Population decline in rural areas has been a concern for many European countries for decades. To ... more Population decline in rural areas has been a concern for many European countries for decades. To deal with shrinking, several measures have been taken in different countries. The study focuses on one of such measures – the administrative reform passed in Estonia in 2017, which merged smaller municipalities into regional municipality centres. This article examines the impact of this reform on rural transformation, concentrating on shifts in everyday mobilities, governance, and territorial identity at the village level. The research data is contextualised with the new mobilities paradigm, examining the relational everyday materialities that include interviews reflecting on changes at the regional, structural, and ideological levels. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews (N=60) with local activists and inhabitants in three study areas in sparsely populated parts of Estonia. The creation of municipality districts with representative bodies within larger municipalities have influe...
While some decades ago it was believed in European countries that the state should take the respo... more While some decades ago it was believed in European countries that the state should take the responsibility of assuring its citizens' well-being (social citizenship), nowadays it is believed that individual autonomy and activism should have a more prominent role in well-being. This perspective raises questions about how large share of young people is socially and politically active and how is involvement in different activities correlated. Is activism predominantly cumulative with relatively few being relatively active or, instead, are relatively many involved in a relatively few activities? The article explores youth activism patterns in two contrasting locations in Estonia. The analysis uses survey data collected in project MYPLACE, which contain a rich set of activism indicators. For establishing patterns of youth activism, cluster analysis is used. Analysis results show a considerable concentration of social and political activism in a relatively small fraction of young peopl...
This article employs moral geographies in analysing the land restitution process and outcome. Mor... more This article employs moral geographies in analysing the land restitution process and outcome. Moral geographies investigate how abstract values, deliberations and judgements are translated into everyday life and, consequently, to landscape. The dynamics of moral geographies are analysed by transdisciplinary research methods using mainly qualitative data, such as documents, media and literature, but also spatial and statistical data. Land restitution in Estonia had its start in 1991, instigated by the heat of national reawakening, aiming to reverse the past 50 years of Soviet ‘wrongdoings’. This task proved to be not so straightforward. The initial heydays got entangled not only in all subsequent matters of practicalities, but also with social and spatial justice. To date, land reform has been completed on 99% of Estonia’s territory. For over 30 years, the land restitution has been shaped by global changes as well as local particularities and, in the process, moral ideas have been tr...
The paper focuses on the conception of adulthood in post-communist Estonia, a society that has un... more The paper focuses on the conception of adulthood in post-communist Estonia, a society that has undergone vast structural, institutional and cultural changes. To this end, 179 essays written by high school graduates in five Estonian schools are analyzed.1 It is argued that the conceptualisation of adulthood is contextual and young people position and conceptualise themselves in the framework of these changes. Youth in Estonia, like their peers in Western Countries, stress intangible features (such as responsibility, mental maturity, social maturity, freedom) along with measurable transitions (employment, marriage, parenthood) when conceptualising adulthood. However, the meanings behind the concepts differ and are valued differently among respondents. This paper aims to provide a glance into what meanings are given to these perceptions. The most prevalent themes picked up by respondents were institutional transitions, responsibility and social maturity. Such prevalence is plausible, s...
This book tries to find out the methods the Stalinist regime used to implement its authoritarian ... more This book tries to find out the methods the Stalinist regime used to implement its authoritarian views on art. The focus of the book has been, how the artists, having rather different traditions of visual depicting, are made to create the production desired by political elite. To fulfil the aim of the implementation of the art model as a canon, Soviet art policy used several methods. One of these methods was to create an enormous flow of visual images, including posters, shop displays, newspaper layouts and so forth. The other method it used can be defined as complex technique of control mechanisms. The control mechanisms had to be build up in a way to make the surveyed and the objects of control to feel always observed. This was established through various disciplinary devices, which also possessed an element of uncertainty. The surveillance lines of the art institutions were often double or vaguely defined. When implementing this model of manipulative machinery to societies, a gra...
Population decline in rural areas has been a concern for many European countries for decades. To ... more Population decline in rural areas has been a concern for many European countries for decades. To deal with shrinking, several measures have been taken in different countries. The study focuses on one of such measures – the administrative reform passed in Estonia in 2017, which merged smaller municipalities into regional municipality centres. This article examines the impact of this reform on rural transformation, concentrating on shifts in everyday mobilities, governance, and territorial identity at the village level. The research data is contextualised with the new mobilities paradigm, examining the relational everyday materialities that include interviews reflecting on changes at the regional, structural, and ideological levels. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews (N=60) with local activists and inhabitants in three study areas in sparsely populated parts of Estonia. The creation of municipality districts with representative bodies within larger municipalities have influe...
While some decades ago it was believed in European countries that the state should take the respo... more While some decades ago it was believed in European countries that the state should take the responsibility of assuring its citizens' well-being (social citizenship), nowadays it is believed that individual autonomy and activism should have a more prominent role in well-being. This perspective raises questions about how large share of young people is socially and politically active and how is involvement in different activities correlated. Is activism predominantly cumulative with relatively few being relatively active or, instead, are relatively many involved in a relatively few activities? The article explores youth activism patterns in two contrasting locations in Estonia. The analysis uses survey data collected in project MYPLACE, which contain a rich set of activism indicators. For establishing patterns of youth activism, cluster analysis is used. Analysis results show a considerable concentration of social and political activism in a relatively small fraction of young peopl...
This article employs moral geographies in analysing the land restitution process and outcome. Mor... more This article employs moral geographies in analysing the land restitution process and outcome. Moral geographies investigate how abstract values, deliberations and judgements are translated into everyday life and, consequently, to landscape. The dynamics of moral geographies are analysed by transdisciplinary research methods using mainly qualitative data, such as documents, media and literature, but also spatial and statistical data. Land restitution in Estonia had its start in 1991, instigated by the heat of national reawakening, aiming to reverse the past 50 years of Soviet ‘wrongdoings’. This task proved to be not so straightforward. The initial heydays got entangled not only in all subsequent matters of practicalities, but also with social and spatial justice. To date, land reform has been completed on 99% of Estonia’s territory. For over 30 years, the land restitution has been shaped by global changes as well as local particularities and, in the process, moral ideas have been tr...
The paper focuses on the conception of adulthood in post-communist Estonia, a society that has un... more The paper focuses on the conception of adulthood in post-communist Estonia, a society that has undergone vast structural, institutional and cultural changes. To this end, 179 essays written by high school graduates in five Estonian schools are analyzed.1 It is argued that the conceptualisation of adulthood is contextual and young people position and conceptualise themselves in the framework of these changes. Youth in Estonia, like their peers in Western Countries, stress intangible features (such as responsibility, mental maturity, social maturity, freedom) along with measurable transitions (employment, marriage, parenthood) when conceptualising adulthood. However, the meanings behind the concepts differ and are valued differently among respondents. This paper aims to provide a glance into what meanings are given to these perceptions. The most prevalent themes picked up by respondents were institutional transitions, responsibility and social maturity. Such prevalence is plausible, s...
This book tries to find out the methods the Stalinist regime used to implement its authoritarian ... more This book tries to find out the methods the Stalinist regime used to implement its authoritarian views on art. The focus of the book has been, how the artists, having rather different traditions of visual depicting, are made to create the production desired by political elite. To fulfil the aim of the implementation of the art model as a canon, Soviet art policy used several methods. One of these methods was to create an enormous flow of visual images, including posters, shop displays, newspaper layouts and so forth. The other method it used can be defined as complex technique of control mechanisms. The control mechanisms had to be build up in a way to make the surveyed and the objects of control to feel always observed. This was established through various disciplinary devices, which also possessed an element of uncertainty. The surveillance lines of the art institutions were often double or vaguely defined. When implementing this model of manipulative machinery to societies, a gra...
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