Tag Archives: Norms & Transgressions

CEFRES Team

Ali Al-Moussaoui – Research & CV

“Domestic Archives of Displacement: Memory, Language, and Informal Bookmaking among Armenian and Palestinian Populations and Women in Lebanon”

Research area 1: Displacements, “Dépaysements” and Discrepancies: People, Knowledge and Practices

Ali Al Moussaoui holds a PhD in Cognitive Sciences of Language from the University of Nova Gorica (UNG), Slovenia. His research interests span bilingualism, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, language consciousness and identity, language politics, analysis of language situations, language adaptation processes, heritage language, code switching, discourse analysis, translation, and applied linguistics.

At the Centre français de recherche en sciences sociales (CEFRES), he plans to conduct a research project entitled Domestic Archives of Displacement: Memory, Language, and Informal Bookmaking among Armenian and Palestinian Populations and Women in Lebanon. The research relates to the trends of memory, diaspora, feminism, and informal bookmaking practiced by marginalized communities in Lebanon, namely Palestinian and Armenian populations, and especially women. The aim is to unearth the ways in which the aforementioned practices act as effective tools in memory-making, expressing identity, and resisting social and cultural difficulties. The research will shed light on the narratives, languages used, and different forms of informal dissemination of information being utilized by the two communities to record their stories and cascade their experiences. The research will utilize a multi-method qualitative approach which combines ethnographic fieldwork with textual, visual, and discourse analysis.

This research is conducted within a broader project titled “Paper Bonds: Bookmaking for Kin, Friends and Self in Contemporary Europe and the Middle East,” itself embedded in the TANDEM program, a collaboration between CEFRES, the French National Research Center (CNRS), the Czech Academy of Sciences (AV ČR), and Charles University (UK). As one of the project’s three researchers, Dr. Al Moussaoui will be working alongside Dr. Giedrė Šabasevičiūtė and Dr. Hélène Martinelli to explore how bookmaking practices and non-commercial publishing shape relationships, express identity, and respond to political and technological change.

CV

Academic Qualifications

2021: PhD in Cognitive Sciences of Language, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia. Thesis: Theoretical and Experimental Aspects of Numerosity and Quantification in Lebanese Arabic. Final Average: 90.01

2016: Master’s in English Linguistics, Lebanese University. Thesis: The Effect of Collocational Input on Linguistic Awareness and Proficiency in Writing in UAE

2008: Bachelor’s in English Language and Literature, Lebanese University, 2008

2022: Certificat d’Aptitude à la Profession de Médiateur, Ecole Professionnelle de la Médiation et de la Négociation (EPMN) Paris, France & Université Saint Joseph (USJ), Lebanon
Training: Focused on facilitating communication and building trust within domestic and informal spheres, in line with the “kitchen politics” theme

Professional Experience

2023- 2025: University Instructor, American University of Culture and Education (AUCE), Lebanon: diverse courses including Cognitive Development, Approaches to Research, Translation of the Community, and Translation of Cultural Texts/ supervision of student research on identity, language, and cultural exchange/ integrated discussions and workshops on literacy practices within the digital age versus material culture.

2022- 2025: Professional Mediator & Facilitator, Centre Professionnelle de la Médiation (CPM), Université Saint Joseph (USJ), Lebanon: formal training in mediation theory and practice, with a focus on ethical facilitation, conflict-sensitive communication, and trust building in domestic, community, and informal institutional settings/ application of mediation principles to qualitative research contexts, including fieldwork, in-depth interviewing, and engagement with marginalized and displacement-affected communities/experience in facilitating dialogue around sensitive sociocultural issues such as identity, language, gender, memory, and social vulnerability/ competence in managing interpersonal dynamics and asymmetries of power, supporting reflexive and ethically grounded research practices.

2021-2025: Project Manager & Communications Officer, Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training (LOST), Lebanon: cross-sectoral projects focusing on displacement, identity, and cultural resilience in Lebanon/ communications highlighting issues of feminism, migration, and cultural erasure within local and refugee communities/ outreach materials and partnerships addressing refugee education and empowerment/ trust-based communities and the sociology of literature.

2022: Freelance Translator, Cultural & Artistic Texts, Al Tashkeel Magazine, United Arab Emirates: translating a variety of non commercial and specialized texts including art criticism, cultural commentary, and literary works between Arabic and English/ engaging with the nuances of linguistic and cultural expression/ addressing the challenges of cultural erasure and preserving local narratives/ working closely with individual authors and small cultural organizations to gain insight into non-commercial publishing and the symbolic dimensions of text creation.

2008- 2015: English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Instructor, International High Schools, United Arab Emirates: delivering extensive EFL instruction/ conducting applied research on the acquisition and use of collocations and their relevance to linguistic awareness, identity formation, and the potential impact of cultural erasure in a multilingual context (research formed the basis of Master’s thesis)/ designing curriculum materials that addressed real-world communication needs, fostering an understanding of cross-cultural communication and the symbolic dimensions of language.

Conferences, Workshops, & Training
• July 2021: The 4th Experimental Pragmatics in Italy Conference (XPRAG.it) – University of Turin, Italy. The anti-duality inference: Implications for cross-linguistic variation and L2 learning (Co-presentation with Prof. Dr. Penka Stateva)
• November 2019: The 12th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting (MMM 12) – University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Poster presentation of a psycholinguistics experiment: The Facilitatory Effect of Phonological Priming on Visual Word Recognition in Arabic: Speed and Overlapping Positions.
• May 2021: Dynamic Syntax course – University of Bergen, Norway (online)
• May 2021: Psycholinguistics in Flanders 2021 Conference (PiF) Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Germany (online)
• May 2021: Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 31 – Linguistic Society of America, Brown University, USA (online)
• March 2021: 34th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing – University of Pennsylvania, USA (online)
• March 2020: Foundations in Literacy- Orton Gillingham Learning Centre (REACH), Lebanon
• August 2019: Research Methods in Corpus Linguistics & Computational Linguistics- Frankfurt Summer School, Goethe University, Germany
• October 2017: European Dyslexia Association (EDA) Seminar, Munich, Germany Publications
• Al Moussaoui, A., & Stepanov, A. (2020). When a Wh-Word Refuses to Stay in Situ. Linguistic Inquiry. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/ling_a_00345
• Al Moussaoui, A. (2022). Expanding the Mediation Lexicon in Arabic. USJ Repository
• Al Moussaoui, A., & Zekri, W. (2024). Algerian Teachers’ Motivation and Self-efficacy Towards Online Teaching. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 21(1), 55 73. https://e-flt.nus.edu.sg/v21n12024/zekri.pdf

Languages
• Arabic: Native
• English: C2 (Proficient)
• French: B2 (Upper Intermediate)
• Persian: B2 (Upper Intermediate)
• German: A2 (Elementary)
• Italian: A2 (Elementary)

Calls for Papers

CFP | Colliding Women

Narratives of Womanhood in the Modernisms of Central and Eastern Europe (1870-1970)

Organization Committee: Naïma Berkane, Mateusz Chmurski, Cécile Rousselet & Clara Royer

When: June 4-5, 2026
Where: Paris
Submission Guidelines: Your proposals (in French or English), in the form of a title, a summary of around 300 words and a bio-bibliographical note, should be sent by December 1, 2025 to: femininenarratives@gmail.com

Scientific Committee: Biljana Andonovska, Arnaud Bikard, Mateusz Chmurski, Alessandro Gallichio, Petra James, Luba Jurgenson, Jean-François Laplénie, Jasmina Lukić, Lena Magnone, Jelena Petrović, Alexandra Wojda Continue reading CFP | Colliding Women →

Calls for Papers

CFP | Gender and Mediation

⇒ In German below ⇐

Translational and Editorial Practices in the Reception of Belgian Literature in Czech- and Germanophone Cultural Spaces during Modernism (1870–1940)

 Workshop is organised by Petra James, Hubert Roland, Quintus Immisch di Padua and Martina Mecco, MODERNITAS (MSH – Université Libre de Bruxelles) – UCLouvain and CEFRES – French Research Centre in Humanities and Social Sciences in collaboration with Department of Czech and Comparative Literature, Charles University, Institute of Czech Literature, CAS, Institut of Slovak Literature, SAV.

Deadline for submissions: December 30, 2025
Date: April 15 – 17, 2026
Location: CEFRES, Prague
Languages: English, French, Czech, German
Send an abstract of 300 words to: martina.mecco@ulb.be

See the event program here.
Download the offical poster here.

(See German below)

The conference is organised as part of the FNRS (Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique, Belgium) project entitled “Belgium ‘Read’ in German and Czech” (2024-2027), directed by Petra James (Université libre de Bruxelles) and Hubert Roland (UCLouvain). Continue reading CFP | Gender and Mediation →

Non classé

Markus Pollak – Research & CV

“Evaluating Democracies: International Election Observers and the Contestation of Liberal Ordering”

Axes de recherche 1 : Déplacements, dépaysements et décalages : hommes, savoirs et pratiques & 2 : Normes et transgressions

I am a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Central European University and a DOC-Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. My research focuses on international election observers in the post-Cold War era. Specifically, I examine practices of contestation facing observation missions sent out by regional organizations. As a key pillar of democracy promotion and liberal international ordering, election observation provides an entry point for understanding contemporary endogenous and exogenous challenges to liberal international ordering.

My project is embedded in the subfield of international political sociology. To collect data, I combine interviews with election observation practitioners and intergovernmental organization staff with archival research, particularly at the OSCE archives in Prague. In line with a Bourdieu-inspired research methodology, my project emphasizes participant observation. I have worked as a OSCE and EU election observer in Bolivia, the United States, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Serbia. I am also a research associate at the NGO Election-Watch.EU.

Currently I work on a research project investigating OSCE election observer careers and the recruitment practices of OSCE missions. Previously, I conducted research on parallel election observation missions and published an article on the election observation missions of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the OSCE region.

Education

  • PhD in International Relations, Central European University (ongoing)
  • MA in International Relations, Central European University
  • Certificate of Social Sciences and Humanities, Sciences Po Paris
  • BA and MA in Political Science, University of Vienna

Selected Publications

Pollak, M. (2025). Mimicking Election Observation: The Politics of Parallel Election Monitoring. Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy.

Teaching experience

2025-2026: Lecturer at the University of Vienna for the course “Politics of Democratization and Autocratization”

2025: Teaching Assistant at Central European University for the courses “International Intervention and Statebuilding” and “Introduction to International Relations”, Vienna

Conferences and Public Presentations

  • European International Studies Association (EISA) – 2025 Pan-European Conference on International Relations (“It´s a small world! For 20 years it´s often been the same people”)
  • Electoral Integrity Conference (EIP) – 2023 (“Mimicking Election Observation”) + 2025 (“It´s a small world! For 20 years it´s often been the same people”)
  • University of Vienna – “The Subversion of Liberal Election Observation?”, presentation at the Marie Jahoda Summer School 2024 (July 2024).
  • University of Oxford – “Mimicking Election Observation”, presentation was a part of the programme of the Europaeum Oxford Spring School 2024, St Antony´s college (April 2024).
  • Sciences Po Paris – “Mimicking Election Observation”, guest speaker at an event of the CERI VERELECT research group (November 2024)
  • Central European University – Pollak, M.“´Being an observer is not a profession – although everyone thinks it is”, guest speaker at the Conflict and Security Research group (March 2025)
CEFRES Team, Non classé

Ruslana Koziienko – Research & CV

“The effects and affects of the (im)mobility of men during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine”

Contact : Koziienko_Ruslana@phd.ceu.edu

Research Area 2 : Norms and Transgressions

Ruslana Koziienko is a social anthropologist and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University (Vienna). Her doctoral research explores the experiences of Ukrainian adult civilian men as affected by the limited mobility—outside, due to the travel ban, and within the country, due to the mobilization processes—under martial law, which was introduced in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The project focuses on three interrelated themes. First, it examines the coping strategies civilian men develop under conditions of constrained mobility in order to support and provide for themselves and their families. Second, the research analyzes the transformations of masculinities and sense of manhood civilian men have undergone, especially in the light of the masculinity of the defender occupying the hegemonic position, as well as, more broadly, how the hierarchy of masculinities in Ukrainian society has been reshaped over more than three years of the all-out war. The third theme (and the general framework) of the project explores the transformations of and contestations over citizenship and what it means to be a “good (male) citizen” in times of war. Finally, the research also looks at the dynamics, processes, and regimes at different—national, regional, and international—levels that have shaped the historical moment when the sex-selective travel ban in times of war became possible and supported, or at least tolerated, by many in the first place. Among these are the national gender order, the European migration regime, the international humanitarian regime, and the tension between, on the one hand, state sovereignty and, on the other, the international regime of human rights.

Methodologically, the research draws on online and in-person, in-depth semi-structured interviews with Ukrainian civilian men, as well as, in a few cases, their partners, in Ukraine and across nine countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, the UK, and Canada). Research participants include men who remained in Ukraine, those who left the country, men who left but later returned, and those who were abroad when the full-scale invasion started. The research is also complemented by an analysis of the transformations of the law and regulations governing the border crossing regime and mobilization processes, media materials, and elements of digital ethnography.

CV

Education

  • 2020 – exp. 2026: PhD candidate, Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University, Vienna
  • 2018 – 2020: MA, Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University, Budapest
  • 2011 – 2015: BA, Cultural Studies, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv

Teaching experience

  • 01/2025 – in progress: Certificate of Teaching in Higher Education, Central European University
  • 01/2024 – 04/2024: Teaching Assistant, Central European University, Vienna, Ethnographic Methods, Asst. Prof. Johanna Markkula (MA level)
  • 04/2022 – 06/2022: Mentor, Invisible University for Ukraine, Vienna, Transformation, Conflict, and Migration (mixed levels)

Publications

  • Koziienko, Ruslana. 2023. “Against false solidarity. A call for true solidarity among people with experiences of displacement.” Allegra Lab, March. (Link)
  • Biziukova, Volha, Ruslana Koziienko, and Anna Lazareva. 2023. “‘Arrival’ Infrastructures: Ukrainian Displaced People in Vienna.” IWM Post, no.131 (June). (Link)
  • Koziienko, Ruslana. 2016. “Listening to the Rhythms of Cultural Trauma,” A Visit from Ghosts, 1 (October): 10-12. (Link)

In preparation

  • Biziukova, Volha, Ruslana Koziienko, and Ayşe Çağlar. “Beyond exception: the Ukrainian displaced in Vienna and the mazes of temporary protection in the EU and global contexts.” (Advanced draft; will be submitted to Ethnic and Racial Studies)

Conference presentations

  • 11 – 13/06/2025: Men and Masculinities in Transition, organized by the Nordic Association for Research on Men and Masculinities, Stockholm University; Panel: Military-2 & Prison; Presentation title: Transformations of civilian masculinities: Ukrainian men and (im)mobility during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.
  • 14 – 15/11/2024: Ukrainian Un/Certainties: Mobilities, Memories and Representations in Times of War, organized by Prisma Ukraїna, Berlin; Panel: Gender and (Im)Mobility; Presentation title: Contesting citizenship: (Im)Mobility of adult civilian men under martial law during the Russian war against Ukraine.
  • 23 – 26/07/2024: EASA2024: Doing and Undoing with Anthropology, Barcelona; Panel: The Gender of the State; Presentation title: The effects and affects of the (im)mobility of civilian men under martial law during the Russian war against Ukraine.
  • 13 – 14/10/2022: Solidarity, Displacement & the University Workshop, Berlin; Presentation title: Against false solidarity. A call for true solidarity among people with experiences of displacement.

Co-authored conference presentations:

  • 04 – 05/11/2023: Dialogues of the Peripheries, online; Feuerbach 11 conference, organized by the Commons journal; Co-presented with Volha Biziukova and Ayşe Çağlar; Panel: Approved or Refused: How the international refugee system has to work? (Link)
  • 30/09/2023: Migration and Arrival in Turkey: Urban and Spatial Approaches, Istanbul, organized by ReROOT Project; Co-presented with Volha Biziukova and Ayşe Çağlar; Presentation title: Arriving in “perpetual temporariness”: the displaced from Ukraine in Vienna and the mazes of temporary protection.
  • 01 – 02/03/2023: Cities and Human Mobility Research Collaborative Research Symposium, Vienna; Co-presented with Volha Biziukova; Presentation title: “Arrival” Infrastructures of the Displaced from Ukraine in Vienna.

Public talks and presentations:

  • 13 – 15/06/2025: Participant, conference Einsam in der Neuen Welt (Lonely in the New World); Project Group Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe, The Evangelical Academy, Tutzing, Germany.
  • 22/02/2024: Invited speaker, public discussion War, Flight and Civil Society. The Ukrainian perspective; Dialogue Office for Civil Society Cooperation, Vienna, Austria.
  • 09/11/2023: Presentation of research findings and invited speaker, public discussion What’s next for Ukrainian refugees? Lived experiences between state “welcome infrastructures” and self-help ecosystems; Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET), Vienna, Austria.
  • 22/02/2023: Presentation of key findings of the research “Arrival” Infrastructures of the Displaced from Ukraine in Vienna, Central European University, Vienna, Austria; Co-presented with Volha Biziukova, Ayşe Çağlar, and Anna Lazareva.
  • 09/02/2023: Presentation of key findings of the research “Arrival” Infrastructures of the Displaced from Ukraine in Vienna, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna, Austria; Co-presented with Volha Biziukova. (Video)

Conferences/workshops organized

  • 08/07/2025: Un/Making Protection: The Proliferation of Temporary Protection Regimes Across Space and Time, co-organizer, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna, Austria.
  • 17 – 18/10/2024: EthnoDoks: 16th Edition, co-organizer, Vienna, Austria. (Link)

Other work experience

  • 2015 – 2019: Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv, Ukraine; Project manager, researcher, co-curator
  • 2015 – 2016: The National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine; Research Associate in the Education Department
  • 08/2015 – 10/2015: The School of Kyiv (Kyiv Biennial 2015), Ukraine; Coordinator

Exhibitions

  • 05/2017 – 07/2017: Custodial Settings, co-curator, Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv (Link)
  • 11/2016 – 04/2017: Points of Approaching, co-curator, CSM/Foundation Centre for Contemporary Art, Dnipro-Kharkiv-Kyiv (Link)
  • 11/2016 – 12/2016: KINOTRON: Exhibition of an Unrealized Idea. Felix Sobolev – Stanisław Lem – Viktor Glushkov, co-curator, Visual Culture Research Centre, Kyiv (Link)
  • 08/2016: Olympics’84 in Donetsk, co-curator, Visual Culture Research Centre, Kyiv (Link)
CEFRES Team

Eva Krásová – Research and CV

Eva Krásová teaches theory of literature at the Institute of Czech Literature and Comparative Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague.

Her research focuses on the history of thinking about literature, especially in the 20th century, using historiographical methods such as text genetics and work with archival documents. She is interested in the relations between Czech and French linguists mainly Emile Benveniste, Antoine Meillet, Jan Mukařovský, Vilém Mathesius, Vladimír Skalička, etc.

In addition, she has long been a lecturer in world literature in creative writing programmes, first at the Josef Škvorecký Literary Academy, and from 2015 to the present at the Text and Screenplay Department of the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory and College, where she has had the opportunity to meet young poets in their
formative stages.

Her most recent professional interest is the analysis of popular culture using the tools of classical narratology and pop culture tropology and the resulting reflections on the place of literature in the contemporary media situation.