Arel, Dominique, and Blair A. Ruble, eds. Rebounding Identities: The Politics of Identity in Russia and Ukraine.

• Author: Gibbons, Michael S.
• Position: Book review

Arel, Dominique, and Blair A. Ruble, eds. Rebounding Identities: The Politics of Identity in Russia and Ukraine. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. xii + 365 pages. Cloth, $55.

Dominique Arel, a specialist in Ukrainian studies, and Blair A. Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute, have compiled a volume that this reviewer finds especially useful. Having grown up during the Cold War, and attended college when the Berlin Wall fell, I always considered Russia something of a mystery, and I imagine that this is true of a generation of sociologists and other social scientists. Rebounding Identities examines contemporary Russian identity politics in a way that expands and improves the historical understanding of the region.

As an edited volume, some understanding of the book's structure is required. It is composed of three sections: the first focusing on cleavages within and between cultures, the second on the difficulties in defining categories, and the third on the shifting attributes of these categories. The volume is framed by an introduction by Arel and a conclusion by Ruble.

The section that addresses cultural cleavages features articles on nationalist separatism, language and ethnicity, religious identities, and anti-Chinese-immigrant hostilities. The section on category definitions includes articles about politicizing ethnicity through cartography, the legacy of religious identification of the Soviets, and a comparison between Ukrainian and Russian treatments of post-Soviet refugees. The section on shifting attributes discusses the growth of evangelical Christianity, the paradoxical effects of Soviet assimilation programs, and the different referent-worlds of speaking Tartan in public (i.e., the different socially constructed realities of Russian vs. Tartan). This collection of essays is diverse, and the introduction and conclusion rein it in, giving it direction. Ruble's conclusion especially points toward the various directions in which scholars can take these studies, including statecraft, security, and identity through language.

Identity is composed of two important aspects that are not usually discussed in common. These are the individual's claimed identity and the community with which an individual identifies. Various articles within this collection discuss each of these levels, and there is some understanding of the tension and politics between them. There is also an understanding of ascribed identities over which...