Self-publishing and Building Glocal Scenes: Between State Socialism and Neoliberal Capitalism

In this article we introduce the theme of special issue focusing on self-publishing activities In Central and Easter Europe from 1980s to 2000s. The articles presented in this issue offer an interdisciplinary view on the history of independent publishing in both the late socialist and post-socialist periods. We would like to enrich the scholarly debate beyond the dichotomies of communism/capitalism, socialism/post-socialism, East/West and samizdat/fanzine, respectively. Different variants of do-it-yourself cultural creativity highlight the space that lies between the established high-brow and popular low-brow cultures. Specifically, the intersections between the approaches of art history, musicology, cultural studies, sociology, literary history, and media studies constitute a representative spectrum for these reconciliations. We would like to highlight the observation of all our contributors that self-published press and books bring a specific value to the building of communities or scenes that are not only locally embedded, but also interlinked globally, and show how various cultural trends were established and developed in different sociocultural and national settings. They bring so-called hidden voices to the forefront, which allows the building of one’s own creative space for different kind of activities with significant value also in our post-digital era. Our cases show that the socialist and post-socialist contexts enabled interesting shifts in the economic and social positioning of self-publishing activities. In this respect, we would see the most interesting cases for further research in situations when different agents from different parts of the cultural field meet together, connect different audiences, and foster new ways of creativity that can transgress the logic of late capitalism.