When considering the Russian aggression against Ukraine and expansion into its territory, the space legacy of the Soviet Union in Eurasia may not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, Nelly Bekus has argued that for states like Kazakhstan the ability to adopt and adapt the technical achievements and artifacts of that era have been an important means of establishing new national identities in the wake of the USSR. 

In this talk, Dr. Bekus will discuss her studies of the cultivation of post-Soviet identities as a form of post-coloniality and the role that technoscientific enterprises like space exploration and travel have played in those efforts. She will also consider the impact of the expansionist actions of Russia, its expressed intentions to withdraw from established international relations involving space, and how those affect the geopolitics and identities of post-Soviet nations which have invested in using space for political purposes.

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Nelly Bekus, PhD (2007) Lecturer at the University of Exeter. Previously held research posts at Harvard University, the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna, and the University of Warsaw. Her publications include two monographs and over thirty articles and book chapters on social memory, urban space, technopolitics, and nation building in postcolonial and postimperial settings. Her works were published, among others, in the Theory and Society, British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Europe-Asia Studies, Nationalities Papers, and others.

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