Research Data on the Discourse of Militarisation in Latvia Presented at a Conference in Rome

From 21 to 23 January, Liene Ozoliņa, Leading Researcher at the LAC Institute of Arts and Cultural Studies, and researcher Iveta Ķešāne participated in the conference of the European Sociological Association’s Sociology of Culture Research Network, “Cultural Vulnerabilities and Planetary Problems: Creating New Sociological Studies of Culture Between Fragility and Fortitude,” held at Sapienza Università di Roma.

At the conference, the researchers delivered a paper entitled “The Shifting and Contradictory Symbolic Codes in Legitimizing Militarization in Latvia: The Discourse Surrounding the Introduction of Mandatory Conscription and Military Education Programs in General Education.” In their presentation, they shared initial findings from the research project “Preparing for War: Meanings of War in Public Discourse and Youth Perception in Latvia”. Drawing on symbolic code theory, the researchers analysed how the State Defence Service and the subject of National Defence Education have been represented in Latvian public media since 2014.

Conference programme: https://www.annalisatota.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Cultural-Vulnerabilities-programme.pdf