Team

Dr Terje Toomistu, Principal Investigator

Dr Terje Toomistu is an anthropologist, a Research Fellow at the University of Tartu’s Department of Ethnology, whose prime areas of focus are gender, mobility, and affect. She received her PhD degree in Ethnology as well as two MA degrees (cum laude) in Ethnology and in Communication Studies from the University of Tartu. She has been a Fulbright Fellow at the University of California Berkeley and a visiting researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Anthropology. She has also lived and studied in France, Russia, and Indonesia.

Toomistu’s major research projects cover Indonesian gender and sexuality and the late Soviet non-conformist youth. Her PhD thesis was about Indonesian waria (transgender women), following her ethnographic fieldwork in Java and West Papua. She has curated exhibitions in U.K., Germany, Canada, and Sweden, and given lectures and seminars at universities internationally.

Toomistu is also a documentary film-maker. Her work has been featured widely in international press, including The Guardian and The Economist.

Terje Toomistu’s CV at the Estonian Research Information System

Dr Aet Annist, Researcher

Dr Aet Annist is a social anthropologist, a Senior Researcher in the Department of Ethnology at the University of Tartu, concentrating on processes related to sociality in the context of changes. Her datasets are derived from diverse, often sisud fieldwork in Estonia and Great Britain which has brought her analytical focus to developing the concept of dispossession in its different forms (social, symbolic, ethnic dispossession and dispossession of the future). The new class relations which emerge from this setting, as a continuation of dispossession or in reaction to this, are also at the centre of her attention.

Annist’s doctoral research at University College London focussed on the social fragmentation of the post-socialist centralised villages against the background of a British aid project. Her post-doctoral project at Tallinn University considered Estonians’ migratory careers. She has been involved in several projects studying youth, most recently, within PROMISE, a Horizon2020 project led by Manchester University.

Annist has contributed regularly to Estonian media, to applied research for Estonian ministries and Parliament as a consultant, to art exhibitions as a writer and as an activist, consultant and facilitator to the activities of Estonian and British protest groups. 

Aet Annist’s CV at the Estonian Research Information System

Rein Murakas, Analyst

Rein Murakas works as a consultant researcher and an analyst for different Estonian and international research projects. His main research fields include youth problems, inequality, financial behaviour, entrepreneurship, reseacher mobility, health, methodology, and the use of social science data sources. 

Rein Murakas’ CV at the Estonian Research Information System

Dr Ave Lauren, Consultant

Dr Ave Lauren is a human geographer, a Senior Researcher at Estonian Business School, focusing on global cities, innovation centres and global talent mobility.

Ave holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Cambridge, where her research explored highly-skilled migration to Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, analysing the role of corporations in shaping mobility and migratory flows and the impact this has had on policy-making and migrant communities. As part of her research, she collaborated closely with a range of technology companies in the region, including Intel, Apple, Google, Huawei and Tencent.

Prior to joining EBS, she was the National Coordinator for Estonia at the European Migration Network (EMN), an European Commission coordinated expert network, and has also held a fellowship at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, addressing the developments in U.S. highly-skilled immigration policy over the last decades.

Ave Lauren’s CV at Estonian Research Information System

Eva Bürkland, Student Researcher

Eva Bürkland is a master’s student of applied anthropology (MA) at the University of Tartu. She is interested in human migration in relation to human quest for happiness, sense of place and belonging. As part of this project, Eva is researching digital nomads. She has also been a digital nomad herself in various countries, both in Europe and South America.

Maret Luud, Assistant/Intern

Maret Luud is majoring in ethnology (BA) in Tartu University. She is interested in cultural differences and how they affect people’s thinking and behaviour. She is particularly interested in East-Asian region and South Korea, where she has also lived and studied. In addition to her studies, she has also participated in many Korean language and culture related activities in Estonia.