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Dr. Marija Norkūnaitė

Junior Researcher
Research areas
Comparative Politics and Political Sociology
Political Theory

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Marija is a Vilnius University Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science. Marija graduated from Vilnius University with a BA in Political Science (Cum Laude), she was awarded an MPhil in Russian and East European Studies from the University of Oxford (Distinction), and defended her DPhil (PhD) thesis in Area Studies (Russia and East Europe) without corrections there in 2023.

Marija works in the field of political and economic anthropology, and studies changing relationships between people and the state in Eastern Europe and the Baltics. For her doctoral thesis, she looked at Russian-speaking communities and the desire for a social contract in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Her broader research interests include the anthropology of the state, (post-)socialism, neoliberalism, as well as citizenship, work, and taxes.

Marija is also a member of the Anthropology of Tax Network, with which she is currently working on the “Tax, Society, and People” knowledge exchange project, developing educational materials that introduce anthropological concepts on tax and taxation into citizenship education.

Membership of international organisations, editorial boards, international working groups, etc. 

Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (AABS)
The Anthropology of Tax Network
The EASA network on Anthropologies of the State

Selected conference papers:

  1. “(Un)Doing the Social Contract in the Baltics”. EASA Biennial Conference, 23-26 July 2024, Barcelona, Spain; an earlier version of the paper presented at the Anthropology of Tax Network workshop “Fractures in Economic Anthropology”, 15-16 April 2024, Copenhagen, Denmark.
  2. “‘They owe us’: making claims in Russian-speaking towns in the Baltics”. BASEES Annual Conference, 5-7 April 2024, Cambridge, UK.
  3. “‘That was a real khoziain’ ‘Economy’ as the ideal form of governance in a former socialist town in the Baltics”. EASA Anthropologies of State Network (AnthroState) conference “Future States,” 30–31 August 2023, Riga, Latvia.
  4. “’Quieter than water, lower than grass’: On silence in a former socialist town in the Baltics”. CBSE Conference, 15-17 June 2023, Kaunas, Lithuania.
  5. “‘And then Prince Lemon came up with a new tax on air:’ Tax (non-)compliance in a former socialist city in the Baltics”. SIEF 15th Congress, 19-24 June 2021, Helsinki, Finland (online); an updated version presented at the Anthropology of Tax Network workshop “Becoming Taxpayers: Establishing the Anthropology of Tax,” 9-12 January 2022, Stockholm, Sweden.
  6. “Why not simply residents of Estonia?”: Studying the “other” in the Baltics. ASA Conference, 29 March – 2 April 2021, St Andrews, UK (online).
  7. “Thinking about the ‘the State’ in a planned socialist town”. Conference. Inaugural meeting, EASA Anthropologies of the State Network (AnthroState), 30 October – 1 November 2019, Leiden, the Netherlands.
  8. “Perceptions of the State: The Case of a Baltic Mono-Town.” ASEEES Summer Convention, 14-16 June 2019, Zagreb, Croatia.
  9. “Imagining ‘the State’ in the Baltic mono-town”. Fourth Annual Tartu Conference on Russian and East European Studies, 9-11 June 2019, Tartu, Estonia.

Research interests

Political anthropology

Economic anthropology

Area studies

Eastern Europe