Home, Boundaries, and Translocal Connectedness in Russia's Exclave of Kaliningrad
Final Report Abstract
The ethnographic field research on the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad has delivered profound insights into the interplay of state borders, various boundaries, translocal ties and people’s aspirations to feel at home and to establish orders. The enduring political conflict between the ‘West’ and the Russian Federation has impacted on the situation in the Kaliningrad region in several ways. Its borders have considerably gained in importance. Economic sanctions from both sides have impeded the import and export of many goods, and people refrain from transgressing the border because of the weak Ruble and/or because they fear negative attitudes towards foreigners. However, ethnic and cultural boundaries within the exclave seem to have lost in importance. Kaliningrad represents probably more than any other Russian city the Soviet cosmos. Obtained as a trophy for the fight against fascism, the region has long been a military zone that has since 1945 accommodated hundreds of thousands migrants from many parts of the Soviet Union and its follower states. As a consequence, many people are translocally connected to various places. But translocal ties seem to be of particular importance mainly for two very disparate groups: for those who are well-off and are able to afford long trips abroad and for those who live and work under specifically precarious conditions and who are only temporarily allowed to live in Kaliningrad. Moreover, generation is decisive because the border has changed its relevance over time significantly. Therefore, those who were born after the break-up of the Soviet Union have different relations to places, for instance, to those in the bordering regions in Latvia and Poland. However, many people’s aspirations to feel at home in Kaliningrad transgress a border in time and take up the physical heritage of Königsberg that, indeed, may be formed almost at will because a cultural memory of the place has been disrupted after the Second World War. People’s desire for a deep rootedness, furthermore, implies that the Kaliningrad region is ultimately less seen as a borderland that transgresses political, cultural and social boundaries but as a specific place which is often referred to as an ‘island’. In the course of the project, a particular focus on materiality has developed that was not anticipated. As a consequence, the collaboration with a photographer has resulted in an exhibition project presented in Kaliningrad and Berlin and a photo-ethnographic book publication. Extended ethnographic fieldwork and various interview formats have allowed for understanding the complex linkages of borders and orders in space and time at one particular place. For a future project, I propose to expand the data base and to compare various cases of borderlands along and in-between Eastern and Western Europe.
Publications
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2017. "Between ‘Western’ Racism and (Soviet) National Binarism: Migrants' and non-Migrants' Ways of Ordering Russia's Exclave of Kaliningrad" Special Issue on ‘Racism and Transnationality’ of the Transnational Social Review 7(3): 244- 257
Sanders, R.
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2018. "‘Wir werden kleiner und wachsen dadurch innerlich‘: Gemeinschaft, Moral und Identität im Alltag zweier Luthergemeinden in Kasachstan und Kaliningrad." In Jenseits der "Volksgruppe". Neue Perspektiven auf die Russlanddeutschen zwischen Russland, Deutschland und Amerika, edited by V. Dönninghaus, J. Panagiotidis and H.-C. Petersen. Schriften des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa. Band 68, de Gruyter: München, pp. 205-230
Sanders, R.
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“Welche Spuren hinterlässt die WM in Kaliningrad?“ ZOiS Spotlight 28/2018
R. Sanders
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2019. "Ein besonderer Ort. Deutungen, Begegnungen und Grenzziehungen in der russischen Exklave Kaliningrad." In Kontaktzonen und Grenzregionen. Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, edited by S. Kleinmann, A. Peselmann, I. Spieker. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, pp. 93-114
Sanders, R.
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2019. “Unity and Stability? The Victory Day and its Legacies in Russia’s Exclave of Kaliningrad” Narrative Culture. Special Issue: Political Narratives / Narrations of the Political 6(1): 69-87
Sanders, R.
