Dr. Ekaterina Mikhailova

Coordination of Young Researchers and Researcher, IOS (until Dec. 2023)

• A5: Ethnic Minorities in Border Regions – Potential for Conflict or Cooperation? – Workshop (with Beate Eschment and  Sabine von Löwis, ZOiS)
• E1: Sovereignty Exercises at post-Soviet Borderlands: (Re)defining the Centre, (Re)connecting the Periphery (with Cindy Wittke)

Ekaterina Mikhailova is a Political Geographer working at the crossroads of Post-Soviet Area Studies, Border Studies and Governance.

Ekaterina studied Public Administration at Lomonosov Moscow State University and holds a doctorate in Human Geography from the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences. Before joining IOS, Ekaterina worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Eastern Finland (Finland, 2018-2019), University of Geneva and Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (both in Switzerland, 2020-2022).

As a Postdoctoral Researcher at the IOS Regensburg, Ekaterina examines comparatively how post-Soviet borders in selected countries – Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and Ukraine, Belarus and Russia – have been oscillating between conflict and cooperation in practice, border-related narratives and imaginaries produced by elites and borderlanders.

In addition to her research project, Ekaterina coordinates the KonKoop junior research group and plays a central role in creating a database of knowledge-production centres for Peace and Conflict Studies in Eastern Europe.

• sovereignty
• territorial identiy
• centre-periphery relations
• border communities
• Post-Soviet / post-colonial
• Post-Soviet borders
• Central Asia

Mikhailova, Ekaterina. Broadcast. An essay for the Volumetric Sovereignty forum. Part 1: Cartography vs. Volumes. Society and Space, 2019

Mikhailova, Ekaterina; Garrad, John (eds). Twin Cities: Urban Communities, Borders and Relationships over Time. London: Routledge, 2018