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. Currently I am working on an AHRC funded study on Islam in Greece.

For information about ‘Islam in Greece’ please click here.

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. I am currently leading 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.

Publications

Books

Evergeti, V. (ed.) (forthcoming -2010) Indigenous Muslims in Greece: Case studies of Europe’s Autochthonous Muslims London: Springer

Chapters in Books

Evergeti, V. and Ryan, L. (forthcoming) 'Negotiating transnational caring practices among migrant families' in Kofman, E. (ed.) 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. (2005) 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.

Refereed articles

Ahmad, W. and Evergeti, V (forthcoming) ‘The making and representation of Muslim identity in Britain: conversations with British Muslim ‘elites’’ Ethnic and Racial Studies

Evergeti, V. (2006a) ‘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. (2006b) ‘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.

Co-editor Special Issues

Ethnic and Racial Studies Special Issue on 'Social Capital, Migration and Transnational Families' vol. 29, no. 6, 2006

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

Identity and Otherness through Transnational Family Networks. Paper presented at conference on Sociology in Greece Today in Panteion University, Athens, Greece 9-11 November 2005.

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.

Tensions and Interactions on the Internet: the case of Pomak Mailing Lists. Paper presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Ethnic Identities and Political Action in Post-Cold War Europe. Xanthi, Greece. August 2001.

Ethnography in Western Thrace: Social Identity from an Interactionist Approach. Paper Presented in the 2nd International Symposium on Ethnic Identities and Political Action in Contemporary Europe Xanthi, Greece August 2000.

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.

Invited Lectures

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.