Dr. Alexia Bloch

Since joining the Anthropology Department at UBC in 2000, my research has focused on two key areas: the transformations in daily life, social relationships, and well being brought about by the end of socialist states; and how the substantial influx of undocumented migrants and refugees into Europe and other destination countries has influenced new forms of citizen activism, especially educational and health initiatives. My publications centering on Russia include two monographs, Red Ties and Residential Schools: Indigenous Siberians in a Post-Soviet State and Museum at the End of the World: Encounters in the Russian Far East (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003 and 2004, respectively). My research tracing massive migration out of and into the region of the former Soviet Union has examined gendered aspirations and shifting forms of intimacy and resulted in my monograph Sex, Love, and Migration: Postsocialism, Modernity and Intimacy from Istanbul to the Arctic (Cornell University Press, 2017). In a current project, funded by a SSHRC grant, I am researching the experiences of undocumented women and their children in Russia in light of increasingly tenuous human rights for the growing number of undocumented people on the move globally.