Drawing on a rich trove of focus group data, interviews, and
textual sources, Elaine Weiner's "Market Dreams" powerfully
captures the varied responses of female managers and factory
workers in the Czech Republic to their country's transition from
socialism to capitalism. Her work, rooted in sociology and
comparative feminism, is an important advance for the literature on
women in Eastern Europe.
""Market Dreams" is a conceptually-sophisticated and
empirically-rich account of how the discourses and practices of the
free market penetrated the hearts and minds of everyday Czech
citizens. Weiner's provocative analysis takes readers inside the
worlds of female factory workers to expose the discontinuities
between their radiant market dreams and their everyday
realities--and juxtaposes them to the continuities experienced by
female managers. In the process, it challenges many of our ideas
about post/socialism, marketization, and gender and reveals the
enduring power of stories in shaping social identities and
actions."
---Lynne Haney, Associate Professor of Sociology, New York
University
"Through interviews and a careful analysis of newspaper articles
written in the first decade after the collapse of state socialism,
Weiner explores the complicated interconnections between personal
stories and the emerging neoliberal metanarrative of the free
market in the Czech Republic after 1989. Her book transcends many
of the dichotomies with which researchers of post-state socialism
have been struggling: 'East' vs. 'West, ' losers and winners,
emancipation vs. oppression, etc., and thus makes a truly novel
contribution to our understanding of women's lives after state
socialism."
---EvaFodor, Assistant Professor of Gender Studies, Central
European University
"Weiner's rich and innovative study of female Czech managers and
workers exemplifies the importance of narrative analysis for
understanding why gender and class have not (yet) reconfigured the
sense of postcommunism's alternatives. This is critical reading for
feminists, class analysts, and students of postcommunist social
change."
---Michael Kennedy, Director, Center for European Studies,
University of Michigan
Elaine Weiner is Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill
University. Visit the author's website at:
www.mcgill.ca/sociology/faculty/weiner/.
Cover Credit: Frank Scherschel/Time & Life Pictures/Getty
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