About
Dr Anna Shadrina is a political sociologist whose work is driven by two central phenomena: global ageing and the rise of authoritarianism. Focusing on post-socialist Eastern Europe, she examines the regional trends and structural conditions that shape political imaginaries of ageing.
Her research investigates how welfare systems and geopolitical dynamics constitute relations between the state, individuals and social groups. She is particularly interested in how political actors leverage ideas about older adults and later life to advance diverse agendas. Her work has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Sociology and Ageing & Society. She is the author of 'The Babushka Phenomenon: Older Women and the Political Sociology of Ageing in Russia' (UCL Press, 2025).
Prior to joining the University of Liverpool in 2024, Dr Shadrina was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (2021-2024). She has taught across Sociology, Media Studies, Gender Studies, and Politics at the European Humanities University (Lithuania), Birkbeck, University of London, and UCL. Dr Shadrina holds a BA in Journalism from Belarusian State University and an MA in Sociology from the European Humanities University. She completed her PhD in Sociology at Birkbeck, University of London, and is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.
She is open to supervising and collaborating on projects that explore:
• Social and political inclusion/exclusion in later life.
• Feminist cultures and ageing.
• The East/West European divide, non-Western epistemologies, post-socialism, and non-imperial futures.
• Authoritarianism, populism, nationalism, and anti-authoritarian resistance.