This seminar showcases the key outputs of the four-year research project Mediated feminism(s) in Contemporary Russia (FEMCORUS, 2021-2025), focusing on the variety of popularized expressions of feminism circulating in Russian media and their role in feminist activist anti-war mobilization during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Session I provides a summary of the project’s findings and insights informed by a set of case studies highlighting the complex nature and significance of celebrity feminists, feminist activist-influencers, and decolonial media discourses for our understanding of current Russian political activism and civil society.
Session II features discussant addresses by Julie Hemment, Ekaterina Kalinina, and Margarita Zavadskaia who reflect on FEMCOURS’ research in light of their extensive work in the respective fields of Russian feminism and anthropology, communication studies, and Russian politics, chaired by Olga Dovbysh. The speakers’ information is provided below.
The seminar introduces a novel interdisciplinary space for feminist research at the junction of transnational gender studies, media studies, and social movement research. It will also provide a deliberative space on how to organize the fieldwork and maintain collaborations in the precarious wartime context, and how to make ethically sustainable choices while conducting research in a rapidly changing geopolitical situation.
FEMCORUS is hosted by Tampere University and funded by the Research Council of Finland. The seminar is organized in partnership with the Aleksanteri-Institute, University of Helsinki.
Time: June 12, 2025, from 1 to 4 p.m.
Venue: Porthania, P219 (University of Helsinki, Yliopistonkatu 3)
Programme
13:00-14:00 Session I
Presentation of the key findings by the FEMCORUS research team: Saara Ratilainen (PI, Tampere University), Galina Miazhevich (Cardiff University, UK), Daniil Zhaivoronok (Tampere University), and Eeva Kuikka (Tampere University, Finland)
14:10-15:10 Session II
Discussant addresses by Julie Hemment (UMass Amherst, USA), Ekaterina Kalinina (University of Stockholm, Sweden), and Margarita Zavadskaia (FIIA, Finland)
Chair: Olga Dovbysh (Helsinki University)
15:10-16:00 Coffee and discussion
We kindly ask all interested participants to register by June 4 through this link: https://forms.office.com/e/PHCAvns08T
Please note that online participation is not available for this event.
Contact: saara.ratilainen@tuni.fi; eeva.kuikka@tuni.fi
Speaker information:
Olga Dovbysh (Postdoctoral Researcher, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki) is a sociologist with expertise in media and communication studies. Her research focuses on media and internet control in restricted media regimes, journalistic cultures, and environmental and climate communication.
Julie Hemment (Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst) is an anthropologist and ethnographer whose work focuses on postsocialist Russia. Her research interests include gender, youth and civil society and feminist, participatory and collaborative methodologies.
Ekaterina Kalinina (Associate Professor in Media and Communication) is a media and cultural studies scholar, whose research focuses on Russia. She writes about memory cultures and nostalgia, social mobilization and youth as well as teaches media history and media theory.
Eeva Kuikka is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Tampere University. Her research interests lie in Indigenous authors, cultural practitioners and activists from Siberia and the Circumpolar North. Her work is informed in particular by postcolonial and decolonial theories. In the FEMCORUS project, Kuikka’s research addresses the intersections of feminist and decolonial online activisms.
Galina Miazhevich is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Journalism, Media, and Culture at Cardiff University, UK. Galina worked on several projects dealing with media representations of Islam and multiculturalism in Europe; democracy in post-communist Europe; nation-branding; gender, sexuality, feminism, media and emergent forms of post-Soviet identity.
Margarita Zavadskaya (Senior Research Fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and Researcher at the University of Helsinki) is a political scientist whose work focuses on authoritarian politics, public opinion, and political behavior in Russia and Eurasia. Her research interests include electoral manipulation, migration, wartime public opinion, and the intersection of security, values, and democratic resilience.
Saara Ratilainen (University Lecturer in Russian Language and Culture, Tampere University) is a feminist media studies scholar whose work focuses on post-Soviet culture, contemporary Russian society, and transnational Russian-language media networks. She is the PI of the FEMCORUS project.
Daniil Zhaivoronok is a Doctoral Researcher at Tampere University. His research focuses on Russian popular culture, feminist movement, and the intersection of politics and media. In the FEMCORUS project he is working on Russian feminist media ecology, the impact of activist-influencers, and anti-war mobilizations.
