International Journal of Social Robotics

Ivanchenko O.V.

The paper is based on the results of field research conducted by the author in the United Republic of Tanzania in November 2023, focusing on the issue of nation formation in the multiethnic state. The study was carried out in Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo cities, resulting in the collection of 33 formal and informal interviews in English and Swahili. The key aim of the research was to find out whether the national component of self-identity has taken precedence for Tanzanian citizens, or if local identities, ethnic or regional, remain more significant. Tanzania is characterized by very high rate of urbanization, and making the issue of changing identity under the new conditions especially relevant for understanding the adaptation mechanisms of migrants in the cities. It is important to note that in Tanzanian cities the majority of residents are at most, second- or third-generation urban residents. Young people usually move to the city alone, without family. Those who were born in the city usually have only parents and siblings living there. Thus, connections to the culture of one’s region of origin are often broken, leading to a search for new affiliations, which frequently involves a shift in self-identity.In the article we will examine issues of the transformation and significance of ethnic identity; the relationship between ethnic, regional, and national levels of self-identity; attitudes towards ethno-racial minorities; and the future of indigenous Tanzanian cultures, languages, and traditions within the multicultural environment of the city.

Sapogov I.A.

The publication presents field materials about a youth group that used to gather in the vicinity of the Kitay-gorod metro station and called themselves KG [kɨgé] or kegeshniki. Currently, this youth solidarity has ceased to exist. The author describes the everyday practices of kegeshniki (consumption of alcohol and other psychoactive substances, socializing and listening to music, spending leisure time together outside of the gathering place, friendships, and sexual relationships), and highlights the difference between the “waves” of this solidarity. The materials also reflect the KGshniki’s reflections on these waves and the reasons behind the dissolution of their solidarity. The publication includes texts recorded from participants of various “waves”. The study was conducted by author from 2018 to 2020 using the semi-structured in-depth interviews method. The publication includes fragments from 14 field interviews, structured by categories.

Zakrevskaya E.A.

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Akhmetova M.V.

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Alekseevsky M.D.

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Mikhaylovskaya V.A.

The consequences of geopolitical turbulence are vividly manifested at state borders, influencing the functional mode of the border itself and the everyday life of borderland communities. The ongoing socio-cultural transformations and the border residents’ reflections on new life conditions can be explored through narratives of memory, which are being shaped by global challenges. The article focuses on the dynamics of historical memory in the borderlands of Russia and Finland, particularly in the context of the closure of the state border and the crisis in interstate relations. Using existing concepts in border studies and historical memory research, the author attempts to analyze narratives about the past cross-border interactions in the Karelian regions bordering Finland, specifically examining the Sortavala municipal district and the Kostomuksha urban district. The study argues that shifts in historical memory can be traced through an examination of narrative density and the clarity of categories of “others”, constructed based on interactions with narrative agents and the remoteness of these categories in the past. It further analyzes the role of reflective and restorative nostalgia in shaping perceptions of the memory culture among residents of neighboring countries. The author also differentiates levels of cross-border relations at both grassroots and interstate levels, describing different catalysts and motives for interaction. The paper also examines changing significance of the border itself and its borderland status, which determines strategies for social adaptation to new conditions in these areas. The first part of the article examines historical events in the Sortavala and Kostomuksha district that form the basis for memory narratives. The second part consists of three chapters and analyzes the narratives identified through interviews which were collected by the author in 2023–2024.

Krihtova T.M.

The article discusses a field study of the “Rescue Hangar” — a day care center in Moscow, where people in need can get low-threshold help. The article illustrates how the “Hangar” is integrated into the urban environment and what this proximity means for both its visitors and for the people who live and work in the area. The main feature of the “Hangar’s” location and its visitors in this area is invisibility — existing outside the field of view and attention of local residents. The article describes three reasons for this invisibility: the appearance of the visitors, which is not significantly different from that of other passersby; the limited number of potential “meeting points” between the “Hangar’s” visitors and local residents; and the “Hangar’s” hidden location, which is in a space cut off from its surroundings and is not perceived as either a place of assistance or a dangerous area. These three factors are both a drawback and an advantage of the “Hangar”. It is hidden both from the eyes of those who live and work nearby and from those who come seeking help. On the one hand, this makes it harder for people to access assistance, and on the other hand, it prevents city residents from forming any preconceived notions about what a place that helps the homeless looks like or what the homeless themselves look like. This ultimately has a positive effect on the organization’s work but may possibly reinforce the stigmatization of homeless people throughout the city.

Huseynova A.L.

The article reflects on the author’s three-year work on corporate social responsibility project “Centers of Local Community” (CLC), based on “Shops near Home” program of the “Pyaterochka” retail chain. In 2020 and 2021, the project concept was developed by “Pyaterochka” together with the consulting firm “Tsentsiper” and with support from the integrator You Social. In-depth interviews were conducted, field research data were collected, and pilot projects were implemented — first for five stores, then for fifty stores. In 2022 and 2023, the project expanded up to 354 stores across 9 regions with the help of two NGOs (“Good City of Petersburg” and “Good Stories”). With the participation of the “Charity Culture” Foundation, a study was conducted to identify social impacts of the project, which included interviews and focus groups with the project’s key stakeholders (11/28/2022 – 01/12/2023). Based on the assessment of the study results, the project was further expanded to 1,350 CLCs. The collected data demonstrate the transformation of typical scenarios for how stores are used as a workplace for employees and as shopping locations for customers due to the introduction of the new social project. The article also describes the mechanism of how corporate social responsibility projects emerge, including how the company selects projects for investment and the role that social anthropology and ethnographic methods play in this process.

Radchenko D., Petrov N.

Conference reviews are usually dull: they are easy to write but tedious to read, and what was lively and dynamic in person often becomes less engaging in text. In the review below, we’ve tried to bring the event to life with videos and photos, capturing what was essentially a showcase of applied anthropological research being conducted in Russia in the 2020s. We will include links to studies and Telegram channels that, perhaps even more effectively than academic articles, demonstrate how applied sciences are evolving — from folklore studies and museum design to anthropology and sociology. During the event, the authors of these Telegram channels actively covered the proceedings, helping us capture the most important moments included in this review. We would like to extend our gratitude to Mikhail Alekseevsky, Dmitry Rogozin, and Oleg Bazaleev.

Polyakov I., Gromov B.

The article is devoted to the latest forms of manifestation of religiosity in the city space. The study focuses on studying the micro-levels of religious life in urban ergonymy. By examining store signs, navigation maps, and goods on the shelves of chain stores using the names of the gods of Ancient Greece, the article sets the task of reconstructing a non-verbalized mythological narrative composed by ergonyms and product names. The religious life of urban space is understood as the practices of piety characteristic of ancient Greek religiosity: invocation and dedication. The specific mechanisms of cultural reproduction in Ancient Greece and Europe of the 21st century are reconstructed. Based on the distinction made, the myth-socializing function of modern education in the process of broadcasting the mythological narrative and reinterpreting the Olympic myth is described. The article refers to data on the religious life of legal entities. Based on an analysis of the frequency of mentioning the names of the Olympic gods in the unified register of legal entities, and a comparison of the names of the gods with the declared forms of economic activity, the Olympic myth of the 21st century — the “Ergonymic Myth of Hermes” — is reconstructed. The article assumes scaling up the research to the study of “chorographies” — materially embodied spaces of the sacred on the streets of modern cities. The study of chorographies is proposed as a new methodology for studying culture and human coexistence.

Kuksin Y.

This article examines the problem of church selection among Moscow residents, using Orthodox churches as an example. By highlighting the factors that make churches significant for parishioners and analyzing the various types of services offered by churches, the author considers the church in three dimensions: social, environmental, and informational. Through the course of the research, the author answers the question of why some muscovites are willing to prefer a distant church over one within walking distance. The article is based on empirical data collected by the author during field research in seven Moscow churches in 2022–2023. The most significant factors in choosing a church are those which derived from social practices: the personality of a priest, the atmosphere in the church, and the parish community. The geographical location of the church and the quality of the surrounding environment determine differences in the localization of parish communities. By analyzing the variety of non-liturgical services provided by churches, the author reveals a subtle process, unnoticed by most city residents, of redrawing the boundaries between the religious and the secular, and calls for studying churches as indicators of these changes.

Ostapenko[ D.

The article describes the experience of field research conducted during 2023–2024 on the territory of the church of the Holy Martyr Antipas of Pergamon in Kolymazhny Dvor (Moscow), where the “ANTIPA” coffee shop is located. The research addresses the issues of creation, organization, functioning and structure of the public space initiated and supervised by a religious community, as well as social agents who interact with it. The coffee shop “ANTIPA” is proposed to be examined through the lens of five aspects: 1) spatial, 2) social, 3) aesthetic, 4) organizational, 5) economic and labor. The church complex’s adjacent territory can be characterized as a secular space with religious elements, which performs the following functions: 1) a meeting place (as a point on the map where people can meet), 2) a place of communication (as a place where one can spend time socializing), 3) a mediator between the city and religion (as a place that allows residents and visitors of the capital to encounter the religious).

Gramatchikova N.

The article is based on field material collected in Mednogorsk (Orenburg region) in December 2021. It is dedicated to the study of the interactions between the religious and cultural landscapes of the city. A distinctive feature of industrial Mednogorsk, founded during the era of industrialization, is its “church history” of the Soviet era. An constant element of this history was the life of the parish, which since 1943 took place in a prayer house later converted into the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The decades-long existence of the so-called “old St. Nicholas Church” in the city havs led to the enrichment and complication of the religious landscape, which includes hidden public practices of faith protection and places of prayer. The latter include an episode of collective protection of the church from destruction in 1961 and the book by Vera Popova, who became recognized in the city as the “historian of the temple” from among the oldest parishioners. The article provides a comparative analysis of the oral and written versions of the history of St. Nicholas Church. In 2007, the new Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was consecrated in Mednogorsk. The authors analyze the distribution of functions between the two St. Nicholas churches in the small town in the post-Soviet period. The conclusion is drawn about the interpenetration of the historical, cultural and religious heritage of the city, which originated as a settlement near a copper-sulfur plant. Additionally, it is suggested that the church component of Mednogorsk’s history allows for the interpretation of its Soviet period as an alternative version of Soviet industrialization in a small factory town.

Gudkova A.

The article presented to your attention addresses the problem the virtualization of the well-known traditional Japanese divination practice — “omikuji” (translated from Japanese as “divine lot”), and also touches upon more global issues such as how Japanese religious practices are currently developing on the Internet. A significant portion of the research is dedicated to analyzing the transformation process of a religious tradition that used to be practiced exclusively “in person” and examining how contemporary Japanese people of different age groups and social status relate to the phenomenon of web religiosity. The study is based on data collected from an online survey conducted in July 2023. A total of 32 people responded to the survey (almost all informants are either Japanese or long-time foreign expatriates residing in Japan). The article includes screenshots of digital omikuji and their translations made by the author. The results of the study indicate that virtualization has made the practice of omikuji more accessible to laypeople, especially for people with disabilities. The texts of the predictions were significantly simplified during their virtualization. However, as the survey results suggest, the accessibility of the practice has led to a certain degree of loss of trust among believers. While omikuji had previously been perceived by the Japanese as a kind of entertainment within the temple or shrine grounds, the transition of the practice to the online space has further “simplified” it. Moreover, virtualization has turned the practice of traditional divination into another tool of promoting and advertising Japanese commercial companies, which negatively affects the perception of the omikuji tradition among believers.

Ustinova M.

One of the outcomes of urban space utilization is the emergence of local vernacular narratives about it. Relying on such narratives, I examine the subjective perceptions of the residents of Tatarskaya Sloboda in Tomsk regarding the urban space where their daily lives unfold. The structure of the article is determined by overlaying the collected interviews on elements of the urban environment. Accompanied by research commentary, the article describes the residents’ perceptions of Tatarskaya Sloboda’s space characteristics, borders, as well as the streets and alleys used as pathways. The analysis of interviews and mental maps allows us to conclude that the primary source for constructing the vernacular image is not only associations and memories related to Tatarskaya Sloboda but also, to a significant extent, the presence of everyday practices associated with its space.