Dr. Nikolaos Olma
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter

Positions
Education
Publications
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.
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
“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.
“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.
“No Future. Only Ruins: De-Industrialisation and Life with Radiation in a Former Uranium Mining Town in Kyrgyzstan.” Paper presented at Environmental Anthropology 2021: Hope, Ruination and Environmentalism, Tallinn, 14-15 October 2021.
“Arboreal Atmospheres: ‘Phantom Pains’ and the Transformation of Tashkent’s Urban Natures.” Paper presented at the 2021 German Anthropological Association (DGSKA) conference, online, 27 September-1 October 2021.
“Water Pollution in Former Uranium Mining Towns in Kyrgyzstan – Health Risks and Challenges to Everyday Life.” Paper presented at the 2nd International Water Forum, online, 22-23 September 2021.
“The Spectre of the Bridge: Infrastructural Hope and Everyday Cross-River Mobility in Southeastern Poland.” Paper presented at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2021, online, 31 August-3 September 2021.
“Where the Streets Have No Name: Informal Taxis, Wayfinding and Tashkent’s System of Orientiry.” Paper presented at the 12th International Convention of Asia Scholars, online, 24-28 August 2021.
“Valued Roots: Olive Groves, Varying Value Indices, and Landscape Transformation in a Cretan Village.” Paper presented at the Joint Society for Economic Anthropology/Culture & Agriculture Conference on “Landscapes of Value/Economies of Place,” online, 4-5 March 2021.
“Immutable Automobiles: Informal Taxis and the System of Orientiry in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.” Paper presented at the Marshrutka Project’s Final Conference: Spatial Dynamics of Informal and Shared Mobilities, Berlin, 8-10 November 2018.
“Uzbek Strokes on a Soviet Canvas: Identity-Building Architecture and its Effect on the Memoryscape and Urban Identity of Tashkent, Uzbekistan.” Paper presented at the 21st Annual Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN), New York, 14-16 April 2016.
“Mundane Memoryscapes: Housing as a Node of Urban Memory in Contemporary Tashkent, Uzbekistan.” Paper presented at the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) Annual Conference, Cambridge, 2-4 April 2016.
“Creating Memoryscapes: Practices of Mobility and Orientation Points as Nodes of Social Memory in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.” Paper presented at the 16th Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS), Washington, DC, 15-18 October 2015.
“‘Tashkent is Dead,’ Long Live Tashkent: Urban Redevelopments and Belonging in the Capital of Uzbekistan.” Paper presented at the “Development and Modernisation in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Periphery” conference, Leiden, 25-26 September 2015.
“Navigating through the Urban Memoryscape: Mobility Practices and the Creation of Places of Memory in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.” Paper presented at 6th Annual Stadtkolloquium, London, 30-31 May 2015.
Teaching Experience
Language Skills
Greek: Native speaker
Polish: Native speaker
English: Fluent
Russian: Advanced
German: Basic