Sociology Research Collection
Permanent URI for this collection
For more information, please visit the official website.
Browse
Recent Submissions
1 - 5 of 103
- PublicationNon-Traditional Sexual Relationships: Law, Forgetting and the Conservative Political Discourse in Russia(Routledge, 2021-12-14)On the 6th of October 2013, a Moscow federal court heard a case about hate speech initiated by Tsentr ‘E’ (the Anti-Extremist Police Unit) against a pensioner. According to the materials in the case file, the pensioner (I will call her Maria for the purposes of a smooth narrative) was inspired by the ultraconservative movement Sut’ Vremeni (The Essence of Time) and went to the movement’s rally supported by and organised together with United Russia, the country’s ruling party. There, Maria disseminated her home-made leaflets that, as the judge on the case cited, shaped the general public’s ‘negative feelings and emotions about persons of Jewish ethnicity and about social group of homosexuals’. Knowing these facts and considering the conservative nature of Russia, it is puzzling why the woman was at all brought to the court. To begin with, Maria had many reasons to believe that her hateful materials would look appropriate at a state-sponsored manifestation, as they were. After all, 2013 was the year of official federal ban of so called ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships’, the law that institutionalised discrimination and officially designated LGBT people as targets of hate.
11 - Publication"State Regimes of Gender: Legal Aspects of Gender Identity Registration, Trans-Relevant Policies and Quality of LGBTIQ Lives": A Roundtable Discussion(Northumbria University Library, 2020-07-30)This roundtable took place at the European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG) in July 2019. It aims to investigate how gender, as a social process and regime, produces gender identities, often in non-deterministic and unpredictable ways. The right to not be discriminated against regardless of gender identity may, however, clash with practices of sex/gender categorization and gender- relevant policies of nation-states. Indeed, the attribution and registration of sex impacts the human rights of transgender, non-binary, queer and intersex persons. In bringing together expertise from political science, law, political sociology and gender studies, this roundtable: (1) asks how gender operates as a relation of power, particularly the value and possibilities of a more utopian politics of post-gender beyond existing identifications; (2) cultivates a discussion of the consequences of the systematic registration of legal sex and of sex/gender-related policies as they impact quality of life for queer and trans individuals, and (3) discusses theoretical and practical alternatives to such policies and practices. In examining relationships between gender as a relation of power, gender identity attribution and global justice, we also want to ask how non-binary genders are operationalized in policies and practices of nation-states and to think critically about whether undoing formal legal categorization would impact the gendering of social subjects.
9 - PublicationSex, Alcohol, and Soul: Violent Reactions to Coming Out after the "Gay Propaganda" Law in Russia(Wiley, 2021-01)This article is focused on a particular set of social relations in Russia: sexuality and violence in the context of consumption of alcohol. We look at how violence erupts after revelation of queer sexuality of one of the participants of collective drinking. Discussions of homosexuality in Russia became especially heated after the adoption of the bill against the "propaganda of non‐traditional family valuesW in 2013. This law primarily marks information about homosexuality as inappropriate and dangerous to minors. We review court decisions on violence against gay men before and after the introduction of this law. The court cases we analyze are not cases of the "propaganda" law enforcement, but routine violent felonies. As we selected only those cases that involve alcohol consumption from a larger sample, we analyze the stories told in these court files focusing on interaction rituals during the practice of collective heavy drinking. We demonstrate how this ritual is centered around confirmation of masculinity, ceremonies of sharing, and exchange of respect. We also show that these ritualized practices are interrupted and confused by introduction of information about one of the participants' queer sexuality. This interruption evolves into violent reactions, including murder. Nevertheless, the ritual of drinking supports both a "conversationof souls" (sharing intimate secrets) and violent reactions to the information that challenges masculinity of the ritual's participants.
10Scopus© Citations 5 - PublicationLegal Wounds: The Meaning of Human Rights for Lesbians and Gay Men in Russia(Centre for Independent Social Research, 2012-12-17)(In Russian) This article discusses the production of lesbians and gay men as subjects of human rights discourse in Russia. Conclusions are drawn from discourse analysis of group discussions and life history interviews with St. Petersburg lesbians and gay men. I base my analysis on the methodological concept of the "legal wound" which makes it possible to show the legal situation of the subjects that personify human rights discourse in contemporary Russia.
8 - PublicationLaw and Society: Research Perspectives. A Reader(Centre for Independent Social Research, 2015-05-01)This is a collection of articles of the participants of Law and Society seminars that have occurred in the Centre for Independent Social Research. The chapters are all dedicated to different aspects of the studies of law by methods of social sciences. The contribution discuss law in relation to such topics as theoretical approaches to the sociology of law, social history of law, gender, transitional justice, and legal professions. This collected volume includes previously published works, as well as original contributions and editor's preface. The book is meant for university researchers and lecturers interested in questions of law enforcement, sociology of law, social methods of the studies of law, and social analysis of legal norms.
155