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Karen Philippa Larsen.

Negotiating actorness and legitimacy: The Wagner Group and the Russian state

This is a hybrid event, welcome to join the seminar at Niagara or on Zoom.

Speaker

Karen Philippa Larsen

Abstract

Do you remember the Wagner Group? The semi-private Russian military group that marched on Moscow one Saturday in June 2023, briefly making all of us wonder whether Putin’s grip on the Russian “throne” was as firm as we had thought.

The Wagner Group played a central role in advancing Russia’s interests internationally, in Russia’s early military operations in Ukraine, and in the full-scale war that Russia launched against Ukraine in 2022. Despite its significance, the group operated mostly in the shadows since its founding in 2014. Even after its financier, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, stepped forward and claimed leadership of the Wagner Group, it continued to operate in a nexus between practices hidden in the shadows and choreographed ‘grand’ performances, shared primarily on social media.

Karen Philippa Larsen’s presentation focuses on the Wagner Group’s actorness and examines the Wagner Group from multiple perspectives, highlighting the group’s ability to play several different roles simultaneously - both on behalf of the Russian state and in pursuit of its own interests. The presentation engages with concepts of non-state and state actors, legitimacy and agency, and opens for a discussion of how audiovisuality, which is central to our time, might influence them.

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