Article ID: CBB070008182

(Re)Constructing the Baikal-Amur Mainline: Continuity and Change of (Post)Socialist Infrastructure (December 2020)

unapi

Olga Povoroznyuk (Author)


Transfers
Volume: 10
Issue: 2-3
Pages: 250-269


Publication Date: December 2020
Edition Details: Special section: On the promise and menace of Railroad Projects
Language: English

The construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in East Siberia and the Russian Far East in the 1970s and 1980s was the largest technological and social engineering project of late socialism. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the BAM was dogged by economic bust, decline, and public disillusionment. BAM-2, a recently launched state program of technological modernization, aims to complete a second railway track. The project elicits memories as well as new hopes and expectations, especially among “builders of the BAM.” This article explores continuity and change between BAM-1 and BAM-2. It argues that the reconstruction efforts of the postsocialist state are predetermined by the durability of the infrastructure as a materialization of collective identities, memories, and emotions.

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Associated with

Article Peter Schweitzer; Olga Povoroznyuk (December 2020) Introduction: Precarious Connections: On the Promise and Menace of Railroad Projects. Transfers (pp. 137-151). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB070008182/

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Authors & Contributors
Baatarnaran Tsetsentsolmon
Guillermo Guajardo Soto
Michael Ra-shon Hall
Jie Zhang
Olga Povoroznyuk
Mikiya Koyagi
Concepts
Land transportation
Railroads
Mobility
Technology and society
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Infrastructure
Time Periods
20th century
21st century
19th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
Places
Russia
Soviet Union
Arctic regions
Iraq
Mexico City (Mexico)
Romania
Institutions
Trans-Siberian Railway
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