Research Focus Areas

Short Biography

Jelena Tosic is Assistant Professor for Transcultural Studies at the University of St.Gallen and lecturer/researcher at the IKSA. She was an interim professor (state and transnationalism) at the University of Bern (2014/2015), junior professor for Ethnology at the University of Konstanz (2013/2014), APART AAS-CEE Fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2011-2017, IKSA), and guest researcher at various universities and research institutions (MPI for Social Anthropology Halle an der Saale, FMK Belgrade, Center for Balkan Studies / Goldsmiths University, MMG MPI Göttingen etc). She gained her doctoral degree with an ethnography on socio-cultural transformations in post-socialist Serbia (LIT Verlag 2009). In her habilitation research she develops an ethnographic / historical anthropological perspective on borderlands in Southeast Europe through the lens of (forced) migration (habilitation submitted to the University of Bern 2018). She is currently exploring patterns of moralizing and culturalizing inequality / (Un) deservingness (Tosic & Streinzer 2021) as well as the role of (teacher) education in the contemporary contexts of (forced) migration, populism and digital transformation (Erasmus + projects Transca (2018-2020) and Digitclue (2021-2023), co-coordinated with Christa Markom, IKSA). She was co-coordinator of the Regional Working Group Europe of the German Anthropological Association (2013-2020). She is co-editor of the EASA Book Series with Berghahn (with Sabine Strasser and Annika Lems, since 2021).

Selected Publications

• Deservingness, in Marcel Berlinghoff, Birgit Glorius, J. Olaf Kleist, Tabea Scharrer, Handbuch der Flucht- und Flüchtlingsforschung, Nomos Verlag (2023, with Andreas Streinzer)
• Common Sense, Knowledge and Social Practice: Gramscian Perspectives in Contemporary Ethnography (Special Issue), Dialectical Anthropology (Special Issue, 2022, co-edited with Andreas Streinzer)
• Ethnographies of Deservingness: Unpacking Ideologies of Distribution and Inequality. EASA Book Series, Berghahn (August 2022, co-edited with Andreas Streinzer, Series Editor: Aleksandar Boskovic)
• It takes two to Tango. (Auto)Ethnographic Reflections on Close Negotiations in Uncertain Times, in Coreografías transculturales. Iberoamericana Vervuert. (2022)
• Challenging Privilege. A Transdisciplinary Dialogue Between Critical Diversity Studies and Ethnographies of Deservingness, Working Paper Series - WU Institute for Gender and Diversity in Organizations (with Christa Binswanger, 2022)
• Einführung in die Bildungsanthropologie – Ein Lehrbuch, New Academic Press (2022, co-edited with Christa Markom)
• Stuck in Motion: Existential Perspectives on Movement and Stasis in an Age of Containment, Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 44 (2) 2019 (with Annika Lems)
• Introduction. African-European Trajectories of (Im)mobility: Exploring Entanglements of Experiences, Legacies and Regimes of Contemporary Migration (in the Special Theme in Migration and Society, Issue 2019 (2): 1-11, edited by Annika Lems and Jelena Tosic)

Projects and Grants

• Europe’s Un/Deserving: Moralizations of Inequality in Comparative Perspective (Principal Investigator, Project Coordination together with Andreas Streinzer, 2021-2024, Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation)
• Member of the DFG-Netzwerk: Migration und Im/Mobilität im Globalen Süden in Zeiten einer Pandemie, 2022-2024 (Project leaders: Heike Drotbohm/University of Mainz & Antje Missbach/University of Bielefeld)
• DIGITClue – Digital inclusion, Erasmus+Strategic Partnership (Project Co-Leader together with Christa Markom, 2021-2023), European Commission
• Start-Up Financing Grant awarded by the Basic Research Fund (GFF) of the University of St.Gallen (HSG) for the Project “Europe’s Un/Deserving” (May-October 2019)
• TRANSCA – Translating Social and Cultural Anthropology into Education, Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership (Project Co-Leader together with Christa Markom, 2018-2020), EuropeanCommission
• Winning Abstract & Funding by the EASA (Anthropology of Economy Network) for the Workshop “Deservingness – power,morality and inequality in contemporary Europeand beyond“ (2018)
• Funding by the Faculty of Humanities, University of Bern for the Workshop “Existential Perspectives on Mobility and Immobility” (see Panels & Workshops) (2017)
• Austrian Academy of Sciences Central and East European Fellowship (AAS-CEE)/APART Project: “Diversity and Coexistence in a Peaceful Balkan Border Region. The Shkodra/Skadar Region in the Forefront of EU-Accession” (2011-2018)

Selected invited talks, panels and conference presentations

• Occluded mobilities: urban conjunctures and border effects along the “Balkan Route”, Paper at the Third World Conference of the Association for Borderland Studies (ABS) Conference, Eilat campus of Ben-Gurion University, 13-18 February 2023
• Panel, "Strategic alliances in entanglements of commons and non-commons" (convenors: Andreas Streinzer and Jelena Tosic), XIX Biennial IASC Conference ’The Commons We Want: Between Historical Legacies and Future Collective Actions‘, Nairobi, Kenya, June 19-24, 2023
• Panel, „ Modalities of deservingness in current solidarity spaces in Europe“ (Convenors: Violetta Zentai (Central European University), Jelena Tosic (University of St.Gallen), Margit Feischmidt (Center for Social Sciences (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Andreas Streinzer (University of St.Gallen), SIEF2023 16th Congress „Living Uncertertainty“, Brno, Czech Republic, June 7-10th 2023
• Convenor of the Roundtable „Ethnographies of Deservingness“ (Guests: Susana Narotzky, Sabine Strasser, Erik Bähre, Chair: Insa Koch), October 27th, 18h15-20h (A HSG Ethnography Talks hybrid Event, with Andreas Streinzer)
• Convenor of the Workshop “Common(ing) Struggles” (May 2nd – 4th 2022, University of St.Gallen, Key-Note: Miriam Ticktin (New School/CUNY), with Andreas Streinzer)
• Panel (Chair): Scalar Contaminations – Mapping the Consequences of "Europe", GAA Conference 27-30. September 2021 (RG Europe, together with Andreas Streinzer and Dumitrita Lunca)
• “Samo vjeran pas?” Workshop on Post-Yugoslav Neoliberal Academic Selves and Possibilities of Knowing the Balkans Otherwise, University of St Gallen (HSG), in cooperation with the University of Neuchâtel (UniNE), Switzerland, 5-7th February 2020 (co-organized with Suncana Laketa/Uni Ne and Sandra King-Savic/HSG)