CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Evgenii Leonov |
|---|---|
| Title | Necropolitics in the Digital Age: Grief, Dead Soldiers, and Russian Social Media during the Invasion of Ukraine |
| Summary | Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, communities of grief where people collectively mourn the soldiers who died in the war have appeared on Russian digital social networks. “Molimsya vmeste o voinah” (“We Pray Together for Warriors”) is an online community that appeared shortly after the start of military drafts. I analyze how digital grief and memory practices acquire necropolitical meaning in the context of the war. Building on Mbembe's concept of necropolitics, I ask how it refers to the place of death in the illiberal regimes in the digital age. Digital ethnography is a primary method of research. The data was collected through “nethnographic” observations, unstructured interviews, and critical visual analysis applied to the aesthetics of virtual mourning culture. Despite substantial theoretical contributions, I argue that the concept does not account for the effects of digital media and the fragmentation they generate. Revisiting the political meaning of the digital dead, I build a model of necropolitical management of grief based on my empirical analysis and rooted in Goffman's dramaturgical management of impressions. |
| Supervisor | Kowalski, Alexandra; Naumescu, Vlad |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/leonov_evgenii.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University