Recursive Easts, Shifting Peripheries: Whither Europe's "Easts" and "Peripheries"?

In: East European politics and societies: EEPS, Band 31, Heft 1, S. 3-10

Abstract

This article is part of the special section titled Recursive Easts, Shifting Peripheries, guest edited by Pamela Ballinger. In this brief introduction to the special forum on the topic of "Recursive Easts, Shifting Peripheries: Whither Europe's 'Easts' and 'Peripheries'?" the author lays out the conceptual framework for the forum's contributions. The forum takes as its starting point the supposed "obsolescence" of both the notion of Eastern Europe and the scholarship dedicated to this topic, which flourished in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War's end. The author argues, instead, the continued urgency and value in studying the operation of easternisms and processes of peripheralization within the European context. In particular, the author highlights the recursive nature of easternisms and peripheries.