More than 600 experts and scholars gathered last weekend in New York to attend the Fifth Annual Association for the Study of Nationalities World Convention, a three-day event hosted by Columbia University’s Harriman Institute and featuring 100 panels on national identity, nationalism, ethnic conflicts, and state building in the former Soviet republics. Since the 1970s, Columbia University’s Harriman Institute has included nationality and minority issues in its curriculum.

The panels covered a wide region – from Central Asia and the Caucasus region to Central and Eastern Europe -- and took various approaches to the material, from region-specific to historical and thematic. Each time slot featured at least one panel discussion from each region. Central Asian issues ranged from the Internet as a medium for nationalist expression; Ferghana Valley tensions; democracy in Kazakhstan; and competing representations of identity in Uzbekistan.

Following the Soviet collapse the nationalities field has mushroomed. Dominique Arel, of Brown University's Watson Institute, pointed out the number of young scholars in attendance and on panels presenting their scholarly research and fieldwork findings are double last year's. One innovation at this year's convention was the designation of an entire section for new films. Five films aired about Chechnya and four featured theBalkans. One noteworthy film was the 1999 BBC documentary "A Cry from the Grave," about the Bosnian city Srebrenica, the UN-designated "safe haven" overtaken by the Serbian militia in July 1995.

Mark Von Hagen, Director of Columbia University's Harriman Institute, that hosted the event, said the convention "brings together a nice interdisciplinary, intergenerational, international, scholarly and policy crowd to discuss issues of great contemporary interest and importance. "The convention provides a unique forum where scholars and practitioners can cross-fertilize ideas. "Some of the best people who deal with these issues [came to] Columbia this weekend," says Von Hagen, whose hope is that the information exchanges "will contribute the lasting resolution of problems in the real world."

Bea Hogan, freelance journalist