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External identities of another culture, such as cosmopolitic,
transnational, universalist identity, etc., form in their combination with the
‘internal’ identities the configurations that destroy the ‘unifying’ identity
and the established social order. This may happen, first of all, where the
acceptance of a foreign real world is perceived as a ‘significant other.’ This
sample of another culture is impressed in individuals, social groups, or
social strata as something really affordable and being realized ‘here and
now’. This drastic transformation looks as an inevitable alternative to the
public order. Formation and accentuation of counter-identities is the basis
of technologies that destroy the ‘unifying’ identity
125
. According to
G. Sharp, orange revolutions are based on this scheme.
Today's society is largely associated with the dominance of the
discourse of consumerism. Moreover, it is quite reasonable to talk about the
ideology of consumerism.
In modern European and American societies, to be very often
means to have. The dominant imperative in the relationship between man
and thing is possession. Descartes could say today: "I consume, therefore I
am." Or, as is customary to say now: "Tell me what you possess (what you
have), and I'll tell you who you are." Helga Dittmar expressed these trends
in the following words: “In Western societies, individual identity is strongly
influenced by material consumption of the individual. The nature of
material consumption serves as a symbol of one’s belonging to certain
social groups and a means of defining it for others”
126
.
Consumerism in West European and North American countries
today largely determines the self-identification of the individual and the
group as a whole. The technology of this process was the subject of
research by P. Lunt and S. Levingston
127
, the main hypothesis of which was
the assumption that it is consumerism that provides identity formation for
the majority of members of modern Western societies. The study was
125
See Capitsyn, V.M. (2010), Globalizatsiya i upravlenniye identifikatsiyami:
prolegomeny k strategii razvitiya Rossii [Globalization and the management of
identities: Prolegomena to the strategy of development of Russia]. In: Tsennosti i
smysly [Values and Meanings]. Vol. 5 (8). P. 78–80. (In Russian).
126
Dittmar, H.The Social Psychology of Material Possessions. Hemel Hempstead:
Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992., P. 205
127
Lunt, P. and Levingston, S. Mass consumption and Personal Identity: Everyday
Economic Experience. Buckingham and Bristol: Open University Press, 1992
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
91
conducted using in-depth interviews (sampling of 279 people) and focus
groups (9 discussions). The main conclusion: the style and culture of a
person’s consumption affect not only the adoption of everyday economic
decisions, but also his social activity, everyday life, family life,
relationships with other people. Based on the specifics of consumer habits,
the English researchers identified five typical groups:
• Alternative buyers (which, according to the researchers, make
12 % of respondents) – this group prefers to purchase goods at sales, open
markets, second-hand stores. They seek to resist the pressure of advertising
and find little pleasure in shopping.
• Ordinary buyers (31 %) – for them, shopping is a routine
activity, not a pleasure. At the same time, they prefer to shop at central
stores and avoid alternative markets.
• Shopaholics (24 %) – this category of consumers is most
consistent with the meaning of the phrase: “I buy, therefore, I am.” Those
belonging to this group enjoy the process of consumption, from the very
visit of the shops, which they perceive as a pleasant pastime and a leisure
activity.
• Benefit seekers (15 %) – they find shopping quite pleasant, but
they are rather attracted by the result than by the process. They enjoy using
the purchased goods. They tend to avoid visiting alternative markets (the
improper quality of goods) and to spend their money quite reasonably (the
price-quality ratio).
• Economic shoppers (18 %) — enjoy bargains. Therefore, they
are ready to wander about shops and markets for hours in search of a
profitable purchase. They are waiting for sales to buy expensive things
128
.
At the same time, Lunt and Levingston built a kind of scale
consisting of binary oppositions reflecting consumer habits, and positioned
the respondents within this framework. For example, paying in cash or by
credit card, purchasing based on necessity or on a whim and style,
purchasing a new thing or a second-hand one, etc. Eventually, four key
consumer strategies were identified, determined by specific motivation:
1. Choice based on the need for a thing and not by orientation to
others who have this thing.
128
Lunt, P. and Levingston, S. Mass consumption and Personal Identity: Everyday
Economic Experience. Buckingham and Bristol: Open University Press, 1992.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
92
2. Choice based on certain abstract principles (for example, buying
the first thing you liked, but not looking at the whole range of similar
products).
3. Permanent self-control and economy.
4. Following warnings and tips.
Identity here is considered as a matter of discussion with oneself,
and the final choice is made by the person (after all, shopaholics constitute
a minority).
So, it appears that society members can practically build their
identities based on what and where they consume. But, in addition, no less
important is why (in what sense context) this or that thing and service is
purchased. This is particularly true of young people. As S. Miles fairly
notes: “Young people construct their identity under the influence of the
surrounding community of their age-mates, rather than based on the fact of
purchasing specific goods, since even the nature of their interrelations
presupposes consuming certain things, often playing a key role in the
lifestyle of a specific ‘set’"
129
.
The importance of the problems associated with consumption in
modern societies is directly reflected in the scientific discourse. This
follows from a heated debate as to whether "consumption is characteristic
of social life" or, conversely, "social life is characteristic of the
consumption process". Social sciences traditionally view cultural
phenomena in close connection with the phenomena of what is considered
material by definition. In this case, it is the material culture.
The modern material culture of largest economies is characterized,
according to English sociologist C. Lury, by 13 main features. Among
them, the most important are:
1. The increasing number of consumer goods.
2. Tendencies to use market mechanisms and principles to solve
more and more social problems. For example, it is already customary to say
that students are consumers of educational services.
3. Shopping has become a form of leisure.
4. The number of sales methods, from mail catalogs and online
stores to giant department stores and the ability to shop without leaving the
car or the cabin of the airplane.
129
Miles, M. Consumerism As a Way of Life. London: SAGE Publications, 1995.
P. 153.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
93
Political organizations of consumers appear. For example, the socalled ‘green consumers’ who prefer to buy environmentally friendly
products and thus support champions of environmental purity (75 thousand
copies of the guidebook for ‘eco-supermarkets’ sold for a week). The
influence of consumer organizations is also growing, which can organize
serious campaigns such as boycotting certain manufacturers' goods and
making demands for adoption of new bills. In the US, Consumer
Association is a strong organization, preferred not to be quarrel with.
5. Sport is becoming increasingly commercialized and associated
with the interests of producers of consumer goods makers. It’s not in vain
that the Olympics or the FIFA World Cup is now a unique opportunity to
reach out to billions of potential consumers, and, therefore, the time of
broadcasts is linked with the interests of advertisers and sponsors.
6. Visible lifting of restrictions on taking out consumer credits and
change in the public opinion about living on credit. If, in previous decades,
borrowing money for current consumption was considered undesirable or a
sign of poverty, then at the moment a credit card is an integral attribute of
wallets of most social groups. Its specific variety (brand) is a symbol of
belonging to the elite (say, American Express Gold).
7. An increasing emphasis is made on consumer goods style,
design, and image.
The identifying role of consumption is increasingly recognized by
researchers in our country, too. Thus, in 2015, the Public Opinion
Foundation presented a study which revealed the existence of six types of
Russians, depending on their consumer behavior and life strategy
130
. In
March 2015, using multivariate analysis methods, based on the materials of
a national megapoll (60,500 respondents aged 18+), six different styles of
life for modern Russians were modeled: ‘investors’ (1 %), ‘travellers’
(13 %), ‘hedonists’ (16 %), ‘borrowers’ (19 %), ‘everymen’ (43 %),
‘outsiders’ (7 %). The most complete (each and all test variables) set of
130
Bogomolova, E.V. (2016) Deystvuyushchiye litsa rossiyskogo sotsiuma i ikh
antikrizisnyye strategii [Actors in the Russian Socium and Their Anticrisis
Strategies]. In: Bogomolova, E.V., Galitskaya, E.G., Kot, Yu. A., and
Petrenko, E.S., eds. In: Sotsiologicheskiye versii sotsialnogo klasterizma
[Sociological Versions of Social Clusterism]. / URL –
http://psihdocs.ru/dejstvuyushie-lica-rossijskogo-sociuma-i-ih-antikrizisniestra.html (In Russian).
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
94
practices was identified in the ‘investors’. In addition, only they (60 %)
invest money in securities and only among them every second (45 %) uses
the services of a housekeeper.
Among the ‘travelers’, almost two thirds (62 %) travel abroad,
71 % fly by airplanes, every second (54 %) deals with foreign currency, but
none of them is interested in securities.
Hedonists do not go abroad, they do not invest money in securities,
do not have foreign currency, and they do not fly. But they much oftener
than representatives of other lifestyles (36 % vs. 9 % among all
respondents) visit beauty salons and 4 times oftener than on average in the
sample, buy sports goods (46 %). And every fifth (21 %) of them goes to a
fitness center or to a sports club.
The overwhelming majority of ‘borrowers’ live on credit: 76 % of
them have taken out loans with banks for the last 2–3 years and 43 % have
taken out loans in stores. Naturally, they neither invest money in securities
nor go abroad, nor go to fitness centers or beauty salons.
But the largest lifestyle, ‘everymen’ (43 %), are not involved in any
of the daily practices considered. Nevertheless, 44 % of everymen now use
the Internet, 20 % drive a car, and 16% have paid for purchases with a
plastic card.
For the ‘outsiders’ (7 %), none of the modern consumer practices
(even a mobile phone) is currently available.
They predominantly live in the country, very rarely – in a
metropolitan region. The overwhelming majority (69 %) are non-working
pensioners.
As can be seen from the above, marketization and commodification
(becoming a product or service) of an increasing number of social life
manifestations results in dominance of the ideological discourse of
consumerism in identification processes as well, that can not be ignored by
researchers.
Another extremely important point in the sociocultural parameters
of youth identity determined by the ideology of communication in
cyberspace – ‘neticism’ (from the English ‘net’). There is even the term of
‘netizen’, i.e. the acronym for ‘net citzen’. ‘Being online’ is practicaly an
imperative for the modern young people. Gadgets and various devices that
allow you to be a participant of communications in social networks are the
main identifying attribute. The discourse of communication, on the one
hand, creates the feeling of solidarity of all members of the network over
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
95
the class superiority or material or ethnic differences and on the other hand,
it increases the emphasis towards professional, ethnic, and other cybercommunities. Identification of a ‘netizen’ is expressed by an imperative like
"Tell me what Internet resources you use, and I'll tell you who you are".
Evolving Capitsyn’s matrix approach, in our opinion, it is expedient
to supplement the list of social and political dimensions of identities. In
particular, to the identities defined by him as social, i.e. territorial (instinct),
natural (corporeal), spiritual (cultural), and agent (professional) varieties we
would add consumer and cyberspace (network) identities. This will allow
us, in our opinion, to more closely grasp the configuration of the identities
of contemporary Russian youth and to give their specifications. In fact, our
approach involves constructing of a three-dimensional matrix that allows us
to compare empirical data and identify the specifics of configurations of
multiple identities in Russia.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
96
Raushaniia I. Zinurova
Doctor of Sociology, Full Professor at Kazan National Research
Technological University.
Dr. Zinurova graduated from the Faculty of History, Kazan State
University (Russia) and has been working within the system of higher
education since 1990. She headed the Department for Social Work of the
Academy of Social Education in 1996-2006. She is also the author of over
150 publications, including monographs, such as Universal Human Values
in Quran, Ethnic Socialization of Youth, Social Work with Neglected
Minors, and Dialog of Cultures (all in Russian).
This author’s research is aimed at developing a positive ethnic
identity of a person and the constructive intercultural interactions within the
multiethnic society of Russia, as well as at studying the modernization of
higher education and innovative and corporate vocational education.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
97
Andrey R. Tuzikov
Doctor of Social Sciences, Full Professor, the Head of Department
for Public Administration and Sociology, and the Dean of the Faculty of
Industrial Policy and Business Administration at Kazan National Research
Technological University. He defended his doctor’s theses at the Institute of
Socio-Political Research of RAS in 2003.
Dr. Tuzikov is the member of Petrovskaya Academy and of the
Russian Municipal Academy and the corresponding member of the Russian
Political Science Academy. He is the leading researcher at the Institute of
Advanced Economic Studies at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of
Tatarstan. He is also the award winner of programs of international
cooperation, such as DAAD, MION (Interregional Research in Social
Studies, Russia), Fulbright, Ford, and TEMPUS.
This author focuses on the problems of modern ideological
sociology, sociology of mass communications, political sociology,
sociology of sports and health, sociology of education, and sociology of
culture.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
98
EDUCATIONAL EDITION
Andrey Tuzikov
Raushaniya Zinurova
RUSSIAN SOCIETY
AND RUSSIAN CIVIL IDENTITY
CASE OF THE YOUTH
Responsible for publishing E. B. Gayazova
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99
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