Lois Kalb’s Lecture on Mass Housing in Riga

On 17 May 2023, Lois Kalb will visit the ILFA and give a public lecture, “Uncommonly Modern: Property, Intimacy and Mass Housing in Late and post-Soviet Riga (1970-2000)”. Lois Kalb is a PhD researcher at the history department of the European University Institute in Florence. She is interested in the urban political economy of late Soviet mass housing districts. Her current project lays at the intersection between history and anthropology and looks at the changing relations between forms of property, intimacies and social life of mass housing districts in Riga over the course of the late Soviet period and the transition period of the 1990s.

In this lecture, she will present parts of her current PhD project on mass housing and urban social change in late and post-Soviet Riga, over the course of the 1970s, 80s, and 1990s. “I look at the transforming dynamics between large-scale political and economic processes, the urban built environment and everyday social life. By looking at different aspects of mass housing districts, such as housing maintenance and repair, housing distribution and family life, I search for emergent property relations.” The lecture will put forward some tentative findings of what such property relations can tell about the post-socialist transition in Riga, about housing privatization and people’s everyday lives becoming more private over time.

The lecture will be in English, and it will take place at the Reading room of the Archives of Latvian Folklore, ILFA UL, at 1pm. All interested persons are welcome.

Photos from Lois Kalb's personal archive

Lois Kalb’s visit is funded by European University Institute, Florence. The event is organized by the ILFA, within the projects, “Urban Experiences: Narratives, Memories and Place Heritage” (No. lzp-2020/1-0096) and “Landscapes of Identities: History, Culture, and Environment” (No. VPP-LETONIKA-2021/1-0008, as a part the seminar series “Landscapes of Identities”).

Last time modified: 16.05.2023 16:26:25