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WS: Visual Methods and Critical Sustainability Studies (Preparatory Workshop to the Keynote and Exhibition)

RA7 Global Studies and Politics of Space in Cooperation with RA9 Ecology and the Study of Culture and WG Europe's East

When

May 22, 2025 from 02:00 to 04:00 (Europe/Berlin / UTC200)

Where

SR 126

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This workshop is preceeding the Keynote and the exhibition Spaces of Peripheralization and targeting the GCSC and JLU community of young scholars, with a focus on visual methods (in particular photography) in critical sustainability studies. The workshop is given by Miloš Đurović, and takes place 14h-16h in the GCSC premises in Otto-Behaghel-Str. 12, in the seminar room 126, on the first floor.

The event Spaces of Peripheralization tackles the pressing ecological issues in the region of Southeastern Europe that despite often remaining “under radar” of the international public mobilized various local efforts to counter both environmental degradation and the re-production of the region’s image as a European (semi)periphery. While the keynote by Prof. Dr. Ger Duijzings (Regensburg) will employ a comparative approach and showcase some examples of ecological/waste colonialism throughout the region, the photography exhibition by Miloš Đurović (Regensburg) will zoom into the context of the north Montenegrin mining border town of Pljevlja, illuminating the exctractivist practices and the issue of air pollution. These aspects marked both the socialist past and the capitalist present of the town, producing often visible marks on Pljevlja’s environmental “palm print” - marks that stand in contrast to Montenegro’s status as the first legally ecological country (Turnock 2001).[1] The event thus encourages approaching Southeastern Europe through ecological justice and artistic lenses, rarely considered in academia to date. Such an approach contributes to positioning concerns of local populations at the heart of the discussion, directly addressing the call from heritage scholars to shift focus in an effort to decolonize knowledge production about the region (Horvat and Ranković 2022)[2].

 

 

[1] Turnock, David. 2001. “Environmental Problems and Policies in East Central Europe: A Changing Agenda.” GeoJournal 55 (2/4): 485-505.

[2] Horvat, Lea, and Aleksandar Ranković. 2022. “Galeb i golub. Heritage Scholars, Power, and Knowledge Production in (Post-)Yugoslav Studies.” Südost-Forschungen 81 (1): 95-117.

 

Speakers’ Biographies

Miloš Đurović is a Doctoral Candidate in Social Anthropology at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies at the University of Regensburg. His PhD project, supervised by Prof. Dr. Ger Duijzings, explores the long-standing issue of air pollution in the coal-mining town of Pljevlja at the periphery of Montenegro – which constitutionally is an ecological state and an EU candidate member committed to transition policies of “decarbonisation”. Miloš holds BA and MA degrees in Ethnology and Anthropology at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. He has worked as a university teaching associate in anthropological courses in Montenegro, as an interdisciplinary researcher of social policies in Montenegro, and as a Political Ecology researcher in France. He co-authored a chapter on anthropocentrism and greenwashing in business education for the Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society (2025). His academic-artistic interventions include the authorship of the photo exhibition "Ekstraktivizam, zagađenje i budućnost: Pljevlja u fotografiji" [Extractivism, Pollution, and the Future: Pljevlja in Photography], in the Regional Museum Pljevlja, Montenegro, September 26-October 25 2024. 

 

Please register on Stud.IP to participate.