Attitudes toward Tea-Drinking as an Indicator for the Professionalization of the Third Sector in Saint Petersburg

Abstract

The article discusses the culture of tea-drinking (tea parties) among the elderly population, as well as how non-governmental organisations offer such services in Russia from a perspective of third sector professional community identity-building. The main question of the research concerns how tea party culture is framed within the context of ideological and discursive debate about active ageing and the third sector development in Russia. Based on sociological qualitative empirical fieldwork research into non-governmental elderly care, I provide arguments on the connection between negative attitude towards drinking of tea and the professionalization of NGOs. As a result, what is found is that negative attitudes toward tea-drinking social service have become a key shared value in the process of identity-building within the third sector community of Saint Petersburg NGOs. The fieldwork includes semi-structured interviews, participatory observations and a documentary analysis of the activities of 16 elderly care social service provision-involved third sector organizations in Saint Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia. I argue that tea partying has become an oppositional point of reference for professional NGOs, associated with 'inefficiency', 'unsustainability' and 'worthlessness', all of which, from the perspective of professional third sector community, prevents development of civil society and 'civic culture' development in Russia. Consequently, tea-drinking is one of the most widespread yet heavily debated social activities. Attitudes towards tea-drinking differ among professionalised NGOs’ representatives and employees of grassroots, clientelist organizations and other non-members of the community. In the concluding part, I raise several possible topics for further research of tea drinking practices regarding civil society development and beyond.