Sergiusz Bober

Since September 2017, Dr. Sergiusz Bober has been a Senior Researcher at the ECMI and lead the Politics & Civil Society cluster. He earned his doctorate in political science at the Jagiellonian University in 2010, with a thesis on the intellectual sources of the Argentine federal system. He also holds an M.A. in Law from the same University.

In terms of research areas, he is primarily focusing on minority language media. Within this field, together with Craig Willis, he conducted pioneering research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on such media outlets, as well as analysed the influence of digitalization processes on the sector of minority language newspapers in Denmark, Germany, and Spain (specifically in the Basque Country and Galicia). Those interests resulted in the co-organization of several scientific events, with the most prominent examples being the conference Multi-platform and Connecting Communities: Contemporary Challenges for Minority Language Media and The ECMI Expert Workshop on Minority Language Media in Eastern Europe. He is also an active member of the International Association for Minority Language Media Research.    

His other academic interests involving minority issues include such topics as political parties of national and ethnic minorities (primarily in their ideological dimension), minorities striving for recognition, and – more recently – minorities in the context of sport. In addition to that, he has been responsible and co-responsible for such publications of the Centre as the ECMI Research Papers (until April 2021) and the ECMI Minorities Blog (since September 2021). Between September 2019 and February 2020, he was an interim co-director of the Centre.

Before joining the ECMI, Sergiusz was employed at the Jagiellonian University and at the Jesuit University Ignatianum. During that period, he was working on such topics as comparative and Argentine federalism, human rights, Scottish nationalism, social justice, and theoretical approaches to sovereignty.

In his work, he has been using mostly sources in Danish, English, Galician, German, Polish (his native language), Portuguese and Spanish.

Selected publications

Bober, S. (ed.), (forthcoming), Post-World War One Plebiscites and Their Legacies. Exploring the Right of Self-Determination, Central European University Press.

Bober S. & Willis, C. (forthcoming; accepted for publication) ‘The digitalization of minority language newspapers: between long-term trend and pandemic-induced adaptation’, European Yearbook of Minority Issues.

Bober S. & Willis, C. (forthcoming; accepted for publication) ‘The purpose of minority language media and the digital shift: the case of Der Nordschleswiger’. In: P. Mpofu, I. A. Fadipe & T. Tshabangu (eds.), African Language Media, Routledge.

Bober, S. (forthcoming) ‘The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on minority communities beyond the non-EU countries in Eastern Europe’ (review article), Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe.

Willis, C., Hughes, W. & Bober, S. (2022, December 21). National and linguistic minorities in the context of professional football across Europe: five examples from non-kin state situations. ECMI Minorities Blog. https://doi.org/10.53779/BVKL7633

Bober, S. & Willis, C. (2021) ‘The Covid-19 pandemic and minority language media in Europe: the effects of spring 2020 lockdowns’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2021.2005074

Bober, S. (2021) ‘El vínculo entre soberanía, globalización y los derechos de las minorías’. In: P. Almeda i Samaranch (ed.), Cataluña-España: ¿Del conflicto al diálogo político? Madrid-Barcelona: Los Libros de la Catarata – Generalitat de Catalunya. pp. 507-521.

Bober, S. (2021) ‘El nexe entre la sobirania, la globalització i els drets de les minories’. In: P. Almeda i Samaranch (ed.), Catalunya-Espanya: Del conflicte al diàleg polític? Madrid-Barcelona: Los Libros de la Catarata – Generalitat de Catalunya. pp. 502-515.

Bober, S. & Berdiqulov, A. (2020). Recognition, non-recognition, and misrecognition of minority communities. What lessons can be drawn from a comparison between European and Central Asian approaches? (Research Paper No. 124). European Centre for Minority Issues. https://www.ecmi.de/publications/ecmi-research-papers/recognition-non-recognition-and-misrecognition-of-minority-communities-what-lessons-can-be-drawn-from-a-comparison-between-european-and-central-asian-approaches

Bober, S. (2020, April 9). The Spanish Roma community in the time of coronavirus. A narrative perspective. ECMI Minorities Blog. https://www.ecmi.de/infochannel/detail/the-spanish-roma-community-in-the-time-of-coronavirus-a-narrative-perspective

Selected conferences/workshops/guest lectures

1–2 December 2022: The ECMI Expert Workshop on Minority Language Media in Eastern Europe (co-organizer with Craig Willis).

28-30 September 2022: Conference Territorial and Inter-Organizational Cooperation. Presentation (as a plenary speaker): Minority language media in / and the Danish-German border region. Between borderscapes, institutional cooperation and political engagement.

28-30 September 2022: Conference Territorial and Inter-Organizational Cooperation. Roundtable: Minorities, Non-Territorial Autonomy and cross-border cooperation (speaker).

13-16 September 2022 III International Conference on Revitalisation of Indigenous and Minoritized Languages, Presentation: The impact of media on the revitalization and use of minority languages: towards consensus through an international Delphi Study (with Miren Manias-Muñoz and Sergiusz Bober).

11-13 April 2022: PSA Annual International Conference 2022. Presentation: Between ethnicity and regionalism: the Schleswig Party in the context of Danish local elections of November 16th, 2021

5-7 April 2022:The ASEN XXXI Annual Conference on Nationalism and Media. Presentation: Minority Language Media (MLM) and minority-majority relations during the COVID-19 pandemic (with Valentina Cola and Craig Willis). 

31 March–01 April 2022: Conference Multi-platform and Connecting Communities: Contemporary Challenges for Minority Language Media (co-organizer with Craig Willis and Miren Manias-Muñoz).

11 March 2022: Workshop Political Polarisation and the Role of Media. Presentation: When minority language newspapers become political actors: the role of Flensborg Avis and Der Nordschleswiger in the campaign arguing for the reopening of the Danish-German border during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

3 November 2021: ECMI Online Talk Minority languages and media landscapes in Africa, Europe and Latin America: Between global and regional dynamics (organizer).

18 August 2021: ILMA 2021 Research Seminar - North-West University, South Africa. Guest lecture: Minority Language Media in Europe and the Covid-19 pandemic. A study of 10 linguistic spheres (with Craig Willis).

23-24 June 2021: Workshop Rahmenübereinkommen zum Schutz nationaler Minderheiten: Umsetzung, Möglichkeiten und Defizite im Kontext der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Presentation: Implementing Article 9. Assessing minorities’ access to media in Germany (Artikel 9 implimentieren: Beurteilung des Zugangs zu Medien für Minderheiten in Deutschland).

9 June 2021: KURS-Kolloquium - Europa Universität Flensburg, Germany. Guest lecture: Minority Language Media in Europe and the Covid-19 pandemic. A study of 10 linguistic spheres(with Craig Willis).

3-4 June 2021: Conference Minorities and Self-determination – 100th Anniversary of the Post-World War I Plebiscites (co-organizer on the ECMI side, together with Craig Willis).

20-21 May 2021: The ECMI Expert Workshop - Social Movements and Minority Rights. Presentation: Human rights crisis in Xinjiang and civil society actors from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Strategies of engagement and their efficiency (with Aziz Berdiqulov and Doriyush Soliev). 

29-31 March 2021: PSA Annual International Conference - Resilience, Expertise, Hope. Presentation:Does ethnic kinship matter in electoral politics? The evidence from four European examples. 

24-26 March 2021: XVIII International Conference on Minority Languages (ICML). Presentation: On the efficiency of monitoring mechanisms. Minority language media in ECRML and FCNM. 

28 January 2021: Workshop on the findings of the Covid-19 minority language media interview series. International Association for Minority Language Media Research (IAMLMR) online event (co-organization and presentation with Craig Willis).

14-15 December 2020: IPSA Virtual Colloquium: Disruption, Crisis, Opportunity: Whither Democratic Governance? Discussant in the panel Representation and mobilization of cross-border nations. The party politics of ethnic kinship.

26 November 2020: Conference Sovereignty conflicts in Europe: Basis for a solution. Presentation: The nexus between sovereignty, globalization, and minority rights. How are these concepts interconnected in the context of territorial conflicts of sovereignty?

8-9 October 2020: Conference New Borders in Europe? The Annual meeting of the Danish European Community Studies Association (Sønderborg, Denmark). Presentation: A comparative look at development strategies of ethnically diverse border regions. Is diversity considered important factor for the creation of better living spaces in the borderlands?

13 December 2019: The ECMI Expert Workshop Minority identity in the digital age. Presentation: Documenting Uyghur/Xinjiang crisis with digital tools.

9-11 December 2019: Conference Documenting, Assessing and Reporting the Uyghur Crisis. Presentation: Discursive responses to the Xinjiang crisis in Central Asia. A comparative analysis of Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbek cases (with Aziz Berdiqulov and Doriyush Soliev).

25-26 November 2019. Workshop Nationalism in a Transnational Age.  Presentation: National minorities and the rise of nationalism. A comparative analysis of the cases of Danish minority in Germany and German minority in Poland.

27-29 June 2019: The 16th Conference of the European Society for Central Asian Studies (ESCAS). Presentation: Mechanisms of recognition of national minorities in Central Asia. A comparative study of cases from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan (with Aziz Berdiqulov).

24-25 April 2019: ASEN Annual Conference. Presentation: National minorities and the question of local and regional development. Are Danish minority in Germany and German minority in Denmark post-national?

7-8 February 2019: The ECMI Expert Workshop National minorities in regional development (Co-organizer and co-chair with Sonja Wolf).

4-6 July 2018: ASN European Conference 2018 – Nationalism in Times of Uncertainty. Presentation: The Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein vis-a-vis Denmark’s policy towards persons of foreign origin after June 2015 parliamentary election: the case of ‘Flensborg Avis’ newspaper.  

20 April 2018: The ECMI Expert Workshop Central Asia (Co-organizer and co-chair with Aziz Berdiqulov).  

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