IGSD News
馃摙 Reclaiming Resilience: Professor Elena Korosteleva on Overcoming Global Crises through Community
I am pleased to share a deep dive into my latest research, which challenges how we think about "resilience" in an increasingly complex world. In a recent interview with the , I discussed why our current approach to global crises is failing. We often treat resilience as a "top-down" buzzword or a "quick fix," but in the era of the Anthropocene, true resilience is born from within communities—through self-organization, horizontal relations, and collective agency.
This theme is the heartbeat of my new book, (Oxford University Press). By moving "from personhood to peoplehood," the book explores how local knowledge and philosophies of living—from talaka to mahalla—can transform our understanding of governance and transformation when hit by crisis.
馃摪 Read the interview here: [https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/lietuvoje/2/2863332/profesore-korosteleva-krizes-galime-iveikti-tik-susitelkdami-i-bendruomeniu-santykius]
#InternationalRelations #Resilience #Community #Anthropocene #NewBook #OxfordUniversityPress #GlobalGovernance #CentralEurasia
Belarus: Five Years On - special forum, preprint
Happy to report a preprint of my article 'Belarus: Five Years On' in the US J, Special Forum with a focus on #Belarus then and now. I discuss whether the uprising of 2020 was just another short-lived revolt or if it marked the moment of irreversible #change in the history of #Belarus, which I call elsewhere a moment of people-forming (peoplehood). Belarus' active #civil #society demonstrates incredible #creativity in designing its own alternative futures, and this process is unstoppable.
HOPE: Alternative futures and broken worlds
On 11 February, Professor David Chandler kicked off the Sustainability Spotlight's first thematic event with his book talk on HOPE: Alternative Futures and Broken Worlds. The thematic event was part of the 'Radical Imaginaries - Radical Transformations' series of activities coordinated by Dr Marit Hammond (PAIS), Professors Graeme Macdonald (English) and Elena Korosteleva (IGSD). The discussion problematised the meaning of hope as an instrument of neoliberal thinking, to seek alternative understandings and develop radical imaginaries of alternative futures, The discussion will be continued by a workshop on 30 April, with external speakers and research network-building.
Carnegie Europe organised a higher-level discussion on the need for Europe to re-engage with Belarus. 10 experts, ranging from former Ambassadors, heads of think-tanks, and scholars, were invited to respond in 200 words to the question of engagement, and while there were nuances in responses, the general gist was a 'no' to engaging with dictators. This is reassuring, especially on the eve of the 4th anniversary of Russia's war against Ukraine: putting more pressure on dictators and being strategic in supporting opposition is the only way forward, as was argued by Professor Korosteleva.
I was delighted to give a keynote on my to the , at Frankfurt (Order) in Berlin. While introducing some key concepts from the book - the VUCA-world, the Anthropocene, complexity-thinking and resilience - I drew a lot on my empirical work in the region, especially on Ukraine and Belarus, which was of interest and relevance to the PhD students (mostly from Ukraine) of this EU-funded network.
Thank you to Susann Worschecn, a Principle Coordinator of the network, for the invitation, and to the students- for so many questions you all had about resilience, Ukraine and the wider region.