Rural Space (Re)Produced: Alternative Representations, Practices and Imagination of Post-Soviet Rural Women in Estonia

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Rural Space (Re)produced: Alternative Representations, Practices and Imagination of Post-Soviet Rural Women in Estonia

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UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

RURAL SPACE (RE)PRODUCED: ALTERNATIVE REPRESENTATIONS, PRACTICES AND IMAGINATION OF POST-SOVIET RURAL WOMEN IN ESTONIA

Kerli Kirch Schneider

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the University of Miami in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Coral Gables, Florida

August 2019

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

RURAL SPACE (RE)PRODUCED: ALTERNATIVE REPRESENTATIONS, PRACTICES AND IMAGINATION OF POST-SOVIET RURAL WOMEN IN ESTONIA

Kerli Kirch Schneider

Approved:

______Christina Lane, Ph.D. Wanhsiu S. Tsai, Ph.D. Chair and Associate Professor of Associate Professor of Cinema and Interactive Media Strategic Communication

______Kim Grinfeder, M.A. Guillermo Prado, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Dean of the Graduate School Cinema and Interactive Media

______Vicki Callahan, Ph.D. Associate Professor of the Practice of Cinematic Arts University of Southern California

KIRCH SCHNEIDER, KERLI (Ph.D., Communication)

(August 2019) Rural Space (Re)produced: Alternative Representations, Practices and Imagination of Post-Soviet Rural Women in Estonia.

Abstract of a dissertation at the University of Miami.

Dissertation supervised by Professor Christina Lane. No. of pages in text. (220)

The dominant discourses of Eastern European rural regions portray them as passive, homogeneous places and “the greatest ‘losers’ of the post-socialist transition” (Saar,

2008, 140). This dissertation explores the (re)production of post-Soviet rural space from the perspective of Estonian rural women. It utilizes a multi-perspectival approach that tackles the production of space from three interrelated angles: representational, material, and symbolic (Lefebvre, 1991; Halfacree, 2007). It asks what kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural femininities emerge in connection with the representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of Estonian rural women, and which coherences and contradictions surface from the multiple ways of “telling” and performing these ruralities. It draws on variety of theories and concepts from cultural studies, cultural geography, post-socialist studies and gender studies; and combines various qualitative methods, including textual analysis, focus groups, respondent interviews and observations in two geographically different rural areas in Estonia. The results demonstrate that the alternative representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of Estonian rural women are mainly challenging the dominant ideas of post- socialist rurality and rural femininities. These post-Soviet rural women have developed alternative, empowered identities that help them to renegotiate their place in society.

Dedication Page

To my mom, Kaie – the strongest rural woman I know.

iii

Acknowledgement Page

Thank you to my wonderful chair and advisor, Christina Lane, who allowed me to explore topics that truly interest me and offered her guidance throughout the Ph.D. program. Big thanks also to my committee members—Sunny Tsai, Kim Grinfeder, and

Vicki Callahan—who “traveled” through the realm of Post-Soviet rural women with me.

Finally, thank you, Schneider, for always bearing with me.

Table of Contents

LIST OF FIGURES ...... viii LIST OF TABLES ...... ix CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1. Background: Discourse of Winners and Losers of Estonia’s Post-Socialist Transition ...... 1 1.2. Dominant Discourses of Rural Estonia ...... 4 1.3. Dominant Discourses of Estonian Rural Women ...... 9 1.4. Relevance: Cultural and Spatial Turns in Rural Studies ...... 12 1.5. Objectives and Research Questions ...... 15 1.6. Scope and Methodology ...... 17 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 20 2.1. Critical Paradigm ...... 20 2.2. Spatial Approach in Rural Studies ...... 24 2.2.1. Lefebvre’s Triadic Model of Social Space ...... 25 2.2.2. Halfacree’s Three-Fold Model of Rural Space ...... 30 2.3. Urban Hegemony and Rural-Urban Dualism ...... 33 2.4. East-West Dualism and Post-Socialist Rural Studies ...... 38 2.5. Gender Analysis in Rural Studies ...... 41 2.6. Post-Colonial Feminism ...... 43 2.6.1. Standpoint Theory and Intersectionality ...... 45 2.7. Feminism in Estonia ...... 48 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ...... 53 3.1. Researcher’s Role ...... 54 3.2. Textual Analysis ...... 56 3.3. Focus Groups and Respondent Interviews ...... 58 3.3.1. Participants ...... 59 3.3.2. Procedure ...... 62 3.3.3. Materials ...... 64 3.3.4. Data Analysis ...... 65 3.4. Field Observations ...... 67 3.4.1. Observation Sites and Participants ...... 68 3.4.2. Procedure ...... 70 3.4.3. Data analysis ...... 71

3.5. Establishing Trustworthiness ...... 71 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS ...... 75 4.1. Representations of Estonian Rural Women in the “Live on Earth” Movement’s Media Sites ...... 75 4.1.1. Introductory Texts of the “Live on Earth” Movement ...... 77 4.1.2. Experience Stories ...... 80 4.1.3. YouTube Infomercials ...... 88 4.2. Spatial Practices of Estonian Rural Women ...... 96 4.2.1. Rural Women and “Masculine” Work ...... 97 4.2.2. Rural Women as Post-Soviet Problem-Solvers ...... 100 4.2.3. Rural Women, Mother Earth, Green Politics and Bartering Economies ...... 116 4.3. Lived Experiences of Estonian Rural Women ...... 122 4.3.1. Stories of Heroic Rural Grandmothers ...... 123 4.3.2. Rural Women Finding Ways Out from the Post-Soviet Rural Depression .. 126 4.3.3. Self-Sufficient and Independent Rural Women ...... 130 4.3.4. Rural Women Negotiating Rural Idyll ...... 134 4.3.5. Rural Women Negotiating Heteronormativity ...... 139 4.3.6. Rural Women Challenging Rural-Urban Dualism ...... 143 4.4. Coherences and Contradictions of the Various Ways of Telling and Performing the Lives of Estonian Rural Women ...... 146 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS ...... 149 5.1. Conclusions of the Findings ...... 150 5.2. Theoretical and Practical Implications ...... 155 5.3. Limitations and Directions for Future Research ...... 161 WORKS CITED ...... 164 APPENDIX 1 ...... 176 APPENDIX 2 ...... 184 APPENDIX 3 ...... 186 APPENDIX 4 ...... 188 APPENDIX 5 ...... 193 APPENDIX 6 ...... 199 APPENDIX 7 ...... 205 APPENDIX 8 ...... 206 APPENDIX 9 ...... 208 APPENDIX 10 ...... 210

APPENDIX 11 ...... 212 APPENDIX 12 ...... 215 APPENDIX 13 ...... 218

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Lefebvre’s Triadic Model of Social Space ...... 26 Figure 2: Halfacree’s Three-Fold Model of Rural Space ...... 31 Figure 3: Meel and Toomas Valk, Nedsaja village, Setomaa ...... 81 Figure 4: Kail Visla with her husband ...... 82 Figure 5: Aveli sitting on a tractor ...... 84

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Focus Group and Interview Participants ...... 61 Table 2: Observations ...... 69

CHAPTER ONE:

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background: Discourse of Winners and Losers of Estonia’s Post-Socialist

Transition

Estonia is a small country located in Baltic-Nordic region of Europe with an area of 43, 465 km2, population of 1.3 million people, and a legacy of being one of the former

Soviet Union’s republics during 1945–1991. The contemporary, dominant image of

Estonia in global media highlights the country’s transformation from a poor Soviet republic to the European Union’s rising star.1 When compared to other post-socialist countries, Estonia has been frequently described as a ‘success story’ of capitalist modernization (Gylfason, 2009). According to the 2017 Economic Freedom of the World

Index, Estonia ranked the seventh highest score among the top 50 capitalist countries in the world (World Population Review, 2019).

Often referred to as “E-Estonia” and “digital nation,” the country has been globally recognized as one of the leaders in technology and innovation. e-Residency, e-

Identity, e-Health, e-Tax, e-Governance, i-Voting, etc. are just some of the e-solutions that make Estonia, where 99% of public services are available to citizens online, one of the most developed digital societies in the world (e-estonia). It was the first country to make internet access a human right, and largely due to its tech-savvy approach, Estonia currently holds the world record in unicorn startups2 per capita being the origin country

1 Global news stations, journals and magazines (e.g. Fortune, CNBC, Economist, Forbes, Business Times, Racounter, etc.) have referred to Estonia as “a preview to our tech future” (Walt, 2017), “the digital leader of Europe” (Gaskell, 2017), a world leader in technology and our digital future (A.A.K., 2013; Wong & Saiidi, 2017; Wee 2018); and even considered whether this country is the world’s most advanced digital society (Pickup, 2018). 2 A unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion.

1 2 of Skype (telecommunications software), TrasferWise (money transfer), Playtech

(gambling software), and Taxify (ride-hailing platform) (Vahtla, 2018).

This international representation of Estonia as a digital innovator is associated with its highly-developed cities, such as Tallinn and Tartu, and young, tech-savvy urban males as 100% of the founders, developers, and launchers of the world-known Estonian unicorns are men. As described in the e-Estonia official website, Estonian capital city,

Tallinn “has managed to harmonize its urban and digital development with the evolution of Estonia as a digital society.” (Plantera, 2018) Tallinn, and its surrounding county,

Harju, hold about 45% of Estonian overall population (589,610 people). Two next largest urban counties, Tartu and Ida-Viru, make up 22% of Estonian population (151,122 and

138,266, respectively). The remaining 33% of the country’s population is divided between twelve Estonian counties of which the majority are primarily rural. These regions are defined as areas that do not meet the urban thresholds in terms of population density (Statistics Estonia), and are not included in the global discourse of Estonia as a

‘success story’ of capitalist and digital modernization.

In sharp opposition to progressive images of the achievements of Estonian urban environment, Estonian “[r]ural areas are often considered among the greatest ‘losers’ of the post-socialist transition” (Saar, 2008, 140). The common depictions of post-Soviet rural places subordinate them in terms of rural-urban, center-periphery, and east-west divide, in which the rural, the periphery, and the East, all hold marginalized positions

(Kay, Shubin, & Thelen, 2012). Kay, Shubin, & Thelen (2012) claim that even academic research has mostly focused on the post-socialist cities “as catalysts of change”, while

“the day-to-day lives, thoughts and feelings of rural people as active agents in multiple

3 processes of transformation” have been overlooked (55). Instead, the post-socialist rural regions are perceived as passive, homogeneous places that are compared against the standards established by urban areas as well as the Western countryside.

These polarizations “are not only structured by hard materialities but also

(re)produced in hegemonic discourses” (Plüschke-Altof, 2017, 27). More specifically, they are constructed in the context of urban hegemony, which is why the post-socialist rural areas are faced with two separate, yet interconnected challenges—material hardships as well as discursive stigmatization (13). For example, a study by Nugin (2014) found that the negative media construction of rural identities contributes to outmigration from Estonian rural areas, which in turn leads to shutting down “many vital social structures,” such as “shops, pharmacies, libraries ... local pubs, [and] schools.” (51)

Hence, there are considerable differences in the standard of living between rural and urban Estonians. The opportunities that came along with new political, economic, and social circumstances did not benefit the condition of the post-Soviet countryside as they did advance the life in the cities (Saar, 2008).

The harshest post-Soviet realities have been experienced by rural women

(Coleman, 2005; Denisova, 2010) of whom many lost their jobs because of the political and economic reforms that took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union. While their urban counterparts had easier access to social activities and better opportunities to learn alternate professional skills, the range of social and professional opportunities for rural women was very limited and forced them to withdraw from the public sphere

(Hörschelmann & van Hoven, 2003). Hence, these women, who used to be the backbone of the countryside not only in terms of agricultural production but also in terms of social

4 life (Denisova, 2010), were forced to experience post-Soviet “displacement on the level of both material and sociocultural space.” (Hörschelmann & van Hoven, 2003, 742)

To sum it up, Estonia’s transition from one of the Soviet republics to a westernized European country has been accompanied by the discourse of “winners and losers.” While the positive discourse of Estonia as a global digital innovator includes young, tech-savvy urban males, the negative image of this country focuses on persistent gender inequalities, double-burden of (rural) women, and nearly impossible life in the peripheries. But despite the material and discursive hardships that the transitional period brought along, changes that have happened in the post-Soviet countryside and to rural women can also be viewed as new opportunities that create a space for renegotiating one’s place in the society, for developing alternative, empowered identities (Shurmer-

Smith, 2002). “Further, it may lead to the humble recognition that those who are seen as

‘marginal’ sit indeed squarely at the centre of western ‘progress’, which is so often bought at their expense.” (Hörschelmann, 2002, 64) Therefore, this dissertation brings together cultural studies, post-socialist studies, gender studies, and cultural geography to explore how post-Soviet rural space has been reshaped and reproduced by the women who occupy it. By doing that, it aims to expand the boundaries of all four fields.

1.2. Dominant Discourses of Rural Estonia

In 1971, a famous Estonian rock band, Rajacas, sang: “Oh, Estonia! Oh, birthland! Until your village lives, you will live, too.” This was during the Soviet era, when Estonians were protesting against massive industrialization that boosted urbanization and wiped away small local farms in the countryside. Today, however,

Estonian popular and news media are reinforcing urban hegemony by trumpeting about

5 miserable villages that have become shadows of themselves—according to the 2011

Estonian population census, there were 327 villages with three or less habitants and 102 villages with no habitants in Estonia.

Before the Second World War, only one third of Estonian population resided in urban communities. During this time, rural living was a trend in most of Eastern and

Central European countries. However, after the War, when Estonia became part of the

Soviet Union, its urban population started massively increasing, reaching 50% in 1950s, and 71% by the end of the Soviet era in 1991. Still, this growth was not caused mainly by rural outmigration, as the one-third decline of rural population was much smaller than the four-fold increase in urban population (Tammaru, 2000). Rather, it was due to foreign immigration. Despite the growing urbanization, the rural character of Estonian national identity was eminent during the Soviet times, as it was opposed to the urban-industrial identity that belonged to the immigrants from other republics of the Soviet Union

(Unwin, 1998). Towards the end of the Soviet era, the countryside was mainly populated by Estonians (87.5%), while they represented only 49% of the country’s urban population that was dominated by Russian-speaking immigrants (Marksoo, 1992).

When the Soviet Union crumbled and Estonia became independent, there was a brief moment of shine for the historic national identity grounded on the country’s rural past and an “image of the tireless farmer working the land on a small farm” (Kaskla,

2003, 299). Nevertheless, the old ideals did not last long as they did not fit with the identity of a twenty first century European country (Unwin, 1998). The newly independent Estonia’s identity became informed by the desire to be part of the West—its urban-centered, capitalist system and free-market economy. This desire was quickly

6 realized as Estonia followed the path towards democratic government and capitalist economy, and was accepted into the European Union. Thus, the pre-Soviet nationalist rural identity was exchanged for digitally sophisticated urban image of Estonia.

Today, Estonian politicians emphasize this urban hegemony, claiming that urbanization is irreversible and people should just deal with it. “No matter if you stomp your feet or stand on your head, the city lights are irresistible,” declares Barbi Pilvre,

Estonian journalist, researcher, “guard-feminist,”3 and a member of the Social

Democratic party, in the nation’s largest daily (Pilvre, 2017). Furthermore, the favoring of urban life is also reflected in Estonian government’s varying regional salary principles—for instance, the public servants in Tallinn and Harju County receive 16% higher salary than the public servants elsewhere in Estonia (Ammas, 2016).

The mainstream media also reinforces the urban hegemony, enthusiastically publishing derogative headlines about rurality, such as “If Estonian Rural Life Consists of Smoking and Drinking at Local Shops, it would be Better if the Rural Peripheries were

Left for Wild Animals.” This article was Barvi Pilvre’s response to a petition by local business owners who claimed that stricter alcohol and tobacco policies will force rural shops to close down, which will eventually lead to the extinction of the countryside as disappearance of these shops negatively impacts both material as well as social conditions of rural people.4 Pilvre believes that there is no point in crying over the disappearance of rural mom-and-pop shops because the large chain stores in the cities

3 Pilvre defines “guard-feminist” as someone who calls people out for their sexist remarks or behavior in public. 4 Closing down local shops has material impact on rural people who are not mobile (especially older residents who do not own cars) as for them, these stores are the only convenient way to buy food and essentials. The disappearance of local shops also has social consequences, as they are some of the main places for human interaction and important announcements.

7 have better and fresher assortment of goods, and going there can bring some excitement to rural people’s lives. Rural shops, on the other hand, she describes, sell expired goods, too much alcohol, and attract local drunkards. “No decent people go to these province shops anyways, maybe only some old women who do not own a car and tourists who wish to experience the exotic side5 of rural life in the summer,” said Pilvre. Pilvre’s statement derives from an urban perspective that does not acknowledge the local peculiarities of the post-Soviet countryside. Older rural women (especially widows) are often forced to ride their bicycles to a local grocery store, because many of them have never owned a car nor learned how to drive, as during the Soviet times, it was usually the man of the house who was the “driver.” These women then, whose lives are impacted by their gender, rural location, and post-socialist context, are the subjects of this dissertation that explores the representation, practices and lived experiences of rural women in

Estonia.

In terms of the hegemonic media portrayals of rural Estonia, there have been two larger studies that examined the discourses of rurality in the Estonian mainstream media

(Nugin, 2014; Plüschke-Altof, 2017). Both studies, which will be discussed further in the literature review section, found that the main themes used when depicting rural Estonians include financial concerns, victimization, peripheralization, dependency, powerlessness, stupidity, peasantry, incompetence, scandals, hopelessness, extinction, self-responsibility, etc. In addition to national newspapers, the hegemonic views of rurality are also presented in Estonian popular songs6 and films7 that trumpet about the drunkards and

5 Rural life as idyllic and something different from urban life 6 See, for instance, “Väikeste linnade mehed” (“The Men of Small Twons”) by KOER, or “Depressiivsed Eesti väikelinnad” (“Depressive Rural Towns”) by HU? 7 See Tulnukas (Alien) by Meriloo

8 stupid people who live in the countryside (Alas, 2007). Furthermore, even academic literature tends to label post-socialist rural areas as “losers” (Kay, Shubin, & Thelen,

2012; Nugin, 2014).

Besides the stigmatizing themes, rurality is sometimes also constructed in line with another global stereotype—rural idyll (Baylina & Gunnerud Berg, 2010; Cloke,

1997; Jonasson, 2012; Lagerqvist, 2014; Short, 1992). Hence, Estonian rural places and people are occasionally described as peaceful, hard-working, carrying on the folk traditions, romanticized, etc. (Nugin, 2014; Plüschke-Altof, 2017). Nevertheless, this

“rural arcadia” (Short, 1992, 5) is constructed within the framework of urban hegemony that serves the (capitalist) interests of urban residents, leaving out the experiences of rural people. This leads to the commodification of the countryside, limits diversity within rural communities, and reinforces traditional gender roles and identities (Cloke & Little, 1997;

Little, 2002; Yarwood & Charlton, 2009). Moreover, seeing the countryside through exclusively idyllic lens (positive stereotype of rurality) can conceal the problematic sides of rural life (Woods, 2011), such as lacking infrastructure and job opportunities, and feed into opinions that rural areas do not need outside (the government’s) support.

The othering of rural space and contrasting it to urban space happens within the framework of urban hegemony, through the “process of mediation that occurs over time, sustained by various representational machineries, resulting in sedimented normative structures for the everyday mapping of “common sense,” “good morals,” “good taste,” and the like” (Jansson, 2009, 306). When discussing the othering of rural people (Little,

2002; Stenbacka, 2011; Woods, 2011), research has shown that there are “multiple forms of otherness present in rural areas” (Philo, 2000, 199). For example, the life in the

Western European countryside can be very different from the life in the Eastern European post-socialist rural regions that are often faced with both material hardships and discursive stigmatization (Plüschke-Altof, 2017). Furthermore, there can be significant variances among rural people within one country. For instance, while the post-socialist rural men experience the place-based othering, the post-socialist rural women are often faced with double-othering because of both their geographical location and gender

(Liljeström, 2005).

1.3. Dominant Discourses of Estonian Rural Women

During the Soviet era, the equality of genders was part of the socialist ideology in which education and work opportunities were provided for both men and women.

Nevertheless, there were still internalized rules for what counted as men’s and women’s work in the job market. For instance, when it comes to the collective farms in the Soviet countryside, rural women occupied non-executive positions with lesser pay and longer hours compared to rural men of whom many held managerial positions (Denisova, 2010).

Furthermore, even though women were encouraged to actively participate in the public sphere as wage workers, in private sphere, they were also expected to maintain their traditional role as a mother and wife who was responsible for the majority of the housework. Hence, although they were declared equal with men, in reality, Soviet women were faced with the so-called “dual burden” (Kaskla, 2003; Liljeström, 2005). When compared to urban women, rural females’ load was especially heavy as rural households often had vegetable gardens and cattle, which, in addition to childcare and housework, were usually women’s “after-work” responsibilities (Denisova, 2010).

Although overwhelming, these obligations gave Soviet (rural) women a strong sense of self and social centrality (Hörschelmann & van Hoven, 2003). Collective farming influenced not only women’s working lives, but also their activities outside of work, offering them a so-called “second family,” a social network that functioned within various social spaces, such as kindergartens, local shops, etc. In other words, Soviet rural women were the backbone of the countryside not only in terms of agricultural production but also in terms of social life (Denisova, 2010).

In the newly independent Estonia, however, where the socialist equality ideology no longer existed, explicitly traditional gender roles started to take priority (Haavio-

Mannila and Kontula, 2003). In connection with the emerging nationalist discourse, women had to renegotiate their material as well as imaginary realms to fit with the new worldview. For many post-socialist women, adjusting their social position meant adapting to changed expectations for femininity. According to the nationalist drain of thought, rebuilding of the Estonian nation was connected to male masculinity and female femininity, and it was believed that a working woman and motherhood contradict each other (Kurvinen, 2008). “It was the Estonian woman's duty to be both mother and caregiver, a person with Koidula-like love for the homeland that demanded silent acceptance of male dominance in reawakening a culture suppressed during Soviet occupation.” (Kaskla, 2003, 306) After almost half a century of carrying the “double,” or even “triple” burden, the exhausted women did not fight the idea of raising children at home and allowed the man to be the breadwinner for the family. The “over- emancipation” had drained women out and staying home did not mean necessarily a

11 disempowerment for them. It was seen rather as a “freedom that women did not have under communism when housewives were ostracized by the state” (Ghodsee, 2004, 33).

Besides the belief in the woman’s domestic role’s importance in reviving

Estonian nation, post-Soviet women were not interested in gender equality topics as they reminded them too much of a socialist ideology. They were reluctant to identify with the

Western feminism movements as they could not accept the idea of ideology behind equality. Moreover, feminism was considered a bad word because of the negative media portrayals of masculinized and male-hating feminists (Kaskla, 2003). As one of Estonian journalists declared, post-socialist transformation indicates “that society would become gendered again, that people would talk about men and women, not people in general.”

(Ots 1988, 1) This legacy is still alive among older generations, especially in rural areas, while younger people demonstrate awareness about gender discrimination and women’s rights. Nevertheless, gender roles are still perceived differently in the East and the West

(Coleman, 2005).

Overall, although Estonia is known as one of the most Westernized countries of the former Soviet Union, “the liberation of a nation did not necessarily liberate women from a society that remains patriarchal.” (Kaskla, 2003, 298) For instance, for many years, Estonia has had the largest gender pay gap in the European Union. On average, women in Estonia earn just 73% of what men make working in the same position

(Estonian World, 2017). The inequalities are even greater in rural areas because the lack of available jobs allows employers to pay smaller salaries. And because rural women are less mobile than men, very few of them commute to urban areas for work. This means

12 they either accept the lower salary or do not work at all (Sotsiaalministeerium, 2010,

117).

While the challenging economic and physical conditions in the post-Soviet countryside have already received wide attention from the academic research as well as from the mainstream media, there is a lack of studies that focus on the cultural meanings associated with Estonian rural women. Although contemporary rural gender research in the West has started to pay greater attention to rural women’s empowerment, flexibility of gender identities in the countryside, and differences among rural women (Bock &

Shortall, 2017), these trends have not been practiced in the context of post-socialist

Estonia. There has been one study that focuses on rural masculinities in Estonian setting

(Trell van Hoven, & Huigen, 2014), but the research on the spaces occupied by Estonian rural women is entirely missing. Therefore, this dissertation explores the alternative representations of Estonian rural women, and the ways in which these representations are interconnected with the spatial practices and everyday lives of these women. As Hill

Collins (2000) marks, the empowerment for oppressed can be gained through collective voices, but also through individuals’ self-definition that helps women to resist domination and “objectification as the Other” in their everyday lives (101) and “speak freely” apart from dominant hegemonies (274).

1.4. Relevance: Cultural and Spatial Turns in Rural Studies

While rural issues have been studied a lot from agricultural and political- economic aspects, much less research has been conducted to examine the cultural meanings associated with the rural (Cloke, 2006; Woods, 2011). “Contemporary cultural studies researchers … have been massively biased towards urban popular cultures”

(Carter, Darian‐Smith, & Gorman‐Murray, 2008, 27). According to rural sociologist

Linda Lobao, “In academia, there’s an urban bias throughout all research” (Gurley, 2015, n.p.). This metropolitan favoritism developed within urban hegemony does not acknowledge the diverse and dynamic nature of rural areas (Evers, Gorman-Murray, &

Potter, 2010), and reinforces the understanding that “contemporary rural cultures are characterised primarily by limitation or lack” (Carter, Darian‐Smith, & Gorman‐Murray,

2008, 27).

With the cultural turn in rural studies, Cloke (1997) strongly encouraged scholars to examine the cultural discourses of rurality and their impact on rural communities. It is important to pay attention to these socially created understandings because they have the power to shape public opinion, which in turn impacts the federal and regional welfare policies that have direct social, economic, and political implications on marginalized groups (Clawson & Trice, 2000; Jeffres et al., 2011; Miller & Ross, 2004).

Moreover, according to social constructionist theory (Berger & Luckmann, 1967), culturally created understandings of rurality can have an impact on rural people’s self- identities. For instance, Theobald and Wood (2010) have tracked the construction of

“rurality” back a few centuries to describe the effects of dominant culture on the construction of rural people’s sense of self. They explain how rural residents construct their identities based on what they see and hear about rural areas in the mainstream media. Therefore, many rural people view themselves as laggards, primitive, unsophisticated, etc. These negative self-identities and stigmatizing understandings about rurality contribute to the deterioration of rural communities—leading to outmigration and lack of social capital in rural areas (Nugin, 2014).

The cultural turn in rural studies also inspired cultural geographers to explore gender roles, relations and inequalities in rural societies (Little, 2006) as space and place have cultural, political, social and economic impact on gender construction (Little, 2002;

Panelli, 2004). Scholarship in the intersection of rural and gender studies demonstrates that dominant discourses of rurality often force women into traditional gender roles, functioning as wives and nurturers in the domestic sphere (Little, 2002; Little & Austin,

1996). As described earlier, these themes of pre-Soviet rural idyll were also

(re)introduced in newly independent Estonia where the women were expected to return to domestic sphere to once again become “good” mothers and wives after their over- exploitation during the Soviet era.

It is crucial to examine these discourses as they “are not only representations of socio-spatial realities but actively co-constitute them.” (Plüschke-Altof, 2017, 144) In other words, an image of a rural space, whether negative or positive, “true” or “false,” has the power to impact different practices that take place in this space. For instance, dominant discourses of post-socialist rurality can determine whether women living in

Estonian rural areas decide to stay home or work, whether people are buying or selling a house in a rural region, whether government decides to close down another local school, or whether people are growing vegetables or developing new software in the countryside.

Yet, the discourses of rurality are only one side of the coin. Besides being a socially, culturally and politically constructed category, and a projection of our imagination, one cannot forget that rural space is also a geographical location. Thus, when examining the (re)production of rural space, it is equally important to pay attention to the material characteristics of it (Woods, 2010). Just like the representations of rurality

15 may impact rural women’s material lives, the tangible elements of rural space can in turn influence our understandings of the rural. For example, having no jobs, schools, grocery stores, or post offices in the countryside may very likely lead to perceptions of rural areas as hopeless, extinct places, while encountering pastoral villages and cozy rural family homes can lead to an idea of rural as idyllic. Therefore, it is crucial to analyze both discursive and material aspects of rural space (Adams & Jansson, 2012, 300) as the

(re)production of it does not only happen through the representations and imagination of rural actors, but also through the various ways rurality is being performed and practiced by these actors (Woods, 2010).

The discourses of rural space as well as material aspects of it do not only have the power “to influence peripheralization processes, but also the ways in which to overcome them.” (Plüschke-Altof, 2017, 16) It is important to remember that “the peripheral image of post-socialist rural areas, which subordinates them to urban centers … is neither inevitable nor self-evident but actively made.” (14) In other words, the discourse can be re-written, which is why this dissertation gives voice to Estonian rural women to tell their own story in which they are the active agents in multiple processes of transformation.

Construction of new knowledge that creates alternative perspectives for seeing the world can eventually lead to empowerment (Chávez, 2009; Hill Collins, 2000).

1.5. Objectives and Research Questions

To examine the construction of these alternate spaces in which urbanization as well as hegemonic gender roles and identities can be resisted, this dissertation utilizes a multi-perspectival approach that tackles the production of space from three interrelated angles: representational, material, and symbolic (Lefebvre, 1991; Halfacree, 2007). To

16 understand whether and how urban and gender hegemonies are challenged in the alternative spaces of post-socialist rural women, this dissertation examines: a) the representation of Estonian rural women in the website and YouTube channel of a nation- wide rural grassroots movement, “Live on Earth”8; b) the spatial practices of these women; and c) the ways in which the realm of these rural women is lived through the images, myths, and phantasmagoria related to it.

This dissertation follows the rural cultural studies (Cloke, 1997; Woods, 2011) and post-colonial feminist studies approaches (Evers, Gorman-Murray, & Potter, 2010) to dispute the limited definitions of post-socialist rural women, which are constructed from the urban, patriarchal and Western point of view. It challenges the dominant ideas of post-socialist rurality as well as post-socialist rural femininities in order to find out whether and how the spaces constructed by Estonian rural women are truly alternative, diverse, and multi-layered.

To understand the ways in which the alternative rural space is (re)produced by these post-socialist rural women, this dissertation asks the following research questions:

1) What kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural

femininities emerge in association with the representations of Estonian rural women

in the “Live on Earth” movement’s website and YouTube channel?

a) How are these representations reinforcing, negotiating and/or challenging urban

and gender hegemonies in post-socialist Estonia?

8 “Live on Earth” project is a nation-wide grassroots movement initiated and ran by (mostly) rural women, who live in rural areas all over Estonia. Its website and social media pages encourage people to move back to the countryside, publish the experience stories of rural families (mostly told by rural women), help people find homes and jobs in the countryside, introduce various ways of rural living, etc. See www.maale- elama.ee

2) What kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural

femininities emerge in association with Estonian rural women’s spatial practices?

a) How are these spatial practices reinforcing, negotiating and/or challenging urban

and gender hegemonies in post-socialist Estonia?

3) What kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural

femininities emerge in association with Estonian rural women’s lived experiences?

a) How are these lived experiences reinforcing, negotiating and/or challenging urban

and gender hegemonies in post-socialist Estonia?

4) What contradictions are there among multiple ways of “telling” and performing the

lives of post-socialist Estonian rural women, and to what extent is a spatial coherence

created from them?

By choosing to analyze the construction of alternative spaces by Estonian rural women, this dissertation hopes to challenge the dominant understanding of Estonian rural areas and women as “the greatest ‘losers’ of the post-socialist transition.” (Saar, 2008,

140) Moreover, hopefully, studies like these help Estonian politicians and journalists to comprehend that despite living in the countryside, having to ride bicycles and local buses that come once a day, or purchasing food from local grocery stores, Estonian rural women are actually quite “decent people.”9

1.6. Scope and Methodology

To fully understand the construction of the alternative spaces of rural women in

Estonia, this dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together critical cultural studies, post-socialist studies, cultural geography, and gender studies to analyze

9 Reference to Pilvre’s article, in which she claims that old rural women, who do not own cars, do not qualify as “decent people”

18 the space obtained by these women. It utilizes a multi-perspectival approach that tackles the production of space form three interrelated angles: representational, material, and symbolic (Lefebvre, 1991; Halfacree, 2007). To answer the research questions that ask whether and how urban and gender hegemonies are challenged in the alternative spaces of post-socialist rural women, this dissertation combines textual analysis with ethnographic research methods.

First, to study the alternative media representations of post-socialist rural women in a nation-wide grassroots movement “Live on Earth”, it conducts a textual analysis of the movement’s website and YouTube videos. The analysis includes the website’s introductory texts (mission, goals, origin story, etc.), the experience stories that are mostly told by rural women, the YouTube introductory video as well as infomercials that advertise rural living and invite people to move to the countryside. The videos are approached from textual as well as visual and audible perspectives.

Second, to understand the spatial practices and lived experiences of post-socialist rural women, this dissertation utilizes an ethnographic approach that combines focus groups and respondent interviews with observations. To guarantee the inclusion of diverse rural perspectives, two very different rural locations in South and Central Estonia are included in the analysis. South Estonia is considered the most peripheral area in

Estonia as it is located the furthest from the highly-developed capital city, Tallinn, in

North Estonia (it takes three different buses to commute from South Estonia to Tallinn), and it is also unique because of its ancient folk traditions and local dialects. Central

Estonia is chosen as a different version of an Estonian rural region, as it has a convenient commute to two of the Estonian largest cities—Tallinn and Tartu. Furthermore, the

19 participants of the study come from a large variety of age groups, occupations, and educational and economic backgrounds.

In terms of theoretical foundations that are discussed in the next chapter, this dissertation uses the so-called spatial approach in rural studies that examines both material and representational production of social space (Adams & Jansson, 2012). To fully understand the representation, material practices and lived experiences of Estonian rural women, this project utilizes Halfacree’s (2007) three-fold model of rural space, which is constructed based on Lefebvre’s (1991) triadic model of social space. As this model transcends the division between material, symbolic and imaginary spaces, it has a lot to offer for communication researchers who examine the intersections of communication, media/culture, and power. To examine the power relations within the triadic model of social (rural) space, concepts and principles from critical theory, post- socialist studies, cultural geography, and post-colonial feminist theories are employed.

CHAPTER TWO:

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Critical Paradigm

The space has an ability to impact our thoughts and actions, serving as a tool for control, domination, and power (Lefebvre, 1991). To explore the (re)production of “other spaces,” more specifically, the (re)production of the space of Estonian rural women, this dissertation follows the critical paradigm in communication studies, which supposes that

“reality” is often not what it seems to be. Critical scholarship claims that what we believe to be reality is created according to the dominant groups’ ideological messages that oppress the marginalized people (Littlejohn & Foss, 2009). It examines, uncovers and critiques the dominant ideologies and existing power structures to find out which groups’ interests these systems serve. Furthermore, critical scholars are also interested in taking actions that help to change the existing inequalities in society and offer voice to suppressed groups (McKinnon, 2009). This dissertation focuses on the critique of urban and gender hegemonies influencing post-socialist rural space. Furthermore, it constructs an alternative perspective for viewing this space through the eyes of Estonian rural women.

The original source of critical theory is Frankfurt School, which, around 1950s, laid the basis on the theory of “the culture industry” according to what, “mass consumption and culture were indispensable to producing a consumer society based on uniform needs and desires for mass-produced products and a mass society based on social organization and conformity” (Durham & Kellner, 2012, 8). The members of Frankfurt

School, such as Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Habermas, who practiced modernist

20 21 critical theory in the twentieth century, were mostly concerned “with the forms of control and injustice that accompanied the evolution of industrial and corporate capitalism”

(Lindlof & Taylor, 2011, 54). Postmodern critical theorists, such as Lyotard, Foucault,

Barthes, and Baudillard, however, leave the idea of a universal social science aside.

Instead, they are discussing social problems within their cultural and historical contexts and believe that knowledge is “defined by the multiplicity of people’s subject positions”

(Agger, 1991, 117).

Critical theory contributes to this dissertation by offering a framework that helps to examine structures of domination, marginalization and resistance in connection with

Estonian rural women. “Critical theorists use social life and lived experience as the site of inquiry for analysis and interpretation with the hope that they might find ways to make societies more open and equitable for marginalized groups” (McKinnon 237). In the center of critical analysis, is to critique inequality that dominant structures produce while privileging certain groups in society and marginalizing others, and to create opportunities to change these social relations. The purpose of critical theory is to liberate people from forms of dominance (238).

Consistent with various critical theorists, such as Marx, Horkheimer, Adorno,

Benjamin, Habermas, Foucault, Baudrillard, etc., domination is established by ideology.

Ideology can be considered as “systems of beliefs that serve as the foundation of a group's worldview and perception of reality and consciousness” (McKinnon, 2009, 239).

Ideologies reproduce the relations of domination, “they legitimate rule by the prevailing

(dominant) groups over subordinate ones, and help replicate the existing inequalities and hierarchies of power and control” (Durham & Kellner, 2012, 5). The structures of

22 domination that ideologies are producing are called hegemonies. Antonio Gramsci, the

Italian Marxist thinker, was the first one to introduce the term hegemony (Lull, 2011) as an “intellectual and moral leadership” of a dominant group that is established through the process of institutionalization where institutions like media, schools, and churches play a role in forming hegemonies (5). Hegemonies do not only concern economic classes studied by Marx, but we can also talk about hegemonies regarding gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, culture, language, geographical location, etc. In terms of this dissertation, gender and urban hegemonies in a post-socialist rural space are being examined.

Lindlof and Taylor (2011) describe that according to Gramsci, “[h]egemonic communication ... does not so much instruct audiences what, specifically, to think, feel, or act but more generally how they should do so (e.g. by valuing particular premises over others)” (55). Hegemony does not usually operate by using direct force, but is rather softly suggesting following the dominant ideology. Thus, people are often “unaware that their actions and beliefs reinforce the dominant group's interests,” which is why “critical scholars are called to intervene by analyzing social practices, norms, and conditions to challenge the eminence of particular ideologies” (McKinnon, 2009, 239). In other words, hegemony theory includes the analysis of dominant forces who hold the “hegemonic authority,” as well as counter-hegemonic groups who are challenging the ruling hegemony (Durham & Kellner, 2012, 7). As Lull (2011) explains, “hegemony never exists passively: it is continually renewed, modified, and re-created in response to challenges from counterhegemonic forces” (19). In terms of this dissertation, the representations, practices and experiences of Estonian rural women are analyzed as counterhegemonic expressions within the context of post-Soviet urban hegemony.

By exploring representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of Estonian rural women, this dissertation challenges the prominence of urban, gender as well as

Western hegemonies by (re)producing an alternative rural space obtained by post- socialist Estonian rural women. More specifically, it critiques the hegemonic understandings concerning socially constructed divides between post-socialist rural and urban areas, as well as conventional beliefs regarding post-socialist gender roles and gender identities. This critique is presented through the three-fold model of constructing social spaces (Lefebvre, 1991).

The chapter continues by laying out the foundations for spatial approach in rural studies. It provides an overview of Lefebvre’s triadic model of social space that is at once critical and humanistic, and then, introduces Halfacree’s (2007) three-fold model of rural space, which was developed based on Lefebvre’s (1991) model with a specific intent to study rural spaces. Even though Lefebvre’s/Halfacree’s triadic models have been utilized earlier to explore rural spaces, this dissertation is the first attempt to use these models for examining the space in the intersection of rurality, gender, and post-socialism. To analyze the dominant ideologies, existing power relations, and the ways they are being reinforced/challenged/negotiated within each dimension of the rural space model, this chapter introduces concepts and ideas from cultural geography, post-socialist studies, and post-colonial feminism. More specifically, it describes the rural-urban dualism within the context of urban hegemony; explains the East-West divide from the perspective of post- socialist (rural) studies; and provides an overview of the emergence of gender analysis in rural studies, introducing the principles of post-colonial feminism and standpoint theory.

The overview of local feminist trends in Estonia is also provided.

2.2. Spatial Approach in Rural Studies

Until the 1990s, rural space research was mainly conducted through the lens of social constructivism that highlights the importance of discourse and representation in the production and reproduction of notions about rurality (Cloke, 2006). Nevertheless, the social constructionist perspective has been criticized because it focuses only on the discursive aspects of rural life and does not deal with the material characteristics and the use of body in production of space, even though these elements influence the experiences of rural people and vice versa (Woods, 2010). This criticism does not only apply to rural studies, but has also impacted communication and media studies, in which it initiated the so-called spatial turn that examines both material and discursive production of space

(Adams & Jansson, 2012). Hence, the space becomes fully existent through the ways it is represented, practiced, and imagined. In other words, examining the various ways rurality is being performed and practiced can uncover the material effects of the discourses of rurality, but it can also demonstrate how material aspects of rural life help to (re)produce the discourses of it (Woods, 2010). So, to bridge the gap between representations of and practices in rural spaces, we must pay attention to material qualities of rural life and to the ways they are connected with the intangible parts of it (e.g. discourses, imaginations).

Therefore, this dissertation follows the spatial approach in rural studies, utilizing the triadic model of social space (Lefebvre, 1991), which has informed the construction of the three-fold model of rural space (Halfacree, 2007). These models analyze the construction of space from three interconnected angles: conceived (representations of space), perceived (spatial practice), and lived (representational space). So, to obtain a truly multi-perspectival picture of the (re)production of the space obtained by Estonian

25 rural women, this dissertation explores it from three different but interrelated angles: the life of Estonian rural women as constructed by alternative media; rural areas as geographical places where Estonian rural women live and operate; and rural areas as imagined and experienced by Estonian rural women.

2.2.1. Lefebvre’s Triadic Model of Social Space

Lefebvre’s theory of space (1974/1991) transcends the division between material, symbolic, and imaginary. According to this triadic model, the space is simultaneously physical, social, and mental (Lefebvre, 1991). Lefebvre (1991) has explained that studying relations between only two elements of these three often restricts the analysis

“down to oppositions, contrasts or antagonisms.” (39) Meanwhile, following the triadic model “holds a potential to escape the sociological polarization between structure and agency, allowing for a new research agenda, and a new epistemology, through which we can approach questions of power and domination in new ways” (e.g. “ideological power of material formations”)” (Jansson, 2009, 309). In terms of this dissertation, Lefebvre’s

(1991) theory offers a foundation for exploring the relationships between practiced, represented, and imagined facets of the space of Estonian rural women.

Lefebvre’s (1991) triadic model of social space (Figure 1) consists of three parts: representations of space, spatial practices, and representational spaces.

FIGURE 1. Lefebvre’s Triadic Model of Social Space

1) Representations of Space (Conceived Space)—these are the semiotic, discursive,

and ideological structures through which space is construed (Shields, 1999). This

is what we know about a space based on the discourses that define how we

understand it. For instance, the representations of it in the media, in academia, in

science, in business, etc. Conceived space is the dominant space; it refers to “the

relations of production and to the ‘order’ which those relations impose”

(Lefebvre, 1991, 33). Even though these representations are abstract, they have

both social and political impact as they are capable of shaping public opinion,

which in turn influences welfare policies that have direct social, economic, and

political implications on marginalized groups (Clawson & Trice, 2000; Jeffres et

al., 2011; Miller & Ross, 2004).

2) Spatial Practices (Perceived Space)—this is the material realm, the actual

locations of the space. Spatial practices can be seen as the ways in which we

perceive and utilize space in our everyday lives; what we do with and in spaces.

In this dimension of space, we produce and consume it at the same time. This is

where the societal reproduction happens. When examining spatial practices, we

can, for example, look at the ways people use land or get around, but we can also

analyze how built environment and infrastructure communicate something, how

they are socially and culturally meaningful (Jansson, 2009).

3) Representational Space (Lived Space)—this is the space of representation, a

“space as directly lived through its associated images and symbols. … It overlays

physical space, making symbolic use of its objects” (Lefebvre, 1991, 39). It is

also known as the “spatial performance of everyday life.” (Halfacree, 2007, 126)

This is the space of local knowledge, a space for magic and transformation

through imagination; the “realm of spatial myths, imageries, and phantasmagoria”

(Jansson, 2009, 309). The representational space is lived, imagined, but also

represented by its inhabitants as well as in local media, including in video, art,

music, literature, etc. It is fluid and dynamic, or as Lefebvre (1991) puts it,

“Representational space is alive: it speaks.” (42)

In short, production of social spaces must be examined from the representational, institutional, and ideological perspective (conceived space); from the material perspective

(perceived space); and from the affective-symbolic perspective (lived space). These three angles are intertwined and mutually constitutive, meaning that no one dimension of it can be comprehended in isolation from the other two. As McCann (1999) puts it, “The continual interplay of the two types of social space [representations of space and spaces of representation] exists in a mutually constitutive relationship with the spatial practices

28 of the ‘users’ of the space” (173). In combination, those three parts provide a thorough understanding of space.

As this dissertation focuses on an alternative space that is inhibited by Estonian rural women, the space that is contradictory to the dominant ideas of rurality, we must explain the process of producing dominant and alternative spaces. This can be done through Lefebvre’s term—trial by space:

… nothing or no one can avoid trial by space … It is in space … that each idea of

‘value’ acquires or loses its distinctiveness through confrontation with the other values and ideas that it encounters there. Moreover—and more importantly— groups, classes or fractions of classes cannot constitute themselves, or recognize one another, as ‘subjects’ unless they generate (or produce) a space. Ideas, representations or values which do not succeed in making their mark on space, and thus generating (or producing) an appropriate morphology, will lose all pith and become mere signs, resolve themselves into abstract descriptions, or mutate into fantasies. (Lefebvre,

1991, 416-417)

In other words, the trial by space refers to the (re)production of space, to the tangible and intangible processes that constantly (re)form this space (Halfacree, 2007,

128). So, in terms of rural spaces, if they are mostly compatible and conform to the dominant understandings of rurality (e.g. Estonian rural areas as the losers of capitalist modernization, or rural areas as passive/regressive), the trial by space has succeeded. It is important to remember, however, that the trial by space has succeeded only temporary, as the (re)production of space is always an ongoing process. Nevertheless, if a rural space is too chaotic, lacking coherence, and does not align with the dominant perceptions of it, the

29 trial by space has not been accomplished, which leads us to encounter the radical rural that is not “internally acceptable” to the rules (of capitalism) in rural settings (Lefebvre,

1991, 396). “On the ground, in its trial by space, it will feature centrally a struggle between this drive for produced difference and the gravitational pull of dominant spatialities towards the ultimate conformity of a reduced difference.” (Halfacree, 2007,

131) This then, is a rural space that is truly alternative, challenging the dominant understandings of it that are constructed within the urban hegemony and spatial logic of capitalism.

Lefebvre’s model of space has been utilized by various scholars to study different spaces and to examine the interpenetrability of identity and space. For example, Elmhirst

(1999) used Lefebvre’s theory to analyze space and identity politics in Indonesia’s transmigration program. Her study demonstrated how locals contest the spatial authority of the state and how various forms of resistance are reflected in agrarian landscapes and material practices of these people. van Ingen (2003) who merged spatial theory with sport sociology, used Lefebvre’s model to examine how relations of race, gender and sexuality are reinforced, negotiated and challenged in sport spaces as social space. Nagle (2009) applied this theory to examine ethno-national violence in Belfast and the ways in which minority groups utilize alternate strategies (e.g. street performances) to fight the dominant representations of them in this “divided city.” Petersen and Minnery (2013) used the triadic model to study the geography of residential complexes in Australia as the three facets of this model allow capturing the representations, practices, and imaginations that impact the ways older residents connect to their living setting. Meer and Müller

(2017) utilized Lefebvre’s model to examine how queer service-users are shaping

30 the social spaces of South African healthcare facilities and vice versa. The results show that healthcare spaces are designed as overly heteronormative and inattentive to queer health needs. Thus, there is a need for changes in policies as well as in the training of healthcare workers, so that the material as well as ideological space of South African healthcare facilities could be transformed. Furthermore, Lefebvre’s model has not only been used to critique and theorize about various social spaces, but it has also been utilized in practice, for instance, to plan more effective research and teaching models as well as community services (Carp, 2008) because the triadic model of space allows to recognize socio-spatial differences and to consider social, conceptual and physical aspects of various situations.

Although the triadic model of social space has been mainly utilized in connection with urban spaces (see, for instance, Erdi Lelandais, 2014; Lefebvre, 1996; Lefebvre,

Bononno, & Elden, 2006; Stanek et al., 2014), Lefebvre has noted that it could also be applied to explore rural space (Kipfer, 2008). However, not as an opposition to the urban, but as a category of its own (Lefebvre, 1996). This task was taken up by Keith Halfacree

(2007) who, based on Lefebvre’s triadic model of social space, developed a three-fold model for studying rural space.

2.2.2. Halfacree’s Three-Fold Model of Rural Space

When exploring rural spaces, it is important to acknowledge that they are continuously produced, reproduced and challenged by the social actors that are connected to these spaces (Woods, 2010). To examine the (re)production of rural spaces, Halfacree

(2007) drew on Lefebvre’s triadic model of social space. Just like every space, the rural is simultaneously material, represented, and lived. Hence, Halfacree’s three-fold model of

31 rural space (Figure 2) suggests examining the rural from three interrelated perspectives: representations of the rural, rural localities, and everyday lives of the rural.

FIGURE 2. Halfacree’s Three-Fold Model of Rural Space

1) Formal Representations of the Rural—refer to how rural is framed mainly in

the mainstream media, through the eyes of politicians and capitalist interests.

2) Rural Localities—refer to the spatial practices and activities related to

consumption and production of the countryside.

3) Everyday Lives of the Rural—refer to negotiation and interpretation of rural

life from subjective and diverse perspectives of rural inhabitants.

Overall, according to this model of rural space, the imaginations of Estonian rural women impact the representations of them, which, in turn, can be materialized as physical rural places and lifestyles of these women. The experiences of these physical places and ways of life are in turn incorporated into the collective imaginations of

Estonian rural women (Woods, 2011).

When exploring alternative rural spaces, such as the one that is inhibited by

Estonian rural women, we must also define what alternative rurality means. According to various scholars (e.g. Marsden, 1995, 1998; Marsden et al., 1993; Murdoch et al., 2003), there are different frameworks that can guide researchers in their attempts to map the post-productivist contemporary rural areas. For instance, Murdoch et al. (2003) offer the concept of differentiated countryside, according to what, rural areas are more and more shaped by regional policies. Hence, instead of discussing a single, general countryside, we need to focus on the multiplicity of diverse countrysides. Another example would be

Mardsen’s (1999) consumption countryside which refers to diverse ruralities that are connected to the consumption of goods and services which can be consumed by people outside the boundaries of the rural. Even though models like these may, at first sight, express alternative ruralities, they nevertheless do so within the “developments of capitalism as the dominant mode of production” (Halfacree, 2007, 130).

Halfacree (2007) has divided the post-productionist approaches to rural space into four categories: (1) super-productivism—which links rural space to productivist ideas and activities, reinforcing the “spatiality of productivism in a more explicit form” (131); (2) consuming idylls—which highlights the idyllic and pastoral understandings of rurality, and is focused more on the ways the countryside is consumed, instead of the productivist parts of it; (3) effaced rurality—in which rural space is dominated by “non-rural spatialities, leaving rural space only as a ghostly presence, experienced through folk memory, nostalgia, hearsay, etc.” (131); and (4) radical ruralities—which attempt to fragment the dominant forms of rural spaces and produce inherently different rural space that “extends the scope of rural possibilities but also raises key issues concerning the

33 ideological underpinnings of the other species of rural space ‘on the table’ today.” (131)

While the first three approaches do not manage to escape from the chains of capitalist ideas when constructing “alternative” rural spaces, the last category, radical ruralities, accomplishes thinking outside the progress of capitalism. It “strive[s] for the production of truly different form of rural space” (131), a so-called counterspace (Lefebvre, 1991) or

“contradictory space” (Shields, 1999, 178–83). In Lefebvre’s (1991) terms, this is the trial by space, as it reflects the battle between the hegemonic forms of rurality and a truly different rural space. Some characteristics of radical ruralities are connections to anti- capitalist economies, decentralization, self-sufficiency and sustainability, low impact development and green politics, “back-to-the-land migration,” movements between urban and rural, etc.

To analyze the (re)production of the alternative rural space obtained by Estonian rural women utilizing the three-fold model of rural space, this dissertation critiques the socially constructed divisions between rural and urban, East and West, as well as dominant understandings concerning gender roles and identities of post-socialist rural women. To critically approach these hegemonies, it utilizes various principles and concepts from cultural geography, post-socialist rural studies, and post-colonial feminist theories, which are introduced in the next sections of this chapter.

2.3. Urban Hegemony and Rural-Urban Dualism

The division between rural and urban is one of the oldest and most common ways to describe the society (Woods, 2011). It goes back as far as classical times (Williams,

1973). Within the dichotomous framework of city vs. country, the rural has been usually defined from an urban perspective as the “other” (Little, 1999; Stenbacka, 2011; Woods,

2011). In many definitions, rural areas are explained as places that do not meet urban thresholds (Woods, 2011). For instance, they are lacking population and infrastructure compared to urban locations. Furthermore, it standardizes the urban way of living and establishes the rural as underdeveloped or not progressive compared to the city. Hence, it is a common understanding that the best life is only possible in urban locations, which is why outmigration from rural regions to cities is usually considered a success or positive development, while people who stay in the countryside are often perceived as failures

(Schaff & Jackson, 2010; Theobald & Wood, 2010). Another way of defining rural is based on its usefulness for urban people – for example, the countryside is a provider of food and vacation areas for urban residents.

Dominant discourses of rurality are usually culturally constructed within the context of urban hegemony, in which the rural is marginalized, homogenized, and described as the “other” (Stenbacka, 2011); perceptions that are often reinforced in the mainstream media (Woods, 2011). Even though rural life is dynamic, varied, and multidimensional, depictions of it tend to be clichéd and limit diversity within rural communities (Short, 1992; Yarwood & Charlton, 2009). Research on discourses of rurality has identified two major stereotypical themes in the dominant portrayals of rural people and areas—rural as backwards and rural as idyllic. These two topics are representative of the ways in which rurality tends to be conceptualized and studied around the world (Bunce, 2003).

For instance, American scholars Theobald and Wood (2010) tracked the construction of “rurality” back a few centuries to describe the effects of dominant culture on the construction of rural people’s self-identities. They explain how the negative

35 attitude towards peripheries reach back to the seventeenth century and are presented in early literature, newspapers, magazines, textbooks, and later in electronic and modern media. Rural people can create their identities based on what they see and hear about rurality in mainstream media, including books, television, films, etc. (Glaze et al., 2013)

As rural characters are usually portrayed as country folks “without ambition or sophistication” (30), many rural residents see themselves also as primitive and unsophisticated laggards.

British scholars also describe the backwardness of rurality in the media using expressions such as poverty, vagrancy, drunkenness, violence, and social dysfunctionality

(Cloke, 1997). Moreover, diminishing themes about rural people and places also seem to appear in Scandinavian and Baltic media, in which rural people are portrayed as old- fashioned, uneducated, incompetent, under-accomplished, disempowered, deficient, aging, help-seeking, xenophobic, etc., and rural areas as closed, poor, hopeless, extinct, regressive, etc. (Eriksson, 2010; Juska, 2007; Nugin, 2014; Stenbacka, 2011). For example, Eriksson (2010) examined the representation of rural and urban people in

Swedish films, and described how rural as the traditional, old-fashioned “other” has been juxtaposed with the advanced, modern urban population, who is considered the “us.”

Stenbacka (2011) explored the portrayal of rurality in Swedish television shows, and concluded that rural is represented as backward, help seeking, and out of place in

Swedish media. The result is that rural people and communities are perceived as regressive, deficient, and under-accomplished when compared to their urban counterparts. Juska (2007) analyzed the depiction of Lithuanian rural people in a national newspaper, and found that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, rurality was mostly

36 associated with farming and agriculture, and rural people were stigmatized and treated as losers, idiots, and as “the other.” In the early 2000s, however, the depictions of rurality started to depart from agriculture, and the losers’ portrayal were replaced with depictions of rural people as disempowered victims.

In terms of the construction of Estonian rural spaces, a study by Nugin (2014) found that the main themes used when depicting rural Estonians in national newspapers included financial concerns, victimization, stupidity, peasantry, incompetence, scandals, hopelessness, extinction, and self-responsibility for their deterioration. Nugin concluded that the negative and stereotypical national media representation of rural communities was positively affecting the out-migration of Estonian rural youth. Moreover, a dissertation (Plüschke-Altof, 2017) that explored the peripheralization process of rural

Estonia also detected similar themes, concluding that the polarizations between rural and urban Estonia are heavily reproduced with the help of hegemonic discourses.

The theme of the rural idyll is similarly common (Bunce, 2003). Discourses of rural idyll include depictions of pastoral villages, agricultural landscapes, pristine nature, simple lifestyle, harmony, safety, traditions, and domesticity (Baylina & Gunnerud Berg,

2010; Cloke, 1997; Jonasson, 2012; Lagerqvist, 2014; Murdoch et al., 2003). Baylina and

Gunnerud Berg (2010), for example, analyzed the portrayal of rurality in Norwegian lifestyle magazines, and concluded that rural areas in Norway are depicted as cozy, natural, family-oriented places. Swedish magazines also constructed rural living as appealing (Jonasson, 2012), and countryside second-homes as idyllic and something that symbolizes the Swedish urban middle-class (Lagerqvist, 2014). Furthermore, in

Portuguese national tourism promotion campaigns, rural regions were depicted as active,

37 attractive, pragmatic, and inspiring places for local entrepreneurs (Figueiredo, Pinto, da

Silva, & Capela, 2014). Estonian newspapers, on the other hand, tied the countryside idyll with rural primitiveness, and did not promote “rural as economically appealing.”

(Nugin, 2014, 58)

Short (1992) describes rural idyll as an “ideology of rural arcadia” and “false imagery” (5) that serves the interests of urban residents, limits diversity among rural areas, and leads to commodification of the countryside (Woods, 2011). Furthermore, by

“pacifying and depoliticizing society,” idyllic images of the rural eclipse real problems in these areas, such as poverty, limited infrastructure and job opportunities (Woods, 2011,

98).

Because these hegemonic discourses of rurality are produced by dominant cultures, they should not be considered just as innocent reproductions of reality, but rather as powerful tools that can help to highlight the dominant hegemonies and reinforce people’s biases towards the marginalized groups (Abraham & Appiah, 2006; Kim, 2012;

Ramasubramanian, 2005; Yang, 2015). Thus, it is important to critically examine the construction of rurality within the context of urbanization (Scott & Biron, 2010) and urban hegemony (Stenbacka, 2011) as these depictions limit diversity within rural communities and can lead to the commodification of countryside.

When discussing the “othering” of rural people (Little, 1999; Stenbacka, 2011;

Woods, 2011), one must not forget that there are “multiple forms of otherness present in rural areas” (Philo, 2000, p. 199). In other words, rurality is “simultaneously diverse, hybrid and multi-layered.” (Yarwood & Charlton, 2009, p. 205) For example, the life in the Western European countryside can be very different from the life in the Eastern

European post-socialist rural regions that are often faced with both material hardships as well as discursive stigmatization (Plüschke-Altof, 2017, p. 13). The next section of this chapter lays bases on how to approach rural spaces obtained by Estonian rural women in a post-socialist context.

2.4. East-West Dualism and Post-Socialist Rural Studies

Because this dissertation focuses on Estonia—a post-socialist society—a post- colonial studies’ approach that offers “an alternative way of analyzing Eastern Europe from a local-global, democratically inclusive, and culturally tolerant perspective”

(Roman 33) is utilized. Post-colonial approach facilitates “the study of new, globalizing political identities, while empowering local subjectivities to voice the specificity of their culture, politics, and society within an increasingly pluralistic, global-local international community” (Roman v). Post-colonialism is trying “to recover the lost historical and contemporary voices of the marginalized” by confronting the idea “of a single path to development,” and embracing the plurality of different viewpoints (McEwan 94-5).

According to the perspective of hybridity (Bhabha, 1995), cultures are not always homogenous or coherent. From post-colonial viewpoint, it is important to recognize “how location, economic role, social dimensions of identity and the global political economy” create different development opportunities for different groups (McEwan 96). Therefore, the life in the Western European countryside can be very different from the life in the

Eastern European post-socialist rural regions that are often faced with both material hardships as well as discursive stigmatization (Plüschke-Altof, 2017, p. 13).

According to Spivak, we can talk about post-colonialism not only in the areas that were ruled by Western ideologies, but also in post-communist societies (Kelertas 4), such

39 as Estonia. Thus, to give voice to Estonian rural women, one must explore both the hegemonic discourses and unequal power relations that reinforce the “othering” of these people, as well as the alternative viewpoints of these women’s lives (Cloke and Little,

1997).

Kay, Shubin, and Thelen (2012) describe how post-socialist rural spaces are understood as passive, homogeneous spaces because they are mainly approached on the basis of the binary oppositions between rural and urban as well as East and West. These binaries are socially constructed and bolster the idea of rural spaces as incompetent actors

“on the post-socialist scene” (55), and Eastern Europe “as the West's intermediary

“Other,” neither fully civilized nor fully savage.” (Owczarzak 2009, 4) In order to explore the diverse nature of post-socialist ruralities, post-colonial approach does not define these spaces in opposition to Western ruralities. Instead, it acknowledges the differences within post-socialist rural spaces and does not relegate them to the “losers” or

“victims” of post-Soviet capitalist transition (Stenning and Hoerschelmann, 2008, 315).

Kay, Shubin, and Thelen (2012) argue that exploration of post-socialist worlds should be done by utilizing “a non-chronological concept of time; and an awareness of the richness of post-socialist worlds, their different holds on the past and openings to the future, in material as well as immaterial terms.” (56) This means that Soviet era and post-

Soviet times should not be separated as “before” and “after” but that the past and present should be analyzed as simultaneously co-existing. Different parts of the Soviet past should be looked at as “possibilities, which in every different act of remembering can be expressed through different memories and generate different interpretations and evaluations of the present, which themselves translate into dominant norms and counter-

40 narratives as well as practices with “real” consequences.” (57). “An appreciation of the multiplicity of forms and practices producing Eastern European countrysides not only suggests new perspectives on the rural, but also expands the contexts within which we can examine global concerns such as development, change and citizenship.” (60)

Overall, by approaching the construction of an alternative rural space obtained by

Estonian rural women from the post-socialist perspective that moves beyond the

East/West divide, this dissertation challenges the one-sided, limiting understandings of

Eastern European rural spaces as passive agents in transformation and change. Moreover, it acknowledges that there are “multiple forms of otherness present in rural areas” (Philo,

2000, 199), which is why not all post-socialist rural people and areas experience the same issues. As Cloke and Little (1997) said, not all people belonging to one marginalized group are similar, rurality is “simultaneously diverse, hybrid and multi-layered.”

(Yarwood & Charlton, 2009, 205) Thus, when discussing the “othering” of rural people

(Little, 1999; Stenbacka, 2011; Woods, 2011), there may be significant variances among rural residents within one country. For instance, while post-socialist rural men experience the place-based “othering,” post-socialist rural women are often faced with “double- othering” because of both their geographical location and gender (Liljeström, 2005, 40).

The next section therefore explores the construction of gender norms and gender identities from the standpoint of post-socialist rural women. It starts out by describing the emergence of gender analysis within rural studies and then introduces standpoint theory and the concept of intersectionality. This chapter ends with describing the attitudes towards feminism in post-Soviet Estonia.

2.5. Gender Analysis in Rural Studies

Space and place have cultural, political, social and economic impact on gender construction and gender relations (Little, 2002; Panelli, 2004). Nonetheless, a few decades ago, the gender perspective had not yet been fully incorporated into the mainstream rural studies (Little, 2002; Jackson, 1992). When the first analyses in the intersection of gender and rural geography emerged in the 1980s, they focused mostly on gender roles and paid less attention to gender relations (Gill, 2007). The early scholarship on gender and rurality focused mainly on rural men, while research on rural women was almost entirely missing (Little 2002). The few studies that examined rural women, concentrated mostly on their domestic part and their role in agriculture (Bock & Shortall,

2017), utilizing a rather conventional view that associates rural life exclusively with farming and forestry. In rural societies, women were subordinated and kept in domestic roles due to their isolation from alternative descriptions of women's roles in rural communities (Stebbing, 1984).

In connection with the Marxist critique of societal inequalities in the 1980s and the feminist studies that had emerged, cultural geographers started to pay attention to gender relations and women's inferior position in patriarchal rural societies (Little, 2006).

Studies showed that rural space and its ideologies impact the construction of gender roles as well as production of unequal gender relations (Little, 1987; Hughes, 2011).

The more recent scholarship in rural and gender studies has shifted attention from gender relations and inequalities to the ways different cultures and settings influence the construction of gender identities (Little & Panelli, 2003). This approach acknowledges variations within rural communities and warns about the threats of viewing rural women

42 as a single category (Little, 2002). In accordance with this framework, dominant identities can be challenged and negotiated as well as reinforced (Butler, 2006; Connell

2002). According to the third wave feminism, femininity is not viewed as an embodiment of domination or something that is imposed on women, but rather as a set of social and cultural ideas and “available bodily practices that can be part of a collective gender strategy” (Schippers & Sapp, 2012, n.p.; Butler, 2006). This approach informed writing this dissertation that deals with the ways rural women view themselves in relation to urban, gender and post-colonial hegemonies.

An important concept when examining rural gender identities is “rural idyll”

(mentioned earlier in this chapter), which often naturalizes traditional gender roles, placing women in domestic sphere and stressing their importance as wives and nurturers

(Little & Austin, 1996). In terms of the embodiment of rural masculinities and femininities, the dominant descriptions of rural masculinity bolster the idea of physically fit and powerful masculinity (Liepins, 2000) and natural and fertile femininity (Little,

2002). As explained in the first chapter, this type of ideological rural idyll was also reintroduced in newly independent Estonia in the early nineties where after the collapse of the Soviet Union, women were expected to return to domestic sphere because work and motherhood contradicted each other.

Overall, while contemporary research in the intersection of rural geography and gender studies has started to pay greater attention to rural women’s empowerment, flexibility of gender identities in the countryside, and differences among rural women

(Bock & Shortall, 2017), these trends have not been practiced in the context of post- socialist Estonia. In terms of performing rural masculinities and femininities, there has

43 been one study that focused on the construction of rural masculinities in Estonian setting

(Trell, van Hoven, & Huigen, 2014). The participants of this study “actively performed different aspects of masculinities in relation to available physical resources and social groups.” (15) These results show that “the young men are in the process of exploring a multiplicity of different ways of how to be a rural man while actively negotiating the rural context.” (15)

Nevertheless, there is a gap in the research that focuses on rural women in

Estonian setting. This is unfortunate because post-socialist rural women are often faced with the “double-othering” due to the intersection of their rural location and gender

(Liljeström, 2005). Thus, in addition to looking at post-socialist rural masculinities, the attention must be paid to the representations, materialities, and experiences of post- socialist rural women in Estonia, which is the task this dissertation takes on.

2.6. Post-Colonial Feminism

The principles of post-colonialism are often combined with the values of feminism. Therefore, in this section, the ideas of post-colonial feminism, which challenge white Western feminism, are being discussed. McEwan (2001) describes, “Until the

1980s, ... Western feminists assumed that their political project was universal, and that women globally faced the same universal forms of oppression” (96). Today, however, feminism is seen as a global phenomenon that is unique to each society. Although there are issues, such as gender equality, that unite women all over the world, we need to also keep in mind matters, such as race, class, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, religion, etc., that “have proved more divisive within and across nations than western theorists acknowledged or anticipated” (96), and many of these characteristics cause opposition

44 among women themselves (105). Each culture and society have their own values and beliefs, thus, one should not try to apply Western feminism, which is grounded in

Western ideologies, to study women’s oppression in non-Western societies, such as East,

Third World, and the post-socialist countries.

The idea of post-colonial feminism and the foundation of “ethnicity-based” or

“multiculturalist forms of feminism” (Weedon, 2002) have created a possibility to examine gender inequality together with other forms of oppressions inherent in specific societies (e.g. rural oppression in post-socialist societies). Post-colonial feminism is part of the third wave of feminism that criticizes the essentialist understanding of a universal female identity and stresses the experiences of upper-middle-class white women. Third wave feminism that started in 1990s celebrates the diverse nature of each woman's lived experience and is, among other things, “inspired by ... a generation of the new global world order characterized by the fall of communism, new threats of religious and ethnic fundamentalism” (Kroløkke & Sørensen, 2006, 17).

Post-colonial feminism challenges white Western feminism and requires the ability “to see, responsibly and respectfully, from another’s point of view” (McEwan, 2001, 105).

Ghodsee (2004) has warned us not to try to create “feminism-by-design” that attempts to study women’s issues as unique all over the world using Western feminism approach, but instead to view the concept of gender outside of capitalist setting.

Therefore, one cannot study Estonian rural women’s experiences from exclusively

Western feminists’ point of view, but instead needs to take into account a postcolonial feminist approach that encourages to examine the experiences and oppression of non-

Western women within their own social, cultural, political, historical, and economic

45 contexts. McEwan (2001) states, “Postcolonial feminisms can contribute to new ways of thinking about women in similar contexts across the world, in different geographical spaces, rather than as all women across the world” (106). This perspective is further explained by standpoint theory and principles of intersectionality.

2.6.1. Standpoint Theory and Intersectionality

A place, from which person views the world and also socially constructs it, is called a standpoint (Borland, 2008). Standpoints always involve more than one factor.

That is why, for instance, two white, middle-aged females who are part of different social classes, hold standpoints that are not entirely the same. However, there are some central themes that tie together certain groups of females, such as Estonian rural women, whom all recognize rurality as part of their identity. Thus, collective standpoints for various groups of women do exist (Hill Collins, 2000). These standpoints are located in different intersections of various social factors and are connecting certain females, such as women of the same geographic minority, as one group.

Standpoint feminism originates “from the Marxist position that the socially oppressed classes can access knowledge unavailable to the socially privileged, that different social groups have different points of view for gaining knowledge, particularly knowledge of social relations” (Wheeler, 2011, 24). Hartsock (1998) has explained that because the positions of women and men are structurally different, “the lived realities of women’s lives are profoundly different from those of men” (19). Thus, a sociological theory that is formed by men gives a one-sided picture of women's experiences (Smith, 1997).

Nevertheless, according to the third wave and postcolonial feminism, there is no universal experience that applies to women all over the world. The way women

46 experience the world, depends on their cultural and social contexts. Therefore, we cannot talk about a singular women’s standpoint, but need to look at sexism in interaction with other forms of domination, like racism, colonialism, classism, etc. This means that, in different contexts, oppressed ones can become privileged ones. However, if every woman’s standpoint is unique, should one even talk about the different standpoints of diverse groups of women? Hill Collins (2000), who uses the examples of Black women, explains this issue following: although there is no “homogenous Black woman’s standpoint,” there are still certain issues that tie Black women together (28). Thus, it is possible to talk about a “Black women’s collective standpoint” (28). She argues, “group location in hierarchical power relations produces common challenges for individuals in those groups” and that their “shared experiences can foster similar angles of vision leading to group knowledge or standpoint” (300).

In contemporary societies, various social factors, such as gender, age, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, etc., are overlapping and mutually constructing our experiences, social status, and inequalities (Hill Collins, 2000). These crisscross systems of oppression that are determining our understandings and social position are called intersectionalities. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who first introduced this term in 1989, has claimed that any research that does not take into account intersectionality is not precisely addressing the way in which women are subordinated (DeFrancisco & Palczewski, 2007).

To better understand women’s social location within various intersecting systems of oppression, Hill Collins (2000) has offered a framework of intersectionality. It is an

“analysis claiming that systems of race, social class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, and age” are mutually constructing various experiences and inequalities (299).

Intersectionality functions within the “matrix of domination: the overall organization of hierarchical power relations for any society” (299). In the matrix of domination

“intersecting systems of oppression, e.g., race, social class, gender, sexuality, citizenship status, ethnicity and age,” are institutionalized through four interrelated domains of power: structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal. The structural domain of power concerns “organized practices in employment, government, education, law, business, and housing,” and “operates through the laws and policies of social institutions”

(301). The disciplinary domain of power “relies on bureaucratic hierarchies and techniques of surveillance” (288). The hegemonic domain of power operates through ideas, ideology, and culture (284; 299). The interpersonal domain of power functions in the level of people’s relationships and everyday lived experiences (287; 299).

When examining the construction of Estonian rural women’s space, this dissertation focuses mostly on the hegemonic and the interpersonal domains of power.

To gain empowerment in the hegemonic domain of power, the subordinate individuals and groups need to first adopt a critical consciousness to see through hegemonic ideologies. Second, they should construct new knowledge that creates alternative perspectives for seeing the world. In the interpersonal domain of power, challenging ruling ideologies is up to each individual. The empowerment for oppressed can be gained through collective voices, but also through individuals’ self-definition in their everyday lives. Hill Collins (2000) describes how black women have created “safe spaces” (100) that give them opportunities for self-definition that helps them to resist domination and

“objectification as the Other” (101) in their everyday lives and “speak freely” (274) apart from dominant hegemonies. Hill Collins lists three types of safe spaces: (1) “Black

48 women’s relationship with one another,” which includes informal relationships with family and friends, and more formal relationships with black churches and various black organizations (102); (2) “the Black women’s blues tradition,” which gives Black women an opportunity to express and define themselves (105); and (3) “the voices of Black women writers,” who “expand the use of scholarship and literature into more visible institutional sites of resistance” (108- 9). Similar kinds of safe spaces can be also discussed in connection with other oppressed groups, including Estonian rural women.

2.7. Feminism in Estonia

As mentioned above, women from different cultures experience various intersecting oppressions. At the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century many

American white middle-class women felt oppressed mostly because of their gender, so they started to fight for women’s rights. Conversely, women living in communist countries, such as Estonia, felt more repressed because of the economic and political dictatorship of Soviet Union than their gender. Even after Estonia gained its re- independence in 1991, issues, such as political affiliation, restoration of national identity and economic independence, were more important for Estonians than accomplishing gender equality.

Western feminist ideas have been resisted in post-socialist societies for several reasons. First, females in this region do not see women’s emancipation obtained through communism as a truly positive phenomenon (Goldfarb). Although Soviet Union promoted women’s involvement in public sphere, it did not encourage men to take liability in the private sphere, which “resulted in what has been called the ‘double’ or even ‘triple’ burden of women under communism: the obligation to be a devoted wife

49 and mother, a dedicated worker, and an active member of the community” (Ghodsee,

2004 27). Thus, after Soviet Union collapsed, this “over-emancipation” had drained women out and staying home did not mean necessarily a disempowerment for them. It was seen rather as a “freedom that women did not have under communism when housewives were ostracized by the state” (32; 33).

Second, it is difficult for the societies that have been enforced to live under major ideologies like communism, to psychologically accept “propaganda, ideology, political messianism, ... [or other] big liberatory ideas” (Busheikin 14). Because Western feminists are “influenced by Marxism, and still seem to speak in its language of liberation, exploitation, and internationalism, ... they are rejected not only as aliens, but as representatives of a worn-out politics that has been central to past oppression”

(Goldfarb).

Third, in the post-socialist societies, economic status and political affiliation tend to play more important role in constructing women’s identities than gender. The reason behind it is that “in socialist theory, men and women needed to stand together and fight for the equality of all classes and sexes,” which set workers’ issues over the women’s issues and generated “a dichotomy between gender and class analyses that still divides feminists to this day” (Ghodsee, 2004a, 32). Consequently, women in post-communist societies see often fewer problems in creating alliances with post-communist men who share their economic struggles and political views than with Western women who are “on the opposite side of the political spectrum” (32).

Fourth, while Western feminists are concerned with and defending women’s individual rights, females in the former Soviet regions are often protecting their private

50 sphere (family) against “public invasion” more than they are defending their individual rights within their families (Goldfarb, 1997). Hence, Estonians tend to support the idea of women being responsible for upbringing the children and managing housework, while men are seen largely as breadwinners (Vainu, Järviste, & Biin, 2010, 186). Consequently, this kind of “division of labor at home has its impact on opportunities for managing

[women’s] working life” (186).

Overall, after Estonia regained its independence in 1991, an imagined gender order of the 1930s was put on a pedestal and enacted through promotion of conservative values and neo-traditional gender identities (Allaste & Bennett, 2013). A family where the woman is a stay-at-home mother of at least three children, and the man is the sole breadwinner was idealized (Kurvinen, 2008).

Even today, Estonia is one of the countries where people do not really acknowledge gender inequality as a problem (Järviste, 2010) although its gender pay gap is one of the biggest in Europe and Estonian women are underrepresented in leading positions (Eesti Koostöö Kogu, 2010). Estonians often see traditional gender roles as natural—for instance, the primary skills taught to Estonian boys are related to technology, entrepreneurship, and cars, while Estonian girls must know how to cook, clean and groom themselves (“Soolise Võrdõiguslikkuse Monitooring 2016”, 2016).

Estonian women are expected to “bear more children to guarantee the survival of the nation and make themselves beautiful to please their husbands. The rediscovery of gender

[has been] channeled into sexualization of Estonian women.” (Marling, 2011, 157).

These re-created gender norms and femininities are constructed in compliance with post-

Soviet patriarchal norms, male desire, hegemonic masculinity and heteronormativity

(Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005; Schippers, 2007; Tiidenberg, 2015). These dominant ideas of gender are also reinforced in traditional as well as social media. For instance,

Tiidenberg (2015) who examined the social media representation of Russian speaking pregnant women found that the norm is to be “beautiful, wifely, and motherly” (1748)

It can be said that “Estonia had a back-lash against feminism before it developed a viable feminism.” (Marling, 2010, 8) For example, a study that examined the representation of feminism in post-soviet Estonian print media from 1996 to 2005, concluded that the anti-feminist ideology in media functions as a powerful ideological tool, keeping away the “influences that might potentially threaten the status quo and … disciplines Estonian women and men into accepting the tenets of the dominant neo- liberalist ideology as the only common sense in the context of gender and other social issues.” (7) Moreover, gender hegemonies and anti-feminist attitudes are also reinforced in the audiences’ comments for newspaper articles that talk about feminism in Estonia.

According to Aavik and Kase (2015), Estonian people have described feminism as “an evil subversion that splits the society and shakes young people’s firmness;” some believe that “equality between men and women has never existed and never will” and that “being a mother is every woman’s holiest responsibility;” others claim that “this so-called gender equality produces fags and heartless mid-gendered creatures who only care about their individual desires” (my translations).

Even though Western scholars noticed the rise of anti-feminist attitudes in post- soviet countries already in the 1990s (see Einhorn, 1993), not enough studies have explored “the socio-historical peculiarities of the developments in different countries, especially from the inside” (Marling, 2010, 8). Therefore, it is important to analyze

52 gender construction in contemporary Estonia because “[t]he ideological nature of naturalized gender notions becomes obvious only with the existence of an alternative viewpoint.” (Marling, 2011, 157) What is important, however, is that the post-soviet feminist movements should not copy Western feminist ideas, but rather discuss gender equality within their own cultural, historic, social, and political contexts.

The next chapter introduces the various qualitative methods utilized in this dissertation. More specifically, it lays basis on a methodology that combines textual analysis that allows to explore the alternative representations of rural Estonian women, with ethnographic approach that includes focus groups, respondent interviews and observations that provide an overview of the study’s subjects’ spatial practices and lived experiences.

CHAPTER THREE:

METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the (re)production of alternative rural spaces obtained by post-socialist rural women in Estonia. More specifically, it asks, what kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of rurality emerge in association with the representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of post-socialist Estonian rural women, and what kind of coherences and contradictions are there among multiple ways of “telling” and performing these ruralities? To examine the construction of these alternate post-socialist spaces in which urbanization and traditional gender roles can be resisted, this dissertation utilized a multi-perspectival approach that tackles the production of space from three interrelated angles: representational, material, and symbolic (Lefebvre, 1991), (Halfacree, 2007). The most appropriate methodology for answering these research questions was to combine various qualitative methods that lead to rich and detailed understanding of representational, material and imaginary spaces.

The cultural turn in rural studies caused a shift in the field’s research methods decreasing the popularity of quantitative approaches and increasing the need for utilization of qualitative methods within the discipline of human geography (Shurmer-Smith, 2002). In terms of this dissertation, qualitative data allowed to comprehend how ideologies, power relations and identity formation function within alternative rural spaces.

To obtain an in-depth understanding of the space (re)produced by post-socialist

Estonian rural women from representational, material and imaginary aspects, this dissertation combined textual analysis with different ethnographic methods, including focus groups, respondent interviews and observations. First, it examined the

53 54 representation of post-socialist rural women in a nation-wide rural grassroots movement,

“Live on Earth”—its website10 and YouTube videos11—through textual analysis. Second, it utilized the results from focus groups, respondent interviews and observations to explore the spatial practices of Estonian rural women and the ways in which the realm of these women is lived through the images, myths, and phantasmagoria related to it.

3.1. Researcher’s Role

I am a 34-year-old woman who grew up in the Southern Estonian countryside after which I moved to the capital city, Tallinn, to earn my college degree and after that to the United States where I received my M.A. and where I am currently finishing my

Ph.D. studies. Throughout my higher education journey, I have continuously conducted research on the post-Soviet countryside, focusing mainly on the media representations of ethnic rural women in the Estonian mainstream media, such as films and advertisements.

This dissertation’s goal, however, differs from my previous studies in a way that instead of focusing on the outsiders’ portrayals of Estonian rural women, it concentrates on their own visions of rural life and themselves. Thus, to incorporate those standpoints, I had to immerse myself in their everyday lives through observations, focus groups and interviews.

As my parents and relatives still reside in the countryside where I grew up, I have spent most of my summer and winter breaks there for the last nine years, constantly communicating with rural residents who live in the area. These connections that were created throughout my childhood as well as during my stays in the countryside as a grown-up, helped me to recruit participants for the focus groups and interviews.

10 www.maale-elama.ee 11 https://www.youtube.com/user/maaleelama

Throughout the years I have also spent a lot of time in rural areas in central Estonia where my aunt resides. Thus, she helped to recruit women from these regions.

In terms of my relationship with the study’s participants, I knew most of these women either directly or indirectly, and vice versa. This allowed us to establish a relaxed and authentic environment when communicating. As I have experienced many of the issues they mentioned in connection to rural life myself, they did not have to feel ashamed when discussing these matters. Furthermore, in terms of exploring the women’s role and identities in the post-Soviet countryside, I was able to also share my own stories about my rural grandmothers, aunts and mother, which triggered different discussions with the participants.

Because this study’s women resided in small municipalities with not many residents, almost all of them knew each other as well. Despite representing different age groups, occupations, economic backgrounds and lifestyles, these women communicated with each other quite frequently. This allowed me to include a variety of perspectives when conducting the focus groups, interviews and observations.

Being brought up in rural Estonia and still spending several months there each year, I also brought some situational knowledge to this dissertation by studying a phenomenon that is not completely foreign to me. More specifically, my former knowledge of Estonian rural life informed this research by helping me to come up with questions for focus groups and interviews, choose the most appropriate locations for observations, as well as address these women as an insider who knows about the issues that they face every day. Moreover, my so-called “country accent” also allowed to establish a more familiar tone when conducting focus groups and interviews.

Overall, the translucency of my rural origin and background as well as the credibility of my research experience in Estonia and in the United States helped to create an environment that was not intense but still trustworthy. The women were explained that this dissertation presents the so-called “insider’s perspective” of Estonian rural life and women, and that it will utilize their voices and opinions to portray it.

3.2. Textual Analysis

To explore the alternative media representations of post-socialist rural women in

Estonia (RQ #1), this dissertation focused on a nation-wide rural grassroots movement,

“Live on Earth” to identify themes that appear in the movement’s website and its

YouTube channel in connection with Estonian rural women. Textual analysis was chosen as a method to examine the representation of Estonian rural women in the abovementioned media texts because this dissertation, that is situated within the cultural critical framework, does not measure direct impact of media messages (like quantitative content analysis) but draws on the media’s ideological role and cultural assumptions instead (Hall, 1980).

According to Fürsich (2009), media texts can be analyzed as sites that reveal societal debates and representations, as narratives that shape and reshape identities but also as mediated realities. Qualitative research must determine “the ideological potential of the text”, the reality it attempts to establish, and its emancipatory or hegemonic potential (Fürsich 2009, 249). In other words, using textual analysis as a method helps to explore how ideologies and hegemonies operate, but also how “the ruptures in dominant discourses ... leave possibility for agency and revolution” (Chávez, 2009, 271).

Therefore, the goal of this analysis was not to count the occurrence of specific

57 characteristics of Estonian rural women, but to acquire a deeper understanding of the meaning of the chosen texts and their potential impact on the study’s subjects.

The textual analysis included the introductory texts of “Live on Earth” movement

(mission, vision, origin story) and all of the 25 experience stories (including photos) of which majority is told by rural women—all of which are displayed on the movement’s website (www.maaleelama.ee). Furthermore, the “Live on Earth” YouTube videos

(introductory video and infomercials) that advertise rural living, the movement, and invite people to move to the countryside were also analyzed considering their textual, visual and audible elements. There are 12 short videos (ranging from 0:49 to 2:02 minutes in length) about the “Live on Earth” movement and its fairs on its YouTube channel, which were all included in the analysis. All of the analyzed texts are in Estonian, so the parts of the texts used in the analysis were translated into English.

The combined data collection and analysis focused on various elements of the chosen texts, such as content; context; narrative structure of the experience stories; parables, myths and metaphors used in the texts; framing; interactions between textual, visual and audible features of the videos. The content of the texts and visuals on the

“Live on Earth” website and the movement’s infomercials on YouTube was interpreted in accordance with various critical perspectives derived from the fields of cultural geography, post-socialist rural studies and postcolonial feminist studies (as described in chapter two). This type of analysis is necessary to reveal and challenge ruling ideologies and culturally reproduced specific ideals and values (Stokes, 2013). In short, these texts were approached “as a complex set of discursive strategies” that are located in a specific

58 cultural context with the purpose to find out their emancipatory (or hegemonic) potential

(Fürsich, 2009, 240) in relation to Estonian rural women.

The themes that emerged in connection with Estonian rural women during textual analysis (e.g. the ways the texts challenged, negotiated, or bolstered urban and gender hegemonies) were incorporated in the discussion guide of focus groups and interviews.

For example, women were asked to describe their daily activities and experiences to see if these align with the ones introduced in the texts, to compare the lives of men and women in the countryside, to share their perspective on both mainstream and alternative media portrayals of rurality, etc. Moreover, the themes identified through textual analysis were also used when analyzing data from focus groups and respondent interviews to draw comparisons and contrasts between the representations and material practices/lived experiences of Estonian rural women which allowed to answer the fourth research question.

3.3. Focus Groups and Respondent Interviews

To understand the spatial practices, lived experiences and discursive construction, as well as spatial coherences and contradictions of the space obtained by Estonian rural women (RQs #2, #3, #4), this dissertation combined focus groups with respondent interviews that are an efficient way to learn about participants’ perceptions, beliefs, behavior, values, norms, attitudes, etc. (Davidson & Tolich 1999; Schensul & Diane,

2013). These methods followed a post-colonial feminist approach, offering voice to

Estonian rural women, so that the rural space can be (re)created through their perspective.

While focus groups that encourage discussion between group members, help to determine shared meanings, learn about relationships and a wide range of opinions and

59 experiences represented in a group, respondent interviews offer insights into interviewees’ individual opinions, beliefs, feelings and experiences regarding specific activities and events (Allen, 2017). Respondent interviews in which the interviewer and interviewee are both females have been commonly used by feminist researchers to expose and redress women's invisibility as social actors (Reinharz and Chase, 2001). In terms of structure, the focus groups as well as interviews were rather unstructured, including broader and more open questions as these allow to gather richer, more detailed data, and to ask follow-up questions for clarification. In short, this dissertation used both focus groups and respondent interviews as this combination allows learning about rural women’s experiences and material and discursive practices both in a group setting as well as on an individual level.

This study happened in accordance with the research protocol provided by the

University of Miami Institutional Review Board (IRB) (Appendix 1). It was approved by

IRB (Appendix 2) as well as the ethics committee of Tartu University in Estonia—the local collaborating organization (Appendix 3).

3.3.1. Participants

The focus groups and interviews included adult women (at least 18 years old) who reside in rural areas in Estonia. Adults unable to consent, individuals who are not yet adults (infants, children, teenagers), pregnant women, and prisoners were excluded from this study. Overall, 4 respondent interviews and 5 focus groups with 30 participants were conducted in two different rural areas in South and Central Estonia over the period of 4 months. The number of women varied in each focus group (6, 4, 6, 6, and 4).

To guarantee the inclusion of diverse rural perspectives, two very different rural locations in South and Central Estonia were included in the analysis. South Estonia is considered the most peripheral area in Estonia as it is located the furthest from the highly-developed capital city Tallinn in North Estonia (it takes three different buses to commute from South Estonia to Tallinn), and it is also unique because of its ancient folk traditions and local dialects. Central Estonia was chosen as a different version of an

Estonian rural region, as it has a convenient commute to two of the Estonian largest cities—Tallinn and Tartu. Furthermore, the participants of the study come from a large variety of age groups, occupations, educational and economic backgrounds.

Participants’ ages varied from 28 to 79 years. 10 out of the 30 participants resided rural areas in Central Estonia and 20 in South Estonia. 16 women were married, 3 in a domestic partnership, 7 widowed, 1 divorced, and 3 single. 26 of the 30 participants had at least one child. 22 participants had higher or applied higher education and 8 participants had secondary education. A wide range of occupations was represented, including researcher, accountant, teacher, cleaning lady, cashier, poet, manager, chef, sales representative, designer, etc. 2 out of the 30 respondents were unemployed and 3 retired. The subjects did not receive any payments for participating in this study. I as well as the participants provided refreshments during the focus groups and interviews. A more specific overview of the focus group and interview participants is provided in Table 1.

TABLE 1: Focus Group and Interview Participants Focus Groups Interviews

N=26 N=4

Residence Rural areas in South 17 3 Estonia

Rural areas in Central 9 1 Estonia

Age 21-30 1 -

31-40 3 3

41-50 5 -

51-60 5 -

61-70 10 1

>70 2 -

Marital Status Married 15 1

Domestic partnership 2 1

Divorced 1 -

Widowed 6 1

Single 2 1

Education Higher Education 11 2

Applied Higher Education 9 2

High School 6 -

Employment Employed 21 4

Retired 3 -

Unemployed 2 -

3.3.2. Procedure

Recruitment. I used my personal contacts in rural South and Central Estonia to recruit participants for focus groups and respondent interviews utilizing the snowball method. The study and its purpose were first described to women who were eligible for it. If they were interested, the details about attending the focus groups or respondent interviews were shared with the women. Morgan (1996) has explained that forming groups with similar individuals encourages focus group discussions. Focus groups are effective if they resemble rather natural groups, for instance, pre-existing social groups, such as friends, co-workers, etc. Therefore, for this study, the focus groups were formed in a way that they included as homogenous group of women as possible, taking into account their social and economic class, and personal and professional associations.

To address the potential social desirability bias that refers to the tendency of participants to give responses that will be received favorably by other group members, the questions in the focus groups were formed in a neutral fashion. Moreover, the respondents were confirmed that their answers will be kept separately from their identities. Also, there were no sensitive topics directly related to the respondents’ personality traits, income, medical issues, religion, violence, physical appearance, etc. addressed in the focus groups questions. These topics only surfaced if respondents brought them up on their own initiative. Additionally, to obtain answers that were not influenced by group opinions, respondent interviews were also conducted.

Setting. 3 of the 5 focus groups and all of the 4 respondent interviews took place in women’s home environments, including their houses, gardens, porches, etc., and 2 focus groups were conducted in a local school’s coffee room. These natural, informal

63 settings with refreshments allowed participants to feel relaxed but also in control of their environment.

Consent. At the beginning of the focus groups and respondent interviews, I gave all participants a consent form (Appendix 4). As the participants’ native language is

Estonian, consent was obtained in Estonian. To guarantee the accuracy of translated text from English to Estonian, the consent form was first “forward-translated” form English to

Estonian (Appendix 5) and then “back- translated” from Estonian to English (Appendix

6). The translations were done by people who are fluent in both languages. The participants were reminded that they have a right to refuse to answer any questions that make them feel uncomfortable or violate their privacy. They were also informed about the security measures that are being used to protect data. After the participants had given their consent, they filled out an anonymous demographic survey (Appendix 7) that was presented to them in Estonian. It was first “forward-translated” form English to Estonian

(Appendix 8) and then “back- translated” from Estonian to English (Appendix 9). The translations were done by people who are fluent in both languages. The survey was later not linked back to any individual focus group participant or interviewee. The survey also included an open-ended question asking the participants to list the first word(s) that come(s) to mind when they hear a phrase, “rural woman.”

After the participants had finished filling out the surveys, I started the focus group discussion/respondent interview following a previously designed discussion guide

(Appendix 10) that helped to maintain the flow of the discussion and prevent sidetracking. The questions included asking about the women’s opinions on the portrayals of rurality both in the mainstream (e.g. newspapers, television) and alternative

64 media (e.g. “Live on Earth” website), their experiences connected to rural living and everyday activities carried out in the countryside, women’s role in rural life, the similarities and differences between Soviet and post-Soviet rural life, the pros and cons of country-living, rural stories/myths/phantasmagoria, etc. The questions were asked in

Estonian. To guarantee the accuracy of translated questions from English to Estonian, the discussion guide was first “forward-translated” form English to Estonian (Appendix 11) and then “back- translated” from Estonian to English (Appendix 12). The translations were done by people who are fluent in both languages.

All of the focus groups and respondent interviews were conducted in Estonian.

The conversations were audio recorded and transcribed and translated from Estonian to

English by myself as I am fluent in both languages. Participant names were deleted from the transcript and replaced with “Participant”/”Interviewee” and a corresponding number.

I described all of the visits and experiences in a field diary, which enabled me to reflexively consider the results and the reading of the data during collection (Pini, 2004).

Results from the focus groups and interviews were combined to respond to research questions. The field notes and transcripts of all interactions were then thematically analyzed based on primary data by using NVivo software.

3.3.3. Materials

Before the focus groups and interviews, the participants were asked to read an opinion article by Barbi Pilvre, titled “Barbi Pilvre: If Estonian Rural Life Consists of

Smoking and Drinking at Local Shops, it would be Better if the Rural Peripheries were

Left for Wild Animals.”12 This article was published in one of the Estonian largest

12 http://epl.delfi.ee/news/arvamus/barbi-pilvre-kui-maaelu-seisneb-kodulahedases-joomises-ja-mugavas- suitsupopsimises-olekski-ehk-parem-kui-tuhjenev-eesti-jaaks-loomadele?id=80240686

65 dailies, Eesti Päevaleht and it described Pilvre’s response to a petition by local business owners who claimed that stricter alcohol and tobacco policies will force rural shops to close down, which will eventually lead to the extinction of the countryside as disappearance of these shops negatively impacts both material as well as social conditions of rural people. The participants were also asked to read a critical response to

Pilvre’s article by Evelin Liiva, published in another nationwide daily, Postimees, titled

“Evelin Liiva: Barbi, Think Before You Speak!”13 Liiva, who resides in and works from the countryside, criticized Pilvre’s way of approaching rural life from a dominant urban perspective. As a response, she provided an alternative picture of rural life from the rural point of view. Last, the participants were asked to scroll through the website of the “Live on Earth” movement in case they had not previously heard about it.

3.3.4. Data Analysis

To answer the research questions 2, 3, and 4, data from focus groups, interviews, and observations were analyzed to identify and organize themes that challenge/negotiate/reinforce urban and gender hegemonies in connection with post- socialist Estonian rural women’s representations, spatial practices and lived experiences, and to identify the coherences and contradictions among these multiple ways of “telling” and performing these alternate ruralities. It was also compared and contrasted with the data of previous textual analysis.

More specifically, transcripts of the focus groups and interviews, and observation notes were analyzed to identify initial themes that emerge in connection with Estonian rural women. These themes were then compared with the results of textual analysis as

13 https://arvamus.postimees.ee/4320265/evelin-liiva-barbi-enne-kui-utled-motle

66 well as with the concepts and theories described in the literature review, so that the similarities and differences with this study’s first stage and previous scholarship in the field can be drawn.

Data was analyzed using NVivo qualitative software to identify themes that emerge in connection with Estonian rural women during focus groups and interviews as well as from observation notes (described in the next section of this chapter) in terms of the study’s research questions and also in terms of the themes that support these questions. Data were analyzed in accordance with the grounded theory approach that utilizes constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). According to this method, data is first reviewed and assigned initial codes, after which, broader themes and categories are developed from those codes. The goal was to cultivate a theory that emerges from and is connected to the reproduction of post-socialist rural space

(representative, material, and lived) by Estonian rural women.

During the analysis process, data coding and mapping guided decisions to collect additional data (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), for instance, to recruit more rural women with different occupational backgrounds and ages, to incorporate respondent interviews, to do more observations in different locations, etc. According to the constant comparison method, the researcher memos that accompany data collection, allow to reflect on and critically examine the emerging themes to see what may be missing from the larger picture. The data collection and coding continued until the themes started reoccurring and a strong theoretical understanding of the ways alternative representations, material practices and lived experiences of Estonian rural women reproduce an alternative rural space was obtained.

After analyzing and comparing different categories of the data derived from the textual analysis, focus groups, respondent interviews, and observations, the interpretations became more theoretical and eventually formed a grounded theory that helps to understand the representations and spatial practices of post-socialist rural women in Estonia, and the ways in which the realm of these women is lived through the images, myths, and phantasmagoria related to it.

The methods for handling and storing data complied with the University of Miami policies. All data were stored on a researcher’s password-protected computer and automatically backed up. Data was de-identified so that the participants’ identity cannot be linked to their responses.

3.4. Field Observations

To learn more about the spatial practices and daily activities of Estonian rural women (RQ #2), observations in different rural locations in South and Central Estonia were carried out during a four month period, in addition to focus groups and respondent interviews. Observations enable researcher to view the participants interacting with each other in their natural setting as well as with their surroundings. Thus, they help to better understand relationships between Estonian rural women and the extent to which the material practices of these women are space and place specific.

Observations are often used as additional method to other ethnographic methods as they help to identify organizational patterns, power relations, competition and cooperation, hierarchies, and other social and cultural practices within and between groups (Schensul & Diane, 2013). They also reflect various practices that groups utilize

68 to perform specific identities (Bogdewic 1992). Furthermore, observations can assist in future research directions (Schensul & Diane, 2013).

3.4.1. Observation Sites and Participants

Two types of observations were carried out during this dissertation—the ones occurring during focus groups (3) and the ones that took place independent of other methods (8). The specifics of these observations are explained in more detail in Table 2.

To observe rural women’s day-to-day activities outside of focus group settings, I lived three months during the summer of 2018 and a month during the winter of 2018/2019 in a several rural villages in South and Central Estonia (Vastse-Roosa, Mõniste, Kuutsi,

Kurista) where I observed rural women in their natural environments where they live and work and in other surroundings where they interact. These environments included several women’s homes, local shop, local school, local restaurant, county bus, and various community and private events (e.g. Midsummer’s Eve, Christmas gathering, sauna evenings, etc.). The access to these research sites was attained through my personal contacts with the residents living in the abovementioned areas.

More specifically, 11 observations were carried out, which included observing ca

95 subjects in their natural settings (see Table 2). Although most of the subjects were women, there were settings where men were also included (e.g. bus, Christmas party,

Midsummer’s Eve), which offered a good opportunity to get an insight into relationships between rural women and men, as well as similarities and differences between them. The subjects ages ranged from twenties to seventies, depending on a setting as wells as on an event or activity that was being observed. Moreover, a wide variety of social and economic classes and professions was represented.

TABLE 2. Observations

Event/Activity Location Length & Date Subjects Women’s gathering Barn turned into 4 hours, May 7 women from one + focus group guesthouse in neighborhood Tundu (60ies) Commute to town County bus (Route: 1,5 hours, May Ca 15 commuters Mõniste-Võru) (mostly older people) Grocery run and Metsavenna store 1 hour, June Ca 6 people (5 exchanging news in Vastse-Roosa women in different ages and 1 older man) Midsummer’s Eve Local home in 4 hours, June Ca 18 people Tiitsa (couples in their 30ies with children) Friends gathering + Local home in 3 hours, June 8 women friends focus group Kurista mostly in their 50ies and 60ies Regular summer Local home 10 hours, July 6 people (family: day (garden) in Vastse- parents in their Roosa 60ies, two daughters in their 30ies, and young grandchild) Restaurant keeping Suur Muna café in 2 hours, July 3 middle aged Haanja women who own and run the place Coffee hour + focus Mõniste school’s 2 hours, July 8 female teachers group coffee room and school staff (20ies to 70ies) Saturday night Local summer 4 hours, August 5 women from 3 sauna ritual house in Hüti generations (one family) Bike ride through Vastse-Roosa 2 hours, August Ca 8 people (mostly the village older couples finishing their daily work in the gardens) Christmas party Vastse-Roosa 3 hours, December Two families/ three generations gathering for Christmas (8 females, 3 males)

3.4.2. Procedure

Observation periods varied from 1 hour to 10 hours in length. Both women’s daily activities as well as special events and gatherings were included in the settings observed.

Brief notes were taken during observations but most of them were written up afterwards in rich, detailed text, following a previously developed semi-structured observation template (Appendix 13). The notes included descriptions of the observed activities and events (what?), physical settings (where?), the date and time of event/activity and duration of observation (when?), characteristics of subjects, such as age, appearance, clothing, items (who?), the reasons why particular setting/situation was chosen (why?), and finally my role in the observation (active/passive observer). If necessary, the notes also included descriptions of the context and history that were important to individuals or incidents to situate the event. Pseudonyms were used to guarantee participants anonymity and confidentiality. During the observation period, I kept a personal diary that enabled me to reflect on the reading of observed situations, as recommended by Pini (2004). This helped to minimize the effects of the personal understandings of and biases about the research problems and strengthen the connections to the study’s theoretical frameworks.

Both participant observations as well as nonparticipant observations were carried out (Schensul & Diane, 2013). I actively took part of some of the activities, such as

Midsummer’s Eve, Christmas party, sauna ritual, etc. However, in the local shop, school, bus, etc., I observed the activities taking place without participating. Because of the close connections with the rural families whose homes I resided, I was often not treated as an outsider but rather as a member of the rural community.

3.4.3. Data Analysis

Data analysis was conducted based on the observation notes and followed the constant comparative method, as outlined for focus groups and respondent interviews data in the previous section of this chapter.

3.5. Establishing Trustworthiness

In order the results of this dissertation to be trustworthy or, as Lincoln and Guba

(1985) say, “worth paying attention to,” they need to fulfil four criteria: “truth value,”

“applicability,” “consistency,” and “neutrality” (290). This is the criteria Lincoln and

Guba developed for the research in naturalistic paradigm in response to the criteria of internal and external validity, reliability, and objectivity utilized in the conventional paradigm.

“Truth value.” Within the naturalistic paradigm, reality is viewed not as something objective but as “a multiple set of mental constructions” (295). On the one hand, these multiple realities are constructed by different people from their own perspectives, but on the other hand, the researcher is also trying to re-construct these realities within the study. So, to demonstrate that this dissertation has “truth value,” I fully described the multiple constructions of reality by Estonian rural women that surfaced during the research process. This was achieved by prolonged engagement

(allowed learning culture, earning trust and recognizing false information), persistent observation (allowed to identify most important elements to the issue) and triangulation

(using different data collecting modes: textual analysis, interviews, focus groups, observation) (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) .

Furthermore, there is another threat to “truth value” caused by researcher’s personal standpoint about the studied issue, called researcher bias. This refers to the subjectivity of researcher and indicates that (s)he constructs (re-presents) the “realities” that (s)he learns about through her own point of view, selectively including the data that fits his/her interpretations, “existing theory, goals, or preconceptions” (Maxwell, 2013,

124). To address this potential bias, I looked for the negative cases and outliers (127) that helped to draw attention to the deficiencies in the assumptions and urged to look into different theories that may help to make sense of the data. Moreover, I paid attention to the subjects’ descriptions’ adequacy by utilizing the member checking technique in which the data, my own interpretations and conclusions were checked with the study’s subjects from whom the data was originally collected by paraphrasing their understandings and interpretations. Additionally, I was transparent and reflexive about my role in this study, describing my connection to rural Estonia and rural women.

Applicability. While the conventional paradigm stresses the importance of generalizability of results, the naturalistic paradigm pays attention to transferability, according to what, it is the person who is trying to apply a study’s results elsewhere, who is responsible for the “burden of proof,” not the original investigator, who does not know yet the future sites of research. What the original researcher can do, however, to increase the applicability of results, is to provide sufficient descriptive data that allows presenting evidence about contextual similarity with another situation/population/phenomenon. This was achieved by my prolonged engagement, persistent observation, and triangulation of data collecting modes in the communities studied, which allowed me to present a rich,

73 detailed descriptions of the study’s subjects and settings in rural Southern and Central

Estonia.

Consistency. While within the traditional paradigm, reliability is usually shown through replication, naturalist researchers have substituted it with dependability that requires to consider “both factors of instability and factors of phenomenal or design induced change.” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, 299) To accomplish this, the principles of triangulation were utilized by collecting data through textual analysis, focus groups, respondent interviews, as well as observations.

Neutrality. Conventional researcher preaches the so-called quantitative objectivity

(what one sees, is subjective, what many see, is objective), while naturalist stresses the importance of the quality of the data. It is no longer the researcher whose objectivity is at stake, but the characteristics of the data. Therefore, this dissertation included prolonged engagement (4 months) at the research sites to learn about the culture, earn participants’ trust and to be able to recognize false information. Furthermore, to obtain as objective data as possible, the negative case analysis, peer debriefing (exposing oneself to a disinterested peer), as well as member checks were constantly utilized in the process of collecting and analyzing data.

In short, to increase the trustworthiness of this study, several techniques recommended by Lincoln and Guba (1985) were utilized in different stages of data collection and analysis: prolonged engagement, persistent observation, triangulation, peer debriefing, negative case analysis, and member checks. These procedures helped to increase the credibility of this research project and conclusions drawn about the alternative spaces obtained by post-socialist rural women in Estonia.

The next chapter presents the findings of textual analysis of the “Live on Earth” website and its YouTube Infomercials, focus groups and interviews with Southern and

Central Estonian rural women, and observations in various rural locations to describe how the alternative representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of Estonian rural women challenge, negotiate, and/or reinforce different hegemonies related to geographic location as well as gender.

CHAPTER FOUR:

FINDINGS

4.1. Representations of Estonian Rural Women in the “Live on Earth” Movement’s

Media Sites

The first task (RQ #1) of this dissertation was to find out what kind of

(counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural femininities emerge in association with the representations of Estonian rural women in the “Live on Earth” movement’s website and YouTube channel. More specifically, it examined how these representations are reinforcing, negotiating and/or challenging urban and gender hegemonies in the context of post-socialist Estonia. Although the representational space in Lefebvre’s (1991)and Halfacree’s (2007) models is usually the dominant space

(descriptions of rurality in the mainstream media, politics, science, business, academia, etc.), this dissertation focused on an alternative representational space because the goal was not to criticize the dominant media representations of rural Estonia like two previous studies by Nugin (2014) and Plüschke-Altof (2017) have already done, but to construct an alternative viewpoint for seeing post-socialist rurality and rural femininities through the eyes of Estonian rural women. The chosen outlet for this was one of the country’s largest pro-rural grassroots movement, “Live on Earth,” and its portrayals of rural life on their website and YouTube channel.

The “Live on Earth” movement was established in 2013 to change the existing anti-rural attitudes in Estonia and encourage people to move to the countryside. Its founders are active rural people who did not agree with the dominant discourses of rurality, and decided to share a more authentic picture of rural living. The movement’s

75 76 website includes variety of topics ranging from people’s experiences of rural life to practical information about specific rural regions, such as real estate offers, job vacancies, entrepreneurship opportunities, local schools, doctors, hobbies, etc. In short, it communicates rural residents’ view of rural life to people who are interested in living in the countryside but need more information about the opportunities and challenges of different rural locations.

In addition to exchanging information between locals and newcomers, in 2013, the movement started organizing annual fairs where rural communities introduced their living environments and prospects to encourage the trend of Estonian people moving to the countryside. However, as of 2018, the “Live on Earth” movement exists only online—on the movement’s website and its social media pages. As the movement’s leader, Ivika Nõgel, explained in her interview for Postimees, there were several reasons for retreating from organizing the rural fairs: first, the lack of government’s interest in supporting Estonian rural life and enhancing its reputation; second, the regional reforms that took place in 2017 uniting small villages into larger municipalities to centralize their governing (from which the rural areas are still not recovered); third, Nõgel did not exclude the option that “Live on Earth” has fulfilled its main goal to enhance the image of Estonian countryside because newcomers from the cities are settling in in various rural areas (Suviste, 2018).

Thus, today, the movement exists only in online environments where rural communities can still share information with the newcomers through the “Live on Earth” website and social media. Moreover, people can also access the infomercials that introduce the movement and rural living on the “Live on Earth” YouTube channel.

Therefore, the next section analyzes the ways Estonian rural women are represented on the movement’s website and YouTube infomercials, also known as the representational space (Lefebvre, 1991) or representations of the rural (Halfacree, 2007).

4.1.1. Introductory Texts of the “Live on Earth” Movement

Mission, Values, and Goals. In terms of analyzing the movement’s mission, values and goals, the themes that emerged focused mainly on rural living in general and not on rural women specifically, challenging urban hegemony in which the rural is marginalized, homogenized and described as the “other” (Stenbacka, 2014). One of the topics that surfaced from the introductory texts was the movement’s ability to recognize that the dominant discourses of Estonian rurality are portrayed from an urban point of view that sees rural areas as passive and hopeless regions. The movement counters these descriptions by introducing their values that are derived from rural residents’ perspective of rural life. These values included respecting local cultures and communities, natural environment, each other’s opinions, newcomers wishes to join rural communities, etc.

Another theme that appeared in the analysis of the movement’s goals, was celebrating the diverse nature of rural life. Even though one of the movement’s aims is

“to increase society’s positive opinions about the countryside and to encourage immigration to rural areas,” it nevertheless also specifies that people interested in living in rural areas must be informed about both benefits and challenges connected to rural life.

As explained on the website, “There are different challenges in terms of urban and rural living—rural communities must be straightforward about what they have to offer, as well as newcomers about their needs.” Furthermore, in terms of accepting variety of values and opinions among rural residents, the website indicates, “One’s values should not

78 dominate over other’s values, people’s differences must be accepted, opinions heard and oppositions avoided.” The last claim also refutes the socially constructed dichotomy between rural and urban, claiming that one perspective needs not to exclude other.

Besides these counterhegemonic themes, the introductory sections in the “Live on

Earth” website also contained a few ideas that portray the rural from a rather stereotypical point of view. For example, one of its goals is to “increase rural communities’ openness towards newcomers,” which may leave an impression of rural regions as closed communities and not welcoming towards outsiders. Another goal is to “strengthen rural communities’ capability to present and market themselves as valuable living environments,” which might refer to rural areas and people as passive.

Origin Story. The intersection of rurality and gender appeared when analyzing the

“Live on Earth” movement’s origin story. The first thing that stood out was the ratio of females vs. males among the movement’s founders and volunteers that worked on the project during its initial years. 6 out of the 9 founders (67%) and 21 out of the 24 volunteers (88%) connected with this movement are women. This demonstrates the women’s crucial part in advancing rural life, but also indicates them not endorsing traditional gender roles that are frequently discussed in connection with the post-Soviet rural areas. Instead of confirming to gendered expectations and being dedicated mothers and wives, these founding women of the movement have stepped out of the domestic sphere and actively running their communities. As said on their website: “Without our own input, no positive changes are going to happen.”

In terms of the post-socialist context of Estonian rural areas, it is important to discuss the origin and implementation of the idea for this movement. On the website, the

79 founders describe that the idea for the “Live on Earth” movement was born in 2012 during their trip to Finland where they discovered that many Finnish rural areas were presenting themselves as active and appealing living environments. Hence they thought, why could not Estonian active villages let public know about their existence and invite people to move to the countryside? Thus, the idea that originated from Finland was implemented and applied to Estonian rural areas. However, although Finland and Estonia are close neighbors, “a big brother and a little sister,” they do not share the same history—while Estonia was part of the Soviet Union, Finland’s background is much more

Westernized and its rural areas are in considerably better shape than the ones in Estonia, which have to deal with the material as well as discursive stigmatization (Plüschke-Altof,

2017).

Because of implementing a model developed in Finland, the movement seems to be focusing almost exclusively on the appeal and prospects of the countryside, leaving the challenges related to post-socialist rural areas in the background. Thus, although listing rural diverstiy as one of the “Live on Earth” values, later analysis showed that the expereince stories and YouTube introduction videos related to the movement portrayed a rather idyllic, at times even unrealistic picture of rural life. Nevertheless, the movement’s introductory texts themselves are countering the urban hegemony and its one-sided descriptions of rural life.

Overall, despite a few exceptions, the themes that emerged from the “Live on

Earth” website’s introductory texts were rather challenging the urban as well as gender hegemonies as they were portraying rural life from the insider’s perspective, not seeing it as a binary opposition to urban life, acknowledging the diverse nature of rurality, and

80 defying traditional gender roles. Yet, because of utilizing a Finnish model to market

Estonian rural areas, the movement has not fully take into account their post-socialist context, which is why some unrealistic, serene depictions of rural life do appear on the website, as described in the next section.

4.1.2. Experience Stories

There are 25 experience stories listed on the “Live on Earth” website. The large majority of them are stories about rural families who have resided in the countryside about 6 to 10 years, some less, some much more. These stories are mostly told from the perspective of rural women. The reasons why these people ended up living in rural areas are diverse—some, who had grown up in the countryside, came back after attending college in the city; some came to fix up and take over their (grand)parents’ homes or summer houses; others had had no connection with rural life before and just wanted to give it a try. Many of these families had moved to the countryside when they had their first children and often it was the woman’s verdict to raise the kids in a safer and more natural environment that triggered this decision. But there were also a few couples who had relocated to the countryside after they retired.

The first theme that emerged in the textual analysis was heteronormativity. More than 90% of the stories were about heteronormative families with mother, father and two to three children. The topics discussed were often related to family life, such as finding and renovating a dream home for the family;14 the benefits of growing up in the countryside for kids and opportunities available for them; activities that families can

14 Only 2 out of 25 stories described people who lived in apartments in rural areas, although in reality, many rural people reside in Soviet type concrete apartment buildings, as it was later also confirmed in focus groups.

81 enjoy together; couples growing closer to each other in rural setting; etc.

Heteronormativity was also reflected on the photos that accompanied these stories, often displaying traditional families (Figure 3), couples in front of their renovated country homes (Figure 4), happy children running in the countryside, dogs, etc.

For example, Liis (25), a mother of two and an entrepreneur, explicitly illustrated her heteronormative dreams and their fulfilment:

I met my other half, Kent, seven years ago. We dreamed about two kids, our own house, a business, and a good car. We imagined how we’d enjoy a nice glass of cognac in front of our fireplace in old age. Today, many of these dreams have come true.

FIGURE 3. Meel and Toomas Valk, Nedsaja village, Setomaa (maale-elama.ee)

FIGURE 4. Kail Visla with her husband. Photo by: Priit Roosileht (maale-elama.ee)

Nevertheless, in terms of traditional gender roles and rural femininities/masculinities, it turned out that the experience stories actually challenged those gender hegemonies. It was not usual to portray men as sole breadwinners or women in domestic roles. Moreover, it was usually the woman who was shown to take initiative for making the life in the countryside work for the whole family. For instance, Liis (25) who had been working as a waitress but quit her job as it was not challenging enough, described: “I knew it was not fair to be the one in the family who is not providing and to let my partner take care of our family’s wellbeing.” So, Liis took a chance as an entrepreneur, establishing her own cleaning services business. And even though her partner, Kent, was skeptical towards Liis’ plan in the beginning, not much time went by when he quit his job and started working for Liis’ cleaning business.

There were several other women who had become local entrepreneurs and created jobs for others rural people as well. Mariina, for instance, had created a business that produces grain mixes and chips, offering jobs for several women in her village’s women’s club. Another woman, Kail, who had always known she is a country girl, had married a city guy who was not interested in living in the countryside. So, they had resided in Tallinn about 6 years until Kail initiated and made the move from the city to the countryside possible—she found a cozy affordable house in a rural area located about

70 kilometers from Tallinn (“not too far from the city,” as the husband required) and this became the family’s new home.

Another example of representing non-traditional femininity and unconventional gender roles, was a story told by 16-year-old Aveli who dreamed about working with tractors. “Many people have disgraced me saying woman’s place is not on the tractor. I don’t think it’s true. I was born to drive tractors and I think that female tractor operator is the best job in the world!” The story is accompanied by a photo of Aveli sitting on a hood of a blue Belarus (Figure 5). Aveli is neither masculinized to match with conventional ideas about rural people who operate tractors, neither sexualized and placed on a big machine like an object. She looks just like an average teenage girl wearing an orange T- shirt and shorts, posing with something that inspires her dreams. The girl believes that

“one has to dream big” and should not give up just because the dreams may not fit with the others’ ideas of your future.

FIGURE 5. Aveli sitting on a tractor (maale-elama.ee)

In terms of the representations of rurality, many of the stories challenged the urban stereotype of rural regions as backwards, passive, and hopeless. For instance, none of the people whose stories were told, mentioned that they were unemployed. A few people commuted to the nearest cities, such as consultants and project managers, but most of them had either found or created jobs locally. Many had become entrepreneurs and some had found the way to work remotely via Internet, such as translators and editors.

Furthermore, the (post-)socialist stereotype of Estonian rural regions as exclusively connected to agriculture was also challenged. Most jobs had nothing to do with the farming, fields, or forestry. Many people’s work was related to local schools, such as teachers, advisors, trainers, creative activities’ instructors, etc. Several people also worked artistic jobs, being musicians or music teachers in local music schools, poets, folklorists, etc. The local entrepreneurs focused on a large spectrum of things ranging

85 from producing bio compost and eco-friendly lighting to race car gears and cleaning services. Just like one of the rural dwellers said, “Country life and undertakings are as colorful as a Muhu woman’s skirt.15”

The variety of jobs displayed in these stories, demonstrates that the line between

“urban” and “rural” work has become more blurred. As the leader of the movement, Ivika

Nõgel, explained in her own experience story: “There are a hundred ways to live rural life. There is no standard for doing this or that when you move to the countryside. Every lifestyle is possible. I don’t do gardening or produce anything. I do the same things I would have done in the city.” The only difference between rural and urban life, Ivika says, is the environment that surrounds us.

This leads to the next large theme that appeared in almost every experience story—rural people’s connection to and living in harmony with the natural environment.

Most of them had reduced their consumption and ecological footprint to a minimum.

Partly because of their smaller income, but mostly because of the sustainable and eco- friendly lifestyle that has become widespread in Estonian rural areas. The majority of women were enjoying having their own garden. As one of them explained, “Instead of driving to grocery store, we just step in the garden and pick our food from there in the summer.”

People also mentioned how they use things to the maximum or reuse them to keep the amount of garbage minimal. For instance, paper and cardboard boxes were being burnt in wood heaters and food leftovers were turned into compost. If possible, people preferred to buy food from local producers to support them as well as to save the energy

15 A Muhu woman’s ethnic skirt has countless colorful stripes.

86 being used to transport food from distance, so that their “ecological footprint would be as small as possible,” as Alo explained. Kristjan described: “In the countryside, it becomes clear how everything is connected. Everything you do, will come back to you.”

People were also used to seeing animals in their backyards and sometimes fed them during the colder winter months. One woman described how her family has become so one with the nature that even their sleeping patterns depend on whether it is summer, when it stays light outside till very late, which allows them to work longer hours, or it is winter, when the days are extra short, and there is not much to do in the garden.

In terms of rural people’s relations with each other, most stories portrayed rural communities as pleasant, friendly, helpful, and welcoming. Instead of competing, people were collaborating and supporting each other. Kati explained that although the geographical distances in the countryside are greater than in the cities, “rural residents are mentally much closer to each other” than the city folks.

Besides the pleasures and opportunities that rural life offers, some of the challenges were also listed, such as underdeveloped infrastructure, including poor road conditions; poorly organized or lacking public transportation; lack of jobs, healthcare facilities, grocery and merchandise stores; central water and canalization do not reach many places; constant power issues that allow to only use one to two electronics at the same time; lower salaries; banks don’t give loans because the old buildings do not qualify as collaterals; people have to be ready for things to take longer time; etc.

However, all of these problems were not listed as something that makes rural living impossible. Instead, people discussed them to demonstrate how one can overcome these issues by being creative. For instance, if there were no jobs related to people’s

87 skills, many of them became entrepreneurs. Or, if the floors were cold in the winter, people wore slippers. Or, if the power was weak, they made sure not to use electrical water heater and stove top at the same time. The problem of long distances was overcome by people planning their grocery runs to the nearest town to the same day they had a hairdresser’s or doctor’s appointments. Or, if they were trying to buy a rural home, they did not let themselves get frightened when it was in a bad shape because, as Grethe said:

“In the countryside, one should never just look what’s in front of one’s eyes but must try to imagine what else could be there.”

So, on the one hand, these experience stories represent Estonian rural life and rural women as counter-hegemonic in terms of challenging traditional gender roles and identities as well as the dominant idea of post-socialist rural regions as passive losers. On the other hand, most of these depictions seem to be confirming another stereotype of rurality, portraying it as idyllic. Although the writers mentioned several problems related to rural life, the overall message of these stories was that if you have the will to live in a rural area and work hard, you can make it happen. Almost as the lack of jobs and inefficient infrastructure were just small obstacles in rural life.

The bias to display only the rural success stories was reflected even in the headlines of these experience stories, such as “In the hands of a daring person, even birch rod will turn into gold;” “You can do anything, if you really, really want to;” “The story of a family’s successful beginning;” “Good things will happen if you are sure about yourself and your decisions;” “Wishes, they have a tendency to come true;” “One dream’s fulfilment despite of destiny;” etc. What was lacking from this selection of stories, however, was the variety of rural destinies, such as the one of retired widows

88 whose only transportation options are their bicycles or public transport that does not reach to many of the remote places in the countryside; or the one of struggling single mothers who have to raise kids with an income of 300 euros per month; or the fate of the people who live in the countryside because they have no means to move away even if they wanted to. The list goes on. Therefore, it is this dissertation’s goal to expand the range of representations of Estonian rurality and rural women by introducing various different experiences of rural life that were described in focus groups, interviews, and observations. These include the perspectives of the women who have lived in the countryside their whole lives, which were missing from the “Live on Earth” experience stories. But first, the findings from textual analysis of the movement’s infomercials are described.

4.1.3. YouTube Infomercials

The “Live on Earth” YouTube videos that advertise the movement and invite people to move to the countryside were analyzed considering their textual, visual and audible elements. There were 12 short infomercials about the “Live on Earth” movement on its YouTube channel ranging from 20 seconds to over 2 minutes in length. The majority of these videos were featuring someone who had moved to the countryside, including fictional characters as well as real life people. All of the videos focused on advertising rural living, inviting people to move to the countryside, and sharing info about the “Live on Earth” movement and its fairs. This was done via different routes including parodies, mini-documentary type real-life stories, as well as celebrity experiences of rural life.

Even though the introductory texts and experience stories on the movement’s website challenged the socially constructed rural/urban dualism, this divide was reinforced in the comedic videos of the “Live on Earth” movement, which highlighted the

“us vs. them” mentality. For example, in the video titled “Want to live a good life?” a hipster-looking, goofy urban man with a well-groomed red beard had just moved to the countryside and told the rest of the city folks about rural life like it is from another planet:

Clean water comes from underground. Totally free! Take as much as you want. Horse! Genius! Ride as much as you want, not spending anything on gas. I will be rich! Heating the house with wood. Take one tree down in the forest, another one grows back. Stupid-proof! Great deal! I adopted one fat goat and in the morning there were three more. Three in one! How cute! Free labor! Invite people over and them, stupid come and work. For free! Can you imagine? The hipster’s sarcastic excitement about the staged cheapness of rural life, illustrates the urban Estonians’ limited views of rurality, bolstering their capitalist mindset and tendency to measure everything in money.

This video could also be interpreted as just a harmless parody of city people not understanding rural folks. But even this interpretation cannot escape of the video’s hegemonic description of rural and urban people as fundamentally different creatures.

The division between the locals and the urban newcomer was not even solved at the end where the “rural fools” were working for the city hipster for free. Besides creating a divide between rural and urban life, the false description that everything comes at no cost in the countryside reinforces the hegemony of rural idyll that often shadows the real problems in rural areas. As demonstrated in several experience stories on the movement’s website, rural life can be more expensive than urban life because of much longer distances, lacking infrastructure, and limited transportation options.

Another video titled “Live on Earth Info Portal” similarly built a wall between urban and rural people. This time it featured an urban couple who wanted to move to the countryside. They hitchhiked to a random rural bus stop and bombarded a local guy walking a horse with awkward questions, asking where to find a home that is at once “in the woods, by the sea, in the valley, and on top of the hill, with neighbor-watch and totally private?” This indicates that urban people are not capable of making distinctions between rural areas in North-Estonia or South-Estonia or in one of the islands.

Furthermore, although the urban couple noticed happy kids skiing and sledging nearby, a woman shoveling snow, etc., they double-checked if “any normal people live here?”

After hearing out these questions, the rural folk remained silent. He gave his horse a long look, scooped out a smartphone from his pocket, and handed it to the couple so they can get answers to their questions from the Internet. Although the rural man was shown to be the “normal” person and the city folks were portrayed as silly urban aliens, the viewer was still seeing rural life through their eyes, identifying with them who regard rural folks as “weirdos.”

The third example of the ways the rural/urban divide was reinforced came from a video titled “Tallinn is full.” In this video, an impersonator of a notorious Tallinn mayor at the time, Edgar Savisaar, who has never been popular among rural residents, declared:

“Dear Tallinn residents, we have worked hard. Tallinn is full. No more people. Please, go and live in the countryside.” Then he ironically listed benefits that rural life offers, such as no traffic, free parking, friendly neighbors, and locally grown potatoes. Although this video was supposed to market the countryside as a good living environment, it left rather an impression that everyone dreams about living in Tallinn but the capital city cannot fit

91 the whole Estonia, so the losers, or the ones that don’t fit in, can go (back) to peripheries and grow potatoes. Moreover, similarly to the first video, no problems related to rural life were being mentioned, which could be read as Estonian politicians’ unwillingness to see rural problems and rural people’s needs, and instead look at rural life from idyllic point of view where everyone lives in harmony with each other and nature, and where money and the government’s help are overrated.

More characteristics connected to rural idyll were also detected in the video titled

“There is life in the countryside” that portrayed serene nature, including flower fields, bees, butterflies, moon and romantic sunsets at the lake; feeding of Mother Earth by picking berries and mushrooms in the woods and fishing on the lake; cozy sauna nights with accordion music and friends; wearing ethnic outfits while dancing and singing folk songs; children running in the yard and feeding chicken and sheep; horses walking around in almost every video; white laundry drying on the ropes; everyone acting friendly and helping each other; only young and healthy people living in the countryside; etc.

Another feature that bolstered the rural idyll ideology was the performance of folk-related/ethnic rurality. The same video opened by showing Seto16 men and women singing, dancing, and wearing their ethnic outfits and jewelry. In reality, this is no longer done in Setos’ everyday settings but only occasionally and as a performance for tourists.

In another video that introduced the movement’s fair, women from a different ethnicity were also wearing their ethnic outfits and offering ethnic cuisine and handicraft.

Furthermore, one of the celebrities who invited people to the countryside, Jalmar

16 Setos are a linguistic and ethnic minority located in rural South-East Estonia.

Vabarna, is also a representative of Seto culture, merging rurality and (Seto) cultural traditions together.

In addition to these visuals, the rural idyll was also reinforced in the theme song of all the movement’s videos, “The world rings” by Curly Strings, who is one of the best known Estonian folk bands. The lyrics included in the video said: “No time to wait for silence, let’s go travel with the songs across the hills and mountains. La-la-lal-lal-lal-lal- la! Come, sing along! The whole world is ringing with songs, the whole beautiful world sings and comes to its powers.” These lyrics and the song’s uplifting melody further highlighted the worriless and romantic portrayal of rural life.

Nevertheless, the idyllic nature scenes as well as folk songs and dances were seen only in a few videos. Visuals from other videos managed to portray quite a realistic picture of rural homes and people. For example, all three celebrities who introduced rural life, were standing in their yards that’s backgrounds looked nothing like seen in the

Western “Country Living” magazines. Rather, the viewer was shown old pre-Soviet farmhouses that yearned for renovations and fresh paint, soiled yards, wobbly barns, etc.

One video also offered a glimpse to a famous Estonian musician, writer, and TV-host,

Mihkel Raud’s home interior, which reminded a rural grandmother’s house from the late

Soviet years.

These videos also showed how rural people were not afraid to start working on their homes to fix them up. As Jalmar Vabrna, a well-known Seto/Estonian folk musician commented: “If rural life is what your heart desires, then this rickety barn behind me doesn’t matter. This can be straightened out. As long as your heart is happy.” But then

93 again, no one mentioned how expensive renovating a country house actually is and how banks often refuse to give loans to average people for such purposes.

While rural idyll was reinforced in the couple of videos, the other wide-spread stereotype of rurality as backwards was challenged in several videos—whether by showing a rural horse guy scooping out his smartphone and handing it to city folks, or by portraying Mihkel Raud sitting behind his desktop and surfing in Internet. Mihkel explained:

It is incredibly easy to be in contact with the rest of the world, to work and to communicate with friends from the countryside because we actually have Internet. … Basically, there is no difference between rural and urban living besides the fact that it just feels ten times nicer to be in the country than in the city.

Furthermore, besides depicting rural people picking berries or walking horses, the videos also introduced young entrepreneurs who were successfully using the countryside for both, living and working. They explained how operating a business in rural environment requires diverse skills: “You need to be an expert in many different areas— producer, marketer and developer at the same time.” This demonstrates that rurality does not have to be associated with uneducated and unemployed drunkards who have no dreams or hopes for future.

Moreover, the movement’s YouTube videos also included several counterhegemonic perspectives of seeing rural life in the intersection of gender and rurality. For instance, both rural men and women were shown being equally involved in a physically challenging rural works, such as yard cleaning, stowing firewood, fixing horse fences, etc. Better yet, in several videos, the focus was actually on women doing “manly” jobs without turning masculine themselves. For example, Estonian pop singer, Lenna, was

94 shown carrying branches, painting floors, and polishing window frames. While doing that, she was wearing a floppy working skirt and had a flowery scarf wrapped around her blonde hair. In another video, a young woman was dragging a heavy garbage bag across the yard, while the man behind her was walking with a baby.

Furthermore, opposite to the experience stories, almost all videos seemed to challenge the heteronormative family model. Out of the 12 videos only 2 showed heteronormative couples—the comedic couple from the city and the real-life local entrepreneurs from the countryside. Other videos had just one main character and no hints to their other halves or children. In a video titled “There is life in the countryside,” the main character was a middle-aged woman with a young child, but her husband was not in the picture. Instead, she was shown to ride a boat with her baby and another woman. In another video, a woman who had moved to the countryside a year ago, told: “I came here to find a home but I found much more. I found friends, found community.”

While saying this, she was hugging a horse and later fixing fences with a group of village folks. This indicates that non-heteronormative families such as community members’ and friends’ groups and can also function as families in the countryside. Similarly, all of the celebrities were portrayed alone in their country homes. No kids, no wives, no husbands.

Only Lenna had a neighbor coming over with a tractor to help her with yard work.

In conclusion, the aim of this section was to answer the first research question that asked, what kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural femininities emerge in association with Estonian rural women’s representations in the

“Live on Earth” movement. More specifically, how are these representations reinforcing, negotiating and/or challenging urban and gender hegemonies in post-socialist Estonia?

Textual analysis of the “Live on Earth” website’s introductory texts and experience stories, and infomercials on YouTube demonstrated that although the movement’s view of rurality and rural women is counter-hegemonic compared to the mainstream media’s portrayals of it, there still are some themes that reinforce urban and gender hegemonies.

In terms of comparing the counter-hegemonic potential of the website’s texts and the

YouTube videos, the themes that emerged from the website in connection to post- socialist rurality appeared to be less dominant than the ones featured in the videos. While the website refuted the socially constructed dichotomy between rural and urban, the videos were rather reinforcing it through the “us vs. them” mentality. While the idea of rural as backwards was not highlighted in any of the analyzed texts, the indication of rural as idyllic (that often shadows the real problems in the countryside) was occasionally bolstered in both the experience stories as well as in some of the videos. In terms of the multilayered nature of rural life, the website seemed to acknowledge it in its introductory texts as well as including all kinds of professions in the experience stories. On the other hand, these experience stories expressed rather the perspectives of the people who had made the best out of the opportunities in the countryside, leaving the challenges related to post-socialist rural areas in the background.

In terms of gender roles and identities, both the website as well as YouTube videos were quite counter-hegemonic. Women were shown in both domestic as well as public spheres. They were often executing masculine tasks related to rural life, such as yard cleaning, house painting, fishing, driving tractors etc., without becoming masculine themselves. They were also sometimes shown as the providers for families and the ones who created jobs for other community members. Moreover, the founders of the “Live on

Earth” movement were also mostly women, indicating their active role in maintaining rural life. In terms of heteronormativity, although the experience stories tended to reinforce the idea of a traditional family, the YouTube videos were challenging it by depicting community members and friends’ groups also functioning as families in the countryside.

The next section describes the results of focus groups, interviews and observations to describe rural Estonian women’s spatial practices to help to understand the material characteristics of rural life and to expand the range of portrayals of rurality that emerged from its alternative media representations.

4.2. Spatial Practices of Estonian Rural Women

The second research question explored what kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural femininities emerge in association with Estonian rural women’s spatial practices. More specifically, it examined how these practices are reinforcing, negotiating and/or challenging urban and gender hegemonies in the context of post-socialist Estonia. To answer these questions, results from observations as well as focus groups and interviews with rural women in South and Central Estonia were utilized.

Spatial practices, also known as rural localities (Halfacree, 2007), make up the material realm of rural space and refer to all kinds of activities related to consumption and production of the countryside. Describing different spatial practices of Estonian rural women helps to understand what they do with and in the rural space, how they consume and produce it. But it also allows to comprehend how their specific actions as well as built environment and infrastructure in rural space are socially and culturally meaningful

(Jansson 2009). In other words, how their doings have the power to challenge, negotiate, and/or reinforce the hegemonies of geographical location and gender.

The focus groups, interviews and observations revealed a number of themes that demonstrated how Estonian rural women were mostly challenging and negotiating, but sometimes also reinforcing various post-socialist urban and gender hegemonies through their spatial practices.

4.2.1. Rural Women and “Masculine” Work

Estonian rural women’s lives have been heavily impacted by the changes that happened in the Estonian countryside after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its collective farms, which deteriorated the job situation in rural areas. Although the literature shows that the severest post-Soviet realities were experienced by rural women

(Coleman, 2005; Denisova, 2010), the majority of this study’s participants believed that the breakdown of local kolkhozes had attenuating impact on rural men who went to depression after losing their jobs. The women explained that many rural men of the older generation never fully recovered from losing their jobs and remained unemployed or did odd works from time to time. The younger rural men, however, started to commute to

Scandinavian countries where they began earning living as construction workers for months in a row. Thus, the women had to take over many of the men’s responsibilities related to domestic as well as public life. Participant 12 explained this problem:

Although Estonian population census shows that there are more men than women residing in rural areas, in reality, many men spend most of their time abroad working. Many of them do construction work in Finland, Sweden, or Norway. And this is tough for both men, who cannot be home with their families, but also for women, who have to take care of children and homes, plus work locally.

M jokingly added: “Rural men are like cavemen who leave for long periods of time and return in random times with prey.”

Other women also agreed that this kind of life puts double-burden on women who have to take care of domestic life by themselves as well as work (often several jobs) because even though the salaries men earn abroad are greater than local salaries, the part they bring home is often not enough to support the whole family. Participant17 illustrated this situation:

My son, too, went to work in Finland because he couldn’t find a job here. So, my daughter in law had to take an extra job as a local security guard to be able to pay for her car because otherwise it is impossible to get around in the countryside, especially with little children.

Many other participants also mentioned how the lack of men who permanently reside in the countryside has forced women to take over various works that have been usually referred to as “manly” jobs. Participant 3, for instance, illustrates: “I learned how to use a weed whacker after my husband died.” Participant 26, whose husband also passed almost 10 years ago, had to learn to do everything on her own, starting from switching light bulbs and ending with pumping water out of her basement. Participant 7, who had been single her whole life, explained how she had just fixed her garden hose with the help of YouTube videos.

Women doing “men’s work” were also noticed during the observations in different rural locations. For instance, during the day spent in a local family’s home

(mostly in the yard and garden), a 62-year-old Participant 2 went to the nearby forest, dug out about 15 young spruce trees from the ground, carted them to her yard where she had previously dug deep holes for the trees, and planted them in there. Participant 2, who weighs about 110 pounds, then carried about 7-8 10-litre buckets of water to moist the

99 ground under the young spruces. “This,” she said, “is going to grow into a beautiful spruce hedge.” She pointed towards a thick hedge on the other side of her yard that she had planted about 10 years ago.

Since it was the time of summer holidays, Participant 2’s two daughters in their early thirties were also home from the city, helping their parents with yard work. One of them was using a weed whacker to clean the sides of the road from weed and another one was chopping and stacking firewood. Later in the evening, the daughters were using a hand plow to eliminate weeds from the potato furrows. One of them was showing a photo of her climbing on a roof and cleaning it from moss a few days ago. Interestingly, when the lunch time arrived, the women had to flip a coin to decide who goes inside to prepare a meal for the family, as this was the least favorite job of these ladies675. Participant 2 explained: “There are no man’s and women’s works in the countryside. Everyone does what they are capable of. For example, I’m not good with the mechanical and technical things, so these are usually my husband’s responsibilities.”

In the beginning of the sauna night observation in Musta, Participant 27 (in her early thirties) and her mother (in her early sixties), who had just finished dragging giant branches into the camp fire, were now collecting buckets of water from the pond and carrying them into sauna. Participant 27 and her mother, who both work in Tallinn, explained that they spend as many moths of the year they can, especially during summers, in their rural home in South Estonia where they have a small summer house and garden for growing flowers, herbs and berries. They said they could not imagine their lives without this place, even though it takes a lot of (physical) work to keep everything in order.

100

Furthermore, during the bike ride observations in Vastse-Roosa, Participant 4 was also spotted practicing a rather “manly” job—she was cutting grass with a lawn tractor, having both of her young kids on it with her. She explained:

My husband is working long days in the forest, so at the moment, I am enjoying the maternity leave with my daughters. But this does not mean I can’t work. I just figured out how to cut grass with two young children—the older one (5) jumps in the back of the tractor, the younger one (2) sits in my lap, and here we go! And this is how they actually learn what work means.

When asked about other jobs she does in the countryside, Participant 4 described: “I love to perform works that require physical strength and skills. The other day, I placed the carcass for the roof of our new house with my husband. So, if anyone is looking for a construction worker… (laughs). But I hate washing dishes!”

Still, all of these “manly works” the women of this study were practicing, did not mean that they were not doing traditional “women’s work” as well, such as raising kids, preparing meals, washing dishes, cleaning houses, doing handicraft, etc. Furthermore, the

“masculine work” did not seem to masculinize the women themselves—some of them looked tiny and fragile, some of them were inseparable of their children, some of them had long blonde hair, some had groomed eyebrows and painted fingernails, etc. And yet, the works they were performing were often physically challenging. These results indicate that the so-called “double burden” (Denisova) that was originally linked to the Soviet women, continues to exist in the Estonian countryside till this day.

4.2.2. Rural Women as Post-Soviet Problem-Solvers

As explained in the introduction chapter, one of the main problems that negatively impacts contemporary post-Soviet rural regions is its limited infrastructure compared to the infrastructure in the cities as well as in the countryside during the Soviet era. The

101 most common problems related to rural Estonia, which surfaced from the observations, focus groups and interviews, were: lack of jobs, low salaries and expensive rural life; centralization and inefficient public transportation; closing down local stores; and lack of social and cultural activities.

The women explained that the abovementioned shortcomings are largely impacted by the socially constructed divide between rural and urban areas, which guides politicians’ decisions to support life in the cities, but not in the countryside. They described that during the Soviet era, rural areas often faced a discursive stigma, while in the contemporary Estonia, they have to deal with both discursive as well as material difficulties because the governmental policies are not supporting rural development. As

Participant 11 illustrated:

A lot of today’s political decisions, such as merging rural municipalities, have had negative impact on rural areas. But during the Soviet times, the government was actually supporting people who returned to rural areas—teachers, for instance. I remember when I was trying to get into colleges (ca 40 years ago), then it was actually made easier for the students who came from peripheries in a condition that they go back to their countryside for a certain amount of years after they receive their education. This was just one way of doing regional politics right— supporting regional development and bringing back the “brains.” This actually worked. People really went back to their home regions. So, in this sense, we don’t currently have functioning regional politics that would admit that Estonia includes other areas than the capital city. It does not end where Tallinn ends.

Participant 1 expanded on that thought and explained how today, the politicians are doing the opposite, supporting people who move to Tallinn:

A math teacher I know decided to start teaching in a high school in Tallinn because her local rural school got scaled down to a middle school. And how does Tallinn get people to live there? The city offered her a free apartment! Same in my school in Tallinn, two young teachers also got free apartments in the teacher’s building. Of course, it is nice and convenient, but this is how they get people to move away from rural areas. This is the way to create the “Green Estonia” that politicians are talking about. The one where civilization ends where Tallinn ends and the rest of the country belongs to the nature and wild animals.

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Nevertheless, while Estonian politicians and the mainstream media announce that urbanization is irreversible and treat rural areas as the losers of Estonian post-socialist transition, most country women refused to see their lives and doings from that angle.

Although they were eager to list the problems they faced in their everyday lives, these women were equally enthusiastic about discussing the creative ways they have come up to solve these issues through various spatial practices. In other words, these rural women were actively challenging the hegemonic portrayal of post-Soviet rural areas as backwards and hopeless through the different ways they were utilizing rural space in their everyday lives. This section then describes some of the biggest material problems related to the post-socialist countryside and the creative ways rural women have invented to overcome these issues.

Problem: Lack of Jobs, Low Salaries, and Expensive Rural Life. The lack of jobs was usually the first problem that jumped to the participants’ minds, especially when they compared rural life during the Soviet era with contemporary rural living. Participant

26illustrated: “During the Soviet times, there were jobs in the countryside, mostly connected to local kolkhozes. I don’t remember anyone being unemployed, even local drunkards had jobs. Today, this is one of the biggest problems impacting life in the countryside.”

And even if the government is supporting certain areas of rural life, it usually has to do with agriculture. As Participant 10 explained:

For example, if people in Jõgeva county want to develop anything related to

tourism, then the government authorities say that you will get no money because

Central rural Estonia is no tourist area. They say no one will come here. Tallinn,

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Tartu, Haapsalu, Pärnu, and the islands (all urban areas except for the islands)

receive money from the government for developing tourism, but not others.

This reinforces a stereotypical and outdated idea that the spatial practices in the countryside have to be exclusively related to farming or forestry. Participant 12 continued:

There is this alternative TV show, Country Morning, that demonstrates how rural areas are not just grain and potato fields, but we do other stuff too—we die fabrics, we talk about herbs, and so on. By introducing the countryside from different angles, people see that you can live here without having to be part of the agricultural community.

Another job-related issue the women discussed were the lower incomes compared to urban salaries. As Participant 18 described: “I don’t understand why rural people get paid less for the same exact work than urban people. I work as a cook, but get paid much less for the same amount of work as the city cooks.” At the same time, the women explained that expenses in the countryside can be much bigger than in the city.

Participant 21 illustrated: “Rural life is definitely more expensive. If urban people save money to be able to travel, then we usually don’t get to do that because we need our savings to buy a new weed whacker or some other machine.” Participant 18 also described the costs related to rural living:

We have to drive 100 kilometers for groceries, 100 kilometers for high school, 100 kilometers for medical help, etc. Firewood for winter months costs 600 euros but my monthly salary is only 468 euros, so I can’t even afford to buy them out at once. But I have to have firewood or my family will freeze to death.

Participant 24 described her family’s situation: “My husband gets 500 euros for full time job and drives 100 kilometers daily to get to work and back. So, what is left of this income?” Participant 1 added:

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Many people actually say it needs to be a wealthy person who can afford living in the post-Soviet countryside. Prices in local shops are higher because of the markup. This is normal because the shop owner also needs to make a living. But what makes me really angry is when there are large chain stores in the countryside and their prices are much higher than in the same chain store in the city. That is not fair. So, I sometimes buy cat food from Tallinn and bring it with me to South Estonia.

Thus, rural women needed to be creative about how to accumulate extra income in the countryside to cover all these costs, or about how to keep the costs as low as possible. For instance, in terms of expensive heating fees, Participant 2 and her husband had figured out how to reduce these costs. They were now geting their firewood from their own forest. During the winter months, they took down the trees themselves, cut them to pieces, transported them to their yard, chopped them and stacked them in special wood sheds.

In terms of local jobs, as mentioned by this study’s participants as well as in various experience stories on the “Live on Earth” movement’s website, one way to make living in rural areas, is to start your own business. As Participant 5 illustrated: “So now you have to be an entrepreneur to be able to live in the countryside.” Rural women’s entrepreneurial practices were spotted mainly during observations. For instance, a café in

Haanja that offered fresh food from local farmers but also organized different local events, was run by local women only. Furthermore, the people who worked in the café were also exclusively women. Another example of female entrepreneurship was a rural woman who ran a local store as well as tourist attractions and guest house in Vastse-

Roosa.

Participant 14 also described various entrepreneurial practices that have been taken up by people in different parts of rural Estonia: “In connection with the Open

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Farms Day event, they introduced various “farms” each week in TV3. By “farms” they mean different businesses that people run in the countryside, such as farms that produce soaps and cosmetics, bow ranges, beekeepers, etc.”

However, “Not every rural person is an entrepreneur as well as not everyone has the capital to start a business,” said Participant 5. For the older generation who was born and spent more than half of their lives under the communist regime, adjusting to capitalist free market system and business has been rather difficult. Thus, these women had come up with other spatial practices that allowed them to earn (extra) living in the countryside.

Many unemployed women, for example, were picking wild strawberries, blueberries, lingonberries, cloudberries, and different mushrooms in the forest each summer and fall to earn living. Other women who had low-paying jobs, did it to add to their annual income. As Participant 17 describes: “Oh, Participant 18 and I have walked over 50 kilometers a day in summers to pick berries in the woods to make some extra money, so we could pay for our kids’ school stuff. Plus, you can also preserve berries for winter and save money like this.” Participant 19, on the other hand, crafted birthday and anniversary cards that other local women bought.

Participant 1, however, who used to work for local school that was on the edge of being closed down, found a math teacher job in Tallinn—over 300 kilometers from her home in rural South Estonia. She described how she has figured out how to successfully navigate between these two locations:

My husband takes me to the nearest town and then I take either a bus or train to Tallinn. I do all my grading during the long bus ride. But I would never permanently move there, I couldn’t imagine my life without my country home. I would go crazy if I was stuck in my Tallinn apartment every day of a week. If I didn’t have my home in South Estonia, I would even go work for someone for

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free who has a rural home, just to be able to live that life—I need to have my hands in the ground, I need to unwind somehow.

Yet, Participant 1’s 300-kilometer commute to work was not very common among rural women. As explained earlier, it was rather practiced by rural men.

Interestingly, the local women, who were often struggling with the financial side of rural life, still found ways to also support the local unemployed habitual drunkards, or as Participant 1 calls them, the Napsitrallid17. Some of the women, especially the older ones and the ones who were living alone, had paid the local napsitrallid for helping to fix their car or bike, chop firewood, shovel snow, help carry heavy bags home from the train station, etc. Participant 14 who has two young kids, explained:

I had to get the firewood in the shed before the rain the other day. I couldn’t find anybody who was willing to help but the local drunkard who showed up with his bike for 25 euros. Although he had his little flask with him, he got the job done great.

Participant 2 added: “While during the Soviet era, it was the kolkhozes that humanized local drunkards, then now it is the rural women who occasionally support and give purpose to their being.”

Furthermore, many of these women lived in such remote areas that no central heating, powerlines, roads, canalization or running water reached there, so they had to figure out on their own how to get these essentials for their homes. This was usually very costly. As Participant 18 explained:

My parents did not get running water or inside toilet in their home till a few years ago. All their lives they had to carry water from four kilometers away. They worked so hard to get these things that are normal in the city, and now, when they finally have them, they are too old to even enjoy them.

17 The term, Napsitrallid, derives from a word play between Estonian legendary children’s book characters, Naksitrallid, and booze that is called naps.

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And if rural people were sometimes trying to contact authorities for infrastructural help, they got politely shut down. As Participant 25 illustrated: “The public road to my house was inaccessible for many days, so I called the roads administration office and they responded: ‘Don’t worry, the roads are always bad in the spring.’” Participant 2 had a similar story to share:

When I called to the same office to ask if our road will be cleaned of snow as it had not been cleaned for days, they responded: ‘Oh, but who lives this far anyways? Ghosts?” And that is exactly how city people see us—the spooks. So, I took my snow shovel and spent a day cleaning the road by hand.

Participant 15 wrapped up the conversation by explaining that the only way to survive in the countryside, is to count on yourself but also on other humans, not the money, nor the authorities:

In the countryside, humanity plays bigger role than money. If the local authorities do not care about your road being cleaned of snow, you have to ask help from your neighbors who have the snow removal equipment. And the neighbor will start with those who act like human beings, but not with the ones who pay him. So, hand washes hand. You help, they help. In our scattered settlements’ periphery, the living conditions are so tough that people actually do help each other. Humanity has definitely remained stronger in these areas than in the densly populated cities.

Problem: Centralization and Inefficient Public Transportation. The administrative-territorial reform that took place in 2017, brought the number of Estonian municipalities down from 213 to 79 (Haldusreform, 2017). Although the purpose of this reform was to increase the amount and quality of available public services in different regions, support the competitiveness of local governments, and encourage an even development of different regions, the majority of this study’s participants did not believe that changing the local government borders has or will bring the promised positive changes to rural life. As Estonian politician, Kaido Kama, explained, “It is not the size of

108 local governments that determines their competitiveness and potential for development, but their geographical location.” (Kama, 2016) Hence, although larger municipalities can be more powerful, this power in remote parts of Estonia remains too far from the actual people, especially in the rural regions in South-East Estonia where 5,000 people who now belong in one municipality are scattered over large areas.

Like Kama, none of the study’s participants approved this regional reform. As

Participant 22 illustrated: “Merging small municipalities and centralizing local governing has caused nothing good. Politicians are putting out very broad promises but nothing has improved.” Participant 10 described the actual downside of this reform: “One of the worst impacts of the regional reform was that in the new large municipalities, it is no longer known which person needs which help.” Participant 11 agreed: “Exactly! Merging the small municipalities into large ones also means more anonymity and that the local leaders don’t really know what kind of help is needed.”

In terms of increasing the amount and quality of available public services in rural areas, the participants found that this has not happened. As a solution, many women were accessing public services online, but still, there were situations when the Internet could not help. Participant 10, for example, explained: “Even though most public services in

Estonia can be done via Internet, in my home village, there is no WIFI and no service.”

Participant 1 described a different situation:

Yes, we can do almost everything online, including banking transactions, but my husband got a new debit card, so he needed to physically go to the bank to renew his personal information. But the bank in the nearest town that is 50 kilometers away is only open till 5pm in business days, so how are people who work in rural areas supposed to get to town before it closes? Furthermore, even though he managed to get off work earlier to take care of this situation, he drives a huge truck for work which is not allowed to enter the town. So, I had to drive 50 kilometers to pick him up from the city limit, he went to the bank and did his

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three-minute transaction, and then we drove back home 50 kilometers with two separate cars. And then they say living in rural areas is cheap.

However, about half of these rural women did not own cars, so for them, accessing public services was much more complicated. In terms of using public transportation, there was another reform in Estonia that guaranteed free public transportation within county limits. However, as this study’s participants in rural South

Estonia explained, the free rides did not solve the issue of public transportation not reaching to remote places and the limited frequency of available rides. Thus, for the people from the Southern Estonian countryside, it takes three connecting buses and at least half a day to travel to the capital city. Meanwhile, most women in Central Estonia that is well-connected with the two largest cities, Tartu and Tallinn, approved the free transportation reform.

For instance, while Participant 9 from Central Estonia truly appreciated the free public transportation that she can take to work and back daily, Participant 7, who has relatives living in rural South Estonia, explained that it is quite different for people in more remote areas:

Yes, you win of the free transportation when you can use it every day to get to work and it fits with your schedule. But the person from near Latvian border (South Estonia) who wants to take the bus to the city, can’t do it because it does not go there and come back in a convenient time. And this is sad.

Participant 12, also from central Estonia, agreed with Participant 7: “For us, it is much easier because we live so close to the city. We have train that takes us to Tartu and

Tallinn. But it is not like this with all rural areas.”

Meanwhile, Participant 1 from South Estonia explained: “If I wanted to take public transportation to Võru (the nearest small town) from where I live, it would take

110 two and a half hours with two different buses,” even though it is about 45-kilometer drive and would take approximately 40 minutes with a car. Participant 3, also from South

Estonia, described:

I don’t get the point of free transportation if it does not come during normal times, neither frequently enough. If I need to go see a doctor in town in the morning, I cannot, because the earliest I can get there by bus is 1 in the afternoon.

And still, these women had to find ways to commute from and to rural regions as most of the public services are located in the cities. Participant 15 told a story of a local half-blind 80-year-old Southern Estonian rural woman, who, instead of condemning the inefficient public transportation, makes it work for her:

Yesterday’s situation perfectly characterizes the creativity of our peripheral village women. I went to drop off berries and drove by K.T. who was biking somewhere. When I drove back in 30 minutes or, I saw her again with her bike, now going the other way, carrying two huge bags on the bike’s steering wheel and her sister was walking next to her. So, she had biked to the bus stop that is miles and miles away from her home to meet her sister who came with the bus, and this is how they were getting back home. Two 80-year-old ladies. Her logistical planning is amazing. Sometimes, she bikes to the bus stop and takes the bus to the city, leaving her bike there for almost a day. When she comes back from the town with huge grocery bags, she leaves them in the bus stop as they are too heavy to put on the bicycle. But she knows I’m driving home from work around this time and picking them up for her. So, this is creative thinking and making rural life work for you.

As detected during the observations, many women arrived to the focus groups and other gatherings with their bicycles. The few who were driving cars, were sharing their rides so that there was usually no empty seats left. Participant 18 explained that ride sharing is very common in their community: “If someone drives to town, they’ll let you know and ask what they can pick up for you, or if you need to catch a ride. Yesterday, my neighbor picked up five kilos of paprika for me.”

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But there were often also times these women were forced to take three connected buses to the city, which consumed at least half of their day. As Participant 8 mentioned:

“It can take a day to go to the city to see a doctor for 30 minutes. But you have to do it.”

For those days, many of these women took advantage of the “free” time on the bus to do something useful. Participant 1 explained how she tries to do all the grading and class prep during her weekly bus rides between home and Tallinn, which is over ten hours.

Participant 16 and Participant 25 found that the long bus ride was sometimes also good for thinking. As Participant 25 explained: “I used to always be scared of someone I know taking the same bus from Tallinn as me. Then the five hours of being with your own thoughts were gone (laugh).”

So, the commutes between the countryside and the city make up an important part of rural women’s spatial practices, but, as Participant 16 commented: “The distance from the countryside to the city seems always shorter than the other way around,” meaning that rural people visit urban areas much more than urban people step their foot to the countryside.

Problem: Closing Down Local Shops. As mentioned in Barbi Pilvre’s article, one of the issues for rural areas is closing down local stores. Although Pilvre thought that this will not impact rural residents because most of them drive cars, about half of this study’s participants did not own cars and it was not so easy for them to get to town for grocery shopping. As Participant 8, who do not drive, described in connection with closing down their local store in Kurista:

When you are 80 years old, then even one kilometer that you have to walk home from the bus stop, with two heavy grocery bags, when you are not even supposed to lift heavy weights, is very hard. And it is even harder for people who live over two kilometers from the bus stops.

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None of the participants were supporting closing down these stores as going there has been always part of these women’s everyday doings. Participant 12 explained: “In reality, there is more than those three people who visit local stores. The ones that Barbi does not see. And they are actually decent people (laughs).” Participant 19, who would have to commute 100 kilometers to the city and back for a bottle of milk, if her local shop closes down, added that what is even more important than the goods, is that these shops are crucial social gatherings places. Participant 3 also stressed the importance of the social aspect of these stores and believed that closing them down would eventually lead to disappearance of villages. Participant 2 agreed:

They are more than just shops; they are locations where rural people gather and exchange news. I don’t even see anything bad about men having a beer after work by the local shop and discussing daily news with their buddies for an hour. City men do the same thing in restaurants or bars or at home.

So, in the areas where local stores were still operating, rural women tried to buy everything they could from these shops. Participant 12 explained how in her village, people were collecting signatures to not close down the local shop. Then, the shop keepers started explaining to locals that if they want the store to be open, they must have at least 1,000-euro turnover per day, which means that people would have to buy from local store and not from city. Participant 12 said: “After this, my family started buying much more from local store instead of driving to the city. Especially those emotion purchases—like biking or walking there to pick up ice cream.” Participant 15, too, described: “Everything I can, I buy from our local store. So that they wouldn’t shut it down. But there are goods that they don’t sell here, these I must buy from the city.”

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And yet, more and more shops are vanishing from the countryside and rural people have to find ways to cope with it. As Participant 1 explained:

They just closed down another local shop nearby and my friend said, ‘Yes, it’s sad. But we are creative people. We just plan ahead and buy groceries for few weeks when we drive to the city. We will survive. This won’t make us leave our homes.’

But the women, like Participant 23 or Participant 19, who did not have cars and for whom getting to the city can take a whole day, had come up with other creative solutions, such as preserving food for longer periods of time. As Participant 11 described:

“It’s the rural women who have given the society the various ways of naturally preserving food—smoking it, drying it, salting it, etc.” Participant 24 added: “I laugh at those self-help books that teach people how to manage a week without going to the store.

I can last without the grocery store at least a month.” And all of these creative solutions were invented to cope with certain issues in the countryside.

Problem: Lack of Social and Cultural Activities. The women explained that during the Soviet era, local kolkhozes were organizing various events in the villages and were responsible for cultural activities, such as collective theatre and museum visits. As

Lea described: “There were organized group visits to the theatres in the cities at least once a month!” Participant 11 added: “During the Soviet era, there were local culture houses everywhere. I think rural people consumed and produced more culture than urban people did during the Soviet times.”

After the disappearance of local kolkhozes, the cultural and social activities also vanished from the countryside, at least for some time. But this did not mean that rural people would accept living without culture and social life. Instead, they started organizing their own theatre visits. Participant 7, for instance, illustrated:

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I am part of at least three groups who frequently drive to Tartu or Tallinn or Viljandi to see different plays and concerts. With buses, I would not be able to go because these performances end around 9 or 10 pm and no bus drives to the countryside that late.

Participant 19, who also did not own a car, said that she goes to concerts no matter whether she can catch a ride with someone or has to take a bus. Sometimes the village ladies or even the local school organize shared visits to theatres in Tartu or

Tallinn, so then Participant 19 can join the group. But if no one is driving and there is a play or concert she wishes to see; she takes a bus to Tartu or Tallinn and spends a night in the hotel. “You have to have priorities when spending your hard-earned money. My priority is culture,” said Participant 19

Nevertheless, during the recent years, the local cultural communities have started to become more active, especially in South Estonia. Participant 21 explained: “But now we actually have more interest groups here in the countryside—dance groups, sport groups, music groups, etc.” Participant 24 added: “I also appreciate Mõniste’s social and cultural life. I attend in the local dance parties and run a local acting group.” Furthermore, as noted during one of the observations, the owners of the local café in Haanja were arranging various cultural events in their rooms, such as alternative film screenings, concerts from local musicians, etc. So, besides offering rural people an opportunity to enjoy concerts, films, and other performances, they also offered local artists and musicians a chance to display their repertoire. Similarly, the local tourist farm in Vastse-

Roosa often arranged events, such as village days, the Midsummer’s Eve bonfire, the

Independence Day event, etc., where locals gathered and enjoyed cultural and social activities.

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But besides the locally arranged larger cultural activities, the study’s participants were also often organizing their own social and cultural gatherings. Participant 5, for instance, who wrote poems, had get-togethers where she performed her poetry and her

17-year-old piano-virtuoso grandchild played piano. Participant 8 described how she attended ceramic and handicraft hobby groups. Participant 11 was part of a group who practices yoga and bioenergetics. Participant 12 actively played a game called Geo cashing, which encourages people to find and visit interesting geographic locations all over the world. She explained:

It’s like Pokemon, but with an educational purpose. It integrates virtual and physical worlds to make people learn new things about different locations. It actually brings many urban people to explore rural areas. Some of them even decide to stay in the countryside.

Besides the Geo cashing, Participant 12 was also a member of a local folkdance group, skier, and ice-swimmer. Participant 6, too, practiced ice-swimming and running regularly.

So, once again, there was a difference in cultural and social life practices concerning remote and better-connected rural areas. While the women in rural South

Estonia had taken more active role in organizing their own cultural and group events, the women from rural Central Estonia, tended to rather organize shared rides to travel to the nearest cities to enjoy culture in there.

Overall, the observations, interviews and focus groups revealed various spatial practices that allow Estonian rural women to (re)produce and consume the post-Soviet countryside in innovative, counterhegemonic ways. Participant 18 nicely illustrated how all these creative solutions and hard country work have helped to grow even deeper roots for these women:

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I think that (hard work) is what actually keeps us, women, here. We have worked so hard to have what we have, so we don’t want to leave. I mean, how can you sell your and your grandparents’ memories, sweat and blood with a price of a sandwich?

Although the dominant depictions of the post-socialist countryside are often limited to its backwardness, problems, helplessness, and passiveness, and the efforts of rural people to make life in the countryside better are left uncovered, the abovementioned rural women’s spatial practices actively countered these hegemonic ideas. As Participant

15 illustrated:

The media stories about rural people’s sufferings remind me of that parody song by Avandi and Sepp that says if someone would be rewarded for suffering, we would win. I mean, no one asks you to live here if rural life is only one big suffering. When not everything goes smooth and as planned, I like to tell my kids, “Okay, now there is a wall on your way. What are you going to do? You can’t climb across it. That’s okay. You can sit down and cry a little bit if you want to. But then you have to figure out how to go forward, how to get passed that wall. There is always a solution.” My husband says that I am like a caterpillar tractor with beautiful white accessories that gets through all dirt and obstacles, no matter what.

4.2.3. Rural Women, Mother Earth, Green Politics and Bartering Economies

The final larger theme that emerged from the observations, focus groups and interviews with rural women in connection with their spatial practices was their relationship with the natural environment and the ways it impacted these women’s doings. Nature and Mother Earth played a very special role in the large majority of the participants’ lives and were most frequently named as the reasons why they would never move away from the countryside.

More specifically, natural environment, such as forest, garden, river, etc., were mentioned by the rural women as both places they would want to be in when they are stressed out as well as when they are happy. As Participant 15 explained: “If I get mad at

117 something at work, I go and walk in the woods and come back like a happy flower. Or, I go and sit by the river.” Participant 16 described her relationship with her garden:

I was stressed out about work and my dad from the city called me and said he is going to buy me a spa-hotel pass for a week. I asked if he is crazy trying to drag me away from the garden work as soon as everything starts blooming. The only therapy I needed was to get my hands dirty. And gardening is not something we do because we have to, we grow vegetables and flowers because we want to. I could also buy them from the store if I didn’t want to grow them.

Participant 2 added: “Exactly! If I want to work in the garden, I will. It is never forced. I feel it balances my life. Physical work and connection with Mother Earth give me back my energy after the long day at work.”

Participant 5, the poet, described:

I moved to the countryside because I wanted to live. In the city, my neighbors were constantly drinking and fighting. I could not catch any break. I felt a sense of happiness when I moved here, sense of peace, freedom. I could find myself in the countryside. I can create! I couldn’t in the city.

The women also discussed how wild animals have become frequent part of their lives. Participant 1 told a story of the times when she had just moved to the countryside:

I went to milk cows in the barn and all of a sudden heard someone whistling. I thought some man had come to our property and ran inside to tell my husband that I’m not going to milk a cow with all these perverts creeping around. My husband started laughing and explained that these are rabbits who make the whistling sound during their mating time.

The other women also humanized wild life and described how a bee swarm sounded like a Russian warplane, or the ducks that whirred like someone was trying to start a Husqvarna. They also described different troubles caused by animals in rural areas, such as bee and wasp attacks, or deers and rabbits eating apple trees and wild hogs digging out all of their potatoes from the ground.

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Another theme that occurred in connection with the natural environment was the sustainable living. Those topics were mostly noticed throughout different observations.

For instance, during the sauna night in Musta as well as the garden day in Vastse-Roosa and the Midsummer’s Eve in Tiitsa, there was not one time when people used plastic dishes. Although many people participated in these events and a lot of food was served, everything was offered from clay dishes that were hand-washed after the parties. In

Musta, Participant 27 and her mother were cleaning all the dishes in a bowl because they did not have running water in their summer house. And yet, they had made a promise to themselves that they will use no plastic dishes. For the sauna, the water was gathered from a pond nearby, while for drinking, it was brought further from the village center.

In terms of lacking possibilities for central canalization, Participant 26explained that she was able to implement an eco-canalization system, which filters all the excrements in a way that they become bio-fertilizers for the ground. Thus, most people in the countryside tried to avoid harsh chemicals and used only eco-friendly soaps and detergents as the chemicals can eventually end up in their drinking water.

As of garbage production, during one of the observations, Participant 2 showed her family’s (2 people, occasionally 4-5) 80-litre (21 gallons) garbage-container that was emptied once a month. In the U.S., this size container is usually emptied once or twice a week. Participant 2 explained: “We just don’t produce much garbage, as we burn the paper in our wood heaters and the food leftovers go to compost that after some time becomes new fertile ground for vegetables.”

In addition to producing minimal amount of garbage and utilizing leftovers, the eating in most of the observation sites was also naturally organic. The women usually

119 offered their home-grown tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, peas, beans, apples, pears, variety of berries, potatoes, carrots, cabbages, beets, etc. Part of Participant 2’s garden belonged to different herbs that the whole family used for making tea throughout the whole summer. These herbs were also picked and dried for the winter. The vegetables, such as potatoes, cabbages, beets, carrots, etc., were stored together with home-made jellies, soup bases and juices in an underground cellar over the winter.

During the Christmas-party observation, the same foods that were persevered in summer were brought out and served at the dinner table. For instance, home-made lingonberry jelly was served with locally made blood-sausages and hand-picked salted chanterelles.

Participant 11 commented living in harmony with nature: “You just become more one with Mother Earth when living in rural areas.” She explained how the word, “rural” in Estonian is the same word as “ground” and “earth.” Participant 11 continued:

I believe that the next generation will be more interested in moving back to the countryside because this eco-friendly living is this decade’s trend. This generation has very high environmental awareness. What is going on with our planet and its climate also shapes these interests.

Still, the participants explained that the clean living in rural areas is not so much of a trend as it is in the cities, it is rather a way of life. Participant 10 described: “It is like living with two feet on the ground. Sustainable. While pork and chicken are being raised to be put on the table, these animals are never tortured. They are killed for food, but with healthy attitude.” Participant 14 agreed:

When city eco-living is more of a trend, and not a way of life like in the countryside, then people often don’t want to think about how the food gets on their table. They are freaked out by killing a chicken but eat rotisserie chicken with pleasure.

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Participant 13 added: “True. It is more difficult for city people to see the bigger picture, they see isolated steps, such as organic food or separating garbage, but not sustainable living in its wholeness.”

The study’s participants went even as far as describing how they have created certain bartering economies (without mentioning this word). Participant 2 described how women often exchange goods without money being involved: “I give Participant 6 five flower plants for her husband’s moose sausage. City people laugh how we have humanized food—we have Siiri’s eggs, Meelis’ milk, Participant 6’s meat… (laugh).”

Although some women also paid each other for these goods, they believed it is better to give their money to local women than to go and leave it in a large chain grocery store.

Participant 7 also added how rural people successfully utilize social media to exchange goods and services, starting from food to clothes to car rides to firewood, etc.

“One is for sure,” as Participant 2 said, “No rural woman ever tries to take advantage of what the other woman has to offer because we all know how much effort it takes to grow these products. You give and you get.”

So, besides living in Estonian post-socialist capitalist society, in a way, these rural women were also capable to function outside of it, in their own bartering economic cloud.

After all, as Participant 10 claimed: “Who will survive if there will be an apocalypse or if the power goes out in the whole country? Of course, the rural people who have their own wells, wood heated houses, basements, food preserving skills, and animals.” Participant

13 ironically added:

Nah, I think only those rural people who have a hidden house somewhere deep in the woods will survive. In the case of Central rural Estonia, all these million people from Tallinn and Tartu and Narva will set their greedy sight straight over here. So, we will all die. (all laugh)

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To sum up, these themes about being one with nature and living a green life can also be analyzed as something that reinforces the ideology of rural idyll, which will be discussed later in the lived experiences section. But while approaching these activities as rural women’s spatial practices, they help to understand how countryside is being produced and consumed by these women as something that allows to live in tune with and preserve our natural environment.

Overall, the aim of this section was to answer the second research question that asked, what kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural femininities emerge in association with Estonian rural women’s spatial practices. More specifically, how are these spatial practices reinforcing, negotiating and/or challenging urban and gender hegemonies in post-socialist Estonia? As turned out based on observations, interviews and focus groups with rural women in South and Central

Estonia, the majority of their spatial practices were challenging both gender as well as urban hegemonies. Three larger counterhegemonic themes occurred in connection with the ways this study’s participants were utilizing rural space in their everyday lives—1) rural women performing “masculine” works, which contested the idea of traditional gender roles and rural femininities; 2) rural women as creative post-socialist problem solvers, which countered the dominant portrayal of rural people and areas as passive post-

Soviet victims; and 3) rural women living in harmony with natural environment, which demonstrated how their green politics, minimal consumption as well as bartering economies allow them to sometimes function outside of the capitalist system that often harms the nature. In terms of solving post-socialist infrastructure problems in the countryside women in South and Central Estonia utilized different spatial practices as

122 certain problems, such as transportation and cultural life, required distinctive approaches in different rural areas.

In short, the results of observations, interviews and focus groups revealed various spatial practices that allow Estonian rural women to (re)produce and consume the countryside in innovative, counterhegemonic ways that do not have to bolster traditional gender roles and identities, neither the urban way of seeing rural areas as backwards. As

Participant 9 wrapped up the discussion: “You have to put an effort in to make rural life work. You have to find solutions, not complain.”

The next section expands the range of portrayals of rurality that emerged from its alternative media representations and rural women’s spatial practices. More specifically, it presents the results of focus groups, interviews and observations, which describe rural

Estonian women’s lived experiences and help to understand how rural space is performed and constructed through the images and symbols these women associate with it.

4.3. Lived Experiences of Estonian Rural Women

Besides exploring rurality through alternative media representations and spatial practices of Southern and Central Estonian rural women, rural spaces become in existence also through the ways they are imagined and experienced by the women who occupy those spaces. Therefore, the third research question examined what kind of

(counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural femininities emerge in association with Estonian rural women’s lived experiences. Precisely, it explored how these lived experiences are reinforcing, negotiating and/or challenging urban and gender hegemonies in post-socialist Estonia. To answer these questions, results from focus

123 groups and interviews with rural women, as well as from observations in rural South and

Central Estonia were utilized.

Studying the lived experiences of Estonian rural women, also defined as the

“everyday lives” or “spatial performance(s) of everyday life” of these women (Halfacree

2007, 126), allows to see how rural life is interpreted and negotiated from subjective and diverse perspectives of rural inhabitants. Lived experiences make up the representational, also known as the lived part in the rural space model. This space that overlays the material/physical space, is experienced and constructed through the images and symbols rural women associate with it (Lefebvre, 1991, 39). Examining Estonian rural women’s everyday lives allows us to learn about the local knowledge, “myths, imageries, and phantasmagoria” (Jansson, 2009, 309) and see how space can be transformative through its inhabitants’ imagination. “Representational space is alive: it speaks.” (Lefebvre, 1991,

42)

The focus groups, interviews and observations revealed several themes that demonstrated how Estonian rural women’s lived experiences are mostly challenging and negotiating, but sometimes also reinforcing various post-socialist urban and gender hegemonies.

4.3.1. Stories of Heroic Rural Grandmothers

In almost every focus group and interview, the roots of Estonian rural women’s self-sufficiency and independence, which reach at least into the beginning of the 20th century, were discussed. More specifically, the women in this study shared stories of their mighty grandmothers who had embodied both physical and mental strength. Several participants told tales about how history and Estonian geography had tested their rural

124 grandmothers’ powers and yet, these women had come out as winners. Participant 15, for instance, articulated:

One reason for Estonian women’s independence is our tough climate and the other reason are the two wars (First and Second World wars). My rural grandmother lost her husband in the war and was left alone with three children. She had no other choice but to bring up these kids by herself, so she did. Therefore, she always said that a woman should only give birth to so many kids as she can raise by herself. It is not because rural men are reckless or abandon their wives and children, it is because things happen and rural women often do end up alone.

Participant 3, whose husband died a few years ago in his late fifties, agreed: “Men do die younger in rural areas. Look at Vastse-Roosa, only women are left in this village.”

Participant 10 admitted the same thing: “In my home village, Visnapuu, there are no more men, only women live there now.” In terms of this study, almost quarter of the participants were widows. Most of them had lost their husbands in their fifties, but a few in a much younger age. Several women had raised kids without their husbands, such as

Participant 13 who brought up four children by herself or Lea who raised three kids alone. Participant 19, who, similarly to Participant 3, had lost her husband some years ago in her early fifties, shared a story of her strong grandmother who taught Participant

19 that a woman can get through everything if she thinks things trough:

My grandmother raised five kids alone plus three of her brother’s children because her brother and his wife got killed by the Germans during the War. My grandfather was never home. So, grandmother had to make and sell moonshine to be able to keep her kids alive. Now, when things get tough sometimes, I think of her—if she was able to build a life for her and eight kids during these difficult times, then why am I whining now? I remember her saying that a woman should never eat a hot porridge. ‘Sit, and let it cool first,’ she said. In other words, no matter how big of a problem, you can always figure it out if you sit down and and take time to think things through. Participant 16 also had a story of her grandmother who lost her husband and literally had to go through fire and water to save her son:

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When my dad was born, his parents lived near Peipsi lake in a village that historically belonged to Estonians but due to border issues was now located in Russian territory. Most of the men in this village were killed by the Russians, including my grandfather. My grandmother was pregnant with my father at the time. And then, the order came from the Russians that there can be no scattered settlements in this territory anymore. So, the widows took their houses apart, log by log, carried the logs to one place and rebuilt their homes, so that they would stand closer to each other. But then, the next order came from the Russians—the villages will be burnt down. So, the widows, including my grandmother, took their babies and came over to the Estonian side of Peipsi lake where they had to hide themselves in the woods to protect their babies. So, the tough nature of rural women who live in these areas is already shaped historically as well as geographically.

Participant 18 told the story about her grandmother’s home creating and the ways it has impacted her latter attitude to life and its hardships:

My grandparents came to live in my grandfather’s ancestors land where my parents live now. The house was almost falling apart, the land was pure clay, nowhere to feed their animals, no drinking water, etc. So, my grandfather was crying, saying he won’t live like this, this is no home. But grandmother refused to give up. She was making holes in the rock-hard ground with an iron pole to plant beets for the animals. She walked the cow to the woods every day to feed her. She carried water from miles away for the humans as well as for animals. Eventually they started renovating the farm and built it up. If they managed without help from any modern machines, then how can we not manage to keep it up with lawn movers, wood chopping machines, hot running water, etc.?

Participant 24 commented Participant 18’s story, saying: “If rural women set their eyes on something, they go through fire and rain to make their dreams come true.” She shared her own story that was similar to Participant 18’s parents and described how she was so determined to turn an old shack into her home that even the human-size weed in the garden, absence of running water and canalization, floors that fell through with each step, and a husband that said this will never going to work, could not stop her. It took years, but it was all worth it because now, Participant 24 and her husband have a beautiful home where their kids and grandkids often spend time. She ended her story by

126 saying: “Women just manage better in the countryside. They also do better than men if they end up alone.”

Participant 2 added a story of her mother in law who had lost her husband in her early forties, brought up two kids, and took care of the farm by herself. All this in addition to working in a local knitting factory. Only help she had was from other village women of whom many were also widows. These women became each other’s family for the rest of their lives and there was no work that they could not handle. Even in her death bead, while battling with stage four stomach cancer, Participant 2’s mother in law arranged her own funerals. She determined who shall be invited, what food shall be offered, what songs shall be sang, what dress she shall wear, and even from which door the coffin shall be carried out. Not one complaint about her bad health or pain. As

Participant 2 put it: “Dying as a warrior for her was as natural as living as one.”

4.3.2. Rural Women Finding Ways Out from the Post-Soviet Rural Depression

As already appeared from the participants’ spatial practices, Estonian rural people’s lives were largely impacted by the changes that happened in the countryside after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its collective farms. When asked to compare the life during and after the Soviet times, most women provided rather contradictory responses. They often referred to the Soviet era as a time when life was more simple and organized by the state, rural infrastructure was efficient and everyone had a job. Yet, they also described how people now have more choices and because of various technological developments (e.g. washing machines, running water, canalization, the Internet, etc.), women now spend less time on housework and are not so dependent of place. Still, the

127 overall opinion seemed to be that the contrasts between urban and rural living were smaller during the Soviet era.

While the women described their lived experiences mostly through the ways they challenged the new, post-Soviet reality in rural areas, then the men’s situation in the countryside was described mainly from sympathetic point of view. The women did not blame the men for being incapable or reckless if they were not able to find new jobs, rather they blamed the circumstances, more specifically, the disappearance of the collective farms in the newly independent Estonia, which had been the main employers for most rural areas for almost fifty years.

Participant 21 explained the situation in rural South Estonia:

The rural men suffered greatly in the 90ies when the kolkhozes and their jobs disappeared. During the Soviet times, nobody let them sit and do nothing, the boss came to pick them up each morning because the work in the farm needed to be done. And then, all of a sudden, there was no work and no boss who demanded them to work.

Participant 18 continued: “So, naturally, most men went into depression when the disappearance of kolkhozes happened.” Participant 7 described how similar circumstances appeared in rural Central Estonia:

During the Soviet times, the head of the local farm knew everyone. And even if men drank back then, they were not written off. I remember how the chairman of our kolkhoz drove with his personal Volga to pick up the drunkards so that they can get to work. There was a certain collective humanity present during these times. Even the alcoholics were made to feel that they were needed. So, that kept them going and not giving up.

Participant 3 also commented on the topic of alcoholism among men in the countryside in South Estonia: “More men started drinking after the collapse of the Soviet

Union and its collective farms because they lost their jobs. And not all of them had the skills to become entrepreneurs. That is when my husband started drinking.” As also seen

128 on the “Live on Earth” movement’s website, many young people have become entrepreneurs in rural areas because there just are not enough suitable jobs for them.

However, for Participant 3 and her husband’s generation that grew up and lived half of their lives under the communist regime in which capitalist values and entrepreneurship were forbidden, it has been extremely difficult to adopt to a business person’s mindset.

Participant 1’s husband also faced the harsh reality of closing down the local kolkhoz, but he eventually ended up finding a new way to work. Participant 1 described:

Men went into depression and many of them did not get back on their feet. These times were really hard. It also affected my family. My husband lost his job and it was extremely difficult for him mentally. But step by step he started looking for odd jobs, being a construction worker, etc., and finally got back on his feet. People’s mindset had to change if they wanted to continue living in rural areas. Most of the jobs were no longer near home. So, my husband found a job where he has to commute 50 kilometers each day (100 kilometers back and forth). It was hard, but he got used to it.

These stories illustrate how women were compassionate for their men who had lost their jobs after the Soviet Union collapsed, but when it came to their own working life, it was natural for the women that they had to find something, whether close or far from home. As explained by many participants, it was not possible to be depressed for rural women because the children needed to be fed. So, Participant 1 continued her story:

I also got a distant job—I commute to Tallinn and back each week (600 kilometers back and forth). It became the new normal in our family. We became much more mobile. So, for me, there is no wall between the countryside and the city—you can live 300 kilometers away from your job if you can make it work.

Participant 21 told the story of her mother who kept inventing new ways to survive after the dissolution of their local kolkhoz:

But the women were creative even in the 90ies. My mom’s economist position in local kolkhoz disappeared, so she became a teacher, also continuing as a cleaning lady because one salary wasn’t enough. On top of that, she had to make sure that her husband, who often went “missing” in the village (ironically), was okay. But

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recently, the local school got closed down and she didn’t have driver’s license, so she couldn’t commute to town for work. So, she figured out a different solution— she started traveling to Finland (with a ship) to work as a cleaning lady. She is here, at home, two weeks and then two weeks in Finland. And she is happy because the money she makes there has allowed her to keep and renovate her home.

As appears from these experiences, women seemed to be more creative than men when having to find ways out from the post-Soviet rural depression. Moreover, several women described how in the nineties, they kept animals in addition to their daily jobs to make extra living. For instance, Participant 1, who immigrated to the countryside from the city, had to make a 180-degree turn in her life—all of a sudden, she was responsible for taking care of animals (cows, pigs, chickens) and grow vegetables, etc. All this in addition to being a teacher in a local school and a mother of two. She explained:

The teacher’s salary was so small and my husband did not have a permanent job back then, but we needed money. So, selling milk and meat helped a lot. That is how we were able to buy a car to drive to the city to visit my parents.

Ene adds to this: “I remember when I had to bike 20-30 kilometers each day after work to take care of the cows to be able to get more money so we can implement running water in the house.”

Participant 22, too, was keeping animals in addition to her day-job as a principal of the local school:

I woke up at 5 am and graded students’ papers till 6 am. At 6, I put on barn clothes and milked two cows, then I fed all the animals (pigs, cows, etc.). Before 7 am I woke up kids and fed them. Then I had to change and get ready to go to school. Before that, I had to bring the milk to the milk stop. At 7:30 am, I was in the school. When I got home after work and asked my husband how far things were with the animals, he always got mad at me as if I was checking on him. But I just wanted to know where I needed to pick up with work. So, I fed the animals and then I also had a 96-year-old mother I had to take care of. And then, at 8:30 pm I had to pick up the boys from the music school. Then, after the kids were fed and their homework was done, I started filling out my administrative documents. And that was six days a week.

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Today, however, most of these women no longer keep animals, but many of them still find creative ways to make additional living, as also explained in the spatial practices section. For instance, they pick berries in the woods in summers or make handicraft and anniversary cards that they sell to earn some (extra) livig.

Overall, if during the Soviet times, rural women faced the so-called triple burden—being workers, mothers, and taking care of the house-holds (Denisova)—then these days, with lacking infrastructure in the countryside and men who never fully recovered from the dissolution of local kolkhozes, many women face the five-time burden—working two jobs, raising children, taking care of the house-holds and sometimes also their husbands. Like Participant 18 said:

For rural women, workday never ends at 5pm. Usually, we have to work another job to be able to cover all the costs. And then there are all the household works that we have to get done after the workday. This is what it means to be a rural woman.

4.3.3. Self-Sufficient and Independent Rural Women

Although the literature shows that in the newly independent post-socialist countries, traditional gender roles and identities took priority (Haavio-Mannila and

Kontula, 2003) and that rebuilding of the Estonian nation was connected to hegemonic male masculinity and female femininity (Kurvinen, 2008), the observations, focus groups and interviews with Estonian rural women demonstrated that in contemporary rural

Estonia, rather counter-hegemonic trends exist. While in the 90ies, similarly to pre-Soviet

Estonia, feminine referred to motherhood, home-making, care-giving and “silent acceptance of male dominance” (Kaskla, 2003, 306), then today, femininity, according to

131 the rural women who participated in this study, indicates the woman’s ability to be self- sufficient and independent.

Most of the participants stressed the importance of rural women’s capability to provide for themselves as well as for their families. This offered rural women a certain independence—financial freedom as well as power to make their own decisions. Thus, for the majority of the participants, it was extremely important to be able to work. This did not just include being employed, but also keeping themselves busy with other work, such as gardens, households, community service, organizing events, etc. Participant 15 explained: “I think we (rural women) can get bitter in the countryside if we have no work and we cannot realize ourselves. Sitting at home doing nothing does not suit us.”

Participant 9 strongly agreed: “I am very lucky to be able to work. Working is the thing that keeps us alive.” About ten years ago, Participant 9 had a serious car accident that caused her to be paralyzed for months. Luckily, she recovered and is now able to live her normal life with a help of crutches. She even picks weed in the garden and stacks firewood by supporting herself with a bench.

Participant 16 also claimed that “rural women would not want to live as dependents.” Participant 16’s financial independence as well as her power to make rather unconventional decisions for a woman was expressed in her recent actions—she needed a new family car but her husband was busy with agricultural works. So, Participant 16 took the cash she had saved, rode a bus to Tallinn (over 300 km), went to a used cars dealership, and drove back home with a new car. This demonstrates how cars do not have to be the “man’s business” but women are perfectly capable of dealing with machinery as well. In Participant 1’s case, it was not the car, but the tractor. Her husband thought that

132 they need a new lawn tractor, so he picked out several options that would work well in their yard. Even though the husband was an expert when it came to tractors, he could and would not buy anything until Participant 1 approved the expense. Hence, in this family, too, the woman was the one who opened and closed the wallet when it came to verdicts that concerned bigger purchases. Participant 1 explained:

I think the country women just know how to plan their and their family’s lives. For example, I always have an envelope with some euros hidden in a pillowcase in case someone needs money. You know, the housekeeping reserve. Even my sons, who are currently working in the city and making much more than I am, sometimes still come to me for help. If they ask, I say, “Let me think,” and I always find a way to help them out.

Participant 19, whose husband died about a decade ago, described: “If I want or need something, I have to have my own means for getting these things. Rural women are very independent. We can’t and wouldn’t be reliant on our husbands.” Participant 15 backed up Participant 19’s claim:

I cannot handle if I don’t have my own money—the money I have earned myself. In our family, the main provider is the one who’s in economically more convenient situation. It is not important if it is the man or the woman. Currently, it is me.

Participant 15, who is a literature teacher at a local school, was able to find a more stable job than her husband. Interestingly, out of all the participants, there were only a couple of women who mentioned that their husbands were responsible for the finances and financial decisions in the family.

Furthermore, the women were not only decisionmakers in domestic sphere but many of them were also leaders in the public domain, e.g. in running and organizing rural life, as also appeared in the “Live on Earth” movement’s website. Participant 10, who works as a consultant for local activists and interest groups, explained:

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In terms of rural movements and local interest groups, 85%, if not more, of the initiators and founders are women. Rural women just are more enterprising. They are used to the fact that they have to be able to manage everything. Men come home from work and usually want to rest but somebody has to organize the matters. So, the women, who also work, still find the energy to do that. Hence, in the village associations, women come up with the plan and men will fulfill the orders. They are usually helping hands, or tools, who do what the women say, for example, lift chairs.

Participant 7 commented, laughing: “Poor men, being bossed around at home as well as outside of home.” Participant 12 responded: “It’s just life—Estonian man is not as good of a communicator and organizer as Estonian woman.” Participant 10 continued:

“Maybe it even comes down to the fact that the girls are doing better in school. This is also the reason why they manage better in the city if they decide to out-migrate from the countryside.” Participant 7 concluded: “I believe that we are on our way to slowly become a matriarchal society again.” This got Participant 11’s attention:

But Estonia has always been the Mary’s land. We have always bowed for a woman and for a mother. We even have our Mother Earth’s prayer. The matriarchy has existed in the countryside historically. Why, do you think, Estonian women, especially rural women, do so much handicraft? Knitting, crochet, etc.? It’s because handicraft has always allowed to create women holy and protecting symbols and patterns. There are messages in every historic mitten pattern. By doing handicraft, rural women are creating protection. Same with the jewelry. Take Seto silver brooches, for instance. All protective items for women.

Participant 7 nodded, and continued knitting mittens for her niece’s three-year-old daughter.

Participant 11’s remarks on the Estonian rural women’s handicraft and the power they embed can be compared to the blues tradition of Black women that Hill Collins

(2010) describes as their “safe spaces” that allow these women to define themselves, resist domination and “objectification as the Other” (101) in their everyday lives, and

“speak freely” apart from dominant hegemonies (274).

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4.3.4. Rural Women Negotiating Rural Idyll

Although counter-hegemonic in terms of traditional gender roles and rural femininities, some of the imaginations of this study’s participants were also supporting and negotiating the urban hegemony, more specifically, its reinforcement of rural idyll.

Even though the idea of rural arcadia is considered rather a positive stereotype of rurality, it is nevertheless constructed within the framework of urban hegemony (as well as in patriarchal values) and limits the multiplicity of experiences among rural people (Cloke

& Little, 1997; Yarwood & Charlton, 2009).

Participant 2 vividly explains how she experienced two very different ways of country life and how for her, only one of them qualifies as “true” rural living:

For me there are two countrysides. When I moved here from the city, I thought I’d rather divorce my husband then stay here. This is because we initially lived in an apartment building and to me residing in an apartment in rural area felt much worse than living in my city apartment. It was like hell—you could constantly hear your neighbors screaming at each other, no privacy, no garden, etc. So, for me, the real rural life started when we moved to our private home in Vastse- Roosa. Here, the only neighbors you hear are birds and wild animals. We initially planned to just build a summer house, so that I can have my own garden. But eventually, we ended up building a permanent home and stayed here. Home, for a rural person is much more than a house. … It includes the yard and the garden and the river and the trees and all that privacy that comes with them.

Every participant of this study who had their private home, reinforced the same idea, claiming that rural living means privacy, tranquility, and being in harmony with nature. Participant 3, for instance, portrayed an idyllic scene of her previous evening:

“The feeling you get when you open your bedroom windows at 11 pm on a summer night—ah, the smell of a freshly cut hay, the sound of crickets! No words needed.”

Participant 1 described her weekend mornings: “I am drinking my morning coffee in the porch, and the sunshine hits me… I just get so happy I dance with my cat!” Participant 2

135 also described some “rural moments” in her log cabin by the river: “The first time you hear nightingale or cuckoo in the spring! Or the sunrises at 4 am in the summer. Ah, the sauna smell on a Saturday night. The family dinners…”

It must be noted that these ideas were mostly common among the women in rural

South Estonia that is more remote and peripheral than rural regions in Central Estonia.

Thus, paying attention to these tranquil traits of the countryside may be these women’s way to try to compensate for the remoteness and disconnectedness of their homes from the metropolitan areas of Estonia. Because with the “serenity” also come utility problems.

As mentioned earlier, most remote home owners had to figure out the canalization, power and access issues on their own as the government does not support the development of these areas. Participant 4, for example, explained

I lived in a rural apartment in Varstu for some time. I was so miserable. Neighbors in every side. No privacy at all. Luckily, now my husband and I are fixing up an old house in the countryside. No water or canalization yet, but it feels much more home than the apartment did. It is private!

But reinforcing the idea that only this is the “real” country life, leaves out the experiences of those rural people who, due to circumstances and some also due to their choice, live in Soviet type concrete apartment buildings. During the Soviet era, living in apartments was rather a trend in the countryside because these edifices were built near the kolkhoz centers allowing workers conveniently walk to work and take part of collective cultural events organized in local culture houses. But with the collapse of the Soviet

Union and its collective farms, the popularity of these buildings decreased for several reasons. For instance, the buildings started to dilapidate and the government was no longer responsible for renovating them; the jobs were now located further from the former kolkhoz centers; people were now allowed to have private property and many of

136 them were given back the land that was taken from them or their parents fifty years ago, so they started (re)creating homes there.

In short, living in private homes in the countryside has become the new “normal” and the people who still live in the apartment buildings (usually the ones who belong to lower socio-economic classes) have become the new “other” within the rural setting.

These women were also represented in the focus groups and most of them seemed to bolster the dominant idea of country living having to do with a spacious outside and gardens. So, they tried to match their uncommon living situation with the conventional rural living by having a small piece of land for garden near the apartment buildings where they were growing vegetables and flowers.

Another topic that reinforced the ideology of rural idyll, was tying the endangered local Võro culture and dialect with rural South Estonia. While during the Soviet era, ethnic culture and local dialects were forbidden because everyone had to be part of the one, Soviet nation, then in the newly independent Estonia, historic cultural peculiarities surfaced once again (Hennoste 2012). Thus, in 1995, Estonian Government funded the establishment of Võro Institute that served as “a state research and development agency” for the Võro ethnic culture (Võro Instituut). Since then, the institute has launched various campaigns that are intended to bring the ancient culture and language, that are inscribed in the UNESCO heritage list, into life again. This means that the reputation of Võro culture and language are bolstered both on the governmental level as well as international level by UNESCO criteria. Hence, it has also become popular among Southern Estonian rural people to demonstrate this ethnic language and culture as part of their identity.

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As Participant 1 illustrated: “These days, speaking Võro has become exotic. My son’s Tallinn friends don’t understand any of it but they think it is so cool that people in this part of Estonia actually speak a totally different language.”

Participant 2 compared the prestige of having Võro roots now and then:

My daughter said how she did not want to sound like a Võro hick when she was in college because during that time, the Võro movement was not popular yet. But now she actually wants to speak in a way that people could tell that she is from rural South Estonia.

Participant 1 backed up Participant 2’s claim: “Same thing with my son! Today, he is proud about where he’s from. He views our countryside as some sort of citadel that not everyone has access to.” Participant 3 added:

“My daughter in law proudly put a sticker on her car window saying, ‘I am from Võro county.’ And in my shop, there is a sticker that says, ‘You can speak Võro here!’ So, I also speak Võro with my customers. And when people from the city come to the shop, they want me to speak it to them although they don’t understand all of it. One of them just recently said: ‘Oh, how beautiful it sounds. Please keep speaking that language.’

These descriptions illustrate how the exoticism of Võro culture and language is constructed from the urban people’s point of view who like to see rural Võro people as some sort of exotic “others,” and how local rural people are reinforcing that view.

Nevertheless, not all rural people in South Estonia have Võro roots, which, once again, creates power imbalances in the Southern Estonian countryside, making the rural people from Võro ethnicity the standard and the ones that are not, or who do not know how to speak Võro, the “other.”

Nevertheless, the ideology of rural idyll was also challenged by this study’s participants. Especially in connection with the “Live on Earth” movement and its portrayals of rural life. When discussing the movement’s experience stories and some of

138 its videos, the women recognized the ideology of rural idyll and the ways these depictions romanticized the countryside as well as rural life. As Külli explained:

I have a feeling that these types of movements portray only certain sides of rural life. And it is beautiful in reality, too. But what they often don’t show is rain and winter and cold and how these things impact rural life. Because these are reality, too. You actually have to worry in the winter whether your road will be cleaned from the snow, or that it is going to be really cold inside of an old rural house, etc. Some city people who are used to central heating and snow-free city streets may not think about things like these when they move to the countryside. And in this case, they won’t survive it. In other words, if you want to enjoy the idyllic side of rural life, you also need to take responsibility and deal with the difficult sides of it.

Participant 11 added: “No one also talks about the bugs and mosquitos in the countryside.

For example, one rural media person just got encephalitis and lime disease from a thick.

These things can impact rural life, too.”

Participant 19 and Participant 17 mentioned that they heard about several families that came to different rural regions in South Estonia in connection with the “Live on

Earth” movement. Participant 19 continued:

But I am not sure that they all actually stayed in the countryside because I heard that there were a lot of complaints about the shabby living conditions and unstable buildings. People may have gotten a wrong impression of what it means to live in the countryside.

M adds: “Many also left from Misso area. This is because they imagine it to be something else. The movement does not talk about the hardships concerning rural living, that you need to be able to put up with things in here.”

Several women also discussed their own city relatives’ stereotypical, over- simplified understandings of rural life. Participant 1 explained:

City people do over-romanticize rural life. They think all the good things that are part of rural life just happen on their own. They go walk to the field and pick potatoes, or go to the greenhouse and take a tomato, they go eat berries in the garden. Oh, so nice! My own sister who lives in the city thinks exactly like this.

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She has no idea how it takes a lot of work to have these potatoes and tomatoes and berries there.

Participant 2 added to this:

I always laugh when my city friends think that rural life is so easy and cheap. They say, ‘Oh, you don’t even need money in the countryside because you can get most of the stuff for free—potatoes, milk, meat, berries, etc.’ No one thinks that it actually takes money and labor to be able to raise all these things.

A couple of women from Vastse-Roosa described how the hard, physical work rural people often do, can actually kill people. Participant 3 told a story of a couple who moved to her village:

There was this couple in their 50ies that came to the village from an urban area and loved living and working here. They worked very hard daily to renovate their house and yard. And then the man died about a month ago because of a heart attack. Over-worked…

So, as much as the women discussed the idyllic side of rural living (especially the ones in South Estonia), they also admitted the difficult parts of it and, like mentioned earlier, confessed that one has to be creative to make the life in the countryside work.

Overall, it can be said that this study’s participants negotiated the ideology of rural idyll.

On the one hand, their lived experiences were reinforcing the stereotypical view of rurality, which stresses the idyllic and serene facets of rural living and the importance of exotic Võro cultural traditions and language related to it. On the other hand, these women were also able to recognize the dominant portrayals of over-romanticized rural life in the media and criticize their impact on people who do not know much about the life in the countryside.

4.3.5. Rural Women Negotiating Heteronormativity

The previous literature demonstrates that the ideology of rural idyll is tightly connected to heteronormative values, such as traditional family with mother, father and

140 children, in which members fulfill their conventional roles (Little, 2002). Besides language, another important part of Võro culture is food, both in a sense of preparing specific ethnic dishes as well as always offering food to your family and guests. As food in the Estonian countryside is usually associated with rural women who are responsible for cooking meals for their families and hosting guests, another hegemonic theme, heteronormativity, was discussed with the study’s participants.

Several women’s imagination bolstered the heteronormative family model in which the woman’s responsibility was to make sure that food is on the table, rooms are cleaned, and laundry is done (all this in addition to their daily jobs). As Participant 1 explained:

Sunday nights before I leave for work in Tallinn, I cook and bake enough food for at least three days for my husband. When I come back on Thursday night and if kids are planning to come home for a weekend, I go grocery shopping on Friday and plan out the meals for them for the whole weekend. Then I do laundry, clean and get their rooms ready.

Participant 2 and Participant 6 also described similar routines as Participant 1—if their kids come home for the weekend, they start cleaning and cooking for them early on.

Participant 6 explained: “I love cooking dinners for my family, so they know that they are welcome at home.” Participant 2 added: “Women love preparing dinners because this is what brings the family together. The dinner table in my home is where we can sit and eat and talk for hours. In summers, we do it during the breakfast in terrace instead.”

In short, most of this study’s women agreed that food equals family and that the children as well as husbands should want to come home to the smell of a homecooked meal. And this is something that rural women can make sure of is done well. Participant

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13 went even as far as describing how the amount of food available at home makes a difference between a true rural woman and someone who has migrated from the city:

One thing that sets apart the so-called native rural women and the newcomers, are their food reserves. The first ones have at least a year’s worth of food put away, while the newcomers could only last about four days. Take Participant 7, for example. Look at her pantry. Two pantries!

In addition to reinforcing heteronormative values, this description also differentiates between native rural people and the newcomers, as if the former ones were more “rural” than the latter ones.

In terms of a family model, some women thought the right way to live would be as a heteronormative family—a father, a mother, and children. Some of the older women disapproved the trend of young men leaving the countryside to make money for their family working in construction in Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Like Participant 13 said: “If the husband is working abroad to make money, and the wife is here alone, raising children, then I don’t think this is sustainable way of living. Just be together. No matter if in the countryside or in the city.” Participant 3, whose husband had died a few years ago, almost started crying when discussing the traditional family model: “My mother always said that until a man steps foot in the house, everything is alright…”

The older ladies were also describing how their country home is a place that brings together the whole family, all different generations. Participant 10, whose parents had already passed away, still has large family gatherings in her parents’ rural home:

All of us, all the kids and grandkids, we still keep gathering in my deceased parents’ country house every summer, spring, fall and winter. We all feel that we have a real home here. You definitely wouldn’t gather your whole family to stay in the apartment in rural area, it has to be a real country house.

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Several participants claimed that it is sad that the rural grandparents’ generation has started to disappear. Participant 13 commented: “So, this is a great motivator for us to keep living in the countryside. So that there would be one rural grandmother left.”

Younger women, on the other hand, accepted the reality that there just aren’t enough jobs in the countryside, which is why many men have to work from abroad.

Participant 18 commented: “Men have less work here than us, women. So, mother and children has become a normal family model in the countryside because the men work from abroad.”

Participant 13’s house, for instance, has never been a traditional heteronormative home. She is a single mother of four and besides her own kids and now also grandchildren, Participant 13’s house has always been open to all of her children’s friends, cousins, etc. Hence, on the one hand, these women are routing for a traditional family model, but on the other, their own ways of living are rather counter-hegemonic.

Participant 7, for example, who never got married or had kids, described how her rural community members are her family:

I live alone but my community is like my family. If my sister, who lives far from me, can’t reach me by phone, she knows to call to my friends to see whether they have heard about me to make sure I am alright. So, it is like a family.

Participant 12, who is also single and not a mother, illustrated: “I love how everyone always says hi to each other in here. In the countryside, even if you live alone, you are not anonymous. You are a member of the community—they are your family.”

Participant 2, who lives in a very remote area where she can basically not even see her neighbors, described how her family is also bigger than just her husband and daughters: “My husband was in a hospital some time ago and it made me think what I

143 would do if someone was trying to break in. And then I thought, of course, I would call…” Participant 1 finished Participant 2’s sentence: “…call Aviar (Participant 1’s husband)!” Participant 2 agreed: “That’s exactly what I thought! It feels good to know that even if you can’t physically see your neighbors, you know they are always there for you and they always help. They are like family.” Participant 1 continued:

Yes, neighbor-watch totally works in here. And people actually help each other. My husband has a big garage where the village men like to hang out and fix whatever needs fixing. It’s like a second family to him when I am at work in Tallinn.

These stories demonstrate how the women negotiated the heteronormative characteristics of rural living. On the one hand, their lived experiences and imagination highlighted the traditional family values and women’s conventional role in the family.

But on the other hand, they were simultaneously accepting alternative family models such as mother-and-children or single woman or community-as-family.

4.3.6. Rural Women Challenging Rural-Urban Dualism

The final larger theme that emerged in connection with the participants’ beliefs and understandings of rural life, was their critique of the socially constructed division between rural and urban Estonia. As Participant 11 commented: “There is this abstract wall between the first and second Estonia, which should be taken down.” Participant 11 hinted to the division between Tallinn and its surrounding areas that constitute the so- called “first Estonia,” and the peripheral rural areas that fall under the “second” or sometimes even “third” Estonia.

Participant 17 considered this issue in relation to Pilvre’s article about Estonian rural regions that was discussed in the focus groups: “I don’t understand why politicians, such as Barbi Pilvre, create this difference between rural and urban people and then treat

144 us (rural people) like we are not humans,” hinting to Pilvre’s suggestion that the countryside should be left for wild animals. Participant 18 supported Participant 17’s claim: “We (rural and urban residents) are the same people, but the government makes a difference. Inequalities start on the governmental level.”

Participant 1, just like most of this study’s participants, believed that the split between rural and urban Estonia, both discursive and material, “has definitely gotten bigger after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And it keeps getting bigger.” So, to make up for the lack of jobs in the countryside where she lives, Participant 1 started to commute to work to Tallinn, that is located in the other side of Estonia. She also explained how urban and rural residents are really the same people:

My life is divided between South Estonia and Tallinn—3 days here and 4 days there. I teach math in high school as well as in college over there. I have great neighbors in here, but also in Tallinn, no matter what nationality. Just like napsitrallid in here, a young Russian boy always helps me to carry groceries up the stairs over there. And local women sit in front of the building, functioning like social media, just like rural women who exchange news in our local store. So, neighbor watch also functions in Tallinn. There is also community—Estonians and Russians alike. So, I can’t say that city people are fundamentally different than rural folks.

Participant 15 agreed: “Exactly! Everything comes down to people, not to the city or to the countryside. These separations only have meaning because we give them meaning.” Participant 13 wrapped up this conversation: “I’ve always told my children that it doesn’t matter if you live in the countryside or in the city. As long as you are happy and with the people you love, you can create your own microcosm in where ever.”

Overall, the aim of this section was to answer the third research question that asked, what kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of post-socialist rurality and rural femininities emerge in association with Estonian rural women’s lived experiences. More

145 specifically, how are these lived experiences reinforcing, negotiating and/or challenging urban and gender hegemonies in post-socialist Estonia? As turned out based on observations, interviews and focus groups with rural women in South and Central

Estonia, their interpretations and imaginations of rural life challenged as well as negotiated different gender and urban hegemonies related to post-Soviet rurality and rural femininities.

On the one hand, these women’s subjective constructions of rural and gender identities countered the dominant portrayals of post-socialist rural women while telling stories about their heroic grandmothers, their own decisions that saved them from the post-Soviet rural depression, their self-sufficiency and independence in organizing contemporary rural life, as well as their critique of the socially constructed rural-urban divide.

On the other hand, these women’s lived experiences were sometimes also negotiating certain hegemonic themes related to rural life and gender topics. The ideology of rural idyll was bolstered by highlighting the serene facets of rural living, but at the same time challenged by recognizing the dominant portrayals of over-romanticized rural life in the media. Similar negotiations appeared in relation to heteronormativity in the countryside—while several women’s imagination highlighted the traditional family values and women’s conventional role in the family, they were simultaneously accepting and practicing alternative family models such as mother-and-children or single woman or community-as-family.

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The last section of this paper gathers information from the answers to all three previous research questions to discuss some of the coherences and contradictions of the various ways of telling and performing the lives of Estonian rural women.

4.4. Coherences and Contradictions of the Various Ways of Telling and Performing the Lives of Estonian Rural Women

The last research question asked what contradictions are there among multiple ways of “telling” and performing the lives of post-socialist Estonian rural women, and to what extent is a spatial coherence created from them? The contradictions and coherences of this study can be discussed on two different levels. First, similarities and differences can be drawn between the representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of

Estonian rural women. Second, comparisons between rural women in South and Central

Estonia are also discussed.

In terms of comparing the findings from textual analysis of the “Live on Earth” website and its YouTube infomercials with the information gathered during the observations, interviews and focus groups with Estonian rural women, they all included large variety of hegemonic as well as some counterhegemonic themes in connection with geographical location and gender. Both the representations of this rural space as well as the women’s spatial practices in and experiences of it strongly refuted the urban stereotype of the rural as backwards, passive and hopeless. Instead, rural space was constructed as diverse in terms of different activities that took place in rural areas as well as in the representations of it. On the other hand, the ideology of rural idyll was rather reinforced in the media representations of rural life, while the local women’s imagination

147 of it negotiated the rural arcadia in a way that they were bolstering and criticizing it at the same time.

Similar themes appeared in connection with heteronormative family models.

While almost all families were portrayed as traditional families in the “Live on Earth” experience stories (less in the YouTube videos), local women’s imagination of heteronormative family was rather negotiated. On the one hand, they routed for the traditional family model, but at the same time many women were single (mothers) and/or lived alone and had their friends and communities functioning as their families.

Unconventional gender roles and identities, such as rural women performing

“masculine” works as well as rural femininities as self-sufficient and independent were portrayed in all three aspects of the rural space model (representational, material, imagined). However, while the counter-hegemonic media representations of rural women included more women as entrepreneurs, the women’s lived experiences and spatial practices described different creative ways to overcome infrastructural problems in the countryside, such as sharing costs and exchanging favors with other community members, immersing in bartering economies, etc.

The socially constructed rural-urban divide was criticized in the media representations as well as in the women’s lived experiences. In terms of the challenges related to rural life, the spatial practices as well as lived experiences forwarded much more realistic picture of them than the alternative media representations that tended to portray rurality from rather idyllic angle. And finally, the theme of rural women’s connection to and living in harmony with the natural environment emerged in alternative media representations of it as well as in rural people’s spatial practices.

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When the spatial practices and lived experiences of Estonian women were compared in terms of different rural locations, it turned out that some themes that emerged in rural South Estonia did not appear in connection with the rural Central

Estonia. For instance, while the idyllic side of rurality in Southern Estonia was connected to local Võro culture and folklore related to it, which created power inequalities within the local rural community, then Central Estonian rurality did not face these ethnic issues.

Moreover, the remoteness of Southern Estonian rural areas also played role in forming tight community connections—the help from local people as well as locally planned events were more frequent in South Estonia as Central Estonian rural areas were conveniently connected to big metropolitan cities, which made the local ties less strong than in South Estonia.

Overall, these coherences and contradictions that emerged from various ways of telling and performing the post-socialist rurality by Estonian rural women, but also from the geographical differences between Estonian rural areas, explicitly illustrate the diverse and multi-layered nature of rural life.

The last chapter of this dissertation discusses the findings of this study, their theoretical and practical implications, and the limits of this dissertation. It also makes recommendations for future research in the intersection of cultural geography, cultural studies, gender studies and post-socialist studies.

CHAPTER FIVE:

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

The aim of this dissertation was to explore the (re)production of alternative rural spaces obtained by post-socialist rural women in Estonia. More specifically, it asked, what kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of rurality and rural femininities emerge in connection with the representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of Estonian rural women, and what kind of coherences and contradictions are there among multiple ways of “telling” and performing these ruralities?

To examine the construction of these alternate post-socialist spaces in which urbanization as well as traditional gender roles and identities can be resisted, this dissertation utilized a multi-perspectival approach that tackles the production of space from three interrelated angles: representational, material, and symbolic (Lefebvre, 1991;

Halfacree, 2007). It drew on variety of theories and concepts from cultural studies, cultural geography, post-socialist studies and gender studies. To acquire a rich and detailed understanding of representational, material and imaginary spaces of Estonian rural women, various qualitative methods, including textual analysis, focus groups, respondent interviews and observations, were combined. More specifically, data from 39 written and audiovisual media texts; 4 respondent interviews and 5 focus groups with 30 participants total; and 11 observations that included ca 95 subjects; was analyzed. The fieldwork was conducted in two geographically different rural areas in South and Central

Estonia over the period of 4 months.

The final chapter provides an overview and draws conclusions of this study’s findings, describing the themes that emerged from the textual analysis, focus groups,

149 150 interviews and observations; and discussing the ways these themes challenge, negotiate and/or reinforce specific urban and gender hegemonies. It then considers theoretical and practical implications of this study. Finally, the limitations of the study as well as directions for future research in the field are discussed.

5.1. Conclusions of the Findings

Urban Hegemonies. In terms of urban hegemonies, this study focused on three larger topics—the urban stereotype of homogeneous, passive and backwards post-Soviet rurality; the ideology of rural idyll; and the socially constructed rural-urban dualism that positions rural people and areas as the “other.” First, the stereotypical idea of Estonian rural regions and people as passive victims of post-socialist transition (Saar 140) was actively challenged in all three dimensions of the rural space model—in the alternative media representations of rurality and rural women, in rural women’s spatial practices, and in their lived experiences.

Both the media texts as well as this study’s participants recognized that the dominant discourses of Estonian rurality, which depict rural regions and residents as passive and backwards, are portrayed from an urban point of view. Although the focus groups, interviews and observations revealed various problems related to rural living, such as lack of jobs and inefficient infrastructure, especially in connection with the rural women’s spatial practices and lived experiences (less in the “Live on Earth” website and videos), the women did not focus on complaining or performing the “victim” role, but rather discussed these problems in connection with the creative solutions they had come up with to cope with these hardships.

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Furthermore, the various professions, hobbies, skills and interests of rural women, which were represented on the “Live on Earth” website as well as noted during the fieldwork, countered the idea of homogenous post-socialist rurality by depicting diverse nature of rural life. The multiplicity of post-Soviet ruralities also emerged from comparing rural lives in Central and South Estonia. Moreover, the idea of the backwards and regressive rurality was also challenged by rural women’s everyday doings that were in harmony with their natural environment, actively promoting sustainable and “green” living and participating in different innovative bartering economies. These counterhegemonic representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of Estonian rural women challenged the dominant idea of rurality as backwards and rural people as the passive losers of the post-socialist transition.

Second, the ideology of rural idyll was reinforced and negotiated at the same time.

The alternative media representations, especially the experience stories and the movement’s introductory video, were portraying the countryside utilizing themes such as serenity, nature and historic folk traditions, but did not pay enough attention to the everyday problems related to rural living. Thus, these alternative media depictions were reinforcing the stereotype of rural idyll.

However, the participants’ lived experiences were rather negotiating this idyllic portrayal of rurality. On the one hand, they did stress the sublime experiences of rural living, such as serene nature, cozy private country homes, and ethnic traditions. But on the other hand, they also discussed many problems related to post-Soviet rural life.

Moreover, the women were also recognizing the over-romanization of rural life in the media and in the eyes of urban people, which limits diversity within rural communities

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(Cloke & Little, 1997; Yarwood & Charlton, 2009) and obscures the problematic sides of rural life (Woods, 2011), such as lacking infrastructure and job opportunities, and feed into opinions that rural areas do not need outside support.

Third, the rural-urban dualism was refuted in the study’s participants lived experiences as well as in the “Live on Earth” movement’s experience stories. At the same time, several movement’s videos were reinforcing this division by referring to rural people as the “other.” This socially constructed divide that portrays Estonian urban areas as the winners and rural regions as the losers of the post-Soviet transition is constructed within the context of urban hegemony that marginalizes and homogenizes rurality

(Stenbacka, 2011). Moreover, it contributes to the dominant understanding that the best life is only possible in urban locations, which leads to further outmigration from rural regions and even more infrastructure getting shut down (Schaff & Jackson, 2010;

Theobald & Wood, 2010). Thus, as the participants of this study did not bolster the socially constructed divide between the so-called “first” and “second” Estonia (urban and rural Estonia), they did not see themselves and rural regions as the “other,” or the losers of post-socialist transition. Instead, they believed that life is equally possible in both urban and rural areas. It just depends what a person values in life.

Gender Hegemonies. In terms of gender hegemonies, this study focused on three larger themes: traditional gender norms; hegemonic femininity; and heteronormativity.

First, conventional gender roles were challenged by the participants’ spatial practices and lived experiences as well as in the alternative media representations of Estonian rural women. The previous literature shows that in the newly independent (rural) Estonia, where the socialist equality ideology no longer existed, explicitly traditional gender roles

153 started to take priority (Haavio-Mannila & Kontula, 2003). For example, it was believed that the working woman and motherhood contradict each other (Kurvinen, 2008).

Nevertheless, according to the alternative media representations as well as rural women’s lived experiences included in this study, most women successfully countered these hegemonic understandings by being mothers and wives (although many of the participants were not) as well as workers, entrepreneurs and often even main providers for their families at the same time. The women who did not have jobs or held low paying positions, had found innovative ways to realize themselves and still support their families.

Furthermore, although internalized rules for what counts as men’s and women’s work do exist in Estonia (Denisova, 2010), the findings of this study demonstrate how women were countering these dominant gender roles by constantly executing physically demanding as well as machinery-related “masculine” jobs. Also, women were portrayed as more active in organizing community events and activities outside of home. So, instead of stepping back into the domestic sphere after the collapse of the Soviet Union, these women have, once again, become the backbone of the countryside, operating in both private and public spheres.

Second, the idea of hegemonic femininity was challenged mainly through the spatial practices and imagination of this study’s participants. More specifically, these rural women were performing counter-hegemonic versions of femininity by expressing their self-sufficiency, independence, entrepreneurial and leadership skills, as well as celebrating the heroic nature of Estonian rural women. As the idea of counterhegemonic

154 rural femininity was bolstered by the large majority of these women, it had become a source of power for them.

Unfortunately, the performance of untraditional gender identity had not liberated

Estonian rural women from the so-called double or even triple burden of Soviet women

(Denisova, 2010; Kaskla, 2003; Liljeström, 2005) who had been devoted mothers and wives, dedicated workers as well as active community members. If anything, then the contemporary inefficient regional politics, lacking infrastructure, and rural men who were still recovering from the post-Soviet depression, had increased the burden these women carry. And yet, the women remained true to their rural roots, saying: “Don’t look for problems, look for solutions.”

Third, heteronormative family values were negotiated in both rural women’s experience stories as well as in their alternative media representations. While several study’s participants’ imagination routed for traditional family model with a husband, wife and children who all reside under the same roof, then in reality, many of these women themselves were living rather untraditional lives as single women or single mothers.

Moreover, as seen in their lived experiences—friends and community often formed an alternative family for these women. In terms of the alternative media representations of the heteronormative family model, it was heavily reinforced in the movement’s experience stories that dominantly portrayed the stories of heteronormative families and dreams. However, the YouTube videos, just like the women’s material realities, portrayed rural communities and friend groups as families.

Overall, with some exceptions, such as the rural idyll and heteronormative family model, the alternative representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of Estonian

155 rural women were mainly counterhegemonic. They challenged the dominant ideas of post-socialist rurality as well as rural gender roles and femininities, revealing the progressive, diverse and self-sustainable nature of Estonian rural living and rural women.

When utilizing Lefebvre’s theory of social space to interpret this situation, it can be said that the trial by space has not been accomplished. In other words, the post-Soviet rural space has been reproduced by Estonian rural women in a way that it is not compatible with and does not conform to the dominant understandings of post-socialist rurality and rural women (e.g. Estonian rural areas as the passive losers of capitalist modernization, or gendered ruralities). This leads us to encounter the radical rural that is not “internally acceptable” to the rules of post-socialist urbanism, capitalism, and patriarchy in rural settings (Lefebvre, 1991, 396). This then, is a rural space that is truly alternative— challenging the dominant understandings of it that are constructed within the urban hegemony, patriarchal values, and spatial logic of capitalism.

To sum up the findings of this study, the Southern and Central Estonian rural women have managed to utilize the material and discursive hardships that the post-Soviet transitional period brought along, to develop alternative, empowered identities that help them to renegotiate their place in society (Shurmer-Smith & Hannam, 1994).

5.2. Theoretical and Practical Implications

Theoretical Implications. As this dissertation is located in the intersection of rural studies, cultural studies, gender studies and post-socialist studies, it contributes to all four fields. First, in terms of expanding the scope of rural studies and cultural geography, rural issues have been examined a lot from agricultural and political-economic aspects, while much less attention has been paid to the cultural meanings associated with rurality

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(Cloke, 2006; Woods, 2011). Thus, this dissertation contributes to the cultural turn in rural studies, which has motivated cultural geographers to explore the socially constructed discourses of rural spaces and identities.

Furthermore, by examining the alternative media representations and imagination of Estonian rural women, this dissertation also adds to the cultural studies framework as the contemporary cultural studies research has “been massively biased towards urban popular cultures” (Carter, Darian-Smith, & Gorman-Murray, 2008, 27). In other words, utilizing the cultural studies approach to analyze the diverse and dynamic nature of rural spaces (Evers, Gorman-Murray, & Potter, 2010), and challenge the dominant understanding that “contemporary rural cultures are characterised primarily by limitation or lack” (Carter, Darian‐Smith, & Gorman‐Murray, 2008, 28), expands the scope of cultural texts analyzed by cultural studies scholars.

However, the (re)production of rural space does not only happen through the representations and imagination of rural actors, but also through the various ways rurality is being performed and practiced (Woods, 2010). Therefore, this dissertation contributes to the exploration of rural space by incorporating the analysis of material aspects of rurality and their relation to representational and imagined facets of it. To do that, it utilized Lefebvre’s/Halfacree’s three-dimensional model of social space that allows to examine both discursive and material aspects of rurality (Adams & Jansson, 2012). It must also be noted that although Lefebvre’s and Halfacree’s three-folded models of social space have been utilized to study rural spaces, so far, it has not been used to explore rural space obtained by post-Soviet rural women.

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Additionally, this dissertation also demonstrates that space and place have cultural, political, social and economic impact on the construction of gender identities

(Little, 2002; Panelli, 2004). While previous scholarship in the intersection of rural and gender studies demonstrates that dominant discourses of rurality often force women into traditional gender roles, functioning as wives and nurturers in domestic sphere (Little

2002; Little & Austin, 1996), then this study disputed this dominant understanding, demonstrating that the discursive and material post-socialist rural hardships can be utilized by local women in shaping counterhegemonic, empowered identities.

Moreover, in terms of utilizing Halfacree’s three-dimensional model of rural space, this dissertation also expands his definition of radical ruralities by adding the gender dimension to it. According to Halfacree (2007), radical ruralities attempt to fragment the dominant forms of rural spaces and produce inherently different rural space that “extends the scope of rural possibilities but also raises key issues concerning the ideological underpinnings of the other species of rural space ‘on the table’ today.” (131)

Some characteristics of radical ruralities are connections to anti-capitalist economies, decentralization, self-sufficiency and sustainability, low impact development and green politics, “back-to-the-land migration,” movements between urban and rural, etc.

(Halfacree, 2007). Almost all of these features were also mentioned in this study—in the alternative media representations, spatial practices and lived experiences of Estonian rural women. However, drawing from the results of this dissertation, there is another crucial dimension of radical ruralities that was not mentioned by Halfacree. It is the counterhegemonic gender norms and identities that the post-Soviet rural women were

158 actively performing, despite the assumption that the post-socialist countryside follows rather traditional norms when it comes to gender construction.

Finally, in connection with using post-colonial approach to study post-Soviet rurality, this dissertation expanded “the contexts within which we can examine global concerns such as development, change and citizenship.” (Kay, Shubin, & Thelen, 2012,

60) By describing a large variety of different practices and imaginations of Estonian rural women that reproduce the post-Soviet countryside, this study suggests new, counterhegemonic perspectives on rurality that do not fully comply with the Western understandings of it. As Roman (2001) has explained, post-socialist approach facilitates

“the study of new, globalizing political identities, while empowering local subjectivities to voice the specificity of their culture, politics, and society within an increasingly pluralistic, global-local international community” (v).

Overall, by approaching the (re)production of rural space obtained by Estonian rural women from the post-socialist perspective that moves beyond the East-West divide, this dissertation disputed the one-sided, limiting understandings of Eastern European rural spaces as passive agents in transformation and post-socialist rural femininities as embodiment of patriarchal values. On the contrary, it acknowledged and demonstrated that there are “multiple forms of otherness present in rural areas” (Philo, 2000, 199).

Practical Implications. Besides expanding theoretical approaches when studying post-Soviet rurality and rural women, this dissertation also has a practical value. More specifically, the media texts as well as rural women’s spatial practices and lived experiences that were examined in this study, were approached “as a complex set of discursive strategies” that carry emancipatory and counterhegemonic potential (Fürsich,

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2009, 240) when it comes to these women’s place in (Estonian) society. As explained by

Collins, the subordinate groups should first adopt critical consciousness to see through hegemonic ideologies, after what, they must construct new knowledge that creates alternative perspectives for seeing the world. The empowerment for the oppressed can be gained through collective voices, but also through individuals’ self-definition in their everyday lives. Thus, by offering these women a platform, or a “safe space” that allows them to speak outside of dominant understandings of post-socialist rurality and define themselves without being objectified as the “other,” this dissertation enabled one of the first steps in these women’s road towards empowerment. Furthermore, by sharing their everyday doings as well as imagination and stories in focus groups with each other, these women were encouraged to express and define themselves in any way they wished.

Moreover, as cultural discourses of rurality have the power to shape public opinion, which in turn impacts the federal and regional welfare policies that have direct social, economic, and political implications on marginalized groups (Clawson & Trice,

2000; Jeffres et al., 2011; Miller & Ross, 2004), it is crucial to examine these discourses as they “are not only representations of socio-spatial realities but actively co-constitute them.” (Plychke. 144) So, the “picture” this dissertation paints of Estonian rural women can eventually have the power to impact different materialities that influence the space obtained by these women. For example, it can shape people’s intention to move to the countryside, the ways they choose to make (extra) living, or eventually even the government’s decisions to implement another regional reform that can actually benefit these rural women.

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As Plüschke-Altof (2917) wrote in her study, the discourses of rural space as well as material aspects of it do not only have the power “to influence peripheralization processes, but also the ways in which to overcome them.” (16) It is important to remember that “the peripheral image of post-socialist rural areas, which subordinates them to urban centers …, is neither inevitable nor self-evident but actively made.” (14)

Therefore, the aim of this dissertation was to start re-writing the dominant discourse of rural Estonia and the women who live there by offering them a voice, so they can tell their own story in which they are the active agents in multiple processes of transformation. Construction of new knowledge that creates alternative perspectives for seeing the world can eventually lead to empowerment (Chávez, 2009; Hill Collins, 2000).

Finally, as theory and practice should go hand in hand, this research also strongly impacted my creative work in filmmaking. More specifically, while writing this dissertation, I simultaneously wrote and directed a short narrative film, Virago, that talks about resilient Estonian countrywomen who heroically carry the so-called post-Soviet triple-burden. The film was funded by the Estonian Film Institute and the Cultural

Endowment of Estonia, and will be screened in several national movie theatres. In collaboration with a local production company, I am currently developing it into a feature film screenplay. I believe that my cultural critical skills contribute to my training and experience in producing media, and vice versa. Overall, my attempts to re-write the dominant discourses of Estonian rurality have taken place both in theoretical as well as practical and artistic realms.

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5.3. Limitations and Directions for Future Research

This qualitative study is limited to a small sample size of only a segment of a population of Estonian rural women—30 focus group and interview participants and about 95 people at the study’s observation sites—from different rural areas in South and

Central Estonia. Therefore, the results are not generalizable in terms of discussing the construction of post-Soviet rurality from the perspective of all Estonian rural women. In the future, this research project could be expanded by conducting similar qualitative studies with women from different rural regions, such as Estonian islands that are very isolated, as well as rural areas in Eastern Estonia that have strong Russian influences as they areas share border with Russia.

Furthermore, after conducting enough qualitative studies, the patterns could be used to design larger mixed methods projects that would eventually allow to draw coherences and contradictions between the various ways Estonian rural women’s identities are being constructed all over the country. Moreover, these results could be compared with the outcomes of the studies that examine post-socialist rural identities in the rest of Eastern Europe as well as in Asia. In addition, the conclusions of these studies could be used as a guidance in designing next regional reforms in Estonia as well as other post-Soviet countries.

Another limitation of this study, connected to the previous one, is the utilization of the snowball sampling method, as this may not accurately represent the general population of Estonian rural women. Still, this study’s focus group and interview participants formed a diverse group of Estonian rural women including females from different age groups, socio-economic backgrounds, professions, and family statuses.

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Despite the abovementioned limitations, this study is practically and theoretically important. By combining cultural studies, cultural geography, post-socialist studies and gender studies, it is pioneering in constructing and representing an alternative, counterhegemonic view of post-Soviet rural femininities in Estonian context.

Overall, the constructions of rurality as well as rural femininities from the perspective of Estonian rural women turned out quite different from the dominant portrayal of these areas and people in the prevailing discourses of post-Soviet rurality.

Although the mainstream media depicts Estonian rural areas in connection with themes such as financial concerns, victimization, peripheralization, dependency, powerlessness, stupidity, peasantry, incompetence, scandals, hopelessness, extinction, self-responsibility, etc. (Nugin, 2014; Plüschke-Altof, 2017), and post-socialist rural women are usually viewed as representatives of traditional gender roles and hegemonic femininity (Kaskla,

2003; Little, 2002), this dissertation is one of the first attempts to start changing these discourses by offering voice to rural women who occupy the post-socialist rural space in

Estonia.

As appeared from the analysis of alternative media texts, focus groups and interviews with Estonian rural women as well as from observations in rural South and

Central Estonia, these women were constructing and performing rural and gender identities from a rather counter-hegemonic point of view. Although at times a bit too idyllic, these representations, spatial practices and imaginations created a multilayered and dynamic picture of Estonian rural life and the women’s role in it—describing various post-Soviet problems as well as the women’s self-sufficiency, independence and creativity in solving these issues and making rural life worth living.

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Instead of viewing themselves as passive victims of post-socialist transition, these women were introducing various reasons why rural life should not only be seen as a big problem, but as an efficient and sustainable way of living. Hopefully, studies like these help Estonian politicians and media to realize that despite living in the countryside, having to ride bicycles and local buses that come once a day, or purchasing food from local grocery stores, Estonian rural women are actually quite “decent people.”

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APPENDIX 1

University of Miami Institutional Review Board Research Protocol

1) Protocol Title

Alternative Spaces of Estonian Rural Women

2) Objectives*

This study explores the alternative media representations of rural women in Estonia, and the ways in which these representations are interconnected with the spatial practices and everyday lives of these women. More specifically, it asks the following research questions:

1. What kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of rurality emerge in association with the representations of post-soviet Estonian rural women in the “Live on Earth” movement’s website and social media?

2. What kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of rurality emerge in association with post-soviet Estonian rural women’s spatial practices?

3. What kind of (counter)hegemonic versions of rurality emerge in association with post-soviet Estonian rural women’s lived experiences?

4. What contradictions are there among multiple ways of “telling” and performing the lives of post-soviet rural women, and to what extent is a spatial coherence created from them?

3) Background*

With the cultural turn in rural studies, Cloke (1997) has strongly encouraged scholars to examine the social construction of rurality. It is important to pay attention to these socially and culturally created understandings, because they

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177 have the power to shape public opinion, which in turn impacts the federal and regional welfare policies that have direct social, economic, and political implications on marginalized groups (Clawson and Trice), (Jeffres et al.), (Miller and Ross). Moreover, according to social construction theory (Berger and

Luckmann), culturally created understandings of rurality can have an impact on rural people’s self-identities.

So far, most research on cultural construction of rurality is conducted either in the United States or in the United Kingdom (Baylina & Gunnerud Berg).

However, when it comes to the cultural meanings associated with the post- socialist rural communities in Eastern Europe, especially in the Baltic region, a very few studies have been conducted (Kärmäräinen 203). Furthermore, the cultural research concerning rural women in these areas, who are often faced with

“double-othering” (Liljeström 40), is almost entirely missing. Therefore, this study is attempting to fill that gap by approaching the cultural construction of rural space from the perspective of post-soviet rural women in Estonia.

4) Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria*

Adult women (at least 18 years old) who live in rural areas in Estonia are eligible to participate in this study. The following will be excluded from the study: adults unable to consent; individuals who are not yet adults (infants, children, teenagers); pregnant women; prisoners.

5) Procedures Involved*

First, to study the alternative media representations of post-soviet rural women in a nation-wide grassroots movement “Live on Earth”, a textual

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(qualitative content) analysis of the movement’s website, Youtube videos, and

Facebook page will be conducted.

Second, to understand the spatial practices and lived experiences of post- socialist rural women, this study utilizes the qualitative focus group method, in- depth interviews, and observation. More specifically, observations, in-depth interviews and focus groups with about 50 rural women in South and Central

Estonia will take place.

The focus groups and interviews will take place in several villages in South and Central Estonia either in the rooms offered by local residents or organizations. The observations will take place in several villages in South and

Central Estonia in the people’s natural environments where they live and work and in any other surrounding where they interact. These environments include women’s homes, local grocery stores, local businesses, fields, farms, community events, etc. The access to these research sites is guaranteed through the researcher’s personal contacts with the residents living in the abovementioned areas.

In the beginning of the focus groups and in-depth interviews, the participants will be presented with a description of the study. If they choose to participate, they will be asked questions about their perceptions of rural people and areas. The focus groups and interviews will be conducted in Estonian (the participants’ native language). The groups and interviews will be audio taped.

Prior to the focus groups and interviews, the participants are asked to read an opinion-article that discusses Estonian rural life

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(http://epl.delfi.ee/news/arvamus/barbi-pilvre-kui-maaelu-seisneb-kodulahedases- joomises-ja-mugavas-suitsupopsimises-olekski-ehk-parem-kui-tuhjenev-eesti- jaaks-loomadele?id=80240686), and a critical response to this article

(https://arvamus.postimees.ee/4320265/evelin-liiva-barbi-enne-kui-utled-motle).

They are also asked to scroll through the website of a rural movement Live on

Earth (www.maale-elama.ee). In the beginning of the study, the participants will fill out a short demographic survey that is translated to Estonian (Appendix 7,8) and then answer the open-ended questions listed in Appendix 10. The focus group/interview guide is also translated to Estonian as the conversations will take place in Estonian.

As of the observations, the researcher will observe rural women’s spatial practices (what they actually do in rural areas – e.g. what kind of work and leisure activities, how they get around, how they interact, etc.) in South and Central

Estonia in their natural, daily environments.

6) Data and Specimen Banking*

N/A

7) Data Management*

Data will be analyzed using NVivo software to identify themes that emerge during focus groups as well as from observation notes in terms of the study’s research questions and also in terms of the themes that support these questions.

Data, including notes and audio files (voice recordings) from interviews, focus groups, and observations, will be kept on the investigator’s password- protected computer, and only the primary investigator and co-investigator will be

180 able to access the data. Data will not include information that can be used to identify any individual participant.

8) Risks to Subjects*

There are no more than minimal risks associated with participation in this research. All responses will be kept confidential, and it will be clearly explained to participants that their data will not be shared in any way that will reveal their identity.

9) Potential Benefits to Subjects*

There is no direct benefit for participants in this research.

10) Vulnerable Populations*

N/A

11) Setting

Data collection sites: villages in South and Central Estonia.

Data analysis and paper writing: Miami, FL.

University of Tartu Research Ethics Committee (https://www.ut.ee/en/research- ethics-committee-university-tartu) has provided a local context approval for this study

(Appendix 10).

12) Resources Available

The researchers have completed CITI certification. The team members have conducted previous research on media representation of rurality. The co- investigator, who has grown up in Estonian countryside, has an in-depth understanding of the local study sites, people, culture, and society. Estonian is her native language.

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13) Prior Approvals

N/A

14) Recruitment Methods

The participants will be recruited at the research locations in South and

Central Estonia. The researchers will use their personal contacts with rural women in these locations and utilize the snowball method to obtain about 50 participants for focus groups. The subjects will not receive any payments for participating in this study.

15) Local Number of Subjects

16) Confidentiality

All data and recordings will be stored on password-protected computers. Data will be de-identified so that an individual’s identity cannot be linked to his or her survey responses. Data will be stored indefinitely. Only the research team members will have access to the dataset.

17) Provisions to Protect the Privacy Interests of Subjects

The information that the participants disclose will be safeguarded - the identifiers of the participants will be substituted with nicknames and the data and recordings will be stored in locked cabinets and password protected computers.

The only people that are allowed to access data are the primary investigator and co-investigator. The methods for handling and storing data will comply with the

University of Miami policies.

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The subjects will also be reminded that they have a right to refuse to answer any question that makes them feel uncomfortable or violates their privacy. Also, the participants will be informed about the security measures that are being used to protect data, how and where data will be stored, and who will have access to the information they have provided.

18) Consent Process

This research presents no more than minimal risk of harm to subjects and involves no procedures for which written consent is normally required outside of the research context. In addition, participation is voluntary and confidential. There is no special consent required to discuss these issues. However, in case IRB deems the consent necessary, we have included an oral consent form that specifies participation in focus groups, interviews, as well as in observation. For observations, the researcher will ask oral permission from the person in charge of the setting (e.g. the manager at the workplace, the owner of a property, the host of a party, etc.). When conducting observation in public places, the researcher will let relevant organizations know about the research.

As the study includes non-English speaking subjects whose native language is Estonian, we will obtain consent and conduct focus groups and interviews in

Estonian. The translation of the consent form as well as focus group and interview questions and demographics will be made by a “back-translation” method in which a “forward” translation from the IRB-approved English document to

Estonian is made by a translator who is fluent in both languages. Then, a “back” translation of the “forward” translation into English is done by a different

183 translator who is fluent in both languages. The back translator creates the translation independent from the “forward” translation and attests to the fact that she has not seen the original English consent form (see appendices 4-9). Both translators submit to the HSRO a signed statement describing their qualifications to make this translation from one specific language into another.

19) Process to Document Consent in Writing

As this protocol contains no more than minimal risk, we are requesting a waiver of the requirement for written consent.

APPENDIX 2

University of Miami Institutional Review Board Approval

University of Miami Ph.: 305-243-3195 Human Subject Research Office (M809) Fax: 305-243-3328 1400 NW 10th Avenue, Suite 1200A www.hsro.med.miami.edu Miami, FL 33136

APPROVAL

July 19, 2018

Christina Lane 305-284-3657 [email protected]

Dear Christina Lane:

On 7/19/2018, the IRB reviewed the following submission:

Type of Review: Initial Study Title of Study: Rural Space (Re)produced: Alternative Representations, Practices, and Imagination of Post-Soviet Rural Women in Estonia Investigator: Christina Lane IRB ID: 20180396 Funding: None Documents Reviewed: Forward translation Focus Group and Interview Questions Local Approval Oral Consent Form Back translation oral consent Back translation focus group and interview questions Revised Appendix 1_Focus Group and Interview Questions.docx Back translation demographics Forward translation Demographics HRP503 Min Risk Forward translation Oral Consent Revised Appendix 2_Demographics.docx

The IRB approved the study from 7/19/2018 to 7/18/2019 inclusive with a Waiver of Documentation of Consent. Before 7/18/2019 or within 45 days of the approval end date, whichever is earlier, you are to submit a completed Continuing Review to request continuing approval or closure.

Page 1 of 2

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If continuing review approval is not granted before the expiration date of 7/18/2019 approval of this study expires on that date.

To document consent, use the consent documents that were approved and stamped by the IRB. Go to the Documents tab to download them.

NOTE: Translations of IRB approved study documents, including informed consent documents, into languages other than English must be submitted to HSRO for approval prior to use.

In conducting this study, you are required to follow the requirements listed in the Investigator Manual (HRP-103), which can be found by navigating to the IRB Library within the IRB system. If your study indicates JHS as a performance site, as the PI, you must ensure that you have been granted permission by the JHS Clinical Research Review Committee (CRRC) prior to commencing study activities at JHS. Such approval is reflected by receipt of a JHS CRRC Approval Letter. If you have any questions regarding this process, please contact the JHS Office of Research at 305-585-7226.

Should you have any questions, please contact: Vivienne Carrasco, Sr. IRB Regulatory Analyst, (phone: 305-243-6713; email: [email protected])

Sincerely,

[This is a representation of an electronic record that was signed electronically and this page is the manifestation of the electronic signature]

Khemraj (Raj) Hirani, MPharm, Ph.D., RPh, CCRP, CIP, RAC, MBA Associate Vice Provost for Human Subject Research

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APPENDIX 3

Research Ethics Committee of the University of Tartu Approval

- Study #: 20180396 Effective Date: 7/19/2018

Research Ethics Committee of the University of Tartu (UT REC)

Operating to all ICH GCP requirements

Approval: 283/T-11 Date of meeting: 18 June 2018

In the presence of: Chairman Kadri Tamme University of Tartu, Faculty of Medicine, Lecturer in Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Vice-chairman Kristi Lõuk University of Tartu, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Project Manager and Doctoral Student Members Diva Eensoo University of Tartu, Faculty of Social Sciences, Research Fellow of Health Sociology Naatan Haamer Tartu University Hospital, Pastoral Counsellor Ruth Kalda University of Tartu, Faculty of Medicine, Professor of Family Medicine and Head of Chair Malle Kuum University of Tartu, Faculty of Medicine, Lecturer in Pharmacology and Research Fellow in Pharmacology Maire Peters University of Tartu, Faculty of Medicine, Senior Research Fellow in Genetics Kärt Pormeister University of Tartu, Faculty of Social Sciences, Doctoral Student Mare Remm Tartu Health Care College, Docent in Biomedical Science Maria Tamm University of Tartu, Faculty of Social Sciences, Research Fellow of Experimental Psychology Oivi Uibo University of Tartu, Faculty of Medicine, Associate Professor on Paediatric Gastroenterology Vahur Ööpik University of Tartu, Faculty of Medicine, Professor of Exercise Physiology

Resolution: Approval is given to conduct the study.

Study titled: Rural Space (Re)produced: Alternative Representations, Practices, and Imagination of Post-Soviet Rural Women in Estonia

Investigator’s name and address: Christina Lane (University of Miami, School of Communication, University of Miami, 4015 Wolfson Building, 5100 Brunson Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146)

Documents reviewed: 1. Application Form to the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Tartu, 25 June 2018 2. Informed Consent Form, 03 July 2018 3. The focus group/interview guide 4. Demographic survey

______University of Tartu Phone +372 737 6215 Grant Office E-mail [email protected] Lossi 3 www.ut.ee/en/research 51003 Tartu, Estonia Page 1 of 2

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- Study #: 20180396 Effective Date: 7/19/2018

5. CVs of investigators (C. Lane, K. Kirch)

End of the study: 31 May 2019

Chairman of UT REC: Kadri Tamme

Secretary of UT REC: Kaire Kallak

Date of issue: 10 July 2018

Page 2 of 2

APPENDIX 4

Oral Consent Form

Title of research study:

Rural Space (Re)produced: Alternative Representations, Practices, and Imagination of

Post-Soviet Rural Women in Estonia

Principal investigator: Dr. Christina Lane

Co-investigator: Kerli Kirch

Why am I being invited to take part in a research study?

We invite you to take part in this research study because you are a woman living in rural

Estonia.

What should I know about a research study?

• Someone will explain this research study to you.

• Participation is voluntary.

• Whether or not you take part is up to you.

• You can choose not to take part.

• You can agree to take part and later change your mind.

• Your decision will not be held against you.

• You can ask all the questions you want before you decide.

Who can I talk to?

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If you have questions, concerns, or complaints, or think the research has hurt you, talk to the research team at:

Christina Lane

School of Communication

University of Miami

4015 Wolfson Building

5100 Brunson Drive

Coral Gables, FL 33146

305-284-3657 [email protected]

Kerli Kirch

School of Communication

University of Miami

5051-3 International Building

5100 Brunson Drive

Coral Gables, FL 33124

954-328-0280 [email protected]

This research has been reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board (“IRB”).

You may talk to them at (305) 243-3195 or [email protected] if:

• Your questions, concerns, or complaints are not being answered by the research team.

190

• You cannot reach the research team.

• You want to talk to someone besides the research team.

• You have questions about your rights as a research subject.

• You want to get information or provide input about this research.

Why is this research being done?

The goal of this study is to explore the media representation, spatial practices, and lived experiences of post-soviet rural women in Estonia.

How many people will be studied?

We expect about 50 people to participate in this research study.

What happens if I say yes, I want to be in this research?

Your selection is based on your status as an adult Estonian rural woman. Once you are selected, you will be asked to read a newspaper article that comments Estonian rural life, a response to this article, and scroll through a rural movement’s website. In the beginning of the focus group, you will complete a short anonymous demographics survey, this will take about 5 minutes. After filling out the survey, you will be asked some open-ended questions in a 2-hour-long focus group with up to 8 people. The questions are directed at the group. The focus group discussion will be audiotaped.

What are the risks and benefits of the study?

The study does not pose any risks to you. Your answers will not be linked with your

191 name in any of the data. No direct benefit is promised to you for your participation in the study.

What happens if I say yes, but I change my mind later?

You can leave the research at any time and it will not be held against you. If you want to withdraw at any time, your data will be excluded from our study at your will.

What happens to the information collected for the research?

The information collected during this study will be used to write a dissertation, papers, and reports.

The data will be anonymous. Your names and identities are not noted in the data. In the focus group discussions, all members will hear each other, and while we will ask for confidentiality always, we will not be able to stop others from speaking outside the group. Organizations that may inspect and copy your information include the IRB in

Miami and other representatives of this organization.

The information will be stored by the investigators on secure computers in the US after it has been transferred from recording devices (audio recorders and data sheets). No one else will have access to the information.

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What else do I need to know?

You may be informed of the results of the research by mail, email or phone, if you want.

A copy of this consent form is provided to you for your personal records.

COMPLETION OF THE FOCUS GROUP IS CONSIDERED YOUR CONSENT

TO PARTICIPATE.

APPENDIX 5

Oral Consent Form Forward Translation to Estonian

SUULINE NÕUSOLEK UURINGUS OSALEMISEKS

Uurimustöö pealkiri:

Maaelu Taasloomine: Maanaiste Alternatiivne Kujutamine, Tegevused ja Kogemused

Nōukogude-Järgses Eestis

Uurijad:

Dr. Christina Lane

Kerli Kirch

Miks mind on sellesse uuringusse osalema kutsutud?

Me kutsume Sind selles uuringus osalema, kuna oled täiskasvanud naine, kes elab Eesti maapiirkonnas.

Mida ma peaksin selle uurimuse kohta teadma?

Enne fookusgrupis osalemist seletab uurija Sulle täpsemalt, mis uuringuga on tegemist.

Uurimuses osalemine on vabatahtlik.

Sul on võimalus valida, kas osaled või mitte.

Sa võid esmalt olla nõus uuringus osalema, kuid hiljem ka meelt muuta.

Sinu otsust ei kasutata Sinu vastu.

Sa võid enne osalemist küsida küsimusi selle uuringu kohta.

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Kellega ma võin sellest uuringust rääkida?

Kui Sul on küsimusi, muresid või kaebusi, või arvad, et uurija on Sulle liiga teinud, võta meie uurimisrühmaga ühendust järgmistel aadressitel:

Christina Lane

School of Communication

University of Miami

4015 Wolfson Building

5100 Brunson Drive

Coral Gables, FL 33146

305-284-3657 [email protected]

Kerli Kirch

School of Communication

University of Miami

5051-3 International Building

5100 Brunson Drive

Coral Gables, FL 33124

954-328-0280 [email protected]

Selle uurimustöö on üle vaadanud ja heaks kiitnud Institutional Review Board (“IRB”).

Sa võid nendega ühendust võtta: (305) 243-3195 või [email protected] juhul, kui

195

• Sul on küsimusi, muresid või kaebusi, mida uurimismeeskond ei ole

adresseerinud;

• Sa ei saa uurimismeeskonda mingil põhjusel kätte;

• Sa tahad rääkida kellegi teisega kui uurija;

• Sul on küsimusi oma õiguste kohta uurimistöö subjektina;

• Sa tahad saada rohkem infot selle uurimuse kohta või omalt poolt sellesse

uurimusse panustada.

Miks seda uurimustööd tehakse?

Selle uurimuse põhieesmärgiks on saada infot Eesti maanaiste alternatiivsete kuvandite kohta uues meedias, ning analüüsida, kuidas need kuvandid on seotud maanaiste kohaliku tegevuse ning kogemustega.

Kui palju inimesi selles uurimuses osaleb?

Selles uuringus osaleb umbes 50 maanaist.

Mis juhtub, kui ma annan nõusoleku selles uurimuses osaleda?

Sinu valimine sellesse uuringusse sõltub sellest, kas Sa kvalifitseerud kui Eestis elav maanaine. Kui jah, siis palutakse Sul enne fookusgrupis osalemist lugeda arvamusartiklit

Eesti maaelu kohta, vastust sellele arvamusele ning tutvuda Maale elama kodulehega.

Fookusgrupi alguses palutakse Sul täita lühike demograafiaküsitlus, mis võtab umbes 5 minutit. Seejärel küsitakse kõigilt fookusgrupis osalejatelt avatud küsimusi umbes kahe

196 tunni jooksul. Igas fookusgrupis osaleb umbes kuus kuni kaheksa naist.

Fookusgrupivestlused salvestatakse helikandjale.

Kas see uurimus võib mulle kahju tuua ning kas ma saan sellest uurimusest mingit tulu?

See uuring ei sisalda Sinu jaoks mingeid riske. Sinu anonüümsus on tagatud, kuna me ei

ühenda ühtegi vastust isikuandmetega. Selles uuringus osalemine ei too Sulle ka mingit otsest kasumit.

Mis juhtub, kui ma nõustun uuringus osalema, kuid muudan hiljem oma meelt?

Sa võid uuringust iga hetk lahkuda ning Sinu otsust ei kasutata Sinu vastu. Kui Sa soovid lahkuda, siis Sinu tahtmisel jäetakse ka Sinu vastused uuringutulemustest välja.

Mis juhtub andmetega, mida selles uuringus kogutakse?

Selle uuringu käigus kogutavaid andmeid kasutatakse doktoritöö, erinevate teadusartiklite ja raportite kirjutamisel.

Kõik andmed on anonüümsed ning ei sisalda Sinu nime ega muud isikuinfot. Samas ei saa me garanteerida, et ülejäänud fookusgrupi liikmed uuringust väljaspool fookusgruppi ei räägi. Uuringutulemusi võib ka inspekteerida IRB organisatsiooni esindaja Miamis.

Andmeid hoitakse uurijate salasõnaga kaitstud arvutites ning kellelgi teisel nendele andmetele ligipääsu ei ole.

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Mida ma veel peaksin tedama?

Kui Sa soovid, võime selle uurimuse tulemusi Sinuga jagada posti, emaili või telefoni teel.

Koopia sellest nõusolekuvormist jääb Sinu kätte.

FOOKUSGRUPIS VABATAHTLIKULT OSALEMINE TÄHENDAB SINU

NÕUSOLEKUT SELLEST UURINGUST OSA VÕTTA.

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Forward Translator’s Testimony

I, ______, declare that I am fluent in Estonian and English languages

(can speak, read, and write). I attest that this translation I made on ______is true, accurate, and correct to the best of my knowledge and ability.

Signature ______

Date ______

APPENDIX 6

Oral Consent Form Back Translation to English

ORAL CONSENT FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE RESEARCH STUDY

Title of the study:

Rural Life Reproduced: Rural Women’s Alternative Representations, Practices, and

Experiences in Post-Soviet Estonia

Researchers: Dr. Christina Lane

Kerli Kirch Schneider

Why am I being invited to this research study?

We are inviting you to participate in this study because you are an adult woman who resides in rural Estonia.

What should I know about this study?

Before participating in the focus group or interview, the researcher will explain in more detail what the study is about.

Taking part of this study is voluntary.

It is up to you whether you participate or not.

You are allowed to first agree to take part of this study but later change your mind.

Your decision will not be used against you.

You are allowed to ask questions about this study.

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Who can I discuss this study with?

If you have questions, concerns or complaints, or you think that the researcher has harmed you, you can contact our research team in following addresses:

Christina Lane

School of Communication

University of Miami

4015 Wolfson Building

5100 Brunson Drive

Coral Gables, FL 33146

305-284-3657 [email protected]

Kerli Kirch

Aruniidu talu,

Vastse-Roosa, Mõniste vald,

Võrumaa 66013

Estonia

+372 53819178 [email protected]

This research has been revised and approved by Institutional Review Board (IRB). You can contact them at: (305) 243-3195 or [email protected] in case

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• You have questions, concerns, or complaints that the research team has not

addressed;

• You cannot reach the research team for some reason;

• You want to talk to someone else besides the researchers;

• You have questions about your rights as a research subject;

• You want to receive more information about the research or contribute to the

research.

Why is this research being done?

The main purpose of this research is to receive information about Estonian rural women’s alternative representations in new media, and analyze how these representations are connected with the rural women’s local practices and experiences.

How many people will participate in this research study?

About 50 women will take part of this research study.

What happens if I agree to take part of this research study?

Your selection to participate in this study depends on whether you qualify as Estonian rural woman. If yes, you will be asked to participate in a focus group or an interview.

Prior the focus group or interview, you will be asked to read an opinion article about

Estonian rural life, a response to this article, and get acquainted with Maale elama website.

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In the beginning of a focus group or an interview, you will be asked to fill out a short demographics survey that will take about 5 minutes. Following that you will be asked open ended questions during 2 hours. In every focus group, there will be about six to eight women, while the interview will take place between the interviewer and interviewee. Focus group conversations and interviews will be audio recorded.

If you participate in an observation, the researcher will observe your daily practices related to rural life and takes notes.

Are there any harms or benefits for me related to this research?

This research contains no harm to you. The confidentiality of your responses will be guaranteed because we will not link any answers to the respondent’s name. The participation in this study will also not bring you no direct benefits.

What happens if I agree to take part of this study, but later change my mind?

You are free to leave the study any time and your decisions will not be held against you.

If you decide to leave the study, we will not use your answers in the research results, if that is your wish.

What happens to the data collected in this study?

The data collected in this study will be used to write a dissertation, research articles and reports.

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All data will be confidential and will not be linked to your identity. At the same time we cannot guarantee that the other members of the focus group will not discuss the topics outside of the research study. The results may also be inspected by a representative of

IRB in Miami.

The data will be stored in the investigators’ password protected computers and no one else will have access to it.

What else should I know?

If you wish, we can share the results of this study with you via mail, email, or phone.

You will receive a copy of this consent.

VOLUNTARILY COMPLETING THE FOCUS GROUP, INTERVIEW, OR

OBSERVATION WILL BE CONSIDERED YOUR CONSENT TO

PARTICIPATE.

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Back Translator’s Testimony

I, ______,Maarja Vilberg declare that I am fluent in Estonian and English languages (can speak, read, and write). I attest that the translation I made on ______07.10.2018 was done independent of the other translation – I did not see or refer to8Demographi the original English document when making the Estonian translation. This translation is true, accurate,c Survey and correct to the best of my knowledge and ability.

Forward

SignatureTranslation ______8

Date ______07.10.2018

APPENDIX 7 Demographic Survey

1. Age 2. Marital status

3. Children

4. Education

5. Occupation

6. Please write down the first word that comes to your mind when you hear the

phrase “rural woman.”

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APPENDIX 8

Demographic Survey Forward Translation to Estonian

Demograafiline teave

1. Vanus

______aastat

2. Perekonnaseis (vali sobiv variant)

Abielus Vabaabielus Suhtes Vallaline Lesk

3. Lapsed

______(laste arv)

4. Haridustase (vali sobiv variant) Algkool Põhikool Keskkool Bakalaureus Magsiter Doktor

5. Amet

______(palun kirjuta ametinimetus)

6. Palun kirjuta sõna või fraas, mis Sinu jaoks seostub väjendiga “maanaine”

______

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Forward Translator’s Testimony

I, ______, declare that I am fluent in Estonian and English languages (can speak, read, and write). I attest that this translation I made on

______is true, accurate, and correct to the best of my knowledge and ability.

Signature ______

Date ______

APPENDIX 9

Demographic Survey Back Translation to English

Demographic Survey

1. Age 2. Marital status 3. Number of children 4. Education 5. Occupation 6. Write the first word that comes to mind when you hear the expression “rural woman.”

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Back Translator’s Testimony

I, ______,Maarja Vilberg declare that I am fluent in Estonian and English languages (can speak, read, and write). I attest that the translation I made on ______07.10.2018 was done independent of the other translation – I did not see or refer to the original English document when making the Estonian translation. This translation is true, accurate, and correct to the best of my knowledge and ability.

Signature ______

Date ______07.10.2018

APPENDIX 10

Focus Group and Interview Guide

1. What was your reaction to the article by Barbi Pilvre?

(http://epl.delfi.ee/news/arvamus/barbi-pilvre-kui-maaelu-seisneb-kodulahedases-

joomises-ja-mugavas-suitsupopsimises-olekski-ehk-parem-kui-tuhjenev-eesti-

jaaks-loomadele?id=80240686) Do you agree with her? What do you think

happens when they close down rural shops?

2. Which other stories on rural life have you come across in the newspapers,

television, film, etc.?

3. Do you think Estonian mainstream media do an accurate job when portraying

rural life and people? Explain.

4. How does your everyday look like in the countryside?

5. What do you think about Evelin Liiva’s response to Pilvre’s article in social

media (https://arvamus.postimees.ee/4320265/evelin-liiva-barbi-enne-kui-utled-

motle)? Do you agree with her depictions of rural life?

6. What do you think about rural movements such as “Live on earth” (http://maale-

elama.ee/)? Do they have an impact on rural life? Which impact? Are these more

accurate portrayals of rural life? Why do you think the movement is ran mostly by

rural women?

7. Do you ever produce your own media content (articles, pictures, podcasts, videos,

etc.) and share it online or in traditional media or some other way?

8. Do you think rural life has changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union? If yes,

has it gotten better or worse?

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9. What are some things about rural life that you are the least happy with?

10. What are some things about rural life that you are the happiest with?

11. Why have you chosen to live in the countryside?

12. Describe your daily physical and mental activities. Which activities in you enjoy

the most? The least? Why?

13. Have you ever lived or considered living in the city? If yes, why did you decide to

stay or come back?

14. What is your main mode of transportation/how do you get around (to work, to

stores, to the city, to visit friends, etc.)?

15. Do you think rural life is easier on men or women? Why?

16. Is there a local story of a rural woman/women that you would like to share with

us?

APPENDIX 11

Focus Group and Interview Guide Forward Translation to Estonian

1. Kuidas te reageerisite Barbi Pilvre artiklile?

(http://epl.delfi.ee/news/arvamus/barbi-pilvre-kui-maaelu-seisneb-kodulahedases-

joomises-ja-mugavas-suitsupopsimises-olekski-ehk-parem-kui-tuhjenev-eesti-

jaaks-loomadele?id=80240686) Kas te nõustute tema arvamusega? Mis teie

arvates juhtub, kui kohalikud poed kinni pannakse?

2. Milliseid teisi lugusid maaelu kohta olete lugenud, kuulnud või näinud Eesti

ajalehtedes, televisioonis, raadios, filmides jne.?

3. Kas teie arvates maalitakse Eesti meedias maaelust täpne ja tõetruu pilt?

Selgitage.

4. Mis te arvate Evelin Liiva vastusest Pilvre artiklile sotsiaalmeedias?

(https://arvamus.postimees.ee/4320265/evelin-liiva-barbi-enne-kui-utled-motle)

Kast Liiva maalib teie meelest maaelust täpse(ma) pildi?

5. Kuidas teie endi igapäevaelu maal välja näeb?

6. Mis te tänapäeva maaeluliikumistest, nagu Maale elama, arvate? (http://maale-

elama.ee/)? Kas teie meelest mõjutavad need liikumised elu maal või inimeste

arvamust maaelust? Kui jah, siis kuidas täpsemalt? Kas need liikumised maalivad

rohkem tõetruu pildi maaelust kui peavoolumeedia maalib? Maale elama

liikumine on peamiselt naiste poolt juhitud. Mis on selle põhjus teie meelest?

7. Kas te toodate vahepeal ka ise maaeluteemalist meediasisu ja jagate seda sisu ka

teistega – nt. kirjutate artikleid, postitate pilte, videosid, arvamusi jne.?

Täpsustage.

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8. Kas teie meelest on Eesti maaelu peale Nõukogude Liidu lagunemist muutunud?

Kuidas – kas paremuse või halvemuse poole?

9. Nimetage asju, millega te maal rahul ei ole.

10. Nimetage asju, millega te maal rahul olete ja mis teid õnnelikuks teevad.

11. Miks olete valinud elada maal?

12. Kirjeldage oma igapäevaseid füüsilisi ja vaimseid tegevusi. Milliseid neist

tegevustest te kõige rohkem naudite? Milliseid kõige vähem? Miks?

13. Kas te olete kunagi linnas elanud või kaalunud linna kolimist? Kui jah, siis miks

te otsustasite maale jääda või maale tagasi tulla?

14. Mis on teie peamine transpordivahend maal?

15. Kas teie meelest on maaelu lihtsam naiste või meeste jaoks? Miks?

16. Lõpetuseks palun jagage minuga mõnd kohalikku lugu maanais(t)e kohta.

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Forward Translator’s Testimony

I, ______, declare that I am fluent in Estonian and English languages (can speak, read, and write). I attest that this translation I made on

______is true, accurate, and correct to the best of my knowledge and ability.

Signature ______

Date ______

APPENDIX 12

Focus Group and Interview Guide Back Translation to English

1. What was your reaction to the article by Barbi Pilvre?

(http://epl.delfi.ee/news/arvamus/barbi-pilvre-kui-maaelu-seisneb-kodulahedases-

joomises-ja-mugavas-suitsupopsimises-olekski-ehk-parem-kui-tuhjenev-eesti-

jaaks-loomadele?id=80240686) Do you agree with her opinion? What do you

think happens if they close down local shops?

2. What other stories about rural life have you come across in Estonian newspapers,

television, radio, films, etc.?

3. Do you think Estonian media paints a true picture of rural life? Explain.

4. What do you think of Evelin Liiva’s response to Pilvre’s article in social media?

(https://arvamus.postimees.ee/4320265/evelin-liiva-barbi-enne-kui-utled-motle)

Does Liiva paint (more) accurate picture of rural life?

5. How does your own daily life in the countryside look like?

6. What do you think of the contemporary rural movements, such as Maale elama?

(http://maale-elama.ee/)? Do you think these types of movements have an impact

on rural life or people’s opinions of rural life? If yes, then how? Do you think

these movements portray a rather truthful picture of rural life than the mainstream

media? The leaders of the Maale elama movement are mainly women. Why do

you think it is so?

7. Do you ever produce media on rural life and share it with others (e.g. write

articles, post pictures, videos, opinions, etc.)? Explain.

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8. Do you think Estonian rural life has changed after the collapse of the Soviet

Union? How – for better or for worse?

9. Name some things that you are not happy with when it comes to rural life.

10. Name some things that you like about rural life and that make you happy.

11. Why did you decide to live in a rural area?

12. Describe your daily physical and mental activities. Which ones you enjoy the

most? Which ones the least? Why?

13. Have you ever lived in a city or considered moving to the city? If yes, then why

did you decide to stay in the countryside or move back to the countryside?

14. What is your main form of transportation in the countryside?

15. Do you think rural life is easier for men or for women? Why?

16. Please share a local story about rural women.

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Back Translator’s Testimony

Maarja Vilberg I, ______, declare that I am fluent in Estonian and English languages (can speak, read, and write). I attest that the translation I made on ______07.10.2018 was done independent of the other translation – I did not see or refer to the original English document when making the Estonian translation. This translation is true, accurate, and correct to the best of my knowledge and ability.

Signature ______Date ______07.10.2018

APPENDIX 13

Observation Notes Template

WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHO? WHY? Researcher’s

What is Physical Date; Number and the reasons role happening setting + hours characteristics for selecting (background

(event, atmosphere, observed of subjects particular observer, activities) environment situations to participant)

observe

Focus group Eda’s barn 4 hours 7 and women’s gathering

Grocery run Metsavenna 1 hour 6 and social store gathering

Midsummer’s Signe and 4 hours Ca 18

Eve Taavi house

Garden work Kaie’s 10 6

(breakfast garden hours outside, planting, digging, weed whacker, grass tractor,

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219 grandchild, rescue dogs and cats, who’s going to cook, baking, wood chopping, collecting herbs, roof cleaning of moss)

Commute Local bus 1,5 Ca 15

hours

Christmas Kaie and 3 hours 11

Rein’s

house

Country Suur Muna 2 hours 3 restaurant keeping

Coffee hour Mõniste 2 hours 8 and focus school group

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Focus group Tiiu’s house 3 hours 8 and friends gathering

Saturday Maarja’s 4 hours 5 night sauna summer ritual (hay home cutting, tree cutting, drinks, sauna, outside dish washing, outside toilet, night swims)

Bike ride Vastse- 2 hours Ca 8 through the Roosa village (Aive heinategu, hobused, suitsukala, mesilased, kana, Anneli valmistab ette külalistemaja)