Culture, Borders, and Gender:Research Trajectories, Emerging Themes,and Interdisciplinary Dialogues in the Contemporary World
February 27-28, 2026 University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Culture–Borders–Gender Laboratory invites PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers to participate in the 7th International PhD Seminar, to be held in a hybrid format on 27–28 February 2026 at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, with the option to attend in person or online.
The seminar aims to provide an open, supportive space for presenting work-in-progress research, exchanging constructive feedback, and strengthening academic dialogue among early-career researchers from Greece and abroad. With a strong emphasis on critical interdisciplinarity, the seminar encourages approaches that connect social anthropology with cultural studies, border studies, and gender studies, and with contemporary methodological and digital practices.
We welcome both theoretical contributions and ethnographic case studies that illuminate the complexity of the contemporary world, forms of inequality, power relations, and processes of social and cultural transformation. A key requirement for participation is that presentations must be based on ongoing doctoral research (work in progress) that has not yet been completed or formally approved and has not been published as a standalone academic work.
The seminar’s thematic areas highlight the dynamic nature of interdisciplinary research and its importance for interpreting the complexity of the contemporary world. Indicative topics include:
Cultural practices, rituals, symbols, institutions, and discourses
Borders, border regimes, and cross-border mobility
Experiences of minorities, migrants, and refugees
Gender, gender relations, and the body
Crisis/crises: humanitarian, environmental, economic, and others
Literature, arts, language, and translation
Material culture, space, and monuments
Digital technologies and audiovisual culture
What we expect from the presentations
The seminar is conceived as a space for dialogue, reflection, and collective learning, where participants are encouraged to share their research as it unfolds. Presentations should be based on ongoing doctoral research (work in progress) and may focus on different stages or aspects of the research process, including:
the formulation of research questions and initial theoretical orientations
methodological choices, uncertainties, and fieldwork dilemmas
early insights, emerging analytical paths, or tentative interpretations
challenges, difficulties, or open questions that invite discussion and feedback
Public Event with Invited Speakers
Minorities, Borders, and Memory in the Balkans: Lives at the Margins in the Balkans
Friday 27 and Saturday, 28 February University of Macedonia & online streaming via Zoom
The event is organised as a dialogue around the anthropological study of minorities, borders, and memory in the Balkans, drawing on both contemporary ethnographic research and classic works of Balkan ethnology. It brings together two interventions that, from different ethnographic and theoretical starting points, examine issues of violence, survival, and mobility, as well as the experiences and practices of local communities amid historical and geopolitical transformations.
Friday, February 27 University of Macedonia & online streaming via Zoom
“To leave or to stay? The dilemma of the Greeks of Constantinople after the events of September 1955” Dr. Anna Theodorides L’école des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France
Saturday, February 28 University of Macedonia & online streaming via Zoom
“Identity of the residents of East Sarajevo” Dr. Bogdan Dražeta Assistant Professor and Senior Research Assistant, Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract submission guidelines
Interested applicants are invited to submit the following materials:
Presentation abstract (up to 350 words) The abstract should outline the doctoral research topic, the current project stage, and the key questions, issues, or challenges the applicant intends to discuss during the seminar.
Short academic biography (up to 200 words), including:
the topic, research focus, and title of the doctoral dissertation
a brief description of the current stage of the research
the institution and doctoral programme
contact details (email address and telephone number)
Presentation duration: up to 15 minutes
Presentation languages:Greek or English
Submission deadline:23 January 2026
Submission of abstracts: Please send all materials to cbg-lab@uom.edu.gr
Certificate of participation: A certificate of participation will be provided to all participants.
Further Information: Anna Moumtzoglou – anna@uom.edu.gr
Applicants will be informed of the acceptance of their proposal no later than Wednesday, January 28.
Publication opportunities
Selected papers, following further revision and in accordance with established academic standards, may be considered for publication in special sections of open-access academic journals supported by the Culture–Borders–Gender Laboratory (cbg-lab.uom.gr):
Since its launch in the spring of 2021, the online seminar series ETHNOGRAFEIN has sought to contribute to a critical and interdisciplinary discussion on the theory and practice of ethnography, the epistemology of research, the significance of embodied experience, as well as the ways in which anthropological knowledge is disseminated to both academic and non-academic audiences. It is a central aim that anthropological study—as a research practice and as a politics of writing—should incorporate critical evaluation, empathy, reflexivity, and self-referentiality, while highlighting the importance of multimodal analysis of the local for understanding the general.
Organization and Coordination: Fotini Tsibiridou – Ioannis Manos – Eleni Sideri Organization and Coordination of the 6th Cycle: Eleni Sideri
The 6th cycle of the ETHNOGRAFEIN online seminar series, beginning in December 2025 and concluding in May 2026, is entitled:
Annual Theme
Ethnographies of Eurasia: Centres, Peripheries, Power and Critical Area Studies
Eurasia has long occupied an ambiguous position in international academic research: a space where continents, empires, and epistemologies intersect, but also a region often portrayed as peripheral in relation to the dominant theoretical currents of the social sciences. The lecture series Ethnographies of Eurasia: Centres, Peripheries, Power and Critical Area Studies seeks to reconsider the region through the lens of contemporary ethnographic research, bringing into dialogue scholars who engage critically with questions of knowledge production, everyday life, and shifting geopolitical landscapes.
What is at stake is not only the representation of Eurasian societies, but also the analytical frameworks through which they are understood. The institutionalization of “area studies” during the Cold War placed Eurasia within particular disciplinary and geopolitical boundaries, often privileging state-centered narratives and strategic concerns over lived experience. Today, amid the revival of imperial discourses, new geopolitical alliances, and expanding transnational networks, the need for more nuanced and locally grounded approaches is pressing. Ethnography—attentive to voices, practices, and materialities—offers a methodological path for deconstructing hegemonically formed categories, while simultaneously foregrounding the actions and voices of communities in both the centres and the peripheries of Eurasia.
The series will highlight research from a wide range of cultural, social, and economic landscapes: from the margins of post-Soviet cities and the environmental crises of Central Asia, to ethnoscapes shaped by increasingly authoritarian regimes of mobility and emergent digital publics. The research presented will explore how power is exercised and contested in spaces where state authority, religious traditions, global markets, and social imaginaries intersect. Particular attention will be paid to the politics of scale: the ways in which “centres” and “peripheries” are relationally constituted, and how ethnographers themselves are implicated in the dynamics of representation and authority.
Beyond in-depth case studies, the lectures will address broader methodological and epistemological questions. How can we reconcile ethnographic particularity with the comparative ambitions involved in the study of different areas? What does it mean to produce knowledge about Eurasia at a moment when disciplinary boundaries are becoming increasingly porous and global hierarchies of scholarship are being reshaped? How might collaborative, decolonial, and multi-sited approaches challenge Eurocentric paradigms, while at the same time acknowledging the uneven flows of resources, languages, and institutional power that shape the field?
The series seeks to cultivate connections among researchers with diverse interests and fields of study, and across different anthropological approaches, interdisciplinary thinking, and the varied geographies that constitute Eurasia. In doing so, it aspires not only to enrich the understanding of the region but also to contribute to wider debates about the politics of knowledge, the future of ethnography, and the possibilities for a more plural and locally grounded social science.
Program
1st Panel 8/12/2025 16:00 – 18:00: “Globalising pro-russian chauvinism: modalities of Russianness in the Greek case”
D. Kataiftsis., Post-Doc Fellow, University of Macedonia
“The Russification of Mariupol after 2022 through the lens of housing and urban Planning Policies”
Guénola Inizan, Postdoctoral researcher, PhD in Geography – Lyon 2 Lumière University
2nd Panel 12/1/2026 16:00 – 18:00: “Azerbaijan’s Left and Emotions Across Borders: Problematzing Self-Reflexive Knowledge Production Amid Detachment, Digitality and Repression”
Veronika Pfeilschifter, Ph.D Candidate, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena
3rd Panel 26/1/2026 16:00 – 18:00: “Uncharted Sovereignties: Indigenous cosmologies and state power in northeast Eurasia”
Konstantinos Zorbas, Associate Professor, Shandong University
4th Panel 16/2/2026 16:00 – 18:00:“Dismantled Materiality, Social Shifts, and Nostalgia: How to Make an Ethnography of the Soviet Legacy (the Case of Armenia)”
Yulia Antonyan, Associate Professor, Υerevan State University
5ο Πάνελ 2/3/2026 16:00 – 18:00: “Ethnographies of Landscape and Care: Gendered Ecologies and Urban Domesticities in Post-Socialist Romania”
Iulia Statica, Lecturer, Mellon Fellow, University of Sheffield, Harvard Institute in Washington, DC
Polina Vlasenko, Postdoc Researcher, Compass-Univ. of Oxford
TBA
6th Panel 30/3/2026 16:00 – 18:00:“Trembling Light: The World Bank’s PESAC Programme and the Afterlives of Neoliberal Restructuring in a Kyrgyz Industrial Town”
Nikolaos Olma, Assist. Professor, University of the Aegean.
“Between a Knife and the Law: Human Rights and Expertise in Migration Bureaucracy in Tajikistan and Russia”.
Malika Bahovadinova, Research Associate, Univ. of Amsterdam
Spatharidou Dimitra, PhD, Dep. of Balkan Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia: Support to the coordination of this panel.
7th Panel 27/4/2026 16:00 – 18:00: “Soundscapes and Memories of Exile: The Radio Programs of the Refugees of the Greek Civil War”
Aliki Angelidou, Associate Professor, Panteion University Alexandra Balandina, Associate Professor, Ionian University Dr. Maria Kokkinou, Post-doc researcher, Univ. of Gallaway Dr. Georgia Sarikoudi, Post-doc researcher, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Vasiloglou Georgios, PhD, Dep. of Balkan Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia: Support to the coordination of this panel.
8th Panel 4/5/2026 16:00 – 18:00:“The Making of an International Struggle: Mário Pinto de Andrade, Eurasian Connections and Angolan Liberation”
Elisa Scaraggi, Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History at NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities in Lisbon
Short CVs
Dimitris Kataiftsis is a Dr. in Cultural Studies (University of Paris-IV Sorbonne 2014) and external collaborator, teaching anthropology courses at the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies of the University of Macedonia. Since 2010, he has been conducting field research in communities of returnees from the former USSR, in Greece and abroad, mostly focusing on gender and economic reproduction. During his last postdoctoral research, he studied transnational networking, ethnic and cultural economies in the context of the Russian-speaking world and return migration, publishing articles in international journals and volumes and participating in international conferences. Finally, he actively participates in the scientific and editorial team of the journal EIRINI/Studies of Young Scholars on Gender, and in numerous activities of the Laboratory/Culture-Border-Gender (cbg-lab.uom.gr), at the University of Macedonia, as a regular member.
Guénola Inizan holds a PhD in Geography from Lyon 2 Lumière University (2024). Her dissertation examined the politicization of housing issues in the context of a major urban renewal project in Moscow. Since defending her thesis and following research fellowships at the Leibniz Institute für Länderkunde and the Faculty of Geography at the University of Łódź, as well as an upcoming residency at the Lviv Center for Urban History, she has been working on urban and housing policies in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine.
Veronika Pfeilschifter is a social scientist working at the intersection between area studies (focus: South Caucasus) and political sociology. She is a research associate at the Institute for Caucasus Studies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) and a research affiliate at the Centre for East European and international Studies (ZOiS) Berlin. Her doctoral project „In Quest for Otherwise: Left-Wing Subjects and Political Imagination in the South Caucasus“ analysed what it means for young subjects in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to be left-wing. Her work has been published in Constellations. An International Journal for Critical and Democratic Theory, Europe-Asia Studies and Caucasus Analytical Digest.
Konstantinos Zorbas is an anthropologist specializing in post-socialist Northern Eurasia, with a regional focus on Tuva in south Siberia. He has extensively published on Indigenous religions, notably shamanism, and state politics in Russia. His current research focuses on museums of Indigenous Northern peoples in Hokkaido (Japan). He is an associate professor at Shandong University, China.
Yulia Antonyan is Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of History, Yerevan State University (since 2008). Her professional interests are in the anthropology of religion and the anthropology of social structures, with a special focus on the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Her permanent field of research is Armenia, but she has also undertaken several short-term field studies of Armenian communities in Georgia, Syria and Lebanon. Dr. Antonyan has published more than fifty articles in English, Armenian and Russian and has edited several volumes.
Iulia Statica is Mellon Fellow in Democracy and Landscape at Dumbarton Oaks, and assistant professor (lecturer) at the School of Architecture and Landscape at the University of Sheffield, UK. She previously held postdoctoral positions at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and Cornell University. Her research focuses on the legacies of socialist-built environments in Eastern Europe, particularly mass housing, and the gendered experiences of these spaces. Statica uses documentary film in her research; her film My Socialist Home premiered in London in 2021. She is the author of Urban Phantasmagorias: Domesticity, Production, and the Politics of Modernity in Communist Bucharest.
Nikolaos Olma is an Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology in the Department of Social Anthropology and History at the University of the Aegean and a participating researcher in the ERC-funded project “Anthropogenic Environments in the Future Tense: Loss, Change, and Hope in Post-Soviet Industrial Landscapes (ANTHEFT)” at the University of Vienna. He earned his PhD from the University of Copenhagen in 2018, with a dissertation that examined the nexus of embodied memory and urban infrastructure in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Currently, he is working on a book project that explores the various processes of (un)knowing that inform life with radioactive uranium tailings in Mailuu-Suu, a former uranium mining town in Kyrgyzstan. His research interests span economic and environmental anthropology, with a focus on socio-economic change, post-socialism, extractivism, the politics of (un)knowing, pollution and toxicity, infrastructure, and informal mobility.
Malika Bahovadinova is a political anthropologist working on state-society relations. In her work, she explores the everyday politics of migration governance, looking at how bureaucratic ordering emerges as a site of unequal postcolonial and geopolitical relations. She also studies the citizens’ engagement with state controls and their agency in asserting a political role in authoritarian contexts. She works at the International Studies Program at Leiden University.
Aliki Angelidou is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology at Panteion University, Athens. Her research concerns both the anthropological readings of globalcapitalism in Greece and the Balkans, and the sensory dimensions of the experience of exile through the study of the Greek speaking radio broadcasts from the ex-socialist block. She is one of the two PIs of the research project “Soundscapes and Memories of Exile: The Radio Broadcasts of the Refugees of the Greek Civil War”.
Alexandra Balandina is an Associate Professor in Ethnomusicology at the Department of Music Studies, Ionian University. Her research areas include performance practice and theory, music creativity, cultural organology, ethnography, embodiment in performance and research, auditory cultures, music censorship, and music and politics. Music genres that she has researched, written and taught about include classical music of the Middle East and Central Asia, and popular music in Greece and the Balkans. Her latest book Ethnographic Research in Ethnomusicology, is open access and can be downloaded here https://repository.kallipos.gr/handle/11419/13733
Dr. Maria Kokkinou is a postdoctoral researcher on the BILQIS ERC project at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway. She studied social anthropology at the University of the Aegean (Mytilene, Greece), then completed her master’s degree and PhD thesis in social anthropology in Paris at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).
Dr. Georgia Sarikoudi is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of History-Archaeology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is currently teaching Greek language and history in secondary education. Her research interests include anthropology of socialism and post-socialism, social memory, economic anthropology and material culture, immigration and refugees’ studies, anthropology of education.
Elisa Scaraggi is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History, NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities in Lisbon. She has a background in comparative studies, and her work addresses questions related to the entanglement of personal and collective experiences in personal archives, as well as in autobiographies, memoirs, and other life-writing. She is interested in how colonialism and coloniality shaped the political, social, and cultural context of nations that emerged from the dissolution of the Portuguese empire, with emphasis on Angola and Brazil. Her current research focuses on the personal archive of Angolan nationalist Mário Pinto de Andrade as a key to uncovering new narratives about Angola’s recent past and the relationship between culture and nationalism.
Apart from their geopolitical implications, recent developments in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have ignited intense discussion, particularly within academic and intellectual circles throughout the world. There is a widening gap between opposing interpretive communities, with evident power imbalances: in parts of the West, critiques of Israel’s destruction of Gaza may be conflated with antisemitism, with significant repercussions. In the US in particular, the presidents of Penn and Harvard Universities were compelled to resign over accusations of “tolerating antisemitism,” while in Germany, the traditionally stringent policy regarding public criticisms of Israel has impacted university life, resulting in the termination of contracts for some academics expressing solidarity with Palestinians. At the same time, although all relevant documents by the International Court of Justice and the UN Secretary General highlight the continuous occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel, only non-European countries are vocal in their critiques of Israeli policies, with some even advocating for the suspension of diplomatic relations. In December 2023, South Africa launched a legal campaign to label Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, leading to the opening of an ongoing case at the ICJ. However, amidst these dynamics, genuine antisemitism exploits the context of the conflict: the appearance of the sign ‘Jews not allowed’ in a bookstore in Istanbul in late October 2023 was a worrying sign of these blurring boundaries between solidarity with Palestinian civilians on one hand, and hatred against Jews, on the other.Our international conference aims at comprehensively examining these complexities, with a specific focus on the intellectual and discursive battles over Palestine and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The conference seeks first and foremost to promote and defend the right to critique, and confront practices that endanger academic freedom and critical thinking over power, hegemony, war, civic rights and human dignity.Conference Dates: 4-5 October 2025
Of course, any minor and up to the last minute details can be arranged in due course, if needed or requested. Please feel free to disseminate the news and spread the word.
We are excited to see you all in Thessaloniki on 4-5 October.
We have the great joy and honor of welcoming you to the International Symposium “Romanian as a Foreign Language. Language and Culture: Entities in Continuous Re-Harmonization“, 2nd Edition, taking place from May 16 to 17, 2025, at the Universityof Macedonia in Thessaloniki, Greece.
This year’s event provides a space for knowledge and direct communication for international students learning the Romanian language: within the Romanian language, culture, and civilization Lectureships established by the Institute of the Romanian Language, Bucharest (ILR), at various universities worldwide, in the Preparatory Year programs, as well as in the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs of universities in Romania or abroad. These students come from very diverse cultural backgrounds, from Europe, Asia, and Africa. Furthermore, the theme proposes a valuable exchange of experience among specialists, as well as the opportunity to examine the process of teaching-learning-assessment of Romanian as a foreign language, in relation to the current European level.
With the liberalization of borders and movement, and the opportunity to engage with various cultures and mentalities, people have become increasingly eager to learn as many foreign languages as possible. These languages are progressively demonstrating their role as cultural connectors, prolific means of intercultural communication, and pathways to access the global cultural and linguistic heritage.
The reality of the moment opens up to the mutual understanding of so many cultures, driven by the common desire to achieve a harmonious and coherent transcontinental dialogue. From this perspective, the use of the Romanian language emerges as one of the most desirable and useful instruments of cultural and social mediation, serving as an effective factor in addressing the new demands of the socio-human environment. Intercultural dialogue gains new perspectives, and this fact requires and stimulates the improvement of the means of mastering the mechanisms necessary for linguistic communication.
The organizers
Dragi Colegi, Dragi Studenţi, Avem deosebita bucurie și onoare de a vă întâmpina la Simpozionul Internațional aniversar Româna ca limbă străină. Limbă şi cultură: entități în continuă rearmonizare – Ediția a II-a. cu desfășurare între 16 – 17 mai 2025, la Universitatea „Makedonía” din Thessaloniki, Grecia. Evenimentul din acest an oferă crearea unui spațiu de cunoaștere și comunicare directă pentru studenții internaționali care învață limba română: în cadrul Lectoratelor de limbă, cultură și civilizație românească din diverse universități ale lumii, înființate de Institutul Limbii Române, București (ILR), în programele de An Pregătitor, în programele de licenţă, masterat, doctorat ale universităţilor din România sau din exterior. Acești studenți provin din spații culturale foarte diverse, din Europa, Asia, Africa. De asemenea, tema propune un schimb util de experiență între specialiști, precum şi posibilitatea examinării procesului de predare-însușire-evaluare a românei ca limbă străină, în raport cu nivelul european actual. Odată cu liberalizarea frontierelor și a circulației, a posibilității de a intra în contact cu diferite culturi și mentalități, oamenii au devenit din ce în ce mai doritori să învețe cât mai multe limbi străine. Acestea își demonstrează din ce în ce mai mult rolul de conectori culturali, mijloace prolifice de comunicare interculturală și de căi de acces la patrimoniul cultural și lingvistic global. Realitatea momentului se deschide spre cunoașterea reciprocă a atât de multor culturi, în dorința comună de a realiza un dialog transcontinental, armonios și coerent. Plecând de aici, utilizarea limbii române apare ca unul dintre cele mai dezirabile și utile instrumente de mediere culturală și socială, ca factor eficient pentru soluționarea noilor cerințe ale mediului socio-uman. Dialogul intercultural câștigă noi perspective, iar acest fapt solicită și stimulează perfecționarea modalităților de însușire a mecanismelor necesare comunicării lingvistice. Organizatorii
The second session of the GlobalMed network research seminar will be held on 16 May 2025 at the École française d’Athènes, starting at 14:30 EEST (Eastern European Summer Time). Organised in hybrid format, it is accessible by videoconference upon registration (see link or QR Code on the attached programme).
This session, co-organised with the École française d’Athènes and the University of Macedonia, will focus on the theme of ‘Imperialism’.
The aim of this session is to take account of the historiographical and epistemological dynamism surrounding the notions of empire and imperialism, and its effects on Mediterranean studies. By examining situations spread over the long term, whether they place the Mediterranean in relation to the rest of the world or call for comparisons between the Mediterranean and other areas, we will address the dual question of the universal nature of the notions of empire and imperialism (are their definitions valid in all times and places?) and the reasons for their mobilization in certain situations and under certain conditions in the production of knowledge about history and societies. We will also examine the relationship between the notions of empire and imperialism and other categories (kingdom, nation and nationalism, capitalism, colonies and colonialism), and question the discrepancy – where tension does not exclude porosity – between their use as descriptive or analytical categories on the one hand, and as categories of political action on the other.
You are cordially invited to attend and take part in the debates.
