Presentations by Streams

This panel critically examines how we conduct “Area Studies” of the “east’. The papers all reflect on complex issues of power dynamics, Westerncentrism, and on the practical challenges of conducting research within the contested and unclear boundaries of “eastern Europe”. The case studies come from Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan, and are all deeply affected by Russia’s renewed and full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This adds a further layer of emotional and analytical complexity to how we, as scholars, conduct our research. The panel investigates how knowledge travels west-east, but also east-west, and asks us to take seriously our relative privileges, biases, assumptions, geographies, and powerlessness.