Research fields

What I am interested in...

The world we live in is made up of the entanglement of social and material stuff. Separate one from the other and much of what our daily life is made up of comes apart at the seams.

Theories
I pursue my interest in the social and the material through an engagement with actor-network theory (ANT) and assemblage thinking. Noting a lack of dialogue between the two approaches, I have explored the overlaps and silences.

Issues
Most of my empirical work centres on two domains:

planning, or rather improvising, mega-events (such as the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup), where I have coined the notion of mega-event syndrome
flagship cultural developments, such as large museums or concert halls

Places
I study what I call the Global East, the globalised and globalising societies of the former Second World, written out of both the Global North and Global South.

I work through place-based (though not place-bound) knowledge and have conducted long-term research in several cities in Russia. I have a recent focus on Ekaterinburg, where I co-founded the Center for Global Urbanism. Before that, I have worked on Moscow and Sochi.

Methodologies
I am an omnivore in terms of methods, using both multivariate statistics and qualitative methods. That said, I have developed a particular taste for the varied flavours of ethnography.

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