Organized by the Association française d'études sur les Balkans (AFEBalk, https://afebalk.hypotheses.org/), the fifth Balkan studies meeting will be held at the Mucem in Marseilles from September 25 to 27, 2025. An important event in the life of AFEBalk, the REB enable researchers and doctoral students to present their current research and recent publications. They also provide an opportunity for the association to present its activities, recruit new members and hold its annual general meeting. Following on from previous meetings, the 2025 event aims to bring together the driving forces behind research in and on the Balkans around a cross-cutting theme. This year's theme, Balkan matters! Material cultures in the Balkans, will aim to give an overview of research on material cultures in and about the Balkans, and thus stimulate new research.

This theme will strengthen the link between AFEBalk and Mucem, after eight years of fruitful collaboration. In choosing to focus on objects and material culture, the aim is also to bring together social science researchers and the museum institution, crossing their complementary missions. With this in mind, we are proposing a range of activities to bring researchers and the museum into contact with each other, before, during and after the event. From this point of view, we also affirm AFEBalk's interest in associating various institutional partners in the fields of knowledge dissemination and scientific culture, on a national and international scale, to research on the Balkans.