MyLilja, PhD, University Lecturer in Criminology, Malmö University
Abstract
Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been an intensified debate about drugs in Russia, for example in the parliament and in the press, and the drug problem is now regarded as one of the country’s most serious problems and an issue of top priority for the Russian government. This presentation will focus on ongoing and previous research about drug discourses in Russia. Some issues of particular interest were the identification of dominant discourses on drugs, the determination of which understandings of the drug problem were taken for granted and which were not recognised, whether there were any discussion of the consequences of the problem and an analysis of which actors that were represented in the debate.
When: May 19, 15.00–16.30
Where: Zoom, for sign-up, contact rucarr@mau.se
Lofty Ideals in Aerial Connectivity: Ideology in the Urban Cable Car Network of Tbilisi, Georgia
Seminar with Dr. Dato Gogishvili (Postdoc at Dept. of Urban Studies, Malmö University) When: May 4, 13.30-15.00 Where: Zoom online platform (link in Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/65183900856)
Abstract This article (in collaboration with Suzanne Harris-Brandts, Department of Urban Studies + Planning, MIT) examines the ten-line cable car network of Tbilisi, Georgia,constructed between 1953 and 1988, then decommissioned in the 1990s and partially reactivated since 2012. During the Soviet era, Tbilisi’s cable cars played an important role in the city’s mass mobility, particularly in areas of steep geography. They also functioned ideologically, supporting Soviet ambitions toward the collective provision of public transportation and accessto recreational spacefor the working proletariat. This article unpacks such ideology, chartingits evolution over the network’s sixty-year timeline. It describes the ideological shifts that took place following the collapse of the Soviet Union and Georgia’s transition to a capitalist economy. Specifically, it explores how Tbilisi’s cable car network is linked to changes in government urban development priorities and desires to create tourism attractions, while also reinforcing select framings of the surrounding landscape. The newly introduced cable car lines of the 21st centurynow reflect contemporary ideological goals that see cable cars as assets for luring global capital and facilitating the commodification of Tbilisi’s historic cityscape. The article thus argues that the city’s cable car network can be understood as embodying changes in government stances toward labor, leisure, and the direction of future development, while further reflecting the mobility politics of the city. The findings are based on personal interviews and historic document analysis, as well as transit ridership and City Hall data that collectively provide an evaluation of Tbilisi’s cable car network as it has transformed since the 1950s.
BIO David received his doctoral degree in Urban Studies and Regional Science at Gran Sasso Science Institute in 2017 where he studied the state use of mega-events as a tool for urban development and the imposition of legal exceptions onto host cities. Subsequently, he joined the University of Lausanne as a postdoctoral researcher where he studied the impact of megaprojects in the urban development of Kazakhstan. Currently, he is a postdoc at the Department of Urban Studies at Malmö University where he is carrying out a research project scrutinizing the role of legal exceptions in urban planning for the realization of the real estate megaprojects in Georgia and its surrounding governmental discourses. David’s research interests include interrelation of mega-events and legal exceptions, mega-events and urban image construction, mega-event related urban policy mobilities and the use of mega-events as a tool of urban development in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. David is also a principal researcher in the Shota Rustaveli Georgian National Science Foundation-funded project “Examining the Social Impacts of Large, Private Sector Urban Development in Batumi and Tbilisi”.
The RUCARR contribution in this context is the chapter Mistakes and Demise: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union by Prof. Klas-Göran Karlsson (Deputy chairman of RUCARR’s advisory board; left) and Prof. Bo Petersson (Co-director of RUCARR; right).
Guranda Bursulaia, PhD Candidate at Free University in Tbilisi (Georgia) and Swedish Institute visiting researcher 2019 at Caucasus Studies, Malmö University, has a new publication: “The voices of silence: The case of Georgian history textbooks”. The article appeared in the journal Caucasus Survey and was largely written during the research visit to our department.
On January 28, Dr. Stepan Grigoryan – Chairman of the Board of the Yerevan-based Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation (ACGRC) NGO – gave the seminar entitled Velvet Revolution and Political Developments in Armenia.
Dr. Grigoryan holds diplomatic rank of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia. In the years 1998-2000, he was Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, and in 1995-1998 as a diplomat, he held different positions at the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1990-1995 Stepan Grigoryan was a member of the Armenian Parliament.
The Armenian Velvet Revolution by Stepan Grigoryan. Yerevan: Edit Print, 2018.
When: 3.15-5 pm, January 28 Where: Niagara Building (Nordenskiöldsgatan 1), Seminar room 9th floor (external participants, please, come to the reception in the Niagara lobby at 3 pm)..
On December 10, Professor Robert A. Saunders will give the seminar Getting over Borat: Exploring the (After-)Effects of Parody in the Post-Soviet Realm.
Dr. Robert A. Saunders is Professor of History, Politics and Geography Farmingdale State College (SUNY), Dept. of History, Politics, and Geography, NY.
When: December 10, 3.15-4.45 pm Where: Niagara Building, Block C, Seminar room, 9th floor (External participants, please wait at the Reception by the C elevators at 3 pm)
Warm thanks to all participants at the Fourth Annual RUCARR Conference Nov 21-22 – thanks for joining us at Malmö University, for very interesting presentions and discussions!
Prof. Karina Vamling published the article New Initiatives in Diachronic Linguistics – Atlases of Language and Culture in the festschrift for Academician Thomas Gamkrelidze – Akademikosi Tamaz Gamqrelidze 90, Tbilisi University Press, 2019. pp. 151-161.
On November 19, Ass. Prof. Per-Anders Rudling will give the paper “History as a political instrument in the Cold War: the 1941 Pogroms, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the CIA”. When: 15.15-17.00, Nov 19 Where: Niagara building, room C0826 Abstract The intersection of Stalinist, Nazi, and Ukrainian nationalist violence profoundly, and irreversibly changed the social and demographic situation in Ukraine. The Holocaust, the expulsion and massacres of the Polish minority turned a multiethnic borderlands of what used to be eastern Poland into ethnically highly a homogenous heartland of Ukrainian nationalism. In west Ukraine, the Holocaust started with a wave of massive anti-Jewish violence, in which local nationalist militias played a central role. After the war, several hundred thousand Ukrainian nationalists ended up as political refugees in the West, where they set up intensely anti-communist political communities. A historical memory, centred around Ukrainian suffering while excluding the plight of Jews and Poles came to constitute the basis of the Ukrainian diaspora’s identity. During the Cold War, this memory culture was successfully instrumentalized for political purposes by Western intelligence services, in particularly, the CIA. After the collapse of the Soviet Union this memory culture was “re-exported” to Ukraine. After the “Orange Revolution” of 2004/05 and the “Euromaidan” of 2013/14 a highly selective historical memory was elevated to state ideology, and radical nationalist groups such as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its armed wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and its leaders were posthumously rehabilitated. My lecture deals with the difficult legacy of the 1941 anti-Jewish pogroms, their absence in Ukrainian “national memory,” and the migration of memory between homeland and diaspora during and after the Cold War.
Per Anders Rudling An associate professor of history at Lund University, Per Anders Rudling, currently is a Senior Lecturer in European Studies at Malmö University, and a Research Associate at the Center for Baltic and East European Studies at Södertörn University College. He holds MA degrees in the Russian language and literature from Uppsala University (1998) and in history from San Diego State University (2003). After completing his Ph.D. in history from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada in 2009, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Universities of Greifswald (2010-2011) and Lund (2012-2014). In 2015, he was a visiting professor at the University of Vienna, and 2015-2019 Senior Visiting Fellow and Coordinator of the European Studies Program at the National University of Singapore.
Drug discourses in Russia
A book with the intriguing title 
