Date and time
Aim of the workshop: To explore recent developments in decolonial thinking on Central and Eastern Europe with a focus on migration, particularly across race, gender, sexuality and class.
Questions about the position of Central and Eastern Europe in relation to European and global geographies continue to be relevant and is attracting increasing scholarly interest. In recent years theoretical insights from postsocialist, postcolonial, postdependence and decolonial thinkers have enriched academic discussions and contributed to the pushback of the epistemic marginalisation of Central and Eastern Europe. In migration studies, critical discussions around coloniality and racism are overdue. In this 2-day workshop scholars working on issues of migration and race/gender/sexuality/class will share their perspectives on decolonial thinking in Central and Eastern Europe.
The event is free but there is a limited number of tickets available. To register please go to – https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/migration-tofromwithin-cee-decolonial-perspectives-tickets-204652309567
DAY 1 – 3pm Brighton/Edinburgh, 4pm Warsaw/Munich/Rotterdam, 5pm Bucharest/Vilnius/Helsinki, 7am San Francisco, 9am Chicago
- Welcome from organisers and Regional Studies Association, 15.00-15.20 (UK time)
SESSION 1, 15.20-16.50 (UK time)
- Aleksandra Lewicki (University of Sussex, England): The racialization of ‘Eastern Europeans’: The (re)making of a category and structural inequalities in EUrope
- Daria Krivonos (University of Helsinki, Finland): Racialisation and value on the eastern slope of Europe
- Tereza Hendl (University of Augsburg & Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany): Theorising western dimensions of white ‘privilege’ and supremacy: On the need for an intersectional theory of whiteness
- Taulant Guma (Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland): Methodological nationalism and ethnic lens in CEE migration research: A critical reflection
17:05 – 18:50 Film screening & Q&A with director Olena Fedyuk – Olha’s Italian Diary (2020)
- Synopsis: Olha is a migrant woman whose life is packed with turning points enough to fill up a few telenovelas and yet, it is so similar to the lives of many women of such background – Ukrainian care workers in Italy. She believes in love and thinks it is possible to find a beautiful romantic relationship even at the age of 57. The short film is an intimate sneak-peek into one of the contemporary taboo topics: intimate lives of the female migrants away from home. Will Olha be able to give Naples a chance and find a true feeling among the condemnation and suspicion?
DAY 2 – 3pm Brighton/Edinburgh, 4pm Warsaw/Munich/Rotterdam, 5pm Bucharest/Vilnius/Helsinki, 7am San Francisco, 9am Chicago
SESSION 2, 15.00-16.30 (UK time)
- Milena Błahuta (University of Warsaw, Poland): Trans-(semi)peripherality? Contemporary migrations from Poland to post-socialist EU
- Aija Lulle (Loughborough University, England): Clandestine border crossing from Belarus to EU: geopolitical modernity and mobilisation of de/colonisation discourses
- Julius-Cesar MacQuarie (New Europe College, Romania): Inequality in siliconised Romanian cities
- Irma Budginaite-Mackine (Vilnius University, Lithuania): “I should be middle class… but they would probably say that I’m not”: Young Lithuanian migrants’ class positionality in the ‘Brexit Britain’
SESSION 3, 16.45-18.15 (UK time)
- Arne van Lienden (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands): Sport media and the construction of race/ethnicity in Poland: an audience reception study
- Anna Piela (Northwestern University, US) & Joanna Krotofil (Jagiellonian University, Poland): Whiteness and strategic identity performances of Polish White female converts to Islam
- Stepha Velednitsky (University of Wisconsin-Madison, US): “Our rights are at the bottom of the sea”: post-Soviet migrant caregivers in Palestine/Israel
- Sophia Sobko (UC Berkeley, US): The weaponization of Soviet Jewish immigration, a decolonial perspective
The workshop will NOT be recorded given the early stage of the work presented.
Organisers: Postdependence Geographies in Central and Eastern Europe (PostCEE) is a Regional Studies Association (RSA) funded research network connecting scholars and practitioners who work on CEE geographies and are interested in postcolonial and decolonial perspectives in and on the region. The network investigates how global coloniality plays out in the different geographies of the CEE region by providing a platform to explore issues around difference, identity, borders, migration and border thinking. It is run by Dr Kasia Narkowicz (Middlesex University, England), Dr Anna Gawlewicz (University of Glasgow, Scotland) and Dr hab. Konrad Pędziwiatr (Cracow University of Economics, Poland).