Challenges of Health, Demographic Changes, and Wellbeing in Post-socialist Societies

Abstract

Recent conflicts in Eastern Europe have re-ignited public interest in “post-socialism.” Increased geopolitical conflict, the rise of the far right, challenges to national sovereignty, and full-scale war have likewise captured the attention of researchers around the globe, attracting scholars from across disciplines into the theoretical moment of post-socialist studies. With the fall of the Soviet Union more than two decades behind us, and with the resurgence in use of Cold War era paradigms to make sense of the international issues today, one can easily be left with the impression that our ability to establish new or challenging research on practices and ideologies of post-socialism(s) is limited. Where is there room for innovation in our studies of the socialist afterlife? What more can be said of the Soviet legacy that has not already been said?