Five Muscovites: Narratives of moral experience in contemporary Russia.
Item
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Title
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Five Muscovites: Narratives of moral experience in contemporary Russia.
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Identifier
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AAI3204961
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identifier
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3204961
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Creator
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Zigon, Jarrett.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Michael Blim
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Date
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2006
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural
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Abstract
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Recently social scientists in general and anthropologists in particular have invoked the concept of morality in their studies. The use of this concept is seen by many as a way to bypass the complexities and contradictions of such traditional social scientific concepts as culture, society and power. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly evident that in many of these studies morality itself is used in a way that may be more reminiscent of the moral understanding of the social scientist than that of their subjects.;This work goes beyond these studies by showing the ways in which my ethnographic interlocutors articulate and perform their own moral conceptions. Based on extensive ethnographic research in Moscow, Russia between 2002 and 2005, this work focuses on five Muscovites and the ways in which their own personal experiences during the late-Soviet and post-Soviet periods have helped shape the ways in which they themselves conceive of morality. Utilizing life-historical methods and hermeneutic narrative analysis, "Five Muscovites" consists of chapters that focus on each of these individuals and how their disparate narratives articulate substantially different moral conceptions. Each of these chapters, then, can be read as a moral portrait of each individual. The conclusion of this works asks the question, if morality is best understood as having been constructed through the varied and differing life experiences of individuals, how then is it possible to speak of a shared morality at all. In seeking to address this question, "Five Muscovites" provides five moral portraits of individuals not only struggling to articulate their own moral conceptions, but perhaps more importantly struggling to give expression to their experiences of living through the post-Soviet transition.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
