In late September 2021, an ICELDS Board member Dr. Alexander Osipov issued an article in Ethnopolitics about the ways of conceptualizing so-called non-territorial autonomy (NTA).

Alexander Osipov (2021) “Mapping Non-Territorial Autonomy Arrangements”, Ethnopolitics. doi: 10.1080/17449057.2021.1975891.

The article examines the correspondence between the notion of non-territorial autonomy for ethnic groups (NTA) and its empirical referents and seeks to evaluate the expediency of employing the concept as a descriptive term. As the author shows, the concept applies primarily for normative purposes and as such has lost clarity. The author discusses the ways of overcoming conceptual inflation and argues that working definitions not duplicating other concepts are possible, but they relate to a marginal and heterogeneous phenomenon and turn out to be optional. The author suggests that NTA shall be regarded as a practical rather than analytical category and studied as discursive and performative exercises.