Conference reports The culture war and the actual war

At a time where many public debates are informed by the ongoing full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, we thought it would be important to further explore the relation between controversies of gender, sexuality, reproduction – what can be labelled the “culture war” – and the actual military war. Four scholars on feminist and anti-gender politics were invited to discuss this topic from various angles on the roundtable “Exploring the links between the culture war and the actual war” at CBEES Annual Conference 2023 on the war and its effects.

Published in the printed edition of Baltic Worlds BW 2024: 1-2. pages 108-111
Published on balticworlds.com on April 23, 2024

Introduction
At a time where many public debates are informed by the ongoing full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, we thought it would be important to further explore the relation between controversies of gender, sexuality, reproduction – what can be labelled the “culture war” – and the actual military war. Four scholars on feminist and anti-gender politics were invited to discuss this topic from various angles on the roundtable “Exploring the links between the culture war and the actual war” at CBEES Annual Conference 2023 on the war and its effects. Participating researchers were Maryna Shevtsova, Emil Edenborg, Jenny Gunnarsson-Payne, and Elżbieta Korolczuk. The roundtable was connected to the project CCINDLE Horizon, that Korolzcuk and the roundtable’s moderator Hansalbin Sältenberg are part of.
The discussions shed light on important aspects not only of the political and discursive landscape in Russia and Ukraine, but also in Western Europe and Sweden. In doing so, some of the connections between “West” and “East”, as well as between the “cultural” and the “material”, became more obvious to us present at the discussion.
To share the insights, two questions were sent to all the panelists to briefly follow-up the roundtable discussions.

From the perspective of your research expertise, what is your take on the relation between the cultural war and the actual war in Ukraine?

What further topics or perspectives in relation to the above would you say are relevant to be explored by researchers?

Read the report from the roundtable and the participating researchers answers to these two questions by downloading the pdf.

Hansalbin Sältenberg et al