International Conference
“Identity and Identity Needs Among Culturally Diverse Communities of the Eastern EU Borderland”
November 22nd-23rd, 2019, Bialystok, Poland

Conference Programme

November 22nd, 2019
9.00-10.00 Registration [The University Culture Centre, University of Bialystok]

10.00- 10.30 Opening and Welcome

10.30- 12.20 Session 1: Borders: Diversity of Images and Discourses

David Newman (Ben-Gurion University): Research Agendas in Contemporary Border Studies

Lyudmila Austin (Michigan State University): Migration, Nation and Selfhood in the Northern Caucasus Borderland since Perestroika.

Oliver Kriska, Dávid Bende (University of Szeged): The Formation of the Hungarian-Serbian Frontier Zone

Basia Nikiforova (Lithuanian Culture Research Institute): The Zigzag of Will Kymlicka’ Multiculturalism: from Human Rights to Animal Rights.

Iwona Leonowicz-Bukała, Kamil Łuczaj, Olga Kurek-Ochmańska (University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow): Creativity Transfer in the Borderlands? The Case of Commuting Professors

12.20- 13.00 Ethno-Project in Kruszyniany There is Something Extraordinary About This Village. Presentation by Kaja Kojder, Stowarzyszenie „Pracownia Etnograficzna”
For centuries, Kruszyniany was a village of Poles, Belarusians and Jews, who belonged to Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, and Catholicism. The aim of the ethno-project in Kruszyniany is to show the multicultural character of the village and to give its inhabitants tools to talk about their heritage.

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
14.00 – 15.20 Session 2: Reflections on Historical Memory and Myths

Toni Muñoz-Hunt, Aztlán (University of Texas at Dallas): From Mythos to Logos

Kinga Połyńczuk-Alenius (University of Helsinki): Ambivalently Multicultural: Reflections on the Conditional Embrace of the Jewish Past in the Local Identity of Bialystok

Katarzyna Niziołek (University of Bialystok): Assemblage of Memory. A Female Experience of Memory Transmission and Performance

15.20-16.00 Coffee Break

16.00- 18.00 Bieżenki Research Project
The video is a documentation of the theatre performance “Bieżenki” – a public effect of an interdisciplinary research project – filmed by Marcin Góralski and Paulina Tumiel-Góralska at the premiere of the performance in June 2018, in Bialystok, Poland. Time: 1h35m. English subtitles.

November 23rd, 2019

10.30- 12.40 Session 3: The Culturally Distinct Inhabitants and their Multifarious Identity Needs
Ewa Dąbrowska – Prokopowska (University of Bialystok): Models of Local Identity of Borderland Inhabitants with Reference to the Theory of Complex Systems and Culture Evolution

Karolina Radłowska (University of Bialystok): Identities of the Polish Tatars

Kelsey Weber (University College London): Practices of Belonging: Identity Among Polish Tatars

Andrzej Nikitorowicz (State Higher Vocational School of prof. Edward F. Szczepanik in Suwalki): Transformations of Identity Needs on the Example of the Ukrainian Minority in the Podlasie Voivodship

Jakub Barszczewski (University of Bialystok): Between the Two Worlds – Indigenous Peoples Struggles for Recognition in Latin America

Distributed Papers:

Andrzej Sadowski (University of Bialystok): Borderland Identity and the Identity Needs of Residents

Urszula Abłażewicz- Górnicka, Aleksandra Porankiewicz- Żukowska (University of Bialystok): Emotional Capital in Late Modernity: the Role of Emotional Competencies in the Context of Cultural Diversity

12.40-13.30 Lunch
13.30- 15.00 Borderlands Studies: From Past to Future

Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly (President of the Association for Borderlands Studies, University of Victoria):
Border studies: new questions, new hypothesis
Lessons from Borders in Globalization – Canada’s largest border studies program

Małgorzata Bieńkowska (University of Bialystok): Sociology of Borderlands – Studies by the Bialystok Sociological Community

15.00-15.30 Coffee Break
16.00-21.00 Tour of Tykocin (The Great Synagogue) and Banquet