Natalia Mamonova is a rural (political) sociologist with over 10 years of research experience in rural politics, agrarian transformation, social movements, food sovereignty and right-wing populism in post-socialist Europe.

She received her PhD degree from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University, the Netherlands in 2016. Since then, she was a researcher/lecturer at the University of Oxford, the New Europe College in Bucharest, the University of Helsinki, and the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies.

Natalia is the principal coordinator of the European team of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI Europe). As part of this initiative, she organized the collaborative research project “Right-wing populism in rural Europe” (2018-2020), the results of which were published in the special issue of Sociologia Ruralis, edited by N. Mamonova and J. Franquesa.

Natalia’s current research at RURALIS is mainly focused on the impact of the war in Ukraine on the Ukrainian and global food systems. Together with Brian Kuns (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) she received a research grant from FORMAS (the Swedish research council for sustainable development) for the project: “Food security, food sovereignty and collective action during the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian and global perspectives” (2023-2026).

Natalia also a project leader of the project “Rural reawakening in Norway” (2023-2026). Together with her colleagues – Katrina Rønningen and Eirik Magnus Fuglestad – she studies contemporary rural discontent in Norway as part of a global “rural awakening” in response to neoliberal changes in the countryside. The project aims to understand whether Norwegian rural discontent bear any resemblance to rural populist discourses and politics in other Western democracies, and if so, why rural Norwegians do not share right-wing sentiments.

Natalia is also involved in the research project “Creating inclusive and sustainable food systems in refugee hosting contexts in Sub-Saharan Africa” (2023-2027), being primarily responsible for mapping refugee food systems. In addition, she also examines the impact of the war in Ukraine on international food aid and compares the refugee food systems in Sub-Saharan Africa with food self-provisioning by Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced persons in Ukraine.