Dr. Natalia Otrishchenko

sociologist, researcher

Candidate of Sociological Studies with a focus on "methodology and methods of sociological research" (2015, the Institute of Sociology, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine), graduate of the History Department, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (2012), and from the Inter-Institutional Individual Humanitarian Studies (MISH) (2011). Natalia studied in the USA at Berea College (2009–10), in Slovenia at the IEDC-Bled School of Management (2009), and taught at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (2016), Kharkiv School of Architecture (2023), Ukrainian Catholic University (2023–24), and Kyiv-Mohyla School of Professional and Continuing Education (2025). 

Alumna of the Fulbright program: in 2022–23, she conducted research at the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, USA. Visiting professor at the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris (2023). Natalia is a researcher in the UNET network (2024-25), which ZOiS administers. Since 2025, she has been one of the editors in the book series "Interdisziplinäre Ukrainestudien / Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies", Nomos (Germany).

Her academic interests include: methodology and methods of sociological research, oral history, urban sociology, sociology of expertise, and spatial and social transformations after state socialism.

Natalia was involved in the “Region, Nation and Beyond” (2012–15, University of St. Gallen), “Memories of Vanished Populations” (2012–14, Lund University), and “Historical Cultures in Transition” (2017–19, Collegium Civitas), “Legacies of Communism?” (2019–22, ZZF) international projects. 

She was a tutor and later coordinator of the Urban Summer Schools “Visions and Experiences” (2015–17). On behalf of her institution, she was involved in organizing the Urban Summer School “Open Form” (Lublin-Szumin-Warsaw, 2018). 

Since 2022, she has led the Ukrainian team in the international documentation initiative “24.02.22, 5 am: Testimonies from the war,” which has included the Center of Urban History, the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology PAS, C2DH at the University of Luxembourg, St. Andrews University, Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg (FZH), and the Public History Program of the FernUniversity in Hagen. Since 2024, Natalia has been one of the PIs in the “Researching the Collecting, Preserving, Analyzing, and Disclosing of Ukrainian War Testimonies (U-CORE)” international project. She is also one of the Center’s representatives in the LivArch network.

Edited volumes:

Journal articles and book chapters:

  • Otrishchenko, N., Kharchenko, A., & Shevchenko, V. (2025). Ukrainian Researchers in a War Documentation Project: Intertwined Experiences and Methodologies. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 1-21.
  • Otrishchenko, N. (2024). Urban planners assessing professional autonomy during (and after) state socialism / Moderne Stadtgeschichte Bd. 55 Nr. 2: Die Stadt als Ort der Erinnerung an den Nationalsozialismus und seiner Verbrechen, 156–74.
  • Otrishchenko, N. (2023). The time that was taken from us: Temporal experiences after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, 25–44. / In Wanner, C. (Ed.). Dispossession: Anthropological Perspectives on Russia’s War Against Ukraine (1st ed.). Routledge.
  • Otrishchenko, N. (2023). Urban planners between secrecy, automation, and human-centered design: visions of environment management in late Soviet city. Special issue “Communist Parties in East Central Europe: Frameworks of Knowledge Acquisition and Dissemination 1945–1989”, European Review of History 30.2, 257–77.
  • Shumylovych, B., Makhanets, O., Nazaruk, T., Otrishchenko, N., Brunow, D. (2022). Preserving the now! Mediating memories and archiving experiences in Ukraine. NECSUS European Journal of Media Studies. #Materiality, 11 (2), 126–49.
  • Otrishchenko, N. (2022). Looking Forward, Looking Back: Ways of Re-Connecting Urban Planning Education in Lviv. Studia Historiae Scientiarum 21, 485–514.
  • Otrishchenko, N. (2021). Scholar, Organizer, Witness, and More: Multiple Roles of History Teachers in Contemporary Ukraine. In T. Stryjek, J. Konieczna-Sałamatin (Eds). The Politics of Memory in Poland and Ukraine. From Reconciliation to De-Conciliation, 104–19. Routledge.
  • Otrishchenko, N., Kozlova, I. (2020). (Not) Our Heritage: Cultural Milieu and Urban Space of Lviv. In V. Mihaylov (Ed). Urban spaces of conflicts and divisions in Central and Eastern Europe, 151–70. Springer. The Urban Book Series.
  • Otrishchenko, N. (2019). Between Anonymity and Attachment: Remembering Others in Lviv’s Pidzamche District. Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 5(2), 87–120.
  • Konieczna-Sałamatin, J., Stryjek, T., Otrishchenko, N. (2018). Wydarzenia – Ludzie – Historia. Raport z badań sondażowych o pamięci współczesnych Polaków i Ukraińców. Warszawa: Collegium Civitas.
  • Otrishchenko, N. (2017). (Re)defining Places for Community in Sykhiv Housing Estate.” Folia Geographica Socio-Oeconomica 30, 27–37.
  • Otrishchenko, N. (2015). Beyond the Square: The Real and Symbolic Landscapes of Euromaidan. In D. R. Marples and F. V. Mills (Eds.). Ukraine’s Euromaidan: Analyses of a Civil Revolution, 147–62. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.
  • Otriščenko, N. (2014). ‘Šios vietos dvasia teikia stiprybės’: ukrainiečių protestai Kijevo Nepriklausomybės aikštėje.” In R. Čepaitienė (Ed.). Vietos Dvasios Beieškant. Kolektyvinis straipsnių rinkinys, 295–318. Vilnius: LII.
  • Отріщенко, Н. (2014). Досвід революції: від цінностей до повсякденних практик. Соціологія: Теорія, методи, маркетинг 3: 148–58.