Conference "Sustaining collective struggles in times of multiple crises" 24-25 September 2026
Address: Södertörn University, Alfred Nobels Allé 7, Flemingsberg/Stockholm
DAY 1: THURSDAY 24 September 2026 | room MA796, main building, 7th floor, CBEES
9:00-10:00 Registering & breakfast
10:00-10:30 Welcome and presentation of Södertörn University and the project
10:30-12:30 SESSION 1: Contesting Extraction and Advancing Environmental Justice
Discussant: Ioana Florea
Presentations:
1. Giustina Selvelli: Sustaining Collective Struggles in Extractive Regions: Minority Mobilisation and Eco-Cultural Survival in East-Central Europe
2. Sonja Dragović: Holding the Line: Sustaining Anti-Extractivist Struggles in Montenegro
3. Rositsa Kratunkova: Environmental justice in Bulgaria: new forms of water activism
4. Ágnes Gagyi & Lela Rekhviashvili: Green investment conflicts at the EU’s eastern peripheries
12:30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:30 KEYNOTE 1 "Contesting interregnum: fragile movements in uncertain times - a perspective from an East European semiperiphery"
Speaker: Enikő Vincze, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania
14:30-15:00 Fika
15:00-17:00 SESSION 2: Rethinking Activism in Times of Crisis: Strategy, Conflict, and Resilience
Discussant: Anna Ratecka
Presentations:
1. Anna Uhnák Kárník: Configurations of Transformative Resilience in Central European Climate Movement Organisations
2. Virginia Brenner Music: Environmental Engagement in Times of Multiple Crisis: Grassroot Mobilisation, Trauma Healing, and Peacebuilding in the Western Balkans
3. Aleksandra Prusak: Activism or Extremism? Exploring of the role of the Last Generation movement in the context of the conflict over climate policy in Poland.
4. Bernadett Sebály: “What If Our Strategy Was Wrong?” A Critical Reflection on Progressive Housing Struggles in Hungary in the Aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crisis
17:10-18:30 ROUNDTABLE "Infrastructuring for Engagement: How is Collective Action Sustained in Post-Collective Contexts?
Participants: Ioana Florea, Elzbieta Korolczuk, Michaela Pixová, Dominika V. Polanska, Anna Ratecka, Ana Vilenica
20:15 Dinner
DAY 2: FRIDAY 25 September 2026 | room MA796
8:30-9:00 Breakfast
9:00-11:00 SESSION 3: Cultivating Resilience: Food, Ecology, and Community
Discussant: Michaela Pixová
Presentations:
1. Lilian Pungas: Unlikely yet Urgent? Agonistic Alliances for a Good Life in post-socialist Europe
2. Marine Elbakidze, Oksana Pelyukh, Nataliya Stryamets & Madeleine Bonow: Greening in turbulent times: insights into civic ecology practices across Ukraine
3. Aleksandra Markovic & Vera Backović: The Potential and Constraints of Collective Action in Serbian Agriculture: Farmers' Protest in February/March 2026
4. Róbert Schumann & Judit Zatykó: Solidarity-Based Housing and the Limits of Volunteer Care in Hungary
11:15-12:15 KEYNOTE 2 "Theorization of civil society in CEE: Present standing and future directions"
Speaker: Kerstin Jacobsson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
12:15-13:15 Lunch
13:15-15:15 SESSION 4: Sustaining Feminist and Anti-Authoritarian Resistance
Discussant: Elzbieta Korolczuk
Presentations:
1. Lena Sotevik, Anna Bednarczyk, Justyna Sturzik & Malena Gustavson: How to Research Collective Struggles in Times of Hope(lessness)? Methodological Reflections from Creative Workshops with Young LGBTQI+ People in Poland and Sweden
2. Magdaléna Michlová: We Have Never Been Safe: Feminist Student Activism Imagining and Doing Academia Otherwise in Post-Socialist Eastern Europe
3. Bojana Radovanović, Jelena Vasiljević & Sara Nikolić: Civic Agency in Captured States: The Ambivalence of Bottom-Up Mobilization in Serbia
4. Valentina Bonizzi: Sustaining Feminist Civil Society in Albania: Funding, Solidarity, and Gender Backlash
15:15-15:30 Fika
15:30-16:30 Wrapping up and planning ahead
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Note: the conference is free of charge, but in order to attend please send an email to: sustainactionconference@gmail.com
The conference was supported by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies
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