Balkan Blues (eBook)

Consumer Politics after State Socialism

Yuson Jung (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2019
212 Seiten
Indiana University Press (Verlag)
978-0-253-03674-2 (ISBN)

Infos

1. This book reflect extremely relevant research to global politics and current events unfolding today. Bulgaria's economic crisis is ongoing and this, coupled with the country's efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigrants across its borders, ensures that it will be in the media for some time to come. A new socialist president was elected in November, leading the prime minister to resign and protests and upheaval in the country is continuing.

2. Author Yuson Jung is a well-regarded and steadily productive scholar in the field who has earned grants from prestigious institutions such as the Mellon Foundation, the Krupp Foundation, the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

3. This book is being published within IUP's New Anthropologies of Europe series which takes a unique focus on anthropological work that, while focused on the experiences of people, also applies anthropological methods to surprising topics. Here, Jung gives readers the anthropology of a state confronting an entirely new culture and worldview.

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Balkan Blues explores how a state transitions from the collectivized production and distribution of socialism to the consumer-focused culture of capitalism. Yuson Jung considers the state as an economic agent in upholding rights and responsibilities in the shift to a global market. Taking Bulgaria as her focus, Jung shows how impoverished Bulgarians developed a consumer-oriented society and how the concept of "need" adapted in surprising ways to accommodate this new culture.

Different legal frameworks arose to ensure the rights of vulnerable or deceived consumers. Consumer advocacy NGOs and government officers scrambled to navigate unfamiliar EU-imposed models for consumer affairs departments. All of these changes involved issues of responsibility, accountability, and civic engagement, which brought Bulgarians new ways of viewing both their identities and their sense of agency. Yet these opportunities also raised questions of inequality, injustice, and social stratification. Jung's study provides a compelling argument for reconsidering of the role of the state in the construction of 21st-century consumer cultures.

Autor

Yuson Jung is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University. She is editor with Jakob Klein and Melissa Caldwell of Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist World.

Inhalt

Acknowledgements

Note on Transliteration and Translation

Introduction

1. Mente: Consumer Grievances

2. "Needs," Rights, and Protection

3. Consumer Activism?

4. Consumption as Civic Engagement

5. Consumer Politics after State Socialism

Epilogue: "Enough is Enough."—The Moral Commitment of the State

Appendix. Notes on Fieldwork: An East Asian Ethnographer in Eastern Europe

Bibliography

Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.2.2019
• Reihe/Serie: New Anthropologies of Europe
• Zusatzinfo: 10 black & white
• Verlagsort: Bloomington
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Makrosoziologie
• Schlagworte: abuses of the market • access and choice • Accountability • and the state • Balkans • Balkans, Bulgaria, consumer politics, globalization, socialist, everyday consumption, access and choice, civic engagement, postsocialism, consumption, market, and the state, citizen-consumer, consumer • Bulgaria • Capitalism • citizen-consumer • civic engagement • Cold War • consumer • consumer activism • consumer desire and needs • consumer discontent • consumer experts • consumer experts, everyday consumer experiences, consumer activism, European Union, EU, consumer sector, EU integration, everyday consumer experiences, heating, housing, consumption as civic engagement • Consumer grievance • Consumer grievance, consumer rights and protection, consumer safety, mente, fake, accountability, market, consumer, rights, safety, fraud, defraud, moral, moral imperative, deception, risk and vulnerability • consumer NGOs • consumer politics • consumer politics and modern consumption • consumer politics and modern consumption, deprivation and abundance, access and choice, protection from the abuses of the market, abuses of the market, market abuses, consumer discontent, the state as moral agent • Consumer Protection • consumer rights • consumer rights and protection • consumer rights organization • consumer safety • consumer sector • consumption • consumption as civic engagement • consumption to express the normative ideals of the state • consumption under state socialism • consumption under state socialism, Cold War, capitalism, socialism, consumer rights organization, consumer NGOs • Deception • defraud • deprivation and abundance • EU • EU Integration • European Union • everyday consumer experiences • everyday consumption • Fake • Fraud • Globalization • Heating • Housing • Market • market abuses • Mente • Moral • moral imperative • Postsocialism • protection from the abuses of the market • rights • Risk and vulnerability • Safety • Socialism • Socialist • state-citizen relations • state-citizen relations, consumer desire and needs, consumer rights, consumer protection • the state as moral agent
• ISBN-10: 0-253-03674-7 / 0253036747
• ISBN-13: 978-0-253-03674-2 / 9780253036742