Unemployment and Solidarity in Post-Communism - Negotiating Meanings between the West and the Past

Abstract

Research into living in former communist, neo-capitalist countries identifies what could be called a 'post-communist paradox of desolidarisation' - i.e. persistent egalitarian values coincide with low levels of involvement in solidary activities. Unemployment, introduced during the process of mainstreaming these societies towards a Western model of economy and society, is one of the more recent phenomena that establishes new social categories and redefines the relations between the individual, the 'other' (here: the unemployed) and the state. On the basis of a young Lithuanian between education and work and how he negotiates old and new shares of knowledge related to work and unemployment, the paper argues that undefined relations between potential strangers within this triangle account for some of the enigma of post-communist non-solidarity.