Curriculum Vitae
Education
07/2016
PhD in anthropology at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
Title of the PhD-thesis "Making a Home in Baku: Dynamics of Housing, Family and State in Azerbaijan"
10/2012 – 02/2016
Ph.D candidate in the International Max Planck Research School for the Anthropology, Archaeology and History of Eurasia (IMPRS ANARCHIE) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale
09/2013 – 09/2014
Fieldwork in Baku/Azerbaijan for the Ph.D project The Making of House, Home, and Family in Socialist and Postsocialist Azerbaijan
10/2012 – 10/2015
Stipend holder at the graduate school Society and Culture in Motion at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in cooperation with the IMPRS ANARCHIE
December 2011
Degree: Magister Artium (grade: "excellent")
10/2004 – 12/2011
Studies of social and cultural anthropology (major subject), geography (minor subject) and comparative religious studies (minor subject) at the Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen
(MA thesis: “Azerbaijan! Azerbaijan! Geehrtes Land der tapferen Söhne”: Kulturelle Konstruktion von Familie und Nation vor dem Hintergrund des Nagorno-Karabach-Konflikts am Beispiel aserbaidschanischer Refugees und IDPs)
02/2010
Winter Academy at the Forum Scientiarum, Tübingen (Title: "Crisis")
10/2009 – 07/2010
Interdisciplinary programme at the Forum Scientiarum, Tübingen (Title: "Cosmology – Evolution – History")
10/2008 – 03/2009
Semester abroad at the Baku Slavic University/Azerbaijan
Conduction of fieldwork
12/2008
Participation in the programme New Approaches to Refugee and IDP Problems in Azerbaijan in Baku/Azerbaijan, organized by the International Eurasia Press Fund (IEPF), organized by the International Eurasia Press Fund (IEPF)
09/2008
DAAD summer school in Azerbaijan: Tourismuspotentiale Aserbaidschans und nationale Selbstkonstruktion: Chancen und Problemfelder einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung (Potentials for Tourism in Azerbaijan and National Self-Construction: Chances and Problems of Sustained Development)
08/09 2007
DAAD Summer school in Azerbaijan and Georgia Öl und regionale Integration im Südkaukasus (Oil and Regional Integration in the South Caucasus)
07–10/2006 & 02–04/2007
Fieldtrip, internship on anthropological methods and language course (Russian) in Simferopol/Ukraine, organized by the Institute of Anthropology in Tübingen
Professional Activities
09/2016 –
Coordinator of the “International Max Planck Research School on the Anthropology, Archaeology and History of Eurasia” (IMPRS ANARCHIE)
08/2017
Co-organizer and lecturer of the DAAD summer school "Caucasus, Conflict, Culture VI: Civic Activism: Engaging the State in the South Caucasus"
05/2016
Co-organizer of the symposium “Focus Caucasia 2.0 – Narrating, Imagining and Crafting ‘Modernities’ in the Caucasus” an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
04/2016
Co-organizer and lecturer of the DAAD summer school "Caucasus, Conflict, Culture V: Contested Religious Spaces: Constructions of Mosques and Churches in Adjara (Georgia)"
12/2013
Lecturer at the Caucasus Research Resource Center in Baku/Azerbaijan; course: “Qualitative Research Methods in the Social Sciences”
08/2013
Co-organizer and lecturer of the DAAD-summerschool “Caucasus, Conflict, Culture III: Caucasus Germans: Conflictual Relations in a Multiethnic Region”, conducted in Georgia and Azerbaijan
08/2012
Co-organizer of the DAAD summer school "Caucasus, Conflict, Culture II: Transgressing Conflicts from Below: Interethnic Contacts in Border Villages in the Southern Caucasus", conducted in Georgia
07/2012
Co-organizer and lecturer of the DAAD summer school "Demography, Migration and Minorities in Germany and the South-Caucasus", conducted in Azerbaijan
04–07/2011
Tutor at the Institute of Anthropology at the Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen: „Social and Economic Anthropology“
10/2010 – 02/2011
Tutor at the Institute of Anthropology at the Eberhard Karls University University, Tübingen: „Introduction Political Anthropology and Anthropology of Religion“
05/2007 – 10/2008
Student assistant in the library of the Institute of Anthropology at the Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen
Presented Papers
12/2019
Die Rückkehr der ‘Potemkin’schen Stadt’? Zur sozialen und politischen Bedeutung von Fassaden am Beispiel Baku, Aserbaidschan
Forschungskolloquium am Lehrstuhl für aserbaidschanische Geschichte, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
07/2019
Staging the Capital: Infrastructure, Modernisation and the Potemkin City
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
06/2018
The ‘Potemkin City’: Representation and Faҫade-Politics in Comparative Perspective
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
05/2018
Public Display and Hidden Backyards: A Historical Anthropology of the ‘Other’ Baku
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic’s 100th Year Anniversary Scholarly Forum, organized by the “Azerbaijan Cultural Society of Northern California” in San Francisco/California
10/2017
Crafting Potemkin Cities in Post-Soviet Space: Façade-Politics and Cultures of Showcasing in Azerbaijan and Beyond
DGV (German Anthropological Association) “
Panel: The City – Aspirations, Belonging, Imagination
03/2017
Contested Housing and Urban Space in Baku: A Comparison of State-Citizen Relations in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan
SIEF (Société Internationale d´Ethnologie et de Folklore) Ways of Dwelling. Crisis, Craft, Creativity in Göttingen/Germany
Panel: Urban Development from Below
11/2016
Towards the Post-Soviet “Potemkin City”? Practices and Politics of Urban Transformation in Baku
Conference: Redefining Cities in Post-Soviet Space, Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, Leipzig
07/2016
On Houses, Citizens and Proper Persons: Politics and Everyday Life in Past and Present Azerbaijan
EASA 2016, in Milan/Italy
Panel: The Government of the House, ‘Life’ and the ‘Good Life’
10/2015
Changing Dynamics of Mass Housing in an Oil-Haunted City: The Case of Baku
Kongress für Geographie 2015, Berlin
Panel: (Post-)Soviet mass housing: local practices and global trends
07/2015
Alltag in Baku zwischen Aufbruch und Abriss
Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, WG „Crossasia“, Tübingen
Ambiguities in Urban Housing with Reference to Internally Displaced Persons in Baku/Azerbaijan
ANTHROLAB, Institute for Cultural- and Social Anthropology, Philipps Iniversity Marburg
Von Platten und Jurten: Die Wohnungsfrage im Postsozialismus (Baku)
Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale
06/2015
Changing Notions and Practices of Home-Making in Baku/Azerbaijan in the Socialist and Post-Socialist Era
SIEF (Société Internationale d´Ethnologie et de Folklore) Utopias, Realities, Heritages. Ethnographies for the 21st century in Zagreb/Croatia
Panel: Ethnographies of the house, values and manners of inhabit
01/2015
Alltag in Baku zwischen Aufbruch und Abriss
Forschungskolloquium am Lehrstuhl für aserbaidschanische Geschichte, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
05/2013
Presentation of the Ph.D project at the Institute for Caucasiology at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena
06/2012
Kulturelle Konstruktion von Familie und Nation in Aserbaidschan im Kontext des Berg-Karabach Konflikts
Conference: Nachwuchstagung zur Aserbaidschan-Forschung in Deutschland, Berlin
11/2011
“Azerbaijan! Azerbaijan! Cherished Land of Valiant Sons” – Refugees, IDPs and the Cultural Construction of Family and Nation in Times of Conflict
Conference: Caucasus, Conflict, Culture – First Symposium on Anthropology and the Prevention of Conflicts in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, Tbilisi/Georgia
12/2010
"Karabakh belongs to us" – Anthropological Perspectives on Displacement, Conflict and National Identity in Azerbaijan
Conference: Conflict as an Instrument in Internal Political Struggles: Secession Crises in the Post-Soviet Area, Humboldt University of Berlin
Languages
German (mother tongue)
English, Russian (fluent)
Azeri, Croatian (good)
French, Spanish, Turkish (basic knowledge)
Memberships
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie (DGSKA)
European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA)
Société International d’Ethnologie et de Folklore (SIEF)
Voluntary Activities
since 05/ 2018
Member of the Works Council at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology