Vera Smirnova

Vera’s work draws connections between property regimes and territorial politics, and contributes broadly to political geographic field of study in postsocialist and authoritarian contexts. Her research has explored how rights to land ownership and other modes of the appropriation of space are negotiated and how territorial policies are performed using formal and informal political tools. Vera conducted projects on the Russian land privatization reforms and underlying forms of dispossession, as well as conceptions of territorial sovereignty in Russian geographic thought and their contemporary geopolitical implications. Her research has been published in leading geography journals including the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Geoforum, and the Geographical Journal. Vera is also a Chair of the Eurasian Geography Specialty Group at the American Association of Geographers.