LABORATORIUM

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Laboratorium

is a peer-reviewed journal of empirical social research in English and Russian. It is published three times a year as a paper journal and online in Saint Petersburg, Russia, by an international group of sociologists, anthropologists, and historians. The journal’s focus is on historical, comparative, cultural, and ethnographic sociology, but is open to other approaches and to contributions from all social sciences. Laboratorium makes findings and debates from Russian-language social research available to an English-speaking audience, and vice versa. The editors aim to stimulate debate across the language divide and to open up cross-national perspectives. In particular, thematic issues are usually produced by guest editors working in different disciplines and countries. Papers in Russian are accompanied by a full or abridged translation or a long summary in English, and vice versa.

Published with the financial support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

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Introduction

Alexander Bikbov

The editorial team presents the second “eclectic” issue of Laboratorium—an issue comprised of texts not tied together by a theme or a common project. The first issue that did this in 2011 did not include a special introduction, which only partially deviates from the established academic practice. The editors believe that alternating thematic and regular issues is both natural and fruitful, and we assume that the readers, who at times critique the model of the contemporary academic journal as a series of thematic anthologies, appreciate this diversity. Our expectations were met, and the previous issue was received with interest. As it turned out, our young journal is already perceived through the prism of an unintentionally established tradition, cleverly described by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann as “the way of doing things.” This short introduction to this issue is a good place to note: there are other ways of doing things as well. The journal will continue to integrate these two models—that of thematic unity and the publication of independent research articles. At the same time, Laboratorium affirms its mission and the obligation it has accepted (“as previously agreed”): we reserve the pages of our journal first and foremost for research articles and discussion pieces grounded in empirical studies.

Private and Public in the Spatial Organization of Everyday Practices of Neighborhood Police Officers (An Attempt at an Ethnographic Study). Summary

Ekaterina Khodzhaeva

This article is an ethnographic study of the spatial aspects of the everyday life of neighborhood police officers, based on participant observation conducted in Kazan' in 2007. It analyzes forms of neighborhood policemen’s professional activities and four types of professional spaces where their work takes place: (1) the precinct—the primary (often spatially disordered) area of the officer’s supervision and the space for basic practices of self-presentation to the controlled population; (2) the neighborhood in general and, in particular, the space of the precinct station where officers’ primary professional solidarity is formed and where, as a rule, structured interactions with the local population happen; (3) the space of the district police department, which usually appears to the “ordinary” neighborhood police officer as “the bosses’ territory” and therefore as “other” and “hostile” space; (4) the citywide space beyond the precinct, where professional duties are often perceived negatively and treated as a violation of policemen’s labor rights. In Russian, extensive summary in English.

Making a Home on the Neva: Domestic Space, Memory, and Local Identity in Leningrad and St. Petersburg, 1957–present

Catriona Kelly

This article discusses the process of home-making in Leningrad during the post-Stalin era, a period characterized both by the growing importance of the individual one-family apartment, as opposed to the kommunalka, and by a rise of interest in local history. Discussion focuses on the extent to which this new interest in the past, and memory practices more generally (whether locality and family-specific), affected the organization and decoration of the domestic environment. In English, extensive summary in Russian.  