Information For

About STM College


Natalia Khanenko-Friesen

  • Associate Professor, Anthropology
  • St. Thomas More College
  • 1437 College Drive Saskatoon, SK S7N 0W6
  • Phone: 306.966.8900
  • nfriesen@stmcollege.ca
Faculty Photo
Education | Research Interests | Research Projects | Selected Publications
Teaching Responsibilities | Administrative Responsibilities

Education

  • PhD, Cultural Anthropology and Ukrainian Folklore, University of Alberta, CANADA
  • MA, Ukrainian Folklore, University of Alberta, CANADA
  • Geography, Kyiv National University, UKRAINE

Research Interests

  • Diaspora studies and migrant communities
  • Oral history, life story narrative, folklore
  • Ukrainian studies, post-socialist transition, Canadian studies

Research Projects

  • “The Folk Connection: Diaspora, Homeland and the Ukrainian ‘Other’ in the 20th Century”, research project supported by SSHRC research grant (2007-2011). This multistage research project outlines and questions the role of folklore and vernacular culture in the interaction between diaspora Ukrainians and Ukraine.
  • “Oral History of SocioCultural Change: Ukrainian Canadians on the  Prairies Provinces”  120 interviews were conducted in 2002-03 in Saskatchewan and Alberta. Project material is being transcribed and digitzed. The collection of interviews is accessible through Prairie Centre for the Ukrainian Heritage at STM (2007-09).
  • “Oral History of Decollectivisation in Ukraine in the 1990s.”  113 autobiographical interviews were recorded with former collective farmers in ten regions of Ukraine. Project materials are being transcribed, systematized and processed (2009-10). The collection of interviews will be made accessible to other researchers.
  • “Women Itineraries: Labour Migration in Personal Narratives.” An ongoing oral history project focusing on life stories of women migrants from rural Ukraine.

Selected Publications and Presentations

Books
  • 2009 -   Kristina Fagan, Keith Carlson, Natalia Khanenko-Friesen. Eds. Intersections of Orality and Literacy: Talking About Writing, Writing About Talking. Toronto: U of Toronto Press.
Chapters in books    
  • 2009-    “From Family Lore to a People’s History: the Role of Oral Culture in Ukrainian Claims to the Canadian Prairies.” In Intersections of Orality and Literacy: Talking About Writing, Writing About Talking. 24pp. Eds. K. Carlson, K. Fagan, N. Khanenko-Friesen, Toronto: U of Toronto Press.
  • 2007-    “Robinson Crusoes, the Prostitutes, the Heroes? Constructing the Ukrainian Labour Migrant in Ukraine.” Hyphenated Histories: Articulations of Central European Bildung and Slavic Studies in the Contemporary Academy, ed. by Andrew Colin Gow. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. Pp.103-120.
  • 2003-     "Making Ukrainian House Calls: On Diasporic Tourism and Rituals of Homecoming," In Ports of Call: Central European and North American Cultures in Motion. Eds. Susan Ingram, Markus Reisenleitner and Cornelia Szabó- Knotik. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Pp. 121-154.
  • 2002-     "On Local Readings of Overseas Kin: Visions from Ukraine." In Reverberations: Representations of Modernity, Tradition and Cultural Value in-between Central Europe and North America.  Ed. by Susan Ingram, Markus Reisenleitner, and Cornelia Szabo-Knotik. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Pp. 201-222.
  • 2000-     "Overseas brethren and local identities." In Roots and Rituals: The construction of Ethnic Identities. (T.Dekker, J.Helsloot, C.Wijers eds). Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, Pp. 405-416.
Journal Publications
  • 2008-      “Pro usni svidchennia ta produkuvannia znachen’ – ukrainsko-kanads’ki doslidnyts’ki praktyky” (Oral Evidence and Interpretations: Ukrainian Canadian Research Practices). In Sxid-Zaxid (East - West) [Ukrainian journal of modern history], Kharkiv: Kharkiv National University. No. 11-12, pp. 109-138. In Ukrainian.
  • 2008-       “Proekt Usnoi Istorii Dekolektyvizatsii – Selianskyj Dosvid (Project Verbal History of Decollectivization in Ukraine in the 1990s — Rural Experience)” in Ukraiins’kyi  Istorychnyi Zhurnal [Ukrainian Historical Journal, a periodical of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences] No. 2 (479). Pp. 211-213. In Ukrainian.
  • 2007-    “On Oral History and the Production of Meaning: Notes from the Ukrainian Canada,” Ukraiina Moderna (Modern Ukraine), [Peer-reviewed journal of modern history, in Ukrainian], No. 11. Kyiv-Lviv: Krytyka. Pp. 25-47.
  • 2006-    “Searching for Cinderellas, in Naples and Beyond: Popular Culture Responses to Labour Migration from Ukraine,” In Spaces of Identity:  Tradition, Cultural Boundaries & Identity Formation in Central Europe (Peer-reviewed International Journal). No. 6.2. 18 pp. http://www.spacesofidentity.net/
  • 2004-    “Through Networks and Ordeal Narratives, or Making Meaning of One’s Displacement: Labour Migration from Western Ukraine.” In Spaces of Identity: Tradition, Cultural Boundaries & Identity Formation in Central Europe (Peer-reviewed International Journal) No. 4.1. 23 pp. http://www.spacesofidentity.net/
  • 2004-     "Baba phenomenon: local Ukrainianness in practice.” In Canadian-American Slavic Studies. No. 40 (1). Pp. 127-51.
  • 2003-     “Zustreech or the encounters of a transnational kind: negotiating Ukrainianness in Western Canada,” Ethnologies. Vol. 25-2. Pp. 77-106.
  • 2002-    “To Whom Does a Poet Belong? The Reburial of Vasyl Stus (1989) as a Ritual of Cultural Appropriation.” In Spaces of Identity:  Tradition, Cultural Boundaries & Identity Formation in Central Europe (Peer-reviewed International Journal) No. 2.3 – 4. Pp. 7-18. http://www.spacesofidentity.net/
  • 1999-    "Scholastic Before and Scholarly After? Ukrainian Folklorists and Their Folklore after 1991." In Ethnologies: Post Socialist Ethnography. Vol. 21-2. Pp. 73-97.
  • 1999     "Introduction" (with Andriy Nahachewsky). In Ethnologies: Post Socialist Ethnography. Vol. 21-2. Pp. 5-15.
  • 1999-    "Value Village in my village: Western Ukrainians and overseas kin." In Anthropology of Eastern Europe  Review. 1999. Vol. 17-2. Pp.  53-58.
  • 1995-R     "Ukrainian Peasant Home: Space Domestication," In Canadian Folklore Canadienne, Vol. 17-2 : 51-71. (This publication appeared under Shostok (sic))
Other Publications
  • 2008     " Oral History Project: Decollectivization in Ukraine in the 1990s: rural perspectives and experiences”. Paper presented at the Fourth Annual Danyliw Research Seminar in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa (Canada), October 23-25, 2008. http://www.ukrainianstudies.uottawa.ca/pdf/P_Danyliw08_Khanenko-Friesen.pdf

Teaching Responsibilities

  • Introduction to Cultural anthropology
  • Peoples and Cultures of Eastern Europe
  • Anthropological Perspectives on contemporary Ukraine
  • Ritual Spaces in Ukrainian Culture
  • Oral History and Storytelling
  • Courses in Ukrainian folklore
  • Courses in Ukrainian Canadian culture

Administrative Responsibilities

  • Prairie Centre for the study of Ukrainian Heritage, Director (2009-2012)
  • Spring Session in Ukraine, coordinator (2003-2007, 2009-)
  God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing.”
— John Henry Cardinal Newman