Visiting Scholars in the New Year – Marissa Smith, J. Sanchir and G. Badruun

 

The Emerging Subject project at UCL will be hosting three visiting scholars in the New Year, all of whom work on Mongolia:

Dr Marissa Smith (marissas23@gmail.com), a social/cultural anthropologist, working in the fields of political and economic anthropology, anthropology of corporations, Inner Asia, Russia, and Romania (more here).  Marissa’s research will elaborate on Mongolian participation in international processes through which Mongolia’s market has been understood and reformed.  Specifically she is analyzing the meeting minutes and pamphlets prepared by the Mongolian Social Democratic Party circa 1989-1990 housed at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University.

 

Sanchir Jargalsaikhan (sannchir@gmail.com), a political scientist and activist broadly concerned with economic and political development in Mongolia and in the Global South.  Sanchir is the Dean of Research at the Sustainable Development Strategy Institute and the Editor at the Shinjeech – Political Economy Magazine.  His research will focus on two main strands:  1. Visions of development in post-socialist Mongolia: Case of Constitutional amendment, where he will look at implied and explicit narratives of development interwoven in current discussions and debates around the issue of Constitutional amendment, and 2. Moral relations of debt and accountability, where he will follow how discourses on debt and development provide the means by which Mongolians frame social, cultural and political difference.

Badruun Gardi, (badruun@gerhub.org), Founder and CEO of GerHub. Badruun will be collaborating with an interdisciplinary group of experts to explore various possibilities of creating a modern ger that is suitable for a sedentary lifestyle.  His research will focus on historic and contemporary uses of gers as well as the potential to develop ger-inspired structures in various global contexts ranging from emergency relief shelters to refugee housing.  He will also work on a Blog series on ger districts of Ulaanbaatar

 

Marissa, Sanchir, and Badruun will be working on specific research projects and will hold a weekly reading group  – Making Markets – during their visit at UCL.  If you would like to join the reading group, please email Hanna Malka for more details: h.malka@ucl.ac.uk.