American Anthropological Association
2008 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC
(Neo)liberalizing Socialism?
Historicizing Connections Between Socialist Liberalization and
Postsocialist Neoliberalization
Organizers:
Csilla Kalocsai, Yale University and University of Toronto
Mary Taylor, City University of New York
Social scientists are divided on whether neoliberalism signifies
fundamental continuity or a historical-institutional rupture in
relation to liberalism. This panel contributes to this larger debate
by exploring neoliberalism within the framework of a longer term
liberalization process in the formerly state socialist polities of
Central and Eastern Europe. Turning its historical lens on this
region, which is often considered a model case of neoliberalization,
we seek to bring together scholars whose ethnographic research
investigates the liberal turn in late socialism and the link between
"socialist liberalization" and "postsocialist neoliberalization".
Aiming to problematize analytical and advocacy approaches which serve
to obscure certain continuities and ruptures, panelists will
re-examine such questions as the rollback of the social state, the
legal protection and production of markets, the redistribution of
wealth, the restructuring of labor, and transformations in
subjectivity –said to be neoliberal- in light of the uneven
processes of liberalization/neoliberalization that occurred in the
late socialist period and afterward.
We ask: What are the various forms of liberalization that unfolded
in the socialist era? How did they change the social, cultural,
political, and economic landscape of socialism? How do old and new,
flexible and mobile, elements associated with neoliberalism take shape
in models of reform, legitimacy of the state, constructions of market,
forms of political agency, modes of personhood, and meanings of
citizenship? How did socialist liberalization contribute to the
success of neoliberal policies and agendas in the region? And what are
the conditions that hinder, challenge, and modify the embrace of such
strategies in postsocialist times? And ultimately, how can such a
historicized account of liberalization challenge our assumptions about
this "model case" of neoliberalization, and enhance our critical
understanding of the intersection of postsocialism and neoliberalism
in both the so called postsocialist regions and beyond?
Interested scholars should submit a paper abstract up to 250 words
to Mary Taylor at spaceandsound@gmail.com and to Csilla Kalocsai at
csilla.kalocsai@aya.yale.edu by March 23, 2008.
