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Fellows and Research Topics 2006-2007

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A

Name: Akchyan, Vartan
Title: Instructor, Educational Media Production Specialist
Affiliation: Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, Georgetown University
Country(ies) of Research: Armenia and Russia
Topic: In Principle, Yes...Radio Yerevan: The Collective Dissident

Abstract: My research will examine underground oral political humor in the former USSR as expressed through the highly popular Radio Yerevan, the name credited with producing satire predominantly composed of unselfconscious, witty, and critical reflection on life in the former socialist bloc. During the proposed six months of research I will conduct videotaped interviews with Armenian, Jewish, and Russian political analysts, former political officials, satirists, TV and radio commentators, and university professors in Armenia and Russia in order to gain insight into the origins, formation, role and influences of Radio Erevan in the Soviet Union on the following levels: the genesis of Radio Erevan in the context of a mono-ethnic Armenian culture; the role of local Russian, Armenian, and Jewish entertainers and satirists in illuminating contradictions in the multiethnic and heterogeneous Soviet system; and the ability of Radio Erevan to avoid the confines of political correctness and censorship in uniquely describing and criticizing the dominant living conditions in Armenia and Russia during the communist era.

Name: Amos, Jennifer
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of History, University of Chicago
Country(ies) of Research: Russia
Topic: Soviet Politics on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (1943-1975)

Abstract: My dissertation will reconstruct both how the Soviet Union shaped contemporary human rights norms and how it was, in turn, affected by these nor In order to accomplish this, the work will combine recently declassified Russian archives, United Nations records, dissident materials, and published sources. The result will be a historical case study on the consequences, both intended and unintended, of authoritarian regimes' engagement in human rights diplomacy.

B

Name: Balalaeva, Olga
Title: Independent Scholar
Country(ies) of Research: Russia
Topic: The Impact of Baptist Missionary Activity on Cultural Persistence and Ethnic Identity among the Eastern Khanty

Abstract: The objective of my ethnographic research study is to determine the sociocultural impacts of Baptist missionary activity. This is a comparatively new cultural phenomenon on local native understandings of "traditional culture" and ethnic identity among the Khanty, an indigenous people of western Siberia. As well as providing new and valuable primary ethnographic data, this project will enable the assessment of the conventional anthropological models of conversion, acculturations, ethnic identity, and cultural persistence. This study will also shed light on problem areas such as national and ethnic identity, religious freedom, and tolerance of diversity which underwrite conflicting priorities for the development of a democratic society in Russia.

Name: Bell, Wilson
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of History, University of Toronto
Country(ies) of Research: Russia
Topic: The Gulag and Society in Western Siberia, 1930-1960

Abstract: The dissertation, "The Gulag and Society in Western Siberia, 1930-1960", examines the history of the Gulag in a region where prisoners worked in key sectors of the economy (e.g. agriculture, forestry) and where many camps were located close to major population centers. The dissertation focuses on prisoners' abilities to "negotiate" the Gulag's borders, i.e. to show how prisoners made illicit contact with other prisoners, with the Gulag staff, and with the greater Soviet society. In some parts of the Soviet Union, it seems that the Gulag was much less isolated than previously believed.

C

Name: Charap, Samuel
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University
Country(ies) of Research: Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan
Topic: Externalization of Political Change: Executives and Foreign Economic Policy in Post-Soviet States

Abstract: How have domestic political dynamics in post-Soviet states affected their international behavior?  This study examines how political change in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan has shaped the ways these states conduct foreign economic policy.  It shows how changes in the authority of the executive branch can explain patterns of volatility and stability in this sphere of policy.

Name: Cooke, Tavon
Title: Master’s Candidate
Affiliation: Department of Political Science and Sociology, European University of St. Petersburg
Country(ies) of Research: Russia
Topic: Analysis of the Situation Surrounding the Children in Russia's Orphanages

Abstract: In conjunction with the Master's program in Russian Studies at St. Petersburg's European University, I plan to investigate whether those orphanages receiving outside support are better able to service the orphans and if so, in what ways.

D

Name: Dabrowski, Patrice
Title: Postdoctoral Scholar
Affiliation: Department of History, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv
Country(ies) of Research: Poland
Topic: Discovering the Carpathians: Episodes in Imagining and Reshaping Alpine Borderland Regions

Abstract: An examination of the discovery of three distinct regions of the Carpathian Mountains over the last two centuries and the concomitant development of tourism in these multiethnic yet "backwards" borderland alpine territories.

Name: Driscoll, Jesse
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of Political Science, Stanford University
Country(ies) of Research: Tajikistan, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan
Topic: Policing the Post-Soviet Frontier: Militaries and Paramilitaries After the Fall of Communism

Abstract: My dissertation research asks how initial patterns of military recruitment affect three outcomes of interest:  wartime violence against civilians, the politicization of cleavages in society, and post-conflict military effectiveness.  To gather empirical data, I plan to administer a random survey directly to the soldiers that comprise the present-day armies of Tajikistan, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan.  This research design can help correct for biases in the existing theoretical literature on civil wars, and better understand the very complex nature of post-Communist violence.

F

Name: Flanigan, Shawn
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of Public Affairs and Policy, University of Albany
Country(ies) of Research: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Topic: For the Love of God:  Faith-Based Nonprofit Service Providers in the Context of Religious Violence

Abstract: The study examines the role of religious identity for nonprofit organizations providing services in communities that have experienced religious violence, exploring the ways in which service providers may either reinforce or ameliorate existing religious tensions.  I hypothesize that if an organization shares the same religion as a party involved in violent religious conflict, then religious identity will have a stronger influence on the organization's behavior and the organization will be less inclusive of community members of different religions due to boundary activation and increased awareness of across-boundary interactions.  I will analyze these hypotheses by conducting interviews with staff of faith-based nonprofits in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon, and the United States.

Name: Forster-Rothbart, Amy
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Country(ies) of Research: Kazakhstan and Ukraine
Topic: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally?  Understanding the Participation of Post-Soviet States in International Environmental Agreements

Abstract: Why do post-Soviet states choose to spend scarce resources on international environmental cooperation?  What does these states' involvement in international agreements mean for environmental policy in the post-Soviet countries?  My field research addresses these questions by exploring how participation in five international environmental agreements affects the dynamics within and among state institutions, scientists, economic interest groups, and environmental activists.

G

Name: Garbolevsky, Evgenija
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of History, Brandeis University
Country(ies) of Research: Bulgaria
Topic: The Conformists:  Creativity and Decadence in the East European Cinema, 1945-1989

Abstract: My dissertation will address the complexities and paradoxes in the functioning of the cinematic world during 1945-1989 in several ways.  My primary focus will be on the Bulgarian cinema.  I seek to understand, why many intellectuals during the period decided to go with the regime instead of openly rebelling against it.

Name: Genina, Anna
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
Country(ies) of Research: Kazakhstan
Topic: Mongolian-Kazakh Oralmander: Regimes of Citizenship and Nation-Building in Kazakhstan

Abstract: This dissertation project examines how ethnic Kazakh returnees from Mongolia participate in shaping the discourses and practices of citizenship, nation-building, and state legitimization in interactions with individual state actors and institutions on the local level.  Processes of nation-building in Kazakhstan are significantly shaped by locally situated practices and discourses and cannot be read directly from national policy.  To understand these processes of nation-building at the local level, this project seeks to examine the differences between the central government's ideologies of nation-building and actual practices Mongolian-Kazakhs encounter in different regions of Kazakhstan upon their arrival, the ways in which Mongolian-Kazakh returnees are dealing with those differences, as well as the role they play in current political nationalistic discourses in Kazakhstan.

Name: Glocke, Anthony
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of History, University of Maryland
Country(ies) of Research: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia
Topic: Imperial Policy and National Identities:  Habsburg Administration and Local Response in Bosnia and Dalmatia, 1878-1918

Abstract: My project will evaluate the Habsburg Monarchy's administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Dalmatia from 1878, when Bosnia transferred from the Ottoman Empire to Austria-Hungary, to the end of World War I.  I will research at archives throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia to assess the Habsburg Monarchy's low-level administrators, their policies, backgrounds, and loyalties, as well as local reactions to those policies.  My project will illuminate our understanding of the internal workings of a multi-religious, multiethnic, and multinational state in an effort to consider the failures, successes, and effectiveness of these policies and how they relate to the development of national identities and loyalties in this truly unique but relevant region.

H

Name: Hammer, Daniel Scott
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh
Country(ies) of Research: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Topic: Democracy Nationalism and Political Culture:  The Social Construction of Political Meaning in Bosnia & Herzegovina

Abstract: Politics in the ethnically divided democracy of Bosnia-Herzegovina challenge the democratic principle that the people should be in charge, while also fundamentally complicating the notion of "the people."  Many international observers regard political behaviors and institutions in Bosnia as inadequately democratic, but do the people agree?  This research will investigate the ways in which Bosnians themselves conceptualize democracy as a social phenomenon in the context of current democratization projects in Bosnia that bring together the influences of local social and cultural values, international discourses, and democratic and nationalist politics.

Name: Hayes, Robert
Title: Professor Emeritus
Affiliation: Department of Information Studies, University of California at Los Angeles
Country(ies) of Research: Croatia
Topic: Libraries in the Information Economy of Croatia

Abstract: This research project is intended to identify and, to the extent possible, measure the role of libraries in the "information economy" of Croatia.  The methodology for the research is based, first, upon allocation of industries to identified sectors of the economy and to segments within them.  Second, on the use of an input-output matrix to represent the structure of the economy and the use of information segments within it by the various sectors of the economy.  Third, upon measurement of the labor and capital involved in libraries in each component of that structure, and fourth, on the resulting relationship between libraries and the use of information by the various sectors.  In measuring the role of libraries, specific attention will be given to the relative use of publications and Internet resources, each as accessed through libraries.

Name: Hillis, Faith
Title: Predoctoral Candidate
Affiliation: Department of History, Yale University
Country(ies) of Research: Russia and Ukraine
Topic: Cultures of Politics and Urban Revolution in Late Imperial Kiev

Abstract: My dissertation examines how Kiev’s diverse residents “learned politics” in the last decades of the ancien regime.  Viewing urban self-governance and the city planning dilemmas of the 1880s and 90s as incubators of organized politics, I follow Kiev residents through the turbulent years of the 1905 revolution and the reaction that followed it, examining how increasingly intense interactions with and participation in politics transformed urban dwellers’ understandings of themselves, their neighbors, and the empire that governed them.

Name: Hirt, Sonia
Title: Assistant Professor
Affiliation: Department of Urban Affairs & Planning, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Country(ies) of Research: Bulgaria and Serbia & Montenegro
Topic: Suburbanizing Sofia:  Context and Characteristics of Post-Communist Spatial Growth, Issues, and Opportunities

Abstract: This research will examine significant social and physical characteristics of the suburbs that have developed around the Bulgarian capital of Sofia since 1989, and assess the policy context within which the process of post-communist suburbanization occurs.  The spatial fabric of the suburbs reflects important trends in Southeast European post-communist societies, such as weakness of public institutions, growing social segregation, and severe decline of the civic realm.  From the standpoint of environmental sustainability, social stability and economic efficiency, the new suburbs present problems and opportunities that require more effective public policies.

Name: Hofman, Nila
Title: Assistant Professor
Affiliation: Department of Anthropology, DePaul University
Country(ies) of Research: Croatia
Topic: Life at the Crossroads of Social Change: Roma Women in Post-Communist Croatia

Abstract: Utilizing action research and gender analysis as a strategy to combat gender inequity and invigorate women's empowerment, this project seeks to understand how Roma women negotiate self-identity in light of the changing face of gender ideology in post-Communist Croatia.

J

Name: Jasarevic, Larisa
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: University of Chicago
Country(ies) of Research: Tuzla, Gradacac, Cracanica, Srebrenik, Brcko, Bosnia & Herzegovina
Topic: On Debt and Disorder: Market Exchange, Intimacy, and Health in the New Bosnian States

Abstract: This is a research project into the effect of capitalism under the conditions of political disorder. The widespread practice of debt exchange at Bosnian informal markets realizes the Constitutional design for a plural state and market economy in ways unforeseen by the international authors of the Bosnian peace plan. Neither a source of rampant criminality nor a hotbed of romantic multi-ethnicity, the Bosnian market creates intimate debt relationships that manage the political uncertainty and link poor personal health with oscillations of the new state.

K

Name: Kalo, Sofia
Title: Master’s Student
Affiliation: University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Country(ies) of Research: Tirana, Albania
Topic: The Development of Visual Art in Transitional Albania

Abstract: Upon the collapse of the dictatorship in1991, the traumatic changes that pervaded virtually all aspects of life in Albania forced people to face the daunting task of redefining themselves. This exploratory ethnographic study will investigate how Albanian artists are redefining the boundaries of their work in response to theses transformations, and to identify any new socio-political roles that art may have developed after the collapse of the regime.

Name: Kessler, Aimee
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: Arizona State University
Country(ies) of Research: Almaty, Kostanai, Kazakhstan; Moscow, Russia
Topic: The Great Bustard (Otis Tarda) in Kazakhstan From Population Biology to Land-Use Planning

Abstract: My research will provide contemporary data concerning populations of the Great Bustard (Otis Tarda), a vulnerable species whose presence is indicative of healthy steppe ecosystems, in Kazakhstan. I will gather information about demographics, breeding success, body condition and habitat requirements, which are a necessary basis for the establishment of meaningful species conservation progra Considering the Great Bustard as an indicator species, these data will be useful in the development of environmental policy for Central Asian grasslands, including sustainable development and land-use plans.

Name: Kissane, Dr. Carolyn
Title: Clinical Assistant Professor
Affiliation: New York University
Country(ies) of Research: Almaty, Astana, Atyrau, Aktau, Kyzyl-Orda
Topic: Oil in the context of the development of a civil society – promise or peril

Abstract: This research project investigates the development of civil society in Kazakhstan, specifically examining the role of oil as both a source of possibility and as a challenge to civil society. In the last two years, there have been interesting movements in the way non-governmental organizations, working in conjunction with oil and gas companies in Kazakhstan have pushed the government to increase transparency around the management and utilization of oil revenues, while at the same time, oil and gas companies have become more involved in supporting community development projects as part of their societal compact with the government. In this research I am to explore these new collaborations, and identify the ways in which these new initiatives may support or impede the establishment of civil society in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Name: Koenker, Diane
Title: Professor
Affiliation: University of Illinois 
Country(ies) of Research: Moscow, Sochi, Russia
Topic: Proletarian Tourism and Vacations in the USSR

Abstract: Tourist travel offered Soviet citizens opportunities to participate in the building of their nations by encountering the variety of its peoples and their diverse cultures, by viewing its natural beauty, and by witnessing the economic achievements of socialist planning. In exploring the practice of tourism and vacations over time, beginning with the Stalin period and continuing to the eras of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, they study will investigate the existence and reinforcement of social distinctions that were expressed through individuals’ choices of leisure travel: between manual workers and intellectuals, men and women, and ethnic urban Russians (the travelers) and the non-Russian peoples whose territories most attracted Russian tourists.

M

Name: Mann, Ms. Lori
Title: Independent Consultant
Affiliation: Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
Country(ies) of Research: Moldova
Topic: Dead Letter Law: Violence and Trafficking in the Republic of Moldova

Abstract: Through an examination of relevant national legislation and case law as well as international conventions and jurisprudence, Dead Letter Law will map potential litigation strategies with the aim of prompting effective enforcement of existing anti-trafficking law and the passage of specific legislation to address domestic violence in the Republic of Moldova.  Given the recent discovery of domestic and community violence as a major factor driving women to seek opportunities abroad, and thus rendering them vulnerable to traffickers, the study will also entail field research about this intersection both inside and outside of Chisinau.  Materials will result in a scholarly legal publication, a series of reader-friendly articles and training materials on strategic impact litigation on international women's human rights for law students in Moldova.

Name: Mazo, Eugene
Title: Post-Doctoral Scholar and Research Fellow
Affiliation: Center on democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law Stanford University
Country(ies) of Research: Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova
Topic: “Explaining Semi-Presidentialism in Post-Communist Europe: Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova in Comparative Perspective”

Abstract: My project examines the origins of semi-presidentialism in post-communist Europe. Building on the new institutional literature in political science, it takes a novel approach to the study of comparative constitutionalism. Rather than asking what the effects of various constitutional typologies re on democracy, it attempts to explain why some constitutional typologies are chosen in the first place. The project focuses on three “semi-presidential” case studies: Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova.   

Name: Moore, Adam
Title: Predoctoral
Affiliation: University of Wisconsin - Madison
Country(ies) of Research: Brcko, Mostar, Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina
Topic: Ethno-territoriality, Local Governing Institutions and Actors and the (Re) production of 'Ethnic Conflict' in Bosnia.

Abstract: My research will investigate the ethno-territorial "localized geopolitics" of day-to-day interaction, and struggle over power and resources, centered on local governing institutions in two Bosnian towns: Mostar and Brcko; that is, it will focus on the various discursive and physical ethno-territorial practices that local politicians, officials and police in these two towns deploy to mark particular places and territory as belonging, or appropriate for, certain 'ethnic' categories of practice or people. By providing insight on the tangled relationships among local ethno-nationalist actors, ethno-territorial practices, local governing institutions and the (re)production of persistent 'ethnic conflict', this project will make a significant contribution to scholarship on conflict and reconstruction. It will also have the more immediate, practical significance of assisting peace-building practitioners in their attempts to construct a sustainable peace in post conflict states like Bosnia.

Name: Mustafa, Mentor
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: Boston University
Country(ies) of Research: Gjirokaster, Elbasan, Tirana, Albania
Topic: The Bektashi Ecumenical Experience: Heterodox Islam, National Identity, and Modernity in Post-Communist Albania

Abstract: I propose to study the role of the Bektashi Order of Dervishes within the overall context of religious revival in post-communist Albania, as well as the Order’s distinctively indigenous public discourse in regards to ongoing debates of national and religious identities and modernity. In this multi-sited study, I employ an anthropology of religion to explore the harmonious relationship between the centralized Bektashi spiritual hierarchy and locally autonomous brotherhoods; the findings may be extended to Albanian civil life and provide a template for political development. Additionally, the study makes use of a historical approach that aims to discern how the unique and indigenous Bektashi characteristics of syncretism, tradition of Sufistic Islam that originated in the pre-Ottoman circum-Mediterranean context.

N

Name: Nakaya, Sumie
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: The City University of New York
Country(ies) of Research: Khujand, Isfara, Dushanbe, Garm Korong, Kulyob, Tajikistan
Topic: Exclusion and Violence in Post-Conflict States: Does International Assistance Sustain War-Time Resource Distributive Structures? (With Case Studies of Tajikistan & Sierra-Leone)

Abstract: This study will explore the effect of international assistance on local power structures in Tajikistan, hypothesizing that post-war exclusion and violence is the result of external involvement that tends to preserve the existing, war-time patterns of resource distribution, such as ethno-regional kinship affiliations. Those individuals who are not included in the definition of "community" or who belong to opposing or weaker associations will face exclusion from access to resources will lead to the rise of local violence. Drawing on theories of state formation, democratic and post-Soviet transitions, and civil war, this study will thus investigate the micro dynamics of post-war exclusion and violence in Tajikistan and identify those local conditions most significant for successful peace building.

Name: Ninoshvili, Lauren
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: Columbia University
Country(ies) of Research: Kutaisi, Batumi, Telavi, Georgia
Topic: Music, Cultural Policy, and the New Georgian Transnationalism

Abstract: In the last 15 years nearly one-fifth of the Georgian population has left home in search of economic opportunity abroad, and emergent diasporic formations pose a very real challenge to the continued salience of the Georgian nation-state as a unit of collective identity. In this project, I ask how Georgian cultural institutions are responding to a relatively recent demand to administer music scholarship, education and performance, and to socialize a citizenry in cultural terms, while their subject constituency is broadly dispersed beyond the borders of the nation-state. Based on my research findings, I will suggest ways in which the emergent Diaspora can be better integrated in national cultural policy considerations and thus mobilized in the long-term project to secure Georgia's political and economic stability.

P

Name: Patterson, Carroll
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: Johns Hopkins University
Country(ies) of Research: Abari, Ratcha, Tbilisi, Georgia
Topic: Commercial Farming and Subsistence in the Wine Sector of Rural Georgia

Abstract: Funds are being requested to explore the question of under what conditions Georgian rural procedures will engage in the commercial market. The primary objective is to examine the relationship between subsistence producers and commercial farmers in the context of the wine sector. The proposed research relies upon on-site village visits and is scheduled to occur from June 2006 until November 2006.

Name: Pytka, Meghann
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: Northwestern University
Country(ies) of Research: Warsaw, Krakow, Torun, Poland; Moscow, Russia; Lviv, Ukraine
Topic: Policing the Binary-Patrolling the Nation: Roman Dmowski and the Polish Right on the Eve of the Holocaust

Abstract: My project seeks to contribute to the historical scholarship on Polish nationalism and anti-Semitism. First it endeavors t provide a comprehensive account of Dmowski's writings that situates his ideology within the context of Polish nationalist thought. Second, it examines how Dmowski viewed the Polish nation in explicitly gendered ter Specifically, it seeks to reveal how Dmowski's anxieties concerning national effeminacy undergirded his wariness toward Jews and socialists and inspired the conceptualization of a nation that could serve as the "incubator for masculine individuality". Thus, it attempts to lay bare the conceptual framework within which the Polish Right understood, inculcated, and Policed "Polishness". This, I argue, helped to cement the separation between Poles & Jews on the eve of the Holocaust.

R

Name: Robarts, Andrew
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: Georgetown University
Country(ies) of Research: Moscow, Russia; Sofia, Dobrich, Bulgaria
Topic: Ottoman and Russian Migration Management Policies in the Black Sea Region, 1768-1829

Abstract: My project, a study of the nexus between empire and migration, will utilize a comparative framework to analyze the migration management policies introduced in the Black Sea region by the Ottoman and Russian empires in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Muslim Pilgrimage (Hajj) traffic across and around the Black Sea region will be addressed. My project will adopt a multi-disciplinary approach and will draw on demography and migration theory.

Name: Ryan, Patricia
Title: Master’s Student
Affiliation: University of Texas
Country(ies) of Research: Kyrgyz Republic
Topic: Family, Violence and Health in the Kyrgyz Republic

Abstract:This research examines local understandings of family relationships, including violent relationships, and how they may be related to health knowledge, belief and outcomes. Through in-depth interviews and focus groups, I explored gender dynamics within families, local definitions of domestic violence, and health issues. 

S

Name: Shulman, Elena
Title: Assistant Professor
Affiliation: Texas Tech University
Country(ies) of Research: Moscow, Russia
Topic: “Soldiers of the World: Soviet War Correspondents, Russian Nationalism and Masculinity from the Second World War to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

Abstract: This project explores the effects of war on societies by comparing the activities of frontline reporters in two wars: WWII and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. One of my objectives will be to contrast the representations and legacy of WWII and fraternal egalitarianism with the loneliness and hierarchy in the coverage of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. A second objective will be to trace the ways in which the Soviet press narrated national identity and the ways in which changes in the narration contributed not only to the disintegration of the Soviet empire but also the rise of xenophobic Russian nationalism in present day Russia.

Name: Smith, Alison
Title: Assistant Professor
Affiliation: Colorado State University
Country(ies) of Research: Moscow, St. Pertersburg, Nizhnyi Novgorod, Tula, Arkhangelsk, Kazan, Riazan, Pskov, Novgorod, Tver
Topic: Social Mobility in Imperial Russia: Petitions and Changing Estates Before 1917

Abstract: Citizens of imperial Russia were born into social estates that defined their position vis-à-vis each other and the state, but could change that estate by petitioning their local estate organizations. I will examine these petitions, which are held in local archives in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and provincial towns, to discover who wanted to change estate, their reasons for changing estate, and whether their petitions were accepted. I will examine variations in the importance of estate identities by region and over time to show how Russian moved (or failed to move) through the largely restrictive social structures of Imperial Russia, a topic with profound implications for later periods of Russian history.

Name: Sredl, Katherine
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: University of Illinois U-C
Country(ies) of Research: Zagreb, Croatia
Topic: Gendered Market Subjectivity in Post-socialist Croatia

Abstract: This research will focus on women’s market activity, given Croatia’s specific state socialist and post-socialist experience with gendered market rituals and structures, as critical yet unrecognized rituals and experiences for understanding the paradoxes of post-socialism. My ethnographic fieldwork seeks to enrich the women’s studies, consumer culture theory, and the post-socialist literature understandings of women’s experiences of transformation as passive, singular and unambiguous. My research explores how women’s consumption rituals and leadership in advertising agencies are indicative of the multiple political and social identities in post-socialist Croatia and the transformation of political subjectivity.

Name: Sumits, William
Title: Master’s Student
Affiliation: University of Washington, Seattle
Country(ies) of Research: Dushanbe, Tajikistan; Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Topic: Tracing the Development of the Science of Music in Central Asia

Abstract: The Proposed project seeks to expand the understanding of Central Asian traditions, their history, and the symbolic and speculative aspects of the science of music that were common in the medieval period. In order to achieve the proposed goals, I will examine two 16th century Tajik-Persian tracts on music, consult with contemporary musicians, musicologists, and historians, and also consult and collect archival sound recordings, and textual sources.

T

Name: Taubman, William
Title: Professor
Affiliation: Amherst College
Country(ies) of Research: Moscow, Stavropol, Russia; Tbilisi, Georgia.
Topic: Gorbachev: A Biography

Abstract: The first scholarly biography of Mikhail S. Gorbachev. How he cam the man who dismantled the Soviet system, and why that system submitted to dismantling. I will try to show how Gorbachev's character took shape, and how it both reflected and altered his era.

V

Name: Valev, Neven
Title: Associate Professor
Affiliation: Georgia State University
Country(ies) of Research: Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Bourgas, Veliko, Tumovo, Bulgaria.
Topic: Financial Development and Economic Growth in Bulgaria

Abstract: This project uses in-depth interviews with banking officials and detailed statistical data to investigate whether and how the rapid expansion of credit that followed financial reforms in Bulgaria enhances economic development in that country. Bulgaria's stability and economic prosperity, which are crucially dependent on its financial markets, are important to its citizens and to the Balkan region where Bulgaria is a major economic and political anchor. In addition to its policy relevance, this project contributes to the academic literature by using unique multi-method approach to analyze the mechanics of financial markets in a rapidly maturing market economy.

W

Name: Wagner-Findeisen, Anne
Title: Special Counsel
Affiliation: Power Authority of the State of New York
Country(ies) of Research: Warsaw, Cracow, Wroclaw, Poland
Topic: Government in the Sunshine: Whether the U.S. Model of Public Access to Governmental Records, a/k/a Freedom of Information Could Take Root in a Post-Communist Democracy – the Case of Poland

Abstract: One of the first post-communist nations to be admitted to the European Union, Poland is the delicate process of conforming its civil legal systems to European standards and directives. Although Western European legal (civil law) systems do not generally provide citizen with a right of access to public and governmental records, (as doe the US federal government and most individual states) the specific legal climate and legal culture in Poland could significantly further democratic institutions if citizens were vested with access rights similar to the US Federal Freedom of Information Act and similar adopted by US states.

I propose to identify (a) potential Polish legal processes wherein a public right of access could be formulated and implemented as par of Poland’s ongoing adoption and adaptation of democratic institutions of government; (b) likely cultural and political barriers/resistance to the concept of open access; (c) synthesizing the foregoing two elements, engage in collaborative discussions with Polish legislators, legal scholars, political scientists, and lawyers so as to (d) formulate and propose a viable mechanism for Poland legal journals; lecture at law schools and political science classes; stimulate a public debate and ensure ongoing advice and counsel from U.S. legal experts and scholars.

Whitsel, Christopher
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
Country(ies) of Research: Tajikistan
Topic: Lost in Transition: Barriers to Educational Participation in Tajikistan

Abstract: The World Bank (1999) forecasted that there would soon be a whole generation of students who had never attended school in Tajikistan, subsequently becoming a “lost generation.” Since independence in 1991, Tajikistan has faced a devastating economic crisis and a civil war, both of which took their toll on the educational system and currently as many as 25 percent of school aged children are not attending school. My research will provide an understanding of the barriers to children’s educational participation in Tajikistan, which arise because of the loss of important government inputs in education and hardships families face in coping with the economic crisis.

Z

Name: Zankina, Ms. Emilia
Title: Predoctoral Student
Affiliation: University of Pittsburgh
Country(ies) of Research: Sofia, Bulgaria
Topic: Elite Transformation in the Bulgarian Transition

Abstract: In examining elite transformation in Bulgaria in the period 1988, I test the assumption that the collapse of communism produced elite turnover and forward a model of elite transformation based on the presence or absence of contestation of the communist elite by an organized counter elite. The question I ask is whether or note the collapse of communism in Bulgaria was an instance of elite contestation or not. In addressing this question, I focus my research on the fate of the communist elite: What happened to the communist elite in the transitions? Was it challenged by organized counter elite, and did it preserve its elite status?