Justyna Szymańska, MA and PhD candidate at Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw, was awarded the Center's Research Grant. While in residence at the Center for Urban History she will work on the topic: "Ethnography of a monotown. Notions of activism and civic engagement in the Donbas region" and will present it during the urban seminar.

Justyna Szymańska has studied at the University of Warsaw, where she received BA and MA in Anthropology. She was awarded with distinction for her MA thesis by Polish Academy of Science. She also held a scholarship at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Anthropology and Saxo Institute. Her research lies in the anthropology of politics, with an interest in ethnography of the state, identity, social movements and theory of affects. I have explored this in two main projects: a Master project on feminist and civil rights movements in Ukraine, and currently in doctoral project on citizenship, activism, images of the state and imagined futures in post-conflict areas of Eastern Ukraine. She has published so far three articles and a book chapter based on her ethnographic research. She also has been actively involved in teaching Anthropology at elementary and high-school level working the Association Ethnographic Laboratory in Warsaw. While in L’viv she will work on an article based on her dissertation research.