The current war in Ukraine, the growing turmoil in the Balkans, as well as the tensions between China, Taiwan and other countries are only the most visible manifestations of the "new Cold War", of how fragile and unstable the current world order is. Challenging the current boundaries between states, whether through brute military force or through the use of propaganda and manipulation, is closely related to the question of identity as a key tool of self-identification and demarcation vis-à-vis the other. This process can be examined at the level of individuals as well as entire societies, nations or transnational entities. Indeed, a similar questioning of traditional arrangements is taking place within the functioning of Western society as a whole. Deepening social inequalities, accompanied by new culture wars, are leading to the obscuring of previously constituted patterns of identification and their gradual replacement by new identities. Alongside established ethnic or religious models, new gender, social or political-emancipatory types of identity are emerging. A low level of understanding of these new challenges, often threatening the world as we know it, can have serious consequences.
This interdisciplinary and comparative programme responds to the current disbalance in the value and geopolitical ordering of the contemporary world and explores the formation and negotiation of identities within and between diverse communities and states. Particular attention is paid to regions whose development has major implications for life in the Czech Republic and whose research has been underestimated in recent times: China, Russia, Ukraine and the Balkans. At the same time, the global anchoring of the programme will enable a broader contextualisation of activities focused on current social challenges within the Czech Republic, at the level of empirical research on identities in different segments of society, which should provide the basis for the formulation of concrete measures responding to dynamic changes in this area.
