Dr Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko
Home Institution: New York University Shanghai
IASH-SSPS Research Fellow, March to May 2020.
Project: ‘Materializing Prosperity: Doubt, Potency, and Economic Inequality in Ulaanbaatar’
Dr Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko is an anthropologist with interests in religion, postsocialism, global warming and pollution, waste, materiality, and psychological anthropology. In her recent book Enlightenment and the Gasping City she seeks to understand how, as a physical constant throughout the winter months, the murky and obscuring nature of air pollution has become an active part of Mongolian religious and ritual life. Her research project at IASH-SSPS will ask how attempts to alter one’s economic fortunes through religious rituals influence broader economic behaviours and attitudes in Ulaanbaatar.