I am an environmental and economic anthropologist with a primary geographic focus in Southeastern Europe. The research questions I work on are related to, on the one hand, infrastructure and human-environment relations, and, on the other hand, property relations and class politics.
In my ongoing research, I examine the political ecology of wetlands in dialogue with infrastructure studies. I focus on infrastructure in (former) wetlands in the Pančevo Marshes in metropolitan Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and its biggest city. Most recently, I have turned to examining voluminal politics, by which I mean decision-making and social contestations related to three-dimensional assemblages in wetlands.
In my previous research project, I examined property relations as the material basis for workers’ agency by focusing on the case of ITAS, a metalworking company in Croatia. Through my analysis of the material transformations within the company and legal and discursive changes in Croatia, I offer an anthropological theorization of the limits of alternative capitalist practices in postsocialism.
Parallel to my major research projects, I have been committed to highlighting the importance of scholarship in and on Eastern Europe within mainstream social and cultural anthropology.
(July 2025)
Ognjen Kojanić 