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| Working papers > List of papers |
| 2007-2 |
Stanislovas Tomas
Le rituel chamanique de la Court de Justice
Article uploaded: 2007-05-24 [open] []
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| 2007-1 |
Jolanta Reingardienė, Arnas Zdanevičius
Disrupting the (Hetero)normative: Coming-Out in the Workplace in Lithuania
The question surrounding discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation at the workplace is a new theme in Lithuanian social and political discourse on equal opportunities in working life. It is mostly discussed as a gendered or, sometimes, ageist issue, while a more elaborated intersectional approach towards the discrimination of homosexual people is clearly lacking. There is a lack of information on what the issues actually are and contextualized research into the experiences of silence and coming out, and how these experiences impact identity and relationship with others at work.
This study is based on thirty-eight in-depth interviews of LGBT people in Lithuania, carried out within the framework of the project Open and Safe at Work, supported by the European Union and the Lithuanian Government (EQUAL Initiative). The analysis below aims to explore how people of non-traditional sexual orientation construct their sexual identity at work and what their personal experiences of survival are in heteronormative working environments. Furthermore, we analyze how non-heterosexual identities are reflected in their choices whether to come out (i.e. openly revealing their lesbian or gay identifications) or to stay in the closet (i.e. not to come out and hiding their sexual identities). The major complication in carrying out research into sexual minorities in organizations is related to the question of how to gather data when silence surrounds them.
LGBT people and their problems are very much under-researched in Lithuania, because silence prevails and it is very difficult to get people to talk about the subject. We have strived to include the experiences of both people who are openly gay and those who keep the fact secret, as well as homosexuals of different genders, age groups (21-55) and from different geographical locations (Vilnius, Kaunas, Druskininkai and Šiauliai). The informants were selected by applying the snowball method. Some of our informants agreed to be interviewed themselves after reading our advertisements on the internet. The general profile of participants can be summarized as follows: twenty-five gay men, ten lesbian women, two bisexual men and one transgender person. Eight gay men and four lesbians work in career-oriented masculine professions (as ICT expert, engineers, self-employed, security guards, high level managers), twenty-five (19 men and 6 women BUT) participants work in women-dominated professions (such as health care, education, services) and one transgender person was unemployed for one year. In only seven cases, the informants are totally open about their sexuality at work, in ten cases they are open to only selected individuals, in the remaining twenty-one cases their identity is kept hidden.
Article uploaded: 2007-02-18 [download] []
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| 2006-1 |
Žilvinas Kačiuška
Heritage of Sovietism in Contemporary Lithuania: Perverted Conceptions of Property Relations
Žlugus Sovietų Sąjungai neretai Rytų ir Vidurio Europos šalys, įskaitant ir Lietuvą, yra pavadinamos antrosios Europos, agrarinio regiono ar Vakarų Europos periferijos epitetais. Kultūriniai ir ekonominiai naujosios Europos išskirtinumas dažnai aiškinamas kitokiu šių šalių visuomenių mentalitetu, kuris buvo (su)konstruotas sovietinio kolektyvizmo bei planinės ekonomikos modelio. Neretai konstatuojama, kad Rytų ir Vidurio Europos visuomenėse lėtai kintančios mąstymo kategorijos daro įtaka ekonomikos ir jos funkcionavimo sampratai. Ne išimtis ir Lietuva.
Ideologinis ir fizinis kolektyvizmo diegimas bei privataus sektoriaus žlugdymas prieštaravo Lietuvoje įsitvirtinusiam verslumo ir privačios nuosavybės sampratai. Straipsnyje teigiama, kad sovietmečiu įvyko abipusis dviejų sektorių (kolektyvinio ir privataus) persidengimas, kuomet privačios nuosavybės samprata sėkmingai adaptavosi komandinėje ekonomikoje ir per visą sovietmeti išliko aktyvi žmonių tarpusavio santykiuose.
Tačiau toks šešėlinis privataus sektoriaus statusas įtakojo ir iškreiptą nuosavybės santykių susiformavimą, kuris pasireiškė valstybinio ir privataus sektorių funkcijų susidubliavimu. Atgavus nepriklausomybę greitos žemės, nuosavybės ir socialinės reformos Lietuvos mieste ir kaime susidūrė su kolektyvizmo praktika ir šešėlinės ekonomikos, šešėlinio verslumo tradicija, kurios buvo įdiegtos sovietmečiu. Visa tai visuomenėje sąlygojo socialinio netikrumo jausmą bei susipriešinimą.
Article uploaded: 2006-09-18 [download] []
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| 2003-1 |
Ingrida Gečienė
Pitfalls and weaknesses of direct application of Western social theories to the study of post-communist societies: critical assessment of middle class and civil society concepts
This paper is devoted for the exploration of the particular dangers for a direct application of the Western social theories to explain the transformation process in post-communist countries. Sociology of these countries suffers greatly from a lack of deep theoretical analysis of social reality because most of the sociological researches hold pure descriptive character. In the best cases there are attempts to use or rather to strain Western social theories in examining of observed social facts. One of the arguments for such tendency is that our societies after the collapse of socialist regime have the direction towards the shape of Western countries with their developed democracy and economy, etc., therefore their theoretical basis must be as an analytical guide for social scientists. However, these theories were developed for different and relatively stable social environment, thus there is a risk to neglect distinct contexts and especially different cultural patterns in West and East European societies. I would like to illustrate these arguments by the two examples of questionable application of Western social theories, namely theories of middle class and civil society.
Article uploaded: 2003-12-05 [download] []
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