Country of residence

United States

Brief introduction

Research Affiliate, University College London, Department of Anthropology

Education

PhD in Social Anthropology, 2011, University College London

Academic profile

In 2011, I received a PhD in Social Anthropology at University College London. My doctoral research explored the question of how Romani social life proceeds in a small town in the Czech Republic, and it paid particular attention to the ways in which ethnicity becomes salient during interactions between Roma and Czechs. The core of this ethnography was based upon an extended narrative engagement with two Romani women who are markedly dissimilar in age, level of personal autonomy and financial security, thus this research took into consideration the ways in which Romani individuals make sense of their social worlds through the creation of narratives. My interlocutors’ cognitive assignment of an idealized Romani sociality to the communist era rather than the present-day (an era when their ethnicity was officially denied), and their personal commitment to enacting their agency as mothers in the present-day as well as reflecting on their actions in the past and planning strategies for action in the future, run counter to the findings of many Romani ethnographies based on fieldwork in the Czech Republic. Currently, my research interests are directed towards the migration experiences of Czech Roma and their ethnic self-identification as immigrants and refugees in new lands.

Publications

Keywords

Ethnicity, Czech, narrative, migration, gender

Contact

natasha.brie@gmail.com browse members list