Institute of Sociology

Polina Manolova, PhD

Research associate

Office

Keplerstr. 2

Room 147

72074 Tübingen

Email: polina.manolovaspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de

Research focus

•    Migration research
•    Borders
•    Class
•    Social imaginaries
•    Qualitative methods

 

Curriculum

03/ 2013 – 09/2017
PhD in Anthropology of Eastern Europe, CREES, University of Birmingham

Thesis: ‘On the Way to the “Imaginary West”: Bulgarian Migrations, Imaginations, and Disillusionments’

09/2013 – 09/2018
Teaching associate

Social Worlds and the Sociological Imagination; Global Capitalism and Migration, European Societies: a Cross-Cultural Perspective (Introduction to Social Anthropology), University of Birmingham

09/2010 – 07/2011
MA Social Policy, University of York

Dissertation: ‘Youth transitions: the experience of social sciences’ graduates from Bulgaria and United Kingdom’

09/2005 – 07/2009
BA Political Science, University of Plovdiv

Publications

Monographies

Manolova, P. (forthcoming) The Imaginary West and the Realities of Migration: Dreams, Disillusionments, and Determination. Routledge: London (British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies book series)

Special issues

Manolova, P., Lottholz, P. and Kusic, K. (2019), eds. Decolonial Theory and Practice in Southeast Europe, Special Issue of dVersia (includes an editorial introduction)

Manolova, P. (2017) Looking Beyond the Public Discourses on Migration: Experiences of Bulgarians and Romanians in the UK, Euxeinos: Governance and Culture in the Black Sea Region, 22: 1-79.

Journal articles

Manolova, P. (2020) Aspiring, ambivalent, assertive: Bulgarian middle-class subjectivities and boundary work through migration. Special issue on The Middle Class in Post-socialist Europe: Ethnographies of its ‘Good Life’. East European Politics and Societies and Cultures. (34): 2, 505-528

Manolova, P. (2018) ‘Going to the West is my last chance for getting a normal life’: Bulgarian would-be migrants’ imaginations of life in the UK, Central and East European Migration Review, online first, 1-23

Manolova, P. (2017) From European ‘Free-movers’ to Circular Labourers: Bulgarian Migration Experiences in the UK and Back, Euxeinos: Governance and Culture in the Black Sea Region, 22: 44-59

Manolova, P. (2017) Editorial, Special Issue Looking Beyond the Public Discourses on Migration: Experiences of Bulgarians and Romanians in the UK, Euxeinos: Governance and Culture in the Black Sea Region, 22: 1-79

Manolova, P., Kovacheva, S. (2008) The problematic transition to parenthood of young people in Bulgaria, Journal of Sociology, Jabalpur University, India, 6: 229-243

Book chapters

Manolova, P. (2019) Uneasy solidarities: Bulgarian ‘greens’ from socialist revisionism to neoliberal anti-communism. Südosteuropa Mitteilungen, 05-06: 124-141

Manolova, P. (2015) Bulgarian Migration to England – the Influential Power of the ‘Imaginary West’, in Hristov, P., Kassabova, A., Troeva, E. and Demski, D. (eds.) Contextualizing Changes: Migrations, Shifting Borders and New Identities in Eastern Europe, Sofia: Paradigma.

Commentary

Manolova, P. (2020) Intra-EU emergency bordering in Coronavirus: laying bare the burden of ‘free’ mobility, COMPAS, Coronavirus and Mobility Forum

Manolova, P. and Lottholz, P. (2018) Solidarity undone: the left-green protest that didn’t happened in Bulgaria, LeftEast

Manolova, P. (2016) Brexit and the Production of ‘Illegal’ EU Migrants, FoocalBlog