Join us in the next #SkytteTalks session with Professor Magdalena Dembińska (University of Montréal) on October 8 from 14:15 to 15:45 at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies (Lossi 36-306) . The lecture will be held in English.
Tourism is rarely read as an instrument of geopolitics, yet in contested spaces it does some heavy lifting of state-building. This talk examines how two neighboring, highly securitized entities — sovereign Ukraine and the unrecognized breakaway region of Transnistria — mobilize tourism toward state legitimisation, nation-building, and resilience. Paraphrasing Tilly's "war makes states," it traces three mechanisms through which "tourism makes states": territorialization, through infrastructure and itineraries that materialize control over space; nation-building, through museums, memorials, and shared experiences that make the nation tangible to its own citizens; and nation-branding/public diplomacy, through the image a state or para-state projects to the outside world. In both cases, these mechanisms narrate the nation internally and externally. In Ukraine, they are meant to anchor sovereignty. In Transnistria, they work to normalize a breakaway border and project statehood despite non-recognition. Tracing tourism across these paired cases shows how ordinary, seemingly apolitical practices — visiting a museum, following a route — become political: tourism is not a vacation from politics, but politics in the shape of a vacation.
The lecture is moderated by Dr Shpend Kursani, Lecturer in International Relations, Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies.
Professor Magdalena Dembińska (University of Montréal, Canada) is Full Professor of Political Science at the Université de Montréal. Her research and teaching in comparative politics center on ethnic politics and conflict, state- and nation-building, and nationalism and diversity, with a regional focus on Eurasia and Central Europe.
The lecture is open to public, and all are welcome to attend!
Project "Cooperation between universities to promote doctoral studies" (2021-2027.4.04.24-0003) is co-funded by the European Union.
