Team

Dr. Alexandra Schwell is Professor of Empirical Cultural Analysis at the Department of Cultural Analysis at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. She is co-editor of “Ethnologia Europaea – Journal of European Ethnology”, the flagship journal of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore SIEF, and co-chair of the DGEKW working group “Europeanization_Globalization. Ethnographies of the Political”. Her research interests include (in)security, Europeanization, anthropology of the political, border studies, emotion and affect, and ethnographic methods. She has conducted fieldwork with Polish anarchists, German and Polish border guards, Austrian security officials, football fans, and disaster managers. She is the PI of »Klagenfurt goes climate-neutral – Participation and Justice in the City of the Future« (Kwk project) and member of the board of directors of the »City Science Lab CSL-AAU«. Alexandra Schwell is the PI of the EU-URGE project in Austria.

Sabine Ebner, B.A., is currently studying Applied Cultural Analysis in Klagenfurt. In her master thesis, she deals with the public conflict on the return of wolves in Carinthia. As a student teacher, but also due to her work in the field of gallery education and aesthetic learning, she is interested in knowledge production, participation and learning processes. Sabine is a student assistant in the »Klagenfurt goes climate-neutral« project.

Alexandra Emig, B.A., studied philosophy at the University of Vienna and is currently attending the master programmes of philosophy and visual culture at the University of Klagenfurt. Formally educated in the field of tourism, she is particularly interested in the incorporation of sustainable tourism, as well as individual (digital) solutions to the complex problems faced by cities and their inhabitants. Alexandra is a student assistant in the EU-URGE project.

Johannes Kröger is a PhD researcher at the Department of Cultural Analysis at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. His research interests lie in the field of political ecology, with a particular focus on infrastructures, activism, and maritime contexts. He has previously conducted fieldwork in Austria, northern Germany, Fennoscandia, and Mexico. In addition to his academic pursuits, he has been employed by the Federal Agency for Civic Education in Germany. His research within the EU-URGE project explores the potential and challenges of urban water management in the context of a climate-resilient future.

Nadine Thaler is a PhD researcher at the City Science Lab CSL-AAU and member of the Department of Cultural Analysis at the University of Klagenfurt. She studied Applied Cultural Analysis at the University of Klagenfurt and has spent many years working in the architecture and built environment mediation in Carinthia. Her research focuses on urban studies, with a particular interest in creative placemaking, urban agriculture, and participatory processes.

Aurelia Wolf is a PhD researcher at the Department of Cultural Analysis at the University of Klagenfurt, working on the Sparkling Science project “Klagenfurt goes climate neutral.” She studied Cultural and Social Anthropology and Gender Studies at the University of Vienna and has worked for many years in educational and social projects in Vienna and Carinthia, focusing on youth work with a particular emphasis on feminist and queer approaches, basic education, and issues related to gender and migration. In her research, she explores—together with pupils at local Klagenfurt schools—how Klagenfurt can become a more climate-neutral and socially just city, with a particular focus on issues of gender, youth, and health.

Saša Poljak Istenič is a research associate at the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology ZRC SAZU, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Tourism, University of Maribor (Slovenia), and a guest lecturer at Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt (Austria). She is engaged in research and applied projects covering topics of urban life, climate change, sustainability, creativity, silence, and heritage. She has received funding from the national research agency (national and multilateral WEAVE projects) and European programs (Horizon, Interreg). She is the editor-in-chief of Glasnik SED, member of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee at the Ministry of Culture, and member of the Expert Council of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum. She currently prepares a manuscript on methodologies to research urban futures (with V. Gulin Zrnić). Saša Poljak Istenič is a PI of the EU-URGE project in Slovenia.

Tatiana Bajuk Senčar is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology ZRC SAZU and an Assistant Professor at the New University, Faculty for Slovenian and International Studies. Her research interests cover two overlapping areas: sustainable development and Europeanization processes. Her recent work linked to sustainable development includes research centered on sustainable mobility in both urban and rural areas, and she has led the Slovene partnership in an EU project on rural sustainable mobility and tourism in the Slovene Alps. She has also examined Europeanization and EU integration processes as they manifest themselves through cross-border development, mobility, professional socialization, and urban sustainable policy initiatives. She is an editor-in-chief of the academic journal Traditiones.

Liza Stančič holds the position of Research Assistant at the Department of Remote Sensing at the Institute for Anthropological and Spatial Studies at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She completed her PhD at the University of Ljubljana in 2022. Her doctoral research involved long time series analysis of satellite images to monitor the changes in the amount and pattern of river sedimentation. In addition, Liza is interested in ecosystem services of river and forest environments, natural resource management, invasive plant species, GIS, and interdisciplinary research. She obtained her MSc in Integrated Resource Management from the University of Edinburgh in 2015, and her BSc in Geography from the University of Ljubljana in 2014.

Nina Vodopivec is a research fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History, Ljubljana. She holds a PhD degree in Social Anthropology (2006), Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis – Graduate School of the Humanities, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her research interests focus on industrial workers in socialism and postsocialism, economic anthropology, anthropology of labour, postsocialism, memory, gender, deindustrialization and futures studies, intercultural communication and global education.

Jaro Veselinovič completed his undergraduate and master studies at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology (Faculty of Arts, Univerity of Ljubljana). In 2017, he defended the BA thesis Bosnia in Transition, Bosnians in Transit: Contemporary Migrations from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Light of Political-Economic Changes. In March 2021, he completed his MA studies with the thesis Transformation of Everyday Life in Post-Socialist Macedonia: Hope and Waiting between Socialism and the European Union, which was nominated for the University of Ljubljana’s Prešeren award. He deepened his knowledge by studying in Prague (2015/2016) and by studying and practical training in Skopje (2018/2019).
Since October 2021, he is employed as a research assistant to Saša Poljak Istenič, Ph. D. at the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology at ZRC SAZU and enrolled in the Ph. D. study program at the Faculty of Arts under the mentorship of Miha Kozorog, Ph. D., with the research focusing on the European Capital of Culture as a ritual of Europeanization.

Anna Horolets is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw (IEiAK UW). She holds both PhD and Habilitation in sociology obtained at Polish Academy of Sciences and University of Warsaw, respectively. She conducted research and authored monographs on the Europeanization processes and on various forms of geographic mobility, including tourism and migration. Her previous research projects focused on migrants’ leisure and the visions of the good life. She recently turned to studying urban greenspaces and local receptions of European climate neutrality policies in cities. Anna Horolets is a PI of the EU-URGE project in Poland.

Maria Małanicz-Przybylska is an Assistant Professor at the IEiAK UW. She holds a PhD in Ethnology from the University of Warsaw. She specializes in the anthropology of music and sound. Her research interests include the transformations of traditional culture, the ways in which traditional themes live and function in new contexts, and the relationships between sound, space and people. She also studies the uses of music in social and political settings. Her second field of interest is cultural heritage studies.

Renata Putkowska-Smoter is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw. She has a PhD in sociology from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences. Her research interests include the role of ambiguity and ambivalence towards nature in shaping environmental conflicts and urban governance. She has been a PI on two projects examining the governance of urban climate change and the perspective of street-level bureaucrats. She is an active member of the Environmental Sociology Section of the Polish Sociological Association.

Maja Wróblewska (scholarship in 04/2025-03/2026) is a sociology and law student at the College of Interdisciplinary Individual Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Warsaw, where she previously graduated with honours in liberal arts. Her research interests lie at the intersection of urban studies with a particular focus on housing inequalities, critical policy studies and environmental anthropology. She has worked as a researcher for NGOs and private institutions involved in participatory design of public spaces.

Anna Ptak (scholarship in 04/2024-03/2025) is a PhD candidate at the Doctoral School of Humanities, affiliated at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw. She is investigating air pollution as social and environmental assemblage, her research interests include environmental and political anthropology, climate and energy studies, art and research collaboration, anthropology of extractivism, mining, infrastructures, resistance and activism. Anna Ptak works also as a contemporary art curator.