Everyday Belonging in the Post-Soviet Borderlands examines the Russophone communities in peripheral cities adjacent to the Russian borders in Estonia and Kazakhstan. The research adopts a cross-disciplinary, space-sensitive approach that focuses comparatively on individual memories, narratives, and performances. Based on ethnographic examples, this book reconstructs belonging as a complex dialectical relationship between inclusion and exclusion. This relationship, it is argued, manifests itself through a continuous spiral of boundary construction, appropriation, and transgression among different versions of Estonianness and Kazakhness, Europeanness and Cosmopolitanness, as well as Russianness.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Cities of Enduring Dislocation
Chapter 3: Transgressing Exclusion
Chapter 4: Landscapes of Belonging
Chapter 5: Relationship with the External Space of Russia
Chapter 6: DefiningRodina for Russian Speakers
Chapter 7: Conclusion
