Browsing by Author "Rytkönen, Roosa"

The thesis looks at informal practices in Russian higher education, with a focus on the phenomenon of buying term papers and dissertations. The work is based on semi-structured interviews and fieldwork carried out in the city of Kazan, Russia, during January–April 2015. By examining the phenomenon through anthropological theories of value, the thesis searches for new ways to address the gap between official discourse and practice, or 'the normative and 'the normal'. In recent years, theories of value have again emerged as one of the central theoretical discussions in anthropology. New developments include attempts to rethink the relationship between action and value (Graeber 2001; Lambek 2013) and questioning what kind of judgement is exercised to value different relations (Gregory 1997; Sykes 2009). The main theoretical questions the thesis addresses are 'what is the relationship between structures and students’ ideas of valuable action?' and 'what do students’ accounts of informal practices in higher education reveal about the location of value?'. The thesis examines how students accounted for the existence of the phenomenon and places these accounts in the context of the radical post-Soviet changes in higher education. Deregulation, the emergence of private commercial institutions and the dependence of institutions on students as a source of funding have led to partial commodification of higher education. In this context, students typically described buying as a personal choice. Despite the rationalization of buying, instead of legitimization, many students considered the practice to be the fault of the education system, which allowed such practices to exist. The thesis argues that different logics of value coexist within the higher education system and the question needing to be addressed is how do students deal with the uncertainty resulting from this. Through examples, the thesis looks at how students navigate their way in the structures of higher education. The thesis explicitly engages with the concept of performativity as it has been used by Yurchak (2005) in the context of the late Soviet Union. The thesis acknowledges the usefulness of the concept for the study of informal practices, but also points to its limitations, arguing that questions of performativity cannot be addressed without talking about value. The thesis further examines the factors that cause uncertainty over the value of writing oneself, both within the structures of higher education and with respect to students’ ideas of valued skills in the society. The thesis argues that the multiplicity of logics of value in higher education can be reflected in rituals such as the defence, causing uncertainty over the value of writing oneself. When it comes to ideas of work, it is argued that the positive value placed on ‘aspiring’ (stremleniye) does not necessarily exclude buying, which is reflected in the stereotype of buyer as an ‘entrepreneur’. It is suggested that one useful way to approach (in)commensurability of buying and writing oneself are questions of time and examining the interplay of short- and long-term concerns. The thesis argues that the existence of multiple logics of value in higher education is nothing new, and that the continuities and transformations of informal practices from the Soviet times need to be traced. In addition to the discourse of 'personal choice' of buying, students’ accounts included examples of other informal practices such as help and cooperation between classmates including practices such as sharing answers in the exams. Unlike buying, such positively valued practices were presented more in terms of obligation to one’s classmates. The thesis considers what the commonness of shadow economic services might mean imply for the relations between classmates, as transactions involve relations between peers. It is thus argued that it is necessary to consider what kind of factors allow the practice to continue from the perspective of social relations. The thesis shows how the study of informal practices can provide useful insights for refining anthropological theories of value.