A European Geopolitical Subject in the Making? EU, Russia and the Kaliningrad Question

Aalto, Pami

doi:10.1080/714000977

Cited by 30 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…This question about the true sources of identity is pursued through a variety of methods such as surveys (Haerpfer et al 1999), focus groups (Smoke 1996), interviews (Aalto 2003a) as well as analyses of the historical roots and contemporary influences on national identity (Prizel 1998; Garton Ash 1999; Dawson and Fawn 2001; Kumar 2001; Young and Light 2001; Aalto 2002). Numerous accounts highlight the confrontational identity narratives that rely on the binaries of West and East, inside and outside, security and threat, Self and Other (e.g.…”

Section: The Empirical Puzzle: Searching For Subjects In Central Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Ubiquitous identities and elusive subjects: puzzles from Central Europe

Kuus¹

2007

Trans Inst British Geog

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This paper investigates the logic of explanation according to which identity is an attribute or a feature of subjects like states and nations. Drawing examples from the scholarship on identity in Central Europe, especially Estonia, it argues that the story by which identity is customarily told is circular, presupposing the very subject for which it seeks to give an account. The puzzle, then, is how to overcome the perspective of a subject already formed in order to account for its becoming. The paper deploys the concept of performativity to address that puzzle. Performative approaches do not treat identity as an attribute or a property of the subject -something that subjects such as individuals or states express. It conceives subjectivity explicitly in processual terms, not as a source but as an effect of identity claims. Identity then is not something that states, groups or individuals have, but something that groups and individuals do. Reframing identity research from doers to deeds opens up the discussions of actor-ness and subjectivity without dictating what kind of subjects can be realized. key words identity subjectivity performativity Central Europe East European studies Estonia

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Section: The Empirical Puzzle: Searching For Subjects In Central Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Ubiquitous identities and elusive subjects: puzzles from Central Europe

Kuus¹

2007

Trans Inst British Geog

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“…However, the EU's support of the expansion of civil society networks and the transmission of ideas makes civil society an agent in a geopolitical ordering of state-civil society relations (Boedeltje & van Houtum 2011;O'Dowd & Dimitrovova 2011;Scott 2011). The European Union is thus a geopolitical subject that invites states to become EU members; at the same time, however, the EU demands a restructuring of state-civil society relations as part of the membership process (Aalto 2002;Bialasiewicz et al 2009;Boedeltje & van Houtum 2011, p. 141;Scott 2011).…”

Section: The Discursive Production Of Russian Civil Society By the Eumentioning

confidence: 99%

‘The Foreign Within’: State–Civil Society Relations in Russia

Stuvøy¹

2020

Europe-Asia Studies

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The development of Russian civil society is linked to authoritarian government, fear of 'colour revolutions' and the 'sovereign democracy' that legitimises state control of civil society. This article acknowledges the narrowing room for manoeuvre of contemporary Russian civil society and discusses NGOs' practices in the context of government pressures, the politicisation of transnational connections and the increasing geopolitical tension surrounding Russia. It describes the localisation and depoliticisation of Russian NGOs as well as their disruptive practices, and explains how narrowing civil society identities inform the selfgoverning of NGOs. Finally, it argues that seeing Russian civil society in simple dichotomies further narrows these identities.

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“…Driven by questions of geopolitics and new forms of colonialism, Geographers have long developed an interest in the mobile frontier between Western and Eastern Europe. In doing so, they have drawn attention to new dynamics of core and periphery that have re‐emerged after the demise of the Soviet Union (Aalto ; Armstrong & Anderson ). The East is often constructed as an inferior ‘learning’ position that is ‘modernising’, eager to catch up with its Western master (Neumann ; Kuus , Melegh ; Behr ).…”

Section: Colonising Eastern Cyberspacementioning

confidence: 99%

The Russian Cyber‐Bride as Geopolitical Fantasy

Klinke

2016

Tijd voor Econ & Soc Geog

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This article unpacks the fantasy of the Russian online bride and its striking contamination with geopolitical language. Drawing on critical geopolitics and psychoanalysis, it explores the economy of desire and anxiety that accompanies British men's quest for sexually available 'traditional' housewives that are still untouched by 'modern' feminism. The paper argues that these men desire the slippery substance of Easternness --an ideal object of desire which is too elusive to be conquered or held. The paper thereby inverts existing accounts of the sexualised nature of the geopolitical gaze to expose the traces of geopolitics in sexual fantasies themselves. In doing so, it formulates the basis for a triadic understanding of otherness.

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A European Geopolitical Subject in the Making? EU, Russia and the Kaliningrad Question

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

Ubiquitous identities and elusive subjects: puzzles from Central Europe

Ubiquitous identities and elusive subjects: puzzles from Central Europe

‘The Foreign Within’: State–Civil Society Relations in Russia

The Russian Cyber‐Bride as Geopolitical Fantasy

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