Deema Kaneff

Deema Kaneff is a reader in social anthropology at the University of Birmingham in the UK and an associate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. She is the series editor for the book series Anthropologies of Eurasia: Ethnographic Encounters of Social Change and a member of the editorial board for the book series European Studies in Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology. She is the author of Who Owns the Past? The Politics of Time in a “Model” Bulgarian Village, as well as numerous other edited volumes and journal publications.

Resources and Everyday Conflicts in Rural Ukraine

Theorizing Social Change

By Deema Kaneff

Social change is a topic of central interest in the social sciences. The upheavals and reforms that swept across former socialist states in Eurasia offer a rich array of case studies to deepen our understanding of this phenomenon. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in an ethnically Bulgarian community in rural Ukraine, Deema Kaneff uniquely brings to light a range of hidden conflicts and everyday tensions, as well as new alliances and solidarities resulting from the redistribution of resources following Ukrainian independence. A focus on five key resources provides a means to explore the way in which relationships were contested and renegotiated in this small community, with implications that go far beyond those boundaries.