2017	Invited speaker in the plenary round table “De-Centering Europe,” which opened the conference, “The Global South on the Move: Transforming Capitalism, Knowledge and Economies” at the Global South Studies Center at the University of Cologne, Germany, June 2017.
2015	“Poetry and Protest in Russia”, Paterno Fellows Lunch with Honors Speaker Series, Pennsylvania State University, January 2015.
2014	“EthnoTwitterography of Russian Opposition: Following the Anti-Putin protests of 2011-12 via online social media”, ERASMUS Intensive programme: Anthropology in Public, Maynooth University of Ireland, July 2014
2013	“Russia’s Participation in Development Cooperation”, UNESCAP – China Agricultural University Seminar on East and North-East Asian Development Cooperation in Post-2015, Beijing, China, June 2013.
	“Russia’s Evolving Foreign Aid programme” ”, Rising Powers in International Development Seminar Series at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex, April 2013.
2012	“Ethno-Twitterography of Russian Opposition: Following the anti-Putin protests of 2012 via online social media”, Seminar Series of the Centre for the Study of Wider Europe, Maynooth University of Ireland, September 2012.
	“The BRIC view: Russia”, roundtable in the plenary session of the Society for International Development Annual Conference on alternative approaches to development, Washington, D.C., June 2012.
	“The changing landscape of development assistance: Russia as a (re)emerging donor”, Anthropology Research Seminar, Queen’s University Belfast, February 2012.
2011	“Emerging Donors and the Changing Landscape of Foreign Aid: Where Does Russia Fit?” A Future for Aid Data, workshop hosted by the University of Birmingham International Development Department, November 2011.
2010	“Changing Vectors of Development: Russia as a Donor of International Aid”, Seminar Series of the Centre for the Study of Wider Europe, Maynooth University of Ireland, April 2010.
2009	“Charity and the Gift: A global exploration via ethnography of the Russian Far East.”, Seminar of the Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, September 2009.
2008	“Subversion of indigenous activism following the “opening up” of the Soviet Union: The predicament of Chukotka’s indigenous intellectuals in the 1990s”, Social Anthropology, Ethnology and Cultural History Seminar, University of Aberdeen, March 2008.
2007	“The Study of Lived Experience in Siberia: Ethnographic Approaches”, Keynote address at the conference “The Ethnohistory and Archaeology of Northern Eurasia: Theory, Methods, Practice” organized by the Baikal Archaeology Project, Irkutsk, Siberia, May 2007.
2006	“Anthropology and Postsocialism: Ethnographic Study of Inverted Worlds”, Anthropology Department Colloquium, University of Wisconsin Madison, February 2006.
	“Researching Marginal Peoples on the Margins of Putin’s Empire: An Ethnographic Reflection on Post-Soviet Life in Chukotka”, Lecture Series of the Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies (CREECA), University of Wisconsin Madison, February 2006.
2002	“Methodology in Political Anthropology.” Invited series of three lectures for the Seminar on Field Ethnography, presented at the European University of St. Petersburg, Russia, April 2002.

2014	“Past Animosities and Present Skepticisms in Russia’s Current International Development Assistance Program”. Paper presented at the 46th Annual Convention of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, San Antonio, TX, November 2014.
	“After the Ukrainian Revolution: Crimea, Russia and the EU-Russian Relationship”, panel participant, sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Wider Europe, Maynooth University of Ireland, April 2014.
	“Russia’s Role: Partner or the Bear in the Shadows?” Presentation in the roundtable “Europe, the European East, and Eastern Europe: Shifting Reference Points and Agendas in International Development Assistance”, Seminar Series of the Centre for the Study of Wider Europe, Maynooth University of Ireland, March 2014.
	“Methodological Bohemia and the Radically Ethical Project of Anthropology”. Ethnography Winter School, Maynooth University of Ireland, January 2014.
2013	“Developing Development (Education) in Russia” (with Jennifer Murphy). Presentation in the roundtable “New Donors in Education: Russia’s contribution to Post-2015 Development” at the 12th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development, Oxford, England, September 2013.
	“Being the ‘R’ in BRICS: Russia’s solidarities and anomalies”. Paper presented at the 17th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Manchester, England, August 2013.
	“The Arctic is the ‘Global South’: Dragging the North and Siberia (kicking and screaming) into the Anthropology of Development”. Paper presented at the 10th Congress of Russian Ethnographers and Anthropologists, Moscow, Russia, July 2013.
2012	“Russia as a Re-emerging Donor: Towards a Phenomenology of Development Donorship.” Paper presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA, November 2012.
	“Beyond EU Expansion: On Russia as a Recruited Donor and ‘Donor Expansion’.” Paper presented at the 9th Convention of the Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA), Jagiellonian University, Krakow, September 2012.
	“Russia as a re-emerging donor: Toward a phenomenology of development donorship”. Paper presented at the 12th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, Nanterre, France, July 2012.
2011	“‘Emerging Donors’ and the Changing Landscape of Foreign Aid: Public Perceptions of Development Cooperation in Russia.” Presentation for a seminar at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, June 2011.
2010	“Russians (re-)emerging as donors: Volunteerism, The Gift, and the race not to be ‘Third World’”. Paper presented at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, LA, November 2007.
	“Changing Vectors of Development: Russia as Donor”. Paper presented at the Annual International Conference of the Royal Geographical Society Institute of British Geographers, London, 1-3 September 2010.
	“Changing vectors of development: locating Russia in development discourse and practice”. Paper presented at the VIII World Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies, Stockholm, Sweden, July 2010.
2009	“Changing vectors of development: Locating Russia in development discourse and practice.” Paper presented at the 41st National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, MA, November 2009.
2008	“Religion in Subversive Spaces: The Emergence of Alternative Religious Discourses in Magadan, Russia.” (with Alexandra Antohin) Paper presented at the Sixth International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences, Nuuk, Greenland, August 2008.
	“Where does ‘The Arctic’ fit in North-South Development Discourse?” Presentation at the European Science Foundation EUROCORES Programme BOREAS workshop “Heading North, Heading South: Arctic social science research in a global dialogue,” Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany, March 2008.
	“Bohemian Methodologies?” Paper presented at the 10th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, Ljubljana, Slovenia, August 2008.
2007	“Missionaries, Humanitarian Aid, and Accompanying Ideologies: The Economic Impact of Missionary Activity in the Russian Far East.” Paper presented at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 2007.
2006	“‘We Have Forgotten the Taste of Bread’: Reindeer Herders’ Expectations about Subsistence and the World’s Expectations about Them.” Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association, Kodiak, Alaska, March 2006.
2005	“City in the Tundra: Construction, Ruin, and Reconstruction of a Socialist City in the Russian Far North.” Paper presented at the 37th National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Salt Lake City, Utah, November 2005.
	“’We Have Forgotten the Taste of Bread’: Reindeer Herders’ Expectations about Subsistence and the World’s Expectations about Them.” Paper presented at the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 2005.
	“Conditions of Pastoral Mobility for Tundra Reindeer Herders in Chukotka, Russia, and Seward Peninsula, Alaska.” Paper presented at the workshop “Conditions of Pastoral Mobility II” held at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany, June 2005.
2004	“The Effects of Russian Economic Reform on a Reindeer Herding Village in Chukotka.” Paper presented at the 19th International Abashiri Symposium, Abashiri, Hokkaido, Japan, October 2004.
	“The Legacy of Soviet Boundary-Making in the Russian North: From ‘National Regions’ to a ‘Farce of Sovereignties’.” Paper presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, April 2004.
2003	“Volga Farmers and Arctic Herders: Common (post)Socialist Experiences in Rural Russia.” Paper presented at the 30th Annual Meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association, Fairbanks, Alaska, March 2003.
2002	John Ziker and Patty Gray, “Soviet Nostalgia and Post-Soviet Enterprise in the Russian North.” Paper presented at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, LA, November 2002.
	“‘I should have some deer, but I don’t remember how many’: Confused ownership of reindeer in Chukotka, Russia.” Presented at the workshop “Collective and Multiple Forms of Property in Land and Animals” at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany, August 2002.
	“Cultivating Russian Farmers: Land Privatisation and Smallholders in the Republic of Marii-El.” Paper presented at the workshop “The Postsocialist Agrarian Question” convened by Chris Hann and supported by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Tázlár, Hungary, June 2002.
2001	“From ‘Movement Society’ to Post-Soviet Social Movements: Anthropology of Activism in the Russian Far East.” Paper presented at the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 2001.
2000	“ ‘Gift Pro Quo’: The Social Life of Information in the Russian Far East.” Paper presented at the 99th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA, November 2000.

2014	Discussant for the panel “Impatriates: Key Mediators of Postsocialist Development Processes” at the 46th Annual Convention of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, San Antonio, TX, November 2014.
2013	“The Audacity of Audit Culture: Future European Publics” Convenor of a Society for the Anthropology of Europe Roundtable Luncheon at the 112th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, IL,   November 2013.
2007	Discussant for the panel “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Rigidity, Fluidity, and Strategy in State-Minority Relations” at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 2007.

2014	“The Changing Landscape of Development Assistance and Foreign Aid: Is the Cold War Really Over?” at the 46th Annual Convention of the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, San Antonio, TX, November 2014.
	(With Ela Drazkiewicz and Alessandro Iandolo) “The changing landscape of the global political economy and foreign aid: has the Cold War ended?” at the 13th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, Tallinn, Estonia, July-August 2014.
2012	“‘Emerging Donors’ in International Development: Border Crossings between Recipient and Donor” at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA, November 2012.
	“The anthropology of ‘emerging donors’ and the uncertainty of developmental futures” at the 12th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, Nanterre, France, July 2012.
2011	Changing Vectors of Development: Locating Russia and the Soviet Union in Development Discourses and Practices. International workshop held at Maynooth University of Ireland, March 2011.
2010	Member, Organizing Committee for the 11th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, hosted by the Department of Anthropology, Maynooth University of Ireland, August 2010.
2009	“Who Gets to Give? Eastern Europe and Russia in the Global Community of Donors and Receivers” at the 41st National Convention of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Boston, MA, November 2009.
2007	“New Religions, Heterogeneous Traditions and Competing Strategies for Social Power and Justice in the Russian North” co-organized with Alex King of University of Aberdeen at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 2007.
2005	“Cities Ruined, Dilapidated, Reconstructed and Rebuilt: Ethnographies of Urban Transformation” co-organized with Erica Tucker of Stonehill College, MA, at the 37th National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Salt Lake City, Utah, November 2005.
2002	“Who Owns Siberian Ethnography?” Co-convenor with Peter Schweitzer and Nikolai Vakhtin of an international workshop held at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (I was the local organizer while in residence at the institute), Halle, Germany, March 2002.
	“Collective and multiple forms of property in animals: cattle, camels, reindeer.” Co-organizer with Guenther Schlee and Michaela Pelican of an international workshop held at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, August 2002.
2001	“Towards an Anthropology of Social Movements,” co-organized with Susan Hangen of Ramapo College at the 100th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C., November 2001.