Mempop: Memory and Populism from Below

01/09/2026

🎒 September 1st means back to school for many! MEMPOP is committed to bringing our research beyond academia and engaging younger audiences with anthropology and ethnographic research.

This June, MEMPOP researchers joined colleagues from the Department of Mobility and Migration in representing the Department of Ethnography of the Czech Academy of Sciences at the Prague Science Fair, where an interactive game invited young visitors to explore migration through experiences inspired by ethnographic fieldwork.

🔎 And this weekend, September 4-6, the Science Fair is coming to Brno with the same exhibition, offering another opportunity for young visitors to discover ethnography!

👉 Read more about MEMPOP’s engagement: https://www.mempop.org/output/bringing-ethnography-to-the-public-mempop-at-the-prague-science-fair-2026/

MEMPOP researchers took part in the organization of the Institute of Ethnology's presentation at the Prague Science Fair, contributing to an interactive exhibition that invited visitors to explore migration from the perspective of migrants through experiences and methodological insights drawn from e...

01/09/2026

Always a pleasure to meet with our dear Spectral Recycling - ERC Starting Grant

🍂It’s already meteorological autumn, can you believe it? Fortunately, we can always warm ourselves up with summer memories. 🌞 In July, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, Karina Hoření (Karin VonReichenberg) and Magdalena Bubík took part in the biennial conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists in Poznań. It was a great opportunity to meet new people but also to see dear friends. As always, a warm hello to the Prague Mempop: Memory and Populism from Below team, in Poznań represented by Astrea Nikolovska, MEMPOP associate researcher. It was great to see you and exchange ideas for future cooperation🤝

📸Astrea Nikolovska (an associated researcher for the ERC-funded project “Memory and Populism from Below” (MEMPOP)), Karina Hoření, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, Magdalena Bubík

27/08/2026

☀️ It’s still summer, and many of us are spending at least some of it as tourists. But when you stay at a hotel, do you notice the people whose work makes your holiday possible? Who do you see, and whose labor remains invisible?

These questions are at the heart of a new journal article by our associated researcher Astrea Nikolovska, published open access in the latest (special) issue of Anthropology in Action

🏝️ “Visibility of Labor and the Aesthetic of Opulence: Representation of Work in The White Lotus” takes the popular HBO series The White Lotus, subject of the AIA special issue, as a starting point for thinking about labor in luxury tourism. The article asks how the image of effortless luxury depends on making much of the work that sustains it disappear, while allowing some service workers to become selectively visible.

So, if The White Lotus was part of your summer viewing—or tourism part of your summer plans—take a closer look at who is working behind the scenes.

📖 Read the article here: https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/aia/32/1/aia320105.xml

Abstract This article examines how the popular TV show The White Lotus represents labour within luxury tourism through hierarchies of the tourist gaze. It first reflects on how the imagination of luxury depends on the invisibilisation of the ‘dirty labour’ that sustains it. It then explores thos...

13/08/2026

📢 New interview with our postdoctoral researcher Diána Vonnák!

In a new interview with VědaVýzkum.cz, Diána Vonnák talks about her long-term ethnographic research in Ukraine and reflects on how the ongoing war is transforming memory, cultural heritage, and everyday life.

Diána also introduces her research within , where she explores how experiences of conflict reshape understandings of the past and how questions of trust in state institutions intersect with memory and contemporary politics. The conversation touches on what it means to conduct ethnography during wartime and how everyday and cultural life persist despite years of war.

🇨🇿 The interview is available in Czech.

👉 Read the full interview: https://vedavyzkum.cz/rozhovory-a-osobnosti/rozhovory/diana-vonnak-stand-upu-se-na-ukrajine-dari-lepe-nez-kdy-driv-lide-ziji-sve-zivoty-at-se-deje-cokoliv

Web Věda a výzkum poskytuje nezávislé a ověřené informace o vědeckém výzkumu, inovacích a výzkumné politice. Nabízí aktuální zprávy, analýzy a přehledy důležitých událostí z českého i mezinárodního výzkumného prostředí.

31/07/2026

📖 A new blog post on our site takes us to Belgrade to examine an unofficial monument that stood in front of the Serbian National Assembly for almost five years. Our associated researcher, Astrea Nikolovska, argues that this monument allowed Serbian victimhood to move from private mourning into the center of commemorative narratives, while leaving ambiguous whether it spoke against the state, to the state, or increasingly on behalf of it.

https://www.mempop.org/who-speaks-through-monuments/

In this blog post, Astrea Nikolovska examines an unofficial monument that allowed Serbian victimhood to move from private mourning into central public space, while leaving ambiguous whether it spoke against the state, to the state, or increasingly on behalf of it.

25/07/2026

This year's EASA conference 'Anthropology: Possibilities in a Polarised World' was attended by numerous wonderful scholars from the Czech Republic. was represented by our associated researcher, Astrea Nikolovska, who will share her insights in the coming days! It was great to see many familiar faces and meet even more new ones!

🇨🇿 Only a fraction of the Czech anthropology community gathered at in Poznań, Poland! It is wonderful to see so many colleagues coming together to exchange ideas, present research, and plan new collaborations ✨ European Association of Social Anthropologists

25/07/2026

What is a MEMPOP? 🤔 Does MEMPOP even have a plural form?

It all depends on how you grasp it—would you like to think it, see it, taste it, or perhaps just remember it? 🍭✨

One thing is certain: MEMPOPs in various forms have successfully contaminated a little part of the World Wide Web. 🌐👾

Still not sure what MEMPOP is all about? Check out our latest Story, where our principal researchers Vjeran Pavlakovic and Natalija Majsova delve into the very heart and mission of the project! 🗺️🔍

📽️ Credits:
Video & Editing - Gaia Merlak & Zala Julija Kavčič.

In the meantime, ease the heat with a popsicle or two. 🧊🍦😉

👇 Stay tuned for more upcoming videos!

25/06/2026

📍 MEMPOP travelled to Lviv

We are proud to share that our postdoctoral researcher Diána Vonnák contributed to the symposium The Most Documented War: Polyphony of Stories, held in Lviv from 4–6 June.

https://www.mempop.org/output/diana-vonnak-co-organised-symposium-on-war-documentation-and-narratives-in-lviv/

Diána was involved in co-organizing the event and helped shape its program. As part of the symposium, she also moderated the roundtable “The Power to Speak: Narratives and Audiences,” which explored questions of testimony, public narratives, and the politics of who gets to speak in times of war.

The symposium brought together researchers, archivists, and cultural practitioners to reflect on how war is documented, narrated, and remembered.

Congratulations, Diána!

Our postdoctoral researcher Diána Vonnák participated in the organization of the symposium The Most Documented War: Polyphony of Stories in Lviv and moderated the roundtable “The Power to Speak: Narratives and Audiences,” contributing to discussions on war documentation, testimony, and the pol...

17/06/2026

📢 In our latest MEMPOP blog post, Franz Graf takes us to Burgenland's Seewinkel, Austria's borderland steppe wetlands, where an EU-funded water restoration project sparked a heated confrontation between local residents and the regional water authority.

From the shadow of the Esterházy estate (owners of more than a tenth of Burgenland) to an FPÖ MP turning farmers' frustrations into a parliamentary spectacle, Franz Graf traces how technocratic depoliticization of water management leaves real grievances unaddressed and available for populist translation.

📖 Read "Contesting Water Authority" on mempop.org
🔗 https://www.mempop.org/contesting-water-authority-when-neo-feudal-grievance-is-translated-into-populist-politics-in-burgenlands-seewinkel/

In this fieldwork reflection from the Austrian region of Burgenland, Franz Graf explores how conflicts over water-management reveal deeper questions of land ownership, political voice, and why feelings of exclusion can become available for populist translation.

03/06/2026

Dear colleagues,

We would like to remind you of tomorrow's dMSA Roundtable Discussion in the organization of "Memory and Populism in Borderland Regions in Eastern and Central Europe" that will explore how memories of migration, displacement, violence, and shifting borders shape contemporary populist politics across Eastern and Central Europe.

🎙 Speakers:
Johana Wyss
Franz Graf
Diána Vonnák
Astrea Nikolovska

🎙 Moderation:
Laura Mafizzoli

as part of Memory Studies Association dMSA series

🔗 More information & registration: https://www.memorystudiesassociation.org/event/memory-and-populism-in-borderland-regions-in-eastern-and-central-europe/?fbclid=IwY2xjawSM0qhleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEebxRUOk0oIpy4XJiwsrDIk1CjiroWnNl64pLpFjCgW90XiSvRSKqupZPaaXk_aem_lLZVvTNJ9Rx9P51EtuvIWA