e-mail: tea@ief.hr
She graduated in Ethnology and Comparative Literature in 1995 from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb. She earned her Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the same Faculty, completing her PhD in the field of humanities, area of ethnology and anthropology. Since 1996, she has been employed at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, where she serves as a Research Adviser.
She has participated in numerous institutional research projects. She was a member of the international project “Closing the Gap Between Formal and Informal Institutions in the Balkans” (INFORM), HORIZON 2020, 2016–2019 (principal investigator: Dr Eric Gordy; principal investigator of the Croatian research team: Dr Reana Senjković-Svrčić). She also worked on the projects “Transformation of Work in Post-Transition Croatia” (TRANSWORK), Croatian Science Foundation, 2017–2021 (PI: Dr Reana Senjković-Svrčić), and “The European Irregularized Migration Regime in the Periphery of the EU: from Ethnography to Keywords” (ERIM), Croatian Science Foundation, 2020–2024 (PI: Dr Marijana Hameršak). She is the principal investigator of the project “Poetics and Politics of Ethnography Today” (EPP), European Union–NextGenerationEU, 2024–2027, and a member of the research team of “Precarious Culture and the Future of Work” (BURA), European Union–NextGenerationEU, 2024–2027 (PI: Dr Ozren Biti).
She presents her research at academic conferences and publishes in scholarly and professional journals. She is the author of the book Ljubavni kod: ljubav i seksualnost između tradicije i znanosti (2011), and co-author of Polutani dugog trajanja. Balkanistički diskursi (2014, co-authored with Andrea Matošević) and Gdje živi tvornica? Etnografija postindustrijskoga grada (2022, co-authored with Sanja Potkonjak). She co-edited five edited volumes: Između roda i naroda: etnološke i folklorističke studije (2004, co-edited with Dr Renata Jambrešić Kirin), Split i drugi. Kulturnoantropološki i kulturnostudijski prilozi (2007, co-edited with Ines Prica), Horror, porno, ennui: kulturne prakse postsocijalizma (2011, co-edited with Ines Prica), Stranputice humanistike (2017, co-edited with Petar Bagarić and Ozren Biti), Balkanska ruta: pojmovnik europskog režima iregulariziranih migracija na periferiji EU (2024), Keywords of the Balkan Route. The European Irregularized Migration Regime at the Periphery (2026, co-edited with Marijana Hameršak and Iva Pleše) and Balkanska pot: pojmovnik evropskega režima iregulariziranih migracij na periferiji Evropske unije (2025, co-edited with Marijana Hameršak, Iva Pleše, Uršula Lipovec Čebron and Jelka Zorn).
She co-organized several academic conferences: Culture and Economy, Croatian Ethnological Society, 9–11 June 2011, Zagreb; Horror-porno-ennui: Cultural Practices of Postsocialism, 19–21 November 2011, Zagreb; How Many Mentalities? Between Scientific Concept and Cultural Construct, 29–30 November 2013, Zagreb; SIEF at IEF, 9 December 2015, Zagreb; Stranputice humanistike, 10 December 2015, Zagreb; Transformation of Work: Narratives, Practices, Regimes, 27–28 February 2020, Zagreb; Poetics and Politics of Ethnography Today. Why? How? With Whom and for Whom?, 6–7 November 2025. She was the programme co-organiser of the international workshop “Anthropology of Gender in the Balkans: Focusing on Historical Transformations & Analytical Strategies,” 9–10 September 2019, Göttingen (Germany) (DAAD).
From the academic year 2007/08 to 2009/10, she taught the course Anthropology of Sexuality in the undergraduate programme of the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb; in the academic year 2011/12 she taught the same course in the Department’s graduate programme. From 2008/2009 to 2017/2018 (five teaching cycles), she taught in the doctoral programme in Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the same Faculty, offering the course Women (in) the Balkans. She also participates in university activities as a mentor and as a member of committees for dissertation synopsis defences and dissertation defences (Departments of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Comparative Literature, History, and Croatian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and the Postgraduate Programme “Humanistic Sciences” at the University of Zadar).
She spent one year (2012–2013) at California State University Northridge, USA, as a visiting scholar at the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies.
From 2010 to 2015 she was one of the editors of the book series Nova etnografija (New Ethnography) at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research. She is a member of the Croatian Ethnological Society. She served two terms (2009, 2010) as Artistic Adviser for Complementary Activities at the Croatian Audiovisual Centre. She was Chair of the Scientific Council of the Institute from April to October 2014. From April 2015 to April 2019 she served as Assistant Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research. From 2021 to 2025 she was Chair of the Governing Board of the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb.
For the book Gdje živi tvornica? Etnografija postindustrijskoga grada (co-authored with Sanja Potkonjak), she received the Annual “Milovan Gavazzi” Award of the Croatian Ethnological Society for 2022, in the category of research and teaching.
Her research interests include gender and feminist anthropology, the anthropology of work, and irregularized migration.