Sona Baldrian is an independent researcher based in Yerevan, Armenia. Her work explores post-Soviet Armenia’s neoliberal transformations through critical development studies frameworks, focusing on how development ideology shapes the country’s political and moral economy. A core aspect of her research is feminist methodology, particularly oral history. Sona’s most recent article, Interweaving Story and Theory: Confronting Anti-Feminism and Anti-Genderism in the NGOized Women’s Movement in Armenia, was published in Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science. Through autoethnography, she critically reflects on her experiences within Armenia’s NGOized women’s movement after the 2018 regime change that ushered in a new era of liberal democratization. She is currently working on two manuscripts. The first traces deindustrialization and economic restructuring in a Yerevan neighborhood through oral history interviews with her mother, who lived and worked there, highlighting the gendered impacts of deindustrialization. Sona presented this research at DéPOT’s 2024 conference on Gender, Family, and Deindustrialization. Her second manuscript examines the ethics of crisis oral history, based on a group interview with researchers documenting the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, addressing ethical challenges in highly politicized research settings. Sona holds a Master’s in Political Science and International Affairs and a Bachelor’s in Business from the American University of Armenia.
Project statement:
A Voice Out Of A Maddening Silence: Deindustrialization And Erosion Of Women’s Social Citizenship In Post-Socialist Armenia
This project employs feminist oral history to examine deindustrialization and neoliberal transformations in postsocialist Armenia through the lived experiences of my mother, Kariné, a working-class healthcare worker. Kariné’s perspective offers crucial insights into the deindustrialization of her industrial neighborhood, where she worked as a nurse at a state health clinic. By situating her personal narrative within the broader context of Armenia’s economic and political shifts since the early 1990s, the project critically engages with the Soviet era, its collapse, and the postSoviet period. The research deals with themes such as gendered citizenship, women’s labor rights, and the social implications of deindustrialization, concluding that the process has left a lasting, traumatic impact on Armenian society.
