Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Anthropology
Episode: Anna Zhelnina, "Private Life, Public Action: How Housing Politics Mobilized Citizens in Moscow" (Temple UP, 2025)
Description: Renovation, an urban renewal plan in Moscow that was announced in the spring of 2017, proposed to demolish thousands of socialist-era apartment buildings. In a country where it is rare under an authoritarian government, residents supported or opposed the redevelopment by mobilizing and organizing into local alliances. They were often shocked by their neighbors who were excited about the new housing or those suspicious of being displaced.
Private Life, Public Action: How Housing Politics Mobilized Citizens in Moscow (Temple UP, 2025) by Dr. Anna Zhelnina traces how residents impacted by the relocation plan became activists despite having little to n...