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    • PEOPLE

    Andrey Vozyanov

    Andrey Vozyanov is a social anthropologist (Ph.D. in Social Anthropology), sound-designer and lo-fi musician (kate in the box, Novy Byt) based in Minsk. Since 2016 he is a researcher and editor at Minsk Urban Platform and is currently working on a podcast show about post-Soviet urbanism which he questions from the perspective of a Minsk citizen. Since 2018 he has been teaching media and communications at European Humanities University, Vilnius. In 2020 he developed a lockdown podcast Excursions Through an Mp3-player, which came out of Facebook audio-diary, drawings, and seminars, but remained unreleased due to the events of summer 2020 in Belarus.

    GRASSROOTS SOCIOLOGY, DATA HIERARCHIES, AND THE CHALLENGES OF POSING RELEVANT QUESTIONS IN AND ABOUT BELARUS

    Andrey Vozyanov

    For years, the Lukashenka regime has been suppressing credible statistics on public opinion and independent sociological reports. As a result, the data on Belarus obtained by local grassroot initiatives, independent researchers, and established institutions both within and outside the country are severely distorted. In this essay, Andrey Vozyanov outlines how sociological work is hindered on many levels in Belarus, and describes how various groups in the society try to compensate for this deficiency. Vozyanov also addresses the marginalization of the leftist voices within the international public debate on the subject and presents arguments for more flexible and sensitive ways to approach empirical data given the major challenges that sociological work faces in the country.

    CAN YOU STRUGGLE WELL ENOUGH? NGO WORKERS AMIDST THE BELARUSIAN PROTEST

    Andrey Vozyanov

    Social anthropologist Andrey Vozyanov, analyzing his own experience and the evidence from his colleagues, reflects on the status of NGO workers in Belarus amidst the ongoing 2020 protests: "According to numerous critics of the protest movement, none of the protesters in Belarus are doing it right. Frustrated by the fact that the protest has not immediately resulted in the regime’s fall, different groups within it are blaming each other."