{"id":{"repo_id":"helsinki","oai_identifier":"oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/301023"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/helsinki/oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/301023","repository":{"repo_id":"helsinki","name":"University of Helsinki","base_url":"https://helda.helsinki.fi/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"The New Local Activism in Russia : Biography, Event, and Culture","abstract":"In this monograph, the author analyzes a new type of politicized local activism that emerged as an outcome of the nationwide post-election 2011-12 protests in Russia, while these protests have been widely criticized for their political vagueness. Outwardly, new local groups resembled numerous activist groups that were active before the post-election mobilization. However, the pre-protest local activism was deliberately “apolitical” and focused on concrete and small problem-solving, while the post-protest local activism combined oppositional politics and “real deeds” tactics. This integration of opposite practices and meanings led to the emergence of the new politicized civic culture. The question the author answers is how the event of the protest mobilization could lead to the long-term changes in activist political culture. Considering this political evolution, she focuses on activists’ biographical trajectories. Basing on qualitative data (interviews, focus-groups, and observations of local activists groups organized in Moscow and St. Petersburg) and the existing theories of social movement studies, social events, and political socialization, the monograph proposes a new approach to the analysis of social and cultural changes through an event. The results show that patterns of activists’ socialization highly influenced the types of their future political involvement. Moreover, the post-election protest as an event (in terms of W. Sewell, 1996) helped people with different experiences who would never meet and act together before (e.g., apolitical volunteering and oppositional struggle) suddenly find themselves together and pushed them to continue their activity. Meanings and know-how that ordinarily are at odds (apolitical ideology of “helping people” and politics) met in post-protest local activism, thus creating new hybrid forms of civic participation and negotiating the opposition between the apolitical and the political. In the scholarly literature on an event and a biography, biographies are considered usually among the things an event can influence on, together with social structure, cultural meanings, etc. In the monograph, it is argued that the biography can be considered as an important tool, helping scholars to understand how exactly an event influence on structure or culture. The socialization taken in interactionist perspective, i.e., as the careers and not as the set of more or less stable dispositions, is a necessary tool to study how different experiences, visions, and know-how are accumulated, transferred from one place to another, find each others in the same groups or even the same lives, and how all these processes finally contribute to the creation of new elements of political culture. In this monograph thus, the author claims that in order to explain social movement transformations and changes produced by an event, people’s biographies should be brought back into the analysis.","abstract_html":"In this monograph, the author analyzes a new type of politicized local activism that emerged as an outcome of the nationwide post-election 2011-12 protests in Russia, while these protests have been widely criticized for their political vagueness. Outwardly, new local groups resembled numerous activist groups that were active before the post-election mobilization. However, the pre-protest local activism was deliberately “apolitical” and focused on concrete and small problem-solving, while the post-protest local activism combined oppositional politics and “real deeds” tactics. This integration of opposite practices and meanings led to the emergence of the new politicized civic culture. The question the author answers is how the event of the protest mobilization could lead to the long-term changes in activist political culture. Considering this political evolution, she focuses on activists’ biographical trajectories. Basing on qualitative data (interviews, focus-groups, and observations of local activists groups organized in Moscow and St. Petersburg) and the existing theories of social movement studies, social events, and political socialization, the monograph proposes a new approach to the analysis of social and cultural changes through an event. The results show that patterns of activists’ socialization highly influenced the types of their future political involvement. Moreover, the post-election protest as an event (in terms of W. Sewell, 1996) helped people with different experiences who would never meet and act together before (e.g., apolitical volunteering and oppositional struggle) suddenly find themselves together and pushed them to continue their activity. Meanings and know-how that ordinarily are at odds (apolitical ideology of “helping people” and politics) met in post-protest local activism, thus creating new hybrid forms of civic participation and negotiating the opposition between the apolitical and the political. In the scholarly literature on an event and a biography, biographies are considered usually among the things an event can influence on, together with social structure, cultural meanings, etc. In the monograph, it is argued that the biography can be considered as an important tool, helping scholars to understand how exactly an event influence on structure or culture. The socialization taken in interactionist perspective, i.e., as the careers and not as the set of more or less stable dispositions, is a necessary tool to study how different experiences, visions, and know-how are accumulated, transferred from one place to another, find each others in the same groups or even the same lives, and how all these processes finally contribute to the creation of new elements of political culture. In this monograph thus, the author claims that in order to explain social movement transformations and changes produced by an event, people’s biographies should be brought back into the analysis.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Erpyleva, Svetlana"],"institution":"Helsingin yliopisto","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019-06-08","date_published":"2019-06-08","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:56:27Z","subjects":["Social science"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Julkaisu on tekijänoikeussäännösten alainen. Teosta voi lukea ja tulostaa henkilökohtaista käyttöä varten. Käyttö kaupallisiin tarkoituksiin on kielletty.","This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.","Publikationen är skyddad av upphovsrätten. Den får läsas och skrivas ut för personligt bruk. Användning i kommersiellt syfte är förbjuden."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10138/301023","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Erpyleva, Svetlana"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2019-04-18T11:48:25Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2019-05-29","2019-04-18T11:48:25Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2019-06-08"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Helsingin yliopisto","Helsingfors universitet","University of Helsinki"]},{"key":"dc:type.dcmitype","label":"Dc Type Dcmitype","values":["Text"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Social science"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Julkaisu on tekijänoikeussäännösten alainen. Teosta voi lukea ja tulostaa henkilökohtaista käyttöä varten. Käyttö kaupallisiin tarkoituksiin on kielletty.","This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.","Publikationen är skyddad av upphovsrätten. Den får läsas och skrivas ut för personligt bruk. Användning i kommersiellt syfte är förbjuden."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10138/301023"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["In this monograph, the author analyzes a new type of politicized local activism that emerged as an outcome of the nationwide post-election 2011-12 protests in Russia, while these protests have been widely criticized for their political vagueness. Outwardly, new local groups resembled numerous activist groups that were active before the post-election mobilization. However, the pre-protest local activism was deliberately “apolitical” and focused on concrete and small problem-solving, while the post-protest local activism combined oppositional politics and “real deeds” tactics. This integration of opposite practices and meanings led to the emergence of the new politicized civic culture. The question the author answers is how the event of the protest mobilization could lead to the long-term changes in activist political culture. Considering this political evolution, she focuses on activists’ biographical trajectories. Basing on qualitative data (interviews, focus-groups, and observations of local activists groups organized in Moscow and St. Petersburg) and the existing theories of social movement studies, social events, and political socialization, the monograph proposes a new approach to the analysis of social and cultural changes through an event. The results show that patterns of activists’ socialization highly influenced the types of their future political involvement. Moreover, the post-election protest as an event (in terms of W. Sewell, 1996) helped people with different experiences who would never meet and act together before (e.g., apolitical volunteering and oppositional struggle) suddenly find themselves together and pushed them to continue their activity. Meanings and know-how that ordinarily are at odds (apolitical ideology of “helping people” and politics) met in post-protest local activism, thus creating new hybrid forms of civic participation and negotiating the opposition between the apolitical and the political. In the scholarly literature on an event and a biography, biographies are considered usually among the things an event can influence on, together with social structure, cultural meanings, etc. In the monograph, it is argued that the biography can be considered as an important tool, helping scholars to understand how exactly an event influence on structure or culture. The socialization taken in interactionist perspective, i.e., as the careers and not as the set of more or less stable dispositions, is a necessary tool to study how different experiences, visions, and know-how are accumulated, transferred from one place to another, find each others in the same groups or even the same lives, and how all these processes finally contribute to the creation of new elements of political culture. In this monograph thus, the author claims that in order to explain social movement transformations and changes produced by an event, people’s biographies should be brought back into the analysis.","Yleisen mielipiteen mukaan venäläiset ovat passiivisia ja eivätkä välitä politiikasta, mikä puolestaan vaikeuttaa demokraattisia muutoksia maassa. Mikään edellä mainituista ei pidä paikkaansa. Monet venäläiset ovat aktiivisia, mutta heidän aktiivisuutensa ilmenee erilaisilla tavoilla. Osa ihmisistä osallistuu epäpoliittisiin vapaaehtoistyön muotoihin, kun taas toiset saattavat olla kiinnostuneita valtavirtapolitiikasta ja taistella valtaapitäviä auktoriteetteja vastaan. Nämä ihmiset saattavat jopa elää samoissa naapurustoissa, mutta eri sosiaalisissa todellisuuksissa. Heidän kohtaamisensa on epätodennäköistä. Eivätkä nämä eri ihmisryhmät kohdanneetkaan toisiaan ennen vuotta 2012. Samalla se on myös syy sille, että venäläinen aktivismi oli ennen vuotta 2012 epäpoliittista ja käytännöllisten ongelmien ratkaisemiseen keskittyvää. Poliittisten aktivistien määrä oli vähäisempi ja heihin suhtauduttiin skeptisesti ”yhden asian” ja hyväntekeväisyystempauksien aktivisteina. Vuosien 2011–2012 valtavat maanlaajuiset protestit, joissa vaadittiin rehellisiä presidentin- ja parlamenttivaaleja muuttivat tämän tilanteen, ainakin Moskovan ja Pietarin osalta. Ne yhdistivät kaksi ennen erillään ollutta sosiaalista maailmaa helpottamalla erilaisia aktivismikokemuksia läpikäyneiden aktivistien kokoontumista samanaikaisesti ja samassa paikassa. Tämä tapaaminen loi puitteet uudenlaisen käytännön ongelmanratkaisua ja oppositiopolitiikkaa yhdistävän paikallisaktivismin syntyyn. Paikallinen kaupunkiaktivismi politisoitui. Empiiriseen sosiologiseen tutkimusaineistoon nojaten kirjoittaja analysoi kuinka ”aktivismin poliittinen kulttuuri” tai se, mitä pidetään asiaankuuluvana aktivismina, muuttui maanlaajuisten protestien tuloksena. Kirjoittaja osoittaa kuinka maanlaajuiseen mobilisaatioon osallistuneiden ja sittemmin paikallisaktivismiin siirtyneiden aktivistien elämäkerralliset kokemukset voivat selittää tätä muutosta. Kirjassa myös esitetään yhteiskuntatietelijöille uudenlaista tapaa analysoida elämäkertoja, tapahtumia ja kulttuuria yhdessä."]},{"key":"dc:format.mimetype","label":"Dc Format Mimetype","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The New Local Activism in Russia : Biography, Event, and Culture"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Erpyleva, Svetlana"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2019-04-18T11:48:25Z"],"dc:date.available":["2019-05-29","2019-04-18T11:48:25Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2019-06-08"],"dc:description.abstract":["In this monograph, the author analyzes a new type of politicized local activism that emerged as an outcome of the nationwide post-election 2011-12 protests in Russia, while these protests have been widely criticized for their political vagueness. Outwardly, new local groups resembled numerous activist groups that were active before the post-election mobilization. However, the pre-protest local activism was deliberately “apolitical” and focused on concrete and small problem-solving, while the post-protest local activism combined oppositional politics and “real deeds” tactics. This integration of opposite practices and meanings led to the emergence of the new politicized civic culture. The question the author answers is how the event of the protest mobilization could lead to the long-term changes in activist political culture. Considering this political evolution, she focuses on activists’ biographical trajectories. Basing on qualitative data (interviews, focus-groups, and observations of local activists groups organized in Moscow and St. Petersburg) and the existing theories of social movement studies, social events, and political socialization, the monograph proposes a new approach to the analysis of social and cultural changes through an event. The results show that patterns of activists’ socialization highly influenced the types of their future political involvement. Moreover, the post-election protest as an event (in terms of W. Sewell, 1996) helped people with different experiences who would never meet and act together before (e.g., apolitical volunteering and oppositional struggle) suddenly find themselves together and pushed them to continue their activity. Meanings and know-how that ordinarily are at odds (apolitical ideology of “helping people” and politics) met in post-protest local activism, thus creating new hybrid forms of civic participation and negotiating the opposition between the apolitical and the political. In the scholarly literature on an event and a biography, biographies are considered usually among the things an event can influence on, together with social structure, cultural meanings, etc. In the monograph, it is argued that the biography can be considered as an important tool, helping scholars to understand how exactly an event influence on structure or culture. The socialization taken in interactionist perspective, i.e., as the careers and not as the set of more or less stable dispositions, is a necessary tool to study how different experiences, visions, and know-how are accumulated, transferred from one place to another, find each others in the same groups or even the same lives, and how all these processes finally contribute to the creation of new elements of political culture. In this monograph thus, the author claims that in order to explain social movement transformations and changes produced by an event, people’s biographies should be brought back into the analysis.","Yleisen mielipiteen mukaan venäläiset ovat passiivisia ja eivätkä välitä politiikasta, mikä puolestaan vaikeuttaa demokraattisia muutoksia maassa. Mikään edellä mainituista ei pidä paikkaansa. Monet venäläiset ovat aktiivisia, mutta heidän aktiivisuutensa ilmenee erilaisilla tavoilla. Osa ihmisistä osallistuu epäpoliittisiin vapaaehtoistyön muotoihin, kun taas toiset saattavat olla kiinnostuneita valtavirtapolitiikasta ja taistella valtaapitäviä auktoriteetteja vastaan. Nämä ihmiset saattavat jopa elää samoissa naapurustoissa, mutta eri sosiaalisissa todellisuuksissa. Heidän kohtaamisensa on epätodennäköistä. Eivätkä nämä eri ihmisryhmät kohdanneetkaan toisiaan ennen vuotta 2012. Samalla se on myös syy sille, että venäläinen aktivismi oli ennen vuotta 2012 epäpoliittista ja käytännöllisten ongelmien ratkaisemiseen keskittyvää. Poliittisten aktivistien määrä oli vähäisempi ja heihin suhtauduttiin skeptisesti ”yhden asian” ja hyväntekeväisyystempauksien aktivisteina. Vuosien 2011–2012 valtavat maanlaajuiset protestit, joissa vaadittiin rehellisiä presidentin- ja parlamenttivaaleja muuttivat tämän tilanteen, ainakin Moskovan ja Pietarin osalta. Ne yhdistivät kaksi ennen erillään ollutta sosiaalista maailmaa helpottamalla erilaisia aktivismikokemuksia läpikäyneiden aktivistien kokoontumista samanaikaisesti ja samassa paikassa. Tämä tapaaminen loi puitteet uudenlaisen käytännön ongelmanratkaisua ja oppositiopolitiikkaa yhdistävän paikallisaktivismin syntyyn. Paikallinen kaupunkiaktivismi politisoitui. Empiiriseen sosiologiseen tutkimusaineistoon nojaten kirjoittaja analysoi kuinka ”aktivismin poliittinen kulttuuri” tai se, mitä pidetään asiaankuuluvana aktivismina, muuttui maanlaajuisten protestien tuloksena. Kirjoittaja osoittaa kuinka maanlaajuiseen mobilisaatioon osallistuneiden ja sittemmin paikallisaktivismiin siirtyneiden aktivistien elämäkerralliset kokemukset voivat selittää tätä muutosta. Kirjassa myös esitetään yhteiskuntatietelijöille uudenlaista tapaa analysoida elämäkertoja, tapahtumia ja kulttuuria yhdessä."],"dc:format.mimetype":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/10138/301023"],"dc:language.iso":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["Helsingin yliopisto","Helsingfors universitet","University of Helsinki"],"dc:rights":["Julkaisu on tekijänoikeussäännösten alainen. Teosta voi lukea ja tulostaa henkilökohtaista käyttöä varten. Käyttö kaupallisiin tarkoituksiin on kielletty.","This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.","Publikationen är skyddad av upphovsrätten. Den får läsas och skrivas ut för personligt bruk. Användning i kommersiellt syfte är förbjuden."],"dc:subject":["Social science"],"dc:title":["The New Local Activism in Russia : Biography, Event, and Culture"],"dc:type.dcmitype":["Text"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:56:27Z"}