In this book, Edenborg studies contemporary conflicts of community as enacted in Russian media, from the 'homosexual propaganda' laws to the Sochi Olympics and the Ukraine war, and explores the role of visibility in the production and contestation of belonging to a political community.
The book examines what it is that determines which subjects and narratives become visible and which are occluded in public spheres; how they are seen and made intelligible; and how those processes are involved in the imagination of communities. Investigating the differentiated consequences of visibility, Edenborg discusses what forms of visibility make belonging possible and what forms of visibility may be related to exclusion or violence. The book maps and analyses the practices and mechanisms whereby a state seeks to produce and shape belonging through controlling what becomes visible in public, and how that which becomes visible is seen and understood. In addition, it examines what forms contestation can take and what its effects may be.
Advancing theoretical understanding and offering a useful way to analytically conceptualize the role of visibility in the production and contestation of political communities, this work will be of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality politics, borders, citizenship, nationalism, migration and ethnic relations.
The book examines what it is that determines which subjects and narratives become visible and which are occluded in public spheres; how they are seen and made intelligible; and how those processes are involved in the imagination of communities. Investigating the differentiated consequences of visibility, Edenborg discusses what forms of visibility make belonging possible and what forms of visibility may be related to exclusion or violence. The book maps and analyses the practices and mechanisms whereby a state seeks to produce and shape belonging through controlling what becomes visible in public, and how that which becomes visible is seen and understood. In addition, it examines what forms contestation can take and what its effects may be.
Advancing theoretical understanding and offering a useful way to analytically conceptualize the role of visibility in the production and contestation of political communities, this work will be of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality politics, borders, citizenship, nationalism, migration and ethnic relations.
This is an important book in which the role of visibility in general and the media as its facilitator in particular is added to the theorization of political projects of belonging. It focuses on fascinating contesting case studies from the Russian media but is of generic theoretical and political importance as well.
- Professor Nira Yuval-Davis, Director of the research centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging, University of East London
This book offers an interesting account of why and how the Kremlin tolerates disparate voices and alternative media, while retaining the commanding heights of media capacity. It shows how a populist-authoritarian regime exploits contradictory and illogical media narratives to frame particular emotional responses. It suggests how and why opponents of the Kremlin struggle to achieve effective traction in the public sphere.
- Dan Healey, University of Oxford, Salvic Review
This book is a monumental research effort. The attention to Russian sources of various kinds and technical knowledge (regarding pathogens, life sciences, military applications, and the Russian bureaucratic process) is remarkable.
- Lisa A. Balionee, Saint Joseph's University
- Professor Nira Yuval-Davis, Director of the research centre on Migration, Refugees and Belonging, University of East London
This book offers an interesting account of why and how the Kremlin tolerates disparate voices and alternative media, while retaining the commanding heights of media capacity. It shows how a populist-authoritarian regime exploits contradictory and illogical media narratives to frame particular emotional responses. It suggests how and why opponents of the Kremlin struggle to achieve effective traction in the public sphere.
- Dan Healey, University of Oxford, Salvic Review
This book is a monumental research effort. The attention to Russian sources of various kinds and technical knowledge (regarding pathogens, life sciences, military applications, and the Russian bureaucratic process) is remarkable.
- Lisa A. Balionee, Saint Joseph's University