Assoc Prof Dr Magdalena Elchinova
Published: 7 Oct 2016
Country: Bulgaria
Assoc Prof Dr Magdalena Elchinova is based in Sofia and works at the New Bulgarian University, Department of Anthropology. She teaches courses on history of anthropology, political anthropology, kinship, migration, ritual and religion, etc. She has been the head of the Department of Anthropology at NBU since 2003. Dr Elchinova studied Bulgarian language and literature at the Sofia University, where she obtained her MA degree. She got her PhD from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1992, her habilitation in ethnology from the same academy in 1998, and her habilitation in cultural anthropology from the New Bulgarian University in 2005. Her previous affiliations were as a researcher and senior researcher at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and as an associate professor of ethnology at the South-West University in Blagoevgrad and the Plovdiv University, Bulgaria. Magdalena Elchinova has specialized anthropology at the Central European University in Budapest (1998), the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (in 1999 and in 2001-2002), and at the University of Illinois at Chicago (as a Fulbright researcher in 2006).
Her main research interest is in the study of ethnic and religious minorities in Bulgaria (Turks, Orthodox Christians and Muslims), migration to and from Bulgaria, border studies. She has conducted fieldwork in various parts of Bulgaria, Republic of Macedonia, Turkey and the U.S. Her latest research is on the Bulgarian-born Turks, re-settlers in Turkey since 1989 and on the refugees from Asia and Africa to Bulgaria. Magdalena Elchinova has published in a number of national and international journals and volumes.