Minorities under Siege?

Špela Ledinek Lozej participated in the IPSA (International Politicasl Science Assosiation) Research Committees Colloquium 2026, held from 23 to 26 June 2026 at Eurac Research in Bolzano/Bozen, Italy. The international conference, entitled Minorities Under Siege? Plural Societies Facing Plural Challenges, was organised by the IPSA Research Committee 14 (Politics and Ethnicity) in cooperation with Qeen’s University of Belfast  Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict and Eurac Research Institute for Minority Rights and Center for Autonomy Experience. The colloquium brought together scholars from across the world to discuss contemporary challenges facing minorities, multilingualism, ethnic politics, autonomy, minority rights, and governance in increasingly polarised societies. The programme included keynote lectures, roundtables, thematic panels, and discussions on current developments in minority studies.

Špela Ledinek Lozej presented her research in the panel Governance, Identity and Minorities in Alpine Borderscapes (organised by Ingrid Kofler from the University of Bolzano), which explored the interplay between border governance, identity formation, and minority communities in Alpine regions. Her paper, Heritage-Making in an Alpine Borderscape: Between Collections of Objects and Narratives’ Museum in the Province of Udine (Italy), examined contemporary heritage-making processes in the Slovenian-speaking border area of the Province of Udine in north-eastern Italy.