Conference reports

Combining fossil-fuel phaseout and just transition

The conference From the grassroots to policy and back: Putting just transition to practice gathered social scientists who in different ways struggled with the tensions implied in the concept of “just transition”. The conference took place in Katowice, Poland, in many ways at the epicenter of the transition.

By Ella Pertrini June 20, 2023

The politics of environmental knowledge. Shaping environments through research, art, and activism

The CBEES Environmental Conference, “The politics of environmental knowledge: Shaping environments through research, art, and activism in the Baltic Sea Region – and beyond” took place May 23–24, 2022 and was arranged in collaboration between CBEES and the Färgfabriken art gallery.

By Hugo Faber et al January 18, 2023

Political participation during and after the pandemic. A mixed picture

The two-day conference “Political Participation in Central and Eastern Europe during the Pandemic” discussed how the profile of participants and political participation did change compared to the pre-pandemic situation and highlighted the variation in the modes of political representation in Central and Eastern European countries.

By Olena Podolian and Sergiu Gherghina January 24, 2022

Territory, state and nation. The geopolitics of Rudolf Kjellén

The topic for the workshop was “Great powers and small states — Rudolf Kjellén’s Baltic geopolitical visions and the role of democracy.” Participants responded enthusiastically to this specialized but inclusive topic, addressing the history of the legendary — but often ostracized — political scientist and father of terminology and theories of geopolitics and biopolitics, Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922).

By Oscar Nygren January 24, 2022

Atomic heritage: Examining materiality, colonialism, and the speculative time of nuclear legacies

At the 4-days conference Atomic Heritage an international group of speakers discussed the legacies and geographies of nuclear cultures in sites ranging from Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Japan, certain Pacific Islands, France, the UK, Sweden, the USA, and Germany -- to name but a few.

By Thomas Keating et al January 24, 2022

Forgetting and Un-forgetting: 30 years of the USSR’s fall and Sergei Loznitsa

The month of December began with three days of a much-awaited Symposium on the 30th Anniversary of the USSR’s Fall with the presence of film director Sergei Loznitsa in Stockholm. The Symposium, organized and realized by Professor Irina Sandormirsakaja, took place at Södertörn University and at the Swedish Film Institute between December 1-3, 2021.

By Cecilia Sá Cavalcante Schuback December 14, 2021

1991-2021: Thirty Years After Urban Space in Transition after the Collapse of the USSR

The roundtable ”Urban Space in Transition after the Collapse of the USSR” arranged at CBEES September 21, 2021 by Irina Seits, offered perspectives on the approaches to architectural heritage, and the ways memory is made and remade in urban spaces after the dissolution of the USSR, in four examples from both Moscow and St. Petersburg.

By Vasileios Kitsos October 29, 2021

Art, Gender and Protest

The participants in the round-table included artists and researchers performing and/or studying art-activism in Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan. Some of the participants also position themselves as feminist activists. The participants were invited to reflect in advance on several questions that were aimed to create a common ground and inspiration for the participants.

By Yulia Gradskova and Martin Englund September 28, 2021

ROUNDTABLE USSR 30 YEARS: RUSSIA FROM THE OUTSIDE – THE EUROPEAN FAR-RIGHT LOOKS EAST

What role does Russia play for the contemporary far-right movement? How is Russia perceived “from the outside” (here meaning Eastern Europe)? These questions were discussed in the online roundtable on June 10, “Invitation: Russia from the Outside: The European Far Right looks East, 1991-2021” with four speakers who shared the views of Russia from their own national contexts in from Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland.

By Sofia Beskow September 7, 2021

Inheriting the Pandora Box: Environmental Impacts of the Soviet Industrial Legacy

The roundtable “Inheriting the Pandora Box: Environmental Impacts of the Soviet Industrial Legacy”, explored the relevance of the Soviet environmental legacy for the way we as a society understand our relationship to the environment today.

By Tatiana Sokolova, Wouter Blankestijn and Ksenia Zakharova June 15, 2021