DemCP colloquium - ELIZAVETA GAUFMAN: "Theory and Methodology of the Everyday"

Research colloquium of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Cultures and Politics

Elizaveta Gaufman (University of Groningen)
Theory and Methodology of the Everyday

Abstract

Do you eat patat, friet, French fries or Freedom fries? Our everyday choices are always political and evermore international. This talk offers a way to theorize and expose how everyday foreign policy works at the grass-roots level, using empirical material from Russia, sometimes literally from the kitchen table. I argue that everyday foreign policy should be theorised as an assemblage of micro-practices and discourses across both physical and digital spaces, inside and outside the body. In this way, everyday foreign policy can be seen as a decentralized phenomenon, where biological and cultural elements are intertwined through physical and digital spaces, often expressed through consumerist and carnal practices.

About the speaker

Dr Elizaveta Gaufman is Assistant Professor of Russian Discourse and Politics in the Department of European Languages and Cultures at the University of Groningen. Her research is situated at the intersection of political theory, international relations, media, and cultural studies. She is the author of Security Threats and Public Perception: Digital Russia and the Ukraine Crisis (Palgrave, 2017) and "Everyday Foreign Policy: Performing and Consuming the Russian Nation after Crimea" (Manchester University Press, forthcoming in 2022).