Presentation “Social inclusion of female ex-prisoners. Russian experience”, 51st ASEEES Annual Convention. 23-26.11.2019, San Francisco, USA

BY DR LARISA KANGASPURO

ASEEES Annual Convention is the biggest annual international conference of Russian research area. Dr Larisa Kangaspuro was the organiser of the panel section “Towards a brighter future! Social and legal adaptation in Russia” comprising of leading experts from the Nordic countries, England and the United States.

Archival fieldwork in the United States

Dr Larisa Kangaspuro worked in the archival section of the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco, November 9-16, 2019. The archival section of the museum has acquired unique historical materials, primarily related to the Russian post-revolutionary emigration, as well as pre-revolutionary Russia and the period of the civil war. Some authors of memoirs (mainly the memoirs of emigrants of the second wave and the correspondence of the 1920s-1930s) went through prisons of different regimes: the Red Army and White Army.

She also worked in the Bancroft Library on November 18-22, 2019. The Bancroft Library is the primary special collections library at the University of California, Berkeley. One of the largest and most heavily used libraries of manuscripts, rare books, and unique materials in the United States. For political reasons, it is not easy to find documents on the history of the peoples from the USSR in the Russian archives. Especially about repressive activities directed against them. In particular, the library contains archival materials on the history of Siberia. It is generally known that Siberia was a place of hard labor and exile, both in imperial Russia and later.

Transdisciplinary / Historical research workshop “Politics of memory: Nordic experiences of dealing with historical legacies” , Copenhagen, Denmark

The workshop supported by ReNEW Excellence Hub “Re-Imagining Norden in an Evolving World” was held March 27, 2019  at the Copenhagen Business School. Dr Larisa Kangaspuro was invited. She gave the presentation “Behind Finnish prison`s “success story””. Larisa’s presentation discussed the historical basis how the Finnish penal model was developed in the 19th Century when the Grand Duchy of Finland was a part of the Russian Empire. She focused particularly on the questions, how did the unique conditions of that period of Finnish history positive affect the creation of a modern prison system and did Russian official and public debates influence the development of Finnish criminal justice.

 

The Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki (Faculty of Arts) invites applications for a
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER TO STUDY IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN THE RUSSIAN PRISON SYSTEM
for a fixed term of THREE YEARS.

The postdoctoral researcher will work in a project funded by the European Research Council, “GULAGECHOES”, led by Professor Judith Pallot. The project’s aim is to examine the impact of the system of penality developed in the Soviet gulag on the ethnic identification, social relationships and political association of prisoners in the Soviet Union and the communist successor states.

Applications are invited by 28 April 2019. See here the full job description and application instructions.

Please feel free to send this information further.