The contemporary feminist movement in Russia

„Russland“ und „Feminismus“ scheinen eine fragliche Kombination zu sein. Russland ist eher für neopatriarchale Politik bekannt, die für Feminismus kaum Platz lässt. Doch in den letzten 15 Jahren ist in Russland eine feministische Basisbewegung entstanden. Was tut sie? Wie kann sie sich in einem ungünstigen Kontext durchsetzen? Wie massenhaft und inklusiv ist diese Bewegung und wie geht sie mit inneren Konflikten um? Kerndaten dieser Studie sind qualitative Interviews mit Feminist*innen aus vier Städten in Russland, ergänzt durch mehrjährige Beobachtung der feministischen Szenen. Aufgrund dieser Daten behaupte ich, dass die zeitgenössische feministische Bewegung in Russland eine dezentrale Basisbewegung ist, welche Macht auf mehreren Ebenen der sozialen Organisation herausfordert. Neben dem öffentlichen Protest übt sie diskursive Politik aus und wirkt durch die Einführung neuer Definitionen und Denkweisen direkt auf die Gesellschaft. Intersektional betrachtet wird die Bewegungsbeteiligung durch Mehrfachmarginalisierung aufgrund des Ressourcenmangels und Disempowerment beeinträchtigt. Kollektive Lösungen können Ressourcenumverteilung und Berücksichtigung von Differenz darstellen. Debatten um Differenz und Inklusion sind ein zentraler Bereich, in welchem die feministische Bewegung soziale Innovation herstellt. Schließlich verortet diese Studie die zeitgenössische feministische Bewegung in Russland in einem globalen postkolonialen Kontext. Ich behaupte, dass ein lineares Fortschrittsnarrativ, welches Feminismus als Kennzeichen der westlichen Moderne konstruiert, die Beziehung zwischen russländischen und westlichen Feminismen sowie die Machtdynamiken zwischen Feminist*innen in Metropolen, (post-)kolonialen und nichtkolonialen Peripherien Russlands prägt. An scheinbar für eine feministische Praxis ungeeigneten Orten widerstehen Feminist*innen kolonialen und imperialen Narrativen und betreiben eine auf lokalen Erfahrungen basierende feministische Politik.The words “Russia” and “feminism” seem to be an unlikely combination. Russia is better known for neopatriarchal policies leaving little room for feminism. Yet a grassroots feminist movement has been growing in Russia since the last 15 years. What kind of movement is this? What does it do? How does it sustain itself and grow in a largely unfavorable context? How mass and inclusive is this movement and how does it deal with internal conflicts? The core data in this research are qualitative interviews with feminists in four cities across Russia complemented by direct and online observation of feminist scenes. Drawing upon this data, I argue that the contemporary feminist movement in Russia is a decentralized grassroots movement that challenges power on various levels of social organization. Besides public protest, it notably uses discursive politics that act directly upon society by introducing new definitions and ways of thinking. Feminist communities serve as platforms where these innovations are developed and tried out. From an intersectional perspective, I argue that due to lack of resources and disempowerment, multiple marginalization negatively affects participation in the movement. A collective way to address this can be resource redistribution and consideration of difference. Debates over difference and inclusion are, I argue, a crucial area in which the feminist movement produces social innovation. Finally, this research places the contemporary feminist movement in Russia in a global postcolonial context. I argue that a linear progress narrative that constructs feminism as a hallmark of Western modernity impacts both the relationship between Russian and Western feminisms and power dynamics between feminists in Russian metropolitan centers, (post)colonial and non-colonial peripheries. In places deemed unsuited for feminist practice, I argue, feminists resist colonial and imperial narratives and do feminist politics rooted in local experience

On the Squares and in the Comments Sections: The Feminist Movement in Russia between Contentious and Discursive Politics

Academics have overlooked feminist movements in Russia, allowing struggling women’s rights organizations to overshadow the many achievements of Russian feminists. Scholarship has reported on struggling women’s rights organizations, citing Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist protest punk rock group, as an exceptional case and concluding that the overall situation with feminism in Russia is desperate. Even though recent publications acknowledge some feminist mobilizations, they are still judged insufficient. Why is contemporary Russian feminism continuously “not enough” for outside observers? And is it “enough” for its members? In this paper, I argue that one of the major reasons why feminists outside Russia, as well as other observers have tended to downplay or disregard the feminist movement in Russia, even in the face of real and successful feminist organizing, is a discourse on movements that centers contentious politics. Defining movements in terms of public protest and claims-making to the state, this discourse is, I argue, at odds with the feminist movement’s actual goals and preferred tactics. To explore feminists’ attitudes towards and definitions of useful tactics and goals, I draw upon qualitative interviews with feminist activists. Although feminists consider contentious action as their duty, their relationship to this set of tactics is fraught with contradictory political legacies. At the same time, in reflections in which tactics are useful and within the movement’s overarching goals, it is cultural and discursive action, framed as education and awareness-raising, that comes to the fore. I argue that considerations of feminism in Russia require a broader conceptual focus which is more in line with the contents and aims of feminist politics. Based on my empirical findings, I suggest that an approach centering on collective identity is better suited to understand the contemporary feminist movement in Russia and its increasing successes

Blood outgrowth endothelial cell migration and trapping in vivo: a window into gene therapy

Human blood outgrowth endothelial cells (hBOEC) may be useful delivery-cells for gene therapy. hBOEC have high expansion capacity and stable phenotype. If incorporated into blood vessels, hBOEC could release therapeutic agents directly into the blood stream. However, little is known about lodging and homing of hBOEC in vivo. We examined the homing patterns of hBOEC in mice, and explored extending cell-based FVIII gene therapy from mice to larger animals. hBOEC were injected into NOD/SCID mice to determine where they localize, how localization changes over time and if there were toxic effects on host organs. The presence of hBOEC in mouse organs was determined by qPCR and immunofluorescence microscopy. hBOEC lodged most notably in mouse lungs at 3 h, but by 24 h there were no differences between 9 organs. hBOEC longevity was assessed up to 7 months in vivo. hBOEC expanded well and then plateaued in vivo. hBOEC from older cultures expanded equally well in vivo as younger. hBOEC caused no noticeable organ toxicity up to 3 days post-injection. When mice were pretreated with antibodies to E-selectin, P-selectin or anti-α4 integrin prior to hBOEC injection, the number of hBOEC in lungs at 3h was inhibited. Preliminary studies infusing hemophilic dogs with autologous canine BOEC over-expressing FVIII (B-domain deleted) showed improvement in whole blood clotting times (WBCT). In conclusion, the survivability, expandability and lack of toxicity of BOEC in vivo indicate that they may be valuable host cells for gene therapy

Social Science for What?

How the NSF became an important yet controversial patron for the social sciences, influencing debates over their scientific status and social relevance. In the early Cold War years, the U.S. government established the National Science Foundation (NSF), a civilian agency that soon became widely known for its dedication to supporting first-rate science. The agency's 1950 enabling legislation made no mention of the social sciences, although it included a vague reference to “other sciences.” Nevertheless, as Mark Solovey shows in this book, the NSF also soon became a major—albeit controversial—source of public funding for them. Solovey's analysis underscores the long-term impact of early developments, when the NSF embraced a “scientistic” strategy wherein the natural sciences represented the gold standard, and created a social science program limited to “hard-core” studies. Along the way, Solovey shows how the NSF's efforts to support scholarship, advanced training, and educational programs were shaped by landmark scientific and political developments, including McCarthyism, Sputnik, reform liberalism during the 1960s, and a newly energized conservative movement during the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, he assesses the NSF's relevance in a “post-truth” era, questions the legacy of its scientistic strategy, and calls for a separate social science agency—a National Social Science Foundation. Solovey's study of the battles over public funding is crucial for understanding the recent history of the social sciences as well as ongoing debates over their scientific status and social value

The Price of Success: Sociologist Harry Alpert, the NSF's First Social Science Policy Architect

Harry Alpert (19121977), the US sociologist, is best-known for his directorship of the National Science Foundation’s social science programme in the 1950s. This study extends our understanding of Alpert in two main ways: first, by examining the earlier development of his views and career. Beginning with his 1939 biography of Emile Durkheim, we explore the early development of Alpert’s views about foundational questions concerning the scientific status of sociology and social science more generally, proper social science methodology, the practical value of social science, the academic institutionalisation of sociology, and the unity-of- science viewpoint. Second, this paper illuminates Alpert’s complex involvement with certain tensions in mid-century US social science that were themselves linked to major transformations in national science policy, public patronage, and unequal relations between the social and natural sciences. We show that Alpert’s views about the intellectual foundations, practical relevance, and institutional standing of the social sciences were, in some important respects, at odds with his NSF policy work. Although remembered as a quantitative evangelist and advocate for the unity-of-science viewpoint, Alpert was in fact an urbane critic of natural-science envy, social scientific certainty, and what he saw as excessive devotion to quantitative methods

Rapid evolution of virus sequences in intrinsically disordered protein regions.

Nodamura Virus (NoV) is a nodavirus originally isolated from insects that can replicate in a wide variety of hosts, including mammals. Because of their simplicity and ability to replicate in many diverse hosts, NoV, and the Nodaviridae in general, provide a unique window into the evolution of viruses and host-virus interactions. Here we show that the C-terminus of the viral polymerase exhibits extreme structural and evolutionary flexibility. Indeed, fewer than 10 positively charged residues from the 110 amino acid-long C-terminal region of protein A are required to support RNA1 replication. Strikingly, this region can be replaced by completely unrelated protein sequences, yet still produce a functional replicase. Structure predictions, as well as evolutionary and mutational analyses, indicate that the C-terminal region is structurally disordered and evolves faster than the rest of the viral proteome. Thus, the function of an intrinsically unstructured protein region can be independent of most of its primary sequence, conferring both functional robustness and sequence plasticity on the protein. Our results provide an experimental explanation for rapid evolution of unstructured regions, which enables an effective exploration of the sequence space, and likely function space, available to the virus