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Kostadin Karavasilev, M.A.

  • News and information on consultation hours

    Consultation hours during summer term 2024:

    • Tuesdays, 14:30-15:30

    To make an appointment via Learnweb please klick here.
    (Password: Ges3llschaften)

    You can attend the consultation hour in presence in my office (3.31) at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology or online via Zoom after making an appointment by email.

  • Research

    A central point of my research are conceptualisations of and experiences related to mental illness. With time, this interest has come to include different aspects of understanding and experiencing mental illness, including care practices that people diagnosed with mental illness and their close ones engage in in Bulgaria. That formed the core of my MA thesis project.

    I am currently working on a PhD project which aims to trace the tensions that exist between Bulgarian laws and international human rights treaties.  On a broader level, the project aims to study how actors within the  judiciary – lawyers and judges - and activists/advocates use laws and draw on universalist rights discourses in Bulgaria and how these practices and discourses relate to global processes of legal and socio-political unity and plurality.

    To investigate that, I consider two contexts where laws are interpreted and used. First, the interpretation and application of laws on involuntary treatment and legal incapacitation of people with mental illnesses in court. Second, activist and advocacy practices that challenge these laws, established court practices, and existing societal attitudes by highlighting their incompatibility with international human rights requirements. To better map advocacy and activism in Bulgaria, the project considers LGBTQIA+ activism and advocacy and the tensions between Bulgarian legislation and the human rights of LGBTQIA+ people.

    As a framework to understand these legal and socio-political tensions, I pay attention to the discourses around the aforementioned laws and the rights of people with disabilities and LGBTQIA+ people. The work relates this to the state’s socialist legacy and change towards liberal-democratic values after 1989.

  • Research Focus

    • Activism/advocacy

    • Disability

    • Gender and queer studies

    • Human rights

    • Mental health and illness

  • Research Area

    • Bulgaria

  • Teaching

    • Seminar: Societies in southeast Europe [086874]
      [ - | | wöchentlich | Di. | F 040 | Kostadin Karavasilev]

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