Organised by the War Studies Department and the Russian and Eurasion Security Research Group.

Abstract:

The territorial dispute between Russia and Japan has shaped relations between the two sides at the same time as it has become a symbol of much wider domestic debates on identity, territory, and nation. This paper focuses on the symbolism of this dispute in Russia, the ways in which it has impacted on relations with Japan, and how debates on this distant periphery can shift our Euro-centric interpretations of Russia's behaviour in international affairs.

Bio: 

Paul Richardson is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Birmingham. He is a political and historical geographer with regional interests in Russia and Eurasia. His conceptual focus is concerned with borders, territory and identity, and he has published on these themes in leading journals across disciplines, including Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers; Politics; Geopolitics; Eurasian Economics and Geography; Journal of Borderlands Studies and Global Change, Peace, and Security. His book At the Edge of the Nation: The Southern Kurils and the search for Russia’s national identity came out earlier this year with the University of Hawaii Press. 

 

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