Learning from the cultivation practices of Eastern European women in rural spaces 

2023 - current / Artistic research 

The objective of this research is to investigate women's cultivation practices in the rural spaces of East Europe, where the socialist collective work strategies were used and to apply them locally as well globally to experimental collectivity and collaboration. 

Using an autobiographical and autoethnographical methods, I will take the path from my first grandmother in Komi Republic to my second grandmother in Armenia, connecting the history of Eastern European women with my contemporary life as a migrant woman, contributing to social and cultural anthropological knowledge production as well to history of ideas, migration studies, gender studies. It allows the interdisciplinary connections with the family's history and, by extension, the broader history of Eastern European women.

Women's rural land cultivation practices represent an exemplary paradigm for study, as women often play a central role in individual agricultural and food production. Studying such practices reveals gender dynamics in these societies, including issues related to labor, power and decision-making. Understanding how women have contributed to community resilience through cultivation practices will inform strategies for building alternative models of societies, including their unheard and oppressed rural positions. 

Keywords: rural areas, community, eastern knowledge, woman, feminism, urban/rural planning, migration studies, anthropological knowledge production 

https://artisticphd-hfkbremen.net/candidate/nika-grigorian/about