Expertise

Youth, Transnationalism, Language and culture, Migration, Urban anthropology; post-Soviet region and European Union

Biography

I have a BA in Political Science and Economics from Rutgers University and an MA in International Relations from Yale University. I received my PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago in December 2010. In 2011-2012, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute.

My research interests include nationalism and xenophobia, language ideologies, transnational governance, migration, and youth. My dissertation research was based on 16 months of fieldwork with non-profit organizations focused on young people. In my dissertation, Projecting Europe: the Politics of Youth in Contemporary Lithuania, I focus on projects that target "at-risk" youth and aim to make these individuals into European citizens. I argue that instead of creating liberal European subjects, youth-focused projects contribute to perpetuation of uneven social opportunities, existent language ideologies, and multi-tier citizenship. In 2011-2012, as one of the coordinators of Harriman Institute's core project, "Peoples in Motion",  I conducted research on Lithuanian labor migrants to the UK in order to examine the interplay of transnational mobility, socio-economic inequality, and cultural ideas about ethnic difference. In 2017-2018, I conducted research on FIFA World Cup in Russia in order to examine the intersection of political economy, nationalism, and urban space.

My current research project focuses on language politics and socio-linguistic identities in Lithuania in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War. My teaching interests include transnationalism, linguistic anthropology, political anthropology, youth, popular culture, and urban anthropology, as well as anthropology of the EU and post-Soviet politics and societies.