PAPER AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN YOKOHAMA
On February 24-25, Dr. Mykola Riabchuk, a Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Political Culture and Ideology, took part in a two-day conference „Challenges of Ukrainian Culture: Beyond the Times of Upheaval”, organized at the Keio University in Yokohama. On the second day of the event he presented a paper titled “Ukraine: Unmuted. The Toxic Spell of “Imperial Knowledge” and Challenges of Decolonization”.
His primary focus was on the ongoing processes of disassembling of Russian imperial legacy in both Ukraine and abroad – in mental and linguistic clichés, academic curricula, and various mechanisms of knowledge production and distribution. While any colonial power strives to deprive subjugated nations of their political agency, cultural viability and psychological self-confidence, the main goal of national liberation is to get unmuted, to acquire distinct visibility and to assume political agency beyond anybody’s „sphere of influence”.