Geopolitical knowledge, agency and peace: the European Centre for Minority Issues' peace-building in Europe and the post-Soviet Borderlands

This research advances our understanding of the pressing intellectual
and political issue of ethnic-minority related peacebuilding in Europe's
borderlands. Advancing critical geopolitical theorisation by bringing it
into deeper conversation with the emerging geographies of peace
literature, it explores how institutions produce knowledge through
'geopolitical scripting' - that is, how one place is understood and
interpreted in terms of another in order to guide policy interventions.
This is pursued with our collaborative partner, the European Centre for
Minority Issues (ECMI), based in Flensburg in the Danish-German
border region of Schleswig-Holstein. The cause of two nineteenthcentury
wars, Schleswig-Holstein is one of post-War Europe's greatest
peacebuilding 'success stories.' Working with governments and the EU,
the ECMI produces and transmits geopolitical knowledge about the
Schleswig-Holstein 'model' to aid minority-orientated peacebuilding
interventions throughout Europe. This research explores how this
occurs in particular reference to their work on Europe's fractious post-
Soviet borderlands.
Research adopts a tri-method and multi-sited approach. Interpretive
Policy Analysis will be used to analyse reports, archival material, media
engagement, and visual representations. Ethnographic study will be
used within the office environment and meetings with visiting
delegations. Lastly, key actors will be interviewed. Two main sites will
be studied: the primary one being the ECMI's Flensburg base, and the
secondary one its ongoing policy interventions and projects in
Transnistria (an unrecognised, Russian-speaking state between
Ukraine and Moldova).
As well as advancing critical geopolitics and peace geographies in
multiple intellectual and policy-related ways, the project will significantly
contribute to the dearth of literature on Schleswig-Holstein.