Research

Link to my academic profile | Profile on Tyndall Centre website | LinkedIn Profile

My research uses architectural methods to examine the processes and infrastructures of disposal.

My PhD used participatory design methods to study the practices of disposing of the human anatomical specimens. Whilst providing a new angle of using the conceptual lens of necrowaste, the study contributed to the wider body of research about post-biopolitics and infrastructural labour in the systems of production and disposal.

The research was grounded in fieldwork at UK-based waste incinerators, anatomy schools and crematoria. As part of the PhD, I presented or convened workshops at the Sosiologipäivät conference in Tampere in 2023, the Waste and Value conference in Copenhagen in 2024, the Death x Culture x Design conference in Falmouth in 2024, as well as Death Dying and Disposal in 2025.

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:

An exhibition of my PhD artworks is taking place at the Manchester Alliance Business School between 29 June and 12 July 2026

New article published in Antipode

Presentation at the DDD conference, Utrecht, September 2025

My first PhD article is out

Presentation at Tyndall Summer School, Southampton, July 2025

Draw your research – regular academic drawing meet-ups in Manchester

Workshop at the Death x Culture x Design conference, September 2024

Presentation at the Waste and Value conference, Copenhagen, April 2024

Visit to Manchester Crematorium, April 2024

Sustainable Paths within Capitalist Ruins, Manchester, Summer 2024

Presentation at the Sociology of Waste Conference, Tampere (Finland) March 2023

Comics and anthropology workshop, Manchester, October 2023

My publications

4.

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