World Focus from Brussels
The World Focus from Brussels podcast covers international politics, defence, security, culture and anything else of global interest. Policy analyst and reporter Sveinn Helgason dives into the latest on the international scene, speaking with experts and all sorts of people. In a challenging security environment it has never been as important to understand the world we live in, listening to top experts analysis. World Focus from Brussels gets to the heart of the matter, wherever an interesting story needs to be told and provides the necessary background. You can find World Focus from Brussels on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
World Focus from Brussels
The Frozen Conflict of Abkhazia and Everyday Geopolitics – An interview with Dr. Görkem Aydemir-Kundakci at KU Leuven University
Russia’s war on Ukraine has left death and destruction in its trail, as we approach three years from Russia’s full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. This is very much a “hot-war.” However, around the world multiple frozen and often forgotten conflicts are also impacting people’s daily lives, without getting into the global headlines. One of these conflicts evolves around Abkhazia in the South-Caucasus, which Russia and a handful of its closest Allies have recognized as an independent state. However Georgia and most other UN member states view Abkhazia as Georgian territory, occupied by Russia.
In this episode I interview Dr. Görkem Aydemir-Kundakci the FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellow, in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven, who has been researching this frozen conflict. We also talk about other hotspots and conflicts in this very volatile region – about “everyday geopolitics” and how normal people try to get by under difficult circumstances. On 15-16 February KU Leuven, a university in the city of Leuven in Belgium, celebrated 600 years of history, opening its doors to the public and presenting the work multiple scholars in different disciplines. It is a great representation of the dynamic university community in Belgium, supported also by entities like FWO (Flanders Research Foundation).
To find out more about the research of Dr. Görkem Aydemir-Kundakci