Heritage and cultural production as factors of deperipheralization of a small town on the example of Tarusa (Kaluga Region)

The article presents the results of a study of the processes of cultural (re)production in Tarusa as one of the small towns of Russia. These processes, which are often associated with memory and heritage, and whose actors accumulate their own social capital, according to the authors, affect qualitative changes in the urban environment and transform a seemingly well-established “provinciality". The key theoretical framework of the study is the concept of “deperipheralization” by urbanist M. Kuhn, in which the “peripherality” of the city is considered not as an established spatial fact, but as a social configuration formed in unequal relations of power and subordination, as a continuous process in which different aspects can be distinguished, and which can be reversed. Thus, deperipheralization processes may occur in the life of peripheral communities aimed at the development of these communities. The article describes two research cases: a) the history of the traditional cultural practice of embroidery called “Kaluga color perevit' (embroidery)”, which went from a local handicraft based on manual labor to a wide industrial production known throughout the country, and then, due to the economic crisis and the sharp reduction in factory work in the 1990s, “moved” into the heritage space with its paternalistic discourse; b) the modern practice of artistic mosaic, introduced into the urban community by one entrepreneur, integrated into other urban cultural practices and spaces and accumulating the development of new places of memory and initiatives related to heritage and commemoration. These cases of cultural production can be considered as independent deperipheralization factors contributing to the growth of social capital in small town. The authors declare no conflict of interests.

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