Wednesday, 26. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 10.00 – 12.00

• Borka Pavićević, Centre for Cultural Decontamination, Serbia
• Manuela Bojadžijev, Humboldt University, Germany
• Nita Luci, University of Prishtina, Kosovo
• Florence Hartmann, journalist and human rights activist, France

Moderator: Lana Zdravković, Peace Institute, Slovenia

Borka Pavićević is a founder and director of the Centre for Cultural Decontamination – Veljković Pavilion, Belgrade, Serbia since 1994. She has been a stage director in Theater “Atelier 212″, Belgrade (10 years) and in BITEF, Belgrade’s annual international festival of avant-garde theater (20 years) as well as in various theaters in former Yugoslavia (1978-1991). She was a part of the artistic movement KPGT – acronym for the word “theater” in Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Slovenian and Macedonian languages (1984-1991), and was artistic director in Belgrade Drama Theater, from where she was removed in 1993 because of her public and political statements. She is the founder of “New Sensibility” theatre at old Belgrade brewery (1981) and the co-president and founder of “Belgrade Circle”, an organization of independent intellectuals.

Borka is a regular columnist in newspapers: Susret, Vreme (since its inception) and Danas. Her published works include essays: At X: Post-Dayton Fashion (Novi Pazar 1998) and Fashion (Belgrade 1994); ‘Do you remember?’ in The Other Serbia (Belgrade 1992); and many articles in newspapers, magazines and journals. Translated works include, as co-author, Belgrad, mein Belgrad, edited by Ursula Rutten (Rotbuch Verlag, Hamburg 1998). Since 1991 she is one of the most engaged public personae participated in different anti-war actions in whole former Yugoslavia. She is recipient of the “Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theater” (New York 2000); the “Hiroshima Foundation Prize for Peace and Culture” (2004); the “Winning Freedom Prize”, by the Maja Maršićević Tasić Foundation (Belgrade 2005); “Routes Award” by ECF, (Amsterdam 2009/2010), and the “Legion d’Honneur” by the Government of the Republic of France (2001).

The topic or field of meaning, of Europe 2020, and the future of the European Union, is of great importance, especially because the ideas of how to continue living together in the consistently growing numbers of humanity and the incessantly decreasing resources are essential, in terms of the everyday, which, of course, depends on the ideas of reality, or how we think reality.

Reality, on the one hand, is more complex and rich with much novelty, and on the other challenging and exciting. At the same time, events that we certainly did not expect shed light on the cumulative work “time on the understanding of reality” that is, everything that we did not notice it, and there was. Brecht’s “small street scene”, the event that is a warning, often remains unreadable – firstly because reading it takes will and secondly because the principle of survival stand before the fullness of life.

It is quite logical this conference refers to Balibar – European nations, or citizens of Europe. Somewhere nineties Agnes Heller said that with the fall of the idea of ​​progress in Yugoslavia, Europe would be confronted with the movement for which she thought were long outdated, religious, ethnic and nationalist. Therefore, it is possible to experience the breakup of Yugoslavia, or the war for the destruction of Yugoslavia can be a valuable resource for the future “development” in Europe and the question of its meaning, in addition to economic, market, commercial trends.

Manuela Bojadžijev is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for European Ethnology at the Humboldt University Berlin, Germany. Before that, she has been working as a Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK and at the New York University Branch in Berlin. She teaches courses in social and political theory, migration theory and history, postcolonial theory, urbanism, racism theory, ethnographic methodology and culture. Bojadžijev co-edited the book Konjunkturen des Rassismus (Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster 2001), and Turbulente Ränder. Neue Perspektiven auf Migration an den Grenzen Europas (Transcript, Bielefeld 2007). Her single-authored book, Die windige Internationale. Rassismus und Kämpfe der Migration is published by Westfälisches Dampfboot in 2008.

In my contribution I want to reflect on the social struggles in metropolitan zones. I will take it as an occasion for addressing some questions in the theoretical debates about the ‚political’ in Europe today. I will start by recalling the November 2005 uprisings in the French banlieues and draw connections to the August 2011 revolts in the UK. In both situations the question discussed in the broader public has been: What do these young people want? Is this a “yet to be politicized” form of articulation? While I will discuss these questions by looking into the conditions of the crisis of capital, global migration and the emergence of transnational spaces, the current conjuncture of racism in Europe belongs to my main focus: How does it intervene in the constitution of political communities? And what will we do about it?

Nita Luci is a lecturer at the Departments of Ethnology and Sociology, University of Prishtina, Kosovo, and ABD in the Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan -Ann Arbor, USA. Her research has focused on topics of gender and manhood, body, memory, and violence. In addition to her academic pursuits and career, she has also worked with initiatives in the area of contemporary art (such as editing the publication of four supplements in the daily Koha Ditore, titled ‘Women n/or Witches, Focusing on Issues of Representation, Feminism and Art’). She is also a member of the network “Forum 2015”, and a former advisor for the UNDP project Women’s Safety and Security Initiative. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, her recent publications include: Kosovo: Un/welcomed Guests; NATO Intervention in Kosovo; Events and sites of difference: Mark-ing self and other in Kosovo; and The Politics of Remembrance and Belonging: Life Histories of Albanian Women in Kosovo.

A debate between writers Ismail Kadare (Albania) and Rexhep Qosja (Kosovo) developed during 2006, at the moment when Albania was preparing to enter an EU Stabilization and Association Agreement cantered on elaborations of the Occidental and Oriental character of Albanian culture and was subsequently joined by the wider public. Kadare argued that Albanian culture was in its foundations and history European. Qosja, on the other hand, pointed to the relevance of historical influences from the Ottoman Empire, arguing against Kadare’s essentialism, but added that Ottoman “leftovers” are “examples of non-Europe” that do not belong in Albanian culture. Enis Sulstarova, a historian, has treated these seemingly opposing arguments as an expression of “an Albanian derivation from European Occidentalism,” specifically of its intellectuals. Placed in the context of Kosovo, this debate revealed as much about the social and political anxieties of cultural association with the Orient, as acceptance to the Occident.

Therefore, this paper aims to identify and interrogate the politics of culture underlying the intellectual positions of this debate, and what they may tell us about hopes for accession to the European Union. In particular, the paper argues that post-war and post-socialist restructurings have created new class distinctions in Kosovo, albeit rarely recognized, where the promise of European belonging – as a solution to unemployment, free movement, and cultural distinction – creates an economy of social practices that mesh with clashing historical, cultural, and political ideologies.

Florence Hartmann started her carrier at the French daily Le Monde for which she covered the war in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina as its special correspondent in the Balkans until 1994 and later as Le Monde special envoys. In 1999, she published in France a political biography of Slobodan Milosevic, Milosevic, la diagonale du fou (Denoël/Gallimard) in which she revealed how Belgrade strong man was involved in the war and the crimes committed in Serbia’s neighbouring countries.

In 2000, she left Le Monde in Paris to become the ICTY and ICTR chief prosecutor‘s spokesperson and Balkan advisor under the mandate of Carla Del Ponte. In 2007, a year after she left The Hague, she published Paix et Châtiment (Flammarion), a book on the conflicts between international justice and international politics which was also translated into Slovene and issued by Sanje in Slovenia in 2009. Florence Hartmann has since return to journalism and research on international affairs and post-conflict management. She is also member of the Serbian NGO Humanitarian Law Centre executive board.

Will European construction ideals survive the current financial and social crisis, the most serious Europe has ever faced?  Before a reasoned answer could be formulated we can observe the failure to crystallize European identity or consciousness, the failure to share common and complex memories, the strengthening of asymmetric relations, the increasing reinforcement of the “us” vs. “them” mentality in European societies, and the firm believes of the “3 Bigs” (France, the UK, Germany) that multiculturalism is a failed model. In other words, will the European integration process succeed to create security and stability in the Balkan States before Europe enters a process of fragmentation and dissolution as the Former Yugoslavia in 1990-1991? I will reflect on the path taken by Europe between the fall of the Berlin Wall and Utoya.

Wednesday, 26. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 12.30 – 14.30

• Iskra Geshovska, Kontrapunkt, Macedonia
• Rael Artel, independent curator, Estonia
• Julia Kümmel, political activist, Germany
• Francesca Vanoni, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, Italy

Moderator: Gordan Bosanac, Centre for Peace Studies, Croatia

Iskra Geshoska is executive director of NGO Kontrapunkt (Cultural Centre Tochka), since its establishing in 2001. She is working in the field of cultural policy especially concerning the issue of independent cultural scene. She was consultant in the Ministry of Culture of Macedonia in the period of 2002-2006. She is publishing essays and theoretical overviews concerning cultural studies, contemporary theory of art, culture and media and performing arts. She was leader and initiator of many national and regional projects concerning the development of alternative cultural policies and new formats in self-organized non-institutional hybrid and critical acting in society. At the moment she is running the three year regional project Deschooling Classroom in partnership with TkH collective from Belgrade, Serbia.

Responsible citizenship requires… the ability to assess historical evidence, to use and think critically about economic principles, to compare differing views of social justice, to speak a foreign language, to appreciate the complexities of the major world religions. A catalogue of facts without the ability to assess them, or to understand how a narrative is assembled from evidence, is almost as bad as ignorance.

This extract from Martha Nussbaum’s powerful and provocative book Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities might be considered as a starting point in the journey where the new political creativity should be found. Can the civil sector be considered as a fragment of that “new political creativity”? There are several dilemmas connected to a critical socio-cultural and dialogical role of the independent, civil engagement in the frames of political relevance.

In this brief presentation I will try to relate several ideas about the potentials inherent to the solidarity as a fundamental principle of a civil society in contradiction of neo-liberal paradigm. How solidarity, as an important aspect of the layer called civil society, creates a new subjectivity, a different identity. We live within a context of political fictions which, rather than for consisted, structured, allow schizophrenic motion through the pseudo-systems of the society. We are illuminated by the disorder of our societies which take more than they give. We face unclear border of activity/action which lack clearly marked transitions from one zone to another. In such political phantasmagoric conditions, self-organized auto-reflexive initiative is the only way out of the political and intellectual entropy. The self-organizing which have a clear and firm concept, which surpasses the sub-standard models offered by the institutions of power, are the options through which the traditional societal and symbolic structures transcend from ultimately dysfunctional into acceptably efficient and functional ones.

The “revolution”, dialog, solidarity, civil society, does not consist just of odes and proclamations and manifestos. The task is not only to carry out the evolution, but also to correct, upgrade, construct and deconstruct its course. If political segment called civil society leaves the framework of closed intellectual systems and establishes a fine balance within the public, mass-scale, socially necessary, and academically imposed, then we can talk about the new topography of decentralized power.

Rael Artel is an independent curator based in the forests of Estonia. She graduated from the Institute of Art History at the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2003, and participated in the Curatorial Training Programme in De Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2004–2005). Since 2000, she has contributed to a number of magazines in Estonia and elsewhere, and curated shows in Estonia, as well as in Lisbon, Portugal; New York, USA; Amsterdam and Warsaw, Poland. In 2004–2008 she ran and moderated her experimental project space Rael Artel Gallery: Non-Profit Project Space. In 2007 she initiated “Public Preparation”, a platform for knowledge-production and network-based communication, which since the beginning of 2008 has focused on issues of nationalism and contemporary art in Europe in the format of international meetings. She is an artistic director of festival of contemporary art ART IST KUKU NU UT in Tartu, Estonia. More info about the project could be found at www.publicpreparation.org and www.artistkukunuut.org.

In my presentation, I would like to give a short overview of Public Preparation project and reflect the role of cultural production in initiating discussions in public sphere. Public Preparation is an international platform for knowledge-production and network-based communication. First and foremost, it is a space for self-education focusing on current practices of critical thinking and production in the field of contemporary art. The practice of Public Preparation is mainly based on creating situations for experience, reflection, and discussion, in various formats. The project is a method for recognising, discussing and establishing, intellectual and professional connections. In that sense, it is a collective exercise in order to prepare for the upcoming future – a continuous preparation process that can never be complete but is always ready to take action.

The main agenda of Public Preparation is to concentrate on questions linked to the concept of artist as citizen. It sees the artist as an intellectual participating actively in public life. Contemporary art is a crucial part of the public realm, exhibition venues are spaces for open discussion, and artists have the power and responsibility to be actively engaged in the process of examining, imagining and changing our communal social reality. The current agenda of Public Preparation activities is to deal critically with the growing tendencies of nationalism in contemporary Europe.

Julia Kümmel works at the Public Radio in Frankfurt, Germany, as a sound technician (since 2000). Since 1984, she is involved in the anti-nuclear movement that later on focused on fighting the growing nationalism and racism in Germany. Since 1989, she is a part of the anti-racist movement in Germany and a member of the “Aktionsbündnis against deportation” in Frankfurt. After the public action in 2003 in Frankfurt Airport and long-term legal action against it, she won in 2011 with the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court.

The Federal Office of Migration has a branch office at the airport and refugees must be able to prove their right to seek asylum within two weeks. This asylum procedure at Germany’s airports is unique in Europe. The number of deportations and refusals is high. About ten years ago, more than 10,000 people were deported from Frankfurt Airport. In 2010, there had been about 3,500 deportations.

The airport is the last public place for intervention. One can try to inform the passengers and give them information about what to do. One can try to talk with the crew or the pilot and convince them that the refugee is not willing to fly. The pilot is the one who is responsible for the security of all passengers; therefore he is responsible for the security of the refugee as well. One can try to influence the airlines not to participate in the business of deportation.

The “Deportation Class Campaign” against Lufthansa was highly successful.

The Frankfurt Airport Company Fraport reacted to the constant protest with a policy of banning protesters from the terminals. I brought my case to court and went through all official channels up to the Federal Supreme Court. All judged in favour of Fraport by approving the company`s right as a householder. Then I registered a complaint about the infringement of the Constitution to lift the ban, arguing that the company has violated basic rights like the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly. In February 2011, the Federal Constitutional Court decided that the basic rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, are valid in privatised public places like airports and train stations as long as the majority of shares is in public hands.

Francesca Vanoni holds a degree in International Relations of the University of Bologna, Italy and an MA in Central and South-East European Studies of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London, UK. Between 1998 and 2004, she coordinated various research projects on the topic of inter-ethnic dialogue and strengthening civil society in the Balkans, and has participated in international cooperation projects of governmental and non-governmental organisations in Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia.

In her professional carrier she has been combining applied research with development work. Since 2004, she has worked for “Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso” (OBC), a think-tank and news media focusing on socio-political transformations of South-Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Caucasus. She was also the acting director co-ordinating a team of 14 area specialists and around 45 correspondents from the regions for one year. Currently, she holds a position of the projects’ director.

During the conflicts accompanying the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the Albanian political and financial crisis, thousands of people from Italy took part in various humanitarian missions to support those who suffered, bring humanitarian aid, express solidarity with civilian victims, denounce Western governments’ politics of power, and support the European integration of South Eastern European countries.

Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso (OBC) was created in the year 2000 to respond to the need for knowledge and debate by people, associations, and institutions that had been working for years for a peaceful cohabitation in South-East Europe. After accompanying the last stages of the mobilisation, OBC has resulted in a combination of a research centre and a news provider, focusing on the socio-political transformations of South-East Europe, Turkey and the Caucasus. It also represents a forum for discussing the experience of transnational cooperation and grass-roots participation.

Moving from this case-study, this presentation aims at illustrating how the transnational civil society, engaged in raising awareness and in stimulating debate in the European public space, contributes to a threefold effect. First, in the EU member states it is crucial to sensitise the Western European public opinion not only to the hardship of the transitions and their European integration process, but also to the cultural and social richness of these countries underlying the importance of the process for the stability, peace and well-being of the whole continent; by doing so, it counterweights stereotyped images, prejudices, intolerance, etc.

Secondly, in South-East Europe, it contributes to mobilising civic forces, it supports participation, and opens up their public spheres with the effect of reinforcing the internal democratisation processes. Finally, it provides a precious source of expertise and analytical material for policy-makers, both at the national (Italian) and at the European level.

Wednesday, 26. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 16.00 – 18.00

• Murat Belge, independent political theorist and activist, Turkey
• Janek Sowa, Jagiellonian University Krakow, Poland
• Kaspars Goba, filmmaker, Latvia
• Cattis Laska, political activist, Sweden
• Harlan Koff, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Moderator: Danijela Tamše, precarious activist of Social Centre Rog, Slovenia

Murat K. Belge is an intellectual, academic, translator, literary critic, columnist and civil rights activist. He has got his MA and PhD in Department of English Language and Literature at İstanbul University, Turkey. He is Head and Founder of the Department of Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, İstanbul Bilgi University (1996 -) and Associate Professor at the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, İstanbul University (1980 -).

He is author of numerous books such as: Tarihten Güncelliğe (Alan Publications, İstanbul 1983), Sosyalizm, Türkiye ve Gelecek (Birikim Publications, İstanbul 1993, 2000), Marksist Estetik: Christopher Caudwell Üzerine Bir İnceleme (BSF, İstanbul 1989), Türkiye Dünyanın Neresinde? (Birikim Publications, İstanbul 1992, 1997), Türkler ve Kürtler: Nereden Nereye? (Birikim Publications, İstanbul 1996), Yaklaştıkça Uzaklaşıyormu? AB-Türkiye (Birikim Publications, İstanbul 2003), Türkiyenin Halleri (Liberte Yayınları, Ankara 2003). Additionally, he translated numerous works of Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence as well as some important works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels into Turkish.

He is the founder and has been editor in newspapers Yeni Gündem (1986-1989) and Birikim (1975-1980), and is a founder of Halkın Dostları (1969-1971). He publishes regularly in daily newspapers Politika (1976-1977), Cumhuriyet (1977), Milliyet (1976-1977), Demokrat (1980), Radikal (1996- ).

The European Union came into being as a European response to the trends and developments in the second half of the 20th century, following the World War II. It has passedthrough several stages and has got transformed into quite large body which comprises most of the countries on the continent today. Perhaps, partly because of this enlargement, ideas about what exactly it is and what it should be can differ, sometimes quite radically. I shall try to formulate, in summary form, two basic but opposite views about the present and the future of the EU. One of these positions tends to take geography as a determinant, but at the same time largely equating this geography with culture, and argues that Europe should be strictly European. The second position gives prominence to principles rather than geography and sees Europe as a confederation gathered around a community of values, a step, perhaps, towards a world federation based on universalist values and principles.

According to the first position, the geographical Europe, throughout its history, has produced “European culture”, whick is democratic and humanitarian, but also Christian (It does not reflect upon the fact that racialism, fascism, nazism were also bi-products of this culture). The second position has no bias in matters of religion but concentrates on the democratic quality of the political culture, within as well as without Europe. Nowadays, the first position is gaining ground in Europe. Countries known for their liberal attitudes, such as Holland, Denmark etc., have become strongly anti-Islam. Turkey, a long-time candidate, also being a Muslim country, is now an object to be kept at a distance, through efforts of countries such as Germany, France, Austria, etc.

This negative attitude of what might be called “Castle Europe” has adversely affected not only the Turkish government, which initially manifested a genuine desire for membership, but also the people in general. Back in the nineties polls showed a willingness that rose up to as high as 70%. This has ebbed away and certainly is below 50%. Within Europe, too, the bureacratic/eurocratic attitude of the authorities has caused a lot of disappointment.  Together with the “cultural” exclusiveness as demonstrated by France, Germany etc., there is what might be called a “welfare chauvinism” that refuses to “share” anything.  These are not signs of a development towards a “federation of human values” and Europe is in need of reviewing its positions as well as its political leaders. The attitudes taken vis a vis what is “outside” Europe are indicative of what is desired or expected to take shape “inside” Europe.

Jan Sowa is a sociologist, writer and activist. He studied literature, philosophy and psychology at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland and Saint-Denis University Paris 8, France. He holds a PhD in sociology and is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Communication of Jagiellonian University. Before starting his academic carrier, Sowa worked as a curator in the Center for Contemporary Art “Bunkier Sztuki” in Kraków and as journalist for the Polish Public Radio. He has been active in the field of autonomous education and independent cultural animation for more than a decade; currently he is engaged in developing and running Free/Slow University Warsaw (www.wuw2010.pl).

In his research Sowa explores the borders of cultural studies, social anthropology, critical theory, art and politics. He wrote and edited several books on society, media, history as well as social and political theory (most recently: Over and Over Again: 1989 – 2009). He published almost 100 texts both in Poland and abroad. The article he co-authored ‘L’événement dans la chambre froide: le carnival de Solidarność’ has just appeared in L’idée du Communisme, II edited by Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek (Nouvelles Éditions Lignes, Paris 2011). Sowa is also an independent publisher, co-founder of Korporacja Ha!art Publishing House, currently working on the Polish translations of Michael Hardt’s and Antonio Negri’s Commonwealth and Fragments of An Anarchist Anthropology by David Graeber.

There is a puzzling fact about Europe’s cultural and social identity. The continent seems to be permanently split between East and West with the division line on the river Elbe. It’s precisely there that the limits of Roman influence coincide with the borders of Caroling Empire (i.e. classical feudalism), the division between capitalism and second serfdom and the cleavage between West and East in the second half of the 20the century. However, as the world-system theory of Immanuel Wallerstein has very well demonstrated, this division line has always been a division within the same socio-economic system. It’s in the Central-Eastern Europe that the first periphery of the capitalist system had been constituted and it’s where the historically first Third World emerged.

Judged from this point of view the revolutionary character of the European Union extension in 2004 is expressed not so much by the fact that EU is built across national borders, but by an attempt to build a permanent and coherent social, political and economic structure across the oldest and the most permanent division of Europe into East and West. It’s a historic chance for societies east of the river Elbe to leave there peripheral condition behind and become something else. But what is it going to be? Despite many benefits form the EU enlargement, many socio-economic phenomena (migrations, income distribution, patterns of industrial development, export and import characteristics, cultural relations etc.) show that there is at least as much continuation of peripheral status of Central-Eastern Europe as emancipation to some new and better condition. Maybe the most permanent division of Europe will prove to be more permanent than we think.

Kaspars Goba is a documentary film director, journalist and photographer. He started filmmaking in 1996 and worked as a director, scriptwriter and cinematographer on more than fifteen documentaries. In 2005 Kaspars established his own production company ELM MEDIA with the aim of drawing society’s attention to social and environmental issues through filmed documentaries and documentary photography projects. His latest documentary ”homo@lv” (2010, 70 min) was the first documentary film from Latvia to be screened in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2011.

Kaspars also works in the field of documentary photography. During the last decade he has taken photos during journalistic trips to Iceland, northern Russia, Siberia, the Far East, Roma ‘tabors’ in Latvia and Lithuania, and Kurdish areas in Turkey. Along with his films, Kaspars often creates documentary photo series on the same topic, which have become objects of contemporary art. With his photo series on Seda, People of the Marsh and HOMO@LV, made during the shooting of the films, he has taken part in contemporary art exhibitions in more than 20 countries.

The day when Latvia voted for joining the EU, I was finishing filming my first social documentary “Seda. People of the Marsh”, a story about forgotten people of my country living in a Russian immigrant village built in Soviet times, where less than 400 of 3000 inhabitants had rights to vote. Others were considered as non-citizens.

In the mass media politicians were advocating for joining the EU talked about economic advantages, subsidies for agricultural sector and funding for building infrastructure. It reminded me of the times of Perestroika, when young Latvian communist leaders after their first trips to Western countries started campaigning against the old regime. Very few of them talked about values, the majority was interested in Western lifestyle and consumption possibilities. Many people understood democracy as consumerism, a consumerism without much work.

After regaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Latvia experienced enormous changes – from one economic system to another, from totalitarianism to the so-called democracy, from having nothing in the shops to having everything in the supermarkets. The life of two million people changed beyond recognition. People had difficulties adapting to those changes, accepting them, giving up something in which they have believed for something new and unknown. Joining the EU was another promise of life that will instantly get better. But it did not. Instead, people were faced with issues like accepting minorities and immigrants that they were not ready to accept. Pro-EU politicians and opinion leaders failed to explain to the nation that joining the EU will mean not only joining a much bigger market and having advantages of receiving EU funding, but also joining a different system of values. It led to having unsatisfied people who became an easy target for manipulation.

Making my latest social documentary “homo@lv” I observed how so-called conservative politicians manipulated with public opinion and split Latvian society based on their attitude towards sexual minorities. There are many more examples where Western European values are not accepted in the new Member States or countries planning to join the EU. I think this is the main topic to be discussed when we are talking about the EU enlargement.

Cattis Laska is an antimilitarist/noborder/feminist activist living in Gothenburg, Sweden. She’s active in various organizations and groups such as ”No one is illegal” – striving against deportations and for the rights of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants; “Ofog” - an anti-militarist network working on non-violent direct action and public awareness raising such as lectures, workshops, street actions etc., against NATO, military exercises, the army industry and militarization of society; “Interfem” – an antiracist feminist think-tank organizing lectures and workshops; and with the campaign Ain’t I a Woman: For Undocumented Migrant Women’s Right to Protection.

In July 2011, ”Ofog” organized an international action camp, where people from around the world came to protest against NEAT – Europe’s largest military test area located in northern Sweden. Besides activism, Cattis has worked with youth groups and studied gender, feminism, international relations, conflict resolution and film.

Though EU is much more than a military union, the military units, such as the EU Battle groups, military police and Frontex, are vital for EU’s control of other areas, both outside and inside European borders. Nowadays EU, being a NATO “strategic partner”, further increases the militarization of EU and drags European countries into NATO. EU still promotes itself as a peace project, but the reality is that the EU is upholding an unjust world order where former colonial powers maintain their control and impact on the world, and doing this using militarism and violence.

In the case of Sweden, politicians and authorities use EU regulations and agreements to excuse repressive migration policies and Sweden’s active part in war and militarization. Located far away from the external borders of Fortress Europe, Sweden uses EU/Schengen agreements such as the Dublin convention to deport migrants once they’ve arrived in Sweden. During the last years, cooperation with Frontex has increased, and Sweden supports Greek border police with surveillance air planes to seek for undocumented migrants, while at the same time officially criticizing Greece’s management of the migrant situation. Sweden is being in the forefront in the EU militarization process, participating with 2350 soldiers out of 2800 in the Nordic Battle group, one of EU’s rapid response military units. Europe’s largest military test range over land is located in northern Sweden, including air space for testing drones and fighter aircrafts, ground space for bomb exercises, and the world’s largest downloader of satellite material.

To legitimize all this militarization, military responses are promoted as the only solution to all crisis and problems, the other option being not acting at all. Thus when discussing EU, its impact on our daily lives, as well as on upholding an unjust world order (inside and outside the EU), militarism and how to resist it are very important parts of the discussion.

Harlan Koff, PhD is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Political Science Institute at the University of Luxembourg. He is founding President of the Consortium for Comparative Research on Regional Integration and Social Cohesion (RISC) and coordinator of RISC’s working group on Comparative Border and Migration Politics. He is co-editor (with Carmen Maganda) of the international peer-reviewed journal Regions & Cohesion (Berghahn Journals).

His present research analyzes the impact of regional integration on border communities. Specifically, he is working on a comparative project on border regions in Europe, North America and South America. This research examines cross-border political cooperation, economic transformations in these border areas and their impacts on social marginalization, organized crime and migration. Moreover, Koff is the head of the BRIDGE (Border Regions in Different Geographic Espaces) research project comparing Luxembourg and Belize, Central America.

One defining characteristic of European integration has been the establishment of officially recognized cross-border regions. These bi- or multi- national communities are characterized by cross-border political cooperation and the evolution of transnational economic markets, both of which generally contribute to increased wealth in these places and consequently, public support for European integration.

This paper discusses integration processes in three cross-border communities: 1) the Eurométropole, 2) Luxembourg’s Greater region and 3) Bari, Italy and Durres, Albania. It argues that institutional governance or economic markets do not solely determine the distribution of the benefits of integration in cross-border communities. Instead, intermediary mechanisms, such as the nature of local leadership and the structure of local interest representation systems strongly influence how well the benefits of integration are shared in cross-border communities. The paper aims to show that when political power is centralized, the benefits of integration are as well which leads to political tension and euro scepticism.

Danijela Tamše is a political activist and postgraduate student in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is mostly involved in the questions of borders, migrations, production and labour regimes and knowledge production. Her research is strongly connected to the movement of Invisible Workers of the World (IWW). She participated on different transnational activistic meetings and conferences, organized by movements and collectives such as Edufactory, Uninomada, different social centres and IWW. She is a member of student’s association Kult.co, where she is a part of organization team of different events, mostly symposiums such as Political Critique in Art (2009), Taboo and Culture (2010), Pop Culture Hours: Balkan Strikes Back (2011). For two years she was a student representative on Cultural Studies Department at the Faculty of Social Science, Ljubljana. As a volunteer she works on different projects among others she participated in European project Gruntwig Makno – Managing Knowledge in Intercultural Learning Communities (2008–2010) and is a part of an ongoing transnational project Cultural Studies in Postyugoslav Space (2009–2011). She occasionally works for ČKZ – Journal for Critique of Science, Imagination and New Anthropology. She published in Media Watch, ČKZ and some other journals and papers.

Thursday, 27. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 10.00 – 12.00

• Alexandre Mirlesse, independent intellectual, France
• Dušan Gajić, SEE TV, Belgium
• Simina Guga, Biblioteca Alternativa, Romania
• Jirina Dienstbierova, Czech Council on Foreign Relations, Czech Republic

Moderator: Ana Frank, Peace Institute, Slovenia

Alexandre Mirlesse was born in Geneva, Switzerland and lives in Paris, France. A student in comparative literature and modern history at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, he worked on European research projects with French think-tank “Notre Europe“. In 2009, he was one of the organisers of the Europe XXL conference in Lille, France, which brought together a number of European leaders to reflect on the idea of Europe, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Alexandre Mirlesse is the author En attendant l’Europe (La Contre Allée, Lille 2009). This book compiles a series of interviews with intellectuals and artists on ‘European identity’, which he did during a one-year journey across Europe, and was awarded the 2010 “Bienvenu Prize“.

Thinking Europe is like drawing a map: you always start with the outline. It is on the fringes of Europe that you find tension. That’s where the hand trembles, where corrections are made all the time.

Building on this remark by Belarusian poet Adam Globus, my paper aims at better understanding the link between the EU’s enlargement to the twelve Central and Eastern European states in 2004/2007 on the one side, and the revival of a dormant debate about Europe’s culture, values, borders and “identity“ on the other. How did public intellectuals in these countries contribute to that controversy? Was their reaction to their countries’ accession as unanimously positive as it was claimed in Brussels? Has political integration brought about a European public space, putting Eastern and Western intellectuals on an equal footing? Such are the questions I will try to address, based on the series of interviews with Eastern European thinkers and artists I have conducted since 2007.

Dušan Gajić is the chief editor of SEETV, a TV Production based in Brussels, Belgium, providing news footage and coverage of EU affairs to TV channels in South Eastern Europe. He is also European affairs correspondent for Radio Television Serbia, Serbian public broadcaster, and co-founder of MREŽA TV Production Group in Belgrade, Serbia. SEETV is involved in documentary production, mainly on topics of regional interest in the Balkans. SEETV’s latest productions include “The Long Road” (2010) documentary, “Kosovo Diary” (2008) documentary, an award-winning documentary “Greetings from Kosovo” (2005) and “Culture Rocks the City” (2007) documentary on the role of culture in the face-lifting of Eastern and Western European cities. For a list of SEETV productions see www.seetv-exchanges.com.

From 1997 to 2002 as a co-founder of MREŽA Production Group, Gajić was involved in editorial management and production of a bi-weekly TV newsmagazine on political, social and economic issues in Serbia. In 1997, Gajić worked on Belgrade TV channel Studio B as News Broadcast Editor, and producer of TV features and live panel discussions. Dušan Gajić graduated at Belgrade University with a degree in literature in 1997.

Europe is not in fashion these days. EU citizens have more and more difficulties to recognize the benefits of the European integration. Europe is shaken by economic, financial and euro-zone crisis. Even traditionally most recognizable achievements of the EU: freedom of movement within the Schengen zone and the Euro as the common currency – have been put under strong pressure recently. Europeans are increasingly inward looking, pessimistic and euro-skeptic. There is one more crisis to add to the long list – crisis of European identity.

The institutional set up doesn’t ease this situation. The Lisbon Treaty was adopted year and a half ago but results are still not reassuring. Instead of clarity sometimes it looks like we’ve got more confusion on who does what. Instead of speaking with one voice on the global scene Europe very often looks as divided as ever. Goes without saying that this is not the best time for the EU enlargement: in the eyes of majority, more members means only more trouble.

In candidate countries, especially small ones, some traditionally fear losing national identity in the big EU. In reality this never happens. Quite the opposite: there is no such thing as “supra-national” EU identity: there are 27 national public opinions and even more specific national identities. If the people of the Balkans still have problems with their identity, so do peoples of countries which have long been part of the EU. Actually one of Europe’s important problems today, seems to be the lacks of attractiveness of the European identity to EU citizens– European citizens do not relate enough to the European Union as a wider ensemble that ensures stability prosperity. They don’t seem to see clearly the advantages of being part of the EU as a force for “good” in a troubled world context.

Will the countries of the Balkans, when they join the EU, help shape the European identity of tomorrow? Will the Balkans countries bring their stone to the complex construction of the European identity? Will the future EU enlargement make Balkan people as well as European citizens aware of the fact that belonging to the EU will never actually replace national identities, but potentially give more added value to one’s national identity?

Simina Guga holds BA in Sociology and Anthropology and MA in Community Development in Bucharest University, Romania. She is working as a researcher and a social counselor for immigrants, refugees and people with subsidiary protection. Although she would like to work with self-organized informal groups, she found herself working for NGO’s. Currently she is searching for new non-institutionalized structures that could provide her a living wage, would involve less bureaucracy and a permanent contact with migrants in Romania. Meanwhile she decided to study Arabic language and to talk about what crosses her mind in the debates organized at “Biblioteca Alternativa” (library and social-cultural centre) that she, together with a group of friends, has established in March 2010.

We were born in a country where people were afraid to speak up their minds and express their political beliefs but were nonetheless economically secure. We grew up in a country whose transition lasted for almost two decades, in which the old structures were wrapped up anew, and millions of people became labor migrants. We became adults in a NATO and EU country, holding a promise for a different kind of future in which we would be able to move freely, while learning to fear for our own security, home, job, culture, seeing difference as a threat and the Others—the poor, the LGBT, the Roma, the disabled, the ill and the immigrants—as dangers to our “newly built integrity”.

Nowadays Romania is holding hands with Bulgaria in taking bows at the Schengen gate. Their discourses are, as always, humble, and their promises are building new walls that will secure rights and privileges for the white and prosperous Europeans. The institutional mobilization of these two countries has many similarities and is largely targeted at  immigrants—the deepening of borders, enforcing the meaning of citizenships and the xenophobic filters, creating new detention centres for immigrants, employing new machines to track them down, to number them, to question them and to decide who is useful and who is useless. All the human rights and migrant conventions are instruments that we have created for ourselves and that is the reason why we have the right to violate them, to reinterpret and to change them to our own advantage.

The immigrants—The Others—will have to cultivate a culture of collective resistance to the oppressions of white Europe. They will have to weigh their options and decide whether to choose a hostile Europe or a home that offers no promising future. They will have to create new identities in a world that does not automatically grant them this privilege. These are our countries and these are the immigrants. We, the people who have the choice to physically and mentally travel inside and outside the fortress, are caught somewhere in between. What can we actually do with these privileges and how do we move towards a more solidarity-based world? An open subject that we could develop further….

Jiřina Dienstbierová works as the Director of the Czech Council of Foreign Relations, a Prague based NGO providing a setting for reflections and expression of views on European and global contexts of human existence.

The Council is publishing books and articles, (e.g. Economic Dimension of Czech Diplomacy, Improving the Life of Migrant Worker’s Communities, Stability of the Balkans and the EU, Our Global Neighborhood, The Great Misunderstanding, The CR and the EU, The Czech-German Relations, Relations of the CR with Serbia and Montenegro …). An important part of the Council’s activities is devoted to lectures, workshops and seminars. The Council especially stimulates and supports activities of young people. A special part of the Council activities represent artistic projects where actual topics are addressed through creation of different art works. The Council organized more than 50 exhibitions in different countries.

In my presentation I will introduce our four Student’s Posters Exhibitions organize by the Czech Council on foreign relation. We started in 2006 with projects European Identity, Balkans Perception of European Identity, Europe without Barriers and finished with Migration to Europe in 2011. These projects are intended for art university students in the European Union and beyond, who are able – using a piece of artwork, a poster – to join in a far-reaching debate on European identity, immigration from the developing world, its cultural and social values, its barriers and its future. These projects facilitate a long-term active communication between individuals through students’ artwork in the European region. Art enables a meaningful dialogue and interaction, obviating the need to understand the different languages. These projects present young people’s views on different issues and topics throughout the Europe. This facilitates an active debate.

The student’s posters are building a bridge spanning all European countries. Unlike spoken word and written page, visual perceptions have a direct impact and become subliminally yet deeply ingrained in human minds. The students approached the subject with considerable humour, intelligence and without prejudice, despite the weightiness of the matter. They often used both iconic and abstract imagery in their images, and commented on many thorny issues, the need for tolerance between nations, the preservation of identity and many others. We have had organized more than 50 exhibitions. More than 30 art universities’ and more than 600 art universities’ students in the European Union and beyond participated in our projects.

Thursday, 27. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 12.30 – 14.30

• Izabela Kowalczyk, The School of Humanities and Journalism Poznan, Poland
• Ovidijus Visniauskas, alternative radio station StartFM, Lithuania
• Ivan Jurica, independent cultural worker, Slovakia
• Breda Gray, University of Limerick, Ireland

Moderator: Martin Jaigma, Peace Institute, Slovenia

Izabela Kowalczyk is an art historian, an art critique and a curator. She studied Art History at “Adam Mickiewicz” University in Poznan, Poland; Gender Studies at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary and attended the Summer Institute in Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Rochester, USA. Currently she works at The School of Humanities and Journalism in Poznan. She is the author of the books on Polish critical art, popular culture, feminism and feminist art. She is the founder and co-editor of the net magazine on feminism and visual culture Artmix (www.obieg.pl/artmix), and a member of the independent group acting for freedom of artistic expression “Index 73” (www.indeks73.pl/en_,index.php). She was the author of the first open letter in defence of controversial artist Dorota Nienznalska and the co-initiator of the “Days for Equality and Freedom” in Poznan (2004) as well as the nationwide “Days for the Freedom of Speech” (2002 and 2005).

In my presentation I wish to examine the connection between art and democracy by focusing on the cases connected to religion. Poland opened itself up to the West and turned to the capitalist system in 1989. The year is hailed as the regaining of freedom after the communist period. However, new threats to freedom have appeared after 1989. One such threat is connected to the power of the conservatives and the Catholic Church. Poland is predominantly a Roman Catholic country: approximately 90% of the Polish population has been baptised. The Church plays a strong role in public and political life. Polish right-wing politicians are responsible for, among other things, the ban on abortion introduced by law in 1993, inadequate public education on sexuality, and discrimination (including in the form of large-scale homophobia) in different fields of social life.

Contemporary art is commonly perceived as something scandalous. The art adversaries’ most commonly exploited argument is that art offends religious feelings. Any art that initiates a discussion on Polish Catholicism, and the impact of the Church on people’s consciousness, is considered dangerous – as is art that relates to sensitive issues like intolerance and social exclusion. There is a strong pressure by people and groups related to right-wing parties and to the radical wing of the Catholic Church (e.g., Radio Maryja) not to display controversial art. As a result, many exhibitions have been closed or repealed. However the most absurd example is that of a court case against artist Dorota Nieznalska, who was accused of offending religious feelings in her work Passion, and brought to trial in 2002. It is worth remembering that both artistic freedom and freedom of speech are guaranteed by the Polish Constitution. However, there is a problem in Polish society regarding its democracy, and the understanding of what democracy is.

Ovidijus Višniauskas is a student of journalism at the Vilnius University, Lithuania. He attended two internships in the regional daily newspaper Šiaulių kraštas (2009) and in the Lithuanian National Radio and Television (2010). In 2011 he started internship at national commercial television BTV and at the daily internet newspaper Bernardinai.lt. He also worked in the weekly national magazine Veidas (covering politics, economy, business and culture) as a freelance journalist (October 2010 – April 2011).

In October 2010 he was a part of the youth exchange “Let Peace Be Our Culture” in Turkey, organized by the EU program Youth in Action and sponsored by the European Commission. From March 2010 he is engaged in the non-government, non-commercial radio station StartFm, where he work as a radio journalist, radio show producer, editor, and radio host.

I am going to talk from my personal and my colleagues’ point of view about European Union enlargement and its possibilities. As always, there are ambivalent opinions about the integration processes, enlargement, transnational effects and multicultural dialogue. Some people say that tolerance is a quintessential point of the entire European Union, so there should be no problems or other controversial questions about religion issue. Multicultural compound is inevitable, so it is better to start to form this structure by ourselves because then we have a possibility to plan ahead and to avoid dire consequences. Acting like this would be better than letting this structure to set out by itself.

On the other hand, there are many points of view that such an EU enlargement (Turkey, Islam) would force this union into a collapse. Argumentation is very simple: EU would face an absolutely different religion, culture, traditions, etc. Moreover, there are concerns about human rights, geopolitics, secularism, fundamentalism… These are the main objects which would make the transnational and multicultural dialog more difficult and controversial.

We, the people from the North-Eastern Europe, know and see two Turkeys: “Western” – for tourists, for Europe, with enchanting resorts, and “Eastern” – with real Islam, cultural and religious background, economical and political problems. But this is about all what we see and know. Deep inside, we do not know anything about Turkey. We do not know about the real situation regarding human rights, secularists, fundamentalists, racial and religious conflicts, etc. Some people welcome this very strong desire and ambition of Turkey to become a member of one of the largest and most influential unions in the world. But the others say that it is impossible for Turkey to conform itself with this union. The main argument supporting this view is the presence of Islam.

This contribution on the topics of religion and secularity attempts to question the secular status of the modern democratic state by focusing on its relationship with the institutionalized religion. The intention here is explicitly to tackle the Slovakian condition in order to place the dominant religious institution of the Catholic Church. For the analysis I will use the “Agreement with Vatican on the Right to Conscientious Objection”, a worldwide unique “Conscience Concordat” as an example. As this agreement legitimizes privileges for the Catholic Church on the one hand, and leads to marginalization of especially classes and groups which traditionally experience discrimination on the other, its context has to be understood as an example for what the notion of a secular society, on which the majority of the post ’89 Eastern European societies is constructed, means in the practice.

In societies, where the “Catching up the West” in combination with nationalisms became the main ideology, agreements as this one represent another form of governmentality toward the East (will the West follow?). A governmentality via assignations that are being dictated from the West, in this particular case from Vatican, position its religious agenda in the form of an international agreement over the secular character of the state guaranteed by its constitution: from regulating the conscientious objection up to financing the Catholic church and its ideological interests and activities in the era of complete privatization, solely by the state funds. At the same time it is impossible to lose out of sight the status of the Eastern European societies as the so-called “transformational” ones – those of catching up the West (in terms of using a nicer terminology on economical neo-colonization). The discrepancy between the modernist notion of progress (technological and economic development) and stagnation (culturally and socially) reproduces social and class hierarchies and conflicts, which, again, traditionally find a strong recourse within the institutionalized religion.

Breda Gray is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research interests include gender, transnationalism and diaspora; migration governance and religion; and gender and work/life in the new economy. She is a Principal Investigator on the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) project on the Irish Catholic Church and the Politics of Migration and a Co-Principal Investigator on the Government of Ireland-funded project Nomadic Work/Life in the Knowledge Economy.

Publications includes: Women and the Irish Diaspora (Routledge, London and New York 2004); co-editor (with Anthony D’Andrea and Luigina Ciolfi) special issue of Mobilities 6(2) on ‘Methodological Challenges and Innovations Mobilities Research’, Spring 2011; editor special issue Irish Journal of Sociology 18(3) on ‘The Transnational Turn in Sociology’, December 2011; ‘Methodological Challenges and Innovations in Mobilities Research’, Mobilities 6(2) 2011 (with Anthony D’Andrea and Luigina Ciolfi); ‘Becoming Non-Migrant: Lives Worth Waiting for’, Gender, Place and Culture 18(2) 2011; ‘Governing Integration’ in B. Fanning and R. Munck (ed.) Globalization, Migration and Social Transformation (Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey 2011); ‘Affective and Political Categories in Feminist Debates about Social Justice’ in W. Ruberg and K. Steenbergh (ed.) Sexed Sentiments. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender and Emotion (Rodopi, Amsterdam 2011); ‘Migration, Life Narratives, Memory and Subjectivity: Reflections on an Archival Project on Irish Migration’, Migration Letters 6(2) 2009; ‘Putting Emotion and Reflexivity to Work in Researching Migration’, Sociology 42(4) 2008; ‘Redefining the Nation Through Economic Growth and Migration: Changing Rationalities of Governance in the Republic of Ireland’, Mobilities 1(3) 2006; ‘Migrant Integration Policy: A Nationalist Fantasy of Management and Control?’, Translocations: Migration and Social Change 1(1) 2006 (www.imrstr.dcu.ie); and ‘Curious Hybridities: Transnational Negotiations of Migrancy Through Generation’, Irish Studies Review, 14(2) 2006.

This paper takes the turn by states to Faith-Based Organisations (FBO) as agents of migrant integration across many countries in Europe as a starting point for considering the specificity of a similar turn in the Republic of Ireland. While the engagement of FBOs in most European states is framed by a perceived threat of Muslim radicalisation and focuses mainly on minority FBOs, this is less explicitly the case in Ireland where the work of existing churches in migrant integration is specifically endorsed. This includes Catholic FBOs, as the Catholic Church in Ireland claims a role in migrant integration in response to the increased diversity of its flock due to immigration and its expertise in pastoral care with Irish emigrants across the diaspora for nearly two centuries. Moreover, this work serves as a way of legitimating the moral purpose of the church at a time when it has been stripped of moral legitimacy due to ongoing revelations of child abuse and secularising trends. So instead of focusing on state relationships with faith-based minority FBOs, my eye in this paper is more towards the ways in which established Christian churches and specifically the Catholic Church in Ireland may be gaining new legitimacy as state migrant integration policies turn towards FBOs as key sites of migrant integration and population management.

Despite the specific reference to Ireland as a case study in this paper, the overall paper is driven by two key questions:

1. Which rationalities of governance underpin the turn to FBOs as part of state population management strategies?
2. How are the boundaries of the secular and religious reconfigured in these rationalities of governance

Using a Foucauldian governmentality analysis to examine the implications of changing forms of migrant governance, this paper argues that the construction of religious organisations as agents of migrant integration can be read as an expression of moves towards neo-liberal governmentality that involve the responsibilisation and disciplining of religious civil society actors. In this way, the paper suggests that we are witnessing a new configuration of state-religion boundaries.

Thursday, 27. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 16.00 – 18.00

• Andreas Exner, Social Innovation Network, Austria
• Tom Kucharz, Ecologistas in Accion, Spain
• Elisabeth Janssen, A Seed of Europe, The Netherlands

Moderator: Živa Gobbo, Focus – Association for Sustainable Development, Slovenia

Andreas Exner (1973, Austria), currently lives in Graz and Klagenfurt, Austria.
Topics of his interest are: land grab, political economy, solidarity economy, commons. He published several books and many articles. He is a part of the platform “Demonetize it!” (demonetize.it), coordinates the weblog “Social Innovation Network” (www.social-innovation.org) and is publisher of the journal Streifzuege (www.streifzuege.org).

Since 2008 private investors and states are looking for large swathes of land in order to profit from biofuels, rising meat and milk consumption, land speculation and the ensuing food price surge. EU investors both seek land in Africa and in the European periphery. In Europe, the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania are main targets. Furthermore, investors from the Middle East, Asia and the USA play a major role. Those also invest in European agricultural land. This land grab deprives local producers from access to land and further entrenches a profit-driven, export-oriented, corporate-led food regime with negative consequences for human well-being both socially and ecologically. At the same time, an opposing vision of agriculture gains in popularity: food sovereignty denotes the right of all peoples to define their mode of producing and consuming food by themselves.

Tom Kucharz is an activist and a social researcher, based in Madrid, Spain. He studies Political Sciences, Sociology and Philosophy, and is a member of “Ecologistas en Acción” (www.ecologistasenaccion.org), a confederation with about 250 local groups of  social and political ecologists, where he is a part of the Permament Secretary and coordinates the Department on Agro-Ecology and Food Sovereignty. He represents “Ecologistas en Acción” in different international networks: Bi-regional Network Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean “Linking Alternatives” (www.enlazandoalternativas.org), Seattle to Brussels Network (www.s2bnetwork.org), Climate-Justice-Now! (www.climate-justice-now.org), Our World is not for Sale (www.ourworldisnotforsale.org). He also participates in the Anti-Globalization, Anti-War and in the 15-M “Indignants” movements, and is also very active in the Anti-debt campaigns (in Spain “Who owes whom?”, www.quiendebeaquien.org), the Food Sovereignty Movement (in Spain represented by the rural platform “Plataforma Rural”) and the struggles against the “Europe of Capital”.

He imparts lectures, conferences, seminars and workshops, as well as researches and writes on very different topics such as the Global Crisis (systemic and multi dimensional), international politics, Globalization and Anti-Globalization movements/struggles, European Union, world economics and international trade – investment policies (free trade agreements, WTO, etc.), Ecological Crisis and Climate Change, Climate Justice, International Financial Institutions, External Debt and Ecological Debt, corporate power and the crimes of transnational companies, Agro-Ecology, GMO and Food Sovereignty, energy crisis and agro fuels, social movements and struggles, migration, participatory democracy, public services (especially water), international solidarity and peace (especially the war in Colombia).

EU-Project enforces migration, environmental and social problems connected to industrial agriculture in South of Spain in the context of:

• Corporate power and aggressive EU’s foreign and migration politics (e.g. EU-Fortress and militarization of the borders and the control of trade routs);
• Trade and investment policies (e.g. EU-Med free trade negotiations);
• Global systemic crisis, the dictatorship of the financial markets and EU’s “shock doctrine”.

Food crisis and financial speculation in food commodities and other natural resources, impacts of climate change, energy crisis and oil peak in the beginning of the end of fossil fuel era, promotion of GMOs, agrofuels and land grabbing. Human Rights violations and wars on recourses. EURO crisis and the “new” European Economic Governance.

Resistances to the EU-Project both within (e.g. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain) and outside the EU (Arab Spring Uprising) are beginning to articulate with one another. Opposing the Europe of Capital and military interventions. Working towards an ecologically sustainable and socially just model of food production and consumption based on non-industrial smallholder farming, processing and alternative distribution. Decentralizing the food distribution system and shortening the chain between producers and consumers. Improving working and social conditions, particularly in field of food and agriculture. Democratizing decision-making on the use of the Commons and heritage (land, water, air, traditional knowledge, seeds and livestock). Ensuring that public policies at all levels guarantee the vitality of rural areas, fair prices for food producers and safe, GMO-free food for all.

Elisabeth Janssen is a cook, editor and translator engaged in community-organised housing and childcare, social/cultural centres and music events, free media and vegan cuisine. She is currently involved in the organisation A SEED Europe, dealing with campaigning for social and environmental justice, emphasising the link between food, agriculture and climate change.

A SEED Europe (Action for Solidarity, Environment, Equality and Diversity Europe) is an international campaigning organisation that prioritises involving youth in direct democracy activities. It was established by young engaged people in 1991, in response to the UNCED Earth Summit proceedings in Rio de Janeiro, with the aim to forge alliances among young people committed to social and environmental justice. The organisation is based in Amsterdam with many contacts in the rest of Europe and abroad.

My presentation during the conference will contain the following ingredients:

• Should the EU adopt intellectual property rights and patent law based on the US model? The European Patent Office granted agro-chemical multinationals patents on not just GM food and feed, but increasingly on conventional fruit, vegetables and animals.
• How do biotechnology, patent and seed laws affect the lives of farmers and rural communities?
• Why we need agri-diversity in times of climate change?
• We know industrial agriculture is frying the planet – can we grow food to cool it down?

The DIY approach to defending what we have got and building independence from global markets and corporations.

Bon Appetit!

Živa Gobbo is a concerned activist working in the field of environmental issues, climate change, sustainable development theories and practices, living and working in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She holds a MA in cultural anthropology/African studies of the University in Ljubljana. She is publishing her columns on environmental topics and topics dealing with sustainable development in various Slovenian newspapers through the Focus association (www.focus.si).

She is active within the organisation since 2007, currently she is the Chairperson and leader of Global Responsibility and Consumption Programme. She is cooperating also within Sloga, Slovenian NGO platform for development cooperation and various institutions, dealing with different aspects of sustainable development and education for sustainable development.

Friday, 28. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 10.00 – 12.00

• Myria Georgiou, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
• Svetla Encheva, Centre for the Study of Democracy, Bulgaria
• Nicos Trimikliniotis, Centre for the Study of Migration, Inter-ethnic and Labour Relations, Cyprus
• Federico Rahola, University of Genoa, Italy

Moderator: Veronika Bajt, Peace Institute, Slovenia

Myria Georgiou teaches at the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK. She has a PhD in Sociology (LSE), an MA in Journalism (Boston University, USA) and a BA in Sociology (Panteion University, Athens, Greece) and her research focuses on the broader areas of diaspora, migration, media and identity. Before joining the LSE, Myria was a Senior Lecturer in International Communications and Director of Postgraduate Taught Studies at Institute of Communication Studies, University of Leeds, UK (2003-2009). She has also worked as a journalist for BBC World Service, Greek Press, and the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.

Her PhD was conducted under the guidance of Roger Silverstone and her doctoral thesis was ethnography of media consumption and identity construction within the London Greek Cypriot diaspora. After her PhD, she took up a postdoctoral position at the LSE, working again with Roger Silverstone, and conducting the first ever mapping of diasporic media in the EU. Myria is currently the Chair of the Ethnicity and Race in Communication (ERIC) Division of International Communication Association (ICA); she is the founder and former chair of the Diaspora, Migration and Media section of European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). Her expertise in the area of cultural diversity and mediation has led to a number of invited consultancies and advisory roles for various organisations, including the Council of Europe, International Broadcasting Trust, Urban Communication Foundation, Panos Paris and Panos London. Her work has been published in English, French, Japanese, and Greek.

The presentation focuses on everyday life as the domain where meanings of citizenship are articulated among migrant populations, often in unpredictable ways. The presentation demonstrates that interpersonal communication and media consumption, which are integral elements of everyday life, play a key role in the ways migrants construct a sense of belonging. It is in this same domain that policies of citizenship are interpreted and made sense of. The discussion will engage with some of the tensions associated with top-down understandings of citizenship among policy makers in Europe and the way citizenship and belonging is articulated among migrants. Particular attention will be paid on the way transnational experience shapes migrants’ complex sense of belonging. The presentation draws from a cross-national study with Arab-speakers living in European capital cities.

Svetla Encheva is an analyst at the Centre of the Study of Democracy (CSD), Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a MA in Philosophy from Sofia University. At CSD she works on international and national projects mainly in the field of migration, but also related to issues such as child trafficking, cyber bullying, etc. Prior to joining CSD, she worked as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, Bulgaria where she taught various courses, including Sociology of Education, Sociology of Gender, Sociology of Traditional and Modern Societies, and Introduction to Sociology. Her civic activities are in the field of defending human rights (especially the rights of the foreigners in Bulgaria), anti-discrimination, and anticorruption efforts in the educational system.

As many Eastern European countries, Bulgaria is mainly a country of emigration. There is a relatively small amount of foreigners in the country (immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, etc.), which, since Bulgaria’s EU accession, is growing gradually. However, Bulgaria still does not face problems typical for countries of immigration, at least for two reasons – the small number of foreigners and the lack of social policies requiring public resources, in this area. In spite of this, from the point of view of Bulgarian “common sense”, foreigners are a threat. It seems that in Bulgaria being a citizen of the EU does not mean to live in a multicultural environment but to be as restrictive as possible. At the same time, any restrictions on Bulgarian citizen’s right by other EU countries are considered “unfair”.

Nicos Trimikliniotis is an interdisciplinary scholar and activist working in Cyprus in the fields of law and sociology. He is, since 2008, senior research consultant at PRIO Cyprus Centre. He is Assistant Professor of Law and Sociology and Director of the Centre of the Study of Migration, Inter-ethnic and Labour Relations at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus. He is the national expert for Cyprus of the European networks of experts on Free Movement of Workers (2008–) and Labour Law (2010–). He is the Cypriot national expert on Independent Network of Labour Migration and Integration Experts for the International Organization for Migration (2009–). He is a Research Associate at Swansea’s University’s Centre for Migration Policy Research (CMPR).

He has served as a research associate (national expert) with European University Institute on (a) Citizenship (EUDO, 2009–2010) and (b) on Tolerance, Pluralism and Social Cohesion (ACCEPT, 2011). He also has an association with the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He was national expert for Cyprus of the Legal Network of Independent Experts in the non-discrimination field (2004–2008). He has been Director of National Focal Point on Racism and Xenophobia (2004–2010) and the Cypriot FRALEX team (2007–2010). He has researched on ethnic conflict, reconciliation and resolution, constitutional and state theory, multi-culturalism, education, migration, racism, and discrimination and has published several articles, co-authored and co-edited books and journals.

Federico Rahola is a Senior Lecturer and an Assistant Professor of Sociology of Cultural Processes at the University of Genoa, Italy. Starting from migrations and border studies, his attention has recently converged towards current conflicts and their political and sociological impact. He is a member of the editorial board of Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana (REMHU), Brasilia, Etnografia e ricerca qualitative, Bologna, Italy and Conflitti globali, Genoa, Italy.

He is the author of Zone definitivamente temporanee. I luoghi dell’umanità in eccesso (Verona 2003), and, together with Massimiliano Guareschi, of Chi decide? Critica dela ragione eccezionalista (Verona 2011), and also the editor of Israele come paradigma (Milano 2008), and Palestina anno zero (Milano 2010).

In recent years, the impressive recourse to detention centres where to “territorialize”, identify and detain displaced persons (migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers) has produced a growing amount of studies and publications. This presentation will focus on the current pervasive spreading of detention centres, both within and outside the EU territory, by assuming it as a material symptom of  a wider process of borders transformation as well as of the emerging of a new “border regime” in order to govern human mobility. In other words, it is through the lens of the dramatic redefinition involving borders ­– according to which political and physical borders no longer simply ratify a univocal separation between an inside/outside- inclusion/exclusion-based dimension of sovereignty, and rather directly produce forms of discontinuity within an apparently smooth surface – that camps and the administrative detention of displaced persons have to be conceived and placed in.

This, in turn, suggests considering both the new practices of labour mobility and the proliferation of detention and identification centres as a re-actualized version of the structural relation, described by Deleuze and Guattari, between nomadic machines and capturing apparatuses, thus identifying a specific isomorphic relation based upon mobility and de-territorializing drives. Under this perspective, within the current global “border regime”, camps are to be conceived as devices directly producing forms of differential inclusion: as specific apparatuses that redefine, in terms of precariousness and status differentiation, the (allegedly homogeneous) space of citizenship in the crisis of contemporary liberal-democracies.

Friday, 28. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 12.30 – 14.30

• Jorma Routti, Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, Finland
• Akis Gavriilidis, writer and activist, Greece
• Barbara Beznec, Editor in Chief at ČKZ and activist at Social Centre Rog, Slovenia
• Leart Kola, Institute and Social Centre Antonio Gramchi, Albania
• Helena Gata, TESE – Associação para o Desenvolvimento, Portugal

Moderator: Özge Genç, Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, Turkey

Jorma Routti is currently the Executive Chairman of Creative Industries Management (CIM) in Helsinki, Finland. He has served as the Director General of Research DG of the European Commission in Brussels 1995-2000 in charge of the European Union research programs. In 1985-1995, Routti was the President of Sitra, The Finnish Innovation Fund. He has been active in developing Finland’s innovation systems and venture capital industry. Recently he has directed the World Bank study published as the book Finland as Knowledge Economy – Elements of Success and Lessons Learned and participated in many World Bank and other related projects in African, Asian, Latin American, Middle East and Eastern European countries.

Routti obtained a PhD degree at the University of California, Berkeley, USA as well as Dr.Phil.h.c. and Dr.Techn.h.c. degrees. He has worked at the University of California, USA, at Cern, Geneva, Switzerland, served as Professor at the Helsinki University of Technology and as Visiting Professor in many countries. He has also been Chairman of numerous organizations, including Finnish Cultural Foundation, Finnish Institute of Management, Academy of Technology, government committees on climatic change and energy systems, as well as major corporations and international research organizations.

1. ECONOMY DEVELOPMENTS AND SOLIDARITY CHALLENGES

• Economic solidarity is challenged today by major developments in the global, national and local economies, such as harder competition, skewed income distributions, economic winners and losers.
• They change positions in competitive rankings and economic performance. Financial systems and rescue actions are challenged and welfare systems are stressed.

2. KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND GLOBALIZATION

• China and India are regaining their earlier leading positions and changing international division of labor.
• Knowledge has become the major driving force of economic and social development.
• Research and development, creativity and innovation are key elements of KE. World Bank and the World Economic Forum have linked these with competitiveness.World Bank Knowledge Assessment Methodology is based on four pillars: Economic and Institutional Regime
  Education
  Information infrastructure
  Innovation system.
• Stages of Industrial and Economic Development go through the resource-driven, investment-driven, and knowledge- or innovation-driven stages.

3. INNOVATION SYSTEMS

• R&D investments are basic input to KE. They yield publications and citations, degrees and patents. More important are the creation of new industries and structural changes of the economy.
• All industries need high technologies. Especially small and medium size companies benefit from private-public collaboration with universities and research centers.
• Integrated innovation systems combine institutional and competitive funding and public and private funding. The creation of new high technology companies calls for private and institutional venture capital.
• Knowledge economies are evolving towards network economy with small research groups collaborating with large corporations.
• Innovation policy should be placed high in the public agenda, often in the Science, Technology and Innovation Council chaired by the Prime Minister.
• Economic policy and national strategy programs can greatly contribute to combining the competitive and solidarity aspects of national economies.

Akis Gavriilidis is a writer and translator born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1964 and living currently in Brussels, Belgium. He studied Law and in 1998 completed a PhD with the title Democracy Against Liberalism. The Notion of Natural Law in Spinoza, the study was later published as a book (Ellinika Grammata, Athens 2000). Other publications (in Greek) includes: The Incurable Necrophilia of Radical Patriotism. Ritsos-Elytis-Theodorakis-Svoronos (Futura, Athens 2006); The Continuation of Civil War With Other Means (Kapsimi, Athens 2007); In a World of Authenticity We are All Strangers (Panopticon, Thessaloniki 2007); Billy Wilder: The (Self) Criticism of the Hollywood Spectacle (Aigokeros, Athens 2009).

He has also published several original or translated articles in Greek, English, French, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian and Portuguese, in journals and on the internet, and translated articles of the others. He is a member of the “Social Laboratory” of Thessaloniki and of the “Frassanito” transnational network on the migration movements. Currently he is doing post-doctoral research at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki.

The past one or two-year period has been one of the most dense and intense in Greek history. Consequently, it constitutes a real laboratory for almost all sorts of economic, cultural, social, or political ideas, and a goldmine for theoretical analysis. Out of several possible lines, my presentation will focus on some lessons learned regarding the action and the organisation – or lack thereof – of what we could call the multitude, or the people, or the subaltern/underprivileged social groups, or any other name one would prefer (of course all these terms are not the same).

After one year of consecutive harsh austerity plans dictated by the “markets”, and more directly by the EU and the IMF, June 2011 marked the eruption of the so-called “movement of the outraged ones”, inspired by previous experiences in Spain and North Africa. This consisted of a large – though not stable – number of people gathering for several weeks in the main square of Athens, but other Greek cities as well, occupying it, some camping in it, and holding popular assemblies. This mobilisation provoked mixed reactions. The government in the beginning had a seemingly neutral but condescending stance, only to come up with fierce repression later. As far as intellectuals are concerned, mainstream modernist-(neo)liberal analysts showed mostly contempt and hostility; but also traditional leftist and anarchist commentators expressed embarrassment, reservations, even opposition. What mostly disturbed both of these groups was that this strange kind of political action had no clear political project; it was, at best, an understandable sentimental outburst, but irrational and ineffective, with no impact on what “real politics and economics” are about.

This difficulty had a (self-)orientalising/balkanising dimension, as the debt crisis brought to the surface the never totally eradicated anxiety about the belonging – or not – of the country to modernity, its accession to European status; the possibility of a negative answer is experienced as extremely humiliating, and often compared to a sort of emasculation. Besides, a very marked gender dimension is also testified by the accusation of “chattering” – a vice traditionally attributed to women, while men are supposed to “act seriously” rather than just talk, to give battles, dealing with real capitalist exploitation and domination.

These criticisms were proven wrong, for two reasons:

a) the assemblies were a means without end, a performance of virtuosity; but also they were a form of “communicational strike” themselves, a form of reclaiming discourse and using it for the production of the common, rather than putting it at the service of value production while at work and passively listening to discourses of others while outside of it.

b) This communication was much more effective even in strict political terms than any traditional fordist form of struggle, as its message bypassed national institutions and reached directly the “international markets”, who realised the risk of an unmanageable instability threatening their profitability too, much better than a thousand interventions by state officials or working class champions could make them realise.

Barbara Beznec has a Political Science degree in International Relations. She is a translator and author of numerous articles, including Constitutionalization of European Citizenship (ČKZ, Študentska založba, Ljubljana 2006); Resident Alien: The Spatial Experience on the Margin (co-author Andrej Kurnik; Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht 2009); Citizenship Rights and Practices of Third-Country Nationals in Slovenia (Faculty of Pedagogics, Ljubljana 2009).

She is a long-year activist in the field of citizenship rights, freedom of movement and autonomous spaces. At the moment she is concluding her PhD in political philosophy Constituting European Citizenship: Citizenship as Social Practice. She is the Editor in Chief of the scientific periodic journal ČKZ – Journal for the Criticism of Science and New Anthropology since July 2006, as well as a researcher and a member of the scientific committee in the project Transcultural Skills in Health and Care Systems (Lifelong Learning Programme, Development of Innovation; European Commission).

The basic reference of my presentation will be the analysis of the specific constitution of temporal and spatial borders that are in large part shaping the working and living conditions of migrant workers from so-called third countries in Slovenia. On the one hand, the defining element of the Slovene system of labour migration is the complete dependency of workers on concrete employers, not just in their working relations but also in the basic living conditions. On the other hand, the social, political and cultural practices of migrants, which I aggregate in the concept citizenship practices, continuously challenge the imposed boundaries of the development of European integration and European citizenship.

Migration policy of the EU is namely conceived and enacted as a complex mechanism of ephemeral circulation. Its goal is not to block the migrants, but to manage a process of their selective and hierarchic inclusion into the European labour market. This transformation of the geography of European space can thus be understood as a multiplication of manifold laterals, i.e. lateral spaces of production and citizenship. The process of lateralization is enacted in the production of hierarchies of rights through a hierarchy of political and legal statuses, which is the basis of the material transformation of citizenship in Europe.

On the territory of the former Yugoslavia this citizenship is defined by the disintegration of a multinational state on the one hand and a hierarchic integration of its parts into the European economic and political space on the other. One of the objectives of my presentation is therefore the break with the dominant understandings and interpretations of post-Yugoslav territory in terms of the “Outside” or “Anomaly” of Europe. By analysing migrant struggles against the apartheid of the European border regime – especially the struggles of the Invisible Workers of the World (IWW) in Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and their movement of continuous expansion of the margin of freedom – I will outline the emergence of a new political and social space, a “thirdspace” of common and becoming.

Leart Kola is a fourth year student at the Faculty of Political Science in Tirana, Albania. He has been one of the first and most active members of Mjaft! Movement in Albania. Working as a civil society activist and leading the Department of Direct Action within the Mjaft! Movement, Leart is now one of the most distinguished activists in Albania.

Leart participated in several youth leadership trainings in Albania and abroad. He was one of the Team Albanian’s members dispatched in Indonesia, the country that suffered most from tsunami and earthquake in South Azia, in order to support and offer his enterprise on logistics for the Team. It was due to his and the support of the Team Albania that Albania was ranked among the countries which gave its contribution during the earthquake’s aftermath. Furthermore, it helped to improve the Albania’s image in the world.

For years, Leart has been writing in the daily press in Albania and in famous blogs such as www.saktivista.com. Leart is also the founder of the weekly newspaper GAZETA and of the Institute “Antonio Gramschi”.

Subject: Albania a never ending transition, the passage from a state economy in which everything was planned by the state bureaucracy, to an extreme individualist free market.

Development: The free market in the first years of liberation from communism has created a system of paradox in Albania, because when people believed that they were free and everybody was telling them that they are free, in the first years Albania found itself in a brutal police system that was there to protect a corrupted state bureaucracy, which was in power to support a gangster-business group. That controlled everything from the political parties to court trials and they were in charge of giving money to corrupt politicians and destroying every attempt of political opposition.

In the first years after the 90′es, the free market guaranteed that the power and the money will be controlled in few hands, the idea of free market supported strongly by IMF created a violent state and a lot of journalists were put in jail during these years. In ’97, the state collapsed after a civic revolution that exploded in every city in Albania, and I will discuss the period March-April 1997 in Albania, where no state power was executed and the distribution of wealth was bigger than the 5 years of pluralist system. I’m interested here as a practical example of the contradiction of the thesis of the neo-liberals that capitalism is a “natural behaviour” of human kind. After three months everything was closed by the agreement of the same people that created this situation, with the support of the international community. This rehabilitation of the political figures has now created the same situation of the domination of the coalition politic-business, against the democracy and the people. After the 1997 revolution, the situation is the same but now the state has no need to use police brutality. But the media and gangs to cheat the elections in rural areas, this of course creates an economic system that 5% of Albanians have control of most of the capital, and 30% live with 2 USD per day, in extreme poverty.

Conclusions: In 2011, we need to open a new discussion of creating a system that is against the individualist capitalism on one hand and also against the state-controlled economy on the other. We need to create a new perspective for the Balkans that is against the idea that capitalism is a natural behaviour of humankind, we need to create a new territory of democracy that can work only if we have social equality, economical solidarity, which can create democratic freedom. Democracy can still be a powerful tool in the hands of the masses that these days can’t control anymore their politicians, and the politicians cannot control anymore the business. We need a new coalition against the old coalition.

Helena Gata works for TESE NGO since 2007 and is currently TESE Chairman of Executive Management Team. She works in the NGO sector since 1997 and accumulates abroad experiences – first in Holland (1 year) where she studied at Maastricht University, followed by England (1 year) studying and work at CICD, Mozambique (1 year) as a volunteer working in the HIV-AIDS prevention and Guinea-Bissau (2 years) in an educational programme for Guinean teachers.

She studied Sociology at Porto University, Portugal, and has a master in International Cooperation and Development from School of Business and Economics / Lisbon Technical University and the Social Entrepreneurship course (ISEP) from Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires in Singapore. She has created and implemented various social projects in Portugal and African Portuguese speaking countries. Occasionally she teaches in some universities (e.g., Porto University, Portuguese Catholic University and Coimbra University) lectures on Social Innovation and Social Economy. She frequently participates and writes articles about Social Innovation. Recently, she co-created the social innovation co-laboratory in Portugal (www.colabsocial.com) with the leading Portuguese bank (CGD) to generate new answers for social problems with the Public, Private and 3rd Sectors. Currently she lives in Lisbon.

We live in a time of change, which leaves behind the old paradigms aimed at conquering the world and opens doors to a people-oriented model (Touraine, 2005).

What will differentiate this change is certainly how it is managed and who will be its main active agents. As Peter Drucker said, “the most effective way to manage change is to create it.” That’s the main challenge of European Union – creating a new change in order to generate a better Europe for everyone. The world grew at the base of an economy with an invisible hand, based on self-interest and in the belief that the system is self-organized. Besides, the definition of democracy spread all over Europe is no longer adequate. Just as Benjamin Constant once said 150 years ago: “the liberty of antiquity had to be distinguished from the modern view of liberty”, the same happens to the definition of democracy. The freedom to not participate in the democratic system engendered a negative effect. Paradoxically, the risk is now endogenous, leading some sociologists as Anthony Giddens to affirm that we are facing risk societies whose trust is placed in abstract systems. So we need new solutions, because “what was efficient a generation ago is now dysfunctional” (Giddens, 2007).

Even Adam Smith, which created the concept of the Invisible Hand, in his book “The Theory of Moral Sentiment”, recognizes that at some point people need to be linked by common bonds. We need, in fact, another invisible hand, which takes into account the others-interest. Basically we need a new economy: a social and solidarity economy – an economy that goes beyond business and financial profits. Are we talking about a utopian society? Two years ago Gordon Brown called our attention to the fact that the current institutions are based on possibles, which prevent us from seeing other possibilities, making things impossible. He concludes is thought with the following sentence: “By attacking the impossible, the impossible became possible.” Is this crisis, a good moment to attack our impossibles?

Friday, 28. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 16.00 – 18.00

• Amanda Keeling, human rights activist, UK
• Kien Nghi Ha, Institute for Postcolonial and Transcultural Studies, Germany
• Morten Ebbe J. Nielsen, Centre for the study of Equality & Multiculturalism, Denmark
• Timea Junghaus, European Roma Cultural Foundation, Hungary

Moderator: Mirjana Mikić, Centre for Peace Studies, Croatia

We all have human rights, yet those rights are rarely “absolute”; often, they are qualified and must be balanced against the rights of others. Because human rights themselves are normative standards, the balance of rights is most difficult where cultures meet and clash – does my right to free speech extend to incitement of hatred against a particular race or religion, and risk their right to personal security?

It seems obvious that it does not, and in most parts of British culture there are boundaries set and respect instilled for other cultures and that careful balance of rights. There is, however, one area where such discrimination still seems to be allowed, and it is a problem which plagues much of Europe – the rights of Travellers and Gypsies. With the eviction of one of Europe’s largest Traveller sites – Dale Farm in Essex – imminent at the time of writing this abstract, the rights of Travellers to preserve their culture, and the failure of the British Government to protect them as a group in the same way as others is under the microscope. This talk will look at the prejudicial attitudes which still remain in the British public, and the failure of “multiculturalism” to fully embrace the Travelling community in the same way as other minority ethnic groups.

Kien Nghi Ha, Fellow of the Institute for Postcolonial and Transcultural Studies (INPUTS) of the University of Bremen, Germany and curator, held a PhD in Cultural Studies and a Diploma in Political Sciences. Previously, he hold research positions at New York University, USA; University of Heidelberg and University of Tübingen, Germany. His research interests focus on postcolonial criticism, racism, migration and Asian Diasporic Studies. His book Unrein und vermischt. Postkoloniale Grenzgänge durch die Kulturgeschichte der Hybridität und der kolonialen ‘Rassenbastarde’ (transcript 2010) was awarded with the Augsburger Science Prize for Intercultural Studies 2011. He is also the author of other widely acknowledged books including Ethnizität und Migration Reloaded (1999/2004) and Hype um Hybridität (transcript 2005). He is also editor of Asiatische Deutsche. Vietnamesische Diaspora and Beyond (Assoziation A, Fall 2011) and Re/visionen. Postkoloniale Perspektiven von People of Color auf Rassismus, Kulturpolitik und Widerstand in Deutschland (Unrast, 2007).

The recent legal and administrative intensification of enforced integration is the cause to join into a critical discussion of the debate. In view of a rising integration industry, there is a pressing need to question the powerful ideas and disciplinary practices associated with the euphemistic term “integration” from a post-colonial perspective. My analysis of the German integration politics and its discursive settings aims to comprehend how this pedagogical practice functions as an ideological project of nationalization and cultural homogenization. As a repressive form of integration it enables a full range of disciplinary sanctions, which are targeting specifically at People of Colour and post-colonial immigrants with Muslim backgrounds, while echoing colonial world views and hierarchies.

Integration as a mass-effective sovereign act of political control, cultural surveillance and legal certification raises a host of questions, examining both the politics of identity and the post-/colonial power relations articulated by the selective policies of migration and integration. Such asymmetric structures need to be analysed as to their effects. This will enable us to look for possible connections between immigration, integration and the nation state within the context of its historical development and post-/colonial embedding.

My contribution seeks to analyse the analogies between integration politics and colonial strategies of civilising and proselytization, which also defined the colonial Other as inferior and in need of Western enlightenment and education. In the colonial perspective, the societal existence of People of Colour and their becoming subjects are dependent on the degree to which the dominant power succeeds with its pedagogical, political and cultural re-socialisation.

Morten Ebbe Juul Nielsen is an Assistant Professor at Centre for the Study of Equality and Multiculturalism/Philosophy at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His recent publications include: ‘A Conflict between Representation and Neutrality’, Philosophical Papers 39 (4) 2010; ‘Safe, Sane, and Consensual – Consent and the Ethics of BDSM’, International Journal of Applied Ethics 24 (2) 2010; ‘Republicanism as a Paradigm for Public Health – Some Comments’, Public Health Ethics 2011 (in press); The Good, the Right and the Fair – an introduction to ethics, e-book; ‘For the Sake of Argument. Do Deliberative Values Mandate Restriction of Freedom of Speech?’, SATS – Northern European Journal of Philosophy (in press); ‘Multicultural Multilegalism – definition and challenges’, Les ateliers de l’éthique (in press).

Multilegalism is a species of legal pluralism denoting the existence of quasi-autonomous “minority jurisdictions” for at least some legal matters within a “normal” state jurisdiction. Multiculturalism in the advocatory sense might provide the justification for establishing such minority jurisdictions.

This paper aims to provide 1) a detailed idea about what such a multicultural multilegal arrangement would amount to and how it differs from certain related concepts and legal frameworks, 2) in what sense some standard multicultural arguments could provide a starting point for seriously considering multicultural multilegalism in practice, 3) how the idea fares against some standard liberal criticisms, and finally 4), to point out three salient problems for multilegalism, concerning a) choice of law problems, b) a dilemma facing us as to whether state supremacy should be upheld or not, and c) clashes with basic human rights.

Tímea Junghaus is an art historian and contemporary art curator of Romani origin. She is author and co-editor of the comprehensive publication on European Roma visual art Meet Your Neighbours – Contemporary Roma Art from Europe (2006). She was the curator of the First Roma Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Contemporary Art Biennale. She is currently concluding her PhD studies in Film Media and Cultural Theory at the “Eötvös Lóránd” University of Human Sciences, Hungary. Since 2010 she is employed as a researcher of the Institute for Art History at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Junghaus received the “Kairos-European Cultural Prize” in 2007, and since then she is the founding director of the European Roma Cultural Foundation (www.romacult.org) a Budapest-based independent NGO.

“Every day is a shame.”¹ Since 2008, 6 Roma people was shot dead in Hungary, including a five year old boy, 5 Roma victims were severely injured, including an eleven year old girl.  There have been 78 shots fired and 11 bombs thrown at Roma people in the past three years. Armed forces, keep the Hungarian Roma residents in terror with their provocations, which they humiliatingly call “the walks”. Meanwhile the Hungarian Prime Minister announced in a simple Facebook message that he believes that the minimum age of criminal prosecution or punishment should be 12 years. Then came the new regulation which decreased the general compulsory education to only 15 years of age. Everybody knows that these new legal regulations will impact primarily the Roma children and youth. Instead of social integration criminalized disintegration became the government’s program.

In the past few years, new and important results emerged in research, theoretical analyses and artistic practice in the Central European Roma cultural and theoretical scene. The art historical analyses of the Image of the Roma in Western Art, has proved that, in the Central European panoptic regime of modernity Roma became the pendants of  Western Europe’s African and Asian “primitives”.² Examining the archeology of these images, we can demonstrate how Central European societies created their own “black”, through “wild” groups and individuals and through their own local or distant colonies. We may also see how the Roma body is sexualized and feminized -similarly to the “black body” -in European modernity. Roma intellectuals concluded that without applying the post-colonial theoretical framework to describe the situation of European Roma, what we conserve is the “Gypsy problem” – the discourse, which tends to construct the problems that Roma experience (unemployment, poverty, and other manifestations of social exclusion) as essentialized by-products of the Gypsies’ own culture (e.g. Roma are inherently “socially inadaptable” and intellectually deficient). Situating Roma in the domain of the postcolonial, challenges this characterization by identifying the European institutional and individual racism and discrimination as being at the root of the problems Roma face.³

Young Roma artists and intellectuals are building creative social and artistic networks, they make conscious media and public appearances, they are creating interactive and community projects by using the means offered by computer and mobile-technology and online solutions to achieve the highest possible IMPACT. Roma media art and activism appears to be an effective alternative. It eases the lack of a tangible apparatus and offers more visibility, effective dissemination and multiplication of Roma ideas, art and creativity. It is also a fairly new solution for fighting the tradition of Roma representation in the traditional monolithic fashion.⁴ Is art able to stop the conspiratorial silence?

Saturday, 29. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 10.00 – 12.00

• Carmen Rodriguez Lopez, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
• Edgar Busuttil, Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, Malta
• Özge Genç, Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, Turkey

Moderator: Ana Frank, Peace Institute, Slovenia

Carmen Rodriguez Lopez obtained her PhD at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), Spain, with a dissertation about the Turkish political parties’ perspectives on the European Union. She is a researcher specialized on contemporary Turkish studies at UAM, where she also teaches about the Democratization Process in Turkey at the Arabic and Islamic Department´s Master Programme. She is a Member of the Taller de Estudios Internacionales Mediterráneos Electoral Watch and author on the book Turkey: The Bet for Europe / Turquía: La apuesta por Europa (La Catarata, Madrid 2007).

The presentation will address the prospect of Turkey as foreseeable model for democratic consolidation at the Mediterranean and the Middle East and will also observe the possibility that the democratic processes in this area may affect Turkish domestic politics. It does not seem feasible that the democratization experience of a specific country can be exported directly to others, but it is suggested that the Turkish democratization experience can have a positive influence on the transitions processes that are spreading in the region.

Turkey has already a significant, although discontinuous, democratic background and currently is still going through a democratization process deeply influenced by its candidacy towards the EU. Although it has to resolve important conflicts yet, like the Kurdish issue, the civil-military relations and the expansion of freedom of expression, the country counts with a well developed institutional structure, has experienced multi party politics for decades and, compared to other neighbouring countries, the legal situation of women is much better off, as its status in the Civil Code shows. These facts could be inspiring to some countries in the region; also, the developing of political and civil society transnational networks could have a positive influence in this sense. It is argued that the success of the Turkish democratization experience could act as a catalyst for further reforms in the region; on the contrary, the failure of this process may deter democratization expectations in neighbouring countries.

On the other hand, another possible scenario may envisage a positive influence on the Turkish democratization process by the Arab Spring if it successfully fosters democratic politics on the area, or a negative one if, as some observers have pointed out, the political transitions the countries are experienced end in a semi-democratic systems with significant authoritarian institutions, or promote such a level of instability that security may come before democratization in Turkish politics. Therefore, as it will be explained in detail, these likely scenarios may envisage a reciprocal influence between Turkey and the neighbouring countries going through democratic transitions.

Edgar Busuttil, Fr. (SJ) has been the Director of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice in Malta since 2007. He founded the “Paulo Freire” Institute in Zejtun, Malta with the aim of promoting literacy and community development among the poor. He was the first Director of the Institute between 2000 and 2007. He also taught Bioethics at Sogang University in Korea. For several years he worked as a research assistant in Bioethics at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Malta. He studied Chemistry and Biology at the University of Malta, Philosophy in Ireland and Theology in Rome, Italy where he specialized in Bioethics.

Malta is the smallest State in the European Union. Our population is around four hundred thousand and the area of the Maltese archipelago is three hundred and sixteen square kilometres. Two recent events have had an impact on Malta in the past few years. These have been our joining the European Union and the recent large influx of irregular immigrants from sub Saharan Africa in precarious boats. Both these events have provoked fears: fears of losing our identity as Maltese; fears of losing our religion and traditions.

In the case of our joining the EU most of these fears were “counterbalanced” by the prospects of greater economic stability: Malta went beyond its fears and joined the EU and the main political parties became united in accepting the will of the majority. However, with regards to the issue of irregular immigration our fears have grown beyond proportion. We are witnessing the development of a mainstream discourse which pictures sub Saharan Africans as the epitome of all our ills and problems.

Malta has an important choice to make today. It could choose to become overwhelmed by its fears or it could look at these new realities as a golden opportunity to grow and to break out of its closed and insular mentality. Rather than being taken up by paralyzing and destructive fears we must look at these changes as a new opportunity to open up; to try to understand the world around us in order to discover our new role as a people living on the crossroads of different civilizations. In this panel discussion I will focus on the sub-Saharan Africans: Who they are and why they are coming over to Malta and explore ways in which constructive dialogue may be promoted between the Maltese and these immigrants in a framework of the dialogue which needs to be promoted between Europe and Africa. How can we accept this challenge and make it a positive opportunity for all?

Özge Genç received her Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey. She received her MA in International Politics and Middle East Studies from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London, UK with the joint support of British Chevening Scholarship and Turkish Education Foundation (TEV). She is currently a PhD candidate in Political Science at Istanbul Bilgi University and her research is on Turkish secularism. She worked as a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute (MEI), USA between August 2009 and 2010.

Genç joined Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) in 2006 and is currently the Program Officer of TESEV Democratization Program. Her working areas are Religion-State-Society Relations, Minority Rights and Constitutional Citizenship.

Saturday, 29. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 12.30 – 14.30

• Gordan Bosanac, Centre for Peace Studies, Croatia
• Jelena Vujović, cultural worker, Montenegro
• Žarko Trajanoski, researcher and activist, Macedonia
• Nebojša Jovanović, theoretician, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Dunja Blažević, SCCA Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Moderator: Lana Zdravković, Peace Institute, Slovenia

Jelena Vujović is currently working as the Senior Adviser for the Slovene banking group NLB in Podgorica, Montenegro. She studied English and Italian language and literature at the University of Montenegro. Her MA in international relations is concentrated on ‘borders’ of contemporary Berlin.

Vujović promoted cultural and civic activities to the Montenegrin public as the spokesperson for the Montenegrin National Theatre for a numerous of years. As the communication manager and translator for several non-governmental organizations she also concentrated and assisted promotion of regional publishing integrations (NGO Open Cultural Forum) as well as the social inclusion over the means of art and culture (NGO Punkt). Her permanent interest remained with translation of contemporary literature and socially engaged essays which were published in Ars – Magazine for Literature, Culture and Social Questions, and the daily newspaper Vijesti. She worked as the editor in Gest – Magazine for Theatre and Cultures.

If asked about the future of the region and its own country, an average inhabitant of the South-Eastern Europe region would say the future of his/her country is within the European Union but only if the EU survives by the time it becomes recognized member of this “great European family”. On the one hand, it may sound naive and unacceptable but it represents the notion and overall feeling about the potential to imagine their own future, on the other hand, it explains how the EU wants to be perceived or how it communicates its own objectives, as the enlargement of the EU to the SEE region is one of them. Despite its naivety and lack of understanding in creating “the bigger picture” the given answer tells about the insecurity and fear, which are the key constants that shaped recent and not so recent history and politics of the Balkan countries, which strongly influenced all spheres of social undertakings. Thus, the fear, as a huge obstructer creates the state of self-imposed limbo, which as such, still gives opportunity for the retrograde forces as nationalisms, negative ideologies, negligence, lack of social unity etc. to survive and influence the present and future developments.

Despite the EU rhetoric created by the EU bureaucrats, which is quite clear about the future of the EU, and its long-term objective of enlargement to the region of the SEE, the EU politics was and it still is self-cantered and indifferent to “the Other”, to the non-member. The sense of empathy and crucial understanding as well as learning the real circumstances given in the SEE region, which were being traumatized by the post-wars and transitional illnesses and crises, were lacking. However, the EU understanding of the SEE region is still shaped by the prejudices which in turn created the politics based on imposing and patronizing measures and directives that additionally intensify local insecurity, unpreparedness and lack of ability to take responsibility for its own future.

The idea that stood behind the creation of the European Economic Community in the beginning had primarily been to pacify Germany. Over the years, not any other but economic bondage made the EU more coherent and stable. For the first time in its history the EU faces the economic instability and crises which questions the stability of its very foundations. Nevertheless, does this whole new situation will show that rescuing and understanding “the Other” is the only way the EU to prevail, and to finally question its own identity either in the “old” or “new” Europe? Does this going to help the SEE region to strengthen its social and cultural forces and potentials to promote integration, either regional or European, as the best direction for the creation of its future identity and confidence?

Žarko Trajanoski is a human rights activist, prominent columnist, and researcher (topics: human rights, gender, sexuality, and identity politics). Currently, he is a consultant in Coalition for Sexual and Health Rights of Marginalized Communities as well as a member of the Executive board of Foundation Open Society Institute, Macedonia.

Disappointingly, Macedonia is still a candidate country without the date for negotiations with EU while Croatia’s date for entering EU is foreseen for 1 July 2013. What turned wrong, bearing in mind that Macedonia signed the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with EU (as “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”) on 9 April 2001, six months before Croatia? However, the signing of the agreement did not prevent the armed conflict that escalated during the summer and was terminated with the Ohrid Framework Agreement (August 2001). The Framework Agreement, signed by EU mediator as well, was intended “for securing the future of Macedonia’s democracy and permitting the development of closer and more integrated relations between the Republic of Macedonia and the Euro-Atlantic community”. Neither use of the constitutional name was an obstacle during the signing the Framework Agreement (backed by EU), nor use of the UN reference on 16 December 2005, when “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” was granted with the candidate status after the successful implementation of the Framework Agreement.

“EU-isation” of the country was slowed down by the ethno-nationalists who came in power in 2006 and started the process soon after called “antiquisation”. At first, the government building was transformed into an archaeological museum, exhibiting the continuity of seven millennia Macedonian history. The capital’s airport was renamed after Alexander the Great (as well as the highway towards Greece), and the Skopje city stadium was renamed “Philip II of Macedon”. After the Greece denied Macedonia’s access to NATO in 2008, the nation-building reforms of the Macedonian ethno-national identity superseded the EU-reforms of Macedonian state institutions. Ancient Macedonian nation building had reached peak with the long-term project “Skopje 2014”, which includes dozens of large statues (including the grand statue of Alexander of Macedon on Bucephalus guarded by his phalangists, worth about 10 million euros), several buildings in neo-classical style, a triumphal arch, a historical museum of the IMRO (the International Macedonian Revolutionary Organization), archaeological excavations on Skopje fortress, state-sponsored Orthodox church, etc.

The disturbing political messages from Brussels and EC recommendations were distorted by the political propaganda of state-sponsored media that supported the process of branding the new Macedonian nation (“ancient Macedonian style”), as a “struggle for the constitutional name and identity”. Surfing on the waves of the ethno-national “struggle” (legitimized by the ideology of “Ancient Macedonism”), the ruling party is constantly fabricating external and internal enemies of the state on daily basis (Greece as arch-enemy; critical journalist and columnists as “domestic traitors” and “foreign mercenaries”). However, after the tight victory of the ruling party in the early elections in June 2011, the EU representatives underlined only “the importance of the government taking steps to ensure good neighbourly relations“, mostly ignoring the undemocratic processes within the country (silencing the judges, threats toward the critical journalists and closure of the critical media, blackmailing the public administration employees, propaganda attacks on NGOs, taking party control over all independent regulatory bodies and state institutions, etc.). Twenty years after the independence and ten years after the Ohrid Framework Agreement, while pretending to implement necessary reforms for entering the EU, the ruling party is inventing new traditions and designing a brand new (Ancient) Macedonian nation, simultaneously destroying the democratic institutions, silencing the critical media, and suppressing the political opponents and public critics. The ethno-nationalist obsession with the ancient past is jeopardizing the democratic future of the country.

Nebojša Jovanović holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and an MA in Gender Theory from Central European University in Budapest, Hungary and is a doctoral student at Central European University (Department of Gender Studies), where he is writing his thesis on the cinema of Bosnia and Herzegovina during socialism. He works as an adjunct lecturer, teaching psychoanalysis and film theory, at The Centre for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies of the University of Sarajevo.

His articles have been published in publications: Springerin, Vienna; Sarajevske sveske, Sarajevo; PlatformaSCCA, Ljubljana; Reč, Beograd; Agregat, Ljubljana; Borec, Ljubljana; Hrvatski filmski ljetopis, Zagreb. He is also author of the: “From a trauma to the Trauma”, in The Real, the Desperate, the Absolute, ed. Marina Gržinić (Galerija Sodobne Umetnosti Celje, Celje 2001);  “Yet Another Effort, Intellectuals, If You Would Become Amnesiacs! Against Post-Yugoslav Liberal Conformism”, in Leap into the City: Chisinau, Sofia, Pristina, Sarajevo, Warsaw, Zagreb, Ljubljana, ed. Katrin Klingan & Ines Kappert (relations, Berlin / DuMont Literatur und Kunst Verlag, Cologne 2006); “If I were an Artist: An Instructive Postmodern Bosnian Fairy Tale”, in Contemporary Art and Nationalism: Critical Reader, ed. Minna Henriksson & Sezgin Boynik, MM-publication & Missing Identities project, Prishtina 2007).

Saturday, 29. October
City Museum of Ljubljana, 16.00 – 18.00

Etyen Mahçupyan, Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, Turkey: »EU: Between Democratization and the Threat of Secularism«

Etyen Mahçupyan received his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey; his first MA in Business Administration from Boğaziçi University and his second MA in Political Science from Ankara University, Turkey. He is the author of thirteen books on Turkish history and politics. He previously wrote columns for Radikal, Yenibinyıl and Zaman newspapers; prepared weekly discussion programs for Samanyolu TV, Kanal 24 and TRT 2, and was the Editor in Chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos (January 2007 – June 2010).

Currently, he is the Advisor/Editor for Agos, columnist for Zaman and Today’s Zaman newspapers and Program Advisor of the Democratization Program at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), Istanbul.

Sunday, 30. October
Science Research Centre of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Atrium),  11.00 – 14.00

Presentation and discussion of/with selected international foundations active in SEE region and Turkey.

The brunch discussion will engage with structure, agenda as well as consequences of (NGO) grants politics run by the EU as well as the role of independent foundations and private institutions in the cultural politics and NGO founding situation in the SEE and Turkey. By encouraging a dialog between NGO representatives and representatives of international foundations we want to critically reflect positive as well as negative aspects resulting from current grant politics.

After almost two decades of NGO grants politics in the SEE and Turkey we are still facing partly outdated models of (re)distribution, which are in many cases resulting in a dangerous stagnation of cultural and NGO scene in specific countries. If on the one hand newly established cultural politics developed new modes of collaborations, mobility and integration, we can clearly state that such politics has established also a certain mode of precarious dependency, which in many instances dictates structuring of sometimes whole cultural and NGO sectors. Departing from the Slovenian case we would like to expose some of the most endemic and symptomatic problematics deriving directly from the cultural and NGO grant politics and by this try to locate new possible modes of its restructuralization which could be applicable also to SEE and Turkey as well as vice versa.

Moderator: Sebastjan Leban, artist and theoretician, Slovenia