Maria Sakirko (2020)

My ongoing PhD research is about the experiences of Georgian families who moved to Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union. My main focus is on the questions of intergenerational transmission of the memories and on the senses of belonging among young Georgians who grew up in Moscow against the backdrop of the geopolitical tensions between Russia and Georgia.

Prior to the PhD, I completed an MA in Social Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2019 (my MA thesis “Homeland Landscapes in a New Place: An Ethnographic Study of Georgian Migrants’ Sensory Perception” was awarded The Pat Caplan Prize) and MA in Cultural Management in 2018 (the joint programme of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES) and The University of Manchester). I have several years of experience as a curator of museum exhibitions and public programmes.