Introduction to the Special Issue: Imagining a Link Between Local Activism and Political Transformation: Inventions from Russia and Eastern Europe

Abstract

This introduction aims to present the general outline of the special issue and to elaborate on the context against which most of the studies were conducted. We discuss the political, economic, social, and historical processes that contribute to shape Russia; this helps to understand local activism and protest in contemporary Russia. Since this context is relevant to all the papers, the readers would benefit from reading this introduction first. The second part of this paper introduces the contribution that the special issue makes to the study of activism and politics, with papers analyzing different aspects and kinds of activism in a variety of circumstances and settings. A central question common to all papers is the problem of politicization which is treated at the intersection between social and political inequalities, the experience of everyday life and political imagination.