Polina Manolova, PhD
Research associate
Office
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