GloPost
Who we are and what we do
Emerging at a moment of historic reckoning with the future of ‘Area Studies’ research, the Centre for Global (Post)socialisms, Southeastern, Central and East European Studies asks how we might engage in intersectional, interdisciplinary study of the ‘(post)socialist world’ without advancing extractivist and exploitative research paradigms. The Centre foregrounds the entangled realities of (post)socialisms, troubling the traditional East-West gaze that has led to widespread ‘westsplaining’ in our field. Starting with entanglement the Centre reflects on the way the core questions of area studies resonate in different but related ways in the depopulating Latvian countryside and the Polish-Belarusian borderlands, as well as in places closer to home like deindustrializing East Lothian and South Wales. The Centre recognises that it is not possible to talk about the decolonization of public space in Estonia without simultaneously discussing the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. and the Rhodes Must Fall protests in the UK. Or to speak of war, colonialism, and public memory in Ukraine without reckoning with ongoing settler colonial enterprises and the colonial legacies that continue to haunt the landscapes of Western Europe. This exploration of entangled (post)socialist transformations across borders is at the centre of our work.
The Centre for Global (Post)socialisms, Southeastern, Central and East European Studies is committed to foregrounding the work of scholars and practitioners who have contributed to shifting paradigms of Area Studies research. Highlighting the transformative potential of collaboration across constructed regional divides, it showcases a different kind of Critical Area Studies work that is founded on inter-regional, intersectoral solidarities and relationships of care. The Centre is committed to supporting early career researchers who are committed to critical explorations of the entangled politics, economics and social conditions of global (post)socialisms. Our members welcome enquiries about opportunities for PhD, postdoctoral, and Visiting Fellow research as part of our intellectually dynamic and quickly growing community of co-thinkers.