Be European Recycle Yourself

"Westernisation" and the prospect of European integration have been formidable catalysts for social and economic change in Eastern European countries since 1989. Full of promises and expectations but lacking economic means and adequate structures, Romanian enterprises have faced particularly difficult problems. Prompted by employees' self-criticism, this book explores the dynamics of work values in the service sector in Bucharest. Based on long term ethnographic fieldwork, the study analyses the factors determining social and cultural change at the local level, from the impact of Western ideologies and symbolic measures to concrete organisational and economic constraints. Monica Heintz emphasizes the impact of the forced pace of change, which caused social disorder and disrupted individual values. She challenges the notion of a universal ethic of work and argues that what governs relationships between employers, employees and clients in the Romanian context is simply an ethic of human relations. Book jacket.

In what ways did Europeans interact with the diversity of people they encountered on other continents in the context of colonial expansion, and with the peasant or ethnic ‘Other’ at home? How did anthropologists and ethnologists make sense of the mosaic of people and societies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when their disciplines were progressively being established in academia? By assessing the diversity of European intellectual histories within sociocultural anthropology, this volume aims to sketch its intellectual and institutional portrait. It will be a useful reading for the students of anthropology, ethnology, history and philosophy of science, research and science policy makers.

This book explores the key conceptual features of the development of the Sociology of Work (SoW) in Europe since 1945, using eleven country case studies. An original contribution to our understanding of the trajectory of the SoW, the chapters map the current state of the theoretical background of the sub-discipline's development to broader socio-political and economic changes, traced across a heterogeneous set of national contexts. Different definitions of the SoW in each country often reflect variations in the focus of analysis, and these chapters link the subject definition and focus to other social science disciplines, the state, as well as social class interests and ideologies. The book contends that the ways in which the sub-discipline makes sense of changes in work is itself a response to the type of society in which the sub-discipline is practiced, whether in the post-war social democratic West, the Soviet East, or today's societies, dominated by variant forms of neo-liberalism. It will be of use to scholars and students interested in the transnational history of the discipline of sociology, with a specific focus on the nexus between the sociology of labour, ideology, economics and politics.

Based on detailed ethnographic material, "New Lithuania in Old Hands" analyzes the impact that European Union accession has had upon the country's aging smallscale farmers, and describes how the reality of Lithuania's EU membership has been a far cry from the scenarios of wealth and overabundance once promised. The text reveals that, in many instances, membership has resulted in a return to subsistence production, increased insecurity and a reinforcement of kinship obligations. Thus instead of treating the European Union as an elite project and voicing the support of various other segments of the population, this volume shows how broad parts of the rural population have been affected by and engaged in processes of change following Lithuania's accession - changes that threaten to have a large impact upon the future of the country's family structures and its farming demographic.

he Handbook of Sociocultural Anthropology presents a state of the art overview of the subject - its methodologies, current debates, history and future. It will provide the ultimate source of authoritative, critical descriptions of all the key aspects of the discipline as well as a consideration of the general state of the discipline at a time when there is notable uncertainty about its foundations, composition and direction. Divided into five core sections, the Handbook: examines the changing theoretical and analytical orientations that have led to new ways of carrying out research; presents an analysis of the traditional historical core and how the discipline has changed since 1980; considers the ethnographic regions where work has had the greatest impact on anthropology as a whole; outlines the people and institutions that are the context in which the discipline operates, covering topics from research funding to professional ethics.Bringing together leading international scholars, the Handbook provides a guide to the latest research in social and cultural anthropology. Presenting a systematic overview - and offering a wide range of examples, insights and analysis - it will be an invaluable resource for researchers and students in anthropology as well as cultural and social geography, cultural studies and sociology.

These ethnographically-based studies of diverse urban experiences across the world present cutting edge research and stimulate an empirically-grounded theoretical reconceptualization. The essays identify ethnography as a powerful tool for making sense of life in our rapidly changing, complex cities. They stress the point that while there is no need to fetishize fieldwork—or to view it as an end in itself —its unique value cannot be overstated. These active, engaged researchers have produced essays that avoid abstractions and generalities while engaging with the analytical complexities of ethnographic evidence. Together, they prove the great value of knowledge produced by long-term fieldwork to mainstream academic debates and, more broadly, to society.

This book investigates the moral dimensions of petty capitalism in Russia. Drawing on an ethnographic enquiry into the small-scale, family-based private sector of the city of Smolensk, it examines the values, moral ideas and sentiments that are entangled in the everyday workings of small businesses. The book situates the realm of values within the broader dynamics of Russia's political economy and the global circuits of capital. The moral frameworks of entrepreneurs incorporate conflicting values, such that moralities associated with the Soviet order are intertwined with market orientations and neoliberal ideologies. Daria Tereshina is a postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.

Based on eighteen months of research in the lowland Myanmar town of Pathein, this book investigates manifold economic activities on the ground. Particular attention is paid to the self-employed and their relationships with relatives, workers, and community members. The ethnography covers a range of topics, including business formation and succession, recruitment, child labour, ethnicity, indebtedness and charity. It is demonstrated that, amidst rapidly changing socio-economic conditions, values rooted in kinship morality and Buddhism remain significant and continue to shape people's economic reasoning and activities. These values und moral aspects stand in a dialectical relationship with changing economic realities.