Keynote: Eurasia Unbound? Reflections on Empire, Geopolitics and Citizenship

Each major geopolitical event or crisis in the Eurasian region has animated discussions on whether the Central Eurasian region will overcome its condition as a periphery, cease being the ‘near abroad’ of the metropole, or become further entrenched within the authoritarian regional institutional framework under Sino-Russian partnership. The protracted nature of Russia’s war on Ukraine has once again brought these questions to the fore.

This lecture considers how Central Eurasian states are signaling their autonomy and agency by developing alternative visions of regional cooperation and integration, infrastructural and trade connectivity, membership of the regional structures. Using a critical geopolitical framework, the lecture will ask how the Central Eurasian region is being reconfigured by the peripheries through strategic cooperation with the metropole, while resisting its incorporation into a ‘Greater Eurasia’ espoused by Russia and cultivating engagement and partnership with multiple regional and inter-regional institutional frameworks.