The Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies is pleased to announce that Anna Žabicka has been awarded the 2023-2024 Dissertation Grant for Graduate Students.
AABS awards grants of up to $4,000 to support doctoral dissertation research and write-up in any field of Baltic Studies. Funds may be used for travel to research site, equipment, duplication or other needs as specified.
Proposals are evaluated according to the scholarly potential of the applicant, and the quality and scholarly importance of the proposed work, especially to the development of Baltic Studies. Applicants must currently be enrolled in a PhD or MA program and have completed all requirements for a PhD/MA except the dissertation. Applicants must be members of the AABS at the time of submitting their application.
The 2023 applications were evaluated by the AABS 2023-2024 Grants and Awards Committee consisting of AABS VP for Professional Development Dr. Kaarel Piirimäe, AABS President Dr. Dovilė Budrytė, and AABS Director-at-Large Dr. Daunis Auers. You can find a full list of 2023 awardees here.
Anna Žabicka is a 4th-year doctoral student at the University of Vienna, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. In her dissertation, Žabicka analyzes the relationships between rural emptiness and aging society. Her research focuses on how aging, which is publicly and politically seen as national endangerment of the state and Latvianness, plays out in a small rural nursing home for older adults. Before joining the University of Vienna, Žabicka received her Master’s degree in social and cultural anthropology with a focus on medical anthropology from Wayne State University (2019, Detroit, MI) and Master’s degree in social anthropology from Rīga Stradiņš University (2014, Riga, Latvia).
Project Overview
With the support of the AABS Dissertation Grant, Anna Žabicka will join the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society as a visiting academic in fall 2023, where she will continue her dissertation work. Žabicka will also use the AABS Dissertation Grant for English language editing of her current and upcoming thesis chapters.