Ethnic Belonging, Gender and Cultural Practices: Youth Identities in Contemporary Russia

How are youth cultural identities rooted in gender, ethnicity and place? What resources do young people from ethnic minorities use in creating their cultural identities? Drawing upon interdisciplinary research, Ulrike Ziemer's case study demonstrates the different ways in which young people from ethnic minorities respond to the social, political, and cultural transformations of post-Soviet Russia and provides a detailed analysis of how local vs. global relations are experienced outside the West. Relying on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Ziemer explores the complex processes of identity formation and cultural experiences among young Armenians in Krasnodar krai and young Adyghs in the Republic of Adyghea. Both ethnic groups, Armenians and Adyghs, have a minority status in Russia, yet Adyghs are indigenous to the region while Armenians constitute a diaspora people. Ulrike Ziemer is the first to examine specifically Armenian and Adygh youth identities in the context of everyday life experiences in post-Soviet Russia.