Prof. Karina Vamling presented RUCARR and Caucasus Studies to alumni and MA students at IRES Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University – by invitation from TSARES, The student association of Russian and Eurasian studies (here together with Fabian, vice chair of the association). Great initiative!
https://www.ires.uu.se/education/master-programme-russian-and-eurasian-studies-/
Members of RUCARR’s advisory board and other colleagues met in Tallinn on March 16-17. Chair of RUCARR’s advisory board, Sweden’s ambassador to Estonia, Ms Ingrid Tersman, hosted the group at Sweden’s Embassy to Estonia. The group was also invited to an evening at the Residence. Thank you for a fruitful and great meeting. Day 2 was devoted to a very interesting meeting at The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (https://ccdcoe.org/) in Tallinn.
Welcome to next RUCARR seminar on March 21 with Dr Katrine Godfredsen, senior lecturer in Caucasus Studies at Malmö Unversity.
When: March 21, 15.15-17.00
Where: Sign-up here for zoom link (new link)
Zoom Meeting https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/67632369897 Meeting ID: 676 3236 9897
In this presentation I will outline some preliminary findings from recent ethnographic fieldwork in Georgia conducted as part of the research project “Occupied Intimacies: Borderization in Palestine, Georgia and Western Sahara”. The project as a whole is about contemporary military occupations and their effects on the everyday lives of people under their rule. It compares three cases of on-going and disputed military occupations: the Russian occupation of the Georgian territory of South Ossetia, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.
The Georgian case study explores local effects of Russian border-making practices, or “borderization”, between the occupied territory of South Ossetia and Tbilisi controlled territory. Through the installation of physical barriers and symbolic gestures, such as signposts, fences and patrolling border guards, a previously invisible and elastic administrative boundary line (ABL) is gradually being turned into a de-facto international border. Moreover, these activities are accompanied by instances of what is locally described as “creeping occupation” – the step-by-step moving of fences and barbed wire further into Georgian controlled land and seizing of more Georgian territory.
Borderization has grave effects on the lives and livelihoods of borderland village communities. Some families have already experienced being cut off, or displaced, from their native farmlands, gardens and orchards, and others live with the fear and risk that this might happen at any time. This ongoing uncertainty presents local families with a number of economic and social problems and dilemmas, but it also fosters innovative strategies of accommodation, negotiation and contestation. In this presentation, I will examine how, and to which effect, borderization as a tool of dominance and subordination affects and reconfigures local village communities and livelihoods.
Varför utgör Navalnyj en sådan utmaning mot Putin och det etablissemang han leder?15 dec 10.05-10.20 inledningstalar Prof. Bo Petersson (RUCARR, Malmö universitet) om ”Varför Navalnyj utgör en sådan utmaning mot Putin och det etablissemang han leder” vid Sydöstra Skånes Mänskliga Rättigheterskonferens, Simrishamns Rådhus.
Läs mer om evenemanget här
Följ evenemanget online, som livestreamas här.
Karina Vamling, Co-Director of RUCARR, gave a guest lecture in the series “Russian outside Russia” on June 23 2021, organised by the Slavisc Department of the University of Cologne (link). Topic of her talk: The Russian language in South Caucasus with special focus on Georgia.
Co-governance and social innovation for sustainabilityThe new project, funded by the Swedish Institue (SI), aims to strengthen the understanding and capacity of co-governance and social innovation in the public sector by raising the level of knowledge, provide tools and methods and work together across societal sectors and levels of government. The project will provide new knowledge and policy dialogues as a ground for participating organizations, at national and local level, to develop new projects, develop strategic plans and transfer knowledge and skills to other relevant organizations in their country.
Project members are Dr. Tom Nilsson (photo left; project leader and RUCARR researcher at Global Political Studies, Malmö University), Dr. Fredrik Björk (Urban Studies, Malmö University), Lena Andersson (external expert) and a number of other national and international experts, in collaboration with local partners:
- GEORGIA: Europe-Georgia Institute (EGI)
- MOLDOVA: The Child Rights Information Centre Moldova (CRIC)
- KOSOVO: Education Innovators Kosovo (EIK)
- NORTH MACEDONIA: IMPETUS – Center for Internet, Development and Good Governance (CIDGG)
The program consists of two dialectic tracks. The first track is a thematic series of bi-weekly seminars, such as social innovation, public procurement, transparency and impact and developmental evaluation. Each theme is structured in a similar way – the first seminar is focused on understanding the area of knowledge, presenting central concepts, research and providing some relevant and illustrative examples. The second seminar is for the participants to contextualise the topic to their own country and identify legal and cultural boundaries, and then compare their country´s status, preconditions and best practices to the other participating countries. The third seminar aims to use the acquired knowledge to discuss ways to develop strategies, projects, and policy revisions.
The second track is to develop a contextual tool-kit for social audits, train local communities in the methodology and in the second half of the program implement social audits. Besides empowering local communities and enhancing local transparency and accountability, the second track will be a pilot example throughout the seminar series. In discussing each theme, the social audits will serve as a case of social innovation and co-governance, and put light on existing limitations and hinders.
Professor Bo Petersson, RUCARR Co-Director, has been invited to join the editorial board of Communist and Post-Communist Studies
Link to the journal: https://online.ucpress.edu/cpcs
Strengthening internationalsation in a new project: New horizons of internationalisation – a partnership between universities in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Sweden and Ukraine (funded by the Swedish Institute for 2019). Partner universities are:
Project leader: Dr. Tom Nilsson, Dept. of Global Political Studies. Other members of the Malmö team are Cecilia Christensson, Pro Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for Global Engagement and Challenge based Learning; Dr. Tobias Denskus, School of Arts and Communicaton; Prof. Karina Vamling, Co-Director of the research platform Russia and the Caucasus Regional Research (RUCARR); Niklas Nannskog, Malmö University International Office.
Time: 22-23 November
Place: ToRS, University of Copenhagen, Karen Blixen plads 10, Copenhagen
We are glad to invite you to the Third International Student Conference, which will take place on 22-23 November at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Area Studies, University of Copenhagen. The conference will bring together future Russia experts and professors from four universities: University of Copenhagen, Århus University, Lund University and the University of Malmö. This event is the continuation of the First Student Conference in Århus in November 2017, which was the result of successful collaboration between the universities of Copenhagen and Århus. In this year, on top of the collaboration between these two Danish universities, we are inviting Russia students from the Swedish side as well.
The purpose of this event is to introduce you to each other, to enhance your future professional networking, and to give you the possibility to receive feedback for your ongoing research/study projects from both your peers and your teachers. This is, however, a conference of students and for students, and we will only arrange and structure the event.
Presentations can be made in two forms. First, it can be an oral paper of 10-15 minutes with or without a PowerPoint, followed by 5-10 minutes of questions and answers. Second, it can be a ‘poster presentation’, that is an A3 format poster, on which you lay out and visualize your research problem and main results. Poster presentations will also be discussed in groups. The conference will have four ‘official’ languages: English, Danish, Swedish and Russian, while the ‘by default’ language is English, so, for example, if you chose to present your paper in Danish, please prepare your PowerPoint slides in English.
If we have too many applications, we may not be able to accommodate everyone, so we kindly ask for your understanding.
The deadline for submitting your applications is 1 November.
Mikhail Suslov, Vera Skvirskaja (Copenhagen University)
Tomas Sniegon (Lund University)
Bo Petersson (Malmö University)
In order to apply for the conference participation, please send us the following questionnaire:
___present a poster
Please send your questionnaire to Mikhail Suslov (mikhail.suslov@hum.ku.dk ) and Vera Skvirskaja (bdq883@hum.ku.dk) with a cc to the responsible person(s) at your university:
Århus University: Birgitte Beck Pristed birgitte.pristed@cas.au.dk and Jeremy Morris jmorris@cas.au.dk
Lund University: Tomas Sniegon tomas.sniegon@eu.lu.se
University of Malmö: Bo Petersson bo.petersson@mau.se
Thursday, 22 November
Arrival in Copenhagen
11.30-12.00 keynote by Gigi Gigiadze, Georgian ambassador in Denmark
12.00-13.00 lunch
13.00-14.30 4 papers
14.30-14.45 coffee break
14.45-16.15 4 papers
16.15-16.30 coffee break
16.30-18.00 6 posters
Friday, 23 November
09.00-11.00 Excursion in Copenhagen / free time
11.00-12.15 lunch
12.15-14.00 4 papers
14.15-15.00 guest lectures: Jeremy Morris and Maria Guzikova
15.10-17.00 film screening
Departure from Copenhagen
University of Kabardino-Balkaria (KBSU) is one of the major universities in Russian North Caucasus and the State University of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria.
Prof. Karina Vamling, Malmö University, had meetings with Rector of KBSU, Professor Yuri K. Altudov and colleagues at the Department of Kabardian language and literature. She visited the sections for language and culture of the three main ethnic groups of the Republic – the Kabardians, Balkars and Russians. At the Kabardian section Prof. Madina Ezaova showed a Kabardian ethnographic exhibition prepared by the students. The final meeting during the visit to KBSU was with students of Kabardian Philology, including a musical performance of Kabardian songs and a declamation in Kabardian.
Take a virtual tour of the https://eng.kbsu.ru/3d-tour-virtual-tour/
