Article
Концепт культурной сцены как теоретическая перспектива и инструмент анализа городских молодежных сообществ
This paper discusses the perspectives of the post-subcultural term “scene” as a conceptual framework in the study of contemporary youth cultures. In current academic literature, RUSSIAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW. 2017. VOL. 16. NO 2 131 the conceptualization of the concept of “scene” is represented by a range of competing interpretations: the scene as a place, the scene as a space (real or virtual), and the scene as a field of cultural production. The key points of discussion are identified by researchers with the following dimensions: its theatricality, its regularity, authenticity, legitimacy, and a DIY-economy. From our point of view, the “scene” has a number of heuristics advantages which are missing in “subcultural” and post-subcultural concepts. Firstly, it is the connection of group cultural practices and specific places/spaces that allows for the comparison of the configuration of youth communities and cultural coalitions in different geographical locations (cities, countries, or regions). Secondly, the focus here shifts from the analysis of cultural texts and discourses to the implicit rules and meanings according to which individuals produce a “scene” in a particular place/space and time. The concept of “scene” can be used productively in the solidarity approach. This theoretical and methodological composition allows us to analyze the reaction of local youth communities to discursive pressure, the forms of value conflicts typical to modern Russia, and the universal and specific features of local youth group identities.
dance4life is a globally active organization within the fields of HIV, sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and the Millennium Development Goals, specifically aiming to establish a social youth movement consisting of 1 million agents4change by 2014. The central mission of dance4life is to power a movement that creates change at global and community level by taking action to improve young people’s SRHR, and in particular, improving access to sexuality education and youth-friendly services, and to challenge stigma and discrimination and break down taboos that surround sexuality, especially focusing on HIV and AIDS. KIT was invited to partner with dance4life on an impact assessment of dance4life’s work, with a focus on mixed methods and the involvement of the young people themselves. The assessment took place in two countries: Uganda and Russia. A pilot study was undertaken in the Netherlands to test the qualitative research instruments.
In Russia, the label “Generation X” became popular upon the translation of Douglas Coupland’s famous book, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, into Russian in 1998. Thereupon the term achieved popularity following the publication of a series of articles about the modern youth phenomenon in the journal OM, which in the mid-’90s conducted open liberal, cultural politics and was orientated toward presenting the real cultural order of the day to Russian readers. It is important to note that in today’s Russian context (journalistic and academic) there exist several different versions of who is Generation X and what is the chronology that determines the generation. One of the chronologies that has been taken up by Russian researchers is the reading of “generation” according to years of birth, which looks as follows: the Silent Generation (1923–1943), Baby Boomers (1943–1963), Generation X (1963–1984), the Millennium Generation or Generation Y (1984–2000), and Generation Z (2000–?). Other homegrown researchers consider that the characteristics of Generation X are only beginning to become apparent today. This is explained by the specific historical path of post-Soviet Russia. Toward the ’90s, young people, just as the heroes of the book by Coupland, experienced the difficult period of a double breaking up of society, and therefore can be only partially compared to their Western contemporaries. The childhood and youth of these young people took place in the later Soviet period. They succeeded in being both pioneers and Komsomols (the Communist Union of Youth). They were able to go to the university at the very peak of the social collapse and to finish higher education in what was now a different country. It is likely, therefore, that young people born from the end of the ’80s to the beginning of the ’90s can be, to a large extent, included as those belonging to Generation X at the end of the 20th century. They already completely fall under the Soviet and post-Soviet experience of socialization and ideology as a result of the politics of the iron curtain and the particular political practices of establishing a new identity—“building communism.” In this case, the stress moves away from striving to define exact dates of birth of a generation to searching for similar characteristics in terms of world outlook, specific trends, key ideas and practices, similar traits and ideals, vectors of generational solidarity, and their significant difference from other contemporaries.
Traditionally, in applied theory and sociological tradition commitment is considered in a positive manner, along with such phenomenon as solidarity and trust. However, as a complex phenomenon commitment requires the broadening of its interpretation, and trust along with power as a functional equivalent of trust has to be included in interpretation basis of commitment.
In article features of national and confessional self-identification of the Russian youth as parts of the title nation are considered. Ethnic and national consciousness are analyzed as significant components of process of individual and group self-identification. Research covers the studying and working youth which is arrived and which initially living in the city. The youth is the object which studying allows to predict regularities of social development in the future. Consideration of a problem considers multi-confessional, multi-ethnic and boundary in the geographical relation character of Ural as region. The emphasis is placed on specifics of behavior of representatives of title nation, as youth considerably defining a social portrait. The concept of the big city is used as steady, allocated with a number of characteristic features. Authors establish the reasons of the reduced interest to a religious and ethnic identification of with group at the young people belonging to different social groups and united by residence in the large city. The conditions necessary for an intensification of process of identification are defined. Means of updating of processes of formation of identity of youth are offered.
The paper analyses Richard Rorty's views on solidarity and shows that the moral particularism that Rorty derives from the idea of solidarity is unfounded. Using the conceptual tools of social ontology the paper demonstrates that a theory of solidary morals can cover Rorty's main metaethical concerns, i. e. his commitment to liberalism and denial of cognitivism, without taking a stance in the controversy between universalists and particularists. The only relevant question that remains is whether or not a given social group, nation, or culture understands itself as universalist. Whether or not this is conceivable cannot be decided on philosophical grounds.
The paper observes the main patterns of youth consumption and leisure in contemporary Russia. It relies on the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of HSE, a set of nationally representative household-based surveys which includes data collected from 1994 to 2013. The data shows that by 2010 the level of youth consumption has risen along with the households’ overall income and expenditure. Since financial problems were alleviated, there was a redistribution of time between work and leisure, so youth turned to the active cultural consumption, including non-entertainment services. However, the total increase in products and services consumed went hand in hand with the rise of differentiation in the availability of durables, patterns of consumption and leisure practices.
Several approaches to the concept of fatherhood present in Western sociological tradition are analyzed and compared: biological determinism, social constructivism and biosocial theory. The problematics of fatherhood and men’s parental practices is marginalized in modern Russian social research devoted to family and this fact makes the traditional inequality in family relations, when the father’s role is considered secondary compared to that of mother, even stronger. However, in Western critical men’s studies several stages can be outlined: the development of “sex roles” paradigm (biological determinism), the emergence of the hegemonic masculinity concept, inter-disciplinary stage (biosocial theory). According to the approach of biological determinism, the role of a father is that of the patriarch, he continues the family line and serves as a model for his ascendants. Social constructivism looks into man’s functions in the family from the point of view of masculine pressure and establishing hegemony over a woman and children. Biosocial theory aims to unite the biological determinacy of fatherhood with social, cultural and personal context. It is shown that these approaches are directly connected with the level of the society development, marriage and family perceptions, the level of egality of gender order.