Dr. Leyla Sayfutdinova

Biography

Leyla Sayfutdinova joined the University of Glasgow in October 2023. Before coming to Glasgow, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology and the Centre for Energy Ethics at the University of St Andrews (2020-2023), as well as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Karelian Institute of the University of Eastern Finland. She received her PhD in Sociology and Eurasian Studies from Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Türkiye, in 2016. Her doctoral dissertation examined the impact of postsocialist transition on the engineering profession in Azerbaijan. Leyla has longstanding interests in issues of identity and nationalism, which trace back to her undergraduate training in Conflict Studies at St Petersburg State University from 2001 to 2004. Her research broadly encompasses themes related to the societal impacts of postsocialist industrial change and questions of identity and territoriality, focusing specifically on Azerbaijan. Her latest research project, entitled 'Turning Oil Stone', examines the role of the oil industry in shaping urban space and culture in Baku, Azerbaijan. In the future, she aims to expand the framework she is developing to explore the role of energy extraction and distribution in the Eurasian region.

Research Interests

Experience