New heroines of labour: domesticating post-feminism and neoliberal capitalism in Russia

In recent years, postfeminism has become an important element of popular media culture and the object of feminist cultural critique. This paper explores how postfeminism is domesticated in Russia through popular self-help literature aimed at a female audience. Drawing on a close reading of self-help texts by three bestselling Russian authors, the paper examines how postfeminism is made intelligible to the Russian audience through constructions of femininity and how it articulates with other symbolic frameworks. It identifies labour as a key trope through which postfeminism is domesticated and argues that the texts invite women to invest time and energy in the labour of personality, the labour of femininity and the labour of sexuality in order to become ‘valuable subjects’. The paper demonstrates that the domestication of postfeminism also involves the domestication of neoliberal capitalism in Russia, and highlights how popular psychology, neoliberal capitalism and postfeminism are symbiotically relate

Masculine Performers and Good Girls : Negotiating Gender Norms in Therapeutic Engagements

Peer reviewe

New Heroines of Labour: Domesticating Post-feminism and Neoliberal Capitalism in Russia.

In recent years, post-feminism has become an important element of popular media culture and the object of feminist cultural critique. This article explores how post-feminism is domesticated in Russia through popular self-help literature aimed at a female audience. Drawing on a close reading of self-help texts by three best-selling Russian authors, the article examines how post-feminism is made intelligible to the Russian audience and how it articulates with other symbolic frameworks. It identifies labour as a key trope through which post-feminism is domesticated and argues that the texts invite women to invest time and energy in the labour of personality, the labour of femininity and the labour of sexuality in order to become 'valuable subjects'. The article demonstrates that the domestication of post-feminism also involves the domestication of neoliberal capitalism in Russia, and highlights how popular psychology, neoliberal capitalism and post-feminism are symbiotically related

Therapeutic politics: critique and contestation in the post-political conjuncture

This article addresses forms of political engagement in the therapeutic field. Drawing on ethnographic research on popular psychology self-help, alternative and complementary health practices and new spiritualities, the paper takes issue with the dominant interpretation of the therapeutic as a depoliticizing force. Although this interpretation captures important facets of the phenomenon, the paper suggests that something more complex is afoot. It argues that therapeutic practices may also animate political contestation and critique, and challenge the prevailing grammar of political conflict. It substantiates this argument by identifying two modalities of politics in the therapeutic field: collective mobilization through a political party, and therapeutic practices as a form of lifestyle politics. It goes on to suggest that, together, these modalities constitute a subaltern counterpublic politicizing the political economy of health and the erosion of democratic governance. The paper concludes by suggesting that analysis of the therapeutic field may shed light on the shifting logics of political contestation at the contemporary political conjuncture.</p

Umpikujan apea sivumaku

Arvosteltu teos: Politkovskaja, Anna : Toinen Tšetšenian sota

'We can't live without beliefs': Self and society in therapeutic engagements

Therapeutic technologies of happiness, emotional wellbeing and self-improvement are a highly influential cultural phenomenon and a rapidly growing business worldwide; yet little is known of the motivations for engaging with these technologies. This article addresses this gap by investigating how therapeutic engagements are experienced and what participants hope to gain from them.Therapeutic technologies are conceived as psychologically informed regimes of knowledge and practice which aim to transform one’s relationship to oneself and shape the ways in which one makes sense of and acts upon oneself and the social world. Drawing on a set of interviews with consumers of therapeutic technologies in Russia, the article identifies three key motivations for engaging with such technologies: searching for new blueprints for ethical work on the self after a profound transformation of the ideological field; coming to terms with new mechanisms of inequality, particularly in the field of labour; and mobilizing therapeutic technologies as a response to inadequacies in the field of health. By unpacking these motivations and subjective experiences of therapeutic engagements, the article seeks to shed light on the growing popularity of therapeutic technologies under contemporary capitalism.</p