Book Launch: Women’s Roles and Agency in Russian Society before and during the War in Ukraine

This book is about Russian societal development and transformation, before and during the war in Ukraine, as reflected in women’s experiences, views, and agency. It is also a book about women’s roles in the Russian society: about women’s situation on the Russian labour market in the 1990s, about their entrepreneurship, about their roles in politics, about women trying to make the social sector work, and about their engagement in civil society. The author argues that women’s agency today, as in socialist time, tends to complement the general ways the system works. These arguments in the book are based on interviews, describing first hand experiences, views, and agency of Russian women in leading positions and those acting in social services, NGOs and elsewhere to help vulnerable women. Their stories make visible how women’s agency has changed in the years of growing authoritarianism. Wishes to improve the system still exist, however, the manoeuvring room has narrowed considerably since the war started, even more so because the authorities encourage silence about social problems.

Ann-Mari Sätre is Professor in Eurasian Studies at IRES Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University. She is specialized in the structure and performance of the Soviet/Russian economy. Her current research is focused on women’s agency and post-Soviet transformation. She is the author or co-author of several books (including Environmental Problems in the Shortage Economy: The Legacy of Soviet Environmental Policy, Edward Elgar 1994, The Politics of Poverty in Contemporary Russia, Routledge 2019. and together with Leo Granberg The Other Russia: Local experience and societal change, Routledge 2017), articles and book chapters on the Soviet/Russian political economy and women’s work. Among her publications is also two co-edited volumes Attitudes, Poverty and Agency in Russia and Ukraine (Routledge 2016, with Ildiko Asztalos Morell) and Post-Soviet Women: New Challenges and Ways to Empowerment (Palgrave 2023, with Yulia Gradskova and Vladislava Vladimirova).

Discussant:
Nina Ivashinenko is Lecturer in Central and East European Studies (CEES) at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests are broad, encompassing economic sociology and anthropology with a focus on migration, social inequalities, and poverty across Central and Eastern European countries. She is involved in several professional networks, including the Migration and Mobilities Research Group, the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES), and the European Economic Sociology Association.