GRIP
GRIP
GRIP welcomes all to a breakfast seminar at Bergen Global (and Zoom) Friday 9th of December 08:30 – 09:30.
Citizenship, with its legal elements as well as formal and informal practices, signifies and outlines relationship between the state and society. Different political regimes allow for different practices and experiences of citizenship and although citizenship might appear as something static and fixed, it is actually constantly being re-negotiated as spaces of and for citizenship are both expanding and shrinking.
Reports highlighting the increase of autocratic and repressive regimes worldwide raise concerns regarding the decline of political rights and enclosures of spaces for political action. At the same time, large scale political protests are taking place challenging the authorities in instances where they seem to be losing their legitimacy and people´s trust.
This seminar looks at different practices of citizenship in the context of repressive political regimes and post-authoritarian regimes to explore the ways people are negotiating relationship with the state. What kind of political actions do people engage in under authoritarian regimes? Is there a space for resistance and maneuvering under strongly repressive regimes? What happens in the moments of failing state legitimacy?
By looking at people´s initiatives in engaging in symbolic resistance acts under repressive regimes and people´s engagement in the cases where the state fails to represent the people, this conversation will explore how people are maneuvering a changing landscape and changing relations between the state and the people by drawing on examples from Qatar, Egypt and Georgia.
Giorgi Cheishvili is a social anthropologist and his research covers topics such as state, nationalism, citizenship and borders. He has conducted extensive ethnographic research in Georgia and Turkey. He holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Bergen (Norway) and is currently a visiting lecturer at Tbilisi State University (Georgia).
Mari Norbakk is social anthropologist at Chr. Michelsens Institute and her work is focused on the Middle East, specifically Egypt and Qatar as well as migrant communities in Norway. Research interests include masculinities, marriage, gender, women’s rights, revolutionary practice, class, capital and migration.
Elina Troscenko (moderator) is the Head of the GRIP Secretariat. In her academic work she has been focusing on Soviet legacies in the Baltics, the Caucasus and Central Asia exploring issues relating to borders, citizenship and bureaucratic practices of the state in relation to marginalized populations.
This event is a collaboration between GRIP and CMI and is a part of Political Projects and New Forms of Citizenship project.
