Yulia Antonyan defended her dissertation on magic healing and fortune-telling in 20th century Armenia in 2007. She works at Yerevan State University’s History Department. Her interests include historical anthropology, the anthropology of religion, the transformation of religious identity and everyday religious practices, the formation of new religious communities, and contemporary attempts to “reconstruct” archaic religious systems. Her English-language publications include: “Pre-Christian Healers in a Christian Society. Contemporary Shamanism in Armenia.” Cultural Survival Quarterly 27(2)/2003:48–51.
Sergei Arutiunov is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and directs the Caucasus department at the Academy’s Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow. His doctoral dissertation, defended in 1970, was entitled “Change and Development in Contemporary Japanese Everyday Culture.” His interests include the historical ethnography of Asian peoples, the ethnology and linguistics of the contemporary Caucasus, migration, and the influence of ethnic processes on cultural and social identity. He has published 15 books in Russian, including Japan: People and Culture (1991, with Roza Dzharylgasinova), Peoples and Cultures: Development and Interaction (1989), The Peoples of the Caucasus. Anthropology, Linguistics, Economy (1994, with Malkhaz Abdushelishvili and Boris Kaloev), and Cultural Anthropology (2004, with Svetlana Ryzhakova).
Olga Brednikova works at the Center for Independent Social Research in Saint Petersburg. Her research is on the borders of nation-states and borderlands, migration, reproductive medicine, the sociology of everyday life, and qualitative methodology. Recent publications: “‘Ersatz’ and ‘Cyborg’ Children in Russian Print Media: Reproductive Technologies and Subjectivities.” Pp. 159–178 in Making Bodies, Persons and Families. Normalising Reproductive Technologies in Russia, Switzerland and Germany. Edited by Willemijn de Jong and Olga Tkach. Berlin; Hamburg; Münster: LIT Verlag, 2010; “’Windows’ Project ad Marginem or a ‘Divided History’ of Divided Cities? A Case Study of the Russian-Estonian Borderland. Pp. 43–64 in Representations on the Margins of Europe. Politics and Identities in the Baltic and South Caucasian States, edited by Tsypylma Darieva and Wolfgang Kaschuba. Frankfurt/Main; New York: Campus Verlag, 2007.
Tsypylma Darieva is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Tsukuba University in Japan. While working on this issue, she taught at the Department of European Ethnology at Humboldt University (Berlin), where she coordinated a research project entitled Identity Politics in the South Caucasus. National Representations, Postsocialist Society, and Urban Public Space. She is the author of Russkij Berlin. Migrants and Media in Berlin and London (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2000) and editor, with Wolfgang Kaschuba, of Representations on the Margins of Europe. Politics and Identities in the Baltic and South Caucasian States (Frankfurt/Main: Campus Verlag, 2007). With Ingrid Oswald, she co-edited a special issue of Berliner Debatte Initial on memories of violence (3/2007).
Alexander Formozov received a degree in ethnology from Moscow State University in 2005. He is currently a graduate student at the Department of European Ethnology at Humboldt University in Berlin and a participant in the research project Identity Politics in the South Caucasus. National Representations, Postsocialist Society, and Urban Public Space.
Elza-Bair Guchinova defended a candidate of sciences dissertation (1989) as well as a doctoral dissertation (2004) on the Kalmyks at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She has written several books, including, in English, The Kalmyks (N.Y.; London: Routledge, 2006) and, in Russian, Post-Soviet Elista: Power, Business, and Beauty. Essays on the Socio-Cultural Anthropology of the Kalmyks (2003) and Kalmuk Road: The History, Culture, and Identity of the Kalmyk Community in the USA (2004).
Sevil Huseynova is the representative of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Azerbaijan and a member of Novator, an independent research group. She is also a graduate student at the Institute of Philosophy, Sociology, and Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. With Arsen Akopian and Sergei Rumiantsev, she co-wrote a book (in Russian) on Kyzyl-Shafag and Kerkendj: The Story of an Exchange of Villages in the Midst of the Karabagh Conflict (2008). Her publications in English include “Azerbaijanis and Armenians in Georgia: Spaces of Coexistence” in Positive Examples of Coexistence from the History of Peoples and States of the South Caucasus, edited by Stepan Grigorian. Yerevan: Antares, 2009.
Viktor Karlov is professor of ethnology at Moscow State University’s history department. He defended his candidate of sciences dissertation on economy and social structure among the Evenks from the 17th to the early 20th centuries in 1970, and in 1992 was awarded a higher doctorate in 1992 for his work on ethnocultural processes in late imperial Russia and the Soviet Union. His interests include ethnocultural processes in Russia and neighboring countries, the methodology of studying ethnic processes in the industrial and post-industrial ages, and the historical ethnography of Siberia. His books (in Russian) include The Evenks from the 17th to the Early 20th Century: Economy and Social Structure (1982) and The Peoples of North-Eastern Eurasia in the 19th and 20th Centuries (2010).
Nadia Nartova works at the Center for Independent Social Research in Saint Petersburg. Her interests include feminist theory, gender studies, sexuality, the body, new reproductive and bio-technologies, maternity/parenthood and reproduction, gay and lesbian studies, and queer studies. She has co-edited, in Russian, In the Shadow of the Body (2008, with Elena Omelchenko). Her most recent publication in English is “Surrogate Motherhood and Sperm Donorship in the Russian Media: Normalising the Body.” In Making Bodies, Persons and Families. Normalising Reproductive Technologies in Russia, Switzerland and Germany, edited by Willemijn de Jong and Olga Tkach. Berlin; Hamburg; Münster: LIT Verlag, forthcoming.
Elena Nikiforova is a PhD candidate in the department of social policy, University of Helsinki. She is also a researcher at Fafo, a Norwegian multidisciplinary research foundation, and at the Center for Independent Social Research in Saint Petersburg. Her research interests include studies of borders and border communities, transnational migration, and ethnicity and nationalism. Her publications include: “Narrating ’National’ at the Margins: Seto and Cossack Identity in the Russian-Estonian Borderlands.” Pp. 191–228 in: European States at their Borderlands: Cultures of Support and Subversion in Border Regions, edited by Hastings Donnan and Thomas M. Wilson. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2005; “The Performativity of Scale: The Social Construction of Scale Effects in Narva, Estonia.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26/2008:537–562 (with Robert Kaiser); and Norwegian-Russian Borderscape: A First Analytical Take. COST Action IS0803 Working Paper, Manchester (2009, with May-Len Skilbrei).
Sergey Rumyantsev holds a candidate of sciences degree in sociology and works at the Institute of Philosophy, Sociology, and Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. He is the director of Novator, an independent research group. With Arsen Akopian and Sevil Huseynova, he co-wrote a book (in Russian) on Kyzyl-Shafag and Kerkendj: The Story of an Exchange of Villages in the Midst of the Karabagh Conflict (2008). His most recent publication in English is “Beyond Enmity: Everyday Practices of Mutual Help in Situations of Conflicts.” In Positive Examples of Coexistence from the History of Peoples and States of the South Caucasus, edited by Stepan Grigorian (Yerevan: Antares, 2009).
Gayane Shagoyan is a research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences in Yerevan. She defended her dissertation on the Armenian wedding in 2009. Her interests include semiotics, Armenian culture and society during the transformation, urban anthropology, and visual anthropology. Her publications include: “The Camcorder Operator as a new Character in the Armenian Wedding.” Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia 38(4)/2000:9–29 and numerous publications in Armenian and Russian.
Nona Shahnazarian works at the Center for Pontic and Caucasian Studies in Krasnodar. Her publications include “National Ideologies, Survival Strategies and Gender Identity in the Political and Symbolic Contexts of the Karabakh War.” Pp. 197–218 in Cultural Paradigms and Political Change in the Caucasus, edited by Nino Tsitsishvili and Sergei Arutiunov. Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010 and Breaking the Nation’s Taboo. The Meds Yeghern and Turkish Intellectuals. PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 86. Washington, D.C., September 2009.
Robert Shahnazarian (1904–2006) was born in the mountain village of Dagraz in Nagorno-Karabagh, and died in Krasnodar. He worked as a taxi driver.
Anna Temkina holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Helsinki University. She is Novartis Chair in Public Health and Gender and co-director of the Gender Program at the European University, Saint Petersburg. Her area of expertise includes gender, reproductive heath, sexuality, feminist theory, gender relations in Soviet and Post-Soviet societies, and qualitative research methods. She is the author and co-editor of several books in both English and Russian, among them: Women’s Sexual Life: Between Freedom and Subordination (2008, in Russian) and Russia in Transition: The Case of New Collective Actors and New Collective Actions (Helsinki: Kikimora, 1997, in English).
Olga Tkach is a research fellow at the Center for Independent Social Research in Saint Petersburg. Her interests include Soviet society, the sociology of everyday life, gender studies, migration, urban and rural studies, and qualitative methods in sociology. Selected publications: Reshaping Living Space: Concepts of Home Represented by Women Migrants Working in Saint Petersburg. In: Cultural Diversity in Russian Cities. The Urban Landscape in the Post-Soviet Era, edited by Cordula Gdaniec. Oxford; N.Y.: Berghahn Books, forthcoming (with Olga Brednikova); Making Family and Unmaking Kin in the Russian Media: Reproductive Technologies and Relatedness. In: Making Bodies, Persons and Families. Normalising Reproductive Technologies in Russia, Switzerland and Germany, edited by Willemijn de Jong and Olga Tkach. Berlin; Hamburg; Münster: LIT Verlag, forthcoming.
Viktor Voronkov directs the Center for Independent Social Research in Saint Petersburg. He graduated from Latvian State University in 1971. He has numerous publications in Russian and German, including many edited volumes. His publications in English include: “Soviet Russia.” Pp. 95–118 in Dissent and Opposition in Communist Eastern Europe. Origins of Civil Society and Democratic Transition, edited by Detlef Pollack and Jan Wielgohs. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004 (with Jan Wielgohs); “The Late Soviet Informal Public Realm, Social Networks, and Trust.” Pp. 103–121 in Trust and Social Transformation. Theoretical Apprpoaches and Empirical Findings from Russia, edited by Heiko Schrader. Münster: LIT-Verlag, 2004 (with Elena Zdravomyslova); and “The ‘Public-Private’ Sphere in Soviet and Post-Soviet Society. Perception and Dynamics of ‘Public’ and ‘Private’ in Contemporary Russia.” European Societies. 6(1)/2004:97–117.
Evgeniya Zakharova works at the Caucasus Department of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She graduated from Saint Petersburg State University’s Department of Ethnography in 2005, and from the European University, Saint Petersburg, in 2009. Her interests include urban studies, the anthropology of street life, legal anthropology, male studies, and the anthropology of Georgia and the Caucasus. She has published in Russian on street life and male communities in Tbilisi.
Oksana Zaporozhets is a lecturer at the department of sociology and anthropology of Samara State University and visiting lecturer at the European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania). Her research is in the field of urban studies (transitive spaces, emotional landscapes, and urban artistic practices). She is also interested in practical ways to humanize cities through art projects that bring scholars together with local residents. Her publications (in Russian) include articles on urban space and visual sociology.
Tamar Zurabishvili holds a PhD in Sociology from Ilia State University in Tbilisi. Her dissertation, defended in 2008, was entitled Migration Networks of Emigrants from Tianeti. Since 1999, she has held a number of academic positions at Ilia State University, Tbilisi State University, and Telavi State University, teaching various courses in sociology and migration. Recently, she has been involved in several studies of labor emigration from Georgia, serving as a researcher and consultant. Tamar Zurabishvili’s publications include: Tianeti Household Census 2008 & Tianeti Migrants to Greece 2008. Fieldwork Report. International Organization for Migration (IOM). (itlab.ge/iom/pdf/tianeti.pdf, 2009, with Giorgi Tavberidze and Tinatin Zurabishvili) and “Georgia: Persistent Paternalism.” Sociological Research 43(6)/2004:87–97 (with Tinatin Zurabishvili).
Tinatin Zurabishvili holds a PhD in sociology from Moscow State University (1999). Since 1999, she has taught B.A. and M.A. courses in sociology, focusing on research methods, at Telavi State University and Tbilisi State University Center for Social Sciences, where she was a Civic Education Project (CEP) Local Faculty Fellow (2001–2003) and Academic Fellowship Program Returning Scholar (2005–2006). In the spring semesters between 2004 and 2007 she was an OSI Faculty Development Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the Department of Sociology. She is now project coordinator for the Caucasus Research Resource Centers Data Initiative. Her academic publications focus on social research methods, sociology of transition, and sociology of the media. Between1999 and 2001, she served as junior researcher for Yale University’s project Poverty, Ethnicity and Gender in Eastern Europe during the Market Transition. She also worked for five years as a sociologist at the Russian Center for Public Opinion and Market Research (now the Levada Center).
