Curriculum Vitae

Current Position

Associate, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Education

1992
PhD in Anthropology, University of Adelaide, South Australia.
Dissertation title: ‘Social Constructions of the Past and Their Significance in the Bulgarian Socialist State’.

1984
Honours in Anthropology, University of Adelaide, South Australia.
Dissertation title: An analysis of the media campaign for UN designated ‘International Year of Disabled Persons 1981’

1981-83
Bachelor of Arts, University of Adelaide, South Australia

Professional Positions

2007-present
Associate, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
Reader in Social Anthropology, Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, U.K.
Director, Center for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, University of Birmingham, U.K..

2003-2006
Co-director on project funded by Volkswagen Foundation, titled: Political, Economic and Social Inclusion and Exclusion in Poland and Bulgaria, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany.

1999
Senior research fellow, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany

1992-1999
Post-doctoral Research Associate, Dept. of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK

1992-1994
Visiting Research Fellow, King's College, Cambridge, UK

Consultancies

2005
Founding partner and senior consultant of Anthropological Consultancy.

1999-2001
For CEI Countries in Transition Project, Supported by Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Community & Municipality of Bologna, Co-ordinators: University of Bologna, Italy. The work involved giving presentations and offering advice to those carrying out the main research.

1997-1999
For Refugee Legal Centre (UN funded organisation), London, as well as a variety of private legal firms throughout the UK working with asylum seekers. Work included written reports for Judicial Reviews concerning asylum cases and/or verbal advice.

Teaching

I have taught in a number of countries (Australia, Germany and Britain) across a wide range of topics - post socialist reforms, migration, inequalities, introdcution to anthropology, qualitative methods etc. - within the disciplines of anthropology and realted disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary modules in Area Studies.

Reasearch Awards

Over the years I have won various grants in cluding from Australia (e.g. the CommonwealthPostgraduate Research Award), Britain (e.g. Nuffield Small Grant in the Social Sciences), the U.S. (Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research) and Germany (Volkswagen Foundation Grant).

Fieldwork

Field Research in Bulgaria

I have lived both in urban and rural areas of the country amounting to a period of almost 4 years since the mid-late 1980s and regularly since then.

Field Research in Ukraine

I have lived over one year in both rural and urban contexts in southern Ukraine ( Odessa province) since 2000, returning to the country on a yearly basis until 2004. The most recent trip was in 2014.

I spent a short period (two weeks in 2002) in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of conducting further fieldwork in the country. Topic researched: land reforms

Languages

fluent in English and Bulgarian
good comprehension of Macedonian
working knowledge of Russian
intermediate German

Professional Associations and Activities

Series Editor for book series on Anthropologies of Eurasia: Ethnographic Encounters of Social Change, CEU Press
Member of Editorial Board for a book series on European Studies in Socio-Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, published by Berghahn Press
Member of Editorial Board, Südosteuropa
Member of Editorial Board, Bulgarska Ethnologia (Bulgarian Ethnology)
Member of Editorial Board, Ethnologica Balkanica (Balkan Ethnology)
Founding member, International Association for Southeast European Anthropology (InASEA)
Member, European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)

Organization of and Presentations at Conferences/Workshops

My involvement of organizing and participating in conferences over a three-decade period are too numerous to mention indivudially.

I have organized a number of international conferences and workshops both in Germany, while at the MPI, and also Britain, at the University of Birmingham.

I have convened numerous panels, presented papers and acted as discussant in many international (as well as national) conferences across a wide range of countries in Europe (including: Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden), the U.S. and Britain.