Since the political whirlwinds of the mid-1980s and the fall of communism in 1991, Russia has undergone dramatic social change, much of which has escaped the attention of Western media.
In her new book, Hilary Pilkington applies the methods of cultural studies research to the study of Russian youth. She does this by deconstructing' the social discourses within which Russian youth has been constructed and by providing an alternative reading of youth cultural activity, based on an ethnographic study of Moscow youth culture at the end of the 1980s.
The book also charts the passage of...

This book explores the lives and expectations of young women in the new Russia, looking at the changes brought about by the new social and economic environment. The authors draw on the growing literature on gender and generation in the West which has arisen as a result of the recognition that the experience of youth is classed, raced and gendered and that the experience of gender is mediated by class, race, ethnicity, sexuality and age. The role of the media, state and social institutions in shaping opportunities and experiences in the post-Soviet environment is discussed, with a focus on the...

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, around 25 million ethnic Russians have found themselves constituting a politically and culturally - as well as physically - diplaced Russian minority, scattered throughout the newly independent states.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, around 25 million ethnic Russians have found themselves constituting a politically and culturally - as well as physically - diplaced Russian minority, scattered throughout the newly independent states.

This book, based on extensive original research in the field, analyses the political, social and cultural implications of the rise of Islam in post-Soviet Russia. Examining in particular the situation in Tartarstan and Dagestan, where there are large Muslim populations, the authors chart the long history of Muslim and orthodox Christian co existence in Russia, discuss recent moves towards greater autonomy and the assertion of ethnic-religious identities which underlie such moves, and consider the actual practice of Islam at the local level, showing the differences between official and...

Loud and proud uses interviews, informal conversations and extended observation at English Defence League events to critically reflect on the gap between the movement's public image and activists' own understandings of it. It details how activists construct the EDL, and themselves, as 'not racist, not violent, just no longer silent' inter alia through the exclusion of Muslims as a possible object of racism on the grounds that they are a religiously not racially defined group. In contrast activists perceive themselves to be 'second-class citizens', disadvantaged and discriminated by a...