In Estonia’s industrial east, basements, garages and dachas offer residents room to negotiate identity, memory and belonging; in The Future of Hiding, anthropologist Francisco Martínez explores these private worlds and challenges the idea of Estonia as a homogeneous society.
Ida-Virumaa, Estonia’s north-eastern region, has been shaped by oil shale mining, industrialisation, deportations and its position on the country’s eastern frontier. It is also a place where questions of language, history and national identity can feel especially charged.
In The Future of Hiding, Martínez draws on five years of research in the region to look beyond its familiar public image.