Borrowed Voices: Indigenous Rights, Representation, and the Crisis of Legitimacy in Global Governance
CGIS South Building, Room S010 (Tsai Auditorium)
1730 Cambridge St.
Cambridge
Mon., May 4, 2026, 5:30 – 7 p.m. 
Over the past decades, Indigenous peoples have gained access to international institutions, from the United Nations system to Arctic governance forums. These developments are widely understood as a significant achievement in advancing participation. Yet they rest on a powerful assumption: that representation, once recognized, continues to reflect the communities in whose name it speaks.
This lecture examines that assumption through the case of Russia. It shows how representation can remain institutionally intact while the conditions that sustain its independence are fundamentally altered — and why Indigenous peoples, long hidden in domestic political space, have acquired growing significance for the state’s global positioning, particularly under conditions of geopolitical tension and selective engagement with international commitments. The lecture also raises the question of legitimacy in an emerging landscape of Indigenous political activity beyond Russia’s borders.
Gazette Classification: Diversity and Inclusion, Lecture, Social Sciences
Organization/Sponsor: The Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Speaker(s): Liubov Sulyandziga, Visiting Scholar, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (AY 2025-26), Steven Solnick, Executive Director, Davis Center
Cost: Free
Ticket Web Link: www.eventbrite.com…
Contact Info: [email protected]
Harvard Key Required: No
More info: daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu…