Dr Marketa Dolezalova

Profile

I joined the University in October 2020 and was an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the  School of Sociology and Social Policy before moving to LUBS in October 2021 to work as a Research Fellow on the Labour mobility in transition: a multi-actor study of the re-regulation of migrant work in 'low-skilled' sectors (LIMITS) project. This is a three-year project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) that looks at the impact of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic at employers and workers in four key sectors, namely adult social care, hospitality, food and drink manufacturing, and logistics. The key issues that the project is looking at include labour shortages, workforce recruitment and retention strategies, and skill shortages and skill development. The project also examines the issue of mobility, both in terms of mobility of migrants and the impact of changing immigration policies on migrant workers and in terms of worker mobility between sectors.

After completing my PhD I initially worked as a teaching assistant at the University of Manchester on the Introduction to Business Anthropology module. I then joined the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Loughborough University as a research associate on the ESRC-funded project The Illiberal Turn. This was a mixed mehod comparative study of the role of media and media consumption in the polarisation of public opinion and the rise of illiberal tendencies in four post-socialist countries. I worked on the qualitative part of the project, which included fieldwork in the Czech Republic, collecting media diaries completed by research participants, and conducting online interviews.

I completed my PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. It was funded by the ESRC through a CASE award and was supported by Advocacy Support (now Advonet). My research was based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among Roma in Leeds and focused on migration, Roma interactions with the state or state-like actors, and strategies of caring for one another, providing forms of material support, and creating a sense of belonging in contexts when options for attaining social mobility are limited. One of the aspects that I focused on was access of migrant Roma to work and the impact of precarious employment and wider economic precarity on Roma. Before starting my PhD I worked with Advocacy Support on research projects looking at the health needs of migrant Roma in Leeds and at Roma experiences of local healthcare provision.

I have an MA in Anthropological Research from the University of Manchester and BA in Anthropology from Goldsmiths College. 

Research interests

My research interests revolve around migration, mobility, and the economic strategies of migrants, including mobility as both an economic strategy and as migrants’ social capital. In my research I look at how different types of mobility are perceived and regulated. I am interested in the relationship between the state and its residents and how a sense of belonging or exclusion is negotiated in interactions between states, other organisations and institutions, collectivities and individual persons. In particular, I am interested in how access to resources and state-provided services like decent employement or welfare, or lack of such access, shape a sense of belonging and how they contribute to decisions to move.

Qualifications

• PhD Social Anthropology, University of Manchester
• MA Anthropological Research, University of Manchester
• BA Anthropology, Goldsmiths College

Professional memberships

• Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute
• Member of the Czech Association of Social Anthropologists
• Member of the Association for the Study of Nationalities
• Member of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change