Social cohesion in the villages: the emotional experience of transformations and perception of future

Abstract

The article examines the social cohesion of the inhabitants of the Russian village, the features of which are closely related to the social transformations of recent years. Based on the analysis of the results of qualimetric (social cohesion) and qualitative (life-style) research, the authors assess the level and character of the social cohesion, and offer explanations for the low integration of the rural community into Russian society at the societal level. The analysis of the interview transcripts is made with the emphasis on the subjective aspects of transformational and integrative processes in the countryside, which are examined through the analysis of villagers’ experience. Based on interviews with rural people, the authors examine the nature of their cohesion, which makes it possible to partially explain the feeling of hopelessness, narrowness of the time perspective, social fatigue, nostalgia for the past and behavioral passivity, low civil and protest activity, preventing the integration of the rural community into the new economic and social relations and strengthening general solidarity of Russian society. The authors conclude that “minimalistic” expectations, “the traditionalist” labor attitudes and the tendency to isolation of the peasant make up a coherent ethical system developed on the basis of the crisis of social and personal identity, the narrowing of time perspective, feelings of low self-efficacy.