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New Article: The Intimate and Everyday Geopolitics of the Russian War Against Ukraine

New Article: The Intimate and Everyday Geopolitics of the Russian War Against Ukraine

It’s out in the world. This piece is the final product of the collaboration I wrote about a little while back, co-written with Olena Denysenko, Dina Krichker, Olga Rebro, and Maria Gunko. In contrast to the abstractions of global headlines, we focus on the micro perspectives of everyday lived experience. One theme running through all of the contributions is a variety of bordering processes that fracture territories, families, and lives. I don’t like being too self-promotional, but I think this…

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Submitting a new collaboration on the Russian war against Ukraine

Submitting a new collaboration on the Russian war against Ukraine

As part of my current project, I’ve just submitted a draft of a new piece called The Intimate and Everyday Geopolitics of the Russian War Against Ukraine. It’s a Forum collection for Geopolitics, and at this point I’m very pleased with it. Writing about the war during the war has not been easy. I gathered four co-authors for the project, two from Ukraine and two from Russia – though this is not at all meant to establish some kind of…

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Russian athletes and sports during a time of war

Russian athletes and sports during a time of war

I really enjoy speaking with Sportschau, which I think is the most influential sports program on German television. To their credit, they feature the work of Robert Kempe, who does great work on sports and politics, and who pursues difficult stories with nuance and integrity. It’s a hard combo but I think he does it admirably. In this segment, he investigates the impossible situation of having Russian and Belarusian athletes participating in global sport while the Russian state pursues its…

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Not really a timely project anymore: intimate urban geopolitics in eastern Ukraine

Not really a timely project anymore: intimate urban geopolitics in eastern Ukraine

When I was finishing up my dissertation in early 2019, I wrote about laying the groundwork for the next phase of my academic career. I submitted two project ideas, one about mega-events in Paris and Los Angeles to be hosted at the University of Lausanne, and the other on urban geopolitics in eastern Ukraine at the University of St. Gallen. At the time, I wrote: There’s actually something interesting going on here and I think it’s worth unpacking for a…

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German sport TV is amazing: Talking about Russian sport, authoritarian politics, and western complicity on Sportschau

German sport TV is amazing: Talking about Russian sport, authoritarian politics, and western complicity on Sportschau

I was invited to speak on Sportschau Sunday Night, which was a wonderful experience. I was surprised by how political and involved they were. I wish I could link the report, but unfortunately it’s geoblocked to German territory, so unless you live in Germany, I’m afraid I can’t share. I caught it live from Switzerland and it was great. I felt honored to participate in a project that was so incisive and timely. I thought it was really well done…

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Postcolonial Ukraine and Russia’s Imperial Ambition. Open lecture at University of Zurich

Postcolonial Ukraine and Russia’s Imperial Ambition. Open lecture at University of Zurich

It’s not easy to talk about the war, as it implicates my family – deeply – in a variety of dimensions. But I was grateful that Benedikt Korf (Political Geography, UZH) invited me to talk to his bachelor students about this. It turned into an open lecture and a full house, which was very nice to see, despite the circumstances. It was an honor, truly. And it felt good to be able to speak about it in a professional sense,…

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Building an internal city to manage geopolitical trauma

Building an internal city to manage geopolitical trauma

How can I make sense of the ongoing atrocities in Ukraine? Each day we awake and write to family and friends (in Kamianske, Kharkiv, Kyiv…) to make sure they’re still alive. It’s a grim ritual. I don’t want to ask them to write back if they don’t have the capacity, either emotional or material. But I can see when my messages are read, and that means something. A friend in Kharkiv has no electricity and no water, but he wrote…

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Between the minor and the intimate. New publication in Geopolitics!

Between the minor and the intimate. New publication in Geopolitics!

I’m extremely happy with this article. It was a tough road but a valuable one. The seed was planted by the excellent Michele Lancione, who I was lucky enough to meet at a workshop in Neuchâtel in 2019. Michele introduced me to his approach to micropolitics and minor ethics, which he’d written about back in 2017. I’d missed that article, unfortunately, but was deeply moved and inspired by his talk and by our later conversations. After our meeting, I returned…

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