'From Romantic Advances to Cyberstalking in the Field'

The Global Studies Seminar presents “From Romantic Advances to Cyberstalking in the Field” by Jasmin Dall’Agnola from George Washington University. 

So far, the implications of sexual advances and cyberstalking on female fieldworkers’ personal and professional lives have been rarely discussed in published form. While collecting data for her postdoctoral project in Central Asia, Dall’Agnola experienced various forms of sexual harassment, ranging from unwelcomed sexual verbal and physical advances, whistling and catcalling to stalking both off- and online. In being honest and transparent about her personal experiences with unwanted sexual advances in the field, Dall’Agnola neither wishes to draw generalizations about Central Asian men, nor to discourage other female scholars from conducting fieldwork in the region. By contrast, Dall’Agnola hopes that her personal reflections will help other researchers mitigate and avoid similar situations. 

Dall’Agnola is a postdoctoral Visiting Scholar at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies. She holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from Oxford Brookes University. Her research focuses on the relationship between gender, technology and surveillance in authoritarian societies. Her research has been published by numerous peer-reviewed academic journals, including Europe-Asia Studies, Religions, Central Asian Affairs, Central Asian Survey and Surveillance & Society. She is the lead editor of the book Researching the Former Soviet Union: Stories from the Field (Routledge, 2023).