Relocation: Professional Trajectories and Life Stories

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

The roundtable explores the phenomenon of ‘relocation’ (or exodus) from their native countries of thousands of academic professionals, intellectuals, and literarti after the rigged election and violence in Belarus in 2020 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The events that pushed out Ukrainian refugees are unprecedented; Belarusians and Russians mostly left either to escape persecution and incarceration or in disagreement with the politics of their governments and in solidarity with the Ukrainian cause; many are active in helping war refugees. The issues pursued in the discussion mostly concern their professional and intellectual trajectories in the new situation.

Sub Unit

• International Relations, Security Studies, Foreign Policy

Chair

• Elena Gapova, Western Michigan U / European Humanities U (Lithuania)

Roundtable Members

• Maria Mayofis, Amherst College

• Sciapan Sturejka, European Humanities U (Lithuania)

• Jessica Zychowicz, U.S. Fulbright Program / Institute of International Education (Ukraine)