Ekaterina Mikhailova

Research Area 1

Stay at EEGA: May 2022

Research Project: Withstanding the Strain? Border Cities in a Comparative Perspective

Ekaterina Mikhailova is an Invited Visiting Researcher at the Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstanz (Germany) and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Geography and Environment, University of Geneva (Switzerland). Ekaterina’s work lies at the crossroads of Urban Studies, Border Studies and Russian Studies. As an early career researcher, Ekaterina is an author of over forty English and Russian publications on twin cities, cross-border cooperation, governance and migration. Ekaterina has co-edited (with John Garrard) two volumes – „Twin Cities: Urban Communities, Borders and Relationships over Time“ (Routledge, 2019) and „Twin Cities across Five Continents: Interactions and Tensions on Urban Borders“ (Routledge, 2022), both published in Global Urban Studies Series.

In her project, Ekaterina Mikhailova sketches the variety of external as well as domestic pressures she had studied in cities along Russian borders over the last decade – from changes in visa regimes to transit migration flows to currency fluctuations. It will also present the rich palette of grassroots adaptation tools and entrepreneurial strategies developed by these cities in response to the said strains.