CONTACT
cercetare@unatc.ro
POSITION WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT
Research Associate
EDUCATION
PhD in Anthropology and Sociology, 2019, SOAS University of London, UK
PhD thesis ‘Variations on an Anglican Theme: Sound, Music, and the Making of Christian Bodies’
This one-year-long fieldwork comparatively employed multimodal ethnography (focused on sound) in two London-based Anglican churches to explore community-making and individual and collective challenges of future- and identity-making in a time of generational and demographic transition; the thesis provides a corrective to the overwhelming textual and doctrinal emphasis of most work in religious studies, demonstrating that church music-making allowed participant worshippers to experience alterity—from themselves, from each other, from God—while simultaneously fashioning them individually as Christians and integrating them into a collective whole.
MA in Material and Visual Culture, 2012, UCL, London, UK
MA thesis ‘Most Unexpected Thing: Memory, Materiality, and the Everyday Life of Elderly People’
This 4-month-long fieldwork in a London day-centre for elderly people, it employed semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and in-depth participant observations, tracing the interplay of memory and senses in experiences of time and identity in elderly people’s everyday lives; the thesis illustrated that everyday sensorial experiences evince the materiality of the aging body creating disjointed lived temporalities.
BA in International Relations and European Studies, 2010, University of Bucharest, Romania
My BA thesis employed a library-based research to interrogate the relationship between individual and cultural memory in forming and transmitting collective notions and values.
BIO
I am a social anthropologist and educator (Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK), active as an academic and public engagement researcher. My research focuses on sensory-affective dimensions of community-making and urban spaces/phenomena (individual and collective self-making; memory, imagination, and future-making; lived religion).
My teaching is research-led, with a pedagogical approach that facilitates partnership with students through collaborative learning and multimodal teaching activities. As Lecturer in Anthropology, I taught various courses at SOAS University of London where I also acted as BA and MA thesis supervisor and BA Programme Director. Here I designed and taught the final year undergraduate module ‘Anthropology of the future: thinking through and researching the inescapable, the desired, the disrupted’, incorporating a wide range of multimodal activities (storytelling, installations, exhibition visits) and active learning (reframing ethnographies through new methodological lenses, reading lists and learning resources co-produced with students).
My approach in action research addresses three main questions:
- How do we create and test participatory methodologies and activities that support the development of civic engagement with decision-making and implementation?
- How do we develop trans-disciplinary and trans-sectorial translation practices that facilitate dialogue and solution co-creation?
- How do we develop methodologies to maintain ongoing initiatives and ensure their sustainability and adaptability in the future?
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Urban space as material and sensory-affective infrastructure
Sensory and affective everyday practices and routines
Individual and collective memory
(Urban) sounds and soundscapes
TEACHING
Anthropology
Research methods and ethics
Action research
PROJECTS
2025 Researcher in “Posmus – living villeage. Echoes of the future in the Transylvanian rural area” project
2024 Researcher in “Helix for Masca – cultural and community centre”
2024 Researcher in “ABC Heritage – anthropology on foot in Bălan and Chilia Veche”
2021-2023 Principal investigator in Hillingdon Food Stories, in collaboration with the Arts and Heritage Department, London Borough of Hillingdon Council
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Peer-reviewed articles
Apostu, A., & Drăghici, M. (2026). A public theatre as a living lab to create resilience. Buildings and Cities, 7(1), pp. 232–253. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bc.623
Apostu, A. (acceptat cu revizii). ‘Sometimes we sing songs I just can’t stand’: the ‘failing’ aesthetics that bind worshippers together. Material Religion. The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief
Books
Apostu, A. și Drăghici, M (2025). The Urban Room: The negotiated City. Cultural and community infrastructures. UNATC Press: București
https://unatc.ro/devunatc/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Cinetic_Camera-urbana_web_F2.pdf
Book chapters
Apostu, A. (in preparation for 2026 publication). Sensory future-making. In: Goldstein, P. et al (eds). Multimodal, Multisensory, Playful, Convivial, Collaborative, Research Handbook, part of the VISION (Envisioning convivial Europe) project, following my invited participation in the Multimodal Research and Publishing workshop, Berlin, June 2023.
Apostu, A. (2023). Sacred and secular: coming in and out of sync through musical heritage. In: De Jong, F. and Mapril, J. (eds). The Future of Religious Heritage: Entangled Temporalities of the Sacred and the Secular. Routledge
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Membership in international associations: the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA); the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK (ASA); the International Network for Urban Research and Action (INURA), the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF).
Research networks membership: EASA Sensory Media; EASA Future Anthropologies; EASA Multimodal Ethnography; EASA Urban Anthropology; EASA Teaching Anthropology.
CERTIFICATIONS
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), in recognition of attainment against the UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and learning support in higher education.