1st International Conference of the Central and Eastern European Security Hub
“Between Peripheries: Critical-Relational Security from CEE and the Global South”
Call for Papers: 22-25 January 2026, Tallinn University, Estonia
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 placed security at the center of European political discourse, yet it also revealed enduring hierarchies in whose security is prioritized and who is authorized to “speak security”. While the visibility of Central and Eastern European (CEE) actors has increased, dominant frameworks continue to center Western institutions and state elites, sidelining other voices. These patterns echo broader dynamics across both the Global East and Global South, where lived experiences are often excluded from official security discourse. In places like Palestine and Syria, discourses that render civilians expendable remind us that security does not mean the same thing to everyone – and is not always experienced as safety. This conference begins from that shared terrain of marginalization to ask: how can we rethink security relationally – and from in-between spaces of knowledge and power?
What remains overlooked across these contexts are the lived security experiences of marginalized communities, non-state actors, and those operating outside traditional infrastructures of security. This conference aims to create a space of critical-relational reflection – one that resists treating CEE as an exceptional case and instead situates it within global structures of inequality, militarization, and securitization, alongside the Global South. Rather than flattening differences, we seek to explore how security realities in the Global East and Global South resonate, diverge, and intersect. What alternative frameworks and solidarities can emerge from this dialogue? Can we trace not only shared exclusions, but also co-produced practices of peace, resistance, and care?
We use the term ‘Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)’ to refer to a broad geopolitical space shaped by postsocialist transitions, shifting borders, and uneven integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. At the same time, we take seriously the growing use of ‘Global East’ as a conceptual frame – one that unsettles the region’s liminal positioning between North and South and opens up space for new comparative insights. The connection between the Global East and Global South is particularly vital: while postcoloniality in CEE is often framed as a marker of exceptionalism, this conference asks how we might instead explore solidarities with other regions similarly marginalized in security scholarship and practice. We invite contributors to engage critically with these terms – Global East and Global South – not as fixed geographies, but as shifting, contested labels that carry both political potential and epistemic risk.
Key questions include:
- How do security hierarchies operate in CEE and Global South, respectively, and what forms of perspectives and expertise are elevated or silenced?
- How do critical Global East-Global South connections reshape our understanding of security and peace?
- How has postcoloniality been used to reinforce exceptionality rather than transnational solidarity?
- What alternative security framings emerge from grassroots actors, marginalized groups, or non-state institutions?
- How can security be reconceptualized from a critical-relational perspective that moves beyond crisis-driven and militarized models?
Designed as an intentional space for dialogue across positionalities, this conference brings together scholars, practitioners, activists, and policymakers to critically engage with security from multiple vantage points – between CEE and the Global South, between senior and emerging scholars, and between academic and activist frameworks. By fostering cross-sectoral and intergenerational exchange, the event offers opportunities for mentorship, collaboration, and the cross-pollination of ideas. A cultural-historical excursion to Lasnamäe – a district emblematic of the tensions and entanglements within our discussions – will further encourage informal networking and deepen regional engagement beyond the panel format. These opportunities will be complemented by a social program offering engagement with local Estonian customs and cultural practices.
Select papers from the conference will be invited for submission to a special issue proposal in a leading journal, ensuring sustained engagement with these themes beyond the event.
We welcome contributions from critical security studies, peace and conflict studies, postcolonial IR, anthropology, sociology, and political geography, as well as perspectives from those working in NGOs, policy, and activism.
We are delighted to announce that the conference will feature keynote lectures by:
Madina Tlostanova (Linköping University, Sweden)
A leading voice in decolonial thought, Tlostanova’s work examines the entanglements of postcolonial and postsocialist conditions through the lens of border epistemologies and imperial difference. Writing from the former Soviet periphery, she explores how subjectivities, knowledge systems, and artistic practices emerge from liminal zones of power. Her perspective is essential for rethinking how Central and Eastern Europe can speak back to global coloniality on its own terms.
Nivi Manchanda (Queen Mary University of London, UK)
A prominent scholar of postcolonial international relations and critical security studies, Manchanda interrogates how race, empire, and intervention shape statehood and global order. Her work challenges dominant narratives of security, particularly as they are imposed on the Global South, and offers incisive critiques of imperial governance and epistemic violence. Engaging both the politics of intervention in Afghanistan and the racialized logics of bordering in global IR, she brings a grounded and critical lens to the study of international security.
Further updates and registration information will be available by May 6.