In this piece, Gessen combines the more cultural and institutional approach of Parsons and the more scientific and historical approach of Eberstadt. Parsons attempts to provide what Geertz called a \u201cthick description\u201d by living in Russia and interviewing people who lived through the 1990s. She is effective in shaping a detailed narrative of the time period from her interviews but I think she could have been more effective by including people of various age groups. She only interviews people who were middle-aged in the early 1990s and perhaps the younger generation would have a different and useful perspective. As Eberstadt point outs, it is actually Russia\u2019s young that are facing the effects of depopulation. Parsons also uses the changing political and economic institutions in Russia to explain this phenomenon. Eberstadt is more scientific and historical in that his study is data-driven and he looks at the entire twentieth century instead of the just the 90s. He uses demographic data like birth and death rates to look at Russia\u2019s decades-long problem. He also tries to find a cause through data. Data shows that deaths from cardiovascular diseases and external injuries are much higher in Russia than in other countries of comparable development. However, these don\u2019t seem to result from diet, pollution, or drinking. So Gessen concludes that the problem is in mental health. Although her conclusion is hardly convincing, I don\u2019t think the truth is unreachable. I think we should utilize both cultural and scientific approaches as Gessen has done and keep on going. For me, the next step would be to look at data regarding mental health in Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In this piece, Gessen combines the more cultural and institutional approach of Parsons and the more scientific and historical approach of Eberstadt. Parsons attempts to provide what Geertz called a \u201cthick description\u201d by living in Russia and interviewing people who … Continue reading