Seminar October 7: MAKING SENSE OF RUSSIAN STRATEGIC NARRATIVES – AFFECT AND RECEPTION AMONG YOUNG RUSSIAN SPEAKERS IN LATVIA

RUCARR Seminar with Emma Rönngren, Örebro University

Time: October 7, 15.15-17.00 CET

Place: NI:C0319 (Niagara) or via Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/69615481801

Abstract:

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, attention has increasingly focused on how Russian strategic narratives are projected and received. In this seminar, Dr. Emma Rönngren presents findings from her doctoral dissertation on how Russian-speaking youth in Latvia make sense of, negotiate, and sometimes resist such narratives, with particular attention to emotions, media, and identity.

Drawing on focus groups and interviews with 69 participants, the study shows how young people navigate a contested media landscape where narratives of history, freedom of speech and language circulate. Using Carolyn Michelle’s reception model, Rönngren demonstrates how participants interpret these narratives on both denotative and connotative levels of meaning. Affect emerges as a key factor, shaping whether narratives gain persuasive force or trigger critical distance.

By foregrounding youth perspectives, the study not only contributes to debates on narrative power, resistance, and the affective dimensions of media reception, but also challenges simplified views of Russian-speaking minorities as either loyal or disloyal. It highlights the complexity of everyday meaning-making and the implications this has for democratic and civil actors in the Baltic Sea region.

Bio:

Dr. Emma Rönngren is a media and communication scholar specializing in strategic narratives, affect and information influence in the Baltic Sea region. She is a senior lecturer at Örebro University, affiliated researcher at IRES, Uppsala University and serves as the Student and Early Career Representative for the ICA Public Diplomacy Interest Group. Her current work includes forthcoming articles and book chapters on narrative persuasion, civil society resilience, and the role of media in geopolitics.

 

Seminar September 23: Russians go home: Exile, Empire, and Everyday Tensions: Russian Migration to Georgia after 2022

 RUCARR seminar with Dr. Sofia Gavrilova (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, Leipzig) and Olga Bronnikova (University of Bordeaux-Bretagne).

Time: September 23, 15.15-17.00 CET

Place: NI:B0314 (Niagara) or via Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/65586314867

Abstract:

Since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Tbilisi has become a key destination for Russian emigrants, including political activists, journalists, and NGOs. Their presence has sparked both solidarity initiatives—particularly in support of Ukrainian refugees—and deep social tensions, with accusations of “neo-imperialism” shaping public debates. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and collaborative research with colleagues, this talk examines how Russian “civil society in exile” coexists with Georgian civil society, and why their practices often clash. By contrasting Russian traditions of “small deeds” activism with Georgia’s more visible protest-oriented political grammar, Dr. Gavrilova explores how histories of empire, Soviet legacies, and ongoing occupation inform mutual perceptions. The presentation introduces the concepts of conditional neo-imperialism and embodied imperialism to explain how everyday practices of Russian émigrés are interpreted in Georgia’s anti-colonial framework, highlighting the fragile balance between cooperation, invisibility, and confrontation in Tbilisi’s contested civic space.

 

Dr. Sofia Gavrilova