Researching Ambicoloniality: Theory, Method, Positionality

A special session of the PhD Forum on Critical Area Studies and PPV; with Dr Svitlana Biedarieva, author of Ambicoloniality and War

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This discussion with Dr Biedarieva will focus on her notion of “ambicoloniality”, unpacking its significance to interdisciplinary area studies research. The area focus will be on Ukraine, with further exploration of the potential contribution of the ambicolonial theory to the region previously known as the “former Soviet Union” and Latin America. The session is aimed at PhD students (and other researchers), and will address the theoretical, methodological, and ethical issues encountered in the “ambicolonial” predicament, heightened by ongoing war and other forms of violence. All are welcome.

The event is co-hosted by Perverting the Power Vertical (PPV), a research platform based at UCL SSEES FRINGE Centre (TBC); and by the UCL Institute for the Americas.

Dr Svitlana Biedarieva

Art historian, artist, and curator

Svitlana is the author of the book Ambicoloniality and War: The Ukrainian–Russian Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), the editor of Art in Ukraine Between Identity Construction and Anti-Colonial Resistance (Routledge, 2024). She has published texts in leading academic journals and media outlets, such as October, Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, FT, and The Art Newspaper. She holds a PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.