I am a fifth-year PhD student at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University in Vienna. My current research interests lie at the intersection of medical anthropology, the anthropology of the EU and policy, and economic anthropology. In my master's thesis I explored the interconnections between the ideas of gift and commodity in the practice of compensated plasma donation in Hungary. I continued to investigate this topic during my doctoral studies in the context of policymaking in the European Union. The main theme of my dissertation is the formulation of the discourses of gift and commodity, as well as the question of self-sufficiency and supply of blood plasma as raw material for pharmaceutical manufacturing in the EU. In my research I analyze the role diverse epistemic communities (consisting of patient advocates, pharmaceutical representatives, EU bureaucrats, and medical experts) play in shaping policies through lobbying and advocacy. Their conflicting and converging lobbying efforts generate a surge in specialized knowledge about medicine, economy, as well as morality that feeds the European policymaking machine. My research examines the way these experts form alliances and negotiate the role of the public sector and the industry through moralized arguments about care, the role (and boundaries) of the market, and the circulation of bodily materials within the EU which is (re)imagined as an economic, (bio)political, and moral community.
My original training is in media and film studies. Previously, I did research on autobiographical graphic novels and representations of trauma and memory. Despite the shift in disciplines, I never lost interest in visual media; I still write about films as a hobby.