The Cultural Pragmatics of an Event: the Politicization of Local Activism in Russia

摘要

The paper analyzes the politicization of local activism in Russia caused by the 2011-12 protest movement "For Fair Elections". The authors propose the theoretical model of an eventful social change at a micro level integrating different approaches such as pragmatic sociology, cultural sociology, eventful approach, and social movement studies. They argue that before the protests, Russian local activism was apolitical as it was based on the ethical opposition between (good) "real deeds" and (bad) "politics", as well as on the anti-ideological belief in the authenticity of "self-evident" facts. The politicization of a-political activism was stimulated by the "eventful protests" of 2011-2012 and was not a break with a-politicism, but new arrangements of "self-evident" facts and ideological campaigning, of oppositional "politics" and getting real things done.