Resistances to gender and sexual equalities in Eastern partnership countries: ethnonationalism and gendered nationhood in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

The proposed project addresses the implications of growing right-wing populism for gender and sexual equality in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries during the last decade (2010-2020). Focusing on three EaP states, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, the project seeks to examine how geopolitical and cultural context shapes political practices of right-wing populist parties to answer the following Research Questions:
1. What are the political, legal, and social implications of right-wing mobilization and backlash politics for Europeanization of national gender and sexual equality policies in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine?
2. To what extent may these new movements result in building a new far-right paradigm in the region?
The purpose of this project is to answer these questions by examining anti-gender mobilization and right-wing populist groups’ activities resulting in four journal articles and a manuscript for a monograph. The project goes beyond classical Political science research as it applies theoretical and methodological approaches, including data collection methods, from gender studies, sociology, human geography, and anthropology. As a core of the analytical framework, the project will apply frame and critical discourse analysis as two complementary interpretative perspectives on the social interactions constituting social movements’ activity. For the data collection and triangulation of results, the project will include in-depth interviews and participant observation.