Degrees prior to starting this degree program:
BA, Moscow State University, 2012
MA, Harvard University, 2020
Field Research Plans/History:
Alisa has been working on the war in Ukraine since its beginning in 2014, first as a journalist and, later, as a student of anthropology. She sought to investigate the specifics of everyday life in the environment of military conflict in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and adjustments and coping mechanisms employed by its residents in order to recreate the normality of their livelihoods. Following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Alisa has continued to work in the region, focusing on war as a context for daily life and the entanglement between military violence and the ordinary. Her research interests lie at the intersection of materiality and affect studies, reflecting upon the affective responses to the loss and destruction of material environments.
Areas of Interest:
Materiality, affect, care, war, post-socialism, storytelling.
Publications, Multimedia Projects:
Sopova, Alisa. 2023. “Anxious suitcases and their contents.” American Ethnologist 1–11.
Sopova, Alisa. 2022. “Be Strong Like a Kitchen Cabinet”: Indestructible Objects as Symbols of Resistance in Ukraine.” American Ethnologist.
Sopova, Alisa. "Visuals and the Invisible in the ‘Forgotten’War in Ukraine: Combating Clichés of War Photography through Social Media." Digital Icons, Issue 21.
Sopova, Alisa. "The Death Collectors: The Material Culture of War as a Means of Reclaiming Agency in Eastern Ukraine." Slovo 32, no. 1 (2019): 3-30.