Researching Conflict and Cooperation in Easter Europe: Lessons from KonKoop

Final conference of the project "Conflict and Cooperation in Eastern Europe" (KonKoop)
Financed by the Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technik und Raumfahrt (BMFTR)

Project-partner: ZZF Potsdam, Zentrum für Osteuropa- und Internationale Studien (ZOiS), Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde(HNEE), Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde (IfL), Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena und das Leibniz-Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung (IOS Regensburg)

Project leader at the ZZF: Jan C. Behrends (He is supervising the PhD project of Alyona Bidenko)

About the conference: 
After four years of researching the dynamics of conflict and cooperation, the first funding period of the BMFTR-funded KonKoop research network is coming to an end. Our closing conference will showcase what our researchers have achieved during that time. There will also be space for critical reflections on the work of the two labs that support our research activities: the Multi-Perspective Visualisation Laboratory for Peace and Conflict Cartography and the Multi-Method Data Laboratory for Conflict and Cooperation in Eastern Europe. 

The five conference panels are organised around the questions and issues that have preoccupied us to date: 

• Water and the dynamics of conflict and cooperation between local communities and state actors in Central Asia and (South) Eastern Europe

• The role of contested symbols and narratives in political discourse and memory politics, with examples from Eastern and Southeastern Europe

• Russia’s new position in the world after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine

• The political economy of conflict dynamics, with insights from our research on de-facto states

• The practical and epistemological challenges of transforming complex social phenomena into data, with reference to the work of the two crosscutting labs and the visualisation approaches used in KonKoop projects.  

As well as marking the end of our first funding period, the conference will be a fitting segue into the next one. Together with our many partners, we will use the opportunity to discuss how best to secure our results – especially with a view to the methodological and practical advice we can give to future endeavours in Peace and Conflict Studies in Eastern Europe and beyond.

Programme
(Programme, Download, pdf)

24 February 2026
Supporting programme at ZOiS
12pm
Between the EU and Russia: Business Perspectives on Economic (Dis)Integration in
Moldova and its Transnistrian Region.
How firms navigate shifting ties across the Dniester and with external partners
In Conversation with Julia Langbein and Sabine von Löwis (ZOiS)
3pm
Getting started with your PhD-project in the Humanities or Social Sciences (Event for
prospective PhD students)
6pm
Opening at BBAW
The Long Shadow of War: Learning from History for Russia's War against Ukraine
With:
Josip Glaurdić (University of Luxembourg), Anne Deighton (University of Oxford),
Oleksandr Zabirko (University of Regensburg/ Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Science’s
Young Network TransEurope) 
Chair: Gwendolyn Sasse (ZOiS)

25 February 2026
9.30am – 9.40am 
Opening by Jan C. Behrends (ZZF/ Viadrina)
9.40am – 11.00am 
Panel 1
Contested Symbols, Memory, and the Politics of Ambiguity

• Katarina Damčević (IOS): Ambiguity as Strategy: Semiotic Gaslighting in Post-Conflict
  Memory Politics
• Nicola Gajić (IOS): Is There a Freedom of Nationhood? Imposed Memory, Patriotic
  Gatekeeping, and Protest Politics in Serbia
• Eric Gordy (SSEES): Holding on to the Bad Memory: How Regimes use Denial for
  Legitimation
• Chair/ Discussant: Tsypylma Darieva (ZOiS)

11 – 11.30am Coffee Break

11.30am – 1pm 
Panel 2
The Russia Question Beyond Ukraine: Global Repositioning of a State at War

• Maria Raquel Freire (University of Coimbra): Anti-colonial rhetoric, imperial practice:
  Russia's African strategy
• Andreas C. Goldthau (University of Erfurt): Destabilization, disruption and disorder. Russia’s
  geopolitical strategy
• Géza Tasner (FSU Jena): Russia in the South Caucasus: The Future of the Middle Corridor
  Amid Regional Turmoil
• Sebastian Hoppe (ZOiS): (Geo)political Flexibility vs. Extractive Exhaustion. Unpacking the
  Adaptive Capacity of Wartime Russia
• Chair: Andrea Gawrich (JLU Gießen)
• Discussant: Jan C. Behrends (ZZF/ Viadrina-University)

1pm – 2pm Lunch

2pm – 3:30pm 
Panel 3
The political economy of conflict dynamics: Insights from de-facto state research

• Lena Pieber (ZOiS): Economic Agency of De Facto States
• Julia Langbein, Sabine von Löwis, Ivaylo Dinev (all ZOiS), Maxim Slav (National Institute for
  Economic Research, Academy for Economic Studies of Moldova): Between the EU and Russia:
  Business Perspectives on Economic (Dis)Integration in Moldova and its Transnistrian
  Region
• Prof. Magdalena Dembinska (University of Montreal): Business as Usual: Transnistrian
  Entrepreneurs in a Two-Level-Game (post-2022)
• Discussant: Stefan Wolff (University of Birmingham)

3:30pm – 4pm Coffee Break

4pm – 5.30pm 
Panel 4
Water and Resource Imaginaries in (Post)Conflict Contexts

• Flora Roberts (Utrecht University): Aging Dams, Fresh Concerns: Towards a Political Ecology
  of Soviet Water Infrastructure in the Ferghana Valley
• Mela Zuljevic (IfL): Mapping Legacies of War and Resistance to Extractivism in the
  Riverscapes of BiH
• Nafisa Mirzojamshedzoda (HNEE/ University of Fribourg): Invisible Flows: Informality and
  Water Management in the Downstream Fergana Valley
• Oleksandra Shumilova (Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB)):
  Water Resources and Infrastructure in Times of War: What has been Learned after Four
  Years of the Russia-Ukraine Armed Conflict
• Chair: Martin Welp (HNEE)
• Discussant: Jenniver Sehring (IHE Delft)

5.30pm – 6pm Coffee Break

6pm 
Output Stations

• KonKoop Research Map: A Tool for Navigating Peace and Conflict Studies in Eastern and
  Southeast Europe (Katarina Damčević/ IOS – Library)
• From Data Catalogues to Mapping Protest Waves: How to Build a Platform for Data on
  Conflict, Cooperation, and Protest (Ivaylo Dinev/ ZOiS – K3)
• Active (Citizen) - Can Anyone Be an Activist? Multi-screen video installation. (Piotr Goldstein
  (ZOiS) and Jan Lorenz (UAM Poznań)

6.30pm 
Final Panel
DataLab and VisLab: Infrastructures for Reflexivity and Criticality in Peace and Conflict
Research (Labs)
With:
Mela Žuljević (IfL), Ivaylo Dinev (ZOiS), Iaroslav Boretskii (ZOiS), Nafisa Mirzojamshedzoda
(HNEE)
Chair: Kerstin Bischl (ZOiS)

8pm 
Reception