The Identity of the Industrial Worker in a Post-soviet Context: An Ethnographic Case Study of the Uralmash District

Abstract

This article is an examination of working-class identity based on various theories of cultural class analysis and genetic structuralism. Workers at the Uralmash factory, the largest of the Soviet enterprises still functioning in Russia today, were selected as the focus of empirical research. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted from May to June 2017, when the researchers became temporary residents of the Uralmash district. The example of the Uralmash case shows that contemporary workers in the post-Soviet space bear multiple and fragmented identities that combine Soviet and post-Soviet practices and values. Workers describe themselves as 'ordinary' and 'good' people, reflecting personal traits and values such as honesty, industriousness, sociability, dignity, simplicity, as well as in terms of identity in private life, e. g. a family person, a pensioner, a gardener. Many representatives of elder generations perceive themselves as people 'living in the past', 'Soviet people'. Thus, the Soviet past remains the main resource and a 'universal' prop supporting subjective perception of factory workers of elder generations. 'District-level' patriotism is another significant sense-making resource for the identity of Uralmash workers. However, as our interviews and observation show, workers in the post-Soviet period have become an 'invisible' group in the district due to their tendency to reject new lifestyles offered by new actors such as developers, cultural activists, and representatives of the entertainment industry. Consequently, a factory worker in the post-Soviet period suffers the loss of the class identity typical for the Soviet period. As a result, workers reproduce or re-appropriate other identity types while retaining memories about the Soviet past and trying to find a new foundation for identity in private life.