Bossuyt, Amoris & Riabchuck: The subaltern strikes back, or how Ukraine is claiming agency from Russia and the European Union

These vocabulary flashcards cover the key theoretical frameworks and geopolitical concepts discussed in the lecture notes regarding Ukraine's agency during the Russian invasion.

Liminality

A state of in-betweenness, of being "neither here nor there," and also of transition, as a Self always in becoming.

Agency

Operational characteristics such as the ability to act, visibility, recognition, and acceptance by other members of the international society.

Ontological Security

The maintenance of a secure and stable sense of the Self through an autobiographical narrative and routinised practices.

Hybrid Liminality

A state emerging from crosscutting discourses of identity and mismatching categorisations, where actors embrace and exploit their in-between position.

Marginal Liminality

A constant state of becoming where an actor searches for a place within an established structural arrangement and attempts to join the core.

Critical Juncture

Unpredictable events that affect a large number of individuals, catching state agents off guard and disrupting their self-identities.

Ontological Anxiety

A state resulting from being ontologically insecure that can act as a source of creative agency and lead to identity change.

Subaltern

An actor peripheral to centers of power who is often treated as a mute object rather than a subject with political agency.

Fanonian Decolonial Theory (FDT)

A theoretical lens highlighting how the subaltern activates agency when faced with security predicaments or threats to survival, often through armed resistance.

Epistemic Imperialism

Dominant intellectual debates, often Western or Russian, which tend to downplay the agency of peripheral nations like Ukraine.

Slavic Brotherhood

A Russian projected identity discourse that frames Ukraine as a "little brother" needing protection and assimilation.

Russian World

A projected identity discourse (Russkiy Mir) around which Russia attempts to consolidate influence in its perceived sphere of influence.

Subaltern Securitisation

A process where the subaltern reclaims denied agency and voice by engaging in resistance when a threat to survival reaches a tipping point.

Near Abroad

A Russian term for former Soviet Republics that suggests they are not entirely foreign but rather "partly-Self."

Momentocracy

A term used to describe Leonid Kuchma's presidency, which excelled in ambiguous, ad hoc policies and proposals.

Revolution of Dignity

A 2013-2014 event in Ukraine also known as Euromaidan that consolidated the national urge to be free and break from the Russian sphere of influence.

Axiological Anomia

A state of protracted ambivalence or confusion regarding values that largely hindered Ukraine's internal development before 2022.

Subaltern Empire

A concept introduced by V. Morozov to describe Russia's hybridity as both backward compared to the West and imperial toward its own neighborhood.