Abstract

This overview presents the most authoritative publications, theories and reflections of contemporary philosophers, culturologists and sociologists working on the study of cultural exclusion zones. There is a short introduction module, in which we have endeavoured to collate and highlight on the principal themes, terms, concepts and technical vocabulary developed to describe the specific phenomena of cultural exclusion zones. It is not intended as an exhaustive review of all aspects of the large agglomeration of themes related to Cultural Exclusion studies, but focuses in particular on materials from the international “Mechanisms of Formation Zones of Cultural Exclusion and Frontier Areas” conferences (St. Petersburg, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017), some of which have also been selected for this edition of Rivista di Estetica. In this introduction we will present a selection of trends and individuals relating to the Russian and international interdisciplinary research project directed by the Centre for Cultural Exclusion and Frontier Zones of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the St. Petersburg State University as institutions, and by Sergey Troitskiy as theorist and visionary.In the following review we put forth the reflections of contemporary scientists on the phenomena of exclusion and re-actualization in conjunction with historical processes, along with an analysis of the origins and current state of the problem, and suggest ways to overcome cultural exclusion between various socio-demographic, national and socio-professional groups, as well as the social experience of separation from existing cultural values and norms through the development of a community’s cultural identity. The ideas reviewed propose various approaches to analysing the functional mechanisms of cultural exclusion, such as ontological, sociological, and humanitarian.