Professional experience

Since February 2003
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle, Germany)
Coordinator of the Siberian Studies Centre

July 2000 – September 2002
Dept for Sociology and Anthropology, University of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, UK)
Research assistant (half time) of Prof. Tim Ingold for the EU-funded scientific project SPICE
(Sustainable Development of the Pechora Region in a Changing Environment and Society)

May 1998 – June 2000
Dept for Sociology and Anthropology, University of Aberdeen (Aberdeen, UK)
Research assistant (full time) of Prof. Tim Ingold for the EU-funded scientific project TUNDRA
(Tundra Degradation in the Russian Arctic)

Education

April 1997 – January 2004
(including periods of leave for work and fieldwork)
Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK)
Ph.D. in Siberian Anthropology supervised by Dr Piers Vitebsky. Thesis title: What it means to be a herdsman: the practice and image of reindeer husbandry among the Komi of Northern Russia
September 2000
Circumpolar PhD Network in Arctic Environmental Studies
Participant of the travel course Reindeer as a keystone species in the North: biological, cultural and socio-economic aspects, through Finland, Norway and Russia (Murmansk Region)
1993 – 1997
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
Mongolian Studies, completed first section (Grundstudium)
1988 – 1996
Freie Universität Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
Diploma in Geography with Social Anthropology and History

Editorial activities, professional memberships

Associate editor of the journal Sibirica

Steering Committee of the BOREAS Programme, funded and co-ordinated by the European Science Foundation (2006-2009)

German Committee for the International Polar Year (IPY) (2007-2008)

International Arctic Scientific Committee, Working Group "Social Systems" (IASC)

German Society for Polar Research (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Polarforschung)

German Anthropological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde)

(Research Network for Postsocialist Cultural Studies) (SOYUZ)

Academic Awards

October 2000
Fellowship of the Cambridge European Society
1997-1999
Daimler-Benz Foundation Scholarship

Language skills

German (mother tongue)
English, Russian (fluent)
French, Komi, Mongolian, Polish (intermediate)

Teaching experience

Summer term 2008
Anthropological engagements with Siberia, with Aimar Ventsel
Dept of Communication Studies, RSU Rīgas Stradiņa universitāte, Riga
Winter term 2006-2007
Development, inequality and states in transformation, with Deema Kaneff and Brian Donahoe
Institute for Ethnology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Summer term 2006
Key issues in land use: anthropological debates on nature, landscape, the environment, and property, with Brian Doahoe
Institute for Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw

Field research experience

June-July 2007
Field research for the House of Culture Comparative Research Project in Novosibirsk
March-May 2006
Field research for the House of Culture Comparative Research Project in Kolyvan’, Novosibirskaia oblast’
May-July 2005
Field research on music and notions of culture in Novosibirsk
2000 – 2003
Annual follow-up visits to the Komi Republic and Nenets Autonomous Okrug
July 1998 – July 1999
Long-term fieldwork in the Komi Republic and Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Throughout the 1990s
Multiple short visits (from two weeks to three months each) to Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Sakha (Yakutia), Evenki Autonomous Okrug, Krasnoiarsk, Altai Region, Georgia and Ukraine

Selected presentations at workshops and conferences (2005-2010)

With Kirill Istomin. Sibirien -- eine Kulturlandschaft im Wandel [Siberia – the changing faces of a cultural landscape]. Max Planck Forum Sibirien -- das große Abenteuer?, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 26 November 2009
Ethno-Kultur in Russland: Performative Einheit und Vielfalt. Tagung der DGV (German Anthropological Association), Frankfurt/Main, Germany, 2 October 2009
Wohnort Arktis: Ressourcennutzung und politische Repräsentationen in Sibirien [The Arctic as a home: resource use and political representation in Siberia]. Franco-German Science Forum at the occasion of the closure of the International Polar Year, organised by the Franco-German Youth Office (Deutsch-Französisches Jugendwerk), Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris, 17 March 2009
With Piers Vitebsky. Results of the BOREAS Workshop 'Heading North, Heading South: Arctic social-sciences research in a global dialogue'. Sixth International Congress for Arctic Social Studies (ICASS 6), Nuuk, 25 August 2008
With Piers Vitebsky. Introduction. BOREAS Workshop Heading North, Heading South: Arctic social-sciences research in a global dialogue, Halle, 6 March 2008
With Olga Povoroznyuk and Virginie Vaté. Introduction: On definition, theory and practice of gender shift in Northern communities of Russia. International Workshop Gender Shift in Northern Communities of Russia (supported by the MPI for Social Anthropology and the Wenner-Gren Foundation), Cesvaine, 3 May 2008
Landnutzungskonflikte im Hohen Norden Russlands [Conflicts about land use in the Far North of Russia]. Berlin Geographical Society (Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin), Berlin, 26 January 2008
Auf der Suche nach dem 'Neuen Mann' in Sibirien [Looking for the 'new man' in Siberia]. Internationaler Workshop Männlichkeit(en) erforschen -- Geschlechterverhältnisse in Osteuropa, Foundation University Hildesheim, Hildesheim, 26-27 January 2007
Relaxation -- edification -- self-expression: leisure-time of young people in Siberia. NECEN (Nordic and East/Central European Network for Qualitative Social Research) Workshop Theorizing Second Generation Change, Budapest, 3-4 November 2006
Gender, 'kul'tura, severnye prostranstva [Gender, 'culture' and northern expanses]. 6th Congress of ethnographers and anthropologists of Russia, Repino near St Petersburg,
28 June-2 July 2005
Collaboration and the scope for comparison: on research design in interdisciplinary projects. NECEN (Nordic and East/Central European Network for Qualitative Social Research) Fifth Nordic Conference Anthropology of Postsocialism, Tyriheim near Oslo, 22-24 April 2005