Global hong Kong Series: Lessons from Russia

As Hong Kong experiences unprecedented political and social upheavals, we invite speakers who can shed light on other societies which have faced similar challenges. Putting Hong Kong in global perspectives may inspire comparative research, theoretical and historical reflections, as well as public discussions on our collective future.

Protest in Putin’s Russia: Opposition and Grassroots Movements

Speaker: Dr. Mischa Gabowitsch (Einstein Forum)

Date: 14th April 2021 (Wed) 17:00 (HK), 11:00 (Germany)

Format: Zoom

Language: English

Please register HERE  to secure your place

Co-organisers: Society for Hong Kong Studies & Global China Center, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Abstract:

Protest in Russia is often portrayed in terms of a conflict between the Putin regime and its political opponents. However, the most tenacious and successful protest in recent years has been associated with regional movements targeting specific issues, usually linked to the environment or urban development. Resistance to perceived encroachment by the central government is often crucial to these movements, but they do not usually challenge the political system as a whole.

About the speaker:

Mischa Gabowitsch is a historian and sociologist based at the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany. He holds a BA and MA from Oxford and a PhD from the School of Advanced Social Studies (EHESS) in Paris, and is an alumnus fellow of the Princeton University Society of Fellows and past editor-in-chief of the Russian journals NZ and Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research. He has worked extensively on protest and social movements in the post-Soviet countries. His recent publications on these topics include Protest in Putin’s Russia (Polity, 2017) and a forum on the ongoing protests in Belarus in the Spring 2021 issue of the Slavic Review, co-edited with Nelly Bekus. In addition, he has edited four books in three languages about the commemoration of wars and mass murder, including, in English, Replicating Atonement: Foreign Models in the Commemoration of Atrocities (Palgrave, 2017).