Participants

Deema Kaneff¹; Cerwyn Moore¹; Stefan Wolff¹; Jeremy Smith²; Natalia Kogut¹; Viktoriia Kobzeva¹; Irina Kuznetsova¹;  ¹ University of Birmingham, UK;  ² University of Eastern Finland, Finland

Discussion

This roundtable seeks to approach Russia from multiple disciplinary perspectives and in relation to surrounding regions and states. Themes of discussion include an interrogation of why the concept of “post-Soviet” space has remained strikingly entrenched, as well as the ways in which the concept of “Eurasia” has taken on a new salience in recent years. It also invites conversations on Russia’s changing relations with its neighbouring regions and trans-regional institutions: To what extent are the infrastructural projects of the Belt and Road Initiative reconfiguring regional geographies and trading/economic practices? In recent years, how have Russia’s relations with the Middle East and the Caucasus embodied change and continuity, and what are the implications for the rest of Asia in Russia’s embrace of China and North Korea? The panel will also discuss how regions within Russia offer diverging perspectives on its place in the world.

The multi-disciplinary approaches in this session seek to open up a dialogue on cultural, economic, and political shifts that are transforming our understanding of the constituent parts of this broad region in uncertain and unpredictable ways. These debates interconnect with a range of scales of analysis in order to explore the nature of regional imaginaries and their very tangible implications for transforming geographical/economic/political and social space