Anthropologist Jeremy Morris joins The Naked Pravda to discuss his latest book, Everyday Politics in Russia: From Resentment to Resistance (Bloomsbury, March 2025). The conversation explores Morris’s extensive fieldwork across urban, regional, and rural Russia to understand how society has responded to the collapse of the USSR, capitalist social Darwinism, and the ongoing war in Ukraine. He shares insights into his ethnographic methods, emphasizing the importance of embedded, long-term relationships and the distinction between social suffering and geopolitical resentment. Morris also critiques the limitations and biases of polling data in news coverage and underscores the need for more diverse voices in understanding contemporary Russian society.
Timestamps for this episode:
- (1:05) Ethnographic methods and fieldwork
- (16:00) Challenges and ethical considerations in research
- (25:36) Social suffering in Russia
- (37:22) Defensive consolidation and Putinism
- (43:04) The Soviet legacy and social mobility
- (50:31) Economic precarity and resentment
- (1:04:12) Anthropological insights for journalists
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Sound editing by Kevin Rothrock