Dr. Mariana Peixoto Irby is a postdoctoral fellow whose research explores citizenship, borders, and the politics of difference in Russia and Central Asia. Drawing from 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Russia and Tajikistan, her current book project focuses on Tajik labor migration to and from Russia as a lens to explore race, ethno-nationalism, and postcoloniality in the former USSR. Alongside this research, she has also engaged in activist-led projects with Central Asian migrant communities in urban Russia. Mariana earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2024. Her research has been supported by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and American Councils/State Department Title VIII. Email: mirby@sas.upenn.edu
August 2024 - September 2025
