Date: 21 September, 2026

Time: 15:00 – 16:00 (Bishkek time)

Researcher: Matteo Benussi, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

Language: English

Format: offline

Address: OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Botanichesky pereulok 1 A, Library (1st floor)

Registration form: here

Description

This presentation will introduce preliminary findings and hypotheses from ongoing research on the experiences of international war volunteers in and across two conflict zones in Eurasia: Ukraine and northern Syria/Rojava. The presentation will focus on three groups: volunteers who joined the Ukrainian war effort against Russia from “the West”; fighters who joined the Ukrainian war effort from other post-Soviet or former Eastern Bloc countries; and internationalists who joined the Kurdish war effort against ISIS.

To comparatively analyse these forms of war volunteering, the presentation introduces the conceptual framework of “ultra-citizenship”- a form of armed activism that both violates and reinforces models of citizenship and political cultures available “at home.”

The final part will consider this framework in relation to a fourth group currently under investigation: Central Asian returnees from Syria who had previously joined ISIS. It will be hypothesised that some of the difficulties that complicate the reintegration of returnees (despite the overall success of R&R programmes) in the latter scenario stem from the perceived absence of shared citizenship paradigms.

Agenda

15:00-15:05 Words of Welcome by Dr. Pal Dunay, Director of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek

15:05-15:35 Presentation by Matteo Benussi

15:35 – 15:55 Q&A Session and Discussion

15:55 – 16:00 Closing

BIO

Matteo Benussi is a social and cultural anthropologist based at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, specializing in religion, ethics, politics, and space-making in Eurasia. Prior to returning to his Alma Mater in Venice, he completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge and pursued postdoctoral training as a Marie Curie Global Fellow at UC Berkeley. Matteo has conducted research on Islamic piety movements and halal living in Tatarstan, the legacies of the Chornobyl disaster in Ukraine, post-Soviet heritage politics, as well as the intertwinings of matter, faith, and infrastructure. He is currently exploring topics of war, poetry, time, justice, and political theology/ontology amid Eurasia’s geopolitical convulsions.