Catalogue

Lisiunia A. Romanienko is currently the Hedwig Katschinka Research Fellow of the Inter-University Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture at Graz University of Technology, Austria. She received her BA from Rutgers University, MS from the New School for Social Research, and her PhD from Wroclaw University, Poland. She has conducted research and advocated on behalf of the ethnic poor throughout the United States and Eastern Europe and is active as an applied sociologist who has held a variety of institutional appointments and research projects spanning five continents. This book represents the culmination of a longitudinal research project focusing on contemporary youth in transitional contexts, and was awarded a Ministry of National Education Grant from the Republic of Poland, as well as a dissertation research grant from the Kosciuszko Foundation. Her studies focus on barriers that hinder social, cultural, and economic development and have been published in Women in Management Review, Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, International Review of Social History, the UNESCO Observatory on Multidisciplinary Research in the Arts, and the International Encyclopedia of Civil Society.

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Based on a 15 year longitudinal cross-cultural analysis on the role of the body in identity construction process around the world, this analysis provides readers with a comparative theoretical exploration of piercing and other forms of body modification that international communities of defiance use to express their identity.

A theoretical exploration of piercing and other forms of body modification that urban communities of defiance use to express their identity, this analysis demonstrates the socioeconomic, political, and sexual conditions that give rise to these unique mechanisms of discursive dissent. Romanienko also describes the resources available that contribute to its popularity, the disenchantment with modernity and conventional methods of political engagement that compels defiant communities to choose these particular forms of embodied defiance, as well as the profound socioeconomic and political challenges solidifying embodied militancy for the immediate future. Using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, body piercing is shown to be an important factor in the struggle for authenticity and global solidarity with the disenfranchised, particularly in developing cultural contexts. Extracts of the manuscript have received awards from the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the Mid-South Sociological Association.

Based on a fifteen year longitudinal cross-cultural analysis on the role of the body in identity construction process around the world, this analysis provides readers with a comparative theoretical exploration of piercing and other forms of body modification that international communities of defiance use to express their identity. Romanienko describes the socioeconomic and political conditions that give rise to these unique mechanisms of discursive dissent, the communal and nonmaterial resources available to the participants that contribute to their popularity and exclusivity, and the profound challenges they face for the immediate future. Her analysis, through patient and judicious observation spanning more than a decade, captures the depth and breadth of this unique and diverse community through a balanced and objective lens.

This analysis provides readers with a comparative theoretical exploration of piercing and other forms of body modification that international communities of defiance use to express their identity