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I am currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Manchester, due for completion in early 2026. The project PhD uses participatory design methods to examine the practices of disposing of the human anatomical specimens. Whilst providing a new angle of using the conceptual lens of necrowaste, the study contributes to the wider body of research about post-biopolitics and infrastructural labour in the systems of production and disposal.
The research is grounded in fieldwork at UK-based waste incinerators, anatomy schools and crematoria. As part of the PhD, I have presented or convened workshops at the Sosiologipäivät conference in Tampere in 2023, the Waste and Value conference in Copenhagen in 2024 and the Death x Culture x Design conference in Falmouth in September 2024.
At the 2025 conference on Death, Dying and Disposal (DDD), I will be presenting a paper on redesigning respectful disposal and co-convening a roundtable discussion on the Politics of Necrowaste. Drawings are integrated into most aspects of the PhD in the forms of field sketches, participants’ drawings, theoretical illustrations and graphic novel elements.
My research talk at Virginia Tech
Related blog posts:
Visit to Manchester Crematorium, April 2024
Sustainable Paths within Capitalist Ruins, Manchester, Summer 2024
My publications
3. Shtanov, M. (2025). Respectful Disposal: Spatial and Material Practices of Incinerating Necro-Waste. Social Epistemology: 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2025.2562477
2: Shtanov, M., Iossifova, D. (2022). Construction Site Assemblages: Relationships of Synergy and Exploitation in the (Re)configuration of Lekki, Nigeria. Urban Infrastructuring. Reconfigurations, Transformations and Sustainability in the Global South. D. G. Iossifova, Alexandros, Zavos, Stylianos; Gamal, Yahya; Long, Yin. Singapore, Springer 173-183. link
1: Shtanov, M. (2020). Another Hotel in Africa, FOLIO, Volume Two ‘Noir Radical’, published by The City College of New York & University of Johannesburg, September 2020, pp 295 – 319 link
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