Conference - Platform Ukraine - London, UK

Conference venue: 16 Taviton Street, London,  WC1H 0BW, UK
Period: June 6-7, 2015

The Platform Ukraine international conference brings together researchers from different fields and disciplinary backgrounds. The two-day academic event will cover a variety of topics, such as Artistic Responses to the Crisis in Ukraine, Everyday and Gendered Experiences of Conflict, Memory & Identity, Regional Security Challenges. In addition, there will be a panel on Chernobyl, a keynote speech by Prof Richard Sakwa and another roundtable on Olga Onuch's book 'Mapping Mass Mobilization'. Each ticket includes coffee, tea, lunch and drinks at the wine reception.
 

Saturday June 6:

10:00-10:30 Registration & Coffee

10:30-12:00 Session 1
1.1  Political Decision Making in Ukraine
Chair: Peter Duncan (UCL SSEES)

Papers:
Heiko Pleines (University of Bremen)
‘Oligarchs and politics in Ukraine. The link between informal manipulations and political regime’

Iryna Solonenko (European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder)
‘State-business relations in hybrid regimes. Strategies of wealth defense of Ukrainian oligarchs’

Alla Leukavets (University of Bremen)
‘Ukrainian integration policy between domestic interests, Russia and the EU’

Discussant: Peter Duncan (UCL-SSEES)

1.2   Everyday and Gendered Experiences of Conflict
Chair: Olesya Khromeychuk (UCL-SSEES/ University of Cambridge)

Papers:
Julie Fedor (University of Melbourne)
‘Soldiers’ mothers’ activism in connection with the wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Ukraine’

Julia Holdsworth (University of Hull)
‘Dispossession, Disappointment and Dissolution: longing for a normal life in Donbas’

Maureen Seguin (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
‘Hope dies last and I live in hope: Coping strategies of Georgian women internally displaced by the 2008 Russo-Georgian war’

12:00-13:00 Lunch

13:00-14:30 Session 2
2.1  Framing & Living Conflict in the Post-Socialist Space
Chair: Eric Gordy (UCL-SSEES)

Papers:
Olha Tkachenko (Warsaw University)
‘Who are they? A comparative analysis of the Ukrainian identity perception in  Polish opinion-making press during the Orange revolution and Euromaidan’

Mykola Makhortykh (University of Amsterdam)
‘Social Media and Visual Framing of the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine’

Costanza Currò (UCL-SSEES) & Anja Salze (Free University of Bozen)
‘“Russia get out!” - Georgian Voices on Ukraine’

2.2  Memory & Identity
Chair: Anna-Cara Keim (UCL-SSEES)

Papers:
Nataliya Muzyka (University of Edinburgh)
‘Ukrainian national elite: how the self-identification of political elite members contributed to current crisis’

Uku Lember (Tallinn University/ UCL-SSEES)
‘Beyond the "East" - "West" marriages: oral history perspective on inter-cultural family negotiations in Ukraine’

Susanne Sternthal (King’s College London)
‘Sacral Myths and "Spiritual Security": Putin's Civilizational Choice’

Oleksandra Gaidai (Institute of History, National Academy of Science of Ukraine)
‘Lenin statues in post-Soviet Ukraine: Legislations, Practices and Attitudes’

2.3 Addressing Discrimination and Inequality in Ukraine (Room 347)
Chair: Dimitrina Petrova (Executive Director, Equal Rights Trust)

Papers:
Jim Fitzgerald (Head of Advocacy, Equal Rights Trust)
‘More haste, Less speed: Equality Law Reform in Ukraine’

Richard Wingfield (Advocacy Officer, Equal Rights Trust)
‘Patterns of Discrimination and Inequality in Ukraine’

Andriy Maymulakin (Director, Nash Mir)
‘The Most Marginalised? Experiences of Prejudice, Discrimination and Violence against LGBT Persons’ (video presentation)

Joanna Whiteman (Head of Litigation, Equal Rights Trust)
‘Legal and Policy Framework on Discrimination and Inequality’

14:30-15:00 Coffee

15:00-16:30 Session 3
3.1  Artistic Responses to the Crisis in Ukraine
Chair: Svetlana Biedarieva (Courtauld Institute of Art)

Papers:
Myroslava Hartmond (Centre of International Studies, University of Oxford & T-GAW -Triptych: Global Arts Workshop)
‘The Ukrainian Rorschach Test: Reclaiming National Identity through Art Exhibitions’

Edmund Griffiths (University of Oxford)
‘Politics, emotion, and the arts in contemporary Ukraine: a descriptive logical view’

Alexandr Korolev (Russian Academy of Fine Arts Saint-Petersburg)
‘Political art of the Ukrainian Revolution: from conquering the walls to conquering the museums’

3.2 War
Chair: Pete Duncan (UCL-SSEES)

Papers:
Christopher Gilley (University of Hamburg)
‘Otamanshchyna: Ukrainian and Russian Warlordism at the Beginning of the 20th and the 21st Centuries’

Artem Remizov (LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome)
‘Foreign Fighters in the Ukraine-Russia Conflict: Origins, Motivation, and Impact’

Eleanor Knott (London School of Economics and Political Science)
‘Revisiting Crimean annexation in 2014: conceptualising a critical case of de facto annexation’

Alexandros Alexandropoulos (Sciences Po, Paris)
‘The Politics of Forgiveness’

3.3  Doing Fieldwork in the Post-Socialist Region
Chair: Philipp Köker (UCL-SSEES)

Papers:
Darya Malyutina (independent researcher)
‘Ethnography and ethical concerns: negotiating gender, nationality, and friendship in migration research’

Anna Pechurina (Leeds Beckett)
'Conducting fieldwork in Russia: The issues of social positioning and recruitment when studying one’s own community

Eleanor Bindman (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at QMU)
‘Fieldwork in Russia in the Context of the Ukraine Crisis’

16:30 – 17:00 Coffee

17:00 – 18:30 Keynote
Jan Kubik (Director of UCL SSEES) in conversation with Richard Sakwa (University of Kent)
            
18:30-20:00 Drinks Reception

Sunday June 7:

09:45-11:15 Session 4
4.1  Interpreting the Post-Socialist Space
Chair: Aidan Mosselson (UCL)

Papers:
Lidia Kuzemska (University of Lancaster)
‘”Bordering” and “Othering” of the Donbas in post-Euromaidan Ukraine public discourse’

Anna-Cara Keim (UCL-SSEES)
‘Ukraine as part of a New Eastern Europe: real-imagined, semi-institutionalised and peripheral?’

Olga Ivashchenko (Institute of Sociology – National Academy of Sciences Ukraine)
‘From full employment to self-employment: the labor 'other path' of post-soviet social transformation in Ukraine’

4.2  Chernobyl - 29 Years On
Chair: Mateusz Zatonski (London School of Hygiene and Tropical   Medicine)

Papers:
Thom Davies (University of Birmingham)
‘Living with nuclear disaster: informal understandings of Chernobyl’

Paul Dorfman (University College London)
‘Late Lessons from Chernobyl, Early Warnings from Fukushima’

James Smith (University of Portsmouth)
‘Radiation health effects from the Chernobyl accident’

11:15-11:45 Coffee Break

11:45-13:15 Session 5
5.1  Maidan and the Conflict in Ukraine: The Role of the New Media
Chair: Licia Cianetti (UCL-SSEES)

Papers:
Tetyana Lokot (University of Maryland)
‘Distant Witness: How Ukrainian Americans Participate in Politics Around Euromaidan Protests in Ukraine’

Anastasia Grynko (Harriman Institute, Columbia University
‘“Bottom-Up” Participation Culture at Ukrainian EuroMaidan 2013: The Role of New Media'

Anastasia Bezverkha (Mohyla School of Journalism, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy)
‘#Krymnash: The Discursive (De)Legitimation of the Crimean Annexation in the New Media’

Dariya Orlova & Daria Taradai (Mohyla School of Journalism, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy)
'"Coverage of conflict in the eastern Ukraine by Ukrainian media: analysis of daily newspapers" Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Campaigns among Ukrainian Students'

5.2  Money! Business, Corruption & Energy in Ukraine and Beyond
Chair: Costanza Currò (UCL-SSEES)

Papers:
Csaba Weiner (Institute of World Economy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)
‘Breaking out from Dependency: The Booming of Post-Soviet Gas Import and Export Diversification?’

Elena Denisova-Schmidt (University of St Gallen)
'Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Campaigns among Ukrainian Students'

Iryna Lapshyna (Lviv Academy of Commerce)
‘Here in Ukraine everything can be bought either for money or for big money. There is no third option’

Svitlana Shevelova (Janski University in Warsaw)
‘Foreign Direct Investment and Ukrainian Regional Development’

5.3  Roundtable on Security Challenges: Past & Present
Aglaya Snetkov (University of Zurich)
Myron Varouhakis (Brunel University London)
Natasha Kuhrt (King’s College London)
Ruth Deyermond (King’s College London

13:15 -14:30 Lunch
 
14:30-16:00 Session 6
6.1  Arts & Literature in Times of Crisis
Chair: Julie Fedor (University of Melbourne)

Papers:
Marco Puleri (University of Bologna)
‘Ukrainian Border Crossing. The Russophone Literary Community After The Ukrainian Crisis’

Marina Galina & Arkady Shtypel (“Nosy Mir” Journal, Dep. of Literature Survey and Social Problems, Moscow)
‘On Diversity of Poetic Practices in Maidan Poetry’

Svitlana Biedarieva (Courtauld Institute of Art)
Performance/ Performativity in Ukrainian Art: From Maidan to Biennale

6.2  Health Needs, Behaviours and Systems under Post-Socialism
Chair: Richard Mole (UCL-SSEES)

Papers:
Diana Quirmbach (London School of Economics)
‘The rise of female smoking in Russia: cultural change accelerated through economic transition’

Erica Richardson (European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies)
‘The health workforce in Ukraine and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union: migration patterns and policy challenges’

Roman Cregg (Ukrainian Medical Association of the UK)
‘Training of doctors in the 21st century – can UK model be applied in Ukraine?’

Bayard Roberts (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine & ECOHOST – Centre for Health and Social Change)
‘Mental health needs among internally displaced persons in Georgia - implications for Ukraine’

16:00-16:30 Coffee

16:30 – 18:00 Roundtable
Mapping Mass-Mobilisation: Voices in Ukraine 1990-2014

Speakers:
Olga Onuch (University of Manchester)
Rory Finnin (University of Cambridge
Andrew Wilson (UCL SSEES)

18:00-20:00 Drinks Reception

Tickets for students and UCL and other UoL staff are free of charge (please do not forget to bring your ID without this, the fee will be chargeable on the door). All others will be charged £5. Tickets are valid for both days.
Register here.
For more information click here. or contact

UCL - Platform Ukraine
e-mail: info@platformukraine.com