31 October 2019
Urban Hunters: Dealing and Dreaming in Times of Transition
Lars Højer, Morten Axel Pedersen, Yale University Press, 2019
An ethnography of the Mongolian capital city of Ulaanbaatar during the nation’s transition from socialism to a market-based economic system
"Urban Hunters" is an ethnography of the Mongolian capital city, Ulaanbaatar, during the nation’s transition from socialism to a market-based economic system. Following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, Mongolia entered a period of economic chaos characterized by wild inflation, disappearing banks, and closing farms, factories, and schools. During this time of widespread poverty, a generation of young adults came of age. In exploring the social, cultural, and existential ramifications of a transition that has become permanent and acquired a logic of its own, Lars Højer and Morten Axel Pedersen present a new theorization of social agency in post-socialist as well as postcolonial contexts.