Svetlana Yaroshenko

Michael Burawoy, a renowned social theorist and proponent of public sociology, passed away at the age of 77. Throughout his life, he dedicated himself to sociology – revealing hidden societal boundaries, addressing various forms of inequality, and fostering connections across communities, including within the discipline itself. Michael was, and will remain, a multifaceted luminary in sociology – a friend, mentor, and colleague to us...

In this piece, we discuss the challenges facing public sociology in today’s Russia. The underlying question we address is: What can we say of professional commitment in a political regime whose name is still to be found? We are currently living the real dystopian nightmare of the “special military operation” – the war in Ukraine – and here we describe its effects on sociology in statu nascendi. We refer to the discussions...

I began researching poverty in Russia in the early 1990s, when liberal market reforms were implemented. Poverty was regarded as the cost of the radical societal transformation during the transition from the Soviet distributive system to the capitalist system. It was assumed that the introduction of the market would create economic growth, reduce poverty, and generate the conditions for people to pursue economic prosperity and free themselves...