Postsocialist Transformation as a World of Meaning: Domination, Agency and Sense-Making
We cordially invite you to an international conference taking place on February 12-13 at Villa Lanna (V Sadech 1, Praha 6).
More than three decades after the fall of state socialism in Europe, the liberal democratic, capitalist regimes that emerged in 1989 face new and growing challenges. The post-1989 liberal order—once broadly accepted—now finds itself in a moment of crisis. But how deep did that original acceptance run? What meanings did people attach to the new political, economic and social arrangements? How did they navigate and make sense of these transformations in everyday life?
This exploratory conference seeks to open a new perspective on postsocialist transformation in Eastern Europe —not just as a political and economic process, but as a „world of meaning“ shaped by the complex interplay of domination and agency. We draw inspiration from conceptual approaches used in the study of state socialism and communist dictatorship, particularly the ideas of Sinnwelt (world of meaning) and Eigensinn (individual sense-making), to ask fresh questions about how the post-1989 order was lived, legitimated, adapted—and sometimes resisted—by those within it (Lüdtke 1993; Lindenberger 1999; Donert, Kladnik and Sabrow 2022).
A detailed program, including a schedule and a list of participants, can be found here.
Organisational partners: Institute of Contemporary History, Hannah-Arendt-Institut für Totalitarismusforschung, TU Dresden, Research Centre for the History of Transformations, University of Vienna
This conference is supported by the Lumina Quaeruntur Award 300632301 of the Czech Academy of Sciences.