Marju Lauristin, PhD (b. 1940), is professor emeritus in the Institute of Social Sciences at University of Tartu and Member of the Academia Europeana. She had been teaching media and journalism, sociological theories, political communication and political culture. Her main areas of studies are social, political, cultural and digital transformations in post-communist societies, human development and integration of minorities in Estonia. Marju Lauristin has been Minister of Social Affairs in the first independent government of Estonia in 1992-1994. She has been member of the European Parliament in 2014-2018. In 2022 Marju Lauristin with her colleagues received the Estonian National Science Award for their long-term research on Estonian transformations.
Marju Lauristin’s keynote talk abstract at the conference Cultural Heterologies and Democracy II:
Analyzing culture in transforming society: a morfogenetic view
In our research of Estonian post-communist transformations ( look at https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/87145) we had applied the model of social morphogenesis (SAC), proposed by Margaret Archer and her collaborators (see Archer, M . Social Morphogenesis, 2013). SAC model includes three main components of social morphogenesis: social interactions, cultural interactions and social agencies. Cultural interactions, going on between people in their everyday communications, in the media, arts, education, sciences and political discussions, are considered as a part of the morphogenetic cycle, enabling formation and empowerment of different social agencies. They provide knowledge and understanding, define goals and give positive or negative feedback, create common discourses, values and ideas and help people to understand the meaning of changes. In the presentation we offer insight in the cultural interactions during the two first cycles of Estonian transition (1988-91 and 1992- 2003).