Publication:
THE PEOPLE WHO “BURN”: “COMMUNICATION,” UNITY, AND CHANGE IN BELARUSIAN DISCOURSE ON PUBLIC CREATIVITY

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorDonal Carbaugh
dc.contributor.advisorBenjamin Bailey
dc.contributor.advisorJonathan Wynn
dc.contributor.authorDinerstein, Anton
dc.contributor.departmentUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst
dc.date2024-03-27T19:07:01.000
dc.date.accessioned2024-04-26T15:38:34Z
dc.date.available2024-04-26T15:38:34Z
dc.date.submittedMay
dc.date.submitted2020
dc.description.abstractThe main intellectual problem I address in this study is how everyday communication activates the relationship between creativity, conflict, and change. More specifically, I look at how the communication of creativity becomes a process of transformation, innovation, and change and how people are propelled to create through everyday communication practices in the face of conflict and opposition. To approach this problem, I use the case of communication in modern-day Belarus to show how creativity becomes a vehicle for and a source of new social and cultural routines among the independent grassroots communities and initiatives in Minsk. On one level, I show how local research participants communicate six cultural identities through a cultural discourse when they speak about public creativity in Belarus. Additionally, I show how these categories of identity are structured as oppositional cultural codes, such as “State” vs. “People” or “Indifferent people” vs. “Talented, really creative people,” and how these discursive oppositions reflect a similar dynamic found in Ruthenian/Russian culture where the continuous interplay of opposing values has been a foundation of cultural unity throughout history. On another level, I show how the participants of these grassroots communities problematize the existing ideas and practices of being a Belarusian and of being a citizen in general. The prevailing cultural myth suggests that Belarus, like many post-Soviet spaces, is inferior to the “progressive” “West” and the “USA.” However, this is not the way Belarus is symbolically constructed in the grassroots communities I studied. The Belarus they envision living within is a place of togetherness, of synergetic cooperation, and with the emergence of alternative mythology and everyday routines out of which cultural, business, and social innovations arise. On yet another level, this research suggests that the process of creativity is, in its essence, a process of innovation, transformation, and change. I argue that such creative transformative processes in the society involve conflict, opposition, a struggle with everyday reality, out of which innovations come to life.
dc.description.degreeDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
dc.description.departmentCommunication
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.7275/xvb4-th95
dc.identifier.orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-8782-834X
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/18195
dc.relation.urlhttps://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2981&context=dissertations_2&unstamped=1
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
dc.source.statuspublished
dc.subjectPublic creativity
dc.subjectritual
dc.subjectcultural discourse analysis (CuDA)
dc.subjectcultural identity
dc.subjectBelarus
dc.subjectsocial change
dc.subjectAnthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics
dc.subjectArt Practice
dc.subjectCivic and Community Engagement
dc.subjectContemporary Art
dc.subjectCritical and Cultural Studies
dc.subjectDiscourse and Text Linguistics
dc.subjectEastern European Studies
dc.subjectEpistemology
dc.subjectEuropean Languages and Societies
dc.subjectFolklore
dc.subjectIndigenous Studies
dc.subjectInternational and Intercultural Communication
dc.subjectLanguage Interpretation and Translation
dc.subjectLinguistic Anthropology
dc.subjectModern Art and Architecture
dc.subjectOther Arts and Humanities
dc.subjectOther Communication
dc.subjectOther Languages, Societies, and Cultures
dc.subjectOther Linguistics
dc.subjectOther Philosophy
dc.subjectOther Political Science
dc.subjectOther Social and Behavioral Sciences
dc.subjectOther Sociology
dc.subjectPhilosophy of Language
dc.subjectPlace and Environment
dc.subjectPolitics and Social Change
dc.subjectQuantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies
dc.subjectRace and Ethnicity
dc.subjectRussian Linguistics
dc.subjectSocial and Cultural Anthropology
dc.subjectSocial Psychology and Interaction
dc.subjectSociology of Culture
dc.subjectSoviet and Post-Soviet Studies
dc.subjectSpeech and Rhetorical Studies
dc.subjectTheory and Criticism
dc.subjectUrban Studies
dc.subjectUrban Studies and Planning
dc.titleTHE PEOPLE WHO “BURN”: “COMMUNICATION,” UNITY, AND CHANGE IN BELARUSIAN DISCOURSE ON PUBLIC CREATIVITY
dc.typeopenaccess
dc.typearticle
dc.typedissertation
digcom.contributor.authorisAuthorOfPublication|email:adinerstein@umass.edu|institution:University of Massachusetts Amherst|Dinerstein, Anton
digcom.identifierdissertations_2/1923
digcom.identifier.contextkey17230175
digcom.identifier.submissionpathdissertations_2/1923
dspace.entity.typePublication
relation.isAuthorOfPublicationda7278ab-63da-4697-bd85-7dbf8f2739a3
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscoveryda7278ab-63da-4697-bd85-7dbf8f2739a3
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
AD_Dissertation_Final_Draft.docx
Size:
354.64 KB
Format:
Microsoft Word XML
Name: AD_Dissertation_Final_Draft.docx
Size: 354.64 KB
Kind: Microsoft Word XML
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
auto_convert.pdf
Size:
1.23 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Name: auto_convert.pdf
Size: 1.23 MB
Kind: Adobe PDF
Collections
Dissertations