From October 22 – 24, the University of Helsinki will host the 2025 Aleksanteri Conference titled Extremisms: Ambiguities, Ideologies, Agency. The conference will address many issues being considered by the ARENAS project and features members of the project consortium who will present their research and host discussions. The conference will gather over 300 people from multidisciplinary fields, mostly social and political sciences, legal studies, economics, and the humanities. The conference will have particular appeal for those in the fields of Russian, East European and Eurasian studies.
Events in recent years have shaken our sense of security and undermined our trust in institutions. We are witnessing the advancement of ideologies based on violence, intolerance, neglect, and the erosion of fundamental rights and freedoms. The question arises: why are the traditional strengths of democracy now vulnerable to the advance of extremism? What happens when extremism infiltrates mainstream politics and distorts ideologies and cultures? When extreme parties are de-marginalised and grab positions of power? When authoritarian regimes oppress the opposition under the guise of fighting extremism? What then is the meaning of “extremism”? The conference aims to discuss these challenging questions and troublesome developments.
This extensive conference runs over three days, with many sessions running in parallel. The full programme is available here, with a list of keynote speakers here. Members of the ARENAS consortium are making a significant contribution to the conference. Conference organiser Katalin Miklóssy (University of Helsinki) will participate in a panel discussion on “Knowledge Production in Crisis: Constraints on Academic Freedom in Finland, Hungary, and Poland” and in two roundtables, Roundtable 2C-1: “The nexus of illiberalism and migration in today´s Russia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe”, and Roundtable 3B-1: “Discussion of Linda J. Cook Welfare Nationalism in Europe and Russia: The Politics of Exclusionary and Inclusionary International Migrations”
Other ARENAS consortium members contributing to the conference include:
Ana Yara Postigo Fuentes (Heinrich-Heine Universität, Germany) “From Structure to Circulation: A Framework for the Analysis of Extremist Narratives”, Louise Burté (University of Lorraine, France) “Is this a fair story? Using alternative narratives to remediate extremist attitudes with a young audience”, and Gwennaelle Bauvois (University of Helsinki) is chairing a Panel: “Reframed extremism: discursive tools of power, memory, and belonging”