Lecture and Discussion

Self-Organization on Maidan (Ukraine)

The Maidan protests in Ukraine remain one of the key talking points in russian propaganda. Narratives about a far-right coup, about Ukraine as a puppet of the US and Europe, and about the oppression of the russian-speaking population were activated precisely at that time and are still being promoted by the ideologues of the “russian world” not only in russia, but also abroad.

On 12th December we are meeting with researcher Dr. Emily Channell-Justice, who was present at the Maidan in 2013-2014 and interviewed left-wing activists. Together, we’ll explore the forms of self-organization that took shape during the protests and how the experiences of the Maidan and earlier protest cycles have shaped contemporary leftist activism in Ukraine.

The lecture will be followed with the discussion, where we’ll reflect on a central question: How can progressive movements in Europe understand these events in a historically grounded and politically meaningful way?

Dr. Emily Channell-Justice is the Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University and a sociocultural anthropologist whose work focuses on political activism and social movements in Ukraine. She is the author of Without the State: Self-Organization and Political Activism in Ukraine, awarded the 2023 AAUS Book Prize. Her research explores how self-organization emerges when people take responsibility for what needs to be done simply because they have the ability to do it.

The event is organized by the collective Good Night Imperial Pride (Berlin) - https://t.me/gnimperialpride

with the support of  Cultures of rememberence (https://cultures-of-remembrance.com/en/) and Educat