Natalia Mamonova

SCAS-Nordic Fellow, SCAS
Senior Researcher, RURALIS - Institute for Rural and Regional Research, Trondheim

Natalia Mamonova is a scholar in Critical Agrarian Studies with nearly 15 years of research experience in rural politics, agrarian transformation, social movements, food sovereignty, and right-wing populism in post-socialist Europe.

She received her PhD from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2016. Her doctoral dissertation examined rural politics in Russia and Ukraine before and after the Euromaidan Revolution. Two articles based on chapters of the dissertation received “Best Article” awards from Erasmus University. Following the completion of her PhD, Mamonova was a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford (2017), a Pontica Magna Fellow at the New Europe College in Bucharest (2017–2018), and a postdoctoral researcher at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (2018–2021). She co-edited the special issue Right-wing Populism in Rural Europe: Causes, Consequences and Cures (with Dr Jaume Franquesa) for Sociologia Ruralis (2020) and served as a research consultant at the University of Notre Dame (2022–2023).

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Mamonova’s research has focused primarily on the impacts of the war on Ukrainian and global food systems. She has published extensively in both academic and non-academic outlets in English, Swedish, Norwegian, and Ukrainian. One of her co-authored reports, Ukrainian Agriculture in Wartime: Resilience, Reforms, and Markets, was among the most-read publications of the Transnational Institute in 2024.

During her time at SCAS in 2026–2027, Mamonova will work on her forthcoming book: More than Farming: Ukrainian Agriculture, Identity, and Politics during the War. Intended for both academic and general audiences, the book examines agriculture not only as a key factor in ensuring Ukraine’s food security during wartime, but also as a catalyst for patriotism and national unity, a focal point of political contestation, and a means of healing and rebuilding Ukraine after the war.

 

This information is accurate as of the academic year 2026-27.