On April 14 at 17:00, the Anthropology Research Centre and the Doctoral Programme in Social and Cultural Anthropology invite you to a seminar by Dr. Tea Kamushadze: “Silenced Childhoods: Socialization, Power, and Postcolonial Reflections in Georgian Soviet Ethnography”
This study examines how childhood was represented in Georgian Soviet ethnography. It shows that children’s voices and, in particular, traditional methods of upbringing were often ignored, as knowledge production was shaped by ideological and centralized Soviet frameworks. Drawing on postcolonial theory, the research interprets Soviet ethnography as a site of epistemic power and emphasizes that children and local child-rearing practices rarely appeared as legitimate sources of knowledge, which is important for understanding the post-Soviet context.

Dr. Tea Kamushadze is an Associate Professor at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA) and a Researcher at the Ivane Javakhishvili Institute of History and Ethnology. She has participated in international research programs, including at Harvard University’s Davis Center and Jagiellonian University. In 2021, she completed a Rustaveli National Science Foundation–funded postdoctoral project on religious pluralism and secularism in post-Soviet urban space. In 2025, she completed her research project at the University of Oxford, focusing on Georgian ethnology through postcolonial and digital perspectives.