Visiting Scholar

Dr. Blachnicka-Ciacek is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University. Based in the Faculty of Sociology at the University of Warsaw, her research and visual practice focus on the role of memory, political narratives, and violence in fostering belonging and exclusion among diaspora, refugee, and migrant communities. She is the Principal Investigator of a three-year research grant entitled "Engagement from afar: A multi-sited ethnography of the Ukrainian diaspora’s responses to war," funded by the National Research Centre (Poland), and a 2024 scholarship holder of the Kościuszko Foundation Exchange Programme to the USA. As part of her stay as a visiting scholar at the Sociology Department at Rutgers, Dr. Blachnicka-Ciacek is exploring the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States. Dominika's scholarship appears in several international journals, including the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, The Sociological Review, Emotion, Space and Society, and Geoforum. She has recently been awarded a three-year scholarship for outstanding young scientists by the Minister of Education of Poland and holds a PhD in Visual Sociology from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Certificate in Ethnographic Filmmaking from UCL’s Anthropology Department.