Egle Rindzeviciute
Kingston University, London, Criminology and Sociology, Faculty Member
- University of Gothenburg, GRI, Department MemberLinköping University, Studies of social change and culture, Faculty Memberadd
- Nationalism, Governance, Actor Network Theory, Cultural Policy, Global Governance, Governmentality, and 20 moreHistory of Museums, Cold War history, Organisation Studies, Lithuanian History, Knowledge Production, Technocracy, Soviet Studies, Semiotics, Bruno Latour, Soviet History, Cybernetics, Carl Schmitt, Baltic Studies, Soviet Union (History), Museum Studies, Cold War, Science and Technology Studies, Computer Networks, Databases, and Softwareedit
- I am Associate Professor of Criminology and Sociology at Kingston University London, UK. Before coming to Kingston, ... moreI am Associate Professor of Criminology and Sociology at Kingston University London, UK.
Before coming to Kingston, I did research and taught at Sciences Po in Paris (2012-2015), Gothenburg University (2009-2012) and Linkoping University (2003-2015) in Sweden.
I am a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Public Administration and a Honorary Research Fellow at Gothenburg Research Institute, Gothenburg University, and an Associate Professor in Culture Studies (docent) at the Department for Studies of Social Change and Culture, Linkoping University, Sweden.
I am a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and an editorial board member of The International Journal of Cultural Policy.
My research interests involve the sociology of culture, particularly cultural policy, heritage and creative industries, and the sociology of knowledge with a particular focus on cybernetics and the systems approach and their sociopolitical impact on global governance.
My most recent book, "The Power of Systems", was published by Cornell University Press in 2016. My next book, "Predicting Russia", examines the role of anticipatory governance in the transformation of an authoritarian regime.edit
In The Will to Predict, Eglė Rindzevičiūtė demonstrates how the logic of scientific expertise cannot be properly understood without knowing the conceptual and institutional history of scientific prediction. She notes that predictions of... more
In The Will to Predict, Eglė Rindzevičiūtė demonstrates how the logic of scientific expertise cannot be properly understood without knowing the conceptual and institutional history of scientific prediction. She notes that predictions of future population, economic growth, environmental change, and scientific and technological innovation have shaped much of twentieth and twenty-first-century politics and social life, as well as government policies. Today, such predictions are more necessary than ever as the world undergoes dramatic environmental, political, and technological change. But, she asks, what does it mean to predict scientifically? What are the limits of scientific prediction and what are its effects on governance, institutions, and society?
Her intellectual and political history of scientific prediction takes as its example twentieth-century USSR. By outlining the role of prediction in a range of governmental contexts, from economic and social planning to military strategy, she shows that the history of scientific prediction is a transnational one, part of the history of modern science and technology as well as governance. Going beyond the Soviet case, Rindzevičiūtė argues that scientific predictions are central for organizing uncertainty through the orchestration of knowledge and action. Bridging the fields of political sociology, organization studies, and history, The Will to Predict considers what makes knowledge scientific and how such knowledge has impacted late modern governance.
Her intellectual and political history of scientific prediction takes as its example twentieth-century USSR. By outlining the role of prediction in a range of governmental contexts, from economic and social planning to military strategy, she shows that the history of scientific prediction is a transnational one, part of the history of modern science and technology as well as governance. Going beyond the Soviet case, Rindzevičiūtė argues that scientific predictions are central for organizing uncertainty through the orchestration of knowledge and action. Bridging the fields of political sociology, organization studies, and history, The Will to Predict considers what makes knowledge scientific and how such knowledge has impacted late modern governance.
Research Interests: History of Science and Technology, Sociology, Future Studies, Social Theory, Russian Studies, and 10 morePublic Administration, Philosophy, Soviet History, Political Science, Urban Planning, History of Social Sciences, Organization Studies, science and technology studies (STS), Anthropocene, and Public Policy
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This book reconsiders the power of the idea of the future. Bringing together perspectives from cultural history, environmental history, political history and the history of science, it investigates how the future became a specific field... more
This book reconsiders the power of the idea of the future. Bringing together perspectives from cultural history, environmental history, political history and the history of science, it investigates how the future became a specific field of action in liberal democratic, state socialist and post-colonial regimes after the Second World War. It highlights the emergence of new forms of predictive scientific expertise in this period, and shows how such forms of expertise interacted with political systems of the Cold War world order, as the future became the prism for dealing with post-industrialisation, technoscientific progress, changing social values, Cold War tensions and an emerging Third World. A forgotten problem of cultural history, the future re-emerges in this volume as a fundamentally contested field in which forms of control and central forms of resistance met, as different actors set out to colonise and control and others to liberate. The individual studies of this book show how the West European, African, Romanian and Czechoslovak "long term" was constructed through forms of expertise, computer simulations and models, and they reveal how such constructions both opened up new realities but also imposed limits on possible futures.
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Research Interests: Management, History, Diplomatic History, Sociology, Political Sociology, and 21 moreRussian Studies, International Relations, Social Sciences, Soviet History, Governmentality, Environmental History, Political Science, Cold War, Politics, Organization Studies, Transnational History, Forecasting, Michel Foucault, Global History, STS (Anthropology), Environmental Sustainability, History of Nuclear Weapons, Research Policy, Political Sciences, Anthropocene, and Public Policy
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Research Interests:
Arts and Humanities Research Council,
research grant AH/S001301/1
Kingston University London, Concluding report
Author: Dr Eglė Rindzevičiūtė,
Kingston University London, UK
Kingston upon Thames, 2022
research grant AH/S001301/1
Kingston University London, Concluding report
Author: Dr Eglė Rindzevičiūtė,
Kingston University London, UK
Kingston upon Thames, 2022
Research Interests:
This position statement summarises the discussion that took place as part of the AHRC research networking project “Nuclear Cultural Heritage: From Knowledge to Practice” in Thurso, Scotland, 12 September 2019. This project explores the... more
This position statement summarises the discussion that took place as part of the AHRC research networking project “Nuclear Cultural Heritage: From Knowledge to Practice” in Thurso, Scotland, 12 September 2019. This project explores the emerging field of nuclear cultural heritage. It aims to establish links between national and international nuclear cultural heritage researchers, the heritage sector and the nuclear sector. The P.I. and director of the project is Dr Egle Rindzeviciute, Associate Professor of Sociology at Kingston University London, UK. The opinions expressed in the document are not necessarily those of the authors’ employers. Contributors: Sam Alberti, National Museums Scotland Will Bell, Sellafield Ltd Robert Bud, Science Museum London Ele Carpenter, Goldsmiths, University of London Oliver Carpenter, Science Museum London Wayne Cocroft, Historic England Frank Dittman, Deutsches Museum Philip Greatorex, Sellafield Ltd James Gunn, Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd Rodney H...
Research Interests: Management, History, Cultural Studies, Physics, Nuclear Physics, and 15 moreAnthropology, Communication, Cultural Heritage, Heritage Studies, History of Technology, Political Science, Industrial Heritage, Politics, Culture, Cultural Heritage Management, History of Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear power, History of Philosophy, Public Policy, and Kingston University
This article explores the practice of preempting controversy as an example of the wicked problem of cultural participation in the digital media. Drawing on science and technology studies (STS), research into the history of cybernetics,... more
This article explores the practice of preempting controversy as an example of the wicked problem of cultural participation in the digital media. Drawing on science and technology studies (STS), research into the history of cybernetics, artificial intelligence (AI), and policy studies, it argues that the ongoing digital transformation and the expansion of the algorithmic public sphere does not solve but amplifies the problem of cultural participation, challenging the "participatory turn" in cultural policy, defined as cultural policy's reorientation to encourage participation of different stakeholders at different stages of policymaking. This process is analysed through two cases: the postponing of a retrospective exhibition of the painter Philip Guston in the United States and the pre-emptive ban of a public art project centred on a monument for the Soviet Lithuanian writer Petras Cvirka in Lithuania.
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This essay considers the TV miniseries Chernobyl (HBO, 2019) to engage in a wider debate on the social and institutional production of techno-science. It explores whether the series resonates with the existing narratives and... more
This essay considers the TV miniseries Chernobyl (HBO, 2019) to engage in a wider debate on the social and institutional production of techno-science. It explores whether the series resonates with the existing narratives and interpretations of Soviet technoscience in scholarly historiography. The author argues that although the series downplays important aspects of Soviet history, such as international knowledge transfer, it successfully demonstrates the hybrid character of nuclear power and the complexity of the relationship between scientific expertise and policy decision-making.
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Research Interests:
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The essay is published in the context of the exhibition Splitting the Atom (splittingtheatom.cc) at the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius Since the dawn of the nuclear age in the 1940s, scientists have been working on the development... more
The essay is published in the context of the exhibition
Splitting the Atom (splittingtheatom.cc) at the Contemporary
Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius
Since the dawn of the nuclear age in the 1940s, scientists
have been working on the development of power reactors –
fast reactors and slow; uranium, plutonium and thorium
fueled; with water and heavy (liquid) metal and other
coolants; compact and large; even mobile and portable. The
goal has been to generate thermal and electrical energy
safely and cheaply, or at least cheaply in comparison with
other power possibilities: coal, oil and gas; hydroelectricity;
wind and solar; and so on. But if the design of reactors relies
on cost and safety concerns, it also derives on such other,
often unspoken considerations as national engineering
culture and traditions and on what specialists may think the
public response will be to the deployment of massive power
reactors. The question of creating public trust in this new
technology – and maintaining it over 70 years of successes
and failures, power production and accidents – comes to the
fore.
Splitting the Atom (splittingtheatom.cc) at the Contemporary
Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius
Since the dawn of the nuclear age in the 1940s, scientists
have been working on the development of power reactors –
fast reactors and slow; uranium, plutonium and thorium
fueled; with water and heavy (liquid) metal and other
coolants; compact and large; even mobile and portable. The
goal has been to generate thermal and electrical energy
safely and cheaply, or at least cheaply in comparison with
other power possibilities: coal, oil and gas; hydroelectricity;
wind and solar; and so on. But if the design of reactors relies
on cost and safety concerns, it also derives on such other,
often unspoken considerations as national engineering
culture and traditions and on what specialists may think the
public response will be to the deployment of massive power
reactors. The question of creating public trust in this new
technology – and maintaining it over 70 years of successes
and failures, power production and accidents – comes to the
fore.
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Šį pokalbį inspiravo rugsėjo 17-ąją Vilniaus galerijoje "The Room" atidaryta paroda "Sodas ir kosmosas", kur fotomenininkė Agnė Gintalaitė pristatė savo projektą-tyrimą, fotomontažus ir video-audio instaliaciją. Projekto dėmesio... more
Šį pokalbį inspiravo rugsėjo 17-ąją Vilniaus galerijoje "The Room" atidaryta paroda "Sodas ir kosmosas", kur fotomenininkė Agnė Gintalaitė pristatė savo projektą-tyrimą, fotomontažus ir video-audio instaliaciją. Projekto dėmesio objektas-jos mamos, 9 dešimtmetyje buvusios žinomos grafikos menininkės Alfredos Venslovaitės-Gintalienės, pasitraukimas iš aktyvaus meninio gyvenimo. Venslovaitės Gintalienės grafiką Ramutė Rachlevičiūtė aprašė kaip "lunapolius". Venslovaitės Gintalienės kūriniuose naktinis barokinio Vilniaus senamiesčio peizažas primena mišką ("Gatvė naktį", 1976), o fantastiniai peizažai rezonuoja su Stanislawo Lemo kibernetine vizija.
https://artnews.lt/sodas-ir-kosmosas-apie-kuryba-ir-darbstumo-beprasmybe-pokalbis-su-agne-gintalaite-59741?fbclid=IwAR1ZrUDopJyOIUdiqSBc-DfYVVK9-QFbZxpXEWUImFAOmuS-OMN3ynRlJ-o
https://artnews.lt/sodas-ir-kosmosas-apie-kuryba-ir-darbstumo-beprasmybe-pokalbis-su-agne-gintalaite-59741?fbclid=IwAR1ZrUDopJyOIUdiqSBc-DfYVVK9-QFbZxpXEWUImFAOmuS-OMN3ynRlJ-o
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In this chapter I examine the development of Soviet decision sciences as an intellectual and institutional field where a new governmental epistemology emerged in the 1960s-1980s. This chapter is based on a study of archives of the Russian... more
In this chapter I examine the development of Soviet decision sciences as an intellectual and institutional field where a new governmental epistemology emerged in the 1960s-1980s. This chapter is based on a study of archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and interviews with ex-Soviet scholars who were involved in the development of systems analysis in the Soviet Union. Outlining the history of OR and systems analysis as a framework for decision making in the Soviet planning process, I trace their impact on a) conceptualization of governance, b) institutional design, and c) governmental practices, mainly economic planning. OR and systems analysis were part of the de-Stalinization process, distributing decision-making power among new, heterogeneous actors, such as decision scientists and professionally trained managers; this phenomenon is described as a rise of Soviet technocracy, a process which was shaped by East-West transfer where the elite Soviet scientists and highly positioned policy-makers learned from Western, predominantly US experience. Soviet decision sciences were initially adopted in military-industrial sector as an advanced but strictly technical instrument to improve decision making in industry and policy. However, in the 1960s, Soviet decision sciences developed an ambitious agenda, in effect becoming an alternative social science, formulating non-ideologically constricted explanations of social order and change. Decision-making was conceptualised as a de-personalised, adaptive process, one which at least conceptually permitted zones of autonomy and what was described as ‘degrees of freedom’. I propose that the history of early Soviet decision-science, therefore, is a story of a relative liberalisation of an authoritarian political regime, a process that addressed the same concerns as in the West (irrationality and mass participation in government) and also foregrounded later spread of neoliberal economic models.
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This position statement summarises the discussion that took place as part of the AHRC research networking project “Nuclear Cultural Heritage: From Knowledge to Practice” in Thurso, Scotland, 12 September 2019. This project explores the... more
This position statement summarises the discussion that took place as part of the AHRC research networking project “Nuclear Cultural Heritage: From Knowledge to Practice” in Thurso, Scotland, 12 September 2019. This project explores the emerging field of nuclear cultural heritage. It aims to establish links between national and international nuclear cultural heritage researchers, the heritage sector and the nuclear sector. The P.I. and director of the project is Dr Egle Rindzeviciute, Associate Professor of Sociology at Kingston University London, UK.
The opinions expressed in the document are not necessarily those of the authors’ employers.
Contributors:
Sam Alberti, National Museums Scotland
Will Bell, Sellafield Ltd
Robert Bud, Science Museum London
Ele Carpenter, Goldsmiths, University of London
Oliver Carpenter, Science Museum London
Wayne Cocroft, Historic England
Frank Dittman, Deutsches Museum
Philip Greatorex, Sellafield Ltd
James Gunn, Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd
Rodney Harrison, University College London
Jonathan Hogg, University of Liverpool
Sandra Kemp, Lancaster University
Susan Molyneux-Hodgson, Exeter University
Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Kingston University London
Linda Ross, University of the Highlands and Islands
Anna Storm, Linkoping University
Aditi Verma, Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), OECD
The opinions expressed in the document are not necessarily those of the authors’ employers.
Contributors:
Sam Alberti, National Museums Scotland
Will Bell, Sellafield Ltd
Robert Bud, Science Museum London
Ele Carpenter, Goldsmiths, University of London
Oliver Carpenter, Science Museum London
Wayne Cocroft, Historic England
Frank Dittman, Deutsches Museum
Philip Greatorex, Sellafield Ltd
James Gunn, Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd
Rodney Harrison, University College London
Jonathan Hogg, University of Liverpool
Sandra Kemp, Lancaster University
Susan Molyneux-Hodgson, Exeter University
Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Kingston University London
Linda Ross, University of the Highlands and Islands
Anna Storm, Linkoping University
Aditi Verma, Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), OECD
Research Interests: Management, History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Nuclear Physics, and 13 moreAnthropology, Cultural Heritage, Heritage Studies, Political Science, Industrial Heritage, Culture, Cultural Heritage Management, Intangible Cultural Heritage (Culture), History of Nuclear Weapons, Social Studies Of Science, Nuclear power, History of Philosophy, and Public Policy
Pokalbyje dalyvavo Marija Drėmaitė (Vilniaus universitetas), Monika Lipšic (kuratorė), Eglė Rindzevičiūtė (Kingstono universitetas Londone). Pokalbis surengtas per Agnės Gintalaitės parodos "Be perspektyvos / Grožio likučiai" atidarymą... more
Pokalbyje dalyvavo Marija Drėmaitė (Vilniaus universitetas), Monika Lipšic (kuratorė), Eglė Rindzevičiūtė (Kingstono universitetas Londone). Pokalbis surengtas per Agnės Gintalaitės parodos "Be perspektyvos / Grožio likučiai" atidarymą Vilniaus fotografijos galerijoje, 2019 m. liepos 31 d.
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In the context of global climate change, the whole world population is Leningrad. It is besieged by the catastrophic future.
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This article explores the political effects of the development of systems analysis as a form of 'infrastructural knowledge' – that is as a form of knowledge concerned with infrastructure, and an infrastructure of knowledge – that... more
This article explores the political effects of the development of systems analysis as a form of 'infrastructural knowledge' – that is as a form of knowledge concerned with infrastructure, and an infrastructure of knowledge – that contributed to internal dissensus among scientific experts in the Soviet Union. Systems expertise is largely missing from existing work on the history of Soviet infrastructure. The article presents a historical analysis of the development of governmental, managerial and industrial applications of systems analysis in the Soviet context, as well as the transfer of Soviet systems expertise to developing countries. It argues that systems analysis constitutes a form of infrastructural knowledge which enabled Soviet scientists to criticize governmental policies, particularly large-scale, top-down infrastructure projects. This critique is interpreted as an expression of a new normativity regarding what constitutes good governance; it became particularly salient when Soviet scientists were facing infrastructural projects in the global South. Systems analysis, in this way, constituted an important intellectual resource for endogenous liberalization of the authoritarian regime.
Research Interests: History, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Development Studies, and 15 moreSoviet History, Transnationalism, History of Science, Cuban Studies, Political Science, Governance, Sociology of Expertise, Vietnam, Soviet Union (History), New Institutionalism, Russia, science and technology studies (STS), New Materialism, Infrastructure, and Public Policy
This article introduces non-Western policy sciences into the burgeoning field of the intellectual history of Earth system governmentality, a field that studies the ideas, institutions and material systems that enable action at the global... more
This article introduces non-Western policy sciences into the burgeoning field of the intellectual history of Earth system governmentality, a field that studies the ideas, institutions and material systems that enable action at the global scale. It outlines the rise of debates on the idea of the governability of the global biosphere in late Soviet Russia (1970s–1980s), focusing particularly on the extension of Vladimir Vernadskii's famous theory of the biosphere and its governance (the stage of the noosphere) into computer modeling and systems analysis. As a result, a new notion of governance as guidance through milieu arose to conceptualize global governance of the biosphere. This conceptual innovation was part of Soviet scientists' attempt to liberalize the centrally commanded Soviet governmental system.
Research Interests: History, Intellectual History, Sociology, Future Studies, Political Sociology, and 22 moreRussian Studies, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Globalization, Soviet History, Political Theory, Governmentality, International organizations, Global Governance, History of Science, Political Science, Cold War, Organization Studies, Environmental Policy and Governance, Michel Foucault, Russian History, Intellectual and cultural history, Environmental Sustainability, Soviet Union (History), science and technology studies (STS), Public Policy, and Science and Technology Studies
RÉSUMÉ L'objet‑frontière du communisme. Mettre en musée le passé soviétique Dans cet article, je défends l'idée que la perspective théorique de l'objet‑frontière peut utilement enrichir les études concernant la présentation du passé... more
RÉSUMÉ L'objet‑frontière du communisme. Mettre en musée le passé soviétique Dans cet article, je défends l'idée que la perspective théorique de l'objet‑frontière peut utilement enrichir les études concernant la présentation du passé soviétique dans les musées. Je m'appuie sur ce concept développé par Susan Lei Star et James R. Griesemer pour montrer comment différents objets et structures matérielles sont attribués à l'ère commu‑ niste, et assemblés à la façon d'un patrimoine culturel puis mis en scène grâce à l'expertise des professionnels par le biais de politiques institutionnelles. En me centrant sur trois exemples de musées en Lituanie, je montre que les expositions consacrées au passé soviétique doivent être comprises comme le résultat de la diffusion depuis le haut vers le bas de points de vue officiels soutenus par les élites du gouvernement. Au contraire, je suggère que l'on comprend mieux ces musées en tant que sites où les différents groupes se trouvent en compétition pour fixer les limites des reliques du passé soviétique. Mots‑clés : Communisme. Musées. Nationalisme. L'objet‑frontière. Lituanie. The last decade has seen a number of studies address the way the communist past is presented in museums and memorial sites in the
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This publication accompanies an exhibit "Assembling a Nuclear Lithuania," designed by Jonas Zukauskas and Egle Rindzeviciute, for the exhibition Baltic Material Assemblies, the Architectural Association, London, UK, March 2018.
Research Interests: Sociology, Cultural Studies, Human Geography, Eastern European Studies, Design, and 16 moreCultural Policy, Social Sciences, Architecture, Soviet History, Cultural Heritage, Political Science, Urban Planning, Politics, Architectural History, Post-Soviet Studies, Urban Sociology, Nuclear Energy, science and technology studies (STS), Nuclear Culture, Lithuania, and Public Policy
Purpose: Policy change is frequently framed as resulting from governmental strategy based on explicit preferences, rational decision-making and consecutive and aligned implementation. This article instead explores the theoretical... more
Purpose: Policy change is frequently framed as resulting from governmental strategy based on explicit preferences, rational decision-making and consecutive and aligned implementation. This article instead explores the theoretical perspective of institutional work as an alternative approach to understanding policy change, and investigates the construction of resources needed to perform such work. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a case study of the process wherein the idea of cultural and creative industries was introduced into Lithuanian cultural policy. The main data generating methods are document studies and qualitative interviews. Findings: The analysis demonstrates the ways in which the resources needed to perform institutional work are created through the enactment of practice, and through the application of resourcing techniques. Three such techniques are identified in the empirical material: the application of experiences from several fields of practice, the elicitation of external support, and the borrowing of legitimacy. Originality/value: The study offers an alternative approach to studies of policy change by demonstrating the value of institutional work in such change. Further, it contributes to the literature on institutional work by highlighting how instances of such work, drawing on a distributed agency, interlink and connect to each other in a process to produce policy change. Finally, it proposes three interrelated resourcing techniques underlying institutional work.
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Nuclear energy is not just a utility technology, it is also a resource for political and cultural power. In this article I discuss the changes of the political and societal meanings of nuclear energy in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, as... more
Nuclear energy is not just a utility technology, it is also a resource for political and cultural power. In this article I discuss the changes of the political and societal meanings of nuclear energy in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, as nuclear power left the laboratories, plants and factories and entered a very different symbolic space: the museum. Heritage and cultural memory scholars are acutely aware that the past is often invoked and retrospectively constructed in order to shape the future. Accordingly, I posit that the creation of Russian museums of nuclear energy can be understood as a way of forging a particular path to the future.
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In The Power of Systems, Egle Rindzeviciute introduces readers to one of the best-kept secrets of the Cold War: the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, an international think tank established by the U.S. and Soviet... more
In The Power of Systems, Egle Rindzeviciute introduces readers to one of the best-kept secrets of the Cold War: the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, an international think tank established by the U.S. and Soviet governments to advance scientific collaboration. From 1972 until the late 1980s IIASA in Austria was one of the very few permanent platforms where policy scientists from both sides of the Cold War divide could work together to articulate and solve world problems. This think tank was a rare zone of freedom, communication, and negotiation, where leading Soviet scientists could try out their innovative ideas, benefit from access to Western literature, and develop social networks, thus paving the way for some of the key science and policy breakthroughs of the twentieth century.
Ambitious diplomatic, scientific, and organizational strategies were employed to make this arena for cooperation work for global change. Under the umbrella of the systems approach, East-West scientists co-produced computer simulations of the long-term world future and the anthropogenic impact on the environment, using global modeling to explore the possible effects of climate change and nuclear winter. Their concern with global issues also became a vehicle for transformation inside the Soviet Union. The book shows how computer modeling, cybernetics, and the systems approach challenged Soviet governance by undermining the linear notions of control on which Soviet governance was based and creating new objects and techniques of government.
Ambitious diplomatic, scientific, and organizational strategies were employed to make this arena for cooperation work for global change. Under the umbrella of the systems approach, East-West scientists co-produced computer simulations of the long-term world future and the anthropogenic impact on the environment, using global modeling to explore the possible effects of climate change and nuclear winter. Their concern with global issues also became a vehicle for transformation inside the Soviet Union. The book shows how computer modeling, cybernetics, and the systems approach challenged Soviet governance by undermining the linear notions of control on which Soviet governance was based and creating new objects and techniques of government.
Research Interests: History, Eastern European Studies, Soviet History, Ethnography, Governmentality, and 14 moreInternational organizations, Contemporary History, Environmental History, Cybernetics, Political Science, Cold War, Systems Analysis, Michel Foucault, Bruno Latour, Environmental Humanities, Cold War history, science and technology studies (STS), Slavic Studies, and Public Policy
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In The Power of Systems, Egle Rindzeviciute introduces readers to one of the best-kept secrets of the Cold War: the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, an international think tank established by the U.S. and Soviet... more
In The Power of Systems, Egle Rindzeviciute introduces readers to one of the best-kept secrets of the Cold War: the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, an international think tank established by the U.S. and Soviet governments to advance scientific collaboration. From 1972 until the late 1980s IIASA in Austria was one of the very few permanent platforms where policy scientists from both sides of the Cold War divide could work together to articulate and solve world problems. This think tank was a rare zone of freedom, communication, and negotiation, where leading Soviet scientists could try out their innovative ideas, benefit from access to Western literature, and develop social networks, thus paving the way for some of the key science and policy breakthroughs of the twentieth century.
Ambitious diplomatic, scientific, and organizational strategies were employed to make this arena for cooperation work for global change. Under the umbrella of the systems approach, East-West scientists co-produced computer simulations of the long-term world future and the anthropogenic impact on the environment, using global modeling to explore the possible effects of climate change and nuclear winter. Their concern with global issues also became a vehicle for transformation inside the Soviet Union. The book shows how computer modeling, cybernetics, and the systems approach challenged Soviet governance by undermining the linear notions of control on which Soviet governance was based and creating new objects and techniques of government.
Ambitious diplomatic, scientific, and organizational strategies were employed to make this arena for cooperation work for global change. Under the umbrella of the systems approach, East-West scientists co-produced computer simulations of the long-term world future and the anthropogenic impact on the environment, using global modeling to explore the possible effects of climate change and nuclear winter. Their concern with global issues also became a vehicle for transformation inside the Soviet Union. The book shows how computer modeling, cybernetics, and the systems approach challenged Soviet governance by undermining the linear notions of control on which Soviet governance was based and creating new objects and techniques of government.
Research Interests: Management, Sociology, International Relations, Organizational Theory, Globalization, and 24 moreClimate Change, Soviet History, Government, Actor Network Theory, Governmentality, Contemporary History, Cold War and Culture, Environmental History, Cybernetics, Political Science, Liberalism, Cold War, Sociology of Expertise, Transnational History, Michel Foucault, Global History, STS (Anthropology), Bruno Latour, Control Systems, Authoritarianism, History of Cybernetics, Philosophy of Cybernetics, Foucault power/knowledge - discourse, and Public Policy
Research Interests: Sociology, Cultural Studies, Eastern European Studies, Cultural Sociology, Development Studies, and 11 moreOrganizational Theory, Architecture, Actor Network Theory, Infrastructure Planning, Political Science, Baltic Studies, Post-Soviet Studies, STS (Anthropology), History of Art, Lithuanian History, and science and technology studies (STS)
This article analyzes the development of Soviet scientific future studies after World War II, arguing that the field’s theory and methods undermined the certainty of the communist future and laid the foundations for a new Soviet... more
This article analyzes the development of Soviet scientific future studies after World War II, arguing that the field’s theory and methods undermined the certainty of the communist future and laid the foundations for a new Soviet governmentality that acknowledged the intrinsic uncertainty of future development. The emphasis on uncertainty-but also the need for more data that could freely circulate between different branches of government and hence more transparency (glasnost’)-called for radical revisions to Soviet notions of effective governance. Whereas some used future studies to criticize the actual practices of Soviet economic planning, others used this new type of expertise to extend personal influence and accumulate organizational power. Both cases, however, made it clear that Soviet governance had to accommodate the shift toward new constellations of power/knowledge in which scientific experts would play an ever-increasing role in shaping policy with regard to a fundamentally uncertain future.
Research Interests: Management, History, Economic History, Sociology, Political Sociology, and 14 moreEastern European Studies, Russian Studies, Public Management, Soviet History, Governmentality, Cybernetics, Political Science, Governance, Cold War, Modernization, Forecasting, science and technology studies (STS), Slavic Studies, and Public Policy
This article uses the metaphor of overflow to understand the role played by the revelation of previously secret experience in the controversial Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius, Lithuania. It shows how efforts to disclose Soviet... more
This article uses the metaphor of overflow to understand the role played by the revelation of previously secret experience in the controversial Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius, Lithuania. It shows how efforts to disclose Soviet repression and to consolidate and sustain a particular community of survivors, the Union of Political Prisoners and Deportees, produced an “excess” of revelation in a context of radical political change that in the process led to a failure to represent the complexity of Lithuania’s past by sidelining the Holocaust in its narrative of repression. In contrast to other studies that understand this museum as an instrument of a particular governmental ideology, I suggest an alternative explanation of the origins and character of this museum, arguing that it should be understood as a community museum. I argue that the museum’s failure to provide a balanced presentation of the past is better understood as an effect of an excessive desire to reveal the particular experiences of this community, which I describe as an overflow of meanings, not merely a result of the governmental elite’s will to suppress alternative versions of the past.
Research Interests: Management, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Political Sociology, Eastern European Studies, and 11 moreAnthropology, Cultural Policy, Museum Studies, Organizational Culture, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Political Science, Transitional Justice, Post-Soviet Studies, Cultural Heritage Management, Lithuanian History, and History of Communism; Soviet; Post-Soviet; Russia; Eastern Europe
This chapter examines the ways in which computer-based global modelling enabled East-West cooperation. Both the development of the software and production of the data for global models required intense, face-to-face cooperation between... more
This chapter examines the ways in which computer-based global modelling enabled East-West cooperation. Both the development of the software and production of the data for global models required intense, face-to-face cooperation between Soviet and Western scientists. As a result a particular transnational group of global modellers emerged and created a new vision of an interdependent world. The very method of global modelling required the opening up of the Soviet system to the impacts of global economic and environmental processes and, by revealing long-term consequences of contemporary policies was used by Soviet scientists to criticize the fallacies of the Soviet system.
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This article examines the ways in which future as a dimension of goal-oriented behaviour was used to organise and legitimise informal practices of management and planning in the Soviet Union. This study introduces hitherto unexplored... more
This article examines the ways in which future as a dimension of goal-oriented behaviour was used to organise and legitimise informal practices of management and planning in the Soviet Union. This study introduces hitherto unexplored history of reflexive management under the authoritarian regime. Focusing on the work of the Russian philosopher and management guru Georgii Shchedrovitskii, I argue that the Soviet technologies for governing the future were produced a much more complex intellectual and social milieu than it has been previously thought. Drawing on the cybernetic notion of teleology, which posited reflexive goal-setting as a key condition of control, Shchedrovitskii taught Soviet managers to formulate their own goals, thus contributing to the erosion of the Communist Party’s monopoly of goal-setting. Furthermore, through the means of organisational-business games this new teleology not only transformed bureaucratic administrations into informal collectives, but also provided informality with an unprecedented legitimacy, emancipatory in the Soviet context, but highly ambiguous in post-Soviet era.
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Šiuo esė noriu skaitytoją pakviesti atrasti ir tirti infrastruktūras kaip centrines politines utopijas, formuojančias Baltijos visuomenių istoriją ir ateitį. Jeigu nacionalinės kultūros, kurios iš tikro yra išrastos tradicijos, siekia... more
Šiuo esė noriu skaitytoją pakviesti atrasti ir tirti infrastruktūras kaip centrines politines utopijas, formuojančias Baltijos visuomenių istoriją ir ateitį. Jeigu nacionalinės kultūros, kurios iš tikro yra išrastos tradicijos, siekia transformuoti ateitį selektyviai aktualizuodamos praeitį, infrastruktūros įgyvendina ateitiškumą. Lietuvoje turime išplėtoti naują konceptualų aparatą ir vaizdinę kalbą, leidžiančią aprašyti į ateitį nukreiptą infrastruktūros veiklą. Tai sunki, bet būtina užduotis, kurios keletą galimų aspektų aptariu šioje esė.
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One of the contemporary “turns” in management studies is the “performativity” turn. In this paper, we present a genealogy of the concept of performativity as it has been used in management and organization studies (MOS). Starting with the... more
One of the contemporary “turns” in management studies is the “performativity” turn. In this paper, we present a genealogy of the concept of performativity as it has been used in management and organization studies (MOS). Starting with the work of Austin, Bateson, Goffman and Lyotard, we move on to more recent debates surrounding the use of the concept by Butler and the STS researchers Callon, Latour and Law, as well as how their ideas have been further translated within MOS. The focus is on how the concept is defined and on the areas of study where performativity has been used. Taken together, the approach to performativity employed has implications for how the concept is understood and translated. Finally, we discuss the particular ontological position of the performative perspective, and its methodological consequences.
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This article examines the transfer of creative industries as a policy idea to Lithuania. Tracing the stages of the transfer and analysing its consequences in the local cultural policy field, this paper argues for the importance of... more
This article examines the transfer of creative industries as a policy idea to Lithuania. Tracing the stages of the transfer and analysing its consequences in the local cultural policy field, this paper argues for the importance of studying cultural policy process. The findings reveal that the process of the international transfer of creative industries mattered, because it generated wider transformations in cultural policy field by having ambiguous effects on local power relations. The policy idea of creative industries opened the cultural policy field to new actors. As a result, competition for scarce state funding increased, but cultural organisations gained access to the European Union structural funds. In all, creative industries as a policy idea significantly transformed Lithuanian state cultural policy, in that it led to a reassessment of both the practices and identities of cultural organisations.
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This paper presents a general overview of the process of the democratisation of cultural policy in Lithuania by exploring explicit arguments about democratisation in debates and policy documents in Lithuania (1988–2011). At the early... more
This paper presents a general overview of the process of the democratisation of cultural policy in Lithuania by exploring explicit arguments about democratisation in debates and policy documents in Lithuania (1988–2011). At the early stage of transformation (1988–1992), democratisation was envisaged as the administrative decentralisation of political institutions, particularly the Ministry of Culture, and as the introduction of democratic principles, such as freedom of speech and cultural self-regulation. More substantial meanings of democratisation
were articulated in debates about ethnic diversity and social equality. The study reveals tensions between the values of high culture and pop culture and the unitary notion of Lithuanian national ethnic culture and the cultures of national minorities. At a later stage, the salience of the ethnic dimension decreased when the democratisation of cultural policy was conceptualised in relation to the knowledge economy, which required revision of the early post-Soviet confrontation between culture and its economic use.
were articulated in debates about ethnic diversity and social equality. The study reveals tensions between the values of high culture and pop culture and the unitary notion of Lithuanian national ethnic culture and the cultures of national minorities. At a later stage, the salience of the ethnic dimension decreased when the democratisation of cultural policy was conceptualised in relation to the knowledge economy, which required revision of the early post-Soviet confrontation between culture and its economic use.
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Skaidros Trilupaitytės knygos " Kūrybiškumo galia? Neoliberalistinės kultūros politikos kritika " (Demos, 2015) laukiau itin nekantriai. Knygos šia tema mums reikėjo tikrai labai seniai; iš tiesų, būtų buvę gerai ją perskaityti jau 10ojo... more
Skaidros Trilupaitytės knygos " Kūrybiškumo galia? Neoliberalistinės kultūros politikos kritika " (Demos, 2015) laukiau itin nekantriai. Knygos šia tema mums reikėjo tikrai labai seniai; iš tiesų, būtų buvę gerai ją perskaityti jau 10ojo dešimtmečio pradžioje: knygos tema buvo aktuali ir tada, ir yra dabar. Tačiau turėjo praeiti net ketvirtis amžiaus – o taip pasakius tampa visiškai nebejuokinga, – kad Lietuvoje pasirodytų rimta studija, apmąstanti vietinės šiuolaikinės kultūros politikos ir kultūros raidą kaip integralią pasaulinių procesų dalį. "
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This is a pre-print version of my book review, originally published in Ab Imperio (2014).
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Acknowledging that every study of post-Soviet museums is a pilot study and that it is subject to the aforementioned limitations, this chapter seeks to cast some light on the rich social, material, political, and professional diversity and... more
Acknowledging that every study of post-Soviet museums is a pilot study and that it is subject to the aforementioned limitations, this chapter seeks to cast some light on the rich social, material, political, and professional diversity and heterogeneity of assembling the communist past in Lithuanian museums. The analysis focuses on six museums, created by amateurs or cultural professionals, owned by the state or private individuals, newly built or revamped: the Ninth Fort , the Museum of Victims of Genocide, the Museum for Resistance and Deportations in Kaunas (established in 1993 and transferred to Kaunas City Museum in 2005), Grūtas Statue Park, the Lithuanian National Art Gallery, the Open Air Museum's Sector for Deportations and Resistance.
State museums are often misunderstood to be channels for official state discourses that stem from policy documents and politicians’ speeches. However, in many cases a state museum is just an administrative status, when in fact the organization was created and maintained by civil society groups that managed to lobby and gain state funding and administrative support. It can perhaps be agreed on a minimal definition of a museum as an attempt (not a final result) to stabilize an idea or a story as an important one and relevant to the public. Museums are organizations, and like all organizations, they are better understood as processes, as a mesh of social practices and material settings. The museums’ formal administrative structures inscribed on paper and embodied in the architecture of offices and bank accounts, and their exhibitions, publications, and objects in storage are just one part of a highly complex reality. A proper study of a museum would be sensitive to this processual and material nature and investigate the moments of change. Ultimately, we study museums in order to contribute to a better understanding and discourse about the past: an academic study should avoid treating its object of analysis, critique, and advice as a static entity.
State museums are often misunderstood to be channels for official state discourses that stem from policy documents and politicians’ speeches. However, in many cases a state museum is just an administrative status, when in fact the organization was created and maintained by civil society groups that managed to lobby and gain state funding and administrative support. It can perhaps be agreed on a minimal definition of a museum as an attempt (not a final result) to stabilize an idea or a story as an important one and relevant to the public. Museums are organizations, and like all organizations, they are better understood as processes, as a mesh of social practices and material settings. The museums’ formal administrative structures inscribed on paper and embodied in the architecture of offices and bank accounts, and their exhibitions, publications, and objects in storage are just one part of a highly complex reality. A proper study of a museum would be sensitive to this processual and material nature and investigate the moments of change. Ultimately, we study museums in order to contribute to a better understanding and discourse about the past: an academic study should avoid treating its object of analysis, critique, and advice as a static entity.
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This chapter responds to recent critiques of the public uses of histories of the Holocaust and communist crimes in Lithuania by exploring the creation of the Museum of Genocide Victims and Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum in Vilnius. It has... more
This chapter responds to recent critiques of the public uses of histories of the Holocaust and communist crimes in Lithuania by exploring the creation of the Museum of Genocide Victims and Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum in Vilnius. It has become a cliche to argue that Lithuanian public sector organisations, particularly museums, emphasise the terrible legacy of communist crimes and that they tend to forget - and even actively avoid making public - information about the killings of Lithuania’s Jews. Participation of ethnic Lithuanians in the Holocaust, such critiques argue, is particularly obscured. This study provides empirical data which questions this view: it brings to attention the history of Vilna Gaon Jewish Museum, the existence of which has so far been overlooked by many scholars. In addition, this chapter suggests that in order to better understand the development of museum exhibitions about difficult periods in Lithuania’s past, the Holocaust and communist crimes, it is necessary to go beyond the
prevailing theoretical framework which analyses museum exhibitions as representations. Given that museums are highly heterogeneous organisations, which function as a result of collaboration (but not necessarily consensus) among many different actors, it is useful to study them as public knowledge regimes, a theoretical perspective developed by Michel Foucault and his followers. This Foucauldian approach is enriched with the organisational theory of ‘institutional entrepreneurs’, promoted by Paul DiMagio, which focuses particularly sharply on the potentially controversial role of individuals in creating and institutionalising organisations.
prevailing theoretical framework which analyses museum exhibitions as representations. Given that museums are highly heterogeneous organisations, which function as a result of collaboration (but not necessarily consensus) among many different actors, it is useful to study them as public knowledge regimes, a theoretical perspective developed by Michel Foucault and his followers. This Foucauldian approach is enriched with the organisational theory of ‘institutional entrepreneurs’, promoted by Paul DiMagio, which focuses particularly sharply on the potentially controversial role of individuals in creating and institutionalising organisations.
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In 2017, the same year when the prominent French sociologists Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre published their book Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities (in French, translated into English in 2020), Bloomberg opened their new... more
In 2017, the same year when the prominent French sociologists Luc Boltanski and Arnaud Esquerre published their book Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities (in French, translated into English in 2020), Bloomberg opened their new headquarters building in the City of London. The newly erected structure encapsulated multiple layers of enrichment: the business news corporation, which made financial profits from its effective, globalised and outsourced information services, housed in what was labelled as ‘the world’s most sustainable building,’ carbon neutral, aesthetically striking and built using locally sourced materials through community engagement. The spectacular building incorporated ancient Roman archaeological remains that were uncovered during the excavation and paid tribute to Walbrook river, long relegated to flow as an underground sewer, through a trio of stunning fountains designed by the Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias. It is this kind of seamless intertwining of global capitalism, high culture, sustainable design and narratives and meaning-making that interest Boltanski and Esquerre.
In Enrichment Boltanski and Esquerre seek to discern the process of value creation and profit accumulation in late capitalism, characterised by a drive to sell things to people who already have all the necessities they need. This form of capitalism does not replace the traditional serial industrial production, supplying high volumes of standardised goods at low prices, but is developed as an addition to it, as the industrial production of standardised goods has been delocalised to countries with a cheaper labour force. Having dislocated the workshop industries, the rich – or old industrial countries – have been developing a new mode of capitalist production, which is about creating ‘differences’ and discourses of value, used to justify premium prices in the market. This book explores the logic of such difference-making and forms of valuation.
In Enrichment Boltanski and Esquerre seek to discern the process of value creation and profit accumulation in late capitalism, characterised by a drive to sell things to people who already have all the necessities they need. This form of capitalism does not replace the traditional serial industrial production, supplying high volumes of standardised goods at low prices, but is developed as an addition to it, as the industrial production of standardised goods has been delocalised to countries with a cheaper labour force. Having dislocated the workshop industries, the rich – or old industrial countries – have been developing a new mode of capitalist production, which is about creating ‘differences’ and discourses of value, used to justify premium prices in the market. This book explores the logic of such difference-making and forms of valuation.