RESEARCH PROFILE

Research interests are in the study of post-Soviet Russian society especially youth cultural practice, drug use, migration and displacement, ethnic and national identity including Muslim identity and the rise of xenophobic sentiments.

CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

• MYPLACE (Memory Youth Political Legacy And Civic Engagement), with Dr Anton Popov, Professor Mick Carpenter, Dr Phil Mizen, Professor Nickie Charles, Dr Khursheed Wadia. Mr Martin Price , Funded by: EC FP7, MYPLACE explores how young people?s social participation is shaped by the shadows (past, present and future) of totalitarianism and populism in Europe. Conceptually, it goes beyond the comparison of discrete national ?political cultures? or reified classifications of political heritage (?postcommunist?/?liberal democratic?); it is premised rather on the pan-European nature of a range of radical and populist political and philosophical traditions and the cyclical rather than novel nature of the popularity they currently enjoy. Empirically, MYPLACE employs a combination of survey, interview and ethnographic research instruments to provide new, pan-European data that not only measure levels of participation but capture the meanings young people attach to it. Analytically, through its specific focus on ?youth? and the historical and cultural contextualization of young people?s social participation, MYPLACE replaces the routine, and often abstract, iteration of the reasons for young people?s ?disengagement? from politics with an empirically rich mapping of young people?s understandings of the civic and political space that they inhabit. In policy terms, MYPLACE identifies the obstacles to, and facilitators of, young people?s reclamation of the European political arena as a place for them. , Project Start Date: 01/06/2011 Project End Date: 31/05/2015 [details]
• Post-Socialist Punk: Beyond the Double Irony of Self-Abasement, Funded by: AHRC, ?Post-socialist punk? is a historically and spatially comparative study of punk in Eastern Europe conducted by an international, collaborative team of researchers from the UK, Russia, Estonia and Croatia. The project aims to reassess the dominant understanding of punk in the West - as an aesthetic articulation of late capitalist social relations - based on the challenges posed by the socialist and post-socialist punk experience. By situating punk in a different political context, the reading of punk as subcultural resistance to dominant class relations is replaced by a more open question about the political significance of the transnormative cultural practices of punk in both socialist and post-socialist Eastern Europe. The project is designed as a multi-sited ethnography including 5 fieldwork sites in post-socialist Europe ? in Russia, Croatia and (eastern)Germany - and a parallel West European case study (The Netherlands). A key output of the project is Rotten Beat - an electronic resource presenting high quality analysis and information about contemporary music scenes in Central, South Eastern and Eastern Europe as well as searchable archives of audio, textual and visual materials. This resource is due to go live in autumn 2009. , Project Start Date: 01/03/2009 Project End Date: 28/02/2013 [details]
• Supplement to Post-Socialist Punk: Beyond the Double Irony of Self-Abasement, Funded by: AHRC, Project Start Date: 01/10/2010 Project End Date: 30/09/2012
  
  

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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Pilkington, H., Omel'chenko, E. and Garifzianova, A.(2010) Russia's Skinheads: exploring and rethinking subcultural lives (9780415575966) London ; New York :: Routledge
• Pilkington, H.(2010) 'No longer 'on parade': style and the performance of skinhead in the Russian far north' Russian Review, The 69 (2), 187 - 209 (0036-0341)
• Pilkington, H. and Popov, A.(2009) 'Understanding neo-paganism in Russia: religion? ideology? philosophy? fantasy?' in Subcultures and new religious movements in Russia and East-Central Europe, 253 - 304, Editors: McKay, G., Williams, C., Goddard, M., Foxlee, N. and Ramanauskaite, E. (9783039119219), Oxford ; New York: Peter Lang
• Pilkington, H. and Sharifullina, E.(2009) 'The mutual extraction industry: drug use and the normative structure of social capital in the Russian far north' International Journal of Drug Policy 20 (3), 251 - 260 (0955-3959) [article]
• Pilkington, H.(2008) 'Pozitsiia antropologa pri issledovanii problem ksenofobii' [The challenges of researching xenophobia]' Antropologicheskii Forum 8 97 - 106 (1815-8870)

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Conferences

RESEARCH DEGREES SUPERVISED

• The Russian migration regime and migrants? experiences: the case of non-Russian nationals from former Soviet-republics, Date of Completion: 2010
• Inadvertent Cosmopolitans: Armenian and Adyghean Youth in Southern Russia, Date of Completion: 2008
• Bulgarian Youth Cultural Practice Between the Global and the Local, Date of Completion: 2007
• ?Youth Transitions from Vocational Education in post-Soviet Russia: Learning (not) to Labour??, Date of Completion: 2007
• Transnational Locals: The Cultural Production of Identity among Greeks in the Southern Russian Federation, Date of Completion: 2006
• Women in management: Experiences from Eastern Germany and Russia, Date of Completion: 2003
• Youth sociality and globalisation: An ethnographic study of young Koreans? mobile phone use, Date of Completion: 2003
• Substance abuse and health promotion initiatives in post-Soviet Russia, Date of Completion: 2002
• Global frameworks and local realities: A case study of resettlement policies for forced migrants in the Russian Federation, Date of Completion: 2001
• Dealing with disability in Russia: Case study of a post-communist welfare system, Date of Completion: 2001