Hanna Oliinyk

Research Assistant in Sociology of Human Rights
Centre for Socio-Legal Studies

Biography

Hanna Oliinyk serves as a Research Assistant in Sociology of Human Rights for the UKRI-funded 'Human Rights in Eastern Europe and Russia' (HuRiEE) project. She holds an MA in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics from University College London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies (2022) and an MA in Political Science from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (2016). Her academic and professional achievements include receiving the prestigious Chevening Scholarship in 2021/2022. Her research interests span sociology of human rights, memory politics, democratic transitions in post-communist countries, and the non-violent resistance movement in the Ukrainian SSR. Among her latest projects, she focused on the memory politics implemented by Russian proxy regimes in Eastern Ukraine (2014-2021), with particular attention to military-patriotic infrastructure established by occupational authorities. Prior to her academic path, Hanna gained diverse professional experience working with NGOs, research institutions, and media.

Research Interests

My research interests encompass two primary areas. In sociology, I focus on human rights mobilization in Ukraine, examining the actors behind these processes and how they utilize the European Court of Human Rights to pursue justice and catalyze strategic changes in Ukraine. I investigate who mobilizes human rights mechanisms and how they navigate these legal pathways for social transformation. My second area of research is memory politics and culture of memory, with a particular focus on the memory politics implemented by Russian occupational authorities and their proxies in occupied Ukrainian territories.