Dr Costanza Curro

Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki

Unioninkatu 33

00170 Helsinki, Finland

costanza.curro@gmail.com

costanza.curro@helsinki.fi

Research interests

Post-socialist space; Georgia; Prison; Personhood; Ethnicity; Masculinity; Informal practices; Social anthropology

Education

September 2011 - January 2017: PhD in Social Anthropology. Thesis title: From Tradition to Civility: Georgian Hospitality after the Rose Revolution (2003-2012), School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London (SSEES-UCL).

September 2010 - September 2011: MA in Politics, Security and Integration, SSEES-UCL, London.

October 2006 - June 2009:  Postgraduate degree in European, American and Post-colonial Languages and Literatures - Russian Language and Culture. Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy.

October 2001 - September 2006: Undergraduate degree in Russian and French Language and Literature. Universita’ degli Studi di Genova, Genoa, Italy.

Work Experience:

September 2019-now: Postdoctoral researcher, GulagEchoes Project, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland. 

August 2017-July 2019: Researcher, The Legal 500, Legalease, London.

February 2018-October 2018: Maternity leave

February 2015-July 2017: Project coordinator and Research assistant, Global Encyclopaedia of Informality – Global Informality Project, edited by Professor A. Ledeneva and International Board, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London (SSEES-UCL), London, http://in-formality.com

October 2013-March 2017: Postgraduate Teaching Assistant, SSEES-UCL.

Higher Education Experience:

May 2014-October 2016:Initiator and co-organiser of the UCL-based multidisciplinary project Platform Ukraine.

February 2011 – February 2013: Copy-editor and Research assistant in the publication of:  Ledeneva, A. (2013). Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks, and Informal Governance; Ledeneva, A. (2011), ‘Telephone Justice in Russia: An Update’.

October 2008 - October 2009:  Research at the Historical Records Office in Tbilisi, Georgia. Central’nyj Gosudarstvennyj Istoričeskij Archiv Gruzii (CGIAG), 0108 Tbilisi, Georgia.

March 2008 - June 2008: Student exchange between Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, and Ivane Javakhishvili State University (TSU), Tbilisi, Georgia.

Scholarly Publications: 

2020 (accepted – under review). ‘Changing everything fast? Young men’s im-mobility in the streets of Tbilisi’, in Duijzings, G. and Tuvikene, T. (eds) Post-Socialist Streets: Vehicles, Movements and Frictions. Oxford, New York: Berghahn.

2020. ‘Excessive hospitality: Personhood, moral boundaries and domination around the Georgian table’. Journal of Consumer Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540519891278

2019. ‘Between the public and the private: Socialism, capitalism and street socialisation in Georgia’, in Duncan, P. and Schimpfoessl, E. (eds) Socialism, Capitalism and Alternatives: Critical Area Studies and Global Theories. London: UCL Press: 66-85.

2019. ‘“Supra is not for women”: Gender and social change through patterns of hospitality’, in Ziemer, U. (ed.) Through War and Peace: Women’s Everyday Life and Politics in the South Caucasus. London: Palgrave Macmillan: 43-70.

2018. ‘Birzha’, in Ledeneva, A. (ed.), Global Encyclopaedia of Informality. London: UCL Press.

2018. ‘Telephone Justice’ (with A. Ledeneva and R. Simic-Banovic), in Ledeneva, A. (ed.), Global Encyclopaedia of Informality. London: UCL Press.

2017. ‘From goods to emotions: The transformation of informal practices in the Republic of Georgia’, in Horodnic, I., Rodgers, P., William, C. and Momtazian, L. (eds) The informal economy: Exploring drivers and practices. London: Routledge.

2017. ‘A critical assessment of informal practices as resistance: The case of birzha in Georgia’, Caucasus Survey, 5 (1): 65-84.

2015. ‘Davabirzhaot! Conflicting claims on public space in Tbilisi between transparency and opaqueness’, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 35(7/8): 497-512.

2014. ‘A “Gift from God”? Georgian hospitality between tradition and pragmatism’, Hospitality & Society, 4(3), 293-310.

2012. ‘National gender norms and transnational identities: Migration experiences of Georgian women in London’, Slovo, 24(2): 114-131.

Other publications:

2016. "Hospitality Bricolage in Times of Change", in Martínez, F. and Agu, M. (eds.) Aesthetics of Repair in Contemporary Georgia. Tartu: Tartu Art Museum.

2015. [Book review] Caldwell, M. L., Klein, J. A. and Jung, Y. (eds.) 2014. Ethical Eating in the Postsocialist and Socialist Word. Oakland: University of California Press. 232 pp. AllegraLab, http://allegralaboratory.net/special-review-ethical-eating-in-the-postsocialist-and-socialist-world-part-3-of-3/

2015. [Book review] Black. R. E. 2012. Porta Palazzo: The Anthropology of an Italian Market. University of Pennsylvania Press, 232 pp. AllegraLab, http://allegralaboratory.net/special-review-section-rachel-black-porta-palazzo-1/

Awards, Honours, and Fellowships:

SSEES Excellence Scholarship: March 2015

UCL Graduate School and SSEES Research Project Fund: November 2012 to March 2017 (fieldwork, conferences, research expenses, external training)

Funds for Women Graduate: July 2012:

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Scholarship: September 2012 to September 2015

Selected Conference Papers and Workshop Presentations:

5 June 2019: Hegemony and care: narratives and practices of masculinity in Georgia, PostPatriarchal Masculinities Conference 2019, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK.

8-10 November 2018: Mobilities and masculinities in the streets of Tbilisi: Negotiating exclusion, risk and personal advancement, Marshrutka Project’s Final Conference “Spatial dynamics of informal and shared mobilities”, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

19 June 2017: Georgian masculinities: Between display and intimacy,Workshop “Beyond Putin: Masculinity in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus”, University of Bristol, UK.

06 March 2017: A Gift from God? The ambivalence of Georgian hospitality, Invited lecturer at Prof. Ledeneva’s seminars on Informal Practices in Communist and Post-Communist Societies, UCL, London, UK.

6-8 October 2016: Changing Everything Fast? Immobility in the Streets of Tbilisi, International Workshop “The Postsocialist Street: Raising Car Mobility in Comparative Perspectives”, Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies, University of Regensburg, Germany.

2-4 September 2016: The Georgian birzha as an informal economic practice, Marie Curie IAPP Summer School for Shadow Economies in Europe and Beyond: Debating the Causes and Impacts of the Informal Economies, Sofia, Bulgaria.

24 June 2016: ‘Supra is not for women’: Gender and Social Change in Georgia through Patterns of Hospitality, Workshop “Ordinary Times? Everyday Lives and Social Dynamism in the South Caucasus”, University of Winchester, UK.

14-16 December 2015: Between transparency and opaqueness: Birzha in post-revolutionary Georgia (2003-2012), SSEES Centenary Conference “Socialism, Capitalism, and the Alternatives: Lessons from Russia and Eastern Europe”, UCL, London, UK.

4-5 September 2015: Conflicts over Public Space in Tbilisi, 4^th ASCN Annual Conference “Protest, Modernisation, Democratisation: Political and Social Dynamics in Post-Soviet Countries”, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia.

6-7 June 2015: Russia get out! Georgian voices on Ukraine, Platform Ukraine International Conference, SSEES-UCL, London, UK.

9-10 October 2014: Tasty and Healthy: Food Patterns in Tbilisi, Workshop “Consumption and Economic Crises: Postsocialist Experiences”, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.

15-18 June 2014: Everyday Informal Exchange in Georgia, RSA European Conference “Diverse Regions: Building Resilient Communities and Territories”, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey.

21-23 November 2013: Formal informality? The ambivalences of Georgian hospitality, 2^nd ASCN Annual Conference “Informal Practices and Structures in Eastern Europe and Central Asia”, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.

Languages:

Italian: Native speaker

English: Fluent

Russian: Excellent speaking and comprehension of written texts

Georgian: Very good speaking; good comprehension of written texts

French: Good speaking; very good comprehension of written texts

Czech: Good speaking; good comprehension of written texts