Join us to discuss the politics and materiality of feminist interventions in the Russia’s war against Ukraine or the lack of them thereof.
This event explores questions surrounding voice, expertise and silence in debates of and about war, catalysed by the speakers reflections, expertise and experiences on Russia’s war against Ukraine. Even though debates in academia and elsewhere have been saturated with discussions about the war, we want to problematize the subjects and the narratives that have dominated these discussions. Against this, we want to discuss the politics and materiality of feminist interventions in the war or the lack of them thereof.
Meet the speakers and chair:
Olga Burlyuk is Assistant Professor of Europe’s external relations at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Affiliate of the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES). Olga does research on EU efforts to transform third states and societies, with a specific focus on Eastern Europe and Ukraine. She co-edits the Special Forum “The responsibility to remain silent? On the politics of knowledge production, expertise and (self-)reflection in Russia’s war against Ukraine” (with Vjosa Musliu; Journal of International Relations and Development) and the book “Migrants academics’ narratives of precarity and resilience in Europe” (with Ladan Rahbari; Open Book Publishers).
Vjosa Musliu (she/her) is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Her research focuses on international interventions, EU external relations and the way the EU creates and maintains its relations with its ‘others’ and how such practices also creep into academic work. Her book titled Europeanization and Statebuilding as Everyday Practices. Performing Europe in the Western Balkans(Routledge Studies on Intervention and Statebuilding) was published in 2020. She is a co-author (with Gëzim Visoka) of the edited volume Unravelling Liberal Interventionism. Local Critiques of Statebuilding in Kosovo (Worlding Beyond the West Series). She is also a co-editor of the Routledge Studies on Intervention and Statebuilding Series.
Oksana Potapova is a PhD student at the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. Born and raised in the east of Ukraine, Oksana has been involved in addressing the aftermath of the conflict in Donbas since 2014. In 2015 Oksana co-founded «Theatre for Dialogue» NGO and women’s initiative “One of Us” where she was using community theatre and feminist pedagody to build dialogue and cohesion, and to advocate the rights of internally displaced and other marginalized groups of women at the national and international level.This experience led to her interest in embodied feminist methodologies, and to advocacy of the intersectional WPS agenda. Oksana combines activism with research and advocacy for feminist peace and grassroots movement building in Ukraine. In September 2021 she completed with distinction a Master’s program in Gender, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics.
Maryna Shevtsova is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie EUTOPIA-SIF COFUND Fellow at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and Senior FWO Fellow at KU Leuven, Belgium. She was a Swedish Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Lund (2020) and a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Florida, USA 2018/19. Her publications include books LGBTI Politics and Value Change in Ukraine and Turkey: Exporting Europe? (Routledge, 2021) and LGBTQ+ Activism in Central and Eastern Europe. Resistance, Representation, and Identity (with Radzhana Buyantueva, Palgrave Macmillan 2019). She is currently working on an edited volume on the ongoing War in Ukraine (2014-2022) bringing together diverse contributions by Ukrainian feminist scholars and activists.
Chair: Elena B. Stavrevska is a feminist peace scholar whose work examines issues of intersectionality and political economy in conflict-affected societies, feminist and decolonial approaches to peace, as well as coloniality of knowledge in relation to the post-Yugoslav space. She is a lecturer in International Relations at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) at the University of Bristol and a member of the YugoslaWomen+ Collective. Prior to joining SPAIS, Elena worked as a research officer at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security, a visiting research fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Bard College Berlin, and a work-package coordinator and researcher in the EU-funded project Cultures of Governance and Conflict Resolution in Europe and India at the Central European University. Her work has appeared in different edited volumes and international peer-reviewed journals, such as International Peacekeeping, Politics & Gender, Third World Quarterly, and Civil Wars.
Image credit: Pawel Czerwinski