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Berghahn Books Lost to the State Family Discontinuity Social Orphanhood and Residential Care in the Russian Far East 2010 Edition by Elena Khlinovskaya Rockhill
Childhood held a special place in Soviet society: seen as the key to a better future, children were imagined as the only privileged class. Therefore, the rapid emergence in post-Soviet Russia of the vast numbers of vulnerable 'social orphans', or children who have living relatives but grow up in residential care institutions, caught the public by surprise, leading to discussions of the role and place of childhood in the new society. Based on an in-depth study the author explores dissonance between new post-Soviet forms of family and economy, and lingering Soviet attitudes, revealing social orphans as an embodiment of a long-standing power struggle between the state and the family. The author uncovers parallels between (post-) Soviet and Western practices in child welfare and attitudes towards 'bad' mothers, and proposes a new way of interpreting kinship where the state is an integral member. Table of contents :- List of Figures and TablesAcknowledgementsNotes on TransliterationList of Acronyms and AbbreviationsIntroductionThe Scope of the Problem What is this Study About?Time Line: Soviet and Post-Soviet Notes on MethodologyTheoretical and Conceptual FrameworkPART I: BECOMING A SOCIAL ORPHANChapter 1. A Brief History of Family Policy in RussiaPre-Revolutionary Shelters and the Concept of the ChildThe Soviet Period: Family Discontinuity and Children-out-of-FamilyChapter 2. The State as a Co-ParentFieldsite: MagadanThe Child Welfare NetworkResidential Care Institutions and their FunctionsCategories of the FamilyThe Benevolent State and 'Good' Parents: Voluntary Placements and CooperationChapter 3. State and Family: Tilting the Balance of PowerNeblagopoluchnye Parents: Tension between the State and the Family'Inadequate Fulfilment of Parental Duties'Working with the Neblagopoluchnaya FamilyChapter 4. Parents Overwhelmed by the State'Child Appropriation': The Case Study of MariaCourt HearingsDeprivation of Voice and Disempowerment of the ParentChapter 5. Norms and DevianceThe 'Best Interests of the Child': Moral Judgement of the ParentThe Child's Biological Family: The Severance of Ties and 'Symbolic Death' of ParentsThe Construction of Family by the State: A Society of Virtual KinPART II. BEING A SOCIAL ORPHANChapter 6. The State as a Sole ParentThe Rake's Progress: The Child's Journey through Residential HomesThe Cosmology of InstitutionsChapter 7. The World of Social OrphansExperiencing Institutions: Narratives of Former InmatesMisha's Signposts of Institutional LifeUnpacking Parent-Child Obligations: Dispersed Responsibility and AccountabilityTwo Worlds: Orphans and the Wider SocietyPART III: POST-SOVIET OR SOVIET? SELF-PERPETUATION OF THE SYSTEMChapter 8. The Continuing Soviet Legacy: Paradoxes of Change and ContinuityChildhood and Family Today: The Shifting Domains of Public and Private Continuity of Practices and Attitudes'Moral Panic': Current Descendants of WitchcraftAccusations and Show TrialsSelf-Perpetuation of the SystemAlternative ApproachesChapter 9. The Post-Soviet Case in a Wider ContextConclusionModes of relatednessPower AsymmetryAppendix I: List of Documents Supplied to the Court by the Guardianship Department and the Baby Home in Maria's CaseAppendix II: Reminiscences of Two 'Bad' ChildhoodsReferencesGlossaryIndex