Faculty Member, Estonian Institute of Humanities
Associate Professor
Social and Cultural Anthropology
Thesis Title: Seeking community in post-Soviet Estonian centralised villages
Dr. Michael Stewart
Prof. Phil Burnham
About
I finished my doctorate at the anthropology department of University College London in 2007. My PhD research consisted of 18 months long multisited fieldwork in two Estonian villages and amongst the staff of a foreign funded development programme. The resulting ethnography bridged the traditions of post-socialist studies and anthropology of development both in theory and methodology.
I am presently researching the topics of cultural/heritage planning, funding and management, and leadership of change in Seto country, concentrating on how the new technologies of power affect and steer local activities and enforce cultural politics but also how the locals respond to and adjust these policies and technologies. I am keenly interested in the role of the cultural „guardians“ and facilitators, brokers and translators, as well as nouveau-Setos, Seto diaspora and Seto „fans“ in these processes.
I consider research to have a very important public role. Apart from research publications, I am regularly contributing anthropological insights to various journalistic publications and try to bring to the fore the needs of rural groups but also environmental and animal rights issues.
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