up access and facilitate the permanence of students in the higher education system one must ask to what extent brazil and south africa have managed to improve both international quality rankings positions and indicators of equality of educational opportunities? theoretical approach societies build models for democratization of their educational systems, in ways that result from configurations of social forces, which in turn produce historical trajectories. in this article, we shall use parameters established by coleman (1968) indicating that equality of educational opportunities means ensuring every citizen, regardless of his/her class, race or gender, can obtain entry into effectively accessible institutions, qualified learning and training in a common curricular framework. therefore, equality of educational opportunities means that the school system – or, in our case, the higher education system – precludes social determinism, ensuring that all young people are capable of learning and that their performance reflects their efforts and intelligence and not their social origins. we consider a higher education system to be more democratic when it guarantees greater opportunities to the population – tending to equality. the conceptualization of phases of higher education systems elaborated by martin trow (2007) has also been used in studies of latin america and africa (hornsby & osman, 2014). a system’s evolution is characterized by the proportion of students they would be able to enroll: elite systems are those where up to 15% of the correct age bracket are enrolled, and in a universal systems this figure is over 50%. we define a mass higher education system as one that enrolls from 16% to 50% of individuals in the age bracket appropriate for their entry into tertiary education. the massification of a he system can improve access of some groups such as cultural or ethnic minorities and women. however, massification is different to democratization. not all social categories benefit in the same way from massification. even with more students entering universities, the democratization of access also depends on the general structure of the education system. the higher education systems tend to develop a type of academic meritocracy that would build a hierarchy of skills. this is not only a social hierarchy itself, and strongly contributes to the reproduction of wider social hierarchies (dubet, 2015, p. 258). the theories of social closure developed by weber (2013) and parkin (1979) were systematically used to analyze various strategies for achieving and maintaining power and social status, especially by those who dominate the educational system (karabel, 1984/2005). the theoretical and methodological improvement and refinement of this concept (lareau, 2011; van zanten, 2015) identifies the complexity and subtlety of the social processes, which involve power struggles, in an area, which https://changing-sp.com/ 374 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer is supposed to be meritocratic and impartial. precisely due to the assumption that the university would be the expression of modern forms of legal rational domination, the sustained presence of those linked to traditional forms of authority in these institutions leads us to revive the weberian concept of patrimonialism (lachmann, 2011; charrad & adams, 2011; campante, 2003). similar to the institutional matrix of scientific rationality in contemporary societies (parsons, 1967), the university, and tertiary education as a whole, represent the apex of democratization given their use of merit-based ranking criteria. however, due to the persistence of, and increase of inequalities when access to higher education is expanding (alon, 2009; dubet et al., 2010) idealized approaches lack credibility. weberian concepts related to forms of domination seem to offer more adequate explanations for the struggles and disputes over the meaning and value of higher education (weber, 2013; szelenyi, 2016). through these concepts, it is possible to understand why teaching or scientific research are not just technical matters. they also constitute a more or less legitimate form of the exercise of power. from this perspective, academic activities produce forms of social hierarchies of skills. a tradition of sociological research perceives the higher education system as a set of formal institutions that participate in these struggles and are subject to pressures and social expectations, while not denying that they have a certain degree of autonomy (coté & furlong, 2016; gripp & barbosa, 2014). furthermore, the specific functioning of these institutions is a key factor in increasing or reducing inequality in higher education. the dispute over whether to include more students or to create world-class institutions will be analyzed in the perspective outlined above. winners in these disputes would establish legal and institutional parameters that allow for different levels of system openness and/or high-quality institutions. while they are not mutually exclusive, the option or the preference for one of these models has impacts on the functioning and results of the higher education system. as in other countries, and especially in the united states, brazilian sociological research tried to analyze the key institutional features that organize the country’s higher education system. the pioneering work undertaken at nupp (center for research in public policy) at the university of são paulo covered various topics such as scientific development, university autonomy and the academic profession5. these studies are the initial base of research into the brazilian higher education system. later on, other centers were set up and the ministry of education, through the inep (national institute of educational studies and research anisio teixeira), currently centralizes the collection and systematization of data and the evaluation of higher education. highlighting the strength of the so-called academic drift in the brazilian tertiary education system was one of the main results of nupps’ research. schwartzman (2011, p. 15) uses the term “academic drift” to describe the attempts of educational institutions to increase their status by imitating the most prestigious organizational models and areas of knowledge, this strategy reduces diversity. its effects extend down to the lower levels of education with important consequences 5 most of these studies were published and can be found at http://nupps.usp.br/index.php/serieqdocumentos-de-trabalho-nuppsq-1989–2005 http://nupps.usp.br/index.php/serie-qdocumentos-de-trabalho-nuppsq-1989-2005 http://nupps.usp.br/index.php/serie-qdocumentos-de-trabalho-nuppsq-1989-2005 changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 375 for the structure of inequality in brazil. there are indications that more than being a simple bias, academicism is the dominant feature of the brazilian higher educational system (prates & barbosa, 2015). more recently this academicism came to be reinforced by national institutions being encouraged to seek to acquire the status of “world-class universities” (martins, 2015). perhaps this academic bias is simply a result of the brazilian law that defines one single model of tertiary education, which is based on the large research universities. forms of social and political organization in brazil tend to be traditionalist (faoro, 1998; schwartzman, 1988). even during strong periods of economic growth, which marked brazilian modernization, which included significant urbanization and industrialization. our university system was created late and, with rare exceptions, without having modern scientific knowledge as its major reference (barbosa, 2012). little value is attached to education as the basis of occupational, professional, and social achievement (barbosa, 1996; almeida, 2007). although there is evidence of a “civilizing” impact of the passage through the university almeida (2007) shows that students emerge less racist, sexist, and discriminatory than their peers do. lack of education is often mobilized to justify a person’s failure or poor realizations in the labor market. however, when people legitimize successful trajectories they rarely mention their educational achievements! in south africa, a new constitution was established in 1994 in the process of democratization subsequent to the overthrow of apartheid and its unique structure of social, economic and political inequalities. the new government focused on higher education, producing an array of institutional changes, which sought to enlarge and diversify access. some studies and proposals for policies and institutional actions came from research centers at some universities (johannesburg, for instance). however, the full organization of the educational system came after “the development of policy and legislative frameworks, [in] the second period of government (1999–2004) [that] saw an elaboration of policies which further enabled the government to get a grip on the levers of power in order to steer the system to not only to be able to deal and respond to global challenges, but also to be locally responsive and relevant” (sehoole, 2011, p. 977). new legislation, always based on the values and principles of the emerging democracy, focused at increasing participation, improving responsiveness to social and economic needs, and seeking cooperative governance. (sehoole, 2011, p. 978). the whole higher education system was restructured, public and private institutions were centrally regulated, and accreditation programs were developed. the previous fragmentation was overcome: the 1997 white paper established a higher education branch at the department of education (that eventually gave birth to the department of higher education and training (dhet) and the council on higher education (che)). both institutions, using data from stats sa (the statistics institute for south africa, created in 1976), provide the best information on policies and results of higher education in the country. the hypothesis that guides this study, based on the concepts proposed above, is that traditional and colonial forms of authority are a constituent part of the higher education system. this article tries to show that these patterns or institutional models https://changing-sp.com/ 376 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer seem to work as barriers to the effective democratization of educational opportunities. these barriers could act as obstacles even in a context of public policies directed towards social inclusion and to making very significant increases in enrollment in higher education. to examine this hypothesis previous studies developed by the brazilian research group (lapes – laboratory for research on higher education) and by other researchers were used. data from brazilian census of higher education 2013 and 2014 and data derived from enade 2014 (national student performance exam) are all produced by inep. this quantitative data permits some generalizations to be made. however, some case studies are also used in this article. for south africa, we use data from stats sa. the institution counts two million higher education students. nevertheless, none of south african statistics includes vocational education and training (vet), medicine and courses in the area of health, nor do they have information on private institutions in the data and tables on enrollments or graduation rates for higher education. because of that, there are significant differences in the numbers that will be presented in the article. we chose to use only the available data on the public universities (traditional, comprehensive, or technological) as they were presented by the council on higher education, which is considered the official source (along with stats sa) in the country. socioeconomic and historical context in brazil and south africa, as in many countries, there are quite substantial individual economic returns to schooling, which would be a normal outcome, considering the progress made in terms of modernization of social relations in both countries. however, the difference between the individual returns for different levels of education is changing and, ultimately, is making room for questions about the very legitimacy of education as a criterion for the distribution of socioeconomic positions. as shown in menezes’ studies (e.g. menezes & pecora, 2014), the balance in the returns for different levels of schooling is changing with a reduction in returns at the higher levels. this distinction also allows us to understand why access to higher education has become an important object of social demands. the returns to education in south africa are significant, being very unequally distributed among different racial groups. higher education works as an important factor in reducing unemployment from about 40% among those with only primary school to about 6% for graduates (mapadimeng, 2017). the expansion of higher education in brazil began very slowly during the military governments but gained momentum from the year 1990. as the data from inep (2014) shows the growth rate in 1980–2000, was 96% and for the period 2000–2014 was 190%. counting nearly 8 million enrollees in 2014 (see graph 1), the gross rate (or participation) of brazilian higher education coverage reaches a mere 34.2%. this is already a problematic indicator: considering only those aged between 18 and 24 (the ideal age cohort to attend higher education), the 2010 demographic census shows a participation (or net enrollment rate) of 13.94%. in other words, less than 14% of young changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 377 people in this age group were enrolled in some kind of post-secondary education. in south africa, the numbers appear somewhat similar to those in brazil: just 12.1% of the population aged 25–64 had a higher education degree in 2016, according to stats sa. according to the same institution, in 2016 the participation rate reached 18% in south africa. in trow’s classification, both countries are midway through a transformation from an elitist to a mass system of higher education. even considering their recent expansion. brazilian growth in enrollment was more intense in private institutions. while the public sector grew by 80.5% (1980–2000) and 120.7% (2000–2014), the rates for the private sector were 104.1% and 224.6% over the same periods. of the two million post-secondary education students reported during 2016 in south africa (including vet ones), 78.3% were enrolled at a public institution, whereas 21.7% attended private institutions. according to che, an average of 110–120 higher education private institutions operated in south africa between 2002 and 2016. considering the most recent data, there are 2,364 higher education institutions in brazil, of which 87% are private ones. private colleges cater to 75% of all undergraduates, most of whom attend for-profit institutions (55, 33% of all students) (higher education census, 2015). the next graph shows enrollment distribution per type of academic degree or track. this data makes clear the utmost preference for the bachelor’s degree, which are responsible for approximately 67% of enrollments over the above-mentioned period. in the same period, enrollment in degrees to prepare for a teaching career seems to have undergone a slight decline, despite public policies to the contrary. at the same time, tertiary-level technological courses have had stronger growth, having multiplied their share in total enrollment six-fold. the courses that offer technological degrees and teachers’ degrees were legalized only in 1996, with the new ldb (law of directives and bases for brazilian education). 2.30 6.67 12.25 13.70 21.37 20.86 21.24 18.80 67.08 64.96 66.26 67.50 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 2001 2006 2010 2013 technological teaching qualifications bachelors graph 3. the preference for graduate/professional degree, % enrollment source: inep-mec. brazilian census of higher education. https://changing-sp.com/ 378 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer the similarly stratified distribution of degrees in south africa is presented in the next figure. diplomas (occupational certificate level 6) and certificates (occupational certificate level 5), could be associated to brazilian technological degrees and teaching licenses. they refer to tertiary education, situated above the occupations that demand the national certificate (high school, level 4 in the national qualifications framework). the degrees are assigned two different occupational certificates: 360 credits for advanced diploma and bachelor’s constitute the occupational certificate level 7 (ug degree in the graph). in the occupational certificate level 8 three categories can be found: bachelor’s degree (480 credits (which is represented by the line entitled “prof 1st” in graph 4), some postgraduate diplomas, and the bachelor honours degree. (see the table with national qualifications framework in the annex.) the same way as happens in brazil, bachelor’s degrees are much more valued than other tertiary certificates and diplomas. as pointed out by the literature, this can be viewed as a way of diversifying the intake into higher education systems, as this tends to reduce inequality even in periods in which the system is expanding. because of the observed similarity, at this point it is important to compare the enrollment ratios for each field of study. this would permit us to have some indications on the more scientific or more traditional preferences in the definition of the parameters for higher education systems in both countries. in brazil, the enrollment ratio in the stem (sciences, technology and mathematics) varies from 17% to 23% over the period, and in the area of education it reduced from 21% to 19%. in south africa, the figures are similar for education but in 2016 stem reaches 30.27%, almost a third of all students. there are 32 bachelors’ degrees offered in south africa. unfortunately, we were unable to find statistical information available on the topic on che or stats sa sites because their data refers only to public sector higher education. also, differently from brazil, enrollment in the health sciences area is not included. this introduces a problem for comparing the proportions of students in each area. the common trait in the two cases is the high participation of business, education, and humanities areas. in the case of brazil, even including enrollments in the health area, business is the area chosen by almost half of the students. 0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000 700,000 800,000 900,000 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 ug dip/cert ug degrees prof 1st graph 4. certificates & degrees in sa source: che/vital stats (2016, 17 ff). changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 379 43% 17% 21% 4% 15% 2005 businness + stem edu hum health 42% 23% 19% 2% 14% 2015 graph 5. enrollments by area in brazil source: brazilian census of higher education. 31% 18%23% 28% 2011 business & comerce edu hum stem 27% 18% 25% 30% 2016 graph 6. enrollment by area in south africa source: che vitalstats – public higher education 2016. the brazilian system of higher education the brazilian system of higher education was developed late, even when compared to other latin american countries or other brics countries. the first brazilian university was created in 1920, the university of brazil. the federal government joined three isolated colleges under the title of university in order to bestow the title of doctor honoris causa to the king of belgium during his visit. it remained the model for many states/provinces from the 1920s to the 1950s. the university of são paulo, created in 1934, was the first attempt to have an institution conceived to work as a higher education structure and not an aggregate of smaller colleges under a single administration. the brics countries show significant similarities in their economic development process: in all cases, we see the prevailing acute shortage of resources coupled with a close relationship between the higher education system and the political forces that control the state in each of these societies (schwartzman, 2015). according to the same study, the five brics countries passed through a strong institutional diversification, implemented affirmative action policies of several kinds and their internationalization policies have not been very successful. the increase in enrollment occurred mainly in social sciences, humanities, and education. https://changing-sp.com/ 380 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer some features of the brazilian system are noteworthy: by a constitutional requirement, public institutions do not charge for enrollment, they are totally free. this is a unique trait to brazil, when compared to the other brics countries. public institutions, especially the state-funded universities in são paulo, tend to be evaluated more positively, both in internal classifications made by government agencies and in international rankings. however, even with a system of higher education that has bureaucratic, technical and social diversity, brazilian law imposes a single model to be followed by all institutions. through legislation, research universities with many graduate courses, a small college or a training center for industry should work under the classical model of universities proposed by wilhelm von humboldt (schwartzman, 2014, p. 23). this legal demand obviously has impacts on the possible paths towards democratization of the higher education system. each institution should be prepared to function as a “world class university”. one can understand this definition of a single legal model for the whole system of higher education as a handicap. although established by bureaucratic and legal rational parameters, this traditional model of university reduces the range of socially valued training options. the diversity and experimentation that has characterized tertiary education elsewhere, for example in the united states, germany or south africa, is excluded from the alternatives offered to brazilians. the ideal university is prescribed as an advanced research institution, with high quality post-graduate programs. undergraduate courses follow the model of bachelor formation; they invest strongly in theoretical knowledge and provide almost no practical training. this appears to be a restrictive model when one considers the demands of the labor market, the needs for teacher training and the expectations of young people seeking higher education. this legally defined model of a university highlights the strong academic bias that runs throughout the education system. so, instead of increasing qualification opportunities and certification alternatives, the legally defined higher education model, raises the bachelor’s diploma to the position of “general equivalent” (thévenot, 1983), the parameter for measuring of all qualities. therefore, this higher education system works in a specific legal framework that defines its bureaucratic rules and its institutional excellence models. there are three defined levels in the system: the lowest one is the “isolated college”, a small institution with few courses. the next level is the “university center”: “institutions of higher education, covering one or more areas of knowledge, characterized by the excellence of teaching offered, proven by the qualification of its faculty and by the academic working conditions offered to the school community. these “accredited university centers” have the autonomy to create, organize and extinguish, at their headquarters, courses and higher education programs” (brazil, mec, decree  nº  5.773/06). finally, the term “university” defines the highest level and organizes the hierarchy of higher education institutions. “universities are characterized by the indissociability of teaching, research and extension activities. they are multidisciplinary institutions for the training of professional staff at a high level, research, extension and the mastery and cultivation of human knowledge, which are characterized by: (i) – institutionalized intellectual production through the systematic study of the most relevant themes and problems, from the scientific and cultural changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 381 viewpoints be they regional or national; (ii) – one-third of the teaching staff, at least, with an academic master’s or doctorate degree; and (iii) – one third of the faculty on a full-time basis” (idem ibidem). this conception of what a university should be is associated with the humboldtian model whose core idea is a holistic combination of research and teaching. the model integrates the arts and sciences with research to achieve both comprehensive general learning and cultural knowledge. according to anderson (2010), this kind of model shaped the research universities in the united states and all around the world. “the humboldtian university can be seen as the characteristic form of the university idea until the growth of mass higher education in the late twentieth century” (anderson, 2010). the adherence to this type of model is very problematic. the humboldt model designs elite universities and, historically, could be opposed to the conception of mass higher education. in this way, the brazilian higher education system suffers from a paradox: it has the ambition to reach large segments of the population offering a model theoretically aimed at teaching the elite. this model of accreditation and hierarchy makes any institution, even those smaller or characteristically more vocationally-oriented, work as a “university under construction”. all of them aim of being eventually recognized as a university which conducts both research and academic formation. many of them become mere simulacra of a university. as is easy to imagine, the social distribution of the population throughout these different types of institutions is not random. this same model is required for public and private institutions, for courses that offer bachelor’s degrees, or teaching degrees, or even technology courses! however, it is not difficult to find, within this single legal model, several types of segmentation that end up producing enormous differences in institutional functioning and the quality of the services offered. south african system of higher education the university of the cape of the good hope, created in 1873, was the first in south africa. established in the southern part of the country, it eventually became the university of south africa (unisa). with the universities of stellenbosch and cape town, unisa could be linked back to the settlement by white colonialists in the 17th century. the higher education system developed during most of the 20th century was marked by significant racial differences. around the 1960’s only 5,000 of the 62,000 university students in south africa were non-white. according to sehoole (2011), the racial disparity was followed by a gradual “racial opening up” and the figures changed. by 1980 there were 150,000 whites and 120,000 non-whites enrolled. in the first decade of this century, the majority (67%) of students in the 21 public universities are non-white. the higher education system had a binary structure of traditional universities and technikons (institutions for technical higher education). the latter evolved from the old technical education institutes, favored mainly by the mining industry. to address the needs of this industry, training centers were established as apprenticeships. after some decades, with the inclusion of more abstract items in the curriculum, the https://changing-sp.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/holism 382 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer centers became colleges. the higher education act of 1923 declared some of them as higher education institutions. in 1970, the ministry of education recognized these technical institutions as constituent part of the higher education system, with equal status to the traditional universities. only in 1993, the technikons were authorized to award degrees as any other university. in 1994, the new democratic government “inherited a well-established higher education system made up of 21 universities and 15 technikons” (sehoole, 2011, p. 974). all of them public institutions. in 2018, the private sector comprises roughly 10% of enrollments. a segmented system: public or private institutions in brazil, black and white universities in south africa the brazilian private and public sectors are deeply differentiated (sampaio, 2014), even in their institutional characteristics. thus, among public institutions, there are federal, state and municipal entities, defined according to the legal responsibility for their management and financing. it is important to remember that in brazil, public institutions have free tuition, with all costs covered by public funds. on the other hand, private institutions are distinguished by being either “for profit” or “not for profit”. among the latter, there are the so-called community institutions – often associated with religious groups – which sometimes attain very high levels of quality (neves et al, 2008). private institutions receive 74% of students’ enrollment in brazilian he. some public policies and institutional actions were developed to assure the ability of enrolled poor students to remain studying in these universities. the costs for the best institutions and enrollment in courses leading to the most prestigious careers are very high: the average monthly fee for a medicine course in a private university is approximately r$7,000 (during 8 months of the year, approximately us$1,800 or 7 brazilian minimum monthly wages) – an amount beyond the reach of most brazilians who are also unable to succeed in the very competitive entrance exams for the public universities. the 10,850 1,932,527 531,846 229,278 21,199 5,373,450 2,211,104 761,732 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% courses students freschmen graduates public private graph 7. system segmentation: private and public institutions source: inep-mec. brazilian census of higher education 2014 (students include all enrollments: from first year to last year, freshmen are first year students) changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 383 medical course fees start at r$4,500 per month and reach up to around r$13,500! and, this is just the cost of enrollment: it does not include the acquisition of books or research materials, transportation, and lodging. there are, for sure, less expensive courses, mainly in the area of humanities (e.g. philosophy, sociology, geography, psychology etc.) or education (which includes pedagogy and all teaching degrees). the monthly fee in a pedagogy course could be as low as r$270 when conducted by distance education. anyway, for many fees are a big expense in a country where annual per capita income is us$15,700 (in 2015). policies for financing private higher education have been developed over recent years and are now very relevant, two major programs were established: prouni is a policy that offers full and partial scholarships for poor and/or black students through tax exemptions for private institutions; fies is a student loan fund with reduced interest rates that must be repaid in the long term. the data demonstrate the importance of these mechanisms. in the period from 2010 to 2014, enrollments in the private sector grew by 17% (table 2), while students benefiting from fies increased by 750%. this explosive increase is associated to political strategies and suffered a significant setback in 2015 and 2016 due to cuts in government funding. but it remains one of the main instruments of access to private higher education in the country. there are also social welfare policies for poor students even in the tuition free public universities. students entering public universities through quotas or other affirmative action policies receive various types of economic aid. they are mostly fruit of policies developed within these institutions that aim at ensuring – with greater or lesser success – the permanence of these students. in addition, the federal government’s reuni program aimed to expand the public system of higher education. according to data from the ministry of education, 14 new universities and 100 new campuses were created, thereby expanding the federal network. in this context, a significant expansion of enrollment in federal institutions occurred. in 2007, when reuni was created, these institutions had 12.61% of enrollments in higher education. this proportion rose to 16.71% in 2014. in addition, the creation of evening courses, especially in the area of education, has increased the participation of less affluent and working students. in brazilian society, several studies that indicate an aversion to the private sector and an appreciation of the public sector (almeida, 2007). coupled with the fact that the best brazilian universities are public, this evaluation flows on to all institutions in table 2. students with fies and prouni 2010 2012 2014 variation 2010–14, % fies 223,284 623,241 1,900,737 751.3 prouni 372,488 459,146 511,316 37.3 total 595,772 1,082,387 2,412,053 304.9 enrollment private sector 3,987,424 4,208,086 4,664,542 17.0 source: corbucci et al (2016) using data from microdados do censo da educação superior, do inep/mec; fies/ secretaria de ensino superior (sesu)/mec; fundo nacional de desenvolvimento da educação (fnde)/mec. https://changing-sp.com/ 384 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer the sector, regardless of their actual quality, and likewise diminishes the expectations held of their private sector counterparts. yet, as shown above, the private sector is by far the most important for enrollments and their offer of courses is significantly larger: 10,240 in the public sector in 2014 versus 21,842 in the private sector. the public and private sectors have been distinguished along several dimensions: in this section, we discuss some social characteristics that distinguish the students who attend the institutions in each of the sectors. first, the average age of students enrolled in higher education differs significantly. for public sector students, the average age (brazilian census of higher education, 2014) is 25.97 years (standard deviation 7.764), while in private institutions the age rises by nearly two years to 27.83 years (with an even higher standard deviation: 8.391). for 2013, the year that enade examined agronomy and social work students, in addition to all specialties in the health area, the age gap at graduation was three years. going to he at a later age is usually associated with a more modest social origin, or with entering courses of a more vocational nature (connor et al., 2001, p. 106; prates & collares, 2015). in brazilian society, the preferences for the type of degree are fairly marked from the social point of view: teaching degrees or technological courses have been “preferred” by the students from more modest social backgrounds. the data above confirm the studies that indicated this trend with a clear increase in demand for the less prestigious courses and degrees for students from less affluent social groups. as for the students of the educated middle classes, the choice falls mainly on the very prestigious courses and with a very high number of students competing for each place offered in the public institutions. these preferences for bachelor’s degree are understandable. having a bachelor diploma entitles a person to work in the public sector and to receive a premium wage. in south africa, the hopes of democratization of he system subsequent to substantial changes in the legal and institutional framework did not materialize. contrary to expectations, students left historically black universities (hbu) for the historically white ones (hwu) where they could find better infrastructure and teaching or more chances of funding for their studies. hwu also offered better opportunities in the job market. it was truly a mass migration phenomenon. the best institutions in the he system sized the opportunities to better their positions, including investing in distance education. the higher education act (1997), permitted private institutions, and they experienced huge and almost unregulated growth. there were no registration nor quality requirements. the crisis that emerged subsequently induced the consolidation of a policy and regulatory framework aimed at the constitution of a single coordinated system (sehoole, 2011). in the case of brazil, since the 19th century, the private sector has been strongly regulated by federal government, which has a great deal of control over brazilian higher education system, including the public institutions. emerging from a more mature and organized governmental structure (in the period 1999–2004), policies were designed by south african professionals with the participation of the ministries responsible for the economy and education. the changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 385 higher education act was amended in order to legally reorder the multifaceted and unorganized set of higher education institutions. the new single system of higher education implied a consolidation of the public sector from 36 to 21 institutions, the legal regulation of private providers that made their registration at the department obligatory. one important measure was that the south african qualifications authority must assess all qualifications standards. another dimension was the accreditation of programs, especially post-graduate ones. the assessment of mba programs in 2003 indicated many problems, mainly among international providers and technikons. this kind of problem, as noted by sehoole (2011, p. 990), made south africa a pioneer country in developing a comprehensive framework capable of dealing with the challenges of cross-border or transnational systems of education. discussion the expansion of brazilian higher education system effectively allowed some less affluent social groups access to tertiary level education. given the previous low coverage levels, this was certainly an important step towards the system’s greater democratization. the same could be said about south africa post-apartheid, when african, colored, and indian students got more opportunities to enter the best universities. however, considering the net coverage rate, around 14% and 18% respectively, it can be said that this expansion is still quite restrictive and less than inclusive, or at least not sufficiently inclusive to allow brazil and south africa to be ranked as relatively democratic he systems. statistically, enrollment remains, in both countries, very close to throw’s definition (1970) of an elite university system. the problem that arises is similar to alon’s (2009): how to explain that in the context of expansion, in spite of public policies focused on the democratization of access and permanence, he remains relatively closed, particularly in courses that give access to more prestigious and well-paid careers. both in brazil and south africa, it seems that the theories of maximum maintained or effectively maintained inequality (mmi and emi respectively) fit, as has been shown by many authors for the united states and israel. diversification and expansion did not keep pace with democratization. even worse, it seems that diversification is a way of diverting more disadvantaged students from the more privileged professions or careers (shavit & blossfeld, 1993). for the brazilian case, the data presented below indicate both some advances associated with the higher education system and some bottlenecks in opening educational opportunities for afro-descendants (previously called “blacks”) and for women. the proportion of afro-descendants remains very low in the most prestigious careers and with better social status and economic returns. at the same time, women are now the majority of higher education students but enroll in courses that lead them into the lower paid occupations. the data on family income in table 3 seem to indicate that higher paid professionals come from affluent families and those who earn less come from poorer families. https://changing-sp.com/ 386 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer table 3. data on individuals with full tertiary education – by selected courses course year percentage in the population with higher education degrees, % percentage of women, % percentage of afrodescendants, % hour wage (r$) percentage occupied, % average family income (r$) management 2000 15.74 41.20 11.73 19.07 83.77 948.73 2010 18.64 49.97 22.90 18.91 87.56 1194.55 law 2000 15.29 44.27 12.96 23.59 82.01 1093.77 2010 11.44 49.56 19.53 30.19 84.33 1555.37 education 2000 17.02 92.26 19.03 10.44 76.09 844.67 2010 25.57 83.89 35.19 12.48 83.18 911.26 nursing 2000 2.17 92.25 24.46 13.07 84.65 946,56 2010 3.27 87.51 33.82 14.04 81.42 1089.22 engineering 2000 10.54 15.08 10.29 25.70 89.33 991.98 2010 6.70 17.23 17.83 32.46 88.89 1370.41 medicine 2000 5.64 39.80 11.24 31.16 94.09 1236.06 2010 2.41 46.68 14.96 43.51 92.90 1969.58 data extracted from martins and machado 2015 (pages 11 and 12) using demographic census data from 2000 and 2010. note 1: values in reais of 2010. note 2: per capita household income figures calculated excluding the individual’s own income. table 4. graduate and dropout rates – 2014–2016 year african colored indian white graduated, % dropped out, % graduated, % dropped out, % graduated, % dropped out, % graduated, % dropped out, % 2014 42 29 39 34 40 28 51 26 2015 57 30 53 36 59 28 65 27 2016 63 37 60 40 66 34 70 30 source: che vitalstats – public higher education 2016/ cohort study p. 73. it was not possible to find similar data for south africa. however, the numbers on completion according to the race, presented in table 4, show that africans, colored, and indian students have lower rates of graduation than their white peers. even 22 years after the end of apartheid, it seems that the non-white students still face some difficulties in their higher education trajectories. our analysis, following the tradition of sociological research, understands that the mode of operation of higher education institutions stands out as one of the key factors in the mechanisms and social disputes that increase or reduce inequalities. focusing on the basic distinction between public and private sector, we try to show some of the effects of this segmentation and, maybe, of academic drift in brazil. more than a bias, academicism seems to be a dominant feature of the higher education system either because of the legal definition that imposes a single model, or because of the rules and practices of diverse social agents. this is shown not only in the ways of teaching and in the definition of the subject contents, but also in the adoption of a perspective that devalues nearly all practical, technical, and even scientific knowledge. probably the strongest indication of the academic bias is the generalized preference for bachelor’s degrees. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 366–392 387 the private sector of higher education has more students and courses and, in a slightly different manner to the public sector, it invests heavily in technological courses. this may indicate a lesser impact of academic bias in this sector. data on graduates shows that, overall, the higher education system remains a very elitist area, but that there are slight openings in the private sector. in south africa, after the end of apartheid, many africans moved to the historical white (and better) universities, trying to get more privileged positions in the job market (sehoole, 2011). this made it more difficult to implement policies to improve the quality of the historically black universities, and even more so to develop world-class universities among them. the best universities in south africa are still those traditional institutions, which are historically white. the south african system of higher education is more accessible to those groups of disadvantaged students, but as in the case of brazil, these students seem to be diverted into the less privileged careers, such as technological courses or in the area of education. women are the majority of students, except in the stem area. however, the data does not permit us to see if their participation is also translated into better positions in society and job market. both brazil and south africa have invested in improving the equality of opportunities and the quality of higher education. the times higher education rank for emergent countries showed that south africa can be considered more successful than most others in its policies to create world-class universities. even so, in both countries the quest for excellence seems to be much more related to the emphasis given by administrators to bureaucratic procedures than to academic investments (martins, 2015; govender, 2018). although the data is incomplete, there are some indications that, measured by the rates of completion presented by che, south africa is ahead of brazil in opening up its higher education system. again, after institutional and curriculum transformation, policies for social and economic priorities at the higher education level, social inequality and structural contradictions are reproduced within existing power relations with the strong contribution of the higher education system. the two countries appear to be very comparable with respect to the difficulties faced in opening and democratizing their higher education systems. gender and racial inequalities still permeate trajectories and achievements in both systems. in brazil and south africa, the investments in scientific formation (and in the stem area), that would improve participation in knowledge society, are precarious and most students are enrolled in business and the humanities. even considering the problems with the statistical sources, south africa seems to be a little ahead of brazil both in opening up and improving the quality of its he system. one hypothesis to explain the small differences between two countries which otherwise appear to be so similar would be the academic bias, so strong in the case of brazil, having a much less significant role in south africa. the development of a more modern he system, one that is democratic and scientific, becomes difficult when the existing system is very strongly influenced by traditional and patrimonial values. science and modernity do not go well together with tradition and patrimonialism. https://changing-sp.com/ 388 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer annex source: https://wenr.wes.org/2017/05/education-south-africa (accessed june 25, 2018). references almeida, a. c. 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(2014). a educação superior na américa latina e os desafios do século xxi. campinas: editora unicamp. https://changing-sp.com/ http://doi.org/10.1590/s0101-41612014000200001 http://doi.org/10.1590/s0101-41612014000200001 https://www.amazon.com.br/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=utf8&field-author=tom+dwyer&search-alias=books https://www.amazon.com.br/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_2?ie=utf8&field-author=mikhail+k+gorshkov&search-alias=books https://www.amazon.com.br/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_3?ie=utf8&field-author=ishwar+modi&search-alias=books http://doi.org/10.17666/3088129-143/2015 http://lattes.cnpq.br/2570080781823232 http://lattes.cnpq.br/8741489441886156 http://lattes.cnpq.br/4803135608733740 http://doi.org/10.1590/s0103-49792015000200006 http://lattes.cnpq.br/3406587636425427 http://lattes.cnpq.br/4574618909068298 http://doi.org/10.1590/s2176-66812012000400012 http://doi.org/10.1590/s2176-66812012000400012 http://archive.org/details/academicdriftinbrazilianeducation http://www.pensamientoeducativo.org/ http://doi.org/10.1590/s0103-49792015000200003 392 maria lígia de oliveira barbosa, andré pires, tom dwyer sehoole, c. t. 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(2010). formação de recursos humanos em áreas estratégicas de ciência, tecnologia e inovação. brasília: editora cgee. weber, m. (1968). the chinese literatti. in h. gerth & c. w. mills (eds.), from max weber: essays in sociology (pp. 416–445). oxford: oxford university press. weber, m. (2013). la domination. paris: la découverte. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-015-9263-6 http://doi.org/10.1177/0003122414534437 changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.2.231 received 30 january 2022 © 2023 kseniya s. grigor’eva accepted 10 june 2023 kseniagrigoryeva@yandex.ru published online 3 july 2023 article origins of ethno-religious profiling: the jewish question and police surveillance in the russian empire in the 19th century kseniya s. grigor’eva institute of sociology of the federal center of theoretical and applied sociology (fctas), russian academy of sciences, moscow, russia abstract surveillance scholars have begun to pay increasing attention to the fact that the burden of surveillance is distributed through society unevenly, further deepening social inequality. as an alternative to the popular image of the “panopticon” (universal surveillance over everyone), the new concept of a “banopticon” (surveillance over specific “dangerous” groups) has been proposed. the idea is that this “new” type of surveillance, unlike “traditional” surveillance, targets entire “suspicious” categories of the population rather than specific individuals, and is oriented towards the future, not the past. but is this phenomenon all that new? history shows that the roots of this type of surveillance run as deep as the early modern era. this paper uses a thematic study of surveillance over jews in the russian empire as the basis for an analysis of the emergence and development of one historical form for the monitoring of “dangerous” population groups, along with its causes, intellectual basis, and deployment mechanisms. the results obtained challenge the widespread notion that surveillance over specific racial, ethnic, and ethno-religious groups (racial profiling) is tied exclusively to slavery, racism, and colonialism. this study allows for an expansion of the understanding of this concept and an increase in its complexity. keywords ethno-religious profiling, jewish question, russian empire, surveillance, social sorting https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:kseniagrigoryeva@yandex.ru 56 kseniya s. grigor’eva introduction modern society is often described as a “surveillance society”1. it is widely acknow ledged that surveillance is an inextricable part of modern everyday life (andrejevic, 2004; lyon, 2009), governance (giddens, 1990), interaction between businesses and consumers (andrejevic, 2011; fuchs, 2011; zuboff, 2019), and workplace relations between employers and employees (ball, 2010; rosenblat et al., 2014). although the research community is currently dominated by the opinion that surveillance should not be viewed as an unambiguously threatening phenomenon (haggerty & ericson, 2000; marx, 2015), the orwellian and foucauldian perspectives continue to haunt scholars and the general public alike. initially, surveillance scholars mainly focused on issues related to the protection of privacy (clarke, 1988; flaherty, 1986; westin, 1966), but over the last two decades, discussions of how the rise of surveillance practices and techniques worsens social inequality have become increasingly active. david lyon points out that the key to understanding surveillance today is the idea of “categorizing persons and populations— or ‘social sorting’” (lyon, 2002, p. 3). didier bigo (2007) is of a similar opinion, emphasizing that surveillance that ostensibly aims to ensure security surpasses the simple logic of monitoring every single person and specifically targets population categories that are considered “suspicious”. bigo refers to this practice as the “banopticon”, merging the terms “ban” and “panopticon” as developed by jean-luc nancy (as interpreted by giorgio agamben) and michel foucault, respectively (bigo, 2007). the concept of the “banopticon” is closely adjacent to the concept of “new penology” created by malcolm feely and jonathan simon (1992), who believe that modern society is undergoing a fundamental shift from a desire to punish individuals who have already broken the law in specific ways and correct their behavior to a desire to control a set of “dangerous” groups that are presumed to be capable of breaking the law. the most striking illustration of this trend is the racial profiling2 which accompanies campaigns against drugs and terrorism (see, e.g., bah, 2006; bechrouri, 2018; khenti, 2014). the fact that surveillance techniques target “dangerous” population categories, as opposed to “dangerous” individuals, and are concerned with future crimes, as opposed to past crimes, is often considered the distinctive trait of modern surveillance. specifically, marx refers to the application of surveillance to entire categories of people, and “not just to a particular person whose identity is known beforehand”, as a “striking innovation” (marx, 2002, p. 10). at the same time, lyon (2009) notes that modern surveillance methods differ from traditional ones in that “they are future rather than past oriented, and are based on simulating and modelling situations that have yet to occur” (p. 460). but is this phenomenon particularly new? is it truly just a few decades old, as apparently implied by lyon, feely, and simon? 1 this term was coined in 1985 by gary t. marx in “the surveillance society: the threat of 1984-style techniques” (marx, 1985). it has also been used in universally recognized classics of surveillance research by oscar h. gandy, jr. (1989) and david h. flaherty (1988). 2 racial profiling is usually defined as “the use by the police, with no objective and reasonable justification, of grounds such as race, colour, language, religion, nationality or national or ethnic origin in control, surveillance or investigation activities” (european commission against racism and intolerance, 2007, p. 4). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 57 research into the history of surveillance targeting “dangerous” groups makes it clear that the answer to these questions is no. what is more, it reveals a clear continuity between the modern, actuarial forms of surveillance and justice and their earlier historical precedents. in the context of racial profiling, studies most often discuss racist interactions between police officers and the black population of the american south from the late 17th to the first half of the 20th centuries (harris, 2006; henderson, 2016; spruill, 2016). another canonical example of racial profiling is the internment of japanese americans during world war ii3 (gee, 2015; kang, 2001; ketchell, 2009). in addition to traditionally cited “classical” precedents, the relatively wellestablished practice of researching the history of racial profiling is also characterized by the strong association of the surveillance of “dangerous” population categories with very specific groups (primarily black communities). furthermore, proposed explanatory models tend to be taken for granted, without reflection. these include, first and foremost, a search for the causes of racial profiling in slavery, racism, and colonialism. while such approaches are far from unjustified, they bear the risk of oversimplification due to underestimation of the differences between various countries or of the diversity of geopolitical and historical context. even if all previous historical eras are set aside and the focus is on the current period, it becomes obvious that no single group, whether it is racial, ethnic, or ethno-religious, has been the sole, unchanging target of profiling. for example, racial profiling in the us mostly targeted black americans and latinos until 2001, but after 9/11, the center of gravity very obviously shifted to the muslim arab community. in europe, africans and roma have been common targets of profiling (european union agency for fundamental rights, 2010). in russia, profiling before 2014 centered on people from the caucasus and central asia, along with roma (iuristy za konstitutsionnye prava, 2006; voronkov et al., 2009). after 2014, these groups were joined by ukrainians (grigor’eva, 2019), a group that is phenotypically and culturally close to the russian majority and which previously enjoyed a relatively favorable attitude from both the ethnically russian population and from russian law enforcement and administrative structures. as for discussions of slavery, racism, colonialism, and hatred of the other, while they do indicate phenomena that undoubtedly contribute to the development of technologies aimed at the monitoring of “dangerous” groups, they have now become somewhat platitudinal, often implying nothing more than that the instigators and performers of surveillance practices (or even the corresponding societies overall) are morally depraved. as rightly noted by p. waddington (1999), “is temptingly easy to attribute ‘bad’ outcomes to ‘bad men’”, but this kind of explanation can hardly be deemed satisfactory. the various excesses that abound in human history are not always the product of sadistic inclinations, psychopathy or moral deformity, and in fact may be motivated by qualities and aspirations that, in a different context, would deserve praise: diligence, professionalism, patriotism, or concern for society’s well-being. 3 it is highly illustrative that kenneth meeks’ popular book driving while black: highways, shopping malls, taxicabs, sidewalks opens with descriptions of both of these examples (meeks, 2000). similarly, michele p. bratina’s encyclopedic article on racial profiling also references both precedents (bratina, 2014). https://changing-sp.com/ 58 kseniya s. grigor’eva in this paper, i shall demonstrate that racial profiling is not a straightforward consequence of slavery4, racism, and colonialism (although in the case of america and some other nations, it does have a very strong historical link to these practices). in the russian (and, more broadly, central and eastern european) context, profiling should rather be viewed as a specific set of institutionalized control practices aimed at “bettering” the population in order to achieve maximum social welfare. the intellectual rationale behind this approach dates back to the teachings of cameralism and mercantilism. this article presents the results of a thematic study of the surveillance of jews in the russian empire in the 19th century. the first part of the study is dedicated to a description of the research methodology. the second part explores the reasoning behind special supervision of jews, the emergence and development of anti-jewish legislation, and the resulting surveillance practices. finally, the third part places the russian practice into a european context by providing a short overview of foreign approaches to controlling the jewish population. the conclusions are listed in the final section of the paper. research methodology the first problem that always arises when looking for the roots of modern phenomena in history is the sizeable gap between current categorizations and those that existed in past eras. retrospective studies are always fraught with the danger of anachronism, especially when comparing empires and modern nation states. the russian empire of the 19th century was a highly specific government formation. it is perhaps best described by robert crews’ concept of a “confessional” state, highlighting that religious denomination served as the most important mechanism for maintaining discipline and obedience among the tsar’s subject up to the end of the imperial period (crews, 2003). it was religion, not ethnicity, nationality, or much less race5, that was used for basic social categorization. at the same time, the 19th century was a period of modernization for the russian empire; in the process, relations between different population groups were increasingly understood in terms of nationalities and classes (miller, 2006, p. 9). mikhail dolbilov (2013) provides good insights into the tensions between religious and national identities during that period. using the poles as an example, he emphasizes that these identities were often 4 russia is a good example for exposing the fallacy behind the notion of clear-cut causality between slavery, racism, and racial profiling outside of a specific historical and cultural context. even though the russian empire abolished slavery (serfdom) just a few years before the usa, and even though russian and american slavery had a number of common traits, which were often highlighted by contemporaries (kurilla, 2016), in russia, the majority of slaves were not “the other” (in terms of religion, ethnicity, or race), but ethnically russian peasants. for this reason, surveillance over the enslaved population in the russian context cannot be considered a precursor of racial profiling. 5 dolbilov (2010) rightly points out that, despite the fact that pre-revolutionary russia did see the emergence and development of physical anthropology, which proposed the idea of “race” among its central concepts and, in its nationalist interpretation, attempted to prove that russians were biologically superior to others, these ideas were not particularly favored by russian political elites and bureaucrats because they sounded “too western” (p. 22). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 59 mutually interchangeable (“catholic” implied “pole” and vice versa). if social class is added to the mix6, the situation becomes even more complicated. the perception of jews was also highly ambiguous. in the 19th century russian documents, jewishness is described as a social class, state, rank, tribe, society, religion, and nation (nathans, 2002). however, the basic state perception of jews is, apparently, reflected in their legal status as inorodtsy [non-russians]. when applied to jews, this status implied both a certain ethnic (“tribal”) origin and judaism as a faith. notably, a jew that converted to christianity was no longer legally recognized as a jew or a foreigner. this fact, nevertheless, did not mean that the religious factor completely dominated over the ethnic factor. as noted by m. i. mysh (1914), a prominent 19th century russian lawyer, the very status of jew was obtained exclusively via “being birthed by jewish parents” and was not available to people of any other origins because conversion to judaism was illegal (pp. 28–29). categorizations of the population of the russian empire in the 19th century were fluctuating, blurred, and “porous”, which complicates any attempts to study early forms of racial profiling, especially considering the complexity and variation of imperial legal regimes (burbank, 2006, p. 402). tsarist russia lacked a single standard applicable to all its subjects: there were neither any universal laws, nor any fundamental rights (slezkine, 2004). since inequality was so inherent to the empire, it is practically impossible to establish which groups were more unequal and which were less. what makes things especially problematic in the context of this study is that the inequality created by the distribution of surveillance activity among different target population categories is just as difficult to measure. jews were, quite obviously, far from the only ethno-religious group subjected to special control. because 19th-century russia was a type of a polizeistaat (dolbilov, 2010, p. 42), it suffered from the typical “control mania”, which affected all imperial subjects (raeff, 1975, p. 1226). notably, the approaches to controlling non-russians and people of other religions were replicated and reapplied to other groups. historians find many similarities in the tsarist government’s attempts to control and transform the lives of catholics (poles), muslims (tatars), and judaists (jews) (see, e.g., crews, 2005; dolbilov, 2010; löwe, 2000). that said there are several important characteristics that make the study of the treatment of jews particularly interesting. firstly, they were the first and, most likely, the main target of persistent, systemic, and legally recorded social engineering, entailing a particularly “nitpicky” brand of regulation, which birthed a myriad of surveillance techniques that affected a broad variety of activities in daily jewish life. secondly, the pale of settlement7 essentially made jews into “domestic foreigners”, which, together with the high degree of mobility among the jewish population, 6 for a long time in tsarist russia, poles were mostly associated with the szlachta nobles (dolbilov, 2012). 7 the pale of settlement was the territory where jews were allowed to reside on a permanent basis, encompassing the cities and shtetls (jews could not settle in the countryside) of most of modern poland, lithuania, latvia, belarus, and ukraine. only a few select categories of jews were allowed to venture beyond the pale of settlement. these included, at various times in history: those who were in the process of getting an education; merchants of the first guild, as well as their employees; people with higher education; recruits that had completed their military service; artisans; and a number of others. permanent residence outside of the pale of settlement only became possible to certain jews starting from the late 1850s. https://changing-sp.com/ 60 kseniya s. grigor’eva drew disproportionate attention from surveillance authorities. finally, most imperial bureaucrats were firmly convinced that jews were a “bothersome” and “criminal” people by nature8, which is in line with contemporary notions of “dangerous” groups. given the fundamental differences in the political, ideological, legal, and social systems of the imperial and modern periods, we cannot ignore the question of whether or not it is appropriate to draw parallels between surveillance of jews and today’s racial profiling. it is quite clear that these parallels can be drawn only with significant reservations. first, present-day ethno-religious profiling, which is officially recognized as a variety of racial profiling, is closely intertwined with notions of race, while the surveillance of jews in the russian empire was largely devoid of racial connotations9. second, today, formal legislation forbids the profiling of racial, ethnic or ethno-religious groups, and it is usually done covertly, while “special surveillance” of jews in tsarist russia was conducted in the open, being completely legal and backed up by an astoundingly complex, branching system of anti-jewish legislation. finally, it bears mentioning that technological capabilities for present-day ethno-religious profiling are many times greater than capabilities in the 19th century, especially in the russian empire, which, according to the reasonable observation of evgeny avrutin (2010), was “one of the least governed states in europe” (p. 4). at the same time, the surveillance of jews can still be viewed as a precursor of modern racial profiling, because jews were considered to be “dangerous” and “keeping them in check” was institutionalized and backed up with bureaucratic measures aimed at preventing some perceived, hypothetical “future harm”. it is important to emphasize that in this study, the concept of ethno-religious profiling includes solely those forms of surveillance that targeted jews as a “dangerous/ harmful” population category. our analysis does not cover surveillance of individuals motivated by specific suspicions. the empirical basis of this research includes collections of russian imperial laws on jews, as well as comments on and reviews of the corresponding 19thcentury legal practice, memoirs, and archival documents. the documents were studied in the gosudarstvennyi arkhiv rossiiskoi federatsii (garf), [state archive of the russian federation]. comprehensive study of the following was carried out: the earliest recovered documents on the surveillance of jews, dating from the first four decades of the 19th century; documents containing orders and reports on monitoring correspondence between jews; documents on the “world jewish kagal” case; and circulars of the ministry of internal affairs on the nationwide collection of information about certain categories of jews. this was supplemented by selective analysis of documents on the monitoring of jewish artisans, as well as jewish merchants and their employees, by lists of jews living in specific territories, and by senate proceedings relevant to jews. this selective analysis was predominantly guided by 8 in this context, the situation of the jews is comparable only to the experiences of poles, who were deemed the russian empire’s “main security threat” after the 1830–1831 uprising. 9 although rogger insists that, in the second half of the 19th century, a “pre-modern form of racism” could already be found in russian policy on jews (rogger, 1986, pp. 35–37), the point of view of weinerman looks more justified. according to weinerman (1994), the spread of racist ideas in the russian empire was limited to the narrow ultranationalist sphere, while the main efforts of the authorities were aimed at the russification of minorities. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 61 previously researched legislative norms on the surveillance of the jewish population. the documentary evidence was viewed as a group case studies, making it possible assess the gap between the “ideal” image of the monitoring of jews, as presented in legislative norms, and real-life surveillance practices. surveillance of jews: reasons, legal framework, execution praxis with the exception of a brief period of benign indifference right after becoming subjects of the russian empire in the late 18th century, jews were the target of continuous and persistent government attempts at “bettering” them for their entire existence within the imperial state. the formal justification for this was that it was all done for imperial subjects’ (jews included) “own good”, and that by being “re-educated”, jews would supposedly gain the respect of their neighbors, moral transformation, and motivation for “productive” labor, ultimately making them “worthy” of joining the family of ethnicities residing in the empire. this obsession with “fixing” and “organizing” jews, highly typical of any polizeistaat (vital, 1999), was not a russian invention. the empire had borrowed these ideas from abroad, primarily from austria and prussia. while some historians are inclined to cite “being different” as the reason behind the imperial government’s bias against jews (miller, 2006), it seems more plausible that jews were considered a “problem” on an international scale. at least, jews were hardly as strikingly “different” in tsarist russia as in the smaller, significantly more homogeneous european countries. yuri slezkine (2004) ironically points out that jews were just “one of russia’s many ‘alien’ groups: more ‘cunning’ than most, perhaps, but not as ‘rebellious’ as the chechens, as ‘backward’ as the samoed, as ‘fanatical’ as the sart, or as ubiquitous or relentlessly rationalistici artificiales as the germans” (p. 115). the perception of jews as a “problem” that “enlightened nations” had long struggled to solve (derzhavin, 1872, p. 261, trans. by kseniya grigor’eva [k. g.]) provided a framework for highlighting the “peculiar” character of the jewish population and rationalizing the regular bouts of anti-jewish suspicion. even more importantly, this perception spurred continuous legislative and bureaucratic activity that purported to make jews more “useful” and/or prevent any “damage” that they might have caused. historical periods and development of surveillance of jews studies exploring the life of jews in the russian empire usually single out the particular periods or events that had the greatest impact. for instance, alexey miller (2006) identifies the following stages in the development of imperial policy towards jews in the 19th and early 20th centuries: 1800s to 1825—the attempt to develop a coherent legislative system for governing jews without deep intrusion into their autonomy; 1825–1855—a period of strict regulation of jewish life and destructive attempts to discipline the jewish population using force; 1856–1881—liberalization of policy towards jews and selective integration of jews into imperial society; 1881 to the end of the imperial period—the era of modern antisemitism, accompanied by pogroms and a sharp increase in discrimination against jews. some of the other important historical milestones mentioned include the polish uprisings of 1830–1831 and 1863–1864, the crisis in the early 1880s, and the revolution of 1905. https://changing-sp.com/ 62 kseniya s. grigor’eva however, it is difficult to fit the history of the surveillance of jews into this timeline, or into others. the logic behind this surveillance is grounded in government suspicions and individual events that led to the intensification of government work on “fixing” the jews. these events may sometimes seem fairly trivial in the grand scheme of history, but nonetheless, they have had a major impact on the development of surveillance practices and techniques. another thing that sets the surveillance of jews apart from more monumental historical processes is its continuous progress towards the accumulation of more and more surveillance practices and procedures. regardless of a particular tsar’s style of governance, and even regardless of whether or not the policy towards jews was more strict or more liberal at a given time, the surveillance continued to increase and grow more complex. while there is no doubt that the early 1880s were a historical watershed, after which surveillance practices (but not legislative activity, which served as their institutional source) intensified rapidly, it is actually impossible to find any single period during the 19th century when the total amount of monitoring of jews decreased, rather than increased. the consistent, progressive increase of surveillance of the jewish population was most likely caused by the fact that its connection with the ever-changing vector of policy of the various russian emperors was much weaker than its dependence on the growing centralization of the state, by the professionalization of bureaucratic and law enforcement structures, by the steady growth of anti-jewish legislation, and by the accumulation and “crystallization” of prior surveillance practices and techniques. government suspicions targeting jews and the events that triggered them the suspicion of jews is one of the key factors that now allow us to see the logic behind the emergence of specific types of monitoring for the jewish population. john klier (1986), who extensively studied the formation of russian authorities’ ideas about jews from the end of the 18th and into the first quarter of the 19th centuries, identifies three types of suspicion: fear of jewish proselytism, which had old origins in russia and was latently preserved in russian policy towards jews; suspicion of a jewish desire to “exploit” the peasant class growing out of a complex of educational ideas borrowed from western europe; and, later, the suspicion of the existence of a worldwide jewish conspiracy against the foundations of christian civilization and power. this list must be complemented with a number of narrower, but nevertheless important in their practical consequences, suspicions: about the inclination of jews towards smuggling; about the desire of jews to evade military service10; and about jewish collusion with internal and external enemies of the empire (first the french, then the poles, and finally the germans11). 10 for more information, see the work of y. petrovsky-shtern (2003). 11 the suspicion that jews might become agents of german influence arose in the mid-1860s. the idea originated with p. a. bessonov, an expert on slavic culture and slavophile appointed in 1865 to several leading positions at the department of education in vilna (vilnius), including the post of principal of the rabbinical school (dolbilov, 2010, pp. 551–559). during that period, the tsarist government was not yet ready to acknowledge the very notion of german influence over jews. nonetheless, the idea would become much more widespread later on, leading to tragic consequences for the jewish people during world war i (lohr, 2003). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 63 four of the six suspicions listed (religious proselytism, the “exploitation” of the peasant class, smuggling, and evasion of military service) were reflected in a number of restrictive laws regarding jews, which led to a large number of specific surveillance practices. the remaining two, although they did not result in the adoption of special legislation, at different times motivated the issuance of orders related to surveillance of the jewish population and the opening and inspection of jewish mail. even so, the authorities’ suspicions themselves did not result in any special measures against the jewish population. as a rule, this required a specific event or chain of events that fit into the logic of a particular suspicion and triggered it. thus, for example, the famine that occurred in the belarusian governorates in 1797 was initially the event that triggered suspicions of the exploitation of peasantry and was one of the reasons why the local governors and marshals of nobility decried “harmful” jewish activities. suspicions of possible sympathy for the french were aroused by the convocation of the grand sanhedrin in paris, which was seen as an attempt to bring jews to the side of napoleonic france. fears of jewish proselytism, although rather old and playing practically no role during the reigns of catherine ii, paul i and the entire first half of the reign of alexander i, were reactivated due to news of the spread of the sabbatarian heresy in voronezh governorate in 1818. speculation of jewish inclinations to avoid military service began due to attempts by representatives of jewish communities to postpone the introduction of a law on military service “in kind”. after the triggering of suspicions, the authorities began to take practical measures to prevent expected “harms” caused by jews. laws on jews as the institutional source of surveillance over the jewish population legislation was the government’s main weapon in its effort to prevent “harmful” actions from jews, taking away any ability jews had to cause “harm”. this was done via the criminalization of actions which were permitted to the rest of the population of the same social classes. specifically, in order to prevent alleged harms to the “native” citizens of the empire, the departure, stay and residence of jews outside the pale of settlement without valid reasons and special documents were criminalized. in order to prevent smuggling, jews were banned from living in the fifty-verst strip along the border. in order to prevent the “exploitation” of the peasantry, jews were banned from alcohol distillation and the wine trade in rural areas, and from acquiring inhabited land. in order to prevent the “seduction” of christians into judaism, the hiring of christian servants by jews was criminalized. the drastic criminalization of the daily practices and activities of the jewish population led to many unforeseen consequences. these were especially severe for the jews themselves, who were often deprived of livelihoods and shelter. however, damage was also done to christians who had commercial ties with jews, to certain sectors of the economy where jews traditionally predominated, and to the treasury, which forwent a certain amount of income. as a result, new regulatory acts were adopted which provided deferrals and deviations from the initial prohibitions, which were themselves also revised after some time. existing laws were taken into https://changing-sp.com/ 64 kseniya s. grigor’eva account in the development of subsequent regulatory acts, and restrictive rules regarding jews were constantly incorporated into new bills. ultimately, by the early 20th century, legislation regarding jews encompassed over one thousand various regulatory acts, the overwhelming majority of which involved some type of surveillance of jews. executors of surveillance surveillance of jews was mainly assigned to the police, but police officers were not the only ones performing surveillance activities. surveillance of the jewish population was one of the duties of customs officials (when jews crossed the border and transported goods) and the military (when controlling desertion from military service). additionally, surveillance of jews was an immediate responsibility of regional authorities: governors-general, military and civil governors, regional principals, city governors, etc. surveillance of the jewish population was also a responsibility of local government (city councils, magistrates, town halls, mayors), as well as the selfgovernment bodies of social classes (marshals of nobility, trade and guild councils). at the lowest level, surveillance of jews was assigned to street cleaners, who were obliged to immediately report any violations to the police. sometimes, special jobs were created, whose main and only function was surveillance of jews. for example, in 1843, five inspector jobs were created in kiev (four at the city outposts and one at the dnieper pier), who were tasked with checking the documents of jews arriving in the city and issuing them temporary tickets. apart from the abovementioned officials, who performed on duty surveillance of the jewish population, other departments and officials were often involved in surveillance as well. specifically, gendarmes, postal workers, medical councils, directors of educational institutions, and employees of other state organizations participated in the surveillance of jews from time to time. some civilians who were not engaged in the public service, such as owners of apartments and hotels, were also often involved in the surveillance of jews. passport and other document checks document checks were one of the most widespread methods for monitoring jews. passports were checked most frequently. in order to facilitate surveillance, the passports of jews were marked with special inscriptions that allowed inspectors to quickly determine whether the jew under scrutiny had violated applicable restrictions. for example, passports issued to jews for movement within the pale of settlement contained an inscription stating that they were valid only in areas designated for the permanent residence of jews. foremen were issued passports with notes that they should be presented for water and land shipping operations within the governorates adjacent to the pale of settlement. in order to prevent any forgery and abuse, the passports of merchants indicated which contract or commercial affairs they were issued for, “and so that such persons are not accompanied by more than two jews under the guise of clerks and servants”, these passports also included the names and descriptions of such jews (svod zakonov, 1842, p. 51), etc. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 65 in the registration of their passports, jews were often required to present additional documents that were not mandatory for other people of the same class or position. in particular, in order to obtain a passport, young jewish artisans who visited the interior governorates to train with experienced craftsmen had to present certi ficates of their reliability and factual desire to improve their qualifications, provided by three christian property owners. the submission of additional documents was often required during passport checks, and the number of such documents significantly increased when some categories of jews (merchants, artisans, people with higher education) were allowed to live outside the pale of settlement. all of these “privileged” categories of jews had to present, in addition to their passports, proof of lack of criminal record, as well as documents, certifying their status and occupations. immediate deportation to the pale of settlement was ordered for those who did not provide all of the necessary documents. since jews were always suspected of intentions to evade military service, additional documents were required to confirm their eligibility for military service benefits. in reality, however, the “ideal” strict oversight through the control of jews’ documents remained an unachievable fantasy of the tsarist government. jews were difficult to register and record, which prevented the government’s grand scheme from coming to fruition. e. m. avrutin (2010), who conducted a detailed study of the difficulties faced by the imperial bureaucracy in its attempts to register the jewish population, came to the conclusion that, because of the lack of qualified officials, rampant corruption, and the tendency of jews to resist registration, the accuracy of the record of jews remained significantly inferior to the accuracy of the record of all other categories of imperial subjects throughout the entire 19th century12. this stemmed not just from simple reluctance on the part of jews to be registered, but also from particular traits of their culture. among other aspects, jewish culture places little emphasis on the exact date of a person’s birth, which, together with the fact that religious rites (including the circumcision ceremony) could be performed by any member of the jewish community, not just by the crown rabbi, led to frequent instances of jews’ simply ignoring their duty to report new births in their community (avrutin, 2010, p. 37). the lack of demographic records among jews was an issue that persisted until the early 20th century, making it impossible to obtain any other documents, including passports. as a result, a great many jews moved about with no document at all, with another person’s documents, or with fake documents. abraham uri kovner, a prominent russian-jewish writer and essayist, writes in his memoirs that this practice was common among jews as early as the beginning of the 1860s (kovner, 2000, p. 239). occupational verification another form of control of jews was the monitoring of their activities. particular attention was paid to the surveillance of the activities of jewish artisans, since craft occupations were the easiest to falsify in order to circumvent various restrictive rules and procedures. 12 thomas jankowski draws similar conclusions (jankowski, 2020). https://changing-sp.com/ 66 kseniya s. grigor’eva surveillance over jewish craftsmen was assigned to artisan and guild boards, city governments, and the police. the artisan’s license was an important tool for controlling the occupations of jewish craftsmen. it included all hirings and dismissals during the year, information about employers, and instances and duration of illness of the worker. all entries in the artisan’s license had to be certified by the police. with the annual submission of the artisan’s license to the guild board, the board had the ability to track the activities of each jewish artisan using these records. if someone, without being ill, had not worked for the last three months, or had worked for no more than eight months of a whole year, the guild board had to immediately inform the artisan board of this via submission of the shop ticket for consideration. after verifying the information received on the ticket, the artisan board excluded the guilty person from the workshop and reported this to the local duma. in addition to the examination of artisan’s license, the artisan board had to perform periodic inspections to ensure that jews were actually engaged in their craft and to exclude all jews who abandoned their craft from the workshop (o proekte izmenenii, 1853). in areas without trade councils, similar functions were performed by the police. unfortunately for the government, the artisan and guild boards, along with the police, were profoundly corrupt, and often used the powers vested in them for collecting bribes rather than actually controlling jews. nathan meir and victoria khiterer, who have written monographs on the lives of jews in imperial kyiv, cite evidence of the widespread purchase of fake artisan licenses from the local artisan board in the 1860s and 1870s. for just 3 rubles, it was possible to buy a painter’s license upon presentation of a bucket of paint and a brush, or a milliner’s license upon presentation of a piece of fabric (meir, 2010, p. 27). in order to collect money from jews without any passable artisanal skills, the board even came up with a special new “vinegar producers” category (khiterer, 2016, p. 108). the utterly hopeless flaws in the imperial supervision of jewish artisans are also revealed by the survey of governors carried out by the ministry of internal affairs in 1902. according to the governors of astrakhan, vladimir, irkutsk, kaluga, kazan, kostroma, kursk, livonia, novgorod, orenburg, penza, pskov, ryazan, st. petersburg, saratov, smolensk, tambov, tobolsk, ufa, and yaroslavl, the city administrators of kronstadt, st. petersburg, and sevastopol, and the governor-general of moscow, although supervision of jewish artisans was conducted, it did not achieve its purpose by any means (po voprosu ob udobstve vozlozhenia, 1902, p. 24). that said, the low quality of the supervision does not equal a lack of supervision, nor does it prove that jews had some sort of “supernatural” ability to evade it en masse, as bureaucratic reports often claimed. surveillance practices were constantly implemented by all of the appointed institutions, and whenever a significant share of jews managed to avoid deportation to the pale of settlement, or any other legally prescribed punishments, this happened not because they were not being controlled, but because of the instrumentalization of this control by organs and officials of surveillance. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 67 location checks another type of checks is the verification of the location of jews, both in places where they were allowed and not allowed to stay. police officers regularly inspected rented apartments and rooms in which non-resident jews stayed, visited areas closed to the jewish population, and audited eateries, taverns and pot-houses, which jews were forbidden to hold. for example, in august 1812, a territorial police officer of the volzhsky district of moscow governorate inspected the taverns in the territory entrusted to him. all the jews identified during the inspections, together with their families, were deported to moscow and put in jail, where jews from shklow were already detained “for being found in taverns in the mozhaysk district” (pis’mo na imya ministra politsii, 1813, p. 7, trans. by k. g.). such rigor, however, was probably more the exception than the rule: there are many records that, before the 1880s, police inspections were often fictitious, and jews under supervision were easily able to buy off law-enforcement officers. due to the well-known corruption of the police, inspections sometimes involved gendarmes, always happy to discover jews in places forbidden to them. for example, vlasov, a colonel of the gendarme corps, reported on november 6, 1831 that the “decree of the governing senate of june 30, 1825 regarding the 1st department on the removal of jews from the border by 50 versts, not only has not been executed in the grodno province to this day, but no measures are being taken to execute it” (raport, 1831, p. 1, trans. by k. g.). according to the investigation performed by the colonel, it turned out that in grodno “there [were] up to thirty jews with expired passports held by the police” (pis’mo shtab-ofitsera, 1831, p. 3, trans. by k. g.). yechezkel kotik (1913/2002) and abram paperna (2000) humorously described the profanation of inspections in the 1840s and 1850s. according to them, local authorities usually gave the jewish population advance notice of the inspector’s arrival, and the jews had time to take the necessary measures to eliminate any violations. genrikh sliozberg, looking back on his childhood and youth in the 1860–1870s, attested that during this period the principle of establishing “friendly relations” with the police was predominant. people tried to “have no business” with the police, but the police themselves did little to monitor the population (sliozberg, 1933, vol. 1, p. 29). abrupt and wide-reaching change of this established status quo occurred only after the assassination of alexander ii and the subsequent jewish pogroms, which were officially interpreted by the government as public revenge for jewish “exploitation”. from that time, control over the “correct” residence of jews became one of the main functions of the police and local authorities, and the ministry of internal affairs tirelessly reminded them about this through numerous guiding circulars. starting in the 1880s, police raids, i.e., nighttime inspections of hotels and apartments for jews without the necessary documents became very common. according to sliozberg, raids were introduced in st. petersburg by the city administrator pyotr gresser, and from there they spread to other places (sliozberg, 1933, vol. 2, p. 193). it should be noted that, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, police in the 1880s were already guided by phenotypic characteristics in performing raids and inspections. for example, according to lev klyachko, a well-known journalist, editor and publisher, “the police had strict orders and stopped not only jews, but also all https://changing-sp.com/ 68 kseniya s. grigor’eva persons suspected of being jews” (klyachko, 2003, trans. by k. g.). samuil vermel, russian publicist and doctor, also wrote that “policemen and detectives stopped anyone who, based on their face, could be a jew” (vermel, 2003, trans. by k. g.). collection of information in addition to recording and registration, common to all people of the empire, additional methods of information collection were used for jews. one of the most common practices was the preparation of various lists. outside the pale of settlement, such lists, in addition to the names and surnames of jews staying in a particular area, could contain information about family members accompanying them who did not have the independent right to reside in the territory, their arrival time, their authorizing documents, the affairs for which they came, their activities, their financial situation, and their time of departure with an indication of exact destination. as a rule, this information was taken from special books kept at police stations where information about jews arriving and living in the jurisdictional territory was recorded. the preparation of lists was often accompanied by major inspections of the lawfulness of the presence of jews in some or other territories. for example, the preparation of a list of jews living in st. petersburg in 1832 was provoked by the fact that the emperor had received information about the residence of “many jewish families” in the capital, contrary to the imperial order (o vysylke iz s. peterburga, 1832, p. 2, trans. by k. g.). until the end of the 1870s, special collection of information about jews was mostly local, but from 1879, the ministry of internal affairs began the centralized collection of information about the jewish population of the empire. the information was generally collected by filling in standardized registers, the forms of which were sent by the ministry to the governorates together with circular orders. the first order regarding the general collection of information about jews was a circular from the ministry of internal affairs of june 11, 1879, which stated the requirement to provide the ministry with information on jewish specialists, artisans and apprentices living outside the pale of settlement in accordance with the law of june 28, 1865. according to sliozberg, the implementation of this circular was accompanied by the deportation to the pale of settlement of those jewish artisans who did not meet the requirements of the law of 1865 (sliozberg, 1933, vol. 1, p. 97). in 1889, the ministry issued circular no. 2982, which ordered the widespread collection of information on the ownership and lease of real estate by jews outside cities, shtetls and posads (o vladenii i arende, 1889). the similar circular no. 746 was issued eleven years later in connection with the preparation of draft legislation on the limitation of jewish land ownership by the ministry of internal affairs (o dostavlenii svedenii o nedvizhimykh imushchestvakh, 1900). in 1890, the ministry of internal affairs issued two circulars, no. 1318 and no. 1632, regarding the countrywide collection of data on jews living outside the pale of settlement (svedenia o evreiakh dantistakh, fel’dsherakh, farmatzevtakh, 1890; svedenia o evreiakh kuptsakh, 1890). thus, from the end of the 1870s, the collection of information about the jewish population moved to a new level and became larger-scale, more centralized and more changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 69 formalized. simultaneous collection of information on jews throughout all or most of the imperial territory was initiated and regulated by the ministry of the interior, which also stored the information collected. perlustration a specific method of surveillance was the perlustration of jewish correspondence, practiced only occasionally under the leadership of the postal department and the third section of his majesty’s own chancellery. during the 19th century, mass opening and inspection of jewish mail was performed at least twice: in 1830–1831 and in 1837–1839. the postal censorship of 1830–1831 was associated with the first polish riot and the government’s suspicions of possible jewish sympathy for the polish cause. since the postal department did not have a yiddish translator, all jewish mail submitted to the post offices was forwarded by duke alexander golitsyn, the chief of the postal department, to alexander benckendorff, the head of the third section. benckendorff was supposed to get translations of the letters and send them, together with the originals, back to golitsyn. in december 1830, 39 jewish letters were processed, 112 letters in january 1831, 35 letters in february, 19 letters in march, 10 letters in april, and three more in may. having found nothing remarkable, in may 1831 the perlustration was stopped (vypiska iz evreiskikh pisem, 1830–1831). the second instance of mass monitoring of jewish mail was sparked by the fact that the emperor had been informed that “jews [were] sending correspondence outside the postal service” in volyn governorate. this prompted golitsyn to instruct the zhytomyr and radziwiłł post offices to strictly monitor all correspondence between jews, copying portions of the text “in russian and the foreign language” should they “contain anything noteworthy”. letters in yiddish were to be sent to the st. petersburg post office for translation. benckendorff also took measures of his own to terminate correspondence “outside the postal service” with the help of the gendarmes and customs office employees. the perlustration of correspondence lasted for about six months; after, yet again, nothing suspicious was found, the practice was put to an end in april 1839 (o proizvodimoi evreyami volynskoi gubernii tainoi korrespondentsii, 1839). spying until the early 1880s, there was virtually no dedicated spying on jews, unlike on poles, over whom secret surveillance had been widespread in st. petersburg ever since the first polish uprising of 1830–1831, as well as (somewhat later) in the western region and in the north of russia (grigor’eva, 2020). apparently, this was associated with the fact that jews rarely fell into the areas of interest of the third section, where the majority of secret agents and other clandestine surveillance professionals worked. the first instance of large-scale, focused surveillance of jews took place in 1880. it was associated with the initiation of a proceeding “on the worldwide jewish kagal created for purposes hostile to the christian population”, and it reflected how the outlook of the imperial government on its jewish subjects had changed. this https://changing-sp.com/ 70 kseniya s. grigor’eva change was associated with the work of jacob brafman, author of the notorious book of kagal, which was first published in 1869. in the book, brafman promoted the idea that jews were a hostile “state within the state”, which quickly piqued the interest of the russian political establishment and laid the foundation for a new image of jews as an “underground” politicized nation that was inherently antagonistic towards the russian government and population13. the investigation into the kagal was initiated by the administration of the third section, based on an anonymous accusation asserting that “all jewish capitalists entered the worldwide kagal with a different monetary contribution” and that jewish households had special mugs into which “jews [were] obliged to put donations” for the needs of the kagal, including for such activities as funding “regicidal nihilists” (o vsemirnom evreiskom kagale, 1880, pp. 1–2, trans. by k. g.). on april 2, pyotr cherevin, the head of the third section, sent circular no. 2725 to the heads of provincial gendarme offices with an order to conduct a secret investigation of the matter (o vsemirnom evreiskom kagale, 1880, pp. 3–4). after receiving this circular, the heads of the provincial gendarme departments began to perform the tasks assigned. surveillance of jewish houses was conducted for the purpose of discovering the mugs for donations and identifying their purpose, together with surveillance of “jewish capitalists” and of collectors of charitable contributions. the eight months of secret surveillance of the jewish population found no confirmation that “jewish capitalists” had joined a worldwide jewish kahal, no collection of money from ordinary jews in its favor, and no material assistance to a revolutionary party, and as a result, the case was closed. russian surveillance of the jewish population in an international context surveillance of the jewish population in tsarist russia largely reproduced earlier european models, and had the same goals of making jews “less harmful” and “more useful”. the idea stemmed from the philosophies of cameralism and mercantilism, which became widespread in european courts between the 16th and the 18th centuries and played a rather complicated role in jewish history. on the one hand, europeans’ embrace of mercantilist ideas facilitated the return of jews to european countries from which they had previously been exiled and granted them access to some important economic activities that had once been closed to them (israel, 1998). additionally, contrary to widespread opinion, debates on the emancipation of jews first started with the german cameralists, not with the philosophers of the enlightenment (joskowicz, 2017). on the other hand, cameralism and mercantilism were exactly what substantiated the claim that jews needed to be “bettered” in order to “correct” those of their traits that were deemed “unacceptable” while retaining their high economic potential. as stated by marc raeff (1975), this kind of economic and social pragmatism, which formed an integral element of the new governance model (polizeistaat), was associated not so much with the selfish aspirations of european monarchs of the early 13 for more details about the “kagal mania” among the imperial bureaucrats, see dolbilov (2010, pp. 577–588). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 71 modern period as with the spiritual ideals of the middle ages. after the reformation and years of religious wars had diminished the authority of the church over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, the secular monarch came to be perceived as the sole figure capable of taking responsibility for the spiritual and material wellbeing of subjects, which, in turn, was essential for the state to achieve its full creative potential in a god-honoring way (raeff, 1975, p. 1225). as a result, the traditional approach to secular government, built upon the passive maintenance of justice, was replaced with a new alternative which involved active intervention in the lives of the monarch’s subjects in order to encourage their productive energy. jews were a key ethno-religious group in continental europe to be targeted by the ambitious social experiments run by governments on the grounds of this new rationalistic and mechanistic worldview. attempts to “fix” the jews in european countries, as in russia, relied on a burst of legislative activity which gave rise to countless “nitpicky” bans aimed at regulating what jewish subjects could do, limiting the growth of the jewish population, its mobility etc. each such ban entailed a specific set of surveillance practices designed to monitor compliance. the fundamental role of anti-jewish legislation and bureaucracy in the development of surveillance of jews, as well as its impact on morale and quality of life in jewish communities, is clearly illustrated by the experience of great britain. as todd m. endelman highlights, the british government’s (largely accidental) refusal to enact specific laws dedicated to jews defined entire future existence of jews in the country, which was far more peaceful than in central and eastern europe. in an environment that lacked targeted social engineering, british jews integrated into the larger population earlier than other european jewish communities, which allowed them to achieve economic success and relative prosperity (endelman, 2002). special surveillance of jews did not emerge in britain until the end of the 19th century, with the arrival of a massive wave of jewish immigrants from eastern europe (mostly polish and russian jews trying to make it to the usa). these surveillance practices were more reminiscent of today’s monitoring of “undesirable” immigrants by police and were motivated by suspicions that jews were broadly involved in organized crime (specifically prostitution). they were not formally sanctioned by any legislation (knepper, 2007; renshaw, 2022)14. similar surveillance practices spread through other european countries, where jews had already been emancipated, between the 1880s and world war i (vyleta, 2005). conclusions it would not be correct to say that surveillance of “dangerous groups”, which targets whole population categories rather than specific individuals whose identity is known in advance, and faces the future rather than the past, is a recent phenomenon. in fact, the practice has a long history, going back to the early modern era, at least in central and eastern europe. surveillance of jews is a highly illustrative example. 14 the aliens act of 1905 did not mention any specific categories of aliens, although in reality it disproportionately targeted foreign jews (renshaw, 2022). https://changing-sp.com/ 72 kseniya s. grigor’eva there is little point in seeking the roots of the ethno-religious profiling of jews in slavery, racism, and colonialism. first, jews had personal freedom. second, racism was not the ideological reason for discrimination against jews during the period in question15. finally, the jewish population was by no means autochthonous. on the contrary, in fact, jews were “eternal foreigners” yearning for a lost, semi-mythical homeland. nor would it be correct to say that the stifling supervision and countless restrictions that ruined the lives of many jews over the course of centuries had been crafted with the deliberate intent of causing them harm. quite the contrary, govern ments and law-makers claimed to be working hard to “improve” the jews, to “correct” their “bad” habits and qualities, to elevate them morally, and to transform them into “useful” subjects. this, yet again, reaffirms that even the most repulsive and invasive forms of control may be motivated not only by malice, but also by rather benevolent (from their initiators’ point of view) aspirations. as a follow-up to this insight, it is interesting to note that the most professional, disciplined, and incorruptible surveillance agents tended to harm the jewish population far more than their corrupt and negligent peers. thankfully for russian jews, the latter were found far more often than the former in tsarist russia. the example of russia demonstrates that the surveillance of specific population groups should be viewed as a separate research subject, with its own history, where the key milestones do not always coincide with the milestones of broader historical processes. there is an obvious, close connection between the emergence and development of this type of surveillance, on the one hand, and the emergence and development of laws and/or bylaws that nourish and legalize the surveillance, on the other hand. once published, discriminatory norms and decrees tend to breed entire chains of follow-up norms and decrees, making surveillance procedures increasingly more sprawling and complicated. nonetheless, the ideal image of surveillance, as shaped by laws and bylaws, never matches what exists in practice. this study, yet again, highlights the limitations of government capabilities when it comes to establishing total surveillance not even over the population as a whole, but over individual groups within it, which has been remarked upon by researchers many times (see, e.g., marx, 2003)16. finally, the history of the profiling of jews shows that institutionalized surveillance of certain population groups tends to cross national borders and be reproduced in neighboring countries, in countries with similar political cultures, or in countries with close geopolitical ties to those where such surveillance already exists (similar processes can be observed today in connection with muslims and “undesirable” migrants). 15 while the treatment of the marranos in spain is sometimes considered an early form of racism, this interpretation is fairly controversial (hering torres, 2011). attempts to detect racism in the actions of the governments of the german empire and tsarist russia against jews in the 19th century also run into serious obstacles and are faced with sound counterarguments (dolbilov, 2010; fitzpatrick, 2015; vyleta, 2012; weinerman, 1994). 16 still, it bears noting that the capabilities of modern governments far exceed the capabilities that existed in the 19th century, much less in the early modern period. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 55–80 73 the conclusions drawn in this study add more nuance to the generally accepted notions of the emergence and development of racial profiling (which have lately been leaning more and more towards the mere reproduction of established cliches, ignoring vital differences in geographical, political, ideological, and social context). case studies from other countries (including those outside europe and the west) and from different eras will further contribute to the deepening of understanding of the surveillance of “dangerous” groups. this study has a number of important limitations. first, as it pursues the goal of painting a general picture of the profiling of jews in the russian empire, it does not cover a number of important differences in the surveillance modes and practices in different imperial territories: in st. petersburg, moscow, kyiv, the baltic states, siberia, the fifty-verst frontier strip, etc. second, not being an expert on the history of the tsarist bureaucracy, the police, the third section of his majesty’s own chancellery, or the other imperial institutions involved in the creation and enforcement of profiling measures targeting jews, i was unable to conduct a qualitative study of the impact of the growing complexity, scope, centralization, and professionalism of these institutions on the surveillance of the jewish population. this key aspect had to be set aside. third, due to a lack of opportunity to work with archives abroad, it was 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(2019). the age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. public affairs. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691405051468 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.1994.9993835 https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.1994.9993835 https://doi.org/10.2307/1120997 changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 190–204 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.2.097 received 26 october 2019 © 2020 natalia a. akimova, elena n. medvedeva accepted 21 june 2020 not@bk.ru published online 9 july 2020 fargonom@mail.ru article factors influencing nurses’ decision to join a professional association in russia natalia a. akimova, elena n. medvedeva saratov state medical university, saratov, russia abstract many professional associations of nurses in russia and other countries struggle to increase their membership. even though there are obvious advantages of membership in a professional organization, many people decide against it, which makes the study of factors that affect their decision-making a pertinent task. the aim of our research is to study the factors of membership or nonmembership of nurses in professional organizations in russia. we conducted semi-structured interviews among nurses in different russian regions (n = 16). their responses were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. we identified the main factors that determine nurses’ membership or non-membership in professional associations and distinguished between objective and subjective reasons as well as active or passive attitudes demonstrated by our respondents in this regard. the conclusion is made that nurses often adopt a “formal” approach to membership in professional associations, seeing it primarily as a certification requirement. this means that their interests may not coincide with the goals and mission declared by these associations in their charters. some respondents, however, demonstrated a more active attitude, pointing out such reasons for membership as professional growth, opportunities for advanced training, socialization, exchange of ideas and so on. keywords nursing, motivation, professional organizations, nurse, membership, qualitative content analysis acknowledgement this research was supported by the russian fund of federal property, project no. 18-013-01154а. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 190–204 191 introduction professional culture based on shared beliefs and values is crucial to any profession. professional organizations are important elements of civil society and provide collective protection of the interests of their members. in our study, we are going to focus on professional associations of nurses in russia and their role in the life of the nursing community. the first professional nursing organization appeared in the usa: it was the american society of superintendents of educational institutions for nurses, founded in 1893 (later renamed as the national league of nurses). in 1896, the second nursing organization was founded – the associated graduates of trained nurses in the united states and canada, which later became the american nurses association (ana). professional nursing associations went global in 1899, when the international council of nurses appeared, which was the first international professional nursing organization. there are currently more than 100 national professional organizations all over the world and their number is steadily growing (matthews, 2012). together, they have a significant impact on the healthcare sector by tackling various professional, political, regulatory, clinical and educational issues. there is vast research literature on the work of health care professionals that demonstrates that professional associations provide their members with numerous benefits, including mentoring, continuing education opportunities, leadership development and professional development prospects (deleskey, 2003; esmaeili et al., 2013; greggs-mcquilkin, 2005; goolsby & dubois, 2017; wynd, 2003). in addition, researchers have drawn attention to the relationship between an employee’s membership in a professional association and the level of their professionalism (hall, 1982; wynd, 2003). it was shown that professional associations help health care professionals improve their competencies and ensure continuous improvement of their professional skills (bruhn, 2001). wynd (2003) studied nursing professionalism by using hall’s professionalism inventory scale (hall, 1982) and found that professionals tend to adhere to the concepts of faith in public service, the right to self-government, faith in selfregulation, and a sense of vocation. moreover, compared to those professionals who do not belong to professional associations, their members demonstrate significantly higher levels of professionalism (competence, integrity, etc.) (wynd, 2003). wynd’s work highlights the importance of professional membership for retaining qualified and dedicated nurses and for ensuring the overall efficiency of a medical institution. membership in professional organizations contributes greatly to the development of medical practitioners (american nurses association, 2016). professional organizations disseminate information and create evidence-based professional standards that enable nurses to be informed and educated. the opinions of deans, teachers, supervisors and fellow students play an important role in nursing graduates’ decision to join a professional association (bailey, 1987). nurses who continued their education and joined professional organizations in https://changing-sp.com/ 192 natalia a. akimova, elena n. medvedeva most cases were able to make their own decisions regarding the patient’s treatment and participated in solving problems related to the organization of work in a medical institution (haley-andrews & winch, 2001). despite numerous advantages of membership in professional associations, not all medical practitioners are keen on joining them (deleskey, 2003; esmaeili et al., 2013; goolsby & dubois, 2017; white & olson, 2004). 50 percent of registered nurses who were not members of a professional organization cited high membership fees and inconvenient location or meeting times as reasons for not joining or leaving the organization (deleskey, 2003). deleskey showed that nurses unsubscribed from membership because they did not feel that the benefits they received covered the cost of their membership in the organization. exchange theory (alotaibi, 2007; deleskey, 2003; esmaeili et al., 2013; walton, 2017) has been used as a theoretical and methodological basis for understanding why health workers do not join professional associations. the advantages of membership in a professional association are often compared against its cost. yeager & kline (1983) developed the professional association membership questionnaire (pamq), which is now widely used to identify factors that contribute to employees’ decision to join a professional association. pamq helps determine the factors that influence nurses’ decisions and to identify the most important ones, including continuing education, professional development and leadership development, networking, mentoring and professional development. the most common barriers are the lack of time, cost of membership and family responsibilities (deleskey, 2003; esmaeili et al., 2013; white & olson, 2004). professional organizations can create positive social change by improving the quality of medical services. they provide medical professionals with opportunities for enhancing their expertise through continuing education and professional development (esmaeili et al., 2013). professional organizations help nurses expand their powers and exercise their professional rights. kung and lugo (2015) found that participation in professional organizations, knowledge of legislation and political processes were important predictors of nurses’ political participation in the development and decision-making process of a health system reform. dollinger (2000) notes that professional organizations provide healthcare professionals with opportunities to discuss and develop standards, share experiences, and create a platform for enhancing professional relevance. in russia, professional associations of nurses have appeared relatively recently. the russian nurses association (rna), which is now the largest professional association of this kind in the country, was established in 1992. the second organization uniting nurses of a certain specialization – the transregional public organization of scrub nurses (rsna) – was set up in 2001. in addition, in 2010, the department of nursing management and social work of the faculty of higher nursing education and psychological and social work of the i. m. sechenov first moscow state medical university established a non-profit partnership called “association of specialists with university-level nursery education”. in 2015, the association of organizations supporting specialists with higher and secondary nursing education and pharmaceutical education founded the union of medical professional organizations changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 190–204 193 (mpou), which is currently the youngest and the most active professional organization of nurses and pharmacists. only legal entities can be members of the mpou; it comprises regional organizations of medical workers, including nurses, from 24 regions of russia. there are practically no studies of professional nursing associations in russia. we believe that one of the reasons behind the apparent lack of academic attention to this question is that the institution of professional associations as such is not sufficiently developed in russia. in this paper, we are going to address this research gap. research methodology for our study, we interviewed 16 professional nurses from different russian cities. we selected respondents from the regions where rna’s offices had more than 2,000 members. to this end, we used the list on the association’s official website1. another important criterion was the number and density of the population in cities and regions. according to the rna’s website, it has most members in the central part of the country (central federal district) as well as in other large regions – the southern, north-western, ural, siberian and volga federal districts. thus, we considered moscow region (8,000 rna members), bryansk region (5,189 rna members), kursk region (4,981 rna members) and voronezh region in the central federal district (13,448 rna members); saint petersburg in the north-western federal district (2,902 rna members); rostov region (4,200 rna members), astrakhan region (6,700 rna members) and volgograd region (5,820 rna members) in the southern federal district; kemerovo region (12,159 rna members) and omsk region (15,924 rna members) in the siberian federal district; tyumen region in the ural federal district (7,236 rna members); and the mari-el republic in the volga federal district (3,853 rna members). in total, 16 experts were interviewed: two representatives from each region (moscow, st. petersburg, voronezh region, rostov region, volgograd region, kemerovo region, tyumen region, mari-el republic) with at least five years of nursing experience. the median work experience of our respondents was 18 years (from 7 to 37 years). the median age of nurses was 42 (from 27 to 56). all participants in the study were women. they work in different hospital units and medical organizations, such as tb care, intensive case, reception, physiotherapy unit, and so on. however, the data on the respondents’ medical specialization were not taken into account when analyzing their responses due to the fact that there are no professional nursing associations for nurses of a certain specialization in russia. at the first stage, this study used the semi-structured interview method; at the second stage, the data were analyzed by applying the qualitative content analysis method. since not all of our respondents were affiliated with the rna or a similar organization, we included two options in our interview guide: for those respondents who 1 https://medsestre.ru/regions https://changing-sp.com/ https://medsestre.ru/regions 194 natalia a. akimova, elena n. medvedeva were members of a professional organization and for those who weren’t. respondents were then divided into two subgroups for subsequent analysis (n = 16, n1 = 9, n2 = 7). for those respondents who were non-members of a professional association, we included two questions in the interview: questions about the conditions and factors that influenced their non-membership in an association and about their awareness of the activities of professional associations. for those respondents who were members of an association, there were three questions: concerning the factors that influenced their decision to join an association; the role of associations in their personal life and work; and their personal interest in activities of professional associations (see appendix 1). in addition, the structure of each interview guide included questions related to respondents’ gender, age, work experience, place of work, medical specialization, and education. the data were interpreted by applying the qualitative content analysis, based on the “infrequent model of text content” (pashinyan, 2012). in other words, the analysis focuses only on those elements of the text content that serve as indicators for the interpretation of meanings and correspond to a certain category of content. in this paper, the method of qualitative content analysis is based on an inductive approach similar to the one applied by elo and kyngäs (2008) in processing the data of their interviews with nurses. the key feature of this method is that the text is divided into several smaller categories. while preparing for data interpretation, we selected units of analysis, specific topics and categories. the next step is to organize high-quality data through open coding, which means highlighting the main categories (or titles) during the reading of communication texts (in our case, interviews). then, in accordance with the induction categories, headers of a higher order are identified, which helps us reveal the relationship between the data, identify various subgroups of categories and describe their values. the transcribed interviews that were the units for content analysis were assigned identification numbers in accordance with the division of the respondents’ responses into two subgroups. we compiled a general categorical matrix based on five main topics for analysis and discussion of the received material (see table 1). table 1. categorical matrix subgroups reasons for membership/non-membership awareness scale members of a professional association subjective active position a) obligatory participation 3 passive position b) voluntary participation 1; 2 non-members of a professional association objective c) activity/passivity is not determined subjective active position d) professional agnosticism passive position e) personal indifference 0 as far reasons for membership or non-membership in professional organizations is concerned, we distinguish between obligatory and voluntary participation. voluntary participation corresponds to such personal motives as as obtaining professional knowledge, professional mobility and similar. obligatory participation includes such reasons as confirmation of qualifications, membership required due changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 190–204 195 to one’s senior position. there are also objective and subjective reasons: the former include, for example, absence of a professional association in one’s region or one’s lack of awareness of such associations. subjective reasons may vary: for example, professional agnosticism is characteristic of non-members and correlates with an active attitude and skepticism about professional associations’ efficiency; personal indifference is also characteristic of non-members but is based on a passive attitude and the lack of personal interest. we have also used the following 4-point awareness scale: from “0” denoting a complete lack of awareness to “3” corresponding to full “insider” knowledge of a professional association’s activities (for members). our respondents were divided into two subgroups corresponding to their participation or non-participation in a professional association. the reasons that influenced their opinions of professional associations could be objective or subjective, which, in their turn, were related to active researchers identified the main reasons that influenced the assessment of professional associations by informants. these reasons are most commonly determined by objective or subjective factors, which in turn is associated with the active or passive position of the respondents themselves. positions of activity or passivity are expressed in certain personal practices in relation to professional associations, and depend on the level of awareness of nurses. this study complies with ethical requirements for high-quality sociological methods. all potential respondents received verbal and written information about the research being conducted; voluntary participation in the study was emphasized. in addition, confidentiality was kept; in particular, all names were removed from the transcripts of the interview; the interviews got their identification numbers. the results are presented in such a way that it is impossible to identify participants by their specific statements. audio recordings and transcripts of interviews are available only to the researchers. results the length of an interview ranged from 37 to 49 minutes, with the average length of 42 minutes. in total, we identified five main topics, two of them for the first subgroup and three for the second subgroup (table 2). table 2. key interview topics topics for discussion for the first subgroup (1) reasons (factors) for non-membership (2) awareness of the activities of medical associations topics for discussion for the second subgroup (1) reasons (factors) for membership (2) the role of professional associations in the nurses’ work (3) assessment of the nurses’ interest in the activities of a professional association (obligatory or voluntary membership) response analysis of the first subgroup (non-members) 1. reasons for non-membership in a professional association in this section, we are going to discuss the factors and conditions that influence nurses’ decision not to join a professional association. https://changing-sp.com/ 196 natalia a. akimova, elena n. medvedeva the first reason cited by our respondents was the lack of personal professional need or interest: well, i heard something about it but somehow i never got around to looking into this topic properly (nurse working in tb care, 33 y.o., 9 years of experience). another reason behind unwillingness of some russian nurses to join professional associations was the relatively short history of such associations in russia or their absence in some regions: because it has just appeared, and the organization has not yet recruited members (nurse working at hospital reception, 38 y.o., 15 years of experience). the third factor is our respondents’ skepticism about the efficiency of professional association and its inability to help their members to achieve their personal professional goals: i do not see any prospects for myself in the future. (...) i can’t say that my colleagues are happy with their work. many of them have already left associations, some are only planning since they’ve received nothing. it is only annual membership fees and empty talks (nurse working in tb care, 44 y.o., 22 years of experience). 2. nurses’ awareness of the activities of medical associations in general, when being asked about the nature of the activities of professional medical associations, many respondents demonstrated either a total lack of awareness or only a superficial knowledge thereof. some nurses pointed out that professional associations fail to meet their expectations regarding the functions such organizations should perform: creating opportunities for development of the medical staff; organization of training and conferences; assistance in professional growth (nurse working at hospital reception, 38 y.o., 15 years of experience); yes, of course, they greatly facilitate the solution of many problems and tasks that medical personnel face in their professional activities. ... professional associations in my town do not provide support for their members (nurse working in tb care, 44 y.o., 22 years of experience). response analysis of the second subgroup (members) 1. reasons for membership in a professional association on average, those nurses who answered affirmatively to the question about their membership in a professional association have been affiliated with various regional associations for 3–6 years. the main reasons for membership include access to knowledge; confirmation of their qualifications and professional skills; and upward professional mobility. such factors as protection and development of nursing in the region were cited much less frequently: changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 190–204 197 to pass the accreditation at work, you need to score a certain number of points. participation in activities of a professional association contribute to the accumulation of points for promotion or serve as confirmation of qualifications (chief nurse of a private multi-purpose clinic, 47 y.o., 25 years of experience); the main reasons are the opportunities for professional development, for obtaining new information (...) for gaining practical knowledge. they hold various conferences at the regional level, there are online conferences, training seminars, which is very useful and relevant. they also support participation in professional contests (...), and they share their first-hand knowledge. (...) and membership fees (...) are spent on the development of nursing in this region; they also help in difficult life situations, in conflict situations directly with the employer who provides protection (senior nurse of the physiotherapy department, 53 y.o., 32 years of experience). it should be noted that some respondents indicated that for some nurses their membership in professional association was more an obligation rather than a voluntary impulse. for senior and chief nurses, membership in a professional association is determined by their job responsibilities and status: in our area, all chief nurses are members of the association (chief nurse of a private clinic, 56 y.o., 37 years of experience). nurses noted that in practice, what professional associations offered was in line with their personal expectations. those respondents for whom confirmation of their qualifications was an important factor pointed out that their membership in a professional organization helped them raise their social status: i guess, yes. they have a charter, everything is spelled out, what are the pros and cons. it is also publicly available. in our country, the head of this association is the chief nurse of the region (...), there are very competent people who can give advice, if something is not clear, discuss some orders, or something else, that is, from the professional point of view, they support you very well (senior nurse of a physiotherapy unit, 53 y.o., 32 years of experience). 2. the role of professional associations in nurses’ daily practices nurses’ decision to join a professional association often depends on their opinions about the role such associations play in everyday life of the professional nursing community, including the lives of respondents themselves. nurses pay attention to such functions of professional associations as training and exchange of experience, support in professional growth, communication platform, and, in some cases, financial support: they gather us every month, conduct training in different fields, talk about innovations in medical education. they also congratulate us on professional holidays. they also hold large educational events, a lot of people come there: students, doctors and medical staff, but this happens just several times a year. https://changing-sp.com/ 198 natalia a. akimova, elena n. medvedeva they gather chief nurses for conferences on a monthly basis (chief nurse of a private clinic, 56 y.o., 37 years of experience). all respondents in this group agreed that professional associations not only contributed to their personal success but also to the general prestige of the profession: yes, professional contests prove it. (...) but then again, if you are constantly advancing in your profession, only [then] the association can help you with something, promote and support you (senior nurse working in intensive care, 45 y.o., 25 years of experience). respondents, however, also observed that in their daily work they did not face the need to contact a professional association in order to protect the rights of workers: no, we didn’t have it; there was no need to contact the association (nurse working in a laboratory, 27 y.o., 7 years of experience). 3. nurses’ interest in activities of a professional association a sign of respondents’ interest in the activities of professional associations can be their willingness to participate in the events organized by such associations. our respondents mentioned that they took part in scientific, educational and qualification activities that raised their status in the profession. in other words, respondents of the second subgroup, considered membership in a professional association as an essential practical component of their work: yes, i take part in such events. for example, (...) the annual conference ‘sanitary autumn’, it is held both for doctors and nurses. there are different sections there, and i participate in it every year (senior nurse of a physiotherapy unit, 53 y.o., 32 years of experience). all nurses of this subgroup answered affirmatively to the question about membership, explaining this by the need for continuing education, obtaining relevant medical information and professional development: the association is very active in organizing events, contests, and it provides information, so it has a developed structure (senior nurse working in intensive care, 45 y.o., 25 years of experience). some respondents pointed out the importance of leadership skills in raising nurses’ awareness of the activities of professional associations. in some regional offices, apart from the members who were obliged to participate as a part of their duties as a senior or head nurse, there were also active members who participated on their own accord: you know, some people say: ‘where is my money? i don’t see what i get in return’, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is like that. (...) you understand, leadership qualities are needed here, that’s how one gets by in this profession. (...) personnel, nurse leaders who can show by personal example what is really necessary at this stage. (...) it’s not only the head nurses that are members, no. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 190–204 199 so, in 2014, i invited 60 people, i have their applications. we just need to speak more about it, the information should be accessible to people (chief nurse of a multi-purpose private clinic, 47 y.o., 25 years of experience). discussion and conclusions the lack of nursing associations in many russian regions is connected with the paradoxical situation in the country’s health care management. on the one hand, the existence of public associations and their active work in russia shows the professional community’s desire to transition to the public management model in the healthcare sector; on the other hand, the above-mentioned management model is a relatively new phenomenon in this country. the federal law of the russian federation no. 315-fz “o samoreguliruemyh organizacijah” [“on self-regulatory organizations”] was adopted only in 2007. according to this law, a self-regulatory organization can develop and adopt standards and rules for professional activity, disciplinary measures, business ethics, that is, requirements for all members of this organization. the rna’s charter published on the association’s website makes a reference to this law (russian nurses association [rna], 2008, clause 1.5). thus, membership in a professional nursing association entails acknowledgement of the norms and rules stipulated by the law and the charter and thereby the consent to comply with them. the latter indicates a specialist’s willingness to take responsibility. the structure of regional nursing associations in russia is extremely diverse: in some regions, this function is performed by associations of medical workers, in others – by regional branches of national public organizations, and in some regions there no professional associations at all. it should be noted that not all russian regions have branches of medical and other professional organizations (ivanova, 2013). thus, even those nurses who are willing to join a professional organization may be not able to do so. other factors preventing nurses from joining professional organizations are the lack of interest or motivation as well as the lack of awareness of the activities and functions of such organizations. according to l. rapp and p. collins (1999), the lack of information about the goals and objectives of an association as well as the practical benefits of membership were often mentioned by nurses as important reasons for their decision not to join. thus, broader information support in regions can be recommended as one of the strategies for attracting members into professional organizations. studying the problem of membership in professional nursing organizations in iran, m. esmaeili et al. (2013) found out that the lack of motivation was one of the reasons for refusing membership as people didn’t consider the organization’s performance as efficient. other reasons included the general lack of interest in profession and negative publicity of professional nursing organizations (esmaeili, et al., 2013). the factors contributing to the popularity of professional nurses associations can be quite diverse: starting from the formal obligations (chief and senior nurses are expected to be members of such organizations) and ending with personal interest and commitment to the organization’s goals and mission. the need for https://changing-sp.com/ 200 natalia a. akimova, elena n. medvedeva certification and the support of nursing managers can be indicative of a rather formal and passive attitude of the respondents to membership. these factors, however, can play a serious role in people’s decision to join an organization or leave it: a study of professional nurses communities in kuwait has shown that people’s decisions were often influenced by the policies initiated by senior managers of nurses in their workplaces (alotaibi, 2007). the order of the ministry of health of the russian federation no. 240n of april 23, 2013 “o poryadke i srokah prohozhdeniya medicinskimi rabotnikami i farmacevticheskimi rabotnikami attestacii dlya polucheniya kvalifikacionnoj kategorii” [“on the procedure and dates of certification for medical and pharmaceutical workers for a qualification category”] specifies the evaluation criteria, which include participation in the work of a scientific society and professional association (par. 24). thus, nurses may decide to join a professional organization in order to improve their qualifications and pass the certification. the same order states that the expert group’s report should include the assessment of the specialist’s theoretical knowledge and practical skills necessary to assign the declared qualification category, including knowledge of modern diagnostic and treatment methods, participation in the work of a scientific community and professional association; publications (par. 24, section iii of the order). the order was amended in 2019 and it now specifies that the appointment of the chairman of a territorial certification committee should be agreed upon with a medical professional non-profit organization. thus, the rna is directly involved in the process of nurses’ certification. as active members of professional associations, nurses pay particular attention to professional development programs, prospects related to continuing professional education and the benefits of social interaction with other members of the organization. membership in professional organizations provides opportunities for professional growth, for obtaining advanced training, exchanging new ideas and knowledge, learning about advanced achievements of medical science, and professional socialization. professional organizations enable nurses to develop a sense of identity with their professional community. indeed, real career prospects, opportunities for improving the qualification and skills contribute to the prestige of the profession in society – the latter, in turn, can affect the change in the public perception of the nursing profession and help retain the nursing staff. in many countries, membership in professional organizations is associated with the protection of workplace rights. such organizations assist nurses in demanding a pay increase, the reduction of working hours, improvement of the working conditions. they also promote professional independence, organize leisure activities, and arrange meetings with government officials and prominent public figures to express their professional concerns and legislative initiatives. despite the fact that the rna charter mentions the protection of the rights and legitimate interests of medical personnel with secondary special and higher education specializing in nursing among its goals, there is no established practice of applying to public associations for protection of employees’ rights in russia. the development and discussion of professional standards is the main area related to the support of labor rights changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 190–204 201 of medical personnel by professional associations. our respondents noted that they were not aware of the cases when their colleagues applied to a professional organization for legal assistance or protection. in its 2017 report, the rna indicated the following areas of work: accreditation and development of continuing medical education; scientific and practical activities; public activities to improve public health literacy; development of professional standards; protection of professional interests and international cooperation. protection of interests is described the following way: in 2017, the russian nurses association conducted a continuous dialogue with the heads of the ministry of health of the russian federation and the central committee of the trade union of health workers of the russian federation concerning nurses and junior personnel salaries (russian nurses association [rna], 2017). we believe, however, that the legal protection of nurses’ interests provided by this professional association is limited to counselling on certain legal aspects of labor activity. this situation is quite different from the practices of professional organizations in other countries, where members are provided with comprehensive legal protection, including representation in court. the factors determining the decision of nurses concerning their membership in a professional association include objective and subjective factors; the latter correspond to respondents’ active or passive attitude towards the activities of professional associations, regardless of their membership (subgroup of members and subgroup of non-members). members of professional associations that demonstrate a passive attitude tend to view their membership as an opportunity to confirm their qualifications or as related to their job responsibilities (obligatory participation). non-members demonstrating a passive attitude usually lack interest in public associations (personal indifference). members of professional associations with an active attitude generally seek to acquire new knowledge and to improve their status (voluntary participation). non-members demonstrating an active attitude are quite skeptical about the efficiency of professional associations (professional agnosticism). the awareness of nurses of the functions and nature of work conducted by professional associations in russia is of great importance. according to our study, nurses’ degree of awareness ranges from the complete lack of knowledge to sufficient “insider” knowledge about the activities of such associations. based on the answers of some respondents, it can be concluded that the professional associations exist only formally in the territories of certain regions, and they fail to fulfill the stated promises and functions mandatory for self-regulatory organizations. limitations in this paper, the method of qualitative content analysis is used for interpreting the interview data. however, unlike the data used for quantitative content analysis, such content cannot always be clearly interpreted and the research results may be difficult to reproduce. https://changing-sp.com/ 202 natalia a. akimova, elena n. medvedeva references alotaibi, m. 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https://www.consultant.ru/cons/cgi/online.cgi?req=doc&base=law&n=330496&fld=134 https://www.consultant.ru/cons/cgi/online.cgi?req=doc&base=law&n=330496&fld=134 https://nppir.ru/pdf/02np312.pdf https://medsestre.ru/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ustav-rams.pdf http://medsestre34.ru/assets/files/files/itog2017.pdf http://medsestre34.ru/assets/files/files/itog2017.pdf https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5287&context=dissertations https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5287&context=dissertations https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2048-7940.2004.tb00331.x https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2048-7940.2004.tb00331.x https://doi.org/10.1016/s8755-7223(03)00104-2 https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.4770060203 204 natalia a. akimova, elena n. medvedeva appendix 1 guide to the semi-structured interview (for respondents who are members of professional associations). 1. are you a member of a professional association? 2. what professional medical association do you belong to? 3. how long have you been a member of a professional association? 4. what were your reasons for joining a professional association? 5. what were your expectations when joining a professional association? 6. what role does a professional association play in your life? 7. have there been cases when a professional association managed to protect your rights or the rights of your colleagues? 8. do professional associations help to enhance the prestige of nursing as a profession? 9. have you participated in any events organized by a professional association? 10. do you plan to renew your membership in a professional association in the future? why or why not? changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 225–242 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.3.073 received 18 august 2019 © 2019 marina v. volkova, accepted 21 september 2019 jol stoffers, dmitry m. kochetkov published online 5 october 2019 m.v.volkova@urfu.ru jol.stoffers@zuyd.nl kochetkovdm@hotmail.com article education projects for sustainable development: evidence from ural federal university1 marina v. volkova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia jol stoffers research centre for employability, zuyd university of applied sciences, heerlen, the netherlands dmitry m. kochetkov peoples’ friendship university of russia (rudn university), moscow, russia national research university higher school of economics, moscow, russia abstract sustainable development is a worldwide recognized social and political goal, discussed in both academic and political discourse and with much research on the topic related to sustainable development in higher education. since mental models are formed more effectively at school age, we propose a new way of thinking that will help achieve this goal. the authors undertook this study in the context of russia, where the topic of sustainable development in education has been yet poorly developed. the authors used the classical methodology of the case analysis. the analysis and interpretation of the results employed the framework of the institutional theory. presented is the case of ural federal university, which has been working for several years on the creation of a device for the purification of industrial sewer water in the framework of an initiative student group. schoolchildren recently joined the program, and such projects have been called university-to-school projects. successful solutions for inventive tasks contribute to the formation of mental models. this case has been analyzed in terms of institutionalism, and the authors argue for the primacy of mental institutions over normative ones during 1 this study was first presented at the international conference on sustainable cities (sandler, volkova, & kochetkov, 2018). https://changing-sp.com/ 226 marina v. volkova, jol stoffers, dmitry m. kochetkov sustainable society construction. this case study is the first to analyze a partnership between a federal university and local schools regarding sustainable education and proposes a new way of thinking. keywords sustainable development, sustainable education, university-to-school projects, mental institutions, case study, russia acknowledgements the authors wish to express their gratitude to anonymous reviewers, who made this paper much better. the study was conducted with the financial support of the russian foundation for basic research, project 18-00-01040 komfi “the impact of emerging technologies on urban environment and the quality of life of urban communities”. introduction two polar viewpoints exist regarding earth’s climate, with proponents and opponents of the concept of global warming agreeing that humanity has contributed to climate change. researchers are paying more and more attention to studying the causes and effects of climate change from the standpoint of social sciences (jorgenson et al., 2019; rosa, rudel, york, jorgenson, & dietz, 2015; rosa & dietz, 2012). the growth of the world’s population and technological advancements have required increasing amounts of energy, which can be obtained only by burning fuel. consequently, technogenic pollution of the planet has grown steadily over the years and air quality in large cities does not meet regulatory standards, leading to increases to respiratory, cardiovascular, and allergenic diseases and generating annual financial losses comparable to the gdp of a small country. another prominent issue is water quality. the amount of water in nature is fixed, and for use in industry, agriculture, and everyday life, the only freshwater is suitable. contaminated water causes a decrease in the quality of drinking water, thermal pollution of water bodies, and flooding of territories. the demand for water has reached a level such that in many places, including europe, there is an acute problem regarding the lack of freshwater. scientists warn that in one or two generations, most of the world’s population will lack freshwater (connor, 2013). in a synthesis report, the united nations (un) secretary-general stressed sustainable development goals (sdg) for everyone (united nations, 2014) and that no one should be left behind (chin & jacobsson, 2016). universities have demonstrated a trend of redesigning their strategies and organizations in line with principles of sustainability (beynaghi et al., 2016). sustainability is then changing from a component of education to a social learning process (barth & michelsen, 2013). universities commonly join global networks such as the sustainable development solutions network, supported by the un, the international sustainable campus network (iscn), the association for the advancement of sustainability in higher education (aashe) in the united states, and the environmental association changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 225–242 227 for universities and colleges (eauc) in the united kingdom (soini, jurgilevich, pietikäinen, & korhonen-kurki, 2018). a modern interpretation of sustainable development includes environmental, economic, and social dimensions (farley & smith, 2013; kuhlman & farrington, 2010; shriberg, 2004). the un’s vision emphasizes the role of education in building the future (united nations, 2015). concerning education for sustainable development (esd), this does not entail gathering recyclable materials, feeding birds in winter, and participation in ecological events. these are essential components, but not the most vital to the present argument. several studies suggest that the growth of professional knowledge of a scientific, technological, and socioeconomic nature directly enhances an innovative development path (barth & michelsen, 2013). thus, for the greening of production to occur, there must be an increase in the general culture of people in an area. the pivotal outcome of the intellectualization of the population is the emergence of intellectual and innovative space. its functioning requires the new type of behavior, not only for individuals but for the social and economic systems as a whole. intellectualization of the population and various innovations arising from it cannot develop in a short time; any society needs an extended period for its maturation, which includes the accumulation of knowledge and then turning it into a way of thinking that is suitable to the bulk of the population. intellectual loners can only offer original ideas, describe them, and make prototypes, but only the collective efforts of a skilled workforce can transfer ideas into mass production. as a source of knowledge accumulation and generation, secondary and higher education moves to the forefront of the development of a sustainable society. relevant skills and competencies are essential to implementing the paradigm of sustainable development (bochko, 2015). competence-oriented programs have been recognized as a factor in the transition of education in the direction of sustainable development (jacobi, toledo, & grandisoli, 2016), a concept that many empirical studies support (dlouhá, glavič, & barton, 2017). nevertheless, most discussions on the formation of competencies relevant to sustainable development are conducted in the context of higher education (lambrechts, mulà, ceulemans, molderez, & gaeremynck, 2013; mulà et al., 2017; wiek, withycombe, & redman, 2011). one viewpoint suggests that the agenda of sustainable development within a framework of educational discourse is controversial and problematic, with some authors arguing that education on sustainable development is a product and carrier of globalization (jickling & wals, 2008). many universities throughout the world have adopted sustainable development as part of their mission; however, most sd efforts were not holistically integrated throughout the hei system. the level of individual competences is well-reviewed in lozano et al. (2015). kasimov (2013) summarizes esd in russia as the following: the ideology of esd in russia as a whole is not denied, but it is not perceived as a universal educational paradigm that objectively reflects the challenges of the time. promotion of esd in russia objectively corresponds to the interests of the country, but in fact, it is inhibited. https://changing-sp.com/ 228 marina v. volkova, jol stoffers, dmitry m. kochetkov the same is demonstrated by ermakov (2013), who surveyed esd experts, including researchers, university professors, methodologists, and activists of public organizations. the average assessment of the implementation of the un’s economic commission for europe (ece) strategy objectives for esd in the russian federation (on a 4-point scale: 0=activity has not started, 1=activity is in process, 2=activity is developing, and 3=activity is completed) was only 0.5. a survey of teachers in several regions of russia conducted by the same author demonstrates that 77.4% of respondents are aware of the need for esd implementation in all educational institutions and at all levels of education. however, only a small portion (10.8%) perceive that their methodological training is sufficient for esd implementation, and 30.4% found it difficult to answer, which most likely indicates poor familiarity with esd (ermakov, 2011). within the framework of technical education, teachers often treat sustainable development as an “aspect” of engineering (mulder, desha, & hargroves, 2013). sustainability issues need to be addressed at the meta-level, using a holistic system approach, so that educators can make decisions about conflicting issues arising from (sub)disciplinary analysis. this approach was implemented, for example, at the energy engineering graduate program at başkent university (wood & edis, 2011). we argue that sustainable development requires not only skills and competencies but the formation of stable patterns of thinking. it is the point where secondary education comes to the forefront since the establishment of mental models at an early age is much more effective. children are required to study at school from 7 to 16 years. in junior classes, the students at the natural sciences lessons are taught generally about the environment and ecology. there are also olympiads of ecological directions for students. in some schools, children, under the guidance of teachers and supervisors, write reports or conduct feasibility studies, often an analysis of data from the internet, on environmental topics. at university, this type of education ceases due to the organization of studies such that at the department level (apart from specialized ones), sustainable development and ecology are not primary subjects. consequently, students have acquired some knowledge on the topic, but a way of thinking has not been formed. there is also currently a lack of innovative breakthroughs in the field of sustainable education. anthropogenic impacts on the earth’s biosphere is so global that governments of the world must cooperate in the field of ecology, though nuances are at play. a desire to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere led to heated debates concerning the paris climate agreement. one country might have concerns about reducing the anthropogenic impact on the planet, and another, for example, great britain, uses a climate agenda to protect its market. some argue that global markets have a problem with carbon protectionism, which can lead to sanctions and pressure on national economies (kilkiş, 2015). in this context, the withdrawal of the united states from the paris agreement represents merely the protection of the national business. taking the problem more broadly, the entire history of the struggle for sustainable development is parallel to the history of the battle of the population for the environment, whereas, for entrepreneurs, it is for profit. pollution control facilities are often too expensive for medium and small businesses, leaving an uneven advantage for large plants and enterprises. thus, the choice between profit and environment changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 225–242 229 among most entrepreneurs in the world is evident. the only deterrent to ecological irresponsibility is the regulatory role of the government regarding environmental protection with the different forms of punishment such as penalties, sanctions, etc. there are entrepreneurs for whom taking care of the environment is a priority, but for most, profit comes first, and delegating environmental expenditures is an afterthought. the most environmentally conscious are young people who grew up and received education at a time when ecological problems became relevant and were discussed openly. as practice demonstrates, if a person has been exposed to environmental education since childhood, according to them, a businessperson and an ecologist should be able to make an inner compromise. as in most emerging countries, there is nearly no formal education policy concerning sustainable development in russia. in this context, such projects are particularly important. we analyze the experiences of a partnership between ural federal university and local schools regarding sustainable education, and we call such projects university-to-school projects. recent research a detailed review of the literature is beyond the scope of this study, especially now a sufficient number of reviews in the field have been published. we can refer an interested reader, for example, to the work of agbedahin (2019), which draws a certain line under empirical research and suggests future directions of research in the field of esd. the work shows the relationship between education for sustainable development (esd) and the achievement of sustainable development goals (sdg). the researchers paid considerable attention to the nexus between environmental education and esd. franco et al. (2018) analyze the practice of applying esd in educational policies and curricula. the authors argued that the achievement of sdg largely depends on a better understanding of the existing gaps, focus areas, and regional differences between the higher education for sustainable development (hesd) policies. sinakou, boeve-de pauw, goossens, & van petegem (2018) found that teachers do not take the concept of sustainable development holistically; usually, they put more emphasis on the economic and social aspects of sd. the authors of the article argued that teacher training programs should implement a holistic approach. the russian researchers came to similar conclusions highlighting the following problems in the development of esd (grishaeva, wagner, tkacheva, lugovskoy, & moro, 2018): • the discrepancy between the trends of higher education and the objective demands in society and politics that contradict sustainable development in general; • insufficient level of development of critical thinking of students in the process of environmental education as well as the pedagogical problem of the formation of students’ reflective experience; • the problem of “locality” and “narrow targeting” of learning content; • the problem of the development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to environmental education; • the issue of pedagogical adaptation of axiological bases of esd. https://changing-sp.com/ 230 marina v. volkova, jol stoffers, dmitry m. kochetkov the study by svanström, sjöblom, segalàs, & fröling (2018) considered the possibility of using multivariate data analysis (mvda) and concept maps in the learning process. the work showed the relationship between personal characteristics and background of students, on the one hand, and performance in esd, on the other. the work by molderez and ceulemans (2018) highlighted systems thinking as a critical competence for esd. interestingly, the development of systems thinking, in this case, is built through the perception of the pieces of art. molderez and fonseca (2018) stressed the importance of real-world experience and service learning for the formation of sustainable development competencies. materials and methods we use the case study methodology as a research basis, a method that focuses on conducting intensive analyses of a situation that involves considering the context and using a combination of different research methods (i.e., qualitative and quantitative), data collection, and analysis. the technique was described by eisenhardt (1989) and yin (2003), who proposed an interpretation of the essence of a case study as a research strategy. most contemporary researchers refer to stake (2000/2008) and yin (2003, 2004), which became fundamental to subsequent studies based on the situational approach (easton, 2010; ellet, 2007; naumes & naumes, 2006). researchers identify inherent problems with the case study method. assessing higher education sustainability case studies, corcoran, walker, and wals (2004) discuss a gap between the internal need for contextual significance/importance and external demand for transferability/abstraction. case studies are introspective and justified within a single institutional reality. if the purpose of a case study is to improve one’s institutional practices, this might be sufficient, but if the goal is also to improve institutional practices elsewhere, the analysis structure should take this into account. therefore, during the current analysis, importance was placed on context, including the institutional landscape. analysis of institutions enables a better understanding of the processes within a social system as a whole. in recent decades, institutional analysis, sometimes differentiated during neo-institutional analyses, has developed actively in numerous approaches. the tradition of the new institutional economics is grounding in the writings from north (1990), eccles and williamson (1987), and others. in sociology, the contemporary institutional analysis was summarized by w. scott, m. brinton, v. nee, p. di maggio, and w. powell (romanelli, powell, & dimaggio, 1992; scott, brinton, & nee, 1999). culture and symbolism are given much greater emphasis in institutional analysis than in standard, primarily economic, studies of organizations and behavior (ostrom, 2011). we understand institutions as a set of formal norms, informal constraints, and coercive mechanisms (north, 1990). institutions can be divided broadly into four groups: • normative – norms, rules, customs, standards, conventions, contracts, etc. (north, 1990); • functional – status functions and routines (nelson, 1994; searle, 1995). • structural – organizational forms and models of transactions (scott, 1995). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 225–242 231 • mental – collective representations, beliefs, stereotypes, values, cognitive schemes, etc. (denzau & north, 1994). we undertook the study based on the case of ural federal university (yekaterinburg, russia); we describe the case in the next section. the institutional analysis enables evaluation of the theoretical relevance of the case and its policy implications for russia and the world. results we argue that it is necessary to use school environmental practices during the initial days of a project at a university, and essential to involve students when solving practical problems. those who engaged in ecological problems at school take the work willingly. the task should not be too narrow, but rather large, incorporating knowledge from multiple areas. as an example, we cite the disposal and treatment of polluted waters of small combined heat and power stations (chp), and thermal power plants (tpp). the primary sources of hot water and heating are also the fundamental origins of pollution in a living area due to their locations. losses of heat supply from chps and tpps increase depending on the distance to consumers. historically, many of them concentrate in urban environments where it is impossible to place cooling ponds, sludge accumulators, etc. at the same time, a variety of heat exchangers, scrubbers, and other equipment can be used. due to technological processes, a large amount of contaminated water is emitted during steam condensation at a chp or tpp. an even more tremendous amount (10 to 15 times more than has been discharged) is needed to ensure that condensation and cooling of discharged water occur at the end. the most conservative estimates show that even a small chp plant incurs significant losses as a result, and if we add the cost of water treatment and its disposal, the amount increases. chps and tpps use water for washing boilers and other mechanisms, and if this water is thus returned to circulation for reuse, several problems can be solved simultaneously – reducing water consumption, reducing heat pollution, and obtaining an additional product – which will make the process more attractive to potential consumers and investors. such research has been conducted at ural federal university since 2008 under the supervision of m. volkova, exclusively by students or volunteers who are not engaged in specialized departments. the problem involves a broad range of issues, including the creation of a purification technique with the help of developed biofilters and the study of the complete use of filters. the team of students changed over the years, and the range of tasks varied. each student can choose the direction in which they work. for example, construction of a prototype is more suited to builders, use and production to physicists, and biochemists might conduct a study of optimal conditions for the operation of biofilters. these students publish their findings, resulting in the formation of ecological thinking. the team that is the focus of this study is uncommon; its composition changes regularly, all students are technical specialists, and the principle is voluntary work. work in the research team occurs during the first year, and there is no compensation https://changing-sp.com/ 232 marina v. volkova, jol stoffers, dmitry m. kochetkov or funding. the team is working on a topical issue; the leader wants to show that environmental protection is not costly, as is commonly believed. groups of similarminded people wishing to improve the ecological situation are capable of solving environmental problems. the need for such work appears to be shaped by the educational component, in addition to the environmental one, and there was thus a desire to attract students to scientific work to broaden their horizons and develop their creative abilities. the involvement of students in solving practical environmental problems was effective. students’ engagement during their first year empowers a system of continuous ecological education. creativity enables personal freedom, unites similar-minded people, and distracts from reality. such teams are an excellent opportunity for the integration or inclusion of students with disabilities, who can realize their potential at creative discussions and while studying or processing experimental materials. if their state of health does not allow them to participate personally, modern means of communication allows these children to communicate remotely. for people with disabilities, much is done to create an accessible environment, but the most critical aspect is a sense of necessity and usefulness to others, achieved by working in creative teams. it enables communication with others on equal footing, a realization of one’s thoughts and projects, and in the end, raises self-esteem. we had an opportunity to verify this statement from experience. in a team of students during the ural project session on tavatuy, there was a child with disabilities, expressed in the impossibility of concentrating continuously on work, quick fatigue, and absent-mindedness. he nevertheless gladly took readings from the instruments and research information (for a more extended period than the rest of the children). his role in preparing video reports for the presentation was irreplaceable due to his double role as both actor and director. restrictions related to his health limitations did not allow him to engage in physical labor, but in the team, he was responsible for his part of the work. what attracts students to a job that is not paid and occupies their spare time? according to the results of unstructured interviews with program participants2, the answers are: • a possibility to develop creative ideas; • an opportunity to participate in the scientific conferences; • the student might not become a scientist in the future, but an experience of presenting publicly is always useful. the first presenters are usually hesitant, and the presentations are not gripping to the audience. however, after a year or two, the students are confident speakers, communicating effectively with the audience. the only thing that remains for students to remember about their work is certificates, presentations, and publications. from the data collected, the team of researchers developed a schematic diagram of the device, which has advantages such as compactness and wastelessness and can be adapted easily to particular features of production. thus, from the original idea and due to the 2 an interview was conducted with all participants of the program, and aimed at answering two questions: 1) what is your motive for participating in the program, and 2) what results have you received/plan to get from participation in the program? changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 225–242 233 initiative of students and proposals that explore several aspects, the project divided into three parallel studies: • application of purified water (for irrigation and plant cultivation); • studying the possibility of obtaining biogas from biomass grown during the purification of condensate; • development and improvement of the machine itself (patent application is in the process now). a few issues require closer examination and study in the future. the team participated several times in competitions to receive funding from umnik3, from which we obtained good reviews. we are hopeful that funding will come, and without it, all projects will have to be postponed and possibly ended. fortunately, there are many creative children in the country, and they have a desire to contribute to environmental improvement. while working on the project and participating in conferences, the students unconsciously attracted attention to ecological issues. for this work and during different years, two received vernadsky nominal scholarships4. even more important are the social skills the students gained such that whatever they do in their lives, they will be able to rally themselves around like-minded people. interesting studies and substantial proposals were developed, with enthusiasm as the sole driver. the students had an opportunity to realize their ideas while doing something exciting and necessary. not all of them enrolled in postgraduate or master’s studies in an environmental field. from custom, we preserve the work of previous generations of student volunteers in memory of the crucial work they performed. the quantity is irrelevant; the purpose is that students have a clearer understanding of the environment as a science. some students continued their education, and the articles helped with admission to post-graduate or master’s programs, and others found employment. only 20% enrolled in environmental master’s studies, with one individual in postgraduate studies. sixty percent majored in life safety5 and chose an ecological career path after graduation. students can begin this work even earlier. beginning at grades 7 or 8, a sufficient stock of knowledge accumulates among students, and their desire to apply them to practical tasks. a striking example is the ural project session held for gifted students by ural federal university. to participate in the session, a student must pass a contest to which students from the 7th to 11th grades were admitted. the job included several directions, one of which was intellectual energy systems. during the session, a project titled purification of technical water from power plants using simple algae was developed. the team consisted of 5 people – 2 students from the 11th grade, two from 10th, and one from 8th. the students not only understood the problem entirely but developed and assembled a prototype. the device consisted of three filters (figure). 3 a program of the fund for the promotion of innovation that finances youth projects with scientific novelty (http://umnik.fasie.ru). 4 in 1996, the vernadsky fund established a scholarship awarded to environmental students and students of other majors dealing with sustainable development, and in 2004, scholarships for postgraduate and doctoral students were established (http://www.vernadsky.ru/projects-of-the-foundation/scholarships-named). 5 this major is similar to labor protection. https://changing-sp.com/ http://umnik.fasie.ru http://www.vernadsky.ru/projects-of-the-foundation/scholarships-named 234 marina v. volkova, jol stoffers, dmitry m. kochetkov contaminated water entering the pipe in the first filter (far left) is subjected to primary purification from coarse contamination. in filters 2 and 3, there are algae, in which polluted water is saturated with oxygen, which changes the hardness. indications of temperature, light, and hardness are controlled automatically by sensors on a control panel. if a sensor detects a decrease in hardness to a predetermined degree, the valve opens automatically, and purified water returns to the system or goes on to other uses (a tap is demonstrated on the stand). if the water does not reduce the hardness sufficiently, controlled by a solenoid, it returns to a new cleaning cycle. thus, a closed cycle enables the water to be purified to a predetermined value (fig. 1). figure 1. the water purification machine assembled by schoolchildren the idea was so exciting to the students that at the conclusion of the session, the team did not disband. the students created the group np team on social media and continue to participate in grant competitions. there is intent to advance the development of a comprehensive method for cleaning contaminated water from chp plants. the rector of ural federal university supported the pilot project, and students were given the opportunity to create prototypes. the only downside is that two of the students are graduating this year. however, one of the graduates is on track to enter ural federal university, and the two students of non-graduating classes (40% of the team) are participating in urfu projects. the team has also participated in the ural project session in the educational center sirius (sochi). one hundred students who had passed competitive selection attended. students from public, municipal, and private schools located in the russian federation in the regions of the urals and western siberia were eligible to participate in the competition. the purpose of the ural project session was the identification, development, and support of gifted students in design and research. tasks to be performed during the session included: changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 225–242 235 • activation of creative, cognitive, and intellectual initiatives of students who show interest and an inclination to studying mathematics and earth sciences; • identification and support of students with an aptitude for research and development; • generalization and development of best practices in the study of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology in upper grades, including preparation for olympiads, development of research and educational projects, and organization of the extracurricular work of students; • engagement of scientists, specialists from research institutions, and higher education institutions to work with students. one of the results was a project to create environmentally friendly thermal power plants using photosynthetic processes. the use of algae to produce future bioethanol fuels is currently very relevant. at the moment, based on the department of nuclear power plants and renewable energy sources with the help of talented schoolchildren, a project is being developed to obtain bioethanol from algae grown on the polluted waters of thermal power plants. the first experiments conducted by the team showed that the alcohol content in bioethanol from algae grown on water after a contact heat exchanger is 2–2.5 times higher than that of algae grown on pure water. thus, problems of recycling low-potential waste heat are solved, as well as the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and thermal pollution; ponds accumulators can be converted into bioplants. the use of the photosynthesis process technology will make it possible to significantly compensate for the oxygen consumption of the chp and tpp. at the same time, the rate of oxygen generation is 3–5 times higher than the rate in natural ecosystems when using algae and the elevated temperature of the wastewater of thermal power plants. as a result, this will lead to an increase in the quality of life of the population. thus, an overall reduction of anthropogenic impact, cleaning ponds and obtaining bioethanol will ultimately make chp and tpp more environmentally friendly. discussion and conclusions the growth of the earth’s population, industry development, and an increase in environmental pollution is not a positive prospect for the ecological future of the planet, and the younger generations realize this, the better. quietly contemplating and understanding the scale of the impending disaster is insufficient. to amend the situation, we must create, work on, and try to solve problems. there is an old soviet film, “cherez ternii k zviozdam” (through the thorns to the stars), in which earthmen visit a planet that was brought to a nearly unfit state by its inhabitants, and who spend their time doing general cleaning. the earth becomes suitable for life again. it is a fantastical dream, but we need to solve the problems ourselves. we argue that the problem can be solved through school and student environmental creativity. of course, students sometimes do not have sufficient knowledge, but enthusiasm and a desire to apply their knowledge to something important can overcome this. probably, this will https://changing-sp.com/ 236 marina v. volkova, jol stoffers, dmitry m. kochetkov not influence every student similarly, but the more such programs are available, the faster a generation will develop with a sustainable way of thinking. it is unjustified to consider that the work of students is insignificant and impractical. there are many ways to reduce emissions at chps and tpps. nearly all methods of reducing the environmental load are energy-consuming, expensive, and cumbersome, but all were developed in research institutions by large teams. students do not have the same financial resources, so they use elementary materials in their studies. the outcome is inexpensive and produces a more attractive product, and by solving a specific applied problem, it is, therefore, possible to create an active position about sustainable development in younger generations. consider the problem from an institutional theory viewpoint. normative institutions are among the most rigid formal institutions, which rely on violence as a coercive mechanism. the government relies on this type of institution. routines are repetitive, standard, and predictable procedures for solving similar problems. the theory of structural institutions was developed at the firm level, but the model also operates at the national level. it determines not only the structure itself but the model of interaction of various elements of a system. mental institutions or mental models imply a similar perception and interpretation of reality. at the core of mental institutions are values integral to the culture of the individual and society. at the same time, values are divided into both absolutes, which an individual always follows, and relatives, which are conducted only when profitable. functional and structural institutions are derived from normative and mental ones, and we can thus define the latter as primary institutions. the importance of mental institutions is greater. transaction costs of accession and evasion determine the adoption of regulatory institutions; if transaction costs of fraud are lower than the costs of compliance, a person will choose not to comply with the norm. another element of public consciousness is an ideology, which combined with institutions and mental models determines individual choices and affects economic, social, cultural, and environmental indicators. mental models, institutions, and ideologies are part of the process by which people interpret and order the environment. mental models are endogenous and to some extent unique to each person. exogenous ideologies and institutions provide a closer sharing of beliefs and ordering of the environment. relationships among mental models, ideologies, and institutions depend on the product and the environment. we do not have sufficient information about how progression occurs in mind (denzau & north, 1994), but we can assert that mental models form most effectively at a young age, and their formation occurs over a long period. in the case of mental institutions, transaction costs of evasion are incredibly high because they are supported by both social and internal mechanisms of moral evaluation. the costs of changing mental institutions are also high, and we, therefore, conclude that only people with stable mental models of sustainable development can guarantee a sustainable future. it does not negate the role of normative institutions during the transitional period since the formation of mental institutions takes a long time (at least one or two generations). during this period, normative institutions create greenhouse conditions for the development of mental institutions. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 225–242 237 sustainable development largely depends on individual competencies. nevertheless, today, there is no agreement among researchers what they should be. this case correlates with the german definition of “shaping competence” (de haan, 2006; de haan et al., 2008; rieckmann, 2012) many universities have undertaken activities for implementing higher education for sustainable development (hesd which includes: • competence in anticipatory thinking; • competence in interdisciplinary work; • competence in cosmopolitan perception and change of perspectives; • competence in handling incomplete and complex information; • participatory competence; • competence in cooperation; • competence in dealing with individual decision dilemmas; • competence in self-motivation and motivating others; • competence in reflection on personal and cultural models; • competence in independent action; • competence in ethical action; • capacity for empathy and solidarity. how does this skill set correlate with the case described? first and foremost, it is proactive thinking. one should note that the work of large research teams is often somewhat “stamped” and therefore, employees are to some extent devoid of creativity. school and university teams in this case, on the contrary, can afford any, sometimes fantastic ideas. if the concept has further development, then it can develop the competence of advanced thinking. at the same time, unviable ideas evoke a craving for knowledge, a desire to understand why this is impossible now. the project is interdisciplinary. when creating the installation, it was necessary to apply programming skills, design skills, automation skills, and management skills. each team member was responsible for the separate area, but at the same time, the students worked as one team helping each other. as a result, each of them acquired new competencies and knowledge in other disciplines. working on a project that meets one of the global challenges changes perspectives and mindset. the project presents an alternative way to absorb co2, the main greenhouse gas that poses a threat to all of humanity. thus, the understanding of the global nature of the task leads to the desire to participate. everyone participates in the work by virtue of their skills, and this creates a team. having different knowledge and skills, schoolchildren and students utterly different in character are to submit their project to the jury during the project session. they can complete the task only in close cooperation and with mutual assistance. we agree that personal background affects performance in esd (svanström et al., 2018); at the same time, teamwork smoothes the differences. each member of the team is an equal participant in the research team. this or that task is not imposed on anyone. everyone chooses a job in a project on which he works independently. the supervisor basically does not offer a ready-made solution, so the team members need to analyze the data themselves and find the missing https://changing-sp.com/ 238 marina v. volkova, jol stoffers, dmitry m. kochetkov information. sometimes, they had to use incomplete data, analyze and interpret it taking into account the capabilities and knowledge to achieve your goal. while working on the interdisciplinary project, everyone is responsible for a particular stage of work: e.g., someone can program, and someone else has design skills. the project approach enables the solution of the problem of interdisciplinarity (grishaeva et al., 2018; sinakou et al., 2018) more effectively than the traditional curriculum. besides, the case supports the thesis that real-world experience is critical for esd (molderez & fonseca, 2018). we had a situation when a member of the team responsible for connecting the automation was able to convince the team to change the design for a more reliable connection of control systems. thus, the schoolchildren formed the competence of individual decisions within the framework of their task. in the end, the schoolchildren and students working in a team have a different nationality, which leaves an imprint on the behavior of an individual. teamwork helps to make sense of one’s behavior as well to get acquainted with the behavioral models and culture and other team members. in our opinion, the ability to respect others builds the competence of ethical action, i.e., respect is a solution to axiological problems. however, we must keep in mind that we are considering the initiative of a particular university. even though such an initiative is not unique, we cannot talk about the existence of an established national policy at the moment. it is what russia really lacks. besides, we consider the case from the standpoint of institutional analysis, but sustainable development in higher education is an interdisciplinary object of study in its essence. for example, students’ perceptions, as well as community engagement, can be the subjects of further case studies and theoretical contributions. russia, with its transforming higher education system, is an extremely voluminous and significant research niche. references agbedahin, a. v. 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(2004). the case study anthology. thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2655306 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48515-x_6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.279 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.08.228 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.064 https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n14/670/01/pdf/n1467001.pdf?openelement https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n14/670/01/pdf/n1467001.pdf?openelement http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13398-014-0173-7.2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13398-014-0173-7.2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11625-011-0132-6 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 243–257 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.3.074 received 18 august 2019 © 2019 mikhail s. ilchenko accepted 17 september 2019 msilchenko@mail.ru published online 5 october 2019 article discourse of modernist heritage and new ways of thinking about socialist urban areas in eastern europe mikhail s. ilchenko institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia leibniz institute for the history and culture of eastern europe (gwzo), germany abstract dealing with the socialist urban legacy proved to become one of main challenges for the cities of eastern europe in the last decades. the fall of socialism found most of the socialist urban areas either as “rejected” heritage or as a sort of “devastated” spaces which had lost their functional meaning, symbolic significance, and any clear narratives. in such conditions, it is particularly important to watch out for those processes, which enable socialist urban legacy to acquire new languages and symbols in order to be included into the current social dynamics. this article explores the potential of the world modernist heritage discourse in giving a new approach to interpreting urban legacy of socialist era. over the past decade, the sharp increase in the activities around re-thinking and revitalization of modernist heritage turned into a global trend. for eastern europe modernist legacy appeared to become a certain lens, through which it is possible to explore various visions of the eastern european urban past within different contexts. the article seeks to reveal how the global discourse of modernist heritage influences current perceptions and attitudes towards the socialist urban legacy in the eastern european countries, and aims to find out to what extent it facilitates integration of this legacy into changing symbolic contexts. https://changing-sp.com/ 244 mikhail s. ilchenko introduction mastering the socialist urban heritage has become one of the key challenges to many eastern european cities in the last twenty years. the main concern is not caused by its current functionality such as the questions of how to efficiently adjust these buildings to the new conditions or how to integrate them into the modern urban space. rather, it is the public attitude to this heritage, and the problem of how this socialist legacy should be treated and spoken of in the present. after the demise of socialism, enormous housing and residential districts, which defined the visual distinctiveness and spatial structure of many cities for decades, lost their purpose and hardly any new meanings were attached to them in subsequent development. unsurprisingly, many authors have recently turned to exploring the ways of describing post-socialist spaces and focused on the diverse urban narratives and city texts (young & kaczmarek, 2008; czepczyński, 2010; center for urban history of east central europe, 2017; sigma, 2016). the emotional and symbolical rejection of socialist urban heritage was evidently a natural reaction to the social transformations of the 1990s. but it was a temporary stage in public discussion about this legacy (czepczyński, 2008). for many cities, socialist buildings remained essential elements of their urban space and, therefore, required new interpretations and new significations. in this context, the new approaches to interpreting modernist urban heritage in eastern european countries gained currency in diverse fields of study and cultural activism. once socialist architecture is regarded as a part of global cultural heritage of modernism, buildings and districts of socialist construction could be inscribed into new global contexts and endowed with new meanings. in eastern europe, one has to remember, modernist architecture of different parts of the region is associated with different historical periods. for countries such as poland, czech republic, slovakia, and lithuania, pre-war modernism symbolizes their newly acquired independence and, is, therefore, in stark contrast with the period of postwar socialism (szczerski, 2010; galusek, 2018). for other post-soviet states (russia, ukraine, belarus), however, this architecture ushered in an epoch of utopian socialism, which in the following decades would engender new cultural forms (cohen, 2011; kosenkova, 2009). it is, therefore, crucial to understand how modernist socialist heritage is adopted and appropriated by new urban narratives in various local contexts, and how different are the ways of interpreting it. the aim of this article is to reveal how the discourse of keywords socialist city, post-socialist city, modernist heritage, urban narratives, urban identity, discourse of world heritage, eastern europe acknowledgements this research was supported by the russian science foundation (grant №17-18-01165) changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 243–257 245 world modernist heritage influences current perceptions and public representations of the socialist urban legacy in the countries of eastern europe, and, thus, to find out to what extent it facilitates integration of this legacy into changing symbolic contexts. modernist heritage in eastern europe: global trends and local contexts since the early 2000s, increased scholarly interest in urban modernist heritage has turned into a global trend (voss & molitor, 2018; ritter & vienna center of architecture, 2013; kulić, parker & penick 2015; beil & schmitz, 2002). soviet modernist districts first of the interwar and then of the post-war period gradually garnered the attention of urban activists, scholars, architects, artists, and intellectuals from different countries all over the world. the processes around the soviet modernist heritage in eastern europe followed the global trends. every step in the symbolic “discovery” of modernist east european architecture reproduced the stages elsewhere in the world. at first, modernist districts were seen by the public as objects of special cultural significance and world “heritage” (haspel, petzet, & schmückle-mollard, 2008; icomos germany, 2013; belyakova, dushkina, & mikeska 2006), then they were turned into objects of aesthetic interest and artistic practices (prents, 2014; hoppe, 2014; pare, 2007), and later they became attractive to tourists (czepczyński, 2008, pp. 132–137; hlaváčková, 2012; gdynia city hall, 2016). one distinguishing feature shared by eastern european countries is the way of looking at modernist architecture as an embodiment of critical historical periods – periods of social experimentation and radical cultural change, which still largely determine the appearance and identity of post-socialist cities. in these conditions, managing the modernist heritage is instrumental in representing the past, its atmosphere and historical symbols. modernist districts of eastern european cities can be aestheticized or used for creating new architectural forms (bartetzky, dietz, & haspel, 2014, pp. 195–273; ershov & savitskii, 2008). they might be perceived from nostalgic and romanticized perspective (czepczyński, 2008, pp. 143–147; young & kaczmarek, 2008). they can engender the search for new cultural meanings or historical reflection (galusek, 2018; kladnik, 2009). but, one way or another, these urban districts are inevitably involved into the symbolic dialogue with the past. images of the past of eastern european cities are incorporated into the new discourses for describing modernist housing, which, in their turn, become integral to new urban narratives. it should be noted that, on the one hand, in each local context, modernist architecture refers to specific historical symbols and periods such as the formation of the soviet state, development of the new nation states in eastern europe, and strengthening of socialist regimes in the post-war period. on the other hand, this architecture also pertains to the narrative of global cultural heritage, which incorporates all these countries, cities, periods and epochs into unified symbolic space, blurring the national and historical boundaries. this double implication is particularly relevant to the architecture of socialist modernism, which thus acquires new opportunities for representation outside specific ideological interpretations. https://changing-sp.com/ 246 mikhail s. ilchenko the article sets out to examine the cases of several countries, in particular the means and ways of inscribing socialist urban districts into the narrative of global modernist heritage. the second part of the article explores contemporary public representations of the districts in former socialist cities in russia and ukraine; these districts were an example of interwar modernist urban architecture in the soviet union. the third part focuses on the cases of two polish cities: katowice, which became a site of intensive modernist construction in the interwar and postwar periods, and krakow with its industrial district of nowa huta, a symbol of socialist urban construction in post-war eastern europe. the analysis mostly deals with policy documents, presentation materials and strategies of urban development, materials of multiple art projects, as well as expert interviews with urban and social activists, representatives of the active urban community who take part in the preservation of the modernist heritage in post-socialist cities. in a word, the material analyzed here comprises all the sources, which could shed light on the dominant ways of representing the eastern european modernist urban heritage in the public discourse that is defined and shaped by the “expert community” (lefebvre, 1991). consequently, this paper follows the tradition that analyzes urban space as a “social product” (lefebvre, 1991; soja, 1996), in particular, its dominant perceptions and representations established in the public discourse (lefebvre, 1991; fraser, 2015; stanek, 2011). soviet city in the world heritage discourse interest in soviet architecture and urban heritage has recently become one of the major cultural trends (neville & wilson, 2013; pare, 2007; ritter & vienna center of architecture, 2013; ershov & savitskii, 2008). soviet urban spaces attract more and more not only scholarly but also public attention – of artists, social activists, journalists, and other members of urban community. this interest was spurred by a variety of factors, most importantly, the view of soviet architecture as a part of the world cultural heritage. such perspective reinforced and to a great extent legitimized the new perception of soviet urban spaces, engendering new interpretations. this trend was particularly pronounced in the case of inter-war modernist architecture – constructivist and avant-garde structures represented as a part of the huge global urban-planning project of the 1920s and 1930s. a good example in this respect are socialist cities (“sotsgorod”). construction of sotsgorod micro-districts was one of the most ambitious large-scale town-planning projects aimed at creating experimental territories with communal housing clustered around industrial factories in the 1920s and 1930s (miliutin, 1930; kotkin, 1997; flierl, 2012; meerovich, 2011). after the collapse of the ussr, sotsgorod districts lost their former meanings and turned into typical urban outskirts and low-income, often disadvantaged areas of megapolises. the public perceived them as spaces “from the past” and associated them with the grey soviet daily life. it, therefore, seems remarkable that since the mid-2000s, it was this architecture that has started to attract public attention to sotsgorod districts. both changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 243–257 247 expert communities and wider public came to the view that many buildings located in these areas (for example, avtozavod [automobile plant] district of nizhny novgorod, sotsgorod in magnitogorsk and uralmash [ural heavy machine building plant] in yekaterinburg) are of particular architectural and historical value, and the areas themselves are in fact full-fledged historical sites and monuments of socialist townplanning (belova & savitskaia, 2011, pp. 7–32; starikov, 1998; bauhaus na urale, 2008). in the perception of the mass public, this situation led to a clash between two completely irreconcilable realities – the unremarkable, dreary reality of everyday life, on the one hand, and that of universal value and significance, commonly identified as “cultural heritage”, on the other. the key factor, which enhanced this effect was the tendency to see spaces of sotsgorod in the context of global trends in town-planning and art. the districts, which were routinely perceived by the majority as “soviet” started to be represented as a part of the world cultural legacy. this change in the public attitude largely originated in a series of research, art, and education projects devoted to the work of foreign specialists who participated in designing and constructing sotsgorod districts in different corners of the ussr in the 1920s and 1930s, primarily the graduates of the renowned “bauhaus” school (see, for example, bauhaus na urale, 2008; tokmeninova, 2010; obshchee, 2010). what mattered most was not the specific historical evidence or the real significance of their work, but the very fact of the symbolical involvement of “bauhaus” brand into creating what seemed to be absolutely ordinary soviet districts. the case of uralmash is particularly illustrative in this respect. uralmash is one of the largest sotsgorod built in the 1930s next to the ural heavy machine building plant in the city of sverdlovsk (now – yekaterinburg). in the early 2000s, uralmash became a platform for the collaborative russian-german project “das bauhaus im ural”, which searched for traces of the work of those bauhaus graduates who moved to the ussr and worked at industrial sites of ural towns and cities in the 1930s. in the case of uralmash, this project was mostly associated with the name of german architect bela scheffler. the archival investigation has shown that not only was scheffler specially invited to work in the design department of uralmashstroi (a trust that was in charge of construction at the plant) in 1932 but he also participated in the construction of the key objects of the sotsgorod and was involved in the discussion of the key questions of its development. in later periods, his real role and extent of participation in the planning of uralmash was a question much discussed by architects. these matters, however, were secondary in comparison with the fact of the symbolical involvement of “bauhaus” brand into the creation of uralmash sotsgorod. in the early 2000s, the very awareness of this fact produced a powerful emotional effect: “in our uralmash – a bauhaus architect?” “a graduate of the celebrated art school worked in uralmash... incredible!” was a typical reaction of local inhabitants to the newly discovered historical evidence (see rastorguev, 2011, p. 206; dzhapakov, 2002). such emotional reaction was important because it allowed people to see the sotsgorod district in a new light, outside the usual context: while previously it was mostly associated with “soviet” and “industrial” and at later stages came to be known https://changing-sp.com/ 248 mikhail s. ilchenko as a dangerous, crime-ridden neighborhood, now familiar buildings, which used to be nothing more than a background for everyday city life, were presented to the public as exemplars of unique aesthetic and historical value. a half-abandoned marginal space was turned into a “sanctuary of constructivism”. in much the similar way sotsgorod districts of kharkiv and zaporizhia (ukraine) are now considered on a par with world famous monuments of modernist architecture in dessau and frankfurt am main (obshchee, 2010). in its turn, the sotsgorod in nizhny novgorod is now represented as one of the “world’s major utopias” due to the fact that foreign specialists were involved in the construction of the gorky automobile plant (austin, 2004). another site, which used to be all but forgotten but is now featured in the spotlight of public attention, ready to be included into the unesco world heritage list, is the sotsgorod in novokuznetsk. what made it popular is the fact that it was designed by the team of celebrated german architect and town planner ernst may (bendichenko, 2013). thus, soviet urban spaces have suddenly been refashioned into a “heritage” of paramount global importance (kiaer, 2005, pp. 264–265). it was the discourse of “heritage” that first allowed public positive representation of soviet architecture and brought it beyond the dispute about ideology or politics. new symbolical interpretations start to be applied not only to specific architectural structures but also to whole sovietera districts, which have now turned into the “soviet urban legacy”. for example, the modernist housing complexes of the 1920s and 1930s often attract scholarly and public attention not only because of their stylistic, aesthetic or town-planning characteristics but also because of the epoch they represent and stand for. this leads to the formation of the discourse of “unrealized utopia”, which offers a new way of talking about the soviet interwar architecture. the “utopian” discourse changes the angle of looking at modernist districts in the post-soviet context. they capture our attention because they contain signs and specific markers of the period. a good illustration is the art project “communal avant-garde”, which sought to turn uralmash in yekaterinburg and avtozavod in nizhny novgorod into a space for promenades, contemplation and research (belova & savitskaia, 2011). in the introduction devoted to uralmash, the authors emphasized that uralmash is a fascinating ruin, in which it is hard to tell the traces of the real from the traces of the utopian. this article is aimed at helping you, dear reader, to find the main objects of a sotsgorod [...] but in doing so, you have to follow one basic rule: please add the word “probably” to all our recommendations. for example, on the right side of the street you [probably!] will see this or that and you [probably!] will have to turn into this or that side-street. you are probably setting off to walk across a non-existent place but along the way, you will probably be able to find its shadows and echoes (belova & savitskaia, 2011, p. 35). this text, which has a strong emotional appeal and employs a creative play of images, reveals an important characteristic in the representation of the past of sotsgorod districts: on the one hand, this past appears as a real historical period, changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 243–257 249 tangible and ready to be experienced immediately through specific artefacts, buildings, and structures. on the other hand, the same artefacts and the special atmosphere of the experimental town-planning sites construct the image of the interwar period as a remote epoch of high hopes and expectations, which has its own historical characteristics but also produces the impression of being situated outside specific time frames. “sometimes you get the feeling that a sotsgorod district is a thing in itself. that this utopian city wasn’t built in the soviet union. as if not during the famine of 1932–1933. as if its construction time is beyond our grasp”, says pyotr boyko, an urbanist and researcher, describing his impressions from the district of the sixth settlement in zaporizhia (expert interview with pyotr boyko, 2017). the process, which initially involved only narrow circles of enthusiasts, eventually became a massive trend. sotsgorod districts were increasingly regarded by the mass media and the public as places that were interesting to visit in order to get the authentic feel of the soviet era, see the unique architecture and marvel at the innovative townplanning solutions. information on sotsgorod districts was included into travel guides and the contours of these areas were highlighted in tourist maps, while the need for conservation of these districts as objects of particular “historical and cultural significance” was mentioned in various strategies and projects of urban development (asriian, 2014; kamenskii, 2017; zaporizhzhia city council, 2018). public discussions of sotsgorod districts as unique objects of world legacy at numerous conferences, exhibitions, festivals, presentations, and round tables put them in the spotlight and filled these spaces with new meanings and new significance. such discussions often contributed to the creation of this – to a great extent mythologized – image. for example, the sotsgorod in zaporizhia, now often marked on tourist maps and featured in guidebooks, was not just “rediscovered” but to a certain extent became an intellectually constructed urban space with boundaries replicating the contours of the unrealized town-planning projects of the soviet era (see, for example, mordovskiĭ, 2011). most importantly, all these myths, symbols, real and fictional stories endowed these territories with a new public image and new language, and thus made them visible to the public eye on the maps of modern cities. it is noteworthy that this treatment of interwar soviet modernism as world heritage gradually began to embrace other periods and styles of soviet townplanning. sotsgorod is a telling case in this respect. the fundamental modernist idea underpinning the concept of sotsgorod continued to develop after the second world war. buildings of the new era and of the new appearance were in one way or another embedded into the previously built modernist urban construction and therefore were perceived as an integral part of the urban landscape. it turned out that sotsgorod as a “world heritage” is not only the city of the 1930s but also the city of the post-war decade, the city of mass housing construction of the 1960s and the city of the late soviet epoch (kosenkova, 2009; brade & neugebauer, 2017; uralmash…, 2018). the narrative of modernist architecture did not seek to reveal the style or unique features of urban districts but contributed to the symbolical discovery of the soviet city as such. the upsurge of interest of urbanists and urban activists in the architecture https://changing-sp.com/ 250 mikhail s. ilchenko of the 1970s and 1980s is, therefore, symptomatic. the art and research projects exploring this theme have prompted new angles of perception of late soviet urban spaces (see, for example, meuser & zadorin, 2015; snopek, 2015). new representations of the “unwanted” heritage: the experience of working with socialist architectural legacy in poland in poland, in the 1990s, the socialist urban heritage was the primary target of absolute symbolic rejection. unlike in other post-soviet countries, in poland it was not merely destined to oblivion, it was rather subjected to open rejection and labeled as “undesired” (see, for example, ciarkowski, 2017). the experience of recodification and “liberation” of urban territories from the symbols of the socialist past in eastern europe in the 2010s shows that “purging” the urban landscape from the signs of the past (czepczyński, 2008, pp. 109–147) does not necessary lead to their disappearance from the symbolical representations of the city, just turns them into a figure of silence. this rejected and “repressed” past remains an important element of urban identity, acting as a source of new discourses to describe and new approaches to study the historical symbols and narratives. these tendencies come to the fore in contemporary poland. the socialist urban heritage has recently become a part of the new local narrative in the city of katowice, a centre of polish modernist architecture. katowice, a major hub in the industrial region of silesia, became a site of active construction in the interwar period, associated by the city inhabitants with the establishment of the new polish government (odorowski, 2013; syska & kiełkowski, 2015). this was followed by the socialist period, when the government of the polish people’s republic sought to turn katowice into a model industrial city (see, for example, crowley, 2009). katowice may now serve as one of the most successful examples of revitalization of industrial heritage in eastern europe, and the regional authorities actively use this rhetoric to promote the new image of the city (lamparska, 2013; sobala-gwosdz & gwosdz, 2017). the socialist urban heritage in this context acquires completely new meanings and significance: it is no longer rejected or deprived of its history but, on the contrary, is represented as an important symbolic stage in the development of the city and region. katowice is represented as a city whose history, regardless of the political regime, is inextricably connected with industry and modernism, the latter two in fact constituting the core of the city’s identity. this message is conveyed, among other things, through various exhibition projects, which seek to tell the story of the city and the region from a new perspective (the light of history…, 2017), but also through diverse tourism initiatives, which turn the modernist heritage into one of the city’s brands – szlak moderny1. as a result of the renovation and active promotion campaign, the multipurpose arena complex spodek, and one of the largest apartment buildings in poland superjednostka, considered as the key symbols and brands of socialist katowice, have acquired a new symbolic status of the city’s landmarks in the recent years (see chojecka, 2004; bulsa & szmatloch, 2018, pp. 124–126). in this sense, the ideological 1 http://moderna.katowice.eu http://moderna.katowice.eu changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 243–257 251 component of the socialist modernist architecture plays a secondary role since it is just one of the multiple manifestations of the internal logic of urban development: modernity and modernism could be said to determine katowice’s identity. not as a style, however, but as a way of thinking. this can be seen in workers’ settlements of the early nineteenth century, which were not only town-planning but also social experiments. the same happened after world war i, when modernism became the government’s official program. even after world war ii, socialist realism had its own distinctive face here, different from that of warsaw or moscow, but with a local touch, bearing the traces of the inter-war period. after 1956, active experimentation with structures started says anna syska, an architect and urban scholar, about the new city history narrative (expert interview with anna syska, 2019). under the brand “katowice the modern city”, the socialist heritage of katowice acquires new symbols and meanings, and thus actually reinvents itself. similar trends in the representation of the socialist heritage is demonstrated by nowa huta, a district of kraków. the case of nowa huta is particularly interesting because it was built in the first post-war decade as an exemplary “socialist town” of the polish people’s republic. even though in its layout, the logic behind its planning, and specific elements of the design this district featured a distinctly modernist look, it had no pre-socialist past (jurewicz, 2012; lebow, 2013). it gradually transformed from a marginal industrial district of the 1990s, associated exclusively with the socialist past, into a popular spot for young people, intellectuals and tourists, thus providing a case of successful “rebranding” in the management of the “unwanted” urban heritage (pozniak, 2013; matoga, 2015; czepczyński, 2008, p. 133). a former industrial outskirt area, nowa huta is now a creativity space filled with cultural activities. its socialist symbols were replaced by the museum of the socialist past and tourist attractions. it took just a few years for the district, which used to look bleak and dreary and was largely seen as a remnant of the socialist era, to turn into one of the most visited places in krakow. seen as a “unique town-planning and social experiment”, nowa huta was freed from the ideological contexts and fitted ideally within the new trend – the interest in town-planning experimentation, architectural aesthetics, and exploration of new urban spaces. it does not mean, however, that nowa huta has become a trivial tourist attraction and a space devoid of any past. socialist symbols still remain among the key markers of the district, distinguishing it from its counterparts in the public space. renaming of streets, museumification, ironic interpretation of socialist symbols, and what is referred to as the “special atmosphere of the district” still point to the socialist past. the past as a symbolic figure is inherent in each of these phenomena but it is now viewed from a new angle, thus unlocking opportunities for fresh interpretations. for the young generation, which is the main actor in the cultural revitalization of the district, this past is not an abstract notion but is experienced through personal involvement or through the memory of their parents (pozniak, 2014, pp. 156–179). https://changing-sp.com/ 252 mikhail s. ilchenko on the one hand, it seems that no room has been left for the socialist past in the conversation about nowa huta. it is all but absent from the conversation about the development of the district [...] on the other hand, one of the main reasons behind the young generation’s interest in nowa huta is undoubtedly its past and nostalgia for the past. it is the time of our childhood. at the same time this past seems quite remote and no longer constitutes a threat. this is something we associate with our childhood years, says historian alicja maslak-maciejewska from jagiellonian university (expert interview with alicja maslak-maciejewska, 2018). the socialist past is deideologized, reconsidered, and reconstructed. nevertheless, it still plays an important role in the generation of diverse new narratives representing the history and symbolic significance of nowa huta, including romanticization of its architecture or the attempt to position it as a centre of resistance to the socialist regime (sibila, 2006; pozniak, 2013, pp. 122–126). in this sense, nowa huta is a striking example of how the historical and architectural heritage of socialism can be handled in order to bring about new symbolic interpretations of this heritage and create opportunities for placing it anew in the contemporary urban space. * * * it is widely assumed that recognizing specific architectural structures or districts as objects of cultural heritage is a local process of aesthetic and cultural significance. this process, however, goes beyond the local boundaries and encompasses the whole of eastern europe as it has to do with the way these countries handle their urban socialist legacy. in the majority of these countries, the public perception of the socialist period is still riddled with contradictions, and, therefore, dealing with socialist architecture inevitably means having to deal with the historical past and its symbols. in this respect, the public representation of socialist buildings as the world modernist heritage is an important example of how this “unwanted” architecture is symbolically transformed into “objects of world culture”, “vestiges of modernity” and popular tourist attractions. spaces and buildings, which used to be rejected or just invisible, become imbued with new meanings and show themselves in a new light to the public. actually, by offering renewed vision for socialist urban legacy, the discourse of modernist heritage stimulates symbolic re-discovering of the socialist urban areas in public mind and allows them to acquire new ways of representation, as well as the new possible functional roles in the urban space. at the moment, the ways of speaking about socialist urban heritage seem to be no less important than the practical mechanisms of its implementation. and it is quite likely that just this new symbolical view will provide a basis for the development of a coherent urban planning strategy, and, probably, will help to shape a new attitude towards these spaces in the current social, economic, and cultural context it should be noted that this process encompasses countries with different historical past and different interpretations of the past. for example, in the former soviet union states, socialist urban districts often tend to be forgotten rather than changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 243–257 253 rejected and the initiatives and projects based on treating them as “objects of cultural heritage” are often driven by the feelings of nostalgia and sentimentalism. as for post-socialist eastern european countries, after the period of emphatic rejection of the socialist past, the relation to the socialist urban heritage took more familiar and reticent form of cultural revitalization. nevertheless, in both cases, the global process of appropriation of the modernist heritage produces a similar effect as it contributes to the symbolic inclusion of these districts into 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(2018). k prorabotke proekta rekonstruktsii biblioteki sotsgoroda privlekli amerikanskogo arhitektora-urbanista [american architect and urbanist is involved into elaboration of the reconstruction project for the sotsgorod library]. retrieved from https://zp.gov.ua/ru/articles/item/2876 https://changing-sp.com/ https://syg.ma/arsenal-nlo https://syg.ma/arsenal-nlo http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/udi-2018-0010 https://muzeumslaskie.pl/en/wystawy/the-light-of-history-upper-silesia-over-the-ages/ https://muzeumslaskie.pl/en/wystawy/the-light-of-history-upper-silesia-over-the-ages/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0969776407081275 https://zp.gov.ua/ru/articles/item/2876 changing societies & personalities, 2023 vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–149 https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2023.7.2.234 received 25 january 2023 © 2023 natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, accepted 1 june 2023 viktoria v. polyakova published online 3 july 2023 n.l.antonova@urfu.ru, s.b.abramova@urfu.ru vika.polyakova@urfu.ru article reframing bodies: new coordinates of the body image natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, viktoria v. polyakova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the article analyzes the results of a sociological survey of urban residents’ perceptions of the beauty standards and their most desired body models. the survey was conducted in three cities of a large industrial russian region (n = 1,077). the body as a bio-social construct is now undergoing significant transformations in public consciousness. as our survey shows, however, beauty standards in russia are fairly stereotypical: the ideal female body is expected to be sexual, well-groomed, and slender (we refer to this body type as an aesthetic body model or body as an object) and the male body to be physically strong, resilient, and fit (the functional body model or body as a process). describing their desired body model, male and female respondents of different age groups often choose the functional body model, that is, they prioritize what the body can do over what it looks like. the survey shows mixed results regarding the effects of the pandemic on people’s attitudes to their bodies and body care practices. only a third of the respondents directly associate their individual bodily experience of disease with the change in their body care practices. two-thirds of the respondents reported that during the lockdown they started taking better care of their bodies, paying more attention to personal hygiene, physical exercise, and sleep. keywords body, body image, functional body, aesthetic body, male body, female body, body reframing, pandemic, health acknowledgement the research was funded by the russian science foundation and the government of the sverdlovsk region, no. 22-28-20365, https://rscf.ru/ project/22-28-20365/ https://changing-sp.com/ mailto:n.l.antonova@urfu.ru mailto:s.b.abramova@urfu.ru mailto:vika.polyakova@urfu.ru 130 natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, viktoria v. polyakova introduction in contemporary social sciences and humanities, much attention is given to human body. body and its image are seen as a multi-dimensional construct encompassing behavioral practices, the perception of body, and emotional attitudes to body (cash, 2004). the term “body image” refers to an individual’s internal representation of their appearance (thompson et al., 1999), body image is often viewed through the lens of satisfaction or concern with one’s appearance (jarry et al., 2019). t. f. cash states that, when mentioning body image, we refer to our own perception, emotions, and beliefs regarding our appearance. at the same time, this evaluation is heavily influenced by the “outside view” (cash, 1990). contemporary social studies of body image and corporeality bifurcate in two directions. the first area includes the analysis of socially acceptable bodies and beauty standards, including those set by the fashion industry, norms regulating grooming practices and appearance for people performing different social roles, and so on (johnson et al., 2015; pritchard & cramblitt, 2014). the second area encompasses those works that investigate the methods and technologies used to expand the temporal boundaries of the body’s physical functioning, for example, body rejuvenation practices or human enhancement practices (biomedical interventions involving genetic manipulations and/or implants) (fox, 2018; palese, 2012). a significant limitation of the studies in both groups, however, is that they view the body from the perspective of its correspondence to cultural norms, for example, whether it is acceptable for plus-size women to wear a mini skirt, for a man to wear earrings, for a muslim woman to leave her head and hair uncovered, for older people to have a circular face lift to look younger, and so on. although the above studies make a significant contribution to the study of body image, they rarely address the question of how well the body aligns with the internal needs and sensations of an individual’s personality (such as whether the body should be aesthetically appealing, functional, or resilient). the restrictions imposed during the covid-19 pandemic affected not only people’s daily practices (e.g., wearing a mask on a daily basis, usage of antiseptics and disinfectants) but also their perceptions of their own bodies (merenkov, 2020). the period of self-isolation has led many people to start reflecting upon and re-interpreting the position that their corporeality holds in the social space. social restrictions applied to the infected (e.g., the requirement to self-isolate) and the unvaccinated (e.g., the requirement to show a certificate of vaccination to attend events) made people more aware of their body and its sensory signals such as the rising body temperature or the loss of the sense of smell. during the pandemic, being successful was mostly associated with staying healthy rather than fitting into the beauty standards. the changing external conditions (e.g., lockdown) which affected individual and collective practices contributed to the re-interpretation of the body image and to the transformations in the perceptions of the body. some researchers believe that there was a shift from the body seen as a factor of normative control toward the body as a factor of survival and effective functioning (nolen et al., 2022). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–149 131 this study aims to investigate the perceptions of the body and its representations shared by inhabitants of large cities in sverdlovsk region, russia. based on the data from our sociological survey, we analyze the perceptions of the desired body type (both male and female) and the factors that affect those perception. theoretical framework in contemporary social systems, the human body is co-created by individuals and collectivities; it is a project that embodies a variety of interpretations of its functions and purposes. a. giddens (1992) argues that not only is the body a biological entity, a “given”, but, much more importantly, it is also potentially open to reconstruction and (re)formatting, helping people pursue particular ways of life. more than before, people are now shaping and defining their bodies, constructing them in accordance with the idealized body images circulated in the public sphere (giddens, 1990). the cornerstone in the contemporary understanding of the body was laid by m. mauss (1925/1990) and m. merleau-ponty (1945/1962), whose works are seminal in the sociological, cultural, and psychological analysis of the body and corporeality. the body given by nature is “inscribed” into a specific socio-cultural system. this idea is further developed by m. mauss in his discussion of the techniques of the body as he argues that the techniques of the body serve as a tool through which people explore the functions and capabilities of their bodies in different societies (mauss, 1935/1973). according to merleau-ponty (1945/1962), body is our vehicle for being in the world. the ideas of the connection between the body and society were further developed by b. s. turner (1989); he argued that the body should be the axis of sociological analysis. c. shilling (2012) developed a sociological theory of corporeal realism, aiming to overcome the reductionist interpretations of embodiment and provide a more comprehensive approach, revealing the manifold nature of the body/corporeality. shilling focuses on the body-society relationship: the biological body is seen as a medium for the constitution of society, while society, in its turn, constructs or models bodies as biological entities. a. m. pivovarov (2019) proposes a classification of the sociological concepts of the body, which includes structuralist, phenomenological, and integrative body concepts. in pivovarov’s opinion, the structuralist research paradigm based on the understanding of the human bodies as being controlled by social systems is opposed to the interpretivist paradigm (bodily experience as a source of social interactions). an integrative approach combines aspects of different approaches to show the mutual determination of social structures and bodily practices. this approach is based on the understanding that social structures influence people’s ideas and perceptions of the body while the body, in its turn, also affects the functioning of social structures. to perform their social roles and functions more effectively, people can “re-assemble” their bodies in accordance with the requirements of the social environment (e.g., build muscles, do endurance exercises, etc.). thus, the choice of the integrative approach is determined by the fact that it enables us to gain valuable insights into people’s perceptions of the body and desirable body models. https://changing-sp.com/ 132 natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, viktoria v. polyakova body stereotypes are deeply embedded within social systems, in other words, society cultivates normative body standards. physical attractiveness is the ideal aggressively promoted by the fashion industry, advertising, mass media, and social media. l. smolak and j. a. stein (2010) found that media influence and male physical attributes endorsement are important correlates of the drive for muscularity in adolescent boys. the modern ideal of feminine beauty emphasizes a thin, slender figure (shagar et al., 2019; sokhan’, 2014; zhang et al., 2018). these standards, however, are almost impossible to live up to for many people for a number of biological reasons (genetic makeup, metabolism, etc.). as people are bombarded with images of celebrities that often communicate unrealistic beauty standards, their body dissatisfaction increases (tiggemann & polivy, 2010). there is vast research evidence supporting the negative influence that the widely circulated body standards have on people’s self-esteem and mental health (hogue & mills, 2019; izydorczyk & sitnik-warchulska, 2018; levine & harrison, 2009; you & shin, 2019). attitudes to the body are influenced by the social milieu/reference groups: significant others can have a negative impact on people’s physical self-perception and body satisfaction (tiggemann, 2012). moreover, there is evidence (ormsby et al., 2019) that intensive exposure to social media has a negative impact on the acceptance and evaluation of one’s own body and self-esteem. in their study of the visual body images in social media, m. tiggemann, i. anderberg and z. brown have come to the conclusion that presenting a more diverse array of female bodies on social media is likely to have a positive effect on body satisfaction and appreciation (tiggemann et al., 2020). even though there is a lot of research investigating the influence of social media and reference groups on people’s perceptions of their bodies, the question about the changing attitudes to the body during the pandemic remains largely underexplored, although there are some recent studies on this topic (choukas-bradley et al., 2022; robertson et al., 2021).the post-pandemic era is commonly described as the era of the “new normal” (kuriukin, 2021; novaia normal’nost’, 2020), meaning that the spread of the covid-19 infection across the globe has become a foundation for a major revision of daily life practices and has led to a significant transformation in the system of social interactions. the pandemic places new demands and pressures on the human body and, among other things, engenders new perceptions and interpretations of the body as well as new body care practices. we found that amidst the pandemic, young people started to attach more importance to personal hygiene and stress management. they were also looking for ways to boost their immune systems, for example, by taking vitamins and supplements (antonova & maltseva, 2022). there are reasons to believe that new hygiene habits will persist for some time in the future (shabunova, 2020). not only did the pandemic contribute to the development of a more responsible attitude to body but it also brought to the spotlight the questions of body-power relation ship in line with m. foucault’s disciplined body concept. foucault (1975/1977) argues that in any cultural context the body is in one way or another controlled and disciplined through a variety of disciplinary techniques used to arrange and regulate human bodies and it is through these techniques that docile bodies are created in society. control and discipline changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–149 133 are internalized, that is, the attitudes from the social context are assimilated into the self and turn into self-control. in her review of the book american plastic: boob jobs, credit cards, and our quest for perfection by l. essig, a. a. temkina (2017) describes the motives behind people’s decision to have breast surgery and explains that when feeling insecure and faced with uncertainty, individuals might resort to surgical body enhancement in an attempt to establish control over their future and increase their chances of success in life. body care comprises practices aimed at staying healthy and attractive, at keeping the body flexible and agile for a more fulfilled and productive life. body care has recently come to be seen as a matter of personal responsibility and self-discipline. the above literature review has led us to identify the two main vectors of our analysis, which also determined the methodology of the empirical study: the first vector is the body as an object, that is, the main focus is made on the body as an aesthetic object with such qualities as sexual attractiveness, a well-groomed look, slenderness, flexibility/ plasticity, and good muscle relief; and the second vector is the body as a process, in which case the body is seen predominantly in the light of its functional characteristics such as stamina, resilience, endurance, fitness, and strength. following these premises, we are going to discuss the two body models: the aesthetic model (body as an object) and functional model (body as a process). the use of an integrative approach allows us to examine the relevance of body models in different domains (family, work, etc.). methods the above-described theoretical framework determined the following objectives for the empirical part of this study. these include the following: to conduct an analysis of respondents’ perceptions of male and female body images; to determine the desired body model (aesthetic or functional); and to assess the influence of the pandemic on people’s attitudes toward their bodies. to collect data, we constructed an online survey questionnaire using google1 forms. the online survey link was shared via social media platforms and online portals of three large cities in sverdlovsk region, russia, included in the survey (yekaterinburg, nizhny tagil, and kamensk-uralsky). we also sent emails to educational organizations and institutions in these cities. the resultant sample comprised 1,077 completed responses in the electronic database. the survey was conducted in 2022 and covered working-age people from 18 to 60 years old living in the sverdlovsk region. the sverdlovsk region is one of the typical regions of the russian federation as it is located at a considerable distance from the capitals (moscow and st. petersburg) and has a megapolis as its centre. the territorial distribution of the sample is as follows: 55.7% of participants are residents of the region’s capital, yekaterinburg; 44.3% live in two other big cities of sverdlovsk region, nizhny tagil and kamensk-uralsky. thus, we were able to cover those central and peripheral economic areas of the region that have the most developed health care, physical training, leisure and recreation infrastructure, considerable employment opportunities, and a high level of internet access. 1 google™ and the google logo are trademarks of google inc. in the u.s. and other countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 134 natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, viktoria v. polyakova the survey relied on the river sampling technique: respondents were recruited via social media, websites, and survey invitation emails. there was a set of controlled parameters, which helped us build a sample reflecting the diversity of socio-demographic groups. the age and gender distribution of our sample led us to divide it into the following four cohorts: 18–21-year-olds (young adults with potential or precarious employment, 39% of respondents); 22–30-year-olds (young working adults, 15.6%); 31–45-year-olds (medium-age working adults, 24%); and 46–60-year-olds (older working-age group, 21.4%). in the sample structure, women accounted for 69.7% and men for 30.3%, which can be explained by the fact that women generally take more interest in the topics related to body and appearance than men. of the respondents, 61.2% are not married; 39.0% have children. the sample includes various educational, occupational, and income groups of the population, which provides us the sufficiency of including different social groups of the working population. the sample cannot be considered representative of the population of the sverdlovsk region and russia as a whole due to its bias toward inhabitants of large cities of workable age. we built linear distribution tables for all questions of the questionnaire, carried out a correlation analysis of empirically significant variables and a factor analysis, and calculated mean values and indices. results to investigate the respondents’ ideas about the ideal female and male bodies, we requested them to select characteristics from the list comprising five functional and five aesthetic characteristics. we found that the aesthetic model prevailed in the respondents’ views of the female body, while their ideas of the male body mostly corresponded to the functional model. however, many responses featured elements of both models, i.e., these were mixed body models (table 1). the key characteristic of the ideal female body is that it should have a well-groomed look (85.2%), while for the male body, it is physical strength, which undoubtedly reflects established social stereotypes. while the female body is largely seen as a static, visually pleasing object to be admired, the male body is more often associated with the qualities related to the body’s functions. only a small proportion of our respondents described the female body in terms of physical strength (4.2%). instead, they tended to choose the term “fitness” (26.2%). endurance and stamina are seen as predominantly male qualities (48.6% and 53.5%, respectively). only in 15.5% and 21.0% of the responses, respectively, these qualities were applied to the female body. similar disparities are found in the respondents’ perceptions of the ideal male body: only in 17.4% of responses such characteristics as slenderness and the harmonious body shape were used to describe the male body. for the female body, these characteristics, conversely, were mentioned by the most of respondents (66.4%). the majority of responses (69%) associated sexual attractiveness with the female body (for the male body, only 22.3%). changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–149 135 table 1 respondents’ perceptions of the ideal male and female bodies (% of the total number of responses)* body model female body male body functional (body as a process), including: 91.2 236.3 fitness 26.2 36.5 resilience 25.2 29.9 stamina 21.0 53.5 endurance 15.5 48.6 strength 4.2 67.8 aesthetic (body as an object), including: 262.5 127.5 well-groomed body 85.2 35.1 sexual attractiveness 69.0 22.3 slender figure, harmonious body shape 66.4 17.4 flexibility, plasticity 38.3 3.7 good muscle relief, toned muscle look 3.6 49.0 note. *the sum of the responses is greater than 100% because respondents could choose multiple answer options. some gender differences were identified in views on the male and female bodies: we found that women describing an ideal female body were more inclined to choose aesthetic characteristics over functional ones that is 88% in comparison with 77.8% of men. women also often chose stamina as a quality expected of the female body (28.0% of women and 21.8% of men). sexual attractiveness and flexibility feature slightly more often in men’s responses. women consider a muscular and resilient male body to be more attractive, while men mostly chose endurance and stamina. it is quite obvious that the above-described models are based on traditional, stereotyped attributes of male and female physique. there are, however, two important points to be considered. on the one hand, functional and aesthetic characteristics often go together, which means that respondents mention both feminine and masculine characteristics. on the other, changes in the body perceptions may lag behind changes in other gender-related attitudes and values. body evades reflection, which impedes the development of “physical self”, in other words, it may be difficult for people to perceive the body as a whole rather than as a collection of specific parts (tataurova, 2009), which is why they resort to traditional, stereotypical notions to solve this problem on a personal level. https://changing-sp.com/ 136 natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, viktoria v. polyakova since the survey participants often mixed the qualities corresponding to the aesthetic and functional body models, we decided to build a secondary variable based on the combination of responses (figure 1). the body perceptions of the majority of our respondents correspond to the mixed body type: for the female body, this type prevails for 56.2% of respondents; for the male body, this figure comprises 78.7%. about 41% of our respondents described the ideal female body only in aesthetic terms. the female body is viewed more stereotypically than the male one. the ideal female body is perceived by our respondents as well-groomed, sexually attractive, slender, and flexible (18.7% of respondents selected all of these qualities, while 10.8% only selected the first three). thus, about 30% of our respondents consider the ideal female body mostly in aesthetic-stereotypical terms. while only 2.8% of respondents chose exclusively functional characteristics of the female body, for the male body, this proportion was much larger, 17.9%. the male body tends to be much less stereotyped and the descriptions given by our respondents were much more diverse: we found no similar combinations of answers (the threshold was 5% of choices). figure 1 body models in respondents’ evaluations (% of male and female subgroups) in different age groups, body type preferences may vary. for example, men in older age groups demonstrate increasing preference toward the functional model of the male body: 28% in the group of 46–60-year-olds compared to 15.7% in the group of 18–21-year-olds. among the female respondents, this tendency is less pronounced, although still present. regarding the female body, the majority of men aged 22–45 give preference to the aesthetic model (55%). in the youngest and oldest groups, this figure is 39%. among older women, in comparison with younger age groups, there is some decline in this preference: 48% in the youngest group against 23.6% in the oldest one. this can be interpreted as follows: the respondents in the older age groups tend to attach more significance to the functional characteristics of the male and female body alike. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–149 137 in the choice of the preferred own body type, 58.5% of respondents prioritized the functional body model and 41.5% preferred the aesthetic one. residents of the megapolis (yekaterinburg) mostly would like to have a functional body (62.1% compared to 54% in other cities in the survey). the functional body model also becomes more important for older age groups (65.2% in the group of 46–60-year-olds). men also chose this body type more often than women (79.2% against 50.5%). another aspect that is worth special mention here is the influence of the following two factors on respondents’ choices of the preferred own body type: their perceptions of the body standards and their evaluation of their bodies as fitting these body standards or not (tables 2 and 3). women’s choices of their desired body type are somewhat different from men’s choices. there were two almost equal groups of women respondents: 50.5% would like to have a body that fits into the functional body type and 49.5% prefer the aesthetic type. the latter is surprising in the light of the prevalence of aesthetic characteristics in what the respondents describe as the ideal female body. even though their choices of the qualities for the ideal body may be influenced by the body they desire to have themselves, this connection is by no means straightforward. among those who thought that their body corresponded to societal body standards and who adhered specifically to the functional or aesthetic body model (not the mixed model), the majority tended to choose the same model for themselves. for instance, among those respondents who chose the aesthetic female body model considering their own bodies as fitting these beauty standards, 62.5% would like to have an aesthetically pleasing body. among those who believe that their bodies do not meet these standards, the percentage of people who desire to have an aesthetically pleasing body drops to 49.2%. for those respondents whose ideas about the beauty standards pointed to the mixed model, we found no connection between the beauty standards and the body model they would choose for themselves. when asked about their desired body type, our respondents with equal frequency chose each of the two models, with a slight prevalence of the functional body type. table 2 preference of female respondents for their own body type body selfevaluation ideal body preferred own body type functional body model (body as a process) aesthetic body model (body as an object) i think that my body fits the beauty standards functional body model (body as a process) 84.6 15.4 aesthetic body model (body as an object) 37.5 62.5 mixed model 53.0 47.0 i don’t think that my body fits the beauty standards functional body model (body as a process) 60.0 40.0 aesthetic body model (body as an object) 50.8 49.2 mixed model 55.6 44.4 https://changing-sp.com/ 138 natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, viktoria v. polyakova men adhere more strongly to the functional model (79.2%), although every fifth respondent would like to have an aesthetically pleasing physique. unlike women, men whose responses point to the mixed body model would more often choose the functional body type for themselves. it should be noted that the vast majority of those male respondents who believe that the ideal body should be aesthetically pleasing would also like to have such body themselves. table 3 preference of male respondents for their own body type body selfevaluation ideal body preferred own body type functional body model (body as a process) aesthetic body model (body as an object) i think that my body fits the beauty standards functional body model (body as a process) 95.5 4.5 aesthetic body model (body as an object) 42.9 57.1 mixed model 77.7 22.3 i don’t think that my body fits the beauty standards functional body model (body as a process) 100.0 0.0 aesthetic body model (body as an object) 12.5 87.5 mixed model 78.6 21.4 are there any signs of the transition from the prevalence of the aesthetic body model to the functional model in the post-pandemic world? to answer this question, we used factor analysis based on the principal component analysis. to this end, we applied the varimax rotation procedure with kaiser normalization (rotated component matrix). to process the “don’t know” answers, we replaced the missing data with the mean of the corresponding variables (table 4). the analysis included the responses characterizing the significance of attractive appearance (aesthetically pleasing body) and resilience/endurance of the body in different spheres of human activity. the respondents were asked to assess the significance of the given qualities on a 4-point scale: from 1 = totally insignificant to 4 = highly significant. together these two factors explain 61% of the total dispersion of variables. as the factor analysis showed, all variables have high factor loadings (> 0.4). not surprisingly, the first factor, body functionality, included all the statements pointing to the significance of endurance and stamina. daily household chores have the highest factor value and leisure activities have the lowest. the second factor, physical attractiveness or aesthetically pleasing body, includes the statements pointing to the importance of an attractive physique. family relationships have the highest factor loading in this case. for these two factors, we generated two new variables: the significance of the functional component in the body image and of the aesthetic component. the (factor) values of these variables fall within the interval from –3 to +3 (table 5). the correlation changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–149 139 table 4 distribution of the factor loading for the significance of the functional and aesthetic body models factor functional body model (body as a process) aesthetic body model (body as an object) significance of endurance/stamina, resilience, and strength/fitness: in dealing with daily household chores .811 in marriage (relationship with a spouse or partner) .766 in family relationship(s) with children/parents) .758 in the professional sphere .744 in leisure activities .669 significance of attractive appearance: in family relationship(s) with children/parents) .822 in dealing with daily household chores .821 in leisure activities .761 in the professional sphere .658 in marriage (relationship with a spouse or partner) .599 proportion of variance explained 46.83 14.26 analysis of the variables with different characteristics shows that the importance of having an attractive body has a significant relationship with the socio-demographic parameters of our respondents, their attitudes to their bodies, and the impact of the pandemic. the role of the body’s functionality has a much weaker correlation with the other parameters. this can be explained by the fact that the functional body model is shared by a variety of socio-demographic groups while the aesthetic body model retains its stereotypical features and is characteristic of a limited number of categories. table 5 correlation of the factors that influence the choice of the functional or aesthetic body model with the socio-demographic (functional) and substantive variables factor significance of the functional body model (body as a process) significance of the aesthetic body model (body as an object) socio-demographic characteristics gender .043 .102** age –.028 .132** financial situation –.028 –.041 https://changing-sp.com/ 140 natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, viktoria v. polyakova factor significance of the functional body model (body as a process) significance of the aesthetic body model (body as an object) education –.001 .117** occupation .049 –.127** marital status –.024 –.103** children .011 –.119** city of residence .020 .035 perception of own body attitude towards own body (positive or negative) .044 .0112** correspondence of the body to the beauty standards –.062* –.134** which male body type is considered the most attractive (functional or aesthetic) –.068* –.034 which female body type is considered the most attractive (functional or aesthetic) –.019 –.013 preferred own body type (functional or aesthetic) –.043 .138** impact of the pandemic the respondent had covid-19 .025 –.044 impact of the pandemic on the respondent’s own body .068* .070* change in the attitude to the body –.042 –.066* note. *the correlation is significant at p = .05 (2-tailed significance); **the correlation is significant at p = .01 (2-tailed significance). in order to clarify the relationship between the two selected factors with other variables, we divided factor values into four equal percentile groups. the lower quartile (1) stands for the absence or minimum correlation between the factor and variable; the upper quartile (4) indicates the strongest correlation. table 6 shows quartiles with the highest percentage for each of the values of the given variables within the selected factor: 1 corresponds to the first quartile, with no correlation between the variable and factor; 2 means a weak correlation (2nd quartile); 3 and 4, a strong or very strong correlation (3rd and 4th quartiles). table 6 distribution of the dominant quartile of the factor-variable correlation strength factor functional body model (body as a process) aesthetic body model (body as an object) sex (age group) men (18–21) 1 2 men (22–30) 2 1 men (31–45) 2 2 men (46–60) 4 1 table 5 continued changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–149 141 factor functional body model (body as a process) aesthetic body model (body as an object) women (18–21) 4 1 women (22–30) 3 4 women (31–45) 4 4 women (46–60) 2 3 financial situation too poor to afford food 1 3 earns enough to buy food but not enough to buy clothes/shoes 2 1 earns enough to buy clothes/ shoes but not enough to buy major domestic appliances 4 4 earns enough to buy major domestic appliances but not enough to buy a new car 3 2 earns enough to buy a new car but not enough to buy a flat or house 4 3 city yekaterinburg 3 3 nizhny tagil 1 2 kamensk-uralsky 4 4 marital status married 3 4 single 1 1 the analysis of the strength of the relationship between the factors of functionality and physical attractiveness shows that there are no distinct socio-demographic groups upholding specifically one or another body model. there are several points worthy of comment. men tend to choose mixed body models while women, on the contrary, tend to pursue more stereotypical body standards and their self-esteem is more dependent on whether their bodies meet these normative expectations or not. the older men are, the more prone they are to choose the functional model (quartile 4 prevails). older women, on the contrary, are the least prone to choose this model (quartile 2 prevails). it should be noted, however, that for women, there is no linear relationship between the preferred body model and age. the strongest correlation with the factor of physical attractiveness is observed in the responses of female participants aged 22–45. the peak is reached at the age of 31–45 (quartiles 3 and 4 account for 57.8%). the youngest group demonstrated impressive results: young men were the least prone to choose the functional model, while young women, on the contrary, gave most preference to the functional model. in other words, in comparison with young men, young women in the study regions attach less significance to physical attractiveness. this can be explained by the fact that young women seek to change the dominant body expectations in favor of more functional body standards. the influence of the natural beauty trend (iskusstvennaia krasota, 2023) may lead young women to feel more body positive. table 6 continued https://changing-sp.com/ 142 natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, viktoria v. polyakova this agrees with the international research evidence that shows that women are now becoming less self-critical when evaluating their bodies (issledovanie gfk, 2015). of the respondents, 32.6% said that the pandemic affected their attitudes to their bodies. in this group of respondents, 57.2% believe that they have started to take better care of their health and have become more attentive to their bodies’ signals. others think that the pandemic has made them feel more fatalistic about life, making them aware of the impossibility to control and contain disease (14.3%). the remaining 28.5% pointed out that the change in their attitudes to their bodies did not cause any real change in their personal health practices. in comparison with the data of 2021, where 53% of russians reported changes in their attitudes to their health (bol’shinstvo rossiian izmenili, 2021), in our study this figure is lower, which may signify that people are now less afraid of the negative effects of the pandemic and are less prone to maintaining the pandemic-induced body practices. at the same time, there still remains a group of people retaining the attitudes to their body and health they have acquired during the pandemic. there were 55.9% of respondents who reported that they had covid-19. their personal experience with the pandemic was deeper. a total of 39.9% reported that being infected with covid-19 caused them to reconsider their attitude toward their bodies and health (among those who did not have covid-19, the figure was lower, 21.5%). we found, however, that the fact of having had covid-19 has a weak influence on the respondents’ ideas of the female and male ideal bodies, their perception of their own bodies as fitting these standards or not, and their desired own body type. nevertheless, we found that in comparison with the pre-pandemic period, our respondents have become more conscious of contagions, and are sticking to their newly acquired personal hygiene habits (30.4%); they are now paying more attention to physical activity and sport (28.1%); they are trying to keep regular hours, including getting enough sleep (26.7%) and maintaining a good work-life balance (21.5%). both the functional and aesthetic body models are equally associated with body care practices. the pandemic has not led to a radical shift in the desired body model but rather to the selection of practices that ensure effective and comfortable embodiment in both models. therefore, studying the mechanisms that maintain the stability of body models even in social upheavals such as a pandemic may represent a further research interest. discussion our research data show that for the most part, our respondents adhere to the stereotypical body perceptions. interestingly, their ideas about the female body tend to be more stereotypical compared to ones about the male body: the female body is expected to be sexually attractive, well-groomed, and slender. there is evidence that such a model is internalized since childhood. for example, staffieri (1967) found that overweight children have fewer friendships and have less chances of being included into collective games than children whose weight is within the normal range. the male body is mostly viewed in functional rather than aesthetic terms, priority being given to such qualities as physical strength, endurance, and stamina. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–149 143 nevertheless, our study has detected some signs of the shifting body standards: in the evaluations of male and female respondents mixed body models dominate, i.e., while the male body may to a certain degree be aestheticized, the female body, on the contrary, may acquire some functional qualities, making it fit for performing a range of social functions and roles. there is evidence that in the last 20 years, the dominant ideal of the male body has shifted towards a more muscular look, which means more sculpted, visible muscles (lefkowich et al., 2017; mccreary, 2002). for the female body, however, the emphasis is mostly made on an aesthetically pleasing, thin, or slender body shape (groesz et al., 2002). as our survey has shown, older age and more life experience are the factors that influence people’s ideas of the ideal body: the value of the functional body model increases together with the respondents’ age. moreover, in describing the body type they would like to have themselves, the respondents tend to appreciate body functionality more than appearance, placing more emphasis on what their bodies can do for them, the degree to which their bodies enable them to satisfy their social needs and pursue their interests in daily life. the respondents’ views regarding the connection between the body model and different spheres of life show that functional body characteristics feature mostly in such spheres as household maintenance while the body’s appearance plays a more significant role in the family sphere. we found a relationship between the preferred body type and respondents’ evaluations of the impact that the pandemic had on their attitudes to their own bodies, which may be a sign of post-pandemic body reframing. the factor analysis allowed for further clarification of the relationship between the preferred body model and such characteristics as gender and age. with age, women start to give more preference to the functional over the aesthetic body model. nevertheless, in all age groups, there is a high percentage of women whose desired body type can be classified as functional (at least 41%). male respondents in all age groups (at least 78%) choose the functional model. the strongest correlation with this model was observed for the 22–30-yearolds. our findings disagree with those of h. quittkat et al. (2019), who surveyed 942 women and 385 men aged 16–88 and showed that the importance of appearance remained stable for women of all ages. the survey data showed mixed responses regarding the effects of the pandemic on people’s attitudes to their bodies and body care practices. every third respondent pointed out a direct connection between their individual experience of the pandemic and the change in their desired body image, highlighting the body’s ability to withstand external pressures, remain active and physically fit, thus enabling them to do their daily routines and perform their social functions. some of the respondents see the pandemic as a challenge, undermining their feeling of control over their life, health, and body. while such characteristics as weight, in particular, can be controlled (marszał-wiśniewska & jarczewska-gerc, 2016; styk et al., 2019), individuals cannot restrain the spreading of the coronavirus infection. however, we observed that in an effort to maintain control over their health and body, even after the lockdown, many of our respondents have continued to adhere to their new body care routines, such as hand hygiene, physical exercise, and good sleep. https://changing-sp.com/ 144 natalya l. antonova, sofya b. abramova, viktoria v. polyakova slightly more than a fourth of our respondents said that the pandemic had no effect on their body care practices. the survey of russian students conducted by n. a. sterlyadeva and t. v. chukanova (2022) showed that 28% of respondents tried to boost their immune system by changing their habits during the pandemic, a figure that is quite close to our results for working age adults. a part of the covid-19 survivors among our respondents (39.9%) report that their attitudes to their bodies have changed. we believe, however, that the whole pandemic situation has had a much stronger impact on our respondents’ values and behavioral patterns than the mere fact of having been diagnosed with covid-19. according to the russian public opinion research center (vciom) (postkovid, 2022), even those russians who reported symptoms of post-covid-19 syndrome did not resort to any rehabilitation therapy (80%). conclusion our study has brought to light three body models that are prevalent in modern russian society: aesthetic (body as an object), functional (body as a process), and mixed one. the results of our survey have shown that people have ambivalent attitudes toward the body: on the one hand, there are widely spread stereotypes about the ideal male and female bodies reflecting the division into the functional and aesthetic models; on the other, the body that people desire for themselves does not always coincide with the prevalent beauty standards. moreover, people tend to choose mixed body models or their preferences may shift toward a different body model. women’s self-assessed body image differs significantly from that of men, who tend to opt for a more functional body model. while having a functional body is considered to be more important in dealing with daily household chores, the aesthetic body model is more often preferred in the sphere of family relationships. when women’s self-assessed body image does not meet common beauty standards, they tend to be more willing to switch to the other body type, prioritizing functional characteristics over aesthetic ones. the choice of the functional model depends on the “classic” socio-demographic factors to a lesser extent than in the case of the aesthetic model. this choice can be influenced by such factors as a self-assessed body image and the situation of the pandemic. our study has registered changes in people’s attitudes toward the body after the pandemic: every third respondent reported that they have started to take better care of their bodies through practices of personal hygiene, physical exercise, and maintaining a more consistent sleep schedule. in general, there is a noticeable shift in the way the body is perceived. despite the persisting stereotypes about the male and female bodies circulating in society, working-age adults are now more inclined toward the functional body model, that is, the body capable of realizing its functional potential (stamina, endurance, and resilience) in a variety of daily situations. we believe that the new reality is conducive to the change in the way people evaluate and perceive their bodies, particularly in connection to the functions and roles they perform in society, to the activities and interactions they participate in, and to the body’s ability to withstand external pressures. changing societies & personalities, 2023, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 129–149 145 our study has certain limitations. we studied only urban dwellers in a large industrial russian region. although our research data may be similar to the data collected in other areas with the same economic and social characteristics, capital cities (moscow and st. petersburg), as well as rural areas, may present a somewhat different picture. we did not include any materials for the analysis of people’s attitudes and behavior in this study. thus, we did not question our respondents about the motivations behind wanting to modify their appearance under the impact of the pandemic, fashion trends, and the development of digital technologies. the study of the prevalent attitudes to the body among people with higher and lower income, as well as the typical body care practices among the elderly and the impact of ageism on these practices, make promising avenues for further research. references antonova, n. l., & maltseva, a. p. 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(2018). to be thin but not healthy—the body-image dilemma may affect health among female university students in china. plos one, 13(10), article e0205282. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205282 2 instagram™ is a trademark of instagram inc., registered in the us and other countries. по решению роскомнадзора, социальная сеть instagram полностью заблокирована в россии как экстремистская организация. https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-384925-0.00120-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.02.015 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2010.01581.x https://doi.org/10.3390/su11072051 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0205282 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 124–138 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.2.066 article weber’s nationalism vs. weberian methodological individualism: implications for contemporary social theory marharyta fabrykant national research university higher school of economics, moscow, russia belarusian state university, minsk, belarus abstract most contemporary sociologists’ aversion towards nationalism contrasts with the alleged nationalist views of one of the key classics of sociology, max weber. the considerable accumulated scholarship on the issue presents a unified belief that weber was indeed a nationalist yet varies considerably in the significance attributed to the issue. most authors entrench weber’s nationalism within biographical studies of weber’s political views as an individual beyond weberian sociological theorizing. a different approach suggests that the notions of nationality in weber’s works do have certain theoretical value as potentially capable of enriching the current understanding of the nation. the present article aims to bring together the notions of nationality dispersed within weber’s various writings with the weberian methodological individualism. the main argument of the article is that individualism and nationalism in weber’s thought are not a contradiction despite the collectivism associated with the essentialist view of the nation. instead, they represent a reflection of the fundamental shift from an earlier view of society as a meganthropos towards the pluralist problematization of the micromacro link definitive for the modern social theory. analyzing the internal logic of this change provides new insights into the currently debated issue of retraditionalization, especially in relation to the ongoing renaissance of nationalism. received 15 may 2019 © 2019 marharyta fabrykant accepted 10 june 2019 mfabrykant@hse.ru published online 1 july 2019 https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 124–138 125 keywords weber, weberianism, nationalism, methodological individualism, nation, nationality acknowledgements this work is an output of a research project implemented as part of the basic research program at the national research university higher school of economics (hse). the author is grateful to andrei dudchik for his valuable comments. introduction the current upsurge in nationalism in the public political discourse and, according to certain indicators, in public opinion brings to mind b. anderson’s insightful observation about the contradiction in the fate of nationalism. according to anderson, although we live in the world of nations and thus should recognize nationalism as the most successful of the competing ideologies generated in the nineteenth century, it is also the only ideology unrelated to an input of a major thinker of the period. it is also true that there is no comprehensive theory of nationalism unlike other key concepts, such as democracy, political culture, or even society itself, but a multitude of theoretical approaches dedicated to specific aspects of the issue, primarily to the origins of nations and nationalism. it is this emphasis on the past and, more importantly, these twin lacunas that might bear at least some responsibility for the present rebirth of nationalism remains not only unpredicted but also mostly unexplained. the quest for explanation poses anew anderson’s unanswered question why there are no big theory and no big theorists of nationalism (anderson, 2012). did they underestimate the significance of nationalism? or might they avoid the issue because of too acute personal involvement with nationalist belief pervasive in the zeitgeist for a critical distance sufficient for an value-free academic scrutiny? these considerations put a not so small and remarkably diverse body of research on max weber’s nationalism into a much wider perspective than a minor issue in a major classic’s biography. while any insight into life and views of a figure of weber’s caliber is arguably important for its own sake, in the case of nationalism something more might be at stake. what matters most in this regard is the intention to separate weber as one of the three founders of sociology and his theoretical legacy from the unsavory underpinnings of what is generally qualified as nationalist views of weber as an individual. this task is especially salient considering the brand of nationalism prevalent in the later nineteenth – and early twentieth century germany. on the other hand, if notions of nations and nationality dispersed in weber’s writings might contain something more than a mere reproduction of the doxa of the period and instead offer certain new insight and inspirations to nations and nationalism studies. against this background, this article adopts a more universalist perspective by daring to explore the relation of weber’s nationalism to a key weberian concept. https://changing-sp.com/ 126 marharyta fabrykant moreover, the concept in question is not one from webers’ many contributions to political sociology and political theory, apparently more obviously relevant to the nationalism issue, but the very core of weberianism – its methodological individualism. following in anderson’s footsteps, i consider that since nation-state is a prevalent and prototypical form of the modern society, the study of nationalism is not merely about politics but about society in general – what it ultimately is and how it should be studied. the key question this study seeks to answer is, to what extent was weber’s nationalism weberian? in other words, to what extent, if any, were weber’s nationalist political inclinations merely reflective of the prevailing opinions in the society in general, in the academia, or in the nascent sociology – and to what extent were they relevant to his original contributions to social theory? the conclusion that weberian nationalism does constitute a part of his theoretical legacy, and not merely a biographical detail can be made if at least two conditions are observed. first, weber’s notion of nationalism and approach to the issue must be substantively different from those characteristics of his contemporaries, academics, and especially other classical sociological theorists. second, this originality must provide sufficient grounds to be defined not only negatively as dissimilarity from others, but also positively as corresponding to at least some of the key concepts and principles of weberianism. the crux of the matter is how did weber address the apparent contradiction between the collectivist essence of nationalism and the principle of methodological individualism? not surprisingly, this question echoes the contemporary tensions between individual national vs. other kinds of identities and between an individual’s national self-identification and the external institutional and normative restrictions. during the ongoing new upsurge of nationalism, unpredicted by social scientists, it is particularly interesting to reexamine the place of nationalism studies in the “big” social theory by focusing of one of its founders. the article is structured as follows. the first section contains a review of the existing scholarship on the evidence and meaning of weber’s nationalism. the second section puts these findings against a broader background by comparing them to the period-specific notions of nations and national identities, especially among weber’s fellow academics. the third section zooms in and focuses on the views on nationalism espoused by weber’s three contemporaries and, in retrospect, fellow sociological classics – simmel, durkheim, and sombart – as compared to the weber’s own position. based on the results of this comparison, the fourth section of the article elaborates on the implications of the identified manifestations of weber’s nationalism with various degrees of originality for methodological individualism. the concluding section discusses the output of the study that the juxtaposition of methodological individualism and nationalism in weber’s thought reflects the fundamental shift from an earlier view of society as a meganthropos towards the pluralist problematization of the micro-macro link definitive for the modern social theory. weber’s nationalism: what does it mean and why should it matter? most studies specifically dedicated to the essence and impact of weber’s nationalist views start with the assumption that weber indeed was a nationalist and then proceed changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 124–138 127 to question the meaning of this notion, implications, and scope of significance, but not the notion itself. the reason for this apparent consensus is that weber’s nationalist views have by now not only been well documented (mommsen, 1974) but also strongly advocated by such authoritative scholars as r. dahrendorf (1992) and p. anderson (1992). momsen’s book was the first and still remains the most comprehensive exposure of weber’s nationalist views expressed in various sources. when the book first appeared, it posed a major challenge to an image of weber as an advocate of liberalism and rationality that had been created by american sociologists, most notably parsons. instead, it drew on multiple sources to portray weber as an ardent champion of german imperialism and power politics in general. since then, the image of weber regarding his politics has been split and never devoid of sinister undertones. some contemporary scholarship even goes so far as to claim that weber’s nationalism was not only ethically unacceptable in itself, but also exercised bad influence on naumann, an initially non-nationalist thinker (kedar, 2010) and provided not entirely justified yet plausible source of legitimization for a much more compromised political theorist c. schmitt (engelbrekt, 2009). and yet most publications on weber’s nationalism of the last decades attempt what is essentially a kind of apologetics aimed at rehabilitating weber’s scholarship, liberal political views, or both. the three line of this apologetics run as follows. the first and also undoubtedly quite weberian way of limiting the significance of weber’s nationalism is drawing a sharp division line between weber as an individual and weber as a scholar. roth goes so far as to make this distinction chronological by claiming that weber as a politician in the 1890s entered the public sphere as a politician using nationalist rhetoric for populist reasons and only later, after a personal crisis, reemerged as a scholar interested in pure theory as opposed to practical politics (roth, 1993). yet this view fails to account for the evidence that manifestations of weber’s nationalism, let alone weber’s political concerns and involvement, are dispersed throughout his writings. according to bellamy, weber did not abandon his interest in the national issue but rather modified it significantly by becoming more critical of nationalism, especially as germany entered the first world war with the claims of which weber rather disapproved (bellamy, 1992). the central point of this line of apology is not the chronological limits, but the implied notion that nationalist views expressed by weber should not be qualified as a product of his original thinking, unlike his theoretical heritage, which thus remains untainted, but merely reflect the prevailing beliefs of the society where he belonged (see also ay, 2004). the second line of apology confronts this statement by regarding weber’s nationalism as occupying a significant place in his views on social and political dynamics yet playing a secondary role as derivatives from issues of primary concern. some of this scholarship advocates the need to abandon anachronistic imposition of the contemporary view on liberalism and nationalism as mutually exclusive and antagonistic ideologies onto the late nineteenth and early twentieth century germany. nationalism thus appears a logical, albeit not the only possible consequence, first, of weber’s belief, decidedly ethnocentric by contemporary standards, in the ultimate value of what he saw as the western civilization embodying the ideals of liberalism https://changing-sp.com/ 128 marharyta fabrykant and rationalism, and second, by a social darwinist view on the mode of promoting the interests of the west, which in contemporary terms amounts to the belief in the zero sum game. the central point of in this relation between nationalism and liberalism is not an essentialist belief in the spirit of the nation, but a struggle over limited and therefore contested economic resources, especially as weber famously referred to himself as an “economic nationalist” (kim, 2002). a different argument derives weber’s nationalism not from his alleged ultra-rationalism and machiavellianism but, on the contrary, from placing too much trust in the necessity and potential beneficence of the irrational. thus, pfaff portrays weber not as a realpolitisch technocrat, but as a proponent of a nationalist charismatic leadership as a path towards popular support of liberal democracy, lacking of the multiple illustrations from the twentieth-century of how this assumption may prove disastrously wrong (pfaff, 2002). the contemporary relevance of technocratic geopolitics in relation to internal political liberalism and the use of nationalism to make democratization appealing to the majority is transparent. it can be argued that both these positions owe its relevance to the contrast between their rejection by most, even though not all, academic scholars and these notions’ continuing appeal to many political actors – very much as nationalism itself. unlike in the first line of apologetics, this kind of reasoning places weber’s nationalism among his theoretical heritage yet, unlike its major part, points its out as secondary, derivative, and essentially wrong. the third line of apology regards weber’s views on nations and national identities as having an intrinsic theoretical value. its representatives are concerned not so much with morality or veracity of weber’s nationalism but with its heuristic potential for the contemporary understanding of nationality. palonen regards the issue from the views of the history of concepts and attributes the apparent inconsistency between weber’s views on nationalism by an in complete deconstruction. according to palonen, weber, especially in his post-wwi writings, demonstrates a critical self-distancing from nationalism understood as chauvinism, and nevertheless remains a nationalist in the broadest definition of the term widespread in the contemporary nations and nationalism studies – as a believer in the objective and necessary existence of nations (palonen, 2001). thus, weber’s case is regarded as instrumental in broadening the current views on the relations between the concepts of nation and nationalism. norkus, on the contrary, emphasizes the constructivist as well as essentialist views on the nation found in weber’s writings and their relevance to the contemporary theory – first, by countering the prevalence of new nation states over old ex-empires in the modernist approaches to the origins of nations, and second, by applying the notion of rent-seeking to international relations (norkus, 2004). in this logic, weber’s nationalism is relativized largely because of its conceptual inconsistency. a decided nationalism would espouse a single and relatively simple definition of the nation and adhere to it without further theoretical alterations. taken together, these three views reflect a considerable variety of opinions in the scholarship on weber’s nationalism and even to its historical context. apparently, all the interpretations of weber’s views on the nation, instrumentalist as well as genuine, objectivist as well as chauvinist, civic as well as ethnic, and changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 124–138 129 even constructivist as well as primordialist, can be and are in some way traced back to some part of the conceptual imagery in the wilhelmine germany. it is therefore necessary to transcend the information on the issue found in the relevant part of weber studies and take a direct and closer look at the understanding of nations and national identities existing in the period. notions of nations and nationalism in weber’s germany the nineteenth century is generally regarded as the age of nationalism. the “long nineteenth century” started with the event most theorist agree manifested the birth of the idea of the nation in its modern sense, the french revolution, continued with romantics’ turn to turn to “national roots” and a number of national liberation uprisings in various parts of europe including the famous spring of nations in 1848, and ended with the new nation-states emerging in the centers as well as peripheries of the old empires and the principle of national self-determination acquiring the normative status in the treaty of versailles. according to the author of the term “long nineteenth century”, sometime in the middle of this period the idea of nationalism drastically and apparently for good changed its political belonging. the early nineteenth century, according to hobsbawm, was liberal and revolutionary and was perceived as such by its champions and opponents alike. later, however, as the old aristocratic and religious grounds of the dynastic power starting to lose credibility, the ruling dynasties saw nationalism as a new source of their legitimization and adopted it accordingly (hobsbawm, 2012). it is mainly to this conservative turn that hobsbawm mainly attributes the diffusion of the then new nationalism with the old interethnic hatred that surpassed the idea of the national liberation struggle “for your freedom and ours” and ultimately brought europe to the wwi. the nineteenth century germany appears the most obvious case of this conservative turn. already in 1808 in his famous “addresses to the german nation” j. fichte developed not merely an advocacy of german rather than french superiority but a comprehensive system of beliefs containing all the key components of what later became known as ethnic nationalism (fichte, 1978). most notably, these components include orientation towards the past, long history as the source of legitimacy, the value of authenticity understood as lack of exposure to foreign influence, and the central role of the national language. later, f. meinecke named this type of nation, where culture tales precedence over statehood not only in time but also in priority a kulturnation with germany as its prototypical case opposed to staatsnation primarily represented with france (meinecke, 2015). by the end of the century, the ethnic kind of nationalism apparently became mainstream in germany no longer as a self-definition but as a general understanding of any nation (bärenbrinker & jakubowski, 1995). that is how this understanding is elaborated in the entry “nation” of meyers konsersations-lexicon, an authoritative encyclopedic dictionary (meyers konversations-lexikon, 1888, pp. 2–3): nation (lat., völkerschaft), ein nach abstammung und geburt, nach sitte und sprache zusammengehöriger teil der menschheit; nationalität, die https://changing-sp.com/ 130 marharyta fabrykant zugehörigkeit zu diesem. nach heutigem deutschen sprachgebrauch decken sich die begriffe n. und volk keineswegs, man versteht vielmehr unter “volk” die unter einer gemeinsamen regierung vereinigten angehörigen eines bestimmten staats. wie sich aber die bevölkerung eines solchen aus verschiedenen nationalitäten zusammensetzen kann, so können auch umgekehrt aus einer und derselben n. verschiedene staatswesen gebildet werden. denn manche nationen, und so namentlich die deutsche, sind kräftig genug, um für mehrere staatskörper material zu liefern. das wort n. bezeichnet, wie bluntschli sagt, einen kulturbegriff, das wort “volk” einen staatsbegriff. man kann also z. b. sehr wohl von einem österreichischen volk, nicht aber von einer österreichischen n. sprechen. zu beachten ist ferner, daß nach englischem und französischem sprachgebrauch der ausdruck n. gerade umgekehrt das staatsvolk (die sogen. politische nationalität) bezeichnet, während für die n. im deutschen sinn des wortes, für das naturvolk (die sogen. natürliche nationalität), die worte peuple (franz.) und people (engl.) gebräuchlich sind1. this extended definition reveals the self-conscious rather than naïve upholding of the ethnic view of the nation, the awareness of an alternative, and the word other than nation reserved for this alternative. moreover, this distinction is attributed to the language rather than to a country-specific tradition of thought, thus implying the highest degree of consensus. the four criteria of a nation all constitute an ascribed rather than achieved identity. later in the entry, there is no reference to self-determination in the sense of renan’s everyday plebiscite (renan, 2002). the subjective side of nationality is restricted to emotions such as the national feeling (nationalgefühl) understood as national affinity or national pride (nationalehre) and the national character (nationalcharakter). the latter and even to some extent the former reflects an important point – the understanding of the nation as a personalized entity. it echoes the initial definition of the nation as “a part of humanity” where “a group of people” would seem more natural to a contemporary reader. this view of nation as a meganthropos was typical for the early nineteenth century german romanticism (hübner, 1991), and the cited source gives evidence of the prevalence of this view in the popular discourse in weber’s formative years. the uncritically assumed single unity of the nation is scrutinized and challenged by one of the most prominent philosophers of the wilhelmine germany, hermann cohen. according to cohen, the nation constitutes a plurality (mehrheit) as opposed 1 nation (lat. peoplehood), a part of humanity united by shared ancestry and birth, custom and language; nationality, belonging to a nation. in the contemporary german usage, the notions of the nation and the people do not overlap; the people signify the members of a given state united under the same government. the population of the people can consist of multiple nationalities, and, the other way around, the multiple peoples may come from the same nation, because some nations, and notably germans, are strong enough to lend material for many state entities. the word nation means, as bluntschi says, a cultural concept, and the word the people, a state concept. for example, it is possible to speak of the austrian people but not the austrian nation. it is further important to notice that in english and french usage, the word nation, quite on the contrary, refers to the people of the state (the so-called political nationality) while for the nation in the german sense, the natural people (the so-called natural nationality) the words people (in french) and people (in english) are used (translated by the author of the article). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 124–138 131 to unity, “allness” (allheit). yet, again contrary to what a contemporary reader might expect, cohen does not refer to the plurality of individuals. instead, he understands nation as a plurality of nationalities defined as religious entities forming a political union under the auspices of a shared state. a model nation for cohen, unlike for the authors of the entry cited earlier, therefore was not germany but austria. another important point is the deliberate rather than “natural” character of the union (wiedebach, 2012). thus, with the internal plurality of the nation and the constitutive role of self-determination, the only element missing from the present-day idea of the nation is its individual members. this important omission interestingly resonates with the central principle of the weberian approach to sociology – its methodological individualism, especially as it is closely related to the interpretative sociology (verstehende soziologie), which weber developed under the influence of neo-kantianism, albeit primarily its southwestern school, not the marburg school to which cohen belonged. more generally, nationalism as such presupposing a certain collectivism, especially in weber’s time as seen in the afore cited definition, appears distinctly at odds with methodological, as well and probably even more consistently so than political individualism. yet this contradiction is not discussed even by l. greenfeld who starts her programmatic book on the varieties of nationalism by defining herself as a weberian precisely regarding methodological individualism. the next section presents an attempt of such a discussion based on weber’s key texts dedicated to nations and nationalism – lecture “the nation state and economic policy” and the part 2 of “economy and society”. national issue in simmel, durkheim, and sombart a theoretical concept from weber’s times that can be considered the most influential or at least the most frequently present in the contemporary literature on nationalism is george simmel’s notion of a stranger. according to simmel’s famous essay, the figure of a stranger is characteristic for modernity and thus represents yet another breakup from tradition – in this case, from the unequivocal overlap between spatial and substantive proximity (simmel, 1999). the stranger is defined as a permanent other who is there to stay and nevertheless would not become more similar to the main body of the society he lives in no matter how long he stays. this dialectics of proximity and distance appears disturbing to a premodern or antimodern mind, and that it what sound a familiar note in the ongoing debate on migration and xenophobia, especially with the emphasis on the implication that the stranger is constructed as such by the society. therefore, despite the logical sequence unfolding at the microlevel, the story centers primarily not on the stranger himself, but on the society as a whole dealing with the challenge of a permanent ambiguous otherness. this challenge is not considered as an abstract possibility, but has its obvious historical prototype in the socalled jewish issue, also, and somewhat similarly, addressed by simmel with regard to the economic modernity (simmel, 2004). it could be argued that at that period, the national issue, if not the nation itself, was conceived as modern when related to the jewish issue, as seen in the works of two other weber’s contemporaries. https://changing-sp.com/ 132 marharyta fabrykant another case of the individual vs. the nation controversy, but addressed and resolved in a very different way, is found in emile durkheim’s work dealing with the antidreyfussards (durkheim, 1970). according to durkheim, their view on individualism as posing a threat to the nation’ s unity is valid insofar as the question mark remains. unlike simmel, however, durkheim does not see this controversy as inherent and dialectic. instead, he proposes to resolve it by recognizing that the kind of individualism anti-dreyfussards were attacking was essentially a straw man – not the only, not the proper, and not even the most popular one. while recognizing the economic egotism as potentially disruptive to society but also obsolete, durkheim not only approves of a more “spiritual” idea of individualism but also considers its power of uniting society as well as any socially shared idea can and even proposes it as what can be somewhat anachronistically called the national idea of france. thus, even more obviously than the “strangeness”, individualism is a collective attribute, a social fact. another way of defining the “national idea”, much more extreme and also much more significant in its use as a general explanatory tool, can be found in the works of werner sombart. his theoretical constructions on the alleged peculiarly jewish rationalism as a driving force behind the emergence of the modern capitalism bear obvious resemblance to weber’s protestant ethic, except the different relations between nationality and religion (sombart, 2001). sombart was writing his work at the times when the new racial theory led to redefinition of the jewish identity from religious to racial – hence the “jewish issue” could no longer be resolved by religious conversion and assimilation. on the contrary the assimilated yet “racially different” jew was turned into an ominous figure, a disguised “stranger” among “us”, as demonstrated in the dreyfus case. later, the propaganda used by all sides during the wwi, showed that the racialized notion of nationality originally applied to an ethnic minority came to define major european nations. in a work by sombart published in 1915 with a selfexplanatory title “traders and heroes”, the military clash between, respectively, the english and germans was presented as a conflict between two essentially opposing “national characters” (sombart, 1915). this essentialist idea of the national automatically extrapolated on all its members as micromodels was by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as seen in the previously quoted definitions, already anachronistic. yet what unites this seeming relapse to premodern unproblematic collective identities with the challenges of modernity conceptualized by simmel and durkheim is the implication that nationality originally exists at the collective level and is reflected in the individuals only insofar as they either represent or become socialized into a collective entity. let us now see whether this notion was also shared by weber. is weber’s nationalism individualist? one of weber’s works most frequently analyzed in detail when discussing his nationalist views is the inaugural lecture “the nation state and economic policy” (“die nationalstaat und die volkswirtschaftspolitik”) delivered and published in 1895 – during the period that supposedly marks the pinnacle of weber’s nationalism changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 124–138 133 (weber, 1921–1994). it is unsurprising considering that the single empirical case the lecture build on is the economic situation in the borderline region of the west prussia framed by weber as a struggle for power between the two nationalities – germans and poles – understood exactly in the same way the nation is defined in the entry on the nation cited earlier and, in relation nationality to religion, similar to cohen. moreover, weber refers to the two nationalities as either collective entities – polentum and deutschtum (polish and german populations respectively) – or even as abstract principles or uncountable substances, such as “the polish element”. this archaic way of description contrasts with quite modern-looking mode of introducing the issues unrelated to nationalism, such as social stratification and demographic dynamics. the question weber asks is why the polish nationality seems to him to be winning the power in the region even though “high level of economic sophistication (kultur) and a relatively high standard of living are identical with the german people and character (deutschtum) in west prussia” (weber, 1994, p. 5). weber poses the question in the following way: “yet the two nationalities have competed for centuries on the same soil and with essentially the same chances. what is it, then, that distinguishes them?” (weber, 1994, p. 5). the suggested answer is this: “one is immediately tempted to believe that psychological and physical racial characteristics make the two nationalities differ in their ability to adapt to the varying economic and social conditions of existence. this is indeed the explanation and the proof of it is to be found in the trend made apparent by a shift in the population and its nationalist structure. this tendency also makes clear just how fateful that difference in adaptability has proved to be for the german race in the east” (weber, 1994, p. 5). in a nutshell, according to weber, the german population of the region was emigrating and the polish population, multiplying despite poles primarily belonging to a lower social stratum with lower living standards because poles have lower expectations that there and then was able to deliver higher level of life satisfaction than germans’ superior ability to improve their living standards. weber argues that “the two races seem to have had this difference in adaptability from the very outset, as a fixed element in their make-up. it could perhaps shift again as a result of further generations of breeding of the kind which may have produced the difference in the first place) but at present it simply has to be taken account of as a fixed given for the purposes of analysis” (weber, 1994, p. 10). the contradiction between the seemingly archaic and modern rhetoric reflects weber’s attempt to explain a sociological phenomenon – a close relation between national belonging and social stratification – from the outside, by means of psychological rather than sociological phenomena. the understanding of nationalities as distinct entities with shared psychological traits belongs to the psychology of the peoples (völkerpsychologie) established several decades earlier (the journal dedicated to advancing this field – zeitschrift für völkerpsychologie und sprachwissenschaft – appeared in 1859), not to the emerging sociology. it looks almost as if weber struggled with the internal plurality and flexibility of society as captured in the notion of social stratification and has to get this new explanandum firmly rooted in the familiar explanans of essentialist nationalities and national https://changing-sp.com/ 134 marharyta fabrykant characters. the ultimate reasons are attributed to agency, not structure, yet this agency resides not in individuals but in collective entities endowed with distinct personalities. another weber’s text focused on nations and nationalism is the chapter five of the part two of “economy and society” (weber, 1922–1978). already its title “ethnic groups” suggests a different approach to the one found in “the nation state and economic policy” because the ethnicity is no longer presented as a single entity but as a group of individuals. this expectation is confirmed throughout the text. that is how weber defines an ethnic group: “the belief in group affinity, regardless of whether it has any objective foundation, can have important consequences especially for the formation of a political community. we shall call “ethnic groups” those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonization and migration; this belief must be important for the propagation of group formation; conversely, it does not matter whether or not an objective blood relationship exists. ethnic membership (gemeinsamkeit) differs from the kinship group precisely by being a presumed identity, not a group with concrete social action, like the latter” (weber, 1978, p. 389). as norkus (2004) justly remarked, this definition captures nearly all the key part of anderson’s theory of nations as “imagined communities” – and also obviously echo the so-called thomas’s theorem about objective consequences of subjective beliefs regardless of their initial objective grounds. what concerns the key point of this study is not so much the emphasis on subjectivity and the formative role of imagery in the emergence of an ethnic group but the shift of agency from the ethnicity to an individual, who provide the creative subjectivity and essentially doing the imagery. the question as to how the apparently uncoordinated yet similar “presumed identities” of multiple individuals merge into a single shared structure is given rather less attention. instead, the issue of coordination between the social actors participating in the process of the ethnic identity construction is described from the individual perspective via the basic mechanisms of attraction and imitation. this gap in dealing with the issue of coordination gets a paradoxical solution: ethnic identities are positioned not as socially shared but as emerging from the social actions that are not widely shared. “this artificial origin of the belief in common ethnicity follows the previously described pattern […] of rational association, turning into personal relationships. if rationally regulated action is not widespread, almost any association, even the most rational one, creates an overarching communal consciousness; this takes the form of a brotherhood on the basis of the belief in common ethnicity” (weber, 1978, p. 389). unlike in “the nation state and economic policy”, ethnicity is no longer a primary irrational cause for more modern and rational social phenomena, but a secondary subjective consequence of at least partly rational and even purely pragmatic decisions. the multitude of these origins capable of turning into potential subjectively ascribed grounds for a shared identity is so large and chaotic that weber concludes that ethnicity is too much of an umbrella term to be of much academic use: “it is changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 124–138 135 certain that in this process the collective term ‘ethnic’ would be abandoned, for it is unsuitable for a really rigorous analysis. […] the concept of the ‘ethnic’ group, which dissolves if we define our terns exactly, corresponds in this regard to one of the most vexing, since emotionally charged concepts: the nation, as soon as we attempt a sociological definition” (weber, 1978, p. 395). attempting to define the nation, weber decisively departs with what it refers to as a “vague connotation” (weber, 1978, p. 395) of various kind of common ground preceding the nation itself. having considered and rejected each of these grounds, such as religion, language, customs and so on, weber concludes that the concept “nation” directs us to political power/hence, the concept seems to refer – if it refers at all to a uniform phenomenon – to a specific kind of pathos which is linked to the idea of a powerful political community of people who share a common language, or religion, or common customs, or political memories; such a state may already exist or it may be desired (weber, 1978, p. 398). it could be argued that here again, the nation is explained by means of psychological phenomena – the need for emotional stimulation as captured in the notion of pathos, the quest for positive self-esteem, which weber refers to as “pathetic pride” (weber, 1978, p. 395), and the striving for power. unlike the proponents of the view of nations as subjective and socially constructed, weber does not attempt to tie the emergence of nations to a specific historical period with its specific macrolevel context. instead he relies upon what he believes to be universals of human nature – the tendency to produce personal and emotionally charged meanings for the initially purely pragmatic events as long as the latter are not universally shared. yet, unlike in the earlier definition, the psychological part is no longer played by static traits ascribed to collective agencies, but to dynamic mechanisms repeatedly occurring in the behavior of individuals engaged in the social action. discussion weber’s nationalism is amenable to a number of meaningful interpretations – as a minor yet curious biographical idiosyncrasy, as a prompt for critical reconsideration of a major social scientist as a role model, as an insight into the history of concepts, or as a source as inspiration for the contemporary nations and nationalism studies. the approach presented in this article suggest yet another interpretation of weber’s nationalism – as a frontier issue testing the limits and possibly also the limitations of weberian sociology. in the introductory section of this paper, the main question whether there exists a weberian view on nationality weber’s nationalism was broken into two parts – first, on the originality of the ides of the nation in weber’s writings and second, on its relevance to major themes in weberianism, in particular the apparent contradiction with the principle of methodological individualism. based on the present study, several important differences between weber’s approach and that of his contemporaries become clear. first, unlike simmel, durkheim, and especially sombart, in his later works weber focuses not on the ways the national entity reproduces itself via https://changing-sp.com/ 136 marharyta fabrykant individuals but on the individuals developing national identities in response to their basic social needs. second, unlike these three classics, weber changed his views on nationality so much that while the earlier texts seem both old-fashioned and unoriginal, the subsequent ones, on the contrary, could have almost been written by somebody working not earlier than in the 1980s. in weber’s earlier works, his views on nationality appear a kind of a blind spot borrowed from more archaic schools of thought, not sociological and due to its direct contradiction to the principle of methodological individualism, emphatically not weberian. his mature views on nations, however, appear not only consistent with his approach to other social groups, but also very close to the currently mainstream academic understanding of nationality developed more than half a century later and not nationalist or even to some extent, due to its emphasis on the social construction of nations, anti-nationalist. to simplify the matter, it could be said that weber’s views cease to be nationalist according to the contemporary understanding of nationalism as soon as they become weberian. this analysis thus yields the main conclusion that individualism and nationalism in weber’s thought are not a contradiction despite the apparent association of collectivism with the essentialist view of the nation. on the contrary, weber’s work on integrating nationalism into his general theory of the social sphere reflects of the fundamental shift from an earlier view of society as a meganthropos towards the pluralist problematization of the micro-macro link definitive for the modern social theory. analyzing the internal logic of this change provides new insights into the currently debated issue of the alleged retraditionalization of the late modernity, especially in relation to the ongoing renaissance of nationalism. it demonstrates the possible necessity to bring the agency back into the picture currently dominated with the clash between proponents of structural and cultural explanations of social phenomena including nations and nationalism. the transformation of weber’s works on nationalism suggests that explicitly defining the agency (in general terms, not reduced to the images of populist politicians abusing nationalist rhetoric for their own rather transparent ends) is crucial for understanding and deliberately choosing the implied mechanisms used for explaining social dynamics. to sum up, the question raised in this paper can be answered in the affirmative. weber apparently started off burdened with nationalist views characteristic of his milieu and developed views on nationality that seem closer to the contemporary nations and nationalism studies than to his own epoch. this trajectory makes weber stand out from other classics in social theory, and it is too tempting to conclude that in his later writings on nationality, weber was “ahead of his own times”. yet i would argue that the similarity is at best superficial in one important respect: the research subject outlined by weber does not truly match the focus of the contemporary empirical research. we know a lot about the ways collective identities of various nations are constructed, quite a lot on how individuals react to the challenges posed by the external request for national self-identification and reenact socially shared meanings. we still know little on how individuals act in ways that eventually affect the world of nations. the main takeaway from the study on the notions on changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 124–138 137 nationality in weber’s writings appear to be not theoretical, since his later views have already albeit much letter been reproduced, but methodological: the shift towards methodological individualism in the nations and nationalism studies would make the area much more balanced and its subject slightly more predictable to the contemporary social scientists. references anderson, b. 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(2012). the national element in hermann cohen’s philosophy and religion. leiden: brill. http://doi.org/10.2307/3654673 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 303–318 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.4.079 received 5 august 2019 © 2019 james t. richardson accepted 24 october 2019 jtr@unr.edu published online 6 january 2020 article religious freedom in flux: the european court of human rights grapples with ethnic, cultural, religious, and legal pluralism james t. richardson university of nevada, reno, usa abstract this article examines the growing influences of the european court of human rights (ecthr), and controversies arising as a result of the court’s movement toward establishing itself as a de facto supreme court of member nations of the council of europe (coe) in the area of human and civil rights, including religious freedom. responses to criticisms of the court are considered, as is the growing problem of some member states refusing to enforce rulings of the court. some recent cases, mostly involving islam, that seem to demonstrate a growing recognition of the ethnic, cultural, and legal pluralism that exists within the expanded coe are examined. also discussed is the apparent two-track approach the court has taken as a result of having to manage religious freedom within such a diverse group of member nations. keywords european court of human rights, religious freedom, legal pluralism, margin of appreciation, pilot judgments, islam, russia’s extremism statutes, minority religions, jehovah’s witnesses1 acknowledgements i would like to thank effie fokas and willy fautre for careful readings of earlier drafts of this paper 1 an organization proscribed in the russian federation (editor's note). https://changing-sp.com/ 304 james t. richardson introduction the european court of human rights (ecthr or the court) is the court of last resort concerning possible violations of human and civil rights for citizens in the 47 member states of the council of europe (coe). it is a major part of the enforcement machinery established after wwii to promote western democratic values as presented in the european convention on human rights and fundamental freedoms (herein the european convention) which was developed by the nascent council of europe in 1950 and went into force in 1953, having been signed by all original members of the coe (harris et al., 2009). established initially as a part-time court nearly seven decades ago, the court was an important part of efforts to preclude atrocities such as occurred during wwii. establishment of the court also was meant to deter the spread of communism by emphasizing other values, goals, and methods of societal organization (madsen, 2016). the court, which became a full-time court in 1998, has since evolved considerably and grown in influence within the european region and around the world (fokas, 2015/2016; fokas & richardson, 2018; richardson, 2015; koenig, 2015; hammer & emmert, 2012). the court has sometimes worked with constitutional and other courts in coe nations in efforts to promote human and civil rights in coe nations. this has been especially the case with newer member states of the coe which were accepted as members by the coe after collapse of the soviet union (sadurski, 2008/2009; richardson & shterin, 2008). the growing influence and power of the court has suggested to some observers that it is rapidly becoming a de facto supreme court of europe in the human and civil rights arena (harris et al., 2009, p. 2; koenig, 2015, p. 51; madsen, 2016, p. 141). herein i will summarize some important recent changes in how the court operates, and also discuss major problems being faced by the court in recent years. i will also review selected recent decisions of import for religious freedom in the coe member states. included in cases discussed are several that involve variants of islam, and which, taken together, seem to suggest that the court is becoming more accommodating of the cultural, religious, ethnic, and legal pluralism that exists within the coe2. also covered will be the large number of pending ecthr cases deriving from russia’s effort to apply extremism laws to religious groups, including the jehovah’s witnesses, islam, and other minority faiths. i will conclude with a brief analysis of how the court has responded to its many pressures, and of how it seems to be developing a unique pattern of jurisprudence cognizant of the vast differences that exist within the enlarged coe. 2 in brief, legal pluralism refers to “…the presence of different legal traditions and institutions within a single political framework such as a state, thereby raising problems about how laws might be enforced and recognizing the prospect of contradictory traditions” (turner, possamai & richardson, 2014, p. 1). for discussions of legal pluralism see merry (1988), tamanaha (2009), berman (2007), and richardson (2014b). for applications of the concept to shari’a law in western societies see possamai, richardson and turner (2014), aires and richardson (2014), and richardson (2014a /2014c). for development of specific theoretically grounded hypotheses in this area of socio-legal studies see richardson and springer (2013). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 303–318 305 recent changes in how the court functions recently, i summarized the history and organization of the coe and the court (richardson, 2017), describing a number of recent significant changes in how the court operates and in the court’s jurisprudential pattern concerning religion that has developed of late. these changes, a few major ones which will be highlighted herein, were brought about in part because of concern among some both older and newer member states about the growing influence and power of the court, as well as concern over the huge growth in applications that has occurred in large part because nations formerly dominated by the soviet union have affiliated with the coe. the history and culture of former soviet nations has had the effect of forcing the court to take into account significant differences among those nations. the recent changes have developed against a background of decades during which the court operated by giving great deference to the “margin of appreciation” doctrine, established early in the court’s history with the handyside v. united kingdom (7 dec 1976) decision when the coe was much smaller and culturally more homogeneous (adrian, 2018; beaman, 2016; jusic, 2018; mcgoldrick, 2016). this doctrine allows original member states to monitor their internal affairs in areas of national sensitivity without external interference from the then newly-formed ecthr. as fokas (2016, p. 552) has noted, “religion holds a special place in the ‘politics of the margin of appreciation’”, a point also made by ringelheim (2012), with the court often allowing an expanded margin of appreciation in such cases. however, the overall doctrine has evolved in recent decades with the court issuing rulings viewed by governments of some member states as unduly intrusive and ill-advised. this has been especially the case with the united kingdom and russia, but also other member states, including both original and newer member states (koenig, 2015; fokas, 2016; madsen, 2016; richardson, 2017)3. one major way some members of the coe have attempted to gain leverage over the ecthr is by gaining support for the principle of “subsidiarity” by which is meant that decisions should be made at the lowest possible political level. to emphasize this concept a new section was added the end of the preamble to the convention mentioning both the subsidiarity principle and the margin of appreciation. that section, added as a result of the brighton statement4, reads as follows: affirming that the high contracting parties, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, have the primary responsibility to secure the rights and freedoms defined in this convention and the protocols thereto, and that in doing so they enjoy a margin of appreciation, subject to the supervisory jurisdiction of the european court of human rights established by this convention. thus, it is clear that the court must work with governments to promote the values expounded in the convention. 3 koenig (2015, p. 61) also makes the point that the growth of concerns about human rights throughout the coe has also been a major contributor to the huge case growth that the court has experienced. 4 see: high level conference on the future of the european court of human rights [brighton declration]. retrieved from https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/2012_brighton_finaldeclaration_eng.pdf https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/2012_brighton_finaldeclaration_eng.pdf 306 james t. richardson the “pilot judgment” process is another important change in how the court operates, and has contributed to the trend toward the court becoming a de facto “supreme court of europe”, establishing precedents that should be followed by member states (sadurski, 2009; richardson, 2017). this new procedure is an effort to address the issue of multiple and continuing applications to the court with similar claims that laws from member states, especially newer members, violate convention articles. pilot judgments have become a powerful tool for the court to deal with what are referred to as structural problems with laws of member states. when the court issues a pilot judgment against a member state in a problematic area of law, the member state is expected to modify its legal structure to comport with convention values (as are other member states with similar provisions). the establishment of a network of superior courts and an agreement allow major courts in member states to request advisory opinions from the ecthr are other recent innovations designed to encourage dialogue between the ecthr and court systems in member states (richardson, 2017). these important changes demonstrated the court’s new willingness to work with national courts to promote echr values by educating member state’s court personnel about the work and rulings of the ecthr. the changes, most of which were designed to lessen the court’s dramatically increasing case load as well as limit the court’s reach, also demonstrate that the court is attempting to involve national court systems in the promotion of convention values. the court’s welcoming of intervention by member states and ngos in cases accepted for adjudication also is a major development with implications for how cases are handled as well as outcomes of the adjudication process (fokas, 2018; van den eynde, 2013/2017). more “friendly settlements” are also encouraged, which means that an agreement between the member state and the applicant has been reached short of full adjudication (richardson, 2017). such an outcome has occurred with increasing frequency when it becomes obvious (perhaps because of other “pilot judgments” rendered by the court) that any forthcoming decision probably will be against the government involved. remaining problems and issues faced by the court when nations affiliate with the coe they pledge to abide by the convention. thus, when a decision is rendered against a member state the government in question is expected to modify its laws to comport with convention values and rulings of the court. there is a growing problem of member states refusing to implement decisions of the court (madsen, 2016; richardson, 2017). this includes some major decisions concerning religious freedom, but also other areas of law as well. a growing number of member states are refusing to enforce decisions of the court or to modify their statutes and procedures. some member states simply pay whatever monetary damages are awarded, but do little else to respond to the court’s decisions. included among this list of recalcitrant member states are russia, hungary, ukraine, poland, and turkey, but also the u.k., france, and italy are balking at fully implementing decisions of the court. the worst offenders include ukraine, which as of 2014 had 1,002 cases filed with the court and with violations found in all but 10 (madsen, 2016, p. 172). in 2018 changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 303–318 307 ukraine has had 12,000 cases referred to the council of ministers for final disposition because ukraine has refused to modify its laws and procedures to address similar problems raised by many applicants. poland’s record is similar with 1,070 cases filed since 2014 and violations found in all but 107 of them (madsen, 2016, p. 172). italy’s failure to address prison reform has been a continuing issue with the court (madsen, 2016, pp. 162–163). and officials the u.k. have expressed considerable concern about ecthr rulings that would grant voting rights to prisoners, among other issues (bates, 2014/2015). turkey and hungary are other recalcitrant member nations (madsen, 2016). some 27,000 applications deriving from the failed coup d’etat in hungary were declared inadmissible because of failure to exhaust internal remedies (which in fact do not exist as an effective way to address the issues raised). hungary has had over 6,000 cases dealing with prison overcrowding declared inadmissible because of failures to deal with the issues raised internally. russia has an especially dismal record overall before the court. madsen (2016, p. 171) notes that as of 2014 russia had been the subject of 1,604 cases with the court, with violations found in all but 74 of them, which means that 15% of all judgments finding a violation by the court were against russia. russia has lost a number of cases dealing with religion before the court (lykes & richardson, 2014; richardson & lee, 2014) and has more recently begun enforcing extremism laws against minority faiths such as the jehovah’s witnesses, islamic groups, and others. as of early 2019 there are 49 cases involving the witnesses filed with the court because of the drastic actions taken against the group by russian authorities. included in these cases are ones concerning the dissolution of the entire national witness organization, the banning of its website, invasions of churches and homes of members, and the incarceration and even physical harm being visited upon some members and church buildings by russian police or citizens acting with apparent impunity. the majority of these cases have been “communicated” to the russia authorities, which means the court has asked russia to explain its actions (or inactions), a procedure by the court that usually precedes a judgment. russia has made no effort to pass legislation that would require implementation of ecthr rulings, and indeed, political and national court officials have in recent years been voicing strong criticisms of the ecthr, claiming interference with internal affairs. so it is unclear what will occur if and when the court rules against russia in these witness cases. all these criticisms of the court and its rulings have placed pressure on the court to more fully recognize the legal pluralism that exists with the many diverse nations that make up the coe. the following discussion of some recent selected cases may indicate ways the court is attempting to deal with the many pressures it faces in dealing with the contemporary makeup of the coe. recent religion cases of interest some recent ecthr cases seem particularly of interest in terms of understanding the evolving jurisprudential record of the court in the area of religion. perhaps not surprisingly many of these cases involve islam in some manner. these cases may https://changing-sp.com/ 308 james t. richardson demonstrate an effort by the court to make decisions that increase the chances of successful integration of islam into the fabric of europe, as well as show that the court is not always acting in ways that promote a christian or even a secular agenda, a controversial and much-discussed claim5. adrian’s (2019) discussion of sas v. france, dahlab v. switzerland, sahin v. turkey, and ebrahimian v. france illustrates this apparent bias toward a secularist or possible anti-islam agenda. she states: the court’s judgements have barred elementary school teachers from wearing the headscarf in public schools, restricted university students from wearing the veil, banned the face veil from all citizens in most public spaces, and ... stripped civil servants from the right to wear the headscarf at work. thus the type of wearers (from civil servants to citizens) and the spaces (from schools, to streets, to other public institutions) have broadened in the past 16 years, thereby curtailing the right to manifest religious freedom for more people in more places (adrian, 2018, p. 9). adrian further notes that these decisions represent an expansion of “the already extensive application of the margin of appreciation allowed to states”, and that this posture of the court, “undermines the mandate of the court to protect vulnerable minority populations in europe” (adrian, 2018, p. 10). ferri (2018) discusses some of these same cases, among others, asserting that taken as a groups the cases represent the court’s avoidance of its “positive obligation” to promote ideological and cultural pluralism. by this she means that states have a positive obligation to take measures designed to guarantee effective implementation of human rights within their jurisdiction. she too is critical of the wide margin of appreciation granted to some member states in such matters because it seems to absolve states of performing their duties toward their citizens in the area of human rights, including religious rights. medda-windischer (2018) offers a somewhat more sympathetic interpretation of recent decisions by the court, including those discussed by adrian and by ferri6. she says (medda-windischer, 2018, p. 52): if it is true that the strasbourg court has in those cases displayed a rather restrictive approach towards accommodating religious diversity, it is also true that, in other cases, the court has discarded a militant form of secularism and has followed a more pluralistic model of open secularism. medda-windischer (2018, p. 62) goes on to discuss some of the cases she thinks demonstrate a greater appreciation and support for a more pluralistic model, asserting that the court has sometimes treated the convention as a “living instrument”, and 5 for discussions pro and con of a possible pro-christian and/or anti-muslim bias in the court’s jurisprudence also see the entire volume edited by durham et al. (2012) as well as martinez-torron (2014/2017), meerschaut and gutwirth (2008), kayaoglu (2018), and barras (2018). 6 also see martinez-torron (2015) for a more sympathetic analysis of the court’s religion decisions. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 303–318 309 that “the court can be influenced by the development of standards shared by member states of the council of europe”. she adds (medda-windischer, 2018, p. 63): the principles applied so far by the court in cases related to the freedom of religion represent a pragmatic response to variations existing among states in interpreting the right to manifest one’s religion. in particular, the most controversial margin of appreciation can be considered as an implementation of the general principle of subsidiarity regulating – in international law – the relation between national and supranational bodies, such as the european union and the council of europe. the more recent decisions to be discussed below seem to vary from the overall thrust of earlier cases involving aspects of islam, and may suggest efforts by the court to accommodate the ethnic, religious, cultural, and legal pluralism that exists within the coe. perhaps some of these selected cases demonstrate the pragmatism that medda-windischer (2018) claims to see in some recent, but sometimes quite controversial decisions. russia’s extremism statute and the ecthr in the wake of the 9/11 attack on the world trade center in new york, a number of nations passed various statutes designed to assist in the “war on terrorism”7. one of the most far-reaching was passed in russia, and this new statute has been used since against a number of minority religions, ironically including even ones whose explicit teachings promote non-violence in human affairs. thus the new extremism law has been used to declare entire groups such as the jehovah’s witnesses (jw) as extremist, leading to the dissolution of the national jw organization, confiscation of all jw property, and the arrest of practicing members of the group. this in turn has led to the filing of nearly 50 applications with the ecthr by the witnesses with the court having “communicated” with russia about many of the cases, which means they are being considered for adjudication. the statute has also been used against the teachings of islamic scholar said nursi8, a well-known turkish muslim theologian who has written about the meaning of the qu’ran. applications were filed with the ecthr by a russian citizen, a publisher of nursi’s books, and a national religious organization, claiming a violation of article 9 (freedom of religion or belief) an article 10 (freedom of expression), and these applications were dealt with together in the 28, august, 2018 decision in ibragim ibragimov and others v. russia (duval, 2018). this important decision, which found a violation of article 10 in light of article 9, makes it clear that the extremism statute cannot be applied against a group or publication unless there is an explicit incitement to hatred or violence contained in the writings. the decision also explicitly criticized the russian courts for accepting one-sided expert reports on the writings in question, 7 for one example of the reaction see james t. richardson’s discussion of what occurred in australia (richardson, 2013). 8 in russia, several nursi’s writings has been included into the “federal list of extremist materials” (editor's note). https://changing-sp.com/ 310 james t. richardson and not allowing counter expert opinions to be considered by the courts. this decision focused on the ecthr’s assessment of what constitutes “hate speech” and ruled that the writings in question did not qualify as such, citing as precedent the famous “pussy riot” case of 2018 (mariya alekhina and others v. russia)9. the ecthr referred several times in its decision to the report of the venice commission (2008) which was critical of the russian extremism statute and its application to rather selected religious groups and writings. the ecthr also indicated support for the right to proselytize and promote one’s religious beliefs to others. how russia responds to this quite critical ruling remains to seen. however, this ruling suggests that the eventual decisions on many jw cases will also favor the applicants, thus raising the stakes considerably for russia, for the ecthr, and even the council of europe itself. shari’a and the ecthr for nearly two decades the ecthr has, through its jurisprudential record, posited that the values and principles of shari’a are incompatible with the values of democracy and human rights enshrined in the european convention. this was made clear in 2003 with a controversial decision in refah partisi and others v. turkey (13 feb., 2003) which supported the turkish government’s decision to dissolve the largest political party in turkey. the partisi decision has been criticized as demonstrating a limited understanding of islam (see i.e., meerschaut & gutwirth, 2008, among others). however, the decision in molla sali v. greece, rendered on dec. 18, 2018 (hudoc information note, molla sali v. greece, 2018) might be viewed as undermining the firm stance taken in partisi, although that assessment is controversial (puppinck, 2018). the case involved a muslim woman whose husband left her all his property with a common law will properly notarized according to greek law. however, the will was challenged by the husband’s sisters who claimed that since the husband was muslim inheritance should be dictated under shari’a law which would result in the two sisters being the recipients of three quarters of the inheritance10. the greek courts, although initially favoring the widow, on appeal issued a ruling siding with the sisters and annulling the greek common law will. the court indicated that inheritance had to be settled according to shari’a law or greece would be in violation of the treaty of lausanne granting the right of the islamic minority in thrace to be governed in domestic matters by shari’a law. the widow than appealed to the ecthr, claiming violations of article 6.1 (right to a fair trial) taken alone and in conjunction with article 14 (discrimination) and article 1 of protocol 1 (property). the case was initially assigned to a section, but then, in a somewhat unusual move, was relinquished to the grand chamber for adjudication. in a lengthy and thorough ruling the grand chamber unanimously found a violation of article 14 (discrimination) in conjunction with article 1 of protocol 1 (protection of property). the key question addressed by the court was whether the widow was discriminated against in a manner that would not have occurred had she not been 9 see maclean (2018) for a discussion of this and related pussy riot cases. 10 the practice of shari’a law in greece in the muslim community of thrace is an anomaly which dates back to the terms of a population exchange between greece and turkey embedded in the 1923 treaty of lausanne. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 303–318 311 a muslim. the court concluded that indeed she was treated differently because of her faith, thus resulting in the decision that her claim under article 14 was warranted. however, the court, rather than affirming its hard stance against applications of shari’a, indicated that, if a country desired, shari’a could be acceptable under certain circumstances that involved an informed choice by all parties to allow domestic matters to be governed under shari’a. but the court’s explanation of what circumstances might warrant acceptance of shari’a were not entirely clear, leaving room for debate and needing further clarification (world politics review, 2018; puppinck, 2018). the implications of the molla sali decision may be immense, as the decision may be viewed ultimately as another example of the court recognizing legal pluralism in the contemporary world, and an effort by the court to find ways to better integrate islam into the fabric of europe11. greece seems in the process of attempting to address the discrepancy between european anti-discrimination law and the practice of allowing shari’a personal law in the thrace area, as per the lausanne treaty of 1923. it recently modified relevant laws prior to the molla sali decision (which was decided under extant law prior to the change), allowing for the optional application of shari’a law. however, this recent action by the greek government have been subject to considerable criticism as potentially limiting personal choice of women in the muslim community because the family and societal pressures they may face to submit to shari’a law may render moot the ‘optional’ aspect (world politics review, 2018). blasphemy and the prophet mohammed: e.s. v. austria on october 25, 2018 the ecthr decided a quite controversial case from austria, e.s. v. austria, ruling that austria had not violated article 10 (freedom of expression) when its courts refused to overturn a decision that the applicant had violated the criminal code of austria making it illegal to disparage religious precepts. the applicant had referred to muhammad as a pedophile during presentation at a seminar entitled “basic information on islam” presented by right-wing freedom party institute, resulting in the charges against her and a resulting fine. this claim about mohammed was based on the apparently historical fact that muhammed had, at the age of 56, married a nine-year-old girl. the court ruled that the application of the law had a legitimate aim of preventing disorder by safeguarding religious peace and protecting religious feelings of austrian citizens who were muslims. the court indicated that the seminar presentation had been misleading and was not in fact an objective treatment of islam. the court thus granted a very wide “margin of appreciation” to austria in the matter, indicating that government officials were closer to the situation and better able to understand the importance of applying the statute in this matter. note that this decision, while of concern to advocates of freedom of expression, aligns, for good or ill, with much earlier decisions where the court upheld restrictions on 11 it is noteworthy, as the court notes, that shari’a law is allowed in at least one other coe country under limited circumstance (domestic law in the u.k.), and applications of shari’a rules in the area of finance are also spreading among coe member nations (possamai, richardson & turner, 2014; ahmed aries & richardson, 2014). https://changing-sp.com/ 312 james t. richardson blasphemy against christianity. these early decisions include otto-preminger institut v. austria (20 sept., 1995), and wingrove v. uk. (20 nov., 1996), which were at the time also controversial in part because they seemed to be supportive of efforts to control blasphemy, but only in favor of christianity. perhaps the recent e.s. decision will level the playing field a bit and indicate that the court is seeking a path that recognizes the extant pluralism of many coe countries. however, for proponents of free speech e.s. and the otto-preminger and wingrove decisions represent significant limitations of freedom of expression. religious attire in the courtroom: hamidovic v. bosnia and herzegovina the wearing of religious attire in public has been a major point of contention throughout europe in recent years, mainly provoked by the desire of many muslims to wear apparel that identifies them with their faith. and usually the ecthr has seemed tonedeaf to the concerns of muslims, rejecting most applicants who bring cases dealing with religious dress to the court12. however, this attitude of the court may be shifting somewhat, as indicated by a recent case. the hamidovic case, decided in december, 2017, involved a member of a fundamentalist islamic religious community who was called to testify in court in bosniaherzegovina (bih), but who refused to take off his islamic skullcap as instructed by the judge. the witness was respectful of the court and willing to testify but unwilling to remove his headgear for religious reasons. he was sanctioned for contempt and fined 5,000 euros (later reduced on appeal to 1,500 euros), but he did not pay the fine and thus was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment. after he was released hamidovic sought relief from the constitutional court of bih which ruled against him, stating that his contempt citation was a lawful interference with his religious rights. hamidovic then applied to the ecthr for relief, claiming that his rights under articles 9 and 14 of the convention had been violated. the ecthr took considerable care in analyzing the case, noting that among other things bih was 51% muslim and 46% christian, with a constitution that guaranteed religious freedom and was based on secular principles. the court presented results of a comparative analysis focusing on rules applied to the wearing of religious symbols in court proceedings in 38 coe member states. this research revealed that only four states required removal of headgear in court proceedings and that in those four the rule was not enforced consistently. the court then focused on whether such a requirement concerning the removal of religious headgear was necessary in a democratic society, and ruled that in this case it was not. the court found a violation of articles 9 and 14. the court tried in its ruling to make it clear that this decision was unique to the facts of this case and did not overrule earlier ecthr decisions concerning religious dress in public spaces. it also stated that there might be future cases where removal of religious symbols, including headgear, in courtrooms would be justified. thus, 12 one exception is ahmet arslan v. turkey app. no. 41135/98, decided feb. 23, 2010, in which turkey was found to have violated article 9 when it found 127 members of an islamic sect to have violated turkish laws when they refused to remove their turbans during court proceedings. but see jusic (2019) for a discussion of contrary cases involving religious garb in legal proceedings. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 303–318 313 the court tried to limit application of the decision, but nonetheless the decision may represent a recognition of some circumstances where basic tenants of islamic sects could prevail within a courtroom setting. conclusions the european court of human rights has become one of the most powerful international courts in the world. but the gradually accruing success and growing influence of the court over the decades since its creation have raised concerns among several of its original sponsors in the coe. also, the operating environment of the court has undergone a dramatic change with the collapse of the soviet union and the subsequent addition of many former soviet-dominated nations to the coe. thus, the court has been forced to respond to growing disquiet among some original sponsors while at the same time it is grappling with thousands of applications from citizens of newer member states whose backgrounds and cultures have not been supportive of human rights. not surprisingly the court has, in the face of these two major concerns, developed a complicated bifurcated response and may be in the process of developing a dual track jurisprudence in the area of religious regulation as well as in other areas (see analyses and empirical evidence offered in cali, 2018; jusic, 2018; stiansen & voeten, 2019). thus the “judicialization of religious freedom” (mayrl, 2018; richardson, 2015) within the much-enlarged coe has evolved in a manner cognizant of the vast cultural and historical differences among coe nations. the court’s more recent jurisprudential record seems to promote legal pluralism as it grapples with many differences present within the coe concerning religious practices, as demonstrated particularly by the cases cited above involving islam. one track seems to treat most original members of the coe with considerable deference involving an expansion of the margin of appreciation, an approach that has resulted in allowing those member states to exercise substantial control over human rights matters including religious practices as well as other areas. this broad margin of appreciation has resulted in the court often deferring to national governments’ attempts to regulate religion in cases dealing with islam but other cases as well. if the member state’s governmental review of the issue involved has been demonstrably thorough then the ecthr has begun to use this as grounds for deferring a substantive analysis and finding in favor of the member state. this recently developed track seems designed to maintain favor with and support from original member nations. the second track appears to treat most new members of the coe (and also sometimes turkey and greece) as being in need of considerable hands on guidance in how it deals with matters involving religious freedom and other human rights. this approach can involve a more thorough substantive analysis of the claims before the court and less deference to claims of the member state, even as the court recognizes historical and cultural differences within the newer members of the coe. this second track also has had implications for how the court has recently been adjudicating cases involving islam, and this development has had an impact on some cases concerning islam brought before the court from original members of the coe. this https://changing-sp.com/ 314 james t. richardson newer jurisprudential pattern involving islam cases appears to represent a recognition of the legal and cultural pluralism that exists not only within newer coe members, but also with original member states as well. thus, the court seems in the process of developing a quite complex jurisprudence in its efforts to manage the vastly differentiated landscape of a much enlarged coe. the consequences of applying this complicated mode of operation adopted by the court, and how it comports with the “judicialization of religious freedom” concept remains to be seen. as the court begins to develop a jurisprudence that seems more deferential to the cultural and legal pluralism that exists within the new (and older) coe nations, can it succeed in “educating” newer coe members, some of whom are quite recalcitrant and openly hostile to the court’s rulings and overall authority, while treating more consolidated democracies with greater deference? or will the court end up effectively neutered with respect to older coe members and ignored by newer members? indeed, there are ultimate questions to be posed concerning the future of the court and of the coe itself given these recent developments. can the court and the coe survive in the modern era with so many conflicting demands being made on it? that seems the major question of the time. references adrian, m. 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https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3166110 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3166110 https://doi.org/10.1177/016934411303100304 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316780237.012 https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/24061/pushed-by-the-european-court-of-human-rights-greece-reins-in-islamic-courts https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/24061/pushed-by-the-european-court-of-human-rights-greece-reins-in-islamic-courts changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 53–67 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.1.089 received 2 june 2019 © 2020 aireen grace t. andal accepted 10 january 2020 aireengrace.andal@gmail.com published online 10 april 2020 article flesh of the unborn: on the political philosophy of the unborn aireen grace t. andal ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract this work situates the unborn1 within the wider discussions in political philosophy. much existing work on the unborn’s relevance to theoretical discussions focuses on personhood, moral status and pregnant bodies. however, this work argues that the embryonic or fetal body is the crux of political philosophy’s interest in the unborn. there is less work on whether or not to protect the unborn by virtue of having a body, yet it is important because the embryonic or fetal body complicates the boundaries of the unborn’s membership to humanity. this work unpacks the relevance of political philosophy in furthering the discussions on the body of the embryo or fetus. the unborn’s membership to humanity is inescapably embodied because it is with and through a body that the unborn gains access the human world and touches discussions on moral status, personhood, identity and rights. three cases are provided to substantiate these discussions: moral status, birth restrictions and gene editing, all of which are related to how the embryonic or fetal body becomes a contested space for membership to humanity. this work concludes that the political philosophy of the unborn contributes to both academic scholarship and political life by problematizing what virtues ought to govern laws and policies on the unborn. discussions imply that the connection between the contested embryonic or fetal body and political philosophy gathers a variety of deep and important questions, which justifies an intellectual and practical pursuit. keywords political philosophy, unborn, pregnancy, discourse, ethics, moral status 1 for the purposes of this study, the term “unborn” refers to an offspring of a human mammal. https://changing-sp.com/ 54 aireen grace t. andal situating the unborn in philosophical and political discussions there is a growing concern on international legal imperatives for the unborn (haaf, 2016). debates are vibrant on the moral and legal aspects of the unborn, especially in terms of how civil law ought to see the unborn’s moral and legal status (simić, 2018). it is in this context that a review of various fields of studies exploring the unborn gain relevance. there are many disciplines and area studies that deal about the unborn from biology to feminist studies to ecology. to be sure, the idea of disciplinary boundaries has been attacked by many scholars, claiming that our experiences are overlapping, messy and cannot be exclusively contained within one field of study. the fetus is an overlapping subject that cannot be restricted to disciplinary turfs. yet, while it is important not to be caged in disciplinary boundaries, there is a good reason to make use of these boundaries to direct discussions to future trajectories. a subject as controversial as the embryo or fetus is a space to discuss what we seek to realize through philosophy and politics in dealing with an entity in the borderline of membership in humanity. indeed, discussing the unborn can be “more philosophical than political” or “more political than philosophical”. the former deals with moral or ethical discussions which are recurrently theoretically debated and the latter embarks on an interplay of interests and voices among political actors and institutions. the unborn is found sitting uneasily between these spheres as it is in itself a subject of ambiguity. as such, it is informative to analyze how disciplines choose discourses or level of talk about the unborn. this level of talk determines the level of reality about the unborn, from which decisions and resolutions can be drawn. philosophy and political science discourses can bring the unborn to different polarities of discourses. for instance, general philosophical discussions about the unborn surfaces ethics of life and reproduction that follow some prima facie principles such as non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy, and justice, and virtues such as fidelity, compassion, practical wisdom, justice, fortitude, temperance, integrity and self-effacement. these questions are rooted in the issue of who are entitled to these ethical principles and in particular, whether or not the unborn can be protected by such principles. some scholars would then argue that the way to look at this is seeing the embryo or fetus as having capacity to be a person under appropriate circumstances, i.e. specific intrinsic qualities (i.e. cells, genes) for development2 (see buckle, 1988). yet, when contentions on what interpretation of morality is to be taken and applied to rules that govern society, the discussion about the unborn takes a political turn. political science puts the discussion about the unborn towards cases of reproductive autonomy or freedom and identity and body politics of uterusowners. it may problematize maternal mortality among marginalized sectors or gender discrimination in infrastructures and everyday life of pregnant persons. a political science approach to the unborn would dwell on the extent of democratic participation 2 for instance, a seed is a potential plant (since it possesses the capacity to become a plant; it will become a plant if it lives long enough). in the same manner, while an embryo or fetus is not yet an actual person, it has the properties to be a person and it will become a person, if its growth is unhindered and if it lives long enough. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 53–67 55 in which political actors deliberate about the unborn. so, whereas general philosophy deals with questions of metaphysics, ethics and epistemologies of the unborn, political discussions dwell more on civil interests aspect of the unborn, such as how the unborn fits “the concept of law’s subject: the legal person” (haaf, 2016). the relevance of political philosophy this work argues that the wisdom of political philosophy is necessary to account for why and how societies ought to deal with the unborn. the relevance of political philosophy is found in virtues and normative claims that are contested in political situations. for instance, it problematizes the concept of universal abortion laws in light of “what ought to be”. in this sense, political philosophy treats the unborn in terms of what virtues ought to govern laws and policies on the unborn. political philosophy asks questions about the beliefs upon which political institutions and actors employ as guide to determine unborn’s political status in the society. the starting point for these questions is locating the unborn along the standing debates between the moral theories. dealing with the moral status of the unborn is an abstract matter, which does not have a cut and dry answer; and yet the questions about the unborn are extraordinarily pressing such as how shall international laws be organized for the unborn, and in saying that, there is a tacit reference that there can be universal goals and we can determine what these goals should be. so, instead of merely asking what standpoints contemporary legal systems have toward the unborn, political philosophy further asks what normative principles can be used as guide in the case of the unborn human. the next question is what means should we undertake to carry out these normative guidelines. this then elucidates the validity of the generalizations and the theories used in political philosophy. the political philosophy of the unborn accommodates the unborn's abstract character vis-a-vis human laws. it links the metaphysical and ethical discussions of the unborn to some practical and empirical inquiries such as legal and medical implications of the epistemological complexities of the unborn. political philosophy therefore unpacks the subject of the unborn by considering the unborn as a political entity imbued with contesting normative claims. it takes the wisdom of philosophical thought to understand the value judgements about the unborn, the embryonic or fetal body and pregnancy within the boundaries of politics such as sovereignty, governance, law and order. the task of political philosophy of the unborn is to account for the connection between the unborn and general political concepts, practices and institutions (e.g. state, individual, rights, community and justice). corollary to seeing the relationship between the unborn and the political order is seeing how the unborn is ethically situated within a specific political order. these links can help illuminate the kind of moral actions that are justified to be enacted towards the unborn. the aim is to arrive at an understanding of the unborn from a normative perspective as grounds for what is deemed right and the good in politics and political organization. for instance, it is situated in the literature dealing with arguments regarding the threats that the unborn may induce to its maternal organism. the narrower concern https://changing-sp.com/ 56 aireen grace t. andal of political philosophy is based on how these principles are integrated in governance. the political philosophy of the unborn is also explicitly laden with norms such as discussions on state policies on fertility, regulation of births and reproductive technologies, and whether/what measures are ethically sound to implement these policies. debates on this matter centered on the conflict between the survival of the embryo or fetus versus the life and/or health of the maternal organism. most discussions divide groups into having pro-choice and pro-life leanings. finally, another level of discussion seeks to unpack whether or not there is indeed a conflict or logical inconsistency between ascribing moral status to the embryo or fetus and granting abortion rights to maternal organism. the unborn’s body: a universal subject of inquiry? that the unborn’s body is both epistemologically and politically contentious for rights recognition makes it a vibrant space for discussion (burda, 2009). for one, the body has been a space of debates and discussions for political philosophers as “the body is not a thing, it is a situation” (de beauvoir, 1949/2010, p. 68). however, much existing work on this topic falls under practical ethics and focuses on epistemological justifications on why or why not the unborn deserves rights. there are, for instance, longstanding debates about the basis of granting rights such as personhood and moral status – all of which are connected to having a soul or mind. yet, there is less work on whether or not to protect the unborn by the very virtue of having a body. most scholars have discussed whether or not an embryo or fetus has a personhood or consciousness (see benn, 1973; buckle, 1988; english, 1975; finn, 2018; smith & brogaard, 2003), yet not much work has asked when an embryo or fetus begins to have a legitimate body and when can this body to be protected; or should state policies recognize at all the embryonic or fetal body as basis for the statutory protection of the unborn. in this regard, the unborn is a rightful subject to political philosophy because the fetal body complicates the boundaries of membership to humanity. while the stage of being an embryo and fetus are necessary to becoming a living human being, it is highly contested if during the process of becoming, the embryo or fetus is already a member of the human species entitled of protection and all other welfare that the body politic can offer. the interim period towards humanhood makes a case for the unborn as a provisionary member of society. while a fetus is not yet a fully-developed person, it is considered as an aspect of life and ecology deemed to be taken care of, just in the case of elements found in nature. to be sure, there is an ongoing debate whether or not the fetus should be seen in the same level as that of other elements of nature (see ojala & lidskog, 2011). indeed, the fetus possesses a controversial body with a survival status that is governed by others and the circumstances that preexisted it. on this basis, it is of particular interest to political philosophy to inquire about the place of the embryo or fetus in governance. in this sense, an embryo or fetus is understood as being in a distinct political and moral position since it is under a preparatory stage with a range of inherent risks to both itself and the maternal organism (haaf, 2017). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 53–67 57 thus, the embryo or fetus exhibits a contestable political identity that challenges the philosophical questions about the nature of human beings. examining the political philosophy of the unborn leads to the inquiry whether the principles in political philosophy are to be regarded with a universal validity that is applicable to the unborn, or whether these principles are rather to be construed as assumptions that only make sense within certain theoretical frameworks. inquiries on the nature of the embryonic or fetal body create a space of negotiation on whether it is a universalizable subject or an entity with inscriptions of meanings which only make sense within specific contexts (grosz, 1994). this leads to the question about the scope of what is universalizable assumption about human beings in relation to the demand for ethics and virtue towards the unborn. the problematique of universality is found in the complexity of “oughtness”. how to govern especially in a cosmopolitan world is premised on some shared moral principles, whether in the form of some abstract ideas such as preservation of life, liberty and dignity or in the form of societal goals such as achieving peace or pursuit of general happiness. such bases for collective human arrangements involve the notion of a shared “oughtness”, thereby claiming the possibility of the universality of some international laws. however, criticisms to the universality of “oughtness” come to play when considering the many versions of “what ought to be”. while universal prohibitions are present in legal practice such as those against various types of aggression (e.g. murder and rape) (brown, 1991), these restrictions are still based on specific context of causation, intention and voluntary behavior (mikhail, 2002). the critique of the idea of universal principles concerning the unborn, its modus operandi, liberties and restrictions are reflective of the broader and long-standing question about the existence of any universal principle and parameters of morality. theoretical polarities in the field of ethics have left scholars with completely different views – (1) those who believe in the subjectivity of moral violations and (2) those that argue for distinguishing between universal moral violations from violations of social conventions. the former is usually associated with hermeneutic traditions and cultural relativism, which see morality as determined by the “art of interpretation” and that having a universal human rights is imperialistic and hegemonic (ochsner, 1979, p. 54). in contrast, the latter is advocated by a number of scholars who presume that human beings hold an inherent moral judgment based on a complex set of universal standards and principles (e.g. rawls, 1971). this view argues that societies share universal abstract concepts that every human being is entitled to such as life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. thus, the issue on the universality of governance principles to the unborn bears witness to the relevance of political philosophy. stemming from a long history of debates, this work argues that the unborn’s body opens up a platform for universal claim. determining the normative dimensions about the nature of the unborn’s body in relation to ethics, politics and law is not an easily resolvable feat. while it makes sense to contest that every virtue is potentially political, and therefore not universal, to say so is to run the risk of making a “rescue narrative” (smith, 2002) under the logic of relativity. in so doing, it may close further discussions. first, to dismiss the claim of universal virtues as hegemonic can be https://changing-sp.com/ 58 aireen grace t. andal accomplished only through taking a universalizing reason. arguing against any universal virtue to deal with the unborn is in itself an act of universalizing and uses the same logic of universality to propel an argument. to say that universal virtues yield to its own exclusions does not in itself escape the totalizing and dismissive logic of generating its own universalities, hence ironically excluding other epistemologies. second, seeing the politics of universalization as a hegemonic process does not take into account the founding character of the embryo or fetus and pregnant individuals within the anthropocentric framework. arguing against the notion of universal virtues, which labels the unborn as a subject only relevant to human history as if there was no other way to make sense of its existence aside from the purpose of being a human (addelson, 1999; see ojala & lidskog, 2011). when applied to the issue of the unborn, the presence of a universal entity (fetus) or condition (in the case of pregnancy) is assumed, ergo the issue of universalism is insufficiently addressed, if at all. finally, having politically-laden virtues need not necessarily be problematic and does not preclude human beings to set normative ends to reflect and offer conjectures about political life. an investigation of how the fetal body becomes an arena of contestation in light of normativities contributes to the understanding of its relevance to theory and practice, between what was, is, and possibly, also, what may come to be. ultimately, an examination of the thoughts and works of political philosophers reveals either general virtue systems (e.g. plato, aristotle, hobbes, locke, hume, hegel and j. s. mill) or general frameworks to understand political life (e.g. machiavelli, rousseau, bentham, marx, ibn khaldhun, arendt, berlin, dewey, foucault, gramsci, habermas, rawls, sartre and taylor). in any case, these intellectual activities provide a sense of “what ought to be” either in terms of moral guidelines or frameworks to human action. what the political philosophy of the unborn contributes to these discussions is problematizing the virtues of human beings using the embryonic or fetal body as a point of inquiry on how we should collectively and politically arrange the interests, capacities, voices involved thereof. thus, it is both important to question uncontested normative expectations and at the same time, decide on “what ought to be”. of law, constitutions and the unborn political philosophers such as hobbes, locke, rousseau, mill and many others have used the body as a metaphor to underpin several of their arguments about political concepts such as “heads” of state, long “arm” of the law, and “heartlands” of countries (cannon, 1941). these words originated from the latin corpus, which means “body”, and thereafter developed to terms such as “international body” for cross-country organizations, “corps” commander for military leaders, and “corporations” for business establishments (nedermann, 1992). here, the body is not only a metaphor for societies but a tool to realize that we are part of the bigger whole. this surfaces in the discussions about the extent to which this “bigger whole” accommodate membership. this leads to questions such as: how accommodating should constitutions be of the unborn? how often, and how, should laws concerning the unborn adjust based on local cultures, value-systems and practices? what are changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 53–67 59 the implications of a written constitution about the unborn on moral and political polarities of particular cultures? there is no simple answer to these questions. but the works of political philosophers offer some guidance. law can serve as the basis of moral obligation (i.e. locke’s divine law and natural law), regulation of human actions (i.e. mills’ limits to the law), or means towards rights and justice (i.e. rawls’ law of peoples). these views share the notion that law is accountable towards some moral and ethical guidelines, evident in some fundamental principles implicit to the morally-laden legal terms such as obligatory, permissible, and forbidden, or their equivalents (bybee & fleischman, 1995). however, there is a need to discuss the extent to which this applies to the embryonic or fetal body. the succeeding sections offer three cases that discuss how the unborn is situated within legal policies through its body: moral status, birth restrictions and gene editing. the unborn and the maternal organism: debates on moral status depending on specific histories and culture about pregnancy, different kinds of constitutions come about, which have generated specific rules for the unborn. but an important normative concern of political philosophy with respect to the unborn is that it faces the issue of the autonomy of the pregnant person or maternal organism in making preferences where this person may confront often conflicting values, desires and beliefs against the unborn (gillon, 1985). this gives rise to the question about the moral status of the unborn. if the moral status of the unborn can be established, constitutions will have solid grounds for a universal stand on the unborn (see buckle, 1988). yet of a more fundamental consideration is whether or not having a moral status is necessary for granting rights to the unborn. the issue on moral status collapses into broader questions concerning the relationship between the maternal organism and the unborn. when the pregnant human body and human embryonic or fetal body are juxtaposed with each other, the question on their distinction from each other surfaces. since legislation on rights only applies to human history, discussions center humanhood of the embryo or fetus such that if the embryo or fetus is not a constitutional person, then it cannot be granted any constitutionally protected right to life, liberty, and property, nor is it entitled to the equal protection of the law. a pressing debate related to this is whether or not the embryo or fetus has a moral status. some scholars agree that a mental capacity to desire continued existence, which are attributable only to developed persons, is a requirement to be granted a moral right to life (see dawson & singer, 1990; c.f. boonin, 2003). however, others find this reasoning rather weak because this criterion for rights means accepting that infants, the severely retarded, or those in coma do not deserve a moral status either. some would discuss the differences in stages of being “pre-born” implying that moral status must be based on the stage of development of the embryo or fetus. for instance, suki finn (2018) argues that while, logically, fetus has the capacity to develop into a person in the womb, that actual condition has no appropriate capacity to develop into a person in the future without the maternal agent. regardless of the stage of development, a pressing concern remains: is having a potential for life a morally relevant characteristic that justifies ascribing an embryo or fetus a moral https://changing-sp.com/ 60 aireen grace t. andal status in its current condition? some scholars see potency in terms of both capacities to develop and to be harmed as well (see manninen, 2007/2014) for instance, she states that all human beings are in the state of being potentially sick and thus justifying health coverage of people who have actual illness impending. likewise, it is also not a question of having the desire to be a person in order to possess an interest in it. moral status then is deserved if possessing it “constitutes a benefit for the individual that potentially possesses that property and a denial of that moral right constitutes a harm” (manninen, 2007/2014, p. 202). the discussions that constitute potentials in personhood are rooted from the issue on whether or not the fetus is part of the maternal organism or a separate entity, only residing in a host’s womb. on the one hand, some would argue that the fetus is a separate entity from the pregnant person and that pregnant persons are morally liable to their human embryo or fetus in case they deliberately cause impairment to embryonic or fetal health and development and have not fulfilled the duties and obligations of their social contract as parents; thus it is legitimate to penalize pregnant persons for causing harm to human fetuses (murphy & rosenbaum, 1999; smith, 1989). on the other hand, natalists would argue for fetal parthood or the claim that the embryo or fetus is a physical part of the pregnant person and condemn any view that pits pregnant individuals against their offspring or that protects the embryo or fetus “qua fetus” (johnsen, 1986). viewed in legal terms, this poses some queries on statutory restrictions for pregnant individuals. in the case of abortion, for instance, whereas the constitutional status of pregnant individuals who are persons with basic rights is necessarily superior to that of non-persons, the embryo or fetus becomes an entity of contestation against which the rights of the pregnant agent might be affected. yet there is another strand of discourse that complicates the embryonic or fetal parthood debate and takes an ecological view on matters concerning the unborn. situating the embryo or fetus in an ecological perspective puts into question the very concept of individuality and the sacredness of dna as the basis of individuality and personhood (nelkin & lindee, 1996). it renders futile the debate on whether or not there is one or two persons in the case of pregnancy because the pregnant organism is a symbiosis rather than a space of contestation for individuality and personhood (gilbert & tauber, 2016). this has implications on the policies regarding abortion, because it offers a counter narrative that one’s genome determines one’s essence in the process of fertilization, which renders as non-issue the uniqueness of either the pregnant individual or the embryo or fetus. the state and moral obligation: the case of birth place regulations birth is a process that separates the maternal organism and the unborn-turnednewborn human being. here, the relationship between the state and the unborn makes case for discussion under political philosophy in terms of the state’s action towards stillbirths or death of the unborn before or during delivery. death that occurs in the context of unborn-to-newborn transition complicates death and what kind of deaths can be normatively acknowledged. it is important because death is changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 53–67 61 a universal concern, upon which some universal legal norms such as the “right to life” are underpinned. the unborn complicates the “right to life” because while the fetal body is subject to the threat of death, it carries the issue on whether or not this kind of death is worthy of statutory protection. ethical issues surrounding birth place regulation are informative in this regard. birth place restriction is claimed to be an answer to the soaring number of maternal deaths and stillbirths allegedly blamed against “unskilled” birth attendants (montagu et al., 2017). this kind of policy requires pregnant individuals to give birth only in hospitals and lying-in centers and midwives are no longer allowed to deliver in homes. yet it opens up questions on whether or not the state infringes any right of those who refuse giving birth in medical facilities in light of the argument that “[p]regnancy is not an exception to the principle that a decisionally capable patient has the right to refuse treatment, even treatment needed to maintain life” (the american college of obstetricians and gynecologists, 2016, pp. 1–2). the unborn’s body, in this context, becomes relevant because stillbirth or the potential death of the unborn at birth is legitimized as grounds for statutory intervention to the decision of the maternal organism. on the one hand, this regulation may be in “good faith” to avoid stillbirths as a manner of assisting the unborn-to-newborn transition to the interest of the maternal organism. but on the other hand, the state may reveal itself to be punitive and costly for the maternal organism. hannah arendt, for instance, with her notion of natality, can expands a discussion on the connection between the unborn’s birth and death. she explains that death signifies the loss of a unique identity as much as birth means coming to life of new members of the world who are “unique, unexchangeable, and unrepeatable entities” or participants of the world (arendt, 1958, pp. 96–97). in the same light, thomas nagel (1970) offers a reimagination of the unborn’s death, that is, framing death as part of a whole ecosystem which ends one’s participation as a member of both natural and social worlds, instead of loss in existence of an ego, thereby making the death of the embryonic or fetal body non-moral, which can be considered as a loss in the earth symbiosis rather than contesting whether or not it is a loss or “life”. this provides some starting point on how to assess statutory interests in the death of the fetal body and its implications to the unborn’s membership to society. this issue on membership taps on the idea of viewing maternal and fetal bodies as a public property to justify the state regulation of birth and possibly the utilization of adequate antenatal and delivery care services. political philosophy offers rich discussions on whether or not there is a clear moral interest for states to regulate birthing processes that justifies the exercise of police power (the limiting of individual rights by the state for public good). nature, medicine and the unborn: the case of genetic editing aside from embryonic or fetal deaths, medical advances concerning the unborn serve as yet another controversial subject for political philosophy. medical practices are ethically contested not only within statutory boundaries but also as universal moral issues. one of the most pressing recent debates is on gene editing of an embryo after employing in vitro fertilization (ivf) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (pgd) https://changing-sp.com/ 62 aireen grace t. andal (savulescu, 2001; williams, 2015). advances in genomics enable the detection of diseases through extracting embryonic or fetal dna from the maternal organism’s blood, which aims to repair the fetal gene through gene editing. as in the issue of cloning human beings, the legalization of gene editing for creating ideal fetuses is contentious in terms of whether or not creating “perfect fetuses” is a goal worthy of pursuit for humanity. given advances in genetic technology, preventing the birth of a fetus with disability or a severe genetic disorder becomes an option. if genetic engineering becomes safe and effective, furthermore, then this may enable even to enhance the genes of the already healthy fetuses. however, there are questions on the moral permissibility of such enhancements. specifically, moral considerations are placed over the treatment–enhancement distinction (selgelid, 2014). debates are usually polarized between bio-conservatives (e.g. carlson, 2001; kevles, 1985) and bioliberalists or transhumanists (e.g., harris, 2007; savulescu, 2001). these positions discuss the lines between permissible and impermissible genetic manipulation. on the one hand, bio-conservatives argue that being merely human has its value (fukuyama, 2002); and because enhancement technologies would often only be accessible to the financially endowed, it is might exacerbate inequalities (mehlman & botkin, 1998). on the other hand, bio-liberalists question what could be so different and morally wrong about genetic enhancement given that some enhancements such as hair growth and liposuction for aesthetic purposes are permitted (agar, 2014). one of the prominent arguments is the principle of procreative beneficence (pb), which premises that parent(s) are morally obliged to select embryos or fetuses which are most likely to have the best life, including enhancement (when possible) based on available genetic information (savulescu, 2001). some would also argue that intention to enhance must be weighed as there are enhancements aiming to exceed human ‘‘natural’’ limitation (what transhumanists advocate) and enhancement that seeks optimization (see baertschi, 2014). scholars agree though that ethical discussions on eugenics revolve around the topic of liberty restrictions and threat to equality (buchanan et al., 2000; nozick, 1974). critics of medicalisation argue that this process obscures our understanding of what is rather natural (parens, 2013). this raises the question on the ethical boundaries of in-utero genetic interventions and what states should do on policies regarding these medical practices. ethics is crucial when legislation assigns moral meanings to the disabled fetal body as a qualifier for policy restriction. controversy comes at different levels – selecting the best features for an embryo is one thing; genetic prevention to eradicate disability is also one thing; but to desire to change the fetus’ features for enhancement purposes is yet another case. prenatal diagnosis of a severe genetic disorder may count as an exceptional circumstance that justifies genetic manipulation. however, gene editing in the context of enhancing the offspring is argued to be different from mere treatment and requires further ethical assessment (selgelid, 2014). political philosophy such as rawl’s (1971) theory of justice is useful to provide discussions for such interests. for instance, rawls (1971) recognizes “the interest of each to have changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 53–67 63 greater natural assets” (p. 92) and that citizens “want to insure for their descendants the best institutional responses. while the unborn is treated in light of its dev genetic endowment (assuming their own to be fixed)” (rawls, 1971, p. 107). however, if these natural endowments can be modified before birth through genetic editing, then liberty for genetic enhancement would be permissible for rawls. yet, this liberty may produce further inequality as technology may not (yet) be accessible to all. on the more pragmatic level, this issue opens up questions on what kinds of ethical systems are the most “workable” to discuss how eugenics link liberty and equality, and from there, establish an ethical spectrum as a rough guideline for how to act on the information revealed by genetic tests and weighing the choices involved in enhancement-related fetal surgeries. fleshy discourses: unborn’s body and its promises to political philosophy the previous examples are suggestive that much still remains to be seen about the unborn’s place in humanity. there are still more to unpack when it comes to the political philosophy of the unborn. for instance, the discussions on whether or not the embryo or fetus is part of the maternal organism has only given importance to the embryonic or fetal body to the extent of discussing it as an “attachment” or “body part”. yet there is a need to evaluate the assumption that if the embryo or fetus is a body part, then it does not have a rightful claim for legal protection. it leaves many questions such as those that deal with the legality of extracting body parts. for instance, if selling kidney is deemed illegal, it raises questions if if the same logic can be applied to selling a fetal body for medical purposes such as placenta used for stem cell research? moreover, the discussions on state intervention to avoid stillbirths call for further exploration as to how the fetal body challenges the “lived-body” of the maternal organism, creating instead a “co-lived body” such as being a holobiont or a symbiotic system (gilbert & tauber, 2016). finally, the last example on eugenics seeks for discussions of the unborn’s body as an ownership and genes as commodity and investment. this opens discussions that examine genes as currency and potential sources of power that may structure populations into those in power and those without power based on their bodies when they were still unborn, thereby potentially creating a marginalized genes and continuing exclusions even before birth. as things currently stand, the unborn’s body can be a signpost for further discussions with regards to discussions on political philosophy. indeed, the embryonic or fetal body in the previous examples offers a promising dialogue on controversial alien body’s membership to human territory. the depths of this controversy suggest that the unborn’s membership to humanity is inescapably embodied. it is with and through a body that the unborn gains access the human world and touches discussions on moral status, personhood, identity and rights. as drew leder (1990) reminds us, bodies are ecstatic with a capacity to externally project itself towards others through perception, movement and thoughts. the embryonic or fetal body is not just an aggregate of evolving tissues, but a space through which the unborn, given its fleshy constraints, enters human discourses. https://changing-sp.com/ 64 aireen grace t. andal conclusion: the unborn as a melting pot the discussions provided in this work have raised concerns about the moral status and political identity of the unborn. this implies that the connection between the contested embryonic or fetal body and political philosophy gathers a variety of deep and important questions, which form an intellectual and practical pursuit. the unborn is thus situated as a universal subject of inquiry in political philosophy by virtue of the complexity of its body and the normative standards applied thereof. in the end, various positions and debates about the unborn boil down to one common premise when it comes to the state – that statutory decisions seek normative bases. the relevance of ethics in the case of the unborn comes to play in providing a “mantra” or guiding principles (boldizar & korhonen, 1999, p. 280) upon which most laws are grounded on. political philosophy provides benchmarks for statutory arrangements when it comes to the unborn. finally, what inclusive and tolerant thought would go about telling societies on how to deal with the unborn? after all, the unborn is ambiguous and we all have our set of beliefs about maternal practices. human beings either accept the validity of one principle or another, and some may feel that it is inappropriate to tell states how to lead and govern human population. after all, it is their territory, their culture, their decision. yet there is wisdom in recognizing that we need some guidance in one way or another in taking actions concerning a body-owner that is in the borderline of humanity, called the unborn. while there is no immediate answer to ethical dilemmas about the unborn, it is important to heed the importance of yielding to ethics as a logical base upon which succeeding discussions about the unborn can rest. in this context of evaluating political decisions, non-accountability to ethics can be a more potent source of malevolence than is the ambiguity of the unborn’s moral status. and the question on what kind of guidance is needed and how do we establish a universalizable principle for the unborn are the reasons why there is a need of a political philosophy of the unborn. this work therefore forwards the continued relevance of political philosophy in discussing international legal systems. references addelson, k. p. 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(2015). medical ethics manual (3rd ed.). ferney-voltaire: the world medical association. retrieved from https://www.wma.net/wp-content/ uploads/2016/11/ethics_manual_3rd_nov2015_en.pdf https://changing-sp.com/ https://doi.org/10.3197/096327111x12997574391760 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2011.01885.x http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8519.00251 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-013-9485-1 http://doi.org/10.5937/pravzap0-19193 https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1383&context=jlh https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1383&context=jlh https://doi.org/10.1076/jmep.28.1.45.14172 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0725513602070001011 https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2016/06/refusal-of-medically-recommended-treatment-during-pregnancy https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2016/06/refusal-of-medically-recommended-treatment-during-pregnancy https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2016/06/refusal-of-medically-recommended-treatment-during-pregnancy https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ethics_manual_3rd_nov2015_en.pdf https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/ethics_manual_3rd_nov2015_en.pdf changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.1.087 received 23 september 2019 © 2020 riccardo campa accepted 15 january 2020 riccardo.campa@uj.edu.pl published online 10 april 2020 article fourth industrial revolution and emotional intelligence: a conceptual and scientometric analysis riccardo campa jagiellonian university, krakow, poland abstract a growing number of social scientists argue that we stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will drastically change the way we live, learn, and work. one of the terms adopted to name this social phenomenon is “ fourth industrial revolution”. other social scientists, in particular psychologists, have independently elaborated and discussed a concept of intelligence which is complementary, and sometimes alternative, to that measured by traditional iq tests, namely “emotional intelligence”. in recent years, these two concepts came into contact and started interacting in scientific literature. enhancing ei in educational programs has been seen as a possible way to prevent a predicted negative side effect of the fourth industrial revolution, namely technological unemployment. this article provides a diachronic scientometric analysis of terms and concepts. quantitative and qualitative research tools are applied in order to reconstruct the dynamics of the emergence, frequency, proximity, and relation (efpr dynamics) of the two concepts in the scientific literature. keywords fourth industrial revolution, emotional intelligence, scientometrics, topical analysis, conceptual analysis, sociology of science https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 9 background and aim of the research there is a long research tradition in the sociology of science showing that scientific theories and discoveries are multiples, rather than singletons. as robert k. merton (1973) stated almost half a century ago, a great variety of evidence testifies “to the hypothesis that, once science has become institutionalized, and significant numbers are at work on scientific investigation, the same discoveries will be made independently more than once and that singletons can be conceived of as forestalled multiples” (p. 364). this awareness invites researchers (especially young researchers) to be extremely cautious when asserting the originality of their ideas or assuming that genius is the main propellant of scientific discoveries. as merton showed, the hypothesis of multiples itself has been rediscovered many times, to the point that it can be seen as a self-exemplifying idea. in other words, science is a collective enterprise. when certified knowledge reaches a certain stage, new ideas and discoveries are “in the air”. therefore, these ideas are subject to be independently rediscovered by many researchers. the hypertrophic growth of scientific publications, the digitalization of knowledge, and the appearance of new scientometric tools are just making more visible what was understood by the pioneers of the sociology of science long ago. these considerations also apply to the two ideas on which this article focu ses, namely “ fourth industrial revolution” and “emotional intelligence”. this research aims at reconstructing the historical performance and the interplay of these two terms-and-concepts, by taking the perspective of the sociology of science and by using research tools offered by scientometrics. when eugene garfield (1955) paved the road to scientometrics, this field of study focused almost exclusively on citations and impact factor, and this is still the main focus of the discipline. however, scientometrics has subsequently enlarged its range of analysis to virtually anything measurable in the scientific process. indeed, as cantú-ortiz (2018) specifies, “scientometrics also permits studies about research collaboration, hot research topics, research trends, patenting, funding, and other related topics” (p. 5). here we provide an example of a scientometric analysis focused on “research topics” and “ trends”. more in detail, we will reconstruct the dynamics of the emergence, frequency, proximity, and relation (efpr dynamics) of the key terms of our research in the scientific literature. by “emergence” we mean the moment when the terms “fourth industrial revolution” and “emotional intelligence” made their first appearance in the history of ideas. by “frequency” we mean both the frequency of the terms in the scientific literature and the frequency of the publications (scientific articles and books) containing the terms. we will pay attention to both the relative frequency and the absolute frequency of the items. by “proximity” we simply mean the togetherness (or compresence) of the two terms-and-concepts in the same publication. by “relation” we mean the theoretical or instrumental connection established by the author(s) of the publication between the two concepts. details about research techniques will be given during the analysis. https://changing-sp.com/ 10 riccardo campa a conceptual and scientometric analysis of “fourth industrial revolution” to investigate the emergence and the relative frequency of the term “fourth industrial revolution”, we will use google books ngram viewer1. initially, we will simply extract the graphs provided by that online tool, setting the period on the interval 1930–2008. in figure 1, one can see the relative frequency of the term. we are well aware of all the problems and possible mistakes generated by this search tool, starting from that of “false positives”. for instance, when searching a term in periodicals, ngram viewer may identify the foundation date of the scholarly journal or the magazine, rather than that of the issue. that is why qualitative analysis is still needed when it comes to determining the actual emergence of a term-and-concept. the item detected in 1940 is correctly located and significant. albert carr’s book america’s last chance uses the expression “fourth industrial revolution”. precisely, he states that “certain writers are inclined to regard the advent of modern communications merely as an additional manifestation of the industrial revolution – as the beginnings of a new phase, a fourth industrial revolution” (carr, 1940, pp. 141–142). he does not specify who those authors are, but he let us understand that the expression is already in use before world war ii. still, the author does not agree with the use of this formula, because it minimizes the scope of the societal change. he warns that to reject such an interpretation is not quibbling over terms. in his view, what is happening is not just a new phase of an ongoing process. it is something radically new. therefore, carr (1940) suggests that “the present upheaval, in fact, may well be called the aerial revolution; for its chief technology instruments are those super-terrestrial, space defying inventions, the airplane and the radio” (p. 141). figure 1. google books ngram viewer graph for the term “fourth industrial revolution”, interval: 1930–2008 1 https://books.google.com/ngrams changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 11 as we will see, the different phases of the industrial revolution are in general related either to the source of energy that mainly supplies the industrial system (coal, oil, electricity, nuclear power, etc.), or to the type of machines mainly used in the industrial processes (steam engine, internal combustion engine, electrical motor, computer and robot, etc.). in carr’s narrative, the accent is rather on the progressive conquest of space (terrestrial, marine, and aerial space). in 1948, harry elmer barnes publishes the book historical sociology: its origins and development: theories of social evolution from cave life to atomic bombing. the work appears after the hiroshima and nagasaki bombing and, not surprisingly, the emphasis goes on the new energy source. however, quite interestingly, the technological breakthrough is still also related to space occupation. these are his words: “with the coming of intra-atomic energy and supersonic stratosphere aviation we face an even more staggering fourth industrial revolution” (barnes, 1948, p. 145). in 1955, harold ordway rugg and william withers use again the expression “fourth industrial revolution” in the book social foundations of education. in their narrative, the breakthrough is temporally located after world war ii and is related to the new energy source and machine typology, while the reference to the occupation of the aerial space drops out of the definition. this is the fragment of the book relevant to our study: “after world war ii, we entered a fourth industrial revolution, with great advancement in electronics and in the world-shaping development of atomic power. the world entered a creative age in which nature could be greatly transformed, both as to substance and power” (rugg & withers, 1955, p. 45). on april 12th, 1961, yuri gagarin completed one earth orbit on the capsule vostok and became the first human to journey into outer space. nasa also prepares for space exploration. the space factor is back as a determinant of the new technological phase. colonel carl a. ousley, in his work national security in outer space (1962, p. 40), writes: the research phase of the american economy is having a phenomenal growth as a result of space exploration. one recent study considers research as the fourth major industrial revolution in american industry following steam mechanization, steel, and electrical-and-internal combustion engines. the fourth industrial revolution, ours, is unique in the number of people working on it, its complexity, and its power to push the economy at a rate previously impossible. here the emphasis is on research and space exploration. the idea is that science is the very propellant of the fourth industrial revolution. a few years later, a generic emphasis on science is found also in asoka mehta’s economic planning for india. the interesting aspect of this publication is that the author is not sure which phase of the revolution we are experiencing. he writes that “today, science and technology has given us enormous powers. we are witnessing a revolution in agriculture and perhaps, the third or fourth industrial revolution with a series of breathtaking advances in science and technology” (mehta, 1970, p. 104). third or fourth? this definitional uncertainty is typical of the field. for instance, according to rifkin (2011), the third https://changing-sp.com/ 12 riccardo campa industrial revolution starts in the 21st century. he indicates the year 2008 (the financial crisis) as the peak of the second industrial revolution and the beginning of the third one. in this perspective, the fourth industrial revolution is a topic left to science fiction writers. but let us go back to the 1970s. in 1977, french sociologist jacques ellul publishes le système technicien. the english translation appears three years later. ellul discusses also the criteria we use to distinguish the different stages of industrial change. he underlines that, generally, the different stages are associated with energy production: “observers thus speak of the ‘first industrial revolution’, characterized by the use of coal as a power source, and by the machines built to use coal. then came a second industrial revolution, characterized by electricity. the third one causes some wavering: the use of atomic energy” (ellul, 1980, p. 25). however, in the 1970s, the fourth industrial revolution is rather associated with the new electronic machines entering the production process. the french scholar notices that “for several years now, people have been speaking of a fourth industrial revolution: the one launched by the computer. it is obvious that we are now switching gears, for this is no longer a change or advance in power sources” (ibid.). quite interestingly, ellul put emphasis on the fact that this technological change renders the human force obsolete, because “the dominant factor is no longer a growth of potential or exploited energy, but rather an apparatus of organization, information, memorization, and preparation for decision-making, to replace man in a huge number of intellectual operations” (ibid.). what is rather noncontroversial at this stage of the analysis is that the fourth wave of technological innovation started after world war ii. for instance, the same periodization is found in thomas m. kando’s leisure and popular culture in transition (1980), where we read that “the fourth industrial revolution is the label customarily attached to the dramatic increase in productivity that has taken place in the united states and elsewhere in the western world since the second world war” (p. 93). italian economist paolo sylos-labini in an article published in 1984 (new aspects of cyclical development of the economy), put together the three different criteria used to build a periodization – machine typology, space occupation, and energy source – and stresses that there is consensus on this picture. precisely, he writes that “it is widely held that we are now living in the fourth industrial revolution which is dominated by electronics, air transportation and atomic energy; indeed, it is argued that we have for some years been in the declining phase of the fourth kondratieff cycle” (sylos-labini, 1984, p. 17). in the 1980s, walt whitman rostow is one of the most engaged scholars on the definition of this concept. in a speech delivered at the congress of the united states of america, the economist explains that the fourth industrial revolution is a process that must be nurtured: “the character of the technologies embraced in what i have called the fourth industrial revolution makes it possible for a high proportion of the relevant r&d to be carried forward by the private sector”; however, the government has to guarantee the conditions for the growth, by creating an environment of low real interest rates and keeping inflation under control. if this is assured, “we can expect innovation to proceed rapidly, by normal market processes, in exploitation of the microchipin all changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 13 its ramified applications, new communications methods, the insights of genetics, the robot and laser, and new industrial materials” (rostow, 1983, p. 149). as we can see, several technologies are included in the definition. now, the emphasis does not go only on microelectronics, but also on genetic engineering. in the book theorists of economic growth from david hume to the present: with a perspective on the next century, rostow presents an historical picture of the industrial revolution and establishes the beginning of its fourth phase in the mid-1970s. in short, while agreeing substantially with the emphasis – from adam smith to nathan rosenberg – on the importance of incremental technological change, i would also reaffirm the legitimacy of schumpeter’s dramatization of the three great industrial revolutions on which he focused in business cycles: that of the 1780s, with its convergence of the new textile machinery, watt’s steam engine, and cort’s method of fabricating good iron with coke; the railroad revolution, starting modestly in the 1830s but helping induce before long the steel revolution to overcome the high obsolescence rate of iron rails; and the breakthroughs in electricity, chemicals, and the internal combustion engine round about the turn of the century. the fourth, asserting itself from, say, the mid-1970s, after long incubation, embraces four large fields: microelectronics; genetic engineering; the development of new industrial materials (e.g., ceramics, optical fibers, a new round of plastics); and the laser (rostow, 1992, p. 456). if the fourth industrial revolution starts in the mid-1970s, of which revolution carr and others were talking about by referring to the post-war period? rostow recognizes that there has been a long incubation to this process. in the same book, we read that the author is “inclined to regard the leading sectors of the postwar boom (including plastics, synthetic fibers, and television) as the rounding out of the third industrial revolution” (rostow, 1992, p. 673). in other words, he resolutely underlines the difference between electronics (vacuum tubes, transistors) and microelectronics (integrated circuits, microchips): “i would identify micro-electronics, genetic engineering, new synthetic materials, and the laser as the fourth wave, dated from the mid-1970s” (ibid.). in the same year, devendra thakur (1992) states that “the scope for india to exploit the skill revolution or the fourth industrial revolution which substitutes skilled labour for both capital and unskilled labour appears large and promising” (p. 296). one year later, hong-hwa lee clarifies that, if there is a consensus about the fact that a major change in the economy is happening, there is no consensus about the name to be given to that change. indeed, “there are different terminologies used to describe the current explosion of new technologies – ‘the fourth industrial revolution’, ‘second industrial divide’, ‘the third wave’, ‘the age of smart machine’, and so on” (lee, 1993, p. 268). to be precise, there is no consensus also about periodization. in his ph.d. dissertation about japanese economic policy, bai gao (1994) reminds that “the japanese economists argued in the mid-1950s that now [our emphasis] the fourth industrial revolution was coming, stimulated by the use of atomic power and automation” (p. 280). https://changing-sp.com/ 14 riccardo campa according to zoltan barany and ivan volgyes (1995), this disrupting technological change had to happen before 1989, since one of the reasons why communism failed in eastern europe was that “the communist states missed out on the fourth industrial revolution – the technological revolution – and their economies were doomed to remain largely technologically backward and outmoded” (p. 7). writing in the early 1990s, ira w. lieberman points out that this breakthrough happened before 1989, but not necessarily in the 1950s or the 1970s. indeed, he talks about the emergence in the 1980s of “what some analysts are calling the fourth industrial revolution”; he specifies that this industrial revolution is driven by information technology and “involves non-smoke-stack industries such as telecommunications, computers, microelectronics, robotics, fiber optics and advanced and composite materials” (lieberman, 1993, p. 10). however, computers, robots, and satellites completely disappear from the narrative of gilbert mudenda, who subdivides the phases of economic development by placing some emphasis also on geographical areas: the first industrial revolution (1780–1840) was based in the united kingdom, and its key achievements were the steam engine, the textile industry, and mechanical engineering. the second industrial revolution (1840–1900) was based in europe (england, france, and germany), and its key achievements were railways and the steel industry. the third industrial revolution (1900–1950) was based in the united states, and its key achievements were the electric engine and industries manufacturing heavy chemicals, motor cars, and consumer durables. the current phase, the fourth industrial revolution (1950–2000), is based in the pacific basin (japan and california), and its key industries are synthetics and organic (petroleum) chemicals (mudenda, 1995, p. 85). one year later, political scientist donald m. snow affirms that the current cutting edge is the information-based revolution and underlines the appearance of more sophisticated goods and services; however, he also admits that “the contours of a fourth industrial revolution have not yet appeared clearly on the horizon” (snow, 1996, p. 14). notably, this american author is not just assuming that what happens in the usa is happening, or will necessarily happen everywhere. if there are countries that start experiencing the effects of the fourth industrial revolution, there are other countries that are still struggling with the second or the third. and he also reminds us that there are scholars that call “postindustrial” those economies and societies in which the tertiary sector is prevalent on the primary and the secondary sectors, in terms of percentage of gnp generated or number of employees. in the mid-1990s, however, the emphasis on information technology seems to be prevalent. indeed, george kozmetsky and piyu yue (1997) distinguish the third industrial revolution, which is “based on inventions and innovations in the areas of chemicals, electricity, petroleum, and the internal combustion engine”, from the fourth industrial revolution, in which “information technology is playing a similar pivotal role in changing the way of life for individuals and for corporations” changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 15 (p. 5). they also specify that “information technology is defined as the use of computers and telecommunications to process, manipulate, create, and distribute information,” and they make it clear that while the third industrial revolution “helped the united states surge into its position as the world’s primary industrial power in the beginning of the 20th century”, the fourth will have a global scope (kozmetsky & yue, 1997, p. 5). they assume that the usa will still have a central role for at least the first half of the 21st century, but this leadership will be challenged by traditional competitors (france, germany, great britain, italy, and japan) and by the new emerging economies (china, india, singapore, south corea, and other second and third-world countries). education expert evans clinchy (1999) notices that the crucial inventions that have changed our lives emerged from the scientific/military/political alliance, and not from the disconnected scholarly world. the industrial-military complex also shaped “our present fourth industrial revolution based upon the digital computer and modern communications technology” (clinchy, 1999, p. 78). that is why, according to clinchy, a profound reform of american education is needed. communications technology is only one of the many aspects of the fourth industrial revolution according to dike n. kalu, who proposes a comparison between technologically advanced countries and nigeria. having a background in biology, this african scientist points out that “the united states and the western world have already experienced their second and third industrial revolutions and are currently in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution, characterised mainly by improved communication, increased use of molecular biology techniques and widespread use of food supplements” (kalu, 2003, p. 54). one more record signaled by ngram viewer is the book chapter privatization in the transition economies by ira w. lieberman, an author that we have already encountered in the early 1990s. in 2008, the american economist has not changed his mind concerning the periodization and the main aspects of the fourth industrial revolution. according to him, the breakthrough is mainly (but not uniquely) driven by information-based technologies and temporally located in the 1980s (lieberman, 2008, p. 4). the scan of all books and periodicals is a work-in-progress and, therefore, the ngram viewer database is largely incomplete. there are no data after the year 2008. besides, this tool provides the relative frequency of the term, but not its absolute frequency, nor the absolute number of publications containing the term. to collect the missing information concerning the decade 2009–2018, we will perform a search on google scholar. we will use the retrieved data to reconstruct the annual distribution of the publications containing the term “fourth industrial revolution” (and possible equivalent terms). on this interval, we will work with absolute numbers of publications, rather than relative frequencies of term occurrences. graphs and diagrams will be crafted in microsoft excel. google scholar is notoriously less selective than such international citation databases as scopus or web of science. it also includes works that are not strictly scientific. however, by working on a larger number of items, this tool provides a good https://changing-sp.com/ 16 riccardo campa measure of the penetration of ideas in the scientific community and in the grey area that surrounds it. data extracted from scopus and web of science are of particular significance for academic bureaucracy. indeed, they are often used to assign research funds or to structure careers. however, the sociology of science considers the propagation and reputation of ideas more relevant than their inner validity (which is a matter left to philosophers and scientists). as a consequence, data extracted from a more receptive database such a google scholar seems to be of major significance from a sociological point of view. the results of our first search wave are presented in figure 2. as on can see, in the last decade, the growth of scientific publications containing the term “fourth industrial revolution” is an approximately exponential trend. those included in the graph are absolute numbers of publications. however, as figure 3 displays, the global number of publications in the first half of the decade is rather constant (around for million per year). in the second half, it shows more variations, but no clear pattern is visible. in the year 2008, the total number of items reaches 5 million. this means that the performance of the term during the last decade cannot be explained on the basis of the trend of the total number of publications. for instance, the total number of publications decreases from 2015 to 2016, while the number of books and articles including the term “fourth industrial revolution” grows. figure 2. 10-year distribution graph of publications including the term “fourth industrial revolution” figure 3. 10-year trend of the publications detected by google scholar changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 17 as the ngram viewer graph [figure 1] shows, the best performance of the term “fourth industrial revolution” is rather located in the second half of the 1980s. in the first decade of the third millennium, the relative frequency of the term goes down to a minimum. on the contrary, in the second decade of the millennium, we can observe a renaissance of this term-and-concept. why has the trend changed? the gamechanger seems to be the world economic forum (wef) founded and chaired by german economist klaus schwab, and annually held in davos. in particular, a wef report published in january 2016 (the future of jobs. employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution) seems to have played a major role in the current success of the term. in the preface of the report, samans and schwab (2016) writes that “developments in genetics, artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, 3d printing and biotechnology, to name just a few, are all building on and amplifying one another”, and the consequence of all this will be “a revolution more comprehensive and all-encompassing than anything we have ever seen” (p. v). if in riftkin’s opinion we are at the cusp of the third industrial revolution, according to schwab the third phase of technological innovation is a historically concluded phenomenon. it started in the 1970s, with the massive entrance of computers and industrial robots into the workplace, and is ending now. currently, we rather observe the very beginning of the fourth industrial revolution (schwab, 2017, 2018a). schwab’s four-phases periodization is now gaining major consensus and it is developed by other social scientists in new directions. in this last representation, each phase of the industrial revolution is associated with the emergence of a new type of industry. industry 1.0 starts in 1784 with the appearance of the first mechanical loom; industry 2.0 starts in 1870 with the appearance of the first assembly line; industry 3.0 starts in 1969 with the appearance of the first programmable logic controller; and, finally, industry 4.0 starts “today” – to say the beginning of the 21st century – with the appearance of smarter machines, devices, sensors, capable of connecting and communicating with each other and with people, via the internet of things (iot) or the internet of people (iop). however, the other criteria used to build a periodization (source of energy, geographical location, space occupation) did not disappear from the scientific discourse. the world economic forum is now paying much attention also to renewable sources of energy. the fourth industrial revolution is explicitly associated with renewable sources, such as wind turbines, solar panels, advanced storage devices, and hydrogen (nasman et al., 2017; zhai, 2019). the global scope of the fourth industrial revolution can hardly be contested, as schwab (2018b) confirmed by defining the term “globalization 4.0”. finally, some scholars relate the fourth industrial revolution with the expansion of automated industries on other celestial bodies, for instance, to perform asteroid mining operations (campa, szocik & braddock, 2019). to sum up, currently, the fourth industrial revolution can be basically identified as the era of “smart industries”, powered by “renewable sources of energy”, with a “global geographical scope”, a temporal location in the “21st century”, and a prospect to expand industrial activities in “outer space”. table 1 provides a synoptic frame of the industrial revolution phases as they are generally understood now. https://changing-sp.com/ 18 riccardo campa table 1. synoptic frame of industrial revolution phases temporal location space occupation machine type geographical location energy source 1st industrial revolution 18th century (from 1784 to 1870) terrestrial (railways, steam locomotive) mechanization, steam engine, textile industry england water power, coal 2nd industrial revolution 19th century (from 1870 to 1969) marine (steamship, transatlantic crossing, submarines) internal combustion engine, electric motor, assembly line united kingdom, western europe, russia usa, japan oil electricity 3rd industrial revolution 20th century (from 1969 to 2000) aerial (airplane, radio, television, satellites) computer, automation, laser, internet, mobile phones europe, america, asia atomic energy 4th industrial revolution 21th century (from 2000 onward) outer space (spacecraft, asteroid mining) internet of things, cybersystems, smart industry, advanced robotics, artificial intelligence earth solar panels, wind turbines, storage devices, hydrogen economy a conceptual and scientometric analysis of “emotional intelligence” once again, let us start from the ngram viewer graph, by searching the term “emotional intelligence”. as one can see from figure 4, it is a relatively new term. it emerged in the mid-1990s and, after a steady growth, it experienced a peak in the mid-2000s. figure 4. google books ngram viewer graph of “emotional intelligence”, interval 1930–2008 changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 19 this does not mean that the concept is novel. back in 1964, michael beldoch published a work entitled sensitivity to expression of emotional meaning in three modes of communication, which investigates the interrelationships among abilities to identify non-verbal emotional expressions in three modes of communication: vocal, musical and graphic. the work was then republished as a chapter in the book social encounters, edited by michael argyle (1973). more in detail, beldoch (1973, p. 124) focuses on the “interrelationships among abilities to identify emotional meanings expressed in different media, and the relationship of self-reported personality characteristics as well as various background factors to the several measures of emotional sensitivity”. the expression “emotional intelligence” emerges in 1990 when peter salovay and john mayer publish an article under this title in the journal imagination, cognition, and personality. as they make it clear in the abstract, the article “presents a framework for emotional intelligence, a set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to motivate, plan, and achieve in one’s life” (salovay & mayer, 1990, p. 185). an interesting aspect of this seminal work is that it is mainly based on a literature review. it is a theoretical work, more than empirical research. the authors analyze the debate about the adaptive versus maladaptive qualities of emotion and review the scientific literature on intelligence. they pay particular attention to “social intelligence”, an already existing concept, and to the role that emotions play in the traditional conceptions of intelligence. based on the information collected, salovey and mayer (1990, p. 185) describe “a framework for integrating the research on emotion-related skills” and, then, “review the components of emotional intelligence”. to sum up, the article forges the concept of emotional intelligence starting from the already existing research and suggests new directions for further investigation. still, as one can see from the graph, this article does not receive much attention in the first five years after its publication. indeed, as regards this concept, the gamechanger is 1995 daniel goleman’s book emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than iq. goleman is a scientific journalist and his book belongs to popular science. still, the author is well informed about the research going on in psychological laboratories, and also shows a good knowledge of the classics of philosophy. his idea of emotional intelligence is based on a synthesis of current research. in particular, his focus is on the brain architecture underlying emotion and rationality. the author starts from a simple observation: contrarily to all expectations, people with a higher iq often perform worse than people with a more modest iq level, both in professional and everyday life. in his words: iq offers little to explain the different destinies of people with roughly equal promises, schooling, and opportunity. when ninety-five harvard students from the classes of the 1940s – a time when people with a wider spread of iq were at ivy league schools than is presently the case – were followed https://changing-sp.com/ 20 riccardo campa into middle age, the men with the highest test scores in college were not particularly successful compared to their lower-scoring peers in terms of salary, productivity, or status in their field. nor did they have the greatest life satisfaction, nor the most happiness with friendships, family, and romantic relationships (goleman, 1995, p. 35). the main idea that follows from this observation is that other factors must be at work making for the success of people with lower iq. in other words, there must be a different way to be smart. the term chosen to indicate this different type of smartness is “emotional intelligence”. according to goleman, emotional intelligence is related to many psychological features, such as impulse control, self-awareness, zeal, persistence, empathy, self-motivation, social deftness, character, self-discipline, altruism, and compassion. to excel in real life, one needs these qualities no less – and perhaps even more – than logical intelligence. intimate relationships are important factors of success both in the workplace and in sentimental life. according to goleman, emotional intelligence is not fully genetically inherited. since it is not fixed at birth, guidance can be provided as to how teachers and parents can nurture and strengthen this quality in children. goleman’s book rapidly became a bestseller. as a consequence, many other authors started riding the wave. subsequent publications focus in particular on the guidance to be provided to teachers and parents. for instance, one year later the appearance of goleman’s book, dianne schilling publishes a guide entitled 50 activities for teaching emotional intelligence, which emphasizes that different types of intelligence should be nurtured together. in her words, “rational intelligence cannot perform well without emotional intelligence, and emotional intelligence benefits from the cool cognitive judgments of the rational mind. when the two perform together smoothly and efficiently, emotional intelligence rises and so does intellectual ability” (schilling, 1996, p. 3). another guide is published in 1997 by kerry david carson, paula phillips carson, and joyce schouest phillips. the three authors quote the work by daniel goleman. they refer to him as a renowned social psychologist who indicates that success and failure in everyday life and in the workplace could depend more from “emotional intelligence” than from iq. they summarize his theory as follows: “he describes emotional intelligence as a multidimensional construct consisting of five factors: 1. mood regulation; 2. self-motivation; 3. self-awareness; 4. empathetic response; 5. interpersonal skill” (carson, phillips & schouest, 1997, p. 150). at this point, salovey and mayer come back into play to claim their role in the creation of the idea. in 1997, they sign the first chapter of a collective work entitled emotional development and emotional intelligence: educational implications, edited by peter salovey and david j. sluyter. in the synopsis of the volume, the editors recall that experts in education and psychology have long viewed feeling and thinking as polar opposites. on one pole there is passion, on the opposite pole lies reason. they also underline that emotion has often been labeled as immature, haphazard, and chaotic. however, everything changed when salovey and mayer changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 21 introduced the concept of emotional intelligence. this notion challenges the belief that intellective processes are unrelated to the management of emotion-laden information. afterward, innovative schools have focused more carefully on emotional intelligence, emotional literacy, or emotional competence, by developing courses aimed at enhancing these abilities. it is important to notice that the editorial project openly recognizes goleman’s role in popularizing the idea. indeed, the science journalist is invited to write the foreword to the book. in their contribution, salovey and mayer (1997, p. 22) explain that “emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional meanings, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote both better emotion and thought”. the authors conclude that we are just at the beginning of the learning curve about this subject. in 1998, there is an explosion of publications on emotional intelligence. daniel goleman tries to replicate the success of his first book on the topic by publishing working with emotional intelligence, david ryback publishes putting emotional intelligence to work: successful leadership is more than iq, and seymour epstein comes out with constructive thinking: the key to emotional intelligence. other guides are printed in the following years. for instance, 50 activities for developing emotional intelligence by adele b. lynn (2000), who reports that “quantifiable data on performance in a myriad of industries and organizations has resulted in a body of study called emotional intelligence”, and adds that “these years of study have named and identified the ‘intangibles’ that predict success in the workplace” (p. 1). her guide is supposed to help nurturing these “intangibles”, and in particular emotional intelligence, which “explains why despite equal intellectual capacity, training, or experience, some people excel while others of the same caliber lag behind” (ibid.). it is not difficult to explain the success of these publications in a highly competitive society such as the united states of america. they give hope to individuals that, after modest performances in schools and universities, feel hopeless. the message is simple and reassuring: the problem is not you; the problem is the educational system that focuses on the wrong type of intelligence. besides, school and work are not everything that matters. interpersonal relationships, love, friendships, family ties, etc., are also fundamental in making a person successful. while salovey seems more interested in developing the concept in relation to business, mayer rather focuses on everyday life. in 2001, together with joseph ciarrochi and joseph p. forgas, mayer edits a book entitled emotional intelligence in everyday life: a scientific inquiry. as one can see, the emphasis is once again on the scientific character of these studies, to differentiate them from goleman’s seminal work and the many guides published in the following years. in his introduction, “a field guide to emotional intelligence”, mayer (2001) also traces a brief history of the concept, by stressing once again the importance of his 1990 contribution, crafted together with salovey. also in 2001, gwen doty publishes fostering emotional intelligence in k-8 students: simple strategies and ready-to-use activities. the book aims https://changing-sp.com/ 22 riccardo campa to help teachers to assess emotional intelligence based on their observation. according to doty (2001), no assessment should be given “until after the school year is underway, when teachers have gained an ample understanding of their students” (p. 143). besides, each student should be assessed on each of the five emotional intelligence components elaborated by goleman. another book aimed at fostering emotional intelligence in children at school is crafted by margie blaz, avi bitton and rebecca reyes. in developing your child’s emotional intelligence: ten steps to self control from birth to age three, the authors focus “on how and when to teach the basic emotional lessons that will empower your child with self-control and emotional intelligence” (blaz, bitton & reyes, 2003, p. ii). emotional intelligence is crucial not only to succeed in business and love relationships but also in higher education. this point is stressed by darwin b. nelson and gary r. low in their 2003 book emotional intelligence: achieving academic and career excellence in college and in life. an improved second edition has been published in 2010. as the authors clarify, the book “provides students with theory-based and research-derived information about how the brain works in regard to emotional intelligence and practical emotional learning” (nelson & low, 2010, p. xvi). in 2007, mayer and salovey, together with marc a. brackett, edit emotional intelligence: key readings on the mayer and salovey model. it is a reader including the most important articles and essays published by mayer, salovey and their collaborators on the topic of emotional intelligence. finally, we want to mention the 2008 article “emotional intelligence: new ability or eclectic traits?” published once again by mayer and salovey, this time in coauthorship with david r. caruso, in the journal american psychologist. here, the authors provide the following definition of emotional intelligence: emotional intelligence includes the ability to engage in sophisticated information processing about one’s own and others’ emotions and the ability to use this information as a guide to thinking and behavior. that is, individuals high in emotional intelligence pay attention to, use, understand, and manage emotions, and these skills serve adaptive functions that potentially benefit themselves and others (mayer, salovey & caruso, 2008, p. 503). to sum up, mayer and salovey propose a developmental model of emotional intelligence from childhood to adulthood based on sixteen steps. this process generates four different abilities. according to these psychologists, an emotionally intelligent person can perceive emotions in oneself and others accurately; use emotions to facilitate thinking; understand emotions, emotional language and the signals conveyed by emotions; and eventually, manage emotions to attain specific goals. in the following decade – precisely in the interval 2009–2018 – publications on emotional intelligence show a constant growth (see figure 5). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 23 there seem to be a flexion in 2008, but it must be taken into account the fact that it takes time for authors to register their publications in online repositories and for google scholar to detect them. we surmise that the number of 2008 publications will grow shortly. state of proximity and theoretical relation it is time to verify the state of proximity and the theoretical relations between our two terms-and-concepts. let us start with the first problem, which is inherently quantitative. as one can see in figure 6, the growth of publications including both terms is really impressive. it shows than more and more scholars are now relating the two concepts, even though they were born in two different scientific disciplines. empirical data show that the major change is located in the year 2016. also in this case, there are all reasons to think that the game-changer is the report the future of jobs employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution, published by the world economic forum in january 2016. indeed, in samans and schwab’s preface, we do not only learn that humanity is at the starting point of a fourth industrial revolution. there is more than this. when it comes to make clear what is needed to turn the societal change into an opportunity, rather than a disaster, the authors prophesize that “overall, social skills – such as persuasion, emotional figure 6. 10-year trend of the state of proximity between “fourth industrial revolution” and “emotional intelligence” figure 5. 10-year distribution graph of publications including the term “emotional intelligence” https://changing-sp.com/ 24 riccardo campa intelligence and teaching others – will be in higher demand across industries than narrow technical skills, such as programming or equipment operation and control” (samans & schwab’s, 2016, p. 22). the report lists the following ten skills as crucial for employment by 2020: (1) complex problem solving; (2) critical thinking; (3) creativity; (4) people management; (5) coordinating with others; (6) emotional intelligence; (7) judgment and decision making; (8) service orientation; (9) negotiation; (10) cognitive flexibility. besides, it provides the following definition of emotional intelligence: “being aware of others’ reactions and understanding why they react as they do” (wef, 2016, p. 53). given the influential role of the davos annual meeting, it is not surprising to find in the following years many more publications presenting the nurturing of emotional intelligence as a possible solution to the unwanted side effects of the fourth industrial revolution, and in particular technological unemployment. if we include in the count the year 2019, we obtain almost one thousand publications (921, to be precise), which include both concepts. here we will provide just six examples, two per year, on how the concepts are related. in 2016, by focusing on “entrepreneurial intelligence”, j. h. (cobus) oosthuizen expands schwab’s four-type intelligence proposition in order to address the challenges of the new technological phase. first of all, he subscribes to the narrative that humanity finds itself at the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution and that the incoming societal change presents features never experienced before in history. there were radical transformations also in the past, but not with the velocity, breadth, depth, and systems impact of the current one. oosthuizen (2016) states that “schwab propagates a 4-type intelligence proposition (contextual-, emotional-, inspired-, and physical intelligence) to be nurtured and applied so as to adapt, shape and harness the potential of disruption” (p. 370). according to oosthuizen, schwab’s proposition lacks a disposition type of intelligence, namely “entrepreneurial intelligence”, which should be added to the model. in the same year, the finnish minister of finance alexander stubb publishes a document entitled for an optimistic revolution. the author emphasizes the inevitability of the new technological breakthrough, assumes that every challenge is an opportunity, and professes optimism about the outcomes of the process. stubb also underlines that those feeling pessimistic or unprepared about the societal transformation will not change the course of history by simply complaining about technology. they like it or not, the fourth industrial revolution will happen, and actually it “appears to be upon us”. this is the way he describes the upcoming epochal event: with the advent of 5g mobile internet, smaller and more powerful sensors, artificial intelligence and machine learning, this revolution will be as transformational, if not more so, as anything mankind has experienced before. it will change the way we live, work and relate to each other. artificial intelligence, robotics, the internet of things, 3d printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, renewable energy, and quantum computing: such advances are transforming the world faster than we realise. occupations which only a few short years ago changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 25 appeared safe bets, such as those of bus drivers and lorry drivers, may soon go the way of the horse, thanks to artificial intelligence now being applied to selfdriving vehicles (stubb, 2016, p. 21). does he also relate the fourth industrial revolution with emotional intelligence? yes, he does. indeed, he insists that “the more technology advances, the more emotional intelligence and empathy come to the fore” (stubb, 2016, p. 21). he concludes his speech with an encouraging exclamation: “welcome to the future”. in 2017, chris wilson, peter lennox, gareth hughes and michael brown craft the chapter “how to develop creative capacity for the fourth industrial revolution”. they state that “universities have never been more focused on ensuring that graduates are ‘employable’”, and add that “in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution, numerous studies highlight the potential significance and value of creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking, for successful navigation of the complexities of the future” (wilson et al., 2017, p. 241). their declared goal is to elaborate a synthesis of related fields of research, with the aim of constructing a framework for the improvement of creativity. in their synthesis, the concept of emotional intelligence also finds place, and the explicit source of the idea is the world economic forum’s 2016 report the future of jobs (wef, 2016). the four scholars conclude that a reform of certain aspects of pedagogical practice is needed. in the same year, bo xing and tshilidzi marwala discuss the relations between education, fourth industrial revolution and emotional intelligence in the article “implications of the fourth industrial age for higher education”, which appeared in the journal the thinker. the authors underline that “the fourth industrial revolution is powered by artificial intelligence and it will transform the needs of the workplace from task-based characteristics to human-centred characteristics” (xing & marwala, 2017, p. 10). in other words, because of the dominant role of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence (ai) algorithms, it makes no sense for humans to keep competing with machines. the fourth industrial age requires skills that are not exactly those required during the third industrial age when the key driver was information technology. the new required skills are “critical thinking, people management, emotional intelligence, judgement, negotiation, cognitive flexibility, as well as knowledge” (xing & marwala, 2017, p. 10–11). in 2018, bryan edward penprase publishes the book chapter the fourth industrial revolution and higher education, and, again, emotional intelligence is presented as the tool that can turn the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution into opportunities. the author describes the current technological revolution in the following terms: the 4ir often is described as the result of an integration and compounding effects of multiple “exponential technologies”, such as ai, biotechnologies and nanomaterials. one example of the emerging reality within the 4ir is the development of synthetic organisms (life from dna created within computers and bioprinted) manufactured using robotic assembly lines, where https://changing-sp.com/ 26 riccardo campa nanomaterials provide immense improvements in the efficiency of production (penprase, 2018, p. 220). as this is the situation, the jobs expected to dominate in the coming decades are those arising within the fourth industrial revolution technology sectors, and in particular artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3d printing, genetics and biotechnology. however, it would be a mistake to assume that the changing economic systems will only need more scientists and engineers with high iq and strong logical skills. indeed, “within those sectors, employers and industries are projecting that social skills that include persuasion, emotional intelligence and capacity for teaching others will be at a premium” (penprase, 2018, p. 221). finally, it is worth paying some attention to the future of work, a speech given by the governor of the bank of england, mark carney, at the central bank of ireland on september 14th, 2018. the sequence of the reasoning is the same we have encountered above. first of all, carney warns that “we are on the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution, which has the potential to transform fundamentally the nature of both work and commerce through advances in ai, automation and interconnectedness” (carney, 2018, p. 3). one may notice that – at least nominally – we are on the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution since the 1940s. however, it cannot be disregarded the fact that in the new narrative machines are reaching and surpassing many human capabilities. the governor emphasizes that, unlike past technologies, the new ones may increasingly provide reasoning, sensory perception, and intelligence. in other words, they can do what previously only workers could do. if this is true, most current jobs will disappear. however, according to carney, there is no reason to despair, because new jobs will arise that will require different skills. in his view, the end of work (as we know it) can be seen as an optimistic scenario. not by chance, he says that “technological optimists believe future automation will move beyond substituting for the ‘routine-manual’ human tasks technology performed in the late 20th century to almost the entire spectrum of work” (carney, 2018, p. 5). so, what will humans do in the future? we already know the answer: “it may be left to people to provide ‘hearts’ – that is, tasks that require emotional intelligence, originality or social skills such as persuasion or caring for others” (carney, 2018, p. 5). conclusion as our efpr dynamics analysis has shown, the term “fourth industrial revolution” has been used in the last 80 years – though with different meanings – to symbolize the next “big thing” on the horizon. currently, it is associated with highly automated and smart production and distribution systems, mainly based on artificial intelligence, that will require either very little human workforce or a different type of human worker. the data at our disposal show that much emphasis goes on “emotional intelligence” as the key factor to keep humans in the loop. as a consequence, according to a growing number of scholars, the new challenge of educational systems in technologically advanced countries is to nurture and enhance emotional intelligence in children and adults. it is changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8–30 27 difficult to say if scholars are just following a new scientific fashion, or if their convergent analyses are telling something significant about the new world we are entering. 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https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/06/it-s-clean-powerful-and-available-are-you-ready-for-hydrogen-energy/ changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 139–155 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.2.067 article dichotomy of the basic aspects of the image of power in russia: traditional and modern models nelly a. romanovich russian presidential academy of national economy and public administration (ranera), voronezh branch, voronezh, russia abstract social and cultural characteristics of any country form a certain image of power in the minds of its representatives. the image of power is treated in this work as a set of perceptions about power, which is determined by the sociocultural specifics of a particular political culture. in this article, i discuss contradictions between the traditional model of the image of power inherent in the russian political culture and the modern democratic model. a conclusion is made that today’s russia is characterised by the reproduction of the traditional model of the image of power. keywords image of power, traditional model, modern model, source of power, personification, autocracy, centralization image of power as a sociocultural phenomenon citizens’ perceptions with regard to what power is, what duties and functions it performs, of which structural elements it consists, what actions it undertakes in various situations – inclusively combine into a certain image of power. this image is characterized by a number of culture-specific features. the concept of the image of power was developed in my previous work (romanovich, 2009). in a nutshell, it is the system of perceptions about power within a given society, which includes both basic (concept, functions, form, received 26 october 2018 © 2019 nelly a. romanovich accepted 7 june 2019 nelly@qualitas.ru published online 1 july 2019 https://changing-sp.com/ 140 nelly a. romanovich duties, etc.), and contextual (expectation of specific socio-political actions from a particular government) aspects. while the former are more connected with semantic interpretations, the latter are in essence the reflection of objective reality. in this work, i focus on basic aspects, since “political perception is mainly aimed at semantic and evaluative interpretations of political objects, rather than reflection of objective reality” (palitaĭ, 2018, p. 152). it is the basic aspects of the image of power that are formed as a sociocultural phenomenon of a particular society depending on the historical context of its development. the historical developmental paths of eastern and western cultures have led to differences in the system of power relations. these differences were manifested in the political cultures of western countries and russia and affected the populations’ attitude towards the concept of power. as a result, the image of power has obtained its own sociocultural specifics in each society. thus, the russian image of power is based on such characteristics as personification, autocracy, centralization and hierarchy (romanovich, 2009, p. 272). according to political scientists, “unlike perception as such, political perception is determined by political and historical contexts, the sociocultural peculiarities of historical processes” (palitaĭ, 2018, p. 154). therefore, different political cultures will indispensably have different basic characteristics of the image of power. in this work, i set out to consider the basic characteristics of the image of power in russia, as well as key differences in the perception of power in russian and western political cultures. traditional and modern models the perception of power in russia is significantly different from that typical of the population of western countries. these differences have been repeatedly noted by philosophers, publicists and ordinary people. in particular, over 100 years ago, sciarchimandrite varsonofy (plikhankov) claimed in his “cell notes” (1892–1896): the devotion of russian orthodox people to their tsars cannot be compared to the loyalty of western people to their sovereigns. according to modern western concepts, the sovereign is nothing more than a representative of his people. western nations love their representatives and willingly obey provided the sovereign faithfully fulfils his/her duties. in the west, people love only themselves in their sovereigns. in the case when the king, due to his/her personal traits, is not capable of fulfilling the people’s aspirations, ideas and passions, then his/her will be limited by means of the constitution. if the king does not give in to these efforts and is unable to succumb to the taste and character of his subjects, then he loses not only people’s love, but also the throne, as was the case both with charles x, louis philippe and the sardinian king albert. in russia, the situation is completely different: our tsar is the representative of the will of god, rather than that of the people. his will is sacred to us, as the will of the anointed of god; we love him because we love god (plikhankov, 1991). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 139–155 141 let us refer to this model of the image of power, the characteristics of which are based on a special loyalty of people to their sovereigns as the traditional or russian model, since it originated and was formed along with the birth and foundation of russia. the image of power includes reference, structural, functional, evaluation, and other characteristics that are logically interrelated. in particular, the image of power comprises such a feature as the idea of serving. in the traditional russian model, it is interpreted as follows: “power” is something, to which you need and should serve. soldiers in the tsar army greeted the tsar with the words: “i serve the tsar and the fatherland”. in the eyes of the people, the tsar was the representative of god on the earth, the immediate spokesman of the divine will. therefore, to serve the tsar and to serve god was almost an equal virtue. in the traditional russian model, a charismatic attitude towards the supreme ruler prevailed over a rational assessment of his/her personal qualities. unlike the traditional russian model, for example, the american model of relations between the people and the authorities suggests the opposite direction of serving. the highest representative elected by the people serves the people, and never vice versa. therefore, the attitude towards the authorities and its supreme representative is calm, without any admixture of mysticism, to some extent resembling the attitude towards maintenance staff. this attitude towards the ruler is characteristic of the democratic idea and represents its logical consequence. such a characteristic is immanent to the modern model of the image of power. it should be noted that the contradiction between the traditional and modern models is considered in this work in the framework of a classical approach, as the opposition gemeinschaft/gesellschaft formulated by f. tennis. this opposition is considered without taking into account an extended socio-philosophical interpretation, but rather as localized within the framework of power relations. according to formal indicators, the modern model of power relations is dominant today in developed countries. that is how the model acquired its name. the democratic concept of development has brought the modern model of the image of power to russia, where it contradicts the traditional russian model. for russia, following this new model means using western models of power relations and setting a task of catching up with the west (or the us) in the cultural and civilizational perspectives. the modern model of the image of power conflicts with the original russian model of the image of power. in fact, these contradictions are not contradictions between the past and the present, as it may seem from the dichotomy of the concepts of traditionalism and modernity; rather, these contradictions are those between the east and the west, which have existed along the entire observable russian history. it might seem that, if some institutions of power in different political cultures are identical in name or arrangement, then they are identical in content. however, for example, the monarchy in pre-revolutionary russia had inconspicuous, at a first glance, but rather significant differences from the monarchy of western countries. according to modern political scientists, some elements of today’s democratic institutions were borrowed from the monarchist ideology. thus, the political scientist m. v. il’in argues that the concept of “predstavitelstvo” (i.e. representation of the people in duma and https://changing-sp.com/ 142 nelly a. romanovich other institutions through elections) was not invented by democrats; rather, it appeared as a medieval institution of the monarchical and aristocratic rule. according to him, “predstavitelstvo” was fundamentally opposite to direct participation in decision-making, i.e. democracy itself, being its logical antithesis. “indeed, authoritarianism in its logic is a consistent implementation of the principle of representation, delegation of authority to authority, that is, its alienation from the majority and its transmission to few or even to one person. in the limit, it is autocracy implying the deprivation of each and every subjectivity in favour of a single autocrat” (il’in, 2003, p. 158). this conclusion may be true for the monarchies of the western type. however, autocracy in the russian version is not at all a kind of representation, nor the delegation of power from the people to the tsar. instead, it is something completely opposite. in russia, the people did not endow the autocrat with authority, but rather recognized his/her authority. the tsar was recognized, because god himself was believed to have given authority to the monarch. in russia, the tsar reigned not on behalf of the people, but on behalf of god. in the russian case, the vector of delegation of power is directed from the top to the bottom: from god to the tsar, and further to the people. in the context of representation (“predstavitelstvo”), power is distributed from the bottom to the top, i.e. from the subjects to the monarch. it then follows that, although the forms of governing were equally called monarchy both in the west and in russia, they had significant ideological differences, which predetermined further ways of their transformation. it is not surprising that representation, which sprouted from the monarchy of the western type, has eventually turned into its “logical antithesis”, as il’in called democracy. having a visible logical contradiction, these two concepts have an invisible essential similarity, i.e. the same direction of the vector of power, which is one of the basic characteristics of the image of power. presented in the form of a geometric figure, power relations in russia are a pointed pyramid, with the top and the bottom being respectively the ruler and the people. this pyramidal form is adequate to the monarchical idea. the higher the pyramid layer is, the more concentrated the power becomes. the democratic idea can be represented in the form of an inverted pyramid, where the people are the top, thus symbolising that it is the people who are the main actor of power. the ruler then is at the bottom, to whom the people descend their orders. these characteristics of the two models of the image of power demonstrate convex and almost visible ideological differences between the russian monarchy and western democracy, thus predetermining a system of state institutions appropriate for each model. v. i. rossman, a philosopher currently residing in the us, also refers to these differences between russia and the west (rossman, 2005, pp. 31–38). he believes that the ideological confrontation between two ancient philosophers – plato and aristotle – has not yet been completed. both of them tried to create their own concept of the state. according to rossman, plato’s concept of the state and his main ideas had been absorbed by russia. since then, they have been constantly resurrected in various elements of the state structure in this or that exotic form. and “plato’s pyramid of power,” he argues, “is an inverted pyramid of the power of western society” (rossman, 2005, p. 199). in plato’ “state”, the leading role belongs to philosopherkings armed with the correct ideology and absolute knowledge; they are followed changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 139–155 143 by warriors’ guards intended to ensure the safety of citizens; but only after them go artisans and merchants. in the western “capitalist” society, merchants (ceo of major corporations) are located at the top of the pyramid, followed by artisans (including engineers and programmers, mechanics and accountants) and the military, with the underlay of society belonging to philosophers and other scholars. rossman notes that “in contrast to the western pyramid of power, even the post-soviet russian hierarchy retains some loyalty to the platonic idea of ideocracy and reproduces the platonic pyramid in bizarre modifications” (rossman, 2005, p. 40). some strange modifications are also characteristic of democracy: in the russian version, it transforms into “managed democracy”, “sovereign democracy”, etc. thus, it can be seen that the characteristics of the image of power, such as the source of power, vector orientation and the so-called power pyramid, confront each other in the two models of the image of power – traditional and modern. this confrontation is reflected in the contradictions between the views of the population on power and the content of official documents. formally, russia has adopted a modern model of power relations, which is formulated in the constitution of the russian federation. it is curious that the current constitution proclaims the modern model of the image of power, while the traditional model dominates public opinion. thus, for example, according to a survey by vciom, the main source of power and the carrier of sovereignty in our country is not the people, as it is written in the constitution, but the president [...] 55% of the population are convinced that the head of the state and the sovereignty are one and the same. formally, only 23% of the participants in the all-russian survey believe in russian democracy and believe that power in our country belongs to [...] the people (vciom, 2014). the power in russia is therefore personified with the head of the state, since it is he, in the opinion of the people, who is the source of power. sergiy bulgakov, in his philosophical essay svet nevecherniĭ (“unfading light”), trying to determine the religious and mystical nature of power, argues: obviously, power has to do with the very essence of the human spirit, and we must, first of all, reject the rationalistic inventions of “enlightenment” that claims that power and law were invented by someone, occurred as a result of “social contract” or “free agreement” [...] power radiates involuntarily and arises organically and specifically as historical power [...] it is inherent in all humans and is comprised of the ability to command and to obey, of authority and loyalty, which are only two poles of power [...] true power belongs to god alone, earthly power is a symbol of god’s omnipotence (bulgakov, 1917). in the traditional russian model of the image of power, the source of power has a sacred nature; therefore, power is personified with the name of the supreme ruler of the state as the carrier of this sacred power. https://changing-sp.com/ 144 nelly a. romanovich personification the original russian model of the image of power includes such an underlying characteristic as personification. personification of power implies the perception of power not as a political institution, but as a specific person, in whom this power is embodied. the personal qualities of a representative of power are given a greater importance than law-making actions. the perception of power imprinted in centuries-old socio-cultural russian traditions is not simply different from the modern democratic model of the image of power, but logically opposes it. and one of such battles is the confrontation between the concepts of personification and de-personification of power. debates on the role of the person in history have long been continuing. there is a belief that the personality of a representative of power should not affect the functioning of the society. otherwise, the stability of such a society can be undermined. the democratic concept reflected in the modern image of power promotes the idea of the de-personification of power. a person invested with power seems to be something like a necessary detail in a well-established mechanism. this detail should be changed, say, every four to five or six years. the control scheme is constructed in such a way that the system works regardless of who occupies particular positions. the modern model of the image of power is aimed at solving the following problem: to minimize the influence of an individual on history, to unify the management system, securing it from any unexpected situations resulting from the individual traits of people. within the framework of such an approach, the key thing is the law that determines the control system and specifies its functions. however, the role of the person in power has been traditionally given key importance in the russian mentality. for russian thinkers, the personality is the cornerstone of state-building. thus, il’in insisted, it is the best people of the country that should rule the state; however, people often choose not the best, but flatterers that please them and unscrupulous demagogues that excite them”, and threatened: “democracy, which cannot distinguish the best, does not justify itself: it destroys the people and the state, therefore, it must fall (il’in, 1993, p. 246). the concept of personality is the starting point of n. a. berdiaev’s philosophy. personality, according to berdiaev, “is an ontological reality, it is included in the hierarchy of ontological realities. personality assumes the reality of other personalities and the reality of which is higher and deeper than it. in nominalistic individualism, the personality decays and disintegrates” (berdiaev, 1990, p. 199). berdiaev discerned the internal contradiction between the personal and democratic principles: democracy is not favourable for the appearance of strong, bright and creative individuals. democracy creates a levelling social environment that seeks to completely absorb the personality and subjugate it. your democratic opinion is changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 139–155 145 the most terrible of all tyrannies, it depresses the human spirit, undermines its wings (berdiaev, 1990, p. 199). many modern researchers agree that power in russia is perceived as personified by the population. this has become commonplace. for example, iu. s. pivovarov states this fact in an axiomatic form: “russian power implies a personification mode” (pivovarov, 2006). in connection with the personification regime, “the russian political tradition presupposes the presence of a clearly designated leader” (malinova, 2006, p. 122). when a new person comes to power, the people expect changes: “a new violin plays in a new way”. in other words, there is a kind of legalization of the fact that the specifics of governing, and sometimes its form, can be determined by the character and personal traits of a particular representative of authority. during elections, it is not so important for the population to carefully study the programmes of the candidates: it is much more important to see the face of the person they choose. russian voters are much more interested in the character traits and particular actions of the future government representative than the concept of development that he/she proposes. the logic of the population is rather simple: judging by appearance and actions, people try to “guess” what actions can be expected from the candidate, how good he/she is, what ideals he/she adheres – since all these things may cardinally differ from those declared. russian people do not think of power as a collective phenomenon, the image of power is always directly connected with a certain actor. according to a. i. solov’ev, the political space in russia is marked by “a mutually conventional attitude towards parliament as an “unreal, secondary, ostentatious power” on the part of both elite and non-elite social layers (solov’ev, 2006). therefore, the population considers the elections of the president to be the only “real elections” or elections of the real power, unlike elections to the state duma or local legislative bodies. the latter institutions are recognized by the russian society as secondary, and of little significance. thus, russian citizens have frequently ignored legislative elections (especially at the local level) as opposed to their more or less massive participation in the elections of the president and governors. moreover, russian people increasingly believe that the state duma and the federation council are simply superfluous, unnecessary organs: the number of russians who believe that the country can do without the state duma and the federation council has been recently growing very significantly: from 29% in 1997 to 40% in 2016. at the same time, the number of those believing that russia does not need a multiparty system slightly exceeds 50%. only 12–13% of the respondents are convinced that these institutions are ‘extremely important’ and that the country’s political system could not function effectively without them (petukhov, 2016). this data raises an important question concerning the problem of lawmaking in russia. who will develop laws if the state duma were abolished? do russians consider law-making to be a sort of luxury? attitude to laws in russia is https://changing-sp.com/ 146 nelly a. romanovich not unambiguous. it is not that russians do not respect the rule of law. however, a russian person is annoyed by the very case when “extreme law” turns into “extreme injustice”. this gives grounds for il’in to render the verdict: “formal, literary, pedantic application of law is not law, but its caricature” (il’in, 1993, p. 199). rejection of purely formal legitimacy transforms formalized structures as well. “the spirit of christian love has also penetrated, in il’in’s opinion, into russian jurisprudence with its search for justice” (il’in, 1993, p. 317). it is common knowledge that the ideal of the western image of governing is the power of law, rather than the power of any subject of power. in russia, law traditionally gives way to the head of the state. that is why the personal characteristics of the representative of higher authorities are so crucial for russia. such a state of affairs in russia is being predictably criticised in the west. in an attempt to defend the to self-determination and the regime of power personification, russian researchers also criticize western societies for being “impersonified” by the liberal democratic idea. for example, according to a. n. fatenkov, “the fundamental flaw of liberalism lies in the desire of one impersonal structure (anatomically interpreted as individual) to restrict another, even more impersonal, structure. as a result, the liberal project appears in the figurative expression of v. f. odoyevsky as ‘a city without a name’” (fatenkov, 2005, p. 165). personification of power includes a set of logical consequences, which are presented in the form of the structural characteristics of the image of power: autocracy, centralization and hierarchy. the defining characteristics of the image of power form its structure. in a nutshell, using the patristic saying: “the spirit makes forms for itself”. autocracy autocracy implies the transfer of all power in the state into the hands of one person. this has been the historical tradition of russia for many centuries. even when a general secretary or a president replaced an autocratic tsar, it was only the name of the position that changed, not the very essence of power. the concept of autocracy is not only opposite to democracy; rather, the former destroys the latter. the fundamental idea of democracy is the restriction of autocracy by separating powers. it is assumed that the ruler, no matter how good he/she is, must be controlled. the democratic system of checks and balances was created to destroy autocracy. for democratic consciousness, the highest sedition is the idea of transferring power to one person. in modern russia, the results of sociological surveys have proven the inclusion of the concept of autocracy in the russian image of power. according to a study undertaken by the institute of public opinion qualitas (as part of a public opinion monitoring being carried out by the institute from 1998 to the present, which every year covers from 600 to 1,000 inhabitants of the city of voronezh using the method of personal interview), the majority of the population do not have anything against the prospect of transferring all power in the state to one person. in january 2018, when answering the question: “which of the two opposing judgments do you agree with: changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 139–155 147 we should not allow the power in russia to be given into the hands of one person or there must be a host in the country – our people need a strong hand?”, most of the respondents (63%) supported the latter statement about “a strong hand”. only 26% of the respondents expressed concerns with this regard (romanovich, 2018). moreover, every tenth respondent had no their own opinion on this matter. at the same time, the immutable laws of democracy impose a “taboo” on the concentration of power in the hands of one person. this “taboo” is supported by the system of separation of powers, the limitation of the term of the government and other institutions. however, it seems that russian people’s idea concerning what kind of power it should be radically diverges from fundamental democratic principles. the survey was conducted three times for voronezh residents: in 2001, 2008 and 2018. changes in the perception of power over this period are shown in figure 1. agree with the former agree with the latter have no opinion 2001 2008 2018 21% 38% 26% 70% 56% 63% 9% 7% 11% figure 1. which of the two judgments do you agree with: “we must not allow the power in russia to be concentrated in the hands of one person” or “we need a host in the country, our people need a “strong hand”? in 2001, at the beginning of v. putin’s presidency, after the democratic experiment of b. yeltsin, the people’s longing for a strong and authoritative power was particularly great. at that time, 70% of the respondents wanted to see the true “host” as the head of the state. in 2008, the people’s thirst for a strong government was somewhat satisfied by the personality of v. putin. as a result, the number of those who wished a “strong hand” decreased to 56%. however, the need for stability and the fear of losing it raised the number of autocracy supporters to 63% in 2018. it should be noted that voronezh is not an exception; the preponderance of judgments in favour of autocracy has an all-russian scale. according to fom polls, about 50% of russians would like power to be transferred into the hands of one person, with only 38% being against it (kertman, 2006, p. 122). the mentality of people determines the actions of the authorities. it was not by chance that power began to be concentrated in the hands of the president of the russian federation: “the principle of a presidential republic was entrenched in the new constitution, and the president was vested with enormous rights, comparable only to the power of an autocrat” (pantin, 2007). researchers argue that the form of the current state system in russia resembles a constitutional monarchy by formal indicators. a comparative analysis of the main state laws issued april 23, 1906 and the 1993 constitution conducted by the russian historian v. startsev (2002) showed that the powers of the constitutional monarch and the president differ only in three positions: unlike the monarch, the president of the russian federation has no right to https://changing-sp.com/ 148 nelly a. romanovich pass his/her position by inheritance, mint his/her own portraits on coins and dispose of the “property of the court” by his/her own will (startsev, 2002, p. 6). the autocracy is inscribed in the ideological schemes of russian citizens. by being a characteristic feature of the image of power, autocracy sets regulatory parameters that cause transformation of power structures in accordance with the expectations of the population. the traditional image of power inherent in popular beliefs transforms the imposed stencil of the modern model. the basic aspects of the original russian model of the image of power are reborn as a phoenix from the ashes. it is interesting to note that a book by a modern russian researcher of the system of government, the philosopher v. d. popov, was entitled “the flight of the phoenix bird [...]” (popov, 2007). the phoenix bird, in popov’s interpretation, is the nature of the russian government, which is reviving again and again, despite reforms, revolutions, wars and other social cataclysms. autocracy as a basic aspect of the image of power implies the existence of another its aspect – centralization of power. centralization centralization of power as a basic aspect of the image of power implies a system that is controlled from a single centre and is typically personified with the name of the head of the state. the modern model, which has not so far been able to overcome the traditional russian model of the image of power, has begun to transform itself into something else adapted to the russian realities. many russian analysts and public politicians claim that today’s russia is characterised by the regime of managed democracy. v. surkov coined the term “sovereign democracy” for this concept. the vector of power directed from the top to the bottom logically corresponds to the idea of power centralization. being deeply rooted in the russian mentality but not necessarily declared or clearly manifested, this idea should be treated as a fundamental structural characteristic forming the image of power as a whole. the modern image of power, which is embodied in the democratic idea, immanently implies the decentralization of power. one of the fundamental principles of democracy – the principle of separation of powers – is directed against power centralization. at the same time, “power centralization is underway, and it is not yet clear who can stop it” (chirikova, 2008, p. 109). such a conclusion is drawn by the sociologist a. e. chirikova, who conducted a survey devoted to studying the opinions of both representatives of the russian elite and ordinary citizens. according to her analysis, “the forms of federalism in russia are determined not only and not so much by the actions of the centre, but rather by the behaviour of the population [...]” (chirikova, 2008, p. 110). in other words, the centralization of power is the answer of the authorities to the expectations of the population. thus, centralization is not so much the will of the centre, but rather the will of the russian population. some russian researchers argue that the social environment in russian favours the reproduction (on a national and regional scale) of centripetal, and even authoritarian, tendencies (mironiuk, 2003, p. 105). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 139–155 149 the hierarchical centralized model of governance in russia has developed historically due to its efficiency and social demand. in the course of the knyaz (prince) power evolution across the russian territories, a hierarchically built monocentric governance model was gradually forming during the 12th – 14th centuries. this model, according to researchers, allowed such a vast country as russia to be protected from enemy attacks and destruction (fëdorov, 2006, p. 4). thus, a. iu. fëdorov sees reasons behind the collapse of the ussr in the destruction of the traditional (for russia) model of interaction between the central and regional leadership (fëdorov, 2006, p. 15). centralization is inscribed in the traditional model of the image of russian power as a structural characteristic. decentralization belongs to the modern model of the western-type power. in the west, the view is dominated that decentralization leads to more efficient public administration. however, is that so? the real situation never repeats the forecasts of scientific theories. according to russian political scientists, decentralization has not created any prerequisites for improving the efficiency of the public sector. if governmental levels begin to compete with each other for economic resources, power and popularity in the eyes of voters, the result of decentralization can only be a decrease in the efficiency of the public sector. “in this case, we actually enter a game with a zero or even negative sum, where the only source of gain is the loss of the competitor” (nechaev, 2005, p. 199). according to v. d. nechaev, a similar picture was observed in many developing countries that had embarked on the path of modernization. attempts to install models of local self-government based on western models, as a rule, led to a decline in governance efficiency, conflicts between new and traditional institutions, and the spread of corruption (nechaev, 2005, p. 199). in the most recent russian history, one can also find many examples of this kind. the struggle between the governors and the mayors of capital cities and regional centres in the 1990s is quite indicative in this respect. for example, in an attempt to remove a regional mayor from office by demonstrating his inefficiency in solving economic problems, a regional government resorted to a targeted limitation of the budget of a regional capital. at the same time, according to v. d. nechaev, it is important to remember that the municipal reform of the second half of the 19th century led to similar consequences. as v. bezobrazov brilliantly demonstrates in this essay “zemstvo institutions and self-government”, the removal of zemstvo institutions from the state power system had indeed turned into a decline in the effectiveness of public administration, which was manifested in the weak coordination of efforts of the state bureaucracy and zemstvos, in their mutual distrust and competition, resulting in an increase in the tax burden (as cited in nechaev, 2005, p. 199). a natural conclusion would be that the reasons for the emergence of zero-sum games in relations between autonomous levels of government are not personal, but systemic, institutional, political and economic in their nature. “power-centredness”, according to yu. s. pivovarov, is a key characteristic of russian political culture. “power-centredness” implies building a “vertical” of power. the process of centralization of power began under the first president of the russian federation. “the centralization of power in the hands of the president,” i. k. pantin https://changing-sp.com/ 150 nelly a. romanovich notes, “was not the expression of yeltsin’s ambitions and his entourage, although they had enough ambitions [...] it was not the mistakes and the evil will of the rulers that pushed for the centralization of power” (pantin, 2007, p. 121). the general trend of the social attitude latently, but inevitably, was transforming power structures. the abolition of direct governor elections in 2004 was predetermined by a combination of social, political and economic reasons, as well as by such a characteristic of the image of power in russia as centralization. it should be noted, however, that the current postmodern space cannot be characterized by a centre in its original sense. trying to comprehend the system of power relations in a conceptual manner, michel foucault concludes that, in a modern society, power no longer has a single centre, being spilled across the whole. according to the german sociologist n. luhmann, contemporary people live in a society without a peak and without a centre. as a result of functional differentiation and centrifugal social processes, it is no longer possible to conceive unity within society. however, people still have a strong psychological need for the centre and the spatial-social hierarchy. the vitality of this concept, according to philosophers, is associated with a deeply rooted psychological need – a kind of the instinct of centre and the instinct of the sacred. the mechanism of centring a person appears as an opportunity to save him/her from everyday alienation and loneliness. “in traditional civilizations, the centre opened the road to heaven, i.e. a vertical of life. in modern civilizations, the heaven is so distant that the understanding of the very concept of the centre of the world requires considerable effort from contemporary people. after all, where there is polycentrism, there is no more rotation along single orbits and no sense of sacredness. modern culture is not a culture around, but a culture about” (rossman, 2008, p. 57). the postmodern space is structured a-centrically, and non-hierarchically. nevertheless, rumours about the “death of the centre” are greatly exaggerated. according to the results obtained by a. e. chirikova, centralization will increase in the future, “because there are many supporters of this idea both among elites and among the population” (chirikova, 2008, p. 199). the process of centralization, in her opinion, “opens up possibilities for administrative control, replacing political communication channels with hierarchical ones” (chirikova, 2008, p. 109). a consequence of any centralization process is hierarchy. hierarchy the hierarchy of power is “a system of consistent subordination of the structural units of social power from the lower to the higher level” (kravchenko, 2004, p. 131). a number of historical documents are extremely curious in this respect. in particular, the conversation that took place on december 12, 1927 between metropolitan sergius and a delegation of four diocese representatives – bishop gdovsky dimitry (beloved), professor archpriest vasily veryuzhsky, archpriest viktorina dobronravov and the layman alekseev representing the believers – was remarkable. the delegates brought a letter to the metropolitan, which, among other requests and suggestions, contained an insistence: “cancel the order [...] on giving prayers for civil authority”. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 139–155 151 the delegates justified this requirement as follows: – from the religious point of view, our rulers are not power. – how so, not power? – metropolitan sergius was amazed. – power is hierarchy: when not only someone is subordinate to me, but i myself am subordinate to someone standing above me, and so on, and it all goes up to god, as the source of any power. – well, this is a subtle philosophy, – metropolitan sergius observed with irony. – the pure in heart simply feel it. since the question is new, deep and complex, we should formulate it subtly, as a subject of conciliar discussion (tsypin, 1999, p. 150). the refusal of the representatives of the orthodox people to call the soviet government “power”, since it did not constitute a hierarchy, is very symptomatic. this reflects the very ideological background of the “source of any power”. however, despite the fact that the ideological background in the minds of russian people has begun to erode, the principles of hierarchy in power structures have stood the test of time as immanent to the concept of power in russia. communist ideology, rejecting the priesthood as a class, could not, however, abandon the idea of hierarchy in power relations. moreover, the communist ideology fostered this idea as something immutable and sacred. some researchers have drawn attention to the rigid hierarchy within the ruling communist party. in particular, a. brown, an honorary professor of political science at the university of oxford, writes: “ideology was given such importance (especially as justifying the rigidly hierarchical internal structure of the communist party and its monopoly on power) that any changes in theory entailed deep political consequences” (brown, 2007, p. 72). the russian professor b. i. kashnikov notes that a hierarchical society is usually called upon to serve a great idea (kashnikov, 2004). the millennial idea of “holy russia” demanded a hierarchical structure of earthly power, in accordance with the power of heaven. the great idea of building communism, that is, the “kingdom of god on the earth”, also reproduced the hierarchical structure of power. despite the fact that the place of god in the ussr became vacant, the perceptions about power among the population remained the same, which contributed to the revival of the traditional hierarchical principle in power structures. the soviet society, according to b. i. kashnikov, should be understood as a hierarchical society, a variation on the theme of the perverted ideal of holy russia. moreover, “the modern russian society”, the philosophers conclude, “is still a hierarchical society” (kashnikov, 2004, pp. 40–43). although the current post-soviet society, despite repeated attempts, has not been able to spawn any great idea, the traditional hierarchical structure is being reproduced in power again. why is that? because it is precisely such a structure that is present in the russian image of power, the structure has survived its ideological background. hierarchy is a structural characteristic of the original russian model of the image of power. https://changing-sp.com/ 152 nelly a. romanovich hierarchy as a structural characteristic of the traditional russian model of the image of power contradicts the modern democratic model, which is aimed at destroying any hierarchy. the re-election of the president of the russian federation after the period established by law implies that any representative of the nation can become the president. consequently, although the hierarchy exists, it exists exclusively as a convention. a frequent change of the president “helps” to destroy the hierarchical ladder again and again, as soon as it begins to form. the democratic concept has set the positions of the president and the governor on one level, thus equalizing them by means of nation-wide elections. since governors in russia (up to a certain time) had been elected by the people, they were also on the same level as the president in the hierarchy. the absence of a hierarchical ladder, as a rule, excludes the mode of subordination. therefore, vladimir putin had a reason to carry out a reform aimed at strengthening the “vertical of power” in order to increase the effectiveness of governance in the country. the principle of separation of powers into executive, legislative and judicial in a democratic scheme does not imply any hierarchy between them. all three branches of government are on the same level, none of them is any higher or any lower than the others, they have an equal degree of power, although in different spheres. however, the results of sociological surveys show that there is no equilibrium between these three branches of power in the minds of russians, with “the executive branch being perceived as the only true power” (shestopal, 2005, p. 40). sociologists note that building hierarchical relations at the level “federal centre – regions” contributes to the extinction of conflicts: “our comparison of the opinions of the elites in 2004 and 2006 clearly showed that the relationship between the centre and the regions over time loses its sharpness, turning into a relationship of hierarchical subordination” (chirikova, 2008, p. 111). according to the results of regional public opinion polls of the institute of public opinion qualitas, the population builds a hierarchy from the president to the governor and then to the mayor, believing that a strict subordination regime takes place in the relations between these levels. moreover, the legislative power is included in the unified hierarchy of power. therefore, the power structure is conceived by russian citizens exclusively as a hierarchical structure. russian authorities are reproducing the hierarchical structure, despite the proclaimed principle of separation of powers, not because they are full of authoritarian ambitions, but rather because hierarchical schemes are intertwined with the russian image of power. it goes without saying, any professional politician feels obliged to make use of national schemes; otherwise he/she will lose the trust of the people. that is why russian democracy acquires the features of manageability and hierarchy. conclusion in the process of social interaction, people form the image (perception) of power, which specifics is determined by value-normative attitudes inherent in this particular culture. using florenskiĭ’s and kireyevskiĭ’s words, “the grain of a cultural idea” (florenskiĭ, 1994, p. 357) germinates, having its own logic of development, and, being “an allchanging societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 139–155 153 defining cultural principle” (kirievskiĭ, 1979, p. 256), sets parameters of the image of power for a given culture. the dynamics of the internal logic of the development of a cultural idea serves as a “motor” (ionin, 2000, p. 8), whose work reproduces a certain image of power from generation to generation and manifests it in everyday practices of social interactions. the traditional model of the image of power in russia, which was formed in other sociocultural conditions, contradicts the modern model in terms of their basic aspects (the idea of service, the vector of power, the pyramid of power, personification, autocracy, centralization, hierarchy, etc.). the current invisible political landscape in russia is characterized by a struggle between the two models – traditional and modern – of the image of power. the outcome of this struggle is the reproduction of the characteristics of the image of power belonging to the traditional russian model. according to modern political scientists, “the complex process of value transformations in russia has led to the differentiation of value orientations. however, 25 years later, a certain fundamental vector can be traced: the underlying values that are immanent to the political and cultural life of russia are reproduced even in times, when the country goes through 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(2006). rossiĭskiĭ parlament: dinamika v noveĭsheĭ politicheskoĭ istorii i perspektivy razvitiia [the russian parliament: the dynamics in modern political history and development prospects]. vlast’, 3, 20–39. startsev, v. (2002). rossia v usloviiakh transformatsiĭ [russia in terms of transformation]. in historical and methodological seminar (vol. 20). moscow. tsypin, v. (1999). russkaia tserkov’ 1925–1938 [russian church 1925–1938]. moscow: sretensky monastery. vciom. (2014). vlast’ v rossii: po konstitutsii i po zhizni [power in russia: by constitution and by life]. retrieved from: https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=650 https://changing-sp.com/ http://qualitas.ru/ru/publications/bulletin/2018/january http://qualitas.ru/ru/publications/bulletin/2018/january https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=650 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 207–224 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.3.072 received 12 march 2019 © 2019 nelly mwale, melvin simuchimba accepted 5 september 2019 nelmwa@gmail.com published online 5 october 2019 melvin.simuchimba@unza.zm article religion in public life: rethinking the visibility and role of religion as an ethical resource in the transformation of the higher education landscape in post-1990 zambia nelly mwale & melvin simuchimba university of zambia, lusaka, zambia abstract this article revisits the relationship between religion and education in post-1990 to understand the growing public role of religion in higher education in zambia. the aim of the study that informs the article was to understand the public role of religion through the example of catholicism in university education provision in zambia. informed by interpretivism and interpretive phenomenology, data were gathered through interviews with purposively chosen catholic church, catholic university education representatives, and document analysis, and reductively explicated. largely in conversation with the discourses of religious resources, the article demonstrates that the growing visibility of the catholic church on the zambian university education landscape after the 1990s was driven by the quest to serve the needs of the church, the principles of catholic education and the society, thereby contributing to the transformation of the higher education landscape. the article argues that contrary to projections that secularisation would lead to a decline of religion in public life, religion had remained a useful ethical resource for the transformation of university education provision in post-1990 zambia underpinned by an ethical concern to promote social and individual wellbeing and support the state’s expansion of higher education. keywords religion, public life, ethical resource, catholic university education, zambian private higher education https://changing-sp.com/ 208 nelly mwale, melvin simuchimba introduction this article revisits the relationship between religion and education using the example of the catholic church’s recent engagement in university education provision to understand the growing public role of religion in post-1990 zambia. it argues that contrary to projections that secularisation would lead to a decline in religion in public life, the visibility of religion on the university landscape signified that religion had remained a useful resource for the transformation of university education provision underpinned by an ethical concern to promote social and individual well-being, and support the state’s expansion of higher education. the article was ignited by discourses of secularisation in africa on the one hand, and the growth of religion affiliated universities on the other. samarin (1966) acknowledged the observation by some sociologists that africa would become increasingly secular. unlike in western europe, secularisation was accompanied not by a decline in religious devotion but by a dramatic rise in south africa (elphick, 1997, pp. 1–15). in zambia, the brisk growth of religion-affiliated higher education after the 1990s pointed to religion’s growing presence in public life. as confirmed by carpenter (2017), religion’s boom in the public sphere was exemplified among other ways the growth of church involvement in university education through the birth of christian universities often attributed to the rapid rise of christian adherence and the volatile growth of higher education in sub-saharan africa. despite the visibility of religion in public life and in particular, higher education through the surge in christian universities, and amid the many recent acknowledgments of the global growth of both christianity and higher education (glanzer, carpenter, & lantinga, 2011; carpenter, 2017), there has been little scholarly engagement with the phenomenon in zambia. unlike in other african contexts such as nigeria and south africa where the engagement of the christian churches in higher education had been analysed (enegho, 2017; diedericks 2019), zambian scholarship has neglected religion in higher education because of the preoccupation with the primary and secondary levels of education (hambulo, 2016; simuchimba, 2005; carmody, 2007/2011). as advanced by levy (2009), the private higher education system had not been a static entity but instead had changed and evolved over many years in response to social, economic and political change; hence deserved sustained critical investigation. this article accounts for the growing visibility of religion on the university education landscape in zambia. given the numerous typologies of private higher education and christian higher education, the article focuses on catholic university education for purposes of exemplifying religions’ engagement in university education. the interest in the catholic church was sparked off by the 125 years of catholicism celebrations in 2016 (qfm news, 2017) and the 10th anniversary celebrations in university education in 2018. this was not only a time for institutional reflections, but also one that ignited a scholarly inquiry into the lived experiences of the catholic church. by so doing, the article does not suggest that the catholic church was the only church in university education provision as the protestant churches were also involved changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 207–224 209 in higher education. instead, the article exemplifies how religion had shaped the university education landscape for purposes of making a modest contribution to discourses of religion in public life and documenting this new development for posterity. the insights in the article are also not for purposes of generalisation, but for providing a window, through which religion’s visibility in public life could be understood in post-1990 zambia. the article compliments and extends levy’s (2017) conclusions that universities sponsored by christian churches were a neglected but important part of private higher education everywhere by filling a contextual gap from the zambian context and demonstrating the visible role of christian universities underpinned by an ethical concern to transform the university education landscape. the article further compliments mwale’s (2017) portrayal of catholic university education in the media in zambia from an empirical perspective by unveiling the lived experiences of the church in university education provision. this article concentrates on post-1990s when higher education was liberalised. indirectly, this was when the country was declared a christian nation with the possibility of creating another kind of clientele in search of christian oriented university education. these decisions were informed by carpenter’s (2017) observation that christian higher education exists at the intersection of two of the most dynamic social trends in africa, the rapid rise of christianity, and volatile growth of higher education especially emerging around the 1990s (a period associated with a surge in christianity and crisis in african universities). the article proceeds by situating religion in public life through its visibility in higher education in an analytical framework and a context. thereafter, the methods that informed the article are highlighted before accounting for religion’s presence on the university education landscape through the use of religion as an ethical resource. analytical framework broadly informed by derrick layder’s adaptive theory (1998) that allowed for learning from existing theories and generating insights from the emerging field data, the article is largely in conversation with benne’s (2001) framework of determining the category of an institution by examining eight aspects of its life. these include the public relevance of its christian vision, public rhetoric, membership requirements, the role of the religion or theology department, and whether any such courses are required, the nature and frequency of chapel, the overall ethos, the degree of support by the sponsoring church, and the role of the associated church in matters of governance (benne, 2001). a catholic university was understood as one that acknowledged and embraced a [catholic] confessional identity in the mission statements and altered aspects of its policies, governance, curriculum and ethos in light of its christian [catholic] identity (schroeder, 2002, p. 9). benne’s categories helped to identify what constitutes a christian university, and understand how the example of the catholic church’s engagement in university education had contributed to the transformation of the university education landscape through the interaction of religion and education in the sector. https://changing-sp.com/ 210 nelly mwale, melvin simuchimba the article also draws on discourses of religious resources by ter haar and ellis (2006). these include religious ideas (what people actually believe), religious practices, religious organisation (how religious communities are formed and function), and religious (or spiritual) experiences (such as the subjective experience of inner change or transformation) (ter haar, 2005, pp. 22–27). these components resonate with ninian smart’s dimensions of religion (smart, 1969), which include the practical or ritual, the experiential or emotional, the narrative or mythic, the doctrinal or philosophical, the ethical or legal, the social or institutional and the material. while benne’s framework will be used to understand the identity and general roles of religion in higher education, the discourses of religious resource will be used to explain the growing visibility of the church in the sector. though largely framing the study around these discourses, the limitations of using a specific framework in a study are acknowledged. hence, the article only presents one of the many truths (francis, 2001) on the growing visibility of religion’s presence in higher education in post-1990 zambia. contextualising the setting the article situates religion’s role in public life as exemplified in the church’s engagement in higher education in the context of policies, the relationship between religion and education prior to the 1990s and the onset of catholic engagement in university education. before independence, there were neither public nor private universities in zambia. the changes in legislation in the 1990s created a new platform for university education as private providers were encouraged to come on board through the educating our future policy document (ministry of education, 1996). under this liberalised educational system, the right of private organisations, individuals, religious bodies, and local communities to establish and control their own educational institutions was recognised and welcomed (ministry of education, 1996). university education in zambia is also guided by other policy documents such as vision 2030. vision 2030 (2006–2030) is zambia’s first ever long-term plan expressing the country’s aspirations of being a prosperous middle-income country by the year 2030. the policy document embodies values of socio-economic justice underpinned by the principles of gender responsive sustainable development, democracy, respect for human rights, traditional and family values, positive attitude towards work, peaceful co-existence, and private-public partnerships (grz, 2006, p. 7). it identifies education as a critical component in enhancing the country’s socio-economic development, and acknowledges that the country has yet to reach educational standards that are commensurate with sustainable development and promotes public-private partnerships in the sector (grz, 2006, p. 33). the vision 2030 was operationalised through the implementation of five national development plans beginning with the fifth national development plan (2006–2010), and the sixth national development plan (2011–2015) that was revised to cover the period 2013–2016. the current national plan is the seventh national development plan (2017–2021). its focus in higher education is to increase access to university changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 207–224 211 education and technical education, vocational and entrepreneurship training (tevet), enhancing the quality of training and increasing its relevance to the needs of the industry (grz, 2017). based on vision 2030 and the national development plans, higher education was legislated through the higher education act (2013), which until 2013 was the university act of 1999. apart from establishing the higher education authority (hea) that regulates university education, the act also spells out the procedures and regulations of private higher education institutions and highlights the functions of providers of higher education (higher education act, 2013, pp. 106–107). catholic provision of university education was also illuminated by catholic principles on education enshrined in the catholic policy documents such as the 1965 gravissimum educationis (pope p. vi, 1965). the gravissimum educationis was the second vatican council declaration on christian education. among its principles is that everyone has an inalienable right to an education that is in keeping with their ultimate goal, ability, sex, and the culture and tradition of their country. the purpose of education remains the harmonious development of the student’s physical, moral and intellectual endowments, the promotion of the common good and motivation to appraise moral values with a right conscience. the declaration emphasises the additional right for all christians to a truly christian education, and the church’s obligation to make moral and religious education available in all schools. additionally, the policy recognises that the church and her schools depend on teachers for the accomplishment of their goals hence calls for special traits of the teachers. the other church policy document that guides catholic university education is the 1990 ex corde ecclesiae. it is an apostolic constitution on catholic higher education that provides an overview for catholic universities. it was intended to define and refine the catholicism of catholic institutions of higher education (ex corde ecclesiae, 1990). the document identifies what constitutes catholic identity at catholic colleges and universities and specifies general norms to achieve a catholic mission. these norms include being a community of scholars representing various branches of human knowledge and dedicated to research, teaching and service in accordance with its cultural mission. others are informing and carrying out research, teaching and other activities with catholic ideals, principles and attitudes, making known the catholic identity, influencing all university activities with catholic teaching and discipline, fully respecting the freedom of conscience of each person and possessing the autonomy necessary to develop a distinctive identity and purpose (ex corde ecclesiae, 1990). the aspirations of gravissimum educationis (1965) and ex corde ecclesiae (1990) were celebrated during the 2015 world congress on catholic education (congregation for catholic education, 2014) that gave new stimulus to the church’s involvement in the field of education. the onset of catholic presence in university education in zambia when zambia gained independence in 1964, there were few university graduates and no public or private universities. higher education was the responsibility of the https://changing-sp.com/ 212 nelly mwale, melvin simuchimba government of the federation of rhodesia and nyasaland. those who qualified to enter university went to the university college of rhodesia and nyasaland of 1955 in salisbury while others went to south and east africa (kelly, 2006). this changed after independence when the country’s first public university – the university of zambia – was established in 1966, followed by copperbelt in 1987 and others. prior to the 1990s, university education provision remained the state’s responsibility through the two public universities. the church was only involved in university education through its catholic representation (the clergy and lay persons) based on their expertise in different fields. in addition to this, the catholic missionaries shaped the zambian education system through the provision of education at the lower levels, including the running of colleges of education and skills training centres in the country. their engagement also included participation in the formulation of policies, sponsoring staff development to teach religious education (re) in public higher education and the provision of teaching and learning materials among other ways (carmody, 2004). for example, thomas mcgivern was the inspector of re at the ministry of education who shaped policies on re and produced teaching and learning materials for the subject (mwale and chita, 2017, pp. 10 –11). after the 1990s, the church vividly appeared on the scene of university education when in the quest to increase access to university education and amid inadequate funding to higher education, the government of the republic of zambia encouraged the establishment and accreditation of private universities (kelly, 1991). as of 2018, the catholic church had four institutions that were registered and accredited with the ministry of higher education and the hea (st. dominic’s major seminary, dmi st. eugene university, st. bonaventure and zambia catholic university [zcu]). named after saint eugene de mazenod, the founder of oblates of mary immaculate (omi), dmi st. eugene university is run by the daughters of mary immaculate. the franciscans run st. bonaventure university college. unlike these two universities associated with the catholic church and run by religious congregations, zcu was owned by the zambia conference of catholic bishops (zccb) and opened in april 2008. despite the growth of catholic higher education in zambia, the catholic clergy and laypersons have continued to contribute to zambian higher education through their presence in the public higher education, including the chaplaincy service that has been provided since the early years of the establishment of public universities. with regards to the relationship between religion and education in private universities in zambia, it must be noted that differences abound with public universities. given that the country has no policy on religion in education except as provided for in the country’s constitution and state policies, university education provision by the church aligns with state policies. for example, the catholic education system is open to people of other faiths and the religious freedoms of others are guaranteed especially since zambia remained a multifaith society despite being declared christian nation. at the same time, the christian universities were at liberty to embrace their denominational ethos in education. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 207–224 213 method the article is informed by insights from an interpretive phenomenological study (moustakas, 1994; van manen, 1990; padilla-díaz, 2015), in which the unit of analysis was purposively chosen based on its relevance to the study (mason, 2002). the study aimed to provide an in-depth self-understanding on the growth of catholic university education by exploring the experiences of the catholic church in university education provision. aware of the numerous christian churches in university education provision, one church (the catholic church) was chosen for purposes of depth and most importantly, because it was among the earliest churches to venture into the provision of education. the catholic church was also among the influential churches in social service provision and a recognised state partner in education (gibbs & ajulu, 1999; impact correspondent, 2017). the catholic church was therefore chosen based on its typicality or possession of particular characteristics being sought (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2007). the decision was also informed by creswell’s (2007) advice that the more diverse the experiences of participants are, the harder it becomes to find the underlying essence and common meanings attributed to the studied phenomenon. of the catholic higher education institutions, the study focused on zcu because unlike other institutions, it did not belong to any particular catholic congregation or religious order but instead was operated by catholic bishops and owned by all catholics. the study drew on recorded interviews with purposively chosen church and catholic university education representatives herein identified with letters of the alphabet (strauss et. al., 1998), and document analysis. the decision was guided by creswell (2007) and van manen (1990) on the numerous evidentiary sources in phenomenological studies such as interviews, documentation, and observations. based on polkinghorne’s (1989) recommendation that researchers interview 5 to 25 individuals in phenomenological research, eight (8) participants from the catholic church (zccb) education department and zcu were included in the study for faceto-face interviews. these included the zccb education department representative (1), the zcu management representatives (2), longest serving lecturers at zcu (2), and student representatives (3). the interviews were conducted at two sites (zccb in lusaka and zcu in kalulushi, on the copperbelt) over a period of three months in 2018 (august, september, october). the last interviews were conducted between may and june in 2019. the zccb education department was targeted because it acts as liaison between the ministry of higher education and catholic educational facilities, represents the zccb on all educational fora, promotes catholic ethos in the learning institutions, and coordinates the church’s commitment to providing quality education based on gospel values (zccb, 2016). additional sources of data were observations of selected functions and document analysis. in this regard, some church functions related to university education such as graduation ceremonies were attended, in particular, the 10th anniversary celebrations and 7th graduation ceremony at zcu in kalulushi in september 2018. the fundraising functions in the public media were analysed for themes related to the https://changing-sp.com/ 214 nelly mwale, melvin simuchimba study. the study was also informed by document analysis, which was chosen on the basis of availability. the documents included archival materials in the zccb archives such as annual reports, conference minutes, strategic plans, catholic university brochures, and newspaper articles among others. the guidelines by scott (1990) on quality control, formulated for handling documentary sources (authenticity, credibility, representativeness, and meaning) also informed the use of documents. data were inductively analysed through the description of the phenomenon and significant statements, horizonalisation and the development of clusters of meaning through textural and structural descriptions of catholic university education (creswell, 2007). this involved the generation and application of codes to the data and the identification, analysis, and reporting of patterns. this was done while keeping in check benne and ter haar’s frameworks on what constitutes a christian university and the religious resource that could produce knowledge for developmental purposes respectively. in addition, ethical considerations were taken into account. for example, approval and ethical clearance was obtained from the university of zambia (the humanities and social sciences research ethics committee). permission from the zccb and zcu was also sought for purposes of gaining access to their institutions and conducting the study. the interview processes also started with obtaining participants’ permission to participate in the study. suffice to note that ethical issues around privacy, informed consent, anonymity, secrecy being truthful and the desirability of the research issues (blaxter, hughes, & tight, 2006, p. 158) were adhered too. accounting for the visibility of the catholic church in public life through university education provision in zambia despite the polices on liberalisation in the 1990s created an enabling environment for the catholic church to establish their own universities, the church’s visibility in public life was driven by their own reasons for the engagement in university education provision. to start with, the intent of the catholic church was to widen access to university education because zambia’s public universities were unable to absorb the population seeking higher education. this high demand for higher education was partly triggered by the expansion of primary and secondary education, leading to the increase in the number of qualified secondary school graduates seeking tertiary education (masaiti & mwale, 2017). for instance, only 8 percent of school leavers accessed public universities in zambia (grz, 2013) while the projections in 2018 were put at 10 percent (masaiti [personal communication], 2018). this meant that only about a quarter of the applicants to higher institutions were admitted each year, leading to a high demand for admission in the private institutions. the church thus began to offer the third level of education because of the growing number of secondary school leavers in need of this university education (participant k). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 207–224 215 in 2011, vatican radio also reported that the zambian bishops had responded to the need to provide tertiary education to the ever-growing number of school leavers in the country by establishing the catholic university in 2008. the widening of access to university education was also with a special focus on those from vulnerable backgrounds. this was confirmed and stressed by a participant who observed that the situation that was obtaining was that after people completed secondary level of education, many vulnerable and poor people would not afford to go into third level of education because of the costs involved […] the church, being on the side of the poor, introduced university education to empower the poor and vulnerable (participant j). the church wanted to supplement state facilities and programmes in university education by way of producing trained and formed personnel who would devote their time and energy to the study and solving of the social questions for the integral development of the country (chilambwe, 2018). although catholic university education was established to widen access to university education, church affiliated universities could only accommodate a small number of the students who qualified for tertiary education in their institutions (hittenberger, 2004). nonetheless, the vision and aspirations of the church in the sector signified the quest to serve the needs of society by collaborating with the state to expand the university education sector, thereby demonstrating that religion could be a resource in higher education. the church’s visibility in higher education was also driven by the quest to serve the ideals of catholic principles in education by offering her own nature of university education that was at the same time in tune with state policies in higher education. for example, the zcu and its programmes were accredited to the hea. an important characteristic of catholic university education was quality holistic university education that emphasised moral formation. for example, catholic education was grounded in the integral development of the human person in accordance with the gospel values (calareso, cesareo, & mcfarland, 2011). the specific purpose was the formation of boys and girls, men and women who would be good (religious) citizens of the world. therefore, the catholic church became involved in university education provision to impart morals and values to students. the church views the admitted students not only as individuals searching for knowledge and skills but also as ambassadors in ethical values who could provide a service to the society at large (participant l). the church got involved in university education provision to ripen capacity for right judgement, introduce the students to the culture heritage of past generations, promote a sense of value, and prepare students for professional life in a spirit of service (chilambwe, 2018). as argued by theron (2013), christian higher education could contribute to the general acquisition of knowledge, and the moral formation of students in particular. the emphasis on quality holistic education that encompassed https://changing-sp.com/ 216 nelly mwale, melvin simuchimba moral formation further resonates with benne’s (2001) argument on the public relevance of the christian vision in which the mission of education remained tailored to the mission of the church. the catholic church also became visible in university education to incorporate a spiritual ethos in the life of university education. this was contrary to the post-1990 university education landscape in which religion only remained as a subject to be taught to students being prepared to teach re in schools. the spiritual ethos was driven by aspirations to produce a particular citizenry as manifested in the institutional mottos such as “the truth shall set you free”. this was translated into providing an atmosphere not only tailored to academics but also exposing students to what life was all about (through experiences meant to help students develop into complete human beings – academically, spiritually, socially, and physically). these efforts included spiritual services and worship opportunities, sports activities, prayer meetings, campus clubs, and recreational activities among others. these activities shaped the relationship between religion and education through the emphasis on holistic university education that was not prominent in public university education. furthermore, the chaplaincy in christian universities remains a key element (benne, 2001). for example, the office of the university chaplain coordinated and superintended over all spiritual related activities, including consultation and counseling at zcu. spiritual gatherings such as the catholic student community (casc), and the youth forum were also popular. the catholic ethos was among other ways promoted by the weekly spiritual activities, such as the celebration of mass every sunday and wednesday in the university chapel, and the monthly spiritual exercises, such as the days of recollection once in a month in which students and members of staff were accorded an opportunity to reflect on improve through self-retrospection and prayer. the overall organisation or structure of catholic university education reflected through the support of the church through the bishops and their role in governance cemented the public role of the church in university education. as calasero et al. (2011) pointed out, the catholic university seeks to develop the whole person, emphasising the moral, religious, social, as well as the intellectual, in an integrated fashion that helps students discover and develop fully their human dignity and potential. the catholic church’s engagement in public life was further motivated by the desire to offer education that fostered excellence, service, and integrity by emphasising service at different levels. service was tied to providing the church with an opportunity to be of service in the provision of an integrated, holistic, and quality education at the university level. service was also related to providing students with a chance to study in a catholic environment, in which the acquisition of advanced skills, ethical, moral, and spiritual formation was stressed (chilambwe, 2018), as well as service to society as a whole. according to the ex corde ecclesiae (1990), service was linked to the church and society, pastoral ministry, cultural dialogue, and evangelisation. the understanding of service further called on students and teaching staff alike to learn to be attentive to the poorest and those who suffer economic, social, cultural or religious injustice, “the option for the poor” (komakoma, 2003). this entailed working towards bridging the gap between the rich and poor by making it possible changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 207–224 217 for students from poor backgrounds to access and complete university education, including the adult literacy programmes that targeted women. for instance, the adult literacy programme aimed to empower women especially those disadvantaged owing to certain cultural practices such as early marriages and teenage pregnancies (zcu, 2018). these reasons underlined the ethical concern of the church in which preference was given to the poor in the hope of addressing equality. therefore, religion and education interacted closely on the university education landscape as opposed to a diminished relationship attributed to secularisation. the church was also concerned with future leadership to serve both societal and church needs. the church sees the establishment of the university as a means of preparing future leaders in zambia this was to be through developing morals and principles of leadership qualities in the upcoming generations for the service and development of the country as there is no true development of a nation without an authentic, moral, and principled leadership and knowledge for its own sake is nothing unless it is put at the service of the nation (chelambwe, 2018). as carpenter (2017, p. 26) notes, “church people start these universities so their own youth can flourish, but the institutions also aim to build up a nation”. to produce leadership with an ethical concern, courses like ethics and catholic social teachings taught to all students, confirm the place of religion courses in a christian university (schroeder, 2002, p. 23). as argued by nguru (2008), the church’s offering of her own distinct education was linked to advancing roles related to helping a student to become a certain kind of person and do certain kinds of things by integrating a student’s faith and education to produce a student who is competent in his or her profession, and also committed to apply his or her competency to address the spiritual and material conditions of the african continent and the world. seen through the prism of benne’s framework, the catholic church’s engagement in university education provision renewed the religion and education interface at the university level by way of being an extension of the catholic education system and identity. catholic universities are critical tools in evangelization [...]. we do not only focus on training would be professionals but we also teach social teachings of the church so that christ is communicated to change the world for better. we also focus on spiritual growth of our students so that they are helpful to society in future (chilambwe, 2016). as concluded by altbach (2005), catholic institutions globally had a tradition to serve the church. chivore (2006) also points out that the church’s quest to foster denominational convictions at university level through formal academic education remained prominent, implying a confessional kind of education. this signified that contrary to burtchaell’s (1998) observations in the united states of america in which christian higher education was hardly christian at all owing to the disengagement of colleges and universities from their sponsoring christian churches or denominations that led to a diminishing role of education as a missionary activity, the understanding https://changing-sp.com/ 218 nelly mwale, melvin simuchimba of the role of the catholic university signified that universities were still extensions of the work of the church. in addition, the engagement of the church in university education provision had contributed to the transformation of the university education landscape by adding the religion affiliated higher education category to the zambian context. this revived the relationship between religion and education at the university level. for example, higher education became to be identified with institutions underpinned by religious identities marked by benne’s (2001) attributes of a christian university such as christian vision, the role of the religion or theology department, and whether any such courses are required as reflected through the foundational courses such as ethics and social teachings of the church, philosophy and religion studies. similarly, the nature and frequency of chapel and the overall ethos manifested the place of chaplaincy, religious activities and catholic identity in the institution. this demonstrated that contrary to the projections on the diminishing place of religion in higher education or the dying of the religious light in the academy in the words of burtchaell (1998), the growth of christian universities as exemplified by catholic university education had renewed the role of religion in public life. religion as an ethical resource in the transformation of higher education in zambia most of the reasons accounting for the more visible role of religion in public life through the church’s engagement in university education provision resonates with how religion is a resource that underpins notions of development (ter haar and ellis, 2006). the visibility of the catholic church in public life is firstly facilitated by the catholic teachings that constitute the religious ideas (ter haar, 2005). these included the religious ideas of spreading the faith through education in response to the gospel of mark 16:15, “go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation”. the catholic church was thus inspired by the great command in mark 16:15 (chilambwe, 2018). apart from the biblical command, the church philosophies on integrated, holistic, and quality education enshrined in their doctrines further drove the engagement and consequent transformation of the higher education landscape through the emphasis to produce a particular kind of citizenry. catholic university education believed in providing a study environment that stressed the acquisition of advanced skills, ethical, moral, and spiritual formation. these teachings were backed by the provisions in the church policy documents such as the 1965 declaration on christian education, and the ex corde ecclesiae (1990). for example, the church teaches that education is a universal human right and as such, true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his or her ultimate end and of the good of the society, of which he or she is a member, and in whose obligations, as an adult, he or she will share what has been imparted in him/her (pope p. vi, 1965). while this points to how the church draws on secular discourses of human rights to support her mission in university education provision, this stance also resonates with the church’s stance on human dignity. hence, investing in higher changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 207–224 219 education provided another avenue to advance the internal renewal of the church, preserve and enhance its beneficent influence upon the world, especially the intellectual world (pope p. vi, 1965). by cooperating with the state to expand higher education, the teachings of the church became an ethical resource by way of forming a basis for doing what was considered to be morally right through engagement in university education provision. in addition, the practices of the church especially in living the social gospel and serving the needs of the poor inspired the church’s engagement in contributing towards the transformation of the university education landscape through the promotion of socio-economic development of the country. these aspirations were linked to the practice of responding to the needs of society that disrupted the wellbeing of humanity as informed by church’s social teachings. this underpinned what the church perceived as the ethical duty to society. the church’s resolve to widen access; foster equity and play out its prophetic role could not be detached from the church’s practice of being on the side of the needy, and a moral compass (lemmons, 2008). for example, the principles of the catholic social teachings of solidarity that recognises that all people and social groups are united evoked the classical notion of virtue ethics, in which individuals seek to contribute their part to the creation of a moral community, and to cultivate strength of character to donate to the common good of an expanding community (macintyre, 2007). this entailed that the church was tapping into her ethical resource in collaborating with the state in the expansion of university education by being in solidarity with the needy. the structures of the church also facilitated the involvement of the church in the transformation of university education landscape because while the universities were open to people from different religious orientations, the immediate pool or clientele was the church membership itself. this resonates with benne’s (2001, p. 187) strategies for keeping the faith in christian educational institutions such as the availability of the critical mass of faculty, administrators, board members, and students who identify strongly with the institutions’ mission with the ability to articulate the vision and provide leadership. it was also through the organisational structures of the church (zccb) that zcu had been established. these actions were underpinned by the religious ethical duty to provide education. as stipulated in the declaration on christian education (pope p. vi, 1965), the duty of educating belongs to the church, not merely because she must be recognised as a human society capable of educating, but especially because she has the responsibility of announcing the way of salvation to humanity to build a good earthly society and a world that is more human. the experiences of the church gained over time also gave the catholic church the reputation in the university education sector. the catholic church in zambia was recognised as a partner in social services provision, hence hoped to use the experiences gained at the lower levels to provide quality university education since 1895 (mwale & simuchimba, 2018). one participant noted that the church has invested a lot in primary and secondary education and a lot of people appreciate catholic education […], a lot of people value education offered https://changing-sp.com/ 220 nelly mwale, melvin simuchimba by the catholic church […] some of them [people] will openly say, “i want my child to go to a catholic school” (participant j). the then catholic university chancellor archbishop ignatius chama also noted that the church through the experience gained at providing education at primary and secondary level was responsible for the confidence it had to provide higher education (muvi tv news, 2015). the student participants in the study also confirmed the trust and parents’ preference to catholic education when recounting why they had chosen catholic university education. they pointed to their parents’ desire for them to have a catholic education despite being non-catholics (participant n, o, and p). hence, with experiences gained as provider of education at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, and as a partner in catering for the broader contemporary social needs in the country (chilambwe, 2018), the catholic church became a valuable resource in the state’s efforts to provide more access to quality university education. conclusion the article explored the visibility of religion in higher education through the engagement of the catholic church in university education provision in post-1990 zambia. as a new development on the higher education landscape, the article demonstrated that the church was contributing to the transformation of the higher education landscape through the renewed interaction between religion and education exemplified in the quest to widen access, opt for the poor, offer holistic and humanised education, and promote integral development to serve the needs of society, the church and catholic principles on education. the article revealed that the engagement of the church in university education provision was driven by upholding the attributes of benne’s categories of what constituted a christian university. it also demonstrated that religion, more specifically catholicism, remained an ethical resource for collaborating with the state in the expansion of higher education. based on this, the article has argued that contrary to the widely held projections that religion would diminish, the growth of the zambian catholic education system through university education provision demonstrated the growing visibility of religion in public life in post-1990 zambia. the growing visibility of religion on the university education landscape through the example of the catholic church was anchored on the quest to serve the needs of the church, the principles of catholic education and the society, thereby contributing to the transformation of the higher education landscape. as such, the article demonstrated that the church’s transformation of the university education landscape could be attributed to the strides to remain relevant through an ethical concern and the state’s inability to meet the growing demand for higher education in the country. the article therefore consolidates emerging scholarship on religion in public life exemplified through christian universities in zambia by showing that despite being a neglected aspect, religion remained a significant facet of the higher education landscape. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 207–224 221 references altbach, p. g. 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religious conscience. these two senses need to be distinguished, since they are sometimes in fundamental conflict with one another, arguably to the extent of institutional religious freedom burdening individual religious conscience. further, legal exemptions to general law that benefit particular religious institutions should also be recognized as gifts. they are not fundamental or inalienable rights. therefore, granting such accommodations requires that religious communities benefitting from them should somehow reciprocate for their being exempted from common obligations under general law. keywords exit rights, accommodation, mauss, gift, individual rights, compensation the sovereignty blitz in the united states, a consistent complaint argued on the part of self-appointed defenders of so-called “freedom of religion” and/or “religious freedom” is the vulnerability of religions over against an essentially erastian state. for them, received 16 may 2019 © 2019 ivan strenski accepted 16 june 2019 strenski@ucr.edu published online 1 july 2019 https://changing-sp.com/ 114 ivan strenski what is, in effect, the predatory image of hobbes’ leviathan, casts a shadow of an all-powerful nation-state holding an absolute monopoly on the use of power across its entire territory, including the territory of religion. it is against such an imagined threat to their presumed liberty that corporate religious bodies are featured in a front-page story in the new york times reported on may 27, 2018 “a christian nationalist blitz” (stewart, 2018). this “blitz” of nationwide “christian nationalist” legislative initiatives aims to promote “religious freedom”, that the ny times report identifies as “the latest attempt by religious extremists to use the coercive power of government to secure a privileged position in society for their version of christianity” (stewart, 2018). when exposed to light of day, the christian nationalist blitz seeks, in truth, to limit the exercise of civil liberty in the public domain by leveraging the power of religious forces. in seeking exemptions from civic responsibility, i shall argue first that corporate religious bodies seek nothing less than the liberty that only sovereignty can insure. the power of religion in this light, it is worth recalling the nature of a kind of historical demarche between corporate religious bodies and the state. the existence of sovereign corporate religion threatens leviathan in ways that other members of civil society do not, or perhaps cannot. religious institutions speak with an authority (auctoritas) that can compete with, if not transcend, that of the state’s. one might even argue that all religions need in order to become polities themselves is territory and a capacity to exercise power (potestas) – those “divisions” that stalin reminded pope pius xii he lacked. thus, the need to control, manage, suppress, or even eliminate religion and so on may weigh more heavily upon leviathan than the need to keep the rest of leviathan’s domain in order. leviathan’s determined and effective control over religious bodies speaks volumes about leviathan’s conviction that the religions will never acquire those “divisions”, the lack of which stalin chided the roman pontiff (sarkissian, 2016). for certain religious devotees, the craven collapse of religious resistance to leviathan is one of the least edifying spectacles of modern political and religious history. the domestication of the eastern churches, the established lutheran churches of scandinavia, the church of england, or the protestant and jewish communities of france, or until recently, at least, the islam of turkey, for example, serve as exemplary contemporary examples of religious bodies effectively neutered by their respective governments. all may be well-fed, but they are likewise firmly leashed. but, by the same token, it would be reasonable to be suspicious about the ultimate intentions of the religions regarding their own liberty from state control. some may seek to build upon incremental gains in legal “accommodation”, to seek fuller freedom in a sovereignty, not unlike those enjoyed by the native american nations. in this, the churches would, in effect, seek to become laws unto themselves, states-within-states, thus presenting, as it were, the prospect of pockets of theocracy. symptoms of this seizure of sovereignty from the nation-state, can be found in governments like those hostage to the roman catholic church, such as today’s poland, or those submitting to the guardian council in iran, or like israel’s, governments that typically defer to changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 113–123 115 broadly unpopular decisions about jewish identity, conversion and marriage made by the orthodox chief rabbinate of the state. but, in principle, leviathan still holds the hammer. the modern state monopolizes the use of force and as such, compels the religions to behave as it wishes. in this vein, it is worth observing that most, if not all, recent insurgent or revolutionary attempts to replace the westphalian system, where leviathan rules, have been made in behalf of religious social formations. al qaeda, isil, the islamic republic of iran or christian identity nationalists come readily to mind. about such possible threats to the sovereignty of the state, recently deceased supreme court judge antonin scalia lined up smartly on the side of leviathan. so committed was scalia to the modern secular order he felt that if religious accommodations were not reined in, chaos would ensue. writing in 1990 for the majority in the so-called peyote religion case – oregon employment division v smith (employment div., 1990) – scalia dismissed the claim by members of the native american church for religious exemption from oregon’s controlled substances laws for using peyote in a sacramental setting. then, citing the landmark supreme court decision on the mormon practice of polygamy, reynolds v. united states (1879), scalia quoted reynolds to the effect that “to permit this” (polygamy) “would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself” (reynolds v. untied states, 1879). scholars have pointed out that scalia is far from consistent in resisting the expansion of religious accommodations. but, this does not weaken the force of his decision as an example of significant judicial fears about the risks of the chaos caused by creeping sovereignty issuing from unrestricted religious accommodations (stolzenberg, 2016). how freedom of religion may burden religious freedom thus far, i have not distinguished between two senses of religious liberty that christian nationalists of the so-called “christian blitz” use interchangeably, perhaps for strategic purposes. these terms, “religious freedom” and “freedom of religion”, when confused with one another, play havoc with our ability to think clearly about issues provoked by christian nationalists and others of their ilk who seek greater corporate religious liberty. “religious freedom” refers to freedom of belief, freedom of the individual conscience. “freedom of religion” denotes quite another thing. it refers to the relative state of the sovereignty or autonomy of corporate religion or religious institutions – what the recent literature refers to as “corporate religious liberty” or “religious sovereignty” (schwartzman, flanders & robinson, 2016). on the side of individual “religious freedom”, roger williams exemplifies the iconic alternative, while thomas à becket models corporate sovereignty or “freedom of religion”. no matter how much our modern media culture – t. s. eliot’s “murder in the cathedral” included – has cast becket, in effect, as a roger williams of his day, the two men stand for two different notions of religious liberty. the difference? williams conscientiously dissented from the orthodoxy of the church institution of his new england coreligionists, and was thus forced to leave massachusetts bay colony in order enjoy his own personal religious freedom – to believe as he chose. https://changing-sp.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/reynolds_v._united_states 116 ivan strenski by contrast, as formal agent of the corporate church, thomas à becket asserted the freedom of the church of rome against the kingly authority of henry ii in 1170. becket was no model of the free conscience, but rather stood in for the authority of the roman magisterium. becket, in effect, asserted the autonomy of papal corporate ecclesiastical authority against the competing institution of the political authority of the english crown. four decades later, in 1215, one will seek in vain in the magna carta for any charter for individual freedom of religious conscience. instead, the magna carta finds a duly chastened king john affirming that very same corporate religious freedom for which becket died in the following words: “first, that we have granted to god, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the english church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired”. so exemplary was this conception of the “freedom of religion” – corporate freedom of the church – that, the justices cited this exact clause from the magna carta in the hosanna-tabor decision (green, 2017). controversy between church and state over religious offices is hardly new. in 1215, the issue was addressed in the very first clause of magna carta. there, king john agreed that “the english church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired”. the king in particular accepted the “freedom of elections”, a right “thought to be of the greatest necessity and importance to the english church” (“hosanna-tabor”, 2012). in the hosanna-tabor v. eeoc (2012) ruling, scotus, therefore, forbade the government from applying equal opportunity employment law to the case of an individual worker fired from her job with the church. the worker, cheryl perich, had fallen ill, and after recovering, wanted to reclaim her non-ministerial job to which she was arguably entitled by her civil rights to fair treatment under the law. but, the firing was upheld, and the sovereignty of the church – its freedom of religion – to do so was accommodated at the expense of the civil rights of the employee on the basis of the “ministerial exception”. in effect, the court granted the hosanna-tabor church an “exit right” from having to abide by certain civil rights on the basis of the “ministerial exemption” – even though cheryl perich had not been employed within the ministry. on the face of it, supporting the church’s right to exit its civic obligations to a non-ministerial employee, based as it was on the “ministerial exception”, seems an egregious misapplication of legal principle. while one might maintain in this way that the state should not presume to rule on ecclesiastical matters, church employee sickness and subsequent absence from work are hardly issues in which theological considerations apply. the state was not, for instance, asked to reinstate an employee who had advocated allegedly heretical views during the course of her employment. surely a person’s health is a matter lying well outside the realm of the “ministerial”, and squarely within that of general welfare. recent literature on the hosanna-tabor decision, in particular, ira c. lupu and robert w. tuttle, raises some similar issues as i have raised here. yet, even they overlook the obvious fact that theological issues or religious judgments do not apply in the hosanna-tabor case. nor, are “ministerial” changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 113–123 117 functions relevant to the case of perich’s termination. she had no sacerdotal functions (lupu & tuttle, 2017). cheryl perich’s failing was one of common health. her illness had simply made it impossible for her to fulfill her duties as an employee. critically, neither the magna carta itself nor the hosanna-tabor case affirm individual freedom of conscience, or what i have called “religious freedom”. from the alito-kagan decision (“hosanna-tabor”, 2012), it should be clear about what (or whose) freedom is being affirmed, both by the magna carta and scotus. plainly, it is corporate or institutional sovereignty, not personal liberty that both documents affirm. it is not, therefore, the right to believe according to the dictates of conscience against the authority of one’s religious community. it is, rather, the freedom (or sovereignty) of religious corporations that is advanced – indeed, often to rein in individual believers merely for exercising constitutionally protected religious and other freedoms. the different genealogies of these two notions – (corporate) freedom of religion and religious freedom (of individual conscience) – have been noted by historians of the early 20th century, like john neville figgis (1997), extending even into our own day by harold berman (1983), martha nussbaum (2008) and others. pope gregory vii’s so-called 12th century “papal revolution” asserts the freedom of the church, of religion, while the value of religious freedom (of conscience) arises in the liberality of the 17th century dutch republic and the colonial experiments of roger williams. it has become commonplace, however in the west, to regard the religious liberty as identified exclusively with sacrality of conscience, the right to believe whatever one chooses. historically speaking, this conception of religious liberty ignores that sense of religious liberty understood as the freedom of an institution, people, nation and such, recently recognized in the hosanna-tabor decision. worst of all, such confused usages falsely collapse the notions of corporate freedom and freedom of belief or conscience into each other. this eventuates, as i have observed, in the irony of becket being held up as a paragon of individual religious freedom or independent conscience when, in fact, he was serving as a corporate, institutional factotum of the roman church against the english state of henry ii! these two notions of religious liberty, then, differ deeply from one another. a fair measure of the profundity of this difference can better be appreciated by the frequency with which the rights of individual religious conscience are asserted against the authority or freedom of corporate religious institutions, rather than in their behalf. i submit that while corporate freedom of religion may indeed “protect the individual” from a predatory state, it may also disadvantage the individual with respect to their general civil rights, all in order to affirm the corporate institutional freedom of the church. in the hosanna-tabor case, the state’s siding with the church over against the rights of an individual demonstrates just such conflict within the notion of religious liberty. sometimes freedom of religion, freedom of a church, for instance, demands compromising of the freedom – religious or otherwise – an individual’s freedom or well-being. for instance, any number of critical roman catholic theologians, trying to assert theological lehrfreiheit at catholic institutions, as well as roger williams, william robertson smith, galileo galilei, ridley and latimer, michael servetus, thomas moore, hans küng, or the network’s “nuns on the bus” might complain of https://changing-sp.com/ 118 ivan strenski being oppressed by the ambitions of their churches to assert corporate sovereignty. in these cases, the state has stood by, exposing individuals and their sacred consciences to the predations of their corporate religious bodies. in such cases, i think we can fairly say that freedom of religion (fr) militates against religious freedoms (rf). burdening civil rights in the name of religion’s rights distinctly worrying are the increasing number of cases where the freedom of religion – that is corporate freedom of religion – disadvantages the individual enjoyment of civil goods. two recent and quite different cases, burwell v. hobby lobby (2014) and compounded case of zubic v. burwell (2016) exemplify rulings in which judicial exemptions granted to religious corporations disadvantage individual enjoyment of legitimate civic goods. in order to appreciate the harm done to civil rights, one can entertain the view that the federal mandate to offer contraceptive support to women employees of hobby lobby, the little sisters of the poor, and so on, put these organizations into moral straits. indeed, governmental officials tried to accommodate the scruples of the religious plaintiffs by providing their women with contraceptive services from non-religious, public sources. still, despite such attempts of honor the claims of all concerned, the women entitled to contraceptive services were, in fact, “burdened” by being kept waiting through periods of uncertainty and deprivation of their legitimate civic goods, while this matter was being litigated. guarantees to them under general law paid little actual heed to their civil rights. while these are not cases where the interests of (corporate) freedom of religion conflict directly with religious freedom (of conscience), they are cases where (corporate) freedom of religion does “burden” the enjoyment of legitimate civic goods. here, it is not freedom of conscience that suffers, but simply the enjoyment of common civic goods ensured by general law. an individual citizen’s legitimate enjoyment of civic goods has, thus, been “burdened” by the claim of a religious institution to have been “burdened”, in turn, by general law. i should immediately note, however, that the courts have commonly tried to balance these burdens upon the general citizenry over against those of religious plaintiffs. in the little sisters of the poor case, for instance, the federal government provided the contraceptive services from which the nuns sought exemption. the “burdening” of the general citizenry seems to be the social cost of freeing religious institutions from “burdens”. in light of such asymmetrical outcomes, i suggest that the equity of such civic burdening might be given further scrutiny. legal “accommodation”, a prelude to sovereignty? the history of legal exemption or accommodation for the purpose of insuring free exercise of religion is long. but, long as it is, it is equally well understood that the history of freedom of conscience is equally long as well. martha nussbaum locates the american origins of such an individual, interior sense of religious freedom in the struggles of roger williams, who held that “the capability of conscience requires changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 113–123 119 protection of the widest possible space that is compatible with the safety and survival of the state.” only the extremes of ultimate “safety and survival, could possibly justify any diminution of the space within which conscience exercises itself” (nussbaum, 2007, p. 44). nussbaum argues that it was williams’ spirit of the freedom of individual conscience that most deeply touched the founders. but, what if accommodations principally result in empowering religious institutions, at the expense of individuals, and even individual religious freedom? what if corporate accommodations turn out to be more consequential, especially in terms of influencing the outcomes of political contestation? what, as well, if corporate accommodations weaken conceptions fundamental to the values of national integrity, such as the value of the individual conscience? while individual accommodations may threaten conformity, or at best, induce pluralism into the body politic, corporate exemptions that seek exceptions from general law, in fact, challenge the integrity of the polity at large. at what point do these institutions exemptions or accommodations begin enabling the establishment of a state within a state? at what point, do these exceptions to the rule accumulate enough substance to become the foundations of a new rule, that is to say, the grounds of sovereignty, that is to say, virtual secession? while skeptics of that congeries of notions passing under the label, “religious liberty”, sometimes focus upon possible violations of the establishment clause of the constitution, i am not doing so. rather, a warning might instead be issued for the use of the free exercise clause to enable movements of religious sovereignty or secession. should this be true, the accommodations sought on behalf of the freedom of religious institutions pose arguably greater threats to national public order because they tend to secession from, at least, the support of civil rights. in so far as they constitute efforts to opt out of acknowledging certain civil rights, legal accommodations made to institutions, such as in hosanna-tabor may constitute the first steps on a journey, whose final destination may itself be sovereignty. in smith, justice scalia feared that permitting the kind of individual liberty from prevailing law that the plaintiffs sought would “permit every citizen to become a law unto himself” (reynolds v. united states, 1879). by extension, i am saying that legal accommodations to religious institutions may be hastening their achievement of being such “laws unto themselves”. if we take seriously scalia’s fears in smith of the potential anarchy should “every citizen” become a “law unto themselves”, how much greater the risk to the nation and to the individual conscience, posed by the gradually expanding accommodations made to religious bodies? professor b. jessie hill of case-western reserve law school, reminds us that “religious sovereignty is a claim to the same people and the same geographical space that the political sovereign controls” (hill, 2017, p. 1196). she further argues that there are, in principle, no limits to the increase expansion of religious claims to sovereignty (hill, 2017, p. 1196). indeed, hill argues that the movement pushing for these exemptions is “problematic because it has no logical stopping point, and that the lack of limitation is inherent to sovereignty claims” (hill, 2017, p. 1179). to boot, hill claims that these corporate religious “claims of entitlement [are] not just to deference, but to almost complete non-interference with certain aspects of institutional life” (hill, 2017, p. 1191). https://changing-sp.com/ 120 ivan strenski legal “accommodations” to the religions are gifts rather than inalienable rights i raise this prospect of the potentially limitless expansion of claims to corporate freedom of religion because i believe it forces us to take a more critical look at freedom of religious corporations. this is true whether or not religious institutions actually do seek the sovereignty their critics, like hill, believe they seek. i am arguing that even if hill and her ilk overstate the self-seeking of religious institutions, there is, nonetheless, reason to re-examine the relation of religious institutions and the state. consider the case where religious institutions, despite their pursuit of accommodations to, and exemptions from, general law, desire to remain good citizens of the commonwealth, contributing appropriately to the general welfare. what might be appropriate reactions to these grants of exit rights from general law? further, what, indeed, could one argue, should their response be to the granting of such exemptions and accommodations? assuming that accommodations for individual conscience have not been seen as enabling secession or separation, to what extent do plaintiffs recognize that granting accommodations puts them in debt to society at large? while accommodations to general laws in behalf of religious institutions may be relatively common, we are not justified in regarding such exemptions as “natural” or as marking “fundamental human rights.” they are instead derived from or extrapolated out of more fundamental rights. accommodations or exemptions are, therefore, concessions “granted”. and, like all grants, they are gifts. like all gifts, they may be accepted, circulated, reciprocated, rejected, returned, and so on. cheryl perich, the unfortunate church employee dismissed because of the accommodation – “gift” – to do so granted to hosanna-tabor church could be “given” back her job should that ruling be reversed at a later date. similarly, the decision makes it clear that granting such an exemption is not fundamental in the sense of being “required”, or constitutionally demanded, and, significantly not “recognized” (employment div., 1990). it is further important to distinguish exemptions and accommodations from so called “natural” or “god-given” rights in other ways. thus, while it is true that statutory or judicial accommodations may be recognized as flowing from or inhering in such pre-contractual rights, their determination depends upon legislative or judicial action. as the precise logic of “granting” implies, these accommodations or exemptions are, instead, gifts, grants, awards, bestowals, concessions, and so on. again, while “inalienable” or “natural” rights may be seen as “god-given”, as having divine origins, accommodations to general law depend upon specific human agency by courts or legislatures. if we, thus, pay heed to the language of a recent supreme court ruling involving religious liberty, such as employment division v. smith, the notorious peyote religion case, “accommodation” is always modified by language like “allow”, “permit”, “provide”, “confer”, “grant”. the court speaks always of “granting” an exemption or not. this is the language of gift, not of “inalienable” right. there is no “right,” strictly speaking, for members of the native american church to ingest a legally proscribed drug – peyote – in the sacramental setting of their devising. no such status is “recognized”; it is, rather, either “granted” or not. were the court of allow such a practice, it would, in effect, be granting – giving – the church an exemption from the general rule against changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 113–123 121 the use of a controlled substance, such as peyote. thus, because the language of accommodation and exemption is so important to many recent cases of legislation or judicial determination, it is even more important to take stock of the logic of gift or social exchange. this logic is freighted with the language of obligation. honoring the gift of accommodation by paying it forward one of the better-known obligations recognized by those granted gifts is the obligation to repay the gift. following the logic of gift and obligation, in the case of exemptions from general laws granted to religious corporations, there comes an obligation to repay the gift of accommodation. one way such an obligation could be fulfilled might be with some sort of good will public or patriotic service. individual citizens, for example, granted conscientious objector’s exemption from military service commonly perform public service either in civilian life or in non-combatant roles in the military. religious institutions granted ministerial exception to military service of their clergy typically provide chaplains to the military in implicit recognition, typically uncoerced, of their obligation to the nation, and in recognition of the gift nature of accommodations. at the same time, such recognition of the obligation to repay counts as a pledge of patriotism. such a gesture, such a gift to the whole, would create a virtuous symmetry with respect to the state for granting its special accommodations to the religions. for example, hobby lobby might make a noble patriotic gesture of gratitude for its exemption from offering birth control benefits to its employees with a program to provide free day care to employees. or, the little sisters of the poor might reciprocate the grant of being exempted from providing birth control coverage for their employees by, say, funding adoptions of children otherwise hard to place. one can trust the creativity of our public sector and ngos to come up with similarly healing ways to acknowledge the gift of religious accommodations and the concomitant great social debt owing to the society that makes such accommodations possible at all. but, if legal accommodations are gifts, are there other implications? in his classic anthropological treatise, the gift marcel mauss (1967) argued that there was no such thing as a so-called “free” gift. instead, “obligation” ruled: gifts are given out of a sense of obligation; we are similarly obliged to accept the gift, and finally obliged to repay it in some manner (mauss, 1967). a common misunderstanding of what the obligation to repay the gift means is “reciprocation” in one-for-one correspondence from the receiver of the gift to the original giver of the gift. while reciprocation, in the sense of a one-for-one correspondent return of the gift, is one-way repayment can be understood, mauss and later exchange theorists did not feel that a proper response to the gift was limited to strict reciprocity. the gift maybe repaid by “paying it forward”, as we commonly say. if i give you the gift of a dollar, this may mean that you, in return, reciprocate by giving me a dollar at a later date. on the other hand, you may instead “pay my gift forward” by collecting my mail while i am out of town, or do some other service to yet another party because of my initial gift. the labor of school teachers, for instance, can be understood in this way as an act of “paying forward” to their students https://changing-sp.com/ 122 ivan strenski the devoted service their own teachers gave them. in acknowledgment of an original act of generosity, the receiver of the gift might be moved to acts of charity to others, rather than to direct repayment. this is the familiar pattern set up in the gospels of responding to divine acts of generosity by going forth and being generous to fellow creatures, for instance. on this view, legal accommodation to religious corporations might, therefore, to be seen as a gift that creates obligations laid upon religious bodies to “repay” or “pay forward” the very gift of such legal accommodation. since these accommodations consist in gifts to particular ecclesiastical communities an appropriate repayment for such specialized gifts might preferably be something that enhances civic virtue. put otherwise, since these accommodations benefit the self-interest of particular members of the overall american community, an appropriate repayment of this exemption from common rules would be something that itself would celebrate the blessings of common civic life, chief among them our civic virtues. within the confines of this space, i cannot hope to tell the whole story of the alltoo-common christian nationalist assumption of the unrelieved malevolence of the state. their sadly, too familiar, vision of the state as predatory leviathan only excites them to greater efforts to execute what robin west has called the “rights to exit” from, or “opt out of”, general civil rights typical of the christian nationalist drive for corporate religious liberty, that is to say, sovereignty (west, 2016, p. 404). west further notes that these “exit rights” do not enhance individual liberty – religious or not – by enabling citizens more deeply to participate in civil society, but rather they aim to enable an exit from “our society’s legally constructed social contract. in each case in which an exit right is recognized, the individual or corporate entity is given a right to refuse to participate, rather than rights to participate, in some legally constructed and shared project of civil society” (west, 2016, p. 405). civic virtues are the values that enhance our common life together, that increase the general good. these should not be confused with the goods desired by particular communities. roger williams had the occasion to address his massachusetts bay colony opponents on this subject. they insisted that the chief criterion for choosing a political leader was that person’s christian convictions. williams, however, declared that what was relevant to political office was, indeed, a particular set of moral virtues, but that these virtues are separable from religious convictions. “good moral principles are routinely found”, he says, “in people who have a religion that one may take to be in error”. our politics should be conducted within that shared moral space, “making sure that it does not get hijacked by any particular doctrine, in such a way as to jeopardize both liberty and equality” (nussbaum, 2007, p. 44). references berman, h. j. (1983). law and revolution: the formation of the western legal tradition. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. burwell v. hobby lobby stores, inc., 573 u.s. (2014). retrived from https:// supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/573/13-354/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/573/13-354/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/573/13-354/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 113–123 123 employment div. v. smith, 494 u.s. 872 (1990). retrived from https://supreme. justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/872/ figgis, j. n. (1997). churches in the modern state. bristol, england: thoemmes press. green, s. k. (2017). the mixed legacy of magna carta for american religious freedom. journal of law and religion, 32(2), 207–226. doi: 10.1017/jlr.2017.32 hill, b. j. (2017). kingdom without end: the inevitable expansion of religious sovereignty claims. lewis and clark review, 20(4), 1177–1200. hosanna-tabor evangelical lutheran church and school v. eeoc, 565 u.s. 171 (2012). retrived from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/565/171/ lupu, i. c., & tuttle, r. w. (2017). the mystery of unanimity in hosanna-tabor evangelical lutheran church & school v. eeo. lewis and clark law review, 20(1265), 1265–1313. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2830169 mauss, m. (1967). the gift: the form and functions of exchange in archaic societies. (i. cunnison, trans.). new york: w. w. norton. nussbaum, m. c. (2007). the supreme court 2006 term. harvard law review, 121(1), 1–183, 185–499. nussbaum, m. c. (2008). liberty of conscience: in defense of america’s tradition of religious equality. new york: basic books. reynolds v. united states, 98 u.s. 145 (1879). retrived from https://www. courtlistener.com/opinion/89858/reynolds-v-united-states/ sarkissian, a. (2016). the varieties of religious repression. new york: oxford university press. schwartzman, m., flanders c., & robinson, z. (eds.). (2016). the rise of corporate religious liberty. new york: oxford university press. stewart, k. (2018, may 26). a christian nationalist blitz. the new york times , p. 1. stolzenberg, n. (2016, march 9). america’s divisions and scalia’s christian visions [essay]. retrived from https://religionandpolitics.org/2016/03/09/americasdivisions-and-scalias-christian-visions/ studies of political thought from gerson to grotius, 1414–1625 (1998). bristol, england: thoemmes press. west, r. (2016). freedom of the church and our endangered civil rights. in m. schwartzman, c. flanders & z. robinson (eds.), the rise of corporate religious liberty (pp. 399–418). new york: oxford university press. zubic v. burwell, 578 u.s. (2016). retrived from https://supreme.justia.com/ cases/federal/us/578/14-1418/ https://changing-sp.com/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/872/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/494/872/ http://doi.org/10.1017/jlr.2017.32 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/565/171/ http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2830169 https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/89858/reynolds-v-united-states/ https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/89858/reynolds-v-united-states/ https://religionandpolitics.org/2016/03/09/americas-divisions-and-scalias-christian-visions/ https://religionandpolitics.org/2016/03/09/americas-divisions-and-scalias-christian-visions/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/578/14-1418/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/578/14-1418/ changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 273–275 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.3.076 received 15 september 2019 © 2019 andrey s. menshikov published online 5 october 2019 asmenshikov@urfu.ru book review joan wallach scott (2018). sex and secularism. princeton university press andrey s. menshikov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia acknowledgements the work on the text was supported by the grant of the russian science foundation (no. 17-18-01194) this book, written by a notable specialist in “gender and women’s history in france” (p. 15), makes its intent clear from the start. it is a polemical contribution to the ongoing debate on the “clash of civilizations”, and the role of islam in the modern societies. islam, however, is not at the focus of the analysis. the author consistently deconstructs a rhetorical equation between secularism and modern values such as freedom and equality by reconstructing the ways the discourse of secularism functioned at different historical stages. today, the identification of secularism with the enlightenment, with the triumph of reason over religion, with emancipation and gender equality produces discursively its own counterpart, which is oppressive, violent, and irrational islam: “by definition, secularism is associated with reason, freedom, and women’s rights, islam with a culture of oppression and terror” (p. 3). however, the historical genealogy of secularism traced by joan wallach scott reveals that “gender inequality was fundamental to the articulation of the separation of church and state that inaugurated western modernity […] euro-atlantic modernity entailed a new order of women’s subordination, assigning them to a feminized familial sphere meant to complement the rational masculine realms of politics and economics” (p. 3, italics in the original). by disentangling the meanings of the secular, which refers to “things nonreligious”; secularization, which designates the process of replacing religious authority with rationality; and secularity, which captures the modern situation of nonreligious way of life, j. w. scott makes clear that the discourse of secularism was hierarchical from the start, and was designed to order the relation between the european and its cultural others, the past and the future, masculine and https://changing-sp.com/ 274 andrey s. menshikov feminine. this hierarchical ordering eventually necessitated the emergence of religion as a singular phenomenon (lumping together everything non-secular) and the invention of “world religions”. in the late nineteenth century during the anticlerical campaigns for the separation of organized religion from the state and for the moral autonomy of the individuals against cultural hegemony of christianity, the term secularism was coined in england by george holyoake, a founder of the british central secular society, in 1851, while in france the word laïcité was first used in 1871. thus, a set of following oppositions emerged: “political” and “religious” in the nineteenth century meant the nation versus institutionalized religion (state versus church), but also the christian nation versus the “uncivilized” and “primitive” tribes in africa and the ottoman lands. “public” and “private” separated the market and politics, instrumental rationality and bureaucratic organization from home and family, spirituality, affective relationality, and sexual intimacy (p. 13). the separation of the public with its rationality and the market with its competition, on the one hand, from the private with its personal spirituality and the family with its emotional sustenance, on the other, was reflected in the gender division between male and female domains of society: “gender difference was inscribed in a schematic description of the world as divided into separate spheres, public and private, male and female” (p. 31). it is necessary to highlight in this context that gender relations were not subordinate to politics. on the contrary, j. w. scott emphasizes the “mutually constitutive nature of gender and politics” (p. 25). indeterminacy of the denaturalized and secularized politics needed certainty that would be rooted in “immutability of gender” and “in human nature and biology rather than divine law” (p. 31), whereas gender inequality was interpreted through the optics of political interests (demographic reproduction and family morality), and social laws (complementarity of genders in the division of labor). thus, gender inequality is inseparable from the development of nation-state and capitalism. the last chapter of the book focuses on the implications of secularism in modern society. in particular, how the criticism of islam from the perspective of secularism reveals the underpinning asymmetries in western societies. subordination of women in islam is presented primarily through the practices of veiling, and consequently, the liberation is understood as “unveiling”. human agency of muslim women is limited in this discourse to sexual liberation, to the right to uncover their bodies, and thereby to “advertising their sexual availability, and so appealing to longstanding gender asymmetries” (p. 158). as j. w. scott points out, “the focus on liberated sexuality (whether heteroor homosexual) echoes with the notion of consumer desire as the motor of the market and serves to draw attention away from the economic and social disadvantages that result from discrimination and structured forms of inequality” (p. 159). the equation of freedom with ability to pursue sexual desire occludes the persistent inequalities (wage disparity, glass ceiling, domestic violence, etc.): changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 273–275 275 humans are the subjects and objects of desire, at once consumers and commodities, naturalized as such. the collapse of the distinction between public and private, the entry into the public arena of the formerly private feelings and practices of sex does not necessarily politicize sex […] the idea that sex itself is natural (and so presocial) is depoliticizing (p. 177). so, in their struggle against gender oppressive islam the western societies demonstrate that today we too often limit the individual freedom to consumer freedom, and the liberation to sexual liberation. thus, echoing foucault, j. w. scott reminds us that in our historical deconstruction of emancipation it is not only the positive ideal that mattered but also “the point was a negative one: to be emancipated from sex, not to be defined by it” (p. 162). finally, it is worth keeping in mind that secular self is in no way more “natural” than any other, and it equally means a set of bodily practices to be learned, rehearsed and performed, ranging from ways of dressing (and undressing), talking and socializing with men to enacting in public. the habitations of the secular are not transmitted “naturally” and implicitly, but on the contrary become part of a project of modernity and politics of self that require [for those coming from outside] assimilation and “acculturation” to western culture (p. 164). although the author planned to “revisit a large body of literature written by second wave feminists, as well as by historians of religion, race, and colonialism” and to “synthesize this work and offer new interpretations based upon it” (p. 3) rather than offer an analysis of new empirical material, the book will be useful to historians, as well as to political philosophers, and specialists in religious studies. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 299–302 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.4.078 editorial majority/minority dichotomy in religions: theoretical reflections and social practices today, religions in most countries in the world are involved in political activities, directly or indirectly influencing citizens’ perceptions of state legitimacy. in actively investigating alternative strategies for maintaining their media presence, religions enthusiastically adopt electronic and digital media technologies, thereby reconfiguring traditional practices of religious mediation. while approaches to teaching religion in public schools and higher educational institutions can take various forms, the increased involvement of religion in the public sphere can be understood in the context of ongoing changes in value systems. this indicates the importance of placing appropriate emphasis on the agency of religious interest groups from both conceptual and empirical perspectives. the respective role of various religions in public spaces is highly dependent on the historical-cultural background of the particular religion in the given state (although this can change over time); moreover, a religion that is considered to be in the majority in one setting, could be a minority in another, and vice versa. thus, the question facing contemporary research into religion and society includes a consideration of how the new situation should be understood, studied and analysed. generally speaking, relations between religious majorities and minorities, which form the major focus of the current issue of changing societies & personalities, depend on the socio-historical context of a particular country. no agreement has so far been reached among scholars concerning the definition of majority/minority. in this respect, various aspects of the problem have been considered, including size, minority-to-majority ratio, objective and subjective criteria, minorities’ origin and nationality. some scholars argue that the very distinction between majority and minority almost automatically imports discrimination, thus leading to disadvantaging certain actors in the public sphere. indeed, distinguishing groups, which are dangerous to a society and should be subject to state control, is an incredibly challenging task. in addition, the historical majority/minority ratio depends on migration processes, i.e. on the global expansion of religions from those countries, in which they constitute the majority religion, to nations, in which they become one of the many minority religions. at the same time, immigrant groups that are religious minorities in their countries of received 10 december 2019 © 2019 elena a. stepanova published online 6 january 2020 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 300 elena a. stepanova origin become part of the religious mainstream in their host countries. the freedom of religion asserted in article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights has always been central to minority rights. minority rights have been at the root of the development of modern human rights mechanisms; however, they remain contested and frequently ignored. how should a democratic state engage in the protection of minority rights, and what role does historical legacy and tradition play in this process? this is a theme for ongoing academic discussions partly reflected in the current issue of the journal. relations between majority and minority religions are investigated in various fields of social sciences and humanities, such as religious studies, cultural studies, political philosophy, social theory, history, etc. on the one hand, scholars approach this problem by emphasizing the necessity to organize a dialogue between majority and minority religions. on the other hand, it is still not quite clear what majority and minority means with respect to religion. the animosity stemming from identification with majority or minority continues to persist in the particular society; nevertheless, the terms “majority/minority” should be understood in quantitative, rather than ecclesiological terms. surely, the number of adherents does not affect the ecclesiological quality of a community. therefore, this number should not be the reason for privileging or disadvantaging any confession by the state, and confessions should recognize that their increased number is nothing else by their increased obligation. majority and minority religions should seek peaceful coexistence, better knowledge and understanding of each other, as well as strive to overcome biases, stereotypes and suspicions inherited from the past. the present issue of changing societies & personalities seeks to elucidate the majority/minority dichotomy from various perspectives: human rights; toleration and recognition; political discourse on religion; the design of religious education at school, etc. in the article religious freedom in flux: the european court of human rights grapples with ethnic, cultural, religious, and legal pluralism, james t. richardson examines the practice of the european court of human rights (ecthr), which acts according to the “european convention on human rights and fundamental freedoms” signed by all original members of the council of europe. in particular, richardson concentrates on the cases of violation of religious freedom and rights of religious minorities. he notes that, in spite of the pledge of member states to abide by the convention, which also means that the government in question “is expected to modify its laws to comport with convention values and rulings of the court”, there is a growing number of member states refusing to implement the court’s decisions, including major decisions concerning religious freedom. richardson examines some recent ecthr cases in the area of religion to show that these cases could be interpreted as evidence of the efforts made by the court to accommodate the ethnic, religious, cultural and legal pluralism that exists within the council of europe. aleksei v. loginov in his article second-order arguments, or do we still need tolerance in the public sphere? raises the question of why toleration becomes so difficult in matters concerning religion. in his view, most of the conflicts today involve some kind of reference to a certain religion; thus, “the growing number of religious conflicts makes it pertinent for political and social theory to revise the already existing changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 299–302 301 instruments of analysis and to develop new ones for efficient peacemaking and peacekeeping in such situations”. loginov observes various argumentation lines concerning the possibility/impossibility of religious toleration and demonstrates their advantages and shortcomings. tim jensen in the article from respected religion scholar expert to cartoon character: reflections in the wake of the danish muhammad cartoon crisis and three decades as expert to the media, reflects upon the public role of a religious studies scholar, who upholds the scientific approach to religion. jensen observes his own role(s) in the heated debates pertaining to the muhammad cartoons, which took place in denmark in 2005–2007. these debates are ongoing, often including issues pertaining to the refugees from muslim countries. one side of the debaters argued that cartoons published in the popular daily newspaper jyllands-posten were part of the campaign of political and cultural hegemony directed against islam and muslims as minority; the opposite side expressed concern that the freedom of expression was under siege. while stressing his credo as “promoting the scientific study of religion, its approaches and the knowledge accumulated, on the one hand, and the secular, democratic, pluralistic society and public space that would not function if it did not give room to both the science of religion and religion”, jensen also demonstrates the complexities, with which a religious studies scholar is faced due to the specifics of mass media coverage of religious topics. at the same time, jensen urges scholars to provide in public debates “not just brief and accurate information, but also qualified and controversial opinions”. in the article the norwegian political discourse on prohibiting muslim garments. an analysis of four cases in the period 2008–2018, bengt-ove andreassen illustrates how public debates influenced decisions and political propositions in the norwegian parliament concerning such garments as the hijab, niqab, and burqa with a special stress on the norwegian state’s obligations regarding basic human rights. the political negotiations concerning islam in norway are quite typical for many european countries, in which islam has recently become not only a visible, but also a highly contested and debated religion. andreassen analyses the provisions of the norwegian constitution, which specifies that all “religious communities should be supported on equal terms”. nevertheless, historical prejudices and stereotypes are still affecting the perception of islam in norway. public debates are largely revolving around issues pertaining to the compatibility of islam with democracy and “western values” with a particular stress on clothing such as the hijab, niqab, and burqa. in exploring several cases concerning muslim garments in public places, andreassen demonstrates the importance of using secular argumentation in public debates on religious issues. olga a. iakimova and andrey s. menshikov in their article religious education in russian schools: plans, pains, practices, observe the six-module course “fundamentals of religious cultures and secular ethics” (frcse) having been taught in russian schools since 2012 in the light of the international debate on religious education. the authors seek to compare the russian experience with the generally accepted typology, which distinguishes between (a) “learning into religion” (monoreligious model), (b) “learning about religion” (multireligious model) and https://changing-sp.com/ 302 elena a. stepanova (c) “learning from religion” (interreligious model). a mention is made that “despite the importance of global trends and international debates, it is crucial to observe the local dynamics and discover how particular conceptualizations of religion, education goals, principles and teaching practices affect religion education and its development”. in this respect, the authors focus on the religious education in the sverdlovsk region questioning whether there are specific regional trends in the selection of frcse modules. sergei v. sokolov in the article between barbarism and progress: enlightenment historical writings on a major conflict in russian history, takes a historical approach in studying divergent opinions on russian society in the light of the concept of the change from barbarism to civilization. in particular, various controversies of such a change are examined. he mentions stereotypes about russia as a barbarian country, which have been common across europe since the 16th century, and stresses that the discourse of “barbarism” compared to the “civilization” (“progress”) of europe had different meanings in different times in the writings of both russian and western authors. concerning the christianization of russia, sokolov underlines that, from the point of view of russian historians, enlightenment by means of baptism was not equal to the european enlightenment of the 18th century; rather, “baptism was considered a step to enlightenment, the beginning of a long path”. according to sokolov, such an interpretation agrees well with the position of most european writers, who have never disputed the significance and great influence of religion over european history. it is emphasized that the real picture of the enlightenment’s attitude towards religion was quite complex. in addition, sokolov analyses the discussion between russian and european authors concerning the impact of the scandinavian invasion at the beginning of russian history in the context of the barbarism/civilization dichotomy. thus, the current issue of changing societies & personalities is focused on the analysis of the role played by religions (both majority and minority groups) in history and in the contemporary world. today, religion is increasingly being acknowledged as an important aspect of national and international politics, a pervasive and contentious cultural force, as well as a subject of significant public concern. all respective issues require extensive scholarly research and thoughtful conversations both within and outside academia to reach a wider public. discussions around the topics raised in the present issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. in planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. for more information, please visit our journal’s website: https://changing-sp.com/ elena a. stepanova editor-in-chief institute of philosophy and law, ural branch of the ras, yekaterinburg, russia https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 333–352 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.4.081 received 10 november 2019 © 2019 tim jensen accepted 25 december 2019 t.jensen@sdu.dk published online 6 january 2020 article from respected religion scholar expert to cartoon character: reflections in the wake of the danish muhammad cartoon crisis and three decades as expert to the media tim jensen university of southern denmark, odense, denmark leibniz universität, hannover, germany abstract respected scholar, expert, public opinion maker, oracle, under-cover politician, charlatan, cartoon character – all roles “out there” waiting for scholars sharing knowledge with a wider public. scholars of religion trying to carve out more room in the public arena for a nonreligious, scientific approach to religion always risk digging their graves as (respected) scholars. what’s worse, they also risk digging the grave for a valuable and respectable, as well as publicly valued and respected academic, scientific study of religion. the scholar popularizing scientifically based knowledge, not least via the mass media (daily newspapers or public television), may “become” political and controversial to such a degree that s/he becomes a problem for the scientific study of religion, the community of scholars of religion, and the university with which s/he is affiliated. the otherwise valuable engagement threatens the reputation of science as being something valuable, “pure” and “neutral,” elevated above the dirty business of politics and power. in spite of the risks, the engaged scholar, it is, however, also argued, actually can help to strengthen the position, inside and outside the academy, of scientifically based knowledge and of the critical, analytical, scientific study of religion. https://changing-sp.com/ 334 tim jensen introduction in the abstract to his 2005 article “the politics of wishful thinking? disentangling the role of the scholar-scientist from that of the public intellectual in the modern academic study of religion”, canadian scholar of religion donald wiebe wrote: although religion may well have relevance for various social, political, economic, cultural, and other related issues in society, i will argue here that this does not oblige the academic student of religion to become engaged with those matters. indeed, to do so – not as a citizen but as a member of the academic guild which has responsibility to the field/discipline of religious studies and the modern research university at large – is to fuse and therefore confuse advocacy and scholarship. the task of the student of religion, qua scientist, is to seek to understand and to explain religion and religions, not to create the good society (wiebe, 2005, p. 7). with reference to e.g. weber’s “teachings” about the (ideal) separation of and difference between value-free scholarship of communication thereof and a value judgment (be it religious, moral or political), wiebe warns about the risks implied if the scholar becomes a public intellectual. the fundamental risk, he argues, is that it “may well put academic credibility of this discipline into question” (wiebe, 2005, p. 8). moreover, he warns, “[r]eligious and political goals [...] are replacing the scientific agenda of seeking disinterested knowledge about religion and religions” (ibid.). wiebe, in this article, attacks not only religio-theologian public intellectuals but also scholar of religion russell t. mccutcheon. wiebe, as also e.g. ivan strenski, opines that mccutcheon has become spokesman for an activist and anti-religious application of the study of religion, which, at the end of the day, is no better than a religious-theological pro-religious approach (strenski, 2006, p. 339 ff.). en passant, one may, however, note that mccutcheon, the same year he is criticized by wiebe, directs a not dissimilar criticism against another us scholar of religion, bruce lincoln (2005). mccutcheon (2005) criticizes lincoln for – in regard to his study-of-religions based critical analyses of e.g. the rhetoric of former us president bush – for abusing his academic title and status to legitimize what, at the end of the day, are his personal political opinions and agenda. an accusation not dissimilar to the one directed at me by danish daily jyllands-posten (jp) in the debate following the publication of the muhammad cartoons. let us therefore, before we get back to some key methodological keywords study of religion, methodological neutrality, public intellectual, public sphere, social engagement, islam, cartoon crisis acknowledgements the work was supported by the grant of the russian science foundation (no. 17-18-01194) changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 333–352 335 issues take a look at religion scholar jensen’s role(s) in the debate pertaining to the muhammad cartoons. as a case. the cartoons: islam-bashing or freedom-fighting – or raising a debate? september 30, 2005, jp1 published “the face of muhammed” containing twelve cartoons2, including one of a man with a bomb and the islamic creed in his turban. mentioning what he considers examples of self-censorship due to fear for muslim reactions, culture editor flemming rose concludes: the public space is being intimidated. artists, authors, illustrators, translators and people in the theatre are therefore steering a wide berth around the most important meeting of cultures in our time – the meeting between islam and the secular society of the west, which is rooted in christianity. [...] some muslims reject modern, secular society. they demand a special position, insisting on special consideration for their own religious feelings. it is incompatible with secular democracy and freedom of expression, where one has to be ready to put up with scorn, mockery and ridicule (director of public prosecutions, 2006; trans. and italics mine)3. “the face of muhammed” inspired heated debates4. about freedom of expression versus religion and religious sensibilities (especially islam and muslim sensibilities) and about religious versus secular worldviews, and the muslim world versus the west. these debates are ongoing, often including issues pertaining to the refugees from muslim countries, and often framing controversies in terms of “culture wars”. reasons for this and for the events, including the violent ones5, that unfolded in late january and early february 2006, are many6. one obvious reason is that quite a few muslims did feel provoked and offended, and that some of them did see “the face of muhammed” as part of a defamatory campaign directed against islam and muslims7. 1 https://jyllands-posten.dk/ 2 i use “cartoons” rather than “drawings” because this is the term most frequently used to refer to the drawings and the “affair” in question. the letter from rose to members of the danish newspapers illustrators’ union invited them to “draw” muhammad as they “saw” him (twelve out of forty responded positively by submitting the published drawings). 3 flemming rose, when looking back in 2019 characterizes his then position as somewhat “naïve” (or too black and white) (krasnik, 2019). 4 for analyses, debates and documents with specific regard to denmark, see jensen (2006a/2006b/2006c), jerichow and rode (2006), rothstein and rothstein (2006), larsen and seidenfaden (2006), cf. also repp (2006), and modood et al. (2006). 5 that the controversy was also played out in threats, violent protests, and even in killings, must be mentioned because those reactions became part of the debates. however, the number of muslims engaged in street fighting was next to zero compared to those who watched such happenings on tv. 6 cf. jensen (2006a; 2006c) for interpretations of some reasons and contexts. 7 this is true for the danish muslims travelling to the middle east in late 2005 as well as for the eleven ambassadors who wrote a letter (october 12, 2005) to the danish prime minister referring to what they saw as an “ongoing smear campaign”. https://changing-sp.com/ https://jyllands-posten.dk/ 336 tim jensen another reason is that quite a few of non-muslims, including islamophobs, considered the reactions of some muslims, especially the violent ones, as a proof that jp had been right from the beginning: freedom of expression was under siege, threatened by fanatical muslims or by islam as such. in their view the cultural war against these muslims had to be intensified8. other non-muslims, though equally critical about the violent protests and in favour of freedom of expression, warned that freedom of expression should not be taken as an absolute right, and that dominant discourses on islam tended towards legitimating almost any kind of verbal attack on islam and muslims. the publication of the cartoons in jp was an unnecessary demonstration of power and cultural hegemony directed against an already marginalized minority. the cartoons, in their view, were but one more example of islam-bashing dressed up as freedom fighting9. at the time when the “affair” turned into a crisis (late january 2006), with fighting in the streets and boycotts of danish goods, jp published a statement saying that jp regretted that the cartoons had been offensive to muslims. that had never been the intention. “at the time they had not”, editor rose wrote in washington post february 19, 2006, “realized the extent of the issue’s sensitivity for the muslims, who live in denmark and the millions of muslims around the world”. he had only “tried to test the limits of self-censorship by calling on cartoonists to challenge a muslim taboo”. and, repeating what he had written in the article of september 30, 2005, he added that muslims, like everybody else, have to put up with “scorn, mockery and ridicule” (rose, 2006). jp was adamant in insisting that the newspaper never intended to offend muslims. interpretations differing from this official statement have either been totally rejected or labelled as “mean lies”, and jp has proven to be extremely zealous in countering opinions differing from their own10. the publication of the cartoons was solely intended to provoke a debate on the conceived threat to freedom of expression. it was an act of resistance to this threat and an act of freedom fighting11. 8 a group of intellectuals and opinion makers promoting such opinions were gathered in the so-called trykkefrihedsselskab (cf. below). some (brix & hansen, 2002; brix, hansen & hedegaard, 2003; pittelkow, 2002) published influential books on the perceived islamic threat. similar opinions can be found amongst politicians and political parties. dansk folkeparti (“the danish people’s party”) is the most famous, but in denmark as elsewhere in europe others have come into being, e.g. sverigedemokraterne and alternative f. deutschland. see e.g. andreassen (2005), jensen (2006a/2006c), hervik (1999/2002/2006), and hussain (2000) for instances of islamophobic discourse in denmark. 9 this view comes close to the qualified opinions of e.g. former minister of foreign affairs, u. ellemannjensen (2007), and former editor-in-chief of politiken, a copenhagen-based daily, t. seidenfaden (2007). cf. repp (2006), larsen and seidenfaden (2006), hedetoft (2006), rothstein and rothstein (2006), and skadegaard (2006). the view of jensen (2006a/2006c) is in line with this view, though i suggest that jp had several motives, including the one claimed by the newspaper itself. 10 jp in some cases accused the “offender” of defamation and slander. this was the case with the lawyer who, on behalf of some muslims, filed a complaint against jp for defamation and slander. 11 consequently, jp, rose and supporters were pleased when rose was awarded the “sappho prize” by the mentioned (see note 8) trykkefrihedsselskabet (“free speech society”) march 27, 2007. trykkefrihedsselskabet was established in 2004 with the aim of defending freedom of expression, not least against attacks from religious groups. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 333–352 337 the cartoons: jensen vs. jyllandsposten, or jensen vs. juste episode 1: september 30, 2005, a journalist phoned to ask my opinion on a project of jp to have illustrators draw muhammad. i said that irrespective of the not unanimous prohibition against making drawings of muhammad, some muslims no doubt would take offense and see it as a provocation and thus get angry with jp. i added that i personally saw no reason for publishing such images: the muslim minority had been the object of more than enough islam-bashing. but, of course: jp had the right to freedom of expression. i was not informed that the cartoons had actually been published on the very same day! episode 2: next time i got involved was late january 2006 when the whole thing had become regular front-page news due to demonstrations, burning down of embassies, etc. sunday january 30, 2006, the face of scholar jensen with a headline “jyllands-posten was warned” covered the front page of politiken (høy-jensen, 2006), a daily critical of jp’s publication of the cartoons. in the article, i, “leading scholar of religion” – having been phoned on the day before by a journalist from politiken saying she had had an anonymous email according to which jp had contacted jensen before publishing the cartoons, asking his qualified opinion about possible muslim reactions to drawings of the prophet – was correctly quoted as having answered jp journalist that it was his guess that some muslims would take offense. incorrectly, though, this front-page article also presented me as warning jp that the drawings might lead to “violent protest”. these words had, moreover, been inserted in the article after i reviewed and accepted the quotes right after the interview! with this photo, headline and article, i got my break-through as a religion scholarexpert, and the same evening, scholar jensen, but now also “warner-oracle” jensen appeared on al-jazeera as a danish muslim told his muslim brothers that jp, thanks to jensen, actually knew very well what they were doing – and had done. episode 3: jp denied ever having contacted, not to say consulted me, postulating that jensen himself “made up” the front-page “story”: a media-stunt! a journal for journalism followed up on the story, and after a series of denials from jp, they finally (midfebruary) found an jp editor who admitted that a journalist had called jensen. but, they said, she had called in regard to another matter, only, at the end of the interview, mentioning the cartoons en passant. i was not quite happy with this version but did not react: i was primarily relieved that my memory had not played me a trick. i had been asked my opinion by jp, and i had said almost what i remembered saying. alas! in early march a journalist from jp called again. they have retrieved a tape recording of that interview, and it “proved” that the interview had taken place not before the publication of the cartoons but on the very same day. they admitted https://changing-sp.com/ 338 tim jensen that i had had but the very best reasons to think so, but that, of course, did not matter much to them. what mattered, though, not least to me, was that jp, in another front-page headline, a few days later triumphantly “revealed” that leading scholar of religion jensen had been wrong: jp had not been warned. though jp did mention that i had good reasons for remembering as i did, the whole story, of course, made readers wonder: is jensen (ever) telling the truth? seeds of suspicion were sown, and details of the story, to this day, have never been told in the danish dailies. episode 4: september 3, 2006, a jp journalist presented a “top 20-list” of academic experts frequently quoted in danish media during the cartoon crisis. the article, “experts: oracles”, claims that the influence of experts on public opinion is considerable, raising the question to what degree the experts “fall prey to the temptation of propagating political messages under cover of an academic title?” (hundevadt, 2006a). each of the 20 was evaluated according to some (undisclosed) criteria of the journalist: to what a degree does s/he present academic, neutral analyses and to what degree private or political opinions? jensen came in number ten, said to, with another scholar of religion, “swing the baton in a more general debate on religion”. number one and a few others are judged to be predominantly “objective” commentators, islam scholar bæk simonsen to be predominantly a debater. jensen is judged to be fifty-fifty. bæk simonsen and jensen and a few others (with no documentation) are said to have been “among the most severe and unrelenting critics of the drawings of jyllands-posten and the way the danish government handled the situation”. this article foreshadowed the core of the criticism and accusations (see the bibliography for relevant references) later raised against several scholars, not least jensen, by jp, but also by mp naser khader, a leading politician, as well by leading mps from the danish people’s party. episode 5: october 14, 2006, politiken publishes “from scorn to hysteria?” (korsgaard, 2006), an article that, via interviews with several scholars, jensen being one, focuses on differences and similarities between jp’s muhammad cartoons and later incidents in which various groups of people ridiculed muhammad by way of caricatures. jensen – originally turning down the journalist because she first asked his (personal) opinion rather than a qualified opinion as a scholar on how “insightful muslims in denmark” might possibly think about the various incidents in comparison to (what they thought about) the jp cartoons – said that he was fairly certain such muslims would think that there was an important difference (discussed below) between the cartoons and later “happenings”. if this reference to what insightful muslims might think is not taken seriously or neglected, the article can be read as expressing jensen’s (own) opinion on the publication of the cartoons by jp rather than his understanding of the opinion of some muslims. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 333–352 339 episode 6: soon after this article, carsten juste, editor-in-chief of jp, wrote scholar jensen, with a copy to jp’s lawyer and the vice-chancellor of jensen’s university. the letter reproduced the quotations from the article in which jensen commented that some (“insightful”) muslims might infer that the cartoons were “published deliberately to mock and ridicule an altogether central and sacred figure in islam”, and “to lecture other people and to say ‘you have not at all reached our level of civilisation, and now we will teach you how to act’”, and that the drawings, “were produced to openly and in public tread on somebody’s toes”. these statements, the letter from juste said, were untrue. juste went on accusing jensen of having, on more than one occasion, used his academic title, along with “dirty tricks and shady methods”, to cast aspersions on jp and “promote certain political ideas” (from the letter in jensen’s custody). finding this letter rather intimidating, i did not respond. instead, i wrote my vicechancellor asking him to write to juste expressing the university’s unanimous support, stressing the right of jensen and other scholars to express themselves freely in the media. i did not get the support i wanted: the vice-chancellor responded, inter alia, that “if one participates in the islam-debate, one no doubt cannot avoid running into trouble [...]”. he ended saying – as his “personal opinion” – that he finds it important for everybody to try his best to make sure that his opinions are based on facts more than on (personal) attitudes. “i know”, he concluded, “that it is hard to strike that balance, and that not all readers will agree whether it has been struck or not” (from the letter in jensen’s custody). episode 7: juste and jp clearly did not think i had struck the balance. december 17, 2006, in an interview with a jp journalist kim hundevadt, juste, now in public, attacked me and other scholars: “they lie about the motives of jp for publishing the cartoons”, he said, “and they abuse their titles to pursue political aims” (hundevadt, 2006b). in the case of jensen, said juste, we have to do with nothing but mean political points of view, with no scientific basis at all. receiving no response from me, juste wrote the vice-chancellor directly. the vice-chancellor advised jp to file a complaint to the university’s ethics committee if jp intended to accuse jensen of bad “scientific practice”. episode 8: on december 17, jp actually did so, stressing that jp did not question the right of jensen to freedom of expression. no, the complaint was solely directed at his behaviour as a scholar. jp requested that the committee consider whether jensen had deliberately abused his academic credibility to propagate his personal opinions. together with my legal advisers i was of the opinion that the committee should decline to deal with the complaint. the issue had nothing to do with “scientific dishonesty” or “bad practice” as defined in the committee’s mandate. the committee, nevertheless, opened the case, requesting me to respond to the complaint. https://changing-sp.com/ 340 tim jensen in my response, i stated that the affair and complaint raised interesting and relevant methodological questions, familiar to the philosophy of science and of great importance to scholars, the community of scholars, and to the universities. i, furthermore, pointed out that scholars, according to the danish university act, are obliged to share their knowledge with the wider community, and that the university is obliged to encourage employees to engage in public debates. finally, the response stated that i had (good) reasons for saying what i did, adding that nothing prevented me from expressing interpretations of jp’s motives differing from the declarations by jp itself. episode 9: the committee concluded that the issue raised did not fall within the mandate of the committee. while several media outlets had written extensively about the case, the acquittal of scholar jensen made no headlines, nor did it ever figure on the website of my university. apart from a follow-up article in the journal of my labour union, it was only jp that made a story out of it. jp did so by way of an editorial “i løgnens tjeneste” (“in the service of lie” or “serving falsehood”) (editorial, 2007b). while acknowledging the support expressed for me by the practice committee and vice chancellor, it nevertheless continued to accuse me of having abused my role as scholar and the “authority” of my office: like everybody else, tim jensen has the right to criticize jyllands-posten. the problem is, however, that he persists in his mendacious accusations in spite of his knowing better, and, even worse, he does so “on the background of years of research”, therewith clothing his lies with a cloak of scientific authority. and here we thought that a scholar holding a university office was supposed to strive for the truth (editorial, 2007b). episode 10: as you can see, everything was now ready for scholar-expert-warner-oracle-public opinion maker-undercover politician and liar jensen to take upon him one more role, that of a character in a cartoon, a laughing-stock. all it took was for jp to link it to their— at the same time – ongoing smearing campaign against jensen’s colleague mikael rothstein: the two of us started to appear as characters in jp’s daily satirical cartoon. for more than a week, two figures were inserted, in a most unusual way, into cartoons commenting on other political and cultural happenings. rothstein was cast as a missionary man, named “the hornblower”, with a watchtower-like magazine in his hand. the other, liar jensen, next to “the hornblower”, was portrayed as constantly trying to convince readers that he was not lying, e.g. saying: “i am not lying when i say that the hornblower is a wise guy!” this series of cartoons was brought to an end in an almost ingenious way: commenting on the political turmoil caused by a new political party, the cartoonist portrayed the parties as ships and boats sailing a stormy ocean. in the shape of a shark, the new party cruised the waters while ships and boats manned with leaders changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 333–352 341 of the old parties were either about to sink or boldly riding the waves. inserted into the background, left behind on a proverbial deserted island, are the two scholars, hanging on to the lonely palm tree, crying out: “we are still here!” some methodological reflections several episodes have been omitted in this brief exposé, and only some key methodological issues can be mentioned in what follows. allow me to first get back to wiebe (2005), who at the same time as he wrote as quoted above, also seems to find it alright, nay even valuable and good, if the scholar of religion contributes to public debates about religion. the scholar of religion, he writes, can very well point out and demonstrate “the relevance that knowledge about religions and religion may have for policy issues in the public square” (weibe, 2005, p. 9), and he ends: the academic student of religion qua human being [...] is more than merely a scholar/scientist; s/he is also a citizen with socio-political, economic and other personal concerns that go beyond science and the agenda of the modern research university, and there is no reason why s/he should not, as an ordinary citizen, engage in the debates related to such concerns in the public square. moreover, the scholarly/scientific expertise of the engaged academic may even have some instrumental relevance to the achievement of particular social goals, even if these goals involve metaphysical and/or religious assumptions, beliefs and commitments (weibe, 2005, p. 34). i think, just like wiebe, that it is in the interest of the “public good” if the scholar of religion makes his expertise and academic knowledge available to the public, using it to qualify, correct and inform the public and political debate. i also agree with wiebe that the broader role of public intellectual, however, as well as direct efforts to promote religious or explicit or narrowly party political aims rather than efforts to communicate sound knowledge about religion can turn out to be very counterproductive as regards the reputation of the science of religion – and equally counterproductive in regard to a society in need of scientifically based knowledge about religion. but i do not share the optimism of wiebe when he seems to think that “we” are on the safe side as long as the scholar avoids playing the role of a public intellectual (who can express an opinion on almost everything at debate) and avoid using his scholarship to promote religious or specific political agendas. i, on the contrary, claim, based on, on the one hand, some 25 years of experience, the case rendered above being central to this experience, as an expert to the media on things religious (religio-political/religio-social/religio-cultural), and, on the other, on general methodological arguments, that the “renommé” and value of the science of religion can also be put at risk when the scholar tries his best to be a classical expert communicating sound knowledge. the boundaries between the various roles a scholar can play (or be “accused” of playing) are porous, and the scholar cannot always decide what role he comes to https://changing-sp.com/ 342 tim jensen play. quite often he will be seen as politicizing, promoting some kind of agenda, e.g. an apologetical pro-islam agenda. this holds good, of course, also when the scholar, just like me, bruce lincoln, and e.g. ira chernus (see ahead), is of the personal and political opinion, that the public debate and good not infrequently is suffering from a lack of basic knowledge of facts, a lack of historical, comparative, and analyticalcritical distance and approach to religion (inter alia to islam), and that the scholar therefore as an engaged citizen cannot but engage himself in the public debate. it also holds good if the scholar is of the opinion, as i am, that scientifically founded knowledge and critical-analytical competences also as regards religion is a sine qua non for an enlightened, pluralistic, and open-democracy12. a stance no doubt making it very difficult to draw a line between, on the one side, the scholarexpert sharing his academic knowledge with the public at large, and, on the other, the scholar-citizen (citizen-scholar) struggling to promote a political agenda, namely the agenda he finds in line with his vision of the good society. it is, i claim, not easy, if at all possible, whether in theory or practice, to uphold a “wall of separation” between the scientific-academic and the political-ideological when it comes to communicating religion-related research-based knowledge and qualified opinions to the public at large. i would like to emphasize that the basics of what i say now 2019, i said also in 1998, e.g. in the us religion journal the bulletin in an article on “the scholar of religion as a cultural critic: perspectives from denmark” (jensen, 1998)13. yet, important changes have come about, primarily due to 9/11, the london and madrid bombings, the cartoon case, the charlie hebdo killings, as well later terrorist killings and attacks in paris, in copenhagen and elsewhere. the entire debate on islam and muslims has become more poisonous, religion and not least islam more “securitized”. discussions about the (im-)possibility of the integration of islam or muslim immigrants into the “western” democratic political systems and societies have not become less frequent and polarized, often drawing on and recycling well known islamophobic and anti-muslim stereotypes, generalisations and reifications. add to this, e.g. in denmark, years of public “islam-bashing”, also from leading politicians and political parties, for decades from or inspired by the danish people’s party, a rightwing party and the parliamentary basis for the government 2001–2010 and beyond. a party that made anti-muslimism and xenophobia central to its own as well as to the government’s policy. today’s social-democratic (2019–) government to a large degree has copy pasted its politics of anti-muslim immigration of the past government and the danish people’s party, at the same time as even more outspoken anti-muslim political parties has come into being. these changes are important changes, and it is noteworthy that the danish association of scholars on islam did not call for a conference on the implications of 12 cf. the more elaborate argument in e.g. jensen (2017). 13 thus, this article is not the first one from my hand that deals with relevant methodological issues, nor is it the first that does so with special regard to the muhammad cartoon affair. it is, though, the first to do so in a more comprehensive manner in english. consequently, though parts of this article are new, others are identical to, or another version of, earlier writings, the titles of which can be found in the references. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 333–352 343 the politicization of the study of islam in 1998, the year of my article in the bulletin. they did so, however, in 2007, and today, with continued criticism of danish islamscholarship not being “critical” enough as regards the so-called dark sides of islam, discussions among scholars on these issues have become commonplace. the royal danish academy of sciences and letters, likewise, did not find it necessary in 1998 to publish a booklet on academic freedom and freedom of expression at the universities. in 2007 they did, and they did so, inter alia, because of what happened to scholars on religion and islam during and after the cartoon affair. nevertheless: basics are, as said, more or less, the same: jensen (1998) wrote: “the present re-politization of religion leads to a re-politization of the study of religion, or at least to a re-consideration of the political implications of our work.” maybe one can add that “the on-going mediatization of the public sphere and of politics and of religion” need must lead the scholar of religion to carefully consider the ways in which he “shares” academic knowledge with the public at large. the discourse of and within the academia is not the same as the discourse of the media and the journalists, – and the discourse of the scholar-experts to the media may therefore come out as some strange liminal “beast”, betwixt and between. though many, including scholars of religion, are able to uphold the role of a classical expert (see below), doing a great job to the benefit of both research and society while communicating via mass media and participating in the public debate, the road from respected and trustworthy “leading” scholar to disrespected and untrustworthy scholar and public opinion maker is not long. when well-meaning experts participate in public, politicized and charged debates, there is always a risk that they may undermine the otherwise existing respect for scientific knowledge. mentioning “values” and “value-free”, and thinking about wiebe and other scholars referring to max weber, i recall sociologist of religion ole riis’ contribution to a conference in aarhus in 1998 on værdier i religionsforskning og – undervisning i danmark (“values in the study of religion and religious education”). riis discussed – inter alia in continuation of a critical review of claims of and aspirations for objectivity and neutrality, as well as discussions on the (weberian) ideal of a “wall of separation” between fact and value, or value freedom in scientific research and personal, political and social commitments – what he thought might be a historical, logical, and unavoidable link between intrinsic scientific values and external, social, or political values. riis, as i understood him (cf. jensen, 2001, pp. 41–42), emphasized the value of having the scholar influence the (value) “charged” and anything but value neutral public debate, at the same time as riis distanced himself from “debaters who are so eager to highlight their values (preferences) in public that the factual basis [of their research based intervention] is gets into the background”. riis concluded saying that research (as a social institution) has “a responsibility to put forward the relevant factual knowledge, without obscuring its linked values” (as cited in albinus et al., 2001, p. 32). what riis said was familiar to me but not at the time to many others. at the same conference (jensen, 2001, pp. 41–42), i formulated an invitation to the scholar of religion https://changing-sp.com/ 344 tim jensen to participate in the public debate and apply his research in defense of a pluralistic and secular society that accepts the distanced attitude to religious phenomena practiced by the scientific study of religion. this, in fact, has been my “activist” agenda ever since: promoting the scientific study of religion, its approaches and the knowledge accumulated, on the one hand, and the secular, democratic, pluralistic society, and public space that would not function if it did not give room to both the science of religion and religion. but today, as before, i find it important to continue the discussion on the many problems associated with doing what i (and riis) think the scholar of religion should do. to, as prescribed by riis, “present factual knowledge, without obscuring its linked values”, is easier said than done. the scholar can, of course, decide to share knowledge or to participate in the public debate only in the form of, for example, essays or letters-to-the editor, where he as the author is in control of the final product, except as regards context and maybe headline. however, if he makes himself available to journalists who, for example, call him for an opinion, he can and should check quotes. but what about “indirect” quotes, i.e. the summarizing of the journalist, of e.g. half-an hour of conversation, into a few two-line quotes, and what about the other part of the text written by the journalist that clearly refers to the conversation? what about the context, the heading, the subtitle? and, what about interviews for radio or tv with half-an-hour’s interview cut to 30 seconds? without a possibility to check the final product and make objections. what about statements to media in faraway countries? even if direct and indirect quotes are checked, you can be surprised about the result. it certainly also makes a difference if an interview and a statement appear in a front-page story or on certain page, with a photo of the scholar or without. the “language” of the media is, as emphasized by tim murphy (2001), different from that of the scholarly community, and as pointed out by klaus kjøller (2007) in connection with jp vs. rothstein, the scholar, moreover, comes, willingly or not, to play a role in a dramatic and dramatizing media “world”, where a scholar who wants to get through to the audience has to appear as a “whole person”, thus not just as a scholar-expert. moreover, journalists in many cases ask for not just expertise and qualified knowledge. in addition to that they also ask for a “qualified opinion”. and, even if the qualified opinion is factand research based, it is, as i once stated in an interview (young, 2006), nevertheless an opinion, and thus not barely part of the political debates. it actually seems to be a general feature of a recent (1961–2001) development that social science scholars in particular but also human science scholars are increasingly used as experts, at the same though also increasingly assuming (or being “assigned”) various kinds of roles (cf. albæk et al., 2002). one is the “classical” expert role, the scholar delivering “factual knowledge, concrete, professionallybased assessments and corrections to claims that concern the public”, cases in which the scholar’s “special knowledge and insight enriches the [...] the public debate”. in direct contrast to this, you find the researcher who writes essays, op-eds, changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 333–352 345 letter-to-the editor etc., which are nothing but, and also meant to be nothing but, “pure political comments”. but, as the report continues, the scholar increasingly appears in a mix of the two roles, “both informing and giving a value-based comment”, and it is most likely this mix that has given scholars and scholarship a new and more significant role. it should also be mentioned, as in the report mentioned, that journalists in this way can more easily appear as “neutral” reporters, leaving it to the expert-scholar to express an opinion. an expert presenting not just brief and accurate information, but also qualified and controversial opinions are, as also noticed by kjøller (2007), often preferable to the one who “just” provide “naked facts”. a propos, “naked facts”: that too is, of course, not as simple as it might seem at a first glance. just think of the scholar who – on the basis of repeated claims made in public by e.g. politicians that muslims are overflooding denmark, that there are at least 800,000 muslims in denmark, and that they are all fanatically religious – comments on this by way of providing the facts that can correct the erroneous claims and thus qualify the debate. the scholar in the “classical” and neutral expert role. yes, but also a scholar who enters and becomes part of the political debate for and against islam, for and against immigration of muslims, etc. the boundaries between the “classical” expert, the expert-opinion maker, and the politicizing expert-opinion maker is, as said above, porous, and it is not rarely very hard if at all possible for a scholar-expert to uphold or signal these boundaries or the transition from one to another role. another problem is linked to the fact that the scholar-expert is not just used as an expert in a specific and narrow field but also as a “generalist”-expert. thus, for example, both rothstein and jensen as scholars of religion can (be asked to) comment on matters which strictly speaking are not matters pertaining to their narrower research field, be it to islam and christianity or to religious developments (including political debates about religion) in denmark. though this generalist-expert role is, i think, perfectly in line with the competences of a classical scholar of religion, actually an expert in “religion in general”, and though the comparative-historical perspective applied to specific contemporary instances of what is called religion is extremely valuable and important as regard the qualification of the public debate on religion, it does, of course, also imply some risks – for example, if the generalist-expert for some reason is accused of not being an expert in regard to the matter at hand, e.g. islam or christianity. it is difficult for many people to understand that one can also be an expert on religion in general and on “religion” in public discourses, and that a generalist-comparative perspective on say islam or christianity can shed a lot of new light on this religion and the debates about it. it is an important task, i think, for the scholar of religion to provide critical analysis not just of “religion(s) out there” but of the public debate on religion. in many cases, this is actually what journalists ask for and would like to qualified opinions on. religion is a public and political phenomenon and today a highly politicized public matter, and the researcher who may well provide factual knowledge is also asked, based on his knowledge, his opinion on e.g. some political action. is it a “smart move”, is it out of line with the “facts on the ground”, etc.? https://changing-sp.com/ 346 tim jensen the scholar-expert can of course choose not to answer such a question, but he can also choose to say that this or that political move, in view of his analysis and knowledge, seems more or less based on facts or not, seems more or less wise or strategic. certainly, a role fraught with dangers, not least in a “post-factual period” or in countries, like denmark, where e.g. the government in power from 2000–2010 time and again has frowned at experts accusing them of being but “nitpicking”. the accusations levelled against me and other researchers at the time of the cases mentioned, namely that they (ab-)used their academic titles to give their personal political opinions a higher degree of credibility entail a linked yet implicit claim: scholars operating in the public space as experts should not be allowed to do so unless they are able to demonstrate that their statements are based on facts, good arguments, the results of a specific research project, etc. implicit in these claims, some of which (e.g. that one ought not and cannot give a qualified comment unless it is based on a quite specific and explicitly linked research project) most certainly, as indicated above, are based upon a limited understanding of what it means to be an expert and a scholar on religion. however, implicit are also other ideas (shared also by some scholars) about science and the role and function of the scientist/scholar. one such widespread and deeply held idea is that not just the scientific research process but also the dissemination of the research results, also via mass media, must and can be totally “objective”, “neutral”, and “value-free”. according to the same cluster of ideas, science can and must be kept completely separate from all personal and political ideologies and statements. if it is not dr. jensen, the scholar of religion from the university of southern denmark, who puts forward objective facts and conclusions derived from objective and neutral research, then it is mr. jensen, who propagates his own personal opinion, and in that case it is bad and wrong, at least if it is not stated loud and clearly: “i now do not speak as dr. jensen, the scholar of religion, but as mr. jensen, the engaged citizen”. included is, thus, a notion of a neat and clear difference between, on the one hand, the scientist and, on the other, the private person, debater, and the citizen. the former completely neutral and the latter “biased” due to his ethical, political or religious preferences. you either speak as a scholar or as a private person. wiebe (2005), cf. the introductory remarks, seems to share this view at least partially. but while wiebe, no doubt, is well aware that this notion or idea has been the subject of much scholarly debate, and that questions pertaining to apolitical, objective, neutral, and value-free research, as well as to the dissemination of research results or scholarly knowledge is immensely complex, then neither jp nor khader seemed aware of it. as noted by kærgård et al. (2007, p. 25), the discussion of “what scientists should and should not say in the public debate” reflects a conception of science that science has largely left behind, namely, that “science” (with a capital s) holds the ultimate truth, not to be discussed. a conception, accordingly, which, paradoxically, places research results somewhere far “beyond and above the public debate” (kærgård et al., 2007, p. 26). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 333–352 347 fact and value, as well as science and politics, can at times be sharply separated from each other. at times, though, it is not so. neither in theory nor in practice. it is often equally impossible to separate the scholar from the individual person. a scholar is not just a scholar eight hours a day, but rather 24–7. to demand that scholars should not have or express personal opinions is, as kærgård et al. (2007, p. 29) points out, as absurd as requiring politicians to function without “no knowledge of the world”. to demand that scientists only speak publicly if they have the ultimate truth will, moreover, cause everyone, especially the most honorable ones, to remain silent (kærgård et al., 2007, p. 26). during the 2006 and 2007 debate, it was proposed that scholars should be allowed to express themselves publicly about their scientific work only if and when their work had been through a peer-review process. this proposal was strongly rejected by others, including kærgård et al. (2007, p. 28), who emphasized that this would make sense only in very specific cases. for example: it hardly can consider good scientific practice if, immediately the first successful experiment in the laboratory, the scientist runs into the streets proclaiming that he has found a new and miraculous medicine. but it doesn’t make sense to require that a scholar who wants to participate in the public debate on the basis of his scholarly knowledge or who is asked some questions by a journalist, cannot do so until having submitted his statements to a peer-review panel. the scholar-expert, as a matter of course, ought to be capable of serving up sober arguments in favor of his interpretations and qualified opinions, but elaborate explanations, lots of details and reservations are rarely possible. footnotes, so to say, are not commonly used in mass media, and if jensen is asked, for instance, to give a one and a half minute statement on television on the difference between sunniand shia-islam, then he can, at the most, make a brief remark saying that time prevents him from going into any detail. but if he has agreed to participate, i.e. because one and a half minute is better than nothing, and because he may actually be good at “boiling things down” in such a situation, then it makes no sense to judge his one and a half minute by the same standards that apply to a dissertation or article in a peer-reviewed journal. concluding remarks in the article “the war in iraq and the academic study of religion” (2008), ira chernus praises (cf. above for the criticism of mccutcheon, 2005) bruce lincoln (2005) for his contribution to the public debate with his historical, analytical-critical studies of former us president bush’s rhetoric (chernus, 2008). in a closing paragraph, chernus argues, and convincingly so, i think, that it is difficult, if at all possible, to keep separate from each other what he, with reference to the terminology used by the american academy of religion, calls, respectively, “historical/analytic-descriptive analyzes” and “constructive-reflective” scholarship. not just when it comes to a war (in this case the us war in iraq), but also more generally. although chernus does find a separation between descriptive and prescriptive (normative) scholarship both necessary and possible in many cases, he also finds it possible to connect weber’s separation of teacher and preacher with the same https://changing-sp.com/ 348 tim jensen weber’s idea that the scholar/teacher through a presentation of his analysis paves the way “self-clarification”. chernus continues: “the claim that self-clarification has a moral value is especially compelling when applied to the political body”, and he then goes on to quote gitlin: “[e]ducation’s prime bond to the public weal in a democratic society is to improve the capacity of citizens to govern themselves, and to meet this requirement, educators must ‘spur reasoned participation in politics and the accumulation of knowledge to suit” (chernus, 2008, p. 865). chernus believes that it is possible, both in theory and practice, to reconcile “good scholarship” and “good citizenship”, and that a scholar of religion such as lincoln (2005) has managed to do exactly that. he ends, with reference to the current us political and cultural situation: at such a time, we are particularly called upon to be scholar-citizens, always concerned to serve the demands of good scholarship by upholding their highest standards but, at the same time, equally concerned with practicing our scholarship in the service of good citizenship (chernus, 2008, pp. 867–868). i think this can be said with reference to the situation today too, in the us, in denmark, and most other places. but again: in practice, it is not so straightforward to realize the effort to, at one and the same time, promote and strengthen the scholarship and science/study of religion as well as, at the same time, the pluralistic, enlightened and open society. it cannot be denied that some scholars may be better than others at doing so, without putting their scholarly reputation as well as that of the community of scholars and scholarship “as such” at risk. jensen (and rothstein) maybe did not strike the right balance between the scholar and the engaged citizen, maybe did not master the art of communication via the mass media. moreover, the context for the cases mentioned may be said to have been particularly “poisonous” due to the extremely controversial cartoon case and the very tense political climate. nevertheless, most of the problems that i have touched upon are not caused by personal deficiencies or deficiencies linked to particular “methods”. rather, they are structural, methodological challenges and problems “by default” so to say. it is important, i think, to make this clear if scholars really want to learn from the cases, not least as regards how to best handle the media now and in the future. and, handling the media and sharing scholarly knowledge with the wider society, also by participation in the public debate, has, today even more than before, become part of many scholars’ everyday lives, something the universities encourage employees to do, something that is part and parcel, not of the “modern research university” that wiebe (2005) propagates but of the “post-modern” contract university having to prove itself, its employees, its scholarship, and the future candidates produced, of “use” to society and societal challenges. the cartoon case incidents, on the one hand, have given me a better understanding of why wiebe (2005) really has some good reasons for repeatedly warning about the risks associated with “going public”. they have, on the other, also made it clearer to me that wiebe is mistaken if he thinks the scholar-expert can engage in and contribute changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 333–352 349 to public debates with his scholarly based factual knowledge if he only can refrain from embracing the role as “public intellectual”. it is not that easy and it is not entirely up to the scholar. moreover, the cartoon case incidents, and the developments in danish society in and in societies around the world ever since, have made me even more convinced that it is absolutely necessary, that at least some (not all, of course) scholars of religion share their knowledge with the community at large. also, through mass media and by way of active participation in public debate. the scholar, and the scientific or scholarly study of e.g. religion, certainly always risk “losing face”, inwards and outwards, among colleagues and with the public at large. but this loss is nothing compared to the loss suffered in regard to the quality of the public debate and in regard to the whole ideal of an enlightened democracy if (some) scholars of religion do not try to share their approach to religion and their knowledge of religion with society and the public at large. facts (and facts do exist, also in regard to religion and the study of it)), qualified opinions, and not least qualified questions and problematization of what otherwise appears to be unproblematic, are vital to an open democratic, society – and to the freedom of science and scholarship. at the same time, i am still also convinced that propagating the science and scholarship of religion, not just by writing books and articles for other scholars to read in “the ivory tower” but also by way of making science and scholarship of religion known to the public at large, thus trying to make it (more) obvious why having universities with departments for the study or science of religion is of value. i think it “pays off” in the long run, and that the gains by far outweigh the losses that may be the result of, say, the damage caused by the abovementioned cases. true: the values “at work” within and uphold by the work by scholars inside the walls of the academy, in the “ivory tower”, must be 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(2006, february 19). why i published those cartoons? washington post. retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2006/02/19/ why-i-published-those-cartoons/f9a67368-4641-4fa7-b71f-843ea44814ef/ rothstein, k., & rothstein, m. (2006). bomben i turbanen. københavn: tiderne skifter. seidenfaden, t. (2007, february 12). jyllands-postens monomani. jyllandsposten, p. 8. skadegaard, t. s. (2006). muhammedkrisen – symptom på en syg stat. in h. nielsen et al. (eds.), verden i forandring ix – our changing world. temartikler om muhammedkrisen, ytringsfrihed og andre menneskerettigheder. articles on the mohammed crisis, freedom of expression and other human rights (рр. 78–105). odense: syddansk universitetsforlag. strenski, i. (2006). thinking about religion: an historical introduction to theories of religion. blackwell publishing. wiebe, d. (2005). the politics of wishful thinking? disentangling the role of the scholar-scientist from that of the public intellectual in the modern academic study of religion. temenos, 41(1), 7–38. doi: 10.33356/temenos.4800 young, k. e. (2006, december 7). forsker tager klage roligt. politiken. https://doi.org/10.1163/1570068053429884 https://doi.org/10.1163/1570068053429857 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2006.00386.x http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2006.00386.x https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2006/02/19/why-i-published-those-cartoons/f9a67368-4641-4fa7-b71f-843ea44814ef/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2006/02/19/why-i-published-those-cartoons/f9a67368-4641-4fa7-b71f-843ea44814ef/ https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.4800 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 52–67 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.1.060 received 22 august 2018 © 2019 neža prelog, fayruza s. ismagilova, accepted 3 december 2018 eva boštjančič published online 1 april 2019 nezka.prelog@gmail.com f.s.ismagilova@urfu.ru eva.bostjancic@ff.uni-lj.si research note which employees are most motivated to share knowledge – the role of age-based differentiation in knowledge-sharing motivation neža prelog university of ljubljana, republic of slovenia fayruza s. ismagilova ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia eva boštjancic university of ljubljana, republic of slovenia abstract the problem of age diversity in the workplace is becoming increasingly important, especially because of the ageing workforce. knowledgesharing should therefore be encouraged among employees of different ages. the topic of this research is the role of age-based differentiation or intergenerational differentiation in motivation to share knowledge. participating in this study were 202 employees of six slovenian companies. the participants filled out the knowledgesharing motivation measure, translated into slovenian for the purposes of this study, and the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure. our objective was to find out how three different age groups differ in the subjective perceptions of knowledgesharing motivation and how the perception of intergenerational differentiation is correlated with knowledge sharing motivation. the results show that the youngest age group of employees feels the most discriminated against due to their age, but is also the most motivated to share knowledge when compared to the other two age groups. the correlation between the two measured constructs is not significant. the main findings are that it is important to acknowledge the younger ˇ ˇ https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 52–67 53 introduction the knowledge of workers of all ages is important and should be shared and preserved. if this does not happen, knowledge disappears, and the knowledge level of an organisation will become unbalanced (floor, 2007). in every organisation, there are several types of knowledge in connection with different aspects of the work process. polanyi’s taxonomy of knowledge (1966) is the most well-known theory and it classifies knowledge into tacit and explicit knowledge. an organisation’s knowledge depends on the interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge during the processes of socialisation, internalisation and externalisation. explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be coded and transferred through documentation (nonaka, 1994), and it can be recorded, for instance in a manual, description or instructions (reychaw & weisberg, 2009). tacit knowledge exists within an individual’s experiences and judgements, and as such is not easily coded. it exists in an individual’s mind and is deeply imbedded in personal actions, which are not easily transferrable (nonaka, 1994). practical knowledge does not convey information clearly and is difficult to be put into words (zupančič, 2009). it is an example of tacit knowledge, and can represent a source of permanent competitive advantage. since it cannot easily be coded, it is impossible for a competitive company to obtain such tacit knowledge, but at the same time, it is also transferred within an organization with greater difficulty due to this feature (rannuci & souder, 2015). knowledge-sharing among employees as a form of cooperation is important in creating the competitive advantages of an organisation (jiacheng, lu & francesco, 2010a). it encompasses behaviour, which facilitates the sharing of knowledge an individual has acquired or established within an organisation (hsu, 2006). cummings (2004) defines knowledge-sharing as receiving knowledge through information, procedures, and feedback. nine knowledge-sharing mechanisms are defined at the intra-organisational level (mahmood, qureshi & evans, 2015). they include both formal and informal levels: documentation, education and training, reading standard operating procedures, recognition of work, routine and non-routine meetings, seminars and conferences, show and tell, staff updates and voluntary mentoring. in knowledge management discussions, passing on knowledge from generation to generation is gaining significance. this is evident from the growing amount of research that has discussed the factors influencing knowledge-sharing (casimir, lee & loon, 2012; hsu, 2006). several researchers have examined the issues of the generation age group of employees, since it seems to be the most vulnerable to intergenerational differentiation. also, it is important to encourage older workers to share their valuable knowledge. keywords intergenerational relationships, diversity in the workplace, knowledge, employees, older workers https://changing-sp.com/ 54 neža prelog, fayruza s. ismagilova, eva boštjancicˇ ˇ gap and intergenerational learning (floor, 2007; piktialis & greenes, 2008). the most common changes at work in present-day and future society are the ageing workforce, and the pressure exerted on organisations to take advantage of existing knowledge by applying efficient knowledge management (arnold et al., 2005). these issues are thus gaining more significance in work and organisational psychology. no research has been found in literature that might focus on intergenerational and age differences in connection with knowledge-sharing from the subjective point of view of an individual. model of knowledge-sharing motivations jiacheng et al. (2010a) formed an individual cognitive model of knowledge-sharing motivation. the model depicts differential cognitive processes based on an individual’s motivation towards knowledge-sharing. these processes show how an individual’s intrinsic motivation derived from social and personal norms, and extrinsic motivation derived from reward and punishment, make concerted efforts to shape the ultimate intention of knowledge-sharing. external influences, such as social norms, are first projected to one’s interior interface. they then undergo the influence of internal cognitive mechanisms before being displayed as external behaviour. the insight into an individual’s cognitive mechanism towards knowledge-sharing motivation can reveal the principle of individual perceptions towards knowledge-sharing (jiacheng et al., 2010a). the cognitive knowledge-sharing model described below was the foundation for the empirical part of this research. the model’s theory includes individual cognitive mechanisms of knowledge-sharing motivation, which makes it suitable for research of subjective willingness to share knowledge. jiacheng et al. (2010a) suggested a cognitive model that depicts an individual’s motivation acting upon various cognitive processes. the outcome of these processes is the ultimate intention to share knowledge. the model connects the functional mechanisms of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. the researcher’s intention was to seek predictive indicators on the intention to share knowledge, and it refers to the degree, to which people are willing to make efforts to engage in knowledge-sharing (ajzen, 1991). the functional mechanism of knowledge-sharing can be integrated into four psychological processes: – internalisation: these motivation mechanisms are from within an individual. people value knowledge-sharing behaviour and appreciate the values of knowledgesharing if it accords with their own values. an individual can realise their own selfworth when they believe their knowledge-sharing would improve team work processes and increase work efficiency (bock, lee, & zmud, 2005); – identification means the degree, to which people can envision the maintenance of satisfying and interpersonal relationships with those who are involved in knowledge reception (jiacheng et al., 2010a); – conformity occurs when an individual accepts knowledge-sharing owing to the blind reliance on other people’s attitudes. since conformity is always linked to social norms, it was defined in the research as the degree, to which one believes that others expect one to share knowledge (jiacheng, lu & francesco, 2010b); changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 52–67 55 – compliance: an individual’s behavioural decision is influenced by others so that they adopt others’ opinions or decisions instead of their own (e.g. in a situation where an individual’s knowledge-sharing attitude is only an echo of the majority’s opinions). jiacheng et al. (2010b) define social (or subjective) norms as an individual’s perception pertaining to important expectations of others regarding their knowledgesharing (fishbein & ajzen, 1975), and they operate through an individual’s beliefs as to whether others who are of importance to them think they should share knowledge. the concept of social norms acts as an individual’s interior interface reflecting external influences. in contrast to personal norms, social norms are a source of conformity and compliance. the reward incentive in compliance is the likelihood that people believe they can obtain rewards for their knowledge-sharing. the intention to share knowledge cannot be forced simply by tangible and explicit punitive measures mainly referred to as latent punishment. it can be defined as the degree, to which people believe they can be excluded from or disapproved of by a team for not sharing their knowledge. knowledge-sharing is a self-determined activity, and it cannot be mandated (bock et al., 2005). in practice, it is hard to detect the extent, to which employees engage in knowledge-sharing, so it is impossible for the management to quantify the tangible incentive to control employees’ knowledge-sharing. individuals thus perceive the controlling aspect of rewards in knowledge-sharing only to a low extent. some case studies of knowledge-sharing practices indicate that appropriate rewards have a symbolic function and can represent reputation and recognition, which leads to more active knowledge-sharing (hsu, 2006; taylor, 2006). when receiving an appropriate reward for their knowledge-sharing, employees perceive organizational recognition, which strengthens their perceived competence. management of older workforce senior employees can be reticent in sharing their knowledge with younger employees for fear of becoming redundant (floor, 2007). younger employees need new knowledge upon starting at a new workplace as they do not have much experience. they gain the largest amount of knowledge and know-how from experienced senior employees. coaching is a very appropriate leadership style for senior employees. when the manager makes time for them and shows them that the organisation appreciates them, this consequently increases their willingness to share knowledge (floor, 2007). career planning is often done only with younger employees, but this can also be an important tool to motivate senior employees. senior employees want to feel useful in their workplace, which can be achieved when they share their active knowledge and experience with younger employees. managers do not often give senior employees the opportunity to engage in further training since they do not consider it beneficial for the organisation. other factors that are significant for senior employees are trust, respect, acknowledgment, and a sense of security (floor, 2007). trust is an important factor in knowledge-sharing. it is important that senior employees feel secure in their work environment and that they do not have the feeling they will become superfluous for the managers and the organisation when https://changing-sp.com/ 56 neža prelog, fayruza s. ismagilova, eva boštjancicˇ ˇ they share their knowledge. flexible working hours and the feeling their knowledge is appreciated are also very valuable to the (taylor & walker, 1998). finkelstein, ryan, and king (2013) explored stereotypes and meta-stereotypes in different age groups and found that the middle-aged group is the least exposed to age differentiation and is treated as the normative group of the workforce. in this research, the group of younger workers included employees aged 18–35 and the group of senior workers included workers older than 55. the research aims to answer the question whether individual age groups differ in their motivation to share knowledge. the role of older workforce in knowledge sharing there is a strong positive correlation between age and level of knowledge. tacit knowledge needs to be transferred from an older employee to a younger one, since older employees have built up a lot of experience and organizational know-how (kanfer & ackerman, 2004). on the other hand, younger employees also possess a lot of knowledge, be it on the advancing information technology, new work approaches or the newest theories and research. l. finkelstein et al. (2013) state that stereotypical beliefs about different age groups may have serious consequences for knowledgesharing as they restrict communication between younger and older employees, as well as creativity, due to the lack of psychological security. managers should be aware of such stereotypes and should aim to connect different generations for successful knowledge-sharing in an organisation. remery, henkens, schippers and ekamper (2001) have found that managers associate older employees with higher costs, but also with greater experience and useful, practical knowledge. zupančič (2009) states that middle-aged employees may later become experts in their fields, which is associated with a high level of efficiency at problem solving. this depends on practical or tacit knowledge. intergenerational learning and the significance of knowledge transfer between generations have already been researched. managers should form teams or workgroups that consist of both older and younger employees. this way, cooperation between younger and older employees is encouraged as they can inspire each other and learn from each other by sharing their knowledge. mentorship may also develop, in which know-how is transferred and shared. managers should encourage intergenerational knowledge transfer. it is important to build an environment, in which older employees feel secure and do not fear they will become redundant. managers must be aware of the fact that older employees have different needs and therefore maintain a life-phase oriented hr development strategy (floor, 2007). the research subject this research aims to study the correlation between intergenerational differentiation and knowledge-sharing motivation, that is, the willingness of employees of different age groups to share their knowledge. no studies that would connect the correlation between these two concepts have been conducted so far. similar studies state that what is changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 52–67 57 essential for the successful sharing of knowledge and expertise is a trustful environment (e.g. nottingham, 1998), recognition and respect (e.g. floor, 2007), and positive relationships (e.g. reychav & weisberg, 2009). knowledge within an organisation and knowledge sharing are essential for successful cooperation among employees within an organisation and form an organisation’s competitive advantage (floor, 2007; jiacheng et al., 2010a). age diversity, and even more so an ageing workforce, is one of the changes that is very much present in modern times (arnold et al., 2005), which makes this study very topical. increasing age diversity in modern times is connected to an increased awareness of an age discriminatory climate (finkelstein et al., 2007). in order to better understand the potential differences between age groups in a subjective experience of intergenerational differentiation, the following research question was posed: does knowledge-sharing motivation differ in individual age groups of employees? the objective of this research is to determine the potential specific characteristics of individual groups in both measured constructs before a conclusion on differences in the perception of intergenerational differentiation can be made. the second step was to form a hypothesis: individuals will perceive intergenerational differentiation in the workplace more if they are less willing to share their knowledge with others. the social comparison theory (tajfel & turner, 1986) presupposes that the differences in demographic characteristics of individuals within a group will limit interaction and the sharing of knowledge. if these differences are emphasised or perceived by an individual, they might influence the individual’s willingness to share their knowledge. trust, good relationships, communication, the feeling of belonging and perception may be compromised if individuals feel discriminated against due to their age. in earlier research, these factors have been recognised as significant for a facilitated sharing of knowledge (e.g. arnett & wittman, 2014; cai, li & guan, 2016; lauring & selmer, 2012). the expectations of age differentiation of employees by members of other age groups may impede knowledge transfer, as well as contribute to decreased performance success and increased anxiety (finkelstein et al., 2013). older employees, for example, possess great knowledge and experience, which they have gained through years of work. if they fall victim to age differentiation and discrimination due to their age, they will not have the opportunity to share their knowledge, and their need to belong and be respected by others will not be fulfilled (braithwaite, 2004; de guzman, 2014). individuals that will perceive age differentiation more will likely be less willing to share their knowledge. considering the results of earlier research, it is expected that this correlation will be the most obvious in the older age group. methodology participants and the procedure a total of 202 workers from six slovenian companies participated in the research. the sample consisted of 73 men (36%) and 129 women (64%). their average age was 44.6 years (sd = 8.8 years), and the participants were aged from 25 to 64 years old with an average of 20 years of work experience. 18% of them were younger than 35, 61% of them were included in the 35–54 age group and 21% of the participants https://changing-sp.com/ 58 neža prelog, fayruza s. ismagilova, eva boštjancicˇ ˇ were older than 55. most participants had a professional academic bachelor’s degree (39%), nearly a third of them had a master of science or a doctorate degree (30%), and less than a quarter of participants had completed post-secondary or first-cycle higher education (22%). the participants received the link to the questionnaires via e-mail and were granted full anonymity. the data was collected from april to june 2017. research tools intra-organizational knowledge-sharing motivations measure (jiacheng et al., 2010b) is a self-assessment questionnaire with 34 items to assess an individual’s cognitive mechanisms to share knowledge with the members of the organisation. an individual assesses the items of the questionnaire on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). items are combined into eight subsections: internalisation (e.g. my knowledge-sharing would improve team work processes), identification (e.g. my knowledge-sharing would strengthen my ties with existing team members), conformity (e.g. i always accept the majority’s opinion on knowledge-sharing), reward incentive (e.g. i will receive monetary rewards in return for my knowledge-sharing), latent punishment (e.g. my private views about knowledgesharing are different from those i express publicly), subjective norm (e.g. my ceo thinks that i should share my knowledge with other members of the organization), attitude towards knowledge-sharing (e.g. all things considered, my knowledgesharing with other organizational members is good), and intention to share knowledge (e.g. i intend to share my ideas with team members as much as possible). besides providing partial results in the subsections, the answers produce an overall result that indicates the overall knowledge-sharing motivation. the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure (jelenko, 2015) is a self-assessment questionnaire, which includes eight items. two items comprise each of the four following subsections: management (e.g. my manager micromanages my work due to my age); communication (e.g. i feel that in communication, other employees look down on me and regard me as inferior because of my age); productivity (e.g. other employees don’t appreciate my knowledge and skills due to my age), and cooperation (e.g. in my workplace, i only cooperate with employees of my age). the participants assess the frequency of a behaviour on the following seven-point scale: 0 – never; 1 – almost never; 2 – rarely; 3 – sometimes; 4 – often; 5 – almost always; 6 – always). one of the items is assessed in a reversed order. the higher the total of the items, the more the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace is perceived. the internal reliability of the questionnaire was verified twice before it was used in this research and is adequately high (n1 = 109, α1 = 0.72; n2 = 20, α2 = 0.74) (jelenko, 2015). results the first step was to calculate the reliability coefficient of the intra-organizational knowledge-sharing motivations measure, which was satisfactory (α = 0.83). when comparing the reliability of the subsections of the questionnaire on knowledgechanging societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 52–67 59 sharing motivation with the reliability of those used by the authors in their research (jiacheng et al., 2010b), our research tool for the sample proved less reliable (table 1). the reliability coefficient of the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure is 0.79, which confirms the findings of the questionnaire’s author (jelenko, 2015). table 1. reliability coefficients for the subsections of the questionnaire on knowledge-sharing motivation in the original research (α1; jiacheng et al., 2010a) and in this research (α2 ). subsection α1 α2 internalisation 0.83 0.77 identification 0.88 0.72 conformity 0.78 0.60 reward incentive 0.84 0.61 latent punishment 0.78 0.36 subjective norm 0.80 0.56 attitude towards knowledge-sharing 0.84 0.60 intention to share knowledge 0.89 0.76 since the questionnaire data in the whole sample and in individual age groups is normally distributed, the anova statistical method was used to determine the differences between age groups. table 2 shows descriptive statistics of the results from the questionnaire on knowledge-sharing motivation per individual age group. table 2. the number of participants in an individual age group (n), arithmetic mean of the answers in the questionnaire on knowledge-sharing motivation (m), and standard deviation (sd) age group n m sd younger (up to 35 years) 36 120.14 7.15 middle-aged (35–54 years) 121 114.98 12.34 senior (over 55 years) 42 112.98 14.14 as is evident from the table with descriptive statistics, certain differences between the groups exist. detailed analysis showed that the differences are statistically significant (f = 3.73; p < 0.05). when determining differences between individual subsections of the questionnaire and the age groups, the only significant difference was found in the subsection of identification (f = 5.07; p < 0.05). individual age groups were compared by using the independent samples t-test. the final result of the questionnaire revealed a statistically significant difference (t = 3.15; df = 101.29; p < 0.05) in knowledge-sharing motivation between the group of younger employees, and the middle-aged group. a significant difference was revealed in the subsection of the identification (t = 2.91; df = 158; p < 0.05). in order to verify the correlation between the perceived age differentiation and the willingness to share knowledge with others, spearman’s correlation coefficients were calculated for the final results, as well as the results of individual subsections. the perception of intergenerational differentiation and the willingness to share https://changing-sp.com/ 60 neža prelog, fayruza s. ismagilova, eva boštjancicˇ ˇ knowledge are not connected. the other correlations between the subsections are shown in table 3. table 3. spearman’s correlation coefficients between subsections and final results of the intra-organizational knowledge-sharing motivations measure (ksm) and the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure (igd) 1 2 3 4 igd 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1. igd communication 2. igd management 0.46** 3. igd cooperation 0.19** 0.32** 4. igd productivity 0.48** 0.66** 0.30** intergenerational differentiation (total) 0.68** 0.65** 0.71** 0.73** 5. ksm internalisation –0.08 –0.06 –0.04 –0.08 –0.03 6. ksm identification –0.02 –0.08 –0.02 0.09 –0.03 0.49** 7. ksm conformity –0.01 0.10 0.15* –0.02 0.09 0.05 0.25** 8. ksm reward incentive –0.03 0.15* 0.09 0.11 0.09 0.01 0.28** 0.12* 9. ksm latent punishment 0.24** 0.24** 0.14 0.23* 0.22** –0.17* –0.02 0.12 0.18* 10. ksm subjective norm –0.17* –0.02 –0.02 0.04 –0.06 0.34** 0.42** 0.09 0.23** –0.07 11. ksm attitudes towards knowledgesharing –0.30** –0.23** –0.23** –0.18** –0.28** 0.48** 0.49** 0.12 0.14* –0.13 0.37** 12. ksm intention to share knowledge –0.13* –0.07 –0.15* –0.10 –0.14* 0.50** 0.38** 0.13* –0.03 –0.30** 0.27** 0.58** intraorganizational knowledgesharing motivation (total) –0.12* 0.04 –0.03 0.07 –0.02 0.65** 0.83** 0.42** 0.36** –0.01 0.61** 0.70** 0.64** * p < 0.05; **p < 0.01 no significant correlation between intergenerational differentiation and knowledge-sharing motivation was determined; however, certain correlations have surfaced between individual subsections of both questionnaires. there is a moderate correlation between the perception of intergenerational differences and employees’ willingness to share their knowledge. quality communication (r = –0.30; p < 0.01), management (r = –0.23; p < 0.01), cooperation (r = –0.23; p < 0.01) and productivity (r = –0.28; p < 0.01) are correlated with increased willingness to share knowledge. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 52–67 61 a new calculation of spearman’s correlation coefficient and a verification of the age variable proved the correlation between intergenerational differentiation and knowledge-sharing motivation to be statistically significant (r = –0.16; p < 0.05), but nonetheless low. the increased correlation between the two constructs in the complete sample led to a re-examination of the correlation within individual age groups. the correlation of intergenerational differentiation and knowledge-sharing motivation in the younger group of employees was negative and medium high (r = –0.41; p < 0.05); in the other two groups, no statistically significant differences were observed. discussion the objective of this research was to determine whether age groups differ in their knowledge-sharing motivation, and to examine the correlation between intergenerational differentiation and knowledge-sharing motivation. the results of the translated intra-organizational knowledge-sharing motivations measure (jiacheng et al., 2010b) were normally distributed in the sample and this was an adequate reason for a detailed analysis of the results. with the help of the intergenerational differentiation in the workplace measure, it was determined that the results are not distributed equally in the considered sample, and that the reliability of the questionnaire is comparable to the reliability as determined by its author jelenko (2015). the analysis showed that statistically, the group of youngest employees differs significantly from the other age groups, specifically the members of this group were more willing to share their knowledge than employees in other groups. although other differences between the age groups were not significant, it is evident that the older the employees are, the less motivated they are to share their knowledge. as for the group of older employees, this can be explained by applying the findings of kanfer and ackerman (2004), who state that senior employees can be reticent in sharing their knowledge with younger employees for fear of becoming redundant. according to l. finkelstein and colleagues (2013), middle-aged employees might perceive that younger employees are competing for their jobs, which leads to a protective attitude towards their knowledge. younger employees are most likely to share their knowledge because they need to gain a lot of knowledge, and they expect that by sharing their knowledge, other employees will reciprocate. social exchange theory posits that relationships between employees are based on the mutual expectation from both parties that voluntary acts will motivate reciprocity, which does generally occur (blau, 1964). the fact that of all age groups senior employees are the least motivated is significant for work organisations; this is the age group with the largest amount of tacit knowledge, that is, knowledge that is difficult to transfer and write down. the only option for organisations to preserve such knowledge is by sharing this knowledge with younger employees. it is thus of key importance that senior employees are motivated to do so. no significant correlation between intergenerational differentiation and knowledge-sharing motivation was determined; however, certain correlations have surfaced between individual subsections of both questionnaires. the research shows https://changing-sp.com/ 62 neža prelog, fayruza s. ismagilova, eva boštjancicˇ ˇ that employees who feel that their communication with their co-workers is limited due to their age are less motivated to share their knowledge. the subsection conformity as knowledge-sharing motivation is positively correlated to the subsection cooperation from the intergenerational differentiation questionnaire. both subsections show the employees’ need to be accepted by others and the need to belong to a social group; two needs that exist in every social situation (tajfel & turner, 1986). an individual most likely feels most comfortable in their own social group, in this case their age group, and adopts the group’s opinion. the subsections reward incentive as knowledge-sharing motivation and management from the intergenerational differentiation questionnaire are also positively correlated, albeit on a low level. the authors of the cognitive model of knowledgesharing motivation state that the reward incentive is in fact motivation to the employees as they may receive rewards for sharing their knowledge (jiacheng et al., 2010a); rewards, which function symbolically and may come with recognition and reputation (e.g. hsu, 2006; taylor, 2006). when receiving an appropriate reward for sharing their knowledge, employees perceive organizational recognition, which is why individuals who feel the management’s pressure in their workplace might be more motivated to share their knowledge provided they receive a reward from the management. bock et al. (2005) found that the need for a reward might impede knowledge-sharing, and that rewards might have a negative influence on internal motivation or only lead to temporary obedience. this explains the positive correlation in this research, as individuals who perceive age differentiation from their management are more externally motivated to share their knowledge. this means that their motivation is economic and not sociopsychological or psychological (bock et al., 2005). the subsection latent punishment from the knowledge-sharing motivation questionnaire is positively correlated to three of the four subsections from the intergenerational differentiation questionnaire, specifically the subsections productivity, communication and management. the so-called punishment that is correlated with knowledge sharing mainly refers to latent punishment. it can be defined as the degree, to which people believe they can be excluded from or disapproved of by a team for not sharing their knowledge. this is external motivation, which is contrary to autonomous motivation (ozlati, 2015), and which represents a significant factor in knowledge-sharing motivation. individuals who perceive intergenerational differentiation in productivity and communication, as well as from their management, to a large extent will be more easily motivated to share their knowledge through punishment. punishment or fear of punishment in an organisation cannot be an effective method of behaviour alteration (arnold et al., 2005). for an individual, this merely means avoiding punishment, thus external motivation, and it cannot provide psychological security. with knowledge-sharing, certain behaviour is encouraged while with punishment, a reduction in unwanted behaviour is sought (arnold et al., 2005). some research (e.g. braithwaite, 2004; de guzman, 2014) has presupposed that the perception of intergenerational differentiation represents a negative factor in knowledge-sharing motivation. the results of this research do not confirm changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 52–67 63 these assumptions due to the many potential variables correlated to knowledgesharing. such variables are for example co-workers’ support (soojin et al., 2015), communication (nonaka, 1994), motivation (ozlati, 2015) and trust (arnett & wittmann, 2014). an important part of willingness to share knowledge is an individual’s internal motivation, their values and their subjective norms, which is included in the cognitive model by jiacheng et al. (2010b). this model was the basis for the questionnaire used in this research. in her master’s thesis on knowledge transfer within an organisation, podobnik (2009) determined by means of group and half-structured interviews that employees consider the management key to knowledge management and transfer, and assign great significance to clear and honest communication. knowledge-sharing motivation is thus a much more complex concept that can only be explained if the perception of intergenerational differentiation is present. however, only a few authors so far have discussed in detail the transferring of knowledge between generations (floor, 2007; bjursell, 2015; felicijan, 2015). however, nobody has focused solely on an individual’s subjective experience; the focus was on organisational practices of knowledge management. this is why the most significant contribution of this research is the consideration of employees’ subjective experiences. for the purposes of this research, a questionnaire based on socio-psychological theories was used, specifically on social influence theory (kelman, 1958), the theory of reasoned action (fishbein & ajzen, 1975), and social comparison theory (tajfel & turner, 1986), and the social context of an individual’s work environment was taken into account. to further explore this field, more quality research would need to be conducted to clarify terms such as knowledge-sharing, age differentiation, and age stereotypes. all potential moderator variables in the relationship between intergenerational differentiation and knowledge-sharing should be taken into account, and the most significant ones should be emphasised not just in theory but in practice, including in organisations. the organisational environment would need to focus further on the expectations of younger employees and not underestimate them due to their age. based on the results, it can be concluded that intergenerational differentiation as perceived by the younger group of employees is negatively correlated with their knowledge-sharing motivation. conclusions this research established that senior employees are less motivated to share their knowledge than younger employees are. this raises concerns, as many authors (floor, 2007; lauring & selmer, 2012) state that senior employees are the ones with the largest amount of tacit knowledge, which must be preserved within an organisation. according to social influence theory, an individual accepts influence from the environment, they avoid punishments and gain rewards, and they adopt the induced behaviour to create beneficial relationships with others, which results in conformity. a certain behaviour might occur if an individual’s values are congruent with the values of the environment. the theory of reasoned action explains the difference between an https://changing-sp.com/ 64 neža prelog, fayruza s. ismagilova, eva boštjancicˇ ˇ individual’s behavioural intention and actual behaviour. there are certain factors, which will prevent an individual from doing something despite wanting to. social comparison theory posits that we determine our own worth based on how we compare against others. all these theories can be applied to the context of knowledge-sharing and age differentiation. if the external environment supports knowledge-sharing among employees of all ages, and if these employees feel that the incentive is congruent with their values, they will more likely share their knowledge. it will not remain an intention, which would happen if limiting factors, such as punishment, were present. individuals compare themselves with other employees of all ages; this influences their behaviour towards others, and the motivation to share their knowledge. the differences in demographic characteristics of individuals within a group can impede knowledgesharing, and if these differences are emphasised or perceived by an individual, this might influence their willingness to share their knowledge. this research aims to emphasise the significance of the social context when studying complex organisational concepts, which include both interpersonal and social interactions. it should be pointed out that this research had certain limitations and that the conclusions based on the results are also limited. selective sampling should be taken into account, as this research only included organisations and individuals that were motivated to participate, which is why the sample is not representative of the slovenian population in its educational structure and gender. the subjectivity of reporting could also be a limiting factor, as objective data about organisational practices for the inclusion of employees of all ages and the encouragement of knowledge-sharing would provide further data about the actual situation in such organisations. the uneven samples of organisations should also be mentioned, as it means there are limitations in the conclusions of statistical analyses, as some of the samples of individual companies do not represent statistically strong groups. age groups were formed artificially, based on preliminary research, even though age is a continuous variable without clear borders between different age groups. the main limitation of this research was the failure to consider significant factors from the environment and from an individual’s point of view, as these can play an important role in the complex relationship between intergenerational differentiation and knowledge-sharing motivation. some such factors are an individual’s characteristics, the characteristics of the organisational climate and culture, communication, and the level of trust in an organisation’s work environment. with age diversity increasing in society, organisations face the challenge of restructuring learning processes. the concept of intergenerational learning includes a reciprocal learning process and knowledge development, as well as a shift from knowledge-sharing to co-creating knowledge, in the efforts to share knowledge. this shift is of key importance when the digital generation enters the labour market. the strategies for sharing knowledge in organisations should be adjusted to the methods and processes that include new generations and encourage the transfer of knowledge. the key features here are communication without age differentiation, trust, and an individual’s intrinsic motivation to share knowledge. nowadays, as many as five generations might work side by side in an organisation, and the co-existence of many generations brings an opportunity for intergenerational interactions and learning. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 52–67 65 references ajzen, i. 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(2009). spoznavni razvoj v srednji odraslosti. in l. marjanovič umek & m. zupančič (ed.), razvojna psihologija (pp. 728–744). ljubljana: znanstvenoraziskovalni inštitut filozofske fakultete. https://changing-sp.com/ http://doi.org/10.1108/jkm-06-2014-0260 http://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.335 http://doi.org/10.1023/a:1023543307473 changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 393–405 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.4.053 received 10 november 2018 © 2018 li yuyun accepted 3 december 2018 annie_backcome@163.com published online 15 december 2018 article development of cooperation in higher education in brics countries yuyun li fudan university, china abstract as an important component of brics cooperation, collaboration in higher education plays a key role in the development and mutual collaboration of the five countries. the purpose of this article is to analyze current cooperation in higher education of brics countries. the article selects brics network university, brics universities league and brics summer program of fudan university as case studies, to compare and summarize the achievements and the existing problems of these three brics higher education projects. the paper discovers that the brics education cooperation has great significance to the development of the five countries, and also promotes education in global south. however, cooperation in higher education is still in its nascent stage and certain aspects need to be improved. at the end, the article gives several suggestions on how to promote and strengthen the cooperation in the future. keywords higher education, cooperation, development, brics, global south introduction the brics countries are the most dynamic emerging economies in the world, with a total population of more than 3 billion. nowadays, the influence of brics in the global political, economic, cultural and diplomatic fields is constantly increasing. as collaboration has continued to deepen among brics countries and the cooperation in economic and cultural exchanges have risen to a new historical height, this has brought about unprecedented opportunities for the further development of cooperation in higher education. https://changing-sp.com/ 394 yuyun li with the annual brics education ministers’ meeting, it can be seen that the brics countries attach great importance to collaboration in higher education. the cooperation within brics has attained certain achievements. two official cooperation mechanisms, the brics network university and brics universities league, have been established and there are also bilateral and multilateral education cooperation projects, such as the brics summer program in fudan university. these are remarkable results and these projects play a positive role in improving brics cooperation. in addition, with economic globalization, emerging economies have become more tightly connected than ever before. given that brics countries are influential developing countries, education cooperation within brics would play a significant role in promoting higher education development in the global south. the purpose of this article is to study the collaboration in higher education of brics countries, to find the existing difficulties and problems in current cooperation. thus, to give several suggestions in deepen brics’s cooperation in higher education field. in order to demonstrate this argument, this paper is divided into four sections. the first section presents the importance of the collaboration in brics. while benefitting higher education development and cultivation of talents in each country, such collaboration can also promote educational cooperation in global south. the second section demonstrates an overview of the present collaboration projects and has selected the brics network university, the brics universities league and the brics summer program as examples. the third section seeks to compare and analyze the achievements and the difficulties in the cooperation at present. lastly, several suggestions will be given on how to improve and promote collaboration in higher education in the future. the importance of the collaboration in higher education in brics in the context of globalization, cooperation in education plays a special function of promoting cultural exchange, economic development and information exchange. since 2009, when the first brics leaders’ summit put forward the aim “strengthen educational cooperation”, collaboration in the field of education has been one of the key priorities in brics cooperation. the educational collaboration between the five countries will not only provide high-quality talents for the development of countries, but also have a positive impact on the development in higher education in the global south. promote educational development in brics countries since the establishment of the brics cooperation mechanism, the five countries have always adhered to the spirit of “cooperation, development, and mutual benefit”. the collaboration in higher education in brics could promote positive educational development in these countries. at present, educational development in the brics countries can be characterized by its “large scale” and “fast development”. the brics countries have encountered common challenges in promoting educational equity, increasing changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 393–405 395 education opportunities and improving the quality of education. through the platform built by the brics education cooperation, the five countries can learn from each other and explore solutions in these areas. in addition, the brics countries have complementary aspects in the field of education, and the development of education in each country could be promoted through cooperation and exchange among the five countries. when higher education in one country accepts and adopts ideas, curriculum, languages, cultures, traditions and even talent training from other countries’ education systems, the collaboration between education systems leads to amplified results and guaranteed intelligence, and forms the basis for long-term and stable cooperation. through practical cooperation, the brics countries will strengthen the relations between the universities, share their experiences in development of firstclass disciplines and cooperation in scientific research, as well as jointly explore new ideas in university reforms, share new experiences, promote the development of education within the brics countries, and work together to promote world-class universities construction. cultivate talents for the cooperation between brics countries the brics education cooperation mechanism offers a communication platform to encourage more outstanding youths and scholars to pay more attention to and participate in the development of brics cooperation. cooperation in higher education has successfully cultivated many outstanding talents for the brics countries. regardless of whether it is in the field of cultural exchange and economic development, or in technological innovation and emerging technology, the future of brics cooperation will be conducted mainly by the younger generation, who should explore new ideas, new methods and new solutions for brics countries. under the impetus of the brics education ministers’ meeting, the five countries have continuously promoted joint research and training of talents, as well as increased the number of teachers and students involved in academic exchange programs. the international platform of brics cooperation has allowed students from the five countries to gain broadened perspectives, increased knowledge as well as enhanced competence in global communication. this has in turn produced high-quality compound talents for the economic development and technological innovation of the brics countries. in addition, the cooperation of brics in education produces impacts beyond just the field of education. the brics countries are geographically far apart, spanning asia, europe, africa, and latin america. the brics countries have also had very different historical development paths, as well as tremendous differences in languages and cultures. as the chinese saying goes, “the key to sound relations between states lies in the affinity between their people, which largely stems from mutual understanding”. through the exchanges and cooperation in higher education, youths in the five countries will gain greater understanding of the culture and context of each country’s development, and thus truly enhance the affinity between the people from different brics countries. it can be said that the brics higher education cooperation is not only an important part of the brics cooperation but also reflects the achievements of the https://changing-sp.com/ 396 yuyun li cooperation. therefore, enhancing cooperation in higher education is conducive to deepening the cooperation of brics in other fields. boost development of education in global south as the representatives of emerging economies and developing countries, the rise of brics has become a new development force in the world. among the brics members, china, south africa, india, and brazil are all major countries of the global south, and russia also promotes international cooperation in accordance to the principles of south-south cooperation. it can be said that cooperation between global south and brics countries are all based on the prospect of common development of developing countries, with the goal of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. brics higher education cooperation also opens up new paths and provides new ideas for education development in the global south. in the field of education, the global south countries and brics countries now face many common difficulties and problems such as ensuring equality in opportunities for higher education, eliminating gender inequality, caring for vulnerable groups and improving the quality of education. brics higher education cooperation is in line with the unesco education 2030 action framework. under this framework, efforts are made to promote the sustainable development of education, actively contribute the “brics solution” to the world, enhance the influence and increase the benefit of brics higher education cooperation, create an open and diverse partnership network in educational development, increase accessibility for more developing countries to take the “fast train” and “free ride” of brics education development, and lead and promote the development of quality fair education around the world. present international cooperation in higher education in brics with the positive response and support of the brics education ministers’ meeting, the five countries constantly work together to promote pragmatic cooperation and have already signed a series of declarations for bilateral and multilateral cooperation. this chapter provides a brief overview of the present cooperation projects in the five countries. among them, all five countries have jointly participated in the brics network university and brics universities league, and these two projects are recognized and supported by the ministers of education of each country. in addition, the brics summer program is an exchange program for college students from brics countries, funded by the shanghai municipal education commission and organized by fudan university. brics network university the brics network university is a major mechanism for multilateral cooperation in higher education in the brics countries. it is led by russia and the secretariat is located in ural federal university. the mechanism was established for joint research and training of highly qualified professionals in universities in the brics countries, thereby making higher education play its increasingly important role in national strategic decision-making and the development of emerging economies. the thematic changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 393–405 397 priorities of the brics network university include energy, computer science and information security, brics studies, ecology, climate change, water resources and pollution treatment, and economics. at present, there are 55 universities in the brics countries participating in the brics network university project, with 11 universities from each country. other than top universities from the five countries – for example, lomonosov moscow state university and st. petersburg state university in russia, fudan university and zhejiang university in china, university of the witwatersrand and university of cape town in south africa, the federal university of rio de janeiro in brazil, and the university of delhi in india – there are also specialized colleges with corresponding dominant disciplines accepted by the network, including indian institutes of technology, hohai university (for hydraulic engineering), durban university of technology, and itmo university, etc. brics universities league the brics university league was first proposed by the center of brics studies of fudan university when it was established in march 2012. the aim of the league is to become a platform for academic and expert cooperation, comparative research, and international educational projects, so as to provide intellectual support for brics cooperation and develop a new way of university internationalization. after the idea was put forward, it was immediately supported by the russian national research university higher school of economics, and the two sides set up a working group to promote its establishment. on october 18, 2015, the brics university league was established in beijing normal university, china, and the beijing consensus was declared. according to the beijing consensus, members of the brics university league will work together to build a platform for collaborative research and academic exchanges, strive to enhance global knowledge innovation, improve people’s living standards, and consolidate and enhance the influence of brics in global intellectual competition. the league will also pay attention to the all-rounded development of young students and cultivate innovative talents with an international vision. the league advocates a balanced and sustainable development model to achieve the harmony between economic development and environmental protection, and urges brics countries to choose a development strategy that suits their national circumstances. at the same time, under the cooperation mechanism of the brics university league, the five countries will strengthen the cooperation in personnel training, carry out inter-university teacher exchanges and student exchanges, mutual recognition of credits and mutual degree conferring among brics countries, and implement the training of talents for undergraduate, master, doctor and postdoctoral students. secondly, they will strengthen research cooperation, conduct bilateral or multilateral scientific research cooperation, set up joint laboratories and bases, jointly carry out scientific innovation research, establish bilateral or multilateral research think tanks, and jointly tackle major issues concerning brics cooperation, provide policy consultation for the economic and social development of all countries. thirdly, they will https://changing-sp.com/ 398 yuyun li also strengthen cooperation on quality assurance of higher education and explore the joint development of the high education quality assurance system in brics countries. these three aspects serve as the core aims and objectives for cooperation. brics summer program of fudan university the brics summer school program is the first program in brics education cooperation and has the largest substantial progress. the summer school focuses on communication and integration, aiming to create a platform for consensus and friendship among young students from the brics countries. the program aims to facilitate mutual exchanges and consolidate brics cooperation, promote the understanding and interest of the younger generation in china’s social culture, political and economic development, as well as in brics collaboration and the change in global governance. the summer school was first established in 2014 and has since been successfully held for five years. every year during july and august, the summer school gathers both undergraduate and graduate students from top universities of brics countries for a one-month study in fudan university, one of the most prestigious universities in china. the brics summer school enrolls 28 students every year from both partner and nonpartner schools of fudan university, amongst which 20 students are eligible for full scholarships. depending on the registration status, the number of scholarships are equally divided among the four countries. since its establishment in 2014, a total of 145 outstanding students have participated in the brics summer school program. figure 1 illustrates that among the 145 students, there have been 56 brazilian students, 34 russian students, 18 indian students, and 37 south african students. this year’s program was the first time that two additional chinese students were allowed to enroll in the program. most of the students were undergraduate and postgraduates students, with a small number of doctoral student and young researchers. the summer course consists of two modules: “global governance and cooperation among brics” and “china’s politics and diplomacy”. the summer school also organizes other brics-related activities and events, such as participation 11 13 8 10 14 11 8 4 6 4 3 6 6 3 3 13 11 10 0 0 0 0 2 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 china south africa india russia brazil figure 1. 2014–2018 the number of the student from each country source: center for brics studies of fudan university. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 393–405 399 in the brics annual meeting, visit to the new development bank and simulation of the brics summit. other than regular lectures, the program also includes several cultural excursions within and around shanghai, so as to let students get in touch with the chinese traditional culture. to guarantee the quality of teaching, all lectures are englishtaught and are delivered by prestigious scholars from china, the united states, brazil, south africa, and other countries and regions. many of the lecturers are senior researchers in brics studies, and the program has also invited famous diplomats and entrepreneurs to give the lecture for the students. the achievements and difficulties in the cooperation in higher education through an overview of the three case studies above, this section compares and analyzes the achievements of the current cooperation projects. this section will also summarize the difficulties and problems encountered in the concrete implementation of the cooperation projects. achievements in the brics education cooperation driven by the brics network university, the brics network university conference has been successfully held for three years. in 2016, at ural federal university, russia, representatives held their first plenary meeting. during the meeting, the official logo and slogan of the network university were adopted and the international governing board (igb) draft regulations and other regulations were discussed. in 2017 and 2018, the annual meeting of the brics network university was held in zhengzhou, henan, china and cape town, south africa. the two meetings focused on topics such as centered on “pragmatic cooperation and international education”, “sustainable development strategy of network university”, “formulate and consolidate brics education agenda”, etc. achievements have also been made in the implementation of cooperation projects. one of the key priority areas of the brics network university is international joint education, especially the promotion of student exchanges and joint training in the field of superior disciplines. in the context of the brics network university, ural federal university and the north china university of water resources and electric power (ncwu) have established a sino-russian cooperative school – ural institute of ncwu by, approved by the ministry of education of china. in line with the unique advantages and features of these two universities, four majors were set up: water supply and drainage science and engineering, energy and power engineering, geomatics engineering, and architecture. the two universities plan to recruit 60 new students in 2018. students who meet the graduation requirements of the two universities can obtain their bachelor’s degree from ncwu as well as the degree certificates in related majors of ural federal university. the brics summer program of fudan university, as a successful example of recent cooperation, has also successfully forged closer educational bonds among the young people of five countries. so far, the program had gained media attention and has earned praises from the officials of consulate-generals of brics countries. https://changing-sp.com/ 400 yuyun li the brics summer program has enhanced the interests and ignited enthusiasm of the young generation to find out more about china. many students reflected that the one-month program had broadened their horizons and that they had gained more insights and perspectives in brics studies. after participating in the summer program, some of the students have decided to further their studies in china and have gone on to apply for the master’s degree courses. furthermore, with the experience from the summer school, some students have contributed their own efforts to promote the cooperation of the brics countries. for example, three brazilian students from the 2016 brics summer program organized the “china and brazil: challenges in 2017 forum” at peking university in 2017, which helped to promote the communication between the chinese and brazilian organizations and enterprises. another student from south africa was selected as the youth representative to coordinate brics affairs between china and south africa. in contrast, although the brics university league has been mentioned many times in the meeting of brics education ministers and has gathered 55 top universities from five countries, there has been a lack of substantive progress and concrete cooperation projects. there is a lack of interaction and communication between member universities and the league. for now, the league has not played a significant role in promoting higher education in the brics countries. difficulties in the current educational cooperation through the above review, it can be seen that the cooperation between the brics countries in the field of higher education area has attained certain achievements. however, at the same time, it has also showed that there are several aspects that need to be improved in the present cooperation. lack of multilateral cooperation at present, the brics network university focuses on cooperation in energy, computer science and information security, brics studies, ecology, climate change, water resources and pollution treatment, and economics. most of the member universities within the network are known for science and engineering disciplines. with regards to the brics summer program of fudan university, according to the curriculum, the courses are mainly about “global governance and brics cooperation” and “china’s politics and diplomacy”, showing an emphasis on international relations. according to the center for brics studies of fudan university, on the basis of the data statistics of the professional background of the 145 students participated in former years, from 2014 to 2018, more than 50% of the students were international relations majors. this was followed by law (18%) and economics (14%) respectively. there were very few students studying history, management, and asian studies. from the above data, the current cooperation in higher education of brics is principally in international relations, economics management, and science and technology. however, there are few exchange and cooperation programs in agriculture, technical skills and humanities. changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 393–405 401 international relations and political science 51% economics 14% law 18% management 8% history 1% computer engineering 1% other 7% figure 2. 2017–2018 students’ professional background source: center for brics studies of fudan university. shortage of cooperation funds compared with the students from developed countries, the economic conditions of students in brics countries are generally worse. when youths are participating in the exchange programs or activities between brics countries, a large cost may be incurred due to high cost of tuition, airfare, accommodation, and other fees. take the brics summer program of fudan university as an example. at present, this project is mainly supported by the shanghai municipal education commission. however, the program funding is only sufficient to support the expenses for the onemonth operation of the summer school, and the scholarships for some, but not all, of the students. there were some cases where the student gave up on participating in the summer school because they did not manage to get the scholarship. thus, it can be seen that in the absence of subsidies or scholarships, the high economic cost of these educational programs may reduce the enthusiasm of interested students, hence depriving those interested in brics development of such education opportunities. lack of publicity the brics network university established its official website (https://nu-brics.ru) in 2016. relevant information and documents, such as on the brics network university, such as the university charter, organizational structure, list of member universities, as well as brics news and brics announcements, which focus on brics education development, the annual conference of the network university and the priority areas of the network university’s cooperation is available on this website. the brics summer program of fudan university is mainly promoted through the internet and the recommendations of former program students and professors from partner schools. every year during the application period, details on admissions are publicized on the brics information sharing & exchanging platform and facebook1 page of the fudan brics program. however, despite facebook being one of the most popular social networking sites among youths, the fudan brics facebook page only 1 facebook® and its logo are trademarks of facebook, inc., registered in the united states and other countries https://changing-sp.com/ https://nu-brics.ru 402 yuyun li has about 60 followers (https://www.facebook.com/fudanbricsprogram/). in addition, most of the reports of the brics summer school are from chinese media. news coverage of this program in other brics media is relatively low. until now, the brics universities league has yet to establish an official website. it is extremely urgent and necessary to create a platform for promoting and sharing useful information. to sum up, it can be seen that the above three brics cooperation programs have different levels of publicity. in general, the publicity of brics education cooperation is insufficient and must be further strengthened in the future. in addition to the construction and improvement of the official homepage, traditional media and social networks are also important ways to expand publicity. suggestions on strengthening collaborations in higher education in brics and global south at present, the brics countries have attained a series of remarkable achievements in higher education cooperation. in order to improve the diversified educational cooperation mechanism, this paper gives the following suggestions for the future development of brics higher education cooperation. enhance multilateral, multi-disciplinary and multi-format cooperation under the brics cooperation mechanism, the five countries actively carry out multi-disciplinary and multi-form educational exchanges and cooperation projects with mutual participation and jointly promoted the development of education. the cooperation between the brics countries has deepened into the development of all fields of the five countries, and higher education provides the intellectual guarantee for the cooperation. in addition to focusing on educational cooperation at the annual meeting of brics education ministers, other ministerial conferences such as the meeting of brics ministers of agriculture, the brics science, technology & innovation ministerial meeting and the meeting of brics trade ministers have also mentioned talent-training issue in relevant areas. therefore, the brics countries can broaden the scope of cooperation in education, not only in the fields of international relations, economic management, scientific and technological innovation, but also promote the cultivation and exchange of talents in agriculture, technical skills and industry. in terms of the format of cooperation, other than the original exchange programs, summer school and short-term exchange programs, brics countries can also promote sister relations in universities with specific professional fields and similar talent training goals, carry out joint education, co-build international laboratories and cooperation centers, and promote distance education. strengthen government support for higher education cooperation first, increase scholarships for brics students and funding support for brics education cooperation projects. as mentioned before, the economic conditions of students from the brics countries are generally poorer, and many students are https://www.facebook.com/fudanbricsprogram/ changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 393–405 403 unable to participate in exchange programs because of the expensive fees. in this regard, the five countries can increase the number of scholarships types for students from the brics countries and increase the number of beneficiaries for each of these scholarships to allow more outstanding young people who are interested in the development of the brics to participate in the exchange projects. in addition, for other educational cooperation projects that are in progress, financial support can be enhanced to expand the influence of cooperation. second, in terms of policies, cooperation in the field of education quality certification and evaluation and academic credit certification standards can be promoted. at present, the brics countries have carried out many multilateral and bilateral educational exchange programs. however, the five countries have different education systems, and there are certain gaps in the regulations of education quality. therefore, the development of education cooperation in brics countries should focus on improving the education policies of the five countries, strengthening and expanding cooperation in the field of education quality and certification, and accomplishing the system of mutual recognition of academic degrees and exchange of credits. deepen cooperation in higher education with global south in the field of education, the global south countries and brics countries now face many common difficulties and problems such as ensuring equality in higher education opportunities, eliminating gender inequality, caring for vulnerable groups and improving the quality of education. brics higher education cooperation is in line with the unesco education 2030 action framework. under this framework, efforts are made to promote the sustainable development of education, actively contribute the “brics solution” to the world, enhance the influence and increase the benefit of brics higher education cooperation, create an open and diverse partnership network in educational development, increase accessibility for more developing countries to take the “fast train” and “free ride” of brics education development, and lead and promote the development of quality fair education around the world. by analyzing the current cooperation situation of brics education and summarizing the solutions and cooperation proposals on the same challenges, the valuable practical experience from brics cooperation could then be applied to the development of higher education in the global south. as influential developing countries in each of their respective continents, the brics countries have similarities in global and regional competition. therefore, the higher educational cooperation of brics plays a leading role in the education development of emerging countries. it is suggested that in the future, the development of higher education in the global south can be promoted by the brics’ educational cooperation. in the first place, the countries of brics and global south should establish an international synergetic mechanism, and maintain close contact with international organizations, such as unesco, to support the development of educational cooperation among these counties. this would utilize international forces to promote and deepen exchanges of higher education between the countries and to form a collaborative mechanism. secondly, brics countries should expand the scope https://changing-sp.com/ 404 yuyun li of the brics higher education cooperation to promote the development of education in the global south. under the “bric+” initiative, educational cooperation projects could also involve universities from the global south, while concurrently intensifying contact with top universities to improve the quality of the projects. by analyzing the current cooperation situation of brics education and summarizing the solutions and cooperation proposals on the same challenges, the valuable practical experiences could be applied to the development of higher education in the global south. conclusions based on the summary of the above report and the 3 case studies on existing brics education cooperation, we can arrive at the following conclusions: it is clear that there are long-term benefits for strengthening brics cooperation in education. not only is education cooperation an important sector for brics cooperation, it also reflects the results that brics countries have achieved in cooperation. under the concept of win-win cooperation, strengthening education cooperation will promote both interactions between teachers and students of brics countries, as well as the exchange of education ideology. this will promote development of education in each of the five brics countries and also aid in the cultivation of talents who are well versed in brics issues. furthermore, as compared to developed countries, brics countries and countries in the global south share many common challenges in education development. as the representative of emerging countries, education cooperation among brics countries will also promote educational development in the global south and provide valuable experiences for other developing countries. significant education cooperation between brics countries has already been achieved currently due to the support from the brics education ministers’ meeting. however, there are still many challenges faced in cooperation. in the case of the brics network university, brics universities league and brics summer school, which were mentioned in the report, while these 3 modes of cooperation each have achieved varying results in brics cooperation, they are still plagued by the problems of lack of multidisciplinary and multilateral exchanges, lack of sufficient financial support and weak publicity. these are thus areas that ought to be addressed and improve in future brics cooperation. therefore, the brics counties should deepen cooperation in higher education from various aspects and at the same time, it is also important to increase the collaboration with countries of global south. references vii brics summit. 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(2018). 金砖教育开启第二个金色十年 [brics countries open up a second golden decade of education cooperation]. retrieved from http://ex.cssn.cn/ jyx/jyx_jyqy/201807/t20180723_4507885.shtml acknowledgements first and foremost, i am most grateful to the fudan development institute and center for brics studies of fudan university. these are excellent think-tanks and research centres that have provided me with innumerable research resources. i am especially indebted to our director of center for brics studies, prof. shen yi, for his instructive advice and useful suggestions on this research work. i am deeply grateful for all of my dear colleagues, ms. hou xiaochen, ms. wang lei and ms. zhao jingyi, who i have worked closely with to organize the brics summer school and also to overcome challenges in our daily work together. i would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to prof. maxim khomyakov for offering us an excellent opportunity to think deeply about the future and the development of higher education in brics countries and the global south. last, my gratitude also extends to my family for their continuous support and encouragement. https://changing-sp.com/ http://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9570-8 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=229054&gp=1&mode=e&lin=1 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=229054&gp=1&mode=e&lin=1 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000229692 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000229692 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002456/245656e.pdf http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002456/245656e.pdf http://doi.org/10.1007/bf03397052 http://doi.org/10.1007/bf03397052 http://ex.cssn.cn/jyx/jyx_jyqy/201807/t20180723_4507885.shtml http://ex.cssn.cn/jyx/jyx_jyqy/201807/t20180723_4507885.shtml changing societies & personalities, 2018 vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 351–365 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2018.2.4.051 received 12 september 2018 © 2018 david monyae accepted 3 december 2018 dmonyae@uj.ac.za published online 15 december 2018 article us, russia, china and africa in the evolving global order 1 david monyae university of johannesburg, south africa abstract the relations of us, russia, china and the african continent have evolved since the end of the second world war (wwii). while the us, russia and china were not colonial powers in africa, their interactions between and among themselves had little to do with africa emerging from the bondage of colonialism. with the rise of the cold war, africa became a space of great interest to these countries as they compete for influence in different spheres big power politics. throughout the cold war, africa’s importance become significant as a source of vital resources and player within the institutions of global political and economic governance such as the united nations. at the end of the cold war in 1990s, the big took a different phase. the interactions of these countries with africa declined drastically with expectation the us’s humanitarian engagement. russia and china withdrew support to africa as they both abandoned an ideological driven and hegemonic foreign policy in africa in the post-cold war era. however, the rise of china and the resurgence of russia is gradually bringing back rivalries between and among the big, three powers in africa. previously viewed as an insignificant continent, africa is increasingly occupying an important role as a critical partner in development, conflict resolution, peace and security. keywords cold war, peace, security, humanitarian, hegemonic, development, conflict resolution, multilateral and governance 1 this is the revised version of the paper appeared in ujci africa-china policy brief no. 3, 2017. published with the permission of the university of johannesburg confucius institute. https://changing-sp.com/ 352 david monyae introduction this paper examines the current global order in which africa is widely seen to have been given a peripheral role, but which is also in a state of change, due to the resurgence of china and russia and the intentional decline of the united states and the west at large. it is divided into five sections. the first assesses the rise and decline of the us-dominated post-1945 world order. the second analyses russia’s post-1989 orientation, and its dealings with the west. the third examines china’s opening up while retaining a chinese self-understanding and its subsequent promulgation of a globalisation with chinese characteristics. the fourth assesses africa’s position in the crumbling post-1989 world order through three lenses: (1) its peripheral stature in the international financial architecture, (2) its international political positioning after the 2008 global financial crisis which, ironically but typically, it did not help to create, but suffered the most from; and (3) its asymmetrical standing in the international legal and economic framework. the final section outlines the implications of the changing global order and offers policy prescriptions for africa. the rise and fall of the post-war world order the post-world war ii global order is in crisis, more deeply so than we are led to believe. this crisis has numerous causes, both political and economic. currently under the captaincy of a us presidency, which seemingly has no singular policy direction, or any desire to continue leading the international community, this order appears to have reached the end of the road. after world war ii, the us held the moral high ground. it had acted decisively in defeating fascism, it could credibly characterise itself as a beacon of democracy; and as the country which, almost singlehandedly, had helped to reconstruct warravaged europe (if only to isolate and contain the soviet union in the process) through the marshall plan, and the international trade framework under the auspices of the bretton woods institutions. it also played a leading role in fresh attempts to establish global peace and security, notably by financing and promoting the united nations. it rallied around the un agenda and, despite protestations by fringe budget wonks and anti-soviet sections of us society, remained the organisation’s biggest funder (bennett, 1983, p. 45). the us also sought to codify international free trade, notably in the form of the general agreement on tariffs and trade (gatt). this was based on the notion of “democratic peace”, incorporating the idea that the market was a stabilising force. in this view, interlocking states into a cobweb of trade and investment could act as a deterrent against war, as it encourages them to discuss and resolve matters around the table rather than by means of conflict. but this thesis has arguably been unravelling in the face of globalisation. the decisive decade in this process was perhaps the 1970s; the decade of richard nixon and later of margaret thatcher who was elected as british prime minister after the fall of a troubled labour government changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 351–365 353 (which had failed to quell worker unrest and had even resorted to imf financing in an attempt to end the “winter of discontent”). this decade also saw the return of market fundamentalism and neoliberal conservatism that was wholly embraced by the reagan administration in the 1980s, which deregulated the us economy, and rolled back the state. the world bank issued the berg report, which argued that african countries should spend less on social goods and services, and should privatise their health institutions. (according to some analysts, this is why the ebola virus, which could otherwise have been contained by effective public health institutions has become a regional epidemic.) ronald reagan’s successor, george h. w. bush, pushed for war with saddam hussein in a pretended coalition with smaller partners, some of which were cajoled into cooperating when the “yemen precedent” (the threatening of removal of financial aid to small nations to ensure that they vote in favour of the us-favoured resolutions in the unsc after the end of the cold war) was allegedly set. when in the 1990s, centre-left governments came to power under tony blair in britain and bill clinton in the us, they fell into “third way” politics – the notion that conservatism could be swallowed up by the left, and extremism diluted by pragmatic strategies. but even this centrist agenda is crumbling. the greatest signifiers of its collapse are the outcome of the brexit referendum, hilary clinton’s loss to donald trump in the 2016 presidential race, and the rise of nationalist sentiment in france, germany and spain. these are signposts of the western world overturning the world order it had established after world war ii. the donald trump administration’s “america first” policy is aiding in debilitating america’s influence in the current global order. upon assuming office as the us president, donald trump withdrew the washington from the trans-pacific partnership, trade deal, which made up 40% of the global economy. one would argue that this move could give china (which is not part of the agreement) leverage in advancing its hegemonic ambitions in the global economy. the 2018 us withdrawal from the united nation human rights council is an indication of waning america’s influence and the coming in of a multipolar world order. washington argues that its decision to withdraw from the council was due to the failure by the council to implement changes it demanded as well as what america calls the “anti-israel” bias. the other reason for washington withdrawal being that the council consists of member states known for bad human rights records among which are china and the democratic republic of congo. this move decentralizes the power in the organization given that america as the founding member had used the organization to insulate its leaders from indictment for war crimes in foreign countries under the guise of protection of human rights. this world order was marked by a total disregard for africa and africans; they were no longer seen to be of any importance, as they had been during the cold war. this cynical shift was perhaps demonstrated most clearly when the us and the rest of the western community failed to intervene in the rwandan genocide of 1994. in the mineral-focused pragmatism of the third way, the rwandan crisis did not require the same response as oil-rich libya in 2011. following the cold war, https://changing-sp.com/ 354 david monyae african countries were only important if they had strategic minerals to offer, and not for much else. in the meantime, in 1989, francis fukuyama had published his celebrated conception that, following the end of the cold war and the dissolution of the soviet union, together with its alternative world order, history had come to an end, bolstering the belief that western liberal democracy had proven itself to be the highest – in fact the only successful – form of social organisation, and should therefore be exported to the rest of the world. there was a sense of the west having conquered the rest of the world, and neoliberalism – now known as the washington consensus – was surrounded by triumphalism. but this celebration proved to be premature, for it ignored various factors, notably growing resentment in the former soviet union. in the prophetic words of david lloyd george after the treaty of versailles: you may strip germany of her colonies, reduce her armaments to a mere police force and her navy to that of a fifth-rate power; all the same in the end if she feels that she has been unjustly treated in the peace of 1919 she will find means of exacting retributions on her conquerors (mayer, 1971, p. 3367). on russia russia was essentially told not to worry about its defeat, and that what ought to have been a russian question – i.e., how best to create an environment in which eastern european countries could be integrated into the broader global order while ensuring that russia would become a fully-fledged member of key international organisations without fear of encroachment) was not deemed fit for discussion. it was obvious that, after a transitional period, russia would become westernised (the folly of this notion ought to have been obvious, as various previous attempts to westernise russia going as far back as the monarchical period, primarily under peter the great, ended in failure). foreign policy analyses on both sides of the iron curtain assumed that after the end of the cold war, both the north american treaty organization (nato) and the warsaw pact would lose their foundational mandates, and would be dissolved. while the warsaw pact died quietly, nato lives on, with no dissolution in sight. on the contrary, after 1999 the organisation saw an expansion seemingly directed towards russia; in that year alone, three countries – poland, hungary and the czech republic – were incorporated, with the seeming goal of strengthening the buffer between western european and russia. russian protestations went unheard in the west. in 2004, bulgaria, romania, slovenia, slovakia, and, crucially, the baltic states of estonia and latvia with which russia shares its north eastern borders followed suit. in 2009, albania and croatia joined, and the circle was nearly completed with the inclusion of montenegro in june 2017. in 2018, colombia was incorporated into nato, making it the first latin american country to join the organization. this move comes with its own share of controversy given that there already had been a heavy us military presence changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 351–365 355 in colombia with the alleged mandate of curbing drug trafficking (gomez, 2018). to some it may be interpreted as the us feeling threatened by russia in the light of moscow’s growing influence and establishing multilateral organizations particularly with the developing countries in the form of brics and the shanghai cooperation organization (sco). before the expansion of nato, the us president trump had misgivings about the organization, calling it obsolete and expensive and contemplated withdrawing washington from the alliance. the thoughts of the us criticism of nato and threats of withdrawing from the organization would have been inconceivable in the past. the creation of the eurasian economic union represents another facet of the burgeoning multipolar world order. this grouping was envisaged by russia as an alternative to the european union and would be similar to the commonwealth of independent states (shtraks, 2018). the headquarters of the union would be in moscow and its court in would be located in minsk, belarus. these moves by nato, which bring home russia’s fall from power and prowess, have in part facilitated the emergence of a strong man in the form of vladimir putin, under whose leadership russia has been more assertive, projecting the image of a russia that is economically strained but is still a formidable military power. it still has the largest nuclear stockpile in the world (7,000 warheads), and the fourth highest military budget in the world. the american agenda of running russia down has therefore not been successful, and has in fact led to a great deal of russian pushback, as seen in the crimea in 2014, when the west could do nothing to putin beyond sanctions and a suspension from the g8 – a testament to russia’s power even beyond the fall of the ussr. alleged american attempts to undermine electoral support for putin within russia (with the decision in march 2012 by the former us ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul, to directly provide $50 million worth of assistance to russian civil society cited as evidence of pernicious us interference in russian elections), and mass protests have also been unsuccessful – liberal nationalists such as alexey navalny have been publicly disgraced as recipients of funds from foreign sponsors, and following the 2011–2012 mass protests in moscow (ramani, 2016), putin’s supporters launched their own counter-protests in moscow to protest against what they perceived to be us meddling in russian elections. ironically therefore, perceived foreign meddling has helped putin to consolidate his power to the point where his latest approval ratings have reached some 90%. on china the simultaneous regional military containment and conversion-from-within thinking in the western world is not limited to russia. indeed, its most ambitious incarnation is in relation to china. a far back as the 1970s, richard nixon had tried to exploit and harness the sino-soviet split by recruiting china as an ally against the soviet union, drawing it into the western-oriented international community, and socialising it in that context. therefore, china was let into the united nations https://changing-sp.com/ 356 david monyae security council in 1971 and the us was even willing to cease its recognition of taiwan as the one china. in 2001, harkening to the interdependency-peace thesis, china was let into the wto on the assumption that opening up china economically would eventually it up politically – thus, through commerce, china would be roped in and turned into a western-style democracy instead of a threat. but this has not happened. as china has developed industrially and commercially to become the second-largest economy in the world, lifting about 700 million people out of poverty in the process, the chinese communist party (ccp) has gained “performance legitimacy” to the extent that about 90% of chinese society approves of the ccp. further complicating issues is the fact that some 60% of chinese society believe that china is already a democracy, and therefore see no need to change the one-party system; therefore, there is very little organic impetus for regime change. for its part, china has neither been overrun by nor opposed to western-style globalisation. in other words, china has embraced globalisation but not necessarily of the western kind – instead, it has sought a globalisation with chinese characteristics, predicated on non-interference. the one belt, one road (obor) initiative is an infrastructure project of gigantic proportions, which attempts to bring under its sway more than 70 countries, from scandinavia to the south pacific islands to the ports of east africa, in its land and maritime versions (madhav, 2017). in a world of competing economic and trade alliances, obor has overtaken many others active in the world at large. by any measure, this is the biggest constellation of nations in the 21st century. quite clearly, the us has failed to remodel china in its own image; instead, china has come out of its engagements with the west with a grand plan of its own and is renegotiating the post-1945 world order, something that has not been well-received in the west, with many touting and espousing what has essentially come to be known as the china threat theory. following china’s economic footprint in africa is its nascent military profile in africa. this could be the reason why some espouse it as the china threat. this follows china’s establishment of its military base in djibouti, a few miles away from the american military base. this move has been defended by the chinese foreign ministry as a move towards creating a peaceful environment for china’s overseas investments (pant & haidar, 2017). the establishment of the military base in djibouti denotes china’s growing economic interests and prefaces sino-africa trade through the indian ocean which constitutes the belt and road initiative (fei, 2017). beijing is fast growing as the leader of multilateral institutions. it is a founding member of the shanghai cooperation organisation (sco). regardless of the pre-existing international organizations, the sco at its inception was focused on combating transnational issues such as terrorism. in 2004, the organization widened its scope to incorporate increases in trade and investment in its activities and this idea served to be the harbinger of the belt and road initiative, with some commentators likening latter to the marshall plan despite the bri’s larger financial clout (grace, 2018; shtraks, 2018). changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 351–365 357 on africa and the global order the “new world order” and its discontents the end of the cold war ushered in what us president george h. w. bush called a “new world order” (gaibulloev & sandler, 2011). marked by american primacy in the international political economy for the past 25 years, it has seen the emergence of challenges (and opportunities) that are unique in character and have far-reaching implications for african development. the increasing self-preservation by western countries ended any prospect that the doha round of the wto would be beneficial to africa and the developing world (represented in the negotiations by brazil, china, india and south africa) – and it was not, as agricultural tariffs were only removed for one product, bananas, imported to eu countries and the us from africa, asia and the caribbean (shah, 2013). moreover, many western countries subsidise their agricultural sectors, in which africa is meant to have a comparative advantage (shah, 2013). this has inhibited the expansion of markets for african agricultural products; indeed, african producers find that they cannot compete against subsidised local producers in western markets (gordon, 2009). furthermore, european and american multinational corporations have also crowded out local producers in domestic african markets. through partnership agreements such the cotonou partnership agreement, which was signed in 2000, the european union provides african countries with access to some of its markets while “asks for compliance with a given set of good governance norms and procedures” (gokcekus & suzuki, 2013). this has led to asymmetrical relations, as african countries clearly need these partnerships more than europe needs concessions from african countries. this has given the eu the power to impose what it regards as better governance practices on african countries (gokcekus & suzuki, 2013). this asymmetry is also seen, and used, in the international legal framework, notably the international criminal court (icc). south africa’s apparent hesitation in june 2015 to arrest the sudanese president omar al-bashir, despite the existence of an icc warrant which it was obliged to observe, attests to the “high level of scepticism and outright lack of trust the court now has among african leaders and, to an extent, the general public” (weller, 2015, p. 1). bashir, who has refused several requests to visit the court to face the charges against him, has described the icc as “a tool to terrorize countries that the west thinks are disobedient”, and other african leaders have expressed similar sentiments. as the ethiopian foreign minister, tedros adhanom ghebreyesus, put it in at the 2013 african union summit, “the court has transformed itself into a political instrument targeting africa and africans” (weller, 2015, p. 1). it is true that the icc has so far prosecuted african individuals. of the nine situations the court is officially investigating, all are in africa. furthermore, each of the 32 individuals indicted by the court are african. this indicates a level of geopolitical bias, which even the court’s most ardent defenders must take into consideration. as one scholar puts it: https://changing-sp.com/ 358 david monyae the icc operates in the context of a global governance structure characterised by a problematic multilateralism, the prevalence of northern hegemony, and an implicit hierarchical moral and racial order that makes it acceptable for african leaders to be prosecuted but makes the indictment of american or british leaders inconceivable. in 2011, amnesty international called for tony blair and george w. bush to be tried by the icc as war criminals for atrocities committed in iraq and afghanistan. nobody believed for a second that these leaders would ever be brought to book (niang, 2016). the spectacle of crisis despite its relative lack of integration into the world’s financial machinery, africa was still unable to escape the effects of the 2008 financial crisis. this not only highlighted africa’s marginalisation, which then only accounted for less than 2% of global trade (roux, 2014, p. 120), but also the dependency pathways of africa’s relations with the west. peering into the trajectory of the great recession, as it has come to be called, with particular regards to africa, especially sub-saharan africa, it becomes clear just how disastrous the aftershocks were and to what extent africa’s marginalisation was deepened because of them. the crisis, having ushered in a financial recession in the west, clamped down on the continent’s already meagre incomes. tourism receipts and remittances all declined, in parallel with trade financing. due to the rise in unemployment in core african states, remittances dropped by 5–8% in 2009 alone (african development bank, 2009), translating into a us$1 billion shortfall for africa. some african countries, notably kenya, were disproportionally affected due to a differential number of family members in the west. in line with the bretton woods-imposed currency devaluations in states such as malawi, liberia, uganda and kenya, this contributed further to the foreign currency exchange shortages and further deteriorated already limited buying power of african countries. poverty and marginalisation were further entrenched (african development bank, 2009). attempts to remedy the effects of the crisis were also telling, and characteristic of the state of africa’s dependency. although some leaders, such as malawi’s then president bingu wa mutharika who declared bretton woods institutions to be “neocolonial” yokes which had to be thrown off in favour of “home-grown policies”, many countries (including malawi itself) had no choice but to pander to the west in trying to dig themselves out of the crisis (african leaders, 2011, p. 55; ali, 2016). each in their own way, african states made overtures to western countries and business communities, trying to market themselves as investor-friendly for western capital. south africa looked to use the 2010 fifa world cup to expose itself to the world as a viable investment destination. concurrently, the president of tanzania, jakaya mrisho kikwete, took to perth to address the commonwealth business forum of australia to make the case for his continent, stating that “what is required of us is to transform africa’s agriculture from its current state of being predominantly peasant, traditional, backward, less productive changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 351–365 359 and subsistent to being modern, highly productive, and commercial” (african leaders, 2011, p. 225). africa, he declared, was responsible for its own plight because it had hitherto “pursued economic policies that lead to stagnation or even retardation of growth and development” (african leaders, 2011, p. 226). in closing, he reassured the dignitaries that “our [african] governments and people are ready to play their part to play their part and work in partnership with friendly governments and representatives of the international private sector, such as the captains of industry and business gathered here this morning” (african leaders, 2011, p. 227). it is ironic that africa was disproportionately affected by the great recession, considering that it had “never touched the complex financial derivatives that sparked the financial crisis” but not at all surprising. in fact, it is symptomatic of global capitalism, or put differently, how global capitalism was supposed to work. as the us secretary of the treasury under nixon, john connally, said to a gathering of foreign finance ministers, “it’s our dollar, but your problem” (panitch and gindin, 2013, p. 144). harnessing competing global orders axiomatically, and history’s verdict on this is clear, the world order and its structures are not given and static; stability is merely a chimera. the world order is continually made and remade by problem-solving measures within the existing structural framework that are required to deal with emerging contradictions, and visualised through interactions and a lack of consensus between different actors. in our times, perhaps the greatest source of contradiction is the schism between us military dominance and chinese economic pre-eminence. but the changing nature of the world order does not explain away the fact that shifts in global economic and financial power create unfamiliar circumstances, and unfamiliar shifts create risks. in the 1960s and 1970s the rising powers, europe and japan, complained of destabilising economic impulses emanating from the us. this source of economic risks has been around for a long time, in other words, although it continues to mutate. but now, in addition, the us and other advanced economies must worry about the risk of adverse shocks arising out of events in china and other emerging markets. it is because of this that africa finds itself in a multipolar world; a world characterised by competing and layered global interests. the emerging global order, we should bear in mind, is unevenly hegemonic. indeed, hegemonic power does not operate in a uniform manner across the globe. there is no denying, firstly, the often acrimonious differences among core power governments, and, in turn, the growing challenge from china and russia. intra-west competition (borne of the rise in populism in some western states and continuity in others) over gaining favour with african countries is beginning to emerge. recently, the eu has negotiated economic partnership agreements (epas) with several african countries that provide some reciprocal tariff benefits, leading the us congressional research service to plead with the us congress to make agoa even more favourable, as not doing so would “potentially place us firms at a competitive disadvantage relative to european firms in some markets” (williams, 2015, https://changing-sp.com/ 360 david monyae p. 2). furthermore, the british, in exiting the eu, are in pursuit of trade deals and are eager to outdo their european counterparts. especially in terms of agriculture, african countries can harness this to their advantage. indeed, funders competing for business with africa, while reminiscent of the tugof-war politics of the cold war, can mean that african states are able to negotiate with greater ease. in the wake of trump’s victory and his “america first” stance, both the west and east are now more eager than ever to forge deals that outdo the other. developing nations can take advantage of this, what li xing and oscar garcia agustin (2014, p. 53) have called “interdependent hegemony”. incumbent upon africa is the crafting of a policy framework that will not tie it to washington, beijing or moscow. despite the history of cooperation with and assistance to many african countries by both china and the former soviet union in shaking off the yoke of colonialism, and the people-to-people sympathies of beijing and moscow alike, africa has to play a game in which it avoids its territory being a battleground for these giants. it falls within the ambit of the african union to understand the long-range game of all three powers and devise corresponding policy measures that are africa-centred and advance africa’s position. knowing these states’ histories, self-perceptions and touchpoints will enhance africa’s ability to serve its own interests in interacting with them. therefore, african scholars should study, with explicit foreign policy intentions, the contemporary foreign policy aims of a state which once viewed (and perhaps still views) itself as the “middle kingdom” (china) or the “third rome” (russia), while generating an african position on china’s five-year plans and russia’s foreign policy concept as well as more nuanced but less pronounced/official foreign policy and world visions, while closely monitoring these countries’ interactions with states in their vicinity (for example, those in the shanghai cooperation organization of which china and russia are members, along with a number of other central asian states and the nine-member commonwealth of independent states composed of former soviet republics). this will help africa to avoid one fait accompli after another. at the same time, armed with its own self-generated understanding of china and russia, africa should engage with them on the basis of its own view of these states as opposed to western-generated information; a process laden with conflict of interest which has produced such narratives as “china props up authoritarian regimes” and “china is neo-colonial” by an america and europe, which itself deals with those authoritarian regimes, and has sometimes placed them in power in the first place as puppet regimes – the epitome of neo-colonialism. as it stands, the world finds itself with a weakened america, a huge portion of whose elite population is bent on blaming russia for adverse domestic electoral outcomes, and bent on reversing the greatest economic outcome of the post-war order: a powerful china with which the us has a trade deficit. the fundamentals that brought this situation about are crumbling politically in the sense that there is a dissolution of the moral high ground held and maintained by the us after world war ii. africa needs to observe these arguments closely; allegations of russian espionage and outside influence have a direct impact for africa. firstly, issues such as diplomatic freezes, us-russia sanctions and espionage are reminiscent of the changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 351–365 361 cold war in which african states might find themselves caught in the middle. indeed, leading up to the 2018 fifa world cup, with vladimir putin claiming that joseph “sepp” blatter was removed as fifa president as punishment for his selection of russia to host the 2018 tournament, we are reminded once more of the reciprocal 1980 and 1984 olympic games boycotts by the us and the soviet union. recently, these accusations of cyber influence have inspired the zimbabwean government to prop up a department of cyber security. furthermore, russia is an important ally from whose isolation it cannot benefit. secondly, russophobia merits some scepticism and weariness. if the us election was indeed influenced by a foreign entity, western democracy, is not as durable or impregnable as the us, among others, has claimed it to be. this is a further blow to america’s international standing, further hastened by its own determination to shrink from global leadership. the us is no longer in the business of nation-building. proposed cuts to the un budget which are bound to affect africa directly, withdrawal from the paris climate agreement, as well a rise of explicit militarism under the banner of “america first” are symptoms of an america that has forfeited its role of global leadership. american militarism is particularly worrying from an african standpoint, since it points to a lack of long-term orientation in resolving the issue of terrorism in africa and leaving a stronger continent with strong nations, not through the barrel of a gun but through social development and creating opportunities for youths who would otherwise be lured into joining terrorist groups. a more comprehensive approach needs to be adopted; terrorism is a security issue, but it is also an economic and a social issue, and cracking down on it is the stuff of nation-building, failing which a vicious terrorpoverty-terror-poverty cycle is bolstered. american militarism towards north korea is another matter that merits close and concerted african observation. to begin with, north korea is a chinese ally, while america’s foothold in the asia-pacific implicates south korea, japan and taiwan and to some extent india – any potential conflict in this part of the world would have a direct impact on africa as these are crucial trade partners, and the asia-pacific is a crucial trade route whose disruption, owing once more to the weak position africa finds itself in, would serve only to choke africa. for its part, russia needs to devise an african strategy of its own. despite the advantage of history and established networks with african states which it assisted in the fight against colonialism (and an impressive total of 50,000 african students educated at soviet universities and institutes by 1991). after the cold war, the russian presence on the continent abated. under the leadership of president boris yeltsin, the former russian federation looked towards the west, and retreated more rapidly from africa; indeed after the fall of the soviet union, even cuba seemed to play a bigger role in africa. faced with economic and political problems at home and its “near abroad”, as detailed above, this was perhaps inevitable – indeed the ultranationalist liberal democratic party leader and former vice-chair of the state duma, vladimir v. zhirinovsky, blamed the economic turmoil in russia in the 1990s on aid to africa. indeed, africa seems virtually absent from russian foreign policy documents, notably its 2008 foreigh policy concept (http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/4116) https://changing-sp.com/ http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/4116 362 david monyae and its strategy of national security of the russian federation to 2020 (https:// rg.ru/2015/12/31/nac-bezopasnost-site-dok.html). more recently, russia has drawn on new expertise in oil and gas exploration to forge ties with algeria, and the two states alone control about 40% of the eu’s natural gas supply. other signs of a russian resurgence in africa include its participation in un security council peacekeeping efforts (in the drc, the ivory coast, ethiopia, eritrea, liberia, sudan and south sudan); its respect for international governance institutions in which africa is invested, including the un itself, from which the us is now divesting; state visits by putin; the growing presence of russian corporations in africa; and russia’s involvement in brics. between 2000 and 2012, africa-russia trade increased tenfold, and according to the african development bank, russian companies invested some $20 billion in africa in 2013 in such far-flung sectors as energy production, mining and fisheries. russia’s investment in africa is coordinated in large part by the increasingly active coordination committee on economic cooperation with african countries (afrocom), which brings together ministries and other government agencies as well as companies large and small. russia has also relieved african debt to the tune of $20 billion. also impressive is the fact that the institute for african studies in the russian academy of sciences now has 13 research units and has more than 100 academic staff members; this is matched by very few governments elsewhere in the world. while these are positive signs, they need to be greater supplemented, and africa needs to act towards russia in a coordinated way, aimed at identifying the most promising areas of economic cooperation. implications and policy recommendations the implications of this analysis are as follows. firstly, the global order that started in 1945 and was consolidated in 1989 is undergoing a fundamental transformation, among others due to america’s loss of global moral stature, enhanced by trump’s apparent efforts to diminish global us leadership on climate change, state-building, and stable institutions. secondly, while the us maintains its military supremacy, there are emerging states, which have not been entirely socialised by the us and west and are seeking to reassert themselves and reshape the world order in their own image. in addition, post-brexit and in the wake of the crisis within the eu, a prospect lingers of west-west competition for access to africa. thirdly, africa remains significantly unrepresented in the current global order, accounting for little in terms of commerce, and even less in terms of setting the agenda. fourthly, the spectre of conflict, either through diplomatic freezing, military confrontation, or trade wars (and even alleged electoral interference and mutual regime undermining) among the us, china and russia is has far-reaching implications for the african continent. on the basis of this assessment, the following policy recommendations for africa can be made: 1. currently small and relatively powerless, and subject to potentially harmful outcomes should they attempt to deal with the us, russia and china on their own. https://rg.ru/2015/12/31/nac-bezopasnost-site-dok.html https://rg.ru/2015/12/31/nac-bezopasnost-site-dok.html changing societies & personalities, 2018, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 351–365 363 african states have no other option but to cooperate and subsume their national interests in an overarching african agenda and framework. 2. africa needs its own data. currently, very few african countries have a sound grasp of demographic and other vital statistics. besides boosting state capacity (through taxation and revenue collection), this is important for foreign policy-making, because it will reduce reliance on western governments and non-governmental organisations for key data, which has implications for security as well as development and continental coordination. 3. africa is not obliged to “pick sides”, and should in fact avoid a repeat of cold war-style advocacy, as this could lead to a massive loss of opportunities. each of those three powers has specific benefits to offer (in terms of security, foreign direct investment and support at the un), and policy formation should be based on longterm african goals and prospects as opposed to only historical links. as discussed previously, the world order is in constant flux, and policy-making should keep pace. furthermore, like china and russia, africa has its own interests, and should seek cooperation with these emerging powers only insofar as there can be an africacentred outcome. 4. the african union (au) should have an epistemic function that informs foreign policy-making. it is the au’s principal duty to gain a deep understanding of the longrange game of all three powers, and devise corresponding policy measures that are africa-centred and advance africa’s position. african embassies in those three countries should have research units that build up in-depth understandings of their histories, policies, and long-range plans – not just as officially pronounced but also through unofficial but detectable means – and then coalesce these with one another and with the au. 5. the au should implement the 2014 protocol on amendments to the protocol on the statute of the african court of justice and human rights (https://au.int/en/treaties/ protocol-amendments-protocol-statute-african-court-justice-and-human-rights) in order to enable the african court of justice and human rights to prosecute crimes under international law and transnational crimes. indeed, “the recent prosecution of hissène habré at the extraordinary african chamber in dakar for crimes of war is evidence that where there is political will, and adequate resources, the cause of justice can be advanced on the continent” (niang, 2017). 6. developments in countries such as kazakhstan, uzbekistan, kyrgyzstan and mongolia should be monitored, as this would reveal what collaboration with russia and china really means in practice. major lessons could be learnt in the process, as many of their proposals for africa have been piloted in those countries. central asia has seen simultaneous sino-russian and us-china-russian involvement in much the same way that africa has seen and is beginning to see once again. countries in those regions therefore offer the potential for case studies with uncanny parallels with and implications for africa. 7. the emergence of the new world order would present a leverage to africa insofar as the continent is already involved in partnership with the emerging leaders of the new world order in the shape of russia and china. africa enjoys partnership with https://changing-sp.com/ https://au.int/en/treaties/protocol-amendments-protocol-statute-african-court-justice-and-human-righ 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(2016). constructing and conceptualizing “interdependent hegemony” in an era of the rise of the brics and beyond. in li xing (ed.), the brics and beyond: the international political economy of the emergence of a new world order (pp. 53–74). london & new york: routledge. https://changing-sp.com/ https://www.orfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/orf_issue_brief_195_china_military_africa.pdf https://www.orfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/orf_issue_brief_195_china_military_africa.pdf https://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-ramani/why-russia-is-interfering_b_12801892.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-ramani/why-russia-is-interfering_b_12801892.html http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty https://jamestown.org/program/next-steps-in-the-merger-of-the-eurasian-economic-union-and-the-belt-and-road-initiative/ https://jamestown.org/program/next-steps-in-the-merger-of-the-eurasian-economic-union-and-the-belt-and-road-initiative/ https://jamestown.org/program/next-steps-in-the-merger-of-the-eurasian-economic-union-and-the-belt-and-road-initiative/ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33151419 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 22–35 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.1.058 received 9 december 2018 © 2019 ekaterina s. purgina accepted 22 february 2019 kathy13@yandex.ru published online 1 april 2019 article spatial imaginary in “western” travelogues about russia1 ekaterina s. purgina ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract travel literature provides the readers with access to the most remote places but also reproduces the so-called “traveler’s gaze”, thus connecting and separating people at the same time. through individual travel narratives globalization processes get inscribed into an individual identity of the author and the reader. this article analyzes how russia is presented in three travelogues written by american journalists: andrew meier (2003); david greene (2014); and anne garrels (2016). these narratives are considered by focusing on the three dichotomies, around which the characteristics of modern societies are constructed: centre/periphery, past/present, and political/individual. russia’s trajectory of modernity, according to western travelogues, is predominantly oriented towards the country’s past – the legacy of the soviet union and russian empire, which means that virtually no place is left for the “future”, associated with democratization, liberalization, individualization, and environmental awareness. as the narrators see it, the centre’s priority is to maintain control over the periphery and to hold the country together at any cost, which makes all other considerations, including the well-being of the people, secondary. therefore, there is a constant struggle between the political and the individual, with people seeking to protect their private worlds from the encroaching power of the government. keywords spatial imaginary, modernity, travelogue, russia, travel narrative 1 this work is supported by the russian science foundation under grant [project number 18-18-00236]. https://changing-sp.com/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 22–35 23 globalization transforms modern society in different ways: several waves of democratization swept across the globe; a global market and global capitalism emerged as well as global networks of communication and transport. among these diverse and disparate processes, the development of travel industry has brought globalization in the flesh to everyone and contributed to the growing global connectivity. travel literature, developing alongside the thriving travel industry, on the one hand, provides the reading public with access to “faraway”, exotic countries and, on the other, helps maintain the spatial differentiations such as the distance between the west and the rest and the reproduction of the “traveler’s gaze”. therefore, travelogues connect and separate people at the same time. but unlike travel guides and standard tour descriptions, travelogues or personal accounts of journeys, generally told in the first person, offer an individualized view on the destination and present experience of an independent traveler. thus, globalization processes are inscribed into an individual identity and the life story of the author, as well as the reader. travel writing is known for its hybridity, both in terms of form and content: today, available on-line and in print, in textual, audio or video format, it constitutes spatial imagination as much as traditional ways of spatial construction, such as geography lessons, maps, geopolitical debates, and so on. travelogue as a genre began to crystallize in the sixteenth century, and the whole travel book industry boomed in the late eighteenth century. originally, travel writing was an important source of information available to the mass public about the non-european world, which explains why this genre is so sensitive to the delicate balance between truth and fiction. this “built-in” anxiety or the search for authenticity (the true and genuine socio-cultural experience) lies at the core of modern travelogue (zilcosky, 2008). authenticity is associated with the otherness of a place but also with its remoteness, both in space and time. judging by the unrelenting interest of the western public towards travel books about russia – these books keep being published and keep ranking high on national and international bestsellers’ lists, russia still has not lost its “exotic” flavour. a good example of a travelogue playing on russia’s exoticism is hugely popular peter pomerantsev’s “nothing is true and everything is possible: the surreal heart of the new russia”. even though this book mostly focuses on moscow and the central part of russia, it attracts attention by exploring its “darker” and “glamorous” side – private life of russian oligarchs, suicides of russian super-models, the ways of russian mafia, and its connections to high government officials. within the theory of modernity, there seems to be some uncertainty as to russia’s place within the established east-west/north-south dichotomies: as madina tlostanova puts it, russia “disrupts” this binarism by being at once ‘the colonizer and the colonized, unable to join any of the extremes, and generating oxymoronic subcategories instead, such as the poor north of the south of the poor north’ (tlostanova, 2012). this “in-betweenness” of russia – between europe and asia, the intelligentsia and the people, orthodoxy and science – is also discussed by maxim khomyakov, who contends that it is precisely this search for the “middle way in modernity” that constitutes russian modernity (khomyakov, 2017). tlostanova https://changing-sp.com/ 24 ekaterina s. purgina refers to this phenomenon as “dependent and mimicking modernity” (tlostanova, 2012). “inscribing russia” into modernity can be done on different levels and with different purposes: by social theorists, by politicians, or by journalists. yet, the spatial imaginary is not formed by analytical schemes or political strategizing alone, it lives due to vivid images, gripping stories that are told by those who have the first-hand experience of russian realities. this direct, ethnographic, though not academic, experience recounted in travel literature is mass printed and accessible to the widest audience. it is read by cultural elites, as well as by ordinary people. travel writers often provide the reader with reflections on russian history and generalizations about russia’s future that exceed the scope of narrated anecdotes. thus, travel literature greatly contributes to spatial imaginary and the way russia’s path to modernity is perceived. travelogue’s emphasis on individuality of travel experience brings to the fore the figure of the narrator (subject/observer). in the studies of the colonial or post-colonial travelogue, therefore, much attention has been given to the narrator with regard to their race, gender, social status, education, and so on. the term “narratorial persona” highlights the fact how elaborately “crafted” the image of the narrator is: authors can assign to their personae specific “poses” and “points of view” in order to produce the desired effect on the reading audience, creating, on the one hand, a feeling of smooth and spontaneous narrative and, on the other hand, making the text persuasive and maintaining their authority on the matters they are writing about (for more on narratorial persona see, for instance, dickinson, 2007). in the classical colonial travelogue, the dominant narratorial persona was that of a white man – the “traveler” and “explorer”, who sought to “discover” and “master” the yet unknown land (“i am monarch of all i survey”). therefore, any changes in the narratorial persona attracted scholarly interest as to whether the resulting narrative supports or, on the contrary, undermines colonial discourse (see, for instance, the seminal works on the ambivalence of women’s colonial travel writing by sara mills and mary-louise pratt). in modern travelogue, which is generally characterized by constant oscillations between the “colonial” and “cosmopolitan” modes, there is much greater diversity in the types of narratorial personae although the “white male” type still prevails, which results in criticisms directed against such prominent modern travel writers as bruce chatwin and paul theroux, who allegedly “failed” to be truly cosmopolitan and instead reproduced in their narratives the same colonial “white male gaze” (see johnson, 2002; lisle, 2006). in our study, we have not found any significant differences in the narratives that could be explained by the gender of the narratorial personae, although anne garrels does tend to give more attention to the life of russian women than her male colleagues. in our view, what is much more crucial for the narratives in question is the national and professional background of the narrators: representatives of american culture and professional journalists. for our study, we have chosen three travelogues: andrew meier’s “black earth: a journey through russia after the fall” (2003); david greene’s “midnight in siberia: a train journey into the heart of russia” (2014); and anne garrels’ “putin country. a journey into the real russia” (2016). both david greene and anne changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 22–35 25 garrels worked for the american radio station npr (national public radio) while andrew meier was a correspondent for “time” magazine. each of these journalists spent a considerable amount of time in russia: for instance, david greene was the chief of the npr’s moscow bureau for three years, while andrew meier worked as a moscow correspondent for “time”. to the best of our knowledge, despite their success at home, none of these books has yet been translated into russian. all of the three travelogues are well-researched and well-crafted as they skillfully fit together interviews, facts and figures, biographical information, journalistic investigations, historical descriptions, and reflections on russia’s present, past and future. greene’s travelogue is formally organized around his journey on the transsiberian railway and thus progresses linearly, following what can be called a more ‘traditional’ mode of travel writing with clearly defined points of departure and arrival. garrels’ book focuses on one city and the surrounding region – chelyabinsk – and summarizes several trips made to this area between the 1990s and 2010s. meier’s book is the most versatile and comprehensive of all, as it covers the author’s multiple trips to various cities and regions of russia – apart from moscow and st. petersburg, these include chechnya, siberia, sakhalin, and the arctic. it should be noted that after careful reading of greene’s travelogue, it becomes evident that his narrative is also based on several trips rather than one, which he also made clear in one of his interviews, stating that he had actually made three trips to different parts of russia. since all of the travelogues are dealing with a wide range of “sensitive” topics, each of the writers stresses the importance of the rapport and trust that they had managed to build with their “contacts”, which makes the question of the language crucial. as colin thubron, an author of the earlier travelogue “in siberia” (1999), pointed out in his interview to bbc book club, the knowledge of the russian language was essential to gain the trust of his respondents, so he had to make use of whatever limited russian vocabulary he had rather than to resort to a translator’s help as all of his respondents were extremely wary of any strangers being present at the interview (flynn, 2018). the caution shown by many respondents, who were afraid of the police, federal security service (fsb), and troubles at work if their names got disclosed, is on many occasions also stressed by anne garrels (one of her respondents actually escaped while she was dealing with the unexpected visitors from the police). although some of the russian people described in the travelogues could speak english, the vast majority couldn’t. both anne garrels and andrew meier are fluent speakers of russian while david greene travelled together with his friend and npr colleague sergey, who also introduced greene to his own family and friends in nizhny novgorod, thus acting as a translator and as an intermediary between the writer and the local community. in all the three travelogues, the authors maintain their authority and expertise by demonstrating their intimate knowledge of russian life and the “authenticity” of their experience of russia, gained through years of living in the country and through contacts with russian people, not only as respondents, but also as acquaintances and close friends. (we should note here that the word “russian” is used here as a general term for all the people living on the territory of the russian federation as the authors of the travelogues in question make a special point of involving representatives of https://changing-sp.com/ 26 ekaterina s. purgina various ethnic minority groups in their narrative – tatars, bashkirs, chechen, udmurt, and so on). all the three authors have managed to create a narrative that seems to be sufficiently authentic and trustworthy to the “domestic” public, which becomes obvious if one looks at the readers’ comments to these books on web-sites such as “goodreads”. for instance, the predominant response to andrew meier’s book was that even though there is a lot of “gloom and doom” in this story and the book is not to be taken “lightly”, it manages to provide an accurate picture of present-day russia, the “mindset” of its people and their struggles. each narrative is characterized by its own individual intonation – in david greene’s travelogue it is of a more non-judgmental, sympathetic and at times humorous kind; andrew meier strives for more “drama” and includes fictionalized accounts of historical events and “behind the scenes”; he also often resorts to accentuated symbolism while anne garrels seems to be much more critical and uncompromising in her evaluations of what is happening in russia without making allowances for the difficult past or national mentality. nevertheless, all the three authors to different degrees share the sense of wonder, confusion and dismay at the perceived “failure” of russian people to adopt western values such as democracy, human rights, equality, and freedom, even though the russians are aware of these values and even though they had a “window of opportunity” open for them after the collapse of the soviet union. we are going to consider the three travelogues by focusing on the following aspects constituting modern societies: – centre/periphery; – past/present; – political/personal. in the travelogues, the centre/periphery dichotomy can take different forms: the west vs. russia; moscow vs. the regions; urban vs. rural areas. the dichotomy between the west and russia mostly comes up in the narrators’ conversations with their russian respondents, who refer to the west as russia’s chief opponent. as one of anne garrels’ respondents puts it, “the united states applies one law to itself and another to everyone else” (garrels, 2016, p. 34) and, therefore, would not “allow comparable russian interference in its own affairs or in its sphere of interest” (garrels, 2016, p. 35). on the other hand, the west is also used as the norm and the measure of economic prosperity, to which russia should aspire. much more explicit is the opposition between the capital and the regions: the movement away from the centre to the periphery, that is, from the more “european” regions of russia eastwards or northwards is often described as the movement backwards in time, the writers emphasizing the vastness of the russian territory and the time it takes to reach different places. this feeling of vast space enhances the feeling of remoteness and isolation of its towns and settlements scattered along the way. it was also this vastness of the country’s territory that allowed russian and soviet governments to use siberia and the far east as places of exile and penal labour, which now turns them into the repositories of their dark and tragic past and makes them unable to “move on” to the present or to the future: changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 22–35 27 on our wall map at home norilsk loomed at the edge of civilization. it seemed a place at once ominous and illuminating, a corner of russia where one could measure not only the gap between the newly rich and the long poor but the haunting legacy of the unfinished past, the past had been exhumed, laid bare, only to be abandoned, unexamined and unburied. nothing had resettled right. in more cosmopolitan corners, life had of course moved on. in moscow and petersburg, sushi bars, casinos, and soup kitchens had quickly appeared. but norilsk, for all its riches, remained a severed world, a pompeii of stalinism that the trapped heirs of the gulag still called home (meier, 2003, p. 182) (italics mine – e. p.) in some regions, this travel back in time “lingers” on the comparatively recent past of the perestroika period, in some, on the soviet era, while in others, it goes back to the nineteenth century or even further. there are layers of historical time distinguishable within the urban landscape of russian cities and towns. for instance, this is how krasnoyarsk is described by andrew meier: instead of post-soviet industrial decay, an unexpected sense of the past prevailed. downtown offered a tidy array of narrow thoroughfares – lenin, peace, and marx streets – that paralleled the river. there were more nineteenth-century private houses than twentieth-century apartment blocks (meier, 2003, p. 183) (italics mine – e. p.) one of the typical tropes used in travelogues is the metaphorical comparison of the country’s territory to a body and travelogues about russia are not an exception. one of their common features is pointing to the fact that the travel is made right to the “heart” of the country (anne garrels’ “a train journey to the heart of russia” or another recent book entitled “russia: a journey to the heart of a land and its people” by jonathan dimbleby). where this “heart” exactly lies is left to the author’s choice and imagination: it can be the central part, urals, siberia, or further to the east, the only definite thing is that it should be in the “outback”, that is, not moscow or st. petersburg. the vastness of the country is combined with the lack of internal order or interconnectedness as the country seems to consist of disorganized fragments artificially held together by some external force lest this “body” should start to disintegrate: for example, david greene refers to the trans-siberian railway as the “spine”, “a thin line of constancy that holds this unwieldy country together” (greene, 2014, p. 8), “the link that connects so many disparate places” (greene, 2014, p. 64). this is how he describes his perception of russia’s space while being on a train: by far, russia takes up more of the earth than any other country. i knew this. but the earlier trans-siberian trip i did back in 2011 made me feel it. four, five, six hours would pass, and all we would see outside was empty, white wilderness. then a forest. then a small city, with some decaying buildings – often an empty soviet factory. then hours more of nothing (greene, 2014, p. 78) throughout his travelogue, greene returns to this idea on several occasions: https://changing-sp.com/ 28 ekaterina s. purgina moscow seems so very far away as we push eastward. the feeling of disconnect grows, making it seem unsurprising that having people scattered in such remote places is a drag on a nation’s economy. politically the disconnect works in different ways. many people in siberia feel little if any relationship to moscow and the kremlin, and throughout history, people have felt relatively more free to think for themselves. and yet, distance is also an impediment for any serious opposition movement to grow and thrive (greene, 2014, p. 223) this feeling of imminent disintegration of the “old empire” is conveyed in andrew meier’s text, a considerable part of which is devoted to chechnya and to the gruesome stories of the first and second chechen wars told by russian and chechen soldiers and civilians. the desperate attempts of the russian government to maintain its control over this region and keep it within russia had disastrous consequences both for the russian and chechen sides. the conflict has not been fully resolved, and has given rise to extremism and radicalization of muslims, which, in its turn, led to increased counter-terrorism efforts on the part of the government and to extra pressure on muslim communities not only in the caucasus but also across other regions of russia (garrels, 2016, pp. 116–117). the title of andrew meier’s book alludes to leo toltsoy’s novel “hadji murad” and in the chapter on chechnya meier makes it clear that he subscribes to tolstoy’s view about “all sorts of villainy” that a large state with a considerable military strength can commit against “small peoples, living their own independent life”, under the pretext of self-defense or a civilizing mission (meier, 2003, p. 164). thus, meier condemns the imperial ambitions of the russian state, bringing nothing but suffering and deprivation to “small peoples” but also to the russian people – the chechen war veterans and their families and to the families of those who lost their fathers and sons to this war. all authors touch upon the question of the chechen wars as they meet the survivors of these wars from both sides. it is largely the russian military campaign in chechnya that leads the narrators to point out that the interests of “moscow” and “kremlin” are inimical to the interests of other russian regions and the interests of the multi-ethnic communities inhabiting them. the idea that moscow is not “truly” russian, that is fails to embody russianness is raised in andrew meier’s travelogue: “moscow is not russia”. it is the refrain of westerners and russians alike who have ventured into the russian outback and returned to tell of its miseries. but what, then, is moscow? (meier, 2003, p. 24) the urban/rural dichotomy also corresponds to that of rich/poor and new/old. the “old” russia, also often referred to as the “dead” empire or the “ruins of the empire”, that is, the remnants of the soviet period, is contrasted with the “new russia” and the “new opulence” of the post-soviet period. travelogue “black earth” takes this line a bit further by drawing the distinction between the “new russians” and “most russians, being old russians”, who “naturally hated the new russians”, and thus revealing the great divide within the russian society (meier, 2003, p. 31). changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 22–35 29 the stark contrast between russia’s urban areas and countryside is described by anne garrels the following way: if you were to take a helicopter ride over russia’s countryside, you might think a war had recently ravaged the landscape. the former state and collective farms, each of which employed hundreds against all economic sense, are in ruins (garrels, 2016, p. 175) interestingly enough, even though being further away from the capital means having less access to resources, funding and power, it also means more autonomy, which the regions enjoy: krasnoyarsk told another story. it testified to the adage i had heard so often in russia’s remote corners: “the farther from moscow we live, the better” (meier, 2003, p. 187) although in travel literature, the chronotope usually tends to be space dominated, in the case of travelogues about russia, its temporal side is much more dramatic. the past/present dichotomy leaves little place for the future since, as david greene puts it, “modern russia seems to be living in a void”, “careering down an uncertain path” (greene, 2014, pp. 26–27). yet another, more depressing view is best summarized by the final scene in colin thubron’s book: yuri says: “we’re not the same as you in the west. maybe we’re more like you were centuries ago. we’re late with our history here. with us, time still goes in circles” (thubron, 1999, p. 341) david greene quotes the writer mikhail shishkin, who offered his own updated version of gogol’s troika and emphasized the repetitive pattern in russia’s historical development by comparing the country to a metro train that “travels from one end of a tunnel to the other – from order dictatorship to anarchy democracy, and back again” (greene, 2014, p. 24). thus, in the case of russia, there is no linear development towards the western-style modernity but, rather, there is a spiral or, in a worse scenario, a circle as the modernization is largely “mimicked” rather than actually achieved. one of the points made by all the authors is the perceived inability or reluctance of russian people to deal with the past (“confront the horror of the past”) and to reflect about it, which, as is logically presumed, makes the russians unable to achieve any kind of closure (“unburied past”). in his interview to bbc book club, colin thubron expressed his puzzlement over the way the former gulag sites are treated in russia and compared it to the way former concentration camps are turned into museums in germany: in russia, these sites just lie abandoned (flynn, 2018). the same comparison is drawn by andrew meier, who, nevertheless, points out that “germany started to examine its past only after an economic miracle”, while russia is still “economically, socially, and ideologically adrift” (meier, 2003, p. 240). https://changing-sp.com/ 30 ekaterina s. purgina david greene, however, believes that it is precisely this inability to come to grips with the past that prevents the russians from addressing the questions of the future, in fact, even prevents them from asking any questions about their current life: and across this vast country the emotion that remained constant was an uneasy frustration: here are millions of people across different landscapes, climates, and communities, all with families they love and ideas to offer, but almost universally unable to answer some simple questions: where is your country going? and what do you want for its future? (greene, 2014, p. 27) the word that frequently comes up in greene’s text is “mind-boggling” and the recurring theme in his travelogue, something that he finds particularly “mind-boggling” is the fact that while his and his wife’s immediate reaction to things that seemed absurd or meaningless was to start asking questions, russian people simply went through the whole process without questioning the reason for doing so (e.g. an episode of going through the unmanned security checkpoint at the railway station): not everyone is a fighter. but there is a sense at home that if something seems unfair in life, there are places to turn – at work, or in a community. maybe you won’t get your way… our system is far from perfect, and people are mistreated. but the overall spirit, the sense of possibility, the sense that you can raise your voice and have a chance to bring change, is something that exists at home, but not so much in russia (greene, 2014, p. 108) this acceptance, patience and willingness to endure is one of the features that is described by all the authors as constituting the core of the russian mentality, and summarized by andrew meier in the “hollow comfort” of the russian word “normal’no”: everything in russia after all was always normal. it was the understatement of the cosmonaut ascribed to his crash in space – and the recovery that followed. it was the charity the miners and survivors of norilsk lent to their impossible lives. it was the illusion shared by the russian soldiers who sorted the corpses from the zone and the chechens who bathed and buried the dead in aldy (meier, 2003, p. 483) while villages are mostly depicted as archaic and derelict, half-abandoned places, devoid of any hope for the future, russian cities are shown as having all the usual attributes of globalization such as mcdonalds and international hotel chains, sitting side by side with soviet-style blocks and a few older, nineteenth-century buildings. anne garrels describes the centre of chelyabinsk, which looks completely westernized and has a replica of an american diner “pretty betty”, “elegant eateries in the neighbourhood with names like venice, basilio, deja-vu, avignon, and titanic”, “the more sophisticated wall street café”, “full of young professionals sipping cappuccinos and single malt”, clubs and bars (garrels, 2016, p. 15). the mimicking character of this “western-style” glamour becomes apparent when she tries to interview local musicians, changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 22–35 31 who are signing “oh, pretty woman” in “flawless english” and are “indistinguishable from their western counterparts in jeans and t-shirts” (garrels, 2016, p. 16). as it turns out, apart from the songs’ lyrics, they cannot speak any english at all. another remarkable detail is that they get to sing british and american songs at “annual fests such as police day, metallurgical day, and tank day” (garrels, 2016, p. 16), which immediately gives the story an unmistakable “soviet-russian” flavor. in a similar way, the people from the “solid” russian middle-class whom anne garrels interviewed demonstrate a mixture of “western” tastes and preferences (they consume western goods and technologies, get their education in the west and send their children to foreign schools and universities), but at the same time strong antiwestern views: they “harbor resentment, almost an outright hatred of the west” (garrels, 2016, p. 27). anne garrels explains these contradictory sentiments by the search for modern russian identity: “russians are trying to figure out who they are and where they fit into the world. they embrace much of western culture and the selective denial of what doesn’t fit into the official “russian” model seldom makes sense” (garrels, 2016, p. 26). she criticizes this “russian” way of blaming others instead of trying to accept responsibility and take care of the tasks at hand. like greene and meier, she is also highly critical of the current political regime as it is becoming “increasingly totalitarian and returning to former dreams of empire” (garrels, 2016, p. 33). russia’s ambition to “out-west the west” is depicted in andrew meier’s passage about the building of the “city of the future” – “moscow siti”. in the travelogue, the story of this ambitious project is imbued with symbolism as the narrator describes a scene of a young russian couple looking at the miniature model of this future city with “a set of translucent skyscrapers that burst from the city’s heart”: like so many of the pilgrims who came to see this model of moscow, they were eager and hopeful witnesses to the birth of the new siti. they tried to locate their apartment in the model city, but it spun too fast… “think it’ll ever be built?” the elfin girl… asked her companion. “no”, he replied. “of course, not” (meier, 2003, p. 29) similarly, attempts of other regions to modernize are presented as bound to failure due to greed and corruption of the authorities and passivity of the locals. this is how andrew meier describes vladivostok: in 1992, the locals surveyed their bountiful inheritance – a huge merchant fleet and a cornucopia of timber, fish and furs – and dreamed of becoming a russian hong kong. they envisioned a free economic zone blooming as freighters filled the ports, forming a bridge to the asian markets close by. …primorye, no longer a pliant colony of moscow, said the new optimists, will join arms with the pacific rim, and, in a case study of globalization’s fruits, arise from its post-soviet slumber… sadly, a decade after opening up again, vladivostok still awaited its revival. instead of a boomtown, the traveler found the corrupt heart of the far eastern frontier, the modern update of the unbridled market that nineteenthcentury visitors discovered (meier, 2003, p. 266) https://changing-sp.com/ 32 ekaterina s. purgina in the eyes of the western observer, even the modern look of russian cities is no more than “window-dressing”. andrew meier quotes the opposition reporter yuliya latynina: “don’t expect any renaissance”, she liked to say. russia had never even seen the enlightenment. to understand the present morass, she argued, you needed to look only to the middle ages (meier, 2003, p. 358) all the narrators highlight the fact that they were seeking to interview members of the “young generation” and found them as passive and uninterested in “moving on” as the older generation: zhenia may better fit the mold of a more prevalent young russian – struggling to get by, satisfied to be near family, educated and familiar with the west but not clamoring to see or be part of it (greene, 2014, p. 118) this inability of the country to achieve the desired future and prosperity is explained differently: greene and meier share the opinion that it is primarily the inability to deal with the past, the “genetic memory” of the past and the fears haunting the older and younger generations of russians that prevents them from shaking off their inertia and taking active steps to change the things they dislike: people were not taught to raise questions – because doing so could be dangerous, and really there was nowhere to turn for answers anyway. a foundation of communist ideology and soviet power was keeping people convinced that they had to accept their fate as it was – and that, in the end, this would be better for everyone. but this philosophy remains in the dna, passed from one generation to the next, including to a younger one that so far shows little sign of extinguishing it (greene, 2014, p. 121) however, as david greene points out the threat is not entirely unreal: what a strange purgatory russians live in. for so many years they could not travel freely and took a major risk if they wrote or said anything critical of the government or anyone well connected… today many of those restrictions are gone. life is more free and open. and yet the fear remains. the risk remains. in a way, maybe clear limits of toleration are less fearsome than erratic limits of toleration. uncertainty about being punished is more intimidating than certainty (greene, 2014, p. 247) as for anne garrels, she sees the cause of the problem in the “identity crisis” of the russian people “over where their country fits into the overall global scheme” (garrels, 2016, p. 187) combined with their “belief in their rightful place in the world”, “rooted in their turbulent history” (garrels, 2016, p. 27): changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 22–35 33 the soviet identity was in many ways an artificial construct, but it existed for a long while, and by the time it collapsed, who knew what russia was or what being russian meant? it turned out that “russia” was not all about being democratic and loving freedom, as some might have thought when the soviet union collapsed… now there is a searching, on many fronts, for a definition of what it means to be “russia” in the twenty-first century (garrels, 2016, p. 187) like the previous two, the third dichotomy – political/personal – also deals with the question of collective and individual autonomy. all the authors point out the perceptible lack of communal feeling and atomization of society. as the state encroaches on the rights of private citizens and increases its control over all spheres of social life, people seem to be satisfied with stoically enduring the hardships, preserving whatever individual freedom they have and not striving for more or trying to unite. this is surprising for a western observer, who would expect an open protest, especially in blatant cases of social injustice, of which numerous examples are discussed in the texts. the atomization of society results in the lack of grassroots initiatives of any kind, although anne garrels takes care to describe several individual “success” stories of human rights and environmental activists and entrepreneurs. these, however, are far outnumbered by stories of once successful people who had to quit their businesses or campaigning because of the joint pressure from corrupt government officials, police and criminals. the virtually non-existent community life makes some respondents look back nostalgically at their life in soviet communal apartments, in which their neighbours became a kind of “extended family” (greene, 2014, p. 73). in the atmosphere of general mistrust and the absence of any close ties within the local community, family remains the only form of close interactions between the people: their struggle with the state and the criminals (which often go hand in hand) begins and ends with the protection of their family. the coldness and alienation of people when in public creates a stark contrast to their warmth and hospitality when at home. david greene tells the story of the ural village of sagra, whose inhabitants “took up hunting rifles and pitchforks on a summer night in july 2011 and defended the community against an approaching criminal gang” (greene, 2014, p. 171). not only did the villagers manage to scare away the intruders, but afterwards they also had to fight with the authorities that intended to press charges against them. however, even though the villagers had won both of these fights, to greene’s surprise, andrei, one of the villagers he befriended, “didn’t draw a connection between the battle his village waged and some broader fight for a different future for russia” and demonstrated the general distrust of public activism and “democratic values” (greene, 2014, p. 173). thus, yet another paradox of russian life is that being aware of the widely spread corruption and social injustice, most of the respondents still voice their preference towards “stability” and “strong leader” over democracy and freedom. thus, the dilemma of maintaining individual freedom vs. maintaining order and stability in the country is approached differently by different russian people. the two figures that can serve as a litmus test in this choice are vladimir putin and joseph stalin as the embodiments of “strong power” or “strong leaders”. as david greene puts it, “putin, https://changing-sp.com/ 34 ekaterina s. purgina popular as ever, shrewd as always, also embodies a russian soul that is unfamiliar to many in the west” (greene, 2014, p. 14). in his interviews with russian people of different social backgrounds, greene tries to probe into the “secret” of putin’s popularity. after talking to alexei, a successful us-educated businessman from novosibirsk, greene comes to the conclusion that “there’s a window into what putin is managing: something resembling democracy, a system that keeps him in power and makes people such as alexei … satisfied, happy, and, so far, quiet” (greene, 2014, p. 252). a similar view is expressed by one of anne garrels’ respondents, who praises putin as “a man who will restore the country’s industry and its international standing”, concluding with the saying: “when there is a fire, you don’t ask who the fireman is” (garrels, 2016, p. 35). the narrators in all three travelogues seem to be much more mystified not by putin’s popularity, but by the lingering popularity of joseph stalin, seen as the notoriously evil dictator in the west. greene’s conversation with taisiya, an activist for baikal, gives him a sudden shock when to his question “what’s the solution for today’s russia?” she “walks over to her bookcase and pulls out a book. it’s called generalissimo” (greene, 2014, p. 274). greene concludes this episode by saying: i came to visit taisiya expecting to get a vision toward russia’s future. here is a woman who has been inspired to take on the government, to challenge power. i am stunned to hear that she – of all people – has stalin nostalgia. what a reminder of how complicated this russian puzzle really is (greene, 2014, p. 275) even being aware of the scale of persecutions in the stalin era (taisiya admits that “it was very bad”), many people are driven by the nostalgia for “order”, believing that all it takes to eradicate corruption, lawlessness and abuse of authority is a truly “strong leader” and “discipline”. this sentiment is supported by the rhetoric of the state media (“putin’s spin doctors”, as greene puts it), emphasizing stalin’s military and economic “achievements”. the last but not least, in the dichotomy between the personal and political, it is necessary to consider the environmental question, which is discussed at length by anne garrels. since soviet times, this has been one of the most sensitive issues of the urals and the side effect of this region’s industrial development. as garrels points out, chelyabinsk region has the reputation of “the most contaminated place on the planet” (garrels, 2016, p. 162). apart from the major environmental disaster caused by the accident at the plutonium-processing plant “mayak” (also known in different periods as “chelyabinsk 40”/“chelyabinsk 65”) and comparable to that in chernobyl, in the soviet and post-soviet period there has been a continuing practice of dumping radioactive waste into the techa river and lake karachay. the exact damage done to the local and regional community and to the environment remains unknown. the environmental activists garrels interviewed maintained that this practice continued well into the 2000s. to make matters worse, some of the riverside villages, affected by the radiation, were never evacuated and remain there. “most of those left behind were bashkir or tatar – a fact that has led over the years to charges of ethnic genocide” (garrels, 2016, p. 170). there is an abundance of other examples of criminal negligence changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 22–35 35 and irresponsible behavior of the regional authorities and industrial enterprises. on the other hand, local communities are afraid to protest for the fear of even greater economic deprivation since shutdown of such enterprises might mean the loss of jobs for many members of these communities. the alarming trend, according to garrels, is that “mayak” is now involved in the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from russian and foreign reactors and there are plans to expand this business while the fate of radioactive waste “remains unclear” as the regional authorities refuse to provide information about the ongoing proceedings and refuse to grant access to the complex to any russian or international observers and experts (garrels, 2016, p. 174). the authorities keep a close watch on the few environmental activists and are ready to stifle any dissent should the need arise. similar to other cases of human rights violations, most of the regional community, though aware of the deteriorating environmental situation, choose not to protest and avoid open confrontations with the government. references dickinson, s. (2007). women’s travel and travel writing in russia, 1700–1825. in w. rosslyn & a. tosi (eds.), women in russian culture and society, 1700–1825 (pp. 63–82). london: palgrave macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9780230589902_5 flynn, d. (producer). (2018, january 11). colin thubron – in siberia. [audio podcast]. retrieved from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09kx890 garrels, a. (2016). putin country. a journey into the real russia. new york: farrar, straus and giroux. greene, d. (2014). midnight in siberia. a train journey into the heart of russia. new york, london: w.w. norton & company. johnson, c. (2002, june). crossing the border: bruce chatwin and paul theroux. antipodes, 16(1), 59–63. khomyakov, m. (2017). russia between east, west and north. in p. wagner (ed.), the moral mappings of north and south (pp. 72–106). edinburgh: edinburgh university press. lisle, d. (2006). the global politics of contemporary travel writing. cambridge: cambridge university press. meier, a. (2003). black earth. a journey through russia after the fall. new york, london: w.w. norton & company. thubron, c. (1999). in siberia. new york: harpercollins publishers. tlostanova, m. (2012). postsocialist ≠ postcolonial? on post-soviet imaginary and global coloniality. journal of postcolonial writing, 48(2), 130–142. doi: 10.1080/17449855.2012.658244 zilcosky, j. (ed.) (2008). writing travel: the poetics and politics of the modern journey. toronto: university of toronto press. https://changing-sp.com/ http://doi.org/10.1057/9780230589902_5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09kx890 http://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2012.658244 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 189–206 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.3.071 received 28 july 2019 © 2019 gregory simons accepted 13 september 2019 gregmons@yahoo.com published online 5 october 2019 article the anatomy of a moral panic: western mainstream media’s russia scapegoat greg simons uppsala university, sweden turiba university, latvia ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract since 2014, there has been a very concerted campaign launched by the neo-liberal western mainstream mass media against russia. the format and content suggest that this is an attempt to induce a moral panic among the western publics. it seems to be intended to create a sense of fear and to switch the logic to a series of emotionallybased reactions to assertion propaganda. russia has been variously blamed for many different events and trends around the world, such as the “destroying” of western “democracy”, and democratic values. in many regards, russia is projected as being an existential threat in both the physical and intangible realms. this paper traces the strategic messages and narratives of the “russia threat” as it is presented in western mainstream media. russia is connoted as a scapegoat for the failings of the neo-liberal democratic political order to maintain its global hegemony; therefore, russia is viewed as the “menacing” other and a desperate measure to halt this gradual decline and loss of power and influence. this ultimately means that this type of journalism fails in its supposed fourth estate role, by directly aiding the hegemonic political power. keywords moral panic, western mainstream media, russia, propaganda, scapegoating, fourth estate https://changing-sp.com/ 190 greg simons introduction moral panic has been developed as a concept within sociology and came to greater attention after stanley cohen’s 1972 book on folk devils and moral panic. this detailed the often irrational, but widespread fear that something or someone was a threat to the values, safety and security of society. it is something that is often exploited by politicians and journalists, where public panic can be operationalised as a means of social and political control. moral panics tend to have a tendency to serve the interests of the hegemonic political and economic order (welch, price, & yankey, 2002). in this regard, zollmann (2017, p. 1) notes that “with the ascendance of liberal democracy, propaganda activities have vastly increased. […] because of its societal importance for public opinion formation, the news media constitutes an obvious channel for the dissemination of propaganda”. the mainstream media tends to be very supportive of the hegemonic global liberal democracy1 narratives and its intention to retain its power, rather than acting as an independent mechanism to check and balance that centre of power. a lot of research is from a sociological perspective, involving cases at a tactical or operational level of analysis. the present study intends to look at the issue and practice of moral panic from a strategic overview and through the lens of mass communication in order to understand the political why and how of the current moral panic concerning mainstream news media coverage of the russian “threat”. what is the logic of the russian “threat”, and are there any “cures” suggested in mainstream media coverage? the first step in the paper is to deal with the issue of identifying the myths that are projected as reality, and separating fiction from fact in mainstream journalism. one of the key brand myths is the concept of the fourth estate, where mass media and journalism serve public interest by challenging political interests. the following section seeks to define and clarify the theoretical motivations and considerations involved in moral panic. in the third section, the mainstream mass media content involving the coverage of russia is analysed in order to reveal the nature of the “logic” of the reporting in order to understand whether it fits the conceptual criterion to be worthy of being labelled as a moral panic. mainstream journalism and news: between myth and reality branding is a standard philosophy and practice in the contemporary business and political environments. it is considered to be an indispensable aspect of organisational activity, depending on the conceptual underpinnings and the execution of the practical approach, it can be the difference between success and failure in attaining organisational goals and objectives. in way of a basic definition of the term and its implications, the following provides an overview: 1 liberal democracy here is understood and defined as being those who favour the values found in multiculturalism and globalisation. changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 189–206 191 branding is the process by which companies differentiate their products from their competition. in developing a unique identity, which may include a name, packaging and design, a brand is developed. in developing and managing this unique identity, the branding process allows organisations to develop strong emotional and psychological connections with a product, goods or service. this in turn, eases the purchasing decision. branding affects stakeholder perceptions and the marketing task is to ensure these perceptions are positive (franklin, hogan, langley, mosdell, & pill, 2009, p. 33). the above fits with brown’s (2016, pp. 13–14) understanding that branding helps to simplify and distinguish a product or service from all of the other offers in existence and competing for attention and consumption, it reduces confusion through initiating expectations and creating associations among the customer/user base. a brand is a significant step in the road to creating and maintaining an enduring mutually reciprocal political relationship between the messenger and the audience. newman (2016, p. 92) understands brand, from the point of view of political application, as a mechanism that connects via the policies and issues represented as well as through the personality traits possessed. a series of steps are used by marketers in order to embark on establishing a brand. the first step is to build awareness through communication concerning a particular product or service on offer, which is likely to increase engagement and interaction. step two concerns positioning of the product or service, once the consumer is aware of it. this is an attempt to differentiate it from its competition. the third step is about establishing a brand after awareness and positioning are implemented. then automatic associations and assumptions are connected to the brand of a particular product or service (newman, 2016, p. 112). when a brand is established, when can a particular brand stand out from its competition? there are three different aspects to be examined when evaluating the strength of brand value. differentiation is used by a communicator to distinguish a product, service or organisation from competing brands, and thereby be able to position itself more ideally to enable better reach and connection with the target audience. a brand’s visual identity is a key aspect in helping an audience to better identify the difference and believe in it. credibility of a brand is an icon of trust, with the intention of helping to develop a loyal following. an organisation’s credibility is achieved by its ability to live up to its promise(s). authenticity is gained by matching words and deeds. the current approach to branding is a very pre-meditated exercise in seeking to project the positive aspects and strengths of what is being branded and communicated. the established brand of journalism carries with its connotations and expectations associated with the notion of the fourth estate. myth-making is managed in an idealised and utopian understanding of journalism as a profession and what its priorities should be mixes idealised ethical concepts and ideal pragmatic practice. mcnair (1998, pp. 19–20) defines the function of the fourth estate as being “an independent institutional source of political and cultural power which monitors and scrutinises the actions of the powerful in other spheres”. this is tied to classical liberal theory that postulates the press as a defender of public https://changing-sp.com/ 192 greg simons interests and a watchdog on the workings of government. the term was credited as originally being coined by edmund burke in the late 18th century, and subsequently gained ground from the 19th century (franklin, hogan, langley, mosdell, & pill, 2009, p. 84). this sets the tone for the idealised notion of journalism’s role. one of the popular myths of journalism is its supposed power: “for all of this tumultuous history, we hold fast to a vision of the powerful impact of the press, for good and bad. it is an old story, already a common theme in the 19th century” (shaya, 2012). however, the presumed power is increasingly being called into question with some saying journalism is merely a public record of events as they unfold (ibid.). simultaneously, it is impossible to deny that if journalism affects the audience, though, then it does it not from the calculating viewpoint but following moral sentiments; thus, it is hard to determine the level of premeditation involved. obviously, at its most basic function, journalism is the process of uncovering information and disseminating that information via media of mass communication (tv, radio, newspapers and the internet). it is also conceived as a form of monologic communication (franklin et al., 2011, p. 124), although this understanding is questionable, due to the fact that it cannot exist without the involvement of the mass audience into the media content. there is also a great deal of myth and symbolic power associated with journalism through it be associated with the nation; the brand of the fourth estate as such relates to the ideal functioning of journalism as a critical social institution. the elements of journalism as defined by kovach and rosenstiel (2007) include: journalism’s first obligation is to the truth; its first loyalty is to citizens; its essence is a discipline of verification; its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover; it must serve as an independent monitor of power; it must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise; it must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant; it must keep the news comprehensive and in proportion; its practitioners have an obligation to exercise their personal conscience; citizens, too, have rights and responsibilities when it comes to the news. a contradiction of the current news environment has been noted, in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, where the population is constantly bombarded with information. yet in spite of this, the public remains quite uninformed of events, trends and processes in their environment (kovach & rosenstiel, 2011). following this, what is the connection between the ideal of the fourth estate and mass communication? the act of communication is vital to not only being human, but also for guiding social interaction. as such, it generates a number of dilemmas, such as the morality of the act of communication. this implies the pursuit of ethical practice insofar as doing the “right thing”, and an adherence to a certain social duty and moral responsibility (bivins, 2010, pp. 2–3). currently, though there is an increase split of perception on how journalism explains its public duty and how the public interprets their actions. rhetorically, it is still held as being a “sacred” value of journalism, but public belief and trust is on the wane. why is this seemingly the case? to be understood, this needs to be explained by the contemporary challenges and changes faced by contemporary journalism and journalists, not to mention the public. often journalism and media are changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 189–206 193 deemed as being an essential element of a healthy democracy. these arguments, however, are often misleading and definitely missing context to be meaningful. but the “relationship between media and democracy also depends on the existing state of the media and of the market, and indeed on the state of actually existing democracy in each individual context – where context is likely to be state-led because of the prevailing dominance of state legislatures but not state-bound due to globalisation” (fenton, 2014, p. 31). one of the global trends observed has been the incremental concentration worldwide of mass media ownership into fewer and fewer hands. as such, the trend of concentration of mass media outlets into fewer hands has a potentially negative effect on level of transparency and accountability in a political system. baker (2007, pp. 6–37) argues strongly for maintaining diversity and plurality with regards to the media ownership. the three main reasons given are: 1) to maintain a more democratic distribution of communicative power; 2) democratic safeguards – by preventing a monopoly of communicative power to mask abuses of political power; and 3) the availability of evidence should never be the sole determinant of the content of investigations, which refers to the use and abuse of information dominance, and the subjectively selective use of information. when mass media concentration does occur, then the results can be stark. schisms in wider society are also being mirrored in the mass media and journalism. the schism of the contemporary media and information environment is symptomatic of the wider splits and fractures in global politics and society that is formed along value and norm-based projected realities. in turn, this negatively influences the professional standards of journalism, and manifests in a number of tangible ways within media content and behaviour. one of these aspects is found in the ethics of activism, where journalists as activists are likely to continue to proliferate. the crucial question is raised, when are journalists agenda-driven activists, and when are they investigative journalists with a valid cause? in turn, this leads to the next ethical question of interpretation and opinion. “the era of news objectivity as ‘just the facts’ is dead and gone. interpretative journalism grows” (ward, 2014, p. 51). this necessitates understanding the separation and implications of commentary, opinion, analysis, and facts. what is mentioned above has caused moments for reflection on the future of journalism in the academic community. it has been pointed out that traditionally journalism was studied from the point of view of a technological, government, corporate or educational perspective. but what is really needed is to look at it from the point of view of journalists, because there is no journalism without journalists (mosco, 2009). there has been a long history of future predictions on “crises”, trends, and developments in the mass media, and as some academics have pointed out, these are often wrong (curran, 2010). among the warnings of the gradual death of professional journalism (mcchesney, 2003, pp. 3–10), some academics argue that journalism is not heading for extinction, but rather evolution (mcnair, 1998). namely that the dominant model of journalism that existed in the 20th century, which concerned a trained professional communicating objective and validated content to the audience, is undergoing change. https://changing-sp.com/ 194 greg simons this fits with the views of other academics that speak of a decline and renewal in news media with the emergence of “neo-journalism”, which speaks of journalism adapting to the changing environment as “non-professionals” begin to take over and are assisted by progress in mobile communication technologies and newly created news media outlets carrying the content produced (giles, 2010). the changes that are taking place within contemporary journalism are sometimes referred to as being a “crisis” (mcchesney, 2003; young, 2010), where a crisis is understood as being an extra-ordinary situation that is potentially harmful. this in turn often causes moments to pause and ponder ethical (ward, 2005) and normative (schudson, 2001) issues as an underlying cause, but also a possible cure (woodstock, 2002). at times, there is a tendency to look back to perceived “golden” periods in history as a guiding force to overcome the “crisis”, and thus prevent any transformation. but these transformations do not really account for why the changes are currently occurring. journalist and author andrew fowler attributes the “decline in journalism” to the following reasons: 1) mainstream media disconnect (in terms of quality/relevance of information product and declining public confidence); 2) the loss of money and power by news media; 3) failing business models; 4) acting as echo chambers for powerful interests (tapp, 2015). academic howard tumber (2001, p. 95) explained that journalism was coming under “attack” from two distinct sources/areas: 1) pressure from owners and media conglomerates, which has exacerbated traditional problems with professional news output; and 2) new forms of political and government communication with the public. in meeting these challenges, different media outlets have attempted different solutions to overcoming the challenges and obstacles, which some observers describe as a “splintering” of the fourth estate from a model that was viewed as being homogenous (rusbridger, 2010). given the reasons for the decline of journalism as we know it, how does this impact upon the quality of contemporary journalism? contemporary journalism is much less critical of the “official” state line that is encapsulated within the practice of news management (esser & spanier, 2005), and is prone to exaggeration for economic gain and publicity. one avenue that can achieve both goals simultaneously is through the creation of a moral panic. moral panic “moral panic” was developed as a sub-discipline within the field of sociology, it has come to have a very profound effect upon the language and culture of debate through the practice of journalists and politicians (garland, 2008, p. 9). the idea of a moral panic is that it is a mechanism of creating change through manipulating perception and opinion. its origin as “a concept” was first used by cohen (1972) to describe orchestrated and mass mediated public campaigns aimed at generating fear of visibly identified “folk devils” (franklin et al., 2011, p. 152). this is not to say that a moral panic is necessarily something that is tangible, but rather the promise of a risk or threat. moral panics are intended to serve as a means to enable a change in law, policy or current practices, which is justified as being necessary to “protect” the public and changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 189–206 195 the common good (franklin et al., 2011, p. 152; krinsky, 2013, pp. 1–2). there is an observable process when a moral panic is manufactured: • an individual, a group or something is identified as being a threat to safety (the “enemy”), values or interests; • that threat is simplified and distilled to an easily understandable form in the mass media. distortion of reality allows for symbolisation and “prediction”; • a construction and exaggeration of public concern primary and secondary definers of panic, much emphasis on what may or could happen; • elevation of public panic and an accompanying demand to do “something”; • government or legal authorities have a freer hand to implement policy to address the “threat”; • panic results in some form of tangible or intangible social or political change and then goes into “remission” (franklin et al., 2011, pp. 152–153). the above aspects of the process of creating a moral panic illustrate the role of concern, generating hostility, forming consensus, fomenting disproportionality, and creating volatility (krinsky, 2013, p. 7). marsh and melville (2011) argue that the central idea of a moral panic is based upon the presence of a disproportionate reaction to a particular behaviour or event. from a sociological perspective, critcher (2008), argues that the analysis of moral panic requires the connections to the themes of discourse, risk, and moral regulation. critcher goes on to suggest that moral panics should be conceptualised as being forms of discourse as the discursive formations dictate “who has the right to speak, on what terms and to which ends” (critcher, 2008, p. 1139). the result of joining critcher’s three elements is “redefining moral panics as extreme forms of risks discourses as integral to the process of moral regulation” (critcher, 2008, p. 1140). garland (2008, p. 9) notes that we live “in an age of exaggeration, where the mass media regularly converge on a single anxietycreating issue and exploit it for all its worth, the utility of negating, deflationary riposte is perfectly apparent”. moral panics also need to be visualised by the target audience in order to create a sense of fear in that group, which are quite often used as a distraction by the dominant hegemony during periods of socio-economic hardship. “in sum, social interventions that ignore the roots of violence while creating coercive forms of control and scapegoating unpopular people are the legacies of a moral panic, becoming embedded in the social order long after the initial wave of public anxiety has subsided” (welch et al., 2002, p. 23). it is a matter of creating a “folk devil” in order to justify a “cure”: crucially, the theory [of moral panic] has, over the years, drawn attention to the importance of empowering folk devils so that they or their representatives can challenge the cycle of sanctions and social control. pressure groups, lobbies, self-help and interest groups have sprung up across the country and effectively positioned themselves as authoritative sources of comment and criticism. they now contribute to the shape of public debate, playing a major role in contesting what they perceive as dangerous stereotypes and popular misconceptions (mcrobbie & thornton, 1995, p. 572). https://changing-sp.com/ 196 greg simons the above text relates to the positive role of moral panics in being able to contest the power of the hegemonic status quo. however, this can be reverse engineered too. instead of being a tool to contest the hegemonic power, it can also be a tool of the hegemonic power to crush any possible challenge to its position and consolidate specific political interests by using the moral panic (burns & crawford, 1999). this is done by invoking dangerous stereotypes and popular misconceptions in order to enforce and bolster sanctions and social control. the hegemonic power also places itself as the monopoly of commentary, and therefore to control the shape of the public debate by the creation of a threatening “folk devil” as a means of political and social control. this can often take place during some form of socio-economic crisis and public discontent with the system. critcher (2009) equates the role of moral panic with the desire to compel moral regulation. however, moral panic may also be used as a catalyst for other tasks, such as political regulation. this is to be understood as creating an environment of fear and caution, in which the inhabitants are compliant to the will and the needs of the hegemonic political power. contemporary mainstream news coverage of russia: the ultimate moral panic? to make sense of something it is necessary to be able to identify and scrutinise the individual components. there are a number of different tools for the analysis and sense making of examples of text. one of the tools is through content analysis, which involves the quantification of different elements in text. it seeks frequencies of certain words in certain genres, and can track these over times in order to identify change. argumentation analysis focuses upon the structure of argumentation used, which is linked to the wider approach of rhetoric. narrative analysis involves seeking to explain a “common-sense” understanding of how the world works through a study of the components that make up a narrative. discourse analysis has a purpose to study issues related to power and how they are linguistically constructed in order to understand actions (boréus & bergström, 2017, pp. 7–8). the tool chosen for the analysis of the text in this paper after considering the abovementioned alternatives is qualitative analysis of ideas and ideological content – an approach that focuses upon intentional action. in this regard, ideologies are understood and analysed as consisting of ideas that guide the actions and interactions that constitute a society with its institutions, social relations, and power relations. the aim is to identify, interpret, describe, and classify the ideological content in thought and language (boréus & bergström, 2017, p. 7). the texts for analysis in this paper have been collected over a long period (some four years since the euromaidan events in ukraine) and have been manually narrowed down to some 40 pieces of work. this includes mainstream media articles, media monitoring articles, and policy papers by think tanks. information and knowledge production are key components, which influence the nature of public debates through managing public opinion and perception of events and processes in the physical environment. one of the key components in shaping the information environment are media outlets and journalists, which can be associated with the mythical brand of being a fourth estate. however, some former members of this group changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 189–206 197 are much more critical of their role. former bbc news producer kenneth payne went as far as to characterise contemporary media as “indisputably an instrument of war”. this is because military (and political) conflicts are heavily dependent upon carrying domestic and international public opinion (payne, 2005, p. 81), which is very evident in the quality of media reporting of the current tensions, real and imagined, between russia and the west. the environment has been captured well in a satirical blog – a media primer on the art of writing russian scare stories. ten new “rules” of journalism were suggested: 1) there is no need to apply the standards of journalism, such as credible and verifiable sources; 2) truth and credibility are not necessary; 3) make any claim, not matter how outlandish; 4) add submarines to the story to give it more “soviet-era” creepiness; 5) play on peoples’ fears; 6) use the word kremlin as much as possible in the story; 7) use russian military aircraft in the story, and make sure the context is left out; 8) minimise or withhold certain facts from the story; 9) be very selective on what you report, least there be confusion on who the good and bad guys are; 10) create your very own reality (slane, 2015). although the main focus of the paper is from events in 2014, such as those on crimea, which were taken as a low point in relations between russia and the west, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that relations were already in the process of plummeting before this milestone. from 2014, there has been a plethora of material published by think tanks and other organisations that promote the idea of a political, cultural and/or russian military threat, which is often used as a pretext and justification for the act of “self-defence” through increasing the defence budget and enacting extraordinary measures (darczewska, 2014; berzins, 2014; lucas, 2015; shirreff & olexszczytowski, 2016). the period of see-saw warm and cool relations has seen periodic and recurring bouts of optimism followed by despair. president george w. bush famously saw something he liked in president putin’s eyes in 2001. then in 2008, the world was apparently shocked by the outbreak of the russia-georgia war. although, the signs were already there, and the likely direction of those relations was to worsen between the west and russia given their very different political and policy trajectories (sakwa, 2008). there was an attempt to “hit the reset button” in 2009. what are the headlines and media content telling the public about the current russia “threat”? a lot of speculation, assertion and assumption exists in the mainstream media’s reporting of the russia “threat”, which was noticeably increased in “quality” and quantity during the 2016 us presidential elections, and their aftermath. an opinion article compared and asserted what the russians allegedly did was every bit as bad as the japanese sneak attack on the pearl harbour base on 7 december 1941, as “an act of war nonetheless, a sneak attack using 21st century methods”. then the author finished her article with the assumption that “russia must indeed be laughing” (tumulty, 2018). this ending is designed as a means to invoke a little extra public outrage at the thought of not only being “attacked” and ridiculed as well. as another block in the liberal media’s echo chamber when friedman chimes in with the promise that our democracy is in danger: “president trump is either totally compromised by the russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way, he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend america against a russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy” (friedman, 2018). the echo chamber was reinforced by the words of robinson: https://changing-sp.com/ 198 greg simons there it is, in black and white: trump was elected with the active help of russian president vladimir putin. while putin is not named as a co-conspirator, the man behind the scheme – an oligarch named yevgeniy prigozhin – is a long-time crony known in russia as “putin’s chef”. the idea that he would meddle in a u.s. election without orders from putin is ludicrous” (robinson, 2018). once more, the main message is one of an impending threat that has the potential to undermine the values and norms of the american system and way of life. one article from the la times sought to create a story detailing a long history of the soviet union and now russia as seeking to “sow discord” in the united states. the logic of the story is that there were numerous attempts that sought to do this historically, but they invariably failed. however, russia has apparently discovered their “silver bullet” with social media: russian operatives couldn’t have asked for better tools than facebook and twitter to spark conflict and deepen divisions within americans, experts say. never before could they fan propaganda with such ease and speed and needle the people most vulnerable to misinformation with such precision. the typical style of format of narrative is used, where words that denote uncertainty are used, such as “appears” or “allegedly” (pierson, 2018). hillary clinton’s former press secretary, brian fallon, chimed in with more alarming assumptions and assertions. “it seems like the creative instincts and the sophistication exceeds a lot of the us political operatives who do this for a living” (parker, a., wagner, j., 2018). there is an effort to make the russians and putin seem like an unstoppable and highly sophisticated force that is bent on undermining us democracy by subverting the system. yet little tangible proof is offered to support the highly alarmist claims. through the use of assertion propaganda, these stories offer a number of different suggested “remedies”, which include applying further punitive sanctions against russia and/or removing trump as president. there is also a significant and notable conflation between the measure of activity and measure of effect. even assuming the dubious allegations of activity are correct, it does not mean that they necessarily automatically achieve the stated effect. a number of discernible buzzwords are often repeated to reinforce the idea of the moral panic by emphasizing some key ideas/threats, such as “russian playbook”, “russian aggression”, “running a sophisticated campaign”, “undermining democracy”, “russia collusion”, “hacking election”, and “destroying us democracy”. robert parry characterised mainstream us media as being “unctuous” and “unprofessional” in their coverage of the issue; not only did they uncritically go with the story, they also attacked those who did not in order to create a groupthink bandwagon effect (parry, 2017a). however, there is an ever-growing narrative of evidence and opinion that seeks to debunk what has come to be known as russia-gate – the alleged collusion of russia in electing donald trump as president of the united states. there are a number of sources and people that are pushing back against the moral panic of the russia threat narrative through deconstructing its logic, argumentation, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/16/the-rise-of-putins-chef-yevgeniy-prigozhin-the-russian-accused-of-manipulating-the-u-s-election/ changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 189–206 199 and evidence. one of those sources appeared in a mainstream media outlet, the guardian, where the author begins with “pundits and democrats ascribe to a handful of bargain-basement russian trolls all manner of ability – including orchestrating a coup d’etat”. as part of the deconstruction, frank mentions that the advertising budget for the 2016 us presidential election was us$9.8 billion and the alleged russian facebook trolls spent us$100,000, which supposedly was the most effective in “hacking” the election (frank, 2018). frank openly states that he believes that the reporting on the issue has been consciously and deliberately exaggerated, which is one of the markers for identifying a moral panic. a number of key witnesses have also cast doubt upon the assertions of russian interference in the 2016 us presidential election. one such occasion occurred when house intelligence committee chairman devin nunes (r-calif) stated in an interview that he was “up to speed on everything i have up to this morning. no evidence of collusion.” he went further to suggest that there were members of the us intelligence community and the fbi that are leaking information in order to compromise the trump presidency (savransky, 2017). michael morell, the former acting director of the cia, an endorser of hillary clinton who referred to trump as a dupe of russia backtracked. he stated: “on the question of the trump campaign conspiring with the russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire, at all” (dilanian, 2017). some media outlets published scepticism of the russian propaganda narrative too, such as when the shadowy front group propornot2 accused hundreds of journalists and outlets that did not take the official mainstream political and media narrative as “spreading russian propaganda.” the headline of the new yorker spoke openly of the doubt being expressed – the propaganda about russian propaganda (chen, 2016). propornot attempted to shape the information and knowledge environment by not only perpetuating the official russia moral panic, but also attempted to silence any form of public dissent or divergence through character assassination. as george orwell noted back in 1945 in the freedom of the press, “at any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question […] anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness”. there has been a growing sense of dissatisfaction that the mass media and journalism have become “an extension” of the official government narrative and other interest groups, rather than a voice of objective reason and public interest, the author linking the russia-gate narrative to the fake news phenomena (hannan, 2018). renowned investigative journalist, robert parry, noted the use of character assassination against those people and outlets (through labelling them as “russian moles”) that challenged the “orthodoxy” of the russia threat moral panic. he also noted a logic that he described as being often missing in the alleged russian “hack” of the presidential election. in particular, he pointed to discrepancies in applying logic and evidence, such as the relatively minor and insignificant sums of money allegedly being used to run their “sophisticated” influence campaign (parry, 2017b). even people that are normally highly critical of putin and the russian government, such as masha 2 http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html https://changing-sp.com/ http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html 200 greg simons gessen, characterising the russia-gate saga as destructive politics making use of a conspiracy theory approach (glasser, 2017). this criticism has not stopped the attempt to broaden the scope of the moral panic in the united states by mainstream political and media actors, which was witnessed in the aftermath of the florida school shooting when there were assertions that a “russian ‘bot’ army pounced” in an effort to “sow discord” in american society through divisive debates (frenkel & wakabayashi, 2018). once more, the mainstream media accepts the orthodoxy without question, and takes the assertions as reality uncritically at face value and thereby betraying the theoretical foundations of good journalism. however, the united states has not been the only country to drive a moral panic using russia as the folklore devil. another country that has extensively used the russia “threat” as the basis of a moral panic is the united kingdom. some stories are timed for significant times of the year, such as the christmas-new year period, which is associated with festive family activities. a story that emerged at this time was an alarmist one that featured the royal navy needing to be sent in order to intercept and escort russian naval ships. on the surface, the story implies that the russian navy violated british territorial waters, except for one small tract – “royal navy frigate hms westminster was sent to monitor four russian vessels over the weekend as they passed close to british waters” (miller, 2018). in other words, there was no real crisis or breech of international law, rather a constructed moral panic. the threatening “predictions” of leading members of the british government have also be quoted without any additional analysis or critique on numerous occasions, such as former foreign secretary boris johnson’s assertion that russia is “full of dirty tricks”, and has the ability to disrupt uk politics with hacking. this led to discussions on how to defend against these hypothetical attacks (wintour & slawson, 2017). this news coincidentally appeared at a time when there was a debate as to whether to adopt secure on-line voting as an option. more recently, the former defence secretary gavin williamson warned that “russia could cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths in britain with an attack which would cripple the uk’s infrastructure and energy supply” (farmer, 2018). as with the previous cases, there was no supporting evidence to back the assertions, and the announcement came at a time when the defence budget was being reviewed. one of the more bizarre cases was the assertion that russia hacked brexit, which actually came well after the vote and only emerged at the time of the us presidential elections in november 2017 (burgess, 2017; galeotti, 2017; smith, 2017). the same style of rhetoric, reasoning and logic used in the us presidential election was used in brexit too, in an apparent attempt to link the two events together in a global super-conspiracy theory in spite of the obvious discrepancies, such as the chronological disjunction of the two events. the moral panic of the russia threat is much more widely and globally spread, from the dutch referendum on a trade deal with ukraine and elections (lagerman, 2017), to “looming” invasions of ukraine (baldor, 2014), the french election (daniels, 2017), the german elections (even though german intelligence found no evidence) (knight, 2017), the mexican elections (garcia & torres, 2018), and even that putin gave orders to attack us troops in syria (peters, 2018). all of these stories shared the trademark approaches to communicating the moral panic in-line with the us changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 189–206 201 presidential model, with the various alleged risks to societal norms and values, the buzzwords used, different “remedies” offered depending on the objective (usually revealed by the specific timing and circumstance of the russia “menace”). as noted by glenn greenwald, “every empire needs a scary external threat, led by a singular menacing villain, to justify its massive military expenditures, consolidation of authoritarian powers, and endless wars” (greenwald, 2018). conclusion at the beginning of this paper a question was posed: what is the logic of the russian “threat”, and are there any “cures” suggested in mainstream media coverage? before, this is answered in full, the bits of the complex puzzle need to be brought together in order to make sense of the bigger picture. firstly, is the role of journalism and the mass media. this institution has managed to create a branded myth around itself as being a fourth estate, an institution that checks and balances the political power in the name of public interest. however, there are concerns and evidence that journalism’s role has become co-opted by economic and political interests. this is precisely because of the assumed power to influence perception and shape public opinion. the mainstream mass media are indelibly tied to the interests of the hegemonic system of liberal democracy acting in the capacity as their information gatekeeper and watchdog. currently, that system of liberal democracy is experiencing a multi-levelled crisis in terms of public trust and legitimacy owing to what has been labelled as being the populist challenge. this has been seen in the us elections when trump beat his rival and the anticipated winner (by mainstream politics and mass media) hillary clinton, when the favoured liberal contender was beaten by someone that rhetorically stood against the liberal system. there were also similar challenges found in brexit, the french and german elections. another problem of contemporary politics is found in the competition for increasingly scarcer governmental financial resources. as a result, a common communication strategy seems to have been developed using a “cookie cutter” approach in order to attain these political and economic objectives. after some years of not being the global folklore devil, russia has been re-elevated to this status, which may be in part through the ability of the moral panic communicators to link the supervillain brand of the soviet union from the cold war to the russian federation. thereby, the brand has some pre-existing level of recognition and status to the target audiences. rather than taking the strategy of a longer term and somewhat unpredictable path of either reforming the system of a reasoned and rational form of communication, a shorter-term approach of using emotionally based messaging that intends to induce fear in the target audience. when fear is induced, the logic works differently insofar as there is less critical reflection on the quality of the logic and evidence being presented. therefore, inducing a moral panic can adequately meet the organisational objectives. traditionally, moral panics have been associated as a means of ethical or social regulation and control within society. this study presents an indicative case where moral panic is used to regulate and control politics and economics in a given society https://changing-sp.com/ 202 greg simons or system in order to fend off challenges to their continued hegemony and in order to justify policy that may otherwise be difficult to pass. franklin et al. (2011) identified the progression of a moral panic, which can be easily applied to this case. firstly, a threat is identified, in this case russia and putin. secondly, the threat is distilled to an easily understandable form by the mass media, which can be seen in the uniform rhetoric and lexicon used globally, e.g. a “sophisticated campaign” or “undermining democracy”. thirdly comes the construction and exaggeration phase, whereby russia is elevated to the status as a global threat and mega folklore devil. the next phase is to create a demand to do something; one such example is the demand by some sections of us society to impeach trump for “russian collusion”. this creates the context whereby the actor(s) responsible for the moral panic have a freer hand at policy, such as deploying troops to central and eastern europe. there is an evident effort to try and defend the viability of the moral panic from attack and deconstruction, by targeting those individuals and organisations that openly challenge the legitimacy and credibility of it, which is done by including them as being willing assistants to the “attack” on society and its values. references baldor, l. c. 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sapolsky, 2004). the consequences of stress may be positive for a person – eustress – and be expressed in personal development, professional achievements, the improvement of life standards, etc. negative consequences of stress – distress – manifest themselves in deterioration of physical state, mental well-being, self-efficiency, in the rising of interpersonal conflicts, etc. personal perception of difficulties and subjective assessment of them determine the choice and realization (or activation) of coping strategies (lazarus, 1966). focus on the problem solving, regulation of physical and emotional state, a search of social and religious support, aggressive and antisocial actions, denial or distraction from the problem – are all the possible ways of regulating human internal stress and overcoming difficult situations. however, personal attitudes in relation to difficulties, coping strategies, and possible behavioural practices are heavily predetermined by their cultural context. according to g. hofstede, culture helps to distinguish the members of one group from another (hofstede, 2011). culture is a filter consisting of national value systems, traditions, language system, etc., through which a person perceives and interprets the reality. language as a tool of communication is the mirror of a culture; it aims to reflect the specific mentality of a nation. one and the same category can find different representations in different cultures, which in turn determine specific behavioural patterns selected by their representatives. numerous works have shown that cultural background determines both the interpretation of stress (concept or conceptual structure) and the choice of coping behavioural patterns (kholodnaya, 2012; kholodnaya et al., 2007; liu et al., 2004). cross-cultural studies in the field of stress and coping behaviour are frequently dedicated to a comparative analysis of the intensity of experienced stress and preferred coping strategies among the representatives of individualistic and collectivistic cultures. according to the data provided by poltavski & ferraro (2003), russian students tend to experience a higher level of stress in comparison with their fellow students from the usa; however, americans mentioned suffering from more diseases. in comparison with german respondents, turkish high school students experience tougher stress, and therefore they are in need of extended social support (yeresyan & lohaus, 2014). frydenberg et al. (2003) have found out that palestine and columbian youth comparing to german and australian students extensively use such strategies as belongingness, social actions, problem solving, positive focus, religious support and concern. kryukova (2005) established that non-productive styles of coping behaviour prevail among 273changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 polish students; australian youth relies on both, productive and non-productive coping, whereas russian students greatly use a social style of overcoming difficult situations. australian domestic students in comparison with non-resident fellows (mostly from asian countries) enjoy stronger social support and use more functional coping strategies in achieving coherence between personal expectations and reality of the university life (khawaja & dempsey, 2008). the abovementioned studies have proven that the intensity of perceived stress and routes of overcoming difficulties are determined to a large extent by whether the culture belongs to the individualistic or collectivistic type. however, connections between perceived stress concepts and coping strategies, which reflect personally meaningful aspects of stressful events and acceptable ways of stress regulation in a specific cultural context, remain to be elucidated. the present study aims to analyse the correlations between the concept of stress and coping strategies among representatives of different collectivistic cultures. collectivistic cultures are characterized by a high level of interdependence among their members, social conformism and a high rate of uncertainty avoidance following with respect for traditions (hui & triandis, 1998; matsumoto & juang, 2012). russian, turkish and chinese cultures are generally classified as collectivistic (karabati & cemalcilar, 2010)1. we assume that correlations between the stress concept and coping behaviour strategies inherent in a culture can help to reveal group-oriented aspects of overcoming stress specific to this society. the resource approach was employed to study a variety of key strategies within the system of resources of personal coping behaviour (frydenberg & lewis, 1993; khasova, 2015). among other research methods were structural analysis of concepts and psychological testing of coping strategies preferred by respondents in overcoming stressful events. by using the abovementioned methods, we were able to find correlations between the concept of stress and coping strategies. our results have shown that group-oriented coping strategies perform different functional roles in russian, turkish, and chinese cultures. the cultures under study – russian, turkish and chinese – are known to differ significantly in understanding of what stress is (kuvaeva, achan, lozovskaya, 2017). our findings have demonstrated that the perception of stress in russian culture is associated with various stress manifestations and its chronic course. in turkish students, stress results from everyday educational activities and concerns about future prospects. in chinese students, stress is described by generalized stress indicators, as well as by the need to react immediately to challenging life situations. all respondents, regardless of their cultural identity, pointed out that stress as a mental state requires adjustment and prevention measures. method 1. procedure testing was performed according to the generally accepted ethical norms. testing was anonymous. 1 https://geert-hofstede.com , last accessed date: 29 august 2017. 274 irina kuvaeva, nadezhda achan, ksenia lozovskaya data was collected in each of the cultural groups by using a simple instrument (a pencil and paper). russian and chinese students were surveyed together in the university classrooms while turkish respondents were surveyed separately (in person or via e-mail). in our research, the students were provided with instructions in their native languages – russian, turkish and chinese. the translation procedure, which involved back-translation, was used with chinese and turkish respondents. the translation procedure for the chinese version of the questionnaire, for example, included the following steps. first, three chinese language specialists and two master’s degree students (chinese native speakers) translated the instructions into chinese and provided five translated versions. to select the most appropriate version, the group of specialists assessed the translations: one professor of the russian language, two chinese language phd specialists, and one phd specialist in psychology. second, in order to ensure that the equivalence is continuous across both languages; three other bilingual consultants provided back translations of the instruments. the first-translation and the back-translation were thoroughly compared for equivalence. third, to ensure clarity and comprehensibility of the translated instructions, a chinese language phd specialist assessed the translated versions of the instruments. eventually, a chinese language phd specialist, two phd psychologists, one phd specialist in culture studies and two native speakers (master’s degree students) translated the respondents’ answers into russian. in order to process and interpret the results, two native speakers and chinese culture phd specialists were involved as consultants. a similar translation technology was applied to the instruments’ versions prepared for the turkish sample. 2. participants the sample consisted of 226 university students (102 m. / 124 f.) aged 17–30 (mean 20.8±2.5). respondents were selected based on the following criteria: (1) a first, second or third university student; (2) specialisation – linguistic and international affairs; (3) voluntary decision to take part in the research. the russian sample comprised 98 people (25 m. / 73 f.) aged 18–23 (mean 19.28±1.05). the turkish sample comprised 70 students (43 m. / 27 f.) aged 17–30 (mean 22.49±2.6); the chinese sample comprised 58 students (34 m. / 24 f.) aged 17–27 (mean 21.74±2.6). russian and chinese students were students from the ural federal university, russia. turkish respondents were students either from the ural federal university or from turkish universities (gazi, anadolu, atatürk, and trakya). 3. demographics form this form was used to gather information about participants’ age, gender and program type, faculty of enrolment, course name, university title and country of citizenship or nationality. 4. assessment of the stress concept a conceptual representations of stress (cores) technique was used for quantity and quality assessment of the stress concept and different stress indicators. cores 275changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 is a modified, validated, and shortened version of the ‘integral conceptual structures’ technique (kholodnaya & volkova, 2016). cores contains three questions, which allowed us to estimate a degree of differentiation/integration of concept of stress, its content and structural organization. the mean cronbach’s alpha for the cores was obtained as 0.80 (russian sample), 0.78 (turkish sample), 0.74 (chinese sample). according to kholodnaya (2012), concepts are basic cognitive units activated by specific verbal stimuli and characterized by own structural organization and content. the structure of a concept comprises the following modalities: sensory-emotional, verbalsemantic and visual. the sensory-emotional modality reflects a human experience of interaction between a person and particular subject environment, gathering so-called “luggage” of various impressions and experiences. the verbal-semantic modality is formed on the basis of acquisition of words and their meanings from a natural language. the visual modality organizes visual experience, which reveals typical and essential features of the object. the content of a concept is an internal, personal understanding of a specific subject, social phenomenon, or a scientific concept. according to volkova, any cognitive unit (concept) can be presented in the form of a psychological model that includes various types of experiences (volkova, 2014). therefore, we singled out the following content criteria of stress assessment: its causes, cognitive appraisal and immediate effects, long-term effects (consequences), and dynamics. participants were asked to describe their psychological perceptions and representations of stress and experiences of overcoming difficulties in the line with the open-ended tasks given below: 1. write as many adjectives as possible to characterise the word stress. time: 3 minutes, (sensory-emotion modality). 2. outline problems, which, in your opinion, could occur while studying stress. time: 2 minutes, (verbal-semantic modality). 3. draw a picture of the stress object with its most essential characteristics. time: 2 minutes, (visual modality). we estimated the degree of differentiation/integration of the concept of stress by calculating the total number of categories of stress reflected in the three modalities. according to the method, maximal differentiation in each modality was 4 points and implied the presence of four stress characteristics in the respondents’ answers. captions that the respondents made to the pictures were taken into account when assessing visual modality. the points were assigned when a respondent mentioned all four stress criteria indicated above. thus, the total list for statistical treatments included 8 indexes: 1 degree of differentiation/integration of concept, 3 modalities and 4 content criteria. table 1 demonstrates these indexes of stress concept. 5. assessment of coping strategies for the assessment of coping strategies, we applied an 80-item “adolescent coping scale” (acs) developed by e. frydenberg and r. lewis to measure coping 276 irina kuvaeva, nadezhda achan, ksenia lozovskaya behaviour (frydenberg et al., 1993). this instrument measures 18 strategies of overcoming difficulties and the frequency of their selection in dealing with hardships and anxiety. the students were asked to use a likert-scale to assess different coping strategies. the authors of the acs identified eighteen strategies, which can be broadly categorized as productive, social, and non-productive styles. however, some studies proposed other criteria for estimating the efficiency of coping behaviour, arguing that acs styles appropriately describe only western cultures. for example, by using cluster analysis, four styles were distinguished for a group of russian students (n=336): problem-oriented, mobilization, emotion dominated, and sociotropic (kholodnaya et al., 2007). table 1 below demonstrates these styles and involved strategies. the description and interpretation of our research results were performed in accordance with the given classification. the mean cronbach’s alpha for the acs was obtained as 0.86 (russian sample), 0.74 (turkish sample), 0.84 (chinese sample). table 1. research variables instrument variables a conceptual representations of stress technique structural organization (modalities): (1) sensory-emotional – a human experience of interaction between a person and particular subject environment, gathering so-called “luggage” of various impressions and experiences; (2) verbal-semantic – is formed on the basis of acquisition of words and their meanings from a natural language; (3) visual – a visual experience, which reveals typical and essential features of the object. content categories: (4) causes or stress-factors; (5) cognitive appraisal and immediate effects; (6) long-term effects (consequences); (7) features of stress process (dynamics). (8) degree of differentiation/integration of the concept – result of calculating the total number of categories of stress reflected in the three modalities. 277changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 adolescent coping scale problem-oriented style: (1) problem solving – systematic reflection on the problem; (2) working hard and achieve – responsible attitude to work and orientation towards success; (3) social action – organization of group activities; (4) professional help – consulting specialists. mobilization style: (5) ignoring – consciously blocking out the problem; (6) self-absorption – keeping to oneself; (7) positive focus – optimism; (8) active leisure – playing sports and keeping fit. sociotropic style: (9) social support – discussing the problem with other people; (10) friends – seeking support from close friends; (11) feeling of belonging – caring about other people's opinions, seeking their approval; (12) relax – trying to relax and distance oneself. emotion dominated style: (13) anxiety – concern about one's future; (14) miracles – wishful thinking; (15) not coping – being unable to deal with the problem and developing psychosomatic symptoms; (16) tension reduction – tears, aggression, harmful habits; (17) self-accusation – criticising oneself for feeling worried; (18) spiritual support – seeking spiritual guidance. 6. statistical analysis the data obtained were processed using the standard software ‘spss 21.0 package for windows’. to test the data for the normality of distribution, the kolmogorovsmirnov criterion was applied. the kruskal-wallis h test was used to determine the impact of the independent variable ‘culture’ on the dependent variables (concept indicators and coping strategies). correlation analysis (pearson) was also applied to find correlations between the research variables. results 1. dependence of the stress concept and coping strategies on culture our results shown in table 2 have proven the fact that culture affects both the representations of stress and choice of coping strategies. our research failed to reveal, however, any statistically significant impact of culture on the visual modality of the stress concept and on socio-tropic strategies. 278 irina kuvaeva, nadezhda achan, ksenia lozovskaya 2. correlations between the stress concept and coping strategies table 3 depicts significant correlations in all compared groups, with the highest number of correlations found in the russian sample and the lowest in the chinese sample. for the russian students, the degree of differentiation/integration was connected primarily with the strategies of “social supporting” and “anxiety”. other two groups did not show any correlation between the chosen coping strategies and the degree of differentiation. however, we found correlations between modalities and coping strategies for the russians and turks. in the russian sample, all four content characteristics of stress correlated with different strategies. the strategies and only two content characteristics – the causes and immediate effects – correlated in turkish and chinese samples. turks compensated the negative effects of stress with “friends” and “positive focus”, while the chinese familiarly overcome stress with the help of “selfabsorption”. the cognitive appraisal/immediate effects had a negative correlation with “spiritual support” (turks) and “ignoring” (chinese). table 2. dependence of stress concept and coping strategies on the culture dependent variables cultural groups chisquare test russian (n=98) turkish (n=70) chinese (n=58) degree of differentiation/ integration 146.01 89.03 80.65 50.85*** sensory-emotional modality 147.61 87.15 80.17 59.17*** verbal-semantic modality 132.30 93.99 98.75 20.18*** visual modality 119.95 109.70 100.76 3.77 stress causes 117.36 127.96 82.13 18.45*** cognitive appraisal and immediate effects 138.04 79.71 106.70 39.90*** long-term effects 134.28 99.07 88.76 24.77*** process of development 128.72 92.96 106.44 15.46*** problem solving 126.74 108.96 89.60 12.03** working hard and achieve 128.51 102.12 95.16 11.93** social action 77.82 119.10 163.86 64.74*** professional help 88.70 122.81 141.54 27.70*** ignoring 106.97 127.28 101.52 6.04** self-absorption 122.74 111.98 92.98 7.64* positive focus 118.74 121.32 88.12 10.19** active leisure 118.06 107.65 106.75 1.56 anxiety 142.87 101.05 70.93 46.97*** 279changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 miracles 127.57 113.08 82.89 17.02*** not coping 117.29 118.46 94.36 5.52 tension reduction 121.07 94.66 117.91 7.53* self-accusation 131.91 98.97 93.11 17.05*** spiritual support 92.95 165.80 77.47 73.50*** social support 122.07 106.35 101.25 4.49 friends 104.02 118.52 117.93 2.70 feeling of belonging 115.24 97.59 124.56 5.88 relax 109.72 115.69 111.36 0.36 *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001 table 3. correlations between the concept and coping strategies in three cultural groups indicators of the stress concept cultural groups russian turkish chinese degree of differentiation/ integration social support (r=0.205*), anxiety (r=0.284**) sensory-emotional modality anxiety (r=0.312**), self-accusation (r=0.202*) spiritual support (r= –0.269*), belonging (r=0.270*) verbal-semantic modality spiritual support (r= –0.333**) visual modality stress causes working hard and achieve (r=0.261*) friends (r=0.323**), positive focus (r=0.282*) selfabsorption (r=0.319*) cognitive appraisal and immediate effects not coping (r=0.233*), self-accusation (r=0.202*) spiritual support (r= –0.274*) ignoring (r= –0.276*) long-term effects ignoring (r=0.330**) process of development anxiety (r=0.309**) *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001 280 irina kuvaeva, nadezhda achan, ksenia lozovskaya discussion and conclusion our findings distinctly show that the stress concept and coping strategies both have cultural specifics (except for the visual modality and socio-tropic coping style strategies). in the investigated collectivistic cultures – russian, turkish and chinese – both the indicators of the concept, the degree of its differentiation and coping strategies showed a dependence on culture. the representatives of russian culture were shown to share a more differentiated concept, which reflects a long-term experience of surviving stressful situations and emphasizes individual differences in coping strategies. our results are in good agreement with those studies that proved stress to be a constituent feature of contemporary social life in russia (pietila & rytkonen, 2008; poltavski et al., 2003), with its key stressors being information overloads, deprivation of sleep and tight deadlines (kosheleva, amarnor & chernobilsky, 2015). our comparative analysis has demonstrated that the more differentiated the concept of stress is in a culture, the more differentiated and individualized coping strategies are used by its representatives. it is only in russian culture that stress is associated with certain coping strategies. for instance, overcoming difficulties in russian culture means an activation of various strategies, the most popular of which being anxiety and self-accusation. as soon as stressful experience is accumulated, the personal need in social support increases. in turkish culture, religious support appears to be one of the most productive strategies, which helps turkish people find relief from negative emotions and thoughts. as for the representatives of chinese culture, they tend to turn to self-absorption when the number of stress factors increases: growing inner tension mobilizes them to accept problems on the conscious level. in our view, a wide differentiation of the stress concept in russian culture can be connected with a substantial experience of surviving stress situations. persistent stress conditions present in modern russian life contribute to deeper knowledge of the stress factors, stress reactions, and the negative effects of the phenomenon. comparing the characteristics of coping strategies in the studied cultural groups has shown that group-oriented strategies play different functional roles in the way people manage stress. in russian culture, e.g., social support enables people to regulate their emotional states. russian students demonstrated predominantly individualized coping strategies, such as anxiety and self-accusation, more often than the representatives of the other two groups. as for turkish students, reliance on friends and feeling of belonging are important ways of regulating their emotional states and managering difficult life situations. spiritual support as an emotional dominant strategy is a great coping recourse for turks. our study has contributed to the understanding of coping behaviour displayed by turkish students, highlighting its social orientation and reliance on religion in coping with stress. thus, kaynak key, donmez & tuzun (2004) stated that passive leisure is a popular method of physical relaxation for turks. concerning chinese students our results have demonstrated the correlation between stress representations and mobilization style coping strategies. it should be mentioned that our research has some limitations. the term “stress” has a different duration of existence in the russian, turkish and chinese languages. the 281changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 word stress has been used in everyday language and academic vocabulary for the last fifty years (both in the russian and turkish languages). having been adopted from the western culture, this term is rather new for everyday speech in china and mostly popular within young people. this was the reason why we used a combination of hieroglyphs 紧张 as a synonym for the word “stress” in our research. it may be recommended that researchers working on similar problems take into account the degree of awareness of the respondents on used terms. another limitation follows from using the conceptual representations of stress (cores) technique in assessing cultural concepts. the russian language is rich in adjectives, which are used to describe various features of subjects and phenomena. native turkish speakers, on the contrary, tend to use participles. thus, our turkish respondents used different parts of speech in describing stress: adjectives, participles and synonymous nouns. chinese hieroglyphs strongly depend on the contexts, which substantially determine the meaning of the word and the part of speech. hieroglyphics are less specific – they can transmit a wide range of expression (for example, from a light fright to horror). thus, future studies should carefully interpret concepts, taking into account the linguistic features of the language as culturally specific ways of perceiving and processing information. practical relevance of the research lies in developing and implementing of stressrelieving programs, targeting different cultural groups of students with account of specific interpretations of stress and patterns of coping with difficult situations. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank all the survey participants for their involvement in this research project. the study was supported by a russian science foundation grant (project №14–28-00087), institute of psychology ras. special thanks to natalia popova, the head of the foreign languages department of the institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, for assistance in preparation the manuscript for publication. references frydenberg, e., & lewis, r. 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(2014). stress and wellbeing among turkish and german adolescents living in rural and urban areas. rural and remote health. 14(2):2695. retrieved from https://www.rrh.org.au/journal/article/2695 changing societies & personalities, 2019 vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 319–332 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2019.3.4.080 received 8 october 2019 © 2019 aleksei v. loginov accepted 20 december 2019 alexeyloginov@urfu.ru published online 6 january 2020 article second-order arguments, or do we still need tolerance in the public sphere? aleksei v. loginov ural federal university, yekaterinburg, russia abstract a number of widely discussed court decisions on cases of insults against religious feelings in russia, such as the relatively recent “pokemon go” case of blogger ruslan sokolovsky or the lawsuit filed against an orthodox priest by nikolai ryabchevsky in yekaterinburg for comparing lenin with hitler, make pertinent the question of why toleration becomes so difficult in matters concerning religion. in this paper, i revise the classical liberal concept of toleration (david heyd, peter nicholson, and john horton), arguing that it is challenged by contemporary philosophers, who see no room for applying this concept in the “domain of identities”. the most prominent case of “primordial” identity, that is, the notion of identity as a given, is the claim of devoted believers for recognition. should we replace the principle of toleration by the principle of recognition since the latter better corresponds to identity claims? to address this question, in the first part of the article i describe the mechanism of tolerant attitude (nicholson, heyd) and in the second part, i analyze the debates about the possibility or impossibility of inner religious toleration (avishai margalit, cary nederman, and maxim khomyakov) and further compare toleration and recognition as normative principles. in the light of the debates i took part in the conference hosted by the university of southern denmark in october 2019 as part of the project “religious majority/minority in public space in russia and northern europe: historical-cultural analysis”, i come to the conclusion that the principle of toleration is preferable to the principle of recognition because the “second-order” arguments for toleration in a secular state will be universally acceptable (pragmatic argument) and, therefore, the principle of toleration is more logical https://changing-sp.com/ 320 aleksei v. loginov (analytical argument). following peter john’s thesis about minimal recognition embedded in toleration, it may also be concluded that we need a normatively charged idea of citizenship, which could provide us with universal “second-order” foundation. keywords tolerance, religion, recognition, identity, citizenship acknowledgements the work was supported by the grant of the russian science foundation (no. 17-18-01194) introduction contemporary society is ridden with conflict, especially religious conflict. broadly understood, any conflict can be described as religious if at least one of the sides involved makes references to a certain religion in its claims or argumentation. even though in this case the conflict may still be rooted in economic or political disparity – the fact that both political theoreticians and practitioners are well aware of – it does not exclude the possibility of an opposite situation – that the conflict is rooted in religion or stem from different interpretation of the sacred texts (stepanova, 2017). the growing number of religious conflicts makes it pertinent for political and social theory to revise the already existing instruments of analysis and to develop new ones for efficient peacemaking and peacekeeping in such situations. one of the possible solutions could be the promotion of toleration (or tolerance), primarily in its egalitarian and liberal meaning, in post-secular society. it should be noted that much effort was put into the promotion of tolerance in russia some ten years ago and the academia made a major contribution to this trend. however, recently, this trend has been subsiding. can the results of that intellectual work aimed at finding grounds for toleration be of any use in solving the conflicts that rage in the public space of contemporary russian society? this refers primarily to the so-called “difficult cases” which made the news and were widely discussed in russia: that of blogger ruslan sokolovsky, who played pokemon go in a church (sokolovsky! nichego sviatogo, 2017), and the libel lawsuit filed by nikolai ryabchevsky against archpriest evgeny popichenko for comparing lenin with hitler. in the latter case, during the course hearing, the defense lawyer suggested that the plaintiff should demonstrate their kinship with the alleged object of insult (ignatova, 2018). the first case triggers debates about the balance between the right to freedom of conscience with its ‘lexical priority’ – the right to freedom of speech – and the right to protection of religious feelings. this case has already been discussed in academic literature the following way: the notion of ‘religious feelings of the believers’ is highly problematic. it cannot be clearly defined since feelings are subjective and when religious feelings are separated into a distinct category it is either narrowly understood in specifically changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 319–332 321 confessional terms or it is completely devoid of any specific content as religious feelings are compounded with religious beliefs and convictions. thus, if under the guise of religious feelings it is religious convictions that are to be protected, we face inevitable violation of the right to freedom of conscience for non-believers, while positively discriminating religious believers, as well as freedom of speech for all, as freedom of speech is lexically prior to freedom of conscience and religion (menshikov, 2017, p. 35). the second case apparently implies the need to prove that secular views as well as religious views can be constitutive of human identity and the feelings based on these views can be offended in the process of communication in the public space. therefore, the question arises as to whether toleration, or to be more precise, its classical liberal (negative) version can be effective as a tool for solving such conflicts in modern pluralistic society? or should the principle of negative (liberal, minimal) toleration be replaced by the principle of acceptance of the differences significant for one’s identity since this principle is unable to regulate the relationships between the majority and a minority or between minorities? (for more on this see ceva, 2015). characteristics and structure of toleration toleration can be briefly described as a virtue of non-interference in the existence of a deviation seen as morally significant by the subject of toleration. peter nicholson (1985) points out five major characteristics of toleration: 1. deviance. a pivotal requirement here is that the subject of toleration should disapprove of the other party’s beliefs or conduct, in other words, the very fact of difference should be considered as essential. 2. importance of the deviation. the subject of toleration should find the deviation significant, important. 3. moral disapproval of the deviation. the subject of toleration is aware of their own negative attitude to the deviation and this attitude has moral (not aesthetic, pragmatic or any other) underpinnings. since disapproval has a moral character, the subject may feel that the evaluations they express are of social significance, that they are speaking on behalf of other people, because moral norms, unlike aesthetic preferences or specific pragmatic interests, are not localized only in the sphere of private life of individuals. 4. power (to suppress deviation). this means that you have the power (which interpreted rather broadly by nicholson: from the real ability to use physical coercion to the potential ability to influence the situation through criticism, propaganda and so on) or the ability to suppress the deviation. therefore, we cannot speak of toleration in situations one is powerless to change. 5. non-rejection. even though one has the power and morally disagrees with a certain practice, one still chooses not to interfere with the practice or not to prohibit it. nicholson comes to the conclusion that toleration is a moral idea and puts forward the fourth (debatable) characteristic of toleration – goodness, explaining that https://changing-sp.com/ 322 aleksei v. loginov the tolerator is morally virtuous, that is, does what is morally right (nicholson, 1985). some philosophers, for example, robert forst (2003), identify fewer criteria. in forst’s opinion, we can speak of toleration as long as the following three conditions are met: first, the subject of toleration disapproves of the deviation; second, the subject of toleration can interfere (act against the deviation) but chooses not to interfere; and third, still there is something in deviation that the subject of toleration cannot accept completely. in general, all the conceptual debates surrounding toleration are connected to the paradox inherent in this definition and widely discussed in russian and international literature (horton, 1994; khomyakov, 2003). if we take a closer look at the relationship between nicholson’s criteria 3, 4 and 5 or forst’s transition from the first requirements to the second, we will see that toleration implies the subject’s choice of non-interference in a significant situation despite their personal moral beliefs. as bernard williams (1996) puts it, it is “impossible” or extremely hard to be tolerant. does it mean that objects of tolerance are bound to disappear, as they fall into classes of those phenomena which either can be tolerated (minimum disapproval, criteria 1–3 in nicholson’s definition are not met) or are absolutely intolerable (criterion 5 in nicholson’s definition is not met)? people obviously can find ways to get along and live together even though their moral principles are sometimes at odds with each other. therefore, there should be some special grounds to justify “switching” from personal disapproval of a deviation (the disapproval itself does not disappear) to refraining from action of coercion. in my view, there are two possible ways. the first way is that we need to prove that toleration in our value system occupies the supreme position. in this case the imperative of interference on the level of first-order morality is weakened and this is the way chosen by nicholson, who contends that tolerance is a moral ideal. the second way is to find other arguments, outweighing moral disapproval of the subject of toleration in specific cases, and try to conceptualize them to reach the level of theory. the first way seems quite problematic since we have to agree beforehand with the view that toleration is a supreme value in order to make it work in practice. the second way opens the door for a multitude of philosophical, historical, psychological, and cultural studies. the theories of toleration which follow the second way generalize and formalize these premises. is it possible to imagine the work of tolerant consciousness as using second-order arguments? my answer is yes. at first view it appears that in this case, the so-called paradox of toleration can be resolved: if one’s moral disapproval is based on certain grounds (first-order arguments) but is neutralized by other, weightier arguments (second-order arguments), then there is a chance of avoiding moral schizophrenia – a situation when both disapproval and noninterference (acceptance, toleration) are based on the same premise. according to the classical theories of toleration, toleration implies a “switch” of the subject’s attention from “morally objectionable” beliefs to the person who upholds them, followed by balancing of arguments in favour or against interference. in david heyd’s view, “the virtue of tolerance consists in a switch of perspective […] thus, to be tolerant one must be able to suspend one’s judgement of the object, to turn one’s view away from it, to treat it as irrelevant, for the sake of a generically different perspective” (heyd, 1996, p. 12). real toleration requires us to see a certain action or belief as “anchored” changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 319–332 323 in the personal background of the object of toleration. this background consists of motivations, intentions and other beliefs, in other words, the whole cognitive system of this person: “we do not tolerate opinions and beliefs, or even actions and practices, only the subjects holding disliked beliefs and the agents of detested actions” (heyd, 1996, p. 140). it is true. but why do we tolerate these people? what outweighs our disapproval of their actions? in other words, we “switch” to second-order arguments turning these people into valuable (or describing them as such). what is important is our willingness to value people more than our detestation of what we had to face when we dealt with them. i believe that specific cognitive and psychological features of this or that person do not play a significant role in the situation of toleration unless they are a part of our ideas (or theory) about him or her. broadly speaking, if i have to deal with a detestable person and i have a more or less clear idea about which of their personal qualities have led to the appearance of deviation, these qualities as such, outside of the theory about why i have to take them into consideration, will not have the force of second-order arguments1. i also think that the perceptual shift does not have to be directed specifically at the personality of the tolerated: what is important is for the tolerator to switch the attention from arguments in favour of interference to arguments against interference (even in the absence of real experience of interaction with the object of toleration). in my view, heyd is right to point out that empathy, an ability to put oneself into the other’s shoes, provides a good training of our cognitive and psychological ability to be tolerant. to sum it all up, we can say that in order for toleration to appear logically possible in each and every sphere of society, it should either be the “first commandment” in itself or we should find grounds (second-order arguments) for non-interference. toleration always serves as a principle of interpersonal communication. in the domestic policy of a state, that is, in the way state institutions treat individual citizens and groups, neutrality is necessary and sufficient. the key challenge for the classical theory of toleration is that it can no longer be applied (it is both unproductive and dangerous) to the sphere of primordially described identities. there is a widely spread view about the “end” of liberal toleration just because it cannot be applied to conflicts in contemporary societies – these conflicts no longer tend to take the form of opinion conflicts (opinions can be separated from those who express them) but instead turn into identity conflicts (separation is impossible or difficult) (khomyakov, 2013). identity of a devoted believer can serve as a good example of such identity – identity as a given. is inner religious toleration possible in this case? in other words, it is possible to tolerate a representative of another religion or an atheist, if one morally disapproves of the very fact of existence of this religion or atheism and has the power to interfere? is it possible that one will choose to refrain from interference proceeding from religious, that is, “inner” premises? i am going to discuss these questions in more detail in the following parts of this article. it should be added that the second-order arguments for 1 in this case it would make no significant difference if toleration was realized through the mechanism of weighing the two sets of arguments – in favour of interference and in favour of non-interference – or of there was a “perceptual shift” from religious views to the person adhering to these views, as heyd (1996) described it, since some kind of foundation still is required for this shift to happen. https://changing-sp.com/ 324 aleksei v. loginov religious toleration can be (a) religious in their nature, that is, stem from the core of religion, or (b) external but evidently holding more force than religious arguments to preclude the disapproval based on the latter. debate on religious pluralism avishai margalit (1996) believes that religious toleration and religious pluralism are impossible due to the following reasons: 1. revelation is propositional, that is, it is uttered in the way allowing for evaluation of truth and falsity; 2. revelatory truths are constitutive of religion and of religious salvation (salvation is dependent on veracity of the fundamental religious propositions); 3. religions become inherently valuable because they open a path for salvation (based on revelatory truths) to an individual; 4. there are contradictions between the truths of each pair of the three traditional monotheistic religions (judaism, christianity, islam); 5. the fact that the source of truths is revelation means that a “false” religion, unlike, for instance, erroneous scientific theories, does not hold any value; 6. premises 1–5 correspond to the historical reality of the three major religions (margalit, 1996). this reasoning seems logically immaculate and it leads us to the question about inner religious toleration: how can, for example, a christian, for whom belief in the holy trinity is a necessary condition of salvation, be tolerant towards the concept of the unity of god, which rejects the trinity doctrine, in judaism or vice versa? accepting one, aren’t we bound to reject the other, which means that this rejection contains an imperative for a believer to fight to the best of their ability against any beliefs that are false, heretical or sinful (and therefore corruptive)? a. margalit’s argument might seem compelling and the feasibility of religious pluralism might cause doubt only if we disregard the complexity of the issues in question (khomyakov, 2004, p. 387). logically, inner religious toleration is possible if margalit’s arguments are weakened (but still retain some weight otherwise what we get is acceptance) and/or if we manage to find weightier arguments to prove that the perceptual shift ad hominem described by heyd (1996) as a mechanism of tolerant consciousness (intolerance to sin appears to hold less power than the arguments in favour of the “sinner”) would make sense. it should be noted that since our task is to justify the possibility of inner religious toleration, we first of all need to search for and describe the religious “component” of the firstand second-order arguments. according to maxim khomyakov (2004) and cary nederman (2011), history of thought provides a range of conceptions which can weaken margalit’s arguments. let us consider these counterarguments. 1. skepticism undermines the propositional nature of revelation: “moderate skepticism of religious theories undermines but does not shatter the propositional changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 319–332 325 nature of revelatory truths, in reality the adoption of skepticism by certain thinkers often led them to more tolerant attitudes to other religions” (khomyakov, 2004, p. 393). 2. the indifferent things theories (res adiaphora), popular in the reformation era (john locke), can also weaken the second of margalit’s premises. there is, however, a logical risk inherent in these theories associated with their bringing together toleration and indifference. 3. the third premise cannot be disputed (the value of religion lies in the fact that it grants a path to salvation) but it can be expanded: the value of religions can be connected not only to the fact that they give a path to salvation but also to the fact that religions can help maintain moral standards and “social order” in societies. the subtlety of this argumentation is that moral standards and social order have to somehow fit into the way the subject of toleration understands the religious good and this understanding has to proceed from the revelation truths otherwise a religious argument will be replaced by a purely functional argument. 4. margalit’s fourth premise is weakened by rational reductionism (for example, nicholas of cusa formulated the principle of religious peace (“una religio in rituum varietate”), mysticism (if all things are theophanies, then toleration to differences in this world is justified), and early nationalism (nations “develop their own ways of worshipping god (signs for the signified) and people performing their rituals (differently) worship god in the way most pleasing to him” (nederman, 2011). 5. finally, the counterarguments to margalit’s system of premises will be pragmatism (from negative pragmatism, in which interference would be deemed too costly, to functionalism, in which moral disapproval of the subject of toleration would be compensated by the good the object of toleration brings into society) and the liberal discourse of human rights (immanuel kant, john stuart mill), in which intoleration is unacceptable not for the reason that we “almost agree” with deviation and not for the reason that the supposedly deviant individuals deserve respect because they contribute to the social good of society but for the reason that any person (including those whose views and conduct deviate from what is considered to be a moral norm) has an inalienable right to live the way they think best (khomyakov, 2004, p. 398). this, however, does not mean that the topic of this debate is exhausted. the first and the most natural reaction to these arguments would be a certain intellectual confusion. first, is skepticism really compatible with religion and revelation truths which need to be taken on faith? the point might be that revelatory propositions are either false or true, that is, revelation is propositional, but we (due to the deficiency in our capacity to make judgements or for other, deeper reasons) are unable to ascertain the truth or falsity of these propositions. we only assume that our religious beliefs are true but it is not enough to justify intolerance towards heretics” (khomyakov, 2004, p. 392). https://changing-sp.com/ 326 aleksei v. loginov i believe (despite the weight of the skeptical argument and the support provided for this argument by agnosticism) that in this form this argument will be valid only within the framework of academic debate. the question about how a supposition (hypothesis) and at the same time faith in the truth of this hypothesis coexist (or can coexist) in religious consciousness deserves to be a subject of more detailed discussion. nevertheless, the following statement more or less sums up the idea: “the mitigation of the disagreement in scepticism, however, would not lead to toleration if it was not conjoined with certain forms of positive appraisal respect. in the majority of the cases of theological scepticism, this is a respect for god’s omniscience and his absolute right to judge” (khomyakov, 2013, p. 228). second, the theory of indifferent things appears to border on indifferentism and, therefore, the second and third criteria of toleration in nicholson’s definition will be weakened to an extent that it would be more appropriate to speak of transformation of toleration into neutrality. moreover, rational reductionism is quite suitable for addressing these tasks on the condition that we share the premise that revelatory truths do not just take the form of propositional statements but can be subjected to rational analysis (in this case our mind – as opposed to skepticism – should have a strong ability for reasoning). as a result, we would be able to find something that different religions have in common, these shared grounds will be properly substantiated and adopted as a practical guidance for people who “happen” to have faith. on the other hand, if the strategy of reductionism proves to be successful, this will eliminate the first of nicholson’s items – significant deviation. mysticism appears to be a religious although excessively narrow argument – up until the point when we can demonstrate that it is possible to transfer mystical medieval theories into the modern context. early nationalism the way it is described by nederman, in my view, cannot be easily transferred into the modern context or, in other words, it is hardly compatible with nationalism in its modern understanding, at least the way benedict anderson (1983) and other proponents of the constructivist approach saw it. this argument (diversity of nations means diversity of ways to worship god) leaves little space for the third criterion in nicholson’s definition (moral disapproval). functionalism as defense of religious toleration is quite effective but to what extent can this argument be described as religious? with a considerable degree of simplification, we may suppose that this argument can be religious only in the case when salvation of the soul is inseparable not only from the faith in revelatory truths but also to a certain level and order of social, that is, secular life. finally, the human rights discourse in its liberal understanding does not change the balance of power: religion, along with any other lifestyle not prohibited by the law, becomes a matter of personal choice of individuals and up until the moment when a certain lifestyle becomes harmful to other people, it should be tolerated out of respect for the right of a person to freely choose whatever they wish in accordance with their (diverse) nature. it is likely that toleration of this kind will turn out to be just a particular case of negative liberal toleration, whose endless potential is insistently emphasized by difference-blind liberalism. the practical implication of such perspective would be a complete and real separation of the state from the changing societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 319–332 327 church and consequent “privatization” of all group differences (including religious ones) by an individual (barry, 2013). i think that there is a certain tension inherent in this debate associated with different argumentation formats or with different criteria for including religions in the “ring” (here i am alluding to margalit’s seminal work “the ring: on religious pluralism”). for example, margalit builds a logically immaculate model and invites us to launch a scholastic assault on his “fortress”. proponents of the possibility of inner toleration can breach margalit’s “fortress” by using examples from history and practices mirrored in the intellectual reflection of different epochs. if we look at those religions that john gray considers to be the least prone to inspire confrontation in his chapter on the postliberal perspective of toleration, we will find that “for the post-christian unbeliever, as for the adherent of particularistic faiths such as judaism, hinduism, bonism, shinto and taoism, which make no claim to possess a unique truth authoritative and binding for all people, old-fashioned toleration is irrelevant in respect of the religious beliefs of others” (gray, 1995, p. 42). nevertheless, at this stage appeal to purely religious argumentation as a core element of inner religious toleration appears problematic to me, which renders the whole phenomenon of inner religious toleration problematic as well. my thesis in its strong and weak versions is as follows: 1. toleration in religious matters becomes logically possible when it is based on what cannot, strictly speaking, be called religious argumentation – the argument about salvation of the soul if one follows the revelatory truths. 2. if the second-order arguments in relation to non-religious and other objects of toleration remain religious, they cannot be presented as universal and shared by all members of contemporary society. from the list of “external” arguments such as pragmatism, functionalism, and human rights, it is the latter – the liberal concept of autonomy – that proves to be the most stable: one would be tolerant towards deviation even if interference is both cheap and efficient and even if the object of toleration does not contribute to the common good in any way. religious toleration becomes possible where classical negative toleration is possible and on the same grounds. does it mean that minimal negative toleration is what we need to promote? or should it be turned instead into positive toleration – the attitude to differences based on valuing the differences as such? toleration in the public sphere: “parade of identities” among the arguments against toleration, one can come across the argument shrewdly expressed by thomas s. eliot the following way: “christians don’t want to be tolerated” (as cited in khomyakov, 2013, p. 231). for example, if a devoted believer, in her thinking about herself, doesn’t really make a distinction between her “self” and her “religious commitments”, she wants to be recognized exactly as a religious believer, and not as merely as a human being who has certain rights. but this is exactly what toleration cannot provide, since it consists of “bracketing” the disagreement and, therefore, of not paying attention to https://changing-sp.com/ 328 aleksei v. loginov her religion. those who see themselves as bearers of thick identities are then seen by the tolerators merely as humans. i wonder if this is not one of the meanings of a famous saying of t. s. eliot, “the christians don’t want to be tolerated”, or goethe’s claim that “to tolerate means to insult” (khomyakov, 2013, p. 231). this maxim refers to unwillingness to consider one’s identity as a result of choice (or possible reconsideration of this choice in the future). from this perspective, toleration may seem offensive to its object as if their own beliefs did not matter in view of the very possibility to choose. at this point, let us go back to the model of heyd, who believes that in order to refrain from exercising one’s power, a subject of toleration needs to switch their attention from what they choose and consider right to the person who adheres to these (or other) beliefs. doesn’t it mean, however, that your own beliefs are not taken seriously? what matters for us is what we have chosen while for those who are tolerant towards us what matters most is the person who has made this choice. “it seems to me that asymmetry between the tolerator and the tolerated on this matter can be explained by the fact that the subjects of the beliefs or the agents of the practices in question find it harder to make the perspectival shift […] because they identify with their beliefs and practices in a much stronger way” (heyd, 1996, p. 16). a strong identification with one’s views and actions can provide a foundation not only for the demand of “simple” toleration, when those who demonstrate toleration are always right, but also, to say the least, for the demands of different forms of recognition. does it mean that toleration as recognition is a better version of toleration as non-interference? to answer this question, we need to make certain clarifications in our initial premises and in the general logic of our reasoning. 1. toleration (negative, minimal) implies non-interference into what you morally disapprove of. in order to refrain but at the same time not be indifferent, one needs certain grounds. we can speak of toleration if the arguments in favour of noninterference are stronger than the arguments in favour of interference. if these are different arguments, then the paradox of toleration disappears: it is dissolved when one considers that what one really has is a pro tanto moral reason – an other things being equal reason – to intervene, but a stronger pro tanto moral reason not to intervene and hence an all things considered moral reason not to intervene. thus, i may for instance have a pro tanto moral reason, given my strict outlook on sexual morals, to intervene in my neighbor’s life of debauchery, but an even stronger pro tanto moral reason to respect her right to run her own life (as long as she respects the rights of others), given that i accept that a just basic arrangement of society should allow all of us the maximum degree of autonomy compatible with everyone’s right to the same. there is no paradox or dilemma here, since the moral reason to tolerate simply overrides the moral reason to be intolerant (binderup, 2011, p. 158). 2. for the liberals, autonomy – people’s right to live the life they have chosen for themselves – serves as a preferable basis for second-order arguments (nonchanging societies & personalities, 2019, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 319–332 329 interference). the breach of autonomy by default defines the boundaries of toleration. 3. in order to value autonomy more than lifestyle, you have to be able to distinguish between them, separate them from each other (perceptual shift). such separation is either impossible or difficult or offensive for those who describe themselves in terms of thick identity. 4. therefore, in order to minimize the conflicts rooted in encroachment upon someone’s identity, including conflicts involving devoted believers, we need to move from understanding toleration as non-interference to toleration as recognition (for more on this, see galeotti, 2002). 5. recognition means that you start valuing precisely what is important for the object of recognition – his or her beliefs – rather than his or her right to have them. such strategy should be productive in the conditions of identity claims. nevertheless, the potential of toleration as recognition has certain limitations2. these, which could be described as logical, genealogical and pragmatic counterarguments. the first limitation is connected to the “return of the paradox” in the form of a logical contradiction: what makes us experience moral disapproval is simultaneously what we have to recognize, that is, accept. arguments “not to tolerate” and “accept”, therefore, stem from the same premise. in the case of religious conflicts, the formula may be as follows: “i tolerate you, a heretic, for the reason that you are a heretic” / “i tolerate you, an atheist, because you are an atheist”. if we refrain from disapproval, then in the structure of toleration-as-recognition, toleration will all but disappear and we cannot speak of a coherent genealogy (history) of toleration, ending with toleration as recognition. finally, if we not tolerate, but recognize differences as differences, doesn’t it mean that we are thus losing the foundation necessary for public consensus? what i mean here is that, instead of one common ground for toleration (or its limits) shared by all citizens of the state, we would, in the best-case scenario, have to deal with a multitude of objects of recognition, which means that we would also have to regulate the relationships between them. my pragmatic argument is that autonomy and respect for individual rights have more potential to become general “second-order” arguments among citizens than any other premises, since we are living in a society comprising atheists as well as religious adherents. even if autonomy and rights are not the best premise in principle, they remain the only second-best option available to everybody. on the contrary, politics of recognition can impede real integration of individuals and groups since they create and maintain boundaries between individuals and groups (for more on this, see binderup, 2007). this naturally takes us back to the question of what identity is. well, i do think that identity might be described and conceptualized by someone as given unchangeable unity. but it is not given in real! it might be only described as given and stable one – but really any identity is constructed within and through social communication processes ² i am grateful to lars binderup for discussing this question at the conference hosted by the university of southern denmark in october 2019 as part of the research project “religious majority/minority in public space in russia and northern europe: historical-cultural analysis”. https://changing-sp.com/ 330 aleksei v. loginov and network of our relations in any culture – even we prefer to think about it differently. the idea of social reality as constructed reality, defended by peter berger and thomas luckmann more than fifty years ago (berger & luckmann, 1966), can hardly be challenged nowadays. finally, in order to show that toleration may be combined with recognition in a non-contradictory way, i would like to quote peter jones (2015), who contends that realization of negative toleration also means recognition – its thin version, since each time one is tolerant towards another person, one recognizes them as a citizen with their own autonomy and rights. therefore, it would be better in my view to focus not on the politics of recognition but on the development of the normatively charged idea of citizenship to facilitate negative toleration. the question about alternatives to autonomy as a value that should be shared by all citizens remains open for further discussion. conclusion i was trying to show that negative toleration or old-fashioned toleration, as john gray (1995) puts it, has certain advantages in comparison with politics of recognition in the complex world we live in. my main argument to support this point is that the “second-order arguments” in the case of liberal toleration – autonomy and human rights – stand more chances of being shared by all citizens. i sought to demonstrate by using religious toleration as an example that any other premise, even if it is applicable in a specific historical situation, cannot be extrapolated to the relationships between atheists and believers and to the relationships between adherents of different confessions and religious movements. i am well aware of the fact that the desire to find the best premise is normative in itself and it implies certain understanding of how people should benefit from philosophy and political theory. nevertheless, the absence of any normative orientations – reasonable normativity – makes such choice problematic in the first place. since justification and critique of toleration, as i was trying to show, depend on how we understand identity, i believe that russia, like any other country, has to deal with pluralism of opinions about the best way of life and, therefore, faces the need to choose which identity model the state education policy will be oriented towards. another question to be addressed is the following: should we support the inseparability of personal convictions and subjectivity or promote the idea that subjectivity is realized in the right to choose. since autonomy is also a value as well as neutrality, that is, normativity cannot be completely eliminated from politics, i believe that we need to focus on the development and defense of the normatively charged idea of citizenship as a universally valid second-order argument in favour of toleration in people’s interactions. references anderson, b. 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(1996). toleration: an impossible virtue? in d. heyd (ed.), toleration: an elusive virtue (pp. 18–27). princeton, nj: princeton university press. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2011.571877 https://zona.media/article/2017/05/17/sokolovsky-prigivor https://zona.media/article/2017/05/17/sokolovsky-prigivor changing societies & personalities, 2020 vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 31–52 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.1.088 received 19 august 2019 © 2020 farid abud alkatiri accepted 15 january 2020 faridabud79@unmuhkupang.ac.id published online 10 april 2020 faridabud79@gmail.com article the security dimension and the formation of social exclusion in the border of belu regency, indonesia farid abud alkatiri universitas muhammadiyah kupang, nusa tenggara timur, indonesia abstract security is a key dimension of any indonesian borderland development program. apart from security, the indonesian military must attend to sociopolitical requirements. the area of belu regency borderland is a case in point where many east timorese refugees or “new citizens” have been settled. sociopolitical tasks of the military are to assist the local government in overcoming any problems of the refugees. this article demonstrates a connection between the security dimension and social exclusion in the border area of belu. the question of this study is how the security issue is related to social exclusion and how it takes place. the qualitative method is deployed to collect data, through indepth interview with government and military institution informants, as well as at community levels, together with secondary data. the result of the study shows that the local government has used the indonesian military to limit the movement and choices of these refugees, and to intimidate them. therefore, the role of the institution contributes to initial stages of social exclusion, such as limiting the movement of the new citizens and the locals in terms of land and housing access, through intimidation, and limiting any signs of political aspirations. keywords border, security, military-institution, resettlement, refugees, social exclusion acknowledgements i would like to thank to the all parties for information sharing, particularly the east timorese or called “new citizens”, the local authorities and traditional leaders of belu. i would like to appreciate prof. iwan gardono sujatmiko and francisia s.s.e. seda, ph.d, both from universitas indonesia, for our robust discussions. https://changing-sp.com/ 32 farid abud alkatiri introduction the security dimension is an important priority because indonesia has several direct borders, albeit with a few neighboring countries. according to the grand design of indonesia borderland development 2011–2025, the security dimension is a vital in order to maintain security for state and community as stated in the badan nasional pengelolaan perbatasan indonesia or the national authority for borderland management (bnpp report, 2011). one of the indonesian borderlands is located in the belu regency, west timor, which has a length of 149.1 km of direct borderland with east timor, which gained independence in a 1999 referendum. as a result of the referendum, there were waves of refugees crossing over the border into indonesia, settling nearby in the five sub-districts of the belu regency. it was estimated that the number of refugees was more than 27.120 family heads or 135.689 people in 1999, spreading around 200 refugee camps in belu (achmad, 2000). however, it went down to around 16.000 family heads or 80.000 to 100.000 people by 2016 in the belu regency (dokumen internal forum korban politik timor-timur, 2016). social conflict flared up in the borderland during the following years. in order to tackle the issue of refugees, the central government of indonesia approved presidential decree number 03 2001, the establishment of the national institution for disaster and refugee coordination or the bakornas pbb at the national level. there is a lower level of hierarchies until the regency level. in case of belu, the military has been appointed as the voice of the refugees’ disaster management board, under the regent of belu. generally, the problems faced by refugees in the border areas have been researched by several scholars, especially the issue of aid distribution and access to economic resources. the working paper of the international refugee rights initiative (who belongs where, 2010) have stressed that status and political rights have affected the refugees’ land access. furthermore, horstmann (2011) has analyzed humanitarian aid distribution in the same border area which has been manipulated by certain organizations there. besides that, moretti (2015) has conducted research on burmese refugees on thai-myanmar border, stressing the need of refugees’ status as migrant workers in the host state because of their unsafe homeland. the military tasks for security reasons in border areas are quite common, and this has worked when there is consultation with the community on certain goals. datta (2018) argues that the importance of indian military in protecting the indian state’s interests in border area with the bangladeshi border. research on the issue of military roles in border areas has also also been made by beehner (2018) on myanmar’s border. the result of the study has shown that the institution has applied its force to carry out an aggressive approach in maintaining the state’s consolidation of its boundaries as well gaining certain interests. it has been said that myanmar’s civil-military relations has deteriorated, creating crises for the authority. meanwhile, frowd and sandor (2018) write that the use of the military institution for various security, social, and political reasons can be found in border areas of the sahel region in africa. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 31–52 33 according to mann (quoted in mabee & vucetic, 2018) armed civilian groups are established in pursuit of the social and political goals of certain powerful actors. therefore, the military approach has needed, to some extent, to secure belu regency. besides that, the security institutions’ involvement with communities in multidimensional aspects of development, to a degree, may create social exclusion problems, where hall et al. (2013) calls it as the power of forces. hall et al. (2013) have found the common patterns that one of the causes of land exclusion, particularly land eviction, in the most of southeast asia countries, is the use of security institutions to achieve or maintain the interests of governments or other powerful actors. in the context of belu regency, the involvement of security institutions has been found to act as the safeguard and sociopolitical contributor, particularly in the phases of refugee disaster management since 1999. it is believed that the only institution which could deal with the chaotic situation at the time was the military, because of civilian armed groups’ movements resorting to violence and creating tensions in many places in belu. besides that, there have been several studies conducted at the community level which have mainly focused on the implications of the resettlement programs for east timorese refugees. it is strongly believed the programs have not been implemented properly. on the contrary, a program has come to be the embryo of the initial forms of social exclusion of the both refugee and local communities. it can be seen through the development of sporadic resettlement which has caused conflict over land between the two communities (messakh, 2003; rame, 2004; sianipar, 2016). moreover, recent studies on the issue of land access of the refugee community have been meticulously analyzed by alkatiri (2018b), who argues that land exclusion experienced by the refugee’s community has been caused by the local cultural institution, or called the lembaga adat. the local institution has control of a vast area of productive land in belu regency, so to some extent, the refugees have been considered as “outsiders”. they have been banned from owning the communal land that they have been living on for many years. as a result, they cannot use the land freely for agriculture, making them powerless. in other literature, alkatiri (2018a) also points out that there has been a conflict of interests among certain figures of the refugee community, who mobilize other refugees to speak up for particular local candidates in the local elections, using social and economically poor conditions as means to gain essential resources for private interests, such as land and housing access. this practice has trapped the majority of the refugees in the land exclusion chain of poverty. another recent study based on the indonesian views on the border security of belu, has indicated that the border of belu is considered as the hardest border because of east timor’s internal situation, the border’s illegal economic activity, and east timorese refugees who are settled in belu regency, so the role of the military institution is seen as crucial (ulfa et al., 2018). the use of the military institution by the indonesian government in the disaster management phases in belu has sometimes raised conflict between the institution https://changing-sp.com/ 34 farid abud alkatiri and the refugees. as a result, to some extent, it has created initial formations of social exclusion within both the refugees’ community and the local people. although there have been a few studies showing that there has been a connection between social exclusion issues caused by violent actions and improperly policy responses, there is still insufficient literature analyzing the connection between the roles of the security institution in creating certain forms of social exclusion within the refugee community, particularly in the border and rural areas. rodgers (1995) and commins (2004) have argued that the issue of social exclusion has still rarely been studied in the context of rural areas. the social exclusion and security border issues have been seen separately and rarely analyzed as an integrated issue in much of the existing literature. this article highlights the advent of social exclusion of east timorese refugees caused by the security approach paradigm in the border area of belu regency. therefore, in order to analyze the connections, this article is broken down into two main analyses. first, the influence of the military institution post reformation era and its implication on the issue of security paradigm approach in the border area of belu during 1999 to 2007. second, it analyzes the effects of the roles of the military institution in the phases of east timorese refugees’ disaster management and its contribution to the formation of social exclusion for the refugees. research method this qualitative field research has been conducted from october 2016 to february 2017 in two refugee camps and three resettlements in belu regency, west timor. the selection of the locations is based on social exclusion experienced by the refugees and their frequent interactions with the military institution in the several locations of resettlement in kabuna village, fatuba’a village, haliwen village, and manleten village. the data has been collected from 20 interviewees through in-depth-interviews and group discussions, consisting of refugees, local officials, the military institution, and local people. the interviews have based on structured and semi-structured questionaries, depending on whom the interview taken place. however, most of the refugees have been passive at the beginning of the interviews’ session because of two reasons, the traumatic background and military-civilian relation issues. therefore, the roles of a guider or the former refugee coordinator have been necessary not only to guide researcher entering into refugee’s resettlements or camps, but also to make contact with the former armed civilian group leaders. the semi-structured interviews or open discussions have taken place in order to obtain as much as information. moreover, provocative questions have been in the list in order to keep maintaining the interviews going on because of distrust toward outsiders. in addition, secondary data has been used as a complementary source, specifically related to the issues of border security, particularly several documents from organization, government, military institutions, in order to obtain a global understanding of the border conditions. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 31–52 35 theoretical perspectives border and security are two integrated issues at the present time. border has become one of the most important parts of a state, and it is said that the border of a state is seen as a political process (paasi, 1996). ulfa et al. (2018) declare that a border needs to be properly managed. this is crucial. moreover, prokkola (2009) and veronis (2013) argue that border is a place where national identity and citizenship are established. this relates to state governability. according to newman and paasi (1998), a border is established for important purposes, preventing a state from external and internal threats. buchanan (cited in ullah and kumpoh, 2018) considers that the threats may impact on human life and political authority. buzan et al. (cited in hama, 2017) have classified border’s threats into three categories: migration, horizontal competition, and vertical competition, which have placed border security as the most important issue for some states. in the context of migration, buzan et al. (quoted in hama, 2017) have declared that society experiences potentials threats when outside migrants enter into a state, changing the composition of the population. the same view expressed by claudia aradau (quoted in hama, 2017) who believes that migrants may produce threats which the refugee community fears. hadiwinata (2009) and mietzner (edited in aspinall & fealy, 2003) have stated that if conditions have dramatically shifted chaos and become threats to national interests, then the military institution has to be involved for any level of government to play again a significant role to establish stability. despite looking at refugees as potential threats to national security, kerwin (2016) and hama (2017) underline that the rights of refugees have to be fulfilled by the host states. border security also becomes a more important aspect, as kurki and newman note (quoted in ullah & kumpoh, 2018) as the world’s agenda discourses take place after 11 september 2001 attack. in other words, the border security has become a multidisciplinary research in its themes and policies (prokkola, 2009; stavrianakis & stern, 2018), because it has not only related to the spatial fixity, but has been expanding dynamically by involving multidisciplinary debates in contemporary research (cimadomo, 2017; kolossov & scott, 2013). to do its duty, a state has to take responsibility for managing and securing its border. brunet-jailly and dupeyron (2007, p. 4) have stated that managing the internal security is one of the most significant policies for any government. therefore, lindstedt (cited in bruun, 2016) views that the participation of the military institution as a state’s representation is needed in a proper manner to increase its controls and interests. meanwhile, siregar (2014) also states that border security is a crucial sector not only for protecting citizens who live around the areas. sabarno also (cited in rani, 2012) calls it is a part of a nation state building conception. he has pointed out that border security has become a strategic issue for any country which has direct borders with other states. there have been many studies showing the unsuccessful outcomes of the institution in fulfilling its works. it may because of an isolated area where wars https://changing-sp.com/ 36 farid abud alkatiri take place (martinez, 1994), or it is related to the border’s activities that tend to be complicated due to the multidimensional issues (deliarnoor & abidin, 2018, p. 25; laine, 2015, p. 14). the emphasis on indonesian border security is needed to assist the government in tackling multidimensional issues. according to some indonesian scholars, the underdeveloped border areas have occurred because of inward looking or backyard policy approaches from the central government (arifin, 2013; purnamasari et al., 2016; subagiyo et al., 2017) as part of the old paradigm of border development approach. sasongko (cited in agung, 2013) declared that, in the old paradigm approaches, the border area had been managed through a militaristic approach. however, in order to manage it properly, the susilo bambang yudhoyono regime established the national board for border management institution or the bnpp (badan nasional pengelolaan perbatasan or the national border management board) in 2010, marking the new phase of the implementation of the new paradigm of border development management. there are several functions of the board, including determining development policies of the border territory and coordinating all related sectors to work based on the grand design of the border management (batubara, 2017). however, the function of the board is limited and still needs to be improved further. in the context of the border area of belu, wuryandari (2010) has agreed that the issue of border development of belu can be analyzed by looking at r. j. may’s perspectives of border development. the perspectives are related to territorial, position, function, and resources. the territorial and the position perspectives have related to the agreed borderline between indonesia and east timor. meanwhile, the function and the resource views are related to the function of the border as the territorial borderline and a place of struggle for resource access on the behalf of the interests of certain actors. wuryandari (2010) believes that the four types of may’s perspectives can be used to understand the condition of the indonesia–east timor borders. however, the four perspectives have not actually been utilized in the analysis of the study because it did not discuss the connection of the security aspect with social exclusion. since the separation of east timor from indonesian territory in 1999, relationships on belu’s border have been extremely tense. records show that several physical and militaristic border incidents have led to serious discussions taking place. the military institution has been active in order to secure the border. according to o. j. martinez (1994), this type of the border is categorized as alienated borderland where conflict still erupts. as a consequence, the military presence has taken place on the border, reflecting the challenges faced by these conflicts (ulfa et al., 2018). it is well-known that the border of belu regency is considered as one of the most complex and underdeveloped borders in indonesia. it has lacked human and natural resources (mulyawan, 2013), as well as proper policies and development concepts (efendi, kurniati & semium, 2013; hariyadi, 2008). however, one of the major issues for the local government of belu is east timorese refugees’ influx since 1999. it is because of the unpreparedness of the changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 31–52 37 government to receive them. the local government has difficulties in organizing and managing the refugees’ needs because of insufficient resources, particularly during 1999 to 2007. this study has found that the complexity of the refugees’ issues in belu have often made them subject to violent actions, either to defend themselves in difficult times from violence or to search for some resources for better living conditions. in fact, riley (2007) has argued that many developing countries are not prepared to host refugee communities because of the fear of political and economic instability. besides facing the security issues, the border area of belu has faced several forms of social exclusion. silver (1994) has highlighted the importance of citizenship through social integration within a society, and as an important aspect to measure social exclusion, particularly the issue of citizens’ rights. in order to shape social integration, it is important to meet basic necessities, such as resources. figueroa (1999) has underlined the importance of three types of asset, which are economic assets as sources of productive resources, political assets as related to rights of people, and then cultural assets referred to the social system. by having those assets in place, to some extent, they can strengthen social integration as referred to in hillary silver’s solidarity paradigm (de haan, 2000). therefore, the rights and duties of citizens can be fulfilled, including accesses of basic needs for a refugee community such as land and housing have remained the most important issues for the community. in order to fulfill citizens access to basic needs, it is important to guarantee the political process of participations of citizens. hera (2016) states that the silver’s solidarity paradigm has focused on one of the important themes of the paradigm, which is political rights and duties of the citizens through political participation. the united nations 2016 report (united nations, 2016) has stated clearly that the state as a political institution has to guarantee and promote the political participation of its citizens, including inclusive land ownership schemes. if the political participation and the rights are not fulfilled, then a person or a group will face social exclusion (figueroa, 1999). the study of land’s social exclusion has been conducted by hall et al. (2013). in their studies, the issue of land exclusion has occurred because of four aspects of power, which are regulation, force, market, and legitimation. in the context of force, the use of the security institutions for the sake of certain actors is part of the power of force. according to hall et al., the problem of land exclusion is the imbalance of the power relations between powerful actors and vulnerable groups, where the military institution is used to defend or achieve certain interests. the interest may be formally recognized through force of formal and informal regulations, and the state and other actors as the user of power of force may appoint the security institutions to achieve the government’s policies or certain interests. the connection of the security and social exclusion issues are located in the roles of the security institutions, particularly the military, as the actor in the border which represents the state. in acting as the safeguard of the state, the institution may potentially create social exclusion, particularly in dealing with the refugee’s community who insists on their rights to land and better housing access belu. muddiman (1999) https://changing-sp.com/ 38 farid abud alkatiri has collected various studies on social exclusion, highlighting crime as a contributing aspect of social exclusion. the condition of the majority of refugees in belu who have limited access of land as an economic asset and housing standard, may lead to discomfort, crime, and conflict (rodgers, 1995; unruh & williams, 2013). therefore, any potential conflict and crime in the border area has to be overcome by the military institution approach that also may create other forms of social exclusion. findings and discussions the indonesian military and security dimension of the border of belu regency the performance of the military institution is considered important in indonesia. historically, it is the tni (tentara nasional indonesia or the indonesian national defence force) which was previously known as the abri (angkatan bersenjata republik indonesia or the armed force of republic of indonesia), has been the key player of revolution from 1945 to 1949 against the dutch and the japanese (crouch, 2007) and becoming national development actor since the sukarno regime (carnegie, 2010). o’rourke (2002) and beittinger-lee (2009) explain that the institution had become the most powerful political institution in 1968, and the army had full control by 1970 under the regime of suharto. the institution has a strong tie in influencing indonesian history and development through the dwifungsi or “dual functions” as adopted since 1960s as the central doctrine of the institution (honna, 2003; meitzner, 2006; o’rourke, 2002; widjajanto, 2007). the doctrine has been the basis for the institution to involve itself in the national security, extending into sociopolitical affairs to promote national development and stability, besides having full control of the economic sector through formal and informal business (crouch, 2007; dreisbach, 2015). however, the dual functions’ doctrine has been replaced by the new paradigm, or called reformation, post the fall of suharto’s regime in 1998 (honna, 2003). it has led, to some extent, to dramatic change in indonesia security sector (mietzner, 2006, p. 1), changing its structural function based on the 2002 law of state defence and the 2004 law of the tni (widjajanto, 2007), to be a professional defense force and establish better civilian-military relations (honna, 2003; widjajanto, 2007). in other words, the military institution has been reformatted post the fall of suharto regime, insisting that it is to be professional and accountable. as a result, it is expected that the institution will have better relations with civilians. the indonesian border has been underdeveloped for many years. it is wellknown that the border of belu regency is considered as one of the complex and underdeveloped borders in indonesia. moreover, sasangko (cited in agung, 2013) sees that the development of the area has lacked adequate regulation and integration at the institutional level. it has also lacked human and natural resources (santri et al., 2005), and lack of proper policies and development concepts (efendi, kurniati & semiun, 2013; hariyadi, 2008) at least until 2014 where the issue of land and housing distribution came to the fore (alkatiri, 2018a). changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 31–52 39 it is believed that the security aspect as one of the main contributing aspect of underdevelopment of belu regency. the central government has given a special priority to the sector as maintained in the old border development approach. it is because of the dynamics of the indonesian and east timor border. hariyadi (2008) states that the security sector is considered extremely important in the border of belu regency, particularly since east timor has become an independent nation. the border now receives greater attention as result of the historical background of the two nations. therefore, the role of military institution has been dominant, although the reformation in the military institution has been progressing post the fall of the suharto’s government (hariyadi, 2008). as stated earlier, re-formation of the military has been a work in progress. however, the nuances of the dual functions’ doctrine are still in place. the military institution has still been invited to work on infrastructure projects, maintain sociopolitical order, and so on, back to the old paradigm approach. therefore, the involvement of the institution in the development of the resettlement for the refugees in belu is no surprise (philpott, 2000). according to plowright (2008) the influences of the institution have not been easily wiped out from the national development agenda, although the re-formation began in 1999. on the contrary, the military influence has regained its status under the leadership of megawati and susilo bambang yudhoyono government to some extent. in addition, as cited in the national newspaper, the kompas, the minister of politics, law, and human rights under the joko widodo’s regime, mr. wiranto, has asked for additional soldiers to be placed to fulfill their duty to safeguard the state and the protect the society in the border area (wiranto..., 2019). there are few reasons why there is a demand for additional soldiers. hariyadi (2008) has recorded several potential security problems that may threaten the border, such as illegal trading and border crossings, unresolved sections of the border, political instability in east timor, the effect of disintegration of other provinces, as well as east timorese’s refugees and armed civilian groups in belu. nainggolan (2008, p. 97) has pointed out that such security problems are related to the unsolved issues of the refugee community and that are only resolved through the security approach. in order to fulfill the refugees’ needs, the local government of belu has called for the military institution support, pointing to the institution as the voice of the refugees’ management board or called satlak pbp at belu regency. at the level of the military institution representation is by the kodim 1653 belu under the regent of belu. the main duty of the institution was to support the local government to overcome any issues related to east timorese refugees in belu, later becoming indonesian citizens, known as “the new citizens” of belu (alkatiri, 2018a; datta, 2018; sianipar, 2016). however, the assistance of the military institution in the phases of disaster management in 1999–2007, the issue of the refugee community has been complicated, especially the social and economic needs, including land and housing access. in fact, the involvement of the military institution has created other social exclusion issues. in political and legal theory, citizenship refers to the rights and duties of the members of a nation state (scott & marshall, 2009). citizenship has https://changing-sp.com/ 40 farid abud alkatiri traditionally referred to a particular set of political practices involving specific public rights and duties with respect to a given political community (bellamy, 2008). the roles of the military institution and the formation of social exclusion of the refugee as it is well-known that the border of belu has been settled by lots of east timorese refugees since 1999, spreading out into almost 200 camps. therefore, the military institution was appointed to assist the local government to secure the camps and also to become involved actively in the social assistance distributions until 2007. achmad (2000) has declared that the involvement of the institution has indicated that the local government to be incapable of managing the issue because the number of refugees was under estimated. the result of this study shows that the roles of the indonesia military in belu are perceived pro and contra by several parties, including the refugees’ group. for certain groups of people, the involvement of the military institution in disaster management phases has been important. there are some reasons why the military institution has become involved in the period of disaster management. according to nainggolan (2008), the housing project construction has been built by the military institution, which has also delivered social services for the local government at this time. the former regent of belu from 2003 to 2013, who has formulated government’ policies on the refugee issues, has stated that the local government was not prepared for the influx of refugees. the local government believed that the situation post referendum east timor would be smooth going without any conflict. it is believed that the referendum would bring a victory result for the pro-indonesian option. if this were the case, the number of refugees would be insignificant and they would be easily managed. to be faced with more problems meant that the local government had no other choice except to involve the military institution for assistance. a similar view has been expressed by some prominent refugees who have worked closely with the military institution. they have stated that the appointment of a military institution to be actively taking part in the disaster management phases had been the correct decision. it is because the institution has been well-trained to face any situations and has enough equipment to assist the local government in the troubled situation. the former regent of belu, the period of 2003–2010, has said that the military is the only institution trusted to assist refugees, particularly handling armed civilian groups that scare them as well as the local people. according to huntington (cited in tornquist, 2013), if any group of society has no capacity to overcome the discontent of a group of people, then the military institution may take control of it because of its solid organization. an interview with a top official of the military institution in belu, who has involved in the mobilization process of refugees to several resettlement during 1999 to 2003, reveals that the influx of refugees has pushed the local government to involve the military institution with the main purpose being to stabilize the social and political conditions at the time. as soldiers, they have received and obeyed order from the top military leader from jakarta to work and assist the local government. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 31–52 41 the top official military has continuously argued that the purpose of the involvement of the institution is preventing social conflict, and securing and accompanying the refugees’ presence in the resettlement locations in order to avoid rejection by locals. in other words, the presence of the institution in resettlement, to some extent, is not only to prevent objection or protest from the refugees, but also to prevent the rejections by the local people or the owners of the land. thus, it seems to be a “time boom” for the two communities. the collected data has shown that, the local people or tribes’ members have to accept forcibly or negotiate their land with the government for resettlement development purposes. as a result, some of them have to negotiate with government. other tribes and local people have handed over their land “forcibly” to the refugees. as a result, they have been excluded from their own land. according to one prominent refugee figure who is a member of the local assembly representative of belu regency, the issue of security has become a crucial aspect during the phases of management because of the activities of the members of militia groups, sporadically intimidating and acting violently towards other refugees this is mainly due to misinformation fed to the suspicious members of east timorese pro independent groups who entered unintentionally or forcibly migrated into indonesian territory for security reasons. furthermore, the assistance of the military also needed to prevent conflicts between the refugee community and the local people mostly in regards to the illegal land occupation issues. therefore, the refugee community and the local people needed to be accompanied and controlled. hadiwinata (cited in wuryandari, 2009) has argued that the potential conflict around the border area could occur because of the huge number of the refugees, social integration failure with the local people, and insufficient attention from the indonesian government in tackling the social and economic life of the refugees. on the other hand, several informants have expressed their disagreement, to some extent, of the involvement and over roles of the military institution in the development of border area and the refugee’s disaster management phases. this has led to several other problems, including social exclusion of the refugee community. by performing its main duty and additional tasks, the military institution is seen to have an excess of power (alkatiri, 2018a; pusat pengelola pendapat umum, 2007). the institution has dominated and overlapped its duty with that of other institutions’ functions in the regency. as a consequence of the militaristic priority, the majority of area in the regency has not been multidimensionally developed by the government, becoming an isolated and underdeveloped area (patriadi, 2010; wuryandari, 2009; wuryandari 2010). in fact, pamungkas (cited in wuryandari, 2009) has argued that it has been intentionally created making the border insecure, so that it can have a legitimacy to fully control the border based on the old paradigm perspectives. in fact, the situation of the border area has been quite safe because the indonesians and east timorese people who live in the border have similar social and cultural backgrounds. another consequence of the excess of the power was highlighted in the 2007–2008 report of lipi (lembaga ilmu pengetahuan indonesia – indonesian institute of sciences) that some people felt insecure doing their activities in the border area https://changing-sp.com/ 42 farid abud alkatiri because of the militaristic presence, having experienced pressure and intimidation from the members of the institution (wuryandari, 2009; wuryandari & noor, 2009). furthermore, several figures of the refugee community who have close ties with the military institution have explained that the institution has been used by the local government to pressure and intimidate the refugee community, particularly from 1999 to 2001. to some degree the refugees have been forced to take the repatriation program in order to reduce the burden of the local government; however, the majority of the refugees have decided to live in indonesia. it is difficult for majority of the refugees to return home because of their involvement in civilian armed groups, their nationalistic perceptions, and the non-acceptance by east timorese society have seen as barriers. they are not welcome in east timor anymore because of their previous involvement in human rights issues. therefore, it is difficult for majority of the east timorese people to accept them back home. according to a prominent leader of the group, they have struggled to realize the victory of the first option of the referendum, strongly maintaining east timor as part of the indonesian territory, defending what they called “red and white flag” or “garuda” as the symbol of the indonesian state. they have shown their nationalist and patriotic stance. therefore, they thought that they should have been treated as the “hero” because of their struggle on behalf of indonesian interests. to some extent, this thought has led them to various demands on the government as a consequence of their choice leaving their homeland and their consistency of the struggle. however, not all demands have been fulfilled because of the local government resource limitations. by facing these conditions and living under pressure, the refugee community have very little to choose from, except accepting any offers from the government of indonesia, either repatriation, transmigration, or local resettlement. moreover, these conditions have led to manipulation of information and social fictive reports towards them. an interview has taken place with a prominent local official of the government of belu who has not denied that local government, organizations, and security institutions, have used the issue of refugees for certain interests or as well-known in local terms as “political commodity”. those institutions have competed with each other in order to achieve resources on behalf of refugees’ disaster management. they thought that the more complicated the refugees’ issues, the more they will obtain and control financial supports from international and national donors. if there is protest from the refugees, then the security institution can be used to stop the protesters. an official of the local government said that the national and international donors have provided a lot of social aid; however, the majority of the aid has been taken by prominent leaders, government, and security institutions. pamungkas (2009) also has generally indicated in his study that the refugees have been treated as a “project” for certain people. some donations have been implemented in the form of projects or social aid supports through various institutions. this study has found that the involvement of the military institution can be seen through various projects, such as mobilizations of refugees, resettlement and housing construction projects, and other forms of social assistance. changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 31–52 43 there are lots of refugees mobilized to many different resettlement locations, including the resettlement of taeksoruk, in the fatuba’a village. according to the refugees, they have been mobilized into the resettlements without having proper information about the resettlement, including the status of the land and the condition of the house, all they have had to do is to follow the instruction of the local government and the military institution. the refugees have no opportunity to obtain information because the mobilization is militaristically nuanced, so they are afraid to question. as a result, they have ended up in the communal land or traditional land that is not clear about the access and ownership of land. according to the chief of the refugees in resettlement of taeksoruk, they have been left there without any further information and attention from the government the head of the village and several members of tribes in fatuba’a village, have explained that the refugees have suffered because their condition has been so poor. they are witnesses to the abandonment of the refugees without any social or economic support, so they have been the party who assisted the refugees, including handling the land for refugees as agreed between them and the local government. however, the intimidation and conflict of land access has been recorded a few times between the refugees and the members of tribe because it is believed that the land should be owned by the refugees. the refugees have insisted that the land belongs to them because they have lived there for more than 16 years. however, they have been not allowed to actually own it. in fact, according to the central government program, the land of resettlement and transmigration does belong to refugees as the program shows. besides that, a huge conflict of land access and ownership registered in the resettlement of sirani, the village of umaklaran between the refugees and the local people in 2005. in the resettlement, there were 450 houses built by the military institution. however, the land belonged to the local owners and used for 3 years only as agreed to with the local government. but the refugees lacked the information in regards to the land status; what they knew was that the land belonged to them. as a consequence, conflict was inevitable, the local people started to intimidate and burn down the houses, pushing them to move to another location without any compensation. data from the center for internal displaced persons report (2011) have also shown that there were more than 12 huge resettlements since 1999. the military institution was also appointed as contractor for the resettlement construction project in many places, including the resettlement of taeksoruk and aitaman. however, the quality of housing of the resettlement has been questioned by the refugees and even the donors. it has been seen that the quality of the houses for resettlement did not tally with the allocated budget and had not met the quality standards. the low quality and condition of the resettlement has been explained by a prominent figure of the planning and development board of belu regency: the construction has been taking place without having any monitoring from any proper institution, because the main purpose was to achieve the construction target as fast as it could. almost all informants have agreed that the resettlement projects constructed by the military institution are below standard quality, and the refugees have been https://changing-sp.com/ 44 farid abud alkatiri fearful and have no power to question the quality of any military construction project. it has been strongly indicated that the financial supports have been misused funding for other interests. the majority of the houses of the resettlement have not lasted more than 1 year, and others have lasted not more than an average of 2 years. the housing here has been categorized as the lowest housing standard, with a budget of 14,000,000 rupiah per unit, although local organizations and the refugees have believed that the total price of the house was much lower than that based on the price of the building materials and the quality of the house. according to the prominent figure of the refugees’ community in the resettlement of aitaman, the local government have mobilized them into the location since 2002. the resettlement has not well-constructed, without having basic public facilities such as clean water, health and education facilities, proper road, and so on. besides that, the electricity facility had just been constructed in 2017. pamungkas (2009) has stated that the resettlements have been built by the government without meeting the basic conditions needed by the refugees. it is well-known that the transmigration or resettlement program of the indonesian government provides land, better public facilities access and land ownership for the refugees; however, it has not realized in the context of the refugees in belu. in fact, the local government have entered into several agreements with different tribes, arranging the period of the land use for the refugees and the rights of the locals or tribes’ members on social assistance to eliminate social jealousy. however, in many cases in belu, the refugees have had conflicts with the local people or tribes because of land accesses, affecting the process of the social integration program. besides having mobilization and construction project issues, the members of military institution have been acting violently towards the refugees in the phase of resettlement construction projects; it has occurred in kabuna village, particularly in the resettlement of weliurai and resettlement of salore. several refugees have reported that the members of the institution have intimidated and beat them just because of misunderstandings in terms of different characteristics between militaristic and cultural approaches. the refugees had late to assist the soldiers to build the resettlement’s houses due to their personal duties at home or attitudes that may not be understood properly by the soldiers. as a result, some refugees have been beat and preferred not to return to the project construction site. besides that, the repressive attitude of the security institution has limited the refugee community’s freedom to express their opinions. the refugees have faced the military and police institution every time a protest has taken place. the protests were made to express their opinions because they have not been paid adequate attention by the government, particularly on the issue of land access and ownership as well as housing conditions, and including other social issues. the protests often have taken place from 2001 until 2005 in the central office of the local government and the dprd belu or the local assembly representatives. however, the government has used the security institution to stop the protest, and even the several prominent refugee leaders have been jailed. these repressive approaches have been taken because the refugees’ protests sometimes tended to be violent if their voices were not heard or changing societies & personalities, 2020, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 31–52 45 addressed. according to stewart et al. (2005), social exclusion may generate conflict, and usually economic and political exclusion are the main contributing aspects. according to the prominent leaders of the refugees, their movement to protest for their rights has been manipulated by some persons of the local government as a subversive movement, wanting to establish a new state called the “great timor state”. this movement is seen as illegal and a threat to national security, particularly in the border areas. this has given legitimacy to the military and police institution to act repressively, limiting their rights to express their opinion and even affecting the social integration of the refugees into the local community. the accusations on the refugees as “troublemakers” has given a huge space to the military institution to act repressively on behalf of the border security threats. this pattern of the security approach has been improper. seran (as cited in pamungkas, 2009) argued that this approach may create oppression potentially towards the refugees. what is lacking from this relationship between refugees as civilians and the military institution are common history, and mutual recognition that they should share to establish a strong relationship (al-murshed, 2013). in fact, the refugees have close cultural and social ties with the local people to some extent, the involvement of the military institution in the formation of social exclusion can still be seen today, although the new paradigm of border development began to be implemented in 2010. the issue of land status and ownership have been unclear since the refugees were mobilized into their resettlement since 2001. these issues have a huge impact on their life, activities, and their agriculture. as a result, they live in uncertainty and easily make conflict with the local people or tribes, particularly in the resettlement of taeksoruk and the resettlement of aitaman. furthermore, the land access and ownership question, an isolated area of resettlement, and low quality of housing standards built by the military institution has forced some refugees to move out from their resettlements, going back to the camps and staying in the poor conditions there. as a result, they are trapped in a circle of social exclusion and poverty. this is believed as one of the main contributing factors which refugees in belu have great difficulty to overcome, and creates social exclusion. the influence of the militaristic approach is still strong in the border area, although the military institution has been reforming and improving. conclusion the involvement of security institutions in the border area is something inevitable, for the sake of the national security interests and citizens protections. the reformation of the military institution has been ongoing, trying to be professional and transparent institution after the fall of suharto’s regime. however, it is not easy to remove the institution from sociopolitical and economic interests. in the belu context, the military institution has been working hard to fulfill its duty, serving the interests of the state as well as protecting the citizens’ rights from external and internal threats. however, there have been other forces at play between the military institution and the east timorese refugees in the disaster management period from 1999 to https://changing-sp.com/ 46 farid abud alkatiri 2007. this is due due to the situation of the border and the movement of refugee groups. the institution has been used by the local government to mobilize refugees’ settlements with an unclear land status, homes constructed below standard, and denial of the freedom of expression to the refugees. to some extent, it has led the majority of refugees into social exclusion, forcing them to accept the improper government policies, shaping the initial stages of social exclusion during the disaster management period. however, for many refugees, land access and housing problems have been the most important issues that still affected their livelihood until the present time. the overload of duty and roles of the security institution in the border lands shows that there is a strong connection between the security aspect as a contributing factor to the formation of social exclusion in the border area. references achmad, j. 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https://www.un.org/development/desa/socialperspectiveondevelopment/2016/09/06/world-social-situation-2016-leaving-no-one-behind-the-imperative-of-inclusive-development/ https://www.un.org/development/desa/socialperspectiveondevelopment/2016/09/06/world-social-situation-2016-leaving-no-one-behind-the-imperative-of-inclusive-development/ https://www.un.org/development/desa/socialperspectiveondevelopment/2016/09/06/world-social-situation-2016-leaving-no-one-behind-the-imperative-of-inclusive-development/ changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.3.017 article conformity in modern science: an engine of societal transformation? natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt institute for philosophy and law, ural branch of the russian academy of sciences, yekaterinburg, russia abstract the penetration of science into all spheres of life has self-evidently become a contemporary “megatrend”. in turn, science itself is also undergoing distinct transformations, e.g., as a result of such processes as increasing regulation and bureaucratisation within academia. in this context, researchers as active producers of scientific knowledge face multiple challenges, including the need to cope with increasing regulation of their everyday practices. therefore, our research purpose was to investigate the phenomenon of conformity, which, although always having been inseparable from social life, is acquiring a new significance today. various representations of conformity (e.g. conformist behaviour) have received a great deal of attention from sociologists, biologists and psychologists; however, to our knowledge, there is no generally accepted philosophical understanding of its nature. in this paper, we provide a phenomenological study of conformity on the basis of a comprehensive literature analysis and evaluate its role as a mode of existence in modern science. for the sake of clarity, some illustrations from the everyday lives of researchers are given, including the distribution of the imrad format of research articles. conformity in science is predicted to involve consequences at three distinct levels: (1) within a scientific community, when scientists follow prescribed patterns of conduct; (2) within a particular society when people from all walks of life conform to the standards set by the scientised world-view; and (3) at the global level when non-western communities conform to western standards of life through borrowing western scientific world picture. keywords conformity, conformism, scientism, technological rationality, social institutions, academic science, transformation of academic science, social adaptation mechanisms, phenomenological approach, globalisation received 25 september 2017 © 2017 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt accepted 30 november 2017 ngpopova@list.ru published online 18 december 2017 yan.moisseenko@mail.ru tommy@globalvillagebard.org 238 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt introduction although science has long been an important social institution, in recent times it would seem to have become a cornerstone of human social existence. this tendency seems especially pronounced when considering contemporary western societies. in this context, the predominance of scientific discourses can be identified at various levels of involvement, ranging from governmental policy to the everyday being of ordinary people. to an impartial observer, the public sphere might seem to have become obsessed with science, to the extent that any important decision of a political, cultural or educational nature – not to mention different operational decisions in economic and financial fields – can only be taken following a thorough examination of all risks and issues through exacting scientific lenses. moreover, when examined under the authority of such a scientistic world-view (feyerabend, 1993), a decision can only acquire the approval of the general public whose rationale conforms to the assumptions according to which this scientistic world-view is constructed. conversely, irrespective of the applicability of the scientistic approach to the issue for which solutions are to be implemented, the general public is consistently provided with a reinforcing message that the consequences of decisions taken according to non-scientific rationales will prove negative. meanwhile, the private sphere of human life has also become captivated by the authority of science, with scientific knowledge actively penetrating and even colonising people’s way of life (salazar & bestard, 2015). and, although ordinary people have long relied on science as a tool for acting upon the world and producing certain effects (i.e. in its instrumental aspect), today they are becoming increasingly active themselves in producing scientific knowledge. this phenomenon of research conducted by amateur scientists has even acquired a specific term – citizen science (cooper, 2016). thus, whether with direct intellectual effort or the commitment of other resources, people are actively participating in – and, in some cases, contributing to – the development of science. numerous testaments to such participation, e.g. volunteers gathering data on urban bird behaviours1 or carrying out experiments on themselves in the course of their daily lives2 can be found on social media networks. in connection with the abovementioned processes, certain trends in science as a human activity can be observed. one of these may be referred to in terms of a “massification of academic research” (coccia, 2009): science is no longer an individual endeavour, but increasingly a corporate activity. in terms of the scale and complexity of their organisation, research teams today are starting to resemble medium-size companies (erzkowitz, 1983; wuchty & al., 2007) or quasi-firms, whose employees perform highly differentiated roles. as part of this general trend, for example, it has been shown that the number of authors per paper has nearly doubled (in hard sciences) over the last 50 years (wuchty & al., 2007). naturally, such science factories cannot function properly in the absence of the necessary bureaucracy – a mechanism, which, according to max weber, is inevitably 1 http://blog.nature.org/science/2015/02/17/citizen-science-10-most-popular-projects-best-nature-conservation/ 2 http://www.artofmanliness.com/2012/08/28/how-to-treat-life-like-an-experiment/ 239changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 associated with increasing organisational size and scope (weber, 1978). unfortunately, bureaucracy also entails secondary effects, some of which may negatively impact on its enabling virtues (crozier, 1964). these side effects, described in terms of bureaucratisation, include inefficiency, rigidity and “bureaucratic entrepreneurism” (dekker, 2014). thus, it may be expected that researchers, as active producers of scientific knowledge, will need to find ways to adapt and survive in this new reality. anthropologists, sociologists and social psychologists have extensively studied different aspects of adaptive behaviour within large social groups and developed a number of (often contradictory) theories (e.g., skinner, 1974; smith, 1992; etc.). along with such types of behaviour as payoff-based, social approval seeking, etc., conformism is seen as a behavioural strategy selected in over-regulated social environments that feature increasing restrictions and punishments. for example, in his seminal work (merton, 1938), robert merton showed that conformity to goals and means is the “most common and widely diffused” (ibid., p. 673) type of social order in large groups; without such conformity, the continuity of these groups cannot be maintained. erich fromm expressed similar ideas in (fromm, 1965). in extreme cases, when the cultural goal is generated institutionally rather than organically (i.e. from within the group), the conformist behaviour may take the form of ritualism. under such conditions, “ritualistic adherence to institutionally prescribed conduct becomes virtually obsessive” (merton, 1938, p. 673). despite the phenomenon of conformity and its representations having been extensively studied in the abovementioned disciplines, a philosophical understanding of this phenomenon has yet to be formulated. this is particularly significant, since, considering such trends as the massification of science, the scientisation of life and bureaucratisation, it is reasonable to suppose that conformity will become the dominant mode of existence in science, eventually coming to affect society as a whole. in other words, it can be expected that conformity will become the driver of massive societal transformations. in response to this, we set out in this work to present a phenomenological understanding of conformity as a social phenomenon. since this will involve a rather high level of abstraction, we will follow heidegger’s example in presenting a number of illustrations from the everyday life of scientists (viz. his examples of a hammer, cough, fences, etc.). it should be noted that our choice to apply the phenomenological approach is based on heidegger’s claim that only such an approach is capable of grasping a phenomenon in its integrity (heidegger, 1962). in order to distinguish our uses of the terms from other possible interpretations, we will now clarify what we mean by conformity and conformism. by conformism, we refer first and foremost to “conformist behaviour”, i.e. the concept discussed in social psychology (ash, 1955). thus, conformism is seen as a behavioural strategy of imitating the majority, which aims at adjustment to axiological norms and socially accepted conventions shared within a particular group. conversely, by conformity we understand the underlying phenomenon that generates conformist behaviour. such a juxtaposition of conformism and conformity demonstrates that conformism is not a self-sufficient social phenomenon. thus, it is only when considered through the lens 240 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt of the question “what lies behind?” that the phenomenon of conformist behaviour can be seen as a simplified representation of something more ontologically loaded: regardless of the nature of the true phenomenon it represents, conformism turns out to be ontologically rootless and consequently inadequate for phenomenological reinterpretation. therefore, in what follows, we will focus on the concept of conformity and only refer to conformism when we wish to specifically refer to the set of social behaviours so engendered. in order to pursue our research aim, the following research questions were formulated: 1. what are the philosophical specifics of the modern scientised world-view, which determine its dominance over other world-views? 2. how can the modern scientised world-view be interpreted from a phenomenological standpoint? 3. who are the bearers (‘träger’ in heidegger’s phenomenological sense) of the modern scientised world-view? 4. what adaptation and coping mechanisms do such bearers demonstrate and what examples of these mechanisms can be found in academic science? i. comprehensive technologisation whether referring to fundamental or applied science, a crucial component of the modern scientistic world-view consists in the priority status allocated to technological development. thus, applied science employs technologies in an attempt to satisfy the ever-mounting needs of the consumer society and provide higher standards of taken-for-granted everyday comfortableness. at the same time, fundamental science is increasingly becoming reliant on instrumental technologies in order to achieve more and better results (e.g. laser scanning microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, etc.), which, in turn are expected to establish a basis for the development of the knowledge economy. such technologisation of contemporary science frequently results in the use of specific technologies, which are seen not only as an effective means for achieving short-term goals, but also as permeating all stages of research work – from searching appropriate literature on internet databases and conducting routine experiments (e.g. genome sequencing) to developing revolutionary approaches intended to shift or replace a dominant paradigm. moreover, technologies are shown to play an increasingly important role in forming the core set of human cognitive characteristics (schwab, 2016) that come to shape people’s attitude to reality. the embedment of technological systems into the scientific world-view can be captured by the idea of technological rationality, introduced into philosophical and scientific discourses by several german social and political theorists belonging to the frankfurt school (horkheimer & adorno, 2002; marcuse, 1982; marcuse 2002). in economic terms, the variety of conventional arguments for the unchallenged authority of technological rationality in the area of innovation-based growth could, on the one hand, be easily reduced to the popular notion of progressiveness, taken for the most part as a positive dimension of human orientation to the world. however, it should 241changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 be noted that such an elevation of the status of technology is so readily accepted by researchers not only because of their conformity to the social order and procedural norms, but also because such an understanding of technology has been the result of the prolonged reflection of philosophers on its nature. from this perspective, the philosophical and sociological understanding of technology in the modern era may be seen as having developed through aristotelian anthropological lenses, with ernst kapp interpreting the human body in terms of the pattern of human technological activity (brey, 2000; mitcham, 1994) and alfred espinas introducing the concept of technology as mature art, a product of human thought and experience that finally gives birth to science as such (alexandre & gasparski, 2000). another equally authoritative approach to the essence of technology takes a more pragmatic approach, thus restricting kapp’s anthropomorphism of technique (mitcham, 1994). the austrian philosopher ernst mach and his russian populariser piotr engelmeier proceeded from the premise that the development of science is influenced by the practical needs of everyday life. thus, science appears as a faithful servant of humanity, whose duty is to cope with technological challenges (mitcham, 1994). consequently, mach’s so-called economy of thought was established within the second approach, while the intellectual activity of a human being here loses the ontological status of technology’s root, being reduced to the mere drawing of technical analogies with how technique works in and of itself. as a consequence of such imitation of machines on the part of human beings, a specific anthropological type of human having an engineering mentality was established and encouraged in the modern era. under the conditions of modernity, the system of technological rationality was deeply embedded not only into scientific, but also social, political and economic spheres, with any philosophical aspects being mostly confined to marxist and neo-marxist discussions. according to karl marx, the establishment of technological rationality was a value-neutral result of the historic displacement of hand-labour by productive machine-labour (marx, 1977). however, the value system of such rationality is always determined by the authorities, who control the means of production, alienating the worker – on the one hand economically, i.e. from the results of what he is producing, and, on the other hand, psychologically, i.e. from the reason why he is producing (marx, 1977). neo-marxist representatives of the frankfurt school (horkheimer & adorno, 2002; marcuse, 2002) developed marx’s idea of the capitalist system with its fundamental premise of the social alienation of the worker into the complex critical theory of society. it is significant here that alienation is interpreted not only in terms of the capitalist class having access to modern technologies, which the proletariat lacks, but also through the technologies themselves being engaged into the value-creating process of subduing human nature. according to horkheimer and adorno, humanity’s loss of selfhood and immediacy of existence is a consequence of technique (horkheimer & adorno, 2002). it should come as no surprise, then, if the development of technologies becomes a catalyst for the explosion of mass culture in the modern era. mass culture inevitably reduces and erodes existing ethical and cultural patterns, thus constituting and distributing globally specific socio-political standards. socio-political systems based on such standards 242 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt are absolutely syncretic in terms of their axiological priorities and thereby adaptive to any external agency. in a similar manner, the french sociologist and political thinker jacques ellul analysed technique as a self-sustaining and independent power that cannot be ignored or belittled, because it imposes itself upon humanity in its function as a specific ideology; as a result, all social, political and economic structures came to be pre-determined by its rigid value system (ellul, 1964). the german philosopher friedrich jünger also offered a pessimistic prognosis of uncontrolled technologic development. for jünger, an unrestricted development of technology inevitably leads to a logic according to which human nature becomes something that must be subdued (jünger, 2010). thus, in the modern era an implicit process of devaluation of the human being has become explicit to the extent that any differences between human and technological achievements are becoming increasingly moot. having previously been interpreted in terms of human activities and skills in the fabrication of goods, under modernity technologies come not only to dominate the process of producing things, but also to reshape our motivation for developing them. in this way, the remarkable technological achievements of the 20th and 21st centuries have revealed the great power contained within them, one that frames all human problems as due to a lack of societal technologisation and reduces the human being himself/herself to the questions of operational decision-making. since operations are, by definition, carried out on other things (regardless of whether that thing is a human body in a surgical ward, a mass of earth to be moved, or an enemy capital to be demolished by atom bombs), this is likely to lead to unpredictable and perilous situations (“technology versus man”, 1949, p. 3). however, perhaps the most penetrating and powerful philosophical critique of technology, significantly influencing both anthropological and pragmatic (instrumental) approaches, is that developed by the german thinker martin heidegger. according to heidegger, the field of technology encompasses not only the manufacture and utilisation of equipment, tools and machines, but also the entire structure of modern philosophy, which organises itself in such a way as to actively and explicitly serve technological ends (heidegger, 1977). heidegger’s thought represents a cornerstone of the present research, since it elucidates not only how the western scientised world-view has come to thoroughly permeate modernity, but also how the roots of technologised consciousness themselves came into being. however, it is only when analysed through heideggerian lenses that his ambiguous thesis – “the essence of technology is by no means anything technological” – becomes clear (ibid., p. 4). moreover, such an understanding may assist in developing an approach that can overcome technological rationality as the idée fixe of modern societies. ii. phenomenology of the scientised world-view inasmuch as heidegger’s assertion seems to form the basis for our following analysis of conformity as a mode of existence in modern science, his phenomenological approach towards technologies will be discussed in a twofold manner, with each elucidation serving its own particular purpose. firstly, a brief review of the historical background 243changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 forming the basis of the essence of technology will be carried out in order to expand our comprehension of the matter beyond conventional understandings, in terms of which the only considered means of rethinking technologies is to discover how to make them more and more technological. secondly – and this is directly related to the prime objective of the present research – the perspective should be switched from the existence of technologies in and of themselves (as well as from the specific forms shaped by them) and towards the bearers of technologised consciousness. in contradicting conventional understandings of modernity as something emergent or self-grounded, the heideggerian historical purview grounds the scientific and technological age in antiquity. thus, heidegger refers to the ancient idea of ποίησις (poiesis) – the arising of something from out of itself – as something requiring to be taken into consideration when the genealogy of modern technologies is being considered (heidegger, 1977, p. 10). the nub of the matter here is that ποίησις, in its bringing-forth capacity, also gives birth to a phenomenon called τέχνη (techne), implying the bringing into existence of something that did not exist before (ibid.). therefore, since referring simultaneously to the skill of making a particular thing and the things themselves that are so produced, τέχνη was evidently experienced through handcraft and labour, i.e. all creative human activities in general along with human intellectual capabilities or so-called arts of mind. among those arts of mind, it was philosophy itself that was, for heidegger, to become a paradigmatic example of τέχνη, while philosophy – being a specific mode of metaphysical thinking – considers a specific reality, i.e. one that duplicates the existence of things themselves. for example, the primary aim of antique philosophy had been to grasp the world in which a person lived in order to reveal whatever could be imperishable within that world, i.e. the essence of all things. in fairness, it must be said that there was no particular mediator implied in the process of comprehension: the world appeared to the philosopher as revealing itself from itself like φύσις (physis) – i.e. the self-genesis of nature. as for objective reality, this concept simply did not exist in pre-socratic philosophy; nevertheless, the roots of modernity’s subject / object dualism can be traced to plato’s philosophy of forms. western medieval religious thought represented a reorienting of priorities from revealing the truth of being towards collaborative strategies for establishing true relationships with god aimed at the assurance of salvation. from a phenomenological viewpoint, medieval philosophy seems to have become overwhelmed in its desperate search for something permanent in human, quotidian existence. thus, heidegger finds christian theology to be itself a kind of τέχνη – not only because of its implicit resultorientation, but also in its establishment of a specific mediator between the human being and the world. how modernity actually changed this relationship schema, then, was to shift humanity’s outlook from a theological to a scientific domain; nevertheless, the same quest for security and permanence was preserved intact. the fundamentally modern works of rené descartes and isaac newton discovered self-certainty within human reason itself (descartes, 2004), by means of which the world beyond was substituted, in a philosophical sense, for reality – i.e. in a reflection of the world – thus effecting a more powerful and penetrating τέχνη. this placement of 244 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt the world of cartesian objects into a state of dependence on man’s mental abilities was deliberate: it is in maintaining such a belief in reality that the subject’s self-assurance can be maintained. having thus become a cartesian subject – i.e. the dominating centre of reality – man is able to establish the unity of his thinking and being according to the famous formula cogito ergo sum. as a consequence, everything that appears to any human from beyond himself can be shaped, regularised and standardised as a means of satisfying the need for security. however, having been reduced to a construction of the human mind, the world thus finds itself caught in a trap, with no means of escaping from the clutches of that cogito, which only the cartesian subject is able to provide. when thus described in terms of subject / object, modern science takes up its by now familiar position to become the means by which τέχνη can most effectively reinforce itself. thus, in terms of its teleological consistency, the concern of scientists with investigating the surrounding world seems dispassionate and unchallenged by any alternative form of νόησις (noiesis). however, perhaps the biggest difference between the antique and modern-scientistic philosophical approaches lies in the latter’s refusal to permit things to be present as they are. for the former, by contrast, the revelation of things in the truth of authentic being was the highest value (heidegger, 1977). freed of this requirement, modern scientists set about arresting and shackling the world in order to objectify its essence as a “manifold of cause and effect coherences”, cleansing it of any hint of pollution by the contingency, eventuality or immediacy of being. by representing things to himself in this way, the modern scientist makes the world amenable to experiments, with the inherent value of the means-to-an-end factor in any experimental setup advanced as self-evident (ibid., p. 167). for heidegger, the significance of this idea is revealed precisely when the essence of technology is brought into question, due to the radical departure between anthropological and instrumental interpretations of τέχνη under modernity being represented exactly from such a means-to-an-end perspective. when technologies are bound to a means-to-an-end schema, the ensuing instrumental approach supports human domination over nature; the bringing-forth potential of τέχνη-as-ποίησις has, by now, been quite forgotten. nevertheless, even in its modern instrumental interpretation, technology in its essence continues to be a kind of mode of revealing, with only one important specification requiring to be taken into account. as was previously mentioned, the anthropological dimension of τέχνη reveals “the truth of being of things themselves”, while the instrumental mode of revealing is also the mode of so-called “challenging revealing” (heidegger, 1977, p. 16). by conducting scientific experiments on the world of objects in the spirit of “contending with everything that exists”, the cartesian subject appears to exert control over everything he represents and objectifies. heidegger clarifies his attitude in the following statement: “the revealing that rules throughout modern technology has the character of challenging-forth. such challenging happens in that the energy concealed in nature is unlocked, what is unlocked is transformed, what is transformed is stored up, what is stored up is, in turn, distributed, and what is distributed is switched about 245changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 ever anew. unlocking, transforming, storing, distributing, and switching about are ways of revealing that dominate the age of technological modernity” (ibid., p. 16). under this scope, the only relevant quality of things in the world is their readiness for use: the world itself appears as an interconnected network of objects, whose only meaning lies in being available to serve the purpose of “letting-be-controlled” (heidegger, 1977). heidegger’s special term for describing the phenomenon of undifferentiated availability was “standing-reserve” (ibid., p. 17). the ordering and selfrevealing of everything in terms of standing-reserve is the result of the challenging claim of both people and things occurring in a specific configuration of “ordering for use”, i.e. enframing (ibid., p. 19). this characteristic enframing of the essence of technology leads to the second perspective of our analysis – human orientation towards technologies and science, with the concept of the subject now being placed into question. in the next two paragraphs, we will clarify what is meant by enframing in the context of academic science as well as elucidate the question of who is the bearer of the scientised world-view under this framework. iii. the they as bearer of the scientised world-view the essence of technologies is itself not technological, but rather concerns fundamental processes of revealing the truth of being (heidegger, 1977). when examined through the lenses of heidegger’s approach, it is human orientation to the world that becomes such an essence; however, both human and the world are now being put into question. over the centuries, there have been several modes of revealing; within each subsequent paradigm, the mode of revealing has been perverted in an increasingly explicit way due to moving further from its primordial goal. thus, under the conditions of modernity, this mode has finally become enframing, previously described as a way of ordering the world in order to capture its essence. in terms of enframing, there is no possibility for the world to be disclosed as itself and from itself; on the contrary, according to one of heidegger’s contemporary interpreters, the world is liable to be disclosed merely as “a valuable material resource to be extracted, expropriated and used-up for whatever man desires or wills of it” (nadal, 2010). the most fruitful result of such kinds of instrumental thinking is the creation of different enframings – specific structures and formats, through which different technologies can be used to easily reshape and convert the world into specific forms to be grasped and represented by scientific rationality. certainly, enframings only complete the process of shifting the concept of the world into the domain of standing-reserve, whereas the question of what the world really is appears to have been left outwith the range of their very concerns. it is at this point that heidegger makes his famous distinction between ancient and modern philosophies, with the former representing the philosophical world-view and the latter – the scientific world-picture (heidegger, 1977). insofar as it is sufficient for introducing the bearer of the modern scientised world-view as well as his mode of existence in science, the distinction between the philosophical world-view and the scientific world-picture should be clearly emphasised. 246 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt world-view could be interpreted as observing-the-world, implying not only the sense of dwelling-within-the-world, but also that the world is not an entity which is a priori given to a human being (heidegger, 1977). when world-viewing starts from the beyond of nothing, its spontaneous and all-inclusive reflection on the world and on the human being can disclose the universe of their beings simultaneously: this is considered by heidegger to be an authentic mode of existence (heidegger, 1962). according to his thought, world-picture can be understood as having been perverted under a modernistic world-view; however, it should be interpreted as the world grasped as picture, rather than as a picture of the world, implying that such a world is primordially external to a human being. consequently, it is impossible for any human to dwell in such a world – it can only be described or registered as an image or picture by somebody standing apart from it. this mode is claimed by heidegger to be inauthentic, while in terms of world-picture, the human becomes alienated from the world, resulting in its loss: “modernity leaves man homeless, without world” (nadal, 2010). the modern scientific world-picture appears to be the most explicit and ambitious example of framework ever constructed; however, its inauthenticity depends not only on a specific understanding of the world (as something to be investigated), but also on a specific understanding of what it means to be human (i.e. that which investigates). in terms of modernity, “subject” should replace “human”, especially when discussing the actor engaged in scientific research. however, here a problem of definition, identified by heidegger, arises (as a consequence of which the unqualified use of the word “subject” has also been deliberately avoided in the context of our research). in order to comprehend what is meant by subject in a phenomenological sense, it should be noted that the modern word acquired its meaning from ancient greek υποκειμένου (ipokeimenon) – literally “that-which-lies-before” (heidegger, 1977). thus, “subject” tends to play a much more significant role in contemporary philosophical parlance than merely a synonym for “human”: it is only possible to lie-before-something when the being of that-which-lies-before is itself primordial and self-evident to other beings. conversely, being of the non-human refers to the being of the world; it is only world-picture (world as picture), which can be found in such a dependent relationship on human. in this regard, heidegger invoked the question of what being in the world really is as well as who is in the world. having returned to the clear phenomenological understanding that we all are already somewhere in the world, heidegger introduced his central pre-concept3 of dasein – literally being-there (heidegger, 1962). in describing a human being in terms of dasein, heidegger attempted to escape from the a priori inauthenticity of philosophical notions developed within modern philosophy, especially the juxtaposition of subject and the world of objects. being already embedded in the world, dasein itself is prescribed neither as authentic, nor inauthentic; while comprising a new starting point of heidegger’s fundamental ontology, it can exist both in authentic and inauthentic modes (heidegger, 1962). in a broad sense, dasein finds itself as itself proximally and for the most part in its daily existence through its concern with environment. however, complete absorption 3 primordial concept. 247changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 into the world of ordinary life experiences, into the world of so-called average everydayness, is fraught for dasein due to the switching of the inauthentic regime of its existence (heidegger, 1962). heidegger suggested this regime to be that of das man, which can be translated into english as “the they4”. heidegger’s others must not be interpreted simply as other people; otherwise, the whole logic of his argumentation would be contravened, since other people are always understood within everyday consciousness as other people, but not myself. having started his analysis from the phenomenon of dasein, heidegger maintains that its being-in-the-world is always and at the same time being-with-others, with the generalised character of others already implied in every concern of dasein with respect to the world (heidegger, 1962). moreover, those others are primordial to any particular self, because it is exactly self that is singled out from the others through the switching of the regime of dasein’s existence from inauthentic to authentic – and not the reverse. that is why, in addition to every human being discovering dasein to be himself/herself, others must also be treated as dasein, the only proviso being that their existence precedes the first distinction between my own and not my own dasein. nevertheless, others carry the potentiality to become authentic – something that may occur only if dasein individuates its authentic self from the totality of inauthentic beings. without this individuation, others remain attached to the they, forming an example of inauthentic self. in terms of average everydayness, where the they exists, several existential characteristics may be detached, including distantiality, averageness and levelling-down (heidegger, 1962). when discussed in general terms, the they appears to consist in the assembly of different clichés that are predominantly taken for granted as respectable behavioural or intellectual patterns. in other words, the they constrains each dasein to surrender its uniqueness – and, consequently, its authenticity potential – by following their beaten paths to commonly defined styles of thinking, communicating, writing, etc. moreover, these paths have been paved not by dasein, but by the they. heidegger was clear that “the they, which supplies the answer to the question of the who of everyday dasein, is the nobody to whom every dasein has already surrendered itself” [emphasis added] (heidegger, 1962, p. 166). thus, the phenomenological analysis of the essence of technologies provided under these two paragraphs may incline the reader to conclude that the fundamental basis of modern scientific world-picture – i.e. subject / object dichotomy – is by no means something that should be taken for granted. it is only human orientation to the 4 taking into consideration that this concept of heidegger seems to be quite complicated, especially in terms of its relation to other philosophical concepts that pre-existed it, the interpretation of das man should be clarified as a matter of priority. the simplest and briefest explanation of das man as everyone and no one in particular provides a rough outline of the contours of the concept; however, our preferred english translation of das man as the they adds an extra dimension to its intrinsic meaning. it should be emphasised that, on the one hand, usage of the they in the singular (i.e. in contradistinction with the plural agreement form used with the pronoun “they”) corresponds precisely with the grammatical use of german indefinite pronoun man, from which das man acquired its currency through nominalisation. on the other hand, the plural sense of das man is also captured here, which is highly relevant due to heidegger’s assertion of das man referring first and foremost to the mode of existence of others (heidegger, 1962). 248 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt world that can reshape this topography. we only find the world to consist of objects to be investigated when we consider the world to comprise standing-reserve in its nature as a whole. as soon as we start perceiving objects not as something given to us and human-independent, but as framework-friendly concepts, it is precisely the objectiveness of the world that appears to be challenged. in a similar manner, a human being conducting scientific research has the status of subject only to the extent of being a bearer of scientised consciousness. when it is understood that it is the consciousness of the they that lies behind the scientised consciousness rather than an individual person, it becomes obvious that scientised consciousness cannot belong to any individual human being. consequently, the subject, understood as a rationally thinking individual (and bearer of scientised consciousness), immediately becomes an erroneous reference point, because the subjectivity postulated by him or her only serves to deceive us about who he or she really is. after all, subjectivity, by definition, cannot not belong to somebody; however, according to the scientised world-view, it belongs precisely to the they; that is to say, to everybody and nobody. thus, the very idea of the subject as a certain reference point for a scientific world-view becomes little more than a potemkin village facade arranged by the they in order to conceal αλήθεια (alethea) – the truth of being (heidegger, 1977). as a typical example of framework, the modern scientific world-picture is not something rigid and prescribed once and for all; rather, it is dynamic and continually changing within the processes of enframing being initiated by the they. in this regard, the existential characteristics of the they, such as distantiality, averageness and levelling-down, should be elucidated by examples of their practical influence on modern academic science. conformity as a mode of existence in science should be also introduced, along with the following analysis of adaptation and survival mechanisms applied by modern researchers – i.e. the bearers of the scientised world-picture – provided in terms of the societal processes of the scientisation of life and massification of science. iv. conformist behaviour in modern science as it has been shown in the previous paragraphs, it is the instrumental interpretation of τέχνη that constitutes technological rationality – the most powerful rationality that has ever existed. initially conceived as an instrument for use by humanity in transforming the world to make it more comfortable for living in, technological rationality has eventually become an actor in and of itself by organising the world and forcing humanity to submit to its rules. no wonder, then, if the penetration of technologies throughout all spheres of life and provided under its guidance should come to additionally transform human orientation to the world, with enframing acting as the driver of this process. however, the phenomenological analysis of the substitution of the philosophical world-view for the scientific world-picture that occurred during modernity showed that the two interdependent processes of the scientisation of life and the massification of science involved in establishing the scientised world-view only seem to evolve on 249changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 their own accord. in actuality, it is not just the progressive development of society that determines the contemporary state of affairs in science, but the very manner of thought of the they, which configures the whole structure of human daily existence. conversely, the phenomenon of conformity is the mode according to which the they gets accustomed to average everyday existence: it would be logical to assume that conformity can express itself in terms of scientific activity and scientific discourse, while in the contemporary world both are explicit examples of enframing in action. we will now look at some exemplary representations of how the they conducts enframing in order to understand what conformist strategies the bearers of scientised consciousness – i.e. modern researchers – employ in order to adjust to axiological patterns and socially accepted conventions shared within a scientific community. one such illustrative example of how an instrument of convenience eventually became a self-sufficient value can be found in the realm of scientific communication; this is the imrad format, which is nowadays used worldwide to present research findings in scientific articles. the scientific research paper as we know it today has undergone a long evolution (gross et al., 2002). initially such texts took the form of letters to colleagues, explaining the details of a study in a narrative style. then, with the emergence of the first scientific journals and the concomitant need to advance a claim concerning the priority status of communicated knowledge, the scientific text underwent a transformation both in terms of style and composition. moreover, the professionalisation of the scientific journal brought about the appearance of journal editors, whose mission was to focus articles to meet the interests of other scientists as well as to exclude dilettantes from this increasingly specialised form of communication. the 20th century was marked by an exponential growth in scientific knowledge (prince, 1963), which also required more efficient means for information exchange and retrieval. thus, the text composition format acronymised as imrad (introduction, methods, results and discussion) developed from the conventional historical perspective into its current form. from the phenomenological perspective, the imrad format comprises a rigid schema for text production that provides rules for the textual organisation of research articles. for this reason, it may be treated as a typical example of technologisation in academic science. moreover, imrad is not only widely used, but also obligatory in many disciplines, particularly in medicine and the natural sciences; consequently, imrad research articles are subject to strong and explicit genre constraints. for example, at the level of the textual surface, the genre constraints can be observed in a linear sequencing of the text, since the format not only prescribes a fixed number of sections, but also the order of their sequencing, regardless of the original vision of the scientific research to be shared within a particular discipline. it is hardly surprising that in the age of obsessive human relationships with different technologies, the popularity of imrad is immense – currently, almost 95% of all publications in natural sciences journals are presented according to this logic (popova & beavitt, 2017). moreover, some researchers claim that in medicine this is the only pattern adopted in original papers (sollaci & pereira, 2004). a steadily 250 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt increasing number of journals in social studies and even in humanities insist that authors compose their manuscripts according to international publication standards, which in most cases means adherence to the same imrad format. thus, rather than being an arbitrary option, imrad has become not only a standard to which every paper must conform, but also an enframing, which is ostensibly imposed by the they in order to make scientific communication more user-friendly through its reduction to a standardised, depersonalised and generally accepted style. when imrad is seen in terms of enframing, conformity to the rules provided under its guidance becomes a mode of existence. while such a mode is inauthentic due to its belonging to the they, nevertheless, it appears to be justified by the following reasons of convenience, which the they guarantees to any participant in scientific communication: 1. convenience for authors. the underlying logic of the imrad format provides an autological reflection of the scientific research process: the research questions are initially stated, then the necessary tools selected, results captured and relevant conclusions drawn therefrom. thus, the imrad format not only provides rules for the organisation of a text at the macro-level (strict sequence of sections), but also structures the micro-level, i.e. in terms of the order of semantic units. this pattern is disseminated throughout the global academic community in academic writing classes, both at undergraduate and graduate levels. writing papers in such a manner is particularly convenient for non-native speakers of english, who greatly outnumber natives in contemporary scientific communication. 2. convenience for readers. according to researchers in cognitive psychology, reading scientific texts is a complicated human activity, multidimensional rather than linear in character (kintsch, 1998). imrad papers facilitate modular reading, because each section of the paper contains information in a semantically preordained manner: e.g., the research question follows the description of the research gap and can normally be browsed by phrases such as “although much research has been carried out to…” or “despite significant progress in…” linguists have shown that the diversity of semantic “moves and steps” in contemporary imrad papers is almost negligible (swales, 1990; brett, 1994; hopkins & dudley-evans, 1988; kanoksilapatham, 2005). thus, for an experienced researcher, reading a well-formed english-language scientific article can be commenced from virtually any section, including keywords and title, since each part may be seen as a holographic representation of the whole. 3. convenience for editors and peer-reviewers. over 3 million manuscripts are submitted to journals every year (report of the science and technology committee, 2011), imposing a considerable burden on their editors and peer-reviewers. the imrad format with its strict rules is helpful in providing a coarse sieve for selecting works for subsequent peer-review. 4. convenience for citation engines. in an age of burgeoning information, an increasing number of parameters are being processed not by humans, but by machines. standardised forms used to present information allow global citation and scientometric indexes (such as scopus or web of science) to effectively analyse 251changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 connections between scholarly papers (i.e. citations in later work based on earlier articles), thus providing a tool for measuring research performance. despite all the above-mentioned benefits, imrad is increasingly criticised for its rigidity, over-simplicity and over-standardisation. from a phenomenological perspective, it could not be any other way, since the only possible outcome of blindly surrendering to the they is mediocrity. indeed, while the future of science as a human activity has been shown to depend on creativity (hadzigeorgiou, 2012), academic writing is becoming more and more rigid – not only at the macro-level (compositional structure), but also on the micro-level (semantic units). as a consequence of such rigid enframing, many papers in natural sciences are virtually indistinguishable from one another, varying only in terms of the numerical information so presented. this fact even led some researchers to make a bold prediction: we may soon witness the end of scientific articles, which will be substituted by “ontologies” (imrad carried to an extreme) (west, 2016): such an outcome would mark a kind of technological singularity moment at which the they is seen to triumph over the authentic self of individual researchers. researchers will no longer be required to create texts; it will be sufficient to simply upload properly formatted information into pre-assigned spaces. being a reflection of the world-view of the they, imrad may be seen as increasingly stifling spontaneous narrativity due to the they being highly intolerant of creativity as such. perhaps it is for this reason that any interested researcher can find various imrad templates or “cheat-sheets” on the internet that can be used to create a paper5. in conformance with the current state of affairs in science, most editors expect to see papers written in this format; there have even been cases when some clearly non-scientific papers were published simply because they had the external appearance of imrad papers (bohannon, 2013). it can be concluded that, due to the supremacy of technological rationality in general and such conformist modes of existence in particular, imrad has burgeoned from an optional instrument of convenience into a self-sufficient value, dominating and even domineering the world of academic communication. the widespread distribution of technologies such as imrad can also be analysed from the perspective of the process of bureaucratisation. max weber showed that increases in the size and scope of every social sector are associated with the implementation of a bureaucratic principle (weber, 1922) as a response to the need for rationalisation and ordering of any human activity. this – according to weber, inevitable – process is characterised by greater division of labour, standardisation, hierarchy and decentralisation. the growth of organised science (adams et al., 2005; wuchty et al., 2007) and its increasing massification is likely to also result in its greater bureaucratisation. indeed, as it has been conclusively shown (walsh & lee, 2015; coccia, 2009), science as a human activity is becoming more: (a) hierarchical, with multiple levels of supervision appearing (growth of administrative structures, such as fano and vak in russia); (b) decentralised, which means that those lower in 5 see, e.g. https://www.cmu.edu/gcc/handouts/imrd%20with%20examples.pdf 252 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt the hierarchy can make independent decisions though formally approved by those higher in the organisation (which is demonstrated in russia by reduced governmental budgetary funding for research); (c) highly labour-divided (popov et al., 2017), with every researcher in a research team performing her narrow circle of responsibilities (e.g. some researchers in the natural sciences); and (d) standardised, meaning that all the work is governed by strictly specified rules and fixed procedures (imrad, reports, requirements for applicants for scientific degrees, scientometric indicators measuring research performance, etc.). to a lesser or greater extent, all these dimensions of bureaucratisation can be also considered as a result of the enframing of the sphere of academic science by the they for its own convenience. as was previously mentioned, the they mostly acts through such existential characteristics as distantiality, averaging and levelling down, imposing conformity as a mode of existence to everybody who gives up responsibility for his own dasein and instead plays by the rules of the scientised world-view. namely, these characteristics manifest themselves in science in terms of alienation (distantiality) of a researcher’s personality from the results of his work; disregard (averaging) of any personal impact and achievements in order to bring to the fore the part of bureaucratic structures and self-producing machines (west, 2016); standardisation (levelling down), which appears in a reduction to a common denominator of everything beyond established standards. therefore, it can be concluded that, with conformity being a mode of existence, science has become a highly-bureaucratised activity, whose performance is entirely dependent on how effectively such technological instruments, e.g. as imrad, are used. it should be mentioned that imrad is just one illustration; among other technologies that disseminate the academic others into the they are global scientometric indexes, systems of academic ratings, rankings and tenure, etc. taken all the above mentioned into account, the next step would be to look at how people respond to these transformations. this idea seems to be consistent with the concept of the bureaucratic personality (merton, 1940; thomson, 1961; bozeman & rainy, 1998), which was developed to capture the changing nature of personality in the context of an environment that is becoming more and more bureaucratic. increasing specialisation and division of labour, along with such benefits as increasing rationality and a movement from dilettantism to professionalism, eventually leads to the pathologic distortions – or “bureaupathologies” – of weberian virtues (thomson, 1961), including alienation and impersonal attitude, loss of creativity and enthusiasm, mechanistic behaviour and lower personal responsibility for the result – all qualities whose overall contribution to knowledge generation may be suspected to be negative. the underlying reason for all such responses was shown to be the loss of personal security (thomson, 1961). an impressive list of 175 bureaupathologies was given by caiden (1991), who insisted that these “systemic shortcomings” (caiden, 1991) are the result of forcing individuals within an organisation to conform to extensive norms and rules. in other words, conformist behaviour becomes the strategy of choice used by the bureaucratic personality to avoid penalties. this is particularly so in science, 253changing societies & personalities, 2017 vol. 1, no. 3 since contemporary researchers are expected to conform to the established order: publish in journals indexed in international databases, conduct experiments that fall into mainstream frameworks, promote their research within academia to get more citations, establish a rapport with scientific administrators to obtain stable funding and position, etc. it comes as no surprise then that technological instruments become an undisputable value, providing a means for achieving conformity – and, consequently, “social survival” (fisk, 2016). there seems to be an interdependent relationship between the concepts of technologised consciousness (as described following heidegger’s phenomenological theory) and bureaucratic personality. significantly, these concepts helped us to analyse the transformations that the contemporary human activity of science is undergoing, as well as to take a closer look at the instruments that researchers as bearers of technologised consciousness apply nowadays to survive in a highly-enframed and bureaucratised environment. conclusion in this paper, our purpose was to investigate intricate connections between science as a transforming human activity, researchers as active producers of such transformations and society as a whole. we have shown that the contemporary social reality features such distinct processes as the penetration of science into all social spheres (scientisation) and the associated massification of science as a human activity. these trends, like any social process involving growing complexity, are accompanied by increased bureaucratisation, whose function is to organise and regulate the social order by establishing norms, restrictions and penalties. the bureaucratic mechanism exerts a definite pressure on researchers, forcing them to search for appropriate approaches for dealing with the more challenging environment. as has been shown, conformism frequently becomes the strategy of choice, since imitating socially approved behaviour can lead to stability and success. however, we have also shown that conformism is merely a representation of a more ontologically loaded phenomenon – conformity – whose nature we attempted to reveal using heidegger’s phenomenological approach. in the initial analytical step, we looked at technological rationality as a modern state of being and showed how technologies are often transmuted into teleologies. thus, technologies become part of human consciousness. such a technologised consciousness can properly function only within a specific configuration, which heidegger calls enframing. in modern science, this enframing, which alters human orientation to the world, takes the form of conformity and becomes the primary mode of existence. conformity as a phenomenon inherent to modern science has a number of societal effects, which can be predicted to drive massive social transformations. these effects can be considered at various levels: within a scientific community, a particular society, and / or at a global level. their detailed analysis should become a focus of another investigation; however, let us here briefly draft some possible outcomes of 254 natalia popova, yan moiseenko, thomas beavitt the abovementioned trends. it should be noted that these outcomes can be both of a positive and negative character. the results of conformity within a scientific community may involve lower creativity and responsibility for the product, increased focus on empirical methods of research, accumulation of empirical results that will never be theoretically examined and discrimination against non-western research approaches. however, conformity, with its clearly formulated rules and standardised procedures, also serves to make such a previously elite form of human activity as science accessible to ordinary people. within a particular society, conformity is manifested when people uncritically absorb standards imposed by technologised consciousness. an example is the emphasis of many societies on the goals of material prosperity, resulting in greater concern with the technological instruments conducing to such an outcome. at a global level, conformity can be analysed from the standpoint of non-western communities conforming to western standards of life through borrowing from the western scientific world picture. thus, in aiming to be included in the international citation indexes of scopus and web of science, many russian journals face the need to introduce substantial changes in almost all aspects of their work, from the traditional model of peer-review to the selection of content. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the contributions of the anonymous reviewers, whose comments resulted in the present, improved text. references adams, j., black, g., clemmons, j. r., stephan, p. e. 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