Post-Soviet Intimacies: An Introduction

Abstract

This article frames the “Post-Soviet Intimacies” special issue collection. We begin through briefly using Russia as a special case for the wider Soviet sphere and situating recent Russian developments in sexual politics alongside its internal and external conflicts. Our key interpretive frame is that intimacy politics serve as a master key for understanding political and economic patriarchy. After this, we provide some definitions of our concepts, describe our approach and process of creating the special issue, and introduce important literature which is widely applicable for understanding this theme as a whole. Finally, we briefly introduce the seven articles of this special issue within three wider groupings of Harnessed-, Material-, and Scorned Intimacies. We suggest that readers analyze our contributions from a perspective that situates intimacies as the objects of state and market power, where the linchpin of such power is the patriarchically naturalized pursuit of rule.