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| Srl | Item |
| 1 |
ID:
160849
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| Summary/Abstract |
Oligarchy (oligarhi) has become a well-worn Mongolian term for describing the social order. Real power and wealth is now said to be monopolized by a small number of super-elite families. The roots of this oligarchic capitalism lie in the process by which ownership was acquired and concentrated so as to take control of companies, rather than simply making profitable investments. The emergent form resembles Thomas Piketty's notion of ‘patrimonial capitalism’, a political economy dominated by inherited private capital, rather than the wealth created by entrepreneurship or innovation. Mongolian capitalism can also be seen as patrimonial in another sense. Its roots lie in the opportunistic struggle over a form of national patrimony: the enterprises and resources inherited from the previous political economy. The new proprietorial class already appears faintly dynastic, and presently there seem to be no barriers to the transmission of wealth to the next generation of super-rich.
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| 2 |
ID:
138591
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Jia Pingwa’s Decadent Capital was wildly popular upon its publication in 1993. Offering plenty of sex and a bleak view of Chinese society under reform, it was also highly controversial, not least because of the blank squares strewn throughout the text to represent erotic descriptions edited out by the author. Commentators accused Jia of selling out high culture, much like the intellectuals portrayed in the narrative. The novel was banned in 1994 but rereleased in 2009 with one major change: the blank squares were replaced by ellipses. I argue that these blank squares not only make public censorship itself but also constitute the space of alternative publics, whether harking back to an elided past or projecting into a future yet to be written, that the post-Tiananmen Party-state tries to nullify. KEYWORDS: Jia Pingwa, censorship, publishing industry, postsocialism, dystopia, utopia, Tiananmen Square, public, criticism, Lu Xun.
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| 3 |
ID:
160844
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Since 1990, Mongolia has experienced postsocialist transformation and the government-imposed ‘free market economy’. With the collapse of socialism and the former economic order, ordinary people in Mongolia have survived by engaging in diverse economic practices. The aim of this article is to give careful analysis of how people employed everyday economic practices around three key commodities – cashmere, scrap metal, and marmot pelts – to sustain their livelihoods in this postsocialist environment. Based on ethnographic field research, this article argues that social networks and kinship relations persisted through the socio-economic changes and radical reforms of the postsocialist period, creating the foundations for the diverse economic practices found in contemporary Mongolia. These practices served to distribute wealth equally and to sustain livelihoods after the government’s ‘failed’ privatization in the 1990s.
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| 4 |
ID:
165341
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article assesses the trajectory of postsocialism as a concept and mounts a fivefold critique of postsocialism as: referring to a vanishing object; emphasising rupture over continuity; falling into a territorial trap; issuing from orientalising knowledge construction; and constraining political futures. This critique serves to sketch the contours of an alternative project that still recognises difference but foregrounds links and continuities, develops a political edge, and theorises not just about but with and from this part of the world.
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| 5 |
ID:
161352
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article challenges the ahistorical figure of the ‘steppe nomad’ by presenting some of the main characteristics of Kazakh nomadic pastoralism, which vary widely in time and space. It compares two ethnographic studies conducted a century apart in the same place in south-eastern Kazakhstan: a statistical survey from 1910 and an account of a transhumance in which the author took part in June 2012. Sedentary pastoralism now prevails in Kazakhstan, but a system of seasonal pastures endures in some areas. In Raĭymbek District (Almaty Province), vertical nomadism takes advantage of the altitudinal variations of vegetation and climate. This article demonstrates both the continuity of nomadic routes despite successive crises during the twentieth century, and considers the overall change from quasi-nomadism to quasi-sedentarism. This comparison a century apart also fosters dialogue between history and social anthropology through a dual synchronic approach, seeking to restore historicity to our understanding of pastoral nomadism.
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| 6 |
ID:
119051
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The article deals with the everyday survival strategies employed by the workers of (largely non-functioning) state enterprises in post-socialist North Korea, and with the social changes this group has dealt with in the last two decades. It also compares these trends with the experiences of post-socialist Eastern Europe. In the 1990s the economic role of the North Korean state decreased dramatically. Official wages could no longer guarantee the physical survival of the populace, so workers from state industries engaged in a multitude of economic activities which were (and still are) largely related to the booming "second economy." These activities include private farming, employment in semi-legal and illegal private workshops, trade and smuggling, as well as small-scale business activities. The choice of a particular activity depends on a number of factors, of which network capital is especially significant. Income is also augmented by the illegal use of state resources and widespread theft of material and spare parts from state-owned factories. As a result of these changes, the industrial working class of North Korea, once a remarkably homogenous group, has fragmented, and its members have embarked on vastly different social trajectories.
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