Historical research often illuminates the present, and the present reveals dynamics that help explain the past.
In this lecture, Darko Majstorovic will weave together his academic research on national rivalries in the Ottoman Balkans with his observations as a humanitarian worker in Ethiopia and his personal and family experience of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Across these three cases, though distant from one another both historically and geographically, common themes emerge: the dilemma between decentralising States to accomodate multiple intersts and the fear of encouraging separatism, the temptation to centralise in an attempt to preserve territorial integrity, the hegemonic tendencies of the numerically dominant group. 
What conclusions can be drawn from these distant yet not so dissimilar cases? What dynamics drive centralization, and what are its consequences?
Can we lessons be drawn to prevent violent outcomes?

Darko Majstorovic is a PhD student at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris, and a researcher at IFEA in Istanbul.

The conference will be held in English with Turkish translation, free of charge, and open to all.