Social construction of (post)postsocialist reality

Ethnographic research into the everyday

Marina, Simić

Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU

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http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?ID=0350-08611901121S

2019-2020/03/24/17:29:03

In this paper, I want to discuss the main proposition from Berger and Luckmann’s seminal book, The social construction of reality (or. 1966) - the idea that the everyday is the arena through which the social world comes into being-and to pair it with the understanding of memories and everyday life in postsocialist studies. It seems that various disciplines dealing with postsocialism sometimes treat the memories of socialism as an untheorized background of the analysis. I propose that postsocialist studies should do better by actively engaging in understanding the memories of socialism (and its aftermath) as an active force in shaping the present that should be addressed not only through the narratives of the past, but through the concept of the “everyday.” For that purpose, I deploy the contemporary Western idea of ethnography as a specific qualitative study of the present that can be a useful tool for the understanding of society and social reality in the way they are described by Berger and Luckmann. I believe that Berger and Luckmann’s account may shed new light on some of the central topics of related to the post-Yugoslav predicament (like the state, society, morality, and “normality”) and I offer new readings of some scholarly works that deal with these concepts (including my own). [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177026: Cultural heritage and identity]

ethnography, everyday life, (post)postsocialism, social construction of reality