Construction of horizontal networks on "migrant" Russian-language digital platforms (original) (raw)
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2008
1.5.a. Diaspora as cultural bonding………………………………………….40 1.5.b. Communities imagined and re-imagined……………………………..45 1.5.c. Russian diaspora: visualising underlining features………………….46 1.5.d. Types of migration: comparing different waves of ………………….49 Russian-speaking migration CHAPTER TWO 2.1. CONCEPTUALISING IDENTITY 2.1.a Identity: theoretical approaches. Introduction………………………..57 2.1.b. Symbolic Interactionism……………………………………………….58 2.1.c. Social Constructivism ………………………………………………….59 2.1.d. Habitus and cultural dispositions……………………………………..60 2.2. REFLEXIVITY OF IDENTITY. MIGRANTS' IDENTITIES 2.2.a. Power positions and relatedness of identity …………………………..62 2.2.b. Saturation of self and choice of identity: conscious and determinist approaches………………………………………………………..64 2.2.c. National identity: language and communal narration………………..66 2.2.d. Migrants' identities: assimilation vs. isolation………………………..69 2.2.e. Migrants' identities: various levels of identification………………….71 2.2.f. Migrants' identity and the host culture………………………………..73 2.2.g. Marginality of diasporic discourses ………………………………….76 2.3. RUSSIAN NATIONAL IDENTITIES 2.3.a. Social geography as cultural disposition… …………………………..78 2.3.b. Russia as an Empire: discourse of power …………………………..83 2.3.c. Russia and the West……………………………………………………87 2.3.d. Official trinity: attempting to make cultural dispositions explicit………………………………………………….. ……….91 2.3.e. Hародность-ever changing meaning. Hародность 3.3. INTERNAL RULES OF DISCOURSE. UNITS OF DISCOURSE 3.3.a. Objects of Discourse-Objects of Knowledge..……………………..136 3.3.b. Rules of discourse……………………………………………………138 3.3.b.1. Naturalisation (normalisation)…………………………….138 3.3.b.2 Silences (Absences)…………………………………………139 3.4. LOTMAN: TRANSLATING BETWEEN CULTURES 3.4.a Translation between cultures…………………………………………140 3.4.b. Centre and periphery: role of boundaries…………………………..140 3.4.c. Lotman's model of cultural change: appropriation of external……141 3.5. CONDUCTING DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: METHODS 3.5.a. Empirical studies based on Foucault's discourse analysis. Foucault and the discipline of Russian Studies………………………………………143 3.5.b. Other qualitative research perspectives…………………………….149 3.6. DESIGNING THE WORKING MODEL…………………………151 3.7. WORKING MODEL 3.7.a. Making the object recognizable……………………………………..152 3.7.b. Describing the strategies…………………………………………….154 3.7. c. Foucault-Lotman …………………………………………………...155 3.7.d. Plan of the research………………………………………………….161 PART 2 3.8. CHALLENGES OF THE MATERIAL: SAMPLING AND SPECIFICITY OF FORUMS 3.8.a Description of Material: Questions of Organisation and Management of Internet Forums ……………………………………161 3.8.b. Sampling the sources………………………………………………..166 3.8.c. Description of the material……………………………………….....170 3.8.d. Defining the corpus …………………………………………………170 3.8.e. Sampling with regard to external links…………………………...172 3.9. SELF-REPRESENTATION ON-LINE 3.9.a. Means and facilities of self-representation……………………….173 3.9.b. Description of the material: participants………………………...175 3.10. THE PROBLEM OF CONTEXT AND DATA……………….179 3.11. THE CHALLENGIES OF CROSS-CULTURAL CATEGORISATION …………………………………………………180 3.12. PRESENTATION………………………………………………184 CHAPTER FOUR 4.1. WHAT DOES EUROPEAN MEAN FOR RUSSIAN SPEAKING MIGRANTS? (Analysis of the on-line discussion "ARE THE GERMANS RIGHT"-A pilot stage of the project)………………185 4.2. EUROPEANISM AS AN OBJECT OF MIGRANTS' DISCOURSE 4.2.a.Kультурный, европейский and цивилизованный …………….209 4.2.b. Europeanism and culture: temporal dimension of authority construction 4.2.b.1 Information field of культура………………………………213 4.2.b2. Field of reference of культура……………………………...214 4.2.c. Europeanism and civilisation: spatial dimention 4.2.c1 Mapping Europeanism: Is democracy a territory or society? 227 4.2.c2. Emblematic use of democracy in the migrants web-forums...232 4.2.c3.Civilisation and Europeanism: Cultural or Ethnic Divisions..233 4.3. EUROPEANISM THROUGH THE SYSTEM OF EXCLUSION AND INCLUSION……………………………………………………………..238 4.3.a. Who WE are: downplaying differences among "us"……………….239 4.3.b. External Negative Other: imagining and emphasising differences……………………………………………………242 4.3.b.1. Making assumptions "true" and "natural": normality/abnormality discourse and discursive practices……………………………………………………………..244 4.3.c. External Positive Other ……………………………………………..253 4.3.d. Negative Internal Other: Sovok vs. democracy……………………256 4.3.e. The Ukrainian Other in the Russian-language forums: internal and positive………………………………………………261 4.3.e.1. Territorial identities: земляки-the case of Ukraine……. 268 4.4. HOST COUNTRY EXPERIENCES: CULTURAL DIALOGUE AND APPROPRIATION 4.4.a. Bi-conceptual identity: two languages-two realities?……………..275 4.4.b. Kul`turnost`-I am what I consume. Dynamics of values in everyday life………………………………………………………………275 4.4.c. Dynamics of translation: new and old grids of specification ………288 4.4.c1. Resistance of the discourse…………………………………...288 4.4.c.2. New grids of specification and surfaces of emergence……...292 4.5. OVERVIEW OF FINDINGS …………………………………...…297 4.6. CONCLUSION …………………………………………………....303 Bibliography………………………………………………………312 APPENDIX 1………………………………………………………………….. 333 APPENDIX 2…………………………………………………………………...351 Literature The thesis complements a growing body of research concerning the concept of the "Other" (e.g. Petersoo 2007; Hoskings, 2002; Shopflin 1996, Lotman and Uspenskii 1984). This scholarship is connected to the dilemmas of sameness and difference, inclusion and exclusion, and integration and separation (Lucassen 2005, Morawska 2003). Although research exploring the identities of migrants from the new EU member states settling in the UK is emerging (e.g., Markova and Black 2007; Spencer et al., 2007), empirical studies of Russian-speaking migration flows are limited (for an exception see Kopnina 2005). At the time of writing no extensive research investigating Russian post-Soviet identity in electronic media existed, although several conference papers reflecting on the role of Internet communication for Russian-speaking migrants are known to the author (Smirnov 2005; Protasova 2004). The Methodology Conceptually, this thesis develops a theoretical framework linked with identity, self-representation and the process of "othering". The methodological framework for this study combines Foucault's analysis of discourse and Lotman's ideas about translation between cultures. On-line discourse is seen as being conditioned by power relations in the native culture of migrants. Following Foucault, an object of knowledge created by this discourse is identified, and its surfaces of emergence and authorities of delimitation are discussed. Such an object of knowledge is seen within the dynamics of "othering", and strategies and practices of discoursing it by participants are discerned. Drawing on Lotman, the thesis investigates possibilities of cultural appropriation of new features during contact with the host context, and elaborates on semiotic "translation" of new phenomena.