Focusing on language and media in Asian Russia, particularly in Buryat territories, Mixed Messages engages debates about the role of minority media in society, alternative visions of modernity, and the impact of media on everyday language use. Kathryn E. Graber demonstrates that language and the production, circulation, and consumption of media are practices by which residents of the region perform and negotiate competing possible identities.

What languages should be used in newspapers, magazines, or radio and television broadcasts? Who should produce them? What kinds of publics are and are not possible through media? How exactly do discourses move into, out of, and through the media to affect everyday social practices? Mixed Messages addresses these questions through a rich ethnography of the Russian Federation's Buryat territories, a multilingual and multiethnic region on the Mongolian border with a complex relationship to both Europe and Asia.

Mixed Messages shows that belonging in Asian Russia is a dynamic process that one cannot capture analytically by using straightforward categories of ethnolinguistic identity.

About the Author

Kathryn E. Graber is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University.

Reviews

Grounded in a rich set of ethnographic evidence, the author skillfully combines ethnographic, digital ethnographic, sociolinguistic, and archival data on Buryat-Russian language and on the production and consumption of local media such as print, radio, TV, and digital media. Considering the amount of information and evidence on which this study is based, Graber offers an impressive account of detailed analysis of ethnographic and archival data, cleverly tied up to the central concerns of the book, minority publics, and notions of belonging.

* JOURNAL OF LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY *

This book is essential for linguistic anthropologists and anyone studying the languages, cultures, and histories of Russia, Siberia, and Central Asia. It is also a valuable read for anyone interested in the discourses, ideologies, and practices we find connected to minoritized and indigenous language maintenance and revitalization anywhere in the world. Graber's writing is engaging and precise, whether she is discussing the nuances of linguistic anthropological theory or presenting an ethnographic vignette; she is a skilled storteller and reading the book was a pleasure.

* Sibrica *


Awards
Runner-up for Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies 2020 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781501750519
Author Kathryn E. Graber
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 21mm