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This paper explores the relevance of the decolonial approach for analyses of postsocialist disablement, taking as its test case the analytical tool of the 'postsocialist disability matrix'. The question we pose is how much decolonial critique can the analyses of postsocialist disablement embrace without becoming reactionary amidst growing illiberalism and social abandonment in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)? We provide an overview of postsocialist illiberalism, assess critically some central arguments in decolonial disability studies and outline the production of 'southern bodies/minds' as a key feature of social abandonment in CEE. We conclude that decolonising disability in the postsocialist region needs to go beyond the North versus South binary to account for the specific experiences of disabled people inhabiting the 'poor North'. Given these considerations, the double-edged critique implied in the original formulation of the 'postsocialist disability matrix' as scepticism towards both the state and the market could also help embrace the decolonising imperative while remaining sceptical towards both Northern and Southern theory production in disability studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the impact of Katherine Verdery's work on gender under socialism as exemplified by her article "From parent-state to family patriarchs: Gender and nation in contemporary Eastern Europe." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences & Arts / Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU is the property of Institute of Ethnography, SASA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the history of knowledge production about the former Eastern Bloc in the American and Polish academic contexts. It explores how debates about authority and authenticity are embedded in the deeper histories of area studies and in long-standing confl icts dating from the earliest years of the fi eld of Slavic and East European Studies. The discussion about authority and authenticity within feminist circles mirrors larger confl icts between proponents of the totalitarian thesis and the so-called revisionists. The confl icts between these two schools precipitated a continuing epistemic crisis that also infects the academic cultures of Eastern Europe and is exacerbated by the neoliberalization of academic knowledge production. The epistemic cultures perpetuating Cold War stereotypes may lead to self-censorship or dissuade young researchers from studying the gendered aspects of lived experience in the communist era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to outline recent trends in historical research on disability during state socialism in Eastern Europe. In doing so, it explores how an emerging generation of historians have investigated various aspects of disability in Eastern Europe before 1989 and raises the question of whether there was a distinct experience of disability under state socialism. Drawing on studies published in English and German, the paper traces both Soviet discourses and practices after 1917 and Central and Eastern European trajectories after 1945. It argues that disability policies and expert discourses were informed by a productivist logic as a governing strategy to increase work capacity and to integrate the disabled into socialist society. The paper concludes by discussing the need for a transnational, comparative approach for conceptualising how disability was construed during communism in Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a special Labour History Review issue on the subject of Challenges to State Socialism in Central and Eastern Europe: Activists, Movements and Alliances in the 1970s and 1980s. Our piece highlights different stimuli for dissent and opposition in the Eastern bloc, drawing attention to three strands that helped to inform political activism. First, it discusses the way in which various forms of dissident Marxism informed critiques of 'actually existing socialism' and helped activists to envision alternative ways of organizing society and state. Second, it emphasizes intersections between different actors and motivations, including links between the labour movement and forms of activism that have sometimes been categorized as 'new social movements'. Third, it notes the relevance of transnational inspirations and alliances, with a particular consideration of those that cut across the two power blocs. As a whole, the essay establishes the broader context for the case studies of activism and dissent that feature in this special journal issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As central transport hubs of commodities, people and information, ports play a specific and important role in modern societies. This is valid even more so in socialist states. As we argue in this introduction, and subsequently throughout this Forum, socialist ports were in many ways places of exception: in a political system that preferred closed borders, ports symbolized the 'gates to the world'; in an economic system that was thoroughly planned, ports became the main contact point for global trade outside of a planned economy. Therefore, while socialist ports differed from other socialist entities, they also differed from non-socialist ports, especially regarding the influence of government control and decision-making through state-owned companies or the 'primacy of politics' over economic argument. This specificity of socialist ports during the Cold War is analysed from three perspectives in the articles collected in this Forum: first, on the local or micro level, attention is afforded to agents such as sailors or port workers navigating the particular conditions of the ports; second, the top-down approaches of local or national management of the ports are discussed; third, ports are appraised as part of larger networks in their international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces the reception of Isaac Deutscher's work in Eastern Europe in a historical context and shows how deeply this reception was connected to the various transformations of the system, which had been established after the victory of the Russian October Revolution. The author gives a Marxist analysis of the historical development of state socialism and the various changes in Eastern European Marxist thought which accompanied this history. He belongs to that school of thought which defines this system as state socialism, and he gives a theoretical analysis of its main characteristics, adding that 1989 failed to fulfil the expectations and hopes of many Western and Eastern-European Marxists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper adds to the concept of other geographical traditions through linking the study of the history of geographical knowledge to the regional assemblage concept, and post-war Czechoslovakia is taken as the example. The paper expands discussion on the inclusiveness of the history of geography with the geographical traditions practised in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the second half of the 20th century during the period of state socialism. The analysis of regional assemblage allows me to reconstruct the process of conceptualisation and role of a 'good' region. I claim that a 'good' region was closely connected to the post-war project of transformation of the society on the discursive level, and that a region was considered a solely practical tool to serve this purpose. The most important part of the whole process of conceptualisation of the region was the map representation depicting the borders of the defined regions. The concept of assemblage enabled me to analyse the limits of the possible, that is, to analyse the way limits of geographical knowledge were set in concrete time and space. Thus, the concept of assemblage has a potential to add to, so far very fragmented, state of knowledge of the history of global geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Filozofija i Drustvo is the property of University of Belgrade, Institute for Philosophy & Social Theory and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article presents a primarily socioeconomic explanation for the breakdown of state socialism in Eastern Central Europe. From about the 1970s onwards, the inability of socialist economies and societies to meet the challenges of globalization and of the electronic age was becoming increasingly obvious. The decline of state socialist countries’ positions vis-à-vis the West found its expression in the deterioration of their terms of trade, with the consequence of massively growing foreign debts, i.e. dependence on the international financial markets. The overall theme of asymmetric entanglement is treated with regard to four specific variations: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the GDR. The article analyzes the broad range of possible responses to this existential challenge against the background of differing economic, social and political contexts and constellations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In East-Central Europe (ECE), the evolution of feminist geographies began after the end of state socialism. Aiming to identify individual and shared characteristics, this study outlines the development of gender/feminist geography in East-Central European countries. Providing a brief historical overview, the first part of the article substantiates the arguments that i) the evolution of feminist geography in ECE is linked to the post-socialist transition; although the fall of state socialism has removed the political, social and ideological obstacles that prevented its gaining ground, this approach is still considered to be relatively new; and ii) today, development is hindered mainly by conservative mainstream geography, which seems slower in transforming itself than in some related disciplines which have 'embraced' gender studies. The topics, methods and theories of feminist geography that have developed in ECE is significantly influenced by the resistance that advocates of feminist geography have to contend with from representatives of mainstream post-socialist geographies. The second part of the article presents the major characteristics of gender/feminist geography in Europe's post-socialist region, while providing an outline of the various methods used in an attempt to earn positive recognition for gender studies. The concluding section maps some lessons to be learnt on the relationship between the production of feminist geographical knowledge and post-socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]