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- Convenors:
-
Giorgi Cheishvili
(Tbilisi State University)
Elina Troscenko (University of Bergen)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Politics and Power
- Location:
- B2.24
- Sessions:
- Saturday 10 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Prague
Short Abstract:
By building on the literature on "events" and social situations, This panel seeks to explore the uncertainty of the current state of affairs by conceptualizing the war in Ukraine as a " critical event" -- an atypical moment "of social life in its very process of formation".
Long Abstract:
Times of war and the violent and unexpected events that accompany it, revert the relationship between predictable and unpredictable moments. Thus, war shapes a specific time, in which instability and unpredictability becomes normalized and unremarkable. The uncertainty created by the war in Ukraine has gone beyond the battlefields in Donbas or other regions of Ukraine and has affected social and political processes of countries around it as well as the everyday lives of individuals all around Europe. Importantly, the war in Ukraine seems to have inaugurated a new state of affairs in Europe, where the existing social and political paradigms that seemed to be constant and unchangeable have been shaken. New political alliances and solidarity networks, particularly in Eastern Europe, are being forged, acknowledging and claiming the power in - and of - the region. It has also unveiled the tensions, power hierarchies and inequalities between the eastern and western parts of the continent, along with attempts to rearticulate relationship between the old and the new Europe. At the same time, reorientations away from Russia has brought about new discussions on closer and a more just integration (infrastructure, economics etc.) of different parts of Europe.
By building on the literature on "events" and social situations (Gluckman 1940), This panel wishes to explore the uncertainty of the current state of affairs by conceptualizing the war in Ukraine as a " critical event" (Das 1995) -- an atypical moment "of social life in its very process of formation" (Kapferer 2005, 92).
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 10 June, 2023, -Manon-Julie Borel (University of Bern)
Paper short abstract:
Armenia, strongly linked with Russia, finds itself in a new social vacuum since the war in Ukraine. Building on the literature of temporality of borders, this paper explores social experiences and narrations at the last closed part of the Iron Curtain in uncertain times of conflict.
Paper long abstract:
The northern Armenian borderlands with Turkey show how the parallel events of the war in Ukraine, the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) between Azerbaijan and Armenia as well as Armenia's negotiations of the border opening with Turkey engender uncertainties, fears as well as hopes among people in Armenia.
The territorial sealing between Armenia and Turkey in 1993 and failed attempts at diplomatic rapprochement originate in diplomatic disputes regarding the recognition of the Armenian genocide, which peaked in 1915, and the ongoing territorial conflict between Armenia and Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan over the territories of NK. Armenia maintains not only strong economic and social ties with Russia. The country also draws on military support by Russian border guards at its borders with Turkey and Iran, the so-called Russian peacekeeping mission in NK and a big Russian military base in the Armenian city of Gyumri (10 km from the border with Turkey).
This paper grasps the interplays and tensions of people's social lives living in this border region over generations and Russian migrants who moved to Gyumri after the war in Ukraine started. How is Russia’s military presence negotiated in this region? How do Russian migrants in Gyumri navigate in this environment? What role plays the negotiated border opening with Turkey in these events?
Building on the literature of temporality of borders I draw on Kleist and Jansen’s concept of “temporal reasoning” (2016), which grasps people’s understandings and representations of the past and the future in order to make sense of conflictual presents.
Tord Austdal (University of Stavanger)
Paper short abstract:
Increasingly, world-changing events also happen in classrooms, and young adults are exposed to an array of media outlets making educators more than ever expected to mitigate uncertainty. This paper explores the narratives of Norwegian educators in dealing with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Paper long abstract:
Increasingly, world-changing events also make their way into classrooms. Young adults are more than ever exposed to up-to-the-minute information on breaking events or on intensification in ongoing conflicts or natural disasters distributed through an array of media outlets making educators more than ever expected to mitigate uncertainty. This paper explores the narratives and strategies of Norwegian educators for dealing with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the classroom.
Elina Troscenko (University of Bergen) Giorgi Cheishvili (Tbilisi State University)
Paper short abstract:
Russia's launched full-scale war on Ukraine has spread fear, insecurity and uncertainty in the whole wider region of Eastern Europe. Building on ethnographic material from Latvia and Georgia, this paper focuses on symbolic acts of sovereignty performed by different actors.
Paper long abstract:
Russia's launched full-scale war on Ukraine has spread fear and uncertainty far beyond the regions immediately affected by the war. Insecurity, uncertainty and fears about the future have become a part of the everyday life of people across the whole wider region of Eastern Europe given the context of an ongoing war initiated by the region´s big-neighbor. As questions of independence, freedom and sovereignty are being raised both states and people have started to engage in specific activities that can be perceived as an intense vernacular political commentary on the ongoing war and individual acts of sovereign agency, to use the term of Rebecca Bryant and Madeleine Reeves. The fear and the feeling of violated sovereignty as well the necessity to perform and demonstrate sovereignty have induced a range of different processes that are re-shaping the social and the political fabric of the societies in question.
Building on the literature of events, sovereignty and uncertainty and on ethnographic material from Latvia and Georgia, this paper explores such political commentaries that can be perceived as acts of sovereign agency and attempts to look at their potential impact on the contemporary societies.