Социальный цирк в постсоциалистической России: кейс-стади новой солидарности

Журнал исследований социальной политики. 2020. Т. 18. № 3. С. 491–508.

Ярошенко С. С., Шорн А.

This article is based on a case study of the Social Circus, a Russian NGO

created in the 2000s that focuses on developing the potential of children from

social risk groups. We analyse how the inclusion of these children into society

is performed, how the circus’s methods and socially oriented activism manage

to solve the problem of exclusion and reproduction of poverty in Russia. We

analysed the subjective meanings attributed to the social circus by participants,

civic activists and supporters; then we explored internal strategies of inclusion

into the circus elaborated by participants from different social classes and

how these strategies were supported by different external parties. In this way,

we were able to reconstruct the concept of inclusion and present it as a process

of realization of capabilities, when, with the realization of external opportuni

-

ties, the accumulation of internal resources takes place, as well as the ability

to act and produce a positive effect. We argue that the inclusion of socially

disadvantaged groups can change the structure of opportunities in practice

under three conditions. Firstly, through a change in the status of socially

disadvantaged groups, when negative identification forms a platform for the

practical promotion of the special status and differences of participants,

considering their interests. Secondly, attitudes towards achievement strengthens

the positions of participants, if it is combined with the formation of social

skills to coordinate different positions. Thirdly, opportunities are accumulated

if they are fixed in emancipation methods of interaction at the individual,

group and local levels, involving the recognition of the causes of oppression,

the promotion of the interests of disadvantaged groups, the reformatting of

their experience and the accumulation of social ties. As a result, reflective

solidarity is considered, involving the joint development of moral guidelines

and the variability of their implementation.

Keywords: кейс-стади как метод исследования, post-socialism, постсоциализм, Ethnographic Case-Study, социальный цирк, режим включения, управляющие отношения, социологический марксизм, social circus, regime of inclusion, ruling relations, sociological Marxism