Research Group

I completed my previous degrees in History and Political Science at North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU), in Yakutsk, Russia. My research interests included NGOs, civil society, private and public spheres in Russia, and I was involved with a number of interdisciplinary research projects at NEFU such as “Sakha Republic: Foresight Project 2050” (2011-2014), “Socio-cultural transformations of Sakha villages in Central Yakutia” (2014), and “Peoples of the North-East Russia: New adaptive strategies in the globalizing world” (2015-2018). I have been the recipient of the Ulla Johansen Scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), the Eyes High Doctoral Scholarship (University of Calgary), the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship, and Izaak Walton Killam Doctoral Scholarship (University of Calgary). My doctoral thesis centers on land conflicts and Indigenous activism in the Russian Arctic, focused on extractive areas in Western Yakutia.

My research interests include the anthropology of the state, nationalism, and memory, with a specific focus on South-Eastern Europe. More specifically, since 2012, I have been conducting research in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), investigating the role that memory plays in the development of Bosnian postwar social context.

More specifically, for my MA thesis - defended at the University of Siena (Italy) in 2015, I researched the commemorations of the Srebrenica genocide. A few months after my dissertation, I was back to BiH for a seven-month international volunteering program that took place in the town of Bosanska Gradiška. In 2016, I began my PhD at the University of Calgary, with a project that studies the relationships post-war generations have with the practices and politics of memory carried out by the institutions of Republika Srpska, the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I have been a recipient of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (2017-2020), and Izaak Walton Killam Doctoral Scholarship (University of Calgary, 2017 and 2018).

Amanda is interested in the ways that museum spaces and collections can be used by communities to create more just and empathetic societies. Amanda is currently working with Indigenous peoples in the Treaty 7 region to explore potentials for access to and control of museum collections. Their professional practice includes education, mentorship, film and other arts, and engaging community (especially youth). Here's a link to some of their work https://calgaryartsdevelopment.com/lougheed-house/ and a blog that they write for the Glenbow Museum's Education program: http://museumschool.glenbow.org/.

My name is John Reyes and I am currently a Master’s Student at the University of Calgary at the Centre for Military Security and Strategic Studies. My current research is focused on radicalization, counter-radicalization programs and the civil-military interface that connects the public to these systems of security. I also have a broad interest in the connection radicalization has to extremist, terrorist, and other radicalized groups including hyper-masculine groups, such as Incels, or the far-right. In my free time, I enjoy being outdoors and competing at function fitness and Olympic weightlifting competitions.