"The Boundaries of Socialism" Everyday Life under Post-Late Socialism

AAA 2012 Meeting: "The Boundaries of Socialism" Everyday Life under Post-Late Socialism

Recent anthropological attention to everyday life in post/late socialist contexts has noted that seemingly mundane activities of daily life can be fruitful conduits into understanding the larger cultural landscape of these post/late socialist contexts (e.g. Caldwell 2011; Gal and Kligman 2000). Consumption in particular, especially when analyzed from the perspective of "the everyday" and removed from "normative analyses primarily derived from economic perspectives" (Thelson 2011:54) provides an excellent forum to understand the intimate details of capitalism in post/late socialist societies outside of the institutions that ostensibly shape everyday life. Moreover, studying consumption and the everyday may develop new theoretical models that can be applied to recently ethnographic work in market oriented socialist economies (e.g. Cuba and Vietnam) that don't necessarily fit existing theoretical approaches to the post-socialist world. This scholarship is crucial for understanding the ways in which globalization and neoliberal capitalism impact the everyday lives of subjects outside of capitalist contexts, which also illuminates features of everyday life for people living under neoliberal capitalism. We broadly conceive of consumption to include the purchasing and acquiring of consumer goods including food, medicine, clothing, water, as well as the consumption of media (TV, movies, music, print media, etc), technology, and flows of information.

In a recent volume on food and everyday life in Eastern Europe, Elizabeth Dunn states that "as the age of post-socialism passes, and as Eastern European countries continue to forge new relationships with global markets and institutions, they will become increasingly defined by the varying contours of the new modernity they create rather than by their shared socialist past" (Dunn 2009:221). Addressing some of the ways in which these new modernities are created and solidified, we ask what these new modernities look like from an ethnographic perspective of everyday consumption and speak to the 2012 conference theme of "borders and crossings" by exploring the disciplinary borders of post-socialist studies. What is revealed by an ethnography that approaches studying consumption from the lens of the everyday rather than the regulatory institutions and regulatory regimes that are so often inescapably linked to shaping modern consumption practices in post/late-socialist contexts? In this panel we explore the boundaries of socialism through the lens of everyday consumption.

Possible topics may include:
-domestic spaces and material culture
-shopping, dining out, vacations and leisure
-food purchases, cuisine, fine dining vs everyday foods
-bureaucracy and everyday life
-work/life balance
-private vs public life
-consumption of old and new media
-the use of old and new technologies
-migration and diasporic influences on consumption at home

Session Co-Chairs: Hanna Garth (UCLA) and Sarah Grant (UCR). Existing topics include "Household Food Acquisition under Cuba's Changing Food Rationing System" and "Gia Ca Phe: Blogging Vietnam in the Global Coffee Industry".

Please email us ASAP if you are interested in participating in this volunteered session. If we get enough interest we may propose a double session. We are in the process of soliciting 1-2 discussants. Abstracts are due to the session co-chairs by March 15th, 2012:
Hanna.garth@gmail.com
Sarahggrant@gmail.com