Mar 2013 – Dec 2017
Through an investigation and comparison of three empirical cases; Northeast India, Cyprus and the Basque country, this project explores the changing conditions and spaces for exercising and demanding sovereignty in the contemporary world, and how sovereignty is imagined under these conditions.
Drawing on anthropological perspectives, sovereignty is understood as imagined in similar ways as the ‘imagined communities’ that make up the ‘people’ of sovereignty demands. The project highlights how sovereignty is context-dependent and historically constructed, asking the following key questions:
The project explores how sovereignty is imagined and debated in different socio-cultural and political contexts, examining how conflicts over identity (e.g. indigeneity, ethnicity, nationhood) and governance differ in the ways in which key actors and their constituencies draw on culturally shaped notions of identity, territoriality and legitimacy in their imagining of different ‘sovereign’ futures, despite having basic ideas of statehood and global influences in common. The project thus aims to shed new light on the changing nature of conflicts over public authority, political representation, citizenship rights, and territoriality in a globalizing world.
Partners in this project are the International Catalan Institute for Peace (Institut Català Internacional per la Pau) and Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Development (OKDISCD).
Sovereignty Revisited: The Basque Case, edited by PRIO's Åshild Kolås and Pedro Ibarra Güell, provides a fresh view on Basque sovereignty and statehood in the new political climate.
PRIO's Åshild Kolås will edit a special issue on Northeast Indian Enigmas: Exception, Extraction and Bare Life in the peer-reviewed journal Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, and the call for papers for this issue is now open with a deadline for submission on 1 February, 2017.
Professor Sanjib Baruah is a guest researcher at PRIO in July. He is a PRIO Global Fellow and professor of political studies at Bard College, New York and honorary research professor at Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi.
Edited by Pedro Ibarra Güell and Åshild Kolås, Basque Nationhood Towards a Democratic Scenario is now out on Peter Lang International Academic Publishers.
Debates about Basque self-determination were curtailed for decades by political violence, involving both the actions of ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) and the counter-terrorism activities of Spain and France. In 2011, ETA announced a permanent cessation of operations. Since then, the stakeholders have become increasingly aware of the need to rethink Basque nationhood and democratic representation in light of the changing nature of nationhood and citizenship within the European Union. These issues are also important in the French Basque country, which has witnessed a re-emergence of Basque identity politics in recent years.
On October 9 & 10, 2015, the PRIO Cyprus Centre organized its annual conference in the Nicosia UN Buffer Zone. The conference, co-organized with the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation in Cyprus and supported by the Research Council of Norway, invited international experts to discuss cases of contested and exceptional sovereignty all around the world.
Under the title 'The Everyday Lives of Sovereignty: Contests and Conflicts in a Transnational Era', the conference comprised four panels, exploring a wide variety of cases in which sovereignty is asserted and contested in daily life.
Oñati, 14-15 May 2015
The workshop organized by Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, the Department of Political Science of the University of the Basque Country and PRIO gathered international and Basque researchers to elaborate on contemporary visions of sovereignty and analyze processes of sovereignty construction from an interdisciplinary approach, covering conceptualizations of new political dynamics, emergent sociological processes and their legal reflections, with special focus on the Basque Country and attention to the fields of anthropology, sociology, law, political science and history. Through this multidisciplinary scientific exchange the workshop aimed at advancing the understanding of notions of sovereignty and processes of sovereignty construction in general and in the Basque case specifically.
El taller de trabajo organizado por el Instituto Internacional de Sociología Jurídica de Oñati, el Departamento de Ciencia Política de la Universidad del País Vasco y PRIO analizó nociones contemporáneas del concepto de soberanía y procesos de construcción de soberanìa desde un enfoque multidisciplinar. El programa prestó especial atención a los campos de la antropología, la sociología, el derecho, la ciencia política y la historia. Los trabajos académicos presentados se centraron en la conceptualización de nuevas dinámicas políticas e incipientes procesos sociológicos así como en su reflejo legal. A través de este intercambio científico multidisciplinar profundizamos en la comprensión de las diferentes nociones de la soberanía como concepto y como proceso de construcción social tomando como caso de estudio el País Vasco.
Time: 19-20 February 2016
Place: Guwahati, Assam
Host organisation: Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Development (OKDISCD)
Conference organisers: Åshild Kolås (PRIO) and Bhupen Sarmah (OKDISCD)
"Dividing Line" (posted 3 October 2014) and "Upstream Superpowers" (posted 5 December 2014)
Time: 19-20 February 2016
Place: Guwahati, Assam
Host organisation: Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Development (OKDISCD)
Conference organisers: Åshild Kolås (PRIO) and Bhupen Sarmah (OKDISCD)
Date: 16-17 October 2015 (TBC)
Place: Buffer zone, Nicosia, Cyprus
Host organisation: PRIO Cyprus Centre
Conference organisers: Åshild Kolås (PRIO) and Rebecca Bryant (LSE)
Monograph
Journal Article in Alternatives: Global, Local, Political
Journal Article in The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology
PRIO Paper
Book Chapter in Sovereignty Revisited: the Basque Case
Edited Volume
PRIO Policy Brief
Edited Volume
Journal Article in The Seminar
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Journal Article in Social Scientist
Journal Article in History and Anthropology
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Book Chapter in Unheeded Hinterland: Identity and Sovereignty In Northeast India
Edited Volume
Journal Article in Critical Studies on Terrorism
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Conference Paper
Master Thesis
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Book Review
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Journal Article in Asian Ethnicity
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Popular Article in Ny Tid
Book Chapter in Rudolf Kjellen. Geopolitiken Och Konservatismen
PhD Thesis
Conference Paper
Journal Article in Brown Journal of World Affairs
Journal Article in Journal of Humanities and Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)
Journal Article in Strategic Analysis