Paper short abstract:

The present round table talk proposal is inspired by a recently published series on activism, academia, and equality in Central Asia where much attention was paid to equity and accountability of academic exchange and engagement within the so-called "West" - "East" interaction.

Paper long abstract:

The talk would aim to discuss the multilayered nature of challenges one inevitably has to deal with if she decides to conduct in the area of feminist research in Ukrainian academia. On the one hand, the influence of right-wing activists and conservative groups such as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have gained political weight and now became a real threat to both civil society activism and the development of critical social sciences in academia. On the other hand, entering international academia, a scholar has to deal with the 'free market' conditions: publishing in foreign language, quoting the 'right' people, attending expensive international conferences, paying membership fees out of their own pockets - the list is far from being exhaustive. The proposal suggests adding to the discussion the topic of the role that Western academia plays in reproducing and strengthening certain barriers for non-Western scholars to join the so-called 'global' academic exchange rather than presenting Western scholars (or non-Western scholars who ended up joining Western academia) as those mainly challenging local heteroactivism(s) and right-wing politicization of knowledge in the region.