Paper short abstract:

This paper drawing on ethnography of the Baikal-Amur Mainline in East Siberia, contributes to anthropological discussions about post-Soviet forms of postsocialism, modernization and identity building and explores infrastructure’s potential for transformation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores large-scale railroad infrastructure as an embodiment of Soviet and post-Soviet state projects of modernization and identity construction. I apply an infrastructural lens to explore the entanglements of local communities with the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), a railroad line built in the 1970s and 1980s in East Siberia. I refer to the BAM as transformative infrastructure, as my research highlights the railroad’s agency in regional development and social dynamics. Drawing on my ethnography of the railroad towns and indigenous villages, I explore how the Soviet BAM built local communities and identities by attracting migrants and pulling indigenous residents into the orbit of modernization. Furthermore, I demonstrate how Soviet identities embodied in the railroad have been reconstructed recently and recycled in public discourses and media campaigns surrounding the BAM-2 program. I argue that this postsocialist politics of identity and emotion aims at re-enchanting local residents with promises of modernity and rebuilding the loyalty of citizens to the postsocialist state in an era of socio-economic decline. While my research contributes to anthropological discussions about post-Soviet forms of modernization and identity building, it also explores infrastructure’s potential for transformation.