The Woodrow Wilson Center Press
Rebounding Identities: The Politics of Identity in Russia and Ukraine
Dominique Arel and Blair A. Ruble
An examination of post-Soviet society through ethnic, religious, and linguistic criteria, this volume turns what is typically anthropological subject matter into the basis of politics, sociology, and history.
Ten chapters cover such diverse subjects as Ukrainian language revival, Tatar language revival, nationalist separatism and assimilation in Russia, religious pluralism in Russia and in Ukraine, mobilization against Chinese immigration, and even the politics of mapmaking. A few of these chapters are principally historical, connecting tsarist and Soviet constructions to today's systems and struggles. The introduction by Dominique Arel sets out the project in terms of new scholarly approaches to identity, and the conclusion by Blair A. Ruble draws out political and social implications that challenge citizens and policy makers.
Rebounding Identities is based on a series of workshops held at the Kennan Institute in 2002 and 2003.
What People are Saying
"This is a superior volume, one of the best I have reviewed over the past several decades, because of its contributions of original research and its new directions to thinking about post-Soviet society and polity."—David Laitin, Stanford University
"Edited by seasoned scholars and introducing the work of younger scholars, this is a unique work that takes the somewhat overused concept of identity and gives it substance and meaning in particular contexts, turning it into a useful category of social scientific inquiry. The material is new, the research exemplary, and the various essays manage to give new interpretations of the subjects."—Ronald Suny, University of Michigan
Chapter List
Tables and Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Theorizing the Politics of Cultural Identities in Russia and Ukraine, Dominique Arel
Part I The Saliency of Cultural Cleavages
1 Theorizing Nationalist Separatism in Russia, Elise Giuliano
2 Institutional Legacies and Language Revival in Ukraine, Alexandra Hrycak
3 "Russian Islam" and the Politics of Religious Multiculturalism in Russia, Katherine Graney
4 Migration, Hostility, and Ethnopolitical Mobilization: Russia'sAnti-Chinese Legacies in Formation, Mikhail A. Alexseev
Part II The Struggle to Define a Category
5 Beauplan's Prism: Represented Contact Zones and Nineteenth-Century Mapping Practices in Ukraine, Steven J. Seegel
6 Arbiters of the Free Conscience: Confessional Categorization and Religious Transfer in Russia, 1905–1917, Paul W. Werth
7 Nation Building and Refugee Protection in the Post-Soviet Region, Oxana Shevel
Part III Changing Attributes
8 Explaining the Appeal of Evangelicalism in Ukraine, Catherine Wanner
9 Soviet Nationalities Policy and Assimilation, Dmitry Gorenburg
10 The Influence of Tatar Language Revival on the Development of Divergent Referential Worlds, Helen M. Faller
Conclusion: Unending Transition, Blair A. Ruble
Contributors
Index