Dr Anastasia Loukianov
Research Fellow
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Based at the University of Surrey, Anastasia is working on our Societal Understandings strand of research.
Anastasia is an early career researcher at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP) based at the Sociology Department of the University of Surrey. Her research draws from sociology and anthropology and sits at the intersection of sustainability, visual research, and digital media. She is also developing a keen interest in neuroscience and AI.
The running thread through Anastasia’s research is an interest in the role that the visual can play in transitions to sustainable futures. How is knowledge visually embedded? How can images help represent, imagine, experience, and bring about better futures? How are our visions of sustainable futures both enabled and constrained by existing norms in visual art?
She has carried out a range of research on social understandings of the good life, including:
- participatory filmmaking research with young people aged 10-14 on their understandings of the ‘good life’
- analysis of Instagram posts tagged #goodlife and a network analysis of the hashtagging patterns they generate
- netnography of solarpunk and cottagecore online content
- a study of Flickers of the Future—a GAP initiative inviting filmmakers to create TV series set in positive sustainable worlds
- an extension of the CYCLES project with an analysis of young people’s visual knowledges of food and photographic norms in seven countries across the world
- the role of aesthetics in transitions to more sustainable ways of living
She has also:
- co-led research on local understandings of healthy and sustainable food in the SEFS project
- led data collection for the survey of young people’s lifestyles in Lambeth as part of the CYCLES project
Anastasia was senior reviewer for the University of Surrey Ethics Committee for 4 years before stepping down in 2023. Currently, she is co-lead of the Sustainability, Creativity, and Communication research programme and a member of the Science, Environment, and Health research group.
She has a PhD from the University of Surrey and a BA in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Manchester.
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