1/A mini photo-essay on how we used to move/how we move & what is lost/gained in #postsocialist#capitalism. The first photo is of the railway terminal in #Sibenik, Croatia. While it was never large, during peak #socialism it was very busy, connecting the town to the rest of...
2/...the country. Long train compositions would depart for Split, Zagreb, even Belgrade, connecting people on the cheap. Now, it’s a barely functioning ruin. The one-wagon train pictured travels only as far as the nearby Knin. Nobody sane would try to get to Zagreb by rail.
3/ Part of the reason was the war, but really the criminal privatization and the lack of strategic investment into PUBLIC infrastructure. Many of the buildings date back to Austria-Hungary. What little is new ironically attests not to investment, but to neglect. In the second...
4/ ...photo, you can see the station’s cafe, with its awning installed over the last part of the word ‘station (kolodvor)’. A better example of notgiveafuckery could hardly be found. Instead, resources went into private mobility, with all the class implications. The only...
5/...strategic infrastucture project connecting post-socialist Croatia is the highway linking the capital to Dalmatia. If you want to travel, unless you want the uncomfortable and relatively expensive bus option, you must have a car. And that’s where the essay goes next.
6/ Right across the road from the railway terminus is the glistening car dealership. You can move in style if you can afford it. Try it on a 330 Euro average monthly pension, or even on a 900 Euro average monthly salary.
7/ The final image is a nostalgic reminder of the lost possibilities. The town is connected to the nearby islands – and their pristine waters – with rickety but frequent and reasonably cheap boats. For about 5 Euros (return), you can pretend to be a jet-setter...
8/...wind rushing through your hair as you sail past the scattered jewels of the Šibenik archipelago.
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The Symbolic State was published some 1.5 yrs ago now. This thread is about why those teaching in politics & adjacent disciplines might consider it for their syllabi. Read on if you work on 1+ of nationalism/eth. conflict, institutions, IR, comparative methodology, & area studies
On #nationalism, the book links the everyday, sunk, *grounded* (@sini_malesevic ) dimension of nationalism with the more eventful (@wrbucla), ‘noisy’ and more immediately transformative angle. It does so by showing which types of political and institutional change gain traction..
...with broader segments of the population and why (emphasis, no surprise here, on symbolically important institutions). On nationalist/ethnic conflict, the book breaks new ground when it comes to the relative importance of material and non-material motives behind political...
1/ These two images are how I recall the world of 30 years ago. It is the 30th anniversary – approx. – of the release of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. That’s the first image. It is also the nice, round 30th anniversary of the start of events that would push me into the...
2/...wide world and bring me where I am today. That’s the second image, with Šibenik, Croatia, as the stage. How the two anniversaries are connected is what the following anecdote is about. And then I’ll tell you what I learned from having experienced state breakup, war, and...
3/...collective madness first-hand, and then from having researched and thought about it (too much, frankly) over the coming decades. First, the anecdote. It’s a bit sweet, but it’s mostly sour, so if that’s not to your taste, don’t bother. It’s September 1991, the war starts...
1/ I'm retweeting this because it resonates with thoughts I’ve been having over the past few days about how class and social privilege play out in academia. And especially the way in which that privilege influences not only social and cultural capital one has at their disposal...
2/...but more important than that – their intellectual confidence. I just submitted my first monograph yesterday. I am 44. It took, depending on how you count, between 7 and 14 years for me to complete this book. People publish books all the time. Many colleagues, especially in..
3/...my own discipline of political science, have put out monographs far sooner in their careers than I have, and were far younger when they did it than I am. In fact, most of the people I know started their careers sooner than I did. Some became full professors by 40.
...politics of #race, #climatechange, and is, I’ll be immodest, particularly timely in light of things that have been happening over the past few months (George Floyd protests in particular, but not only). The article thematizes what is far too important AND far too absent from..
...mainstream political science (and perhaps sociology) – the politics of im/patience. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that the politics of mass-based radical change IS the politics of impatience. Those seeking a different brand of politics are basically saying...