Negotiating Normality by Daniela Koleva

Negotiating Normality by Daniela Koleva

This book is about state socialism, not as a political system, but as an "ecosystem" of interactions between the state and the citizens it sought to control. It includes case studies that demonstrate how the major ideological principles of socialism translated into motives guiding people's lives.

This unique post-revisionist study focuses on people's lives and experiences rather than political systems. The studies are grouped around three common elements—socialist labor, the new socialist man, and the socialist way of life. Using first-hand accounts, the authors find minute deviations from the norms that eventually lead to renegotiation of the norms themselves. Focusing on routines, not extremes, they present socialism in its "normal" state.

The volume demonstrates different national strategies for dealing with the past in the post-socialist world. Studies of the socialist past may strive to be objective, but their messages tend to be complex. Rather than arriving at one truth about the nature of socialism, this volume explores the many ways people have survived the system.

Daniela Koleva is associate professor at the department of history and theory of culture, St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia. Her research interests are in the fields of oral history and anthropology of socialism and the post-socialist transformations, public and personal memory, biographical research, gender, ethnic, and religious identities. She has published widely on these topics in international peer-reviewed journals and collective volumes, in addition to two monographs in Bulgarian and a few edited volumes in Bulgarian and English.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781412846011
ISBN 10	1412846013
Title	Negotiating Normality
Author	Daniela Koleva
Series	Memory And Narrative
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Routledge
Year published	2012-07-15
Number of pages	270
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.