Transnational fragmentation of globality: Eastern-European post-socialist strategies in Chicago

Abstract

Ciubrinskas draws on long-term fieldwork in Chicago among Chicagoans with a Lithuanian background. He argues for a grassroots understanding of transnationalism from a urban anthropology perspective which addresses intra and interethnic relations among Chicagoans with an Eastern European background who want to share ‘common’ cultural citizenship and (post-)socialist social capital. He explores two kinds of social enactment of difference: one based on identity politics and directed towards homeland nationalism and the other addressing post-socialist interethnic networking as a (post-)socialist legacy transplanted from Eastern Europe.