After four years of researching the dynamics of conflict and cooperation, the first funding period of the BMFTR-funded KonKoop research network is coming to an end. Our closing conference will showcase what our researchers have achieved during that time. There will also be space for critical reflections on the work of the two labs that support our research activities: the Multi-Perspective Visualisation Laboratory for Peace and Conflict Cartography and the Multi-Method Data Laboratory for Conflict and Cooperation in Eastern Europe.
The five conference panels are organised around the questions and issues that have preoccupied us to date:
- Water and the dynamics of conflict and cooperation between local communities and state actors in Central Asia and (South) Eastern Europe
- The role of contested symbols and narratives in political discourse and memory politics, with examples from Eastern and Southeastern Europe
- Russia’s new position in the world after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine
- The political economy of conflict dynamics, with insights from our research on de-facto states
- The practical and epistemological challenges of transforming complex social phenomena into data, with reference to the work of the two crosscutting labs and the visualisation approaches used in KonKoop projects.
As well as marking the end of our first funding period, the conference will be a fitting segue into the next one. Together with our many partners, we will use the opportunity to discuss how best to secure our results – especially with a view to the methodological and practical advice we can give to future endeavours in Peace and Conflict Studies in Eastern Europe and beyond.
Programme:
24 February 2026
Supporting programme at ZOiS
3pm
Getting started with your PhD-project in the Humanities or Social Sciences (Event for prospective PhD students)
6pm
Opening at BBAW
The Long Shadow of War: Learning from History for Russia’s War against Ukraine
WithJosip Glaurdić (University of Luxembourg), Anne Deighton (University of Oxford), Oleksandr Zabirko (University of Regensburg/ Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Science’s Young Network TransEurope), Chair: Gwendolyn Sasse(ZOiS)
25 February 2026
All-day Output Station “Visualising Conflict/Peace: An Incomplete Atlas of Conflict and Cooperation in Eastern Europe” (IfL)at the premises of ZOiS
9.30am – 9.40am Opening by Jan C. Behrends (ZZF/ Viadrina)
9.40am – 11.00am Panel 1
Contested Symbols, Memory, and the Politics of Ambiguity
Katarina Damčević (IOS): Ambiguity as Strategy: Semiotic Gaslighting in Post-Conflict Memory Politics
Nicola Gajić (IOS): Is There a Freedom of Nationhood? Imposed Memory, Patriotic Gatekeeping, and Protest Politics in Serbia
Eric Gordy (SSEES): Holding on to the Bad Memory: How Regimes use Denial for Legitimation
Chair/ Discussant: Tsypylma Darieva (ZOiS)
11 – 11.30am Coffee Break
11.30am – 1pm Panel 2
The Russia Question Beyond Ukraine: Global Repositioning of a State at War
Maria Raquel Freire (University of Coimbra): Anti-colonial rhetoric, imperial practice: Russia’s African strategy
Andreas C. Goldthau(University of Erfurt): Destabilization, Disruption and Disorder. Russia’s Geopolitical Strategy
Géza Tasner (FSU Jena): Russia in the South Caucasus: The Future of the Middle Corridor Amid Regional Turmoil
Sebastian Hoppe (ZOiS): (Geo)political Flexibility vs. Extractive Exhaustion. Unpacking the Adaptive Capacity of Wartime Russia
Chair: Andrea Gawrich (JLU Gießen)
Discussant: Jan C. Behrends (ZZF/ Viadrina)
1pm – 2pm Lunch
2pm – 3:30pm Panel 3
The political economy of conflict dynamics: Insights from de-facto state research
Lena Pieber (ZOiS): Economic Agency of De Facto States
Julia Langbein, Sabine von Löwis, Ivaylo Dinev (all ZOiS), Maxim Slav (National Institute for Economic Research, Academy for Economic Studies of Moldova): Between the EU and Russia: Business Perspectives on Economic (Dis)Integration in Moldova and its Transnistrian Region
Prof. Magdalena Dembinska (University of Montreal): Business as Usual: Transnistrian Entrepreneurs in a Two-Level-Game (post-2022)
Discussant: Stefan Wolff (University of Birmingham)
3:30pm – 4pm Coffee Break
4pm – 5.30pm Panel 4
Water and Resource Imaginaries in (Post)Conflict Contexts
Flora Roberts (Utrecht University): Aging Dams, Fresh Concerns: Towards a Political Ecology of Soviet Water Infrastructure in the Ferghana Valley
Mela Zuljevic (IfL): Mapping Legacies of War and Resistance to Extractivism in the Riverscapes of BiH
Nafisa Mirzojamshedzoda (HNEE/ University of Fribourg): Invisible Flows: Informality and Water Management in the Downstream Fergana Valley
Oleksandra Shumilova (Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB)): Water Resources and Infrastructure in Times of War: What has been Learned after Four Years of the Russia-Ukraine Armed Conflict
Chair: Martin Welp (HNEE)
Discussant: Jenniver Sehring (IHE Delft)
5.30pm – 6pm Coffee Break
6pm Output Stations
KonKoop Research Map:A Tool for Navigating Peace and Conflict Studies in Eastern and Southeast Europe (Katarina Damčević/ IOS) – Library
From Data Catalogues to Mapping Protest Waves: How to Build a Platform for Data on Conflict, Cooperation, and Protest (Ivaylo Dinev/ ZOiS) – K3
Active (Citizen) – Can Anyone Be an Activist? Multi-screen Video Installation(Piotr Goldstein/ZOiS) and Jan Lorenz (UAM Poznań) – K1/K2
6.30pm Final Panel
DataLab and VisLab: Infrastructures for Reflexivity and Criticality in Peace and Conflict Research (Labs)
With:
Mela Žuljević (IfL), Ivaylo Dinev (ZOiS), Iaroslav Boretskii (ZOiS), Nafisa Mirzojamshedzoda (HNEE), Chair: Kerstin Bischl (ZOiS)
8pm Reception
