| TatianaVagramenko PhD, MA |
Address: Study of Religions Department, O’Rahilly Building, University College Cork , Ireland
E-mail: tatiana.vagramenko@ucc.ie
Current Position and Academic Affiliations
| 2017 – 2019 | Study of Religions DepartmentUniversity College Cork, IrelandPostdoctoral Fellow |
| 2018-2019 | Grup d’estudis sobre cultures indígenes i afroamericanes (CINAF)Department of Anthropology, University of Barcelona, SpainVisiting Researcher |
| 2016-Present | The Center of Arctic and Siberian ExplorationFederal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of SciencesAffiliatedResearcher |
| 2014-Present | Marginalized and Endangered Worldviews Study Center (MEWSC) University College Cork, IrelandAffiliated Researcher |
Education
| 2014 | PhD in Anthropology, National University of Ireland, Maynooth |
| 2007 | MA in Ethnology (Cultural Anthropology), European University at St. Petersburg |
| 2005 | MA in Religious Studies, St. Petersburg State University |
| 2001 | BA inReligiousStudies, St. Petersburg School of Religion and Philosophy |
Research Activities
| 2017 – 2019 | Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship “Religious Minorities in Ukraine from the Soviet Underground to the Euromaidan: Pathways toReligious Freedom and Pluralism in Enlarging Europe”. University College Cork, IrelandPrinciple Investigator |
| 2018 – 2020 | European Research Council project “Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: ‘Hidden Galleries’ in the Secret Police Archives in Central and Eastern Europe”. PI – James Kapalo, University College Cork, IrelandCollaborator |
| 2016 – 2019 | The European Union’s Horizon 2020 “Cultural Opposition – Understanding the Cultural Heritage of Dissent in the Former Socialist Countries”. Trinity College Dublin, IrelandMember of expert network group, area of expertise – Soviet Ukraine and Ukrainian diaspora |
| 2010 – 2012 | Templeton Foundation / University of Southern California: Pentecostal and Charismatic Research InitiativeCenter for the Study of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements in RussiaInvestigator |
| 2009 – 2011 | Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences, Research Development Initiative. “Changing Vectors of Development: Locating Russia in Development Discourse and Practice”, PI – Dr. Patty Gray.Research Coordinator |
| 2009 | Russian Foundation for the Humanities. Field work project № 09-01-18003е “Nomadic Christianization Model: Changing Religious Practices of the Yamal Nenets” (“Кочеваямодельхристианизации: современныетрансформациирелигиозныхпрактик ненцевЯмала”).Researcher |
Other Work Experience
| 2008 | National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Anthropology DepartmentTutor (Theory and Practice in Anthropology) |
| 2007- 2008 | Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) Russian Academy of Science, St. PetersburgPR Manager |
| 2007-2009 | European Science Foundation’s EUROCORES Programme BOREAS Collaborative Project “New Religious Movements in the Russian North: Competing Uses of Religiosity after Socialism” (NEWREL). European University at St. Petersburg.Conference Coordinator |
| 2006- 2007 | St. Petersburg School of Religion and Philosophy Lecturer (Anthropology of Religion, Ethnology, History of Religion) |
| 2005 | St. Petersburg School of Religion and Philosophy Head ofCurriculum Department |
| 2000 – 2005 | St. Petersburg School of Religion and Philosophy Conference and Project Manager |
Scholarships, Grants and Awards
| 2010-2013 | Global Supplementary Grant Program (GSGP), Network Scholarship Programs of the Open Society Institute. |
| 2008-2013 | John and Pat Hume PhD Fellowship, National University of Ireland, Maynooth. |
| 20122012 | National University of Ireland Maynooth conference grant.Travel bursary from theWenner-Gren Foundation and the EASA travel grant. |
| 2011 | Field research grant from the CRCC Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative, University of Southern California, the John Templeton Foundation. |
| 2008 | Field research grant from European University at St. Petersburg. |
| 2006 | Field research grant from European University at St. Petersburg. |
| 2005-2006 | HESP Regional Seminar for Excellence in Teaching (Open Society Institute) scholarship to participate in summer schools: “Paradigms of Cohabitation, Tolerance and Interreligious Dialogue”; “Religious Pluralism and Fundamentalism. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Religious Studies”; “How to Teach on Pluralism and Fundamentalism in Religious Studies?”, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. |
Archival and FieldResearch
| 2018,Jun. – Oct. | Ukraine. Archival and field researchResearch project: Religious Minorities in Ukraine from the Soviet Underground to the Euromaidan |
| 2018, Jan.-Mar. | Kiev, Ukraine. Archival researchResearch project: Religious dissent movements and Soviet secret police in Ukraine |
| 2015,Aug.-Sept. | Crimea, Ukraine. “Unemployment, Labour Migration and Grassroots Economic Strategies in Crimea in the late Soviet period and after the fall of the Soviet Union”, PI Dr. Francisco Arqueros (Irish Research Council – Marie Curie Action). Field research assistant |
| 2014, Jan. -Feb. | Kiev, Ukraine. The Euromaidan Movement.Independent researcher |
| 2011, Feb. – Aug. | Russian North-Western Siberia (Yamal region and Komi Republic).Supported by CRCC Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative, University of Southern California and the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Funded by the John Templeton Foundation.Research project: Arctic Evangelical Missionary Movement and Religious Conversion among the nomadic Nenets and Khanty indigenous people. |
| 2008, Apr. – May | Russian North-Western Siberia (Yamal region and Komi Republic).Research project: Arctic Evangelical Missionary Movement and Religious Conversion among the nomadic Nenets and Khanty indigenous people.Supported by the European University at St. Petersburg. |
| 2006, Nov. – Dec. | Russian North-Western Siberia (Yamal region and Komi Republic). Supported by the European University at St. Petersburg.Research project: Traditional Nomadic Culture and Religious Practices of the Yamal Nenets Indigenous Peoples. |
Personal skills and competences
Languages: Russian, English, Spanish, Ukrainian.
Research Management: Wide experience in coordinating and administering numerous international conferences and research projects (took part in organizing over 20 conferences and workshops). I have developed my project management skills including research budget management, international fundraising, commercialization of research and public outreach, coordinating grant applications and reports.
Research and Teaching Interests
Arctic anthropology, indigenous people, shamanism, new religious movements in Siberia, Evangelical missionary movements in post-Soviet Siberia and the Arctic, the Nenets indigenous people.
Anthropology of Christianity, religion and politics, Christian fundamentalism, ethnic and religious minorities in Russia and Ukraine, religious dissent and non-conformism in the Soviet period, post-socialism, the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine.
Peer-reviewed Publications
Vagramenko, Tatiana (forthcoming, 2019). Book review Sustaining Russia’s Arctic Cities. Resource Politics, Migration, and Climate Change, by Robert W.Orttung (ed). Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics.
Vagramenko, Tatiana, 2018. Chronotopes of Conversion and the Production of Christian Fundamentalism in the Post-Soviet Arctic. Sibirica: Interdisciplinary Journal of Siberian Studies, Vol. 17(1):63-91.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2018. “I Came not to Bring Peace, but a Sword”: The Politics of Religion after Socialism and the Precariousness of Religious Life in the Russian Arctic. Theological Reflections: Euro-Asian Journal of Theology. Vol. 20: 135-152.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2018(in Russian). «Не мир пришел Я принести, но меч»: Постсоветская религиозная политика и перипетии религиозной жизни в Российской Арктике. Богословские размышления. Евро-Азиатский Журнал богословия. Vol. 20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29357/issn.2521-179X.2018.20.7
Vagramenko, Tatiana, 2018. La reseña del libroSustaining Russia’s Arctic Cities. AIBR, Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 13(3):463-467.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2017. “Blood” Kinship and Kinship in Christ’s Blood: Nomadic Evangelism in the Nenets Tundra. Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, Vol. 11(1):151-169.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2017. “Indigeneity and Religious Conversion in Siberia: Nenets ‘Eluding’ Culture and Indigenous Revitalization” In Marginalised and Endangered Worldviews. Comparative Studies on Contemporary Eurasia, India and South America. Ed. by L. Gusy and J. Kapalo. LIT Verlag. Ethnologie: Forschung und Wissenschaft. Pp. 207-229.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2008 (in Russian). “Traditsionnaya kul’tura nentsev Yamala v predstavlenii khristianskikh missionerov: yazychestvo ili ‘Vetkhii zavet’?” [YamalNenetsTraditionalCultureinthePerceptionofChristianMissionaries: Paganismor‘OldTestament’?] In Radlovskii sbornik. St.-Petersburg: MAE (Kunstkamera) RAS. Pp. 257-263.
OtherPublications
Vagramenko, Tatiana. “Secret police photographs of Ioannite community in Ukraine”, Hidden Galleries Digital Archive, http://hiddengalleries.eu/digitalarchive/s/en/item/161
Vagramenko, Tatiana. “Secret police network schemes of the True Orthodox Church in Ukraine,” Hidden Galleries Digital Archive, http://hiddengalleries.eu/digitalarchive/s/en/item/16
Vagramenko, Tatiana. “Secret police instructional publications on Russian Orthodox clandestine groups,” Hidden Galleries Digital Archive, http://hiddengalleries.eu/digitalarchive/s/en/item/8
Vagramenko, Tatiana. “Photo-collage and network scheme of True Orthodox believers in Russia,” Hidden Galleries Digital Archive, http://hiddengalleries.eu/digitalarchive/s/en/item/9
Vagramenko, Tatiana. “Truman press-cutting from a Pentecostal criminal case in Ukraine,” Hidden Galleries Digital Archive, http://hiddengalleries.eu/digitalarchive/s/en/item/10
Vagramenko, Tatiana. “Confiscated manuscript of Pentecostal prophecy from Ukraine,” Hidden Galleries Digital Archive, http://hiddengalleries.eu/digitalarchive/s/en/item/12
Vagramenko, Tatiana. “True Orthodox secret monasticism in Ukraine,” Hidden Galleries Digital Archive, http://hiddengalleries.eu/digitalarchive/s/en/item/144
Vagramenko, Tatiana. “Crime scene photographs of the True Orthodox Church in Ukraine,” Hidden Galleries Digital Archive,http://hiddengalleries.eu/digitalarchive/s/en/item/140
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2014. “Nenets ‘ritualized resistance’: religious conversion as a strategy of empowerment”. In The Postcolonial Arctic. Conference Proceedings. University of Leeds. Pp. 16-17.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2011. “Radical change for the sake of continuity: Christianity in Nenets Society” In New Movements in Religion. Theories and Trends. 10th Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions. 18-22 September. Budapest, Hungary. Pp. 112-114.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2011 (in Russian). “V poiskakh sokhranenia… Religioznoe obraschenie kak mekhanizm adaptatsii yamalskikh nentsev”[Forthesakeof continuity… Religiousconversionasanadaptation mechanismfor Yamal Nenets indigenous people]In Sud’ba dialoga v usloviakh globalizatsii i sotsial’no-kul’turnikh transformatsii.Salekhard. Pp.268-274.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2007 (in Russian). “‘Neudobnaya vera’. Religioznoye obrashchenie nentsev Yamala” [‘Inconvenient Faith’. Religious Conversion of Yamal Nenets] In Slavianskii khod. Materialy i issledovaniia. Issue 3. St.-Petersburg: MAE (Kunstkamera) RAS. Pp. 151-155.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2008 (in Russian). Avstraliiskie religii. Entsiklopedia religii. Ed. By A. Zabiiako, A. Krasnikov, and E. Elbakian. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt; Gaudeamus.Pp. 18-20.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2008 (in Russian).Znakharstvo. Entsiklopedia religii. Ed. By A. Zabiiako, A. Krasnikov, and E. Elbakian. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt; Gaudeamus.Pp. 460-46.
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2008 (in Russian).Churingi (Tiuringi). Entsiklopedia religii. Ed. By A. Zabiiako, A. Krasnikov, and E. Elbakian. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt; Gaudeamus.Pp.1420
Vagramenko, Tatiana. 2006 (in Russian). Znakharstvo. Religiovedenie. Entsiklopedia. Ed. by A. Zabiiako, A. Krasnikov, and E. Elbakian.Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt. Pp. 364-365.
Conference Presentations and Invited Talks
2018 “Visualising Religious Dissent: The Soviet Secret Police and the Aesthetic Order”. “Hidden Galleries” Workshop “Engaging the Margins: Ethnographic Practice and Marginal Religious Communities in Central and Eastern Europe”, November 8th 2018, New Europe College Bucharest, Romania.
2018 “Decommunisation Laws and the Politics of Religious Memory in post-Maidan Ukraine”. British Association for Slavonic and East-European Studies, 13-15 April, University of Cambridge, UK
2018 “Religion in Revolutions: A Case of Ukraine”. The Impact of Religion. Challenges for Society, Law and Democracy. International Conference, 24-26 April, Uppsala University, Sweden.
2018 “Indigenous People and Modernity: Marginalization and Cultural Resilience”. Invited lecture, Study of Religions, MA and PhD program, University College Cork.
2017 “Arctic Entangled Sustainabilities: (De)constructing Indigeneity”. Biennial Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society “Entangled Mobilities”, 22th—23th of May, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
2016 “The Production of Religious Fundamentalism and Unmaking of Modernity in the Russian Arctic”. II International Anthropological Congress AIBR, 6-9 September, Barcelona, Spain.
2016 “Modernity Tensions and Nenets ‘Ritualized Resistance’: Evangelical Conversion as a Strategy of Empowerment”. Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR) “Relocating Religion”, 28 June – 1 July, Helsinki, Finland.
2015 “Remembering the Past in the ‘Born-again’ Present: Conversion of Nenets and Khanty Oral Histories”. 12th International ETMU Days conference “Mobile Roots – Rethinking Indigenous and Transnational ties”, 22-24 October, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland.
2014 “Indigeneity and Religious Conversion in Siberia: ‘Eluding’ Culture or Indigenous Revitalization?”Marginalised and Endangered Worldviews Study Centre (MEWSC) Workshop “Eurasian Alterities: Comparative perspectives on Indigenous and Minority Worldviews”, 13 November, University College Cork, Ireland.
2014 “Changing Religious Landscape, In Search of Sustainability: Religious Conversion in the Polar Ural Tundra”. International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences VIII, 22-26 May, University of Northern British Columbia, Canada.
2014 “The Local Failure of the Global Movement, or: Max Weber is Not Alive and Well in the Nenets Tundra”. International Association for Mission Studies (IAMS), European Conference “Mission and Money – Mission in the context of global inequalities”, 3-6 April, Helsinki, Finland.
2014 “Religious Conversion and Nenets Bricolage: Making Modernity in the Russian Arctic”. Anthropology Department seminar series, 13 March, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
2013 “Nenets ‘Ritualized Resistance’: The Role of Religious Conversion in Indigenous Awakening”. European University at St. Petersburg, Russia, 18 December.
2012 “Doubting the Future, Defending the Past: Indigenous Peoples of Siberia Internalizing Christianity”. European Association of Social Anthropologists Biennial Conference “Uncertainty and Disquiet”, 13 July, Nanterre, France.
2012 “Missionization ‘Inside Out’: Tundra as a Source of Christianity”. International conference “De-Secularizing the Post-Soviet World”, 11 May. European University at St. Petersburg, Russia.
2012 “Caution, University? How Academia Can ConstructSociety’s Needs”. The Open Society Institute, Global Supplementary Grant Program Conference, 2 April, Cambridge, UK.
2011 “Charismatic and Baptist Missionary Activities among the Nenets and Khanty Indigenous Peoples (Russian Far North)”. PCRI Center for the Study of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements in Russia Workshop, 23 September Budapest.
2011 “Radical Change for the Sake of Continuity. Charismatic and Baptist Conversion Strategies among the Nenets Indigenous People”. European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR) Biannual Conference, 21 September, Budapest.
2008 “Between the Tundra and a Village: New Forms of Social Interaction among the Nenets”. European University at St. Petersburg, Russia.
2008 “Traditional Culture of the Siberian Nenets through the Eyes of Christian Missionaries: ‘Paganism’ or the Old Testament?” Annual Conference ‘Radloff Readings’, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia.
2007 “Traditional Culture of Yamal Nenets and the Protestant Missionary Movement: Cross-cultural Understanding”. New Religious Movements in the Russian North: Competing uses of Religiosity After Socialism, ESF EUROCORES Programme BOREAS Workshop, St. Petersburg, Russia.
2007 “Shamans, ‘Babushki’ and the Living God: Representation of Nenets ‘Traditional Culture’ in Nenets Conversion Narratives”. European University at St. Petersburg, Russia.
2007 “Inappropriate Faith: Religious Conversion of Yamal Nenets”. Conference “Exhibition of Achievements of Scholar Enterprise (VDNKh)”, European University at St. Petersburg, Russia.