27 February - 2 March 2025
International Seminar on Memory & Human Rights Activism II
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events Programme
Researchers on the Border from the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences organized a four-day seminar “RESEARCH, ARCHIVING, MEMORY-MAKING. METHODOLOGIES AND ETHICS OF RESEARCH (AND ACTIVISM) ON THE BORDER” in Podlasie, on the Polish-Belarusian border. Participants included academics, civil society and independent activists, as well as PhD students. The aim was to discuss research, archiving and memory-making practices in the present with a closer look at recent events on the Polish-Belarusian border. The seminar brought together researchers from 17 different countries who presented their empirical work and responded to the invitation to join us in promoting a critical dialogue on migration, border violence, social struggles and social justice. The rapidly changing border landscape, not only in Eastern Europe, means an urgent need for critical reflection and reassessment not only of border research methodologies, but also of the hierarchies of knowledge and knowledge production, positions, knowledge sharing and empowerment of researchers coming from the regions. We discussed our research practices and extractivism in research, and strategies for recognizing and validating different ways of knowing. This postcolonial critique of research conducted outside one’s own context or with groups of different background than the researcher is often associated with the Global South, but Eastern Europe is no stranger to these practices, which is especially noticeable now, as new sites of border crises emerge.
The seminar included 22 presentations, as well as additional events (only for on-site participants): an ethnographic walk through the border area, a discussion “Infrastructure of Solidarity: Emergency Lines”, a textile workshop “Strengths of Threads” and a guided walk through the Białowieża Forest. In addition to the on-site discussions, participants had the opportunity to experience the border space and observe the consequences of the ongoing militarization of the last primeval forest in Europe.
Programme:
27 February 2025 (Thursday)
14:15 - 17:30 Ethnographic walk in the border area (only for onsite participants), Natalia Judzińska, Inga Hajdarowicz);
18:00 - 19:00 Researchers on the Border - opening and introduction: Natalia Judzińska, Inga Hajdarowicz, Kamila Fiałkowska, Mateusz Krępa); We Are Monitoring (WAM) - Monitoring pushbacks on the Polish-Belarusian border: Jakub Bieniasz, Piotr Winiarczyk
28 February 2025 (Friday)
SESSION I, 10:00-11:30
Sameer Arkawi, Faculty of Social Work, University of Ljubljana: The Autonomy of Migration (Refugee perspective)
Justyna Straczuk, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology Polish Academy of Sciences: Confronting the Border Regime: Ethical and Epistemological Insights from the Polish-Belarusian Border
Priscilla Napuli Paul, Göttingen University: The Lives and Challenges of Indigenous Grassroots Activists in Social Movements and Migration Advocacy
SESSION II, 12:00-14:00
Ludek Stavinoha, University of East Anglia: Epistemic Frictions: Tracing Border Violence in the Live Archives of EU Bureaucracies
Francesca Fortarezza, University of Bologna: Reclaiming Memory, Upholding Rights: Solidarity-driven Research as a Tool for Counter-Hegemonic Knowledge Production
Ieva Raubiško, NGO “I Want to Help Refugees” (Gribu palīdzēt bēgļiem): Threat, Security and the Need for Refuge: Searching for Ways to Counter the Dominant Discourse on Irregular Migration in Latvia
Maciej Grześkowiak, University of Warsaw: Between Externalisation and Internalisation: Border Walls as a Manifestation of the ‘Shifting Border’
SESSION III, 15:00-16:30
Julija Kekstaite, Ghent University; Vuk Vukotić, Vilnius University: Grief Activism and Solidarity with Migrants along EU’s Eastern Migratory Route
Annika Hille, Lisa Koerber, Helen Meyer and Carla Papendorf, Humboldt Universität Berlin: Grieving as Decolonial Memory-Making: How Activist Mourning Challenges EUrope's Border Regime
Emina Bužinkić, Institute for Development and International Relations, Transbalkan Tribunal for Justice Initiative: People’s Tribunal on Border Deaths and Disappearances: Justice Matters and Ethical Grapplings
SESSION IV, 17:00-18:00
Mareike Gebhardt, Sarah Spasiano, Research Group “Navigating the Mediterranean: Search and Rescue Missions and the Dissensus on Democracy” (ZivDem), Universities of Bonn and Muenster: Scenes from Lampedusa: A Conversation between Postcolonial-Feminist Theory and Critical Border Studies about the Mediterranean Deathscape
Marta Troiano, University of Milan; Cecilia Siccardi, Researcher in Constitutional Law, University of Milan; Lorenzo Franceschetti, Researcher in Forensic Medicine, Labanof, University of Milan: Identifying Unrecognized Bodies in the Mediterranean: The Italian Experience as an Operational Model
19:30 Textile workshop: Strenghts of Threads - 60-minute session, to be continued on Sunday (only for onsite participants), organisation: selma banich, Zagreb Solidarity City, Solidarityline Balkans, and For BREAD; Marijana Hameršak, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb
1 March 2025 (Saturday)
SESSION V, 10:00-11:30
Simon Campbell, Irene Quadrelli, Centre for Forced Migration and Displacement, Aston University: Migration research-activism in the Balkans: a preliminary reflection on “field”, “subject”, “Other”
Şeyma Saylak, University of Göttingen-Institute of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology: Navigating Through Ambiguities: Finding A Place For/Through Reflexive Activism
Ophelia Nicole-Berva, Noemi Bergesio, University of Geneva: How Does Everyday Activism Negotiate Practices of Hypervisibility and Strategic Silences in Border Cities?
SESSION VI, 12:00-13:00
Roberta Gentili, University of Bologna: Researching Border Control Mechanisms and Violence Beyond EU Territory
David Suber, University of Oxford; A.D., Indepdendent Researcher: “Ask the Smuggler”. Risks and Ethics of Collaborative Research on People Smuggling
SESSION VII, 14:00-15:30
Discussion: Solidarity Infrastructure: Emergency Lines (only for onsite participants): Moderation: selma banich, Zagreb Solidarity City, Solidarityline Balkans, and For BREAD; Marijana Hameršak, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb:
16:00-17:30 Guided walk in the Białowieża Forest
2 March 2025 (Sunday)
SESSION VII, 10:00-11:30
Mir Rodriquez, Fundación Almanaque Azul: Navigating Boundaries: Research, Consent, and Narratives of Migration in Darién
Lawrence Jabs, University of Bologna: Border Spectacle(s) From Below
Nina Khamsy, Geneva Graduate Institute: Co-Producing Knowledge on Digital Practices, Violence and Solidarity in European Borderlands
Mustafa Can Günay, Politecnico di Torino: Heterotopic Ossifications: Scanning the Urbanism of Turkey-Syria Borderscape
12:00-13:00 Textile workshop: Strenghts of Threads - 45 -minute session, continuation and closure.
