Dr Taras Fedirko

  • Lecturer in Organised Crime and Corruption (Sociological & Cultural Studies)

Biography

I am a political and economic anthropologist studying how social movements organise to transform war economies; states; and capitalist labour and value regimes. I have  conducted long-term ethnographic research in Kyiv and London, and have most recently led a collective project exploring civic and military networks underpinning Ukraine’s war effort. My research has been supported by the British Academy, European Research Council, Horizon Europe, and international development agencies of the UK and Germany among other funders.

Research

My current project focuses on political economy of war in Ukraine since 2014; I have a particular interest in the transformative effects of war, e.g. in the new elites and political alliances that emerged from the war in Donbas and are currently leading the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

My earlier work explored middle-class professionals involved in promoting or opposing political liberalism at the core (Britain) and semi-periphery (Ukraine) of global capitalism. Based on fieldwork with elite news journalists in Kyiv, Ukraine between 2017 and 2022, I am writing a book about the transformation of and conflicts within the Ukrainian journalistic profession following the Maidan revolution of 2013-14. Prior to this, for my PhD dissertation, I did an ethnographic study of a department of the British central government, where I analysed how global oil, gas, and mining corporations resist government regulation, and how they seek to manipulate the political arenas in which they encounter government officials and political activists.

Career

I joined the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Glasgow as Lecturer in Organised Crime and Corruption in January 2023. I held a joint appointment in Sociology and Central & East European Studies, until in September 2024, I moved into the newly established Social Anthropology & Migration subject group. Since 2025, I am also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), a Vienna-based institute for advanced study; and the Academic Director of the Graduate School of the Invisible University for Ukraine, an international, award-winning solidarity teaching initiative for Ukrainian students whose education has been affected by war.

Before coming to the University of Glasgow, I was British Academy Research Fellow in social anthropology at the University of St Andrews (2021-22), and Reseach Associate in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge (2017-2020). I hold a PhD in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from Durham University, but was originally trained in geography (BSc, Ivan Franko Lviv National University) and East European studies (MA, University of Bologna).

Research interests

political economy of war; media; oligarchy and corruption; state building; historical sociology; social anthropology; Ukraine.

Research groups

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020
Number of items: 16.

2025

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Kameniev, Maksym, Kuschlanski, Lara and Yurchenko, Liubomyra (2025) Ukraine: Organized Crime Dynamics in the Context of War. Project Report. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Vienna.

Artiukh, Volodymyr and Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2025) War and dependent state formation in Ukraine. Focaal, 2025(102), pp. 57-72. (doi: 10.3167/fcl.2025.1020105)

Candea, Matei, Heywood, Paolo and Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2025) Modalities of free speech. Annual Review of Anthropology, (doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-071423-115444) (Early Online Publication)

Candea, Matei, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Heywood, Paolo and Wright, Fiona (2025) Introduction: anthropologies of free speech. In: Freedoms of Speech: anthropological perspectives on language, ethics, and power. University of Toronto Press, pp. 3-31. ISBN 9781487552978 (doi: 10.3138/9781487552978-002)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2025) Martial citizenship: military voluntarism and the transformation of the Ukrainian nation-state. In: Mostowlanski, T. and Muratova, E. (eds.) Humanitarianism From Below: Alter-Politics and Struggles for the Universal. UCL Press. (Accepted for Publication)

2024

Candea, Matei, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Heywood, Paolo and Wright, Fiona (Eds.) (2024) Freedoms of Speech: Anthropological Perspectives on Language, Ethics, and Power. Series: Studies in the anthropology of language, sign, and social life. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781487552978

2023

Artiukh, Volodymyr, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Hrymych, Maryna, Polek, Tina and Ivasiuc, Ana (2023) Ukraine, one year on: listening to Ukrainian anthropologists. Conflict and Society, 9(1), pp. 173-185. (doi: 10.3167/arcs.2023.090112)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2023) Failure and moral distinction in a Ukrainian marketplace of ideas. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 29(S1), pp. 62-78. (doi: 10.1111/1467-9655.13902)

2022

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2022) In the shadow of power: ethics and material interest in Ukrainian political reporting. L'Homme, 243-44, pp. 61-94.

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2022) The military roots of modern Ukraine. Wall Street Journal, 2022(May 26),

2021

Candea, Matei, Wright, Fiona, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X and Heywood, Paolo (2021) Freedom of speech. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, (doi: 10.29164/21speech)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2021) Liberalism in fragments: oligarchy and the liberal subject in Ukrainian news journalism. Social Anthropology, 29(2), pp. 471-489. (doi: 10.1111/1469-8676.13063)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Samanani, Farhan and Williamson, Hugh F. (2021) Grammars of liberalism. Social Anthropology, 29(2), pp. 373-386. (doi: 10.1111/1469-8676.13061)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2021) Suspicion and expertise: following the money in an offshore investigation. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 27(1), pp. 70-89. (doi: 10.1111/1467-9655.13427)

2020

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2020) Self-censorships in Ukraine: distinguishing between the silences of television journalism. European Journal of Communication, 35(1), pp. 12-28. (doi: 10.1177/0267323119897424)

Schimpfössl, Elisabeth, Yablokov, Ilya, Zeveleva, Olga, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X and Bajomi-Lazar, Peter (2020) Self-censorship narrated: journalism in Central and Eastern Europe. European Journal of Communication, 35(1), pp. 3-11. (doi: 10.1177/0267323119897801)

This list was generated on Fri Dec 26 20:54:31 2025 GMT.
Jump to: Articles | Book Sections | Edited Books | Research Reports or Papers
Number of items: 16.

Articles

Artiukh, Volodymyr and Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2025) War and dependent state formation in Ukraine. Focaal, 2025(102), pp. 57-72. (doi: 10.3167/fcl.2025.1020105)

Candea, Matei, Heywood, Paolo and Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2025) Modalities of free speech. Annual Review of Anthropology, (doi: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-071423-115444) (Early Online Publication)

Artiukh, Volodymyr, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Hrymych, Maryna, Polek, Tina and Ivasiuc, Ana (2023) Ukraine, one year on: listening to Ukrainian anthropologists. Conflict and Society, 9(1), pp. 173-185. (doi: 10.3167/arcs.2023.090112)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2023) Failure and moral distinction in a Ukrainian marketplace of ideas. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 29(S1), pp. 62-78. (doi: 10.1111/1467-9655.13902)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2022) In the shadow of power: ethics and material interest in Ukrainian political reporting. L'Homme, 243-44, pp. 61-94.

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2022) The military roots of modern Ukraine. Wall Street Journal, 2022(May 26),

Candea, Matei, Wright, Fiona, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X and Heywood, Paolo (2021) Freedom of speech. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, (doi: 10.29164/21speech)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2021) Liberalism in fragments: oligarchy and the liberal subject in Ukrainian news journalism. Social Anthropology, 29(2), pp. 471-489. (doi: 10.1111/1469-8676.13063)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Samanani, Farhan and Williamson, Hugh F. (2021) Grammars of liberalism. Social Anthropology, 29(2), pp. 373-386. (doi: 10.1111/1469-8676.13061)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2021) Suspicion and expertise: following the money in an offshore investigation. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 27(1), pp. 70-89. (doi: 10.1111/1467-9655.13427)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2020) Self-censorships in Ukraine: distinguishing between the silences of television journalism. European Journal of Communication, 35(1), pp. 12-28. (doi: 10.1177/0267323119897424)

Schimpfössl, Elisabeth, Yablokov, Ilya, Zeveleva, Olga, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X and Bajomi-Lazar, Peter (2020) Self-censorship narrated: journalism in Central and Eastern Europe. European Journal of Communication, 35(1), pp. 3-11. (doi: 10.1177/0267323119897801)

Book Sections

Candea, Matei, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Heywood, Paolo and Wright, Fiona (2025) Introduction: anthropologies of free speech. In: Freedoms of Speech: anthropological perspectives on language, ethics, and power. University of Toronto Press, pp. 3-31. ISBN 9781487552978 (doi: 10.3138/9781487552978-002)

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X (2025) Martial citizenship: military voluntarism and the transformation of the Ukrainian nation-state. In: Mostowlanski, T. and Muratova, E. (eds.) Humanitarianism From Below: Alter-Politics and Struggles for the Universal. UCL Press. (Accepted for Publication)

Edited Books

Candea, Matei, Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Heywood, Paolo and Wright, Fiona (Eds.) (2024) Freedoms of Speech: Anthropological Perspectives on Language, Ethics, and Power. Series: Studies in the anthropology of language, sign, and social life. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781487552978

Research Reports or Papers

Fedirko, Taras ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9597-550X, Kameniev, Maksym, Kuschlanski, Lara and Yurchenko, Liubomyra (2025) Ukraine: Organized Crime Dynamics in the Context of War. Project Report. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Vienna.

This list was generated on Fri Dec 26 20:54:31 2025 GMT.

Grants

  • 2022 ESRC IAA University of Glasgow. ’Actors and networks in the political economy of war in Ukraine’. With H. Aliyev.
  • 2020 British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, grant no. PF20@094.

Supervision

I am intersted in supervising students planning to work in at least one the following broad areas.  

  • Thematic/disciplinary areas: political economy of conflict, violence, crime, and corruption; political and economic anthropology; anthropology of media.
  • Geographic areas: Ukraine and the broader postsocialist region.
  • Methodological areas: qualitative methods, in particular ethnography, work with archival sources (court records and other investigative material); mixed-methods approaches.

If your work does not fit in the above but you have an interesting project and think we could work together, get in touch nonetheless.

Teaching

2022/23: CEES5085 Crime and Corruption in the Former Soviet Union

Professional activities & recognition

Research fellowships

  • 2021 - 2022: British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • 2023 - 2023: Instute for Human Science (IWM), Ukraine in European Dialogue Visiting Fellow

Editorial boards

  • 2023: Anthropology News, Association for Political and Legal Anthropology section
  • 2023: Europe-Asia Studies
  • 2023: Book series editor, Stories of War: Series on Documenting and Archiving, transcript verlag

Professional & learned societies

  • 2023: Section editor, board member, Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, American Anthropological Association
  • 2019 - 2022: Section editor, board member, SOYUZ, American Anthropological Association

Photo by Klaus Ranger