OCE Workshop | Viktoria LAVRINIUK | Tuesday, October 15th | 12h15-14h15

We will have the great pleasure of welcoming Viktoria Lavruniuk. Viktoria is an PhD student at emlyon. She’ll be giving a talk entitled:

“Beyond the Visible: Infrapolitics and Gendered Solidarity in Total Institution”

This paper addresses a gap in research on solidarity within the total institution of prisons and its relationship to subtle, everyday forms of resistance, particularly concerning women incarcerated based on politically motivated reasons. While existing organization literature focuses on overt, individual acts of resistance, my research foregrounds on the covert collective practices of defiance as a response to gendered oppression. In this context, empirical data has been generated during field trips to Lithuania, Poland, and Georgia, countries that host political refugees from Belarus. In-depth interviews (not once) with 11 women political prisoners who served their sentence and managed to flee from the dictatorial regime in Belarus were augmented by the context analysis of prison diaries, interviews in various media, and ethnographic notes did during participation in the human-rights defender’s discussions of the situation with political repressions in Belarus. This research contributes to the extant organization literature on total institutions in two ways. First, this paper shifts focus from individual forms of resistance to collective ones, focusing on the role of infrapolitics in sustaining resistance. Second, it provides insights into the interpersonal networks even beyond the prison walls in the situation when simple friendship ties are deliberately suppressed, demonstrating ways in which solidarity mediates resistance.

The event takes place in emlyon business school, at Lyon on the NEW CAMPUS and on Zoom.

Here is the link to register you, to be completed by October 13th.