Dr Venetia Evergeti
About
Biography
After gaining my PhD from the Department of Sociology, University of Manchester I worked on a number of projects as a Research Fellow at DWRC, University of Surrey exploring communication, identity and family relations. Subsequently, I joined the ESRC Families and Social Capital Group at London South Bank University investigating transnational family networks among Greek communities in the UK and the USA. Before moving to Surrey again (Department of Psychology and CRONEM) I was Senior Research Fellow in Ethnicity and Social Policy at the Social Policy Research Centre, Middlesex University. I recently lead and completed an AHRC funded study on Islam in Greece exploring religious practices, identity and belonging among Muslim immigrants in Greece. I am currently working on two edited volumes and publishing the outcomes of the AHRC project in a a number of peer-reviewed journals.
Research interests
My principal academic interests are in interactionist sociology and the ethnographic study of ethnicity and identity. I am particularly interested in identification processes among indigenous Muslim communities in Greece and the strategies they use to negotiate their often stigmatised identities. I have investigated the ways in which such minorities manage their religious and contested ethnic identities in different social contexts. At the moment, I am expanding and updating my earlier work on indigenous Muslims in Greece, by examining their changing status in the context of recent waves of migration to Greece from predominantly Muslim countries. Recently I was the PI of an AHRC funded project looking at the status of Islam in Greece while comparing indigenous and immigrant Muslims. The study focuses on Pakistani immigrants and Muslim Greek citizens and explores the role of religion as a 'marker', possibly among others, of collective identification for these groups and the extent they relate to each other and the wider society.
Together with colleagues at the University of Middlesex, where I was based before joining Surrey, I have explored the symbolism and every day life of mosques in European spaces and the role of Muslim elites in multicultural Britain.
I have also carried out research on the interplay between ethnicity and transnational family networks in relation to the Greek Diaspora in the UK, -as part of the Families and Social Capital Research Group at London South Bank University http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/families/index.shtml. At present, I am developing work on the issues of ethnicity, identity and belonging among Greek communities in the UK and the role of 'stay behind kin' in the migration process.
Research collaborations
March 2010- August 2011 'Islam in Greece: Religious Identity and Practice Among Indigenous Muslims and Muslim Migrants'. Funded by the AHRC. My role: Principal Investigator. Overall budget: £133, 512.
April-May 2009 'Muslims in Greece' Scoping study. Funded by the Social Policy Research Centre, Middlesex University.
2003-2004 Families and Social Capital ESRC Research Programme. My role: main researcher for the 'Social Capital and Ethnic Identities in North American' project within the Ethnicity Strand.
2001-2003 COMMORG: Organisational Consequences of E-mail Communication. Funded under the 5th Framework Programme. Project Reference: IST-2000-26075. My role: Principal Investigator for University of Surrey. Overall Budget: 1,000,000 Euro. Personal budget: £67,000.
Supervision
Postgraduate research supervision
I am currently co-supervising the following PhD students:
Lorraine Locke, An Ethnomethodological analysis of Dream Accounting
Vasia Lazari, The use of “soft measures” to build tolerance and understanding within and across cultures.
Marjorie Chileka, Exploring the lived experiences of siblings of Zambian individuals with Sickle Cell Disease
Thiago Bogossian, Migration: Polish pupils in an English School
I am interested in supervising doctoral students in the following areas: Migration, race and ethnicity, nationalism, belonging and Identity more broadly, family relations, transnationalism and social capital, Muslim and minority groups in Greece and Europe.
Completed postgraduate research projects I have supervised
Completed PhD students I have previously supervised:
Dr Ioulia Kazana, 2018 Women in Crisis? How Young Greek Women Navigate ‘Emerging Adulthood’ following the Effects of the 2008 Economic Crisis
Dr Paola Eiras, 2020 Cultural Identity of Chinese Students in a Transnational University in China
Teaching
Over the last 15 years I have taught a variety of UG and PG modules including sociological theories and research methods, migration and citizenship, ethnic and racial studies, gender and family studies, and social capital and transnationalism.
I currently teach undergraduates and postgraduates on the following modules:
SOC1038 Making Sense of Everyday Life
SOC2071 Critical Sociological Thinking
SOC2046 Migration and the Politics of Identity
SOCM061 Methodological Issues in Research Design
Previously I have taught on:
SOC1037 Current Sociology: Topics and Issues
SOC2077 Dimensions of Social Change
SOC3033 Cultures of Race and Racism
Publications
Books
Evergeti, V. (ed.) (forthcoming -2014) Indigenous Muslims in Greece: Case studies of Europe's Autochthonous Muslims London: Springer
Evergeti, V. and Hatziprokopiou, P. (eds.) (forthcoming 2015) Το Ισλάμ στην Ελλάδα: Θρησκευτική ταυτότητα και πρακτική μεταξύ γηγενών και μεταναστών Μουσουλμάνων (Islam in Greece: Religious identity and practice among indigenous and migrant Muslims) Athens: Okto Publishers.
Co-editor Special Issues
Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life Special Issue on Islam, Ethnicities and Belonging in the Balkans. Forthcoming 2015
Ethnic and Racial Studies Special Issue on 'Social Capital, Migration and Transnational Families' vol. 29, no. 6, 2006
Refereed articles
Evergeti, V. and Hatziprokopiou, P. (forthcoming 2015) Introduction to Special Issue on Islam, Ethnicities and Belonging in the Balkans. In Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life.
Evergeti, V. and Hatziprokopiou, P. (forthcoming 2015) New and old Islam in Greece: forming and performing religious identities and practices. In Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life, Special Issue on Islam, ethnicities and belonging in the Balkans.
Hatziprokopiou, P. and Evergeti, V. (2014) Negotiating ethnic and religious diversity in Greek urban spaces. In Social and Cultural Geography. Special Issue on Public religion and post-secular urban space in Europe. DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2014.894114
Evergeti, V. (2011) Discrimination and Reaction: the practical constitution of social exclusion. In Symbolic Interaction, 34:3, pp. 377-397.Ahmad, W. and Evergeti, V. (2010) The making and representation of Muslim identity in Britain: conversations with British Muslim 'elites'. In Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33:10, pp. 1697-1717.
Evergeti, V. (2006) Living and Caring between two cultures: narratives of Greek women in Britain' in Community, Work and Family Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 347-366.
Evergeti, V. and Zontini, E. (2006) Introduction: Some critical reflections on social capital, migration and transnational families, Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 29, No. 6, pp. 1025-1039.
Evergeti, V. (2004) Trust and social capital in the field: reflections from an Interactionist ethnography in minority communities in Greece, in Ros Edwards (ed.) Social Capital in the Field. Families and Social Capital Working Papers Series. http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/families/workingpapers/familieswp10.pdf
Harper, R. Evergeti, V. Hamill, L., Shatwell, B. (2003) The Social Organisation of Communication in the Home of the 21st Century, Journal of Cognition, Technology and Work, Vol. 5, No.1, pp. 5-22.
Evergeti, V. (2000) Exploring Ethnic Identity Formations and Negotiations from an Interactionist Perspective: Ethnography in W. Thrace in Ethnic Identities and Political Action in Post-Cold War Europe vol.2 Laboratory of Anthropology and International Democritus Foundation.
Book Chapters
Evergeti, V. and Hatziprokopiou, P. (forthcoming 2015) Introducion. In Evergeti, V. and Hatziprokopiou, P. (eds.) Το Ισλάμ στην Ελλάδα: Θρησκευτική ταυτότητα και πρακτική μεταξύ γηγενών και μεταναστών Μουσουλμάνων (Islam in Greece: Religious identity and practice among indigenous and migrant Muslims). Athens: Okto Publishers.
Evergeti, V. (forthcoming 2014) Ethnicity and belonging among Thracian Muslims in Athens. In Evergeti, V. (ed.) Indigenous Muslims in Greece: Case Studies of Europe's Autochthonous Muslims London: Springer.
Evergeti, V. Hatziprokopiou, P. and Prevelakis, N. (2013) 'Greece: the arrival of Islam as post-1974 migration' in Cesari, J. Handbook of European Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Evergeti, V. and Hatziprokpiou, P. (2013) 'On Muslims, Turks and migrants: Perceptions of Islam in Greece and the challenge of migration'. In Tsibiridou, F. (ed.) Myths of the other in the Balkans. Thessaloniki: University of Macedonia.
Evergeti, V. and Ryan, L. (2011) 'Negotiating transnational caring practices among migrant families' in Kraler, A. Kofman, E. Kohli, M. & Schmoll, C. (eds.) Gender, Generations and the Family in International Migration. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Evergeti, V. (2008) Notions of 'home' and belonging among Greeks in the UK in Ryan, L. and Webster, W. (eds.) Gendering Migration: masculinity, femininity and ethnicity in post-war Britain. London: Ashgate.
Evergeti, V. (2006) Boundary formations and identity expressions in everyday interactions: The case of Muslim Minorities in Greece'. In Stacul, J. Moutsou, C. and Kopnina, H. (eds.) Crossing European Boundaries: Beyond Conventional Geographical Boundaries. Oxford: Berghahn Publications.
Evergeti, V. (2003) Paper-Mail and the Social Organisation of Domestic Space in Laske, T. (ed.) Social Constructions of Space: The Territory of the Anthropology of Communication. Editions de L'Universtie de Liege.
Keynotes and Invited Talks
New Directions in the study of religion and ethnicity among migrant communities in South Europe: Lessons from the Greek case. Keynote given at Conference on Diversity in the City: Shifting realities and ways forward,CEG-IGOT, University of Lisbon, Portugal, June 2014
Social Integration and the Organisation of Religious Diversity in Greece. International Metropolis Conference, Finland. September 2013.
Ethnicity among Muslim communities in Greece: research themes and political perspectives. Research meeting on Islam in the European periphery, Study of Religions Department, Cork University, Ireland. November 2011.Islam in Greece: continuity and change among indigenous and immigrant Muslims. University of Sussex, Geography Research Seminars. October 2011.
Religious diversity and change between national and immigrant Muslims in Greece. International Metropolis Conference. Panel on Religious Pluralism. September 2011
Ethnicity and Social Capital in Greek and Greek Cypriot communities in UK and the US. University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA. October 2003.
Identity Politics within Borderline Minorities: Muslim Communities in Western Thrace. University of Oxford, ESRC Research Program on Transnational Communities. February 2001.
Paper Based Communications and Domestic Organisation, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, June 2000.
Research Reports
Goulbourne, H. Evergeti, V. and Kotsogianni, A. (2004) Heritage and Identity in Contemporary Britain, Report to the Lottery Fund www.heritageandidentity.org.uk
Evergeti, V. (2001) Sociological and Ethnographic Approaches to Organisational Culture, Identity and CMC. Report prepared for COMMORG EU Project. (EU Deliverable D. 2.1)
Evergeti, V. (2001) Consumerism, Sustainability and Human Needs. Report Prepared for the ASSIST EU Project (EU Deliverable D.5.1)
Harper, R. Evergeti, V. Hamill, L. Watson, R. (2000) The Affordances of Paper Mail, Final Report, Post Office/DWRC, University of Surrey.
Selected Conference Papers
Evergeti, V. New and old 'multiculturalisms' in Greece. Paper presented at CRONEM 8th conference on The future of Multiculturalism: Structures, Integration policies and practices. University of Surrey, June 2012.
Evergeti, V. Religious diversity and change between national and immigrant Muslims in Greece. Paper presented at International Metropolis Conference. Panel on Religious Pluralism. Ponta Delgada, Azores, September 2011 (Invited Speaker)
Hatziprokopiou, P. and Evergeti, V. Negotiating religious diversity and Muslim identity in Greek urban spaces. Paper presented at the International RC21 conference on The struggle to belong: dealing with diversity in 21st century urban settings, Session on Religion and Urban Settings. Amsterdam, July 2011
Evergeti, V. and Hatziprokopiou, P. Παρουσίαση του προγράμματος 'Το Ισλάμ στην Ελλάδα' (Presentation of findings of the 'Islam in Greece' AHRC research program) Paper presented at the Conference and Dissemination event on Islam in Greece, Athens, Greece. June 2011.
Evergeti, V. and Hatziprokopiou, P. On Muslims, Turks and migrants: Perceptions of Islam in Greece and the challenge of migration. Paper presented at Myths of the other in the Balkans: Representations, social practice and performances. University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. February 2011.
Evergeti, V. and Hatziprokopiou, P. Islam in Greece: preliminary results of a research program. Paper presented at CRONEM 6th Annual conference on Living Together: civic, political and cultural engagement among migrants, minorities and national populations. University of Surrey, June 2010.
Evergeti, V. and Christou, A.Ταυτότητα και Ετερότητα μέσα από διεθνικά δίκτυα συγγενικών σχέσεων (Identity and Otherness through Transnational Family Networks). Paper presented at conference on Sociology in Greece Today in Panteion University, Athens, Greece. November 2005.
Evergeti, V. Tensions and Interactions on the Internet: the case of Pomak Mailing Lists. Paper presented in the 5th International Symposium on Ethnic Identities and Political Action in Post-Cold War Europe. Xanthi, Greece. July 2003
Evergeti, V. Visualising Minority Communities: The Stranger Within. Paper presented in the International Visual Sociology Association Annual Conference on Visualising Community, State and Nation: Images of Power and Social Bond. Santorini, Greece. July 2002.
Evergeti, V. Ethnography in Western Thrace: Social Identity from an Interactionist Approach. Paper Presented in the 3rd International Symposium on Ethnic Identities and Political Action in Contemporary Europe Xanthi, Greece August 2001.
Evergeti, V. Boundary Formations and Identity Expressions in Everyday Interactions: the Case of a Muslim Village in Greece. Paper presented in the 6th Biennial EASA conference on Crossing Categorical Boundaries: Religion as Politics /Politics as Religion Krakow, July 2000.
Evergeti, V. Identity Formations and Negotiations: The Case of the Muslim Minority in Greece. Paper presented in the British Sociological Association Annual Conference, University of Glasgow, 6-9 April 1999.