Why “We”?
The word ‘we’ marks a clear distinction, creating an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’. Belonging to a certain group is a marker of assurance and identification, perhaps even a necessity for navigating everyday life. Nevertheless, it is challenging to define precisely the conditions under which a sense of community emerges and those under which it becomes fragile, in particular, when ‘we’ are faced with crisis situations.
The concept of ‘we’ can unite, but it can also divide, creating oppositions and frontiers; it possesses a compelling power that has historically made it attractive to totalitarian regimes, yet it also serves a valuable purpose when it comes to shared cultural heritage and memory culture projects.
With regard to minority and diaspora contexts, multiethnic regions and migration societies, questions therefore arise concerning the mobilisation and formation of groups, the negotiation of belonging, and the emergence of (unexpected) alliances. The focus here is on various aspects of ‘we’ in and from Eastern Europe, subjected to analytical scrutiny through interdisciplinary discussion.
Throughout the conference, we will thus examine these processes, their narratives and representations in terms of their entangled trajectories and dynamics.
Programme
Wednesday, 30.09.2026
from 09:00 Conference Registration & Arrival
09:30 Opening: Tilman Kasten, Introduction: Jana Stöxen
Origin – Homeland – Future
10:00
Gábor Egry (Budapest)
How to become German? Entangled Hungarian-German visions of minority communities in interwar Central and Eastern Europe
James Koranyi (Durham)
Bonding with the homeland: The Transylvanian Carpathian Association, emigration, and inter-national tourism
11:30 Break
12:00
Giustina Selvelli (Ljubljana)
Mining the Land, Mobilising the “We”: Extractive Conflict and Minority Activism in East-Central
Europe
Bianca Bran (Tübingen)
“Children” and vampires. “We”, gender, generation, and the negotiation of field roles in the community surrounding HOG Hamroth
13:30 Lunch Break
15:30
Neighbourhood Walk through Freiburg-Weingarten
Sarah Wirschke, Tomas Wald (both: Freiburg)
Life Beyond Freiburg’s Public Urban Imaginary – Diverse Communities Living Under a Stigma?
19:00 Conference Dinner
Thursday, 01.10.2026
Folklore – Heritage – Identity
09:30
Tomáš Korbel (Prague)
The Image of the Homeland of the Sudeten Germans: The Identity-Forming Role of Heimat-Museums
10:15 Break
10:45 Laura Marie Steinhaus (Freiburg)
Mobilizing Cultural Heritage: Folk Songs and National Identity in Ukraine
Tim Wenzel (Dresden)
Performing the “We”: Festival Practices and Nation-Building in Gagauzia, Moldova
12:30 Lunch Break
14:30
Roundtable: Belonging & Crises of Displacement and War
Keith Harrington (Dublin), Ágnes Erőss (Bozen-Bolzano), Olga Sasunkevich (Gothenburg), Nino Aivazishvili-Gehne (Maastricht)
In times of crisis, it is primarily minorities who are confronted with their own vulnerability and, in some cases, with their status as outsiders. By bringing together various examples relating to Eastern Europe, we aim to explore their experiences, practices of belonging and ways of coping with daily life, whilst addressing, in particular, the question of how a sense of “we” is formed, especially under pressure.
16:30 Break
17:00
Johannes Müske, Tilman Kasten, Jana Stöxen
(all: Freiburg)
Centralising the Songs of ‘Volk’/Folk. Genealogies, hierar chical research practices and colonial style of thought in folklore collections in Freiburg
19:00 Dinner
Friday, 02.10.2026
Media – Literature – Press
09:00
Anja Wilhelmi (Lüneburg)
The Baltic Letters (“Baltischen Briefe”) as a driving force for the reorientation of the German-Baltic community in (the Federal Republic of) Germany
Andreea Zamfira (Bucharest)
Constructing and Deconstructing a Historical Community at the Intersection of Mediatization, Politicization, and Commodification: The German Minority in Romania (1969–2019)
Anastasia Romanova (Chișinău)
Constructing “We” Abroad: Discursive Community Formation in Moldovan Migrant Memoirs
11:15 Break
11:45 Conclusion
12:30 End of conference
Jana Stöxen
jana.stoexen@ikde.bwl.de