{"id":429491,"date":"2015-07-21T14:14:16","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T11:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moldova.org\/?p=429491"},"modified":"2015-07-21T14:14:16","modified_gmt":"2015-07-21T11:14:16","slug":"researching-moldova-the-everyday-politics-of-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moldova.org\/en\/researching-moldova-the-everyday-politics-of-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Researching Moldova: the Everyday Politics of Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

I first came to Moldova in 2008 to conduct research for my undergraduate dissertation. I was, and remain, fascinated by Moldova and its politics and culture, its mix of Soviet and Romanian history and its welcoming atmosphere. I was fascinated too by the lack of knowledge and understanding in the West about the state.<\/p>\n

Shortly before my first visit I remember reading Stiglitz\u2019s book, Globalization and Its Discontents, where Stiglitz discusses the lack of streetlights in Moldova as a sign of poverty. It came as some surprise, arriving in Chisinau late at night, that there was in fact street lighting. In this sense, my motivation for researching Moldova comes from trying to improve understanding about a state and society that is too often described in overly simplistic terms: either as the \u201cpoorest country in Europe\u201d or as torn between east vs. west.<\/p>\n

I was able to return in 2010, 2012 and 2013, again to conduct research, each time witnessing a very different political climate from previous visits. I witnessed the transition from PCRM and Voronin\u2019s government to the Alliance for European Integration, and the increasing apathy, if not antipathy, towards the \u201chungry wolves<\/a>\u201d, aka the pro-European political elites.<\/p>\n

Everyday Identity Debates in Moldova<\/h2>\n

But politics, for me, and my interest in conducting political science research (now for my PhD research at the London School of Economics), have always been much more than about studying political elites and institutions. I\u2019m more interested in everyday politics and, in particular, everyday dimensions of identity and ethnicity debates. I think this too is reflected by Moldovan society, in the visibility of these debates in everyday life, not least in the street art on the streets of Chisinau: \u201cwho are we?\u201d, \u201cwe\u2019re Moldovan\u201d, \u201cwe\u2019re Romanian\u201d and \u201cBessarabia is Romanian land\u201d.<\/p>\n

Starting from an awareness of the complexity of identity debates, my interest was to collect data to gather insights on how people define themselves and why they identify in these ways. In particular, I argue that censuses and sociological surveys in Moldova have (deliberately) overlooked these complex debates, requiring individuals to align with mutually exclusive categories (e.g. Moldova, Romanian or Russian) without considering, I think deliberately, the way in which these categories fail to capture what\u2019s really going on: that there are individuals:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. who feel Romanian,<\/li>\n
  2. who feel both Romanian and Moldovan,<\/li>\n
  3. who feel only Moldovan,<\/li>\n
  4. who don\u2019t know how to feel…<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Fascinating too has been discovering how identity can work, and be disputed, within families and across generations, where the younger, more Romanian-identifying, post-Soviet generation, want to re-educate their more Moldovan-identifying parents who grew up during the Soviet Union. Yet, regardless of how people identified ethnically<\/em>, what remains fascinating for me is the extent to which this reinforced by strong ties to Moldova, as a state and as home.<\/p>\n

    Looking Beyond Identity Debates in Moldova<\/h2>\n

    Identity, culture and language have clearly been a topic of intense debate in post-Soviet Moldova but, paradoxically, I also think identity has dominated Moldova\u2019s post-Soviet politics too much. It\u2019s an important part of the story that many people in Moldova don\u2019t want to talk about identity and don\u2019t need to talk about identity. It might matter for a few what the official language of the state is but for others, it\u2019s just politics: on the everyday level, they can speak whatever language they want.<\/p>\n

    Identity debates also structure Moldova\u2019s political schema, defining party politics. This masks how far political parties are actually clientelistic networks, built on personal relations, that make parties into wealth and power machines, while disconnecting them from having to appeal to electorates beyond the politics of popularism and symbolism: pro-EU vs. anti-EU. This dominance of identity debates has allowed the political elite to focus on symbolic and geopolitical questions at the expense of political and economic reform.<\/p>\n\n

    This article follows from a recent article published by Eleanor Knott in East European Politics and Societies: Eleanor Knott (2015) Generating data: studying identity politics from a bottom-up perspective in Crimea and Moldova<\/a>, East European Politics and Societies<\/em>, 29:467-486, doi:10.1177\/0888325415584047 [ungated pdf<\/a>].<\/p>\n

    Eleanor Knott is a PhD candidate (expected 2015) in political science at the Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science. Her thesis explores Romanian and Russian kin-state policies in Moldova and Crimea from a bottom-up perspective, using the approach of everyday nationalism. Her broader research interests include studying questions of political science in the post-Soviet region from the bottom-up, using techniques of political ethnography, including identification, citizenship and education policy, to study state-society relations from an international perspective.<\/p>\n

    You can view Eleanor\u2019s personal webpage<\/a> and follow her on twitter @ellie_knott<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>I first came to Moldova in 2008 to conduct research for my undergraduate dissertation. I was, and remain, fascinated by Moldova and its politics and culture, its mix of Soviet and Romanian history and its welcoming atmosphere. I was fascinated too by the lack of knowledge and understanding in the West about the state. Shortly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":429470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-en","category-opinion"],"content_social_share":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

    I first came to Moldova in 2008 to conduct research for my undergraduate dissertation. I was, and remain, fascinated by Moldova and its politics and culture, its mix of Soviet and Romanian history and its welcoming atmosphere. I was fascinated too by the lack of knowledge and understanding in the West about the state.<\/p>\n

    Shortly before my first visit I remember reading Stiglitz\u2019s book, Globalization and Its Discontents, where Stiglitz discusses the lack of streetlights in Moldova as a sign of poverty. It came as some surprise, arriving in Chisinau late at night, that there was in fact street lighting. In this sense, my motivation for researching Moldova comes from trying to improve understanding about a state and society that is too often described in overly simplistic terms: either as the \u201cpoorest country in Europe\u201d or as torn between east vs. west.<\/p>\n

    I was able to return in 2010, 2012 and 2013, again to conduct research, each time witnessing a very different political climate from previous visits. I witnessed the transition from PCRM and Voronin\u2019s government to the Alliance for European Integration, and the increasing apathy, if not antipathy, towards the \u201chungry wolves<\/a>\u201d, aka the pro-European political elites.<\/p>\n

    Everyday Identity Debates in Moldova<\/h2>\n

    But politics, for me, and my interest in conducting political science research (now for my PhD research at the London School of Economics), have always been much more than about studying political elites and institutions. I\u2019m more interested in everyday politics and, in particular, everyday dimensions of identity and ethnicity debates. I think this too is reflected by Moldovan society, in the visibility of these debates in everyday life, not least in the street art on the streets of Chisinau: \u201cwho are we?\u201d, \u201cwe\u2019re Moldovan\u201d, \u201cwe\u2019re Romanian\u201d and \u201cBessarabia is Romanian land\u201d.<\/p>\n

    Starting from an awareness of the complexity of identity debates, my interest was to collect data to gather insights on how people define themselves and why they identify in these ways. In particular, I argue that censuses and sociological surveys in Moldova have (deliberately) overlooked these complex debates, requiring individuals to align with mutually exclusive categories (e.g. Moldova, Romanian or Russian) without considering, I think deliberately, the way in which these categories fail to capture what\u2019s really going on: that there are individuals:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. who feel Romanian,<\/li>\n
    2. who feel both Romanian and Moldovan,<\/li>\n
    3. who feel only Moldovan,<\/li>\n
    4. who don\u2019t know how to feel…<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Fascinating too has been discovering how identity can work, and be disputed, within families and across generations, where the younger, more Romanian-identifying, post-Soviet generation, want to re-educate their more Moldovan-identifying parents who grew up during the Soviet Union. Yet, regardless of how people identified ethnically<\/em>, what remains fascinating for me is the extent to which this reinforced by strong ties to Moldova, as a state and as home.<\/p>\n

      Looking Beyond Identity Debates in Moldova<\/h2>\n

      Identity, culture and language have clearly been a topic of intense debate in post-Soviet Moldova but, paradoxically, I also think identity has dominated Moldova\u2019s post-Soviet politics too much. It\u2019s an important part of the story that many people in Moldova don\u2019t want to talk about identity and don\u2019t need to talk about identity. It might matter for a few what the official language of the state is but for others, it\u2019s just politics: on the everyday level, they can speak whatever language they want.<\/p>\n

      Identity debates also structure Moldova\u2019s political schema, defining party politics. This masks how far political parties are actually clientelistic networks, built on personal relations, that make parties into wealth and power machines, while disconnecting them from having to appeal to electorates beyond the politics of popularism and symbolism: pro-EU vs. anti-EU. This dominance of identity debates has allowed the political elite to focus on symbolic and geopolitical questions at the expense of political and economic reform.<\/p>\n\n

      This article follows from a recent article published by Eleanor Knott in East European Politics and Societies: Eleanor Knott (2015) Generating data: studying identity politics from a bottom-up perspective in Crimea and Moldova<\/a>, East European Politics and Societies<\/em>, 29:467-486, doi:10.1177\/0888325415584047 [ungated pdf<\/a>].<\/p>\n

      Eleanor Knott is a PhD candidate (expected 2015) in political science at the Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science. Her thesis explores Romanian and Russian kin-state policies in Moldova and Crimea from a bottom-up perspective, using the approach of everyday nationalism. Her broader research interests include studying questions of political science in the post-Soviet region from the bottom-up, using techniques of political ethnography, including identification, citizenship and education policy, to study state-society relations from an international perspective.<\/p>\n

      You can view Eleanor\u2019s personal webpage<\/a> and follow her on twitter @ellie_knott<\/a><\/p>\n

      <\/div>
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