Section Chair: Dr Sergei Akopov, HSE-Saint-Petersburg
email: sergakopov@gmail.com; sakopov@hse.ru
Biography:
Dr Sergei Akopov is a Professor at the Department of Political Science, St. Petersburg Campus of Russian National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (HSE SPb). Dr Akopov holds BA and MA degrees in Public Administration (1998). He received PhD candidate (kandidat nauk) in political theory in 2001 (“Semen Frank as a political Thinker”). In 2015 he defended his Doctor of Science (doktor nauk) in political theory and philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) (“Transnational Model of Individual Identification with Macropolitical Communities: Metatheoretical Analysis”). He has held several postdoctoral positions in Sweden, Denmark and Hungary and has served as a guest lecturer in Aarhus University, Helsinki University, Tulane University, Barcelona University and SciencesPo Aix-en-Provence. Sergei is the author of over 80 papers, articles and book chapters published in Russian, English, Hungarian and Spanish, as well as four books.
Major fields of interest are political philosophy, political anthropology and communication, political and intellectual history of Russia, Europe and North America. He is also conducting qualitative research focused on the actors of transnational identification (i.e transnational intellectuals, transmigrants and “third culture” kids) and their role in world politics.
Personal web site: www.akopovsergei.com
Section Co-Chair: Dr Natalia Piskunova, PhD, Moscow State University
e-mail: pisckounova@yandex.ru
Biography:
Dr Natalia Piskunova is a Researcher and Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Peacekeeping at the Faculty of World Politics at the Moscow State University (Lomonosov University). She holds BA (Diplomacy and Regional Studies), MA (International Relations and World Politics) and PhD (Political Science) degrees from Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO-University), and Peace Studies Certificate from the University of Oslo (joint program with PRIO). Dr Piskunova is also a certified Mediator (American Barrister Association). She has published widely on issues of Conflict Studies, International Security and State Failure.
Dr Piskunova is a member of several international peer-reviewed journals’ editorial teams, including SAGE Open, Central European Journal of International Security Studies, International Relations and Diplomacy and etc. She has held postdoctoral fellowships in CEU Budapest, Chulalongkorn University Thailand, University of Turin, among others, as well as several internships at Universities in Europe and Asia (including Universities of Oslo, Lund, CEU, Viadrina-Frankfurt-Oder, Marseille-Aix-en-Provance, Manila and Chulalongkorn). Dr Piskunova has provided many visiting lectures in Malmo (Sweden), CEU (Hungary), Yerevan (Armenia), Odessa and Kiev (Ukraine), Mohilev (Belarus), Chisinau (Moldova), Bangkok and Chiang Mai (Thailand), Manila (the Philippines), Belgrade (Serbia) and etc.
Main research interests include Conflict Studies, Peacekeeping\Peacebuilding, African Studies, International Security and International Relations.
email: pisckounova@yandex.ru
SECTION OVERVIEW:
Recent political developments across the world have reshuffled the conventional understandings of grassroots political choices and processes and factors that affect or lead to both domestic and international conflicts and contestations, ranging from spontaneous and unorganized mass protests to long pre-planned “exit plans” in Europe and beyond.
These cast a strong impact on further construction of international security architecture, as they can result in (re)escalation of violent political contestations fuelled with identity-based struggle for recognition and autonomy. The results of referendum on Brexit in the United Kingdom, 2016 presidential campaign in the United States as well as on-going power struggles in the Greater Middle East and Eastern Europe leave several questions crucial to political theory and practice unanswered. Among those are problems of the underestimation of the role that national sovereignty and national identities continue to play in a globalized world, issues of recognition based on these identity manifestations, as well as factors of reinforcing political autonomy of contested regions both within national states and transnationally that continue to challenge and (re)shape a reforming global political landscape.
In this Section we propose three Panels dedicated to three different aspects within a broader context of recognition of identities being a leveraging factor of political contestations. More Panels addressing the wider range of identity-based issues are welcome.
PANEL 1: Sovereignty, Autonomy, Recognition and Trans/International Security
The Panel aims to look into symbolic aspects of identity being the focal element in contesting or claiming sovereignty, autonomy, and\or seeking international recognition for political groups and movements in different regions of the world. This Panel welcomes Papers theorising on different aspects of interrelation between national sovereignty and regional political autonomy manifestations as well as on the role of the construction and manipulation with political identities within a larger context of ongoing securitization of political discourse.
PANEL 2: Identity Issues in Transnational Peace Building
This Panel aims to look at how identity issues influence transnational peacebuilding, its actors and mechanisms in both positive and negative terms. It also seeks to cover different aspects of peacebuilding strategies on both national and transnational levels and to assess ways of creating transnational identities within/alongside of such processes.
The Panel welcomes Papers concerning both theoretical and policy-based narratives along with country-cases reflecting identity-based issues and how they affect the process of (trans)national peacekeeping\peacebuilding in a given context.
PANEL 3: People Count? Identity Recognition in Prevention of Political Conflicts
This Panel encourages an exploration of varieties of empirical cases where peaceful and uncontested recognition of political identities served positively as a factor of crises prevention and\or significantly influenced existing conflicts and corresponding conflict resolution strategies. The Panel also welcomes a debate on why people “still count” or “don’t count any more” in particular cases of recognition or lack of official and explicit recognition of their political identities and contestations, whichever the basis - ethnic, religious, gender - or political, etc. It further examines how these lead to political apathy, violent resistance or peaceful integration and resolution of conflicts.
