The Metamorphoses of the Dacha: Some Processual Thinking

Abstract : This chapter is the unintended effect of a long chain of relations that started when its authors met in Belarus in the late 1990s. They were working on very different sociological topics. Ronan Hervouet was doing his “exotic” and ethnographic doctorate research on ordinary life in dachas1 under the strong Belarusian dictatorship (Hervouet 2009), whereas François Dépelteau was searching for different ontological views and principles in sociological theory in reference to social determinism and codeterminism (Dépelteau 2008). The former never used Norbert Elias’s approach to do his doctorate research. He started to read this sociologist later. The latter met the texts of Norbert Elias by accident. He was looking for a good textbook on sociology and the title What Is Sociology? caught his attention. He found much more than a textbook.