Jelena Tosic

Jelena Tosic is Professor for Migration Studies at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and serves as an external lecturer at the Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology (IKSA) at the University of Vienna. She completed her habilitation at the University of Bern and has held various academic positions across Europe including interim professor at the University of Bern (2014/2015) and junior professor for Ethnology at the University of Konstanz (2013/2014).

Her research interests span Migration Studies, Border Studies, Forced Migration, Deservingness, and Culturalization, with specialized expertise in Southeast Europe, the Balkans, and Mediterranean regions. She employs ethnographic, historical anthropological, and qualitative methods to examine mobility, inequality, and transcultural dynamics in contemporary European contexts.

Tosic's scholarly output reveals a consistent focus on the intersection of migration, inequality, and moral economies. Her recent work (2019-2025) demonstrates increasing attention to deservingness frameworks, pandemic impacts on migration, and existential perspectives on mobility. She frequently employs Gramscian theoretical frameworks and maintains a strong regional focus on Southeast Europe while engaging with broader European migration patterns.

She has secured significant research funding including a Swiss National Science Foundation grant for 'Europe's Un/Deserving: Moralizations of Inequality in Comparative Perspective' (2021-2024), Erasmus+ projects on teacher education and digital inclusion, and an Austrian Academy of Sciences fellowship. As co-editor of the EASA Book Series with Berghahn since 2021, she plays an influential role in shaping anthropological scholarship.

Her collaborative work extends to the DFG-Netzwerk on migration during pandemics and she co-coordinated the Regional Working Group Europe of the German Anthropological Association from 2013-2020. She frequently organizes workshops and conferences addressing deservingness, mobility, and inequality in contemporary Europe.