The decolonization of education and research in Belarus and Ukraine: theoretical challenges and practical tasks

ABSTRACT

A conference held at the European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania) in late September 2023 brought together scholars and practitioners from countries directly implicated by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The conference’s rationale was to re-examine the social structures and content of knowledge production and dissemination in countries that used to be categorized as “the post-Soviet region” at a time when the former metropole weaponizes the humanities for justifying the war and re-colonizing newly occupied territories. With reference to the agenda formulated by such decolonial scholars as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Madina Tlostanova, and Walter Mignolo – to “decolonize the mind” and to delink from hegemonic narratives and structures of power-knowledge imposed from the imperial centre – the participants discussed possibilities for future cooperation in a de-centred, horizontal manner, and they attempted to outline new epistemologies that derive from re-discovering themselves and communicating their emergent identities outwards. Standing as a decolonizing gesture itself, the conference created a multilingual space where participants communicated in their mother tongues to express perspectives embedded in their local experiences. The conference was co-sponsored by the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv) and Charles University (Prague) with the financial support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, administered by the American Council of Learned Societies.

RÉSUMÉ

Une conférence organisée à l’Université européenne des sciences humaines (Vilnius, Lituanie) à la fin du mois de septembre 2023 a rassemblé des universitaires et des praticiens de pays concernés par l’invasion à grande échelle de l’Ukraine par la Russie. L’objectif de la conférence était de réexaminer les conditions de production et de diffusion des connaissances dans les pays dits « post-soviétiques » à un moment où l’ancienne métropole utilise les sciences humaines comme arme pour justifier la guerre et recoloniser les territoires nouvellement occupés. En s’inspirant des propositions des chercheurs tels que Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Madina Tlostanova et Walter Mignolo pour « décoloniser l’esprit » et se détacher des structures de pouvoir et de connaissance imposées par le centre impérial, les participants ont discuté des possibilités de coopération décentrée et horizontale, et ils ont esquissé de nouvelles épistémologies qui dérivent de l’expression de leurs identités émergentes. La conférence a créé un espace où les participants ont communiqué dans leur langue maternelle afin d’exprimer des points de vue ancrés dans leurs expériences locales. La conférence était coparrainée par l’Université catholique ukrainienne (Lviv) et l’Université Charles (Prague) avec le soutien financier de la Carnegie Corporation de New York, administrée par l’American Council of Learned Societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Decolonization
• Belarus
• Ukraine
• education
• epistemology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See, for example, Snyder, “War in Ukraine”; and Michel, “Decolonize Russia.”

2. Quoted in Mignolo and Nanibush, “Thinking and Engaging,” 26.

3. See, for example, Kalmar, White but Not Quite; and Riabchuk, “Bila shkira, chorna mova.”

4. Ngũgĩ, Decolonizing the Mind.

5. See Ghilarducci, “(Un)representing Belarus(ianness).”

6. Konarzewska, Schahadat, and Weller, Alles ist teurer.

7. Korablyova, “Why Is Ukraine Important?”

8. Shparaga, “Postsovetskie soobshchestva.”

9. See Tlostanova and Mignolo, Learning to Unlearn.

10. In addition, video recordings of the plenary sessions are available on YouTube: at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd4wogygUC4, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmPJ-zBsCyU, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYUe4YGNlfY. Further materials can be found on the conference website: https://www.vilniusdecolonization.com/.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Rectorate of Charles University (4EU+/UA/F2/08).

Notes on contributors

Valeria Korablyova

Valeria Korablyova is an assistant professor in the Department of Russian and East European Studies and the head of the “Ukraine in a Changing Europe” Research Centre, both in the Institute of International Studies at Charles University in Prague. Holding a Doctor of Science degree from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (2015), she has held visiting positions at Stanford University, the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the University of Basel, Justus Liebig University in Giessen, and other institutions. Her research focuses on post-Soviet transformations in Ukraine and the wider region, with a special focus on mass protests, grassroots nation-building, and colonial/imperial legacies.