Transformation of childcare arrangements in Buryat rural families in Post-Soviet Russia

The focus of my PhD project is on the changes of care arrangements in Buryat rural families in Post-Soviet Russia. I consider these changes in connection with institutional interaction between the state, labor market and rural family in post-Soviet period . This research includes following questions: What strategies enable rural families to cope with the deficit of public and marketed childcare services? How Buryat traditional practices of chidcare reveal themselves in these strategies? How did traditi onal Buryat practices and ideas of child rearing transform under the influence of Russification policy? How traditional practices of Buryatian childcare intersect with the modern patterns in everyday life of rural Buryats? The aim of the project is to de scribe and analyze the changes of in-family childcare arrangements in Buryat rural families in the context of ideological and institutional transformations with the focus on parenthood and intergenerational contracts. The project will concentrate also on the effects of rural-urban migration and commuting in Buryatya on continuity and transformation of the childcare practices. The field work includes three months of participant observation and biographical interviewing in the Northern Buryat villages: Ulun khan, Khilgana and Udinsk.