Between area studies and critical theories: why/if the no-longer-post-soviet area is still a conceptual void?

Lamentations of the non-existence of the former second world in the new dichotomous North/South conceptual framework have continued for over three decades. The Russian/Soviet studies have shared the birthmarks of area studies as such, with their colonialist and ideologically bound geopolitical roots, barely hidden objective of studying the enemy and mostly descriptive, instrumental types of analysis devoid of self-critique. Opening the canon, questioning hierarchies, introducing postcolonial, decolonial, gender, critical race, new materialist and other lenses have started here with delay, largely by force, and in a very specific political context. In fact, only the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 became a real trigger for updating Russian/Soviet/Eurasian studies and bringing them closer to the current political-theoretical debates. However, this updating happens in fits and the accelerated appropriation of the main theoretical fruit tears them out of their context and is done mechanistically and superficially. This is evident in the current avalanche of hasty studies attempting to apply postcolonial, decolonial, queer or new materialist theory to Russia and its former and current colonies without the necessary meta-critique of one's own non-innocent disciplinary foundations. But how relevant are these theories in the context of the Russian/Soviet empire and the current neo-imperial formation and its satellites? Perhaps it would be more fruitful to nurture a different theoretical platform growing out of the local histories, trajectories, and contexts, which requires an in-depth conceptualization from within, though in dialogue with the existing cutting-edge global theoretical debates? Such a balanced approach grounded in decolonizing research methodologies, rather than merely adding new content, could help in getting out of the void which currently refers not only to a lack of interest in the former second world but also to the fact that it is not considered a producer of theory. Such rethinking will inevitably have to be meta-critical, questioning the legitimacy of area studies in the current epistemic conditions, and asking to what extent are area studies subject to decolonization, and whether it is possible to study Russia and its colonies without reproducing coloniality of knowledge? The lecture will reflect on these complex and overlapping issues.

Madina Tlostanova is a feminist thinker and fiction writer, professor of postcolonial feminisms at Linköping University. Her research interests focus on decoloniality, social movements and theories of the Global South; the postsocialist human condition, fiction, and art; critical future inquiries and critical interventions into complexity, crisis, and change. Tlostanova`s numerous works have been translated into many languages. Her most recent books include Postcolonialism and Postsocialism in Fiction and Art: Resistance and Re-existence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), What does it mean to be Post-Soviet? Decolonial Art from the Ruins of the Soviet Empire (Duke University Press, 2018), A new Political Imagination, Making the Case (co-authored with Tony Fry, Routledge, 2020), Decoloniality of Knowledge, Being and Sensing (Centre of Contemporary Culture Tselinny, Kazakhstan, 2020, Kazakhian translation - 2023), and Narratives of Unsettlement. Being Out-of-joint as a Generative Human Condition (Routledge, 2023). Currently she is working on a book on the stateless future.