Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T08:55:36.128Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anthropological perspectives on alcohol and masculinity in post-Soviet Latvia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2021

V. Skultans
V. Skultans*
Affiliation:
University of Bristol, Bristol, Ireland
*
*Address for correspondence: V. Skultans, University of Bristol, Bristol, Ireland. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Certain geographical and social borderlands breed despair and pessimism. In the post-Soviet Latvian borderlands traditions of alcohol use mark out some of the contradictory expectations of masculinity in the new liberal economy. In this perspective piece I will be looking at how certain discourses serve to conceal the degrading conditions and lack of opportunity in certain occupations. This argument will be pursued in relation to the occupation of timber logging which is an exclusively male occupation (although this was not the case during the early Soviet period). This occupation reflects not just the terms of working conditions but illustrates the gendered nature of misfortune in Latvia. Loggers speak of a lack of perspective in their lives. I will examine the meaning and implications of this lack of perspective.

Keywords

InebriationLatviamasculinitypost-soviet society
Type
Perspective Piece
Information
Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine , Volume 39 , Issue 2: Themed Issue: Psychiatric Anthropology , June 2022 , pp. 148 - 154
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The College of Psychiatrists of Ireland

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bauman, Z (2004). Wasted Lives Modernity and its Outcasts. Polity: Cambridge.Google Scholar
Douglas, M ed. (1987). Constructive Drinking Perspectives on Drink from Anthropology. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York.Google Scholar
Gusfield, J (1989). Passage to Play: rituals of drinking time in American society. In Constructive Drinking Perspectives on Drink from Anthropology (ed. Douglas, M.), Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York.Google Scholar
Littlewood, R (2007). Limits to agency in psychopathology: a comparison of Trinidad and Albania. Anthropology and Medicine 14, 95–114.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lindemann, NH (2001). Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair. Cornell University Press: Ithaca.Google Scholar
MacAndrew, C, Edgerton, RB (1969). Drunken Comportment a Social Explanation. Aldine: Chicago.Google Scholar
McKee, M (1999). Alcohol in Russia. Alcohol and Alcoholism 34, 824–829.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
OECD (2016). OECD Factbook 2015–2016. Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics. OECD Publishing: Paris.Google Scholar
Public Health Agency (2007). The Prevalence and Consequences of Dependency Inducing Substances in Latvia 15th edn. Ministry of Health Riga: Riga.Google Scholar
Putnina, A (2006). Men in latvia: a situation sketch. In Demographic Situation: Present and Future, vol. 2 (ed. Zvidrins, P.), Commission of Strategic Analysis Research Papers) Zinatne: Riga.Google Scholar
Room, R (1984). Alcohol and ethnography: a case of problem deflation? Current Anthropology 25, 169–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, KZS (2006). Nature and National Identity after Communism. Globalizing the Ethnoscape. University of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Segal, BM (1987). Russian Drinking: Use and Abuse of Alcohol in Pre-Revolutionary Russia. Rutgers Centre of Alcohol Studies: Brunswick New Jersey.Google Scholar
Segal, BM (1990). The Drunken Society: Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in the Soviet Union. Hippocrene Books: New York.Google Scholar
Simpura, J, Tigerstedt, C (1999). Alcohol misuse as a health and social issue in the Baltic Sea region: a summary of findings from the Baltica study. Alcohol and Alcoholism 34, 805–823.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skultans, V (2008). Empathy and Healing: Essays in Medical and Narrative Anthropology. Berghahn Books: New York & Oxford.Google Scholar
Skultans, V, Cox, J (eds.) (2000). Anthropological Approaches to Psychological Medicine: Crossing bridges. Jessica Kingsley Publishers: London & Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Smith, DM (2000). Moral Geographies. Ethics in a World of Difference. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarschys, D (1993). The success of a Failure: gorbachev’s Alcohol Policy, 1985–88. Europe-Asia Studies 45, 7–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treml, V (1982). Alcohol in the USSR: A Statistical Study. Duke University Press: Durham NC.Google Scholar
Walker, JK (2007). The return of the hard body. In The Hummer: Myths and Consumer Culture (ed. Cardenas, E., Gorman, E.), Lexington Books: Lanham.Google Scholar
Walkerdine, V (2006). Workers in the new economy: transformation as bnorder crossing. Ethos 34, 10–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, S (1996). Russia Goes Dry: Alcohol, State and Society. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.Google Scholar
World Health Organisation (2003). WHO Atlas of Health in Europe. World Health Organisation: Geneva.Google Scholar
World Health Organisation (2005). European Health Report. World Health Organisation: Geneva.Google Scholar
World Health Organisation (2015). European Facts and the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2015. WHO Regional Office for Europe: Copenhagen.Google Scholar
World Health Organisation (2018). Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health 2018. World Health Organisation: Geneva.Google Scholar
Zizek, S (2008). The one Measure of True Love is: You can Insult the Other. (http://www.spiked-articles/00000002D2C4.htm). Accessed 6 March 2008.Google Scholar