People

Dr. Nikolaos Olma

Research Fellow

Phone: +49-(0)30-80307-146
Dr. Nikolaos Olma
Dr. Nikolaos Olma

Positions

Since 07/2020
Research Fellow, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin, Germany
Since 10/2019
Lecturer, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
07/2020 - 06/2021
Associate, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany
01/2019 - 06/2020
Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany
11/2013 - 03/2018
PhD Fellow, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Education

2018
PhD, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
2014
Visiting research student, School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), University College London (UCL), United Kingdom
2012
Research MSc in Social Sciences, Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2009
MA in International Conflict Studies, Department of War Studies, King’s College London, United Kingdom
2008
BA in Mediterranean Studies, Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean, Greece

Publications

2023. "Where the Streets Have No Name: Toponymic Changes, Wayfinding and Tashkent’s System of Orientiry" In If Cars Could Walk: Postsocialist Streets in Transformation Edited by Ger Duijzings and Tauri Tuvikene, Berghahn, New York.

2023. "We are not ghosts", Emptiness: Field Reports blog section of the project. 

2023. "The Collective Image of the City: Informal Taxis and the Production of Vernacular Toponyms in Tashkent, Uzbekistan" City & Society.

2021. “Under the Auspices of the State: Examining the Endurance of Tashkent’s Informal Taxis.” Geoforum. Online first.

2021. “Monotonous Motorscapes: Uzbekistan’s Car Industry and the Consolidation of a Post-Socialist Shortage Economy." Central Asian Survey 40(2): 143-158. Winner of 2022 Irene Hilgers Memorial Prize.

2021. “Driving in the Shadows: Rural-Urban Labour Migrants as Informal Taxi Drivers in Post-Socialist Tashkent.” In Labour, Mobility and Informal Practices in Russia, Central Asia and Eastern Europe: Power, Institutions and Mobile Actors in Transnational Space, by Rano Turaeva and Rustamjon Urinbayev, 36-50. London & New York, NY: Routledge.

2020. “Looking into the Past, Living in the Future.” Social Anthropology 28(2): 332-333.

2020. “Pandemic (Im)Mobilities: Motorbike Delivery Workers in Locked-down Athens.” REALEURASIA Blog, May 7.

2020. “Urbane Ruins: Of Tashkent’s Trees, Old-Timers, and Newcomers.” Theorizing the Contemporary, Fieldsights, March 24.

2020. “Stacze Kolejkowi (Poland).” Global Informality Project.

2019. “Taksovanie (Uzbekistan).” Global Informality Project.

Conferences and Events

Invited Talks

“Arboreal Atmospheres: ‘Phantom Pains’ and the Transformation of Tashkent’s Urban Natures.” Paper presented at Ilia State University, online, 18 February 2022.

“(Re)Conceptualising the Memoryscape: Urban Infrastructure and Embodied Memory in Post-Socialist Tashkent.” Paper presented at Berlin Anthropology Seminar series, online, 27 January 2021.

“Enacting Memoryscapes: Urban Assemblages and Embodied Memory in Post-Socialist Tashkent.” Paper presented at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS), Regensburg, 5 December 2019.

Organisation of Workshops and Conference Panels

“Minorities in Asia: Between Homogenization and Fragmentation.” Panel co-organised with Ildikó Bellér-Hann at the 8th International Asian Dynamics Initiative (ADI) Conference, Copenhagen, 20-22 June 2016.

“The Past and Present of Central Asian Megapolises: Society and Politics.” Panel co-organised with Zayra Badillo Castro at the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) Annual Conference, Cambridge, 2-4 April 2016.

“Urban Research Methods: Beyond Static Interviews.” Workshop organised at Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, 12 March 2015.

Selected Conference Paper Presentations (most recent)

“Precarious Half-Lives: Examining Environmental (Un)Knowing in a Former Uranium Mining Town in Kyrgyzstan.” Urban-Industrial Entanglements in Crisis, Vilnius, 22 February 2023.

“Exploring the Politics of Urban Vegetation in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.” Italian Association for the study of Central Asia and the Caucasus (ASIAC) Annual Conference 2022, Bergamo, 1 December 2022.

“Arboreal Atmospheres: Aftertrees, Phantom Pains, and the Transformation of Tashkent’s Urban Natures.” Plant Intimacies: Proximity, Care and Violence, Berlin, 20 October 2022.

“Towards a Bright Future: Examining the Transition from Mining to Industry in a Soviet Uranium Mining Town.” Futures in the History of Deindustrialization, Bologna, 15 October 2022.

“Boilerisation: Neoliberalism, Individualism, and Uncommoning in Tashkent’s Heat and Hot Water Provision.” 17th EASA Biennial Conference: Transformation, Hope and the Commons, Belfast, 29 July 2022.

“Silencing Contamination in a Former Uranium Mining Town in Kyrgyzstan.” Chemical Exposures workshop, online, 10 June 2022.

“‘There’s No Radiation Here:’ Silencing and Normalisation of Environmental Degradation in a Former Uranium Mining Town.” Everyday Affects of Ecological Globalisation, Aarhus, 2 June 2022.

“No Future. Only Ruins: De-Industrialisation and Life with Radiation in a Former Uranium Mining Town in Kyrgyzstan.” Environmental Anthropology 2021: Hope, Ruination and Environmentalism, Tallinn, 15 October 2021.

“Arboreal Atmospheres: ‘Phantom Pains’ and the Transformation of Tashkent’s Urban Natures.” 2021 German Anthropological Association (DGSKA) conference, online, 28 September 2021.

“Water Pollution in Former Uranium Mining Towns in Kyrgyzstan – Health Risks and Challenges to Everyday Life.” 2nd International Water Forum, online, 22 September 2021.

“The Spectre of the Bridge: Infrastructural Hope and Everyday Cross-River Mobility in Southeastern Poland.” RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2021, online, 3 September 2021.

“Where the Streets Have No Name: Informal Taxis, Wayfinding and Tashkent’s System of Orientiry.” 12th International Convention of Asia Scholars, online, 26 August 2021.

“Valued Roots: Olive Groves, Varying Value Indices, and Landscape Transformation in a Cretan Village.” Joint Society for Economic Anthropology/Culture & Agriculture Conference on “Landscapes of Value/Economies of Place,” online, 4 March 2021.

Teaching Experience

Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg
Winter 2022
Contamination and Toxicity (MA level)
Winter 2021
Urban Anthropology (BA level)
Summer 2021
Ethnographies of Post-Soviet Central Asia (BA level)
Winter 2020
Introduction to Economic Anthropology (BA level)
Summer 2020
Ethnographies of Post-Soviet Central Asia (BA level)
Winter 2019
Introduction to Economic Anthropology (BA level)
Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Free University of Berlin
Summer 2021
Economic Anthropology (w/ A. Ismailbekova | BA level)
Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen
Spring 2016
Socialist and Post-Socialist Cities in Central Asia, Russia, and Eastern Europe (BA level)
Fall 2015
Politics and Public Space in Modern Asian Cities (w/ R. Elling & D. Hirslund | MA level)
Spring 2015
Socialist and Post-Socialist Cities in Central Asia, Russia, and Eastern Europe (BA level)

Language Skills

Greek: Native speaker

Polish: Native speaker

English: Fluent

Russian: Advanced

German: Basic