‘Post-socialist punk’ is a multi-sited ethnographic study gathering five sets of data - textual, audio, visual, interview and observational. The project will be based in, and coordinated from, the University of Warwick. Fieldwork will be conducted in Russia (Krasnodar, St Petersburg and Vorkuta) by Ivan Gololobov and Hilary Pilkington, Croatia (Zagreb and Pula) by Ivana Mijić and Benjamin Perasović, eastern Germany (Halle) by Aimar Ventsel and The Netherlands (Amsterdam) by Kirsty Lohman.
The fieldwork will be guided by a common set of core research questions which provide cross-cutting themes facilitating comparison across case studies whilst allowing capacity for ‘thick description’ of local and historical specifics.
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Social and political positioning. The project maps (spatially and historically) the shifting political engagements of punk. It starts with an understanding of punk practices as forms of ‘embodied communication’ and aims to explore empirically their capacity to shape radical social solidarities. It aims to map punk not only in relation to a pre-given notion of a homogeneous ‘dominant culture’ but in relation to a range of political, commercial, cultural fields of public life and within the broader youth cultural context.
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Post-socialist mimesis. The project interrogates assumptions about the mimetic quality of (post)socialist punk through studying knowledge of, connections with, and attitudes to, western punk scenes across three national cases whose ‘socialist’ pasts were varied and against the backdrop of developments in punk in non-socialist Europe.
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Cultural continuity and rupture. The historical dynamic of punk scenes will be mapped by charting the generational ebb and flow of punk and the ways in which the signifier ‘punk’ is mobilised in such waves. What factors – local, national, global - determine generational boundaries? What role does age play in structuring punk scenes? And how does the meaning of punk change for individuals over time?
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Horizontal relations: friends and foes. The project will map punk in relation to the broader cultural context. How are punk communities organised (economically, politically, culturally, symbolically)? How have connections and networks but also antagonisms (with DIY, fanzine, anti-fascist, squatter, skinhead, football fan movements) been forged? How does this relate to local, national or global political realignments? How have these alliances changed over time?
