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Race-Making in the East of Europe: Understanding Imperial and Colonial Histories and their Afterlives in the Dynamics of Race-Making and Migration in the Region

CEEMR Special Section

Call for papers

Co-Editors: Aleksandra Lewicki, Bolaji Balogun, Katarzyna Kubin

Scholarly interest in issues of race and racialisation and the colonial histories of regions in the East of Europe has steadily grown over the last decades. Today, there is a wide-ranging scholarship that offers insights into these subjects from different local and disciplinary perspectives. The goal of this Special Section is to contribute to further understanding of the histories and contemporary dynamics of race and racialisation in the region with reference to, on the one hand, local imperial histories and locally-rooted dynamics of group formation, and, on the other hand, global forces of modernity and coloniality. There are also fruitful opportunities to consider these issues in relation to histories of migration to, from and within the region, and the contemporary situation of people on the move in relation to the region. The Special Section will be published in the Central and Eastern European Migration Review (CEEMR), an internationally established journal based in the region. We especially look forward to contributions from minoritised scholars with strong connections to the East of Europe and especially those based in the region.

This is an exciting moment for research on colonial histories and issues of race and racialisation in Europe’s East, particularly in relation to migration trends. Historically, efforts to address these topics have been hampered by the limitations of existing conceptual frameworks and terminologies, which have positioned the region in complex and sometimes conflicting ways (Grzechnik 2019; Verdery and Chari 2009). Early studies that sought to integrate the region into postcolonial frameworks focused on how the region is itself subject to colonial discourses, which position it as “backward” or “lagging behind” in relation to (Western) Europe (e.g. Bakić-Hayden and Hayden 1992; Todorova 1997, 2005; Wolff 1994). Over time, scholars began to more explicitly problematise race and racialisation processes in the region so that whiteness was not “transparent” (Imre 2005: 80), but conceptualised as a form of global supremacy, as theorised by decolonial scholars (Maldonado-Torres 2007; Mignolo 2000; Quijano 2000, 2007; Wynter 2001, 2003). The framework of coloniality helps explain not only how the global North/South divide was produced, but also the stratifications of Europeanness within Europe, which were exacerbated and distinctively reconfigured during the Cold War (Boatcă 2010). Scholars also began to centre the region and to conceptualise whiteness in relation to the region in more nuanced terms (e.g. Kalmar 2022; Lewicki 2023; Zarycki 2014), which helped transcend the problematic positioning of the region as “behind” and “catching up”. The constellation of research on these themes includes, for example, studies that address the complex positioning and racialisation of Eastern European migrants and diasporic communities in Western Europe (e.g. Krivonos 2020; Lewicki 2022, 2024; McDowell 2009; Narkowicz 2023; Pawlak 2015).

Other approaches have focused on how the East of Europe has historically been complicit in colonial histories and coloniality. Such studies have deepened understanding of how whiteness operates as a form of power within the region (e.g.  Baker 2018; Baker et al. 2024; Demski and Czarnecka 2021; Imre 2005) and drawn attention to local race-making dynamics, thus spotlighting migration into/within the region and asserting the presence of racially and ethnically minoritised communities in the region (e.g. Balogun and Pędziwiatr 2023; Parvulescu and Boatcă 2022). Noteworthy are also scholarly accounts of how countries in the East of Europe actively pursued colonial projects and integration into the global capitalist system (e.g. Puchalski 2022; Grzechnik 2024; Balogun 2024).

Moreover, there is ongoing scholarly critical reflection about the geopolitical and theoretical stakes in how the boundaries of the region are drawn and in the naming of this geographical space, and how these questions impact on analyses of the region’s implications in colonial histories and race-making processes (e.g. Cavanagh 2004; Moore 2001; Parvulescu and Boatcă 2023; Parvulescu 2015, 2019; Shohat 1992). Centring the region, as some of these scholars have done, has rendered migration patterns and histories within the region more visible and thus opened the way for critical reflection about local histories of racialisation that are less reliant on conceptualisations drawn from the US and Western Europe.

Notable shifts that distinguish the current moment in scholarly developments on the above issues include applying frameworks that portray the region within a global-systems perspective, privileging a bottom-up approach that looks at global processes from local perspectives rooted in the region, and historicising accounts of racialisation within the longue duree.

In this Special Section, we invite contributions from diverse disciplinary and theoretical approaches that address issues of race and racialisation, the movement of people and ideas, and colonial histories, especially in relation to less studied countries in the region. Submissions might address themes that include but are not limited to:

1. The (re)production of ideas about race, ethnicity and nationality in relation to processes of racialisation in Eastern regions of Europe;
2. Histories of and perspectives from local migrant and refugee communities, and how they are positioned/position themselves in local discourses and dynamics of race-making;
3. Local histories of and perspectives from diasporic communities that tend to be under-represented in accounts of the region (e.g. Romani and Jewish communities) and the dynamics and relations between various local groups;
4. Reflections on how ideas about race and racialisation processes relate to boundary-making and/or stratifications of Europeanness within Europe, including critical reflection about the naming and positionality of the region;
5. Critical race theory and critical whiteness studies and their locally relevant reformulations;
6. The intersections of global/local colonial and imperial histories and their afterlives;
7. The region’s complicity and implication in global coloniality seen through the lens of racialisation and migration processes;
8. Conceptual and methodological challenges of addressing issues of race/racialisation, colonial/histories and/or applying decolonial approaches in the study of the Eastern regions of Europe.

Deadline for abstract submission: Friday, 31 January 2025

Abstracts should be no more than 200 words. Please attach a short biographical note of max. 150 words along with your abstract.

Abstracts should be sent to: ceemr@uw.edu.pl 

Decisions on abstracts will be communicated by the end of February/beginning of March 2025.

The submission deadline for full papers will be in August 2025.

The submitted papers will be initially reviewed by the special section editors and then revised drafts will be formally submitted to the journal’s peer review process.

Full-text submissions from selected contributing authors should be in the range of 6,000-9,000 words (including references). Instructions for authors: http://ceemr.uw.edu.pl/autors-guidelines