This funding opportunity might be of interest to many members of our RUTA research communities

And then when one takes a look at the regional allocation of the funding and how contributions are taken from ERC countries across Europe’s East and West, yet, the majority of the funds is then awarded to Western institutions, one wonders how to describe such a research funding redistribution system

On the poverty of peer review in academic publishing on Europe’s East

Of high relevance to our ongoing critical RUTA discussions: “Two areas are even more crucial for the declining international appeal of the Orbán model: migration and demographics.”

More than 1,400 citizens from 36 African nations are reportedly fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials claim these African soldiers are fighting for Russia’s ‘meat assaults’ www.independent.co.uk/news/world/e...

This is the last week to send us your abstracts and art proposals for our next RUTA conference, that will be exploring the role of rooted and embodied knowledges as catalysts of change and drivers in shifts in power. The deadline for abstract submission is on Friday, Nov 15

On de/coloniality on the left: the left strives for an ideal to look up to, yet, via its common emotionally charged identification with the USSR, many of its segments continue to perpetuate empire and genocide denial and the silencing of whole populations, who have resisted and survived oppression

RUTA recommends: one of the founders of our RUTA Association, historian @kassymbekova.bsky.social will be giving a webinar on destalinization as decolonization in the “Decolonial Shaping of the Post-Soviet World” seminar series. Join us for this crucial talk and discussion

Must read. Basically, if you’ve fallen for Ru propaganda, the chatbots will dig you in even deeper. Also note this: “Grok provided the highest number of Russian sources even when asked neutral questions, the research found.” Higher than the Chinese chatbot!

This training school will be of interest to our RUTA research communities, in light of the intensifying global anti-gender mobilisations, that have been also affecting the RUTA region(s)

Such great mobilisation of the Latvian civil society, so very glad to see this result. And yes, the conservative to far right synergies are ongoing and rather well synchronised, and our critical masses will need to keep organising more and more effectively, collectively, transregionally and globally

Impressive mobilisation of the civil society in Latvia to protect the ratification of the Istanbul Convention

A recording of our RUTA 2025 featured panel on Romani Visions for the Future, that I was entrusted with moderating. As Elżbieta Mirga-Wójtowicz had to postpone, Tetiana Storozhko joined us in Ukraine for this immensely crucial discussion, alongside Zola Kondur, Volodymyr Yakovenko and Stephan Müller

@dianakudaibergen.bsky.social’s book What Does it Mean to be Kazakhstani?, that will be of interest to our RUTA research communities, will soon be launching at UCL in London. Congratulations! And a recommendation for our members in the UK to join the launch

@kassymbekova.bsky.social talked to Norito Kunisue about founding RUTA: "Many panels were organized nationally.. Polish scholars rarely spoke with Kazakh scholars and Kazakh scholars with Georgians. Academia mirrored the broader imperial divisions. That’s when I realized - we need a new association"

@seyeabimbola.bsky.social‘s work majorly inspires the next gathering of the RUTA Association for Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asian Studies in Global Conversation, scrutinising gaze beyond the global North/South binary bsky.app/profile/asso...

On the power and injustice of the foreign gaze: “But it is also about power – the kind that distances people. That foreign audience might be a powerful policymaker, a set of academics, or a philanthropist. The question is always: who is looking, from where, and what gets distorted in the process?”

Thanks to pressure from civil society and the president, the Latvian parliament u-turned on its vote to denounce the Istanbul Convention. I don't know why Western European journalists are too lazy to write about the politics behind the denunciation? @unabergmane.bsky.social provides the context

Amazing. More power to the protests

More than 50,000 people have signed the petition urging President Rinkēvičs @edgarsrinkevics.bsky.social not to sign the law on Latvia's withdrawal from Istanbul Convention. It seems our populists politicians have completely misunderstood the society they claim to represent and try to manipulate

Add this to the long list of Ru sabotage of European democracies/societies. Because these are relatively minor incidents with no dead and injured, they don’t get publicized enough and the broad European public still doesn’t realize how deeply Ru wants their states to fail and how it works towards it

For all who would like to (re)visit the featured panels from our RUTA 2025 conference “Imagination: New Visions and Connections”, here is our first panel Romani Visions for the Future, with a particular focus on integrating Romani concerns into post-war reconstruction m.youtube.com/watch?v=7sjy...

RUTA recommends: next meeting of ENSU-RESU, with guest speaker Yanush Panchenko, a Ukrainian ethnographer of Roma heritage, scholar and social justice advocate specialising in the study of Roma culture, history and language, & researcher at the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences

And now this. The synergies of anti-gender, anti-LGBTQ+, far right and imperial mobilisation are intensifying

Follow up protests in Latvia

We are about to start! Join us for a RUTA conversation about our approaches to understanding family history, its personal and collective significance, and how we can translate these stories into our contemporary lives and practices in the context of multiple crises. See the registration link below

“Historically, anti-Istanbul Convention disinformation has been one of the tools in Russia’s propaganda arsenal” Gender studies scholars & social justice advocates across Europe’s East have been raising alarms about the synergies of anti-gender, fascist and imperial mobilisation for a long time now

This opportunity might be of interest to our RUTA research communities

A reminder about tomorrow’s RUTA webinar, that will explore our approaches to understanding family history, its personal and collective significance, and how we can translate these stories into our contemporary lives and practices in the context of multiple crises. See the registration link below

Glad to see a strong turnout in Riga

RUTA stands in solidarity with the Latvian civil society, that is raising alarms and protesting against the concerning rise of global anti-gender and authoritarian politics fuelled by Russia's propaganda narratives

Meanwhile in Germany

Who are the key organisers in networks of solidarity with Ukraine in the Czech Rep, Slovakia, Poland & Hungary? With @associationruta.bsky.social, we will hold a webinar to discuss how to more effectively mobilise against systemic efforts to divide and conquer us. Who are the people we must invite?

Look at Orbán, doing the old divide and conquer strategy for Russia. This is exactly how Soviet and German imperialism operated when proceeding to occupy Europe’s East: turning populations against each other for conquest. We have seen this before, let’s resist the capture again And on that note…

An important investigation, illuminating who is behind Visegrád24 and why the disinformation channel should not be used and amplified as a legitimate news source

A recently published book that will be of interest to our RUTA communities

A reminder about our next RUTA webinar. Registration link below

IR scholar Olga Burlyuk suggests the term ‘the pornography of land concessions’ to describe the phenomenon, in which people - particularly in the West - get excited at the idea of giving up land that is not theirs for little more than curiosity and a game for the mind, while denying Ukraine agency

We take no joy criticising a young left-wing UK political figure who has often spoken up for workers' rights and progressive causes. But these barely coherent comments from Zarah Sultana on Ukraine sum up much of what is wrong with her wing of the left www.instagram.com/reel/DQT62ys...

Read every word! "You say you hate empire, but you only ever mean one. You rage at U.S. hegemony while excusing Russian conquest. You romanticize “multipolarity,” as if choosing a different empire were the same as dismantling one... dumplingradical.substack.com/p/a-letter-t...

📸 There's a story behind this breathtaking shot of Hungary’s opposition rally marking the 1956 revolution: Orbán’s government banned drones to try conceal the crowd’s size. Yet a passenger on a landing plane caught the scene in Budapest from above — the photo hit Reddit and went viral instantly.

‼️"The peoples of Central Europe have a duty to speak out when an independent country is under military aggression." Orbán said this in 2008 after Russia attacked Georgia, adding it’s especially Hungarians’ duty after 1956. Now he’s doing the opposite by undermining Ukraine in the EU and the US. Why?

This is how you should speak to propagandists: you speak the truth. Call a lie a lie. Italian senator Carlo Calenda confronts Jeffrey Sachs.

The Great Atomic Bomb Reflector by the ORTA Collective, reflecting on the abuse of Qazaqstan as a nuclear testing site under Soviet colonialism. Between 1949-89, over 600 atomic bombs were detonated, 1 every 3 weeks, exposing 3 generations of Qazaqs to toxic radiation every single time

Hidden behind shell companies, Russia acquired advanced Western technologies to build a secret underwater network designed to protect its nuclear weapons in the Arctic. The incident raises questions about Europe's ability to prevent the export of sensitive technologies to Moscow.

Join us for our next RUTA webinar on family stories through art, literature, and decolonial thinking, featuring a round table conversation with Elmira Kakabayeva, Aida Sulova & Victoria Sarangova October 31, 11:00 EST / 18:00 EEST - Kyiv time Link for registration: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Seeing the latest election polls in Germany, with the far right polling in the first place, I feel compelled to reshare this text, in which we trace the continuities of racism and imperialism from Germany’s past to the present as a warning to learn from and to act to prevent a similarly dire future

RUTA member Olga Burlyuk has a new essay on the mis-imagination of Ukraine as an empty land. In the text, she scrutinises the all too common suggestions of surrender to Russian occupation as the pornography of land concessions and reminds us: there are people here platformraam.nl/artikelen/29...

Where we're at in Georgia: ⚪️ ~170 political prisoners — including 6 active opposition leaders — most facing years in jail ⚪️ Day 330 of uninterrupted protests in 8+ cities ⚪️ 300+ protesters tortured & hospitalized — 0 officers punished ⚪️ 10+ opposition parties facing bans.

Yet another proof that academics have played a central role in the home-grown movement for democracy and justice in Georgia