The article is devoted to the elaboration of the concept of narrative tolerance as a conceptual and methodological tool for processing the past, based on such conceptual grounds of the narrative theory of historical knowledge as constructivism, methodological openness, instrumentalist approach to the understanding of historical narrative, revisionism and perspectivism. Narrative tolerance is proposed to be understood as a refusal to impose one’s historical narrative on others (in accordance with the principle that “history is written by the victors”), as well as the possibility of including the voices of different historical agents in the narrative and taking into account different points of view without reducing the overall conclusions of the investigation to a “common denominator”, especially in situations with long-term historical conflicts. It is pointed out that the historical past — the historical reality as we know it through historical works — is always, to a large extent, an “augmented reality” to the real past. The components that a historian “adds” to the real past, creating the historical past in the process of researching, explaining and interpreting the available material, include theories, methodologies, and conceptual apparatus that are modern and regularly updated. The main mechanism for creating and changing the historical past as an augmented reality is the historical narrative. Thus, a set of historical narratives can be viewed as a way and mechanism of narrative engineering, a permanent process of re-description and re-evaluation of existing historical knowledge in the light of new data or theoretical and methodological approaches within the contemporary humanities.

This study investigates how Belarusian migrants and political exiles reconfigure the meaning of home and belonging following forced displacement after the 2020 political crisis. The object of inquiry is the emotional and symbolic reconstruction of home in exile, shaped by practices of homing, relational care, and identity negotiation. The main task is to examine how migrants experience and enact belonging in uncertain sociopolitical landscapes, and how emotional geographies and symbolic rituals serve as coping mechanisms amid loss, mobility, and precarity. This study asks: how is home performed beyond physical space? What makes belonging possible in contexts of rupture? The study employs a qualitative methodology, grounded in reflexive thematic analysis of 13 in-depth interviews with Belarusian migrants living in Lithuania, Poland, and Georgia. Data were coded to trace patterns in affective spatial practices, identity transformations, and diasporic community formation. The analysis draws on theoretical frameworks from diaspora studies, emotional geography, and feminist theory, particularly the works of Brah, Ahmed, and Blunt & Dowling. Findings reveal that home is not a static location but a mobile, affective infrastructure — reassembled through sensory cues, symbolic objects, and everyday rituals. Belonging emerges through emotional labor, repetition, and relational investments, often despite legal and spatial instability. Participants describe homing as a dynamic process: making spaces livable through routine, care, and memory. Communities in exile are revealed as fluid emotional cartographies rather than fixed social networks. The study concludes that emotional displacement creates both fragility and opportunity: while rootedness is undermined, new forms of resilience, identity, and political imagination emerge. These insights contribute to migration scholarship by foregrounding the intimate, embodied, and relational dimensions of belonging, offering a nuanced understanding of exile not only as loss but also as a site of becoming.

This interview brings together three practitioners working at the intersection of migration, gender, and art to examine how cultural practices become forms of resistance in contexts of displacement. Through reflections on community organising, feminist pedagogies, and the politics of fear shaping contemporary Europe, the conversation highlights the gendered dimensions of migration, the risks of institutional instrumentalisation, and the transformative potential of art for visibility and agency.

The paper analyzes the intellectual legacy of Belarusian philosopher and sociologist Vladimir Abushenko within the contemporary gnoseological situation, shaped significantly by the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI). The research includes three enquiry areas: (1) defining the intellectual contributions of Abushenko; (2) identifying core themes and central figures within his works; and (3) evaluating the relevance of his intellectual heritage to current socio-humanitarian knowledge amidst the ongoing AI transformation. The analysis closely examines Abushenko’s extensive yet underdeveloped work. His contributions, characterized by encyclopedic breadth covering areas from epistemology to Latin American studies, are interpreted through critical comparative analysis, notably with the works of V. Stepin and M. Petrov. Stepin’s postpositivist philosophy of science provides a foundation for critiquing historical-genetic reconstructions of scientific rationality, whereas Petrov’s conceptual framework of sociocodes and “human-dimensionality” offers analytical tools relevant to contemporary socio-cultural realities. The conclusions underline that Abushenko’s epistemological perspective, particularly his formulation of “praxeological constructivism”, aligns closely with contemporary debates on transdisciplinary science and the transformative potential of AI. His emphasis on the praxeological dimension significantly advances Stepin’s framework by integrating socio-cultural rationality as central to understanding scientific practice and knowledge production. Moreover, through Petrov’s theory, Abushenko’s legacy gains relevance in analyzing the implications of AI in shifting biological, cognitive, and social boundaries of human-dimensionality, thus rethinking modern concepts of subjectivity and agency. Ultimately, the paper argues for the critical necessity of revisiting Abushenko’s ideas as epistemological resources essential to navigating the global socio-cultural shifts induced by the rise of AI.

Pedagogical terminology is often instinctively associated with encyclopedic precision or philosophical depth. However, this tradition does not universally shape all languages — Swedish and Japanese, for example, present compelling alternatives. In Sweden, comprehensive educational encyclopedias are relatively uncommon. Many terms central to pedagogical discourse emerge not from philosophical inquiry, but from domains such as social engineering, legal structures, and everyday vernacular. Similarly, the Japanese language encompasses numerous expressions that potentially convey fundamentally philosophical or socio-psychological ideas, although these are seldom reflected upon as such. This encyclopedic inquiry seeks to foreground the Swedish concept of trygghet and the Japanese notion of amae as vital components in a framework for conceptual analysis and comparative encyclopedic studies in education. By offering a conceptual grounding, we aim to support more nuanced and context-sensitive empirical research. Both trygghet and amae function as foundational pillars in pedagogical theory and practice: they are, on one hand, deeply embedded in cultural norms of relational interdependence, and on the other, possess a latent capacity to shape collective identity.

This article examines long-standing authoritarian patterns within the Belarusian general secondary education system. It focuses on how these patterns are structurally sustained through pedagogical approaches, communication methods, and emotional regimes. Drawing on an interdisciplinary research project conducted between 2023 and 2024, the study takes a critical phenomenological approach to analyse manifestations of violence in the educational environment. The central thesis explores the crucial yet often overlooked roles of temporality and affectivity in reproducing the authoritarian dynamic. Specifically, the research conducts an in-depth case study of an exemplary secondary school lesson, analysing its rigid structure and prescribed pace. The author argues that this lesson is characterised by a specific structural connection between temporality and affectivity that restricts the potential for authentic, creative, non-hierarchical cooperation between educators and students. The findings reveal that an authoritarian approach to education is enabled by rigorous linear time management and characterised by negative affective dialectics. The study concludes that, under an authoritarian regime, an exemplary lesson can be more destructive and dehumanising than a regular lesson due to the temporal-affective phenomenon of overmobilization.

The dispute between ‘traditional’ and ‘progressive’ values, long a feature of internal debate in the West, has recently evolved into a broader civilizational conflict — with the West uncompromisingly advocating progressive values and Russia positioning itself as the champion of traditional ones. This article explores the potential of the Kremlin’s traditional values discourse in the context of the European Union’s Eastern Neighbourhood. It argues that this region is potentially highly susceptible to the Kremlin’s soft power in this respect. While the psychological effect of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine may temporarily reduce its ability to “attract and co-opt” societies in most Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries, the use of values discourse as a channel of soft power is oriented toward the long term perspective and may produce delayed effects.

The article proposes a systematization of perspectives on participatory culture. The relevance of this research lies in critically examining both the phenomenon of participatory culture itself and its potential for shaping what is commonly referred to as “participatory democracy”. The first section explores key concepts such as collective intelligence, convergent culture, participatory culture, prosumption, and produsage, accumulating positive perspectives on participatory culture. The second section analyzes the creative activity of grassroots communities through the lens of Foucault’s microphysics of power and the political-economic critique of digital capitalism, providing some critical perspectives on participation and participatory culture. The analysis of both positive and critical perspectives allows to come to conclusion that participatory culture, as Jenkins envisioned it by studying fan communities, has little in common with participatory democracy for several reasons: (1) Fan communities demonstrate a new form of escapism, directing the creative energy of their members toward immersion in the imaginary worlds of popular culture, exploring and expanding these worlds rather than addressing real social issues. (2) Modern digital culture initiates a symbiosis of humans and technologies, creating a socio-technological ecosystem in which the creative activity of prosumers, if not fully subordinated, is at least significantly dependent on software design. (3) Social media are colonized by corporations for which prosumers are a source of surplus value; therefore, speaking of the participatory nature of social networks consciously or unconsciously supports the ideology of capital.

The foundations of deliberative democracy rest on ideals of communicative rationality, as articulated by Jürgen Habermas, a key representative of the Frankfurt School’s second generation. Emerging from critical theory’s broader critique of instrumental rationality, deliberative democracy emphasizes public discourse and consensus as essential mechanisms for legitimate governance. This model assumes that through discourse ethics, diverse societal interests can converge toward norms, transcending partial biases. However, in times of uncertainty — particularly during war or social upheaval — these assumptions face significant challenges. The historical context of the Frankfurt School’s development underscores this point. Established amidst the European crises of the early 20th century, critical theorists like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer grappled with the failures of rationality that led to totalitarianism. The critique of deliberative democracy in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war highlights the need to reassess the theory’s practical and ethical foundations. While deliberative democracy aspires to foster inclusivity and legitimacy through rational discourse, its application during periods of profound uncertainty exposes critical vulnerabilities. These include the challenges of relativism, asymmetrical power dynamics, and the ethical risks of procedural neutrality. The aim of this study is to probe the practical applicability and evaluate the core epistemological and ethical assumptions of deliberative democracy, particularly its Habermasian formulations, when confronted with conditions of uncertainty. It critically examines the theoretical underpinnings of deliberative democracy, its limitations, and the ethical dilemmas posed by its procedural inclusivity. Methodological approach taken in this article builds upon case study to illustrate the limitations of deliberative democracy, and draws on critical theory — especially those of Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas — to evaluate its epistemological and ethical assumptions.

This paper provides an overview of the contemporary theories on critique and normativity. By conceptualising the tensions and convergences between critical and normative theory, contemporary scholars argue that critical theory is normative or at least possesses normative content. The focus is placed on the theory of recognition and the theory of subjectivation. The paper asserts that the normative content of critical theory — universal norms of justice — manifests as a critique of inequality and injustice, a perspective prominently articulated in the contemporary theory of recognition developed by Axel Honneth, Franck Fischbach, and Emmanuel Renault. Both Axel Honneth and Judith Butler establish a closer link between Foucauldian critical theory and the objectives of the theory of recognition. Drawing on Foucault’s critique of subjugation, Butler highlights the connection between recognition and subjectivation, emphasising the convergence of self-recognition and the constitution of the self as a subject. Thus, the theory of recognition, as a critical theory with normative content, finds its own foundations in Foucault’s critique of subjugation. In this context, the concept of subjectivation emerges as a central category in the further development of the theory of recognition.