Fujimura takes us across history and into Russian society, its orphanages and shelters, and along the streets of the nation to see how abandoned children are stigmatized and shunned. Readers come to understand how and why these children, left orphans by death or by choice, form their own culture to find power and to survive. This pioneering work on child abandonment looks at Russian society from a new angle: from the perspectives of abandoned youngsters and their caretakers. Based on direct observation of and interviews with abandoned children, this work shows why any effort to rescue these children calls for a deep understanding of Russian culture, and why any effort to address abandonment in Russia calls for a joint effort between psychologists, social workers, and the children themselves.
Researcher Fujimura takes us across history, into Russian society, its orphanages and shelters, and along the streets of the nation to see how abandoned children are stigmatized and shunned. We also come to understand how and why these children, left orphans by death or by choice, form their own culture to find power and to survive. This pioneering work on child abandonment looks at Russian society from a new angle: from the perspectives of abandoned youngsters and their caretakers. Based on direct observation of and interviews with abandoned children, this work shows why any effort to rescue these children calls for a deep understanding of Russian culture, and why any effort to affect abandonment in Russia calls for a joint effort between psychologists, social workers, and the children themselves.
Clementine K. Fujimura is an Associate Professor of language and culture studies at the United States Naval Academy, where she teaches Russian and German, culture, and literature courses. She received her doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago and has been writing about Russia's homeless children, abandonment, and its cultural concept of childhood since 1991. She has received numerous grants and fellowships in support of her work on homeless children in Russia.
Sally W. Stoecker is a Lecturer in ciminology and criminal law, and a candidate of sciences, at Baikal State University of Economics in Irkutsk, Russia. Her reserach focuses on child homelessness, drug addiction of minors, and juvenile crime. She is formerly Coordinator of the Irkutsk Center for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption in Irkutsk.
Tatyana Sudakova is Scholar-in-Residence at American University's Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC), where she conducts research on human trafficking, child homelessness and exploitation, and juvenile crime. Stoecker also teaches courses on child homelessness and exploitation, and juvenile crime. Stoecker teaches courses on Russian politics in the School of International Service at American University and served as Executive Editor of
Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization for six years.
