Language, knowledge production, and representation

This lecture will address the epistemic gap of Eastern European perspectives and perspectives from the Global East in Western academia. We will grapple with the terms ‘Eastern Europe’, ‘post-socialism,’ and ‘Global East’ as well as with what postcolonial and decolonial means in this context and what effects their usage has on knowledge production. The talk will touch upon how Eastern European/post-socialist studies emerged as a field and what it would mean to decolonise this study area. We will also discuss what it essentially means to study the areas of the world marked by intersecting imperial and anti-imperial histories.

Dr. Gražina Bielousova is a decolonial scholar working at the intersections of race, religion, and gender in Eastern Europe. She defended her PhD dissertation The Making of Savage Europe: Religious Difference and the Idea of Eastern Europe at Duke University (US) in 2022. Before that, she taught a variety of compulsory and elective subjects in critical humanities and social sciences at LCC International University as well as at International Comparative Studies department at Duke. Currently she is an associate lecturer in political sociology at University College London as well as a postdoctoral researcher at Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science. Dr. Bielousova is a regular contributor to a variety of popular outlets in Lithuania and maintains an active social media presence.

The lectures series is part of Ghent University Doctoral School programme aimed to advance postcolonial and decolonial critiques from a Central and Eastern European (CEE) standpoint to overcome the epistemic dichotomy of West versus East, North vs. South prevailing in the Western academic canon. The lectures are open to students and academics of all levels and disciplines interested in the theme and theory building. The lecture series is organised by the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy in close collaboration with inter-university partners CESSMIR and EurEast Platform and outside-university partners ULB, Euroglot, and UNU-CRIS.