Workshop: Researching gender and sexuality in Eastern European history and post-socialist present: Does race matter?

Workshop organized by the Institute of Contemporary History with support of the Foundation for Baltic and East
European Studies/Östersjöstiftelsen

The Black Lives Matter movement in the US, and the revision of the colonial remnants of the past in the public space and education curricula in many countries of Western Europe, marked the year 2020. The mass grassroots movement led to serious changes in the politics of the representation of history and diversity, and to questioning the organization of research and university curricula in many European countries. But, what about the countries of Eastern Europe and Eurasia? What is happening there with respect to the politics of memory, racism and anti-racism? And what about research on present day racial inequalities and discrimination?

Sociologists, anthropologists and historians often see the region as an outsider to the field of race, racialization and whiteness, which perpetuates an outdated assumption that race is only a matter of the “West”. There is an urgent need to examine participation of the East European region in the production and maintenance of Eurocentrism and racial hierarchies both globally and locally.

Purpose: The workshop is aimed at analyzing what is occurring with respect to studies of racism, racialization, ethnic discrimination and anti-racism in a cross-section, with research on gender norms and practices, as well as politics in the sphere of sexuality in the countries of Eurasia and Eastern Europe. It will also start the research network that is expected to connect East Europe and Eurasia to global racial formation and global histories of race with a particular focus to their local and regional manifestations. The network will bring together researchers dealing with both historical and contemporary problems. We will prioritize papers looking at the problems of racism from the perspective of gender and sexuality.
We are considering possible publication of special issue in a peer-reviewed journal.
The key-note speaker is prof. Madina Tlostanova, professor of postcolonial feminism at Tema Genus, University of Linköping, Sweden. The (preliminary) title of Prof. Tlostanova’s presentation is To the East of Eastern Europe: racism(s) old and new, or who is white here?

The worshop is organized in a hybrid form, if you are interested to take part via zoom, please contact Yulia Gradskova, yulia.gradskova@sh.se

Program pdf, 266.1 kB.

Abstracts pdf, 345.6 kB.