Public Sociology Laboratory: Studying Russian Society in the Time of War

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian society has become increasingly closed off to researchers. Sensitive and politically charged topics—such as Russians' perceptions of the war, state propaganda, military service and resistance to it, and civil society (including pro-war segments)—are particularly challenging to study. However, the Public Sociology Laboratory has gathered over 700 pages of ethnographic observations from multiple regions of Russia and collected more than 500 sociological interviews since the beginning of the war—speaking with "apolitical" Russians, war supporters and opponents, volunteers and activists, potential conscripts, and relatives of military personnel seeking to bring their loved ones home, among others. In this panel, we present some of our key findings on the impact of communicative contexts on people's judgments about the war; social movements supporting and opposing state policies concerning the war, and the perception of disinformation in authoritarian Russia.

Sub Unit

• Sociology, Public Health, Education

Chair

• Marina Yusupova, Edinburgh Napier U (UK)

Papers

• Moral Face-Work and (Dis)identification with the State: Russian’s Perception of the Russo-Ukrainian War - Svetlana Erpyleva, U of Bremen (Germany)

• Whose ‘Fakes’?: Disinformation Discourse and Motivated Reasoning in Wartime Russia - Maxim Alyukov, U of Manchester (UK)

• Knitting Nets, Building Networks: (Un)Civil Society in Wartime Russia - Yakov Lurie, U of Amsterdam (Netherlands)

• Strategies of Consentful Contention in a War-Time Russia - Natalia Savelyeva, U of Wisconsin-Madison

Discussant

• Marina Yusupova, Edinburgh Napier U (UK)