Emptiness

Living capitalism and democracy after postsocialism

Field Reports

The unmaking of Blackpool

Authors: Dace Dzenovska

Types: Observations, Visual Essays

Location: United Kingdom

Themes: Mobility, Poverty, Tourism

News & Events

Convening panel and speaking at ASA2023 on ‘Global Echoes of War’

Publications

Smashed tabernacle: Catholic emptiness and nationalism in post-industrial Scotland

Authors: Dominic Martin

Location: United Kingdom

Themes: Materiality, Nationalism, Religion

Dominic Martin, seeking to understand the phenomenon of ‘emptiness’, reflects on the emblematic trajectory of a remarkable building and the mythopoetic insight it provides into the absent future of the Scottish Catholic experience: the celebrated modernist architectural ruin, St Peter's, Cardross, Scotland.

About

92-year old Milda lives in a village next to a former railway station in the Latvian-Russian borderlands. During the Soviet period, it was a vibrant transportation hub. Residents recall 'wagons of watermelons' that passed through and 'crowds of summer residents' that came from Leningrad. Things have changed since then. This European Research Council-funded project aims to find out what these changes mean for the people who are living them, and what they reveal about forms of capitalism and political authority in postsocialist spaces and beyond.

Collaborate with us

If you would like to find out more about the project or contribute a blog on a resonant aspect of your own research to the Field Reports section of our website, please get in touch by writing to emptiness@anthro.ox.ac.uk.