Overview
While Russian computer scientists are notorious for their interference in the 2016 US presidential election, they are ubiquitous on Wall Street and coveted by international IT firms and often perceive themselves as the present manifestation of the past glory of Soviet scientific prowess. Drawing on over three hundred in-depth interviews, the contributors to From Russia with Code trace the practices, education, careers, networks, migrations, and lives of Russian IT professionals at home and abroad, showing how they function as key figures in the tense political and ideological environment of technological innovation in post-Soviet Russia. Among other topics, they analyze coders' creation of both transnational communities and local networks of political activists; Moscow's use of IT funding to control peripheral regions; brain drain and the experiences of coders living abroad in the United Kingdom, United States, Israel, and Finland; and the possible meanings of Russian computing systems in a heterogeneous nation and industry. Highlighting the centrality of computer scientists to post-Soviet economic mobilization in Russia, the contributors offer new insights into the difficulties through which a new entrepreneurial culture emerges in a rapidly changing world. Contributors. Irina Antoschyuk, Mario Biagioli, Ksenia Ermoshina, Marina Fedorova, Andrey Indukaev, Alina Kontareva, Diana Kurkovsky, Vincent Lepinay, Alexandra Masalskaya, Daria Savchenko, Liubava Shatokhina, Alexandra Simonova, Ksenia Tatarchenko, Zinaida Vasilyeva, Dimitrii Zhikharevich
Full Product Details
Author: Mario Biagioli ,
Vincent Antonin Lépinay
Publisher: Duke University Press
Imprint: Duke University Press
Weight: 0.658kg
ISBN: 9781478001843
ISBN 10: 1478001844
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 03 May 2019
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
The most striking achievement of this in so many ways outstanding book rests in its ethnographic accounts of the RCS [Russian Computer Scientists] as a new type of power-knowledge intellectual.... The book is easy on technical language and should be accessible to a wide readership beyond Russian studies. -- Dusan I. Bjelic * Slavic Review *
Author Information
Mario Biagioli is Distinguished Professor of Law, Science and Technology Studies, and History at the University of California, Davis. Vincent Lépinay is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Medialab at Sciences Po (Paris).
